and an active living faith it is a grace that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion and labour for with a great diligence and expect with trembling fears and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain soules and receive it by degrees and it enters upon them by little portions and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand and the waters rolling towards the shore throw up little portions of the tide and retire as if nature meant to play and not to change the abode of waters but still the floud crept by little steppings and invaded more by his progressions then he lost by his retreat and having told the number of its steps it possesses its new portion till the Angell calls it back that it may leave its unfaithfull dwelling of the sand so is the pardon of our sins it comes by slow motions and first quits a present death and turnes it may be into a sharp sicknesse and if that sicknesse prove not health to the soul it washes off and it may be will dash against the rock again and proceed to take off the severall instances of anger and the periods of wrath but all this while it is uncertain concerning our finall interest whether it be ebbe or floud and every hearty prayer and every bountifull almes still enlarges the pardon or addes a degree of probability and hope and then a drunken meeting or a covetous desire or an act of lust or looser swearing idle talk or neglect of Religion makes the pardon retire and while it is disputed between Christ and Christs enemy who shall be Lord the pardon fluctuates like the wave striving to climbe the rock and is wash'd off like its own retinue and it gets possession by time and uncertainty by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression When David had sinned but in one instance interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity it pleased God to pardon him but see upon what hard terms He prayed long and violently he wept sorely he was humbled in sackcloth and ashes he eat the bread of affliction and drank of his bottle of tears he lost his Princely spirit and had an amazing conscience he suffer'd the wrath of God and the sword never did depart from his house his Son rebell'd and his Kingdome revolted he fled on foot and maintained Spies against his childe hee was forc'd to send an army against him that was dearer then his owne eyes and to fight against him whom he would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt his concubines were desir'd by an incestuous mixture in the face of the sun before all Israel and his childe that was the fruit of his sin after a 7 days feaver dyed and left him nothing of his sin to show but sorrow and the scourges of the Divine vengeance and after all this God pardoned him finally because he was for ever sorrowfull and never did the sin againe He that hath sinned a thousand times for David's once is too confident if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a lesse rate then was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious King The son of David died for his father David as well as he did for us he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world and yet that death and that relation and all the heap of the Divine favours which crown'd David with a circle richer then the royall diadem could not exempt him from the portion of sinners when he descended into their pollutions I pray God we may find the sure mercies of David and may have our portion in the redemption wrought by the Son of David but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed such which include time and labour and uncertainty and watchfulnesse and fear and holy living But it is a sad observation that the case of pardon of sins is so administred that they that are most sure of it have the greatest fears concerning it and they to whom it doth not belong at all are as confident as children and fooles who believe every thing they have a mind to not because they have reason so to doe but because without it they are presently miserable The godly and holy persons of the Church work out their salvation with fear and trembling and the wicked goe to destruction with gayety and confidence these men think all is well while they are in the gall of bitternesse and good men are tossed in a tempest crying and praying for a safe conduct and the sighs of their feares and the wind of their prayers waft them safely to their port Pardon of sins is not easily obtain'd because they who onely certainly can receive it find difficulty and danger and fears in the obtaining it and therefore their case is pityable and deplorable who when they have least reason to expect pardon yet are most confident and carelesse But because there are sorrows on one side and dangers on the other and temptations on both sides it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are pardoned For then when they can perceive their signes certain and evident they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies when they cannot see the signes they may leave their confidence and change it into repentance and watchfulnesse and stricter observation and in order to this I shall tell you that which shall never faile you a certaine signe that you may know whether or no and when and in what degree your persons are pardoned 1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any Metaphysicall and abstracted effects but by sensible reall and materiall Hee that revenges himself of another does something that will make his enemy grieve something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended and therefore all the evills of sin are such as relate to us and are to bee estimated by our apprehensions Sin makes God angry and Gods anger if it be turned aside will make us miscrable and accursed and therefore in proportion to this we are to reckon the proportions of Gods mercy in forgivenesse or his anger in retaining 2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evills even whatsoever the anger of God is pleased to inflict sicknesse and dishonour poverty and shame a caytive spirit and a guilty conscience famine and war plague and pestilence sudden death and a short life temporall death or death eternall according as God in the severall covenants of the Law and Gospel hath expressed 3. For in the law of Moses sin bound them to nothing but temporall evills but they were sore and heavy and many but these only there were threatned in the Gospel Christ added the menaces of evills spirituall and eternall 4. The great evill of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off from being Gods people to which eternall damnation answers
Sermons I have medled with no mans interest that onely excepted which is Eternall but if any mans vice was to be reproved I have done it with as much severitie as I ought some cases of Conscience I have here determined but the speciall designe of the whole is to describe the greater lines of Dutie by speciall arguments and if any witty Censurer shall say that I tell him nothing but what he knew before I shall be contented with it and rejoyce that he was so well instructed and wish also that he needed not a Remembrancer but if either in the first or in the second in the institution of some or the reminding of others I can doe God any service no man ought to be offended that Sermons are not like curious inquiries after New-nothings but pursuances of Old truths However I have already many faire earnests that your Lordship will bee pleased with this tender of my service and expression of my great and dearest obligations which you daily renew or continue upon My noblest Lord Your Lordships most affectionate and most obliged Servant JEREMY TAYLOR Titles of the Sermons their Order Number and Texts SErmon 1. 2. 3. Dooms-day Book or Christs Advent to Judgement Folio 1. 15. 30. 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Sermon 4. 5. 6. The Return of Prayers or The conditions of a Prevailing Prayer fol. 44. 57. 69. Joh. 9. 31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth Sermon 7. 8. 9. Of Godly Fear c. fol. 83. 95. 114. Heb. 12. part of the 28th 29th vers Let us have grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming Fire Sermon 10. 11. The Flesh and the Spirit fol. 125. 139. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weak Sermon 12. 13. 14. Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal or Spiritual Terrour fol. 152. 164. 179. Jer. 48. 10. first part Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Sermon 15. 16. The House of Feasting or The Epicures Measures fol. 191. 204. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die Sermon 17. 18. The Marriage Ring or The Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage fol. 219. 232. Ephes. 5. 32 33. This is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church Neverthelesse let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himselfe and the Wife see that she reverence her Husband Sermon 19. 20. 21. Apples of Sodome or The Fruits of Sin fol. 245. 260. 273. Rom. 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death Sermon 22. 23. 24. 25. The good and evill Tongue Of Slander and Flattery The Duties of the Tongue fol. 286. 298. 311. 323. Ephes. 4. 25. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Titles of the 28 Sermons their Order Numbers and Texts Being the second Volume SErmon 1 2. Of the Spirit of Grace Fol. 1. 12. Rom. 8. ver 9 10. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his * And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness Sermon 3 4. The descending and entailed curse cut off fol. 24. 40. Exodus 20 part of the 5. verse I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me 6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments Sermon 5 6. The invalidity of a late or death-bed repentance fol. 52. 66. Jerem. 13. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or lest while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse Sermon 7 8. The deceitfulness of the heart fol. 80. 92. Jeremiah 17. 9. The heat is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Sermon 9 10 11. The faith and patience of the Saints Or the righteous cause oppressed fol. 104. 119. 133. 1 Pet. 4. 17. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God 18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear Sermon 12 13. The mercy of the Divine judgements or Gods method in curing sinners fol. 146. 159. Romans 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Sermon 14 15. Of growth in grace with its proper instruments and signs fol. 172. 173. 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen Sermon 16 17. Of growth in sin or the several states and degrees of sinners with the manner how they are to be treated fol. 197. 210. Jude Epist. ver 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire Sermon 18 19. The foolish exchange fol. 224. 237. Matth. 16. ver 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Sermon 20 21 22. The Serpent and the Dove or a discourse of Christian Prudence fol. 251. 263. 274. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves Sermon 23 24. Of Christian simplicity 289. 301. Matth 10. latter part of verse 16. And harmless as Doves Sermon 25 26 27. The miracles of the Divine Mercy fol. 313. 327. 340. Psal. 86. 5. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee A Funeral Sermon preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honorable the Countess of Carbery fol. 357. 2 Sam. 14. 14. For we must needs dye and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him A Discourse of the Divine Institution necessity sacredness and separation of the Office
spirits and have been obedient to the heavenly calling There shall stand the men of Ninevch and they shall stand upright in Judgement for they at the preaching of one man in a lesse space then forty dayes returned unto the Lord their God but we have heard him call all our lives and like the deaf Adder stopt our ears against the voice of Gods servants charme they never so wisely There shall appear the men of Capernaum and the Queen of the South and the Men of Berea and the first fruits of the Christian Church and the holy Martyrs and shall proclaim to all the world that it was not impossible to do the work of Grace in the midst of all our weaknesses and accidentall disadvantages and that the obedience of Faith and the labour of Love and the contentions of chastity and the severities of temperance and self-deniall are not such insuperable mountains but that an honest and a sober person may perform them in acceptable degrees if he have but a ready ear and a willing minde and an honest heart and this seen of honest persons shall make the Divine Judgement upon sinners more reasonable and apparently just in passing upon them the horrible sentence for why cannot we as well serve God in peace as others served him in war why cannot we love him as well when he treats us sweetly and gives us health and plenty honours or fair fortunes reputation or contentednesse quietnesse and peace as others did upon gibbets and under axes in the hands of tormentors and in hard wildernesses in nakednesse and poverty in the midst of all evill things and all sad discomforts Concerning this no answer can be made 4. But there is a worse sight then this yet which in that great assembly shall distract our sight and amaze our spirits There men shall meet the partners of their sins and them that drank the round when they crown'd their heads with folly and forgetfulnesse and their cups with wine and noises There shall ye see that poor perishing soul whom thou didst tempt to adultery and wantonnesse to drunkennesse or perjury to rebellion or an evill interest by power or craft by witty discourses or deep dissembling by scandall or a snare by evill example or pernicious counsell by malice or unwarinesse and when all this is summ'd up and from the variety of its particulars is drawn into an uneasie load and a formidable summe possibly we may finde sights enough to scare all our confidences and arguments enough to presse our evill souls into the sorrowes of a most intolerable death For however we make now but light accounts and evill proportions concerning it yet it will be a fearfull circumstance of appearing to see one or two or ten or twenty accursed souls despairing miserable infinitely miserable roaring and blaspheming and fearfully cursing thee as the cause of its eternall sorrowes Thy lust betray'd and rifled her weak unguarded innocence thy example made thy servant confident to lye or to be perjur'd thy society brought a third into intemperance and the disguises of a beast and when thou feest that soul with whom thou didst sin drag'd into hell well maist thou fear to drink the dregs of thy intolerable potion And most certainly it is the greatest of evils to destroy a soul for whom the Lord Jesus dyed and to undoe that grace which our Lord purchased with so much sweat and bloud pains and a mighty charity And because very many sins are sins of society and confederation such are fornication drunkennesse bribery simony rebellion schisme and many others it is a hard and a weighty consideration what shall become of any one of us who have tempted our Brother or Sister to sin and death for though God hath spar'd our life and they are dead and their debt-books are sealed up till the day of account yet the mischief of our sin is gone before us and it is like a murther but more execrable the soul is dead in trespasses and sins and sealed up to an eternall sorrow and thou shalt see at Dooms-day what damnable uncharitablenesse thou hast done That soul that cryes to those rocks to cover her if it had not been for thy perpetuall temptations might have followed the Lamb in a white robe and that poor man that is cloathed with shame and flames of fire would have shin'd in glory but that thou didst force him to be partner of thy basenesse And who shall pay for this losse a soul is lost by thy means thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord 's bitter passion by thy impurities and what shall happen to thee by whom thy Brother dies eternally Of all the considerations that concern this part of the horrors of Dooms-day nothing can be more formidable then this to such whom it does concern and truly it concerns so many and amongst so many perhaps some persons are so tender that it might affright their hopes and discompose their industries and spritefull labours of repentance but that our most mercifull Lord hath in the midst of all the fearfull circumstances of his second coming interwoven this one comfort relating to this which to my sense seems the most fearfull and killing circumstance Two shall be grinding at one mill the one shall be taken and the other left Two shall be in a bed the one shall be taken and the other left that is those who are confederate in the same fortunes and interests and actions may yet have a different sentence for an early and an active repentance will wash off this account and put it upon the tables of the Crosse and though it ought to make us diligent and carefull charitable and penitent hugely penitent even so long as we live yet when we shall appear together there is a mercy that shall there separate us who sometimes had blended each other in a common crime Blessed be the mercies of of God who hath so carefully provided a fruitfull shower of grace to refresh the miseries and dangers of the greatest part of mankind Thomas Aquinas was used to beg of God that he might never be tempted from his low fortune to Prelacies and dignities Ecclesiasticall and that his minde might never be discomposed or polluted with the love of any creature and that he might by some instrument or other understand the state of his deceased Brother and the story sayes that he was heard in all In him it was a great curiosity or the passion and impertinencies of a uselesse charity to search after him unlesse he had some other personall concernment then his relation of kindred But truly it would concern very many to be solicitous concerning the event of those souls with whom we have mingled death and sin for many of those sentences which have passed and decreed concerning our departed relatives will concern us dearly and we are bound in the same bundles and shall be thrown into the same fires unlesse we repent for our own sins and double our
shall have three sorts of accusers 1. Christ himself who is their Judge 2. Their own conscience whom they have injured and blotted with characters of death and foul dishonour 3. The Devill their enemy whom they served 1. Christ shall be their accuser not only upon the stock of those direct injuries which I before reckoned of crucifying the Lord of life once and again c. But upon the titles of contempt and unworthinesse of unkindnesse and ingratitude and the accusation will be nothing else but a plain representation of those artifices and assistances those bonds and invitations those constrainings and importunities which our dear Lord used to us to make it almost impossible to lye in sin and necessary to be sav'd For it will it must needs be a fearfull exprobration of our unworthinesse when the Judge himself shall bear witnesse against us that the wisdome of God himself was strangely imployed in bringing us safely to felicity I shall draw a short Scheme which although it must needs be infinitely short of what God hath done for us yet it will be enough to shame us * God did not only give his Son for an example and the Son gave himself for a price for us but both gave the holy Spirit to assist us in mighty graces for the verifications of Faith and the entertainments of Hope and the increase and perseverance of Charity * God gave to us a new nature he put another principle into us a third part of a perfective constitution we have the Spirit put into us to be a part of us as properly to produce actions of a holy life as the soul of man in the body does produce the naturall * God hath exalted humane nature and made it in the person of Jesus Christ to sit above the highest seat of Angels and the Angels are made ministring spirits ever since their Lord became our Brother * Christ hath by a miraculous Sacrament given us his body to eat and his bloud to drink he made waies that we may become all one with him * He hath given us an easie religion and hath established our future felicity upon naturall and pleasant conditions and we are to be happy hereafter if we suffer God to make us happy here and things are so ordered that a man must take more pains to perish then to be happy * God hath found out rare wayes to make our prayers acceptable our weak petitions the desires of our imperfect souls to prevail mightily with God and to lay a holy violence and an undeniable necessity upon himself and God will deny us nothing but when we aske of him to do us ill offices to give us poisons and dangers and evill nourishment and temptations and he that hath given such mighty power to the prayers of his servants yet will not be moved by those potent and mighty prayers to do any good man an evill turn or to grant him one mischief in that only God can deny us * But in all things else God hath made all the excellent things in heaven and earth to joyn towards holy and fortunate effects for he hath appointed an Angell to present the prayers of Saints and Christ makes intercession for us and the holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groans unutterable and all the holy men in the world pray for all and for every one and God hath instructed us with Scriptures and precedents and collaterall and direct assistances to pray and he incouraged us with divers excellent promises and parables and examples and teaches us what to pray and how and gives one promise to publique prayer and another to private prayer and to both the blessing of being heard * Adde to this account that God did heap blessings upon us without order infinitely perpetually and in all instances when we needed and when we needed not * He heard us when we pray'd giving us all and giving us more then we desired * He desired that we should aske and yet he hath also prevented our desires * He watch'd for us and at his own charge sent a whole order of men whose imployment is to minister to our souls and if all this had not been enough he had given us more also * He promised heaven to our obedience a Province for a dish of water a Kingdome for a prayer satisfaction for desiring it grace for receiving and more grace for accepting and using the first * He invited us with gracious words and perfect entertainments * He threatned horrible things to us if we would not be happy * He hath made strange necessities for us making our very repentance to be a conjugation of holy actions and holy times and a long succession * He hath taken away all excuses from us he hath called us off from temptation he bears our charges he is alwaies before-hand with us in every act of favour and perpetually slow in striking and his arrowes are unfeathered and he is so long first in drawing his sword and another long while in whetting it and yet longer in lifting his hand to strike that before the blow comes the man hath repented long unlesse he be a fool and impudent and then God is so glad of an excuse to lay his anger aside that certainly if after all this we refuse life and glory there is no more to be said this plain story will condemn us but the story is very much longer and as our conscience will represent all our sins to us so the Judge will represent all his Fathers kindnesses as Nathan did to David when he was to make the justice of the Divine Sentence appear against him * Then it shall be remembred that the joyes of every daies piety would have been a greater pleasure every night then the remembrance of every nights sin could have been in the morning * That every night the trouble and labour of the daies vertue would have been as much passed and turned to as very a nothing as the pleasure of that daies sin but that they would be infinitely distinguished by the remanent effects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Musonius expressed the sense of this inducement and that this argument would have grown so great by that time we come to dye that the certain pleasures and rare confidences and holy hopes of a death-bed would be a strange felicity to the man when he remembers he did obey if they were compared to the fearfull expectations of a dying sinner who feels by a formidable and afrighting remembrance that of all his sins nothing remains but the gains of a miserable eternity * The offering our selves to God every morning and the thanksgiving to God every night hope and fear shame and desire the honour of leaving a fair name behinde us and the shame of dying like a fool every thing indeed in the world is made to be an argument and an inducement
to us to invite us to come to God and be sav'd and therefore when this and infinitely more shall by the Judge be exhibited in sad remembrances there needs no other sentence we shall condemn our selves with a hasty shame and a fearfull confusion to see how good God hath been to us and how base we have been to our selves Thus Moses is said to accuse the Jewes and thus also he that does accuse is said to condemn as Verres was by Cicero and Claudia by Domitius her accuser and the world of impenitent persons by the men of Nineveh and all by Christ their Judge I represent the horror of this circumstance to consist in this besides the reasonablenesse of the Judgement and the certainty of the condemnation it cannot but be an argument of an intolerable despair to perishing souls when he that was our Advocate all our life shall in the day of that appearing be our Accuser and our Judge a party against us an injur'd person in the day of his power and of his wrath doing execution upon all his own foolish and malicious enemies * 2. Our conscience shall be our accuser but this signifies but these two things 1. that we shall be condemned for the evils that we have done and shall then remember God by his power wiping away the dust from the tables of our memory and taking off the consideration and the voluntary neglect and rude shufflings of our cases of conscience For then we shall see things as they are the evill circumstances and the crooked intentions the adherent unhandsomenesse and the direct crimes for all things are laid up safely and though we draw a curtain of cobweb over them and few figleaves before our shame yet God shall draw away the curtain and forgetfulnesse shall be no more because with a taper in the hand of God all the corners of our nastinesse shall be discovered And secondly it signifies this also that not only the Justice of God shall be confessed by us in our own shame and condemnation but the evill of the sentence shall be received into us to melt our bowels and to break our heart in pieces within us because we are the authors of our own death and our own inhumane hands have torn our souls in pieces Thus farre the horrors are great and when evill men consider it it is certain they must be afraid to dye Even they that have liv'd well have some sad considerations and the tremblings of humility and suspicion of themselves I remember S. Cyprian tels of a good man who in his agony of death saw a phantasme of a noble and angelicall shape who frowning and angry said to him Pati timetis exire non vultis Quid faciam vobis Ye cannot endure sicknesse ye are troubled at the evils of the world and yet you are loth to dye and to be quit of them what shall I do to you Although this is apt to represent every mans condition more of lesse yet concerning persons of wicked lives it hath in it too many sad degrees of truth they are impatient of sorrow and justly fearfull of death because they know not how to comfort themselves in the evill accidents of their lives and their conscience is too polluted to take death for sanctuary and to hope to have amends made to their condition by the sentence of the day of Judgement Evill and sad is their condition who cannot be contented here nor blessed hereafter whose life is their misery and their conscience is their enemy whose grave is their prison and death their undoing and the sentence of Dooms-day the beginning of an intolerable condition 3. The third sort of accusers are the Devils and they will do it with malicious and evill purposes The Prince of the Devils hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for one of his chiefest appellatives The accuser of the Brethren he is by his professed malice and imployment and therefore God who delights that his mercy should triumph and his goodnesse prevail over all the malice of men and Devils hath appointed one whose office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to reprove the accuser and to resist the enemy and to be a defender of their cause who belong to God The holy Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a defender the evill spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the accuser and they that in this life belong to one or the other shall in the same proportion be treated at the day of Judgement The Devill shall accuse the Brethren that is the Saints and servants of God and shall tell concerning their follies and infirmities the sins of their youth and the weaknesse of their age the imperfect grace and the long schedule of omissions of duty their scruples and their fears their diffidences and pusillanimity and all those things which themselves by strict examination finde themselves guilty of and have confessed all their shame and the matter of their sorrowes their evill intentions and their little plots their carnall confidences and too fond adherences to the things of this world their indulgence and easinesse of government their wilder joyes and freer meals their losse of time and their too forward and apt compliances their trifling arrests and little peevishnesses the mixtures of the world with the things of the Spirit and all the incidences of humanity he will bring forth and aggravate them by the circumstance of ingratitude and the breach of promise and the evacuating all their holy purposes and breaking their resolutions and rifling their vowes and all these things being drawn into an intire representment and the bils clog'd by numbers will make the best man in the world â—â—em foul and unhandsome and stained with the characters of death and evill dishonour But for these there is appointed a defender The holy Spirit that maketh intercession for us shall then also interpose and against all these things shall oppose the passion of our blessed Lord and upon all their defects shall cast the robe of his righteousnesse and the sins of their youth shall not prevail so much as the repentance of their age and their omissions be excused by probable intervening causes and their little escapes shall appear single and in disunion because they were alwaies kept asunder by penitentiall prayers and sighings and their seldome returns of sin by their daily watchfulnesse and their often infirmities by the sincerity of their souls and their scruples by their zeal and their possions by their love and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice which their Judge offer'd and the holy Spirit made effective by daily graces and assistances These therefore infallibly go to the portion of the right hand because the Lord our God shall answer for them But as for the wicked it is not so with them for although the plain story of their life be to them a sad condemnation yet what will be answered when it shall be told concerning them that they despised Gods mercies and feared
all our unguarded strengths There are some desires which have a period and Gods visitations expire in mercy at the revolution of a certain number of dayes and our prayer must dwell so long as Gods anger abides and in all the storm we must out cry the noyse of the tempest and the voices of that thunder But if we become hardned and by custome and cohabitation with the danger lose our fears and abate of our desires and devotions many times we shall finde that God by a sudden breach upon us will chastise us for letting our hands go down Israel prevailed no longer then Moses held up his hands in prayer and he was forced to continue his prayer till the going down of the Sun that is till the danger was over till the battell was done But when our desires and prayers are in the matter of spirituall danger they must never be remitted because our danger continues for ever and therefore so must our watchfulnesse and our guards Vult n. Deus rogari vult cogi vult quâdam importunitate vinci sayes S. Gregory God loves to be invited intreated importun'd with an unquiet restlesse desire and a persevering prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Proclus That 's a holy and a religious prayer that never gives over but renewes the prayer and dwels upon the desire for this only is effectuall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hears the persevering man and the unwearied prayer For it is very considerable that we be very curious to observe that many times a lust is sopita non mortua it is asleep the enemy is at truce and at quiet for a while but not conquered not dead and if we put off our armour too soon we lose all the benefit of our former war and are surprised by indiligence and a carelesse guard For God sometimes binds the Devill in a short chain and gives his servants respite that they may feel the short pleasures of a peace and the rest of innocence and perceive what are the eternall felicities of heaven where it shall be so for ever But then we must return to our warfare again and every second assault is more troublesome because it finds our spirits at ease and without watchfulnesse and delighted with a spirituall rest and keeping holiday But let us take heed for whatsoever temptation we can be troubled withall by our naturall temper or by the condition of our life or the evill circumstances of our condition so long as we have capacity to feel it so long we are in danger and must watch thereunto with prayer and continuall diligence And when your temptations let you alone let not you God alone but lay up prayers and the blessings of a constant devotion against the day of tryall Well may your temptation sleep but if your prayers do so you may chance to be awakened with an assault that may ruine you However the rule is easie Whatsoever you need aske it of God so long as you want it even till you have it For God therefore many times defers to grant that thou mayst persevere to aske and because every holy prayer is a glorification of God by the confessing many of his attributes a lasting and a persevering prayer is a little image of the Allellujahs and services of eternity it is a continuation to do that according to our measures which we shall be doing to eternall ages therefore think not that five or six hearty prayers can secure to thee a great blessing and a supply of a mighty necessity He that prays so and then leaves off hath said some prayers and done the ordinary offices of his Religion but hath not secured the blessing nor used means reasonably proportionable to a mighty interest 4. The prayers of a good man are oftentimes hindered and destiture of their effect for want of praying in good company for sometimes an evill or an obnoxious person hath so secured and ascertained a mischief to himself that he that stayes in his company or his cratfick must also share in his punishment and the Tyrian sailers with all their vows and prayers could not obtain a prosperous voyage so long as Jonas was within the Bark for in this case the interest is divided and the publick sin prevails above the private piety When the Philosopher asked a penny of Antigonus he told him it was too little for a King to give when he asked a talent he told him it was too much for a Philosopher to receive for he did purpose to cousen his own charity and elude the others necessity upon pretence of a double inequality So it is in the case of a good man mingled in evill company if a curse be too severe for a good man a mercy is not to be expected by evill company and his prayer when it is made in common must partake of that event of things which is appropriate to that society The purpose of this caution is that every good man be carefull that he do not mingle his devotion in the communions of hereticall persons and in schismaticall conventicles for although he be like them that follow Absalom in the simplicity of their heart yet his intermediall fortune and the event of his present affairs may be the same with Absaloms and it is not a light thing that we curiously choose the parties of our Communion I do not say it is necessary to avoid all the society of evill persons for then we must go out of the world and when we have thrown out a drunkard possibly we have entertain'd an hypocrite or when a swearer is gone an oppressor may stay still or if that be remedied yet pride is soon discernible but not easily judicable but that which is of caution in this question is that we never mingle with those whose very combination is a sin such as were Corah and his company that rebelled against Moses their Prince and Dathan and Abiram that made a schisme in Religion against Aaron the Priest for so said the Spirit of the Lord Come out from the congregation of these men lest ye perish in their company and all those that were abused in their communion did perish in the gain saying of Corah It is a sad thing to see a good man cousened by fair pretences and allured into an evill snare for besides that he dwels in danger and cohabits with a dragon and his vertue may change by evill perswasion into an evill disposition from sweetnesse to bitternesse from thence to evill speaking from thence to beleeve a lye and from beleeving to practise it besides this it is a very great sadnesse that such a man should lose all his prayers to very many purposes God will not respect the offering of those men who assemble by a peevish spirit and therefore although God in pity regards the desires of a good man if innocently abused yet as it unites in that assembly God will not hear it to any purposes of blessing and holinesse unlesse we
principles and apply his minde to beleeve a lye and then begins to argue There is no necessity of being so severe in my life greater sinners then I have been saved Gods mercies are greater then all the sins of man Christ dyed for us and if I may not be allowed to sin this sin what ease have I by his death or this sin is necessary and I cannot avoid it or it is questionable whether this sin is of so deep a die as is pretended or flesh and bloud is alwaies with me and I cannot shake it off or there are some Sects of Christians that do allow it or if they do not yet they declare it easily pardonable upon no hard terms and very reconcileable with the hopes of heaven or the Scriptures are not rightly understood in their pretended condemnations or else other men do as bad as this and there is not one in ten thousand but hath his private retirements from vertue or else when I am old this sin will leave me and God is very pityfull to mankinde But while the man like an intangled bird flutters in the net and wildly discomposes that which should support him and that which holds him the net and his own wings that is the Lawes of God and his own conscience and perswasion he is resolved to do the thing and seeks excuses afterwards and when he hath found out a fig-leav'd apron that he could put on or a cover for his eyes that he may not see his own deformity then he fortifies his error with irresolution and inconsideration and he beleeves it because he will and he will because it serves his turn then he is entred upon his state of fear and if he does not fear concerning himself yet his condition is fearfull and the man haih 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reprobate minde that is a judgement corrupted by lust vice hath abused his reasoning and if God proceeds in the mans method and lets him alone in his course and gives him over to beleeve a lye so that he shall call good evill and evill good and come to be heartily perswaded that his excuses are reasonable and his pretences fair then the man is desperately undone through the ignorance that is in him as St. Paul describes his condition his heart is blinde he is past feeling his understanding is darkned then he may walk in the vanity of his minde and give himself over to lasciviousnesse and shall work all uncleannesse with greedinesse then he needs no greater misery this is the state of evill which his fear ought to have prevented but now it is past fear and is to be recovered with sorrow or else to be run through till death and hell are become his portion siunt novissima illus pejora pejoribus his latter end is worse then his beginning 4. Besides all this it might easily be added that he that fals from vertue to vice again addes the circumstance of ingratitude to his load of sins he sins against Gods mercy and puts out his own eyes he strives to unlearn what with labour he hath purchased and despises the trabell of his holy daies and throws away the reward of vertue for an interest which himself despised the first day in which he began to take sober counsels he throws himself back in the accounts of eternity and slides to the bottome of the hill from whence with sweat and labour of his hands and knees he had long been creeping he descends from the spirit to the flesh from honour to dishonour from wise principles to unthrifty practises like one of the vainer fellowes who grows a fool and a prodigall and a begger because he delights in inconsideration in the madnesse of drunkennesse and the quiet of a lazy and unprofitable life So that this man hath great cause to fear and if he does his fear is as the fear of enemies and not sons I do not say that it is a fear that is displeasing to God but it is such a one as may arrive at goodnesse and the fear of sons if it be rightly manag'd For we must know that no fear is displeasing to God no fear of it self whether it be fear of punishment or fear to offend the fear of servants or the fear of sons But the effects of fear doe distinguish the man and are to be entertain'd or rejected accordingly If a servile fear makes us to remove our sins and so passes us towards our pardon and the receiving such graces which may endear our duty and oblige our affection that fear is imperfect but not criminall it is the beginning of wisdome and the first introduction to it but if that fear sits still or rests in a servile minde or a hatred of God or speaking evill things concerning him or unwillingnesse to do our duty that which at first was indifferent or at the worst imperfect proves miserable and malicious so we do our duty it is no matter upon what principles we do it it is no matter where we begin so from that beginning we passe on to duties and perfection If we fear God as an enemy an enemy of our sins and of our persons for their sakes as yet this fear is but a servile fear it cannot be a filiall fear since we our selves are not sons but if this servile fear makes us to desire to be reconcil'd to God that he may no longer stay at enmity with us from this fear we shall soon passe to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to love from love to diligence from diligence to perfection and the enemies shall become servants and the servants shall become adopted sons and passe into the society and the participation of the inheritance of Jesus for this fear is also reverence and then our God in stead of being a consuming fire shall become to us the circle of a glorious crown and a globe of an eternall light SERMON IX Part III. IAm now to give account concerning the excesse of fear not directly and abstractedly as it is a passion but as it is subjected in Religion and degenerates into superstition For so among the Greeks fear is the ingredient and half of the constitution of that folly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Hesychius it is a fear of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's more it is a timorousnesse the superstitious man is afraid of the gods said the Etymologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fearing of God as if he were a tyrant and an unreasonable exacter of duty upon unequall terms and disproportionable impossible degrees and unreasonable and great and little instances 1. But this fear some of the old Philosophers thought unreasonable in all cases even towards God himself and it was a branch of the Epicurean Doctrine that God medled not any thing below and was to be loved and admired but not feared at all and therefore they taught men neither to fear death nor to fear punishment after death nor any displeasure of God His terroribus
fall down before his footstool and are ministers of his anger and messengers of his mercy and night and day worship him with the profoundest adoration This is the same that is spoken of in the Text Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear all holy fear partakes of the nature of this which Divines call Angelicall and it is expressed in acts of adoration of vowes and holy prayers in hymnes and psalmes in the eucharist and reverentiall addresses and while it proceeds in the usuall measures of common duty it is but humane but as it arises to great degrees and to perfection it is Angelicall and Divine and then it appertains to mystick Theologie and therefore is to be considered in another place but for the present that which will regularly concern all our duty is this that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty or Gods worship the greater it is it is so much the better It was an old proverbiall saying among the Romans Religentem esse oportet religiosum nefas Every excesse in the actions of religion is criminall they supposing that in the services of their gods there might be too much True it is there may be too much of their undecent expressions and in things indifferent the very multitude is too much and becomes an undecency and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end or the rules or the analogy of the Religion it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable but in the direct actions of glorifying God in doing any thing of his Commandements or any thing which he commands or counsels or promises to reward there can never be excesse or superfluity and therefore in these cases do as much as you can take care that your expressions be prudent and safe consisting with thy other duties and for the passions or vertues themselves let them passe from beginning to great progresses from man to Angel from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God and when ever we go beyond the bounds of Nature and grow up with all the extention and in the very commensuration of a full grace we shall never go beyond the excellencies of God For ornament may be too much and turn to curiosity cleanlinesse may be changed into nicenesse and civill compliance may become flattery and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity and fame and honour may be great unto envie and health it self if it be athletick may by its very excesse become dangerous but wisdome and duty and comelinesse and discipline a good minde and eloquence and the fear of God and doing honour to his holy Name can never exceed but if they swell to great proportions they passe through the measures of grace and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God in the joyes of an eternall glory Sermon X. The Flesh and the Spirit Part I. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weake FRom the beginning of days Man hath been so crosse to the Divine commandements that in many cases there can be no reason given why a man should choose some ways or doe some actions but onely because they are forbidden When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up against the Canaanites and possesse the Land they would not stirre the men were Anakims and the Cities were impregnable and there was a Lyon in the way but presently after when God forbad them to goe they would and did goe though they died for it I shall not need to instance in particulars when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners even the man in the Gospell that had two sons they both crossed him even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not for the one said he would and did not the other said he would not and did and so doe we we promise faire and doe nothing and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light such as said they would not and at last have better bethought themselves And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate for he that refuses the commandement first does violence to the commandement and puts on a proeternaturall appetite he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthlesse constitution smart and sickly nights a loathing stomach and a staring eye a giddy brain and a swell'd belly gouts and dropsies catarrhes and oppilations If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws and impossible commandements for we complain already even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us this is one of his impossible laws it is impossible for us to know when we are dry or when we need drink for if we doe know I am sure it is possible enough not to lift up the wine to our heads And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies we think we have so much reason against it that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love and those we dote on we cherish and feast them and as S. Paul in another case upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule we make it the heir of all things and treat it here already as if it were in Majority and make that which at the best was but a weak friend to become a strong enemy and hence proceed the vices of the worst and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weaknesse and when the flesh is not strong to mischief it is weak to goodnesse and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward man or the reasonable part of man especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace that is willing for it is the principle of all good actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of working is from the spirit but the flesh is but a dull instrument and a broken arme in which there is a principle of life but it moves uneasily and the flesh is so weak that in Scripture to be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse and infirmity so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifested in the flesh and what S. Peter calls put to death in the flesh St. Paul calls crucified through weaknesse and yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you said S. Paul but here flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy but as a
sottishnesse of lust and the follies of drunkennesse that reflecting upon the change they begin to love themselves too well and take delight in the wisdome of the change and the reasonablenesse of the new life and then they by hating their own follies begin to despise them that dwell below It was the tricke of the old Philosophers whom Aristophanes thus describes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pale and barefoot and proud that is persons singular in their habit eminent in their institution proud and pleased in their persons and despisers of them that are lesse glorious in their vertue then themselves and for this very thing our blessed Saviour remarks the Pharisees they were severe and phantasticall advancers of themselves and Judgers of their neighbors and here when they have mortified corporall vices such which are scandalous and punishable by men they keep the spirituall and those that are onely discernible by God these men doe but change their sin from scandall to danger and that they may sin more safely they sin more spiritually 2. Sometimes the passions of the flesh spoyle the changes of the Spirit by naturall excesses and disproportion of degrees it mingles violence with industry and fury with zeale and uncharitablenesse with reproofe and censuring with discipline and violence with desires and immortifications in all the appetites and prosecutions of the soule Some think it is enough in all instances if they pray hugely and fervently and that it is religion impatiently to desire a victory over our enemies or the life of a childe or an heir to be born they call it holy so they desire it in prayer that if they reprove a vicious person they may say what they list and be as angry as they please that when they demand but reason they may enforce it by all means that when they exact duty of their children they may be imperious and without limit that if they designe a good end they may prosecute it by all instruments that when they give God thanks for blessings they may value the thing as high as they list though their persons come into a share of the honour here the spirit is willing and holy but the flesh creeps too busily and insinuates into the substance of good actions and spoyles them by unhandsome circumstances and then the prayer is spoil'd for want of prudence of conformity to Gods will and discipline and government is imbittered by an angry spirit and the Fathers authority turns into an uneasie load by being thrust like an unequall burden to one side without allowing equall measures to the other And if we consider it wisely we shall find that in many good actions the flesh is the bigger ingredient and we betray our weak constitutions even when we do Justice or Charity and many men pray in the flesh when they pretend they pray by the spirit 3. In the first changes and weak progresses of our spirituall life we find a long weaknesse upon us because we are long before we begin and the flesh was powerfull and its habits strong and it will mingle indirect pretences with all the actions of the spirit If we mean to pray the flesh thrusts in thoughts of the world and our tongue speaks one thing and our heart means another and we are hardly brought to say our prayers or to undertake a fasting day or to celebrate a Communion and if we remember that all these are holy actions and that we have many opportunities of doing them all and yet doe them very seldome and then very coldly it will be found at the foot of the account that our flesh and our naturall weaknesse prevailes oftner then our spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that are bound long in chains feel such a lamenesse in the first restitutions of their liberty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of the long accustomed chain and pressure that they must stay till Nature hath set them free and the disease be taken off as well as the chain and when the soul is got free from her actuall pressure of sins still the wound remaines and a long habitude and longing after it a looking back and upon the presenting the old object the same company or the remembrance of the delight the fancy strikes and the heart fails and the temptations returne and stand dressed in form and circumstances and ten to one but the man dies again 4. Some men are wise and know their weaknesses and to prevent their startings back will make fierce and strong resolutions and bind up their gaps with thornes and make a new hedge about their spirits and what then this shews indeed that the spirit is willing but the storm arises and windes blow and rain descends and presently the earth trembles and the whole fabrick falls into ruine and disorder A resolution such as we usually make is nothing but a little trench which every childe can step over and there is no civill man that commits a willing sin but he does it against his resolution and what Christian lives that will not say and think that he hath repented in some degree and yet still they commit sin that is they break all their holy purposes as readily as they lose a dream and so great is our weaknesse that to most men the strength of a resolution is just such a restraint as he suffers who is imprisoned in a curtain and secured with dores and bars of the finest linnen for though the spirit be strong to resolve the flesh is weak to keep it 5. But when they have felt their follies and see the linnen vail rent some that are desirous to please God back their resolutions with vows and then the spirit is fortified and the flesh may tempt and call but the soul cannot come forth and therefore it triumphs and acts its interest easily and certainly and then the flesh is mortified It may be so But doe not many of us inquire after a vow And we consider it may be it was rash or it was an impossible matter or without just consideration and weighing of circumstances or the case is alter'd and there is a new emergent necessity or a vow is no more then a resolution made in matter of duty both are made for God and in his eye and witnesse or if nothing will doe it men grow sad and weary and despaire and are impatient and bite the knot in pieces with their teeth which they cannot by disputing and the arts of the tongue A vow will not secure our duty because it is not stronger then our appetite and the spirit of man is weaker then the habits and superinduced nature of the flesh but by little and little it falls off like the finest thread twisted upon the traces of a chariot it cannot hold long 6. Beyond all this some choose excellent guides and stand within the restraints of modesty and a severe Monitor and the Spirit of God hath put a veile upon our spirits and by modesty in
follies and infirmities SERMON XI Part II. IF it be possible to cure an evill nature we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief In order to which I shall consider 1. That since it is our flesh and bloud that is the principle of mischief we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments the Physitian that went to cure the Hectick with quick-silver and fasting spittle did his Patient no good but himself became a proverb and he that by easie prayers and a seldome fast by the scattering of a little almes and the issues of some more naturall vertue thinks to cure his evill nature does fortifie his indisposition as a stick is hardened by a little fire which by a great one is devoured Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere quae malis cupiditatibus sordidatur uno virtutis as sidei lavacro universa vitia depellere Better it is by an intire body of vertue by a living and active faith to cleanse the minde from every vice and to take off all superinduced habits of sin Quod qui fecerit quamlibet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat satis purus est If we take this course although our body is foul and our affections unquiet and our rest discomposed yet we shall be masters of our resolution and clean from habituall sins and so cure our evill nature For our nature was not made evill but by our selves but yet we are naturally evill that is by a superinduced nature just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to drink extremely and their nature requires it and it is health to them they dye without it because they have made to themselves a new constitution and another nature but much worse then that which God made their sin made this new nature and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable so it is in all other instances Our nature is evill because we have spoil'd it and therefore the removing the sin which we have brought in is the way to cure our nature for this evill nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid we made it and therefore we must help it but as in the superinducing this evill nature we were thrust forward by the world and the Devill by all objects from without and weaknesse from within so in the curing it we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must have a new nature put into us which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes of holy actions and great devotion and this nature is deriv'd from God and is a grace and a favour of heaven The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner must also descend upon us and cause us to be born again and to begin a new life upon the stock of a new nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Origen From him it first began that a divine and humane nature were weaved together that the humane nature by communication with the celestiall may also become divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not only in Jesus but in all that first beleeve in him and then obey him living such a life as Jesus taught and this is the summe totall of the whole design As we have liv'd to the flesh so we must hereafter live to the spirit as our nature hath been flesh not only in its originall but in habits and affection so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice in design and effectuall prosecutions for nothing can cure our old death but this new birth and this is the recovery of our nature and the restitution of our hopes and therefore the greatest joy of mankinde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a fine thing to see the light of this sun and it is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into a smooth sea and a fresh gale our eyes are pleased to see the earth begin to live and to produce her little issues with particolour'd coats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing is so beauteous as to see a new birth in a childlesse family And it is excellent to hear a man discourse the hidden things of Nature and unriddle the perplexities of humane notices and mistakes it is comely to see a wise man sit in the gates of the City and give right judgement in difficult causes But all this is nothing to the excellencies of a new birth to see the old man carryed forth to funerall with the solemn tears of repentance and buryed in the grave of Jesus and in his place a new creation to arise a new heart and a new understanding and new affections and excellent appetites for nothing lesse then this can cure all the old distempers 2. Our life and all our discourses and every observation and a state of reason and a union of sober counsels are too little to cure a peevish spirit and a weak reasoning and silly principles and accursed habits and evill examples and perverse affections and a whole body of sin and death It was well said in the Comedy Nunquam ita quisquam bene subductâ ratione ad vitam fuit Quin aetas usus semper aliquid apportet novi Aliquid moneat ut illa quae scire credas nescias Et quae tibi put as prima in experiundo repudies Men at first think themselves wise and are alwaies most confident when they have the least reason and to morrow they begin to perceive yesterdayes folly and yet they are not wise But as the little Embryo in the naturall sheet and lap of its mother first distinguishes into a little knot and that in time will be the heart and then into a bigger bundle which after some dayes abode grows into two little spots and they if cherished by nature will become eyes and each part by order commences into weak principles and is preserved with natures greatest curiosity that it may assist first to distinction then to order next to usefulnesse and from thence to strength till it arrive at beauty and a perfect creature so are the necessities and so are the discourses of men we first learn the principles of reason which breaks obscurely through a cloud and brings a little light and then we discern a folly and by little and little leave it till that enlightens the next corner of the soul and then there is a new discovery but the soul is still in infancy and childish follies and every day does but the work of one day but therefore art and use experience and reason although they do something yet they cannot do enough there must be something else But this is to be wrought by a new principle that is by the Spirit of grace Nature and reason alone cannot do it and therefore the
proper cure is to be wrought by those generall means of inviting and cherishing of getting and entertaining Gods Spirit which when we have observed we may account our selves sufficiently instructed toward the repair of our breaches and the reformation of our evill nature 1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace flesh into the spirit is a firm belief and a perfect assent to and hearty entertainment of the promises of the Gospell for holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith It quenches the fiery darts of the Devill saith St. Paul it overcomes the world saith St. John it is the fruit of the Spirit and the parent of love it is obedience and it is humility and it is a shield and it is a brestplate and a work and a mysterie it is a fight and it is a victory it is a pleasing God and it is that whereby the just do live by faith we are purified and by faith we are sanctified and by faith we are justified and by faith we are saved by this we have accesse to the throne of grace and by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick by it we stand and by it we walk and by this Christ dwels in our hearts and by it all the miracles of the Church have been done it gives great patience to suffer and great confidence to hope and great strength to do and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith and satisfaction of all our hopes and the reward of all our labours even the most mighty price of our high calling and if faith be such a magazine of spirituall excellencies of such universall efficacy nothing can be a greater antidote against the venome of a corrupted nature But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding but the principle that is designed to and actually productive of a holy life It is not only a beleeving the propositions of Scripture as we beleeve a proposition in the Metaphysicks concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true of false but it is a beleef of things that concern us infinitely things so great that if they be so true as great no man that hath his reason and can discourse that can think and choose that can desire and work towards an end can possibly neglect The great object of our faith to which all other articles do minister is resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternall life and glories infinite Now is it possible that a man that beleeves this and that he may obtain it for himself and that it was prepared for him and that God desires to give it him that he can neglect and despise it and not work for it and perform such easie conditions upon which it may be obtained Are not most men of the world made miserable at a lesse price then a thousand pound a year Do not all the usurers and merchants all tradesmen and labourers under the Sun toil and care labour and contrive venture and plot for a little money and no man gets and scarce any man desires so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground not so much as will fill a great house and is this sum that is such a trifle such a poor limited heap of dirt the reward of all the labour and the end of all the care and the design of all the malice and the recompence of all the wars of the world and can it be imaginable that life it self and a long life an eternall and a happy life a kingdome a perfect kingdome and glorious that shall never have ending nor ever shall be abated with rebellion or fears or sorrow or care that such a kingdome should not be worth the praying for and quitting of an idle company and a foolish humour or a little drink or a vicious silly woman for it surely men beleeve no such thing They do not relye upon those fine stories that are read in books and published by Preachers and allow'd by the lawes of all the world If they did why do they choose intemperance and a feaver lust and shame rebellion and danger pride and a fall sacriledge and a curse gain and passion before humility and safety religion and a constant joy devotion and peace of conscience justice and a quiet dwelling charity and a blessing and at the end of all this a Kingdome more glorious then all the beauties the Sun did ever see Fides est velut quoddam aeternitatis exemplar praeterita simul praesentia futura sinu quodam vastissimo comprehendit ut nihil ei praetereat nil pereat praeeat nihil Now Faith is a certain image of eternity all things are present to it things past and things to come are all so before the eyes of faith that he in whose eye that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as present and sees how blessed thing it is to dye in Gods favour and to be chim'd to our grave with the Musick of a good conscience Faith converses with the Angels and antedates the hymnes of glory every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him if he perseveres in duty as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving Song for the blessed sentence of Dooms-day And therefore it is no matter if these things are separate and distant objects none but children and fools are taken with the present trifle and neglect a distant blessing of which they have credible and beleeved notices Did the merchant see the pearls and the wealth he designs to get in the trade of 20 years And is it possible that a childe should when he learns the first rudiments of Grammar know what excellent things there are in learning whither he designs his labour and his hopes We labour for that which is uncertain and distant and beleeved and hoped for with many allaies and seen with diminution and a troubled ray and what excuse can there be that we do not labour for that which is told us by God and preach'd by his holy Son and confirmed by miracles and which Christ himself dyed to purchase and millions of Martyrs dyed to witnesse and which we see good men and wise beleeve with an assent stronger then their evidence and which they do beleeve because they do love and love because they do beleeve There is nothing to be said but that faith which did enlighten the blind and cleanse the Lepers and wash'd the soul of the Aethiopian that faith that cures the sick and strengthens the Paralytick and baptizes the Catechumens and justifies the faithfull and repairs the penitent and confirms the just and crowns the Martyrs that faith if it be true and proper Christian and alive active and effective in us is sufficient to appease the storm of our passions and to instruct all our ignorances and to make us wise unto salvation it will if we let it do its first intention
the precepts of the Gospell were impossible to be kept because it also requiring the heart of man did stop every egression of disorders for making the root holy and healthfull as the Balsame of Judaea or the drops of Manna in the evening of the sabbath it also causes that nothing spring thence but gummes fit for incense and oblations for the Altar of proposition and a cloud of perfume fit to make atonement for our sins and being united to the great sacrifice of the world to reconcile God and man together Upon these reasons you see it is highly fit that God should require it and that we should pay the sacrifice of our hearts and not at all think that God is satisfied with the work of the hands when the affections of the heart are absent He that prayes because he would be quiet and would fain be quit of it and communicates for fear of the lawes and comes to Church to avoid shame and gives almes to be eased of an importunate begger or relieves his old parents because they will not dye in their time and provides for his children lest he be compled by Lawes and shame but yet complains of the charge of Gods blessings this man is a servant of the eyes of men and offers parchment or a white skin in sacrifice but the flesh and the inwards he leaves to be consumed by a stranger fire And therefore this is a deceit that robs God of the best and leaves that for religion which men pare off It is sacriledge and brings a double curse 2. He that serves God with the soule without the body when both can be conjoyned doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Paphnutius whose knees were cut for the testimony of Jesus was not obliged to worship with the humble flexures of the bending penitents and blinde Bartimeus could not read the holy lines of the Law and therefore that part of the work was not his duty and God shall not call Lazarus to account for not giving almes nor St. Peter and St. John for not giving silver and gold to the lame man nor Epaphroditus for not keeping his fasting dayes when he had his sicknesse But when God hath made the body an apt minister to the soul and hath given money for almes and power to protect the oppressed and knees to serve in prayer and hands to serve our needs then the soul alone is not to work but as Rachel gave her maid to Jacob and she bore children to her Lord upon her Ministresse knees and the children were reckoned to them both because the one had fruitfull desires and the other a fruitfull wombe so must the body serve the needs of the spirit that what the one desires the other may effect and the conceptions of the soul may be the productions of the body and the body must bow when the soul worships and the hand must help when the soul pities and both together do the work of a holy Religion the body alone can never serve God without the conjunction and preceding act of the soul and sometimes the soul without the body is imperfect and vain for in some actions there is a body and a spirit a materiall and a spirituall part and when the action hath the same constitution that a man hath without the act of both it is as imperfect as a dead man the soul cannot produce the body of some actions any more then the body can put life into it and therefore an ineffective pity and a lazie counsell an empty blessing and gay words are but deceitfull charity Quod peto da Caï non peto consilium He that gave his friend counsell to study the Law when he desired to borrow 20 l. was not so friendly in this counsell as he was uselesse in his charity spirituall acts can cure a spirituall malady but if my body needs relief because you cannot feed me with Diagrams or cloath me with Euclids elements you must minister a reall supply by a corporall charity to my corporall necessity This proposition is not only usefull in the doctrine of charity and the vertue of religion but in the professions of faith and requires that it be publick open and ingenuous In matters of necessary duty it is not sufficient to have it to our selves but we must also have it to God and all the world and as in the heart we beleeve so by the mouth we confesse unto salvation he is an ill man that is only a Christian in his heart and is not so in his professions and publications and as your heart must not be wanting in any good profession and pretences so neither must publick profession be wanting in every good and necessary perswasion The faith and the cause of God must be owned publiquely for if it be the cause of God it will never bring us to shame I do not say what ever we think we must tell it to all the world much lesse at all times and in all circumstances but we must never deny that which we beleeve to be the cause of God in such circumstances in which we can and ought to glorifie him But this extends also to other instances He that swears a false oath with his lips and unswears it with his heart hath deceived one more then he thinks for himself is the most abused person and when my action is contrary to men they will reprove me but when it is against my own perswasion I cannot but reprove my self and am witnesse and accuser and party and guilty and then God is the Judge and his anger will be a fierce executioner because we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. They are deceitfull in the Lords work that reserve one faculty for sin or one sin for themselves or one action to please their appetite and many for Religion Rabbi Kimchi taught his Scholars Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti nisi concepta fuerit in Dei fidem Religionem that God is never angry with an evill thought unlesse it be a thought of Apostasie from the Jewes religion and therefore provided that men be severe and close in their sect and party they might roll in lustfull thoughts and the torches they light up in the Temple might smoke with anger at one end and lust at the other so they did not flame out in egressions of violence and injustice in adulteries and fouler complications nay they would give leave to some degrees of evill actions for R. Moses and Selomoh taught that if the most part of a mans actions were holy and just though in one he sinned often yet the greater ingredient should prevail and the number of good works should outweigh the lesser account of evill things and this Pharisaicall righteousnesse is too frequent even amongst Christians For who almost is there that does not count fairly concerning himself if he reckons many vertues upon the stock of his Religion and but one vice upon the stock of his infirmity
half a dozen to God and one for his company or his friend his education or his appetite and if he hath parted from his folly yet he will remember the fleshpots and please himself with a phantastick sin and call it home through the gates of his memory and place it at the door of fancy that there he may behold it and consider concerning what he hath parted withall out of the fears and terrors of religion and a necessary unavoidable conscience Do not many men go from sin to sin even in their repentance they go backward from sin to sin and change their crime as a man changes his uneasie load and shakes it off from one shoulder to support it with the other How many severe persons virgins and widows are so pleased with their chastity and their abstinence even from lawfull mixtures that by this means they fall into a worse pride insomuch that I remember St. Austin said Audeo dicere superbis continentibus expedit cadere they that are chaste and proud it is sometimes a remedy for them to fall into sin and by the shame of lust to cure the devill of pride and by the sin of the body to cure the worser evils of the spirit and therefore he addes that he did beleeve God in a severe mercy did permit the barbarous nations breaking in upon the Roman Empire to violate many virgins professed in Cloisters and religious Families to be as a mortification of their pride lest the accidentall advantages of a continent life should bring them into the certain miseries of a spirituall death by taking away their humility which was more necessary then their virgin state It is not a cure that men may use but God permits it sometimes with greater safety through his wise conduct and over-ruling providence St. Peter was safer by his fall as it fell out in the event of things then by his former confidence Man must never cure a sin by a sin but he that brings good out of our evill he can when he please But I speak it to represent how deceitfully many times we do the work of the Lord. We reprove a sinning Brother but do it with a pompous spirit we separate from scandall and do it with glory and a gaudy heart we are charitable to the poor but will not forgive our unkinde enemies or we powre relief into their bags but we please our selves and drink drunk and hope to commute with God giving the fruit of our labours or effluxes of money for the sin of our souls And upon this account it is that two of the noblest graces of a Christian are to very many persons made a savour of death though they were intended for the beginning and the promotion of an eternal life and those are faith and charity some men think if they have faith it is enough to answer all the accusations of sin which our consciences or the Devils make against us If I be a wanton person yet my faith shall hide it and faith shall cover the follies of drunkennesse and I may all my life relye upon faith at last to quit my scores For he that is most carefull is not innocent but must be saved by faith and he that is least carefull may have faith and that will save him But because these men mistake concerning faith and consider not that charity or a good life is a part of that faith that saves us they hope to be saved by the Word they fill their bellies with the story of Frimalcions banquet and drink drunk with the newes of wine they eat shadows and when they are drowning catch at the image of the trees which hang over the water and are reflected from the bottome But thus many men do with charity Give almes and all things shall be clean unto you said our Blessed Saviour and therefore many keep a sin alive and make account to pay for it and God shall be put to relieve his own poor at the price of the sin of another of his servants charity shall take lust or intemperance into protection and men will not be kinde to their brethren unlesse they will be also at the same time unkinde to God I have understood concerning divers vicious persons that none have been so free in their donatives and offerings to Religion and the Priest as they and the Hospitals that have been built and the High-wayes mended at the price of souls are too many for Christendome to boast of in behalf of charity But as others mistake concerning faith so these do concerning its twin sister The first had faith without charity and these have charity without hope for every one that hath this hope that is the hope of receiving the glorious things of God promised in the Gospell purifies himself even as God is pure faith and charity too must both suppose repentance and repentance is the abolition of the whole body of sin the purification of the whole man But the summe of the Doctrine and case of conscience in this particular is this 1. Charity is a certain cure of sins that are past not that are present He that repents and leaves his sin and then relieves the poor and payes for his folly by a diminution of his own estate and the supplies of the poor and his ministring to Christs poor members turns all his former crimes into holinesse he purges the slains and makes amends for his folly and commutes for the baser pleasure with a more noble usage so said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar Break off thy sins by righteousnesse and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor first be just and then be charitable for it is pity almes which is one of the noblest services of God and the greatest mercy to thy Brother should be spent upon sin and thrown away upon folly 2. Faith is the remedy of all our evils but then it is never of force but when we either have endevoured or undertaken to do all good this in baptisme that after faith and repentance at first and faith and charity at last and because we fail often by infirmity and sometimes by inadvertency sometimes by a surprize and often by omission and all this even in the midst of a sincere endevour to live justly and perfectly therefore the passion of our Lord payes for thus and faith layes hold upon that But without a hearty and sincere intent and vigorous prosecution of all the parts of our duty faith is but a word not so much as a cover to a naked bosome nor a pretence big enough to deceive persons that are not willing to be cousened 3. The bigger ingredient of vertue and evill actions will prevail but it is only when vertue is habituall and sins are single interrupted casuall and seldome without choice and without affection that is when our repentance is so timely that it can work for God more then we served under the tyranny of sin so that if you will account the whole
he confesses his sins and is not pardoned he is patient but hath no hope and he that is gone so far towards his countrey and stands in the middle way hath gone so far out of his way he had better have stay'd under a dry roof in the house of banishment then to have left his Gyarus the Island of his sorrow and to dwell upon the Adriatick So is he that begins a state of Religion and does not finish it he abides in the high-way and though he be neerer the place yet is as far from the rest of his countrey as ever and therefore all that beginning of labour was in the prejudice of his rest but nothing to the advantages of his hopes He that hath never begun hath lost no labour Jactura praeteritorum the losse of all that he hath done is the first evill of the negligent and luke-warm Christian according to the saying of Solomon He that is remisse or idle in his labour is the brother of him that scattereth his goods 2. The second appendant evill is that lukewarmnesse is the occasion of greater evill because the remisse easie Christian shuts the gate against the heavenly breathings of Gods holy Spirit he thinks every breath that is fan'd by the wings of the holy Dove is not intended to encourage his fires which burn and smoke and peep through the cloud already it tempts him to security and if an evill life be a certain inlet to a second death despaire on one side and security on the other are the bars and locks to that dore he can never passe forth again while that state remains who ever slips in his spirituall walking does not presently fall but if that slip does not awaken his diligence and his caution then his ruine begins vel pravae institutionis deceptus exordio aut per longam mentis incuriam virtute animi decidente as St. Austin observes either upon the pursuit of his first error or by a carelesse spirit or a decaying slackned resolution all which are the direct effects of lukewarmnesse But so have I seen a fair structure begun with art and care and raised to halfe its stature and then it stood still by the misfortune or negligence of the owner and the rain descended and dwelt in its joynts and supplanted the contexture of its pillars and having stood a while like the antiquated Temple of a deceased Oracle it fell into a hasty age and sunk upon its owne knees and so descended into ruine So is the imperfect unfinished spirit of a man it layes the foundation of a holy resolution and strengthens it with vows and arts of prosecution it raises up the walls Sacraments and Prayers Reading and holy Ordinances and holy actions begin with a slow motion and the building stays and the spirit is weary and the soul is naked and exposed to temptation and in the days of storm take in every thing that can doe it mischief and it is faint and sick listlesse and tired and it stands till its owne weight wearies the foundation and then declines to death and sad disorder being so much the worse because it hath not onely returned to its first follies but hath superadded unthankfulnesse and carelesnesse a positive neglect and a despite of holy things a setting a low price to the things of God lazinesse and wretchlesnesse all which are evills superadded to the first state of coldnesse whither he is with all these loads and circumstances of death easily revolv'd 3. A state of lukewarmnesse is more incorrigible then a state of coldnesse while men flatter themselves that their state is good that they are rich and need nothing that their lamps are dressed and full of ornament There are many that think they are in their countrey as soon as ever they are weary and measure not the end of their hopes by the possession of them but by their precedent labour which they overvalue because they have easie and effeminate souls S. Bernard complains of some that say Sufficit nobis nolumus esse meliores quà m Patres nostri It is enough for us to be as our forefathers who were honest and usefull in their generations but be not over-righteous These men are such as think they have knowledge enough to need no teacher devotion enough to need no new fires perfection enough to need no new progresse justice enough to need no repentance and then because the spirit of a man and all the things of this world are in perpetuall variety and change these men decline when they have gone their period they stand still and then revert like a stone returning from the bosome of a cloud where it rested as long as the thought of a childe and fell to its naturall bed of earth and dwelt below for ever He that says he will take care he be no worse and that he desires to be no better stops his journey into heaven but cannot be secure against his descending into hell and Cassian spake a hard saying Frequentèr vidimus de frigidis carnalibus ad spiritualem venisse fervorem de tepidis animalibus omninò non vidimus Many persons from vicious and dead and cold have passed into life and an excellent grace and a spirituall warmth and holy fires but from lukewarm and indifferent never any body came to an excellent condition and state of holynesse rarissimè S. Bernard sayes very extremely seldome and our blessed Saviour said something of this The Publicans and the Harlots goe before you into the Kingdome of heaven they are moved by shame and punished by disgrace and remarked by punishments and frighted by the circumstances and notices of all the world and separated from sober persons by laws and an intolerable character and the sense of honour and the care of their persons and their love of civill societie and every thing in the world can invite them towards vertues But the man that is accounted honest and does justice and some things of Religion unlesse he finds himselfe but upon his way and feels his wants and groans under the sense of his infirmities and sighs under his imperfections and accounts himself not to have comprehended but still presses towards the mark of his calling unlesse I say he still increases in his appetites of Religion as he does in his progression he will think he needs no counsellor and the spirit of God whispers to an ear that is already fill'd with noyses and cannot atrend to the heavenly calling The stomach that is already full is next to loathing and that 's the prologue to sicknesse and a rejecting the first wholesome nutriment which was entertained to relieve the first naturall necessities Qui non proficit vult deficere said S. Bernard He that goes not forward in the love of God and of Religion does not stand still but goes for all that but whither such a motion will lead him himself without a timely care shall feel by an intolerable experiment In
it hugely and doe it alwayes Non enim votis neque suppliciis muliebribus auxilia Deorum parantur sed vigilando agendo benè consulendo omnia prosperè cedunt No man can obtain the favour of God by words and imperfect resolutions by lazie actions and a remisse piety but by severe counsells and sober actions by watchfulnesse and prudence by doing excellent things with holy intentions and vigorous prosecutions Ubi socordiae ignaviae te tradideris nequidquam Deos implorabis If your vertues be lazy your vices will be bold and active and therefore Democritus said well that the painfull and the soft-handed people in Religion differ just as good men and bad nimirùm spe bonâ the labouring charity hath a good hope but a coole Religion hath none at all and the distinction will have a sad effect to eternall ages These are the great Scenes of duty in which we are to be fervent and zealous but because earnestnesse and zeal are circumstances of a great latitude and the zeale of the present age is starke cold if compar'd to the fervors of the Apostles and other holy primitives and in every age a good mans care may turne into scruple if he sees that he is not the best man because he may reckon his owne estate to stand in the confines of darknesse because his spark is not so great as his neighbors fires therefore it is fit that we consider concerning the degrees of the intention and forward heats for when we have found out the lowest degrees of zeale and a holy fervour we know that duty dwels there and whatsoever is above it is a degree of excellence but all that is lesse then it is lukewarmnesse and the state of an ungracious and an unaccepted person 1. No man is fervent and zealous as he ought but he that preferres Religion before businesse charity before his own case the reliefe of his brother before money heaven before secular regards and God before his friend or interest Which rule is not to be understood absolutely and in particular instances but alwayes generally and when it descends to particulars it must be in proportion to circumstances and by their proper measures for 1. In the whole course of life it is necessary that we prefer Religion before any state that is either contrary to it or a lessening of its duties He that hath a state of life in which he cannot at all in fair proportions tend to Religion must quit great proportions of that that he may enjoy more of this this is that which our blessed Saviour calls pulling out the right eye if it offend thee 2. In particular actions when the necessity is equall he that does not preferre Religion is not at all zealous for although all naturall necessities are to be served before the circumstances and order of Religion yet our belly and our back our liberty and our life our health and a friend are to be neglected rather then a Duty when it stands in its proper place and is requir'd 3. Although the things of God are by a necessary zeale to be preferred before the things of the world yet we must take heed that we doe not reckon Religion and orders of worshipping onely to be the things of God and all other duties to be the things of the world for it was a Pharisaicall device to cry Corban and to refuse to relieve their aged Parents it is good to give to a Church but it is better to give to the Poor and though they must be both provided for yet in cases of dispute Mercy carries the cause against Religion and the Temple And although Mary was commended for choosing the better part yet Mary had done worse if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother Martha was troubled with much serving that was more then need and therefore she was to blame and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be more then needs and some women are troubled with over-much hearing and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house 4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of Religion for although the things of the Spirit are better then the things of the World yet a spirituall man is not in humane regards to be preferred before Princes and noble personages Because a man is called spirituall in severall regards and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace or co-operating toward the works of the Spirit * A King and a Bishop both have callings in order to godlinesse and honesty and spirituall effects towards the advancement of Christs Kingdome whose representatives severally they are * But whether of these two works more immediately or more effectively cannot at all times be known and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concerning doing them civill regards * and possibly the partaking the Spirit is a neerer relation to him then doing his ministeries and serving his ends upon others * and if relations to God and Gods Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civill honour every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some Kings and some Bishops * But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world so they naturally can inferre onely such a relative dignity as can be expressed in spirituall manners But because such relations are subjected in men of this life and we now converse especially in materiall and secular significations therefore we are to expresse our regards to men of such relations by proportionable expressions but because civill excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civill honors and spirituall excellencies doe onely claim them accidentally and indirectly therefore in titles of honour and humane regards the civill praeeminence is the appendix of the greatest civill power and imployment and is to descend in proper measures and for a spirituall relation to challenge a temporall dignity is as if the best Musick should challenge the best cloathes or a Lute-string should contend with a Rose for the honour of the greatest sweetnesse * Adde to this that although temporall things are in order to spirituall and therefore are lesse perfect yet this is not so naturally for temporall things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution and it is by a supernaturall grace that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory and therefore temporall things and persons and callings have properly the chiefest temporall regard and Christ took nothing of this away from them but put them higher by sanctifying and ennobling them * But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man then the richest trade can suppose the richest man From callings to men the argument is fallacious and a Smith is a more usefull man then he that teaches Logick but not always to
be more esteemed and called to stand at the chairs of Princes and Nobles * Holy persons and holy things and all great relations are to be valued by generall proportions to their correlatives but if wee descend to make minute and exact proportions and proportion an inch of temporall to a minute of spirituall we must needs be hugely deceived unlesse we could measure the motion of an Angell by a string or the progressions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple * And yet if these measures were taken it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be preferr'd before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things A man generally is to be esteemed above a woman but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent Queen not alwayes this man before this woman Now Kings and Princes are the best in all temporall dignities and therefore if they had in them no spirituall relations and consequent excellencies as they have very many yet are not to be undervalu'd to spirituall relations which in this world are very imperfect weak partiall and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency propriety and perfection and then also all shall have them according to the worth of their persons not of their calling * But lastly what men may not challenge is not their just and proper due but spirituall persons and the neerest relatives to God stand by him but so long as they dwell low and safe in humility and rise high in nothing but in labours and zeal of soules and devotion * In proportion to this rule a Church may be pull'd down to save a Town and the Vessels of the Church may be sold to redeem Captives when there is a great calamity imminent and prepared for reliefe and no other way to succour it But in the whole the duty of zeale requires that we neglect an ordinary visit rather then an ordinary prayer and a great profit rather then omit a required duty No excuse can legitimate a sin and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit and if he cannot reconcile them will yet tie them together like a Hyaena and a Dog this man pretends to Religion but secures the world and is indifferent and lukewarme towards that so he may be warme and safe in the possession of this 2. To that fervour and zeal that is necessary and a duty it is required that we be constant and persevering Eslo sidelis ad mortem said the Spirit of God to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna Be faithfull unto death and I will give thee a crown of life For he that is warm to day and cold to morrow zealous in his resolution and weary in his practises fierce in the beginning and slack and easie in his progresse hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of he sees not reason enough for Religion and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary and therefore he is duplicis animi as St. James calls him of a doubtfull mind For Religion is worth as much to day as it was yesterday and that cannot change though we doe and if we doe we have left God and whither he can goe that goes from God his owne sorrowes will soon enough instruct him This fire must never goe out but it must be like the fire of heaven it must shine like the starres though sometimes cover'd with a cloud or obscur'd by a greater light yet they dwell for ever in their orbs and walk in their circles and observe their circumstances but goe not out by day nor night and set not when Kings die nor are extinguish'd when Nations change their Government So must the zeal of a Christian be a constant incentive of his duty and though sometimes his hand is drawne back by violence or need and his prayers shortned by the importunity of businesse and some parts omitted by necessities and just complyances yet still the fire is kept alive it burns within when the light breaks not forth and is eternall as the orb of fire or the embers of the Altar of Incense 3. No man is zealous as he ought but he that delights in the service of God without this no man can persevere but must faint under the continuall pressure of an uneasie load If a man goes to his prayers as children goe to schoole or give alms as those that pay contribution and meditate with the same willingnesse with which young men die this man does personam sustinere he acts a part which he cannot long personate but will find so many excuses and silly devices to omit his duty such tricks to run from that which will make him happy he will so watch the eyes of men and be so sure to doe nothing in private he will so often distinguish and mince the duty into minutes and little particles he will so tie himself to the letter of the Law and be so carelesse of the intention and spirituall designe he will be punctuall in the ceremony and trifling in the secret and he will be so well pleased when he is hindred by an accident not of his own procuring and will have so many devices to defeat his duty and to cosuen himselfe that he will certainly manifest that he is afraid of Religion and secretly hates it he counts it a burthen and an objection and then the man is sure to leave it when his circumstances are so fitted But if we delight in it we enter into a portion of the reward as soon as we begin the worke and the very grace shall be stronger then the temptation in its very pretence of pleasure and therefore it must needs be pleasing to God because it confesses God to be the best Master Religion the best work and it serves God with choice and will and reconciles our nature to it and entertaines our appetite and then there is no ansa or handle left whereby we can easily be drawne from duty when all parties are pleased with the imployment But this delight is not to be understood as if it were alwayes required that we should feele an actuall cheerfulnesse and sensible joy such as was that of Jonathan when he had newly tasted honey and the light came into his eyes and he was refreshed and pleasant This happens sometimes when God please to intice or reward a mans spirit with little Antepasts of heaven but such a delight onely is necessary and a duty that we alwayes choose our duty regularly and undervalue the pleasures of temptation and proceed in the work of grace with a firme choice and unabated election our joy must be a joy of hope a joy at least of confident sufferers the joys of faith and expectation rejoycing in hope so the Apostle calls it that is a going forward upon such a perswasion as sees the joyes of God laid up for the Children of men and so the
and to be of an unsetled dwelling and the Nation of the Jews in the bosome and society of which the Church especially did dwell were to be scattered and broken all in pieces with fierce calamities and the world was apt to calumniate and to suspect and dishonour Christians upon pretences and unreasonable jealousies and that to all these purposes the state of marriage brought many inconveniences it pleased God in this new creation to inspire into the hearts of his servants a disposition and strong desires to live a single life lest the state of marriage should in that conjunction of things become an accidentall impediment to the dissemination of the Gospell which cal'd men from a confinement in their domestick charges to travell and flight and poverty and difficulty and Martyrdome upon this necessity the Apostles and Apostolicall men published Doctrines declaring the advantages of single life not by any commandement of the Lord but by the spirit of prudence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the present and then incumbent necessities and in order to the advantages which did accrew to the publick ministeries and private piety There are some said our blessed Lord who make themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven that is for the advantages and the ministery of the Gospell non ad vitae bonae meritum as St. Austin in the like case not that it is a better service of God in it self but that it is usefull to the first circumstances of the Gospell and the infancy of the Kingdome because the unmarryed person does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is apt to spirituall and Ecclesiasticall imployments first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy in his own person and then sanctified to publick ministeries and it was also of ease to the Christians themselves because as then it was when they were to flie and to flie for ought they knew in winter and they were persecuted to the four winds of heaven and the nurses and the women with childe were to suffer a heavier load of sorrow because of the imminent persecutions and above all because of the great fatality of ruine upon the whole nation of the Jewes well it might be said by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such shall have trouble in the flesh that is they that are marryed shall and so at that time they had and therefore it was an act of charity to the Christians to give that counsell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do this to spare you and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for when the case was alter'd and that storm was over and the first necessities of the Gospel served and the sound was gone out into all nations in very many persons it was wholly changed and not the marryed but the unmarryed had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trouble in the flesh and the state of marriage returned to its first blessing non non erat bonum homini esse solitarium and it was not good for man to be alone But in this first intervall the publick necessity and the private zeal mingling together did sometimes over-act their love of single life even to the disparagement of marriage and to the scandall of Religion which was increased by the occasion of some pious persons renouncing their contract of marriage not consummate with unbeleevers For when Flavia Domitilla being converted by Nereus and Achilleus the Eunuchs refused to marry Aurelianus to whom she was contracted if there were not some little envie and too sharp hostility in the Eunuchs to a marryed state yet Aurelianus thought himself an injur'd person and caus'd St. Clemens who vail'd her and his spouse both to dye in the quarrell St. Thecla being converted by St. Paul grew so in love with virginity that she leap'd back from the marriage of Tamyris where she was lately ingaged St. Iphigenia denyed to marry King Hirtacus and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew And Susanna the Niece of Diocletian refus'd the love of Maximianus the Emperour and these all had been betrothed and so did St. Agnes and St. Felicula and divers others then and afterwards insomuch that it was reported among the Gentiles that the Christians did not only hate all that were not of their perswasion but were enemies of the chast lawes of marriage And indeed some that were called Christians were so forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats Upon this occasion it grew necessary for the Apostle to state the question right and to do honour to the holy rite of marriage and to snatch the mystery from the hands of zeal and folly and to place it in Christs right hand that all its beauties might appear and a present convenience might not bring in a false Doctrine and a perpetuall sin and an intolerable mischief The Apostle therefore who himself had been a marryed man but was now a widower does explicate the mysteriousnesse of it and describes it's honours and adornes it with rules and provisions of Religion that as it begins with honour so it may proceed with piety and end with glory For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity of affaires such solitarinesse and sorrow such leasure and unactive circumstances of living that there are more spaces for religion if men would use them to these purposes and because it may have in it much religion and prayers and must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appetites is therefore a state of great excellency yet concerning the state of marriage we are taught from Scripture and the sayings of wise men great things and honourable Marriage is honourable in all men so is not single life for in some it is a share and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a trouble in the flesh a prison of unruly desires which is attempted daily to be broken Celibare or single life is never commanded but in some cases marriage is and he that burns sins often if he marries not he that cannot contain must marry and he that can contain is not tyed to a single life but may marry and not sin Marriage was ordained by God instituted in Paradise was the relief of a naturall necessity and the first blessing from the Lord he gave to Man not a friend but a wife that is a friend and a wife too for a good woman is in her soul the same that a man is and she is a woman only in her body that she may have the excellency of the one and the usefulnesse of the other and become amiable in both it is the seminary of the Church and daily brings forth sons and daughters unto God it was ministred to by Angels and Raphael waited upon a young man that he might have a blessed marriage and that that marriage might repair two sad families and blesse all their relatives Our blessed Lord though he was born of a malden yet she was vail'd under the cover of marriage and she was
they are safe but are afflicted with perpetuall jealousies and every whisper is concerning them and all new noises are arrests to their spirits and the day is too light and the night is too horrid and both are the most opportune for their discovery and besides the undiscernible connexion of the contingencies of providence many secret crimes have been published by dreams and talkings in their sleep It is the observation of Lucretius Multi de magnis per somnum rebus loquuntur Indictóque sui facti persaepe fuêre And what their understanding kept a guard upon their fancy let loose fear was the bars and locks but sleep became the key to open even then when all the senses were shut and God rul'd alone without the choice and discourse of man And though no man regards the wilder talkings of a distracted man yet it hath sometimes hapned that a delirium and a feaver fear of death and the intolerable apprehensions of damnation have open'd the cabinet of sin and brought to light all that was acted in the curtains of night Quippe ubi se multis per somnia saepe loquentes Aut morbo delirantes protrâxe feruntur Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse But there are so many wayes of discovery and amongst so many some one does so certainly happen that they are well summ'd up by Sophocles by saying that time hears all and tels all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A cloud may be its roof and cover till it passes over but when it is driven by a fierce winde or runs fondly after the Sun it layes open a deformity which like an ulcer had a skin over it and a pain within and drew to it a heap of sorrowes big enough to run over all its inclosures Many persons have betrayed themselves by their own fears and knowing themselves never to be secure enough have gone to purge themselves of what no body suspected them offer'd an Apology when they had no accuser but one within which like a thorn in the flesh or like a word in a fools heart was uneasie till it came out Non amo se nimium purgitantes when men are over-busie in justifying themselves it is a sign themselves think they need it Plutarch tels of a young gentleman that destroyed a swallow's nest pretending to them that reproved him for doing the thing which in their superstition the Greeks esteemed so ominous that the little bird accused him for killing his Father And to this purpose it was that Solomon gave counsell Curse not the King no not in thy thought nor the rich in thy bedchamber for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that that hath wings shall tell the matter Murder and treason have by such strange wayes been revealed as if God had appointed an Angell president of the revelation and had kept this in secret and sure ministry to be as an argument to destroy Atheisme from the face of the earth by opening the secrets of men with this key of providence Intercepting of letters mistaking names false inscriptions errors of messengers faction of the parties fear in the actors horror in the action the majesly of the person the restlesnesse of the minde distracted looks wearinesse of the spirit and all under the conduct of the Divine wisdome and the Divine vengeance make the covers of the most secret sin transparent as a net and visible as the Chian wines in the purest Crystall For besides that God takes care of Kings and of the lives of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 driving away evill from their persons and watching as a Mother to keep gnats and flies from her dear boy sleeping in the cradle there are in the machinations of a mighty mischief so many motions to be concentred so many wheels to move regularly and the hand that turns them does so tremble and there is so universall a confusion in the conduct that unlesse it passes suddenly into act it will be prevented by discovery and if it be acted it enters into such a mighty horror that the face of a man will tell what his heart did think and his hands have done And after all it was seen and observed by him that stood behinde the cloud who shall also bring every work of darknesse into light in the day of strange discoveries and fearfull recompences and in the mean time certain it is that no man can long put on a person and act a part but his evill manners will peep through the corners of the white robe and God will bring an hypocrite to shame even in the eyes of men 2. A second superinduced consequent of sin brought upon it by the wrath of God is sin when God punishes sin with sin he is extreamly angry for then the punishment is not medicinal but finall and exterminating God in that case takes no care concerning him though he dies and dies eternally I do not here speak of those sins which are naturally consequent to each other as evill words to evill thoughts evill actions to evill words rage to drunkennesse lust to gluttony pride to ambition but such which God suffers the mans evill nature to be tempted to by evill opportunities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the wrath of God and the man is without remedy It was a sad calamity when God punished Davids adultery by permitting him to fall to murder and Solomons wanton and inordinate love with the crime of idolatry and Ananias his sacriledge with lying against the holy Ghost and Judas his covetousnesse with betraying his Lord and that betraying with despair and that despair with self-murder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One evill invites another and when God is angry and withdrawes his grace and the holy Spirit is grieved and departs from his dwelling the man is left at the mercy of the mercilesse enemy and he shall receive him only with variety of mischiefs like Hercules when he had broken the horn of Achelous he was almost drown'd with the floud that sprung from it and the evill man when he hath pass'd the first scene of his sorrowes shall be intic'd or left to fall into another For it is a certain truth that he who resists or that neglects to use Gods grace shall fall into that evill condition that when he wants it most he shall have least It is so with every man he that hath the greatest want of the grace of God shall want it more if this great want proceeded once from his own sin Habenti dabitur said our blessed Lord to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath It is a remarkable saying of David I have thought upon thy name O Lord in the night season and have kept thy Law this I had because I kept thy Commandements keeping Gods Commandements was rewarded with
Me è Coelo ad Barathrum demisit peccatum vos ullum in terra locum tutum existimabitis Sin thrust me from heaven to hell and do you think on earth to have security Men use to presume that they shall go unpunished but we see what little reason we have so to flatter and undoe our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that hath sinn'd must look for a Judgement and how great that is we are to take our measures by those sad instances of vengeance by which God hath chastised the best of men when they have committed but a single sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin is damnable and destructive and therefore as the asse refused the barley which the fatted swine left perceiving by it he was fatted for the slaughter Tuum libenter prorsus appeterem cibam Nisi qui nutritus illo est jugulatus foret we may learn to avoid these vain pleasures which cut the throat after they are swallowed and leave us in that condition that we may every day fear lest that evill happen unto us which we see fall upon the great examples of Gods anger and our fears cannot ought not at all to be taken off but by an effective busie pungent hasty and a permanent repentance and then also but in some proportions for we cannot be secured from temporall plagues if we have sinn'd no repentance can secure us from all that nay Gods pardon or remitting his finall anger and forgiving the pains of hell does not secure us here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but sin lies at the door ready to enter in and rifle all our fortunes 1. But this hath two appendages which are very considerable and the first is that there are some mischiefs which are the proper and appointed scourges of certain sins and a man need not aske Cujus vulturis hoc erit cadaver what vultur what death what affliction shall destroy this sinner The sin hath a punishment of its own which usually attends it as giddinesse does a drunkard He that commits sacriledge is marked for a vertiginousnesse and changeable fortune Make them O my God like unto a wheel of an unconstant state and we and our fathers have seen it in the change of so many families which have been undone by being made rich they took the lands from the Church and the curse went along with it and the misery and the affliction lasted longer then the sin Telling lies frequently hath for its punishment to be given over to believe a lye and at last that no body shall beleeve it but himself and then the mischief is full he becomes a dishonoured and a baffled person The consequent of lust is properly shame and witchcraft is still punished with basenesse and beggery and oppression of widowes hath a sting for the tears of the oppressed are to the oppressour like the waters of jealousie making the belly to swell and the thigh to rot the oppressor seldome dies in a tolerable condition but is remark'd towards his end with some horrible affliction The sting of oppression is darted as a man goes to his grave In these and the like God keeps a rule of striking In quo quis peccat in eo punitur The Divine Judgement did point at the sin lest that be concealed by excuses and protected by affection and increased by passion and destroy the man by its abode For some sins are so agreeable to the spirit of a fool and an abused person because he hath fram'd his affections to them and they comply with his unworthy interest that when God out of an angry kindnesse smites the man and punishes the sin the man does fearfully defend his beloved sin as the serpent does his head which he would most tenderly preserve But therefore God that knowes all our tricks and devices our stratagems to be undone hath therefore apportioned out his punishments by analogies by proportions and entaile so that when every sin enters into its proper portion we may discern why God is angry and labour to appease him speedily 2. The second appendage to this consideration is this that there are some states of sin which expose a man to all mischief as it can happen by taking off from him all his guards and defences by driving the good Spirit from him by stripping him of the guards of Angels But this is the effect of an habituall sin a course of an evill life and it is called in Scripture a grieving the good Spirit of God But the guard of Angels is in Scripture only promised to them that live godly The Angels of the Lord pitch their tents round about them that fear him and delivereth them said David 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Hellenists use to call the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 watchmen which custody is at first designed and appointed for all when by baptisme they give up their names to Christ and enter into the covenant of Religion And of this the Heathen have been taught something by conversation with the Hebrewes and Christians unicuique nostrum dare paedagogum Deum said Seneca to Lucilius non primarium sed ex eorum numero quos Ovidius vocat ex plebe deos There is a guardian God assigned to every one of us of the number of those which are of the second order such are those of whom David speaks before the Gods will I sing praise unto thee and it was the doctrine of the Stoicks that to every one there was assigned a Genius and a Juno Quamobrem major coelitum populus etiam quam hominum intelligi potest quum singuli ex semetipsis totidem Deos faciant Junones gentosque adoptando sibi said Pliny Every one does adopt Gods into his family and get a Gunius and a Juno of their own Junonem meam iratam habeam it was the oath of Quartilla in Petronius and Socrates in Plato is said to swear by his Juno though afterwards among the Romans it became the womans oath and a note of effeminacy But the thing they aim'd at was this that God took a care of us below and sent a ministring spirit for our defence but that this is only upon the accounts of piety they knew not But we are taught it by the Spirit of God in Scripture For the Angels are ministring spirits sent forth to minister to the good of them who shal be heirs of salvation and concerning St. Peter the faithfull had an opinion that it might be his Angell agreeing to the Doctrine of our blessed Lord who spake of Angels appropriate to his little ones to infants to those that belong to him Now what God said to the sons of Israel is also true to us Christians Behold I send an Angell before thee beware of him and obey his voice provoke him not for he will not pardon your trangressions So that if we provoke the Spirit of the Lord to anger by a course of evill living either the Angell
and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly entercourse as with the fat of the Balsam tree and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove But when the jest hath teeth and nails biting or scratching our Brother * when it is loose and wanton * when it is unseasonable * and much or many * when it serves ill purposes * or spends better time * then it is the drunkennesse of the soul and makes the spirit fly away seeking for a Temple where the mirth and the musick is solemne and religious But above all the abuses which ever dishonoured the tongues of men nothing more deserves the whip of an exterminating Angel or the stings of scorpions then profane jesting which is a bringing of the Spirit of God to partake of the follies of a man as if it were not enough for a man to be a foole but the wisdome of God must be brought into those horrible scenes He that makes a jest of the words of Scripture or of holy things playes with thunder and kisses the mouth of a Canon just as it belches fire and death he stakes heaven at spurnpoint and trips crosse and pile whether ever he shall see the face of God or no he laughs at damnation while he had rather lose God then lose his jest nay which is the horror of all he makes a jest of God himselfe and the Spirit of the Father and the Son to become ridiculous Some men use to read Scripture on their knees and many with their heads uncovered and all good men with fear and trembling with reverence and grave attention Search the Scriptures for therein you hope to have life eternall and All Scripture is written by inspiration of God and is fit for instruction for reproofe for exhortation for doctrine not for jesting but he that makes that use of it had better part with his eyes in jest and give his heart to make a tennisball and that I may speak the worst thing in the world of it it is as like the materiall part of the sin against the holy Ghost as jeering of a man is to abusing him and no man can use it but he that wants wit and manners as well as he wants Religion 3. The third instance of the vain trifling conversation and immoderate talking is revealing secrets which is a dismantling and renting off the robe from the privacies of humane entercourse and it is worse then denying to restore that which was intrusted to our charge for this not onely injures his neighbors right but throws it away and exposes it to his enemy it is a denying to give a man his own arms and delivering them to another by whom he shall suffer mischief He that intrusts a secret to his friend goes thither as to sanctuary and to violate the rites of that is sacriledge and profanation of friendship which is the sister of Religion and the mother of secular blessing a thing so sacred that it changes a Kingdome into a Church and makes Interest to be Piety and Justice to become Religion But this mischief growes according to the subject matter and its effect and the tongue of a babbler may crush a mans bones or break his fortune upon her owne wheel and whatever the effect be yet of it self it is the betraying of a trust and by reproach oftentimes passes on to intolerable calamities like a criminal to his scaffold through the execrable gates of Cities And though it is infinitely worse when the secret is laid open out of spite or treachery yet it is more foolish when it is discovered for no other end but to serve the itch of talking or to seem to know or to be accounted worthy of a trust for so some men open their cabinets to shew onely that a treasure is laid up and that themselves were valued by their friend when they were thought capable of a secret but they shall be so no more for he that by that means goes in pursuit of reputation loses the substance by snatching at the shadow and by desiring to be thought worthy of a secret proves himselfe unworthy of friendship or society D' Avila tels of a French Marquesse young and fond to whom the Duke of Guise had conveyed notice of the intended massacre which when he had whispered into the Kings ear where there was no danger of publication but onely would seem a person worthy of such a trust he was instantly murder'd lest a vanity like that might unlock so horrid a mysterie I have nothing more to adde concerning this but that if this vanity happens in the matters of Religion it puts on some new circumstances of deformity And if he that ministers to the souls of men and is appointed to restore him that is overtaken in a fault shall publish the secrets of a conscience he prevaricates the bands of Nature and Religion in stead of a Father he turns an Accuser a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he weakens the hearts of the penitent and drives the repenting man from his remedy by making it to be intolerable and so Religion becomes a scandall and his duty is made his disgrace and Christs yoke does bow his head unto the ground and the secrets of the Spirit passe into the shames of the world and all the sweetnesses by which the severity of the duty are alleviated and made easie are imbittered and become venemous by the tongue of a talking fool Valerius Soranus was put to death by the old and braver Romanes ob meritum profanae vocis quòd contra interdictum Romae nomen eloqui fuit ausus because by prating he profan'd the secret of their Religion and told abroad that name of the City which the Tuscan rites had commanded to be concealed lest the enemies of the people should call from them their tutclar gods which they could not doe but by telling the proper relation And in Christianity all Nations have consented to disgrace that Priest who loves the pleasure of a fools tongue before the charity of souls and the arts of the Spirit and the noblenesse of the Religion and they have inflicted upon him all the censures of the Church which in the capacity of an Ecclesiasticall person he can suffer These I reckon as the proper evils of the vain and trifling tongue for though the effect passes into further mischief yet the originall is weaknesse and folly and all that unworthynesse which is not yet arrived at malice But hither also upon the same account some other irregularities of speech are reducible which although they are of a mixt nature yet are properly acted by a vain and a loose tongue and therefore here may be considered not improperly 1. The first is common Swearing against which St. Chrysostome spends twenty homilies and by the number and weight of arguments hath left this testimony that it is a foolish vice but hard to be cured infinitely unreasonable
himselfe was forc'd to break his faith by the tyranny of her prevailing charmes This is that which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a crafty and deceitfull way of hurting and renders a mans tongue venemous as the tongue of a serpent that bites even though he be charm'd 3. But the next is more violent and that is railing or reviling which Aristotle in his Rhetoricks says is very often the vice of boys and of rich men who out of folly or pride want of manners or want of the measures of a man wisdome and the just proportions of his brethren doe use those that erre before them most scornfully and unworthily and Tacitus noted it of the Claudian family in Rome an old and inbred pride and scornfulnesse made them apt to abuse all that fell under their power and displeasure quorum superbiam frustrà per obsequium modestiam essugeres No observance no prudence no modesty can escape the reproaches of such insolent and high talkers A. Gellius tels of a boy that would give every one that he met a box on the ear and some men will give foul words having a tongue rough as a Cat and biting like an Adder and all their reproofes are direct scoldings their common entercourse is open contumely There have been in these last ages examples of Judges who would reproach the condemned and miserable criminall deriding his calamity and reviling his person Nero did so to Thraseas and the old Heathens to the primitive Martyrs pereuntibus addita Iudibria said Tacitus of them they crucified them again by putting them to suffer the shame of their fouler language they rail'd at them when they bowed their heads upon the crosse and groan'd forth the saddest accents of approaching death This is that evill that possessed those of whom the Psalmist speaks Our tongues are our owne we are they that ought to speak who is Lord over us that is our tongues cannot be restrained and St. James said something of this The tongue is an unruly member which no man can tame that is no private person but a publick may for he that can rule the tongue is fit also to govern the whole body that is the Church or Congregation Magistrates and the Governours of souls they are by severity to restraine this inordination which indeed is a foul one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no evill is worse or of more open violence to the rest and reputation of men then a reproachfull tongue And it were well if we considered this evill to avoyd it in those instances by which our conversation is daily stain'd Are we not often too imperious against our servants Do we not entertain and seed our own anger with vile and basest language Doe not we chastise a servants folly or mistake his error or his chance with language fit to be used by none but vile persons and towards none but dogs Our blessed Saviour restraining the hostility and murther of the tongue threatens hell fire to them that call their brother foole meaning that all language which does really and by intention disgrace him in the greater instances is as directly against the charity of the Gospel as killing a man was against the severity and justice of the law And although the word it self may be us'd to reprove the indiscretions and carelesse follies of an idle person yet it must be used onely in order to his amendment * by an authorized person * in the limits of a just reproofe * upon just occasion * and so as may not doe him mischief in the event of things For so we finde that our blessed Saviour cal'd his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish and S. James used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain man signifying the same with the forbidden raca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain uselesse or empty and St. Paul calls the Galatians mad and foolish and bewitched and Christ called Herod Fox and St. John called the Pharisees the generation of vipers and all this matter is wholly determined by the manner and with what minde it is done If it be for correction and reproofe towards persons that deserve it and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproofe and this also be done prudently safely and usefully it is not contumely But when men upon all occasions revile an offending person lessening his value sowring his spirit and his life despising his infirmities tragically expressing his lightest misdemeanour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being tyrannically declamatory and intolerably angry for a trifle these are such who as Apollonius the Philosopher said will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great and when 't is little For they who alwayes put on a supreme anger or expresse the lesse anger with the highest reproaches can doe no more to him that steals then to him that breaks a Crystall Non plus aequo non diutius aequo was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants But no more anger no more severe language then the thing deserves if you chide too long your reproofe is changed into reproach if too bitterly it becomes railing if too loud it is immodest if too publick it is like a dog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the man told his wife in the Greek Comedy to follow me in the streets with thy clamorous tongue is to doe as dogs doe not as persons civill or religious 4. The fourth instance of the calumniating filthy communication is that which we properly call slander or the inventing evill things falsely imputing crimes to our neighbor Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum said Cicero A false tongue or a foul lye against a mans reputation is like a poysoned arrow it makes the wound deadly and every scratch to be incurable Promptissima vindicta contumelia said one To reproach and rail is a revenge that every girl can take But falsely to accuse is spiteful as Hel and deadly as the blood of Dragons Stoicus occidit Baream delator amicum This is the direct murther of the Tongue for life and death are in the hand of the tongue said the Hebrew proverbe and it was esteemed so vile a thing that when Jesabel commanded the Elders of Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth she gave them instructions to take two men the sons of Belial none else were fit for the imployment Quid non audebis perfida lingua loqui This was it that broke Ephraim in judgement and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witnesse quoniam coepit abire post sordes therefore he suffered calumny and was overthrown in judgement This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters and the iron entred into his soule but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengefull Mistresse untill his cause was known and the Word of the Lord tryed him This was
our Schools the latter by the mysteries of the Temple But now in the new institution we have also a great Master of speaking and though silence is one of the great paths of Innocence yet Holy speaking is the instrument of Spirituall Charity and is a glorification of God and therefore this kinde of speaking is a degree of perfection beyond the wisdome and severity of silence For although garrulity and foolish inordinate talking is a conjunction of folly and sin and the prating man while he desires to get the love of them he converses with incurres their hatred while he would be admir'd is laughed at he spends much and gets nothing he wrongs his friends and makes sport to his enemies and injures himselfe he is derided when he tels what others know he is indanger'd if he tels a secret and what they know not he is not beleeved when he tels good news and when he tels ill news he is odious and therefore that silence which is a cure of all this evill is an excellent portion of safety and Religion yet it is with holy speaking and innocent silence as it is with a Hermit and a Bishop the first goes to a good school but the second is proceeded towards greater perfection and therefore the practicall life of Ecclesiasticall Governors being found in the way of holinesse and zeale is called status perfectionis a more excellent and perfect condition of life and farre beyond the retirements and inoffensive life of those innocent persons which doe so much lesse of profit by how much charity is better then meditation and going to heaven by religion and charity by serving God and converting soules is better then going to heaven by prayers and secret thoughts So it is with silence and religious communication That does not offend God this glorifies him That prevents Sin this sets forward the interests of Religion And therefore Plutarch said well Qui generosè regio more instituuntur primum tacere deinde loqui discunt To be taught first to be silent then to speak well and handsomely is education fit for a Prince and that is St. Paul's method here first we were taught how to restraine our tongues in the foregoing instances and now we are called to imploy them in Religion 1. We must speak that which is good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any thing that may serve the ends of our God and of our Neighbour in the measures of Religion and usefulnesse But it is here as in all other propositions of Religion God to us who are in the body and conducted by materiall phantasmes and understanding nothing but what we feel or is conveyed to us by the proportions of what we doe or have hath given us a Religion that is fitted to our condition and constitution And therefore when we are commanded to love God by this love Christ understands obedience when we are commanded to honour God it is by singing and reciting his praises and doing things which cause reputation and honour and even here when we are commanded to speak that which is good it is instanced in such good things which are really profitable practically usefull and here the measures of God are especially by the proportions of our neighbour And therefore though speaking honorable things of God be an imployment that does honour to our tongues and voices yet we must tune and compose even these notes so as may best profit our neighbour for so it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good speech such as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the edification of necessity the phrase is an Hebraisme where the genitive case of a substantive is put for the adjective and meanes that our speech be apted to necessary edification or such edification as is needfull to every mans particular case that is that we so order our communication that it be apt to instruct the ignorant to strengthen the weak to recall the wanderer to restraine the vicious to comfort the disconsolate to speak a word in season to every mans necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may minister grace something that may please and profit them according as they shall need all which I shall reduce to these three heads 1. To Instruct. 2. To Comfort 3. To Reprove 1. Our conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to teach For since all our hopes on our part depend upon our obedience to God and conformity to our Lord Jesus by whom our endevours are sanctified and accepted and our weaknesses are pardoned and all our obedience relies upon and is incouraged and grounded in faith and faith is founded naturally and primarily in the understanding we may observe that it is not onely reasonably to be expected but experimentally felt that in weak and and ignorant understandings there are no sufficient supports for the vigorousnesse of a holy life there being nothing or not enough to warrant and strengthen great resolutions to reconcile our affections to difficulties to make us patient of affronts to receive deeper mortifications and ruder usages unlesse where an extraordinary grace supplies the want of ordinary notices as the Apostles were enabled to their preachings But he therefore that carries and imports into the understanding of his Brother notices of faith and incomes of spirituall propositions and arguments of the Spirit enables his brother towards the work and practises of a holy life and though every argument which the Spirit of God hath made and recorded in holy Scripture is of it selfe inducement great enough to endear obedience yet it is not so in the event of things to every mans infirmity and need but in the treasures of the Spirit in the heaps and variety of institution and wise discourses there will not onely be enough to make a man without excuse but sufficient to doe his work and to cure his evill and to fortifie his weaker parts and to comply with his necessities for although Gods sufficient grace is present to all that can use it yet if there be no more then that it is a sad consideration to remember that there are but few that will be saved if they be helped but with just so much as can possibly doe the work and this we may well be assured of if we consider that God is never wanting to any man in what is simply necessary but then if we adde this also that of the vast numbers of men who might possibly be saved so few really are so we shall perceive that that grace which onely is sufficient is not sufficient sufficient to the thing is not sufficient for the person and therefore that God does usually give us more and we need more yet and unlesse God works in us to will and to doe we shall neither will nor doe though to will be in the power of our hand yet we will not will it follows from hence that all they who will comply with Gods method of graciousnesse and the necessities of their Brethren must
with so little relish that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the Rack or the birth of an heir to one condemned to dye he hears a story which was made to delight him but it came when he was dead to joy and all its capacities and therefore sicknesse though it be a good Monitor yet it is an ill stage to act some vertues in and a good man cannot then doe much and therefore he that is in the state of flesh and blood can doe nothing at all 4. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages and a strong man may be overcome when a stronger comes to disarme him and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance but it is no better in any thing else for nature is weak in all its strengths and in its fights at home and abroad in its actions and passions we love some things violently and hate others unreasonably any thing can fright us when we should be confident and nothing can scare us when we ought to feare the breaking of a glasse puts us into a supreme anger and we are dull and indifferent as a Stoick when we see God dishonour'd we passionately desire our preservation and yet we violently destroy our selves and will not be hindred we cannot deny a friend when he tempts us to sin and death and yet we daily deny God when he passionately invites us to life and health we are greedy after money and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts we hate to see any man flatter'd but our selves and we can endure folly if it be on our side and a sin for our interest we desire health and yet we exchange it for wine and madnesse we sink when a persecution comes and yet cease not daily to persecute our selves doing mischiefs worse then the sword of Tyrants and great as the malice of a Devill 5. But to summe up all the evills that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent so averse and peevish to all good that a mans will is of it self onely free to choose evils Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty and yet suppose it determin'd to one object onely because that one object is the thing we choose For although God hath set life and death before us fire and water good and evill and hath primarily put man into the hands of his owne counsell that he might have chosen good as well as evill yet because he did not but fell into an evill condition and corrupted manners and grew in love with it and infected all his children with vicious examples and all nations of the world have contracted some universall stains and the thoughts of mans hearts are onely evill and that continually and there is not one that doth good no not one that sinneth not since I say all the world have sinned we cannot suppose a liberty of indifferency to good and bad it is impossible in such a liberty that there should be no variety that all should choose the same thing but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose that is so that though naturally he might choose good yet morally he is so determin'd with his love to evill that good seldome comes into dispute and a man runs to evill as he runs to meat or sleep for why else should it be that every one can teach a childe to be proud or to swear to lie or to doe little spites to his play-fellow and can traine him up to infant follies But the severity of Tutors and the care of Parents discipline and watchfulnesse arts and diligence all is too little to make him love but to say his prayers or to doe that which becomes persons design'd for honest purposes and his malice shall out-run his yeares he shall be a man in villany before he is by law capable of choice or inheritance and this indisposition lasts upon us for ever even as long as we live just in the same degrees as flesh and blood does rule us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Art of Physicians can cure the evills of the body but this strange propensity to evill nothing can cure but death the grace of God eases the malignity here but it cannot be cured but by glory that is this freedome of delight or perfect unabated election of evill which is consequent to the evill manners of the world although it be lessened by the intermediall state of grace yet it is not cured untill it be changed into its quite contrary but as it is in heaven all that is happy and glorious and free yet can choose nothing but the love of God and excellent things because God fills all the capacities of Saints and there is nothing without him that hath any degrees of amability so in the state of nature of flesh and blood there is so much ignorance of spirituall excellencies and so much proportion to sensuall objects which in most instances and in many degrees are prohibited that as men naturally know no good but to please a wilde indetermin'd infinite appetite so they will nothing else but what is good in their limit and proportion and it is with us as it was with the shee-goat that suckled the wolves whelp he grew up by his nurses milke and at last having forgot his foster mothers kindnesse eat that udder which gave him drink and nourishment Improbit as nullo flectitur obsequio for no kindnesse will cure an ill nature and a base disposition so are we in the first constitution of our nature so perfectly given to naturall vices that by degrees we degenerate into unnaturall and no education or power of art can make us choose wisely or honestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris There is no good nature but onely vertue till we are new created we are wolves and serpents free and delighted in the choice of evill but stones and iron to all excellent things and purposes 2. Next I am to consider the weaknesse of the flesh even when the state is changed in the beginning of the state of grace For many persons as soon as the grace of God rises in their hearts are all on fire and inflamed it is with them as Homer said of the Syrian starre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It shines finely and brings feavers splendor and zeal are the effects of the first grace and sometimes the first turnes into pride and the second unto uncharitablenesse and either by too dull and slow motions or by too violent and unequall the flesh will make pretences and too often prevail upon the spirit even after the grace of God hath set up its banners in our hearts 1. In some dispositions that are forward and apt busie and unquiet when the grace of God hath taken possessions and begins to give laws it seems so pleasant and gay to their undiscerning spirits to be delivered from the