that requires strict evidence in things of faith which cannot bear it he that calls for Mathematical demonstration nor will believe on easier terms yet is so credulous and so unwary that he can believe so many things which by the nature and the disposition of mankind I have demonstrated not possible which yet must be true unless these Scriptures be from God 't is plain he does not seek for certainty but for a pretence of not believing would fain have his Infidelity and Atheism look more excusable and is not fit to be disputed with but to be exploded But if these Scriptures be from God then whatsoever they affirm with modesty I may conclude is true And therefore when St Luke Acts 1. 1. declares his former treatise contain'd all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up since Christ before he did ascend taught every thing that was requir'd to be believ'd and don in order to salvation and more too therefore if his Gospel did contain all that he taught and did since it did not contain all absolutly it must needs mean it contained all that was necessary or it must mean nothing And since the same St Luke in the beginning of that Gospel does affirm he wrot it that Theophilus might know the certainty of those things wherein he had bin instructed 'T is plain he avers that the certain knowledg of all those things wherein the having bin instructed made Theophilus a Christian might be had out of the Gospel and when St Paul says here that the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus and St John in his 20 chap. v. 31. that tho he had not wrot all the things that Jesus did yet those that he had wrot were written that we might believe that Jesus was the Christ the son of God and that believing we might have life through his name 'T is evident the Scriptures say that what was written was sufficient to work that belief which was sufficient to life and salvation as far as the credenda do concur to it And when St Paul in that verse that succeeds my text in most express particular words sets down the usefulness of Scripture in each several duty of a man of God or Preacher of the Gospel both for Doctrine of faith for reproof or correction of manners and instruction unto righteousness and tells you Gods express end in inspiring it and consequently its ability when so inspir'd was that the man of God might be made perfect throughly furnisht unto every good work that belongs to his whole office 't is most certain that what is sufficient for that office to instruct reprove correct and teach in must needs be sufficient to believe and practise in for all men i. e. what my text affirms they are able to make us wise unto salvation I might call in Tradition universal to bear witness to this truth for holy Scriptures if having once demonstrated that they are Gods word when that does affirm it and bears witness to it there were need of any other And this I dare boldly say that if the Scripture did say as expresly that the Pope had a supremacy or soveraignty over the whole Church or that he or the Roman Church were infallible their definition or the living voice of their present Church a most sure rule of faith as it doth say Scripture is able to make us wise unto salvation those Articles would suffer no dispute it would be blasphemy or sacriledg to limit or explain them by distinctions when those sayings of the perfectness of Scriptures are forc'd to bear many Then we should have no complaints of the obscurity of those books if those articles were either in the Greek or Hebrew they would never say the Bible were not fit to be a Rule of Faith because the Language were unknown to the unlearned and they could not be infallibly secure of the Translation were they there they would account them sure enough who think them plain enough already there and that we must believe them because Thou art Peter Feed my sheep and Tell the Church are there And for him that shall affirm all necessaries that must make us wise unto salvation are not in the Scripture 't is impossible to give a rational account how it should come to pass that some are there the rest are not It must be either on design or else by chance Now 1. That God should design when very many things that were not necessary were to be written that the main and fundamental ones should be omitted and when of the necessaries most he did design for Scripture then He should not suffer the Apostles to write the remainder of them and yet what he would not suffer them to write design'd that the Trent Fathers who I hope have perfected the Catalogue should write all of these since 't is not possible to give a reason 't is not therefore rational to affirm it was upon design But 2. If he shall say it only happen'd so by chance he does affront both Scriptures and Gods Holy Spirit who as they affirm inspir'd them for this very end to bring men to the faith and to salvation But there is no place for chance in those things that are don in order to an end by the design impulse and motion of the infinit wisdom of Gods Holy Spirit He certainly does most unworthily reproch his Maker who can think it possible that what he did design expressly and on that account alone to attain such an end by namely that men should believe and be sav'd and inspire it for that purpose should yet fail not be sufficient for that purpose And sure if it be sufficient it contains all necessaries otherwise it were deficient in the main yea so clearly also as that they for whose salvation they are intended may with use of such methods as are obvious and agreed upon by all men understand them for otherwise they could not be sufficient if men could not be instructed by them in things necessary both to faith and life they could not make them wise unto salvation I must confess the Scripture labors under a great prejudice against this doctrine from the different sense and interpretations that are made of it even in the most fundamental points by them that grant it is the word of God when yet all use the same means to find out the meaning and no doubt they seek sincerely after it But yet I think it evident this happens not from the obscurity of Scripture since it is not only in the most express texts but also if you should suppose the doctrins were as plain set down there as words can express them yet there are such principles assum'd into the faith of different sects as must oblige them to interpret diversly the same plain words I am not so vain as to imagin that no places are obscure in
would abide that touchstone and they therefore had no surer more compendious way for its security then to prevent such trial taking care men should not know what was or what was not in Scripture And it is not possible for me to give account why in their catechising they leave out all that part of the commandments Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image c. but this only that they dare not let the laity compare their doctrine and their practice with that Scripture But tho it is possible they might conceive some danger if the whole Scripture should be expos'd yet in those portions which the Church it self chose out for her own offices the little Lessons and Epistles and Gospels those sure one would think were safe no not their Psalter Breviary nor their Hours of the Blessed Virgin must they have translated in their own tongue as that Council did determin And truly when the Roman Missal was turn'd lately into French and had bin allow'd to be so by the general Assembly of the Clergy in the year 1650. and when it was don it had the usual approbation of the Doctors and some Bishops and then was printed at Paris with the license of the Vicars general of their Archbishop Yet another general Assembly of the Clergy the year 1660 whereat there were 36 Bishops upon pain of excommunication forbid any one to read it and condemn not only that present traduction but the thing in general as poysonous in an Encyclical Epistle to all the Prelates of the Kingdom and in another they say of him that did translate it and the Vicars general that did defend him in it that by doing so they did take arms against the Church attaquing their own Mother namely by that version at the Altar in that sanctuary that closet of her spouses mysteries to prostitute them and in another Epistle they beseech his Holiness Pope Alexander 7th to damn it not in France alone but the whole Church which he then did by his Bull for ever interdicting that or any other Version of that book forbidding all to read or keep it on severest pains commanding any one that had it to deliver it immediatly to the Inquisitor or Ordinary that it might be burnt forthwith Now thus whatever it be otherwise the Mass is certainly a sacrifice when 't is made a burnt offering to appease his Holiness's indignation when that verâ— Memorial of Christs passion again suffers and their sacred offices are martyr'd To see the difference of times 't was heretofore a Pagan Dioclesian a strange prodigy of cruelty who by his edict did command all Christians to deliver up their Bibles or their bodies to be burnt 'T was here his Holiness Christs Vicar who by his Bull orders all to give up theirs that is all of it that they will allow them and their prayers also that they may be forthwith burnt or themselves to be excommunicated that is their souls to be devoted to eternal flames And whereas then those only that did give theirs up were excommunicate all Christians shun'd them as they would the plague and multitudes whole regions rather gave themselves up to the fire to preserve their Bibles now those only that have none or that deliver up theirs are the true obedient sons of that Church and the thorough Catholics I know men plead great danger in that book it is represented as the source of monstrous doctrines and rebellions I will not say these men are bold that take upon them to be wiser then Almighty God and to see dangers he foresaw not and to prevent them by such methods as thwart his appointments but I will say that those who talk thus certainly despise their hearers as if we knew not Heresies were hatcht by those that understood the Bible untranslated and as if we never heard there were rebellions among them that were forbid to read the Bible For if there were a Covenant among them that had it in their own tongue so there was an Holy League amongst those men that were deni'd it While those that had the guidance of the subjects conscience were themselves subject to a forreign power as all Priests of that communion are How many Kings and Emperors have there bin that did keep the Scriptures from their people but yet could not keep their people from sedition nor themselves from ruine by it In fine when God himself for his own people caus'd his Scripture to be written in their own tongue to be weekly read in public too and day and night in private by the people and when the Apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost indited Scripture for the world they did it in the language that was then most vulgar to the world what God and the Holy Spirit thus appointed as the fittest means for the Salvation of the world to define not expedient as the Holy Fathers of Trent did looks like blasphemy against God and the Holy Spirit But blasphemies of this kind are not to be wondr'd at from that kind of men that call the Scripture a dumb judg a black Gospel inken Divinity written not that they should be the rule of our faith and Religion but that they should be regulated by submitted to our faith that the autority of the Church hath given canonical autority to Scriptures and those the chief which otherwise they had not neither from themselves nor from their authors and that if the Scriptures were not sustain'd by the autority of the Church they would be of no more value then Aesops fables And lastly that the people are permitted to read the Bible was the invention of the Devil But to leave the controversy and speak to the advantages which may be had from early institution in the Scripture 't is so evident that I need not observe how 't is for want of principles imprest and wrought into the mind in Childhood that our youth is so licentious And 't is not possible it can be otherwise when they have nothing to oppose to constitution when 't is growing and to all the temtations both of objects and example no strict sense of duty planted in them no such notions as would make resistance to the risings of their inclination and seducements of ill company and they therefore follow and indulge to all of them And in Gods name why do parents give their Children up to God in their first infancy deliver him so early a possession of them as if they would have Religion to take seizure on them strait as if by their baptizing them so soon they meant to consecrate their whole lives to Gods service make them his as soon as they were theirs as if they had bin given them meerly for Gods uses And they therefore enter them into a vow of Religion almost as soon as they have them why all this if accordingly they do not season and prepare
an erring Conscience this when it is such strongly the man does not so much as doubt of his opinion and while he does not doubt what temtation can he have to think of rectifying especially if men are perswaded that their Conscience is directed by such Guides as cannot err We cannot but remember how the violation of all Laws and of all rights sacred and secular sedition and rebellion and such other dreadful consequents as we must not remember being dictated by conscience undertaken on account of Religion were esteem'd the characteristics of a godly side nor are we suffer'd to forget how the same things undertaken on account of holy Church make Saints and Martyrs for let not men pretend these are not Doctrines or directions of the Chuch of Rome There is no one of the rebellious parties but it may with much more truth and modesty affirm they are not theirs since they have not declar'd them so authentically and if we are not sure these are their doctrines 't is impossible to know that they have any for none of their doctrines have a greater attestation If som few declaring their opinion to the contrary shall against the declarations of the Tenets of their Scholes and the directions of much greater numbers their Casuists the rules and practice of their whole law the determinations of particular and general Councils make them not to be their doctrine then no Church hath any doctrines Now if as one side of these pretend some to a Divine Light within themselves some to the Divine Spirit speaking in the Scriptures for their Guide so the other plead the public Spirit of the Church speaking at least in the Assemblies of their general Council most infallibly and consequently all of them must judg it is impossible their Guide can err how is it possible to prescribe means to rectify the errors of such Consciences But should I pass these guilts of the first magnitude to which 't is wonderful a Conscience can be debaucht and err into them should I mention one that 's common to all of them violating the Laws disturbing the Peace of the Government unhinging the constitution of it by illegal meetings to disseminate their principles and make more errors and more separation wider breaches I shall not tell these that the Church no where gives a privilege to any to assemble not for Gods own worship from whose principles or practices the State hath reason to expect commotions or sedition the diminishing their secular Powers or endangering their persons and on that account forbids them Sure I am there is no one word in the Gospel for it and I leave all the mentioned parties Popish or the other to consider whether they have bin so innocent as not to be suspected justly and would onely ask each party of them whether it alone have right to act according to its conscience thus and otherwise against the Laws so that all others what sincerity so'ere they act with have no privilege or whether it be the Christians birth-right and due to all others If any party say that it alone hath right besides that all the rest will never grant this nor have reason for it and so all must quarrel yet if they do say so sure there 's nothing else but truth or confidence of having it can make them judg so but since every the most erring conscience does and must beleive the truth is with him he hath the same reason so contentions must be endless this state of conscience is just the Leviathans state of war besides that this pretence of any single party for it self makes war with the hypothesis it self of liberty of conscience But if they grant all other Sects to have just right to act according to their conscience then those that really believe the doctrine of their Church is true their ways blameless and the statutes which restrain the liberties of the Recusants and the Dissenters are all just those of them also that have sworn obedience to these statutes and those Magistrates and Governors too that are bound by oath to the execution of them and to take care of the peace of their Subjects and hold that as 't is a duty and an obligation in conscience on them these I say have just right too to act according to their conscience also and by consequence to execute the Laws upon those others and then I am sure in conscience and according to the very rules of all these men of liberty those have a right to take away their wild and dangerous liberties and by the very Principles of all these Dissenters are as much bound in conscience to restrain them as they think themselves bound to use those liberties according to their conscience Yea these are bound in conscience to suffer all their Governors to put restraints upon them because to do so is for them to act according to their conscience or if they think as 't is not strange if they think contradictions that they have a right in conscience to contend for this with Governors who yet they acknowledg to have a right too to restrain their liberties since all as themselves have granted have the same right there must needs be endless quarrels and contentions both with Governors and with themselves and just of all sides in which each hath right which is another contradiction also and so still this state of conscience will be the Leviathans state of war and must dissolve all Government as being inconsistent with it Whether any consequents in prospect or design can make this state of things allow'd and eligible or how far Governments can properly secure themselves if it be allow'd which yet 't is certain that they have a right to do against the clamorous pretences of all conscience whatsoever as to Church Laws yet how far they can I say secure themselves against such sorts of men 〈◊〉 side who declare that their Government it self is sinful or 〈◊〉 t'other side a sort of men who not onely here in this Nation after the most dire and hateful treason ever hatch'd or thought of were not nor are suffer'd by the Guides of their conscience by their Pastors neither their Supreme one nor their particular Confessors to give assurance of their civil obedience and allegiance to their own Prince But in France after the murder of two Kings by them both of their Religion when as Lewis the 13th did design and ask the advice of his Parliament to make provision for his own safety and assurance of the Loialty of his Subjects by an Oath a thing by Gods own People since 't was a Kingdom practic'd all the Clergy those Directors of the consciences of that Nation were so far from suffering it that they made the King to cause the Parliament to raze out what of it was drawn and registred in their Journals professing to his face that they would excommunicate all as Heretics that were against that Proposition that the Pope could depose Kings But
those that hold the truth in unrighteousness the one sort of these have some checks at sin they doubt and they demur the other sort sin merely because they would please God and offend out of zeal but the other sin because they will sin If actions lawful otherwise will make up an indictment to our condemnation don but with a doubting mind what guilt and what damnation is there in those that are undertaken against known command and present full conviction that muster up and recollect all the forementioned guilts which when they were divided did make actions so ruining at once they defy God and their own heart if he that doubts is damn'd if he eat tho what he eat were lawful to him what will become of him that eats to surfetting and knows that such things call for condemnation with what face can he blast a deceiv'd honest Heathen with his Gods who in the face of God and of all Laws in view of a believ'd hell and in despite of heaven and of his own conscience that suggests all these to him yet by frequent intemperances makes his belly his god and by uncleaness that new testament idolatry sets up as many idols as his foul heats find objects and by dishonesty and frauds serves covetousness which is idolatry They who defy their conscience thus are in the ready way to a reprobate sense the last offence that I will name When the heart gives a false judgment of things calls evil good and good evil in the Prophets words 't is not uneasy to deduce how arrive at this There is no pains bestow'd upon the education of their childhood they are made indeed to renounce the Devil the evil Spirit is exorcis'd out of that hold he had of them on the account of being born children of wrath but no provision for the Holy Spirit taken care of rather all that 's possible is don to grieve him thence and so the evil one returns finds the house emty and takes to him seven spirits worse than himself and they dwell there or to speak out of parable there are no principles of virtue planted in them no labor us'd to make impressions of Religion and the fear of God the sense of duty aversation to all vice but as far as conversation with example of all lewdness can have influence they are bred and fitted for the Temter and when they and temtations are grown up it is no wonder if they tast then swallow down the bait and so are taken then they get to themselves principles that may stop the mouth of natural conscience either Religion do's not mean so strictly or against the strictness they oppose the custome of the age or honor or the like and these together with the conversations of sin do clean take off the aversation and so by degrees the sense the mind first leaves to be afraid and startle at it and then leaves to check at it and having don this long the custome stupifies the conscience and makes the sins seem necessary to them and they cannot be without them and the absolute necessity makes them conceit them little sins and in a while no sins at all stick not to say those terrors Clergy-men do talk of are but Mormo's but religious spectres We have this daily experience that loosness in practice quickly grows into irreligion in heart that they who with all might and main do long resist the power of Godliness do at last proceed to cast off even the very form and they who would not receive the love of the truth but did prefer the satisfaction of their humors prejudices passions lusts before the doctrine of piety and virtue tho it came with the greatest evidence of reasonableness that such I say are given over to strong delusions to believe lies even lies of so eternal unhappy a consequence as this that virtue and religion are but emty names that conscience is but prejudice such are those St Paul describes 1 Tim. 4. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of branded consciences Now we use to account that person infamous that 's branded onely in his hand or forehead but these are men of stigmatiz'd hearts there is a brand upon their soul and conscience and you will find some other characters upon them there they depart from the faith they give heed to seducing Spirits lay out for a Religion that will give them hopes of safety tho they sin on and to doctrines of Devils fit Scholars for such Tutors seeds of a blessed education they have that have such Instructors and such they have whose consciences are branded and the whole progress of their wickedness you will find Rom. 1. from v. 18. because they hold the truth in unrighteousness join'd impious lives with the profession of the true Religion were vicious in despite of their own understandings which told them they should not be so upon which great proficiency in guilt v. 24. God withdrew his grace left them to the pursuit of all their foul desires permetted them to break out into all reproachfull villanies sins that were violences contumelies to their nature yea v. 28. because they acted perfectly against all notions they had of God he gave them up to that abominable state of mind to have no sense of guilt to have a judgment so perverted as not to think things of the most forbidden and most detestable nature to be foul and then see what a shole of consequents break in from v. 29. feind vices things that do not onely merit hell but possess enjoy and make the place These are the entertainments of those Regions but none more essential than those v. 32. they not onely commit those things but have pleasure in those that do them do not onely favor themselves in the transgressions for to that men may have some temtation from the flesh but to evince their understandings are debauch'd their consciences corrupted and that they are of a reprobate mind they take pleasure in others committing them from which they have no pleasure can enjoy nothing but the villany of being glad that others are debauch'd and vitiated this recommends men to them And truly now I have no words for them they do outgo expression I may apply that which the Psalmist saith of the fool in his heart there is no God I am sure there is none in theirs that will not let his Deputy be there not suffer conscience his Vicegerent to be within them and it were well if they could exclude it for ever But alas when their sins and pleasures shall begin to die then conscience will revive and be their worm that never dies however they have stupifi'd it here then it will gnaw eternally then oh that they could have no conscience no sting no lash but it will be an immortal feind to them and that which they so much trample on now will then be their great hell And now I can prescribe no exercise will remove this offence when
things laid to his charge some against God himself as prophanation of his temple v. 6. he was accus'd of being also pestilent a mover of sedition v. 5. to all which he answers in my text that he was so far from prophaness in Religion and his duty towards God and from sedition in the State that he did exercise himself in this alone in laboring to have a conscience void of offence in all things by God or his Governors commanded And this president of our Apostle every one that hears me knows the true sons of this Church always follow'd both in doctrine and in practice even to the Martyrdom not onely of their persons families but of the Church it self Not like those holy Church-men who account themselves exemt no subjects to the secular powers nor those others who withdrawing their obedience in all things which they do not like do seem to own no powers but themselves are Subject onely to their own minds Now he that does thus exercise himself always which is the onely thing that I have left to speak to is in that state of Christian perfection which the Travellers to Heaven while they are upon the way can arrive at for that must needs be a good life which is regulated by a good conscience for if a conscience do its part do neither err nor doubt but is tender in all in a word if it inform truly in all duty and thou doest accordingly thou doest all thy duty therefore all good life is call'd by the name of a good conscience 1 Tim. 1. 19. and plainer Hebr. 13. 18. We trust we have a good conscience willing in all things to live honestly sincere endeavors to obey in every thing a conscience that is right in every thing not boggling with it accepting the persons of duty being very consciencious in some things but taking liberty in others and being so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always not by fits having onely Paroxysmes of Religion now and then very consciencious otherwise loose enough but to be so in all respect and at all times this was the sum of all St Pauls endeavor he had no stricter aims this was the height of his Religion this his exercise Yet why should I call it his exercise when it is his enjoiment 't is his ante past of heaven it self The applauds of an honest undeceiving heart that is conscious to it self of this in earnest they shed comforts into every state of life beyond all that the earth can give they shed the peace of God that passeth understanding If my conscience be clear let my condition be never so overcast I live in shine let them be troubled with afflictions or with sad expectations who understand no delights but carnalities whose souls are married to some little comforts of this world adversity indeed sweeps all their joys away at once but he that understands the comforts of a good conscience and knows where to find them and who hath a treasure of them in his breast will soon be able to allay the other sadnesses What can I want if I have a continual feast and such is a good conscience let all the world look black upon me as long as I have light within me and in that light can see a pleasantness upon Gods face Yea it is this indeed must make prosperity contentful when to the candle of the Lord the light of his countenance also does add its shine when I have no ill remembrances either as to the possession or to the enjoiment when my heart assures me I did neither get it ill nor use it ill 't was truly Gods gift to me and I strive to make it an instrument of my service to him This is transfigur'd prosperity but without this for all the hurry of mens pleasures something will now and then rejolt worse than surfets and come up bitterer than the gall of ejected riots and they shall find their great provisions are but variety of nauseousness onely plentiful vexation and a jolly restlesness while they are here and then when they but think of going hence O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that lives at rest in his possessions to the man that hath nothing to molest him hath hath prosperity in all things and if he have the sting of conscience to imbitter it which will be sure to stir at such a time alas how unconceivable a sadness must then dwell upon that soul that can think nothing kinder to it self than hell But he that can at such a time say with Hezekiah Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walk'd before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if God do not send a message of fifteen years yet he will add to him an everlastingness of years of joy if his days do no return nor the Sun mount back again to give him a more full noon light he shall be taken to the fountain of eternal light Oh let me have that light that will enlighten the sad approaches of the dark grave that when I am going to make my house in a black lonely desolate hole of earth will be like the day spring of immortality like the dawn of heaven and such glimpses will break in thro a clear conscience 'T was that which made the Martyrs run to the fires of execution as to fires triumph and they look'd upon their flames as on Elijah's chariot's flames that flew upwards not with hast to their own Sphere but the Sphere of Martyr's Heaven and whose brightness did prelude and expire into Glory SERMON VI. Of the Blessedness of Mourners Matt. 5. 4. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted THE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shecina say the Jewish Doctors will not rest upon a sad person that is God will not be especially with him nor will his holy Spirit keep him company that is a solitary Mourner and indeed we often find in Scripture that when the Prophets would invite Gods Spirit down upon they did heighten themselves with mirth but now saith Elisha bring me a Minstrel and it came to pass while the Minstrel plai'd the hand of the Lord came upon him And he said thus saith the Lord 2 Kings 3. 15. as if the Music had inspir'd him and his soul was tun'd into Enthusiasme and so also 1 Sam. 10. 5. thou shalt meet a company of Prophets coming down from the high place with a Psaltery and a Tabret and a Pipe and a Harp before them and they shall prophecy and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee Yea and as God would not dwell with them so neither would he let them keep him company they were not to appear before him sad Deut. 12. 7. And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God and ye shall rejoyce and therefore God hath no worse expressions for unclean Sacrifices than the bread of Mourners Hos.
Hope of a Christian is this Hope Fourthly how that Hope does set a man on purifying He that hath this Hope purifies himself For the first what it is to purify I shall onely name it is to cleanse from all mixture of pollution and how far it is to extend is set down by St Paul upon the very same grounds with those in the Text Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the Flesh and Spirit and St James Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded and they both mean thus much that for external actions Christian purity tho it will admit of slips and failings yet it is not consistent with continuance in any known sin And therefore David tho he were said to be a man after Gods own heart and that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord the very description of pure yet it is added save in the matter of Vriah For first it never does admit any filthiness of Flesh but must be universal and it is in this true what St James saith c. 2. v. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all God had before affirm'd the same expresly Ezek. 18. 10 11 12 13. If he beget a son that is a robber and that doth the like to any one of these things and hath defil'd his neighbours wife hath oppressed the poor and needy c. shall he then live he shall not live he hath don all these abominations he shall surely die So that in Gods sight he that hath don any one of these things he hath don all these abominations for it is plain that those he had not don he abstain'd not from because God had forbidden them for then he had abstain'd from that which he had don God had forbidden that so that his abstinences are not innocence but squeamishness or fear Either he does not like them or he dares not do them for some worldly reason and he does not onely let God see he can abstain for such considerations as these but will not for his Promises or his autority He values these below the mode or fashion of the world or his respect to some other person or any little interest or humor 2. Neither does this purity admit any filthiness of the Spirit we must purify our hearts and for internal purity the rule is that to abstain from outward actions of sin is not enough but the heart must be cleansed also this is proved already And indeed to deny my flesh the pleasures of the flesh and yet to let my mind dwell upon them and enjoy them not to commit them and yet suffer my soul to do it is to transplant the sin to make my soul act the deeds of the flesh and my very spirit become carnal This is at the best to give God the worst part of my services and the Devil the best my heart and soul the Devil enjoies God hath nothing but a few outward abstinences What a mixture is here how far from purity God and the Devil join'd together and the Devil having the upper hand the better portion Thus in general but to tell you what kind of purity we are to strive after I shall touch at some few Scripture wordings of it 1. Holiness For pure and holy are often join'd 2 Cor. 7. 1. Having these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. Now the true notion of holiness consists in a setting apart or discrimination from other things or persons And therefore holiness of life is the observing that peculiar different form of life which God hath commanded those whom he hath call'd not being conform'd to the fashion of the world As St James saith pure Religion not to live after the common manner of men common and holy being every where oppos'd so that when God is said to call us to holiness he requires us to consecrate our lives to his service to look upon our selves as things sacred Hence Christians are call'd living Sacrifices holy to God Rom. 12. 1. Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. and all names of Holiness are set upon them to shew how strict a necessity lies upon us to separate our selves from all carnal wordly uses and defilements 2. The Pure are exprest by Virgins 2 Cor. 11. 2. For I am jealous over you with a Godly jealousy that is as a strict careful Parent over his beloved maiden daughter so that I may present you as a chast Virgin to Christ. Every gross impurity deflowers the soul and when it sins it plays the strumpet And if a bride that on her wedding day should play the harlot and give away that Virginity which she had but then promised to her Husband would certainly not dare to stand the wrath of her furious Bridegroom that should catch her in her villany how wilt thou meet the jealousy of thy Spouse when as thou spread'st thy self to every temtation committest perpetual whoredoms with the World and flesh and doest continually act disloialty in the very eyes of his glory Certainly the same jealous care and earnest desires that are emploi'd in seeking a wife that is not vitiated this very expression of Virgin does direct us to make use of in watchfulness over our selves that sin do not devirginate us that we do not present a strumpet to Christ for his Spouse but that he may find us Virgins at the Marriage of the Lamb. Yea that we may see what kind of ones also St Paul expresseth their Purity Ephes. 5. 27. not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but holy and without blemish For as every gross Sin does deflowr the Soul and make it no Virgin so every lighter fault is a spot upon the cheek a wrinkle in the forehead in Christs eyes And if chastity shall be severely guarded out of a respect to future hopes of marriages which there is no hopes to be successful in if that be blasted if to please a Suiter the glass shall be consulted with every stain shall be adorn'd cover'd made a beauty-spot and all methods sometimes more then honest us'd to keep the forehead smooth the cheek full and plain not content with the Lords workmanship upon them they will outdo their Maker and create to themselves beauties that God and Nature never did intend them if men do avoid wrinkles in a Bride as they would do a Deaths-head or memento mori in their bridal bed can we then think our selves whom every day bespots and stains every hour adds such wrinkles to whose souls have more of those furrows than our lives have minutes who are indeed onely bundles of deformities besides our gross whoredoms can we I say think our selves a fit Spouse for Christ Is he the onely Bridegroom to be thus provided for Can we have
it makes men heavy sad and melancholly hangs plummets upon the soul plucks down the thoughts and countenance and does that which no burden can effect in them whom weights do but exalt elevate and in their own expression a load of sin and drink that sinks their bodies to the earth doth but heighten imagination and delight Alas these men do no more discern the true labor of their own sins than they do the ease and the refreshments of the pious souls They see his fasts and abstinences but they discern not how he feeds upon marrow and fatness as David saith and finds all the words of their luxury in his religious performances how he tasts of the heavenly gift and of the powers of the world to come Heb. 6. 4 5. how he hath the antepasts of blessedness These men do not consider that the pious mans weights are as the other bucket which the heavier it is the faster it lifts that up that is against it a burden theirs like that of wings that does but poise their flight and help them up to Heaven whereas their own lightness shall sink them into the deep of that pit that hath no bottom 'T is true indeed those very sins that make our Savior stile the man a laborer are in other places called sleep as if they had the ease of rest as if to him that were wearied with duties of calling or devotion to take vicissitudes of sinning would be a soft refreshment and a pleasant reward as if a little return of iniquity would restore him as sleep doth the weary laborer And how shall we reconcile these expressions Shall we attribute them to the unhappy contradictions of this thing sin which is at once ease and pressure sleep and yet heavy labour or rather shall we gather hence the extremely toilsom condition of the sinner whose very rest is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whose refreshments tire and are most wearisom where shall he look for ease whose ease is misery and anxiety Tho his life be all sleep yet he is all that while one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in the Text. And so those very wickednesses which are here called heavy burden are in other places called our own body our selves And what shall lighten him whose very self is weight What shall disburden him who is his own immense pressure Wretched men that we are who shall deliver us from these burdens of our selves Burdens indeed with which the expressions seem to labor as well as the sinner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have not words for them the mineries the Gallies the Mill or dungeon are words of ease to the service of sin No such slavery in the world as his that is bound to serve his lusts and passions he must adventure thro all black designs and blacker hazards to attend ambition or to wreak ones malice or some hasty choler adventure upon rotteness embrace a Purgatory but to please an itch must be the Martyr of his lust run upon quarrels qualms head-ach hazard desperate misfortunes to quench not thirst but a little custom If you would see the labor that is in sin behold your Savior in the Garden it made the Son of God to sweat like clots of bloud it squeez'd that very person who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it made him faint not able to stand under that tree on which he was to bear the Iniquity At such hard rates man buyeth damnation as if he envied himself ease in Ruin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth extremely labor till he faint to get to Hell Have you read in Scripture the pains and anguishes of a man possest by a Devil how it speaks of such a one that was intolerably vext and tormented how the spirit rent and tore him often cast him into the agonies of death from it did revive him still onely to throw him back again into them It were no hard matter to shew that the Scripture does express every gross Sinner to be one of these Demoniacs to be possessed and inhabited by a Devil Matth. 12. 43 44. When the unclean spirit is gon out of a man he Walketh thro dry places then he saith I will return to my house from whence I came out and he enters in and dwells there And what doth all this mean but describe a person that after seeming amendment returns back again to his courses of sin Of such a one the Devil saith I will return A wicked person is the Devil's house Sathan dwells there and is not his house Hell And then are not all the miseries of Tophet the torments of the vale of Hinnom in a Sinner Yea experience is fair enough for this that the habitually wicked person is a Demoniac Look upon the wrathful angry furious man and you would think the man possest were but his picture his passion swels and tears him he stares and foams he cries out and is not so innocent as to say what have I to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God for he hath to do with him in blaspheming him with oaths and execrations and his spirit rends not himself onely but the wounds of that Holy one of God and if his passion could speak plain it would surely say his name also were Legion The debaucht Drunkards they have the Epilepsies the falling sicknesses the dead Apoplexies of men possest and there the Devil is again enter'd into swine The lustful person may find also a spirit of uncleaness and an unclean Devil in the Gospel And thus our sins do treat us And who then but wretched man would buy damnation at so hard rates who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extremely labor tire himself till he faint to get to hell as if he envied himself ease because he is to go down the hill thither that he may think he has an easy descent facilis descensus he will therefore load himself with a most heavy burden to make his passage the more troublesom Of what a profligated choice are we that refuse Heaven with ease and chuse Hell tho we must labor hard to get it Or secondly letting the heavy laden stand as they do in the sense we have now given we cannot excuse the Sinner from that expression there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that labor may signify such as groan under the sense of that burden such as labor to rid themselves of that weight that pant and blow after a liberty and ease from that heavy pressure under which they find themselves sinking into the horror of that deep the very imaginations of which doth cause faintings of soul in them and Apoplexies of fear that tire themselves to find out any way to escape from that eternal weight of torments that is prepared for them below and the weight of indignation and vengeance that hangs over them above and from that heavy burden themselves that sinks faster than either of the other outvying God's threats with multiplied accumulated
do's beg it but he who out of real compassion to the wants of others and hearty sense of their calamities and out of sincere obedience to God resolves with himself to deny himself such and such advantages of his condition to such a good proportion of what God hath bestow'd upon him purposes in his heart to set aside such a portion from his own uses knowing and considering that by so doing he do's part with such and such satisfactions which did accrue to him by that wealth yet will do it for the relief of others necessities that their souls may be comforted and they may praise God in his behalf This person hath in himself a great evidence of an heart truly and sincerely wrought upon by the Gospel and wrought over into the realities of Christianity I shall prove this to you and tho I know there be many vertues which seem to have no connexion with liberality and many inclinations in the heart which bounty hath no direct influence upon several evil tendencies of soul which it hath no formal opposition to that it should thrust them out of the heart yet that such a complexion of mind doe's either directly or by consequence so oppose them as not to endure them in the heart I shall very briefly shew you in gross and by retail And first that in gross that is a sign of a true Christian heart see Col. 3. 12. Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness it seems that bowels of compassion and bounty is a sign of being such full Christians that the Apostle takes in all words to compleat the Character and do's it in words of a beloved sense and let men take them in what sense they please they do my work whether as persons chosen out before all time it seems then to be liberal is a sign of that and they will have very little reason to conclude themselves elected an eternity before they were who now they are and are call'd and taught by God do not find this disposition in their hearts or to take them in their naked meaning be liberal as being God's choice and pretious ones so it signifies elect pretious 1 Pet. 2. 6 and in other Scripture elect is the choicest best such as are priz'd and valued by God as the elect of God holy such as have his sanctifying Spirit poured out upon them and such are beloved by him as choice and pretious things are alwaies dear to us Now then to be compassionate and bountiful is to be as thus and liberality of heart is one mark of Election and Holiness and they that have it are as God's choice sanctified dear ones Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of compassion and bounty 2. As it is a sign of our being the Elect of God and the Inhabitation of the Holy Spirit so it is also a sign of our being like minded with Christ. S. Paul do's urge his example as a motive to the Corinthians liberality Ep. 2. c. 8. v. 9. For ye know the grace or charity of our Lord Jesus Christ that being rich yet for your sakes became poor that ye thro his poverty might be rich and therefore for us to do so is to follow his example and to have our hearts set to it is to be like minded and truly that is to be Christian enough If that a person of the God-head emtied bimself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 7. exhausted himself of Divinity to relieve us if the God of all the pleasures of the earth and the joies of heaven became the Man of sorrows to rescue us if that the Lord of everlasting blessedness made himself Prince of sufferings and calamities to ransom us if this be a temtation to the inclinations of our heart to set us upon going to do likewise in some low weak mesure after the rates of our abilities then to do so considerately to deprive my self of some advantages to exhaust somewhat for the sakes of those that want is to have the like mind in us that was in Christ Jesus our Lord but because this may possibly evince us to be like-minded only in one thing therefore 3. In particular he that is thus minded hath a great evidence of his having overcome the World a wide and a vast conquest for my Brethren 't is not only he that is a slave to mony whose heart and actions do importunately pursue the waies of getting or of hoarding that whom the world overcomes but he is a slave to the world whose mind is impotently set upon any of the advantages of this world the man whose heart do's in too great a proportion either of time or whatsoever else pursue any thing which this World is to furnish with that man's heart is entangled in the pursuit and it is fetter'd to the World which is his motive and pretence for that too eager inclination And therefore in our Baptism when we renounce the World we do not only bid defiance to the love of mony but we renounce the Pomps and vanities of this wicked World whatsoever either too great pleasure or height excess or ostentation or pride that this World ministers unto Now then when a man do's not only now and then give little to them that ask and beg of him for so it go's away in such small instances as will not evidence either much consideration of it or any great work wrought upon him as to not loving of the World but in devout retirements resolves to deny himself in such a proportion and cut off such a part 't is certain he do's cut off such degrees either of pomp or vanity or plenties or whatsoever other thing that part of his estate did serve Now he that can do this resolvedly in his soul not out of any heat but from deliberate purpose of heart 't is certain he hath to so great a degree disentangled himself from the snares of the pleasures or other advantages of this World he hath unloosed their fascinations and weakned all their sorceries 't is clear he hath so far withdrawn his heart from the degrees of whatsoever he did love that this World serv'd him in that he resolves none of them shall engage him to their superfluities for to prevent that he cuts off their foment the streams of those contents they shall not overflow his soul for he will turn the spring and make the current run another way 'T is evident he hath so torn all beloved earthly satisfactions from the embraces of his heart as that he will not feed them not with his own estate if he cannot also to a vertuous degree feed the poor he hath so far turn'd out the love of pleasures or of pomps or whatsoever as that he willingly do's part with those degrees of them cannot be retain'd together with his liberality And such a heart sure is without the vicious degree of worldly contents for vicious inclinations to
of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subterfuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers Infidels But then this being granted that such is the Sinners Fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of Appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the Sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David enquires as if it were a Prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdom that is Virtue says He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. viii 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annex'd inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poisonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what ways and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptism and by early engagements tyed themselves to the observation of its duties if Principles of probity in Nature fomented by others instill'd with Education have made impressions of duty on the mind and wrought a reverence and awe of God and of Religion which is a fence about them and does keep off Vice by making it seem strange uncouth and difficult while these fears and aversations are rooted in them why then the first thing that they do as soon as Youth and the Temptations do stir within them is to poyson these their own Principles by evil Conversation and from that and Example take infusions which shall impregnate them with humours of being in the fashion of the World Thus they labour to strangle the then troublesom modesties of Nature and of Virtuous breeding thus they look out ill Company to infect themselves And surely they that seek the Plague and run into infection we have cause to fear they have a Resolution to dye But Secondly If notwithstanding this in the first practices of Vice their former Principles stir and ferment within and fret the Conscience set that on working why then if the sin sting gently do but prick the heart and make an out-let for a little gush of Sorrow then in spight of Scripture they do teach themselves to think that grief Repentance and by the help of that conceit this sorrow cools and doth allay the swelling of the mind washes away the guilt and thought of the commission they have been sad and they believe repented as if those stings opened the fountain for transgression and those little wounds did flow with Balsom for themselves And by this means that sting of the old Serpent sin while it pretends to cure by hurting thus proves indeed the Tempter to go on For if this be all why should a man renounce all the Contents and satisfactions of his Inclinations and mortifie and break his nature to avoid a thing which is so easily repented for No if it be no worse they can receive this Serpent in their bosom dare meet his sting and run upon these wounds and they do so till the frequent pungencies and cicatrices have made the Conscience callous and insensible the heart hardned But if their first essays of sin were made unfortunate by Notoreity or some unhappy circumstance and so the wound were deep and the Conscience troublesom and restless because this is very uneasie these inward groans make discord in their chearful airs make their life harsh they therefore find it necessary to confront the shame with Courage of iniquity go boldly on that so they may outlook it fear their own Conscience that its wounds may not bleed And as those Fiends of Men who Sacrific'd their Children in the fire to Moloch that they might not hear their Infants shreek nor their own Bowels croak had noises made with Timbrels to out-voice them So these to drown the cries and howlings of their wounded mind put themselves in perpetual hurry of divertisement and Vice make Tophet about themselves and with the noise of Ryots overcome all other because they will not hearken to those groans that call for the Physician of Souls and then sure these resolve to dye Nay if this will not keep them quiet you may see them sometimes ruffle with their own Consciences desire present Convictions in the very instant of Commission men so set on Death that they Condemn themselves in that which they allow And though a man would think there should be little satisfaction in those pleasures which Condemnation thrusts it self into and which have an alloy of so sad apprehensions yet such are it seems the satisfactions of sin For while it slabs and gashes He brave Hero of Iniquity can charge the wounds and take the Vice Yea Thirdly though the Lord himself appear and take part in the Quarrel joyn with our Principles and Conscience against the sin and with importunate Calls alarm us give us no rest ordain a Function of men by whom he does beseech us dresses their Messages with Promises of that which God is blessed in and arms them too with Terrors such as Devils tremble at and joyns his Holy Spirit too that Power of the Highest sends him in Tongues of Fire that he also may Preach this to our very Hearts and fright us with more flame And yet the Sinner breaks these strengths and vanquishes the Arts and strivings of Divine Compassion If these Embassadors speak Charms it is but what God tells our Prophet in this Chapter ver 32. And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an Instrument And it does dye like that as it there follows They hear thy
account of Christ or of Religion is most inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel For it was the Spirit of Elias who destroyed those whom the Magistrate did send that Christ opposes here the Spirit of the Gospel to in this severe rebuke ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of The other warm Apostle meets a greater check in the like case S. Peter's zeal that they say made him chief of the Apostles as it made him promptest to confess the Lord so it did heat him to be readiest to defend him as fiery to use his Sword as his Tongue for his Master But his Master will not let a Sword be drawn in his own cause put up again thy Sword into his place The God of our Religion will not be defended by Treason and from Murder by the wounding of another nor will his Religion suffer a Sword out of the sheath against the Power of the Magistrate no not in behalf of Christ himself but goes beyond its proper bounds to threaten things that are not Gospel punishments even excision in this life to them that do attempt it They that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword Here the Gospel becomes Law and turns zealot for the Magistrate though persecuting Christ himself Our Saviour does not think it sharp enough to tell S. Peter that he did not know what Spirit he was of for when this Disciple would have kept these sufferings from his Master onely by his counsel he replies to him get thee behind me Satan He was then of that manner of Spirit therefore now that he does so much worse when he attempts to keep them from him with a Sword and drawn against the Power as if Christ did not know how to word what Spirit such attempts did savour of he does not check and rebuke now but threaten and denounce And 't is obvious to observe that this same Peter who would needs be fighting for his Master in few hours with most cursed imprecations forswears him And so irregular illegal violences for Religion usually flame out into direct opposition to that they are so zealous for fly in the face of that Religion they pretend to strive for to let us see they do not rise from Divine Zeal and from true Piety but from Hypocrisie Ambition Revenge or Interest and that warm shine that kindles there pretended Angels of Light is but a flash of Hell a glory about a fiend Therefore afterwards none was more forward than S. Peter was to press submission to the Magistrate though most unjustly persecuting for Religion talks of no Fire but the fiery trial then in Epist. 1. Cap. iv and If ye suffer for the Name of Christ the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you he knows what manner of Spirit such are of When they are in the place of Dragons then the Holy Ghost and God is with them when the darkness of the shadow of death is on their Souls even then the Spirit of glory resteth on them Accordingly the after-Fathers urge the same not onely towards Heathen Emperours but relaps'd Hereticks and Apostates As Julian and Constantius Valens Valentinian and upon the same account S. Ambrose says Spiritus Sanctus id locutus est in vobis Rogamus Auguste non Pugnamus The Holy Spirit spake these words in you we beg O Valentinian we oppose not And S. Greg. Nazianzen says to do so was the Christian Law most excellently ordained by the Spirit of God who knew best to temper his Law with the mixture of what is profitable to us and honest in it self They knew what manner of Spirit that of Christianity was It does assume no power to inflict it self 'T is not commission'd to plant it self with violence or destroy those that refuse or oppose it It wages War indeed with Vices not with men And in the Camp of our Religion as once in Israel there is no Sword found but with Saul and Jonathan his Son onely the Princes Sword Our Spirit is the Dove no Bird of prey that nor indeed of gall or passion If Christian Religion be to be writ in Blood 't is in that of its own confessors onely if mens false Opinions make no parties nor mischiefs in the State we are not to make them Martyrs to their false Opinions and if they be not so happy as to be Orthodox send them down to Hell directly tear out one anothers Souls to tear out that which we think an Errour Sure they must not root out smutted Corn that must not root out Poppy we may let that which is a little blasted grow if we must let the Tares and Darnel grow The Soldiers would not crucifie Christ's Coat nor make a rent there where they could find no seam But now men strive so for the Coat that they do rent his Flesh to catch it and to gain an inclosure of the name of Christians tear all other members from the Body of Christ care not to sacrifice a Nation to a supposed Errour will attempt to purge away what they call dross in a Furnace of consuming flame The Christian Spirit 's fiery Tongues must kindle no such heats but his effusions call'd Rivers came to quench such fires Effusions that were mistaken sor new wine indeed but never look'd like Blood Nor are they that retain to this Spirit those that have him call'd down on them in their Consecration impowered for such uses When Christ sent his Disciples to convert the World Behold saith he I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves And sure that does not sound like giving a Commission to tear and worry those that would not come into the Flock The Sheep were not by that impowered to devour the Wolves Our Lords directions to his Apostles when a City would not receive their Doctrine was shake off the dust of your feet let nothing of theirs cleave to you have no more to do with them cast off the very dust that setled on your Sandals as you pass'd their Streets And surely then we must be far from animating to give ruin to and seize the Sword the Scepter and the Thrones of Kings if they refuse to receive Christ or his Kingdom or his Reformation or his Vicar If I must not have the dust of any such upon my feet I must not have their Land in my possession their Crowns on my head their Wealth in my Coffers their Blood upon my hands nor their Souls upon my Sword It will be ill appearing so when we come to give an account how we have executed our Commission and shall be ask'd did I send you to inflict the Cross or preach it to save mens Souls or to destroy their lives yea and Souls too And when in those Myriads of Souls that have perish'd in the desolations which such occasions have wrought their Blood shall cry from under the Altar as being sacrific'd to that Duty and Religion which was the
utmost that they understood if so be that there were no Treason to discolour it and they that did inflict all this appear but Christian Dioclesians and stand at that sad Day in the train of the Persecutions on the same hand O then those Fires which these Boutefeus called for and kindled shall blaze out into everlasting burnings And now it may seem strange that they who most of all pretend the Spirit of Christ are yet of the most distant temper in the World from that of Gospel always endeavouring to do that which our Saviour here checks his Disciples for proposing and did threaten Peter for attempting There are among our selves that seem to live by Inspiration that look and speak as in the frame of the Gospel as if every motion were impulse from Heaven and yet as if Christ had fulfilled his promise to them without Metaphor baptized them with the Holy Ghost and fire onely that they might kindle fire and the unction of the Spirit did but add Oyl to those flames as if the cloven Tongues of fire in which the Spirit did descend were made to be the Emblems of Division and to call for fire these mens life their garb their very piety is faction they pray rebel and murder and all by the Spirit 'T is true indeed they plead now what we seem to say that they should not be persecuted for not being satisfied in their Conscience so they mince their breaking of the Laws for which they suffer But do these know themselves what manner of Spirit they are of or are we bound not to remember when they had the Power how they persecuted all that would not do at once against their King their Conscience and the Law And we do thus far know what Spirit they are of and if they have not yet repented of all that then it is plain if they can get an opportunity they will do it again nay they must by their Spirit think themselves obliged to do it But these are not all those that above all the World pretend to the Infallible assistance of the Spirit our Church is bold in her Offices of this day to say do turn Religion into Rebellion she said it more severely heretofore and the attempts of this day warrant the saying when not like our Disciples that would call for fire from Heaven on the Village that rejected Christ these will raise up fire from Hell to consume their own Prince and his Progeny the whole line of Royalty the Church and Nation also in their Representative and all this onely for refusing him that calls himself Christ's Vicar There are I must confess among them that renounce the practice and say 't was the device onely of some few desperate male-contents wicked Catholiques and design'd by the Devil And they will allow their Father Garnett to have had no other guilt but that he did not discover it having received it in Confession And this gives me occasion to propose a story to your patience and conjectures Not long before the time of this Attempt a Priest of the Society of Jesus in a Book he publish'd does propose this case of Conscience Whether a Priest may make use of what he hath learn'd in Confession to avert great impendent mischiefs to the Government as for Example One confesses that himself or some other had laid Gunpowder and other things under such an House and if they be not taken thence the House will be burnt the Prince must perish all that pass throughout the City will be either certainly destroy'd or in great peril and resolves it thus 'T is the most probable and safe Opinion and the more suitable to Religion and to that reverence which is due to the Sacrament of Confession that it is not lawful to make use of this his knowledg to that end That his Holiness Clement the 8. had just before by a Bull sent to the Superiours of the Regulars commanded most studiously to beware they make not use of any thing which they come to know by Confession to the benefit of the secular Government He adds that in cases of Confession the Priest must not reveal though death be threatned to him but may say he knows it not nor ever heard it quia reverà non scit nec audivit ut homo seu pars reipub Yea he may swear all this if he but mentally reserve so as to tell you 'T is Del Rio in 6th Book of his Mag. dis 1. Cap. Sec. 2. It seems 't is safer to break all the Obligations to Allegiance and to truth his duty and his Oaths the Princes and Gods bonds than the Seal of Confession But I did not mention this to let you see the kindness these men have to Princes and their Government I shall avoid producing any the Opinions of particular persons howsoever horrid in my arguments this day but I onely ask whether it be not very probable this instance was the thing to be attempted on this day Whether the resolution was not publish'd the Pope's Bull if not made yet produc'd at least to caution any Priest that should receive it in Confession and should be so honest as to abhor the Fact yet from betraying it and hindring the Execution of it If it were the case this was not then any rash attempt of some few desperate malecontents but a long contrivance and of many heads and its taking its effect was the great care of their Church Well they are even with us yet and lay as horrid Projects to the charge of Protestants Among our other Controversies this is one whether are the worse Subjects bloody sayings are produc'd from Authors on both sides yea there is the Image of both Churches Babel and Jerusalem drawn by a Catholique Pen and then you may be sure all Babel's divisions and confusions make the draught of ours and are said to be the issue of the Protestant Doctrines Whereas such things are countenanc'd by some particular Authors of their Church were never own'd by any publique Act or Doctrine of a general Council to which they provoke us I must confess our Calendar can shew a thirtieth of January as well as a fifth of November There are indeed that say the Romanists hatch'd that days guilt and challenge any man to call them to account for saying so But whether so or not which Churches Doctrines such things are more suited to I will now put to trial that we may know what Spirit each is of And I will try it by the publique Acts and most establish'd Doctrines of the Churches and here undertake to shew the Church of England most expresly does declare against all practices against the Prince for the cause of Religion But the Romish in those acts wherein she hath most reason to expect infallibility of Spirit also in the publique Acts of the Church representative in General Councils does abett the doing them not onely for Religion but for the cause of Holy
are his incitations and motions In sum as to wickedness they are meer Demoniacks This therefore is his chief and the first Engine The second Instrument by which he does demolish whatsoever hopes of Vertue we are built up to is Want of Imployment And in order to this he hath so far prevail'd on the Opinions of the World that they believe some states of men not onely have no Obligation to be busied but to have no Calling is essential to their condition which is made more eminent upon this account that they have no business Wealth how great soever if with an imployment or Profession makes a man onely a more gentile Mechanick But Riches and nothing to do make a Person of quality As if God had made that state of men far the most generous part of the whole kind and best appointed for the noblest uses of the World to serve no other ends but what the Grashoppers and Locusts do to sing and dance among the Plants and Branches and devour the Fruits and Providence had furnished them with all advantages of Plenty for no better purposes Such persons think not onely to reverse Gods Curse and In the sweat of others faces eat their bread but reverse Nature too for Job saith Man is born to labour as the sparks fly upwards in his making hath a Principle to which Activity is as essential as it is to fire to mount from which nothing else but force can hinder it As if man did do violence to his making when he did do nothing and it were his hardest work and pressure not to be imployed it were like making flame go downwards I am sure it is one of the busiest ways of doing Satan's work Our Saviour in a Parable in the 12. Chap. of S. Matth. from the 43. ver saith When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he goeth through dry places seeking rest and findeth none Then he saith I will return into my house from whence I came out and when he is come he findeth it empty swept and garnished Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there Where under the similitude of a man cast out of his habitation who while he wanders through none but desert places seeking for a dwelling he is sure to meet with none but if he find an House that 's empty swept and garnished he hath found out not a receptacle onely but an invitation an house dress'd on purpose to call in and to detain Inhabitants He signifies that when a Temptation of the Devil is repell'd and himself upon some working occasion by a resolute act of holy courage thrown out of the heart as he finds no rest in this condition every place is desert to him but the heart of man is indeed Hell to him for he calls it Torment to be cast out thence yea he accounts himself bound up in his eternal Chains of darkness when he is restrained from working and engaging man to sin so while he goeth to and fro seeking an opportunity to put in somewhere if he find that heart from which he was cast out or any other heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the word is idling not imploy'd or busied so it signifies such an heart is empty swept and garnished for him 't is a dwelling that 's dress'd properly to tempt the Devil fitted to receive him and his forces too prepared for him to Garrison and make a strong hold of whence he cannot be removed for he takes unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there No doubt they are the Patron-Guardian spirits of the seven deadly Sins their Tuâ—elary Devils Some of those good qualities that are the attendants of Idleness you may find decypher'd in the Scripture S. Paul says when people learn to be idle they grow tatlers busie bodies speaking things which they ought not 'T is strange that Idleness should make men and women busie bodies yet it does most certainly in other folks affairs Faction than which nothing in the world can be more restless is nurs'd by it Where are States so censured so new modell'd as at certain of our Refectories places that are made meerly for men to spend their time in which they know not what to do with At those Tables our Superiours are dissected Calumny and Treason are the common are indeed the more peculiar entertainments of the places In fine where persons have no other employment for their time but talking and either have not so much Vertue as to find delight in talking good things or not so much skill as to speak innocent recreation there they talk of others censure and backbite and scoff This is indeed the onely picquant conversation Gall is sawce to all their Entertainments And that you may know these things proceed from that old Serpent they do nothing else but hiss and bite 'T is the poyson of Asps that is under their lips which gives rellish to their Discourses 't is the sting that makes them grateful venom that they are condited with More of the brood of this want of Imployment you may find at Sodom namely Pride and Luxury For saith Ezekiel This was the Iniquity of Sodom Pride fulness of bread and abundance of Idleness was in her and in her daughters And indeed the Idle person could not possibly know how to pass his hours if he had not Delicacies to sweeten some Wine to lay some asleep and the solicitous deckings of Pride to take up others But the studious gorgings of the inside and the elaborate trimmings of the outside help him well away with them Good God! that for so many hours my morning eyes should be lift up to nothing but a Looking-glass that that thin shadow of my self should be my Idol be my God indeed to which I pay all the devotions I perform And when with so much care and time I have arrayed and marshall'd my self that I should spend as much more too in the complacencies of viewing this with eager eyes and appetite surveying every part as if I had set out expos'd them to my self alone and only dress'd a prospect for my own sight and since Nature to my grief hath given me no eyes behind that I should fetch reliefs from Art and get vicarious sight and set my back parts too before my face that so I may enjoy the whole Scene of my self And why all this for nothing but to serve vain Ostentation or negotiate for Lust to dress a Temptation and start Concupiscence And that the half of each Day should be spent thus the best part of a reasonable Creatures and a Christians life be laid out upon purposes so far from Christian or reasonable And truly Luxury will easily eat the remainder up that sure Companion of Idleness For when the Israelites were in the Wilderness where they could not eat but by
Royal. My LORD WHEN I consider with what reluctancies I appear thus in publick I have all reason to suspect and fear lest this offering which like an unwilling Sacrifice was dragg'd to the Altar and which hath great defects too will be far from propitiating either for its self or for the votary But I must crave leave to add that how averse soever I was to the publishing this rude Discourse I make the Dedication with all possible zeal and ready cheerfulness For I expect your Lordship to be a Patron not only to my Sermon but to my Subject Such a separate eminence of virtue and of sweetness mixt together may hope to ingratiate Your Function to a Generation of men that will not yet know their own good but resist mercy and are not content to be happy And for my self Your Lordships great goodness and obligingness hath encourag'd me not 〈◊〉 to hope that you will pardon all the miscarriages of what I now present but also to presume to shelter it and my self under your Lordships Name and Command and to honour my self before the World by this address and by assuming the relation of My Lord Your Lordships most humbly devoted and most faithful Servant RICH. ALâ—â—STRY SERMON XVI IN St PETERS WESTMINSTER January 6. 1660. ACTS XIII 2. The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them AND as they ministred to the Lord and fasted the holy Ghost said Although that ministring to God by prayer and fasting be the indicted and appropriate acts to preface such Solemnities as this and that not Sermons but Litanies and intercessions are the peculiar adherents of Embers and of Consecrations and those vigorous strivings with Almighty God by Prayer are the birth-pangs in which Fathers are born unto the Church Yet since that now this Sacred Office is it self oppos'd and even the Mission of Preachers preach'd against and the Authority that sends despis'd as Antichristian whilst separation and pretence unto the Holy Ghost set up themselves against the strict injunction of the Holy Ghost to separate the Pulpit that otherwhiles hath fought against it must now attone its errours by attending on the Altar and the bold ungrounded claims of Inspiration that false Teachers have usurp'd be superseded by the voice of the Holy Ghost himself who in this case becomes the Preacher and says Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have call'd them My Text is a Commission parole from Heaven in it you have First the Person that sends it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Ghost said Secondly the Persons to whom it is directed imply'd in the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate more particularly exprest in the foregoing words Thirdly the thing to which they were impowr'd by the Commission or which was requir'd of them set down in the remaining words of the Text wherein you have 1. The Act injoyn'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate 2. The Object 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate me Barnabas and Saul 3. The end for what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a work 4. The determination of that work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the work whereunto I have called them Of these in their Order and first I The Holy Ghost said Of those five things for want of which the second Jewish Temple sunk below the first and its Glory seem'd faint in the comparison the Chiefest was the Holy Ghost who became silent his Oracles ceast then and he spake no more by the Prophets A thing not only confest by the Thalmudists who say our Rabbins have deliver'd to us that from the time of Haggai Zechary and Malachy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Ghost was taken away from Israel but so notorious in experience that when St. Paul meets Disciples at Ephesus Acts 19. 1. and asks them if they have received the Holy Ghost whether at their Baptism the Spirit came down upon them as he did then on others they answer ver 2. We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost any extraordinary effusions of the Spirit whether he do come down in Gifts and Afflations such as we know were usual in the first Jewish Temple but have not been for a long time and we have not yet heard they are restored for of this pouring out of the Holy Ghost they must needs mean it not of himself of whom they could not doubt nothing was more known in the Jewish Church But as our Saviour did supply the other four with all advantage and so fulfilled the Prophecy and made the glory of that Temple greater so for the fifth the spirit he was restored in kind with infinate improvement that of Joel fulfill'd I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh for they were all baptized with the Holy Ghost baptized in rivers of living waters which did flow out of the belly of themselves for this he spake of the Spirit which all that believed on him should receiue Joh. 7. 39. so that Joel did scarce feel or fore see enough to prophesie of this abundance but the inundations were almost like Christ's receivings without measure Nor were his Inspirations as of old dark and mysterious Oracles direction in rapture where the Message it self was to have another revelation and it must be prophecy to understand as well as utter But in the Gospel his effusions run clear and transparent as the Water that expresseth them revealing even all the unknown languages that were the conduits and conveighances all plain express direction such as that of the Text. Now amongst all the several uses of the Holy Ghost for which he was pour'd out in this abundance amongst all the designs he did engage himself in and advance he does not seem to have a greater agency nor to interess himself more in any than in qualifying for and separating to Church-Offices This seems to be his great work And indeed how can he choose but be particularly concern'd in those Officer which are his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his gifts Timothy's is expresly call'd so in each of his Epistles 1 Tim. 4. 14. 2 Tim. 1. 6. And when our Saviour Ephes. 4 8. is said to give the gifts of the Holy Ghost to men it is added how ver 11. He gave some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry namely because those gifts enabled for those Offices and all the reason in the World that he should have a special hand in giving where himself is to be receiv'd Receive the Holy Ghost that was from the beginning and is yet the installation to them And if we take them from their divine original from that great Pastor and Bishop of our souls who was the maker of them too Thus he was consecrated the spirit of the Lord is upon me therefore he hath anointed me to preach
Benedictions of those Gods chiefest Officers of blessing those that are consecrated to bless in the Name of the Lord and will have them in love for his works sake Their Third work is Government which may be some do look upon as priviledge and not as work the expectation and delight of their ambitions and not the fear and burthen of their shoulders But ambition may as rationally fly at Miracles as Government and as hopefully gape after diversity of Tongues as at presiding in the Church the powers of each did come alike from Heaven and were the mere gifts of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12. 18. It was so in the Law when God went to divide part of Moses burthen of Government amongst the Lxx he came down and took off the Spirit that was upon him and gave it to the Lxx Num. 11. 25. A work this that may have reason to supersede much of that which I first mentioned For notwithstanding all Saint Paul's Assistances of Spirit he does reckon that care that came upon him daily from the Churches amongst his persecutions and it summes up his Catalogue of sufferings 2 Cor. 11. Such various Necessities there are by which Government is distracted and knows not how to temper it self to them For sometimes it must condescend Paul notwithstanding Apostolical decrees made in full Council that abrogated Circumcision as the Holy Ghost had declared it void before yet is fain to comport so far with the violent humours of a party as to Circumcise Timothy at the very same time when he delivered those decrees to the Churches to keep Act. 16. 3 4. yet afterwards when Circumcision was lookt on as Engagement to the whole Law and to grant them that one thing was but to teach them to ask more and to be able to deny them nothing then he suffers not Titus to be Circumcised nor gave place to them by submission no not for an hour Gal. 2. 3 5. Thus the Spirit of Government is sometimes a Spirit of meekness does it work by soft yieldings and breaks the Adamant with Cushions which Anvils would not do The Ocean with daily billows and tides helpt on with storms of violence and hurried by tempests of roaring fury assaults a rock for many Ages and yet makes not the least impression on it but is beat back and made retire in empty some in insignificant passion when a few single drops that distil gently down upon a rock though of Marble or a small trickle of water that only wets and glides over the stone insinuate themselves into it and soften it so as to steal themselves a passage through it and yet Government hath a rod too which like Moses's can break the rock and fetch a stream out of the heart of quarre and which must be used also The Holy Spirit himself breathed tempest when he came blew in a mighty boisterous Wind nor does he always whisper soft things he came down first in a sound from heaven and spoke thunder nor did it want lightning the tongue was double flame Of some we knowwe must have a Compassion but others must be saved with terror Jude 22. 23. which drives me on to the last piece of their work The Censures of the Church the burthen of the Keys which passing by the private use of them in voluntary penitences and discipline upon the sick as they signifie publick exclusion out of the Church for scandalous Enormities and re-admission into it upon repentance have been sufficiently evinc'd to belong to the Governours of the Church The Exercise of these is so much their work that Saint Paul calls them the Weapons of their spiritual Warfare by which they do cast down imaginations and every high things that exalteth it self against the Knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. A blessed victory even for the Conquered and these the only Weapons to atchieve it with If those who sin scandalously and will not hear the admonitions of the Church were cast out of the Church if not Religion Reputation would restrain them somewhat Not to be thought fit Company for Christians would surely make them proud against their Vices Shame the design'd Effect of these Censures hath great pungencies the fear of it does goad men into actions of the greatest hazard and the most unacceptable such as have nothing lovely in them but are wholly distastful There is a Sin whose face is bloody dismal and yet because t is countenanc'd by the Roysting Ruffian part of the World men will defie Reason and Conscience Man's and God's Law venture the ruine of all that is belov'd and dear to them in this World and assault death and charge and take Hell by violence rather then be asham'd before those valiant sinners Satans Hectors and they must â—ever come into such Company if they do not go boldly on upon the sin is of more force with them than all the indearments of this World than all their fear of God and Death and that which follows Now if Religion could but get such Countenance by the Censures of the Church and every open sinner had this certain fear I should be turn'd out of all Christian company shall be avoided as unfit for Conversation would it not have in some degree the like effect and if the motive beas much exactly would not men be chast or sober or obedient for that very reason for which they will now be kill'd and be damn'd Without all question Saint Peter's Censure on the intemperate 1 Cor. 5. must needs be reformation to him 'T is such a sentence to the drunkard not to company with him whose Vice is nothing but the sauce of Company and who does sin against his Body and against his faculties and against his Conscience is sick and is a Sott and goes to Hell meerly for Societies sake Now the infliction of these Censures is so much the work to which Church-governours are call'd by the Holy Ghost that they are equally call'd by him to it and to Himself both are alike bestow'd upon them Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye retain they are retained John 20. 22. And in the first derivations of this office it was performed with severities such as this Age I doubt will not believe and when they had no temporal sword to be auxiliary to these Spiritual weapons And now to make reflections on this is not for me to undertake in such a state of the Church as ours is wherein the very faults of some do give them an Indemnity who having drawn themselves out of the Church from under its authority are also got out of the power of its Censures So Children that do run away from their Fathers house they do escape the Rod but they do not consider that withal they run away from the inheritance And many times in those that do not do so but stay within the family long intermission of the Rod and
the advice and by Will dispos'd of such Legacies as he thought fit to leave to the poor and to his friends and gave the remainder among his sisters and their children Tho he hung thus loose from the world he neither was negligent in secular affairs nor unskilful in the managery of them which was made manifest by his dextrous discharge of the private trusts committed to him in behalf of his dead friends and the administration of his public emploiments He was for several years Tresurer of Christ-Church in a busy time of their repairing of the ruins made by the entruding Vsurpers and amidst the necessary avocations of study found leisure for a full discharge of that troublesom emploiment The College of Eton as I intimated before he found in a very ill condition as to its revenue and fabric and what was no less a mischief unstatutable and unreasonable grants of Leases to all which excepting one whose reduction must be the work of time he applied effectual remedies The Schole he found in a low condition but by his prudence in the choice of a learned discreet and diligent Master by his interest in bringing young Gentlemen and Persons of Quality thither and by his great kindness to them when there and taking care for the building fit accommodation for their reception within the precincts of the College in few years the Schole grew into that great reputation and credit which it yet maintains And here we may not pass by another considerable service don in behalf of the said Schole and also King's College in Cambridge whose Seminary it is that whereas both those Societies were formerly under the discouragement that the Fellowships of Eton were generally dispos'd of to persons of foreign education by the vigorous interposition of Dr. Allestree added to the petition of the Provost and Fellows of King's College his sacred Majesty was pleas'd to pass a grant under the broad Seal that in all future times five of the seven Fellows should be such as had bin bred in Eton Schole and were Fellows of King's College which has ever since took place and will be a perpetual incitement to diligent study and vertuous endeavor in both those roial foundations In the managery of the business of the Chair of Divinity as he performed the Scholastic part with great sufficiency in exact and dextrous untying the knots of argument and solid determination of controverted points so that he was not opprest by the fame of any of his most eminent Predecessors his prudence was very remarkable in the choice of subjects to be treated on for he wasted not time and opportunity in the barren insignificant parts of Schole Divinity but insisted on the fundamental grounds of controversy between the Church of England and the most formidable Enemies thereof With an equal steddiness he asserted the Gospel truth against the usurpations of Rome the innovations of Geneva the blasphemies of Cracow and the monsters of our own Malmsbury never intermedling with the unâ—athomable abyss of God's decrees the indeterminable five points which in all times and in all countries wherever they have happen'd to be debated past from the Scholes to the State and shock'd the government and public peace By his judicious care herein tho he found the Vniversity in a ferment and a great part of its growing hopes sufficiently season'd with ill prepossessions he so brought it to pass that during the whole tract of seventeen years that he held the Chair there was no factious bandying of opinions nor petulant sidings on the account of them which thing disturb'd the peace of the last age and help'd forward to inflame those animosities which ended in the execrable mischeifs of the civil war There is nothing at this day which learned men more desire or call for than the publishing of those Lectures which were heard when first read with the greatest satisfaction of the Auditory it may therefore be fit to give some account of the reason why those expectations are defeated which in short is this Dr. Allestree a little before his death having communicated to the Bishop of Oxford several particulars concerning his intentions for the disposal of his goods and papers the Bishop observ'd that there was no mention made of his Lectures and knowing how his modesty had during his life resisted all importunities for the publishing of them suspected that the same motive might be more prevalent at his death therefore he wrote to him thereupon desiring him that his Lectures might be preserv'd which had cost him so much study and labor and would be useful proportionably to others His answer by letter bearing date Jan. 19. 1680. was that having not had opportunity to revise what he had writen which was not every where consistent with his present imaginations tho in nothing material yet in some particulars which he should have better examin'd especially diverse of the Act Lectures which being upon the same head the thred of them was not right nor didactical and Nectarius 's Penitentiary not expounded the same way in one place as in another and the first blundring and not true therefore he adds that if the Bishop had not writ and for that he himself would not go out of the world without satisfying him in every thing he had resolv'd to have sent for his papers and burnt them but now he gave them up all to the Bishop upon this inviolable trust that nothing of them should be publish'd as a Scheme of his but to be made use of to serve any other design the Bishop should think fit Dr. Allestree's words are here transcrib'd for that the plainest account of things is alwaies the most satisfactory His Sermons not lying under the same interdict so many of them as were thought needful to make up a Volume are here publish'd The variety of Auditors for whom they were first design'd makes them not to be all of the same finess of spinning and closeness of texture but in them all there will appear the same spirit of perswasive Rhetoric and ardent piety whereby tho dead he yet speaketh Vpon the 28th day of January in the year 1680. this excellent person after a life spent in indefatigable studies and faithful endeavors for his Religion his King and Country and after the patient sufferance of a long and painful sickness with Christian resignation and full assurance render'd his soul into the hands of God and on the first of February was decently interr'd in the Chore of the Collegiat Church at Eton where his Executors erected to his memory a Monument of white Marble with the following inscription H. S. I. RICARDUS ALLESTREE Cathedrae Theologicae in Universitate Oxoniensi Professor Regius Ecclesiae Christi ibidem Praebendarius Collegii hujus Aetonensis Praepositus Muniis istis singulis ita par ut omnibus major In Disputationibus irrefragabilis Concionibus flexanimus Negotiis solers Vita integer Pietate sanctus Episcopales infulas eadem industria
temper of his mind that made him thrice deny his Master Savior God for fear of danger all these must be washt away In fine whatever passions or affections to ill things or single acts that do surprise men in their course all these tho only he that washt us in his own blood can wash away and cleanse us from yet these evidently may be in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the baptized but continuance life dominion cannot he supposeth If these be the washing of the feet does not cleanse these and there 's no other after-washing for he that is washt must not need save to have his feet washt So that he that is washt however carefully he walk he will contract some dust and some foul spots it may be but he will not rowl himself nor wallow in the mire At least Christ seems to think they would not he would not imagine men would live in constant opposition to such obligations of eternal consequence and of their own assuming and after they had ty'd themselves with their own vows yet live most dissolutely letting loose themselves to all the things they had so solemnly abjur'd indeed pursuing them as if the vow were on the other side as if they had renounc'd Religion and the God of it and by their actions did all they could to exorcize and conjure out of them the holy Spirit and the whole Trinity into whose possession they were given in their Baptism As if indeed their bodies were sprinkled to those purposes the Heathens bodies were in the Solemnities of the infernal Gods to consecrate and devote them to those foul Fiends and their fouler deeds And where it is not thus yet those divine engagements are not half so sacred with them as the promises of their debaucht converses or the assignations of their folly they break them without any least reluctancy in sport in the intemperances of their mirth they drown them and with the least puff of scoffing or blaspheming breath blow of all those necessities this Sacrament does put upon them and however St Paul call it death and burial their Sin lives and conquers all Gods obligations to piety and triumphs over vows and oaths and murders resurrection to new life I must confess I know not what it is but it is plain now adays few men seem to consider there is such a binding sacredness in Baptism such things they believe were promised in their names when they were Infants by their Sureties who they think may be concern'd to mind them that they take good courses but sure this cannot be interpreted their own act so formally as to expose them to such dismal guilts as breach of vows and perjury with all aggravations possible when e're they fail They cannot think it the same thing as in the Christians of the first ages who had first perfect conviction of the everlasting miserable state of Sinners and that out of that there was no refuge but in Christianity which not only offered to relieve but make them blessed to Eternity upon which assurance they repented wept and beg'd to be admitted into it and took upon them all the Rules of it with all obligations to keep them and this out of perfect understanding and deliberate choice full resolution Such was the case of the first Christians but theirs does not look so sacredly Indeed if any do believe they can come off from all as from engagements put upon them under age that those vows were but promises made for them in minority and will not hold against them then they might do well to be ingenuous and plead this to renounce the renunciations that were made for them cancel and disown all So we read the men of Congo when their land was first discovered by the Portuguez were easily perswaded into Christianity and baptiz'd in great abundance but when they found it did require some strictnesses they had no mind to bear that they must leave their Heathen practices particularly their multitude of women they came back to the Church renounc'd what they had don and return'd back to their indulgent Heathenism For why they knew not how to reconcile the Christian vow with living in the open breach of it they were too honest for such practices Now such an obligation is most certainly Essential to Baptism in what age soever 't is administred For that being the rite of entring the new Covenant and a Covenant being a mutual contract something agreed on and contracted for on both the parties that do covenant of which that Sacrament is the Seal it is impossible but from the nature of the thing it must oblige them that receive it to the performance of all that the Covenant does require on their part And this obligation was still entred even when Infants were admitted in the way of vow or solemn promise 'T is not St Austins age alone which calls that custom ancient but Tertullian in the second Century assures us Infants promis'd by Sureties and we saw the children of the Jewish Proselytes had undertakers And evidently by Gods own prescription children entred Covenant with him for they were circumcis'd at eight daies old and that is call'd so Gen. 17. 14. and that by that rite they did undertake to keep their whole Law is most certain for St Paul assures us 5. Gal. v. 3. I testify to every man that is circumcis'd that he makes himself a debtor to do the whole Law So here the rite hath that importance the Sureties do but answer what it stands for and if the infant does not understand the vow at present so he is not to perform it for the present it is an obligation in relation to future life then he will understand it when he is to keep it After the leisures of Nature when the Age of temtation and knowledg are come then it will be of force upon him when it is of use to him but 't is entred at the present And that none may think its being made for them by others in their name and their consent not had lessens the engagement give me leave to call to your remembrance 2ly how that was made up and supply'd with all solemnity of obligation possible in Confirmation For as from the beginning upon those that were baptiz'd when they were of Age the Apostles and then afterwards their Successors by solemn laying on of hands and praying did invite call down the H. Ghost who hover'd there over the laver of Regeneration to hatch the new creature as he once mov'd on the face of the waters to warm them into the first creation that so his strengths and graces might be added to their vows so when infants were baptiz'd this was deferr'd for this end as our Church declares that when they come to years of discretion and have learnt what was promised for them in Baptism they may themselves with their own mouth and with their own consent openly before the Church ratify and confirm the same
very almes betoken and discover the necessity he hath yet no malice to his Benefactor therefore but the perishing naked soul thinks he that labors to releive her wants upbraids her with them and the invitations therefore to the Supper of the Lamb the offers of the wedding garment of the robe of Immortality provoke her Men allow the Physitian yet to tell them of those maladies that have guilt in them and receive prescriptions from him of such methods of severity and discipline as few would go thro to Heaven and all this endears the man but he that shall attemt an application to the vice which is the cause of all this to remove which is the onely possible way to secure from relapses and the certain way to health and life eternal he is judg'd a mortal enemy as if there were nothing in the world so dear to men as their sins are no kindnesses but what are shew'd to those are grateful that were true love that would see them let them perish everlastingly and not speak to them to direct them as if all benefaction to the soul were injury and the mercies that have in them Heaven and Eternity were meer defiances But how irksom however such conversations are as by admonitions or whatever other methods aim at the recovery of Sinners they are the onely conversations with them that can be justified For which is the fourth and last thing that I am to speak to 'T is onely the opportunity and the design and hope of doing good to Sinners by reforming them that can make familiar converse with them excusable and lawful I mean where the duty of a Relation does not oblige to it And first I will not give my self the trouble to find out a law of God among the Jews forbidding to converse at all with Heathens and by consequence with open Sinners which might give occasion to this question of the Pharisees since St Peter tells Cornelius Acts 10. 28. Ye know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of an other Nation and our Savior when he would prescribe the distance which his censures were to make men keep from any refractory Sinner words it let him be unto thee as an Heathen or a Publican as supposing they were not to company with those and in the Text he also reckons the observance of that distance from all Sinners as a duty calls it Sacrifice and justifies his doing otherwise by this plea onely that he came to them to call them to repentance But if a command be call'd for we have several 1 Cor. 5. 11. Now I have written to you not to company if any man that is call'd a brother i. e. professeth himself a Christian be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one no not to eat and the like 2 Thess. c. 3. v. 14. If any man obey not our word note that man and have no company with him adding v. 15. Yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother The Converse is therefore lawful onely as an opportunity of admonition For Secondly if it be lawful otherwise I might ask for whom not for the Clergy-man most certainly whose calling it is to admonish and he is false and trecherous to his office as well as his company if he do not who is set God's Watchman to give notice of approching dangers who is responsible for every soul that perisheth for want of warning nor the Magistrate who if he see vice by his office is as much oblig'd to punish it as the Clergy-man to preach against it He also is the Minister of God to execute wrath as the other is to denounce it whose easiness is much more baneful then the others silence and makes all those faults which by not punishing it does encourage and by that is more unmerciful to the community then arbitrary tyranny and is guilty of that blood it does forbear to shed and as not for these so not for any one since reproofs and admonitions have bin the duty of every person from the beginnings of Religion Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him Silence then in Gods esteem is enmity not to reprove perfect hatred and indeed to labor to preserve a man from perishing eternally does look like kindness but if this kindness be too sower and sullen for this present age that will not bear correption and in opposition to Gods judgment calls that hatred looks upon it as a provocation and affront and answers it with a defy and with the retributions of a mortal injury yet there are commands Thirdly which God hath made as fences merely to secure our virtue charging both in general of Sinners My son walk not thou in the way with them refrain thy foot from their path Prov. 1. 15. and also in particular of almost every sin Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man thou shalt not go least thou learn his waies and get a snare to thy soul Prov. 22. 24 25. and look not upon the wine when it sparkles and sit not by a woman c. so that merely to converse with these sollicitations to sin is the breach of commands which commands if they should be onely methods of security not rules of express duty yet not to observe them is to slight the onely Antidote Gods wisdom could prescribe against contagion and that man that do's so do's assume to guard himself and so devests himself of the protection of Gods Grace and Holy Spirit and then if he fall he is not onely guilty of the fault that he commits but of wilful contemtuous refusal of the means of preservation from it of design indeed to make the sin unavoidably to himself for such familiarities express that he desires to be engag'd in the necessity of sinning For he that does invite the danger and converse and play with the temtation can have no other ends but to be ensnar'd and taken Now judg of your selves I pray you whether he that do's require to pluck out the right eye if it offend and cut off the right hand and foot that with such torment to our selves we should bereave our selves of those so useful organs whether for the ornament or the necessities of our being if we find that we shall be betrai'd by them and who requires it on this penalty that otherwise we shall be cast with both ours eies and hands and feet into Hell fire whether he be likely to excuse the conversation with those objects that engage our eies and poyson our souls thro them or else will allow me by thrusting my self thus into temtations to lay violent hands upon sin and destruction who commands me to cut off my hand rather then touch vice Or else will he
and cheerfully accept this punishment of their iniquity this return of their demerits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and since it is on their account namely thro their demerit that she is so low since they are sensible themselves did make her fall into the dust they cannot chuse but be more tender love and pity her the more and be more willing to do what they can to raise her up pulverem ejus evehere cupiunt In the words there is an holy confidence that God will grant the thing they long for mercy to Sion thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion 2dly A Reason of that Confidence for the time of shewing favor the appointed time for it is come 3 dy A ground for that because thy servants think upon her stones and it pitieth them to see her in the dust In handling which I shall consider 1. The Stones of Sion and those in the dust or at least in great danger of impendent ruin 2. That tho God is not alwais minded to succor his own Sion yet he hath set appointed times for that 3. That when the Sons of Sion are affected towards her as the Text expresses then is usually Gods season for deliverance his time of mercy and of shewing favor then the appointed time for it is come and then we may take holy confidence and in full assurance of faith say Thou shalt arise First of the Stones of Sion and those in the dust Sion was we know either the City of the King where there was the seat of Judgment the thrones of the house of David Psalm 122. 5. or else it was the mountain of the Lords house and so the stones of Sion are either the stones of the seat of Judgment of the Throne in the dust or the stones of the Lords house the Sanctuary there Both these therefore might be treated of and I shall speak to both but more particularly to the later And those stones may be either taken naturally as they are the stones of a material Sanctuary or else mystically in that sense they often have in Scripture which sais we as lively stones are all built up a Spiritual house 1 Pet. 2. 5. 1. The stones of Sion the material Sanctuary in the dust the Psalmist thought an object for so much pity that some Psalms are but the Liturgies of his pious resentments upon that occasion Psalm 74. is full herein Think upon Mount Sion where thou hast dwelt lift up thy feet that thou maist utterly destroy every Enimy which hath don evil in thy Sanctuary Thine Adversaries roar in the midst of thy Congregations and set up their banners for tokens they break down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers they have set fire upon thy holy Places and have defil'd the dwelling place of thy name even unto the ground yea they said in their hearts let us make havock of them all together It is not many years since this was our complaint concerning both the house of God and of the King the Church and Monarchy as if the life of one were bound up in the others life We saw Gods honor at least the place where his honor dwelt laid in the dust nor was it suffer'd to stay there the stones of Sion not allow'd to find a place for burial in that dust which is the common grave the Church it self had not a Monument nor the tombs a sepulcher but the very ruins were disquieted the rubbish troubled and the stones and dust suffer'd a deportation us'd as if men thought with them to build a Sanctuary for those Sins that demolisht them and make a Refuge for their Sacrilege 'T is true to many this seem'd no sad spectacle nor would it now to such as think any occasional room of the lowest name and usage might do as well for the uses of Gods service Strange when there was never a Religion in the world that did acknowledg any sort of God but would allot some place peculiar to his worship with them whose deities were Sicknesses the Feaver had its Temple Yea and stranger in a world that does devote set rooms to every use of nature of convenience and of pleasure the recreations have a place made for them and the meanest instruments of sport have so meals have one and feasts have another luxury hath its offices State hath many chambers antichambers and withdrawing places merely because there may be so many rooms of which there is no use for that is Pomp if God should not have one too for all uses that relate to him to meet us in with all his train of Angels and to bless us and to entertain us with the food of heaven with himself But whether men desire it so again yet so it lately was and when his table was remov'd his entertainment too was laid aside and the Sacrament become as desolate as the Altar Gods houses his mysteries too in the dust God did arise I cannot chuse but see that we have no such object of resentment now but how much farther off it is from being thus at this time and how much less apposite to our condition at this present the discourse is so much greater demonstration of what my Text affirms that when Gods honor is affronted thus and his house vilified and ruin'd then the time for favor the appointed time is come and when the stones of Sion are thrown down into the dust his Servants humbled too into the dust with sorrow and resentments then God shall arise for so he did It was so also if we look upon the Stones of Sion in their mystical and figurative sense Now altho every sincere Christian every one in whom on the foundation of a true sound faith an holy life is superstructed be not onely in St Peters words a lively stone but in St Pauls a Temple yet more properly the whole community of Christians is in Scripture represented to us as the body of a building St Peter tells them ye are built up a Spiritual house 1 Pet. 2. 5. and St Paul saith built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building fitly fram'd together groweth up a holy Temple in the Lord in whom ye also are built up together for an habitation of God thro the Spirit Eph. 2. 20 21 22. The ends for which 't is call'd so seem indeed more lively represented in the parallel resemblance of a natural body Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. 12. and that body the body of Christ Eph. 1. 23. or that of which he is the head Col. 1. 18. from which all Christians do receive their life and motion their increase and strength no otherwise then as they are united and tied by joints and nerves to one another and that head Eph. 4. 16. and have all one Spirit also 1 Cor. 12. 13. Of all which expressions as one end is to enforce such unity in the profession
cannot hope yet will in despite of that knowledge hope and do notwithstanding all think to come to Heaven Certainly while a man goes on to sin to hope for mercy is presumtion in him and so another sin added to the rest yea 't is a disbelieving of Gods threatning an affronting him in his veracity an imputing falsehood to his menaces and a putting himself almost out of the possibility of repenting For he that do's hope for Salvation in the condition he is in hath no temtation at all to change his condition but is likely to go on confidently and hopingly to eternal perdition it were a mercy to such a person to be struck into despair that he may be taught the wretchedness of his condition and hurried out it in which as long as he does hope there 's no reason to expect that he should leave it but by becoming hopeless in it may be frighted from it and the gates of hell is the onely probable means to let that man into the way of heaven O the Christians Hope it is the hope of righteousness Gal. 5. 5. Nothing else but holiness and righteousness can give a man ground for it And certainly my Brethren it is such a Hope as would countervail the trouble and the pains of reforming our selves What will not a man undertake which he can but hope to go thro and is assur'd of a large recompence for doing and surely Heaven is worth the endeavouring after and that blessed Hope worth purifying our selves for For it was worth the death of the Son of God Christ was content to be crucified to compass it and cannot we be content to purify our selves for it Will you see what hope can perswade a man to do See Abraham to whom God promis'd onely the Land of Canaan and that not to be enjoied by himself nor by his Son but onely by the Posterity of Isaac his Son and his Promises were further off than Heaven yet after that before Isaac had any Posterity when he was but a child God commands him to go and sacrifice his Isaac and go to cut off all hopes of ever enjoying it yet against hope he believed in hope saith St Paul and he that had receiv'd the promises of God offer'd up his onely begotten Son Heb. 11. 17. i. e. having entertain'd and embrac'd the promise of a numerous seed and people that should spring from him and having no other Son but this from whom they should spring nor possibility in nature nor promise above nature that he should have any more children but a plain affirmation that this People to whom the Promises belong'd should come from Isaac yet having once truly hop'd that God would perform his promise he absolutely obei'd that command of Gods resolving to kill the Son on whom all those Promises depended And now my Brethren there is no such puzles in our Hope nor no such hard thing requir'd of us no Sons to be sacrific'd but onely a few vices no doubtful perplext promise of a Canaan onely but plain assured Heaven and then had we but the least degree of his hope as we have infinitely greater reason how would we sacrifice any thing to Christs command how would we offer up a lust and think a sin a good exchange for the hopes of Heaven and he that had this hope would certainly purify himself as he is pure It is but now the Church hath celebrated the Ascension of our Lord Christ and the great Proposal of the Angels Acts 1. 11. to all those Disciples that beheld him going up to Heaven and gaz'd after him so wishly was that they should see him come again Now the particular comfort of that coming so again is when he shall appear we shall be like him 1 John 3. 2. and the hopes of being so St John thought a sufficient motive to set every man on purifying and that himself for this lustration cannot be perform'd by Proxy and be remitted to another for even our Saviors Righteousness will not be imputed unto those who will have none besides he redeems and saves none but them whom he has sav'd from their sins Reveal O Blessed God some of thy Glory which thou hast prepar'd for them that love thee some of that blessed Hope of a Christian calling to our hearts that it may stir our desires and longings and heat them into hopes and that we having the hopes of seeing thee may purify and may escape that day of fire which shall melt the Heavens and purge those glorious bodies which are not pure in thy sight Behold O God we tremble with horror of thy dreadful Judgment The Angels are not clean in thy sight and the Seraphims cover their faces what then shall become of us vile filthy Sinners whose daily impurities have so defil'd both our souls and bodies that we are but one mass and heap of uncleaness Blessed God we know that as long as we continue such we cannot hope to see thee in mercy we know that if we repent not we shall all perish we know that if we live after the Flesh we shall die eternally we know that neither fornicators c. shall have any inheritance O let this knowledg apply it self to our hearts and consciences that the terrors of it may fright us from the vain hopes that we do cherish of being happy notwithstanding we go on in our sinful courses for alas those hopes will perish with us and that those terrors may so work on us to set upon amendment Cleanse and wash we pray thee all our impurities in the bloud of thy Son bury them in his grave never to rise hereafter and melt our hearts into repentant tears that so our hearts may become purer O thou that didst cleanse us with thy bloud baptize us with thy Holy Spirit and with fire that it may purge out our dross and filthiness and be an earnest to us of that glorious Purity which we shall have in Heaven seeing thee as thou art and becoming like thee where we shall sin no more but for ever serve and praise thee SERMON VIII OF THE HIDING PLACE From Indignation Isaiah 26. 20. Come my people enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment until the Indignation be overpast UPON the Eve as it were and the Vigils to the day of Indignation when we cannot but look upon it as ready to be pour'd out on us in a full stream when we see destruction make close approches to us work round about us and punishment like our sin lies at the very door ready either to enter in upon us or seize us if we offer to come out to offer at a way to prevent all this that should discover to you a safe retreat from those threats that pursue this Nation in general open a shelter from the present storm cannot chuse but be seasonable yet such a thing the Text do's venture at
next Enter thou into thy chambers Whence we did observe that in times of storm and calamity the onely way to withdraw our selves from the violences of discontents and troubles is to retire to Praiers and Closet exercises of Devotion If I should go to prove this I might read you the whole book of Psalms the Psalter being but Davids Liturgy in time of sadness the service and the refreshments of his sorrows To tell you that he says In my trouble I will go call upon the Lord Psal. 18. 6. and when I was in trouble I called upon the Lord Psal. 120. 1. or again for the love that I bear unto them they take now my contrary part but I give my self unto praier Psal. 109. 4. this would be to no purpose for the whole book is but doing this And indeed to do it is the best counsel God himself do's give 't is that he do's invite us to in such a discourse come my people enter And for the comforts of it I shall enclose them in the application which shall pass by that strange mistake that is in some men who seek to quench the sorrows of calamity by the entertainments of sin to divert sad thoughts by vicious company to refresh themselves with the jollities of iniquity to choak the remembrance of their afflictions with riot and drown it in excesses Alas 't is not go abroad unto the open lodgings of intemperance and to the Inns of pleasure but come and enter thou into thy chambers And secondly it shall omit that very near as great mistake of them who in times of impending calamity busy themselves with the cares of the world whose hearts are then especially set on thriving and they immerse themselves in the wayes of gain looking on that as the thing that is to be their great security and that they shall provide against all sad events by that Strange that in the time of pungent troubles when they are encompassed with misery to run into the thorns and briars as our Savior calls them should be our onely hopeful refuge and retiring place that men should be then most griping after that the cares of keeping which and the fears of loosing it are the onely great things that make calamity grievous He who then makes himself Master of possessions gives pledges to Affliction Shall I then put my self further out into the world when Gods discretion bids me enter thou into thy chambers But thirdly I apply directly to the calamitous however destitute and unhappy When thou art brought at once low enough for pity but so unhappy as to be scorn'd ruin'd and contemn'd too come here and pour out thy soul into the bosom of him who thou art sure will not refuse thee nor turn away his face from thee but stands here to invite thee with all the compellations of love Here thou mayst lay open thy case to him that had so much kindness to thee as to die for thee and mingle thy own tears with the bloud of God that was shed for thee To have any friend whom to impart thy griefs to is in good measure to unlade and emty thy self of them thou hast here the most faithful bosom of thy Savior whom thou mayst behold in the same postures of affliction that thou thy self art in out of affection to thee and suffering for thee in Agonies of one and the other sweating as much with heats of love to thee as of pain for thee hanging down his head upon the cross with languishments of kindness and of weakness and his arms stretch'd into the posture of receiving thee to his embraces and his side open'd not onely to shed bloud and water for thee but to receive thy tears and give thee passage to his very heart Come then my People come to me if thy sad expectations be like plummets at thy heart and weigh it down yet lift up thy heart together with thy hands in assur'd confidence that that kindness which did thus express it self will never fail thee If notwithstanding this the pressure make thy thoughts to sink and thy soul to grovel let it be but a bowing down in submission to my will who certainly know what is best for thee come then and give thy self up into my hands as into the hands of a faithful Redeemer Now the devout soul doing so by often betaking himself to God upon these occasions becomes acquainted with his Maker and in all discontents he will strait run to his Acquaintance there to disburden himself and in all fears thither he hasts for shelter with the very same complacencies that our Savior says the young one does to the wings of the hen at the approach of danger there the soul nestles and is hugely pleas'd with the apprehensions of its comfortable warm security By frequent converses of this kind and other practices of Devotion and Meditations on the mercies of his providence and his protecting kindnesses besides the glories of his Preparations towards his future Estate the soul mounts up to great degrees of confidence and familiaritie with God and God does use when a heart does thus ply and follow him and become intimate with him to reveal himself also to that heart in the midst of his devotions when he is conversing with the Lord he will breathe into him the inspirations of Heaven and with soft whispers speak peace close to his heart break in upon him with flashes of joy warm him with gleams of comfort which ravish the soul with delight in the emploiment Hence grow strange intercourses betwixt them the Lord pours in of his Holy Spirit that bond and ligament of God and the soul that maintains perpetual commerce between them they do nothing but close and mingle as it were till the heart mount up to those extasies that we read of in devout persons that entertain themselves to miracle in the enjoyment of those Contemplations which these exercises do afford them The heart then melts no longer in the tears and sorrows of affliction but with the dissolvings of love when thro excess of complacency in God and in his joys the soul hath a kind of impotency of Spirit so as it cannot contain it self within it self but as a liquid thing hath its overflowings and is poured out into the bosom of the beloved and by an outgoing faints from it self into an union with the Object of its affections And the Soul that by the practices of Devotion is brought to be thus affected hath not onely fulfill'd the counsel of the Text retir'd into his chambers but is also brought into Gods chambers so the Spouse in the Canticles expresses c. 1. 4. The King hath brought me into his chambers and c. 2. 4. He brought me into his banquetting house and his banner over me was love and in c. 3. 10. she describ'd the bed-chamber whether she was brought the midst whereof was pav'd with love and all this means but the entertainments of devout Contemplations And Christ in
OF THE CHRISTIAN'S BLESSEDNES In beholding God's Face Psalm 17. 15. As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall beâ—â—atisfied when I awake with thy likeness Or as the other Rendring reads it very little different from that But as for me I will behold thy presence in righteousness and when I awake up after thy likeness I shall be satisfied with it THE words import an express opposition between the satisfactions of the person in the Text and those of them that are describ'd before here in the context â—â—amely of the men of the world which have their portion in this life and whose belly thou O God fillest with thy hid treasure v. 14. of whom he had also said v. 10. they are inclosed in their own fat their mouth speaketh proud things i. e. the satisfaction of these wordlings lies in this that they are great and rich abound with all things that they and their children have their fill of their desires they leave plentiful remains to their posterity these advantages of this life are the onely good things which they value and seek after they receive them as their portion and the having them so plentifully makes them proud of the possession insolent in the use but as for my part I will serve thee faithfully truly and justly and with all sincerity and diligence in the performance of my duty I will seek thy face mercy and favor and so doing wait till thou lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and then whatsoever my condition be on this earth where I would not have my good things I expect other sort of portion from my Heavenly Father yet when I awake out of the dust at thy appearance in thy glory since we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him then at my rising it will be impossible that any thing which is to satisfy me can be wanting to me for my satisfactions cannot but be Glorious Divine Infinite and Immortal as thine are if I awake up in thy likeness So that we have here 1. The nature of that state and the certain satisfactions of it which King David did propose to and assure himself of to awake up after God's likeness and he knows he shall be satisfied with it 2. The sure means of arriving at this state beholding of God's face in righteousness 3. His peremtory resolution as to the use of these means I will behold 4. With the courage of resolution which is taken up against the almost universal practice and the as great contradiction of the World that generally minds far different satisfactions I declare publickly and confess But as for me I will 1. The nature and the certain satisfactions of that state which holy David in the Spirit did propose to and assure himself of The state the Psalmist do's suppose expresly here a state to which he shall awake out of the sleep of death For however some expound his words another way yet from his opposition of himself as to his own expectations to the men of this world as to their enjoiments and declaring of them that they have their portion in this life 't is plain he sets his not in this life in that therefore which he says he shall awake to That state also which St Paul assure us Heb. 11. all the Patriarchs did look for which all the Nation of the Jews had such a faith of that the Sadduces were always from their first appearance counted Heretics for their denying it That I say there is such a state now after so much signal revelation after so much miracle of Resurrections from death is not to be made the argument of a discourse to Christians who can be such no otherwise nor further than as they believe and are assur'd of it And it seems altogether as absurd to undertake to treat upon the nature of that state which St Paul after he had a tast of it says is unspeakable and not possible to be utter'd which he was so far from knowing after he had bin in it that he knew not himself in it knew not whether he were in the body or out of it when he did enjoy that state which St Peter when he had a glimps in our Saviors Transfiguration in the astonishment by reason of the light attemted but to speak of it it is said he knew not what he said it put him so beside out of himself And 't is no wonder if we cannot pertinently discourse of it if as Scripture says it cannot enter into the heart of man to comprehend it while he is in this animal and mortal state And indeed it were the same thing as to comprehend what is the Incomprehensible God himself for 't is the nature of that state that we awake into his likeness the Text says and St John hath said the same more expressly 1 John 3. 2. Beloved now we are the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he or it shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is I do not find it said in Scripture of the Angels in what ever rank of Principality they stand that they are like God rather to be like the most High is believ'd that very ambition that destroy'd all those that fell But as when man was made out of the dust he was the onely creature that was said to be made after God's own image and similitude so after he is fallen again into that dust when he awakes out of it he is that onely thing that is sayd to bear the image of the Lord from Heaven to be like God And 't is not strange if that nature which God did assume to himself come at last to be glorified with some endowments which transcend all those of Angels yet 't is said of them they always see the face of our heavenly Father Matt. 18. 10. To see God therefore as he is do's seem more than to see his face continually and is such a sight as if it do not causally produce a likeness to God in us which yet possibly it may and the Schools think it do's yet 't is certain that it consequentially proves 't is absolutely necessary that we shall be like him otherwise it were impossible that we should see him as he is Which evidently follows from the Argument of our Apostle we know we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is so that such a sight of him is that which either makes us or concludes us like God yea and that to such a degree that in St Peter's words we are made partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. I shall not undertake to be interpreter to the Apostles as to this expression or to give the meaning of those words but whatsoever more it may imply surely it signifies that those Attributes that are essentially natural to the Divinity
they cannot chuse but be sufficient to conclude that they are such as ought to be believed that is assented to as true I shall allow it yea so far and in that manner as God intended that they should conclude that is by the assistant grace and influence of his Holy Spirit so far in that manner I will grant they could not fail to be conclusive But that God intended they should be conclusive to us themselves with the evidence of such Metaphysical necessity so that by consequence they cannot but infuse a greater certainty and evidence into that assent that must be given to the points of Faith than there is in the Science of those Propositions that are first in Science and where there is not such necessity certainty and evidence raised by clear resolution into Principles more evident certain and necessary than those are there is not that Faith wich is alone is true and consequently that all true Faith must assent with the highest evidence necessity and certainty This I say may be granted when it shall be made appear how it is possible that God can variously deal to men the measure of Faith if every true Believer must needs have the greatest fullest measure or how any man that hath Faith and by consequence is certain most infallibly can be weak in Faith or have his Faith increase so as that it may grow exceedingly and wax very strong even till it come to full assurance and plerophory how all this I say is not impossible if all true Faith have essentially this plerophory that highest most infallible certainty and evidence But it is certain that God variously deales the measure of faith Rom. 12. 3. that there are those who have Faith and yet are weak in faith Rom. 4. 19. 14. 1. that have their faith increased Luke 17. 5. so as that it does grow exceedingly 2 Thess. 1. 3. wax very strong Rom. 4. 20. even to a full assurance Heb. 10. 22. Is it not therefore certain but that he that hath true Faith may say here with our Confessor Lord I believe help thou my unbelief Moreover if those Principles and motives blaz'd with such an evidence so bright a lustre of so cogent a necessity can any man believe that God would think it needful to arm that necessity with strict precepts fortify it with the aids of his own Holy Spirit and eternally reward Obedience to a most invincible necessity Dare any man imagin God could be so sportive in commanding as on pain of everlasting torment to engage us to believe that that which is existent is existent or that the Sun does shine at bright noon-day when we behold it so as that we cannot see it 't is our Author's own instance or to assent to these must there be the graces and assistance of the Holy Ghost or to believe the Sun shines when it does is that a Faith that is fit to be rewarded with eternal light and glory In fine since that the onely certainty of Faith wich is effectual to the ends of Faith is the certainty and firmness of adherency to God and Christ and to our duty without which all other certainty however infallible can but help towards our condemnation and since where the Holy Spirit and his Graces intervene not howsoever evident men fancy that their principles and motives are their way of resolution demonstrative there will be no true Faith and where he works with his Graces tho they were not so infallible and bright yet the adherency is firm the Faith true and saving Therefore there appears no evident necessity of such pompous principles and ways of resolution of our Faith For I would onely ask for whose sake and on whose account it is so needful that these motives principles and ways of resolution should be so infallibly certain evident and necessary Those that do embrace the Faith sincerely and are saved or those that do not give their hearts up to it and so perish in their unbelief As to these since besides all arguments internal to the doctrine outward testimony the onely argument in matter of fact and that in behalf of Christians it is far greater and more pregnant than there is for any other fact that ever was such as humanely speaking is impossible not to be true nor could there ever yet be found a rational exception or just ground of doubt against it so that 't is impossible but they must be convinc't in reason that 't is most irrational not to assent Those therefore that do wilfully resist their understandings and their reason and withal God's ordinary methods of conviction and so put a bar against his Graces and his Spirit since much more than was enough was don for them they are without excuse and since they did defy what was more than sufficient in it self and so resist God's methods also there is no pretence or reason for more helps of evidence on their account As for the other those that give themselves up to the guidance of their light and reason and Almighty God's convictions and are made Partakers of the Holy Ghost 't is most certain that his Holy Spirit will do all that is needful to complete their Faith and make it certain to salvation so that there is no need on their behalf of such self evidence of principles and motives to infuse such metaphysical certainty into their Faith And yet this certainty of Faith not onely is the ground on which alone is built Infallibility wherever that is to be placed for they are not agreed about it and indeed there were no great need to assure their Faith into such certainty but besides poor we because we do not take upon us to assert dogmatically the necessity of such most infallible certainty not onely are unchurch'd but unchristen'd concluded beyond all possibility of evasion not to have true Faith nor be truly Faithful An heavy imputation therefore I crave leave a little to consider it in one word not desiring to reflect on others but to justify our selves for in truth God knows we would as willingly go to Heaven as our Neighbors where we know we cannot be receiv'd without true Faith Now tho it looks unlucky that we should be doom'd thus upon grounds of which the Founder is himself under censure for them and his books that laid them damn'd even by his own Church tho we are by vertue of their Principles condemn'd as Hereticks because we come not into their Church which condemns the Founder of these very Principles on their account yet since however any thing does serve their turns provided it condemns us 't is not therefore to be passed by Now the ground not onely of their Faith but this their Confidence whereby they so exalt themselves and censure us is the absolute certainty of the living voice and practice of that Church which resolves her Faith by this Rule or Principle not to believe or teach or practise any thing as of Faith but what
brings him more care and more parsimony and by consequence more want Now is there any thing that is like this in those others who pretend to aim at Heaven and the Blessedness that God is happy in Nay do they mind it cordially when they stand before him in his house in order to it Or is their heart upon it there while they are praying for it Whenever we discern religious performances are uneasy or unpleasing to us we may then assure our selves the mind is not intent upon the end of them For 't is impossible he should not busy concern himself extremely in the things that his affections are engag'd in which possess him mainly and which are his treasure But 't is as when God askt the question by the Prophet Jeremy c. 2. 32. Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire Yet my people have forgotten me days without number He asks a gentler question by the Prophet Isaiah c. 49. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not remember the fruit of her womb There is some object for an heart that it should mind and pour out it self in tenderness to that dear part of its own breast and bowels it is no wonder if it be not with so sensible affection set on any of those remoter objects such as God and Salvation in Heaven but that they should be less considerable than attire the Robe of Immortality not so much minded as a dress that to be gay should challenge morning hours and cares but to be blessed scarce engage a praier wish or thought is sad The truth is such is man's corruption that there is scarce any inclination left in nature that desires or is indeed content to be upon the way to Life Eternal Before any thing can be don for man he must be made willing not to destroy himself for St Paul tells us 't is God that by his power worketh in us both to will and to do We must not onely be oblig'd by duty not to neglect and forsake our own mercies but we must be wrought and made contented to receive them all God's arts and methods us'd the terrors of the Lord and the promises of Heaven and the strivings of the Holy Spirit and the power of Grace emploied to work in us to will for it is God that worketh in us to will In this the men of this World have especial advantages over the generality of Christians that they mind and are intent upon their aim For the mere being so engages them to the observance of that Rule of Prudence which above all others is to regulate the counsels and the actions of all men in order to their several ends if they mean to act wisely in relation to them which is this namely to be true to their own ends still observing their main point I say not they should never look off from it mind no other secondarily they must do that For as in the wise Government of Nations Princes must take care not onely that their Subjects live in Godliness and honesty and keep all the Laws but that they may live as St Paul says peaceable and quiet lives secure as far as may be from the danger of their Enimies abroad or at home in all tranquillity and plenty and the like in Oeconomical and Military Wisdom So in Christian Prudence we are so to look at everlasting life hereafter as not to neglect this here but may contrive for the conveniences of this life to avoid what may be dangerous or incommode us provided we do nothing that 's against the other So St Paul was wise when both the Sadduces and Pharisees conspir'd against his life to break that their confederacy by throwing in the question of the Resurrection of the dead which was certain to divide them since the thing he said was true and consequently since the means he us'd did not at all clash with his higher purposes the Rule thus signifying that wise men in order to whatever end their wisdom lies must still be true to their own end be careful to do nothing that may take them off from or oppose their main aim for that were to destroy their own design and must be certain never to avoid whatever tends most to attain their purposes Accordingly the Children of this World are us'd to stick at nothing that is likely to advance their ends This was the case expresly of the Text and thereupon our Savior pronounces they are wiser The unjust Stewards aim was to provide what should maintain him and his ease and reputation the remainder of his life a comfortable plentiful subsistence when his office should be taken from him and discerning no way to this but to cheat his Master and engage his Master's debtors in the wrong too making them as false and wicked as himself regards not the injustice but pursues his mark And so the Child of Light so far as he is wise in order to his aim the price of his high calling looks directly forward to it If he cannot at once do his duty in relation to his great end life eternal and take care of the conveniences of this life he will not for these let go the other never will look after these but when and so far as they will consist does not turn aside to any other ends that thwart that is neither byass'd from his mark by any flattering considerations of whatever this World temts with nor is forc'd from it by terrors or whatever sufferings We have great instances of this in the second book of Maccabees the seventh chapter the Mother and her seven Sons who looking to obtain a blessed resurrection as St Paul saith Heb. 11. 35. did in order to it resolve to die under God's Covenant of everlasting Life would not therefore accept life here and deliverance from most cruel torments on condition to transgress the Laws Thus the three wise men in Dan. 3. 17 18. told Nebuchadnezzar Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand But if not be it known unto thee that we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up Thus Eleazar 2 Macc. 6. from v. 19. chose to die gloriously rather than to live stain'd with an abomination as it behov'd them that are resolute to stand out against such things as are not lawful to be tasted tho the penalty propos'd were loss of life and tho the Officers that were his friends besought him to bring flesh of his own provision such as was lawful for him to use and make as if he did eat of the flesh taken from the Sacrifice he began to consider discreetly and as became his age and his most honest Education from a child or rather the holy Law made and given by God Therefore he willed them straitways to send him to the grave v. 24 25. For it becometh
not our age in any wise to dissemble whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar were now gon to a strange Religion and so they thro my hypocrisy and desire to live a little time should be deceived by me 'T is said the Prince of Conde gave this answer to King Charles the IX of France who told him he must make his option either of going to Mass or death or to perpetual prison for the first by God's help he would never chuse it in the other he submitted to his pleasure but that God would certainly dispose of them as it seem'd good to him On the other side we have an instance Chilon one of the wise men of Greece who whatsoever his last aim was here his end was to live justly and according to right reason who upon his death-bed told his friends it was not then a time for him to flatter deceive himself his thoughts did not suggest unto him any thing he had don in his whole life that troubled him but one that when he with two others was to sit in judgement on a man that was his great friend who had broke the Law so heinously that it was necessary to condemn him looking out for some means that might save his virtue and his friend too he resolv'd on this that since the suffrages were given so that none could know what sentence any one Judg in particular pronounc'd he perswaded his Companions to absolve him and himself condemn'd him thinking thus he salv'd his duty both as Judg and Friend but when he came to die he thought 't was wicked and perfidious to draw others in to do that which he held not just for him to do he was not true to his own end but was diverted by the calls of friendship to serve other and in that he found his Wisdom fail'd him and his Conscience condemn'd him So that we have seen the Rule exemplified in all kinds Now by this Rule we may make experiment both of the truth of what our Savior here pronounces and mens wisdom also of what kind it is what the aim is whether of this World or of the other and which of the pursuers are the truer to their end and so wiser There is scarce any one profession dignity or place of power nor indeed condition or state of life but is adapted so that it may serve ends either of the Child of this World or the Child of Light and contribute either to the advantages of this life or of that which is to come To take a view of one or two of them the man that gets into authority and place may have for his end to serve God and his Country if he intend it for an opportunity truly and indifferently to administer justice to the punishment of wickedness and vice and to the maintenance of God's true Religion and virtue by such Sons of restraint as the Scripture calls them vice may be discountenanc'd goodness cherish'd till judgement run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream and the Nation be taught to live in peace and honesty or he may intend to serve himself to gratify his pride or his ambition by getting into place and power that so he may be over others and his person more regarded and his will observ'd and himself be more uncontrolable in his words and actions may be vices or to gratify his covetous desires if in the perquisites of his place he find an opportunity for bribes a power to sell justice or what 's worse impunity of wickedness an office where men may buy off their duties yea their crimes and punishments at least a place of doing something like this as they find occasion Now whereas Authority finds good men often modest in the use of it as to its true ends of Religion and Justice power will scarce give them countenance and courage for its executions 't is uneasy or they are sollicited or aw'd and they look off at least they seldom put themselves upon it as upon the prosecution of a thing they mainly aim at or they seldom persevere so on the other side in order to the other ends men struggle for them buy the opportunities of selling give bribes that they may have power to receive them use all arts to compass offices to serve their worldly end with This is more notorious if the Office be Ecclesiastical the true end of whose Ministry is to gather Christ's Sheep that yet go astray to carry on the Salvation of those Souls which God hath purchas'd with his own bloud to preserve his Children from Eternal Hell to be applying to the wounds and the distempers of the body of Christ to prepare his Spouse for the marriage of the Lamb to be Dispensers and Stewards of his means of Grace and Glory in fine Fellow-workers with him to the Everlasting blessedness of those that are committed to their charge and who is sufficient for and does not tremble at these things to all which yet they do solemnly in express words dedicate themselves and their faithful endeavors and are consecrated to it by the Holy Spirit Or the end of this Ministry may be to advance themselves to reap the profits to receive the fleece enjoy the honors no great care appearing of those other dreadful obligations or concern that looks proportionable to them and if men will purchase this charge too as some say we may be sure they do not buy the duty or those fearful obligations and much less the Holy Spirit or his graces but 't is somwhat else they bargain for which they break thro oaths to come at some other end they aim at 2. As for states of life I must be endless should I enter into them to name but that which God himself did institute and first before all others which he made to be the complement of the felicities of Paradise to be mutual support in every state of life give all the comforts of society with innocence to preserve from vice in the most dangerous and fatal instances and so assist in the recovery of lost Paradise to fill earth so as by their good education it might people Heaven and repair its loss of faln Angels But some also may intend no more by it than dowry or to serve the needs or interests of families and to raise them for as for other satisfactions they intend to make them to themselves much otherwise and design not this at all a bar to any do not look upon it as God meant it for a remedy because they would not be preserv'd from the transgression onely they purpose to have such posterity it may be as the Law will suffer to inherit what their vices leave and their arts can secure from Creditors Yet truly since men learnt to disbelieve or not regard their own immortality and then learn not to care for living after they are gon hence in a good name it is not strange if they esteem not living
life and would see good daies let him eschew evil and do good But he hath a very obvious objection it is the most concerning part of wise men in the choice of means to pitch on such as are within their power for to deliberate about and to intend impossibilities is the most horrible instance of folly Now the man of this world chuseth such means as humanely speaking seem within man's power But the means whereby the Christian must attain his ends he thinks are not so and he is glad to think so 't is Apology and he had rather have the excuse of God's not giving grace to him than have the virtue and 't is certain truth that God must give it O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels all just works do proceed saith our Church All holy desires for he prepares the heart that his ear may hearken thereto his Spirit is the Spirit of supplication he must intercede in us with grones unutterable as if men need not set themselves to it but were to wait for inspiration for it from that Spirit who blows where he listeth All good counsels also and just works are from him For we are not able of our selves to think a good thought as of our selves all our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. the very preparations of the heart are from him Psalm 10. 17. 't is he that does touch the heart 1 Sam. 10. 26. and open it Acts 16. 14. turn it Jer. 31. 18. he must draw us John 6. 44. which if he do not no man cometh to him and must give an heart to know him Jer. 24. 7. give a new heart Ezek. 36. 26. and in all variety of expression a new spirit I will put within you and will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and cause you to walk in my statute and ye shall keep my judgments and do them In a word he worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2. 13. Now since he onely does all this at his own pleasure as St Paul affirms there therefore 't is not in man's power I know O Lord saith Jeremy c. 10. 23. that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps no not to his main soveraign end And in this the worldling thinks he has advantage but does he not know that he must pray too as well as labor for his own bread Matt. 6. 11. it is God produceth all in order to it He bringeth food out of the earth and giveth wine that maketh man's heart glad and bread which strengthens it Psalm 104. 14 15. He that watereth the hills from his chambers v. 13. and his clouds drop fatness he prepares men corn Psalm 65. 9 10. c. 'T is he that gives us power to get what we have and he that does not know this knows not God Deut. 8. 14 17 18. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God and say in thy heart my power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth yea he gives it it self whatever labor we bestow in getting it 1 Chron. 29. 16. O Lord our God all this store cometh of thine hand and is all thine own riches and honor come of thee v. 12. 'T is I gave them corn and wine and oyl and multiplied her silver and her gold even that whereof they did make Baal made an Idol And God is so jealous of his honor in this particular that if men do not render this acknowledgment he threatens to take all away Therefore will I return and take away my corn in the time thereof and will recover my wooll and my flax given to cover her nakedness Hos. 2. 8 9. And if he do not take it he must bless it otherwise we shall not thrive shall have no comfort in it for the blessing of the Lord it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it Prov. 10. 22. Without that bread may stuff us but not nourish we may have saturity but not have sustenance 1 Hag. 6. 9. for I did blow upon it saith the Lord. So that for ought appears if Scripture signify to the men of this world as here they appeal to it the means whereby they should attain their Ends seem no more in their power then the others For as in the order of Grace those general rules to which he hath determin'd the conversion of a sinner God must work with his means to make them effectual so in the order of Nature those general rules by which all things in nature are effected he must prepare the means and bestow the power and bless the endeavors yea and himself give all too otherwise they also cannot be effectual Thus he hath in both appointed that in one and the other we should live with constant application to and with entire dependence on him in the faithful use of means both in the one and the other order So that the objection is quite vanisht 'T is true tho somtimes God doth blast mens actions so that do they what they can they cannot prosper for some secret cause that 's unaccountable to us yet because for the most part in the sphere of Nature so far as the men of this world diligently use the means they attain their aims in some measure therefore notwithstanding all the interest God pleads in these things they make no doubt but they are sufficiently in their power much more then those in the sphere of Grace are in that of the Christians where they have express promises of not being disappointed and are requir'd by most strict and multiplied commands which represent the work of grace as duty For tho all good desires and Prayers come from God's good Spirit and from his preparing of the heart as we saw yet Before thou praiest prepare thy self and be not as one that temts God as one that waits for a particular inspiration to it one that will not pray without a Miracle Tho God is said to open Lydia's heart yet Rev. 3. 20. he dos only knock and we must open He turns the heart and therefore Ephraim praies turn thou me O God yet by Ezekiel he saies turn your selves from your transgressions and bids Judah Return now every one from his evil waies and make your waies and your doings good He promises to circumcise the heart Deut. 30. 6. but yet he bids them circumcise the foreskin of their hearts Deut. 10. 16. He dos engage to put a new heart and a new spirit in them Ezek. 18. 31. In fine altho he worketh in us both to will and to do as S. Paul says yet he therefore charges us Work out your own Salvation For it is God that worketh in you Now when the man of this world thinks all those expressions of Gods workings in the course of Nature are
such as yet leave all to him to do so far that he were a Fanatic as to worldly interests who without endeavoring in the use of means should look that God would work out his ends for him give bread without sowing nourish without eating notwithstanding that Scripture dos ascribe to God the intire efficacy shall the like expressions in the order of grace leave nothing for the Christian to do especially when the same endeavors are commanded him too I know not whether these expressions made to us to turn our felves c. do make more Pelagians that deny all need of grace or else ascrib'd to God make more deny all need of our endeavors even of our praiers or of any thing but more dependance waiting for his season Whereas indeed we are to work because he works and gives means to enable us and not to use the means he gives us is to temt him 't is to refuse Salvation by the ordinary methods of his workings expect new miracle 't is to be that fanatic that dos look to live without food 'T is gospel truth to say it is not the direction of Gods laws can rule us nor his promises allure us nor his threats affright us but his Holy spirit must direct and rule our hearts Coll. 19. Sun aft Trin. and he must write his laws there Heb. 8. 10. and he must give us a heart to love and dread him To affirm the other is heresy and to say that a sinner can dispose himself for his conversion or that the outward means can by their own moral efficacy turn a sinner is an heresy against grace but grace where it hath not been too far resisted still accompanies the means Gods word is the ministration of the Spirit and of rightousness and his word and Spirit go together Acts 7. 51. for to resist one is to resist the other And if the heart be not by evil education bad converse and example great advancers these of reprobation deprav'd either hardened or made dissolute or overgrown with principles that choak all God's good seed that can be sown in it those means so assisted call attention work some disposition to regard them The ordinariest means are blest to that end Prov. 23. 14. thou shalt heal him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell Yea they do it tho the force of good education have been broken when these gracious means find congruous soft seasons lay hold on occasions of calamity or such like and they move the inclinations and so make soile prepar'd for God's husbandry And since experience shews us mere Gentile breeding and converse if there be but care and parts can temper take off at least moderate all insolence and passion make men generous and meek and humble decent as to all behavior towards God and man not one ill vicious habit in their practise but an universal probity upon the face of their whole life why therefore may not those beginnings of God's workings which he never fails to carry on for his part do as much And if they but keep off ill habits and by constant practise weaken inclinations to them here 't is plain that God's means of grace find not so much resistance and that which in another state of mind would not have been sufficient there becomes effectual especially when with them that work he works and as S. James says gives more grace to them that use it and diverts temtations enables to do all things thro Christ that strengthens O that the Christian would but try and strive to use his means as heartily as the Child of this world It is because men are not so industrious for salvation answer not the motions of God's Spirit but neglect grace given when the worldly man is indefatigable in and therefore is wiser in order to his end Yet in relation to their proper means in order to their several ends I must confess the worldling does observe the rules of prudence better the true child of this world for the most part chuseth the prescribed known waies to his end and do's use the general means and methods of the world gets into a profession or a place in which if he use false arts they are trades now mysteries well taught and known there are few adventure on untrodden paths Projectors seldom thrive But the generality of Christians who would gladly reconcile God and this world life hereafter with the being well here do not therefore acquiesce in Gods means only but make Principles by-Rules of Conscience which they guide themselves by on occasions and have taught themselves to think they are safe waies and such as do not lead them from salvation It is too well known what one sort of men have attemted in this case how by new-rais'd principles of Probability and directing the intention they have reconcil'd all villany with Christian life made it safe yea meritorious to lye forswear and bear malice to defame revenge by either force or treachery rebel massacre drown whole Nations in their own bloud depose or murder Kings But passing these as monsters in Religion honest heathen humanity there are pretenders to some tolerable regard of God and vertue who on occasions fit their conscience to their convenience Besides S. Pauls good Conscience void of offence to God and man there is one of gentility of Politics of Honour of friendship and a conscience for persons times and places one of compliance and one of the mode one for the interests of a Profession and the like I might have nam'd some quite the other way the Conscience that is rul'd by rouling changeable Principles which play fast and loose now strains at Gnats and now can swallow camels or a Conscience of caprice that sets it self strong suddain heats of nice observances somtimes in little things somtimes in greater but is firm in nothing But waving these and that for Politics too which is govern'd wholly by reasons of State which is too nice and high for my consideration the man of honor makes himself a Principle which will allow him to require reparations for the least affront so call'd for otherwise what Gentleman would be of Christ's Religion he can right himself with sword and pistol and with a good Conscience The conscience for friendship is like that of Chilon whom I mention'd to you hath a by-rule And indeed who is there almost that hath the same sentiments or laws for equity and justice in his own cause or the cause of those he is most concern'd for as in others They mesure not by the same standard do not think in conscience the same case is like when it makes against as when it serves a turn As for persons so for times We have one conscience for the time of health and one for sickness Things do not equally seem good or evil in their different seasons And as for places ut vestitum sic sententiam aliam domesticam aliam forensem saith the
other side if my ends be never so pious if I intend to compass them by unlawful means and do evil tho that good may come thereof what do's the justice of my ends do for me but only make damnation just to me Alas then in one word what is their doom who do by evil means intend to compass evil ends whose intentions are intirely singly wicked that design only the plesures or the profits of iniquity that level directly at sin both all the way and at the mark too whose aimes and whose contrivances are wickedness thy purpose such an evil action and care not by what means they compass it so they acquire their ends Our Savior had no way to express the condition fo these but that of an admiring question If the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness The Sinner notwithstanding all his pomp of shine and splendor that he thinks himself cloth'd with drest up with guilded profits or with a glory of pleasures yet he is still in the dark his life is all night and that condition which three days made intolerable to Egypt is always on the Sinners soul he is envelop't in thick darkness like theirs that may be felt by any thing but by a soul of such stupidity as the sinners is a darkness such as Christ had not a fit word for nor did know how to phrase but by being astonish't at it How great is that darkness a state indeed that is most proper for his deeds and intentions of darkness that need a night to cover them a darkness that do's border on the regions of utter darkness that shall never have any dawne but such as flaming brimstone strikes into it and O How great is that darkness O blessed Savior who art the day spring from on high that came to visit us deliver us from those dark regions O thou Eternal Sun of righteousness that camest to enlighten the darknesses of the world by thy example and by thy doctrine and the illuminations of thy Holy Spirit let these thy methods shine powerfully upon our souls to scatter all the clouds and mists that dwell upon our hearts that we may have no misapprehensions of our duty that our intentions may be clear our affections pure and all our actions regular and holy Wee know O Lord we were created for thy glory and our own eternal happiness We beseech thee direct all the purposes of our minds the inclinations of our hearts and actions of our lives unto these blessed ends Teach us to mind thee in every thing we do that so whatever we shall do in our whole lives may work towards our future happy life Let no unholy aims mixe with any of our actions no forbidden contrivances or purposes creep into and make sinful our performancs Let not self-ends of pride vain-glory gain revenge or any vice make our Religion hypocrisy of sin nor any poor low ends of little pleasure or of profit rob the actions of our callings or recreations of that Religion which a good intention may put into them but make all our actions so orderly and temperate and so subordinate to holy ends that they may all turn into duty make us heartily intent on our Religious performances in their seasons and submitting all our other works to the occasions of Religion and making them serve and assist towards it and thereby become Religion that so our whole lives may be consecrated unto thee and our whole conversation become holy And do thou prevent us in all our doings with thy most gracious favor and further them with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy holy name and after an age of doing so may be glorisied with thee in thy Kingdom thy power and thy glory for ever c. SERMON XIX THE LIGHT OF THE BODY is the Eye Matt. 6. 22 23. The light of the body is the eye if therefore thy eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light But if thine eye be evill thy whole body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness WHat is observ'd of the lights of our daies that they still abound in their senses will appear true of the light in the Text and indeed 't is but proper that it should have that most excellent quality of light still to communicate it self without decay to pour out fresh streams every moment and yet be still the same one of the rivulets we have exhausted in the last daies discourse and we shall also find that in another sense The light of the body is the eye Amongst the divers things to which the Eye in the Text may have Analogy and which may make Christs Aphorism here true in the spiritual sense as well as in the outward literal the second and indeed in my apprehension much more proper then that I have already given tho not so general is Conscience that Eye of the mind in order to practice from which alone and nothing else in matters of Religion the actions have all their direction and guidance and which so far as it is clear and well informed the actions that are regulated by it are all full of light and Piety and on the other side so far as the Conscience is amiss so far the mans deeds must of necessity be dark and evil And that I may now for all say without discussing every minute particular Analogy 't is for this that the expressions of blindness of mind understanding darkened and sins being call'd darkness and on the contrary holiness light and the Eye of the understanding enlightened are so frequent in the Scripture to let us see the whole comparison is good For to declare to you that the Conscience may be properly set out by the Analogy of an eye I need but tell you this eye of the mind is in the little world the frame of man the true deputy and Vicegerent of that universal and all seeing eye of Providence and inspection for as that eye of inspection spies all our waies watches over all a mans motions inclinations and thoughts and as the eye of Providence guides and directs every thing to its ends all this the Conscience do's in man 't is privy to every little rising of the appetite it knows each bending of the will There is not any closet no recess in the whole heart where the soul can retire to think of wish or design any thing but this same Eye of Conscience looks in beholds it all and lays it up And Conscience also is the under-Eye of Providence in man it prescribes to all our actions it leads the will that potentia caeca and gives directions to all that man attemts or do's in matter of Religion Thy word saith David is a lanthorn to my feet and light to my paths and it is certain Gods Commandments are the light we are to walk
which men by degrees cannot make plausible as custome renders vice necessary so by familiarity it becomes acceptable the first horrors are soon worn off and as it fares in War the enemy is made a servant and after grows up to be a favorite and is at length a master The progress from bad to worse is like that of heavy bodies downwards the native weight gains fresh accessions from the decent already made and the motion being continued grows still more rapid and irresistible That fool who said in his heart there is no God e're long emproves into a wit and loudly saies there neither is or can be one Conscience gall'd with perpetual ill usage contracts a callows hardness and becomes utterly insensible and by these unhappy steps ungodly men are dead while they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. are dead in trespasses and sins Eph. 2. 1. O thou the day-spring from on high that cam'st to visit us who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death in ignorance and sin and in the suburbs of eternal darkness shed thy light in our hearts we beseech thee and by the Illuminations of thy Holy Spirit give us enlightned minds and sanctified wills and affections Thou hast plac'd conscience in thy stead within us to do thy offices and to be thy Vicegerent to lay thy laws to us for our direction and to watch over all our actions to teach us to convince us to correct or comfort us Furnish we beseech thee then this thy commissioner within us with all qualifications necessary for thy offices endue it with the knowledg of all thy will that we may have a right judgment in all things and then endue us with obsequious hearts that may be alwaies ready to obey the dictats of our consciences willing to live piously and honestly in all things exercising our selves alwaies in this to have a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man and when the good Lord delivers us from this sad state and the occasions of it and if at any time we do rebel against thy officer our conscience Lord arm it with thy terrors that it may whip and lash us back again into our duty and sting and goad and never let us rest till we return to our obedience and persevere therein unto the end then shall we have the blessed comforts of a good conscience here and the gladsome light of a clear heart in this world and in the world to come light and Glory with the in thy Kingdom c. SERMON XX. THE LIGHT OF THE BODY is the Eye Matt. 6. 22 23. The light of the body is the eye if therefore thy eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light But if thine eye be evill thy whole body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness I Have drawn you the parallel betwixt the Eye and the Conscience to several of their objects and uses shew'd you how the clear eye is not a better guide to a mans walks nor finds more pleasure in the prospects of those beauties that are made to temt and entertain the sight then a pure conscience do's find in looking over the landshape of a life led righteously soberly and Godly which it must needs if it follow the guidance of this single eye this well-inform'd conscience I have lead you also to the confines of that more dismal prospect the dark of that sad state which an evil conscience do's lead into This I have done in one and that in the worst consideration that of a sear'd reprobate conscience there remain three that I propos'd to consideration the first that of an erring conscience second doubtful third scrupulous And now I am to shew how each of these do's lead a man into the dark the scrupulons raiseth a dust about him leads into error and discomfort too the doubtful do's instead of guiding him leave him so puzl'd that he knows not which way to betake himself and the erring conscience lights him into the pit and takes him by the hand only to thrust him down if in any of these waies the eye be evil the whole body shall be full of darkness Of these in their order 2. An erring conscience a conscience that gives false information of duty that either tells me I may or I must do that which either Gods Law or some Law in force upon me tells me I must not do or else tells I must not do that which I am bound to do or at the least may do Now that this is a light indeed like those deceitful ones that lead men over precipices into dark ruins like such lights that were so plac'd between the rocks as to guide the mariner into a shipwrack to make it necessary for him to be dasht against the one or the other is most certain for so it is here There is scarce such another infelicity as that this man lies under whose conscience tells him one thing when God's Law or that which is any way his duty do's require the contrary for if he do according to the Law of God he acts against his conscience and so sins and if he act according to his conscience he sins against the Law of God Poor soul Sin lies on the right and on the left hand which way soever he do's turn it seizes on him and all this I shall prove 1. That if he act against his conscience he sins tho the Law of God make it no sin Scripture and reason shall make good Rom. 14. 14. I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean God had once forbidden such and such meats under pain of sin to the Jews by Moses Law and made them unclean that is unlawful to their use Now Christ had taken off this obligation and made all meats lawful for any man S. Paul saith that he knew so I am assur'd that Christ hath so remov'd all obligation to the Law of Moses that to a Christian no meat is unlawful to be eaten but yet for all this 't is unlawful to him who thinks it still prohibited and if his erring conscience tell him he ought not eat it tho by Christ's certain Law he may he sins if he do eat against his conscience and that to such an height that he whose example wrought with him to eat against the perswasion of his mind destroyeth the man v. 15. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died 't is therefore a destroying sin to do a lawful thing against a mans conscience The reason of all this is cleer because no Law of God or man no rule of duty can be applied unto us but by the mediation of conscience for till my conscience laies it to my heart and tells me such a thing is commanded and my duty it is to me as if there were
another occasion for God's remitting him not from his conscience which might alleviate the faults but by his being by the horror of his sins a greater instance of God's wonderful grace in forgiving v. 16. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe in him to life everlasting God dealt most mercifully with me call'd me from heaven whilst I was persecuting him to be a prime object of his patience and longanimity and in order of time the first that was so miraculously call'd that so the wickedest of the Gentiles may in me have an example of hope of mercy if they shall come in to Christ. And will it now be fit my Brethren with this of S. Paul who notwithstanding such true pleas of conscience is forc'd to seek out for such motives of forgiveness and plead hard ignorance and unbelief and yet confess himself the cheif of sinners with this I say to parallel some actions of our daies that under the pretence of conscience which too hath no Law as that of S. Paul had tho then outdated will justify forbidden actions even against repentance men will not ask forgiveness where they can pretend conscience I could instance in a strange particular of one of my remembrance and my knowledg of the person and the story sufficiently notorious who because the Papists believing that to be Christ which indeed is bread worship it therefore thought in his conscience all kneeling at the Sacrament Idolatry and to that error adding the command Deut. 13. 6 7 8 9. cut off his brother's and his mother's head yea and when condemn'd to death by sentence of Law for the action would not be beaten from his hold but on the strength of that mistaken place went as boldly with that bloud on his hand and his soul to face the judgment seat as he could have don had he bin wash'd in Christ's own bloud and of this resolute fury the Zealots of our neighbor country of Scotland have made many recent instances in their reviv'd Ravilliacs See the sad issue of an erring conscience an action whose horror feinds would startle at such a perswasion do's make meritorious and yet God knows that erring consciences have brought the Parent of a Nation a thing of much direr guilt to the same state and yet that conscience must be admitted an excuse when God knows jealousies and suspicions have bin all the ground and all the rule for their determinations of conscience and yet on that stock alone they could misjudge and censure speak evil of and revile the actions of just Governors and do that which I dare not say When against all Laws both of God and man all ties sacred and civil obligations of oaths and duties that it may be impossible to plead ignorance men yet will act under the banner of such a thin conscience that never could produce any Law of God for its direction or its quiet and yet think themselves secure When a confident perswasion of heart God knows how taken up shall quite annual that command of Christ of taking up the Cross and change that state which he calls blessed suffering for righteousness sake if there were such a thing change it into so great a curse as men will rather embowel themselves in their brother's hearts involve a Nation in bloud and misery in guilt and ruin than not throw off the Cross from off their shoulders And now 't is to no purpose to observe that when perjury and sacriledg and breach of almost every Commandment in the Decalogue shall not only become tolerable but be the only character of a godly side by vertue of a thing call'd conscience surely S. Paul was a weak man that when he had don some such things out of a good and pure conscience yet calls himself the chief of sinners In like manner in the Church new religious fancies are bold to take upon them the holy face of conscience and then to quicken men into schisms and all uncharitable separations and factions withdrawing them from the obedience of them that have the spiritual rule over them not at all submitting themselves to them who by Gods appointment watch over their souls but rather flying in their faces at once with open disobedience loud reproches bitter censures and severe condemnations Others by having had mens persons in admiration and consequently their opinions suffer'd their models to be stampt upon their conscience and then that must justify Ecclesiastical parricides destroying their own fathers that begot them to the Church and at once cutting off the whole line of those progenitors that can derive their race from Christ a fairer stem and pedigree than most can shew But alas my Brethren if we shall grant that these opinions really possess their souls and that in the uprightness of their heart they did pursue them that neither interest nor faction nor having bin disoblig'd or having suffer'd hath pufft up a passion into conscience but that 't is all sincerity yet we have seen that cannot bear us out in such commissions 't is but an erring conscience still that animates a man into any breach of duty and if there be no other Law to warrant actions the conscience is so far from being able to justify them that while it errs it but entangles a man in the necessity of sinning leads him into such Labyrinths of guilt that whatever he do's he offends on one side if he do what his erring conscience dictates to him he sins against God's Law on the other side if he forbear he sins against God's Vicegerent his own conscience there is the guilt of his deed here is the guilt of his heart which do's oblige a man to follow that which it is sin to follow and which makes him he must and ought to do that which he must not nor ought to do And sure my Brethren the only application to such a conscience is to advise the laying it aside to rectify the error Good counsel that indeed but the hardest to be taken in the world for that a man may rectify he must know himself in an error and if he know that then he hath not an erring conscience this when it is strongly so doth not so much as doubt of his opinion and while he do's not doubt what temtation hath he so much as to set upon the rectifying I shall but name some means The first will be Praier for Divine illumination S. James has directed this if any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not c. 1. 5. and our Savior has promis'd that he will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11. 13. whose office we know is to lead us into all truth John 16. 13. The second means will be not to be wanting to our selves not to shut our eies against or resist the truth Acts 28. 27.
them use to pursue them as far as they are able and set no bounds to themselves but those of possibility will not be limited in their prosecutions by considerations of a vertue as this man's are and therefore he is too strong for these temtations and so hath overcome the world And now if we consider the advantages of this conquest either in gross it is a victory over such Enemies as were in Christ's opinion almost invincible such as did so block up all passages and avenues to blessedness that he affirms and repetes it is impossible for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Let men think what they will of those occasions of sin which their dislikes of a low condition or of poverty makes them believe it do's abound with but I tell you there are such ineluctable temtations to vice in an estate of plenty as that without a greater measure of God's grace than is sufficient for any other state of life a man will never overcome them It is so insuperable a temtation to have that which will furnish him with all his heart or lust can wish for to have every thing that is in his desires put into his power and so impossible to part with that which serves all his inclinations when God calls for it as he do's when we cannot at once keep the estate and obey Christ which was the occasion of our Savior's words and wealth it do's so sawce and invite every vice it do's so dress objects for lust and feed with those full plenties that heat men into it and strengthen for it do's so pour in provocatives by idleness and excesses it do's so fill with insolence or pride or ostentation and vain glory it do's so swell and so puff up with heights and scorns makes men contemn others and oppress them think any thing almost is lawful in their usage of them yea become careless of Religion and by degrees contemn it too wax insolent with God scoffers at piety rude in profaness any thing forsooth they may do and a whole shole of other such like qualities are the almost certain appendages of men in estate at least in some degree In a word it takes off the heart quite from the Love of God and those things that relate to him it fixes them so to these worldly satisfactions yea when it comes to such a pinch that a man must either wound his conscience do some great deliberate sin or part with this so forsooth happy utensil his estate break with all the duty in the world rather than part with that which furnisheth him with such convenience of sins that 't is no wonder if it be impossible for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And then for a man to have overcome the General of this great Army of ruinous vices the only leader that can draw them up against him to have cut off the source that feeds this inundation of mischeifs these overflowings of ungodliness from the heart is a good strong evidence to a man's heart that he is well resolv'd against the vices when that he do's resolvedly deprive himself of the instrument of them the thing that do's advance them and hath perfectly divorc'd from them he needs not doubt but that if it please God to bring him to straits that he shall rather be content to part with a good portion of his estate than part with a good conscience who is content to give away good part of his estate merely to exercise a vertue in obedience to God He will give it if Christ call for it who gives it if the poor call for it He is well secur'd from feeding pride excesses and the other sins of fulness with his plenty who gives all superfluities away to feed the hungry his wealth is otherwise emploied than in ministring to vice and however 't is certain his heart is taken off from the sins that are occasioned by riches who heartily gives away the occasion of those sins and tho the gate of Heaven be as strait as any needle's eie yet this wealthy Man this Camel in one sense of the word as it do's signify a cable rope when his wealth is divided thus and scattered when the rope is separated into little threads then it will go thro the straitest needle's eie and this rich man enter inter into the Kingdom of Heaven And here were argument enough for the triumphs of comfort to an heart that can discern this sign of his Election this fruit of the Holy Spirit this instance of like-mindedness to Christ this assurance of his conquest over that same Enemy which is the Fleshes auxiliary and the Devil's instrument without which neither of them could much prevail upon us for they do it by the aids the World do's bring by the temtations and the baits which it do's minister A consequent fit for Christ to glory in I have overcome the World saith he Matt. 16. 33. and truly if any man the religiously sincerely bountiful man hath don so to a great degree He hath unglued his heart from it they part with ease you see how he distributes it and throws it from him and this is sure incouragement enough to set you upon searching whether you can find this Evidence within you if it were not a certain sign also of more things a sign of particular evidences and effects of having overcome the world For first it is a sign of a perfect contentedness in ones condition for apparently he is not unsatisfied with what he hath who not only is content but who contrives to have less and gives away good part of what he hath He cannot be discontented that he hath no more than he hath who is resolved not to have so much but searches for occasions to distribute what he hath And if this be an infallible sign of a contented mind still I speak of the liberal heart not only of a scattering hand it is an evidence of the greatest happiness in this world for God hath prescribed one certain remedy for all the evils in the world a contented heart This is the only aim of all the arts and all the plenties of the world it is for this alone men dig the mines of treasures search the whole circuit of delights run thro the hurry of an universe of pleasures wherein God knows they seldom find it but all intend only content Whether they would be great or rich or be luxurious or every thing it is because they seek content in these things which he that hath in whatsoever state he be he hath the scope the price of all the treasures in the world he hath the sum and comprehension of its felicities which therefore the liberal heart hath the sure sign of yea in this he hath the certain evidence of S. Pauls temper that he so much exults in Phil. 4. 11 12 13. I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content I know both how
to me rather than use a violence upon my self I must find out some salve now to quiet Conscience and yet keep the Vice And truly if it be but one thing that a man transgresses in he is apt to be gentle to himself and finds plump grounds to be so The best man hath his fault and this is his only in this the Good Lord pardon him in other things he will be strict but this is his particular infirmity to which his very making did dispose him having been poysoned by its Principles without his fault or conspiration 'T is true indeed men have some one or other sinful inclination which is a weight and violence upon them and which they did derive from Adam whose sin like an infection taken in by divers men breaks out in several Diseases according to variety of Constitutions But truly Adam gave them no ill Customs and they have no Original habits themselves did educate their inclinations into Vices and for those inclinations that are derived into them the water of their Baptism was therefore poured upon them to cool those inbred heats and quench those flashings out of Nature wash away those foul innate tendencies in that Laver of Regeneration which therefore they who spare and are tender to because they are original and natural they spare them for that very reason for which they there engaged to ruin them and do renounce their Baptism as to the aims and uses of it There thou didst list thy self a Soldier to fight against the Devil World and Flesh now whichsoere of these gets most into thee wilt thou think fit to spare thy Enemy because he is thy bosom one the Risque is greatest when the Foe is Rebel and Traytor too is got in thy own Quarters shuffled with thy own Forces entred thy Holds and thy Defences and mixes in thy Counsels does counterfeit thy Guard so that thou but command'st and leadst on thy own ruin Sure here is need of strictest care to rid thy self of so much treacherous danger so far is it from a defence to say this is the single force and bent of Nature in me that if I no not therefore most resist it I am perjuriously confederate with my Destruction and howsoever pure I keep my self from other Vices I am not clean David will tell me when I am Psalm xviii 23. I was uncorrupt before him and eschewed my own wickedness God hath not given us Authority to pick and choose our duties observe him where we like and leave the rest and when in the severe contritions of Repentance we come to judg our Lives we have no leave to spare a Vice because custom hath made it our Companion and Intimate or 't is as near to us as the close inclinations of our hearts He that does so although he live a careful life in other things yet all his Innocence is only this he hath a mind to but one sin and those he does not care for he forbears but that which pleaseth him that he commits And sure God is beholden to him that there is but one way of provoking which does take him and therefore must allow him what he hath an inclination to and pardon him because he does abstain from those he does not like I shall now only add that in this case St James's Aphorism holds that Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point only he is guilty of all he that allows himself to break one Precept does keep none but shall be reckoned guilty of those things which he does not commit For whosoever keepeth the whole Law and yet thus offendeth in one point is guilty of all And then I need not prove such have no Title to the goodness of the Text but may conclude if God be good to Israel it is to such as are of a Clean Heart And so I fall upon the subject Heart And here I must first caution not to think the Heart is set as if it were the entire and only Principle by which a judgment might be past upon our doings as if our Actions so wholly deriv'd denomination from it that they were pure which came from a clean upright heart In opposition to which I shall not doubt to put That the external actions may have guilts peculiar to themselves such as are truly their own not shed into them by an evil mind and a man may be wicked in the uprightness of his heart when he does not intend any such thing but rather the clean contrary Our Saviour tells his Apostles The time will come that whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service John xvi 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he does offer an Oblation or Worship shall think his Murder Sacrifice that that would propitiate for other faults his Crime should seem Religion and attonement to him We have seen guilts put on such colours too and yet by these same actions which their hearts pursued with Holy aims out of a Zeal to God as S. Paul says Rom. x. 2. they sacrificed themselves and their Nation to Gods Vengeance Once more St. Paul does find reason to call himself the chief of Sinners 1 Tim. i. 15. for the commissions of that time of which he says that he served God with a pure Conscience ver 3. did what he was persuaded in his heart he ought to do pursued sincere intentions and after says he had lived in all good conscience before God until that day Acts xxiii 1. So that here was enough of the clean heart a good and a pure conscience and could his fiery persecutions by vertue of that flame within be Christned Holy Zeal Could his Pure Conscience make his Bloody hands undefil'd Oh no! 't was blasphemy and persecution and injury for all 't was Conscience for all his heart was clean from such intentions I was before a Blasphemer and a Persecuter and Injurious ver 13. We may not think to shroud foul actions under handsom Meanings and an Innocent Mind a Conscientious man may yet be chief of Sinners St. Paul was so he says and a clean Heart will not suffice alone Therefore Heart is put here accumulatively as that whose cleanness must be added to the purity of Conversation to compleat it and it implies what elsewhere he does set down more expresly Clean Hands and a Pure Heart all which a clean Heart may be set to signifie because under Gods Holy Spirit it is the principal and only safe agent in the effecting of the rest as that which only can make the other real valuable and lasting When a Disease hath once insinuated it self into the Vitals spread through the Marrow and seised the garrisons of Life the Souls strong holds and after fallies out into the outer parts in little pustles and unhandsome Ulcers they who make application only to those outward Ulcers may perchance smooth and cure the skin make the unhandsomness remove and shift its seat but all that while the man decays
let their strictnesses take in some temporal aim besides as Reputation with their Party or getting Praise or Wealth they serve Mammon or Fame with Gods Religion and make the very Worship of the Lord be the Idolatry of Covetousness or of Honour If Jehu in his Executions on Ahab and his Family intend the cutting off the Regal Line as well as Baals worship and with their Blood to purple his own Royalty though God did bid him shed that blood yet does it stain his Soul with crimson guilt and God will punish him for his Obedience I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the House of Jehu Hos. i. 4. But he that lets a vicious aim mix with his Vertue and does good to an ill end addresses Gods Religion to the Devil and makes Christ minister to Belial he does sin multipliedly both in his vicious intention and in debauching Vertue to serve Vice and he might much more innocently not have been Pious Neither is that Vertue or Heart sincere whose intentions are not purely and meerly vertuous but intend to compass some Religious end by means that are not lawful For such intentions are not clean but mixt with Vice and 't is sure I cannot please God with such kind of holy meanings If Saul will sacrifice with the Sheep and Oxen he was bid to destroy his very worship loseth him the Throne of Israel Nor an I serve God with such Pieties God never does require an action which he sees I cannot compass without sin for he requires no man to sin for that were to command me to break his Commands and I were bound to disobey him in obedience to him Shall I speak wickedly for God saith Job and then shall I do so Such Religious intentions the justice of those ends will never qualifie me for Gods goodness when it but makes Damnation just to me for so S. Paul affirms Rom. iii. 5 6 7 8. In fine if there be any wickedness in the heart it gives so foul a tincture to whatever pious actions we perform that they become sin to us 'T is true Prayer is as the Incense David says and the lifting up of our hands is like the Evening Sacrifice but if the heart of him that Prays have any heats of Malice in it truly that man does light his Incense with strange fire kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell for so S. James does call those heats He that gives God any of his performances and hath a naughty Heart like Nadab and Abihu he presents his Offering in an unhallowed Censer and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did He that will offer any thing to God must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures which spoil all the Religion making it not sincere and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean and undefiled The last remaining sense A Clean and undefiled Heart Of those things which our Saviour says defile the man some are meerly sins of the Heart such as may be consummated within the Soul and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self such are Pride especially spiritual pride the sin of those that think none holy as themselves and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their Opinions and interests such also are uncontentedness with our estates inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us black malice bitter envyings Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them requires no accessary Organs to work them out so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation we know 't was one sin of the spirit onely that made Angels Devils If a foul body be abominable to the Lord shall a foul spirit be less odious he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much nearer concern of his because that speaks nearer relation to him than the Body this was only his workmanship made out of Earth the Spirit was created out of himself a foul body is but filthy Clay but he that does pollute his Soul does putresie the Breath of God and stains a beam of the Divinity The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart and to Defile are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly Murders Drunkenness Revellings Revenge Wrath and Contentions Seditions Factions Schisms all Vncleannesses c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partial Actor the utmost it can do is to desire and to intend them and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them though he do cherish the desires Now if they be obstructed from committing most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart the Execution of them is the onely thing that does look mortal and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it And truly I confess that as it happens many times on a sudden surprize of soul when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart and dazles the mind we see that the Will rushes on it instantly consents and wishes heartily yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize puts by the thrusts of fancy and the stabs of the temptation and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity as if it had been nothing but a woulding and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of and cleansed with many tears yet this is Innocence in the comparison but if the Will purpose contrive and do its utmost it is the same to the man as if he had committed 'T were easie to demonstrate this that whatsoever evil thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve he is guilty of though he do nothing or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful Those sayings of St. Paul I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is no meat unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean Rom. xiv 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat ver 23. These could have no truth in them unless the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judg unlawful incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness even to Damnation and all that meerly by it self without the Action which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand and otherwise would rush down to the earth does surely gravitate as much it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down as if it did and were it let alone
Bones Psal. Cix 17 18 19. And truly amongst those things which we did Curse there are that will fulfill all that most literally the Riots of thy gaudy bravery that make thee gripe extort spend thy own Wealth and other mens undo thy self and Creditors be sordid and in Debt meerly to furnish trappings to dress thy self for others eyes and may be sins these bring a Curse to cover thee as does thy Garment yea and they gird it to thee The draughts of thy Intemperance carry the malediction down into the Bowels like Water yea like the Wine into the very Spirits There is another of them too that will conveigh the Curse like Oil into the Bones till it eat out the marrow and leave nothing but it self to dwell within them yea till it putrefie the Bones till it prevent the Grave and Judgment too while the living Sinner invades the rottenness of the one and torments of the other and then the Lents and abstinencies that the sin prescribes shall be observed exactly onely to qualifie them for more sin and condemnation may be at the best but to recover them from what it hath inflicted when â—et alas they are too soft and tender the Lord knows to endure any â—rities to work out their Repentance and Atonement and yet sure â—se the Sinner does go through have nothing to commend them which these others do not much more abound with If those are not grievous to thee because they are so wholesom and though it be a miserable thing to go through all their painful squalid methods yet how disgustful soever by the benefit of their Cure they excuse their offensiveness and ingratiate the present injury they do the Flesh by the succeeding health they help thee to and by the Death they do secure thee from Why sure to omit that the other have all these advantages none have so calm and so establish'd health as the abstemious and continent and their mind is still serene their temper never clouded but besides this the Christians bitter Potions do purge away that sickness that would end in Death eternal his fastings starve that worm that otherwise would gnaw the Soul immortally his weepings quench the everlasting burnings yea there is chearful Pleasure in the midst of these severities when God breaks in in Comforts into them The Glory of the Lord appears in that Cloud too that is upon the penitent sad heart when he is drench'd in tears the Holy Ghost the Comforter does move upon those waters and breaths Life and Salvation into them and he who is the Vnction pours Oil into those wounds of the Spirit and we are never nearer Heaven than when we are thus prostrate in the lowest dust and when our Belly cleaveth unto the ground in humble penitence then we are at the very Throne of Grace And this our light afflicting of the Soul which is but for a moment does work for us a far more exceeding weight of Glory To which c. The Fourth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL October 12. 1662. JOHN XV. 14. Ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I Command you THE words are a conditional Assertion of Christ's concerning his Apostles and in them all Christians And they do easily divide themselves into two parts The First is a positive part wherein there is a state of great and Blessed advantage which they are declared to be in present possession of In these words Ye are my Friends In which there are two things that make up that advantage 1. A Relation 2. The Person related to Friends and My Friends The Second is a Conditional part wherein there are the terms upon which that Possession is made over and which preserve the Right and Title to them in these words If ye do whatsoever I command you in which there are two things required as Conditions I. Obedience If ye do what I command you II. That Obedience Universal If ye do whatsoever I command you The first thing that offers it self to our consideration is the Relation Friends It is a known common-place Truth that a Friend is the most useful thing that is in whatsoever state we are It is the Soul of life and of content If I be in prosperity We know abundance not enjoy'd is but like Jewels in the Cabinet useless while they are there It is indeed nothing but the opinion of Prosperity But 't is not possible to enjoy abundance otherwise than by communicating it a man possesseth plenty onely in his Friends and hath fruition of it meerly by bestowing it If I be in adversity to have a person whom I may intrust a trouble to whose bosom is as open and as faithful to me as 't is to his own thoughts to which I may commit a swelling secret this is in a good measure to unlade and to pour out my sorrow from me thus I divide my grievances which would be insupportable if I did not disburthen my self of some part of them Now there is no bosom so safe as that where friendship lodges take Gods Opinion in the case Deut. xiii 6. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son or thy Daughter or the Wife of thy bosom or thy Friend that is as thine own Soul This is the highest step in the Gradation And there is all the reason in the World for though Parent and Child are as near one to other as any thing can be to part of it self Husband and Wife are but two different names of the same one yet these may become bitter and unkind A Parent may grow cross or a Child refractory a Mother may be like the Ostrich in the Wilderness throw off her bowels with her burthen and an ungracious Son is constant pangs and travail to his Mother his whole life gives her after-throws which are most deadly Dislikes also may rest within the Marriage-Bed and lay their heads upon two wedded Pillows but none of these unkindnesses can untie the Relation that ends not where the bitterness begins he is a Parent still though froward and a Child though stubborn but a true Friend can be nothing but kind it does include a dearness in its essence which is so inseparable from it that they begin and end together A man may be an Husband without loving but cannot be a lover that is a Friend without loving And sure to have no one Friend in this Life no one that is concerned in any of my interests or me my self none that hath any cares or so much as good wishes for me is a state of a most uncomfortable prospect The Plague that keeps Friends at a distance from me while I live out of the sphere of my infection and after gives me Death hath yet less of Malignity than this that leaves me the Compassions the Prayers all the solitary Comforts all indeed but the outward entertainments of my Friends that though it shut the Door against all company yet puts a Lord have Mercy on the Door But this
Miracles but to assist our Worldliness Ambitions and Lusts to be our opportunities of Vice and provocation of him And being thus affronted and refused his Enemy preferr'd not this God but Barrabas any the vilest thing for Friend rather than Christ must he not needs be more our Enemy than heretofore And if he be that question will concern us Are we stronger than God It should behove us not to fall out with him till we are See how he does prepare himself for the Encounter Wisd. v. Taking his Jealousie for Armour putting on Justice severe and vindicative Justice as a Breastplate and his Wrath sharpening as a Sword and arming all the Creatures for Auxiliaries Alas when Omnipotence does express it self as scarcely strong enough for Execution but Almightiness will be armed also for Vengeance will assume Weapons call in Aids for fury who shall stand it Will our Friends think you keep it off us and secure us did we consider how uneasie God accounts himself till he begin the Storm while he keeps off his Plagues from overrunning such a Land we would expect them every moment and they must come Ah says he I will ease me of mine Adversaries and avenge me of mine Enemies and then in what condition are we if God can have no ease but in our ruine if he does hunger and thirst after it go to his Vengeance as to a Feast And if you read the 25th Chapter of Isaiah you will find there a rich Bill of Fare which his Revenge upon his Enemies does make view the sixth Verse He that enjoys his morsels that lays out his Contrivances and studies on his Dishes so as if he meant to cram his Soul let him know what delight soever he finds when he hath spoiled the Elements of their Inhabitants to furnish his own Belly and not content with Natures Delicacies neither hath given them forc'd Fatnesses changing the very flesh into a marrow suppling the Bones almost into that Oyl that they were made to keep all â—his delight the Lord by his expressions does seem to take in his dread Executions on his Enemies a sinful People And if the vicious Friendships of the World have so much more attractive than Christ's love and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's ways please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. xvi 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. xii 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judg of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessedness and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen The Fifth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THE Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and Choice He will Die That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will die Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choice and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye which as it is addrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddiness and frenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would tear open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forein and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgments live as if we would try all the ways to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holiness and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choice He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must die everlastingly Such is first his Fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Off-spring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely itself derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood
words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their Vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount Aetna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may express more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their Vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederal Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman says that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the World will bear it seem But as the Lord appointed them they were so close a fence that our Saviour calls them Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lock'd us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heaven can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adays which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and Death eternal But Fifthly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the Vice we shrink and uncling And now the Sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the confines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abyss he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualms caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of Prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch'd him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch'd out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighties powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsel of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the Sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious ways and Counsels besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and neediness and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpitied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc'd nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclinations to Ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judg affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly becaue he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment-seat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was arm'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own
him draw off and flie It is not strange to find him siding with a natural Inclination with the bent of Constitution still presenting Objects laying Opportunities throwing in Examples and all sorts of Invitation always pressing so that when a man hath strugled long he does grow weary of the service not enduring to be thus upon his guard perpetually watching a weak heart with strong inclinations busie Devils do lay siege to and so growing slack and careless he is presently surprised Or else despairing that he shall be always able to hold out lays hold upon a tempting opportunity and yields by the most unreasonable and basest cowardise that can be yields for fear of yielding lest he should not hold out he will not but gives up and puts himself into that very Mischief which he would avoid meerly for fear of coming into it For which fear there is no reason neither For 't is not here as in our other Sieges where if it be close continuance must reduce men to necessity of yielding Strengths and Ammunitions will decay Provisions fail and if the Enemy cannot their own Hunger will break through their Walls and make avenues for Conquest time alone will take them but in these Spiritual Sieges one Repulse inables for another and the more we have resisted the Temptation is not onely so much flatter and more weak and baffled but the inward Man is stronger Victory does give new forces and is sure to get in fresh and still sufficient supplies For God giveth more grace saith S. James And they shall have abundance saith our Saviour So that where the Devil after several repulses still comes on with fresh assaults we may be sure he does discern there is some treacherous inclination that sides with him And although the man refuse himself the satisfaction of the sin the Devil sees he hath a mind to it his refusals are but faint not hearty though he seem afraid to come within the quarters of the Vice he keeps it may be correspondence with the incentives to it entertains the opportunities plays with the Objects or at best he does not fortifie against him Now this gives the Tempter hopes and invites his assaults and does expose the person to be taken by him But where he sees he is resisted heartily his offers are received with an abhorrency discerns Men are in earnest watch to avoid all opportunities and occasions and prepare and fortifie and arm against him there he will not stay to be the triumph of their Vertue We may know thâ—â— by his Agents those that work under the Devil whom he hath instructed in the mysteries of waging his Temptations Where they are not like to speed and as to this they have discerning spirits they avoid and hate and come not near but study spite and mischief onely there The intemperate men are most uneasie with a person whom they are not able to engage in the debauch the rudeness and brutality of their excesses are not so offensive to the sober man as his staid Vertue is to them they do not more avoid the crude egestions shameful spewings of their overtaken fellows Riot then they do the shame and the reproach that such a man's strict Conversation casts on them which does in earnest make them look more foul and nasty to themselves In fine every Sinner shuns the Company of those whom he believes Religious in earnest 't is an awe and check to them they are afraid and out at it as their Great Master also is who when he is resisted must be overcome And as they that are beaten have their own fears also for their Enemies which are sure to charge close put to slight chase and pursue them so it seems he also is afraid of a sincere and hearty Christian for he flies him So he did from Christ Matth. iv verse 11. and so the Text assures If you resist him he will flie from you And now although we all did once renounce the Devil and his works were listed Soldiers against him took a Sacrament upon it and our Souls the immortality of life or misery depend upon our being true and faithful to our selves and Oaths or otherwise nor is there more required of us but resolution and fidelity onely not to be consenting to our Enemies Conquest of us not to will Captivity and Servitude Yet as if in meer defiance of our Vows and Interests we not onely will'd the ruine but would fight for it we may find instead of this resisting of the Devil most men do resist the Holy Ghost quench not the fiery darts of Satan but the Spirit and his flames by which he would enkindle love of God and Vertue in them If he take advantage of some warm occasion to inflame their courage against former follies heat them into resolutions of a change as soon as that occasion goes off they put out those flames and choak these heats until they die If he come in his soft whispers speak close to the heart suggest and call them to those joys of which himself is earnest to all these they shut their ears can hear no whispers are not sensible of any sounds of things at such a distance sounds to which they give no more regard than to things of the same extravagance with the Musick of the Spheres Nay if he come with his more active methods as the Angels came to Lot send mercy to allure and take them by the hand as they did to invite and lead them out of Sodom if that will not Judgments then to thrust them out as they did also come with fire and brimstone to affright them they not onely like the men of Sodom do attempt a violence and Rape upon those very Angels but they really ally debauch the Mercies and profane the Judgment having blinded their own Eyes that they might see no hand of God in either using thus unkindly all his blessed methods of reclaiming them till they have grieved him so that he forsake and leave them utterly As if they had not heard that when the Holy Spirit is thus forc'd away the evil spirit takes his place 1 Sam xvi 14. As if they knew not that to those who close their eyes and stop their ears against the Holy Spirit 's motions till they are grown dull of hearing and blind to them God does send a spirit of slumber that they should not see nor hear and that for this dire reason that they may not be converted nor be saved Five times he affirms it in the Scripture Yea once more in words of a sad Emphasis 2. Thess. ii 12 13. He sends them strong delusions that they may believe a lye that they all may be damn'd who believe not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness And that because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved Blessed God! Is it so easie for such Sinners to believe and be converted that thy self shouldst
in conscience to that superior to depart from their own Judgment and to yield and sign their assent to his determinations Witness the matter of Jansenius Yea their great Cardinal is positive that If the Pope could err so far as to call evil good good evil to prohibit vertues or command vices the Church were bound in conscience to believe those vices good and honest and those vertues evil So far he Indeed if that Church be the Mother and Nurse of all Christians 't is from her breasts only they must seek the sincere Milk of the word Now that she is so they must take her word as Children do their Parents words that they are so And indeed this is properly to receive the Doctrine as a little Child not judge nor reason not examin but believe it And such legendary doctrines as well as Histories which they deliver are most fit to be receiv'd by such as Children Yet as if this had been the proper method among Christians always in S. Austin's time we find the Manichees derided Christianity that discipline of Faith because by that men were commanded to believe and were not taught how to distinguish truth from falshood by clear reason and again that it requires us to assent before we have a reason for it And long before that Celsus did advise the Christians to receive no doctrines but on the account of reason credulity being the inlet to deceit saying they that without grounds believe are like those that admire and â—e satisfied with juglers and take appearances and sleight of hand for truth adding many of the Christians neither would receive nor give a reason of their faith but us'd to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not you examin but believe 't is your faith shall save you and as if from the beginning it were so we cannot but have heard the story of that man that reading Genesis where Moses says In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth And he said let there be light and there was light c. Swore at him saying this Barbarian only asserted boldly but prov'd nothing As if Argument and Reason never had place in the Jewish or the Christian Religion only those who were the inâ—titutors of each Religion did deliver it others had no more to do but to believe it that is to receive it as a little Child Whether these reproaches and the Oath of these known enemies may go for proofs that it was so I shall not now enquire But it is certain on the other side S. Paul requires of his new Christian Corinthians that they be not Children in understanding that they be in malice Children but in understanding Men. Now a Man and a Child differ not in this that the one hath an understanding reasonable soul and the other hath not but in that the one cannot use his understanding or his reason and the other where he acts as man does So that our Religion in requiring that we be in understanding men does require of us that we use our reason in it And since assenting to a thing as truth is an Act of the highest faculty of the soul of man as it is properly and truly reasonable namely as it understands and judges it is not possible a man should really believe a thing unless he satisfie himself that he hath reason for so doing Yea whether that be true or not which many men so eagerly contend for that the will though free is bound and cannot choose but will that which appears best at that time it wills yet it is sure that he who with his understanding which is not free in her apprehensions and judgments but must necessarily embrace that which hath most evidence of truth He I say who really assents to any proposition does satisfie himself that he hath better and more cogent reasons for that then the contrary And therefore it is impossible that any man can verily believe a thing which he is throughly convinc't is contrary to clear and evident right reason for he cannot have a better reason for the thing that is so and were it possible for any man to believe so there could be neither grounds nor Rules for such a ones belief for there is nothing in the World so false and so absur'd although he were assur'd it were so but he might assent to it for whatever demonstrations could be offer'd why he should not yet it seems he might believe against acknowledg'd evident truth and reason but this were onely wish or fancy and imagination not belief And to prevent such Childish weak credulity was the great work and care of Christ so far is he from requiring we should be as Children in this kind For when he was ascended up to heaven he gave some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers he shed down the Holy Spirit and his gifts that we might not be as Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4. 14. First For want of rational grounds instable in our Faith as Children are in body and in judgment also taking all appearances for truths If men were only to believe there must needs be as great variety of Religions as of teachers And though God hath appointed that some Church should be as perfectly infalliable as that of Rome pretends to be yet since there are so many Churches and the true one therefore could be known no otherwise then by some marks there must be disquisition before Faith and men must reason and examin ere they can believe upon good grounds for were they to receive Religion as a little Child be nurst up with the Doctrine as with milk a Child we know may suck infection from the poyson'd breast of an unwholesom mother or some other person for it knows not to distinguish and so may be nurst to death A soul like theirs that is but rasa tâ—bula white paper is as fitted to receive the mark of the beast as the inscription of the living God just as the first hand shall impress Therefore we are bid not to believe every Spirit not every Teacher though he come with gifts pretend and seem to be inspir'd but try them and our Saviour forewarn'd the Jews of false Christs that should come with signs and wonders Something therefore must be known first and secur'd before the understanding can be thus oblig'd to give up its assent and Captivate every thought into obedience as S. Paul directs Now what that was here to the hearers in the Text is easily collected namely that he was the Christ that does require it And S. Paul expresses it in the forecited place where he says we must bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ to wit of that Christ who as he does himself profess that if he had not done among them the works which no other had done they had not had sin John 15. 24. If his
and throwing great stones from his knâ—e as from an Engine say his followers which yet could not scare the Souldiers neither did the Roman Eagles which were true-bred fear those flames he spate but destroyed some millions of them Now 't is evident by the comparison of the several signs that Christ and this Barchocab wrought the onely reasons that gave efficacy to that sleight imposture and did make it over-power Christs mighty works was their earthly desires and affections which Christs severe Doctrines could not gratifie and therefore they receiving not the love of the truth but having pleasure in unrighteousness gave themselves up to delusions to believe a lie yet still those delusions went for reason with them Once more Tertullian challenging the Heathen says Produce before your judgment-seats some whom you will of those who are inspired by any of your Gods when gaping ore the Altar they have in its fumes according to their custom taken in the Deity 'till they are great with it ructando conantur while they are in travel with him as it were have belching throws that they burst almost 'till they are delivered of the inspiration while it is thus let but any Christian adjure them by the name of Christ and if the spirits that they are possest with do not presently confess that they are Devils ibidem illius Christiani procacissimi sanguinem fundite let the sawcy petulant Christian lose his life He speaks of this as a known frequent trial And Minutius Felix says their chiefest Gods have been forced out of their Votaries and acknowledged they were evil spirits Now here was reason and experience the miracle was so evident that Tertullian braging says do not believe it if your eyes and ears can suffer you and the reason was more pressing then the fact Nec enim Divinitas deputanda est quae fubdita esthomini it being most impossible that that should be a God which a man could rule and triumph over so imperiously manage him as with a bare command to force him from his hold and make him shame himself so villainously before both his adorers and his enemies as to say He was a Devil Yet the Heathens still found colours to do out all this conviction and their old acquaintance with their Gods together with the Custom of their vicious Worships had more force with them then miracle and reason And while the Christian dispossest their Deities he was himself turned out of all his own possessions and although he made their God confess himself a Devil yet still poor he was made to suffer as a malefactour And 't is not strange if men now stick as closely to their vices as those did to the Gods that patronized them and it be as hard to exorcise the Devil out of their affections and practices as it was then out of Heathen Votaries or Temples They are as fierce against the Christian Religion for their lusts sake as those for their Venus and the very same account that made those Heathen Customs or the lying wonders of false Christs or Pharaoh's Magicians sings be more persuasive then the other more real miracles namely because they sided with their inclinations and interests This very account makes little difficulties which Almighty God hath left in our Religion as he suffered signs and lying wonders heretofore for trials yea makes cavils mere exceptions pass for reasons most invincible be disputed urg'd with great concern and passion against all those methods of conviction which God hath afforded Christianity Now if this be to receive Religion as a little Child 't is with the frowardness of Children when they are displeas'd or ill at ease who resist and quarrel with the thing that is to make them well or please them and return the Parents cares to ease and quiet them with little outrages and vexing And do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee Hath he not made thee and established thee Ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee Deut. 32. 6 7. Now have Children any other way to know their Parents then to let their Father shew them and their Elders tell them Or should we cast off the relation and renounce all the obedience due to it because we are not sure of it our selves For ought we know those may not be our Parents we have only testimony for it Thus we serve our God on that account and yet Hath he not made thee and established thee As he began us so did he not nurse and bear us in his arms and carry us in all our weakness and difficulties 'till he brought us up to a full strength 'Till by a miraculous and signal providence he had establisht settled us and after all these cares bestowed upon us do we prove a generation of vipers onely such as do requite the bowels that did bear and nourish them by preying on them and consuming them Or like the of-spring of a Spider who when he hath spent himself with weaving nets and working of them into labyrinths to be the granaries and the defences of his brood to catch them prey and to secure them then the strongest of his young ones when he is by these his cares establisht and grown ripe to destroy makes those threads fatal to his parent which he spun out of his bowels to be thread of life to him And shall we be such Children to our Father that establisht us Make all his plenties turn to poison in us and invenome us against himself make his miraculous mercies furnish us for the abuse and provocation of him His blest Providence serve only to afford us arguments against it self help to confute it self because it hath so prospered doth still suffer us but after all this is he not thy Father that hath bought thee who to all his titles to us his endearing obligations notwithstanding our despites and provocations of them yet did give the life of his own Son to purchase o're again the same relation to us that we might have right to the inheritance of his Kingdom And then however we have hitherto affronted let us be content now to be bought and hir'd to receive that Kingdom of God as his Children for if Children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ who died to make us Kings and Priests to God and his Father To whom be glory c. A SERMON PREACH'D IN St PETER's WESTMINSTER ON SUNDAY January vi 1660. AT THE CONSECRATION OF THE Right Reverend Fathers in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of Bristol EDWARD Lord Bishop of Norwich NICHOLAS Lord Bishop of Hereford WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Glocester By RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. Canon of Christ-Church in Oxford and one of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed by John Playford in the Year 1683. Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of London and Dean of His Majesties Chappel
the Gospel Luke 4. 18. And when he comes to ordain succession he says as my Father sent me so send I you And he breathed upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost Joh. 20. 21. And after bids them tarry at Jerusalem 'till they should be endued with power from above Luk. 24. 47. That is endued with the Holy Spirit Act. 1. The present Barnabas and Saul were sent by his Commission in the Text and v. 4. And Saint Paul tells the Elders of the Churches of Asia the Holy Ghost made them overseers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 20. 28. Timothy had his Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by immediate designation of the Holy Ghost 1 Tim. 4. 14. Clemens Rhomanus saith the Apostles out of those they had converted did ordain Bishops and Deacons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having first try'd them by the Holy Ghost and so taught by his revelation who should be the men And Clemens Alexandrinus says John after his return to Asia ordain'd throughout all the regions about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as were signified and design'd by the Holy Ghost So that Oeâ—â—menius pronounces in the general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishops that were made they made not inconsiderately on their own heads but such whom the Spirit did command Chrysostom said as much before and Theoplylact Nor can we doubt that he maintains his interest in this affair even at this day But that our Veni Creator Spiritus come Holy Ghost eternal God does call him to preside in these so concerning Solemnities For Christ when he commission'd his Apostles assuring them behold I am with you even to the end of the World which promise he performs only vicriâ Spiritûs prasentiâ by the presence of the Holy Ghost who is his Vicar as Tertullian expresses nor can the Spirit be with them till then but by making them be till then which being done by Ordination that Ecclesiastical procreation for so they derive themselves to the Worlds end upon the strength of that promise we may assure our selves he does assist as truly though not so visibly as when he said here separate The Ghost's concernment being thus secured I have this one thing only to suggest that they who set themselves against all separation to these Offices and Orders in and for which the Holy Ghost hath so appear'd what they be I dispute not now they â—ight against the Holy Ghost and thrust him out of that in which he hath almost signally interessed himself And they that do intitle the Spirit to this opposition do not onely make Gods Kingdom divided against it self or raise a faction in the Trinity and stir up division betwixt those Three One Persons but they set the same Person against himself and make the Holy Spirit resist the Holy Ghost You know the inference prest upon them that did this but interpretatively in the Devils Kingdom and did make Satan cast out Satan And is 't not here of force And they who make the Spirit cast out the Holy Ghost contrive as much as in them lies Gods Kingdom shall not stand I will not parallel the guilts Those Pharisees blasphemed the Holy Spirit in his Miracles ascribing that to Beelzebub which was the immediate work of the Holy Ghost and such indeed do sin unpardonably because they sin irrecoverably for Miracles being the utmost and most manifest express wherein the Holy Ghost exerts himself they who can harden their understandings against them have left themselves no means of conviction and cannot be forgiven because they cannot be rectified or reclaimed These others do blaspheme the Spirit in his immediate inspirations and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribing to the spirit of Antichrist all those Offices and Orders which these gifts of the Holy Ghost were power'd from Heaven immediately to qualifie for and separate to things in which he hath as signally appeared as in his Miracles and as he made these means to convince the World so he made those the Officers of doing it and set them to out last the other Now in the same nearness that these two guilts come up one towards the other just to the same degree these sin the sin against the Holy Ghost For the Holy Ghost said separate So I pass to the second to those whom this Injunction is directed to And thence I do observe in general that Notwithstanding all the interest and office that the Holy Ghost assumes in these same separations yet there is something left besides for Man to do Although he superintend they have a work in it He is the Vnction but it must be apply'd by laying on of hands I have call'd them saith he in the Text and yet to them that ministred the Holy Ghost said do ye separate I do not now examin what degree and order of men they were whom the Holy Ghost here commissions for this Office The Judgement of the Antient Church in this affair is enough known by the condemnation of Aerius and by the Fate of Ischyras and Colluthus and for the present instance in which they are call'd Doctors that are bid to do it there hath enough been said to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Title of a Bishop to which I shall only add that it was a variation of Name that stuck by them untill Bede's age in which what Bishops signified does come under no question for he does say that Austin call'd together to the Conference Episcopos sive Doctores the Bishops or the Doctors of the Province Besides that there was then in Antioch a Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the time of Claudius Emperour of Rome and of Euodius whom the Apostle Peter had ordain'd at Antioch those that before were call'd Nazarenes and Galileans were call'd Christians A thing which happen'd a little before this separation in the Text as you find Chap. 11. 26. But who they were that us'd to separate for every Execution of these holy Offices will appear from the Instances that I shall make to prove the present Observation that besides that of the Holy Ghost there was an outward call And whom soever the Spirit sent he commanded that they should have Commission from Men. And all my former Testimonies for the Holy Ghost bear witness for this too The Text is positive here was a Congè d'estire for Barnabas and Saul Timothy had his Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be designation of the Spirit 1 Tim. 4. 14. yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with laying on of hands ibid. yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the laying on of my hands 2 Tim. 1. 6. And Timothy was plac'd at Ephesus as Titus also left at Creet to ordain others in the same manner St. Paul providing for the succession of the Rite and Ceremony as well as of the Office And in St. Clement's Testimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit try'd but the Apostles constituted And down as low as
Trajan's time when St. John's date was almost out his life and his Commission expiring and the Churches of Asia to be provided with succession the Men were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified by the Holy Ghost But the Chron. Alex. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he went clean throughout Asia and the adjacent Regions constituting not only Bishops but others of inferiour Clergie And even in the lowest thus it was when the first Deacons were to be made Men full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom were to be look'd out Act. 6. 3. But yet that did not authorize them the Holy Ghost and Wisdom did not make a Deacon For besides that the Apostles will appoint them over their business ibid. and they are brought to them and they do lay their hands upon them v. 6. Thus it was in those times of full effusion of the Holy Ghost Men always had to do in giving that Commission so that whoever pleads an Order of the Spirit for his Office although such a Commission of the Spirit if he had it would evidence it self and if it were it would appear for 't was the manifestation of the Spirit that was given to every man to profit withall yet if we yield him his pretensions and let his own incitations pass for inspirements and his strong fancie for the Holy Ghost if the Holy Ghost did call him who did separate him Whom the Holy Ghost calls he sends to his Officers to empower they both work He says do ye separate And here a Consideration offers it self unto those holy Fathers whom the Spirit makes his Associates in separating men to sacred Offices that when they set apart even to the lowest stalls of the Church they labour to perform it so that the Holy Ghost may be engag'd and act along with them in the performance Separate such as they may presume the Spirit hath call'd and will own He does not call the ignorant or appoint blind eyes for the Body of Christ or make men Seers to lead into the pit The Holy Spirit calls not the unclean or the intemperate we know it was another fort of Spirit that went into the swine nor does he ever say Separate me those who separate themselves the Schismaticks the Spirit calls not such as break the unity of the Spirit nor sets into the rank of higher members in Christs body those who tear that body and themselves from it the factious those that will not be bound neither in bonds of peace nor of obedience but break all holy tyes that make commotions and rave and foam sure 't is the Legion that sends them and not the Holy Ghost He whom the spirit will call must not be under the reputation of a Vice but should be of a good report lest he fall into reproach and so into the snare of the Devil 1 Tim. 3. 7. i. e. lest he fall into reproach and then his teaching do so too and men learn to slight or not heed the doctrines of such a one as is under scandal for his life and so the Devil get advantage over them and do ensnare them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For to be to any an occasion of falling is to be the Devils snare Now Christ's Fishers of men those whom the Holy Ghost appoints to spread nets for the catching Souls to God their lives must not lay snares for the Devil and entangle Souls in the toyls of perdition Those also that come to you out of Ambition or of greediness of gain the spirit calls not neither He calls we see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a work so that they who seek more then they can well attend the labour of or are qualified for the work of they are not of his sending But of all men the Holy Ghost will least deal with the Simoniacal that come not to a work but to a market that contract with Patrons for the spirits call or worse than their master Simon would hire the Holy Spirit himself to say Separate me them The Successors of the Apostles have a Canonical return to these Your money perish with you They whom the Holy Ghost does call must have his gifts and temper St. Paul hath set all down to Timothy and Titus and those who minister in this employment if they will be what he hath made them joynt Commissioners with him and his Co-workers they must order it so that he may work and act which he does not but where he calls nor does he call but those whom he hath qualified And 't is of those only whom he hath call'd that he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Separate The Third particular the thing enjoyn'd And the Holy Ghost said Separate The separateness of the Functions of the Clergy the incommunicableness of their Offices to persons not separated for them is so express a doctrine both of the Letter of the Text and of the Holy Ghost that sure I need not to say more though several heads of Probation offer themselves As first the condition of the Callings which does divide from the Community and sets them up above it And here I might tell you of bearing rule of thrones of stars and Angels and other words of as high sence and yet not go out of the Scripture bounds although the dignity did not die with the Scripture Age or expire with the Apostles the age as low as Photius words it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Apostolical and Divine Dignity which the chief Priests are acknowledged to be possest of by right of Succession Styles which I could derive yet lower and they are of a prouder sound than those the humble ears of this our age are so offended with But these heights it may be would give Ombrages although 't is strange that men should envy them to those who are only exalted to them that they may with the more advantage take them by the hands to lift them up to Heaven Those nearnesses to things above do but more qualifie them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Theoph. and to draw near to God on your behalf that those your Angels also may see the face of your Father which is in Heaven and those stars are therefore set in Christ's right hand that they may shed a blessed influence on you from thence The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Work and labour of the work the one is the 〈◊〉 and the other Saint Paul's word require a whole man and therefore a man separate and if St. Paul one of our separated persons here who had the fulness of the Spirit and the fulness of Learning too that was brought up in the Schools and brought up in Paradise taught by the Doctors and taught by the mouth of the Lord in the third heaven snatcht from the feet of Gaâ—aliel to the presence of God to have a beatifical Vision of the Gospel if after
Angels met us in to Worship and God dwelt in to bless us there the place appointed for the Divinest Mysteries of our Redemption for the Celebration of Christ's Agonies for the Commemoration of the blessed Sacrifice the place for nothing but Christ's Blood then to become the place of a most odious and insolent uncleanness If I had worded this more aggravatingly it had been only to infer that then to see a consecrated person to polute himself with those black foulnesses that made hell and made fiends is sure a sadder and a more unhappy spectacle If an Apostle become wicked he is in our Saviour's Character a Devil Have I not chosen Twelve and one of you is a Devil Yea if the good Saint Peter do become a scandal tempt to that which is not good Get thee behind me Satan Christ calls his nearest Officers Stars Emblems of a great separateness those that teach them how far their Conversation should be remov'd from Earth for they are of another Orbe Heaven is the Region of Stars But they are Emblems of a greater purity there 's nothing in the World so clean as light 't is not possible so much as to fully shine it may irradiate dung-hills but they do not defile it you may Eclipse a Star but cannot spot it you may put oâ— the light you cannot stain it 'T is a word for God's purity only his light is glory and as his holiness is so separate that it is incommunicable so his Light is inaccessible Yet sure they that are stars in Christ's right hand they do come neer and mix their light with his and they of all men must be pure and holy whom the spirit calls to that place as he does all whom he calls to that separation that he did Barnabas and Saul the Persons and the next Part Separate me Barnabas and Saul I intend not to make particular reflections upon these persons although the Character of Barnabas be registred the 11. Chap. v. 24. He was a good man full of Faith and of the Holy Ghost and the good influence that that had upon the people follows And much people was added to the Church And as for Saul though he began the Christian persecution and was baptiz'd in the first Martyr-blood and breath'd out threatnings so that nothing but thunder could out-voice him and at last was born as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an untimely birth aborting through those wounds which his own hands had made in the Church and making himself a birth with ripping up her bowels yet this Abortive prov'd the strongest birth and 't was a Miscarriage into the chiefest Apostle As he began the after-sufferings of Christ in Stephen so he fulfill'd the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and made up all that was behind in himself being in deaths more than those he inflicted The sound of his preaching was louder than that at his Conversion out-voic'd the thunder for this went out into all lands as if himself alone meant to execute the whole Commission Preach the Gospel to every creature which he did almost not only preaching to those places where Christ was not named without the other Apostles line but even where the rest imploy'd themselves he wrought as much as they in Asia as Saint John at Antioch as Peter yea and at Rome too having as much to do in their foundation If I had said more I could have brought the Popes own Seal for evidence where not only both are but Saint Paul hath the right hand And truly if they had had the luck to think at first of founding all their pretensions on Saint Paul his care of all the Churches would have born them out as well as feed my Lambs does now But these considerations I pass though they would give a Man that hath done mischief in the Church a pattern for the measures of his future Service to the Church The thing I shall concern my self in is the solemn separation here of those who were before separated to the work of the Gospel Barnabas sent by the Church of Jerusalem to Antioch Act. 11. 22. and Paul not only separated from his Mothers womb Gal. 1. 15. but chosen by express Revelation and by the laying on of Ananias's hands that so he might receive the Holy Ghost qualified to Preach the Gospel to the Gentiles and to Kings In which work both of them had for some years â—ercised themselves Yet here is a new consecration and they are taken up to a condition more separate and distinct from what they were before And all those vast advantages in which these persons did excell the one of Faith and fulness of the Holy Ghost the other besides those of express and immediate mission from Heaven and the most strange success their labours had been blest with all these I say did not qualifie them to assume these powers which the Holy Ghost commands another separation to enstall them in And 't was this 〈◊〉 that call'd Paul to be an Apostle Rom. 1. 1. as from this time he is always call'd Paul not sooner Nor do we find any least footsteps of their being Apostles before though Barnabas were sent to Antioch yet he does not undertake what Peter and John did at Samaria in the very same case for they confirm and give the Holy Ghost Act. 8. 15 37. but Barnabas does nothing but Exhort Act. 11. 23. and he and Paul together Preacht the Word abroad but we find nothing else they enterpriz'd but from this time they exercise Jurisdiction settle Churches and ordain them Elders in the Churches Ch. 14. 22 23. and as it does appear singly deriv'd these powers to others to be exercised by them singly To Titus most expresly Tit. 1. 5. the like also to Timothy with all the other Acts of Jurisdiction of which their Epistles are the Records particularly that of Censures which Paul himself had inflicted on offenders in the Churches he had planted Powers these which by such steps and by degrees of separation an Apostle himself receives and does not execute 'till he ascend the highest that which they have a new solemnity ordain'd from Heaven to enstate them in by a new laying on of hands and the holy Ghost himself commanding separate The separateness of this highest order in the Church is a doctrine handed down to us both by the writings of all Ages and the practices two things which as they scarcely do concur in such a visible degree in any other things in our Religion so also when they do concur they make and secure tradition beyond all contradiction give it sufficient infallibility and truly he that does refuse the evidence which such tradition gives to all the motives of believing Christianity if he be not a Socinian he must be an Enthusiast and can receive his Religion only from Revelation Now the matter of fact of this tradition is a subject for Volumes not for
and came on purpose to to prove by their own onely argument they had of providential Miracles they were not in the right but that destruction and misery were in their ways yet these chuse rather to deny their own conclusions and resist Gods goodness then to be convinced and repent For we have seen them as bold Martyrs to their Sin as ever any to Religion signalize their resolv'd impenitence with chearful suffering as if the fire they were condemn'd to were that Triumphal Chariot in which the Prophet mounted up to Heaven Others that did not go so far in condemnation nor guilt as they and therefore think they have no reason to repent of that do they repent of what they did contribute to it Of those that lifted up their hands to swear and fight how many are there that have made them fall and smite their own thigh saying What have I done Do not all rather justifie as far as they themselves proceeded And if all that were well why do not we repent of our Allegiance and Loyalty If all that were well what hath thy goodness done O Lord that hath reverst it all And for the rest those that do not partake the plenties of thy goodness murmur and repine at it are discontent at having what they pray'd for what they would have died for Those that have been partakers of it have turned it into wantonness have made it furnish them for base unworthy practices such as have not the generosity of Vice have not a noble manly wickedness are poltron sins have made it raise a cry on the Faithfullest party the best Cause and the purest Church in the World While we have debauched Gods own best Attribute made his goodness procure for our most wicked or self-ends and the face of things is so vicious in every order and degree and sex that But the Confession is onely fit for Litanies and we have need to make the burthen of ours be Lord give us some afflictions again send out thy Indignation for we do fear thy goodness it hath almost undone us and truly where it does not better it is the most fearful of Gods Attributes or Plagues for it does harden there St. Paul says so in the forecited place and Origen does prove this very thing did harden Pharaohs heart indulgence was his induration Now induration is the being put into Hell upon the Earth There is the same impenitence in both and judgment is pronounced already on the hardned and the life they lead is but the interval betwixt the Sentence and the Execution and all their sunshine of Prosperity is but kindled Brimstone onely without the stench And then to make the treasures of Gods bounty be treasures of wrath to us to make his kindness his long-suffering that is St. Peter says salvation condemn us his very goodness be Hell to us But sure so great a goodness as this we have tasted cannot have such deadly issues and it was great indeed so perfectly miraculous in such strange and continued successes resisting our contrivances and our sins too overcoming all opposition of our vices and our own policies that do not comport with it and in despight of all still doing us good it was fatality of goodness Now sure that which is so victorious will not be worsted by us But Oh! have we not reason so much more to fear the goodness The greater and more undeserved it is the more suspicious it is As if it were the last blaze of the Candle of the Lord when its light gasps its flash of shine before it do go out the dying struggles and extream efforts of goodness to see if at the last any thing can be wrought by it And if we did consider how some men manage the present goodness make use of this time of it and take and catch we would believe they did fear the departure of it But yet it is in our power to fix it here If we repent Gods gifts then are without repentance but one of us must change Bring Piety and Vertue into countenance and fashion and God will dwell among us Nay St. Paul says Goodness to thee if thou continue in his goodness If we our selves do not forsake it and renounce it not fear it so as to flie from it but with the fears of sinking men that catch and grasp lay fast dead hold upon it if as God promises he so put his fear in our hearts that we never depart from it fear that hath love in it and is as unitive as that then it shall never depart from us but we shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living and shall be taken thence to the eternal fulness of it This day shall be the Birth-day of Immortal Life the entring on a Kingdom that cannot be moved A Crown thus beautified is a Crown of Glory here and shall add weight and splendor to the Crown hereafter A Church thus furnished is a Church Triumphant in this World and such a Government is the Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth and then we shall all reign with him who is the King of Kings and who washed us in his Blood to make us Kings and Priests to God and his Father To whom be glory and dominion for ever Amen SERMON XVIII AT CHRIST'S-CHURCH IN OXFORD ON St STEVEN's Day MATH V. 44. But I say unto you love your Enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you I Need no Artifice to tie this Subject and this Day together The Saint whose memory we celebrate was the Martyr of this Text And 't is impossible to keep the Feast but by a resolution of obeying these Commands you being call'd together on this day to beseech God to grant that you by the Example of this first Martyr St. Stephen who pray'd for his Murderers may learn to love your Enemies and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you A strange command in an Age in which we scarcely can find men that love their Friends nor any thing but that which serves their interests or pleasures that indeed love nothing but themselves nor is it onely injury that works their hate and enmity but difference in opinion divides hearts and men are never to be reconcil'd that have not the same mind in every thing as if one Heaven should not hold them that have not one judgment in all things we see that one Church cannot hold them and they that have but one same God one Redeemer and Saviour one Holy Spirit of Suplication cannot agree yet in one Prayer to him though they have but one same thing to pray for to him will not meet in their Worship because they do not in some Sentiments and 't is no wonder all Christ's reasonings and upbraidings all the Advantages he does propose to them that love the shames he casts on them
in these instances See pride and passions swoln up to an height which Christ's Mount cannot reach and which he must not level by his precepts For since he was not pleas'd to consider how inconsistent in this last age of the World his rules would be with those of honour and in making his Laws took no care of the reputation of a Gentleman 't is fit his Laws should give way to the constitutions ' of some Hectors and he must bear the violation of them And all this must be reasonable too Good God! what prodigy of age is this when Christ the Lord cannot be competent to judge either of right of honour or of realon When to be like God and to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect is to be most fordid and unworthy of a Gentleman and in the name of God these men that are too great for virtue that brave out Religion and will needs give rules to God what rank do they intend up stand in at Gods Judgment seat on the last day Lord God! grant us to stand among the week on that hand with the sheep and those that are too poor in spirit to defy their enemies and thy commands for however the â—eek maketh himself a prey and is so far from enjoying the promise of inheriting the Earth that the virtue is sacrce allow'd to sojourn in the Earth as if it had breath'd it's last in this our Martyrs prayer took it's flight with his spirit and those stones that flew him were the Monument of loving enemies of praying for those that persecute and murder and such Charity were not to be found among us any more yet sure I am these Charitable persons shall enjoy the friendship and the glories of that Lover that did Bless do good to Pray and Dye for Enemies and these meek men shall reign with the Lord who was stain and is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing all which be ascribed to him and to the Father of all mercies the God of Consolation and to the Spirit of Love now and for evermore FINIS * John 20. 30 31. a Hil. l. 1. de Trinâ—t p. 53 54. Clemens Al. Strom. 6. p. 675. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Justin. Mart. ad Diognetum p. 499. Athanas ad Serapionem tom 1. p. 191. 194 edit Par. 1672. c Justin. ex Trogo l. 36. Diod. Sicul. l. 1. Stâ—abo l. 16. Plin. 30. Tac. Hist. 5. Joseph contra Apionem mentions many others d Exod. 7 8 9 10. Chapters e Exod. 14. 21. f Exod. 16. 15. Deut. 8. 24. g Exod. 16. 20. h Exod. 16. 24. i Num. 11. 16. 20. 31 32. k Num. 20. 8. 11. l Exod. 20. m Jossh 6. 20. n Josh. 6. 20. o Num. 2. 32. Num. 11. 21. p Jer. 25. 11 12. q Isa. 44. 26. 21. 28. 45. 1. r Dan. 9. 24. c. s Tac. An. l. 15. t Vid. Raim Martin pugfid p. 2. c. 8. u Celsus apud Orig. l. 2. Julian Cyril contra ipsum 6. Origâ—n contra Cels. l. 2. c. 69. x Mat. 8. Mar. 1. Luc. 4. y Mat. 8. Mar. 5. Luc. 8. z Mat. 9. Mar. 2. Luc. 5. a Mar 5. Luc 8. b John 5. c Luc. 7. d Maâ— 14. Mar. 6. Luc. 9. John 6. e Mat. 15. Mar. 8. f Mat. 17. Mar. 9. Luc. 9. g John 11. h Mat. 24. Mar. 13. Luc. 21. i Mar. 26. Mar. 14. John 12. k Mat. 27. Mar. 15. Luc. 23. John 19. l â—hlegen apud Origen conâ—ra Cels. l. 2. p. 8â— Euseb. ad Olyn 20â— ann 4 〈◊〉 lop Georg. Syncd Thallâ—s apud African vid. Scal. ammad ad Euseb. Chron. p. 186 ad ann 2044. Etiam vide Just. Mart. p. 76. p. 84. Tertull. Aâ—pol c. 21. de isto terrae motu agere Tacitum Plin. l. 2. c. 84. scribit Oros. m Mat. â—8 Mar. 16. Luc. 29. John 24. n Mar. 16. 9. o Luc. 24. 5. p V. 33. q V. 13. r V. 36 37 41. s John 20. 24 t John 21. u Mat. 28. 16. Mar. 15. 6 x 1 Cor. 15. 7. y Luc. 24. 49. Acts 1. 4. 5. z Acts 1. 9. Luc. 24. 5â— a Acts 2. 6 7 8. b Luc. 1. 14. c 1 Cor. 4. 9. d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suidas in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e Whence Eusebius says l. 2. Eccl. hist. c. 14. they at Rome not thinking it enough to have heard the Gospel once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not being contented with the preaching of the heavenly doctrine while it was but an unwritten doctrine earnestly entreat St Mark that he would leave in writing with them a monument of that doctrine which had bin delivered to them by preaching Nor did they give over till they had prevail'd which when St Peter knew by revelation of the H. G. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being extremly pleas'd with that desire and their earnestness in it He approv'd it and appointed it to be read in their assembly f Euseb. l. 3. c. 37. g l. 10. epist. 97. h Just. Mart. dial cum Tryph. Judaeo p. 247 302 311. Iren. l. 2. c. 56 57. i Excerpt ex Quadrat Apolog. ad Hadrianum apud Euseb. l. 4. c. 3. k Just. Mart. Apol. 2. p. 98. l Iren. l. 3. c. 1. m Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Eccl. Smyrnens apud Euseb. l. 4. c. 15. Ecclesiarum Viennen Lugdun comment de passiene Martyr suorum apud Euseb. l. 5. c. 1. Niceph. l. 3. 4. n Orig. contra Cels. l. 2. p. 62. p. 80. Tertul Apol. c. 23. o Niceph. l. 5. c. 29. p V. Euseb. l. 6. 7. fere integros de Sev. Spartian Tertul. de Decio S. Cypr. q Euseb. l. 8. c. 2. â— 6. Niceph. l. 7. c. 6. Euseb. l. 8. â— 11. c. 9. Sulp. Sev. l. 2. Oros. l. 7. c. 25. Ignatii Patr. Antioch literas apud Scalig. de emend temp l. 5. p. 496. Spond ad annum 302. n. 4. Luke 1. 4. r Ego quidem etiamsi non semel sed saepe id in sacris moniment is scriptum extaret non id circo tamen ita rem prorsus se habere crederem Socin de Jesu Chr. Servatore parte 3. c. 6. operum tom 2. p. 204. s John 10. 30. t 1. John 5. 7. The Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one 8. The Spirit and the Water and the Blood and these three agree in one u Heb. 1. 10 11 12. x Psal. 102. 25 26 27. y The reasonableness of this supposition might be demonstrated if there were any need of it z L. 1. de Sanct. Beatit c. 17. a Psal. 27. 8. b Psal. 4. 6. c Psal. 45. 12. d Concil tom 18. p. 295. e Sigon de regno Ital. ad annum 712. l. 3. p. 94. f Sigon de regno Ital. ad annum 726. l. 3. p. 103. g Leonis imperium respuerunt ac
Church First If the Church of Rome have reason to expect infallible assistance of the Spirit in any case it is as much in Canonizing of a Saint as in any other it being as unhappy to determine a false Object for Religious Worship to their Church as a false Article of Faith there is as much need that there should be an infallible proposal of the one as other for when she does Decree by the Authority of the Omnipotent God such a one is a Saint receiv'd in Glory and so renders him the Object of their Worship if he should chance to be a Reprobate to cause the People to fall prostrate to the Shrine of one that 's damn'd and call his flames to warm Gods Altar and the Votaries breast to make the whole Church worship one that is in Hell is liable to greater aggravations of impiety than an erroneous Opinion in very many of their points of Faith can be But it is known their Church hath Canoniz'd one of this Nation Becket who though he was indeed illegally and barbarously Murthered yet 't is not the Suffering but the Cause that makes the Martyr now he did not fall a Sacrifice for his Religion but was slain because he did disturb the State by suspending all the Bishops that upheld the Kings just cause against him so that neither King nor State could live in peace for him for opposing also those Laws which himself had sworn to Laws that were not onely truly Sovereign Rights but are maintain'd even unto this day as Priviledges by the Gallican Church and they not branded for so doing In a word he was slain for those actions which his own Bishops condemned him for as a perjur'd man and a Traytor And for persisting in them to the death he was Sainted Now whatever the estate of this man be in the next World I meddle not with that Yet for Disobedience and Rebellion to place one in Heaven whence for those things Lucifer did fall does seem to shew what Spirit they are of that Canonize such Saints For the Church to pray to Christ that by the wounds of this Saint he would remit their sins does express what rate their Church does set upon the merits of resisting Princes and disturbing States in the behalf of Holy Church When such actions make men fit to be joynt purchasers with Christ in the Redemption of the World But when the French Histories say 't was disputed long after in Paris whether he were Damn'd or Sav'd that the Church in her publique Offices should pray to go thither where he is gone to have his Society though it express their most infallible assurance of the condition of those men who for their sakes resist the Secular Powers yet O my Soul enter not thou into their counsels in this world neither say a Confederacy to whom they say a Confederacy much less pray to be in their Society who by resisting S. Paul says do receive unto themselves Damnation Secondly It is notorious that in their first General Council at Lyons Anno 1245. the Emperour Frederick the second by the Sentence of the Pope and the whole Council after long deliberation and producing several Arguments which they say are not sleight but effectual to prove the suspicion of Heresie is depriv'd of his Empire all his Subjects are absolv'd from their Oath of Allegiance and by Apostolical Authority forbidden to obey him Therefore that such things may be done in the cases of Religion hath the Authority of a General Council 't was that Council that Decreed Red Hats to Cardinals Hats red it seems not onely with the Royal Purple but with the Blood of Kings and of Royalty it self Thirdly I should have urged the well known Canon of the General Council of Lateran the greatest their Church ever boasted of which says That if the temporal Lord shall neglect to purge his Territories from such as the Church there declares Hereticks he shall be Excommunicated by the Metropolitan and if he do not mend within a year complained of to the Pope that so he may declare his Subjects absolv'd from their Allegiance and expose his Lands to be seiz'd by Catholicks who shall exterminate the Hereticks saving the right of the chief Lord Provided he give no impediment to this But the same law shall be observed to those that have no chief Lords that is who are themselves Supream This I should urge but that some say that penal Statutes which are leges odiosae tantum disponunt quantum loquuntur Therefore this Canon since it does not name Kings it does not they say concern them although 't is plain it do sufficiently enough But that there may be therefore no evasion Fourthly In the General Council of Constance that part of it I mean that is approv'd by their whole Church The Pope and Council joyn together in commanding all Arch-Bishops Bishops and Inquisitors to pronounce all such Excommunicate as are declared Hereticks in such and such Articles and that of Transubstantiation half-Communion and the Pope's Supremacy are among them or that favour ot defend them or that Communicate with them in publique or in private whether in sacred Offices or otherwise etiamsi Patriarchali Archiepiscopali Episcopali Regali Reginali Ducali aut aliâ quâvis Ecclesiasticâ aut mundanâ proefulgeant dignitate And Commands them also to proceed to Interdicts and deprivation of Dignities and Goods and whatsoever other Penalties vias modos Thus that Council though it took away the Peoples right to the Blood of Christ denying them the Cup in the Sacrament gave them in exchange the Blood of their own Kings making them a right to that And that they extend the force of these Canons to the most absolute Princes even to him that pleads exemption most to the King of France is plain because when Sixtus the fifth thundred out his Bulls against the then King of Navarre afterwards King Henry the fourth of France and the Prince of Conde depriving them not onely of their Lands and Dignities but their Succession also to the Crown of France absolving their Subjects from their Oaths forbidding them to obey them he declared he did it to them as to relapsed Hereticks favourers and defenders of them and as such fal'n under the Censures of the Canons of the Church Now there are no other Canons that do take in Kings but these which can touch him for that of Boniface the eighth which says the Pope hath power to judg all temporal Powers is declared not to extend to France Cap. meruit de priviledg in extravag communibus Thus by the publique Acts of their Church and by the Canons of their General Councils we have found in causes of Religion Deprivation of Princes Wars and Bloodshed and the other consequent Miseries are establish'd Rebellion encouraged by a Law And if Rebellion be as the sin of Witchcraft then we know what manner of Spirit they are of that do