things of God and all other duties to be the things of the world for it was a Pharisaicall device to cry Corban and to refuse to relieve their aged Parents it is good to give to a Church but it is better to give to the Poor and though they must be both provided for yet in cases of dispute Mercy carries the cause against Religion and the Temple And although Mary was commended for choosing the better part yet Mary had done worse if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother Martha was troubled with much serving that was more then need and therefore she was to blame and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be more then needs and some women are troubled with over-much hearing and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house 4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of Religion for although the things of the Spirit are better then the things of the World yet a spirituall man is not in humane regards to be preferred before Princes and noble personages Because a man is called spirituall in severall regards and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace or co-operating toward the works of the Spirit * A King and a Bishop both have callings in order to godlinesse and honesty and spirituall effects towards the advancement of Christs Kingdome whose representatives severally they are * But whether of these two works more immediately or more effectively cannot at all times be known and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concerning doing them civill regards * and possibly the partaking the Spirit is a neerer relation to him then doing his ministeries and serving his ends upon others * and if relations to God and Gods Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civill honour every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some Kings and some Bishops * But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world so they naturally can inferre onely such a relative dignity as can be expressed in spirituall manners But because such relations are subjected in men of this life and we now converse especially in materiall and secular significations therefore we are to expresse our regards to men of such relations by proportionable expressions but because civill excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civill honors and spirituall excellencies doe onely claim them accidentally and indirectly therefore in titles of honour and humane regards the civill praeeminence is the appendix of the greatest civill power and imployment and is to descend in proper measures and for a spirituall relation to challenge a temporall dignity is as if the best Musick should challenge the best cloathes or a Lute-string should contend with a Rose for the honour of the greatest sweetnesse * Adde to this that although temporall things are in order to spirituall and therefore are lesse perfect yet this is not so naturally for temporall things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution and it is by a supernaturall grace that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory and therefore temporall things and persons and callings have properly the chiefest temporall regard and Christ took nothing of this away from them but put them higher by sanctifying and ennobling them * But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man then the richest trade can suppose the richest man From callings to men the argument is fallacious and a Smith is a more usefull man then he that teaches Logick but not always to be more esteemed and called to stand at the chairs of Princes and Nobles * Holy persons and holy things and all great relations are to be valued by generall proportions to their correlatives but if wee descend to make minute and exact proportions and proportion an inch of temporall to a minute of spirituall we must needs be hugely deceived unlesse we could measure the motion of an Angell by a string or the progressions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple * And yet if these measures were taken it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be preferr'd before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things A man generally is to be esteemed above a woman but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent Queen not alwayes this man before this woman Now Kings and Princes are the best in all temporall dignities and therefore if they had in them no spirituall relations and consequent excellencies as they have very many yet are not to be undervalu'd to spirituall relations which in this world are very imperfect weak partiall and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency propriety and perfection and then also all shall have them according to the worth of their persons not of their calling * But lastly what men may not challenge is not their just and proper due but spirituall persons and the neerest relatives to God stand by him but so long at they dwell low and safe in humility and rise high in nothing but in labours and zeal of soules and devotion * In proportion to this rule a Church may be pull'd down to save a Town and the Vessels of the Church may be sold to redeem Captives when there is a great calamity imminent and prepared for reliefe and no other way to succour it But in the whole the duty of zeale requires that we neglect an ordinary visit rather then an ordinary prayer and a great profit rather then omit a required duty No excuse can legitimate a sin and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit and if he cannot reconcile them will yet tie them together like a Hyaena and a Dog this man pretends to Religion but secures the world and is indifferent and lukewarme towards that so he may be warme and safe in the possession of this 2. To that fervour and zeal that is necessary and a duty it is required that we be constant and persevering Esto fidelis ad mortem said the Spirit of God to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna Be faithfull unto death and I will give thee a crown of life For he that is warm to day and cold to morrow zealous in his resolution and weary in his practises fierce in the beginning and slack and easie in his progresse hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of he sees not reason enough for Religion and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary and therefore he is duplicis animi as St. James calls him of a doubtfull mind For Religion is worth as much to day as it was yesterday and that cannot change though we doe and if we doe we have left God and whither
usefulnesse and advantages of its first intention But this I intended not to have spoken 2. Our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is safe Some there are who in their first attempts and entries upon Religion while the passion that brought them in remains undertake things as great as their highest thoughts no repentance is sharp enough no charities expensive enough no fastings afflictive enough then totis Quinquatribus orant and finding some deliciousnesse at the first contest and in that activity of their passion they make vowes to binde themselves for ever to this state of delicacies The onset is fair but the event is this The age of a passion is not long and the flatulent spirit being breathed out the man begins to abate of his first heats and is ashamed but then he considers that all that was not necessary and therefore he will abate something more and from something to something at last it will come to just nothing and the proper effect of this is indignation and hatred of holy things an impudent spirit carelessenesse or despair Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably because he is not imprison'd for him or undone or design'd to Martyrdome may desire a triall that will undoe him It is like fighting of a Duell to shew our valour Stay till the King commands you to fight and die and then let zeal do its noblest offices This irregularity and mistake was too frequent in the primitive Church when men and women would strive for death and be ambitious to feel the hangmans sword some miscarryed in the attempt and became sad examples of the unequall yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver 3. Let Zeal never transport us to attempt anything but what is possible M. Teresa made a vow that she would do alwaies that which was absolutely the best But neither could her understanding alwaies tell her which was so nor her will alwayes have the same fervours and it must often breed scruples and sometimes tediousnesse and wishes that the vow were unmade He that vowes never to have an ill thought never to commit an error hath taken a course that his little infirmities shall become crimes and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach Zeal is a violence to a mans spirit and unlesse the spirit be secur'd by the proper nature of the duty and the circumstances of the action and the possibilities of the man it is like a great fortune in the meanest person it bears him beyond his limit and breaks him into dangers and passions transportations and all the furies of disorder that can happen to an abused person 4. Zeal is not safe unlesse it be in re probabili too it must be in a likely matter For we that finde so many excuses to untie all our just obligations and distinguish our duty into so much finenesse that it becomes like leaf-gold apt to be gone at every breath it can not be prudent that we zealously undertake what is not probable to be effected If we do the event can be nothing but portions of the former evill scruple and snares shamefull retreats and new fantastick principles In all our undertakings we must consider what is our state of life what our naturall inclinations what is our society and what are our dependencies by what necessities we are born down by what hopes we are biassed and by these let us measure our heats and their proper businesse A zealous man runs up a sandy hill the violence of motion is his greatest hinderance and a passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit as it sets forward any outward work and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty so long as it is within and relative to God and our selves so long it is a holy flame but if it be in an outward duty or relative to our neighbours or in an instance not necessary it sometimes spoils the action and alwaies endangers it But I must remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie and killing as many as they can and damning more then they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume therefore this discourse is lesse necessary A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riphâ—an Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palsies Colds and Consumptions are their evils and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit the proper maladies of our age for though some are hot when they are mistaken yet men are cold in a righteous cause and the nature of this evill is to be insensible and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill nor perceive their danger But of this I have already given account and to it I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus nec tormenta quae timemus young man thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm and the haters of strict devotion But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the delicacies of Paradise repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes can by nothing be invited to a persevering a great a passionate religion more then by remembring what he lost and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps and are all on fire with Divine love whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth Sermon XV. The House of Feasting OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES Part I. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye THis is the Epicures Proverb begun upon a weak mistake started by chance from the discourses of drink and thought witty by the undiscerning company and prevail'd infinitely because it struck their fancy luckily and maintained the merry meeting but as it happens commonly to such discourses so this also when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning and the sober hours of the day it seems the most witlesse and the most unreasonable in the world When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus he uses this expression Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam angustè qui occisurus est pascit The prison keeps a
Holinesse is the Sun and righteousnesse is the Moon in that region our society shall be Quires of singers and our conversation wonder contemplation shall be our food and love shall be the wine of elect souls and as to every naturall appetite there is now proportion'd an object crasse materiall unsatisfying and allayed with sorrow and uneasinesse so there be new capacities and equall objects the desires shall be fruition and the appetite shall not suppose want but a faculty of delight and an unmeasureable complacency the will and the understanding love and wonder joyes every day and the same forever this shall be their state who shall be accounted worthy of the resurrection to this life where the body shall be a partner but no servant where it shall have no work of its own but it shall rejoyce with the soul where the soul shall rule without resistance or an enemy and we shall be fitted to enjoy God who is the Lord and Father of spirits In this world we see it is quite contrary we long for perishing meat and fill our stomachs with corruption we look after white and red and the weaker beauties of the night we are passionate after rings and seals and inraged at the breaking of a Crystall we delight in the society of fools and weak persons we laugh at sin and contrive mischiefs and the body rebels against the soul and carries the cause against all its just pretences and our soul it self is above half of it earth and stone in its affections and distempers our hearts are hard and inflexible to the softer whispers of mercy and compassion having no loves for any thing but strange flesh and heaps of money and popular noises for misery and folly and therefore we are a huge way off from the Kingdome of God whose excellencies whose designs whose ends whose constitution is spirituall and holy and separate and sublime and perfect Now between these two states of naturall flesh and heavenly spirit that is the powers of darknesse and the regions of light the miseries of man and the perfections of God the imperfection of nature where we stand by our creation and supervening follies and that state of felicities whither we are designed by the mercies of God there is a middle state the Kingdome of grace wrought for us by our Mediator the man Christ Jesus who came to perfect the vertue of Religion and the designs of God and to reforme our Nature and to make it possible for us to come to that spirituall state where all felicity does dwell The Religion that Christ taught is a spirituall Religion it designs so far as this state can permit to make us spirituall that is so as the spirit be the prevailing ingredient God must now be worshipped in spirit and not only so but with a fervent spirit and though God in all religions did seise upon the spirit and even under Moses Law did by the shadow of the ceremony require the substantiall worship by cutting off the flesh intended the circumcision of the heart yet because they were to minde the outward action it took off much from the intention and activity of the spirit Man could not doe both busily And then they fail'd also in the other part of a spirituall Religion for the nature of a spirituall Religion is that in it we serve God with our hearts and affections and because while the spirit prevails we do not to evill purposes of abatement converse with flesh and bloud this service is also fervent intense active wise and busie according to the nature of things spirituall Now because God alwayes perfectly intended it yet because he lesse perfectly required it in the Law of Moses I say they fell short in both For 1. They so rested in the outward action that they thought themselves chast if they were no adulterers though their eyes were wanton as Kids and their thoughts polluted as the springs of the wildernesse when a Panther and a Lionesse descend to drink and lust and if they did not rob the Temple they accounted it no sin if they murmur'd at the riches of Religion and Josephus reproves Polybius for saying that Antiochus was punished for having a design of sacriledge and therefore Tertullian sayes of them they were nec plenae nec adeò timendae disciplinae ad innocentiae veritatem this was their righteousnesse which Christ said unlesse we will exceed we shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven where all spirituall perfections are in state and excellency 2. The other part of a spirituall worship is a fervour and a holy Zeal of Gods glory greatnesse of desire and quicknesse of action of all this the Jewes were not carefull at all excepting the zealots amongst them and they were not only fervent but inflamed and they had the earnestnesse of passion for the holy warmth of Religion and in stead of an earnest charity they had a cruell discipline and for fraternall correction they did destroy a sinning Israelite and by both these evill states of Religion they did the work of the Lord deceitfully they either gave him the action without the heart or zeal without charity or religion without zeal or ceremony without religion or indifferency without desires and then God is served by the outward man and not the inward or by part of the inward and not all by the understanding and not by the will or by the will when the affections are cold and the body unapt and the lower faculties in rebellion and the superior in disorder and the work of God is left imperfect and our persons ungracious and our ends unacquired and the state of a spirituall kingdome not at all set forward towards any hope or possibility of being obtained All this Christ came to mend and by his Lawes did make provision that God should be served intirely according as God alwaies designed and accordingly required by his Prophets and particularly in my Text that his work be done sincerely and our duty with great affection and by these two provisions both the intension and the extension are secured our duty shall be intire and it shall be perfect we shall be neither lame nor cold without a limb nor without naturall heat and then the work of the Lord will prosper in our hands but if we fail in either we do the Lords work deceitfully and then we are accursed For so saith the Spirit of God Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully 1. Here then is the duty of us all 1. God requires of us to serve him with an integrall intire or a whole worship and religion 2. God requires of us to serve him with earnest and intense affections The intire purpose of both which I shall represent in its severall parts by so many propositions 3. I shall consider concerning the measures of zeal and its inordinations 1. He that serves God with the body without the soul serves God deceitfully My son give me thy heart
he can goe that goes from God his owne sorrowes will soon enough instruct him This fire must never goe out but it must be like the fire of heaven it must shine like the starres though sometimes cover'd with a cloud or obscur'd by a greater light yet they dwell for ever in their orbs and walk in their circles and observe their circumstances but goe not out by day nor night and set not when Kings die nor are extinguish'd when Nations change their Government So must the zeal of a Christian be a constant incentive of his duty and though sometimes his hand is drawne back by violence or need and his prayers shortned by the importunity of businesse and some parts omitted by necessities and just complyances yet still the fire is kept alive it burns within when the light breaks not forth and is eternall as the orb of fire or the embers of the Altar of Incense 3. No man is zealous as he ought but he that delights in the service of God without this no man can persevere but must faint under the continuall pressure of an uneasie load If a man goes to his prayers as children goe to schoole or give alms as those that pay contribution and meditate with the same willingnesse with which young men die this man does personam sustinere he acts a part which he cannot long personate but will find so many excuses and silly devices to omit his duty such tricks to run from that which will make him happy he will so watch the eyes of men and be so sure to doe nothing in private he will so often distinguish and mince the duty into minutes and little particles he will so tie himself to the letter of the Law and be so carelesse of the intention and spirituall designe he will be punctuall in the ceremony and trifling in the secret and he will be so well pleased when he is hindred by an accident not of his own procuring and will have so many devices to defeat his duty and to cosuen himselfe that he will certainly manifest that he is afraid of Religion and secretly hates it he counts it a burthen and an objection and then the man is sure to leave it when his circumstances are so fitted But if we delight in it we enter into a portion of the reward as soon as we begin the worke and the very grace shall be stronger then the temptation in its very pretence of pleasure and therefore it must needs be pleasing to God because it confesses God to be the best Master Religion the best work and it serves God with choice and will and reconciles our nature to it and entertaines our appetite and then there is no ansa or handle left whereby we can easily be drawne from duty when all parties are pleased with the imployment But this delight is not to be understood as if it were alwayes required that we should feele an actuall cheerfulnesse and sensible joy such as was that of Jonathan when he had newly tasted honey and the light came into his eyes and he was refreshed and pleasant This happens sometimes when God please to intice or reward a mans spirit with little Antepasts of heaven but such a delight onely is necessary and a duty that we alwayes choose our duty regularly and undervalue the pleasures of temptation and proceed in the work of grace with a firme choice and unabated election our joy must be a joy of hope a joy at least of confident sufferers the joys of faith and expectation rejoycing in hope so the Apostle calls it that is a going forward upon such a perswasion as sees the joyes of God laid up for the Children of men and so the sun may shine under a cloud and a man may rejoyce in persecution and delight in losses that is though his outward man groanes and faints and dies yet his spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inner man is confident and industrious and hath a hope by which it lives and works unto the end It was the case of our blessed Saviour in his agony his soule was exceeding sorrowfull unto death and the load of his Fathers anger crushed his shoulder and bowed his knees to the ground and yet he chose it and still went forward and resolved to die and did so and what wee choose wee delight in and wee thinke it to be eligible and therefore amiable and fit by its proper excellencies and appendages to be delighted in it is not pleasant to the flesh at all times for its dignity is spirituall and heavenly but therefore it is proportioned to the spirit which is as heavenly as the reward and therefore can feel the joys of it when the body hangs the head and is uneasie and troubled These are the necessary parts of zeale of which if any man failes he is in a state of lukewarmnesse and that is a spirituall death As a banished man or a condemned person is dead civilly he is diminutus capite he is not reckoned in the census nor partakes of the priviledges nor goes for a person but is reckoned among things in the possession of others so is a lukewarm person he is corde diminutus he is spiritually dead his heart is estranged from God his affections are lessened his hope diminished and his title cancell'd and he remains so unlesse 1. he prefers Religion before the world and 2. spiritually rejoyces in doing his duty and 3. doe it constantly and with perseverance These are the heats and warmth of life whatsoever is lesse then this is a disease and leads to the coldnesse and dishonors of the grave SERMON XIV Part III. 3. SO long as our zeal and forwardnesse in Religion hath only these constituent parts it hath no more then can keep the duty alive but beyond this there are many degrees of earnestnesse and vehemence which are progressions towards the state of perfection which every man ought to design and desire to be added to his portion of this sort I reckon frequency in prayer and almes above our estate Concerning which two instances I have these two cautions to insert 1. Concerning frequency in prayer it is an act of zeal so ready and prepared for the spirit of a man so easie and usefull so without objection and so fitted for every mans affairs his necessities and possibilities that he that prayes but seldome cannot in any sense pretend to be a religious person For in Scripture there is no other rule for the frequency of prayer given us but by such words which signifie we should do it alwaies Pray continually and Men ought alwayes to pray and not to faint And then men have so many necessities that if we should esteem our needs to be the circumstances and positive determination of our times of prayer we should be very far from admitting limitation of the former words but they must mean that we ought to pray frequently every day For in danger and trouble naturall Religion
to admit him that excels us in any gift or grace whatsoever and to commend it without abatement and mingling allayes with the commendation and disparagements to the man If we be arrived but thus farre it is well and we must go further But we use to think that all disaffections of the body are removed if they be changed into the more tolerable although we have not an athletick health or the strength of porters or wrastlers For although it be felicity to be quit of all passion that may be sinfull or violent and part of the happinesse of heaven shall consist in that freedom yet our growth in grace consists in the remission and lessening of our passions onely he that is incontinent in his lust or in his anger in his desires of money or of honour in his revenge or in his fear in his joyes or in his sorrows that man is not grown at all in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ This onely in the scruting and consequent judgement concerning our passions it will concern the curiosity of our care to watch against passions in the reflex act against pride or lust complacency and peevishnesse attending upon vertue For he was noted for a vain person who being overjoyed for the cure of his pride as he thought cried out to his wife Cerne Dionysia deposui fastum behold I have laid aside all my pride and of that very dream the silly man thought he had reason to boast but considered not that it was an act of pride and levity besides If thou hast given a noble present to thy friend if thou hast rejected the unjust desire of thy Prince if thou hast endured thirst and hunger for religion or continence if thou hast refused an offer like that which was made to Joseph sit down and rest in thy good conscience and do not please thy self in opinions and phantastick noises abroad and do not despise him that did not do so as thou hast done and reprove no man with an upbraiding circumstance for it will give thee but an ill return and a contemptible reward if thou shalt over-lay thy infant-vertue or drown it with a flood of breast-milk Sermon XV. Of Growth in Grace Part II. 5. HE is well grown in or towards the state of grace who is more patient of a sharp reproof then of a secret flattery For a reprehension contains so much mortification to the pride and complacencies of a man is so great an affront to an easie and undisturbed person is so empty of pleasure and so full of profit that he must needs love vertue in a great degree who can take in that which onely serves her end and is displeasant to himself and all his gayeties A severe reprehendor of anothers vice comes dressed like Iacob when he went to cozen his brother of the blessing his outside is rough and hairy but the voice is Jacobs voice rough hands and a healthfull language get the blessing even against the will of him that shall feel it but he that is patient and even not apt to excuse his fault that is lesse apt to anger or to scorn him that snatches him rudely from the flames of hell he is vertues Confessor and suffers these lesser stripes for that interest which will end in spirituall and eternall benedictions They who are furious against their monitors are incorrigible but it is one degree of meeknesse to suffer discipline and a meek man cannot easily be an ill man especially in the present instance he appears at least to have a healthfull constitution he hath good flesh to heal his spirit is capable of medicine and that man can never be despaired of who hath a disposition so neer his health as to improve all physick and whose nature is relieved by every good accident from without But that which I observe is That this is not onely a good disposition towards repentance and restitution but is a signe of growth in grace according as it becomes naturall easie and habituall Some men chide themselves for all their misdemeanours because they would be represented to the censures and opinions of other men with a fair Character and such as need not to be reproved others out of inconsideration sleep in their own dark rooms and untill the charity of a Guide or of a friend draws the curtain and lets in a beam of light dream on untill the graves open and hell devours them But if they be called upon by the grace of God let down with a sheet of counsels and friendly precepts they are presently inclined to be obedient to the heavenly monitions but unlesse they be dressed with circumstances of honour and civility with arts of entertainment and insinuation they are rejected utterly or received unwillingly Therefore although upon any termes to endure a sharp reproof be a good signe of amendment yet the growth of grace is not properly signified by every such sufferance For when this disposition begins amendment also begins and goes on in proportion to the increment of this To endure a reproof without adding a new sin is the first step to amendments that is to endure it without scorn or hatred or indignation 2. The next is to suffer reproof without excusing our selves For he that is apt to excuse himself is onely desirous in a civill manner to set the reproof aside and to represent the charitable monitour to be too hasty in his judgement and deceived in his information and the fault to dwell there not with himself 3. Then he that proceeds in this instance admits the reprovers sermon or discourse without a private regret he hath no secret murmurs or unwillingnesses to the humiliation but is onely ashamed that he should deserve it but for the reprehension it self that troubles him not but he looks on it as his own medicine and the others charity 4. But if to this he addes that he voluntary confesses his own fault and of his own accord vomits out the loads of his own intemperance and eases his spirit of the infection then it is certain he is not onely a professed and hearty enemy against sin but a zealous and a prudent and an active person against all its interest and never counts himself at ease but while he rests upon the banks of Sion or at the gates of the temple never pleased but in vertue and religion Then he knows the state of his soul and the state of his danger he reckons it no objection to be abased in the face of man so he may be gracious in the eyes of God And that 's a signe of a good grace and a holy wisdom That man is grown in the grace of God and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Justus in principio sermonis est accusator sui said the Wise man The righteous accuseth himself in the beginning that is quickly lest he be prevented And certain it is he cannot be either wise or good that had rather have a