many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let our be carefull to maintain good works for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlerned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to
nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion to our short lived memories or to the broken records and fragments of story left after the inundation of barbarisme and war and change of Kingdoms and corruption of Authors but by its relation to the fountain of our truths and the birth of our religion under our Fathers in Christ the holy Apostles and Disciples a Camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable But yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestick creatures and some people are apt to call every thing new which they never heard of before as if all religion were to be measured by the standards of their observation or country customs Whatsoever was not taught by Christ or his Apostles though it came in by Papias or Dionysius by Arius or Liberius is certainly new as to our account and whatsoever is taught to us by the Doctors of the present age if it can shew its test from the beginning of our period for revelation is not to be called new though it be pressed with a new zeal and discoursed of by unheard of arguments that is though men be ignorant and need to learn it yet it is not therefore new or unnecessary 2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name or the owning of a private Appellative as of Papist Lutheran Calvenists Zuinglian Socinian think it is enough to denominat them not of Christ if they are called by the name of a man And indeed the thing is in it self ill but then if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified we must follow no man no Church nor no communion for all are by their adversaries marked with an appellative of separation and singularity and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name such as they choose or such as is permitted to them by fame and the people and a natural necessity of making a distinction Thus the Donatist called themselves the flock of God and the Novatians called the Catholicks traditors and the Eustathians called themselves Catholikes and the worshippers of images made Iconoclast to be a name
that Christ prayes in Heaven for us and if we do not pray on earth in the same manner according to our measures we had as good hold our peace our prayers are an abominable sacrifice and send up to God no better a perfume then if wee burned assa faetida or the raw flesh of a murdered man upon the altar of incense 6. The spirit of Christ and of prayer helps our infirmities by giving us confidence and importunity I put them together For as our faith is and our trust in God so is our hope and so is our prayer weary or lasting long or short not in words but in works and in desires For the words of prayer are no part of the spirit of prayer words may be the body of it but the spirit of prayer alwayes consists in holinesse that is in holy desires and holy actions words are not properly capable of being holy all words are in themselves seâ—vants of things and the holinesse of a prayer is not at all concerned in the manner of its expression but in the spirit of it that is in the violence of its desires and the innocence of its ends and the continuence of its imployment this is the verification of that great Prophecie which Christ made that in all the world the true worshippers should worship in spirit and in truth that is with a pure minde with holy desires for spiritual things according to the minde of the spirit in imitation of Christs intercession with perseverance with charity or love That is the spirit of God and these are the spiritualities of the Gospel and the formalities of prayer as they are Christian and Evangelicall 7. Some men have thought of a seventh way and explicate our praying in the spirit by a mere volubilty of language which indeed is a direct undervaluing the spirit of God and of Christ the spirit of manifestation and intercession it is to return to the materiality and imperfection of the law it is to worship God in outward forms and to think that Gods service consists in shels and rinds in lips and voices in shadows and images of things it is to retire from Christ to Moses and at the best it is a going from real graces to imaginary gifts and when praying with the spirit hath in it so many excellencies and consists of so many parts of holinesse and sanctification and is an act of the inner man we shall be infinitely mistaken if we let go this substance and catch at a shadow and sit down and rest in the imagination of an improbable unnecessary uselesse gift of speaking to which the nature of many men and the art of all learned men and the very use and confidence of ignorant men is too abundantly sufficient Let us not so despise the spirit of Christ as to make it no other then the breath of our lungs * For though it might be possible that at the first and when formes of prayer were few and seldome the spirit of God might dictatethe very words to the Apostles and first Christians yet it follows not that therfore he does so still to all that pretend praying with the spirit For if he did not then at the first dictate words as we know not whether he did or no why shall he be supposâ—d to do so now If he did then it follows that he does not now because his doing it then was sufficient for all men since for so the formes taught by the spirit were paternes for others to imitate in all the descending ages of the Church There was once an occasion so great that the spirit of God did think it a work â—it for him to teach a man to weave silke or embroider gold or woke in brasse as it happened to Besaleel and Aholiab But then every weaver or worker in brasse may by the same reason pretend that he works by the spirit as that he prayes by the spirit if by prayer he means forming the words For although in the ease of working it was certain that the spirit did teach in the ease of inditing or forming the words it is not certain whether he did or no yet because in both it was extraordinary if it was at all and ever since in both it is infinitely needlesse to pretend the Spirit in forms of every mans making even though they be of contrary religions and pray one against the other it may serve an end of a phantastic and hypochondriacal religion or a secret ambition but not the ends of God or the honour of the Spirit The Jews in their declensions to folly and idolatry did worship the stone of imagination that is certain smooth images in which by art magic pictures and little faces were represented declaring hidden things and stoln goods and God severely forbad this basenesse but we also have taken up this folly and worship the stone of imagination we beget imperfect phantasmes and speculative images in our phansy and we fall down and worship them never considering that the spirit of God never appears through such spectres Prayer is one of the noblest exercises of Christian religion or rather is it that duty in which all graces are concentred Prayer is charity it is faith it is a conformity to Gods will a desiring according to the desires of Heaven an imitation of Christs intercession and prayer must suppose all holinesse or else it is nothing and therefore all that in which men need Gods Spirit all that is in order to prayer Baptisme is but a prayer and the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper is but a prayer a prayer of sacrifice representative and a prayer of oblation and a prayer of intercession and a prayer of thanksgiving and obedience is a prayer and begs and procures blessings and if the Holy Ghost hath sanctified the whole man then he hath sanctified the prayer of the man and not till then and if ever there was or could be any other praying with the spirit it was such a one as a wicked man might have and therefore it cannot be a note of distinction between the good and bad between the saints and men of the world But this onely which I have described from the fountains of Scripture is that which a good man can have and therefore this is it in which we ought to rejoyce that he that glories may glory in the Lord. Thus I have as I could described the effluxes of the Holy Spirit upon us in his great chanels But the great effect of them is this That as by the arts of the spirits of darknesse and our own malice our souls are turned into flesh not in the naturall sense but in the morall and Theologicall and animalis homo is the same with carnalis that is his soul is a servant of the passions and desires of the flesh and is flesh in its operations and ends in its principles and actions So on the other side by the Grace of God and the promise of the
and intolerable and there is no soft counsels then to be entertained they are already in the fire but they may be saved for all that so great so infinite so miraculous is Gods mercy that he will not give a sinner over though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell Gods desires of having us to be saved continue even when we begin to be damned even till we will not be saved and are gone beyond Gods method and all the revelations of his kindnesse And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner whose iniquity is sweld beyond all the bulk and heap of Gods revealed loving kindnesse If sin hath sweld beyond grace and superabounds over it that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man such a person is removed beyond all the malice of humane nature into the evil and spite of Devils and accursed spirits there is no greater sadnesse in the world then this God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men and some sins they have sinned like the falling Angels and having over run the ordinary evil inclinations of their nature they are without the protection of the divine mercy and the conditions of that grace which was designed to save all the world was sufficient to have saved twenty This is a condition to be avoyded with the care of God and his Angels and all the whole industry of man In order to which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin and death together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them that we may observe the evils of the least and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died which the Holy Ghost never means to cure and which the eternal God never will pardon for there are of this kinde more then commonly men imagine whilest they amuse their spirits with gaietyes and false principles till they have run into horrible impieties from whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence 1. Of some have compassion and these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions all which have their proper cure proportionable to their proper state gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience or because they do an evil against which there is no expresse commandment It is a sad calamity that there are so many milions of men and women that are entred into a state of sicknesse and danger and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no nor were ever taught by what names to call them For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name and called clownishnesse want of breeding and contentednesse and temperate living is suppressed to be want of courage and noble thoughts and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their estates with the title of liberal and noble usages timorousnesse is called caution rashnesse is called quicknesse of spirit covetousnesse is fragality amorousnesse is society and gentile peevishnesse and anger is courage flattery is humane and courteous and under these false vails vertue slips away like truth from under the hand of theâ— that fight for her and leave vices dressed up withthe same imagâ—â—y and the fraud not discovered till the day of recompences when men are distinguished by their rewards But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a Lethargy and they call a hestick-feaver the vigour of a natural heat tell nature changes those lesse discerned states into the notorious images of death Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in 10000. of their actions every one of which is very disputable and do not think they are bound to consider these men are to be pitied and instructed they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily diet their consciences must be made tender and their Catechisme enlarged teach them and make them sensible and they are cured But the other in this place are more considerable Men sin without observation because their actions have no restraint of an expresse Commandment no letter of the law to condemn them by an expresse sentence And this happens when the crime is comprehended under a general notion without the instancing of particulars for if you search over all the Scripture you shall never finde incest named and marked with the black character of death and there are diveres sorts of uncleannesse to which Scripture therefore gives no name because she would have them have no being And it had been necessary that God should have described all particulars and all kindes if he had not given reason to man For so it is fit that a guide should point out every turning if he be to teach a childe or a fool to return under his fathers roof But he that bids us avoid intemperance for fear of a feaver supposes you to be sufficiently instructed that you may avoid the plague and when to look upon a woman with lust is condemned it will not be necessary to adde you must not do more when even the least is forbidden and when to uncover the nakednesse of Noah brought an universal plague upon the posterity of Cham it was not necessary that the law-giver should say you must not ascend to your fathers bed or draw the curtains from your sisters retirements When the Athenians forbad to transports figs from Athens there was no need to name the gardens of Alcibiades much lesse was it necessary to adde that Chabrias should send no plants to Sparta What so ever is comprised under the general notion and partakes of the common nature and the same iniquity needs no special prohibition unlesse we think we can mock God and elude his holy precepts with an absurd trick of mistaken Logick I am sure that will not save us harmlesse from a thunderbolt 2. Men sin without an expresse prohibition when they commit a thing that is like a forbidden evil And when Saint Paul had reckoned many works of the flesh he addes and such like all that have the same unreasonablenesse carnaâ—â—ty For thus poligamy is unlawful for if it be not lawful for a Christian to put away his wife and marry another unlesse for adultery much lesse may he keep a first and take a second when the first is not put away If a
but when his understanding is abused by an inevitable or an intolerable weaknesse our wills follow their blind guide and are not the perfect mistresses of their own actions and therefore leave a way and easinesse to repent and be ashamed of it and therefore a possibility and readinesse for pardon And these are the sins that we are taught to pray to God that he would pardon as he gives us our bread that is every day For in many things we offend all said Saint James that is in many smaller matters in matters of surprize or inevitable infirmity And therefore Posidices said that Saint Austin was used to say That he would not have even good and holy Priests go from this world without the susception of equall and worthy penances and the most innocent life in our account is not a competent instrument of a peremptory confidence and of justifying our selves I am guilty of nothing said Saint Paul that is of no ill intent or negligence in preaching the Gospel yet I am not hereby justified for God it may bee knows many little irregularities and insinuations of sin In this case we are to make a difference but humility and prayer and watchfulnesse are the direct instruments of the expiation of such sinnes But then secondly whosoever sins without these abating circumstances that is in great instances in which a mans understanding cannot be cozened as in drunkennesse murder adultery and in the frequent repetitions of any sort of sin whatsoever in which a mans choice cannot be surprized and in which it is certain there is a love of the sin and a delight in it and a power over a mans resolutions in these cases it is a miraculous grace and an extraordinary change that must turn the current and the stream of the iniquity and when it is begun the pardon is more uncertain and the repentance more difficult and the effect much abated and the man must be made miserable that he may be accursed for ever 1. I say his pardon is uncertain because there are some sins which are unpardonable as I shall shew and they are not all named in particular and the degrees of malice being uncertain the salvation of that man is to be wrought with infinite fear and trembling It was the case of Simon Magus Repent and ask pardon for thy sin if peradventure the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee If peradventure it was a new crime and concerning its possibility of pardon no revelation had been made and by analogy to other crimes it was very like an unpardonable sin for it was a thinking a thought against the Holy Ghost and that was next to speaking a word against him Cains sin was of the same nature It is greater then it can be forgiven his passion and his fear was too severe and decretory it was pardonable but truly we never finde that God did pardon it 2. But besides this it is uncertain in the pardon because it may be the time of pardon is passed and though God hath pardoned to other people the same sins and to thee too sometimes before yet it may be he will not now he hath not promised pardon so often as we sin and in all the returns of impudence apostacy and ingratitude and it may be thy day is past as was Jerusalems in the day that they crucified the Saviour of the world 3. Pardon of such habitual sins is uncertain because life is uncertain and such sins require much time for their abolition and expiation And therefore although these sins are not necessariò mortifera that is unpardonable yet by consequence they become deadly because our life may be cut off before we have finished or performed those necessary parts of repentance which are the severe and yet the onely condition of getting pardon So that you may perceive that not onely every great single crime but the habit of any sin is dangerous and therefore these persons are to be snatched from the fire if you mean to rescue them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if you stay a day it may be you stay too long 4. To which I adde this fourth consideration that every delay of return is in the case of habitual sins an approach to desperation because the nature of habits is like that of Crocodiles they grow as long as they live and if they come to obstinacy or confirmation they are in hell already and can never return back For so the Pannonian Bears when they have clasped a dart in the region of their Liver wheel themselves upon the wound and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barbe deeper and cannot be quit from that fatal steel but in flying bear along that which themselves make the instrument of a more hasty death So is every vitious person struck with a deadly wound and his own hands forced it into the entertainments of his heart And because it is painfull to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance he still rouls and turns upon his wound and carries his death in his bowels where it first entered by choice and then dwelt by love and at last shall finish the tragedy by divine judgements and an unalterable decree But as the pardon of these sins is uncertain so the conditions of restitution are hard even to them who shall be pardoned their pardon and themselves too must be fetched from the fire water will not do it tears and ineffective sorrow cannot take off a habit or a great crime O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina cadis Tolli flumineâ posse putatis aquâ Bion seeing a Prince weep and tearing his hair for sorrow asked if baldnesse would cure his grief such pompous sorrows may bee good indices but no perfect instruments of restitution Saint James plainly declares the possibilities of pardon to great sins in the cases of contention adultery lust and envy which are the four great indecencies that are most contrary to Christianity and in the 5. Chap. he implies also a possibility of pardon to an habitual sinner whom he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that erres from the truth that is from the life of a Christian the life of the Spirit of truth and he addes that such a person may be reduced and so be pardoned though he have sinned long he that converts such a one shall hide a multitude of sins But then the way that he appoints for the restitution of such persons is humilty and humiliation penances and sharp penitentiall sorrows and afflictions resisting the Devil returning to God weeping and mourning confessions and prayers as you may read at large in the 4. and 5. Chapters and there it is that you shall finde it a duty that such persons should be afflicted and should confesse to their brethren and these are harder conditions then God requires in the former cases these are a kinde of fiery tryall I have now done with my Text and should adde no more but
all the evils of the Church and all the good that happens to evil men every day of danger the periods of sicknesse and the day of death are dayes of tempest and storm and our faith wil suffer shipwrack unlesse it be strong and supported and directed But who shall guide the vessel when a stormy passion or a violent imagination transports the man who shall awaken his reason and charm his passion into slumber instruction How shal a man make his fears confident and allay his confidence with fear and make the allay with just proportions and steere evenly between the extremes or call upon his sleeping purposes or actuate his choices or binde him to reason in all the wandrings and ignorances in his passion and mistakes For suppose the man of great skil and great learning in the wayes of religion yet if he be abused by accident or by his own will who shall then judge his cases of conscience and awaken his duty and renew his holy principle and actuate his spiritual powers For Physitians that prescribe to others do not minister to themselves in cases of danger and violent sicknesses and in matter of distemperature we shall not finde that books alone will do all the work of a spiritual Physitian more then of a natural I will not go about to increase the dangers and difficulties of the soul to represent the assistance of a spiritual man to be necessary But of this I am sure our not understanding and our not considering our soul make us first to neglect and then many times to lose it But is not every man an unequal judge in his own case and therefore the wisdom of God and the laws hath appointed tribunals and Judges and arbitrators and that men are partial in the matter of souls it is infinitely certain because amongst those milions of souls that perish not one in ten thousand but believes himself in a good condition and all sects of Christians think they are in the right and few are patient to enquire whether they be or no then adde to this that the Questions of souls being clothed with circumstances of matter and particular contingency are or may be infinite and most men are so infortunate that they have so intangled their cases of conscience that there where they have done something good it may be they have mingled half a dozen evils and when interests are confounded and governments altered and power strives with right and insensibly passes into right and duty to God would fain be reconciled with duty to our relatives will it not be more then necessary that we should have some one that we may enquire of after the way to heaven which is now made intricate by our follies and inevitable accidents But by what instrument shall men alone and in their own cases be able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of illusion just confidence from presumption fear from pusillanimity are not all the things and assistances in the world little enough to defend us against pleasure and pain the two great fountains of temptation is it not harder to cure a lust then to cure a feaver and are not the deceptions and follies of men and the arts of the Devil and inticements of the world the deceptions of a mans own heart and the evils of sin more evil and more numerous then the sicknesses and diseases of any one man and if a man perishes in his soul is it not infinitely more sad then if he could rise from his grave and die a thousand deaths over Thus we are advanced a second step in this prudential motive God used many arts to secure our souls interest and there is infinite dangers and infinite wayes of miscarriage in the souls interest and therefore there is great necessity God should do all those mercies of security and that we should do all the under-ministeries we can in this great work But what advantage shall we receive by a spiritual Guide much every way For this is the way that God hath appointed who in every age hath sent a succession of spiritual persons whose office is to minister in holy things and to be stewards of Gods houshold shepherds of the flock dispensers of the mysteries under mediators and ministers of prayer preachers of the law expounders of questions monitors of duty conveiances of blessings and that which is a good discourse in the mouth of another man is from them an ordinance of God and besides its natural efficacy and perswasion it prevails by the way of blessing by the reverence of his person by divine institution by the excellency of order by the advantages of opinion and assistances of reputation by the influence of the spirit who is the president of such ministeries and who is appointed to all Christians according to the despensation that is appointed to them to the people in their obedience and frequenting of the ordinance to the Priest in his ministery and publick and privat offices To which also I adde this consideration that as the Holy Sacraments are hugely effective to spiritual purposes not onely because they convey a blessing to the worthy suscipients but because men cannot be worthy suscipients unlesse they do many excellent acts of vertue in order to a previous disposition so that in the whole conjunction and transaction of affaires there is good done by way of proper efficacy and divine blessing so it is in following the conduct of a spiritual man and consulting with him in the matter of our souls we cannot do it unless we consider our souls and make religion our businesse and examine our present state and consider concerning our danger and watch and designe for our advantages which things of themselves wil set a man much forwarder in the way of Godlinesse besides thath naturally every man will lesse dare to act a sin for which he knows he shall feel a present shame in his discoveries made to the spiritual Guide the man that is made the witnesse of his conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy men ought to know all things from God and that relate to God in order to the conduct of souls and there is nothing to be said against this if we do not suffer the devil in this affaire to abuse us as he does many people in their opinions teaching men to suspect there is a designe and a snake under the plantain But so may they suspect Kings when they command obedience or the Levites when they read the law of tithes or Parents when they teach their children temperance or Tutors when they watch their charge However it is better to venture the worst of the designe then to lose the best of the assistance and he that guides himself hath much work and much danger but he that is under the conduct of another his work is easy little and secure it is nothing but diligence and obedience and though it be a hard thing to rule well yet
sure enough 7. You may also watch whether they do not chose their proselyts amongst the rich and vitious that they mâ—y serve themselves upon his wealth and their disciple upon his vice 8. If their doctrines evidently and greatly serve the interest oâ— wealth or honour and are ineffective to piety 9. If they strive to gain any one to their confession and are negligent to gain them to good life 10. If by pretences they lessen the severity of Christs precepts and are easy in dispensations and licencious glosses 11. If they invent suppletories to excuse an evil man and yet to reconcile his bad life with the hopes of heaven you have reason to suspect the whole and to reject these parts of errour and designe which in themselves are so unhandsom alwayes and somtimes criminal He that shal observe the Church of Rome so implacably fierce for purgatory and the Popes supremacy from clerical immunities and the Superiority of the Ecclesiastical persons to secular for indulgencies and precious and costly pardons and then so full of devises to reconcile an evil life with heaven requiring onely contrition even at the last for the abolition of eternal guilt and having a thousand wayes to commute and take off the temporal will see he hath reason to be jealous that interest is in these bigger then the religion and yet that the danger of the soul is greater then that interest and therefore the man is to do accordingly Here indeed is the great necessity that we should have the prudence and discretion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of serpents ut cernamus acutum Quam aut aquila aut serpens Epidaurius For so serpents as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise so also to safeguard themselves that they be not charmed with sweet and enticing words of false prophets who charm not wisely but cunningly leading aside unstable souls against these we must stop our ears or lend our attention according to the foregoing measures and significations but here also I am to insert two or three cautions 1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signes we shall be inabled to discover concerning all men whether they teach an errour or no. Neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran or a Zuinglian a Dominican or a Franciscan a Russian or a Greek a Muscovite or a Georgian because those which are certain signes of false teachers do signifie such men who destroy an article of faith or a commandment God was careful to secure us from death by removing the Lepers from the camp and giving certain notices of distinction and putting a term between the living and the dead but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmlesse errors from the mistakes of men and the failings of mortality The signes which can distinguish a living man from a dead will not also distinguish a black man from a brown or a pale from a white It is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell but not to think that we are inticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother 2. In all discerning of sects we must be careful to distinguish the faults of men from the evils of their doctrine for some there are that say very well and do very ill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multos Thyrsigeros paucos est cernere Bacchos Many men of holy calling and holy religion that are of unholy lives homines ignavâ operâ Philosophâ sententiâ But these must be separated from the institution and the evil of the men is onely to be noted as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct and personal ministery I will be of the mans religion if it be good though he be not but I will not make him my confessor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he be not wise for himself I will not sit down at his feet lest we mingle filthinesse instead of being cleansed and instructed 3. Let us make one separation more then we may consider and act according to the premises If we espie a designe or an evil mark upon one doctrine let us divide it from the other that are not so spotted for indeed the publick communions of men are at this day so ordered that they are as fond of their errours as of their truthes and somtimes moct zealous for what they have least reason to be so and if we can by any arts of prudence separate from an evil proposition and communicate in all the good then we may love colleges of religious persons though we do not worship images and we may obey our Prelates though we do no injury to princes and we may be zealous against a crime though we be not imperious over mens persons and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls though we be not rapacious of estates and we may be moderate exactors of Obedience to human laws though we do not dispense with the breach of the divine and the Clergy may represent their calling necessary though their persons be full of modesty and humility and we may preserve our rights and not lose our charity For this is the meaning of the Apostle Try all things and retain that which is good from every sect and communitie of Christians take any thing that is good that advances holy religion and the Divine honour For one hath a better government a second a better confession a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls a fourth hath fewer errours and by what instrument soever a holy life is advantaged use that though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines knowing thou hast no Master but Christ no religion but the Christian no rule but the Scriptures and the laws and right reason other things that are helps are to be used accordingly These are the general rules of Christian prudence which I have chosen to insist upon there are many others more particular indeed but yet worth not onely the enumerating but observing also and that they be reduced to practise For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution * that we be careful to decline a danger * watchful against a temptation * alwayes choosing that that is safe and fitted to all circumstances * that we be wise in choosing our company * reserved and wary in our friendships * and communicative in our charity * that we be silent and retentive of what we hear and what we think * not credulous * not unconstant * that we be deliberate in our election * and vigorous in our prosecutions that we suffer not good nature to discompose our duty but that we separate images from substances and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God and our eternal interest for sometimes that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence is accounted folly by humane prudence and so it is
mercy which hath no cause but it self no measure of its emanation but our misery no natural limit but eternity no beginning but God no object but man no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse no variety but our necessity and capacity no change but new instances of its own nature no ending or repentance but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it 11. Lastly All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them even against all our reason and hopes our expectations and weak discoursings The particulars I shall remark are these 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances the weaknesseâ— and follies of men so that in the convention and assemblies of hereticks as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences they would live impiously yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken and who mean nothing but truth while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines they â—â—ve according to its contradictory He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest is enough to expiate ten thousand sins is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent since repentance is a duty so soon so certainly and so easily performed But these are notâ—â—ious doctrines in the Roman Church and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly He that tels that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell takes away from man all care of the way because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end hath unalterably appointed the means and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God that man may not perish in his ignorance but be assisted in his choice and saved by the Divine mercies And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned mercies by which men live and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication and of this sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy For what shall become of ignorant Christians people that live in wildnesses and places more desert then a primitive hermitage people that are baptized and taught to go to Church it may be once a yeer people that can get no more knowledge they know not where to have it nor how to desire it and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation and when the Jews grew rebellious or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted and sinned and punished with death we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law then was expressed in its sanction and publication He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes we say he intends not to afflict the disobedient with scorpions and axes and it had been hugely necessary that God had scar'd the Jews from their sins by threatning the pains of hell to them that disobeyed if he intended to inflict it for although many men would have ventured the future since they are not affrighted with the present and visible evil yet some persons would have had more Philosophical and spiritual apprehensions then others and have been infallibly cured in all their temptations with the fear of an eternall pain and however whether they had or no yet since it cannot be understood how it consists with the Divine justice to exact a pain bigger then he threatned greater then he gave warning of so we are sure it is a great way off from Gods mercy to do so He that usually imposes lesse and is loth to inflict any and very often forgives it all is hugely distant from exacting an eternall punishment when the most that he threatned and gave notice of was but a temporall The effect of this consideration I would have to be this that we may publikely worship this mercy of God which is kept in secret and that we be not too forward in sentencing all Heathens and prevaricating Jews to the eternall pains of hell but hope that they have a portion in the secrets of the Divine mercy where also unlesse many of us have some little portions deposited our condition will be very uncertain and sometimes most miserable God knows best how intolerably accursed a thing it is to perish in the eternall flames of hell and therefore he is not easie to inflict it and if the â—oyes of heaven be too great to be expected upon too easie termes certainly the pains of the damned are infinitely too big to passe lightly upon persons who cannot help themselves and who iâ— they were helped with clearer revelations would have avoided it But as in these things we must not pry into the secrets of the Divine Oeconomy being sure whether it be so or no it is most just even as it is so we may expect to see the glories of the Divine mercy made publike in unexpected instances at the great day of manifestation And indeed our dead many times go forth from our hands very
weather and that 's the portion of the sinner and the ungodly The godly are not made unhappy by their sorrows and the wicked are such whom prosperity it self cannot make fortunate 4 And yet after al this it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he scapes but hardly here it will be well enough with him hereafter Isaac digged three wells the first was called contention for he drank the waters of strife and digged the well with his sword the second well was not altogether so hard a purchase he got it with some trouble but that being over he had some room and his fortune swelled and he called his well enlargement but his third he called abundance and then he dipt his foot in oyl and drank freely as out of a â—river every good man first sowes in tears he first drinks of the bottle of his own tears sorrow and trouble labour and disquiet strivings and temptations But if they passe through a torrent and that vertue becomes easie and habitual they finde their hearts enlarged and made spritely by the visitations of God and refreshment of his spirit and then their hearts are enlarged they know how to gather the down and softnesses from the sharpest thistles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first we cannot serve God but by passions and doing violence to all our wilder inclinations and suffering the violence of tyrants and unjust persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The second dayes of vertue are pleasant and easie in the midst of all the appendant labours but when the Christians last pit is diged when he is descended to his grave and finished his state of sorrowes and suffering then God opens the river of abundance the rivers of life and never ceasing felicities And this is that which God promised to his people I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindnesse will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy redeemer so much as moments are exceeded by eternity and the sighing of a man by the joyes of an angel and a salutary frown by the light of Gods countenance a few groans by the infinite and eternal Halalujahs so much are the sorrows of the godly to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eternity Their sorrows can die but so cannot their joyes and if the blessed Martyrs and confessors were asked concerning their past sufferings their present rest and the joyes of their certain expectation you should hear them glory in nothing but in the mercies of God and in the crosse of the Lord Jesus Every chaine is a raie of light and every prison is a palace and every losse is the purchase of a kingdom and every affront in the cause of God is an eternal honour and every day of sorrow is a thousand years of comfort multiplied with a never ceasing numeration dayes without night joyes without sorrow sanctity without sin charity without stain possession without fear society without envying communication of joyes without lessening and they shall dwell in ablessed countrey wherean enemy never entred and from whence a friend never went away Well might David say funes ceciderunt mihi in praeclaris the cords of my tent my ropes and the sorrow of my pilgrimage fell to me in a good ground and I have a goodly heritage and when persecution hewes a man down from a high fortune to an even one or from thence to the face of the earth or from thence to the grave a good man is but preparing for a crown and the Tyrant does but first knock off the fetters of the soul the manacles of passion and desire sensual loves and lower appetites and if God suffers him to finish the persecution then he can but dismantle the souls prison and let the soul forth to flie to the mountains of rest and all the intermedial evils are but like the Persian punishments the executioner tore off their haires and rent their silken mantles and discomposed their curious dressings and lightly touched the skin yet the offender cried out with most bitter exclamations while his fault was expiated with a ceremony and without blood so does God to his servants he rends their upper garments and strips them of their unnecessary wealth and tyes them to Physick and salutary dicipline and they cry out under usages which have nothing but the outward sense and opinion of evil not the reall substance But if we would take the measures of images we must not take the height of the base but the proportion of the members nor yet measure the estates of men by their big looking supporter or the circumstance of an exteriour advantage but by its proper commensuration in its self as it stands in its order to eternity And then the godly man that suffers sorrow and persecution ought to be relieved by us but needs not be pitied in the summe of affairs But since the two estates of the world are measured by time and by eternity and divided by joy and sorrow and no man shall have his portions of joyes in both the durations the state of those men is insupportably miserable who are fatted for slaughter and are crowned like beasts for sacrifice who are feared and fear who cannot enjoy their purchases but by communications with others and themselves have the least share but themselves are alone in the misery and the saddest dangers and they possesse the whole portions of sorrows to whom their prosperity gives but occasions to evil counsels and strength to do mischief or to nourish a serpent or oppresse a neighbour or to nurse a lust to increase folly and treasure up calamity And did ever any man see or story tell that any tyrant Prince kissed his rods and axes his sword of justice and his Imperiall ensignes of power They shine like a taper to all things but it self but we read of many Martyrs who kissed their chains and hugged their stakes and saluted their hangman with great endearments and yet abating the incursions of their seldom sins these are their greatest evils and such they are with which a wise and a good man may be in love And till the sinners and ungodly men can be so with their deep groans and broken sleeps with the wrath of God and their portions of eternity till they can rejoyce in death and long for a resurrection and with delight and a greedy hope can think of the day of judgement we must conclude that their glasse gems and finest pageantry their splendid outsides and great powers of evil cannot make amends for that estate of misery which is their portion with a certainty as great as is the truth of God and all the Articles of the Christian Creed Miserable men are they who cannot be blessed unlesse there be no day of judgement who must perish unlesse the word of God should fail If
that be all their hopes then we may with a sad spirit and a soul of pity inquire into the Question of the Text Where shall the ungodly and sinner appear Even there where Gods face shall never shine where there shall be fire and no light where there shall be no Angels but what are many thousands yeers ago turned into Devils whereno good man shall ever dwell and from whence the evil and the accursed shall never be dismissed O my God let my soul never come into their counsels nor lie down in their sorrows Sermon XII THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE IVDGMENTS OR Gods Method in curing Sinners 2. Romanes 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance FRom the beginning of Time till now all effluxes which have come from God have been nothing but emanations of his goodnesse clothed in variety of circumstances He made man with no other designe then that man should be happy and by receiving derivations from his fountain of mercy might reflect glory to him And therefore God making man for his own glory made also a paradise for mans use and did him good to invite him to do himself a greater for God gave forth demonstrations of his power by instances of mercy and he who might have made ten thousand worlds of wonder and prodigy and created man with faculties able onely to stare upon and admire those miracles of mightinesse did choose to instance his power in the effusions of mercy that at the same instant he might represent himself desireable and adorable in all the capacities of amability that is as excellent in himself and profitable to us For as the Sun sends forth a benigne and gentle influence on the seed of Plants that it may invite forth the active and plastick power from its recesse and secresie that by rising into the tallnesse and dimensions of a tree it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from its foster-father the prince of all the bodies of light and in all these emanations the Sun its self receives no advantage but the honour of doing benefits so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures He at first sends forth his blessings upon us that we by using them aright should make our selves capable of greater while the giving glory to God and doing homage to him are nothing for his advantage but onely for ours our duties towards him being like vapours ascending from the earth not at all to refresh the region of the clouds but to return back in a fruitfull and refreshing shower And God created us not that we can increase his felicity but that he might have a subject receptive of felicity from him thus he causes us to be born that we may be capable of his blessings he causes us to be baptized that we may have a title to the glorious promises Evangelicall he gives us his Son that we may be rescued from hell and when we constraine him to use harsh courses towards us it is also in mercy he smites us to cure a disease he sends us sicknesse to procure our health and as if God were all mercy he his mercifull in his first designe in all his instruments in the way and in the end of the journey and does not onely shew the riches of his goodnesse to them that do well but to all men that they may do well he is good to make us good he does us benefits to make us happy and if we by despising such gracious rayes of light and heat stop their progresse and interrupt their designe the losse is not Gods but ours we shall be the miserable and accursed people This is the sense and paraphrase of my Text. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse c. Thou dost not know that is thou considerest not that it is for further benefit that God does thee this the goodnesse of God is not a designe to serve his own ends upon thee but thine upon him The goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Here then is Gods method of curing man-kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First goodnesse or inviting us to him by sugred words by the placid arguments of temporall favour and the propositions of excellent promises Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the same time although God is provoked every day yet he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tolerates our stubbornnesse he forbears to punish and when he does begin to strike takes his hand off and gives us truce and respite For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies laxamentum and inducias too Thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still a long putting off and deferring his finall destroying anger by using all meanes to force us to repentance and this especially by the way of judgements these being the last reserves of the Divine mercy and how ever we esteem it is the greatest instance of the divine long sufferance that is in the world After these instruments we may consider the end the strand upon which these land us the purpose of this variety of these laborious and admirable arts with which God so studies and contrives the happinesse and salvation of man it is onely that man may be brought by these meanes unto repentance and by repentance may be brought to eternall life This is the treasure of the Divine goodnesse the great and admirable efflux of the eternal beneficence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the riches of his goodnesse which whosoever despises despises himself and the great interest of his own felicity he shall die in his impenitence and perish in his folly 1. The first great instrument that God chooses to bring us to him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profit or benefit and this must needs be first for those instruments whereby we have a being are so great mercies that besides that they are such which give us the capacities of all other mercies they are the advances of us in the greatest instances of promotion in the world For from nothing to something is an infinite space and a man must have a measure of infinite passed upon him Before he can perceive himself to be either happy or miserable he is not able to give God thanks for one blessing untill he hath received many But then God intends we should enter upon his service at the beginning of our dayes because even then he is before-hand with us and hath already given us great instances of his goodnesse What a prodigy of favour is it to us that he hath passed by so many formes of his creatures and hath not set us down in the rank of any of them till we came to be paulò minores angelis a little lower then the angels and yet from the meanest of them God can perfect his own praise The deeps and the snows the hail and the rain the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea they can and do glorifie