or to fall by their own crimes so much as is the action of God and so much as is the piety of the man that attends and prayes in the holy place with the Priest so far he shall prevail but no further and therefore the Church hath taught her Ministers to pray thus in her preparatory prayer to consecration Quoniam me peccatorem inter te eundem populum Medium esse voluisti licet in me boni operis testimonium non agnoscas officium dispensationiis creditae non recuses nec per me indignum famulum tuum eorum salutis pereat pretium pro quibus victima factus salutaris dignatus es fieri redemptio For we must know that God hath not put the salvation of any man into the power of another And although the Church of Rome by calling the Priests actuall intention simply necessary and the Sacraments also indispensably necessary hath left it in the power of every Curate to damn very many of his Parish yet it is otherwise with the accounts of truth and the Divine mercy and therefore he will never exact the Sacraments of us by the measures and proportions of an evill Priest but by the piety of the communicant by the prayers of Christ and the mercies of God But although the greatest interest of salvation depends not upon this Ministery yet as by this we receive many advantages if the Minister be holy so if he be vicious we lose all that which could be conveyed to us by his part of the holy Ministration every man and woman in the assembly prays and joynes in the effect and for the obtaining the blessing but the more vain persons are assembled the lesse benefits are received even by good men there present and therefore much is the losse if a wicked Priest ministers though the summe of affairs is not intirely turned upon his office or default yet many advantages are For we must not think that the effect of the Sacraments is indivisibly done at once or by one ministery but they operate by parts and by morall operation by the length of time and a whole order of piety and holy ministeries every man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow-worker with God in the work of his salvation and as in our devotion no one prayer of our own alone prevails upon God for grace and salvation but all the devotions of our life are upon Gods account for them so is the blessing of God brought upon the people by all the parts of their religion and by all assistances of holy people and by the ministeries not of one but of all Gods Ministers and relies finally upon our own faith and obedience and the mercies of God in Jesus Christ but yet for want of holy persons to minister much diminution of blessing and a losse of advantages is unavoidable therefore if they have great necessities they can best hope that God will be moved to mercy on their behalf if their necessities be recommended to God by persons of a great piety of a holy calling and by the most solemn offices Lastly I promised to consider concerning the signs of having our prayers heard concerning which there is not much of particular observation but if our prayers be according to the warrant of Gods Word if we aske according to Gods will things honest and profitable we are to relye upon the promises and we are sure that they are heard and besides this we can have no sign but the thing signified when we feel the effect then we are sure God hath heard us but till then we are to leave it with God and not to aske a sign of that for which he hath made us a promise And yet Cassian hath named one sign which if you give me leave I will name unto you It is a sign we shall prevail in our prayers when the Spirit of God moves us to pray cum fiduciâ quasi securitate impetrandi with a confidence and a holy security of receiving what we aske But this is no otherwise a sign but because it is a part of the duty and trusting in God is an endearing him and doubting is a dishonour to him and he that doubts hath no faith for all good prayers relye upon Gods Word and we must judge of the effect by prudence for he that askes what is not lawfull hath made an unholy prayer if it be lawfull and not profitable we are then heard when God denies us and if both these be in the prayer he that doubts is a sinner and then God will not hear him but beyond this I know no confidence is warrantable and if this be a signe of prevailing then all the prudent prayers of all holy men shall certainely be heard and because that is certain we need no further inquiry into signes I summe up all in the words of God by the Prophet Run to and fro thorow the streets of Jerusalem and see and know and seek in the broad places thereof if you can finde a man if there be any that executeth judgment that seeketh truth virum quaerentem fidem a man that seeketh for faith propitius ero ei and I will pardon it God would pardon all Jerusalem for one good mans sake there are such dayes and opportunities of mercy when God at the prayer of one holy person will save a people and Ruffinus spake a great thing but it was hugely true Quis dubitet mundum stare precibus sanctorum the world it self is established and kept from dissolution by the prayers of Saints and the prayers of Saints shall hasten the day of Judgement and we cannot easily find two effects greater But there are many other very great ones for the prayers of holy men appease Gods wrath drive away temptations resist and overcome the Devill Holy prayer procures the ministery and service of Angels it rescinds the Decrees of God it cures sicknesses and obtains pardon it arrests the Sun in its course and staies the wheels of the Charet of the Moon it rules over all Gods creatures and opens and shuts the storehouses of rain it unlocks the cabinet of the womb and quenches the violence of fire it stops the mouthes of Lions and reconciles our sufferance and weak faculties with the violence of torment and sharpnesse of persecution it pleases God and supplies all our needs But Prayer that can do thus much for us can do nothing at all without holinesse for God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth Sermon VII Of godly Fear c. Part I. Heb. 12. part of the 28th and the 29th verses Let us have Grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming fire E 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so our Testaments usually read it from the authority of Theophylact Let us have grace But some copies read it in the indicative mood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we
ΕÎΙΑΥΤΟΣ A COVRSE OF SERMONS FOR All the Sundaies Of the Year Fitted to the great Necessities and for the supplying the Wants of Preaching in many parts of this NATION Together with A Discourse of the Divine Institution Necessity Sacredness and Separation of the Office Ministeriall By JER TAYLOR D. D. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pindar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Commune periclum Omnibus Una salus LONDON Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1653. XXV SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN-GROVE Being for the VVinter half-year BEGINNING ON ADVENT-SUNDAY UNTILL WHIT-SUNDAY By JEREMY TAYLOR D. D. Vae mihi si non Evangelizavero LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane M. D C. LIII To the right Honourable and truely Noble RICHARD Lord VAUHAN Earle of Carbery c. MY LORD I Have now by the assistance of God and the advantages of your many favours finished a Year of Sermons which if like the first year of our Saviours preaching it may be annus acceptabilis an acceptable year to God and his afflicted hand-maid the Church of England a reliefe to some of her new necessities and an institution or assistance to any soule I shall esteem it among those honors and blessings with which God uses to reward those good intentions which himselfe first puts into our hearts and then recompenses upon our heads My Lord They were first presented to God in the ministeries of your family For this is a blessing for which your Lordship is to blesse God that your Family is like Gideons Fleece irriguous with a dew from heaven when much of the voicinage is dry for we have cause to remember that Isaac complain'd of the Philistims who fill'd up his wells with stones and rubbish and left no beauvrage for the Flocks and therefore they could give no milke to them that waited upon the Flocks and the flocks could not be gathered nor fed nor defended It was a designe of ruine and had in it the greatest hostility and so it hath been lately undique totis Vsque adeo turbatur agris En ipse capellas Protenus aeger ago hanc etiam vix Tityre duco But My Lord this is not all I would faine also complaine that men feele not their greatest evill and are not sensible of their danger nor covetous of what they want nor strive for that which is forbidden them but that this complaint would suppose an unnaturall evill to rule in the hearts of men For who would have in him so little of a Man as not to be greedy of the Word of God and of holy Ordinances even therefore because they are so hard to have and this evill although it can have no excuse yet it hath a great and a certain cause for the Word of God still creates new appetites as it satisfies the old and enlarges the capacity as it fils the first propensities of the Spirit For all Spirituall blessings are seeds of Immortality and of infinite felicities they swell up to the comprehensions of Eternity and the desires of the soule can never be wearied but when they are decayed as the stomach will be craving every day unlesse it be sick and abused But every mans experience tels him now that because men have not Preaching they lesse desire it their long fasting makes them not to love their meat and so wee have cause to feare the people will fall to an Atrophy then to a loathing of holy food and then Gods anger will follow the method of our sinne and send a famine of the Word and Sacraments This we have the greatest reason to feare and this feare can be relieved by nothing but by notices and experience of the greatnesse of the Divine mercies and goodnesse Against this danger in future and evill in present as you and all good men interpose their prayers so have I added this little instance of my care and services being willing to minister in all offices and varieties of imployment that so I may by all meanes save some and confirme others or at least that my selfe may be accepted of God in my desiring it And I thinke I have some reasons to expect a speciall mercy in this because I finde by the constitution of the Divine providence and Ecclesiasticall affaires that all the great necessities of the Church have been served by the zeale of preaching in publick and other holy ministeries in publick or private as they could be had By this the Apostles planted the Church and the primitive Bishops supported the faith of Martyrs and the hardinesse of Confessors and the austerity of the Retired By this they confounded Hereticks and evill livers and taught them the wayes of the Spirit and left them without pertinacy or without excuse It was Preaching that restored the splendour of the Church when Barbarisme and Warres and Ignorance either sate in or broke the Doctors Chaire in pieces For then it was that divers Orders of religious and especially of Preachers were erected God inspiring into whole companies of men a zeal of Preaching And by the same instrument God restored the beauty of the Church when it was necessary shee should be reformed it was the assiduous and learned preaching of those whom God chose for his Ministers in that work that wrought the Advantages and persuaded those Truths which are the enamel and beautie of our Churches And because by the same meanes all things are preserved by which they are produc'd it cannot but be certaine that the present state of the Church requires a greater care and prudence in this Ministerie then ever especially since by Preaching some endevour to supplant Preaching and by intercepting the fruits of the flocks to dishearten the Shepheards from their attendances My Lord your great noblenesse and religious charitie hath taken from mee some portions of that glory which I designed to my selfe in imitation of St. Paul towards the Corinthian Church who esteemed it his honour to preach to them without a revenue and though also like him I have a trade by which as I can be more usefull to others and lesse burthensome to you yet to you also under God I owe the quiet and the opportunities and circumstances of that as if God had so interweaved the support of my affaires with your charitie that he would have no advantages passe upon mee but by your interest and that I should expect no reward of the issues of my Calling unlesse your Lordship have a share in the blessing My Lord I give God thanks that my lot is fallen so fairely and that I can serve your Lordship in that ministerie by which I am bound to serve God and that my gratitude and my duty are bound up in the same bundle but now that which was yours by a right of propriety I have made publick that it may still be more yours and you derive to your selfe a comfort if you shall see the necessitie of others serv'd
by that which you heard so diligently and accepted with so much pietie and I am persuaded have entertain'd with that religion and obedience which is the dutie of all those who know that Sermons are arguments against us unlesse they make us better and that no Sermon is received as it ought unlesse it makes us quit a vice or bee in love with vertue unlesse we suffer it in some instance or degree to doe the work of God upon our soules My Lord in these Sermons I have medled with no mans interest that onely excepted which is Eternall but if any mans vice was to be reproved I have done it with as much severitie as I ought some cases of Conscience I have here determined but the speciall designe of the whole is to describe the greater lines of Dutie by speciall arguments and if any witty Censurer shall say that I tell him nothing but what he knew before I shall be contented with it and rejoyce that he was so well instructed and wish also that he needed not a Remembrancer but if either in the first or in the second in the institution of some or the reminding of others I can doe God any service no man ought to be offended that Sermons are not like curious inquiries after New-nothings but pursuances of Old truths However I have already many faire earnests that your Lordship will bee pleased with this tender of my service and expression of my great and dearest obligations which you daily renew or continue upon My noblest Lord Your Lordships most affectionate and most obliged Servant JEREMY TAYLOR Titles of the Sermons their Order Number and Texts SErmon 1. 2. 3. Dooms-day Book or Christs Advent to Judgement Folio 1. 15. 30. 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Sermon 4. 5. 6. The Return of Prayers or The conditions of a Prevailing Prayer fol. 44. 57. 69. Joh. 9. 31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth Sermon 7. 8. 9. Of Godly Fear c. fol. 83. 95. 114. Heb. 12. part of the 28th 29th vers Let us have grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming Fire Sermon 10. 11. The Flesh and the Spirit fol. 125. 139. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weak Sermon 12. 13. 14. Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal or Spiritual Terrour fol. 152. 164. 179. Jer. 48. 10. first part Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Sermon 15. 16. The House of Feasting or The Epicures Measures fol. 191. 204. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die Sermon 17. 18. The Marriage Ring or The Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage fol. 219. 232. Ephes. 5. 32 33. This is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church Neverthelesse let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himselfe and the Wife see that she reverence her Husband Sermon 19. 20. 21. Apples of Sodome or The Fruits of Sin fol. 245. 260. 273. Rom. 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death Sermon 22. 23. 24. 25. The good and evill Tongue Of Slander and Flattery The Duties of the Tongue fol. 286. 298. 311. 323. Ephes. 4. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Sermon I. ADVENT SUNDAY DOOMS-DAY BOOK OR CHRIST'S Advent to Judgement 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of CHRIST that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad VErtue and Vice are so essentially distinguished and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well being of men in private and in societies that to divide them in themselves and to separate them by sufficient notices and to distinguish them by rewards hath been designed by all Laws by the sayings of wise men by the order of things by their proportions to good or evill and the expectations of men have been fram'd accordingly that Vertue may have a proper seat in the will and in the affections and may become amiable by its own excellency and its appendant blessing and that Vice may be as naturall an enemy to a man as a Wolf to the Lamb and as darknesse to light destructive of its being and a contradiction of its nature But it is not enough that all the world hath armed it self against Vice and by all that is wise and sober amongst men hath taken the part of Vertue adorning it with glorious appellatives encouraging it by rewards entertaining it with sweetnesses and commanding it by edicts fortifying it with defensatives and twining with it in all artificiall compliances all this is short of mans necessity for this will in all modest men secure their actions in Theatres and High-wayes in Markets and Churches before the eye of Judges and in the society of Witnesses But the actions of closets and chambers the designs and thoughts of men their discourses in dark places and the actions of retirements and of the night are left indifferent to Vertue or to Vice and of these as man can take no cognisance so he can make no coercitive and therefore above one half of humane actions is by the Laws of man left unregarded and unprovided for and besides this there are some men who are bigger then Lawes and some are bigger then Judges and some Judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardize by bribery and flattery by iniquity and complyance and where they have not yet they have notices but of few causes and there are some sins so popular and universall that to punish them is either impossible or intolerable and to question such would betray the weaknesse of the publick rods and axes and represent the sinner to be stronger then the power that is appointed to be his bridle and after all this we finde sinners so prosperous that they escape so potent that they fear not and sin is made safe when it growes great Facere omnia saevè Non impunè licet nisi dum facis and innocence is oppressed and the poor cry and he hath no helper and he is oppressed and he wants a Patron and for these and many other concurrent causes if you reckon all the causes that come before all the Judicatories of the world though the litigious are too many and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous yet the personall and criminall are so few that of 20000 sins that cry aloud to
God for vengeance scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice it must follow from hence that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world that the private should be judg'd and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit and the poor should be relieved and the oppressed should appeal and the noise of Widows should be heard and the Saints should stand upright and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over again and Tyrants should be call'd to account and our thoughts should be examined and our secret actions view'd on all sides and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally and therefore God hath so ordained it that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be question'd by God and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the best copies not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things done in the body so we commonly read it the things proper or due to the body so the expression is more apt and proper for not only what is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the body but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition the acts of reflexion and choice acts of self-love and admiration and what ever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement and even these may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body The words have in them no other difficulty or variety but contain a great truth of the biggest interest and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account and this account shall be exact and the sentence shall be just and the reward shall be great all the evils of the world shall be amended and the injustices shall be repaid and the divine Providence shall be vindicated and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord it is his terror because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice and it is his terror because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self and it is most fearfull to us where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of eternity and because it is so intended I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror that we may be afraid of sin for the destruction of which this terror is intended 1. Therefore we will consider the persons that are to be judged with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes We must all appear 2. The Judge and his Judgement seat before the Judgment seat of Christ. 3. The sentence that they are to receive the things due to the body good or bad according as we now please but then cannot alter Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their inheritance 1. The persons who are to be judged even you and I and all the world Kings and Priests Nobles and Learned the Crafty and the Easie the Wise and the Foolish the Rich and the Poor the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol and this is so farre from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment that it much increases it for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted otherwise then is common to the sons of men companions of his sin and brethren of his nature and partners of his usuall accidents yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings and when the first day of Judgement happen'd that I mean of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World the calamity swell'd like the floud and every man saw his friend perish and the neighbours of his dwelling and the relatives of his house and the sharers of his joyes and yesterdaies bride and the new born heir the Priest of the Family and the honour of the Kindred all dying or dead drench'd in water and the divine vengeance and then they had no place to flee unto no man cared for their souls they had none to goe unto for counsell no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that rain'd down from heaven and so it shall be at the day of Judgement when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter shall passe through the same Red sea and be all baptized with the same fire and be involv'd in the same cloud in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire and roul upon its own principle and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflexions He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves and others sick and tremulous and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at Dooms-day when the terrors are universall besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence Grief being then strongly infectious when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear and amazement is the King of all our passions and all the world its subjects and that shricke must needs be terrible when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry
our abode yet we misse in the manner and either we aske for evill ends or without religion and awefull apprehensions or we rest in the words and signification of the prayer and never take care to passe on to action or else we sacrifice in the company of Corah being partners of a schisme or a rebellion in religion or we bring unhallowed censers our hearts send up to God an unholy smoak a cloud from the fires of lust and either the flames of lust or rage of wine or revenge kindle the beast that is laid upon the altar or we bring swines flesh or a dogs neck whereas God never accepts or delights in a prayer unlesse it be for a holy thing to a lawfull end presented unto him upon the wings of Zeal and love of religious sorrow or religious joy by sanctified lips and pure bands and a sincere heart It must be the prayer of a gracious man and he is onely gracious before God and acceptable and effective in his prayer whose life is holy and whose prayer is holy For both these are necessary ingredients to the constitution of a prevailing prayer there is a holinesse peculiar to the man and a holinesse peculiar to the prayer that must adorn the prayer before it can be united to the intercession of the Holy Jesus in which union alone our prayers can be prevailing God heareth not sinners so the blind man in the text and confidently this we know he had reason indeed for his confidence it was a proverbiall saying and every where recorded in their Scriptures which were read in the synagogues every Sabbath day For what is the hope of the hypocrite saith Job will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him No he will not For if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear mee said David and so said the Spirit of the Lord by the Son of David When distresse and anguish cometh upon you Then shall they call upon mee but I will not answer they shall seek mee early but they shall not find mee and Isaiah When you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of bloud and again When they fast I will not hear their cry and when they will offer burnt offerings and oblations I will not accept them For they have loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord will not accept them hee will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins Upon these and many other authorities it grew into a proverb Deus non exaudit peccatores it was a known case and an established rule in the religion Wicked persons are neither fit to pray for themselves nor for others Which proposition let us first consider in the sense of that purpose which the blind man spoke it in and then in the utmost extent of it as its analogie and equall reason goes forth upon us and our necessities The man was cured of his blindnesse and being examined concerning him that did it named and gloryed in his Physitian but the spitefull Pharisees bid him give glory to God and defie the Minister for God indeed was good but he wrought that cure by a wicked hand No says he this is impossible If this man were a sinner and a false Prophet for in that instance the accusation was intended God would not hear his prayers and work miracles by him in verification of a lye A false Prophet could not work true miracles this hath received its diminution when the case was changed for at that time when Christ preached Miracles was the onely or the great verification of any new revelation and therefore it proceeding from an Almighty God must needs be the testimony of a Divine truth and if it could have been brought for a lye there could not then have been sufficient instruction given to mankind to prevent their beleef of false Prophets and lying doctrines But when Christ proved his doctrine by miracles that no enemy of his did ever doe so great before or after him then he also told that after him his friends should doe greater and his enemies should do some but they were fewer and very inconsiderable and therefore could have in them no unavoydable cause of deception because they were discovered by a Prophesie and caution was given against them by him that did greaten miracles and yet ought to have been beleeved if he had done but one because against him there had been no caution but many prophesies creating such expectations concerning him which he verified by his great works So that in this sense of working miracles though it was infinitely true that the blind man said then when he said it yet after that the case was alter'd and Sinners Magicians Astrologers Witches Hereticks Simoniacks and wicked persons of other instances have done miracles and God hath heard sinners and wrought his own works by their hands or suffered the Devill to doe his works under their pretences and many at the day of Judgment shall plead that they have done miracles in Christs name and yet they shall be rejected Christ knows them not and their portion shall bee with dogs and goats and unbeleevers There is in this case onely this difference that they who doe miracles in opposition to Christ doe them by the power of the Devill to whom it is permitted to doe such things which wee think miracles and that is all one as though they were but the danger of them is none at all but to them that will not beleeve him that did greater miracles and prophesied of these lesse and gave warning of their attending danger and was confirmed to be a true teacher by voices from heaven and by the resurrection of his body after a three days buriall So that to these the proposition still remains true God hears not sinners God does not work those miracles but concerning sinning Christians God in this sense and towards the purposes of miracles does hear them and hath wrought miracles by them for they doe them in the name of Christ and therefore Christ said cannot easily speak ill of him and although they either prevaricate in their lives or in superinduced doctrines yet because the miracles are a verification of the Religion not of the opinion of the power or truth of Christ not of the veracity of the man God hath heard such persons many times whom men have long since and to this day call Hereticks such were the Novatians and Arrians For to the Heathens they could onely prove their Religion by which they stood distinguished from them but we find not that they wrought miracles among the Christians or to verifie their superstructures and private opinions But besides this yet we may also by such means arrest the forwardnesse of our judgments and condemnations of persons disagreeing in their opinions from us for those persons whose faith
cloud first he is renewed in the spirit of his minde and then he is inflamed with holy fires and guided by a bright starre first purified and then lightned then burning and shining so is every man in every of his prayers He is alwayes like the spirit by which he prayes If he be a lustfull person he prayes with a lustfull spirit if he does not pray for it he cannot heartily pray against it If he be a Tyrant or an usurper a robber or a murtherer he hath his Laverna too by which all his desires are guided and his prayers directed and his petitions furnished He cannot pray against that spirit that possesses him and hath seised upon his will and affections If he be fill'd with a lying spirit and be conformed to it in the image of his minde he will be so also in the expressions of his prayer and the sense of his soul. Since therefore no prayer can be good but that which is taught by the Spirit of grace none holy but the man whom Gods Spirit hath sanctified and therefore none heard to any purposes of blessing which the holy Ghost does not make for us for he makes intercession for the Saints the Spirit of Christ is the praecentor or the rector chori the Master of the Quire it followes that all other prayers being made with an evill Spirit must have an evill portion and though the Devils by their Oracles have given some answers and by their significations have foretold some future contingencies and in their government and subordinate rule have assisted some armies and discovered some treasures and prevented some snares of chance and accidents of men yet no man that reckons by the measures of reason or religion reckons witches and conjurors amongst blessed and prosperous persons these and all other evill persons have an evill spirit by the measures of which their desires begin and proceed on to issue but this successe of theirs neither comes from God nor brings felicity but if it comes from God it is anger if it descends upon good men it is a curse if upon evill men it is a sin and then it is a present curse and leads on to an eternall infelicity Plutarch reports that the Tyrians tyed their gods with chains because certain persons did dream that Apollo said he would leave their City and go to the party of Alexander who then besieged the town and Apollodorus tels of some that tied the image of Saturne with bands of wooll upon his feet So are some Christians they think God is tyed to their sect and bound to be of their side and the interest of their opinion and they think he can never go to the enemies party so long as they charme him with certain formes of words or disguises of their own and then all the successe they have and all the evils that are prosperous all the mischiefs they do and all the ambitious designs that do succeed they reckon upon the account of their prayers and well they may for their prayers are sins and their desires are evill they wish mischief and they act iniquity and they enjoy their sin and if this be a blessing or a cursing themselves shall then judge and all the world shall perceive when the accounts of all the world are truly stated then when prosperity shall be called to accounts and adversity shall receive its comforts when vertue shall have a crown and the satisfaction of all sinfull desires shall be recompensed with an intolerable sorrow and the despair of a perishing soul. Nero's Mother prayed passionately that her son might be Emperor and many persons of whom S. Iames speaks pray to spend upon their lusts and they are heard too some were not and very many are and some that fight against a just possessor of a country pray that their wars may be prosperous and sometimes they have been heard too and Julian the Apostate prayed and sacrificed and inquired of Daemons and burned mans flesh and operated with secret rites and all that he might craftily and powerfully oppose the religion of Christ and he was heard too and did mischief beyond the malice and effect of his predecessors that did swim in Christian bloud but when we sum up the accounts at the foot of their lives or so soon as the thing was understood and finde that the effect of Agrippina's prayer was that her son murdered her and of those lustfull petitioners in St. Iames that they were given over to the tyranny and possession of their passions and baser appetites and the effect of Iulian the Apostate's prayer was that he liv'd and died a professed enemy of Christ and the effect of the prayers of usurpers is that they do mischief and reap curses and undoe mankinde and provoke God and live hated and die miserable and shall possesse the fruit of their sin to eternall ages these will be no objections to the truth of the former discourse but greater instances that if by hearing our prayers we mean or intend a blessing we must also by making prayers mean that the man first be holy and his desires just and charitable before he can be admitted to the throne of grace or converse with God by the entercourses of a prosperous prayer That 's the first generall 2. Many times good men pray and their prayer is not a sin but yet it returns empty because although the man be yet the prayer is not in proper disposition and here I am to account to you concerning the collaterall and accidentall hinderances of the prayer of a good man The first thing that hinders the prayers of a good man from obtaining its effect is a violent anger a violent storm in the spirit of him that prayes For anger sets the house on fire and all the spirits are busie upon trouble and intend propulsion defence displeasure or revenge it is a short madnesse and an eternall enemy to to discourse and sober counsels and fair conversation it intends its own object with all the earnestnesse of perception or activity of designe and a quicker motion of a too warm and distempered bloud it is a feaver in the heart and a calenture in the head and a fire in the face and a sword in the hand and a fury all over and therefore can never suffer a man to be in a disposition to pray For prayer is an action and a state of entercourse and desire exactly contrary to this character of anger Prayer is an action of likenesse to the holy Ghost the Spirit of gentlenesse and dove-like simplicity an imitation of the holy Jesus whose Spirit is meek up to the greatnesse of the biggest example and a conformity to God whose anger is alwaies just and marches slowly and is without transportation and often hindred and never hasty and is full of mercy prayer is the peace of our spirit the stilnesse of our thoughts the evennesse of recollection the seat of meditation the rest of our cares and the
have grace by which we do serve and it is something better consonant to the discourse of the Apostle For having enumerated the great advantages which the Gospell hath above those of the Law he makes an argument à majori and answers a tacite objection The Law was delivered by Angels but the Gospell by the Son of God The Law was delivered from Mount Sinai the Gospell from Mount Sion from the heavenly Jerusalem The Law was given with terrors and noises with amazements of the standers by and Moses himself the Minister did exceedingly quake and fear and gave demonstration how infinitely dangerous it was by breaking that Law to provoke so mighty a God who with his voice did shake the earth but the Gospell was given by a meek Prince a gentle Saviour with a still voice scarce heard in the streets But that this may be no objection he proceeds and declares the terror of the Lord Deceive not your selves our Law-giver appeared so upon earth and was so truly but now he is ascended into heaven and from thence he speaks to us See that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven for as God once shaked the earth and that was full of terror so our Lawgiver shall do and much more and be farre more terrible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Prophet Haggai which the Apostle quotes here he once shook the earth But once more I shake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is in the Prophesie I will shake not the earth only but also heaven with a greater terror then was upon Mount Sinai with the voice of an Archangell with the trump of God with a concussion so great that heaven and earth shall be shaken in pieces and new ones come in their room This is an unspeakable and an unimaginable terror Mount Sinai was shaken but it stands to this day but when that shaking shall be the things that are shaken shall be no more that those things that cannot be shaken may remain that is not only that the clestiall Jerusalem may remain for ever but that you who do not turn away from the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus you who cannot be shaken nor removed from your duty you may remain for ever that when the rocks rend and the mountains flie in pieces like the drops of a broken cloud and the heavens shall melt and the Sun shall be a globe of consuming fire and the Moon shall be dark like an extinguish'd candle then you poor men who could be made to tremble with an ague or shake by the violence of a Northern winde or be remov'd from your dwellings by the unjust decree of a persecutor or be thrown from your estates by the violence of an unjust man yet could not be removed from your duty and though you went trembling yet would go to death for the testimony of a holy cause and you that would dye for your faith would also live according to it you shall be established by the power of God and supported by the arme of your Lord and shall in all this great shaking be unmovable as the corner stone of the gates of the new Jerusalem you shall remain and abide for ever This is your case And to summe up the whole force of the argument the Apostle addes the words of Moses as it was then so it is true now Our God is a consuming fire He was so to them that brake the Law but he will be much more to them that disobey his Son he made great changes then but those which remain are farre greater and his terrors are infinitely more intolerable and therefore although he came not in the spirit of Elias but with meeknesse and gentle insinuations soft as the breath of heaven not willing to disturb the softest stalk of a violet yet his second coming shall be with terrors such as shall amaze all the world and dissolve it into ruine and a Chaos This truth is of so great efficacy to make us do our duty that now we are sufficiently enabled with this consideration This is the grace which we have to enable us this terror will produce fear and fear will produce obedience and we therefore have grace that is we have such a motive to make us reverence God and fear to offend him that he that dares continue in sin and refuses to hear him that speaks to us from heaven and from thence shall come with terrors this man despises the grace of God he is a gracelesse fearlesse impudent man and he shall finde that true in hypothesi and in his own ruine which the Apostle declares in thesi and by way of caution and provisior ary terror Our God is a consuming fire this is the sense and design of the text Reverence and godly fear they are the effects of this consideration they are the duties of every Christian they are the grace of God I shall not presse them only to purposes of awfulnesse and modesty of opinion and prayers against those strange doctrines which some have introduc'd into Religion to the destruction of all manners and prudent apprehensions of the distances of God and man such as are the Doctrine of necessity of familiarity with God and a civill friendship and a parity of estate and an unevennesse of adoption from whence proceed rudenesse in prayers flat and undecent expressions affected rudenesse superstitious sitting at the holy Sacrament making it to be a part of Religion to be without fear and reverence the stating of the Question is a sufficient reproof of this folly whatsoever actions are brought into Religion without reverence and godly fear are therefore to be avoided because they are condemned in this advice of the Apostle and are destructive of those effects which are to be imprinted upon our spirits by the terrors of the day of Judgement But this fear and reverence the Apostle intends should be a deletery to all sin whatsoever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Etymologicum whatsoever is terrible is destructive of that thing for which it is so and if we fear the evill effects of sin let us flie from it we ought to fear its alluring face too let us be so afraid that we may not dare to refuse to hear him whose Throne is heaven whose Voice is thunder whose Tribunall is clouds whose Seat is the right hand of God whose Word is with power whose Law is given with mighty demonstration of the Spirit who shall reward with heaven and joyes eternall and who punishes his rebels that will not have him to reign over them with brimstone and fire with a worm that never dies and a fire that never is quenched let us fear him who is terrible in his Judgements just in his his dispensation secret in his providence severe in his demands gracious in his assistances bountifull in
as they would avoid death But certainly they have great cause to fear who are sure to be sick when the weather changes or can no longer retain their possession but till an enemy please to take it away or will preserve their honour but till some smiling temptation aske them to forgoe it 2ly They also have great reason to fear whose repentance is broken into fragments and is never a whole or entire change of life I mean those that resolve against a sin and pray against it and hate it in all the resolutions of their understanding till that unlucky period comes in which they use to act it but then they sin as certainly as they will infallibly repent it when they have done these are a very great many Christians who are esteemed of the better sort of penitents yet feel this feaverish repentance to be their best state of health they fall certainly in the returns of the same circumstances or at a certain distance of time but God knows they doe not get the victory over their sin but are within its power For this is certain they who sin and repent and sin again in the same or the like circumstances are in some degree under the power and dominion of sin when their actions can be reduc'd to an order or a method to a rule or a certainty that oftner hits then fails that sin is habituall though it be the least habit yet a habit it is every course or order or method of sin every constant or periodicall return every return that can be regularly observed or which a man can foresee or probably foretell even then when he does not intend it but prays against it every such sin is to be reckoned not for a single action or upon the accounts of a pardonable infirmity but it is a combination an evill state such a thing as the man ought to feare concerning himselfe lest he be surpriz'd and call'd from this world before this evill state be altered for if he be his securities are but slender and his hopes will deceive him It was a severe doctrine that was maintain'd by some great Clerks and holy men in the Primitive Church That Repentance was to be but once after Baptism One Faith one Lord one Baptisme one Repentance all these the Scripture saith and it is true if by repentance we mean the entire change of our condition for he that returns willingly to the state of an unbeleeving or a heathen profane person intirely and choosingly in defiance of and apostasie from his Religion cannot be renew'd againe as the Apostle twice affirms in his Epistle to the Hebrews But then concerning this state of Apostasie when it hapned in the case not of Faith but of Charity and obedience there were many fears and jealousies they were therefore very severe in their doctrines lest men should fall into so evill a condition they enlarged their fear that they might be stricter in their duty and generally this they did beleeve that every second repentance was worse then the first and the third worse then the second and still as the sin returned the Spirit of God did the lesse love to inhabit and if he were provoked too often would so withdraw his aides and comfortable cohabitation that the Church had little comfort in such children so said Clemens Alexandr stromat 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those frequent and alternate repentances that is repentances and sinnings interchangeably differ not from the conditions of men that are not within the covenant of grace from them that are not beleevers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 save onely says he that these men perceive that they sin they doe it more against their conscience then infidels and unbeleevers and therefore they doe it with lesse honesty and excuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know not which is worse either to sin knowingly or wilfully or to repent of our sin and sin it over again And the same severe doctrine is delivered by Theodoret in his 12 book against the Greeks and is hugely agreeable to the discipline of the Primitive Church And it is a truth of so great severity that it ought to quicken the repentance and sowre the gayeties of easy people and make them fear whose repentance is therefore ineffectuall because it is not integrall or united but broken in pieces by the intervention of new crimes so that the repentance is every time to begin anew and then let it be considered what growth that repentance can make that is never above a week old that is for ever in its infancy that is still in its birth that never gets the dominion over sin These men I say ought to fear lest God reject their persons and deride the folly of their new begun repentances and at last be weary of giving them more opportunities since they approve all and make use of none their understanding is right and their will a slave their reason is for God and their affections for sin these men as the Apostles expression is walk not as wise but as fools for we deride the folly of those men that resolve upon the same thing a thousand times and never keep one of those resolutions These men are vaine and light easy and effeminate childish and abused these are they of whom our blessed Saviour said those sad decretory words Many shall strive to enter in and shall not be able SERMON VIII Part II. 3. THey have great reason to feare whose sins are not yet remitted for they are within the dominion of sin within the Kingdome of darknesse and the regions of feare Light makes us confident and Sin checks the spirit of a man into the pusillanimity and cowardize of a girle or a conscious boy and they doe their work in the days of peace and a wealthy fortune and come to pay their symbole in a warre or in a plague then they spend of their treasure of wrath which they laid up in their vessels of dishonour And indeed want of feare brought them to it for if they had known how to have accounted concerning the changes of mortality if they could have reckoned right concerning Gods judgements falling upon sinners and remembred that themselves are no more to God then that Brother of theirs that died in a drunken surfeit or was kill'd in a Rebell warre or was before his grave corrupted by the shames of lust if they could have told the minutes of their life and passed on towards their grave at least in religious and sober thoughts and consider'd that there must come a time for them to die and after death comes judgement a fearfull and an intolerable judgement it would not have come to this passe in which their present condition of affairs doe amaze them and their sin hath made them lyable unto death and that death is the beginning of an eternall evill In this case it is naturall to fear and if men consider their condition and know that all the felicity
of the most secret sin transparent as a net and visible as the Chian wines in the purest Crystall For besides that God takes care of Kings and of the lives of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 driving away evill from their persons and watching as a Mother to keep gnats and flies from her dear boy sleeping in the cradle there are in the machinations of a mighty mischief so many motions to be concentred so many wheels to move regularly and the hand that turns them does so tremble and there is so universall a confusion in the conduct that unlesse it passes suddenly into act it will be prevented by discovery and if it be acted it enters into such a mighty horror that the face of a man will tell what his heart did think and his hands have done And after all it was seen and observed by him that stood behinde the cloud who shall also bring every work of darknesse into light in the day of strange discoveries and fearfull recompences and in the mean time certain it is that no man can long put on a person and act a part but his evill manners will peep through the corners of the white robe and God will bring an hypocrite to shame even in the eyes of men 2. A second superinduced consequent of sin brought upon it by the wrath of God is sin when God punishes sin with sin he is extreamly angry for then the punishment is not medicinal but finall and exterminating God in that case takes no care concerning him though he dies and dies eternally I do not here speak of those sins which are naturally consequent to each other as evill words to evill thoughts evill actions to evill words rage to drunkennesse lust to gluttony pride to ambition but such which God suffers the mans evill nature to be tempted to by evill opportunities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the wrath of God and the man is without remedy It was a sad calamity when God punished Davids adultery by permitting him to fall to murder and Solomons wanton and inordinate love with the crime of idolatry and Ananias his sacriledge with lying against the holy Ghost and Judas his covetousnesse with betraying his Lord and that betraying with despair and that despair with self-murder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One evill invites another and when God is angry and withdrawes his grace and the holy Spirit is grieved and departs from his dwelling the man is left at the mercy of the mercilesse enemy and he shall receive him only with variety of mischiefs like Hercules when he had broken the horn of Achelous he was almost drown'd with the floud that sprung from it and the evill man when he hath pass'd the first scene of his sorrowes shall be intic'd or left to fall into another For it is a certain truth that he who resists or that neglects to use Gods grace shall fall into that evill condition that when he wants it most he shall have least It is so with every man he that hath the greatest want of the grace of God shall want it more if this great want proceeded once from his own sin Habenti dabitur said our blessed Lord to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath It is a remarkable saying of David I have thought upon thy name O Lord in the night season and have kept thy Law this I had because I kept thy Commandements keeping Gods Commandements was rewarded with keeping Gods Commandements And in this world God hath not a greater reward to give for so the soul is nourished unto life so it growes up with the increase of God so it passes onto a perfect man in Christ so it is consigned for heaven and so it enters into glory for glory is the perfection of grace and when our love to God is come to its state and perfection then we are within the circles of a Diadem and then we are within the regions of felicity And there is the same reason in the contrary instance The wicked person fals into sin and this he had because he sinn'd against his maker Tradidit Deus eos in desideria cordis eorum and it concerns all to observe it and if ever we finde that a sin succeeds a sin in the same instance it is because we refuse to repent but if a sin succeeds a sin in another instance as if lust followes pride or murder drunkennesse it is a sign that God will not give us the grace of repentance he is angry at us with a destructive fury he hath dipt his arrowes in the venome of the serpent and whets his-sword in the forges of hell then it is time that a man withdraw his foot and that he start back from the preparations of an intolerable ruine For though men in this case grow insensible and that 's part of the disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome it is the biggest part of the evill that the man feels it not yet the very antiperistasis or the contrariety the very horror and bignesse of the danger may possibly make a man to contend to leap out of the fire and sometimes God works a miracle and besides his own rule delights to reform a dissolute person to force a man from the grave to draw him against the bent of his evill habits yet it is so seldome that we are left to consider that such persons are in a desperate condition who cannot be saved unlesse God is pleased to work a miracle 3. Sinne brings in its retinue fearfull plagues and evill angels messengers of the displeasure of God concerning which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are enough of dead I mean the experience is so great and the notion so common and the examples so frequent and the instances so sad that there is scarce any thing new in this particular to be noted but something is remarkable and that is this that God even when he forgives the sin does reserve such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such remains of punishment and those not only to the lesse perfect but to the best persons that it makes demonstration that every sinner is in a worse condition then he dreams of For consider can it be imagined that any one of us should escape better then David did we have reason to tremble when we remember what he suffered even when God had seal'd his pardon Did not God punish Zedekiah with suffering his eyes to be put out in the house of bondage was not God so angry with Valentinian that he gave him into his enemies hand to be flay'd alive Have not many persons been struck suddenly in the very act of sin and some been seised upon by the Devill and carryed away alive These are fearfull contingencies but God hath been more angry yet rebellion was punished in Corah and his company
trifling swearing changes every trifling lye into a horrid perjury and this was noted by St. James But above all things swear not at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye may not fall into condemnation so we read it following the Arabian Syrian and Latin books and some Greek Copies and it signifies that all such swearing and putting fierce appendages to every word like great iron bars to a straw basket or the curtains of a tent is a direct condemnation of our selves For while we by much talking regard truth too little and yet bind up our trifles with so severe a band we are condemned by our owne words for men are made to expect what you bound upon them by an oath and account your trifle to be serious of which when you faile you have given sentence against your selfe And this is agreeable to those words of our blessed Saviour Of every idle word you shall give account for by thy words thou shalt be condemned and by thy words thou shalt be justified But there is another reading of these words which hath great emphasis and power in this article Swear not at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that you may not fall into hypocrisie that is into the disreputation of a lying deceiving cousening person for he that will put his oath to every common word makes no great matter of an oath for in swearing commonly he must needs sometimes swear without consideration and therefore without truth and he that does so in any company tels the world he makes no great matter of being perjured All these things put together may take off our wonder at St. James expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all things sweare not it is a thing so highly to be regarded and yet is so little considered that it is hard to say whether there be in the world any instance in which men are so carelesse of their danger and damnation as in this The next appendage of vain and trifling speech is contention wrangling and perpetuall talke proceeding from the spirit of contradiction Profert enim mores plerumque oratio animi secreta detegit Nec sine causâ Graeci prodiderunt ut vivat quemque etiam dicere said Quintilian For the most part a mans words betray his manners and unlocks the secrets of the mind And it was not without cause that the Greeks said As a man lives so he speaks for so indeed Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Aristides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that it is a signe of a peevish an angry and quarrelling disposition to be disputative and busic in Questions and impertinent oppositions You shall meet with some men such were the Sceptics and such were the Academics of old who will not endure any man shall be of their opinion and will not suffer men to speak truth or to consent to their own propositions but will put every man to fight for his owne possessions disturbing the rest of truth and all the dwellings of unity and consent clamosum altercatorem Quintilian calls such a one This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an overflowing of the heart and of the gall and it makes men troublesome and intricates all wise discourses and throws a cloud upon the face of truth and while men contend for truth error drest in the same habit slips into her chaire and all the litigants court her for the divine sister of wisdome Nimirùm altercando veritas amittitur There is noyse but no harmony fighting but no victory talking but no learning all are teachers and all are wilfull every man is angry and without reason and without charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their mouth is a spear their language is a two-edged sword their throat is a shield as Nonnus his expression is and the clamors and noyses of this folly is that which St. Paul reproves in this chapt Let all bitternesse and clamor be put away People that contend earnestly talke loud Clamor equus est irae cum prostraveris equitem dejeceris saith St. Chrysostom Anger rides upon noyse as upon a horse still the noyse and the rider is in the dirt and indeed so to doe is an act of fine strength and the cleanest spirituall force that can be exercised in this instance and though it be hard in the midst of a violent motion instantly to stop yet by strength and good conduct it may be done But he whose tongue rides upon passion and is spur'd by violence and contention is like a horse or mule without a bridle and without understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No person that is clamorous can be wise These are the vanities and evill fruits of the easie talker the instances of a trifling impertinent conversation and yet it is observable that although the instances in the beginning be onely vain yet in the issue and effects they are troublesome and full of mischief and that we may perceive that even all effusion and multitude of language and vainer talke cannot be innocent we may observe that there are many good things which are wholly spoyl'd if they doe but touch the tongue they are spoyl'd with speaking such as is the sweetest of all Christian graces humility and the noblest actions of humanity the doing favors and acts of kindnesse If you speak of them you pay your selfe and lose your kindnesse humility is by talking changed into pride and hypocrisie and patience passes into peevishnesse and secret trust into perfidiousnesse and modesty into dissolution and judgement into censure but by silence and a restrained tongue all the first mischiefs are avoyded and all these graces preserved SERMON XXIV Part III. Of Slander and Flattery HE that is twice asked a Question and then answers is to be excused if he answers weakly But he that speaks before he be asked had need take care he speak wisely for if he does not he hath no excuse and if he does yet it loses halfe its beauty and therefore the old man gave good counsell in the Comedie to the Boy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The profits of a restrained modest tongue cannot easily be numbred any more then the evills of an unbridled and dissolute But they were but infant mischiefs which for the most part we have already observed as the issues of vain and idle talking but there are two spirits worse then these 1. The spirit of detraction and 2. The spirit of flattery The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence the Devill hath his name He is an Accuser of the brethren But the second is worse it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 damnable and deadly it is the nurse of vice and the poyson of the soule These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sowre and filthy communication the first is rude but the latter is most mischievous and both of them to be avoyded like death or the despairing murmurs of the damned 1. Let no calumny no slandering detracting communication proceed out
in order to his amendment * by an authorized person * in the limits of a just reproofe * upon just occasion * and so as may not doe him mischief in the event of things For so we finde that our blessed Saviour cal'd his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish and S. James used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain man signifying the same with the forbidden raca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain uselesse or empty and St. Paul calls the Galatians mad and foolish and bewitched and Christ called Herod Fox and St. John called the Pharisees the generation of vipers and all this matter is wholly determined by the manner and with what minde it is done If it be for correction and reproofe towards persons that deserve it and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproofe and this also be done prudently safely and usefully it is not contumely But when men upon all occasions revile an offending person lessening his value sowring his spirit and his life despising his infirmities tragically expressing his lightest misdemeanour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being tyrannically declamatory and intolerably angry for a trifle these are such who as Apollonius the Philosopher said will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great and when 't is little For they who alwayes put on a supreme anger or expresse the lesse anger with the highest reproaches can doe no more to him that steals then to him that breaks a Crystall Non plus aequo non diutiùs aequo was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants But no more anger no more severe language then the thing deserves if you chide too long your reproofe is changed into reproach if too bitterly it becomes railing if too loud it is immodest if too publick it is like a dog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the man told his wife in the Greek Comedy to follow me in the streets with thy clamorous tongue is to doe as dogs doe not as persons civill or religious 4. The fourth instance of the calumniating filthy communication is that which we properly call slander or the inventing evill things falsely imputing crimes to our neighbor Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum said Cicero A false tongue or a foul lye against a mans reputation is like a poysoned arrow it makes the wound deadly and every scratch to be incurable Promptissima vindicta contumelia said one To reproach and rail is a revenge that every girl can take But falsely to accuse is spiteful as Hel and deadly as the blood of Dragons Stoicus occidit Baream delator amicum This is the direct murther of the Tongue for life and death are in the hand of the tongue said the Hebrew proverbe and it was esteemed so vile a thing that when Jesabel commanded the Elders of Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth she gave them instructions to take two men the sons of Belial none else were fit for the imployment Quid non audebis perfida lingua loqui This was it that broke Ephraim in judgement and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witnesse quoniam coepit abire post sordes therefore he suffered calumny and was overthrown in judgement This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters and the iron entred into his soule but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengefull Mistresse untill his cause was known and the Word of the Lord tryed him This was it that flew Abimelech and endanger'd David it was a sword in manu linguae Doeg in the hand of Doegs tongue By this Siba cut off the legs of Mephibosheth and made his reputation lame forever it thrust Jeremy into the dungeon and carryed Susanna to her stake and our Lord to his Crosse and therefore against the dangers of a slandering tongue all laws have so cautelously arm'd themselves that besides the severest prohibitions of God often recorded in both Testaments God hath chosen it to be one of his appellatives to be the Defender of them a party for those whose innocency and defencelesse state makes them most apt to be undone by this evill spirit I mean pupils and widows the poore and the oppressed And in pursuance of this charity the Imperiall laws have invented a juramentum de calumniâ on oath to be exhibited to the Actor or Plaintiff that he beleevs himself to have a just cause and that he does not implead his adversary calumniandi animo with false instances and indefencible allegations and the Defendant is to swear that he thinks himselfe to use onely just defences and perfect instances of resisting and both of them obliged themselves that they would exact no proofe but what was necessary to the truth of the Cause And all this defence was nothing but necessary guards For a spear and a sword and an arrow is a man that speaketh false witnesse against his neighbour And therefore the laws of God added yet another bar against this evill and the false Accuser was to suffer the punishment of the objected crime and as if this were not sufficient God hath in severall ages wrought miracles and raised the dead to life that by such strange appearances they might relieve the oppressed Innocent and load the false accusing Tongue with shame and horrible confusion So it happen'd in the case of Susanna the spirit of a man was put into the heart of a childe to acquit the vertuous woman and so it was in the case of Gregory Bishop of Agrigentum falsely accused by Sabinus and Crescentius Gods power cast the Devill out of Eudocia the Devill or spirit of Slander and compelled her to speak the truth St. Austin in his book De curâ promortuis tels of a dead Father that appeared to his oppressed Son and in a great matter of Law delivered him from the teeth of false accusation So was the Church of Monts rescued by the appearance of Aia the deceased wife of Hidulphus their Earle as appears in the Hanovian story and the Polonian Chronicles tell the like of Stanislaus Bishop of Cracovia almost oppressed by the anger and calumny of Boleslaus their King God relieved him by the testimony of St. Peter their Bishop or a Phantasme like him But whether these records may be credited or no I contend not yet it is very materiall which Eusebius relates of the three false witnesses accusing Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem of an infamous crime which they did affirming it under severall curses the first wishing that if he said false God would destroy him with fire the second that he might die of the Kings evil the third that he might be blind and so it came to passe the first being surprised with fire in his owne roofe amaz'd and intricated confounded and despairing paid the price of his slander with the pains of most fearfull flames and the second
made so uneasie to him by the scorn and harsh reproaches of the mighty But Princes and Nobles often die with this disease And when the Courtiers of Alexander counterfeited his wry neck and the Servants of the Sicilian Tyrant pretended themselves dim sighted and on purpose rushed one against another and overthrew the meat as it was served to his table onely because the Prince was short-sighted they gave them sufficient instances in what state of affaires they stood with them that waited it was certain they would commend every foolish answer and pretend subtilty in every absurd question and make a petition that their base actions might passe into a law and be made to be the honor and sanctity of all the people and what proportions or wayes can such great personages have towards felicity when their vice shall be allowed and praised every action that is but tolerable shall be accounted heroicall and if it be intolerable among the wise it shall be called vertuous among the flatterers Carneades said bitterly but it had in it too many degrees of truth that Princes and great personages never learn to doe any thing perfectly well but to ride the great horse quia scil ferociens bestia adulari non didicit because the proud beast knows not how to flatter but will as soon throw him off from his back as he will shake off the son of a Potter But a Flatterer is like a neighing Horse that neigheth under every rider and is pleased with every thing and commends all that he sees and tempts to mischief and cares not so his friend may but perish pleasantly And indeed that is a calamity that undoes many a soul we so love our peace and sit so easily upon our own good opinions and are so apt to flatter our selves and leane upon our own false supports that we cannot endure to be disturb'd or awakened from our pleasing lethargy For we care not to be safe but to be secure not to escape hell but to live pleasantly we are not solicitous of the event but of the way thither and it is sufficient if we be perswaded all his well in the mean time we are carelesse whether indeed it be so or no and therefore we give pensions to fools and vile persons to abuse us and cousen us of felicity But this evill puts on severall shapes which we must discover that they may not cousen us without our observation For all men are not capable of an open flattery And therefore some will dresse their hypocrisie and illusion so that you may feel the pleasure and but secretly perceive the complyance and tendernesse to serve the ends of your folly perit procari si latet said Plancus If you be not perceived you lose your reward if you be too open you lose it worse 1. Some flatter by giving great names and propounding great examples and thus the Aegyptian villains hung a Tumblers rope upon their Prince and a Pipers whistle because they called their Ptolemy by the name of Apollo their God of Musick This put buskins upon Nero and made him fidle in all the great Towns of Greece When their Lords were Drunkards they called them Bacchus when they were Wrestlers they saluted them by the name of Hercules and some were so vain as to think themselves commended when their Flatterers told aloud that they had drunk more then Alexander the Conquerour And indeed nothing more abuses easie fooles that onely seek for an excuse for their wickednesse a Patron for their vice a warrant for their sleepy peace then to tell stories of great examples remarked for the instances of their temptation When old Cato commended meretricious mixtures and to prevent adulteries permitted fornication the youth of the succeeding ages had warrant enough to goe ad olentes fornices into their chambers of filthy pleasure Quidam notus homo cum exiret fornice macte Virtute esto inquit sententia dia Catonis And it would passe the goblets in a freer circle if a flattering man shall but say Narratur prisci Catonis saepè mero caluisse virtus that old Cato would drink hard at sun-set When Varro had noted that wise and severe Salust who by excellent sententious words had reproved the follies of lust was himselfe taken in adultery The Romane youth did hug their vice and thought it grew upon their nature like a mans beard and that the wisest men would lay their heads upon that threshold and Seneca tels that the women of that age despised the adultery of one man onely and hated it like marriage and despis'd that as want of breeding and grandeur of spirit because the braver Spartans did use to breed their children promiscuously as the Heards-men doe cattle from the fairest Buls And Arrianus tels that the women would defend their basenesse by the doctrine of Plato who maintain'd the community of women This sort of flattery is therefore more dangerous because it makes the temptation ready for mischief apted and dressed with proper materiall and imitable circumstances The way of discourse is far about but evill examples kill quickly 2. Others flatter by imitation for when a crime is rare and insolent singular and out of fashion it must be a great strength of malice and impudence that must entertain it but the flattering man doing the vice of his Lord takes off the wonder and the fear of being stared at and so incourages it by making it popular and common Plutarch tels of one that divorced himself from his wife because his friend did so that the other might be hardened in the mischief and when Plato saw his scholars stoop in the shoulders and Aristotle observed his to stammer they began to be lesse troubled with those imperfections which they thought common to themselves and others 3. Some pretend a rusticity and downright plainnesse and upon the confidence of that humour their friends vice and flatter his ruine Seneca observed it of some of his time alius quidam adulatione clam utebatur parcè alius ex aperto palm rusticitate simulatâ quasi simplicitas illa ars non sit They pretend they love not to dissemble and therefore they cannot hide their thoughts let their friend take it how he will they must commend that which is commendable and so man that is willing to dye quietly is content with the honest heartynesse and downright simplicity of him that with an artificial rudenesse dress'd the flattery 4. Some will dispraise themselves that their friend may think better of himselfe or lesse severely of his fault 5. Others will reprove their friend for a trifle but with a purpose to let him understand that this is all for the honest man would have told his friend if it had been worse 6. Some will laugh and make a sport of a vice and can hear their friend tell the cursed narrative of his adultery of his drunkennesse of his craft and unjust purchases and all this shall prove but a merry scene
that charity should come by faith and by both together we may be saved For a mans ears as Plutarch cals them are virtutum ansae by them we are to hold and apprehend vertue and unlesse we use them as men do vessels of dishonour filling them with things fit to be thrown away with any thing that is not necessary we are by them more neerly brought to God then by all the senses beside For although things placed before the eye affect the minde more readily then the things we usually hear yet the reason of that is because we hear carelesly and we hear variety the same species dwels upon the eye and represents the same object in union and single representment but the objects of the ear are broken into fragments of periods and words and syllables and must be attended with a carefull understanding and because every thing diverts the sound and every thing cals off the understanding and the spirit of a man is truantly and trifling therefore it is that what men hear does so little affect them and so weakly work toward the purposes of vertue yet nothing does so affect the minde of man as those voices to which we cannot chuse but attend and thunder and all loud voices from Heaven rend the most ston◠heart and makes the most obstinate pay to God the homage of trembling and fear and the still voice of God usually takes the tribute of love and choice and obedience Now since hearing is so effective an instrument of conveying impresses and images of things and exciting purposes and fixing resolutions unlesse we hear weakly and imperfectly it will be of the greater concernment that we be curious to hear in order to such purposes which are perfective of the soul and of the spirit and not to dwell in fancy and speculation in pleasures and trifling arrests which continue the soul in its infancy and childhood never letting it go forth into the wisdom and vertues of a man I have read concerning Dionysius of Sicily that being delighted extremely with a Minstrel that sung well and struck his Harp dexterously he promised to give him a great reward and that raised the fancy of the Man and made him play better But when the musick was done and the man waited for his great hope the King dismissed him empty telling him that he should carry away as much of the promised reward as himself did of the Musick and that he had payed him sufficiently with the pleasure of the promise for the pleasure of his song both their ears had been equally delighted and the profit just none at all So it is in many mens hearing Sermons they admire the Preacher and he pleases their ears and neither of them both bear along with them any good and the hearer hath as little good by the sermon as the Preacher by the ayr of the peoples breath when they make a noise and admire and understand not And that also is a second caution I desire all men would take 2. That they may never trouble the affairs of preaching and hearing respectively with admiring the person of any man To admire a preacher is such a reward of his pains or worth as if you should crown a Conqueror with a garland of roses or a Bride with Laurell it is an undecency it is no part of the reward which could be intended for him For though it be a good natur'd solly yet it hath in it much danger for by that means the Preacher may lead his hearers captive and make them servants of a faction or of a lust it makes them so much the lesse to be servants of Christ by how much they call any man Master upon earth it weakens the heart and hands of others it places themselves in a rank much below their proper station changing from hearing the word of God to admiration of the person and faces of men and it being a fault that falls upon the more easie natures and softer understandings does more easily abuse a man and though such a person may have the good fortune to admire a good man and a wise yet it is an ill disposition and makes him liable to every mans abuse Stupidum hominem quâvis oratione percelli said Heraclitus An undiscerning person is apt to be cozened by every oration And besides this That Preacher whom some do admire others will most certainly envy and that also is to be provided against with diligence and you must not admire too forwardly for your own sake lest you fall into the hands of a worse preacher and for his sake whom when you admire you also love for others will be apt to envy him 3. But that must by all men be avoided for envy is the worst counsellour in the world and the worst hearer of a wise discourse I pity those men who live upon flattery and wonder and while they sit at the foot of the Doctors chair stare in his face and cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rarely spoken admirably done they are like callow and unfeathered birds gaping perpetually to be fed from anothers mouth and they never come to the knowledge of the truth such a knowledge as is effective and expressed in a prudent and holy life But those men that envy the preacher besides that they are great enemies of the Holy Ghost and are spitefully evil because God is good to him they are also enemies to themselves He that envies the honours or the riches of another envies for his own sake and he would fain be rich with that wealth which sweats in his neighbours coffers but he that envies him that makes good sermons envies himself and is angry because himself may receive the benefit and be improved or delighted or instructed by another He that is apt fondly to admire any mans person must cure himself by considering that the Preacher is Gods minister and servant that he speaks Gods word and does it by the Divine assistance that he hath nothing of his own but sin and imperfection that he does but his duty and that also hardly enough that he is highly answerable for his talent and stands deeply charged with the cure of souls and therefore that he is to be highly esteemed for the work sake not for the person his industry and his charity is to be beloved his ability is to be accounted upon another stock and for it the preacher and the hearer are both to give God thanks but nothing is due to the man for that save onely that it is the rather to be imployed because by it we may better be instructed but if any other reflexion be made upon his person it is next to the sin and danger of Herod and the people when the fine Oration was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with huge fancy the people were pleased and Herod was admired and God was angry and an Angel was sent to strike him with death and with dishonour But the envy against a preacher is
totoque accersitur orbe Quo gens quaeque perit Lucan And let me observe to you that though there are in the new Testament many promises and provisions made for the poor in that very capacity they haveing a title to some certain circumstances and additionals of grace and blessing yet to rich men our blessed Saviour was pleased to make none at all but to leave them involved in general comprehensions and to have a title to the special promises onely by becomming poor in spirit and in preparation of minde though not in fortune and possession How ever it is hard for God to perswade us to this till we are taught it by a sad experience that those prosperities which we think will make us serve God cheerfully make us to serve the world and secular ends diligently and God not at all Repentance is a duty that best complies with affliction it is a symbolical estate of the same complexion and constitution half the work of repentance is done by a sad accident our spirits are made sad our gayeties mortified our wildnesse corrected the water springs are ready to run over but if God should grant our desires and give to most men prosperity with a designe to lead them to repentance all his pompe and all his employment and all his affections and passions and all his circumstances are so many degrees of distance from the conditions and natures of repentance It was reported by Dio concerning Neros mother that she often wished that her Son might be Emperour and wished it with so great passion that upon that condition she cared not though her Son might kill her Her first wish and her second fear were both granted but when she began to fear that her Son did really disigne to murder her she used all the art and instruments of diversion that a witty and a powerfull a timerous person and a woman could invent or apply Just so it is with us so we might have our wishes of prosperity we promise to undergo all the severities of repentance but when we are landed upon our desire then every degree of satisfaction of those sensualities is a temptation against repentance for a man must have his affections weaned from those possessions before he can be reconciled to the possibilities of repentance And because God knowes this well and loves us better then we do our selves therefore he sends upon us the 1. scrolls of vengeance the hand writing upon the wall to denounce judgement against us for God is so highly resolved to bring us to repentance some way or other that if by his goodnesse he cannot shame us into it he will try if by his judgements he can scare us into it not that he strikes alwayes as soon as he hath sent his warrants out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Philo Thus God sent Jonas and denounced judgements against Niniveh but with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the forbearance of forty dayes for the time of their escape if they would repent When Noah the great preacher of righteousnesse denounced the flood to all the world it was with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the forbearance of 120. years and when the great extermination of the Jewish nation and their total deletion from being Gods people was foretold by Christ and decreed by God yet they had the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of forty years in which they were perpetually called to repentance These were reprieves and deferrings of the stroke But sometimes God strikes once and then forbeares and such are all those sadnesses which are lesse then death every sicknesse every losse every disgrace the death of friends and neerest relatives sudden discontents these are all of them the lowder calls of God to repentance but still instances of forbearance Indeed many times this forbearance makes men impudent it was so in the case of Pharaoh when God smote him and then forbore Pharaohs heart grew callous and insensible till God struck again and this was the meaning of these words of God I will harden the heart of pharaoh that is I wil forbear him smite him and then take the blow off Sic enim Deus induravit Pharaonis cor said Saint Basil For as water taken off from fire will sooner congeale and become icy then if it had not been attenuated by the heate so is the heart of some men when smitten by God it seemes soft and plyable but taken off from the fire of affliction it presently becomes horrid then stiff and then hard as a rock of Adamant or as the gates of death and hell But this is besides the purpose and intention of the Divine mercy this is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a plain contradiction to the riches of Gods goodnesse this is to be evill because God is good to burn with flames because we are coold with water this is to put out the lamps of heaven or if we cannot do it to put our own eyes out least we should behold the fair beauty of the Lord and be enamoured of his goodnesse and repent and live O take heed of despising this goodnesse for this is one of Gods latest arts to save us he hath no way left beyond this but to punish us with a lasting judgement and a poinant affliction In the tomb of Terentia certain lamps burned under ground many ages together but as soon as ever they were brought into the aire and saw a bigger light they went out never to be reenkindled so long as we are in the retirements of sorrow of want of fear of sicknesse or of any sad accident we are burning and shining lamps but when God comes with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his forbearance and lifts us up from the gates of death and carries us abroad into the open aire that we converse with prosperity and temptation we go out in darknesse and we cannot be preserved in heat and light but by still dwelling in the regions of sorrow And if such be our weaknesses or our folly it concerns us to pray against such deliverances to be afraid of health to beg of God to continue a persecution and not to deny us the mercy of an affliction And do not we finde all this to be a great truth in our selves are we so great strangers to our own weaknesses and unworthinesse as not to remember when God scared us with judgements in the neighbourhood whence we lived in a great plague or if were ever in a storm or God had sent a sicknesse upon us then we may please to remember that repentance was our businesse that we designed mountains of piety renewed our holy purposes made vows and solemn sacraments to God to become penitent and obedient persons and we may also remember without much considering that assoon as God began to forbear us we would no longer forbear to sin but adde flame to flame a heap of sins to a treasure of wrath already too big being like Pharaoh or Herod or like the
the contingencies and variety of mortality yet those wicked persons who fell by the designe of Gods anger were made examples unto others and instances of Gods forbearance to the Nation and yet this forbearance was such that although God preserved the Nation in being and in title to the first promises yet all the particular persons that came from Egypt died in the wildernesse two onely excepted 2. And I desire you to observe this that you may truly estimate the arts of the Divine justice and mercy For all the world being one continuall and intire argument of the Divine mercy we are apt to abuse that mercy to vain confidences and presumption First mistaking the end as if Gods mercy would be indulgent to our sin to which it is the greatest enemy in the world for it is a certain truth that the mercy of God is as great an enemy to sin as his justice is and as Gods justice is made the hand-maid of his mercy to cure sin so it is the servant also and the instrument to avenge our despight and contempt of mercy and in all the way where a difference can be there justice is the lesse principall And it were a great signe of folly and a huge mistake to think our Lord and friends do us offices of kindnesse to make themselves more capable of affronts and that our fathers care over us and provisions for us can tempt us to disobey them The very purpose of all those emanations is that their love may return in duty and their providence be the parent of our prudence and their care be crowned with our piety and then we shall all be crowned and shall return like the yeer the ends into its own circle and the fathers and the children the benefactours and the beneficiary shall knit the wreath and binde each other in the eternall inclosures and circlings of immortality * but besides the men who presume to sin because of Gods mercy do mistake the very end and designe of Gods mercy they also mistake the Oeconomy of it and the manner of its ministration 3 For if God suffers men to go on in sins and punishes them not it is not a mercy it is not a forbearance it is a hardning them a consigning them to ruine and reprobation and themselves give the best argument to prove it for they continue in their sin they multiply their iniquity and every day grow more enemy to God and that is no mercy that increases their hostility and enmity with God A prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous condition in the whole world when he slew them that sought him and turned them early and enquired after God but as long as they prevailed upon their enemies then they forgat that God was their strength and the high God was their redeemer It was well observed by the Persian Embassadour of old when he was telling the King a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians he addes this of his own that the day before the fight the young Persian gallants being confident they should destroy their enemies were drinking drunk and railing at the timerousnesse and fears of religion and against all their Gods saying there were no such things and that all things came by chance industry nothing by the providence of the supreme power But the next day when they had fought unprosperously and flying from their enemies who were eager in their pursuit they came to the river strymon which was so frozen that their boats could not lanch and yet it began to thaw so that they feared the ice would not bear them Then you should see the bold gallants that the day before said there was no God most timorously and superstitiously fall upon their faces and begged of God that the river strymon might bear them over from their enemies What wisdom and Philosophy and perpetual experience and revelation and promises and blessings cannot do a mighty fear can it can allay the confidences of a bold lust and an imperious sin and soften our spirit into the lownesse of a Childe our revenge into the charity of prayers our impudence into the blushings of a chidden girle and therefore God hath taken a course proportionable for he is not so unmercifully merciful as to give milk to an infirm lust and hatch the egge to the bignesse of a cocatrice and therefore observe how it is that Gods mercy prevailes over all his works it is even then when nothing can be discerned but his judgements For as when a famin had been in Israel in the dayes of Ahab for three years and a half when the angry prophet Elijah met the King and presently a great winde arose and the dust blew into the eyes of them that walked abroad and the face of the heavens was black and all tempest yet then the prophet was the most gentle and God began to forgive and the heavens were more beautiful then when the Sun puts on the brightest ornaments of a bridegrome going from his chambers of the east so it is in the Oeconomy of the divine mercy when God makes our faces black and the windes blow so loud till the cordage cracks and our gay fortunes split and our houses are dressed with Cypresse and yew and the mourners go about the streets this is nothing but the pompa misericordiae this is the funeral of our sins dressed indeed with emblems of mourning and proclaimed with sad accents of death but the sight is refreshing as the beauties of the field which God hath blessed and the founds are healthful as the noise of a physitian This is that riddle spoken of in the psalme Calix in manu Dom. vini meri plenus misto the pure impure the mingled unmingled cup for it is a cup in which God hath poured much of his severity and anger and yet it is pure and unmingled for it is all mercy and so the riddle is resolved and our cup is full and made more wholsome lymphatum crescit dulcescit laedere nescit it is some justice and yet it is all mercy the very justice of God being an act of mercy a forbearance of the man or the nation and the punishing the sin Thus it was in the case of the children of Israel when they ran after the bleating of the idolatrous calves Moses prayed passionately and God heard his prayer and forgave their sin upon them And this was Davids observation of the manner of Gods mercy to them Thou wast a God and forgavest them though thou tookest veangeance of their inventions for Gods mercy is given to us by parts and to certain purposes sometimes God onely so forgives us that he does not cut us off in the sin but yet layes on a heavy load of judgements so he did to his people when he sent them to schoole under the discipline of 70 years captivity somtimes he makes a judgement lesse and forgives in respect of the degree of the
most mens interest to do it these men are in a pitiable condition and are to be helped by the following rules 1. Let every man consider that he hath two relations to serve and he stands between God and his Master or his neerest relative and in such cases it comes to be disputed whether interest be preferred which of the persons is to be displeased God or my Master God or my Prince God or my Friend If we be servants of the man remember also that I am a servant of God adde to this that if my present service to the man be a slavery in me and a tyranny in him yet Gods service is a noble freedom And Apollonius said well It was for slaves to lie and for free men to speak the truth If you be freed by the blood of the Son of God then you are free indeed and then consider how dishonourable it is to lie to the displeasure of God and onely to please your fellow-servant The difference here is so great that it might be sufficient onely to consider the antithesis Did the man make you what you are Did he pay his blood for you to save you from death Does he keep you from sicknesse True You eat at his table but they are of Gods provisions that he and you feed of Can your master free you from a fever when you have drunk your self into it and restore your innocence when you have forsworn your self for his interest Is the change reasonable He gives you meat and drink for which you do him service But is not he a Tyrant and an usurper an oppressor and an extortioner if he will force thee to give thy soul for him to sell thy soul for old-shoes and broken bread But when thou art to make thy accounts of eternity will it be taken for an answer My Patron or my Governour my Prince or my Master forced me to it or if it will not Will he undertake a portion of thy flames or if that may not be will it be in the midst of all thy torments any ease to thy sorrows to remember all the rewards and clothes all the money and civilities all the cheerfull looks and familiarity and fellowship of vices which in your life time made your spirit so gay and easie It will in the eternall loads of sorrow adde a duplicate of groans and indignation when it shall be remembred for how base and trifling interest and upon what weak principles we fell sick and died eternally 2. The next advise to persons thus tempted is that they would learn to separate duty from mistaken interest and let them be both served in their just proportions when we have learned to make a difference A wife is bound to her husband in all his just designes and in all noble usages and Christian comportments But a wife is no more bound to pursue her husbands vitious hatreds then to serve and promote his unlawfull and wandring loves It is not alwayes a part of duty to think the same propositions or to curse the same persons or to wish him successe in unjust designes And yet the sadnesse of it is that a good woman is easily tempted to beleeve the cause to be just and when her affection hath forced her judgement her judgement for ever after shall carry the affection to all its erring and abused determinations A friend is turned a flatterer if he does not know that the limits of friendship extend no further then the pale and inclosures of reason and religion No Master puts it into his covenant that his servant shall be drunk with him or give in evidence in his Masters cause according to his Masters scrolls and therefore it is besides and against the duty of a servant to sin by that authority it is as if he should set Mules to keep his sheep or make his Dogs to carry burdens it is besides their nature and designe and if any person falls under so tyrannicall relation let him consider how hard a Master he serves where the Devil gives the imployment and shame is his entertainment and sin is his work and hell is his wages Take therefore the counsel of the son of Syrac Accept no person against thy soul and let not the reverence of any man cause thee to fall 3. When passion mingles with duty and is a necessary instrument of serving God let not that passion run its own course and passe on to liberty and thence to licence and dissolution but let no more of it be entertained then will just do the work For no zeal of duty will warrant a violent passion to prevaricate a duty I have seen some officers of Warre in passion and zeal of their duty have made no scruple to command a souldier with the dialect of cursing and accents of swearing and pretended they could not else speak words effective enough and of sufficient authority and a man may easily be overtaken in the issues of his government while his authority serves it still with passion if he be not curious in his measures his passion will also serve it self upon the authority and over rule the Ruler 4. Let every such tempted person remember that all evil comes from our selves and not from others and therefore all pretences and prejudices all commands and temptations all opinions and necessities are but instances of our weaknesse and arguments of our folly For unlesse we listed no man can make us drink beyond our measures And if I tell a lie for my Masters or my friends advantage it is because I prefer a little end of money or flattery before my honour and my innocence They are huge follies which go up and down in the mouthes and heads of men He that knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reigne He that will not do as his company does must go out of the world and quit all society of men We create necessities of our own and then think we have reason to serve their importunity Non ego sum ambitiosus sed nemo aliter Romae potest vivere non ego sumptuosus sed urbs ipsa magnas impensas exigit Non est meum vitium quod iracundus sum quod nondum constitui certum vitae genus adolescentia haec facit The place we live in makes us expensive the state of life I have chosen renders me ambitious my age makes me angry or lustfull proud or peevish These are nothing else but resolutions never to mend as long as we can have excuse for our follies and untill we can cozen our selves no more There is no such thing as a necessity for a Prince to dissemble or for a servant to lie or for a friend to flatter for a civil person and a sociable to be drunk we cozen our selves with thinking the fault is so much derivative from others till the smart and the shame falls upon our selves and covers our heads with sorrow And unlesse this gap be stopped and that we
knowing that even in this sense time was very pretious and the opportunitie of giving glory to God by the offices of an excellent religion was not too deare a purchase at that rate But then when the wolves had entred into the folds and seized upon a lamb the rest fled and used all the innocent arts of concealment Saint Athanasius being overtaken by his persecutors but not known and asked whether he saw Athanasius passing that way pointed out forward with his finger non longè abest Athanasius the man is not far off a swift foot-man will easily overtake him And Saint Paul divided the councell of his Judges and made the Pharisees his parties by a witty insinuation of his own belief of the resurrection which was not the main question but an incident to the matter of his accusation And when Plinius secundus in the face of a Tyrant court was pressed so invidiously to give his opinion concerning a good man in banishment and under the disadvantage of an unjust sentence he diverted the snare of Marcus Regulus by referring his answer to a competent judicatory according to the laws being pressed again by offering a direct answer upon a just condition which he knew they would not accept and the third time by turning the envy upon the impertinent and malicious Orator that he won great honour the honour of a severe honesty and a witty man and a prudent person The thing I have noted because it is a good pattern to represent the arts of honest evasion and religious prudent honesty which any good man may transcribe and turn into his own instances if an equal case should occur For in this case the rule is easy If we are commanded to be wise and redeeme our time that we serve God and religion we must not use unlawful arts which set us back in the accounts of our time no lying Subterfuges no betraying of a truth no treachery to a good man no insnaring of a brother no secret renouncing of any part or proposition of our religion no denying to confesse the article when we are called to it For when the primitive Christians had got a trick to give money for certificates that they had sacrificed to idols though indeed they did not do it but had corrupted the officers and ministers of state they dishonoured their religion and were marked with the appellative of libellatici Libellers and were excommunicate and cast off from the society of Christians and the hopes of Heaven till they had returned to God by a severe repentance optanduum est ut quod libenter facis din facere possis It is good to have time long to doe that which wee ought to doe but to pretend that which we dare not doe and to say we have when we have not if we know we ought not is to dishonour the cause and the person too it is expressly against confession of Christ of which Saint Paul saith by the mouth confession is made unto salvation And our Blessed Saviour he that confesseth me before men I will confesse him before my Heavenly Father and if here he refuseth to own me I will not own him hereafter it is also expressly against Christian fortitude and noblenesse and against the simplicity and sincerity of our religion and it turnes prudence into craft and brings the Devil to wait in the temple and to minister to God and it is a lesser Kinde of apostacy and it is well that the man is tempted no further for if the persecutors could not be corrupted with money it is ods but the complying man would and though he would with the money hide his shame yet he will not with the losse of all his estate redeeme his religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some men will lose their lives rather then a faire estate and doe not almost all the armies of the world I mean those that fight in the justest causes pretend to fight and die for their lands and liberties and there are too many also that will die twice rather then be beggers once although we all know that the second death is intolerable Christian prudence forbids us to provoke a danger and they were fond persons that run to persecution and when the Proconsul sate on the life and death and made strict inquisition after Christians went and offered themselves to die and he was a fool that being in Portugal run to the Priest as he elevated the host and overthrew the mysteries and openly defied the rites of that religion God when he sends a persecution will pick out such persons whom he will have to die and whom he will consigne to banishment and whom to poverty In the mean time let us do our duty when we can and as long as we can and with as much strictnesse as we can walking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostles Phrase is not prevaricating in the least tittle and then if we can be safe with the arts of civil innocent inoffensive compliance let us blesse God for his permissions made to us and his assistances in the using them But if either we turne our zeal into the ambition of death and the follies of an unnecessary beggery or on the other side turn our prudence into craft and covetousnesse to the first I say that God hath no pleasure in fooles to the latter If you gain the whole world and lose your own soul your losse is infinite and intolerable Sermon XXI Of Christian Prudence Part II. 4. IT is the office of Christian prudence so to order the affaires of our life as that in all the offices of our souls and conversation we do honour and reputation to the religion we professe For the follies and vices of the Professors give great advantages to the adversary to speak reproachfully and does aliene the hearts and hinder the complyance of those undetermined persons who are apt to be perswaded if their understandings be not prejudiced But as our necessary duty is bound upon us by one ligament more in order to the honour of the cause of God so it particularly bindes us to many circumstances adjuncts and parts of duty which have no other commandment but the law of prudence There are some sects of Christians which have some one constant indisposition which as a character divides them from all others and makes them reproved on all hands some are so suspitious and ill natured that if a person of a facile nature and gentle disposition fall into their hands he is presently sowred and made morose unpleasant and uneasy in his conversation Others there are that do things so like to what themselves condemn that they are forced to take sanctuary and labour in the mine of unsignificant distinctions to make themselves believe they are innocent and in the mean time they offend all men else and open the mouths of their adversaries to speak reproachful things true or false as it happens And it requires a great wit to understand all the
necessary God would not do it But if it be worth it and all of it be necessary why should we not labour in order to this great end If it be worth so much to God it is so much more to us for if we perish his felicity is undisturbed but we are undone infinitely undone It is therefore worth taking in a spirituall guide so far we are gone But because we are in the question of prudence we must consider whether it be necessary to do so For every man thinks himself wise enough as to the conduct of his soul and managing of his eternal interest and divinity is every mans trade and the Scriptures speak our own language and the commandments are few and plain and the laws are the measure of justice and if I say my prayers and pay my debts my duty is soon summed up and thus we usually make our accounts for eternity and at this rate onely take care for heaven but let a man be questioned for a portion of his estate or have his life shaken with diseases then it will not be enough to employ one agent or to send for a good woman to minister a potion of the juices of her country garden but the ablest Lawyers and the skilfullest Physitians the advice of friends and huge caution and diligent attendances and a curious watching concerning all the accidents and little passages of our disease and truly a mans life and health is worth all that and much more and in many cases it needs it all But then is the soul the onely safe and the onely trifling thing about us Are not there a thousand dangers and ten thousand difficulties and innumerable possibilities of a misadventure Are not all the congregations in the world divided in their doctrines and all of them call their own way necessary and most of them call all the rest damnable we had need of a wise instructor and a prudent choice at our first entrance and election of our side and when we are well in the matter of Faith for its object and jnstitution all the evils of my self and 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 stock 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 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
need to bid men be wary as to take care that they be innocent Indeed in religion we are usually too loose and ungirt exposing our selves to temptation and others to offence and our name to dishonour and the cause it self to reproach and we are open and ready to every evil but persecution from that we are close enough and that alone we call prudence but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents subtil as foxes vigilant as the birds of the night rapacious as Kites tenacious as grapling hooks and the weightiest anchors and above all false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice spread upon the face of a deep smooth and dissembling pit if you set your foot your foot slips or the ice breaks and you sink into death and are wound in a sheet of water descending into mischief or your grave suffering a great fall or a sudden death by your confidence and unsuspecting foot There is an universal crust of hypocrisie that covers the face of the greatest part of mankinde Their religion consists in forms and outsides and serves reputation or a designe but does not serve God Their promises are but fair language and the civilities of the Piazzas or Exchanges and disband and unty like the air that beat upon their teeth when they spake the delicious and hopefull words Their oaths are snares to catch men and make them confident Their contracts are arts and stratagems to deceive measured by profit and possibility and every thing is lawfull that is gainfull and their friendships are trades of getting and their kindnesse of watching a dying friend is but the office of a vulture the gaping for a legacy the spoil of the carcasse and their sicknesses are many times policies of state sometimes a designe to shew the riches of our bed-chamber and their funeral tears are but the paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second Bride and every thing that is ugly must be hid and every thing that is handsome must be seen and that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity and therefore it is as they think necessary that men should alwayes have some pretences and forms some faces of religion or sweetnesse of language confident affirmatives or bold oaths protracted treaties or multitude of words affected silence or grave deportment a good name or a good cause a fair relation or a worthy calling great power or a pleasant wit any thing that can be fair or that can be usefull any thing that can do good or be thought good we use it to abuse our brother or promote our interests Leporina resolved to die being troubled for her husbands danger and he resolved to die with her that had so great a kindnesse for him as not to out-live the best of her husbands fortune It was agreed and she temperd the poyson and drank the face of the unwholesome goblet but the weighty poyson sunke to the bottome and the easie man drank it all off and died and the woman carried him forth to funeral and after a little illnesse which she soon recovered she enterd upon the inheritance and a second marriage Tuta frequensque via est This is an usual and a safe way to cozen upon colour of friendship or religion but that is hugely criminal to tell a lie to abuse a mans belief and by it to enter upon any thing of his possession or his injury is a perfect destruction of all humane society the most ignoble of all humane follies perfectly contrary to God who is Truth it self the greatest argument of a timorous and a base a cowardly and a private minde not at all honest or confident to see the Sun a vice fit for slaves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostomus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the most timorous and the basest of beasts use craft and lie in wait and take their prey and save their lives by deceit and it is the greatest injury to the abused person in the world for besides that it abuses his interest it also makes him for ever insecure and uneasie in his confidence which is the period of cares the rest of a mans spirit it makes it necessary for a man to be jealous and suspicious that is to be troublesome to himself and every man else and above all lying or craftinesse and unfaithful usages robs a man of the honour of his soul making his understanding uselesse and in the condition of a fool spoiled and dishonoured and despised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Said Plato Every soul loses truth very unwillingly Every man is so great a lover of truth that if he hath it not he loves to beleeve he hath and would fain have all the world to beleeve as he does either presuming that he hath truth or else hating to be deceived or to be esteemed a cheated and an abused person Non licet suffurari mentem hominis etiam Samaritani said R. Moses sed veritatem loquere atque age ingenuè If a man be a Samaritan that is a hated person a person from whom you differ in matter of religion yet steal not his minde away but speak truth to him honestly and ingenuously A mans soul loves to dwell in truth it is his resting place and if you take him from thence you take him into strange regions a place of banishment and dishonour Qui ignotos loedit latro appellatur qui amicos paulò minus quam parricida He that hurts strangers is a thief but he that hurts his friends is little better then a parricide That 's the brand and stigma of hypocrisie and lying it hurts our friends mendacium in damnum potens and makes the man that owns it guilty of a crime that is to be punished by the sorrows usually suffered in the most execrable places of the cities But I must reduce the duty to particulars and discover the contrary vice by the several parts of its proportion 1. The first office of Christian simplicity consists in our religion and manners that they he open and honest publike and justifiable the same at home and abroad for besides the ingenuity and honesty of this there is an indispensable and infinite necessity it should be so because whoever is a hypocrite in his religion mocks God presenting to him the outside and reserving the inward for his enemy which is either a denying God to be the searcher of our hearts or else an open defiance of his omniscience and of his justice To provoke God that we may deceive men to defie his Almightinesse that we may abuse our brother is to destroy all that is Sacred all that is prudent it is an open hostility to all things humane and divine a breaking from all the bands of all relations and uses God so cheaply as if he were to be treated or could be cozened like a weak man and an undiscerning and easie merchant But so is the life of many men Vita fallax abditos sensus
harmlesse and without an evil sting 3. Christian simplicity relates to promises and acts of grace and favour and its caution is that all promises be simple ingenuous agreeable to the intention of the promiser truly and effectually expressed and never going lesse in the performance then in the promise and words of the expression concerning which the cases are several 1. First all promises in which a third or a second person hath no interest that is the promises of kindnesse and civilities are tied to passe into performance secundum aequum bonum and though they may oblige to some small inconvenience yet never to a great one and I will visit you to morrow morning because I promised you and therefore I will come etiamsi non concoxero although I have not slept my full sleep but Si febricitavero if I be in a feaver or have reason to fear one I am disobliged For the nature of such promises bears upon them no bigger burthen then can be expounded by reasonable civilities and the common expectation of kinde and the ordinary performances of just men who do excuse and are excused respectively by all rules of reason proportionably to such small entercourses and therefore although such conditions be not expressed in making promises yet to perform or rescind them by such laws is not against Christian simplicity 2. Promises in matters of justice or in matters of grace as from a superiour to an inferiour must be so singly and ingenuously expressed intended and performed accordingly that no condition is to be reserved or supposed in them to warrant their non-performance but impossibility or that which is next to it an intolerable inconvenience in which cases we have a natural liberty to commute our promises but so that we pay to the interested person a good at least equal to that which we first promised And to this purpose it may be added that it is not against Christian simplicity to expresse our promises in such words which we know the interested man will understand to other purposes then I intend so it be not lesse that I mean then that he hopes for When our Blessed Saviour told his disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones they presently thought they had his bond for a kingdom and dreamt of wealth and honour power and a splendid court and Christ knew they did but did not disintangle his promise from the enfolded and intricate sence of which his words were naturally capable but he performed his promise to better purposes then they hoped for they were presidents in the conduct of souls Princes of Gods people the chief in sufferings stood neerest to the crosse had an elder brothers portion in the Kingdom of grace were the founders of Churches and dispensers of the mysteries of the kingdom and ministers of the spirit of God and chanels of mighty blessings under mediators in the Priesthood of their Lord and their names were written in heaven and this was infinitely better then to groan and wake under a head pressed with a golden crown and pungent cares and to eat alone and to walk in a croud and to be vexed with all the publick and many of the private evils of the people which is the sum Total of an earthly Kingdom When God promised to the obedient that they should live long in the land which he would give them he meant it of the land of Canaan but yet reserved to himself the liberty of taking them quickly from that land and carrying them to a better He that promises to lend me a staffe to walk withal and instead of that gives me a horse to carry me hath not broken his promise nor dealt deceitfully And this is Gods dealing with mankinde he promises more then we could hope for and when he hath done that he gives us more then he hath promised God hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need food and raiment but he addes out of the treasures of his mercy variety of food and changes of raiment some to get strength and some to refresh something for them that are in health and some for the sick And though that skins of buls and stagges and foxes and bears could have drawn a vail thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame and to defend us from heat and cold yet when he addeth the fleeces of sheep and beavers and the spoiles of silk worms he hath proclaimed that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation yet they are not the limits of his loving kindnesse and if he does more then he hath promised no man can complain that he did otherwise and did greater things then he said thus God does but therefore so also must we imitating that example and transcribing that copy of divine truth alwayes remembring that his promises are yea and Amen And although God often goes more yet he never goes lesse and therefore we must never go from our promises unlesse we be thrust from thence by disability or let go by leave or called up higher by a greater intendment and increase of kindnesse And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim-Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive he quitted himself but ill when he sent an Eunuch to cut his throat when he slept because the Priest told him that sleep was death His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet But in this part of simplicity we Christians have a most especiall obligation for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises and our faith made confident by the veracity of our Lord and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies and voices from heaven and all the testimony of God himself and that truth it self is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother and that he must either be incredulous or deceived uncharitable or deluded like a fool we dishonour the sacrednesse of the institution and become strangers to the spirit of truth and to the eternall word of God Our Blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all no not in publick Judicature if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed If Christians will live according to the religion the word of a Christian were sufficient instrument to give testimony and to make promises to secure a faith and upon that supposition oathes were uselesse and therefore forbidden because there could be no necessity to invoke Gods name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain but because many are not and they that are in name oftentimes are so in nothing else it became necessary that man should swear in judgment and in publick courts but consider who it was that invented and made the necessitie of
and prophaning the name of Christ by using it in a solemn oath to deceive their enemies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to dispise God when men first sware by him and then violate their oathes or leagues their treaties or promises In other cases liberty hath been taken by all men and it is reproved by no man since the first simplicity of fighting down right blows did cease by the better instructed people of the world which was as is usually computed about the end of the second Carthaginian war since that time some few persons have been found so noble as to scorn to steal a victory but had rather have the glory of a sharp sword then of a sharp wit But their fighting gallantry is extrinsecal to the Question of lawful or unlawful 6. Thus we see how far the laws of ingenuity and Christian simplicity have put fetters upon our words and actions and directed them in the paths of truth and noblenesse and the first degrees of permission of simulation is in the arts of war and the cases of just hostility But here it is usually inquired whether it be lawful to tell a lie or dissemble to save a good mans life or to do him a great benefit a Question which Saint Austine was much troubled withal affirming it to be of the greatest difficulty for he saw generally all the Doctors before his time allowed it and of all the fathers no man is noted to have reproved it but Saint Austin alone and he also as his manner is with some variety those which followed him are to be accounted upon his score and it relies upon such precedents which are not lightly to be disallowed for so Abraham and Isaac told a lie in the case of their own danger to Abimelech so did the Israelitish midwives to Pharaoh and Rachab concering the spies and David to the King of Gath and the prophet that anointed Saul and Elisha to Hazael and Solomon in the sentence of the stolen childe concerning which Irenaeus hath given us a rule that those whose actions the Scripture hath remarked yet not chastised or censured we are not without great reason and certain rule to condemn but whether his rule can extend to this case is now to be enquired 1. It is certain that children may be cozned into goodnesse and sick men to health and passengers in a storm into fafety and the reason of these is because not onely the end is fair and charitable and just but the means are such which do no injury to the persons which are to receive benefit Because these are persons who are either naturally or accidentally ignorant and incompetent judges of affaires and if they be also wilful as such persons most commonly are there is in art and nature left no wayes to deal with them but with innocent charitable and artificial deceptions they are not capable of reason and solid discourses and therefore either must be exposed to all harms like Lions whelps when their nurse and sire are taken in a toile or else be provided for in wages proportionable to their capacitie 2. Sinners may not be treated with the liberty we take to children and sick persons because they must serve God with choice and election and therefore although a sick man may be cozened into his health yet a man must not be cozened into his duty which is no duty at all or pleasing to God unlesse it be voluntary and chosen and therefore they are to be treated with arguments proper to move their wills by the instrument of understanding specially being persons of perfect faculties and apt to be moved by the wayes of health and of a man It is an argument of infirmity that in some cases it is necessary to make pretences but those pretences are not made legitimate unlesse it be the infirmity of the interested man with whom we do comply My infirmity can not make it lawful to make colours and images of things But the infirmity of him with whom I deal may be such that he can be defended or instructed no other way But sinners that offend God by choice must have their choice corrected and their understandings instructed or else their evill is not cured nor their state amended 2. For it is here very observable that in entercourses of this nature we are to regard a double duty the matter of justice and the rights of charity that is that good be done by lawful instruments for it is certain it is not lawful to abuse a mans understanding with a purpose to gain him 6. d. it is not fit to do evil for a good end or to abuse one man to preserve or do advantage to another and therefore it is not sufficient that I intend to do good to my neighbour for I may not therefore tell a lie and abuse his credulity because his understanding hath a right as certain as his will hath or as his money and his right to truth is no more to be cozened and defrauded then his right unto his money and therefore such artificial entercourses are no wayes to be permitted but to such persons over whose understandings we have power and authority Plato said it was lawful for Kings and Governours to dissemble because there is great necessity for them so to do but it was but crudely said so nakedly to deliver the doctrine for in such things which the people cannot understand and yet ought to obey there is a liberty to use them as we use children who are of no other condition or capacities then children but in all things where they can and ought to choose because their understanding is onely a servant to God no man hath power to abuse their credulity and reason to preserve their estates and peace But because Children and mad people and diseased are such whose underdandings are in minority and under Tuition they are to be governed by their proper instruments and proportions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Proclus a good turn is to be preferred before a true saying it is onely true to such persons who cannot value truth and prefer an intellectual before a material interest It is better for children to have warm clothes then a true proposition and therefore in all senses they and their like may be so treated But other persons who have distinct capacities have an injury done them by being abused into advantages and although those advantages make them recompence yet he that is tied to make a man recompence hath done him injury and committed a sin by which he was obliged to restitution therefore the man ought not to be cozened for his own good 4. And now upon the grounds of this discourse we may more easily determine concerning saving the life of a man by telling a lie in judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Pericles of Athens when his friend desired him to swear on his side I will assist my friend so far as I may not dishonour God and