that we cannot be certainly apprehended unless we talk a great deal more Of that said the Traveller who was desirous to know all he could in this matter I would willingly be informed by your self You would oblige me very much if you could think fit to resolve your own question For truly I love so dearly to understand what I hear as thanks be to God I do what you say that I wonder any men should go to seek for hard words when those that are plain do thrust themselves into their mouths I meant not replyed the Guide to draw my discourse to this inquiry but only to express to you by those questions the unreasonableness of such mens proceedings Yet since it is your desire and I am not willing to deny you any thing you shall know what I conceive in this matter provided you will be content with that answer which lyes uppermost in my thoughts and offers it self first to my mind They are not in love I am apt to think with such a definition of Faith as I have given you because it is Pilgrim-like plain as a Pike-staff It is in this case as in many other there are a company of men in the world who despise any thing which they understand easily and imagine there is no great matter in it if it be presently intelligible They admire that most which they do not comprehend and conceive there is some mystery and depth in it if it be difficult to be explained Just as you see abundance of men affect hard words nay bombastick language and a fustian kind of dialect though there be no greater eloquence then to speak naturally and with facility of expression So there are as many who love things obscurely delivered and which have a cloud about them though it be the perfection of our understandings to render our conceptions clear and easie to enter into the most vulgar capacities As they think him an Orator who mounts and soars aloft as they call it in high-flown words so they take him for a deep Divine whose notions of things are so expressed as they cannot presently sound and dive to the bottom of them Hence it is that they contemn such a familiar plain and facile explication of the word Faith as doth not intricate a man's conceptions but can at first sight be apprehended and they had rather have you speak of it in Metaphorical or borrowed words which belonging more properly to other things then they do to this make an uncertain sound and leave the mind in confusion If you say that it is a Taking of Christ of whole Christ an applying of what he hath done to the soul a cleaving to him or in such like words express your self all these seem to have more of mystery and Gospel-secrets in them then the poor Pilgrimphrase hath and so they win more credit with those men who are not wont to like any thing which every child may understand as well as themselves Besides it must be confessed that such words as those do not touch the bottom of the heart nor so instantly penetrate to the very quick as the other plainly do and so they must needs be better accepted in the world They do not so necessarily and clearly imply mens obedience to our Lord which in this that I mention is in direct terms expressed and so they will be sure to meet with kinder welcome and entertainment He was proceeding to add some other words much to the same effect when the Pilgrim begging his pardon for diverting him from his main discourse told him that he was too much satisfied in the truth of what he said and desired to hear no more of this folly of mankind But what think you added he of those other descriptions of Faith which tell us that it is A relying upon our Saviour cannot every body understand this language as well as that which you speak I grant it answered the Director but if it be not lyable to the first defect which I objected it is notoriously guilty of the last and worst for there is in it nothing of our obedience As the former were faulty in regard of their obscurity so this is manifestly chargable with lameness and imperfection You shall be convinced of the truth of this imputation in a very few words For first the most that can be made of this relyance on Christ for Salvation is that it is one act of Faith but there wants a great number more to make up an intire body of Christian belief And secondly as it is but one single act so it is far from being the first but must suppose many others that go before it As for example it is necessary we be perswaded that Jesus is the Christ of God that what he hath spoken in the Gospel is his will and that if we hope for salvation by him we must be conformed in all things to this will of God And then thirdly these perswasions or acts of Faith that thus precede must produce a sincere and cordial obedience to his laws before we can reasonably arrive at this confidence of relying upon him for salvation Now why this particular act of Faith should be alone mentioned in the definition of it which is but one and not the first nor chiefe and all the rest left out is past my capacity to understand When our Faith hath rendered us obedient to him then we may take the boldness to perswade our selves that he will save us and this is nothing but an obedience to his command also who hath bid us trust him and take his word that he will be the Saviour of all faithful persons But it is a presumption to do it sooner and the ready course to destroy the Religion of Christ to advance such an hasty and forward belief in mens souls And therefore let me beseech you as you love your soul to be a follower of faithful Abraham who as I told you was the founder of your Order Remember that such as he was such must you be if you hope to come to Jerusalem and inherit the land of promise and that in his example you meet with nothing earlier then this that by Faith when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance he obeyed and went out not knowing whither he went This was the first thing wherein his Faith imployed it self and the last was like unto it For when he was tryed by God he offered up his only begotten Son who was to be the heir of that inheritance which was promised to him From this active Faith no doubt it is that He and all good Christians are called Faithful and not from a lazy recumbency on Christ for Salvation or the strongest application of his merits to their souls If these were sufficient to make a person of that denomination then we need no better character of a faithful servant or steward which the holy writings sometimes mention then such
best servants of Christ They can promote their own desires and yet sound aloud his Glory They can invade his rights as much as they list and yet be thought the only persons that make it their care he should not be wronged Nay it makes men think that God is beholden to them for being so cautious as to give him nothing He should not be so much obliged if they should endeavour to become better The only qualification that they know of for his favours is not to be qualified at all to receive them He owes it seems much of Glory to their want of virtue If they should give him more than they do he would have less To bring any thing to him would be to rob him and take away from him His Grace would lose its name if they should study to attain it They should detract very much from the freeness of it if they should provide for any thing but only to receive it It would not be so rich if they were not poor and beggarly in all good works His Honour relyes very much upon their weakness and his Glory is supported by their imbecillity To be much in debt to him is the best payment that can be made him To win his love it is best to be men of no desert And to be out of all danger of trusting to their own righteousness they judge it the surest course to have none at all These are the men who make the Grace of God so free that he leaves nothing for himself The riches of it is so abundant towards them that he gives away all his own right He makes such liberal grants to these favourites that there remains nothing as a Duty to him He takes such a great care of their pleasure that he forgets his own And loves to let them have their will so much that he suffers his own to be crossed for their sake It is not He it should seem but they that rule the world His will bends to their desires and since they have no mind to be be good they have invented a way that he may love them though they continue bad He sees them not as they fancy in themselves but in a disguise They do not appear in their own colours but in anothers dress He doth not behold them naked but covered in the Robes of Christ And though they have a world of sins yet they think to have them hid while he looks upon their garments and not upon them And indeed so free is this Grace that he can have no title to their obedience but only their own gratitude He holds his Kingdom and Authority only by their good will If they do what he desire it is their kindness and more than they owe him Since Christ's obedience is personally imputed to them he cannot in justice require any at their hands Since he hath performed the Law in their stead and made his righteousness immediately theirs he cannot expect that they should perform it too nor exact any righteousness of their own For this would be to demand the same debt twice and to call for the payment of a bond which hath been already satisfied In fine He can claim nothing as his due but must be content with that which they will give him and it is thought the safest way to give him little or nothing lest they should at all abate of the freeness of what he he is to give I hope your soul will never enter into this secret nor follow the rabble in these groundless fancies But you will rather put to your hands to pull down that Idol of Faith which hath been set up with so much devotion and Religiously worshipped so long among us That dead Image of Faith which so many have adored trusted in and perished I mean the notion which hath been so zealously advanced how that believing is nothing else but a relying on Jesus for salvation a fiducial recumbency upon him a casting our selves wholly upon him and his merits or an applying of his righteousness to our souls And if you throw all those other phrases after them which tell us that it is a taking of Christ a laying hold of him a closing with him or an embracing of him you shall do the better and more certainly secure your self from being deceived For as to these latter expressions is it not visible at the first naming of them that they are obscure doubtful and metaphorical words Is it not as hard to know what it is to take him and to close with him as it is to understand what it is to Believe Whatsoever then you have been told of me I doubt not but you will sind that I direct you in a plain and honest path it being indeed against my nature to like any thing which is intricate perplexed and so mysterious that a simple man cannot comprehend it Who is there that doth not understand me when I say that to Believe is so heartily to give your assent to the truth of the Gospel that you live according to it What word is there of all these that hath a doubtful meaning or if ten thousand men should hear them what possibility is there that among them all there should be found so much as one different sense about them whereas those words To take Christ to embrace him and close with him are of such dubious signification that both the act and the object as we usually speak have an ambiguous meaning There are several wayes of taking and embracing and by Christ is sometimes meant his person and sometimes his Gospel or Doctrine Now if to Take be with our mind and heart to allow approve assent to any thing then to take Christ in the first sense of that word is to acknowledge him for the Son of God the promised seed which he said should be sent into the World And to take him in the other is nothing else but that which I told you To assent in such manner to all that is said of him or he hath said in the Gospel that we become obedient to his word To what purpose then is it to use these phrases when there are better at hand whereby we must explain them Since this must be said which I have told you why cannot it be said at first When things can be clearly expressed why should we chuse to speak them darkly especially since there can be no fruit of it but only this that men are longer before they understand us and perhaps at the first hearing of what we speak obscurely their minds are impressed with some such dangerous sense which they form to themselves that all our explications cannot blot it out It is of great moment what mens souls are first imprinted withall They will retain those words and perchance think good to make the exposition according to their own fancy Why should not our words therefore carry their interpretation in them or what should make us love to talk in such terms
much better do I think of you than you do of your selves I honour you so far that I am of the mind you can be so good but only you will not apply your selves unto it For Who is there that hath made a tryal with all his heart that failed in the attempt Who hath buckled himself to the work that was destitute of strength To whom have not these things appeared more easie in the act than in the imagination The very truth of the business is That it is not because they are so difficult that we dare not enter upon these things but because we dare not enter upon them therefore they are difficult We affright our selves with imaginary hardships and this fear magnifies objects and infinitely multiplies every individual Be but pleased resolutely to undertake the task and you shall find it as sweet and easie as now it seems harsh and formidable Do but think that all things yield to hard labour and you have overcome the greatest difficulties by that one thought Do you hear Sir what this person saith Shall we not have as much courage as Heathens Is there not so much of God remaining among us as inspired them with such strong resolutions It seems to me that he hath touched the right string and did we not supinely neglect our selves and forget even the words of Jesus we should conclude That to him that believeth all things are possible We hinder the proficiency of our souls in Piety just as men do the advancement of good Learning There are few that understand as perhaps you have heard it observed either the Estate they possess or their Abilities to purchase more but they think the one is greater and the other less than indeed they are So it comes to pass that over-prizing what they have already acquired they make no further search nor think of a due progress or undervaluing the power that God hath given them they expend their strength and force in things of lesser consequence and make no experiment of those which are the highest and noblest improvement of their minds They content themselves to read and pray and confess their sins and take these for the best attainments of Christians These are the fatal Pillars beyond which they have no hopes to penetrate Here they make a stand when they should go on to all other actions of an Holy Life They run round in a perpetual circle of these Duties when they should move forward to a compleat imitation of their Blessed Saviour Rouze up your self therefore I beseech you and do not despair by his assistance of following the great Example which he and his Holy Ones have left us As the opinion men have of their wealth is the cause of want so the conceit of an incurable weakness is the cause that we do no better They that are gone before us have not left us to sigh and mourn that we cannot go after them They have not robbed us of all the Glory of doing well We in this present Age if we do but stir up the Grace of God which is in us need not degenerate from the brave examples of our predecessors Let us but look upon them now and in good time we may look upon our selves As their example will incourage and excite our souls at present so hereafter we shall draw much spirit from our own Having done so well at first we shall blush not to do better afterward And while we imitate others we shall at least indeavour with all our might to excel our selves I can see no hinderance that lyes in our way but only our own laziness together with this weak perswasion wherewith our enemies labour to possess us That because the business is not presently done it is not likely to be done at all And yet to say the truth I think that our Idleness is to bear the blame of this perswasion also for otherwise we should never entertain such unreasonable apprehensions There are a great number of men that would do well if they had but the courage to indure for a few daies They have eager motions or rather furious passions and if the business could be done in a moment or in that fit there would not be braver men than they But they are not willing to carry on a design of any length they cannot hold out to make a work and a labour of becoming good and so their slothful humour makes them after the first attempt to give back and to cry out to be better than we are it is impossible A long march after our Saviour is a Bug-bear that affrights them A tedious War with their enemies quite dispirits them They are loth to be at the pains of subduing many resistances and undergoing a laborious and continued course of destroying their opposers They would not be souldiers all their life nor ever ingaged in a combate with their Adversaries They see their sins but they either seem so great that they imagine they cannot be vanquished or at least they will not be at the trouble of it if it cannot be done in an instant After the first on-set which is commonly very violent they are wont to cool and make a retreat if they meet with any difficulties They would have all effected now and nothing left to be done to morrow They do not care for overcoming their enemies but they had rather end the War with them or if they must fight it shall be but one Battel They would not be at the trouble of getting the better of any opposition but they wish there were none or that it were soon removed They love the peace which will follow the victory but they have no list to obtain it by a prolonged War They would have their Adversaries yield without many blows and are content to engage but once for all against them In this encounter you would not think there were to be found any souls that are more couragious They are all on fire and you would take them to be more than men But it is their idleness and sloth that makes them thus active It is their cowardise and not their valour that puts them into such a fury It is because they would have no more to do but only to enjoy their ease and take their repose They had rather have nothing at all to do but if they must imploy their Arms they desire instantly to lay them aside again You mistake them if you think they have a mind so much as to conquer and triumph and reign all they desire is only to live and be in quiet But if they must needs overcome and they cannot otherwise have their wishes they would do it presently and by once taking pains ever after have leave to play Do not therefore deceive your self nor take a measure either of their courage or of the success by one impression upon your enemies Heb. 10.36 You have need of Patience if you will be a follower of Jesus that after
was alwayes assaulted with some Monster or other and God would not suffer his own child as one of them speaks to be nursed up in idleness and the delicacies of life No he fought with Lyons and Boars and Serpents and Tyrants and Theeves and he was appointed to travel into strange lands to cross dangerous seas and to go through terrible wildernesses and deserts And all to testifie the favour of Heaven to him that would thus imploy him No doubt his Father could have freed him from such conflicts but he would not because as they render the reason it is not lawful for him to will any thing but that which is best and most excellent Or he might have freed himself and perhaps some men would have advised him to flee these dangers and rather to quit his place then expose his life to so many hazzards But they knew not the pleasure which he found in his heart when he remembred that he was thought worthy by God to be singled out to be his Champion and that Heaven had not an ill opinion of him nor judged him a weak and effeminate person It was a strange contentment also to imagine that all these dangers presented themselves only that he might overcome them and he felt that there was not half so much pains in fighting as there was pleasure in the very hopes of having the Victory Nay if he had perished in the encounter so he had carried Victory out of the World with him he would have thought himself crowned with an high satisfaction He would have thought that he dyed more happily then Cowards live and that it was more glorious thus to end his dayes then to spin them out basely to the longest Age. Besides herein there being so considerable a proof of the sincerity and fidelity of such persons unto God it cannot but please them very much to reflect upon it It yields them a great joy to remember that they have his approbation and that after many fiery tryals he finds that they are not indued with a counterfeit Vertue Nay it is some joy to think that their enemies judge them so considerable as to raise such mighty forces against them and fight so many battels with them They assure them hereby that they are more in their account than they could wish And that power which gave them a shock but could not shake them doth demonstrate the solidity of their souls and the great strength they have to resist such forcible impressions I do not know whether it be a tale or no but I have been told that among other wayes the Queen of Sheba tryed the wisdom of Solomon by offering certain Boys and Girles to be distinguisht one from the other by him when they were put into the very same garb and had been taught the same gestures and carriage of their bodies And that he calling for some cold water commanded them all to wash themselves Into which the youths plunging their hands boldly and then rubbing their faces very hard and the others tenderly dipping their fingers and only sleaking their faces over with it he soon discerned the difference and separated them according to their sexes Hardships will make a true proof of the strength and masculine force of our spirits Prosperity as a wise man of later times observes doth best discover Vice and Adversity makes the best discovery of Vertue And as the one is not without many fears and distasts so the other is not without its hopes and comforts of which this is not the least that God thinks us worthy to be the men in whom he would make an Experiment what Christian souls are able to suffer The Vertue of Prosperity is Temperance and the Vertue of Adversity is Fortitude which in the account of all the world is the more Heroical of the two and yields the greatest Triumphs Nay He fears not to say that Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament and Adversity is the blessing of the New which carries the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of Gods favour And therefore do not take that ill which to such a man as you is a mark of the Divine Love Be not unwilling that God should do you an honour and bestow upon you a blessing Let him have the pleasure of seeing you behave your self gallantly Deny him not that spectacle which is not to be had in Heaven and for which he manifested himself in flesh Let it not repent him of his choice if he pick out you for some notable Combate The General appoints the stoutest men for the hardest services And they do not say He bears an ill will to us and owes us a spite but he hath an high opinion of us and intends to do us credit Do you now issue forth with an heart full of the same thoughts and take my word you shall never want the noblest pleasures You will thank God for placing you in the foremost rank of Christian Souldiers You will praise him for esteeming a poor Pilgrim capable of such atchievements You will rejoyce to see your self herein preferred before the Angels For if they can do more than you yet you can suffer more than they Nay you will find your self in the fellowship of the Son of God who was never so glorious as when he hung upon the Cross never triumphed so much as when he seemed to be trampled under feet and then spoiled principalities and powers when he was robb'd of all and lost even life it self CAP. XXV How the Pilgrim and his Guide parted And with what a brave Resolution he began his Journey WHen the Good Father for so we will hereafter call him had said those words with some other to the same effect he told him that now he thought it would be an injurious act to hinder him any longer by his discourses from going to prove the truth of what had been said If I am a Mercury continued he with a little smile as you have been pleased to fancy I may have leave to make use of my wings and fly away There remains nothing now to be done but that which I cannot do for you and the greatest courtesie that is left in my power is to keep you no longer from doing it your self Whereupon after he had exhorted him briefly to be strong in the Grace of Jesus Christ and to endure hardship as a good Souldier of his He bade him heartily farewel and put himself into a posture of departing But the Pilgrim being sorely afflicted within himself at this news suddenly caught hold of his Garment which gently moved towards him as he turned about and in a contest between joy and grief uttered these words as well as those passions would give him leave Let me intreat you Dear Sir to prolong your patience so far as before you go away to receive my thanks for the good Directions you have furnished me withall and to give your Blessing likewise upon a poor heart that is resolved
and I reaped no greater benefit by my Journey than to find that the places where we live are more holy than those that we so much admire You therefore that fear God praise him there where you have your present abode and trouble not your selves to seek any other place wherein to do him honour The change of place will never bring you nearer to him But be you where you will there God will be too if your souls be fit to give him lodging and receive so Holy a Guest If you have your inward man full of perverse and evil thoughts though you were in Golgotha though you stood upon Mount Olivet though you lay even under the Monument of the Resurrection you are as far from entertaining Christ as the Stones that inclosed him I advise therefore all the Brethren that they travel out of the Body to the Lord and not go out of Cappadocia to Palaestine And in another place writing to certain devout persons he tells them that there is nothing more pleasant than to converse with pious Souls and to behold what things the Grace of our Lord hath done for them It is no less saith he than a Festival and presents us with such goodly spectacles that one cannot but think he sees in an heart full of God both Bethlehem and Golgotha and the Mount of Olives and the place of the Resurrection Shew me a man in whom Christ is formed by a good Conscience who by the fear of God is nailed to the Cross Who hath rolled away the burdensome Stone of Worldly Vanity and being got out of the Tomb of his Body walks in newness of life Who leaving the low and creeping life of the World in which he was buried ascends by the force of lofty desires to the Coelestial Conversation Who setting his affections on things above is not weighed down by the weight of his Body but made so light and aetherial by a purer life that his flesh becomes like a bright cloud which is willing to mount up with him to the things on high This person in my judgment deserves to be numbred among those so much celebrated things in which we may plainly see the Monuments of the kindness of our Lord towards us Thus that great Man delivers his opinion to us and we cannot but readily yield him our assent These are the Holy Places which we desire to behold A man dying unto sin presents us with the fairest sight of Christs Sepulchre It sets us upon Mount Olivet when we meet with a Soul of a Coelestial Conversation And I thank our Lord very much that I see such manifest marks and footsteps of these things in this my friend in whom the burying the rising again and the ascention of Christ is most lively pictured before mine eyes As for those places in Palestine where you are going to adore if they were so little worth in those dayes I think their price is more faln now and if they that lived nearer to them thought good to stay at home it will be a silly piece of superstition in us to travel so far in devotion to them It is very true said one of the company I am convinced by what this person hath discoursed that we need not go to Jerusalem There is a place nearer at hand of greater Sanctity and richer in all Spiritual treasures and that is Rome There as I have been informed you may see several Pilgrims and in time may have that honour your self who dine every day in the presence of the Vicar of Christ that of meat from his own Table blessed by his own most holy hands This methinks is a great deal better then to kiss a cold stone or to take a mouth full of air on the top of a Mountain And besides this which is the least part of their entertainment there is more excellent provision made for their Souls Fiscus Papalis cap. 2. the Church of St. John Lateran affording no less then forty eight years of pardon every day in the year together with the pardon of the third part of all a mans sins And if you would have some other kind of food for your souls which is more visible there is in that Church to be beheld among other reliques some of the fragments of the five barly loaves and the two fishes wherewith Christ fed five thousand men Some poor body I suppose on whom they might be bestow'd after dinner brought them thither being satisfied by the meer sight of them and hoping that others might be so in after times But the more probable opinion is since the poor and rich were admitted to that feast that the fragments falling to the share of those that waited at the Table and there being just twelve Baskets full in all each of the twelve Apostles had one for his portion and that St. Peter saved his that he might bring it to Rome of which he foresaw that he should be made Bishop But to return to what I began to say concerning the pardon of sin which I suppose you all most earnestly desire The liberal grant already mentioned is but a mite to those vast treasures which two Popes indowed that Church withall who gave thereto so many Indulgences as none can number save God alone So my Author tells me and if you doubt of it Pope Boniface witnesses to the truth of it in these words If men saith he did but know the Indulgences belonging to the Church of St. John and how many they were they would never go so far beyond the Sea as to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem but would rather spare so great a labour For grant that they are absolved there both from the guilt and also from the punishment of their sins this is no more then they have nearer at hand in the Church of St. John And do you not think it is a good bargain for a man to forsake totally his riches and lands and such like things that he may purchase such an incredible mass of Spiritual and Divine riches And yet you need not do so much it is but going thither and leaving your goods for a time and then besides all these blessings you shall come loadned home with a great deal more pretious commodities such as Agnus Dei's Holy Pictures Blessed Bread Sanctified Wood and a great many other invaluable Jewels To this discourse when one listned very devoutly and askt him if a man might have all this Wealth at no greater charges but only going for it He was a little at a stand And told him that his words were not so to be interpreted as if he might go fetch such great blessings and carry no money with him for there is nothing to be had at Rome unless you buy it It is not to be expected that they should make Holy things so cheap as to give them away for asking It never was so since there were Pilgrimages But the good men that undertook them carried their purses full
were pressed with want You cannot therefore better please him then by imitating this bounteous disposition There will nothing more indear you to him then such a generosity which may shew it self in a mean as well as in a plentiful fortune Do you not observe what praises he bestows upon a poor widow who had cast all her living into the publick stock It seems to me that this was a more pleasing spectacle to him then all the offerings of the Rich. Read but his famous Sermon which he made to his followers and there you will find so many precepts of taking no care for meat and drink and clothes and of giving away hoping for nothing again that you will think he had a mind to recommend to them this contentedness and Charity above all things else And least you should fancy that all the acts of his Charity were miracles which are no examples to us or be like the Hypocrites who imagine his precepts were given to upbraid our weakness and reproach to us our fall rather then to direct our practise observe the smart Question which he asks toward the conclusion of that Sermon Why call you me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Luk. 6.46 As if he should have said are you not ashamed to call me your Master and yet do nothing that I command What mischief is this that you should acknowledge mine Authority and yet not be governed by my Will Away with this Hypocrisie Cali me Lord no more when you will neither do as I say nor as I do The very same words should I now say to you if I did not think that you were resolved to tread in his steps and that you esteemed poverty with contentment the greatest riches and a liberal heart with a small estate the largest possessions You will not fail I know to scatter your Charity as you go along to Jerusalem If you meet with any distressed person in your way you will be sure to do like the good Samaritan and provide for his health and deliverance Nay spare not to seek for opportunities to do good and since we live in an ill natur'd and hard-hearted age let your light so shine before men that they may see Jesus still in the world And indeed I have often beheld to my great astonishment a poor Pilgrim give more largely to a charitable use then a person of high condition in the World There are many Rich Gluttons who will bestow more upon their Dogs then upon a needy Lazarus I have heard men wonder they are not ashamed to see themselves out-done by people of a meaner rank and that they do not fear the bowels of the Poor will groan against them and complain to heaven of their unmercifulness But so it is that they have hardned their own bowels toward them and think that heaven is as insensible of all their cryes as themselves Their hearts are as cold as stones and you may as soon move a Statue to do good as one of these Images of men They are not crucified to the world but they are killed in her embraces and she hath hug'd them to death in her arms The world hath poured too many of her favours upon them and pressed them to death with the weight of Silver and Gold Their hands are fast closed their fingers are stiff and rigid they hold their money so hard that a dead mans hand cannot be more inflexible nor hold that thing harder which he grasps when he is just expiring Nothing but the example of the Lord of Life will be of any power to get them open There is none but himself can breathe such a spirit into them as will loosen the cold bands of death and make them stretch forth themselves to the relief of their perishing neighbours Propound therefore this pattern every where in your practice and if men like not to be the followers of Christ on these terms tell them they must look for their wages at the Devils hands He hath as fast hold of those misers souls as they have of their money Hell is as greedy as their desires It gapes for them as they do insatiably for Riches And besides if there be any truth in our sacred Books they and their riches and their posterity shall rot and become as vile as those whose miseries they will not pitty And when you have well affected your heart with this heavenly-minded and compassionate Jesus then turn your eyes to another sight and behold in him the deepest humility and the most profound lowliness of mind joyned with the greatest perfections and highest abilities that ever any man had If there were ever any man in the world that had cause to bear himself high this was the person His indowments were divine his reasons were inspirations his words were oracles and yet blocks and truncks are wont now to lift up themselves higher in their own conceit than he could be tempted to do Never had any one so large a knowledge that boasted so little of it His power was not to be equall'd on earth and yet it did not domineen over the meanest creature He could do what he would with a word but would not imploy the least breath in his own praises The very hemm of his garment was thought to be of a miraculous virtue but it was touched with pride as much as himself The wonders which he did were alwaies accompanied with another wonder that he took not the honour of them but gave it to God He was dead indeed not only to the outward world but also to himself He was not only insensible of the blandishments of fleshly pleasures but of the flatteries of spiritual pride He wrought such Miracles as to raise the dead but they could never raise any self-conceit nor give vain-glory in him any life He would have concealed his works if Gods Glory had not been concerned in them more than his own He would have stopt the peoples mouth as well as his own breath and stifled same as much as others seek to give it air if it had not been for the good of the world that he should be known And therefore when the fame of him did fly abroad it could carry no other news but that he was as humble as he was great When he was so high in the peoples esteem that they would have advanced him to be a King he chose rather to remain a private man When they would have carried him into a Pallace and made him a Court he liked better to steal away into a Desart Poor men were his Companions Fishermen and the meaner sort he took for his Attendants When he was in his greatest triumph he was meek and lowly riding upon an Ass When his ears was filled with Hosanna's he was going to humble himself to the shameful death of the Cross He was in truth no other than the King of courtesie and humility A Prince that listned to the petitions of the poorest
Supplicants that stood still to hear the cryes of blind Beggars that would not refuse a work of Charity because of its vileness and in one word that stooped so low as to wash his Disciples feet which was the meanest office of a servant I need not tell you sure for what purpose he did this seeing he himself hath saved me the labour by that speech of his to those whom he had so washed Joh. 13 2â— I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you Let me say to you therefore as he doth presently after to those persons If you know these things Vers 17. happy are you if you do them You must lay your self as low as the dust you tread upon in the way to Jerusalem You must not study Fame so much as Virtue You must acknowledge God in all and magnifie your self in nothing You must raise a name to him and not seek your own renown When you are praised you must be the same that you are when men discommend you You must think it dangerous to aspire to honours and hunt after promotions Let them find you as unwilling to receive them as others are to forbear their Courtship towards them Condescend to men of low estate and sort your self familiarly with those who are below you Let the poor never be the object of your scorn but think that pride doth render you poorer and more despicable than them Remember to stoop to the meanest offices of Love whereby you may serve your Brethren and when you have done them think that they are to be done again when their needs require them And that I may not seem to impose any heavy burden upon you do but look at Jerusalem and see how Jesus is advanced by humbling himself and you will not need any exhortation to this Virtue which before I so much praised and now again commend to your affection Many of the Angels they say made it their study to raise themselves higher than they were but miscarried in the enterprise and were not able to effect it They tryed their wings and began to soar alost but they failed them sadly and let them suffer a shameful fall But Jesus on the contrary studied to be a great deal lower than he was not only lower than the Angels but inferiour to men even the vilest of men The issue of which was that you see him exalted at Gods right hand and he hath raised himself thereby not only to the places from whence those Angels fell but to such a dignity that he is higher than all principalities and powers and hath the noblest creatures put in subjection under his feet Be a follower of Jesus therefore in his Humility depressing your self as low as you can in your own thoughts for that is the way to raise your self to the highest pitch of Glory and to be made equal to the Angels of God who have kept their station and alwaies had their dwelling at Jerusalem And it may not be amiss the more effectually to excite you if you consider how those noble persons have preserved their first habitation and remained so long in the Caelestial Court. Was it not by humbling themselves to the meanest imployments to which the Soveraign of all orders and ranks of being in the world was pleased to assign them Are they not content to come and wait upon the poorest of us and to serve as a Guard to the most abject of the Sons of Men Let us not refuse then to submit to any condition of life wherein our wise Governour thinks good to place us nor imagine any office below us in which we may be useful and serviceable to our neighbours If we had no greater example than the Angels it might well be expected that we should not disdain to appear in the meanest dress but since the Lord of them all is pleased to become our pattern and to abase himself far lower than they it should make us love to be all over covered with this Humility and to esteem it the most glorious Robe that we can wear And truly if our hearts were touched with such a Charity to others as He was indued withall we should not stick to bow our selves though we were never so high to the vilest services for the succour and help of those whose miseries implored our assistance Let me propose to you therefore the blessed Jesus in the next place as a person that was very full of love tenderness and bowels of compassion towards those that deserved nothing nay towards those that deserved ill at his hands He was so disposed to do good that they could not miss of his kindness who neither desired it nor were willing when it was offered to receive it He did not only pitty the weakness and infirmity of his Disciples but had a feeling of the sufferings of those who were strangers neither was he only kind and benigne towards Supplicants but his heart was tender to the perverse untoward and ungrateful people There was nothing of roughness sowreness and uncivility in his manners but they were smooth sweet and full of Courtesie His heart was not at all pinched and narrowed by the Love of himself but it was inlarged into such an universal Charity that he seemed to forget his own concerns the better to provide for the good of others The Instances of his benignity and good nature are so many that to reckon them all would be as long as to tell a story of his whole life for he went about doing good It was his work and imployment to do benefits to the world He was the Sun of Righteousness that run a long race for no other prize but only to have the honour of spending his beams He rejoyced to spread his healing wings over every place It was his pleasure to shed his influences and to make all that saw him sensible of his flames The Patients that solicited his healing-power were innumerable and the Cures which he wrought were not fewer than they He lived all his time in a kind of Hospital being thronged with sick men with Lazers and other diseased folks And though it were turned sometimes to a Bedlam by the company of Daemoniacks and phrenetical people yet he never complained of the burden but chearfully entertained the occasion of putting them in possession of their wits again Never did he send any man away without satisfaction to his desires but he cast out Devils cleansed their Leprosies cured their Palsies untied the tongue of the dumb opened the eyes of the blind restored feet to the lame and besides relieved their necessities had compassion on their hunger and fed their bodies and their souls both together The whole Country seemed to be his family and if he had been the Father of them all he could not have been more tender or yearned with greater bowels of mercy towards them The opposition and contradiction of brutish men did not alter the sweetness of