it self and worketh on insensibly but most strongly and certainly to our ruine And then it appeareth more ugly and deformed to God's pure and all-seeing eye who never hateth an oppressour more then when he seeth him at the Altar and is most offended with that fraudulent man who is called Christian We read in the Historian when Nero had but set his foot into the temple of Vesta he fell into a fit of trembling facinorum recordatione saith Tacitus being shaken with the remembrance of his monstrous crimes For what should he do in the Temple of Vesta who had defiled his own mother And how shall we dare to enter Gods courts unless we leave our sins behind us How dare we speak to a God of truth who defraud so many Why should we fast from meat who make our brethren our meat and eat them up At that great day of separation of true and false worshippers when the Judge shall bespeak those on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdome prepared for you the form or reason is not For you have sacrificed often you have fasted often you have heard much you were frequent in the Temple and yet these are holy duties but they are ordinata ad aliud ordained for those that follow and therefore are not mentioned but in them implyed For I was hungry and you gave me meat I was thirsty and you gave me drink I was naked and you clothed me sick and in prison and you visited me Then outward Worship hath its glory and reward when it draweth the inward along with it Then the Sacrifice hath a sweet-smelling savour when a just and merciful man offereth it up when I sacrifice and obey hear and do pray and endeavour contemplate and practise fast and repent And thus we are made one fit to be lookt upon by him who is Oneness it self not divided betwixt Sacrifice and Oppression a Form of godliness and an habitual Course in sin Dissembling with God and Fighting against him betwixt an Hosanna and a Crucifige Professing Christ and Crucifying him In this unity and conjunction every duty and virtue as the stars in the firmament have their several glory and they make the Israelite the Christian a child of light But if we divide them or set up some few for all the easiest and those which are most attempered to the sense for those which fight against it and bring in them for the main which by themselves are nothing if all must be Sacrifice if all must be Ceremony and outward Formality if this be the conclusion and sum of the whole matter if this be the body of our worship and Religion then instead of a Blessing and an Euge we shall meet with a frown and a check and God will question us for appearing before him in strange apparel which he never put upon us Zeph. 1.8 question us for doing his command and tell us he never gave any such command because he gave it not to this end Will he be pleased with burnt-offerings with Ceremony and Formality He asketh the question with some indignation and therefore it is plain he will not but lotheth the Sacrifice as he doth the Oppressour and Unclean person that bringeth it We see then that we may yet draw it nearer to us that there was good reason why God should thus disclaim his own ordinance because he made it for their sakes and to an end quite contrary to that to which the Jew carried it We see the Prophet might well set so low an esteem upon so many thousand rams because Idolaters and Oppressours and cruel blood thirsty men offered them We see Sacrifice and all outward Ceremony and Formality are but as the garment or shadow of Religion which is turned into a disguise when she weareth it not and is nothing is a delusion when it doth not follow her For Oppression and Sacrilege may put on the same garment and the greatest evil that is may cast such a shadow He that hateth God may sacrifice to him he that blasphemeth him may praise him the hand that strippeth the poor may put fire to the incense and the feet that are so swift to shed blood may carry us into the Temple When all is Ceremony all is vain nay lighter then Vanity For in this we do not worship God but mock him give him the skin when he looketh for the heart we give shadows for substances shews for realities and leaves for fruit we mortifie our lusts and affections as Tragedians die upon the stage and are the same sinners we were as wicked as ever Our Religion putteth forth nothing but blossomes or if it knit and make some shew or hope of fruit it is but as we see it in some trees it shooteth forth at length and into a larger proportion and bigness then if it had had its natural concoction and had ripened kindly and then it hath no tast or relish but withereth and rotteth and falleth off And thus when we too much dote on Ceremony we neglect the main Work and when we neglect the Work we fly to Ceremony and Formality and lay hold on the Altar We deal with our God as Aristotle of Cyrene did with Lais Clem. Alexandr 3. Strom. who promised to bring her back again into her country if she would help him against his adversaries whom he was to contend with and when that was done to make good his oath drew her picture as like her as art could make it and carried that And we fight against the Devil as Darius did against Alexander with pomp and gayety and gilded armour as his prey rather then as his enemies And thus we walk in a vain shadow and trouble our selves in vain and in this region of Shews and Shadows dream of happiness and are miserable of heaven and fall a contrary way as Julius Caesar dreamed that he soared up and was carried above the clouds Suet. Vit. C. Caesar and took Jupiter by the right hand and the next day was slain in the Senate-house I will not accuse the foregoing Ages of the Church because as they were loud for the ceremonious part of Gods worship so were they as sincere in it and did worship him in spirit and in truth and were equally zealous in them both and though they raised the first to a great height yet never suffered it so to over-top the other as to put out its light but were what their outward expressions spake them as full of Piety as Ceremony And yet we see that high esteem which they had of the Sacraments of the Church led some of them upon those errours which they could not well quit themselves of but by falling into worse It is on all hands agreed that they are not absolutely necessary not so necessary as Mortifying of our lusts and denying of our selves not so necessary as actual Holiness It is not absolutely necessary to be baptized for many have not passed
is not Reason if the Church say it They that will not believe their Sense how can they believe their Reason And how can they believe their Reason who have debauched and prostituted it and bound it to the high Priests chair Do they give that honour unto the Saints which is due unto God alone and call upon them in the time of trouble Psal 50.15 It is very right and meet and our bounden duty so to do for the Church commandeth it Must there be a fire more then that of Hell The Church hath kindled it Must the Merits of the Saints be drawn up into a common treasury and thence showred down in Indulgences and supplies for them who are not so rich in Good works The Church is that treasury and her breath hath called them up Whatsoever is said or done must have a Bene dictum and a Bene factum subscribed under it is Truth and Righteousness if the Church say and do it So the Church is let down as the Tragedians used to do some God or Goddess when they were at a loss or stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as by slight and engine to solve the difficulty and untie the knot and so make up the Catastrophe Or it serveth them as Anaxagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Metaphysicks to answer and defeat all arguments whatsoever And this prejudice of theirs they back and strengthen with many others Of Antiquity making that most true which is most antient and the Truth it self a lie if it shewed it self in glory but yesterday And yet omnia vetera nova fuere that which is now old was at first new and by this argument Truth was not Truth when it was new nor the Light Light when it first sprung from on high and visited us Truth though it find Professours but in its later age yet is the first born because Errour is nothing else but a deviation from it Errour cometh forth last and layeth hold on the heel of Truth to supplant it They have another prejudice of Councels as if the most were alway the best and Truth went by voices Nazianzen was bold to censure them as having seen no good effect of any of them And we our selves have seen and our eyes have dropped for it what a mere name what prejudice can do with the Many and what it can countenance Besides these they have others Of Miracles which were but lies Of Glory which is but vanity Of Universality which is bounded and confined to a certain place With these and the like that first prejudice That the Church cannot erre is underpropped And yet these depend upon that Such a mutual implication there is of Errours as in a bed of Snakes If the first be not true these are nothing And if these pillars be once shaken that Church will soon sink in its reputation and not sit so high as to dictate to all other Churches in the world And these are soon shaken for they are but problemes and may justly be called into question and brought to trial For if they have any thing of Truth it is rather verisimile then verum rather the resemblance of Truth then Truth it self And this a foul errour may have And to fix my judgement upon a resemblance is most prejudicial For a thing may be like the Truth and appear in that likeness which is not true and therefore must needs be false A resemblance or likeness participateth of both and may be either true or false I have looked too long abroad upon this Queen of Churches but it was to set her up as a glass to see our own She saith we are a schismatical we are bold upon it that we are a Reformed Church and so we are But may not Prejudice find a place even in Reformation it self May we not dote upon it as Pygmalion did upon the statue and so please and flatter and laugh our selves to death Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Hor. l. 1. Ep. 2. Rome alone is not guilty of Prejudice but even some members of the Reformation also who think themselves most nearly united to Christ when they run furthest from that Church though sometimes by so doing they run from the Truth For what is this else but prejudice to judge all is well with us because the lines are fallen to us in so pleasant a place as a purged Church to be less reformed because that is Reformed or to think that an heaven and happiness will be raised up and rest upon a word a name What is this but to run round in a circle and to meet the Church of Rome where we left her What is this but to speak her very language That to be in this Ark this Church is to be safe and when a floud of Sin and Errour hath overwhelmed us to think we are securely sailing to our Ararat our eternal rest Or what hope is there that he should grow and encrease in grace who if he be planted once in this Church or that Sect counteth himself a perfect man in Christ Jesus Almost every Sect and every Congregation laboureth under this prejudice and feeleth it not but runneth away with its burden Oh unhappy men they that are not fellow-members with us though it be of such a body as hath but little Charity to quicken it and no Faith to move it but a phansie Yet these cannot but do all things well these cannot erre and they who will not cast in their lot with them Prov. 1.14 and have the same purse are quite out of the way can speak nothing that is true nor do any thing that is good Matth. 23.5 Do ye not see the Pharisees spread their phylacteries do ye not hear them utter the same dialect Luk. 18.11 We are not as those Publicanes I might enlarge my self but I know ye understand me and can tell your selves what might be said further by that which hath been said already To be yet more particular The Lutherane Church doth grant indeed that every particular Church may erre and so doth not exempt it self But do not many of them attribute as much to Luther as the other do to their Church Are they not ready to subscribe to whatsoever he said upon no other reason or motive but because he said it Do they not look upon him as upon a man raised up by God to redeem the Truth and shew it to the world again after it had been detained in unrighteousness and lost in ceremony and superstition And is not this Prejudice equal to the former Do not they depend as much upon a person as the Papists do upon their Church so that to them whatsoever he said is as true as an article of faith and whatsoever is not found in him is heretical quasi fas non sit dicere Lutherum errâsse as if it were unjust and an injury to think that Luther could erre in any thing I accuse him not of errour yet
so few instances of Retractation but a Augustine one among the Antients and of later dayes b Bellarm. one more but such a one as did but like some Plumbers make his business worse by mending it So harsh a thing it is to the nature of Men to seem to have mistaken and so powerful is Prejudice For to confess an Errour is to say we wanted Wit And therefore we should flye from Prejudice as from a Serpent Gen. 3. For it deceiveth us as the Serpent did Eve giveth a No to Gods Yea maketh Men true and God a lyar and nulleth the sentence of death You shall dye the death when this is the Interpreter is your Eyes shall be opened and to deceive our selves is to be as Gods knowing good and evil And it may well be called a Serpent for the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula the working of its venome maketh us dance and laugh our selves to death For a setled prejudicate though false opinion may build up as strong resolutions as a true Saul was as zealous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel A Heretick will be as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the Truth the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as a Christian for his Saviour Habet diabolus suos Martyres For the Devil hath his Martyrs as well as God And it is Prejudice which is that evil spirit that casteth them into the fire and the water that consumeth or drowneth them 1 Sam. 15.32 that leadeth them forth like Agag delicately to their death And this is most visible in those of the Church of Rome We may see even the marks upon them Obstinacy Insolency Scorn and contempt a proud and high Disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason or of any man that shall speak it to teach and recover them Which are certainly the signes of the biting of this Serpent Prejudice or as some will call it the marks of the Beast Quà m gravis incubat How heavy doth Prejudice lye upon them who are taught to renounce their very Sense and to mistrust nay to deny their Reason who see with other mens eyes Apul. De mundo and hear with other mens ears qui non animosed auribus cogitant who do not judge with their mind but with their ears The first prejudice is That theirs is the Catholick Church and cannot err and then all other search and enquiry is vain as a learned writer observeth For what need they go further to find the truth then to the high Priests chair to which it is bound And this they back and strengthen with many others of Antiquity making that most true which is most antient Quintil. And yet omnia vetera nova fuere that which is now old was at first new And by this Argument Truth was not Truth when it first began nor the Light Light when it first sprung from on high and visited us And besides Truth though it had found professours but in this latter age yet was first born because Errour is nothing else but a deviation from the Truth and cometh forth last and layeth hold on the heel of Truth to supplant it Besides these Councils Which may err and the Truth many times is voted down when it is put to most voices Nazianzene was bold to censure them as having seen no good effect of any of them And we our selves have seen and our eyes have dropped for it what a meer Name what Prejudice can do with the Many Nunquam tam benè cum rebus humanis agebatur ut plures essent meliores Sen. de Clement 1. and what it can countenance And many others they have of Miracles which were but lies of Glory which is but vanity of Universality which is bounded and confined to a certain place With these and the like that first prejudice That the Church cannot err is underpropt and upheld And yet again these depend upon that Such a mutual complication there is of Errours as in a bed of Snakes If the first be not true then these were nothing and if these pillars be once shaken and they are but mud that Church will soon sink in its reputation and not fit so high as magisterially to dictate to all the Churches of the world And as we have set up this Queen of Churches as an ensample of the effects of Prejudice so may we hold it up as a glass to see our own She saith we are a Schismatical We please and assure our selves that we are a Reformed Church And so we are and yet Prejudice may find a place even in the Reformation it self Rome is not only guilty of this but even some members of the Reformation who think themselves nearest to Christ when they run farthest from that Church though it be from the Truth it self And this is nothing else but Prejudice to judge our selves pure because our Church is purged to be less reformed because that is Reformed or to think that Heaven and Happiness will be raised and rest upon a Word or Name and that we are Saints as soon as we are Protestants Almost every Sect and every Faction laboureth under this Prejudice and feeleth it not but runneth away with its burden And too many there be who predestinate themselves to Heaven when they have made a surrendry of themselves to such a Church to such a company or collection nay sometimes but to such a man I accuse not Luther or Calvine of errour but honour them rather though I I know they were but men and I know they have erred or else our Church doth in many things and it were easie to name them But suppose they had broacht as many lyes as the Father of them could suggest yet they who have raised them in their esteem to such an height must needs have too open a breast to have received them as oracles and to have lickt up poyson it self if it had fallen from their pens since they have the same motive and inducement to believe them when they err which they have to believe them when they speak the truth and that is no more then their Name Orat. pro Muraena Tolle Catonem de Causa said Tully Cato was a name of virtue and carried authority with it and therefore he thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Muraena for his very name might overbear and sink it Tolle Augustinum de causa Take away the name of Augustine of Luther and Calvine and Arminius for they are but names not arguments There is but one Name by which we may be saved Acts 4.12 And his Name alone must have authority Hebr. 12.2 and prevail with us who is the authour and finisher of our faith VVe may honour others and give unto them that which is theirs but we must not deifie them nor pull Christ out of his throne to place them in his room Of this we may be sure There is
wide gate to let Irreligion and Atheism in But from all Sedition and privy Conspiracy from all false Doctrine and Heresie from Hardness of heart and Contempt of Gods Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us To conclude To the Temple the man went who was made whole and in the Temple Jesus found him In the Temple he praised God and in the Temple Christ instructed him Acts 3.1 To the Temple went Peter and John at the hour of prayer And into the Temple went up the Pharisee and the Publican the one a Sectary the other odious to a proverb yet no scruple no contention between them both went up together to the Temple to pray And as they had a Temple so have we the Church And if theirs was the Holy place as it is called so is ours being ordained to the same end I may say to a better Theirs to offer up the flesh of beasts ours to offer up our selves Theirs for corporal and carnal ours for spiritual sacrifices And why not ours then as Holy as theirs God himself cannot imprint Holiness in a stone All is from the end The Church is a house of prayer let it not be made a den of thieves to rob God of his glory It is Bethel the House of God let it not be made Bethaven a House of vanity Let our devotion and not our vanity here display it self Let the contention be not who shall be most vain most phantastick but who shall be most devout most humble most reverent It is a house of peace oh what pity what shame is it that we should from this place first hear the alarm to war It is a house where God's Honour should dwell let not Ziim and Ochim satyrs and screech-owles profane persons dance and revel here Last of all it is a place consecrate that is set apart for God's worship then if there be such a sin it it will be foul sacrilege to pull it down I will read to you some part of Psalm 83. Keep not thou silence O God hold not thy peace and be not still O God For lo thy enemies make a tumult and they that hate thee have lift up the head They have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones They said let us take to our selves the houses of God in pessession O my God make them like a wheel as the stubble before the wind Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name O Lord. That men may know that thou whose name alone is JEHOVAH art the most High over all the earth Tell me now Is this a Psalm set to those times or a Prophecy of ours He that awaketh not he that trembleth not at this thunder is not asleep but dead Seneca speaketh of some who seem to be made as serpents and vipers for no other end but to hiss and trouble the world And such are they who disgrace and profane places set apart for publick devotion What is there in a Church that a religious mind can check at If we must meet together what scruple can arise concerning the place If any do arise it riseth like a fog and steameth from a foul and corrupt heart from Pride the mother of Pertinacy and Contradiction which will not be brought down to conform to the counsels of the wise no nor to the wisdom of God himself but calleth Truth Heresie because others speak it Bounty waste because others lay it out Reverence superstition because others bow and will pull down Churches because others build them kicketh at every thing that is received nihil verum-putans nisi quod diversum thinketh nothing true but that which is diverse and contrary nothing true but that which breatheth in opposition against the Truth as ridiculously but more maliciously scrupulous then Tyridates in Pliny who would not venture on ship-board nor could endure navigation because he thought it an unlawful thing to spit into the sea For see God hath rained down Manna upon us and we startle and ask What is this God hath given us his Word and we quarrel it He hath given us the Sacrament of Baptism and we ask By whom At what ages and How we must be washed It was a River then a Font now a Bason and can you tell can they tell who trouble these waters what it will be next If God prevent it not it will be Nothing Christ hath invited us to his Table and we know not whether we should sit or stand or kneel whether we must come as subjects or as his fellows and companions whether we receive him really or in a trope and figure whether we may not do it too often As Seneca speaketh of Philosophy so may we of Christianity Fuit simplicior aliquando inter minora peccantes When men were more sincere they were less scrupulous and had no leisure to find knots in every bulrush in that which was made smooth and even to their hands They did do their duty and not run about the world and ask How and When they must do it especially where the duty was open and easie to the understanding that they might run and read it They heard the Word and obeyed it They did submit to those who were supreme and not ask How they should be governed The great question of the world at this day and that which troubleth the world They honoured their Pastours and were not busie to teach them how to teach them They were baptized for remission of sins They received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and fed on Christ They went into the Temple the Church to pray with and in the midst of the congregation but never consulted nor asked counsel how to pull it down In a word they were religious and did not seem so Christ found the man he had cured in the Temple and there taught and instructed him And if he find us there he will teach and instruct us also by them to whom he hath committed the Oracles of God Hitherto we have been in the Temple and yet we are but in the porch of our Text. It is high time now to proceed and to hear what the Oracle what Christ doth say Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worst thing come unto thee Here mercy having freed the man of his Palsie spreadeth her wings further to shadow and protect him from a worse disease even Sin Before she did but walk and seek now she speaketh and poureth her self forth as a precious oyl upon his soul to cleanse and heal it And this though we are not willing to think so is the greater mercy of the two There is far more mercy in the Remembrance Tit. 2.11 in the Precept then in a Miracle The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men A saving grace and appearing Who is not willing to behold such an apparition who doth not clap his hands and rejoyce as if Heaven it self did open to take
and bring forth fruit Matth. 13 5-8 For that is good ground not onely where Truth groweth but which is fit to receive it All forestalled imaginations and prejudicate opinions are as thorns to choke it up or they make the heart as stony ground in which if the Truth spring up it is soon parched for lack of rooting and withereth away What can that heart bring forth or what can it receive which is full already Ye have heard what Prejudice is In the next place consider the danger of it how it obstructeth and shutteth up the wayes of Truth and leaveth them unoccupied or to allude to the words of my Text how it spoileth the market I have shewed you the Serpent I must now shew you its Sting And indeed as the Serpent deceived Eve Gen. 3 1-5 so Prejudice deceiveth us It giveth a No to God's Yea maketh Men true and God a liar nulleth the sentence of death and telleth us we shall not die at all Ye shall die if this be the interpreter is Your eyes shall be opened and to deceive our selves is to be as Gods knowing good and evil I do not much mistake in calling Prejudice a Serpent For the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula the working of its venome maketh men dance and laugh themselves to death How do we delight our selves in errour and pity those who are in the Truth How do we lift up our heads in the wayes that lead unto death and contemn yea persecute them that will not follow us What a paradise is our ditch and what an hell do we behold them in who are not fallen into it Our flint is a diamond and a diamond is a flint Virtue is vice and vice virtue Errour is truth and truth errour Heaven is covered with darkness and hell is the kingdome of light Nothing appeareth to us as it is in its own shape but Prejudice turneth day into night and the light it self into darkness A setled prejudicate though false opinion will build up as strong resolutions as a true one Saul was as zelous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel Hereticks are as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the Truth the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as the Christian for Christ Habet Diabolus suos martyres Even the Devil hath his Martyrs as well as God Mark 9.22 And it is Prejudice that is that evil Spirit that casteth them into fire and into water that consumeth or drowneth them 1 Sam. 15.32 that leadeth them forth like Agag delicately to their death If this poison will not fright us if these bitings be insensible and we will yet play with this Serpent let us behold it as a fiery Serpent stinging men to death enraging them to wash their hands in one anothers bloud turning plow shares into swords and fithes into spears making that desolation which we see on the earth beating down Churches grinding the facc of the innocent smoking like the bottomless pit breathing forth Anathemaes proscriptions banishment death If there be war this beateth up the drum If there be persecution this raised it If a deluge of iniquity cover the face of the earth this brought it in Is there any evil in the City which this hath not done This poison hath spread it self through the greatest part of mankind yea even Christendome is tainted with it and the effects have been deadly Errour hath gained a kingdome and in the mean while Truth like Psyche in Apuleius is commended of all yet refused of most is counted a pearl and a rich merchandise yet few buy it Ye have seen it already in general and in gross We will make it yet more visible by pointing as it were with the finger and shewing you it in particulars And first its biting is most visible and eminent in those of the Church of Rome For ye may even see the marks upon them Obstinacy Perverseness Insolency Scorn and Contempt a proud and high Disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason or of any man that shall be so charitable as to teach them which are certainly the signs of the bitings of this Serpent Prejudice if not the marks of the Beast Quà m gravis incubat How heavy doth Prejudice lie upon them who have renounced their very Sense and are taught to mistrust yea deny their Reason Who see with other mens eyes and hear with other mens ears nec animo sed auribus cogitant do not judge with their mind but with their ears Not the Scripture but the Church is their oracle And whatsoever that speaketh though it were a congregation of hereticks is truth And so it may be for ought they can discover For that theirs is the true Catholick Church is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which must be granted and not further sought into Once to doubt of it is heresie This prejudice once taken in That that Church cannot erre and though not well digested yet in a manner consubstantiated and connaturalized with them frustrateth yet forbiddeth all future judgment yea inhibiteth all further search or enquiry which may uncloud the Reason and bring her into that region of light where she may see the very face of Truth and so regain her proper place her office and dignity and condemn that which she bowed and submitted to when she was made a servant and slave of men and taught to conclude with the Church though against her self to say what that saith to do what that biddeth to be but as the echo of her decrees and canons though it be but in one as in her Bishop in many as in the Consistory in more as in a general Councel though it be but a name For they that lie under this prejudice in a manner do profess to all the world that they have unmanned themselves Prov. 20.27 blown out that candle of the Lord which was kindled in them that they received eyes but not to see ears but not to hear and reason but not to understand and judge that they are ready to believe that that which is black is white and that snow it self is as black as ink as the Academick thought if the Pope shall think good so to determine it To dispute with these is operam ludere to lose our labour and mispend our time It is altogether vain to seek to perswade those who will not be perswaded though they be convinced nor yield when they are overcome Though seven yea seventy times seven wisemen bring reason and arguments against them they do but beat the air What speak we to him of colours who must not see or urge him with reason who hath renounced it There cannot be a more prevalent reason given then that which Sense and Experience bring yet we see Bread and it is flesh we see Wine and it is very Bloud because the Church saith it There cannot be a more reasonable thing then that Reason should be our judge yet Reason
bargain who wanteth his eye-sight Again let not the authority of any man be the compass by which we steer For it may point to Beth-aven and call it Beth-el present us with a box whose title is TRUTH when it containeth nothing but the poyson of Falshood Why should there be such power such a spell such witchcraft in a name Why should the Truth be built upon a Church which must be built upon it or else it is not a Church Or why upon a name which though it be glorious in the world is but the name of a man who is subject to errour Tolle mihi è causa nomen Catonis saith Tully Cato was a name of virtue and that carried authority with it and therefore the Oratour thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Muraena So tolle è causa nomen Augustini Take away the name of Augustine of Luther Acts 4.12 of Calvine of Arminius when ye come to this mart There is but one name by which we can be saved and his name alone must prevail with us Hebr. 12.2 He onely hath authority who is the Authour and Finisher of our faith Let us honour others but not deifie them not pull Christ out of his throne and place them in his room There is not there cannot be any influence at all in a name to make a conclusion true or false If we have fixed it on high in our mind as in its firmament it will sooner dazle then enlighten us And it is not of so great use as men imagine For they that read or hear can either judge or are weak in understanding To those who are able to judge and discern Errour from Truth a Name is but a name and is no more esteemed For such look upon the Truth as it is and receive it for it self But as for those who are of a narrow capacity a Name is more likely to lead them into errour then into truth or if into Truth it is but by chance for it should have found the same welcome and entertainment had it been an errour for the Names sake All that such gain is They fall with more credit into the ditch Wherefore in our pursuit of Truth we must fling from us all Prejudice and keep our mind even after sentence past free and entire to change it upon better evidence and not tye our faith to any man though his rich endowments have raised his name above his brethren follow no guide but him that followeth right Reason and the Rule not be servants of men for though they be great yet there is a greater then they though they be wise yet there is a wiser then they even he that is the Truth it self Let Augustine be a friend and Luther a friend and Calvine a friend but the Truth is the greatest friend without which there is no such thing as a friend in the world When the rule is fixed up in a plain and legible character though we may and must admit of the help of advice and the wisdome of the learned yet nothing can fix us to it but right Reason He who maketh Reason useless in the purchase of Truth maketh a Divine and a Christian a beast or a mad man Suprae hoc non potest procedere insania It is the height and extremity of madness to judge that to be true and reasonable which is against my Reason For thus we walk amongst Errours as Ajax did amongst the Sheep and take this or that Errour for this or that Truth as he did the Rams one for Menelaus another for Ulysses and a third for Agamemnon It hath been said indeed that right Reason is not alwaies one and the same but varieth and differeth from it self according to the different complexions of times and places But this even Reason it self confuteth For that which is true at Rome is true at Jerusalem and that which was true in the first age of the world is true in this and will be true in the last though it bind not alike That Truth which concerneth our everlasting peace Hebr. 13.8 that which we must buy is the same yesterday and to day and for ever And as the Truth so our Reason is the same even like the decrees proposed to it Prov. 20.27 it never changeth This candle which God hath kindled in us is never quite put out Whatsoever agreeth with it is true and whatsoever dissenteth from it is false Affectus citò cadunt aequalis est ratio saith the Stoick The Affections alter and change every day but Reason is alwaies equal and like unto it self or else it is not Reason The Affections like the Moon now wax anon wane and at length are nothing They are contrary one to another and they fall and end one into another What I loved yesterday I lothe to day and what now I tremble at anon I embrace What at the first presentment cast me down in sorrow at the next may transport me with joy But the judgement of right Reason is still the same She is fixed in her tabernacle as the Sun still casteth the same light spreadeth the same beams rejoyceth to run her race from one object to another and discovereth every one of them as it is When we erre it is not Reason that speaketh within us but Passion If Pleasure have a fair face it is our Passion that painteth it If the world appear in glory it is our Passion that maketh it a God If Death be the terriblest thing in the world it is our Fear and a bad Conscience that make it so Right Reason can see through all these and behold Riches as a snare Pleasure as deceitful and Death though terrible to some yet to others to be a passage into endless life We may erre with Plato and we may erre with Socrates we may erre out of Passion and Prejudice these being the Mother and Nurse of Errour But that we should erre and yet have right Reason on our side is an errour of the foulest aspect for it placeth errour in Truth it self which is not Truth but as it agreeth with right Reason It is true indeed right Reason hath not power enough of it self to find out every Truth For as Faith Eph. 2.8 so all the precepts of Truth are the gift of God commentum Divinitatis saith Tertullian the invention of the Deity But it is true also that Reason is sufficient to judge and discern them when they are revealed according to his mind who revealed them and set up this light within us to this end Though the thing be above Reason yet Reason can judge it true because God who is Truth it self revealed it Take away the use of Reason ye take away all election and choice all obedience all virtue and vice all reward and punishment For we are not carried about in our obedience as the Sphears are in their motions or the brute creatures in theirs as natural or irrational
and so make our seeking a free-will-offering a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour unto God and make it evident that we understand the language of his benefits the miracle which he worketh which is to cure our blindness with this clay with these outward things that we may see to seek him And this is truly to praise the Lord for his goodness Psal 107. Hos 3.5 this is to fear the Lord and his goodness to bear our selves with that fear and reverence that we offend not this God of blessings Negat beneficium qui non honorat He denieth a benefit that doth not thus honour it and is contumelious to that God that gave it Ingratitude is the bane of merit the defacer of vertue the sepulchre the hell of all blessings for by it they are turned into a curse It loatheth the land of Canaan and looketh for milk and honey in Egypt Oh beloved dare we look back upon former times What face can turn that way and not gather blackness God looked favourably upon us and we lifted up the heel against him He gave us light and we shut our eyes against that light He gave us wealth and we abused it to pride and avarice and vanity He made us the envy and we were ambitious to make our selves the scorn of all nations He gave us milk and honey and we turned it into gall and bitterness He sent the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth the blessings of the right hand and of the left plenty and peace the one we loathed as the Jews did their Manna the other we abused He sent peace and we desired war He broke the sword and we furbished it He placed and setled us under our own vines and figtrees and we were in trouble till we were in trouble till we were in a posture of war He spake to us by plenty and we answered him by luxury He spake to us in love and we answered him by oppression He made our faces to shine and we ground the poor's He spake to us by peace and we beat up the drum He spake to us in a still voice and we defied the Holy one of Israel Every benefit of his spake Give me my price and lo instead of seeking him running from him instead of sanctifying his name profaning it instead of calling upon his name calling it down and forcing it to countenance all the imaginations of our heart which have been evil continually This was the goodly price that he was prized at of us Zech. 11.13 And then our Sun did seem to set our day vvas shut up that Now that Then had its end vvhat can vve expect but that the next Now the next time he should come in thunder give us hail for rain and flaming fire in our land But such a Then such an opportunity we had and thus we lost it And if we have let slip this time of peace this acceptable time yet at least let us seek him now when if we seek him not we shall find nothing but destruction seek him in the storm that he may make a calm call upon him in our trouble that he may bring us out of our distress Seek him now when our Sun is darkned and our Moon turned into bloud when the knowledge of his law and of true piety beginneth to wax dim and the true face and beauty of religion to wither when the stars are fallen from heaven the teachers of the truth from the true profession of the truth when the powers of the heaven are shaken when the pillars of the Church are shaken and broken asunder into so many sects and divisions which is as musick to to Rome but maketh all walk as mourners about the streets of Jerusalem vvhen RELIGION vvhich should be the bond of love is made the motto in our banners the title and pretense of vvar the nurse and fomenter of that malice and bitterness vvhich putteth it to shame and treadeth it under foot Novv vvhen the sea and waves thereof do roar vvhen vve hear the noise and tumult of the people vvhich is as the raging of the sea but ebbing and flovviâ—g vvith more uncertainty and from a cause less knovvn vvhen nation riseth up against nation and kingdom against kingdom nay vvhen kingdomes are divided in themselves in this draught and resemblance of the end of the vvorld vvhen he thus speaketh to us in the vvhirlvvind vvhen he thus knocketh vvith his hammer vvhen he calleth thus loud to us to seek him vve should novv bovv dovvn our heads and in all humility ansvver him Thy face O Lord will we seek Matth 18 7. For as our Saviour speaketh of offences so may vve of these afflictions and terrours vvhich God sendeth to fright us It must needs be that they come not onely necessitate consequentiae by a necessity of consequence supposing the condition of our Nature and the changes and chances of a sinful vvorld but necessitate finis in respect of the End for vvhich they are sent for vvhich God in vvhose povver both men and their actions are doth not onely not hinder them by his mighty hand but permitteth them and by a kind of providence sendeth them upon us partly for our tryal but especially for our amendment that finding gall and wormvvood upon every pleasure and vanity of the world finding no rest for our feet in these tumultuous vvaves vve may fly to the Ark and seek him vvith our vvhole heart For vvhen neither the oyl of God's grace vvill soften and supple our stony hearts nor his Word vvhich is his sword pierce them when we cannot be restrained by the â—piâ—it of meekness then Cedo virgam then he cometh with his rod that if we will not make our selves the children of perdition the smart of that may drive us unto him And certainly if afflictions work not this effect they will a far worse If they do not set an end to our sin they are but the beginnings of punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene a prologue to that long and lasting Tragedy the sad types and fore-runners of everlasting Torments in the bottomless pit As yet they are but an argument of Gods love the blows of a Father to bring us to his hand O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus cui dignatur irasci saith Tertullian O happy servant whom the Lord is carefull thus to correct whom he loveth so well as to be angry with him to whom he giveth so great honour and respect as to chastize him But if we lose this affliction make no advantage of it lose that profit which God intendeth by it then he is no longer a Father but a Judge and this punishment is no longer Correction but Execution He hath spent his rods and now he will take his axe in hand and as the Prophet speaketh he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease Dan. 9.27 and for the over-spreading of abominations he shall make
opportunities of Time and Place to serve him in bless him for those who erected these fabricks and bless him for those who repair and adorn them and by the right use of these means build we up our selves on our most-holy fâ—ith Jude 20. and so deck and beautifie our souls that they may be fit temples of the holy Ghost And then whensoever we spread forth our arms in this place God will stretch forth his hand and help us when our prayers ascend as incense he will receive them as a sweet-smelling savour when we bow our knees to him he will bow down his ear to us when we speak he will hear and return our prayers back again into our bosom when we pour out our petitions he will pour down his blessings peace of conscience with all things necessary for this life which are a pawn and pledge and earnest of those everlasting blessings glory honour and immortality Thus we have led you into the house of the Lord the main circumstance in the Object of the Psalmists joy The place we are going to and the thing we are about may be of such a nature that Many may be worse then none Resolution may be pertinacie and madness Agreement and Union may be conspiracy and Hast may be precipitancie A man had better in some things be like Mephibosheth lame on both his feet then like Asahel light of foot as a wild roe 2 Sam 9.13 2.18 Ye have read how that pursuing after Abner he turned not to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner 19. and so ran straight to his own death Psal 1.1 There be too-too many who walk in the counsel of the ungodly and stand in the way of sinners and sit in the seat of the scornful There may be a Synod of Hereticks a Senate of rebells as ye know there is a Legion of Devils Pliny telleth us Mark 5.9 Major coelitum populus quà m terrae that there were more people in heaven then on earth and it might be true when they made God's for they might make as many as they pleased But the broad way hath most travellers Matth. 7.13 there they go in sholes in bodies in companies in Societies and some under the name of JESUS And our Saviour saith that many there be which go in at the wide gate Secondly resolve men may and oftentimes resolve they do and are resolute in that which they should abhor Their Dixit is a Factum est they say and do it no law no conscience no thunder from heaven can deter them from it Matth. 2 6. Give me money enough and I will betray my Master said Judas and he did do it betray him into the hands of his enemies Thirdly men may gather together and be united to do mischief thieves and murderers may cast in their lots together and have all one purse Prov. 1.14 Yea men of disagreeing and different principles may agree and combine in the same wicked design though they have severall judgements yet may they be brethren in iniquity Gen. 49.7 Judg. 15.4 5 they may be tied together as Samson's foxes were though their heads look divers wayes and one be an Anabaptist another a Brownist a third a Disciplinarian a fourth a Seeker a fifth a Quaker a sixth but there are so many Sects that I cannot tell you their names though their looks and language be never so opposit yet they may be linked together by the tails and carry those firebrands between them that may burn up the harvest As Paterculus said of Jugurtha and Marius In iisdem castris didicere quae postea in contrariis facerent They learnt their skill in arms both in the same camp which they afterwards practised in divers even one against the other So have the Jesuites and these Sectaries taken up some common principles and we know in whose camp they learnt them which they make use of to drive on their purposes and yet defie one another as much as Jugurtha and Marius ever did Many wicked men ye see may agree we see too many do and their agreement breaketh the peace and maketh the body of Christendome fly asunder into so many pieces and parts with that noise and confusion that we tremble to behold it ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo whilest the Turk laugheth and a Jew pulleth the veil closer to his face and comforteth and applaudeth himself in his errour Last of all as men may resolve and agree so may they encourage themselves in evil Rom. 1.32 and not onely do the same thing but as S. Paul speaketh have pleasure in them that do it they may go together with a shout and with a merry noise sport in the miseries dance in the ruines and wash their feet in the bloud of the innocent and their word still be So Psal 35.25 so thus we would have it Thus I say the Many may resolve agree and delight in that which is forbidden they may have a firm heart they may have but one heart they may have a merry heart in that which is evil their hearts may be fixed their hands joyned and their feet swift to shed bloud Prov. 1.16 Isa 59.7 Rom. 3.15 Therefore we must look forward to the last circumstance the Place the house of the Lord the Service of God This shineth upon all the rest and beautifieth them Many here make a Church To Resolve here is obedience To Agree here is peace the peace of God which maketh us one of the same mind of the same will To be one in place and not in mind is poena saith a Father it is not a blessing but a punishment To be one in mind and not in place is bonitas goodness To be one in place and in mind both is felicitas greatest happiness Then in the last place to Go together chearfully to the house of the Lord is an expression of that joy which is a type and earnest of that which is in the highest heavens There is nothing here we told you which a religious mind can check at No just scruple can arise concerning the place seeing we have God's word for it under the Law and Christs word for it under the Gospel that it is God's house If any do arise it riseth like a fog it steameth from a foul and corrupt heart from Pride and Covetousness the mothers of Pertinacy and Contradiction Which cannot be brought to conform to the counsels of the wise no not to the wisdom of God himself but call Truth heresie because others speak it Bounty wast because others lay it out Reverence superstition because others bow would pull down Churches because others build them spurn at every thing nihil verum putant nisi quod contrarium think nothing true but what is diverse and contrary and breatheth opposition against the Truth This is a great evil under the Sun to quarrel even the blessings of God to be angry with
calleth it is very likely I shall fall fast asleep at the voice of Christ The reason is plain and evident For it is not with the Will and Affections as it is with the Understanding The Understanding can easily sever one thing from another and apprehend them both yea it hath power to abstract and separate things really the same and consider the one as different from the other but it is the property of the Will and Affections in unum ferri se in unitatem colligere to unite and collect themselves to make themselves one with the object so that our desires cannot be carried to two contrary objects at one and the same time We may apprehend Christ as just and holy and the world and the riches of it as vanity it self but we cannot at once love Christ as just and holy and adhere and cleave to the world and the vanities thereof Our Saviour hath fully expressed it where he telleth us we shall hate the one and love the other or else lean to the one and despise the other If it be a love to the one it will be at best but a liking of the other if a will to the one but a villeity and faint inclination to the other if a look on the one but a glance on the other And this glance this villeity this inclination are no better then hatred and contempt For these proceed from my Understanding but my love from my Will which is fixed not where I approve but where I chuse For what is it to say This is beauty and then spit upon it to say Righteousness is hominis optimum as Augustine calleth it the best thing that man can seek and yet chuse a clod of earth before it What is it to call Christ Lord and crucifie him For reason will tell us even when we most dote upon the world that Wisdom is better then rubies that Christ is to be preferred to Mammon that it is better cum Christo affligi quà m cum aliis deliciari to be afflicted with Christ then to enjoy the pleasures of this life and sport away our time with others but this will not make it Love which joyneth with the object which swalloweth it up is swallowed up by it What love is that to Righteousness which putteth it post principia in the second file behind the World and in this placeth all its hope of happiness seeing Righteousness if it be not sought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first place is lost for ever For last of all if we seek any thing before Righteousness that must needs be predominant and give laws to Righteousness square and fashion Religion as it pleaseth and so Religion being put behind will be put also to vile offices to swell our heaps to promote our lusts to feather our ambition to enrage our malice to countenance that which destroyeth her to follow that which driveth her out of the world And whereas Righteousness should be as the seal to be set upon all our intendments and upon all the actions of our life that they may go for warrantable being stamped and charactered as it were with the Image of the King of glory Christ Jesus Righteousness will be made as wax to receive the impression of the World and whatsoever may prove advantageous will go current for Righteousness and every thing will be Righteousness but that which is Whereas Righteousness should be fixed as a star in the firmament of the soul to cast its influence upon all we think or speak or do we shall draw up a meteor out of the foggy places of the earth a blazing and ill-boding comet and call it by that sacred name This this hath been the great corrupter of Religion in all the ages of the Church This was that falsary which did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adulterate the truth of the Gospel This hath made that desolation which we see upon the earth For if the eye be first fixed on the things of this world it will be so dazled as not to see Righteousness in her own shape nor discern her unless she be guilded over with vanity My Covetousness now looketh like Christian providence for my love of these things must Christen the Child My Ambition now is the Honour of God My malice cannot burn hot enough for I seek the Lord in the bowels of my brethren My Sacrilege is excessive piety for though it is true that I fill my coffers with the shekels of the Sanctuary yet I beat down Baal and Superstition But if we did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first seek Righteousness our Covetousness would not dig and drudge with such a fair gloss our ambition would flag and stoop to the ground our Malice would dye never to be raised again and our Sacrilege would find no hand to lay hold on the axe and the hammer the power of Righteousness and not her bare name would manifest it self in our actions and all excuses and pretences and false glosses would vanish as a mist before the Sun the World would be but a great dunghil Honour but air Malice a fury and the Houses of God would stand fast for ever But this misplacing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath put all out of order divided the Church shaken the Pillars of the earth ruined nations and left nothing of Righteousness but the name when that which indeed is Righteousness doth make and preserve a Church uphold the world and is the alone thing which can perpetuate a Government and continue a Commonwealth to last so long as the Moon endureth If this did prevail there could be no wars nor rumours of wars no violence in the form of a law no injury under pretence of conscience no beating of our fellow-servants no murthering of our brethren in the name of the Lord. I say the casting Religion behind and making it wait upon us in all our distempers is that which hath well-near cast all Religion out of the world This hath raised so many sects which swarm and buzze about us like flies in Summer This is the coyner of Heresies which are nothing else but the inventions of worldly-minded men working out of the elaboratory of their phansie some new Doctrine which may favour and keep pace with their humour and lift them up and make them great in the world This built a Throne for the Pope and a Consistory for the Disciplinarian This hath stated many Questions and been President at most Councils For be the man what he will private interest is commonly the Doctor and magisterially determineth and prescribeth all If a thing be advantageous it must also be orthodox and hath on the one side written RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO THE LORD on the other FROM HENCE WE HAVE OUR GAIN We cannot be too charitable yet you know charity may mistake Peradventure weakness of apprehension may leave some naked to errour conscience may sway and bow others in some things from the truth but let me tell you in
Ye Angels that do his will They are but finite agents and so not able to make good an infinite loss They are in their own nature mutable and so not fit to settle them who were more mutable more subject to change then themselves not able to change our vile bodies much less to change our souls which are as immortal as they yet lodged in tabernacles of flesh which will fall of themselves and cannot be raised again but by his power whom the Angels worship In prison we were and CVI ANGELORVM written on the door miserable captives so deplorably lost that the whole Hierarchie of Angels could not help us And if not the Angels not Moses sure though he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nearest to God and saw as much of his Majesty as Mortality was able to bear Heb. 3.5 6. The Apostle tells us he was faithful in all his house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a servant but Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Son Smite he did the Aegyptians and led the people like sheep through the wilderness But he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Captain of our salvation as he is stiled v. 10. was to cope with one more terrible then Pharaoh and all his host to put a hook into the nostrils of that great Leviathan to lead not the people alone but Moses also through darkness and death it self able to uphold and settle an Angel in his glorious estate and to rayse Moses from the dead Not Moses then but one greater then Moses Not the Angels but one whom the Angels worship who could command a whole Legion of them Not a Prophet Or if a Prophet the great Prophet which was to come If an Angel the Angel of the Covenant Certè hic Deus est even God himself Now Athanasius's Creed will teach us that there is but one God yet three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We must then find out to which of the Persons this oeconomie belongeth Not to the Father That great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his He bringeth his first begotten into the world ch 1.6 that he may declare his name unto his brethren ch 2. Not the Holy Ghost We hear him ch 3. as an Herald calling to us To day if yee will hear his voyce And he is Vicarius Christi Christs Vicar on earth supplyeth his place in his absence and comforteth his children It must needs then be media Persona the second and middle Person the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Luke 4.41 The office will best fit him to be a Mediatour Ask the Divels themselves when he lived they roared it out Ask the Centurion and them that watched him at his death they speak it with fear and trembling Matth. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God Christ then our Captain is the Son of God But God hath divers Sons some by Adoption and they are made so some by Nuncupation and they are but called so and some by Creation and they are created so They who rob and devest Christ of his Essence yet yeild him his Title and though they deny him to be God yet call him God's Son We must follow then the Philosophers method in his description of moral Happiness proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of negation and to establish Christ in his right of Filiation tell you 1. he is not a Son not adoptivus filius God's adopted Son who by some great merit of his could so dignifie himself as to deserve that title This was the dream or rather invention of Photinus A very dream indeed For then this Similation were not of God to Man but of Man to God the Text inverted quite No Imitatur adoptio prolem Adoption is but a supply a grafting of a strange branch into another stock But he whose name is The Branch grows up of himself of the same stock and root God of God very God of very God made manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 2. not Filius nuncupativus God's Son by nuncupation his nominal Son Such a one Sabellius and the Patro-passiani phansied as if the Father had been assimilated and so called the Son impiously making the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not three Persons but three Names 3. Lastly not Filius creatus God's created Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere Creature and of a distinct essence from his Father as the more rigid Arians nor the most excellent Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in substance like unto the Father but not consubstantial with him as the more moderate whom the Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half-Arians conceived To these Hereticks we reply Non est Filius Dei He is not thus the Son of God And as Aristotle tells us that his Moral Happiness is the chief Good but not that Good which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which Ambition flyes to the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth an universal notion and Idea of Good So may the Christian by the same method consider his Saviour his chief bliss and happiness and by way of negation draw him out of those foggs and mists where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him and bring him into the bosome of his Father and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus Behold a voyce from heaven spake it Matth. 3.17 17.5 This is my beloved Son We may suspect that voice when Photinus is the Echo An Angel from heaven said He shall be called the Son of the most High Luke 1.32 Our Faith starts back and will not receive it if Sabellius make the Glosse Our Saviour himself speaks it I and my Father are one John 10.30 The Truth it self will be corrupted if Arius be the Commentator To these we say He is not thus the Son of God Naz. Orat. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To contract the Personality with Sabellius or to divide the Deity with Arius are blasphemies in themselves diametrally opposed but equally to the truth The Captain of our salvation is the true Son of God begotten not made the Brightness of his Father streaming from him as Light from Light his Image not according to his humane Nature as Osiander but according to his Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image and Character not of any qualities in God but of his Person the true stamp of his substance begotten as Brightness from the Light as the Character from the Type as the Word from the Mind Which yet do not fully declare him Quis enarrabit saith the Prophet Who shall declare his generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 53.8 Thy faith is thy honour a great favour it is that thou art taught to believe that he is the eternal begotten Son of God The manner is known only to the Father who begat and to the Son who is begotten If thy busy curiosity lead thee further 〈◊〉
that where the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there we are to understand the Person of the Holy Ghost yet we rather lay hold on the pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When He the Spirit of truth shall come He shall lead you which pointeth out to a distinct Person If as Sabellius saith our Saviour had onely meant some new motion in the Disciples hearts or some effect of the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been enough but ILLE He designeth a certain Person and I LLE He in Christ's mouth a distinct Person from himself Besides we are taught in the Schools Actiones sunt suppositorum Actions and operations are of Persons Now in this verse Christ sayth that he shall lead them into all truth and before he shall reprove the world v. 8. and in the precedent chapter he shall testifie of me v. 26. which are proper and peculiar operations of the blessed Spirit and bring him in a distinct Person from the Father and the Son And therefore S. Augustine resteth upon this dark and general expression Lib. 6. De Trinit Spiritus S. est commune aliquid Patris Filii quicquid illud est The Holy Ghost communicateth both of the Father and the Son is something of them both whatsoever we may call it whether we call him the Consubstantial and Coeternal communion and friendship of the Father and the Son or nexum amorosum with Gerson and others of the Schools the essential Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity But we will wave these more abstruse and deeper speculations in which if we speak not in the Spirit 's language we may sooner lose than profit our selves and speak more than we should whilest we are busie to raise our thoughts and words up to that which is but enough It will be safer to walk below amongst those observations which as they are more familiar and easy so are they more useful and to take what oar we can find with ease than to dig deeper in this dark mine where if we walk not warily we may meet with poysonous fogs and damps in stead of treasure We will therefore in the next place enquire why he is called the Spirit of Truth Divers attributes the Holy Ghost hath He is called the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.15 the Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 the Spirit of Grace Hebr. 10.29 c. For where he worketh Grace is operative our Love is without dissimulation Rom. 12.9 our Joy is like the joy of heaven as true though not so great Gal. 5.6 Isa 6.6 Rom. 10 2. our Faith a working faith and our Zeal a coal from the altar kindled from his fire not mad and raging but according to knowledge He maketh no shadows but substances no pictures but realities no appearances Luke 1.28 but truths a Grace that maketh us highly favoured a precious and holy Faith 1 Pet. 1.7 8. full and unspeakable Joy Love ready to spend it self and Zeal to consume us Psâ—l 69.9 of a true existence being from the Spirit of that God who alone truly is But here he is stiled the Spirit of Truth yet is he the same Spirit that planteth grace and faith in our hearts that begetteth our Faith dilateth our Love worketh our Joy kindleth our Zeal and adopteth us in Regiam familiam into the Royal family of the first-born in heaven But now the Spirit of Truth was more proper For to tell men perplext with doubts that were ever and anon and somtimes when they should not asking questions of such a Teacher was a seal to the promise a good assurance that they should be well taught that no difficulty should be too hard no knowledge too high no mystery too dark and obscure for them but All truth should be brought forth and unfolded to them and having the veyl taken from it be laid open and naked to their understanding Let us then look up upon and worship this Spirit of Truth as he thus presenteth and tendereth himself unto us 1. He standeth in opposition to two great enemies to Truth Dissimulation and Flattery By the former I hide my self from others by the later I blindfold another and hide him from himself The Spirit is an enemy to both he cannot away with them 2. He is true in the Lessons which he teacheth that we may pray for his Advent long for his coming and so receive him when he cometh First dissemble he doth not he cannot For Dissimulation is a kind of cheat or jugling by which we cast a mist before mens eyes that they cannot see us It bringeth in the Devil in Samuel's mantle and an enemy in the smiles and smoothness of a friend It speaketh the language of the Priest at Delphos As to King Philip whom Pausanias slew playeth in ambiguities promiseth life when death is neerest and biddeth us beware of a chariot when it meaneth a sword No this Spirit is an enemy to this because a Spirit of truth and hateth these involucra dissimulationis this folding and involvedness these clokes and coverts these crafty conveyances of our own desires to their end under the specious shew of intending good to others And they by whom this Spirit speaketh are like him and speak the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1.12 in the simplicity and godly sincerity of the spirit not in craftiness 2 Cor. 4.2 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 handling the Word of God deceitfully not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 4.14 not in the slight of men throwing a die and what cast you would have them not fitting their doctrine to men and the times that is not to men and the times but to their own ends telling them of heaven when their thoughts are in their purse Wisd 1.5 6. This holy Spirit of Truth flieth all such deceit and removeth himself far from the thoughts which are without understanding and will not acquit a dissembler of his words There is nothing of the Devil's method nothing of the Die or Hand no windings or turnings in what he teacheth He speaketh the truth and nothing but the truth and for our behoof and advantage that we may believe it and build upon it and by his discipline raise our selves up to that end for which he is pleased to come and be our Teacher And as he cannot dissemble so in the next place flatter us he cannot This is the inseparable mark and character of the evil Spirit qui arridet ut saeviat who smileth upon us that he may rage against us lifteth us up that he may cast us down whose exaltations are foils whose favours are deceits whose smiles and kisses are wounds Flattery is as a glass for a Fool to look upon and behold that shape which himself hath already drawn and please himself in it because it is returned upon him by reflection and so he becometh more fool than before It is the Fools
Echo by which he heareth himself at the rebound and thinketh the Wiseman spoke unto him Flattery is the ape of Charity It rejoyceth with them that rejoyce and weepeth with them that weep it frowneth with them that frown and smileth with them that smile It proceedeth from the Father of lies not from the Spirit of truth Hebr. 13.8 who is the same yesterday and to day and for ever Who reproveth drunkenness though in a Noah adultery though in a David want of faith though in a Peter His precepts are plain his law is in thunder his threatnings earnest and vehement What he writeth is not in a dark character Thou mayest run and read it He presenteth Murder wallowing in the blood it spilt Blasphemie with its brains out Theft sub hasta under sale He calleth not great plagues Peace nor Oppression Law nor camels gnats nor great sins peccadillos but he setteth all our sins in order before us He calleth Adam from behind the bush striketh Ananias dead for his hypocrisie and for lying to the holy Spirit depriveth him of his own Thy excuse with him is a libel thy pretense fouler than thy sin Thy false worship of him is blasphemy and thy form of godliness open impiety And where he entereth the heart Sin which is the greatest errour the grossest lye removeth it self heaveth and panteth to go out knocketh at our breast runneth down at our eyes and we hear it speak in sighs and grones unspeakable and what was our delight becometh our torment In a word he is a Spirit of truth and neither dissembleth to deceive us nor flattereth that we may deceive our selves but verus vera dicit being Truth it self telleth us what we shall find to be most true to keep us from the dangerous by paths of Errour and Misprision in which we may lose our selves and be lost for ever And this appeareth and is visible in those lessons and precepts which he giveth so agreeable to that Image after which we were made to fit and beautifie it when it is defaced and repair it when it is decayed that so it may become in some proportion and measure like unto him that made it and then so harmonious and consonant and agreeing with themselves that The whole Scripture and all the precepts it containeth may in esteem as Gerson saith go for own copulative proposition This Spirit doth not set up one precept against another nor one Text against another doth not disanul his promises in his threats nor check his threats with his promises doth not forbid all Fear in Confidence nor shake our Confidence when he bids us fear doth not set up meekness to abate our Zeal nor kindleth Zeal to consume our Meekness doth not teach Christian Liberty to shake off Obedience to Government nor prescribeth Obedience to infringe and weaken our Christian Liberty This Spirit is a Spirit of truth and never different from himself He never contradicteth himself but is equal in all his wayes the same in that truth which pleaseth thee and in that which pincheth thee in that which thou consentest to and in that which thou runnest from in that which will raise thy spirit and in that which will wound thy spirit And the reason why men who talk so much of the Spirit do fall into gross and pernicious errours is from hence That they will not be like the Spirit in this equal and like unto themselves in all their wayes That they lay claim to him in that Text which seemeth to comply with their humour but discharge and leave him in that which should purge it That upon the beck as it were of some place of Scripture which upon the first face and appearance looketh favourably upon their present inclinations they run violently on this side animated and posted on by that which was not in the Text but in their lusts and phansie and never look back upon other testimonies of Divine Authority that army of evidences as Tertullian speaketh which are openly prest out and marshalled against them and might well put them to a halt and deliberation stay and drive back their intention and settle them at last in the truth which consisteth in a moderation betwixt two extremes For we may be zealous and not cruel devout and not superstitious we may hate Idolatry and not commit Sacrilege Gal. 5.1 1 Pet. 2.16 stand fast in our Christian liberty and not make it a cloak of maliciousness if we did follow the Spirit in all his wayes who in all his wayes is a Spirit of truth For he commandeth Zeal and forbiddeth Rage he commendeth Devotion and forbiddeth Superstition he condemneth Idolatry yea and condemneth Sacrilege he preacheth Liberty 1 Cor. 12.4.8 9 11. and preacheth Obedience to Superiours and in all is the same Spirit And this Spirit did come and Christ did send him And in the next place to this end he came to be our Leader to guide us in the wayes of truth to help our infirmities to be our conduct to carry us on to the end And this is his Office and Administration Which one would think were but a low office for the Spirit of God and yet these are magnalia spiritûs the wonderful things of the Spirit and do no less proclaim his Divinity then the Creation of the world We wonder the blind should see the lame go Matth. 11.5 the deaf hear the dead be raysed up but doth it now follow The poor receive the Gospel Weigh it well in the balance of the Sanctuary and this last will appear as a great miracle as the former And this Advent and Coming was free and voluntary For though the Spirit was sent from the Father and the Son yet sponte venit he came of his own accord And he not onely cometh but sendeth himself say the Schools as he daily worketh those changes and alterations in his creature These words Dicit Mittam ut propriam autoritatem ostendat Tum denique veniet quo verbo Spiritûs potestas indicatur Naz. Orat. 37. to be sent and to come and the like are not words of diminution or disparagement He came in no servile manner but as a Lord as a friend from a friend as in a letter the very mind of him that sent it Which sheweth an agreement and concord with him that sent him but implyeth no inferiority no degree of servility or subjection Yet some there have been who have stumbled at the shadow which this word hath cast or indeed at their own and for this made the holy Spirit no more then a Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a supernumerary God brought in to serve and minister and no distinct Person of the blessed Trinity But what a gross error what foul ingratitude is this to call his goodness servility his coming to us submission and obedience and count him not a God because by his gracious operation he is pleased to dwell in men and make them his tabernacle Why may we
not as warrantably conceive so of the other Persons For God wrought in the Creation and the Heavens are the work of his hands Nay with reverence to so high a Majesty we may say God serveth us more then we do him who are nothing but by his breath and power Dust and ashes can do him no service But he serveth us every day He lighteth us with his Sun he raineth upon us he watereth our plants Luke ◠53 Psal 47.9 he filleth our granaries He feedeth the hungry with good things nay he feedeth the young ravens that call upon him He knocketh at our doors he intreateth waiteth sufferreth commandeth us to serve one another commandeth his Angels to serve and minister unto us res rationésque nostras curat he keepeth our accounts numbreth our tears watcheth our prayers If we call he cometh if we fall he is at hand In our misery in the deepest dungeon he is with us And these are no disparagements but arguments of his excellency and infinite goodness and fair lessons to us not to be wanting to our selves and our brethren who have God himself thus carefully waiting upon us and to remember us That to serve our brethren is to exalt and advance and raise us up to be like unto him When we wash our brethrens feet bind up their wounds sit down in the dust with them visit them in prison and minister to them on their beds of sickness we may think we debase our selves and do decrease as it were but it is our honour our crown our conformity to him who was the Servant of God and our Servant and made himself like unto us that he might serve us in his flesh and doth so to the end of the world invisibly by his Spirit It is the Spirit 's honour to be sent to be a Leader a Conduct and though sent he be yet he is as free an Agent as the Son and the Son as the Father Tertullian calleth him Christ's Vicar here on earth to supply his place But that argueth no inequality for then the Son too must be unequal to the Father for his Angel his Messenger he was and went about his Father's business Luke 2.49 To conclude this In a farr remote and more qualified sense we are his Vicar's his Deputies his Steward 's here on earth and it is no servility it is our honour and glory to do his business to serve one another in love Gal. 5.13 to be Servants to be Angels I had almost said to be holy Ghosts one to another As my father sent me saith our Saviour to his Disciples John 20.21 so send I you And he sendeth us too who are haereditarii Christi discipuli Christ's Disciples by inheritance and succession that every one as he is endowed from above should serve him by serving one another And though our serving him cannot deserve that name Judg. 5.23 yet is he pleased to call it helping him that we should help him to feed the hungry to guide the blind and teach the ignorant and so be the Spirit 's Vicars as he is Christ's that Christ may fill us more and more with his Spirit which may guide and conduct us through the manifold errours of this life through darkness and confusion into that truth which may lead us to bliss For as he is the Spirit of truth so in the next place the Lesson which he teacheth is Truth even that Truth which is an Art S. Augustine calleth it so and a law to direct and confine all other arts quâ praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus which goeth before us in our way and through the surges of this present world bringeth us to the presence of God who is Truth it self A Truth which leadeth us to our original to the Rock out of which we were hewen and bringeth us back to our God who made us not for the vanities of this world but for himself An Art to cast down all Babels all towring and lofty imaginations which present unto us falshoods for truths appearances for realities plagues for peace which scatter and divide our souls powr them out upon variety of unlawful objects and deceive us in the very nature and end of things For as this Spirit brought life and immortality to light 2 Tim. 1.10 for whatsoever the Prophets and great Rabbies had spoken of Immortality was but darkness in comparison of this great light so it also discovered the errors and horror of those follies which we lookt upon with love and admiration as upon heaven it self What a price doth Luxury place on Wealth and Riches What horror on Nakedness and Poverty What a heaven is Honour to my Ambition and what an hell is Disgrace though it be for goodness it self How doth a Jewel glitter in my eyes and what a slur is there upon Virtue What a glory doth the pomp of the World present and what a sad and sullen aspect hath Righteousness How is God thrust out and every Idol every Vanity made a God But the Truth here which the Spirit teacheth discovereth all pulleth off the veyl sheweth us the true countenance and face of things that we may not be deceived sheweth us Vanity in Riches folly in Honour death and destruction in the pomp of this World maketh Poverty a blessing and Misery happiness and Death it self a passage to eternity placeth God in his Throne and Man where he should be at his footstool bowing before him Which is the readiest way to be lifted up unto him and to be with him for evermore In a word a Truth that hath power to unite us to our God that bringeth with it the knowledge of Christ and the wisdome of God and presenteth those precepts and doctrines which lead to happiness a Truth that goeth along with us in all our wayes waiteth on us on our beds of sickness leaveth us not at our death but followeth us and will rise again with us unto judgment and there either acquit or condemn us either be our Judge or Advocate If we make it our friend here it will then look lovely on us and speak good things for us if we make it our Counsellor here it will then be our Advocate but if we despise it and put it under our basest desires and vile affections it will then fight against us and triumph over us and tread us down into the lowest pit Christ is not more gracious then this Truth to them that love it But to those who will not learn shall be Tribulation and anguish Rom. 2.9 Acts 2.20 2 Thes 4.16 The Sun turned into darkness and the Moon into blood the world on fire the voyce of the Archangel the trump of God the severe countenance of the Judge will not be more terrible then this Truth to them that have despised it For Christ Jesus shall judge the secrets of them Rom 2.16 acquit the just condemn the impenitent according to this Truth which the Spirit teacheth
according saith S. Paul to my Gospel This is the Lesson the Spirit teacheth Truth Let us now see the Extent of it It is large and universal The Spirit doth not teach us by halves teach some truths and conceal others but he teacheth all truth maketh his disciples and followers free from all errors that are dangerous and full of saving knowledge Saving knowledge is all indeed That truth which bringeth me to my end is all and there is nothing more to be known I determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 2.2 Here his desire hath a Non ultrá This truth is all this joyneth heaven and earth together God and Man mortality and immortality misery and happiness in one draweth us near unto God and maketh us one with him This is the Spirit 's Lesson Commentum Divinitatis the invention of the Divine Spirit Faith is called the gift of God Ephes 2.8 not onely because it is given to every believer and too many are too willing to stay till it be given but because this Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith And as he first found it out so he teacheth it and leaveth out noâ—hing not a tittle not an Iota which may serve to compleat and perfect this divine Science Psal 139.16 In the book of God are all our members written All the members yea and all the faculties of our soul And in his Gospel his Spirit hath framed rules and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act in every motion and inclination which if the Eye offend pluck it out if the Hand cut it off Rules which limit the understanding to the knowledge of God bind the will to obedience moderate and confine our affections level our hope fix our joy stint our sorrow frame our speech compose our gesture fashion our apparel set and methodize our outward behaviour Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious The time would fail me to mention them all In a word then this Truth which the Spirit teacheth is fitted to the whole man to every member of the body to every faculty of the soul fitted to us in every condition in every relation It will reign with thee it will serve with thee it will manage thy riches it will comfort thy poverty ascend the throne with thee and sit down with thee on the dunghill It will pray with thee it will fast with thee it will labour with thee it will rest and keep a Sabbath with thee it will govern a Church it will order thy Family it will raise a kingdome within thee it will be thy Angel to carry thee into Abraham's bosome and set a crown of glory upon thy head And is there yet any more Or what need more than that which is necessary There can be but one God one Heaven one Religion one way to blessedness and there is but one Truth and that is it which the Spirit teacheth And this runneth the whole compass of it directeth us not onely ad ultimum sed usque ad ultimum not onely to that which is the end but to the means to every step and passage and approach to every help and advantage towards it and so uniteth us to that one God giveth us right to that one Heaven and bringeth us home to that one end for which we were made And is there yet any more Yes particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this Truth which the Spirit hath plainly taught It is true but then for the most part they are cases of our own making cases which we need not make cases somtimes raised by weakness somtimes by wilfulness somtimes even by sin it self which reigneth in our mortal bodies and to such this Lesson of the Spirit is as an Ax to cut them off But be their original what it will if this Truth reach them not or if they bear no analogy or affinity with that which the Spirit hath taught nor depend upon it by any evident and necessary consequence they are not to be reckoned in the number of those which concern us because we are assured that he hath led us into all truth that is necessary Some things indeed there are which are indifferent in themselves quae lex nec vetat nec jubet which this Spirit neither commandeth nor forbiddeth but they are made necessary by reason of some circumstance of time or place or quality or persons for that which is necessary in it self is alwaies necessary and yet are in their own nature indifferent still Veritas ad omnia occurrit this Truth which is the Spirit 's Lesson reacheth even these and containeth a rule certain and infallible to guide us in them if we become not laws unto our selves and fling it by to wit the rules of Charity and Christian Prudence to which if we give heed it is impossible we should miscarry It is Love of our selves and Love of the world not Charity or spiritual Wisdome which make this noyse abroad rend the Church in pieces and work desolation on the earth It is want of conscience and neglect of conscience in the common and known wayes of our duty which have raised so many needless Cases of conscience which if men had not hearkened to their lusts had never shewn their head but had been what indeed they are nothing The acts of charity are manifest 1 Cor. 13. Charity suffereth long even injuries and errours but doth not rise up against that which was set up to enlarge and improve her Charity is not rash to beat down every thing that had its first rise and beginning from Charity Charity is not puffed up swelleth not against a harmless yea and an useful constitution though it be of man Charity doth not behave it self unseemly layeth not a necessity upon us of not doing that which lawful Authority even then styleth an indifferent thing when it commandeth it to be done Charity seeketh not her own treadeth not the publick peace under foot to procure her own Charity is not easily provoked checketh not at every feather nor startleth at that monster which is a creation of our own Charity thinketh no evil doth not see a serpent under every leaf nor Idolatry in every bow of Devotion If we were charitable we could not but be peaceable If that which is the main of the Spirit 's lesson did govern mens actions Psal 72.7 there would be abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth Multa facienda sunt non jubente lege sed liberâ charitate saith Augustine Charity is free to do and suffer many things which the Spirit doth not expresly command and yet it doth command them in general when it commandeth obedience to Authority Which hath no larger circuit to walk and shew it self in than in things in themselves indifferent which it may enjoyn for orders sake
is a main difference nor can we expect an ocular and visible descent Therefore if we will be taught by the Spirit we must use the means which the same Spirit hath prescribed in those lessons which he first and extraordinarily taught the Apostles and not make use of his name to misinterpret those lessons or bring in new of our own and as new so contrary to them For what is new must needs be contrary because he then taught all truth and what is more then all is nothing what is more then all truth must needs by a lye Nor did he lead them into all truth for themselves alone but for those who should come after them for all generations to the end of the world He made them Apostles and sent them to make us Christians to make that which he taught them a rule of life and to fix it on the Church as on a pillar that all might read it that none should adde to it or take away from it Eph. 2.20 And for this they are called a Foundation and we are said to be built upon them Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone But this we could not be if their testimony were so scant and defective that there were left a kind of necessity upon us to hew and square out what stones we please and lay new ones of our own to cast down theirs withal and to bear up whatsoever our insolent and boundless lusts will lay upon them And now what is become of my Text For if this be admitted we cannot say the Spirit led them For what leading is that which leaveth us so far behind at such a distance from the end thâ—â— in every age the Spirit must come again and take us by the hand and draw us some other way even contrary to that which he first made known And what an all is that to which every man may adde what he please even to the end of the world For every mans claim and title to the Spirit is the same as just and warrantable in any as in one And when they speak contrary things the evidence is the same that is none at all unless this be a good Argument He hath the Spirit because he saith so which is as strong on his side that denyeth it upon the same pretense Amongst the sons of men there are not greater fools then they who have nothing to say for what they say but That they say it and yet think this Nothing enough and that all Israel are bound to hearken to them as if God himself did speak This is an evil a folly a madness which breatheth no where but in Christendome was never heard of in any other body or society but that of Christians Though many Governours of Common-wealths did pretend to a kind of commerce and familiarity with some God or Goddess when they were to make a law yet we do not read of any as far as I remember that did put up the same pretense that they might break a law but when the law was once promulged there was nothing thought of but either obedience or punishment But Christians who have the best Religion have most abused it have played the wantons in that light in which they should have walkt with fear and trembling finding themselves at a loss and meeting with no satisfaction to their pride and ambition to their malice to their lusts from any lesson the Spirit hath yet taught have learnt an art to suborn something of their own to supply that defect and call it a dictate of the Spirit Nor is this evil of yesterday nor doth it befall the weakest onely But the Devil hath made use of it in all ages as of the fittest engine to undermine that truth which the Spirit first taught Tertullian as wise a man as the Church then had being not able to prove the Corporeity of the Soul by Scripture Post Ioannem quoque prophetiam meruimus consequi c. Tertull. de Anim. montanizans flyeth to private Revelation in his Book De anima Non per aestimationem sed revelationem What he could not uphold by reason and judgment he striveth to make good by Revelation For we saith he have our Revelations as well as S. John Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them and trances in the Church She converseth with Angels and with God himself and can discern the hearts and inward thoughts of men S. Hierome mentioneth others Contra Libertin and in the dayes of our forefathers Calvine many more who applyed the name of the Spirit to every thing that might facilitate and help on their design as Parish-priests it is his resemblance would give the name of six or seven several Saints to one image that their offerings might be the more I need not go so far back for instance Our present age hath shewn us many who though very ignorant yet are wiser then their teachers so spiritual that they despise the word of God which is the dictate of the Spirit This monster hath made a large stride from foreign parts and set his foot in our coasts If they murder the Spirit moved their hand and drew their sword If they throw down Churches it is with the breath of the Spirit If they would bring in Parity the pretence is The Spirit cannot endure that any should be supreme or Pope it but themselves Our Humour our Madness our Malice our Violence our implacable Bitterness our Railing and Reviling must all go for Inspirations of the Spirit Simeon and Levi Absalom and Ahithophel Theudas and Judas the Pharisees and Ananias they that despise the holy Spirit of God these Scarabees bred in the dung of sensuality these Impostors these men of Belial must be taken no longer for a generation of vipers but for the scholars and friends of the holy Ghost Whatsoever they do whithersoever they go he is their leader though it be to hell it self May we not make a stand now and put it to the question Whether there be any holy Ghost or no and if there be Whether his office be to lead us Indeed these appropriations these bold and violent ingrossings of the blessed Spirit have I fear given growth to conceits well near as dangerous That the Spirit doth not spirare breath grace into us That we need not call upon him That the Text which telleth us the holy Ghost leadeth is the holy Ghost that leadeth us That the Letter is the Spirit and the Spirit the Letter an adulterate piece new coyned an old heresie brought in a new dress and tire upon the stage again That he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strange unheard of Deity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. Orat 37. Quis vetâ—rum vel recentium adoravit Spiritum quis or avit c. Sic Macedoniani Eunomiani Ibid. an ascriptitious and supernumerary God I might say more dangerous For to confess the Spirit and abuse him to draw him on as an accessory and
the holy Saints do ever take them Did I say it was the language of men It is the language of the two daughters of the Horsleach Prov. 30.14 15. of Covetousness and Ambition Give Give alwaies taking in never emptying themselves It is the dialect of that generation whose teeth are swords and their jawteeth as knives to devour the poor of the earth It is the voice of Luxury and Riot which must be fed as Devils are Sanguis Daemonis pabulum Tertull. Apol. c. 22. Rev. 9.11 lib. Off. 1. with the bloud of others who like that Behemoth can drink up rivers of bloud It is the language of the Devil himself who is no helper but a Destroyer The language of Nature is more mild and gentle Misericordiâ nihil est naturae hominis accommodatius saith Tully There is nothing more suitable with the nature of Man then Mercy and a desire to do good to others For when thou seest a man thou beholdest thy self as in a glass In him thou beholdest thy self now chearful and anon drooping now standing and anon sinking now in purple and anon naked now full and anon hungry Thou seest thy self in the weakness in the mutability in the mortality of thy condition and his present necessities are not onely a lesson and an argument which plainly demonstrate to thy very eye what thou or any other man may be but withall a silent and powerful appeal to thy Mercy a secret beseeching thee I might say a legal requiring thee to do unto him as thou wouldst be done to in the like case which thou art as liable to as he to be of the same mind now which thou wilt be certainly of when with this Lazar thou lyest at the gates of another But if this light of Nature be not bright enough Errat olim istae sententia Ne mo aliis nascitur meriturus sibi Tert de pall c. 5. 1 Cor 12 26. yet by the light of Scripture by the light of the Gospel we may easily discern the truth of this parallel For the Servant of God the true Christian is born again not for himself alone but for all those who are parts of the same building and members of the same body If one member suffer all the members suffer with it And this maketh not onely all the riches but withall all the miseries all the necessities all the afflictions of our brethren ours And what a celestial Harmony doth Mercy make which putteth those who are at liberty in bonds with the prisoners which makeeth the rich lye down with the poor the strong simpathize with the weak What Harmony is that which riseth out of such discords when the joyful heart weepeth with them that weep Rom. 12.15 16. and the sorrowful Spirit rejoyceth with them that rejoyce when all men are of the same mind one with another the rich naked with the poor and the poor abounding with the rich the whole Church imprisoned in one man and every man comforting his bondage with the peace and prosperity of the whole This is an harmony indeed But I fear I may say it is like the harmony of the Sphears which was never heard or at the least we have more reason then we would to believe that there is scarce any such Musick in our dayes But thus it should be and this Musick Mercy doth make I know the waies of God are past finding out Rom. 11.33 and the reasons of his judgement saith Basil are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Jewels fit to be hid and reserved in the treasuries of God alone and are understood onely by that Wisdome which sendeth them abroad Yet if you ask why one is born a servant and another free why one grindeth at the mill and another fitteth on the throne why one lyeth at the gates whilest another feasteth in his palace I may with confidence give you this reason for one This God doth to exercise the patience and humility of the one and to stir up and awake the mercy of the other The rich and poor meet together Prov. 22.2 the Lord is the maker of them both saith Solomon not that his immediate hand made them rich and poor poured down with his left hand riches into the bosome of the one and withdrew it from the other and so left him naked For this is not manifest God forbid that we should have such a conceit of God that he should fill the usurers bags or enlarge the territories of the wicked Nor can we say that every poor man was predestinated to beggery nor make it good that God hath thus discerned and distinguished them for we know Luxury and Idleness cloatheth many with rags and Industry gathereth much and Craft and Power more But God is the maker of them both They were both the work of his hands and from his hands they were the same though now the fashion of the world hath brought in a disparity between them And God saith the Father did make both poor and rich ut in pauperibus divitum misericordiam probaret that he might make the want of the poor as a touchstone to try the mercy of the rich For no doubt he could send the Ravens to feed them he could send Angels to feed them he could let down all manner of flesh in a sheet as he did to Peter his Providence is never at a stand Acts 10. but can find out waies which we cannot think of But Christ hath so ordered it that though we cannot have him John â—2 8 yet the poor and miserable we shall alwaies have with us ut locupletem aliena inopia ditaret that what all the world cannot anothers poverty may do that is enrich and bless us Et tu neminem praetereas nè is quem praeteris Christus sit And let thy mercy saith Augustine pass by none lest it pass by Christ himself This he put into the Covenant which he made with us when he was on the earth and sealed it with his blood and now he looketh that we should make it good and to that end presenteth and offereth himself unto us in these and even boweth before us to the end of the world And certainly it is strange that we should thus stand out with him and deny him that which is his by Covenant that we should lock up all from him who opened his heart and let out his blood for us But so it is The vice we delight in maketh that virtue which is contrary to it a punishment and when we love the world to give an almes is as irksome and grievous to us as to pay a forfeiture Liberality is a penalty and therefore we use all means but pay down nothing but excuses to take it off Mercy is no thriving virtue but seemeth to come upon us as a thief and a robber to strip and spoil us and to make us like unto them whom she bindeth us to relieve and therefore we shut her up in a
it self and vvill meet and cope vvith him though he cometh towards us on his pale horse vvith all his pomp and terrour Love saith a devout Writer is a Philosopher and can discover the nature and qualities the malignity and weakness of those evils which are set up to shake our constancy and strike us from that rock on which we are founded Who is a God like unto our God saith David What can be like to that we love what can be equal to it If our hearts be set on the Truth to it the whole World is not worth a thought Nullum spectac lum â—incâ—â—cussione spiritus Tert. de Spect. c. 15. nor can that shop of vanities shew forth any thing that can shake a soul or make the passions turbulent and unruly that can draw a tear or force a smile that can deject the soul with sorrow or make it mad with joy that can raise an Anger or strike a Fear or set a Desire on the wing Every object is dull and dead and hath nothing of temptation in it For to love the Truth is all in all and it bespeaketh the World as S. Paul did the Grave Where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15.55 Rom. 8 35-39 Nor height nor depth can separate us from that we love Love is a Sophister able to answer every argument wave every subtilty and defeat the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his wiles and crafty enterprizes Nay Love is a Magician and can conjure down all the terrours and noyse of Persecution which are those evil Spirits that amaze and cow us Love can rowse and quicken our drooping and fainting spirits Heb. 12.12 and strengthen the most feeble knees and the hands that hang down If we love the Truth if Truth be the antecedent the consequent is most natural and necessary and it cannot but follow That therefore we will when there is reason lay down our lives for it For again what is said of Faith is true of Love It purifieth the conscience and when that is clean and pure the soul is in perfect health chearful and active full of courage either to do or suffer ready for that disgrace which bringeth honour for that smart which begetteth joy for that wound which shall heal for that death which is a gate opened to eternity ready to go out and joyn with that peace which a good conscience which is her Angelus custos her Angel to keep her in all her wayes hath sealed and assured unto her A good conscience is the foundation of that bliss which the noble army of Martyrs now enjoy But if in our whole course we have not hearkened to her voice when she bid us do this but have done the contrary if in our ruff and jollity we have thus slghted and baffled her it is not probable that we shall suffer for her sake but we shall willingly nay hastily throw her off and renounce her when to part with her is to escape the evil that we most fear and avoid the blow that is coming towards us We shall soon let go that which we hold but for fashions sake which we fight against while we defend it and which we tread under foot even then when we exalt it which hath no more credit with us then what our parents our education the voice of the people and the multitude of professours have even forced upon us If the Truth have no more power over us if we have no more love for the Truth but this which hath nothing but the name of Love and is indeed the contrary if we bless it with our tongue and fight against it with our lusts if at once we embrace and stifle it then we are Ishmaels and not Isaacs And can an Ishmael in the twinkling of an eye be made an Isaac I will not say it is impossible but it carrieth but little shew of probability and if it be ever done it is not to be brought in censum ordinariorum it falleth not out in the ordinary course that is set but is to be looked upon as a miracle which is not wrought every day but at certain times and upon some important occasion and to some especial end For it is very rare and unusual that Conscience should be quiet and silent so long and then on the sudden be as the mighty voice of God that it should lie hid so long and then come forth and work a miracle Keep faith saith S. Paul and a good conscience 1 Tim. 1.19 which some having put away concerning faith have made ship-wrack Faith will be lost in the wayes and floods of this present world if a good Conscience be not kept If then thou wilt stand up against Ishmael be sure to be an Isaac a child of promise and an heir to the faith of Abraham If thou wilt be secure from the flesh be renewed in the spirit If thou wilt be fit to take up the cross first crucifie thy self thy lusts and affections This is all the preparation that is required which every one that is born after the spirit doth make And there needeeh no more For he that is thus fitted to follow Christ in the regeneration against the Ishmaelites of this world is well qualified and will not be afraid to meet him in the clouds and in the air when he shall come in terrour to judge both the quick and the dead And now to conclude What saith the Scripture Cast out the bond woman and her son Gen 21.14 for the son of the bond woman shall not inherit with the son of the free-woman It is true Ishmael was cast out into the wilderness of Beersheba Advers Judaeos c. 13. Apolog 21. And the Jew is cast out ejectus saith Tertullian coeli soli extorris cast out of Jerusalem scattered and dispersed over the face of the earth and made a proverb of obstinate Impietiy so that when we call a man a Jew putamus sufficere convitium we think we have railed loud enough But now how shall the Church cast out those of her own bowels of her house and family And such enemies she may have which hang upon her breasts called by the same Word sealed with the same Sacraments and challenging a part in the same common salvation To cast out is an act of violence and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part But yet she may cast them out and that with violence but then it is with the same violence we take the kingdome of heaven Matth. 11.12 a violence upon our selves 1. By laying our selves prostrate by the vehemency of our devotion by our frequent prayers that God would either melt their hearts or shorten their hands either bring them into the right way Matth. 17 21. or strike off their chariot wheels For this kind of spirit these malignant spirits cannot be cast out but by prayer and fasting which is energetical and prevalent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Eusebius a most
118. a fable is more welcome then the oracles of God blandior auri species quà m hominis aut coeli aut lucis a piece of gold is a more glorious sight then Man the image of his Maker or the Heaven wherein he dwelleth or the Light it self So true is that of the Oratour Quintil. l. 10. c. 3. Aliud agere mentem cogunt oculi By this means the Eye diverteth the Mind of man from its proper work that it cannot attend and busie it self to discern betwixt good and evil and so watch and stand upon its guard I called tentations not onely Occasions but also Arguments but such Arguments which as I told you conclude not which beget not knowledge but opinion and prevail not with wise men but with fools who commonly for want of circumspection entertein and swallow down uncertain things for those which are certain and that which is doubtful for that which is true They who have wisdome for their guide judge of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Sophist Elench c. 12. according as they are in themselves according to the truth attempt nothing do nothing upon opinion or a bare appearance but before they make choice do weigh and examin the object But uncautelous and unadvised men do but see and presently imbrace that which is most deformed in it self and hath nothing to commend it self to them but the fucus and paint which themselves have laid on Good God how friendly and familiar are we with that which pleaseth the Eye and Phansy Magna ista quia parvi sumus credimus Sen. Praef. ad N. Q. before the Reason hath lookt upon it Take all the sins which we commit what better ground or foundation have they on which they rise to that visible height then false opinion Our Ambition soareth and mounteth aloft with this thought as with a wing That Honour will make us as Gods Our Covetousness diggeth and sweateth with this assurance That Riches are the best friend Our Revenge is furious and bloody because we think that to suffer is cowardise We run after evil and study for a curse for some glimpse or shew it hath of some great blessing We doat on the earth which is fading and whose fashion passeth away for some resemblance we think it hath to Heaven and Eternity Et inanibus phantasmatibus tanquam dictis epulis reficimur Aug. de ver◠Relig. c. 51. These vain imaginations these dreams of happiness are but as a painted banquet For as junkets in a picture may delight the eye but not fill the stomach so do these sudden and weak conceptions tickle and please the phansie perhaps but bring leanness into the Soul and leave it empty and poor And no marvail For when the Sense is thus pleased when the Phansie hath sported and plaid with that which delighted the Sense the Affections grow unruly and Reason is swallowed up in victory so that God seemeth to be the enemy and the Devil a friend bringing good news unto us and speaking pleasing things to us such as are Musick to our ears whereas God seemeth to come in thunder with terrour and command to drive us to our watch providing a knife for our throat shutting up the eye cutting off the right hand muzling up the mouth that it speak no guile writing sad characters upon that which our Sense and Phansie had painted and drest up as Touch not Tast not Col. 2.21 Handle not Now that temptations work thus by the Sense and enter and make their passage into the inward man is evident not onely in those grosser sins which turn the very soul it self into flesh nam victa anima libidine fit Caro saith the Father When the soul is polluted with lust it loseth its spirituality and is transubstantiated as it were into flesh but is seen also in those which are more retired and inward to the Soul not onely in the practice of our life but also in the errours of our doctrine And on this ground S. Paul putteth Heresies into his black catalogue and numbreth them amongst the works of the Flesh Gal. 5.19 20. And if we look upon those who are the authours and somenters of Errour we shall find that they wilfully shut their eyes and ears against the truth which offereth it self and bespeaketh them with arguments and reasons undenyable and decline to Falshood by leaning rather to that which is convenient then to that which is true hearkening more to earthly and sensual motives then to the voice of God which calleth them This is the way Honour and Riches and Love of this world make up that body of Divinity which must be a Directory for them to walk by The eye readeth the Text and the eye letteth in the interpretation For the love of that I delight in is urgent with me and perswadeth me to understand it so as it may savour and countenance that love Thus do tentations both to sin and Errour creep in at these doors and inlets of the Senses and like thieves steal in by night coloured over with the pleasures and clouded with the pomp of the world and so find easie admittance and steal away the Truth and Love of God out of our hearts whilest we sleep And if a fair temptation do not make entrance with a smile a bitter and grievous Temptation may force a passage with its horrour For thus according to their divers and several aspects they work both upon the Irascible and Concupiscible power If an enemy be loud against us we have a tempest within us If Jacob hath the blessing Esau hateth him At the sight of Beauty if I take not heed my Love beginneth to kindle at the next look it flameth The approch of danger striketh me with fear nay a shadow and representation will do it I may take a promontory for a navy and a field of thistles for a body of pikes Not onely that which is true but even that which is feigned that which is but colour which is but found which is but a superficies but an apparition but a shadow being carelesly let in and enterteined may rayse this tumult and sedition in the Soul A fair promising temptation cometh upon parley and treaty and conditions insinuateth and winneth upon us with its smiles and flatteries but a fearful and boysterous temptation playeth upon us with all its artillery with smart and shame and poverty and imprisonment and death maketh forward with a kind of force and violence Tull. Offic. 1. tumultuantes de gradu dejicit overthroweth us with some noise And as the Senses convey the tentations so do the Affections if we do not watch and suppress them make sensible alterations in the heart and make themselves visible to the very Eye Profectò saith Pliny Ardent intenduntur humectant connivent hinc illae misericordiae lacrymae Plin. Nat. H. l. 11. c. 37. Eccl. 13.21 in oculis animus inhabitat The mind dwelleth in the Eye
Faith so is Faith the foundation of an holy Conversation In this we edifie our selves and in this we sustain and uphold others In this we stand and in this we raise up others From Faith are the issues of life from Faith as from a fountain flow those waters of comfort which refresh the widow and the fatherless and that water of separation which purifieth us Numb 31.23 and keepeth us unspotted and white as snow But our Apostle mentioneth none of these and I will give you some reason at least a fair conjecture why he doth not First here where S. James telleth us what pure Religion is he doth not so much as name Faith For indeed Faith is the ground of the whole draught and portrayture of Religion and as we observe in it in pictures it is in shadow not exprest but yet seen It is supposed by the Apostle writing not to Infidels but to those who had already given up their names to Christ Faith is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematicks which Tully calleth initia Mathematicorum beginnings and principles which if we grant not we can make no progress in that science S. Paul calleth Faith a principle of the doctrine of Christ Heb. 6.1 And what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto Christians which they had already embraced to direct them in that wherein they were perfect to urge that which they could not deny not deny nay of which they made their boast all the day long No S. James is for Ostende mihi He doth not once doubt of their faith but is very earnest to force it out that it may shew it self by works Then Faith is a star when it streameth out light and its beams are the works of charity Then Faith is a ship when pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it 1 Tim 1 19. that it dash not on a rock and be split Then Faith is the soul of the soul when by its quickning and enlivening power we run the wayes of Christs commandments Purè credunt pure ergo vivant pure ergo loquantur saith the Father Their belief is right therefore let their conversation be sincere No other conclusion can naturally be deduced from Faith and of it self it can yield no other And this it will yield if you do not in a manner destroy it and spoil it of its power and efficacy For what an inconsequence is this I believe that Christ hath taught me to be merciful Luk. 6 36. 1 Tim. 4.8 as my heavenly Father is merciful that Charity hath the promise of the world to come Therefore I will shut up my bowels This I am sure is one part of our belief if it be not our Creed is most imperfect and yet such practical conclusions do our Avarice and Luxury draw Our Faith is spread about the world but our Charity is a candle under a bushel O the great errour and folly of this our age which can shew us multitudes of men and women who as the Apostle speaketh are ever learning 2 Tim. 3.7 and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth who have conned their Creed by heart but have little skill or forgot the skill they have in the royal Law who cry up Faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord Jer. 4.7 Ch. 2. v. 17 20 26. and are very zealous for it yet suffer it to decay and waste till it be dead as my Apostle speaketh eat out the very heart of it by a careless and profane conversation as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple which they so much adored And this may be a second reason why S. James mentioneth not Faith in his character of Religion The power and efficacy of Faith having been every where preached-up men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts with the contemplation of that fundamental virtue that they left no room for other virtues not so efficacious indeed to justifie a sinner yet as necessary as Faith it self they did commend and extoll the power of Faith when it had no power at all in them nay which is the most fatal miscarriage of all they did make Faith an occasion through which sin revived which should have destroyed in them the whole body of sin Rom. 6.6 it being common to men at last to fix and settle their minds upon that object which hath been most often presented to them as the countrey peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome began at last to think there was no other city but that If we look forward to the second chapter of this Epistle we shall think this more then a conjecture For there the Apostle seemeth to take away from Faith its attribute of saving Can faith save a man What an Heretick what a Papist would he be that should but put up this question in these our dayes wherein the SOLA JVSTIFICAT hath left Faith alone in the work of our salvation and yet the Question may be put up and the Resolve on the negative may be true Faith cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith and hath not works Thus though S. James dispute indeed against Simon the Sorcerer and others as we may gather out of Irenaeus yet in appearance he levelleth his discourse against Paul the Apostle For Not by works but by faith saith S. Paul Not by faith but by works saith S. James and yet both are true the one speaking to the Jews who were all for the Law the other to those Christians who were all for Faith To these who had buried all thought of Good works in the pleasing but deceitful contemplation of Faith our Apostle speaketh no other language but Do this and exalteth Charity to the higher place that their vain boasting of Faith might not be heard For Faith saith he hath no tongue nay nor life without her And thus in appearrance he taketh from the one to establish the other and setteth up a throne for Charity not without some shew and semblance of prejudice to Faith For last of all to give you one reason more Faith indeed is naturally productive of Good works For what madness is it to see the way to eternity of bliss and not to walk in it Each article of our Creed pointeth as with a finger to some virtue to be wrought in the mind and published in the outward man If I believe that Christ is God it will follow I must worship him If he died for sin the consequenee is plain enough We must die to it If he so loved us the Apostle concludeth We must love one another Charity is the proper effect of Faith and upon Faith and Charity we build up our Hope If we believe the promises and perform the conditions if we believe him that loved us and love him and keep his commandments we are in heaven already But yet we may observe that the
heart Take that Zeal which consumeth not our selves but others about us this fire is not from Heaven nor was it kindled by the Father of lights That hand which is so ready to take a brother by the throat was never guided by the Authour of our Religion who is our Father That tongue which is full of bitterness and reviling Isa 6.7 James 3.6 was never toucht by a Seraphin but set on fire of hell These are not Religions before God and the Father But this Religion TO DO GOOD and TO ABSTAIN FROM EVIL ex alto originem ducit acknowledgeth no Authour but the God of heaven hath God and the Father to bear witness to it was taught by the Prophets thundred out by the Apostles and by Christ himself who is the Authour and Finisher of our Faith and Religion Hebr. 12.2 This may serve first to make us in love with this Religion because it hath such a Founder as God the Father who is wisdome it self and can neither be deceived nor deceive us Men and brethren Acts 13.26 whosoever among you feareth God to you is this word of salvation sent sent to you from Heaven from God and the Father In other things you are very curious and ever desire to receive them from the best hands What a present is a picture of Apelles making or a statue of Lysippus Not the watch you wear but you would have it from the best artificer And shall our Curiosity spend it self on vanities and leave us careless and indifferent in the choice of that which must make our way to eternity of bliss Shall we make darkness our pavilion round about us and please our selves in errour when Heaven boweth and openeth it self to receive us Shall we worship our own imaginations and not hearken what God and the Father shall say What a shame is it when God from heaven pointeth with his finger to the rule HAEC EST This is it that we should frame a Religion to our selves that every mans phansie and humour or which is the height of impiety every mans sin should be his Lawgiver that when there can be but one there should be so many Religions arbitrary Religions such as we are pleased to have because they smile upon us and flatter and bolster up our irregular desires a hearing Religion and a talking Religion and a trading Religion a Religion that shall visit the widow and orphan but rather to devour then refresh them Behold and look no farther God the Father hath made a Religion which is pure and undefiled to our hands Therefore as Seneca counselleth Palybius when thou wouldst forget all other things cogita Caesarem entertain Caesar in thy thoughts so that we may forget all other sublunary and worldly I may say Hellish Religions let us think of this Religion whose Authour and Founder is God whose wisdome is infinite whose power uncontrollable whose authority unquestionable For talk what we will of authority the authority of Man is like himself and can but binde the man and that the frailest and earthliest part of him onely God is Rex mentium the King of our minds and no authority in heaven or on earth can binde or loose a Soul but his who first breathed it into man Come then let us worship and fall down before God the Father the Maker both of us and of our Religion Again if S. James be canonical and authentick if this be true Religion then it will make up an answer sufficient to stop the mouth of those of the Romish party who are very busie to demand at our hands a catalogue of Fundamentals and where our Church was before the dayes of Reformation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Proverb These and such like questions they put up unto us as Archytas did his rattles into childrens hands to keep them from doing mischief that being busie and taken up with these we may have less leisure to pull down the idoles of Rome or discover her shame Do they ask what truths are fundamental Faith supposed as it is Here they are Charity to our selves and others Nihil ultrà scire est omnia scire To know this Tert. De prascript is to know all we need to know For is it not sufficient to know that which is sufficient to make us happy But if nothing will satisfie them but a catalogue of particulars They have Moses and the Prophets they have the Apostles Luke 16.29 and if they find their Fundamentals not there in vain shall they seek for them at our hands They may if they please seek them there and then number them out as they do their Prayers by beads and present them by tale But if they will yet know what is fundamental in our conceit and what not they may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draw out with both hands For first let them observe what points they are in which we agree with their Church and if they be in Scriptu e let them set them down if they please as fundamental in our account And on the other hand let them mark in what points we refuse Communion with them and they cannot but think that we esteem those points for no Fundamentals And again do they who measure Religion rather by the pomp and state it carrieth with it then the power and majesty of the Authour whose command alone made it Religion ask us where our Religion was in the dayes before there was a withdrawing from the Communion with that Church we may answer It was here in the Text. For HAEC EST this is it And if they further question us where it was professed we need give no other reply then this It was professed where it was professed If it were not professed in any place yet was it true Religion For the Truth dependeth not on the profession of it nor is it less truth if none receive it But professed it was even amongst them in the midst of them round about them But wheresoever it were this was it This was true Religion before God and the Father To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep our selves unspotted from the world To conclude then Men and Brethren are these things so Is this onely true Religion To do good and to abstain from evil What a busie noise then doth the world make for Religion when it offereth it self and falleth so low offereth it self to the meanest understanding the narrowest capacity and throweth it self into the embraces of any that will love it Littus Hyla Hyla omne sonabat Religion is the talk of the whole world it is preached on the house-tops and cryed up in the streets we are loud for it and smother it in that noise we write for it and leave it dead in that letter to be found no where but in our books we fight for it and it is drowned in the blood that is spilt and S. James's that is Christ's Religion is
we now speak of a thousand a million a world of men are with him but as one man When the Lord Chief Justice of Heaven and Earth shall sit to do judgement upon sinners what Caligula once wantonly wished to the people of Rome all the world before him have but as it were one neck and if it please him by that jus pleni dominii by that full power and dominion he hath over his creature he may as he welnear did in the Deluge strike it off at a blow His judgements are past finding out and therefore not to be questioned A Platone dicitur Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Plutarch Quaest. convival l. 8. q. c. He is the great Geometrician of the World which made all things in number weight and measure and doth infinitely surpass all humane inventions whatsoever and therefore we cannot do him less honour then Hiero King of Sicily did to Archimedes the great Mathematician When he saw the engines he made and the marvellous effects they did produce he caused it to be proclaimed that whatsoever Archimedes did after affirm how improbable soever it might seem yet should not once be called into question but be received and entertained as a truth Let the course of things be carried on as it will let Death pass over the door of the Egyptian and smite the Israelite let God's Thunder miss the house of Dagon and shiver his own Tabernacle yet God is just and true and every man a liar that dareth but ask the question Why doth God this Look over the book of Job and you shall see how Job and his Friends are tost up and down on this great deep For it being put to the question why Job was so fearfully handled his Friends ground themselves upon this conclusion That all affliction is for sin and so lay folly and hypocrisie to his charge and tell him roundly that the judgments of God had now found him out though he had been a close irregular and with some art and cunning hid himself from the eye of the World But Job on the contrary as stoutly pleadeth and defendeth his innocency his justice his liberality and could not attain to the sight of the cause for which Gods hand was so heavy on him Why should his Friends urge him any more Job 19.22 or persecute him as God They dispute in vain Job 21.34 for in their answers he seeth nothing but lies At last when the controversie could have no issue Deus è machina God himself cometh down from heaven and by asking one question putteth an end to the rest Job 38.2 Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge He condemneth Job and his Friends of ignorance and weakness in that they made so bold and dangerous an attempt as to seek out a cause or call God's judgments into question 2. Because this is a point which may seem worthy to be insisted upon for it hath well-nigh troubled the whole world to see the righteous and wicked tyed together in the same chain and speeding alike in general and oecumenical plagues that Mans reason may not take offense and be scandalized we will give you some reasons why God should hold so unrespective a hand First good reason it is that they who partake in the sin should partake also in the punishment Now though in great and crying sins the righteous partake not with the wicked yet in smaller they evermore concur For who is he amongst the sons of men that can presume himself free from these kind of sins And then if the wages of the smallest sin can be no less then death and eternal torment we have no cause to complain if God use his rod who might strike with the sword if he chastise us on earth who might thrust us into hell This is enough to clear God from all injustice For who can complain of temporal who doth justly deserve eternal pains Or why should they be severed in the penalty who are joyned together in the cause But further yet what though the fault of the one be much the less yet it will not therefore follow if we rightly examine it that the punishment should be the less For though it may seem a paradox which I shall speak unto you yet it will stand with very good reason that great cause many times there may be why the smaller sin should be amerced and fined with the greater punishment In the Penitential Canons he that killeth his mother is enjoynd ten years penance but he that killeth his wife is enjoynd far more And the reason is immediately given not because this is the greater sin but because men are commonly more apt to fall into the sin of murdering their wives then their mothers It is true the reason is larger then the instance and it teacheth us thus much That in appointing the mulct for sin men ought not onely to consider the greatness of it but the aptness of men to fall into it For that of St. Augustine is most true Tantò crebriora quantò minora Because they are the less men presume the oftner to commit them And therefore it may seem good wisdome when ordinary punishment will not serve to redress sins to enhance and improve their penalty We read in our books that there was a Law in Rome that he who gave a man a box on the ear was to pay the sum of twelve pence of our money And Aulus Gellius doth tell us that there was a loose but a rich man who being disposed to abuse the Law was wont to walk the streets with a purse of money and still as he met any man he would give him a box on the ear and then twelve pence Now to repress the insolence of such a fellow there was no way but to encrease the value of the mulct Which course the God of heaven and earth may seem to take with us when his ordinary and moderate punishments will not serve to restrain us from falling into smaller sins He sharpneth the penalty that at last we may learn to account no sin little which is committed against an infinite Majesty and not make the gentleness of the Law an occasion of sin And to this end he coupleth both good and bad in those general plagues which by his providence do befall the world He speaketh evil he doth evil to whole Nations amongst whom notwithstanding some righteous persons are Ah sinful nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers Isa 1.4 10. princes of Sodom people of Gomorrah these are the names by which he stileth the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem amongst whom we cannot doubt but there were many good though no other yet certainly Isaiah the Prophet who spake these words And as he giveth them all one name without regard of difference so he maketh them all good and bad to drink alike of one cup of captivity though no doubt many of great uprightness though
by quickning and enlivening our Faith Eph. 3.17 He dwelleth in our hearts by faith so that we are rooted and grounded in love We read of a dead faith Jam. 2.20 a faith vvhich moveth no more in the vvayes of righteousness then a dead man sealed up in his grave And if the Son of man should come he would find enough of this faith in the World From hence from this that our Faith is not enlivened that the Gospel is not throughly believed but faintly received cum formidine contrarii vvith a fear or rather a hope that the contrary is true from hence proceed all the errours of our lives From hence ariseth that irregularity those contradictions and inconsequences in the lives of men even from hence that we have Faith but so as we should have the World We have it as if vve had it not 1 Cor. 7. and so use it as if we used it not or vvhich is vvorse abuse it Not believe and be saved but believe and be damned And we are vain men James 2.20 saith S. James if we think otherwise if we think that a dead faith can work any thing or any thing but death But when it is quickned and made a working faith vvhen Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith then it worketh wonders We read of its valour that it subdueth kingdoms Hebr. 11.23 and stoppeth the mouthes of lions We read of its policy 2 Cor. 2.11 that it discovereth the Devils enterprises or devises We read of its medicinal virtue Acts 15.9 that it purifieth the heart We read too furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of Faith It stealeth virtue from Christ Matth. 9.20 21. and taketh heaven by violence Yea such a wonderful power it hath in that soul in which Christ dwelleth 11.12 that it vvorketh out our corruption and stampeth his image upon us It vvorketh in us the obedience of faith Rom. 1.5 that is that obedience which is due to Faith and to which Faith naturally tendeth and to which it would bring us if we did not dull and dead and hinder it Christ first worketh in us a universal and equal obedience For if he dwell in us every room is his There are saith Parisiensis particulares voluntates particular wills or rather particular inclinations and dispositions to this virtue and not to another as to be liberal but not temperate to be sober but not chast to fast and hear and pray but not to do acts of mercy These are virtues but in appearance they proceed from rotten and unsound principles from a false spring but not from Christ And so they make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite a good speaker Duos in uno homine Syllas fuisse crediderit Valerius Max. l. 6. c. 9. and a bad liver a Jew and a Christian an Herode and a John Baptist a Zelote a Phinehas and an Adulterer and as the Historian said two Sylla's in one man like a Play-book and a Sermon bound up together But these I told you are not true virtues but proceed many times from the same principles which vices do for I may be a Hypocrite and a man of Belial for the same end But where Christ dwelleth he purgeth the whole house not one but every faculty of the soul that is the whole man as he raised not a part but all Lazarus For if any part yet favour of rottenness and corruption we cannot say that Lazarus is risen He worketh I say an universal and equal obedience in every respect answering to the command and working of Christ as a Circle doth in every part look upon the point or Centre Secondly Christ worketh in us an even and constant obedience The Apostle calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 2.5 the firmity and stedfastness of our faith in Christ. The Philosopher well observeth that the Affections do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. Ethic. c. 1. 5. lightly move us raise some motion in the minde trouble us and vanish so that one affection many times driveth out another as Amnon did Tamar our Love ending in Hatred our sorrow in Anger and our Fear in Joy But from Virtue we are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be strongly disposed to be confirmed and established in our actions So the reason of that unevenness instability and inconstancy in the conversation of men that they are now loud in their Hosanna and anon as loud in their Crucifige now in Abrahams bosom and anon into Dalilah's lap now fighting anon cursing now very Seraphical and anon wallowing in the mire is from this That they have no other motive no other principle then peradventure some private respect or a weak impression of some good lesson they have lately heard and some faint radiations from the truth and therefore they can rise no higher then the Fountain and will soon run out with it Now it is not so with the true Christian in whom Christ dwelleth He moveth with the Sun which never starteth out of his sphere he hath Christ living in him and the power of the Gospel assisting him in every motion and so cannot have these qualms of devotion these waverings this unevenness these Cadi-surgia Ephr. Sytus as the Father calleth them these risings and fallings these marches and halts these proffers and relapses because Christ is living in him 1 John 3.9 1 Pet. 1.5 because the seed of God abideth in him and he is kept by this power of Christ unto salvation Thirdly Christ worketh a sincere and real obedience in that heart in which he dwelleth And this is proper to the true Christian For the actions of an hypocrite are not natural but artificial not like unto the actions of a living soul but like unto the motions of that artificial body which Albertus made not proceeding from any life but forced as it were by certain wheels and engines by Love of a good name by Fear of smart or Hope to bring their purposes about Thus many times the Hypocrite walketh to his end in the habit of a Saint when no other appearance will serve But where Christ dwelleth there is his Spirit and where his Spirit is there is truth and he fashioneth and shapeth out our affections to the things themselves and maketh them such as so fair an object requireth As his promises so our affections are Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1 20. As his reward is real so is our love to it real As the Gospel and Heaven and Christ is true so are our affections towards them hearty and sincere true as he is true and faithful as he is faithful So then to conclude this Christ dwelleth in every true Christian not as a contracted or divided Christ as the antient Hereticks made him but as the Apostle speaketh fully and plentifully Secondly he dwelleth in him as Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever not as Baal Hebr. 13.8 1 Kings 18.27
pulled to pieces and our Affections plucked up by the roots that our Love is annihilated our Anger destroyed our Zeal quenched By my Turn I am not dissolved but better built I have new Affections and yet the same now dead and impotent to evil but vigorous and active in good My steps are altered not my feet my Affections cut off The character is changed but not the book That Sorrow which covered my face for the loss of my friend is now a thicker and darker cloud about it because of my sin That Hope which stooped so low as the earth as the mortal and fading vanities of the world is now on the wing raising it self as high as heaven That Zeal which drove S. Paul upon the very pricks to persecute the Church did after lead him to the block to be crowned with Martyrdome If the Will be turned that is captivated and subdued to that Will of God which is the rule of all our actions it becometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a shop and work-house of virtuous and religious actions and the Understanding and Affections are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellow workers with it ready to forward and compleat the Turn S. Bernard telleth us that nothing doth burn in hell but the Will and it is as true Nothing doth reign in heaven but the Will In it are the wells of salvation and in it are the waters of bitterness in it is Tophet Hom. 8. and in it is Paradise Totum habet qui bonam habet voluntatem saith Augustine He hath run through all the hardship and exercises of Repentance who hath not changed his Opinion or improved his Knowledge but altered his Will For the Turn of the Will supposeth the rest but the rest do not necessitate this When this is wrought all is done that is the Soul is enlightened purged renewed hath its Regeneration and new creation In a word when the Will is turned the Soul is saved the Old man is a New creature and this New creature changeth no more but holdeth up the Turn till he be turned to dust and raysed again and then made like unto the Angels The Seventeenth SERMON PART II. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes c. THis Turn is a Turn of the whole man of the Understanding of the Affections yea of the Senses of the Eye of the Ear from vanity of the Tast from forbidden fruit of the Touch from that which it must not handle a Turn of the outward man as well as the inward of the deportment and behaviour of every motion and gesture but the principal and main Turn is of the Will from that which is not worth a look or a thought to that which is desirable in it self and doth alone perfect and in a manner glorifie it in its approximation to and union with the Will of God We may say of it as Tertullian doth of the Soul it self It is Totum hominis toto homine majus quid De Testim animae c. 1. It is as the whole man and something greater then the whole It is like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. James James 3.4 the rudder and helm by which all the other powers and faculties of the soul and every member of the body are turned about when they are driven as it were of fierce winds and which bindeth them to those objects for which they were especially made and in which they may rest as in a haven This is the true Turn But this it self hath been turned the Convertimini hath been turned about by the wind of several phansies Take Origen's conceit That all things shall return back into God as all things flowed from him at the first and then this Turn may seem to reach home to the very Devils themselves Take the Novatian strictness and severity and it will not reach so far as Men. Some we see stand much upon an outward visible Turn upon the ceremony and pomp of Repentance and so have turned and changed that name and called it Penance Others have brought in cervam pro Iphigenia a beast instead of a virgin the turn of an erring soul that will erre more and more or rather exsanguem poenitentiam an invisible Turn or a Turn in a picture a forced sigh a seeming displacency open or private Confession a very thought for Repentance Some again extend Repentance ad praeterita and make it reflect onely upon sins past and so leave us in the very point of turning turning from our evil wayes but not unto God which is an act they say not of Repentance but of spiritual Wisdome This is tuditare negotia in Lucretius his phrase to beat out work where there is none and to make a business and noise where they need not For what Turn is that which leaveth us where we were What Repentance is that for which we are not the better Can we say the evil man is changed that is not good or the angry man changed who is not meek or the proud changed Rom. 12.16 who will not make themselves equal to them of the lowest degree But thus the Convertimini hath been turned about from the streets to the Temple from the Temple to the closet from confession to a sigh from the eye and tongue to the heart from the heart to the eye and tongue and almost lost in the dispute Repentance is brought forth and presented now in this dress now in that you might think she were turned wanton but few entertain her in her own shape in that matrone-like deportment and severity which alwaies attendeth her Or if they admit her with a whip it is such a one as ploweth the back but not toucheth the soul The doctrine of Repentance hath filled many volumes but the true practice of it may be comprized in a manual And yet to settle the Turn upon its proper hinge that it may turn to the rights as we say In this great disagreement every party speaketh some truth and for ought appeareth may subscribe one to the other The Turn is safe amongst them for that none deny Must I confess my sins The Protestant affirmeth it Must I renounce my sins The Papist dareth not deny it Must I leave my sins It is true but it is not enough to make up the Turn for I may forbear the act and yet cleave to the sin I may be an adulterer and not touch a woman and remain in the stews when I am gone out of it 1 Cor. 9.27 Must I beat down my body and fast and pray and for a time deny my self that which is lawful and which the Giver of every good gift hath put into my hands This is a Penance which the Protestant will allow Gal. 5.24 And must I crucifie my lusts and unruly affections This soundeth as loud and is as much cryed up at Rome as at Geneva Publick Repentance hath the advantage of Antiquity whose practice some have thought
to raise thee from thy grave this sepulchre of rotten bones and baneful imaginations that thou mayest walk before him in the land of the living to beget Repentance and to beget Hope Hebr. 2.18 to pity us in our tentations who was sensible of his own and to drive Despair from off the face of the earth For why should the name of a Saviour and Despair be heard of in the same coasts If it breathe within the curtains of the Church it is not Christ but the Devil and our Sensuality that bringeth it in The end of Christs coming was to destroy it For this he came into the world for this he died Ask Christ saith S. Basil what he carrieth on his shoulders It is the lost sheep Luke 15.5 7 10. Ask the Angels for whom they rejoyce It is for a sinner that repenteth Ask God for what he is so earnest as to call and call again It is for those who are now in their evil wayes Ask the Shepherd Matth 18 12. Luke 15.4 and he will tell you he left ninety and nine to find but one lost sheep His desire is on us and he had rather we would be guided by his shepherds-staff then be broken by his rod of iron If thou wilt return return His Wisdom hath pointed out to it as the fittest way His justice yeildeth and will look friendly on thee whilst thou art in this way and his Mercy will go along with thee and save thee at the end If thou wilt thou mayest turn and if thou wilt turn thou shalt not daspair or if a cloud overspread thee it shall vanish at the brightness of Mercy as a mist before the Sun Here then is balm of Gilead Turn ye turn ye a loving and compassionate call to turn even those who despair of turning a Doctrine of singular comfort But this Balm is not for every wound nor will it drop and distill upon him who goeth on in his sin Mercy is as strong drink and wine Prov. 31.6 to be given to them who are ready to perish and to such who have grief of heart Many times it falleth out by reason of our presumption and hardness of heart that there is more danger in pressing some truths then in maintaining some errours Care not for the morrow is as musick to the Sluggard Matth. 6.34 Prov. 6.10 and he heareth it with delight and foldeth his hands to sleep If we commend Labour the Covetous hath encouragement enough to drudge on to rise up early and lie down late to gain the meat that perisheth Psal 127.2 John 6.27 John 4.23.24 If we but mention a worship in spirit and truth the Sacrilegious person taketh up his hammer and down goeth Ceremony and Order and the Temple it self How many Solifidians hath Free grace occasioned How many Libertines hath the indiscreet pressing of the Freedom we have by Christ raised The Gospel it self we see hath been made the savour of death unto death and Mercy malevolent At what time soever c. hath scarce with many left any time to repent Therefore it will concern us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaketh Epist 20 ad Basil Magn. 2 Tim. 2.15 Luke 12.42 with art and prudence to dispense the word of truth or as S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cut it out as they did their sacrifices by a certain method to give every one his proper food in due season Some dispositions are so corrupted that they may be poisoned with antidotes Therapeut Theodoret observeth that God himself did not fully and plainly teach the Jews that doctrine of the Trinity lest that wavering and fickle nation might have took it by the wrong handle and made it an occasion of relapse into that idolatrous conceit which they had learnt in Egypt of worshipping many Gods The Novatians errour who would not accept of Penance after Baptisme so much as once though no Physick for a sinner yet might have proved a good antidote against Sin For men had they believed it would some at least have been more shy of sin and more wary in ordering their steps and shunned that sin as a serpent which would excommunicate them and shut them for ever out of the Church And therefore the orthodox Fathers even there where they oppose that assumed and unwarranted severity of the Novatian deliver the doctrine of Repentance with great caution and circumspection and with a seeming reluctancy Invite loquor saith Tertullian Tert. De poeui◠Bas tom 1. hom 14. I am made unwilling to publish this free mercy of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Basil I speak the truth in fear For my desire is that after Baptisme you should sin no more and my fear is you will sin more and more upon presumption of repentance and mercy He would and he would not publish the free mercy of God in Christ He was bound to preach Repentance and yet he feared What meaneth that profuse yet sparing tender of Gods Mercy those large Panegyricks and as great jealousies Why did they so much extoll Repentance and yet malè ominari presage such an evil consequence out of that which they had presented to all the world in so desirable a shape Before the Father was so taken and delighted with the contemplation of it and discovered so much power in it that he thought the Devils themselves in the interim and time between their Fall and the Creation of Man might have repented and been Angels of light still but now he draweth in his hand and putteth it forth with fear and trembling Before he held out Repentance as a board or plank to every shipwrackt soul but now he he feareth lest Repentance it self should become a rock One would think the holy Father himself were turned Novatian And to speak truth that which was the Novatians pretense to deny Repentance after Baptism drew those expressions from him and was the true cause which made him publish it with so much fear nè nobis subsidia paenitentiae blandiantur That men might not be betrayed by the flattery and pleasing appearance of that which should advantage them and level their thoughts on that benefit which it might bring to them and boldly claim it as their own though they be willing to forget and leave unregarded that part of it which should make way to let it in That hearing of so precious an antidote they might not presume it will have the same virtue and operation at any time and so after many delayes make no use of it at all That the doctrine of Repentance might not make us stand in more need of repentance in a word That that which is a remedy might not by our ill handling and applying it be turned into a disease Look into the world and you will see there is great need of so much fear and of such a caution For more fall by presumption then by despair Non tam morbis quà m
flattereth the Flesh rebelleth we may set up this thought against them That this may be our last moment and if we yield now we shall be slaves for ever 2 Pet. 3.15 For as the long-suffering of God is salvation so is every day every hour of our life such a day and such an hour as carrieth along with it eternity either of pain or bliss That thou mayest therefore turn now think that a time may come when thou shalt not be able to turn Sen De Benef. 2.5 Tardè velle nolentis est Not to be willing to turn to thy God now is to deny him Delay is no better then defiance And why shouldest thou hope to be willing hereafter who art not willing now and art not willing now upon this false and deceitful hope that thou shalt be willing hereafter Wilful and present folly is no good presage of after-wisdome It is more probable that a froward Will will be more froward and perverse then that after it hath joyned with the vanities of this world and cleaved fast unto them it should bow and bend it self to that Law which maketh it death to touch them He that leapeth into the pit upon hope that he shall get out hath leapt into his grave at least deserveth to be covered over with darkness and buried there for ever Fear then least the measure of thy iniquity be almost full and perswade thy self thy next sin may fill it Think this is thy Day thy hour thy moment And though peradventure it may not be yet think it may be thy last It is no errour though it be an errour For if it be not thy last yet in justice God might make it so for why should heaven be offered more then once And if it be an errour it is an happy errour for it will redeem us from all those errours which Delay bringeth in and multiplieth even those errours which make us worse then the Beasts that perish A happy errour I may say an Angel that layeth hold on us and snatcheth us out of the fire out of the common ruine and hasteneth us to our God A happy errour which freeth us from all other errours of our life And yet though it may be an errour for it is no more then it may be it is a truth For onely one Now is true There may be many more Nows it is true a now to morrow and a now hereafter and a now on our death-bed but these are but May-bees and these potential truths concern us not for that which may be may not be That which concerneth us is an everlasting truth To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you harden them to day and stand upon May-bees then they may be hard for ever Therefore if you expect I should point out to a certain time the time is now Turn ye turn ye even now Now the Prophet speaketh now the words sound in your ears Now if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts For why was it spoken but that we should hear it It is an earnest call after us and if we obey not it is an argument against us that we deserve to hear it no more We are willing that what we speak should stand not a word not a syllable not one tittle must fall to the ground If we speak to our servant and say Go he must go and if we say Do this he must do it nunc now dicto citiùs as soon as it is spoke A deliberative pausing obedience obedience in the future tense to say he will do it when he pleaseth strippeth him of his livery and thrusteth him out of doors And shall Man who is dust and ashes seek a convenient time to turn from his evil wayes Shall our now be when we please Shall one morrow thrust on another and that a third Shall we demur and delay till we are ready to be thrust into our graves or which will follow into hell If the Lord saith Turn ye turn ye there can be no other time no other Now but Now. All other Nows and opportunities as our dayes are in his hands and he may close and shut them up if he please and not open them to give thee another Domini non servi negotium agitur The business is the Lord's and not the servant's and yet the business is ours too but the time is in his hands and not in ours Now then turn ye now the word soundeth and echoeth in your ears Again Now now hast thou any good thought Deus ad homines imò quod propius est in homines venit Sen. Ep. 73. any thought that hath any relish of salvation For that thought if it be not the voice is the whisper of the Lord but it speaketh as plain as his thunder If it be a good thought it is from him who is the Fountain of all good and he speaketh to thee by it as he did to the Prophets by visions and dreams In a dream Job 33.15 16. in a vision of the night I may say In a thought he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction And why should he speak once and twice and we perceive it not Why should the Devil who seeketh to devour us prevail with us more then our God that would save us Why should an evil thought arise in our hearts and swell and grow and be powerful to roll the eye to lift up the head to stretch out the hand to make our feet like hinds feet in the wayes of death and a holy thought a good intention which is as it were the breath of the Lord be stopped and checked and slighted and at last chased away into the land of oblivion Why should a good thought arise and vanish and leave no impression behind it and an evil thought increase and multiply shake the powers of the soul command the Will and every faculty of the mind and every part of the body and at last bring forth a Cain an Esau a Herode a Pharisee a profane person an adulterer a murderer Why should we so soon devest our selves of the one and morari stay and dwell and fool it in the other sporting our selves as in a place of pleasure a Seraglio a paradise Let us but give the same friendly entertainment to the good as we do to the bad let us but as joyfully imbrace the one as we do the other let us be as speculative men in the wayes of God as we are in our own and then we shall make haste and not delay to turn unto him We talk much of the Grace of God and we do but talk of it It is in all mouthes in some but a sound in others scarse sense in most a loud but faint acknowledgment of its power when it hath no power at all to move us an acknowledgement of what God can do when we are resolved he shall work nothing in us We commend it Tit.
It must be matura conversio Hieron Paulino a speedy and present Turn Festina haerentis in salo naviculae funem magìs praecide quà m solve The Nineteenth SERMON PART IIII. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes c. TO stand out with God and contend with him all our life long to try the utmost of his patience and then in our evening in the shutting up of our dayes to bow before him is not to turn Nor have we any reason to conceive any hope that a faint confession or sigh should deliver him up to eternity of bliss whom the swinge of his lusts and a multiplyed continued disobedience have carried along without check or controll to his chamber and bed and to the very mouth of the grave who delighted himself in evil till he can do no good Delay if it be not fatall to all for we dare not give laws to Gods Mercy yet we have just reason to fear it is so to those that trust so to God's Mercy as to run on in their evil wayes till the hand of Justice is ready to cut their thread of life and to set a period to that and their sins together Turn ye turn ye that is now that it be not too late Proceed we now to the second property of Repentance the Sincerity of our Turn This Ingemination in the Text hath more heat in it for it serveth not onely to hasten our motion and Turn but to make it true and real and sincere When God biddeth us turn he considereth us not as upon a stage but in his Church where every thing must be done not acted where all is real nothing in shadow and representation where we must be holy as he is holy perfect as he is perfect true as he is true where we must behave our selves as in the house of God 1 Tim. 3.15 which is not peâ—gula pictoris a Painters shop where all is in shew nothing in truth Joel 2.13 Not our garments but our hearts must be rent that as Christ our head was crucified indeed not in shew or phantasm as Marcion would have it so we may present him a wounded soul a bleeding repentance a flesh crucified and so joyn as it were with Christ in a real and sincere putting away and abolishing of sin God is Truth it self true and faithful in his promises ☜ Psal 33.9 If he speak he doth it if he command it shall stand fast and therefore he hateth a feigned forced wavering imaginary Repentance To come in a visour or disguise before him is an abomination Nor will he give true joy for feigned sorrow heaven for a shadow everlasting happiness for a counterfeit and momentany Turn and eternity for that which is not for that which is nothing And Repentance if it be not sincere is nothing Nazianz. Orat 19. The holy Father will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is feigned is not lasting That which is forced faileth and endeth with that artificial spring that turneth it about as we see the wheels of a clock move not when the plummet is on the ground because the beginning of that motion is ab extrà not from an internal form but from some violence or art without Seneca Simplex recti cura multiplex parvi There is but one true principle of a real Turn the fear of God there may be very many of a false one Septem mendaciis eget mendacium unum ut verum videatur De Indulg Martine Luther said that one lie had need of seven more to draw but an apparency of truth over it that it may pass under that name So that which is not sincere is brought in with a troop of attendants like it self and must be set off with great diligence and art when that which is true commendeth it self and needeth no other hand to paint or polish it What art and labour is required to smooth a wrinkled brow Matth. 6.16 What ceremony what noise what trumpets what extermination of the countenance what sad looks what tragical deportment must usher in an Hypocrite What a penance doth he undergo that will be a Pharisee How many counterfeit sighs and forced grones how many fasts how many sermons must be the prologue◠〈◊〉 false Turn to a nominal Turn For we may call it turning from our evil wayes when we do but turn and look about us to secure our selves in them or to make way to worse Ahab and Jezabel did so Absalom did the Jews did so Fast to smite with the fist of wickedness Isa 58.4 and to make their voice to be heard on high A false Turn Wickedness it self may work it Craft and Cruelty may blow the trumpet in Sion Joel 2.15 and sanctifie a fast A feigned Repentance Oppression Policy Love of the world Sin it self may beget it and so advance and promote it self and be yet more sinful And commonly a false Turn maketh the fairest shew and appeareth in greater glory to a carnal eye then a true one Plin. Panegyr Ingeniosior ad excogitandum simulatio veritate Hypocrisie is far more witty seeketh out more inventions and many times is more diligent and laborious then the Truth because Truth hath but one work to be what it is and taketh no care for outward pomp and ostentation nor cometh forth at any time to be seen unless it be to propagate it self in others Now by this we may judge of our Turn whether it be right and natural or no. As we may make many a false Turn so there may be many false springs and principles to set us a turning Sometimes fear may do it sometimes Hope sometimes Policy and in all the Love of our selves more then of God And then commonly our Tragedy concludeth in the first scene nay in the very prologue our Repentance is at an end in the very first Turn Nemo potest personam diu ferre Ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt Sen. 1. de Clem. c. 1. in the very first shew Ahab's Repentance was but a flash at the Prophets thunder Pharaoh's Repentance was driven on with an East-wind and compast about with locusts an inconstant false and desultory Repentance I cannot better compare it then to motions by water-works Whilest the water runneth the devise turneth round and we have some Story of the Bible presented to our eyes but when the water is run out all is at an end and we see that no more which took our eyes with such variety of action So it is many times in our Turn which is no better then a pageant Whilest the waters of affliction beat upon us we are in motion and may present divers actions and signs of true Repentance Our eyes may gush out with tears we may hang down our head and beat our breast our tongue our glory may awake our hands may be stretched out to the poor we may cry Peccavi with David put
sentence can be severe enough against it in a Christian because the abuse of goodness is far the greater by how much the goodness which is abused is more excellent and levelled to a better end And therefore a formal Penitent is the grossest hypocrite in the world Besides this in the second place God who is Truth it self standeth in extreme opposition to all that is feigned and counterfeit An Almes with a trumpet a Fast with a sowr face Devotion that devoureth widows houses do more provoke him to wrath then those vices which these outward formalities seem to cry down Nothing is more distastful to him then a mixt and compounded Christian made up of a bended knee and a stiff neck of an attentive ear and a hollow heart of a pale countenance and a rebellious spirit of fasting and oppression of hearing and deceit of Hosanna's and Crucifiges of cringes bowings flatteries and real disobedience Absalom's vow Jehu's sacrifices Simon Magus his Repentance Non amat falsum autor veritatis Adulteriumest apud illum omne quod fingitur Tert. de Ep. c. 23. Ahab's fast his soul doth hate or any Devil that putteth on Samuel's mantle And he so far detesteth the mere outward performance of a religious duty that when he thundreth from heaven when he breatheth out his menaces and threatnings on the greatest sinners the burden is They shall have their portion with hypocrites Exod 20.25 we read Thou shalt not build an altar of hewen stone nor shalt thou lift up a tool upon it Why not lift a tool upon it They used the hatchet saith Nazianzene to build the Ark to frame the staves of Shittim-wood they wrought in gold and silver and brass with iron instruments they put a knife to the throat of the sacrifice yet here to lift up a tool upon any stone of the Altar is to pollute it And why not pollute the Ark as well as the Altar The Father giveth the reason The stones of the Altar were by the providence of God and a kind of miracle found fitted already for that work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because saith he Orat. 19. whatsoever is consecrate to God must not borrow from the help of art must not be artificial but natural If we build an altar unto God to sacrifice our selves on the stones must be naturally fitted not hewen out by art not a forced grone a forced acknowledgment artificial tears but such as nature sendeth forth when our grief is true To avoid this danger then let us ask our selves the question whether we have gone further in our Turn then an Ahab or an Herode or a Simon Magus and even by their feigned Turn learn to make up ours in truth For did Ahab mourn and put on sackcloth 1 Kings 1.27 Mark 6.20 Acts 8.23 2◠did Herode hear John Baptist and hear him gladly did Simon Magus desire Peter to pray for him even then when he was in the gall of bitterness what anxiety what contrition must perfect my conversion Si tanti vitrum quanti margarita If glass cast such a brightness what must the lustre of a diamond be And thus may we make use even of Hypocrisie it self to establish our selves in the truth make Ahab and Herode arguments and motives to make our Repentance sure For Aristot Metaph 2. as the Philosopher well telleth us that we are not onely beholding to those who accurately handled the points and conclusions in Philosophy but even to Poets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did light upon them by chance and but glance upon them by allusion so may we receive instruction even from these Hypocrites who did repent tanquam aliud agentes so slightly as if they had some other matter in hand We must fast and put on sackcloth with Ahab we must hear the word with Herode we must beg the prayers of the Church with Simon Magus but finding we are yet short of a true Turn we must press forward and exactly make up this divine science that our Turn may be real and in good earnest that it may be finished after his form who calleth so loud after us that it may be brought about and approved to him in all sincerity and truth Thus much of the second property of Repentance The third is It must be poenitentia plena a total and universal conversion a Turn from all our evil wayes If it be not total and universal it is not true A great errour there is in our lives and the greatest part of mankind are taken and pleased and lost in it To argue and conclude à parte ad totum to take the part for the whole and from the slight forbearance of some one unlawful act or the superficial performance of some particular duty to infer and vainly arrogate to themselves a hatred of all sin and an universal obedience as if what Tiberius the Emperour was wont to say of his half eaten meats were true of our divided our parcel and curtailed Repentance Omnia eadem habere quae totum Suet. Tiber. Caes cap. 34. Every part of it every motion and inclination to newness of life had as much in it as the whole body and compass of our Obedience and there were that mutual agreement and sympathy of duties in a Christian that Physicians say there is of the parts of a living creature the same sapour and taste in a disposition to goodness that there is in a habit of goodness as much heat and heartiness in a thought as in a constant and earnest perseverance in a Velleity as much activity as in a Will as much in a Pharisees pale countenance as in S. Paul's severe discipline and mortification De locis i◠Homine and as Hypocrites speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the least performance all the parts of our obedience in a meer approbation a desire in a desire a will in a leaving one evil way a turning from all and in cutting off but one limb or part the utter destruction of the whole body of sin And therefore as if God looked down from heaven and from thence beheld the children of men and saw how we turn one from luxury to covetousness another from superstition to profaneness a third from idols to sacriledge from one sin to another or from some one great sin and not from another from our scandalous but not from our more domestick Psal 68.33 retired and speculative sins he sendeth forth his voice and that a mighty voice TVRN YE TVRN YE not from one by-path to another not from one sin alone and not from another also but turn ye turn ye so that ye need turn no more turn ye from all your evil wayes In corporibus aegris nihil nociturum medici relinquunt Curt. l. 6. c. 3. Physicians purge all noxious humours out of sick and crazy bodies And so doth the great Physician of souls sanctifie and cleanse them that he may present them to himself Eph. 5.26.27
all men to behold it We shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ 1 Tom. ep 141. S. Hierom had the last trump alwayes sounding in his ears And declaring to posterity the strictness of his life his tears his fasting his solitariness he confesseth of himself Ille ego qui ob gehennae metum tali me carcere damnaveram scorpiorum tantùm socius ferarum I that condemned my self to so strait a prison as to have no better companions then scorpions and wild beasts for fear of hell and judgement did all this And he was not ashamed to acknowledge that not so much the love unto piety nor the Authour of it as the dread of hell and punishment confined and kept him constant in the practice of it And what should I say more Hebr. 11.32 for the time would fail me to tell you of other Saints of God who through fear wrought righteousness obtained promises out of weakness were made strong Behold Love in its highest elevation in its very Zenith behold it when it was stronger then Death Cant. 8.6 look upon the glorious army of Martyrs They had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings Heb. 11.36 37 yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment They were stoned and slain with the sword And greater love hath no man saith our Saviour then this John 15.13 that a man lay down his life for his friend In Psal 118. And yet S. Ambrose will tell us that this great love was upheld and kept in life by this gale of wind by Fear that the fear of one death was swallowed up in the fear of another the fear of a temporal in the fear of an eternal The bloody Pagans to weaken their faith urged the fear of present death Consule tibi Pont. Diac. vit Cypriani Noli animam tuam perdere Favour your self Cast not away your life Reverence your age And these they thought suggestions strong enough to shake their constancy and resolution But the consideration of the wrath of God and eternal separation from him did strengthen and establish them What is my breath to eternity What is the fire of persecution to the fury of Gods wrath What is the rack to hell Et sic animas posuerunt With these thoughts they laid down their lives and were crowned with Martyrdome We cannot now think that these Martyrs sinned in setting before their eyes the horrour of death and fear of hell or think their love the less because they had some fear or that their love was lost in that which was ordained and commanded as a means to preserve it Their love we see was strong and intensive and held out against that which laid them in the dust but lest it should faint and abate they borrowed some heat even from the fire of hell and made use of those curses which God hath denounced against all those who persevere not to the end The best of men are but men but flesh and blood subject to infirmities so that in this our spiritual warfare and navigation we should shipwrack often did we not lay hold on the anchor of Fear as well as on that of Hope Each temptation might shake us each vanity amaze us L. 6. Mor. c. 27 each suggestion drive us upon the rocks but ancora cordis pondus timoris saith Gregory the weight of Fear as an ancor poyseth us and when the storm is high settleth and fasteneth us to our resolutions We walk in the midst of snares Ecclus 9.13 saith the Wise man and if we swerve never so little one snare or other taketh us for there be many a snare in our lusts a snare in the object a snare in our religion and a snare in our very love If Fear come not in to cool and allay it to guide and moderate it our Love may grow too warm too saucy and familiar and end in a bold presumption Therefore S. Paul in that his parable of the Natural and Wild Olive advising the new-engrafted Gentile not to wax bold against the Root Rom. 11.20 maketh Fear a remedy Be not high minded saith he Trust not to your love of God nor be over-bold with Gods love to you because he hath grafted you in but fear And he giveth his reason v. 21. For if God spared not the natural branches much less will he spare you Fear then of being cut off if S. Paul's reason be good is the best means to repress in us all proud conceits and highness of mind which may wither the most fruitful and flourishing branch and make it fit for nothing but the fire Thus is fear necessary and prescribed to all sorts of men to them that are fallen that they may rise and to them that are risen that they may not fall again to them that are weak that they may be strong and to those that are strong that their strength deceive them not And yet an opinion is taken up in the world That Fear was onely for Mount Sinai that it vanisht with that smoke and was never heard of more when that Trumpet was laid by Hebr. 12.18 19 We will not have this word spoken to us any more There is no blackness nor darkness nor tempest in the Gospel but all is to be done out of pure love Luke 1.74 that we being delivered from our enemies may serve him without fear Nor is this conceit of yesterday but the Devil hath made use of it in all ages as an engine to undermine and blow up the Truth it self and so supplant the Gospel which is the wisdome of God unto salvation that so he may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gregory Nyssen speaketh sport with us in our evil wayes lead us on in our dance and wantonness of sin and so carry us along with musick and melody to our destruction Tertullian in his book De Praescriptionibus adversùs haeret c. 43. mentioneth a sort of Hereticks who denyed that God was to be feared at all unde illis libera omnia soluta whence they took a liberty to sin and let loose the rains to all impiety Saint Hierome relateth the very same of the Marcionites and Gnosticks In 4. Hos and it is probable Tertullian meant them For say they Iis qui fidem habent nihil timendum If we have Faith we may bid Fear adieu how many and how foul soever our sins be God regardeth what we believe not what we do and if our faith be true the obliquity of our actions cannot hurt us J. Gers T. 1. After these ex eodem semine from the same root sprung up the Begardi and Begardae and others who from their opinion That no sin could endanger the state of those who were predestinated and justified took their name and were called Praedestinatiani the Praedestinarians After these the Libertines breathed forth their blasphemy with the like impudence Calvin contra Errores Anabaptistarum whom Calvin wrote
and catechise our Faith and enquire whether we remember Christ as we should whether our Faith be as strong our Hope as stedfast our Charity as fervent as so great Love requireth whether it be such a Faith and such an Hope and so intensive a Charity as Christ and his love thus diffused abroad might beget whether Christ be hung up in this gallery of our soul onely as a picture or whether he be a living Christ and dwelleth in us of a truth For the Memory as it is the womb to form and fashion Christ so it may yield good bloud to nourish him And in this sense that of Plato may be true Plato solus in tanta gentium sylvâ in tanto sapientum prato idearum oblitus recordatus est Tertull De anim c. 12. Gal. 4.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We learn and are instructed by those notions which were formerly imprinted in our Memory We do conceive and are in travel as S. Paul speaketh with Christ till he be fully formed in us We work him out in cogitatorio in the elaboratory of our Hearts When we have Christ in our thoughts and his precepts alwaies before our eyes as in a book which checketh us at every turn and by a frequent contemplation of them draw our souls out of those encumbrances which many times involve and fetter them when we recollect our Mind into it self and fasten it to this Rock where it may rest as upon a holy hill from whence it may look down and behold every object in its proper shape look upon an Injury as a benefit or Persecution as a blessing and see Life in the face and countenance of Death then and not till then we may be said to remember Christ For can he remember a meek Christ who will be angry without a cause Can he remember a poor Christ that maketh Mâ—mmon his God Can he remember the Prince of peace who is wholly bent to war Can he remember Christ who is as ready to betray him as Judas and nail him to the cross as Pilate Better he were quite raced out of our memory then that we should thus set him there as a mark to be shot at then to be thus set up to be scorned and reviled and spit upon and crucified again better never to have known him then to know and put him to shame And therefore if we will remember him we must contemplate him in his own sphere in that site and aspect which he looketh upon us deliberare causas expendere well weigh and consider upon what terms and conditions we did first receive and entertein him in our thoughts and memories And this will drive Christianity home make it enter into the soul and spirit fasten and rivet Christ into us and make him a part of us that his promises and precepts and the virtue of his death and passion may be in our memory as vessels are in a well-ordered family whence upon every occasion we may readily take them out for our use find a defense against every temptation a buckler for every dart that so the Love of Christ may swallow up all reluctancy in us in victory This giveth us a true tast and relish of the sweetness of those blessings and benefits which we receive in the Sacrament The sweetness of honey saith Basil is not known so well by the Philosophers discourse as by the tast which is a better and surer judge then the most subtile Naturalist No more are the benefits of Christ and his Gospel though uttered by the tongue of Men and Angels understood so well by the words which convey them as in a heart melted and transformed into the Love of Christ as in the mind of man when it is the same mind which is in Christ Jesus There Christ is remembred indeed there he is placed not as in the high-Priests hall to be mockt and derided and blasphemed but as in his throne in his heaven where he dispenseth his light his joy his glory such glory as no Elequence is equal to no language can express not S. Paul himself who was caught up into Paradise and tasted the sweetness of it but telleth us no more then this that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 12.4 the words were unspeakable words words which it was not possible for a man to utter Which was in effect to tell us he did feel but could not tell us what it was And thus to tast Christ is to remember him And first this taketh in our Faith I do not mean a dead and unactive faith For that leaveth us dead and buried in a land of Oblivion never looking upon Christ or his benefits not gathering any strength or virtue from him no more considering this our High-Priest then if he had never offered himself never satisfied never been But I mean a faith that worketh by love a faith that followeth Christ through every period and stage and passage of his blessed oeconomy a faith that is a disciple and followeth him whithersoever he goeth looketh upon him in time of prosperity and clotheth him in the dayes of affliction forgetteth them remembring him in injuries and forgiveth them in death it self and maketh him our Resurrection maketh us one with him that we cannot think or speak or move that we cannot live nor dye without him Now the time of receiving the Sacrament of receiving these pledges of Christs Love and these pledges of our Faith is the time of actuating and quickning and increasing our Faith that it may be more apprehensive more opperative more lively that it may even spring in our hearts at the mention of Christ at this representation of his Body and Bloud Luke 1.48 as the babe did in Elisabeths womb at the Virgin Mary's salutation For our Faith as it may have its increasings and improvements so it may have its decreasings and failings It may be weakned by the daily incursions which the World and the Devil make upon it by presenting objects of terrour to daunt and enfeeble it objects of delight to slumber and charm it It may be weakned by the daily avocations and common actions of our life that we may not cleave so close unto Christ not eye him with that intention not love him with that fervour not obey him with that chearfulness which we should but be in a disposition ready to fall off and let go our hold of him And therefore as we must at all times stir it up and actuate it so especially in our approches to the Lords Table For in this doth our preparation to it in this doth the benefit and power of the Sacrament principally consist Here our Saviour as it were doth again present himself to us open his wounds shew us his hands and his side speak to us as he did to Thomas Reach hither your fingers John 20.27 and behold my hands and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my side Take eat
the world to put in immoderate and yet keep no moderation in our Love when he forbiddeth us to be angry to lay hold of that without a cause and yet suffer every breath to raise a tempest in us when he saith Swear not at all to perswade men to swear and swear again though it be against a former oath when he biddeth us pray for our enemies to be so bold as to curse our friends and our brethren It is a great and dangerous folly thus to trifle with our Master and delude his Precepts And what do we with these distinctions and limitations and mitigations but shake Christs livery off from our backs and thrust our selves out of his service And then tell me whose servants are we Quot nascuntur domini For this one Master whose service we have cast off how many Masters and Tyrants do we serve servants to the Flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof servants to Covetousness which setteth us with the Gibeonites to be hewers of wood and drawers of water Josh 9.21 condemneth us to the mines and brick-kiln servants to Ambition which will carry thee from ste◠to step from degree to degree till thou break thy neck servants to Pleasure which like the Egyptian thieves will embrace and strangle thee and servants to other Men would that were all nay but to other mens Wills and Lusts which change as the wind now embracing anon lothing now ready to joyn with that which in the twinkling of an eye they fly from Et quot nascuntur domini How many Masters must thou serve in one man servants to their Lusts which are as unsatiable as the Grave servants unto Errour which is blind and to Sin which is darkness it self even mancipia Satanae the bondslaves of Satan with Canaans curse upon us A servant of servants shall he be Gen. 9.25 NON SVM SERVVS CHRISTI I am not the servant of Christ is Anathema Maran-atha the bitterest curse that is For conclusion then Let them who are set apart to lead others in the wayes of Truth and Righteousness take heed they lead them not in the wayes of Cain and take from them their spiritual as he did from his brother his temporal life Let them who subscribe themselves Your servants in Christ In every Epistle thus they write be careful to make it good that their Epistle prove not a complement and their subscription a lye Athen. Deipn l. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scire uti soro Let them who do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit their conversation and doctrine to the times and so make them worse who force the word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak in favour of Philip or any great Potentate as he was who make it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a buskin to be pulled on and fit any design any enterprise let them remember what they are called and what they call themselves the Servants of Christ of that Christ who will one day call them to an account require the bloud of those vvho are under their charge at their hands call upon them as Augustus Caesar did upon Quinctilius Varus Quinctili Vare redde legiones Give an account of your Stewardship Where are the Legions those souls vvhich I committed to your hands the souls of them you betrayed to the World and left them Mammonists the souls of them you betrayed to Pride and made them factious the souls of them you betrayed to Discontent and made them seditious the souls of them you betrayed to Cruelty and made them murderers Luke 11.51 Their bloud vvill be upon you and verily it shall be required of this generation 1 Cor 6.20 And let them vvho are taught remembring that they are bought with a price and are the servants of Christ cleave fast to him and not be driven from him vvith every vvind of doctrine not judge of the doctrine by the person but of the person by his doctrine In Christianity saith S. Hierom Non multum differunt decipere decipi There is no great difference betvveen these tvvo To take a cheat and to offer one for both are deceived and both perish The one cometh vvith a veil the other is vvilling to draw it over his face The one putteth out the others eyes and the other is willing to be blind and both rejoyce at the vvork both cry So so thus we would have it When vve see so many so diffident in all things but that which should fit them for happiness taking nothing upon trust but the doctrines of men Jude 16. when we shall see them have mens persons in admiration and their eyes dazle at every mushrome in Divinity that groweth up in a night when we shall see them debauch their Reason and deliver up their Understandings and Wills to a Face to a Voice to the Gesture and Behaviour and Sleight of men when every empty cloud that cometh towards them shall be taken for heaven and he that speaketh not so much reason as Balaams Ass shall be received for a Prophet when men are so enclined so ready so ambitious to be deceived we need not wonder to see so many blind Bartimeus's in our streets who grope at noon day and stumble at every straw that blindness is happened to Israel that Truth is become a monster and Errour a Saint that the Pharisees have more Disciples then Christ Men and brethren what should I say Why should you desire to be pleased If we thus please you we damn you Why should we study to please you If we study to please you we damn our selves It is not your favour your applause which we affect We know well enough out of what treasury those winds come and how uncertainly they blow One applause of Conscience is vvorth all the triumphs in the vvorld Bring then the balance of the Sanctuary the touch-stone of the Scripture If our Doctrine be not minus habens be not light but full vveight if it be not refuse silver but current coin and bear no other image but of the King of Kings even for the Truths sake for our common Masters sake whose servants we are 1 Pet. 2.1 2. Jam. 1.21 lay aside all malice and guile and hypocrisie and with the meekness of a new-born babe receive it that you may grow thereby But if nothing yet be Truth which doth not please you then what shall we say but even tell you another truth Vero verius most true it is You will not hear the Truth And therefore in the last place let us all both Teachers and Hearers purge out this evil humour of pleasing and being pleased and let us as the Apostle exhorteth Hebr. 10.14 Ephes 4.25 consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works Let us speak truth every one to his neighbour For we are members one of another It is an errour to think that the duty of Admonition is impropriate and perteineth onely to the Minister
the infusion of Grace I know it was decreed at the Council of Carthage and other Councils 1. That every man ought to say Forgive us our trespasses 2. That he ought to say it not for others alone but for himself also 3. Not ex humilitate sed vere not out of humility confessing what they were not but truly what they were And all these Decrees may well stand and be as unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians and pass for everlasting truths and yet no necessity of fixing up this doctrine of the Impossibility of not sinning on the gates of the Temple and proclaiming it as by the voice of a trumpet in the midst of the Congregation This doctrine is the sweetest musick flesh and blood can hear This sounding in the ears of men which delight in wickedness lulleth them in a pleasant sleep till they dream for they dare not speak it that they are bound to that Law which they are made to break and that it is one part of their duty to sin It is most true and if we deny it the truth is not in us that we have all sinned But who ever read in the Scripture that we cannot but sin We are bound to ask forgiveness of our sins and that veraciter truly because as S. James speaketh in many things we offend all But this petition is put as in relation to sins past not in relation to sins not yet committed unless conditionally onely And who will build a supposition upon that which infallibly will come to pass Nè peccemus is in order before Si peccamus We are commanded first Not to sin and then followeth the supposition If we sin So that NE PECCEMUS and SI PECCAMUS That we sin not and If we sin make up this one conclusion That we may or may not sin And this suiteth best with the Precept or Command Sin not at all and this in the Text Sin no more with our Promise made in Baptism where we solemnly bid defiance to the World the Flesh and the Devil and with our Prayer for forgiveness which we cannot accent and pronounce as we should but with a firm resolution to sin no more For how dareth he ask pardon for his sins who is resolved to sin again and again upon hope of pardon So then we may truly and humbly beg pardon of sins past But it is neither Truth nor Humility to make God a liar who proposeth himself a pattern of Perfection Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect to make him a Tyrant in first crippling us and then sending us about his business in commanding us to do what he knoweth cannot be done in giving us that flesh which our spirit cannot conquer in letting loose that Lion whom we cannot resist in laying us naked to those temptations which we cannot subdue No. 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithful saith S. Paul who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able above that which he will make us able if we seek him It is not said God is merciful or God is gracious as being a more indifferent and arbitrary thing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is faithful So that we cannot bring in a Necessity of sinning without prejudice to the Truth and Sincerity of God But then as God is faithful and true not to let in an enemy stronger then his Grace can make us so is he also gracious and merciful si peccemus if we sin if in the midst of so many enemies inter tot errores humanae vitae if in such slippery ground we step aside and fall as Jonathan in the high places to reach forth his hand and lift us up again But with this proviso That we look better to our steps and be more careful how we walk hereafter The one keepeth us from presumption the other from despair For we do not ask forgiveness of our sins upon these terms that we cannot but sin but we beg pardon with this promise that we will sin no more But further yet if this doctrine were true That Sin is absolutely unavoidable and that we are so fettered and shackled with an impossibility of performing our duty that the Grace of God cannot redeem us as indeed it hath neither Reason nor Scripture to countenance it yet sure it cannot be but very dangerous to tell it in Gath and publish it in Askalon to urge and press it to the multitude who are too prone and ready to make an Idol of that Serpent which is lifted up to cure them Omnes homines nostris vitiis favemus quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad Naturae referimus necessitatem saith S. Hierome We are all too apt to favour and speak friendly to our sins and are glad when we cannot but sin that we may sport and play in the wayes which lead unto death and sin with less remorse and regret Gaudemus de contumelia nostra We make that our triumph which is our shame proclaim our Will as innocent whilest we arraign our natural Constitution and lay all the guilt on a fatal Necessity of sinning We are indeed bound to acknowledge our sin and without it there is no remission but a bare acknowledgement is not enough We are ready to say We have sinned and ready to say We cannot but sin that we may sin again We are ready to acknowledge our sins especially in a lump and body Oh would we were as ready to forsake them This thought of the Not-possibility of avoiding sin followeth us I fear in all our wayes and standeth between us and those sins we have left behind us And if at any time we cast an eye back upon them we look on them with favour through this imagination of Weakness as through a pane of painted glass which discoloureth them and maketh the greatest sin appear in the hue and shape of a sin of Infirmity Then those Furies of lust are not so terrible those monsters of sins are not so deformed those sins which devour have not a tooth For how should they feel a bruise who are so just as to fall and sin not seven but seventy times seven times in a day To conclude this Let us take Christ's words as near as we can as they lie They are plain Sin no more And they were no Prescript at all if there lay upon us a necessity of sinning again if by the power of Christ we could not quit our selves of those sins which cannot consist with the Gospel and Covenant of Grace This Doctrine concerning the Possibility of keeping this Prescript of Christ men that are willing to sin are not willing to understand Flesh and bloud runneth from it as from an errour of a monstrous shape and that they may be yet more wicked they count it as an heresie But flesh and bloud shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven And we cannot think but our Saviour meant as he spake and would not have laid it
a Lawyer or an Husbandman in the grave But the Truth here as it must be bought so it must never be sold by us It will not leave us at our death but lie down with us in the grave and rise up with us to judgment At the last day it will be our Advocate or our Judge and either acquit or condemn us If now in this our day we lay out our money our substance that is our selves upon it then in that terrible day of the Lord it will look lovelily upon us and as the bloud of Christ doth speak good things for us But if we place it under our brutish desires and lowest affections it will help the Devil to roar against us and he who now hindereth our market will then accuse us for not buying Christ himself is not more gracious then this Truth will be to them that buy it But such as esteem it trash and not worth the looking on to them shall it procure tribulation and anguish to them the Sun turned into darkness and the Moon into bloud the whole world on fire the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God shall not be so terrible as this Truth And now before I was aware I have told you what the Truth here is that we are to buy Shall I say with the Poet cujus non audeo dicere nomen that I dare not utter its name It hath no name Men it seemeth have been afraid to speak of it and therefore have given it no name The Wise-man here in the Text bestoweth on it certain titles calling it Wisdom and Instruction and Vnderstanding but all these do not fully express it being words of a large signification and comprehending a multitude of other Truths beside it Will ye know indeed what this Truth is It containeth all those Precepts and conclusions that concern the knowledge and service of God that conduce to virtue and integrity and uprightness of life and that are carefully observed by all quos Deus in aeternae felicitatis exemplis posuit whom God meaneth to bring to endless felicity and to place among the ensamples of his love If this Truth doth not manage and guide the Will then our passions those pages of opinion and errour will distract and disorder us Lust will inflame us Anger swell us Ambition lift us up to that formidable height from whence we must needs fall into the pit But the Truth casteth down all Babels and casteth out all false imaginations which present unto us appearances for realities yea plagues for peace which make us pour out our souls on variety of unlawful objects and pitifully deceive us about the nature and end of things What a price doth Luxury set on wealth and how doth it abhor poverty and nakedness What an heaven is the highest place to Ambition and what an hell disgrace though it be for goodness it self How doth a jewel glitter in the eye and what a slur is there on virtue What brightness hath the glory of the world and how sad and sullen an aspect have Religion and Piety And all this is till the purchase be made which our Text commendeth No sooner have we bought the Truth but it discovereth all pulleth off every masque and suffereth us no longer to be blinded and beguiled but sheweth us the true face and countenance of things It letteth us see vanity in riches folly in honour death and destruction in the pomp of this world It maketh poverty a blessing misery a mercy a cottage as good as the Seragglio and death it self a passage to an happy eternity It taketh all things by the right end Exod. 4.4 and teacheth us how to handle and deal with them as Moses taking the serpent by the tail had it restored to its own shape In a word the Truth here meant is that which S. Augustine calleth legem omnium artium artem omnipotentis artificis a Law to direct all arts an Art taught by Wisdom it self by the Maker of all things It teacheth us to love God with all our hearts to believe in him and to lead upright lives It killeth in us the root of sin it extinguisheth all lusts it maketh us tread under foot pleasure and honour and wealth it rendreth us deaf to the noyse of this busie world and blind to that glaring pomp which dazleth the eyes of others Hâc praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus It goeth before us in our way and through all the surges of this present world it bringeth us to the vision and fruition of him who is Truth it self Therefore this concerneth us above all other Truths yea others are of no use at all further then by being subservient to this they help us to our chief end our union to God who is the first Truth and our communion with him If I know mine own infirmities what need I trouble my self about the decay of the world If the word of God be powerful in me what need I search the secret operations of the stars Am I desirous to know new things The best novelty is the New creature What folly it is to study the state and condition of the Saints and in the mean time to take no pains to be one to be curiously inquisitive how my soul was conveyed into me and wretchedly careless how it goeth out to dispute who is Antichrist when I my self am not a Christian to spend that time in needless controversies in which I might make my peace with God to be more careful to resolve a doubt then to cure a wounded spirit to to maintain my opinion then to save my soul to be ambitious to reconcile opinions which stand in a seeming opposition and be dull and heavy in composing my own thoughts and ordering my counsels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aescl yl Not he that knoweth much but he that knoweth that which is useful is wise Why gaze we on a bugle or piece of glass when we are to bargain for a pearl for that Truth which doth alone adorn that mind which was made not to joyn with shadows and phantasmes but to receive wisdom and virtue and God himself Thus I have given you some kind of view of the merchandise and shewed you in general what the Truth here meant is Now that it may appear unto you the more desirable and more worth the buying in the next place I will discover the nature and quality of it Neither will I do as those are wont who expose their wares to sale over praise the commodity so to kindle the buyer and make him more easily part with his money or else shew it by an half-light but I will deal plainly with you according to that Law of the Aediles or Clerks of the market in Rome by which he who sold any thing was to disclose to the buyer what fault or imperfection it had If he were selling an house wherein the plague was he was to proclaim Pestilentem domum vendo that he
sold an infected house And indeed I might tell you that Truth is a virtue like unto the Plague which will not onely destroy us but make all that know us to shun us I might shew you that the retinue which usually wait upon her are Sequestration Nakedness Disgrace Persecution the Sword and Death it self Bona mens si esset venalis non haberet emtorem saith Seneca And we find it true that Truth is so dangerous and troublesome that if she were to be sold in the market she would hardly meet with a chapman But when I present the Truth as a dangerous displeasing costly thing I intend not like the Spies to bring up an evil report upon that good land Nâ—mb 13.32 as if it did eat up the inhabitants and so to dishearten any man from the pursuit of Truth No the land is pleasant and fruitful flowing with milk and honey go up and possess it But as Antigonus when he heard his soulders murmure because he had brought them into a place of disadvantage having by his wisdom freed them from that danger and brought them to a fairer place where they might hope for victory Now saith he I expect ye should not murmure but praise my art that have brought you forth into a place so convenient So if any under the conduct of Truth be at any time in great streights and difficulties let him but possess his soul with patience under the leading of the same Truth and he shall at last be brought forth into pleasant and delightful places even into the paradise of God For as our Master Aristotle speaketh of Pleasures that if they did but look upon us when they come to us as they do when they turn their backs and leave us we should never entertain them so may we on the contrary say of this Truth If we saw the end of it as we do the beginning we should run after it and lay hold on it with restless embraces For though at the first meeting we see nothing written in her countenance but Wo and Desolation yet if we spend our time with her we shall find her to be the fairest of ten thousand And it is the wisdom of God to place the greatest good in that which to flesh and bloud hath the appearance of the greatest evil And when the beauty and glory of Truth is once revealed unto us the horrour of it will scarce appear or if it do but as an atome before the Sun And now to shew you the fairer and better side of Truth I might tell you Prov. 3.18 14. Matth. 13.46 that She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her that The merchandise of her is better then the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof then fine gold that she is that rich Pearl in the Gospel that She is that Girdle Ephes 6.14 cingulum omnium virtutum as the Father speaketh It not onely girdeth and enricheth the man as Faithfulness shall be the girdle of his reins but also confineth Virtue it self Isa 11.4 and keepeth it within the bounds of moderation whereas Falshood is boundless and infinite and passeth over all limits I might tell you further that Truth is a Pillar and such a one as is both a Pillar and a Foundation too For though we read that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth 1 Tim. 3.15 yet she is such a pillar as those were in the Temple of Diana which being tied to the roof were upheld by the Temple and not the Temple by them For indeed it is the Truth that upholdeth the Church and not the Church the Truth further then to present and publish it If you take truth away the Church will not be invisible onely but nothing We believe One Catholick and Apostolick Church but that which maketh her One and Catholick and Apostolical is the Truth alone For what Unity is that whose bond is not Truth And how is that Catholick which is not and that which is not true is not at all is but an Idole and so nothing in this world Or can we call that Apostolical where Truth it self is anathematized and shut out of doors No. It is this saving Truth which maketh the Church one Catholick and Apostolick without which they are but bare and empty names without which all that we hear of Antiquity Consent Succession Miracles is but noyse but the paintings of a Church but the trophees of a conquered party but as the vain hopes of dying men or indeed but as flattering Epitaphs on the graves of Tyrants which dishonour them rather then commend them As it was said of Pallas Epitaphium pro opprobrio fuit His glorious Epitaph did more defame him then a Satyre Yea yet further I might tell you how that in some sense that may be spoken of this Truth which was spoken of Christ himself John 1.3 That all things were made by it and that without it not any thing was made that was made not any thing that concerneth our everlasting peace It is it that sealed the promises signed the New Testament and made it Gospel finished our faith gathered the Church upheld it militant and will make it triumphant But all this is too general To make this Truth therefore appear to be a precious merchandise indeed let us consider that 1. It is fit and proportionable to the Soul of Man which is made capable of it and is but a naked yea which is worse a deformed thing till this Truth array and beautifie it is under want and indigence till this Truth enrich and supply it till it give wings unto it as Plato saith wherewith it may lift up it self aloft and flie from the land of darkness to the region of light Whilest our soul receiveth no impressions whilest it doth no more but onely inform the body whilest it is simplex as Tertullian speaketh qualem habent qui solam habent is but such a soul as those creatures have whose soul serveth onely to make them grow and be sensible so long in respect of outward operation we little differ from the Beasts of the field When instead of this Truth it receiveth the characters of darkness the spots and pollutions of the world when it is nothing else but as a table written with lies we are far worse then the brute Beasts When we savour of the things of God Matth. 16.23 our Saviour hath given us the name we are as Devils But when the soul is characterized with the Truth when the true light shineth in our hearts we are Men we are Saints and shall be like unto the Angels the soul is what she was made to be a receptacle and temple of God and destined to happiness Now in Christ Jesus that is in this Truth ye Eph. 2.13 who sometimes were far off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are made nigb by the bloud of Christ and behold those things which concern your happiness
as those do who are brought near and even united to the thing that they would have 2. At this is proportioned to the Soul so it is to every soul to all sorts of men It equally concerneth all of what calling or condition soever It is a merchandise which cannot be bought by a deputy cannot be recovered by a proxy Like the Sun it looketh upon all and must be looked upon by all It is fitted to all and bindeth all And therefore the buying of it the study of it and of every branch of it concerneth you who are our hearers as much as us who teach it It is not of so large a compass but the narrowest understanding may contain it God will not shut us out of heaven because we cannot untie every knot and answer every doubt I never could think it a matter of wit and subtilty to become a Christian There is saith S. Hierome sancta rusticitas a kind of holy plainness and rusticity simplicitas idiotarum amativa as Gerson speaketh a simplicity of the unlearned which is full of love and affection which like men at distance from that which they desire look more earnestly towards it Numb 11.29 It is to be wished indeed that all the Lord's people were prophets for knowledge is a rich ornament of the soul But he that doth not attain deep knowledge with the wisest may attain true happiness with the best as a man may put into the haven in a small bark as well as in an Argosie Mark 12.42.44 He who giveth all that he hath for the Truth though it be but two mites his serious but weak endeavours shall be sure of a good penyworth He that buyeth what we can shall have enough And therefore it is fitted to all to all nations to all sexes to all ages to all tempers and constitutions to the Jew and to the Gentile to the bond and to the free to the Scribe and to the idiote to the young and to the aged None so much a Jew so much a slave so dull and slow of understanding none so much a Lazar so much a Barzillai so over run with sores or decrepit with age but he may buy the Truth Freedom and slavery circumcision and uncircumsion quickness and slowness of wit youth and age in respect of this purchase are alike 3. As it is fitted to all so it is lovely and amiable in the eyes of all even of those who will not buy it What amiable and not be desired Yes it is so in this spiritual Mart. We can conceive it good and refuse it we can behold its beauty and not woo it we can say it is a rich pearl and yet prefer a pebble on the beach before it say How amiable are the courts of Truth and yet never enter them For in this Knowledge and Desire do not alwaies meet but the Will oftentimes planet-wise slyly creepeth on her own way contrary to the strong circumvolution of the First mover the Understanding pointeth one way and the Affections sway us another The Understanding looketh upon Truth as a prize yet the Will rejecteth it as a vanity the Understanding judgeth it to be the best good yet the Will turneth from it as from the worst of evils The good that I would Rom. 7.19 that is which I approve that do I not But in our temporal affairs these faculties of the soul are seldom at variance but profit and advantage of this kind we seek with all our soul with all our heart with all our understanding But for this heavenly commodity though we have not an heart to buy yet we have an head to judge of the worth and value of it .. Even the fool in this is as wise as Solomon and can say that this Truth is more precious then rubies Prov. 3.15 But as they who knew the judgment of God Rom. 1.31 that they who commit all unrighteousness are worthy of death did not onely do the same but had pleasure in them that did so on the other side many who know this Truth to be the best merchandise do not onely not traffick for it themselves but are enemies to them that do and hinder and persecute them all they can are angry at them that do what themselves judge to be best And this is the glory and triumph of Truth Matth. 11.19 that she is justified not onely of her children but of her very enemies that she striketh a reverence in those that neglect her is magnified by those who revile her and findeth a place in their breasts who suppress her When the poor merchants of Truth are proscribed and her children appointed to die then doth Truth hold up her sceptre in the very inward parts of the raging persecutours and forceth them to condemn themselves for condemning them to honour those whom they have delivered to shame and death and in their heart to null that sentence which their fury and sensuality have put in execution And thus we retain in publico sensu in the common stock of Nature enough to discover what we should buy But to venture and traffick to spend and lay out our selves upon it is the work of that Grace which subdueth the Flesh to the Spirit and crucifieth the Affections and Lusts which have more power upon the Will then the Reason and may dim the eye of the Understanding but never quite put it out For who ever was so much a traitour as to condemn Fidelity What adulterer did ever yet write a panegyrick on Uncleanness Who was ever so evil as to commend evil Who did ever so ill govern his life as not to wish he might die the death of the righteous Num. 23.10 When evil is laid to the charge of wicked men they count it an heavy charge and therefore to shift it off are fain to run themselves within the danger of a worse and to call evil good Psal 14.1 53.1 and good evil Which yet they do but say in their heart as the Fool doth in the book of Psalms that there is no God They do not think but say it in their heart say it by rotâ— as that which they would have to be truth but know to be false 4. Yet to raise the price of this jewel higher know that if we buy not the Truth not onely our wealth and riches but even the goodly and gracious endowments of our souls also are nothing worth For want of this one purchase where is the rich Glutton now nay where is the scribe 1 Cor. 1.20 where is the wise where is the disputer of this world What a poor Worse then nothing is a rich Atheist or an honourable Hypocrite What speak we of Riches and Honour Virtue it self is of small use if it take not this Truth along with it We are taught by Divines that by the fall of our first parents we did utterly lose some things and though other excellent things do still remain
Heraclitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dark and obscure Behold the fountain's head is open and the streams flow sweetly why do we not tast The Truth is exposed to the sun and the people why do we not buy Luke 1.78 The day-spring from on high hath visited us why are we still in darkness Is it not dulness of understanding but pride and sloth that keepeth us ignorant We are not too weak but we are too wise to learn It is a good saying of the Rabbines Error doctrinae pro superbia reputatur To erre where the Truth is so manifest is a sign of pride and they who thus mistake consult not with the Truth but with flesh and bloud Rom. 13 1. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers is a Text plain enough and yet we see many times Faction go for Faith and Rebellion for Religion Phil. 2.12 Work out your salvation with fear and trembling is as plain yet Fear is acccounted Diabolical and a dead Faith the onely foundation 1 Pet. 2.16 Vse not your liberty as a cloak for malitiousness Who is such a child in understanding as to number this among those things which are hard to be understood and yet how many have wrested it to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3.16 or hath the seditious boutefeu any other garment to cover him but his Christian Liberty when he steppeth forth in fury to break the bond of Peace This maketh many religions and no religion Self-conceit and a desire to seem wise headeth one sect Covetousness another Ambition a third and this plain and easy Truth is left behind to feed a little flock Talk what we will of Priests and Jesuites of Hereticks and Schismaticks it is Mammon and the Love of the world and Pride that make proselytes and where the first seduce a thousand these last seduce ten thousand for in this we cannot be deceived unless we first love the cheat And therefore as we must not take falshood for truth so we must be carefull not to take those truths for necessary which are not so The Truth was never more sincere and pure then while it was contained all in one Creed and that a short one as Erasmus saith When there were more the practical knowledge of it was less When this merchandise was spread abroad and divided into many parcells it was less seen S. Paul calleth it (a) Rom. 12.6 the proportion of faith (b) 2 Tim. 1.13 the form of sound words (c) Tit. 1.1 the truth which is after godliness To believe in God to love him to obey him To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Tertullian speaking of these is bold to pronounce Nihil ultrâ scire est omnia scire To know nothing beyond or more then this is to know all that we should know And if we did but practise this we should have less noise and trouble to know what it is we ought to practise If we did walk according to this rule peace would be upon us Gal. 6.16 and mercy and upon the Israel of God But the great neglect of that integrity which should distinguish Christians from the world hath brought in that deluge of controversies which hath welnear covered and overwhelmed the face of the Church What malice what defiance what digladiations what gall and bitterness do we see amongst Christians What ink what bloud hath been spent in the cause of Religion How many innocents have been defamed how many Saints anathematized haw many millions cut down with the sword And yet this is all Believe and repent Oh what pitty is it that this royal Truth should be lost amid the noise and tumults which are raised for truths not necessary that the foundation should be cast down and buried in the outworks that true Piety should be trod under foot in the scuffle for that which is not essential to it and hath no more of it then its name To conclude this point Ye see the merchandise what that Truth is ye are to buy 1. It is fitted and proportioned to your souls Do ye fit and apply your souls unto it Oh what a poor deformed thing is a soul without it a representation of a damned spirit 2. It is fit for all sorts and conditions of men Therefore let old men and children scribes and idiotes Trades-men and Scholars come to this market for it is the next way unto heaven 3. It is comely and amiable Let us therefore make it our choice espouse our wills unto it love and embrace it not kiss and wound it nor worship it in our heart and persecute it in our brethren What madness is it to leave this Horn of beauty and to joyn with a fiend or a monstre 4. As it is lovely in it self so it giveth a loveliness to all other gifts blessings and endowments whatsoever Why should thy Money perish with thee Why should thy Wit in which thou delightest thy Strength whereof thou boastest yea thy Hearing thy Fasting thy Praying perish with thee Why should all thy virtues be as a cloud and as the early dew fall and go away Why should all thy good be good for nothing 5. Lastly it will put thee to no expense Then thou hast no excuse for thou carriest the price about with thee Come therefore and buy it without money or money-worth And then thou needest not ask with the Lawyer in the Gospel Luke 10.25 What shall I do to inherit eternal life for thou hast the price in thine hand This Truth is it the price of the kingdome of heaven and with it thou shalt purchase glory and immortality and eternal life The third point that offereth it self to our consideration is That the Truth must be bought It will not be ours unless we lay out something and purchase it Buy the Truth If ye look into the holy Scripture the shop where it is to be had ye shall find it ever carrying its price along with it Under what name soever it goeth the price is as it were written upon it John 6.27 If it be called that meat which endureth unto everlasting life the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labour for it If it be called salvation the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 magìs operamini work more intend and double your labour Phil. 2.12 work it out If it be called the faith as it is Jude 3. the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must earnestly contend for it And the Apostle biddeth us beware that we be not wearied and faint in our minds Heb. 12.3 start back fly off and offer no more because the price is so high Here is care required and labour working and doubling our work contention and perseverance till the last minute All which we give out of our proper substance For when we lay them out we spend our selves We do not stumble upon this Truth by chance as we may sometimes upon a Pearl or a piece of
many times then that which we gain by lawful and prescribed means then that which we buy For it moveth like a tempest and driveth down all even the Truth it self before it Look over the whole catalogue of the sons of Belial and take a view of all the turbulent spirits that have been in the world and ye shall find the most of them to have been Enthusiasts pretenders to an unsought for and suddain revelation most wicked because so soon good and extremely ignorant because wise in an instant James 3.17 But the Truth which is from above and is not thrown down but bought from thence is pure and peaceable and easie to be intreated full of good works and without hypocrisie And it self is conveyed into us the right way so it ordereth every motion and action regulateth the whole progress of our life and maketh it like unto it self That may seem an harsh saying of Metellus Numidicus and had a Christian Divine uttered it Gell. lib. 1. c. 6. he had gone for a Pelagian His demum Deos propitios esse aequum est qui sibi adversarii non sunt Dii immortales approbare virtutem non adhibere debent It is a kind of justice that God should be favourable to those who are not enemies to themselves God sitteth above as one that hath set us our task and observeth our hands and doth not do all himself But his reason certainly is orthodox Quid nos à Deo diutiùs exspectemus nisi errationibus finem faciamus What can we expect from the God of truth if we still follow lies and will make no end of running from the truth God hath so ordered that nothing of great moment can be suddenly done Every work must find us fitted and prepared or else we shall find it will fly out of our reach Hence the Philosopher giveth this reason why there be so few wise men Quia pauci Sapientiam dignam putant nisi quam in transitu cognoscant Because the most have so low an opinion of the Truth that they think her not worth saluting unless it be by the by The reason why men know not the Truth is because they reverence it not but think it is a wind which will blow when they list that it will enter them without entreaty become theirs when they please yea whether they will or no. This is the cause why Truth which is the best merchandise is so seldom bought and phansies of our own are entertained in its place Hence it is that all our silver is dross our coyn counterfeit and our actions bear so little of the image and face of Truth upon them that To be merciful is but to fling a mite into the treasury To fast is to abstain for a day To pray is but to say Lord hear me or which is worse to multiply words without sense To love the Truth is but to hear it preached To be a Christian is onely to profess it To have faith is to boast of it To have hope is to say so and To be full of charity is but to do good to our selves These graces we deny not are infused yet they are gained encreased and confirmed in us by care and diligence Faith cometh by hearing saith the Apostle Rom. 10.17 We cannot but observe that in our greener years we are catechized and instructed and in our riper age when reason is improved in us we look over our evidence again and again and by the miracles and innocency of our Saviour and by the excellency of his doctrine and by the joynt testimony of the Apostles and the huge improbability that they should deceive us Jude 20. we are built up and building implieth labour on our most holy Faith which worketh by Charity Gal. 5.6 When that Faith which is not thus bought but is brought in without any motives or inducements without study or meditation which is not bought but created by our selves and so is a phansie rather then Faith bringeth forth nothing praiseworthy is not a foundation of good works but a mere pillar of our own setting up to lean upon and to uphold and comfort a spirit that would otherwise droop when we have committed evil If mens Faith did cost them more sure they would make more use of it then they do And for Hope What is it but a conclusion gathered by long experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our soul and an exact search of all the actions of our life which if answerable to the Truth produce a firm Hope if not our Hope we may call an anchor Heb. 6.19 but it is of no more use then an anchor painted upon a wall or rather it is not an anchor but a rock at which we may shipwreck and sink I might instance in more For thus it is in all the passages of our life There is nothing wrought in us but with pains at least nothing that is worth possessing Nay those evils which we should dispossess our selves of do not alwayes enter with ease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labour and cost How laborious is thy Revenge how busie thy Cruelty how watchful and studious thy Lust what penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to And if our vices cost us so dear and stand us at so high a rate shall we think that that Truth will run after us and follow us in all our wayes which bringeth along with it an eternal weight of glory Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible can our airy and empty speculations can the wantonness of our ear can our confidence and ignorance straight make us Evangelists Or is it probable that Truth should come è profundo putei out of the bottom of the well and offer her self to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it and will let down no pitcher to draw it up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Olymp. od 5. as Pinder speaketh Labour and cost wait still upon the Truth Nor will she visit and abide with us unless these usher her in and attend upon her Like Jabez Truth is most honourable but we bear it with pain 1 Chron. 4.9 In a word Truth is the gift of God but conditional given on condition that we fit our selves to receive it It cometh down from heaven but it must be called for here on earth Think not it will fall upon thee by chance or come to thee at any time Eccl. 11.9 12.1 if not in the dayes of thy youth yet in the evil dayes and the years in which thou shalt have no pleasure that it will offer it self in thine old age on thy bed of sickness that it will joyn and mingle it self with thy last breath and carry thy soul to happiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now is the market now is the Truth set to sale as it
were by the voice of the cryer and if thou wilt have it thou must buy it Ye see that Truth is a rich merchandise and that it must be bought Now in the next place we must know what it is to buy it As in all purchases so here something must be laid down And though we cannot set a price upon the Truth worthy of it it being in it self unvaluable and all the world not able to weigh down the least grain of it yet something there is which must be given for it The very heathen thought nothing to dear to purchase it amongst whom we read of some who flung away their goods and riches and bid defiance to pleasures ut nudam veritatem nudi expeditÃque sequerentur saith Lactantius that being stript of all they might meet with the naked Truth and embrace her So highly did they value the Truth that therein they placed their summum bonum their chief happiness If ye ask what the price is ye must give the answer is short Ye must give your selves Ye must lay down your selves at the altar of Truth and be offered up as a sacrifice for it Ye must offer up your Understandings fit and apply them to the Truth Ye must offer up your Wills and bow them to it Ye must strip and empty your selves of all your Affections at least be free from the power of them For the Affections raise a tempest in the soul and make it swell as stormy winds do the sea so that the Mind can no more receive the Truth then the troubled waves can receive and reflect the image of our face Not onely the seeds of moral conversation those practick notions with which we were born but also those seeds of saving Truth which we gather from the Scripture and improve by instruction and practice are then most obscured and darkned when pleasures and delights take possession of our affections As we often see in persons sore distempered with sickness the light of their reason dimmed and the mind disturbed by reason of vitious vapours arising from their corrupted humours so it is in the soul and understanding which could not but apprehend the Truth being so fitted and proportioned to it as ye have heard if it were not dazled and amazed with impertinent objects and phantasmes that intervene if the affections did not draw it to things heterogeneous and contrary to it Being blinded hereby it beholdeth all objects through the affections which as coloured glasses present all things much like unto themselves Thus Falshood getteth the face and beauty of Truth and that appeareth true which pleaseth though it hurt For the Affections do not onely hinder our judgment but prevent and preoccupate it Truth is plain and open to the eye but Love or Hatred Hope or Fear coming in between teach us first to turn from it and after to dispute against it The Love of our countrey maketh Truth and Religion national and confineth it within a province The Love of those whom our worldly affairs draw us to converse with shutteth it up yet closer and tieth it to a city to an house And to put off this Love we think is to wage war with Nature The Love of riches formeth a cheap and thriving Religion The Love of honour buildeth her a chair The Love of pleasure maketh her wanton and superstitious That which we Love still presenteth it self before our eyes and thence we take materials to build up that congregation which alone we think deserveth the name of a Church So that if we never beheld the face of the men yet by the form and draught of their Religion we may easily judge which way their affections sway them and to what coast they steer And as Love so Hatred transformeth not men alone but also the Truth it self and maketh it an heresy though in an Apostle yea though in our Saviour Luke 16.13 No man can serve two masters is as undeniable a principle as any in the Mathematicks yet because Christ spake it the Pharisees who were covetous derided him Luke 16.14 Micaiah was a true Prophet but Ahab believed him not because he hated him 1 Kings 22.8 How many Truths are condemned by the Reformed party onely because the Papists teach them And how many doth that Church anathematize because the Protestant holdeth them Maldonate in his Commentary on the Gospel is not ashamed to profess of an interpretation of one passage there that he would willingly subscribe and receive it as the truest had it not been Calvin's And have not we some who have condemned even that which is Truth and which is delivered in the language of Scripture and in the very same words upon no other reason but because it is still retained in the Mass-book As Tacitus speaketh of an hated Prince Inviso semel Principe seu bene seu malè facta premunt when a person is once grown odious in our eyes whatsoever he doth or saith whether good or evil whether true or false is as odious as he If an enemy do it the most warrantable act is a mortal sin and when he speaketh it the Truth it self is a lie All the argument we have against it is the person that speaketh it for we will not use his language As it is said of Marius that he so hated the Grecians that he would not walk the same way that a Greek had gone though it were the best Further we must lay down at the feet of Truth our Fears For Fear is the worst counsellor we can have Nunquam fidele consilium dat metus saith Seneca It never giveth us true and faithful counsel but flying from that which we fear it carrieth us away in its flight from the Truth it self Perjury is a monstrous sin of that bulk and corpulency that we cannot but see it yet Fear will lift up our hands and bind us to that which we know to be false and within a while teach us to plead for it Fear saith the Wise-man Wisd 17.12 is nothing else but the betrayer of those succours which Reason offereth When we are struck with Fear we are struck deaf and will neither hearken to our selves nor to seven wise men that can render a reason Prov. 26.16 This made (a) Gen. 3.8 10. Adam hide himself This sealed up the lips of (b) John 12.42 many chief rulers among the Jewes so that though they believed on Christ yet because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the synagogue And this opened the mouth of Peter to deny him He that is afraid of what evil may befall him is not a fit merchant to buy the Truth For though he have the price in his hand Prov. 17 16. he hath no heart to it A blast a puff of wind will drive him from this market And as Fear so Hope will soon betray and deceive us The Hope of honour of profit of favour of
preferment Balaam's reward 2 Pet. 2.15 Jude 11. will make us leave the wayes of Truth and run after his errour For this taketh us from our selves enslaveth our understandings and alienateth our minds that we dare not venture and bid frankly for the Truth nay we will not admit it nor hearken after ought that is displeasing to those Balaks who can promote us to honour Numb 22.17 37. Thus we see daily the power of a mortal man is more prevalent then that which we so magnifie the Grace of God and the Court gaineth more proselytes then the Church mens religion being drawn by their hopes not of Eternity but of Riches which have wings and of Honour which is but a breath Prov 23.5 Magnus Deus est Error as Martine Luther speaketh Errour is the great God of this world and Hope waiteth upon it to bring in multitudes for reward whilest Truth with all her glorious promises Luke 12.32 findeth but a little flock For thus do those fools argue Why should we despise so good a friend who can raise us from the dung-hill and make us hold up our heads with the best and follow such a guide as Truth which will lead us upon pricks into prison unto the block This is the Sophistry of our worldly Hopes and it easily deceiveth us who are far sooner convinced with false shews then with the real arguments and enforcements of Truth Besides this we look upon it as a kind return and a piece of gratitude to joyn in errour with them who feed our lusts to make them our prophets who have made themselves our patrons to have the same authours of our faith and of our greatness and with the same chearfulness to receive their dictates and their favours The world is full of such parasites Phil. 3.19 whose belly is their God whose Hope looketh downward on the earth and so keepeth them from the sight of the Truth who cannot see a sin or an errour in them that pour down these fading and perishing graces on them For if they should grant they erre in any thing they might be brought at last to fear that they erre also in this in doing them good and heaping benefits upon them Thus do our hopes blind us And therefore if we will purchase the Truth we must cast them away And yet Beloved we need not cast our Affections quite away They are implanted in us by the same hand which set up a candle Prov. 20.27 as the Wise-man calleth the light of Reason in the soul And God hath placed them in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in such order that they may be very usefull and advantageous to us They may indeed as ye have heard be powerful to withdraw us from the Truth and they may also be serviceable and instrumental to promote it Wherefore the Apostles counsel is that we crucifie the affections Gal. 5.24 2 Cor. 10.5 not quite extinguish them that we bring them into a glorious captivity and obedience to the Truth I may buy food with a piece of gold and I may buy poyson I may surrender my affections to Errour and I may bestow them on the Truth And happy is that man who is ready thus to spend and to be spent 2 Cor. 12.15 For he who thus spendeth himself he who thus wasteth and tameth his affections doth not quite lose them but loseth onely that of them which would destroy him Therefore in this negotiation we must observe the method of Socrates and drive out one love with another and one hatred with another supplant one hope and chase away one fear with another First Love is a passion imprinted in the soul for this end that it may be fixed on the truth And when once it is so it will be restless and unquiet till it have purchased it It will overcome all difficulties it will meet the Devil in all his horrour it will meet him in his armour of light and pass through all to this mart Nor is there any thing that can hinder it or keep it back Rom. 8.38 neither death nor life nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come No Love beareth us and carrieth us aloft over all as it were on the wings of the wind and bringeth us to the Truth Let us so love the Truth that we buy it and so buy it that we love it the more These two are alwaies in conjunction as the Heat and Light of the Sun The hotter the Sun-beams be the more light there is so the more heat there is in my Love the more bright is the light of the Truth and the more this light shineth the more servent is my Love The love of Truth and the Truth which we love are mother and daughter each to the other mutually begetting and bearing one another We speak of traffick and it is Love alone that maketh all the bargains that are made For who ever yet bought that which he loved not and can there be too great a price set upon that we love if we truly love a thing what will we not give for it As we deal with our Love so let us also with our Hatred Why should I hate any man who am my self a man But then to transferre my hatred from the person to the Truth and to revile it for his sake cometh near to that which we call the sin against the holy Ghost The Truth is the same in whomsoever it be and ought to be received for it self Else we must blot out one article of our Creed for the Devil himself confessed Jesus to be the Son of the most high God Mark 5.7 The Truth rather should force us to the love of the man then our hatred of the man make us enemies to the Truth It is true Though Socrates be a friend and Plato be a friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ethic. l. 1. c. 4. yet the Truth is to be preferred before them both And it is as true Though Socrates be an enemy and Plato an enemy yet the Truth whosoever professeth it is still to be accounted a friend Whether in Heretick or Orthodox whether in Papist or Protestant whether in Arminian or Calvinist the Truth is ever the same And he who cannot look through all these impertinent considerations and by-respects will prove as great an enemy to the Truth as those he condemneth He who casteth a veil of his own working over his face cannot behold the beauty of Truth cannot see to buy it If we will buy the Truth we must learn to hate this Hatred and to fling it out we must learn to abstract the man from his opinion what he saith or holdeth from what he appeareth to us For while we judge of things by the person whom we first hate and then draw him out in our minds in a monstrous shape Virtue and Truth in him will appear to us under the same loathed aspect yea Scripture
for the covetous as for the liberal and filleth his garments as conclusive for the malicious as for the meek and filleth his hands with bloud findeth out as many waies to destruction as it can to life This in Scripture is termed Folly and Errour Isa 5.13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity because they have no understanding saith God by his Prophet not that they had no understanding but that they used their understanding amiss making it a conduct to them in their evil waies which should have been their guide in the waies of Truth Where is the wise 1 Cor. 1.20 where is the disputer of this world We may look upon them with admiration and bow before them as the grand Sophies of the world But in the book of God where Wisdome it self speaketh they have their true name and are set down for Fools Now as there is a direct positive and wilful Hatred of the Truth so there is also Malitia interpretativa as the Schools speak a Malice which doth not shew its face so openly as the other is not so soon understood by our selves or others but may easily be discovered and found out if we take the pains to interpret it a Malice which we carry about with us when we think it is not near us And this is it When we use no more diligence to know the Truth then if we did directly affect Ignorance when we have so low an opinion of it that we think it not worth the saluting nisi in transitu but onely by the By. This if ye open and interpret it is no better then Malice For not to love the Truth is to hate it not to draw it near to us and embrace it is to thrust it far from us Lataâ—culpa nimia negligentia saith the Civile Law A careless negligence is a great fault Malitiae soror saith the Poet the sister of Malice and goeth hand in hand with her For what is the reason that Folly is with us The Heathen could tell us Quia illam fortiter non repellimus Because we like its company well enough and do not rouse up our selves to drive it away Quia citò nobis placemus Because we are soon at peace and well pleased with our selves because we do not open our breasts to the Truth but to our own and others flatteries and touch but lightly upon so great a thing Thus at once we love the Truth and hate it will not be better because we think our selves the best are soon wise and ever foolish I may call this a Pharisaical hypocritical Malice which hideth and sheweth it self all at once We cannot give a more favourable interpretation but must needs look upon it as a malicious distast of the Truth It is neither a willing nor a nilling to refuse the Truth properly so called for we neither chuse it nor absolutely refuse it we neither seek it nor plainly shun it but stand still when we should make hast towards it hold the price in our hand and never profer it but what Antony imputed to Augustus as an argument of his cowardise lie supinely on our backs and look up to heaven when we should fight when we should be up and doing This is properly I say neither a chusing nor a refusing But because it should be one of them and is not it is therefore in esteem the contrary Because we do not love the Truth to which our Love is due we may be truly said to hate it Because we do not lay down the price for such a jewel it is argument of force enough to make it good that it is not in all our hearts This interpretative Malice hath taken hold of the greatest part of mankind and so entangled and puzzled them in the mazes and labyrinths of Errour that they wander from vanity to vanity and can never find the way out Many are hurried away by their Affections more swallowed up by Prejudice and buried therein as in a grave Few there be that are professed enemies to the Truth but this indirect Hatred of it even covereth the face of the earth like a deluge and there remain but a few souls within the Ark. Every man almost commendeth Truth yet most proscribe her and give her a bill of divorce Every man professeth himself a Scholar of the Truth but few learn it Every man cometh to the market but few buy The Bloud thirsty will detest cruelty in others and yet wash his feet in the bloud of the innocent The Oppressour will plead for mercy to the poor and yet grind their face will cry down persecution and yet raise one The wanton will fling a stone at an adulterer and defile himself The Intemperate will make a panegyrick on Temperance and be a beast Virtue I say is as the Sun and we see it but when we should receive its rayes and influence into our selves and grow thereby we turn away our face and understand not what we do understand and see not when we see we see it at distance but when we should draw it near unto us and apply it we are stark blind Then Cruelty is Mercy Oppression justice Intemperance temperance an Evil is any thing but what it is Jer. 4.22 Thus the Prophet saith of the Jews My people is foolish they have not known me they are sottish children and they have no understanding they are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justine Martyr This ignorance sometimes is called Ignorance and sometimes hath the name of knowledge in the Scripture Such knowledge is ignorance nay it is worse then ignorance because we draw it not forward to its end but run to the contrary and so fall more dangerously then if we saw nothing at all but were blind indeed Again how many precepts of Truth are there which though delivered in plain terms we will not understand Luke 14.13 14. When thou makest a feast call the poor the maimed the lame the blind And a reason is annexed And thou shalt be blessed for they cannot recompense thee for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just Yet what rich mans table is furnished with such guests Do we not look upon this Evangelical precept as the Priest and the Levite did upon the wounded man Luke 10.31 32 and pass by on the other side We are so far from counting it a duty that it appeareth to us a mere solecisme and gross absurdity in behaviour And we doubt not to receive the reward promised though we make not our selves ridiculous by performing the duty Again Luke 6.35 Lend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 looking for nothing again The words are plain and they are the words of Wisdom and yet what can be more heretical to the covetous In udo est veritas All the truth we have floteth upon our tongues Why else should any Truth distast us why should we be displeased at any
of themselves but he that thus findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it The loss of our lives for righteousness sake is a purchase Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven For this Stephen was stoned Paul beheaded the Martyrs tortured So persecuted they the Prophets which were before you In the next place as a good Cause so a good Life doth fit and qualifie us to suffer for righteousness sake Non habent martyrum mortem qui non habent Christianorum vitam saith Augustine He dieth not the death of a Martyr who liveth not the life of a Christian An unclean beast is not fit to make a sacrifice Nor will the crown of Martyrdome sit upon his head who goeth on in his sin It is to the wicked that God saith What hast thou to do to declare my statutes and What hast thou to do to suffer for them For he that suffereth for them declareth them Therefore S. Augustine calleth the Donatists who in a perverse emulation of the glory of the true Martyrs leapt down from rocks and flung themselves into the water and were drowned sceleratos homicidas wicked homicides and unnatural murtherers of themselves What Cyprian speaketh of Schism is as true of other mortal sins not repented of Non Martyrium tollit not Martyrdom it self can expiate or blot it out For can we think that he that hath taken his fill in sin all his life long and still made his strength the law of unrighteousness should in a moment wash away all his filth and pollutions baptismo sanguinis with his own bloud It may supply for those other pious souls who were never washed in the other laver that of Baptism because persecution or death deprived them of that benefit for what cannot be done cannot oblige But how a man should draw out his life in an open hostility to Christ and trifle with him and contemn him all his dayes and then before repentance and reconciliation which indeed is in the very act of hostility bow to him and die for him I cannot see Take S. Pauls black catalogue of the works of the flesh Adultery Gal. 3. fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulation wrath strife seditions heresies envyings murthers drunkenness revellings and not one of these but will infringe and weaken the testimony of any man and render him a suspected witness in our Courts on Earth And shall the truth of Christ stand in need of such Knights of the post who will speak for her when they oppose her Take that bed-roll of wicked men which the Apostle prophesied should come in these last and perilous times 2 Tim. 3 1-5 Lovers of their own selves Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers Disobedient to parents Vnthankful Vnholy Without natural affection Truce-breakers False accusers Incontinent Fierce Despisers of those that are good Traitors Heady High minded Lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof and may not the Gospel be ashamed of such Professors and Martyrs as these Or shall we look for heaven in hell and hope to find a Martyr amongst a generation of vipers Or is he fit to be advocate for any truth who hath the faith of Christ with respect of persons Then we shall have factious Martyrs seditious Martyrs malicious Martyrs profane Martyrs sacrilegious Martyrs And if these be Martyrs we may say of them as Tertullian did of the Heathen Gods Potiores apud inferos There be honester men in hell then these No a good Cause and a good Life must be our conductors to the Cross must lead us by the hand to the fiery trial must as it were anoint us to our graves and prepare us for this great work Otherwise whatsoever we suffer is not properly Persecution but an execution of justice It may be here perhaps demanded What then shall he do who having fettered himself in the snare of the Devil hath not yet shaken it off by true repentance whose conscience condemneth him of many gross and grievous sins which yet himself hath not condemned in his flesh by practising the contrary vertues What shall a notorious sinner do if he be called to this great office if his fortunes and life be brought in hazard for the profession of some article of faith or some truth which he believeth is necessary to salvation What shall he do being shut up between these three a bad conscience assurance of that truth he professeth and the terrour of death Shall he hold fast the truth or subscribe to the contrary Shall he suffer without true repentance of his former sins or repent of the truth which he professeth Shall he deny against his conscience what he knoweth to be true or shall he suffer and comfort himself in this one act as a foundation firm enough to raise a hope on of remission of sin Here is a great streight a sad Dilemma like that of the servant in the Comedy Si faxit perit si non faxit vapulat If he do it he may perish and if he do it not he may be beaten He may suffer for the truth and yet suffer for his sins and if he do it not he hath denied the faith and is worse then an infidel But beloved this is an instance like that of Buridan's ass between two bottles of hay knowing not which to chuse an instance of what peradventure never or very seldom cometh to pass We may suppose what we please we may suppose the heavens to stand still and the earth to move and some have thought so we may suppose what in nature is impossible And this if it be not impossible yet is so improbable that it hardly can gain so much credit as to win an assent For that he who all his life long hath cast Christ's word 's behind him should now seal them with his bloud that they are true that a conscience so beaten so wasted so overwhelmed with the habit of sins should now take in and entertain a fear of so little a sin as the denial of one truth in respect of the contempt of all that he that hath swallowed this monstrous camel should strain at this gnat that he that hath trampled Christ's bloud under his feet should shed his own for some one dictate of his is a thing which we may suppose but hardly believe Or tell me Where should this sting and power of conscience lye hid Or can conscience drive us to the confession of one truth which had no power to withhold us from polluting our selves with so many sins Holding faith saith S. Paul 1 Tim. 1.19 and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made ship-wreck So near an alliance there is between Faith and a good Conscience that we must either keep them both or lose them both Faith as Saint Paul intimateth in that Text is as the
the Church is and not like unto the world Wonder not then for the Church hath its peace even in persecution And that we may not think it strange let us not frame and fashion to our selves a Church by the world For by looking too stedfastly upon this world we carry the impression it maketh in us whithersoever we go and that maketh Persecution appear to us in such a monstrous shape that we begin to question the providence of God in suffering it to rage within his territories How doth it amaze us to see Innocency trod down by Power to see a Saint whipped by a Devil But in the world we are born in the world we are the world is the greatest part of our study and hence it cometh to pass that in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and his Church we are ready to phansie something to our selves like unto the world Temporal Felicity and Peace is the desire of the whole world and upon this some have made it a note and mark of the true Church like the Musician in Tully who being asked what the Soul was answered that it was an harmony is à principiis artis suae non recessit He knew not saith he how to leave the principles of his own art From hence it is that when we see persecution and the sword and fire rage against the true professours we are at our wits end and think that not onely the glory is departed but the light of Israel is quite put out that when desolation hath shaken a Kingdom the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church As groundless a conceit well near as if we should take the description of Heaven in the Revelation to be true in the letter and that it is a City of pure Gold that the foundations of the walls are adorned with pretious stones that every gate is a pearl and the streets shine like glass Let us then wipe out this carnal errour out of our hearts That the Kingdom of Christ doth hold proportion with the form and managing of these Kingdoms below here on earth that the same peace doth continue and the same division and pâ—â—secution dissolve and ruine both that the same violence which removeth the Candlestick doth blow out the light And let us abstract and wean our selvâ—â— from the world let us be dead to the world let us crucifie the world in a word let us not love the world nor the things of the world and we shall then begin to think persecution a blessing and all these conceits of outward peace and felicity will vanish into nothing And therefore in the third place let us cast down these imaginations these bubbles of wind blown and raised up by the flesh the worser part which doth soonest bring on a persecution and soonest fear one and let us in the place of these build up a royal fort build up our selves in our most holy faith and so fit and prepare our selves against this fiery tryal For as those are called mysteries which are precedaneous and go before the mysteries and he may be said to fight who doth but flourish and arm and fit himself for the battel so the blessed Spirit of God every where calleth upon those who are his souldiers to watch and stand upon their guard to put on the whole armour of God that when the devil assaulteth them in a storm of persecution they may be able to stand Eph. 6.11 to look upon the sword beforehand to take it up and handle it to dispute it out of its force and terrour and so by a familiar conversing with it beforehand by opposing our hopes of happiness and the promises of life to the terrours that death may bring opposing the second part of my Text to the first the Kingdom of heaven to persecution we may abate its force and violence and so by a due preparation conquer before we suffer and leave the persecutor no more power but to kill us And to this end let us view and well look upon the beauty and glory of Righteousness and learn to love it to make it our counsellour our oracle whilest the light shineth upon our heads to let it have a command over us and when it saith Do this to do it For if we thus make it our joy and our crown display it abroad in every action of our life in the time of peace we shall not part with it at a blast nor fling it off and forsake it in time of persecution If we love Righteousness Righteousness will love us and cleave close to us when our friends and acquaintance leave us and fall away like leaves in Autumn A good conscience is an everlasting never-failing foundation but the clamours and checks of a polluted one will give us no leisure at all to build up an holy resolution For when we have a long time detained the truth in righteousness kept it down as a prisoner and not suffered it to work in us when in the whole course of our life we have kept her captive under our sensual lusts and affections it is not probable that in time of danger and astonishment it should have so much power over us as to win us to suffer for its sake but these sensual lusts which in time of peace did keep the Truth and Righteousness under will now shew themselves again in time of persecution and be as forcible to deter us from those evils which are so but in shew and appearance as they were to plunge us into those evils of sin which are true and real If then thou wilt be fitted for Persecution and so for Blessedness first persecute thy self crucifie thy flesh with the lusts and affections raise up a persecution in thy own breast banish every idle thought silence every loud and clamorous desire whip and correct every wandring phansie beat down every thing that standeth in opposition to Righteousness be thus dead unto thy self and then neither death nor life neither fear of death nor hopes of life neither principalities nor powers neither present evils nor those to come shall ever be able to shake thy confidence or separate thee from the love of Righteousness which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And now as we have brought the Righteous person into this Field of bloud and prepared and strengthned him against the horror of it so must we bring the Persecutor also that he may behold what desolation he hath made Why boastest thou thy self in thy mischief O mighty man That thou hast sped that thou hast divided the prey that thou hast made Innocence it self to lick the dust of thy feet that thou hast spilt the bloud of the righteous as water on the ground Thus did the tyrants of old triumph and dance in the bloud which they shed Behold thou persecutest thy self and though the righteous fall under thee yet thou sufferest most Every blow thou givest them entereth into thy own soul that power with which
presently be your master These bodies of ours are at the best but Gibeonites And if we come to terms of truce with them it must be but as Joshua did with the Gibeonites that they may be our bond slaves hewers of wood and drawers of water our Almoners to distribute our bounty our servants to bear our burthens to sweat to smart to pine away that the Soul may be in health For what was noted of Caligula is true of our Body It is the worst master and the best servant And as S. Paul at first was the greatest persecutor of the Gospel of Christ yet afterwards proved the greatest propagator and preacher of it so the Body that presseth down the soul may be disciplined and taught to lift it up to carry it along to act with it in the way of righteousness That Body which is a prison may be a theatre for the Mind to shew it self in all its proper operations That Body which is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sepulchre of a dead soul may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Temple wherein we may offer up sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour unto the Lord. That Body in which we dishonoured God stood out against him and defied him may bow and fall down before him and glorifie him When the Body is subject to the Soul the Sense obedient to Reason and the Will of man guided by the supreme rule the Will of God not swerving either to the right hand or the left then every string is in its right place then every touch every action is harmonious then there is order which indeed is the glory of the God of Order In the third place as the Body is thus hewed and squared and made up a Temple of God so is it also made fit to be a sacrifice When it is purged and disciplined and subdued then is it best qualified for that lavacrum sanguinis to enter the laver of persecution and to be baptized with its own bloud and being now taken out of the mouth of the roaring Lion by the same power to tread him under foot nec solùm evadere sed devincere and not onely to escape his paws but to overcome him Let us phansie as we please an easie passage to the Tree of life we shall find there is a flaming sword still betwixt us and it Let us study to make our wayes smooth and plain to Happiness yet we are all designati martyres no sooner Christians then culled out and designed to Martyrdom And if there were no other prison yet the world it self is one and we are sometimes brought out to be spit upon sometimes as Samson to make men sport sometimes to be stripped and not pitied sometimes to the block or to the fire sometimes to fight with beasts with men more savage then they Our prison is not so much our custody as our punishment and we are in a manner thrown out of it whilest we are in it and whilest we are in it we suffer For to glorifie God is to speak the truth of him and to speak the truth of him many times costeth us our tongues and our lives John Baptist may speak many things to Herod and Herod may give him the hearing but if to the glory of God he tell Herod that truth which above all it concerneth him to know this at the first shall lose John his liberty and at the last his head Nay our Saviour Jesus Christ to discharge his message faithfully to bear witness to the Truth and glorifie his Father must be content to lay down his life The Truth of God by which he is most glorified like the Tyrant's fiery furnace scorcheth and burneth up those that profess it hominem martyrem excudit forgeth and fashioneth the man into a Martyr He that endureth to the end glorifieth God and is glorified himself Nec aliud est sustinere in finem quà m pati finem To endure to the end is nothing else but to endure the end We all speak it often Glory be to thee O Lord and the calves of our lips are a cheap and easie sacrifice For we speak it in the habitations of peace But should we hear the noise of the whip should Persecution rush in with a sword in her hand Deficient vires nec vox nec verba sequentur our heart would fail us and we should not have a word to speak for the Glory of God Would any take in Truth and Sword and all into his bowels Would we so glorifie God as to lay our Honour and Life in the dust We do not well consider what the Glory of God is and yet it is the language of the whole world and the worst of men speak it as well as the best the Hyeocrite loudest of all You may hear it from the mouth of the bloud-thirstty man and it is more heard then his Murther which maketh the greatest noise in the other world But it is not done in a word or a breath For then God might have a MAGNIFICAT from Hell Even the Devils may cry Jesus thou Son of the living God It is not to enter his house with praise and his courts with thanksgiving No not to comprehend with all Saints what is the length and heighth and depth and breadth of his Greatness to know that it is in breadth immense in height most sublime in length eternal in depth unfoordable No not to suck out ubera beata praeconii as Cassiodore calleth the Psalms those breasts which distill nothing but praise No A MAGNIFICAT an EXSULTATE a Triumph a Jubilee will not reach it Then we truly glorifie God in our body when we do it openly when Persecution rageth when the fire flameth in our face when the Sword is at our very breasts Then to speak his glory when for ought we know it may be the last word we shall speak to profess his name in the midst of a crooked and froward generation to defend his Truth before Tyrants and not be ashamed to be true Prophets amongst a thousand false ones to suffer for his name's sake this is to glorifie him in our body And these three Chastity Temperance Patience present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God which is our reasonable service For good reason it is that we should be chaste for he is pure that we should fast and afflict our bodies for it is a lesson which he taught us himself in our flesh that we should offer up our bodies for him whose body was nailed to the cross for us A chaste body a subdued body a body ready to be offered up is his Temple indeed the place where his glory dwelleth And now we pass to a fourth the Glorifying God by those outward Expressions which are commanded by the Spirit but performed by the Body alone glorifying of him by our Voice and Gesture and reverent Deportment by our outward Worship And indeed if the three first were made good we need not be
light to stand up against our helps and to disgrace that for which the Saints of God have offered up the calves of their lips Hebr. 13.15 the sacrifice of praise from generation to generation But when we have no peace within we trouble all that is about us When the love of our selves and of the world hath gained a throne and power within us it presently raiseth a tempest distracteth and maddeth our passions and sendeth them abroad our Anger on that we should love our Fear on that we should embrace our Sorrow on that which should make us glad our Anger on the Temple whilest our Love is carried with a swinge to the gold of the Temple And then what an unruly thing is Phansie in men who talk much and know little in men of narrow minds and heavy understandings in men who have bound their reason to the things of this world and not improved it by the knowledge of the truth What Comedies and Tragedies will it make what ridiculous but withall sad effects will it produce If this humour were general as it is in too-too many within a while we should not know where or when or what to pray we shall not know how to move our selves how to stand or go or kneel we should make some scruple and be troubled to take up a straw we should fall out with others and disagree with our selves we should to day build a Church and within a while pull it down and shortly after set it up again we should kneel to day and stand to morrow and every day change our postures and appear in as many shapes as Proteus we should do and undo and every day do what we should not do be Antipodes to all the world and which is strange to our selves also and so having been every thing at last turn Apostates first oppose the private spirit to Scripture and then as some have done of late deny it to be the word of God first wrest and abuse it and then take it quite away These are the common operations of a sick and distempered brain the evaporations of a corrupt heart Nor can we look for grapes from thorns nor for figs from thistles Matth. 7.16 It cannot be expected that things sacred should escape the hands of Violence and Profaneness till men begin to love Religion for it self and cease to think every thing unlawful that may be spoken against till they have learnt that totum Christiani that which maketh a Christian indeed learnt to subdue their affections to the truth and not to draw down the truth to be subject to their unquiet and turbulent passions When true devotion hath once purified and warmed our hearts we shall not trouble our selves or others with low and groundless questions concerning God's house Though he be indeed every where yet we shall think him more present here then in any other place more ready to shine upon us to distill his blessings as dew upon us in his own house then in our closet or shop more ready to favour the devotion of many assembled together then of one single person and yet hearing and favouring both Or if we do not think the Lord more present here then elsewhere yet we shall demean our selves as if we did think so we shall use all reverence as in the sight of God before vvhom vve present our selves vve shall use all reverence as being before the holy Angels What you will say do Angels come to Church Yes They did in St. Paul's time And certainly they do still unless we chase them away with our irreverence One argument that the Apostle useth why women should be veiled and covered in the Church and men uncovered is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 Nor need we strain and study for an interpretation and say he meant the Pastours of the Church because in Scripture sometime they are called Angels Hagg. 1.13 Mal. 2.7 For this is too much forced and maketh the reason less valid and putteth the Veil upon the Man as well as the Woman Nor can we understand the evil Spirits Psal 78.49 Matth. 25.41 Rev. 12.7 9. Hebr 1.14 which are no where called Angels but with addition Nor can I see any reason why we may not understand the holy Angels to be there meant For they are ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation then doubtless they minister to us in the Church assoon as in any other place They rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner Luke 15. ◠10 then doubtless they rejoyce also at our prayers and praises in the house of the Lord. But say some the Apostle in that place exhorteth women to imitate the reverent and modest behaviour of the Angels Isa 6.2 who are said to cover their faces before the throne of God But then this again would concern Men as well as Women All will be plain if we consider that at that time it was a received custome for women to be veiled and men uncovered in the Church 1 Cor. 11.7 13. The words are plain A man indeed ought not to cover his head and Is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered If the women therefore will not be covered because of men 11. let them do it because of the Angels who are sent by Christ into the congregations of Christians to take care of them to help them in every occasion and withall to observe whether they behave themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 14.40 decently and in order Here they are present in the name of their Lord here they stand as witnesses of what is done To them as to their Lord that sent them modest and reverent behaviour is pleasing boldness profaness and disorder hateful As they do their duty in ministring to us so they rejoyce to see us doe ours in serving God Why should they be grieved who are so ready to attend on us Therefore it will concern Women not to neglect or alter the custome of the Church lest by so doing they give offense to the blessed Angels who are great lovers of decency and order and make them who would minister to them to become witnesses against them upon the beck of Majesty executioners of judgement upon their heads This I take to be the meaning of the Apostle in that place Reverence is due to the house of God not onely because God is present there Ye shall reverence my sanctuarie Levit. 19.30 I am the Lord but because the Angels are present there also who are the ministers of the God of order and rejoyce in our order and are offended at the contrary Further yet a reverent deportment in the Church is necessary in respect of men Some men by their severity and eminency in virtue have obtained to themselves this privilege and prerogative that no man dareth do any evil or undecent thing in their presence Seneca saith
tell their auditors that they were impoverisht with plenty streitned with abundance dull'd and cloy'd with too much matter and cry out with them Where should I begin or how should I end For we may behold the World as a theatre or stage and most men walking and treading their paces as in a shadow all in shew and visor nothing in substance maskt and hidden from others and masked and hidden from themselves fond of themselves and yet enemies to themselves loving and yet hating flattering and yet wounding raising and yet destroying themselves in their forehead Holiness to the Lord in their heart a legion of Devils breathing forth Hosanna's when they are a nayling their Saviour to the cross canonizing themselves saints when the Devil hath them in his snare hugging their errour proud of their errour glorying in their shame wiser then the Law wiser then the Gospel above command nauseating and loathing all advice and counsel whatsoever Reason or Revelation breaths against them as the smoke of the bottomless pit We may behold the Covetous grasping of wealth smiling at them that love not the world and counting them fools because they will not be so but this man is sick and dyeth this man perisheth and where is he We may behold the Ambitious in his ascent and mount and in his height looking down with scorn upon those dull and heavy spirits who will not follow after and yet every step he rises is a foul descent and he is never nearer to the lowest pit then when he is at his height This man falls and is dasht to pieces and where is he Behold the Seditious who moves and walks and beats up his march in the name of the Lord of hosts and thinks God beholding to him when he breaks his Law this man dyeth and perisheth and where is he Where is the Saint when the Covetous the Ambitious the Seditious man are in hell Oh beloved would we could see this and beware of it betimes before the Son of man comes who will pluck off our masks and disguises and make us a wofull spectacle to the world to men and to Angels Oh what a grief is it that we should never hear nor know our selves till we hear that voice Depart from me I know you not that we should deceive our selves so long till Mercy it self cannot redeem us from our errour That we should never see our selves but in Hell never feel our pain till it be eternal Oh what a sad thing is it that we should seal up our eyes in our own bloud and filth that we should delight in darkness and call it light that we should adore our errours and worship our own vain imaginations and in this state and pomp and triumph strut on to our destruction To day if you will hear his voyce harden not your hearts Hic meus est dixere dies This is our day to look into our selves to examine our selves to mistrust our selves to be jealous of our selves vereri omnia opera as Job speaks to be afraid of every work we do of every enterprise we take in hand to hearken to God when he speaks to us by our selves for Reason is his voice as well as Scripture By the one he speaks in us by the other to us to consult with our Reason and the rule to hear them speak in their own dialect not glossed and corrupted by our sensual affections to strive with our selves to fight against our selves to deny our selves and in this blessed agony and holy contention to lift up our hearts to the God of light to take up that of the Prophet David and make it our prayer Lord deliver us from the deceitful man that is from our selves I need not stand any longer upon this For even they that deceive themselves will willingly subscribe to all that I have said and commonly none defie Errour louder then they who call it unto them both with hands and words We will therefore rather as we proposed discover the Danger which men incurre by joyning with it that we may learn by degrees to shake it off to detest and avoid it In the first place this wilfull deceiving of our selves this deciding for our selves against our selves for our Sense against our Reason this easie falling upon any opinion or persuasion which may bring along with it pleasure or profit or honour all things but the truth is that which layes us open to every dart of Satan which wounds us the deeper because we receive it as an arrow out of Gods quiver as a message from Heaven For we see a false persuasion will build up in us as strong resolutions as a true one Saul was as zealous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel hereticks are as ready for the fiery tryal as the orthodox the Turk as loud for his Mahomet as the Christian for his Christ In a word Errour produceth as strange effects as Truth Habet Diabolus suos martyres for the Devil hath his martyrs as well as Christ That which is a sin now and so appears a crying mortal sin and we stand at distance and will not come near it anon Profit or Pleasure those two parasites which bewitch the soul plead for it commend it and at last change the shape of it and it hath no voice to speak against us but bids us Go on and prosper It was a monster but now it is clothed and dressed up with the beauty of Holiness and we grow familiar with it It was as menstruous raggs but now we put it on and cloth our selves with it as with the robes of righteousness A false persuasion hath the same power which the Canonists give the Pope to make Evil good and Vice vertue It is a sin but if I do it not I shall loose all that I have and then I do it and then it is no sin It was Oppression it is now Law It was Covetousness it is now Thrift It was Sacrilege it is now Zeal It was Perjury it is now Wisdom Persuasion is a wheel on which the greatest part of the world are turned and circled about till they fall several wayes into several evils and do but touch at the Truth by the way Persuasion builds a Church and Persuasion pulls it down Persuasion formeth a Discipline and Persuasion cancels it Persuasion maketh Saints and Persuasion thrusts them out the Calendar Persuasion makes laws and Persuasion abollisheth them The Stoicks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of preoccupation of the minds the sourse and original of all the actions of our life as powerful when we erre as when the Truth is on our side and commonly carrying us with a greater swinge to that which is forbidden then to that to which we are bound to by a law This is the first mover in all those irregular motions of a wanton and untamed will This is the first wheel in the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his devises and enterprises From this
in evil as from Gods Grace in good proceed both the Will and the Deed. For when this Persuasion is wrought in us when by degrees we have lessened that honour and detestation of Sin which God hath imprinted in the mind of every man when we have often tasted those delights which are but for a season when this false inscription From hence is our gain hath blotted out the true one The wages of Sin is Death for we seldom take down this sop but the Devil enters when either Fear of inconvenience or Hope of gain hath made us afraid of the Truth and by degrees driven us into a false persuasion and at last prevailed with us to conclude against our own determinations and to approve what we condemn then every part of the body and faculty of the soul may be made a weapon of unrighteousness then we rejoyce like giants to run our race though the way we go be the way that leads unto Death Good Lord what a world of wickedness may be laid upon a poor thin and groundless Persuasion What a burden will Self-deceit bear What mountains and hills will wilfull Errour lie under and never feel them Hamor and Shechem must fall by the sword Gen. 34.26 and their whole city must be spoyled and what 's the ground Nothing but a mongrel Persuasion made up of Malice and Religion vers 31. Should he deal with our Sister as with an harlot Joseph must be sold and what 's the reason Behold the dreamer cometh Absalom would wrest his fathers sceptre out of his hand What puts him in arms Ambition and that which commends Ambition a thought that he could manage it better Oh that I might do justice King and Nobles and Senators all must perish together at one blow For should Hereticks live Holy things must be devoured For should Superstition flourish Such inconsequences and absurdities doth Self-deceit fall upon having no better props and pillars to uphold her then open Falshood or mistaken or misapplied Truth For as we cannot conclude well from false premisses so the premisses may be true and yet we may not conclude well For he that saith Thou shalt not commit adultery hath said also Thou shalt not kill He that condemns Heresie hath made Murder a crying sin He that forbids Superstition abhorreth Sacrilege All that we call Adulterers are not to be slain All that we term Hereticks are not to be blown up All that is or seems to be abused is not presently to be abolished For Adulterers may be punished though not by us Hereticks may be restrained though not by fire and things abused may be reserv'd and put to better uses And yet see upon what a Nothing this Self-deceit upholds it self For neither were they all adulterers that were slain by those brethren in evil nor were they Hereticks who were to be blown up nor is that Superstition which appears so to them whom the prince of this world hath blinded Oh what a fine subtle webb doth Self-deceit spin to catch it self What a Prophet is the Devil in Samuels mantle How do our own Lusts abuse us when the name or thought of Religion is taken in to make up the cheat How witty are we to our own damnation O Self-deceit from whence art thou come to cover the earth the very snare of the Devil but which we make our selves his golden fetters which we bear with delight and with which we walk pleasantly and say The bitterness of death is past and so we rejoyce in evil triumph in evil boast of evil call evil good and dream of paradise when we are falling into the bottomless pit Secondly this Self-deceit which our Apostle forbiddeth hath brought an evil report upon our Profession upon Christianity it self there having scarce been found any of any Religion who have so wilfully mistaken and deceived themselves in the rules of their Profession as Christians Christianity is a severe Religion and who more loose then Christians Christianity is an innocent Religion and full of simplicity and singleness and who more deceitful then Christians The very soul of Christianity is Charity and who more malitious then Christians The Spirit that taught Christianity came down in the shape of a Dove and who more vultures then Christians What an incongruity what a soloecism is this The best Religion and the worst men Men who have learnt an art to make a Promise overthrow a Precept and one precept supplant another sometimes wasting and consuming their Charity in their Zeal sometimes abating their Zeal with unseasonable Meekness now breaking the second Table to preserve the first and defying the image of God in detestation of Idolatry now losing Religion in Ceremony and anon crying down Ceremony when all their Religion is but a complement Invenit diabolus quomodo nos boni sectationibus perdat saith Tertullian By the deceit of the Devil we take a fall many times in the pursuit of that which is good and are very witty to our own damnation What evasions what distinctions do we find to delude the precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles As it hath been observed of those God-makers the Painters and Statuaries of the Heathen that they were wont to paint their Goddesses like their mistresses and did then think them most fair when they were most like that which they most loved so hath it been with many professors of Christian Religion they temper the precepts of it to their own phansie and liking they lay upon them glosses and interpretations as it were colours to make them look like unto that which they most love So that as Hilary observes quot voluntates tot fides there be as many Religions as there be Tempers and Dispositions of men as many Creeds as Humours We have annuas menstrnas fides We change our Religion with our Almanach nay with the Moon and the rules of Holiness are made to give attendance on those sick and loathsome humours which do pollute and defile it If I will set forth by the common compass of the world I may put in at shore when my vessel is sunk I may live an Atheist and dye a Saint I may be covetous disobedient merciless I may be factious rebellious and yet religious still a religious Nabal a religious Schismatick a religious Traytor I had almost said a religious Devil For this saith S. Paul the name of Christ is evil spoken of that worthy Name as S. James calleth it by those who by our conversation should be won to reverence that Name For this that blessed Name is blasphemed by which they might be saved Omnes in nobis rationes periclitantur that I may use Tertullians words though with some change We are in part guilty of the bloud of those deceived Jews and Pagans who now perishing in their errour might have been converted to the faith had not the Christian himself been an argument against the Gospel It might well move any man to wonder that well
happiness He taketh not away the first but he doth establish the second Briefly then we may observe these two parts 1. the Womans attestation 2. Christ's reply the Womans dictor and Christ's In the first Wisdome is justified of one of her children against all the gainsayings of the Jews and contradiction of sinners to the second Wisdome her self pointeth out to true happiness openeth her treasuries to all who will receive her instructions and proclaimeth an everlasting jubilee to those who hear the word of God and keep it In the handling of the former part we shall pass by these steps First we will point out the Occasion of the speach As he spake these things it came to pass Next we will take notice of the Person who took hold of the occasion and made so good use both of Christ's miracles and doctrine We find no name at all but some upon no ground conjecture that it was Martha's maid The Text saith no more but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain woman of the company but one of a multitude and that an unknown obscure woman not those learned clerks the Scribes and Pharisees Thirdly we shall propose to your Christian imitation the vehemencie and heat of her Affection Her heart was hot within her and the fire burned and at last it brast forth into a pure flame and she spake with her tongue She did not conceal and suppress her thoughts nor whisper them into the ear of a stranger but lift up her voice that the deadliest enemies of Christ even the Pharisees might hear Lastly we will weigh and consider the speach it self Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that thou hast sucked and tender it to you as near as we can in its full weight And all these particulars will amount to this sum That a poor silly woman saw more of the excellencie of Christ then did all the Doctors and Masters of Israel These materials our first part affordeth us to work upon Now as the Woman from what she had heard and seen took occasion to magnifie Christ so from her affection and free testimony Christ taketh occasion further to instruct her Blessed is the womb that bare thee saith the Woman Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it saith Christ Which maketh our second part Wherein we shall consider 1. the Form 2. the Matter and Substance of the words For the Form some would have the words adversative others meerly affirmative Some place them in opposition to the Womans affection Others too jealous of that honour which is given to the blessed Mother of Christ make them a plain and naked affirmation willing rather that Christ's words should want of their weight then that one jote or tittle of the Womans honour should fall to the ground I will not be too solicitous to take up the quarrel between them nor indeed is it worth the while The very first words Yea rather make it plain that the Womans Blessed was defective and wanted weight aad therefore Christ who is the Wisdome of the Father filleth it up He doth not which is the best kind of redargution with any bitterness deny what she saith but by a gentle corrective setteth her at rights She commendeth and magnifieth a corporal he preferreth a spiritual birth For as there is fructus ventris the fruit of the womb so is there partus mentis a conception and birth of the mind We conceive Christ by our hearing the word but when we keep it Christ is fully formed in us and we bring forth fruit meet for repentance The Woman then commendeth one birth and Christ enjoyneth another and as Socrates taught his scholars so our Saviour leadeth the Woman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from like to like from the admiration of a temporal to the knowledge of the spiritual birth from one Blessedness to another And thus the matter and substance of Christ's words affordeth us these three things 1. conceptum a kind of Conception by hearing of the word 2. partum a kind of Birth or Bringing-forth by keeping it 3. gaudium Joy after the delivery not temporal but spiritual even that Blessedness which every good Christian is as capable of as the Mother of Christ and which is laid up not onely for her who bare him in her womb but also for all those who keep him in their heart Yea rather saith Christ blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it These be the parts of my Text and of these in order Blessed is the womb that bare thee c. saith the Woman And that which occasioned and moved her thus to lift up her voice was the power of Christ's Works and Words When she saw him mighty in both when she saw the wonders that he wrought and how mightily he convinced the Scribes and Pharisees when he had confirmed his doctrine by miracles and his miracles by reason she plainly discovered the finger by which they were wrought and without any further deliberation she pronounceth him a most divine and excellent person To cure diseases with a word or with a touch to cast out devils to raise the dead could not proceed from any other power then his who doth whatsoever he will both in heaven and in earth And to this end it hath pleased God to give testimony to his truth as it were by a voice from heaven that we might believe and acknowledge that truth for the confirmation whereof such things were wrought before the sun and the people as none but God can do For what our Saviour speaketh of that voice from heaven which was as thunder John 12.28 29 30. is most true of this outward testimony This voice from heaven cometh not because of Him but for our sakes who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 24.25 slow of heart to believe and will not be induced to subscribe to the truth unless we see it written with the sun-beams unless it be made plain and manifest by signs and wonders Jo. 4.48 And such a plain and clear testimony the Jew had need of For all changes especially of Religion are with difficulty it being proper to men to be jealous of every breath as of an enemy if it blow in opposition to ought they have already received and though it be the truth to suspect it because it breatheth from a contrary coast And therefore he that will remove the mind from that which it hath once laid hold on and wherein it is already settled must bring with him more then ordinary motives and inducements even such as may work a kind of conquest upon the Understanding Now the end of Christ's coming was to make such a change to alter what long-before had been established by God himself to rent the veil of the Temple in twain to abolish the law of Ceremonies which God by the hand of Moses had given vetera concutere to sound the trumpet and with it to shake
onely which emptieth it self to receive it Nor can we purchase the pearl a clear sight of Christ Matth. 13.46 but we must sell all that we have our wisdome our riches our nobility our self-love and our corrupt affections It is not Riches nor Wisdome that invites Christ It is not Simplicity nor Poverty that excludes him Humility and Self-denial usher him in and enter he will if we make him room He will manifest himself you see to a poor silly woman and the quick-sighted Pharisee shall not see him And the reason was because she was meek and humble did not so dote on what she had already learnt as to be unwilling to learn any more but brought a mind well prepared to receive instruction The Pharisees on the contrary were so possessed and blinded with prejudice that they saw not the virtue in Christ which was manifest to this woman It was Prejudice that shut the door against the Truth and that would by no means admit of those works which came in to bear witness to it Certainly a most dangerous disease this It maketh a man angry with his physician and to count his physick poyson it maketh him loth to acknowledge yea even to hear that evidence which may convince him This maladie is very common in the world Yea the Church is not purged from it to this day For though we have no Pharisees yet we have such qui quicquid dicunt legem Dei putant who call their very errours the law of God and dictates of the Spirit who cannot endure the least shew of opposition but like wanton lovers stick closest to their beloved errour when it is exploded Some lessons they so abhor that they cannot endure so much as the name and mention of them and is it probable they will ever come so near as to woo and buy the Truth who are afraid of her very shadow We complain many times of the weakness of our capacities of the abstruseness of the teacher and of the obscurity of the Scripture and this we think a sufficient apologie for our ignorance but none of these nor all of these will make up a just excuse The truth is we will not hear the Truth and the reason why we are no better scholars is because we will not learn If it were not so why should any truth displease us why in any dress why should we take it upon the point of a knife so tenderly as if we were afraid it would hurt us Quid dimidiamus veritatem why do we take it down by halves It is an easie matter to observe how mens countenances and behaviour yea and their affections alter in hearing of that doctrine which suteth with their humour and that which seemeth to be levelled against some fond opinion of theirs long resolved upon Their stomack riseth straight against this but the other is sweet in their mouths and they devour the whole roll though in it self it be as bitter as gall Do we preach Christian Liberty ye kiss our lips But do we bound it with Charity to our neighbour and Obedience to Goverment that note ye think is harsh and tuned too near the ruggedness of the times Do we build up to the Saints of God an Assurance of salvation ye are in heaven already But do we tell you that this Assurance cannot be had at pleasure but must be wrought out with fear and trembling Phil 2.12 Do we tell you that that which ye call assurance may be not security but stupefaction Do we beseech you not to deceive your selves Behold we are not the same men but setters out of new doctrine and verso pollice vulgi with the turning of your finger we are in the dust and stabbed with a censure He who clothed not Truth to others phantasie he who presenteth more of Truth then can be easily digested shall be shut out of doors cum veritate sua naked and destitute and shall have none but Truth to keep him company Though he speak these things even the same truth that Christ did the Pharisees will cry him down and well it is if one woman some one witness of the multitude bless his lips that speaketh it Prejudice will make a man perswade himself that is false which he cannot but know is most true That which to a clear eye is a gross sin and appeareth horrour to a corrupted mind may be as the beauty of holiness For where Covetousness and Self-love have taken up the heart and conceived and brought forth Prejudice it is an easie matter for a man to dispute himself into sin and infidelity For the phansie hath a creating power to make what shee pleaseth or what she list to put new forms and shapes upon objects to make Gods of clay to make that delightful which in it self is grievous that desirable which is lothsome that fair and beautiful which is full of horrour to set up a golden calf and say it is a God And many times habeantur phantasmata pro cognitione these shadows and apparitions are taken for substances these airy phantasms for well-grounded conclusions and the mind of man doth so apply it self unto them that what is but in the phansie is supposed to be seen by the eye of the Understanding And thus many times we place our hatred on that which we should love and our love upon that which we cannot hate enough We fear that which we should hope for and hope for that which we should fear we are angry with a friend and kiss an enemy Thus one man trembleth at that which another embraceth one man calleth that sacriledge which another calleth zeal one man looks upon it as striking at God himself another as pleading his cause one man calls it murder another the work of the Lord. What beauty can there be in Christ if a Pharisee look upon him We read of the leaven of the Pharisees and sure this is it For it leaveneth the whole lump all our opinions all our actions All have a kind of tast of it Whatsoever come in to strengthen an anticipated opinion whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or complies with our Covetousness or Ambition or Lustful affections we readily embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so and because it is conducible and behoofull for those ends which we have set up Every fallacy is a demonstration every prosperous event is a voice from heaven to confirm us But if it thwart our inclination if it run counter to our intendments then Truth it self though manifested with signs and wonders will enrage us and we shall first disgrace him that brings it and then naile him to the cross We see here Christ cast out a devil which was dumb and the dumb spoke and the people wondred The Pharisees saw it and the Woman saw it the one saw nothing but that which could not be seen one devil casting out another the other saw the finger and mighty power of God
hoarcely as if they had lost their voice vvhen they faulter in their speech and speak in points of Divinity as Bassianus did vvhen he had slain his brother Geta ut qui malint intelligi quà m audiri as vvilling to be understood indeed but not to speak out and so cunningly disperse their doctrine that they may instruct their friends yet give no advantage to their enemies you may be sure the Heart is not warm nor really affected But vvhen vve speak vvith boldness vvhat vve have heard and seen vvhen vve cast down our gauntlet and stand in defense of the Truth against the vvorld vvhen neither Pharisee nor Divel can silence us but in omni praetorio in omni conscitorio in every judgment-seat in every consistory when Malice and Power come towards us in a tempest vve lift up our voice and dare speak for the Truth vvhen others dare persecute it it is an evident sign that a fire is kindled within us and we are warmed with it that vvith the Woman here vve see some excellencies in Christ some beauty and majesty in the Truth vvhich others do not whose lips are sealed up In a vvord to speak of Christ before the Pharisees to lift up our voice and speak of his name when for ought vve know it may be the last vvord vve shall speak to be true prophets amongst four hundred false ones vvhen the Pharisees call Christ Beelzebub to cry Hosanna to the Son of David to bless the womb that bare him and the paps that gave him suck vvhen others say he is a Samaritane and hath a devil is truly to make this devout Woman a patern to make that use of her voice which she did of Christs voice and of his miracle vvho could not contein her self nor keep silence but having received in her heart the lively character of Christs power and wisdome in the midst of his enemies in the midst of a multitude vvhen some reviled him and others vvere silent she lift up her voice and blessed the womb that bare him and the paps which gave him suck Which is her Diction our next part and should come now to be handled but the time being past vve shall reserve it for part of our task in the Afternoon The Four and Thirtieth SERMON PART II. LUKE XI 27 28. And it came to pass as he spake these things a certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it WE have already handled the circumstantial parts of the Text We are now to treat of the substantial the Womans speach and our Saviours We begin with the Womans Blessed is the womb that bare thee c. And that the mother of Christ was blessed we need not doubt For we have not onely the voice of this woman to prove it but the voice of an Angel Blessed art thou among women Luke 1.28 v. 31 32. and Thou hast found favour with God and shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son even the Son of the Highest And we have her cousins testimony in the very words of the Angel Blessed art thou amongst women v. 42. and blessed is the fruit of thy womb And we have the witness of a babe unborn who leaped in the womb prophetavit antequam natus est and spake this truth when he could not speak And indeed though the womb be not capable of true blessedness which all the privileges and prerogatives in the world of Birth or Honour or Wisdome or Strength cannot reach for neither the earth nor paradise it self can bring forth this fruit of Blessedness which is onely at the right hand of God who begins it here and compleats it in the highest heavens yet to be the Mother of Christ carries with it a kind of resemblance and likeness with that which is truly Blessedness For Blessedness is a state and condition in which is treasured up all the perfection which created substances are capable of all defects and imperfections which mingle themselves with the best things here on earth and taint and corrupt them being quite removed and taken away As if we seek for Pleasure we shall find it in Heaven both pure and fine from those dregs which do here invenom and imbitter it and make even Pleasure it self tedious and irksome If you would have honour here it is without burden Here are Riches and no fear of loosing them Here is Life without vexation here is Life without end This the Womb is not capable of yet we may see a representation of it in the Womb of the Virgin in the birth of our Saviour which was not ordinary but miraculous where she that brought the Child had the joy of a Mother and the honour of a Virgin had all things but the imperfection of a Mother I will not labour in this argument Thus far we may safely go All generations shall call her blessed and while we speak of the Mother in her own language and in the language of the Son we have truth and religion on our side But yet some there be who will not venture so far and though they allow her blessed yet bogle at the Saint as a name of danger and scandal and because others have drest her up toyishly with borrowed titles they do little less then rob her of her own and take it to themselves take it from the Mother of Christ and give it to a wicked and an adulterous generation Others on the contrary side by making her more then a Saint have made her an Idole They have placed her in the House of God as Mother of the family put into her hands the keys of Mercy to let in whom she please called her the Fountain of life the Mother of the living and the Raiser of the dead written books of her miraculous Conception and Assumption and of the Power and Majesty she hath in heaven Of which we may say as Pliny doth of the writings of the Magicians that they have been published non sinu contemptu irrisu generis humani not without a kind of contempt and derision of men not without this insolent thought that men would be so brutish as to approve and such fools as to believe whatsoever fell from the pen of such idle dreamers For thus without the least help of the breath of the Spirit and without any countenance from any syllable in the word of God they have lifted the holy Virgin up and seated her in Gods throne and every day plead her title in the very face of Christendome and as Tully spake of some superstitious frantick Philosophers quidvis malle videntur quà m se non ineptos they seem to affect and hug this gross and ungrounded errour and had rather be any thing then not be ridiculous But these extremes have men run upon whilest
time of age it was best for men to marry it was answered That for old men it was too late and for young men too soon This was but a merry reply But the truth is many of our civil businesses whensoever they are done are either done too soon or too late for they are seldome done without some inconvenience But this our Rising may peradventure be too late for old men but it can never be too timely for the young It is a lesson in Husbandry Serere nè metuas Be not afraid to sow your seed when the time comes delay it not And it is a good lesson in Divinity Vivere nè metuas Be not afraid to live You cannot be alive too soon Vult non vult He wills and he wills not is the character of a Sluggard which would rise and yet loves his grave would see the light and yet loveth darkness better then light like the twin Gen. 38. puts forth his hand and then draws it back again doth make a shew of lifting up himself and sinks back again into his sepulchre Awake then from this sleep early and stand up from the dead at the first sound of the trump at the first call of grace But if any have let pass the first opportunity let him bewail his great unhappiness that he hath stayed longer in this place of horrour in these borders of hell then he should and as travellers which set out late moram celeritate compensare recompense and redeem his negligence by making greater speed And now we should pass to our last consideration That the manifestation of this our Conversion and Rising consists in the seeking of those things which are above But the time is welnear spent and the present occasion calls upon me to shorten my Discourse For conclusion Let me but remember you that this our Rising must have its manifestation and as S. James calls upon us to shew our faith by our works so must we shew and manifest our Resurrection by our seeking those things which are above It is not enough with S. Paul to rise into the third heaven but we must rise and ascend with Christ above all heavens Nor can we conceal our Resurrection and steal out of our graves but as Christ arose and was seen 1 Cor. 15. as S. Paul speaks of above five hundred brethren at once and as S. Luke having told us of Christ The Lord is risen presently adds and hath appeared unto Simon so there must be after our Resurrection an Apparuit we must appear unto our brethren appear in our Charity forgiving them in our Patience forbearing in our Holiness of life instructing them in our Hatred of the world and our Love of those things which are above Indeed some mens rising is but an apparition a phantasme a shadow a visour and no more But this hinders not us when we are risen but we may make our appearance nor must the Pharisee fright away the Christian Quaedam videntur non sunt Many things appear to be that which indeed they are not But this action cannot be if it do not appear If there be no apparition there is no Resurrection It is natural to us when we rise to shâ—w our selves If we rise to honour Acts 25. you may see us in the streets like Agrippa and Bernice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great pomp If we rise in our Estates for that is the Worldlings Resurrection and not to rise thus with him is indeed to be dead you may see it in the next purchase If we rise and increase in knowledge which is a rising from the grave of Ignorance then scire meum nihil est we are even sick till we vent knowledge is nothing it the world cry us not up for men of knowledge And shall we be so ready to publish that which the world looks upon with an evil eye and conceal that from mens eyes which onely is worth the sight and by beholding of which even evil-doers may glorifie God in the day of visitation Shall Dives appear in his purple and Herod in his royal apparel and every scribler be in print and do we think that rising from sin is an action so low that it may be done in a corner that we may rise up and never go abroad to be seen in albis in our Easter-day-apparel in the white garment of Innocency and Newness of life never make any shew of the riches and glory of the Gospel have all our Goodness locked up in archivis in secret nothing set forth and publisht to the world What is this but to conceal nay to bury our Resurrection it self Nay rather since we are risen with Christ let us be seen in our march accoutred with the whole armour of God Ephes 2. â—0 Let us be full of those good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them for by these we appear to be risen and they make us shine as stars in the firmament We may pretend perhaps that God is the searcher and seer of the heart Well he is so sed tamen luceat opera saith the Father yet let thy light shine forth make thy apparition For as God looketh down into thy heart so will thy good works ascend and come before him and he hath pleasure in them Lift up your hearts They are the words we use before the Administration and you answer We lift them up unto the Lord. Let it appear that you do And therefore as you lift up your hearts so lift up your hands also Lift up pure and clean hands such hands as may be known for the hands of men risen from the dead Let us now begin to be that which we hope to be spiritual bodies that the Body being subdued to the Spirit we may rise with Christ here to newness of life which is our first Resurrection and when he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead we may have our second Resurrection to glory in that place of bliss where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God To which he bring us who is our Resurrection and Life even Jesus Christ the righteous who died for our sins and rose again for our justification To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be all honour and glory for evermore The Six and Thirtieth SERMON PHILIPP I. 23. For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Or For I am greatly in doubt on both sides desiring to be loosed and to be with Christ which is best of all WE may here behold our blessed Apostle S. Paul as it were between heaven and earth doubtfully contemplating the happiness which his Death and the profit which his Life may bring perplexed and labouring between both and yet concluding for neither side To be with Christ is best for him to remain on earth is best for the Philippians
neither with possibilities nor events sed plus vult posse quà m omnia it would do more then it is able more then all more then it doeth more then it can do And then tell me what a spark is our Love Christ indeed came to kindle it but it is scarce visible on the earth Last of all as Fire Love ascendeth and mounteth upwards even to the Holy place to the bosome of God himself It came from heaven and towreth towards it For he that abideth in love dwelleth in God and God in him saith S. John Here it is as out of its sphere and element and never at rest nor at home but in God In a word where this love is there is the good will of him who dwelt in the bush Where this love is there the lamp burneth and all is on fire Amor fons caput omnium affectionum saith Martin Luther Love is the source and original of all other affections It setteth our Anger on fire and putteth the spear into Phinehas his hand It setteth our Sorrow a bleeding and maketh rivers of water gush from our eyes It maketh our Fear watchful that we may work out our salvation with trembling It exalteth our Joy Oh how I rejoyced saith David when they said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord It raiseth our Hope even to hope above hope It mixeth and incorporateth it self with every passion Our Love with Anger is Zeal with Fear Jealousie with Hope Confidence with Sorrow Repentance and with Joy it is Heaven And thus by the Love of the Truth the man of God is made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom speaketh a man of fire conquering all difficulties and consumed by none He standeth in the midst of scoffs and derision and detraction and of all temptations as in the midst of a field of stubble or dry flax or straw and is not hurt at all They that come near him do but sindge and torment themselves as thorns crackle and make a noise and vanish into smoke and the man is safe Such a burning light such a man of fire was John the Baptist who bare witness to the Truth and for the love of the Truth lost both his liberty and his life who preached it in the womb and preached it in the wilderness who preached it by living and preached it by dying and preached being dead S. Chrysostom telleth us that he spake most when his head was off In a word the love of Truth did so enflame him that he may seem what the Rabbies phansie of Elijah in whose spirit he came to have sucked not-milk but flames of fire from his mothers breasts And so much for his Burning Now in the next place as he burned with the love of Truth so he shined also by the manifestation of it which was as the spreading and displaying of his beams As he was hot within so he was resplendent without As he had this fire within himself so there was a scintillation and corruscation on others And it was visible in his severity of life in his raiment in his fasting in his doctrine in his boldness in reprehending the Pharisees and Saduces in his laying the axe to the very root of the trees in fulfilling of all righteousness For we must not conceive of this fire as S. Basil phansieth of the elementary fire that God did divide and sunder the two qualities of Heat and Light of Burning and Shining and placed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the burning quality in hell where the fire burneth but shineth not and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shining quality in heaven which shineth but burneth not This was but a phansie though of a learned and judicious man No where this fire is there will be light nor can we sever them The Knowledge indeed of Truth many times breatheth in no other coasts then where it was conceived may dwell in a cloister or a wilderness in men qui non possunt pati solem multitudinem who cannot walk the common wayes Saints indeed in private but of no publick use but yet even here is some light in the wilderness in a cell or grott But when to the Knowledge of Truth we have added the Love of Truth our heart will wax hot within us and the fire will burn and we who before was possest with a dumb spirit do speak with the tongue yea cannot but speak the things which we have heard and seen then we cannot contain our selves within our selves but have those glorious eruptions then we shine upon others who burn in our selves As the heat is such is the light as the burning within such the shining without When we shine alone in mere out-ward performances in the pomp of devotion in the rolling of the eye in the lifting up of the ear in the motion of the tongue in the extermination of the countenance it is but a false and a momentary light but as the light of a glo-worm in the night which proceedeth from some other cause not from heat It may be a flash of Ambition or some scintillation of Vain-glory or the very sparkles of Faction and like lightning dum micat extinguitur it is extinguished in the very flâ—sh When we burn alone when we cast not forth beams but breathe forth hail-stones and coals of fire when we wax hot as an oven but cast forth no light at all when we lash the iniquities of the times and are our selves those fools on whose back the whip should be laid when we cry down sin and are men of Belial when all the heat is for Religion and all the light we see is Faction and Rapine it is too plain that we burn but we are set on fire by hell For if the heat be kindly the light will be glorious If it be from heaven it will not feed it self with earth and the things of this world If our light be manifest and permanent if our light so shine that men may see it and for it glorifie the Fountain of light it must needs proceed ab intimo pleno fervore devotionis from this inward burning from this true and full heat of Devotion Where there is heat there is light and where there is light there is heat And these two Heat and Light seem to contend for superiority Quo calidior radius lucidior The more hot the beams are the more light there is And this Light reflecteth upon the Heat to make it more intense and the Heat hath an operation upon the Light to make it more radiant and by a reciprocal influence on each other they are multiplyed every day My Love of the Truth spreadeth my Holiness and maketh it known unto all men and my holy Conversation dilateth and improveth my Love of the Truth My Love of the Truth maketh me increase and abound more and more and the nearer I draw to perfection I do the more and more love the Truth The more I burn the
more I shine and the more I shine the more I am on fire Thus was John Baptist and thus is every true Christian not onely a burning but a shining light And we may well compare the Profession of the Truth and Holiness of life to the Light that shineth The path of the just is as the shining light Prov. 4.18 saith Solomon For as Light serveth not onely to illustrate the medium and make it diaphanous but casteth also a delightful lustre on the object and is pleasant to the eye in a manner quickning and reviving us for they who are in darkness are as in a grave and they who are blind are as they who have been dead long ago so the Piety of the Saints and the beauty of holiness doth not onely shew and manifest it self as Light but like Light it hath a kind of influence and powerful operation upon others It worketh upon the phansie and imagination which is much taken with these real resemblances and representations and it worketh on the passions which must be as wings to carry us to those blessed Worthies to that pitch of holiness where they sit a spectacle to the world to men and to Angels For in our definitions and precepts and decrees and exhortations Piety many times to divers men appeareth in different shapes or ele slideth away and passeth by in silence but being charactered in the practice and actions of the Saints and written as it were with Light it gaineth more force and efficacy it presseth upon our phansie and busieth our understanding part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is more visible in actions then in words Would you see Humility drawn out to the life Behold our Saviour on the cross Had we seen S. Paul in the flesh we had had the best commentary on his Epistles What fairer picture of Charity then the Widow flinging in her two mites into the treasury of Severity and strictness of life then John Baptist in his leathern girdle and camels hair feeding on locusts and wild honey There is virtue gone from them that we may come near and touch and be familiar with it There is light that we may look upon it and walk by it Imaginatio provocat desiderium A strong imagination must needs provoke in us a desire of that which pleased it and raise up in us an holy emulation I say an holy Emulation which is a mixt passion made up of Sorrow and Anger and Love and Hope Sorrow for our defects Anger at our selves that we stay behind Love of that goodness which we see in others and find not in our selves and Hope to equal them And these poise and qualifie each other My Sorrow is not envious for Hope comforteth it my Anger is not malignant for Love tempereth it And they are all as so many winds to fill our sails to swell our thoughts and to drive on our desires to the mark We read of Donatus the Grammarian that as oft as he found any remarkable passage in the Ancients which might deserve applause he was wont to say Malè pereant antiqui qui nobis nostra praeripuerunt I beshrew the Ancients who have prevented us by their inventions and so robbed us of that renown which might have been ours A vain speech of a proud Grammarian Malè pereant Nay rather Blessed be the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and of John Baptist and of all the glorious Saints and Martyrs who hath set up these lights to direct us in our way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sublime Towers with continual light and fire to guide us in this our dangerous passage to the haven where we would be who hath fixt these Stars in the firmament of the Church to lighten them that are in darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed be God for this light For by this light in a manner we live and move and have our being By this light we are encouraged and provoked to walk on to perfection And such a power and force this light hath that if it do not bow the will yet it will command the understanding if it do not prevail with us to love it yet it will win our approbation if it do not beget a love yet it will force a delight and the worst men shall be willing to rejoyce in it though it be but for a season And so I pass from the Character and Commendation of John Baptist to the Censure passed upon the Jews Ye were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light God had not now for some hundreds of years spoken to the Jews by the mouth of a Prophet and therefore a Prophet after so long a vacancy could not but be welcome unto them Quod rarum est plùs appetitur Let Prophets run about our streets and we are ready to stone them but after a long silence let a John Baptist lift up his voice and we all leap for joy No sooner did John preach Luke 3.15 but the people were in suspence and expectation and all men mused in their hearts whether he were the Christ or no. And peradventure they thought that though his beginning was obscure as that of Moses yet the time might come when he would shew himself to be the Messias restore the Kingdom to Israel and be as Moses their Captain and fight their battels and make them lords of all the world This I say they might conceive of John But this was not the light with which he did shine And to root out this conceit he confessed John 1.10 and denied not but confessed I am not the Christ That which so gloriously shined in him was his Strictness of life and Holiness of conversation And such is the activity of this light such is the lustre and power of Holiness that it will work a complacency and delight even in them who oppose it And this is the glory and triumph of Truth and Goodness that it striketh a reverence into those that neglect it findeth a place in his breast whose hand is ready to suppress it and worketh delight where it cannot win assent We may embrace a truth and condemn it commend Chastity and be wantons and with the Jew not hearken to the voice of the Crier and yet rejoyce in his light And the reason is manifest For as there is a sensitive joy which is nothing else but the pleasing and titillation of the sense by the application of that which is convenient and agreeable to it as of a better white and red to the Eye a more pleasant voice to the Ear more savoury meat to the Tast so there is a rational and intellectual joy which is nothing else but the approbation of Reason in the apprehending of that which is proportioned to it an assent to a conclusion drawn out of the common principles of discourse or at most but a resultancy from it For Truth is fitted to the Understanding as Colours are to the Eye or Musick to the Ear. The remembrance