is actually done and sin is dead or wounded mortally before they can in any sence belong to Christ to be a portion of his inheritance And He that is in Christ is a new creature For in Christ Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature nothing but a Keeping the Commandements of God Not all our tears though we should weep like David and his men at Ziklag till they could weep no more or the women of Ramah or like the weeping in the valley of Hinnom could suffice if we retain the affection to any one sin or have any unrepented of or unmortified It is true that a contrite and broken heart God will not despise No he will not For if it be a hearty and permanent sorrow it is an excellent beginning of repentance and God will to a timely sorrow give the grace of repentance He will not give pardon to sorrow alone but that which ought to be the proper effect of sorrow that God shall give He shall then open the gates of mercy and admit you to a possibility of restitution so that you may be within the covenant of repentance which if you actually perform you may expect Gods promise And in this sense Confession will obtain our pardon and humiliation will be accepted and our holy purposes and pious resolutions shall be accounted for that is these being the first steps and addresses to that part of repentance which consists in the abolition of sins shall be accepted so far as to procure so much of the pardon to do so much of the work of restitution that God will admit the returning man to a further degree of emendation to a neerer possibility of working out his salvation but then if this sorrow and confession and strong purposes begin then when our life is declined towards the West and is now ready to set in darknesse and a dismall night because of themselves they could but procure an admission to repentance not at all to pardon and plenary absolution by shewing that on our death-bed these are too late and ineffectuall they call upon us to begin betimes when these imperfect acts may be consummate and perfected in the actuall performing those parts of holy life to which they were ordained in the nature of the thing and the purposes of God Lastly suppose all this be done and that by a long course of strictnesse and severity mortification and circumspection we have overcome all our vitious and baser habits contracted and grown upon us like the ulcers and evils of a long surfet and that we are clean and swept Suppose that he hath wept and fasted prayed and vowed to excellent purposes yet all this is but the one half of repentance so infinitely mistaken is the world to think any thing to be enough to make up repentance but to renew us and restore us to the favour of God there is required far more then what hath been yet accounted for See it in the second of S. Peter 1 Chap. 4 5. vers Having escaped the corruption that is in the world thorough lust And besides this giving all diligence adde to your faith vertue to vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience and so on to godlinesse to brotherly kindnesse and to charity These things must be in you and abound This is the summe totall of repentance We must not onely have overcome sin but we must after great diligence have acquired the habits of all those Christian graces which are necessary in the transaction of our affairs in all relations to God and our neighbour and our own person It is not enough to say Lord I thank thee I am no extortioner no adulrerer not as this Publican all the reward of such a poenitent is that when he hath escaped the corruption of the world he hath also escaped those heavy judgements which threatned his ruine Nec furtum feci nec fugi si mihi dicat Servus habes precium loris non ureris aio Non hominem occidi non pasces in cruce corvos If a servant have not rob'd his Master nor offered to fly from his bondage he shall scape the Furca his flesh shall not be exposed to birds or fishes but this is but the reward of innocent slaves it may be we have escaped the rod of the exterminating Angel when our sins are crucifyed but we shall never enter into the joy of our Lord unlesse after we have put off the old man with his affections and lusts we also put on the new man in righteousnesse and holinesse of life And this we are taught in most plain doctrine by S. Paul Let us lay aside the weight that doth so easily beset us that is the one half and then it follows Let us run with patience the race that is set before us These are the fruits meet for repentance spoken of by S. John Baptist that is when we renew our first undertaking in baptisme and return to our courses of innocence Parcus Deorum cultor infrequens Insanientis dum sapientiae consultus erro Nunc retrorsum vela dare atque iterare cursus Cogor relictos The sense of which words is well given us by S. John Remember whence thou art fallen repent and do thy first works For all our hopes of heaven rely upon that Covenant which God made with us in Baptisme which is That being redeemed from our vain conversation we should serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse all our dayes Now when any of us hath prevaricated our part of the Covenant we must return to that state and redeem the intermedial time spent in sin by our doubled industry in the wayes of grace we must be reduced to our first estate and make some proportionable returns of duty for our sad omissions and great violations of our Baptismal vow For God having made no covenant with us but that which is consigned in Baptisme in the same proportion in which we retain or return to that in the same we are to expect the pardon of our sins and all the other promises Evangelicall but no otherwise unlesse we can shew a new Gospel or be baptized again by Gods appointment He therefore that by a long habit by a state and continued course of sin hath gone so far from his baptismal purity as that he hath nothing of the Christian left upon him but his name that man hath much to do to make his garments clean to purifie his soul to take off all the stains of sin that his spirit may be presented pure to the eyes of God who beholds no impurity It is not an easie thing to cure a long contracted habit of sin Let any intemperate person but try in his own instance of drunkennesse or the swearer in the sweetning his unwholesome language but then so to command his tongue that he never swear but that his speech be prudent pious and apt to edific the hearer or in some sense to glorifie God or to become
manus furiales somm inquies nocturna as Pliny reckons them palenesse and hanging cheeks ulcers of the eyes and trembling hands dead or distracted sleeps these speak aloud that to day you eat and drink that to morrow you may dye and dye for ever It is reported concerning Socrates that when Athens was destroyed by the plague he in the midst of all the danger escaped untouched by sicknesse because by a spare and severe diet he had within him no tumult of disorderly humours no factions in his bloud no loads of moisture prepared for charnell houses or the sickly hospitals but a vigorous heat and a well proportioned radicall moysture he had enough for health and study Philosophy and Religion for the temples and the Academy but no superfluities to be spent in groans and sickly nights And all the world of gluttons is hugely convinced of the excellency of temperance in order to our temporall felicity and health because when themselves have left vertue and sober dyet and counsels and first lost their temperance and then lost their health they were forc'd to run to temperance and abstinence for their cure Vilis enim tenuisque mensa ut loquuntur pueri sanitatis mater est Then a thin diet and a humbled body fasting and emptinesse and arts of scattering their sin and sicknesse is in season but by the same means they might preserve their health by which they do restore it but when they are well if they return to their full tables and oppressing meals their sicknesse was but like Vitellius vomiting that they might eat again but so they may entail a fit of sicknesse upon every full moon till both their virtue and themselves decrease into the corruptions and rottennesse of the grave But if they delight in sharp feavers and horrid potions in sowre palats and heaps of that which must be carryed forth they may reckon their wealthy pleasures to be very great and many if they will but tell them one by one with their sicknesses and the multitude of those evils they shall certainly feel before they have thrown their sorrowes forth These men as St. Paul's expression is heap up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the day of Gods most righteous judgements Strange therefore it is that for the stomach which is scarce a span long there should be provided so many furnaces and ovens huge fires and an army of cooks cellars swimming with wine and granaries sweating with corn and that into one belly should enter the vintage of many Nations the spoils of distant Provinces and the shell-fishes of severall seas When the Heathens feasted their Gods they gave nothing but a fat oxe a ram or a kid they powred a little wine upon the Altar and burned a handfull of gum but when they feasted themselves they had many vessels fill'd with Campanian wine turtles of Liguria Sicilian beeves and wheat from Egypt wilde boars from Illyrium and Grecian sheep variety and load and cost and curiosity and so do we It is so little we spend in Religion and so very much upon our selves so little to the poor and so without measure to make our selves sick that we seem to be in love with our own mischief and so passionate for necessity and want that we strive all the wayes we can to make our selves need more then nature intended I end this consideration with the saying of the Cynic It is to be wondred at that men eat so much for pleasures sake and yet for the same pleasure should not give over eating and betake themselves to the delights of temperance since to be healthfull and holy is so great a pleasure However certain it is that no man ever repented that he arose from the table sober healthfull and with his wits about him but very many have repented that they sate so long till their bellies swelled and their health and their vertue and their God is departed from them SERMON XVI Part II. 2. A Constant full Table is lesse pleasant then the temperate provisions of the vertuous or the naturall banquets of the poore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Epicurus Thanks be to the God of Nature that he hath made that which is necessary to be ready at hand and easie to be had and that which cannot easily be obtained is not necessary it should be at all which in effect is to say it cannot be constantly pleasant for necessity and want makes the appetite and the appetite makes the pleasure and men are infinitely mistaken when they despise the poor mans Table and wonder how he can endure that life that is maintain'd without the excise of pleasure and that he can suffer his days labour and recompense it with unsavory herbs and potent garleek with water-cresses and bread colour'd like the ashes that gave it hardnesse he hath a hunger that gives it deliciousnesse and we may as well wonder that a Lyon eats raw flesh or that a Wolfe feeds upon the turfe they have an appetite proportionable to this meat and their necessity and their hunger and their use and their nature are the Cooks that dresse their provisions and make them delicate And yet if water and pulse naturall provisions and the simple diet were not pleasant as indeed they are not to them who have been nursed up and accustomed to the more delicious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet it is a very great pleasure to reduce our appetites to Nature and to make our reason rule our stomach and our desires comply with our fortunes and our fortunes be proportionable to our persons Non est voluptas aqua polenta said a Philosopher sed summa voluptas est â—posse ex his capere voluptatem It is an excellent pleasure to be able to take pleasure in worts and water in bread and onions for then a man can never want pleasure when it is so ready for him that nature hath spread it over all its provisions Fortune and Art gives delicacies Nature gives meat and drink and what nature gives fortune cannot take away but every change can take away what onely is given by the bounty of a full fortune and if in satisfaction and freedome from care and security and proportions to our own naturall appetite there can be pleasure then we may know to value the sober and naturall Tables of the vertuous and wise before that state of feastings which a War can lessen and a Tyrant can take away or the Pirates may intercept or a Blast may spoyle and is alwayes contingent and is so far from satisfying that either it destroys the appetite and capacity of pleasure or increases it beyond all the measures of good things He that feasts every day feasts no day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and however you treat your selves sometimes you will need to be refreshed beyond it but what will you have for a Festivall if you wear crowns every day even a perpetuall fulnesse will make you glad to beg
direct action And therefore we may also as well be sorrowfull the third time for want of the just measure or hearty meaning of the second sorrow as be sorrowfull the second time for want of true sorrow at the first and so on to infinite And we shall never be secure in this Artifice if we be not certain of our naturall and hearty passion in our direct and first apprehensions Thus many persons think themselves in a good estate and make no question of their salvation being confident onely because they are confident and they are so because they are bidden to be so and yet they are not confident at all but extreamly timerous and fearfull How many persons are there in the world that say they are sure of their salvation and yet they dare not die And if any man pretends that he is now sure he shall be saved and that he cannot fall away from grace there is no better way to confute him then by advising him to send for the Surgeon and bleed to death For what should hinder him not the sin for it cannot take him from Gods favour not the change of his condition for he sayes he is sure to go to a Better why does he not then say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like the Romane gallants when they decreed to die The reason is plainly this They say they are confident and yet are extreamly timerous they professe to beleeve that Doctrine and yet dare not trust it nay they think they beleeve but they do not so false is a mans heart so deceived in its own Acts so great a stranger to its own sentence and opinions 3. The heart is deceitfull in its own resolutions and purposes for many times men make their resolutions onely in their understanding not in their wills they resolve it sitting to be done not decree that they will do it And instead of beginning to be reconciled to God by the renewed and hearty purposes of holy living they are advanced so far onely as to be convinced and apt to be condemned by their own sentence But suppose our resolutions advanced further and that our Will and Choices also are determined see how our hearts deceive us 1. We resolve against those sins that please us not or where temptation is not present and think by an over-acted zeal against some sins to get an indulgence for some others There are some persons who will be Drunk The Company or the discourse or the pleasure of madnesse or an easie nature and a thirsty soul something is amisse that cannot be helped But they will make amends and the next day pray twice as much Or it may be they must satisfie a beastly lust but they will not be drunk for all the world and hope by their Temperance to Commute for their want of Chastity But they attend not the eraft of their secret enemy their Heart for it is not love of the vertue if it were they would love Vertue in all its Instances for Chastity is as much a vertue as Temperance and God hates Lust as much as he hates Drunkennesse But this sin is against my health or it may be it is against my lust it makes me impotent and yet impatient full of desire and empty of strength Or else I do an act of Prayer lest my conscience become unquiet while it is not satisfied or cozened with some intervals of Religion I shall think my self a damned wretch if I do nothing for my soul but if I do I shall call the one sin that remains nothing but my Infirmity and therefore it is my excuse and my Prayer is not my Religion but my Peace and my Pretence and my Fallacy 2. We resolve against our sin that is we will not act it in those circumstances as formerly I will not be drunk in the streets but I may sleep till I be recovered and then come forth sober or if I be overtaken it shall be in Civill and Gentile company Or it may be not so much I will leave my intemperance and my Lust too but I will remember it with pleasure I will revolve the past action in my minde and entertain my fancy with a moros delectation in it and by a fiction of imagination will represent it present and so be satisfied with a little effeminacy or phantastick pleasure Beloved suffer not your hearts so to cozen you as if any man can be faithfull in much that is faithlesse in a little He certainly is very much in love with sin and parts with it very unwillingly that keeps its Picture and wears its Favour and delights in the fancy of it even with the same desire as a most passionate widow parts with her dearest husband even when she can no longer enjoy him But certainly her staring all day upon his picture and weeping over his Robe and wringing her hands over his children are no great signes that she hated him And just so do most men hate and accordingly part with their sins 3. We resolve against it when the opportunity is slipped and lay it aside as long as the temptation please even till it come again and no longer How many men are there in the world that against every Communion renew their vowes of holy living Men that for twenty for thirty yeers together have been perpetually resolving against what they daily Act and sure enough they did beleeve themselves And yet if a man had daily promised us a curtesie and failed us but ten times when it was in his power to have done it we should think we had reason never to beleeve him more And can we then reasonably beleeve the resolutions of our hearts which they have falsified so many hundred times We resolve against a religious Time because then it is the Custome of men and the Guise of the Religion Or we resolve when we are in a great danger and then we promise any thing possible or impossible likely or unlikely all is one to us we onely care to remove the present pressure and when that is over and our fear is gone and no love remaining our condition being returned to our first securities our resolutions also revert to their first indifferencies Or else we cannot look a temptation in the face and we resolve against it hoping never to be troubled with its arguments and importunity Epictetus tells us of a Gentleman returning from banishment in his journey towards home called at his house told a sad story of an Imprudent life the greatest part of which being now spent he was resolved for the future to live Philosophically and entertain no businesse to be candidate for no employment not to go to the Court not to salute Caesar with ambitious attendancies but to study and worship the gods and die willingly when nature or necessity called him It may be this man beleeved himself but Epictetus did not And he had reason For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Letters from Caesar met him at the doors
in a persecution to perjuries and Apostacy and unhandsome compliances and hypocricy and irreligion and many men are brought to vertue and to God and to felicity by being persecuted and made unprosperous and these are effects of a more absolute and irrespective predestination but when the grace of God is great and prudent and masculine and well grown it is unalter'd in all changes save onely that every accident that is new and violent brings him neerer to God and makes him with greater caution and severity to dwell in vertue 11. Lastly some there are who are firme in all great and foresoen changes and have laid up in the store-houses of the spirit reason and religion arguments and discourses enough to defend them against all violencies and stand at watch so much that they are safe where they can consider and deliberate but there may be something wanting yet and in the direct line in the strait progresse to heaven I call that an infallible signe of a great grace and indeed the greatest degree of a great grace when a man is prepared against sudden invasions of the spirit surreptions and extemporary assaults Many a valiant person dares sight a battle who yet will be timorous and surprised in a mid-night alarme or if he falls into a river And how many discreet persons are there who if you offer them a sin and give them time to consider and tell them of it before hand will rather die then be perjured or tell a deliberate lie or break a promise who it may be tell many sudden lies and excuse themselves and break their promises and yet think themselves safe enough and sleep without either affrightments or any apprehension of dishonour done to their persons or their religion Every man is not armed for all sudden arrests of passions few men have cast such fetters upon their lusts and have their passions in so strict confinement that they may not be over run with a midnight flood or an unlooked for inundation He that does not start when he is smitten suddenly is a constant person and that is it which I intend in this instance that he is a perfect man and well grown in grace who hath so habitual a resolution and so unhasty and wary a spirit as that he decrees upon no act before he hath considered maturely and changed the sudden occasion into a sober counsel David by chance spied Bathsheba washing her self and being surprised gave his heart away before he could consider and when it was once gone it was hard to recover it and sometimes a man is betrayed by a sudden opportunity and all things fitted for his sin ready at the door the act stands in all its dresse and will not stay for an answear and incosideration is the defence and guard of the sin and makes that his conscience can the more easily swallow it what shall the man do then unlesse he be strong by his old strengths by a great grace by an habitual vertue and a sober unmoved spirit he falls and dies in the death and hath no new strengths but such as are to be imployed for his recovery none for his present guard unlesse upon the old stock and if he be a well grown Christian. These are the parts acts and offices of our growing in grace and yet I have sometimes called them signes but they are signes as eating and drinking are signes of life they are signes so as also they are parts of life and these are parts of our growth in grace so that a man can grow in grace to no other purpose but to these or the like improvements Concerning which I have a caution or two to interpose 1. The growth of grace is to be estimated as other morall things are not according to the growth of things naturall Grace does not grow by observation and a continuall efflux and a constant proportion and a man cannot call himself to the account for the growth of every day or week or moneth but in the greater portions of our life in which we have had many occasions and instances to exercise and improve our vertues we may call our selves to account but it is a snare to our consciences to be examined in the growth of grace in every short resolution of solemn duty as against every Communion or great Festivall 2. Growth in grace is not alwayes to be discerned either in single instances or in single graces Not in single instances for every time we are to exercise a vertue we are not in the same naturall dispositions nor do we meet with the same circumstances and it is not alwayes necessary that the next act should be more earnest and intence then the former all single acts are to be done after the manner of men and therefore are not alwayes capable of increasing and they have their termes beyond which easily they cannot swell and therefore if it be a good act and zealous it may proceed from a well grown grace and yet a younger and weaker person may do some acts as great and as religious as it But neither do single graces alwayes affoord a regular and certain judgement in this affair for some persons at the first had rather die then be unchast or perjured and greater love then this no man hath that he lay down his life for God he cannot easily grow in the substance of that act and if other persons or himself in processe of time do it more cheerfully or with fewer fears it is not alwayes a signe of a greater grace but some times of greater collaterall assistances or a better habit of body or more fortunate circumstances for he that goes to the block tremblingly for Christ and yet endures his death certainly and endures his trembling too and runs through all his infirmities and the bigger temptations looks not so well many times in the eyes of men but suffers more for God then those confident Martyrs that courted death in the primitive Church and therefore may be much dearer in the eyes of God But that which I say in this particular is that a smallnesse in one is not an argument of the imperfection of the whole estate Because God does not alwayes give to every man occasions to exercise and therefore not to improve every grace and the passive vertues of a Christian are not to be expected to grow so fast in prosperous as in suffering Christians but in this case we are to take accounts of our selves by the improvement of those graces which God makes to happen often in our lives such as are charity and temperance in young men liberality and religion in aged persons ingenuity and humility in schollers justice in merchants and artificers forgivenesse of injuries in great men and persons tempted by law-suits for since vertues grow like other morall habits by use diligence and assiduity there where God hath appointed our work and in our instances there we must consider concerning our growth in grace in other things
lustfull powers but can they do honour or satisfaction in any thing that must last and that ought to be provided for No All the things of this world are little and trifling and limited and particular and sometimes necessary because we are miserable wanting and imperfect but they never do any thing toward perfection but their pleasure dies like the time in which it danced a while and when the minute is gone so is the pleasure too and leaves no footstep but the impression of a sigh and dwells no where but in the same house where you shall finde yesterday that is in forgetfulnesse and annihilation unlesse its onely childe sorrow shall marry and breed more of its kinde and so continue its memory and name to eternall ages It is therefore the most necessary part of prudence to choose well in the main stake and the dispute is not much for if eternall things be better then temporall the soul more noble then the body vertue more honourable then the basest vices a lasting joy to be chosen before an eternall sorrow much to be preferred before little certainty before danger publike good things before private evils eternity before moments then let us set down in religion and make heaven to be our end God to be our Father Christ our elder Brother the Holy Ghost the earnest of our inheritance vertue to be our imployment and then we shall never enter into the portion of fools and accursed ill-choosing spirits Nazianzen said well Malim prudentiae guttam quà m foecundioris fortunae pelagus One drop of prudence is more usefull then an ocean of a smooth fortune for prudence is a rare instrument towards heaven and a great fortune is made oftentimes the high-way to hell and destruction However thus farre prudence is our duty every man can be so wise and is bound to it to choose heaven and a cohabitation with God before the possessions and transient vanities of the world 2. It is a duty of Christian prudence to pursue this great end with apt means and instruments in proportion to that end No wise man will sail to Ormus in a cock-boat or use a childe for his interpreter and that Generall is a Cyclops without an eye who chooses the sickest men to man his Towns and the weakest to fight his battels It cannot be a vigorous prosecution unlesse the means have an efficacy or worth commensurate to all the difficulty and something of the excellency of that end which is designed And indeed men use not to be so weak in acquiring the possessions of their temporals But in matters of religion they think any thing effective enough to secure the greatest interest as if all the fields of heaven and the regions of the Kingdom were waste ground and wanted a Colony of planters and that God invited men to heaven upon any terms that he might rejoyce in the multitude of subjects For certain it is men do more to get a little money then for all the glories of heaven Men rise up early and sit up late and eat the bread of carefulnesse to become richer then their neighbours and are amazed at every losse and impatient of an evil accident and feel a direct storm of passion if they suffer in their interest But in order to heaven they are cold in their religion indevour in their prayers incurious in their walking unwatchfull in their circumstances indifferent in the use of their opportunities infrequent in their discoursings of it not inquisitive of the way and yet think they shall surely go to heaven But a prudent man knows that by the greatnesse of the purchase he is to make an estimate of the value and the price When we ask of God any great thing As wisdom delivery from sicknesse his holy Spirit the forgivenesse of sins the grace of chastity restitution to his favour or the like do we hope to obtain them without a high opinion of the things we ask and if we value them highly must we not desire them earnestly and if we desire them earnestly must we not pray for them fervently and whatsoever we ask for fervently must not we beg for frequently and then because prayer is but one hand toward the reaching a blessing and God requires our cooperation and endeavour and we must work with both hands are we not convinced that our prayers are either faint or a designe of lazinesse when we either ask coldly or else pray loudly hoping to receive the graces we need without labour A prudent person that knows to value the best object of his desires will also know that he must observe the degrees of labour according to the excellency of the reward Prayer must be effectuall servent frequent continuall holy passionate that must get a grace or secure a blessing The love that we must have to God must be such as to keep his commandements and to make us willing to part with all our estate and all our honour and our life for the testimony of a holy conscience Our charity to our neighbours must be expressive in a language of a reall friendship aptnesse to forgive readinesse to forbear in pitying infirmities in relieving necessities in giving our goods and our lives and quitting our privileges to save his soul to secure and support his vertue Our repentance must be full of sorrows and care of diligence and hatred against sin it must drive out all and leave no affections towards it it must be constant and persevering fearfull of relapse and watch-full of all accidents Our temperance must sometimes turn into abstinence and most commonly be severe and ever without reproof He that striveth for masteries is temperate saith Saint Paul in all things he that does all this may with some pretence and reason say he intends to go to heaven But they that will not deny a lust nor refrain an appetite they that will be drunk when their friends do merrily constrain them or love a cheap religion and a gentle and lame prayer short and soft quickly said and soon passed over seldome returning and but little observed How is it possible that they should think themselves persons disposed to receive such glorious crowns and scepters such excellent conditions which they have not faith enough to believe nor attention enough to consider and no man can have wit enough to understand But so might an Arcadian shepherd look from the rocks or thorow the clefts of the valley where his sheep graze and wonder that the messenger stayes so long from comming to him to be crowned King of all the Greek Ilands or to be adopted heir to the Macedonian Monarchy It is an infinite love of God that we have heaven upon conditions which we can perform with greatest diligence But truely the lives of men are generally such that they do things in order to heaven things I say so few so trifling so unworthy that they are not proportionable to the reward of a crown of oak or a yellow riband
word to instruct us his spirit to guide us his Angels to protect us his ministers to exhort us he revealed all our duty and he hath concealed whatsoever can hinder us he hath affrighted our follies with feare of death and engaged our watchfulnesse by its secret coming he hath exercised our faith by keeping private the state of souls departed and yet hath confirmed our faith by a promise of a resurrection and entertained our hope by some general significations of the state of interval His mercies make contemptible means instrumental to great purposes and a small herb the remedy of the greatest diseases he impedes the Devils rage and infatuates his counsels he diverts his malice and defeats his purposes he bindes him in the chaine of darknesse and gives him no power over the children of light he suffers him to walk in solitary places and yet fetters him that he cannot disturb the sleep of a childe he hath given him mighty power yet a young maiden that resists him shall make him flee away he hath given him a vast knowledge and yet an ignorant man can confute him with the twelve articles of his creed he gave him power over the winds and made him Prince of the air and yet the breath of a holy prayer can drive him as far as the utmost sea and he hath so restrained him that except it be by faith we know not whether there be any Devils yea or no for we never heard his noises nor have seen his affrighting shapes This is that great Principle of all the felicity we hope for and of all the means thither and of all the skill and all the strengths we haue to use those means he hath made great variety of conditions and yet hath made all necessary and all mutual helpers and by some instruments and in some respects they are all equal in order to felicity to content and final and intermedial satisfactions He gave us part of our reward in hand that he might enable us to work for more he taught the world arts for use arts for entertainment of all our faculties and all our dispositions he gives eternal gifts for temporal services and gives us whatsoever we want for asking and commands us to ask and theatens us if we will not ask and punishes us for refusing to be happy This is that glorious attribute that hath made order and health and harmony and hope restitutions and variety the joyes of direct possession and the joyes the artificial joyes of contrariety and comparison he comforts the poor and he brings down the rich that they may be safe in their humility and sorrow from the transportations of an unhappy and uninstructed prosperity he gives necessaries to all and scatters the extraordinary provisions so that every nation may traffick in charity and commute for pleasures He was the Lord of hosts and he is stil what he was but he loves to be called the God of peace because he was terrible in that but he is delighted in this His mercy is his glory and his glory is the light of heaven his mercy is the life of the creation and it fills all the earth and his mercy is a sea too and it fills all the abysses of the deep it hath given us promises for supply of whatsoever we need and relieves us in all our fears and in all the evils that we suffer his mercies are more then we can tell and they are more then we can feel for all the world in the abysse of the Divine mercies is like a man diving into the bottom of the sea over whose head the waters run insensibly and unperceived and yet the weight is vast and the sum of them is unmeasurable and the man is not pressed with the burden nor confounded with numbers and no observation is able to recount no sense sufficient to perceive no memory large enough to retain no understanding great enough to apprehend this infinity but we must admire and love and worship and magnify this mercy for ever and ever that we we may dwell in what we feel and be comprehended by that which is equal to God and the parent of all felicity And yet this is but the one half The mercies of giving I have now told of but those of forgiving are greater though not more He is ready to forgive and upon this stock thrives the interest of our great hope the hopes of a blessed immortality for if the mercies of giving have not made our expectations big enough to entertain the confidences of heaven yet when we think of the graciousnesse and readinesse of forgiving we may with more readinesse hope to escape hell and then we cannot but be blessed by an eternal consequence we have but small opinion of the Divine mercy if we dare not believe concerning it that it is desirous and able and watchful and passionate to keep us or rescue us respectively from such a condemnation the pain of which is insupportable and the duration is eternal and the extension is misery upon all our faculties and the intension is great beyond patience or natural or supernatural abilities and the state is a state of darknesse and despair of confusion and amazement of cursing and roaring anguish of spirit and gnashing of teeth misery universal perfect and irremediable From this it is which Gods mercies would so fain preserve us This is a state that God provides for his enemies not for them that love him that endeavour to obey though they do it but in weaknesse that weep truely for their sins though but with a shower no bigger then the drops of pitty that wait for his coming with a holy and pure flame though their lamps are no brighter then a poor mans candle though their strengths are no greater then a contrite reed or a strained arme and their fires have no more warmth then the smok of kindling flax if our faith be pure and our love unfained if the degree of it be great God will accept it into glory if it be little he will accept it into grace and make it bigger For that is the first instance of Gods readinesse to forgive he will upon any termes that are not unreasonable and that do not suppose a remanent affection to sin keep us from the intolerable paines of hell And indeed if we consider the constitution of the conditions which God requires we shall soon perceive God intends heaven to us as a meer gift and that the duties on our part are but little entertainments and exercises of our affections and our love that the Devil might not seize upon that portion which to eternal ages shall be the instrument of our happinesse For in all the parts of our duty it may be there is but one instance in which we are to do violence to our natural and first desires For those men have very ill natures to whom vertue is so contrary that they are inclined naturally to lust to drunkennesse and anger
and pride and covetousnesse and unthankefulnesse and disobedience Most men that are tempted with lust could easily enough entertain the sobrieties of other counsels as of temperance and justice or religion if it would indulge to them but that one passion of lust persons that are greedy of mony are not fond of amorous vanities nor care they to sit long at the wine and one vice destroyes another and when one vice is consequent to another it is by way of punishment and dereliction of the man unlesse where vices have cognation and seem but like several degrees of one another and it is evil custome and superinduced habits that make artificiall appetites in most men to most sins But many times their naturall temper vexes them into uneasie dispositions and aptnesses onely to some one unhandsome sort of action that one thing therefore is it in which God demands of thee mortification and self deniall Certain it is There are very many men in the world that would fain commute their severity in al other instances for a licence in their one appetite they would not refuse long prayers after a drunken meeting or great almes to gether with one great lust but then consider how easie it is for them to go to heaven God demands of them for his sake their own to crucifie but one natural lust or one evil habit for all the rest they are easie enough to do themselves God will give them heaven where the joy is more then one and I said it is but one mortification God requires of most men for if those persons would extirp but that one thing in which they are principally tempted it is not easily imaginable that any lesse evill to which the temptation is trifling should interpose between them and their great interest If Saul had not spared Agag the people could not have expected mercy and our little and inferiour appetites that rather come to us by intimation and consequent adherences then by direct violence must not dwell with him who hath crossed the violence of his distempered nature in a beloved instance since therefore this is the state of most men and God in effect demands of them but one thing and in exchange for that will give them all good things it gives demonstration of his huge easinesse to redeem us from that intolerable evil that is equally consequent to the indulging to one or to twenty sinful habits 2. Gods readinesse to pardon appears in this that he pardons before we ask for he that bids us ask for pardon hath in designe and purpose done the thing already for what is wanting on his part in whose onely power it is to give pardon and in whose desire it is that we should be pardoned and who commands us to lay hold upon the offer he hath done all that belongs to God that is all that concerns the pardon there it lies ready it is recorded in the book of life it wants nothing but being exemplified and taken forth and the Holy spirit stands ready to consigne and passe the privy signet that we may exhibit it to devils and evil men when they tempt us to despair or sin 3. Nay God is so ready in his mercy that he did pardon us even before he redeemed us for what is the secret of the mysterie that the eternal Son of God should take upon him our nature and die our death and suffer for our sins and do our work and enable us to do our own he that did this is God he who thought it no robbery to be equal with God he came to satisfie himself to pay to himself the price for his own creature and when he did this for us that he might pardon us was he at that instant angry with us was this an effect of his anger or of his love that God sent his Son to work our pardon and salvation Indeed we were angry with God at enmity with the the Prince of life but he was reconciled to us so far as that he then did the greatest thing in the world for us for nothing could be greater then that God the Son of God should die for us here was reconciliation before pardon and God that came to die for us did love us first before he came this was hasty love But it went further yet 4. God pardoned us before we sinned and when he foresaw our sin even mine and yours he sent his son to die for us our pardon was wrought and effected by Christs death above 1600. years ago and for the sins of to morrow and the infirmities of the next day Christ is already dead already risen from the dead and does now make intercession and atonement And this is not onely a favour to us who were born in the due time of the Gospel but to all mankinde since Adam For God who is infinitely patient in his justice was not at all patient in his mercy he forbears to strike and punish us but he would not forbear to provide cure for us and remedy for as if God could not stay from redeeming us he promised the Redeemer to Adam in the beginning of the worlds sin Christ was the lamb slain from the begining of the world and the covenant of the Gospel though it was not made with man yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part as to the ministration of pardon The seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the Tempter had won his first battle and though God laid his hand and drew a vail of types and secresy before the manifestation of his mercies yet he did the work of redemption and saved us by the covenant of faith and the righteousnesse of believing and the mercies of repentance the graces of pardon and the blood of the slain lamb even from the fall of Adam to this very day and will do till Christs second coming Adam fell by his folly and did not perform the covenant of one little work a work of a single abstinence but he was restored by faith in the seed of the woman and of this righteousnesse Noah was a preacher and by faith Enoch was traslated and by faith a remnant was saved at the flood and to Abraham this was imputed for righteousnesse and to all the Patriarks and to al the righteous judges and holy Prophets and Saints of the old Testament even while they were obliged so far as the words of their covenant were expressed to the law of works their pardon was sealed kept with in the vail within the curtains of the sanctuary and they saw it not then but they feel it ever since and this was a great excellency of the Divine mercy unto them God had mercy on all mankinde before Christs manifestation even beyond the mercies of their covenant they were saved as we are by the seed of the woman by God incarnate by the lamb slain from the beginning of