King Agrippa's leave almost a Christian was three parts an Atheist Such a glimmering light of zeal is like a Morning mist which quickly vanisheth away and it is Christus suffuratus as the Souldiers said Christ stoln away and pilfered out of our heart I know not how He that never saw the Sea is as near his journeys end to pass it over as he that wades but to the ankles The hands of Zorobabel have laid the foundation of this house and his hands shall finish it Zach. iv 9. that was a blessing from the Lord. To be of Caesars mind Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum to think nothing done when any thing was undone that was a Spirit to make a Conquerour My love is a bundle of Myrrh Cant. xiii As if she were like Seleucus shafts which could not be broken in the cluster Such a bundle of Myrrh is in St. Peter 2 Epist i. 5. Give all diligence and add to your faith vertue to your vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to all these charity What will all these serve the turn when they stand as thick as corn in harvest Yes says the Apostle Si abundaverint if they abound in you they will make you you shall not be barren and fruitless Thus then Truth and Mercy will forsake us if we do not further the gift of God take away the single Talent and give it to him that hath ten more The next way to make our heart cast this happy brood and to miscarry when it travels with Truth and Mercy is admotione contrarii by taking part both with God and Belial Asahal was not more nimble than St. John to fly away when he spied Cerinthus the eldest Son of Satan in the same Bath with him and therefore do not think to make your soul an Ark for the clean and unclean beasts to lie together A little frosty air is so forcible that it bursts the clouds and forceth out the hot exhalation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is spirted out between the fingers and gone before you can think of it Beloved that field in Israel was hated like Aceldama which was sown with divers seeds and Nehemiah cursed the children that spake one half in the Hebrew Tongue and another part in the Language of Ashdod Covetousness is so wealthy and it thrives so fast that it easily purchaseth the whole heart of man and whom at first you entertained like a foreiner to have one moyety in your heart it buys the whole possession over Mercies head Veios migrate coloni and so casts it forth And likewise so incompatible is truth with the least falshood that the haters of the Lord were found liars at our Saviours arraignment when he spake nothing Is it not strange Very strange That Christ should come before unrighteous Judges be impeached by malicious Adversaries all this while hold his peace and yet the Witness not agree Will you know the reason There came two false Witnesses Mat. xxvi Averring that this fellow said I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it again in three days There is another tale told Mar. xiv We heard him say I will destroy this Temple made with hands and will build another without hands But what said our Saviour in very deed You shall find his saying Joh. ii 19. Neither I can destroy with the former nor I will destroy with the latter But vos solvite do you destroy and solvite templum hoc the Temple of his body and in three days I will raise it up You cannot clap good and bad together but with waxen pins if you move them a little they fly asunder the wax melteth and it confounds the Chariot and his Rider For what agreement hath light with darkness or the Temple of the Lord with Idols Touching the third manner and the last how a quality may cease to be desitione subjecti when that faileth wherein it is it hath no place only in Truth and Mercy Other things indeed we can expect to remain no longer than the house of our body lasteth beauty ceaseth with the bloud and strength faileth with the sinews nay tongues shall cease and knowledge shall vanish away but mercy and charity abideth for ever Yea and truth also but veritas in visione not in fide Truth in the clear vision of God and not darkly in faith In a word as Joseph furnished his Brethren both with food for their travel and Corn to keep house with in the Land of Canaan So there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. James gifts for our Pilgrimage in this life and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts to abide with us in our Country above perfect gifts descending from the Father of lights So some endowments drop away with this house of flesh but after glorification this voice shall no more be heard in our ears let not Mercy and Truth forsake thee But this uncomfortable deserant that Gods gifts may forsake us is to view Jacob but as a Criple halting and failing in his combate but nè deserant let them not forsake thee shews Israel wrestling with the Angel and keeping God as I may speak it with reverence fast unto him with a chain of Faith To begin therefore with Mercy there are two ways to keep a firm possession of it by Meditation and by Petition The Meditations also shall be twain and very short ones for the time sake First Consider that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers call it the deep engagement of our Charity in the Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our brethren and no otherwise Lord what a deep curse do we bring upon our soul if this be not said in earnest Secondly Consider the compassion of all the Members in that mystical body whereof Christ is the head He that is hard hearted against a Christian is cruel against a part of himself Nero might fill the streets with the slaughtered bodies of the Saints For why he was none of ours but a Lion in the Sheepfold but a little bitterness a disdaining contempt a reviling malediction the neglect of the misery of a Christian at the hands of a Christian is more unnatural It was St. Basils counsel and most elegant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that as he that looks upon the sore eye of another man may chance to provoke the rheum in his own eyes so our eyes should grow feeble and conceive tears when we see the tears of our brother If we chance to offend against Mercy and to forget one of these Meditations it is very likely that it will stop at the other but if both fail then we must fly unto uncessant Prayer and Petition That is Anchora sacra for the last refuge let us fall down before his footstool and confirm Gods grace to our soul as Elias made the heavens of brass I do not mean so
goodness were remarkable for the quantity that he had an exceeding portion of the Spirit in which regard he was more than a Prophet for the time that he received it it was from the womb yea and in some signs before the womb had opened to bring him forth in which regard he was more than the child of any Prophet these two the Angel hath put together He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mothers womb This was inundatio spiritus the Spirit abounding in him as a River at high-water fills the banks but in the most probable opinion it was not emundatio spiritus it did not cleanse his soul from corruption in every part but it instructed him with vertue more than ordinary to do great works For God forbid but that a man may be said to be sanctified and to be full of the Holy Ghost although the infectious poyson of original sin do still remain in him Which original contagion raigns in the wicked is much abated and kept under in the Just was lessen'd by Gods especial favour more than usually in John but the malignity thereof is not quite taken away till our mortal have put on immortality The reason is very slender that the sin wherein his mother conceived him was taken away before he was born because he seemed to have a passion of faith before ever he saw the light when he leapt at the presence of our Saviour for that might be a transient passion and no doubt it was no more and nothing lets but sin may abide also where the Spirit of grace doth inhabit and continue That which is alledged to prove him to have some defilement like all the Sons of Adam is far more forcible namely where the Scripture says how all are conceived and born in sin Where it lets us know in another place how God hath concluded all under sin that he might have mercy upon all And St. Austin upholds this cause Nemo dici potest renatus nisi priùs sit natus Christ says Unless a man be born again he cannot be the child of God Surely common sense will lead us to this notion a man must be first born before he can be born again and if carnal birth go before Regeneration then no man can be cleansed from all sin before the birth of the womb Besides out of the same reason that St. Austin brings against the Pelagians to prove that the leprosie of Adams sin is in little Infants by the same I will prove it to be in John because the wages of sin is death Christ only excepted who took our sins upon him and the beheading of John is a remonstrance that the meritorious cause of death was in him I mean iniquity To give full measure to this Point and running over Mat. xi 11. Verely says Christ among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist yet he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he I leave the multipliciousness of Expositions upon that Text and betake me to St. Hieroms Aliud est coronam justitiae possidere aliud in acie pugnare The least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than John because he was in his race and did struggle against sin and Satan the least in the kingdom of heaven hath his Crown upon his head and is past the fear of tentation So I have shewn that John had some frailties of flesh and bloud in him wherefore most submissively he flies to the true Altar of mercy for a pardon I have need to be baptized of thee Let the Saints of God have their due honour but let the mercies of Christ and the benefit of his bloud shed upon the Cross be dilated to every one that dies in the Lord which was the reason why I prosecuted the last Point And it is according to the humility of John to set forth his low estate when men would exalt him For the more the Embassadors of the Jews did magnifie him with Art thou the Christ Art thou Elias The more did he abase himself saying There is one among you whose shooes latchet I am not worthy to unloose Displiciat sibi unusquisque in se ut totus in Deo placeat Be displeased every man with himself and God will be pleased with thee This was of all comforts most intimate to the Prophets soul that he saw his own need and knew the right way to call for succour And the less hope he had of himself the more hope he had of God O how his hope quickned and exulted when he saw his Redeemer at Jordan whom he had never seen before He saw such comfort coming down with him as the Angel brought to Peter when he was in hold now the prison doors are opened get thee loose from thy sins But what speak I of Angels They had been sent indeed upon messages of joy there had been Patriarchs there had been Prophets in the world these were like fair diamonds whose light sparkles in the eye but gives no warmth to that which is cold But as the Psalmist says Except the Lord build the house the labourers labour but in vain Except the Son of God had vouchsafed in his own person to build the Church we had never reapt the fruit of eternal life John Baptist was an Israelite yet he trusts not to the Seed of Abraham Born under the Law but he knew it were death to rely upon that killing Letter He was a Prophet sanctified from the womb he cares not for that For what had he which he had not received and could he boast then as if he had not received it Finally He was full of fasting austerity preaching all manner of works yet he relies not upon them for when we have done all we can we are but unprofitable servants These are the strongest stays of humane trust that can be built upon yet he flies from them all and runs to the all-sufficient merits of Christ for succour This was a right aim taken Ac si oculo rubricam dirigat uno this was a straight line drawn bringing his hope just upon the Lord and giver of life I have need to be baptized of thee The time hath stopt me from proceeding to the last part which shall be made the beginning of our business upon the next occasion To God the Father c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 14 15. And comest thou to me And Jesus answering said unto him Suffer it to be so now For thus it becommeth us to fulfil all righteousness IF ever such an Argument could be laid before man wherein it might become his wit to dispute it with God I think verily it fell out in this Story which I continue in that Text that I have read unto you I will not except that instance which is able to amaze any Reader when the Lord spake unto Abraham to take his only Son Isaac and
days and three nights in the belly of the Whale so shall also the Son of man be in the lower parts of the earth as if Christ had been studious or rather would teach us to be studious to keep the pattern as near as we can of the good Generations that went before us I would be sorry such ignorance should be in any here to make a question whether Christ could have continued to fast not only for the space of so many days but all his life without the corruptible aliments of meats and drinks But if he had produced his abstinence from all food longer than Moses and Elias for the space of many months or many years it would have been incredible to many that he had been perfect man of the substance of his Mother and Heresies would have had strong grounds for delusions that he had not a fleshly but a celestial body How much better did his humility condescend to the likeness of his own Prophets And because he came but in the shape of a servant he would not exceed all example or outgo the miraculous fast of his fellow-servants he would have the world take knowledge of him to be a mighty Prophet at least no ways inferiour to the best that ever lived therefore he fasted forty days and forty nights like Moses and Elias But in this the one is as divers from the other and as much excels the other as can be imagined Moses and Elias were preserved by Gods mighty arm that their natural complexion might subsist without sustenance but Christs vertue was in himself and of himself absolute independent they were kept safe by an external power Christ by his own Godhead and by no derivative vertue Such glorious miracles are rather to be adored with admiration than to be followed with imperfect imitation And because a large field of controversie lies before me in this Point touching the observation of our Lenten temperance for forty days whether that ordinance were regulated by the example of Christ I will lay down three several heads of opinions in their order and bring you by degrees I hope to the truth of the controversie 1. I will enquire whether Christ did intend to ordain a prefixt time of abstinence in the Church for forty days by his example 2. If that be not so sound to hold yet whether it were an Apostolical Tradition 3. If that can neither be proved yet whether it be a laudable Ecclesiastical Constitution To the question of the first enquiry many of the greatest Doctors in the Church of Rome answer that the observance of the Quadragesimal Fast binds all Christians from our Saviours example So Cardinal Bellarmine Non verbis praescripsit hoc jejunium Christus sed exemplo praecepit we have no such ordinance in express words throughout all the Scripture to say do thus but it is an ordinance from Christs example And Maldonat the Jesuit though Lent be not founded upon Christs Commandment yet it is founded upon his Example and that is enough to say it leans upon divine Authority Beloved it behoves not us to lay burdens upon mens shoulders which God himself hath not imposed Whatsoever is commended to us for decorum and order sake we do it for conscience sake but whatsoever is no more but indifferent in it self and is obtruded upon us sub opinione necessitatis as necessary and irrefragable from divine Authority when it is not so we reject it Stand fast in the liberty wherewith God hath made you free says St. Paul Gal. v. 1. So St. Cyprian in the like case opposing them that invented traditions of their own and called them Gods Ordinances Periculosum est in divinis rebus ut quis cedat jure suo It is of a dangerous consequent to yield any thing to be a divine injunction which is not Therefore advising upon these rules I give a flat Negative upon the first question the Quadragesimal Fast is not necessarily to be observed from Christs example The old rule of divinity is a sure one Imitamur in moralibus admiramur in miraculosis in miraculous works we adore Christ with admiration in Moral Institutions we will follow him with imitation He anointed the eyes of the blind man with spittle and clay contraries to the cure according to nature and therefore we magnifie him is it not a most Heterogeneal Mimick from hence to make a mixture of spittle and oyl to an Infant baptized as if the Apostles had wanted ceremony to the Sacrament when they baptized with nothing but water If any man love me he will keep my sayings says our Lord but he never added If any man love me he will tie himself to my example where I never prescribed him to follow me For my part that which hapned to St. Peter works exceedingly upon my understanding in this case when he saw his Master walk upon the Sea as upon a solid Pavement he desired he might do the like and to let him know such miracles are to be lookt upon with the veneration of faith he sunk into the waters and was in peril of his life To stop every cranny of objection that can be made I read that the examples of Christs mighty works are sometimes pressed upon us to be drawn into an Analogical imitation 1 Pet. ii 21. Christ suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps How is that Being reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not and as he died for us so we should offer our selves up to him as spiritual Sacrifices and as he died and rose again the third day so we should die unto sin and rise again unto newness of life From hence says Maldonat this is right our case for we take not upon us to eat nothing for forty days as Christ did but we keep a canonical temperance for forty days Imitamur quia sequimur quamvis non assequimur This is no more than the Analogical imitation Those other imitations of some similitude have a precept in the Book of God and this hath none Therefore let them teach that their imitation being not Scripture proof is but a voluntary and a diaphorous Constitution of the Church and the Church of England will never be their adversary For so it is frequent in the Writings of good Antiquitie to alledge Christs example for their observance of the forty days fast not according to the Roman Tenet at this day that Christ established it necessarily in all places from that time forth unto the end of the world but they alledged Christs example to countenance their voluntary and Ecclesiastical Sanctions What can be more direct on my side than St. Chrysostome Homil. 47. in Mat. Christ did not say as I fasted forty days so do ye follow me in fasting but learn of me because I am meek and lowly and ye shall find rest for your souls Surely if he had given any particular order for fasting in the New Testament the
Supreme Magistrate of the Church to proclaime observations both for convenient seasons and for ordinary times of fasting I find indeed that one Aerius by name cried out for Christian liberty and pretended that Canonical Fasts were unjust thraldom but I find that the Church remitted none of her Discipline for all his clamour and he was counted but an Heretick for his labour But is it lawful not only to ordain a time of abstinence but also during that space to turn our ordinary food into another species and quality It is For that you may see what power the Church hath the first Canon that ever the Apostles made in the face of a publick Council was an ordination to inhibit the Brethren from meats offered to Idols and from bloud and from things strangled A temporary Canon it was to last for the space while the Jews took offence at the Gentiles converted unto the Faith but after the scandal was taken away the force of the Canon ceased witness one Text for all 1 Cor. viii 8. for in all appearance the worst of those meats forbidden was that which was offered to Idols yet St. Paul when he wrote that Epistle says it was lawful for a man to eat that meat offered to an Idol so he did not eat it with the conscience of an Idol Well then the Church did frame an injunction to make all men refrain from certain meats for a time As for this exception against some kind of diet for forty days which is called the quality of Fasting to say the troth the conscionable Writers of the Church of Rome will confess it is nothing less than a Fast properly taken Be it so that Flesh yields the most copious nourishment yet the greater sort of men are better pleased with the delicacies of Fish choice of Wines suckets and Electuaries it can be no Fast to replenish a mans self with these not only for necessity but even to flatter his Palate and to give his appetite satiety therefore even these things according to the intent of the Church should be taken with greater parsimony and abstinence than we do at other times And then I will shew it was impossible for the Church to take better care for the avoidance of gluttony than to appoint order for the quality of diet for no proportion can be set down in a general form and direction for the special quantity what every man should take for the space of forty days for a little pittance is a great meal to some queasie stomachs and a great allowance again would be too little to keep others in health who are of strong and sudden concoction Consider this reason and it will satisfie you for what cause your diet is moderated for forty days in the quality of our meat and not in the quantity Daniel fasted but half a Lent but three weeks and he inhibited himself for that space not to taste of Flesh or Wine In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks I eat no pleasant bread neither came Flesh or Wine into my mouth neither did I anoint my self at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled Dan. x. 2. Howsoever to close this Point obedience single by it self is better than fasting for fasting is reduced to the vertue of temperance obedience to the vertue of justice giving honour to whom honour belongeth and of all the cardinal vertues Justice is the fairest and the principal A lawful Constitution I have proved it but because many things are lawful which are not expedient it remains to be sifted and nothing remains but it whether it be a laudable appointment Certainly it is laudable in a very great degree both to rectifie our appetite in the concupiscible and in the irascible part In the concupiscible to abate our inclination toward the pleasure of our Palate and make us abstinent In the irascible to curb our lawless stubbornness and make us obedient Seneca an Heathen did perceive there was some defect in their Government that the people were not prohibited some kind of food for a time to make them know their subjection to the Magistrate Nullis animalibus nisi ex fastidio pax est says he The Creatures can never be at rest and quiet any time of the year when the Laws will have it so but when we loath them and we aim at temperance by our own palate and stomach not by the Law of the Magistrate Remember how directly you tread in the steps of Adam and follow the first sin that ever he committed if you set more by the pleasure of your Palate than by the duty of obedience St. Austin conceived this benefit would redound by that partial abstinence Qui ista vitamus quae aliquando licent imprimis peccata fugimus quae omnino non licent We that for a while deny our selves those things which are lawful will be the better prepared to shun iniquity which is altogether unlawful I omit one thing for in this copious subject I must make an Epitome not a full Treatise I omit I say the enumeration of all Political Emoluments those are in every mans tongue and knowledge to maintain Fishing to enrich the imployment of Mariners to inure us to hardness in the times of peace if Wars should exercise us abroad or at home to spare every young thing in the Spring of the year and to preserve the multiplication of the beasts of the field these things are commonly dictated from the bar of the Civil Governour But will you know the spiritual advantages Why we appease Gods wrath by humiliation and dejecting our selves for the sins of the whole year which we committed before It is a special time destined to sweep away the filth of the whole house for as in Moses Law Lev. xvi 30. All the people once a year did afflict themselves for expiation of their common sins so it is good to have a publick time allotted to deprecate the Divine Wrath that it may not fall upon the whole Nation Again all the Writers of all Ages cannot be deceived and all confess with one mouth that a moderation of diet especially continued for some considerable time of temperance must needs abate the violence of voluptuousness and luxury And because we see it in the examples of Peter and Daniel and many more in Scripture that Fasting doth elevate the mind and make it more capable of spiritual thoughts therefore it is well ordained that the most notable Fast in the year should go before the great Anniversary Communion of Easter I know some will say divers of the Reformed Churches have disused this ceremony to profess an abstinence in the quality of their meats for forty days They can best answer for themselves and do answer that their people if they retained that use would be seduced with Superstition But for our parts we have more cause to fear a pound of Gluttony than a dram of Superstition and more reason they should conform to us than we
direction not to retort her eyes under the guilt of a mortal sin or she thought the Commandement held her no longer when she came out of the Plain and was even entring into Zoar. Here 's a Jesuitical subtlety for you to aggravate the offence to the bigness of a Mountain if a Novice violate the private Law of his Superior but to extenuate the sin almost to nothing if a Servant disobey the private Law of his heavenly Master But it is not the wit of man that can set a size upon sins which are mortal and which are venial for it is the Lord that judgeth the Earth The next place to which I refer the heinousness of this womans sin is great folly and blindness of heart for she refused the will of God and the preservation of her own life upon such easie conditions as to hold still her head When Elisha's Messenger bad Naaman wash seven times in Jordan and he turn'd away in a rage his Servants spake reason to him if the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing wouldst thou not have done it how much rather then when he saith to thee wash and be clean If he would not use such gentle means so near at hand means of no expence no pain no lingring molestation he deserved to continue a Leper In like sort if Lots Wife had been set a task of many observations put to a strict and a tedious penance would she not have done it to have escaped a storm of fire and brimstone how much more when this was all that was required from her Go on streight to the Mountain that is before thee turn neither to the right hand nor to the left Quanta erat iniquitas in peccando ubi tanta erat non peccandi facilitas says the Father What a shame it was to offend when there was so much facility to decline the offence Were not all the Regions of the World free for her to look upon excepting that one City behind her which could not be seen for the smoak Ex omnibus unum elige Myrrha virum modo ne sit in omnibus unus A single exception is the smallest exception that can be made and let them feel the smart that cannot conform themselves to those things which are of such easie observation For wherein did the transgression of Adam and Eve especially consist God knows best but the trivial and best grounded conjecture is quod levis fuisset in tantâ copiâ unius arboris continentia all the Trees of the Garden else were frankly theirs both for food and pleasure both for delight and necessity What an easie imposition was this let this only Graft be untoucht the Tree of the knowledg of good and evil and all beside is yours Who could forget it or neglect it But they stumbled when there was nothing to make them fall that is they violated a Law which was neither burdensom in strictness nor in multitude of circumstances Therefore in those good hours which we set apart for repentance and bewayling of our sins let it strike us deep to the heart when we remember how much evil we have done upon very small provocation how many branches of the Law we have broken when we cannot justly say that we were strongly beset with any tentation and how far we have given way to our frailties when 't was prompt and easie to repress them The negative Commands of the Law are more obvious to us more ready in our power to obey them than the affirmative So St. Chrysostom spends his judgment upon it with a tacit reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is far easier to hold off our hand from sin than to put to our hand to virtue and we can sooner shew the evil that we have not done than the good that we have done Nay the Father makes that such a slight thing that he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Beasts might alledg that or it might be alledged for them that they had done no iniquity yet what a strong charge it will be against us all in the day of judgment that we have not girt our selves close no not to this negative obedience touch not taste not What facil Ordinances are these to a temperate man and nothing but custom and a sluggish spirit hath made them difficult to the intemperate Defraud no man extort from no man God is no austere God in those Statutes they are quickly learnt and quickly kept yet the wealthiest many times will do the contrary when they could not pretend as the necessitous may the least impulsion of poverty How soon may any one abstein from the Lords Table that finds himself unprepared and uncomposed for those sacred Mysteries yet God shall have their company at that holy Feast when he least desires it How easie a thing it is for a man not to fall down before Stocks and Stones and to worship them yet a smack of Idolatry abounds even in the Church of Christ We dream of difficulties we cry out against invincible tentations when there is no such matter I know there are Royal Laws in Scripture fit for heroick vertue to bless them that persecute you to pull down every high imagination to quench all the sparks of concupiscence to lay down our life for Christs sake God doth justly weigh both the duress and the weight of these Commands and our infirmity to fulfil them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sees us strive for mastery in those Combats and admires the fortitude of his Saints but in other things it is as strange how quickly our faintness and easiness is subdued Could you not watch one hour says our Lord to his Disciples What a poor request is this to wake one hour for his comfort and service Therefore the objurgation was the sharper because they fail'd him You will pollute my name for handfuls of barly and pieces of bread Ez. xiii 19. The Devil 's haec omnia is a strong allurement All these things will I give thee he may bate a great deal of that offer to them that are ready to run into sin let it be hoc aliquid a little preferment a little countenance and they are taken with the Snare O insensati O slow of heart like this sinner in my Text will you reject God and forsake his Word even in things wherein you may so easily perform obedience Thirdly it is another brand upon her sin that she was indocilis most unattentive to learn Lot went before her constantly and stedfastly without any reciprocation or backsliding the Example was in her eye all the way from Sodom to Zoar every step he trode was a Sermon to bid her do the like if she would be saved yet she made no benefit of the Pattern though he were her own Mate her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom she was bound in a more particular bond than all others to draw the same yoke What was this but to shut her eyes unto