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 adulterer 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 robâ—d his Master nor offered to fly from his bondage he shall scape the Furea 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 edifie the hearer or in some sense to glorifie God or to become temperate to have got a habit of sobriety or chastity or humility is the work of a life And if we do but consider that he that lives well from his younger yeers or takes up at the end of his youthfull heats and enters into the courses of a sober life early diligently and vigorously shall finde himself after the studies and labours of 20. or 30. yeers piety but a very imperfect person many degrees of pride left unrooted up many inroads of intemperance or beginnings of excesse much indevotion and backwardnesse in religion many temptations to contest against and some infirmities which he shall never say he hath master'd we shall finde the work of a holy life is not to be deferred till our dayes are almost done till our strengths are decayed our spirits are weak and our lust strong our habits confirmed and our longings after sin many and impotent for what is very hard to be done and is alwayes done imperfectly when there is length of time and a lesse work to do and more abilities to do it withall when the time is short and almost expired and the work made difficult and vast and the strengths weaker and the faculties are disabled will seem little lesse then absolutely impossible * I shall end this generall consideration with the question of the Apostle If the righteous scarcely be saved if it be so difficult to overcome our sins and obtain vertuous habits difficult I say to a righteous a sober and well living person where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear What shall become of him who by his evil life hath not onely removed himself from the affections but even from the possibilities of vertue He that
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 craft 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 mind 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 esseminacy 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 and invited him to Court and he forgot all his promises which were warm upon his lips and grew pompous secular and ambitious and gave the gods thanks for his preferment Thus many men leave the world when their fortune hath left them and they are severe and philosophicall and retired for ever if for ever it be impossible to return But let a prosperous Sunshine warm and refresh their sadnesses and make it but possible to break their purposes and there needs no more temptation Their own false heart is enough they are like Ephraim in the day of Battell starting aside like a broken Bow 4. The heart is false deceiving and deceived in its intensions and designes A man hears the precepts of God injoyning us to give Alms of all we possesse he readily obeys with much cheerfulnesse and alacrity And his charity like a fair spreading tree looks beauteously But there is a Canker at the heart The man blowes a Trumpet to call the poor together and hopes the neighbourhood will take notice of his Bounty Nay he gives Alms privately and charges no man to speak of it and yet hopes by some Accident or other to be praised both for his Charity and Humility And if by chance the Fame of his Alms comes abroad it is but his duty to let his light so shine before men that God may be glorified and some of our neighbours be relieved and others edified But then to distinguish the intention of our heart in this Instance and to seek Gods glory in a particular which will also conduce much to our reputation and to have no filthy adherence to stick to the heart no reflexion upon our selves or no complacency and delight in
sine Deo as no man would bear evils without a cause so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes if our lot were not sorrow and persecution and therefore without this condition of suffering the Spirit of God should lose that glorious attribute of The Holy Ghost the Comforter 21. Is there any thing more yet Yes They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ shall sit upon thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel so said Christ to his Disciples Nay the saints shall judge Angels saith saint Paul well therefore might Saint Paul say I rejoyce exceedingly in tribulation It must be some great thing that must make an afflicted man to rejoyce exceedingly and so it was For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise and tribulation does work this For a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope even an exceeding weight of glory We have no reason to think it strange concerning the fiery triall as if it were a strange thing It can be no hurt the Church is like Moses bush when it is all on sire it is not at all consumed but made full of miracle full of splendour full of God and unlesse we can finde something that God cannot turn into joy we have reason not onely to be patient but rejoyce when we are persecuted in a righteous cause For love is the soul of Christianity and suffering is the soul of love To be innocent and to be persecuted are the body and soul of Christianity I John your brother and partaker of tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus said Saint John those were the titles and ornaments of his profession that is I John your fellow Christian that 's the plain song of the former descant He therefore that is troubled when he is afflicted in his outward man that his inward man may grow strong like the birds upon the ruines of the shell and wonders that a good man should be a begger and a sinner be rich with oppression that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives hungry and sick unpitied and unrelieved may as well wonder that carrion crowes should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse farre better then himself or that his own excellent body should be devoured by wormes and the most contemptible creatures though it lies there to be converted into glory That man knows nothing of nature or providence or Christianity or the rewards of vertue or the nature of its constitution or the infirmities of man or the mercies of God or the arts and prudence of his loving kindnesse or the rewards of heaven or the glorifications of Christs exalted humanity or the precepts of the Gospel who is offended at the sufferings of Gods deerest servants or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings in the cause of righteousnesse For the securing of a vertue for the imitation of Christ and for the love of God or the glories of immortality It cannot it ought not it never will be otherwise the world may as well cease to be measured by time as good men to suffer affliction I end this point with the words of Saint Paul Let as many as are perfect be thus minded and if any man be otherwise minded God also will reveal this unto you this of the covenant of sufferings concerning which the old Prophets and holy men of the Temple had many thoughts of heart but in the full sufferings of the Gospel there hath been a full revelation of the excellency of the sufferings I have now given you an account of some of those reasons why God hath so disposed it that at this time that is under the period of the Gospel judgement must begin at the house of God and they are either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or imitation of Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chastisements or trials martyrdom or a conformity to the sufferings of the Holy Jesus But now besides all the premises we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked For if judgment first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God that is the question of the Apostle and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill treated in the actions of the world The first ages of the Church lived upon promises and prophecies and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever and the others are of a continuall and a successive nature and are verified by the actions of every day Therefore we and all the following Ages live upon promises and experience and although the servants of God have suffered many calamities from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies yet still it is preserved as one of the fundamentall truths of Christianity That all the fair fortunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy nor the persecutions of the godly able to make a good man miserable nor yet their sadnesses arguments of Gods displeasure against them For when a godly man is afflicted and dies it is his work and his businesse and if the wicked prevail that is if they persecute the godly it is but that which was to be expected from them For who are fit to be hangmen and executioners of publike wrath but evil and ungodly persons And can it be a wonder that they whose cause wants reason should betake themselves to the sword that what he cannot perswade he may wrest onely we must not judge of the things of God by the measures of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of men have this world for their stage and their reward but the things of God relate to the world to come and for our own particulars we are to be guided by rule and by the end of all not by events intermedial which are varied by a thousand irregular causes For if all the evil men in the world were unprosperous as most certainly they are and if all good persons were temporally blessed as most certainly they are not yet this would not move us to become vertuous If an angel should come from heaven or one arise from the dead and preach repentance or justice and temperance all this would be ineffectuall to those to whom the plain doctrines of God delivered in the Law and the Prophets will not suffice For why should God work a signe to make us to beleeve that we ought to do justice if we already beleeve he hath commanded it no man can need a miracle for the confirmation of that which he already beleeves to be the command of God And when God hath expressely bidden us to obey every ordinance of man for the Lords sake the King as supreme and his deputies as sent by him It is a strange infidelity to think that a rebellion against the ordinance of God can be sanctified by successe and prevalency of them that destroy the
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 Pathsheba 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 inconsideration 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 sometimes 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 we are but beginners But it is not likely that God will trie us concerning degrees hereafter in such things of which in this world he was sparing to give us opportunities 3. Be carefull to observe that these rules are not all to be understood negatively but positively and affirmatively that is that a man may conclude that he is grown in grace if he observes these characters in himself which I have here discoursed of but he must not conclude negatively that he is not grown in grace if he cannot observe such signall testimonies for sometimes God covers the graces of his servants and hides the beauty of his tabernacle with goats hair and the skins of beasts that he may rather suffer them to want present comfort then the grace of humility for it is not necessary to preserve the gayeties and their spirituall pleasures but if their humility fails which may easily do under the sunshine of conspicuous and illustrious graces their vertues and themselves perish in a sad declension But sometimes men have not skill to make a judgement and all this discourse seems too artificiall to be tried by in the hearty purposes of religion Sometimes they let passe much of their life even of their better dayes without observance of particulars sometimes their cases of conscience are intricate or allayed with unavoydable infirmities sometimes they are so uninstructed in the more secret parts of religion and there are so many illusions and accidentall miscariages that if we shall conclude negatively in the present Question we may produce scruples infinite but understand nothing more of our estate and do much lesse of our duty 4. In considering concerning our growth in grace let us take more care to consider matters that concern justice and charity then that concern the vertue of religion because in this there may be much in the other there cannot easily be any illusion and cosenage That is a good religion that beleeves and trusts and hopes in God through Jesus Christ and for his sake does all justice and all charity that he can and our Blessed Lord gives no other description
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 strom of passion if they suffer in their interest But in order to heaven they are cold in their religion indevout 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 fervent 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 watchfull 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 Arâ—adian 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 the slender reward with which the Romans payed their souldiers for their extraordinary valour True it is that heaven is not in a just sense of a commutation a reward but a gift and an infinite favour but yet it is not reached forth but to persons disposed by the conditions of God which conditions when we pursue in kinde let us be very carefull we do not fail of the mighty price of our high calling for want of degrees and just measures the measures of zeal and a mighty love 3. It is an office of prudence so to serve God that we may at the same time preserve our lives and our estates our interest and reputation for our selves and our relatives so farre as they can consist together Saint Paul in the beginning of Christianity was careful to instruct the forwardnesse and zeal of the new Christians into good husbandry and to catechize the men into good trades and the women into useful imployments that they might not be unprofitable For Christian religion carrying us to heaven does it by the way of a man and by the body it serves the soul as by the soul it serves God and therefore it endeavours to secure the body and its interest that it may continue the opportunities of a crown and prolong the stage in which we are to run for the mighty price of our salvation and this is that part of prudence which is the defensative and guards of a Christian in the time of persecution and it hath in it much of duty He that through an indiscreet zeal casts himself into a needlesse danger hath betrayed his life to tyranny and tempts the sin of an enemy he loses to God the service of many yeers and cuts off himself from a fair opportunity of working his salvation in the main parts of which we shall finde a long life and very many yeers of reason to be little enough he betrayes the interest of his relatives which he is bound to preserve he disables himself of making provision for them of his own house and he that fails in this duty by his own fault is worse then
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