in the heart with earnest sorrow and most assured feeling of heavinesse we be made contrite and afflicted and again be made holy and joyfull purged and changed and amended by remission of sinnes by faith in Jesus Christ whereby it cannot but come to passe that the outward life and manners be renewed and changed What if now one should onely doe outward penance or repentance abstain from great and erroneous offences for the feare of punishment and the inward man doe keep his old spots still and take no care to enter into the inward and new life in Christ shall not such a one neverthelesse be damned neither shall it profit him a straw to cry Lord Lord but he shall be constrained to hear that terrible voice I know you not For certain and sure it is not all that say Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of heaven but onely those that doe the will of the heavenly Father Under which terrible sentence of the Divine Majesty it is manifest men of all orders are comprised for as many as doe not inwardly and from the heart truly repent and become new creatures in Christ those surely Christ will not acknowledge for his CHAP. V. What is true Faith 1 John 1. 5. Every one that beleeveth that Jesus is Christ is born of God FAith is a solid trust and a firm and cernain perswasion of the grace of God promised in Christ for the remission of sinnes and life eternal kindled through the word of God and the holy Ghost in our hearts by this faith is conferred unto us the remission of our sinnes and that gratis or freely for no merits of ours but Christs alone and that of meere grace that our faith may remain fixed or unmoveable upon a firme and solid foundation And this absolution or forgivenesse of our sinnes is our justice or justification and that true solid and eternall before God For neither is it of Angels but by the obedience of the Sonne of God his merits and ransome which by faith we appropriate unto us fixing and applying the same to our selves therefore neither is the imperfections Properties of a true faith of our life or any sinnes left remaining to withstand us but they be covered with the vaile of grace for Christs sake Psal 32. Furthermore by this solid and firm trust this followeth that the man doth dedicate his whole heart solely to God in him he resteth alone to this one is he glewed or fastened with this alone he entreth society and is joyned to God and participateth all things that are of God and Christ and is made one spirit with God taketh and collecteth from him power and strength a new life new joyes many recreations peace lightnesse of heart the soules Sabbath and rest Lastly justification and holinesse or sanctification in the holy Ghost What other thing then is it at the length but to be regenerated through faith for where true faith is there is Christ with all his justice holinesse redemption merit grace remission of sins adoption and inherttance of life eternall And this is the new life and regeneration New birth through faith in Christ whereupon the Apostle to the Hebrews Cap. 11. calleth faith a Substance that is the undoubted solid firm trust of things which were hoped for and a certain manifest and notable conviction and experience of things invisible And finely so great and powerfull is the consolation of a true living faith in our hearts as it cannot but convince by arguing most firmly from experience and tast of the soveraigne good in his soule that is from the quietnesse and peace in God Iustified faith where peace whereby that preservation remaineth most certain which a Christian doubteth not to seale with his death and this is that strength of spirit and inward man this is vigor and alacrity of faith or Parrhesia Eph. 3. Phil. 1. 1 Joh. 2. 3. this joy in God 1 Thess 2. Lastly this Plerophoria and immoveable The certainty of faith firm certainty 1 Thess 3. even for which I shall dare to dye that truly cannot but first be perswaded in my mind most firmly through the H. Ghost infixed and impressed in my inward understanding also it behoveth to be lively inward in most powerful consolation wherby that commeth to the mind which is supernaturall divine and a celestiall strength to overcome the feare of death and the love of he world to be uttetly extinguished in me I say so great so solid Prolepsis or perswasion To be born of God is no dead work and union with Christ is needfull that neither death nor life can dissolve it Rom. 8. whereupon B. John pronounceth That he that is born of God hath overcome the world But to be born of God cannot be any vain or shadowed thing it ought to be a lively thing and very powerfull For it were wickednesse to beleeve that the living God did beget a dead off-spring frivolous anâ— dead members or instrumentss but It is living overcometh so it be true faith rather it is for a certain rule that God cannot being a living God but beget a living man no other then new Now seeing our faith is the victory by which we overcome the world who can doubt that it should overcome being indued with powerfull strength and greatest force and that our faith which is commanded by God to overcome the world ought to be lively overcomming and affections working divine faith a certain force and influence yea Christ himselfe apprehended by faith and fixed in our minds and graffed in our understanding and by this vertue of God What we are with Christ without him what we return into God and become intimate and one with God And from Adam as from a cursed Vine we are transplanted into Christ that living and blessed Vine John 15. So in Christ we possesse all his goods and in him are justified Even as a Scien or a plant graffed in a good tree groweth flourisheth and beareth fruit without it it withereth so man without Christ is a cursed vine and all his works are sinfull the grapes of it are bitternesse gall Deut. 32. but in Christ blessed and justified wherefore St. Paul saith 2 Cor. 5. that hee â—hat knew no sinne for us became sinne that we might be justified before God in him By this it appeareth manifestly that works do not justifie because we must be graffed in Iustification is not by works Christ by faith before we can do any good work and so thy justification is the gift of God freely given before and preventing all our merits we may as well say a dead man may see stand and doe good of himselfe I think so indeed but he must first bee raised from death so thou likewise that art dead in sinne to God canst not performe any work to God unlesse thou be first raised by Christ to life which being granted it followeth thy
bring the wayfaring man and the needy into thy house when thou seest one naked cover him or cloath him and doe not despise thine owne flesh Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thy salvation shall arise betimes and thy justice shall goe before thy face and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee together All which with one voyce do cry That God will not accept the repentance of any man or his prayer unlesse he first be reconciled to his neighbour CHAP. XXX Of the fruits of Love 1 Cor. 13. Charity is patient courteous charity striveth not it doth no wrong it is not puffed up it is not disdainfull it seeketh not his own it is not easily provoked it thinketh no evill it rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the truth it suffereth all things it beleeveth all things it hopeth all things it sustaineth all things EVen as in the middest of Paradise the Tree of Life was planted the fruits whereof whosoever should eat hee should lead an immortall life according to that of Gen. 3. Now therefore lest he hap to put his hand thereto and take of the Tree of life and The life of the faithful is Christ eat and live for ever the Lord God sent him out of the Paradise of pleasure that he might labour the earth from whence he was taken So Almighty God in the midst of the Paradise of the Christian Church set Christ Jesus that all the faithfulll from him might draw life and spirit and be comforted For all Christian discipline consisteth in Faith and Charity and the summe of Christian life in generall by reason of faith in Christ is pleasant acceptable to God So in like manner we cannot approve or allow of the reasons of our neighbour but through charity And so true it is that all vertues without charity are nothing and dead that faith it self is not excepted which although it onely justifieth when it onely apprehendeth the merit of Christ neither in the businesse of justification any reason of workes going before present or to come or to follow but Christ onely is accounted of yet it is most sure where charity doth not follow there is not true faith but hypocriticall although it work by miracles For even as a body destitute of a soule is dead so the spirituall or inward man whose members are vertues if charity be wanting with all his members ought to be accounted for dead Whereupon B. Paul hath set it as a Loadstone of faith and such faith doth require as worketh by charity Truly I know well in the work of justification that faith without works doth consist Rom. 4. but that it should want works I professe it cannot be when it shall have to doe amongst men in the market of charity Wherefore to the Galatians chap. 5. it is called Faith which worketh by charity And 1. Cor. 13. the fruits of this most beautifull Tree are remarked to bee fourteen And the first of these is Patience and Long-suffering whose nature and constitution no man better expresseth then Christ himselfe the true tree of life whose goodly fruits we ought to eat and turn them into the juice and bloud of Christ Therefore even as he by his wonderfull long-suffering did beare the malice and sinne of the world that he might allure and draw sinners to repentance Rom. 2. So then also order thy life and manners that the most gentle Christ may live in thee and thou in him as a member united to his head and breathe together The second fruit is Benignity or well-doing which was chiefe and principall in Christ according to Psalm 45. All grace did drop from thy lips And Luke 4. They wondred at the words of grace which proceeded out of his lips Which doe thou heare that thou mayst follow and to cause thee love thy neighbour Christ will speak by thy mouth and thou shalt remain united to him in perpetuall charity The third fruit is not to be emulous or revengefull but to remit and pardon then which nothing is more proper to God Psal 103. David saith He will not be angry for ever threaten thee eternally He hath not done to us according to our offences nor rewarded us according to our iniquities To which like is that of Ezekiel chap. 18. If the wicked shall repent him of all his sinnes and iniquities that he hath wrought he shall live by his life and shall not die I will not remember all his iniquities which he hath wrought And in Jeremy 31. In perpetuall love have I loved thee therefore have I drawn thee to me in mercy I will have pitie on them I will be reconciled as concerning their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more And in Esay chap. 43. I am I am he that blotteth out thy iniquities for my own sake and I will not remember thy sins Therefore doe thou the same remit I say pardon and forget thy neighbour and in like manner Christ will pardon thine offences and thou shalt have his Spirit and shalt remain in him The fourth fruit is not to mis-judge thy neighbour nor causelesly or crookedly or perversly to deride thy neighbour before others or by sycophantizing or collusion to damnifie him but contrariwise let thy heart bee seen in thy brow and doe all things ingenuously and clearly without hypocrisie Example whereof Christ gives unto us who carried himselfe equally to his friends and foes and from the bottome of his heart would that all should be most rightly guided both in deeds and counsell in which foot-steps whosoever doth insist in him doth remain the candor and ingenuity of Christ Therefore let all of us from the heart study the good of others by which means we shall remain united as true members to Christ our head The fifth fruit is Not to be puffed up to insult or wax proud but behold Christ Jesus the tree of life to whom the woman Luke 11. with a loud voice in a great assembly and concourse was bound to say Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that gave thee suck He turned this praise most worthily due from himselfe to them that feared and loved God yea rather subjecting himselfe saying Happy are they that heare the word of God and keep it And this is the character of true love to transferre all his praises due to himself upon his neighbour which if thou after the example of Christ dost resolve to doe then truly humble Christ liveth in thee and thou in him In the sixth place true charity is not cruell not disdainfull not rough not discourteous in manners but tempered and composed to all humanity which Charity Christ used according to the prophesie of Esay chap. 42. who was not rigid nor turbulent but with admirable gentlenesse and sweetnesse of tongue hee accommodated The worship of God profiteth not God but our selves himselfe to his neighbour and commanded the same to others Whosoever studieth to imitate
justification onely proceedeth from faith in Christ And faith is like But in Christ a new-born babe newly come into the world weake and naked set before the eyes of his Saviour from whom as from his parent hee receiveth justice honesty holinesse grace and the holy Ghost And after this manner is the naked child by the mercy of God cloathed and both his bracelets being taken away he receiveth of God grace health and holinesse This alone therefore this only receiving maketh him godly holy and happy and our true justification onely through faith and not What our justification is through works I say by faith which apprehending Christ be it what it may be with all his goodnesse he challengeth and maketh it his own properly then of necessity sinne death Devill and hell must Sin and death hell are subiect to faith give back and vanish away and so powerfully lively and effectually doth the merit of Christ through faith work and abound that even the sinnes of the whole world cannot hurt them Now seeing that Christ by faith liveth and dwelleth in thee let us never think or beleeve that this his habitation is a dead work but rather a certain living thing not idle powerfull working or as I may say in one word a renewing for faith performeth two things first it transplanteth thee into Christ and giveth him freely unto thee with all that he hath secondly it reneweth thee in Christ that thou mayst grow green and flourish and live in him neither is the graffe brought into the stock for other purpose but that it should flourish and bring forth fruit in it And even as by the Apostasie of Adam and by the deceit and seducing of the Devill the seed of the Serpent and the Diabolicall corruption of his nature is sown in man growing up into a tree bearing the fruits of death so by the word of God and the holy Ghost the faith is sown in our hearts as the seed of Faith is the seed of God God in which after a wonderfull manner are shut up all divine vertues and properties from whence in a like manner doth flow forth a most glorious and new Image of God and bringeth forth a new tree whose fruits are obedience and patience humility courtesie peace charity justice a new and another man and so the whole Kingdome of God for true and saving faith reneweth the whole man maketh clean the heart joyneth and uniteth it to God purged anew and set free from earthly things it hungreth and thirsteth after righteousnesse it worketh love it bringeth peace joy patience strength moderation in adversity it overcommeth the world it maketh us the sonnes of God and heirs of all celestiall goodnesse and co-heirs with Christ If it happen any to be without or to be ignorant of this joy which is by faith acknowledging himselfe to be of little faith let him beware he distrust not therefore but rather let him trust in grace Consolation of those that have little Faith promised by Christ which promise remaineth certain immoveable and everlasting And although we through humane infirmities doe often fall and goe backwards let us in the mean while alwayes account it sure and certain that the grace of God remaineth solid and firm whensoever by true and serious repentance we arise from our fall for Christ is and will be Christ and Saviour although you take hold of him by a firm or weak faith for he imbraceth both alike and Christ is alike to all Moreover the promise of grace is universall and perpetuall upon which it is necessary our faith be founded without difference firme or weak and in the mean time erect and fill thy heart with hope God will in his good time in his own season bring that sincere and sensible joy unto thee although he hide himselfe a while in the inwards of thy heart Psal 37. 77. Of which Argument I shall say more Lib. 2. CHAP. VI. How the word of God by faith in man ought to spread forth live Luke 17. For behold the kingdom of God is within you BEcause in Regeneration and Renovation of the man all things are in us therefore our great Gods will was that those things which by faith in man ought All the new man is set forth in the Scripture to be done spiritually fulfilled should be outwardly set forth in writing and the whole new man painted and fully set forth in his word for seeing that his word is the seed of God in us certainly it is necessary that it should bring forth fruit and out of that seed to grow by faith which the Scripture outwardly doth teach and beare witnesse of or certain it is that the seed and embryon is dead I say in faith and spirit I ought to tast prove and joyfully in the inward sense perceive heare see and touch even those things the Scripture doth dictate The word of God is to quicken in us and declare most truly neither did God the Father in his counsell manifest the Scripture that as a dead letter it should lie hid in paper ink but that it should receive life in faith and Spirit or as we vulgarly say be turned into our juyce and bloud spring up and grow young in us to another new and inward man because I say all things ought and it is meet so to be to be fulfilled and performed in faith and spirit through Christ whatsoever the Scripture doth outwardly teach Let us shew it in the example of Cain and Abel whose natures manners and actions if you call to mind you cannot but understand that History If you suppose in the place of Cain and Abel the names of the old and new Man to be in the like manner to be done and iterated for what is the displeasure of both what is that lying in wait that Cain laid against Abel What others are all those then the daily strife of the flesh and the spirit what other enmity then the seed of the new man and the seed of the Serpent Neither is there other reason in common sense for by the food from heaven the corruption of the flesh is to be drowned and washed but just and faithfull Noe is to be preserved in the Ark and a new Covenant is to be made between thee and thy great God Moreover the Tower of Babel or Confusion ought not to be built in thee Thou must with Abraham goe forth of thine own Countrey or knowledge and all things are to be left even thy life it selfe that thou mayst walk perfectly before God carry out the victory and goe into the land of promise and Kingdome of God And Christ meaneth no other thing Matth. 10. Luk. 14. If any come unto me and hateth not his father and mother his wife and children his brothers and sisters yea and further his own life he cannot be my Disciple that is to wit he must bid all these adieu The
Citie And Micah compareth it to a cluster of grapes which grapes the gatherers left by negligence in the vineyard saying cap. 8. Woe is me because I am become as one that gathereth grapes to make wine in Autumne And blessed David likeneth it to a solitary Turtle to a little Sparrow hiding it selfe under the eves of the house and to a night-crow in the desert and to one remaining amongst the rubbish of a destroyed Citie but where where they are the most high knoweth Certainly Christ is and will be with them even unto the end of the world neither will he leave them without succour or desolate For the Lord knoweth his and those that be his Christs Amongst whom whosoever is to be reckoned the Apostle declares Let all depart from their iniquity which usurp the name of Christ and they that are not so minded let them get unto themselves another name CHAP. XI He that doth not imitate the life of Christ and doth not repent is neither Christian nor the Son of God then what the second or new birth is and what the yoak of Christ is 1 Pet. 1. Christ left us an example that we may follow his footsteps OUr great God gave unto us his Son to be our Prophet Doctor and our Master whom in like manner he commanded us to heare him by a voyce from heaven which office the Sonne of God did execute not in words onely but in examples also of a most innocent life valiantly and boldly and as it was worthy such a true teacher Whereupon Saint Luke Acts 1. The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all things which Jesus began to doe and to teach even unto the day he was taken up where it is to be observed that the blessed Evangelist joyneth the deeds and doctrine together by a most certain counsell that cannot be separated for it behoveth a true Teacher which would teach others first to doe the things himself and such a teacher Christ shewed himselfe to be by his example whose life is the true doctrine and booke of life And for that Christ is the light of our life cause the Sonne of God became Man and was conversant amongst men on earth that he might shew unto us a living example of a heavenly life divine innocent and perfect that we might follow him as a light in the dark for which cause he calleth himselfe the Light of the world which if we follow we doe not walk in darknesse as witnesseth John Chap. 8. Whereby it evidently appeareth that all those doe remain in the darke and will never attaine to the light of life who doe not follow Christ in faith and life And what this darknesse is St. Paul teacheth us Rom. 12. commanding to lay down the works of darknesse and to put on the Armour of light as if the Mysticall darknes should say Repent But we have sufficiently declared before that true and divine repentance together with true faith doth utterly change the man crucifie the flesh and impose and beget a new way of life through the Holy Ghost Therefore lest wee being seduced by error should believe Christianity to be words only and not a reality or reall being and that there should be a living example of the quickened Spirit or new man God Christ is the shape of the new man set before our eyes his own Sonne not only as a ransome and Mediatour but as a glasse of true piety and shape of the regeneration or new man in whom not the fleshly Adam through sin but God himself did raign that we might daily be renewed in him according to his own Image of which many things remain to be spoken We know every one of us and find by daily experience our nature offending that is to say our blood our flesh body and mind to be polluted with all kinde of uncleannesse malice sin and wickednesse all which are both the works of the Devill working powerfully in the carnall and naturall man The originall of all sins as also more especially the wicked and depraved will because the depraved will is the root of all sins which being taken away there would be no sin for the evill will is it which turneth him from God and his will for whatsoever differeth from God or the chief good that cannot but be evill And this aversion or falling away of both was I say of the Devill and the fall of man and thereby sin came into the world which we deliver one unto another by carnall propagation whereby it appeareth that our flesh and blood by nature and off-spring doth nourish our aptnesse to evill and the seed of the Devill and our flesh will be infected with the venime of Satan as indeed pride is lying lust and every wicked work condemned of God And for this inclination so wicked Christ calleth the Pharisees sons of the Devill Joh. 8. and many other their disciples by the name of Satan no otherwise then as if covetousnesse lying pride and all wicked concupiscence were the Devill wherewith the naturall and carnall man is infected whereupon it followeth further that as many as lead their life without repentance full of pride covetousnesse lust and envie all those do live in the Devill and do participate of the inclination and nature of the Devill In which number all those which take upon them any work having an outward shew of integrity or honesty of their own inducements or bringing up and yet are in their heart and inwardly full of the Devill or that the Devill remaineth within according to the saying of Christ to the Jews which although it be a terrible thing to speak yet it is really so no conjecture Our extreme wickednesse to be amended by the chiefest good Why Christ was incarnate wherefore seeing as it is confessed our nature is so extremely miserably depraved it is behoofefull without doubt that it should be corrected and amended which by no means could be obtained or effected but by this that is to wit that the chief good should destroy the chief evill and that God himself should become man Now then the Son of God became man not for his own cause but for ours that he might reconcile us by himself unto God and make us partakers of the soveraign good and being purged sanctifie us for what is to be sanctified that of necessity is to be sanctified through God with God and as God is personally in Christ so we w th God by faith must be united that we may live in him and he in us Christ in us and we in Christ Wee must be united to Christ by faith Lastly the divine will in us and we in it which is the only means by which Christ Jesus becometh our medicine to our most corrupted nature of which so much as is in man so much is his depraved inclination His nobility in whom Christ liveth Christ is the new life of the new man amended Happy
their guides Whoso doubteth thereof may read Pitheus for further satisfactio in British Saxon Writers But what is this to the Translator of Reverend John Arndt the German Writer de veâ—o Christianismo or true Christianity Yea this is something in imitation of John of Beverley the Translators Countreyman John of Beverley so called at the a But afterwards Ioâ—n Hâ—â—nes Anglicâ—â— first being a Clergyman to avoid idlenesse having no imployment in his b Iohn de Oxeâ—ford writ a British Story again unto him 1174. vacation took upon him the collection of the British Roman and Saxon Story of England So this Translator of reverend John Arndt his True Christianity being a Lay man and a gardian of the Peace through envy and distraction of these warlike times having no imployment for avoyding of idlenesse and desire to benefit his Countrey-men in what hee may in his old age tooke upon him the translation of True Christianity to give it thereby some more freedome to passe here amongst us then it had this twenty yeares past when it past amongst us in a Roman habit Moreover have wee now no ambitious Prelates or covetous Clergy-men answerable to them of those times foretold and spoken of long ago by * Math. West 1307. Polycroâ—ieoÌ„ 1360. Hildigardis Egelfreda Henry of Huntington and others †SaxtoÌ„ and others more 1484. that for the retchlesnesse of Gods house they should be overcome and cast out and is now in action under the Scottish Covenant and demonstrated and fulfilled Abbot of Saint Albons Iohn Weathamsteed who lived anno 1440. was the first that accused Ieffrey of Monmouth for Fables in the Directory now confirmed by Parliament And that these times as well formerly acted as at this present time before they came to passe and the contentions of our elder Bishops were foretold as was the ambition of Austen the Romish Monk foretold by Marlin Ambrosius when hee said Pallium Londini induet Dorobernia Dover shall put on the Cloak of But enough hath been said before to cleare him of that aspersion London And fulfilled when Austen procured of the Pope that the priority that London had should bee translated to Dover and from thence to Canterbury The Bishops of those times seeking themselves and the things of this world before the performance of their duties in their callings Five times have they been chastised First the Britains by the Romans the Romans by the Saxons the Saxons by the Danes the Danes by the Normans the Normans by these present warres a purging war for the retchlesnes of Gods House according to the prediction of Hildigardis Such were the late Bishops of Scotland not long since risen from the dead Such were our late Bishops drawn in their Chariots with six Horses imitating and going about to renue unto us again the demeanour of the Roman Clergie together with the swarms of Locusts lately permitted and increased amongst us to eat up the verdure of our Land And our supine Bishops to their last confusion suffering their flocks to be devoured by the Wolves and the shavelings to walk in triumph by Candle-light in open streets in the bright Sun-shine Whoso doubteth of this may have further satisfaction if he read the illaudable practises of our last Archbishop of Canterbury together with his brother of York the endeavours of Con tbe Popes Agent the discovery of Thomas Abernethie the Scottish Iesuit and many more practises of these times neither is there wanting a cloud of witnesses foretelling and declaring the fall of the * A monster â—ith two heads Roman Beast which draweth neer as witnesseth Ironeus Ignostes saying Bestia quarta amittet unum caput * 1640. Tobias Snawber the German declaring the same to the Emperours face The Uropian Harold his Precusser Our English Prophet Brightman Napier the Lord Marqueston the Author of the Scottish Banner whose Motto is Tandem bona causa triumphat The Pythagoriall Monk of Westminster who sheweth the rise and fall of Antichrist in Hieroglyphicall demonstrations and by whom to wit the North-Islanders that is the Britains and Swedes but none of these declare the manner how yet this Author in his Hieroglyphicks sheweth The Cardinals Hat shall cover the Flower du Luce of France for a season before that come to passe After which the Cardinals Hat shall make a nest for the Owle to hatch her egges in and the Popes Mâ—ter shall bee thrown upon the dunghill in it shall breed and out of it shall crawle Toads and Serpents the dolefull seed of the old Serpent the Devill and fruits of the the carrion flesh so much adored and beloved by that generation the spirituall Babylon But what is this to the works of reverend John Arndt the German Author of the True Christianity Very much by your good favour and patience if you observe the Authors drift First the name or title of the book doth intimate that there are false Christians or out-side Christianity such as have born sway and yet do bear rule amongst the Romanists a very long season which this Author reproveth likewise out of the substance of his works you may find his endeavour is to teach the inward spirituall and true Christianity in these times so much slubbred over even amongst the professors of the reformed religion in so much as the hypocrites who can wipe the outside of the platter doe obtain the chiefe rooms and greetings in the market of the world as it is said in the Gospel Such were our Bishops This is that which this reverend man of God teacheth how to overcome the great Antichrist so much detested and of few known even our selves and endeavoureth how to beat down in his works and in the room thereof to plant the true vine and word of God by the true knowledge of God the chiefe and soveraign good and to know our own vilenesse to deny our selves by faith humility and prayer to obtain true repentance in Christ Jesus and to acknowledge true faith to be the work of God alone and to relye upon the promises comprised in the word of God by a stedfast faith in Christ Jesus the propitiatory sacrifice once offered up unto the Father for the sins of all men and by him alone and through his merit to obtain eternall salvation the free gift of God alone without any merit in men This is that which casteth down the Devils strong bold the Popes Miter and glory of the world into the dunghill which whoso well observeth the works of reverend Iohn Arndt shall find therein not onely this heavenly doctrine but also the rich pearl tree bearing humility patience meeknesse and long-suffering with the hidden treasure in the field more to bee valued then all the world and of higher price and esteem then can be valued or expressed by any tongue with many more unspeakable gems of our Saviour Jesus Christ And whereas most men in the frontispice of their labours doe commend them to
we expect other then death and works of darknesse it selfe in Christ In Christ by faith we are restored to life again we must be raised again to the workes of light As by carnall generation we entred into the sinne of Adam so by faith through Christ we must attain unto righteousnesse As by the flesh of Adam pride covetousnesse lust and all kind of uncleannesse is begotten born and groweth old in us so by the holy Spirit our nature ought to be renewed sanctified and repurged from all pride covetousnesse lust and envie And it is needful that we from Christ should draw a new spirit a new heart sense and minde in the same manner as we drew from Adam our fleshly subject to sinne And as concerning regeneration Christ saith Isai 9. Our Al good works ought to proceed out of the new birth Father is eternall After this manner then are we renewed in Christ to life eternall regenerated by Christ and in Christ become a new creature by this regeneration by Christ and the holy Ghost and Faith it is necessary works must flow and proceed which we desire we should please God in so we live in the new birth and the new birth doth live in us so we in Christ and Christ in us so last of all we live in the The description of the new birth and the fruits thereof Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Christ in us This regeneration and the fruits thereof Paul Ephes 4. calleth and termeth thus To be renewed in the spirit of our minde to put off the old man to be transformed into the Image of God 2 Cor. 3. To be renewed and known according to his Image that made you to the Coloss 3. Regeneration and renovation of the holy Ghost to Titus 3. Last of all to take away the stony heart and to give us a New birth is from Christ fleshy heart Ezek. 11. And by this appeareth how by the incarnation and humanity of Christ regeneration is raised or proceedeth that is to wit because man out of his ambition pride and disobedience offended and turned himself from God this Apostasie could not be amended or put away but by extream humility lowlinesse of will and obedience of the Sonne of God And as Christ in his conversation upon earth among men was most humble it is necessary that he should be the same in thee to live in thee and to renue the Image of God in thee See now and behold the most amiable the most lowly curteous the most The life of Christ in us The example of Christ is the rule of our life obedient and most patient Christ and learn of him or even as he is live in him For what was the cause sayest thou why he so lived Truly that he might be thy example looking-glasse and rule of life He I say and no St. Bennets rule nor of any other man commended unto thee but the example of Christ I say of Christ which his Apostles with one consent and direct finger did alone point at And this is the reason of his passion death and resurrection that is to say that thou with The new life is the fruit of the death passion of our Lord. him mayst die from thy sinnes and again in him with him and by him mayst rise spiritually walk in a new life of which argument thou mayst see more hereafter in the 11. and 31. Chapters therefore our regeneration ariseth out of and disperseth it selfe from the healthfull fountain of the passion death and resurrection of Christ whereupon S. Peter 1 Epist 1. saith God hath regenerated us to a lively hope through Jesus Christ and thereupon it commeth to passe that the Apostles every where do lay the foundation of penitence and the new life to be the passion of Christ as Rom. 6. 1 Pet. 1. Spend your time in reverent fear knowing that you are not redeemed with corruptible gold or silver but with the pretious bloud even the Lamb the Lord Jesus Where thou seest the most pretious ransom of our redemption to be the cause of our holy conversation The same Peter Epist 1. Cap. 3. writeth Christ bought our sinnes in his body upon the Crosse that being dead unto sinne we might live unto righteousnesse by whose stripes we are healed And Christ himselfe Luke 24. saith So it behooved Christ to suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and preach repentance and remission of sinnes in his name By which words it is manifest that from the fountain of the passion death and resurrection of Christ doth flow both preaching and repentance Therefore the passion of Christ is both satisfaction for our sinnes and the renewing of man by faith both which together and at once are required to the redemption and reparation of mankind because this is the fruit and this is the efficacie of the passion of Christ working in us renovation and sanctification 1 Cor. 1. This lastly is the means whereby we are born again and renewed in Christ neither is the laver of regneration any other thing wherein we are dipt to the death of Christ to wit to die with Christ from our sinnes by the help and efficacy of his death and arise from sin by the grace of his glorious resurrection CHAP. IV. What is true Repentance what also is the Crosse and Yoak of Christ Galat. 5. Those which are of Christ have crucified their own flesh with the vices and concupiscence thereof REpentance and true conversion is the work of the holy Ghost through which the man acknowledging his faults by the Law and together therewith the most just wrath of God against sin doth earnestly grieve for the same and would not have committed those things he hath done and through the Gospel understanding the grace of God by faith in Christ obtaineth the remission of his sins and by this penitency the mortification and crucifying The property of true repentance of the flesh and all carnall pleasures and concupiscences of the heart is accomplished and together with the same quickning of the spirit whereby it followeth that Adam with all his corruptions dieth in us and Christ contrarily liveth in us by faith because these two neceslarily do grow together so as the resurrection or renewing of the spirit doth follow the mortification The old mans death is the life of the new of the flesh at the heeles and the quickning of the new spirit followeth the abolishing of the old man although the outward man decay yet the inward man is renewed daily 2 Cor. 4. Mortifie your earthly members Coloss 3. and so think your selves dead in sinne but alive in God through Christ The flesh is mortified by true repentance Jesus our Lord Rom. 6. But let us consider why the flesh is to be mortified by true repentance We said even now by the fall of Adam that the man became even devillish earthy carnall without God and without love
strife of the flesh spirit is the mystical faith of Abraham Mystical Sodome rather then Christ Furthermore with Abraham as Abraham did thou must fight against five Kings which are within thee I say the Flesh the World Death Devill and Sinne. And with Lot tâ—ou must goe out of Sodom and Gomorrah that is thou must renounce thy wicked and worldly life neither must thou with Lots wife look back as Christ commandeth Luke 12. Briefly our great God hath composed all the holy Scriptures for faith and the Spirits sake And it all ought to be fulfilled in thee spiritually And to this belongeth all the warres and battels of Israel against the The type of the old Testament is to be fulfillled by faith Infidels and Heathen people And no other thing covered under the bark of the letter and the history then the continuall strife between the flesh and the spirit Of this place and to this purpose is whatsoever is extant of the Mosaicall Priesthood the Tabernacle the Ark of Covenant and Propitiatory all which doe pertain unto thee to whom it belongeth to pray in faith and spirit to burn incense and to kill the Sin-offering Christ Jesus will have all these to be done and performed in thee who hath contracted these in the new Man and Spirit as an epitome and words abbreviated to be fulfilled in thee by faith and sometimes in one sigh for the man is a breviary of all natures is the Center and little world so is it a compendium of the sacred All the new testament is to be fulfilled in man Scripiure and abridgement of the Word And to come to the new Testament what other thing is it according to the letter theÌ„ an externall testimony and pattern because all things in like maner are to be iterated fulfilled by faith in man I say all even all the new testament so much as it is ought to be in us this one thing it doth require look for at our hands because the kingdom of God is in us Therfore even as Christ by the holy Ghost in the faith of Mary was conceived and brought forth so ought the Sonne in me likewise be conceived after a spirituall manner and begotten increase and grow up Furthermore because I am become a new creature in Christ it remaineth The life of Christ in us and it followeth that I should live and walk in it in it and with it to flie into exile with it to exercise humility contempt of the world patience loving kindnesse and charity and to pardon or forgive our enemies their injuries to use mercy to love our enemies to doe the will of the Father being tempted of Satan to carry away the victory from him by reason of the truth that is in me derided despised and contemned and if necessity require to die for and with him after the example of all the Saints to beare witnesse before him and all the elect that he is in me and I in him was joyned by faith and so lived And this is that which is spoken saying To be conformed to the image of Christ for example to be born with and in Christ to The death and resurrection of Christ in us put on Christ to grow up and wax strong in him to live in exile to be dipped in his baptisme with him to be derided to die together and to be crucified together to arise together from the dead and reigne together and not that alone by the crosse and patience and suffering adversity together but by daily repentance and inward contrition and griefe for his sinnes committed I say after this manner to die daily with Christ and by crucifying our flesh if we be minded to be joined w th him as with our Christ ought to be in us head and to be united therewith if it be otherwise done then is it not in thee but without thee far from faith heart spirit otherwise it will profit thee nothing for he would have thee to be inwardly retained so to live to bee inwardly consolated All things ought to be fulfilled in faith and kept safe All which faith in Christ performed whilst the word of God doth live within us and it is as it were a living witnesse in us of those things which are spoken of in the holy Scripture And after this manner faith is called Hypostasis or a Substance Heb. 11. And out of this which we have said it doth appeare manifestly all the Sermons and Epistles of Christ the Prophets and the Apostles and the Scriptures so generall doe belong to one man The whole Scripture belongeth to man yea to us all with all the Parables and Miracles the history of Christ is replenished therefore neither was it necessary those things should be appointed to come to passe written to the knowledge of all people unlesse they were spiritually in us to be fulfilled Therfore when I read that Christ cured others I doe promise to my self the same because we live one with another when he cured the blind I am in good hope that he will give unto me being spiritually blinded by his grace and blessing a spirituall sight I mean other miracles seeing there is the same reason of all and then being blind lame palsie leprous and dead in sinne doe thou understand it by The letter of the Scriptures by faith is to be fulfilled thy selfe acknowledge it and confesse and he will make thee whole in him that thou maist have part in the first resurrection the summe is the Scripture doth bear witnes outwardly to those things which inwardly by faith the man should fulfill So it painteth out the image of God outwardly according to which inwardly within thee by faith thou oughtest to be so So is the Kingdome of God according to the letter Christ according to the spirit as speaketh the Apostle 2 Cor 5. So Adam his apostasie and redemption the new Jerusalem regeneration finally another creature he describeth outwardly all within thee by faith yea thou thy selfe ought to be so or the Scripture profiteth thee nothing And thus much of faith the work of it in us yea of God himselfe and the reigne of Christ in our heart CHAP. VII How the Law of God is written in the hearts of all men that they be inexcusable at the day of Judgement Rom. 2. When the Gentiles that have not the Law doe naturally the things of the Law shening the work of the Law written in their hearts VVHen God made man after his Image in perfect justice and holinesse he adorned him with divine vertues of all kinds as some pattern of Art and an unimitable work and most accurately set it forth three things he infixed in his conscience so firmly and imprinted them that Three things notable implanted in the soul they could never be put out or defaced The first is the naturall testimony of God the second is an inbred knowledge of the last
them saith the Lord Jer. 31. For then the death of Christ is effectuall and cometh to perfection or bringeth forth his fruits and therefore the Angels of God in heaven rejoyce because the bloud of Christ is become profitable to sinners for whom it was shed CHAP. IX The Antichristian life of men of this time doth deny Christ and the true faith 2 Timoth. 3. They have a certain form of godlinesse but doe deny the vertue thereof BEcause no man doth boast himself that he is no Christian although he doe no part of a Christian it followeth that by Christ is derided by a wicked life those manners he denieth Christ or Christ is denied contemned derided blasphemed whipt crucified slain and buried according to the Apostle who saith that certain men crucified the Sonne of God again and doe boast thereof and also according to Daniel who in the twelfth chapter foretelleth that Christ shall be pulled up by the roots which Prophesie is vulgarly expounded of Christ crucified at Jerusalem by the Jewes crying Away with him Away with him crucifie him which exposition I would to God it were true and that Christ were not yet daily by the Antichristian life taken from amongst us so that his life truly holy and excellent at this day is no where Where the life of Christ is not there is no Christ to be found for what darest thou speak of thy faith and doctrine where the life of Christ is banished there is no Christ that is more true then may be doubted or what is faith without a Christian life even a barren tree without fruit according to blessed Jude who calleth the false Apostles Summer trees without fruit twice dead of which sort the world is full That which Christ foretold would come to passe Luke 18. When the Sonne of Man commeth doe you True faith think he shall find faith upon the earth He speaketh of faith not this faith of which the world is full and which we professe in our mouthes and deny the same in our workes as if it consisted in this to love Christ in words and not in deeds and truth but the new man is another man regeneration a good tree with his fruits a man renewed by faith in whom Christ liveth and dwelleth by faith This is the faith that our Saviour meant which according to his prophesie is almost no where to be found at this day For where true faith is there Christ and his life must needs be even so contrariwise whosoever doth not imitate the life of Christ by faith in him is neither faith nor Christ The words of our Saviour are Luk. 12. He that shall deny me before men I will deny him before the Angels of God This deniall Deniall of Christ is not onely done in words or by the mouth as when we renounce our faith and Christ but much more and more powerfully when in deeds and life we resist Christ and the holy Ghost voluntarily that which St. Paul calleth deniall in workes and deeds For it is most certain that Christ is no lesse denied by a wicked and Diabolicall life then if he were denied openly by open words even so it is with hypocrisie with a specious and verball holinesse as if it were by doctrine to which purpose the Parable is extant Matth. 21. of two sons to one of which his father said My sonne goe worke to day in my vineyard but be answered and said I will not yet afterwards he repented him and did goe And coming to the other sonne he said in like manner to him who answered I goe Lord and went not which of these two did the will of his father They said The first who denied to goe yet afterwards did goe and labour But the other that said he would and lied or deceived did not he The greatest contempt of God is in or by a wicked life mock and deny his father And so there are many at this day of our false Christians crying So so Lord Lord the worst of all others not any of them doing the commandement of the Father And to this belongeth the saying of Saint Paul They have indeed a shew of godlinesse but denie the power thereof And what else is it to deny the power of godlinesse then to betray False Christians and violate their faith towards Christ and to play the Ethnick under the name of a Christian whom therefore St. Paul rightly calleth Infidels the children of infidelity having no faith Lastly those that usurp a Christians name and doe nothing and therefore Christ saith Depart from me yee accursed because I know you not And worthy it is that I should deny you who first durst and did deny me CHAP. X. The moderne life of worldly men is against Christ and is false Christianity Matth. 12. He that is not with me is against me IF any will examine the life and manners The life of the worldly of these times after the square of the life and doctrine delivered by Christ shall not he find the life of most men to be Antichristians because they have no other thing more then covetousnesse the study of getting usury concupiscence of the flesh and of the eyes pride of life ambition pomp hunting after fame and glory disobedience wrath strife warre disorder displeasure thirsting after revenge secret hatred envie implacability unrighteousnesse uncleannesse falsenesse frauds and backbitings In briefe we are all for the most part selfe-lovers seekers of the world greedy The life of Christ Christians affecters of honours and our own proper gain when contrariwise the life of Christ is nothing but the most pure and sincere love of God and man courtesie mildnesse humility patience obedience to death mercy righteousnesse truth chastity holinesse contempt of the world of honours wealth and pleasures deniall of our selves to beare the crosse continually trouble and affliction daily study and thirst after the Kingdome of God and lastly an unexpressible desire to fulfil the divine will seeing Christ saith He that is not with me is He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is Antichrist Antichrist But the modern life of worldly men hath no community with Christ but most men are at discord with Christ and dissent with their whole heart will mind and spirit from Christ Paul 1 Cor. 2. commanding another thing But we have the will of Christ and to the Phil. 2. Have yee the same manners with Christ it is agreeable that all worldly men should be adverse to Christ what every one doth this is Antichrist not in doctrine but in manner of life which being so in what place shall we find true Christians Seeing then this flock should be lowly in their own eyes Luke 12. to whom the Prophet Isaias agreeth who compareth the faithfull assembly and true Church to a little Cottage in a Vineyard The paucity of true Christians and a Watch-tower in a garden of Cucumbers and to a wasted
impossible for him to taste and receive Christ into his heart Herod being dead Christ returned into Judea Matth. 2. The document is plain so long as the mind doth play the Fox with the World Christ cannot enter into it and therefore thou must die to the Fox First die unto Adam that Christ may live in thee Herod that the child Christ may live in thee All which returnes to this that you must die unto Adam or the old man before Christ can live in thee Paul to the Galat 2. saith I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And to the Coloss 2. You are dead yet he writes to the living and your life is hid in Christ for then every one is truly dead when he ceaseth to be that he was before Those which are of the spirit doe understand the things of the spirit saith St. Paul Rom. 8. and to the Galat. 5. If we live in the spirit we walk also in the spirit Neither is it sufficient to boast of the faith and the spirit in words but words are to be approved by the fruits and works for it is spoken to all men by the Apostle If you live after the flesh you shall die but if you mortifie the works of the flesh by the spirit you shall live wherein very many are like unto Saul who did not slay Agag the King of the Amalekites Concupiscences are to be morâ—ified not hidden as God commanded him but put him into prison so these men doe nourish and hide closely their concupiscence when they should be eradicated utterly and not any part of the root left behind let us doe this unlesse with Saul we lose our Kingdome The scope of the whole Scripture requireth the new man that is lest we be deprived of our eternall life In briefe the whole Scriptures with the consent of all Histories Types and Figures doe point out Christ whose life we ought to imitate and doe set out the scope thereof neither doe I speak here of the great world and of his exceeding testimonies of God and divine love There is a sort of men that not unfitly may be compared to Winter trees for as they receive easily their leaves which were cast off the yeare changing and becomming favourable so many in adversity doe retaine their pleasures within and hide them which yet doe forthwith in prosperity having as it were gathered a troop breake out on a sudden A true Christian is most unlike to those hypocrites who in prosperity and adversity liveth according to piety equally just and faithfull to his Christ and taketh all things indifferently his lot doth cast upon him When our great God did grant to Achab victory over the King of Syria upon that condition that being taken he should hold him in prison that he should remain an example to shew that God was stronger then all his enemies and did require just punishment against those that did blaspheme his Name he despising the Name of God and his Commandements having taken his enemy in battell saluted him as his brother and let him goe for which disobedience and giving life to a man deserving to die the Prophet pronounceth the pain of death to Achab by Gods appointment To whom these are most like who nourish and feed their own concupiscences when they should pull them up by the roots therefore willingly without mortification of the flesh there is no good in man do draw eternall death upon themselves And therefore it is most true that without mortification of the flesh no prayer nor piety Lastly without mortification no work of spirituall devotion can abound in the soule which was the cause God Almighty Exod. 19. appointed all those beasts to die that should approach unto the mount Sinai and by how much more ought we to kill our beastly concupiscences if we ascend to the holy mount of God and offer our prayers to God and if we meditate on the word of God lest if we do otherwise we die the death Gen. 32. we Iacob thou must be before thou be Israel read that a new name was given unto Jacob to wit Israel which signifieth a Champion or a Prince of God because in wrastling with the Angell of God he beheld his face But before this Jacob which signifieth a Supplanter or Vnderminer for so he was not onely in name but in deed after whose example unlesse thou first through the holy Ghost doe tread down thy concupiscences to become Israel or the Prince or Captain of God thou shalt never attain Man must displease himselfe to please God the place of a Captaine or see the face of God The same Jacob that he might enjoy the beautifull maid Rachâ—l he was constrained to take Lea with bleared eyes doe thou such a thing and if thou art in love with Rachel that is if thou darest marry with Christ the true Jacob first doe not despise Lea that is despise thy self as a beast-like and sinfull man displease thy selfe and force it to death But there be very many who like unto Jacob are deceived of their owne life thinking verily he had met with Rachel that is that he had led a Christian life pleasing to God inwardly declared in truth afterward then see that they live with Lea that is they have not yet learned Christ and therefore not in the favour but in the hatred of God and that most deservedly Therefore let us doe this Before all let us displease our selves and as Lea in the house of her father be counted unworthy so let us contemne our selves taking to us humility lowlinesse and patience that at the last we may obtain faire Rachel for whom as Jacob served constantly the whole seven yeares her love The service of mystical Iacob mitigating the hardnesse of his labour and wearing out the time without tediousnesse so the most faithfull spouse of our soules Christ Jesus served full thirty three yeares in this world a most hard service or servitude for our cause according to that of Matth. 20. The Sonne of man came not to be ministred unto but to serve others and give his life a redemption for many And according to that of Jacob which he indured after a sharper manner for our love This twenty yeares saith he I served thee in thy house abiding both heat and cold and frost and I watched both day and night And shall we doubt yet to love Christ again and make warre all our life against his capitall enemy the world CHAP. XIII For Christ and eternall salvation to which we were created and redeemed every Christian ought willingly to die to themselves and the world 2 Corinth 8. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ because for you he was made poore being rich that by his poverty yee might be made rich FOr thy Christ thou must die to thy selfe thy sinnes and the world thou must doe good and live a holy and innocent life not that thou canst
what measure we measure to our neighbour with the same measure shall it be meted unto us For those three Cities should effectually represent Christ who is the sole merit as Bezer soundeth that by interpretation is a Tower of Defence according to the Proverb 18. The Name of the Lord is a most strong Tower Jesus Christ to that runneth the just and shall be exalted the same is true Ramoth which Christ our refuge voyce signifieth Exalted to whose Name every knee shall bow in heaven in earth or in hell Phil. 2. Neither is there for us another Golan besides him which according to the etymology of the name is nothing but a heap of thankesgiving or graces and gifts celestiall as a certain overflowing vessell Whereupon Psal 29. we read With the Lord there is mercy and with him is abundance of redemption And Rom. 10. The Lord is rich to all those that call upon him And thus much of the third part of the internall spirituall and true divine worship flowing from the knowledge of God which is likewise the fountain of repentance as this is of remission of sinnes which three indeed are one and set forth and declare the solid knowledge of God And God did shadow unto us this third part by the Priest which was to eat of the oblation of God which what other thing did it imply then the application of the merits of Christ by faith in the holy place wherein is signified repentance For the faith by the vertue and merit of Christ and his bloud doth make the man before the just God as if he had never been defiled with any sinne according to that of Ezekiel 18. If the wicked shall repent him of all his iniquities that he hath committed I will not remember them And after this manner the Law of Moses is changed into the spirit Moses Lawes holy things are chāged into spirit or life internall holy and another life and his sacrifices into repentance by which we offer our bodies and souls a living sacrifice and give thanks unto him because hee hath manifested unto us what is the true conversion acceptable unto him which is the justification and remission of sinnes that God alone be all things his grace as it is meet should be acknowledged and with gratefull minds and tongues be praised for ever and ever This then as we have often said heretofore is the true divine worship of which Mich. chap. 6. speaketh I will shew thee O man what the Lord requireth of thee that thou execute judgement and love mercy and walk carefully before the Lord thy God Because therefore O mortals doe we repent to get remission of sinnes seeing but by this alone we cannot come to remission of sinnes for neither can those sins bee remitted whose sense and griefe the mind never yet found by grace divine and consequently never to grieve for them nor hee which never had it in his mind to change The true worship of God consisteth in the heart is not external his life and mend his manners Which true and safe-making conversion that God for his Christs sake would bestow it upon us I humbly pray whose favour also it is that now it appeareth that his true worship consisteth in the soule and mind in the knowledge of God in true repentance by which the flesh is mortified and the man renewed after the image of God whereby he is made the Temple of God wherein by the holy Ghost the true and divine worship of the holy Trinity is exercised I say Faith Love and Hope Humility Patience Prayer giving of thankes and praises to God And although this worship respecteth God himselfe and is performed to him alone let us not think or beleeve Why called the worship of God that God for his own cause and because it joyneth with his profit that he inviteth us unto him but rather let us be so assured that he is willing through his boundlesse mercy to bestow and communicate all himselfe to us with all his benefits and to live work and dwell in us if so be we be ready through his true Knowledge Faith and Repentance to receive him For no work is gracious and acceptable to God of which hee was not the authour of in us What kind of works are pleasing to God therefore he commandeth us to repent to beleeve to pray to fast not as to him but that the fruit thereof might be ours No man can give or take any thing from God nor hurt nor profit him for we sow and we mow to our selves if we be good but we create evill to our selves if we be evill And what dammage hath God if thou wilt not doe well therefore he commandeth thee to serve him not for his owne cause but for thine who seeing he is Charity it selfe therefore amongst things acceptable and deare and so fit accounteth it that there be many be who participate of his charity yea of himselfe that is to wit as a mother loveth her Infant cannot but rejoyce that it sucketh her milk from her so God is to be thought of out of his most loving communicating of himself after his manner to receive singular delight CHAP. XXII As we know a tree by the fruit so a true Christian by no other token is known then by love and amendment of life daily Psalm 92. The just man flourisheth as a Palm Tree as a Cedar of Lebanon he shall multiply being planted in the House of the Lord They shall flourish in the entrance of the House of God they shall flourish Moreover they shall be multiplied in a fruitfull old age and they shall be very patient that they may shew it forth because just is our Lord God and there is no iniquity in him IT is not the name but the life of a Christian that maketh a true Christian whose daily and onely study ought to be that in him Christ might be manifested and be made conspicuous by love humility and humanity In whom therefore Christ liveth not it followeth that this man cannot be a Christian Furthermore it behoveth this life to be from the bottome of the heart and spirit even as the Apple is derived and commeth from the naturall branch of the Tree faculties and vegetable power yea it is necessary that our life be informed by the Spirit of Christ and fashioned after his life according to that of Paul Rom. 8. Those which are carried by the Spirit of God those are the sonnes of God But if any have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his or belongeth not to him to wit every life cometh of the Spirit which even as the All life is from the Spirit inward man moveth driveth and is carried so in like manner the outward man fareth or is carried whereby it is manifested how much it availeth to a Christian life to have the grace of the Holy Ghost which therefore Christ did command us to seek
blessed Spirits embrace an holy soule CHAP. XXIV Of the Charity or Love towards God and our Neighbour 1 Timoth. 1. The end of the Commandement is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfained THis being delivered blessed Paul describing the most noble vertue that is to say Charity doth insist chiefly on foure things concerning it First of all that it is the end of the Law or a brief and short collection of all the commandements because by this or in this the law is fulfilled The reason is because in it all the commandements are fulfilled and lastly because without it all the gifts of vertues are unprofitable idle and fruitlesse And whereas he saith in the second place that Charity ought to proceed out of a pure heart that The sincerity of divine love pertaineth to charity towards God wherto it is requisite that the heart be void of all worldly love according to that of 1 Ioh. 2. Little children do not love the world nor the What a cleane heart is things that be in the world because every thing that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life The world passeth away and the concupiscence thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Therefore whosoever hath his heart free and at liberty from all love of the creatures so as he rest not in any fraile creature neither put his trust in them but onely from the bottome of his heart longeth and seeketh after God alone after the example of David who in the Psalmes saith My flesh faileth me and my heart it fainteth O God of my heart and my portion for ever O God For what is there in heaven that I regard or in earth that I preferre before thee This mans charity proceeded out of a pure heart Also if any take singular delight pleasure and joy in the love of God such a purity of heart as the holy Ghost sheweth in the Psalm 18. I will love thee O God my strength the God of my health and my refuge my rock my protection the horn of my salvation and my Redeemer The Charitie out of a good conscience third thing requisite to charity was a good conscience which respecteth our neighbour who is to be loved of us for no profit sake for this is the property of false love and that which proceedeth from an evill conscience neither in word nor deed proudly to offend him and diligently to beware neither openly nor closely to detract from him or hate him nor with envie wrath or disdain to maligne him lest our heart doe check us in our prayer 1 Joh. 3. The fourth thing requisite in Charity Love from fraile consciscience is faith unfained lest we determine any thing against the rule of Faith and Christian profession and lest we deny God openly or secretly in prosperity or adversity Goe to now let us consider apart the singular heads Paul saith Charity is the end of the Law For Charity or Love which proceedeth out of true faith is the most noble of all fruits and works of God then which a man can doe nothing better or more acceptable to God for God requireth God requireth not of us costly gifts and workes not of man any heavie things nor lofty nor great workes to his service and worship but rather he hath contracted the most rigid religion of the old Testament and a multitude of Commandments and the variety of them in Faith and Charity and hath added thereunto the gift of the holy Ghost according to that of Saint Paul Rom. 5. The love of God is infused into your hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us By which words he insinuateth unto us the originall of Charity Moreover Charity is not a heavie work but a pleasant and easie work to a good and faithfull man according to that of St. John 1 Epist chap. 5. His commandments The easines of charity are not heavy that is to say to illuminate Christians to whom the holy Ghost hath given a cheerfull heart and a free will moved and stirred up Furthermore God God requireth not much learning requireth not of us much learning or teaching but only charity which if it be sincere burning vehement is far dearer then arts and wisdom of the whole world so that all other things Arts Sciences works and gifts without it are unprofitable and thought of as dead works 1 Cor. 13. For without Charity every work is of no momēt learning is indifferent and common equally as well to Christians as to Ethnicks and the works of the faithfull and the Infidels in that are alike But charity onely is the sure Badge and Character of a Christian discerning the false from the truth For where charity is wanting there is no goodnesse whatsoever externall shew of greatnesse and excellency it commendeth it selfe by For God is Charity and he that abideth in Charity abideth in God and God in him 1 John 4. Whereupon it followeth where Charity is not God is not there Charity maketh all things easie is heavy to no man Charity is pleasant and acceptable with God and also the man that exerciseth it For where other Arts and Sciences and Wisdomes are gotten with great labour care and griefe and with the losse of their strength charity onely cheereth the body and mind doth adde vegetation and mendeth the soule neither is it losse to any but rather of it selfe bringeth ample fruits For love is the reward of the lover and vertue is a reward unto it selfe like as vice in like manner doth punish and torment it selfe And when other faculties of the body What is done out of charity hath God the Author pleaseth him and mind are weakened and tired and wearied only charity is never weary nor ever ceaseth howsoever Prophesie may passe away Tongues may cease and Sciences may be destroyed yea and faith it self shall fail 1 Cor. 13. What God will accept must necessarily proceed from God He that loveth God praieth wel and freely for he approveth of nothing which he doth not first work in us And seeing that God is love therfore that ought to proceed from faith which is pleasing to God and out of love without hope of any profit that it shall profit our neighbour And so should our prayers arise from love Oh then you mortals imagine what prayers those can poure out to God whose hearts are ful of wrath and rancor which if such should recite the whole Psalterie they can neverthelesse be nothing else but abomination before God when true adoration consisteth in Spirit in Faith and chiefly in Charity not in words Let Christ be in our memory who out of his abundant mercy prayed Father forgive them In a word he that loveth not God that man prayeth not in whom the love of God is that man preferreth nothing before God
and holy Ghost and without God himselfe Contrariwise a true Christian and he which is anointed with the spirit of Christ doth beare with all men in condoling commiserating and loving him after the example of Christ And this is the Touch-stone whereby every one is to be tried whether Where charity is not there God is not he be of God or not But if he find he hath no love of his neighbour in him let him assuredly perswade himselfe he hath not the charity of God in him rather let him feare God himselfe hath forsaken him wherewith he ought to be afraid and be sory from his heart and seek to return into his neighbours favour Which being done God through his love will marry himselfe unto him and whatsoever thereafter he shall doe in faith and charity is and will be accounted for good holy and divine Moreover by reason of the inherent love of God of his free will he embraceth all with his mercy and love neither is any thing more acceptable then to doe good or as Jeremy speaketh He rejoyceth in them he will doe good unto them Without charity in man all things are altogether evil and Devillish neither is there Why all things that the devill doth are evill other cause why the Devil can do no good but because he is destitute of the love of God and his neighbour and thereupon what he doth is altogether evill neither doth his workes and counsels whatsoever tend to other end then the reproach of God and damage of mankind and that he may satisfie his malicious mind and rancor against God and man For which cause he useth such cruell and vengeable mindes to execute and bring to passe the counsels and contrivement of his wrath envy And this is the mark of the sonnes of Satan whereby they are discerned from the sonnes of God Charity proceedeth from faith not fained which cleaveth and adhereth to God equally in prosperity and adversity Whosoever loveth a man heartily he cannot be ungratefull because what God He that loveth God all his works he loveth all his punishments hath appointed against him he doth after the example of Christ who with a cheerfull mind tooke up his Crosse which he knew to be put upon him by his Fathers will whereupon Luke saith chap. 12. I have a baptisme to be baptized with and how grieved am I untill it be finished which all the Martyrs of the Church did imitate bearing his Crosse with joy And for a truth whosoever loveth God heartily he cannot but beare his Crosse easily which he knoweth to be the yoak of Christ And if a Load-stone can lift up a weight of Iron and draw it unto it selfe what cannot that celestiall Load-stone of love divine do Shal not it take up the worst weight of our Crosse and mitigate the feeling of it Also why doth Sugar rather correct the bitternesse of the hearb and medicine then the sweetnesse of love take away the ungratefull and inhumane savour of our crosse whose force is such as the holy Martyrs had no other where that strength of their incredible and cheerfull constancy but they did draw it out of this fountain of Love wherewith being most sweetly intoxicated they did not feele the paines of their torments CHAP. XXV Of love to our Neighbour in speciall 2 Peter 2. Of whom any man is overcome he is that mans servant AMongst all kinds of servitude none is The servitude of the affections is most heavie more hard and sharp then to be under the subjection of affections neither of these is any more cruell then hostility or inhumanity because that wearieth and bindeth all the powers and strength of the body and soul and so leaveth to a man not the least thought free but he that exerciseth or remaineth in charity he is free in his minde neither is he the servant or captive to wrath envie covetousnesse usury pride lying and slander from all which being free by charity he suffereth not himselfe to be brought into slavery by his evill concupiscences but remaineth a freeman of Christ through the spirit of liberty 2 Cor. 3. For where the spirit is there is liberty whosoever therefore walketh in the charity of Christ he ceaseth to be the slave of sinne and servant to affections and carnall lusts For by the spirit of divine charity we are purged and set free And The universality of divine Charity charity divine is equally reached and extended to all men so that not onely out of the word of God but by nature universall also it is made known for we are all equally and alike covered with the heavens and we have the use of the Sunne Aire Earth Water both high and low degree alike Moreover with what mind God Almighty is towards all mankind so ought our mind to be affected towards our neighbour seeing what things even now we shewed thou dost not say it happened for that cause God would have it so but that by his example he might teach us and make it manifest that he loveth all with like equall affection and that it is without reâ—pect of persons and prerogative of dignity or merit in Christ to love every one alike so that as hee sheweth himselfe towards us such ught we to be and to carry our selves toowards our neighbour whom after the same manner as wee shall deal with God will deale with us Which Law God writ in our hearts that evidently he might convince and teach us with what mind he was affected to us lest we should be mistaken and overtaken unawares we ought to carry the same mind towards our neighbour every one of us Wherefore he that would know what respect hee is in with God it is sufficient to ask his conscience for that thing will tell him presently as his mind is towards his neighbour whereby he The triall of divine love may gather how God is affected towards him For like as we have done to our neighbour so it is meet God should doe to us And in this sense the great God is good to the good and averse to the averse neither doth hee deserve to have God his friend that is an enemy to his neighbour Now seeing that God hath no need of our works as our neighbour hath it appeareth by this counsell that the charity towards our neighbour gives us in charge that it should be as a Load-stone a most certain argument of our charity towards God For if these things were otherwise he would not have directed these things to our neighbor so exactly as to a certain sope nor bound us to this as a law but that we might know his affection to us thereby and we should approve the same mind every houre and moment to our neighbour Wherefore though Christ Jesus by his death once sufficiently made satisfaction for the sinnes of the whole world and all men therein for which all men are to give thanks no man can warrant him who
defiling the greatest and most excellent gifts 1 Corinth 13. If I should speak with the tongues of men and Angels and have not love I shall be as a tinckling Cymball or sounding brasse LEst any man should marvell that Saint Luther of the Church part 2. fol. 13. Paul doth adorn Charity with so many praises you must know that God himselfe is love and consequently like praise to belong to both neither greater or more ample vertue to be found in man or in God himselfe Now that which respecteth our neighbour is twofold one true living sincere and cleare the other hypocriticall and dissembled or cloaked The first St. True love false Paul describeth by a most ample catalogue and an account of the fruits and properties thereof added thereunto the latter with all his words gifts and workes abused as a Bawd to and for private gain and honour And howsoever in outward shew it seemeth to affect divine and humane good and profit yet inwardly and in his heart he respecteth nothing but his private profit and honour and wealth and whatsoever floweth from this fountain cometh not from God but from the Devill and it What ariseth not of charity ariseth not of God is poyson infecting all good workes and the most excellent gifts For as a flower in sight tast and smell most beautifull and sweet if it retain any venome is not approved by the beauty of the colour nor pleasantnesse of smell nor sweetnesse because it is deadly or hurtfull to man if it be not foreseen So man if he be adorned with the gifts of Angels and if he be full of avarice pride selfe-love and arrogancy then those gifts doe not onely faile in their fruits but become pernicious for that which is good indeed ought to have God in the beginning and ending who as he is the onely author of every good thing What is good so whatsoever he worketh in thee is truly that onely good But it is otherwise if arrogancy selfe-love the desire of honour or private profit shall have any designe in it for when it commeth not from God his impulsion and provocation it can never be good Therefore God alone is good also love it self by which all good is conveyed to our neighbour through love no otherwise then from God to our selves this necessarily cometh to passe It is said that a certain Saint of old should wish that he should be of no other use unto God then his own right hand was unto him which seeing it was nothing but an instrument aptly to give and receive what was fit and consequently arrogateth neither honour nor glory to it selfe And indeed it is meet we all should be such and because all things come from God to us freely in like manner we should render all things to our neighbour in single simplicity and without the desire of vainglory and praise out of pure love for unto God alone as to the author is honour and glory due but unto us nothing at all we are onely instruments created and made fit to receive and deliver which if any be without this sincere charity he with all his gifts is nothing So I say Although hee speake with the tongues of Angels can prophesie know all mysteries and all knowledge and had never so much faith even that it would remove mountaines and give all that he hath to the poore lastly give himselfe to be burned Selfe love and arrogance was the fall of the Devill 1 Cor. 13. For all selfe-love that is the desire of honour and praise and private profit is of the Devill and was his Apostasie by which hee fell from heaven and for which hee was worthily driven from thence For when God had created Lucifer the most beautifull Angell and adorned him with most excellent gifts of wisdome light glory and riches he began to admire himselfe in his gifts as a Peacock doth admire himselfe to love honour and praise himselfe which was the first step to his ruine even to give honour to himselfe not to God and to turne his love from God to himselfe whereupon he was worthily cast out of heaven with all his companions which his pride by contagion had infected neither was hee contented with his principality amongst Angels according to that of Saint Jude The Angels which kept not their principality And that of Saint Paul to the Colossians chap. 2. Spoyling Principalities and Powers traduced them confidently And of man and openly triumphing over them in himselfe Now by what sinne Lucifer procured his own ruine he was the cause and perswader by the same sinne of the losse of mankind turning him frō the love of the honor of God to himselfe whereby followed self-love and arrogancy such and so great even to affect the similitude of God whereby consequently hee was no otherwise cast out of Paradise then Lucifer out of Heaven leaving to us all the heritage of arrogancy and self-love And this is the fall and Apostasie of Adam which all men in like manner doe iterate and with flesh and bloud give and deliver every one to other the same the means of amendment and cure whereof can and ought no other wayes be sought and obtained but by the merit of Christ apprehended by faith whereby thenceforth wee are renewed in Christ and our flesh is crucified neither now doe we love our selves any more but Denying our selves necessary hate our selves Luke 9. that is all our own works doe begin to displease us we do not honour our selves or beare out our selves but deny our selves Luke 14. that is wee set nought by our selves lastly we do not now seek our singular praise and glory but by denying all things that we have place our pleasure and trust in no earthly thing and likewise doe fight and strive with flesh bloud our inward enemies which whosoever hath not nor doth not as abovesaid he neither is nor can be the Disciple of Christ seeing by this meanes in serious and true repentance the conversion of humane nature must be changed Moreover seeing that means is greater then the strength of man which of it selfe and by its nature can doe nothing but love it self favour it selfe and boast and cannot forbeare By the incarnation of Christ our nature is renewed to seek his own ends or to speak in a word to sinne therefore it behoveth God to be the beginning middle and end and prop the Sonne of God to take the forme of a man upon him and consequently to renew our nature that thereby every one of us being regenerate by him in him and from him we become a new creature for even as in Adam we were dead bodily and spiritually so it behoveth us in Christ to rise and be spiritually renewed Even as by carnall nativity we entred upon the sin of Adam as a certain heritage so in Christ by a spiritual birth and faith wee must bee justified Finally as radically we draw from Adam
sinne selfe-love arrogancy and ambition New-birth is found in Christ so from Christ by faith and the holy Ghost our nature is to be renewed and sanctified all selfe-love arrogancy and ambitition to die in it and it behoveth us to get a new heart and spirit from Christ as we have from Adam flesh subject to sin And of this new birth Christ is called Father eternall or of the future Age Isa chap. 9. The works of Christians ought to proceed from the new birth Whereupon it followeth consequently that all the works of Christians and gifts which shall be acceptable to God ought to proceed from the new creature that is from faith in Christ and the holy Ghost which if it be not so done whatsoever things although they be most excellent gifts and even miracles themselves before God they are void and to no purpose And towards our neighbour all things ought to be done in charity 1 Cor. 14. and without hope of proper gain or honour For example of which and a most excellent pattern God Almighty offered and gave us his Sonne in whom there was no selfe-love no arrogance lastly no desire of private profit or praise or glory and nothing but sincere and meere love and humility neither also as other Saints was hee proposed to us to imitate because their example was from without and so to behold or renew but that hee might by faith live and breath in us which when it cometh to passe even then all our works words and so our knowledge doe proceed from Christ as from a living foundation and originall if otherwise then all our works and gifts if they be Angelicall or of what kind soever they are neverthelesse nothing worth For where selfe-love is there the hatred of God is where arrogancy there the contempt of God where by no reason it can come to passe that works springing from thence should be acceptable to God Let us therefore doe this let us beseech Almighty God from the bottomes of our hearts to give us faith and sincere love contaminated with no desire of honour profit or glory but proceeding from a pure heart which being obtained not onely illustrious gifts and works but the least also even a cup of cold water will be most deare and acceptable to God For a small worke that proceedeth Charity maketh the least work great from sincere charity and humility is most excellent and better then all great ones that have their original from the desire of pride and glory CHAP. XXXII Not great gifts but faith that worketh by charity doth shew a man a Christian and acceptable to God 1 Cor. 4. The Kingdome of God is not in talke but in vertue BLessed Paul going about to describe a Christian man in briefe finishing the thing saith 1 Tim. 1. The end of the law is charity God doth not require great knowledge from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfained as if he should say That any man may bee made a Christian and â—cceptable to GOD are not required hard and lofty matters no worldly wisdome no humane learning no gifts no eloquence no knowledge of tongues lastly no miracles but that hee have faith in charity to doe all things resigned to God devout and well addicted and not carelesse of the motions and rule of the holy Ghost Wherefore let us not much regard that What it is to mortifie the flesh any one is expert in the tongues and how eloquent he is but how he shewes forth his faith by love and mortifying of the flesh For they that be Christs doe mortifie the flesh with the concupiscence thereof that is to say arrogancy selfe-love covetousnesse of glory proper gain hunting after praise whereupon blessed Paul denieth the Kingdome of God to consist in words or gifts and Arts but in vertue or living exercise of vertue in faith as charity lowlinesse and humility Therefore Before God nothing availeth but a new creature no man I say no man is in greater grace with God or blessed because he is indued with great gifts but because hee is found in Christ by faith and liveth in him as a new creature And if any man have Great gifts od not make a man happy attained unto so great and such gifts as no man else neglecting daily repentance he is not renewed in Christ and if he deny not the world although hee have never so many gifts if he despise not himselfe nor hate himselfe last of all doe depend upon the pure and sole grace of God no otherwise then an infant dependeth of the pap he with all his Arts and Gifts shall be damned it is a thing most manifest For neither are those given us of God that by them before God wee should bee great or blessed but for the edification of the To what end gifts are given of God Church Therefore when Luke 10. the seventy Disciples returned with joy saying Lord even the Devils are subject unto us in thy name Christ answereth Doe not rejoyce in this for neither miracles nor gifts shall save us but rejoyce that your names are written in the book of life that is because you beleeve and acknowledge me By faith Moses was saved not by hiâ— miracles and Miriam the sister of Moses being indued with â—he gift of prophesie and by whom the Spirit of the Lord did speak was punished with Leprosie Finally the Apostles not because of their miracles or tongues sake but for their faith were made Citizens of Heaven Let us remain I say let the least and the greatest remain in faith humility â—epentance in crucifying and mortifying of the flesh and in the new creature which as in Christ in faith and charity it liveth so in like manner Christ liveth in it So let us be found that Christ may acknowledge us for his Let Christian Charity remain to be that new life of the new man yea the life of Christ in the faithfull and that efficacious and working power of the holy Ghost by which Saint Paul Ephes 3. wisheth us to bee filled in all fulnesse of God Like unto that of Saint John God is Love and he that remaineth in love remaineth in God Whereupon it followeth that hee that feeleth love in his heart feeleth God himselfe Where as a certaine fore-runner or leading-starre it is present therefore Saint Paul as a tree from the root whereof with all the fruits thereof describeth it in 1 Corinth chap. 13. Charity saith hee is patient c. All which are the properties of Christians and consequently the life of the new man And to speak in a word God the Father is Love God the Sonne is Love God the holy Ghost is Love the whole mysticall body who is Christ or the Christian Church is bound together in the bond of Love So there is but one God one Christ one Spirit one Baptisme one Faith and lastly the happy and sempiternall life shall bee nothing but
meere love Wherefore he that liveth not in Charity this man is a dead member of Christ manifestly if hee bee in the body of Christ For even as a dead member is not warmed with naturall heat nor nourished and for that cause is altogether without life So hee that liveth not in charity hath not the spiritual life of Christ but is dead to God and Christ because he is without faith and is a dry tree without juice from the Vine which is Christ and to be cut off lastly He that hath no charity is dead without God Christ and the holy Ghost the Christian Church and life eternall where God face to face shall bee seen which is love it self CHAP. XXXIII God giveth no respect to the works of the persons he judgeth and esteemeth the worke according to the heart Prov. 21. Every way of a man seemeth right to himselfe but God trieth the heart WHen the Prophet Samuel by the commandement of God went to anoint David King he entred his Fathers house and would have anointed his first-born the Lord said Doe not thou respect his countenance nor the height of his stature being I have rejected him neither doe I judge according to the countenance of a man for a God iudgeth all things by the heart man seeth those things that are open and evident but the Lord beholdeth the heart By which example God teacheth us that he hath no regard to any person although never so great and illustrious when his heart is void of goodnesse love faith and humility but to esteem of the workes by the inward spirit and intention of the mind and to allow them according as it is in the 21. of the Prov. Moreover all gifts how great soever illustrious praise-worthy and excellent they are in the judgment of the world unlesse they proceed from a pure heart unlesse they respect the sole honour of God and the profit of our neighbour lastly unlesse they be free and altogether separated from pride arrogancy self-love desire of private praise and glory they cannot please God Therefore whosoever thou art O man be assured and certainly Arrogancie corrupteth all gifts perswaded that if God should bestow on thee alone all the gifts he hath bestowed on all men yet if thou shouldst not use them to the profit of thy neighbour and honour of God to which end God bestowed them upon men but shouldest use them as certain instruments of praise glory honour and lucre God would abhorre them no otherwise then the greatest sinnes This you may learn from the example of Luâ—ifer a fairer and more beautifull Angel heaven had not who when hee vilified the gifts of God with his own honour and selfe-love and did not purely respect the love and glory of God by his own act hee became a Devil and was cast from heaven Therefore those things which God will accept and account well of ought to proceed out of faith alone and most pure love of God and men and ought to be void of all selfe-love arrogancy and private gaine so much as may be by the grace of God in this infirmity whereof Saint Paul writeth If I speak with the tongues of Men and Angels and have not charity I am as a sounding brasse and a tinckling Cymball that is I am in vain and altogether unprofitable In truth God regardeth no faculty but in humble hearts not arts not much learning but whether our spirit doth seek the honour of God Miraculous faith saving faith differ edification of our neighbour not a miraculous faith to remove mountaines for glory sake but the pure and contrite in spirit trembling at his word as it is read in Isa 66. not lastly if any covetous of fame and renown doe distribute all he hath to feed the poore and give his body to be burned alive but the heart and the cause of them all That which is manifest by many examples to be brought Cain and Abel both of them brought Sacrifices Differing sacrifices to God one of them acceptable the other was execrable by reason of the disparity of minds The same reason was of David and Saul both which attended Gods service but with unlike event for the foresaid cause David Manasses Nebuch adnezzar and Peter by repentance obtained grace contrariwise Saul Pharaoh Vnequal repentaÌ„ce and Judas did misse the same by reason of the same variety of mind Pharaoh and Saul and Manasses used the same prayer Lord I have sinned they received unlike rewards Judith and Hester and the daughters of Israel Esay 3. they adorned themselves and combed themselves with praise and renown the one the other dispraise and reprehension In like manner the prayer of Hezekia Josua and Gideon by which they required a signe from heaven as approved is praised Contrariwise the Pharisees Mat. 12. doing the same are reproved of the Lord. The Publican and the Pharisee both of them pray in the Temple not approved The Ninivites and the Jewes and Pharisees doe fast alike but the one God heard the other he heard not wherefore Isai 58. they cry Wherefore have wee fasted and thou regardest us not The Widow which brought into the Treasury two small Mites is praised of Christ he that gave more was not Herod and Zacheus in the sight of Christ doe rejoyce but had most differing rewards The holy Martyrs for Christ suffered death Achab and Manasses offer unto the Lord their own children and God accepted the sacrifice of the one and the other was rejected Which variety proceedeth from no other cause then from the heart which God onely respecteth whereupon hee onely accepteth those works which come from a heart unfained and sincere charity and free humility Contrariwise whatsoever gifts they be if arrogancy self-love and the contagion of lucre doe infect them he rejecteth them CHAP. XXXIV That a man doth nothing at all to his salvation but God doth all things to us onely we admit of his grace as a sick man doth his Medicines to those without repentance the merit of Christ is not imputed 1 Corinth 1. Christ is made unto us the Wisdome of God and justice and sanctification and Redemption BY this Sentence Saint Paul teacheth us what things are necessray for our salvation by Christ all things are done for us For when we were ignorant of the way of life he was made wisedom unto us wheÌ„ we were sinners our justice when we were abominable our sanctification lastly when A man cannot help himself we were damned our redemption Whereupon it remaineth that the man doth not confer one jot to the beginning middle and end of his salvation with all his merits of works strength and free will But sinne he could of himselfe but he could not justifie himselfe again lose but not recover kill but not raise again to life be subdued to the Devill but not set free from him again For even as a dead carkasse cannot quicken it selfe again so neither
can a man as the Apostle saith to the Ephesians chap. 2. which was dead in sin help himself Also even as we did not bring so much as a haire to our creation so neither to our redemption or regeneration and sanctification which are much greater and more noble then our creation it selfe Wherefore The cause of the incarnation of the Son of God it was necessary that the Sonne of God should take humane nature upon him to recover that which was lost in Adam to revive that which was dead in him which that it may be brought to effect accordingly we must imitate the Traveller which is cruelly handled and wounded and laid upon the ground and could not help himselfe him therefore the mercifull Samaritan taketh up and bindeth up his soares and then laieth him upon a horse leadeth him into the Stable and after that omitteth nothing which an industrious and faithfull Physitian can administer to a sick person And as the Traveller also sheweth himselfe observant to his Physitian and Christ iâ— our Physitian not we our selves observeth his beck and command so let us remember to doe the like if we desire to be healed Let us doe our full diligence and power to our Physitian Christ let us resigne our selves wholly unto him let us trust in his faith that he will bind up and cure our wounds also let him powre in Wine and Oyle into them neither will hee be wanting or faile to restore us to our former health that is so soon as a sinner repeÌ„teth converteth himselfe by heavenly grace to God is grieved from his heart for his sinnes and resisteth not that his wounds should be washed in the sharp wine of contrition and lastly to be anointed with the Oyle of Consolation then presently Christ by his grace doth work and bring forth faith in him and the fruits of faith as life peace joy consolation and happinesse renewing him after his own image and working in him to will and finish according to his good will Phil. 2. For seeing that the abundance of sinnes are greater then humane nature can beare as witnesseth the Scripture which John 8. pronounceth the naturall man the servant of sin and Rom. 7. sold under sinne and can doe nothing but sinne according to that of Jeremy 13. If the Aethiopian can change his hue or the The naturall man neither can nor will doe doe any good Leopard his spots and you can doe well and forget to doe evill therefore the singular grace of God appeared to all men by his Gospel teaching us by the words of Paul to Tit. 2. that denying all impiety and worldly desires wee may live a just and sober life in this present world As if hee should say by the The grace of God doth all things in us word of God grace is offered unto us and doth instruct inlighten allure and teach us heartily to move and provoke us to desist from sinne which teaching of the divine grace or joynt warning by the Word consenteth with the inward testimony of the conscience whereby the man both from without and within is convicted that he doth evill and of leading a life against the way of God and his conscience he ought to change it to better let him know this if he would bee saved Furthermore if hee will bend his eares and mind and being full of good hope denounce warre against vice then the grace of God Man is meere darknes Christ is meere light worketh all things in man as faith charity and all the fruits of faith For as darknesse cannot lighten it selfe and the Sunne not shining we doe in vain open our eyes so neither can man inlighten himselfe according to that in Psalm 13. O Lord thou givest light unto my Lanthorn and my darknesse But the divine Grace or Christ himselfe is the cleare light which is risen to all men sitting in darknesse and in the shadow of death How the true light lightâ—â—s all men which inlightneth all men or every man that cometh into this world that is by manifesting himselfe and offering his grace He I say is the light of the world shewing to all men the way of life and like a good Shepheard guiding his Flock into the right way he sought us as his lost sheep daily even now seeketh us and allureth us nay more followeth us embraceth us after the manner of a bride or spouse that he loveth whose grace I would to god most men did Christ as a Bridegroome imbraceth our souls not refuse give repulse to his love prefer the darknes of vice before his light And even as a Physitian saith to his sick Patient Beware of this if you will not dye for you hinder the efficacie and force of the medicine that you cannot bee made whole so Jesus Christ the true Physitian of our souls saith My sonne I pray thee incline thy mind to repentance and leave thy sinnes Impeninitence hindereth the efficacie of Christs merits that pride covetousnesse concupiscence of the flesh wrath revenge and forsake them or most certainly the honour of my merit shall profit thee nothing when thou art a hinderance that my grace cannot be sown in thee that it cannot increase in strength bring forth fruit Truly for this very cause I give my Apostles in charge before all things to preach repentance and I called Why repentance is to be preached before all things sinners to repentance because an impenitent heart cannot participate of my merits Which speech when a sick man heareth the Physitian of our soules as to abstaine from sinne or else he must utterly perish the word of God coming expresly to his mind let him know this that it is most certain that God hath promised remission of sinnes to all men gratis but under this law and condition if they will convert themselves to God according to that of Ezekiel 33. If the wicked shall repent him of his sinnes hee shall live the life and not die all the offences which hee hath done shall not bee True faith imputed unto him Wherein truly the repentance of sinnes is joyned to remission neither doth Christ the sonne of God in any other sense promise life eternall to those that beleeve in him For faith doth alwayes oppose it selfe to the Old Man tameth the flesh and subjecteth it to the spirit that is converteth the man rooteth up and amendeth sinnes and cleareth and purgeth the heart it being the fountain of all evill Truly this is true faith that I say that turneth it selfe from the world from sinnes and from the Devill to Christ and seeketh solace and rest for his soule against the grieving debt of his sinnes in the onely blood death and merit of Christ without the works of any man whatsoever What man is so foolish to beleeve that his sinnes are pardoned of God although hee doe not desist from his sinnes this man hath a false faith neither ever
shall he obtain everlasting life unlesse he first repent The example of this doctrine is set forth by Zacheus the Publican Luke 9. who understood the doctrine of faith and conversion in a sound sense acknowledging that onely to bee true faith by which a man should be turned from his sinnes to God and which expected and hoped for the remission of sius from Christ and desired to participate of his merit it behoveth him to give over sinning and in firm trust of the divine grace to cleave to the bounty of Christ and so he construed or understood the Sermon of Christ Mark 1. Repent and beleeve the Gospel that is desist from sinning be yee filled with the good hope of my merit and expect the remission of sins from me onely Wherefore Zacheus saith to Christ Behold Lord I give halfe of my goods unto the poore and if I have defrauded any man of any thing I doe restore it fourefold By which words he doth not commend his works no but extolleth grace by which he was given to understand the way of true repentance therefore this sense hath his prayer O Lord I am so grieved that I have circumvented my neighbour that I Acknowledgement of sinne in faith doth the Son favour will restore unto him fourfold and I will bestow halfe my goods upon the poore Wherefore seeing that I confesse my sinnes and likewise doe fully purpose in my mind to leave my sins and doe firmly beleeve in thee I doe prâ—y and beseech thee to pardon me and vouchsafe to circumvent me with thy grace Which lawfull form of conversion the heavenly Physitian allowing and receiving he answereth This day is salvation come unto tby house For the Sonne of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost And this is the true repentance and conversion by faith which God worketh therefore is the beginning middle and ending so that no other thing is required of us then a will not to resist the will of God or voluntarily not resist the holy Ghost after the manner of the contumacious Jewes of which mention is made Acts 17. and 13. wee read of those whom Saint Paul reproacheth in this manner It behoveth us first to speak unto you the Word of God but because you reject it and judge your selves unworthy of eternall life behold we turn us unto the Gentiles It is our part therefore after the manner of sick folks to take the counsel of the Physitians and to obey their Precepts and as he in the beginning The processe of spirituall cure of the disease doth signifie the pains to the Patient so God laâ—eth open our sinnes as he doth to the sick and gently admonisheth us what things are to be avoided that his medicines may exercise their full strength so God doth shew us what is to bee declined or avoided lest the medicine of his most pretious bloud bee made void and work nothing at all Moreover so soon as a man by the grace of the holy Ghost doth forbeare to sinne here upon A man of himself can neither think nor doe any good truly the grace divine doth begin in him to work new gifts which before and without this would make no beginning nor was sufficient by himselfe to think any good thought much lesse to doe any good but from thence forth the good that is in us is not ours but cometh of divine grace according to that of Saint Paul Rom. 12. I speak by the grace that is given me And 1 Corinth 15. By the grace of God I am that I am and to us grace is freely imputed with the whole merit and the obedience of Imputation to whom it belongeth Christ no otherwise then if it were our own so we bee penitent Neither doth imputation lest we erre belong to the wicked and the contemners of the word of God neither doth Christ work but in the penitent And even as a Schoolmaster leading the hand of a child that he learnes to write and then praiseth his writing so God which in us doth work crowns and commends those things Without me saith Christ you can doe nothing that is good and we are apt by nature without him to doe the things that are evill and this onely is proper to us But that which is good is meer grace neither hath flesh any thing whereon to boast Therefore happy are you O mortals if you give your minds to forbear sinning and to consent unto God no otherwise then a young Virgin that giveth her promise and faith to her Spouse that embraceth her And Christ truly the Spouse of our soules goeth about or endeavoureth to manifest in us that he is willing Christ worketh the will in us or doth consent by calling us so courteously to him in his Word and our Conscience I say by seeking us alluring us and imbracing us thinking no such thing as to desist from sinne lest his pretious bloud be spilt in vaine for us CHAP. XXXV Without a holy and Christian life all Wisdome all Arts and Sciences yea the knowledge of the whole Scripture and Theology is in vain Matthew 7. Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven but hee that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven BEcause in charity consist or are contained all the duties of a Christian man and so all the life of Christ was nothing but a sincere and most pure love hereupon blessed Paul 1 Cor. 13. under the name of Charity comprehends the whole life of a Christian man And it is the property of true charity to respect God alone in all things not to have the least respect to The property of sincere charity his own honour or profit but in all things gratis and for that cause onely because God is the chiefest good and to doe it for his honour and the good of his neighbour Which charity whosoever hath not he is a Who is an hypocrite true hypocrite and when in all his workes he respecteth onely his own works and not God alone it appeareth to bee false love which he boasteth of Therfore let us allow that this man understand the holy Bible without book and speak with the tongues of Angels yet all these things shall profit him nothing but he shall bee as a sounding Without charity all things profit nothing brasse or as a tinckling Cymball For as no food can nourish the body unlesse it be turned into juice and bloud so the word of God and the Sacraments are to no purpose if they be not expressed in our life and The true fruit of faith and the Sacraments works neither is the new man any other then a man converted holy and full of charity Therefore Saint Paul saith 1 Cor. 13. If I could prophesie and know all mysteries and all knowledge and all faith so that I might remove mountaines and have no charity I am nothing That is if I
should shadow mine own honour under them and expect any thing besides the honour of God and the good of my neighbour therefore all are abomination accursed before Almighty God according to that of Matth. 7. Many Why God respecteth not the gifts shall say unto me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name and cast out Devils in thy Name and have done many miracles in thy Name And then I shall say unto them Because I know you not depart from me The alms of the ambitious is damnable you workers of iniquity and you have not respected me sincerely but your selves Of the like mind is Saint Paul If I should give all that I have unto the poore and have not charity it profiteth mee nothing Even that love which exerciseth or sheweth liberality for Gods cause alone and not for his own praise or profits sake Such as was the righteousnesse of the Pharisees who offered many sacrifices and drew on others that they might adorn their Temples with their gifts and offer costly offerings the slaverie of which ambition drew them to forget the offerings of the poore whose gifts ought rather to bee preferred out of pitie alone Which preposterous charity in them Christ upbraideth Matth. 23. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because under long prayers you devoure widowes houses In which perverse religion there be now followers which bequeath large legacies to Temples and Monasteries that their Clerks and Monkes may make long prayers for them which truly is false love seeking themselves and if you scan it well not respecting divine honour but themselves But we who know to live justly by faith let us rather be penitent aâ—d offer our selves to God by mortifying and crucifying our flesh then all our works of charity not out of selfe-love nor for the cause of praise or profit whatsoever but let us doe it for the love and sincere love of God being sure if we doe it otherwise they will not profit us a haire Therefore although thou give thy body to be burned and want love which is due to God alone and his praises and honour thou doest nothing saith Saint Paul Neither doe they profit any more which whip and burn their bodies by humbling and afflicting their souls as speaketh Isai 58. because indeed they are conceited in their singular sanctity and affect their own proper praises and their presumptuous religion in their private judgement doe not respect God but applause popular praise and estimation whereby many of them are so blinded God suffering them the work of error 2 Thess 2. that they make no doubt to suffer themselves to be burned for the defence of their False Martyrs conceived heresie and if God be pleased to become Martyrs of Christ when yet they doe not serve Christ but themselves neither doth the punishment but the cause make a Martyr Such Martyrs as these the Devill even amongst the Ethnickes hath many were so blinded in their understanding they were contented to die for their Altars and Idols And the same is done this day amongst Christians under the shew of the Christian faith seeing the Ethnicks themselves to gain an immortall name to perswade themselves they doe well in so doing To whom for self-love and glory or praise there were like unto them certain Monks devout persons in our age which are called Catholicks which for the cause of propagating Religion will perswade Princes and Monarchs that they are to doe the like unto them even die for the Catholicks cause Whose madnesse is so much the more manifest being they beleeve that they suffer for Christs cause and they become his Martrys when contrariwise they become the Martyrs of Roman Bishops and of their private renown and praise And thus much of coated or cloak charity powerfully seduced and carried on by a false light It remaineth therefore without the sincere love of God and our neighbour and a holy and Christian life all Arts Sciences Faculties profit nothing wisdome how great soever and if it be as great or greater then that which was in Solomon is nothing the knowledge of the whole Scripture and universall Theology is nothing lastly all works whatsoever and Martyrdome it selfe if you will so call it yea to know the will of God and his word and to live after the prescript rule thereof that onely augmenteth the guilt of eternall damnation according to that of Saint John 15. If I had not come and spoken unto them they had had no sin but now they have no excuse for their sin CHAP. XXXVI Of those that live not in Christ but have their heart fixed to the world although they possesse the outward letter of the Word and do not tast the inward force of it and the hidden Manna Apocalypse 1. To him that overcometh I will give the hidden Manna I will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it BY this Sentence it appeareth wee are taught that no man doth taste the inward sweetnesse of the heavenly joy and solace hidden in the word of God which doth not overcome his own flesh and the Who be apt to tast heavenly sweetnesse world with all the pomps and concupiscences thereof and lastly the Devil himselfe that is to say they who crucifie their own flesh daily by their serious contrition and repentance with all the desires and concupiscence thereof who die to themselves and the world daily lastly to whom this life is a meer crosse I say these are divinely fed with heavenly Manna and drink the Nectar of Paradise Contrariwise those that follow none but worldly pleasure it is unprofitable for those to taste the hidden Contraries ioy not together Manna For like things are delighted in their like and seeing that the word of God is spirituall it is no marvell if worldly minds be not delighted therewith For even as the soul receiveth no strength of the food which the stomack hath not concocted so the soule of the divine Word or Manna receiveth no strength unlesse it bee converted into it selfe that is into life Yea as a man sick of a Fever distasteth all things and are bitter unto him so those that are sick of the worldly Ague that is of the love of the world covetousnesse pride and lust these I say doe loath the word of God and distast it as bitter Contrariwise With whom the word of God hath no savour those that have the Spirit of God these doe find in it the hidden Manna never to be tasted by them that are carried away with the world which is the cause that many by the daily hearing of the Gospel doe feele little desire and spirituall joy because they are not carried by the Spirit of God nor have any heavenly but earthly minds But he that will fully and soundly understand the word of God and eate Manna it behoveth him to study to
smell so Christ which is the tree of life by tasting and by triall is understood I say by tasting in faith his lowlinesse and humility and patience and by eating of his fruit whereby consequently his soule might find rest and tranquillity and be made capable of divine grace and consolation Which two into a heart void of faith and unfenced with the humility and lowlinesse of Christ cannot enter to fructifie seeing that God giveth grace only to the humble Seeing then it is thus what doth Christ profit a man who hath no society with him Such are all those who living in the darknesse of sinne cannot be companions of light according to that of Saint John If we say we have society with him and walk in darknesse we are liers and want the truth But if we walk in the light as hee is in the light we have joynt fellowship with him Which in the second chapter hee addeth The darknessc is passed over and the true light now shineth hâ—e which saith hee is in the light and hateth his brother is in darknesse untill now He that loveth his brother abideth in the light and there is no offence in him But he that hateth his brother is in darknesse and walketh in darknesse and knoweth not whither he goeth because darknesse hath blinded his eyes And how long a man remaineth in that terrible cloud of sinnes he cannot bee lightned of Christ which is the true Light and come to the knowledge of God For the true knowledge of God and Christ consisteth in that hee understands God to be meere The true knowledge of Christ Grace and Charity which who hath not and exerciseth this man knoweth it with the most ignorant So all knowledge consisteth ariseth out of the understanding experience and works of truth and so certain it is that hee which doth not exercise charity howsoever hee make many words of it yet he perceiveth not the perfect nature of it In like manner Christ is meere love humility meeknesse patience and vertue the which who hath not is ignorant of Christ although hee can prattle many things of him and usurp his name After the same manner the word of God is nothing but Spirit whereupon they which live not in the Spirit these consequently doe not know what the word of God is although they fable and dispute of it every where Therefore it belongeth not to him to judge of love who never exerciseth it For all knowledge as we said even now beginneth with feeling experieÌ„ce Knowledge ariseth out of experience Nor is it his part to speak of the light that never moved a foot out of his own darknesse to see the light and what is light in man but faith and charity according to the saying of Christ Matth. 5. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Now seeing that the most holy life of Christ is nothing but meer love if we endeavour to drink and draw from him true faith humility lowlinesse and patience as it is given in commandement to us by the severe Law of Learning then truly we are transformed into his image and we are beautified and adorned with his love no otherwise then if we were covered with Christ himselfe which is the eternal and true Light according to that of the Ephesians chap. 5. Arise thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ will inlighten thee Whereupon it followeth again that as many as doe not awake from the sleep of the world that is concupiseence of the eyes of the flesh and pride of life their soule cannot truly be illuminated by Christ Contrariwise they which assume the life of Christ and follow him in faith these truly are illuminated according to that of Saint John chap. 8. I am the light of the world he which followeth me in faith charity hope patience lowlinesse humility feare of Onely the martyrs of Christ illuminated God and prayer walketh not in darknesse but shall have the light of life As if he should say Onely those that imitate me have the light of life and the true illumination and knowledge of mee By reason of the same Faith and Life of Christ or Christian life blessed Paul Ephes 5. calleth the faithful the Light You were saith he sometimes darknesse but now light in the Lord. And 1 Thess 5. You are all the sonnes of light and the sonnes of God we are not of the night nor darknesse having put on the breast-plate of faith and love and the helmet of salvation To this belongeth that of the Book of Wisdome which faith That the holy Ghost doth flye wicked persons but comes into holy souls and of them makes Prophets and friends of God Which if it flye the wicked it is plain that they cannot be inlightened of it To which that is like that Christ denieth the world that is carnal minds not repenting them at all can they receive the holy Ghost But that there might be a perfect and absolute example amongst men and an Idea of vertue therefore the Son of God became Man and by his most holy life became the publick Light of the world that all men might follow him beleeve in him and be illuminated from him Now seeing the false Christians themselves know not Christ to be the most perfect and absolute righteousnesse or vertue therefore they did not care for following him it is manifest that the Ethnicks the most rigid observers lovers of vertue did goe far beyond them Of whom the wisest as Plato Aristotle Cicero and Seneca determined If the virtue of the body may be seen or could bee seen it would appeare more cleare then Lucifer or the day starre But those that shal behold Christ with the eye of faith he being the true Lucifer or Day-star doth far excel them and Faith in Christ illuminateth the heart those shall so see and contract the word of life 1 John 1. But if the Ethnicks did so esteeme virtue and desired to see it how much more ought Christians to esteem it above all things seeing Christ is meere virtue meere The love of Christ is to imitate Christ lowlinesse yea God himselfe Whereupon not without cause Saint Paul preferreth the love of Christ before all Sciences or knowledge for that he which loveth him it necessarily followeth that hee doe embrace his lowlinesse and humility out of his meere and most sincere love towards him whereby he is further illuminated and daily Light grace is given by humility transformed into the image of Christ from glory to glory 2 Cor. 3. For God giveth grace to the humble saith Saint Peter 1 Epist chap. 5. And Saint Bernard The floods of grace doe flow downwards not upwards By all which it cometh to passe that the grace of the light and of knowledge divine is not communicated to a man that liveth not in Christ but walketh in the
way of the Devil when true faith and the works thereof doe not leave us empty or void of knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 1. Now seeing that a man having the Light and Life of Christ dwelleth in him for all these things hee is himselfe therefore according to the saying of the Prophet Esay chap. 11. upon such and no otherwise then upon Christ himselfe do rest the gifts of the holy Ghost that is to say the Spirit of wisdome and understanding the Spirit of counsell and fortitude the Spirit of knowledge piety and the feare of the Lord. Wherefore Saint Peter in the second of the Acts speaketh thus to the Jewes Repent and you shall receive the gifts of the holy Ghost as if he should say The Spirit of God of which you have had experience and which is the Illuminator of the heart sendeth not it self into other minds then those that are faithful and repent Goe to then O mortals which desire to bee freed from the blindnesse of heart and everlasting darknesse and lastly from the Devil himselfe imitate Christ in faith and true conversation and amendment being sure that the neerer you are to Christ the neerer you are to Eternall Light and by how much morâ— unfaithful you are so much neerer you aâ—â— to Darknesse and the Devill For as Faith Christ and all vertues are knit together so in like manner incredulity the Devil and all vices doe cleave together Behold with me the Apostles imitating Christ in faith contemning the world denying themselves renouncing their possessions and living in eternity by which things they attained to this that they might be heavenly illuminated and might bee indued with the holy Ghost To whom was most unlike the young man that was so rich whilst hee studied himselfe and thought himselfe something Luke 18. Therefore hee remained in the darknesse of the world neither was he inlightned to eternall life For hee that loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him And blessed John professeth plainly That he which loveth not remaineth in darknesse and knoweth not whither hee goeth because darknesse hath blinded his eyes To whom agreeth Taulerus who in all his Sermons every where sheweth and admonisheth without serious exercise of faith without mortification and selfe-denial without inward turning himselfe to his heart and lastly without the inward Sabbath of the soule no man can receive the divine Light or perceive it in himselfe In brief as much as in the condition after conversion the works of darknes by the spirit of God in man are destroied so much is he illuminated and by how much more more powerfully on the other side our corrupt nature as the flesh the world in man do beare rule so much lesse Grace Light Spirit of God and Christ is in him Therefore it remaineth without daily coÌ„tinual repentance no man can be illuminated when as he hath not resisted one â—ice nor The further froÌ„ the life of Christ the further from the true light rooted out one and exerciseth innumerable others bringeth forth out of himselfe continually with more increase then people are wont to doe And as darknesse is thicker in it selfe and more cloudy by how much the Sunne goeth back from us by so much we are unlike to the life of Christ so much more plentiful are wee in sinne and darknesse groweth the thicker in us till they become eternal night On the contrary hee which by the grace of God entereth the Chariot of virtue with a good courage and firm hope this man cannot but profit in them daily one following another as rings be linked one to another in a golden chain Which connexion blessed Peter expresseth The knowledge of Christ in love faith and the fruits thereof is to grow in Christ profit in him writing in the second Epistle cha 1. And you ought to have care and to use diligence ministring in your faith virtue and in your virtue knowledge in knowledge abstinence in abstinence patience in patience piety in piety brotherly love in brotherly love charity And if yee doe these things and abound therein you shall not be found empty nor without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ As if he should say he that shall not addict himselfe wholly to the study and exercise of these virtues he knoweth not Christ but he that by faith profiteth in them he groweth in Christ all other as proud ones wrathfull ones covetous ones impatient ones profit not in Christ but in the Devil And it is left us Christians in precept that as a child by little and little and in time is made a man so we may grow in faith and in the study of virtue to perfect The fruit of the death of Christ in us men to the measure of full age in Christ Ephes 4. Coloss 1. But to whom these things are not ready or at hand saith Saint Peter 2. Epist 1. he is blind and hand-bound forgetfull of the purging of his old sinnes As if he should say It is for certain that Christ by his death and bloud took and did beare all our sinnes but in the mean time we must beware that we addict not our selves to sin hereafter but rather the death of Christ fructifying in us we die to the world and live in Christ which whosoever doth not care to doe to this man it is plain that the purging of his old sins profiteth nothing Whereupon it followeth if wee desire to have the sinnes of our former life remitted and pardoned we must forbeare â—â— sin we must repent and beleeve in Christ which if we doe not then we retain all those sinnes of our former life and they are to be lamented by us to all eternity without all hope of expiation or forgivenesse so that it is possible that even for wrath alone a man may be damned which if he had by Christian lowliness corrected then in truth he had obtained pardon for all his other sins which because he neglected to do therfore according to the words of Saint Peter He is blind being forgetfull of the purging of his old sinnes Whereby it is given to understand The necessity of repentance how necessary a thing repentance is and the changing to a betternesse For although Christ died for our sins blotting them out and abolishing them with the incomparable price of his bloud yet we doe not participate of that merit unlesse we repent it profiteth nothing And howsoever every man is promised pardon for his sins for the merit of Christ yet that promise pertaineth nothing to thee to the unbeleever nor the impenitent but to those alone which doe amend their lives when it is most meet that those sinnes be remitted which we goe not about to remember but those onely which we were heartily grieved for And to this pertaineth that which is spoken Matth. 11. The poore receive the Gospel that is obtain the remission of sinnes Now
who disputed vehemently against the Pharisees and Scribes after the example of John the Evangelist who wrote his Gospel against Ebion and Cerinth and the Apocalypse against the false Church of the Nicolaitans and others after the example of Saint Paul who defended most strongly the doctrine of justification by faith of good works of the resurrection of the dead of Christian liberty and such like against false Apostles after the example of the holy Bishops and Fathers of the Primitive Church which wrote most strongly against the Pagan superstitions and Heretickes and in the Oecumenical Councels gathered by the Christian Emperours did condemne the chiefe Heretickes and Patriarchs Arrians Macedonians Nestorians and Eutychians lastly by the example of the incomparable Heroe Martin Luther by whose excellent and grave writings the Papality and other Hereticks were much weakened it is as cleare as the noon-day Therefore it remaineth as a thing most fit and requisite to preach write and dispute that the purity of the doctrine and the verity of religion might bee manifest according to the Apostle who in the first chapter to Titus will have a Bishop to be powerfull to exhort in doctrine that is sound and to argue with those that contradict it The The abuse of Thenlogicall disputation which although it be a lawful and a laudable way it is so faln out by the abuse of it that amongst all their bitter Disputations and Sermons of controversies and the infinite heaps of writing and counterwriting the memory of Christian life of true repentance devotion and charity is almost abolished with their names no otherwise then if the summe of Christian Religion consisted in disputation and writing books of cōtroversies not in the practice of the Gospel and Christian learning For if we behold the examples of the holy Prophets and Apostles as also of the Sonne of God it is manifest that they did sharply dispute not onely against false Prophets and Apostles but also against the superstitions of the Gentiles but with no lesse fervency did exhort to repentance Christian life and moreover did shew in most grave Sermons that by their impenitency and wicked life the divine Worship and Religion did goe backwards and decay the Church was wasted that Kingdome and people were afflicted with hunger warre and plague all which came to passe as true as they said it Of this kind is that Sermon of Esay Impiery destroyeth the worship of God true religion chap. 5. where he denounceth to the people of the Jewes because the vineyard of the Lord did not bring forth clusters of grapes but wild grapes therefore Almighty God had decreed to lay it wast Whereby it plainly appeareth that impiety is the cause why God useth to take his word from us To the same sense is that which Christ said John 12. Walk in the light whilst you have it lest darknesse overtake you For what other thing is it to walk in the light then to imitate Christ Or what other thing is it to be overtaken with darknesse then to lose the purity of the Gospel Whereby it appeareth without true repentāce none is enlightned that none can without true repentance and a holy life enjoy the light the holy Ghost which is the true enlightner of our hearts flying the ungodly and chusing holy soules onely to make friends and Prophets of God as it is written Wisdom 7. whose beginning sith the fear of God is as it is in Psa 111. who likewise doubteth impiety to be the beginning of folly ignorance and blindnesse Moreover the true knowledge of Christ and pure doctrine and the profession thereof doth not consist in words onely but in deed and holy life according The knowledge of Christ consists not in words to that of Titus chap. 1. They confesse they know God but deny him in their deeds when they are abominable and unbeleevers and reprobates to every good work And Titus 3. They have the shew of godlinesse but deny the virtue thereof Whereby it is given to understand that Christ and his Word is denied by a wicked life as wel as words neither hath he the true knowledge of Christ which never putteth it into action Wherefore he that never feeleth or tasteth the humility lowlinesse It is lame without a holy life patience and the love of Christ inwardly in his heart hee knoweth not Christ and therefore where use and necessity requireth they cannot confesse him For to professe preach the doctrine of Christ onely is truly to divide Christ and to lame him if you do not professe and preach It is not words but life that makes a Christian his life And we have abundance of books of his doctrine of his life almost none every where bookes of controversies concerning doctrine but very little time spent about true repentance and a Christian life For what is doctrine without life but a tree without fruit Or how should he follow the doctrine of Christ who imitateth not his life For the head or chiefe of the doctrine of Christ is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfained faith But we live in that age wherein there is a great number of those whom if wee heare them disputing so acutely and well of the doctrine of Christian religion you would think them to be men of great worth but if you behold them narrowly and touch them neerly you shall then know them to bee inwardly and in their hearts full of pride envie and covetousnesse that no Basilisk can be more venemous Against whom therefore wee must beware observe what Paul saith 1 Tim. 1. he doth not rashly or suddenly joyn Love and Faith that hee may shew that these two do or would conspire and consent together And although wee cannot arrogate so much to our strength and piety that wee make it the price of our happinesse knowing also with Saint Peter Epist 1. chap. 1. that wee are kept in the virtue of God by faith to salvation yet we professe this that by an Antichristian life the Spirit of God will avoyd us with all The wicked are not enlightned his gifts amongst which faith knowledge understanding and wisdome are not the least Whereby it followeth again without a holy life the purity of doctrine cannot be preserved and the wicked which will not imitate Christ are not enlightned with the true light On the contrary those that walk in the light that is which doe insist and persevere in the footsteps of Christ are drenched and bathed in the true light which is Christ and divinely preserved from all errors Therefore it is true which that ancient Writer Taulerus saith So soon as a man dedicateth himselfe to God and suffereth him and denieth his own will and flesh then truly the Spirit of God doth begin to make beginning of illumination and endowing with true and solid knowledge because indeed this man doth celebrate the true Sabbath of the heart
all things having promise both of this life and the life to come IN this admonition is contained a briefe description of a Christian life by which wee are taught that a Christian ought to spend all his time in the study of piety which is the compendium of all Christian virtues first because it is profitable for all things in all our words and deeds blessing them if so be we use it in them Secondly because God doth reward it both in this life and the life to come where wee shall receive the everlasting harvest of our labours Rule I. First although thou canst not live so perfectly as the word of God commandeth and as thy spirit would yet thou God alloweth the good will for the deed must never but wish ardently the same For after this manner the holy desires of the Saints were acceptable unto God who also alloweth them because he is the beholder of the hearts not the works In the mean time having a special care of one thing to crucifie thy flesh and not to suffer it to rule II. In all things that thou thinkest or The concupiscence of the flesh is the dore of the Devil doest study to preserve thy heart lest thou be defiled with proud thoughts words and works or lastly by wrath and such like Devillish actions For by this meanes thy heart is open to the Divel and shut up from God III. Strive for it lest it happen that thou lose the liberty of thy mind through evil concupiscences of earthly things making thy selfe a servant and slave of the creatures For seeing thy soule is more noble then all the world it were a very unworthy thing to put it under and sell it to the world and addict thy heart to frail and frivolous things of the world IV. Avoid studiously the sorrow of this world that bringeth and worketh death and by covetousnesse envie and too Dâ—vine and worldly sorrow much care of a family and also by incredulity and impatience is begotten But on the contrary embrace divine heavinesse which proceedeth from the meditation of his sinnes and infernal punishment and thereby worketh a stable salvation and also peace and joy in God 2 Corinth 7. Indeed man ought to beare the losse of no worldly goods so heavily as his owne sinnes V. If thou canst not bear thy crosse with such joy as is meet yet at least take it with The crosse how to be boâ—n patience and humility resting upon the divine wil and pleasure of God For this is alway good neither doth it respect or intend other things then our profit and salvation Therefore whatsoever God shal appoint or determine for thee in making thee merry or sad poore or rich in spirit exalted high or low and humble and lastly vile or excellent think alway this It seemed good to him and expedient for thee therefore that which pleaseth him let it not displease thee but rather rejoyce if hee carry all things according to his wil and thy salvation All the workes of God are good saith Sirac chap. 39. And Psalm 144. The Lord is just in all his wayes and holy in all his works Wherefore it is more excellent The wil of God alwayes good never evill that God in thee doe his wil that never swarveth from good or his own end which thou oughtest to suffer willingly who art by nature alwayes inclineable to evil VI. Consolations and heavenly visits are to bee received with humble thankes Contrariwise if they doe not move thee then know that the mortification of the flesh is more profit for thee then the joyes of the Spirit For unto us that bee subject to sinne and dwelling in flesh and blood griefe is farre better then joy and delight For many by reason of plenty of spiritual Sorrow and drinesse of the spirit how it is to be born consolation fall into spiritual pride But the Lord knoweth who are fit to bee led by a pleasant and lightsome way to eternal life and who are fit to be led by a crooked sharp sorrowful fearful and stony way Alway think it fit for thee that thou mayst come to life by that way the divine wisdome hath chosen although it differ from thy opinion and desire Better is sorrow then laughter saith Solomon Eccles 7. Because by sorrow the mind of the offender is corrected The heart of a wise man is where sorrow is and the heart of a foole where joyfulnesse and mirth is VII If thou canst not bring great offerings of devotion prayer and thanksgiving to God offer to him that thou hast and canst commending and adorning thy smal sacrifices with good wil and holy desires that thy religion and devotion may become acceptable before God because to have even that pious desire or be willing to have is no smal grace and most acceptable sacrifice to God because so much as we wish to perform before him of devotion prayer praises and desire of heavenly things even so much it is before God For he requireth nothing of thee but that his grace and favour may worke in thee neither canst thou return him any more then he hath first bestowed on thee In the mean time desire this of Jesus Christ with humble prayer Our perfection is in Christ that he would supply thy sacrifices with his most perfect sacrifice because he is our perfection ours on the contrary all of them are lame and unperfect Wherefore say my God and Father let my devotion be acceptable unto thee my faith my prayers my thanksgivings in thy most beloved Sonne and those not for their own worth but esteem them for the merit of Christ and it cannot be but that his most perfect works be and shall be pleasing unto thee For he he shall copiously supply what is wanting in me And by this means our piety prayer and thanksgiving how unperfect soever obscure and small it be the greatest weight of glory and dignity is given in exchange In faith Christ all our things are perfect for the merit of Christ As an infant if it be naked and defiled is not seemly nor amiable but if it be honestly clothed and adorned is pleasing to all so all thy works are of themselves and their own nature nothing which yet if they bee adorned with the perfection of Christ they are most acceptable to God the Father Even as Apples otherwise of no great value or price if they bee placed in golden Scutcheons or Sockets are more excellent and beautifull then themselves so our prayers our piety and thanksgiving in Christ is more worthy more pretious and more noble made according to that of the Ephesians chap. 1. He hath gratified us in his beloved Son VIII When sins and manifold imperfections doe make thee sad let them not A Christian may sorrow but not despair make thee to despaire Although they bee many think this There is mercy with the Lord and plenteous redemption with him Psa
sinner is cast from God and judged to eternall death incurring the same without doubt unlesse he obtain remission of sinnes by faith in Christ Which naturall corruption of soule mind and body that thou O man mayst understand more exactly it shall not grieve me to expresse it more plainly or more at large exhorting and praying thee for Gods sake and thine own happinesse that thon wouldest diligently read and daily meditate this Article whereby thou mayst know thy naturall misery and thy in-born wickednes no otherwise then in a glasse and that which followeth it continually lament and deplore the same For the sum of Christianity is no other thing What Christianity is then a continuall spirituall wrastling with originall sinne and continuall purging of it by the holy Ghost and a serious no superficial repentance For how much every one mortifieth this naturall iniquity so much from day to day hee is renewed towards the Image of God On the contrary so many as inwardly and from the heart doe not mortifie it by the holy Ghost these are hypocrites whatsoever shew of holinesse Hypocrites they outwardly shew unto the world And whatsoever is not dead in it selfe and The necessity of regeneration is not renewed by the holy Ghost to the image of God all that is unfit for the kingdome of heaven Whereby there is to be noted the necessity of the new birth and renovation if we will put out the Image of the Devill opposite to the divine law For as the Devill doth hate God with all his heart so hath hee taught the humane soule against God in hostile manner to behave it selfe not to love him not to honour him not to call upon him to be against and to flye from him As the Devill liveth thus day by day in blindnesse little caring what is the Divine will so all things bewitched by him spend the time unmindfull of God and his commandements which mist and night of humane mind is a horrible and terrible destruction of the light and of the image of God and also abominable sin whereby the man is so farre slided back that hee doth say There is no God Psalm 14. And for this blindnesse all humane kind is abomination and accursed before Almighty God And although there bee and remain in man a certain spark of naturall light by the force thereof he understandeth some God to be and that he is just as the Ethnick Philosophers doe teach yet the spirituall life according to God and his righteousnesse is A spark of natural light remaining in mâ—n altogether extinguished in him For the conscience which is the Law of God written in the heart of man in the creation teacheth what is good whereby there is no man so brutish in his pleasures but by that conscience he thinketh there is a God and that he is moved with no motion but is chast and therefore it cannot but that hee abhorreth all filthinesse neither should hee doe otherwise But this good and right thought and spark our light is put out by the filthy pleasures of the body and the concupiscences thereof no other wayes then if water were cast upon it After the same manner a slanderer or an homicide sometime reasoneth with himselfe Certainly there is a God that wil not that men should be killed but would have them preserved but this spark lasteth not long but The spirituell life in man is altogether dead by and by Devillish wrath and the sweetnesse of revenge extinguisheth it From which it is understood that a spirituall life consisting in love and truth in a carnall man is altogether dead neither doth hee think otherwise howsoever sometimes by the light of nature they understand that there is a God and that he doth governe humane affaires yet by and by being blinded with the darknesse of heart they call in The mortall blindnesse of man question his providence as their books doe witnesse And from this naturall blindnesse and in-born mists ariseth incredulility unstedfastnesse and wavering-mindednesse which all men naturally are incident unto and for which before Almighty God they are abomination because they live not in faith and they doe not trust from their heart For seeing that a naturall man of the spirituall life and works of the same is altogether ignorant and profane hereon it is that hee calleth not on God but trusteth in his wisdome power and strength then which nothing can bee thought more foolish Of the same blindnesse the fruit is contempt of God and spirituall security For as the Devill secure of God careth not to humble himselfe before him but persevereth in his pride so hee The seed of the Devill in man doth infect the soule of man by the contempt of God with security and insolencie so that he doth not humble himself before God but secure of the divine fear doth all things after his own will and mind proudly insolently As the Devill carried along with his own strength and wisdome governeth himselfe so the soule of man infected with the contagion of the Devill is wise unto it selfe doth counsell and govern it selfe As the Devill seekes his own honour onely so the man hath no care of the divine honour but onely his own As the Devil hath contended with God so hath hee armed the soule of man against God by impenitence As the Devill doth blaspheme the name of God and is extreamly ungratefull towards his Creator as he is unmerciful wrathfull and bloudy so he hath infected man with these vices as with a pestilent poyson As the Devil rejoyceth to exercise tyranny against man and stirreth up one against another so man by his discipline depraved insolently carrieth himselfe over his neighbour and despiseth him as a man of no account derideth him as a foole and abhorreth him as a man covered with greatest sinnes and outrages As the Devill is an homicide so he stirreth up the soule to the same cruelty and thirst of humane bloud Lastly perswade thy selfe assuredly that God doth not accuse the outward members but the God accuseth the soul alwayes heart and soule alwayes for the heart and soule is an homicide and a lier noâ— his hand not his mouth Therefore when God commanded man to call upon him in necessity he gave that charge to the soul not to the mouth Hee that understandeth not this he truly remaineth as a Mole-warp in the Scripture neither understandeth the nature of originall sinne of repentance of the new birth lastly not any Article of Religion We see daily before our eyes the extream malice of men their horrible pride cruelty hatred and beastly envie so that they are accustomed to lie in wait for another mans life with the hazard of their own and desire to have their neighbour utterly overthrown Which inhumane and detestable envie wrath and rancor of minds what other thing is it then that seed The holy matrimony in the state of innocency and image of