for both these are compatible for a time If then we look upon the persons of Peter and Iudas both of them are in the state of mortal sin unrepented of and therefore both in state of damnation but if we look back unto God we shall see a hand reach'd out unto St. Peter pulling him back as he is now running down the hill which hand we do not see reach'd out unto Iudas Christ had a look in store for St. Peter which if it had pleased him to have lent unto Iudas Iudas would have done that which St. Peter did When then we pronounce St. Peter and in him any of the Elect of God as they are in St. Peter's case to be fallen from grace we speak not with relation to any purpose of God but we mean onely that they have not that measure of Sanctification which ought to be in every child which shall be an heir to life and what hinders to pronounce that man fallen from grace whom we must needs acknowledge to be in that state in which if he continue there is no way open but to death What then may some men say had St. Peter lost the Spirit of Adoption had he not those sanctifying qualities of Faith Hope and Charity which are proper to the Saints and are given them by divine inspiration in the moment of their conversion was that immortal seed of the Word quite kill'd No verily How then Having all these may he not yet be called the child of death I answer he may and is indeed so for these do not make him that at no time he can be so but that finally he shall not be so for they are not armour of proof to keep out all darts neither do they make our souls invulnerable as the Poets fain the body of Cyenus or Achilles to have been but they are precious balms ever more ready at hand to cure the wound when it is given They are not of force to hinder mortal sin for then every soul in whom they are were pure undefiled neither were it possible that the Elect of God after their conversion should fall but they are of force to work repentance which makes all our wounds remediable He that is mortally sick and dies and he that is likewise mortally sick and through help of restoring physick recovers in this both agree that they are mortally sick notwithstanding the recovery of one party The wound of St. Peter and of Judas was mortal and in both festred unto death but there was balm in Gilead for St. Peter for Iudas there was none The sting of the fiery Scorpion in the Wilderness was deadly and all that looked not on the Brazen Serpent died the Brazen Serpent altered not the quality of the Scorpion's sting it onely hindred the working of the poison The sting of sin in St. Peter and in Iudas was deadly but he that was lift up on mount Calvary as the Brazen Serpent was in the Wilderness at him did St. Peter look and live Iudas did not look and therefore died How comes it about Beloved that God every where in Scripture threatens death without exception to all that repent not if the state of sin unrepented of in whomsoever it is be not indeed the state of death When David was intending to stay in Keilah and suspecting the inhabitants of that City asks of God whether the men of Keilah would deliver him over into the hand of Saul God tells him they would and therefore certainly had he stayed there he had been betrayed unto Saul To urge that St. Peter because of God's purpose to save him could not have finally miscarried though he had died without repentance as some have not stuck to give out is nothing else in effect but to maintain against God that David had he stayed in Keilah had not fallen into Saul's hands because we know it was God's purpose to preserve David from the violence of Saul All the determinations of God are of equal certainty It was no more possible for Saul to seize on David then it is for the Devil to pull one of God's Elect out of his hand as therefore the determinate purpose of God to free David from the malice of Saul took not away that supposition If David go to Keilah he shall fall into the hands of Saul So neither doth the Decree of God to save his Elect destroy the supposition If they repent not they die eternally for the purposes of God though impossible to be defeated yet lay not upon things any violent necessity they exempt not from the use of ordinary means they infringe not our liberty they stand very well with common casualty yea these things are the very means by which his Decrees are brought about I may not stand longer upon this I will draw but one short admonition and so to an end Let no man presume to look into the Third Heaven to open the Books of Life and Death to pronounce over peremptorily of God's purpose concerning himself or any other man Let every man look into himself and try whether he be in the faith or no The surest means to try this is to take an unpartial veiw of all our actions Many deceive themselves whilst they argue from their Faith to their Works whereas they ought out of their Works to conclude their Faith whilst presuming they have Faith and the gifts of sanctification they think all their actions warrantable whereas we ought first throughly to sift all our actions to examine them at the Touch of God's Commandments and if indeed we find them currant then to conclude that they come from the sanctifying Graces of the holy Spirit It is Faith indeed that gives the tincture the die the relish unto our actions yet the onely means to examine our Faith is by our Works It is the nature of the Tree that gives the goodness the savour and pleasantness to the Fruit yet the Fruit is the onely means to us to know whether the Tree be good By their fruit ye shall know them saith Christ It is not a rule not onely to know others but our selves too To reason thus I am of the Elect I therefore have saving Faith and the rest of the sanctifying qualities therefore that which I do is good thus I say to reason is very preposterous We must go a quite contrary course and thus reason My life is good and through the mercies of God in Iesus Christ shall stand with God's Justice I therefore have the gifts of Sanctification and therefore am of God's Elect For St. Peter to have said with himself I am of the Elect this sin therefore cannot endanger me had been great presumption but thus to have reasoned My sin is deadly therefore except I repent I am not of the number of God's Elect this reasoning had well befitted St. Peter and becomes every Christian man whom common frailty drives into the like distress I made my entrance into my Sermon with the consideration
to suppose they know all things and to be bold in affirming and the Heathen Rhetorician could tell us that by this so speedy entring upon action and so timely venting our crude and unconcocted studies quod est ubique perniciosissimum praevenit vires fiducia a thing which in all cases is most pernicious Presumption is greater then strength after the manner of those who are lately recovered out of some great sickness in whom appetite is stronger then digestion These are they who take the greatest mysteries of Christian Religion to be the fittest arguments to spend themselves upon So Eâ—kins in his Chryâ—opassus a work of his so termed wherein he discusses the question of predestination in the very entrance of his work tells us That he therefore enterpris'd to handle this argument because forsooth he thought it to be the fittest question in which he might Iuveniles calores exercere The antient Masters of Fence amongst the Romans were wont to set up a Post and cause their young Schollars to practise upon it and to foin and fight with it as with an adversary Instead of a Post this young Fencer hath set himself up one of the deepest Mysteries of our profession to practise his freshmanship upon Which quality when once it finds Scripture for its object how great inconvenience it brings with it needs no large discourse to prove St. Ierome a man not too easily brought on to acknowledge the errours of his writings among those few things which he doth retract censures nothing so sharply as the mistake of his youth in this kind In adolescentia provocatus ardore studio Scripturarum allegorice interpretatus sum Abdiam Prophetam cujus historiam nesciebam He thought it one of the greatest sins of his youth that being carried away through an inconsiderate heat in his studies of Scripture he adventured to interpret Abdias the Prophet allegorically when as yet he knew not the Historical meaning Old men saith our best natural Master by reason of the experience of their often mistakes are hardly brought constantly to affirm any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will always cautelously interline their speeches with it may bees and peradventures and other such particles of wariness and circumspection This old mens modesty of all other things best fits us in perusing those hard and obscure Texts of holy Scripture Out of which conceit it is that we see St. Austine in his books de Genesi ad literam to have written onely by way of questions and interrogations after the manner of Aristotle in his Problemes That he might not for so he gives his reason by being ever positive prejudice others and peradventure truer interpretations that every one might choose according to his liking ubi quid intelligere non potest Scripturae Dei det honorem sibi timorem and where his understanding cannot attain unto the sense of it let him give that honour and reverence which is due unto the Scripture and carry himself with that aw and respect which befits him Wherefore not without especial providence it is that the holy Ghost by St. Paul giving precepts to Timothy concerning the quality of those who were to be admitted to the distributing of Gods holy word expresly prescribes against a young Schollar lest saith he he be puft up For as it hath been noted of men who are lately grown rich that they differ from other rich men onely in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that commonly they have all the faults that rich men have and many more so is it as true in those who have lately attained to some degree and mediocrity of knowledge Look what infirmities learned men have the same have they in greater degree and many more besides Wherefore if Hippocrates in his Physician required these two things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great industry and long experience the one as tillage to sow the seed the other as time and season of the year to bring it to maturity then certainly by so much the more are these two required in the spiritual Physician by how much he is the Physician to a more excellent part I will adde yet one third motioner to this abuse of Scriptures and that is The too great presumption upon the strength and subtilty of our own wits That which the Roman Priest sometimes told an over-pleasant and witty Vestal Virgin Coli Deos sancte magis quam scite hath in this great work of exposition of Scripture an especial place The holy things of God must be handled sancta magis quam scite with fear and reverence not with wit and dalliance The dangerous effects of this have appeared not in the green tree onely in young heads but in men of constant age and great place in the Church For this was that which undid Origen a man of as great learning and industry as ever the Church had any whilst in sublimity of his wit in his Comments on Scripture conceiving Meteors and airy speculations he brought forth those dangerous errors which drew upon his person the Churches heaviest censure and upon posterity the loss of his works Subtle witted men in nothing so much miscarry as in the too much pleasing themselves in the goodness of their own conceits where the like sometimes befalls them which befell Zeuxiâ— the Painter who having to the life pictured an old woman so pleas'd himself with the conceit of his work that he died with laughing at it Heliodor Bishop of Tricca in Thessaly the Author of the Ethiopick Story a polite and elegant I confess but a loose and wanton work being summon'd by a Provincial Synod was told that which was true That his work did rather endanger the manners then profit the wits of his Reader as nourishing loose and wanton conceits in the heads of youth and having his choice given him either to abolish his work or to leave his Bishoprick not willing to lose the reputation of wit chose rather to resign his place in the Church and as I verily think his part in heaven And not in private persons alone but even in whole Nations shall we find remarkable examples of miscarriage in this kind The Grecians till barbarism began to steal in upon them were men of wonderous subtlety of wit and naturally over indulgent unto themselves in this quality Those deep and subtle Heresies concerning the Trinity the Divinity of Christ and of the holy Ghost the Union and Division of the Divine Substance and Persons were all of them begotten in the heat of their wits yea by the strength of them were they conceived and born and brought to that growth that if it had been possible for the gates of hell to prevail against the Church they would have prevailed this way Wherefore as God dealt with his own land which being sometimes the mirrour of the world for fertility and abundance of all things now lies subject to many curses and especially to that of barrenness so at this day
fidelity and trustiness of Gods servants faithfully accomplishing the will of our Master is required as a part of our Christian Faith Now all those good things which moral men by the light of Nature do are a part of Gods will written in their hearts wherefore so far as they were conscientious in performing them if Salvianus his reason be good so far have they title and interest in our Faith And therefore Regulus that famous Roman when he endured infinite torments rather then he would break his Oath may thus far be counted a Martyr and witness for the truth For the Crown of Martyrdom sits not onely on the heads of those who have lost their lives rather then they would cease to profess the Name of Christ but on the head of every one that suffers for the testimony of a good conscience and for righteousness sake And here I cannot pass by one very general gross mistaking of our Age. For in our discourses concerning the Notes of a Christian man by what Signes we may know a man to be one of the visible company of Christ we have so tied our selves to this outward profession that if we know no other vertue in a man but that he hath Cond his Creed by heart let his life be never so profane we think it argument enough for us to account him within the Pale and Circuit of the Church on the contrary side let his life be never so upright if either he be little seen in or peradventure quite ignorant of the Mystery of Christ we esteem of him but as dead and those who conceive well of those moral good things as of some tokens giving hope of life we account but as a kind of Maâ—ichecs who thought the very Earth had life in it I must confess that I have not yet made that proficiency in the Schools of our Age as that I could see why the Second Table and the Acts of it are not as properly the parts of Religion and Christianity as the Acts and Observations of the first If I mistake then it is St. Iames that hath abus'd me for he describing Religion by its proper Acts tells us that True Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is To visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world So that the thing which in an especial refine Dialect of the new Christian Language signifies nothing but Morality and Civility that in the Language of the Holy Ghost imports true Religion Wherefore any difference that the holy Ghost makes notwithstanding the man of vertuous dispositions though ignorant of the Mystery of Christ be it Fabricius or Regulus or any ancient Heathen man famous for sincerity and uprightness of carriage hath as sure a claim and interest in the Church of Christ as the man deepest skill'd in most certainly believing and openly professing all that is written in the holy Books of God if he endeavour not to shew his faith by his works The Antients therefore where they found this kind of men gladly received them and converst familiarly with them as appears by the friendly entercourse of Epistles of S. Basil with Libanius of Nazianzen and Austin with sundry others and Antiquity hath either left us true or forged us false Epistles betwixt S. Paul himself and Seneca Now as for the admitting of any of these men to the discussing of the doubts in our Religioâ—s Mysteries who either know not or peradventure contemn them there needs not much be said by a Canon of one of the Councels of Carthage it appears it had sometimes been the erroneous practise of some Christians to Baptize the dead and to put the Sacrament of Christs Body into their mouths Since we have confest these men to be in a sort dead as having no supernatural quickening grace from above to put into their hands the handling of the word of life at all much more of discussing of the doubtful things in it were nothing else but to Baptize a carcase and put the Communion bread into the mouth of the dead Wherefore leaving this kind of weak person to your courteous acceptance Let us consider of another one quite contrary to the former a true Professor but a man of prophane and wicked life one more dangerously ill then the former have we any Recipe for this man May seem for him there is no Balm in Gilead he seems like unto the Leper in the Law unto whom no man might draw near And by so much the more dangerous is his case because the condition of conversing with Heathen men be they never so wicked is permitted unto Christians by our Apostle himself whereas with this man all commerce seems by the same Apostle to be quite cut off For in the 1 Cor. 6. St. Paul having forbidden them formerly all manner of conversing with Fornicators infamous persons and men subject to grievous crimes and considering at length how impossible this was because of the Gentiles with whom they lived and amongst whom necessarily they were to converse and trade he distinguishes between the fornicators of this world and the fornicators which were Brethren I meant not saith the blessed Apostle expounding himself that ye should not admit of the fornicators of this world that is such as were Gentiles for then must ye have sought a new world So great and general a liberty at that time had the world assumed for the practise of that sin of Fornication that strictly to have forbidden them the company of fornicatours had almost been to have excluded them the society of mankind But saith he If a brother be a fornicatour or a thief or a railer with such a one partake not no not so much as to eat Wherefore the case of this person seems to be desperate for he is not onely mortally sick but is bereft of all help of the Physician Yet notwithstanding all this we may not give him over for gone for when we have well search'd our boxes we shall find a Recipe even for him too Think we that our Apostles meaning was that we should acquaint our selves onely with the good and not the bad as Physicians in the time of Pestilence look onely to the sound and shun the diseas'd Our Saviour Christ familiarly converst eat and drank with Publicanes and sinners and gives the reason of it because he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Is Christ contrary to Paul This reason of our Saviour concerns every one on whom the duty of saving of Souls doth rest It is the main drift of his message and unavoidably he is to converse yea eat and drink with all sorts of sinners even because he is to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance Necessary it is that some means be left to reclaim notorious offenders let their disease be never so dangerous Nescio an in extremis aliquid tentare medicina sit certe nihil tentare perditio est Who