celestial dialect and not as some of late have been ready to make it the language of the Whore of Babylon as if Faith onely did make a Protestant and Good works were the mark of a Papist What mention we Papist or Protestant The Christian is the member of this Body and Common-wealth this is his language Zeph. 3.9 the pure language When Hand and Tongue Faith and Good works a full Persuasion and a sincere Obedience are joyned together then we shall speak this language plainly and men will understand us and glorifie God the Angels will understand and applaud us and the Lord will understand and crown us We shall speak it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faintly and feignedly ready upon any allurement or terrour to eat our words but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall make it plain by an Ocular demonstration And this is truly to say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. This is the Lesson our first Part. And thus far we are gone And we see it is no easie matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak but these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For we must comprehend Eph. 3.18 saith the Apostle the breadth and length and depth and height of this Divine mystery the breadth saith S. Augustine in the expansion and dilatation of my Charity the length by my continued perseverance unto the end the height in the exaltation of my hope to reach at things above and the depth in the contemplation of the bottomless sea of God's mercies These are the dimensions And if we will learn these Mathematicks because we see the Lesson is difficult we must have a skilful Master And behold my next Part bringeth him forth bringeth us news of one who is higher then heaven broader then the sea and longer then the earth as Job speaketh It is the holy Ghost For no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And indeed good reason that he should be our Teacher For as the Lesson is such should the Master be The Lesson is spiritual the Teacher a Spirit The Lecture is a lecture of piety and the Spirit is an holy Spirit The Lesson proposeth a method to joyn Heaven and Earth God and Man Mortality and Immortality Misery and Happiness in one to draw us near unto God and make us one with him and the holy Ghost is that consubstantial and coeternal Friendship of the Father and the Son nexus amorosus as the Schools speak the essential Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity Flesh and blood cannot reveal this great mystery it must be a Spirit And the Spirit of this world bringeth no news from Heaven we may be sure It must be SPIRITUS SANCTUS the holy Ghost SPIRITUS SANCTUS for JESUS DOMINUS the holy Ghost for Jesus the Lord that by the grace of the holy Spirit we may learn the Power of the Son and by the inspiration of his Holiness learn the mystery of Holiness For it is not sharpness of wit or quickness of apprehension or force of eloquence that can raise us to this Truth but the Spirit of God must lead us to this tree of Knowledge Therefore Tertullian calleth Christian Religion commentum Divinitatis the invention of the Divine Spirit as Faith is called the gift of God not onely because it is given to every believer but because the Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith O qualis artifex Spiritus sanctus What a skilful Artificer what an excellent Master is the blessed Spirit who found out a way to lift up Dust it self as high as Heaven and clothe it with eternity whose least beam is more glorious then the Sun and maketh it day unto us whose every whisper is as thunder to awake us cujus tetigisse docuisse est whose every touch and breathing is an instruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene For this Spirit is wise and can he is loving and will teach us if we will learn He inspireth an Herdsman and he straight becometh a Prophet He calleth a Fisherman and maketh him an Apostle Et non opus est morâ Spiritui Sancto He standeth not in need of any help from delay Without him Miracles are sluggish and of no efficacy but upon his breathing our Saviour shall appear glorious in his ignominy and the Thief shall worship him on his cross as if he had been in his Kingdom in whom he wrought such an alteration that in S. Hierom's phrase mutavit homicidii poenam in martyrium he was so changed that he died not a thief or murtherer but a Martyr And such a powerful Teacher we stood in need of to raise our Nature and that corrupt unto so high a pitch as the participation of the Divine Nature For no act and so no act of holiness or spiritual knowledge can be produced by any power which is not connatural to it and as it were a principle of that act So that as there is a natural light by which we are brought to the apprehension of natural principles whether speculative or practick by which light many of the Heathen proceeded so far as to leave most of them behind them who have the Sun of righteousness ever shining upon them so there must be a supernatural light by which we may be guided to attain unto truths of a higher nature Which the Heathen wanting did run uncertainly as S. Paul speaketh and beat the air and all those glorious acts by which they did out shine many of us were but as the Rainbow before the Floud for shew but for no use at all The Power must ever be connatural to the Act. Nature may move in her own sphere and turn us about in that compass to do those things which Nature is capable of but Nature could not make a Saint or a member of Christ To spiritualize a man to make him Christi-formem to bring him to a conformity and uniformity with Christ is the work alone of the Spirit of Christ Which he doth sweetly and secretly powerfully characterizing our hearts and so taking possession of them The Apostle telleth us that Christ dwelleth in us by his Spirit by his power and efficacy Rom. 8.11 which worketh like fire enlightning warming and purging our hearts Matth. 3.11 which are the effects of Fire First by sanctifying our knowledge of him by shewing us the riches of his Gospel and the beauty and majesty of Christ's Dominion and Kingdom with that evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship by filling the soul with the glory of it as God filled the Tabernacle with his Exod. 30. that all the powers and faculties of our soul are ravished at the sight that we come willingly and fall down willingly before this Lord in a word by bringing on that Truth which our heart assenteth to with that clearness and fulness of demonstration that it passeth through all the
Ye Angels that do his will They are but finite agents and so not able to make good an infinite loss They are in their own nature mutable and so not fit to settle them who were more mutable more subject to change then themselves not able to change our vile bodies much less to change our souls which are as immortal as they yet lodged in tabernacles of flesh which will fall of themselves and cannot be raised again but by his power whom the Angels worship In prison we were and CVI ANGELORVM written on the door miserable captives so deplorably lost that the whole Hierarchie of Angels could not help us And if not the Angels not Moses sure though he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nearest to God and saw as much of his Majesty as Mortality was able to bear Heb. 3.5 6. The Apostle tells us he was faithful in all his house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a servant but Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Son Smite he did the Aegyptians and led the people like sheep through the wilderness But he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Captain of our salvation as he is stiled v. 10. was to cope with one more terrible then Pharaoh and all his host to put a hook into the nostrils of that great Leviathan to lead not the people alone but Moses also through darkness and death it self able to uphold and settle an Angel in his glorious estate and to rayse Moses from the dead Not Moses then but one greater then Moses Not the Angels but one whom the Angels worship who could command a whole Legion of them Not a Prophet Or if a Prophet the great Prophet which was to come If an Angel the Angel of the Covenant Certè hic Deus est even God himself Now Athanasius's Creed will teach us that there is but one God yet three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We must then find out to which of the Persons this oeconomie belongeth Not to the Father That great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his He bringeth his first begotten into the world ch 1.6 that he may declare his name unto his brethren ch 2. Not the Holy Ghost We hear him ch 3. as an Herald calling to us To day if yee will hear his voyce And he is Vicarius Christi Christs Vicar on earth supplyeth his place in his absence and comforteth his children It must needs then be media Persona the second and middle Person the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Luke 4.41 The office will best fit him to be a Mediatour Ask the Divels themselves when he lived they roared it out Ask the Centurion and them that watched him at his death they speak it with fear and trembling Matth. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God Christ then our Captain is the Son of God But God hath divers Sons some by Adoption and they are made so some by Nuncupation and they are but called so and some by Creation and they are created so They who rob and devest Christ of his Essence yet yeild him his Title and though they deny him to be God yet call him God's Son We must follow then the Philosophers method in his description of moral Happiness proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of negation and to establish Christ in his right of Filiation tell you 1. he is not a Son not adoptivus filius God's adopted Son who by some great merit of his could so dignifie himself as to deserve that title This was the dream or rather invention of Photinus A very dream indeed For then this Similation were not of God to Man but of Man to God the Text inverted quite No Imitatur adoptio prolem Adoption is but a supply a grafting of a strange branch into another stock But he whose name is The Branch grows up of himself of the same stock and root God of God very God of very God made manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 2. not Filius nuncupativus God's Son by nuncupation his nominal Son Such a one Sabellius and the Patro-passiani phansied as if the Father had been assimilated and so called the Son impiously making the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not three Persons but three Names 3. Lastly not Filius creatus God's created Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere Creature and of a distinct essence from his Father as the more rigid Arians nor the most excellent Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in substance like unto the Father but not consubstantial with him as the more moderate whom the Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half-Arians conceived To these Hereticks we reply Non est Filius Dei He is not thus the Son of God And as Aristotle tells us that his Moral Happiness is the chief Good but not that Good which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which Ambition flyes to the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth an universal notion and Idea of Good So may the Christian by the same method consider his Saviour his chief bliss and happiness and by way of negation draw him out of those foggs and mists where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him and bring him into the bosome of his Father and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus Behold a voyce from heaven spake it Matth. 3.17 17.5 This is my beloved Son We may suspect that voice when Photinus is the Echo An Angel from heaven said He shall be called the Son of the most High Luke 1.32 Our Faith starts back and will not receive it if Sabellius make the Glosse Our Saviour himself speaks it I and my Father are one John 10.30 The Truth it self will be corrupted if Arius be the Commentator To these we say He is not thus the Son of God Naz. Orat. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To contract the Personality with Sabellius or to divide the Deity with Arius are blasphemies in themselves diametrally opposed but equally to the truth The Captain of our salvation is the true Son of God begotten not made the Brightness of his Father streaming from him as Light from Light his Image not according to his humane Nature as Osiander but according to his Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image and Character not of any qualities in God but of his Person the true stamp of his substance begotten as Brightness from the Light as the Character from the Type as the Word from the Mind Which yet do not fully declare him Quis enarrabit saith the Prophet Who shall declare his generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 53.8 Thy faith is thy honour a great favour it is that thou art taught to believe that he is the eternal begotten Son of God The manner is known only to the Father who begat and to the Son who is begotten If thy busy curiosity lead thee further 〈◊〉
and Monarch of the Church who hath full and absolute power to determine of those things which concern our peace and to judge the Law it self to discover its defects and to supply and perfect it And here upon this foundation what a Babel of confusion may be built Upon these grounds what errour what foul sin may not shew its head and advance it self before the Sun and the people and outface the world With the one Scripture is no Scripture but a dead letter And with the other it hath no life but what they put into it With the one it is nothing and with the other it is imperfect which in effect is nothing For what difference in matters of this nature and in respect of a Law between being nothing and not being what it is For to take away the force of a Law is in a manner to annihilate it With them as Calvin speaketh of those in his time St. Paul was but a broken vessel John a foolish young man Peter a denier of his Master and Matthew a Publican And the language of ours at this day is little better And with the other they are little less For when they speak plainest they teach them how to speak And now that which was a sin yesterday is a vertue to day vertue is vice and vice vertue as the one is taught within and the other is bold to interpret it The Text is Defraud not thy brother The inward Word biddeth thee spoil him The Text is Touch not mine anointed By the autority of the Church thou mayest touch and kill him And let me tell you the inward Word will do as much Deceit Injustice Sacrilege Rebellion Murther all may ride in in triumph at this gate for it is wide enough to let them in and the Devil together with all his wiles and enterprises withall his most horrid machinations He did but mangle and corrupt the Scripture to make a breach into our Saviour These take it away or make it void and of no effect to overthrow his Church Must the Church of Rome be brought in like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts with great pomp and state with Supremacy and Infallibility Then Peter is brought out and his Rock nay his Shadow to set out the Mask and the Autority of the Church leadeth him on And they open their vvardrope and shew us their Traditions such deceitful ware that we no sooner look upon it but it vanisheth out of sight Again must some new phansie be set up which will not bear the light of Scripture but flieth and is scattered before it as the mist before the Sun Must some horrid fact be put in execution which Nature it self trembleth at and shrinketh from and which this perfect Law damneth to the lowest hell Then an inward Word is pretended and God is brought in to witness against himself to disanul his own Law and ratifie the contrary to speak from heaven against that which he declared by his Son on earth to speak within and make that a duty which he openly threatned to punish with everlasting fire What is become now of our perfect Law It is no Law at all but as the Son came down to preach it so there is a new holy Ghost come into the world to destroy it Which is to do worse then the Jews did For they only nailed Christ's body to the cross these crucifie his very mind and will Which yet will rise again and triumph over them when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to his Gospel For what man of Belial may not take up this pretence and leave Nature and Grace Reason and Religion behind them and walk forward with it to the most unwarrantable and unchristian designs that a heart full of gall and bitterness can set up Ahithophel might have taken it up and Judas might have taken it up even parricides have taken it up And if every inward persuasion the off-spring of an idle phansie and a heart bespotted with the world be the voice of God then Covetousness may be a God and Ambition may be a God and the Devil himself may be a God For these speak in them these speak the word which they hear which because they are ashamed to name they make use of that Name which is above every name to usher in these evil spirits in which Name they should cast them out In the name of Piety what is this inward Word this New light It may be the echo of my lust and concupiscence the resultance of an irregular appetite the reflexion of my self upon my self It is the greatest parasite in the world For it moveth as I move and sayeth what I say and denieth what I deny As inward as it is its original is from without The Object speaketh to the Eye and the Eye to the Heart and the Heart hot with desire speaketh to it self A rent and divided Church will make up my breaches A shaken Commonwealth will build me up a fortune A dissolved College will settle me in an estate And I hear it for I speak it my self And it is the voice of God and not of man Of this they have had sad experience in forein parts in both the Germanies and in other places And we have some reason to think that this monster hath made a large stride and set his foot in our coasts But if it be not this it is Madness Nay if this Word within may not be made an outward word it is Nothing For this Word within as they call it bringeth with it either an intelligible sense or not intelligible If it bring a sense unintelligible and which may not be uttered and expressed then it is no Word or the Word of a fool that uttereth more then his mind and speaketh of things which he knoweth not For what Word is that which can neither be understood nor uttered But if it bear a sense intelligible then it may be received of the understanding and uttered with the tongue and written in a book and then the same imputation will lye upon it which they lay upon the outward Word that it is but an ink-horn phrase And written with ink it may be For with amazed eyes we have seen it written with bloud I am even weary of this argument But men have not been ashamed openly to profess what we blush within our selves to confute And this Word within this loathsom phansie this Nothing hath had power to invenom the Word of life it self and make it the savour of death unto death For conclusion then Let us not say Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ Let us not frame and fashion a Christ of our own For if he be of our making he is not the Son of God but a phantasm And such a Christ may speak what we will have him speak to our hearts our lusts our vices Such a Christ will flatter us deceive us damn us But let us behold him in
can imagine there can be any man that can so hate himself as deliberately to cast himself into hell and run from happiness when it appeareth in so much glory He cannot say Amen to Life who killeth himself For that which leaveth a soul in the grave is not Faith but Phansie When we are told that Honour cometh towards us that some Golden shower is ready to fall into our laps that Content and Pleasure will ever be near and wait upon us how loud and hearty is our Amen how do we set up an Assurance-office to our selves and yet that which seemeth to make its approach towards us is as uncertain as Uncertainty it self and when we have it passeth from us and as the ruder people say of the Devil leaveth a noysome and unsavoury sent behind it and we look after it and can see it no more But when we are told that Christ liveth for evermore and is coming is certainly coming with reward and punishment vox faucibus haeret we can scarce say Amen So be it To the World and the pomp thereof we can say Amen but to Heaven and Eternity we cannot say Amen or if we do we do but say it For conclusion then The best way is to draw the Ecce and the Amen the Behold and our Assurance together so to study the Death and the Life the eternal Life and the Power of our Saviour that we may be such Proficients as to be able with S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.11 to meet the Resurrection to look for and hasten the coming of the Lord when his Life and Eternity and Power shall shine gloriously to the terrour of those who persecute his Church and to the comfort of those who suffer for Righteousness sake when that Head which was a forge of mischief and cruelty and that Hand which touched the Lords anointed Psal 105.15 and did his Prophets harm shall burn in hell for ever when that Eye which would not look on vanity shall be filled with glory when that Ear which hearkned to his voice shall hear nothing but Hallelujahs and the musick of Angels when that Head which was ready to be laid down for this living everling powerful Lord shall be lifted up and crowned with glory and honour for evermore Which God grant unto us for Christ's sake A SERMON Preached on Whitsunday JOHN XVI 13. Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth WHen the Spirit of truth is come c. And behold he is come already and the Church of Christ in all ages hath set apart this day for a memorial of his Coming a memorial of that miraculous and unusual sound Acts 2.2 3. that rushing wind those cloven tongues of fire And there is good reason for it that it should be had in everlasting remembrance For as the holy Ghost came then in solemn state upon the Disciples in a manner seen and heard so he cometh though not so visibly yet effectually to us upon whom the ends of the world are come that we may remember it though not in a mighty wind yet he rattleth our hearts together though no house totter at his descent yet the foundations of our very souls are shaken no fire appeareth yet our breasts are inflamed no cloven tongues yet our hearts are cloven asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every day to a Christian is a day of Pentecost his whole life a continued holy-day wherein the holy Ghost descendeth both as an Instructer and as a Comforter secretly and sweetly by his word characterizing the soul and imprinting that saving knowledge which none of the Princes of this world had not forcing or drawing by violence but sweetly leading and guiding us into all truth In the words we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Epiphany or Apparition of the blessed Spirit as Nazianzene speaketh or rather the Promise of his coming and appearance And if we will weigh it there is great reason that the Spirit should have his Advent as well as Christ his that he should say Lo I come Psal 40.7 For in the volume of the book it is written of him that the Spirit of the Lord should rest upon him Isa 11.2 and I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh Joel 2.28 Christus Legis Spiritus Sanctus Evangelii complementum Christ's Advent for the fulfilling of the Law and the Spirit 's for the fulfilling and compleating of the Gospel Christ's Advent to redeem the Church and the Spirit 's to teach the Church Christ to shed his blood and the Spirit to wash and purge it in his blood Christ to pay down the ransome for us captives and the Spirit to work off our fetters Christ Isa 61.2 Luke 4.19 to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Spirit to interpret it For we may soon see that the one will little avail without the other Christ's Birth Death and Passion and glorious Resurrection are but a story in Archivis good news sealed up a Gospel hid till the Spirit come and open it and teach us to know him and the virtue and power of his resurrection and make us conformable to his death Phil 3.10 This is the sum of these words And in this we shall pass by these steps or degrees First we will carry our thoughts to the promise of the Spirit 's Advent the miracle of this day Cùm venerit When he the Spirit of truth is come in a sound to awake the Apostles in wind to move them in fire to enlighten and warm them in tongues to make them speak Acts 2.2 3. Secondly we will consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work and employment of the Holy Ghost He shall lead you into all truth In the first we meet with 1. nomen Personae if we may so speak a word pointing out to his Person the demonstrative pronoun ILLE when He 2. nomen Naturae a name expressing his Nature He is the Spirit of truth and then we cannot be ignorant whose Spirit he is In the second we shall find nomen Officii a name of Office and Administration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a leader or conducter in the way For so the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to be the Apostles leader and conducter that they might not erre but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep on in a straight and even course in the way And in this great Office of the Holy Ghost we must first take notice of the Lesson he teacheth It is Truth Secondly of the large Extent of this Lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He leadeth into all truth Thirdly of the Method and Manner of his discipline It is a gentle and effectual leading He driveth us not he draweth us not by violence but he taketh us as it were by the hand and guideth and leadeth us into all truth Cùm venerit ille Spiritus veritatis First though we are told by some
beneficia compedes all benefits are as fetters are obligations He that doth me good obligeth me placeth himself as it were in authority over me giveth me Laws and looketh upon me as his Creature which must do whatsoever he requireth in a just and equal proportion to what he hath done Accepi benificium protinus perdidi libertatem I receive a good turn and forthwith lose my liberty My hand is filled and bound at once bound to his service that filleth it If he say Do this I do it I plead for him I commend him I excuse him I run for him I dye for him because he is my friend If my friend bid me Cic. de Amicit. I will set fire on the Capitol saith Blosius in Tully Not onely a Father a Master a Lord but a Friend every one that obligeth me is a kind of Lawgiver boundeth and keepeth me in on every side tendereth me his edicts and laws by doing something for me gaineth a power over me In the Civil law it is styled Patris Majestas the Majesty of a Father Neque id magis facimus quà m nos monet pietas Plaut Stich. act 1. sc 1. And there is the Majesty of a Master and the Majesty of a Friend or Benefactour For nostrum officium nos facere aequum est There is a kind of equity and justice that he that buyeth me with a price should claim some interest in me These are those cords of men to tye us to them And if we break them asunder and cast these bands from us if we will not answer the diligent love of a Friend by doing something which may be required at our hands we are guilty of a foul ingratitude which is a kind of civil or moral Rebellion And therefore God taketh up this as an argument against the rebellious Jews and draweth it from that relation which was founded on his Power and that Love which he had shewed to them A Son honoureth his Father and a Servant his Master If then I be a Father Mal. 1.6 where is my Honour and if I be a Master where is my fear saith the Lord of hosts who am not onely your Lord by right of creation but your Father for my daily care and preservation of you and those many benefits I have laden you withal And Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you saith Christ If ye do not ye are not my friends but you have broke that relation which might have been eternal So that we see one Power followeth another as in a chain the Power and Right of dominion the Power by which we were made and are preserved the Power of giving Laws the Power that made us capable of a Law He that did these great things for us may require what he please First God createth Man and then giveth him a Law and putteth him to the trial of his Obedience By the same act of Power by creating as he acquired to himself the full right of Dominion so he brought also upon Man the necessity of Subjection Lord what wilt thou have me to do saith S. Paul Acts 9.6 when he was struck to the ground Verbum breve sed vivum sed efficax De convers Pauli Ser. 7. saith Bernard a short speach but full and lively and operative even an acknowledgment of that Power of God which is mighty in operation by which he hath authority to command and require what he will Gods Will then thus attended with his Power must be the rule of all our actions and is the matrix from which all Laws must issue But in the next place as his absolute Will is attended with Power uncontrollable so is it also with Wisdome unquestionable For as he is the only powerful Rom. 16.27 1 Tim. 1.17 so he is the only wise God And from the inexhaust fountain of his Wisdome flow those rivers of Laws which make glad the city of God which are made as all things in the world are in number weight and measure numbred weighed measured fitted out unto us that we may live and move thereby even move upwards towards the house of our Lord where there are many mansions prepared for us So that all the Laws of men which look towards Innocency and Perfection are borrowed Apol. c. 45. saith Tertullian from the Divine Law and all Law-givers are called by Galen and called themselves the Disciples of God Minos of Jupiter Numa of Aegeria Solon of Minerva Lycurgus of Apollo Trismegistus of Mercury none ever having been thought fit to make a Law but God Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est c. Liv. Dec. 4. l. 4. Nulla tanta esse potuit prudentia majorum ut ad omne genus nequitiae occurrat Quint. Decl. 350. whose Power hath no bounds but his Will and whose Wisdome reacheth over all tempers and constitutions all casualities and contingences all circumstances of Time or Place all cross intercurrent accidents which the narrowness of Mans Understanding and humane Frailty cannot foresee nor prevent Lex erit omne quod ratione consistet saith Tertullian That which bindeth a reasonable creature must it self be reasonable and whatsoever is reasonable is a Law and Reason is a beam of the Divine Light by which all Laws which deserve the name of Laws were drawn The Power of God yea and his Wisdome ruleth over all and his Laws are like himself Qui dat rationem dat legem Tert. de Coron mil. c. 4. just and holy pure and undefiled unchangeable immutable and everlasting fitted to the first age of the world and fitted to the last fitted to the wisest and fitted to the simplest fitted to times of peace and fitted to times of tumult establisht and mighty against all occurrences all alterations all mutations whatsoever There is no time wherein a man may not be just and honest wherein he may not be merciful and compassionate wherein he may not be humble and sincere A Tyrant may strip me of my possessions but he cannot take from me my honesty he may leave me nothing to give but he cannot sequester my Compassion he may lay me in my grave but my Humility will raise me up as high as heaven The great Prince of the air and all his legions of Devils or Men cannot pull us back or stop us in the course of our obedience to the Will and Law of God but we may continue it and carry it along through honour and dishonour through good report and evil report through all the terrours and affrightments which Men or Devils can place in our way What he requireth he required and it may be done yesterday and to day and to the end of the world And as his Wisdome is seen in giving Laws so it is in fitting the means to the end in giving them virtue and force to draw us to a nearer vision and sight of God Wisd 8.1 whose Wisdome reacheth from one end to
observe that most of those precepts delivered there tend to Honesty and Sincerity of conversation with men Blessed are the merciful Blessed are the peace-makers Be not angry Let your Yea be yea and your Nay be nay These short precept leave no room for Fraud and Deceit for that which is called Dolus malus when our Yea is Nay and our Nay Yea one thing is said and another meant one thing is pretended and another done The Apostles are frequent in urging this duty For Christianity was so far from disannulling those precepts of Morality and mutual conversation which the Philosophers by the light of Nature delivered and transmited to posterity that the ancient Christians as learned Grotius observeth Proleg ad 1. de Jure belli pacis though they were not devoted to any one Sect of them yet observing that as there was no Sect which had found out all truth so also there was not one of them which had not discovered some did take the pains to collect and gather into a body what was here and there diffused and scattered in their several writings and did think this a fair commentary on the practick part of the Gospel and a sufficient expression of that discipline which Christians by their very title and profession were bound to observe You may read them in the Philosophers but they are the precepts of Christ And this is the true face of Christianity See Serm 20. For no other foundation can any man lay then that which is laid Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 3.11 Now every foundation should bear something not Wood and Hay and Stubble but Gold and Silver and Pretious stones Fraud and Violence and Injustice cannot lye upon that foundation which is laid in Truth and in Mercy and in Justice 2 Cor. 5.21 nor upon that Saviour who knew no sin who had this Elogium from his very enemies Mat. 7.37 Joh. 18.38 19.4 6. That he had done all things well and that there was no fault to be found in him No upon this foundation you must lay such materials as are like unto it Innocency and Truth and Righteousness That these might grow up and flourish amongst the sons of men Christ watered them with his blood which was shed for the Oppressour that he might be merciful for the Dissembler that he might speak truth for the Deceitful person that he might be just in all his wayes and righteous in all his dealings for the Violent person that he might do no more wrong And if it have not this effect it is his blood still but not to save us but to be upon us to our condemnation For it is strange that Christs blood should produce nothing but a speculative and a phansied and an usurped faith a faith which should keep those evils in life which he dyed to take away a faith which should suffer those sins and irregularities to grow and grow bold and pass in triumph which he came to root out of the earth and to banish out of the world Hebr. 11.1 Faith is the substance and expectation of a future and better condition but we do not use to expect a thing and have no eye upon the means of attaining it Can we expect to fly without wings or go a journey without feet No more can we hope ever to enter those heavens wherein dwelleth Righteousness if we have no other conduct but Faith Faith so poorly and miserably attended with Fraud Deceit Injustice and Violence For who shall dwell in the holy hill Psal 15. He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart He that doth no evil to his neigbour that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not It is strange then that there should be so many Oppressours in the world and so many Saints that so many should forfeit their Honesty and yet count their Election sure that they who are like enough to do as the Jews did crucifie Christ if he were on the earth should yet hope to be saved by his blood For if you should ask me what the true property of a Christian were Faith alway supposed which is the ground and foundation of all I could not find any virtue which doth more fairly decipher or more fully express him then Sincerity and Uprightness of conversation Which saith Climachus Seal Paradisi grad 1. is virtus sine varietate a virtue which is ever like unto it self and maketh us so which doth not look divers waies at once both towards Samaria and Jerusalem doth not profess a benefit when it studieth ruine cloath hatred with a smile and a purpose to deceive with fair language and large promises make up words of butter which at last prove to be very swords but is like the Topaz Si polis obscuras if you polish it you obscure and darken it but if you leave it as Nature presenteth it it casteth the brighter lustre And if you ask me the embleme of a Christian Matth. 10.16 our Saviour hath already given one the Dove whose feathers are silver white not speckled as a bird of divers colours whose eyes are single and direct not leering as a Fox nor looking divers waies animal simplex non felle amaâ—um non morsil us saevum saith Cyprian an innocent and harmless bird no bird of prey without gall not cruel to fight having no talons to lay hold on the prey so far from doing wrong that he knoweth not how to do it Quintilian observeth Lib. 1. Insti c. 14. de Grammat off Inter virtutes Grammatici est nescire quaedam that it is to be summed up amongst the virtues of a Grammarian to be ignorant of some particular nice impertinences So is it a part of a Christians Integrity and Simplicity not to be acquainted with the wiles and devises and stratagemes of the world to be a non proficient in the Devils Politicks to hear the language of the children of this world as a strange tongue and understand it not not to know what cannot make him better and may make him worse not to know that which we may wish buried in oblivion and darkness never to be seen or known of any For what glory can it be to be well seen in the arts of Legerdemain What praise is it to be that which I cannot hear from others with patience an unjust and deceitful and dishonest man For to conclude this it is far worse to do unjustly then to be reproached for doing so far worse to be dishonest then to be called by that name far worse to be a thief or a traytour then to be hanged for it For between the evil of Action and the evil of Passion there is no comparison The evil of Passion may have a good end it may be medicinal cure the sinner if not set an end to his wickedness but the evil of Action hath no end but damnation no wages but death and that too hath no
end for it it will be eternal Thus have we seen Justice or Honesty in its full shape and beauty fastned upon its proper pillars the Law of Nature and the Law of the God of Nature Let us now see by way of application with what eye and favour the world of Men and the world of Christians have lookt upon it whether they have not relied more on those pillars of smoke and air their private Phansie and private Interest then upon these pillars of marble that God himself hath set up which are firm and strong and might bear them up to build upon them that Justice which would raise them up above the dying and killing glories of this world to that which is everlasting in the highest heavens First the complaint is old that Justice or honesty hath long since left the earth or rather is driven out of it To speak truth when her territories were largest when she stretcht the curtains of her habitation furthest she did but angustè habitare took up but little room and her retinue was but small She never yet could tithe the children of men and it had been well if she had taken in one of an hundred It were even a labour to shew the divers arts and inventions of men which they make use of to work out their way to honour and the riches of this world Ad haec simplicem hactenus vivendi rationem excogitatis mensuris ponderibus immutavit pristinámque sinceritatem generositatem ignaram talium artium in novam quandam versutiam depravavit Joseph Antiq. Judaic l. 1. c. 3. Sen de Benef. l. 7. c. 10. Cain is blamed by Josephus for first finding out Weights and Measures which was a tacite and silent accusation that that age was corrupt in which so much caution was necessary Quid foenus kalendarium faith Seneca What are Interest and the Kalendar and your Count-Books but names extra naturam posita found out quite besides and beyond the intention of Nature What are your Bills and Obligations and Indentures but as so many libels wherein you profess to the world that you dare not trust one another and that you believe men cannot be honest unless they be bound Plus annulis quà m animis creditis Your Seal-rings are a better assurance then your Faiths And how do too many sell themselves but not for bread How in all sorts and conditions of men have some used their Power others their Wit pro lege publica instead of a publick Law and have entitled themselves the just possessours of that estate into which they have wrought themselves with hands of Oppression Robbery and Deceit It hath been an old reproach laid upon Common-wealths That they did set common honesty to sale The Athenians had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tribute out of the stews and we are told that Christians have so if Rome may yet be thought to be in Christendome Look into the Civil Law Codice de Spect. Scen. Lenonibus of Theatrical Shews Stage-playes and Bawds and you shall find that even from hence from these loathsome and nasty dunghills of corruption Emperours and Common-wealths have sucked gain Mathematicians Juglers Fortune-tellers Thieves and which the Father could not tell whether he should grieve or blush at inter hos Christiani vectigales Tert. Apolog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prov. Arist 2. Rhet. Fest Verb. uxor Tacitus amongst this rabble Christians also were brought in as tributary This was exacted from Poor men from Statues from Dead-men from very Urine and this to the Emperour was a sweet-smelling savour In one age they did Vxorium pendere pay a sum of money for not being married in another etiam Matrimonia obnoxia they who were married were liable to this exaction Quocunque modo rem Gain was welcome at what gate or postern soever it came in So soon did they forget they were Men so little did they regard the Law of Nature And it were to be wished that this evil had stayed here that this art of unjust and unlawful acquisition had been onely known in the tents of Kedar But by degrees it stole in and found enterteinment in the Church of God and Christians forgetting their profession quae nil nisi justum suadet which should be known by Justice and Equity and Contempt of the world began to think stolen waters sweet and to feed greedily on the bread of Deceit and Violence For as the Pharisees did teach their children to say to their Father and Mother Mark 7.11 Corban which is not a curse as some have imagined for the Pharisees were too wise to be so openly wicked as to teach men to curse their parents to have done this had been to forfeit their phylacteries but it was their craft and policy an art to fill their Treasurie to teach children who were offended with their parents to consecrate their wealth to the Treasury that so they might defeat that other Law which bound them to supply their parents in want and distress So even within the pale of the Church there have been found men whose Phylacteries were as broad as theirs who by holy fraud did take into their hands the possessions of the earth and at last laid claim unto the whole world and that upon the score of Religion taught men to redeem their ill-spent time with a piece of silver What were else the Prayers for the dead as they were used in the Church of Rome but the price of mens souls For the very thought of the power and efficacy of them drove men to a more supine and negligent conversation to weary themselves in the wayes of wickedness having such a pillow to sleep on For what need they be diligent to make their election sure whilest they live who are fully perswaded that this may be done by proxy for them when they are dead This is truly the Pharisees Corban to teach men to rob their parents to endanger their souls by religion that so their treasuries may be full This is to make that monumentum sceleris a lasting monument of craft and policy which should have been specimen pietatis an example and expression of piety This is to cheat men into charity and liberality which should be free and voluntary with false hopes It was the saying of Martine Luther Papatus est robusta venatio Romani Episcopi that Popery was nothing else but a close senting and following of gain and hunting after the riches and pomp of the world For if men will not give or yield up their estates either Policy shall betray or Power like a whirlwind snatch them away When Peter's Keyes are too weak Julius the Second flingeth them into the River Tiber with this Christian resolution to try what Paul's Sword could do We may say with the Wise man that this is an evil disease under the Sun a disease which did not onely envenome that politick Estate which is nothing else but a Disease but did also
did such service for his friend then but a private man that he made him first a Conquerour then a King the Historian giveth this note That Kings love not to be too much beholding to their Subjects nor to have greater service done then they are able to reward and so how truly I know not maketh the setting on of the Crown on his friends head one cause of the losing of his own But it is not so with this our Lord who being now in his throne of Majesty cannot be outdared by any sin be it never so great never so common and can break the hairy scalp of the most giant-like offender and shiver in pieces the tallest cedar in Libanus Who shall be able to stand up in his sight In his presence the boldest sinner shall tremble and fall down and see the horrour of that profitable honourable sin in which he triumpht and called it Godliness The Hypocrite whose every word whose every motion whose every look was a lye shall be unmaskt And the man of Power who boasted in malice and made his Will a Law and hung his sword on his Will to make way to that at which it was levelled shall be beat down into the lowest pit to howl with those who measured out justice by their sword and thought every thing theirs which that could give them Before him every sin shall be a sin and the wages thereof shall be Death Again he hath rewards and his Treasury is full of them Not onely the powring forth my blood as water for the Truths sake Matth. 10.42 but a cup of cold water shall have its full and overflowing recompense nor shall there ever any be able to say What profit is it that we have kept his Laws No Mal 3.14 saith S. Paul Non sunt condignae Put our Passions to our Actions Rom. 8.18 our Sufferings to our Alms our Martyrdome to our Prayers they are not worthy the naming in comparison of that weight of glory which our Lord now sitting at the right hand of God 1 Cor. 2 9. hath prepared for them that fear him Nec quisquam à regno ejus subtrahitur Nor can any go out of his reach or stand before him when he is angry He that sitteth on the throne and he that grindeth at the mill to him are both alike Psal 76.7 And now in the third place that every knee may bow to him Rom. 14.11 and every tongue confess him to be the Lord let us a little take notice of the large compass and circuit of his Dominion The Psalmist will tell us that he shall have dominion from sea to sea Psal 72 8. and from the river unto the ends of the earth Adam the first man and he that shall stand last upon the earth every man is his subject For he hath set him Eph. 1.20 21. saith S. Paul at his right hand in heavenly places and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the Head over all things to his Church And what a thin shadow what a Nothing is all the overspreading power of this world to this All other Dominion hath its bounds and limits which it cannot pass but by violence and the sword Nor is it expedient for the world to have onely one King nor for the Church to have one universal Bishop or as they speak one visible Head For as a ship may be made up to that bulk that it cannot be managed so the number of men and distance of place may be so great that it cannot subsist under one Government Thus it falleth out in the world but it is not so in the Kingdom of this our Lord. No place so distant or remote to which this Power cannot reach Libyam remotis Gadibus jungit All places are to him alike and he sees them all at once It is called the Catholick Church and in our Creed we profess we believe SANCTAM CATHOLIC AM ECCLESIAM the holy Catholick CHVRCH that is That that Church which was shut up within the narrow confines of Judea now under the Gospel is as large as the world it self The invitation is to all and all may come They may come who are yet without and they might have come who are bound hand and foot and cannot come The gate was once open to them but now it is shut Persa Gothus Indus philosophantur saith S. Hierom The Persian and the Goth and the Indian and the Egyptian are subjects under this Lord. Barbarism it self boweth before him and hath changed her harsh notes into the sweet melodie of the Cross Judg. 6.37 â—0 There was dew onely upon the Fleece the people of the Jews but now that flâ—ece is dry Matth. 24.14 and there is dew upon all the earth The Gospel saith our Saviour must be Preached to all nations And when the holy Ghost descended to seal and confirm the Laws of this Lord there were present at this great sealing or confirmation some Acts 2.5 11. saith the Text of all nations under heaven that did hear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wonderful things of God every one in his own language so that the Gospel might seem to have been Preached throughout the world before the Apostles did stir a foot from Jerusalem But here we may observe that Christ who hath jus ad omnem terram hath not in strictness of speech jus in omni terrâ The right and propriety is his for ever but he doth not take possession of it all at once but successively and by parts It is as easie for him to illuminate all the world at once as the least nook and corner of it but this Sun of righteousness spreadeth his beams gloriously but is not seen of all because of the interposition of mens sins who exclude themselves from the beams thereof John 1. This true Light came into the world but the world received him not But yet what our sensuality will not suffer him to do at once he doth by degrees and passeth on and gaineth ground that so successively he may be seen and known of all the world But suppose men shook off their allegiance as too many the greatest part of the world the greatest part of Christendome do suppose there were none found that will bow before him which will never be suppose they crucifie him again yet is he still our King and our Lord the King and Lord of all the world Such an universal falling away and forsaking him would not take away from him his Dominion nor remove him from the right hand of God and strip him of his Power If all the world were Infidels yet he were a Lord still and his Power as large and irresistible as ever For his Royalty dependeth not on the duty and fidelity of his subjects If it did his Dominion would be indeed but of a very narrow compass the Sheep not so many as the Goats his flock but little Indeed he could have
this to perswade a polluted sinful soul that when he hath scornfully rejected the substance that piety which should make him strong in the Lord at the last in the time of danger and the furious approach of the enemy a shadow should stand forth and fight for him when he had broken the Law and the Testimony not regarded the Oracles forgot all the mercies of God and robbed him of his glory that then I say the shell the Ark the Shittim-wood should be as the great power of God to maintain his cause that he should anger God with his sin and appease him with his name forfeit his soul by deceit and cruelty by intemperance and lust and then save it by hearing a Sermon against it Certainly if this be not a wile of the Devil I know no snare he hath that can catch us if this be not to deceive our selves I shall think there is no such thing as Errour in the world But again in the second place and on the contrary as they did deificare Arcam as the Father speaketh even deifie the Ark attribute more unto it then God ever gave it or was willing it should have so they did also depretiare vilifie and set it at naught They called it their strength their glory their God but imployed it in baser offices then ever the Heathen did their Gods Pulcra Laverna Da mihi fallere c. Hor. l. 1. Epist 16. who called upon them to teach them to steal and deceive Not long since their Priests committed rapes at the very door of the Tabernacle and now they expect the Ark should help those profane miscreants who had so polluted it Oh the Ark the Ark the glory of God! that is able to becalm and slumber a tempest to binde the hands of the Almighty that he shall not strike to scatter an army to make Kings fly to crown a sinful nation with victory to bring back an adulterer laureate a ravisher with the spoils of a Philistine That shall be a buckler and a protection to defend them who but now defiled it that shall be their God which they made their abomination Bring forth the Ark and then what are these uncircumcised Philistines God heard this Psal 78.59 saith the Psalmist and was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel And seeing that all the cry was for the Ark no thought for the Statutes and Testimonies which lay shut up in the Ark and oblivion together seeing the Sign of his presence had quite shut him out of whose presence it was a sign seeing it so much honoured so much debased so sanctified and so polluted he delivereth up the people and the Ark together into the Philistines hands that they might learn more from the Ark in the temple of Dagon then they did when it stood in their own Tabernacle learn the right use of it now which they had so fouly abused when they enjoyed it In a word God striketh off their embroydery that they might learn to be more glorious within I remember there is a constitution in the Imperial Law Si feudatarius rem feudi c. If he that holdeth in fee-farm useth contrary to the will and intent of the Lord redit ad Dominum it presently returneth into the Lord's power And we may observe that the great Emperour of heaven and earth proceedeth after the same manner with his liege-men and homagers the Jews Hos 2.9 When they fell to idolatry and bestowed the corn and the wine which God gave them upon Baal then presently God taketh to himself away the corn in the time thereof and the wine in the season thereof and recovereth his flax and his wooll recovereth it as his own thus unjustly usurped and detained by idolaters V. 11. I will also cause all her mirth to cease her feast dayes her new-moons and her sabbaths as if he had said I will defeat my own purpose I will nullifie my own ordinance I will abolish my own law I will put out the light of Israel which to my peopl◠hath been but as a meteor to make them wander in the crooked wayes of their own imaginations Rom. 8.21 22. I will deliver the creature from the bondage of corruption which seemeth to groan and travel in pain under these abuses it being a kind of servitude and captivity to the creature to be dragged and haled by the lusts and phansies and disordinate affections of profane men to be put to the drudgery of the Gibeonite which I made to be as free as the Israelite himself to be kept in bondage and slavery under the pride and extravegant desires under the most empty and brutish phansies of corrupt men I will take them away from such unjust usurpers What should a prodigal do with wealth what should a robber do with strength what should a boundless oppressour do with power what should Hophni and Phinehas adulterers oppressours what should a sinful nation a people laden with iniquity do with the Ark of the covenant of the Lord I will begin and I will also make an end 1 Sam. 3.12 This glory shall depart from Israel and the Ark shall be taken And here when the Ark is taken and the glory departed from Israel the word and inscription is still the same DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. Now to apply this last particular shall I desire you to look up upon the Inscription It is the Lord Behold the Prophet hath done it to my hand Go to my place which was in Shiloh where I set my name at the first Jer. 7.12 and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Go unto Shiloh and there purge the corruption the plague of your hearts wash off the paint of your hypocrisie with the blood of those four and thirty thousand Israelites Look upon the Ark but not so as to be dazled therewith and to dote on the glory and beauty of it not so as to lose the sight of your selves and of those sins which pollute it Look upon the Word and Sacraments but not so as to make them the non ultrà of your worship and to rest in them as in the end to eat and wash and hear and no more to say The word of God is sweet yet not to taste and digest it to attribute virtue and efficacy to the Sacrament yet be fitter to receive the Devil then the sop at once to magnifie and profane it to call it the Bread of life and make it poyson This is to come neer the Ark and to handle these holy things without feeling in a word this is to make them first an idole and then nothing in this world My brethren it is a very dangerous thing thus to overvalue those things which in themselves are highly to be esteemed and are above comparison with any thing in the world For when we make them more then they are we in effect make them less then they are and at last nothing
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that they may be holy and without blemish To turn from one sin to another as from Prodigality to Sordedness and love of the world from extreme to extreme Amos 5.19 is to flee from a lion to meet a bear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Extremities are equalities Though they are extremes and distant yet in this they agree that they are extremes and though our evil wayes be never so far asunder yet in this they meet that they are evil Superstition doteth Profaneness is mad Covetousness gathereth all Prodigality scattereth all Rash Anger destroyeth the innocent foolish Compassion spareth the guilty We need not ask which is worst when both are evil for Sin and Destruction lie at the door of the one as well as of the other To despise prophesying 1 Thess 5.20 Ezek. 33.32 and To hear a Sermon as I would a song Not to hear and To do nothing else but hear To worship the walls and To beat down a Church To be superstitious and To be profane are extremes which we must equally turn from Down with Superstition on the one side and down with Profaneness on the other down with both even to the ground Because some are bad let not us be worse and make their sin a motive and inducement to run upon a greater Because some talk of Merits let not us be afraid of Good works because they vow Chastity let not us pollute our selves because they vow Poverty let not us make haste to be rich Prov. 28.22 2 Pet. 2.10 Jude 8. because they vow Obedience let not us speak evil of dignities It is good to shun one rock but there is as great danger if we dash upon another Superstition hath devoured many but Profaneness is a gulf which hath swallowed up more Phot cod 177. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Photius in his censure of Theodorus Antiochenus For that which is opposite to that which is worse is not good for one evil standeth in opposition to another and both at their several distance are contrary to that which is good Nor can I hope to expiate one sin with another to make amends for my oppression by my wastful expenses to satisfy for my bowing to an idole by robbing a Church for my contemning a Priest by my hearing a Sermon for my standing in the way of sinners by running into a conventicle Psal 1.1 for I am still in the seat of the scornful This were first to make our selves worthy of death and then to run to Rome or Geneva for sanctuary first to be villains and men of Belial and at last turn from Papists or Schismaticks In both we are what we should not be nor are our sins lost in a faction This were nothing else but to think to remove one disease with another and to cure the cramp with a Fever Turn ye turn ye Whither should we turn but to God Gerson In hoc motu convertit se anima ad unitatem identitatem in this motion of turning the soul striveth forward through the vanities of the world through all extremes through all that is evil though the branches of it look contrary wayes to Unity and Identity to that Good which is ever like it self the same in every part of it and never contrary to it self We must strive to be one with God as God is one with us As he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same in all his commands not forbidding one sin and permitting another but his wayes are equal so must our turn be equal Ezec. 28.25 not from the right hand to the left not from Superstition to Profaneness not from Despising of prophesie to Sermon-hypocrisie not from Uncleanness to Faction not from Riot to Rebellion but a Turn from all extremes from all evil a collection and levelling the soul which before looked divers wayes and turning her face upon the way of truth upon God alone If we turn as we should if we will answer this earnest and vehement call we must turn from all our evil wayes We use to say that there is as great a miracle wrought in our conversion as in the creation of the world but this is not true in every respect For Man though he be a sinner yet is something hath an understanding will affections to be wrought upon Yet as it is one condition required in a true miracle that it be perfect so that there be not onely a change but such a change as is absolute and exact that it may seem to be as it were a new creation that water which is changed into wine may be no more water but wine that the blind man may truly see the lame man truly walk and the dead man truly live So is it in our Turn and conversion there is a total and perfect change The Adulterer is made an Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven Matth. 19.12 Prov. 23.2 the Intemperate cometh forth with a knife at his throat the Revenger kisseth the hand that striketh him When we turn sin vanisheth the Old man is dead and in its place there standeth up a new creature Gal. 5.19 20 21. S. Paul speaking of the works of the flesh which are nothing but sins and having given us a catalogue and reckoned up many of them by which we might know the rest at last concludeth Of which I tell you before as I have also told you often that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God Where the Apostle's meaning is not that they who do all these or most of these or many of these or more then one of these but they who die possest of any one of these shall have no place in the kingdom of God and of Christ For what profit is there to turn from one sin and not all when one sin is enough to make us breakers of the whole Law and so liable to eternal death It is a conclusion in the Schools That whosoever is in the state of any one mortal sin and turneth not from it whatsoever he doth whether pray or give almes bow the knee before God or open his hand to his brother be it what it will be in it self never so fair and commendable it is forthwith blasted and defaced and it is so far from deserving commendations that it hath no other wages due to it but death I cannot say this is true for so far as any work is agreeable with Reason so far it must needs be pleasing to the God of Reason so far as it answereth the Rule so far is it accepted of him that made it Nor can I think that Regulus Fabricius Cato and the rest qui convitium faciunt Christianis who upbraid and shame many of us Christians were damned for their justice integrity honesty Hell is no receptacle for men so qualified were there nothing else to prepare and fit them for that place But yet
it so that it should become a sin in the last age which was thought a duty in the first since Devotion is like Christ himself yesterday and to day and the same for ever Hebr. 13.8 Devotion is still the same but we are not the same but have been bold with her name and in that name have conjured up those evil spirits which blast the world and breathe nothing but profaneness have started questions raised scruples made new cases of conscience which they walking in the simplicity and integrity of their hearts never heard nor thought of and so did do it and do it often with less art and noise but with more piety with a zeal of a purer flame and with a heat more innocent Their devotion was to do it often ours is to talk and magnifie it and to do it when we please The duty it self of celebration how oft hath it been neglected and set at derision in this latter age what tragedies raised about a name what comedies what scoffs and jests upon the holy action what gross and impious partiality in admitting men unto it How have we distinguisht and made a strange difference of one from another and counted none fit but of such a part or such a faction when were we not too far engaged in the world and did not the world too far engage and bind us to such a side or faction we could not but see that the very being of a side or faction the dividing our selves from our brethren for things no whit essential to Christianity hath force enough not onely to drive us from this Table but to shut us out of heaven For what should such uncharitable men do at a feast of Love What should such carnal men the Apostle calleth them so feed on this spiritual food I will not stand to confute these groundless and ridiculous but dangerous and destructive phansies for these men have more need of our tears and prayers then our confutation I had rather remove those hindrances and retardances those pretenses and excuses which men not well exercised in piety use to frame and lay in their own way and so fearing a fall and bruise at that which no hand could set up against them but their own make not their approches so oft as they should to this holy Table For when we are to do a thing one thing or other interveneth and startleth and troubleth us that we omit and do it not And the first and great pretense is our own Weakness and Unworthiness which is the issue of our own Will begot in us by the sense of some habit of sin which we have discovered reigning still in our mortal bodies at the sight of which we start back even from that which might help us and cannot compose and qualifie our selves for the celebration Before the action we are afraid even afraid of the feast afraid of life At the Table we have a sad and cast-down countenance drawn out more by a disquieted troubled mind then that reverential joy which it sheweth forth in the outward man when it is at rest And we go away from it with the same burden we brought to it which we would and would not lay down are weary but seek not ease but from those aversions which make the burden heavier then it was and then we feel it again and so are ever preparing and never prepared to come to this Feast For our preparation is our mortifying of our sinful lusts which is not done whilest any one sin hath this power and dominion in us For how can he come to this fountain of life who is unwilling to live how can he partake of Christs bloud who yet loves that sin for the washing away of which Christ shed it such a one sinneth if he come and he sinneth if he come not a miserable Dilemma that Sin driveth him upon that like the servant in the Comedy si faxit perit si non faxit vapulat if he do it he eateth his own damnation and shall nevertheless be punisht if he do it not For not onely acts but also omissions are evil It is a sin to kill my father and it is a sin not to help him It is a sin to oppress and it is a sin not to give an alms It is a sin to resist a superiour and it is a sin not to honour him It is a sin to contemn the Sacrament and it is a sin not to receive it And the one leadeth to the other Neglect or Indifferency to open Profaneness sins of Omission to sins of Commission He that doth not what he should hath made a bridge for his Lusts which will soon carry him over to do what he should not He that will not help his parents will be drawn on by the least temptation to dishonour them He that will not feed the poor will be soon induced to grind their face He that will not honour the King when opportunity favoureth him will pull him from his throne He that neglecteth the Sacrament or is indifferent within a while may be ready to take it away as a thing of no use at all Sin consisteth as well in the negation or non-performance of that we are bound to as in the doing of some act which is contrary to it in which commonly it endeth at last Nor is it then onely when the Will is directly carried to the omission it self when I will not do it because I will not do it which is high contempt but when the Will settleth and resteth upon that by which I am hindred from doing that which I am bound to do and which I would willingly and might easily do but for this obstacle which I my self set up against my self but for that sin which is the issue of my Lust and which I had rather cleave to then to the command of Christ So that now I do not abstain from the Lords Table upon necessity but voluntarily Nor can I say I would receive when I thus say within my self I will yet sin For he that will not prepare himself will not sit down at Christs Table But we may hear somtimes large expressions of sorrow from those who are so backward in this duty Troubled they are that they are sick but not fit for a Physician that they are hungry but have no stomach to that which should feed and nourish them that they love the feast but are not yet prepared to eat I am sorry is soon said even by them who yet take pleasure in and reap profit and advantage from that sin which they bewail who condemn it by these mournful and sad declarations of their mind and yet give it the highest place in their heart I am sorry is too often a lye But if it be not a lye it is and will be accepted as our preparation For godly sorrow bringeth forth repentance not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 and every Penitent is a fit Communicant He that hath
To whatsoever it turneth it self it turneth from that which it first lookt upon and loseth one engagement in another because it cannot fit and apply it self to both How then can one and the same man bestow himself upon Christ and upon the World It is not with the Will and Affections as it is with the Intellectual faculty The Understanding may easily sever one thing from another and understand them both nay it hath power to abstract and separate things really the same and consider them in this difference but it is the property of the Will and Affections in unum ferri se in unitatem colligere to collect and unite and become one with the Object Nor can our Desires be carried to two contrary objects at one and the same time We may apprehend Christ as righteous and holy and the World and the Riches of it as Vanity it self but we cannot at once serve Christ as just and holy and love the World and the vanities thereof Our Saviour telleth us we shall love the one and hate the other lean to the one and despise the other If it be a love to the one it will be at best but a liking of the other if it be a will to the one it will be but a velleity to the other if it be a look on the one it will be but a glance on the other And this Liking this Velleity this glance are no better then Disservice then Hatred and Contempt For these proceed from my Understanding but my Love from my Will which is fixed not where I approve but where I choose It is easie to say and we say it too often for the Divil is ready to suggest it It is true we set our affections upon things below but yet so that we do not omit the duties of Divine worship We are willing to please men but we doubt not but we may please Christ also We are indeed time servers but we are frequent hearers of the Word We pour oyl into our brothers ears but we drop sometimes a peny into the Treasury Thus we please others and we please our selves we betray others and are our own parasites But Christ is ready to seal our lips with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No man can serve two Masters So that you see what a weak foundation that Hope hath which is thus built up upon a divided Love and Service It is built in the air nay it hath not so sure a basis it is built upon nothing it is raised upon Impossibility Secondly the Servant must have his eye upon his Master and as he seeth him do must do likewise Isai 62.10 Now Christ is called Gods Servant and he broke through Poverty Disgrace and the terrours of Death it self that he might do his Fathers will omitted no tittle or Iota of it But he that would not break a bruised reed shook the cedars of Libanus pronounced as many woes to the Pharisees as they had sins called Herod Fox pluckt off every visour plowed up every conscience and thus shook the powers of Hell Joh. 6.38 and destroyed the Kingdome of Satan for he came not to do his own but his Fathers will Look upon his acts of Mercy even them he did not to please men De Trin. l. 2. Non habent Divina adulationem saith Hilary His Divine works his works of Love and Compassion had nothing of Flattery in them Joh 8 50. He did them not as seeking his own glory For he had a quire of Angels to chant his praise He did them not to flatter men For he needed not that which is ours Psal 24.1 50.12 for the world was his and all that therein is Power cannot flatter and Mercy is so intent on its work that it thinketh of nothing else To work wonders to please men were the greatest wonder of all And thus should we look upon him and teach our brethren as he wrought miracles not for praise which may make us worse not for riches which may make us poorer then we were 2 Cor. 2.10 5.20 but beseech them in Christs stead and in the person of Christ and speak like him in whose mouth there was neither flattery nor gâ—ile speak the truth though it dispease speak the truth though the Heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing speak the truth though for ought we know it may be the last word we speak speak the truth though it nayl us to the cross where we shall most resemble him with this title THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST as his was THE KING OF THE JEWS He that taketh nothing but his name that serveth the world that flattereth when he biddeth him rebuke and pleaseth others when they displease Christ is not his servant but his enemy one of those many Antichrists or if his servant such a servant as Peter was when he denied him as Judas when he betrayed him And he will take it for more disservice to betray him in his members then in his person and is troubled more at the sight of those wounds which were made in his mystical body then he was at those which were made in his flesh He willingly suffered the pains of death that they might not die Isa 53.7 Himself was lead to death as a sheep to the slaughter and opened not his mouth Acts 8.32 Acts 8.3 9.4 but when he saw havock made of his Church he cryed out Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And in this every false Teacher is worse then Peter when he was at the worst every flatterer is worse then Judas every seducer is worse then the Jews when they nayled Christ to the cross For lastly Servus pro nullo est A Servant is nothing is no person in law hath no power of his own Servitus morti aequiparatur say the Civilians A Servant is as a dead man and cannot act nor move of himself but is actuated as it were by the power and command of his Lord and Master and never goeth but when he saith Go never doth but what he biddeth him do and doth not interpret but execute his will Non oportet villicum plus sapere quà m dominum saith Columella It is a most unfit and disadvantageous thing for the Farmer or Husbandman to be wiser then his Lord. For when the Lord commandeth one thing and the Servant thinketh it fitter to do another the crop and harvest will be but thin And it is so in our spiritual Husbandry It savoureth of too much boldness and presumption for the Servant to be wiser then his Master and there will be but small increase when the Master calleth for the whip and the Servant bringeth the merry harp and the lute when he calleth for a talent to reckon but a mite and when he writeth an hundred to take the bill and set down fifty It is the greatest folly in the world to be thus wise when wisdome it self prescribeth when he condemneth the Love of
in his own shape in the full beauty and perfection in which he hath been pleased to present himself unto us in his Gospel The grand errour mistake of the world is in the manner of receiving him For as in respect of his Person we find that the Christians in former ages could not agree in the manner of receiving Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 26. but some would receive him after this manner some after another some a created Christ others an half-Christ some through a conduit pipe others less visible then a Type in an aerial phantastical body a Christ not a Christ a Christ divided a Christ contracted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene and many Christs indeed as good none at all So in the practical part in respect of his Doctrine we often erre and dangerously in the receiving him We say Anathema to the Arrians Manichees and Anabaptists and let them pass with the censure of the Church upon them but how do we receive him If we will hearken to our selves Cant 5.11 13. Cant. 2.5 our consciences will tell us With his curly locks and spicy cheeks with his flaggons and his apples as he is said to be described in the Canticles to save sinners but not to command them with Gospel and Mercy as much as he will but not with any Law a Physician that should heal us without a prescript Psal 2.12 a King without a scepter a Son that will be kist we like that well but not be angry Some receive him without the Law not onely taking away the rigour of it but abolishing it quite removing it out of our sight not onely as a Covenant but as a Rule of life to guide and govern us And then the Christian is a Libertine Some receive him with the Law of Works and make them not onely a condition required of a justified person but a part and helping cause of justifying a sinner and taking off the guilt which is the work of Mercy alone And then the Christian is in part a Jew Some receive him in the very shape the Jews exspected him with drum and colours And then the Christian is a man of blood Some receive him in the shape of Elias driving out all that oppose him from the land of the living And then the Christian is a consuming fire Some receive him not as a sacrifice for sin but as an abettour and countenancer of those foul enormities which nayled him to his cross And then the Christian is a man of Belial The Ambitious receiveth him and with him Honour and the highest place The wanton Gallant receiveth him and with him all the vanities of the world a poor naked Christ with silk and purple and delicious fare The Covetous receiveth him and with him Mammon and so walketh in a shadow till he falleth into the grave which in this is like him that it will not be satisfied or say It is enough In a word the Papist impropriateth him the Schismatick divideth him the Heretick tradeth with him The Ambitious scorneth him the Covetous selleth him the Oppressour whippeth him the Mocker spitteth in his face the Libertine crucifieth him again Most receive him but most of all that most are enemies to the cross of Christ And therefore in these latitudes and deviations inter tot humanos errores when there are so many errours and mistakes it will be necessary to have an eye to the Sicut to the Rule that we neither exceed nor come short Aug. de urbis excidio Scriptura non fallit si se homo non fallat saith Augustine The Word received the Rule cannot deceive a man if a man deceive not himself first and then suborn and force in the Rule to make good the cheat It is a Well of living water if we do not stop it as the Philistines did Isaac's wells Gen. 26.15 and then fill it with dust with earthy glosses consult with flesh and blood Job 33.23 and make that an interpreter one of a thousand It is a Glass Jam. 1.23 24. and will shew thee the colour the full proportion of every step and motion if thou look stedfastly upon it and not go away and forget and then look upon others in their walk or make thy own phansie a glass like that which Pliny said did hang in the temple of Smyrna in which thou mayst see every thing but thy self It is the Word of God who cannot lie his oracle his voice from heaven to thee walking here on the earth and it will direct thy steps Psal 60.56 Figurant verba mea ut qui ceram premendo â—â—gurat digitâ—s Is illam p emendo quasi dolore afficit and make thy paths streight if thou do not dolorem verbo afferte as David complaineth of his enemies bring grief unto it wrest and wreath and shape and figure it by violence fit it to thy action and make Light it self bear witness to a work of darkness make that place of Scripture plead for thee which in plain terms hath given sentence against thee and condemned thee as a malefactour Ad omnia occurrit veritas The Rule will help us at all losses in our way if we do not chuse and delight to wander and call Errour it self Truth because it giveth us of that forbidden fruit which is pleasant to our eye and tast or which our Humour or Phansie or Lust have marked out as our chiefest happiness For these are the best and most authentick Interpreters of this world these are the Doctours in our Israel How readest thou that is the Rule not How thinkest thou How wishest thou How wouldest thou have it And we must walk SICVT ACCEPIMVS as we have received This is set up against all other Sicuts all other Rules whatsoever and biddeth us beware of men beware of our selves Matth 10.17 and try every spirit For it is not SICVT VIDIMVS as we see others walk 1 Joh. 4.1 nor SICVT VISVM EST as it may seem good in our own eyes for no man more ready to put a cheat upon us then our selves nor SICVT VISVM EST SPIRITVI as it may seem good to every spirit for we are too prone to take every lying spirit even our own which is but our Humour or Lust for our holy Ghost What S. John said of Antichrist may also be said of the Spirit We have heard that the Spirit shall come 1 Joh. 2.18 and behold now there are many Spirits The world is full of them so that there are as many Rules almost as men by which they walk several wayes but to the same end pressing forward to the delights and glory of this world nothing doubting of their right and title to the next thus joyning together God and the World as Julian the Apostate did his own statues and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz Orat. 3. Invect prior that they may be worshipped both together
hopes or satisfie his lusts or justifie his anger or answer his love or look friendly on that which his wild passions drive him to Opinion is as a wheel on which the greatest part of the world are turned and wheeled about till they fall of several waies into several evils and do scarce touch at Truth in the way Opinion buildeth our Church chuseth our Preacher formeth our Discipline frameth our Gesture measureth our Prayers methodizeth our Sermons Opinion doth exhort instruct correct teach and command If it say Go we go and if it say Do this we do it We call it our Conscience and it is our God and hath more worshippers then Truth For though Opinion have a weaker ground-work then Truth yet she buildeth higher but it is but hay and stubble fit for the fire Good God! what a Babel may be erected upon a thought I verily thought Acts 26.9 12 14. saith S. Paul and what a whirlwind was that thought It drove him to Damascus with letters and made him kick against the pricks Psal 74.6 Shall I tell you that it was but Phansie that in Davids time beat down the carved works with axes and hammers that it was but a thought that destroyed the Temple it self that killed the Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and crucified the Lord of life himself And therefore it will concern us to watch our Phansie and to deal with it as mothers do with their children who when they desire that which may hurt them deny them that but to still and quiet them give them some other thing they may delight in take away a knife and give them an apple So when our Phansie sporteth and pleaseth it self with vain and aery speculations let us suspect and quarrel them and by degrees present unto it the very face of Truth as the Stoick speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epictet sift and winnow our imaginations bring them to the light and as the devout Schoolman speaketh Gerson resolve all our affectual notions by the Accepistis by the Rule and so demolish all those idoles which our Passions by the help of Phansie have set up For why should such a deceit pass unquestioned why should such an imposture scape without a mark 3. But now if we may not walk SICVT VISVM EST as it seemeth good unto us yet we may SICVT VISVM EST SPIRITVI SANCTO as it seemeth good to the holy Ghost Yes for that is to walk according to the Rule for he speaketh in the Word And to walk after the Spirit and to walk by this Rule are one and the same thing But yet the World hath learned a cursed art to set them at distance and when the Word turneth from us and will not be drawn up to our Phansie to carry on our pleasing but vain imaginations we then appeal to the Spirit we bring him in either to deny his own word or which in effect is the same to interpret it against his own meaning and so with reverence be it spoken make him no better then a Knight of the post to witness a lie This we would do but cannot For make what noise we will and boast of his name we are still at Visum est nobis it is but Phansie still it is our own Spirit not the holy Ghost Matth. 24.24 1 John 4.1 For as there be many false Christs so there are many false spirits and we are commanded not to believe but to try them and what can we try them by but by the Rule And as they will say Lo here is Christ or there is Christ so they will say Lo here is the Spirit and there is the Spirit The Pope layeth claim to it and the Enthusiast layeth claim to it and whoso will may lay claim to it on the same grounds when neither hath any better argument to prove it by then their bare words no evidence but what is forged in that shop of vanities their Phansie Idem Accio Titióque Both are alike in this And if the Pope could perswade me that he never opened his mouth but the Spirit spake by him I would then pronounce him Infallible and place him in the Chair and if the Enthusiast could build me up in the same faith and belief of him I would be bold to proclaim the same of him and set him by his side and seek the Law at his mouth Would you know the two grand Impostours of the world which have been in every age and made that desolation which we see on the earth They are these two a pretended Zeal and a pretense of the Spirit If I be a Zelote what dare I not do And when I presume I have the Spirit what dare I not say What action so foul which these may not authorize what wickedness imaginable which these may not countenance What evil may not these seal for good and what good may they not call evil Oh take heed of a false light and too much fire These two have walkt these many ages about the earth not with the blessed Spirit which is a light to illuminate and as fire to purge us but with their Father the Devil transformed into Angels of light and burning Seraphim and have led men upon those Precipies into those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover I might here much enlarge my self for it is a subject fitter for a whole Sermon then a part of one and for a Volume then a Sermon but I must conclude And for conclusion let us whilst the light shineth in the world walk on guided by the Rule which will bring us at last to the holy mount For objects will not come to us but have onely force to move us to come to them Eternal happiness is a fair sight and spreadeth its beams and unvaileth its beauty to win our love to allure and draw us And if it draw us we must up and be stirring and walk on to meet it What that devout writer saith of his Monk Climacus is true of the Christian He is assidua naturae violentia His whole life is a constant continued violence against himself against his corrupt nature which as a weight hangeth upon him and cloggeth and fettereth him which having once shaken off he not onely walketh but runneth the wayes of Gods commandments Psal 119.32 Rom. 13.13 Again let us walk honestly as in the day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becometh Christians in our several stations and conditions of life and not think Christ dishonoured if we mingle him with the common actions of our life We never dishonour him more then when we take him not in and use him not as our guide and rule even in those actions which for the grossness of the subject and matter they work on may seem to have no savour or relish of that which we call Religion Be not deceived He that thus taketh him in is a Priest and a King the most honourable person
yet be dead to the world and so make his way through the valley and shadow of death to his journeyes end Psal 23.4 to that rest which remaineth for the people of God who are but strangers Hebr. 4.9 and pilgrimes upon earth This is the best supply Hebr. 11.13 And for this the Psalmist putteth up his petition in the words of my Text I am a stranger upon earth hide not thy commandments from me They are the words of the Kingly Prophet And in the thirty ninth Psalm he hath the very same Hold not thy peace at my tears Psal 39.12 for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were In them he presenteth unto us his state and condition and in his own the condition of all mankind Menander fecit Andriam Perinthiam One man is the map of all Mankind and he that knoweth one knoweth them all David was and then all men are but accolae inquilini Howsoever their pomp and glory may dazle the eyes of men yet if we will define them aright and set them out as they are they are but strangers and pilgrimes upon earth We have here first a Doctrine declaring what we are We are but strangers upon earth That is our condition He that is least in it is so and he that hath most and is Lord of it is no more Secondly the Use or Inference Hide not thy commandments from me He that hath one eye upon his Frailty and Defects will have another upon a Supply He that knoweth himself a stranger will desire a guide Or you have 1. our Character We are strangers and 2. our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Viaticum our Provision in our way the commandments of God Or if you please you may consider I. the Person I David II. his Quality and Condition a King and yet a stranger on the earth And these two draw together into one the two most different states of the world a powerful Prince and a poor Pilgrime him that sitteth on the Throne and him that grindeth at the mill the crowned Head and that Head which hath not a hole to hide it seif in And III. the Reason why the holy Ghost to teach us our condition doth make choice of a King Out of which we shall raise this Doctrine which is but a Paraphrase of the Text first That Man by nature is but a stranger to the world secondly That he is to make himself so And that you may I must hold out to you IV. your Provision the commandments of God and shew you of what use they be to you in this your peregrination and pilgrimage First we must look on the Person that speaketh And we may peradventure wonder that he speaketh it that he who was as a God upon earth one of those whom God himself calleth so should yet speak in the low and humble language of a Lazar and count himself a stranger We may well think the character doth but ill befit him It may seem rather to be the speach of some one of the Rechabites who by their father Jonadab were forbidden to build houses Jer. 35 7. to sow seed to plant vineyards or to have any but all their lives to dwell in tents or of some one of the Essenes a Sect amongst the Jews who left the City and betook themselves to fields and mountains Nat. Hist l. 6. 1◠Gens aeterna in qua tamen nemo nascitur said Pliny of them a lasting nation in which notwithstanding none were born for they begat Sectaries and not Children or of some one of them of whom the Apostle speaketh Hebr. 11.38 that wandred in desarts and mountains in dens and caves of the earth or of some Ascetical Monk devoted and shut up in some cloyster or of some Anchorete shut up between two walls This speach had well befitted one of these And had Demosthenes or Tully been to draw the character of a Stranger upon earth they would have brought him out of the streets or high-wayes out of some cell or prison with all the marks about him but their imagination would have passed by the Palaces of Princes as yielding nothing of him For a KING is but a nick-name but a soloecisme if he be not at home in every place But the holy Ghost regardeth not this Rhetorick observeth not this art which indeed is made up but by the eye His method is è schola Coeli drawn out by that Wisedome which formed and fashioned us and knoweth whereof and what we are made And that which flesh and bloud counteth a soloecisme with him is the most exact propriety of language What with us is lookt upon as against the rules of art with him is most regular I may say Truth is the Spirits art and those words which convey it are the best elegancies And thus to commend this lesson to us he maketh choice of a person to an eye of flesh most unlikely 1 Kings 18.33 as Elijah took water to kindle the fire upon the Lords Altar A King on the earth and a stranger on the earth will hardly be coupled together in the same proposition For how can they be strangers on earth who are the onely Lords and proprietaries of it Kings are Domini rerum temporúmque Lords of the times and of all affairs and carry all before them 1 Sam. 8.11 c. This shall be the manner of the King saith Samuel He shall take your sons and your daughters and make them his servants He shall take your fields and your vineyards and turn them to his own use A KING The very name striketh a terrour into us and putteth out the best eye we have our Reason that we cannot discern between the King and the Man nor the Man and the Stranger that we judge of him by what he is Si libet licet His will is his Law and what he doth is just or he will make it so for who dares say Eccl. 8.4 What dost thou And yet this King this God is but a stranger Take him in his Zenith take all his broad-blown glories his swelling titles his over spreading power and all are drawn together and shrunk up in this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accola Whatsoever he is whatsoever he appeareth he is but a stranger Behold here the Kingly Prophet maketh it his profession layeth by the title of a King as guilty of a Misnomer and calls himself a Pilgrime And as in the darkness of Popery he that vowed a Pilgrimage either to our Lady or some other Saint to Rome or to Jerusalem did present himself before the Altar and then receive his Scrip and Staff so am I here this day occasioned by this Pilgrime this honoured Knight to exhort you to vow a Pilgrimage not to this or that Saint but to the King of Saints and this you may do and stay at home In your house and peivate closets this Pilgrimage is best vowed
sojourners and strangers in the earth It is true strangers we are for all are so and passing forward apace to our journeys end but not to that end for which we were made Therefore that we may reach and attain to it we must make our selves so Eph. 4.22 put off the old man which loveth to dwell here take off our hopes and desires from the world look upon all its glories as dung look upon it as a strange place Phil. 3.8 upon our selves as strangers in it and look upon the place to which we are going fling off every weight shake off every vanity Hebr. 12.1 every thing that is of the earth earthy make haste delay not but leave it behind us even while we are in it for a Christian mans life is nothing else but a going out of it And to this end in the last place you must take along with you your viaticum your Provision the Commandments of Gods Hide not thy commandments from me saith David And he spake as a stranger and as in a strange place as in a place of danger as in a dark place where he could not walk with safety if this light did not shine upon him Here we meet with variety of objects Here are Serpents to flatter us and Serpents to bite us here are Pleasures and Terrours all to deceive and detein us Here we meet with that Archenemy to all strangers and pilgrimes in several shapes now as a roaring Lion 1 Pet. 5.8 and sometimes as an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11.14 And though we try it not out at fists with him as those foolish Monks boasted they had often tried this kind of hardiment though we meet him not as a Hippocentaur Hic on de vita Pauli Eremitae Malchi Hilarionis as the story telleth us Paul the Hermite did or as a Satyre or she-Wolf as Hilarion did to whom were presented many fearful things the roaring of Lions the noise of an Army Chariots of fire coming upon him Wolves Foxes Sword-plaiers and I cannot tell what though we do not feel him as a Satyre yet we feel him as voluptuous though we do not see him as a Wolf yet we apprehend him thirsting after bloud though we meet him not in the shape of a Fox yet non ignoramus versutias 2 Cor. 2.11 we are not ignorant of his wiles and enterprises though we do not see him in the Tempest we may in our fear and though his hand be invisible yet we may feel him in our impatience and falling from the truth We cannot say in our affliction This is his blow but we may hear him roar in our murmuring Or we may see him in that mongrel Christian made up of Ignorance and Fury of a Man and a Beast which is more monstrous then any Centaure We may see him in that Hypocrite that deceitful man who is a Fox and the worst of the cub We may meet him in that Oppressour who is a Wolf in that Tyrant and Persecutour who is a roaring Lion In some of these shapes we meet him every day in this our Pilgrimage And here in the world we can find nothing to secure us against the World Adversity may swallow up Pleasure in victory but not the Love of it Impotency and Inability may bridle and stay my Anger but not quench it Providence may defend me from evil but not from Fear of it Nor can the World yield us any weapon against it self Therefore God hath opened his Armoury of heaven and given us his Commandments to be our light our provision our defense in our way to be as our Pilgrimes staff our Scrip our Letters commendatory Ps 91.11 to be our Angels to keep us in all our waies And there is no safe walking for a stranger without them And as when the children of Israel were in the wilderness God rained down Manna upon them and led them as it were by the hand till he brought them to the land of promise so he dealeth still with all that call upon his name whilest they are in via in this their peregrination ever and anon beset with temptations which may detein and hinder them He raineth down abundance of his grace Wisd 16.20 which like that Manna will serve the appetite of him that taketh it is like to that which every man wanteth and applieth it self to every tast to all callings and conditions to all the necessities of a stranger Thus we walk by faith 2 Cor. 5.7 Festina fides Faith is on the wing and leaveth the world behind us Heb. 11.1 is the substance and evidence of things not seen It looketh not on those things which are seen 2 Cor. 4.18 and please a carnal eye or if it do it looketh upon them as Joshua did upon Ai Josh 8.5 c. first turneth the back and then all its strength against them maketh us fly from them that we may overcome them 1 Joh. 5.4 For this is the victory which overcometh the world even our faith Hebr. 6.19 20 And Festina spes Hope too is in her flight and followeth our Forerunner Jesus to enter with him that which is within the veil even the Holy of holies Heaven it self Spe jam sumus in coelo We are already there by hope And to him that hath seen the beauty of Holiness the World is but a loathsome spectacle to him that truly trusteth in God it is lighter then Vanity and he passeth from it And then our Love of God is our going forth our peregrination It is a perishing a death of the soul to the world If it be truly fixt no pleasure no terrour nothing in the world can concern us but they are to us as those things which the traveller in his way seeth and leaveth every day and we think no more of the glory of them then they who have been dead long ago Col. 3.3 For we are dead saith the Apostle and our life is hid hid from the world with Christ in God Our Temperance tasteth not our Chastity toucheth not our Poverty in spirit handleth not those things which lye in our way but we pass by them as impertinencies as dangers as things which may pollute a soul more then a dead body could under the Law The stranger the pilgrime passeth by all His Meekness maketh injuries and his Patience afflictions light and his Christian Fortitude casteth down every strong hold every imagination which may hinder him in his course Every act of Piety is a kind of sequestration and driveth us if not from the right yet from the use of the world Every Virtue is to us as the Angel was to Lot Gâ—n 19.14 17. and biddeth Arise and go out of it taketh us by the hands and biddeth us haste and escape for our life and not look behind us And with this Provision as it were with the two Tables in our hands we
looketh c. Serm. XLV James 1.25 But whoso looketh c. Serm. XLVI James 1.25 But whoso looketh c. Serm. XLVII James 1.25 But whoso looketh c. The First SERMON JOHN V. 35. He was a burning and a shining light and ye were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light IT is the high prerogative of Truth that it needeth no advocate or witness to set it off or commend it Suis illa contenta est viribus nec spoliatur vi suâ etiamsi nullum haheat vindicem She resteth upon her own basis and is content with her own strength and will at last prevail though she find no champion and undertaker She is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Basil of the same hue and complexion of the same beauty and glory the same when she is opposed and the same when she is embraced the same when she hath no witness and the same when she hath a thousand the same in the last age which she was in the first not lost in the broken and imperfect language of a babe or suckling nor yet improved by the mouth of a Prophet or by the tongue of men and of angels Our Saviour telleth us in the verse before my Text that he received no testimony from man that is that he needed it not The Truth had been the Truth though there had been no light to set up to shew it and Christ had been the Lamb of God and the Saviour of the world though John Baptist's voice had not been heard in the wilderness Thus it is with Truth in it self But in respect of men whose understandings are passive and receive nothing but by illumination nor can apprehend intellectual objects without light no more then the clearest eye of flesh can perceive sensible objects in the midst of darkness there is need of a Light to discover Truth in the midst of so many errours and mistakes and there is need of a Prophet and more then a Prophet of a John Baptist to point out as it were with the finger Behold the Lamb of God and plainly to shew and tell us This is Christ For though the Truth be proportioned to our Reason and beareth that sympathy with it that she is no sooner seen but it embraceth her and upon a full manifestation is taken as the Bridegroom in the Canticles with her eye and beauty yet because many times she standeth as it were at a distance and is discoloured and darkned by Passion and Prejudice because as there is but one true Christ so there may be many false ones as there is but one Truth so there are many errours and falshoods which go under that name and we are ready to say Lo here is Christ or There is Christ Lo this is the Truth or That is the Truth when we are not to be believed therefore it hath pleased the wisdom of God not onely to give us Understandings and proportion objects unto them but to afford us light to help and sustain our weakness in this possibility and probability of erring to clear our Reason which is but mentis aspectus as Augustine speaketh a look of the Mind or cast of her eye and to promote our reasoning and our judgment which is the force and vigour of Reason not onely to intreat but besiege it to speak to us by the tongue of men like unto our selves to speak to us by the power of their doctrine and command of their examples by their heat and by their light and that when he cometh unto his own he may be received to send a messenger before him to prepare his wayes To this end as in the former verse Christ seemeth to reject the testimony of John because he needed it not so here for the Jews sake he magnifieth it and as John bare witness unto him so doth he give his royal testimony of John as John bare witness of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is he so doth Christ of John in the words of my Text He was a burning and a shining light and ye were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light Which words contain 1. an Elogy or Commendation of John Baptist 2. a Censure of the Jews levity and inconstancy In the former we have John characterized and drawn out in his true colours 1. as a light 2. as a burning 3. as a shining light In the later we have the lively image and picture of a wavering and inconstant mind which looketh and liketh and presently distasteth delighteth in the light that shineth but delighteth but for a season The former draweth on and occasioneth the later For every John Baptist if he do not teach us doth upbraid us and Light doth not onely serve to direct us in our way but to discover our folly if we turn back and look from it when it shineth Christ's magnifying John's office is an accusation of the Jews inconstancy He was a burning and a shining light this expresseth his heat and lustre And ye were willing to rejoyce in his light that setteth forth and declareth the virtue and power of it But ad horam your delight was but for an hour but momentanie but a flash no sooner kindled but out this proclaimeth the Jews levity and inconstancy We might raise here divers useful observations but will confine our meditations and contain our selves within some few and shew you 1. What this Heat was with which the Baptist burned 2. What the Light was with which he shined that we may warm our selves by this holy fire and walk by this celestial light and that as S. Paul exhorteth we may shine as lights in the world And this we find in our first part in the Character of John The second which is a Censure past upon the Jews discovereth unto us 1. the Activity of this light the power and virtue of Truth and Holiness which work a complacency a joy a delight even in those who oppose them for they were willing to rejoyce in it 2. the flitting humour and inconstancy of the Jews they rejoyced in this light but for a season And here is a minus dicitur Less is said but more understood For that they delighted but for a season implieth thus much that their errour was wilful because they indeed delighted but would make no use of that light which might have led them to the knowledge of their Messias And with these we shall exercise your Christian devotion at this time and of these in their order He was a burning and a shining light We will not sport with this fire nor play with this Light as some have done till they have put it out or left but a snuff The word of God is eternal life is of power to beget it and this cannot but challenge our most serious consideration Therefore Metaphors in Scripture must be handled sanctè magìs quà m scitè drawn out and unfolded rather by our Devotion then our Wit We shall have absolved all if we shew
you what it was that made John a burning and what a shining light And here I need not tell you that he was a Prophet and more then a Prophet He was fibula Legis Evangelii as Tertullian calleth him the hasp which tied together the Law and the Gospel the middle Prophet which looked back upon the Truth obscurely shadowed in figures and types and looked forward on Christ that at the very voice of Christ's mother he sprang in his mother's womb prophetavit antequam natus erat and was a Prophet before he was a man Our Saviour here calleth him a burning light Supernatural illumination might have been enough to have made him a light to others but not to burn in himself Even Saul was amongst the Prophets and Caiaphas did prophesie and Baalam fell into a trance saw the vision of the Almighty took up his parable and breathed forth a prophesie a prophesie of as large a compass and extent as any we find in Scripture and yet he loved the wages of unrighteousness Even these were moved by the holy Ghost and spake as they were moved but were not holy men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil but the word of Prophesie came unto them by way of dispensation not for any purity or worth of theirs but for the present exigence and occasion and the instruction of others He that opened Balaams eyes opened also the Asses mouth to rebuke him All these may be called lights but we cannot say they burned or if they did not with any fire from heaven For Knowledge whether natural or supernatural whether gained by way of conclusion out of premisses or by the evidence of the things themselves or by Divine inspiration and extraordinary radiation is not alwaies accompanied with this heat and fire because the acts or reception of the Understanding are rather natural and necessary then arbitrary and the mind of man cannot but receive the species and forms of things as they are presented and imprinted either by the object it self or by a Divine supernatural hand In a word if the Truth open and display it self the Understanding cannot but receive it If the Spirit come upon Saul he must prophesie These radiations and flashes of light upon the Understanding do not alwayes make us burn within our selves but many times are darted on us when there is a frost at the heart when we are bound up and sealed as it were in our graves in a kind of Lethargy without heat or activity Every knowing man doth not love the truth which he knoweth nor is every Prophet a Saint Scire nihil aut parùm operatur ad virtutem saith the Philisopher Knowledge of it self bringeth no great store of fuel to this fire nor doth it conduce to the essence of Virtue For we do not define Virtue by Knowledge It may direct and illuminate but it doth not alwaies warm us it may help to fan this fire but it is not that heat with which we burn What is it then that made John Baptist and maketh every righteous man a burning light Not the Knowledge alone though it were supereminent but the Love of Truth For the Understanding is at best but a Counsellor to the Will It may call upon me to awake and I fold my arms to sleep It may speak as an oracle of God and I reject its counsel It may say This is the way when I run counter It may breathe upon my heart and no fire burn But when the Will is so truly affected with the Truth as to woo and imbrace it when I am willing to lay down my life for it then there is a fire in my bones and this fire doth melt me and this liquefaction transform me and this transformation unite and marry me to the Truth And this is that fire with which we burn which maketh this holy conflagration in us And indeed it hath the operation of Fire For first as Fire it is full of activity nor can any thing withstand its force It hath voracitatem toto mundo avidissimam as Pliny speaketh It is the most devouring thing in the world Nihil tam ferreum quod non amoris igne vincitur saith Augustine There is nothing so hard or difficult which it doth not overcome It esteemeth iron as straw and brass as rotten wood Be it Service it is a glorious liberty Be it seven years it is but a few dayes to Love Be it Disgrace it enobleth it Be it Poverty it enricheth it Be it Torment it sweetneth it Be it Death for the Truth 's sake it is made advantage and gain O beloved that the voice of power so soon shaketh us that the glittering of a sword the horrour of a prison a frown so soon loosneth our joynts abateth our courage that we either halt between God and Baal or plainly fall from the Truth is because we are but coldly affected to it If this fire were kindled in us it would make Persecution peace enlighten a prison and make Horrour it self an object of glory and joy That which is a tempest to others to them that love is a pleasant and prosperous gale Secondly as Fire it is very sensible and maketh us even to burn within us and to be restless and unquiet for the Truth 's sake Inquies animus ipso opere pascitur as Livy spake of himself It is fed with what it doeth and as that restless element it either spreadeth or dieth It is kindled from heaven and will lick up all the water all contrary matter 2 Cor. 5.13 as the fire did which Elijah called down Whether we be besides our selves or whether we be sober it is for the Truth 's sake Love urgeth and constraineth us driveth us upon the pricks upon any difficulty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Gordius the Martyr in Basil What loss am I at that die but once for the Truth In labours more abundant in stripes above measure in prison more frequent saith S. Paul And could he do no more Yes he could Vbi historiam praestare non potuit votum attulit What he could not do to fill up an history he supplieth with a wish and maketh it his prayer for the good of the Church Rom. 9. to be cut off from the Church pro Christo non habere Christum for Christ's sake to be separate from Christ And to speak truth in this Love differeth from Fire Fire will die if it want fuel but Love will live in that breast where it was first kindled and where it meeteth not with matter to work upon it burneth the more for want of it When it cannot fight with the Philistine not encounter Satan with his fiery darts not slight him in the pomp of the world not contemn him in his terrours it striveth and strugleth with it self and supposeth and frameth difficulties Nihil imperiosius charitate Nothing is more powerful nor commanding then Love And yet when it hath done all supposed all it is content
be common to all and piety and strictness of life the business but of a few that severity should dwell in no breast but that which beareth the Urim and Thummim that none should be bound to discipline and obedience but they who are tied to the pulpit that I may be a cheater an oppressor a wanton an adulterer in a russet cloak but must be a Saint in an Ephod Such a distinction we may make if we please and delight in it But when the time of distinction and seperation shall come then tribulation and anguish will be on every soul that repenteth not on the Priest first and also on the people Then he that is not a lamp to burn and shine shall be cast into the fire And now brethren we see our calling that we are all to be bound to the same law who look to be bound up in the same bundle of life that we are all to be John Baptists forerunners of Christ to make a way for him in our hearts that we are all to be burning and shining lights that our love of the Truth may kindle the like flame in others our holiness may beget holiness in the profane our ardent devotion may warm the heart of the lukewarm our compassion may soften the heart of the cruel and our sincere piety convert the Atheist Behold the plague of Egypt is upon us even darkness which may be felt and yet darkness which we feel not Vbique discurrite ignes sancti ignes decori saith Augustine Ye holy ye beautiful fires run about the earth exalt your selves as high as heaven that you may lighten them which sit in darkness and let fall a kindly influence upon the dry and barren places of the earth that they may grow green and flourish And that your heat may be kindly and effectual first see what fire it is that warmeth you Let it not be ingendred in a cloud in a thick and wandring imagination nor in the bowels of the earth derived from worldly considerations nor yet in the lowest pit of hell in that gall and bitterness which maketh us devils one to another but let it be from heaven heavenly For that which kindleth from any other place like that vvhich Philosophy speaketh of simul fit cadit is and falleth and vanisheth at once or leaveth that heat behind vvhich vvill consume both our selves and others When our private phansie or some passion blovveth the coals it will prove no warming but a consuming fire Therefore that this fire may burn and consume nothing but our dross that it may not waste our vital spirits and best bloud our charity our meekness our discretion we must be sure that this heat be raised from the word of God alone which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignitum valdè able to refine and purge out all our dross our pride our self-love our carnality And to this end we must take heed of a dangerous evil self-conceit and a false pretended knowledge which may make a blaze perhaps but will never kindle this holy fire in our hearts For as we find that many men of poor and weak estate having by a kind of civil sophistry approved themselves for men of wealth and means have by this made good purchases bore up fairly in the world and wrought wonders so it fareth every day with many whose stock of knowledge hath not been very great they presently take the chair and dictate to others and by many are sought to as oracles They do not teach but trouble the world like fire indeed they consume all before them and call it Peace where they make a desolation For Man being a witty creature hath invented a kind of creation a wondrous art of raising much out of nothing It was said of Florimundus Raimundus a late French Advocate and Writer Scripsit sine scientia judicavit sine conscientia aedificavit sine pecunia that he wrote without knowledge judged without conscience and built without money and of one of the Dukes of Venice that he spoke much and knew nothing promised much and paid nothing spent much and had nothing And thus it hath fared with men who never digged deep for the Truth but sought it in summa terra lightly and superficially as counting that the Truth which they first light upon vent they must and lay open their store to the world as having no reason to suspect any part of it since they took no time to try and examine it And such persons we see with our eyes never want favourable hearers and hearts prepared to welcome them He that telleth the earth and the inhabitants thereof that they are ready to be dissolved will be soon looked upon as the onely pillar to underprop and establish it For as these are ready to commend their phansies and intellectual meteors so are others well near as wise as themselves apt to incline to a foolish credulity From hence have sprung all the heresies and many of the schisms which have troubled the peace of the Church And therefore that grave saying of Quintilian which is onely directed to School masters concerneth indeed most especially these lying Prophets these blind Seers these pretenders to knowledge these omniscient Ignaro's Optandum ut sint eruditi planè aut se non esse eruditos sciant It were to be wished that they were either learned indeed or knew that they were not so that they had less fire and more light or that their fire were like David's fire to burn inwards and that this heat did keep within them For this false fire and this pretended light and knowledge serveth them to no other use but to distract themselves and others and begetteh more Dippers then Baptists more franticks and mad men then Saints For S. Hierom will tell us Nihil tam facile quà m vilem plebeculam linguae volubilitate decipere quae quicquid non intelligit plùs miratur There is nothing easier in the world then to put a cheat upon the common sort of people who are never wiser in their own conceits then when they are deceived who count him an Angel who is but an impostor and him an interpreter one amongst a thousand who confuteth his Text and who rejoyce when they have a cheat put upon them as those who have found a great spoil But were either all men learned or did as many as it concerneth know themselves to be ignorant or at least would they be so modest as to suspect it we might then peradventure see those happy dayes which Fabius Pictor spoke of felices futuras artes cùm de iis artifices tantùm judicarent that the Arts would then be happy when none but Artists were made judges of them I need not tell you what manner of heat this pretence to knowledge and religion kindleth in mens breasts For if you please to look about you you may behold the world it self on fire which the bloud of many thousands have not as yet quenched â—â—u may
every house for what house what estate tottereth not He hath shaken our Confidence We dare not trust others we dare not trust in our selves because we do not trust in him He hath shaken our Resolution We know not what to determine we know not what to think He hath shaken our very Hopes Not a door as the Prophet speaketh non ostiolum spei not a wicket of hope can we see to enter at And need I now use any other art or eloquence or any other Topick to move you to sorrow What need the tongue of men and Angels when the very stones do speak When all about us is thus shaken can we settle and rest upon our lees When Jerusalem is so low on the ground it is time to hang up our harps and sit down and weep Behold the land mourneth Jer. 14. and the gates thereof languish The Church mourneth her very face is disfigured Religion mourneth being trod under foot and onely her name held up to keep her down All that we should delight in mourneth and shall we chant to the tune of the viol Shall the Covetous still hug himself at the sight of his heaps shall the Ambitious deifie himself in his Honour shall the Wanton still crown himself with roses shall every man sport and play in his own cock-boat whilst the ship of the Church is tempest beaten and driven upon the rocks Have ye no regard all ye that pass by the way to see a troubled State a disordered Church mouldred into Sects and crumbled into Conventicles Religion enslaved and dragged to vile offices true Devotion spit at and Hypocrisie crowned common Honesty almost become a reproach and the upright moral man condemned to hell Can you behold this which the Angels desire not to look on but turn away their face which God himself is grieved at and pressed under as a cart is with sheaves When the bleeding wounds of the Church and Religion it self open themselves wide when our Miseries bespeak us when our Sins bespeak us when every evil is so powerful an oratour when our Miseries cry aloud and our Sins cry louder can the apple of our eye cease and rest in this valley of Hadad rimmon in this Aceldama in this confusion Or why go we not mourning all the day long If this sight grieve us not it is an argument and it is the Philosopher's that we never delighted in the contrary that we loved our selves and not the publick that we cryed up the Church as the Jews did the Temple but cared not for it that Religion was onely written in our banners whilst we fought for our selves that we spake for Order but rejoyced not in it that we prayed for Peace but delighted in War And this Consequence is natural and will necessarily follow For that which we love is either our joy or our grief Whilst it is present it filleth us with joy and then when it is taken from us it must needs leave us in sorrow I might here inlarge my self but I must not be too bold with your patience I shall say as our Saviour said Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields Look every where about you send your eyes far and near and you shall see horrour and amazement and distraction motives enough to melt you and your selves the most miserable objects of all if you do not mourn and weep over them Look then upon them and do not doubt of God's providence He that suffereth is malus interpres Divinae providentiae the worst interpreter of a thousand and his Providence is like it self in those effects which seem to us most disproportionable Tunc optimus cùm tibi non bonus Then he is most good when his goodness seemeth not to be extended unto thee most just when sinners flourish and good men are opprest then caring for his vineyard when he letteth in the wild bores to spoil it Again do not murmure nor repine For in these calamities and miseries of the world we hang indeed as it were upon a cross but our Saviour hangeth by us If we bespeak him churlishly as one of the Thieves did our Saviour will give us no answer but if we mourn before him and humbly intreat him then shall we hear that comfortable reply Now you are on the cross but you shall be with me in paradise Let us not tempt God as the Jews did in the wilderness nor murmure as some of them murmured For then those evils which appear as Serpents to us will devour us But let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and the Altar let the people take up a Lamentation let us all bawail our sins and that desolation which nothing but our sins could make upon the earth and in this our humility in this day of our mourning rouse up our drooping spirits with this Christian resolution even with this Here in this house of mourning will we build up a Temple for the Holy Ghost here in this dungeon purchase our liberty here in this Golgotha crucifie our lusts and overcome the world here in this disorder compose our affections in this confusion make our peace here even in this Common-wealth make our selves Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem here in the ruines of a Church marry our selves unto Christ here amongst scorpions and draggons fit our selves for the company of Angels be miserable and mourn to rejoyce for ever Thus Blessedness and Consolation shall compass in the man of sorrow on every side who is troubled on every side but not distressed perplexed but not in despair cast down but not destroyed And thus blessed are they that thus mourn The Angels are their servants to convey their tears God is their Treasurer to keep them in his bottle and the holy Ghost is their Comforter Their sighs are the breath of heaven their tears the wine of Angels their groans the Echo of the Spirit of Grace Who will lead them to the living fountains of the waters of comfort and will wipe all tears from their eyes and bring them to the presence of the God of consolation where there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore The Third SERMON PART I. JOHN V. 14. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple and said unto him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee GLorious things are spoken of our Saviour Jesus Christ yet all come short of his glory S. Peter in his Sermon to Cornelius comprehendeth all in this that God anointed him with the Holy Ghost Acts 10.38 and with power and that he went about doing good As he cured mens bodies of diseases so he purged their souls of sin and he was miraculous in both The one he did by his word and in an instant the other by his word too but by degrees making use of one miracle to further another beginning the cure of the soul by giving health to the body in
Key still a golden Key but to open no gates but those of Death Power is a gift of God for there is no power but of him to shadow the innocent to take the prey from the oppressour to stand between two opposite parties till it draw them together and make them one to work equality out of inequality to give Mephibosheth his own lands to be the peace of the Church the wall of the Common-wealth and the life of the Laws This is the end why power is given And what may it be made Of a Sword it may be made a Rasor to cut deceitfully to cut a purse nay to cut a throat to kill and take possession as Ahab did to make Virtue vice and Vice virtue to condemn the innocent bloud and make him a Saint who hath no other father then him who was a murtherer from the beginning to make the Law a nose of wax and the Scripture as pliable as that to make that Religion not which is best but which is fittest for it self to make Men beasts and God nothing in this world to make the Common-wealth an asylum and Sanctuary for Libertines a nest of Atheists a Synagogue of hypocrites in a word a map and representation of Hell it self This I say Power may be And so may every blessing of God be drawn from that end for which it was given Wit may make us fools Riches may beget pride Power confusion and Peace it self war Health may breed wantonness and that which was made to be the womb of good may be the mother of evil as we read in Aelian that Nicippus's Sheep did yean a Lion God oft complaineth of this in holy Scripture And indeed this abuse of God's gifts is the seed-plot and cause of all the evil in the world Were it not for this we should not hear such complaints from such a place of peace as Heaven is I have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and thou breakest my statutes I took thee from the sheepcoat 2 Sam. 12. and anointed thee King and gave thee thy masters house and thou hast despised my command I washed thee with water I decked thee with ornaments Ezek. 16. I gave thee beauty and thou playedst the harlot I have chosen you twelve John 6. chosen you all to the same end Judas as well as Peter and yet one of you is a Devil It is indeed a complaint but if we slight and neglect it it will end in judgment God will confound our Wisdom blow upon our Riches and shake our Power and our Wit shall ruine us our Riches undo us our Power crush us to pieces and our Greatness make us nothing And if this were all yet it might well deserve an Ecce and be an object to be looked upon even by Atheists themselves But there is another end an end without end a fire ready kindled to devoure these adversaries a worm that shall gnaw their hearts who received the gifts of God and corrupted them torment for Health poverty for Riches and everlasting slavery for Power abused And then how happy had it been for Ahitophel if he had not been wise for Dives if he had not been rich for Hereticks if they had not been witty for Ahab and Nero if they had not been Kings how happy for the swaggerer and wanton if he had been a Clinick or a Recluse confined to his bed or shut up between two walls all the dayes of his life And now I think you will say we may well fix an Ecce to remember us of that we have received whether Health or Wit or Riches or Power that what was meant for our good turn not to our destruction So from the object considerable we pass to the Act What it is to behold and consider it ECCE Behold is as an asterisk or a finger pointing out to something remarkable some object that calleth for our eye and observation and that is already held up and we behold it That is soon done you will say for what is more sudden then the cast and twinckling of an eye If a thing be set up and placed before us we cannot but behold it But we shall find that this Ecce is of a large extent and latitude and very operative to awake all the powers and faculties of our souls to excite our faith and to enflame our love that it requireth the sedulous endeavour the contention the labour the travel of the mind Many times we do not know what we know and what we behold we do not behold because we do not rightly consider it Tantum valet unum vocabulum Of such force and energy is this finger this star this one word Behold John 1. Behold the Lamb of God saith the Baptist He points out to Christ as with a finger Why they could not but behold him But they are called upon with an ecce to behold him better The Pharisees beheld Christ the Jews beheld him but they did not behold and consider him as the Lamb of God For had they thus beheld him they had not blasphemed him 1 Cor. 2.8 they had not butchered him as they did Had they known him they had not crucified the Lord of glory We behold the heavens the work of God's fingers the Moon and the Stars which he hath ordained Rom. 1.19 We behold this wonderful frame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which may be known of God God hath shewed us But we do not as David speaketh consider it It doth not raise us up to the admiration of God's Majesty nor bring us down to a due acknowledgment of our subjection We are no more affected with it then as if it were still without form and void a lump a Chaos We behold our selves and we behold our selves mouldring away and decaying and yet we do not behold our selves For who considereth himself a mortal We carry our tombs upon our heads like those aves sepulcrales those sepulcral birds which Galen speaketh of we bear about with us our own funerals Every place we stand in is our grave for in every place we draw nearer to corruption Yet who considereth he is a living-dying man Dives in his purple never thought how he came into the world or how he should go out of it We neither look backward to what we were made nor forward to what we shall be Can Herod an Angel a God be struck with worms We dye daily and yet think we shall not dye at all The Certainty of death may stand for an article of our faith and as hard a one almost as the Resurrection In a word we are in our consideration any thing but what we are We sin and behold it and sin again but never look upon Sin as the work of the Devil as the deformity of the soul as that which hath no better wages then death Our Paralytick did rise and walk and could not but behold it yet Christ here in the Temple calleth upon
God 1. by the Knowledge not onely of natural and transitory things but also of those which pertain to everlasting life Col. 3.10 Being renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him 2. in the Rectitude and Sanctity of his Will Put on the new man Eph. 4.24 which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness 3. in the ready Obedience of the outward parts and inward faculties to the beck and command of Reason which being as a spark from the Divine nature a breathing from God should look forward and upward upon its Original and present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God I say Rom. 12.1 God hath imprinted his image on Man And what communion hath God with Belial or the image of God with the fashion of this world What relation hath an immortal substance with that which passeth away 1 Cor. 7.31 Take Man for that Miracle of the world as Trismegistus calleth him for that other that Lesser world the very tye and bond of all the other parts for whose sake they were made and in whose Nature the nature of the Universe is in a manner seen which order and harmony being disturbed was renewed and restored again by Christ who is the perfect Image of God the express character of his Person and brightness of his glory Rom. 8. And what conversation should we have but in heaven And if the whole nature of created things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the creature it self groneth to be delivered from the bondage of corruption certainly Man the compendium and tie of all the Little world which by his default made the other parts subject to vanity must needs grone in himself waiting for the adoption and redemption of his body not onely from corruption but from temptation when his eye shall behold no vanity his ear hear nothing but Hallelujahs and his very body become in a manner spiritual Or take man as made after God's Image by which he hath that property which no other creature hath to Understand and Will and Reason and Determine by which he sendeth his thoughts whither he pleaseth now beyond the seas by and by back again and then to heaven it self as Hilary speaketh by which he is capable of God and may be partaker of him And we cannot think we had an Understanding given us onely to forge deceit to contrive plots to find out the twilight an opportunity to do mischief to invent instruments of musick new delights to frame an art a method a craft of enjoying the pleasures which are but for a season we cannot think our Will was given us to catch at shadows and apparitions to wait upon the Flesh which fighteth against the Spirit and this Image within us we cannot think God gave us Reason to distinguish us from the other creatures that it should subject us to the creature that it should make us worse then the beasts that perish And therefore Christ the end of whose coming was to renew God's Image decayed and defaced in Man did lay the ax to the root of the tree did level all spreading and overtopping imaginations all thoughts which bowed themselves and inclined to the world 2 Cor. 10.5 bringing them into captivity unto the obedience of the Gospel put out our eyes and cut off our hands so far as they might be occasional to evil and nailed not onely our sins but our flesh to his cross For as we are risen with him so are we crucified with him who being lift up himself did draw us after him to heavenly things to heavenly places brought back the Lost sheep Psal 23. the soul into green and fat pastures out of the way of the world the way that leadeth to Death to the paths of righteousness bringeth back the Soul to its original to that for which it was made James 1.25 Hence the Gospel is called a perfect Law of Liberty Whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty A perfect Law because it barreth up every passage and rivulet shutteth up every crany that may let the soul out to wander after the things of this world tieth us up closer then humane Reason could and improveth and exalteth our Reason to busie it self on its proper object those things which are above And it is called a Law of liberty because they who will be subject to this Law who will be Gospellers indeed must free themselves from those defects and sins which no humane Law nor yet the Law of Moses did punish So that Christian Religion doth in a manner destroy the world before its dissolution maketh that which men so run after so wooe so lay hold on a thing of nothing or worse then nothing maketh that which we made our staff to lean on a serpent to run from or maketh the world but a prison which we must struggle to get out of but a Sodom out of which we must haste to escape to the holy hill to the mountain lest we be consumed or at best but as a stage to act our parts on where when we have disgraced reviled and trode it under our feet we must take our Exit and go out And indeed secondly there is no proportion at all between sensible things and a Soul which is a Spirit and immortal And in this also it resembleth that God who breatheth it into us As Lactantius saith God is not hungry that you need give him meat he is not thirsty that you need pour out drink to him nor is he in the dark that you need light up tapers The world is the Lord's and all that therein is So it is with the Soul What is a banquet of wine what is musick what is a feast what is beauty what is a wedge of gold to a Soul The world is the Soul 's and all that therein is And to behold the creature and in the world as in a book to study and find out the Creator to contemplate his Majesty his Goodness his Wisdom to discover that happiness which is prepared for it to find out conclusions to behold the heavens the work of God's fingers and to purchase a place there to converse with Seraphim and Cherubim elevated thoughts towring imaginations holy desires these are fit food for the Soul and proportioned to it And again as the things above are proportioned to the Soul so they alone can satisfie it The things below are too narrow too transitory Beauty like the Rainbow is oculi opus the work of the eye of the imagination Specta paulisper non erit Do but look a little longer and it will not be seen Riches bring care and torment as well as delight and when they have for a while mocked us they take the wing and flee away Honour I cannot well tell you what it is it is so near to Nothing But whatsoever it be it commonly falleth to the dust and findeth no better sepulchre then disgrace The fashion of
literas scribit saith the Father He that offendeth doth write as many letters in this book as he committeth sins And the guilt and obligation is as certain and the condemnation as just as if we had wrote and sealed it with our own hands and subscribed a Fiat Let it be so for my debts are many and my sins more then the hairs of my head Thus I have shewed you at last the analogy and likeness which is between our Sins and Debts We will now point out to some operations which they produce alike and which are common both to men engaged and oppressed with Debt and to men burthened with Sin First we know what a burthen Debt is what perplexities what fears what anguish it doth bring how it taketh all relish from our meat all sweetness from our sleep maketh pleasure tedious and musick it self as harsh and unwelcome as howling and tears how it doth out-law and excommunicate us drive us from place to place bring the curse of Cain upon us and make us fugitives upon the earth how it maketh us afraid of our selves afraid of others and to take every man we meet for a Serjeant to arrest us And such a burthen is Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom hard to be born a yoke to gall us a talent of lead to keep us down Zech. 5. It lay so heavy even upon David the servant of God that he had no rest in his bones because of his sins And quis non maluit centies mori quà m sub tali conscientia vivere who would not rather die a hundred times then live under such a conscience whose every check is an arrest whose every accusation is a summons to death Neque frustà sapientes affirmare soliti sunt si recludantur tyrannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus ictus saith the Historian Neither is it for nothing that the wisest have seriously told us that were the hearts of wicked men laid open we should see there swellings and ulcers torments and stripes here a bruise by Impatience here a swelling of Pride here a deep wound which Malice hath made there we should see Satyres dancing and Furies with their whips there we should see one dragged to the bar and quarterred for Rebellion another disciplined for Wantonness and Luxury there we should see the deep furrows which Sacriledge and Oppression have made a type of the day of Judgment and a representation of Hell it self Nemo non priùs in seipsum peccat Whosoever sinneth beginneth with himself Look not on the wounds thou hast given thy brother thou hast made as many and as deep in thy own heart Fot as a Debtor though he shift from place to place though he may peradventure evade and not come under arrest yet he can never cast off or shift himself of the obligation so it fareth with a Sinner the Obligation the Judge and his Sin follow him whithersoever he goeth sicut umbra corpus saith Basil as the shadow doth a body and he may as well run from his own shadow as from his sin Secondly Sin and Debt have this common effect that as they make us droop and hang down the head so they entangle us with trouble and business It is far easier to keep us out of bonds then to cancell them far easier not to be endebted then to procure our Apocha and acquittance and it is nothing so difficult to â—â—oid sin at the first when it flattereth as to purge it out when it hath stung us as a serpent God â—â—lleth Cain so If thou doest well and thou mayest yet do well shalt thou not be accepted Gen. 4.7 and if thou doest not well sin lyeth at the door ready to arrest thee And the reason is plain and given by Columella though to another end Operosior negligentia quà m diligentia Sloth and carelesness and neglect put us to more trouble and pain create us more business then diligence For what at first if we be provident may be done with a quick hand within a while being neglected cannot be brought to rights again but with double and treble diligence We leap into debt but we hardly creep out of it That enemy which the Centinel might have kept out having gained ground and opportunity may make it the business of a whole Army to drive back again That sin which at first we might have avoided by circumspection alone having made its entrance will not onely drive us to consultation how to expell it but perhaps let in troops at the same breach with all which we must encounter before we can be free If the evil spirit make a re-entry he bringeth with him seven worse then himself And thus both Sin and Debt bring on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unfoordable gulf of difficulties and business In the third place the Wise-man hath observed of some borrowers that for their neighbour's money they will return words of grief Eccl. 29.5 6. and complain of the time nay pay him with cursings and railings and disgrace And it is a common thing for men to hate those who have been beneficial to them si vicem reddere non possint imò quia nolint saith Seneca if they cannot requite him yea in very truth because they will not And in the like manner deal sinners with their God never think him a hard man an exactor till they are in his debt never murmure against him till they have given him just occasion to question them never fight against him till they have forced him to draw his sword to destroy them We see in the Parable Matth. 25.24 the servant that had buried his talent in the earth telleth his Lord that he did it because he knew him to be a hard man reaping where he had not sown and gathering where he had not strawed And as the Historian observeth of men hardly bestead and whose fortunes are low that they most complain of the State and Commonwealth wherein they live and think all not well in the publick because they have miscarried in the managing of their private estates So when sinners are in a great streight and dare not approch unto God and yet know not how to run from him when they have consumed the riches which he gave them de communi censu out of the common treasury out of that fountain of goodness which he is then they begin to neglect and contemn God and do despite to the holy Ghost then his precepts are hard sayings who can bear them then the flesh is weak and the condition is impossible then the very principles of goodness which they brought with them into the world begin to be worn and vanish away and they wish the Creed out of their memory would be content there were no God no obligation no penalty no such debt as Sin no such prison as Hell And these are the sad effects and operations both of Sin and Debt But one main difference we find between them
behold God's precious promises but when we are urged with this undeniable Consequence That we must therefore forgive we start back and will not yield to the Conclusion nor be convinced by that evidence which is as clear as the day So prevalent is the flattery of this world above the Mercy of God! so powerful is a gilded vanity above the glory of the Mercy-seat It is argument of great force à majori ad minus If Christ forgave us who were his enemies then ought they that take his name upon them to forgive them who are their Brethren And he that is Christ's and truly religious must needs see the force of this argument and confirm and make it good by practice To this end in the next place we must make use of those helps which will draw this consequence out of these premisses which will so fit and prepare us that the Mercy of God may work kindly in us to bring its power into act that as God's Mercy is a convincing argument that we must be merciful so our Compassion to our brother may be as a strong confirmation and full assurance to us that God hath forgiven us First then as the Psalmist speaketh let us have God's Mercy in everlasting remembrance to curb our appetite to check our lusts to bridle our tongue to stay our hand to beat down all our animosity and to make our anger set before the Sun For the Memory saith S. Bernard is stomachus animi the stomach of the soul to make all God's benefits become food and nourishment to turn them into good bloud that we may be strong in the Lord and in the power of the Spirit strong to the casting down of all imaginations which may stand in opposition to the Mercy of God when it is begetting something in us like unto it self to turn them into the very bloud and substance of our soul that she shall not breath nor think nor speak nor actuate the hand but in a way of mercy And in this respect that of Plato may be true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We learn and are instructed by those notions which were formerly imprinted in our memory This is as it were parturire misericordiam to conceive and be in travel with Mercy till it be fully formed in us to work it out first in the elaboratory of our heart to have this article of our faith Remission of sins before our eyes that may check us at every turn that may break the bow and snap the spear asunder and burn every instrument revenge that may scatter those thoughts which warm our bloud and raise our spirits and make our glory and triumph to tread down our enemies under our feet The frequent meditation of this begat a love in many which was stronger then death This was the chain which bound the Martyrs to the stake this sealed up their lips when they were laughed to scorn Sic posuerunt animas suas With the remembrance of God's mercy in Christ they laid down their lives praying for their enemies with their last breath as Christ did for his commending their souls to the mercy of God whose bloudy cruelty had devoted their bodies to the fire By frequent contemplation of God's love we draw our soul from out of those incumbrances which many times involve and fetter her we recollect our mind into it self and do not let it out to our passions to be torn and distracted but fasten it upon the Goodness of God where it resteth as upon a holy hill from whence looking down it beholdeth every object in its proper shape It looketh upon the World as upon a a shop of vanity upon Riches as that which may be lost and we never the worse upon Beauty as that which is lost whilest we look on it upon Honour as on a falling star which shineth and falleth and is turned into dung upon Injury as a benefit upon Persecution as a blessing upon Contempt as upon that sword which will slay none but the scornful upon Oppression as that which shall undoe none but the covetous Yea it seeth Life in the face and countenance of Death Oh it is a sad speculation that our Memory should keep its retentive faculty to preserve that which is poisonous and deleterial but that we should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leak and let out the water of life which should quicken and refresh the soul and make it grow in grace that at the impression of a wedge of gold our Memory should conceive theft or fraud or rapine at the sight of a face bring forth lust at the shew of an injury set the soul on fire but be as marble to receive the signature of God's goodness that it should be a well-lockt treasury to every fading vanity but a through-fare for those lasting and powerful objects which should work and fashion the soul to a mild and heavenly constitution Oh that we should never call our Memory good but in evil Therefore in the second place it is not enough to behold these glorious phantasms and for a while to carry them about with us as precious antidotes unless we mould and fashion and rightly apply them For many times nitimur infirmamur saith Hilary Contemplation bringeth us forward but then letteth us fall to the ground we profer and look back we put on resolutions and fling them off again before they are well on we remember God's mercy and when our bloud is a little chafed study to forget it The good which we would which we approve that do we not and soon learn not to think it good Et mentis judicium rectitudinem conspicit sed ad hoc operis fortitudo succumbit We fall short of that rectitude which the eye hath discovered and which we have but weakly framed and set up in our mind and so leave the truth behind us and go on undauntedly to that which our Anger or Lust doth hurry us to We do not so place God's Mercy before our eyes as to conceive something like unto it as Jacob's sheep did amongst the rods This hindereth the powerful operation of Mercy that we see it as the Jews did their Manna and know not what it meaneth But if we will put on the bowels of mercy we must contemplate Mercy in its own sphere in that site and aspect in which it looketh upon us deliberare causas expendere deliberate and question with our selves for what cause it was thus set up and draw it down to the right end and use of it Now to what end was the hand of Mercy reached out unto us Questionless to work in us peace of conscience and save us But if we look again and view it more nearly and considerately we shall find another use namely to make us fruitful in every good work O thou wicked servant saith the Lord in the Gospel Matth. 18. I forgave thee all thy debt shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant even as
in spirit and truth But this they cannot do together but in some place and the Spirit which breatheth upon the Church will not blow it down nor the place where they meet who make up a Church We remember also that S. Paul enjoyneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that men pray every where 1 Tim. 2.8 But those words carry not any such tempest with them as to overthrow the houses of the Lord. S. Basil who had as clear an eye and as quick an apprehension as any that age or after-ages have afforded could spy no such meaning in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he doth not take-in those places which are deputed to humane and profane uses but extendeth and dilateth the worship of God beyond the narrow compass of Jerusalem to every place in the whole world It is written that all shall be Priests of God but yet it is not meant that all shall exercise the Priests office I am ashamed to exercise my self against rotten posts set up by wanton and malicious men which will fall to the dust to nothing of themselves and to spend my time and pains to beget a good opinion of the house of God in their minds who know not what to think or what they would have who fear their own shadow which their ignorance doth cast and run from a monster of their own begetting the creation of a troubled or rather a troublesome spirit and an idle brain God then hath an House and he calleth it his Nor can he be guilty of a Misnomer And if it be God's then it is holy not holy as he is holy but holy because it is his Why startle we It is no ill-boding word that we should be afraid of it Donatus the Grammarian observeth Si ferrum nominetur in comoedia transit in tragoediam that but to name a Sword in a Comedie is enough to turn it into a Tragedie I know not whether that word have such force or no sure I am there is nothing in this word Holy why so much noise and tumult should be raised about it as if Superstition had crept in and were installed and inthroned in our Church The house of God is holy What need we boggle at it or what reason is there of fear when the lowest degree of charity might help us to conclude that it is impossible that he who calleth it so should mean that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. I ask Hebr. 12.14 Is it possible that this should ever enter into the heart of any man who is not out of his wits I will be bold to say Matth. 3.9 that God who can raise up children unto Abraham out of stones cannot infuse holiness into stones till they be made children of Abraham I dare not shorten his hand or lessen his power yet I may say His Power waiteth in a manner upon his Wisedome and He cannot do what becometh him not He cannot do what he hath said he never will do But when Stones are piled together and set apart for his service he himself calleth it his holy place because of the relation it beareth to his service and to holiness and in respect of the end for which it was set up Holy that is set apart from common use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 10.14 common and profane signifie the same in holy Writ So the Gentiles were common and profane and the Jews were holy that is culled and taken out from the rest of the world sanctified and set apart to the Lord. For as holy a people as they were how many of them did embrace that holiness which beautifieth the inward man and might make them like to the Holy one of Israel Again SANCTUM est ab hominum injuria munitum That which is holy is fenced from the injuries of men and the hand of Sacrilege Things thus holy God looketh upon as his with an eye of jealousie And as he gave charge concerning his Anointed so he doth concerning his House Psal 105.15 Nolite tangere Touch it not And he that toucheth it with a profane and sacrilegious hand toucheth the apple of his eye and if he repent not of his wickedness God will one day put him to shame for that low esteem he had of the place where his honour dwelleth Psal 16 8. It is the end which maketh it holy and to hinder it of its end is to profane it though the pretense be never so specious What is it then to laugh and jest at this name that we may pull it down in earnest Oh trust not to a pretense And if we lean upon it whilest we deface the house of God it will fail and deceive us and our fall will be the greater for our support we shall fall and be bruised to pieces our punishment shall be doubled and our stripes multiplied first for doing that which is evil and then for taking in that which is good to make it an abettour and assistant to that which is evil which is to bring in God pleading for Baal and to suborn Religion to destroy it self Oh why do men boast in their shame What happiness can it be to devour holy things Prov. 20.25 and then be caught in that snare which will strangle them To dance in the ruines of the Church and then sink to hell Time was Beloved when this was counted an holy language and holy men of God and blessed Martyrs of Christ spake it Then it was not superstition but great devotion And no other language was heard almost till the dayes of our grandfathers But then Covetousness under the mask of false Zele which was rather burning then hot and carried with it more rage then charity swallowed up this Devotion in victory led it in triumph disgraced and vilified it and gave it an ill name Then the Devil shewed himself in the colours of light and did more mischief then if he had appeared as a roaring Lion Then the very name of holy was a good argument to beat down a Temple which must down for this because it was called so Before this There were Holy Means and they were called so the Word Prayer Sacraments Ecclesiastical Discipline and for the applying of these Means to the end for which they were ordained there were Holy Times when and Holy Persons by whom they were to be administred and there were Holy Places too or else the rest were to no purpose And holy things S. Paul calleth them 1 Cor. 9.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy things out of the holy place All these are so linked together as a chain that you cannot sever them For neither can there be Holiness without fit means nor Means administred without fit Persons nor Persons do their office but in a fit Place Holiness indeed is properly inherent in none but God Angels and Men in God essentially in the blessed Spirits and Men by participation as far as their
calleth it is very likely I shall fall fast asleep at the voice of Christ The reason is plain and evident For it is not with the Will and Affections as it is with the Understanding The Understanding can easily sever one thing from another and apprehend them both yea it hath power to abstract and separate things really the same and consider the one as different from the other but it is the property of the Will and Affections in unum ferri se in unitatem colligere to unite and collect themselves to make themselves one with the object so that our desires cannot be carried to two contrary objects at one and the same time We may apprehend Christ as just and holy and the world and the riches of it as vanity it self but we cannot at once love Christ as just and holy and adhere and cleave to the world and the vanities thereof Our Saviour hath fully expressed it where he telleth us we shall hate the one and love the other or else lean to the one and despise the other If it be a love to the one it will be at best but a liking of the other if a will to the one but a villeity and faint inclination to the other if a look on the one but a glance on the other And this glance this villeity this inclination are no better then hatred and contempt For these proceed from my Understanding but my love from my Will which is fixed not where I approve but where I chuse For what is it to say This is beauty and then spit upon it to say Righteousness is hominis optimum as Augustine calleth it the best thing that man can seek and yet chuse a clod of earth before it What is it to call Christ Lord and crucifie him For reason will tell us even when we most dote upon the world that Wisdom is better then rubies that Christ is to be preferred to Mammon that it is better cum Christo affligi quà m cum aliis deliciari to be afflicted with Christ then to enjoy the pleasures of this life and sport away our time with others but this will not make it Love which joyneth with the object which swalloweth it up is swallowed up by it What love is that to Righteousness which putteth it post principia in the second file behind the World and in this placeth all its hope of happiness seeing Righteousness if it be not sought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first place is lost for ever For last of all if we seek any thing before Righteousness that must needs be predominant and give laws to Righteousness square and fashion Religion as it pleaseth and so Religion being put behind will be put also to vile offices to swell our heaps to promote our lusts to feather our ambition to enrage our malice to countenance that which destroyeth her to follow that which driveth her out of the world And whereas Righteousness should be as the seal to be set upon all our intendments and upon all the actions of our life that they may go for warrantable being stamped and charactered as it were with the Image of the King of glory Christ Jesus Righteousness will be made as wax to receive the impression of the World and whatsoever may prove advantageous will go current for Righteousness and every thing will be Righteousness but that which is Whereas Righteousness should be fixed as a star in the firmament of the soul to cast its influence upon all we think or speak or do we shall draw up a meteor out of the foggy places of the earth a blazing and ill-boding comet and call it by that sacred name This this hath been the great corrupter of Religion in all the ages of the Church This was that falsary which did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adulterate the truth of the Gospel This hath made that desolation which we see upon the earth For if the eye be first fixed on the things of this world it will be so dazled as not to see Righteousness in her own shape nor discern her unless she be guilded over with vanity My Covetousness now looketh like Christian providence for my love of these things must Christen the Child My Ambition now is the Honour of God My malice cannot burn hot enough for I seek the Lord in the bowels of my brethren My Sacrilege is excessive piety for though it is true that I fill my coffers with the shekels of the Sanctuary yet I beat down Baal and Superstition But if we did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first seek Righteousness our Covetousness would not dig and drudge with such a fair gloss our ambition would flag and stoop to the ground our Malice would dye never to be raised again and our Sacrilege would find no hand to lay hold on the axe and the hammer the power of Righteousness and not her bare name would manifest it self in our actions and all excuses and pretences and false glosses would vanish as a mist before the Sun the World would be but a great dunghil Honour but air Malice a fury and the Houses of God would stand fast for ever But this misplacing the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath put all out of order divided the Church shaken the Pillars of the earth ruined nations and left nothing of Righteousness but the name when that which indeed is Righteousness doth make and preserve a Church uphold the world and is the alone thing which can perpetuate a Government and continue a Commonwealth to last so long as the Moon endureth If this did prevail there could be no wars nor rumours of wars no violence in the form of a law no injury under pretence of conscience no beating of our fellow-servants no murthering of our brethren in the name of the Lord. I say the casting Religion behind and making it wait upon us in all our distempers is that which hath well-near cast all Religion out of the world This hath raised so many sects which swarm and buzze about us like flies in Summer This is the coyner of Heresies which are nothing else but the inventions of worldly-minded men working out of the elaboratory of their phansie some new Doctrine which may favour and keep pace with their humour and lift them up and make them great in the world This built a Throne for the Pope and a Consistory for the Disciplinarian This hath stated many Questions and been President at most Councils For be the man what he will private interest is commonly the Doctor and magisterially determineth and prescribeth all If a thing be advantageous it must also be orthodox and hath on the one side written RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO THE LORD on the other FROM HENCE WE HAVE OUR GAIN We cannot be too charitable yet you know charity may mistake Peradventure weakness of apprehension may leave some naked to errour conscience may sway and bow others in some things from the truth but let me tell you in
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but some of them some of the rout or if of higher place none of the best For the last when we have more neerly lookt upon it and brought it to the touch and tryal we shall find it to be but a lye coyned out of the Devils mint bearing his image and superscription even the stamp and character of Malice Envy and Ignorance Of these in their order We are to speak first of a Miracle and that briefly In every Miracle as Aquinas saith there are two things Quod fit and Propter quod fit the thing done which must transcend the course of Nature and the End which is also supernatural Indeed in respect of the power of God there is no miracle at all it being as easie for him to make one man speak all languages on the sudden as by degrees to teach him one but in his Divine goodness he was pleased to work wonders not for shew but for our instruction And as he had born witness to his Son by power and great miracles so doth he here to the Holy ghost now visibly descending upon his Apostles to no other end but this to consecrate his Church to seal the Gospel and so to fulfil that as Christ had fulfilled the Law This was the end of this miraculous operation The holy Ghost comes in a mighty wind to rattle their hearts together he comes in fire to enflame their breasts and in cloven tongues to cleave their hearts asunder He teacheth one man to speak all kind of tongues that Christ might become the language of the whole world Now in the next place let us view the persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others What enterteinment finds the miracle what welcome hath the holy Ghost No other then what befalls all unusual and extraordinary events Every man lays hold of it and shapes it in such a form as he please To some you see it is a matter of wonder to others of mirth And this the Father calleth Judaicum opprobrium a reproch cleaving fast to the Jew So was it here to them and it may be laid to many among us this day as a just imputation not to consider mirabilia Dei the wonderful things of God Some render it separata Dei those works of his which are set apart to this very purpose to elevate our thoughts if not to beget yet to confirm our faith at least to work a disposition to it We should account it a strange stupidity in any one to be more affected at the sight of the Sun then of a small candle or taper and to esteem the great palace of Heaven but as a fornace But when God stretcheth forth his Hands to produce effects which follow not the force of secundary causes to make Nature excell her self to improve her operations beyond the sphere of her activity then not to put on wonder not to conclude that it is for some great end is not folly but infidelity the daughter of Malice and Envy and affected Ignorance Miracles are signs and if they signifie nothing it is evident that a stubborn heart and froward mind corrupt their dialect and will not understand the meaning of them And then what are miracles but trifles matter of scoff and derision Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God by miracles a jugler his sceptre a reed his crown of thorns a knee a mock a voice from heaven is but thunder to make the blind to see the lame to go and the deaf to hear a kind of witchcraft or sorcery To be baptized with the Spirit is to be full of drink and to speak divers languages to be drunken When Julian the Apostate had read a book presented unto him in defense of Christianity all the reply he made was this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have read understood and condemned it To which S. Basil most fitly and ingeniously replyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have read it indeed but not understood it for had you understood it you would never have condemned it The same befalls men prepossessed and too far engaged in the world and with business no whit complyable with the operations of the Spirit They behold the great things of God and streight think they understand them and their censure is as sudden as their thought but the Fathers reply to that Apostate will reach home to them Did they timely understand them they could not possibly slight them They could not slight those doctrines of Universal Obedience Self-denial Necessity of good Works the Deadness nay the Danger of Faith without civil Honesty for the confirmation of which all miracles were wrought We need not now wonder to see wonders slighted For from this root spring all the errours of our life This doth what the Pope is said by some to do make Vertue vice and Vice vertue This makes fools prophets and Christ a deceiver This makes us neither see vertue in others nor the most visible and mountanious sin in our selves By this rule the innocent are murderers and murderers saints From hence it was that Christ appeared to some no more then the Carpenters son Some slighted his person as contemptible others his precepts as ridiculous his Gospel as foolishness his disciples as idiots To this day our behaviour is little better then mocking Our Lust which waits for the twilight mocks at his Omniscience Tush God seeth not Our Distrust argues against his Power The waters gushed out can he give bread also If the windows of Heaven should be opened can this be done Our Impatience questions his Truth That which he doth not yet we think he will never do He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most wise nay Wisdome it self yet how many think he will not make inquisition for bloud nor punish it with eternal fire and these frame their lives as if this were a very truth God is bountiful and hath nothing so proper to him as to be Good and Liberal to all yet some there be who have imputed all to Destiny and the Stars And those who acknowledge him to be the Giver of life have confined and impropriated his Goodness to a few His Mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 triumpheth over his Justice yet Novatian made every fall as low as Hell and what is Despair but a mocking of Gods Mercy The miracle of this Feast if you will admit S. Augustines conceit is still visible in the Church where every man speaks all the languages of the world in as much as he is a member of that Catholick Church where all languages are spoken and yet this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this scoffing and derision is the most usual figure in the Worlds Rhetorick and he that cannot answer an argument can break a jest The ground of all is infidelity the proper issue of obstinate and wilfull Ignorance which brought forth these men here not Isaacs you may be sure but yet children of laughter I will give you a reason of this from a heathen man Plato
Gospel And the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a two-peny Feast Our comfort it is that it is not so it is but like it at the most And it is not like it neither This likeness is not in truth but opus intellectûs a resemblance made up in the brain of those whom all the world knows are none of the wisest unless it be in their generation Sure every gesture that will bear a resemblance is not Popery It is not so because we have so drawn it in our phansie because we make it so and because we will have it so for our own ends For thus every man may be an Idolater whom we mean to strip John 7.24 our Saviours counsel is Judge not according to the appearance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the face and countenance of things For how easie is it to paint and present them as we please Many times an evil eye makes an evil face puts horrour upon Religion it self and where Devotion shines out in the full beauty of holiness draws a Pope or a Devil As Charity covers a multitude of sins so doth Malice cover a multitude of vertues with the black mantle of Vice she covers Devotion with Phrensie Honesty with Folly and Reverence with Superstition and that onely is seen which may at once offend and delight the mocker O what a scandal is a College or a Church what an abomination are holy things when they are sought for as a prey But commonly Scoffers have ill luck for though they would hide themselves in noyse and formality yet are they seen well enough in their furious march to the Honors and Wealth of this world and can bring but slender evidence to confirm what they say Though they lift up their voice and speak never so loud They are drunk This is superstition These are Idolaters When this is spoken they have no more to say and they need not say more For if they be backt with Power though Reason and Argument forsake them you shall be forced to take them at their word Quà m sapiens argumentatrix videtur sibi ignorantia humana Good God! what subtile disputers do Ignorance and Malice account themselves for these are disputers of this world where Phansie goes for Reason Humour for the Spirit and a Scoff for an impregnable argument where we see ridicula potiùs quà m firma tela weapons to be laught at rather then to be feared rather bulrushes then spears syllogismes truly destructive which may ruine us indeed but can never convince us may shake our estates and lives but not our faith These are drunk This is Superstition What should we say even lay our hand upon our mouth with Job and proceed no further We see here S. Peter takes no great pains to avoid these scoffers he useth no convincing demonstrative argument but onely a probabili He tells them it was not probable they should be drunk so soon at such a feast at the third houre of the day The Philosopher will tell us Non est disputandum cum quovis every man is not to be disputed with For that which should free some from err our confirms them in it Nothing will be restrained not any thing will be cut off from them which they imagine to do When you undertake Pertinacy you do but beat the air Nazianzene observes that Christ himself did not give an answer to every question We will then answer the scoffers of these times as S. Peter did these here with a non probabile It is not probable that a reverent gesture or some few ceremonies should reconcile him to Rome whose doctrine is orthodox that a knee make him superstitious who is devout in his heart It is more probable that it is Reverence rather then Superstition Devotion rather then Idolatry Or if it were not apparently probable yet where no evidence is brought to the contrary there true Christian Charity which is no scoffer we may be sure is very active to make and frame such probabilities Sperat omnia credit omnia saith the Apostle if she be not certain for the best she will not be certain and positive for the worst if she be not certain yet she will hope and believe that all things are well Nor will she cry Superstition at the sight of reverence nor Idolatry at the mention of an Altar Charity that never fails will never fall at the bowing of a knee nor will ever conclude so absurdly These men fall down and worship therefore they are idolatrous no more then thus These men are full of new wine when at that time there was none to fill them To conclude then These scoffers are dead and Lucian is dead and Julian is dead and are gone to their place yet the Spirit breathes still and the Church of Christ stands firm upon the same foundation The blessed Spirit though he be grieved yet cannot be destroyed though he be quenched yet it is but in scoffers Magna vis veri impelli potest exstingui non potest Great is the Truth and at last it prevaileth you may oppress it you cannot exstinguish it All the power and rage and malice of bloudy hypocrites can never so chase it away but it will find some humble and devout hearts to dwell and rest in As Fire cast into the Water is streightway put out saith Tully so scoffs and detraction and wilfull and malicious misinterpretations soon vanish into nothing Crepitant solvuntur These hailstones rattle for a while on the house-top and make a noise and are then dissolved into air Suppose a man of fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is S. Chrysostoms resemblance should fall into a field of stubble of flax or straw he can receive no hurt but must needs shew his force and activity and consume whatsoever is combustible before him Shall Flax or Straw stand up against Fire This man of fire cannot suffer by such thin materials which are as fewel to nourish and uphold him What can they do If they venture they destroy themselves Beloved every Apostle of Christ every true Christian is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of fire Scoffs are but straw Detraction but as flax which coming too near him can consume themselves or as Thorns crackle a while and make a noise in this fire and no more And when the day of lustration shall come when that day shall come which is spectaculum as Tertullian calls it the great spectacle of the world when all things shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 naked and anatomized as a beast cut down the back then all thoughts shall be discovered all veils removed all visours pluckt off Then spiritual Joy shall not be madness the Breathings of the Spirit shall not be the ebullitions of men distempered with wine nor true Honesty folly nor Reverence superstition Then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato calls it or rather this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This unusual behaviour of wise and spiritual men which is so
welcome Come ye Blessed children of my Father receive the kingdome and Blessedness which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world The Five and Thirtieth SERMON COLOS. III. 1. If then you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God THe Resurrection of the dead is the prop and stay the very life and soul of a Christian Illam credentes sumus saith Tertullian By believing this we have our being and are that which we are and without this it were better for us not to be If there be no resurrection of the dead saith the Apostle then are we of all men most miserable Now much better were it for us not to be at all then to be miserable For let us take a general survay not as Solomon doth in the book of the Preacher of all the pleasures in the world but of all the virtues of a Christian onely deny the Resurrection of the dead and what are they else but extreme vanity and vexation of the spirit To cleanse our hearts and wash our hands in innocency to hold a strict watch over all our ways to deny unto our selves the joyes and pleasures of the world to pine our bodies with fasting to bestow our hours on devotion our goods on the poor and our bodies on the fire this and whatsoever else is so full of terrour to the outward man and so full of irksomness to the flesh what may it seem to be but a kind of madness if when this little span of our life be measured out there remain no crown no reward of it if after so many strivings with our selves so many agonies so many crucifyings of our selves so many pantings for life we must in the end breath out our last But beloved Christ is risen and our faith in his Resurrection is an infallible demonstration and a most certain pledge to us that we shall rise as he hath done Of which that we may the better assure our selves we must observe that as S. Paul tells us As we have born the image of the earthy so must we bear the image of the heavenly so on the contrary we must make an account that as we hope to bear the image of the heavenly so must we first bear the image of the earthy and if we will bear a part in the resurrection to glory which is a heavenly resurrection we must have our part in a resurrection to grace which is a resurrection here on earth S. John distinguishes for me in his Revelation Ch. 20.5.6 Blessed is he that hath his part in the first resurrection And he that hath none there shall bear at all no part in the second resurrection As it is with us in nature at the end of our dayes there is a death and after that a resurrection so is it with us in grace yet the days of sin can have an end in us there is a death For the Apostle tells us we are dead to sin and we are buried with him in Baptisme Then after this death to sin cometh the resurrection to newness of life Mors perire est resurgere restingui nisi mors mortem resurrectio resurrectionem antecedat To die is quite to perish to rise again worse then to have lien for ever rotting in the grave if this first death go not before a second death and this first resurrection before the second Secondly as in our life time we die and rise again with Christ so do we likewise in a manner ascend with him into heaven For to seek those things which are above is a kind of flight and ascension of the Soul into heavenly places And as God commanded Moses before he died to ascend up into the mountain Deut. 32.49 to see a far off and discover that good land which he had promised to the Jews So it it his pleasure that through holy conversation and newness of life we should raise our selves far above the rest of the world and in this life time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks as it were from an exceeding high mountain discover and have some sight of that good land and of those good things which God hath laid up for those which are his Hebr. 6. So by the Apostle our regeneration and amendment of life that is our first resurrection is called a taste of the good spirit and word of God a relish and taste of the powers of the world to come Now of this first Resurrection doth our blessed Apostle speak in these words which I have read unto you If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above Which speech though it go with an If and therefore seems to be conditional yet if we look neerer into it we shall find that indeed it is a peremptory and absolute command in effect as if he had said Rise with Christ and seek the things which are above Acts 12. And as the Angel said to Peter being in prison Arise up quickly at which words the chains fell off from Peters hands so God by his blessed Apostle comes to us who are in a stricter prison and commands us in the first words Arise quickly and in the next seek the things which are above and so makes as it were the chains fall off our hands and delivers us out of prison into the glorious liberty of the Saints of God For the things of this world and our love unto them are fetters to our feet and manacles to our hands holding us down groveling on the earth And except these chains fall off we can never Arise and follow the Angel as Peter did When Elias in a whirlwind went up to heaven the text tells us that his mantle fell from him And he that will go up into heaven with Elias 2 Kings 2. and seek the things that are above cannot go with his cloke thither he must be content to leave his mantle below forgo all things that are beneath and as S. Hierome speaks nudam crucem nudus sequi follow the naked cross naked and stript from all the glory and pomp of the world Now this part of Scripture which I have read is a part of the practice of our spiritual Logick for it teacheth us to frame an argument or reason by which we may conclude unto our selves that our first resurrection is past For if we seek the things which are above then are we risen with Christ if not we are in our graves still our souls are putrified and corrupt And again If we be risen with Christ then as Christ at his resurrection left in his grave the cloths wherein he was buried so these things of the world in which we lye as it were dead and buried at our resurrection to newness of life we must leave unto the world which was the grave in which we lay As it is in arched buildings all the stones do enterchangeably and mutually rest upon and hold
must put on incorruption this mortal must put on immortality There will be caro reformata angelificata as Tertullian speaks our flesh will be new refined and angelified so in our Conversion and Regeneration there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil a kind of transmutation or transfiguration 2 Cor. 3.18 We are transformed into the image of Christ For God who hath made us after his own image will have us reformed unto the likeness of his Son As the Flesh then so the soul must be reformata angelificata refined and angelified or rather Christificata Christified having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus For we are no further risen nisi in quantum caeperimus esse Angeli but so far forth as we begin to be like unto the Angels but so far forth as we have that admonishing S. John speaks of and are like unto Christ Where their is no change 1 Jo. 2.20 there is no rising Whilst our bed is in the darkness whilst Corruption is our father and the Worm our mother and sister we cannot be said to be risen And whilst all the alliance we have is with the World whilst it is both father and mother and sister unto us whilst we mind earthy things we are still in our grave nay in Hell it self and Death devoureth us For let us call the World what we please our kingdome our place of habitation our delight yet indeed it is but our grave Will you now see a Christian rising He rises fairly not with a Tongue which is a sword and a Mouth which is a sepulchre but with a Tongue which is his glory and a Mouth full of songs of thanksgiving not with a gadding eye but an eye shut up by covenant not with an itching but with an humble ear not with a heart of stone but with a heart after Gods own heart And as in the Resurrection of the body unde videtur perdidisse quod erat inde incipit hoc apparere quod non erat from whence he doth seem to have lost that which he was from thence he begins to appear to be that which he was not So no change no resurrection It is a gross errour and deceives many and keeps their heart dead within them as a stone to think they are risen when they are bound hand and foot both dead and buried to think they are up and walking when alass they are in their grave As the Philosopher speaks of ignorant and self conceited men that they might have proved men of understanding had they not thought that they had already atteined unto knowledge so many who profess the name of Christ might have also risen with Christ but for a groundless conceit that this is a business of quick dispatch and that as Hymeneus and Philetus said their resurrection is past already The rising of the thought the raising of the voice the lifting up of the hand the elevation of the eye every inclination every profer every weak resolution is with them a Resurrection But this is as we vulgarly speak to rise on the wrong side And therefore In the third place as our Resurrection so our Regeneration must be universal of every part Quid est resurrectionem credere nisi integram credere saith Tertullian We do not believe the Resurrection if we do not believe it to be entire and of every part of that part which is bruised and of that part which is cut off Detruncatio membri mors membri The maiming or detruncation of any member is the death of the member and the body must be restored and revived in those parts which are dead So that to be raised from the dead is to be made a whole man Blind Bartimaeus must have his eyes Mephibosheth his legs and John Baptist his head again or else we cannot call it a Resurrection So it is in our rising with Christ The whole man must be renewed the man of God must be made perfect to every good work and be presented unblameable and unreproveable in Gods sight with an understanding enlightened and a heart renewed with holy desires and clean hands and sanctified lips which make us as it were the integrity of his parts In the common affairs of the world many times we do things by halves we begin to build and cannot make an end we send our hopes afar off and fall short in the way that we follow them we propose to our selves a mountain and when we have done all it is but a mole-hill because many cross accidents like so many Sanballats come in between to hinder our work And yet nevertheless though we cannot finish it we may be said to have begun it and to have done something But here in our Regeneration in our Rising with Christ there can no cross accident intervene All the hindrance is from the perversness of our own wills And therefore in this work nothing is done if any thing be left undone If we end not we begin not and if we rise not in every part in every faculty of our souls we are not risen Non vult nisi totam qui totam fecit He that made the whole soul will have it all If it be not restored in every part God hath no part in it There be say the Schools particulares voluntates particular habits particular dispositions and particular wills to some kind of virtues Some are born Eunuchs saith our Saviour Some are chast not merciful Some are liberal not temperate Some have a quick ear and but a heavy hand Some can hear and speak and walk peradventure a Sabbath-days journey and yet we cannot say they are risen For these particular operations are not natural but artificial not the actions of a living soul but like unto the motions of that artificial body which Albertus made not proceeding from any life within us but formed as it were by certain wheels and engines by Love of a good name by outward Respects by a Desire to bring our purposes about and the like This is not generalis but portionalis resurrectio a portional a particular an half resurrection indeed as good none at all This is not Gods manner of raising us Deus cùm liberat non partem aliquam liberat sed totam liberat saith S. Augustine When God raiseth us he raiseth not a part but he raiseth all His voice is Lazare veni foràs Lazarus come forth not the body alone but the soul also and not one faculty of the soul but every power of it that is the whole man all Lazarus For if any part of Lazarus yet savour of rottenness and corruption we cannot say that Lazarus is risen Let us not deceive our selves He that is risen with Christ stands not as Solomon was pictured by an Archbishop half in heaven and half in hell but his conversation is in heaven and he is raised far above all principalities and powers above the power of darkness and the
the living to preserve the memory of the dead For this were the Diptychs read in the Church which were two leaves or tables on the one whereof were written the names of those pious men and Confessors who were yet alive and on the other of those who had dyed in the Lord and were at rest To this end Churches were dedicate to God but bore the names of Saints to preserve their memory I might tell you and that truly if there be any truth in Story but I am unwilling to bring the Martyrs of Christ within the least suspicion of being superstitious but History hath told us that they hung up their pictures in their private shops and houses that they engraved the pictures of the Apostles in their very drinking-cups celebrated their feast-dayes honoured their memories framed Panegyricks of them wrote their Lives Basil wrote the Life of Barlaam who was but a poor Shepherd Nazianzene of Basil and of others which he saith he left to posterity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a common table of virtue for all the world to behold For since men are delighted in the imitation of others and led more easily by examples then laws what more profitable course could the Church of Christ have found out then the preservation of the acts and memory of the Saints and transmitting them to posterity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gregory Nyssene speaketh as provision to help and uphold us in our way How are we affected with these narrations What deep impressions do they make How do our minds naturally cleave unto them like stars fastned to their orbs and so move together with them We are on the dunghil with Job in a bed of tears with David on our knees with Daniel ready to be offered up with St. Paul at the stake and on the rack and at the block with the Martyrs The very remembrance of good men of the Saints of God is a degree and an approach unto Holiness To drive this yet a little more home The Apostle's counsel to the Hebrews is to consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 narrowly to mark and observe and to study Heb. 10.24 one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whet and sharpen each others affection now dulled perhaps with vain and impertinent speculations to provoke unto love and good works To this end God hath placed us in the Communion of Saints a benefit which we either understand not or undervalue and he hath ordained it that one Christian should be as a lesson to another which he should take out and learn and teach again and then strive to improve For it is in this as it is in Arts and Sciences Qui agit ut prior sit forsitan si non transierit aequabit He who stirred up with an holy ambition maketh it his industry to exceed his patern may become as glorious a star as he yea by his holy emulation peradventure far out-shine him Qui sequitur cupit consequi For he who followeth others maketh it his aim we may be sure if not to exceed yet to overtake them And this use we have of Examples They are set before us to raise up in us an holy emulation It is true Emulation hath this common with Envy that we sorrow and are angry but the Philosopher putteth the difference 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We sorrow not that others are beautified with graces but that we our selves are not This Sorrow and Anger hath not the same rise and ground in the one as in the other For this godly Sorrow in holy emulation bringeth forth a repentance not to be repented of and our indignation is not on the Saint we look upon but on our selves and it proceedeth from a love and admiration of those Heroes whom virtue and piety have made glorious in our eyes Love and Hope are both antidotes against the venom and poison of Envy but are the ingredients which make up the wholsom composition of Emulation No such Sorrow and Anger in Emulation as that which setteth the teeth of Envy on edge but there is Love which carryeth fire in it and is full of activity and impatient of delay and Hope quae expeditam reddit operationem which setteth us forward in our way and maketh our feet like hinds feet not to follow but to run after those who are gone before and are now in termino at their journeys end Divina dispensatio quot justos exhibuit tot astra supra peccatorum tenebras misit saith Gregory As many just and holy men as the Providence of God hath shewed to the world so many Stars hath he fixed in the firmament of the Church to lighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Dionysius Longinus Such is the delight we take in example that we see many men are rapt and inspired with other mens spirits And as the Priests of Apollo at a chink or opening of the earth received a Divine breath and inspiration which so filled them that they could give answer to those who consulted the Oracle so from the virtues and holiness of good men if we look stedfastly upon them and consider them aright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as by so many sacred doors and conveyances are derived those defluxions of piety which do so fill us that we are able with alacrity and a kind of tryumph to follow after In a word by the virtue of Imitation it is that we become meek with Moses patient with Job chaste with Joseph upright with David that we forget what is behind and press toward the mark with St. Paul who here calleth after us to be Followers of him My next part And here we have a hard task St. Paul an ensample which all men magnifie but few follow QUOTIDIE MORIOR I dye daily was his Motto and we had rather chuse another who tremble at the very thought that we must dye once St. Paul a mark for all the miseries in the world to shoot at In afflictions necessities distresses in stripes and imprisonment in watchings and fastings Who would be drawn out in these colours Who would be such a Paul though it were to be a Saint Follow him perhaps into the third heaven we would but we have no mind to follow him through tumults on earth and tempests at Sea before Tyrants and to the block here we turn countenance and cannot stir a foot But then I told you he taketh in all the Saints the glorious company of the Apostles the noble army of martyrs Menander fecit Andriam Perinthiam He that made one made both He that was glorious in St. Paul was glorious in all the rest St. Paul I think the best servant that ever Christ had upon the earth the Map of all the Saints And he that followeth him must follow all An ensample one would think not to be reached by imitation Difficulty is the great excuse of the world and because things are hard to be
of Signs in the Sun and in the Moon of Wars and Rumours of wars of strange and unusual Tumults of the Stars falling from heaven and the Powers of the heaven shaken And which of all these signs are there which hath not at one time or other looked upon us and told us to our faces that we even we are the men Such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and concourse of causes hath scarcely been in any age as we our selves have seen Not to speak of every particular If we consider wars and rumours of wars and Nation rising against Nation these certainly will tell us we are the men Si possemus in talem ascendere speculam as Hierom speaketh Might we go up into some exceeding high mountain whence we might take a view of all the earth we might shew you all in commotion Nation against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom yea even Christians whose Peculiar was Peace to whom it was bequeathed as a legacy by the Prince of peace not turning swords into plough-shares but plough-shares into swords Christans I say divided and that made a just cause or rather a pretense of war which should be the bond of peace Nor need we go up into any exceeding high mountain Our own plain hath been the stage of war and a field of bloud and we may find the Hornet that stingeth us in our own hive We may behold father against son and son against father kinsman against kinsman and brother against brother breathing out indignation pursuing with violence and threatning that to their own house and to the own loyns to flesh of their flesh which a Turk could not wish nor a Pagan act But did we as we said go up into some high mountain and from thence see in one part of the earth the Turk and the Pagan and in the other the Christians all in battel-array defying spoiling killing each other with the same violence with the same malice and fury but loudest in the Christian we might be at a stand and puzzled as not able to determine which where the Turk or Pagan and which the Christian But if we take these Signs in that sense which they will bear and which hath countenance both from the Prophets and Apostles we cannot but apply them to our selves and lay our hands upon our hearts and undoubtedly conclude we are the men here spoken to For first for the Heaven Gal. 4.26 Heb. 12.22 the Apostle telleth us it is the Christian Church Jerusalem which is above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the heavenly Jerusalem And in many places of the Revelation the Stars are the Teachers And tell me Is not our Heaven clouded Are not the Stars fallen from their Heaven Are not the Teachers many of them fallen from the profession of the Truth and become no better then as S. Jude describeth them wandring stars never keeping their course and station nor constant to that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints but at the beck of Power at the sound of the Dulcimer some hope of advantage or at the heating of the Furnace the fear of punishment boldly anathematizing that to day which they subscribed to yesterday unsavoury salt fit to be trode under foot and flung to the dunghill Did I call them Stars They are rather Meteors not fixed in the heaven but whiffed up and down the air drawn up to some height by worldly respects and the breath of the multitude and then hanging as comets or blazing stars portending seditions wars famine pestilence and all those evils which shake the pillars of the world and dig at the very foundation of Church and Commonwealth And is not this Prophecy fulfilled in our eyes Is not our Sun darkned and our Moon turned into bloud Are not our Stars fallen and the powers of heaven shaken When we behold those things which are foretold do we still look for prodigies Or can there be greater prodigies then these Talk what we please of Centaurs Scillas and such kind of monsters of an Ox speaking of a Statue laughing of a Maid delivered of a serpent of an Ewe yeaning a lion of a showre of Flesh or Stones of Tempests and Whirlwinds these these are more ominous these are all these doe all and even point out to us the coming of the Lord And when we see these we may cry out with Moses Take a censor and make an atonement Numb 16.46 Psal 124.4 2 Kings 7 4. For the plague is begun Or with David The waters have over whelmed us the waves are gone over our soul Or with the lepers The famine is in the City a famine if not of bread yet of the word of God For though we be fed every day nay almost every hour yet a Famine there vvill be if the meat vve feed on be but husks Last of all if vve look upon the state of Christendom vvhat is it but as a troubled sea or vvhat do vve hear but the raging of the sea and the madness of the people So that novv if ever it vvill concern us to fear at least that these things which were foretold by Christ are come upon us to watch over our selves diligently and to prepare for his second coming Therefore vve are called upon the behold and consider them Behold I have told you before And there is good reason vve should behold For these things fall not out by chance Fate and Chance in the things of God are but names and have no povver at all but by the providence of God they are sent upon us that so Christians to vvhom the promise of Christ's coming is made and the signes thereof revealed might the more apprehend it and the better provide to entertain it look and observe any signes that are like them and prepare themselves as if they were the very same What shall we say then What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness who are spectatours of these times and stand by for ought we know to see the world breath out its last Let us apply the words of Thrasea in Tacitus to ourselves Specta juvenis caeterùm in illa tempora incidimus in quibus firmare animum oportet constantibus exemplis Let us carefully observe such things as happen and God turn all to the best but certainly we are faln into those times in which it will be most behoofful for us to strengthen ourselves with all Christian constancy and resolution possible For he that beholdeth this hath reason to look about him and at least to conceive of these times as the Apostles did of theirs as of the last dayes by the noise of one trumpet to be put in mind of the last and at the sight of these dreadful apparitions to behave himself as if the Son of man were even now coming in the clouds Behold saith our Saviour I have told you before When we see these signs we must not passe them by perfunctorily as if they were no signs
it requireth no more at our hands for the obtaining of eternity of bliss but this Faith this persuasion If so be we be holy and innocent and remain in this Law and by this faith overcome the world BLESSEDNES then is as the Sun and looketh and shineth on all putteth life in the Law raiseth our Perfection begetteth and upholdeth our Liberty maketh Conscience quick and lively either to affright or joy us either to seourge or feast us If in this life onely we had hope our faith were vain nay this Law the Gospel were vain And therefore in every storm and tempest under the shadow and wings of this Hope we find shelter We flie for refuge saith the Apostle to lay hold upon the hope which is sâ—t before us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We flie out of the world a shop of vanity and uncertainty the region of changes and chances to this Hope as to an anchor of the soul sure and stedfast which cannot deceive us if we lay hold on it for it entereth into that within the veil and so is firm and safe fastened on this Blessedness as an anchor that reacheth to the bottom and sticketh fast in the ground Blessedness upholdeth and setleth our Hope and on our Hope our Obedience is raised to reach that Blessedness on which our Hope is setled In a word Blessedness like Christ himself is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first and the last the end and yet the first mover of us in those wayes which lead unto it Christiano coelum antè patuit quà m via Heaven is opened to a Christian and then the way And he that walketh in it shall enter in he that doeth the work shall be blessed in it Now BEATUS ERIT He shall be blessed may either look upon this span or upon that immeasurable space of eternity And it is true in both both here where we converse with Men and Misery and there where we shall have the company of Seraphim and Cherubim and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth Here we have something in hand there the accomplishment some ears we have we shall have the whole sheaf Here we have one part of Blessedness peace of conscience there remaineth the greater the reversion in the highest heavens As Christ said of the two Commandements This is the great Blessedness and the other is like unto it that Joy which is the resultance of every good work which we call our Heaven upon earth That which is to come is a state of perfection an aggregation of all that is truly good without the least tincture and shew of evil as Boethius speaketh This cannot be found here on earth in the best Saint whose joy and peace is sometimes interrupted for a while by the gnawings of some sin or other which overtaketh him or by the sight of imperfection which will not suffer his joy to be full The best peace on earth may meet with disturbance Therefore Peace is found alone in the most perfect Good even God himself who is Perfection it self whose delight and paradise is in his own bosom Which he openeth and out of which he poureth a part of it on his creature and of which we do in a manner take possession when we look into and remain in the perfect Law of Liberty which is an emanation from him a beam of that Law which was with God from all eternity and by which as we are made after the image so are we transformed after the similitude of God which Plato himself calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assimilation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 union with God In whom alone those two powers of the soul those two Horseleaches which ever cry Give Give the Understanding which is ever drawing new conclusions and the Will which is ever pursuing new objects have their eternal sabbath and rest He that doeth the work shall be blessed in the work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this man and none but this shall be blessed So then this is the conclusion That Evangelical Obedience the constant observation of this Law of Liberty of the doctrine of Faith and Good works is the onely and immediate way to Blessedness For not the hearers of the word but the doers shall be justified saith S. Paul And indeed there is no way but this For First God hath fitted us to this Law and this Law to us He hath fitted us for this heavenly treasure For can we imagine that God did thus build us up and stamp his own Image upon us that we should be an habitation for owles and satyres Rom. 12 3. for wild and brutish imaginations that he did give us Understandings to forge deceit to contrive plots to find out an art of pleasure a method and craft of enjoying that which is but for a season that he did give us Wills to wait upon the Flesh which fighteth against the Spirit and his Image which is in us Was the Soul made immortal for that which passeth away as a shadow and is no more or hath he given us dominion over the beasts of the field that we should fall and perish with them No We are ad majora nati born mortal but to eternity And we carry an argument about us against our selves if we remain not in this Law For take it in credendis in those conclusions which it commendeth to our Faith though Faith indeed in respect of the remoteness of its object and its elevation be above Nature yet in the soul God hath left a capacity to receive it and if the other condition of persevering in it did not lie heavy upon the flesh the brutish part we should be readier scholars in our Creed then we are If we could hate the world we should soon be in heaven If we could embrace that which we cannot but approve our Infidelity and Doubtings would soon vanish as the mist before the Sun S. Augustine hath observed it in his book De Religione that multitudes of good moral men especially the Platonicks came in readily and gave up their names unto Christ The Moral man did then draw on the Christian But now I know not how the Christian is brought in to countenance those who deserve another name But then for the Agenda and precepts of practice They are as the seed and the Heart of man the earth the Matrix the womb to receive them And they are so proportioned to our Reason that they are no sooner seen but approved they bring as it were of near alliance and consanguinity with those notions and principles which we brought with us into the world Onely those are written in a book these in the heart indeed the one are but a commentary on the other What precept of Christ is there which is not agreeable and consonant to right Reason Doth he prescribe Purity The heart applaudeth it Doth he bless Meekness The mind of man soon sayeth Amen Doth he enjoyn Sobriety We soon subscribe
who is ready to die and must speak no more in this place And may it have the impression and force of the words of a dying man and let it come up into the presence of that God who boweth the ear and hearkeneth to the grones and sighs and prayers of them who cannot speak That so this truth this essential and necessary truth may abide in you and bow you to the obedience of that Law which shall bring you to bliss Then shall I magnifie God in your behalf and you shall bless God in mine Then shall we meet and be present together when we are divided asunder and this truth remaining in you and you in it I shall speak when I am silent Your prayers shall ascend for me and mine for you and they shall both meet before the throne of God and God shall hear and joyn us together in the blessing who were so united in our devotion And in this holy contention and blessed emulation of blessing one another of praying for one another we shall pass through this wilderness where there be so many serpents to bite us through this Aceldama this Field of bloud through the manifold changes and chances of this world and at the last day meet together again and receive that Blessing which the Judge shall then pronounce to all that love and fear him to all that look into this perfect Law of Liberty and remain in it Come ye blessed of my Father receive the Kingdom prepared for you where there is joy and peace and fulness of all blessings for evermore Soli Deo Gloria The End of the Second Volume Errata Page 78. Line 27. nor composition 101. 6 lease 104. 35. conservation 220. 10. unbeseeming 304. 43. God may strike 325. 35. occasionally 345. 32. commendation 372. 25. bringeth 373. 54. Hippocrates 380. 40. yet it is not true in respect of its latitude and extent 405. 37. manifest 551. 44. were possessed 642. 37. how it is 644. 24. openeth 664. 35. so it is also 689. 14. his garners 703. 4. far are 711. 32. unrighteousness 721. 30. thus they that are 774. 33. of the mind 776. 26. is reported 786. 53. some let 791. 55. sacrificers 796. 15. will now be 798. 19. is the whisper 836. 46. of the Lord. 839. 15 perceiving 841. 4 whosoever conq 923. 8. is an 30. to prefer 916 21. scared 930. 26 standeth up 942. 33. quickness 943. 9. what is done though it be but the gift of a cup of cold water should be done in his name 943. 51. the peerless charity 947. 34. and it would be our 949. 1. mortal 40. run round 950. 2. alembicks 12. contingency 957. 24. not to be 51. truly 977. 26. tuneth 98◠12. at a starr 23. to blind him that 993. 55. hominem beatum ind 999. 9. that unction S. John 1001. 53. attribute therefore our rising 1002. 39. whensoever 1003. 34. unregeneration 55. take time 1011. 13 set forth the. 41. art not what thou wouldst be 1056. 12. thine is the glory 1061. 13. our disobedience 1080. 20. cannot but see 1087. 51. is our power 1090. 44. may fit 1094. 12. did not make 1097. 11. speaketh sometimes of babes 1125. 8. being as 28. looked into 1128. 1. Calvinist 11. as loud a lie 32. profaneness With other Literal mistakes which the Reader is desired to amend A Table of Things Persons Words Scriptures A ABraham Vide Covetous Abuse of a thing should not take away its use 47. Acts ii 11. 234. ii 37. 776. Acknowledgment of sins v. Confession Adam why made naked 620. v. naked Of his fall 259. Of Admiration 728 729. 978 979. not the greatest but the rarest things are those we wonder at 729. Every thing is not a miracle that we admire 979. We wonder at unworthy things and regard not the miracles and mysteries of the Gospel 980. When the Mind admireth a lesser good overmuch it should be directed to a greater 988. Adoption 105. Adversity no sure token of God's displeasure 684 685. v. Prosperity Advise and deliberation in other things requisite but in repentance foolish and dangerous 355 c. 1003. Aerius 65. Affections are not in themselves vitious 265 266. 387. but may all be employed to God's glory 266. They oft sway us against Reason 662. and blind us that we cannot see the truth 670 c. 973. yet are they not to be exstinguished being placed in us for good but corrected 672. v. Passions and Reason Inordinate Affections are like a tempest 676. They should be set on things above 646 c. When set on right objects they lose their names and are called Virtues 338. Affections do but lightly move us 316. but Virtues make us walk steddily and constantly 317. Affections in the regenerate how changed 338. The Pythagoreans distinction of them 564. How they are wrought upon by tentations 261 262. Affliction v. Prosperity We may not censure others to be great sinners because greatly afflicted 295 296. Affliction of the godly should not seem strange 190. Afflictions lose their nature to the godly 542. They are necessary upon two accounts 364. 800 801. Our corruptions require such a purge and we such a preparative for heaven 703 704. They try the Graces of God's children 698. They are often very profitable 764 c. and work unspeakable comfort 768 769. What use we should make of them 925. 598. 801. and how we must behave our selves under them 570 571. God is most kind to us when he afflicteth us 570. The true remedy of Afflictions 541 542. If they amend us not they are forerunners of endless torments 801. Agenoria a Goddess 980. Agricola 248. All. How Christ was delivered for all 29 30. Allegorie what 174. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how mischievous 212 213. v. Busy-bodies Alms. v. Basil Mercy Poor Riches Several false springs that Alms may flow from 149. What to be thought of the Alms of an Oppressour 280. or of a Pharisee 281. Alms make both the giver and the receiver joyful 1125 1126. Altar to be made of unhewn stones why 272. Ambition how restless 209. how subtile and false 261. v. Covetousness and Hope There is an holy Ambition which must be boundless 1020. 1024. Anabaptists strange illusions 774. Angels glorious creatures but not able to save Man 4. Why Man redeemed by Christ not the fallen Angels 28. How the good Angels were concerned in Christ's first coming and shall be in his second 245. They are free from all danger or fear of change 1085. Their law work happiness 1100. They serve God with alacrity 845. 879 880. Man may seem in some respects preferred before them 563. 746. Why they are said to worship God as we do 746. Whether they come to our congregations 857. They rejoyce to see us do our duty 858. Our obedience must be like theirs 879. Anger good and bad 338. How Anger unmanneth us 832. Anomoei 165. Anthropomorphites 785. Antiquity vainly boasted of by the Papists 681.
Ignorance of our selves 481. Self-love 481. Pride 483. The extent and latitude of this duty 484 c. It is our principal work to examin both our weakness and our strength 601 602. After Examination amendment must follow 485 c. Against such as magisterially examin others before the Communion 494. Every man ought to examin himself 494 495. Examples have far more power upon our Wills then Precepts 1016 c. The power of an Example 826 827. The Examples of God's Saints are to be looked upon with a wary Ey 525. 1024. They are as it were pictures and statues of Virtues 1018. and a light to us 552 553. Let us bless God for them 553. 1022. We must set before us the Examples of the best 1020 c. 1023. Great Ex. should not discourage but quicken and hearten us 1023. v. Saints A shame it is that after so many fair Ex. Religion and Holiness should decay 1023 1024. We should strive to equal and excel the brightest Examples 1024. If an Ex. vary from the Command we must not follow it 1026 1027. GOD is the great Ex. for Man to follow 826 c. CHRIST's Example is the Standard by which all others are to be examined 1026. Every man ought to give good Ex. to others 555 556. A fearful thing to draw others to sin by our Ex. 380. Excusing of sin how ordinary how sinful 171 172. It is even natural to us and inseparable from Sin 1036. The mischief of it 1036 1037. It is greater then the Sin it self 1034 1035. Exercise It s mighty force 1117. Of the military Exercises of the Romanes 1118. Exod. vii 3. 412. ¶ xx 25. 372. Expedient In matters of indifferencie we are to do nothing that is not Exp. 1102. Experience begotten by Use and brought forth by Memory 533. No Masters so willing and able as the Scholars of Experience 533. Extremes are both evil and both to be avoided 374. Ey In the Ey the Mind sheweth it self 264. F. FAction An embittered Faction a type of Hell 492. Every Faction is wont to cry-up themselves and to cry-down all others 319 320. 491. 682. 1060. 1127 1128. which is carnal and sensual 320. v. Church Faith in Christ what 1075. How gained and encreased 669. Why God will not let the articles of our Faith become objects of our Sense 733 734. If Faith's object were clear and without difficulty it would not be Faith but Knowledge 41. The Senses help to confirm our Faith 727. Though it be an act of the Understanding yet it dependeth on the Will 734. How excellent a grace it is 274. It is a Prospective that presenteth to us things afar off 241. By it vve see Christ and lay hold on him 490. The miserable condition of him that wanteth F. 314. Many phansie they have F. that have not 1048. 1060. We must examine whether we be in the right F. 735. True and real F. is not idle or speachless or dead but active and operative 241. 765. Faith vvithout Righteousness will deceive them that rely on it 130. 136. Without Charity and Good vvorks it is nothing vvorth 275 276. Faith and Charity like Hippocrates's twins live and die together 490. F. is naturally productive of good vvorks 276. F. justifieth a sinner but a repentant sinner 872. It is attended with Hope 242. It maketh a man slight the threats and power of Tyrants 241. It expelleth base Fear and filleth the heart with courage and confidence 314. What kind of F. it is that must qualifie and prepare us for Christ's second coming 1049. The vast difference between a dead F. and a lively F. 316. How St. James and St. Paul may be reconciled in the point of F. 256. Why St. James putteth not Faith into his description of pure Religion 274 c. F. hath as its encreasings so its decreasings 458. 465. One that is strong in the F. may want skill to maintain it 734 735. We should at all times quicken our F. but then especially vvhen vve come to the Lord's Table 465. 489 490. Faith and Charity judge not alike 837. What maketh men fall from one F. to another 41 42. Self-love and Love of the vvorld frame mens Creeds 734. Many Questions about Faith may well be spared 1075 1076. Falling from grace v. Perseverance Familiarity with God hovv to be held 757. Fanaticks v. Holy Ghost Fasting commended 752. Different kinds of F. 752. Politick hypocritical Fasts inveyed against 277 278. 1051 c. Some cry-down Popish F. some all 750. The ends and use and benefit of F. 753. 791. 1056 1057. F. is not holiness but an help to it 1056. v. Duties Fate Against them that attribute all to Fate and Destiny 666. v. Decrees Necessity Whether it be Fate that bringeth Kingdoms to their ruine and not rather something else 213. Fear what 387. It may seem the most unprofitable of all the Passions 387. How great a burden F. is 936. Plato and Aristotle banish it their Schools 389 but both God's Law and Christ's Gospel command it 389 390. The errours of some Hereticks that cried-down F. as out of date under the Gospel 392. confuted 393 c. It is a fair introduction to Piety 389. It maketh us advise and consult what is best to do 388. How it worketh and becometh useful to forward our Repentance 387. c. It not onely keepeth us from sin but upholdeth us in the way of righteousness 392. 399. To avoid sin out of Fear is indeed an argument of imperfection but vve need it vvhile vve are here 395. Fear of God a soveraign antidote against Sin 258. Want of F. threvv our first Parents out of Paradise and novv keepeth men out of heaven 395. Of the distinction of Fear into Servile and Filial 396. What kind of F. Christ forbiddeth Luk. xii 32. 397. God's Children may yea must fear punishment 396 c. 399. Fear of judgment may vvell consist vvith Love 391. 394 c. vvitness Gods Saints and Martyrs 391. Hovv Love casteth out Fear 398. Fear beginneth the good vvorks oftentimes which Love afterward perfecteth 926. Fear may stand with Faith 398. and vvith Hope 399. Hope and Fear ever go together 387. Fear keepeth them all in a due temper 399. Christ telleth us vvhom vve must not fear and vvhom vve must 394. We should not fear men but God 236. 400. 642. Wherein our F. of God is seen 807. The F. of God should drive out all F. of men 673. How basely many fear men but not God at all 400. 642. Base F. of men how strangely it transporteth and transformeth us 117. 400. 642. 671. Feasting 618. We are bid to feast the poor c. but vvho vvhere is the man that doth so 690. Fellow-feeling ought to be among us 141. 148. v. Compassion Fire Basil's phansie concerning Fire 551. Flattery and Dissimulation hovv they differ 54 55. The holy Spirit useth neither 54. How the vvorld aboundeth with Flatterers 504. A seditious Flatterer 506.
There onely is blessedness to be found 986. Heaven-gate not so easie to be entred as some men dream 1070. 1078. Heaven will not be atteined by a phansie a thought a wish a bare profession 1067. The way to Heaven though rough haply at first smooth and pleasant afterwards 60. Hebr. xiii 21. 588. Hell no place for a true Christian 48. Sin an embleme of Hell 932. St. Basil's opinion of Hell-torments 380. Heresies Their original 263. Hertha 462. Hieroglyphicks of great use in Egypt of old and still in China 1017. St. Hierome 391. Hilarion 539. Holy Ghost v. Ghost Holiness It s large extent 196. Many mistakes about it 196. It pleaseth even them that oppose it 553. How Churches Dayes Means c. are holy 847. c. v. Churches Honest v Profitable It is a good way to make one an honest man to pretend we take him to be so 1002. Honours v. Riches That which the world counteth Honourable is quite contrary with God 210. Why and how we ought to honour our selves and how not 318. Honour a vain thing to satisfie the soul 648. Hope is a necessary companion of Faith 242. 736. It is best allayed with Fear 399. How a firm Hope is gained 669. Bad men oft hope too much and good men in a manner despair 344 c. 351. v. Assurance Presumtion We must hope well of every man endeavour his salvation 576 577. How Hope of Wealth or Honour enslaveth and deceiveth us 671. Nothing in this world worthy to place our Hope on 674. Humility Christ's H. the onely remedy for Man's Pride 6. Man's heart naturally averse from it 157 630. It is the door-keeper in Christ's School 159. 631. It appeareth in every action of a Christian 156. 638. VVherein it consisteth 159. 631. Many practice it by halves 160. 632. Humility of the Soul the cheif H. 160 c. 633. But that of the Body must not be wanting 162. 634. Many praise H. few practice it 630. It s proper vvork 631. Many look to have this grace vvrought in them vvithout striving for it but this is a dangerous errour 628 629. Humility twofold Forced and Voluntary 629. God's Power should move us to H. 642. but his Mercy is the most powerful motive 643. H. is the next step to Honour 644. Exceeding great advantages vve receive by it 644 645. Humbling our selves is a most Christian exercise 627. A blameworthy Humility 428. 459. That is bad H. that keepeth us from doing our duty 459 c. 609. Husband A Christian H. is soli uxori masculus 1078. Hypocrisy not dead vvith the Pharisees but alive at this day 1059. How to be discovered 64. v. Formality H. set-forth in its colours 1055. The Hypocrite set-forth 171. 777. 780. A character of the Hypocrites of this Age 1060. Hypocrites like the vvheels of a Clock or motions by Water-works 370. They deceive others and themselves 919. Let them not think to hide themselves from God's all-seeing ey 1059. Their portion in hell the saddest 372. What instruction may be received even from Hypocrites 373. H. is most odious 369 372. It is often witty and laborious but quickly at an end 370. It is most hateful to God as being most opposit to his Justice 1058. and to his Wisdome 1059. Hypocritical Fasting Hearing Praying v. Fasting c. I. IDleness is contrary to the dictate not onely of the Spirit but even of Nature 220. It is the mother and nurse of pragmatical Curiosity 218. It maketh more Monks then Religion 220. Idle Gallants reproved 222. Idle and unactive souls deserve not to be accounted peaceable 199. The Idle Sluggard is a thief robbing both the Common-wealth and himself 220. The Idle man's Texts vindicated 222. Ignorance v. Malice Nature hath annexed a shame to Lust and Ignorance 500. Ignorance by some accounted holiness 97. There were of old some who professed Ignorance 1095. We have some now that are Ignorant but would not be held so 1095. Many mens Ignorance is a wilfull and proud Ignorance 437 438. Some pretend knowledge but are grosly ignorant 97. Ignorance a slight excuse 437. 447. No Ign. is an excuse but what is irresistible 439. Ignorance in a Physician is a cheat 439. Ign. of our selves the worst Ign. 481. Ignorance of some things better then skill in them 131. Affected Ignorance is most fearful 688 689. Image of God defaced in Man renewed by Christ 13. Wherein it consisteth 647. Imitation of the Saints must be with caution and limitation 1025 c. v. Examples How foolishly some imitated Basil 1025. Impatience a sign of a worldly man 542. Impenitence after deliverances will pull down greater judgments 610 c. Impenitence and Infidelity the onely unpardonable sins 29 c. Impossibilities are not required of us by God 109 c. 602 c. If exact Obedience were indeed impossible whether it be fit the people should be told so 111. 605. Imputation v. Righteousness Many lay claim to Christ's Imputed Righteousness vvho have none of their own 993. Incarnation v. CHRIST Inclination v. Affections Thoughts No natural Inclination or Appetite is evil in it self 265. Good Inclinations are from God 361 362. Inconstancie in mens actions whence 317. To â—lter ones opinion upon clearer evidence is not Inconstancie 678. Indifferent things become necessary when commanded by lawful Autority 59. 1077. These are the onely sphere that Autority moveth in 60. In things Indifferent vve must follow the rules of Charity and Prudence 1077. We must abstein from things otherwise lawful if not expedient 639. 1102. Induration v. Hardning Industrie It s efficacie 1066. Industrie and Pains-taking often frustrate in temporal matters alwayes speed in search of the Truth 67. It is the way to Knowledge 96 97. v. Calling Labour Infidelity is in every sin 100. This sin onely maketh Christ's bloud ineffectual 29 c. The cause of it 41 42. Ingratitude a most odious vice 363. 799. Injustice Many talk of Honesty and Religion and live unjustly 134. Injustice is far worse then Poverty Grief Death 126. It can have no good pretense to excuse it 127. It is a most unmanly quality 135. It floweth from Distrust of God and Love of the World 136. v. Oppression The dismal doom of Injustice 136 137. Intention As is the Intention so is the action how to be understood 444. v. Meaning Sin Interest Private Interest of how great sway in the vvorld 1071. Irreverence in the house of God springeth from Covetousness 755. and from Pride 859. It offendeth God Angels and good Men and encourageth the Profane 858. Many are so Irreverent in the Church as if they thought God vvere not there 920. Their pretense vvho place Religion in Irreverence 757 v. Reverence Arguments of profane Irreverent men answered 859. Isa v. 3 4. 486. ¶ vi 9 10. 411. ¶ lv 8. 189. 703. ISRAEL The very name is a great motive to obedience and a sore aggravation of sin 402. 417. v. Jews The state of