LXXX SERMONS PREACHED At the Parish-CHURCH of St Mary Magdalene Milk-street, LONDON: WHEREOF Nine of them not till now Published. By the late Eminent and Learned Divine ANTHONY FARINDON, B. D. Divinity Reader of his MAJESTY'S Chappel-Royal of Windsor. The Second Edition; Revised and Corrected by the Author's Manuscripts. In Two Volumes. With a Large TABLE to both. LONDON, Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott. MDCLXXII. XXXII SERMONS PREACHED At the Parish-CHURCH of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, LONDON. To which is Annexed, A SERMON PREACHED At the Funeral of Sir GEORGE WHITMORE, Knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City. The First Volume. By the late Eminent and Learned Divine B. D. Divinity Reader of his MAJESTY'S Chappel-Royal of Windsor. Aug. l. 3. de Trin. in Prooemio. Nolo Lectorem meum mihi esse deditum, & Correctorem nolo sibi. PHILIP. 1.15, 18. 15. Some preach Christ, even of envy and strife, and some also of good will. 18.— Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, and will rejoice. The Second Edition. LONDON, Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott. MDCLXXII. TO The Right Worshipful and Much Honoured JOHN ROBINSON, Esq; Alderman of the City of LONDON. SIR, WHen I had yielded up my Modesty, or rather my Consciousness of my too many and too great defects, as a spoil to the wills and importunity of others, and had harkened to them so far as to venture and expose these Sermons and myself to censure, I did then without any deliberation or study tell myself to whom they were due: Nor did any thought interpose itself, but this one, That they were not worth your eye or owning. I had o●●● res●●ved to have sent them naked into the world without any name before them but my own; and could have been well content to have left that out also, for I am not over-proud of them. But then I conceived that, though they ●●ould speak but little for themselves, yet they might for me, (who dare not do so much for them,) and at least be a witness or Manifesto of my deep apprehension of your many noble favours, and great charity to me and mine, when the sharpness of the weather and the roughness of the times had blown all from us, and well-near left us naked. And to this end with all heartiness and height of thankfulness I here present them, and humbly put them into your hands, that when you turn them over, you may read something besides my Imperfections, even that Truth which will make you happy, and with it my Gratitude. I would not be the Grave of that Charity which can never die, but when we are dead will follow us. And, I thank God, I understand a Benefit, and can behold it in all its circumstances: and to me it appeareth fresher and fairer every day, putting me in mind from whence it came, and by what hands it was conveyed; and it filleth me with Prayers and Praises and Gratulations: and I bless God, and cry, Grace, Grace, unto the hand and instrument. Worthy Sir, this is the fairest and best return that my Poverty can make, and I nothing doubt but you will look upon it as the fairest and best; for this I can make, and by the blessing of God you want no other. I see myself deeply obliged to you, and by your favour to many other Noble and Religious Gentlemen: and I have but the same payment for all, which I will ever pay (for a thankful man is always in debt) even to my last payment, when I shall render up my soul to God that gave it. The same God who put it into your hearts, fill your hearts with that Joy which is the purchase of Charity. I cannot end but with my hearty prayer to the God of Blessings for a blessing on you and your whole family, which is the daily prayer of, SIR, Yours obliged to serve and honour you, ANT. FARINDON. April 21. 1657. THE PREFACE. THat the way of man is not in himself, Jer. 10.23. that it is not in him to direct his steps in that way which he chalketh out, I have found true in myself, and am made an instance of it in the truest and most natural sense of the words; That our purposes sink and fail almost as soon as they are up, that in matters of indifferency (and would it were not so in those of the greatest concernment) we think we resolve when we do but think. And what strength hath such a thought against a Friend and Importunity. I saw well enough the hazard before me which I was to run. I knew there was too much of this kind of work abroad in the world already; and, if there were none, yet there would be too much by mine. I saw the roughness of the times, and the uncertainty of the weather, and what a weak and thin bottom I put out in, and could not hope for that security abroad which my cell and silence will scarcely afford me. I could not be ignorant how many several winds, and out of several coasts, might meet and spend themselves against me. I conceived in myself that it was in vain to hope to charm the Reader, and to as little purpose to court him into a favourable opinion, as it was for Xerxes to fetter the Hellespont, or to write letters to mount Athos. For after all pretences, all apologies, all insinuations, he will be the same, and think and judge as he please, when we have said what we can. All this I foresaw, or thought I did, and that Apologies were like complaints in this, were never welcome, no not then when they were necessary; Which was enough, one would think, to have strengthened and reinforced my first thoughts, and so fixed them against all other temptations, all foreign assaults whatsoever. But so it is; I see them now shaken and turned another way, even to that which I was most afraid of, and must now prepare and arm myself against. I that suffered myself to be persuaded into the danger, have now but one task to undergo, and that is to persuade and work myself into an unmoveable patience if it overtake me, and to sit in silence when the noise is loudest, when those hailstones of censures fly about me. Yet thus much I have to say for myself, that had I not placed a higher esteem on other men's judgements than mine own, had I not been advised so to do by some in whose judgement I was ever willing to rest (and yet sometimes Affection getteth over it even in the wisest) and had I not been by nature of an easy and ductil disposition, too apt to be drawn out at length to any purpose, which hath no evil upon it, by the hand and direction of those whose worth and goodness have wrought themselves an interest in me; had not the very name of friend been more powerful with me than my own thoughts; I, who could never yet shoulder it in a throng, but had rather quit my place then struggle for it, who am more addicted to the forest and retirement then to the City and noise, I, who have no other business now to do but to agree and sit down quietly with my Poverty, and to draw down my mind within that narrow compass in which the iniquity of the times hath left me, should not have thus taken myself from myself, nor took so much pains to draw on more; which though it may begin and end but in words, yet words sometimes are troublesome, as the barking of a dog may be to a bird, though on the wing and out of reach: I should not certainly have thus put myself upon my Country, nor ventured my trial there where the Judges may be of several minds and diversely biased, and yet meet at the same mark, and join in the same sentence of condemnation, which I will not say Envy (for what matter can my low fortunes or these sorry papers yield for that humour to gnaw on?) but the Disesteem of my person, the low Conceit of my abilities in some, the Dislike of the matter in others, and of the method and manner of handling it in many, and Ignorance in not a few, will soon make up and pronounce against me. But I have passed over my Rubicon, and left it behind me, and must now stand censure the shock of all that opposition which can be but breath and words, but darts made up of air, pointed peradventure with Wit, and envenomed with some droppings of Malice, against which there need no other buckler than this thought, That whatsoever I shall appear, yet I am still the same, not higher, not lower, in all the demonstrations and fullness either of Praise or Detraction: or this, That Censure for the most part is but Pride in its wantonness, self-pleasing, and not much displeasing any that are wise, who may be strong enough to hear without disgust what others are ready to vent with so much delight, what Wit suggesteth to their Passion, and what Passion uttereth by the Tongue. And such Readers I may have, and too many such; some of the same faith and opinion, who yet will mislike something; others not alike principled, who will condemn all. To the first I have nothing to say; and to these but this, That I cannot be of their opinion, nor move as they do, till more weight of reason be hung on. Yet, I nothing doubt but to find many more candid and charitable, and who will give fairer welcome and entertainment to these Sermons then peradventure they do deserve, and peruse them with an eye no more severe and averse then their ear was when they first heard them from my mouth. And for satisfaction to these I shall give up this account for myself, That they are now published to the eye with the same mind and intention which first breathed them forth unto the ear; and that was first, to work men off from those errors which are so common in the world, and have gained honour and kindness and reception because they are so; secondly, to draw up their love and industry to necessary truths, that they may not spend and waste them there where they may perhaps satisfy their humour but not fill their souls, but fix and tie them to that which is most essential, which hath the favour of God and happiness evermore annexed unto it, and ready to crown it; thirdly, to draw up the Means to the End, the Duty to the Reward, by that necessary relation which is betwixt them; this being the way, and there being no other unto it; and this with plainness and evidence, laying it open as near unto the eye as the matter being spiritual would permit, and my weak abilities and diligence could bring it. In which if I have failed, or come short (as I must needs do) of those who have a more quick and searching eye and a greater art and felicity in clothing and uttering their conceptions, I must make use of the apology of an Apocryphal writer, 2 Mach. 15.38. CONCEDENDUM EST MIHI, If I have done slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain to, and I have no other argument but my good will and endeavour to speak for me. And first, how weakly soever I have carried it on, yet I made it my aim and principal intendment to lay all level before me, and to remove those practical errors which are most common and regnant, which men walk in as in the ways of righteousness, and glory in as in the Truth itself, which grow up in the world like those weeds which run and spread themselves over the surface of the water, but have no root; even those errors which are the proper issues of Lust and Idleness, with which men infect and in which they applaud one another, and so move together with content and danger; which are improved by custom, and at last raised up to the power and dignity of a Law. It was well observed by Seneca, Cùm error singulorum fecerit publicum, errorem singulorum facit publicus; The beginning of Errors is from private persons, but the continuance and life of them is from the multitude, who are first dazzled with the authority and practice of some few, and then take it from one another, and hold it up as a ball from hand to hand, and the publickness of it gaineth authority, and interchangeably prevaileth with private men to receive and embrace it. It first stealeth or beggeth an entrance, and when it is common and public it reigneth. From hence are those noxious yet beloved errors, of which men are so tender and jealous that if you do but breathe against them, or but look towards them with an eye which betrayeth but the least dislike, they presently swell and rage's as against an enemy, and is never at ease but in his snare who is so. Proficit semper contradictio stultorum ad stultitiae demonstrationem, saith Hilary; The perverseness and contradiction of weak and wilful men is violent and impetuous to gain ground, and outrun that truth which should stay and moderate it. But the greatest progress it maketh in these its easy and pleasant journeys, is to make itself more open and manifest, like Candaules wife, who was seen naked of all but herself. From hence have those errors crept into the Church which have lessened her number, and filled her up not with members but with names. From hence it is that God is made more cruel than Man, and yet more merciful than he is; that Men are Saints, and yet the Law impossible; that the beginnings of Obedience are set down for perfection; that Men are made perfect, and yet sin oftener than they obey; that Our Endeavours are performances, and our weakest and most feeble thoughts are endeavours; that Hearing is Faith, and Faith fancy; that Imputed righteousness is all, when we have none of our own; that We may be reputed good when we are notoriously evil; that Our Election may be sure though we do not make it so, and that we must assure ourselves when we have more reason to despair; that Assurance is a duty, and to work it out is none. From hence it is that Christian Liberty is let lose against Christ himself, and the Spirit brought in to contradict itself; and God, to do himself what he doth command; that Grace is miraculous and , and the Will is but a word which signifieth nothing, or if it do, it is that which cannot will. All these we find in the books and writings of some who have gained a name and repute in the world, presented indeed in a veil, but so thin, and with so little art of concealment, that they are understood by too many in that sense which the Flesh will soon admit and make use of to all its purposes. And though when they are urged with the danger of such positions, and the horror of such consequences which naturally issue from them, they seem to disown and reject them as none of theirs, and do many times in their postils confute their Doctrine with their Use, and their Premises with their Inferences, Suspensa semper & obscura verba, etc. Tac. 1. Annal. yet it is with that art which Tiberius used in the refusal of the Empire, with doubtful and perplexed Words, and, as he, naming but one part when they mind the whole; they will not and yet would say all, as he would not and yet would be Emperor. And after all shifts and evasions, after so many affirmations and negations, after so many limitations and distinctions and riddles, Sol Apollo, & Apollo Sol, as it is in the proverb, we have but several expressions for the same thing: and what they would have and what they would not have, what they do say and what they will not say; to be perfect, yet most deficient; to think, and to endeavour; to begin in the Spirit, and to end in the Spirit; to be forced, and to be led; to be willing, and not to will; to be irregular, and to be free; to be certain without assurance, and assured without diligence; to be Saints, and yet unholy; to be Adulterers and to be members of Christ, differ no more in their sense than the Sun and Apollo do in the Poets, which are but several names of one and the same Planet. I thought it therefore and took it upon me as a work not unworthy of my place and calling, and which might bring some advantage to my Auditors, to endeavour at last the removal of those errors which to me seemed to come so near as to take part with men's lusts and affections and worse part, and to flatter and feed our corruption, which is wanton of itself, and ever ready to break forth without such incitements; and which did give it so much power and line in many, though through Gods preventing grace it wrought not the same so pernicious and kill effect in all. And I considered, not what did always, but what, if we respect the errors themselves and the inclinations of the flesh, was most likely, and would most naturally flow from them. To which if I have not brought so much strength as some may look for (who stand as much at distance, and are as much afraid of them as myself) or as the work itself may require, if I have left them something to say who will never want something to say though they can say nothing, yet I looked upon it as my duty: and though I do not rise so high as to the satisfaction of others, yet some satisfaction it will bring to myself that I did endeavour it. And I was the more forward in this work, because I saw men not only entertain these doctrines, but love them, and prejudge all others which look from them another way, as those which lead them from that truth which is saving into danger, and so to labour almost irrecoverably under Prejudice, whose tyranny keepeth men in more awe and obeisance than the sway of those affections which are sudden and mutable could do. For we see the Affections are blind, and when they carry us along with violence they do not judge but choose. Vnicuique sua cupiditas tempestas est, Every man's inordinate affection is not only as a wind to drive him forward, Nulla tempestas diu durat. Sen. N.Q. but a tempest to whirl him about from error to error, which commonly is like that affection that raiseth it. But the Philosopher will tell us no tempest is long, but soon breatheth itself forth; and when the cloud is removed the eye is clear. In his wrath Esau will kill his brother; Gen. 27.41. & 33.4. but when time had worn that out, he is a brother again, and he meeteth and kisseth him. David's Lust brought him to the forbidden bed, but the voice of a Prophet maketh him wash it with his tears. It is open to our observation, that what men do out of passion they do they know not how, and the greatest reason they have, is, that they do it: and if in passion we pass any judgement, it is not long lived, but wasteth, and decayeth and dyeth with it. But Prejudice is a rooted and a lasting evil, an evil we are jealous of because we think it good, and we build upon it as upon a sure foundation; so that he that looketh but towards it, that doth but breathe against it, appeareth as an enemy that cometh to dig and cast it down. Sometimes we see it is raised by the Affections, sometimes the Affections intermingle and wove themselves with it, but most commonly they come in the rear of Prejudice, and follow as the effects of it, and help to strengthen and continue it. And thus we love him who is of our opinion, because it is ours; and we hate him who opposeth it, upon the same reason; we are afraid of every proffer and angry with every word that is spoken against it. And this gathereth every Conventicle, this moldeth every Sect, coineth every Heresy. Matth. 10.34, 35, 36. This is that Sword which our Saviour speaketh of, which maketh division of a man from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and maketh enemies of those who are of a man's own household. Exod. 10.13, 15. It is that East-wind which bringeth in the Locusts which cover the face of the Church, and make it dark, and eat up those fruits of Peace and Holiness which otherwise we might gather. Odium Thelogorum a Proverb in Luther's time. And indeed it worketh most trouble in the House of Peace, in the Church, in Controversies concerning Religion. For in Philosophical Treaties new discoveries are very welcome; and if there rise any debate, it goeth no farther than to cursed words, and seldom breaketh out to personal hazard: But these of more Divine speculation, which should be managed with peace and charity, are commonly held up with great heat and pride of Wit, which some call Shame, which men have to seem to have erred. Which may be the reason why we have so few instances of Retractation, but a Augustine. one among the Ancients, and of later days b Bellarm. one more, but such a one as did but like some Plumbers, make his business worse by mending it. So harsh a thing it is to the nature of Men to seem to have mistaken, and so powerful is Prejudice: For to confess an Error is to say we wanted Wit. And therefore we should fly from Prejudice as from a Serpent. Gen. 3. For it deceiveth us as the Serpent did Eve, giveth a No to Gods Yea; maketh Men true, and God a liar, and nulleth the sentence of death. You shall die the death, when this is the Interpreter, is, your Eyes shall be opened; and to deceive ourselves, is to be as Gods knowing good and evil. And it may well be called a Serpent; for the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula; the working of its venom maketh us dance and laugh ourselves to death: For a settled prejudicated, though false, opinion may build up as strong resolutions as a true. Saul was as zealous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel. A Heretic will be as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the Truth; the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as a Christian for his Saviour. Habet diabolus suos Martyrs: For the Devil hath his Martyrs as well as God. And it is Prejudice which is that evil spirit that casteth them into the fire and the water, that consumeth or drowneth them, 1 Sam. 15.32. that leadeth them forth like Agag, delicately to their death. And this is most visible in those of the Church of Rome; We may see even the marks upon them, Obstinacy, Insolency, Scorn and contempt, a proud and high Disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason, or of any man that shall speak it to teach and recover them: Which are certainly the signs of the biting of this Serpent Prejudice, or as some will call it, the marks of the Beast. Quàm gravis incubat? How heavy doth Prejudice lie upon them who are taught to renounce their very Sense, and to mistrust, nay to deny, their Reason? who see with other men's eyes, Apul. De mundo. and hear with other men's ears? qui non animosed auribus cogitant, who do not judge with their mind but with their ears? The first prejudice is, That theirs is the Catholic Church, and cannot err; and then all other search and enquiry is vain, as a learned writer observeth. For what need they go further to find the truth then to the high Priests chair, to which it is bound? And this they back and strengthen with many others; of Antiquity, making that most true which is most ancient. Quintil. And yet omnia vetera nova fuere, that which is now old was at first new. And by this Argument Truth was not Truth when it first began, nor the Light Light when it first sprung from on high and visited us. And besides, Truth, though it had found professors but in this latter age, yet was first born, because Error is nothing else but a deviation from the Truth, and cometh forth last, and layeth hold on the heel of Truth to supplant it. Besides these, Councils; Which may err, and the Truth many times is voted down when it is put to most voices. Nazianzene was bold to censure them, as having seen no good effect of any of them. And we ourselves have seen, and our eyes have dropped for it; what a mere Name, what Prejudice, can do with the Many, Nunquam tam benè cum rebus humanis agebatur ut plures essent meliores, Sen. de Clement. 1. and what it can countenance. And many others they have: of Miracles; which were but lies of Glory, which is but vanity: of Universality; which is bounded and confined to a certain place. With these and the like that first prejudice, That the Church cannot err, is underpropt and upheld. And yet again these depend upon that: Such a mutual complication there is of Errors, as in a bed of Snakes. If the first be not true, than these were nothing: and if these pillars be once shaken (and they are but mud) that Church will soon sink in its reputation, and not fit so high as magisterially to dictate to all the Churches of the world. And as we have set up this Queen of Churches as an ensample of the effects of Prejudice, so may we hold it up as a glass to see our own. She saith we are a Schismatical: We please and assure ourselves that we are a Reformed Church: And so we are, and yet Prejudice may find a place even in the Reformation itself. Rome is not only guilty of this, but even some members of the Reformation, who think themselves nearest to Christ when they run farthest from that Church, though it be from the Truth itself. And this is nothing else but Prejudice, to judge ourselves pure because our Church is purged, to be less reform because that is Reform, or to think that Heaven and Happiness will be raised and rest upon a Word or Name, and that we are Saints as soon as we are Protestants. Almost every Sect and every Faction laboureth under this Prejudice, and feeleth it not, but runneth away with its burden. And too many there be who predestinate themselves to Heaven when they have made a surrendry of themselves to such a Church, to such a company or collection, nay sometimes but to such a man I accuse not Luther or Calvine of error, but honour them rather, though I I know they were but men, and I know they have erred, or else our Church doth in many things, and it were easy to name them. But suppose they had broached as many lies as the Father of them could suggest, yet they who have raised them in their esteem to such an height must needs have too open a breast to have received them as oracles, and to have licked up poison itself if it had fallen from their pens, since they have the same motive and inducement to believe them when they err which they have to believe them when they speak the truth, and that is no more than their Name. Orat. pro Muraena. Tolle Catonem de Causa, said Tully; Cato was a name of virtue, and carried authority with it; and therefore he thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Muraena, for his very name might overbear and sink it. Tolle Augustinum de causa, Take away the name of Augustine, of Luther, and Calvine, and Arminius; for they are but names not arguments. There is but one Name by which we may be saved: Acts 4.12. And his Name alone must have authority, Hebr. 12.2. and prevail with us who is the author and finisher of our faith. We may honour others, and give unto them that which is theirs; but we must not deify them, nor pull Christ out of his throne to place them in his room. Of this we may be sure, There is not, there cannot be, any influence in a Name to make a conclusion true or false: And if we fix it in our mind as as in its firmament, it will sooner dazzle than enlighten us. Nor is it of so great use as men may imagine. For they who read or hear can either judge or are weak of understanding. To them who are able to judge and to discern Error from Truth a name is but a name and no more, and is no more esteemed: For they look upon the Truth as it is, and receive it for itself. But for those who are of a narrow capacity, and fail in their intellectuals, a Name will sooner lead them into Error then into Truth; or, if into Truth, it is but by chance; for it should have found the same welcome and entertainment, had it been an error, for the Names sake; for a Name is their rule, and not the Thing. All they now gain is, that having such a leader they shall fall with more honour into the ditch. It will be good then to be wary and watchful against ourselves, and so to deprehend ourselves and not to love ourselves so as to be the greatest enemies we have; not to take that upon trust to which we entrust our souls, and on which we depend as our surest guide to that happiness which now our hope and expectation looketh on; but to try and examine even the Truth itself, and to know what ground we stand on; whether our foundation be firm and sure, whether that which we have been taught be not now to be unlearned, whether we have not took up that which we should have run from, delighted in that which we should hate, loved that which we should have feared, been too long familiar with that which will undo us; whether our natural temper and complexion, education and custom have not carried us so far from ourselves with that swift but insensible motion, that we had no leisure to look back and consult with our Reason, which was given us for our best help and guide; whether Delight, or Profit, or Honour, or Security did not make up our Creed for us; whether in our pursuit of the Truth they were not the only lure which we did strike upon, and now adhere as to the Truth itself. It will be good thus to try and examine every conclusion which we have made our rule, to let one day teach another, Maturity oversee and judge our greener years, and the wisdom of Age correct the easiness of our Youth, Reason recognize our Education, Consideration control Custom, Judgement censure our Delight, and the New man crucify the Old; In a word, to think that we may have erred, and not to be so wise as, because we are deceived, to be so for ever. Of this we may be sure, for it is obvious to our eye, that our Education can be no forcible motive to bind us everlastingly to any conclusion. For our pupillage doth too often most unfortunately fall under such tutors as instill not any principles into us but their own, which are not always true, but more often false, being such which they also took up upon trust from their instructours. And then Custom prevaileth more in evil then in good, and in those ways in which the Flesh is carried on with a swinge and violence then in those in which we use to move but heavily. And there be a thousand false fires at which we kindle our Delight, and there can be but one true one. And therefore in these conclusions which we ourselves deduce and draw out of known principles (in which all agree, and in which our first judgement is our last) we must be free and disengaged, not in subjection to any man or any thing, not under the awe of our first Instructours, or of Custom, or of any Name under the Sun, or of our Satisfaction and Delight, which we so often misplace, or of Profit and Advantage, which name we commonly give to that which undoeth us. Nor must we be so positive, so wedded to our own decrees, as to be averse and strange when a fair overture is made of better; because having no surer conduct than these, it is more probable we should err then judge aright: and from hence Error hath multiplied itself, and is that monster with so many heads, even from this presumption in men, That they cannot err; and we see many most conclusive and confident in that which they have but lightly looked upon, and never came so near as to survey it, and so discover what it is. For if men were either impartial to themselves, or so prudently humble as to hearken to the judgement of others, and to try and examine all, the Prince of this world and the Father of lies would not have so much in us, nor should we be in danger of so froward a generation. If men were not so soon good, they would not be so often evil; if they were not sure they would not err; and if they were not so wise, they would not be so much deceived. Nor doth this submission and willingness to hear Reason blast or endanger that Truth which Reason or Revelation hath planted in us, but improveth it rather to a fairer growth and beauty, as we see Gold hath more lustre by its trial. And this readiness to hear what may be said either for or against it is a fair evidence that we fell not upon it by chance, nor received it, as we do the Devils temptations, at the first show and appearance, but have maturely and carefully deliberated, and fastened it to our souls by frequent meditation, and are rooted and established in it. Neither doth it argue any fluctuation or wavering of the mind, or unfixedness of judgement. For mutatio sententiae non est inconstantia, saith Tully, to disannul a former judgement upon better evidence is not inconstancy, nor doth he stagger in his way who followeth a clearer light. And had not Tully forgot himself and what he here said, which may well go for a rule, he would not have made it a part of that elegy and commendations which he giveth to another Orator, — Nullum verbum emisit quod revocare vellet— Quae laus credibilior est de nimio fatuo quam de sapiente perfecto, August. Epist. 2. 1 Thess. 5.21. that he never spoke word which he would recall; which, in S. Augustine's judgement, is truer of a fool then a wise man: for who more positive and peremptory than fools, who being what they are, will be ever so? No, to be willing to hear, to learn, to prove every thing, is the stability rather and continued act of reason: It is its natural and certain course to judge for that which is most reasonable. And the Mind in this doth no more wander then the Planets do, who are said to do so, because they appear now in this now in that part of the heavens, but yet keep their constant and natural motion. Thus it entertaineth Truth for itself; nor suffereth Error to enter but in that name and resemblance; And when Truth appeareth in its rays and glory, and that light which doth most throughly and best discover it, it runneth from Error as from a monster, and boweth to the Sceptre and command of Truth. It is never so wedded to any conclusion, though never so specious, as not to be ready to put it by and forsake it when another presenteth itself which hath better evidence to speak for it, and commend it to its choice and practice. Thus S. Paul was a champion of the Law, and after that a Martyr of the Gospel. Thus he persecuted Christians, and thus he died one. Acts 10. Thus S. Peter would not converse and eat with the heathen, as polluted and unclean; yet when the sheet was let down, and in it the will of Christ, he preached unto them and baptised them. This is the mother of all Repentance: For what is Repentance but the changing of our mind upon better information? This, if it were well practised would fill the world, which is now full of Error, with Recognitions and Recantations, which are not only confessions, but triumphs over a conquered Error, as the rejoicings and Jubilees of men who did fit in darkness, but have now found the light. This would be an amulet and sure preservative against Prejudice, and, those common and prevailing errors to which it giveth life and strength, and which spread themselves as the Plague, and infect whole families, cities and nations. In brief, this would make our errors more venial, and men more peaceable. For he that seeketh the Truth with this impartial diligence is rather unfortunate then faulty if he miss it; and men would never advance their opinion with that heat and malice against dissenters, if they could once entertain this thought, That it is possible that they themselves may err, and that that opinion in which they now say they will die may be false; if they did not rest in the first evidence as best, and so suffer it to pass unquestioned, 2 Pet. 1.19. and never seek for a sure word of prophecy, or a well grounded assurance that this is one. For if this were done, as it should, either Error would not overtake, or, if it did, it could not hurt us. But this is an argument of a large compass, a subject full and yielding much matter, and I was but to declare my mind and intention, which may better thrive and be more seen under the manage of more nimble and ready wits and the activity of a better pen. Secondly, as I thought it worth my pains and endeavour to strike at those common errors at which so many stumble, and into which they willingly fall and with great complacency, so did I set up in the course of my office and ministry this desire (and I could not bring much more than desire) to present in as fair an appearance as I could those more necessary and essential truths, by the embracing of which we lay hold on happiness, and come nearest to it; and to set them up as a mark at which all men's actions should especially aim. For if this be once obtained, the other will follow of itself, because these truths are not so obnoxious and open to prejudice, and men would not run into so many obliquities, if they did principally and earnestly intent that to which they are everlastingly and indispensably bound, nor could they so often err if they were willing to be good. It was as wise counsel as could have been given to those who sat to solve knotty doubts and to determine controversies in Religion in the Council at Dort, and it was given by a King, and it would have made good his Motto, and styled him a Peacemaker, BEATI PACIFICI, King James his Motto or Dicton. though there had been nothing else to contribute to that title; Paucissima definienda, quia paucissima necessaria, That they should not be too busy and earnest in defining and determining many things, because so few were necessary. Which counsel, if men had thought it worth their ear and favour, and willingly bowed to it, had made the Church as Jerusalem, a City compact within itself, and there would have been abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth. Psal. 122 3. Psal, 72.7. For Questions in Divinity are like Meats in this. The more delicate and subtle they are the sooner they putrify, and by too much agitation and sifting annoy and corrupt the rule; whilst men are more swift and eager in the pursuit and advance of that humour that raised them then in following those truths which are but few and easy, Judas 19 and with which they might build themselves up in their holy faith. Lex nos innocentes esse jubet non curiosos; Senec. Controv. Innocency and not Curiosity, is the fulfilling of the Law: as it is not Luxury which raiseth an healthful constitution, but Temperance, and those meats which are as wholesome as common. The sum of all Christianity is made up in this, To levelly and place all our hope where it should be, on God through Jesus Christ our Lord, to love him, and keep his commandments, which are both open and easy when we are willing. In other more nice than useful disquisitions I am well pleased to be puzzled and to be at loss, and yet am not at loss, because I cannot lose that which I would not, which I cannot have; and resolve for God, and not myself, or indeed for myself because for God: And my answer is most satisfactory, That I believe the thing, and God only knoweth the manner how it is, and doth not therefore reveal it because it is not fit for me to know. When I am to appear before God in his House and at his Table, I recollect my thoughts, and turn them upon myself; I severely inquire in what terms I stand with God and my Neighbour; whether there be nothing in me, no imagination, which standeth in opposition with Christ, and so is not suitable with the feast, nor with him that maketh it. And when this is done, my business is at an end; for to attempt more is to do nothing, or rather that which I should not do: But I do not ask, with the Schools, How the ten Predicaments are in the Eucharist, How the Bread is con-or transubstantiated, or How the body of Christ is there. For they who speak at distance most modestly, and tell us it is not corporally but yet really there, do not so define as to ascertain the manner, but leave it in a cloud and out of sight. Job. 19.25. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he will raise me up at the last day: 1 Cor. 15.19. for he hath promised who raised himself, and is the first fruits of them that slept: But I do not inquire What manner of Trumpet it shall be that shall then sound, nor of the Solemnity and manner of the proceeding at that day, or How the body which shall rise can be the same numerical body with that which did walk upon the earth. It is enough for me to know that it is sown in dishonour, 1 Cor. 15.43. and shall be raised in glory: and my business is to rise with Christ here, and make good my part in this first Resurrection; for than I am secure, and need not to extend my thoughts to the end of the world to survey and comprehend the second. To add one instance more, in the point of Justification of a sinner, in which after sixteen hundred years preaching of the Gospel and more we do not well agree, and yet might well agree if we would take it as the Scripture hath reached it forth, and not burden it with our own fancies and speculations, with new conclusions forced out of the light to obscure and darken it: For when this burden is upon it, it must needs weigh according as the hand is that poiseth it. And what necessity is there to ask Whether it consist in one or more acts, so I do assure myself that it is the greatest blessing that God ever let fall upon the children of men? or Whether it be perfected in the pardoning of our sins, or the imputation of universal obedience, or by the active and passive obedience of Christ, when it is plain that the act of Justification is the act of the Judge, and this cannot so much concern us as the benefit itself, which is the greatest that can be given; I am sure, not so much as the duty, which must fit us for the act. It were to be wished that men would speak of the acts of God in his own language, and not seek out divers inventions, which do not edify, but many times shake and rend the Church in pieces, and lay the Truth itself open to reproach; which had triumphed gloriously over Error, had men contended not for their own inferences and deductions, Judas 3. but for that common faith which was once delivered to the Saints. And as in Justification, so in the point of Faith by which we are justified, what Profit is it busily to inquire Whether the nature of Faith consisteth in an obsequious assent, or in appropriating to ourselves the grace and mercy of God, or in the mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ; Whether it be an instrument or a condition; Whether a living Faith justifieth, or whether it justifieth as a living Faith? What will this add to me, what hair to my stature, when I may settle and rest upon this, which every eye must needs see, That the Faith by which I am justified must not be a dead faith, but a Faith working by Charity, which is the language of Faith, and demonstrateth her to be alive? My sheep hear my voice, saith Christ; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Gal. 5.6. saith Basil; They hear and obey, and never dispute or ask questions: Joh. 10.27. they taste, and not trouble and mud, that clear water of life. It is enough for us to be justified, it is enough for us to be saved; which we may be by pressing forward in the way which is smooth and plain, and not running out into the mazes and labyrinths of disputes, where we too oft lose ourselves in our search, and dispute away our Faith; talk of Faith and the power of it, and be worse than infidels; of Justification, and please ourselves in unrighteousness; of Christ's active Obedience, and be to every good Work reprobate; Tit. 1.16. of his passive Obedience, and deny him when we should suffer for him; of the inconsistency of Faith and Good works in our Justification, and set them at as great a distance in our lives and conversations, and because they do not help to justify us, think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation. For we are well assured of the one and contend for it, and too many are too confident of the other. There is indeed a kind of intemperance in most of us, a wild and irregular desire to make things more or less than they are, and remove them well near out of sight by our additions and defalcations; and few there are who can be content with the Truth, and settle and rest in it as it appeareth in that nakedness and simplicity in which it was first brought forth, but men are ever drawing out conclusions of their own, spinning out and weaving speculations, thin, unsuitable, unfit to be worn, which yet they glory in and defend with more heat and animosity than they do that Truth which is necessary and by itself sufficient without this additional art. For these are creatures of our own, shaped out in our fancy, and so dressed up by us with all accurateness and curiosity of diligence that we fall at last in love with them, and apply ourselves to them with that closeness and adherency which dulleth and taketh off the edge of our affection to that which is most necessary, and so leaveth that neglected and last in our thoughts which is the main: Val. Max. 8. 11. As we read of Euphranor the painter, who having stretched his fancy and spent the force of his imagination in drawing Neptune to the life, could not raise his after and wearied thoughts to the setting forth the majesty of Jupiter; So when we are so lively and overactive in that which is either impertinent or not so considerable, not much material to that which is indeed most material, we commonly dream or are rather dead to those performances which the wisdom of God hath bound us to as the fittest and most proportioned to that end for which we were made. And these I conceive are most necessary which are necessary to the work we have to do, and will infallibly bring us to the end of our faith and hopes. Others which our wits have hammered and wrought out of them may be peradventure of some use to those who are watchful over them to keep them in a pliableness and subserviency to that which is plain and received of all, but may prove dangerous and fatal to others who have not that skill to manage them, but favour them so much as to give them line and sufferance to carry them beyond their limit, and then shut them up in themselves where they are lost to that truth which should save them, which they leave behind them out of their eye and remembrance, whilst they are busy in the pursuit of that which they overtake with danger, and without which the Apostles of Christ, and many thousands before them, have attained their end, and are now in bliss. Certainly it would be more safe for us, and more worthy our calling, to be diligent and sincere in that which is plainly revealed, to believe, and in the strength and power of that Faith to crucify our flesh with the affections and lusts (Hoc opus, Gal. 5.24. hic labor est) then to be drawing out of Schemes, and measuring out the actions and operations of God; safer far to make ourselves fit to be justified then too curiously to study how Justification is wrought, in which study we are many times more subtle than wise; in a word, safer to make ourselves capable of favour and mercy. For then the work is done, and the application made. For all God's promises are Yea and Amen, 2 Cor. 1.20. and fall close with the performance of the duty. And as to apply them to ourselves is our comfort and joy, our heaven upon earth, so to be able and fit to apply them is the work and labour of our Faith and Love whilst we abide in the flesh. But besides these points of doctrine, which are but inferences and deductions made by them, whereof some are easy and natural, and hold correspondence and affinity with the Truth as it was first delivered, and are upon that account to be received as faithful say of all men; other are more forced, and therefore as ejactaneous and unprofitable, as begetting more heat than love, and raising more noise than devotion; besides these there be conclusions in point of Discipline and church-polity, in the defence of which we see much dust raised by men of divided minds and apprehensions, and many times both parties well-near smothered in the bustle. For though Discipline and Government be necessary, yet the best form that was ever drawn cannot be absolutely necessary, because it cannot always find place wherein to show itself, and the holy Spirit of God never laid an absolute necessity but on those things which, as the Stoics speak, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, within our reach and power, or which we may do or have when we will. 2 Cor. 10.5. It is necessary to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, but it is not necessary to be under this or that Discipline, though the best, further than in affection and desire: For in the midst of the changes and chances of this world we cannot be what we would, nor be governed as we please. We see well enough (for it is as visible as any thing under the Sun) that the Sword, which hath no edge or point against the essential parts of Religion (with which we may be certainly happy, and without which it is most certain we cannot) as it maketh its way, dictateth and appointeth what it please with a non obstante, notwithstanding all contrary constitutions, though never so ancient; and Discipline is either quite cut off, or else drawn out with the same hand which did form and shape the Commonwealth. We have seen what a flow of troubles and dispute in matters of this nature hath passed on and carried away with it our Peace and Religion itself, and then left it as it were upon the sands to shift for itself, in the breasts of some few, who by Divine assistance are able to raise and cherish it up to some growth in themselves without these helps and advantages, and to give it a place and power in them even in the foulest weather; being forced to be their own Bishops and Priests, when the hand of Violence hath buried those their Seers either in silence or in the grave. We have seen Religion made an art and craft, and that which was first set up to uphold and promote it struck at and trod upon as the only worm which did eat it out. We have seen the axe laid to the very root of it by those Sons of thunder and noise which is heard in every coast which these Clouds hang over. We cannot but observe what art and diligence hath been used, what fire and brimstone hath been breathed forth, to cast it down. We have needed no perspective to look through the disguise under which they walk, or to behold with what slight and artifice they wrought themselves into the hearts of the people, who are never better pleased then when they are led as beasts to the slaughter, and do flatter and pride themselves most when they are under the yoke. We see it hath been the work of an age to shatter and then blow away that form of Polity in the Church which shown itself to the Profit and admiration of the best in so many, and was the fairest bulwark the Church had to secure her from the incursions of Schism, Heresy and Profaneness; Of which, if we had no other argument, the frenzy of this present age, the wild confusion and medley of the Sects and Factions which we see, may be an unquestionable evidence: And now we have seen it laid level with the ground. All this we have seen, but yet we do not see that Discipline which did emulate and heave at it, and was placed in equipage with the Gospel of Christ, we do not see that which was so much extolled, as yet set up in its room. Nay, we scarce see any thing left but the Idea of it, which they still carry with them with expectation and great hopes, which prophesy to them the building up of this second Temple of this new form, which, might it obtain, would, they say, be far more glorious than the first. All this art and endeavour hath been used to make them great and supreme on earth, the one half of which might have wrought out a Crown for them in a better place. For that may be had if we will, Rev. 2.10 and if we be faithful to the death it will fall upon our heads. But in what ground our lines will fall, or how they will be drawn out, is a thing so far out of our reach and power that no humane providence can design and mark it out. Day unto day teacheth us, and the experience of all ages hath made it good, that they who like not what is, but only what they would have, and propose it to themselves and others, do many times open and pave a fair way to it, and walk forward towards it as full of hope as desire, and yet when they are come so near as even to touch and lay hold on it, may see it removed as far from them as before, and their hopes in their blossom and glory to fall off; may live to see themselves in umbrage, under a more mild and friendly toleration, and behold that past by and sunk lower which they so longed to see in that height which might amaze and awe all about them, and bring them in that harvest which was already gathered in their expectation. I should be unwilling to stir the blood, or draw upon me the displeasure of any who have cast in their lot with those who have been earnest in such a design; and I have no other end but this, to show the vanity and deceitfulness of such attempts, and how dangerous and vexatious a thing it is to drive so furiously after that which hath come towards us so often, and then turned the back, which we overtake and lose at once. For it is so in the world, and will be so even till the end of it; That which is mutable in its own nature may and will be changed; nor is there any thing certain but Piety and Bliss, the Way and the End. And therefore those things which are not so essential to Religion as that she cannot stand without them, and are essential only when they may be had, being exemplified and conveyed to us by the best hands, must not take up all that labour which we owe to the heat of the day, and those duties of Christianity which are the sum of all, and for which the others were ordained. When they may be had, we must bless God, and use them to that end for which they were given; and when a stronger than we cometh upon us, and removeth them, look after them with a longing eye and bleeding heart, follow them with our sorrow and devotion, use all lawful and peaceable means, to bring them back, bewail our own ingratitude, which raised up that Power that took them from us, and was the greatest strength they had; and so press forward in that open and known way which no power can block up, in that obedience to the Gospel which the Sword cannot reach, which no Violence can hinder. For this alone can restore us to the favour of God, and restore to us those advantages which we first abused, then lost, and now seek carefully, Heb. 12.17. as Esau did the blessing, with tears. In a word, these helps which we would have, and cannot always have, we may yet always have in our remembrance and affection: but we must not so seek after them as to drive down all before us, and the Gospel itself, in our motion and adventure towards them, but fix our eye and desires upon that Heaven which is presented to us in the way, and on those divine rules of life from which no power on earth can absolve and disengage us, and for the neglect of which no necessity can be brought in as an apology; and thus bless God in all things, even in those which are gone from us, and cleave fast to that which is most essential and necessary to the end, which is out of reach and danger, and which the power of darkness itself cannot take away. Thirdly, Now I am come to the foot of my account, and to this all that I have to say is but what I can but say (for this Preface is swollen beyond that compass which my first thoughts drew out) and it is this, that as I was careful to press those doctrines which I conceived to be most necessary, so I did it without any affectation, unless it were of plainness and perspicuity, of which indeed I was most ambitious, as knowing that the Majesty of Divine Truths is best seen in the stole and gravity of a matron, and most times quite lost in the studied gayetry and light colours of a wanton. I could have wished for the happiness of Isidore the Philosopher, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Damasc. in Excerptis Photii Cod, CCXLII of whom it was said that he spoke not words but the very substance and essences of things, that I might have displayed the Glory and Happiness which is always before true Piety, and pointed out to Piety as with a finger, showing how it worketh towards it, till they both meet and are made one in eternity. And this I did endeavour (though I come short of it) to draw out in so plain and lively a character that he that runneth might read it; that the sight of it might ravish the beholder, and force him to a love of that which so visibly draweth towards that end which hath no end, even the vision of that God which is blessed for evermore. We speak, saith S. Paul, the wisdom of God in a Mystery, 1 Cor. 2.7. Rom. 16.25. the hidden wisdom: and the Gospel is the revelation of that Mystery. And if it be revealed, it is no longer hidden; if it be known, as far as it is known, it is not a Mystery: And if it were yet a hidden Mystery, it could not concern us, because that can have no influence upon our Will which yieldeth no light at all to our Understanding, which is as a counsellor to the Will, and should convey the light unto it. The Light is no more light to me then Darkness itself when it is put under a bushel; and Mysteries when they are hidden are to us as nothing. I know now no Mysteries in Divinity: for it is agreed on all hands, that whatsoever is necessary to the end is perspicuous and naked to the understanding. I may say, Mystical Divinity is an art of teaching nothing, of moving and standing still, of striving forward and winning no ground, an art of filling men with thin and empty speculations, in which they are lifted up aloft to strange sights and apparitions, as they say Witches are, and as they themselves think, when they do but dream. Sometimes it is made a veil to cover something which we would not have seen, and we call that the Mystical sense of Scripture which is none at all. For men are too ready to draw a veil again over that which is now made manifest, to obscure that which cannot be too plain, nor made plainer than it is. Quaerunt quod nusquam est, inveniunt tamen; They seek for that which is not where to be found, and yet they find it out, but as he found Juno who embraced a cloud. Whatsoever they see is a mystery, and yet they see it as Isidore found out a mystery, Pennae acumen dividitur in duo, in toto corpore servata unitate; credo propter mysterium, Isid. Orig. l. 6. c. 14. Quint. l. 8. Instit. c. 6. the Old and New Testament, in the nose and cleft of a pen. I know there be in Scripture, and frequently in the New Testament, many metaphorical expressions, from Bread, from Fire and Water, from Sowing and Planting, from Generation, Adoption, and the like; Which were used not to make mysteries, but to open them, signandis rebus & sub oculos subjiciendis, to set a mark upon things, and to declare and unfold them to the very eye, that so they might enter with more light and ease into the mind, which (as the Jewish Rabbis were wont to say) was to find out the lost pearl with a candle of an halfpenny, and with these common and familiar resemblances to dive into the cistern of Truth, and draw it out. Christ, who came down to teach us, was the light of the World; and what he taught, was as open as the Day to all but to those who loved darkness more than light, and it will shine in its full strength to all that will look up upon it to the end of the World. Nor could it be his will, who came to save us, that his saving Truth should be shown by half and dark lights, or that Divines, who call themselves his Ministers, should be like those Philosophers who did Philosophiam ad syllabas vocare, Epist. 72. as Seneca complaineth, draw Philosophy down to words and syllables, so that at last it was shut up and lost in phrases and second notions and terms of art, which brought little improvement to the better part, and made men rather talkative then wise. For we may observe that the same noisome and pestilent wind which so withered Philosophy till it was shrunk up into a name, being nothing but a body of words, hath blown also upon Divinity, and blasted that which was ordained to be the very life of our souls; Which was more pure and plain when men's lives were so, but is now sullied with much handling, and made much unlike itself, daubed over with glosses as with untempered mortar, wrought out into Questions, beat out into Distinctions, and is made an Art, which is the Wisdom of God to Salvation. The Schoolmen did toze and draw it out, and then made it up in knots. The Postillers played with it, and made it well-neer ridiculous: And we have seen some such unseemly Jigs in our days. And there have been too many Theorical Divines, who have stretched beyond their line, beyond the understanding of their hearers, and beyond their own; wrought darkness out of light, made that obscure which was plain, that perplexed which was easy, have handled Metaphors as Chemists do metals, and extracted that out of them, which Christ never put into them; made them less intelligible by pressing them so far, and by beating them out have made them nothing; made them more obscure than the thing which they should show; yield us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sea of words, but not a word of sense. To be regenerate is something more than to be made good who were evil; To be a new creature is something more (if we could tell what it were) then to be a just and righteous man; and we are born and made what we are against our will. And what hath followed this bold obtruding of our own thin and forced conceits upon the Church under the high commanding form of necessary truths? Even that which hath been observed of Philosophy. When men made Wisdom the only aim and end of their studies, than Philosophy was itself, in its prime and natural glory, being drawn up unto its proper end: But when they applied themselves to it only to fill up their time, or satisfy their ambition, or delight their wits, than she lost her native complexion or strength, and degenerated into folly; then Epicurus raised a swarm of Atoms, Diogenes made him a Tub, and the Stoics brought in their Decrees and Paradoxes; then were there Mille familiarum nomina, so many sects that it is not easy to draw them into a catalogue: some there were who declared their different opinions and disputed one against the other by outward signs alone, as by Weeping and Laughing. So we find it also in the Church of Christ, that Divinity never suffered so much as when it was made matter of wit and ambition, and Policy and Faction became moderatours and staters of questions. Then every man became an interpreter of Scripture, and every interpreter had need of another to interpret him. Then men taught the Law as Moses received it, out of a thick cloud, and Darkness was drawn over the face of Life itself, and men received it as it was taught, and did understand them who did not understand themselves, received it as news out of a far country, and conceived of it either more or less than it was, received it in parcels and fragments, which hung like meteors in their fancy, or as indigested lumps in their minds, which soon broke out into sores and ulcers, and one was a Libertine, another an Anabaptist, another a Leveller; and some there were who did distinguish themselves by the motion and gesture, and some (which is strange) by the nakedness of their bodies. And thus mischief grew up and multiplied through the blindness or deceitfulness of teachers and the folly and madness of the people. Which evil had not certainly so far overrun the Church, if men would have kept themselves within their own limits, and not took upon them to be wiser then God; if the Truth had been as plainly taught as it was first delivered, and not held out by men's ignorance or ambition, and set forth with words and phrases and affected notions of our own; if all men would have contended for and rested in that Faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints. Judas 3. And this I marked and avoided, and in the course of my Ministry run from as far as a good will with my weakness could carry me. And as I struck at those errors which are most common, and did strive to set up in their place those truths which are most necessary, so I did endeavour to do it to the very eye with all plainness and evidence, and as near as I could in the language of him who for us men and for our salvation did first publish them to the world; To which end, and to which alone, next to the glory of God, these my rude and ill-polished papers are consecrate. And if they attein this in many, or few, or but one, I have a most ample recompense for my labour, and Praise and Dispraise shall be to me both alike; for the one cannot make these Sermons better, nor the other worse. I know others before me have raised themselves up to a higher pitch, and struck at Error with more art, and brought more strength to the building up of the Truth; and I have seen Truth exalted and Falsehood led in triumph gloriously by those whom God and their industry hath more fitted to the work; I have therefore offered myself up to it but as some Succours, which come when the day and heat is over, who, though they do not help, yet show their good will; And we know that even they who bring on the baggage do some service. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Naz. Orat. 20. The God of patience and consolation grant that we may be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus, that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Rom. 15.5, 6. A Table directing to the Texts of Scripture handled in the following Sermons. Four Festival Sermons. ON Christmass-day. Hebr. 2.17. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be like unto his brethren. On Good Friday. Rom. 8.32. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? On Easter-day Rev. 1.18. I am he that liveth, and was dead: and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen, and have the keys of Hell and of Death. On Whitsunday. Joh. 16.13. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. Twenty eight Sermons more. Micah 6.6, 8. WHerewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with offerings? etc. v. 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6.8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, etc. Micah 6.8. What doth the Lord require of thee, etc. Micah 6.8. But to do justly, etc. Micah 6.8. To love Mercy, etc. Micah 6.8. And to walk humbly with thy God. Gal. 4.29. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now. 1 Thes. 4.11. And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. 1 Thes. 4 11.— And to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. Matth. 24.42. Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Matth. 24.42. Ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. Matth. 24.42. Watch therefore, etc. Jam. 1.27. Pure Religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the World. 1 Sam. 3.18. And Samuel told him every whit, and hide nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good. John 6.56. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. Ezek. 33.11. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,— Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: For why will ye die, O house of Israel? Ezek. 33.11. Turn ye, turn ye, etc. Ezek. 33.11.— From your evil ways, etc. Ezek. 33.11.— From your evil ways, etc. Ezek. 33.11.— Why will ye die, etc. Ezek. 33.11.— Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Ezek. 33.11.— Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Ezek. 33.11.— Why will ye die, etc. A Preparation to the holy Communion. 1 Cor. 11.25. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 1 Cor. 11.26. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show, (or, show ye) the Lord's death, till he come. 1 Cor. 11.28. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Gal. 1.10. the last part of the ver. For do I now persuade men or God? or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Coloss. 2.6. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir George Whitmore, Knight, Psal. 119.19. I am a stranger in the earth: hid not thy commandments from me. A SERMON Preached on Christmas-Day. HEBR. II. 17. Wherefore in all things, it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren— THis high Feast of the Nativity of our blessed Saviour is called by S. Chysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great Metropolitan Feast. For as to the chief City the whole Country resorts; Thither the Tribes go up, saith David, even the tribes of the Lord, Psal. 122. so all the feast-days of the whole year, all the passages and periods of the blessed oeconomy of that great work of our Redemption, all the solemn commemorations of the Saints and Martyrs, meet and are concentred in the joy of this Feast. If we will draw them into a perfect circle, we must set the foot of the compass upon this, Deus homini similis factus, God was made like unto Man: But if we remove the compass, and deny this Assimilation, the Incarnation of Christ, there will be no room then for the glorious company of the Apostles, for the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, for the noble army of Martyrs; the Circumcision is cut off, the Epiphany disappears, our Easter is buried, and the Feast of the holy Ghosts Advent is past and gone from us, as that mighty wind which brought it in. Blot out these two words, PVER NATUS, A Child is born, The Son of God is made like unto us, and you have wiped the Saints all out of the Calendar at once. We will not now urge the solemn celebration of the Day. That hath been done already by many, who have thought it a duty not only of the closet, but the Church, and a fit subject for public devotion. And upon this account Antiquity looked upon it with joy and gratitude, as upon a day which the Lord had made: And S. Augustine commends this anniversary Solemnity as either delivered to after-ages by the Apostles themselves, Vel ab ipsis Apostolis, vel plenariis Conciliis instituta, etc. Aug. p. 118. or decreed by Counsels, and devoutly retained in all the Churches of the world. But we do not now urge it. For when Power speaks, every mouth must be stopped, Logic hath no sinews, an Argument no strength, Antiquity no authority, Counsels may err, the Fathers were but children, all Churches must yield to one, and the first age be taught by the last; Job 12.20. Speech is taken away from the trusty, and understanding from the aged. But yesterday that monster was discovered, which the Churches for so many centuries of years heard not of, and so made much of it, and embraced it; but they must have run from it, or abolished it, if their eye had been as clear and quick as theirs of aftertimes. I do not stand up against Power, I say, I should then forget him whose memory we so much desire to celebrate, who was the best teacher and greatest example of obedience. What cannot be done, cannot oblige; And where the Church is shut up, every man's chamber, every man's breast may be a Temple, and every day a Holiday, and we may offer up in it the sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving to the blessed Son of God, who came and dwelled amongst us, and was made like unto us; which is the only end of the celebration of this Feast, Christ is made like unto us, is as true when every man tells himself so, and makes melody in his heart, as when it is preached in the great congregation: But it is heard further, and soundeth better and is the sweeter Music, when all the people say Amen; when with one heart and soul and in one place they give glory to their Saviour; who that he might be so, factus est similis, was made like unto them. My Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a principle in Divinity; and is laid down unto us in the form of a Model proposition: Which, as we are taught in Logic, consists of two parts, the Dictum, and the Modus. Here is 1. the Proposition, CHRISTUS FACTUS SIMILIS, Christ is made like us; 2. the Modification or Qualification of it with an OPORTVIT or DEBVIT, It dehoved him so to be. In the Proposition our meditations are directed to Christ, and to his Brethren. And we consider, Quid Christus, Quid nos, What Christ is, and What we we were. God he was from all eternity, but in the fullness of time made like unto us. But we viles pulli, nati infelicibus ovis, were miserable naked sinners, enemies to God, at such a distance from him, and so far from the least participation of the Divine nature, that we were fallen from our own integrity and first honour, and facti similes, made like indeed, but if a Prophet and a King, if David, draw our picture similes jumentis quae pereunt; Psal. 49.20. Let our sorrow and shame interpret it, like to the beast that perish. But now by Christ's assimilation to us we are made like unto God; we are exalted by his humiliation, raised by his descent, magnified by his minoration: we are become candidati Angelorum, lifted up on high to a sacred emulation of the Angelical estate: Yea, with songs of triumph we remember it, and it is the joy of this Feast, we are fratres Domini, the brethren of Christ. With a mutual aspect Christ's Humility looks upon the Exaltation of our nature, and our Exaltation looks back again upon Christ; and as a well-made picture looks upon him that looks upon it, so Christ drawn forth in the similitude of our flesh looks upon us, whilst we with joy and gratitude have our eyes set upon him. Each answereth other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they are parallels: Christ made like unto Men; and again, Men made like unto him, so like that they are his Brethren Christ made like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in all things, which fill up the office of a Redeemer; and Men made like unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in all things, which may be required at the hands of those who are redeemed. His obedience lifted him up to the cross; and ours must lift us after him, and be carried on by his to the end of the world. And, as we find that Relatives are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there is a kind of convertency in these terms, Christ and his Brethren; Christ like unto his Brethren, and these Brethren like unto Christ. Christ is ours, and we are Christ's, 1 Cor. 3.23. saith the Apostle, and Christ is God's. In the next place the Modification, It behoved him, carries our thoughts to those two common heads or places, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Convenience, and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Necessity of it. And these two in civil acts are one. For what becomes us to do, we must do, and it is necessary we should do it: What should be done, is done, Impossibilitas juris. and it is impossible it should be otherwise, say the Civilians; because the Law supposeth obedience, which is the compliment and perfection of the law. Now this Debuit again looks equally on both, on Christ, and on his Brethren. If in all things it behoved Christ to be like unto his brethren, which is the Benefit, Heaven and Earth will conclude, Men and Angels will infer, That it behoveth us to be made like unto Christ, which is the Duty. My Text, ye see, is divided equally between these two terms, Christ, and his Brethren. That which our devotion must contemplate in Christ is, 1. his Divine; 2. his Humane nature; 3. the Union of them both. First, his Divine nature: For we cannot but make a stand, and inquire Who he was who ought to do this. Secondly, his Humane nature: For we find him here flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bones, made like unto us in our flesh, in our souls. Da siquid ultrà est; What can we say more? Our Apostle tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in all things. And then thirdly, will follow the Union, expressed in the passive fieri, in his assimilation; and the assumption of our nature. All these fill us with admiration; but the last raiseth it yet higher (and should raise our love to follow him in his obedience) that it behoved him; that the dispensation of so wonderful and catholic a benefit must be thus transacted tanquam ex officio, as a matter of duty. The end of all is the end of all, our Salvation, the end of our Creation, of our Redemption, of this Assimilation; and the last end of all, the Glory of God. This sets an oportet upon Man as well as upon Christ; and then his Brethren and He will dwell together in unity. Only here is the difference; Our obligation is the easier; It is but this, to be bound and obliged with Christ, to set our hands to that bond, which he hath sealed with his blood, it is no heavy Debet to be like unto him, and for his condescension so low to us to raise ourselves nearer to him by a holy and diligent imitation of his obedience. This will make up our last part, and serve for application. In the first place, in an holy ecstasy we cry out with the Prophet, Isa. 63.1. Quis ille qui venit? Who is he that cometh? Quis ille qui similis? Who is he that must be made like unto us? Quis fecit? is but a resultance from Quid factum est? What is done? and Who did it? are of so near relation that we can hardly abstract one from the other. If one eye be levelled on the fact, the other commonly is fixed on the hand that did it. Magnis negotiis, ut magnis Comoediis, edecumati apponuntur actores, saith the Orator, Great burdens require great strength to bear them. Matters of moment are not for men of weak abilities and slight performance, nor every Actor for all parts. To lead captivity captive, to bring prisoners to glory, to destroy Death, to shut up the gates and mouth of Hell, these are Magnalia, wonderful things, not within the sphere of common activity. We see here, many sons there were to be brought unto Glory, v. 10. but in the way there stood Sin to intercept us, the fear of Death to enthral us, and the Devil ready to devour us. And we, what were we? Rottenness our mother, and worms our brethren: lay us in the balance, Psal. 62.9. lighter than vanity: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Men fallen below the condition of Men, lame and impotent, not able to move one step in these ways of glory, living dead men. Quis novus Hercules? Who will now stand up for us? who will be our Captain? We may well demand, Quis ille? who he is. Some Angel, we may think, sent from heaven, or some great Prophet. No. Inquest is made in this Epistle, and neither the Angels, nor Moses returned. The Angel's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in no wise. Glorious creatures indeed they are, celestial spirits, but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ministering spirits; o Nazianz. Orat 43 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Psal. 103.21. in all purity serving the God of purity, saith Nazianzene; not fit to intercede, but ready at his beck: with wings indeed, but not with healing under them; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but second lights, too weak to enlighten so great a darkness. Their light is their obedience; and their fairest elogigium, 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 Angel's worship. In prison we were, and CVI ANGELORUM? written on the door; miserable captives, so deplorably lost that the whole Hierarchy 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 Egyptians, and led the people like sheep through the wilderness. But he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Captain of our salvation, as he is styled, v. 10. was to cope with one more terrible than 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 itself; able to uphold and settle an Angel in his glorious estate, and to raise Moses from the dead. Not Moses then; but one greater than Moses: Not the Angels; but one whom the Angel's 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' 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 economy 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 ye will hear his voice. And he is Vicarius Christi, Christ's Vicar on earth, supplieth 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 Mediator. Ask the Devils 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 divest Christ of his Essence, yet yield him his Title; and though they deny him to be God, yet call him God's Son. We must follow then the Philosopher's 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 dignify 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 fancied, 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 Heretics 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 flies 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 fogs and mists where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him, and bring him into the bosom of his Father, and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus. Behold, a voice from heaven spoke 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 Gloss. Our Saviour himself speaks it, I and my Father are one: John 10.30. The Truth itself 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, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there is a cloud cast, and a veil drawn. And who more fit to teach us then he who came out of the bosom of God? Who more fit to give us laws then God himself? What tongue of men or Angels can so well express his will as the Word which was made flesh, and pitched his tent, and dwelled amongst us, and opened a school as it were to teach all that would learn the way unto happiness? Or what expedient could Wisdom have found out so apt and powerful to draw our Love out of those labyrinths and mazes wherein it wandreth and divideth itself, to take it from these painted and false glories, and bring it back, and fix it on that which is eternal, as this, to bow the heavens, and come down, and in our flesh, as Man, to instruct men, to gain them in their own likeness, to tell them he was not that only which they saw, but of the same essence with his Father, which they could not see? So that here is Majesty and Humility joined and united in one to draw us out of darkness into that great light which shall discover and lay open unto us the deformity and deceitfulness of those flattering objects in which our thoughts, desires and endeavours met as in their centre. And if this infinite and unconceivable love of God in manifesting himself in our flesh do not draw and oblige us, if these bonds of love will not hold and fetter us to a regular obedience, which must begin and perfect our peace, than we are passed the reach of any argument which men or Angels can bring, and no chains will hold us but those of everlasting darkness. And indeed his eternal Generation by itself would but little avail us. For Majesty is no medicine for our malady. We, who are children of Time, have need of a Captain which must be born in time. We were sick of an Eritis sicut Dii, a bold and foolish ambition and affection to be Gods: And this disease became epidemical; we all would be independent, our own Lawgivers, our own God. Pride threw us down; and nothing but Humility, the exinanition of the Son of God, could raise us: And we may observe how Isa. 7. God bids Ahaz ask a sign not only in the height above, from Heaven, but in the depth, from the earth beneath, quia utrumque copulavit (it is S. Basil's note upon that place) because at the union of the Godhead with our Nature, there was a near conjunction of Heaven and Earth. A sign from Heaven is a great grace; but we would have a sign from Earth too: And here we have it; He was made like unto his Brethren. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God amongst men, God on the Earth, is a sign indeed. Therefore in the next place, as Christ is Deus de Patre, God of his Father, so he is Homo de matre, Man of his Mother; the Son of God, and the Son of Mary. Will you have a sign? here it is; a sign to be adored and wondered at, Luke 2.34. and a sign to be spoken against, saith old Simeon; a sign è profundis, we may say, from the deep abyss of God's mercy. Ecce exspectat nasci sua membra quae fecit. Behold, the heavens are the work of his fingers; yet he suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb of a Virgin, digested into members, knit together with sinews, built up with bones, covered with flesh, enveloped with skin, raised up to the perfect similitude, nay drawn down to the low condition, of his Creature. He would be any thing but Sin, to redeem man from sin, and save him. He would descend as low as the Grave, yea as Hell itself, to raise him to a capability and hope of Heaven and Immortality. Mira 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a wonderful condescension! a wonderful fall; from his Throne, to the Womb; from his dwelling-place on high, to dwell in the flesh; from the Angels, Gloria in excelsis, Glory be to God on high, to the Shepherds, Vidimus in praesepi, We have seen him in the Cratch; from the Seraphins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Holy, Holy, Holy, to the Jews bitter Sarcasme, Come down from the Cross; from riding on the Cherubin, to hanging on the Teat! This was a wonderful descent! Nor could we think God could do it, but that we know he can do more than we can think. Where was that hand that made and fashioned us, that meated the heavens, that measured out the waters, that weighed the mountains in scales? Where was that voice which thundered from heaven, that mighty voice which broke the Cedars of Libanus? Where was that God that was from everlasting? Do we not stand at gaze, and put on wonder? Do we not tremble to say it? and yet to say, it as we should, is Salvation. Latuit in Humilitate Majestas; That Majesty lay hid in Humility, that Power was in Frailty, that Hand in the Cratch and in the Clouts, that Voice in an Infant not able to speak. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene; Orat. 38. The God of Spirits was incarnate; he that was invisible was seen; he that could not be touched, handled. We have seen with our eyes, we have heard him, 1 Joh. 1.1. our hands have handled him, saith S. John; He that was from everlasting, had a beginning: He that was the Son of God, was made the Son of Man, like unto his Brethren. We cannot put on too much caution and reverence when we speak of God. De Deo vel seriò loqui periculosum, ne fortè Deo indigna loquamur. Our Tongue will be as the pen of a ready writer, and run too fast, if Fear do not hold it. That Majesty is at such an infinite distance from us that it is far safer for us to adore than discourse of it. The Christian world hath been too daring and bold with him, to speak of him what they please, and then to teach him to speak; to make a language of their own, and say it is his, although the words be such as were never heard from heaven, nor can be found in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ. If we be his Disciples, when we speak to him, or of him, let us use his own words: For than he will better understand us, and we shall better understand one another. For when we set up a Mint of our own, and take to ourselves the Royalty of coinage, whatsoever we work out, we send abroad as current, though the character and stamp present more of our own Image than his. When we will be over-witty, commonly we are over-seen. God is made like unto Men; If the words were not his, we should not dare to speak them. But this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the submission and minoration of Christ. And if he will descend so low as to take our likeness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he also takes this language in good part, and is well pleased to learn these words from us, because they are his own; Like a man; a man of sorrows; a worm, and no man; a despised, rejected man: He will have us call him so, he hath put it into our Creed, and counts it no disparagement. He set a time for it, and when the appointed time came, he was made like unto us; and all generations may speak it to his glory to the end of the world. Before he appeared darkly, wrapped up in Types, veiled in Dreams, beheld in Visions: That he appeareth in the likeness of our flesh, that he appeareth and speaketh and suffereth in our flesh, is the high prerogative of the Gospel. And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in our Image or likeness, in the form of a servant, our very picture, a living picture, a picture drawn out to life indeed, such a picture as one man is of another. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by way of Comparison. For how hath he spread and dilated himself by a world of comparisons? He is a Shepherd, to guide and feed us; a Captain, to lead us; a Prophet, to teach us: He is a Priest, and he is the Sacrifice for us: He is Bread, to strengthen us: a Vine, to refresh us; a Lamb, that we may be meek; a Lion, that we may be valiant; a Worm, that we may be patiented; a Door, to let us in; and the Way, through which we pass into life: He is any thing that will make us like him. Sin and Error and the Devil have not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us then Christ hath to save us. 3. Lastly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by his exemplary Virtues, and those raised to such a high pitch of perfection, that neither the cursed Heretics, nor the miscreant Turk, nor the Devil himself could reach and blemish it. Never was Righteousness in its vertical point but in him, where it cast not the least shadow for Envy or Detraction to walk in. Amongst all the Heresies the Church was to cope withal, we read of none that called his piety into question. And all this for our sakes; that in his Meekness we may shut up our Anger, in his Humility abate our Pride, in his Patience still and charm our Frowardness, in his Bounty spend ourselves, in his Compassion and Bowels melt our stony hearts, and in his perfect Obedience beat down our Rebellion. He appeared not in the Cloud or the fiery Pillar, not in Darkness and Tempest, not in those ways of his which are as hard to find out as the passage of an arrow in the air or a ship in the sea, but in tegmine carnis, as Arnobius speaks, under no other covert than that of our flesh, so like us that we may take a pattern by him. This indeed may seem an indignity to God: And in all ages there have been found some who have thought so: Not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Heathen, who in Tatianus in plain terms tell the Christians they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, betray too great a folly, in believing it; but even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Justine Martyr speaketh, Christians themselves and children of the Church, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nazianzene calls them, ill lovers of Christ, who did rob him with a compliment, and to uphold his honour did divest him of his Deity. Marcian and Valentinus could not endure to hear that Christ took the same nature and substance with Man, but will have him to have brought a body from heaven. The Manichees would not yield so much, but ran into the fancy of an aereous imaginary body. Arius circumscribed him within the nature of Man, and brought him within the circle and circumgyration of Time: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, There was a time when he was not; was an article of his Creed. Nestorius' did not in terminis divide Christ into two Persons, but, denying the Communication of Idioms, did in effect bring in what he seemed to deny, a Duality of Sons. Homo Christus nascitur, non Deus; The Man Christ was born, not God; saith he. And it was his common proverb, Noli gloriari, Judaee; The Jew had no cause to boast, who had crucified, not the Lord of life, but a man. Bimestrem & trimestrem Deum nunquam confitebor, was his reply to Cyril at Ephesus; and so he fling out of the Council. Whilst with great show of piety and reverence they stood up to remove from God the Nature, they unadvisedly put upon him the Weakness of Man, drew him out to our distempers and sick constitution, as if God were like unto us in our worst complexion, who are commonly very tender and dainty what likeness we take, and affect that similitude alone which presents us greater and fairer than we are. Our pictures present not us, but a better face and a more exact proportion, and with it the best part of our wardrobe. We are but grasshoppers, but would come forth and be seen taller than we are by the head and shoulders, in the largeness and height of the Anakim. This opinion we have of ourselves, and therefore are too ready to persuade ourselves that God is of our mind; and that God will descend so low as to take the likeness of a mortal, though he tell us so himself, yet we will not believe it: Which is to measure out the immense Goodness and Wisdom of God by our digit and scantling, by the imaginary line of a wanton and sick fancy; to bound and limit his determinate will by a piece of sophistry and subtle wit; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Phot. to teach God, to put our own shapes upon him, to confine him to a thought: And then Christ hath two Persons, or but one Nature; a Body, and not a Body; is a God alone, or a Man alone: The whole body of Religion and our Christian Faith must shiver and fly into pieces. But we have not so learned Christ; not learned to abuse and violate his great love, and to call it good manners; not to make shipwreck of our faith, and then to urge our fears and unprescribed and groundless jealousies. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Why should we fear, where no fear is? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? saith Nazianzene. Shall his honour be the less, because he hath laid it down for our sakes? Shall he lose in his esteem, because he fell so low for our advancement? Or can we be afraid of that Humility which purchased us glory, and returned in triumph with the keys of Hell and of death? He made himself a Shepherd, and laid down his life for his Sheep; and shall we make that an argument that he is not a King? He clothed himself with our flesh, lights a candle, sweeps the house, descends to low offices for our sake, so far from being ashamed of our nature that he made haste to assume it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? and dost thou impute this to God? No: to us his Humility is as full of wonder as his Majesty. Non erubescimus de Christo sustinente contumelias & fastidia naturae; We are not ashamed of the man Christ passing through and enduring the loathsome contumelies of our nature, expecting the leisure of nine months in the womb, born in a stable, cradled in a cratch, wrapped up in clouts, poor and despised: Non de crucifixo Christo; not of our Lord hanging on the Cross: But Wonder heighteneth our Joy, and Joy raiseth our Wonder, and we cry out with S. Augustine, O prodigia! o miracula! Oh prodigy, oh miracle of Mercy! 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉! Oh the strangeness of this new Birth! With the Wisemen, we open our treasuries, Matth. 2.11. and present him gifts, and worship him as a King, though we find him in a manger. And this is a sign from the depth, from the low condition of our Flesh; FACTUS SIMILIS, saith the Apostle, made like unto his brethren; CORPUS APTASTI MIHI, saith he himself in the Psalm, Psal. 40.6. Hebr. 10.5. A body hast thou prepared me: So like us, that the Devil himself (as quicksighted as Martion or Manes) took him for no other than a Man, and was entrapped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with the outward garment and vail of his flesh: Naz. Or. 39 Venturing upon him as Man he found him a God, and striking at the First Adam was overcome with the Second, beat down and conquerred with that blow which he leveled. But as Christ hath taken our Flesh, must he take our Soul too? May not his Divinity, as Apolinarius phancied, supply the place of our better part? Shall we not free him from those passions and affections which, when they move and are hot within us, our common apology is, Humanum est, That we are but men? No: to S. Hilarie's Corporatio we must add the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And if S. Hilarie's Incorporating will not reach home, their Inhumanition will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draw together and unite both Body and Soul. Christ came to save both, therefore both he took, that he might free the body from corruption, and the Soul from sin, refine our dross into silver, and our silver into pure gold, raise our Bodies to the immortality of our Souls, and our Souls to the purity of the Angels. He is perfect God, and perfect Man, of a reasonable Soul and humane Flesh subsisting. And now being made up of the same mould and temper, having taken from Man what maketh and constituteth Man, and being the same wax as it were, why may he not receive the same impressions, of Love and Joy, Grief and Fear, Anger and Compassion, affectus sensualitatis, Lombard, even those affections which are seated in the sensitive part? Behold him in the Temple with a scourge in his hand, and you will say he was Angry: Go with him to Lazarus his grave, and you shall see his sorrow dropping from his eyes: Mark his eye upon Jerusalem, and you shall see the very bowels of Compassion: Fellow him to Gethsemane, and the Evangelist will tell you, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he began to be grievously troubled, Matth. 26.37. Ecce tota haec Trinitas in Domino, saith Tertullian; Behold, here is this whole Trinity in our Lord; De anima, ●. ●. 1. RATIONALE, the Rational part. For he teacheth what he had learned, disputeth with the Pharisees, and instructeth the people in those ways which Reason commendeth as the best and readiest to lead them to the end. 2. INDIGNATIWM, the Irascible power; which breatheth itself forth in Woes and bitter Invectives against the Scribes and Pharises. 3. Luk. 22.15. CONCUPISCENTIUM, the Concupiscible Appetite. He desireth, he earnestly desireth to eat the Passover with his disciples. We may be bold to say, and it is gratitude, not blasphemy, to say it; Angry he was, and joy he did; he breathed forth his desires, and grieved, and feared, and he that as God could have commanded more than twelve legions of Angels, Matth. 26.53. as Man had need of one to comfort him, Luk. 22.43. He was similis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like in all things, but with this huge difference: In all these there was no ataxy or disorder, not the least stoop or declination from reason. There was no storm in his Anger, no frenzy in his Joy: He was no woman in his Tears, no wanton in his Love, no coward in his Fear: He was like unto us in passions, but not bowed or misled by passions like unto us. In us they are as so many several winds, driving us to several points, almost at the same time. Our fear hath a relish of Hope, and our Hope is allayed with some Fear: Our desires contradict themselves; we would, and we would not, and we know not what we would have; Our Sorrow ebbeth out into Anger; our Anger floweth uncertainly: sometimes it swelleth into Joy, if it be not checked; and if it be, and we miss our end, it fretteth, and wasteth, and consumeth itself, and is near lost in that flood of sorrow which it brought in. Nunquam sumus singuli; We are never long the same men, but one passion or other riseth in us, and troubleth us a while, and so maketh way for another. Such a perplexed medley, such a lump of contradictions in Man. Thus it is in us; But in our Saviour's Passions were like strait and even lines drawn to the right centre. His Anger was placed on Sin; his Love, on Piety; his Joy, on the great Work he had to do. His Fear was his Jealousy lest we should fall from him: When he grieved, it was because others did not so: When he seemed most moved he was in better temper than we are when we pray. All our qualities he had, that were indetractabiles, as the School speaks, which employed no defect of grace, nor detracted from his all-sufficient satisfactory righteousness. He had poenam sine culpa, those affections which might make him sensible of smart, but not obnoxious to sin. And in him they were not properly passions, saith Eusebius Bishop of Thessalonica, Apud Phot. Biblioth. Cod. CLXII. but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, natural operations, which did show him to all the world, as it were with an Ecce, Behold the man. And thus he condemned sin in the flesh, Rom. 8.3. that is, in those punishments which his flesh endured. The blow for sin he latched in his own side, when Sin touched him not, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Isidore Pelusiota, taking upon him our sinful nature, yet without sin. He that tells us he was like unto us in all things, brings in this exception Heb. 4.15. yet without sin. His miraculous conception by the holy Ghost was a sure and invincible antidote against the poison of the Serpent, and so presented him an innocent and spotless Lamb fit for a sacrifice. We have now filled up S. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and found our Captain Christ Jesus like unto us in all things. We have beheld him in intimis naturae, in the very bowels as it were and entrails of our nature, nay in sordibus naturae, in the vileness of our nature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, searching and purging the whole circle and compass of it, and working out our corruption from the very root. We have considered him in that height which no mortal eye can reach, in his Divine nature; and we have looked him where he might be seen and heard and felt, in his Humane nature: We must now with a reverend and fearful hand but touch at the passive FIERI, which pointeth out the union of both the Natures in one Person. The Apostle telleth us, DEBVIT FIERI SIMILIS, That it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. And to the apprehension of this union (as to the knowledge of God) manuducimur per sensibilia, as Ambrose saith, we are led by weak and faint representations drawn from sensible things, and by negations. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Quomodo, is best answered by, Non hoc modo, Not after this manner. He was made like unto us; it is true: but not so as flesh and blood may imagine, or a wanton and busy wit conceive. Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil; Hum. Christi Gen. not by any mutation of his Divine essence: sine periculo statûs sui, saith Tertulian, without any danger of the least alteration of his state. His glory did not take from him the form of a servant, nor did this Assimilation lessen or alter him in that by which he was equal to his Father: Concil. 4. generale. Nec sacramentum pietatis fit detrimentum Deitatis; The mystery of godliness brought no detriment to the Deity. Volusian asketh the Question, Epist. 3. How the immense Godhead could be shut up in the narrow confines of the Virgin's womb. To whom St. Augustine answereth, Non corrupit immortalitatem, non consumsit Divinitatem, sed assumsit humanitatem. And Leo, Nec minorem absumsit glorificatio, nec superiorem imminuit assumsio. FACTUS EST, He was made, but non convertendo, not by converting the Godhead into Flesh, as Cerinthus; nor the Flesh into the Godhead, as Valentinus: Not per modum conciliationis, by reconciling the two Natures, yet so that they remain two Persons, and the Manhood be born while the Godhead standeth by: Not per modum compositionis, by compounding the Natures, that after the union there should remain one entire Nature of both, as Eutyches rendered himself in open Council: But per admirabilem mixturam, as St. Augustine, by an admirable and ineffable mixture. Cath. or c. 27. Gregory Nyssene calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Tertullian, Deum carne mixtum, in his Apology (and Augustine & Cyprian, and Irenaeus use the same phrase) a God mixed with our nature: But not so as a drop of water cast into a vessel of wine, and turned into that substance in which it is lost, as Eutyches fancied: but as the Soul and Body, though two distinct natures, grow into one Man, so did the Godhead assume the Manhood without confusion of the Nature, or distinction of the Persons. They are united as the Sun and Light, saith Justine Martyr; as a Graft to a Plant, say others; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil: As in a fiery Sword there are two distinct natures, the Fire, and the Sword; two distinct acts, to cut, and to burn; and two distinct effects, cutting, and burning; from whence ariseth one common effect, to cut burning, and to burn cutting. All this must be tasted cum grano salis, 1 Tim. 3.16. and seasoned with a sober application. For in all there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some resemblance, but great disproportion. This is a great mystery; and mysteries cannot be feared nor sounded to the depth. It is well we can float upon the surface of these waters, and with a trembling hand and fearful stroke strive forward by degrees, till we come to the haven where we would be. The Fathers agree, that impossible it is not. but inexplicable it is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, out of the span of humane Reason, beyond the reach of the largest understanding, removed so far from any mortal eye that we see it but at a distance, a scintillation only, and no more. The Angels themselves, those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, second Lights, as Nazianzene calleth them, wax dim with admiration; and their holy desire is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to stoop and bow down, and look into this mystery. 1 Pet. 1.12. All the representations the wit of man can find out cannot express it, but they leave us still in our gaze and wonder, whilst the manner of it is hid from our eyes, and removed further out of sight then when we first looked after it. Those Beasts which came too near to this mountain, this high mystery, Heb. 12.20. were strucken through with a dart, and staggered in the very attempt, and left to walk uncertainly in that mist and darkness which their too daring curiosity had cast. Orat. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. saith Nazianzene; Hot and busy wits they were: Arius was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a subtle Sophister: Nestorius had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a quick wit and voluble tongue: Apolinarius was the stoutest Champion the Church had against Arius, in comparison of whom some thought the great Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be but a child in understanding: Not to mention Cerinthus, Valentinus, and Eutyches; All these, pressing too forward upon this great mystery, were struck blind at the door; and running contrary ways, met all in this, that they ran the hazard of their own souls, and of that which should have been as dear to them, the peace of the Church. It fareth with us in the pursuit of profound mysteries as with those who labour in rich mines: When we dig too deep, we meet with poisonous fogs and damps instead of treasure; when we labour above, we find less metal, but more safety. Humility and Purity of soul are the best convoys in the ways of knowledge. Be not then too inquisitive to find out the manner of this union. The holy Father Justine Martyr sealeth up thy lips, that thou mayst not once think of ask the question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; How it is; and tells thee, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that thou art not like to meet with an answer. And what greater folly can there be then to attempt to do that which cannot be done? or to search for that which is past finding out? or to be ever a beginning, and never make an end? John 5.39. Search the Scriptures; for they are they that testify of Christ. They testify that he was God blessed for evermore; Rom. 9.5. Joh. 1.1.14. that that Word which was God, was also made flesh; that he was the Son of God, and the Son of Man. The manner how the two Natures are united is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unsearchable and unfordable, as Basil speaketh. And the knowledge of it, if our narrow understandings could receive it, would not add one hair to our stature and growth in grace. That Christ is God and Man, that the two Natures are united in the Person of thy Saviour and Mediator, is enough for thee to know, and to raise thy nature up to him. Take the words as they lie in their native purity and simplicity, and not as they are hammered and beat out and stamped by every hand, by those who will be Fathers, not Interpreters of Scripture, and beget what sense they please, and present it not as their own, but as a child of God. Then, Lo, here is Christ, and there is Christ; This is Christ, and that is Christ. Thou shalt see many images and characters of him, but not one that is like him; an imperfect Christ, a half-Christ, a created Christ, a fancied Christ, a Christ that is not the Son of God, and a Christ that is not the Son of Man; and thus be rolled up and down in uncertainties, and left to the poor and miserable comfort of conjecture, in that which so far as it concerneth us, is so plain & easy to be known. Do thoughts arise in thy heart? do doubts and difficulties beset thee? doth thy wit and thy reason forsake thee, and leave thee in thy search at a loss? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Justine Martyr; Thy Faith is the solution, and will soon quit thee of all scruples, and cast them by; thy Faith, not assumed, or insinuated into thee or brought in, as thy vices may be, by thy education, but raised upon a holy hill, a sure foundation, the plain and express word of God, and upheld and strengthened by the Spirit. Christian, dost thou believe? Thou hast then seen thy God in the flesh; from Eternity, yet born; Invisible, yet seen; immense, yet circumscribed; Immortal, yet dying the Lord of life, yet crucified; God and man, Christ Jesus. Amaze not thyself with an inordinate fear of undervaluing thy Saviour; wrong not his Love, and call it thy Reverence. Why should thoughts arise in thy heart? His Power is not the less, because his Mercy is great; nor doth his infinite Love shadow or eclipse his Majesty. For see he counteth it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh; nor to be at any loss, by being thus like us. Our Apostle telleth us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there was a Decorum in it, and it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. That Christ was made like unto us, is the joy of this Feast; but that he ought to be so, is the wonder and ecstasy of our joy. That he would descend, is mercy; but that he must descend, is our astonishment. Oportet and Debet are binding terms, words of duty. Had the Apostle said, It behoved us that he should be made like unto us, it had found an easy belief; the Debuit had been placed in loco suo, in its proper place, on a sweeting brow, on dust and putrefaction, on the face of a captive. All will say it behoved as much. But to put a Debet upon the Son of God, and make it a beseeming thing for him to become flesh, to be made like unto us, is as if one should set a Ruby in clay, a Diamond in brass, a Chrysolith in base metal, and say they are placed well there; as if one should worry the lambs for the wolf, or take the master by the throat for the debt of a Prodigal, and with an Opertet say it should be so. To give a gift, and call it a Debt, is not our usual language. On earth it is not, but in heaven it is the proper dialect, fixed in capital letters on the Mercy-seat. It is the joy of this Feast, the Angel's Anthem, SALVATOR NATUS, A Saviour is born: And if he will be a Saviour, an Undertaker, a Surety, such is the nature of Fidejussion and Suretyship, DEBET, he must, it behoveth him; he is as deeply engaged as the party whose Surety he is. And oh our numberless accounts, that engaged God Oh our prodigality, that made him here come sub ratione debiti. Adam had brought God in debt to death, to Satan, to his own Justice; and God in Justice did owe us all to the Grave and to Hell. Therefore, if he will have us, if he will bring his children unto glory, he must pay down a price for us; Heb. 2.14. he must take us out of his hands who hath the power of death; if he will have his own inheritance, he must purchase it. And let us look on the aptness of the means, and we shall soon find that this Foolishness of God (as the Apostle calls it) is wiser than men, 1 Cor. 1.26. and this weakness of God is stronger than men; and that the Debuit is right set. For medio exsistente conjunguntur extrema; If you will have extremes meet, you must have a middle line to draw them together: And behold, here they meet, and are made one! The proprieties of either Nature being entire, yet meet and concentre as it were in one Person. Majesty putteth on Humility; Power, Infirmity; Eternity, Mortality. By the one our Saviour dyeth for us, by the other he ●●seth again: By the one he suffereth as Man, by the other he conquereth as God; by both he perfecteth and consummateth the great work of our Redemption. This Debuit reacheth home to each part of the Text: First, to Christ as God. The same hand that made the vessel, when it was broken, and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit, aught to repair and set it together again, that it may receive and contain the water of life. Qui fecit nos debuit reficere; Our Creation and Salvation must be wrought by the same hand, and turned about upon the same wheel. Next, we may set the debuit upon Christ's Person. He is media Persona, a middle Person; the office therefore will best fit him, even the office of Mediator. Further, as he is the Son of God, and the Image of his Father, most proper it may seem for him to repair that Image which was defaced and well near lost in us. We had not only blemished God's Image, but set the Devil's face and superscription upon God's coin. For righteousness there was sin; for purity, pollution; for beauty, deformity; for rectitude, perverseness, for the Man, a Beast; scarce any thing left by which God might know us. Venit Filius, ut iterum signet; The Son cometh, and with his blood reviveth the first character, marketh us with his own signature, imprinteth the graces of God upon us, maketh us current money; and that his Father may know us, and not cast us off for refuse silver, sheweth him his face. Indeed the Father and the holy Ghost dignified the Flesh, but took it not; filled it with their Majesty, but not with their Persons: wrought in the Incarnation, but were not Incarnate: As three may wove a garment, and but one wear it, as Hugo. And as in Music, saith St. Augustine, though the Head phansieth, the Finger toucheth, sonum sola chorda excutit, there must be a string before there be music: So the Father and the holy Ghost did work in this mystery; but incarnationis terminus, Christus; the Incarnation rested on the Son alone: The Son is the Instrument by which was conveyed that melos salutare, that heavenly Anthem, which the Types did set and prefigure, the Prophet's descant upon, and the Angels chant forth in a full Choir, that Music which hath filled heaven and earth with its sound. It behoved his Power to restore us, his Wisdom to reform us, his Mercy to relieve us: DEBVIT taketh them all in; It ought, it was convenient, so to be. Lastly, DEBVIT reacheth the Assimilation itself, and layeth hold on that too. Made like he was, and he ought to be so, to satisfy in the same nature which had offended, carnem gestare propter meam carnem, Gregor. to take flesh for my flesh, and a soul for my soul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to purge and refine me in my own, to wash and cleanse the corruption of my flesh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the immense Ocean of his Divinity, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things to be made like unto his brethren. Debuit looks on all, on his Godhead, on his Person, on his Assimilation. God; no Man or Angel: The second Person in Trinity; not the Father, or the holy Spirit: Made like unto his Brethren: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his naked Divinity, though it might have saved us, yet it was not so fit, being at too great a distance from us. Debuit slumbreth every storm, answereth every doubt, scattreth our fears, removeth our jealousies, and buildeth us up in our most holy faith. Though he be God, the Wisdom of God, the Son of God, yet he ought to be made like unto us, to restore his Creature, to exalt our Nature, and in our shape and likeness, in our flesh, to pay down the price of our Redemption. So then here is an Aptness and Conveniency: But the words, it behoved him, imply also a kind of Necessity. That God could be made like mor●●l man, is a strange contemplation; that he would, is a rise and exaltation of that; that he ought, superexalteth, and sets it at a higher pitch; but that he must be so, that Necessity in a manner should bring him down, were not his Love infinite as well as his Power, would stagger and amaze the strongest faith: Who would believe such a report? But he speaketh it himself, Matth. 26.54. Mark 8.31. and it was the fire of his Love that kindled in him, and then he spoke it with his tongue. He must die; and if die, be born. He not only is, but would; not only would, but aught; not only aught, but of necessity must be made like unto his brethren. I say, a strange contemplation it is. For there needed no such forcible tye, no such chain of necessity, to hold him: Liberè egit; what he did he did freely. Nothing more free and voluntary, more spontaneous, than this his Assimilation. For at his birth, as if he had slacked his pace, and delayed his Father's expectation, and not come at the appointed period of time, he suddenly cryeth, Lo, I come: in the volume of thy book it is written of me, that I should do thy will, O God, Psal. 40.7, 8. He calleth it his desire; and he had it written in his heart. His Passion he calleth a baptism, as if he had been to be the better for it. And in this Chapter, as if there had been some defect, some thing wanting to him before, God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, v. 10. to make him perfect b● sufferings. He was not whole and consummate before, not what he should be: Now he is. 'tis true; This condescension of his, this assimilation, was free and voluntary, with more cheerfulness and earnestness undertaken by him then received now by us (It is our shame and sin that we dare not compare them; that he should be so willing to be like us, and we so unwilling to be like him) but if we look back upon the precontract which passed between his Father and him, we shall then see a Debuit, a kind of Necessity laid upon him. Our Saviour himself speaketh it to his blessed mother, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I must go about my Father's business. Luke 2.49. We may measure his love by the decree; that is, we cannot measure it: for the decree is eternal. Before the foundation of the world was laid was this foundation laid, an everlasting foundation, to lay gold and silver upon, all the rich and precious promises of the Gospel; to lay our obedience and conformity to him upon; and upon them both, upon his love and our obedience, to raise ourselves up to that eternity which he hath purchased and promised to all his Brethren that are made like unto him. Infinite love, eternal love! That which the eye of Flesh may count a dishonour, was his joy, his perfection. His Love put a Debuit upon him, a Necessity, and brought him after a manner under the strict and peremptory terms of an Obligation, under a Necessity of being born, a Necessity of obedience, a Necessity of dying. Debuit taketh in all, & presenteth them to our admiration, our joy, our love, our obedience, & gratitude. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Every way, and in all things, it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. We have run the full compass of the Text, and find our Saviour in every point of it like in all things. And now to apply it; If Christ be like unto us, than we also ought to be like unto him. and to have our Assimilation, our Nativity by analogy and rules of proportion answerable unto his. He was made like unto us, you will say, that he might save us: Yea, that he may present us to his Father by the virtue of his assimilation made like unto him: for without this he cannot save us. Behold, here am I, Hebr. 2.13. and the children which thou hast given me; holy, as I am holy; just, as I am just; humble, as I was humble. A man conformable to Christ is the glory of this Feast. Father, John 17.24. I will that they whom thou hast given me (and he gives him none but those who are like him) be where I am. Heaven hath received him: And it will receive none but those who are like him; Not those that name him; Not those who set his name to their fraud, to their malice, to their perjury, to their oppression; Not those many Antichrists whose whole life is a contradiction to him. All that he requireth at our hands, all our gratitude, all our duty is drawn together and consisteth in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be like unto him. To be like unto him? Why? who would not be like unto him? who would not be drawn after his similitude? Like him we all would be in his glory, in his transfiguration on mount Tabor: oh by all means build us hear a Tabernacle! But to be like him in the cratch, like him in the wilderness, like him in his daily converse with men, like him in the High priests hall, like him in the garden, like him on the Cross, this we like not; here we start back, and are afraid of his countenance. In humility, in hunger, and sweat, in colours of blood, few there be that would be drawn. But if we will be his Brethren, this is the copy we must take out, these be our postures, these our Colours: bathed in his blood, 'tis true; but withal, bathed in the waters of affliction, bathed in our tears, bathed in our own blood. We walk honestly, as in the day, in that day which he hath made: We have our agony in our contrition; and in our regeneration we hang upon the cross: There our lusts and affections are fastened as it were with nails, and their strength taken from them, that they cannot move in any opposition to Christ: but our Anger turneth from our broth●r, who is like him; and is levelled on sin, which is most unlike him: Our Love shutteth itself to the world, and openeth itself to receive him. The hardship we undergo bringeth in our fellowship with him. Our suffering with him doth assimilate us, and in a manner deify us. Our following him in all his ways draweth us as near to him as Flesh and Blood can approach. And our joy, our greatest triumph, is in this our Assimilation. Thus we come forth like unto him. In the next place, as he was made like unto us, so are we made like unto him. We are not born so, nor so by chance: We cannot think ourselves, nor talk ourselves into his likeness, nor will he imprint it in us whilst we sleep, or do worse. This picture, this resemblance is not drawn out with a thought or a word. How many be there who bear Christ's name, yet are not like unto him, because they will not be made so? Christians they are sine sanguine & sudore, without blood or sweat; drawn out not by an obedient will, but a flattering fancy. They struggle not with temptation; for they love it: They fight not against their flesh, but nourish and cherish it, and make it their labour and ambition to please it: They have no fear, no trembling, no agony, no cross. Nay, they beat their fellow-servants, and persecute them, because they are like Christ. They crucify him in his members every day, and yet present themselves to the world as his children, as the very pictures of our Saviour. These are so soon like him, that they will never be made so. When we see men fast and pray, not that they have done evil, but that they may do more; (the Pharisees did so;) when we see men bowing before Christ, even when they are ready to lift up their heel against him; when we hear them cry Hosanna to day, and Crucify him to morrow; (the Jews did so:) when we see men follow Christ as his Disciples, and call him their Master, and then sell him for some pieces of silver, deliver him to their Lusts, their Ambition, their Covetousness; (Judas did so, the Son of perdition, and so nothing like unto a Saviour:) when we see men wash their hands as if they were clear of all guilt, and yet in a tumult leave Religion to be torn in pieces and trod under feet, and so that they can make their peace, care not what becometh of Christ; (Pilate did so:) when we see men tempting Christ to turn stones into bread, to do that by miracle for which he hath fitted ordinary proper means; (the Devil did so:) when we see these men (and the world is full of such) shall we say that they are like Christ? We may say as well that the Pharisees were like him, that the Jews were like him, that Judas was like him, that Pilate was like him, that the Devil himself was like him, as they. No: a Christian is not so soon made up, doth not grow up a perfect man in Christ in a moment. For though our first conversion be in an instant, yet it is not so in an instant but that it is wrought in us by means; and a new making there is, whensoever we are made Christians. To be like unto Christ is a work of time, and we grow up to this similitude by degrees. Our Faith meeteth with many rubs and difficulties to pass over: For how often do we ask ourselves the question, How should this be? And then when by prayer and meditation and continued exercise of piety we have got the victory, we build and establish ourselves in our most holy Faith. Our Hope, what is it but a conclusion gathered by much pains and experience, by curious and watchful observation, by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our souls and actions of our life? And when with great contention we have settled these, and see an evenness and regularity in them all, than we rest in hope. And for our Charity, it is called the labour and work of Charity: We must force out the love of the World before we bring in the love of our Brethren. We must deny our covetousness, before we can give a penny; deny our appetite, deny ourselves, before we can taste of the powers of the world to come. We must maintain a tedious war against the flesh, and be unlike ourselves, before we can be like unto Christ. As he was made like unto us, so must we be made like unto him. And this is our union with him: So we are made one, even as he and his Father are one. To draw the Parallel yet nearer; As there was a debuit upon Christ, so there is upon us. As it behoved him to be made like unto us, so it behoveth us to be made like unto him. In the volume of the book it is written of him, and in the same volume we shall find it written of us, that we should do God's will, and have his law in our hearts. And in this, as in other things, Nihil priùs intuendum quàm quod decet; our first thought should be, What will become us. To see Nero an Emperor with his fiddle or harp, or in his buskins acting upon a stage, to see Domitian catching of flies, or Hercules at the distaff, what an incongruous thing is it? An humble Christ, and a proud Christian; a meek Christ, and a bloody Christian; an obedient Christ, and a traitorous Christian; Christ in an agony, and a Christian in pleasure; Christ fasting, and a Christian rioting; Christ on the cross, and a Christian in a Mahometical paradise, non bene conveniunt, there is no decorum in it, nothing but solecism and absurdity, which even offendeth their eyes who commit the same so boldly as if it carried with it some elegancy. No; we must act our parts with art and a decorum, do that which behoveth us. It is a Debt, a Debt we must be paying to our lives end, to our last breath; else we shall not take our Exit with applause. Lastly, to draw the Parallel to the full; This duty is not only Becoming, but Necessary. For if a kind of Necessity lay upon Christ, by his contract with his Father, to be made like unto us, a great Necessity will lie upon us, by our covenant with him, to be like unto him; and woe unto us, if we be not. It is unum necessarium, that one thing necessary: there is nothing necessary for us but it. For run to and fro through the world, and in that great Emporium and Mart of toys and vanities find out one thing that is necessary, if you can. But it will not be, though you search it, as the Prophet speaketh, with Candles. Is it necessary to be rich? Zeph. 1.12. Behold Dives in hell, and Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. Luke 16. Is it necessary to be noble? Not many noble are chosen. Is it necessary to be learned? 1 Cor. 1.26.— 20. Where is the Scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Every thing hath its Necessity from us, not from itself; for of itself it cannot show any thing that should make it so. It is we that file these chains, and fashion these nails of Necessity, and make her hand of brass. Riches are necessary, because we are covetous: Honour is necessary, because we are proud, and love to have the pre-eminence: Pleasure is necessary, because we love it more than God: Revenge is necessary, because we delight in blood. Lord, how many Necessaries do we make, when there is but one? one, sine quo non debemus, without which we ought not, and sine quo non possemus, without which we cannot be happy; and that is our being made like unto Christ, in whom alone all the treasuries of Wisdom and Riches and Honour, all that is necessary for us, are to be found. And now, to conclude; We have two Nativities, Christ's, and ours; he made like unto us by a miraculous conception and we again made like unto him by the Spirit of regeneration. Ad illum pertinuit propter nos nasci; ad nos, propter illum renasci, saith S. Augustine. His love it was, to be born for us; and our duty it is, to give him birth for birth, and to be born again in him. And then, as thou art merry at his Feast, he will rejoice at thine, and even celebrate thy birthday. Come, let us rejoice, saith he: and, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It was meet we should make merry: for these my brethren were dead, Luke 15. Psal. 49.20. but are alive; they were lost, but are found. They were like unto the Beasts that perish, but they are now made like unto me. And as Christ had an anthem at his birth, a full choir of the heavenly Host praising God, so shall we have at ours. There is joy and triumph among the Angels at the birth of a Christian, at his assimilation to Christ. For every real resemblance of Christ is an Angel's feast. Angels and Archangels and Dominations and Powers triumph at our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, at the feast of our regeneration: They are glad spectators of our growth in Christ, and rejoice to see us every day become liker and liker to him: They would have us grow to ripeness and maturity, and be perfect men in Christ Jesus; that being made like unto him here, we may at last be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Luke 20.36. equal to the Angels, and with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven cry aloud, saying, Salvation, Honour, Power, Thanksgiving be unto him that was made like unto us, and now sitteth upon the throne, even to the Lamb, for evermore. Amen. A SERMON Preached on Good-Friday. ROM. VIII. 32. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? GOd's benefits come not alone; but one gift is the pledge of another. The grant of a mite is the assignment of a talon. A drop of dew from heaven is a prognostic of gracious shower, of a flood, which nothing can draw dry but ingratitude. S. Dionys. de Divin. Nom. p. 200. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. The Father might well say that the love of God is as a constant and endless circle, from good, to good, in good, without error or inconstancy, rolling and carrying itself about in an everlasting gyre. He spared not his own Son, saith the Text, but delivered him up for us all. But how many gifts did usher in this? He gave him to us often in the Creation of the world. For by him were all things made, Joh. 1.3. and without him was made nothing that was made. When God giveth, he giveth his Son: For as we ask in his name, so he giveth in his name whatsoever we ask. Every action of God is a gift, and every gift a tender of his Son, an art to make us capable of more. Thus the argument of God's Love is drawn à minori ad majus, from that which seemeth little to that which is greater, from a grain to an harvest, from one blessing to a myriad, from Heaven to the Soul, from our Creation to our Redemption, from Christ's Actions to his Passion; Which is the true authentic instrument of his Love. With us the argument holdeth not; but with God it doth: By giving little he giveth hopes of more. He that is our Steward to provide for us and supply us out of his treasury, who ripeneth the fruits on the trees, and the corn in the fields, who draweth us wine out of the vine, and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and fleece of the flock, will give us greater things than these. He that giveth us balm for our bodies, will give us physic for our souls. He that gave us our being by his Son, will deliver up his Son for the world. Here his Love is in its Zenith and vertical point, and in a direct line casteth its rays of comfort on his lost Creature. Here the Argument is at the highest, and S. Paul draweth it down à majori ad minus; and the Conclusion is full, full of comfort to all. He that giveth a talon, will certainly give a mite: He that giveth his Son, will also give salvation; and he that giveth salvation, will give all things which may work it out. QVI TRADIDIT, He that delivered his Son, is followed with a QVOMODO NON? how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? QVOMODO NON? It is impossible it should be otherwise. Christ cometh not naked, but clothed with blessings: He cometh not empty, but with the riches of heaven, the treasures of wisdom and happiness. Christ cometh not alone, but with troops of Angels, with glorious promises and blessings. Nay, to make good the Quomodo non? to make it unanswerable, unquestionable; It is his Nakedness that clotheth us, his Poverty that enricheth us, his No-Reputation that enobleth us, his Minoration that maketh us great, and his Exinanition and emptying of himself that filleth us: And the Tradidit is an instrument of conveyance; his Being delivered for us delivereth to us the possession of all things. In the Text there is a cloud, the cloud of Christ's Passion. So most Interpreters in plain terms expound tradere by ad mortem exponere, making this Delivery to be nothing else but an exposing of Christ to shame, misery and death. We need not stand upon it: TRADIDIT were enough: for he is no sooner out of God's hands, but he becometh a man of sorrows. TRADIDIT, I say, were enough: but here also is NON PEPERCIT, he spared not his own Son; so spared him not, that he delivered him up; and so delivered him up, that he spared him not: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the same thing expressed by two several words, to make it sure. A cloud then there is, a cloud of Blood: but it distelleth in a sweat shower of blessings; and we see a light in this cloud, by which we draw that saving conclusion, How shall he not with him also freely give us all things. Here then is an Assignment made to Mankind: 1. Christ given; 2. Given for us all; and 3. a full stream of blessings issuing out with his blood; With him we have all things. Or, because it is a work of infinite love, we will call it Scalam amoris, the Scale or Ladder of Love. And then the steps, the parts considerable, will be these: 1. The Person delivered; His own Son. 2. The Delivery and Manner of it; He delivered, and spared him not. 3. The Persons for whom; for us all. And these will in the last place bring in 4. the End of all, the end of Christ's Delivery and of all his sufferings, and make us bold to challenge the Devil and all the World, and ask this question, How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? I. HIS OWN SON] This, though we make it the first Step, yet indeed is the top of the Ladder, the highest pitch of God's Love, from which the light of his countenance shineth upon us, and showeth that he loved us as his own Son; nay, more than his own Son. In this manifestation of his love he appeareth rather a Father to us than to him. De suo periclitatur, ut nos lucretur, saith the Father: To gain us, he is willing in a manner to be himself at a loss; and to endanger his own, that he may free us from slavery. Quasi orbitatis haurit dolorem: He will spoil and rob himself, to enrich us; and, to make us his children, deliver up his own Son. Orat. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A strange contemplation it is, Nazianzen shutteth it up in admiration, and counselleth us to sit down and reverence it with silence. Can God delight to make his own Son a sacrifice, who would not suffer Abraham to offer up his? Or might he not have taken an Angel for his Son, as he did a ram for Isaac? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; What reason can be given for this Delivery? Here the object is so radiant that it confoundeth the sense, and we scarce can see it when we look upon it. God's Love is at such an height that our contemplation cannot reach it: and though in plain terms we are told what was done, yet we are slow of heart to believe it. Olim morbo, nunc remedio laboramus. The Remedy is so admirable that it amazeth the Patient. Therefore Photinus adopted a Son; Arius created one. Horruit Martion, Martion was afraid of the very thought. Deliver up God might an adopted Son, some excellent creature, or a phantasm; but they started back, and would not come near to subscribe that he delivered up his own Son. In their Divinity his own Son was a Son by Creation, or a Son by Adoption, or a Son in Appearance, which is not a Son. But this groundless and indiscreet care of God's honour was a great sin against it. S. Ambrose observeth, that they who denied this for fear were far worse, and more injurious to Christian Religion, than they who denied it out of stomach: This pretence of God's honour was more dangerous than perverseness and pertinacy. For when Pride and Vainglory and Ambition shape and polish an error, it is as soon discovered as the hands that wrought it; but when shows of Love and Piety and Zeal paint and commend it, and send it abroad in this glory, uncautelous and ignorant men are soon taken with it, never doubt, but yield, and are quickly deceived, and count it duty and religion to be so. But why should we fear where no fear is? Why should we fear to disparage Christ, when he is so well pleased to humble himself? Why should we be wiser than God? Why should we offend and scandalise Christ, as Peter did? Be this far from the Lord, from the Son of God; that is, Matth. 16.22. Let God forbidden that which he will have done. Why should we check his Wisdom? or be troubled at his Love? When God will deliver up his own Son, to talk of improbability or incongruity or impossibility, is to speak against God. If he will deliver him, his will be done. He that resteth in God's Will, doth best acknowledge his Majesty. It was his will to deliver him. And this cleareth all doubts, and beateth down every imagination that exalteth itself. If God will do any thing, we have but one word left us for answer, Amen, Let it be done. He hath Wisdom and Power to attend his Will; Job 38.2. and who are we that darken counsel by words without knowledge? When we fall down at his footstool, and acknowledge his infinite Power; When we say, He only can do wondrous works; Psal. 72.18. & 86.10. When in all humility we acknowledge that he can do more than we can think; that he can uphold us when we are ready to fall, every us in poverty, strengthen us in weakness, supply us with all necessary means and encouragements in this our race; When we preach on the housetops, that he can tread down all our enemies under our feet, and bind Satan in chains; When we believe, and rely on it, that he is able to immortalize our flesh, to raise us out of the dust, and set us in heavenly places, we think we have raised our Magnificats to the highest: And indeed a Christian needeth not set his songs and Hallelujahs to a higher note. But yet we do not here rise so high, nor so fully express him, as when we give him an absolute Will, and say, He doth what he will in heaven and in earth. Psal. 135.6. This can belong to none but the Highest, to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords: This maketh God Lord paramount, and Commander of all. Even his Omnipotensie seemeth to submit and vayl to his Will, and to be commanded by it: For many things he doth not do, because he will not, not because he cannot. Dei posse velle est; & non posse, nolle, Advers. Pra●eam, c. 10. saith Tertullian. He can do what he will; and what he will not do, we may say he cannot do. Quod voluit, & potuit, & ostendit; What he would do, he could, and did. What, his Son? his own Son? his beloved Son, infinite and omnipotent as himself? shall he be delivered? Yes, he delivered him, because he would. His will is that which openeth the windows of heaven, and shutteth them again; that bindeth, and looseth; that planteth, and rooteth up; that made the world, and will destroy it. His will it was that humbled his Son; and his Will it was that glorified him. He might not have done it, not have delivered him. He might, without the least impairing of his Justice, have kept him still in his bosom, and never shown him to the world: Jam. 1.18. But as of his own will he begat us of the word of truth, so he delivered up his owo Son, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, QVIA VOLVIT, because he would. For as in the Creation God might have made Man, as he made the other Creatures, by his dixit, by his Word alone; yet would not, but wrought him out of the earth, and like a Potter form and shaped him out of the clay with his own hands: so in the great work of our Redemption, he did not send a Moses or an Angel, but delivered up his own Son, and so gave a price infinitely above that which he bought; mortal and sinful men being of no value at all, but that he made them. He paid down, not a Talon for a Talon, but a Talon for a Mite, for Nothing, for that which had made itself worse than Nothing: He delivered up his Son for those who stood guilty of rebellion against him; and thus loved the World, which was at enmity with him. Thus he was pleased to buy his own will, and to pay dear for his affection to us. And by this his incomprehensible Love he did bound as it were his almighty Power, his infinite Wisdom, and his unlimited Will: For here his Power, Wisdom, and Will may seem to have found a non ultrá: He cannot do, he cannot find out, he cannot wish for us more than what he hath done in this Delivery of his Son. How should this affect and ravish our souls? how should this flame of God's Love kindle love in us? That benefit is great, which preventeth our prayers; that is greater, which is above our hope; that is yet greater, that exceedeth our desires: But how great is that, which over-ruunneth our opinion, yea, swalloweth it up? Certainly had not God revealed his will, we could not have desired it, but our prayers would have been blasphemy; our hope, madness; our wish, sacrilege; and our opinion, impiety. And now if any ask, What moved his Will? Surely no loveliness or attractiveness in the object. In it there was nothing to be seen but loathsomeness and deformity, and such enmity as might sooner move him to wrath than compassion, and make him rather send down fire and brimstone than his Son. That which moved him was in himself, his own bowels of mercy and compassion. Ezek. 16.6. He loved us in our blood; and loving us, he bid us, Live; and that we might live, delivered up his own Son to death. His Mercy was the only Orator to move his Will: Being merciful, he was also willing to help us. Mercy is all our plea, and it was all his motive, and wrought in him a will, a cheerful will. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. James, Mercy rejoiceth against judgement. Jam. 2.13. Though we had forgot our duty, yet would not he forget his Mercy, but harkened to it, and would not continere misericordias, Psal. 77.9. shut up his tender mercies in anger; which is a Metaphor taken from Martial affairs. When in a siege an Army doth compassin a Town or Castle, that they may play upon it in every place, the Greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to shut it up as in a net. This is it which the Prophet David calleth CLAUDERE or CONTINERE, to shut up mercy in anger. The Septuagint renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to make a trench about, and besiege it. Now the Goodness of God, and his Love to his Creature, would not suffer him thus to shut up his tender Mercies, as a sort or town is shut up, to be undermined, and beat up, and overcome: But as the besieged many times make sallies upon the enemy, so the Love and Mercy of our God broke forth even through his Anger, and gained a conquest against the legions of his Wrath. Let the World be impure, let Men be sinners, let Justice be importunate, let Power be formidable, let Vengeance be ready to fall; yet all must fall back, and yield to the Mercy and Love of God, which cannot be overcome, nor bound, nor shut up, but will break forth, and make way through all opposition, through Sin, and all the powers of Darkness, which besiege and compass it about, and will raise the siege, drive off and chase away these enemies; and to conquer Sin, will deliver up his Son for the Sinner. And this was aenigma aemoris, saith Aquinas, the riddle, or rather the mystery, of Love, to pose the wisdom of the World. I may say, Being Love, and infinite, it is no riddle at all, but plain and easy. For what can Love do that is strange? what can it do amiss? That which moved God to do this, showeth plainly that the end for which he did it was very good. DILEXIT NOS, He loved us, is the best commentary on TRADIDIT FILIUM, He delivered his Son for us, and taketh away all scruple and doubt. For if we can once love our enemies, it is impossible but that our bowels should yern towards them, and our will be bend and prone to raise them up even to that pitch and condition which our Love hath designed: And if our love were heavenly as God's is, or but in some forward degree proportioned to his, we should find nothing difficult, account nothing absurd or misbecoming, which might promote or advantage their good: If our Love have heat in it, our Will will be forward and earnest, and we shall be ready even to lay down our lives for them. For Love is like an artificial Glass, which when we look through, an Enemy appeareth a Friend; Disgrace, Honour; Difficulties, Nothing. When God saw us weltering in our blood, his Love was ready to wash us: When we ran from him, his Love ran after us to apprehend us: When we fought against him as enemies, his Love was a Prophet, Lo, all these may be my children. What speak we of Disgrace? God's Love defendeth his Majesty, and exalteth the Humility of his Son. Love, as Plato saith, hath this privilege, that it cannot be defamed; and by a kind of law hath this huge advantage, to make Bondage, Liberty; Disgrace, honourable; Infirmity, omnipotent. Who can stand up against Love, and say, Why didst thou this? Had Martion, Photinus, and Arius well weighed the force and privilege of Love, their needless (I may say, their bold and irreverent) fear would have soon vanished, nor would they have denied Christ to be the Son of God, because God delivered him up for us, but would have seen as great glory in his Humility as in his Glory, and would have fallen down and worship God and Man, even this crucified Lord of life, Christ Jesus. Love will do any thing for those whom she looketh and stayeth upon. If you ask a coat, she giveth the cloak also: Matth. 5.40. If you desire her to go a mile, she will go with you twain; and is never weary, though she passes through places of horror and danger. If you be in the most loathsome dungeon, in the valley and shadow of death, she forsaketh you not, but will go along with you. Must the Son of God be delivered? Love sendeth him down: Charitas de coelo demisit Christum. It was Love that bowed the heavens, when he descended. Must he suffer? Love naileth him to the Cross; and no power could do it but Love. Must he be sacrificed? Love calleth it a Baptism, Luke 12.50. and is straitened till the Sacrifice be slain? Must he die? Must the Son of God die? Love calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his perfection. So, though he be the Son of God, Hebr. 2.10. though we were his enemies, yet Love reconcileth all these seeming contradictions, resolveth every doubt, tuneth these jarring strings, and out of this discord maketh that melody which delighteth both Men and Angels, and God himself; even that melody, whereof our love should be the resultance. He loved us; and then the conclusion doth sweetly and naturally follow, He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up. And so from the Person we pass to the Delivery itself; II. HE DELIVERED, AND SPARED HIM NOT] The oeconomy and glorious dispensation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is here termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a delivery. And delivered he was, First, into the Virgin's womb. That was a strange descent; and even then, at his birth, began his passion. De patiented. Nasci se patitur, saith Tertullian: He suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb; took of Man what was proper and natural to him, to be born, and die. Here he was drawn out and fitted, made an object for the malice of men and the rage of the Devil to work on: Here he was made a mark for his enemies to shoot at. Here he got a back for the whip, flesh to be ploughed, a face to be spit upon, a body to be nailed to the cross, and an heart to be pierced. Here he was built up as a Temple, to be beat down again with axes and hammers, with misery and affliction. A strange delivery this was, of the Son of God into the womb of a mortal; yet God thus delivered him. But further, being born, what was his whole life but Delivery from sorrow to sorrow, and from misery to misery, from poverty to shame, from derision to malice, from malice to death? This was the pomp and ceremony with which he was brought to his cross, Psal. 27.12. and from thence to his grave. Deliver me not over to the will of my enemies, saith David. Behold, Christ's friends were his enemies. What creature was there to whom he was not delivered? Delivered he was to the Angels; Psal. 91.11. to keep him (you will say) in all his ways. But what need had he of an Angel's assistance, whose wisdom reached over all? Luke 22.43. What needed he an Angel's tongue to comfort him, who was Lord of the Angels, and who with his voice could have destroyed the Universe? What need had he, who could turn stones into bread, yea work bread out of nothing, as he did in the multiplying of the loaves, to receive Alms from the hand of his Minister? Luke 1.51. He was delivered to Joseph and Mary, to whom he was subject and obedient. Delivered he was to an Occupation and Trade: For as Justine Martyr saith, he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ploughs and yokes. He was delivered from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herode, from Herode to Pilate again, and from Pilate to the Jews, to do with him what they pleased. He was delivered to all the creatures; to Heat, and to Cold; to the Thorns, which gored him; to the Whip which made long furrows in his flesh; to the Nails, which fastened him; to the Spear, which pierced him; to the Cross, which racked him; to the Grave, which swallowed him. He was delivered to the Devil himself, and to the power of darkness. There was no creature, from the highest to the lowest, to which he was not delivered. He was delivered in his body, and in his soul; in every part of his body, even in those which seemed free from pain. His Tongue (which his enemy's cruelty touched not: for though he was man, yet had he nothing of the impatience of man) complained of thirst, John 19.28. he said, I thirst. He was delivered up to a quick and lively sense of pain. Many times extremity of pain taketh pain away, and it is lost in itself: but Christ's pain did quicken his sense. The more he endured, the more sensible he was; the more he suffered, the more feeling he had. His last gasp was breathed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Matth. 27.50. Matth. 27.18. with a strong loud voice. Delivered he was to Envy, which delivered him; to Treachery, which betrayed him; to Malice, which laid on sure strokes; to Pride, which scorned him; to Contempt, which spate upon him; to all those furious Passions which turn Men into Devils. And, From such a Delivery, we all cry, Good Lord, deliver us. But thus was our blessed Saviour delivered, not only to Men, but to the Passions of men, to the wild and brutish Passions of his enemies, yea, to the rage of Devils. Further yet, he was delivered not only to their Passions, but to his own also, which as Man he carried about with him. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, My soul is troubled, saith he. He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in an agony; John 12.27. Luke 22.44. quae sentitur prùs quàm dicitur, which none can tell what it is but he that hath felt it; and none ever felt such an agony but he. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Matth. 26.37. he is grievously vexed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, His soul was very sorrowful. Matth. 26.38. These several expressions the Evangelists give us; Trouble, Vexation, Agony, Heaviness, and Sorrow in his soul. These were the bitter ingredients which filled up his cup so full that he made it his prayer to have it taken out of his hand. Mark 14 36. The consideration of which hath induced some to conceive that sense of pain had so weakened his intellectual faculties that he forgot himself. Non fuit haec meditata Christi oratio, saith Calvine: Harmon. in locum. His pain was so great that it gave no time or leisure to his Reason to weigh what he said: Which in effect is, He spoke he knew not what. But we may truly say, Non fuit haec Interpretis meditata oratio; This Author did not well understand nor consider what he wrote, and may seem not well to have advised with his Reason, that would leave Wisdom itself without the use of it. No question, it was the language of a bleeding heart, and the resultance of Grief. For grieve Christ did, and fear. He who as God could have commanded a Legion of Angels, as Man had need of one to comfort him. He was delivered up to Passions, to afflict, not to swallow him up. There was no disorder, no jar with Reason, which was still above them. There was no fullenness in his grief, no despair in his complaints, no unreasonableness in his thoughts; not a thought did rise amiss, not a word misplaced, not a motion was irregular. He knew he was not forsaken, when he asked, Why hast thou forsaken me? Matth. 27.46. The bitterness of the cup struck him into a fear, when his Obedience called for it. He prayed indeed, Let this cup pass from me. But that was not, as some think, Matth. 26.39. the cup of his Cross and Passion, but the cup of his Agony. And in that prayer it is plain he was heard: for the Text telleth us, Luke 22.43. there appeared an Angel unto him from heaven to strengthen him. Being of the same mould and temper with man, he was willing to receive the impressions which are so visible in man, of Sorrow, and Fear; even those affections which are seated in the Sensitive part, and without which Misery and Pain have no tooth at all to by't us. Our Passions are the sting of Misery; nor could Christ have suffered at all, if he had been free from them. If Misery be a whip it is our Passion and Fancy that make it a Scorpion. What could Malice hurt me, if I did not help the blow? What edge hath an Injury, if I could not be angry? What terror hath Death, if I did not fear? It is Opinion and Passion that make us miserable: take away these, and Misery is but a name. Tuned; Anaxarchum enim non tundis. You touch not the Stoic, though you bray him in a mortar. Delivered then was the Son of God, to these Passions, to Fear, and to Grief: These strained his body, racked his joints, stretched his sinews; these trickled down in clods of blood, and exhaled themselves through the pores of his flesh in a bloody sweat. The fire that melted him was his Fear and his Grief. Da si quid ultrà est; Is there yet any more? or can the Son of God be delivered further? Delivered he was, Not to Despair; for that was impossible: nor to the torments of Hell; which could never seize on his innocent soul: But to the Wrath of God, which withered his heart like grass, Psal. 102.3, 4. and 22.15. burnt up his bones like a hearth, and brought him even to the dust of death. Look now upon his Countenance; it is pale and wan: upon his Heart; it is melted like wax: upon his Tongue; it cleaveth to the roof of his mouth. What talk we of Death? The Wrath of God is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the terriblest thing in the world; the sting of Sin, which is the sting of Death. Look into our own souls: That weak apprehension of it which we sometimes have, what a night and darkness doth it draw over us? nay, what a hell doth it kindle in us? What torments do we feel, the types and sad representations of those in the bottomless pit? How do our delights distaste us, and our desires strangle themselves? What a Tophet is the world? and what Furies are our thoughts? What do we see which we do not turn from? what do we know which we would not forget? what do we think which we do not startle at? Or do we know what to think? Now what rock can hid us? what mountain can cover us? We are weary of ourselves, and could wish rather not to be then to be under God's wrath. Were it not for this, there would be no Law, no Conscience, no Devil: but with this the Law is a kill letter, the Conscience a Fury, and the Devil a Tormenter. But yet there is still a difference between our apprehension and Christ's. For, alas! to us God's wrath doth not appear in it its full horror: for if it did, we should sooner die then offend him. Some do but think of it; few think of it as they should: and they that are most apprehensive, look upon it as at a distance, as that which may be turned away; and so not fearing God's wrath treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. To us, when we take it at the nearest, and have the fullest sight of it, it appeareth but as the cloud did to Elijah's servant, 1 Kings 18.44 like a man's hand: but to Christ the heavens were black with clouds and winds, and it showered down upon him as in a tempest of fire and brimstone. We have not his eyes, and therefore not his apprehension: We see not so much deformity in Sin as he did, and so not so much terror in the Wrath of God. It were Impiety and blasphemy to think that the blessed Martyrs were more patiented than Christ; De patiented. Cujus natura patientia, saith Tertullian; whose very nature was patience: yet who of all that noble army ever breathed forth such disconsolate speeches? God indeed delivered them up to the saw, to the rack, to the teeth of Lions, to all the engines of cruelty and shapes of death; but numquid deseruit? they never cried out they were forsaken. He snatched them not from the rage of the persecutor by a miracle; but behold, a greater miracle; Sil. Ital. l. 1. — Rident, superántque dolores, Spectanti similes— In all their torments they had more life and joy in their countenance than they who looked on, who were more troubled with the sight than the Martyrs were with the punishment. Their torture was their triumph; their afflictions were their melody. Of weak they were made strong. Prudent. Hymn. in laudem Vincentii M. Tormenta, carcer, ungulae, Stridensque flammis lamina, Atque ipsa poenarum ultima, Mors, Christianis ludus est. Torments, Racks, Strappadoes, and the last enemy, Death itself, were but a recreation and refreshment to Christians, who suffered all these with the patience of a stander-by. But what speak we of Martyrs? Divers sinners (whose ambition never reach at such a crown, but rather trembled at it) have been delivered up to afflictions and crosses, nay to the anger of God: But never yet any, nay not those who have despaired, were so delivered as Christ. We may say that the Traitor Judas felt not so much when he went and hanged himself. For though Christ could not despair, yet the wrath of God was more visible to him than those that do, who bear but their own burden, whereas he lay pressed under the sins of the whole world. God in his approaches of Justice, when he cometh toward the sinner to correct him, may seem to go like the Consuls of Rome, with his Rods and his Axes carried before him. Many sinners have felt his Rods: And his Rod is comfort; his Frown, favour; his Anger, love; and his Blow a benefit. But Christ was struck as it were with his Ax. Others have trembled under his wrath, Psal. 39.10. but Christ was even consumed by the stroke of his hand. Being delivered to God's Wrath, that wrath deliverth him to these Throws and Agonies; delivereth him to Judas; who delivereth, nay betrayeth him to the Jews; who deliver him to Pilate; who delivered him to the Cross; where the Saviour of the world must be murdered, where Innocency and Truth itself hangeth between thot Thiefs. I mention not the shame or the torment of the Cross; for we Thiefs endured the same. But his Soul was crucified more than his Body, and his Heart had sharper nails to pierce it than his Hands or Feet. TRADIDIT, ET NON PEPERCIT; He delivered him, and spared him not. But to rise one step more; TRADIDIT, ET DESERVIT; He delivered, and in a manner forsook him, restrained his influence, denied relief, withdrew comfort, stood as it were afar off, and let him fight it out unto death. He looked about, and there was none to help; Isa. 63.5. even to the Lord he called, but he heard him not. Psal. 18 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He roared out for the very grief of his heart, and cried with a loud voice, My God, my God, Matth. 27.46. why hast thou forsaken me? And could God forsake him? Psal. 38.8. When he hung upon the cross, did he not see the joy which was set before him? Yes, he did; Heb. 12.2. but not to comfort, but rather torment him. Altissimo Divinitatis consilio actum est, ut gloria militaret in poenam, saith Leo; By the counsel of the Godhead it was set down and determined that his Glory should add to his Punishment: that his knowledge, which was more clear than a Seraphins, should increase his Grief; his Glory, his Shame; his Happiness, his Misery: that there should not only be Vinegar in his Drink, and Gall in his Honey, and Myrrh with his Spices; but that his Drink should be Vinegar, his Honey, Gall; and all his Spices as bitter as Myrrh: that his Flowers should be Thorns; and his Triumph, Shame. This could Sin do; And can we love it? This could the Love and Wrath of God do, his Love to his Creature, and his Wrath against Sin. And what a Delivery, what a Desertion was this, which did not deprive Christ of strength, but enfeeble him with strength; which did not leave him in the dark, but punish him with light? What a strange Delivery was that, which delivered him up without comfort, nay which betrayed and delivered up his comforts themselves? What misery equal to that which maketh Strength a tormenter; Knowledge a vexation, and Joy and Glory a persecution? There now hangeth his sacred Body on the cross, not so much afflicted with his passion as his Soul was wounded with compassion; with compassion on his Mother; with compassion on his Disciples; with compassion on the Jews, who pierced him, for whom he prayeth when they mock him; which did manifest his Divinity as much as his miracles: Tantam patientiam nemo unquam perpetravit. Tert. de Patientia. with compassion on the Temple, which was shortly to be leveled with the ground: with compassion on all Mankind; bearing the burden of all, dropping his pity and his blood together upon them; feeling in himself the torments of the blessed Martyrs, the reproach of his Saints, the wounds of every broken heart, the poverty, diseases, afflictions of all his Brethren to the end of the world; delivered to a sense of their sins who feel them not, and to a sense of theirs who groan under them; delivered up to all the miseries and sorrows, not only which himself then felt, but which any men, which all men have felt, or shall feel to the time the Trump shall sound, and he shall come again in glory. The last Delivery was of his Soul, which was indeed traditio, a yielding it up, a voluntary emission or delivering it up into his Father's hands; praevento carnificis officio, saith the Father. He preventeth the spear and the hand of the executioner, and giveth up the ghost. What should I say? or where should I end? Who can fathom this depth? The Angels stand amazed; the Heavens are hung with black; the Earth openeth her mouth, and the Grave hers, and yieldeth up her dead; the veil of the Temple rendeth asunder; the Earth trembleth, and the Rocks are cleft. But neither Art nor Nature can reach the depth of this Wisdom and Love: no tongue, neither of the living nor of the dead, neither of Men nor Angels, is able to express it. The most powerful eloquence is the threnody of a broken heart: For there Christ's death speaketh itself, and the virtue and power of it reflecteth back again upon him, and reacheth him at the right hand of God, where his wounds are open, his merits vocal, interceding for us to the end of the world. We have now past two steps and degrees of this scale of Love with wonder and astonishment, and, I hope, with grief and love; we have passed through a field of Blood to the top of mount Calverie, where the Son of God, the Saviour of the World, is nailed to the cross, and being lifted up upon his cross, looketh down upon us, to draw us after him. Look then back upon him who looketh upon us, whom our sins have pierced, and behold his blood trickling down upon us; Which is one ascent more, and bringeth in the Persons for whom he was delivered: First, for us; Secondly, for us all. III. Now, that he should be delivered FOR US, is a contemplation full of delight and comfort, but not so easy to digest. For if we reflect upon ourselves, and there see nothing but confusion and horror, we shall soon ask the question, Why for us? Why not for the lapsed Angels, who fell from their estate as we did? They, glorious Spirits; we, vile Bodies: they, heavenly Spirits; we, of the earth, earthly, ready to sink to the earth, from whence we came: they, immortal Spirits; we, as the grass, withered before we grow: Yet he spared not his Son, to spare us; but the Angels that fell he cast into Hell, 2 Pet. 2.4. and chained them up in everlasting darkness. We may think that this was munus honorarium; that Christ was delivered for us for some worth or excellency in us: No; it was munus eleemosynarium, a gift bestowed upon us in mere compassion of our wants. With the Angels God dealeth in rigour, and relenteth not; with us in favour and mercy. He seeketh after us, and layeth hold on us, being gone from him as far as Sin and Disobedience could carry us out of his reach. It was his love, it was his will to do so; and in this we might rest. But Divines will tell us that Man was a fit object of mercy than the Angels, quia levius est alienâ ment peccare, De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis, corruptior gens Daemonum eva●it. Tert. Apol. c. 22. quàm propriâ: because the Angel's sin was more spontaneous, wrought in them by themselves; Man had importunam arborem, that flattering and importuning Tree, and that subtle and seducing Serpent, to urge and sway him from his obedience: Man had a Tempter; the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves: Man took in death by looking abroad; but the Angels reflecting upon themselves, gazed so long upon their own beauty, till they saw it changed into horror and deformity: And the offence is more pardonable, where the motive is ab extrinseco, than where it groweth up of itself. Besides, the Angels did not all fall, but the whole lump of Mankind was leavened with the same leaven; and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature, made up after Gods own Image, should be utterly lost. These reasons, with others, we may admit; though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons, and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance: Hebr. 2.16. but the Scripture is plain, that he took not the Angels; he did not lay his hands upon them, to redeem them to liberty, and strike off their bonds. And we must go out of the world to find the reason, and seek the true cause in the bosom of the Father, nay in the bowels of his Son, and there see the cause why he was delivered for us, written in his heart. It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the love of God to mankind. Tit. 3.4. And what was in mankind, but enmity and hostility, sin and deformity? which are no proper motives to draw on love. And yet God loved us, and hated sin, and made haste to deliver us from it. Dilexisti me, Domine, plusquàm te, quando mori voluisti pro me, saith Augustine; Lord, when thou died'st for me, thou madest it manifest that my soul was dearer to thee then thyself. Such a high esteem did he set upon a Soul, which we scarce honour with a thought, but so live as if we had none. For us Men then, and for us Sinners was Christ delivered. The Prophet Isaiah speaketh it; and he could not speak it properly of any, but him, Isa. 53.5. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. So that he was delivered up not only to the Cross and Shame, but to our Sins, which nailed him to the cross, which not only crucified him in his humility, but crucified him still in his glory, now he sitteth at the right hand of God, and put him to shame to the end of the world. Falsò de Judaeis querimur. Why complain we of the Jews malice? or Judas' treason? or pilate's injustice? We, we alone are they who crucified the Lord of life. Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him; our Malice, the Jew which accused him; our Perjury, the false witness against him; our Injustice, the that condemned him. Our Pride scorned him; our Envy grinned at him; our Luxury spate upon him; our Covetousness sold him. Our corrupt Blood was drawn out of his wounds, our Swell pricked with his thorns, our Sores lanced with his spear, and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life. He delivered him up for us Sinners. No sin there is which his blood will not wash away, but final Impenitency, which is not so much a sin as the sealing up of the body of sin, when the measure is full. For us sinners, for us the progeny of an arch-traitor, and as great traitors as he. Take us at our worst; if we repent, he was delivered for us. And if we do not repent, yet he may be said to be delivered for us; for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent. For us sinners he was delivered; for us, when we were without strength; for us, when we were ungodly. Rom. 5.6.8. So we were considered in this great work of Redemption. And thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of Love. There is one step more; He was delivered for us all; ALL, not considered as Elect or Reprobate, but as Men, as Sinners; Rom. 5.12. for that name will take in all; for all have sinned. And here we are taught to make a stand, and not to touch too hastily: and yet the way is plain and easy. For all. This some will not touch; and yet they do touch and press it with that violence that they press it almost into nothing; make the world not the world, and whosoever not whosoever, but some certain men; and turn all into a few; deduct whom they please out of all people, nations, and languages, and out of Christendom itself; leave some few with Christ upon the Cross, whose persons he beareth, whom they call the Elect, and mean themselves. So God loved the world; that is, the Elect, say they: They are the world; John 3.16. where it is hard to find them; for they are called out of it: and the best light we have, which is the Scripture, discovereth them not unto us in that place. If the Elect be the world which God so loved, than they are such Elect as may not believe, such Elect as may perish, and whom God will have perish if they do not believe. It is true, none have benefit of Christ's death but the Elect: but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had. Theirs is the kingdom: but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs? God, saith S. Peter, 2 Pet. 3 9 would not that any should perish: and God is the Saviour of all men, saith S. Paul, 1 Tim. 4.10. but especially of those that believe; all, if they believe and repent; and those who are obedient to the Gospel, because they do. The blood of Christ is poured forth on the Believer; and with it he sprinkleth his heart, and is saved: the wicked trample it under their foot, and perish. The blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world, nay of a thousand worlds. Christ paid down a ransom of so infinite a value that it might redeem all that are ' or possibly might be, under captivity: But none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captain, and do as he commandeth. that is believe and repent; or, to speak in their own language, none are saved but the elect. In this all agree, in this they are Brethren: and why should they fall out, when both hold up the privilege of the Believer, and leave the rod of the stubborn Impenitent to fall upon him? The death of Christ is not applied to all, say some; It is not for all, say others. The virtue of Christ's meritorious passion is not made use of by all, say some; It was never intended that it should, say others. And the event is the same: for if it be not made use of and applied, it is as if it were not, as if it had never been obtained: Only the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation, who turned away from Christ, who spoke unto him, not only from heaven, but from his cross, and refused that grace which was offered him. Which could not befall him if there had never been any such overture made. For how can one refuse that which never concerned him? how can he forfeit that pardon which was never sealed? how can he despise that Spirit of grace which never breathed towards him? They who are so tender and jealous of Christ's blood, that no drop must fall but where they direct it, do but veritatem veritate concutere, undermine and shake one truth with another; set up the particular love of God to Believers, to overthrow his general love to Mankind; confound the virtue of Christ's passion with its effect, and draw them together within the same narrow compass; bring it under a Decree, that it can save no more than it doth, because it hath its bounds set; Hitherto it shall go, and no further; and was ordained to quicken some, but to withdraw itself from others, as shut out and hid from the light and force of it, from having any title to it, long before ever they saw the sun, Thus they shorten the hand of God, when it is stretched out to all; bound his love, which is proffered to all; stint the blood of Christ, which gusheth out upon all; and circumcise his mercy, which is a large cloak, saith Bernard, large enough to cover all. And the reason is no better than the position, Quod vis esse charum, effice ut sit rarum; To make salvation more precious and estimable, it must be rare: Then it is most glorious, when it is a peculiar, and entailed on a few, Why should the Love of God be a common thing? I answer, Why should it not be common, since he is pleased to have it so? Why should he cast away so many, to endear a few? Can there be any glory in that Privilege which is writ with the blood of so many millions? Why should not God's Love be common, since he would have it not only common, but communicated to all, and expresseth himself as one grieved and troubled and angry, because it is not so? Why should we fear God's love should be cast away by being proffered to many? His love of Friendship and Complacency, to those whom he calleth his Friends, cannot be lost, but is as eternal as himself: it assisteth and upholdeth them, and will crown them everlastingly. Nor is his general love of Good will and Affection lost, though it be lost: for it is ever with him, even when the wicked are in hell. Plus est bonitas Dei quàm beneficentia. Christ's blood is ever in the flow, though there be but few that take the tide, and are carried along with it. God's Goodness is larger than his Beneficence. He doth not do what good he can; or rather, he doth not do what good he would; because we fall back, and will not receive it. We will not suffer him to be good; we will not suffer him to be merciful; we will not suffer him to save us. John 3.19. This is the condemnation of the world, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness more than light. Apul. Flor. 1. The Philosopher will tell us that the Indians ad nascentem solem siti sunt, tamen in corpore color noctis est, they live at the very rising of the sun, yet their bodies are black and swarthy, and resemble the night. So many there be who live in the very region of light, where the beams fall upon them hot and pure, and are darted at their very eyes, and yet they remain the children of darkness. Facit infidelitas multorum ut Christus non pro omnibus moriatur, qui pro omnibus mortuus est, saith S. Ambrose. Christ was delivered for all, is a true proposition: it is Infidelity alone that can make it Heretical: And yet it is true still, though to him that believeth not it is of no more use than if it were false. He was delivered for thee; but thou wilt not receive him: His passion is absolute; but thou art impenitent. He died for Judas, who betrayed him; but will not save Judas, that despaired and hanged himself. Infidelity and Impenitency are the worst Restrictives, that limit and draw down to particulars a proposition so profitably general, and bound so saving an Universal; that contract and sink all into a few. To conclude this; Christ hanging on the cross looketh upon all; but all do not cast an eye, and look up in faith upon him. He was delivered to deliver all; but all will not be delivered. Omnis natura nostra in Christi hypostasi: Our whole nature is united in Christ's person; not the persons of a few, but our whole nature: And our whole nature is of compass large enough to take in all. And in that common nature of man he offered up himself on the cross for the sin of all, John 1.29. that he might take away the sin of the world, destroy the very species and being of it. Which though it be not done, cannot be imputed to any scantness or deficiency of virtue in his blood, which is of power to purge out sin wheresoever it is, if the heart that fostereth sin be ready and willing to receive and apply it. And in this common nature of Man, not from Abraham or David only, as S. Matthew, but even from the first man Adam himself, as S. Luke carrieth up his Genealogy, did Christ offer up himself upon the cross. And in this common nature he presenteth himself before his Father. And now God looketh upon Christ and Mankind as our eye doth upon Light, and Colours, which cannot be seen without light. Before this Light came into the world, we were covered over with darkness and deformity, and God could not look upon us but in anger; but through this common Light we may be seen and be beloved, we may be seen with pleasure. For as God is delighted in his Son, so in him he is well pleased in those Sons which he shall bring with him to glory. But if we will fully withdraw ourselves from this Light, then doth his soul hate us. Hebr. 1.3. Christ is the brightness of his glory, light enough for God to look through upon a thousand worlds multiplied a thousand times. And if we do not hid ourselves from it, hid ourselves in the caverns of the earth, in the world; if we do not drown ourselves in the bottom of the sea, in the deluge of our lusts; if we do not bury ourselves alive in stubborn impenitency; if we do not stop up all the passages of our souls; if we do not still love darkness, and make it a pavilion round about us; he will look upon us through this light, and look lovingly upon us with favour and affection: He will look upon us as his purchase; and he that delivered his Son for us, will with him also freely give us all things: Which is the End of all, the End of Christ's being delivered, and offereth itself to our consideration in the last place. iv God delivered, God sent, God gave his Son. All these expressions we find to make him a Gift. He is the desire, and he is the riches, of all Nations. As whatsoever we do, we must do; so whatsoever we have, we receive in his name. The name of Jesus, saith S. Peter of the impotent man, Acts 3.13. 1 Cor. 6.11. Col. 2.3. hath made this man strong. By his name we are justified; by his name we are sanctified; by his name we shall enter into glory. With him we have all things; for in him are all the treasures of riches and wisdom. We may think of all the Kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them: but these come not within the compass, nor are to be reckoned amongst his Donations. For as the Naturalists observe of the glory of the Rainbow, that it is wrought in our eye, and not in the cloud, and that there is no such pleasing variety of colours there as we see; so the pomp and riches and glory of this world are of themselves nothing, but are the work of our opinion and the creations of our fancy, and have no worth or price but what our lusts and desires set upon them. Luxuria his pretium fecit; It is our Luxury which hath raised the market, and made them valuable and in esteem, which of themselves have nothing to commend them and set them off. My Covetousness maketh that which is but earth a God; my Ambition maketh that which is but air, an heaven; and my Wantonness walketh in the midst of pleasures as in a paradise. There is no such thing as Riches and Poverty, Honour and Peasantry, Trouble and Pleasure; but we have made them, and we make the distinction. There are no such plants grow up in this world of themselves; but we set them, and water them, and they spread themselves, and cast a shadow, and we walk in this shadow, and delight or disquiet ourselves in vain. Diogenes was a king in his tub, when Great Alexander was but a slave in the world which he had conquered. How many Heroic persons lie in chains, whilst Folly and Baseness walk at large? And no doubt there have been many who have looked through the paint of the pleasures of this life, and beheld them as monsters, and then made it their pleasure and triumph to contemn them. And yet we will not quite exclude and shut out Riches and the things of this world from the sum: For with Christ they are something: and they are then most valuable when for his sake we can fling them away. It is he alone that can make Riches a gift, and Poverty a gift; Honour a gift, and Dishonour a gift; Pleasure a gift, and Trouble a gift; Life a gift, and Death a gift. By this power they are reconciled and drawn together, and are but one and the same thing. If we look up into heaven, there we shall see them in a near conjunction, even the poor Lazar in the Rich man's bosom. In the night there is no difference to the eye between a pearl and a pebble, between the choicest beauty and most abhorred deformity. In the night the deceitfulness of Riches and the glory of Affliction lie hid, and are not seen, or in a contrary shape; in the false shape of terror, where it is not; or of glory, where it is not to be found: But when the light of Christ's countenance shineth upon them, than they are seen as they are; and we behold so much deceitfulness in the one that we dare not trust them, and so much hope and advantage in the other that we begin to rejoice in them, and so make them both conducible to that end for which he was delivered, and our convoys to happiness. All things is of a large compass, large enough to take in the whole world: But than it is the world transformed and altered, the world conquered by faith, i Cor. 3.21, 22, 23. the world in subjection to Christ. All things are ours, when we are Christ's. There is a Civil Dominion and right to these things: and this we have jure creationis, by right of Creation. Psal. 24.1. & 115.16. For the earth is the Lord's, and he hath given it to the sons of men. And there is an Evangelical Dominion; not the power of having them, but the power of using them to God's glory, that they may be a Gift: and this we have jure adoptionis, by right of Adoption, as the sons of God, begotten in Christ. Christ came not into the world to purchase it for us, or enstate us in it. He did not suffer, that we might be wanton; nor was poor, that we might be rich; nor was brought to the dust of death, that we might be set in high places. Such a Messiah did the Jews look for: and such a Messiah do some Christians worse than the Jews frame to themselves; and in his name they beat their fellow-servants and strip them, deceive and defraud them, because they fancy themselves to be his in whom there was found no guile. They are in the world as the mad Athenian was on the shore; Every ship, every house, every Lordship is theirs. And indeed they have as fair a title to their brother's estate as they have to the kingdom of heaven; for they have nothing to show for either. I remember S. Paul calleth the Devil the God of this world, 2 Cor. 4.4. and these in effect make him the Saviour of the world: For as if he had been lifted up and nailed to the cross for them, to him every knee doth bow: nor will they receive the true Messiah but in this shape. They conceive him giving gifts unto men; not spiritual, but temporal: not the graces of the Spirit, Humility, Meekness, and Contentedness; but Silver and Gold: dividing inheritances, removing of landmarks, giving to Ziba Mephibosheth's land; making not Saints, but Kings upon the earth. Thus they of the Church of Rome have set it down for a positive truth, That all civil Dominion is founded in Grace, that is, in Christ; A Doctrine which bringeth with it a Pick-lock and a Sword, and giveth men power to spoil whom they please, to take from them that which is theirs either by fraud or by violence, and to do both in the name and power of Christ. But let no man make his Charter larger than it is. In the Gospel we find none of such an extent as may reach to every man, to every corner of the earth; as may measure out the world, and put into our hands any part of it that either our wit or our power can take in. Christ never drew any such Conveyance; the Gospel brought no such tidings. But when honest labour and industry have brought riches in, Christ setteth a seal, imprinteth a blessing on them, sanctifieth them unto us by the Word and Prayer, and so maketh them ours, our servants to minister unto us, and our friends to promote us unto everlasting habitations. Our Charter is large enough, and we need not interline it with those Glosses which the Flesh and the Love of the World will soon suggest. With Christ we have all things which work to that end for which he was delivered. We have his Commands, which are the pledges of his love: for he gave us them that he might give us more, that he might give us a Crown. We have his Promises of immortality and eternal life. Faciet hoc: nam qui promisit est potens: He shall do it: for he is able to perform it: With him every word shall stand. He hath given us Faith (that is the gift of God) to apprehend and receive the promises: and Hope, Eph. 2.8. to lift us up unto them. He hath given us his Pastors to teach us (that is scarce looked upon as a gift: but then) he hath given us his Angels to minister unto us. He hath given us his Spirit, and filleth us with his Grace, if we will receive it: which will make his Commands, which are now grievous, easy; his Promises, which are rich, profitable: which may carry us on in a regular and peaceable course of piety and obedience: which is our Angel, which is our God; and we call it Grace. All these things we have with Christ. And the Apostle doth not only tell us that God doth give us them, but, to put it out of doubt, putteth up a QVOMODO NON? challengeth as it were the whole world to show how it should be otherwise; How will he not with him also freely give us all things? This Question addeth energy and weight and emphasis, and maketh the Position more positive, the Affirmation more strong, and the truth of it more persuasive and convincing; Shall he not give us all things? It is impossible but he should. It is more possible for a city upon a hill to be hid, than for him to hid his favour from us; more possible for Heaven to sink into Hell, or for Hell to raise itself up to God's Mercy-seat, than for him to withhold any thing from them to whom he hath given his Son. Impossible it is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as most inconvenient, as that which is against his Wisdom and his Justice and his Goodness, Naz. Or. 36. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as abhorrent to his Will, to deny us any thing. In brief; If the Earth be not as iron, the Heavens cannot be as brass. God cannot but give when we are fit to receive; and in Christ we are made capable. When he is given, all things are given with him; nay more than all things, more than we can desire, more than we can conceive. When he descendeth, Mercy descendeth with him in a full shower of blessings to make our souls as the paradise of God, to quicken our Faith, to rouse up our Hope. And in this light, in this assurance, in this heaven, we are bold with S. Paul to put up the Question against all doubts, all fears, all temptations that may assault us; He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? And now we have passed up every step and degree of this scale and ladder of Love, and seen Christ delivered and nailed to the cross. And from thence he looketh down, and speaketh to us to the end of the world. Crux patientis fuit cathedra docentis: The Cross on which he suffered was the Chair of his Profession. And from this Chair we are taught Humility, constant Patience, perfect Obedience, an exact Art and Method of living well, drawn out in several lines. What was ambitiously said of Homer, That if all sciences were lost, they might be found in him, may most truly be said of Christ's Cross and Passion, That if all the characters of Innocency, Humility, Obedience, Love, had been lost, they might here be found in libro vitae Agni, in the Book of the Life, nay of the Death, of the Lamb, Rev. 13.8. slain from the foundation of the world, yet now nailed to the Cross. Let us then with love and reverence look upon him who thus looketh upon us. Let us put on our crucified Jesus, that is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as chrysostom, every virtue, his Humility, his Patience, his Obedience; and so bear about with us the dying of our Lord, 2 Cor. 4.10. and draw the picture of a crucified Saviour in ourselves. To this end was he delivered up for us, to this end we must receive him, that we may glorify God, as he hath glorified him on earth. For God's glory and our salvation are twisted together and wrought as it were in the same thread, and linked together in the same bond of peace. Psal. 50.15. I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Thus it runneth; and it runneth on evenly in a stream of Love. Oh how must it needs delight him to see his Gift prosper in our hands; to see us delivering up ourselves to him who was thus delivered for us; to see his purchase, those who were bought with this price, made his peculiar people! Psal. 24.7, 9 Lift then up the gates of your souls, that this King of glory may come in. If you seek salvation, you must seek the glory of God; and if you seek the glory of God, you shall find it in your salvation. Thou mayest cry, Lo, here it is, or, Lo, there it is; but here it is found. The Jew may seek salvation in the Law; the Superstitious, in Ceremony and bodily Exercise; the Zealot in the Fire and the Whirlwind; the fantastic lazy Christian, in a Thought, in a Dream; and the profane Libertine, in Hell itself: But then, then alone we find it, when we meet it in conjunction with the Glory of God, which shineth most gloriously in a crucified Christ, and in an obedient Christian made conformable to him, and so bearing about in him the marks of the LORD JESUS. Gal. 6.17. To conclude then; Since God hath delivered up his own Son for us all, and with him given us all things, let us open our hearts, and receive him; John 1.12. that is, believe in his name; that is, be faithful to him; that is, love him, and keep his Commandments, which is our conformity to his Death. And then he will give us; What will he give us? He will heap gift upon gift, give us power to become the Sons of God. Let us receive Christ in his shame, in his sorrow, in his agony, take him hanging on the cross; take him, and take a pattern by him: that, as he was, so we may be troubled for our sins; that we may mingle our tears with his blood; drag Sin to the bar; accuse, and condemn it; revile and spit in its face, at the fairest presentment it can make; and then nail it to the cross, that it may languish and faint by degrees, till it give up the ghost, and die in us. Then lie we down in peace in the grave, and expect a glorious resurrection; when we shall receive Christ, not in humility, but in Majesty, and with him all his riches and abundance, all his promises, even Glory and Immortality and Eternal life. A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day. REV. I. 18. I am he that liveth, and was dead: and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen, and have the keys of Hell and of Death. WE do not ask, Of whom speaketh S. John this? or, Who is he that speaketh it? For we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voice, ver. 12. when he meaneth the man who spoke it; I turned to see the voice that spoke with me; and in the next verse telleth us he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks, governing his Church, Leu. 26.11, 12. setting his Tabernacle amongst men, not abhorring to walk amongst them, and to be their God, that they might be his people. Will you see his robes and attire? Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot, v. 13. which was the garment of the High Priest: Hebr. 7.24. And his was an unchangeable Priesthood. He had also a golden girdle, or belt, as a King: For he is a King for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Luk. 1.33. Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins, Isa. 11.5. His head and his hairs were white as wool, and as white as snow, v. 14. his Judgement pure and uncorrupt, not biased by outward respects, not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection, but smooth and even as waters are when no wind troubleth them. His eyes as a flame of fire, piercing the inward man, searching the secrets of the heart: nor is there any action, word, or thought, which is not manifest in his sight. His feet like unto fine brass, v. 15. sincere and constant, like unto himself in all his proceed, in every part of his Oeconomy. His voice as the sound of many waters, declaring his Father's will with power and authority, sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world. And last of all, out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, v. 16. not only dividing asunder the soul and the spirit, Hebr. 4.12. but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart, and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church. His Majesty dazzled every mortal eye; his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength. And now of him who walketh in the midst of his Church, whose Mercy is a large robe reaching down to the feet, who is girt with Power, and clothed with Justice, whose Wisdom pierceth even into darkness itself, whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other, whose Majesty displayeth its beams through every corner of it, we cannot but confess with Peter, This is Christ, Matth. 16.16. John 6.69. Hagg. 2.7. the Son of the living God. And can the Saviour of the world, the Desire of all nations, the Glory of his Father, Beauty itself, appear in such a shape of terror? Shall we draw out a merciful Redeemer with a warrior's belt? with eyes of fire? with feet of brass? with a voice of terror? with a sharp two-edged sword in his mouth? Yes: Such a High Priest became us, Hebr. 7.26. who is not only merciful, but just; not only meek, but powerful; not only fair, but terrible; not only clothed with the darkness of Humility, but with the shining robes of Majesty; who can die, and can live again, and live for evermore; who suffered himself to be judged and condemned, and shall judge and condemn the world itself. S. John indeed was troubled at this sight, and fell down as dead; but Christ rouzeth him up, and biddeth him shake of that fear. For he is terrible to none but those who make him so, to Heretics, and Hypocrites, and Persecutors of his Church; to those who would have him neither wise, nor just, nor powerful. Non accepimus iratum, sed fecimus: He is not angry till we force him. It is rather our sins that run back again upon us as Furies, than his wrath; These make him cloth himself with vengeance, and draw his sword. To S. John, to those that bow before him, he is all sweetness, all grace, all salvation; and upon these, as upon S. John, he layeth his right hand, quickeneth and rouzeth them up: Fear not, v. 17. neither my girdle of Justice, nor my eyes of fire, nor my feet of brass, nor my mighty voice, nor my two-edged sword: for my Wisdom shall guide you, my Power shall defend you, my Majesty shall uphold you, and my Mercy shall crown you. Fear not; I am the first and the last; more humble than any, more powerful than any, scorned, whipped, crucified, and now highly exalted, and Lord of all the world. I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, etc. These words I may call, as Tertullian doth the Lord's Prayer, breviarium Evangelii, the Breviary or Sum of the whole Gospel; or, with Augustine, Symbolum abbreviatum, the Epitome or Abridgement of our Creed. And such a short Creed we find in Tertullian, which he calls Regulam veram, immobilem & irreformabilem, the sole, immutable and unalterable rule of Faith. And then the Articles or parts will be 1. The Death of Christ; I was dead. 2. The Resurrection of Christ, with the effect and power of it; I am he that liveth. 3. The Duration and continuance of his life: It is to all eternity; I am alive for evermore. 4. The Power of Christ, which he purchased by his death, the Power of the keys; I have the keys of Hell and of Death. And all these are 1. ushered in with an ECCE, Behold, that we may consider it; and 2. sealed and ratified with an AMEN, that we may believe it, that there be not in any of us, as the Apostle speaketh, an unbelieving heart, to departed from the living God, Hebr. 3.11. I am he that liveth, and was dead. Of the Death of Christ we spoke the last day: Par. 1. We shall only now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection, and consider it as past: For it is FVI MORTWS, I was dead. And in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour, which he drew out in his blood, which must sprinkle those who are to be saved, and make them nigh unto him to follow in the same method, à morte ad vitam, from suffering to glory, from death to life. Tota ecclesia cum Christo computatur ut una persona; Hebr. 2.10. Christ and his Church are in computation but one person. He ought to suffer, and they ought to suffer: They suffer in him, and he in them, Luke 24.26. to the end of the world. Nor is any other method answerable either to his infinite Wisdom and Justice, which hath set it down in indelible characters, or to our mortal and frail condition, which must be bruised before it can be healed, and be leveled with the ground before it can be raised up. Quicquid Deo convenit, homini prodest, saith Tertullian; that which is convenient for Christ, is profitable for us: That which becometh him, we must wear as an ornament of grace unto our head. There is an oportet set upon both: Luke 24.26. He ought, and we ought, first to suffer, and then to enter into glory; to die first, that we may rise again. First, it cannot consist with the Wisdom of God, that Christ should suffer and die, and that we might live as we please, and then reign with him, and so pass à deliciis in delicias, from one paradise to another; that he should overcome the Devil for those who will be his vassals, that he should foil him in his proud temptations for those who will not be humble, and beat off his sullen temptation for those who will distrust and murmur; that he should make his victorious death commeatum delinquendi, a licence and charter for all generations to fling away their weapons, and not strike a stroke. If he should have done this, we could not have taken him for our Captain; and if we will not enter the lists, he will not take us for his Soldiers. Non novimus Christum, si non credimus; We do not know Christ, if we believe him not to be such a one as he is, a Captain that leadeth us, as Moses did the children of Israel, through a wilderness full of fiery Serpents, into Canaan; through the valley of death, into life. Nor is it expedient for us, who are not born, but made Christians, (and a Christian is not made with a thought) whose lifting up supposeth some dungeon or prison in which we formerly were, whose rising looketh back into some grave. Tolle certamen, nè virtus quidem quicquam erit; Take away this combat with our spiritual enemies, with afflictions and tentations, and Religion itself will be but a bare name, and Christianity, as Leo the tenth is said to have called it, but a fable. What were my Patience, if no Pain did look towards it? What were my Faith, if there were no Doubt to assault it? What were my Hope, if there were no Scruple to shake it? What were my charity, if there were no Misery to urge it, no Malice to oppose it? What were my Day, if I had no Night? or what were my Resurrection, if I were never dead? I was dead, saith the Lord of life: And his speech is directed to us, who do but think we live, being indeed in our graves, entombed in this world (which we so love,) compassed about with enemies, covered with disgraces, raked up as it were in those evils that are those locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit. Rev. 9 3. And when we hear this voice, and by the virtue and power of it look upon these, and make a way through them, we rise with Christ, 1 John 5.4. our hope is lively, and our faith is that victory which overcomeh the world. Nor need this method seem grievous unto us. For these very words, I was dead, may put life and light into it, and commend it, not only as the truest, but as a plain and easy method. For by Christ's Death we must understand all those miseries that he suffered before, which were as the train and ceremony of his Death, as the officers of the High priest to lead him to it; as Poverty, Scorn and Contempt, the Burden of our sins, his Agony and bloody Sweat. These we must look upon as the principles of this heavenly Science, by which our best Master learned to secure us in our sufferings, to lift us up out of our graves, and to raise us from the dead. There is life in his death, and comfort in his sufferings. For we have not such an High priest who will not help us, Hebr. 4.15. & 2.17. but (which is one, and a chief end of his suffering and death) who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and is merciful and faithful, hath not only power, (for that he may have, and not show it) but will and propension also, desire, and diligent care to hold up them who are ready to fall, and to bring them back who were even brought to the gates of death. Indeed Mercy without Power can beget but a good wish, S. James his complimental charity; Be ye warmed; and, Be ye filled; and, Be ye comforted; Jam. 2.16. which leaveth us cold and empty and comfortless. And Power without Mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee, nor heal a broken heart; It may as well strike us dead as revive us. But Mercy and Power, when they meet and kiss each other, will work a miracle, will uphold us when we fall, and raise us from the dead; will give eyes to the blind, and strength to the weak; will make a fiery furnace a bath, a rack a bed, and persecution a blessing; will call those sorrows that are, as if they were not. Such a virtue and force, such life there is in these three words, I was dead. For though his Compassion and Mercy were coeternal with him as God, yet as Man he learned them. He came into the world as into a school, and there learned them by his sufferings and death. Hebr. 5.8. For the way to be sensible of another's misery, is first to feel it ourselves. It must be ours, or if it be not ours, we must make it ours, before our heart will melt. I must take my brother into myself, I must make myself as him, before I help him. I must be that Lazar that beggeth of me, Luke 16. Luke 10.30, 34. and then I give. I must be that wounded man by the wayside, and then I pour my oil and wine into his wounds, and take care of him. I must feel the Hell of sin in myself; before I can snatch my brother out of the fire. Compassion is first learned at home, and then it walketh abroad, Job 29.15. and is eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; and so healeth two at once, both the miserable, and him that comforts him. They were both under the same disease, one as sick as the other. I was dead, and I suffered, are the main strength of our salvation. For though Christ could no more forget to be merciful than he could leave off to be the Son of God, yet before he emptied himself, and took upon him the form of a servant, sicut miseriam expertus non erat, ita nec misericordiam experimento novit, saith Hilary; as he had no experience of sorrow, so had he no experimental knowledge of mercy and compassion. His own Hunger moved him to work that miracle of the Loaves: for it is said in the Text, Matth. 15.32. He had compassion on the multitude. His Poverty made him an Orator for the poor, and he beggeth with them to the end of the world. He had not a hole to hid his head; and his Compassion melted into tears at the sight of Jerusalem. When he became a man of sorrows, he became also a man of compassion. And yet his experience of sorrow, in truth, added nothing to his knowledge, but raiseth up a confidence in us to approach near unto him, who by his miserable experience is brought so near unto us, Col. 1.21, 22. and hath reconciled us in the body of his flesh: For he that suffered for us, hath compassion on us, and suffereth and is tempted with us, even to the end of the world; on the cross with S. Peter, on the block with S. Paul, in the fire with the Martyrs, Hebr. 11.37. destitute, afflicted, tormented. Would you take a view of Christ looking towards us with a melting eye? You may see him in your own souls; take him in a groan, mark him in your sorrow, behold him walking in the clefts of a broken heart, bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit. Or, to make him an object more sensible, you may see him every day begging in your streets. When he telleth you, He was dead, he telleth you as much. In as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, Hebr. 2.14. he also himself likewise took part of the same, and in our flesh was hungry, was spit upon, was whipped, was nailed to the cross; which were as so many parts of that discipline which taught him to be merciful; to be merciful to them who were tempted by hunger, because he was hungry; to be merciful to them who were tempted by poverty, because he was poor; to be merciful to those who tremble at disgrace, because he was whipped; to be merciful to them who will not, yet will suffer for him; who refuse and yet choose, tremble and yet venture, are afraid, and yet die for him; because as man he found it a bitter cup, and would have had it pass from him, who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears for mortal men, Hebr. 5.7. for weak men, for sinners. Pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ. This experimental knowledge is so rooted and fixed in him that it cannot be removed now, no more than his natural knowledge. He can as soon be ignorant of our actions as of our sufferings. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Aristot. Anal. post l. 2. c. 19 Hebr. 5.8. Isa. 53.3. Experience, saith the Philosopher, is a collection of many particulars registered in our memory. And this experience Christ had: and our Apostle telleth us he learned it; and the Prophet telleth us he was vir sciens infirmitatum, a man well read in sorrows, acquainted with grief, one who carried it about with him from his cradle to his cross. And by his Fasting and Tentation, by his Agony and bloody sweat, by his precious Death and Burial he remembreth us in famine, in tentation, in our agony; he remembreth us in the hour of death, and in our grave (for he pitieth even our dust,) and will remember us in the day of judgement. We have passed through the hardest part of this Method; and yet it is as necessary as the End: For there is no coming to the end without it; no peace without trouble, no life without death. Not that Life is the proper effect of Death: for this clear stream floweth from a higher and purer fountain, even from the Will of God, who is the fountain of life, which meeting with our Obedience (which is the conformity of our will to God's) maketh its way with power through fire and water, as the Psalmist speaketh, through poverty and contumelies, through every cloud and tempest, through darkness and death itself, and so carrieth it on to end and triumph in life. I was dead; that was his state of Humility: but I am alive; that is his state of Glory; and is in the next place to be considered. I am he that liveth. Christ hath spoken it, who is Truth itself, and we may take his word for it. And if we will not believe him when he saith it, neither should we believe if we should see him rising from the dead. And this his life and resurrection is most conveniently placed in that, Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy one to see corruption. Psal. 16.10. For what stronger reason can there be found out in matters of faith then the Will and Pleasure of that God who bringeth mighty things to pass? To this end S. Paul citeth the second Psalm, and S. Peter the sixteenth. And in this the humble soul may rest, and behold the object in its glory, and so gather strength to raise itself above the fading vanities of this world, and reach and rise to immortality. What fairer evidence then that of Scripture? What surer word than the word of Christ? He that cannot settle himself on this, is but as S. Jude's cloud, Judas 14. carried about with every wind, wheeled and circled about from imagination to imagination; now raised to a belief, and anon cast down into the midst of darkness; now assenting, anon doubting, and at last pressed down by his own unstableness into the pit of Infidelity. He that will not walk by that light which shineth upon him, whilst he seeketh for more, must needs stumble and fall at those stones of offence which himself hath laid in his own way. Acts 26.8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible, that God should raise the dead to life? If such a thought arise in a Christian, — 9 Reason never set it up. I verily thought with myself, saith S. Paul; but it was when he was under the Law. And he whose thoughts are staggered here, is under a worse law, the law of his members, his lusts, by which his thoughts and actions are held up as by a law; he is such a one as studieth to be an Atheist, is ambitious to be like the beasts that perish, and having nothing in himself but that which is worse than nothing, is well content to be annihilated. For why should such a temptation take any Christian? Why should he desire clearer evidence? Why should he seek for demonstration? or that the Resurrection of Christ should be made manifest to the eye? This is not to seek to confirm and establish, but to destroy our faith. For if these truths were as evident as it is that the Sun doth shine when it is day, the apprehension of them were not an act of our Faith, but of our Knowledge. Therefore Christ shown not himself openly to all the people at his resurrection, Tert. Apol. ut fides non mediocri praemio destinata, non nisi difficultate constaret, that faith, by which we are destined to a crown, might not consist without some difficulty, but commend itself by our obedience, the perfection and beauty whereof is best seen in making its way through difficulties. And so Hilary, Habet non tam veniam quàm praemium, ignorare quod credis; Lib. 8. De Trin, Not perfectly to know what thou certainly believest, doth so little stand in need of pardon, that it is that alone which draweth on the reward. For what obedience can it be for me to assent to this, That the whole is greater than the part? that the Sun doth shine? or any of those truths which are visible to the eye? What obedience it is to assent to that which I cannot deny? But when the object is in part hidden, in part seen; when the truth we assent to hath more probability to establish it then can be brought to shake it, than our Saviour himself pronounceth, John 20.29. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. Besides, it were in vain he should afford us more light, who hath given us enough. For to him that will not rest in that which is enough, nothing is enough. When God had divided the Red sea, when he reigned down Manna upon the Israelites, and wrought many wonders amongst them, the Text saith, For all this they sinned still, Psal. 78.31. and believed not his wondrous works. The Pharisees saw Christ's miracles, yet would have stoned him: They saw him raise Lazarus from the dead, and would have killed them both. The people said, He hath done all things well; Mar. 7.37. John 7.48. yet these were they that crucified the Lord of life. Did any of the Pharisees believe in him? We might ask, Did any of his Disciples believe in him? Christ himself calleth them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold. Luke 24.25. Their Fear had sullied the evidence that they could not see it: the Text saith, they forsook him, and fled. Matth. 26.56 And the reason of this is plain; For though Faith be an act of the Understanding, yet it dependeth upon the Will; and men are incredulous, nor for want of those means which may raise a faith, but for want of will to follow that light which leadeth unto it: they do not believe because they will not, and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived, beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever. When our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it, the evidence is put by and forgot, and the object, which calls for our eye and faith, gins to disappear and vanish, and at last is nothing. Quot voluntates, tot fides, saith Hilary: So many Wills, so many Creeds. For there is no man that believeth more than he will. To make this good, we may appeal to men of the slenderest observation and least experience; we may appeal to our very eye, which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions in which men are carried on in the course of their life. For what else is that that turneth us about, like the hand of a Dial, from one point to another? from one persuasion to a contrary? How cometh it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at? What is the reason that our Belief shifteth so many scenes, and presenteth itself in so many several shapes? now in the indifferency of a Laodicean, anon in the violence of a Zealot? now in the gaudiness of Superstition, anon in the proud and scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness? that many make so painful a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion, and at last end in Atheists? What reason is there? There can be none but this, the prevalency and victory of our Sensitive part over our Reason, and the mutability, yea, and stubbornness, of our Will, which cleaveth to that which it will soon forsake, but is strongly set against the Truth, which bringeth with it the fairest evidence, but not so pleasing to the sense. This is it which maketh so many impressions in the mind. Self-love, and the Love of the world, these frame our Creeds, these plant and build, these root and pull down; build up a faith, and then beat it to the ground, and then set up another in its place. James 1.8. 2 Tim. 2 8, A double-minded man, saith S. James, is unstable in all his ways. Remember, saith S. Paul, that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead, according to my Gospel. That is a sure foundation for our faith to build on; There we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fair and certain pledges of faith, as it were a commentary upon EGO VIVO, or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye, which give up so fair an evidence that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it. Matth. 28.13. Let them say, His Disciples stole him away whilst their stout watchmen slept. What, stole him away? and, whilst they slept? It is a dream; and yet it is not a dream: it is a studied lie, and doth so little shake, that it confirmeth our faith; so transparent, that through it we may behold more clearly the face of Truth, which never shineth brighter than when a lie is drawn before it to veil and shadow it. Matth. 28.6. He is not here, he is risen, if an Angel had not spoken it, yet the Earthquake, the Clothes, the Clothes so diligently wrapped up, the Grave itself did speak it. And where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lie, they help to confute it. Id negant quod ostendunt; They deny what they affirm: and Malice itself is made an argument for the truth. 1 Cor. 15.5, 6. For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas, and the twelve; yea, we have a cloud of witnesses, above five hundred brethren at once, who would not make themselves the fathers of a lie to propagate that Gospel which either maketh our yea, yea, and nay, nay, or damneth us. Nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour: For it teacheth them to contemn these matters, maketh Poverty a beatitude, and showeth them a sword and persecution, which they were sure to meet with, and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office, and publication of that faith. Nor could they take any delight in such a lie as would gather so many clouds over their heads, which would at last dissolve in that bitterness that would make life itself a punishment, and at last take it away. And how could they hope that men would ever believe that which themselves knew to be a lie? These witnesses than are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, many, and beyond exception. We have also the testimony of Martyrs, who took their death on't, and when they could not live to publish it, laid down their life, and sealed it with their Blood. And therefore we, on whom the ends of the world are come, have no reason to complain of distance, and that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done. For now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before: the diversity of mediums have increased and multiplied it. We see him in his Word; we see him through the Blood of Martyrs; and we see him with the eye of faith. Christ is risen and alive, 1 Cor. 15.3, 4. secundum scripturas, saith S. Paul; and he repeateth it twice in the same chapter. Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem (it is S. Augustine's; and let it pass for his sake) When the Jew stumbled at him, he presented but the bigness of a stone; but our Infidelity will find no excuse, if we see him not now when he appeareth as visible as a mountain. There is more in this VIVO than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He liveth, in as much as He giveth life. There is virtue and power in his Resurrection, a power, to abolish Death, 2 Tim. 1.10. and to bring life and immortality to light; a power to raise our vile bodies, and a power to raise our viler souls. He will raise them? nay, he hath done it already: Col. 2.12. & 3.1. We are risen together with him, and we live with him. We cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own grave, can be willing to see us rotting in ours. From this VIVO it is that though we die, yet we shall live again. Christ's Living breatheth life into us. In his Resurrection he cast the model of ours. Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum, saith Seneca: And this is such a one, an eternal pattern. Plato 's Idea, or common Form, by which he thought all things have their existence, is but a dream to this: This is a true and real, an efficacious and working pattern. For as an Artificer hath not lost his art when he hath finished one piece, no more did Christ lose his power when he had raised himself: but as he is, so it is everlasting, and worketh still to the end of the world. Perfectum est exemplar minùs perfecti: That which Christ wrought upon himself is most exact and perfect, a fit pattern of that which he meaneth to work on us, which will be like to his indeed, but not so glorious. And now VIVO, I live, is as loud to raise our Hope as the last trump will be to raise our Bodies: And how shall they be able to hear the sound of the trump who will not hear the voice of their Saviour? Christ's life derives its virtue and influence on both Soul and Body: on the Body, with that power which is requisite to raise a body now putrified and incinerated and well near annihilated; and on the Soul, with such a power as is fitted to a soul which hath both Understanding and Will, though drawn and carried away from their proper operations for which they were made. We do not read of any precept to bind us, or any counsel ●o persuade us to contribute any thing or put a hand to the resurrection of our bodies; nor can there be: it will be done whether we will or no: But to Awake from the pleasant sleep of sin, to be Renewed and raised in the inward man, to Die to sin, and Live to righteousness, we have line upon line and precept upon precept: And though this Life of Christ work in us both the will and the deed, Phil. 2.12. Phil. 2.13. yet a necessity and a law lieth upon us, and woe will be unto us, if we work not out our salvation. By his power we are raised in both, but not working after the same manner. There will be a change in both: As the flesh at the second, so the soul at the first resurrection must be reformata & Angelificata, spiritualised, refined, and angelified; or rather Christificata, If I may so speak, Christified, drawing in no breath but Christ's, Phil. 2.5. Job 17.13, 14 having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus. 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, and it is both Father and Mother and Sister to us; whilst we mind earthly things; we are still in our graves, nay in hell itself; Death hath dominion over us. For let us call the World what we please, our Habitation, our Delight, our Kingdom, where we would dwell for ever; yet indeed it is but our Grave. If we receive any influence from Christ's life, we shall rise fairly; not with a mouth which is a sepulchre, but with a tongue which is our glory; not with a withered hand, but with a hand stretched out to the needy; not with a gadding eye, but an eye shut up by covenant; not with an itching, but with an obedient ear; not with a heart of stone, but with a heart after Gods own heart. Our Life, Col. 3.3. saith the Apostle, is hid with Christ in God; and whilst we leave it thereby a continual meditation of his meritorious suffering, by a serious and practical application of his glorious resurrection, we hid it in the bosom of Majesty, and no dart of Satan can reach it. When we hid it in the minerals of the earth in the love of the world, the Devil, who is the Prince of the world, is there to seize on it; when we hid it in malicious and wanton thoughts, they are his baits to catch it; when we hid it in sloth and idleness, we hid it in a grave which he digged for us, we entomb ourselves alive, and as much as in us lies bury the Resurrection itself. But when we hid it in Christ, we hid it in him who carrieth healing and life in his wings. Mal. 4.2. When we worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and put our life in his hands, 2 Cor. 4.11. than the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh, than we have put off the old man, yea in a manner put off our mortality, we are candidati aeternitatis, as Tertullian speaketh, Candidates for eternity, and stand for a place with Abraham and Isaac: for we have the same God; and he is not the God of the dead, Matth. 21.32. but of the living. We see now what virtue and power there is in this VIVO, in the Life of Christ. But we must rise yet higher, even as high as Eternity itself: Hebr. 6.20. Hebr. 7.16. For as he liveth, so behold, he is alive for evermore, a Priest for ever, and a King for ever, being made not after the law of a carnal commandment, after that law which was given to men, that one should succeed another, but after the power of an endless life, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a life that cannot be dissolved, that cannot part from the body. And thus, as he liveth for evermore, so whatsoever issueth from him is like himself, everlasting; the beams as lasting as the light. His Word endureth for ever; his Law is eternal, his Intercession eternal, his Punishments eternal, and his Reward eternal. Not a Word which can fall to the ground, like ours, who fall after it, and within a while breathe out our souls, as we do our words, and speak no more. Not Laws which are framed and set to the times, and alter and change as they do, and at last end with them; but which shall stand fast for ever, Psal. 62.11. aeternae ab aeterno, eternal as he is eternal: He hath spoken once, and he will speak no more. Not an Intercession which may be silenced with power, but imprinted in him, and inseparable from him, and so never ceasing; an Intercession which Omnipotency itself cannot withstand. Not a a transitory Punishment, which time may mitigate or take away, but an everlasting Worm. Not a Reward which may be snatched out of our hands, but lasting as the heavens, nay as Christ himself. And they who would contract and shrink it up into one, and so make a temporary, perishing everlastingness, that shall last as long as it lasteth, do stretch beyond their line, which may reach the Right hand as well as the Left, and do put an end to the Reward, as they would do to the Punishment. For of the one as well as of the other it is said, that it shall be everlasting. All that floweth from Christ is like himself, yesterday, Hebr. 13.8. Hebr. 7.26. and to day, and the same for ever. And such an High Priest became us, who was to live for ever. For what should we do with a mortal Saviour? or what could a mortal Saviour do for us? What could an arm of flesh, a withering, dying arm, avail us? Shadow us to day, and leave us to morrow; raise us up now, and within a while let us fall into the dust, and at last fall down and perish with us. Man is weak, Job 14.10. and dieth; man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Where is (I will not say Alexander, or Caesar;) but, where is Moses, that led his people through the Red-Sea? where are his laws? Where is David? S. Peter speaketh it freely, that he is both dead and buried, Acts 2.29. and that his Sepulchre was with them unto that day. But the son of David is ascended into heaven, is our Priest for ever, and liveth for evermore. And this title of Eternity is wrought in his Girdle and Garment, may be seen in his Head and Eyes of fire, adorneth his burning Feet, is engraven on his Sword, may be read in his Countenance, and plaited in his Crown, and doth well become his Power, his Wisdom, his Justice, his Goodness. For that which is not eternal is next to nothing. What Power is that which sinketh? What Wisdom is that which faileth? What Riches are they that perish? What Mercy is that which is as the morning dew, which soon falleth? and is as soon exhaled and dried up again? Virtue were nothing, Religion were nothing, Faith itself were nothing, but in reference to Eternity. Heaven were nothing, if it were not eternal. Eternity is that which maketh every thing something, maketh every thing better than it is, and addeth lustre to Light itself. I live evermore, giveth life unto all things. Eternity is a fathomless Ocean, and carrieth with it Power and Wisdom and Goodness, an efficacious Activity, a gracious and benevolent Power, a wise and provident Goodness. If Christ live for evermore, then is he independent; if independent, then most powerful; if most powerful, then blessed; and if blessed, then good. He is powerful, but good; good, but wise. And these, Goodness, and Power, and Wisdom, and a diligent Care for us meet in him who liveth for evermore, and worketh on us for our eternal salvation. And first, as he liveth for evermore, so he intercedeth for us for evermore; and he can no more leave to entercede for us than he can to be Christ. His Priesthood must fail before his Intercession, because this power of helping us is everlastingly and inseparably inherent in him. St. Paul joineth them together, his Sitting at the right of God, and his interceding for us, Rom. 8.34. So that to leave interceding were to leave the right hand of God, where he looketh down upon us, is present with us, and prepareth a place for us. His wounds are still open; his merits are still vocal; his sufferings are still importunate; his everlasting presenting of himself before his Father is an everlasting prayer; Jesus at the right hand of the Father, is more powerful than the full vials, the incense, the prayers, the groans, the sighs, the roar of all the Saints that have been, or shall be to the end of the world. If he sat not there, if he interceded not, they were but noise, nay, they were sins: but his Intercession sanctifieth them, and offereth them up, and by him they are powerful. By his power the sighs and breathe and desires of mortal men ascend the highest heavens, and draw down eternity. And this is a part of Christ's Priestly office, which he began here on earth, and continueth for us, maketh it complete, holdeth it up to the the end of the world. Again, this title of Eternity is annexed to his Regality, and is a flower of his Crown, not set in any but his. Thou art a King for ever, cannot be said to any mortal. Did he not live for evermore, he could not threaten eternal death. Nor promise everlasting life. For no mortal power can rage's for ever, but passeth as lands do, from one Lord to another, lieth heavy on them, and at last sinketh to the ground with them all: Nor can the hand that must whither and fall off reach forth a neverfailing reward, Infinitude cannot be the issue and product of that which is finite and bounded within a determined period. And this might open a wide and effectual door unto Sin, and but leave a sad and disconsolate entrance for Virtue and Piety, which is so unsatisfying to flesh and blood, that the perseverance in it requireth no less a power than that which Eternity bringeth along with it, to draw it on. How bold and daring would men be before the Sun and the People? What joy and delight would fill them, did not the thought of a future endless estate pierce sometimes through them, and so make some vent to let it out? When the evil that hangeth over is but a cloud which will soon vanish, few men are so serious as to look about and seek for shelter. — Post mortem nihil est, ipsáque mors nihil est, There is nothing after death, and Death itself is nothing, setteth up a chair for the Atheist to set at ease in, from whence he looketh down upon those who are such fools as to be virtuous, and smileth to see them toil and sweated in such rugged and unpleasing ways, carried on with a fear on the one side, and a hope on the other, of that which will never be. And indeed how weary, and how soon weary, would men be of doing good, if there were not a lasting recompense, if they were not half-perswaded (for a full persuasion is but rare) that there were something laid up in everlasting habitations? Honour, Repute and Advantage, these may bring forth a Hypocrite, these may bind on the phylacteries on a Pharisee; but nothing can raise up a Saint but Eternity, nor can that which fleeteth and passeth away build us up in a holy faith. And then there would be no such ship as Faith, which might fear a wreck, 1 Tim. 1.19. no such anchor as Hope; but our faith would be vain, and our hope also vain, and we left to be tossed up and down on the waves of uncertainty, having no haven to thrust into but that which is as turbulent and uncertain as the sea itself, and with it ebbeth and floweth, and at last will ebb into nothing. But I am alive for evermore deriveth an Eternity to that which in itself is fading, maketh our actions, which end in the doing, and are quickly gone and passed, eternal; our words, which are but wind, eternal; and our thoughts, which perish with us, eternal: We shall meet them again, and feel the effect of them to all eternity. It maketh Hell eternal, that we may fly from it; and Heaven eternal, that we may press towards it, and take it by violence. Christ's living for ever eternizeth his Threaten, and maketh them terrible; his Promises, and maketh them persuasive and eloquent: eternizeth our Faith and Hope, eternizeth all that is praiseworthy, that they may be as a pass or letters commendatory to prevail and procure us admittance into his presence who only hath immortality, and can give eternal life. This is the virtue and operation of I am alive for evermore. For though a time will come that Christ shall not govern, nor intercede, yet the power of his Sceptre and the virtue of his Intercession is carried on along with joy and happiness of the Saints, as the Cause with the Effect, even to all eternity, shall have its operation in the midst of all our glorious ravishments, and shall tune our Halellujahs and Songs of thanksgiving to this our Priest and King that liveth for evermore. We pass now from the Duration and Continuance of his Life, to his Power; He hath the keys of Hell and of Death. Habeo claves, I have the keys, is a Metaphorical speech. And Metaphorae ferascissimae controversiarum, saith Martin Luther; Metaphors are a soil wherein controversies will grow up thick, and twine and plat themselves one within the other, whilst every man manureth them, and soweth upon them what seed he please, even that which may bring forth such fruit as may be most agreeable to his taste and humour. Lord, what a noise have these keys made in the world? You would think they were not Keys, but Bells, sounding terror to some, and making others more bold and merry than they should be. Some have gilded them over; others have even worn and filled them quite away, put them into so many hands that they have left none at all. For though they know not well what they are, yet every man taketh courage enough to handle them, and let in and let out whom they please. One faction turneth them against another; the Lutherane against the Calvinist, and diabolifieth him; and the Calvinist against the Lutherane, and superdiabolifieth him. The Church of Rome made it a piece of wisdom to shut Us out, and all that will not bow unto her as subordinate and dependant on that Church; Which was but idle Physic, and did neither hurt nor good, but was as a dart sent after those who were gone out of reach; a Curse denounced against those who heard it, and blest themselves in it; Indeed a point of ridiculously affected gravity, such as that Church hath many. For what prejudice could come to us by her shutting Us out, who had already put ourselves out of her Communion? unless you will think the valour of that Soldier fit for Chronicle who cut of the head of a man who was dead before. I have the keys, saith Christ; and it is most necessary he should keep them in his hands. For we see how dangerous it may prove to put them into the hand of a mortal man, subject to passions, and too often guided and commanded by them; and we know what tragedies the mistaking of the Keys have raised in the world. And yet he that hath these Keys, this Power, hath delegated also a power to his Apostles, not only to preach the Gospel, but to correct those who disobey it. I would not attribute too much to the Pastors of the Church in this dull and iron, or rather in this wanton, age, where any thing, where nothing is thought too much for them; where all hath been Preaching, till all are Preachers: Yet I cannot but think they have more to do than to speak in public, which, it is thought, every Christian may do. They are the Ambassadors of Christ, 2 Cor. 5.20. set apart on purpose in Christ's stead to minister to his Church, yea, to rule and govern his Church; 1 Tim. 3.5. & 5.17. it is S. Paul's phrase: And they carry about with them his Commission, a power delegated from him to sever the Goats from the Sheep, even in this life, that they may become Sheep, to segregate them, to abstain or withhold them, Abstinere, Cypr. Segregare, Exauctorare, Virgâ Pastorali ferire, etc. Hieron. to exauctorate them, to throw them out, to strike them with the pastoral rod, to anathematise them, etc. This was the language of the first and purest times. By degrees this power fell in its esteem through some abuse of it, it being drawn down from that most profitable and necessary end for which it was given. And this at last brought all Religion into disgrace. Nor indeed could it be otherwise. For if upon the abuse of a thing we must strait call for the besom to sweep it away, what can stand long in its place? The Temple is profaned; that must down to the ground. Liberality is abused; shut up your purse and your bowels together. Prayer is abused, and turned into babbling; tack up your tongues to the roof of your mouth. Nay, every thing in the world is abused; therefore, if this argument be good, the world itself should long since have had its end. But such a power Christ did leave unto his Church, and the neglect of it on the one side, and the contempt of it on the other, hath brought in that lukewarmness and indifferency amongst the professors of Christianity, which if God prevent not, will at last shake and throw down the profession itself, and fill the world with Atheists, which will learn by no Masters but such as instruct fools, nor acknowledge any Keys but those which may break their head. But indeed we have had these Keys too long in our hands. For though they concern us, yet are they not the keys in the Text; nor had we looked upon them, but that those of the Romish party, wheresoever they find keys mentioned, take them up and hang them on their Church. But we must observe a difference betwixt the keys of the kingdom of heaven, Matth. 16.19. which were given to Peter, and the keys of Hell and of Death; although with them, when the Keys are seen, Heaven and Hell are all one. For the key of David, Rev. 3.7. which openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth, was not given to the Apostles, but is a regality and prerogative of Christ, who only hath power of Life and Death, over Hell and the Grave; who therefore calleth himself the first and the last, because, although when he first published his Gospel, he died and was buried, yet he risen again to live for ever, so to perfect the great work of our salvation, and by his power to bind those in everlasting chains who stood out against him, and to bring those that bow to his sceptre out of prison into liberty and everlasting life. The power is his alone; and he made it his by his sufferings. Phil. 2.8, 9 He was obedient to death; therefore God did highly exalt him: Phil. 2.7, 11. He became a Lord by putting on the form of a servant. But he hath delegated his power to his Apostles, and those that succeed them, to make us capable, and fit subjects for his power to work upon, which nevertheless will have its operation and effect, either let us out, or shut us up for ever under the power of Hell and of Death. Were not he alive, and to live for evermore, we had been shut up in darkness and oblivion for ever: But Christ living infuseth life into us, that the bands of Hell and of Death can no more hold us than they can him. There is such a place as Hell; but to the living members of Christ there is no such place: For it is impossible it should hold them. You may as well place Lucifer at the right hand of God as a true Christian in Hell. For how can Light dwell in Darkness? How can Purity mix with stench? How can Beauty stay with Horror? If Nature could forget her course, and suffer contradictories to be drawn together and be both true, yet this is such a contradiction as, unless Christ could die again, (which is impossible) can never be reconciled. Matth. 5.18. Heaven and earth may pass away; but Christ liveth for evermore, and the power and virtue of his Life is as everlasting as Everlastingness itself. Rev. 6.8. And again; There was a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death; and he had power to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth: But now he doth not kill us; he doth but stagger us, and fling us down, that we may rise again, and tread him under our feet, and by the power of an everliving Saviour be the death of Death itself. Job 18.14. Death was the King of terrors; and the fear of Death made us slaves, Heb. 2.15. and kept us in servility and bondage all our life long, made our pleasures less delightful, and our virtues more tedious, made us tremble and shrink from those Heroic undertake for the truth of God: But now they in whom Christ liveth and moveth and hath his being as in his own, dare look upon Death in all his horror, (expeditum morti genus, saith Tertullian) and are ready to meet him in his most dreadful march with all his army of Diseases, Racks and Tortures. Man before he sinned knew not what Death meant; then Eve familiarly conversed with the Serpent: so do Christians with Death: Having that Divine Image restored in them, they are secure, and fear it not. For what can that Tyrant take from them? Col. 3.3. Their life? That is hid with Christ in God. Psal. 37.4. It cannot cut them off from pleasure; for their delight is in the Lord. Matth. 6.20. It cannot rob them of their treasure; for that is laid up in heaven. It can take nothing from them but what themselves have already crucified, Gal. 5.24. their Flesh. It cannot cut off one hope, one thought, one purpose; for all their thoughts, purposes and hopes were levelled not on this, but on another, life. And now Christ hath his keys in his hand, Death is but a name; it is nothing: or, if it be something, it is such a thing as troubled S Augustine to define what it is. We call it a punishment, but indeed it is a benefit, a favour, even such a favour, that Christ, who is as omnipotent as he is everlasting, who can work all in all, though he abolished the Law of Moses, and of Ceremonies, yet would not abrogate the law by which we are bound over unto death, because it is so profitable and advantageous to us. It was indeed threatened; but it is now a promise, or the way unto it: for Death it is that letteth us into that which was promised. It was an end of all; it is now the beginning of all. It was that which cut off life; it is now that through which, as through a gate, we enter into it. We may say it is the first point and moment of our after-eternity; for it is so near unto it that we can hardly sever them. We live, or rather labour and fight and strive with the World, and with Life itself, which is itself a temptation; and whilst by the power of our everliving Christ we hold up and make good this glorious contention, and fight, and conquer, and press forward towards the mark, either nature faileth, or is pressed down with violence, and we die; that is our language; but the Spirit speaketh after another manner; we sleep, we are dissolved, we fall in pieces, our bodies from our souls, and we from our miseries and temptations: and this living, everliving Christ gathereth us together again, breatheth life and eternity into us, that we may live and reign with him for evermore. And so I have viewed all the parts of the Text, being the main articles of our Faith; 1 Christ's Death; 2. his Life; 3. his eternal Life; and last of all, his Power of the Keys, his Dominion over Hell and Death. We will but in a word fit the ECCE, the Behold, in the Text, to every part of it, and set the Seal Amen to it, and so conclude. And first we place the ECCE, the Behold, on his Death. He suffered and died, that he might learn to have compassion on thy miseries and on thy dust, and raise thee from both: and wilt thou learn nothing from his compassion? Wilt thou not by him, and by thy own sins and miseries, which drew from him tears of blood, learn to pity thyself? Wilt thou still rejoice in that iniquity that troubled his spirit, and shed his blood, which he was willing should gush out of his heart, so it might melt thine, and work but this in thee, pity to thyself? We talk of a first Conversion, and a second; and I know not what Cycles and Epicycles we have found out to salve our irregular motion in our ways to bliss: If we could once have compassion on ourselves, the work were done: And, When were you converted? or, How were you converted? were no such hard questions to be answered: For I may be sure I am converted, if I be sure that I truly pity myself. Shall Christ only have compassion on thy soul? But then again, shall he shed his blood for his Church, that it may be one with him, and at unity in itself; and canst thou not drop a tear when thou seest this his body thus rend in pieces, as it is at this day? When thou seest the World, the Love of the world, break in and make such havoc in the Church, (oh it is a sad contemplation!) will none but Christ weep over Jerusalem? Luk. 19.41. Secondly, let us look upon him living, and not take our eye from off him, to fill and feed and delight it with the vanities of this world, with that which hath neither life nor spirit, with that which is so near to nothing, with that which is but an idol. Behold, he liveth; that which thou so dotest on hath no life, nor can it prolong thy life a moment. Who would not cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils? Isa. 2.22. and than what madness is it to trust in that which hath no breath at all? Shall Christ present himself alive to us, and for us, and shall we lay hold on Corruption and Rottenness? And when Heaven openeth itself to receive us, shall we run from it into a Charnel-house, and so into Hell itself? In the third place, Behold; he liveth for evermore, and let us not bound and imprison our thoughts within a span, and, when immortality is offered, affect no other life but that which is a vapour. Jam. 4.14. Let us not raise that swarm of thoughts which must perish, but build up those works upon our everliving Saviour which may follow us, follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of eternity. Doth our Saviour live for evermore? and shall we have no spirit in us but that which delighteth to walk about the earth, and is content to vanish with it? Eternity is a powerful motive to those who never have such pensive thoughts as when they remember their frailty, and are sick even of health itself, and in a manner dead with life, when they consider it as that blessing which shall have an end. Eternity is in our desire, though it be beyond our apprehension. What he said of Time, is truer of Eternity: If you do not ask what it is, we know; but if you ask, we are not able to answer and resolve you, or tell you what it is. When we call it an infinite duration, we do but give it another name, two words for one, a short Paraphrase; but we do not define what it is. And indeed our first conceptions of it are the fairest: For when they are doubled and redoubled, they are lost in themselves; and the further they extend themselves, the more weary they are, and at greater loss in every proffer, and must end and rest at last in this poor and unsatisfying thought, That we cannot think what it is. Yet there is in us a wild presage, an unhandsome acknowledgement of it: for we fancy it in those objects which vanish out of fight whilst we look upon them: we set it up in every desire; for our desires never have an end. Every purpose of ours, every action we do is Aeternitati sacrum, and we do it to eternity. Prov. 23.5. Psal. 49.11. We look upon Riches as if they had no wings, and think our habitations shall endure for ever. We look upon Honour as if it were not air, but some Angel confirmed, a thing bound up in eternity. We look upon Beauty, and it is our heaven; and we are fixed and dwell on it, as if it would never shrivel, and be gathered together as a scroul; and so in a manner make Mortality itself eternal. And therefore since our desires do so enlarge themselves, and our thoughts so multiply, that they never have an end, since we look after that which we cannot see, and reach after that which we cannot grasp, God hath set up that for an object to look on which is eternal indeed in the highest Heavens: and as he hath made us in his own image, so in Christ, who came to renew it in us, he hath showed us a more excellent way unto it, and taught us to work out eternity even in this world, in this common shop of change; to work it out of that in which it is not, which is near to nothing, which shall be nothing; to work it out of Riches, by not trusting them; out of Honour, by contemning it; out of the Pleasures of this world, by loathing them; out of the Flesh, by crucifying it; out of the World, by overcoming it; and out of the Devil himself, by treading him under our feet. For this is to be in Christ; and to be in Christ, is to be for evermore. Christ is the eternal Son of God, and he was dead, and liveth, and liveth for evermore; that we may die, and live for evermore, and not only attain to the Resurrection of the dead, but to eternity. Last of all, let us look upon the keys in his hand, and knock hard, that he may open to us, and deliver our soul from hell, and make our grave not a prison, but a bed, to rise from to eternal life. If we be still shut in, we ourselves have turned the key against ourselves. Christ is ready with his Keys to open to us; and we have our Keys too, our key of Knowledge to discern between life and Death, and our key of Repentance; and when we use these, Christ is ready to put his even into our hands, and will derive a power unto us mortals, unto us sinners, over Hell and Death. And then, in the last place, we shall be able to set on the Seal, the AMEN, and be confirmed in the certainty of his Resurrection and Power; by which we may raise those thoughts, and promote those actions, which may look beyond our threescore years and ten, Psal. 90.10. through all successive generations, to immortality, and that glory which shall never have an end. This is to show and publish our faith by our works, as S. James speaketh; Jam. 2.18. this is with the heart to believe, as S. Paul. Rom. 10.10. For he that believeth from the heart, cannot but be obedient to the Gospel; unless we 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 Fancy. 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 ourselves? and yet that which seemeth to make its approach towards us, is as uncertain as Uncertainty itself, and when we have it, passeth from us, and (as the ruder people say of the Devil) leaveth a noisome 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 terror 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 Prophet's 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 harkened to his voice, shall hear nothing but Hallelujahs and the music 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, etc. 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 holiday, wherein the holy Ghost descendeth both as an Instructor 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 completing 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 ransom 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. Phillip 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 conductor in the way. For so the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to be the Apostles leader and conductor, that they might not err, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keep on in a strait 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 that where the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there we are to understand the Person of the Holy Ghost, yet we rather lay hold on the pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, When He, the Spirit of truth, shall come, He shall lead you; which pointeth out to a distinct Person. If, as Sabellius saith, our Saviour had only meant some new motion in the Disciples hearts, or some effect of the Spirit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been enough: but ILLE, He, designeth a certain Person; and I'll, He, in Christ's mouth, a distinct Person from himself. Besides, we are taught in the Schools, Actiones sunt suppositorum, Actions and operations are of Persons. Now in this verse Christ saith that he shall lead them into all truth; and before, he shall reprove the world, v. 8. and in the precedent chapter, he shall testify of me, v. 26. which are proper and peculiar operations of the blessed Spirit, and bring him in a distinct Person from the Father and the Son. And therefore S. Augustine resteth upon this dark and general expression; Lib. 6. De Trinit. Spiritus S. est commune aliquid Patris & Filii, quicquid illud est. The Holy Ghost communicateth both of the Father and the Son, is something of them both, whatsoever we may call it; whether we call him the Consubstantial and Coeternal communion and friendship of the Father and the Son or, nexum amorosum, with Gerson and others of the Schools, the essential Love, and Love-knot, of the undivided Trinity. But we will wave these more abstruse and deeper speculations, in which, if we speak not in the Spirit's language, we may sooner lose than profit ourselves, and speak more than we should, whilst we are busy to raise our thoughts and words up to that which is but enough. It will be safer to walk below amongst those observations which, as they are more familiar and easy, so are they more useful; and to take what oar we can find with ease, than to dig deeper in this dark mine, where, if we walk not warily, we may meet with poisonous fogs and damps in stead of treasure. We will therefore in the next place inquire why he is called the Spirit of Truth. Divers attributes the Holy Ghost hath. He is called the Spirit of Adoption, Rom. 8.15. the Spirit of Faith, 2 Cor. 4.13. the Spirit of Grace, Hebr. 10.29. etc. For where he worketh, Grace is operative; our Love is without dissimulation; Rom. 12.9. our Joy is like the joy of heaven, as true, though not so great; Gal. 5.6. Isa. 6.6. Rom. 10 2. our Faith, a working faith; and our Zeal, a coal from the altar, kindled from his fire, not mad and raging, but according to knowledge. He maketh no shadows, but substances; no pictures, but realities; no appearances, Luke 1.28. but truths; a Grace that maketh us highly favoured; a precious and holy Faith; 1 Pet. 1.7, 8. full and unspeakable Joy: Love, ready to spend itself; and Zeal to consume us, Ps●l. 69.9. of a true existence, being from the Spirit of that God who alone truly is. But here he is styled the Spirit of Truth; yet is he the same Spirit that planteth grace and faith in our hearts, that begetteth our Faith, dilateth our Love, worketh our Joy, kindleth our Zeal, and adopteth us in Regiam familiam, into the Royal family of the firstborn in heaven: But now the Spirit of Truth was more proper. For to tell men perplexed with doubts, that were ever and anon (and sometimes when they should not) ask questions, of such a Teacher, was a seal to the promise, a good assurance that they should be well taught, that no difficulty should be too hard, no knowledge too high, no mystery too dark and obscure for them, but All truth should be brought forth and unfolded to them, and having the veil taken from it, be laid open and naked to their understanding. Let us then look up upon and worship this Spirit of Truth, as he thus presenteth and tendereth himself unto us. 1. He standeth in opposition to two great enemies to Truth, Dissimulation, and Flattery. By the former I hid myself from others; by the later I blindfold another, and hid him from himself. The Spirit is an enemy to both; he cannot away with them. 2. He is true in the Lessons which he teacheth, that we may pray for his Advent, long for his coming, and so receive him when he cometh. First, dissemble he doth not, he cannot. For Dissimulation is a kind of cheat or juggling, by which we cast a mist before men's eyes, that they cannot see us. It bringeth in the Devil in Samuel's mantle, and an enemy in the smiles and smoothness of a friend. It speaketh the language of the Priest at Delphos, As to King Philip, whom Pausanias slew. playeth in ambiguities, promiseth life when death is nearest, and biddeth us beware of a chariot when it meaneth a sword. No, this Spirit is an enemy to this, because a Spirit of truth, and hateth these involucra dissimulationis, this folding and involvedness, these cloaks and coverts, these crafty conveyances of our own desires to their end under the specious show of intending good to others. And they by whom this Spirit speaketh are like him, and speak the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Cor. 1.12. in the simplicity and godly sincerity of the spirit, not in craftiness, 2 Cor. 4.2. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, handling the Word of God deceitfully, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Eph. 4.14. not in the slight of men, throwing a die, and what cast you would have them, not fitting their doctrine to men and the times; that is, not to men and the times, but to their own ends, telling them of heaven when their thoughts are in their purse. Wisd. 1.5, 6. This holy Spirit of Truth flieth all such deceit, and removeth himself far from the thoughts which are without understanding, and will not acquit a dissembler of his words. There is nothing of the Devil's method, nothing of the Die or Hand, no windings or turn, in what he teacheth: He speaketh the truth, and nothing but the truth, and for our behoof and advantage, that we may believe it, and build upon it, and by his discipline raise ourselves up to that end for which he is pleased to come and be our Teacher. And as he cannot dissemble, so, in the next place, flatter us he cannot. This is the inseparable mark and character of the evil Spirit; qui arridet ut saeviat; who smileth upon us that he may rage's against us, lifteth us up that he may cast us down; whose exaltations are foils; whose favours are deceits; whose smiles and kisses are wounds. Flattery is as a glass for a Fool to look upon, and behold that shape which himself hath already drawn, and please himself in it because it is returned upon him by reflection; and so he becometh more fool than before. It is the Fool's Echo, by which he heareth himself at the rebound, and thinketh the Wiseman spoke unto him. Flattery is the ape of Charity: It rejoiceth with them that rejoice, and weepeth with them that weep; it frowneth with them that frown, and smileth with them that smile. It proceedeth from the Father of lies, not from the Spirit of truth, Hebr. 13.8. who is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever: Who reproveth drunkenness, though in a Noah; adultery, though in a David; want of faith, though in a Peter. His precepts are plain, his law is in thunder, his threaten earnest and vehement. What he writeth is not in a dark character: Thou mayest run, and read it. He presenteth Murder wallowing in the blood it spilt; Blasphemy; with its brains out; Theft, sub hasta, under sale. He calleth not great plagues Peace; nor Oppression, Law; nor camels gnats; nor great sins, peccadilloes; but he setteth all our sins in order before us. He calleth Adam from behind the bush, striketh Ananias dead for his hypocrisy, and for lying to the holy Spirit depriveth him of his own. Thy excuse with him is a libel, thy pretence fouler than thy sin. Thy false worship of him is blasphemy, and thy form of godliness open impiety. And where he entereth the heart, Sin (which is the greatest error, the grossest lie) removeth itself, heaveth and panteth to go out, knocketh at our breast, runneth down at our eyes, and we hear it speak in sighs and groans unspeakable; and what was our delight, becometh our torment. In a word, he is a Spirit of truth, and neither dissembleth, to deceive us; nor flattereth, that we may deceive ourselves; but verus vera dicit, being Truth itself, telleth us what we shall find to be most true, to keep us from the dangerous by paths of Error and Misprision, in which we may lose ourselves, and be lost for ever. And this appeareth and is visible in those lessons and precepts which he giveth, so agreeable to that Image after which we were made, to fit and beautify it when it is defaced, and repair it when it is decayed, that so it may become in some proportion and measure like unto him that made it, and then so harmonious and consonant and agreeing with themselves, that The whole Scripture, and all the precepts it containeth, may in esteem, as Gerson saith, go for own copulative proposition. This Spirit doth not set up one precept against another, nor one Text against another; doth not disannul his promises in his threats, nor check his threats with his promises; doth not forbid all Fear in Confidence, nor shake our Confidence when he bids us fear; doth not set up meekness to abate our Zeal, nor kindleth Zeal to consume our Meekness; doth not teach Christian Liberty to shake off Obedience to Government, nor prescribeth Obedience to infringe and weaken our Christian Liberty. This Spirit is a Spirit of truth, and never different from himself. He never contradicteth himself, but is equal in all his ways; the same in that truth which pleaseth thee, and in that which pincheth thee; in that which thou consentest to, and in that which thou runnest from; in that which will raise thy spirit, and in that which will wound thy spirit. And the reason why men who talk so much of the Spirit do fall into gross and pernicious errors, is from hence, That they will not be like the Spirit in this, equal and like unto themselves in all their ways; That they lay claim to him in that Text which seemeth to comply with their humour, but discharge and leave him in that which should purge it: That upon the beck, as it were, of some place of Scripture, which upon the first face and appearance looketh favourably upon their present inclinations, they run violently on this side, animated and posted on by that which was not in the Text, but in their lusts and fancy; and never look back upon other testimonies of Divine Authority, that army of evidences, as Tertullian speaketh, which are openly pressed out and marshaled against them, and might well put them to a halt and deliberation, stay and drive back their intention, and settle them at last in the truth, which consisteth in a moderation betwixt two extremes. For we may be zealous, and not cruel; devout, and not superstitious: we may hate Idolatry, and not commit Sacrilege; Gal. 5.1. 1 Pet. 2.16. stand fast in our Christian liberty, and not make it a cloak of maliciousness; if we did follow the Spirit in all his ways, who in all his ways is a Spirit of truth. For he commandeth Zeal, and forbiddeth Rage; he commendeth Devotion, and forbiddeth Superstition; he condemneth Idolatry, yea, and condemneth Sacrilege; he preacheth Liberty, 1 Cor. 12.4.8, 9, 11. and preacheth Obedience to Superiors; and in all is the same Spirit. And this Spirit did come, and Christ did send him. And in the next place, to this end he came, to be our Leader, to guide us in the ways of truth, to help our infirmities, to be our conduct, to carry us on to the end. And this is his Office and Administration; Which one would think were but a low office for the Spirit of God; and yet these are magnalia spiritûs, the wonderful things of the Spirit, and do no less proclaim his Divinity then the Creation of the world. We wonder the blind should see, the lame go, Matth. 11.5. the deaf hear, the dead be raised up; but doth it now follow, The poor receive the Gospel? Weigh it well in the balance of the Sanctuary, and this last will appear as a great miracle as the former. And this Advent and Coming was free and voluntary. For though the Spirit was sent from the Father and the Son, yet sponte venit, he came of his own accord. And he not only cometh, but sendeth himself, say the Schools, as he daily worketh those changes and alterations in his creature. These words, Dicit, Mittam, ut propriam autoritatem ostendat; Tum denique veniet, quo verbo Spiritûs potestas indicatur. Naz. Orat. 37. to be sent, and to come, and the like, are not words of diminution or disparagement. He came in no servile manner, but as a Lord; as a friend from a friend; as in a letter, the very mind of him that sent it; Which showeth an agreement and concord with him that sent him; but implieth no inferiority, no degree of servility or subjection. Yet some there have been who have stumbled at the shadow which this word hath cast, or indeed at their own, and for this made the holy Spirit no more than a Creature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a supernumerary God, brought in to serve and minister, and no distinct Person of the blessed Trinity. But what a gross error, what foul ingratitude is this, to call his goodness servility? his coming to us, submission and obedience? and count him not a God, because by his gracious operation he is pleased to dwell in men, and make them his tabernacle? Why may we not as warrantably conceive so of the other Persons? For God wrought in the Creation, and the Heavens are the work of his hands. Nay, with reverence to so high a Majesty, we may say, God serveth us more than we do him, who are nothing but by his breath and power. Dust and ashes can do him no service: But he serveth us every day. He lighteth us with his Sun; he raineth upon us, he watereth our plants, Luke ●. 53. Psal. 47.9. he filleth our granaries. He feedeth the hungry with good things; nay, he feedeth the young ravens that call upon him. He knocketh at our doors, he intreateth, waiteth, sufferreth, commandeth us to serve one another, commandeth his Angels to serve and minister unto us; res rationésque nostras curate; he keepeth our accounts, numbereth our tears, watcheth our prayers. If we call, he cometh; if we fall, he is at hand: In our misery, in the deepest dungeon, he is with us. And these are no disparagements, but arguments of his excellency and infinite goodness, and fair lessons to us not to be wanting to ourselves and our brethren, who have God himself thus carefully waiting upon us, and to remember us That to serve our brethren is to exalt and advance and raise us up to be like unto him. When we wash our brethren's feet, bind up their wounds, sit down in the dust with them, visit them in prison, and minister to them on their beds of sickness, we may think we debase ourselves, and do decrease as it were; but it is our honour, our crown, our conformity to him who was the Servant of God, and our Servant, and made himself like unto us, that he might serve us in his flesh, and doth so to the end of the world invisibly by his Spirit. It is the Spirit's honour to be sent, to be a Leader, a Conduct; and though sent he be, yet he is as free an Agent as the Son, and the Son as the Father. Tertullian calleth him Christ's Vicar here on earth, to supply his place: But that argueth no inequality: for then the Son too must be unequal to the Father: for his Angel, his Messenger he was, and went about his Father's business. Luke 2.49. To conclude this; In a far remote and more qualified sense we are his Vicar's, his Deputies, his Stewards here on earth: and it is no servility, it is our honour and glory to do his business, to serve one another in love, Gal. 5.13. to be Servants, to be Angels (I had almost said, to be holy Ghosts) one to another. As my father sent me, saith our Saviour to his Disciples, John 20.21. so send I you: And he sendeth us too, who are haereditarii Christi discipuli, Christ's Disciples by inheritance and succession, that every one, as he is endowed from above, should serve him by serving one another. And though our serving him cannot deserve that name, Judg. 5.23. yet is he pleased to call it helping him; that we should help him to feed the hungry, to guide the blind, and teach the ignorant, and so be the Spirit's Vicars, as he is Christ's; that Christ may fill us more and more with his Spirit, which may guide and conduct us through the manifold errors of this life, through darkness and confusion, into that truth which may lead us to bliss. For as he is the Spirit of truth, so, in the next place, the Lesson which he teacheth is Truth, even that Truth which is an Art, (S. Augustine calleth it so) and a law to direct and confine all other arts: quâ praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus, which goeth before us in our way, and through the surges of this present world bringeth us to the presence of God, who is Truth itself: A Truth, which leadeth us to our original, to the Rock out of which we were hewn, and bringeth us back to our God, who made us not for the vanities of this world, but for himself: An Art to cast down all Babel's, all towering and lofty imaginations, which present unto us falsehoods for truths, appearances for realities, plagues for peace; which scatter and divide our souls, power them out upon variety of unlawful objects, and deceive us in the very nature and end of things. For as this Spirit brought life and immortality to light, 2 Tim. 1.10. (for whatsoever the Prophets and great Rabbis had spoken of Immortality, was but darkness in comparison of this great light) so it also discovered the errors and horror of those follies which we looked upon with love and admiration, as upon heaven itself. What a price doth Luxury place on Wealth and Riches? What horror on Nakedness and Poverty? What a heaven is Honour to my Ambition? and what an hell is Disgrace, though it be for goodness itself? How doth a Jewel glitter in my eyes? and what a slur is there upon Virtue? What a glory doth the pomp of the World present? and what a sad and sullen aspect hath Righteousness? How is God thrust out? and every Idol, every Vanity made a God? But the Truth here, which the Spirit teacheth, discovereth all, pulleth off the veil, showeth us the true countenance and face of things, that we may not be deceived; showeth us Vanity in Riches, folly in Honour, death and destruction in the pomp of this World; maketh Poverty a blessing, and Misery happiness, and Death itself a passage to eternity; placeth God in his Throne, and Man where he should be, at his footstool, bowing before him; Which is the readiest way to be lifted up unto him, and to be with him for evermore. In a word, a Truth that hath power to unite us to our God, that bringeth with it the knowledge of Christ, and the wisdom of God, and presenteth those precepts and doctrines which lead to happiness; a Truth that goeth along with us in all our ways, waiteth on us on our beds of sickness, leaveth us not at our death, but followeth us, and will rise again with us unto judgement, and there either acquit or condemn us, either be our Judge or Advocate. If we make it our friend here, it will then look lovely on us, and speak good things for us; if we make it our Counsellor here, it will then be our Advocate: but if we despise it, and put it under our basest desires and vile affections, it will then fight against us, and triumph over us, and tread us down into the lowest pit. Christ is not more gracious than this Truth to them that love it. But to those who will not learn shall be Tribulation and anguish. Rom. 2.9. Acts 2.20 2 Thes. 4.16. The Sun turned into darkness, and the Moon into blood, the world on fire, the voice of the Archangel, the trump of God, the severe countenance of the Judge, will not be more terrible than this Truth to them that have despised it. For Christ Jesus shall judge the secrets of them, Rom 2.16. acquit the just, condemn the impenitent, according to this Truth which the Spirit teacheth, according, saith S. Paul, to my Gospel. This is the Lesson, the Spirit teacheth, Truth. Let us now see the Extent of it. It is large and universal. The Spirit doth not teach us by halves, teach some truths, and conceal others, but he teacheth all truth, maketh his disciples and followers free from all errors that are dangerous, and full of saving knowledge. Saving knowledge is all indeed. That truth which bringeth me to my end, is all, and there is nothing more to be known. I determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified, saith St. Paul, 1 Cor. 2.2. Here his desire hath a Non ultrá. This truth is all: this joineth heaven and earth together, God and Man, mortality and immortality, misery and happiness in one, draweth us near unto God, and maketh us one with him. This is the Spirit's Lesson, Commentum Divinitatis, the invention of the Divine Spirit. Faith is called the gift of God, Ephes. 2.8. not only because it is given to every believer (and too many are too willing to stay till it be given) but because this Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith. And as he first found it out, so he teacheth it, and leaveth out nothing, not a tittle, not an jota, which may serve to complete and perfect this divine Science. Psal. 139.16. In the book of God are all our members written. All the members? yea, and all the faculties of our soul. And in his Gospel his Spirit hath framed rules and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act, in every motion and inclination; which if the Eye offend, pluck it out; if the Hand, cut it off: Rules which limit the understanding to the knowledge of God, bind the will to obedience, moderate and confine our affections, levelly our hope, fix our joy, stint our sorrow: frame our speech, compose our gesture, fashion our apparel, set and methodise our outward behaviour. Instances in Scripture, in every particular, are many and obvious: The time would fail me to mention them all. In a word then, this Truth which the Spirit teacheth is fitted to the whole man, to every member of the body, to every faculty of the soul; fitted to us in every condition, in every relation: It will reign with thee, it will serve with thee; it will manage thy riches, it will comfort thy poverty, ascend the throne with thee? and sit down with thee on the dunghill. It will pray with thee, it will fast with thee, it will labour with thee, it will rest and keep a Sabbath with thee; it will govern a Church, it will order thy Family; it will raise a kingdom within thee, it will be thy Angel to carry thee into Abraham's bosom, and set a crown of glory upon thy head. And is there yet any more? Or what need more than that which is necessary? There can be but one God, one Heaven, one Religion, one way to blessedness; and there is but one Truth, and that is it which the Spirit teacheth; And this runneth the whole compass of it, directeth us not only ad ultimum, sed usque ad ultimum, not only to that which is the end, but to the means, to every step and passage and approach, to every help and advantage towards it, and so uniteth us to that one God, giveth us right to that one Heaven, and bringeth us home to that one end for which we were made. And is there yet any more? Yes, particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this Truth which the Spirit hath plainly taught. It is true; but then for the most part they are cases of our own making, cases which we need not make, cases sometimes raised by weakness, sometimes by wilfulness, sometimes even by sin itself, which reigneth in our mortal bodies; and to such this Lesson of the Spirit is as an Axe to cut them off. But be their original what it will, if this Truth reach them not, or if they bear no analogy or affinity with that which the Spirit hath taught, nor depend upon it by any evident and necessary consequence, they are not to be reckoned in the number of those which concern us, because we are assured that he hath led us into all truth that is necessary. Some things indeed there are which are indifferent in themselves, quae lex nec vetat nec jubet, which this Spirit neither commandeth nor forbiddeth, but they are made necessary by reason of some circumstance of time, or place, or quality, or persons (for that which is necessary in itself, is always necessary) and yet are in their own nature indifferent still. Veritas ad omnia occurrit, this Truth (which is the Spirit's Lesson) reacheth even these, and containeth a rule certain and infallible to guide us in them (if we become not laws unto ourselves, and fling it by) to wit, the rules of Charity and Christian Prudence, to which if we give heed, it is impossible we should miscarry. It is Love of ourselves, and Love of the world, not Charity, or spiritual Wisdom, which make this noise abroad, rend the Church in pieces, and work desolation on the earth. It is want of conscience, and neglect of conscience in the common and known ways of our duty, which have raised so many needless Cases of conscience, which, if men had not harkened to their lusts, had never shown their head, but had been what indeed they are, nothing. The acts of charity are manifest, 1 Cor. 13. Charity suffereth long, even injuries and errors; but doth not rise up against that which was set up to enlarge and improve her. Charity is not rash, to beat down every thing that had its first rise and beginning from Charity. Charity is not puffed up, swelleth not against a harmless, yea, and an useful constitution, though it be of man. Charity doth not behave itself unseemly, layeth not a necessity upon us of not doing that which lawful Authority even then styleth an indifferent thing when it commandeth it to be done. Charity seeketh not her own, treadeth not the public peace under foot to procure her own. Charity is not easily provoked, checketh not at every feather, nor startleth at that monster which is a creation of our own. Charity thinketh no evil, doth not see a serpent under every leaf, nor Idolatry in every bow of Devotion. If we were charitable, we could not but be peaceable. If that which is the main of the Spirit's lesson did govern men's actions, Psal. 72.7. there would be abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. Multa facienda sunt non jubente lege, sed liberâ charitate, saith Augustine, Charity is free to do and suffer many things which the Spirit doth not expressly command; and yet it doth command them in general, when it commandeth obedience to Authority; Which hath no larger circuit to walk and show itself in than in things in themselves indifferent, which it may enjoin for order's sake, and for the advantage of those things which are necessary, that are already under a higher and more binding law than any Potentate or Monarch of the earth can make. The acts, I say, of Charity are manifest: But those of Christian Prudence are not particularly designed; Prudentia respicit ad singularia. because that eye is given us to view and consider particular occurrences and circumstances, and it dependeth upon those things which are without us; whereas Charity is an act of the will. And here, if we would be ourselves, or rather if we would not be ourselves, but be free from by-respects and unwarrantable ends, if we would divest ourselves of all hopes or fears of those things which may either shake or raise our estates, we could not be to seek. For how easy is it to a disengaged and willing mind to apply a general precept to particular actions? especially if Charity fill our hearts, which is the bond of perfection, Col. 3.14. Rom. 13.10. and the end and compliment of the Law, and indeed our spiritual wisdom? In a word, in these cases, when we go to consult with our Reason, we cannot err if we leave not Charity behind us. Or, if we should err, our Charity would have such an influence upon our error that it should trouble none but ourselves: 1 Cor. 13.7. For Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. This is the extent of the Spirit's Lesson. And if in other truths more subtle than necessary we are to seek, it mattereth not; for we need not seek them. It is no sin not to know that which I cannot know, to be no wiser than God hath made me. And what need our curiosity rove abroad, when that which is all, and alone concerneth us, lieth in so narrow a compass? In absoluto & facili aeternitas, saith Hilary: The way to heaven may seem rough and troublesome, but it is an easy way, easy to find out, though not so easy at our first onset to walk in; and yet to those that tread and trace it often, as delightful as Paradise itself. See; God hath shut up Eternity within the compass of two words, Believe, and Repent; which is a full and just commentary on the Spirit's Lesson, the sum of all that he taught. Lay your foundation right, and then build upon it. Because God loved you in Christ, do you love him in Christ: Love him and keep his commandments, than which no other way could have been found out to draw you near unto God. Believe, and Repent; this is all. Oh wicked abomination, whence art thou come to cover the earth with deceit? What malice, what defiance, what contention, what gall and bitterness amongst Christians? yet this is all, Believe, and Repent. the Pen, the Tongue, the Sword, these are the weapons of our warfare. What ink, what blood hath been spilt in the cause of Religion? How many innocents' defamed? how many Saints anathematised? how many millions cut down with the sword: yet this is all, Believe, and Repent. We hear the noise of the whip, and the rattling of the wheels, and the prancing of the horses. The horseman lifteth up his bright sword and his glittering spear, Nah. 3.2, 3. Every part of Christendom almost is a stage of war; and the pretence is written in their banners; you may see it waving in the air; FOR GOD AND RELIGION: yet this is all, Believe and Repent. Who would once think the Pillars of the earth should be thus shaken, that the world should be turned into a worse chaos than that out of which it was made, that there should be such wars and fightings amongst Christians for that which is shut up and brought unto us in these two words, Believe, and Repent? For all the truth which is necessary, and will be sufficient to lift us to our end, and raise us to happiness, can make no larger a circumferance than this. This is the Law and the Prophets, or rather this is the Gospel of Christ, this is the whole will of God. In this is knowledge, justification, redemption and holiness. This is the Spirit's Lesson; and all other lessons are no lessons, not worth the learning, further than they help and improve us in this. In a word, this is all in all, and within this narrow compass we may walk out our span of time, and by the conduct of the same Spirit in the end of it attain to that perfection and glory which shall never have an end. And so from the Lesson and Extent of it we pass to the Manner and Method of the Spirit's Teaching. It is not Raptus, a forcible and violent drawing, but Ductus, a gentle Leading and Guiding. The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he shall lead. Which implieth a preparedness and willingness to be led. And the Spirit that leadeth us, teacheth us also to follow him; not to resist him, that he may lead us; Acts 7.51. Eph. 4.30. 1 Thes. 5.19. 2 Tim. 1.6. not to grieve him by our backwardness, that he may fill us with joy; not to quench him, that he may enlighten us; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to stir up his gifts, that they die not in us. Now this promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles; whose Commission being extraordinary, and their Diocese as large as the whole world, they needed the Spirits guidance in a more high and eminent manner, gifts of Tongues, and diversities of graces, which might fit them for so great a work, that as their care, so their power might be as universal as the world. And yet to them was the Spirit given in measure; and where measure is, there are degrees: and they were led by degrees, not strait to all truth, but by steps and approaches. S. Peter himself was not wrapped up, as his pretended Successor, into the chair of Truth, to determine all at once. For when Pentecost was now past, he goeth to Caesarea, Acts 10.11, 34. and there learneth more than he had done at Jerusalem; seethe that in the Sheet which was let down to the earth, which he heard not from the Tongues, and of a truth now perceived, what he did not before, that God was no accepter of persons, that now the partition-wall was broken down, that Jew and Gentile were both alike, and the Church, which was formerly shut up in Judea, was now become Catholic, a Body which every one that would might be a member of. Besides, though the Apostles were extraordinarily and miraculously inspired, yet we cannot say that they used no means at all to bring down the blessed Spirit. For it is plain they did wait for his coming, they prayed for the truth, and laboured for the truth; they conferred one with another, met together in counsel, deliberated before they did determine. Nor could they imagine they had the Spirit in a string, and could command him as they please, and make him follow them whithersoever they would. And then between us and the Apostles there is a main difference; nor can we expect an ocular and visible descent. Therefore, if we will be taught by the Spirit, we must use the means which the same Spirit hath prescribed in those lessons which he first and extraordinarily taught the Apostles, and not make use of his name to misinterpret those lessons, or bring in new of our own; and as new, so contrary to them: For what is new, must needs be contrary; because he then taught all truth, and what is more than all is nothing, what is more than all truth must needs by a lie. Nor did he lead them into all truth for themselves alone, but for those who should come after them, for all generations to the end of the world. He made them Apostles, and sent them to make us Christians, to make that which he taught them a rule of life, and to fix it on the Church as on a pillar, that all might read it, that none should add to it, or take away from it. Eph. 2.20. And for this they are called a Foundation, and we are said to be built upon them, Jesus Christ being the head cornerstone. But this we could not be, if their testimony were so scant and defective; that there were left a kind of necessity upon us to hue and square out what stones we please, and lay new ones of our own to cast down theirs withal, and to bear up whatsoever our insolent and boundless lusts will lay upon them. And now what is become of my Text? For if this be admitted, we cannot say the Spirit led them. For what leading is that which leaveth us so far behind, at such a distance from the end, th●● in every age the Spirit must come again, and take us by the hand, and draw us some other way, even contrary to that which he first made known? And what an all is that, to which every man may add what he please, even to the end of the world? For every man's claim and title to the Spirit is the same, as just and warrantable in any as in one. And when they speak contrary things, the evidence is the same, that is, none at all, unless this be a good Argument, He hath the Spirit, because he saith so; which is as strong on his side that denyeth it upon the same pretence. Amongst the sons of men there are not greater fools than they who have nothing to say for what they say, but, That they say it, and yet think this Nothing enough, and that all Israel are bound to hearken to them as if God himself did speak. This is an evil, a folly, a madness, which breatheth no where but in Christendom, was never heard of in any other body or society but that of Christians. Though many Governors of Commonwealths did pretend to a kind of commerce and familiarity with some God or Goddess, when they were to make a law; yet we do not read of any, as far as I remember, that did put up the same pretence that they might break a law: but when the law was once promulged, there was nothing thought of but either obedience, or punishment. But Christians, who have the best Religion, have most abused it; have played the wantoness in that light in which they should have walked with fear and trembling; finding themselves at a loss, and meeting with no satisfaction to their pride and ambition, to their malice, to their lusts, from any lesson the Spirit hath yet taught, have learned an art to suborn something of their own to supply that defect, and call it a dictate of the Spirit. Nor is this evil of yesterday; nor doth it befall the weakest only: But the Devil hath made use of it in all ages as of the fittest engine to undermine that truth which the Spirit first taught. Tertullian, as wise a man as the Church then had, being not able to prove the Corporeity of the Soul by Scripture, Post joannem quoque prophetiam meruimus consequi, etc. Tertull. de Anim. montanizans. flieth to private Revelation, in his Book De anima; Non per aestimationem, sed revelationem, What he could not uphold by reason and judgement, he striveth to make good by Revelation. For we, saith he, have our Revelations as well as S. John. Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them, and trances in the Church: She converseth with Angels, and with God himself, and can discern the hearts and inward thoughts of men. S. Hierome mentioneth others: Contra Libertin. and in the days of our forefathers Calvine many more, who applied the name of the Spirit to every thing that might facilitate and help on their design; as Parish-priests (it is his resemblance) would give the name of six or seven several Saints to one image, that their offerings might be the more. I need not go so far back for instance. Our present age hath shown us many who though very ignorant, yet are wiser than their teachers, so spiritual that they despise the word of God, which is the dictate of the Spirit. This monster hath made a large stride from foreign parts, and set his foot in our coasts. If they murder, the Spirit moved their hand, and drew their sword. If they throw down Churches, it is with the breath of the Spirit. If they would bring in Parity, the pretence is, The Spirit cannot endure that any should be supreme, or Pope it, but themselves. Our Humour, our Madness, our Malice, our Violence, our implacable Bitterness, our Railing and Reviling, must all go for Inspirations of the Spirit. Simeon and Levi, Absalon and Ahithophel, Theudas and Judas, the Pharisees and Ananias, they that despise the holy Spirit of God, these Scarabees bred in the dung of sensuality, these Impostors, these men of Belial, must be taken no longer for a generation of vipers, but for the scholars and friends of the holy Ghost. Whatsoever they do, whithersoever they go, he is their leader, though it be to hell itself. May we not make a stand now, and put it to the question, Whether there be any holy Ghost, or no? and, if there be, Whether his office be to lead us? Indeed these appropriations, these bold and violent engrossings of the blessed Spirit have, I fear, given growth to conceits well near as dangerous; That the Spirit doth not spirare, breath grace into us; That we need not call upon him; That the Text which telleth us the holy Ghost leadeth, is the holy Ghost that leadeth us; That the Letter is the Spirit, and the Spirit the Letter; (an adulterate piece new coined, an old heresy brought in a new dress and tyre upon the stage again) That he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a strange, unheard of Deity, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Nazianz. Orat. 37. Quis vet●rum vel recentium adoravit Spiritum? quis or avit? etc. Sic Macedonianis & Eunomiani Ibid. an ascriptitious and supernumerary God. I might say, more dangerous. For to confess the Spirit, and abuse him, to draw him on as an accessary and abettor, nay as a principal, in those actions which Nature itself abhorreth and trembleth at, is worse than out of error to deny him. For what a Spirit, what a Dove, is that which breatheth nothing but gall and wormwood, but fire and brimstone? What a Spirit is that which is ever pleading and purveying for the Flesh? which is made to bear witness to a ? Petrarch telleth us, Nihil importunius erudito stulto, that there is not a more troublesome creature in the world than a learned fool: So the Church of Christ and Religion never suffered more than by carnal men who are thus Spirit wise. For by acknowledging the Spirit, and making use of his name, they assume unto themselves a licence to do what they please, and work wickedness not only with greediness, but cum privilegio, with privilege and authority; which whilst others doubt of, though it be not only an error, but blasphemy, yet parciùs insaniunt, they are not so outrageously mad. Yet we must not put the Spirit from his office, because dreams, or rather the evaporations of men's lusts, do pass for revelations; or say he is not a Leader into truth, because wicked or fanatic persons walk on in the ways of error, in the ways of Cain, or Corah, and yet are bold to tell the world that this Spirit goeth before them. The mad Athenian took every ship that came into the harbour to be his; but it doth not follow hence, that no wise and sober Merchant knew his own. To him that is drunk things appear in a double shape and proportion, geminae Thebae, & geminy soles, two Cities and two Suns for one; but I cannot hence conclude that all sober men find it so. Nor can I deny the Spirits conduct because some men wander as they please, and run on in those dangerous by-paths where he will not lead them. This were to deny an unquestionable and fundamental truth; this were for an inconvenience to dig up the foundation, because men build hay and stubble upon it; or because some men have sore eyes, to pluck the Sun out of its sphere. It were indeed dangerous to teach That the Spirit did teach and lead us, were there not means to try and distinguish the Spirits instructions from the suggestions of Satan, or from those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those misshapen lumps and abortive births of a sick and loathsome brain, or from our private humour, which is as great a Devil. John 14.1. Beloved, saith S. John, believe not every spirit, that is, every inspiration; but try the spirits, whether they be of God: for many false prophets are gone out into the world, that is, have taken the chairs and dictate magisterially what they please, in the name of the Spirit, when themselves are carnal. And he giveth a rule by which we should try them, v. 2. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God; that is, Whosoever striveth to advance the Kingdom of Christ, and to set up the Spirit against the Flesh, to magnify the Gospel, to promote men in the ways of innocency and perfect obedience, which infallibly lead to happiness, is from God: Every such inspiration is from the Spirit of God. For therefore doth the Spirit breath upon us, that he may make us like unto God, Joh 14.3. and so draw us to him, that where he is there we may be also. But then those inspirations which bring in God to plead for Baal, which cry up Religion to gain the world, which tread down Peace and Charity and all that is praiseworthy under feet, to make way for men's unruly Lust to place it more delicately to its end; they that magnify Gods will, that they may do their own; these men, these spirits cannot be from God. Matth. 7.20. By their fruits you shall know them. Their hypocrisy, as well and cunningly wrought as it is, is but poor cob-web-lawn, and we may easily see through it. We may see these spiritual men sweeting and toiling for the flesh, these spirits digging in the minerals, and making haste to be rich. Though GLORIA PATRI, Glory be to God on high, be to the Prologue to the Play, (and what doth an Hypocrite but play?) yet the whole drift and business of every Scene and Act is to draw and conclude all in this, Acts 19.25. From hence we have our gain. The Angel or the Spirit speaketh first, and is the Prologue; and Mammon and the Flesh make up the Epilogue. Date manus; Why should not every man clap his hands? Surely such Roscii, such nimble cunning Actors deserve a Plaudite. By their fruits you shall know them. What Spirit soever they have, it is not of God. Nothing more contrary to the flesh than God's Spirit; therefore he cannot lead this way, nor can he teach any thing that may flatter or countenance it. There is nothing more against his nature. Fire may descend, the Earth may be removed out of its place, Nature may change her course at the word and beck of the God of nature: but this one thing God cannot do; He cannot change himself, nor can his Spirit breath any doctrine forth which savoureth of the World, of the Flesh, of Corruption. Therefore we may, nay we must, suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be the effects and products of the blessed Spirit, when we observe them drawn out and leveled to carnal ends and temporal respect. For sure the Spirit can never beat a bargain for the World, and the Truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchase. When I see a man roll his eyes, compose his countenance, order and methodise his gesture as if he were now on his deathbed to take his leave of the world; when I hear him loud in Prayer, and as loud in reviling the iniquity of the times; when I see him startle at a misplaced word, as if it were a thunderbolt; when I hear him cry as loud for a reformation as the Idolatrous Priests did upon Baal; I begin to think I see an Angel in his sight and mount, going up into heaven: But then after all this exstatical devotion, after all this zeal, and in the midst of all this noise, when I see him stoop like the vulture, and fly like lightning to the prey, I cannot but say within myself, Oh Lucifer, Isa. 14.12, 15. Son of the morning, how art thou fallen from heaven? how art thou brought down to the ground, nay, to hell itself? Sure I am, the Spirit of truth looketh upward, moveth upward, directeth upward, to those things which are above; and if we follow him, neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung. So then we see this inconvenience and mischief which sometimes is occasioned by this doctrine of the Spirit's Leading is not unavoidable. It is not necessary, though I mistake, and take the Devil for an Angel of light that the holy Ghost should be put to silence. Though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings, Judas 11. yet God forbidden that all Israel should be swallowed up in the same gulf. Samuel ran to Eli, 1 Sam. 3. 5-10. when the voice was God's; but was taught at last to answer, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. Though Ahab had many false Prophets, 1 Kings 22. yet Micaiah was a true one: And though there be many false Teachers come into the world, 1 Joh. 4.1. yet the Spirit of God is a Spirit of truth, and he shall lead us into all truth. And that we may follow as he leadeth we must observe the ways in which he moveth. For as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a way of peace, Luk. 1.79. so there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the ways of truth; and in those ways the Spirit will lead us. 2 Pet. 2.2. I may be in the ways of the wicked in the ways of the Gentiles and profane men, in my own ways, in those ways which my Fancy and Lust have chalked out, on that pinnacle and height where my Ambition hath placed me, in that mine and pit where my Covetousness hath buried me alive; and in these I walk with my face from Jerusalem, from the Truth; and in these ways the Spirit leadeth me not. How can he learn Poverty of spirit who hath no God but Mammon, and knoweth no sin but Poverty? How can he be brought down to obedience and humility, who with Diotrephes loveth to have the preeminence, 3 Joh. 9 and thinketh himself nothing till he is taller than his fellows by the head and shoulders? How can he hearken to the Truth who studieth lies? And do we now wonder why we are not taught the truth, where the Spirit keepeth open School? There is no wonder at all. The reason why we are not taught, is Because we will not learn. Ambition soareth to the highest seat, and the Spirit directeth us to the ground, to the lowest place. Love of the world filleth our barns, and the Spirit pointeth to the bellies of the poor, as the better and safer granaries. My private factious Humour trampleth under foot Obedience to superiors, because I myself would be the highest, and challenge that as my peculiar which I deny to others; but the Spirit prescribeth Order. Doth Montanus lead about silly women, and prophesy? doth he call his dreams Revelations? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Euseb. l. 1. c. 21. Contr. Valent. c. 4. Eusebius telleth us that the spirit which led him about was nothing else but an unmeasurable Desire of precedency. Doth Valentinus number up his Aeones, and as many Crimes as God's? Tertullian informeth us that he hoped for a Bishopric, but being disappointed of his hopes by one who was raised to that dignity by the prerogative of Martyrdom and his many sufferings for the Truth he turned Heretic. Doth Arius deny the Divinity of the Son? Read Theodoret, Lib. 1●. c. 2. and he will show you Alexander in the chair before him. Doth Aerius deny there is any difference between a Bishop and Presbyter? The reason was he was denied himself, and could not be a Bishop, so that he fell from a Bishopric as Lucifer did from Heaven, whose first wish was to be God, and whose next was That there were no God at all. From hence those stirs and tumults in the Church of Christ, those storms and tempests which blue and beat in her face; from hence those distractions and uncertainties in Christian Religion, that it was a matter of some danger but to mention it. This made Nazianzene (in some passion as it may seem) cry out, Orat. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, c. I would there were no precedency, no priority, no dignities in the Church, but that men's estimation did only rise from virtue; but now the right hand and the left, the higher and the lower place, these terms of difference, have led men, not into the truth, but into that ditch where Error muddeth itself. Caeca avaritia, saith Maximus, Covetousness and Ambition are blind, and cannot look upon the Truth, though she be as manifest as the Sun at noon. It fareth with men in the lust of their eyes, in the love of the world, as it did with the man in Artemidorus, who dreamt he had eyes of gold, and the next day lost them, had them both put out. Now no smell is sweat but that of lucre, no sight delightful but of the wedge of gold. By a strange kind of Chemistry men turn Religion into Gold, and even by Scripture itself heap up riches; and so they lose their sight and judgement, and savour not the things of God, but are stark blind to that Truth which should save them. But now grant that they were indeed persuaded of the truth of that which they defend with so much noise and tumult, yet this may be but opinion and fancy, which the Love of the world will soon build up, because it helpeth to nourish it: And how can we think that the Spirit led them in those ways in which Self-love and Desire of gain drive on so furiously? Sure the Spirit of truth cannot work in that building where such Sanballats laugh him to scorn. Now all these are the very cords of vanity, by which we are drawn from the Truth; and they must all be broken asunder, before the Spirit will lead us to it. For he he leadeth us not over the Mountains, nor through the bowels of the earth, nor through the numerous atoms of our vain and uncertain and perplexed imaginations; but as the wisdom which he teacheth, Jam. 3.17. so the method of his discipline, is pure, peaceable, gentle, without partiality, without hypocrisy, and hath no savour or relish of the earth. For he leadeth the pure, he leadeth the peaceable, he leadeth humble; In a word, he leadeth those who are lovers of peace and truth. And now to draw towards a conclusion. You know the ways in which the Spirit walketh, and by which he leadeth us. Will you also know the rules we must observe if we will be the Spirit's Scholars? I will be bold to give them you from one who was a great lover of truth, even Galene the Physician: Who, though an heathen man, yet by the very light of Nature found out those means and helps in the pursuit of humane knowledge, which the Spirit hath set down in Scripture to further us in the search of Divine Truth. They are but four; The first is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Love of Truth; the second, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Love of Industry, a frequent meditation of the truth; the third, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an Orderly and methodical proceeding in the pursuit of Truth; the last, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Exercitation, our conformity to the Truth in our conversation. This gold, though brought from Ophir, yet may be useful to adorn and beautify those who are the living Temples of the holy Ghost. 1. First, Love is a passion imprinted in us to urge and carry us on toward the Truth. It is the first of all the passions and operations of the soul, the first mover, as it were, being a strong propension to that we love. And it is fitted and proportioned to the mind, seeking out means, and working forward with all heat of intention unto the end. It is eminent among the affections, calling up my Fear, my Hope, my Anger, my Sorrow; my Fear of not finding out what I seek; yet in the midst of fear raising a Hope to attain to it; my Sorrow, that I find it not so soon as I would; and my Anger at any thing that is averse or contrary, at any cloud or difficulty placed between me and the Truth. The love of Christ, saith S. Paul, 2 Cor. 5.14. constraineth us; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it is a resemblance taken from women in travel, Love constraineth, urgeth me, worketh in me such a desire as the pain in travel doth in a woman to be delivered. For do we not labour and travel with a conclusion which we would find out? and what joy is there when we have? like that of a woman in travel when a manchild is brought into the world. If ye love me keep my commandments, John 14.15. saith Christ. If ye love me not, ye cannot; but if ye love me, ye will certainly keep them. Will you know the reason why the ways of Truth are so desolate, why so little Truth is known, when all offereth itself, and is even importunate with us to receive it? There can be no other reason given but this; Our hearts are congealed, our spirits frozen, and we coldly affected to the Truth, nay averse, and turn from it. This Truth crosseth our profit, that our pleasure; other Truths stand in our light, and obstruct our passage to that we most desire. S. Paul speaketh plainly; 2 Cor. 4.3, 4. If the truth be hid, it is hid to them that perish; In whom the God of this world hath so blinded their mind, that the light of this truth should not shine upon them. If we have eyes to see her, she is a fair object, as visible as the Sun. If we do but love the Truth, the Spirit of Truth is ready to take us by the hand, and lead us to it: Hebr. 10.38. but those that withdraw themselves doth his soul hate, 2. In the next place, the Love of Truth bringeth in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Psal. 1.2. a Love of Industry. If we love it, it will be always in our thoughts, and we shall meditate of it day and night. Gen. 29.20. To Love seven years are but a few days, great burdens are but small, and labour is a pleasure: when we walk in the region of Truth, viewing it, and delighting in it, gathering what may be for our use, we walk as in a paradise. Truth is best bought when it costeth us most; it must be wooed oft and seriously and with great devotion. As Pythagoras said of the Gods, Non est salutanda in transitu, it is not to be spoken with in the By and passage, it is not content with a glance and salutation, and no more; but we must behold it with care and anxiety make a kind of peregrination out of ourselves, run and sweat to meet it; and then this Spirit leadeth us to it. And this great encouragement we have; In this our labour we never fail of the end we labour for. But in our other endeavours and attempts we have nothing to uphold us under those burdens we lay upon our own shoulders, but a deceitful hope, which carrieth us along to see itself defeated; and the frustration of that hope is a greater penalty and vexation than that pains we undertook for its sake. How many rise up early to be rich, and before their day shutteth up are beggars? How many climb to the highest place, and when they are near it, and ready to sit down, fall back into a prison? But in this labour we never fail, the Spirit working with us, and blessing the work of our hands. He maketh our busy and careful thoughts as his chariot, and then filleth us with light. Such is the privilege and prerogative of Industry, such is the nature of Truth, that it will be wrought out by it. Never did any rise up early, and in good earnest travel towards it, but this Spirit brought him to his journeys end. Prov. 2.4, 5. If thou seekest her as silver, saith the wise man, if thou search for her as for hid treasures (which being hid, we remove many things, turn up much earth, and labour hard, that we may come to them) then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. In this work our Industry and the Spirits help are as it were joined and linked together. You will say perhaps that the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent, and can fall suddenly upon us, as he did upon the Apostles this day; that he can lead us in the way of Truth, though we sit still, though our feet be chained, though we have no feet at all. But the Proverb will answer you, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, If God will, you may sail over the sea in a sieve. But we must remember, the Spirit leadeth us according to his own will and counsel, not ours. As he is an omnipotent, so is he a free Agent also, and worketh and dispenseth all things according to the good pleasure of his will. Eph. 1.5. And certainly he will not lead thee, if thou wilt not follow; he will not teach thee, if thou wilt not learn. Nor can we think that the Truth, which must make us happy, is of so easy purchase that it will be sown in any ground, and, as the Devil's tares, Matth. 13.25. grow up in us whilst we sleep. 3. The third rule is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Method, or an Orderly proceeding, in the ways of Truth. As in all other Arts and Sciences, so in spiritual Wisdom, and in the School of Christ, we may not hand over head huddle up matters as we please, but we must keep an orderly and set course in our studies and proceed. Our Saviour Christ hath a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, Mat. 6.33. and in that Kingdom every thing in its order. There is something first, and something next to be observed, and every thing to be ranked in its proper place. The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews telleth us of principles of doctrine, Hebr. 6.1. which must be learned before we can be led forward to perfection; Heb. 5.13, 14. of milk, and of strong meat; of plainer lessons, before we reach at higher Mysteries. Nor can we hope to make a good Christian veluti ex luto statuam, as soon as we can make a statue out of clay. Most Christians are perfect too soon; which is the reason that they are never perfect. They are spiritual in the twinkling of an eye; they know not how, nor no man else. They leap over all their Alphabet, and are at their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their end, before they begin. They are at the top of the ladder before they have set a foot to the first step or round. They study heaven, but not the way to it; Faith, but not Good works; Repentance, without a Change, or Restitution; Religion, without Order. They are as high as God's closet in heaven, when they should be busy at his footstool. They study Predestination, but not Sanctity of life; Assurance but not that Piety which should work it; Heaven, and not Grace; and Grace, but not their Duty. And now no marvel if they meet not with saving Truth in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this so great disorder and confusion. No marvel, when we have broke all rules and order, and not observed the method of the Spirit, if the Spirit lead us not, who is a Spirit that loveth order, and in a right method and orderly course leadeth us into the truth. 4. The last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Exercitation and Practice of the truths we learn. This is so proper and necessary for a Christian, that Christian Religion goeth under that name, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Al. Strom. l. 4. and is called an exercise by Clemens Alexandrinus, Nyssene, Cyrill of Jerusalem, and others. And though they who lead a Monastical life have laid claim to it as their own (they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) yet it may well belong to every one that is the Spirit's Scholar, who is as a Monk in the world, shut up out of it even while he is in it, exercising himself in those lessons which the Spirit teacheth, and following as he leadeth; Which is to make the World itself a Monastery. A good Christian is the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and by this daily exercise in the doctrines of the Spirit doth drive the Truth home, and make it enter into the soul and spirit. Talis quisque est, qualibus delectatur. Inter artificem artificium mira cognatio est. Anaxagoras said well, Manus, causa sapientiae; It is not the brain, but the hand, that causeth knowledge and worketh wisdom. And true wisdom, that which the Spirit teacheth, consisteth not in being a good Critic, and rightly judging of the sense of words; or in being a good Logician, drawing out a true and perfect definition of Faith and Charity, or discoursing aptly and methodically of the Lessons of the Spirit; or in being a good Orator, setting out the beauty and lustre of Religion to the very eye. No saith the Son of Sirach, Ecclus. 34.10. He that hath no experience, knoweth little. Ex mandato mandatum cernimus; By practising the command we gain a kind of familiarity, a more inward and certain knowledge of it. If any man will do the will of God, Joh 7.17. he shall know the Doctrine. In Divinity, and indeed in all knowledge whose end is practice, that of Aristotle is true, Those things we learn to do we learn by doing them. We learn Devotion by prayer; Charity, by giving of alms; Meekness, by forgiving injuries; Humility and Patience, by suffering; Temperance, by every-day-fighting against our lusts. As we know meat by the taste, so do we the things of God by practice and experience, and at last discover Heaven itself in piety. And this is that which S. Paul calleth doctrine according to godliness. We taste and see how gracious the Lord is; 1 Tim. 6.3. Psal. 34.8. 1 Joh. 1.1. we do as it were see with our eyes, and with our hands handle the word of truth. In a word, when we manifest the Truth, and make it visible in our actions, the Spirit is with us, and ready in his office to lead us further, even to the inner house and closet of Truth. He displayeth his beams of light, as we press forward and mend our pace; He every day shineth upon us with more brightness, as we every day strive to increase. He teacheth us not so much by words as by actions and practice, by the practice of those virtues which are his lessons and our duties. We learn that we may practise, and by practice we become, as David speaketh, Psal. 119 99 Psal. 19.2. wiser than our teachers. To conclude; Day unto day teacheth knowledge and every act of piety is apt to promote and produce a second, to beget more light, which may yet lead us further, from truth to truth, till at last we be strengthened and established in the Truth, and brought to that happy estate which hath no shadow of falsehood, but, like the Spirit of Truth, endureth for evermore. The First SERMON. PART I. MICAH VI 6, 8. v. 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with offerings? etc. v. 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Psal. 4.6. THere be many who say, Who will show us any good? saith the Prophet David. For Good is that which men naturally desire. And here the Prophet Micah hath fitted an answer to this question, He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. And in the discovery of this Good he useth the same method which the Philosopher doth in the description of his moral Happiness; First he showeth us what it is not, and then what it is. And as the Philosopher shutteth out Honour and Riches and Pleasure, as being so little necessary that we may be happy without them, so doth the Prophet in the verses going before my Text in a manner reject and cast by Burnt-offerings and all the cerimonial and typical part of Moses Law, all that outward, busy, expensive and sacrificing Religion, as no whit essential to that Good which he here fixeth up as upon a pillar for all eyes to look upon; as being of no great alliance or nearness, nor fit to incorporate itself with that Piety which must commend us to God. And, as a true Prophet, he doth not only discover to the Jews the common error of their lives, but showeth them yet a more excellent way; first ask the question, Non satis est reprehendisse peccantem, si non doceas recti viam, Colum. de Re Rust. l. 11. c, 1. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Whether Sacrifice be that part of Religion with which we may appear and bow before our God, and be accepted? and then in his answer, in the words of my Text, quite excluding it, as not absolutely necessary and essential to that which is indeed Religion. And here the Question, Will the Lord be pleased with sacrifice? addeth emphasis and energy, and maketh the Denial more strong, and the Conclusion in the Text more positive and binding, then if it had been in plain terms, and formally denied. Then this Good had been showed naked and alone, and not brought in with the spoils of that Hypocrisy which supplanteth and overthroweth it, and usurpeth both its place and name. Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings? is in effect, I must not do it. That which is good, that which is Religion, hath so little relation to it that it can subsist without it, and most times hath been swallowed up and lost in it. It was in the world before any command came forth for Sacrifice: and it is now most glorious when every Altar is thrown down, and hath the sweetest savour now there is no other smoke. The Question putteth it out of all question, That this Good is best without it. What will the Lord do to the husbandmen that killed the heir? Matth. 21.40, 41. Our Saviour putteth it up by way of question: And you know how terrible the answer is. What will he do? what will he not do? He will miserably destroy those wicked men. Is it comely that a woman pray uncovered? 1 Cor. 11 13. Judge in yourselves. You cannot say it is comely. As the Athenians used to ask the guilty persons who were arraigned before them, and by sufficient evidence convict of the crime, Are you not worthy of death? that they might first give sentence against themselves, and acknowledge the sentence to be just which was to pass upon them: So doth the Prophet here ask the sacrificing Jews, who so doted on outward Ceremony that they scarce cast an eye or look towards that which was truly the service of God, as if there were no more required at their hands then that which was to be done at the Altar, Shall you bring burnt-offerings? Shall you offer up your firstborn, the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul? Yourselves shall be witness against yourselves, and out of your own mouth shall you be condemned. O ye Hypocrites, you cannot be so ignorant as to think, nor so bold as to profess, that this is the true service of God. I remember Gregory Nazianzene calleth Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and we may call this good in the Text so, a spiritual heavenly statue. And as the Statuary by his art and with his chizel doth work off all that is unnecessary and superfluous, and having finished and made his work complete in every part, fixeth it, as the lively representation of some God or Goddess, or heroic Person, whose memory he would perpetuate in the minds of those who are to look upon it; so doth the Prophet Micah here, being to delienate and express the true servant of God in his full and perfect proportion, first out of the lump and mass which made up the body of the Jews Religion, he striketh off that which was least necessary and most abused, all that formality and outward ceremony in which they most pleased themselves; Burnt-offerings and calves of an year old, these he layeth aside, as that which may be best spared, as that which God did not require for itself, or for any good there was naturally in it; and then he draweth him out in every part, in those parts which do indeed make him up in that perfection in which he may shine as a great example of eternal happiness. Wherewith shalt thou come before the Lord, and bow thyself before the high God? Not with Burnt-offerings; those he putteth by, as no essential materials, as the scurf and least considerable part of Religion; But with thy Heart and with thy Will and Affections, with a just and merciful and broken Heart: With these thou shalt walk with him, or before him, even with Justice and Mercy and Humility, with those graces which will make thee like unto him, and transform thee into the image of God, and set thee up as a fair statue and representation of thy Maker. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, etc. Or, if you please, you may conceive of true Piety and that which is good as of a Tree of Life planted in the midst of Paradise, in the midst of the Church, spreading as it were its Branches, whereof these three in the Text are the fairest: 1. Justice and Uprightness of conversation, a strait and even Branch, bearing no fruit but its own; 2. Mercy and Liberality, yielding much fruit to those weary and faint souls who gather it, and are refreshed under the shadow of it; and 3. Humility, a branch well laden, full, and hanging down the head. Hebr. 10.9. More plainly, and for our better proceeding, thus: He taketh away the one, that he may establish the other; He taketh away Ceremony and Sacrifice, that he may set up true Piety and that which is Religion indeed. Which here is 1. termed that which is Good, in itself and for itself; which Sacrifices and all other ceremonious parts of God's worship were not: 2. manifested and pointed out to as with a finger; God by his Prophet hath showed it: 3. Published and promulged as a law; What doth the Lord require of thee? 4. Lastly, charactered and drawn out in its principal parts, 1. Justice and Honesty, 2. Mercy and Liberality, 3. Humility and sincerity of mind; which is the beauty and glory of the rest, and commendeth them, maketh our Justice and Mercy shine in the full beauty of holiness, when we are this and do this as with, or before, God. These be the particulars. We begin with the first, That Piety and true Religion is here termed good, in itself and for itself, in opposition to the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law. And 1. the Sacrifices and Ceremonious part of God's worship were good, but ex instituto, because God for some reason was pleased to institute and ordain them: Otherwise in themselves they were neither good nor evil. They were before they were enjoined: And men offered them up, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Resp. ad Orthod. in operib. Justini Mart. ad Interrog. 83. Jer. 7.22, 23. not in reference to any command, but out of a voluntary zeal and affection to the honour of God, which they expressed and showed forth in this especial act, in devoting that unto him which was with them of highest esteem, as more due to the Giver of all things then to them for whose use they were given. God did not command, but did accept them for the zeal and affection of them who offered them up. And he telleth them so himself, I spoke not to your Fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices: But this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice. 2. When they were commanded, they were not commanded for any real goodness there was naturally in them, (For what are Blood and Smoke to the God of Spirits?) but brought in for that good effect which the Wisdom of God could work out of them, which had nothing of Good in them which might commend them, but the end for which they were ordained. Therefore God commanded them, not as desirable in themselves, but by way of condescension, submitting himself as it were to the present infirmity and condition of the Jews, who were strongly affected to this kind of worship. Populum pronum idololatriae ejusmodi officiis religioni suae voluit astringere, Adu. Martion. l. 2. saith Tertullian; God put this command as it were a bridle into their mouths, who were too prone to run out beyond their limits; and that they might not offer unto Idols, he confineth and tieth them up to do it to himself alone. And so they were good, but ex comparatione, by being compared with something that was worse. If they will sacrifice, it is better they sacrifice to God then to Devils; better do this than do worse; better do that which, had it not been commanded, had been neither good nor evil, then that which is absolutely evil; better do that which God can bear with then that which he hateth; better they should be under the restraint and managing of an indulgent hand than that they should run into those abominations which a Father cannot pardon, and which will make a loving and tender God a consuming fire. Thus they are good, being compared with something that is worse: Being put into the scales together, they are valuable, because they outweigh the other. Et quale est Bonum, quod mali comparatio commendat? saith Tertullian; What Good is that which were not so, if the evil which it shutteth out, and with which it is compared, did not commend it? 3. That which is good in itself and in its own nature is always so. Piety and true Religion is older than the World: For it is a part and beam of that Wisdom which was with God from everlasting, and it shineth forth from one end of the world to the other. It hath the same splendour and brightness, when the fashion of the world changeth every day. It bindeth alike all the men in the world, and endeth not but with it; yea, in its effects it will continue when the world shall be dissolved, even to all eternity. As it was breathed from God, and floweth from his eternal law, so it is always the same, and remaineth the same, till it end in glory. For this there is no Consummatum est, no end. The vail of the Temple is rend in twain, the Temple itself is buried in ruins, and not a stone left upon a stone; every Altar is thrown down, the Sacrifices and Ceremonies abolished; but quicquid condidit virtus, coelum est, that which is truly good is as lasting as the heavens. Heaven and earth may pass away, Matth. 5.18. but not one tittle of this Good shall fall to the ground. 4. These Ceremonies were confined to Time and Place. Gal. 4.10. You observe days and months, saith the Apostle. Yea, and they observed places too: Ye say that Jerusalem is the place, John 4.20. saith the woman of Samaria to our Saviour. But that which is truly good and in itself is of that nature that Time and Place have no power or influence on it, either to shrink it up and contract it, or to bond and circumscribe it, or to put a period to it and cut it off. It is never out of season, never out of place. Ev●●y day is the good man's Holiday, and his Sacrifice may be offered up at any time. It stayeth not for the New-moon or Sabbath-day, but is res omnium horarum, may show and display itself at any day, in every hour of that day, in every minute of that hour. Every day, every hour, every minute is the good man's Sabbath and rest. And as it is not tied to Time, no more is it to Place. All the ends of the world shall remember the Lord, Psal. 22.27. saith the Psalmist; and this Good in the Text may be set up in any part of it. The Church is the place, and the Market is the place, and the Prison may be the place. Pietas in plateis sibi secretum facit; Religion may build itself an oratory, a chapel, in the midst of the streets, nay in stews, in Sodom itself; for there Lot was. And it is the greatest commendation to be good amongst the worst. 5. Last of all, the Ceremonious part of Religion was many times omitted, many times dispensed with, but this Good which is here shown admitteth no dispensation. Circumcision was dispensed with, Sacrifice was dispensed with, the Sabbath was dispensed with; but the true Service of God was ever in force. Who ever was dispensed with in a moral and positive law? Who ever had this indulgence granted him, to defraud or oppress his brother, to be cruel and unmerciful to him, or to walk contrary to his God? Who ever was unjust on earth by a grant and prerogative from heaven? Aliud sunt imagines, aliud definitiones; Imagines prophetant, definitiones gubernant, saith Tertullian: De Monogamia. c. 6. Our lives are not regulated by Ceremonies, which pass away as a shadow, but by that law of God which is indispensable. God himself hath dispensed with the one, but never with the other. When Sacrifices were omitted, and the Sabbath for some reasons was not observed, God complained not. We find that in a manner he doth disclaim Sacrifice, as in this place, and Isa. 1. and Psal. 50. but where doth he hold a controversy with his people for omitting it? What Ceremony was there almost which was not at some time and upon some just occasion neglected? How many Easters, how many Jubilees do we read of? But that Good, which is the rule of life, is indispensable: No occasion must withdraw us, no place can bind us, no time hinder us, no necessity force us from it, because it requireth no more than our Will, which is the same in every place and at every time, and is imputed to us as the Deed itself when we cannot do it, when we have not that power which will reach so far as to bring it into act. That which is good in itself, Nazianz. Orat. de morte. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is so to every man and at all times and in every place, is like to him who is the Fountain and Author of it, is so yesterday, Hebr. 13.8. and to day, and the same for ever. This Good then in the Text may subsist in its full beauty and perfection though no altar smoke; but a hecatomb, all the beasts in the forest, offered up, ten thousands rivers of oil, will not make up a just and merciful man. For it was observed even by some of the Jews themselves, that the greatest Sacrificers were most commonly the greatest Sinners, who conversing so much with shadows, and lost in the admiration of them, had no thought left empty enough to entertain the more substantial and harder parts of the Law, were so busy on the one that they cast no look on the other, but in the strength of their Sacrifice and a high conceit of this their formal worship walked carelessly and delicately over them even to that which they forbade. So that to say, He is a true Israelite because he is frequent at the altar, is no better an argument then that which the Stoic so much derideth, Arrian. Epictet. l. 4. c. 8. He hath a long cloak and beard, Therefore he is a great Philosopher. For neither is Sacrifice the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the matter and business, of the Israelite, to which his profession bindeth him, but Justice and Mercy; nor a grave Outside, of a Philosopher, but Reason. And the end, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoic calleth it, of the Israelite, is to do justice, and love mercy; as the Philosopher is, in all his actions to make Reason his rule. Cast your eye back upon some former passages in this Prophecy, and you shall find that these Sacrificers were idolaters; Mic. 1.7. ch. 2.1.2. that they were oppressors, that in the night they did study iniquity, and in the morning practise it; that they did covet fields, and take them by violence; oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage; that they were cruel and bloody minded, did eat the flesh of the people, ch. 3.2, 3. ch. 6. and stay their skins from off them; that they were unjust and ignorant and ungrateful; and all this they did bear with ease when they led their sacrifices to the altar, and there laid all to vanish away with that smoke. It is a wonderful thing to observe how soon and easily we are persuaded to think well of ourselves in our worst condition, how a form of Religion will secure us to tread it under our feet, how the doing that which is not good in itself will lift us up and make us active and cheerful in doing that which is absolutely evil, how the nearer we come unto hell the less we fear it. Bring a sacrifice, set fire to your incense, bow the knee, call upon that God whom you blaspheme, and there will then be no more conscience of sin. And therefore in this so great abuse God is forced to give a check to his own command, and precisely to except against that Ceremony, that part of worship, which himself for some reasons had enjoined. Isa. 1. 11-15. When their hands are full of blood, then satur est, then is he also full, troubled and wearied with their burnt-offerings: then he asketh the question by his Prophet, Will I be pleased with thousands of rams? Isa. 66.3. that is, I will not. Incense is an abomination. He that killeth a bullock is as if he slew a man, he that sacrificeth a sheep as if he cut off a dog's neck. Tacit. Hist. 1. And that of the Historian proveth true, Plura peccant dum demerentur quàm dum offendunt; Their devotion is turned into sin, their ceremonious diligence doth violate the majesty of God, they provoke him to wrath with their peace-offerings, and never offend him more than when they worship him. We may then learn thus much from the Prophet's Question, That the ceremonious part of God's worship, though enjoined by God and performed most exactly by men, yet if it be not driven to that end for which it was commanded, is so far from finding acceptance with God that it is odious and hateful in his sight. For some duties there are relativi juris, which are commanded for some farther end, as Sacrifice and Prayer and Hearing and Fasting, which if they end in themselves are but smoke, but words, but noise, but shows; I may say, but sins. Others there are that have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Aristotle speaketh of Sapience, their end in themselves, as Denying ourselves, Crucifying the old man, Justice, Mercifulness, and Humility: These are done for themselves; for they have no other end, unless it be glory. The first always hath reference to the last, and if they come alone, or with no better a retinue then those sins and irregularities which they countenance, than God removeth them, as he did the high places; cutteth them down, as he did the Groves; looketh upon them with the like detestation as he doth upon Idols, 2 Kings 18.4. as he did upon the brazen Serpent when the people did burn incense to it, which, though it was lifted up in the wilderness by his command, yet by his command it was pulled down and broken to pieces by Hezekiah, and made Nehushtan, a lump of brass. For 1. these outward performances of some part, and the easiest part, of the Law, were not done out of any love to the Law or the Lawgiver. For Love is of a quick and operative nature, and cannot rest in shows and formalities, but will draw them home to the end for which they were ordained. Love presenteth the gift, and the heart also, and, before he cometh to the Altar, maketh the worshipper himself a sacrifice. Love doth not stay at the porch, but entereth the Holy of Holies; doth not stay in the beginnings, but hasteth to the end; doth not contract the duty, but extendeth it to the utmost; doth not draw pictures, but men; doth not sacrifice the beast only, but offereth and consumeth us, bindeth us wholly to the work, forceth and constraineth us, never letteth us rest till we have fulfilled the will of him that commandeth, improveth Sacrifice to Obedience, Hearing to Practise, Fasting to Humility and Repentance. Love may begin, but never endeth in Ceremony. And this is the Reason why Religion hath so many professors and so few friends; so many salutes and so many contempts fling upon her; why she is so much spoke of, as the bird of Jupiter, that Eagle which must carry us to heaven, but hath no more regard than the Sparrow on the housetop or the Owl in the desert; why it is so much talked of and so little practised. For men do not love it but because it carrieth a kind of majesty and beauty along with it, and striketh every eye that beholdeth it. Because men speak well of her in the gates, and we cannot but speak well of her whilst we are men, therefore we are willing to give her a salute in the midst of all those horrid and hellish offices which are set up against her. We give her a bow, and let her pass by, as if her shadow could cure us; or we lay hold on the skirts of her garment, touch and kiss them; are loud and busy in the performance of the easiest part; bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar, but not our lust and irregular desires; but let them fly to every object, every vanity; which is to sacrifice a beast to God, and ourselves to the Devil. 2. These formal worshippers do not only not love the command, but they do it for the love of something else. They love Oppression and Blood and Injustice better than Sacrifice. And all this heat and busy industry at the Altar proceedeth not from that love which should be kindled and diffused in the heart, but, as the unruly Tongue, is set on fire by hell, hath no other original than an ungrounded and unwarranted love of those profitable and honourable evils which we have set up as our mark, but cannot so fairly reach to if we stand in open defiance to all Religion. And therefore when that will not join with us, but looketh a contrary way to that which we are pressing toward with so much eagerness, we content ourselves with some part of it, with the weakest and poorest and beggerlyest part of it, and make use of it to go along with us, and countenance and secure us in the doing of that which is opposite to it, and with which it cannot subsist. And so well and feelingly we act our parts, that we take ourselves to be great favourites and in high grace with him whose laws we break, and so procure some rest and ease from those continual clamours which our guiltiness would otherwise raise within us, and walk on with delight and boasting, and through this seeming and feigned paradise post on securely to the gates of Death. In what triumphant measures doth a Pharisee go from the Altar? What a harmless thing is a cheat after a Sermon? What a sweet morsel is a widow's house after long Prayers? What a piece of justice is Oppression after a fast? After so much Ceremony the blood of Abel himself, of the justest man alive, hath no voice. For 3. These outward performances and this formality in Religion have the same spring and motive with our greatest and foulest sins. The same cause produceth them, the same considerations promote them, and they are carried to their end on the same wings of our carnal desires. Do you not wonder that I should say, The formality and outward presentments of our Devotion may have the same beginnings with our sins, may have their birth from the same womb, that they draw the same breasts, and, like twins, James 3.11. are born and nursed and grow up together? Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? No; it cannot: But both these are salt and brinish; our Sacrifice as ill smelling as our Oppression, our Fast as displeasing as our Sacrilege, and our Hearing and Prayers cry as loud for vengeance as our Oppression. We sacrifice, that we may oppress; we fast, that we may spoil our God; and we pray, that we may devour our brethren. Ezek. 16.44. Like mother, like daughter, saith the Prophet. They have the same evil beginning, and they are both evil. Ambition was the cause of Absaloms' Rebellion, 2 Sam. 15. 1 Kings 21. Gen. 34. and Ambition sent him to Hebron to pay his vow. Covetousness made Ahab and Jezebel murderers, and Covetousness proclaimed their fast. Lust made Shechem the Son of Hamor a ravisher, and Lust made him a Proselyte, and circumcised him. Covetousness made the Pharisee a ravening Wolf, and Covetousness clothed him in a Lamb's skin. Covetousness made his Corban, and Covetousness did disfigure his face, and placed him praying in the Synagogues and in the corners of the streets. Ex his causam accipiunt, quibus probantur, saith Tertullian; They have both the same cause, for the same motives arise and show them both. The same reason maketh the same man both devout and wicked, both abstemious and greedy, both meek and bloody, a seeming Saint and a raging Devil, a Lamb to the eye and a roaring Lion. Scit enim diabolus alios continentiâ, alios libidine occidere, saith the same Father; The Devil hath an art to destroy us with the appearance of virtue assoon as with the poison of sin. For 4. This formality in Religion standeth in no opposition with him or his designs, but rather advanceth his kingdom and enlargeth his dominion. For how many Sacrificers, how many attentive Hearers, how many Beadsmen, how many Professors are his vassals? How many call upon God, Abba, Father, who are the Devils Children? How many openly renounce him; Ex malitia ingenium habet, Tertull. de Idololat. and yet love his wiles? delight in his craft, which is his Malice? How many never think themselves at liberty but when they are in his snare? And doth not a fair pretence make the fact fouler? Doth not Sacrifice raise the voice of our Oppression, that it cryeth louder? Doth not a form of Godliness make Sin yet more sinful? When we talk of heaven and love the world, are we not than most earthly, most sensual, most devilish? Is the Devil ever more Devil than when he is transformed into an angel of light? And therefore the Devil himself is a great promoter of this art of pargeting and painting, and maketh use of that which we call Religion to make men more wicked, loveth this foul and monstrous mixture of a Sacrificer and an Oppressor, of a Christian and a Deceiver, of a Faster and a Blood thirsty man. And as he was most enraged and impatient, as Tertullian telleth us, to see the works of God brought into subjection under Man, who was made according to God's image; so is it his pride and glory to see Man and Religion itself brought under these transitory things, and even made servants and slaves unto them. Oh to this hater of God and Man it is a kind of heaven in hell itself and in the midst of all his torment, to see this Man whom God created and redeemed do him the greatest service in Christ's livery, to see him promote his interest in the name of Christ and Religion, to see him under his power and dominion most when he waiteh most diligently and officiously at the altar of God. The Pharisee was his beloved disciple when he was on his knees with a disfigured face. These Jews here were his disciples, who did run to the Altar, but not from their evil ways; who offered up the blood of beasts to God, and of the innocent to him. He that fasteth and oppresseth is his disciple; for he giveth God his body, and the Devil his soul. He that prayeth much and cozeneth more is his disciple; for he flattereth God, but serveth the enemy; speaketh to the God of truth with his lips, but hearkneth to the Father of lies and deceit. I may say the Devil is the great Alchemist of the world; he transelementeth the worst things, to make them more passable, and to add a kind of esteem and glory to them. We do not meet with counterfeit Iron or Copper: but Gold and Precious stones, these we sophisticate; and when we cannot dig them out of the mine, or take them from the rock, we strive to work them by art out of Iron or Copper, or Glass, and call them Gold and Diamonds. Thus doth the Devil raise and sublime the greatest Impiety, and gild it over with a Sacrifice, with a Fast, with Devotion, that it may appear in glory, and deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. We see too many deceived with it, who having no Religion themselves are yet ready to bow down to its Image wheresoever they see it, and so fix their eye and devotion upon it, that they see not the Thief, the Oppressor, the Atheist, who carrieth it along with him to destroy that of which it is the Image, but take it for that which it representeth, as little children and fools take Pictures and Puppets for Men. Is he unclean? who seethe that when he is at the Altar? Doth he defraud his brother? who would say so that should see him on his knees? Hath he false weights and balances? It is impossible; for you may see him every day in the Temple: Are his feet swift to shed blood? It cannot be; for he fasteth often: behold how he hangeth down his head like a bulrush. The vein of Gold is deep in the earth, and we cannot reach it but with sweat and industry: True Piety, and that which is good, is a more rare and precious thing than Gold, and the veins of it lie deep. It's original is from heaven, in Christ, at a huge distance from our carnal desires and lusts, and so it requireth great anxiety, strong contention and mighty strive to reconcile it to our Wills. This Pearl is as it were in a far country, and we must sell all to purchase it; the whole man must lose and deny himself to search and find it out; we must lay down all that we have, our understandings, our wills and affections, at his feet that selleth it: And therefore that we may not trouble nor excruciate ourselves too much, that we may not ascend into heaven or go down into hell for it, that we may not undergo so much labour and endure so much torment in attaining it, we take a shorter way, and work and fashion something like unto it which is most contrary to it, and transelement Impiety itself, and shadow it over with Devotion, and publish it to others, and say within ourselves, This is it. For what Seneca said of Philosophy is true of Religion, Adeò res sacra est, ut siquid illi simile sit, etiam mendacium, placeat; It is so sacred and venerable a thing that we are pleased with its resemblance, and that shall soon have its name that hath but its likeness, that shall be the true pearl which is but counterfeit; and by this means all Religion is confined to the Altar, and that shall consecrate that which is not good, and make it appear so. That Piety which came from the bosom of the Father and was conveyed to us by the wisdom of the Son, must be shut up in outward worship, in formality and ceremony and show, and that which quite destroyeth it and trampleth it under our feet must go under that name, and make us great on earth, though it make us the least in the kingdom of heaven, so that we shall have no place there, but be tumbled down into the lowest pit. Isa. 1.22. As the Prophet speaketh, Our silver is become dross, our wine is mixed with water: Nay, our best silver, our most refined actions, are dross; our wine is gall and bitterness: Or, as he speaketh in another place, all our righteousness (and he meaneth such formal and counterfeit righteousness) is as a menstruous cloth. Isa. 64.4. 5. Again, in the last place, This Formality and Insincerity is most opposite to God, who is a God of truth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unissimus, a most single and uncompounded Essence, James 1.17. with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of changing, saith S. James, no mixture nor compassion of divers or contrary things. His Justice doth not thwart his Mercy, nor his Mercy disarm his Justice; his Providence doth not bind his Power, nor his Power check his Providence. What he is he always is, like unto himself in all his ways. De Bapt. c. 2. Tertullian giveth him these two proprieties, simplicitatem, & potestatem, Simplicity or Uncompoundedness, and Power. He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Dionys. De Divin. Nom. the Singleness of all that are of a pure and single heart. And hence the strictest Christians in the first times were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Father, viri singulares, men that were one in themselves, and of a single heart, who did strive and press forward, as far as Mortality and their frail condition would suffer them, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to the Divine Unity, to be one in themselves, as God is ever most one and Unity itself. For God, who gave us our Soul, looketh that we should restore it to him one and entire; not contemplating heaven, and wallowing in the mire; not feeding on ceremony, and loathing of purity; not busy at the altar, and more busy in the world. The Civilians will tell us, Dicitur res non reddita quae deterior redditur; That cannot be said to be restored which is returned worse than it was when it was first put into our hands. And what can accrue to a soul by sacrifice, by ceremony, by any outward formality, if it receive no deeper impressions than these can make? if we return it back to God with nothing but words and noise and shows, in the posture of a bragging coward with his scarves and ribbons and big words and glorious lies? With no better hatchments than these we return it far worse than we received it, worse than it was when it was as a smooth unwritten table, Tertull. De Testim. anim. when it was such a soul qualem habent qui solam habent, such a one which they have who have it only as other creatures have, to keep them alive and in being, and no more. And better we had breathed it out when it was first breathed in then that we should thus keep and retain it, and then return it with no better furniture, no better endowed and filled, then with shadows and lies. That which adorneth and bettereth a soul, and maketh it fit to be returned, must be as spiritual as itself, Self-denial, Sincerity, Honesty, love of Mercy, Humility; These are the riches and glories of a soul, which must make it fit to be presented back again into the hands of its Creator. For these, for the advancement of these, were all outward Ceremony and Formality ordained, and without these Sacrifice is an abomination, and the Brownists calumny or rather blasphemy will be a truth, our Preaching will be but Preachments; our time of preaching, but disputing to an hourglass; our Pulpits, prescript places; our solemn Fasts, but stageplayss, wherein one acteth Sin, another Judgement, a third Repentance, and a fourth the Gospel; and the blessed Sacrament will be but as a Two-peny-feast. Or, which is worse, our outward Formality and busy Diligence in those duties which require the least, will but serve contenebrare incesta, Tertull. Apol. as the Father speaketh, to cast a mist and darkness upon our impurities, which may hid them from our own eyes, whom it most concerneth to see them, and for a while from others, who see the best of us (which indeed is the worst of us, because it maketh us worse and worse) whilst the evil they shadow and hid is in our very bowels, and spreadeth itself, and worketh on insensibly but most strongly and certainly to our ruin. And then it appeareth more ugly and deformed to God's pure and all-seeing eye, who never hateth an oppressor more than when he seethe him at the Altar, and is most offended with that fraudulent man who is called Christian. We read in the Historian, when Nero had but set his foot into the temple of Vesta, he fell into a fit of trembling, facinorum recordatione, saith Tacitus, being shaken with the remembrance of his monstrous crimes. For what should he do in the Temple of Vesta who had defiled his own mother? And how shall we dare to enter God's courts, unless we leave our sins behind us? How dare we speak to a God of truth, who defraud so many? Why should we fast from meat, who make our brethren our meat, and eat them up? At that great day of separation of true and false worshippers, when the Judge shall bespeak those on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, the form or reason is not, For you have sacrificed often, you have fasted often, you have heard much, you were frequent in the Temple; and yet these are holy duties, but they are ordinata ad aliud, ordained for those that follow, and therefore are not mentioned, but in them employed; For I was hungry, and you gave me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was naked, and you clothed me; sick, and in prison, and you visited me. Then outward Worship hath its glory and reward when it draweth the inward along with it. Then the Sacrifice hath a sweet-smelling savour when a just and merciful man offereth it up; when I sacrifice and obey, hear and do, pray and endeavour, contemplate and practise, fast and repent. And thus we are made one, fit to be looked upon by him who is Oneness itself, not divided betwixt Sacrifice and Oppression, a Form of godliness and an habitual Course in sin, Dissembling with God and Fight against him, betwixt an Hosanna and a Crucifige, Professing Christ and Crucifying him. In this unity and conjunction every duty and virtue, as the stars in the firmament, have their several glory, and they make the Israelite, the Christian, a child of light. But if we divide them, or set up some few for all, the easiest, and those which are most attempered to the sense, for those which fight against it, and bring in them for the main which by themselves are nothing; if all must be Sacrifice, if all must be Ceremony and outward Formality; if this be the conclusion and sum of the whole matter, if this be the body of our worship and Religion, than instead of a Blessing and an Euge we shall meet with a frown and a check, and God will question us for appearing before him in strange apparel which he never put upon us; Zeph. 1.8. question us for doing his command, and tell us he never gave any such command, because he gave it not to this end. Will he be pleased with burnt-offerings, with Ceremony and Formality? He asketh the question with some indignation, and therefore it is plain he will not, but loatheth the Sacrifice as he doth the Oppressor and Unclean person that bringeth it. We see then (that we may yet draw it nearer to us) that there was good reason why God should thus disclaim his own ordinance, because he made it for their sakes, and to an end quite contrary to that to which the Jew carried it. We see the Prophet might well set so low an esteem upon so many thousand rams, because Idolaters and Oppressors and cruel blood thirsty men offered them. We see Sacrifice and all outward Ceremony and Formality are but as the garment or shadow of Religion, which is turned into a disguise when she weareth it not, and is nothing, is a delusion, when it doth not follow her. For Oppression and Sacrilege may put on the same garment, and the greatest evil that is may cast such a shadow. He that hateth God may sacrifice to him, he that blasphemeth him may praise him, the hand that strippeth the poor may put fire to the incense, and the feet that are so swift to shed blood may carry us into the Temple. When all is Ceremony, all is vain, nay lighter than Vanity: For in this we do not worship God, but mock him; give him the skin, when he looketh for the heart; we give shadows for substances, shows for realities, and leaves for fruit; we mortify our lusts and affections as Tragedians die upon the stage, and are the same sinners we were, as wicked as ever. Our Religion putteth forth nothing but blossoms: or, if it knit, and make some show or hope of fruit, it is but as we see it in some trees, it shooteth forth at length, and into a larger proportion and bigness then if it had had its natural concoction, and had ripened kindly, and then it hath no taste or relish, but withereth and rotteth and falleth off. And thus, when we too much dote on Ceremony, we neglect the main Work; and when we neglect the Work, we fly to Ceremony and Formality, and lay hold on the Altar. We deal with our God as Aristotle of Cyrene did with Lais, Clem. Alexandr. 3. Strom. who promised to bring her back again into her country if she would help him against his adversaries whom he was to contend with; and when that was done, to make good his oath, drew her picture as like her as art could make it, and carried that. And we fight against the Devil as Darius did against Alexander, with pomp and gaiety and gilded armour, as his prey rather than as his enemies. And thus we walk in a vain shadow, and trouble ourselves in vain, and in this region of Shows and Shadows dream of happiness, and are miserable; of heaven, and fall a contrary way: as Julius Caesar dreamt that he soared up and was carried above the clouds, Suet. Vit. C. Caesar. and took Jupiter by the right hand, and the next day was slain in the Senate-house. I will not accuse the foregoing Ages of the Church, because as they were loud for the ceremonious part of God's worship, so were they as sincere in it, and did worship him in spirit and in truth, and were equally zealous in them both; and though they raised the first to a great height, yet never suffered it so to over-top the other as to put out its light, but were what their outward expressions spoke them, as full of Piety as Ceremony. And yet we see that high esteem which they had of the Sacraments of the Church led some of them upon those errors which they could not well quit themselves of but by falling into worse. It is on all hands agreed that they are not absolutely necessary, not so necessary as Mortifying of our lusts, and denying of ourselves, not so necessary as actual Holiness. It is not absolutely necessary to be baptised; for many have not passed that Jordan, yet have been saved; but it is necessary to have the laver of regeneration, and to cleanse ourselves from sin. It is not absolutely necessary to eat the Bread and drink the Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper; for some cross accident may intervene, and put me by: but it is necessary to feed on the Bread of life; as necessary as my meat, to do Gods will. True Piety is absolutely necessary, because none can hinder me from that but myself; but it is not always in every man's power to bring himself to the Font, or approach the Lord's Table. All that can be said is, That, when they may be had, they are absolutely necessary; but they are therefore not absolutely necessary because they cannot always be had. And they who stretched beyond this stretched beyond their line, and lost themselves in an ungrounded and unwarranted admiration of these Ordinances, which, whilst we look upon them in their proper orb and compass, can never have honour and esteem enough. Some put the Communion into the mouths of Infants, who had but now their being; and into the mouths of the Dead, who had indeed a being, but not such a being as to be fit Communicants. And S. Augustine thought Baptism of Infants so absolutely necessary that Not to be baptised was to be damned, and therefore was forced also to create a new Hell that was never before heard of, and to find out mitem damnationem, a more mild and easy damnation, more fit, as he thought, for the tenderness and innocency of Infants. Now this was but an error in speculation, the error of devout and pious men, who in honour to the Author of the Sacraments made them more binding and necessary than they were. And we may learn thus much by this overgreat esteem the first and best Christians, and the most learned amongst them, had of them, that there is more certainly due then hath been given in these latter times by men who have learned to despise all Learning, whose great devotion it is to quarrel and cry down all Devotion, who can find no way to gain the reputation of wisdom but by fierce and loud impugning of that which hath been practised and commended to succeeding ages by the wisest in their generation; by men who first cry down the determinations of the Church, and then in a scornful and profane pride and animosity deny there is any such collection or body as a Church at all. But our errors in practice are more dangerous, more spreading, more universal. For what is our esteem of the Sacraments? More a great deal then theirs, and yet less, because it is such as we should not give them, even such as they whom they are so bold to censure would have anathematised. We think, or act as if we did, that the water of Baptism doth cleanse us, though we make ourselves more Leopards, fuller of spots, than before; that the Bread in the Eucharist will nourish us up to eternal life, though we feed on husks all the remainder of our days. We baptise our children, and promise and vow for them, and then instill those thriving and worldly principles into them which null and cancel the vow we made at the Font; Hither we bring them to renounce the world, and at home teach them to love it. And for the Lords Supper, what is commonly our preparation? A Sermon, a few hours of meditation, a seeming farewell to our common affairs, a faint heaving at the heart that will not be lifted up, a sad and demure countenance at the time; and the next day, nay before the next day, this mist is shaken off, and we are ready to give Mammon a salute and a cheerful countenance, the World our service, to drudge and toil as that shall lead us, to rail as loud, to revenge as maliciously, to wanton it as sportfully, to cheat as kindly as ever we did long before, when we never so much as thought of a Sacrament. And shall we now place all Religion, nay any Religion, in this? or call that good, that absolutely good and necessary, for which we are the worse, absolutely the worse, every day? Well may God ask the question, Will he be pleased with this? Isa. 1.12. Well may he by one Prophet ask, Who hath required it? 1 Cor. 12.31. and by another instruct us, and show us yet a more excellent way. It was not the error of the Jew alone, to forget true and inward Sanctity, and to trust upon outward Worship and Formality; but sad experience hath taught us that the same error, which misled the Jew under his weak and beggarly elements, Gal. 4.4, 9 hath in the fullness of time found admittance and harbour in the breasts of Christians under that perfect law of liberty, James 2.25. Tit. 2.11. in which the grace of God hath appeared unto all men. I am unwilling to make the parallel; It carrieth with it some probability that some of them had that gross conceit of God, that he fed on the flesh of bulls, and drunk the blood of goats. For God himself standeth up and denieth it, Psal. 50.12, 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, and drink the blood of goats? If I be hungry, I will not tell thee. If there were not such a conceit, why doth God thus expostulate? And is there no symptom, no indication, of this disease in us? Do we not believe that God delighteth in these pageants and formalities? that he better liketh the devotion of the Ear then of the Heart? Do we not measure out our devotion rather by the many Sermons we have heard, than the many Alms we have given (or which is better) the many evil thoughts we have stifled, the many unruly desires we have suppressed, the many passions we have subdued, the many temptations we have conquered? Hath not this been our Arithmetic, to cast up our accounts, not by the many good deeds we have done, which may stand for figures or numbers, but by the many reproaches we have given to the times, the many bitter censures we have passed upon men better than ourselves, the many Sermons we have heard, which many times, God knoweth, are no better than cyphers, and by themselves signify no more? Do we not please ourselves with these conceits, and lift ourselves up into the third heaven? Do we not think that God is well pleased with these thoughts? do we not believe they are sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour unto him? And what is this less than to think that God will eat the flesh of bulls, and drink the blood of goats? nay, may it not seem far worse, to think that God is fed and delighted with our formalities, which are but lies, and that he is in love with our hypocrisy? I may be bold to say it is as gross an error and as opposite to the wisdom of God as the other. It is truly said, Multa non illicita vitiat animus, That the mind and intention of man may draw an obliquity on those actions which in themselves are lawful. Nay, multa mandata vitiat, it may make that unlawful which is commanded. Hebr. 10.31. Oh, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but how fearful is it to have his hand fall upon us when we stand at his Altar! to see him frown and hear him thunder when we worship! in anger to question us when we are doing our duty! What a dart would it be to pierce our souls through and through, if God should now send a Prophet to us to tell us that our frequenting the Church and coming to his Table are distasteful to him? that our fasts are not such as he hath chosen, and that he hateth them as much as he doth our Oppression and Cruelty, to which they may be the prologue? that he will have none of the one, because he will have none of the other? And yet if we terminate Religion in these outward formalities, make them wait upon our lusts, to bring them with more smoothness and with more state and pomp and applause to their end, to that which they look so earnestly upon, if we thus appear before God, he that shall tell us as much of our Hearing and Fasting and Frequenting the Church shall be as true a Prophet as Micah the Morasthite was. And now, to conclude, if you ask me wherewith ye shall come before the Lord, and bow yourselves before the most High, look further into the Text, and there you have a full and complete Directory, Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. With these you may approach his courts, and appear at his altar. In aram Dei justitia imponitur, saith Lactantius; De vero cultu, l. 6. c. 24. Justice and Mercy and Sincerity are the best and fittest sacrifices for the Altar of God, which is the Heart of man, an Altar that must not be polluted with blood. Hoc qui exhibet, toties sacrificat, quoties bonum aliquid aut pium facit; The man that is just and merciful doth sacrifice as oft as he doth any just and merciful act. Come then and appear before God, and offer up these. Nor need you fear that ridiculous and ungodly imputation, which presenteth you to the world under the name of mere moral men. Bear it as your crown of rejoicing. It is stigma Jesu Christi, a mark of Christ Jesus: And none will lay it upon you as a defect but they who are not patiented of any loss but of their honesty; who have learned an art to join together in one the Saint and the Deceiver; who can draw down heaven to them with a thought, and yet supplant and overreach their brother as cunningly as the Devil doth them. Bonus vir, Caius Seius; Caius Seius is a good man; Tertull. Apolog. his only fault is, that he is a Christian, would the Heathen say. He is a good moral man, but he is not of the Elect, that is, one of our faction, saith one Christian of another. I much wonder how long a good moral man hath been such a monster. What is the Decalogue but an abbridgment of Morality? What is Christ's Sermon on the mount but an improvement of that? and shall Civil and honest conversation then be the mark of a Reprobate? Shall Nature bring forth a Regulus, a Cato, a Fabricius, Just and Honest men, and shall Grace and the Gospel of Christ bring forth nothing but Zanies, but Players and Actors of Religion, but Pharisees and Hypocrites? Or was the New creature, the Christian, raised up to thrust the Moral man out of the world? Must all be Election and Regeneration? Must all Religion be carried along in phrases and words and noise, and must Justice and Mercy be exposed as monsters, and fling out into the land of oblivion? Or how can they be elect and regenerate who are not just and merciful? No: The Moral man, that keepeth the commandments, is not far from the kingdom of God; Mark. 12.34. and he that is a Christian, and buildeth up his Morality and Justice and Mercy upon his Faith in Christ, and keepeth a good conscience, and doth to others what he would that others should do unto him, Matth. 7.12, shall enter in and have a mansion there, when speculative and Seraphic Hypocrites, who decree for God, and preordain there a place for themselves, shall be shut out of doors. Come then, and appear before God with these, with Innocence and Integrity and Mercifulness. Wash your hands in innocency, Psal. 26.6. Rev. 1.6. and compass his altar. For Christ hath made us Priests unto his Father; there is our Ordination: To offer up spiritual sacrifice; 1 Pet. 2.5. there is our duty and performance: By Jesus Christ; there is our seal to make good and sure our acceptance. Chrysostom, besides that great Sacrifice of the Cross, In Psal. 59 hath found out many more, Martyrdom, Prayer, Justice, Alms, Praise, Compunction, and Humility; and he bringeth in too the Preaching of the Word: Epist. 87. Which all make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, a most magnificent and precious sacrifice. We need not cull out any more than these in the Text: for in offering up these we shall find the true nature and reason of a Sacrifice observed. For to make any thing a true Sacrifice there must be a plain and express change of the thing that is offered. It was a Bull or a Ram, but it is set apart and consecrate to God: And it is a Sacrifice, and must be slain. And this is remarkable in all these; in which though no Death befall us, as in the Beast offered in Sacrifice, but that Death which is our Life, our Death to sin, yet a change there is, which being made to the honour of God's Majesty is very pleasing and acceptable in his sight. When we do justly, we have slain the Beast, the worst part of us, our Love of the world, our filthy Lusts, our Covetousness and Ambition, which are the life and soul of Fraud and Violence and Oppression, by which they live and move and have their being. When we offer up our Goods, there is a change: For how strong is our affection to them? how do we adore them as Gods? are they not in common esteem as our life and blood? and do we not as willingly part with our breath as with our wealth? Hebr. 13.16. Now who so doth good and distributeth and scattereth his wealth, he poureth forth his very blood, bindeth the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar, letteth out all worldly desires with his wealth, and hath slain that sacrifice, saith S. Paul, with which God is well pleased. And last of all, Humility wasteth and consumeth us to nothing, maketh us an Holocaust, a whole-burnt-offering, nothing in ourselves, nothing in respect of God; and by this our exinanition, it exalteth all the Graces of God in us, filleth us with life and glory, with high apprehensions, with lively anticipations of that which is not seen, but laid up for us in the treasuries of heaven. These are the good man's Sacrifice, and they naturally flow from the Good which is here shown in the Text, and are the parts of it. These were from the beginning, and shall never be abolished. And if we offer up these, we shall never be questioned or asked, Will God be pleased with these? For he is pleased only with these, and for these with whatsoever we offer. And he will love us for these, and accept us in him who, Eph. 5.2. to sanctify and present these, offered himself an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour, Hebr. 6.20. even Jesus Christ the righteous, who is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. Thus have we taken a view of the Good in the Text as it standeth in opposition with the Sacrifices of the Law and outward Formality: And, now the veil is drawn, we shall present it in its full beauty and perfection in our next. The Second SERMON. PART II. MICAH VI 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? WE have showed you that Piety is termed good in itself in opposition to Sacrifice and the Ceremonies of the Law, which were but ex instituto, for some reasons instituted and ordained, but in themselves were neither good nor evil. We might now take a view of this Good as it standeth in opposition to the things of this world, which either our Luxury or Pride or Covetousness have raised in their esteem, and above their worth, and called good, as the Heathens consecrated their Affections, their Diseases, their very Vices, and placed them in the number of their Gods. For Good is that which all desire, which all bow and stoop to; but yet it hath as several shapes as there be opinions and constitutions of men. And all the mistake is in our choice, that we set up something to look upon which is not worth a glance of our eye; that we call evil good, and that good which is neither evil nor good, but may make us so, good, if we use it well, and evil, if we abuse it; Epist. 20. (Non est bonum quo uti malè possis; That cannot be truly and in itself good which we may use to an evil end, saith Seneca) that we propose to ourselves objects which are attended with danger, and very often with horror, and give to them this glorious title; paint out to ourselves some deformed strumpet, and call her a Goddess, and kiss the lips of that which will by't like a cockatrice. Good we desire, and when our desires have run to that which we set up for good, we meet with nothing but evil, which showeth not itself till it be felt. We hoist up our sails, and make towards it, and are swallowed up in that Sea, as Augustine calleth it, of the good things of this world, which we thought might carry us to the end of our hope. We take it for bread, and in our mouth it is gravel. We take it for pleasure, and when we taste it it is gall. We hunt after Riches as good, and they beggar us; climb to Honour, and that breaketh our neck. And though we swallow down these good things as the Ox doth water, yet we are never full. S. Hilary in his Comments on the first Psalm, having observed that some there were who drew down all their interpretations of that Book respectively to spiritual things and God himself, because they thought it some disparagement to that Book that terrene and secular matter should so often interline itself, yet passeth on them no heavier censure than this, Haec eorum opinio argui non potest, etc. We need not be so severe as to condemn this opinion of theirs, because it proceedeth from a mind piously and religiously affected, and it is a thing which deserveth rather commendation then blame, by a favourable endeavour to strive to apply all things to him by whom all things were made. For these things are not good, but only go under this deputative and borrowed title. The world hath cried them up, but the Scripture hath no such name for them. It is good to praise the Lord, nay, it is good to be afflicted; this we read: but where do we read, It is good to be rich, it is good to be honourable, it is good to go in purple, and far deliciously every day? We find many curses and woes sent after them, but we never find them graced with the title of good. Luke 16.25. Thou hast received thy good things, saith Abraham to Dives: Good things, but thine, such as thy lusts esteemed so; thy good things, and such good things as have helped to hurry thee to this place of torment. Good they are not; for they are so far from making a man good, that they make him not rich. Look upon Dives at his feast, and Lazarus at his gates, and which was the rich man? If I should say, Lazarus, it were no paradox; for Dives had nothing of a rich man but his name. Good then they are not in themselves, nor can they be, but by being subservient to this Good in the Text. And therefore we must make another defalcation of these Temporal goods, as we did of those Sacrifices which were but temporary. Down must Sacrifice, and down must Mammom: Down must his temple and his groves, and no picture, no representation must be left of them in our minds. But let us look upon Sacrifice and Formality as shadows, and upon the things of this world as less than shadows, and then upon the ruins of Hypocrisy and Covetousness and Ambition, to build up a temple to true Piety and Religion, and that which is called Good here in the Text, which God by his Prophet hath laid open before our eyes: For he hath showed thee, O man, not Sacrifice, not the glory of the world (that is the Devils show) but he hath showed thee what is good. Matth. 4.8. And now having drawn the veil, we may enter the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Holy of holies, and behold Piety and that which is Good, that Good which is so in itself, Augustin. Serm. 12. in Matth. real and eternal, quod nec invitus accipis, nec invitus amittis, which thou neither receivest nor losest but when thou wilt, as thou mayest thy possessions, thy honours, nay thy body and life itself, which all may be taken from thee against thy will; that Good which is a defluxion and emanation from God himself, derived and flowing from t●at Wisdom which dwelled with him from all eternity; that Good which will make us good here, and raise us up to be eternal with him in the highest heavens, that Good which will give us an heavenly understanding, a divine will, angelical affections, and in a manner incorporate us with God himself. And if you please to look upon it in its perfection of beauty, you may consider it, 1. as fitted and proportioned to our very nature, 2. as fitted to all sorts and conditions of men, 3. as lovely and amiable in the eyes of all, 4. as filling and satisfying us, 5. as giving a relish and sweet taste to the worst of evils which may befall us, whilst with love and admiration we look upon it, and making those things of the world which are not good in themselves, useful and good and advantageous to us. This is the object which is here set up; and it is a fair one; and Man is called to be the spectator; He hath showed thee, O man. And if he look upon it with a steadfast and single eye, with affection and love, it will make him dignum Deo spectaculum, an object fit for the Angels and God himself to look upon: For 1. it is fitted to him; 2. it is opened and made manifest, placed before his eye, He hath showed thee it; 3. Last of all, it is required of him; for what else doth he require? It is proper for him; It is displayed and laid open before him; It is a Law to bind him: He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require? And first, we cannot doubt but God built up Man for this end alone, for this Good; to communicate his Goodness to him to make him partaker of a Divine nature, to make him a kind of God upon the earth, to imprint his image upon him, by which according to his measure and capacity he might express and represent God; 1. By the Knowledge not only of natural and transitory things, but also of those which pertain to everlasting life, as it is Col. 3.10. being renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him: 2. By the rectitude and sanctity of his Will, Ephes. 4.24. putting on that new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness: and 3. By the free and ready Obedience of the outward parts and inward faculties to the beck and command of God; which being Divine, a breathing from God himself, cannot but look forward, and look upward upon its original, and so teach us to be just, as God is righteous in all his ways, to be merciful, as he is merciful, and to walk humbly before him, who hath thus built us up out of the dust, but to eternity. I say, God hath imprinted this image on Man: And what communion can God have with evil? 1 Cor. 7.31. What relation hath an immortal Essence to that which passeth away, changeth every day, and at last is not? Take Man for the miracle of the world, as Trismegistus calleth him, that other, that lesser world, the tye and bond of all the other parts, which were made for his sake, and what conversation should he have but in heaven? what should he look upon but that which is good? Or take him as made after God's image, as having that property which no other creature hath, to understand, to will, to reason, and determine, by which he was made capable of good, and made to be partaker of it; and we cannot think he had an Understanding given him only to forge deceit and contrive plots, Job 24.15. to find out a twilight and an opportunity to do mischief, to invent new delights, to make an art of pleasure, and draw out a method and law of wickedness; that that which was given him as his counsellor in relation to this good, should be his purveiour in the works of the flesh, and no better than a pander to his lust. We cannot think that he had a Will given him to embrace shadows and apparitions, which play with our Fancy, and deceive us; to wait upon the Flesh, which fighteth against the Spirit and this Image within us. We cannot think he had Reason given to distinguish him from the other creatures, to make him worse than they. This cannot be the thought of a Man whilst he remaineth so, a Man, Illud mirum, malos esse tam multos; nam ut aqua piscibus, circumfusus nobis spiritus volucribus conv●nit: Ita certè facilius esse oportebat secundum naturam, quàm contra eam vivere, Quint. l. 12. Instit. orat. c. 11. 1 Cor. 15 45. who is form and fitted and fashioned only for that which is good. This consideration made Quintilian himself, a heathen, to pronounce, That it was as natural for Man to be good as for Birds to fly, or Fishes to swim, because Man was made for the one, as the Birds and Fishes were for the other. Secondly, there is no proportion at all between any corporeal or sensual thing and the soul of man, which is a spirit and immortal, and so resembleth that God which breathed it into us. For, as Lactantius said; God is not hungry, that you need set him meat, nor thirsty, that you should pour out drink unto him, nor in the dark, that you need light up candles. And what is Beauty, what is the Wedge of gold, to the Soul? The one is from the earth, earthly; the other is from the Lord of heaven. The World is the Lords, and the World is the Souls, and all that therein is. Psal. 24.1. 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; and to discover that happiness which is prepared for it; to behold the heavens, the works of God's hand, and purchase a place there; to converse with Seraphim and Cherubin; this is the proper act of the Soul for which it was made, this, this alone was proportioned to it. And herein consisteth the excellency and very essence of Religion, and the Good which is here showed us, in exalting the Soul, in drawing it back from mixing with the Creature, in bringing it into subjection under God the first and only Good, in uniting it to its proper object, in making that which was the breath of God breathe nothing but God; The Soul being as the matter, and this Good here, that is Piety and Religion, the form; the Soul being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (for so Plato calleth Matter) the receptacle of this Good, as the Matter is of the Form, and never right and of a perfect being till it receive it; this Good being as the seed and the Soul the ground, the matrix and the womb. And there is a kind of sympathy between this Good, this immortal seed, and the heart and mind of Man, as there is between Seed and the womb of the Earth. For the Soul no sooner seethe it unclouded, unvailed, not disguised and made terrible by the intervention of things not truly good, but upon a full manifestation she is taken, as the Bridegroom in the Canticles, with its eye and beauty. Heaven is a fair sight, even in their eyes who tend to destruction; so that there is a kind of nearness and alliance between this Good and those notions and principles which God imprinted in us at the first. And therefore even Nature itself had a glimpse, a weak and imperfect sight, of this Good, and saw a further mark to aim at then this world in this span of time could set up. 2. de Finib. Hence Tully calleth Man a mortal God, Senec. ep. 76. In homine quid optimum? Ratio; hac antecedit animalia, deos sequitur. and Seneca telleth us, that by that which is best in Man we go before other creatures, but follow to join with that which is truly good, by which we may be carried along to the fountain of Good, even God himself. For again, as this Good here, that is, Piety and Religion, beareth a sympathy and correspondence with the mind of Man, so hath the Soul of Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a formative quality, a power to shape and fashion it, and by the sweet influence and kindly aspect of God's quickening grace to bring forth something of the same nature, some heavenly creature, the New man, Eph. 4.24. which is made up in holiness and righteousness, in Justice and Mercy and Humility, which are the Good in the Text; The beauty of which may beget and raise up that violence in us which may break open the gates of heaven, beget a congregation of Saints, of just and honest men, a numerous posterity to Abraham of hospital and merciful men; and an army of Martyrs, which shall in all humility lay down their lives for his sake that gave them, and forsake all to join and adhere to this Good. And now in the second place, as it is fitted and proportioned to the Soul of man, so is it to every soul of man, to all sorts and conditions of men. It is fitted to the Jew and to the Gentile, to the bond and to the free, to the rich and to the poor, to the scribe and to the idiot, to the young and to the aged. No man so much a Jew, no man such a bored slave, no man such a Lazar, none so dull and slow of understanding, no such Barzillai, but he may receive it. Freedom and Slavery, Circumcision and Uncircumcision, Riches and Poverty, Quickness and Slowness of understanding, in respect of this Good, of Piety and Religion, are all alike. Religion is no peculiar, but the most common and the most communicative thing that is. Orat. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Ib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. The Law, the Prophets, the Oracles, Grace, Faith, Hope and Charity, these, saith Nazianzene, are common to all, as common as the Sun; are the goods and possessions, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not of the mightiest or the wisest, but of those who are willing to receive them. Nor were there any thing more unjust than our Faith and Religion (saith he) if it were entailed only on some few; if God, whose Property and Nature it is to do good, should dispense that Good most sparingly which doth most please him; if he should shut it up, as he doth Gold and other Metals, in the bowels of the earth, and seal a patent but to some few to find and dig it out; if it should be left, as the things of this world are, in the uncertain and unequal hand of Chance; or if, looking alike on all, it should withdraw and hid itself from the most, and be unatchievable and not to be attained to by some, when it is bound up as it were in the bosom of others. No; the most excellent things are most common, and offered and presented to all. Nothing is so common as this Good; and when other things fly from us, and, as we follow after them, remove themselves farther off, and mock our endeavours, this is always near us, shineth upon us, inviteth and soliciteth us to take it for our guide, that it may lead us in a certain and unerring course through the false shows and deceitfulness of this world, through blackness and darkness, to the end for which we were made. This Good is every man's good that will: As Aquinas is said to have replied to his sister, when she asked him how she might be saved, Si velis, If you are willing, you may. Every covetous person is not rich; Every ambitious man hath not the highest place; Every student is not a great clerk. But Piety openeth the gate to every man that knocketh; and he that will, entereth in and taketh possession of her. Petrarch. l. 7. Re. Fam ep, 17. Fastidiosior est scientia quàm virtus. Paucorum est ut literati sint; omnium, ut boni. That which is best is most accessible. And when other things, Knowledge and Wealth and Honour, are coy and keep a distance, and when we have them, are desultorious, and ready in the midst of all our joy and pride to leave us, and leave us nothing but a heavy heart and dropping eye to look after them; this Good is ever before us, and never removeth itself till we chase it away; is ever with us, if we will, and if we will, as the father in the Gospel telleth the elder son, we may be ever with it, Luk. 15.31. and all that it hath is ours. In a word, it is most kind and most beneficial when most profess it. It is not leapt up in the ephod, as belonging to the Priest alone: for it was not showed to him alone, nor was it required of him alone. Every branch and part of it concerneth you who are to be taught as much as them that are set over you in the Lord to teach you. The People are bound to be as holy as the Priest, and they are both to pass the same narrow way. Nor are the gates of heaven so made that they will fly open to the People, but must be beat upon with violence by the Priest; that he must bow and stoop, and lie down in the dust, and mortify himself, and then be scarcely saved, as S. Peter speaketh, 1 Pet. 4.18. but they may walk on in the lust of their hearts, and do what they please, and then enter Heaven with all their sins, with Hell itself about them. This is a dangerous error, and we have reason to fear it hath sent many the other way, even to the place of torment, where it will bring no ease at all to them to see those whom they foolishly thought this Good did only concern beaten with more stripes than they. All are men, and this Good is shown to all, and required of all; Rom. 2.9. and tribulation and anguish will be upon every soul that regardeth it not, upon the Priest first, and also upon the People. Thirdly, as it is fitted to all men, so is it lovely and amiable in the eyes of all. And this is the glory and triumph of Goodness and Piety, that it striketh a reverence in those who neglect it, findeth a place in his breast whose hand is ready to suppress it, is magnified by those who revile it, & tunc vincit cùm laeditur, tunc intelligitur cùm arguitur, then conquereth when it cannot prevail, is then understood when it is opposed, and then gaineth honour when it cannot win assent. Oh what a victory and triumph had Christ's Innocency over the heart and tongue of Pilate even then when he gave sentence of death against him! Luke 23.24. v. 4, 14. Be it as you require; this his Ambition and Fears forced from him: but, I find no fault in this man; this was the victory of Christ's Innocency, which made his Judge his Advocate, who at once pleadeth for him and condemneth him. How glorious were the blessed Martyrs in their thoughts who dragged them to execution? How do the wicked Saint them in their heart whom they gnash at with their teeth? How do their Passions rage against them when their Reason acquitteth them? How do good men beat down and dismay their enemies in their very fall? and how do their enemies secretly wish that, being such, they would not be such, but cast in their lots with them, Ecclus. 49.1. and be as wicked as they? The remembrance of Josiah, saith the Wiseman, is like a perfume, as sweet as honey in all men's mouths. For as the one taketh the Sense, so doth the other surprise the Reason, and is as proper and natural to the Understanding as Honey and Music are to the Sense. And this is taken from the common stock of Nature, and we never lose it but with ourselves, nor can we lay it by till we are unmanned, and like Nabuchadnezzar, driven into the field and turned into beasts. For who was ever so intemperate as to condemn Temperance for a vice? Who was ever such a traitor as to write a panegyrics on Rebellion? Who was ever such a devil as not to wish himself a Saint? We deny not but that continuance in sin, advantage and prosperity in sin, the pleasures of sin, the long-suffering of God, which may be looked upon as an applause from heaven, the cringes and idolatry of Parasites, the profit of sin, the honour of sin, may swell and puff up a man of Belial, and build him up into a most unholy faith, That thus, thus it should be; That there is no virtue but a thriving vice, no holiness but powerful and glorious hypocrisy; That Vice bowed to is virtue, and Virtue whipped and disgraced is vice: But then many a sad interval he hath, many a twinge and gnawing at his heart, that he dare not look upon his Sin but in this dress and state; and maugre all these, many a bitter remembrance, which disquieteth and buffeteth him, that in this height and glory he shaketh and wavereth and is unsteadfast in this his faith, that he cannot give a full and constant assent to that which he is so willing to believe, cannot be persuaded of what he is persuaded, nor believe what he doth believe, but is sick and well, is resolved and trembleth, condemneth and absolveth himself every day, and cannot live in peace in that sin in which nevertheless he may be resolved to die. To conclude this; Even they who weary themselves in the ways of wickedness know there is no rest but in this Good; and those fools who count Piety as madness, when they make a truce with their Passions, and consult with Reason, are so wise as to see and admire and acknowledge the beauty of this Good. Fourthly, as this Good in the Text is lovely and amiable, so is it filling and satisfying, so fitted to the Soul that it filleth it when nothing else can. For that which filleth a thing must be proportioned to it. The Heart of man is a little member; It will not, saith S. Bernard, give a Kite its breakfast; and yet it is too large a receptacle, of too great a compass, for the whole world to fill. In hoc toto nihil singulis satis est; There is nothing in the whole Universe which is taken for enough by any one particular man, nothing in which the appetite of a single man can rest. Only this Good here in the Text can fit it, because it is fitted to it. Honour is but air, and is lost in the grasping; Riches are but earth, and sink from us in the digging; Pleasures are but shadows, and slip through our embraces; but this Good is a solid, permanent, lasting thing, changeth the Soul into itself, filleth it in every part, and bringeth delight where it filleth. I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy law is exceeding large, Psal. 119.96. saith David; So large as to fill the soul as with marrow and fatness. Nieremb De art. vol. We are told by those who have written of the Indians, that there are certain birds there which seem to call passengers to them, making a kind of articulate noise, Lo, here it is; and when passengers deceived with this note draw near to that place from whence the sound came, the birds fly away, and at some distance renew their note; and still, as the passengers approach, fly away, and then take up the same note, till they have quite led them out of their way. Penes historicos fides esto; Let the truth of this be what it will: What these birds are said to do, that which we so much dote on and follow after, the things of the world, which are the Good that is most sought after, do truly act: Some song they sing, some pleasure they present, to draw us near unto them. For that which is pleasant and fair to the sense hath not only a voice, but is eloquent to persuade, and it seemeth to bespeak us, Lo, here it is; Here is Happiness; and when we send out our Desires to overtake it, they miss and come short and are frustrate. Our Covetousness followeth it, but it flieth away. Still we pursue it, and that still withdraweth, and so we lose our way, wander and err, open to the rage of every beast, of every temptation, that assaulteth us, and at last fall into the pit of destruction. And here is the difference between that which is truly good and that which but coloureth for it, and appeareth so; In the one our Appetite pleaseth us, but experience is distasteful; it is honey in the desire, but gall in the taste: In the other, in that which is truly good, our Appetite many times is dull and queasy, but when we have tasted and chewed upon it, it is sweeter than the honey or the honeycomb: It may be gall in the appetite, but in the taste it is manna. If you put them into the scales to weigh them, there is no comparison: You may as well measure Time with Eternity, or weigh one sand of the shore with the whole Ocean. For he that feedeth on Lies must needs be empty, when it is truth alone that filleth us. Last of all, as this Good filleth and satisfieth us, so it giveth a sweet relish and taste even to Misery itself, and those evils which we so fear as if there were none but those. It maketh those things which are not good in themselves useful and advantageous to us; and as S. Basil observeth, De Gratiar. actione, T. 1. p. 357. it is not changed or lost in the multitude and throng of those evils which compass us about on every side, but changeth and turneth them, and maketh them helpers of our joy, maketh Loss gain, enricheth Poverty, ennobleth Disgrace, shineth upon Afflictions that we may rejoice in them, crowneth Persecution with blessedness, and is that alone which maketh Saints and canonizeth Martyrs. It is the delight of Man, the delight of Angels, the delight and glory of God himself. In respect of Religion it is not material whether we be rich or poor, naked or clothed, at the mill or on the throne. Censum non requirit; nudo homine contenta est: Religion and Piety require nothing but a Man: For it were strange we should think this Good was showed, this Religion ordained, to put us to charges. Indeed he that embraceth it, and keepeth this treasure in his heart, can never be poor, nor weak, nor naked, nor dishonourable. For in what weakness is not he strong? In what solitude hath not he troops to guard him? Or when is he poor who possesseth all things? When is he alone who hath Piety for his companion and the Angels for his Ministers? When is he dishonourable who is clothed with this robe of righteousness? He that hath nothing in this world, if he hath not this art of enjoying Nothing, Perdidit inselix totum nil, hath utterly lost the benefit of that Nothing. This may seem a Paradox, and so doth every thing to the Flesh, and to the Sensitive part which doth confine and regulate it, which indeed is to honour and spiritualise it; but Reason and Religion discover more gross absurdities and soloecismes in the motions and applications of the Sense, which wasteth itself in its inclinations and long, and is lost in its paradise, in that flattering object to which it was carried with such violence: And so we are made poor in the midst of our heaps, base and dishonourable in our Zeneth, when we are at the highest; we are sick, and tremble, as Belshazzar did, at a feast, and are quickly weary of those delights we longed for; we have least when we have most, and have nothing when we have all; when with this Good here in the Text (when in appearance we have nothing) we have more than this world can give, and are then richest when we are thrown out of it, and are then at the end of our hopes when to the eye of flesh we are lost for ever. Again, as this Good sweeteneth our Misery, so it improveth our Wealth, maketh that useful to us which might otherwise ruin us, maketh that as a chain and ornament about our necks which the Devil useth to make his snare. Parisiensis calleth it honestissimum furem, the honestest thief in the world, which by taking from us maketh us richer. In a word, it maketh the unrighteous Mammon a friend. Luke 16.9. Non enim auri vitium est avaritia; Covetousness is not the fault of Gold, nor Gluttony of Meats, nor Drunkenness of Wine, but of men; nec dificitur ad mala, sed malè, saith Augustine. We fail not in things evil in their own nature, but our great defect is, that even against the order of Nature we abuse those things to evil which are naturally good. All the riches in the world cannot raise a cloud, Mark 12.42. saith Basil; but yet we see the widows two mites did purchase heaven. All the dainties, all the glory which we see, cannot bring us back again into Paradise, Matth. 10.42. and yet a cup of cold water shall find its reward. And this is the end why they are given, to wit, to be subservient to this Good, to be the matter whereon it may show its art and skill, and extract Manna out of meat, and the Water of life out of drink, and Eternity out of that which passeth away as a shadow, and returneth no more. For sensible things, saith Basil, are as types and representations of spiritual, and point out to them, as the Sacrifices under the Law did to Christ, and shall have their consummatum est, and be abolished, as they were: and therefore we may so far make use of them (and it is the best use we can put them to) as to make us in love with this true Good which will lead us unto bliss, and so think of them as if there no gold at Ophir, no pearl but Sanctity, no riches but Godliness, no purchase but Eternity. And this is the Good in the Text, 1. fitted and proportioned to the nature of our soul, 2. fitted to all sorts and conditions of men, 3. lovely and amiable in the eyes of all, 4. filling and satisfying all, and 5. giving a sweet relish to the worst of evils, which we use most to fear; and making that which is not good in itself, good and profitable and advantageous to us. View it well and consider it, and you cannot but say it is worth the showing, worth the sight, and worth the purchase, though we lay down all that we are worth for it. And now to proceed, that you may fall in love with it and embrace it, it is 1. laid open and naked and manifested unto you, 2. published by open proclamation, as a Law, which hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a forcing and necessitating power; that if the cords of Love will not draw you, the bonds and force of a Law may confine you to it. 1. God showeth it; He hath showed thee, O man, what is good: 2. He requireth it, he willeth and commandeth it; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but, etc. First, that which is truly good is open and manifest unto all. God exposeth and layeth it open, putteth it to sale, Isa. 55.1. Matth. 13.44, 45. Matth. 5.15. Gal 6.16. and biddeth us come and buy. It is a treasure, and he hath unlocked it; it is a pearl, and he hath opened the casket. It is his light, and he hideth it not under a bushel. It is a rule by which we are to walk; and being it concerneth our conduct in our way, it is easy and obvious and open to the weakest understanding. Suâ fronte proponitur, saith Tertullian; It is presented to us without any mask or veil. For indeed it is the property of a Rule to be so, perspicuous. Otherwise it is not a Rule, but an Oracle, or rather a Snare to catch us. For how shall we be able to embrace it if we cannot see it? How shall we be able to do our duty if we know not what it is? If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle? 1 Cor. 14 8, saith S. Paul. If this Good be clouded with darkness and perplexities, who shall gird up his loins to make his approaches and addresses to it? It is true indeed, to draw near, to lay hold and join with it, having no better retinue commonly then Contempt and Reproach, than Misery and Affliction, than Persecution and Death, being compassed about with these terrors, is a matter of difficulty, in regard of our Weakness and Frailty, which loveth not to look upon Beauty in such a dress, and of that domestic war which is within us, and that fight and contention which is between the Flesh and the Spirit: And in this respect it is a narrow way, and we must use a kind of violence upon ourselves to work through it to our end: But yet it is shown and manifested, and the knowledge of the way is not shut up and barricadoed except to those who are not willing to find it, but run a contrary way by some false light, which they had rather look upon and follow then that which leadeth them upon the pricks, upon labour and sorrow and difficulty. Whatsoever concerneth a Man is easy to be seen; for it is as open as the Day. In other passages and dispensations of himself, in other effects of his power and wisdom, God is a God afar off, but in this which concerneth us he is near at hand, Jer. 23.23. he is with us, about us, and within us. In other things, which will no whit advantage us to see, he maketh darkness his pavilion round about him, Psal. 18.11. but in this he displayeth his beams. His way is in the whirlwind, Nah. 1.3. Psal. 77.19. and his footsteps are not known. Why he lifteth up one on high, and layeth another in the dust; Why he now shineth upon my tabernacle, and anon beateth upon it with his tempest; Why he placeth a man of Belial in the throne, and setteth the poor innocent man to grind at the mill; Why he passeth by a brothel-house, and with his thunder beateth down his own temple; Why he keepeth not a constant course in his works, but to day passeth by us in a still voice, and to morrow in an earthquake, as it is far removed out of our ken and sight, so to know it would not promote or forward us in our motion to happiness. We are the wiser that we do not know these things: For there is no greater folly in the world then for a mortal finite creature to discover such a mad ambition as to desire to know as much and be as wise as his Creator. This was my infirmity, Psal. 77.10. saith David; I was even sick when I did think of it: and he checketh himself for it. Behold, the world is my stage; and here I must move by that light which God hath offered me, and not be put out of my part to a full shame by a bold and unseasonable contemplation of his proceed, not run out of my own ways by gazing too boldly on his. My business is to embrace this Good, Psal. 91.11, 12. and that will be my Angel to keep me in all my ways, that I dash not my foot against a stone, against perplexed and cross events, which are those stones we so hardly digest. I cannot know why God lifteth up one and pulleth down another; but if I cleave to this, Psal. 75.7. this will lift up my head, even when I am down. It is not fit I should know why the wicked prosper; Jer. 12.1. but by this light I see a Serpent in their Paradise, which will deceive and sting them to death. Why they prosper I cannot find out; but he that seemeth to hid himself cometh so near me as to tell me that their prosperity shall slay them, Prov. 1.32. that their greatest happiness is their greatest curse, and, if there be a hell on earth, it is better than their heaven. It is not convenient for me to know things to come; quem mihi, Horat. l. i. od. 11. quem tibi Finem Dii dederint, what will be my end, and what will be theirs; to know the number of their days, how long they shall rage's, and I suffer. These are like the secrets of great Princes, and they may undo us; and therefore they are locked up from us in the prescience and bosom of God, and he keepeth the key himself, and will not show them. But cast thy burden upon him, Psal. 55.22. do thy duty, exercise thyself in that which he hath shown, and then thou mayest lie down and rest upon this, that their damnation sleepeth not, 2 Pet. 2.3. that their rage shall not hurt thee, and that thy patience shall crown thee. In a word; If it be evil, and thou foreseest it, it may cast thee down too low; and if it be good, it may lift thee up too high, and thy exaltation may be more dangerous than thy fall: Psal. 34.14. 1 Pet. 3.11. but eschew evil, and follow that which is good, and this will be a certain prophecy and presage of a good end, be it what it will, whether it come to meet thee in the midst of rays or of a tempest. These things God will not show thee, because thy eye is too weak to receive them. Nor, in the next place, will he answer thy Curiosity, and determine every question which thou art too ready to put up, nor redeem thee from those doubts and perplexities which not Knowledge but Ignorance hath led thee into, and so left thee in that maze and labyrinth out of which thou canst not get. For it favoureth more of Ignorance then of Knowledge to venture in our search without light, to conclude without premises, and to affect the knowledge of that which we must needs know was yet never discovered, and therefore can never be known. That Good which is good for us God bringeth out of the treasury of his Wisdom, Psal. 34.8. and layeth it before us, and biddeth us come and see how gracious he is. But that which is curiosae disquisitionis, as Tertullian speaketh, of a more subtle nature, he keepeth from our eyes. For Religion may stand fast as mount Zion, though it have not those deeper speculations to support it, which many times supplant and undermine it, and rob it of that precious time and those earnest endeavours which were due and consecrated to it alone. What a fruitless dispute might that seem to be between S. Hierome and S. Augustine concerning the Original of the Soul? when after long debate, and some heat, and frequent intercourse of letters, S. Augustine himself confesseth in his Retractations, De origine animae nec tunc sciebam, nec adhuc scio, Concerning the Soul's original I knew nothing then, and know as little now. What a needless controversy arose between the Eastern and the Western Bishops concerning the time of the keeping of the Feast of Easter? when whensoever they kept it, they gave some occasion to standers by of fear that they kept it both with the leaven of malice and uncharitableness. And what a weakness is it to put that to the question which before inquiry made we may easily know we shall never find? Many such questions have been in agitation, many such inquiries made; and some others of another nature, which do not deserve the name of questions, because they cannot be resolved, or are resolved with so little profit; as concerning the state of the Dead, which they could not or would not discover who were raised from it; of the nature of Hell-fire, when it should be the study of our whole life to be those New creatures who shall never know it; of the condition of Infants that die in the womb; of God's Decrees, and the order of them; of his Omnipotency, Omniscience, Omnipresence, which we as boldly speak of as we do of the Virtues in Aristotle's Morals, as if we did see him as he seethe us, and did know him as we are known. 1 Cor. 13.12. Many more Questions there are; and to these, many Cases of conscience, which do rather perplex and rack the Conscience then guide and settle it; and too many which, as the Apostle speaketh of Fornication and Uncleanness, Eph. 5.3. are not fit to be named amongst us. Poteramus has horas non perdere; The time which hath been spent in the discussion of these might (to speak no more) have been bestowed with more advantage to the Church and the common cause; for I do not see how they come within the compass of this Good, or have added one hair to its perfection. For what need this loss of oil and labour, this stir and noise? Why should this Curiosity spread so as to be as universal as the Church itself, when all that God will show, or that concerneth us to see, is drawn up within the narrow compass of this one word, that which is Good? Would you view it in its particulars? I need not send you to those many Creeds framed at sundry times and in divers manners: Quò plus est dogmatum, hòc uberior est haeresium materia. Nunquam fuit sincerior castiorque Christiana fides. quàm cùm il●o uno, ecque brevissimo, Symbolo contentus est orbis, Erasm. Guliel. Varamo Archiep. Cant. Praefat. ad ep. Hieron. For Erasmus will tell us that Religion was never more sincere and uncorrupt then when they used but one Creed, and that a short one. S. Paul calleth it the proportion of faith, Rom. 12 6. that proportion which we must not come short of nor exceed; the form of sound words, 2 Tim. 1.13. which hath no corrupt doctrine mixed with it; and the truth which is after godliness, Tit. 1.1. which is therefore shown that we may be just and merciful and humble. Who knoweth not what it is to believe in Christ? * Tit. 2 12. to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts? What Oppressor knoweth not what Justice is? and who more ready to demand it? What Tyrant is not ready to beg Mercy at his need? Who is so puffed up as to be quite ignorant what Humility is? Who understandeth not our Saviour's Sermon on the mount, where this Good in the Text is spread and dilated into its several parts? And to know these is to know all that should be known. And did we practise what is easy to know, we should not thus trouble ourselves and others to know what to practise. The ancients use to say, The way to knowledge is easy to them who are desirous to be good; nor was this light ever hid from those who did delight to walk by it. The Law is light, saith Solomon: and to say it is not visible when it is held forth, Prov. 6.23. is to deny it to be a light: For God therefore showeth it that it may be seen; He hath showed thee, O man, etc. God hath shown us, 1. all those things which concern us, 2. all that we can apprehend, all those truths of which we are capable. And these two are always in conjunction, and have a mutual aspect one on the other. What concerneth us, that we can apprehend; and what we can apprehend, that concerneth us. The mind is large enough for that which will better it, and that which will better it is obvious to the Mind. As S. Paul speaketh, Whatsoever things are true, Phil. 4.8. whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, any praise, these are within the compass of this Good here in the Text, and are set up and pointed to by the finger of God for all that are men to look upon. But now it may be asked, If the object be so fair and visible, how cometh it to pass it is hid from so many eyes, that there be so few that see it, or see it so as to fall in love with it and embrace it? For, as the Prophet asketh, Who hath believed our report? so may we, Isa. 53.1. Who hath delighted in this sight? I must therefore call your thoughts to look upon the Spectator as well as the Object, the Man as well as the Good. If it be good, it was shown to the Man; and if he be a Man, he can see it: He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. This word Man runneth through every vein of the Text: He was built up to be a spectator of this great sight. The Man it is to whom the Law is given; and if he be a man, he cannot but behold it: for when he seethe it not, he doth exuere hominem, put off the Man quite, divest himself of Reason, and become like to the beasts that perish. Many hindrances there may be to keep this object from our eyes, that we do not rightly judge of this Good, in which the Man is lost and swallowed up in victory. Isidore of Pelusium hath given us three; 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Narrowness of the understanding and judgement, 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Sloth and neglect in the pursuit of it, 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Improbity of men's manners, and a wicked and profane conversation. First, Narrowness and defect in the understanding is an evil incident but to a few. For how can the Understanding be too narrow to receive that Good which was fitted and proportioned to it? If it will receive Evil, it will receive Good. For there can be no reason given why it should be as the needle's eye to Piety and Holiness, and a wide open door of capacity enough to let in a legion of Devils. No; this befalleth none but those who know it not indeed, and yet shall never be questioned for their ignorance, Non est dementia, quae est in hominis potestate, Quint. declam. 348. as natural fools and madmen, which bring that disease with them into the world which they can neither avoid nor cure, and of which the cause cannot be found out, saith the Orator. And these men come not under the common account, nor are to be set down in the roll and catalogue of Men. Pet. Faber. adel. 124. Furiosus pro absent, saith the Law; Wheresoever they are, they are as absent; and whatsoever they do, they do as if they did it not: They are not what they are, and they do not what they do. And why they are so, and what shall be their end, is casus reservatus, is locked up and reserved in the bosom of God alone: And he that shall ask how it cometh to pass that they are thus and thus may well claim kindred of them both. To these this Good is not shown, who are as far removed from being Men as they are from the use of Reason. How should he see a star in the firmament, Lib. 1. De doct. Christ. saith S. Augustine, who cannot see so far as to my finger, which pointeth up to it? And how should they see this Good who are destitute of Reason, which is the only eye with which we can behold it? The Second hindrance is Sloth and Neglect, that we do not search it out, not fix our eyes upon it, but walk on towards our journey's end, sport ourselves in the way, and only salute it in the by, and then (as travellers do many objects and occurrences they meet with) behold it, pass by and forget it, James 1.23. or as S. James speaketh, look on it as on a glass, not as Women, with curiosity and diligence, but as Men, perfunctorily and slightly, and never once think more of what we have seen. We first slight, and at last loathe it. For a negative contempt is the immediate way and next step to a positive. Plaut. Mostell. Venit ignavia, & ea mihi tempestas fuit, saith he in the Comedy; Sloth cometh upon us, bindeth our faculties, and that is the tempest which spoileth us of our crop, of that fruit which we might have gathered from this tree of life. For though this Good be most fully and perspicuously set forth in Scripture, shown in all its beams and glory, yet this giveth no encouragement to neglect those means which God hath reached forth unto us to guide and direct us in our search. There is light enough, and it is plain, is no argument that we should shut our eyes. For as we do not, with the Church of Rome, pretend extreme difficulty, and with this pretence quite strike the Scripture out of the hands of the Laity, and busy their zeal with other matters, bind them, as a horse is bound to the mill, and lead them on in the motion of a blind obedience; so do we require the greatest diligence, both in reading Scripture, and also in ask counsel of the grey hairs and multitude of years, of the learned, of those whom God hath placed over them in the Church. And if the great Physician Hypocrates thought it necessary in his art for those who had taken any cure in hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to ask advice of all, Hippocrat. in precept. Naz. ep. 120. even of Idiots, and those who knew but little in that art, much rather ought we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ask counsel of God by prayer, and be ready to be instructed by any who is a Man. For though the lesson be plain, yet we see it so falleth out that Negligence doth not pass a line, when Industry and Meditation have run over the whole book; that Diligence hath a full sight of this Good, when Sloth and Neglect have but heard of its name. S. Hierome speaketh of some in his time, qui solam rusticitatem pro sanctitate habebant, who accounted Rusticity and Ignorance the only true Holiness, and called themselves the scholars and disciples of the Disciples of Christ, who we are told were simple and unlearned fishermen; Idcirco sancti, quòd nihil scirent; as if Ignorance were the best argument to demonstrate their piety, and they were therefore holy because they knew not what it was to be so. I will not say, Such we have in these our days; no, they are not such as profess ignorance, but who are as ignorant as they could be who did profess it. Like the Lilies of the field, they labour not, they study not, Matth. 6.28, 29. and yet Solomon with all his wisdom was not so wise as one of these. Some crumbs fall from their Master's table, some passage they catch and lay hold on from some Prophet which they call theirs, and this so filleth them that they must vent, that it runneth over, and defileth and corrupteth that which they will not understand. For bring them to a trial, and you shall find them as well skilled in Scripture as he was in Virgil, who having studied it long at last asked whether Aeneas was a man or a woman. Faith is their daily bread, their common language; Religion they speak of as oft almost as they do speak; Piety dwelleth with them; Purity is their proper passion, or essence rather: but then this Good in the Text, Justice and Mercy and Honesty in conversation, if we may judge of the tree by his fruits, is not, as the Psalmist speaketh, in all their thoughts; Psal. 10.4. for it is scarce in any of their ways; and we have that reason which we would not have to fear that they do but talk of it. Now to cast a careless look upon this Good is not to see it; to talk of it, is not to understand it; to name it, is not to embrace it: For all these may be in a man who hath the price in his hand, but hath no heart to buy it. Prov. 17.16. As the Philosopher said of those who were punished after death in their carcases, Relicto cadavere, abiit reus, The body was left behind, but the guilty person, the parricide, was departed and gone: So here is a lump of flesh, but the Man is gone, nay dead and buried, covered over with outward formalities, with words and fancy. This is not the Man in the Text, and then no marvel if he cannot see this great sight. The third impediment is Improbity of manners, a mind immersed and drowned in all the filth and pollution of the world, evil-affected, Acts 14.2. Corrupt, 2 Tim. 3.8. For wickedness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. Eth. b. 5. Maguis sceleribus jura naturae intereunt, Sen. Cont. Prov. 20.27. saith the Philosopher, doth corrupt the very principles of nature, and make that Candle, as Solomon calleth it, which God hath lighted up in our hearts, burn but dimly. As we read that when the earth was without form and void, darkness was upon the face of the deep, Matth. 6.23. so when the Perturbations of our mind interpose themselves, as the Earth, there is strait a darkness over the Soul. An Evil eye cannot behold that which is Good; 2 Pet. 2.14. An eye full of adulteries cannot discover the beauty of Chastity; 1 Joh. 2.16. A lustful eye cannot see Justice; A Lofty eye can neither look upon Mercy, nor Humility. Ps. 131.1. The Love of Honour maketh the judgement follow it to that pitch and height which it hath set and marked out. The Love of money will gloss that Blessing which our Saviour hath annexed to Poverty of spirit. Matth. 5 3. My Factious humour will strike at the very life and heart of Religion in the name of Religion and God himself, and destroy Christianity for the love of Christ. Rom. 13. Resist not the power, in one age 'tis glossed, bound in with limitations and exceptions, or rather let lose to run along with men of turbulent spirits against itself; In another, when the wind is turned, it is a plain Text, and needeth no interpreter. Bid the angry Gallant bow to his enemy, Luk. 18.22. he will count you a fool. Bid the Covetous sell all that he hath, he will think you none of the wisest, and pity or scorn you. Bid the Wanton forsake that strumpet which he calleth his Mistress, and he will send you a challenge, and for attempting to help him out of that deep ditch will send you to your grave. Prov. 23.27. We may talk what we please of Martion and Manes, of Heretics, and of the Devil, as interpolatours and corrupters of Scripture; but it is the wickedness of men's hearts that hath cut and mangled it, and made it what we please, made it join and comply with that which it forbiddeth and severely threatneth. Now to conclude this, In the midst of so many passions and perturbations, in the throng of so many vices and ill humours, in this Chaos and confusion, where is the Man? There is a body left behind, inutile pondus, an unwieldy and unprofitable outside of a Man, the garment, the picture, or rather the shadow of a Man; and we may say of him as Jacob did when he saw joseph's coat, G●n. 37.33. It is my son's coat, but evil beasts have devoured him; Here is the shape, the garment, the outside of a Man, but the Man without doubt is rend in pieces, distracted and torn asunder by the Perturbations of his mind, corrupted and annihilated and unmanned by his Vices, and there is nothing left but his coat, his body, his carcase, and the name of a Man. This is not the Man, and then no marvel if he do not see this great sight. In his day, whilst he was a Man, his Reason not clouded, his Understanding not darkened, in this his day it was shown to him, and it was fair and radiant; but now all is night about him, and it is hid from his eyes. For if it be hid, 2 Cor. 4.3. it is hid to them that perish, to them that will perish. He hath showed thee, O man: The Good inviteth the Man, and the Man cannot but look upon that which is Good. Draw then thy soul out of prison; take the Man out of his grave, draw him out of these clouds of Sloth, of Passion, of Prejudice, and this Good here, Piety and Religion, will be as the Sun when it shineth in its strength. For conclusion then, Let us cleave fast to this Good, and uphold it in its native and proper purity against all external rites and empty formalities, and in the next place against all the pomp of the world, against that which we call good when it maketh us evil. I am almost ashamed to name this, or make the comparison: For what is Wealth to Righteousness? What is Policy to Religion? What is Earth to Heaven? But I know not how men have been so vain as to attempt to draw them together, and to shut up the world in this Good, or rather this Good in the world; to call down God from heaven, not only to partake of our flesh, but of our infirmities and sins, and to draw down that which is truly good, and make it an assistant and auxilary to that which is truly evil. For how do men's countenances, nay how doth their Religion alter, as they see or hear how the world doth go? Now they are of this faction, and then of that, anon of a third; Now Protestants, anon Brownists, anon Papists, anon— but I cannot number the many Religions and the No-religions. But wheresoever they fasten, they see it, and say it is Good. It was observed of the Romans, that before the corruption and decay of manners they would not entertain a servant or officer but of a perfect and goodly shape, but afterwards, when luxury and riot had prevailed and were in credit with them, they diligently sought out, and counted it a kind of elegancy and state to take into their retinue, dwarves and monsters and men of prodigious appearance, ludibria naturae, those errors and mockeries of nature: So hath it also fallen out with Religion; At the first rise and dawning of it men did lay hold on that Faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints, and went about doing good; Judas 3. Acts 10.38. but when this light had passed more degrees, men began to play the wantoness in it, and to seek out divers inventions; and this Good, the Doctrine of faith, Eccl. 7.29. was made to give way to those sick and loathsome humours which did pollute and defile it; and instead of following that which was shown men set up something of their own to follow and countenance them in whatsoever they should undertake, and then did look upon it alone, and please and delight themselves in it, although it was as different from the true pattern which was first shown as a monster is from a man of perfect shape: As Quintilian speaketh of some professors of his art, Illa quaecunque deflexa tanquam exquisitiora mirabantur, that was cried up with admiration which had nothing in it marvellous or to be wondered at but its deformity. We have a proverb, that It is ill going in procession where the Devil saith Mass; but most certain it is, there be too many who never move nor walk but where he is the leader. If the Prince of the air, if the God of this world go before, we follow, nay we fly after. If any child or slave of his hold out his sceptre, we bow and kiss it. The World, the World is the mint where most men's Religion is coined; and if you well mark the stamp and superscription, you may see the Prince of the air on one side, and the World on the other; the Devil on one side like an Angel of light, and the World on the other with its pomp and glories. And then when we have brought our desires home to their ends, when we have raised our state and name, how good, how religious are we? When the purse is full, the conscience is quiet. When we are laden with earthly blessings, we take them as a fair pledge of eternal. We say to ourselves as Micah did, Judg. 17.13. Now I know that the Lord will do me good, because I have a Priest, said he; Because we have great possessions, say we, as great Idolaters as Micah. For what are our shekels of silver but as his graven and molten image? And thus we walk on securely all the days of our life, not as the children of this world, but as the children of light, and out of our great abundance sometimes we drop a penny. We wast away, and sicken, and make our will and seal it, and doubt not but the Spirit will do his office, and seal our redemption. At last the rich man dyeth, and is buried, and some hireling will tell you, The Angels have carried his soul into heaven: A strange conceit, Luke 16. and, if true, of force to pluck Lazarus out of Abraham's bosom, and to bring back Dives through the gulf, and place him in his room. But if this be not true, may it never be true. Only let us not deceive ourselves but search and try our hearts, and root out all such vain and groundless and pernicious imaginations, which may be raised up in time of prosperity, and multiply like flies in the Sun. Let us not seek our peace in those false fictitious, spurious, deceitful Goods, but in the true and full and filling Good, the Good here in the Text. And because God hath fitted and proportioned it to us, let us fit and apply ourselves unto it. And since he hath built us up after his own Image, let us adorn and beautify it with Justice and Mercy and Humility, and not blur and deface it with the craft of a Fox, the lust of a Goat, and the rage of a Lion: For what should the mark of the Beast do upon the Image of God? Again, being fitted to us, and to all sorts and conditions of men, Let young men and maids, Psal. 148.12, 13. old men and children, Scribes and Idiots, noble and ignoble, Priest and people, cleave and adhear to it, and so praise and magnify the name of the Lord: Sic laudant Angeli, for so the Angels and Archangels praise him. And thirdly, being lovely and amiable, let us make it our choice, and espouse our wills to it, love and embrace it; not kiss and wound it, approve and condemn it, worship it in our hearts and persecute it in our brethren. And since it is a filling and satisfying good, here let us let down our pitchers, Isa. 12.3. and draw waters out of this well of salvatien, even those waters which will sweeten our miseries, and give a pleasant taste to Bitterness itself. To conclude; Behold, here is the object, that which is Good, fair and beautiful to the eye. Jer. 5.1. Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see if you can find a MAN, and he is the spectator, and cannot but see it. But what went you out into the wilderness to see? Matth. 11. 7-9 saith our Saviour. Why the eye is never satisfied, Pro. 27.20. and all would go out to see. Some would see soft Raiment; Eccl. 1.8. & 4.8. and that you may see on every back. Some gaze upon Beauty; and that is a burning-glass to set the Soul on fire. Others love to see the redness of the Wine; Prov. 23.31. & 20.1. Look not on it, saith Solomon; It is a mocker. Some would behold a show of Pomp and Glory; and we see, though Justice can never fail, but hath the best even when she is worsted, yet Injustice hath had more triumphs than she. When Julius Caesar triumphed over his country, and when Pompey rid in with the spoils of Asia, the ceremony and the pomp and the glory was the same. But the eye with which we behold these spectacles is not fit for this object. We have another eye, a spiritual eye, we call it the eye of our Reason, and we call it the eye of our Faith. This many times is but as an eye of glass, for show, but no use at all, and serveth to hid a deformity, but not to see with. But if it be a quick and living eye, than here is a fit object for it, worth the looking on, in which we may see all other things in a fairer dress, in a celestial form, in the beauty of Holiness, being made useful and subservient to it, like that Speculum Trinitatis, that feigned Glass, in which they tell us he that looketh seethe all things. If we see not this object, then are we blind; 2 Pet. 1.9. or if not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, purblind, not seeing afar off those things which are laid up in heaven for those who look upon this Good, and love it: and then I am unwilling to say what we are, but certainly we are but infidels. And indeed there is something of Infidelity in all our aversions and turning away from this Good. For what is the reason that covetous men make Riches an idol, and sacrifice to their own net, but want of faith and their distrust in God? For when God doth not answer their desires, 1 Sam. 28. Adu. Judaeos c. 1. Praeesset eis bubulum caput, etc. they run with Saul to the Devil at Endor, or with the Israelites in a pet choose to themselves bubulum caput, as Tertullian expresseth it, a Calf's head to be their leader. I say there is a degree of Infidelity in all these aversions from this Good. All that can be said is but what many say within themselves after they have consulted with flesh and blood, that this Good is not shown so clearly nor made so plain as it is said to be; which is indeed to remove thei● own prop and pillar, to demolish their own Idol, and to drive Faith quite out of the world. Believe they do in God, yet will not trust him: And they are persuaded of the truth of things not seen, yet will leave the pursuit of them to follow vanity, because they are not seen. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and wilt thou not believe him? Heb. 11.1. Faith is the substance of things not seen; and though they be not seen, yet they are evident, the Means evident, and the End as evident as the Means, in our sad and sober thoughts, when we talk like speculative men, as evident as what is open to the eye. But such an evidence we have which a Covetous man would soon lay hold on for a title to a fair inheritance, and the Ambitious for an assignment of some great place. For if such a record had been transmitted to posterity, if the Scripture which conveyeth this Good had entailed some rich Manor or Lordship upon them, it should have then found an easy belief, and been Gospel, a sure word of prophecy, unquestionable, undoubtable, like the decrees of the Medes and Persians, which must stand fast for ever and cannot be altered. For too many there be who had rather have their names in a good leaf then in the book of life. And this is the reason why we are so ignorant of that which is Good indeed, and so great Clerks in that which is called good but by the worst; why we are so dull and indocil in apprehending that wisdom which is from above, and so wise and witty to our own damnation; why we do but darkly see this Good which is so plainly shown unto us. What shall we say then? Nay, what saith the Scripture? Eph. 5.14. Awake thou that sleepest in Sloth and Idleness, thou that sleepest in a tempest, in the midst of thy unruly and turbulent Passions, arise from the grave and sepulchre wherein thy Sloth hath entombed thee; arise from the dead, from that nasty charnel-house of rotten bones, where so many vicious Habits have shut thee up: Break up thy monument, Hebr. 12.1. cast aside every weight and every sin that presseth down, and rise up, and be but a Man, improve thy Reason to thy best advantage, and this Good shall shine upon thee with all its beams and brightness, and Christ shall give thee light, if not to see things to come to satisfy thy Curiosity, yet to see things to come which shall fill thy soul as with marrow and fatness; Psal. 63.5. if not to know the uncertain yet certain ways of God's providence, yet to know the certain and infallible way to bliss; if not to know things too high for thee, yet to know that which shall exalt thee to heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He hath shown thee, O man, what is good: Dost thou see it? dost thou believe it? Thou shalt see greater things than these. Thou shalt see what thou dost believe, and enjoy what thou dost but hope for. Thou shalt see God, who hath showed thee this Good that thou mightest see him. Thou shalt then have a more exact knowledge of his Ways and Providence, a fuller taste of his Love and Goodness, a clearer sight of his Beauty and Majesty, and with all his Angels and all his Saints behold his Glory for evermore. Thus much of this Good, as it is an Object to be looked on. We shall in the next place consider it as a Law; QVID REQVIRIT? What doth the Lord require. The Third SERMON. PART III. MICAH VI 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, etc. HE hath showed thee, O man, what is good, what it is thou wert made for, even that which is fitted and proportioned to thy Soul, that which is lovely and amiable, and so a fit object to look on, that which will fill and satisfy thy Soul, and turn the greatest evil the world can lay as a stone of offence in thy way into good, and raise itself upon it to its highest pitch of glory; And this he hath made plain and manifest, drawn out in so visible a character, that thou mayest run and read it. And thus far we have already brought you. We must yet lead you further, even to the foot of mount Sinai; What doth the Lord require of thee? This is as the publication of it, and making it a Law. Hebr. 12.19. For with the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the trumpet, Exod. 20.2. and the voice of words, this voice was heard, I AM THE LORD. THUS SAITH THE LORD, is the Prophet's Warrant or Commission. I THE LORD HAVE SPOKEN IT, is a seal to the Law. By this every word shall stand, by this every Law is of force. It is a word of power and command and authority: For he that can do what he will may also require what he will in heaven or in earth. So then, if he be the Lord, he may require it. In this one word, in this Monosyllable, all power in heaven and in earth is contained. For in calling him Lord he assigneth unto him an absolute Will, which must be the rule of our Will, and of all our actions, which are the effects and works of our Will, and issue from it as from their first principle and mover. And this his Will is attended 1. with Power, 2. with Wisdom, 3. with Love. By his Power he made us, and still protecteth and preserveth us; and from this issueth his legislative Power. Again, as by his Wisdom he made us, so by the same Wisdom he giveth us such a Law as shall sweetly and certainly lead us to that end for which he made us. And last of all, his Love it is to the work of his own hands thus to lead us. And all these are shut up in this one word Lord. Let us view and consider all these, and so look upon them as to draw down their influence and virtue into our souls, to work that obedience in us which this Lord requireth and will reward. First, it is the Lord requireth. I need not trouble you with a recital of those places of Scripture where God is called the Lord. For if the Scripture be as the Heaven, this is a Star of the greatest magnitude, and spreadeth its beams of Majesty and Power in the eyes of all men. And to require is the very form of a Law: I will, I require, if Power speak, it is a Law. It will be more apposite and agreeable to our purpose, that we may the more willingly embrace and entertain this Good which is published as a Law, to look upon this word Lord as it expresseth the Majesty and Greatness of God. He is therefore said to be the Lord, because he is omnipotent, and can do all things that he will. He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, a vast and boundless Ocean of Essence; and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a boundless and infinite Sea of Power. Take the highest pitch of Dominion and Lordship that our imagination can reach, yet it falleth short of his who is Lord of Lords, to whom all earthly Majesty must veil, and at whose feet all Princes lay down their Crowns and Sceptres. And therefore Dionysius Longinus, falling upon the story of the Creation, De sublimi genere orat. Sect. 7. maketh that expression of Moses, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let there be light; and there was light. Let there be earth; and there was earth, the highest and most sublime that the art or thought of man could reach, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for thus the Majesty of God is best set forth. He no sooner speaketh, but it is done. Nor can it be otherwise. For as he is a Lord, and hath an absolute and uncontrollable Will, so his Will is attended by an infinite Power which is inseparable from it. You may find them both joined together, Acts 4.28. All things are done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. whatsoever his hand and his counsel determined to do. Because he can do all things, therefore he bringeth to pass whatsoever he will. And his Hand and Power hath here the first place, because all Counsel falleth to the ground if Power be not as a pillar and supporter to uphold it. What is the strength of a strong man, if there be a stronger than he to bind and disarm him? What is it to conceive something in the womb of the mind, to shape and form and fashion it, and to bring it even to the door of life, if there be no strength to bring it forth? What is my Will, if it be defeated? Libera voluntas in nullum habet imperium praeterquam in se. Hierocles apud Phot. Bibl. 1394. Thus it falleth out with dust and ashes, with Man, whose will is free when his hands are bound, who may propose miracles but can do nothing, who may will the dissolution of the world when he hath not power to kill a fly or the least gnat that lighteth upon him. But God's Power is infinite, nor can any thing in heaven or earth limit it but his Will, which doth regulate and restrain it; for otherwise it must needs have a larger flow. If he cut off, or shut up, or gather together, who can hinder him? Job 11.10. The voice of the Lord, that is, his Power (for his word is power) is full of majesty. Ps. 29.3— 6. It breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon, and maketh them skip like a calf. Ps. 19.4, 5. It hath set a tabernacle for the Sun, he biddeth it run its race, and commandeth it to stand still. He doth whatsoever he will in heaven or in earth. Ps. 135.6. I need not here enlarge myself. Every work of his is a miracle, every miracle is eloquent to declare his Power. Ps. 150.6. Every thing that hath breath speaketh it, and that which hath neither breath nor life speaketh it. That which hath voice speaketh it, and that which is dumb speaketh it. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. Ps. 19.2, 3. There is no speech, nor language, where their voice is not heard. The Power of this Lord is the proper language of the whole world. Non, ut ait ille, Apul. de mundo silere melius est, sed vel parùm dicere; It is not good to be silent, nay we cannot be silent, but yet it is not good to speak too much of the Power of this Lord, because we cannot speak enough, nor can any finite understanding comprehend it. Now by this Power first God created Man, and breathed into him a living soul, made him as it were wax fit to receive the impressions of a Deity, Psal. 139.14. made him a subject capable of a Law. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, saith David, marvellously made, excellently made, set apart, selected, culled out, as it is Psal. 4.4. from all the other creatures of the earth, Gen. 17.1. to walk with God and be perfect. My members were curiously wrought, drawn as with a needle (for so the word there signifieth) embroidered with all variety, as with divers colours, every part being made instrumental either to the keeping or breaking of the Divine Law. I am as it were built and set up on purpose to hearken what that Power which thus set me up will require of me. Psal. 100.3. In a word, It is he that made us, not we ourselves. And he made us to this end, to his glory, to be united to himself, to bow under his power, to be conformed to his will, and so to gain a title to that happiness which is ready to meet them that run unto it by doing what he requireth at their hands. Again, by his Power as God createth so he continues Man and protecteth him, doth not leave him, as an artificer doth his work, to the injuries of time, to last or perish, as the strength of the materials is of which it consisteth; but as by his power he made him, so by the same power he upholdeth and preserveth him, that in this life he may move and press forward to a better; he moveth in him and moveth with him, that in this span of time he may make a way to Eternity. Acts 17.25. He giveth to all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, life and breath, but in a more eminent manner to Man, to whom he hath communicated part of his Power, and given him Dominion over himself and other creatures. — 27. He is not far from every one of us, he is near us, Wisd. 6.7. with us, within us. He hath made the small and the great, and careth for all alike. Sceleratis sol exoritur, saith Seneca: His Sun riseth upon the evil and the good, Matth. 5.45. saith our Saviour. His Power moveth in the hand that smiteth his brother, and in the hand that lifteth him out of the dust; in the Tyrant which walketh in his palace, and in that poor man who grindeth at the mill. 2 Sam. 6.6, 7. Deus salus est & perseverantia earum quae effecerit rerum, Apul. de Mundo. Psal. 31.15. By it Uzzah's hand was stretched out to uphold the Ark, and by it he was smitten and died. It moveth in the eye that is open to vanity, and in the eye that is shut up by covenant. All the creatures, all men, all motions and actions of men, are in manutenentia Divina. My times are in thy hand, saith David. And in this sense the Schools tell us that the Creation of Man and his Conversation are but one continued act; that we may say of every creature so long as it is, that so long God createth it: because Creation respecteth the being of the creature as made out of nothing, and Conservation the being of the same creature as continually quickened and upheld that it fall not back again into that Nothing out of which it was made. For God's Power is the Being of the creature, and the withdrawing of it is its Annihilation. 2 Pet. 3.5, 7. The Heavens and the Earth are by the word of God, and are established by his power; and when he will no longer uphold them, all shall be dissolved, — 12. and the Elements shall melt with heat. It is no more but the withdrawing of his Power, and the world is at an end. Now in the next place, from this Ocean of God's Power naturally issueth forth his Power of giving Laws, of requiring what he please from his creature. For as there is but one omnipotent God, so there is but one Lawgiver, James 4.12. who is able to save and to destroy: For the one is the ground and foundation of the other. Psal. 100.3. If he made us, and not we ourselves; if he preserve us, and not we ourselves, than not we ourselves, but he is to give us Laws. It is here, Do, ut des, and Facio, ut facias: He giveth us our Being and Continuance, that we should give him our Obedience and Subjection; he doth this for us, that we may do something for him, even whatsoever he shall require. The Stoics say well, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, All duties are measured out by relations. Epict. Enchir. c. 28. The Care of the Father calleth for the Honour of the Son; The Oversight of the Master commandeth the Obedience of the Servant; And the Father and the Master are to the Son and Servant as Moses is said to be to Pharaoh, Exod. 4.16. instead of God, domestici magistratus, saith Seneca, De Benef. 3.11. domestic Lords or Magistrates. He is my Father; if he speak the word, it is done: He is my Master and Lord; if he say, Go, I go. The reason of this is plain; For 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 die 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 only 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 quàm nos monet pietas, Plaut. Stich. act. 1. sc. 1. And there is the Majesty of a Master, and the Majesty of a Friend or Benefactor: 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 tie 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 showed 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 only 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 speech, but full and lively and operative, even an acknowledgement of that Power of God which is mighty in operation, by which he hath authority to command and require what he will. God's 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 Wisdom 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 Wisdom 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, numbered, 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 Lawgivers 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, etc. 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 Wisdom reacheth over all tempers and constitutions, all casualties and contingences, all circumstances of Time or Place, all cross intercurrent accidents, which the narrowness of Man's Understanding and humane Frailty cannot foresee nor prevent. Lex erit omne quod ratione consistet, saith Tertullian; That which bindeth a reasonable creature must itself 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 Wisdom, 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; established, 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 terrors 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 Wisdom 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 Wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily, and doth sweetly order all things. For which way can frail Man come to see his God but by being like him? What can draw him near to his pure Essence but Simplicity and Purity of spirit? What can carry us to the God of Love but Charity? What can lead us into the courts of Righteousness but Justice? What can move a God of tender mercies but Compassion? Certainly God will never look down from his Mercy-seat on them that have no bowels. In a word, what can make us wise but that which is good, those virtues, Temperance, Justice and Liberality, which are called the labours of Wisdom? Wisd 8.7. Hebr. 6.5. What can bring us into Heaven but this full taste of the powers of the world to come? So that there is some truth in that of Gerson, Gloria est gratia consummata, Glory is nothing else but Grace made perfect and consummate. For though we cannot thus draw Grace and Glory together as to make them one and the same thing, but must put a difference between the Means and the End, yet Wisdom itself hath written it down in an indelible character and in the leaves of Eternity. That there is no other key but this Good in the Text to open the gates of the kingdom of Heaven, and he that bringeth this along with him shall certainly enter. Heaven and Glory is a thing of another world, but yet it beginneth here in this, and Grace is made perfect in Glory. And therefore, in the last place, God's absolute Will is not only attended with Power and Wisdom, but also with Love. And these are the glories of his Will; He can do what he will, and he will do it by the most proper and fittest means, and whatsoever he requireth is the dictate of his Love. When he sent his Son, the best Master and Wisest Lawgiver that ever was, on whose shoulders the government was laid, Isa. 9.6. he was ushered in with a SIC DILEXIT, So God loved the world. John 3.16. God's Love seemeth to have the preeminence, and to do more than his Power. This can but annihilate us; but his Love, if we embrace it, will change our souls, and angelify them; change our bodies and spiritualise them; endow us with the will, and so with the power of God; make us differ as much from ourselves as if we were (not annihilated, which his Power can do, but, which is more) made something else, something better, something nearer to God. This is that mighty thing which his Love bringeth to pass. We may imagine that a Law is a mere indication of Power, that it proceedeth from Rigour and Severity; that there is nothing commanded, nothing required, but there is smoke and thunder and lightning; but indeed every Law of God is the natural and proper effect and issue of his Love; from his Power, it is true, but his Power managed and shown in Wisdom and Love. For he made us to this end, and to this end he requireth something of us, not out of any indigency, as if he wanted our company and service (for he was as happy before the creation as after) but to have some object for his Love and Goodness to work upon, to have an exceptory and vessel for the dew of Heaven to fall into: As the Jews were wont to say, propter Messiam mundum fuisse conditum, that the world and all mankind were made for the Messiah, Psal. 2.7. whose business was to preach the Law which his Father said unto him, and to declare his will. And in this consisteth the perfection and beauty of Man. For the perfection of every thing is its drawing near to its first principle and original. The nearer and liker a thing is to the first cause that produced it, the more perfect it is; as that Heat is most perfect which is most intense, and hath most of the Fire in it. So Man, the more he partaketh of that which is truly Good, of the Divine nature, of which his Soul is as it were a sparkle, the more perfect he is, because this was the only end for which God made him. This was the end of all God's Laws, That he might find just cause to do Man good; That Man might draw near to him here by obedience and conformity to his Will, and in the world to come reign with him for ever in glory. And as this is the perfection, so is it the beauty of Man. For as there is the beauty of the Lord, Psal. 27.4. so is there the beauty of the Subject. The beauty of the Lord is to have Will and Power and Jurisdiction; to have Power and Wisdom to command, and to command in Love: So is it the beauty of Man to bow and submit and conform to the will of the Lord (for what a deformed spectacle is a Man without God in this world? Eph. 2.12. ) which hath Power and Wisdom and Love to beautify. Beauty is nothing else but a result from Perfection. The beauty of the Body proceedeth from the symmetry and due proportion of parts, and the beauty of the Soul from the consonancy of the will and affections to the will and law of God. Oh how beautiful are those feet which walk in the ways of life? How beautiful and glorious shall he be who walketh in love as God loved him, Eph. 5.2. who resteth on his Power, walketh by his Wisdom, and placeth himself under the shadow of his Love? And thus much the substance of these words affords us, What doth the Lord require? Let us now cast an eye upon them in the form and habit in which they are presented, and consider the manner of proposing them. Now the Prophet proposeth them by way of interrogation: And as he asked the question, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? so doth he here ask, what doth the Lord require? He doth not speak in positive terms, as the Prophet Jeremiah doth Ask for the old paths, Jer, 6.16. where is the good way, and walk therein, Isa. 30.21. or as the Prophet Isaiah, This is the way walk in it; but shapeth and formeth his speech to the temper and disposition of the people, who sought out many ways, but miss of the right. And so we find Interrogations to be fitted and sharpened like darts, and then sent towards them who could not be awaked with less noise nor less smart. And we find them of divers shapes and fashions. Sometimes they come as Complaints, Psal. 2.1. Why do the heathen rage? sometimes as Upbraid, How camest thou in hither? Matth. 22.12. 2 Sam. 2 22. Matth. 22.18. sometimes as Admonitions, Why should I now kill thee? sometimes as Reproofs, Why tempt ye me, you Hypocrites? And whithersoever they fly, they are feathered and pointed with Reason. For there is no reason why that should be done of which Christ asketh a reason why it is done? The question here hath divers aspects: It looketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, forward and backward. It looketh back upon the Jew busy at his Sacrifice, and it looketh forward to the beauty of holiness, and is leveled at the very heart of those errors which led the people from the city of God into the wilderness, from that which is truly Good to that which is so but in appearance, which did show well and speak well, but such words as were clothed with death. First it checketh them in their old course, and then showeth them a more excellent way. The Jew (as we have told you formerly) pleased himself in that piece of service which was most attempered to the Sense, and might be passed over and performed with least vexation of the Spirit and labour of the Mind. For what an easy matter was it to approach the courts of God, to appear before the Altar? Psal. 118.27. What great trouble was it to bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of it? Nay, this was their delight, this they doted on, this they thought none could cry down but a false Prophet. Did they not thus speak and murmur within themselves, If this be not, what is then Religion? If to appear in his courts, to offer sacrifice, be not to serve God, how should we bow before him and serve him? As many say in their hearts now adays, If to go to Church, to be zealous in a faction, to cry down Superstition, be not true Religion, what Religion can there be? Who can speak against it but an uncircumcised Philistin, or he that hath drunk deep of the cup of the Whore? He that preacheth any other Law or any other Gospel, let him be Anathema. And therefore the Prophet, to silence this, asketh another question, Do you ask, If this be not, what is true Religion? I ask also, What doth the Lord require? Not this in which you please yourselves, but something else, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. And this But, as it is an Exclusive, and shutteth out all other services whatsoever which look not this way, or are not conducible to uphold and support and promote it, so it doth colour, as it were, and place a kind of amiableness, a philtrum, upon that which may invite and win us to embrace it. For commonly those duties which require the luctation of the Mind, the strive and victories of the Spirit, are more formidable, and so more avoided, than those which employ only the outward man, the Eye, the Tongue, the Ear, and the Hand. Here every man is ready and officious, and thrusteth himself into the service; every man almost rejoiceth to run his race, and there is a kind of emulation and contention who shall be the forwardest. But those commands which set us at variance within ourselves, which busy the Spirit against the Flesh, which sound the alarm and call us into the lists to fight the good fight of Faith against ourselves, against our Imaginations, even those which lie unto us, and tell us All is well; these are that Medusa's head which turneth us into stones: And we, who were so active and diligent in other duties less necessary, when these call upon us to move, are lame and impotent; we, who before had the feet of hinds, can move no more than he did who lay so long by the pool-side. John 5. The Prophet Elisha biddeth Naaman the leper, Go wash in Jordan seven times, and thou shalt be clean: 2 Kings 5.10. But Naaman was wroth, and thought that may be done with the stroke or touch of the Prophet's hand. Are not Abanah and Pharpar, — 12. rivers of Damascus, saith he, better than all the rivers of Israel? But the Servants were wiser than the Master, and truly told him, that what the Prophet enjoined was no great thing; for it was but this, Wash and be clean. — 13. So it was with the Jew; and so it is with us. That which will cure and heal us we most distaste. Nauseat ad antidotum qui hiat ad venenum; Tertul. Scorp. c. v. The stomach turneth at the antidote, that is greedy of poison. What? bid us be Just and Merciful and Humble? Will not Sacrifice suffice? Are not our sabbath-days exercise, our Psalms and Hymns of force enough to shake the powers of heaven, and draw down blessings upon us? Why may he not speak the word, and heal us? Why may he not save us by miracle? To be just and honest, will shrink the curtains of our tabernacles. To be merciful and liberal, will empty our chests. To be humble, will lay us in the dust. These are harsh and rugged, hard and unpleasing commands, beyond our power, impossible to be done. Nay rather these are the ebullitions and murmurs of the flesh, the imaginations of corrupt hearts: And therefore the Prophet Micah setteth up his But against them to throw them down and demolish them. Quare formidatis compedes sapientiae? Why are you afraid of the fetters of Wisdom? They are golden fetters, and we are never free but when we wear them. Why do you startle at God's Law? It is a Law that giveth life. Why do you murmur and boggle at that which he requireth? Behold he requireth nothing but that which is first Possible, secondly Easie, thirdly Pleasant and full of delight. He requireth but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. And first, the Prophet here doth not bid us do any great things; He doth not bid us work miracles, remove mountains, do that which is beyond our strength; Do that which you cannot do: Do justly; for you cannot do so: Be merciful; for you cannot be so: Walk humbly before me, though it be impossible you should. God never yet spoke so by any Prophet. This were to make God's commands such as S. Augustine telleth us those of the Manichees were, not only nugatoria, light and vain, De Morib. Manich. but pugnatoria, opposite and destructive to themselves. For nothing is more destructive and contrary to a Law then to place it under an impossibility of being kept. For the Keeping of a Law is the virtue and force and end of a Law, the end for which it is enacted. It is true, Gal. 3.22. God hath now concluded all under sin: And the reason is given, For all have sinned. Rom. 3.23. But the Apostle there delivereth it as an instance and matter of fact, nor as a conclusion drawn out of necessary principles. He doth not say, All must sin; but, All have sinned. For both the Gentiles might have kept the Law of Nature, and were punished because they did not, as it is plain Rom. 1. and the Jews might have kept that Law which was given to them as far as God required it; for so we see many of them did, and God himself bore witness from heaven, and hath registered the names of those in his Book who did walk before him with a perfect heart, 2 Chr. 15.17. 1 Kings 11.33, 34, 38. 2 Kings 22.2. as of Asa, of David, that he kept God's Laws, of Josias, that he turned not aside neither to the right hand nor to the left. Though these fell into many sins, which yet notwithstanding they might have avoided (for why might they not by the same assistance fly one sin as well as another?) yet they kept the Law, though not so exactly as God required, yet so far as that God was pleased to accept it as a full payment. In that hot contention betwixt the Orthodox and the Pelagians, when the Pelagians, to build up Perfection in this life, brought in the examples of the Saints of God, who either had not broke the Law of God in the whole course of their life, or, if they did, did return by Repentance, and afterwards in a constant obedience did persevere unto the end; they found opposition on all hands, not one being found who would give this honour to the best of Saints. But where they urge that this Perfection is not impossible, where they speak not the esse but de posse, and conclude not that it is but that it may be so; not that any man hath done what God requireth, but that he may, S. Augustine himself joineth hands with them; Non est eyes continuò incautâ temeritate resistendum, etc. We must not be so rash as unwarily to oppose them who say Man may do what God requireth. Si negaverimus esse posse, & hominis libero aerbitrio, qui hoc volendo appetit, & Dei virtuti, qui hoc adjuvando efficit, derogabimus, August. De peccat. meritis & Remis. l. 2. c. 6. For if we deny a Possibility, we at once derogate from Man's Will, which may incline to it, and from the Power and Mercy of God, who by the assistance of his Grace may bring it to pass. So that the great difference between them may seem to be but this, The one thought it possible by the power of Nature, the other by the assistance of Grace, which is mighty in its operation, and may raise us to this height, if we hinder it not; for every stream may rise as high as its spring. Cum Dei adjutorio in nostra potestate consistit, saith S. Augustine often; It is in our power to do what God requireth with the help of Grace. God requireth nothing above our strength, and certainly we can do what by him we are enabled to do. Hom. 2, 6, 12, 16, 27, etc. When Julian the Pelagian, a young man of a ready and pleasant wit, urged S. Augustine with his own Confession, and that he did but dissemble, when with so much art and eloquence, and such vehemency of spirit he persuaded men to the love of Chastity, if they could not, though they would, preserve and keep themselves undefiled, Lib. 5. cont. Jul. Pelag. c. ult. S. Augustine maketh this reply, Respondeo, me fateri, sed non sicut vos; I confess they may preserve their virgin, but not, as you would have it, by their own power, but by the help of God's Grace, which must make them willing, and with his help they may. And what need there then any further altercation? Why should men contend about that in which they cannot but agree? Why should they set themselves at such a distance, when they both look the same way? There are but few, and I am persuaded none, that do so far Pelagianize as to deny the Grace of God. And then, when God biddeth us, Do this, he that shall put the question Whether it be possible to be done, hath no more of Reason or Revelation to plead for him then the Pelagian had. For with him the Law can be kept neither without the help of Grace, nor with it; and so it must lose its name, nor is it a Law; for what Law is that which cannot be kept? I know it was a Decree of a Council at Carthage, That every man ought to pray to God to forgive him his trespasses; That he ought to speak it, not as out of humility, but truly: and I think there are scarce any that will not willingly subscribe to it, but this Decree may be as unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians: Yet I do not see any necessity of fixing this doctrine of the Impossibility of doing what God requireth on the gates of the Temple, or proclaiming it as by the sound of the trumpet in the midst of the great congregation. For this Petition is put up in especial relation to sins past: For Nè peccemus is in order before Si peccemus: 1 Joh. 2.1. We are first commanded not to sin, and then followeth the supposition, If we sin. So that these two, Sin not, and, If you sin, make up this Conclusion, We may, or we may not sin, rather than this, It is impossible to keep to Laws. So then this Petition may be said humiliter, humbly, and veraciter, truly, in respect of sins past; but it is neither Truth nor Humility to make God a Liar, in calling upon us to do that which he requireth, when he knoweth we cannot do it; to make him a Tyrant, in cripling us first, and then sending us about his business, in giving us Flesh which the Spirit cannot conquer, in letting lose that Lion upon us which we cannot resist, in leaving us naked to those Temptations which we cannot subdue. No; 1 Cor. 10.13. God is faithful and true, and will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength, will not let in an enemy upon us which with his assistance (which is ready, if we refuse it not) we cannot overcome. Psal. 103.8. And he is gracious and merciful, if in the midst of so many enemies we chance to slip, and fall with Jonathan in these high places, to reach out his hand, and lift us up again; 2 Sam 1.25. but with this Proviso, that we look better to our steps hereafter. For he knoweth of whom he requireth it, even of Men, and he considereth us as Men, and remembreth whereof we are made. Psal. 103.14. He doth not require we should be as just and merciful as he is. God may give us his strength, but he cannot give us his arm, to be as just as he. This is more impossible than that which is most impossible; it is impossible to think it. Nor doth he look that our obedience should be as exact as that of the Angels, quorum immortalitas sine ullo malorum metu & periculo constat, whose happiness is removed from all danger or fear of change, saith Lactantius; But he requireth an obedience answerable to our condition, which may consist both with Sin and Error, into which Man as Man may sometimes either through inadvertency or frailty fall and yet do what God requireth. But then, if this doctrine were true, That we are fettered and shackled with an Impossibility of doing what God requireth (as indeed it hath neither Reason nor Scripture to countenance it) yet sure it cannot without danger be so rudely and with such zeal and earnestness published as sometimes it is; nor can it savour of that spiritual wisdom which is that Salt which every Teacher should have in himself, Matth. 5.13. Mark 9.50. to urge and press it to the multitude, who are too ready to make an idol of that Serpent which is lifted up to cure them. For how many weak hands and feeble knees and cowardly hearts hath this made? How willing are we to hear of weakness and impossibilities, because we would not keep the Law? How oft do we lie down with this thought, and do nothing, or rather run away with it even against the Law itself, and break it? What polluted, blind, impotent, crippled wretches are we ready to call ourselves? which were indeed a glorious confession, were it made out of hatred to sin. But most commonly these words are sent forth not from a broken but a hollow heart; and comfort us rather than accuse us, are rather flatteries then aggravation; the oil of sinners, to break their heads, and to infatuate them, not to supple their limbs, but benumb them; And they beget no other Resolution in us but this, Not to gird up our loins, because we are weak; To sin more and more, because we cannot but sin; Not to do what God requireth, because we have already concluded within ourselves that it is impossible. To conclude this; The question is not, Whether we can exactly keep a Law so as not to fail sometimes as men (for I know no reason why this question should be put up) but, Whether we can keep it so far forth as God requireth and in his goodness will accept, Whether we can be just and merciful and humble men? And if this be impossible, then will follow as sad an impossibility of being saved; For the not doing what God requireth is that alone which shutteth the gates of Heaven against us, and cutteth off all hope of eternal happiness. And this were to unpeople Heaven; this were a Dragon's tail to draw down all the stars, and cast them into hell. But the Saints are sealed, and have this seal, That they did what God required: And it is a thing so far from being impossible that the Prophet maketh but a But of it; It is not impossible, it is but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Secondly, it is so far from being impossible, that it is but an easy duty. My yoke is easy, Matth. 11.30. saith our Saviour, and my burden light. For it is fitted to our necks and shoulders, and is so far from taking from our nature, or pressing it with violence, that it exalteth and perfecteth it. All is in putting it about our necks, Prov 1.9. and then this yoke is an ornament of grace, as Solomon's chain, about them. And when this burden is laid on, than it is not a burden, but our Form to quicken us, and our Angel to guide us with delight in all our ways. And this the beloved Disciple sucked from his Master's bosom, 1 John 5.3. This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous: For here is Love and Hope to sweeten them, and make them easy and pleasant. Nor doth he speak this as an Orator, to take men by craft, by telling them that that which he exhorted them to was neither impossible nor difficult, and so give force to his exhortation, and make a way for it to enter, and work a full persuasion in them to be obedient to those commands; but, as a Logician, he backeth and establisheth his affirmation with an undeniable reason in the next verse, For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and so his commandments are not grievous to those who have the true knowledge of God. He that is born of God must needs have strength enough to pass through all hindrances whatsoever, to tread down all Principalities and Powers, to demolish all imaginations which set up and oppose themselves, and so make these commands more grievous than they are in their own nature. And this he strengtheneth with another reason in the next verse, For he that is born of God hath the help and advantage of Faith, and full persuasion of the power of Jesus Christ, which is that victory which overcometh the world: So that whosoever saith the commandments are grievous, with the same breath excommunicateth himself from the Church of Christ, and maketh himself an hypocrite, and professeth he is that which he is not, a Christian, when Christ's words are irksome and tedious unto him; that he is born of God, when he hath neither the language nor the motion of a child of God, doth not what God requireth, but doth the works of another father, the Devil. When men therefore pretend they cannot do what God requireth, they should change their language: for the truth is, they will not: If they would, there were more for them then against them. Salvian. Totum durum est quicquid imperatur invitis, To an unwilling mind every command carrieth with it the fearful show of difficulty. Mavult execrari legem quàm emendari mentem: praecepta odisse quàm vitia. A wicked man mavult emendare Deos quàm seipsum, saith Seneca, had rather condemn the Law then reform his life, rather hate the precept than his sin. Continence is a hard lesson, but to the wanton; Liberality to a Miser, Temperance to a Glutton, Obedience to a Factious and Rebellious spirit. All these things are hard to him that loveth not Christ: But where there is will there is strength enough, Cant. 8 6. and Love is stronger than Death. What was sweeter than Manna? Isid. Pelus. 2. ep. 67. what sooner gathered? yet the children of Israel murmured at it. What more bitter than Hunger and Imprisonment? yet S. Paul rejoiced in them. Nay, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Wickedness in its own nature is a troublesome and vexations thing. Vitia magno coluntur, saith Seneca: Scarce any sin we commit but costeth us dear. What more painful than Anger? what more perplexed and tormenting then Revenge? what more entangled than Lust? what can more disquiet. us then Ambition? what more fearful than Cruelty? what sooner disturbed than Pride? Nay further yet, How doth one sin encroach and trespass upon another? I fling off my Pleasure and Honour to make way to my Revenge, I deny my Lust to further my Ambition, and rob my Covetousness to satisfy my Lust, and forbear one sin to commit another, and so do but versuram facere, borrow of one sin to lay it out on another, binding and losing myself as my corruption leadeth me, but never at ease. Tell me, Which is easier, saith the Father, to search for wealth in the bowels of the earth, nay in the bowels of the poor by oppression, then to sit down content with thy own? night and day to study the world, or to embrace Frugality? to oppress every man, or to relieve the oppressed? to be busy in the Market, or to be quiet at home? to take other men's goods, or to give my own? to be full of business for others, or to have no business but for my soul? to be solicitous for that which cannot be done, or to have no other care but to do what God requireth? To do this will cost us no sweat nor labour: We need not go on pilgrimage, or take any long journey; it will not cost us money, nor engage us to our friends; we need not sail for it, nor plough for it, nor fight for it: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. saith chrysostom; If thou be'st willing, Orat. de ira. obedience hath its work and consummation. If thou wilt, thou art just, merciful and humble. As Aristotle spoke of his Magnanimous man, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Eth. l. 4. c. 3. Liber & rectus animus, omnia subjiciens sibi, se nulli, Sen. ep. ult. so to a resolved Christian nothing is great, nothing is difficult. It is not to dig in the minerals, or labour in chains; it is not to cleave wood or draw water with the Gibeonites; but thy lines are fallen unto thee in a fair place, it is but to do justly, love mercy, etc. Lastly, it is not only easy but sweet and pleasant to do what God requireth. For obedience is the only spring from whence the waters of Comfort flow, an everlasting foundation on which alone Joy and Peace will settle and rest. For what place canst thou find, what other foundation, on which thou mayst build up a true and lasting joy? Wilt thou look on all the works which thy hands have wrought? Wilt thou prove thy heart with mirth, and gather together all that is , and say, Here it will lie? All that joy will soon be exhausted and draw itself dry. That Pleasure is but like that beast of the Apothecary to whom Julian the Pelagian likeneth S. Augustine, Non sum similis pharmacopolae, ut dicis, qui promittebat bestiam, quae seipsam comesset. August. Cont. Jul. Pelag. l. 3. c. 21. which he promised to his patient to be of great virtue, which before the morning was come had eaten up himself. But the doing what God requireth, our Conformity to his will, is the only basis upon which such a superstructure will rise, and tower up as high as heaven: For it hath the Will and Power of God to uphold and perpetuate it against all those storms and tempests which are sent out of the Devil's treasury to blast or embitter it. Do you take this for a speculation and no more? Indeed it is the sin and the punishment of the men of this world, to take those truths which most concern them for speculations, for groundless conceptions of thoughtful men, for School-subtleties rather than realities. Mammon and the World have the preeminence in all things, and spiritual Ravishments and Heaven itself are but ingens fabula & magnum mendacium, as a tediously, or a long tale that is told. And there is no reason of this but their Disobedience. For would men put it to the trial, deny themselves, and cleave to the Lord, and do what he desireth, there would then be no need of any Artist or Theologue to demonstrate it, or fill their mouth with arguments to convince them of the truth of that which would so fill their souls. Of all the Saints and Martyrs of God, that did put it to the trial, did we ever read that any did complain they had lost their labour? but all of them, upon a certain knowledge and sense of this truth, betook themselves cheerfully to the hardship of mortification, renounced the world, and laid down their lives, poured out their blood for that Truth which paid them back again with interest, even with fullness of joy. Let us then hearken what this Lord will say, and answer him in every duty which he requireth; and he will answer us again, and appear in glory, and make the terrors and flatteries of the world the object not of our Fear and Amazement but of our Contempt, and the displeasing and worse side of our Obedience our crown and glory, the most delightful thing in the world. For, to conclude this, why are we afraid? why should we tremble at the commands of God? why should their sound be so terrible in our ears? The Lord requireth nothing of us but that which is 1. possible, to rouse us up to attempt it; 2. easy, to comfort and nourish our hopes; and 3. pleasant and delightful, to woe and invite and even flatter us to obedience, and to draw us after him with the cords of men. Hos. 11.4. We have now taken a view of the Substance of these words, and we have looked upon them in the Form and Manner in which they lie, What doth the Lord require? Let us now draw them nearer to us. And to this end they are sharpened into an Interrogation, that as darts they might pierce through our souls, and so open our eyes to see, and our ears to hearken to the wonders of his Law. First, this word Lord is a word of force and efficacy; It striketh a reverence into us, and remembreth us of our duty and allegiance. For if God be the Lord, then hath he an absolute Will, a Will which must be a rule to regulate our wills by his Jubeo and his Veto, by his commands and prohibitions, by removing our wills from unlawful objects, and confining them to that which may improve and perfect them; from that which is pleasing but hurtful, to his Laws and commands, which are first distasteful, and then fill us with joy unspeakable. And this is the true mark and character of a servant of God, To be then willing when in a manner he is unwilling, to be strong when the flesh is weak, to have no will of his own, nor any other spring of spiritual motion, but the will of his Lord. And therefore as God is the Lord over all, so are his Laws over all Laws. As to him every knee must bow, so to his Laws all the Laws of men must yield and give place, Isa. 45.23. Rom. 14.11. which are no further Laws, or can lay any tye or obligation, but as they are drawn from his, and wait upon them, and are subservient to them. Common Reason will tell us, and to that the Apostles Peter and John appeal when the rulers of the Jews commanded them to speak no more in the name of Christ, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God, Acts 4.18, 19, 20. judge you. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard: And we cannot but be obedient, for the Lord requireth it. When Creon the Tyrant in Sophocles asked Antigone how she dared to bury her brother Polynices, when he had enacted a law to the contrary, her answer was, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. That this was not Jupiter's Law; and that she buried he brother in obedience to a Law more ancient than that of the Tyrant's, even to the Law of Nature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. For this Law was not of yesterday, but eternal; and I ought not for fear of any man to break the Law of God and Nature. And what better answer can a Christian make to all unlawful commands, either of those we love, or of those we fear? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. God hath not enacted these; I see more of the claw of the Devil than finger of God in them. These are Novellae institutionis, but of yesterday, the breathe and dictates it may be of Lust and Covetousness, of Pride and Ambition; and I must not consider what Man, what this Man, this Lord or this Potentate, but what the Lord of Lords and King of Kings requireth at my hands. When his Laws are published, all others must be silent, or as little harkened to as if they were; as when the Sun appeareth the Stars are not seen, nor seen at any time-but with that light which they borrow from it. For again, as he is Lord paramount, and hath an absolute Will, so his Will is attended with Power, with that Power which made thee. And he did not make thee a Man that thou shouldest make thyself a beast of burden, to couch under every load which the hand of a Pharisee will be ready to lay upon thee. He did not make thee capable of a Law that thou shouldst keep the Laws of the Flesh, or of Men. He did not publish his will that upon this or that pretence thou shouldest resist it, that the fear of a frown or the love of the world should be stronger, and prevail with thee more, than his Will. For if thou wilt not do what he requireth, he will not do what thou expectest, but leave thee to thy choice, to those new Lords and Masters, under the same wrath and curse, to walk delicately along with them to that vengeance which will fall upon the heads of those who will not hearken to this Lord. For thirdly, by the same Power he preserveth and protecteth thee, which all Power that is over us doth not. For then the Thief may be said to protect him he robbeth, the Strong man may be said to protect him he bindeth, the Oppressor him whom he hath eaten up, and Cain to have protected Abel when he knocked out his brains. But the power of God is a saving and preserving Power, and under the shadow of his wings we shall be safe. And to this end he spreadeth his wing over us, he guideth and holdeth us up, that we may walk before him in all obedience in the land of the living, bowing to his will against our Lust, against our Ambition, against all those machinations and temptations which press upon us to break his will even whilst we are under his wing. What should a Wanton, an Oppressor, a man of Belial do under God's wing? And yet we see many times they play and revel it in the shadow, when they that do his will are beaten with the tempest, and yet are safer there than the others are in their Paradise, are the miracles of God's Providence to be manifested at last to all the world. It is true, the wicked are in some sort under God's wing; for he upholdeth and continueth them, and prolongeth their days: And, if an eye of flesh may judge, they are the greatest favourites of this Lord; and if the world were heaven, they were the only Saints. 1 Cor. 2.15. But the spiritual man judgeth all things, and to his eye they are but a sad and rueful spectacle, as condemned men led with music to execution. For God preserveth and protecteth them not otherwise then he doth Serpents and Vipers and Beasts of prey; He upholdeth them not otherwise then he doth the Earth and the Devils, and Hell itself, which he preserveth for them, as he reserveth them for it, as S. Judas speaketh in his Epistle. And then, Judas 6. as Abraham said to the Rich man, Son, remember, Luke 16.25. thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things, so shall this Lord say to those, to a Cain, to a Nimrod, an Ahab, a Pharisee, a Hypocrite, Remember you were under my wing, under my protection, and remember what you did there, how you beat your fellow-servants, how you stripped one, dispossessed another, killed a third; how even then, when you were under my wing, when I upheld and preserved you, you said in your hearts there was not God. Psal. 14.1. This is a fearful and hideous change, like the fall of Lucifer: Only he fell from heaven indeed, these from an imaginary one, a heaven built up with a thought; but both fall into the same place. Oh then, since he made us, since in him we live, Acts 17.28. and move, and have our being, let us live unto this Lord, let our motion be regular, and let us be what he would have us to be. Let it be our wisdom to follow him in those ways which his infinite Wisdom hath drawn out for us: Let our Love be the echo of his Love. This Wisdom is from above, and this Love is kindled from the coal of a Cherubin, is a fire from heaven kindled in our hearts, and it will lick up all fluid and unbounded desires in us. Let us remember that God hath endowed us with faculty and ability to do what he requireth, that he hath committed and entrusted this unto us for this end, that he doth now as it were manu suâ tenere debitores, that he hath us in his power, obliged and bound fast unto him by this his gift as by an instrument or bond. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Apostle's word; Rom. 3.2. and it is the very word which the Civilians use; He hath committed and entrusted his commandments, and requireth something of us. And as he that entrusteth his money doth not lose the propriety of it, no more doth God of that substance, of our intellectual and practic faculties, which he hath put into our hands. He hath not passed them over to us as a free and absolute gift, Luke 19.13. but left them only to traffic with and improve till he come. For in receiving the Law, and will and faculty to observe it, Arist. Eth. 5. we make a kind of contract with God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Aristotle, For the Law itself is a kind of contract or covenant, because he that cometh under a Law hath bound himself to keep it. Let us remember then that we come under many obligations. I cannot name the several ways we stand obliged to this Lord. We may comprehend all in that axiom of the Civilians, Tota obligationes praesumuntur quot sunt scripturae; We have as many engagements and obligations as there be instruments and writings betwixt us; and there are as many as there be precepts and commands, which are the best helps to promote us to perfection. Let us then provide against the day of trial. For not to keep covenant with this Lord, but when he cometh to make inquisition whither we have done what he required, to present him with nothing but shows, but good intentions, but drowsy endeavours and feeble wishes; when he cometh to ask for his talon, to show him a napkin, is a plain forfeiture of our obligation, and bringeth us under a worse and heavier, bindeth us over to punishment. Let us then ever fix our eye upon our obligation: Let us consider that God made us, that he upheld and protected us, and so had power to oblige and bind us to him by a Law: Let us admire his Wisdom, and embrace his Love: Let this double chain, the strong iron chain of his infinite Power and universal Dominion, and the glorious and golden chain of his superabundant Love, bind and tie us unto him. And when all other creatures are ready to bow at God's beck, and follow constantly in that way which Nature hath allotted them, and seldom or never turn aside, when the Sun knoweth his setting, and the Moon her seasons, let not us forget our station and place, but answer this Lord in every command as the Roman Centurions did their Emperors, Factum est, Imperator, quod jussisti; Behold, thou art our Lord, and we have done what thou requiredst. In the last place, Let us not set up those mountains in our way, of Difficulty, or Irksomeness, or Impossibility, and then faint and lie down, settle ourselves upon our lees, Zeph. 1.12. and wallow in our own blood, upon a groundless fear that there is no passing out. For why should we pretend and plead Difficulty and Impossibility, when we ourselves are an argument against ourselves, and our own practice every day confuteth us? For how do we every day make a surrendry of our wills to those who have will indeed, and proclaim their will, but have neither might nor wisdom nor love to attend it? Ibo, licèt invita faciam omnia, saith the woman in the Comedy; Plaret. Mil. Glor. act. 4. sc. 8 I will go, although I go against my will. To rise up early and lie down late are nothing pleasing to us, yet for that which a wise man contemns, for a little pelf, we will do it. To wait attendance, to bow, and cringe, and make great men Gods, to give him a leg whom we wish on the gallows, to engage ourselves for the hardest task, to be diminished and brought low, to sweat and fight and die, cannot be delightful to flesh and blood, yet for honour we will do it. But then how do we bebauch our understandings and wits, and bury them in other men's wills as in a Sepulchre, there to rot and stink amidst those corrupt and loathsome imaginations which are as wings to carry them to their unwarrantable ends? How ready are we to conclude that to be true which we know to be false, that to be lawful which our Conscience condemneth? It was a sin; it is now a duty. It was as abomination; it is now a sign of Election. It was Oppression; Power hath set a mark upon the innocent, and it is Justice. It was an Idol; it is now our God. It was a Devil, a black and ugly fiend; it is now an Angel of light. Thus we can ad omnem occursum majoris cujusque personae decrescere, as Tertullian speaketh, shrink ourselves in, and be in a manner annihilated, at the appearance of any greater person. When these sons of Anak show themselves, we are but grasshoppers, we are fools, or slaves, or worse, any thing, or nothing, even what they will have us. We are led captive according to the will of others, and according to the will of our greatest enemy, become the Devils enchanters, making that appear which is not, that seem white which is black, and that good which is evil; and the Devils musicians, setting and tuning our notes, our words and looks and actions, to his will and pleasure; nay, the Devils fiddles, to be wound up or let down to any pin or note to which the hand of Greatness or Power will set us. We are as so many looking-glasses, which reflect and present the actions of men in power back upon themselves, laughing when they laugh, and weeping when they weep, striking as they strike, planting as they plant, and plucking up as they pluck up, doing in all as they do, when they are weary and faint, falling to the ground along with them: And all this to gain our peace, or, as the Apostle telleth the Galatians, Gal. 6.12. lest we should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. I urge this by way of instance and exprobration, to show that the denial of our own will is not a thing of such difficulty as it is thought, that we may do that for God's cause which we do for our own, that we may do that for him that we do for our lust, unless we shall so far dishonour God and ourselves as to make that most inglorious and false confession, That we can do nothing but that which is evil, and have strength to do nothing but that which will ruin us, and so conclude against heaven and our own souls that we are good for nothing but damnation. I have much wondered that men should be so willing to publish their weakness and disability in this, and in other things to hid and mask it as they do their sin; that they should be ready to brand him with the name of Heretic, that shall tell them they may be just and honest men if they will, that God will assist them if they put him not from them, and yet be as forward to be parasites to that Parasite, and reward him, that shall commend their prudence and dextrous activity in the affairs of this world, as if they were made for this world, and no other, and made able to raise a bank here, but not to lay up for themselves any treasure in heaven. Acts 26.8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? saith S. Paul. Why should any man think it impossible to do the will of God? Matth. 19.24. It is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, True, whilst he trusteth in his riches. Mark 10.24. Eph. 5.5. Matth. 19.12. Matth. 5 3. And it is impossible for an unclean person to enter there. True, till he make himself an eunuch for that kingdom. But is it impossible for a rich man to be made poor in spirit? Is it impossible for a wanton to make a covenant with his eyes? Job 31.1. Our Saviour hath fully determined that, Matth. 19.26. That with men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible; possible for him in the barrenest ground to plant and gather fruit, out of any crooked piece of wood to make a Mercury, a statue for himself. And this Omnipotency of God is referred not only to the giving a being to all things, but in fitting those helps and furtherances of piety which may enable and promote us in the performance of our duty. As S. Paul speaketh, I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me; Phil. 4.13. Who, if we call upon him with that sincere fervour and humility which our Weakness and his Majesty require, is ready at hand, ready by his power and assistance to preserve the Rich safe from the contagion of wealth and the snare of the devil, and to purge the Unclean person, and to keep him from the foolish woman, Prov. 9.13, 14. and the door of her house. Why, why shouldst thou lay so unjust an imputation upon so just and merciful a Lord? Numb. 23.19. God is not as Man, that he should lie: God is not as Man, that he should bid us do what we cannot do. Such indeed is our miserable condition under the sons of men, under those who are built up of the same mould and earth which we are: Many times our Superiors grow wanton; and as they can be angry for no other reason but because they will be angry, so they will command to show their power; Exod. 5.17. tell us we are Idle, when we are impotent; give us such commands as the Devil's was to the men of Delos, Prodigiosum oraculum hoc fuit, liberatum iri Delios malis praesentibus, si aram Deli duplicassent, Plut. de urb. Theb. & Socratis Daemon. Rom. 3.4. to double his Altar, to double a cube or square; Which hath troubled the wits of all ages to find out. And shall we fancy such a God unto ourselves? This were at once to divest him of his Majesty and Goodness, and take him from his throne; first to slander and blaspheme him, and then break his Law, and comfort ourselves in our rebellion. Nay rather let God be true, and all men be liars: For he requireth of us no more than we can do. And, to conclude, when we cannot do it, he requireth but the Will: And as it is a great sin nol●e cùm possis, not to be willing when thou canst do it, so is it a great virtue velle cùm non possis to be willing when thou canst not do it. Praestat operibus voluntas, Hilar. in Psal. 128. Saepe honorata virtus est, ubi eam impellit exitus. Sen. Controu. c. 4. 7. Psal. 26.8. & 57.7. 1 Cor. 14.15. And thus I may be poor when I am rich, I may be liberal when I do not give, and I may be humble in a triumph; I may do what I do not. For with God to will is to do; because when our hands are bound, that is left free; nor hath Man or Devil any power over it. Persecution may seal up the Church doors, yet I may love the place where God's honour dwelleth. Power may seal up my lips, yet I may say with David, My heart, my heart is prepared; and my prayers are loud when they are not heard, and I am heard though I cannot speak. I may pray with the tongue, and I may pray with the spirit; and I may pant forth those prayers which I must not say, I may do what God requireth when I have neither mouth, nor tongue, nor hand. For what doth he require? 2 Cor. 8.12. That which a man hath, and not that which he hath not; That which thou canst do, and that which thou mayest do with ease, and that which thou mayest do with delight: Here are these three; first, it is possible, secondly easy, thirdly delightful. And these are those Wings Ezek. 1.9. joined one to another, and carrying us straight forward towards the mark: These are as the Wheels v. 16 and on these our Obedience may move on in an even and constant course, till we are brought to our journey's end, even to that place of rest which is prepared for all those who are ready to hearken and do what the Lord requireth. We pass now to the particulars. The Fourth SERMON. PART FOUR MICAH VI 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, etc. WE have seen what this Good is; for it is shown unto us. And we have beheld it in the commanding form and power of a Law; for God requireth it, who, as he made the whole world for Man, so made Man for himself, and bound him to that which might make him free, to walk at liberty in those paths which lead unto that happiness which is with him for evermore. We compared it to the Tree of Life: And the Heart of Man is the Paradise, the soil wherein it must grow. And it is so, a celestial Paradise, a Paradise of the purest and sincerest delights, when this Good is planted and well rooted in it. We have taken a survey of it in its generality, as it were in the bulk and body and substance of it. We descend now to particulars, to gather some fruit from the parts and branches of it; Which are three; first, Justice or Honesty; secondly, the Love of Mercy; thirdly, an Humble and reverend deportment and walking with our God. The first is Justice or Honesty; Which is a smooth and straight and even branch; and we reap the fruit thereof in peace. To do justly is but one, but it spreadeth itself, and in its full latitude taketh in all the duties of our life. For we are no sooner Men but we are debtors, under obligations to God, to Men, and to Ourselves. The Apostle comprehendeth all in three words, 1 Thes. 2.10. Ye are witnesses how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves amongst you. First, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how holily, in relation to God. For we are bound to him as Sons, to honour him; as Subjects, to obey him; as Servants, to do his will; in brief, to be holy, as he is holy. Secondly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how justly, in respect of men. For we are not left at large; but as there is a relation of Man to God, so there is of one man to another. All men are bound to every man, and every man is bound to all. There is an instrument and obligation drawn between them, a kind of counterbond to secure one from the other, and it is written and sealed up in every heart, and by the hand of God himself, To do to others as we would have others do to us. If men would be but men, Matth. 7.12. this would be what it was made for, the Security of the whole world. Thirdly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how unblamably, in respect of himself and his personal conversation. For, though we scarce believe it, or consider it as little as if it were not true, we ourselves are bound unto ourselves, and in all the assaults we make either against God or our Neighbour the first injury we do is to ourselves. We are bound to our Bodies, not to make them the instruments and weapons of unrighteousness; and we are bound to our Souls, not to pawn or sell them to our lusts; we are bound to our Flesh, as a migistrate is in his office, to beat it down and subdue it, and so rule and govern it; and We are bound to our Reason, not to enslave it, or place it under the vanities of this world. And if we break these obligations, we are the first that rise up against ourselves. The first man that condemneth a sinner is the sinner himself. Se judice nemo nocens absolvitur; In himself he beareth about with him a Court, a seat of Justice, from which no appeal lieth. His Reason is his Judge, his Conscience is his Accuser, and he himself is his own Prisoner; and he crucifieth and hangeth himself up every day, though no foreign authority arrest him. And these three are linked together as in a chain. For when we make good our obligations to God and ourselves, we never fail in that which is due unto Men; and he that faileth in doing justly to Men, hath ipso facto forfeited his obligation to God and himself; For to do justly is a duty which he oweth to God and himself as well as to others. He that is not just is not holy, and he that is not holy is an enemy to God and himself: For God made him to this end, and God requireth it at his hands: So that an unjust man at once breaketh this threefold cord, and is injurious to God, to Men, to himself. If we miss in one, we are lost in all, and are in a manner outlawed from Men, banished from Ourselves, Eph. 2.12. and so without God in this word. We have a large field here to walk in; but we must limit and confine ourselves, and pass by the Justice of the public Magistrate, whose proper work it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to stand in the midst, between two opposite sides, till he draw them together and make them one; to keep an equality even in equality; to use his power either in cutting off the wicked from the earth, and taking the prey out of his mouth, or else in dividing to every man his own possessions, in giving Mephibosheth his Lands again. This is neither meant here in the Text, nor can it concern this Auditory. Read the 10, 11, 12. v. of this chapter, and you will see what Justice it is the Prophet here speaketh of: Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure, that is abominable? Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Is there yet the house of the wicked built by oppression, and cemented with blood, and will he not restore what he hath unjustly gained, after so many warnings and threats? Adhuc ignis in domo impii? So the Vulgar; Is there yet a fire in the house of the wicked? not a Treasure, but a fire, which will consume all. So that to do justly in this place is not only the duty of the Magistrate (and yet public Justice is both a Serpent and a Rod; not only a Serpent, to by't and sting the guilty person; but a Rod, to meet out to every man his own measure) but to do justly is to give every man his own, not to lay hold on or alienate or deceitfully withdraw or violently force from any man that of which he is a lawful possessor. For quicquid jure possidetur, injuriâ aufertur, that which I possess by right cannot be taken from me but by injury. And this is it which we call common Honesty or private Justice. This bindeth my hand from oppression and robbery, sealeth up my lips from guile and slander, checketh and fettereth my fancy from weaving those nets of deceit which may catch my brother and entangle him, limiteth my hands, my wit, my tongue, not to do, not to imagine, not to speak that which may endamage him; not to touch, not to undermine his estate; not to touch, not to wound his reputation. For Slander is a great injustice, a kind of Murder, jugulans non membra, sed nomina, saith Optatus to the Donatists, not cutting off a limb or member, but mangling and defacing a good and fair name, and even treading it in the dirt. Private Justice is of a far larger extent then that which is public, which speaketh and acteth from the tribunal. For public Justice steereth by no other Compass but the Laws of Men, but this by the Laws of Nature and Charity, which forbidden many things which the Laws of Men mention not, and restrain us, there where humane Authority leaveth us in nostro mancipio, to dispose of ourselves as we please. Nec enim quicquid honestum est, legibus praecipitur: for this Justice and Honesty bindeth us to that which no Law exacteth. For Lawgivers are not Diviners or Prophets; they see little more than what is passed by them already, or now before their eyes, or which Probability hath brought so near that they even see it as a thing which, if not prevented, will certainly come to pass. They have not the knowledge of all that is possible, nor of all things that are under the differences of times past, present, and to come; nor can they fathom the depth and deceitfulness of their own hearts, much less of the hearts of other men, which are fruitful in evil, and find out new inventions, and multiply them every day. For as S. Augustine spoke of the Lawyers of his time, Nulla causa sine causa, De verb. Dom. num. 19 There was not a Cause brought to them which they could not so handle as that it should multiply in their hands, and beget as many as they pleased; so there is no fraudulent act which is not a step to another, and that to a third, Vsu probatum est, leges egregias apud bonos ex delictis aliorum gigni, etc. Thras. Paet. apud Tacit. Annal 15. and that third is now a teeming and ready to bring forth more. Depunge ubi sistam. Injustice hath the same subsistence and measures with our Covetousness and Lust, and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, knoweth neither bounds nor end. So that those Laws by which Humane Societies are managed and upheld are rather occasioned by that which is passed then by that which is to come; and they that make them take their aim by their eye, and some sensible inconvenience, which is either visible in itself, or in that which may cause it, but cannot provide against that which is removed so far as that neither the eye nor thought, neither wisdom nor suspicion, can reach it, but is to them as if it would never be, in that darkness and obscurity wherein it was before they were born. And therefore the rule of those duties which we owe one to another is of a larger extent then that of the Law. Sen. 2 de Ira, c. 27. Angusta est innocentia, ad legem probum esse, saith the Philosopher; That Honesty is but of a narrow compass which measureth itself out by that rule, and reacheth no further than to that point, which the Laws of men have set up, and maketh that its Non ultra. Fest. verb. Pietas. Piety constraineth us to do many things where the Law leaveth us free. What Law did force that pious Daughter to suckle her old Father in prison, and nourish him with the milk from her own breasts? Spartianus. or Antonine the Emperor to lead his aged Father-in-law, and ease and support him with his hand? Again, Humanity bindeth us where the Law is silent. Humanitatis est, quaedam nescire velle. For where was it enacted that we should not open the letters no not of our enemies? yet Julius Caesar burned those which he found in their Tents whom he had conquered, and the Athenians and Pompey did the like. Liberality hath no Law, and yet it is a debt. No Law enjoineth me to keep my promise and make good my faith, and yet my promise bindeth me as firmly, Beati divites, quia caeteris prodesse possunt & debent, Alciat. de verb. Significat. and should be as sacred, as my oath. All these are extra publicas tabulas, not to be found in our Statute-books that confineth his studies and endeavours to these, that hath no other compass to steer by in the course of his life then that which he there findeth written, Fides & juramentum aequiparantur, ut hoc servari debet, ita & illa, Menoch. cap. 367. cannot take this honour to himself, this honourable title of a Just and Honest man. For how many inventions and wiles have men found out to work iniquity as by a Law? to drive the proprietary out of his possessions before the Sun and the people, and then wipe their mouths, and proclaim it as just to all the world? How many eat no other bread but that which is kneaded by craft and oppression, and sometimes with blood, and yet count it as Manna sent down from Heaven? How short is the hand of the Law to reach these? Nay, how doth the Law itself many times enable them to invade the territories of others, and to riot it at pleasure? How is it made their music, Consensere jura peccatis, etc. Cypr. ad Donat. by which they dance in other men's blood? Justice or common Honesty is but one word, but of a larger compass than Ambition and Covetousness are willing to walk in. In a word, A thing may not be just and honest, and yet there may be no Law to punish it, no man that dare reprehend it, Cicer. 2. de Finib. ●3. Lex Stagiritarum, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Aelian. Var. Hist l. 3. c. 46. Clem. Alex. 2. Strom. 398. Dolus quidam in contractu est non indicare errorem, Hermias apud Damas'. in Phot. Bibl. saith Tully. Take not up that which thou laidst not down; count that which thou findest in the way but as a pledge to be returned upon demand, said the Stagirites. If thou sell a thing, declare the fault of it; If thou under-buy a thing, upon the discovery pay the full price. These no humane Law, but Justice and Honesty and the Law of Nature, requireth. To collect and draw out a catalogue of all those irregularities in behaviour which will not consist with Justice and Honesty, as it is a thing not necessary to be done, so is it impossible to do it. For as day unto day teacheth the knowledge of that which is good, so day unto day and hour unto hour teach the knowledge of that which is evil; and it is not easy to open those Mysteries of iniquity. The mind of Man, when it is corrupted, is restless in finding out new and untrodden paths which may lead to its desired end, and is wheeled about from one falsehood to another, begetteth a second lie to defend the first, and draweth in cheat upon cheat, that it may have at least the shadow of Justice and Honesty to veil and obscure it. And so long he is an Honest man that is not a detected knave; as he is counted a good Lawyer who can find out something in fraudem legis, some handsome colour or fetch to delude the Law. He that hath the sentence on his side is Just, and he that is fallen from his cause is fallen from the truth; and so honesty is bound up in the verdict of the Jury, and twelve perjured men may make an oppressor honest when they please. We will not therefore go in Hue and Cry after every thief, nor follow the deceitful person in those rounds and wind and turn which he maketh. And I can truly say, Non multùm incola fuit anima mea, I have been but a stranger and sojourner in these tents of Mesech; I have not so much conversed in these ways of thrift and arts of living as to read a lecture upon them, and discover the Method and course of them. It may so fall out, and doth too often, that they who are the best artists in these are the worst of men. For the wisdom of this world is not like that in Aristotle, which resisteth in itself, and never seeketh another end: For in this the theory and the practice go hand in hand, and advance one another. Nor do we make use of it only to preserve and defend ourselves, but we let it out to disquiet and diminish others. And they that tread these hidden and indirect ways, though they hid themselves from others, yet seldom do so far deceive themselves as not to know they walk deceitfully. They check and comfort themselves at once; they know they do not justly, and yet this thought setteth them forward in their course, even this poor and unworthy thought, That it is good to be rich; and so the light which they see is somewhat offensive, but the Love of gain is both a provocative and a cordial. Isa. 28.17. We will therefore bring Justice to the line, and Righteousness to the plummet, and have recourse to the Law and the Prophets; not stand gazing upon the practice of the world and actions of men, but look upon the rule, by which a diligent eye may easily discover all particulars swervings and deviations, though they be as many as the atoms before the Sun. For, as Seneca well, difficile est animam suam effugere, it is a hard matter for a man to fly from himself, or to divest himself of those principles with which he was born, or so to fling them from him as that they shall never return to restrain and curb him, or at least to molest him, when his flesh and lusts are wanton and unruly and violent to break their bounds. And now, what doth the Lord require, but to do justly? that is, but to do that which first the Law of Nature requireth, secondly, that which he at sundry times by holy men and his Prophets hath taught, Hebr. 1.1 and in the last days hath urged and improved by his Son Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace and Righteousness. So that Justice doth raise itself upon these two pillars, Nature and Religion, which are like the two pillars in the porch of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz, 1 Kings 7.21. and do strengthen and establish Justice, as that doth the pillars of the earth, Cant. 5 15. or as the Legs of the Bridegroom in the Canticles which were as pillars of marble set upon sockets of pure gold. For the wisdom and strength of Christ and Christianity consist in adorning and improving of Nature and settling a true and perfect Religion; and the sockets, the bases, are of pure gold. Basis aurea, timor plenus disciplinae, saith Ambrose; The golden Basis, which upholdeth all, is a well-disciplined Fear, by which we walk with circumspection, and carefully observe the Law of Nature and the Law of Christ, and by the Law of Nature and the brighter and clearer light of Scripture so steer our course that we dash not against those dangerous rocks of Deceit and Violence, of Oppression and Wrong, that we may not spem nostram alienis miseriis inaugurare, increase ourselves by diminishing others, not rise by another man's ruin, not be enriched by another man's loss, not begin and inaugurate and crown our hopes and desires with other men's miseries, nor bathe ourselves with delight in the tears of the widow and the fatherless; but rather suffer wrong then do it, rather lose our coat then take away our brothers, vitâmque impendere vero, rather lose that we have, yea life itself, than our Honesty, and so by being Men and by being Christians fulfil all Righteousness. And first, Nature itself hath hewn and squared all Mankind as it were out of the same quarry and rock, hath built them up out of the same Materials, into a Body and Society, into a City compact within itself. For the whole World is but as one City, and all the Men therein, in respect of mutual offices of love, are but of one Corporation. Isa. 51.1. Look unto the rock out of which you were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence you were digged; Look unto the common seed plot out of which you were all extracted, and there you shall discover that near relation and fraternity that maketh every man a Neighbour, a Brother, to every man; how they are not only together children of Corruption, and kin to the Worm and Rottenness. but the workmanship of the same immortal Hand and illimitted Power, Sons of one Father, Gen. 1 26. who hath built them up in his image and according to his likeness, which though it may be more resplendent and more improved in one then in another, yet is that impression which is made and stamped on all. From the same Rock are hewed out the weak and feeble man, and Is the man of strength, Job 21.24. who hath milk in his breasts and marrow in his bones. From the same Hand is that face we turn away from, and that face we so much gaze on; the Scribe, and the active Idiot; the narrow understanding that receiveth little, and the active and piercing wit, which runneth to and fro the earth; the plain simple man, that hath no ends, and the subtle Politician, who multiplieth his every day, and can compass them all. Of the same extraction are the purple Gallant and the russet pilgrim. And he that made all casteth an equal eye on all, bindeth every hand from violence, and every heart from forging deceit, maketh every man a guard and protection to every man, giveth every man a guard and conduct for himself and others: And to every man the word is given, Psal. 105.15. Touch not another, and, Do him no harm. Thus hath God fenced us in, and taken care that the strong man bind not the weak, that the Scribe overreach not the idiot, that the Politician supplant not the innocent, that the experienced man defraud not the ignorant, but that every man's strength and wit and experience and wisdom should be advantageous, and not hurtful, to others; that so the weak man may be strong with another man's strength, and the ignorant man wise with another's experience, and the idiot be secured by the wisdom of the Scribe. For who hath made all these? have not I the Lord? And then if he made them, and linked them together in one common tye of nature, 1 Cor. 4.7. quis discernet? as the Apostle speaketh, who shall divide and separate them? who shall divide the rich from the poor, that he should set him at his footstool and despise him? the strong from the weak, that he should beat him to the ground? the wise from the ignorant, that he should baffle and deceive him? Indeed some distance, some difference, some precedency of one before the other may show itself to an eye of flesh; but yet even an eye of flesh may see how to reunite and gather them together as one and the same in their original: RESPICITE ZUR, Look unto the rock, the vein, out of which you were taken; and than what Moses spoke to the Israelites when they strove together may be spoken to all the men in the world, Acts 7.26. Sirs, you are brethren; why do you defraud, or use violence? why do you wrong one to another? But in the next place, besides this our common Extraction, the God of Nature, who hath built us all out of the same materials, hath also imprinted those Principles, those Notions, those Inclinations in the heart of every man, which may be as so many buttresses and supporters to uphold this frame, and to make us dwell together in all simplicity and innocency of conversation; not in envy and malice, in fraud and deceit, but with courtesy and affability, helping and supporting one another, which is that Justice which God requireth at our hands. Nulla anima sine crimine, quia nulla sine boni semine, saith Tertullian; No soul can plead Not guilty here, because no soul is destitute of this seed of Goodness. And thus we see in Rom. 1. where S. Paul maketh up that catalogue of foul irregularities, Rom. 1.29, etc. he draggeth the unrighteous, the covetous, the malicious, the deceitful, the inventors of evil things, the covenant-breakers, to no other tribunal then that of Nature, and condemneth them by no other Law then that which we brought with us into the world. Quaedam jura non scripta, Senec. contr. Solonis leges ligneis axibus incisae, Gell. l. 2. c. 12. sed omnibus scriptis certiora, saith the Orator. This Law is not written, and therefore is written to all; and being connatural to us, is more sure and infallible than those which are written in wood, or engraven in brass or marble. And one would think that it were as superfluous and needless to make any other Law to bind us to Justice and upright dealing one towards another, as to command children to love their parents, or parents to be indulgent to their children. For why should that be urged with that vehemency to which men's natural bend and inclination carrieth them, and would certainly continue them, and hold them up in even course of Justice and Honesty, did not education, and their familiar converse and dalliance with the world, corrupt and blind them? To this Law of Nature S. James seemeth to call us back chap. 3. where he maketh it as a strange thing to be wondered at, James 3.9, etc. that the same tongue that blesseth God, should yet curse men, who are made after the similitude of God. As if he should have said, Curse him not, Deceive him not; for if thou curse him, if thou deceive him, thou cursest and deceivest God, after whose similitude he is made. My brethren, these things ought not so to be: They are as much against Nature, as for the same fountain to send forth sweet and bitter water, or for a figtree to bear olives, or a vine figs. S. Paul shutteth up the Liars mouth with the same argument, Ephes. 4 25. Wherefore cast off lying, and speak truth every one to his neighbour: The reason followeth, For we are members one of another. Thou art a part of him, and he is a part of thee, being both hewn out of the same rock, form and shaped of the same mould: therefore by lying to thy brother thou puttest a cheat upon thyself, and, as far as in thee lieth, upon that God that made you both, and gave you Tongues, not to lie but to instruct, and Wits, not to deceive but counsel and help one another. And therefore he deterreth men from fraud and violence by no other argument than this, That God is the avenger of such things, 1 Thess. 4.6. as if the Lie had been told unto and the Cheat put upon him. When Man's Justice to man faileth, there God's vengeance is ready to make a supply. For, saith Clemens, Vidisti fratrem tuum? vidisti Deum tuum; Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. When thou lookest upon thy brother, thou seest God himself, as near as Mortality can discover him. He is the fairest copy thou canst see him by, fairer than the Heaven of heavens, and those ministers of light; fairer than the fairest Star, than the Sun in the Firmament, when he rejoiceth to run his race. 1 John 4.20. Hence S. John concludeth positively and peremptorily, If a man say he loveth God, and hateth his brother (and he that deceiveth him, he that oppresseth him, hateth him, or else despiseth him, which is worse) he is a liar. And his reason is irrefragable, For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen (in whom he seethe himself, in whom he seethe his God, and so hath Love conveyed into his heart by his very eye, many visible motives to win him to this duty) how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 1 Tim. 6.16. whom no man hath seen, or can see, but, as the Apostle speaketh, 1 Cor. 13.12. through a glass darkly, in his Words, and in his Works, of which Man is the brightest mirror, and giveth the fairest and clearest representation of him. So that now we may see all Mankind tied and united together in this love-knot of Nature, knit together as Men, that they should not fly asunder and then return again one upon another, not as Men, but as Snakes and Vipers; look back, but with an evil eye; approach near, but in a cloud or tempest; not look, but envy; not speak, but lie; not touch, but strike; not converse with, but defraud and oppress one another; Which is against that Law with which we were born, and which we carry about with us whithersoever we go and whatsoever we do. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, How gracious and helpful a creature is one man to another, if he continue so, a Man, and receive no new impression from the Flesh, from Self-love, and those transitory Vanities below? if he be not biased and wheeled from this natural motion by the World, and so fit to be driven into the field with Nabuchadnezzar, being turned Fox, or Lion, or Tiger, or Panther, or worse than any of those Beasts, because he is a Man? For so many forms he may receive, having once degenerated from his own. And then it is not, Look upon men, as of the same mould and frame, as brethren by nature, as auxiliaries and supplies, as keepers and guardians; but CAVETE AB HOMINIBUS, Beware of men; Matth. 10.7. A warning and caution given by our Saviour himself; and a strange caution it is from him who so loved men that he died for them. Beware of men, beware of them thus transformed, thus brutifyed. That smiling friend may be a tempter: He that calleth himself a Saint may be a seducer. His oily tongue may wound thee, his embrace crush thee to pieces, that demure countenance shadow a legion of Devils. Look not upon his phylacteries, the Man is a Pharisee; and this Angel-keeper may be thy murderer. And thus it is when the course of nature is turned backward, and Man degenerateth from himself, and maketh his Reason, which should be an instrument and promoter of Justice, a servant to Sin and a weapon of Unrighteousness. This the Love of the world and the Wisdom of the flesh can do. Victrix etiam de Natura triumphant; When it prevaileth, it moveth and troubleth the wheel, as S. James calleth it, the whole course, of our Nativity, and triumpheth over Nature itself. Now to draw this yet nearer to our purpose; Speak what we will of Profit and Commodity, the Heathen Orator by the very light of Nature hath told us, That they who divide Profit from Justice and Honesty, and call that profit and advantage which is unlawfully gotten or detained, with the same hand lift at the very foundation of Nature, and strive to put out that light which they cannot utterly extinguish. Ista duo facimus ex uno, saith Seneca; Though we make Profit and Honesty two things, yet they are but one and the same. And therefore to rise upon another man's ruins, Subvertunt homines & ea quae sunt sundamenta Naturae, cùm utilitatem ab honestate sejungunt, Tull. De Off. l. 3. to enrich ourselves by fraud and deceit, is as much against Nature, saith Tully, as Poverty, which pincheth it, or Grief, which afflicteth it, or Death, which dissolveth it: For Poverty may strip the body, Grief may trouble it, and Death may strike it to the ground: but yet they leave a soul, and Injustice is its destruction, and leaveth a dead soul in a living body. For, as we have already shown, Man is naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sociable creature; but Violence and Deceit quite destroy all society. And Tully giveth the same reason in his Offices which S. Paul doth against Schism in his Epistles, 1 Cor. 12.26. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and therefore the intent and purpose of all must be, saith the Orator, ut eadem sit utilitas uniuscujusque & singulorum, that the benefit of one and every man may be the same: So that what Deceit hath purloined or stolen away, or Violence snatched from others, is not Profit, because it is not honest. Res furtiva, quousque redierit in domini potestatem, perpetuò vitiosa est. And the Civilians will tell us that that which is unjustly detained is not valuable, is of no worth, till it return to the hands of the lawful proprietary. Again, in the second place. Justice and Honesty are more agreeable to the nature of Men than Profit or Pleasure. For these Reason itself hath taught us to contemn: He most enjoyeth himself who desireth not pleasure: he is the richest man who can be poor; and we are never more Men than when we least regard these things. But if we forfeit our Integrity, and pervert the course of Justice, we have left ourselves nothing but the name of Men. Simo, quod absit, spes felicitatis nulla, saith S. Augustine, If we had no eye to eternity, nor hope of future happiness; si omnes Deos hominé que celare possimus, Tull. Off. 3. saith Tully, if we could make darkness a pavilion round about us, and lie skreened and hid from the eyes of God and Man, yet a necessity would lie upon us to be what we are made, to observe the lessons and dictates of Nature, saith one: Nihil injustè faciendum, saith the other, Nothing must be done unjustly, though God had no eye to see it, nor hand to punish it. This doctrine is current both at Athens and Jerusalem, both in the Philosopher's School and in the Church of God. To give you yet another reason, but yet of near alliance to the first, Whatsoever we do or resolve upon must habere suas causas, as Arnobius speaketh, must be commended by that cause which produceth it. Now what cause can move us to desire that which is not ours? What cause can the Oppressor show that he grindeth the face of the poor? the Thief, that he divideth the spoil? the deceitful Tradesman, that he hath false weights, pondus & pondus, a weight and a weight, a weight to buy with, and a weight to sell with? If you ask them, What cause? they will either lie and deny it, or put their hand upon their mouth, and be ashamed to answer. Here their wit will fail them, which was so quick and active to bring that about for which they had no reason. It may be the cause was an unnecessary Fear of poverty; as if that were a greater sin than Cozenage. It may be, the Love of their children; & saepe ad avaritiam cor parentis illicit Foecunditas prolis, saith Gregory, In 1 Job. c. 4. Many children are as many temptations: And we are soon overcome and yield, willing to be evil that they may be rich, and calling it the Duty of a Parent, when we feed and clothe them with our sin. Or indeed it is the Love of the world, and a Desire to hold up our heads with the best. These are no causes, but defects and sins, the blemishes and deformities of a soul transformed after the image of this world: These are but sophisms and delusions, and of no causality. For it is better I were poor then fraudulent, better my children should be naked than my soul, better want then be unjust, better be in the lowest place then swim in blood to the highest, better be driven out of the world then shut out of heaven. It is no sin to be poor, no sin to be in dishonour, no sin to be on a dunghill or in a prison, no sin to be a slave: But it is a sin, and a great sin, to rise out of my place, or either flatter or shoulder my neighbour out of his, and take his room. It is no sin to be miserable in the highest degree, but it is a sin to be unjust or dishonest in the least. Iniquity and Injustice have nothing of reason to countenance them, and therefore must run and shelter themselves in that thicket of excuses, must pretend Want and Poverty and Necessity; and so the object of my concupiscence must authorise my concupiscence, the wedge of gold must warrant my theft, and to gain something be my strongest argument to gain it unjustly. De Offic. 3. And therefore Tully saith well, If any man will bring in and urge these for causes, argue not against him, nor vouchsafe him so much as a reply: Omnino enim hominem ex homine tollit; For he hath most unnaturally divided Man from himself, and left nothing but the beast. Nature itself, our first Schoolmistress, loatheth and detesteth this, nor will it suffer us by any means to add to our own by any defalcation from that which is another's. And such is the equity of this position, that the Civil Law always appealeth unto it; Videtur dolum malum facere qui ex alienâ jacturâ lucrum quaerit, He is guilty of cozenage and fraud who seeketh advantage by another man's loss: Where by Dolus malus is understood whatsoever is repugnant to the Law of Nature or Equity. For with the beams of this Law, as with the beams of the Sun, were all humane Laws written, which whip Idleness, which pin the papers of Ignominy (the best hatchments of a Knave) in the hat of the Common barretter, which break the teeth of the Oppressor, and turn the bread of the Deceitful into gall. Upon this basis, this principle of Nature, Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, Matth. 7.12. even so do unto them, hang all the Law and the Prophets. For the rule of behaviour which our Saviour set up is taken out of the treasury of Nature: For this is the Law and the Prophets; that is, Upon this Law of Nature depend the Law and the Prophets; or, By the due and strict observing of this the Law is fulfilled, as S. Paul speaketh; or, This is the sum of all which the Law and the Prophets have taught, to wit, concerning Justice and Honesty, and those mutual offices and duties of men to men. A rule so equitable, so visible even to the eye of a natural man, that Severus a heathen Emperor made it his motto, and some have engraven it in their rings, VISNE HOC FIERI IN AGRO TVO QVOD ALTERI FACIS? Wilt thou do that in another man's field which thou wouldst not have done in thy own? Would any Impostor be caught by craft? Would any Spoiler be spoiled? Would any Cheat be cozened? Would any Oppressor have his face ground? Would any Calumniatour be slandered? And why should any man claim the privilege of his Humanity, if he be not willing to grant it to all? Why should this secure me from injuries, and leave my brother as a mark for Deceit to go about, and Malice and Covetousness and Power to shoot at? Why should not this Law of Nature be an amulet to secure all mankind from the venom of Fraud and Injustice? This Law of Nature brought forth a Regulus, a Cato, a Fabricius, and many other Worthies, who shown to posterity the possibility of keeping this Law so far as to be Just, and do as yet teach and upbraid us Christians. By this Law, and by no other than this, were the Aediles or Clarks of the market in Rome directed to lay it down as a Law, That whosoever sold any commodity was to disclose to the buyer what fault, what defect, what imperfection it had. If he sold an house in which the plague had been, he was to proclaim it by the common crier, Pestilentem domum vendo, I sell an infectious house. If he sold a horse, he was to make known the diseases; if a piece of cloth, the falsehood of it. For if he did not this, there lay an action against him, actio redhibitoria, by which he was constrained to take back his wares again, or make good the damage to the buyer: Solebant Aediles malas merces in flumen jactare, Plin. Nat. Hist. p. 638. By this they fling all false and deceitful wares into the river. This hath been done in Gath and Ashkelon; what a strange sight would it be in Jerusalem? This hath been done amongst Heathens, aliens from the grace of God; and is it not pity it should appear as ridiculous amongst us Christians, who make our boast of God's grace all the day along? Should we put it in practice, what objects of scorn and laughter should we be made to the men of this world, who would call us fools, or set us down for none of the wisest, or (which is the easiest censure) place us in the number of those who may be wise perhaps, but will not be wise for themselves? Hier. ad Eustoch. Amittit meritò proprium qui alienum appetit. Vide Auson. Epiced. in patrem, & vet. Interp. in Sat. Juvenal. Deut. 27.17. Qui terminum exarasset, ipse & boves sacri, Fest. in verbo Terminus. But S. Hierome goeth further, and addeth, Aliena appetentes publicae leges puniunt, The public Laws did punish even those who did but seek after or desire another man's possessions; perhaps alluding to that custom of the Ancients, who straight forbade that any man should add to or diminish that which he possessed. Lastly, this was it that made them sacrifice Deo Termino, to the God of bounds. And as God laid a curse upon him that removed the landmark, so did Numa by the light of Nature, even upon him who, though by chance, had ploughed it up. Such is the tye of Nature, so great an obligation doth it carry with it. For whatsoever is done against Nature all men, saith Tertullian, esteem as monstrous, but Christians sacrilegious against God, who is the Lord and Author of Nature. And further we press not this consideration. For, in the second place, Justice and Honesty have yet a fairer pillar, more polished and beautiful, more radiant and manifest to the eye. Besides the Law of Nature, or Humane Laws, which are but the extracts and resultations from it, we have a Law written, the Law of God, who is the God of truth, Deut. 32.4. Hab. 1.13. and of pure eyes, that cannot behold deceit and violence, and the Law of that great Lawgiver, the Prince of Righteousness, in whose mouth there was found no guile. 1 Pet. 1.22. And this maketh our obligation to do justly the stronger. De relig. c. 6. Lex prohibens omnia delicta congeminat, saith Augustine, The superaddition of a Law to the Law written in our hearts aggravateth and multiplieth a sin; because after the open promulgation of a Law we do not only that which is unlawful in itself, but also that which is by supreme authority forbidden. Now when we speak of a Law, we do not mean the Law of Moses (although that commandeth to make our Hin right and our Ephah right, Levit. 19.36. Leges 12 Tabul. Nè Agrum defraudanto; Nè frugem aratro quaesitam noctu furt●m depascunto. Puberes si secanto, Cereri eos suspendunto. Impuberes arb●trio Praetoris verberanto; Ac noxae tal onem decernunto. Plin. Nat Hist l. 28. c 3. That that should be restored which was either violently or deceitfully taken away, Levit. 6.4. That that which goeth astray, or is lost, should be restored, Deut. 22.1, 2, 3. That the hired servant be not oppressed, Deut. 24.14, 15. That he that killeth a beast shall restore it, Levit. 24.21. That he that smiteth a man so that he keepeth his bed, shall pay for the loss of his time, and cause him to be throughly healed, Exod. 21.18, 19 That if a man feed his beast in another man's field, he shall make restitution out of his own field, Exod. 22.5. That in buying and selling they should not oppress one another, Levit. 25.14.) but legem Evangelicam, the Law which was preached and promulged by Righteousness itself, the best Master Christ Jesus. And by this Christians are obliged above all the men in the world, because they are Disciples of a better Testament. For Christ came not to destroy the Law of Nature, but to establish and improve it. And though Christ's Law propose some duties to which peradventure by clear evidence we are not obliged by the Law of Nature, yet they who have most improved and perfected their Reason, even by the light of Reason will subscribe to them that they are just and good, and, as they concern our conversation with men, most fit to be done, and most worthy of observation. Innocentiam perfectè nôrant Christiani perfecto Magistro revelatam, Apolog. saith Tertullian; That Innocency of life, which beateth down all violence, checketh and confuteth all Sophistry and deceit in dealing, is most exactly learned by Christians from the best and perfectest Master that ever was; Who, that we may not kill, hath taught us not to be angry; that we may shut out uncleanness, hath shut up our eyes; that we may not do evil, hath prohibited us to speak or think it; and is so far from permitting his disciples to do any injury, that he hath expressly and straight commanded them with patience to bear any that is offered. Quis illic sicarius? quis manticularius? quis sacrilegus? What Christian, saith he, is a murderer, or a thief, or a sacrilegious person? Or will he steal thy coat, who by his profession is bound to give thee his, and his cloak also? It was a common saying amongst them, Bonus vir Caius Seius, Caius Seius was a just good man certainly, and there was but one fault in him, and that was, that he was a Christian. When the Soldiers asked John the Baptist, What shall we do? Luk. 3.13, 14. he returned an answer which did not disarm them, but bound their hands from violence and wrong; Do no violence; accuse no man falsely, and be content with your wages. The Publicans were odious even to a proverb, yet he vouchsafeth them an answer, Exact no more than is appointed you. Will you hear our Saviour from the mount? You cannot but observe that most of those precepts delivered there tend to Honesty and Sincerity of conversation with men: Blessed are the merciful; Blessed are the peacemakers; 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 practic 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 Precious stones. Fraud and Violence and Injustice cannot lie 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 Oppressor, 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 ways and righteous in all his deal; 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 Christ's blood should produce nothing but a speculative, and a fancied and an usurped faith, a faith which should keep those evils in life which he died 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 neighbour, that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. It is strange then that there should be so many Oppressors 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, crucify 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 always 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 itself, and maketh us so; which doth not look divers ways at once, both towards Samaria and Jerusalem; doth not profess a benefit when it studieth ruin, cloth 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 emblem 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 ways; animal simplex, non felle ama●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 stratagems of the world, to be a non proficient in the Devil's Politics? 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 traitor 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, fastened 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 looked upon it; whether they have not relied more on those pillars of smoke and air, their private Fancy 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 stretched 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 show 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 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 Calendar 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 quàm animis creditis; Your Seal-rings are a better assurance than 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 public Law; and have entitled themselves the just possessors of that estate into which they have wrought themselves with hands of Oppression, Robbery and Deceit? It hath been an old reproach laid upon Commonwealths, 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 Christendom. Look into the Civil Law, Codice de Spect. Scen. & Lenonibus, of Theatrical Shows, Stageplays, and Bawds, and you shall find that even from hence, from these loathsome and nasty dunghills of corruption, Emperors and Commonwealths have sucked gain. Mathematicians, Jugglers, Fortune-tellers, Thiefs, 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 Deadmen, from very Urine; and this to the Emperor 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 only known in the tents of Kedar. But by degrees it stole in and found entertainment 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 Treasury, 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 bond 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 men's 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 ways of wickedness, having such a pillow to sleep on. For what need they be diligent to make their election sure whilst they live who are fully persuaded 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 Martin Luther, Papatus est robusta venatio Romani Episcopi, that Popery was nothing else but a close scenting 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 Keys 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 only envenome that politic Estate which is nothing else but a Disease, but did also spread some part of its poison and malignity amongst those who may seem to have been sent down from heaven to purge it out. We cannot but magnify the name of God for this blessed Reformation of the Church, and bless their memories which were the Instruments: But yet some there be who have thought it a just complaint, that at least some of those who did bear a name with the best did not so much seek God's honour as their own, and the improvement of their estate and enlargement of their territories more than the advancement of Piety, and so to recover the Church drew more blood from her than was necessary. Excessit medicina modum, nimiúmque secuta est, Quâ morbi duxere, manus. Lucan. l 2. I will hear pass no censure upon it; and yet one would think Jupiter's cloak would sit best on his own sh ulders. But we may have leave to look back and bewail it, and at least wish that the hand which was so active to cure had not made so deep an incision as to leave no blood, that there had been some other way found out to restore her to her health and soundness then that which at first made her poor, and at last nothing. But this is but our wish, and not our censure, and we may spend our affection there where we may not venture our judgement. Dan. 4.11, 12, 20, 21. The Tree which grew up and was strong, whose leaves were fair, and fruit much, whose height seemed to reach to heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth, whose boughs spread even to the envy of her who sitteth as a Queen amongst the nations, is now hewn down, Rev. 18.7. and scarce a stump of the roots left in the earth: So that we may wish for that which we can never hope: And yet we might have observed some of those who cried, Down with it, Psal 137.7. down with it to the ground, even those who first laid the axe to the root of the tree, sad and heavy and angry, Esth. 6. as Haman was when he waited on Mordecai now clad with that honour which his ambition had prophesied and decreed to himself, much troubled that they gathered so little fruit from the branches when the tree was fallen. But, to proceed, this contagion hath spread itself well-near over the face of all Christendom, where most men count that lawful purchase which they can lay hold on; much like Vibius in Tacitus, l. 4. Hist. pecuniâ & ingenio inter claros magìs quàm bonos, more famous for their worldly providence and wealth than their honesty. What should I speak of Thiefs that are dragged to the bar? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. l. 11. Noct. Attic. c. 18. The Greek proverb telleth us there be thiefs that keep holiday; and old Cato in Gellius, that those who steal from private men are fed with the bread of affliction, held in misery and irons; but fures publici in auro & purpura, your public thiefs glitter in purple and gold, and none dare say, Black is their eye (as the word is) for fear of losing their own. There have been Laws made against those who dig down walls by night, who sell adulterate and mixed corn, who suppress and hoard their corn to sell it dearer, whom Basil calleth the Hucksters and Factours of the common calamity, Laws against Impostors and Cheaters, and the authority of the Magistrate hath influence upon men of what calling or quality soever: Lex Metella exstat fullonibus dicta; adeo omnia ma●oribus curae fuere, Plin. N. Q. 35. 13. In the Commonwealth of Rome there was a Law to regulate Fuller's, and in ours a Parliamentary Statute that Cord-wainers should look to their sowing-threads, and that their wax should be well tempered. But what Law can restrain them who can deal with the Law as Alexander did with the Gordian knot, cut it asunder with their sword; I mean can defeat and baffle the Law by their power and wealth? or those who, as Tully spoke of a certain Orator, Brut. sive de claris Orat. are lubrici & incomprehensibles, so slippery that the Law cannot lay hold on them, so cunning that they can deceive the eyes of the Sun and Justice itself, and rob the poor even at noonday; who can make up the ruins of their estate, which the die or the Strumpet hath wasted, with the tears of the widow and fatherless, and then think with that Emperor. nunquam se prosperiori aleâ usos, that they never threw a more fortunate cast in their life? Yet such we have in the world, and they call themselves Christians. Thus have we shaken both the pillars of Justice, Nature and Grace, and put behind our backs the lessons of the one and the precepts of the other, that we may run with less regret and control to that forbidden tree which we delight to look on. Nature is swallowed up in victory by the Love of the world, buried and raked up in the Lust of the eyes, the Lust of the flesh, and the Pride of life: and then on this foundation of Innocency we build in blood, on this ground of Justice we set up Oppression. Nay, which is yet worse, Nature is swallowed up in victory by Grace itself; the Decalogue is lost in our Creed, and Honesty in Faith. For a strange conceit is now crept into the world, That how regardless soever we be of those seeds of Goodness, how forgetful soever of that which Nature dictateth to us, yet if we can hear of Honesty, talk of Honesty, and cast some of our gall and bitterness upon that Injustice which is to us as sweet as honey, we may be good Christians enough, and the only religious men in the world. And as the Ancients in time of superstition did appropriate Religion to that kind of life which did least express it, and men were then said ingredi Religionem, to enter into Religion, when they went into a Monastery and put on a Monk's coul, so there are a generation of men amongst us who talk of nothing more than Religion, as if it must needs live and die with them, and yet do only take her mantle and visor, and in it walk on the whole course of their life, here beating their fellow-servants, here defaming one and defrauding another, and defaming him that they may defraud him. They sharply inveigh against and lash the iniquities of the time, they are severe Justiciaries, and chastise all but themselves; as the wanton women in Ausonius did crucify Cupid on the wall, Ausonii Cupido Crucifixus. sibi ignoscunt, & plectunt Deum, they know well enough how to pardon themselves for fraud, for lying, for false weights and measures, for covetousness and malice, and the whole body of their Religion is made up in this, to fling disgrace upon the name of Dishonesty, and so punish it but in a picture. For conclusion then, To avoid these rocks at which so many have been cast away and lost, let us first look up upon the light of Nature, and walk honestly as in the day, Rom. 13.13. and not after those blind guides, the Love of ourselves and the Glory of the world, which will lead us on pleasantly for a while, and at last slip from us and leave us in the dark, there to lament and curse the folly of our ways. For Riches and Honour and Pleasure are not natural unto us, but adventitious and accidental; and that which is natural should be prevalent against all that is accidental, Accidentali praevalet naturale. c. 3. ff. de. Tutelis. say the Civilians. This Relation by Nature should be strong against all foreign circumstances whatsoever. And therefore it is but a busy folly and a studious kind of iniquity to come and frame distinctions which may wipe out this relation, and so leave us at lose with line enough to run out unto a liberty and privilege of encroaching on others by fraud or violence; As the Persians in Xenophon taught their children that they might lie or not lie with a distinction, lie loudly to their enemies, so they remember to speak truth to their friends; deceive a stranger, but not an acquaintance. And I fear we have too many such Persians in this our Island: And if they do not utter and dictate it, yet their hearts speak it, and their hands speak it, and their practice proclaimeth it to the whole world; He is a stranger, he is an enemy, of another Religion, of another Faction, I may make what advantage I can upon him, undermine and blow him up. And thus the Man, the Image of God, the Brother is quite lost. And what is the issue of this diabolical coinage? Even the same which Xenophon observed to be of the Persian education; Their children, saith he, soon forgot the distinction, and grew up at last to be so bold as to lie to their best friends. And so it is with them who find it an easier thing to call themselves Religious then to make themselves honest, who first begin with provisoes and distinctions to practice injustice, and with much gravity and demureness to deceive their brethren, and to be dishonest by a rule; At last they fall down to an universal and promiscuous iniquity: Friends, Brothers, they of the same family, they of the same sect and faction, all are the same with them. When they look for advantage, no respect of person, when they look for Balaams' wages, every man than is a stranger, an enemy, or as strangely used as if he were. And this is to put out the light of Nature, and so to go a whoring after our own inventions, which once kindled by the Love of this world are those false lights which lead us into that darkness which S. John speaketh of; He that thus handleth his brother, 1 John 2.11. walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness hath blinded his eyes, that he cannot see a Man in a Man, nor a Brother in a Brother, a Man in the same shape, and built up of the same materials, a Man of the same passions with himself. And therefore by this light of Nature let us check and condemn ourselves when any gall of bitterness riseth in our hearts, and allay or rather root it out with this consideration, That it is most in humane and unnatural, that we ought not to nourish it in our breast, and so fall from the honour of our creation, and leave off to be men. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Isa. 14.12. and cut down to the ground? And how art thou fallen, O man, whosoever thou art that dost unjustly, that takest from another that which is his either by violence or deceit? How art thou fallen from heaven? For on earth there is no other heaven but that which Justice and Charity make. How art thou fallen to hell itself, nay to be an hell, a place for these foul spirits, Malice and Fraud, to reign and riot in, and to torment others and thyself? How art thou fallen from conversing with Angels to wallow in blood, from the glory of thy Creation to burning fire and blackness and darkness and tempest? O what a shame is it, that a man thus created, thus elemented and composed, should delight in fraud and violence and oppression? should feed on that bread, not which his Father, who made him, did put into his hands, but which Craft did purloin or Violence snatch from the hands of others who were not so wise or so strong as himself? that this Creature of Love, made by Love, and made to be sociable, should be as hot as a fiery furnace, sending forth nothing but sulphur and stench? that this honourable Creature should be a beast, nay a Devil, to ensnare, to accuse, to deceive and destroy his brethren? This is a sad aggravation. But if the light of Nature be too dim, and cannot lead us out of the World and those winding and crooked paths which the Love of it maketh in it every day, let us, in the last place, look up upon that clearer light, that light which did spring from on high and hath visited us. Why should not our friends be more powerful with us than our enemies? Why should not Grace be stronger than a Temptation? Why should not the rich and glorious promises of the Gospel be more eloquent and persuasive than the solicitations of the Flesh, which is every moment drawing nearer to the dust? or of the World, which changeth every day, and shall at last be burnt with fire? Why should they not have the power to purge and cleanse us from all unrighteousness? Why should we choose rather to be raised and enriched here for a span of time by Craft and Power then to be crowned by Justice and Integrity for ever? For this is the end for which this great light hath shined, John 1.9. to lighten every man that is in the world, that they may walk in the paths of righteousness. It is a light that leadeth unto bliss; but it will not go before an Oppressor, a Thief, an Impostor, a Tyrant, to lead them to it, because they delight not in it, Matth. 6.23. and do but talk of it. The light that is in them is darker than darkness itself. Their Judgement is corrupt; their Will is averse, and looketh another way from the region of light. Hebr. 11.6. Without faith it is impossible to please God; It is true: But without Justice and Honesty Faith is but a name. For can we imagine that Religion should turn Thief, and Devotion a Cutpurse? Rom. 13 13. To conclude then; That you may do justly, and walk honestly as in the day, consider Injustice, Oppression and Deceit in their true shape and proportion, and not daubed over with untempered mortar, not disguised with the pleasures and riches of the world; not veiled and dressed up with pretences and names which make them lovely and make them worse. Consider well, and weigh the danger of them, and from what they proceed. First, if we would find out the fountain from whence they flow, we shall find it is nothing else but a strange Distrust in God and a violent Love of the World, a Distrust in that God who is so far from leaving Man destitute of that which is convenient for him, Psal. 147.9. that he feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him. For if the windows of heaven do not open at our call, if riches increase not to fill our vast desires, we murmur and repine, and even chide the Providence of God, and by foul and indirect means pursue that which would not fall into our mouths. As Saul, in the book of Kings, 1 Sam. 28.6, 7. Acheronta movemus, when God will not answer, we ask counsel of the Devil. Secondly, we may think perhaps that they are the effects of Power and Wisdom, the works of men who bear a brain with the best, the glorious victories of our Wit and trophies of our Power; but indeed they are the infallible arguments of Weakness and Impotency, and as the Devils marks upon us. Non est vera magnitudo posse nocere; It is not true Power or true Greatness to be able to injure our brethren; It is not true Wisdom to be cunning artists in evil, and to do that in the dark which may be done with more certainty and honour in the light, and to raise up that with a lie which will rise higher and stand longer with the truth. That Power more emulateth the Power of God by which we can do good, that cometh nearer by which we will. Nor can we attribute Wisdom to the fraudulent, but that which we may give to a Juggler or a Pickpurse, or indeed to the Devil himself. And commonly these scarabees are bred in the dung of Laziness and Luxury, and their crafty insinuating and subtle sliding into other men's estate had its rise and beginning from an indisposition and inability to manage their own. He that can bring no Demonstration must play the Sophister: And if the body will not do, than he that will be rich, saith Nevisanus the Lawyer, must venture his soul. Lastly, weigh the danger. Though the bread of deceit have a pleasant taste, and goeth down glibly, yet passing to thee through so foul a channel as Fraud or Oppression, it will fill thee with the gall of Asps. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them, Prov. 21.7. saith Solomon, shall fall upon them like a talon of lead, Zech. 5.7, 8. fall upon the mouth of their Ephah, and lie heavy upon it. Serrabit eos; so it is rendered by others, shall tear their Conscience as with a saw; exossabit; so others, shall consume them to the very bones, and break them as upon a wheel; or, as others; rapina eorum diversabitur, that which is got unjustly shall not stay long with them. It may give them a salutation, a compliment, peregrinabitur, like a traveller on the way, it may lodge with them for a night, but dwell longer, as with a friend, it will not, but take the wing and fly away from these unjust usurpers; Psal. 26.6. never at rest but in those hands which are washed in innocency, and in that mouth which knoweth no guile, 1 Pet. 2.12. will dwell with none but those that do justly. To conclude; Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who doth that which is evil and unjust, to the oppressor and deceiver, Rom. 2.7, 9, 10. to the man that boasteth himself in his Power, and to the man that blesseth himself in his Craft, to the proud Hypocrite and the demure Politician; but to those that do justly, that are, as God is, just in all their ways, Psal. 145.17. and righteous in all their deal, that walk holily before God and justly with men, shall be glory and honour and peace and immortality and eternal life. Thus much of Justice and Honesty. The next is the Love of Mercy. The Fifth SERMON. PART V. MICAH VI 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, etc. WE have laid hold of one Branch of this Tree of life, and beheld what fruit it bare. We must now see what we can gather from the second, Mercy or Liberality, which groweth upon the same stock, is watered with the same dew from heaven, and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance and answerable to our heavenly calling. Whether you take it in actu elicito or in actu imperato, whether you take it in the habit or in the act, which is misericordia eliquata, that which runneth from it in the melting as it were, the Love of Mercy includeth both, both a sweet and heavenly disposition, a rich treasury of goodness full and ready to empty itself, and those several acts which are drawn out of it, or rather which it commandeth. And here though miracles be ceased, yet this by the blessing of the God of mercy retaineth a miraculous power, healeth the sick, bindeth up the wounded, raiseth the poor out of the dust, and in a manner the dead to life again, upholdeth the drooping and fainting spirit which is ready to fail, intercedeth and fighteth against the cruelty of persecutors, filleth up the breaches which they make, raiseth up that which they ruin, clotheth the naked whom they have stripped, buildeth up what they have pulled down, and is as a quickening power and a resurrection to those whom the hand of Wickedness and Injustice hath laid low and even buried in the dust. A Branch it is which shadoweth and refresheth all those who are diminished and brought low by oppression, Psal. 107.39. evil and sorrow. And these two, Justice and Mercy, are neighbouring Branches, so enwrapped and entwined one within the other that you cannot sever them. For where there is no Justice there can be no Mercy, and where there is no Mercy there Justice is but gall and wormwood. Therefore in the Scripture they go hand in hand. Unto the upright man there ariseth light in darkness: Psal. 112. he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. There is an eye of Justice, a single and upright eye, as well as an eye of Mercy: There is an eye that looketh right on; Prov. 4.25. Prov. 22.9. and there is a bountiful eye: and if you shut but one of them you are in darkness. He that hath an evil eye to strip his brother can never see to cloth them. He whose feet are swift to shed blood will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning: and if his bowels be shut up, his hand will be scon stretched out to beat his fellow servants. It becometh the Just to be thankful: Psal. 33.1. In their mouth praise is comely, it is a song, it is music. And it becometh the Just to be merciful and liberal: out of their heart mercy floweth kindly, streameth forth like the river out of Eden, Gen. 2 10, 11, 12. to water the dry places of the earth. There you shall find gold, and good gold●bdellium, and the onyx stone, all that is precious in the sight of God and man. But the heart of an Unjust man is as a rock, on which you may strike and strike again, but no water will flow out, but instead thereof gall and wormwood, blood and fire, and vapour of smoke. The tender mercies, Joel 2.30. Prov. 12.10. the bowels, of the wicked are cruel. Their kisses are wounds, their favours reproaches, their Indulgences anathemas; their bread is full of gravel, and their water tainted with blood. If their Craft or Power take all, and their seeming Mercy, their Hypocrisy, put back a part, that part is nothing, or but trouble and vexation of spirit. Thus do these two Branches grow and flourish and bring forth fruit, and thus do they whither and die together. And here we have a fair and full vintage. For indeed Mercy is as the Vine, which yieldeth wine to cheer the hearts of men; Judg. 9.13, 15. hath nothing of the Bramble, nothing of the fire, nothing that can devour. It yieldeth much fruit, but we cannot stand to gather all. I might spread before you the rich mantle of Mercy, and display each particular beauty and glory of it. But it will suffice to set it up as the object of our Love. For as Misery is the object of our Mercy, so is Mercy the object of our Love. And we may observe, it is not here to do mercifully, as before to do justly (and yet if we love not Justice, we cannot do it) but in express terms the Lord requireth that we love mercy, that is, that we put it on, wear it as a robe of glory, delight in it, make it, as God doth make it his, our chiefest attribute, to exalt and superexalt, James 2.13. and make it triumph over Justice itself. Justice and Honesty give every man his own; but Mercy openeth those treasuries which Justice might lock up, and taketh from us that which is legally ours, maketh others gatherers with us and partakers of our basket, and bringeth them under our own vine and figtree. Et haec est victoria, This is the victory and triumph of Mercy. Let us then draw the lines by which we are to pass. And we shall show you Mercy 1. in the Fruit it yieldeth, 2. in its Root; first, in its proper Act or Motion, casting bread upon the waters, Focl. 11.1. 1 Sam. 2 8. Psal. 113.7. and raising the poor out of the dust; secondly, in the Form which produceth this Act, or the Principle of this Motion, which is the Habit, the Affection, the Love of Mercy. For so we are commanded, not only to show forth our mercy, but to love it; What doth the Lord require, but to love mercy? etc. We begin with the first. The proper Act of Mercy is to flow and to spend itself, and yet not be spent, to relieve our brethren in misery and in all the degrees that lead to it, necessities, impotencies, distresses, dangers, defects. This is it which the Lord requireth. And howsoever Flesh and Blood may be ready to persuade us that we are left at large to our own wills, and may do what we will with our own, yet if we consult with the Oracle of God, we shall find that these reciprocal offices of Mercy which pass between man and man are a debt, that we are bound as much to do good to others as not to injure them; to supply their wants, as not rob them; to reach forth a hand to help them, as not to smite them with the fist of wickedness. Isa. 58.4. Luke 16.7. And though my hundred measures of wheat be my own, and I may demand them, yet there is a voice from Heaven and from the Mercy-seat which biddeth me take the bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Do we shut up our bowels and our hands together. Behold, habemus legem, we have a Law, and the first and greatest Law, the Law of Charity, to open them. It is true, what we gain by the sweat of our brows, what Honesty and Industry or the Law hath sealed unto us, is ours ex ass, wholly and entirely ours, nor can any hand but that of Violence divide it from us: but yet habemus legem, we have a Law, another Law, which doth not take from us the propriety of our goods, but yet bindeth us to dispense and distribute them. In the same Court-roll of Heaven we are made both Proprietaries and Stewards. The Law of God as well as of Man is Evidence for us that our possessions are ours; but it is Evidence against us, if we use them not to that end for which God made them ours. They are ours to have and to hold; nor can any Law of man divorce them from us, or question us. For what Action can be drawn against want of Mercy? Who was ever yet impleaded for not giving an alms at his door? What bar can you bring the Miser to? Who ever was arraigned for doing no good? But yet in the Law of God and in the Gospel of Christ, which is a Law of Grace, Matth. 25.41, etc. we find an Action drawn de non vestiendis nudis, for not clothing the naked, not feeding the hungry, not visiting the sick. I, saith Nazianzene, could peradventure be willing that mercy and Bounty were not necessary, but arbitrary; not under a Law, but presented by way of counsel and advice; for the Flesh is weak, and would go to heaven with as little cost and trouble as may be: but then the mention of the Left hand and the right, of the Goats and the Sheep, of the torments they shall be thrown into, not who have invaded other men's goods, but who have not given their own, not who have beat down, but who have not supported these Temples of the Holy Ghost; this is that which striketh a terror through me, and maketh me think and resolve that I am as much bound to do acts of mercy as I am not to do an injury, as much bound to feed the poor man as I am not to oppress and murder him. To show Mercy to others is not an Evangelical Counsel, it is a Law. Therefore as Homer telleth us, that men did not call some things by their proper names, for the Gods had other names for them, Iliad. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Chalcidem homines, Cymindim Dii vocant, and he speaketh of a certain bird: so when we call that ours which our net hath taken in, our wit and industry hath brought it unto us, we speak after the manner of men, we speak the language of the world, the dialect of Mammon: but when we call them ours, and make them ours for the use and benefit of others, we do à Christo discere disciplinam, as Tertullian speaketh, we speak in the language of our Saviour, in that phrase and sense which God and the holy Saints do ever take them. Did I say it was the language of men? It is the language of the two daughters of the Horseleech, Prov. 30.14, 15. of Covetousness and Ambition, Give, Give; always taking in, never emptying themselves: It is the dialect of that generation whose teeth are swords, and their jawteeths as knives, to devour the poor of the earth: It is the voice of Luxury and Riot, which must be fed, as Devils are, Sanguis, Daemonis pabulum, Tertull. Apol. c. 22. Rev. 9.11. lib. Off. 1. with the blood of others; who, like that Behemoth, can drink up rivers of blood: It is the language of the Devil himself, who is no helper, but a Destroyer. The language of Nature is more mild and gentle; Misericordiâ nihil est naturae hominis accommodatius, saith Tully; There is nothing more suitable with the nature of Man than Mercy and a desire to do good to others. For when thou seest a man, thou beholdest thyself as in a glass: In him thou beholdest thyself, now cheerful, and anon drooping; now standing, and anon sinking; now in purple, and anon naked; now full, and anon hungry: Thou seest thyself in the weakness, in the mutability, in the mortality of thy condition; and his present necessities are not only a lesson and an argument which plainly demonstrate to thy very eye what thou or any other man may be, but withal a silent and powerful appeal to thy Mercy, a secret beseeching thee (I might say, a legal requiring thee) to do unto him as thou wouldst be done to in the like case, which thou art as liable to as he; to be of the same mind now which thou wilt be certainly of when with this Lazar thou liest at the gates of another. But if this light of Nature be not bright enough, Errat olim istae sententia, Ne more aliis nascitur, meriturus sibi. Tert de pall. c. 5. 1 Cor 12 26. yet by the light of Scripture, by the light of the Gospel, we may easily discern the truth of this parallel. For the Servant of God, the true Christian, is born again, not for himself alone, but for all those who are parts of the same building and members of the same body. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. And this maketh not only all the riches, but withal all the miseries, all the necessities, all the afflictions of our brethren, ours. And what a celestial Harmony doth Mercy make, which putteth those who are at liberty in bonds with the prisoners, which makeeth the rich lie down with the poor, the strong sympathize with the weak? What Harmony is that which riseth out of such discords, when the joyful heart weepeth with them that weep, Rom. 12.15, 16. and the sorrowful Spirit rejoiceth with them that rejoice, when all men are of the same mind one with another, the rich naked with the poor, and the poor abounding with the rich, the whole Church imprisoned in one man, and every man comforting his bondage with the peace and prosperity of the whole? This is an harmony indeed. But I fear I may say it is like the harmony of the Spheres, which was never heard; or at the least we have more reason than we would to believe that there is scarce any such Music in our days. But thus it should be; and this Music Mercy doth make. I know the ways of God are past finding out; Rom. 11.33. and the reasons of his judgement, saith Basil, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Jewels, fit to be hid and reserved in the treasuries of God alone, and are understood only by that Wisdom which sendeth them abroad: Yet if you ask why one is born a servant, and another free; why one grindeth at the mill, and another fitteth on the throne; why one lieth at the gates whilst another feasteth in his palace; I may with confidence give you this reason for one; This God doth to exercise the patience and humility of the one, and to stir up and awake the mercy of the other. The rich and poor meet together, Prov. 22.2. the Lord is the maker of them both, saith Solomon; not that his immediate hand made them rich and poor, poured down with his left hand riches into the bosom of the one, and withdrew it from the other, and so left him naked; For this is not manifest. God forbidden that we should have such a conceit of God, that he should fill the usurers bags, or enlarge the territories of the wicked. Nor can we say that every poor man was predestinated to beggary; nor make it good, that God hath thus discerned and distinguished them; for we know Luxury and Idleness clotheth many with rags, and Industry gathereth much, and Craft and Power more. But God is the maker of them both; They were both the work of his hands, and from his hands they were the same, though now the fashion of the world hath brought in a disparity between them. And God, saith the Father, did make both poor and rich, ut in pauperibus divitum misericordiam probaret, that he might make the want of the poor as a touchstone to try the mercy of the rich. For no doubt he could send the Ravens to feed them, he could send Angels to feed them, he could let down all manner of flesh in a sheet, as he did to Peter; his Providence is never at a stand, Acts 10. but can find out ways which we cannot think of: But Christ hath so ordered it, that though we cannot have him, John ●2. 8. yet the poor and miserable we shall always have with us, ut locupletem aliena inopia ditaret, that what all the world cannot, another's poverty may do, that is, every and bless us. Et tu neminem praetereas, nè is quem praeteris Christus sit, And let thy mercy, saith Augustine, pass by none, lest it pass by Christ himself. This he put into the Covenant which he made with us when he was on the earth, and sealed it with his blood; and now he looketh that we should make it good, and to that end presenteth and offereth himself unto us in these, and even boweth before us, to the end of the world. And certainly it is strange that we should thus stand out with him, and deny him that which is his by Covenant; that we should lock up all from him, who opened his heart, and let out his blood for us. But so it is: The vice we delight in maketh that virtue which is contrary to it a punishment; and when we love the world, to give an alms is as irksome and grievous to us as to pay a forfeiture; Liberality is a penalty, and therefore we use all means (but pay down nothing but excuses) to take it off; Mercy is no thriving virtue, but seemeth to come upon us as a thief and a robber, to strip and spoil us, and to make us like unto them whom she bindeth us to relieve; and therefore we shut her up in a narrow heart and an earthy mind. Cant. 4.12. And if there be any Mercy in us, it is as a fountain sealed up, which sendeth not forth a drop; or a garden enclosed, where no man can come to fill his hand. This hard opinion the world hath of Mercy, as of the most useless and the most unprofitable and disadvantageous thing in the world, as the nurse of Prodigality and the mother of Beggary, as that which letteth out our blood and life to feed and strengthen others. We will therefore in the next place, as Tertullia's phrase is, in hunc ictum confiderare, have an eye on this blow, and we shall avoid it with ease: For indeed it is rather a proffer then a blow. And it will soon appear that it is Mercy alone that maketh our wealth ours, that it is never more ours then when we part with it, that Alienation is our best Assurance, and continueth it to us for ever. For first, it is but an error to imagine that God openeth his hand, and filleth our basket, and giveth us the good things of the world for ourselves alone and for our own use; that he openeth the windows of heaven, and droppeth down his blessings into us, there to settle and putrify and corrupt. For this is, saith Basil, as if a man who made haste to the theatre should think all others excluded because he came first. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to appropriate to thyself those things which are common to all, to lock up that in thy chest which should fill the bellies of the poor. The goods of the Church in former ages were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the wealth of God and of the poor, Apol. c. 39 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the things of God. Tertullian calleth them deposita pietatis, the pledges of Mercy deposited in our hands. And if I should call the wealth of Christians so, I should not err; Bern. l. 4. de considerate. for all are bound to count them so, patrimonium crucifixi, the patrimony of their crucified Saviour, given them not only to feed and themselves, but to supply the necessity of others, who have a right which indeed they cannot challenge, have something in our granaries and wardrobes to which we only keep the key, with a charge from Heaven to open them when Nakedness and Misery come but so near as to knock at our eyes. For God who gave them is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great Auditor, who will take a strict account if we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, use them as our own, as the Ancients use to speak, or spend that in wantonness which should strengthen the weak knees and hands that hang down. We are ready to say, saith the Father, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Whom do I wrong in keeping of my own? And must I be cruel to myself, that I may be merciful to others? Must I put my knife to my throat, that a stranger may be fed? And we are easily persuaded that we are good Christians, if we be not Foxes to deceive, or Lions to devour them. The greatest part of our Piety is negative; and I would we did but make that good. Not to oppress, Not to defraud, Not to take away, with us is to be Merciful; as Thiefs, saith Salvian out of Tully, qui putant se vitam dare quibus non eripiunt, who will say they give him his life whom they do not kill. And yet if Mercy open not my bowels and my hand too, I may wrong my brother when I do him no harm, I may defraud and spoil him when I take nothing from him. I wrong no man, is a poor apology. Why, man, Ad voluntatem commodantis commodatarius uti debet accommodato, alioquin furtum facit in re commodata, Bern. de Inteteriori dom. c. 25. thou wrongest the King of Kings when thou sufferest his subjects to perish. And this Negative Mercy is no better than Theft. The bread which thou layest up is not thine, but the bread of the hungry; The garment which thou hast locked up in thy chest is the garment of the naked; The gold which thou hidest in the earth is the revenue of the poor and needy. As he said of his writings, Omne tuum, & nihil tuum, All is thine, and nothing is thine. For, in the second place, the best use we can put our riches to, the true use which God that gave them hath taught us, is so to use them that they may stead us in our greatest necessity; to open our hand, that it may be filled; to water, that we may be watered again, saith Solomon; Prov. 11.25. Luke 16.9. to make them our friends, saith a wiser than Solomon; to make that which is a parasite to deceive us, a snare to entrap us, an enemy to fight against us, a friend to help and secure us; so to use it that it may return multiplied into our hands. For what is properly gain? Is not this, for a mite to receive a talon? for one seed, one work of Mercy, to receive an hundred-fold? Negotiatio est, aliqua amittere, ut plura lucreris, Tertull. ad Mart. c. 2. saith the Father; It is a kind of traffic and merchandise, to lay out something, that you may gain more; to venture a knife or bugle, to bring back a diamond; to treasure up by spending, to increase our stock by diminishing it, and by losing all to purchase more. What was ever, saith Julian the Apostate, the poorer for what he gave? And of himself he telleth us, that whatsoever he laid out to supply the wants of others was returned back again by the Gods (as the Apostate had now learned to speak) into his hands with usury. For when his Liberality had well-near exhausted his own estate, his Grandmothers happily and opportunely fell into his hands. What that cursed Apostate falsely attributeth to his false Gods, that the God of Gods doth most exactly perform. He hath set up his Assurance-office to pay us back in our own coin, or, if not, in that which cannot be valued, being of an inestimable price. I make no doubt but God's Mercy is ready to shine upon ours; for he loveth it, and loveth to look on it. I doubt not but he rewardeth our Mercy with the blessings of this life. For a cup of cold water which the hand of Mercy filleth and poureth out he giveth many times riches and honour, though we perceive it not, but attribute them to something else, as to our Wisdom and Industry rather than to that Providence which always waiteth upon Mercy, blessing it in the work, and blessing it when the work is done. But what are these to that reward which is laid up for those who do seminare in benedictionibus, sow plentifully? What are Riches, that have wings, to Immortality? What is a Palace to Heaven? We visit the sick, and the Spirit of comfort visiteth us. We serve our brethren, and the Angels minister unto us. We cover the naked with our cloth, and God clotheth us with joy. We convert a sinner, and shine as stars. We part with a few shekels of silver, and the hand of Mercy worketh and turneth them into a crown. We sow temporal and transitory things, and the harvest is Eternity. Whilst we make them ours, they are weak and impotent; but when we part with them, they work miracles, and remove mountains, all that is between us and blessedness. Matth. 6.27. All the riches in the world will not add one cubit to our stature; but if we thus tread them under our feet, they will lift us up as high as heaven. Nulla sunt potiora quàm de misericordia compendia; The best gains are those we purchase with our loss, and the best way to find our bread is to cast it upon the waters. Eccl. 11.1. Will you see the practice of the primitive Christians; I do the rather mention it because methinketh I see the face of Christendom much changed and altered, and Christians, whose plea is Mercy, whose glory is Mercy, who but for Mercy were of all men most miserable, who have no other business in the world then to save and help themselves and others, using all means to dry up the fountain of Mercy, shaping to themselves virtutem duram & ferream, bringing forth Mercy in a coat of a mail and, like Goliath, with an helmet of brass, standing as Centinel, as a Guard about our wealth, with this loud prohibition to all that stand in need, Col. 2.21. Touch not, Taste not, Handle not. Let us therefore look back, and see what they were in former times, and we shall find them so unlike to those of succeeding generations, that they will rather be brought under censure than set up as a pattern for imitation. For we are as far removed from their Piety as we are from the times wherein they lived. They, I am sure, thought Mercy a virtue, and the chief virtue of the Gospel, a virtue in which they thought it impossible to exceed. They made it their daily bread to feed others. Melior est racematio, etc. Their gleaning-grapes were much better than our Vintage. Justine Martyr in his Apology for the Christians telleth us that that which they possessed they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Apolog. bring it into a common treasury. Tertullian calleth it arcam communem, a common chest. Nor was this Benevolence exacted as a tribute from those who desired to be joined with them in communion, as the Heathen did calumniate; but every man did sponte confer, saith Tertullian, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Justine Martyr, voluntarily, and what he would. And that which was gathered was committed to the hands or trust of the Bishop, and after, when he was taken up with other matters more proper for his calling, to the Deacons, which by them was laid out for the clothing of the naked, the maintenance of the poor, of orphans, and of old men; to redeem captives, to secure men who had been shipwrackt by sea, and those who were in prison for their profession and the Gospel of Christ. Plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatim quàm vestra superstitio templatim, saith Tertullian; Our Mercy layeth out more in the streets on the poor than your Superstition doth on your Gods in your Temples; our Religion hath a more open hand then your Idolatry. And to this end they had matriculas egenorum. certain Catalogues of the names of their poor brethren, personarum miserabilium, persons, as thy termed them, miserable. How many of them were there who, Eth. l. 10. as Aristotle speaketh, did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, greatly exceed in their liberality, and did seem to be more merciful than the Lord requireth? Orat. 10. Nazianzene telleth us of his Mother Nonna, that she was possessed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with an immoderate and unmeasurable desire of bestowing her goods, that she was willing not only to sell all that she had, but even her very children, for the use and relief of the poor. Gorgonia her daughter sucked this pious and melting disposition, though not from her breasts, yet from her good example; Who stripped herself of all, committed her body to the earth, and left no other legacy to her children but her great example and the imitation of her virtues, which she thought was enough to enrich them, though they had nothing else. S. Hierome telleth us of his Paula, that though she were eminent in many virtues, yet her Liberality did exceed, and like a swelling river could not be kept within the banks. Hoc habebat voti, ut mendica moreretur; She wished for that which most men do fear as much as Death itself, and her great ambition it was, that she might die a beggar. We might instance in more. And these examples have shined in the Church as stars of the fairest magnitude: But after-ages have thought them but comets, looked upon them, and feared them. And though they know not well how to condemn this exceeding piety, yet they soon persuade themselves, and conclude, that they are not bound to follow it, and so are bound up as in a frost, in the coldness and hardness of their hearts, because some did seem to overflow and pass their limit. These indeed are strange examples; but yet S. Basil delivereth a doctrine as strange; Orat. in famem & siccitat. for he would not give it as his counsel if it had not truth to commend and confirm it: If thou hast but one loaf left in thy house, saith he, yet if a poor man stand at thy doors, and ask for bread, bring it forth and give it him with thy hands lifted up to heaven, whilst thou dost that which God requireth, and for thy own supply reliest on the Providence of thy Father which is in heaven. Do it in his name, and in his name thou shalt be fed assuredly. Thou hast parted with thy one loaf here, but his Power to whom thou givest it can and will multiply it. For they that thus give are as wells, which are soon drawn dry, but fill the faster, and the more they are exhausted the fuller they are. I know not whether it may be safe to deliver such a doctrine in these days, and therefore we will not insist upon it; and these examples which I have held up to you may be transcendent, that we may not bind every man to reach them. These pious Women may seem perhaps to have stretched beyond the line and exceeded the bounds of moderation; but yet we cannot but think that this was truly to go out of the world whilst they were in it. And we may observe that this excess is incident to great and heroic spirits, who, as it is said of Homer and Sophocles, sometimes swelling above that proper and ruled sublimity of speech wherein they did excel, do generosè labi, err and fall more nobly and with-greater commendation then others who spin an even but course thread, and are so far from rising too high, that they are flat, and always lie upon the ground. I know that all our actions are to be squared by the rule, and that it may savour of great folly to be wiser than that Wisdom that taught us: But yet I cannot think that a God of Mercy, that loveth it in himself and in his creature, will look in anger upon those who through too much fervour and ambition of doing all do more than is required, but favour and reward them rather; when he will severely punish that negligence that bindeth our hands in our bosom that we do nothing. Meliùs ultrà quàm citrà stat misericordia; There is less danger in the works of Mercy to exceed then to fall short; I may say, less danger in Superstition then in Profaneness, less danger in giving all then in giving nothing. And I can see no reason there should be bounds set to our Mercy: For this is the way to shut it up quite; and then we can set the bounds where we please; our Non ultrà will be a penny, a mite, a cup of cold water, and at last nothing. I will not censure the Devotion of these Women, and I need not take any pains to frame an apology for them: He that shall be so bold as to pass sentence against them will betray in himself so much love of the world as will deserve a heavier doom. And although I may not press it as a duty on every man, yet thus much we may gain by it as to conclude, That if these Women attained to this so high perfection as to be willing to strip themselves of all and give it to the poor, it is not so hard a matter as we make it to part with our superfluities. It is as easy for Mercy to open our hands now as then. And if this excess of theirs were as a rock which we should avoid (as indeed it is not) yet what need they to fear it who are so unwilling to set out, or to follow them but so far as to the mean, and those Tropics which we ourselves set up and do acknowledge in our course? Epist. 49. & Fragment ep. edit. Petau. Julian the Apostate in one of his Epistles, observing how glorious and renowned the Christians were grown for this virtue, thought it a great piece of his art and cunning to lay this imputation and slur upon it, That their acts of Mercy were done rather out of policy than devotion, and were rather a cheat then charity; that by their liberality they did countenance and commend their Religion, which had nothing else to speak for it, and with this show of bounty, with the ceruse and paint of communicating to the necessities of others, did cover the horror (as he there impiously speaketh) of their profession, and thus did entice and draw others to their faction, as men do children with a cake, whom they mean afterwards to destroy. If the Apostate were now alive, he would not be put to the labour of his brain, nor forced to ask counsel of his wits to find out such a malicious lie. For our Mercy for the most part is in the heart. I mistake; I would it were there: for then upon occasion it would evaporate and show itself. No, it floateth on the tongue, and the countenance of it is wan and pale, without paint or dress. Our Alms are verba sine penu & pecunia, words without works. What need this ceremonious and expensive Mercy? It is enough if our Charity speak, and we show our love to Mercy even then when we have shut it up in the inward man, and do but think of it. But let us not deceive ourselves. This duty is written in lasting characters to all posterity: Poverty and Contempt of the world will be Beatitudes to the world's end. Mercy and Compassion are everlasting duties. To part with our coat to our brother is as necessary now as when Christ first taught it. Why should we paraphrase Mercy, and coin distinctions and draw out limitations as it were to copse her up and confine her, that she shall not move our tongue or hand but when our Lusts will give her leave? Luke 6.36. Be ye merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful. Why, that is impossible; and therefore, because we cannot reach so far, we will not stir a foot. — 35. Lend, looking for nothing again. That cannot bind us in the letter; and so, though we may be persuaded to lend, yet our Covetousness shall have line enough to reach the debtor, and take him by the throat, and make him lay down what he oweth with the advantage. Go, sell all thou hast. Luke 18.22. That was spoken to the young man, and so concerneth us not. It is true, To sell all, and give it to the poor, was a particular precept to the young man in the Gospel, and with this command Christ made a window into his breast, and discovered the rottenness of his heart: But yet this precept is not so particular to the young man but that it may and doth concern those who are fallen into the same snare of the Devil, and are ready to be strangled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with the same golden halter, and in this respect it may concern more than a many. For should our Saviour come with his fan in his hand, he would find too much of this chaff, discover too many who are ready to subscribe to the Decalogue, to those commands which they are too ready to break, but have no hand at all to fling one mite into the treasury; too many so like that young man in this that they may well receive this strict command, Go, sell all that you have, and give it to the poor. For the Love of the world is a foul humour, and no other pill can purge it out. Nor can this Augean Stable, the heart of a covetous man, be purged without a Hercules, otherwise then by a strong and violent evacuation. No better remedy against the Love of the world then thus exhaeredare se seculo, to abandon the world, and disinherit ourselves of all right and title to it, as the Philosopher telleth us. To make a crooked staff strait, the best way is to bow it violently the other way: And if this Physic will not purge and cure the Covetous, no power, no miracle, no mercy can save him. I am very willing so far to be as a John Baptist, a forerunner to Mercy, as to fill up every valley, and to bring every mountain and hill low, Luk. 3 5. to make smooth every rough passage, and so prepare a way, and make the paths of Mercy strait: And in doing this I prepare a way for Christ himself; for Christ and Mercy never go asunder. I would not see her circumscribed and drawn within that compass which the Flesh will make narrow enough with glosses, distinctions and limitations. If it be Mercy, it cannot be thus shut up, but will break through and shine every where in its full strength, scatter every mist, disperse every cloud, and be most seen in darkness. If it be a Man and miserable, she maketh haste to help him. She asketh no questions, maketh no pause nor deliberation, standeth not upon circumstances of time or place or measure, of what or where or when or how much. She doth not examine nor catechise the person, and then raise scruples; for a scrupulous Mercy is but a conniving cruelty; Vbicunque est homo, ibi beneficio locus est, Sen. l. 4. De benef. c. 24. it doth not hurt, but it doth not help. She seethe him cast down, and she employeth the understanding to find out ways and means, she openeth the ear to hearken to complaints, she maketh the tongue as the pen of a ready writer, and speaketh to his heart, and stretcheth forth the hand to lift him up. Her haste is her wisdom, her loss her improvement, her motion her light, her actuating is the next object, her life is misery, her method poseth the wisemen of this world, her art is simplicity, her soloecismes rules, her strange works the the laughter of fools and the music of Angels. In a word, she endeth not but in herself: For if it end where the object is seen, it is not Mercy. And thus she leadeth us on, and groweth up with us to that strength that we are able to die for the brethren; 1 Joh. 3.14. and then and not till then the merciful man and his mercy end together: And yet they do not end; for they shall be had in everlasting remembrance. Psal. 112.6, 30 And we shall not think so strange of this Operation and Magistery of Mercy, if, in the next place, Operari, est largiri eleemosynam, Tert. de Idolol. 23. Cypr. De opere & eleemos. Col. 3.12. Isa. 16.11. we consider what spring and what principle it is which beginneth and continueth its motion, and setteth it a working. S. Paul placeth it in the inward man, in the very Bowels of him: Put on therefore bowels of mercy, bowels which may sound as an harp to raise and refresh every drooping soul. For there is a melting as well as a flowing, which is nothing else but Compassion or Fellow-feeling. And as every natural act and motion hath its principle from whence it proceedeth, so have our spiritual duties their form as it were to give them life and motion: And when this is wanting, we fail and sink in our performance, are but idols, have eyes, but see not, have mouths, but speak not, have hands, Ps. 115.4, etc. but cannot reach them forth. Now Compassion is the spring and principle of Mercy, when it exerciseth its act, when it teacheth the ignorant, or feedeth the poor. This wrought the miracle of the Loaves: For Christ telleth his Disciples, Matth. 15.32. I have compassion on the multitude; and he multiplieth them. This forced tears from him, and drew them down his cheeks: Luk. 9 41. For when he came near, he beheld the City, and wept over it. In a word, this nailed him to the Cross. Nor can we take it ill or be troubled to hear of a compassionate and weeping Christ, unless we be troubled also that he was a Man. For never did the Hand reach forth relief, nor the Tongue speak comfort, till Compassion had melted the Heart. Never was there any true natural motion without a spring. Nor was there any reason it should be expunged and left out: For we read it again John 11.35. Jesus wept. It is no wisdom so to honour Christ as to take from his Humanity. This Wisdom cometh not è porticu Solomonis, from the porch of the Temple, but from the gallery and schools of the Stoics, who took away all Passion, and with it the very nature of Man. It was extreme folly with them to be compassionate. And as they took Passions away quite, so the Peripatetics left them, but with a curb, to be stopped and moderated. And here they both run divers ways, and both miss of the right. For as Lactantius well observeth, Lib. 6. de ver. cult. c. 14, 15, 16, 17. neither are the Affections quite to be extirpated and rooted out, as the Stoics hold, nor yet always to be checked and bounded, as the Peripatetics would have it, but to be leveled and directed on the right object. If you set your compass, and steer to the right point, you cannot fill your sails too much. If Jerusalem, Jerusalem now shaking, tottering and falling, be in your eyes, you cannot weep too much: If a multitude now ready to famish, you cannot be too compassionate. If your affections be set right, your Anger cannot be too loud; for no Indignation can be raised up equal to your Sin: your Love cannot be too intensive; for you cannot love. Virtue enough; the Love of a friend, the Love of a woman cometh short, and will never reach it: your Sorrow cannot be too excessive; for how can they be cast down too much who are fallen from God; He that goeth out of his way, though his pace be gentle, yet must needs walk with danger; every step is an error: but he that keepeth on in the right way cannot possibly make too much speed. No; Compassion is so far from being imputed as a defect, that it is that by which we come nearest to Christ himself. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is a Divine thing, 2 Cor. 1.3. saith Isidore, to be compassionate; an imitation of him who is a Father of Mercies, Lam. 3.22. and whose compassions never fail. And therefore, God forbidden, saith S. Augustine, That though we pray against them, and would use our strength and wit and utmost power to keep them off, we should take off our eye, as loath to see, or shut our ears, as unwilling to hear the complaints and grievings and miseries of our brethren. It is indeed a sad spectacle, but a blessed occasion to call up our Compassion, and to draw out our Mercy into act; to kindle the fire within us, that it may break forth into a pure flame to warm and comfort them. And what is a Christian man's life, and what is the business of his life, but to watch and observe and lay hold on occasions? to look upon that fire which may melt him, and that misery of others which may make an impression and leave its image in his heart? which will bring in that heavenly community, cùm quamuìs alii ferendo patiantur, alii cognoscendo compatiantur, communis tamen fit tribulatio, when Mercy possesseth the heart of all men with the smart of that affliction which but one man lieth under, making every man a partaker, though not in the loss, yet in the sorrow. For this Compassion is bound up as it were in the very nature and constitution of the Church; and it is as impossible to be a part of the Church without it as it is to be a Man without the use of reason; nay, we so far come short of being Men as we are defective in humanity. Christians are the parts of the Church, and all must sustain one another. And this is the just and full interpretation of that of our Saviour, Matth. 19.19. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; then thou wilt pity him as thyself. Tolle invidiam, & tuum est quod habet; Take away Envy, and all that he hath is thine: And take away Hardness of heart, and all that thou hast is his. Take away Malice, and all his virtues are thine; and take away Pride, and thy glories are his. Art thou a part of the Church? Thou hast a part in every part, and every part hath a portion in thee. Eph. 4.16. We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, compacted together by that which every joint supplies; A similitude and resemblance taken from the Curtains of the Tabernacle, saith learned Grotius, whereof every one hath its measure, Exod. 26.2, 3, 5. but yet they are all coupled together one to another, by their loops which lay hold one of another. And like those curtains we are not to be drawn but together, not to rejoice, not to weep, not to suffer but together. The word Church is but a second notion, and it is made a term of art, and every man almost, saith Luther, abuseth it, draweth it forth after his own image, taketh it commonly in that sense which may favour him so far as to leave in him a persuasion that he is a true part of it; and thus many enter the Church, and are shut out of heaven. We are told of a Visible Church; and the Church in some sense is visible: But that the greatest part of this Church hath wanted bowels, that some parts of it have been without sense or feeling, besmeared and defiled with the blood of their brethren, is as visible as the Church. We have heard of an Infallible Church; we have heard it, and believe it not: for how can she be infallible who is so ready to design all those to death and hell who deny it? If it be a Church, it is a Church with horns to push at the nations, or an army with banners and swords. We have long talked of a Reformed Church; and we make it our crown and rejoicing: But it would concern us to look about us and take heed that we do not reform so as to purge out all Compassion also: For certainly to put off all bowels is not, as some zealots have easily persuaded themselves, to put on the new man. Talk not of a Visible, Infallible or a Reformed Church: God send us a Compassionate Church, a title which will more fit and become her then those names which do not beautify and adorn but accuse and condemn her when she hath no Heart. What Visible Church is that which is seen in blood? What Infallible Church is that whose very bowels are cruel? What Reformed Church is that which hath purged out all Compassion? Visible, and yet not seen; Infallible, and deceived; Reform, and yet in its filth; Monstrum, horrendum, inform; This is a misshapen monster, not a Church. The true Church is made up of bowels. Every part of it is tender and relenting, not only when itself is touched, but when others are moved; as you see in a well-set instrument, if you touch but one string, the others will tremble and shake. And this Sense and this Fellow-feeling is the fountain from whence this silver stream of Mercy floweth, the spring and first mover of those outward acts which are seen in that bread of ours which floats upon the waters, in the face and on the backs of the poor. Luk. 10.31, etc. For not then when we see our brethren in affliction, when we look upon them and pass by them, but when we see them and have compassion on them, we shall bind up their wounds, and pour in oil and wine, and take care for them. For till the heart be melted there will nothing flow. We see alms given every day, and we call them acts of piety; but whether the hand of Mercy reach them forth or no we know not. Our motions, all of them are not from a right spring: Vainglory may be liberal, Intemperance may be liberal, Pride may be a benefactor, Ambition must not be a niggard, Covetousness itself sometimes yieldeth & droppeth a penny, and Importunity is a wind which will set that wheel a going which had otherwise stood still. We may read large catalogues of munificent men, but many names which we read there may be but the names of Men & not of the Merciful. Compassion is the inward & true principle begetting in us the Love of Mercy, which completeth and perfecteth & crowneth every act, giveth it its true form & denomination, giveth a sweet smell and fragrant savour to Mary's ointment; Luk. 7.47. for she that poured it forth loved much. I may say Compassion is the love of Mercy. Et plus est diligere quàm facere, saith Hilary; It is a great deal more to love a good work then to do it, to love Virtue then to bring it into act, to love Mercy then to show it. It doth supply many times the place of the outward act; but without it the act is nothing, or something worse. It hath a privilege to bring that upon account which was never done, to be entitled to that which we do not, which we cannot do; to make the weak man strong, the poor man liberal, and the ignorant man a counsellor. For he that loveth Mercy would do, and therefore doth, more than he can do. As David may be said to build the Temple, though he laid not a stone of it: for God telleth him he did well that he had it in his heart: 1 Kings 8.18. Thus our Love may build a Temple, though we fall and die before a stone be laid. Now this Love of Mercy is not so soon wrought in the heart as we may imagine; as every glimmering of light doth not make it day. It is a work of labour and travel, of curious observance and watchfulness over ourselves. It will cost us many a combat and luctation with the World and the Flesh, and many a falling out with ourselves. Many a Love must be digged up by the roots before we can plant this Love in our hearts: It will not grow up with Luxury and Wantonness, with Pride or Self-love; you never see these together in the same soil. The Apostle telleth us we must put it on: Col. 3.12. And the garments which adorn the soul are not so soon put on as those which cloth the body. We do not put on Mercy as we do our mantle; for when we do, every puff of wind, every distaste bloweth it away: But Mercy must be so put on that it may even cleave to the soul, and be a part of it; that every thought may be a melting thought, every word as oil, and every work a blessing. Then we love Mercy, when we fling off all other respects, whatsoever may either shrink up or straiten our bowels, or seal up our lips, or whither our hands; when we look upon the World but as our stage, where we must act our parts, and display the glories of Mercy, where we must waste ourselves, drop our tears, run in to secure those who are roughly handled in it, and thus tread it under our feet, and then take our Exit and go out. When we can forget our Honour, and remember the poor, forsake all rather than our brethren, and desire not to be rich but in good works; when we have so incorporated our brethren into ourselves, that we stand and fall, are happy and miserable together; when we consider them as engrafted into the same Christ, and in him to be preferred before the whole world, and to be looked upon as those for whom we must die, than we love Mercy, Luke 6.36. than we are merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful. Thus if we be qualified, we shall become the temples and habitations of Mercy; and as our bodies shall after their resurrection, so our souls shall here have novas dotes, be endowed with activity, cheerfulness and purity. And first our Mercy will be in a manner Natural unto us; secondly, it will be Constant; thirdly, it will be Sincere; fourthly, it will be Delightful to us. It will be natural, not forced; it will be constant, not flitting; it will be sincere, not feigned; and it will be delightful, that we shall long to bring it into act. And first, we then love it when it is in a manner made natural to us. For we never fully see the beauty of it till we are made new creatures, and have new eyes. 1 John 3.9. Then as the New creature cannot sin, as S. John speaketh, that is, can do nothing that is contrary and destructive to that form which constituteth a new creature, no more can a Merciful man do any thing which will not savour of Mercy, but doth as naturally exercise himself in it as the Sun doth send forth its beams, or the Heavens their influence. For the Spirit of God hath made his heart a fountain of Mercy, as he made the Sun a fountain of light. And if he break not forth into action, it is from defect of means or occasion, or some cross accident which cometh over him, which do but cloud and eclipse his Mercy, as the interposition of a gross body doth eclipse the Sun, but not put out its light At the very sight of Misery Mercy is awake, up, and either doing or suffering. Who is weak, and I am not weak? 2 Cor. 11.29. saith S. Paul,; who is offended, and I burn not? If I but see one weak, I faint; and if I see him vexed, I am on fire. Nature is active, and will work to its end. Heavy bodies will descend, and light bodies will mount upwards; and Mercy will give, and lend, and forgive, it cannot be idle. Inquies opere suo pascitur; It is restless, and is made more restless by its work, which is indeed its pleasure. It is then most truly Mercy when it showeth itself. If occasion presenteth itself, it soon layeth hold on it. If an object appear, it is carried to it with the speed of a Thought, and reacheth it as soon. If there be no object, it createth one, if there be no occasion, it studyeth one. Is there yet any left of the house of Saul, 2 Sam. 9.1. that I may show kindness to for Jonathans' sake? And, Is there no Lazar to feed, no Widow to visit, no Wounds to bind up, no weak Brother to be restored, none that be in darkness and error to be brought into the light? These are the Quaeres and the true dialect, this is the ambition of Mercy. It longeth more for an occasion to vent itself then the Adulterer doth for the twilight, layeth hold on the least as on a great one; thinketh nothing too high, nothing too low, which it can reach; is still in motion, because it moveth not, like artificial bodies, by art or outward force, but by a principle of life, the Spirit of Love; it moveth not as a Clock, which will stand still when the plummet is on the ground, but its motion is natural, as that of the Spheres, which are wheeled about without cessation, and return by those points by which they past, and indeed may be said rather to rest then to move, because they move continually and in the same place. Misery is the point and the object of Mercy, and at that it toucheth everlastingly. Mercy and Misery still go together and eye each other. The eye of Misery looketh up upon Mercy, and the eye of Mercy looketh down upon Misery. Like the two Cherubins, they have ever their faces one towards another. Their eyes are both full, and ready to drop and run down. The eye of Misery is ever open, and Mercy hideth not her eye. Prov. 28.27. By this you may judge of your acts of Liberality. You may look upon them as those sacrifices with which God is pleased when you find something within you that enlargeth you, that openeth your mouth and hand, Hebr. 13.16,— 35. that you cannot but speak and do. When you find a heat within you that thaweth and melteth you, that you pour out yourselves on your brethren, than your works of Mercy are of a sweet-smelling favour, when Love setteth them on fire. Secondly, Mercy being made natural unto us, will be also constant. It will be fixed in the firmament of the Soul, and shine and derive its influence uncessantly and equally, doing good unto all men while it hath time, Gal. 6.10: that is, at all times. When the Heart dissenteth from itself; and Love only uniteth and maketh it one; when it is a divided heart, divided between God and the World, hath inconstant motions and changeable counsels, joineth with the object and leapeth from the object, is willing to day and loathing to morrow; this day cleaving to the object, and even sick for love, as Amnon was for Tamar, 2 Sam. 13,— 4. and the next day thrusting it out of doors; choosing without judgement, and then altering upon experience; In such a heart Mercy cannot dwell. And from hence it is that we see men every day so unlike themselves, now giving, anon oppressing, now reaching out an alms, and by and by threatening with the sword; now giving their brother the right hand of fellowship, and within a while with that hand plucking him by the throat; now pitying him that lieth in the dust, & anon crying out, So, so, thus we would have it. For indeed their Pity and their Rage, their Mercy and their Cruelty have the same original and are raised upon the same ground, Love of themselves and not of Mercy. And thus they do some acts of Mercy magno impetu, sed semel, with much earnestness and zeal, but not often; like some birds, whose notes, or rather noise, we hear one part of the year, and then they leave us, vanish out of sight and hearing, and, as some say, sleep out the other. Even in the worst of men there be some seeds of goodness, which they receive as they are Men, and from hence arise those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those sudden but short and transitory inclinations, which are choked up yet not so dead in them but that sometimes they show themselves and shoot out, but as grass doth upon the housetops, Psal. 129.6. which withereth before it groweth up. There is no Tyrant but may do one act of mercy; no Oppressor, but may give a cup of cold water. In pessimis est aliquid optimi; There may be something of that which is good even in the worst. Then Mercy is in its full glory when it acteth upon a certain and well grounded determination; when we decree, as the Stoics speak, and resolve so to do; when we have fixed this decree, and made it unalterable; when we are rooted and grounded in Mercy, Eph. 3.17. as S. Paul speaketh; rooted, as a tree, deeply in it; and built, as a house, upon it, where the corner and chief stone is the Love of Mercy. Then we are as Trees, to shadow others, and as an House, to shelter them. Otherwise our Mercy will be be but as a gourd, Jon. 4.10. as Jonahs' gourd, and will grow and come up and perish in a night. Thirdly, if we love Mercy, it will be Sincere and real. For Sincerity is the proper issue and child of Love: Prov. 27.6. It maketh the wounds of a friend better than the kisses of an enemy, Prov. 15.17. a dish of herbs a more sumptuous feast then a stalled ox; it maketh a mite, a good wish, a good word an Alms, What is the Mercy of the Parasite? He feedeth by it. What is the Mercy of the Ambitious? A stirrup to get up by. What is the Mercy of the Covetous? A piece of art, a warrantable cheat. What was the seeming Mercy of Peter? Matth 16.22, 23. It was an offence, for which Christ called him an Enemy. What is the Mercy of those who through covetousness with feigned words make a prey of men's souls? 2 Pet. 2.3. I will not tell you, because I cannot give it a name bad enough. There may be Mercy in a supply, but that supply may be a snare: There may be Mercy in counsel, but that counsel may betray me. Job 16.2. 1 Tim. 1.5. There is Mercy in comfort, but we know, there be miserable comforters. True Mercy must be like our Faith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unfeigned. Then it runneth most pure and clear, without taint or trouble, when Love openeth the fountain, or rather is the fountain from whence it floweth; when the Love of Christ hath begot in us the Love of our Brethren, and we show Mercy to them, not for those arguments which we make ourselves, or those persuasions which may be the oratory of the Flesh and the World, but for Christ's sake and for the love of Mercy, whose rational and demonstrative eloquence we should most obey. Otherwise it will begin fairly, and end in blood, it will drop tears, and then hailstones; it will be but a preface of clemency, a mild prologue to lead in a tragedy, an echo out of a sepulchre of rotten bones, and as music at the gates of hell: It will be Mercy, 1 Pet. 2.22. but not like unto Christ, in whom there was found no guile, but like unto Marcion's Christ, all in appearance; Mercy with a trumpet in one hand, and a sword in the other; Mercy which shall lessen your burden, to lay on more; shall speak of ease, and then add to the misery of the oppressed. For that which is not sincere is not lasting. It may begin to shine, but it will end in a storm. A true face is ever the same, but a visor will soon fall off. In a word, if it be not sincere it is not Mercy; and sincere it will not, it cannot, be, if we love it not. Last of all, if we love Mercy, we shall take delight in it. For Joy is but a resultancy from Love. That which we love is also the joy of our heart. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, saith God of Christ; Isa. 42.1. and than it followeth, in whom my soul delighteth. I have loved thee, Isa. 43.4. saith God to Israel; and his Love thus bespeaketh them, Isa. 62.5. As a bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. The bridegrooms heart is ravished, and then the floodgates are laid open, Cant. 4.9, 10. and the stream is Joy; How fair is my love? how much better is thy love then wine, and the smell of thy ointments then all spices? David's heart was knit unto Jonathan, 1 Sam. 18.1. and then, Very pleasant hast thou been unto me. 2 Sam. 1.26. Abraham loved hospitality, and therefore he is said to sit in his tent door, in the heat of the day, Gen. 18.1. to invite men in, as if every stranger had been an Angel. If Love be as the Sun, Joy and Delight are the Beams which stream forth from it. If Love be as the Voice, Joy is the Echo; for Joy is but Love in the reflection. If Love fill the heart, it will heave and work itself out, and break forth in Joy. By our Joy we may see the figure and shape and constitution of our souls. For Love is operative, working and raising up something in the soul, and with it that Delight which is born with it and always waiteth upon it. If it be dark and scarce observable, our Joy interpreteth it. Joy is open and talkative. In the Wanton it is Frolic, in the Revenger it is a Boast, in the Drunkard it is a Ballad, in the Rich it is Pride, in the Ambitious it is a Triumph, but in the Merciful it is Heaven. What a well drawn picture is to an Appelles, what a fair character is to a Scribe, what a heap of gold is to the Miser, that and much more are the works of Mercy to them that love it: only here the Joy is of a purer flame, and burning brighter; that is gross and earthy, this is Seraphical. When you reach forth your hand to give a penny, tell me, What do you feel in your heart? When you give good counsel, do you not hear a pleasing echo return back upon you? When you have lifted up the poor out of the dust, do you not feel an elevation and ascension in your mind? When you cloth the naked, are not you even then supervestiti, clothed upon with Joy? Believe it, you cannot give that relief to the miserable which Mercy worketh in the soul, nor can he that receiveth be so much affected as he that giveth: For when he giveth he giveth indeed his money, but hath bestowed the greatest Alms upon himself. The poor man rejoiceth as a hungry man that is fed, as a naked man that is clothed, as one that sitteth in darkness doth at the breaking in of light; but the Merciful man hath triumphs and Jubilees within him. In a word, to love Mercy is to be in heaven. Every man, according as he purposeth in his heart, let him give, not grudgingly, 2 Cor. 9.7. or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. Such a Mercy is God's Almoner here on earth; and he loveth and blesseth it, followeth it with his Providence, and his infinite Mercy shall crown it. That gift which the Love of Mercy offereth up is only fit to be laid up in the Treasury of the Almighty. And now I have set before you Mercy in her full beauty, in all her glory. You have seen her spreading her rays: I might show you her building of Hospitals, visiting the sick, giving eyes to the blind, raising of Temples, pitying the stones, breathing forth oracles, making the ignorant wise, the sorrowful merry, leading the wand'ring man into his way: I might have showed you her sealing of Pardons: But we could not show you all. These are the miracles of Mercy; and they are wrought by the power of Christ in us, and by us, but by his power. The fairest spectacle in the world. Let us then look upon it, and love it. What is Mercy when you need it? Is it not as the opening of the heavens unto you? And shall it then be a punishment and hell unto you when your afflicted brethren call for it? Is it so glorious abroad, and shall it be so foul an aspect as not to be thought worthy of entertainment at home? Shall it be a jewel in every cabinet but your own hearts? Behold, and lift up your eyes, and you shall see objects enough for your Mercy to shine on. Psal. 42.7. If ever one depth called upon another, Cant. 5.4. Isa. 63.15. the depth of Calamity for the depth of our Compassion, if ever our bowels should move and sound, now, now is the time. I remember that Chrysologus observeth that God did on purpose lay Lazarus at the rich man's gate quasi pietatis conflatorium, as a forge to melt his stony heart. Lazarus had as many mouths to speak and move him to compassion as he had ulcers and wounds. And how many such forges hath God set before us? how many mouths to beseech us? how many wounds wide open which speak loud for our pity? how many fires to melt us? Shall I show you an ulcerous Lazar? They are obvious to our eye: Matth. 26.11. We shall have them always with us, saith our Saviour; and we have them almost in every place. Luke 10.30. Shall I show you men stripped and wounded and left half-dead? That may be seen in our Cities as well as in the high ways between Jericho and Jerusalem. Shall I show you the tears drilling down the cheeks of the orphans and widows? Shall I call you to hear the cry of the hire kept back by fraud or violence. James 5.4. For that cryeth to you for compassion, as Oppression doth to God for vengeance; and it is a kind of oppression to deny it them. Lam. 1.12. Have you not compassion, all ye that pass by, and every day behold such sad spectacles as these? Shall I show you Christ put again to open shame, whipped and scorned and crucified, and that which cannot be done to him in his person laid upon his Church? Shall I show you him now upon the cross? and have you no regard, all ye that pass by? Shall I show you the Church miserably torn in pieces? Shall I show you Religion? I would I could show you such a sight! For scarce so much as her form is left. What can I show, or what can move us, when neither our own Misery, nor the common Misery, nor Sin, nor Death, nor Hell itself will move us? If we were either good Men, or good Citizens, or good Christians, our hearts would melt and gush forth at our eyes in rivers of water: If we were truly affected with peace, we should be troubled at war: If we did love the City, we should mourn over it: If we did delight in the prosperity of Israel, her affliction would wound us: If Religion were our care, her decay would be our sorrow: For that which we love and delight in must needs leave a mournful heart behind it when it withdraweth itself. But private interest maketh us regardless of the common, and we do not pity Religion because we do not pity our own souls, but drink deep of the pleasures of this world, enlarge our territories, fill our barns, make haste to be rich, when our soul is ready to be taken from us, and nothing but a rotten mouldering wall, a body of flesh which will soon fall to the ground, between us and Hell. I may well take off your eye from these sad and woeful spectacles. It had been enough but to have shown you Mercy: for she is a cloud of witnesses, a cloud of arguments for herself; and if we would but look upon her as we should, there need no other orator. I beseech you look into your Lease, look into your Covenant, that Conveyance by which bliss and immortality are made over to you, and you shall find that you hold all by this. You hold it from the King of Kings, and your quitrent, your acknowledgement for his great Mercy, is your Mercy to others. Pay it down, or you have made a forfeiture of all. If you be merciless, all that labour (as it is called) of Charity is lost, 1 Thes. 1.3. Hebr. 6.10. 1 Cor. 15.14, 17. your loud Profession, your forced Gravity, your burning Zeal, your Faith also is vain, and you are yet in your sins. For what are all these without Mercy but words and names? And there is no name by which we can be saved but the name of Jesus Christ: And all these, Devotion, Confession, Abstinence, Zeal, Acts 4.12. Severity of life, are as it were the letters of his Name: and I am sure Mercy is one, and of a fair character; and if we expunge and blot it out, it is not his Name. Why boast we of our Zeal? Without Mercy it is a consumeing fire. It is true, he that is not zealous doth not love; but if my Love be counterfeit, what a false fire is my Zeal? And one mark of true Zeal is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, if it be kept within its bounds; Naz. or. 14. and Mercy is the best watch we can set over it to confine and keep it in. The Church of Christ is not placed under the Torrid Zone, that these cooler and more temperate Virtues may not dwell there. Ignis zeli ardere debet oleo misericordiae, Aquin. de Erudition princip. l. 2. c. 15, 16. If you will have your Zeal burn kindly, it must not be set on fire by any earthly matter, but from Heaven, where is the Mercy-seat, and which is the seat of Mercy. If you will be burning lamps, you must pour in oleum misericordiae, the oil of Mercy, as Bernard speaketh. If this oil fail, you will rather be Beacons than Lamps, to put all round about you in arms, as we have seen in Germany and other places. Men and Brethren, I may speak to you of the Patriarch David, Acts 2.29. who is dead and buried; and though we have not his Sepulchre, yet we have the memory of his Mercifulness remaining with us to this day. And I ask, Had not he Zeal? Yes, and so hot and intensive that it did consume him, Psal. 119.139. and yet, but three verses before, Rivers of waters ran down his eyes. And this heat and this moisture had one and the same cause, because they kept not thy law, in the one, because they forgot thy word, in the other; which is the very same. We much mistake if we do not think there may be a weeping as well as a burning Zeal. Indeed Zeal is never more amiable, never moveth with more decorum, nay with more advantage both to ourselves and others, then when Mercy sendeth it running down the cheeks. We cannot better conclude then with that usual advice of Bernard, Zelus absque misericordia minùs utilis, 46. S. in Cant. plerumque etiam perniciosus, etc. Zeal without Mercy is always unprofitable, and most commonly dangerous: and therefore we must pour in this oil of Mercy, quae zelum supprimat, spiritum temperet, which may moderate our Zeal, and becalm and temper our spirit, which may otherwise hurry us away to the trouble of others and ruin of ourselves; but it cannot do so if Mercy be our Assessour. To conclude; Let us therefore cast off every weight, Hebr. 12.1. let us empty ourselves, fling out all worldly lusts out of our hearts, and make room for Mercy. Let us receive it, naturalise it, consubstantiate it, as the Greek Fathers speak, with ourselves, that we may think nothing, breathe nothing, do nothing but Mercy; that Mercy may be as an Intelligence to keep us in a constant and perpetual motion of doing good, that it may be true and sincere, and sweeter to us then the honey or honey comb, and so be our heaven upon earth whilst we are here, that peace may be upon us, Gal. 6.16. and mercy, even upon all those who love Mercy, who are indeed the true Israel of God. The last Branch is our humble Walking with God; And that we shall lay hold on in our next. The Sixth SERMON. PART VI. MICAH VI 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? WE have already gathered fruit from two of the Branches of this Tree of Life, this Good which God by his Prophet hath showed us in the Text. We have seen Justice run down as waters, Amos 5.24. and Righteousness as a mighty stream, as the Prophet speaketh. And we have seen Mercy dropping as the dew on the tender herbs, Deut. 32.2. and as rain upon the grass. We have beheld Justice filling the hand, and Mercy opening it; Justice fitting and preparing the hand to give, and Mercy stretching it forth to cloth the naked, and fill the hungry with good things; Justice gathering, and Mercy scattering; Justice bringing in the seed, and Mercy sowing it; in a word, Justice making it ours, and Mercy alienating it, and making it his whosoever he be that wanteth it. We must now lay hold on the third Branch; which shadoweth both the rest from those blasts which may whither them, those storms and temptations which may shake and bruise them, from Covetousness, Ambition, Amos 5.7. Pride, Self-love, Self-deceit, Hypocrisy, which turn Justice into gall and wormwood, and eat out the very bowels of Mercy. For our Reverend and humble deportment with God is the mother of all good counsel, the guard and defence of all holy duties, and the mistress of Innocency. By this the Just and Merciful man liveth and moveth and hath his being. His whole life is an humble deportment with God, every motion of his is Humility; I may say, his very essence is Humility; for he gathereth not, he scattereth not, but as in God's eye and sight. When he filleth his garners, and when he emptieth them, he doth it as under that all-seeing Eye which seethe not only what he doth but what he thinketh. The Christian still moveth and walketh with, Psal. 116.18. or before, his God; not opening his eyes, but to see the wonders of his Laws; not opening his mouth, but in Hallelujahs; not opening his ears, but to God's voice; not opening his hand, but in his name, not giving his Alms, but as in the presence of his Father which seethe in secret, Matth. 6.4. and so doing what he requireth with fear and trembling. Humility spreadeth and diffuseth itself through every vein and branch, through every part and duty of his life. When he sitteth in judgement, Humility giveth the sentence; when he trafficketh, Humility maketh the bargain; when he casteth his bread upon the waters, Eccl. 11.1. his hand is guided by Humility; when he boweth and falleth down before his God, Humility conceiveth the prayer; when he fasteth, Humility is in capite jejunii, and beginneth the fast; when he exhorteth, Humility breatheth it forth; when he instructeth, Humility dictateth; when he correcteth, Humility maketh the rod: whatsoever he doth, he doth as before, or under, or with the Lord. Humility is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all in all. In a word, Singularum virtutum proprii actus, say the Schools, Virtues both Moral and Theological, like the celestial Orbs, have their peculiar motion proceeding from their distinct Habits and Forms; but Humility is the Intelligence which keepeth and perpetuateth that motion, as those Orbs are said to have their motion held up and regulated by some assistant Form without. And now, being here required to walk humbly with our God, it will not be impertinent to give you the picture of Humility in little, to show you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, summarily and in brief, what it is; and so we may better see in what this our walking humbly consisteth. And indeed we look upon Humility as we do upon a picture: Mirantur omnes divinam formam, sed ut simulacrum fabrè politum mirantur omnes, as Apuleius speaketh of his Psyche; Every man doth much admire it as a beautiful piece: but it is as men admire a well-wrought statue or picture; every man liketh it, but (which was the lot of Psyche) no man loveth it, no man wooeth it, no man desireth to take her to his wife. Yet it will not be a miss to give you a short view of her. And the Orator will tell us, Virtutis laus omnis in actione consistit, Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation, and is then actually when it worketh. Temperance doth bind the appetite, Liberality open the hand, Modesty compose the countenance, Valour guard the heart, and work out its contrary out of the mind. And Humility worketh out every thing that riseth up, 2 Cor. 10.5. & 12.20. every swelling and tumour of the soul, which are called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, puffings up, for riches, or learning, or beauty, or strength, or eloquence, or virtue, or any thing which we admire ourselves for; elations and liftings up of the Mind above itself, stretching of it beyond its measure, 2 Cor. 10.14. making us to complain of the Law as unjust, to start at the shadow of an injury, to do evil, and not to see it, to commit sin, and excuse it; making our tongues our own, Psal. 12.4. our hands our own, our understandings our own, our wills our own; leaving us Independents, under no law but our own. The Prophet David calleth it highness, or haughtiness of the heart; Solomon, Psal. 131 1. Prov. 16.18. haughtiness of the spirit, which is visible in our sin, and visible in our apologies for sin; lifting up the eyes, Psal. 10.4. and lifting up the nose (for so the phrase signifieth) and lifting up the head, and making our necks brass, as if we had devoured a spit, as Epictetus expresseth it. I am, and I alone, Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellant, Arrian. in Epict. is soon writ in any man's heart: and it is the office and work of Humility to wipe it out, to wipe out all imaginations which rise and swell against the Law, our Neighbour, and so against God himself. For the mind of man is very subject to these fits of swelling. Humility? Our very nature riseth at the mention of it. Habet mens nostra sublime quiddam, & impatiens superioris, saith the Orator; men's minds naturally are lifted up, and cannot endure to be overlookt. Humility? It is well we can hear her named with patience: It is something more that we can commend her. But, quale monstrum? quale sacrilegium? saith the Father; O monstruous sacrilege! we commend Humility, and that we do so swelleth us. We shut her out of doors when we entertain her: When we deck her with praises, we sacrilegiously spoil her, and even lose her in our panegyrics and commendations. We see (for it is but too visible) what light materials we are made of, what tinder we are, that the least spark will set us on fire, to blaze and be offensive to every eye. We censure Pride in others, and are proud we do so; we humble our brethren, and exalt ourselves. It is the art and malice of the world, when men excel either in virtue or learning, to say they are proud; and they think with that breath to levelly every hill that riseth so high, and calleth so many eyes to look upon it. But suppose they were; alas, a very fool will be so, and he that hath not one good part to gain the opinion of men will do that office for himself, and wonder the world should so mistake him. Doth Learning or Virtue, do our good parts puff us up and set us in our altitudes? No great matter; the wagging of a feather, the gingling of a spur, a little ceruse and paint, any thing, nothing, will do it; nay, to descend yet lower, that which is worse than nothing will do it; Wickedness will do it. 〈◊〉 10.3. He boasteth of his hearts desire, saith David, he blesseth himself in evil. Prov. 2.14. He rejoiceth in evil, saith Solomon, he pleaseth and flattereth himself in mischief. And what are these benedictions, these boastings, these triumphs in evil, but as the breathe, the sparkles, the proclamations of Pride? Psal. 10.4. The wicked is so proud, he careth not for God, God is not in all his thoughts. When Adam by pride was risen so high as to fall from his obedience, God looketh upon him in this his exaltation, or rather in this ruin, and beholdeth him not as his creature but as a prodigy, and seemeth to put on admiration, 〈…〉 22. ECCE! ADAM FACTUS TANQVAM VNUS E NOBIS; See, the man is become as one of us: God speaketh it by an Irony. A God he is, but of his own making. Whilst he was what I made him, he was a Man, but innocent, just, immortal, of singular endowments, and he was so truly and really: but now having swelled and reached beyond his bounds, a God he is, but per mycterismum, a God that may be pitied, that may be derided, a mortal, dying God, a God that will run into a thicket to hid himself. His Greatness is but figurative, but his misery is real. Being turned out of paradise he hath nothing left but his fancy to deify him. This is our case; our teeth are on edge with the same sour grapes. We are proud, and sin, and are proud in our sins. We lift up ourselves against the Law, and when we have broke it, we lift up ourselves against Repentance. When we are weak, than we are strong; when we are poor and miserable, than we are rich; when we are naked, than we cloth ourselves with pride as with a garment. And as in Adam, so in us, our Greatness is but a tale and a pleasing lie, our sins and imperfections true and real; our heaven but a thought, and our hell burning. A strange solecism! a look as high as heaven, and the soul as low as the lowest pit. It was an usual speech with Martin Luther, that every man was born with a Pope in his belly: And we know what the Pope hath long challenged and appropriated to himself, Infallibility and Supremacy, which like the two sides of an Arch mutually uphold each other. For do we question his Immunity from error? It is a bold error in us: for he is supreme Judge of controversies; and the conjecture is easy which way the question will be stated. Can we not be persuaded and yield to his Supremacy? Then his Parasites will tell you that he is Infallible. By this we may well guess what Luther meant. For so it is in us: Pride maketh us incorrigible; and the thought that we are so increaseth our Pride. We are too high to stand, and too wise to be wary; too learned to be taught, and too good to be reproved. We now stand upon our Supremacy. See how the Worm swelleth into an Angel. The Heart forgetteth it is flesh, and becometh a stone; and you cannot set Christ's Impress, HUMILITY, upon a stone. Learn of me, for I am humble. The Ear is deaf, the Heart stubborn, Matth. 11.29. the Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Paul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Theodoret, a reprobate, Rom. 1.28. reverberating mind, a heart of marble, which violently beateth back the blow that should soften it. Now the office of Humility is to abate this swelling, its proper work is to hammer this rock, and break it to pieces, Jer. 23.29. to drive it into itself, to pull it down at the sight of this Lord, to place it under itself, under the Law, under God; to bind it as it were with cords, to let out this corrupt blood and this noxious humour, and so sacrifice it to that God that framed it; to depress it in itself, that it be not too wise or too full, that it may behold itself of more value than the whole world, and then shut itself up, that it wander not abroad after those vanities which will soon fill it with air, and swell it. This is the method, and this the work of Humility: It pulleth out our eyes, that we may see; spoileth us of our wealth, that we may be rich; taketh us out of the rays, that we may have light; taketh us from ourselves, that we may possess ourselves; biddeth us departed from God, that we may enjoy him. This is Janitrix scholae Christi, saith Bernard: for when we bow and lie prostrate we are let in. This is, as S. John Baptist, to prepare the way, to make every mountain low and the rough places plain, to depress a lofty head sink a haughty eye, beat down a swelling heart. In a word, this is the best Leveller in the world; and there need none but this. We see then in what Humility consisteth, in placing us where we should be, at the footstool of God, admiring his Majesty, and abhorring themselves; distrusting ourselves, and relying on his Wisdom; bowing to him when he helpeth us, and bowing to him when he striketh us; denying ourselves, surrendering ourselves, being nothing in ourselves, and all things in him. This will more plainly appear in the extent of this duty, which reacheth the whole man, both body and soul. It was the speech of S. Augustine, Domine, duo creasti, alterum prope té, alterum prope nihil; Lord, thou hast made two things in the world, one near unto thyself, divine and celestial, the Soul; the other vile and sordid, next to nothing, the Body. These are the parts which constitute and make us men the subject of Sin, and therefore of Humility. Rom. 6.12. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, but let Humility depose and pluck it from its throne. Ind delinquit homo, unde constat, saith Tertullian; From thence sin is, from whence we are. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene; With ourselves we fight against ourselves. We carry about with us those forces which beset us, we are that army which is in battle array against us: — videas concurrere bellum Atque virum— Our enemies are domestic and at home within us. And a tumult must be laid where first it was raised. Between them both, saith the same Father, Naz. orat. 8. there is a kind of warlike opposition, and they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as it were pitch their tents one against the other. When the Body prevaileth the Soul is lost; and when the Body is at the lowest, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, then is the Soul as high as heaven; and when the Soul is sick and even bedrid with sin, than the Body is most active, as a wild Ass or wanton Heifer. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Hesych. In both there is matter for Humility to work on: In both there are excrescences and extuberations to be lopped off and abated. The Body must be used as an enemy; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Paul, I buffet it, I beat it black and blue, I handle it as a rebel or professed enemy; and it must be used as a servant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I hold it in subjection, like a captive, like a slave, after conquest. And the Soul must be checked, contracted, depressed in itself, nè in multa diffluat, that it spread not not diffuse itself on variety of objects. It must not be dimidiata humilitas, an Humility by halves, but holocaustum, a whole-burnt-offering, both Body and Soul, wasting and consuming all their dros● in this holy conflagration. I know not how, good duties are either shrunk up in the conveyance, Eccl. 12.11. not driven home by the Masters of assemblies, or else taken into pieces in the performance. Doth God Proclaim a Fast? See, the head hangeth down, the looks is changed; you may read a famine in the countenance, and yet the Fast not kept. Walk humbly with him? So we will: He shall have our knee, our look, he shall see us prostrate on the ground, say some who are as proud on the ground as when they stood up. He shall have the heart, no knee of ours, say others as proud as they. If we can conceive an Humiliation, and draw forth its picture but in our fancy, nay, if we can but say, It is good to be humbled, it is enough, though it be a lie, and we speak not what we think. We are most humble when we least express it. So full of contradictions is Hypocrisy, (and what a huge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gulf is there between hypocrisy and Humility?) so reaching at impossibilities, which may draw Pride and Humlity together to be one and same, which yet are at greater distance one from the other than the earth is from the Heaven. And thus we divide Humility; nay, thus we divide ourselves, from ourselves, our Souls from our Bodies. Either our Humility is so spiritual that we cannot see it, neither dropping at the eyes, nor changing the countenance, nor bowing the knees; nor hear it in complaints and groans and roar, which were wont to be the language of Humility: or it is so coporeal that we see it all. God hath his part, and but a part, and so hath none; and then the conjecture is easy who hath it all. But Ourselves include both. Neither is my Body myself, nor my Soul myself, but I am one made up of both, the knot that tieth them both together; and my Humility lasteth no longer than whilst I am one of both. Whilst then we are so, let us give God both, and first the Soul. For there is no vice more dangerous, or to which we are more subject, then spiritual Pride. Other vices proceed from some defect in us or some sinful imbecility of nature, but this many times ariseth out of our good parts. Others fly from the presence of God, this dareth him to his face, and maketh even Ruin itself the foundation of its tabernacle. Intestinum malum periculosius; The more near the evil cleaveth to the soul, the more dangerous it is; the more inward, the more fatal. I may wean myself from the World, fling off Vanity, and take off my soul from sensible objects, I may deny my Appetite, shut up my Eye, bind my Hands; I may study Pleasure so long till I truly understand it, and know it is but madness; and the World, till I contemn it: But Pride ultima exuitur, is the last garment we put off: When we are naked, we can keep her on; and when we can be nothing, we can be proud. And therefore some have conceived humility to be placed in the Soul as a Canopy, covering and shadowing both the faculties, binding and moderating the Understanding, and subduing the Will. And whilst they sit under Humility, they sit in state; the Understanding is crowned with rays and light, and the Will commandeth just things as from its throne, never employing the Eye or Hand in any office for which the one should be plucked out or the other cut off; both the one and the other are in their highest exaltation, being both now under the will of God. Our Understanding many times walketh in things too high for it, yet thinketh she is above them, and our Will inclineth, and that too oft, to things forbidden, because they are so, cannot endure the check and restraint of a command, but breaketh it under that name; the two greatest evils under the Sun, We are too wise, and we are too wilful. Now the pride of our Will is quickly seen, and therefore the more curable. It showeth itself in the wild irregular motions of the outward man; It lifteth up the Hand, it moveth the Tongue, it rolleth the Eye, it painteth itself upon the very Countenance either in smiles or frowns, either in cheerfulness or terror. It is visible in each motion, and there be laws to check and curb it, that it may not be so troublesome and destructive as otherwise it would be. But quae latent nocent. The Serpent at the heel, an overweening conceit of our own knowledge, of our own perfections, how invisible doth it enter us? how deceitfully doth it flatter us? how subtly ensnare us? Bene sapimus in causa nostra; We are wise in our own cause; We have digged deep, and found the Truth, which others do but talk of; We cannot be deceived; and the thought That we cannot be deceived doth deceive us most. Now we are rich, now we are learned; now we are wise, 1 Cor. 4.8. now we reign as Kings, and carry all before us: We control the weak with our power, the ignorant with our knowledge, the poor with our wealth, the simple with our wisdom; and confute ourselves with our own arguments, and are poor, because we are so rich; can do little, because we can do so much; are deceived, and manifest our folly unto all men, because we are so wise. For whither will this high conceit of ourselves lift us? Even above ourselves, besides ourselves, against ourselves. For wheresoever we stand, we stand a contradiction to ourselves and others, and are as far from what we would set up as they are who would set up something else which is nothing like it. We conceive the world is shaken and out of order, and we put forth our hand to bear up the pillars of it. We form Commonwealths, we square out one by another, and know the dimensions of neither. We model Churches, draw out their Government, that is, make a coat for the Moon. We make a Church, and cloth it with our fancy; fit it with a Government as with a garment, which will never be put on, or, if it be, the next Power may pluck it off, and leave it naked, leave it nothing, or put on some other which may be worn with more honour and safety to that Power which put it on. This is visible and open to the eye, and that eye is but weak and dull which doth not see and observe it. Why should then our Pride and Self-conceit thus walk as in shadow, as in a dream? Why should we thus disquiet ourselves in vain, and busy ourselves and trouble others to build up that to which we can contribute no more than a poor feeble wish, which hath not power enough to raise it to that desired height in which we would have it seen, but will leave it where it was first set up, an useless unregarded thing, in our brain and imagination? Christ and his Apostles did not leave the Church naked, but fitted her with a garment which she wore for many ages, in which there were scarce any that did stand up and say it did not become her. And if we do not now like the fashion, but sit down and invent another, we do but teach and prompt others to do the like: & so we shall have many more; and none at all, be ever choosing, ever changing, even to the end of the world. This is it which hath divided Christians which have but one name, and giveth them so many that it will cost us labour and study but to number them. This rendeth the Church with schism. For men that will not be confined are ever ask how they should be governed; and they are busiest to question the present form of discipline who would have none. And if you observe the behaviour of the Schismatic, you may behold him walk as if he had the Urim and Thummim on his breast, the breast plate of judgement ever with him. For by a thought (which is but a look of the mind) he discovereth and determineth all things. So dangerous is this spiritual Pride both to ourselves and others. Nor is the high conceit of our own perfections and holiness less dangerous, but most fatal to ourselves. For that heaven which we draw out in our fancy hath no more light and joy in it then the region of darkness. Only what is wanting in reality we supply with thought, but to no more purpose than that Soldier who having no other pillow to lay his head on but his head-piece; that he might make it more easy, filled it with chaff. Gal. 6.3. We think ourselves to be something, as the Apostle speaketh, and we are nothing, and are deceived. Pride is but a thought, and Pride is folly. Nazianz. Nor we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, more regular than the rule, more exact than the Law, more bright than light, above the command. Not believe us is infidelity, not to obey us is a kind of rebellion, not to admire us is profaneness, not to join with us is schism, not to subscribe to what we say is heresy. We are, and we alone. We are as he that lieth on the top of the mast, and we sleep and dream out the tempest. We may be Adulterers, Murderers, Traitors, and the Favourites of God. We may be men after Gods own heart, and yet do what his soul hateth. All our sins, are venial, though never so great. Our sins do not hurt but rather advantage us: The greatest evil that is in us will turn to our good; for our faith is steadfast, our hope lively, and our election sure. And to this height our imagination hath raised us, and from this we fall, and are lost for ever. And therefore it will concern us to captivate both our Understanding and our Will; Rom. 12.3, 16. First, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be overwise, not to be wise in our own conceits, not to be such Gnostics as to seem to know what we do not, nay sometimes not to seem to know what we do know. This will defend us from error, and our Brethren from offence. Then it concerneth us to subdue our Will to our Reason and the Rule, and to subject our Will against our natural desire and inclination to the Will of God, ad nutum ejus nutu citiùs obedire, to obey every beck of his as soon as the beck is given, in the twinkling of an eye, without deliberation or demur; in a word, not to do what thou wouldst, but to obey in what thou wouldst not, in that which the Flesh shrinketh from. This is the crown and perfection of Obedience, put on by the hand of Humility. And this is the Humility of the Soul. Hebr. 10.5. But is this enough? No. A body hast thou prepared me. God seethe thy Body as well as thy Soul, and will have the Knee, the Tongue, the Eye, Tertull. de Fallio. the Countenance. Auditur Philosophus, dum videtur; The Philosopher, and so the Christian, is heard when he is seen. Thou art to walk with him, Ps. 95.6. or before him, Come, saith David, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. Then you may best take Humilitie's picture when the Body is on the ground: You may mark her how she boweth it down, watch her in a tear, take hold of her in a look, follow her in all her postures, till she faint and droop and lie down in dust and ashes. Oh beloved, the time was when men did so walk as if God had been visible and before them. The time was when Humility was thought a virtue, when Humility came forth in this dress, multo deformata pulvere, with ashes sprinkled on her head, with her garments rend, like a Penitentiary. You might have beheld her kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs, washing the feet of Lazars, wallowing at the Temple-doors, begging the prayers of the Saints. You might have seen her rent and torn, stripped and naked, the hair neglected, the eye hollow, the body withered, the feet bare, Orat. 12. and the knees of horn, as Nazianzene describeth it. Then was Humility not sunk into the Soul, but written and engraven in the Body in capital letters, that you might have run and read it. But I know not how the face of Christendom is much altered, and humility grown stately; She hath bracelets on her arms, and rich diamonds on her head. We have fed her daintily, and set her upon her feet. Walk humbly: That we can without hat or knee, with a merry and lofty countenance, with a face set by our Ambition, and even speaking our Pride and Scorn; and we appear in the service of God as in a thing below us and which we honour with our presence. Humility with an humble look, a bowed knee, a bare head, a composed countenance? Away with it; It is Idolatry and Superstition. But let us not deceive ourselves, God hateth the visor of Humility, but not her face. If she borrow from art and the pencil, she is deformed; but appearing in her own likeness, in that dress which God himself hath put her in, she is lovely, and shineth upon those duties in which we are employed, and maketh them most delightful to behold. It is true, the Thought may knock at heaven when the Body is on the ground, and, when that is shut up between two walls, may measure out a Kingdom; and the whole world may be too narrow for an Anchorete. But it is as true that Humility never seized on the Mind but it drew the Body after it. If I lose my friend, my look will tell you he is gone: If a rober spoil all that I have, there is a kind of devastation of the countenance: Prov. 8.14. Ps. 31.9, 10. & 6.7 & 102.3.4. & 38.6. But a wounded spirit who can bear? If thy Soul be truly humble, thy bones will consume, and thy marrow waste, as David speaketh, thy eye wax old, and thou will forget to eat thy bread, thou wilt go heavily all the day long. Think what we will, pretend what we can, flatter ourselves as we please, I shall assoon believe him chaste whose eyes are full of adulteries, 2 Pet. 2.14. or who will sell a copyhold to buy Aretine's pictures; I shall as soon think him modest whose mouth is an open sepulchre, Ps. ●. 9. Rom. 3.13. him charitable who will sooner eat up twenty poor men then feed one, as that man devote and humble in his heart who is so bold and irreverent in his outward gesture. I cannot but look upon it as upon an impossibility, to draw these two together, a Neglectful deportment and Humility. For I cannot imagine, nor can any man give me a reason, why every passion, nay, why every vice, should show itself in the outward man totâ corpulentiâ, as the Father speaketh in its full proportion and dimensions, that Anger should shake the lips, and set the teeth, and die the face sometimes with white sometimes with red, that Sorrow should make men put on sackcloth, rend their garments, beat their heads against the walls, as Augustus did for the defeat and loss of Varus; that even dissimulation itself should betray itself by the winking of the eye; Prov. 10.10. that every vice and virtue should one way or other open itself and even speak to the eye; only Devotion and Humility should sink in and withdraw itself, lurk and lie hid in the inward man, as if it were ashamed to show its head; that we should be afraid to kneel, afraid to be reverend; that it should be a sin to kneel, a sin to be humble; that to come and fall down, or bow, though it be in the house of God, is to worship Dagon. Reason and Religion help us, and destroy every Altar, and break down every Image, and burn it with fire, and chase and banish all Superstition from the face of the earth. Deut. 27. And let all the people say, Amen But God forbidden that Reverence, and those motions and expressions of Humility which are the works and language of the heart, should, be swept out together with the rubbish; that the wind which driveth out Superstition should leave an open way for Profaneness and Atheism to enter in. And let all the people say, Amen, to that too. For if we do not present our bodies as well as our souls a living sacrifice, Rom. 12.1. glorifying God in every motion of our Body as we do in every conception of our Mind, our service cannot be a reasonable service of him, and the same tempest may drive down before it Religion and Reason both. S. Paul hath joined them both together as in the purchase so also in the obligation, Yea are bought with a price? This is the Antecedent; 1 Cor. 6.20; and than it followeth necessarily, Therefore glorify God in your bodies and your spirits, which are Gods. But this may seem too general. Yet if we know what Humility is, we shall the better see how to walk humbly with our God. But we will draw it nearer, Gen. 17.1. Psal. 119.1, 3. Isa. 2.5. and be more particular. And indeed to walk humbly with our God, and to walk before him, and to walk in his statutes, and to walk in the light of the Lord, to walk in his sight, differ not in signification, nor present unto our understandings divers things. For all speak but this, To walk as in his presence, To walk as if he were a near spectator, as if he were visible before us; Not to shroud and mantle ourselves, Not to run into the thicket, as if there he could not see us; but so to behave ourselves as if he were a slander by, and eye-witness of all our actions; to curb our fancy, keep our tongue, be afraid of every action, upon this certain persuasion, That God is at hand. For as God is EMANVEL, God with us, when he blesseth us and doth us good, so do we walk with God when we bless him and do our duties. Josh. 1.5. As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee, saith God to Joshua. Then God is with us when he strengtheneth our hands, when he shadoweth us under his wing, when he poureth forth his graces upon us: and when we walk with him when we bow before him, use all the faculties of our souls and move every member of our bodies as his, and as in his sight; when we devote ourselves to him alone, Psal. 123.2. when our eye looketh upon him as the eye of the handmaid on the eye of her mistress, and by a strict and sincere obedience we follow him in all those ways which he hath appointed for us. This I take to be the meaning of the words. We shall draw all within the compass of these considerations; 1. That God hath an all-seeing eye, that he seethe all ad nudum, as the Schools speak, naked as they are, surveyeth our actions, heareth our words, and searcheth the very inwards of the heart. 2. That truly to believe this is the best preservative of the other two, the best means to establish Justice and uphold Mercy in us, to keep us in an even and unerring course of obedience. For will any man offend his God in his very eye? And 3. we shall discover and point out those who do not thus walk with God, but walk in the haughtiness and deceitfulness of their hearts, as if God had neither eye to see nor ear to hear nor hand to punish them, that we may mark and avoid them. And this shall serve for use and application. First, that we may walk humbly with our God, this must be laid as a foundation to build upon, as the primum movens, as that which first setteth us a walking, and putteth us into this careful and humble posture, That God is present every where, and seethe and knoweth all things. And here we must not make too curious and bold a disquisition concerning the manner how God is present every where, and how he seethe all things. It is enough for us to believe he doth so, and not to seek to know that which he never told us, and which indeed he cannot tell us, because we cannot apprehend it. For how can we receive knowledge of which we are not capable? Jer, 23.24. Isa. 66.1. Job 11.8, 9 We read that he filleth the earth and the heaven, that heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool, that he is higher than heaven, and deeper than hell, and longer than the earth, and broader than the sea, that he is not far from every one of us, Acts 17.27, 28 that in him we live, and move, and have our being, Psal. 147.5. Hebr. 4.13. that his understanding is infinite, that there is no creature which is not manifest in his sight, that all things are naked to him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, open as the entrails of a beast cut down in the back for sacrifice, that he looketh down from heaven on the children of men, Psal. 14.2. Job 34.21. Jer 16.17. that his eyes are upon all their ways, that neither they, nor their iniquity are hid from his face: & hoc satìs est dixisse Deo— And this is enough for God to tell us, and this is enough for us to know. I dare be bold to say, saith S. Augustine, Forsitan nec ipse Johannes dicit de Deo ut est: S. John was an Eagle, and flew aloft to a higher pitch than the rest, but could not soar so high as to bring us down a full relation, and tell us what God is. This is a message which no man can bring, nor no man can hear. He was a man inspired from God himself. If he had not been inspired he could have said but little, and being a man he could say no more. They that walk in valleys and in low places see not much more ground than they tread; they that are in deep wells see only that part of the world which is over their heads; but he that is on the top of some exceeding high mountain seethe all the level, even the whole country which is about him: So it standeth betwixt us mortals and our incomprehensible God; We that live in this world are confined as it were into a valley or pit, we see no more than the bounds which are set us will give us leave; and that which our scant and narrow wisdom and providence forseeth, when the eye thereof is clearest, is full of uncertainty, as depending upon causes which may not work, or, if they do, by the intervening of some cross accident may fail. But God, who is that supreme and sublime Light, and by reason of his wonderful nature so high exalted, as from some exceeding high mountain seethe all men at once, all actions, all casualties present and to come, and with one cast of his eye measureth them all. This we are told; and it is enough for us that God hath told us so much; that he is in heaven, and yet not confined to that place; that he is every where, though we do not know how; that he seethe all things, knoweth all things; that he is Just and Wise and Omnipotent. And here we may walk with safety; for the ground is firm under us. Upon this we may build up ourselves on our most holy faith: Upon this we may build up our Love, which always eyeth him; our Honour to him, which ever boweth before him; our Patience, which beareth every burden as if we saw him laying it on; our Fear, to which every place is as mount Sinai, where it trembleth before him; our Hope, which layeth hold on him as if he were present in all the hardship we undergo; our Obedience, which always worketh as in his eye. To venture further is to venture as Peter did upon the sea, Matth. 14. where we are sure to sink. Nor will Christ reach out his hand to help us, but we shall be swallowed up in that depth which hath no bottom, Rom. 11.33. and be lost in that which is past finding out. For this is the just punishment of our bold and too forward Curiosity, It worketh on busily and presseth forward with great earnestness to see itself defeated; it loseth that which it might grasp, and findeth nothing. It is enough for us to see the backparts of God, that is, Exod. 33.23. as much as he is pleased to show us. And the want of this moderation hath occasioned many gross errors in the Church of Christ. For what can Curiosity bring forth but monsters? The Anomoei thought God as comprehensible as themselves (and indeed upon a slender stock of knowledge we grow wanton, and talk of God as we do of one another) and no marvel that they who know not themselves should be so ignorant of God as to think to comprehend him. Against these S. Chrysostom wrote. The Manichees confined God to a place: And these S. Augustine confuteth. Others took upon them to qualify and reform this speech, God is in every place, by changing the preposition IN into CUM, God is with every place. Others conclude that the Essence of God is most properly in heaven. Others have shut him up there, and excluded his presence from this lower world. The heaven, they will tell you, is his throne: But than is not the earth also his footstool? why may he not then be in earth as well as in heaven? for the argument is the very same: Nor must we conceive of God as we do of great Potentates, whom we do not entertain in a cottage but in a palace: Nor can his Majesty gather soil by intermingling itself with the things of the earth (a most carnal conceit) for the very Poet will tell us, Tangere & tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res, that nothing but a body can be touched, much less defiled. We cannot think the Angel impaired his beauty by being in prison with Peter, Acts 12. Dan. 6. Dan. 3. Job 15.15. or in the Den with Daniel, unless we will say he was scorched in the furnace, when the three men did not so much as smell of the fire. The heavens themselves are unclean in his sight, saith Eliphaz; yet he remaineth, saith the Father, pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a most wonderful exuberance beyond all Hyperbole. No pitch can defile him, no sin pollute him, no deformity on earth can sully his beauty. Our cursed oaths do even blast his Name, Ezek. 16.6. yet his Name is the same, The Holy of Holies. His Eyes beheld us weltering in our blood, Eccl. 23.19. yet they are ten thousand times brighter than the Sun. And therefore God is truly called Actus primus, an Act or Essence as free from contagion as composition. We take perfection from him; he receiveth no imperfection from us. Psal. 2.4. He sitteth in heaven, yet his Majesty is not increased; He walketh on the earth, yet his Majesty is not diminished; Psal. 104.3. He rideth on the wings of the wind, yet his Majesty and Glory is still the same; Psal. 18.11. He is in darkness, maketh darkness a pavilion round about him, yet is Light itself; He is in our corrupt hearts, yet is Purity itself. Nusquam est, & ubique est: He is not where, because no place can contain him; He is every where, because no body, no place, no substance whatsoever can exclude him. Psal. 139.3. And as he is present with us and about our paths, so he seethe and knoweth every motion and action of ours, our inclinations, our thoughts, when they are risen, whilst they were arising, before there was either object or opportunity to raise them, or any temptation to draw them up. He seethe our habits, our vices and virtues, before we ventured on that action which did lead the way and begin them. I know him, Gen. 18.19. said God of Abraham, and that he will do justice and judgement. 1 Kings 14.13. He knoweth our dispositions: He found some good thing in Jeroboams child. He seethe all our actions long before they are done, our thoughts before they are conceived, our deliberations before we ask counsel, and our counsels before they are fixed. Of what large extent were many of the Prophecies? How many years, how many cross actions, how many contingencies, what numberless swarms of thoughts inconsistent and not understood, and yet concurrent and introductory to that which was foretold, came between the Prophecy and the fulfilling of it? yet God saw through all these, and saw all these, and how they were working to that end of which he was pleased to give the Prophets a sight. The Prophet Daniel foretelleth the succession of the Monarchies, the division of Alexander's Kingdoms, the ruin of the Jews, and that so plainly that Porphyry, a great enemy to the Christians, to disgrace and put it off, said that it was a discourse much like Lycophrons' Cassandra, written after the things were done, and so published to cajole and deceive the people, who are soon pleased, and so soon taken with a cheat. Malè nôrunt Deum, De Resurr. Carn. c. 38. qui non putant illum posse quod non putant, saith Tertullian; They have but little knowledge of God who do not think that he can do, yea and doth know and see, what they cannot think. For he that made the eye, shall not he see? Psal. 94.9, 10. Psal. 33.15. He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? He that fashioneth the heart, shall not he consider all our works? He seethe us when we fall down before him, he seethe us when we harden our faces, he seethe us in our tears, and he seethe us in our blood; and yet he remaineth yesterday, Hebr. 13.8. and to day, and the same for ever. For as it is an argument of his infinite Perfection to understand all things, so is it of his judiciary and infinite Power to see and know and observe those motions, those offers those inclinations, which are against his Law, and by which we are said to fight against him. I may know Adultery, and yet be chaste; I may see Malice and debate in the city, and yet be peaceable; I may hear Blasphemy, and yet tremble at God's name. For Sin doth not pollute as it is in the understanding, but as it is in the will; not as it is known, but as it is embraced; not by any physical, but a moral contagion, which first infecteth the Will alone. If the bare Knowledge of evil could pollute, than he that maketh himself an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven may be an adulterer, Matth. 19.12. and the Judge that sitteth to condemn the sin may be a Parricide. God then may be present every where, and this is the poorest exception that can be made against it, I have waved, you see, the more subtle and intricate disputes; And there be too many; for men are never weary of doing nothing. That which hath been spoken is as plain as necessary, and no man can take it as a thing out of his sphere and reach. Let us pass to that which we proposed in the second place, and for which we proposed this of the Omniprescence and Omniscience of God. For the consideration of this is the best preservative of Mercy, and pillar to uphold Justice, septum Legis, a fence, a hedge set about the Law, that no unclean beast be so bold as to break in and come so near as to touch it. The Prophet David maketh this use of it; Ps. 139.7, etc. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I fly from thy presence? If I go into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shalt thou find me out. Now nothing can be more forcible to make us walk reverently and humbly with our God then a firm persuasion that God walketh with us, that he seethe and observeth us, that whatever we do or think lieth open to the view and survey of that all-seeing Eye. For Secrecy is the nurse of Sin. That is done often which is done without witness, and done with more delight, in a kind of pride and triumph, where there is the least fear of discovery. 1 Thes. 5.7. They that are drunk are drunk in the night, and the twilight is the Adulterers season. Job 24.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, said Pindarus. Drunkenness, Uncleanness, Revelling, Clem. Paedag. 3. are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, thefts of the night, Naz. or. 40. by which we would steal and convey our sin from the Sun and the people. Strom. 3. And Clemens observeth it of the Gnostics, That they professed themselves to be the Sons of God, but as the Sons of God did not love the light, but polluted themselves, and took their pleasure, not as Kings, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as slaves, in secret, for fear of the whip. Look upon the Politicians of the world, and see how they work under ground, as it were in vaults and caves; how they look one way, and work another; what a stream of light ushereth in a work of darkness, Zech. 5.1. what a goodly preface we have to a flying book of curses, what a fair frontispiece to a Beth-aven, a house of vanity: And then when their Lust, which conceived with so much art and concealment, hath brought forth that sin with which they were so long in labour, they will not own it under that name, but father it upon something else which was scarce thought on till then, and is more different from it in kind than a Man is from a Lion. So they hid it that it may be done, and when it is done they hid it. A child of darkness it was in the conception, and it is brought forth it is a child of darkness. For the most part we bid defiance to Sin in public, and meet and join with it in the dark. Though we venture not in the day, but stand out, yet if it will give us a visit in the twilight, we are willing to yield. Apuleius. Quod nemo novit penè non fit, What no man knoweth is as if it were not done at all. Such is our folly and madness, we think to make ourselves as invisible as God, and that he seethe not us because we see not him; as Tully spoke of some Philosophers, Quia animo videre non poterant, omnia ad oculos referebant, When they saw so little with their intellectual eye, they referred all to their Sense, See S●r. 14. and would believe nothing but what they had an ocular demonstration for. And we, because the eye of our Faith is dull and heavy and near put out, Eccl. 23.19. do not discern that Eye which is ten thousand times brighter than the Sun, think there is no other eye but that of Flesh, and if we can lie hid from that, we are securi adversùs Deos hominésque, secure and safe not only from Men but from God himself. So different and contrary is our behaviour when we break to that which we put on when we keep the Law. When we have given an Alms, we take a trumpet; When we fast, our countenance must proclaim it; and though we lie on the ground, yet we are on the housetop: When we have fought it out, Hieron. and withstood and conquered a temptation, difficile est Deo tantùm judice contentum esse, we can hardly be brought to make God our Judge, and leave it between him and ourselves, but use some art that multitudes may behold us. But when we are willing a temptation should prevail, nay, when we tempt the Temptation itself and call it to us, we play least in sight, all is hushed in silence, and we are well content that God alone should be our Judge. What then will make us walk humbly but this persuasion That we walk with God, and that he seethe us? For if any thing else will do it, it must either be the Laws of men, or that Law within ourselves: but we shall see that either these will not reach home, or that this twofold cord will be easily broken. For first, the Laws of men, though framed with the greatest wisdom and diligence and providence which can possess the largest hearts, yet have not strength enough to levelly our ways or make our paths strait: Nor do they comprehend all those sins which must needs offend that Eye which can behold no evil: They condemn nothing but that which is seen and evident, nor do they censure our wills, but our deeds: They punish offences, and take away deceit, injustice and cruelty, quatenus tenere manu res possunt, so far forth as they are within their hand and reach, saith Tully. Off. 3. But the Law of God reacheth the inward man, curbeth and boundeth the extravagancies of our thoughts, which are as opposite to that order and policy which God hath set up amongst men to bring them to happiness, as the foulest Disorders, Murders, Adulteries, Rebellion, can be to the peace of a temporal Kingdom. Again, though the Laws of men carry some terror with them, yet, as Aeneas Silvius speaketh of the low esteem they of Vienna had of Excommunications, Tantum terrent quantum infamant, aut damno temporali sunt, Their terror is no more than the smart and loss and infamy they bring. And though they be surda res, deaf and inexorable, yet a bribe will not only blind the eyes but change the countenance and voice of him that should keep them; and this leaveth them weak and invalid to prevent or remove those irregularities which they threaten, but in vain, being in those hands which are open for a bribe, Apol. c. 45. and then bind them up. Tertullian hath well observed that the Providence and Authority of men in this do pariate and are alike. Such as their Wisdom is to demonstrate that which is good, such is their Power to exact it. Tam illa falli facilis quàm ista contemni, their Wisdom is subject to error as their Power to a baffle; the one may be deluded, and the other restrained; and both Omri and his statutes may be trod under foot. When we walk under the Laws of Men, we walk as under a cloud, which every wind may carry about, and at last scatter and disperse: But when we walk under the Laws of God, we walk as under heaven, the Throne of God, which shall stand fast for ever. When we walk with men, we walk as with them whom we can sometimes delude, sometimes muzzle and bind: But when we walk with God, we walk with him who is every where, and seethe every event; whose eye is ever open, whose hand is ever stretched out, Psal. 29.5. and whose voice breaketh the cedars of Libanus. But now, secondly, as the Laws of men do not so awe and regulate us but that we break out too oft beyond those bounds which Reason and Religion hath set up, no more doth the Law within us, the Law of our Understanding, as Damascene calleth the Conscience, command or confine us in our walk. Sometimes we gloss it, sometimes we slight it, sometimes we silence it; and some there be that seal it up, and sear it, as S. Paul speaketh, as with a hot iron. If it speak to us, we are deaf; 1 Tim. 4.2. if it renew its clamours, we are more averse; and if it check us, we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Paul, beat and wound it more and more. Multi famam, 1 Cor. 8.12. pauci conscientiam verentur, saith Pliny. The loudest noise our Conscience can make is not heard, but the Censure of men, which is not most times worth our thought, is a thunderclap; we hear it, and we tremble. We are led, like fools, with melody to the stocks. What others say is our motion, and turneth us about to any point; but when we speak to ourselves, we hear it, but believe it not, fling it by and forget it. The voice of Conscience is, Defraud not your brother; nay, 1 Thes. 4.6. but we will overreach him. The voice of Conscience is, Love thy neighbour as thyself; Leu. 19.18. nay, but we will oppress him. The voice of Conscience is, Love Mercy; nay, Matth. 19.19. but we will love ourselves. What we speak to ourselves, ourselves soon make heretical. How ambitious are we to be accounted just, and how unwilling to be so? How loud are we against Sin in the presence of others, and then make ourselves as invisible as we can that we may commit it? What a sin is Uncleanness in the Temple, and what a blessing is it in the closet? With what gravity and severity will a corrupt Judge threaten iniquity? What? a pilferer? Let him be whipped. What? a murderer? He shall die the death. He whippeth the Thief, and hangeth the Murderer, and indeed whippeth and hangeth himself by a proxy. So that we see neither the power of the Laws nor the respect and obedience we owe to ourselves are of any great force to prevail with us to order our steps aright. Walk with men, or as before men? That may have some force, but it reacheth no further than the outward man. Walk with ourselves? give ear to ourselves? This might do much more; but we see the practice of it is very rare and unusual, that there is little hope that it will complete and perfect our walk, and make us Just and Merciful men, which is here required. It will be easy then to infer that our safest conduct will be to walk with God. And to secure both the Laws of men and that Law within us, that they may have their full power and effect in us, we must first raise and build up in ourselves this firm persuasion. That whatsoever we do or think is open to the eye of that God who is above us, and yet with us; That that discovery which he maketh is infinitely and incomparably more clear and certain than that which we make by our senses; That we do not see our friend so plain as he seethe our hearts; That thou seest not the birds fly in the air so distinctly as he seethe thy thoughts fly about the world to those several objects which we have set up for our delight; That he seethe and observeth that irregularity and deformity in our actions which is hid from our eyes when our intention is serious and our search most accurate. Though we are in the flesh, and so led by Sense, were this belief rooted and confirmed in us, That God doth but see us as Man seethe us, or were this as evident to our Faith as that is to our Sense, we should be more watchful over ourselves and more wary of the Devils snares and baits than we commonly are. Magna necessitas indicta pietatis, etc. saith Hilary; There is a necessity laid upon us of fear and reverence and circumspection, when we know and believe that he now standeth by as a Witness who will come again and be our Judge. What a Paradise would the world be, and what a heaven would there be upon earth, if this were generally and steadfastly believed? Glorious things are spoken of Faith. We call it a full assent, we call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Hebr. 11.1. a full and certain persuasion; It is the evidence of things not seen. I ask, Is ours so? Would to God it were. Nay, would for many of us, we did but believe that God is present with us, and seethe what we do or think, as firmly as we do a story out of our own Chronicles; nay, as many times we do believe a lie. Matth. 17.20. Would our faith were but as a grain of mustard seed. Even such a faith, if it did not remove mountains, yet would chide down many a swelling thought, would silence many a proud word, would restrain us from those actions which now we glory in, but should run from as from Serpents, as from the Devil himself, if we could fully persuade ourselves that a God of wisdom and power were so near. Now, in the last place, let us cast a look upon those who for want of this persuasion do walk on in the haughtiness of their hearts, bow neither to the Laws of God nor men, nor hearken to the Law within them; which notwithstanding could not be in them, were not this bright Eye and powerful Hand over them. And this may serve for Use and Application. Phil. 3.18. Many walk, saith S. Paul to the Philippians, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies to God. And first the Presumptuous sinner walketh not with God, who hath first hardened his heart, Zech. 7.12, Isa. 3.9. and then his face, as an adamant, whose very countenance doth witness against him, who declareth his sins as Sodom, and hideth them not. These first contemn themselves, and then scornfully reject what common Reason and Nature suggest to them; and then at last, trusting either to their wit or wealth, conceive a proud disdain of all that are about them, and not a negative but a positive contempt of God himself. First they lose their Reason in their lusts, and then their Modesty, which is the only good thing that can find a place in evil. They do that upon the open stage which they did at first but behind the curtain. They first make shipwreck of a good conscience, 1 Tim. 1.19. and then with the swelling sails of Impudence hasten to that point and haven which their boundless lusts have made choice of, as we should do to eternal happiness, per calcatum patrem, as S. Hierome speaketh over father and mother, over all relations, and Religion itself; forsake all these, not for Christ's sake and the Gospel, but for Mammon and the world. What foul pollutions, what grinding and cruel oppressions and what open profaneness have there been in the world? And we may ask with the Prophet Jeremiah, Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? Jer. 8.12. Eph. 4.18. Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they have any shame, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the hardness and blindness of their heart. For in sin and by sin they at last grow familiar in sin, cloth themselves with it as with a robe of honour, bring it forth into open view, like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts, Acts 25.23. Dan. 3.1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with great state and pomp. They set it up, as Nabuchadnezzar did his image of gold, threescore cubits high, to be seen of all. They boast of their Atheism, and look down upon them with a contemptuous pity, as shallow and weak men, who go about to persuade such men as they, of quick and searching wits, ●hat there is a God who both seethe and heareth them; and they take it very ill if we do but wish them well. Thus it is in every bold presumptuous sinner, even as it was with the Devil; Depuduit. No sooner do they cast themselves down from Heaven, but they cast away all shame, and their Modesty flieth from them in the very fall, and their Motto is, Tush, God doth not see. And this sure is not to walk with God, Psal. 94.7. but to walk and strut as Nabuchadnezzar did in his palace, Dan. 4.30. This is the palace which I have built; Thus, thus have I done, and who dareth fling a stone at it? to walk as Goliath did, in a coat of brass, and defy the host of Israel, 1 Sam. 17. and God himself. Goliath in front, etc. saith Augustine; Goliath was smitten in the forehead, and so are they. The disease indeed is in the heart, but it hath made an impression and left a mark in the forehead. He that hath forgot to blush, doth not well remember that there is a God who looketh upon him. Secondly, the Dissembling sinner, the Hypocrite, walketh not with God. For he is but a Player of Religion, and being but a Slave cometh forth a King, and then treadeth his measures, putteth it to the trial whether God hath an eye, whether he will take dross for silver, the superficies for the substance, a Fast for Repentance, a Picture for the New creature. Archidamus said well of an old man that had died and discoloured his hair, It is not likely he should speak truth, qui mendacium in capite circumfert, who carrieth about with him a lie on his head. Nor can he walk as with his God whose very speech and gesture, whose very look, is a lie. Where there are false lights, there the ware is not warrantable, where there are privy doors, there the Priests will practise collusion, Bell & Dr. v. 21. and eat up the Idols meat. If you see a Labyrinth, it is either to conceal a Strumpet or a Minotaur. That is true of the Hypocrite which the Rabbis conceived of their Priests. He is like an Angel, visible or invisible, as he please. Now this is not to walk with God, but to walk with our Lusts, with our Malice and Covetousness, to look upon them as we should do upon our God, to be careful that they be pleased and satisfied, to reverence them, to follow their behests and commands, to provide that these Horseleeches be fed, our Lust with Pleasure, and our Covetousness with Gold; for these are the Hypocrites Gods. As for the true God, they leave him behind them, and walk with nothing but his Name. Thirdly, the Apologizing sinner walketh not with God, but runneth himself into the thicket of excuses, Covereth his transgressions as Adam, Job 31.33. and hideth his iniquity in his bosom, covereth himself over with those leaves which have no heat nor solidity in them, but will whither and die when the Sun showeth itself, and be scattered before the wind, and leave him naked and miserable. He hath learned an art (and he may quickly learn that of his Sin, which needeth and teacheth it) pavimentare peccata, (it is S. Augustine's phrase) to smooth and plaster and parget over his deformities. He excuseth the breach of one commandment with his zeal to another, his breach of Charity by his love to Faith. He exexcuseth his Sacrilege by his hatred of Idolatry, his Malice by his Zeal. He pleadeth Ignorance where there is light enough; Weakness, when he might be strong; Infirmity, where he presumeth; and Willingness, when he had no will: and will not consider that the Devil speaketh by all these as he did to our first Parents by the Serpent: For, Gen. 3.4. This is no sin at all, and, You shall not die at all, are all one. He speaketh, saith S. Augustine, by the Mathematician, That he sinneth not, but his Star. He speaketh by the Manachee, That he sinneth not, but the Prince of darkness. I may add, he speaketh by the Anabaptist, It is not he sinneth, but the Ass his Body; By the Libertine, That God sinneth in him; and by the Many, That the Devil only is in fault. If we look upon it well, and send our eye abroad into the world, we may peradventure be tempted to think that the World and all that therein is were only made to yield matter out of which to forge and fashion an excuse. For what is there almost in the world which we do not lay hold on for that end? Adam, the first man, is the first excuse, and we drew it out of his loins; Original sin, and after that the Law, the Flesh, the Will, the Understanding, Sin, Obedience, the Devils, and God himself are forced in to speak for us. What was made the matter of Virtue and Obedience is by us made the matter of excuse. We may be bold to say, This is not to walk with God as if he had an all-seeing eye, Gen. 8.7. but to flutter up and down as the Raven did upon the waters, from excuse to excuse, but far from God and the Ark; so to walk as if we were quite out of God's reach and fight. Last of all, the speculative sinner doth not walk with God. I mean the man that breaketh not out into action, but yet perfecteth his work in his mind. Here the sinner doth that which he never doth, joineth with that object which he shall never touch, committeth adultery, and yet may be an eunuch, plotteth revenge, and yet never striketh a stroke, graspeth the wealth which he will not labour for, marryeth that Beauty which he saw but once, and shall never see again, acteth over those sins which he shall never bring into act, delighteth in that which he shall never enjoy, robbeth, and slayeth, and rideth in triumph on a thought, and so leaveth his God, who gave him this power and faculty to a better end then to wallow in this mire, and to be enslaved to the drudgery of so vile an employment. Yet too many are willing to persuade themselves that God neither seethe this nor regardeth it; that a Thought is such Gozamour, of so thin an appearance, that it escapeth the eye, and so they set up a whole family of thoughts in their mind, and dally and delight themselves with them as with their children. And yet this is the ground of all evil, and evil itself, wrought in the Soul, which worketh by its faculties, as the Body doth by its members, the Eye and the Hand. And thus it may beat down Temples, murder men, lay Kingdoms levelly with the ground. And it groweth and multiplieth, reflecteth upon itself with joy and content, & omnia habet peccatoris praeter manus, and hath all that maketh a sinner but Hands. But though Men see not our thoughts (for this is a Royal prerogative) yet they are visible to his eye who is a Spirit. And they that look upon them as bare and naked thoughts, and not as complete works finished in the soul, know not themselves nor the nature of God, and therefore cannot be said to walk with him. Rom. 16.17. To conclude then; These walk not with God; let us therefore mark and avoid them. The Presumptuous daring sinner walketh not with him, but hideth himself in his Atheistical conceit, That, because Man cannot punish, God doth not see. The Hypocrite cometh forth in a disguise, and acteth his part, and because Men applaud him, thinketh God is of their mind; as the Pantomine in Seneca, who observing the people well pleased with his dancing, did every day go up into the Capitol, and dance before Jupiter, and was persuaded that he was also delighted in him. The Apologizer runneth into the holes and burrows of excuses, and there he is safe; for who shall see him? The Speculative sinner hideth himself and all his thoughts in a thought, in this thought, That Thoughts are so near to nothing that they are invisible, That Sin is not sinful till it speak with the tongue or act with the hand. But the eye of God is brighter than the Sun, and his eye lids will try the children of men, Psal. 11 4, as the Goldsmith trieth his gold in the fire, and will find out the dross, which we do not see. And if we will not walk with him, but walk contrary unto him, Lev 26 21, 23 etc. he will also walk contrary unto us. He will see us, and not see us; know us, and not know us. Habemus nescientem Deum quod tamen non nescit, l. 9 de Trin. saith Hilary; God will seem not to know that which he doth know; and his ignorance is not ignorance, but a mystery. For to them who walk not with him humbly now, the Word will be at the last day, Matth. 25.12. I know you not; then God will keep state, and not know and acknowledge them. This pure God will not know the Unclean; this God of truth will not know the Dissembler; this strong and mighty God will bring down the Imperious offender; this Light will examine thoughts, and excuses will fly before it as the mist before the Sun. But then, Psal. 1.6. The Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous, saith the Psalmist; and those that do justly, and love Mercy, and walk, as under his all seeing eye, with humility and reverence, he will lead by the hand, go along with them, uphold and strengthen them in their walk, shadow them under his wing, and, when their walk is ended, know them, as he did Moses, Exod 33. Numb 12. Mal. 3, 17, above all men: And seeing his own marks upon them, beholding (though a weak, yet) the image of his Justice and his Mercy upon them, he will spare them as a father spareth his son that serveth him. He will know them and love them, know them and receive them with an EUGE, Well done good and faithful servants: Matth. 25.21, 23. You have embraced the Good which I shown you, done the thing which I required of you; you have dealt justly with your brethren, and I will be just in my promises; you have showed Mercy, and Mercy shall crown you; you have walked humbly with me, I will now lift up your heads, and you shall inherit the Kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Matth. 29.34. The Seventh SERMON. GAL. IU. 29. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so is it now. IN these words the Apostle doth present to our eye the true face of the Church in an Allegory of Sarah and Hagar, of Ishmael and Isaac, of mount Sinai and mount Zion: Gal. 4.24. Which things are an allegory. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It speaketh one thing, and meaneth another, and carrieth wrapped up in it a more excellent sense then the words at first hearing do promise. Take the full scheme and delineation in brief. 1. Here is Sarah and Hagar that is, Servitude and Freedom. 2. Here are two Cities; Jerusalem that now is, the Synagogue of the Jews, and that Jerusalem which is above, the Vision of peace, and mother of all the faithful. For by the new Covenant we are made children unto God. 3. Here is the Law promulged and thundered out on mount Sinai; and the Gospel, the Covenant of Grace, which God published, not from the mount, but from heaven itself, by the voice of his Son. In all you see a fair correspondence and agreement between the type and the thing, but so that Jerusalem our Mother is still the highest, the Gospel glorious with the liberty it brought, and the Law putting on a yoke, breathing nothing but servitude and fear; Isaac an heir, and Ishmael thrust out, the Christian more honourable than the Jew. The curtain is now drawn, and we may enter in even within the veil, and take that sense which the Apostle himself hath drawn out so plainly to us. And indeed it is a good and pleasing sight to see our privilege and priority in any figure, to find out our inheritance in such an Heir, our liberty and freedom though in a Woman. Who would not lay claim to so much peace and so much liberty? Who would not challenge kindred of Isaac, and a Burgessship in Jerusalem? It is true, every Christian may: But that we mistake not, and think all is peace and liberty, that we boast not against the branches that are cut off, Rom. 11.18. Paul bringeth in a corrective to check and keep down all swelling and lifting up of ourselves, the adversative particle S E D; But as then, so now. We are indeed of Sarah the free woman, we are children of the promise, we are from Jerusalem which is from above; But, if we will inherit with Isaac, we must be persecuted with Isaac; if we will be of the covenant of Grace, we must take up the Cross; Matth 16.24. Hebr. 11 10. if we look for a City whose maker and founder is God, we must walk to it in our blood. In other things we rise above the Type, but here we fall, and our condition is the same: But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so it is now. The veil is drawn, and you may behold presented to your view and consideration a double parallel: 1. Of the times, But as then, so now: 2. Of the occurrences, the Acts and Monuments of these times, divided between two, the Agent and the Patient, those that are born after the flesh persecuting, and those that are born after the spirit suffering persecution. The Then was not long; it began and ended in a scoff: For Sarah saw Ishmael mocking of Isaac, Gen. 21.9. and yet this Scoff began those four hundred years of persecution foretold by God Gen. 15.13. and is drawn down by our Apostle to the times of grace. But the Now is of larger extent, and reacheth even to the end of the world, from the Angel's Anthem to the last Trump, when Christ shall resign all power into his Father's hand. But because we cannot well take a full view of them both, and the Church of Christ is one and the same from the first just man Abel to the last man that shall stand upon the earth, though different in outward administration, De pallio. as Tertullian speaketh upon another occasion, Nunquam ipsa, semper alia, etsi semper ipsa, quando alia, because receiving degrees of perfection, yet always one and the same, when in some respects it appeared not the same; we will therefore draw both times together, both the Then and the Now, the time under the Law and the time under the Gospel, within the compass of this one position and doctrine, That though the privilege and prerogative (I may say, Royalties) of the Church be many, yet was she never exempted from persecution, but rather had it entailed on her as an inheritance. And when we shall have made this good, 1. from the consideration of the Quality of the persons here upon the stage, the one persecuting, the other suffering; the one born after the flesh, the other after the spirit: 2. from the Nature and Constitution of the Church, which in this world is ever Militant: 3. From the Providence and Wisdom of God, who put this enmity between these two seeds, between those that are born after the flesh, and those that are born after the spirit; When, I say, we have passed over these, we will in the last place draw it down to ourselves, look back upon Persecution brandishing its terrors upon them both, and so learn to take up and manage the weapons of our warfare, and prepare ourselves against the day of trial. That no privilege of the Church can exempt her from persecution, we may read first in the Persons themselves; the one born after the flesh, the other born after the spirit. The reason is hid, but visible enough, in their very attributes. For as flesh lusteth against the Spirit, Gal. 5 17. and these two are contrary, that is, are carried by the sway of their very natures to contrary things; so the children of the one and of the other are contrary. Of the first our Apostle will tell us that they killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets, and persecuted Christians: And the reason followeth, 1 Thes. 2.15. which indeed is against all reason, but was the best motive they had, for as they hated God, so were they contrary to all men, looking with an evil eye upon the graces of God in others, and whatsoever savoured of the Spirit. Like Hannibal in the story, they can part with any thing but War and Contention; they can be without their native Country, but not without an enemy: And the reason is plain, John 3.6. For that which is born of the flesh, is flesh, that is, hath all the qualities and malignity of flesh, is full of the works of the flesh, which are the very principles of contention and persecution. From whence are wars and tumults? Jam. 4.1. saith S. James, Are they not from those lusts which fight in the members? From Envy and Malice, from Covetousness and Ambition. These are the works of the Flesh, and are raised from the Flesh as one creature is from another of the same kind, or rather as a Serpent is out of carrion, or a Scarabee out of dung. These, if they cannot find occasion of doing evil, will work and force it out of Good itself. So Cain, the first disciple of the Devil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, De Invidia. 1 John 3.12. as S Basile calleth him, slew his brother for no other reason but this, because his works were evil, and his brothers good. For he was, saith the Text, of that wicked one (for to be born of the flesh and to be born of the Devil, are one and the same thing) from the father of Envy; though not, as the Rabbins fancied, born of the very filth and seed which the Serpent conveyed into Eve. If there were no evil men, there could be no persecution. For I cannot see how it is possible for good men to persecute one another. It is more probable that Satan should rise up against Satan, and one devil cast out another. Evil men may rage's against evil men: A covetous man may rob and spoil a covetous man, and a proud man may swell against a proud man, and an ambitious man lay hold on him that is climbing, and pull him back into the dust. For that which made them brethren in evil may make them enemies. Herode and Pilate may fall out, and then be reconciled, and join their forces as one man against Christ, and then fall asunder and be at distance again. The wicked may gather together, and with one heart and with one soul pursue the innocent, and hold out their swords together, and join their forces to rob and spoil them; and then, when they are to divide the spoil, turn the points of their swords at one another's breasts. For they cannot make way to the end of their hopes but by striking down them that seem to stand in their way. They cannot be rich but by making others poor, they cannot be at liberty but by binding others, they cannot soar to their desires height but by laying others on the ground, they cannot live at ease unless they see others in their grave; which are the several kinds of Persecution, as it it were the stings of that Scorpion. These are the only Incendiaries in Church or Commonwealth, the great troublers of the peace of Israel. These destroy the walls and break down the towers of a City; these rend the Veil, nay, dig up the very foundation of the Temple. The Spirit is named, but from the Flesh is the persecution. Matth 21.38. For what did the Husbandmen set upon the Lord of the vineyard but to gain the inheritance? What set the whole city of Ephesus in an uproar but Demetrius his Rhetoric, Acts 19.25. the brutish but strong persuasions of the flesh? From this craft have we this gain. Though the Truth and Religion be held up and shown openly for a pretence, yet envy and Malice, Covetousness and Ambition, envenom the heart and strengthen the hands of all the enemies of the Church; these whet the sword, these make the furnace of Persecution seven times hotter than it would be. The flesh is the treasury from whence these winds blow that rage and beat down all before them. Thus it is with every one that is born of the flesh; he is ever in labour with mischief, ever teeming and travelling with persecution, and wanteth nothing but Occasion, as a Midwife, to bring it forth. Now, as we have beheld one person in this Tragedy, and the chiefest actor, so let us look upon the other, the Patient, born after the spirit. And behold a Lamb: for the Spirit, who came down like a Dove, begetteth no Tigers or Lions! Behold a Man, a Worm, and no Man, virum perpissitium, Epist. 104. as Seneca calleth Socrates, a man of sufferance, deaf (or if not, yet) dumb to all reproaches, and, when injuries are loudest, as silent as the Grave, kissing the hand that striketh him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, spiritualised in matter, as Nazianzene, candidatum crucis, as Tertullian saith, one that is so fitted and prepared for the Cross that he looketh upon it as upon a preferment: Poor Lamb! he cannot by't and devour, he cannot scatter the counsels of the crafty, he cannot bind the hands of the mighty: Ignorant and foolish, Psal. 73.22. as David speaketh, as a beast in this world; a man in nothing but in Christ Jesus; being elemented and made up of Love, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Meekness, the principles of the Spirit; Gal 5.22. having no security, no policy, no eloquence, no strength, but that which lieth in his innocency and truth, which he carrieth about as a cure, but it is looked upon as a persecution by those who will not be healed. Why hast thou set me up as a mark? saith Job. Why, every one that is born of the spirit is set up as a mark. S. Paul calleth it a spectacle. 1 Cor. 4.0. He that is born of the spirit is no sooner thus born but he cometh forth a contentious man, Jerem 15.10. that striveth with the whole earth. The Spirit cannot breathe and work in him but it shaketh every corner of the earth, every thing that is from the earth earthy. It striveth to pull the Wanton from the harlot's lips, and to levelly the Ambitious with those who are of low degree; it beateth the Covetous from his Mammon, it wresteth the sword out of the hand of the Revenger, it striketh out the teeth of the Oppressor; Rom. 16.17. it marketh the Schismatic, and avoideth him, it anathematizeth the Heretic. Numb. 22 22. It is that Angel which standeth in our way when we are running greedily for a reward. It is that Prophet that forewarneth us, Judas 11. Dan. 5.5. that Hand on the wall that writeth against us, that Cock that calleth us to repentance, Matth. 26.74. that Trump that summoneth us to judgement. Well said Martin Luther, Nihil scandalosius veritate, There is not a more offensive thing in the world than that spirit of Truth which begetteth and constituteth a Christian. It much resembleth the Load stone, qui trahit simul & avertit, is at once both attractive and averse, at one part draweth the Iron, at the other loatheth it. The Truth knitteth all good men, all that 〈◊〉 born of the spirit, in a bond of peace, but withdraweth itself, and will not join with the evil, with those who are born after the flesh, and so maketh them enemies. And therefore I may add to Luther, Nihil periculosius veritate, There is not a more dangerous thing in the world, in respect of the world, than the Truth. For as the Truth (as it was said of Noah, Heb. 11.7) condemneth the world, that is, convinceth it of infidelity, and so leaveth it open to the sentence of condemnation, so doth the world also condemn the Truth; 1. By reproaching it: Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula? said the Heathen; What ado here is with Christ and his Legend? And so saith every Atheist in his heart, every one that is born after the flesh. 2. By selling it; as the Wanton doth, for a smile; the Covetous, for bread, Isa 55.2. for that which is not bread, the Ambitious, for a breath, a sound, a thought; the Superstitious, for a picture, an idol, which is nothing. 3. 1 Cor. 8.4. By violence against the friends and lovers of Truth, that they may drive it out of the world, by commanding and charging them to speak no more in that name, Acts ●. 17. & 5.28. by persecuting them, as Ishmael did Isaac, with ascoff: For this is all we read Sarah saw Ishmael mocking And this scoff, this derision, Gen. 21.9. whatsoever it was, S. Paul calleth persecution. And this is the Devil's Method, to make a scoff the prologue to a Tragedy, to usher in Persecution with a Jeer; first put Christians in the skins of beasts, and then bait them to death with dogs; first disgrace them, and then ad Leones, Away with them to the Lions; first call the orthodox Bishops traditores, and then beat them down at the very Altar; first make them vile, and then nothing. The Psalmist fully expresseth it, Swords are in their lips. Psal. 59.7. For every word these scoffers speak eateth flesh. It is a mock now, it will be a blow, it will be a wound. It beginneth in a libel, it endeth in Rise, kill, and eat. The first letter, the Alpha, is a mock; the last, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is desolation. Thus the son of the free woman, he that is born after the spirit, is ever the patiented; and the son of the bondwoman, he that is born after the flesh, layeth on sure strokes. Vnus venture, sed non unus animus, saith Augustine; As the twins strove in the womb of Rebekah, so these two the Good and the Evil, strive in the World; the one by silence, the other by noise, the one by being what he is, the other by being angry that he is so; the one by his life, the other by his sword. Art thou born of the Spirit, Eccl. 2.1. a true member of Christ? Then prepare thyself for temptation as the son of Sirach speaketh. For when thou hast put on these graces that make thee one, thou hast with them put on also a crown of thorns. If thou be an Isaac, thou shalt find an Ishmael. Thus by looking on the Persons in the Text you may plainly see the face and condition of the Church, and that no privilege she hath can exempt her from persecution. This will yet more plainly appear from the very Nature and Constitution of the Church, which is best seen in her blood, when she is Militant: Which is more full and expressive than any other representation or title that she hath. The Church of Christ and the Kingdoms of the earth are not of the same making and constitution, have not the same soul and spirit to animate them. These may seem to be built upon Air; they are so soon thrown down: That is raised upon a holy Hill. These have a weak and frail hand to set them up, and as weak a hand may cast them down: That is the work of Omnipotency, which fenceth it about, and secureth it from Death and Hell. These depend upon the Opinions, upon the Affections, upon the Lusts of men, which change oftener than the wind; upon the breath of that monster the Multitude, which is any thing, and which is nothing, which is it knoweth not what, and never agreeth with itself, is never one but in a tempest, in tumult and sedition; That is founded upon the eternal Decree and Will of God, and upon Immutability itself, and shall stand fast for ever. These, when they are in their height and glory, are under uncertainty and chance; The Church under the wing and shadow of that Providence which can neither err nor miscarry, but worketh mightily and irresistibly to its end. His evertendis una dies, hora, momentum sufficit; These are long a raising, and are blown down in a moment: But the Church is as everlasting as his love that built it. In a word, these are worn out by Time; The Church is but melted and purged in it, and shall then be most glorious when Time shall be no more. I know well, Persecution appeareth to us as a Fury sent from hell; and every hair, every threat, is a snake that hisseth at us; but it is our Sensuality and Cowardice that whippeth us: Yet the common consent of all men hath given her a fairer shape; and they that run from her do prefer the suffering part: And as our Saviour said, Acts 20.35. It is more blessed to give then to receive, so is it vox populi, the voice of the People, though they practise it not, It is better to suffer then to oppress. Even they who have the sword in their hand, and breath nothing but terror and death, will rage's yet more if you say they persecute you, and either magnify their cruelty with the name of Justice, or else seek to persuade the world that they, and they alone, suffer persecution. Every man flieth persecution, and every man is willing to own it. The Arians complained of the cruelty of the Orthodox, and the Orthodox of the fury of the Arians. Epist 48, & 68 Vos dicitis pati persecutionem, saith Augustine to the Manichees; You say you suffer; but our houses are laid waist by you. You say you suffer; but your armed men put out our eyes. You say you suffer; but we fall by the sword. What you do to us, you will not impute to yourselves; but what you do to yourselves, you impute to us. Thus it was then. And how do we look back upon the Marian days, as if the bottomless pit did never smoke but then? And are not they of the Romish party as loud in their complaints, as if the Devil were never let lose till now? We bring forth our Martyrs with a faggot on their shoulder, and they theirs with a Tiburn-tippet (as Father Latimer calleth it) and both glory in Persecution. We see then every party claimeth a title to Persecution, and counteth it honour to be placed in the number of those that suffer. And indeed Persecution is the honour, the prosperity, the flourishing condition of the Church: for it maketh h●r indeed visible. Nazianzene, I remember, calleth it, the Sacrament and mystery of blood; a visible sign of invisible grace, where one thing is seen, and another thing done; where the Christian suffereth and rejoiceth; is cast down, and promoted; falleth by the sword, to rise to eternity: where Glory lieth hid in Disgrace, Advantage in Loss, and Life in Death: a Church shining in the midst of all the blackness and darkness and terrors of the world. Epist. 20. ●●. Floridi Martyrs they are called by S. Cyprian. But this you may say is true if we take the Church as Invisible, made up of Sheep only, as Collection of Saints. To speak truly, Charity buildeth up no other Church: For all she beholdeth are either so, or in a possibility of having that honour, though the eye of Faith can see but a small number to make up that body. But take the Church under what notion you please, yet it will be easy to observe that Persecution may enlarge her territories, increase her number, and make her more visible than she was when the weather was fair, and no cloud or darkness hung over her; that when her branches were lopped off, she spread the more; that when her members were dispersed, there were more gathered to her; that when they were driven about the world, they carried that sweet-smelling savour about them which dtew in multitudes to follow them; that in their flight they begat many children unto Christ. Apolog. Crudelitas vestra illecebra est sectae, saith Tertullian. In the last place, As it was then, so it is now. S. Paul doth not say, It may be so, or, It is by chance, but so it is, by the Providence of God, Provedentia, ratio ordinis rerum ad finem, Aquin. which is seen in the well ordering and bringing of every motion and action of man to a right end, which commonly runneth in a contrary course to that which Flesh and Blood, humane Infirmity, would find out. Eternity and Mortality, Majesty and Dust and Ashes, Wisdom and Ignorance steer not the same course, nor are they bound to the same point. My ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts yours, Isa. 55.8. saith God by his Prophet to a foolish Nation who in extremity of folly would be wiser than God. Mine are not as yours, not such uncertain, such vain, such contradictory and deceitful thoughts, but as far removed from yours as heaven is from the earth. God hideth himself under a veil, Deus tum maximè magnus, eum homini pusillus, tum maximè optimus, cum ho ●ini non bonus Tert l. 2. adv. Martion. c. 2. and is merciful when he seemeth angry; and just, when in outward appearance he favoureth oppression; he shadoweth us under his wings, when we think he thundereth against us, and raiseth his Church as high as heaven when we tremble and imagine he hath opened the gates of hell to devour her. Were Flesh and Blood to build a Church, we should draw our lines out in a pleasant place. It should not be a House subject to weather, but some house of pleasure, a Seraglio, not in Egypt or Babylon, but in the Fortunate Islands, or in Paradise: Our Lily should be set far enough from the Thorns. We would go to Heaven without any Ifs or Ands, without any Butts or difficulties. We would be eased, but not weary; be saved, but not believe; or believe, but not suffer: Acts 14.22. We would enter into God's Kingdom, but not with tribulation; that is, we would have God neither provident, nor just, nor wise, that is (which is a sad interpretation) we would have no God at all. But God's method is best: Honorem operis fructus excusat. T●rtul. Scorpiac c. 5. Luk. 17 25. & 24.46. And that which we call Persecution is his art, his way of making of Saints. De perverso auxiliatur: He raiseth us by those evils we labour under. As in his manifold wisdom he redeemed mankind, so the manner and method of working out our salvation is from the same Wisdom and Providence: which as it set an Oportet upon Christ to suffer for us, so it set an Oportet upon the Church to have a fellowship in his sufferings: ●ct 14 22. We must through many afflictions be consecrated, be made perfect, and so enter into the Kingdom of God. We must first be made more spiritual by the contradiction of those who are born after the flesh, more isaac's then before for the many Ishmaels'. So Perfection is not only agreeable to the wisdom of God, but convenient to the weakness of Man. God will not save us, we cannot be saved any other way: Phil. 1.29. Oportet, we must go this way. Nay, Datum est; It is a gift; It is given not only to believe, but to suffer: a gift for which heaven itself is given. Matth. 5. And it is a Beatitude, Blessed poverty, blessed mourning, blessed persecution. Blessedness is set upon these as a Crown, or as ●ich embroidery, upon sackcloth, or some courser stuff. Thus you see the Church is not, cannot be, exempt from Persecution, if either we consider the Quality of the Persons themselves, or the Nature and Constitution of the Church, or the Providence and Wisdom and Mercy of God. As it was then, so is it now. In Abraham's family Ishmael mocketh and persecuteth Isaac; In the world the Synagogue persecuteth the Church, and in the Church one Christian persecuteth another. It was so, it is so, and it will be so to the end of the world. Let us now look back upon this dreadful but blessed sight, and see what advantage we can work, what light we can strike out of this cloud of blood to direct and strengthen us in this our warfare, Revel. 2.10. that we may be faithful unto death, 1 Pet. 4.12. and so receive the crown of life. And first, let us not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as S. Peter speaketh, think it strange, or be amazed at the fiery trial; not be dismayed when we see that befall the Church which befalleth all the Kingdoms and Commonwealths in the world, when we see the face of the Church gather blackness, and not shine in that beauty, in which formerly we beheld her. For what strange thing is it that Ishmael should mock Isaac? The Church so far as she is visible, in respect of her visibility and outward form, is as subject to change as any other thing that is seen, as those things which we use to say are but the balls of Fortune to play with. For those things of the Church which are seen are but temporal; 2 Cor 4.18. those which are eternal are not seen. 1 Cor. 7.31. The fashion of this world passeth away, saith S. Paul; and so doth the fashion of the Church. And when the scene is changed, it cometh forth with another face, and speaketh now like a servant who spoke before like a Queen. In brief, the Church turned about on the wheel of change, is subject to the same storms, to the same injuries, to the same craft and violence, which the Philosopher saith, make that alteration in States, change them not into those which may bear some faint resemblance of them, but into that which is most unlike and contrary to them, setteth up that in their place, leaving them lost, and labouring under the expectation of another change. Thus it is, and ever was, and ever shall be with the Church in respect of outward profession, Gen. 3.15. which is the face of the Church, nor hath the Seed of the woman so bruised the Serpent's head, but that he still biteth at the heel. Exod. 17. Behold the children of Israel in the wilderness, sometimes, in straits, anon in larger ways; sometimes fight, sometimes resting, as at mount Sinai; sometimes going forward, and sometimes turning backward; sometimes on the mountains, and sometimes in the valleys; sometimes in places of sweetness; as Mithkah, and sometimes in places of bitterness, as Marah. Behold them in a more settled condition, when their Church had Kings for her nursing-fathers'; how did Idolatry follow Religion at the heel, and supplant it? And of all their Kings how few of them were not Idolaters? How many professors were there, when Elijah the great Prophet could see but one? And how can that have always the same countenance which is under the powers and wills of mortal men, which change so oft, sometimes in the same man, but are never long the same in many, amongst whom one is so unlike the other that he will not suffer that to stand long which a former hand hath set up, but will model the Church as he please, and of those who look upon it with an eye of distaste will leave so few, and under such a cloud, that they shall be scarce visible? Not to speak of former times, of those seven golden Candelsticks which are now removed out of their place, Rev. 1.12, 20. nor of those many alterations in after-ages, but to come home to ourselves; Our Reformed Religion cannot boast of many more years than make up the age of a Man. That six years' light of the Gospel in the days of Edward the Saint was soon overspread and darkened with a cloud of blood in Queen Mary's reign. Since when we have been willing to believe (for we made our boast of it) that it shined out in beauty to these present times, which have thought fit to reform the Reformation itself. And now for the glory of it, for its Order and Discipline, which is the face of it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; where is it to be seen? We may say of it, as Job doth of frail Man, It dieth, it wasteth, it giveth up the ghost, Job 14.10. and where is it? Talk what we will of Perpetuity, of Visibility, of outward Profession, quod cuiquam accidere potest, cuivis potest; What we have seen done to one Church, may certainly be done to another, may be done to all. What was done in Asia may be done in Europe, and if the Candlestick be removed out of one, it may be removed out of any place. Nor is that Church which calleth herself the Mother and Queen of the rest secure from violence, but may be driven from her seat and pomp, though she be bold to tell the world that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her. Religion, it is true, is as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, Psal. 125.1. but standeth fast for ever. No sword, no power can divide me from it, nor force it out of my embraces. It hath its protection, its salvam gardiam, from Omnipotency. But the outward profession of it, the form and manner in which we profess it, in a word, that face of the Church which is visible, is as subject to change as all those things are which are under the Moon. All I shall say is, Wonder not at it: for the Church of Christ is still the same, the same in her nakedness and poverty that she was in her cloth of wrought gold and all her embroidery. Marvel not then: for such Admiration is the child of Ignorance, an exhalation from the Flesh, and hath more in it of Ishmael then of Isaac. And that we may not marvel, let us in the next place have a right judgement in all things, and not set up the Church in our fancy, and shape her out by the state and pomp of this world, Rom. 12.2. but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We must not make the world the Idea and platform of a Church. Monarchy is the best form of government, saith the Philosopher; and therefore, say they at Rome, the fittest for the Church. Judges are set up to determine controversies in the Commonwealth; and by this pattern they erect a Tribunal for a Judge in matters of faith. Temporal Felicity and Peace is the desire of the whole earth; hence they have made it a note and mark of the Church of Christ; like the wanton Painter in Pliny, who drew the Picture of a Goddess in the shape and likeness of his Paramour, and thought that was best and fittest which he best liked. From hence it is, from our too much familiarity with the World, from our daily parleys with Vanity, from our wanton Hospitality and free reception of it into our thoughts, and the delight we take in such a guest, that we are deceived, and lose all the strength of our judgement, and are not able to distinguish between Heaven and Earth, and discern that one differeth from the other in glory. And being thus blinded, having this veil drawn before our face, we are very apt to take the Church and the World to be alike, miscere Deum & seculum, to mingle God and the World together, and place ourselves betwixt them, and so make Vanity itself our companion in our way to happiness. Therefore let us cast down these bubbles of air blown up by the Flesh, and in time of peace prepare for war, behold the glittering of the Sword and all its terror, and then by the wisdom which the Spirit teacheth, arm ourselves against it, every man saying within himself, This can but kill the body, which is every day in killing itself; living, and dying, building up itself, which is next to ruin: but if I faint, I lose my soul, which God breathed into me, and then made as immortal as himself; and whilst I fly from the edge of the sword, my backsliding carrieth me into the pit of destruction. In pace, labour, & incommodis bellum pati discunt, in armis deambulando, campum decurrendo, fossam metiendo. etc. Tert. ad Mart. c. 3. In militaris disciplinae sinu & tu●●la serenus beatae pacis status acquiescit, Val. Max. l. 7. c. 3. Thus by familiar conversing with the blow before it fall, by setting Life against Death, and Eternity against a Moment, we may blunt its edge, and so conquer before we fight. This is our military Discipline, this is our Spiritual exercise, our Martyrdom before Martyrdom. This bindeth the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar, and maketh it ready to be offered up. This prepareth us for war, that we may have peace; peace, before we fight (whilst we rest on the authority and command of our Emperor, and on his strength; for we may do all things in Christ that strengtheneth us and then peace, everlasting peace, the reward and crown of victory. Every day to a Christian Soldier is dies praeliaris, a day of battle, in which he maketh some assault or other, and gaineth advantage on the adversary. For however the day may be fair, and no cloud appear, yet the sentence is gone out, 2 Tim. 3.12. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. What, shall all be torn on the rack, or bruised on the wheel? Shall all be sacrificed? shall all be Martyrs? Yes, all shall be Martyrs, though many of them lose not a drop of blood. Habet & pax suos Martyrs; There is a kind of Martyrdom in peace. For he that thus prepareth and fitteth himself, he that by an assiduous mortifying of himself (which indeed is in some degree to deify himself) buildeth up in himself this firm resolution to leave all, to suffer all for the name of Christ and the Gospel, he suffereth before he suffereth, he suffereth though he never suffereth, there wanting nothing to complete it but an Ishmael, but the Tyrant and the Executioner. He cannot but be willing to leave the world who is gone out of it already. Mat. 24.44. Be ye therefore ready; for in an hour when you think not, the Son of man, the Captain of your salvation, may come, Bellum stat●s est nomen qui potest etiam esse c●m operationes ejus non exserit, Grot. De Jure be. li & pacis. and put you into the lists. Though the trumpet sound not to battle, yet is it not peace. And if you ask me how you shall make ready and address yourselves, what preparation is required, I may say, It is no more than this, To love the truth which you profess, to make it your guide, your counsellor, your oracle, whilst the light shineth upon your head; when that saith, Go, to go; and when it saith, Do this, to do it; 1 Tim. 4 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to exercise your souls unto godliness, and so incorporate it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Basil de Humil Rev 6 8. M●eremb. De Arte volunt. as it were, and make it consubstantial with them, and leave imprinted therein an indelible character thereof. For if you thus display and manifest it in every action of your life, if you thus fasten it to your soul, and make it a part of it in time of peace, you will not then part with it at a blast, at the mock of an Ishmael, or the breath of a Tyrant, which is but in his nostrils; you will not forsake it in time of temptation. Love, if it be true, is mighty in operation, stronger than Death itself, and will meet and cope with him, though he cometh towards us on his pale horse, with all his pomp and terror. Love, saith a devout Writer, is a Philosopher, and can discover the nature and qualities, the malignity and weakness of those evils which are set up to shake our constancy, and strike us from that rock on which we are founded. Who is a God like unto our God? saith David. What can be like to that we love? what can be equal to it? If our hearts be set on the Truth, to it the whole World is not worth a thought, Nullum spectac lum ●inc●●cussione spiritus, Tert. de Spect. c. 15. nor can that shop of vanities show forth any thing that can shake a soul, or make the passions turbulent and unruly, that can draw a tear, or force a smile, that can deject the soul with sorrow, or make it mad with joy, that can raise an Anger, or strike a Fear, or set a Desire on the wing: Every object is dull and dead, and hath nothing of temptation in it. For to love the Truth is all in all, and it bespeaketh the World as S. Paul did the Grave, Where is thy victory? 1 Cor. 15.55. Rom. 8. 35-39 Nor height, nor depth can separate us from that we love. Love is a Sophister, able to answer every argument, wave every subtlety, and defeat the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his wiles and crafty erterprises. Nay, Love is a Magician, and can conjure down all the terrors and noise of Persecution, which are those evil Spirits that amaze and cow us. Love can rouse and quicken our drooping and fainting spirits, Heb. 12.12. and strengthen the most feeble knees and the hands that hang down. If we love the Truth, if Truth be the antecedent, the consequent is most natural and necessary, and it cannot but follow, That therefore we will, when there is reason, lay down our lives for it. For again, what is said of Faith, is true of Love; It purifieth the conscience: and when that is clean and pure, the soul is in perfect health, cheerful and active, full of courage either to do or suffer, ready for that disgrace which bringeth honour, for that smart which begetteth joy, for that wound which shall heal, for that death which is a gate opened to eternity, ready to go out and join with that peace which a good conscience (which is her Angelus custos, her Angel to keep her in all her ways) hath sealed and assured unto her. A good conscience is the foundation of that bliss which the noble army of Martyrs now enjoy. But if in our whole course we have not harkened to her voice when she bid us do this, but have done the contrary, if in our ruff and jollity we have thus slghted and baffled her, it is not probable that we shall suffer for her sake, but we shall willingly, nay, hastily, throw her off and renounce her, when to part with her is to escape the evil that we most fear, and avoid the blow that is coming towards us. We shall soon let go that which we hold but for fashion's sake, which we fight against while we defend it, and which we tread under foot even then when we exalt it; which hath no more credit with us then what our parents, our education, the voice of the people, and the multitude of professors have even forced upon us? If the Truth have no more power over us, if we have no more love for the Truth but this which hath nothing but the name of Love, and is indeed the contrary; if we bless it with our tongue, and fight against it with our lusts; if at once we embrace and stifle it; then we are Ishmaels', and not isaac's. And can an Ishmael in the twinkling of an eye be made an Isaac? I will not say it is impossible; but it carrieth but little show of probability: and if it be ever done, it is not to be brought in censum ordinariorum, it falleth not out in the ordinary course that is set, but is to be looked upon as a miracle, which is not wrought every day, but at certain times, and upon some important occasion, and to some especial end. For it is very rare and unusual that Conscience should be quiet and silent so long, and then on the sudden be as the mighty voice of God; that it should lie hid so long, and then come forth and work a miracle. Keep faith, saith S. Paul, and a good conscience, 1 Tim. 1.19. which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck. Faith will be lost in the ways and floods of this present world, if a good Conscience be not kept. If then thou wilt stand up against Ishmael, be sure to be an Isaac, a child of promise and an heir to the faith of Abraham. If thou wilt be secure from the flesh be renewed in the spirit. If thou wilt be fit to take up the cross first crucify thyself, thy lusts and affections. This is all the preparation that is required, which every one that is born after the spirit doth make. And there needeeh no more: For he that is thus fitted to follow Christ in the regeneration against the Ishmaelites of this world, is well qualified, and will not be afraid, to meet him in the clouds and in the air, when he shall come in terror to judge both the quick and the dead. And now to conclude; What saith the Scripture? Cast out the bond woman and her son: Gen 21.14. for the son of the bond woman shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman. It is true, Ishmael was cast out into the wilderness of Beersheba: Advers. Judaeos', c. 13. Apolog 21. And the Jew is cast out, ejectus, saith Tertullian, coeli & soli extorris, cast out of Jerusalem, scattered and dispersed over the face of the earth, and made a proverb of obstinate Impietiy; so that when we call a man a Jew, putamus sufficere convitium, we think we have railed loud enough. But now how shall the Church cast out those of her own bowels, of her house and family? And such enemies she may have, which hang upon her breasts, called by the same Word, sealed with the same Sacraments, and challenging a part in the same common salvation. To cast out is an act of violence; and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part: But yet she may cast them out, and that with violence, but than it is with the same violence we take the kingdom of heaven, Matth. 11.12. a violence upon ourselves. 1. By laying ourselves prostrate, by the vehemency of our devotion, by our frequent prayers that God would either melt their hearts or shorten their hands; either bring them into the right way, Matth. 17 21. or strike off their chariot wheels. For this kind of spirit, these malignant spirits, cannot be cast out but by prayer and fasting, which is energetical and prevalent, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Eusebius, a most invincible and irresistible thing, placing us under the wing of God, far above all principalities and powers, above all the flatteries and terrors of the world, there with Stephen pleading for Saul the persecutor till he become Paul the Apostle; which is in effect to cast out the Persecution itself. 2. By our patience and long-suffering. Patience worketh more miracles than Power. It giveth us those goods which our enemies take from us, it maketh Dishonour glorious, it dulleth the edge of the sword, it cooleth the flames of fire, it wearieth cruelty, shameth the Devil, and like a wise Captain turneth the ordnance upon the facc of the enemy. Rom. 5.3. It is the proper effect of Faith: for if we believe him who hath told us our condition, what will we not suffer for his sake? And it is omnipotent: by the virtue of this S. Paul professeth he could do and suffer all things. Philip. 4.13. It may seem strange indeed that a mortal and frail man should be omnipotent, and do all things; yet it is most evidently true, so true that we cannot deny it unless we deny the faith. To sit still and do nothing, to possess our souls with patience, and to suffer all things, is to cast out the bond woman and her son. 3. We cast them out by our innocency of life, and sincerity of conversation. Thus we shall not only cast them out, but persecute them, as righteous Lot did the men of Sodom. This is to keep ourselves to mount Zion, to that Jerusalem which is above, to defend our priority, our primogeniture, our inheritance; this is to be born after the spirit. There is, saith Augustine, Hom. 8.10. justa persecutio, a just and praiseworthy persecution. For Isaac to be heir was a persecution to Ishmael. For the Church to be built upon the foundation of the Apostles, Christ being the head cornerstone, was a persecution to the Jews: Acts 22.21, 22, 23. for no sooner had Paul mentioned his sending to the Gentiles, but they fling off their clothes, and fling dust into the air, and cry, Away with such a fellow from the earth. And nothing more odious to a Jew at this day than a Christian. Judaeorum Synagogae, fontes persecutionum, Tertul. Scorp. c. 10. Wisd. 2.12. The holy and strict conversation of the just is a persecution to the wicked. Castigat, qui dissentit; He that walketh not by our rule, but draweth out his religion by another, is as a thorn in our eyes and a whip in our sides, and doth not instruct but control and punish us. Do they not speak it in plain words? He is contrary to our do, it grieveth and vexeth us to look upon him. He will not dig with us in the mine for wealth; he will not wallow with us in pleasure, nor climb with us to honour. He will not cast in his Lot with us, to help to advance our purposes to their end. And let us thus persecute them, with our silence, with our patience, with our innocency, even persecute those Ishmaelites, no other way but this, by being Isaac's. 4. Lastly, we may cast them out by casting our burden on the Lord, Psal. 55.22. by putting our cause into his hands who best can plead it, by citing our Persecutors before his tribunal who is the righteous Judge. If we thus cast it upon him, we need no other umpire, no other revenger. If it be a loss, he can restore it; if an injury, he can return it; if grief, he can heal it; if disgrace, he can wipe it off: And he will certainly do it, if we so cast it upon him as to trust in him alone; The full persuasion of God's Power being that which awaketh him as one out of sleep, putteth him to cloth himself with his Majesty, setteth this power a working to bring mighty things to pass, and make himself glorious by the delivery of his people. To shut up all, and conclude; Thus if we cast our burden upon him, Luk. 21.28. thus if we look up to the Hills from whence cometh our Salvation, we shall also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, look up, and lift up our heads, behave ourselves as if all things did go as we would have them; look up, and lift up our heads, as herbs peep out of the earth when the Sun cometh near them, and birds sing when the Spring is near, so look up, as if our redemption, our Spring, were near. Thus if we importune God by our prayers, wait on him by our patience, walk before him when the tempest is loudest in the sincerity and uprightness of our hearts, and put our cause into his hands, if there be any Ishmael to persecute us, any enemies to trouble us, he will cast them out, either so melt and transform them that they shall not trouble us, or, if they do, they shall rather advantage than hurt us, rather improve our devotion then cool and abate it, rather increase our patience then weaken it, raise our sincerity rather than sink it, rather settle and confirm our confidence then shake it; in a word, he will so cast them out as to teach us to do it, that we may so use them as we are taught to use the unrighteous Mammon, Luk. 16.9. to cast them out by making them friends, even such friends as may receive us into everlasting habitations. Which God grant for his Son JESUS CHRIST'S sake, etc. The Eighth SERMON. PART I. 1 THESS. iv 11. And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. THe sum of Religion and Christianity is to do the will of God. v. 3. And this is the will of God, even our sanctification. Eccles. 12.13. This is the whole duty of man: And we may say of it as the Father doth of the Lords Prayer, Tertul. De orat. Quantum substringitur verbis, tantum diffunditur sensibus; Though it be contracted and comprised in a word, yet it poureth forth itself in a sea of matter and sense. For this Holiness unto which God hath called us is but one virtue, but of a large extent and compass. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is but one virtue, but is divided into many, and standeth as Queen in the midst of the circle and crown of all the Graces, and claimeth an interest in them all; hath Patience to wait on her, Compassion to reach out her hand, Longanimity to sustain, and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Placability of mind, and Contentation in our own portion and lot, to uphold her and keep her in an equal poise and temper, ever like unto herself, that we may be holy in our Faith, and holy in our Conversation with men, without which, though our Faith could remove mountains, yet we were not holy. Tot ramos porrigit tot venas diffundit; So rich is the substance of Holiness, so many branches doth she reach forth, so many veins doth she spread into. And indeed all those virtues which commend us to God are as the branches and veins, and Holiness as the blood and juice to make them live. I do not intent to compare them one with the other, because all are necessary, and the neglect of any one doth frustrate all the rest. And the Wiseman hath forbid us to ask why this is better than that; for every one of them in his due time and place is necessary. It hath been the great mistake and fault of those who profess Christianity, to shrink up its veins and lop off its branches, contenting themselves with a partial Holiness. Some have placed it in a sigh or sad look, and called it Repentance; others in the tongue and hand, and called it Zeal; others in the heart, in a good intention, and called it Piety: Others have made it verbum abbreviatum, a short word indeed, and called it Faith. Few have been solicitous and careful to preserve it in integritate tota & solida, solid and entire, but vaunt and boast themselves as great poficients in Holiness, and yet never study to be quiet; have little peace with others yet are at peace with themselves; are very religious, and very profane; are very religious, and very turbulent; have the tongues of Angels, but no hand at all to do their own business, and to work in their calling. And therefore we may observe that the Apostle in every Epistle almost taketh pains to give a full and exact enumeration of every duty of our lives, that the man of God may be perfect to every good work. 2 Tim. 3.17. He teacheth us not only those domestic and immanent virtues (if I may so call them) which are advantageous to ourselves alone, as Faith, and Hope, and the like, which justify that person only in whom they dwell; but emanant, public and homiletical, virtues of common conversation, which are for the edification and good of others, as Patience, Meekness, Liberality, and Love of quietness and peace. My Faith saveth none but myself; my Hope cannot raise my brother from despair; yet my Faith is holy, Judas 20. saith S. Judas, and my Hope is a branch and vein of Holiness, and issueth from it. But my Patience, my Meekness, my Bounty, my Love and Study of quietness and peace, sibi parciores, forìs totae sunt, Ambros. exercise their act and empty themselves on others. These link and unite men together in the bond of Love, in which they are one, and move together as one, build up one another's Faith, cherish one another's Hope, pardon one another's injuries, bear one another's burden, and so in this bond, in this mutual and reciprocal discharge of all the duties and offices of holiness, are carried together to the same place of rest. So that to Holiness of life more is required then to believe, or hope, or pour forth our souls, or rather our words, before God. It is true, this is the will of God: but we must go farther, even to perfection, and love the brethren, and study to be quiet; for this also is the will of God, and our sanctification. What is a Sigh, if my Murmuring drown it? What is my Devotion, If my Impatience disturb it? What is my Faith, if my Malice make me worse than an infidel? What are my Prayers, if the Spirit of Unquietness scatter them? Will we indeed please God, and walk as we ought? We must then, as S. Peter exhorteth, add to our faith virtue, to our virtue knowledge, 2 Pet. 1.5, etc. to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love; or, as S. Paul here commandeth not only abstain from fornication, from those vices which the worst of men are ready to fling a stone at, but those gallant and heroic vices which show themselves openly before the Sun and the people, who look savourably and friendly on them, and cry them up for zeal and religion, even from all animosity and turbulent behaviour; we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 study to be quiet, and be ambitious of it. Thus our Apostle bespeaketh the Thessalonians, We beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; and in the words of my Text, that ye study to be quiet, and do your own business, and work with your own hands, as we commanded you. In which words, first a Duty is proposed, Study to be quiet: Secondly, the Means promoting this duty are prescribed, causae producentes and conservantes, the causes which bring it forward and hold it up, laid down; 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to do your own business; 2. work with your own hands. The former shutteth out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all pragmatical curiosity, and stretching beyond our line and that compass wherein God hath bound and circumscribed us; the later 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all unactiveness and supine negligence in our own place and station. The third and last part makes this a necessary Study, and bringeth it under command; you must do it, as I commanded you. Or because to be quiet is here proposed as matter of study, we will consider, 2. the Object, or thing itself in which our study must be seen, and it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; a quiet and peaceable behaviour. 2. the Act, which requireth the intention of our mind, thoughtfulness and a diligent luctation and contention with ourselves; We must make it our study, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, be ambitious of it. 3. the Method we must use; We must meddle with our own business, and work with our hands. 4. the Warrant of this method, I have commanded it. And of these we shall speak in their order. First, to be quiet is nothing else but to be peaceable, to keep ourselves in an even and constant temper, to settle and compose our affections, that they carry us not in a violent and unwarranted motion against those with whom we live, though they speak what we are unwilling to hear, and do what we would not behold, though their thoughts be not as our thoughts, nor their ways as our ways, though they be contrary to us; that there be, 1 Cor. 12.25. as S. Paul speaketh, no schism in the body, but that the members may have the same care one of another; that we do not start out of the orb wherein we are fixed, and then set it on fire, because we think it moveth disorderly; but that we look on all with a charitable and Evangelical eye, not pale because others are rich, not sick for our neighbour's vineyard, not sullen because others are cheerful, not angry because others are weak, not clouded with envy and malice because others in some respects outshine us, 1 Tim. 2.2. but, as S. Paul speaketh, leading a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; (for the Gospel of Christ hath left us no other eye but that of Charity to look abroad with) that the peace of God rule in our hearts, Col. 3.15. to the which also we are called in one body; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sit as judge; for so the word signifieth, being in its native propriety spoken of the Judge in the Olympic games. Let Peace rule in your hearts; let it have this office; let it be the only judge to set an end to all controversies; Let it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stand in the midst between two contrary sides, and draw them together and make them one, be a mediator between the offence that is given and the smart that is felt, command our Patience against the injury, awaken it to conquer and annihilate the other, and so bury it in oblivion for ever. That we may better understand, we must sever Peace from that which is like it. For Likeness is the mother of Error. Hence it is that there be so many lovers of Peace, and so little of it in the world; Hence it is that, when Ambition and Covetousness harrass the earth, when there be wars and rumours of wars, when the Kings of the earth rise up, when the people are as mad as the Sea when it rageth, when the world is on fire, yet there is not one that will be convinced, or persuade himself, that he ever raised one spark to kindle it. It was a just and grave complaint of S. Hierom, Non reddimus unicuique rei suum vocabulum; We are guilty of a dangerous misnomer, and do not give every thing its proper name. We think we study quietness, when we are most bend to war, and ready to beat up the drum. Alii dominationem pacem appellant; Some call Tyranny Peace, and nothing else; and think there is no peace unless every man understand and obey their beck, unless all hands subscribe to their unwarrantable demands. Quiet they are and peaceable men, when like a tempest they drive down all before them. To him that tyrannizeth in the Commonwealth, he is Rebel that is not a parasite; and to him that Lordeth it in the Church, he that boweth not to every decree of his, as if God himself had made it, is an Heretic, a Schismatic, an Anathema. Then it is peace, and not till then, when every look and word, every lie of theirs, is a law. Others call even Disobedience itself peace, and are never quiet but with their Quod volumus sanctum est, but when they are let lose to do what they please. They are filii pacis, the children of Peace, when they dig her bowels out, as the Donatists in S. Augustine, who were the greatest peace-breakers in the world, yet had nothing so much in their mouths as the sweet name of Peace. And how is she wounded by those who stand up in her defence? We call that Peace which hath nothing of it but the name, and that too but of our own giving; and esteem ourselves as quiet and peaceable men, when we are rather asleep then settled, rather senseless and dead then delighting ourselves in those actions which are proper to us in that motion which tendeth to rest; rather still and silent then quiet; bound up as it were with a frost till the next thaw, till the next fair weather, and opportunity as fair, and then we spread abroad, and run out beyond our limit and bounds, nor can we be contained or kept in them. Again, others there be, such as Tacitus speaketh of, who are solâ socordiâ innocentes, who are very quiet and still, and do little hurt, by reason of a dull and heavy disposition, and therefore, saith Tully, removent se à publicis negotiis, step aside and remove themselves out of the public ways, withdraw themselves out of the company and almost out of the number of men; who do no harm because they will do nothing; whose greatest happiness is nihil agere, nihil esse, to do nothing and to be nothing; Honestum pacis nomen segni otio imposuit, Tacit. de Turpiliano, Annali. 14. whose souls are as heavy and unactive as those lumps of flesh their bodies, and so raise no thoughts but such as lie level with their present condition, and reach not so high as to take in the public interest; who know not what to think, and so care not how unevenly or disorderly the course of things is carried along, so it be not long of them, being as much afraid of action as others are weary and sick of rest, as unwilling to put forth a hand to support a shaking and falling Commonwealth as others are active and nimble to pull it down. Nay some there are of so tender and soft disposition, ut non possint in caput alterius nè testimonium dicere, as the Orator observeth in Seneca's Controversies, that they cannot be brought to bear witness to that truth which may endanger the life of any man; so heartless, that they cannot speak the truth; having so much of the Woman and the Coward, that they know not how, but count it as a punishment, to be just and honest men. May we not take these now for quiet and peaceable men? No. These are not quiet, for they never studied it. And the Orator will tell us, Mores naturâ non constant; There is more required to the composing of our manners, and the raising and fixing this virtue in our mind, then that which the hand and impression of Nature left in us. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene; Orat. 31. For those inbred dispositions, those natural virtues, do not reach home. Who thanketh Fire for its heat, or Water for its moisture, or Snow for being cold, or the Sun that it doth shine? And may we not truly say of these low and tender dispositions, whom no disorder can affect, no violence move, that they are Lambs, that is, have as much quietness as Nature instilled and put into them? Again, as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a natural quietness, so there may be also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a constrained quietness, wrought in us by necessity; the quietness of Esau, which would last but till his father's funeral; the quietness of an Ammonite under the saw or harrow; 2 Sam. 12.31. the quietness of Goliath when his head was off. And indeed this forced quietness is like that of a dead man, of whom we may say, Quiescit, He is at rest and quiet, because he cannot move. Absalon and Ahitophel, Theudas and Judas, Catiline and Cethegus, and all those turbulent Boutefeus' which History hath delivered to the hatred and detestation of posterity, were as quiet before Opportunity and Hope set their spirits a working as now they are in their urns or graves. Much quietness the world hath yielded of this kind. Many men have been quiet against their wills, have stood still because they were bound hand and foot, or as little able to break forth into action as those that are. Whilst Authority was too strong for them and held them in, they were as silent as the night; but when the reins were slacked, and the bit out of their mouths, as raging as the Sea, and as loud as the noise of many waters: Georg. 3. as Virgil describeth his Horse, Stare loco nescit; they could not be quiet, they could not stand still and keep their place; Job 39.22, 24. or, as Job charactereth out his, they swallowed up the ground for rage and fierceness; they mocked at fear, and turned not back from the sword; like those wild Horses which set the world on fire, and threw Phaethon out of the chairs when they were weak and low, upon their knees tendering supplications, but when their strength increased, reaching forth their demands on the point of their sword. These Pageants the world showeth every day; but this is not to be quiet in S. Paul's sense. For nemo pius qui pietatem cavet, no man is good or quiet who cannot or dare not, for some danger that is near him and hangeth over his head, be otherwise. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil; We commend those men, and call them good and quiet men, who are so by choice and election, and not by necessity. Rom. 2.28, 29 For as he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, so is not he a peaceable man who is so outwardly and for a time, nor is that Quietness which is outward in the flesh; but he is quiet who is so inwardly, and Quietness is that of the heart, in the spirit, whose praise is not of men but of God. For if the love of Peace be in the heart, the lips will be sealed, and the hands bound up for ever. So that to be quiet consisteth in a sweet composure of mind, in a calm and contented conversation, in a mind ever equal and like unto itself: And he is a quiet and peaceable man who is not moved when all things else are, who standeth upon his own basis when all about him is out of frame, when the world passeth by him, and inverteth its scene and changeth its fashion every day, now shining anon lowering, now flattering and anon striking, now gliding by us in a smooth and delightful stream, and anon raising up its billows against us; who in every change is still the same; the same when the sword hangeth over him, and when peace shadoweth him; the same when Riches increase, and when poverty cometh towards him as an armed man; the same when Religion flourisheth, and when the Commonwealth hath nothing praeter obsessum Jovem & Camillos exules, but God dishonoured and good men oppressed; the same when the world runneth cross to his desires, and when he can say, So, so; thus would I have it: cui in rebus novis nihil novum; To whom nothing cometh as new and unexpected: Who standeth as a rock, and keepeth his own place and station; not swelling at an Error, not angry with Contempt, not secure in Peace, not afraid of Persecution, not shaken with Fear, not giddied with Suspicion, not bowed down with Covetousness, nor lifted above himself with Pride: Who walketh and is carried on in every motion by the same rule: In cujus decretis nulla litura, whose decrees and resolutions admit no blot; who doth not blot out this day's quietness with to morrows turbulence, In Photii Biblioth. as Aristides spoke of Pericles: Who is not unquiet or troubled for any rub or interposition, for any affront in his way but keepeth himself in an even and constant course, as constant in his actions as his knowledge; as if you should ask him a question of Numbers, he will give you the same answer to day which he did yesterday, or to morrow which he did to day and many years before: Who by his patience possesseth his soul, and will not yield or surrender it up to any temptation or provocation whatsoever, there to be swallowed up and lost: Whom another man's evil doth not make evil, another man's riches do not make pale, another man's honour doth not degrade from himself, another man's noise doth not disquiet, another man's riot doth not discompose, another's man's fury doth not distract, another man's schism doth not divide from the Church: in a word, who changeth not colour with the world, nor is altered with that confused variety and contradiction of so many humours of so many men, but applieth himself to every one of them as a Physician to supple and cure, not to enrage them: This man is quiet, hath gained this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this quietness of mind; this man cannot but be at peace with himself and all the world. And to this Christianity and the Religion we profess doth bind us. This is a plant which our heavenly Father alone doth plant in our hearts. Which, when it is planted, will shoot forth and grow up and raise itself far above the Love of the world, above Covetousness, and Envy, and Malice, and Fraud, which first disquiet and rack that breast in which they are, and then breathe forth that venom which blasteth the world, and troubleth and provoketh those which are near us; sometimes gnashing the teeth which eat and consume us, sometimes breathing forth hailstones and coals of fire which fly back in our faces and destroy us, sometimes laying of snares in which ourselves are caught. Prov. 14.30. For Envy is the rottenness of the bones, saith Solomon; and Anger killeth the foolish; Job 5.2. and Bread of deceit, though it be sweet at first, yet it shall fill the mouth with gravel. Prov. 20.17. Nemo non in seipsum priùs peccat, saith Augustine; No man disturbeth the peace of another, but he breaketh his own first: No man repineth at his brother's good, but he maketh it his own evil, and his Vice is his executioner: No man breatheth forth malice, but it echoeth back upon him: No man goeth beyond his brother, but hath outstripped himself. The Psalmist telleth us that evil shall hunt the violent man to destruction. Psal. 140.11 But when this plant, this Peace, is deeply rooted in us, it spreadeth its branches abroad over all, over all cross events, over all injuries, over all errors and miscarriages, over Envy, Malice, Deceit and Violence, and shadoweth them that they are not seen, or not seen in that horror which may shake it; spreadeth itself over the poor, and relieveth them; over the malicious, and melteth him; over the injurious man, and forgiveth him; over the violent man, and overcometh him by standing the shock: keepeth itself to its root, is fixed and fastened there, and when the wind bloweth and the rain falleth, and all beat upon it, when the tempest is loudest, is ever the same, is Peace still. And this is the work of the Gospel, the sum of all, the end of all that it teacheth, to work this Quietness in us that we may raise it up in others, that this Peace may beget and propagate itself in those who are enemies to it, that the Kid may feed with the Wolf, and the Lamb with the Leopard, so long as the Moon endureth; that there may be no deceit, no envy, no violence, no invasion, no going out, no complaining in our streets. This is the Evangelical virtue: This is peculiar and proper to the Gospel and Christian religion, proper in the highest and strictest degree of Propriety. Every good Christian is a peaceable man, and every peaceable man is a good Christian. Look into your prisons, saith Tertullian to persecuting Heathens, Apolog. and you shall find no Christians there; and if you do, it is not for murder, or theft, or cozenage, or breach of the peace; the cause for which they are bound and confined there is only this, That they are Christians. This is that height of Perfection which the vanity of Philosophy and the weakness and unprofitableness of the Law could not reach. Hebr. 7.18, 19 Neither could the Jew bring any thing ex horreis suis, out of his granary, his store or basket, nor the Philosopher è narthecio suo, out of his box of ointments, out of his book of prescripts, which could supple a soul to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this tranquillity and quietness, which might purge and sublime and lift it up above the world and all the flattery and terror that is in it. Humane Reason was too weak to discover the benefit, the pleasure, the glory of it: Nor was it seen in its full beauty, till that Light came into the world which did improve and exalt and perfect our Reason. The Philosophers cried down Anger, yet gave way to Revenge; laid an imputation upon the one, yet gave line and liberty to the other. Both Tully and Aristotle approve it as an act of Justice, Exod. 21.24. Matth. 5.38, 42, etc. The language of the Law was, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. It was said to them of old, You shall love your neighbour, and hate your enemy: but the return of the Gospel is a blessing for a curse, love for hatred, a prayer for persecution. Whatsoever the Law required, that doth the Gospel require, and much more, an Humility more bending, a Patience more constant, a Meekness more suffering, a Quietness more settled, because those heavenly promises (which the Philosopher never heard of) were more, and more clearly proposed in the Gospel then under the Law. For is not Eternity of bliss a stronger motive than the Basket, or Glory, or Temporal enjoyments? Is not Heaven more attractive than the Earth? Under the Law this Peace and Quietness was but a promise, a blessing in expectation; and in the Schools of Philosophers it was but a fancy; The Peace and Quietness they had was raised out of weak and failing principles, de industria consultae aequanimitatis, De Anima, c. 1. non de fiducia compertae veritatis, saith Tertullian, out of an industrious affected endurance of every evil that it might not be worse, out of a politic resolution to defeat the evil of its smart, but not out of conscience, or assurance of that truth which brought light and immortality to settle the mind, to collect and gather it within itself in the midst of all those provocations and allurements which might show themselves to divide and distract it, but remain itself untouched and unmoved, looking forward through all these vanishing shadows and apparitions, which either smile or threaten, to that glory which cannot be done away. This Christianity only can effect. This was the business of the Prince of Peace, who came into the world, but not with drum and colours, Tertull. count. judaeos Psal. 72.6. but with a rattle rather; not with noise, but like rain on the mown grass; not destroying his enemies, but making them his friends; not as a Caesar or Alexander, but as an Angel and Ambassador of peace; not denouncing war, but proclaiming a Jubilee; with no sword but that of the Spirit: Who made good that prophecy of the Prophet, that swords should be turned into plough shares, Micah. 4.3, 4. and spears into pruning books; that all Bitterness and Malice of heart should be turned into the love and study of Modesty and Peace, that every man should sit under his own vine, and under his own fig tree, gather his own fruit, and not reach out his hand into another man's vineyard; not offer violence, nor fear it; not disturb his brother's peace, nor be jealous of his own; not trouble others, nor be afraid himself: that the Earth might be a temporal paradise, a type and representation of that which is eternal. For this Christ came into the world, and brought power enough with him to perform it, and put this power into our hands that we may make it good. And when he hath drawn out the method of it, when he hath taught us the art to do it, when there is nothing wanting but our will, the Prophecy is fulfilled. For it was never yet foretold by any Prophet that they should be quiet who made it their delight and study and the business of their whole life to trouble themselves and others. What could Christ in wisdom have done more than he hath done? He hath digged up Dissension at the very root. Malè velle, malè dicere, malè cogitare ex aequo vetamur, saith Tertullian; To wish evil, to speak evil, to think evil, are alike forbidden in the Gospel, which restaineth the Will, bindeth the Hand, bridleth the Tongue, fettereth the very Thoughts; commandeth us to love an enemy, to surrender our coat to him who hath stripped us of our cloak, to return a blessing for a reproach, and to anoint his head with oil who hath struck us to the ground; which punisheth not the ends only but even the beginnings of dissension, which bringeth every part to its own place, the Flesh under the Spirit, the Will under the law of Charity (which is the Peace of the Soul) the obedience of Faith under the eternal Law (which is our Peace with God;) the Servant under the Master, the Child under the Parent, the Subject under the Magistrate (which is the Peace of an House, of a Commonwealth, of the World;) which maketh every part dwell together in unity, begetteth a parity in disparity, raiseth equality out of inequality, keepeth every wheel in its due motion, every man in his right place, is that Intelligence which moveth the lesser sphere of a Family, and the greater orb of a Commonwealth composedly and orderly; which is its Peace. For Peace and Quiet is the order and harmony of things. The Father calleth it a Harp; and it is never well set or tuned but by an Evangelical hand, which slacketh and letteth down the string of ourselves love to an Hatred of ourselves, and windeth up the string of our Love to our brother in an equal proportion to the Love of ourselves. We must hate our life in this world; Joh. 12.25. and we must love our brother as ourselves. Nay it letteth it lower yet, Matth. 22.39. even to our enemies; and the sound of it must reach unto them. Talk what we will of Peace, if it be not tuned and touched by Charity, if it take not its rise and spring from this Peace here, from the Peace of the Gospel, it will be but a dreadful sound, as Job speaketh, Job 15.21. either in the Soul, or in the Family, or in the Church, or in the Commonwealth. This is the nature, the power, the virtue of the Christian Law. This it doth even when it is not done: For if the Gospel might take place, it would most certainly be done. That there is so much heat, so much distraction, so much bitterness amongst Christians; that one Kingdom riseth against another, and almost every Kingdom is divided in itself; that the Church is mouldered into Schisms and parceled out into Conventicles, and every man almost is become a Church unto himself by a wilful separation from the whole; that Christians, whose mark and badge it was, by which they were known and distinguished from all the world, That they did love one another, That they would die for one another, should hate one another, revile one another, proscribe one another, anathematise one another, and kill one another, and do that bloody office sooner than a Turk or a Jew; that Christendom should thus be made a stage of war and a field of blood; is not from the Gospel or Christian religion. No; these winds blow not out of this treasury, but rather out of the pit of Hell; from the swell of Pride, which Christianity beateth down; from Love of the world, which Christianity conquereth; from Desire of supremacy, which Christianity stifleth; from Envy, whose evil eye Religion putteth out; from an hollow and deceitful Heart, which Christianity breaketh; from those evils which are the only enemies the Prince of Peace, the Author and Finisher of the Gospel, came to fight against and destroy. Look back upon the first Christians, who had rather suffer the greatest wrong than do the least; who, when for their multitude they might have trod their enemies under their feet, yet yielded themselves to their fury and rage; who did so outnumber them, that only to have withdrawn themselves had been to have left their persecutors in banishment, to wonder and lament their own paucity and solitude, yet bowed down their necks to their yoke, and delivered up their lives to their cruelty, and were more willing to rest in their graves then to be unquiet: In them that Prophecy of Micah was fulfilled; Their swords were indeed turned into mattocks, and their spears into pruning-hooks: for all the weapons they had were their Innocency and Patience. And thus it was for welnear four hundred years together. But lock forward, and then see blackness and darkness, Hebr. 12.18. noise and tempests, even in the habitations of Peace; Christians reviling and libelling one another, as in the Council of Nice; Christians kicking and treading one another under foot, as in the Council of Ephesus; Christians killing one another, as in the quarrel or schism of Damasus and Ursicinus. And then let your eye pass on through all the ages of the Church, and, if it can for dropping, look upon this last, and you will see that which will be as a thorn in your eye, and hear that which will make your ears tingle; see blood and war, tragedies and massacres, tumult and confusion, Christians defrauding, cursing, tormenting, robbing one another: You will see— But the time would fail me to tell you what you would see. But you would think that Christendom were a wilderness, Isa. 11.6. not a place where the Leopard did lie down with the Kid, or the Wolf feed with the Lamb; but where the Kid was turned into a Leopard, and the Lamb into a Wolf: You would think that either the Prophecy was false, or that Christ the Prince of Peace was not yet come in the flesh. But as our Saviour said to his Disciples, when they were affrighted, and supposed him to be a Spirit, Luk. 24 37, 38 Why are you troubled? so, if you be troubled, you mistake Christ, and think him to be what he is not. For for all these dismal and horrid events, so contrary and so unproportioned to the promise of God, Christ is come in the flesh, and the Prophecy is fulfilled. For all Christians are peaceable men; and whosoever is obedient to the Gospel doth feel and can demonstrate this power in himself. What though we see violence and strife in the Church? Psal. 55.9. yet the Church is the house of Peace. What though Appius be unchaste? we cannot libel the Decemvirate. What though Judas be a Son of perdition? It was the Traitor, not the Apostle, which betrayed Christ. If there be controversies, Religion doth not raise them; If there be schisms, Religion doth not make them; If there be war, Religion doth not beat up the drum; If there be busybodies, Religion doth not employ them; If there be incendiaries, Religion did not enrage them; If there be a fire in the Church, the Christian did not kindle it, but the Ambitious man, the Mammonist, the Beast that calleth himself by that name. For Religion cannot do that which she forbiddeth, cannot do that on earth which damneth to hell, cannot forward that design which is against her, cannot set up that which will pull her down; in brief, Religion, Christian Religion, cannot but settle us, and make us quiet and peaceable, cannot but be itself: For that which unsettleth us, and maketh us grievous to ourselves and others, is not Christian Religion. Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was, or that Wisdom itself could find out, and hath laid a fouler blemish on Discord and Dissension than Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe. Psal. 122.6. 1 Tim. 2.2. Hebr. 12 14. Matth. 5.38, &c She commandeth us to pray for peace; she enjoineth us to follow peace with all men; she enjoineth us to lose our right for our peace; motus alienae naturae pace nostrâ cohibere, as Hilary speaketh, to place a peaceable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of another's rage, by doing nothing to conquer him who is in arms, to charm the hissing Adder with silence; she leveleth the hills, and raiseth the valleys, and casteth an aspect upon all conditions of men, all qualities, all affections whatsoever, that they may be settled and compact, and at unity with themselves and others. This was Christ's first gift, when he was born; and it was conveyed unto us in an Hallelujah, Luke 2.14. Peace on earth: And it was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil calleth it, his last gift, when he was to die, Peace I leave with you: And, John 14.27. to conclude, this is it which S. Paul here commendeth to us as a Lesson to be learned of us: The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. We must labour and study to be quiet. There is nothing in the world which deserveth true commendation but it must be wrought out with study and difficulty. Nor is the love of Peace and Quietness obvia & illaborata virtus, an obvious and easy virtue, which will grow up of itself. Indeed good inclinations and dispositions may seem to grow up in some men as the grass and the flowers in the field, and to be as naturally in them as the evil. For Man, that is born to action, brought with him into the world those practic principles which may direct him in his course. There is, saith Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one part of Piety which we never learned, but brought with us as an impression made in us by the hand of Nature itself. And these natural and inbred dispositions do not always grow up as we do in stature, but sometimes only show themselves, and then soon disappear, like the embryo or child that dieth in the womb; they live and die, and never see the sun: They bud and blossom in us, and bear this glory with them, for a while; but when they should ripen, and bear that fruit which we hope to see and look on with delight, either through our neglect or the malignant aspect of ill example they are nipped and withered and lost, and there grow up worse in their place, so unlike to their first show and to those hopes which we conceived, that we upbraid the end with the beginning, the harvest with the spring, and wonder how that which in its putting forth was a flower should in its growth and culmination become a thistle, how that which was a Lamb in the morning should be a Fox or Lion before its evening, how these good dispositions, like a fair Temple which is in raising, should sink and fall and be buried in the rubbish. But these dispositions and good inclinations we look upon as upon promises, which may be kept or broke. Nor can we commend them farther than by our hopes, which are sometimes answered but too oft deluded. Nor can we call them Virtues, because they are not voluntary. That which is truly praiseworthy, must fit us for Eternity, will not shoot forth of itself, Deorum virtu● natura excellit, hominum autem industria; Cic. Top. nor grow & flourish in its full beauty till the Soul and Mind of Man be well cultivated, be dressed, manured and watered. It is a work of Time, and must be wrought out in us, by us, even against ourselves, against the reluctancies of the Flesh, against all solicitations and provocations which will beround and compass us in on every side. For else we shall not be long quiet, but uncertain and desultorious, leap out of one humour into another, like those whom we must study and deprehend, and so meet and apply ourselves unto them in every mode and disposition, or else they will vent and break forth, and trouble us; whom we cannot make our friends, unless we make ourselves their parasites. We are not what we should be till we labour and study to be so. When we shake off our mist, and shine, than our light is glorious. When we are flesh, and make ourselves spiritual, than we are active. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Orat. 31. When we quit ourselves of that leaden weight of our corrupt nature, as Nazianzene calleth it, and are carried up by our Reason above all that may disquiet us, or work us out of ourselves to the molestation of others, than we are quiet, than we are a fit spectacle for God and Angels and men to look upon and delight in. We read indeed of infused habits; and the Schools have furnished us with many such Conclusions, but they have not given us those Premises which may enforce them: they could not do it, because neither Reason nor Revelation will afford them. But if they be infused, as they are infused into us, so they are not infused without us; they are poured not like water into a Cistern, but into living vessels fitted and prepared for them. For if those Habits were infused without us, I cannot see how they should be lost. If Wisdom were thus infused into us, we could never err: If Righteousness were thus infused, the Will would ever look upon that Wisdom, and never swerve or decline from it: If Sanctity were thus settled on the Affections, they could never rebel. The Understanding could never err; for this Wisdom would ever enlighten it: the Will could not be irregular; for this Righteousness would ever bridle it: the Affections could not distract us; for they would ever be under command. For as they were given without us, so bringing with them an and uncontrollable force, they would work without us: And we might fit still upon our bottoms, and fill ourselves with vanity, in expectation of such an infusion, of such a dew which would fall into us whether we will or no. And so Virtue would be an Ancile, as a buckler sent down from heaven, which we never set a hand to: and we should be worse and worse, upon this account that we shall better, Su●t. Caeligula. and look upon Grace as Caligula did upon the Moon when she was full and bright, and wonder she doth not fall down out of her orb, and hasten to our embraces; and so we may be deceived, as he was, and she may never come. No: it is most true, Grace is sufficient for us; 2 Cor. 12.9. and it is as true, Grace is not sufficient for us unless we cherish it. Quietness is the gift of God; but it is a conditional gift, which exacteth something from him who must receive it. If we will be quiet, we must study to be so, that is, earnestly and unfeignedly desire it. And the earnest desire of any practical virtue is the study of it. When the Heart is prepared, the Will made conformable, then are we perfect Scholars in this art of conversation. And to this end we must first make it our meditation day and night, and fill our minds with it. This is like the cunning of a part which we are to act, and will make us ready to perform it with a grace and decorum, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. Rhet. 3. c. 10 and so receive a Plaudite, an Euge, from him who is our Peace. For Meditation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a kind of augmentation and enlargement of the object we look upon. By our continual survey of the beauty of it, by fixing our thoughts upon it, by renewing that heat and fervour in us, by thinking of it, and by an assiduous reviving and strengthening those thoughts, we make it more visible, more clear, more appliable than before; make that which written is but a dead letter, or spoken but a sound, as the voice of God himself, of force and energy to quicken and enliven us. It is like to those Prospectives which this latter Age hath found out, by which we discover Stars that were never seen, and in the brightest of them find spots that were never discerned. We hereby see the glory of Tranquillity, and the good it bringeth to ourselves and others; what a heaven there is in Love and Peace, and what a hell and confusion in Anger and Debate. We hereby find out the plague of our hearts, the Leprosy of our souls, which before appeared as a spot, as nothing. And this help we have by Meditation. For though it be most seen, as the Pilots skill is, cùm stridunt funes, & gemunt gubernacula, in a rough and well-wrought sea, in times of trouble and distraction, yet our study and desire of it wanteth no opportunity of time or place, & inter medios rerum actus invenit aliquid vacui, in the midst of our business and employments findeth leisure, and maketh its closet in the very streets. Every day, every hour of our life we may contemplate it, and prepare ourselves to be at peace with all men; that, when the tempest doth arise which may disquiet us and throw us from our station, we may be ready and able, if not to becalm and slumber it, yet to becalm ourselves, and stand as quiet and upright as if no wind did blow. As the young man in Xenophon did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, exercise his limbs and fingers, at home, and framed them to that gesture and elegancy of motion which might win the favour and commendations of those who beheld him abroad, so may we enter into our closet and be still, tell ourselves what a blessing it is to be ourselves, what a divine thing it is not to be moved; how like to God we are, when we see distasteful objects, and are not changed; how meritorious and heroic a thing it is to save ourselves in the midst of a froward generation. Thus may we prepare and fix our hearts, think that God may lay us, as he did Job, on the dunghill, and resolve to be patiented; that we may live amongst perverse and froward men, and be ready to addulce and sweeten them; amongst those whose teeth are arrows, and hold up our buckler; that the heathen may rage's and tumultuously assemble, and comfort ourselves that God shall have them in derision; that we may live in the midst of the enemies of peace, and provide to keep it; suppose that such a Lion as Nero, or some worse beast, should roar amongst us, common with ourselves, and be still, and fly to no other Sanctuary than our Tears and our Prayers. And therefore in the next place we must not only meditate and contemplate, but upon all occasions put our meditation in practice. For Meditation may be but the motion and circulation of the Fancy, the business, or rather the idleness, of such men who send their thoughts abroad as boys throw smooth stones upon the surface of the water, which are lost in the making; which look and gaze on Virtue, and then fly aloft in the contemplation of it, but like those birds of prey which first tower in the air, and then stoop at carrion. We must therefore second our Meditation, and ratify and make it good by practice, faciendo discere, con it more perfectly, by being not moved at the incursion of any evil; learn to pass by a petty injury, that we be not cast down with a greater; not be envious against evil-doers, that we may be less troubled at what they do, not repine at the prosperity of evil men, that we may not be too far exalted with our own; by accustoming ourselves to the suffering of this or that evil, proceed and grow up to that composedness that we may endure all; learn with a foil, that we may fight with a sword, as Demosthenes used to repeat his orations on the beach, that having stood the roaring of the Sea, he might be the less troubled at the noise and insolency of the people in the pleading-place. And this study is no easy study. For dedocendi priùs quàm docendi; We must unlearn many things before we can be taught this. We must abandon our former principles, out of which we drew so many dangerous conclusions, before we can make any progress in this divine science. We must pull down our former desires before we can raise up new. In a word, we must empty ourselves before we can be quiet. And first we must cast out Self-love, I mean, we must not love ourselves so irregularly, so ridiculously, so perniciously, so mortally as we do. For there is no adamant, no millstone, more unyielding to the stroke of the hammer then the Heart of man when once it is possessed with the Love of itself. Then every thing that flieth crosseth and troubleth us, every apparition is a monster, every man is our enemy, every look is a threat, every word is a sword, every whisper is thunder. He that thus loveth himself cannot long be quiet with any man. Our blessed Apostle, where he telleth us, 2 Tim. 3. 14. that in those perilous times which were to come there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, men lovers of themselves, that is, blind to themselves, ignorant of themselves, bringeth in a train after them, an Iliad of many evils that should follow whilst Self-love led in the front; First lovers of themselves, and then covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God: And such men can never be quiet. Next, we must root out that root of all evil, Covetousness, which will never suffer us to be quiet, Isa. 5.8. is ever busy abroad, seeking to add house to house, and land to land, to draw all unto itself. Name & Avaritia amat unitatem, saith Augustine: even Covetousness is a lover of unity, and commandeth and driveth us from place to place, even through the world, till it collect all into one, and make it its own. But we must confine our desires, and begin not to stand in need of Fortune. For if we let our desires run out, they will be ever running, and never at an end, and throw down whatsoever is against them. When they are once let out and upon the wing, we speak to every man which standeth between us and the object they fly to as Joab did to Asahel, 2 Sam. 2.22. Turn thee aside, or we will smite thee to the ground. Covetousness filleth the hills with robbers, the sea with pirates, the Commonwealth with thiefs and cheats and oppressors, raiseth sedition, tumults, wars. Aurato Capitolio bella gessimus, saith the Orator; ●en: Controu. Whilst Rome was poor, peace was within her walls; but when the Capitol was gilded, rich and glorious, than war broke in. The Gods and Religion might be the pretence, but Covetousness and Ambition beat up the drum. And therefore we must in the next place pull back our Ambition, which is a busy, troublesome and vexatious evil, carrying us over our brother's necks to that pitch from whence we commonly fall and break our own, never quiet till then. And then we shall the more easily bind our Malice, which is ever lurking and prying for the prey; and bridle our Anger, which will never suffer us to be at quiet in ourselves or with others, but will drive us from ourselves, and put us in the posture and motion of madmen, make us run out of our own house to burn our neighbours, and afflict ourselves to trouble others. And last of all, we must empty ourselves of all Suspicion, Evil-surmizing and Discontent, which never want fuel to foment them, but feed on shadows, on whispers, on lies, empty reports, and draw conclusions out of any, out of no premises at all; which call small benefits injuries, and every frown a persecution; which levelly us in our best estate, impoverish us in riches, raise a tempest in a calm, and strike us on the ground when no evil breatheth in our coasts; which have a miraculous power to turn a Rod into a Serpent, a creating power to work not good out of evil, but evil out of nothing; which are quick and apprehensive, strike at every gnat, and make it a camel to choke us; in brief, which are that worm that gnaweth us continually, which kindle a hell on earth, torment us in pleasure, bruise us on profit, bind us in liberty, lay us on our bed and fright us with visions and dreams and fearful apparitions; which turn a Seraglio into a prison, a talon into a mite, and a mite into nothing, and whatsoever cometh near into a punishment, which is worse than nothing. These are the evil Spirits which torment and tear us, and fling us to the ground, and make us wallow and foam. When we have disposessed ourselves of these, we shall sit quietly and in our right minds; or, if we move, we shall move in our own sphere and compass, which is a motion in our place. And such a motion is rest. This is our spiritual exercise; and this we must study. This is the labour and work of our Faith; and we must practise it every day, and when we have practised it, practice it again, repeat our lesson over and over, and be jealous of ourselves that we are not yet perfect; as Petrarch counselleth Students, sic philosophari ut philosophiam ament, so study to be quiet that we may love it, love it as that which will purchase us the love of the God of Peace. If we take the proper signification of the word here, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our love must be of that nature that we must love it as that which will crown us with glory, we must be ambitious of it. And how do ambitious men stretch and rack their wits? How do they study to attain first one degree of honour, than another, than the top of all, and then study again to be higher than the highest? For Ambition, though it begin with the end, yet is always a beginning. And this is proper to it, that it never looketh back, or considereth how high it hath soared. It beginneth at one Kingdom, and then beginneth at another; and though it make way ad cubile solis, to the end of the world, yet it doth but begin there. Thus should we be ambitious of quietness, of a settled mind and a peaceable behaviour, which no man's height can sink, no man's greatness can diminish, no man's anger can move, no man's malice can shake, no man's violence can disorder; as others are of Honour, which they must win with fire and sword; and so make up Nazianzens' number, Orat. 18. who telleth us there be three things which cannot be overcome or disquieted, God, and an Angel, and a good Christian. God is not troubled when he is angry, though for our sakes he telleth us he is, even pressed as a cart under sheaves; Amos 2.13. and it is our sin, not wrath, that whetteth the sword of the destroying Angel: And shall not we be ambitious to make up the third, to be like unto our heavenly Father, to be like unto the Angels in this? to be quiet, and keep the same temper and evenness, in the midst of so many humours as men; to be the same, when others run several ways, and all to trouble us; to be humble, when one scorneth us; to be meek, when another rageth; to be silent, when this man doth rail; not to be transported with what others do, but to stay at home with ourselves, and be still; when the world is out of order, not to pull it to pieces in seeking to settle it, not to enrage a fire by attempting to quench it; to establish this order, this peace, this heaven within ourselves, and as much as in us lieth, Rom. 12.18. keep it with all men. This is truly Religion; not to hear, and talk, and fill the world with noise and confusion; Psal. 131.1. not to exercise ourselves in things too high for us; but to fight against our lusts, and trouble none but ourselves; though this aged world is grown over-wise, and hath found out a way to divorce Religion from Honesty and Peace. This is truly Christianity, the command and practice of Christ, who would not be an Arbitrator between two brethren: Who, saith Christ, Luke 12.14. hath made me a judge or divider over you? My business is to give you general precepts, which you must draw down to particular cases, and not to put my hand to help to manage the affairs and business of particular men. He came down into the world as rain into a fleece of wool, to beget us with his word, that we his children might move and walk in the world as he came down into it, that is, without noise. Lastly, this is truly honourable; a mark which the Ambition of a Christian should fly to. For it is an honour to cease from strife: Prov. 20.3. Sedere quiescere, so it is rendered, to sit still and be quiet. Possess yourselves, 1 Thess. 4.4, saith S Paul, in sanctification and honour, in sanctity, which is your honour, by which you honour and adorn the temple of the holy Ghost. We count it indeed an honour to make our tongues our own, and speak what we list; to make our hands our own, and do what we please; Psal 18.37.42, to pursue our enemies, and take them, and beat them as small as the dust before the wind; we count it an honour to stand in the valley, and to touch the mountains till they smoke, to reach at that which is above us, and pull it down, to divide that which is united, to shake that which is established, to violate that which should not be touched; we are ever moving and heaving upward to be more than we should be, to be what we should not be, vile and ignoble and dead in our own place, and never honourable (we think) till we have left it behind us, to gain us a name, though it be by firing a temple, or setting the world itself in combustion. Thus honours are dispensed amongst the children of men, amongst the sons of Belial; honourable Schismatics, 1 Kings 14.16. descended from Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin; Gen. 49.5. honourable Revengers, of the tribe of Simeon and Levi, those brethren in evil; honourable Hypocrites, Pharisees, and the sons of Pharisees, Matth. 23.33. a generation of vipers; honourable Murderers, of their Father the Devil, John 8.44. who was so from the beginning; ambitious, humourous, covetous, discontent, forlorn and desperate persons, Quósque suae rapiunt sceleratae in praelia causae. These are the Grandees and the honourable persons of this world. But in the Court and Heraldry of Heaven we find no such Titles of Honour. No; Jer. 22.30. Writ these men desolate, who shall not prosper, though they do prosper. Rom. 1.30, 31. Writ them down Haters of God, Despiteful, Proud, Boasters, Inventors of evil things, Fools without understanding. But the man who is quiet and peaceable, he is the honourable man, though he lie on a dunghill, though he sit amongst the dogs of the flock; Job 30.1. like unto the Angels, nay like unto God, 2 Cor. 3.18. and holding resemblance with him, transformed from glory to glory; the same, though the fashion of the world change every day; Not stealing into honour, as those great Thiefs of the world, Alexander, and Hannibal, and Marius, and Sylla, errore hominum, by the error and mistake of men, who call fools Politicians, and Madmen valiant; but judicio Dei, by the judgement and sentence of God, himself made proprietary of it, being his Soldier, who hath fought against none but himself; being his Priest, who hath sacrificed himself, all his lusts and desires and animosities; being his King too, who hath awed and commanded and governed himself in peace, and subdued every thing that might disquiet either himself or others, and so made a Royal Priesthood unto the lord Thus, thus shall it be done to the man whom the King of Kings will honour. Es●h. 6.9, 11. Psal. 149.9. This honour have all his Saints in this life, and in the next everlasting glory. 1 Thess. 4.7. You see then, Brethren, your calling. You are called to holiness, and you are called to peace and quietness. You see the study you are employed in by the blessed Apostle, as a hard, so an honourable study. And in the ways of Honour who would not move? We must therefore make one step further, and learn the Method which is prescribed, or the Means to keep us at peace with ourselves and others. We must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, do our own business, and labour with our hands, as he hath commanded. But of this in the next. The Ninth SERMON. PART II. 1 THESS. iv 11. And to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. OUr progress in our studies and endeavours is commonly answerable to our method and to the rules we observe. If they be proper and connatural to the end we have set up, omnia breviora fiunt, our labour and pains are the less, and our profit and improvement the more. Every man would be quiet in his own place, and pretendeth he is so when he is busy and tumultuous abroad. The Covetous man is in his place, when he joineth house to house, and layeth field to field, till there be no place. The Ambitious is in his place, when he flieth out of it, never at rest, till he reach that height where he cannot rest. The Revenger is in his place, when he is digging in the bowels of his brother. The Parasite, the Calumniatour, the Tale-bearer, the Libeler, the Seditious, all desire peace and quietness, when they move as a tempest, drive down all before them, and are at last lost themselves in the ruin which they make: The Flatterer is poisoned with his own oil, the Calumniatour is wounded with his own lie, and it returneth back upon him into his own bowels; the Tale-bearer is consumed in the fire which he kindleth; The wit which the Libeler scattereth flieth back upon him, and many times is writ in his forehead; the Seditious are oft struck down with the noise which they make, they divide the Commonwealth, and are distracted themselves: And though their craft or violence, their hypocrisy and perjury bring them home to that which their over-daring Hope first looked upon, yet there they find no rest, but move uneasily in the midst of those cares and fears, which came not near them when their thoughts were at home. For they have never more business to do then when they do not their own, neither have they their end when they have their end, because they went not that way, nor trod those paths, those plain and easy paths, which did lead unto it. Now there cannot be a truer Method in our study and endeavour to be quiet then this which our Apostle hath here laid down, and which 1 Cor. 7.20. he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to abide, in our calling, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to abide patiently, Grot, to abide there as in our own proper place and sphere, as in our castle, as in our Sanctuary, where we are safe, safe from those incursions and affronts which will meet together and multiply about us to shake and disturb us when we are out of it. The surest way to be quiet is to abide in our calling, in that state and condition in which the hand of Providence hath placed us, and not to be drawn out of it by the splendour or glory, the benefit and fairer appearance and show of another's man. Not to swell, 2 Cor. 12.20. For when we swell, we swell over and out of our place, and so nearer and nearer to danger, to that opposition which will beat against us to shrink us into our own measure and compass, and either in ordinem redigere, as the phrase is, either drive us back to our own place, or leave us none to move in. Again, not to stretch beyond our line, 2 Cor. 10.14. For God in confining us unto our calling hath given us as it were our measure, hath drawn out a line which we must not pass. Peccare est tanquam lineas transilire, Partit. 16. saith Tully. Every action of ours hath its limits and boundaries, and if we pass them we sin. If we stretch beyond these, if we break through our bounds, 1 Pet. 4.15. and are busybodies in other men's matters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, alieni speculatores, as Tertullian rendereth it, we take off our eye and care from our own, and send them abroad as spies and observers of that which concerneth us not, we hold our Visitations and exercise our jurisdiction there where we have no power. Our Eye wandreth, our Ear is itching, our Tongue is walking through the earth, our Hand is reaching at every forbidden tree, our Feet are in every man's house, our Heart is the forge where we fashion out every man's business but our own, a Praetorium or place of State where we appoint out every man's Commission, set other men tasks, and neglect our own; and, as it is in the Proverb, aedilitatem gerimus sine populi suffragio, we invest ourselves with a power which was never given us, and usurp authority which we were never voted to; and are neither quiet ourselves, nor suffer others to be so. The Greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Lib. 11. Noct. Attic. c. 16. De Tranq. c. 12. which Gellius confesseth he cannot render, no not obscurely, in many words; Seneca, inquietam inertiam, an unquiet and troublesome sloth, by which we run up and down, and never abide at one stay, but, like men which run in haste to quench a fire, shoulder every one we meet, and tumble down ourselves and others in the way, Sticho, act. 1. sc. 3. and so fall together. Curiosus nemo est quin sit malevolus, saith he in Plautus: Curiosity is the breath of Malice, and is mischievous. And Mischief provoketh Wrath; and Injustice and Mischief on the one side and Impatience and Wrath on the other meet and strive and struggle together, and in the contention either one or both are lost. And therefore Plato telleth us, De Repub c 4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to meddle with our own matters, and not to busy ourselves in other men's, is that which we call Justice; for by this we leave to every man that which is his untouched, and preserve to ourselves that which is ours; that is, we are just to others, and just to ourselves; we do not trouble and disadvantage other men in their station, and defend our own. But when we fly out and pass beyond our bounds, we are not what we should be, but carry about with us a world of iniquity. Our thoughts are let lose full of desire, and are doubled upon us full of anxiety; and when we gain most, we are the greatest losers. We are injurious, false, deceitful; we are oppressors, thiefs, murderers, usurpers; we are all that in ourselves which we condemn in others. For this is the seminary of all those evils which are sent forth as so many emissaries to break the peace of Church and Commonwealth. And therefore not only Religion but Reason also, not only Christianity but even Nature itself hath copsed and bound us in from flying out, and hath designed to every man his proper business, that he may not stray nor wander abroad. First, Christianity is the greatest peacemaker, and keepeth every man to his own office; if Ministry, to wait on his Ministry; if Teaching, Rom. 12.7. to teach; if Trading, to follow his Trade; if Government, to rule with diligence; if Service, to be obedient with singleness of heart. Eph. 6.5. Every man hath his gift, and every man hath his measure and proportion. And, as it was in the gathering of Manna, he that hath much hath nothing over, Exod. 16.18. and he that hath little hath no lack: Every man's place is the best: for there is no place either in Church or Commonwealth which is not honourable, and a great honour it is to serve God in any place. 1 Cor. 15.41. One star differeth from another star in glory; but in its proper sphere every Star shineth; but out of it, it is either a Mass or lump, or nothing. It is true indeed, Gal. 3.28. in Christ Jesus there is neither high nor low, neither rich nor poor, Psal 49.2. no difference between the Noble and the Peasant, Exod. 11.5. between him that grindeth at the mill and him that sitteth on the throne; because his spiritual graces are communicated non homini, sed humano generi, not to this man or that, to this calling or that, but to as many as will receive them, to all the world: And every man that is Christ's servant is a Peer, a Priest, and a King. And when he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead, he will not pardon this man because he was a King, nor condemn that man because he was a beggar: For neither was Dives put in hell because he was rich, nor Lazarus carried into Abraham's bosom because he was poor; neither was Nero lost because he was an Emperor, nor Paul saved because he was a tentmaker. But yet for all this he hath made up his Church and form Commonwealths, not of Angels, but of Men, who live in the world, and so under order and government; and hath assigned every man his place and calling, which every man would keep and make good, every man would be quiet and in peace: the Church would be as Heaven itself, all glory and all harmony; and the Commonwealth would be a body compact within itself, & never fly in pieces, but last for ever, and flourish in itself, being subject to no injury but that of Time, or a greater and overpowerful foreign force. For that conceit of a designed Period, and a fatality hanging over every body Politic, which at last sinketh it down and burieth it in that ruin upon which another is raised, is generally believed in the world, but upon no convincing evidence, having neither Reason nor Revelation to raise it up to the credit of a positive truth. For, That such a thing hath been done, is no good Argument that it shall ever be so. Though God hath foretold the period and end of this or that Monarchy, yet the prophecy doth not reach unto all. And he himself hath given us rules and precepts to be a sense and hedge about every Commonwealth, which, if we did not pluck it up ourselves, might secure and carry along the course of things even to their end, that is, to the end of the world. But this we talk of as we do of many other things, talk so long till we believe it, and rest on our bare guess and conjecture as on a Demonstration. But the truth is, we are our own fate and destiny, we draw out our thread, and cut it. We start out of our places, and divide ourselves from one another; and then indeed, and not till then, Fate and Necessity lie heavy upon a Kingdom, and it cannot stand. Christianity bindeth us to our own business: And till we break lose, till some one or other step out of his place from it, there is peace; we are safe in our lesser vessels, and the ship of the Commonwealth rideth on with that smoothness and evenness which it hath from the consistency of its parts in their own place. Gal. 3 28. For though all are one in Christ Jesus, yet we cannot but see that there is a main difference between the inward qualification of his members and the outward administration and government of his Church. In the Kingdoms of the world, and so in the Church visible, every man is not fit for every place. Some must teach, some govern, some learn and obey, some put their hand to the plough, some to this trade, some to that; only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Aristotle speaketh, Polit l. 6, c. 5. those who are of more than ordinary wit and ability, must bear office in Church or Commonwealth. One is noble, another is ignoble; one is learned, another is ignorant; one is for the spade, another for the sword; one for the flail, or sheephook, another for the sceptre. Plin. Epist. And such a disproportion, is necessary amongst men. For nihil aequalitate ipsâ inaequalius; There is no greater inequality in the world then in a body politic where all the parts are equal. That Equality which commendeth and upholdeth a Commonwealth ariseth from the difference of its parts moving in their several measures and proportions, as Music doth from discords. When every part answereth in its place, and raiseth itself no higher than that will bear; when the Magistrate speaketh by nothing but the Laws, and the Subject answereth by nothing but his obedience; when the greater shadow the less, and the less help to fortify the greater, when every part doth its part, and every member its office, than there is an equality and an harmony, and we call it Peace. For if we move, and move cheerfully, in our own sphere and calling, we shall not start forth to discompose and disorder the motion of others in theirs. If we fill our own place, we shall not leap over into another's; our Desires will dwell at home, our Covetousness and Ambition die, our Malice cease, our Suspicion end, our Discontent vanish, or else be soon changed and spiritualised; our Desires will be leveled on Happiness, we shall covet the best things, be ambitious of Heaven, malice nothing but Malice, and destroy it, suspect nothing but our Suspicion, and be discontent with nothing but that we are discontent, and so in this be like unto God himself, have our centre in ourselves, or rather make Peace our centre, that every motion may be drawn from it, that in the compass and circumference of our behaviour with others all our actions, as so many lines, may be drawn out and meet and be united in Peace, And this is not only enjoined by Religion and the Gospel, but it is also the method of Nature itself, which hath so ordered it, that every thing in its own place is at quiet and rest, and no where else. The Earth moves not in its place: Water is not ponderous in its proper place; The Fire burneth not in its sphere, but out of it it hath voracitatem toto mundo avidissimam; saith Pliny, it spreadeth itself most violently, and devoureth every thing it meeteth with. Nay Poison is not hurtful to those tempers that breed it. Epist. 81. Illud venenum quod serpents in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine suâ continent, saith Seneca. The venom of the Scorpion doth not kill the Scorpion; and that poison which serpents cast out with danger and hurt to others, they keep without any to themselves. And as it is in Nature, so is it in the Society of men. Our diligence in our own business is sovereign, and connatural to our estates and conditions, but most times poisonous abroad, and dangerous and fatal to ourselves and others. 2 Sam. 6.6, 7. When Vzzah put forth his hand to hold up the Ark of God, and keep it from falling, though his intention were good, yet God struck him for his error and rashness in moving out of his place, and struck him dead, because he did not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, do his own business. When Uzziah invaded the Priest's office, 2 Chron. 26. 16-21. and would burn incense, and Azariah the Priest told him, It pertaineth not to thee, It is not thy business; even while the censer was yet in his hand, his sin was writ in his forehead, he was struck with a leprosy, and cut off from the house of the Lord. When Peter was busy to inquire concerning John, Joh 21.21, 22. What shall this man do? our Saviour was ready with a sharp reply, What is that to thee? thy business is to follow me. When Christians out of a wanton and irregular zeal did throw down Images, and were slain by the Heathen in the very fact, the Church censured them as Disturbers of the peace rather than Martyrs, and though they suffered death in defiance of Idolatry, yet allowed them no place in the Diptyches, in the Catalogue of those who laid down their lives for the Truth. Dathan and Abiram rise out of their place, Numb. 16. 1-30. 2 Sam. 20.1.— 22. 2 Sam. 15. etc. and the earth swalloweth them up. Sheba is up, and bloweth a Trumpet, and his head flieth over the wall. Absalon would up into the tribunal, which was none of his place, and was hanged in the Oak, which was fit for him. And if any have risen out of their place (as we use to say) on the right side, and been fortunate villains, their purchase was not great, Honey mingled with Gall, Honour drugged with the Hatred and Curses of men, with Fears and Cares, with Gnawings within and Terrors without. All the content and pleasure they had by their great leap out of their place was but as music to one stretched out on the rack, or as that little light which is let in through the crack or flaw of a wall into him that lieth fettered in a loathsome dungeon. And at last their wages was Death, eternal Death, and Howling for ever. Nay, when we are out of our place, and busy in that which concerneth us not, though what we do may be in itself lawful and most expedient to be done, yet we make that act a sin in us which is another man's duty, and so shipwreck at that point to which another was bound, perish in the doing of that which he shall perish for not doing. The best excuse that we can take up is, That we did honestâ ment peccare, That we did that which is evil (as we say) for the best, That we did sin and offend God with a good intention and pious mind. Which Gloss may be fitted to the greatest sin, and is the fairest chariot the Devil hath to carry us to hell. If we would be particular, the instances in this kind would be but too many. For such Agents the Enemy of the Truth hath always had in all the ages of the Church, who have unseasonably disturbed the public peace, and their own, whose business it was (and sure it could be none of their own) to teach Pastors to govern, and Divines how to preach; every day to make a new coat for the Church, to hammer and shape out a new form and discipline, as if nothing could be done well because they stood not by and had a hand in the doing it; and so make the Church not so fair, but certainly as changeable, as the Moon. One Sect disliketh this, and another that, and a third quarrelleth at them both; and every one of them, if their own fancy had been set up and established by another hand, would have kicked it down. For this humour is restless and endless, and for want of matter will at last feed on him that nourisheth it: As it was in that experiment of the Egyptians in Epiphanius, who filled a bag with serpents, and when afterwards they opened it, found that the greatest had eat up the rest, and half of itself. We may well say of them as Gregory the great doth, Illos alienorum actuum sagax cogitatio devastat; They so busy their thoughts upon other men's actions that they have none left for their own. Being sent abroad into the world, they leave a devastation, a wilderness, at home. They fly to every mark which is set up but that which their calling and Religion directeth them to aim at. Their whole life and employment is to do other men's business, and sleep in their own. It is safe neither for Church nor Commonwealth that such busybodies should walk in matters so far above their sphere and compass, nor is it fit that Phaeton should sit too long in the chair. For if these turbulent and domineering spirits prevail, if the Mercy and Providence of God prevent it not, the whole course of nature will be set on fire, or else dislocated and perverted; the Foot shall stand where the hand doth; the Ear shall speak, the Tongue hear, and the Foot see; all shall be Prophets, all Teachers; I might say, all shall be Kings, and I might add, all will be Atheists. If then we will study peace, or desire to be quiet in our place, let Religion guide us, which hath drawn out to our hands the most exact method and most proportioned to that end. Or let us follow the method of Nature itself. And in the course of Nature thus we set it. The Heavens are stretched forth as a canopy to compass the Air; the Air moveth about the Earth; Psal. 104 19 the Earth keepeth its centre, and is ; the Moon knoweth her seasons, and the Sun his going down; the Stars start not from their spheres. Heavy bodies ascend not, nor do the light go downwards, but all the parts of the Universe are tied and linked together by that law of Providence and Order, that they may subsist. And so it is both in Church and Commonwealth. We are not in termino, we cannot be quiet and rest, but in our own place and function. What should a Star do in the earth, or a Stone in the firmament? What should an Inferior step into a Superiors seat, and set himself above those who are over him in the Lord? This, I am sure, is to be out of his place, where he cannot move but disorderly. If men would but fill their own, they would have but little leisure to step into another's man's place, or to be so much fools as to set their foot within their neighbour's doors. Thucydides. The Historian hath observed that those men who neglect their private affairs are ever very busy in examining public proceed, well skilled in every man's duty but their own. Julius Caesar before the Civil war said it of himself, Quàm multis indigeo ut nihil habeam? Who fit to change the face of a Commonwealth than he that was so far indebted that he dared not to show his own? who wanted so much that he might be worth nothing? Who more ready to shake and dissolve a State than he that hath wasted his own with riotous living? Who will sooner be a traitor then a bankrupt? I might here urge and press this duty, which confineth every man to his own businness, 1 à decoro, from the Grace and Beseemingness of it. For what garment can fit us better than our own? what business more natural to us then our own? what motion more graceful than our own? Our own place best becometh us, and we are ridiculous and monstrous in any other. Apelles with an aul in his hand, or the Cobbler with his pencil, Midas with ass' ears, or an Ass in purple, Nero with his fiddle, or a Fiddler with a crown, Commodus in his artifex, quae stationis imperatoriae non erant, &c Ael. Lamprid. Commodus making of Glasses, a good dancer, and a swordplayer, or a Glass-man and a Dancer giving laws, a Tradesman in the pulpit, or a Divine with the meteyard in his hand, the Lord in his servants frock, and the Servant on his foot-cloth, are objects of that nature that they command our finger and our smile, and the first and easiest censure we pass on them is our laughter, and it were happy for Commonwealths if they deserved no worse. But they are not only ridiculous, but ominous and prodigious, and appear like comets, threatening and ushering in some plague or war, some strange alteration in Church or Commonwealth; Whereas our own place (be it what it will) doth not only conserve but become and adorn us, and our regular motion in it is a fair prophecy of peace to ourselves and to all that are about us. And though it be the lowest, we may be honourable in it; as Themistocles once said, being chosen into a mean office, that he would so manage it as to make it of as great repute in Athens as the highest. 2. Ab utili, from the Advantage it bringeth. Quod enim decet ferè prodest, Instit. l 10 c. 1. saith Quintilian; For that which becometh us commonly doth also further and promote us. We usually say, Our plough goeth forward; And when the plough goeth and is ours, when we sow our own seed in our own ground, we have laid the foundation of a fair hope, and we seldom miss of a rich and plenteous harvest. When we venture out of our place, we venture as at a Lottery, where we draw many Blanks before we have one Prize; and when that is drawn, it doth not countervail the fourtieth part of our venture; but the trumpet soundeth as at a triumph, and we leave behind us more than we carried with us, and go away with the loss: So it is when we move in another man's place, we move upon hopes, which most times deceive us. When we do our own business, we find no difficulty but in the business itself, and no enemy but Negligence: But when we break our limits, and leap into other men's affairs, we meet with greater opposition: we meet with the Law, which is against us, and very often too strong for us; we meet with those who will be as violent to defend their station as we are to trouble it: and if we chance to break through all these, yet when we have cast up our accounts, and reckoned up the trouble we have undergone, the illegality and injustice of our proceed, the detestation of all good men, and the vengeance which hangeth over us, with that benefit which we have reaped, we may put our advantage in our eyes, as they say, and drop it out. 3. Lastly, à necessario, from the Necessity of doing it. I do not mean a legal and causative. Necessity, as the Civilians speak, a precise Necessity, which the Law and Honesty lay upon us, but a Necessity in respect of the end, which is to be quiet, which we cannot attain to but by our motion in our own place. Other paths are strange paths and heterogeneous to it; and the further we go in them, the further we are off, and meet with nothing but that which is diametrically opposed to it, Injustice, Hatred, the Curse both of God and man, Goods which are of no value whilst they are in our hands, and never estimable but in his whose they truly are, all ill materials to make a pillow to rest on. In a word, in this our irregular motion we look toward the rising Sun, and travel towards the West; we run from the shade into a tempest; we seek for ease and rest, and have thrust ourselves into the region of Noise and Thunder and Darkness. Ask those boisterous and contentious spirits which delight in war, ask the Tyrants of the earth, those public and privileged Thiefs, ask those who wade to their unwarranted desires through the fortunes and blood of others, and see how they are filled with horror and anxiety, how the riches which they so greedily desired have eaten them up. Behold them afraid of their fortunes, of their friends, of themselves, even fainting and panting on the pinnacle of State, ready to be blown down with every puff of wind, as busy to secure their estate as they were to raise it, and yet forced to that unhappy prudence which must needs endanger it. Behold one slain by his friends, another by his sons, a third by his servants, and some by their very soldiers, who helped to raise them to this formidable height. Look over all the Tragedies which have been written, scarce any but of these. Ad generum Cereris sine caede & vulnere pauci Descendunt. Juven. sat. 10. Few of them have brought their grey hairs unbloudy to their grave. And if this be to be quiet, we may in time be induced to believe that Rest and Peace may be found even in Hell itself. This then is not the way. If we will reach home to the end, we must choose that path which leadeth unto it. This is not the Apostle's method; No, saith S. Paul; Rom. 12.4. We have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office. Having therefore different callings, and different gifts, and different places to move in, let every man wait upon and move in his own; for there he may be quiet, and no where else. Let the Lawyer plead, and the Divine preach; let the Husbandman plough the earth, and the Merchant the sea; let the Tradesman follow his trade, let the Magistrate govern, and let all the people say, Amen. Let all men make good their place, and every man do his own business, and so rejoice together in the public order and peace. And as Cuiacius that famous Lawyer in France, Papyrius Masson●us in Elog. illust. Viror. in vita Cuiacii. when he was asked his opinion in points of Divinity was wont to give no other answer but this, Nihil hoc ad edictum Praetoris, This which you ask me hath no relation to the edict of the Praetor; so when any temptation shall take us, and invite and flatter us ire in opus alienum, to put our hands to another man's work, let us drive it back and vanquish it with this considerate resolution, That it is not amongst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that it is none of our business, no more pertaining to our calling then Divinity doth to the Edict of the Praetor. And then, as we confine ourselves to our own calling, so let us be active and constant in our motion in it, and, as it followeth in the Apostles method, let us shake off Sloth, and work with our hands. Which is next to be considered. For indeed Idleness is the mother and nurse of this pragmatical Curiosity. Mostell. Haec mihi verecundiam & virtutis modum deturbavit, saith he in Plautus; This taketh off our blush, and maketh us bold adventurers to engage ourselves in other men's actions. When the mind of man is lose, not taken up and busied in adorning of itself, then Dinah-like it must gadd abroad to see the daughters of the country, Gen. 34.1. and mingle itself with those contemplations which are as it were of another tribe and nation, mere strangers unto her. It is the character of the strange woman, That she is garrula & vaga, Prov 7.11. loud and ever straggling, (devium scortum, as Horace calleth her) her feet abide not in her house. Lib. 2. od. 11. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Polit. 7. c. 3. saith Aristotle; He that will be idle, will be evil; and he that will do nothing, will do that he should not. And the reason is given by the Stoic, Mobilis & inquieta mens homini data est; The mind of man is full of activity, ever in motion, and restless, now carried to this object, and anon to that. It walketh through the world, and out of the world, and is not at rest when the body sleepeth. And if it do not follow that which is good, it will soon fasten to that which is evil. For it is not as a wedge of Lead, but of the nature of an Angel, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Lib. 8. Polit. c. 6. cannot sleep. As Aristotle spoke of Children, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it cannot rest and be quiet: And therefore the same Philosopher much commendeth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Archytas his rattle, as a profitable invention; for being put into the hands of children it keepeth them from breaking vessels of use. So this restless humour is made less hurtful by diversion. And such a course God and Nature may seem to have taken with us, not to dull this activity in us, but to limit and confine it. As God hath distributed to every man a gift, so he hath allotted to every man a calling answerable to that gift, that every man being bound to one may have the less scope and liberty to rove and make an incursion upon another man's calling. This is a primordial Law, of as great antiquity as the first man Adam, That we must work with our hands. For God will not every day work miracles for us, and send us, as he did the Israelites, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaketh, food without the labour of ploughing and sowing. Every Dew will not bring us Manna, nor every Rock yield us water. No: In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread, was a command as well as a curse; and God hath so ordained it that by fulfilling the command we may turn the curse into a blessing. We are not now in Paradise, but, as our first Father after he had forfeited it, mundo dati quasi metallo, De pallio. Psal. 24.1. & 115.16. as Tertullian speaketh, condemned to the World as to the mines, to labour and dig, and so find that treasure we seek for. As Heaven, so the Earth is the Lords, and he hath given them both to the sons of men. The food of our souls and the food of our bodies are his gift; and he giveth them when he revealeth and prescribeth the means how we shall procure them. For the one he hath given us Faculty and Will, for the other Strength and Appetite. Neither will the Heavens bow themselves down to take us in, nor the things of this world fall into our bosom when we sit still and lay no more out for them then a wish. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. The opening of our mouth is our Prayer, Psal 81.10. our Endeavour, our Working with our hands; and than God's blessings fall down, and fill it. Labour and Industry is a thing so pleasing to God that he hath even bound a blessing to it, which never leaveth it, but is carried along with it wheresoever it is, even in the mere natural and heathen man. Be the man what he will, it is almost impossible that Diligence should not thrive: for a blessing goeth along with it, as the light doth with the Sun, which may be shadowed or eclipsed by the cloudiness of the times or by some cross accident, but can never be quite put out. In a word, Labour is the price of God's gifts; and when we pay it down, by a kind of commutative justice he bringeth them in, and putteth them into our hands. VT OPEREMINI MANIBUS, That ye labour with your hands. These words take in all manual trades and handycrafts which are for use and necessity, all lawful trades. For even Thiefs and Robbers and Jugglers and Cheaters and Forgers of writings do work, not with their feet, saith Tertullian, but with their hands. De Idelol. c. 5. And he bringeth in his exception against Painters and Statuaries and Engravers, but no further than he doth against Schoolmasters, and Merchants who bring in frankincense; in that respect only as they sacrifice their sweat and their labour, and are subservient and ministerial, either to Lust or Idolatry. For, The diligence, Diligentia tua numen il lorum est, c. 6. saith he, of the Statuary is the Divinity of the Idol. And we may say, Those many unnecessary Arts and Trades, which are now held up with credit and repute in the world, because it will still be world, were at first the daughters, and are now become the nurses, of our Luxury and Lust. Luxury begat them, and they send our Luxury in triumph through the streets. Were Tertullian, whose zeal waxed so hot even against a Purpleseller, to pass now through our great City with power and authority, how many shops would be shut up? Tot suntartium venae, quot hominum concupiscentia, Idem ib c. 8. 1 Tim. 6.8. or rather how many would there be left open? For it is not easy to number those Arts and Crafts, which had they never been professed, we might have had food and raiment, with which we Christians, above all the generations of men, should be content. But it is not for me to determine which are necessary, and which are not, but to leave it to the Magistrate. There be Arts and Trades enough besides these to exercise our wit, our strength, our hands, and such as Lycurgus might have admitted into his Commonwealth, Vide Plutarch. vit. Lycurgi. whose prudence and care it was to shut out all that was unnecessary. The first that required the labour of the hands was Tillage and Husbandry. For antiquis temporibus nemo rusticari nescivit, Lib. 11. c. 1. saith Ischomachus in Columella; In the first age no man was ignorant of this art. And the learned have observed that the original of humane Laws, which were the preservers of peace, the boundaries to keep every man in his own place, was from Tillage and the first division of grounds. Whence Ceres, who is first said to have devised and taught the sowing of Corn, as she is called frugifera, the Goddess of Plenty, so is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the maker of Laws: And in honour of her the Athenians celebrated those feasts which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. — Mactant lectas de more bibentes Legiferae Cereri, Virgil. Aen. 4. — They did sacrifice to Ceres the Lawmaker. These men never heard of the curse in Paradise, yet by the very light of Nature they saw the necessity of labour: The necessity, did I say? nay, the dignity and honour of it. For Man was made and built up to this end, saith Aristotle, ad intelligendum & agendum, to understand and to work. And what more unworthy a Man, who is made an active creature, then to bury himself alive in sloth and idleness? to be like S. Paul's wanton widow, dead whilst he liveth? to be a more unprofitable lump than the Earth? to live, and show so little sign of life, whereas the ground receiveth rain, and sendeth back its leaf and grass? What can be more beseeming, then to have feet, and not to go; to have hands, and not to use them? Therefore that of the Apostle, 2 Thess. 3.10. Let not him that laboureth not, eat, is not only true because S. Paul spoke it, but S. Paul spoke it because it is true? a dictate not only of the Spirit, Job 5.7. but even of Nature itself. Man is born unto labour, saith Eliphaz; it is natural to him, as natural as for the sparks to fly upwards. And, if we rightly weigh it, it is as great a prodigy, as monstrous a sight, to see an idle person, that can do nothing but feed and cloth himself, and breathe, as to see Stone fly, or Fire descend to the centre of the earth; I may add, as to see the Sun stand still. Far as the Sun, Psal. 19.5. so Man naturally should rejoice to run his course. Shall I now awake the Sluggard (if any thunder will awake him) and tell him he is a thief, that he drinketh not water out of his own cistern, that he eateth stolen bread? 2 Thess. 3.11, 12. If I should, I have S. Paul, and Reason, to justify me, who telleth him plainly that he who worketh not at all walketh inordinately, and eateth not his own bread; as if it were not his own if his own hands brought it not in. And Ephes. 4.28. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour and work with his hands. If he will not steal, let him labour; if he do not labour, he doth but steal, even that which in common esteem is his own. For we must not think that they only are thiefs who do vitam vivere vecticulariam, Festus in Vecticularia vita. dig down walls by night or who lie in wait upon the hills of the robbers. Fur est, qui rem contrectat alienam; He is a Thief which maketh use of that which is not his. And then we may arraign the Idle slothful person at this bar, as guilty of this crime: Prov. 12.27. For he roasteth that which he never took in hunting, he useth the creature to which he hath no right. He hath interdicted and shut himself out from the benefit of fire and water and all humane commerce. He hath outlawed and banished himself from the world. He hath rob himself: For though he have plenty of all things, yet Idleness will blow upon it and blast it. He robbeth the Commonwealth; For interest reipub ut quis re suâ bene utatur; Private diligence is a public good, and the careful managing of every man's estate is advantageous to the whole. And last of all, he robbeth his own soul of the service and ministry of his body, which was made a servant to it. He robbeth his soul of his soul, of all the power and activity it hath, which serveth for no use but to carry him to a feast, and from thence to his bed, where he lieth the picture and representation of himself, of what he was when he was awake: And he will be yet more like himself when he is in his grave: For here he is but a walking, talking, breathing shadow, nay dead, compassed about with stench and rottenness, whilst many evil spirits hover over his grave, many temptations are ready to seize on him, and we may say of him as Seneca did of his friend Vatia, Epist. 55. Hîc situs est; In this world he doth not live, but is buried. I might here bring to this bar those cloistered Monks and Friars, who leave the World as men do Virtue and Learning, not because they loath and detest it, but because the way thereunto is hard and rugged; leave the World to enter into a Paradise, where all things grow up of themselves. Of many of them that of Martin Luther, who was himself once a Monk, is true, Monachos ignavia fecit; Idleness hath made more Monks than Religion; who leave not the World for Christ, but shadow themselves under their Coul and his Name that they may the more quietly enjoy it. But to pass by these as none of the Horizon, a sort of Christians there are, and they think themselves of the best sort: We may call them Monks at large; as idle as they, but not cloistered up; Who though they labour for the things of this world, because they love them well, yet look not upon their labour as any acceptable service to God, but break it off many times most unnecessarily, and leave their duty behind them to go up with the Pharisee into the Temple, not to pray, but to hear a Sermon, and then return back to their shop, and commend and confute it; hear, and do not, but do the contrary. They call it Devotion; but it is the Itch and Wantonness of the Ear, which wasteth their Devotion, and sometimes their estates. This they delight in, and this is their Religion; nothing but words and noise. To this they sacrifice their time, which is due to their calling, and then too oft redeem it with fraud and cozenage, which hath so often been presented to them as the gall of bitterness, even in the dish which they love. The word of God? can we hear it too oft? Yes, if we do not practise it, or if we practise the contrary; if we can go from the Mount, and break the Law whilst yet the thunder is in our ear. I may ask with the Apostle, Is all the body Hearing? Doth all Religion dwell in the Ear? Nay, 1 Cor. 12.17. I will add further; Doth all Religion consist in Prayer? For what? (I must answer these men as S. Augustine did the Monks in his time) are we not bound alike to all the precepts of God? De Oper. Monach. or may we lay out all our time in the performance of one duty, and leave none for the rest? Shall the Ear rob the Tongue, and the Tongue the Hand? Shall one duty swallow up another? Si ab his avocandi non sumus, nec manducandum est; If we may not sometimes break off our devotion, we must break another precept, which bindeth us to work with our hands. Sudaus messor psalmis se avocat, & curva attundens vites falce vinitor aliquod Davidicum canit Hieron. Marcell. And yet we need not so break it off but that we may carry it along with us, even carry the savour of it, which may mingle itself with the actions of our calling, and so perfume them, and make them pleasing and acceptable to God. Arator stivam tenens Hallelujah cantat, saith S. Hierome; The Husbandman may pray and praise the Lord and sing an Hallelujah at the plough-tail, and so may the Smith with the hammer in his hand. And certainly, if we would entertain them, Religion and Devotion would wait upon us even in our shops, and be the best attendants we have, would make us honest, and make us rich. Palladius in his Lausiaca telleth us of a certain virgin who said seven hundred prayers in a day. Take the gloss in the margin; for it much took me when I first read it; Decem orationes constitutae publicis rebus occupato non minoris pretii sunt quàm tercentum nihil agentis; Ten prayers, saith the Gloss, made by a man employed in public affairs, or in his own private calling, are of as high an esteem, and of force as available, as three hundred conceived or uttered by him who doth nothing but pray. I may be bold to add; He that heareth but one Sermon, and meditateth thereon, and repeateth and acteth it over in his life, labouring painfully and honestly in his calling, is more pleasing and acccptable to God than he that neglecteth his calling and (if it were possible) in one weak heareth an hundred. And if you will not take my word, I doubt not but you will give some respect to S. Augustine's reason, Citiùs exauditur una obedientis oratio quàm decem millia contemptoris; One prayer of an obedient man, who walketh in his calling according to the rule, shall be sooner heard of God than ten thousand from him who maketh his Diligence to keep one commandment a privilege and warrant to break the rest. For what folly is it, ut quod bonum est frequentiùs audiatur, ideò facere nolle quod auditur? under pretence of having time to hear to take no time at all to practise that truth which is heard? But the devout Sluggard may perhaps find something in Scripture which may serve him as a pillow to sleep on. For as the Covetous person can cull out certain thrifty Texts to countenance his Covetousness, as that, 1 Tim. 5.8. He that provideth not for his family is worse than an infidel; and, Let not him that laboureth not eat; 2 Thess. 3.10. Matth. 6.25, 34. John 6.27. De Jejunio. so hath the Idle and negligent person his, as, Take no care for the morrow; Take no care for your life; Labour not for the meat that perisheth. Thus, as Tertullian speaketh, they can draw the Scripture either way, ut haec restringere fraenos, illae laxare videatur, either to give a check or to let lose the reins to Idleness and Sloth. But the Scripture is truth in every part, and one part cannot contradict another. For we may work with our hands, and yet care no more for the morrow then if it were no part of time, then if it were nothing: and for aught we know it is so; for who can say he hath a morrow? And we may easily reconcile these Texts by the two persons, the Covetous and the Careless: for both Texts do not so apparently fit both. Let then the Careless and negligent person have this goad set in his side, That if he provide not for his family, he is worse than an infidel; this Text is infallibly true for him: And then hold back the Covetous beast with this bit and bridle, That he must not care for the morrow; and this Text will fit him, qui ipsa quiete fatigatur, as Hilary speaketh, who is weary of nothing more than rest, and is in labour if he labour not and drudge in the world. And thus may the Careless learn to labour, and the Covetous forget to care; the Sluggard may awake from his lethargy, and the Covetous not rise so early, nor make such haste to be rich. The one Text is as a whip on the back of the Slothful, and the other as a chain to bind the desires of the Covetous: To the one, Labour not, to the other Labour, cannot be spoken with accent sharp enough. Our Saviour could not be too expressive against Covetousness, because it is a vice which beareth up and carrieth a fair name and credit in the world: Men speak well of it, and call it Wisdom and Providence. Again, S. Paul could not speak loud enough to the Idle person, because Idleness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a flattering and pleasing evil, and which we do not easily shake off, especially when it hath got a mask on, and cometh forth with the varnish and colour of Piety, and can shroud and shelter itself under the beauty of holiness. We must not pass by the idle and boisterous Gallant, but give him a salute, because he looketh for it. For we see too many who have no calling, no profession, qui volitant velut umbrae, who flutter up and down like shades and apparitions; like Ghosts, which leave no impression behind them, or such a one as is as dishonourable as the hole in a slave's ear, or the mark in the forehead of an impostor. They plough not, Matth. 6.26, 29. they trade not, they preach not, they plead not, they neither sow nor reap, yet Solomon in all his royalty was not clothed like one of these, nor yet so wise as they are in their own conceits. Salve, Getulice. Why should we now bow the knee, and do them reverence? Nay rather we may be bold to tell them that they are carcinomata reipub. the cankers and impostumes of their Country; that they are pinned to the Commonwealth as their Feathers are to their caps, for show, but for no use at all, like those parasitical plants, as the Herbalists call them, which spring out of other plants, and have their juice and nourishment and vegetable life from their roots; or as Warts upon a man's hand, which grow up with it, and trouble and deface it; or indeed as Idols, which though dressed up and painted and gilt, yet are nothing in this world. I know they may reply that they are born rich, and what they possess is theirs by inheritance. This may be true; but yet they were not born Fools, nor were Luxury and Idleness entailed upon them at the same time. They were born Men, and not, as the Beasts of the field, to eat and drink and straggle up and down, and then fall to the ground. Were they born to great possessions? It is then most unnatural to draw this conclusion from hence, That they may do what they list. It will follow rather, That they are more bound to be active in doing of good, That they are more obliged to God which putteth that bread into their mouths that he maketh others stoop for to the ground. I will not put the Sheephook into their hands; and yet the Patriarches were Shepherds. I will not bind them to a Trade; yet Kings and Emperors have bound themselves to one, and made it their recreation. I will not reach to them the Axe or the Chizel, Matth. 13.55. Mark 6.3. and yet Joseph of the house of David, and according to the letter Christ himself, was a Carpenter. I will not pull their hands to the Plough; for than I should take them from Compliment, and the Gentleman were lost. But I cannot think that God gave them plenty to make them idle; that he did so much for them, that they should do nothing; or, which is worse, learn to defy him; that he gave them strength to make it the law of unrighteousness; wit, Wisd. 2.11. to descant on his Providence, to derogate from his Miracles, to baffle Religion, to laugh at Judgement, and to mock at Hell. We cannot think he made them rich to make them Atheists. For nothing else can be raised upon Idleness; not those mountains of Piety and Charity, but big and swelling imaginations which exalt themselves against God. 2 Cor. 10.5. There be other Trades besides those that are Manual; vivendi arts, the Art of good life, the Art of composing our affections, the Art of ordering our private affairs, and of being subservient to the public, quae non sub manu nascuntur, which cannot be learned in the midst of riot and wantonness, which will cost us more pains than they take who work with their hands. For should the Ploughman turn Student, he would look back upon his former days as upon so many festivals, and on his labour as not so great, compared with that toil and contention of mind which stretch and rack him in the days of his Gown. To conclude this; Non otiosè vivit, qui qualitercunque utiliter vivit, saith Aquinas; He liveth not idly who employeth himself in doing good, whether as a Divine, or Lawyer, or Tradesman, or Gentleman, or Lord, or King. He doth many times more than labour with his hands who doth stretch his endeavours to the furthest to be profitable to himself and others, to act his part upon the common stage, to make good his place in the Commonwealth; who bindeth himself to those acts which are proper to him, and therefore do most become him. Facito aliquid operis, ut te semper Diabolus inveniat occupatum, Aegyptiorum monasteria hunc morem tenent, ut nullum absque operis labore suscipiant, non tam propter victus necessitatem, qu●m animae salutem, Higher, Rustico. saith S. Hierom; be always doing some work or other, that the Devil may find thee full and employed, so busy in thy calling that he shall not spy any place where he may fasten his dart. If he thus find thee, he hath lost his craft and his strength, and will neither be a Serpent to deceive, nor a Lion to devour thee. This is S. Paul's Counsel, and part of his Method; and he setteth his seal to it, and doth not only counsel but command it; Study to be quiet, Do your own business, Work with your own hands, SICUT PRAECEPIMUS, as we commanded you. We may look upon it (and we can but look upon it) as a Command, and as S. Paul's Command. First, it cometh under command. Which leaveth it not to us to do when and how we please, but maketh it necessary to be observed, as necessary for us to do as to Believe in Christ. For howsoever we may count these as petty duties and of a lower form, yet our blessed Saviour putteth an high esteem upon them, yea, upon the least title and jota of them, Matth. 5.19. and telleth us plainly that if any shall break one of these least commandments, which regulate our conversation with men, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, that is, shall be of no esteem at all, shall be shut out of that Kingdom. And indeed a strange thing it may seem that Faith and Hearing and Prayer and Fasting, and many times but the formality of them, should make up the main Battalia in our spiritual Warfare, Judg. 7.6, 7. as those three hundred did in Gideon's army; and those homiletical virtues, Silence, Peaceableness, Honesty, Meekness, Doing our own business, Industry in our calling, like those who lapped not, should be left behind as not fit for service. Matth. 16.18 It is true, the Church is founded upon a rock, upon Faith in Christ; but then Faith implieth Practice, even the practice of those virtues which concern us as members of the Commonwealth as well as of the Church. For the Commonwealth is not in the Church, but the Church in the Commonwealth; for every Commonwealth is not Christian. 1 Tim. 3.5. And as S. Paul telleth us that he that knoweth not how to rule his own house is not fit to take care of the Church, no more can he who at pleasure breaketh these ties and ligaments with which Nature and Religion have linked him in a body politic, and that many times under pretence of Religion, boast or comfort himself in his relation to Christ. He that is not a good member of the Commonwealth is not a true member of the Church. He that is not a good Servant or a good Master, a good Governor or a good Subject; he that is not a Just dealer, an honest Tradesman, a faithful Labourer; he that loveth not his neighbour as himself, he that is not quiet and peaceable and industrious (let him deceive himself as he please) can have nothing but the name of a Christian. For what? will Hearing only, or Praying, or Fasting, lie upon this foundation? 1 Cor. 3.10, 11. Was Jesus Christ laid as the foundation only to bear up speculative and phansiful men, only to bear up Pharisees and Hypocrites? Will not Discretion and seasonable Silence and Honesty and Diligence in our calling concur to that superstructure which must rise up as high as heaven? Will our Eye or Tongue or Ear or Knee or Fancy bow and incline God? and will he not once look down upon our Order, upon our peaceable and honest Conversation with men? Is Religion turned Anchorete and shut up within ourselves, there only to listen after words and sounds, and breathe them out again? and must not she come forth to order our steps amongst men? May she not be seen in a settled Mind and Eye? in a labouring Hand as well as in an open Ear and a busy Tongue, which speaketh loud and oft of God's Kingdom, when we do those things which will shut us out? Let us not deceive ourselves; To be quiet, to meddle in our own business, to labour with our hands, are sub praecepto, under command, and binding, tendered to us and prescribed as a Law. Indeed Nature and Reason, one would think, should bind us, and guide our motion in that sphere or place wherein we are fixed. For why should not every man be what he is made to be? And although I do not think that every command in the Gospel is juris naturalis, and so made known to us by the light of Nature (for Nature certainly could not teach us to die for our brethren, 1 John 3.16. which yet the Gospel doth) yet there is nothing commanded there which carrieth not with it a natural dignity and beseemingness, Vide Grot. l. 1. de Jure Belli & pacis, c. 12. §. 6. to which with a little instruction and upon serious consideration we shall willingly subscribe. And these duties which we now speak of may seem clearly to issue from those dictates of Nature, That we should do to others as we would be done to, That all things should be done decently and to edification, That nothing should be done against conscience; which had been of force for the ordering of men's actions of this nature though the Scripture had never expressed them, and were of force before the Gospel was written, and did bind us, not only because they were written, but because they were just. For why should he who would not be spoiled himself rob another? Why should he who maketh his house his castle be so ready to invade and break into his neighbours? Why should he who is even sick of a cheat be so ready to put one upon another? Why should he that would be quiet at home be so troublesome abroad? Why should not Ahab be as willing to part with his crown as to take Naboths vineyard? But Christ, the best Master and Lawgiver that ever was, came not to destroy but to perfect Nature; not to blot out those common notions which we brought into the world with us, but to make them more legible, to improve them, and so make them his Law. And if we look upon them as not belonging to us, we ourselves cannot belong to the Covenant of grace. for even these duties are weaved in and made a part of the Covenant; and if we break the one, we break the other: and not only if we believe not, but if we live not peaceably, Heb. 3.18. if we stretch beyond our line, if we labour not in our calling, Rom. 12.18. we shall not enter into his rest. For these also are his Laws, 2 Cor. 10.14, 15. and these doth our blessed Apostle teach and command. And, to conclude, such a power hath Christ left in his Church, conferred it first on his Apostles, and then on those who were to succeed and supply their place, who were to speak after them in the person and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will not dispute now what power it is. It is sufficient to say, it is not an earthly but a heavenly power derived from Christ himself, the Fountain and Original of all Power whatsoever. As Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, Joh. 18.36. so is not this Power of that nature as to stand in need of an army of soldiers to defend and hold it up; but it is like the object and matter it worketh upon, spiritual, a power to command, to remember every man of his duty in Church or Commonwealth. For the Church and Commonwealth are two distinct but not contrary things, and both powers were ordained to uphold and defend each other, the civil Power to exalt Religion, and Religion to guard and fence the civil Power, and both should concur in this, 1 Tim. 2.2. that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Our commission is from Heaven; and we need no other power then his that sealed it: And the virtue and divinity of it shall then be made manifest when all earthly Power shall cease, and even Kings, and they who did what they list, shall tremble before it. We see that Power which is exercised here on earth, though the glory of it dazzle an eye of flesh, yet sitteth heavy upon them who wear it; we see it tortureth them that delight in it, eateth up them that feed on it, eateth up itself, & driving all before it at last falleth itself to the ground, and falleth as a millstone upon him that hath it, and bruiseth him to pieces. It is not such a power: But I may be bold to say, though it be looked upon and laughed at and despised by the men of this world, yet is it a greater power than that which sometimes setteth it upon high and sometimes maketh it nothing, and hath its end when it hath not its end. For to publish our Master's will, to command in his name, is all. And though the command prove to some the savour of death unto death, yet the Power is still the same, and doth never fail. And if men were what they profess themselves, Christians, Heb. 6.5. if they had any taste of the powers of the world to come, they would more tremble at this then at the other, be more afraid of a just Reproof then of a Whip, of an Excommunication then of a Sword, of the wrath of God, which is yet scarce visible, then of that which cometh in fire and tempest to devour us. For God's favour or his wrath ever accompanieth this power, which draweth his love nearer to them that obey it, and poureth forth his vengeance on them that resist it. To conclude then; Look upon the command, and honour the Apostle that bringeth it for the commands sake, for his sake whose power and command it is. A Power there is proper and peculiar to them who are called to it. And if the name of Power may move envy (for we see men fret at that which was ordained for their good, and so waste and exhale all their Religion till it be nothing) if the name of Power bear so harsh a sound, we will give you leave to think it is not much material whether you call it so or no, whether we speak in the Imperative mood, HOC FAC, Do this, upon your peril; or only positively point as with the finger, This is to be done. We will be any thing, do any thing, be as low as you please, so we may raise you above the Vanities of the world, above that Wantonness which stormeth at that which was ordained for no other end but to lift you out of ruin into the highest heavens. Our Power and the Command of Christ differ not so much, but the one includeth and upholdeth the other. And if you did but once love the command, you would never boggle at the name of Power, but bless and honour him that bringeth it. Oh that men were wise, but so wise as not to be wiser then God, as not to choose and fall in love with their own ways, as more certain and direct unto the end, than Gods! as not to prefer their own mazes and labyrinths and uncertain gyrations, drawn out by Lust and Fancy, before those even and unerring paths found out by an infinite Wisdom, and discovered to us by a Mercy as infinite! Oh that we could once work out and conquer the hardship of a command, and then see the beauty of it, and to what glory it leadeth us! We should then receive an Apostle in the name of an Apostle, Matth. 10.40. & look upon the command though brought in an earthen vessel, as upon Heaven itself. Oh that we were once spiritual! Then those precepts which concern our conversation on earth would be laid hold on and embraced as from Heaven heavenly; then should we be as quiet as the Heavens, which are ever moving, and ever at rest, because ever in their own place; then should we be as the Angels of heaven, who envy not one another, malice not one another, trouble not one another, but every Angel knoweth his office and moveth in his own order; and our assiduous labour in our calling would be a resemblance of the readiness of those blessed Spirits, who at the beck of Majesty have wings, and hast to their duty; who are ever moving, and then in their highest exaltation when they are in their ministry; in a word, then should we every one sit under his own vine and figtree, and no evil eye should look towards him, no malice blast him, no injury assault him, no bold intrusion unsettle him, but we should all rejoice together, the poor with the rich, the weak with the strong, the low with the high, all bless one another, help one another, guard one another, and so in the name of the Prince of Peace walk peaceably together, every one moving in his own place, till we reach that Peace which yet we do not understand but shall then fully enjoy to all eternity. The Tenth SERMON. PART I. MATTH. XXIV. 42. Watch therefore; For ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. THese are the words of our blessed Saviour, and a part of the answer he returned to that question which was put up by his Disciples vers. 3. Tell us, When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? Where we may observe that he doth not satisfy their curiosity, which was measuring of Time, even to the last point and moment of it, when it shall be no more, but he resolveth them in that which was fit for them to know, and passeth by in silence and untouched the other as a thing laid up and reserved in the bosom of his Father. The time he telleth them not, but foretelleth those fearful signs which should be the forerunners of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world: Which two are so interwoven in the prediction that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them. We need not take any pains to disentangle or put them asunder. At the thirtieth verse our Saviour presents himself in the clouds with power and great glory: The Angels sound the Trumpet, at the next: The two men in the Field, and the two women grinding at the mill, in the verses immediately going before my Text, the one taken, the other left, are a fair evidence, and seem to point out to the end of the world, which will be a time of discrimination, of separating the Goats from the Sheep. And then these words will concern us as much as the Apostles; In which He who is our Lord and King, to rule and govern us, He that was, and that is, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is to come, telleth us of his coming, openeth his will, Rev. 1.4. and manifesteth his power, and, as he hath given us Laws, telleth us he will come to require them at our hands; He that is the Wisdom of his Father, He that neither slumbreth nor sleepeth, calleth upon us, maketh this stir and noise about us; and the alarm is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Be watchful. Call it what we please, an Admonition, or an Exhortation, it hath the necessitating and compulsive force of a Law, and Christ is his own Herald, and proclaimeth it as it were by the sound of the trumpet: For this VIGILATE ERGO, Watch therefore, is tuba ante tubam, is as a trumpet before the last trumpet; and thus it soundeth, To you it is commanded, to fling yourselves off from the bed of security, to set a court of guard upon your selves, to rouse up yourselves, to stand as it were on a watchtower, looking for and expecting the coming of the Lord. I may call it a Law; but it is not as the laws of men, which are many times the result of men's wills and are guided and determined by their lusts and affections; and so Ambition maketh laws, and Covetousness maketh laws, and private Interest maketh laws, with this false Inscription, BONO PUBLICO, For the public good: But it is prefaced and ushered in with Reason, which concerneth not so much the Head as the Members, not the Lord as his Servants, not the King as his Subjects, for us men, and for our salvation. For him that is in the field, and him that is in the house, for him that sitteth on the throne, and her that grindeth at the mill, for the whole Church, is this warning given, is this law promulged. And every word is a reason; 1. That he is our Lord that is to come, 2. That he will come, 3. That the time of his coming is uncertain: A Lord to seal and ratify his laws with our blood, which we would not subscribe to nor make good by our obedience; Matth. 25.14. and a Lord gone as it were into a far Country, Luk. 19.12, 13. and leaving us to traffic till he come, but after a while to come and reckon with us; and last of all, at an uncertain time, at an hour we know not, that every hour may be unto us as the hour of his coming: for he that prefixeth no hour may come the next. Every one of these is a reason strong enough to enforce this Conclusion, Watch therefore. A Lord he is and shall we not fear him? To come, and shall we not expect him? To come at an hour we know not, and shall we not watch? These are the Premises; and the Conclusion is Logically and formally deduced, primae necessitatis, the most necessary Conclusion that a servant or subject can draw. So that in these words we have these things considerable: first, the Person coming, your Lord; secondly, his Advent, He will come; thirdly, the Uncertainty of the hour, We know not when it will be; Out of which will naturally follow this Conclusion, which may startle and awake us out of sleep, Watch therefore. We will follow that method which we have laid down, and begin with the premises. First it will concern us to look upon the Person. For as the person is, such is our expectation. And could we take the Idea of him in our hearts, and behold him in the full compass and extent of his power, we should unfold our arms, and look about us, veternum excutere, shake off our sloth and drowsiness, and prepare for his coming. For it is Christ our Lord. Ask of me, Psal. 2.8. and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance, saith God to Christ. John 10.30. And Christ saith, I and the Father are one. We believe he shall judge the world; John 5.22. and we read that the Father hath committed all judgement to the Son. Take him as God, or take him as Man, he is our Lord. Cùm Dominus dicitur, unus agnoscitur; for there is but one faith, Eph. 4 5. and but one Lord. So that Christ may well say, John 13.13. You call me Lord and Master, and so I am; A Lord, as in many other respects, so jure redemtionis, by redemption, having bought us with a price; 1 Cor. 6.20. and jure belli, by way of conquest, by treading our enemies under our feet, and taking us out of slavery and bondage. And that we may not think that Christ laid down his power with his life, or that he is gone from us never to come again, we will a little consider the nature of his Dominion, and behold him there from whence he must come to judge the quick and the dead. And the Prophet David hath pointed out to him sitting at the right hand of God, where we should ever behold him, and fix our thoughts and our eye of faith upon him, in this our watch, Psal. 110.1. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sat thou at my right hand, till I make thy enemies thy footstool. Which speech is metaphorical, and we cannot draw it to any other sense then that on which the intent of the speaker did levelly it, which reached no further than this, To show that his own Kingdom was nothing in comparison of Christ's, which was of another and higher nature. Non ex parabolis materias commentimur, sed ex materiis parabola● interpretamur, Tertull. De Pudicit. c 8. As Tertulian spoke of Parables, We do not draw conclusions and doctrines out of Metaphors, but we expound the Metaphor by the doctrine which is taught and the scope of the teacher, nor must we admit of any interpretation, which notwithstanding the Metaphor might yield, that is not consonant and agreeable to the doctrine and analogy of faith. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher; We can neither bring a Metaphor into a definition, nor can we build an argument upon it. We may say of Metaphors as Christ spoke of the voice from heaven, They are used in Scripture for our sakes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. 5. Top. c. 2. for likeness and proportion's sake, and serve to present intellectual objects to the eye, and make that light which we have of things familiar to us a help and medium by which we may more clearly see those which are removed and stand at greater distance. For he cannot be said to sit there at the right hand of God from the position and site of his body. We cannot entertain so gross an imagination. Acts 7.56. And S. Stephen telleth us he saw him standing at the right hand of God. But it may declare his victory, his triumph, and his rest as it were from his labour. Secundùm consuetudivem nostram illi consessus offertur, qui victor adveniens honoris gratiâ promeretur ut sedeat; It is borrowed, saith S. Ambrose, from our customary speech, by which we offer him a place and seat for honour's sake who hath done some notable and meritorions service. And so Christ having spoiled the adversary by his death, having led captivity captive, and put the Prince of darkness in chains, at his return with these spoils heareth from his Father, Sat now down at my right hand. Nor doth God's right hand point out to any fixed or determined place where he sitteth. For Christ himself telleth the high Priest that they shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven, Mark 14.62. which if literally understood, we must needs conceive him coming and sitting at the same time. All agree it is a Metaphor: and some interpret it of that Supremacy Christ hath above the Creature. For so he is described sitting at the right hand of God in heavenly places, Eph. 1.20, 21. far above all principality and power, and every name that is named not only in this world, but in the world to come. Some have conceived that by this honour of sitting at the right hand of God not only an Equality with God is employed, but something more: Equal to the Father as touching his God head, Atha. Nas. Cr. Not that the Son hath any thing more than the Father; for they are equal in all things: but because in respect of the exercise and execution of his Royal office he hath as it were this dignity to sit in his Royal seat as Lord and Governor of his Church. For the Father is said, as I told you, to commit all judgement to the Son. But we may say with Tertullian. Malo in scriptures fortè minùs sapere quàm contrá; De Pudicit. c. 9 We had rather understand less in Scripture then amiss; rather be wary then venture too far, and wade till we sink. And that will prove the best interpretation of Scripture which we draw out of Scripture itself. And then S. Paul hath interpreted it to our hands. For whereas the Prophet David telleth us, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sat thou at my right hand, the Apostle speaketh more expressly, 1 Cor. 15.25. He must reign till he hath put down all enemies under his feet; and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb. 8.1. We have such an high Priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; that is, We have such an high Priest who is also a Lord and King, of majesty and power to command and govern us, who hath absolute authority over things in heaven and things in earth, over all the souls and bodies of men, and may prescribe them Laws, reward the obedient, and punish offenders, either in this world, or the next, or in both For though he were a Lord and King even in his cratch and on his cross, yet now his dominion and Kingly power was most manifest; and he commandeth his Disciples to publish the Gospel of peace and those precepts of Christian conversation to all the world, and speaketh not as a Prophet, but as a Prince, in his own name; enjoineth repentance and amendment of life to all the nations of the earth, which were now all under his dominion. Thus, saith Christ himself, Luke 24.46, 47. it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in his name, among all nations. And his Dominion is not subordinate, Matth. 8.9. but absolute: He commandeth not as the Centurion in the Gospel, who had divers under him, yet himself was under authority; but, Prov. 30.31. as Solomon's King, he is Rex ALKUM, a King against whom there is no rising up. And now that it may appear that he is not for ever thus to sit at the right hand of God, but there sitteth to rule and govern us, to behold and observe us in every motion and in every thought, and will, nay must, come again with a reward for those who bow to his sceptre, and with vengeance to be poured forth upon their heads who contemn his laws, and think neither of him nor the right hand of God, and will not have him reign over them, though they call him their King, let us a little further consider the nature and quality of his Dominion, that our fear and reverence, our care and caution may draw him yet a little nearer to us, and we may not only conceive of him as sitting at the right hand of God, but so live as if he were now coming in the clouds. Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Matth. 2.51. Behold, thy King cometh to thee, meek, and sitting on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. This was his first coming, in great humility. Philip. 2.8, 9 And this and his retinue show that his Kigdom was not of this world. He humbled himself, saith S. Paul: wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, given him power, dignity and honour, and made him our Lord and King. For his Prophetical office, which he exercised in the land of Judea, was in a manner an act and effect of his Kingly office, by which he sitteth as Lord in the throne of Mejesty: For by it he declared his Father's will and promulged his Laws throughout the world. As a King and Lord he maketh his Laws, and as a Prophet he publisheth them, a Prophet, and a Priest, and a Lord for ever: For he teacheth his Church, he mediateth and intercedeth for his Church, and governeth his Church to the end of the world. Take then the Laws by which he governeth us, the virtue and power, the compass and duration of his Dominion, and we shall find it to be of a higher and more excellent nature then that which the eye of flesh so dazleth at, Rev. 19.16. that he is The LORD of Lords, and KING of Kings. And first, the difference between his Dominion and the Kingdoms of the world is seen not only in the Authors but the Laws themselves. The Laws of men are enacted many times nec quid, nec quare, and no reason can be given why they are enacted; good reason there is why there should be Laws made against them, and they abolished. Some written in blood, too rigid and cruel; some in water, ready to vanish; many of them but the results and dictates of men's lusts and wild affections, made not so safeguard any State but their own. But Christ's are pure and undefiled, exact and perfect, such as tend to perfection, to the good of his Subjects, and will make them like unto this Lord, heirs together with him of eternity of bliss. And as the reward is eternal, so are they unchangeable, the same to day and to the end of the world, not like the Laws of the Heathen, which were raised with one breath and pulled down by another, which were fixed by one hand and torn down by a second. Apol c. 4. Lycurgi leges emendatae, saith Tertullian; Lycurgus his Laws were so imperfect, so ill fitting the Commonwealth, that they were brought under the hammer and the file, to be beat out and fashioned in another form more proportionable to that body for which they were made, were corrected by the Lacedæmonians: Which undervaluing of his wisdom did so unman him that he would be a man no longer, but starved himself to death. Vetus & squalens sylva legum edictorum securibus truncatae; the whole wood of the old Laws now sullied and weakened with age was cut down by the edicts and escripts of after-Emperours at the very root as with an axe. All of them are in the body of time, and worn out with it; either fail of themselves, or else are cast aside; humane Laws being but as shadows cast from men in power, and when they fall to the ground, are lost with them, and are no more to be seen, Gel. Noct. Att. l. 20. c. 1. nec uno statu consistunt, sed, ut coeli facies & maris, ità rerum atque fortunae tempestatibus variantur, nor do they remain in one state, but altar as the face of the Heavens and the Sea, now smile, anon frown, now a calm, and by and by a tempest. Now the strong man saith, Do this; anon a stronger than he cometh, and I forfeit my head if I do it. Laws are too oft written with the point of the sword, and then the character followeth the hand that beareth it. Thus it is with the Laws of men: But the Laws of this our Lawgiver can no more change than he that made them. No bribe can buy out their power, no dispensations wound them, no power can disannul them; but they are the same, Dispensationes, vulnera legum. and of the same countenance. They moult not a feather, they altar not in one circumstance, but direct the obedient, and stare the offender in the face, and by the power of this Lord kindle a hell in him in this life, and will appear at the great day to accuse him: For we either stand or fall in judgement according to these Laws. In a word, humane Laws are made for certain climates, and fitted to the complexion and temper of certain Commonwealths; but these for the whole world. Rome and Britain and Jerusalem, all places, are bound alike; and as his Dominion so his Laws reach from one end of the earth to another. And these which he published at the first are not only Laws but promises and pledges of his second coming: For he made them not for nought, but hath left them with us till he come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, according to his Gospel. Besides, the Laws of men are too narrow, and cannot reach the whole body of Sin, cannot comprehend all, not the inward man, the thoughts and surmises of the heart, no not every visible act, Leges non omnia comprehendunt, non omnia vetant, nec absolvunt. Sen. they forbidden not all, they absolve not all. Some irregularities there be which these Laws look not upon, nor have they any other punishment than the common hatred of men, who can pass no other sentence upon them then this, That they dislike them, and we are forced to leave them to the censure and anger of the Highest, saith Seneca; Quoties licet, non oportet; Every thing that is lawful for me to do is not fit to be done. And his integrity is but lame that walketh on at pleasure, and knoweth no bounds but those which the Laws of men have set up, and never questioneth any thing he doth till he meeteth with a check; is honest no further than this, that he feareth not a prison nor the gibbet; is honest, because he deserveth not to be hanged. How many are there who are called Christians, who yet have not made good their title to that honour which we give to a just man? How many count themselves just men, yet do those things which themselves, if they would be themselves, would condemn as most unjust, and do so when others do them? and how many have carried so much honesty with them into hell? The Laws of men cannot reach home to carry us to that height of innocency to which no other Law but that within us might lift us up. But the Laws of this Lord, like his Power and Providence, reach and comprehend all, the very looks and proffers and thoughts of the mind, which no man seethe, which we see not ourselves; which, though they break not the peace nor shake any pillar of the Commonwealth (for a thought troubleth no heart but that which conceiveth it) yet stand in opposition to that policy which this our Lord hath drawn out, and to that end for which he is our Lord, and are louder in his ears then an evil word in ours; and therefore he looketh not only on our outward guilt, but also on the conscience itself, and pierceth to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit, and regulateth the very thoughts and intents of the heart, which he looketh upon, not as fading and vanishing characters in the soul, but as kill letters imprinted and engraven there, as S. Basil speaketh, De virgin. as full and complete actions wrought out in the inward man (S. Bernard calleth them passivas actiones, passive actions) which he will judge secundum evangelium, according to these Laws which he hath published in his Gospel. Secondly, that he is a Lord appeareth by the virtue and power of his Dominion. For whereas all the power on earth (which so often dazleth us) can but afflict the body, this woundeth the soul, rippeth up the very heart and bowels: and when those Lords which we so tremble at till we fall from him, Matth. 10.28. can but kill the body, this Lord can cast both soul and body into hell, nay can make us a hell unto ourselves, make us punish and torment ourselves, and, being greater than our Conscience, can multiply those strokes. Humane Laws have been brought into disgrace because they had not power enough to attend and hold them up; and even the common people, who fear them most, have by their own observation gathered the boldness to call them cobwebs: for they see he that hath a full purse or a good sword will soon break through them, or find a bosom to sweap them away. What speak you of the Laws? I can have them and bind them up in sudariolo, saith Petrus Damianus, in the corner of my handkerchief: Nay many times for want of power victae leges, the Laws must submit as in conquest, and, though they have a tongue to speak, yet they have not a hand to strike. And as it is in punishment, so it is sometimes in point of reward: Men may raise their merit and deserts so high that the Exchequer itself shall not find a reward to equal them. We have a story in our own Chronicles of a Nobleman who did such service for his friend; then but a private man, that he made him first a Conqueror, than 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 than they are able to reward, and so (how truly I know not) maketh the setting on of the Crown on his friend's 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 giantlike 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 horror of that profitable, honourable sin, in which he triumphed, and called it Godliness. The Hypocrite, whose every word, whose every motion, whose every look was a lie, shall be unmasked. 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 leveled, 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 only the pouring forth my blood as water for the Truth's 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 Martyrdom 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 only 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's remotis Gadibus jungit; All places are to him alike, and he sees them all at once. It is called the Catholic Church, and in our Creed we profess we believe SANCTAM CATHOLIC AM ECCLESIAM, the holy Catholic CHURCH, 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 itself. 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 itself boweth before him, and hath changed her harsh notes into the sweet melody of the Cross. Judg. 6.37.— ●0. There was dew only upon the Fleece, the people of the Jews; but now that fleece 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 easy 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 men's 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 Christendom, do; suppose there were none found that will bow before him (which will never be) suppose they crucify 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 no right at all, if it could be taken from him. Neither deceit nor violence can take away a right: No man can lose his right till he forfeit it; which was impossible for this supreme Lord to do. All the contradictions of all the men in the world cannot weaken his title, or contract his power. If all should forsake him, Luke 19.14. if all should send this message to him, We will not have thee reign over us, yet in all this scorn and contempt, in this open rebellion and contradiction of sinners, he is still the Lord. And as he favoureth those subjects who come in willingly, whom he guideth with his staff; so he hath a rod of iron to bruise his enemies: And this Lord shall command, and at his command his servants and executioners shall take those his enemies who would not have him reign over them, — 27. and slay them before his face. He will not use his power to force and drag them by violence to his service, but if they refuse his help, abuse the means which he offereth them, and turn his grace into wantonness, then will he show himself a King, and his anger will be more terrible than the roaring of a lion. They shall feel him to be a Lord, when it will be too late to call him so; when they shall weep, and curse, and gnash with their teeth, and howl under that Power which might have saved them. For the same Power openeth the gates of heaven and of hell. Psal. 75.8. In his hand is a cup, saith the Psalmist; and in his hand is a reward; and when he cometh to judge, he bringeth them both along with him. The same Power bringeth life and death, as Fabius did peace or war to the Carthaginians in the lap of his garment, and which he will he poureth out upon us, and in both is still our Lord. When Faith faileth, and Charity waxeth cold, and the world is set on wickedness, when there be more Antichrists than Christians, he is our Lord, yesterday, and to day, Hebr. 13.8. and the same for ever. In the last place, as the Dominion of our Lord is the largest that ever was, so is it most lasting, and shall never be destroyed. Dan. 2.44. It shall break in pieces, and destroy all the Kingdoms of the earth, but itself shall stand fast for ever. No violence shall shake it, no craft undermine it, no time waste it; but Christ shall remain our Lord for ever. The Apostle indeed speaketh of an end, of delivering up his Kingdom, 1 Cor. 15.24, 28. and of subjection. It is true, there shall be an end; but it is when he 〈◊〉 delivered up his Kingdom: and he shall deliver up his Kingdom, but not till he hath put down all authority. Finis hic defectio non est, nec traditio amissio, nec subjectio infirmitas, saith Hilary; This end is no failing, this delivery no loss, this subjection no weakness nor infirmity. Regnum regnans tradet; He shall deliver up his power, and yet be still a Lord. Take Nazianzen's interpretation, and then this Subjection is nothing else but the fulfilling of his Father's will; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith he in his 36th Oration, which he made against the Arians. Take others, and by Christ is meant his Church, which in computation is but one Person with Christ; and when his Church is perfected, then doth he deliver up his Power and Dominion. But let us but observe the manner of the ending of this Kingdom, and the failing and period of others, and we shall gain light enough to guide us in the midst of all these doubts and difficulties. Either Kingdoms are undermined by craft, and shaken by the madness of the people, who eat the whip, and are beaten with Scorpions, cast off one yoke, and put on a heavier, as the young men in Livy complained; or Kingdoms are changed and altered as it pleaseth those who are victorious, whose right hand is their God: But the Power of this Lord is then, and only in this sense, said to have an end, when indeed it is in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection, when there will be no enemy stirring to subdue, no use of laws; when the subjects are now made perfect, when this Lord shall make his subjects Kings, and crown them with glory and honour for ever. Here is no weakness, no infirmity, no abjuration, no resignation of the Crown and Power, but all things are at an end, his enemies in chains, and his subjects free; free from the fear of Hell, or temptations of the Devil, the World, or the Flesh. And though there be an end, yet he reigneth still; though he be subject, yet he is as high as ever he was; though he hath delivered up his Kingdom, yet he hath not lost it, but remaineth a Lord and King for evermore. And now you have seen this Lord that is to come; you have seen him sitting at the right hand of God, his Right and Power of government, his Laws just and holy and wise, the Virtue and Power, the Largeness and the Duration of his government: A sight fit for those to look on who love and look for the coming of this Lord. For they that long to meet him in the clouds cannot but delight to behold him at the right hand of God. Look upon him then sitting in majesty and power, and think you now see him moving towards you and descending with a shout. For his very sitting there should be to us as his coming, it being but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the preparation, to that great day. Look upon him, and think not that he there sitteth idle, but beholdeth the children of men, those that wait for him, and those that think not of him. And he will come down with a shout, not fall as a timber-log, for every frog, every wanton sinner, to leap upon and croak about, but come as a Lord, with a reward in one hand, and a vengeance in the other. Oh it is far better to fall down and worship him now, than not to know him to be a Lord till that time that in his wrath he shall manifest his power, and fall upon us, and break us in pieces. Look then upon this Lord, and look upon his Laws, and write them in your hearts. For the Philosopher will tell us that the strength and perfection of Law consisteth not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the wise and discreet framing of them, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the right and due performance of them: For Obedience is the best seal and ratification of a Law. Christ is Lord from all eternity, and cannot be devested of his Royal office, yet he counteth his Kingdom most complete when we are subject and obedient unto him, when he hath taken possession of our hearts, where he may walk (not as he did in Paradise, terrible to Adam, who had forfeited his allegiance, but) as in a garden of pleasures, to delight himself with the sons of men. Behold, he commandeth, threatneth, beseecheth, calleth upon us again and again: And the beseechings of Lords are commands, preces armatae, armed prayers, backed with power. And therefore next consider the Virtue and Power of his Dominion, and bow before him, and do what he commandeth with fear and trembling. Let this Power walk along with thee in all thy ways. When thou art giving an alms, let it strike the trumpet out of thy hand. When thou fastest, let it be in capite jejunii, let it begin and end it. When thou art struggling with a tentation, let it drive thee on, that thou faint not, and fall back, and do the work of the Lord negligently. Jer. 48.10. When thou art adding virtue to virtue, let it be before thy eyes, that thou mayest double thy diligence, and make it up complete in every circumstance. And when thou thinkest of evil, let it join with that thought, that thou mayest hate the very appearance of it, and chase it away. Why should Dust and Ashes more awe thee then Omnipotency? Why should thy Eye be stronger than thy Faith? Not only the frown but the look of thy Superior composeth and modeleth thee, putteth thee into any fashion or form; thou wilt go, or run, or sit down, thou wilt venture thy body (would that were all) nay, thou wilt venture thy soul, do any thing, be any thing, what his beck doth but intimate: but thy Faith is fearless, as bold as blind, will venture on the point of the sword, feareth what Man, not what this Lord can do; feareth him more that sitteth on the bench than him that sitteth at the right hand of God. If we did believe as we profess, we could not but lay this more to our hearts, even lay it so as to break them. For who can stand up when this Lord is angry? Let us next view the Largeness and Compass of his Dominion, which taketh in all that will come, reacheth those who refuse to come, and would not be contracted in its compass if none should come. And why shouldst thou turn a Saviour into a Destroyer? Why shouldst thou die in thy Physicians arms, with thy cordials about thee? Why shouldst thou behold him as a Lord till he be angry? He calleth all, inviteth all to come: Why should Publicans and sinners enter, and thy disobedience shut thee out? Lastly, consider the Duration of his Dominion, which shall not end but with the world, nor end then when it doth end: for the virtue of it shall reach to all eternity: And then think that under this Lord thou must either be eternally happy or eternally miserable; and let not a flattering but a fading World, let not thy rebellious and traitorous Flesh, let not the Father of lies, a gilded temptation, an apparition, a vain shadow, thrust thee on his left hand. For both at his right and left there is Power which worketh to all eternity. And now we have walked about this Zion, and told the towers thereof, shown you Christ's Territories and Dominion, the nature of his Laws, the Virtue and Power, the Largeness and Compass, the Duration of his Kingdom, we must in the next place consider his Advent, consider him as now coming. For we cannot imagine (as was said before) that he fitteth idle, like Epicurus his God, nec sibi facessens negotium, nec alteri, not regarding what is done below, but like the true Prometheus, governing and disposing the state of times and actions of men. Divinum numen, etiam qua non apparet, rebus humanis intervenit; M. Sen Contr. His Power insinuateth itself and worketh even there where it doth not appear. Though he be in heaven, yet he can work at this distance. For he fileth the heaven and the earth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He beholdeth all things, he heareth all things. He speaketh to thee, and he speaketh in thee. He heareth thee when thou speakest, and he heareth thee when thou speakest not. In his book are all things written: nay, he keepeth a book in the very closet of thy heart, the only book which shall go along with thee; and when he cometh it shall fly open: Every chapter, every letter, every character of sin shall be as plain to thy eye as to his. And though we here seal up this book, he can read it when it is shut He sitteth above tanquam venturus, as one coming. Indeed to us (who, like those Philosophers in Tully, seeing nothing with our mind, refer all to our sense, and scarce believe any thing but that for which we have an ocular demonstration; the eye of whose faith is so dull and heavy that it cannot clearly discern that eye of our Lord which is ten thousand times brighter than the Sun) he is most times as lost; like Epicurus his God, doing nothing; Eccl. 23.17. like Baal, either in his journey, or sleeping. 1 Kings 18.27. And as at his first coming he was had in no reputation, Phillip 2 5. so now he is at the right hand of God he is in a manner forgot. Woe do not insult over him in plain terms, as those did in Theodoret, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Luke 24.25. What doth the carpenters Son now do? but we are as slow of heart to believe what we are taught, and what we say we believe, as those disciples which went to Emmaus. We are told that he did rise again from the dead, and ascended, and sitteth at the right hand of God, and will come again, but it is a long time since, those things were done, and he is long a coming. To the Atheist, to the profane person, to the lukewarm Christian, to the hypocrite, he is in a manner lost: they have sealed up his grave, and he will come no more. And this is one argument that he will come, even this, That we so little regard it. For can a Lord that breatheth forth nothing but Love bear with such contempt? Can he whom the voice of God and Man, whom Scripture and Miracles and Reason have placed on the tribunal, and made Judge of all the world, be kept back by these vain imaginations, which are nothing else but the steam and exhalations of our sensual and brutish part? Shall not he judge all the earth, because we are guilty, and deserve to be condemned? No, veniet, veniet hic; August. etiamsi nolis, veniet; He will come, he will certainly come, whether thou wilt or no. Nor is delay in coming an argument that he will not come. For the Lord is not slack concerning his promise and coming, 2 Pet. 3.3, 4, 9 as some count slackness, some scoffers, who walk after their own lusts, and ask, Where is the promise of his coming? Sensuality is the mother and nurse of Unbelief; and the Sense flieth the knowledge of that which is terrible to it: and so we are, as S. Peter telleth us willingly ignorant of that which we are taught, and will not consider that the world is made of corruptible parts, and therefore must at last be dissolved, and that, as the old world perished by water, so this shall by fire. For what guilty person doth not study to drive the thought of a Judge coming out of his mind? He that hath his delight and his heaven in this world is not willing to hear of another to come; VENIT, The Lord cometh, is not in his Creed. Sed nulla est mora ejus quod cer●ò eveniet: The deferring or delay of that which will certainly come should not come into our consideration. Come he will, though he come not yet: and when he is come, all the time past and before, in which we grew wanton and presumptuous, and beat our fellow-servants, Luke 12.45. is not in true esteem so much as a moment or the twinkling of an eye. It is not slackness, it is not delay. That is our false Gloss, who when we break the Law, are as willing to misinterpret the Lawgiver. The Hypocrite thinketh him as very a dissembler as himself, and is well persuaded that, though he threaten, yet he meaneth it not though he hath denounced judgement against those that sin and repent not, yet he will not be so good, or rather so bad, as his word. The Sacrilegious person looketh upon him as an enemy to Churches, and him that putteth the hammer into his hand to beat down his own Temple. The Profane person would excaecare providentiam Dei, Tertull. de Animi. put out the eye of God's Providence; and the moral Atheist would pull him from his throne, and thrust him out of the world. Every man frameth such a God as will fit him, and proportioneth him to his lusts. We draw God out as the Painter did the Goddess, in the likeness of those vanities which we most dote on, and so we entitle him to our fraud and oppression, Invenimus quomodo etiam avarum faceremus, Petrarch. We have found an art to bring him in as an abettour and a promoter of our covetousness and ambition, and so, as much as in us lieth, make him as ambitious and covetous as ourselves. Psal. 50.21. Thou thoughtest verily that I was like unto thee, saith God to the Hypocrite. Behold, Christ sitteth at the right hand of God in full power and majesty, ready to descend; but he cometh not yet, and hence the scorner concludeth he will never come. This is a false gloss and a false conclusion, the result and inference of flesh and blood. For it is not slackness (that is the dictate of our lusts) but, if Truth interpret it, it is long suffering; and his long-suffering should end and be eased in our repentance. 2 Pet. 3 15. S. Peter telleth us it is salvation. It is what it should be. If it be not salvation, we have driven it from itself; and see, now it is nothing but wrath and indignation. His long suffering is either our salvation or our condemnation. And this is the true reason why Christ is not yet come, but as it were a coming. For Time is nothing unto him, nor is it any thing in itself; nec intelligitur nisi per actus humanos, Isid. l. V. nor can we conceive or understand it but by those actions which we do now and again, and which we cannot do at once. Psal. 90.4. A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday, but not so long, not so long as a thought. He delayeth not, but he beareth with us in this our time. We look upon the day of judgement as upon a day to come; but to him it is present. That he is not come to us, is for our sakes. For the Church of Christ till the consummation of all things, is in fluxu, in corpore temporum, as Tertullian speaketh, is wrapped up in the body of Time, cometh not simul & semel, at once, but successively gaineth the addition of parts. S. Paul calleth it a body: And though it be not such a body as the Stoics fancied, quod more fluminum in assiduâ diminutione & adjectione est, which, like Rivers, receiveth every day increase and every day diminution, and is not the same to day which it was yesterday, yet is it corpus aggregatum, a collected body, which is not made up at once in every part, but receiveth its parts successively. She is terrible as an army with banners, Cant. 6.4. as it is said of the Spouse in the Canticles: and in an army, you know, the van may lodge there to night where the rear cometh not till the morning: So it is with the Church; it hath always its parts, yet hath always parts to be added. So we read Acts 2.47. that the Lord added to the Church daily, that is, successively, such as should be saved. Quantum iniquitatis grassatur, tantum abest regnum Dei, quod secum affert plenam rectitudinem, saith the Father. Christ is come, and yet is still a coming. Whilst there are heresies and schisms in the Church, whilst the one undermineth the bulwarks without, and the other raiseth a mutiny within, whilst the Devil rageth, and men sin, there be yet some to be gathered to Christ's sheepfold; and though in respect of his power he be already come, yet for his elects sake he will not execute it yet. And this is the very reason which Justine Martyr giveth of the proroguing and delay of his coming and why the consummation and end of all things is not yet, Apol. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for mankind's sake, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the seed of Christians, which is yet to be propagated. For by his eternal wisdom he forseeth that many there be who will believe, and turn to him by repentance; and some that be not, even many who are yet unborn. For the promise is made to you, and to your children, saith S. Peter, Acts 2.39. Et natis natorum, & qui nascentur ab illis, and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call. How many thousands are not yet, who shall be Saints? For their sakes it is that the Lord doth not consume the world with fire, that he doth not come to judge the world; that wicked men are permitted to revel on the earth, and the devil to rage; that he suffereth that which he abhorreth, suffereth injustice to move its arms at large, and spread itself like a green bay-tree, and leaveth Innocency bound in chains; that he suffereth men to break his commands, to question his providence, to doubt of his being and essence; that we see this disorder and confusion, the world in a manner dissolved before its end. But when that number is full (a number which we know not, or, if we did, cannot know when he will fill it up) when that is complete, than Time shall be no more; then, lo, he cometh, and will purge the world of heresy and schism, will appear in that majesty that the Atheists shall confess he is God, and see all those crooked ways, in which his providence seemed to walk, made even and straight: then the Epicure shall see that it was not below him to sit in heaven, and look upon the children of men; no dishonour to his Majesty to manage and guide all those things which are done under the Moon; that he may ride upon the Cherubin, and yet number every hair of our head, and observe the Sparrow that falleth from the housetop: then we shall see him, and we shall see all things put under his feet, even Heresy and Schism, Profaneness and Atheism, Sin and Death, Hell and the Devil himself. This he hath in effect done already by the virtue and power of his Cross, and therefore may be said to be come. But because we resist and hinder that, will not suffer him to make his conquest full, and, when we cannot reach him at the right hand of God, pursue and fight against him in his members, he will come again, and then cometh the end, another consummatum est, all shall be finished, his victory and triumph complete; and he shall lift up the heads of his despised servants, and tread down all his enemies under his feet, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most proper sense, triumph, Coloss. 2.15. and make a show of them openly. And this is a fit object for a Christian to look upon. Of this more. The Eleventh SERMON. PART II. MATTH. XXIV. 42. Ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. WE have already beheld the Person, Your Lord: and we have placed him on his tribunal as a Judge; John 5.22. For the Father hath committed all judgement to the Son. You have seen his Dominion in his Laws, which are fitted and proportioned to it: Psal. 45.6. As his sceptre is a sceptre of righteousness, so his Laws are just. No man, no Devil can question them: We approve them as soon as we hear them, and we approve them when we break them; for that check which our conscience giveth us is an approbation. You have seen the Virtue and Power of his Dominion: For what is Regal right without Regal power? What is a Lord without a sword? Or what is a sword if one cannot manage it? What is a wiseman, if a wiser than he; what is a strong man, if a stronger than he cometh upon him? Es. 9.6. Psal. 76.7. But our Lord, as he is called Wonderful, Counsellor, so is he the Mighty God: Who can stand before him when he is angry? We have showed you the large Compass and Circuit of his Dominion: No place so distant or remote to which it doth not reach. It is over them that love him, and over them that crucify him: It is over them that honour him, and over them that put him to open shame. Luke 1.33. And last of all you have seen the Durability or rather the Eternity of his Dominion: Of his Kingdom there shall be no end, saith the Angel to Mary: And take the words going before, He shall reign over the house of Jacob, and the sense will be plain. For as long as there is a house of Jacob, a people and Church on earth, so long shall he reign. Hebr. 7.24. As his Priesthood so his Dominion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and shall never pass away. We must now fix our eyes upon him as ready to descend, in puncto reversûs, settled in his place, but upon his return: The Lord will come. It is a word of the future tense, as all predictions are of things to come: and it is verbum operativum, a word full of efficacy and virtue, 1. to awake and stir up our Faith, 2. to raise our Hope, and 3. to inflame our Charity: It is an object for our Faith to look on, for our Hope to reach at, and for our Charity to embrace. First it offereth itself to our Faith. For ideo Deus abscessit ut fides nostra corroboretur; Therefore doth our Saviour stay, and not bow the heavens, and come down, that our Faith, which may reach him there, may be built up here upon earth. And he is therefore absent, and in a manner lieth hid, that this eye might find him out. For Faith is a kind of prospective or optic instrument, by which we see things afar off as if they were near at hand, things that are not yet as if they were. It turneth venturus est into the present tense. It beholdeth Christ not only sitting at the right hand of God, but as now already descending with a shout. With this eye of faith I see new heavens and a new earth, a new face of every thing. I see what a nothing that is which mortals sweat and fight for, what a nothing the world is: for I see it on fire. I see Righteousness, peace, order, constancy, duration, even whilst I walk in this shop of vanities, this world of wickedness, this Chaos and confusion, this seat of change. I see honesty pitied, scorned, baffled, Honesty lifted up on high far above reproach or injury. I see Injustice powerful, all-conquering, triumphant Injustice trembling before this Lord, arraigned, condemned, fling down into the lowest pit, there to be whipped with many stripes. I see now the wisdom of men made foolishness, 1 Cor. 1.20, 25 and the foolishness of God wiser than men. I see that restored which I saw lost; I see the eye that was bored out, in its place again; I see the ploughed back, with no furrow on it; I see Herod in prison, and John Baptist with his head on. I see my goods restored before I lose them; and I am in heaven before the blow is given; in bliss, when every eye doth pity me. And what is now left for the boasting Tyrant to do? What can he take from me that is worth a thought? What can he strip me off but that which I have laid down and left already behind me? Will he have my goods? The treasury where they are kept is out of his reach. Will he take from me my good name? It is written in the book of life. Or will he take my life? He cannot: For it is hid with Christ in God. Col. 3.3. This is sancta impudentia Fidei, the holy boldness and confidence of Faith, to break through flesh and blood, all difficulties whatsoever, to draw down heaven to earth; and, if the object be invisible, to make it visible; if it be at distance, to make it present. If the Lord say he will come, to Faith he is come already. This operation Faith will have if it be not dulled and deadened by our sensuality. For what Faith is that which is not accompanied with these high apprehensions and resolutions equal to them? What Faith is that which leaveth us weary of the truth, and ashamed of our profession? What Faith is that which we are so ready at every frown to renounce? Shall I call that Faith which cannot strike the timbrel out of our hands, nor the strumpet out of our arms? that showeth Christ coming to the Covetous, yet leaveth him digging in the earth? to the Ambitious, and cannot stop him in his mount? to the Hypocrite, and cannot strike off his mask? to the Politician, 2 Tim. 3.15. and cannot make him wise unto salvation? that cannot make us displease ourselves, that cannot make us love ourselves, not awe an eye, not bind an hand, not silence a word, not stifle a thought, but leaveth us with as little power and activity as they who have been dead long ago, although the VENTURUS EST, the doctrine of Christ's second advent, sound as loud as the Trump shall do at the last day? Faith shall we call this, or a weak and faint persuasion, or a dream, or an echo from an hollow heart, which when all the world proclaimeth he will come, resoundeth it back again into the world? a Faith which can speak, but not walk or work? a Faith which may dwell in the heart of an hypocrite, a murderer, a devil? For all this one may believe, or at least profess, and yet be that liar, that Antichrist, 1 Joh. 2.22. & 4.3. which denieth Jesus to be Lord, or that he ever came in the flesh, or will come again to judge both the quick and the dead. Secondly, as it casteth an aspect upon our Faith, so it doth upon our Hope, Padag. 1. which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the blood of our Faith, saith Clemens Alexandrinus; without which it will grow faint and pale, and languish. Oportet habere aliquem spei cumulum, Advers. ●●ostic. c. 6. saith Tertullian: and therefore this addition of Hope to Faith is necessary. For if we had all Faith, and had not Hope, this Faith would profit us nothing. Faith without Hope may be in hell as well as on the earth. Believe; who does not? or at least say so? But how many expect Christ's coming? how many are saved? The Apostle speaketh of a fearful looking for of judgement. Heb. 10.27. Indeed they who hope not for Christ's coming, who do but talk of it, and are unwilling to believe themselves, may be said to look for it, because they ought to do it; And his coming is as certain as if they did. Truly and properly they cannot be said to expect it: For how should that be in their expectation which is not so much as in their thought? Hope will not raise itself upon every Faith; nor is that Faith which most of the world depend on a fit basis for hope to build upon. Even he that despaireth believeth, or else he could not despair: For who will droop for fear of that veniet, of that Judgement, which he is so willing to persuade himself will never come? Foolish men that we are! who hath bewitched us, that we should glory in Faith and hope, and make them the subjects of our songs and rejoicing, when our Faith is but such a one as is dead, and our Hope at last will make us ashamed? when our Faith is the same which is in hell, and our Hope will leave us with the Devil and his angels? a Faith worse than Infidelity, and a Hope more dangerous than Despair? Faith when we do not believe; and a Hope, when there is great reason we should despair, and which will serve only to add to the number of our stripes? yet this is the Faith, this is the Hope of the Hypocrite, of the formal Christian. These are thy Gods, O Israel. Therefore, in the last place, that we may join these two together, Faith and Hope, we must draw in that excellent gift of Charity, which is Copulatrix virtus, saith Cyprian, the uniting and coupling Virtue, not only of men, but of these two Theological Virtues, which will not meet together but in Love; or, if they do, with so little truth and reality that they will rather disadvantage then help us. For where Virtue is not, the name is but an accusation. I told you before that Hope doth suppose Faith: For we cannot hope for that which we do not believe. Yet Faith, such as it may be, may show itself, and speak proud words, when Charity is thrust out of doors. Many there be who have subscribed to the VENIURUS EST, that the Lord will come, who have little reason to hope for his coming. Rev. 22.12. How many believe he will come, and bring his reward with him, and yet strike off their own chariot-wheels, and drive but heavily towards it? How many believe there is a Judge to come, and wish there were none? Rom. 5.5. Faith, saving Faith, Hope, Hope that will not make ashamed, cannot dwell in the heart till Charity hath taken up a room. But when she is shed and spread abroad in our hearts, than they are in conjunction, meet together, and kiss each other. Faith is a foundation; and on it our Love raiseth itself as high as heaven in all the several branches and parts of it. Because I believe, I love. And when my Love is real and perfect, my Hope springeth up, and bloometh and flourisheth. My Faith seethe the object; my Love embraceth it, and the means unto it; and my Hope layeth hold on it, and even taketh possession of it. And therefore this Coming of the Lord is a threat, and not a promise, if they meet not. If Faith work not by Love and both together raise not a Hope, VENTURUS EST, he will come, is a thunderbolt. And thus as it looketh upon Faith and Hope, so it calleth for our Charity, For whether we will or no, whether we believe or no, whether we hope or no, he will certainly come: but when we love him, 2 Tim. 4.8. than we love also his appearance and his coming; and our Love is a subscription to his Promise, by which we truly testify our consent, and sympathise with him, and say Amen to his Promise that he will come; we echo it back again to him, Even so, come, Rev. 22.20. Lord Jesus. For that of Faith may be in a manner forced, that of Hope may be groundless, but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription. Though I know he will come, yet I shall be unwilling he should come upon me as an enemy, that he should come to me when I sit in the chair of the scornful, or lie in the bed of lust, or am wallowing in the mire, or weltering in my own blood, or washing my feet in the blood of my brethren, For can any condemned person hope for the day of execution? But when I love him, and bow before him, when I have improved his talon, and brought myself to that temper and constitution that I am of the same mind with this Lord, and partaker of his divine nature, 2 Pet. ●. 4. than Faith openeth and displayeth herself, and Hope towereth us up as high as the right hand of God, and would bring him down, never at rest, never at an end, but panting after him till he do come, crying out with the souls under the altar, How long, Lord? How long? How long? This is the very breathing and language of Hope. Then Substantia mea apud te, Psal. 39.7. as the Vulgar readeth that of the Psalmist, My expectation, my substance, my being is with the Lord: and I do not only subscribe to his Coming, because he hath decreed and resolved upon it, but because I can make an hearty acknowledgement that the will of the Lord is just and good; and I assent not of necessity but of a willing mind; and I am not only willing, but long for it: and as he testifieth these things, Rev. 22.20. and confirmeth this Article of his Coming with this last word, ETIAM VENIO, Surely I come, so shall I be able truly to answer, Even so come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. And now the Lord will come; And you may see the necessity of his coming in the end of his coming. For qualis Dominus, talis adventus; As his Dominion is, such is his Coming; his Kingdom spiritual, and his Coming to punish sin, and reward Obedience, to make us either prisoners in darkness, or Kings and Priests to reign with him and offer up spiritual sacrifices for evermore. He cometh not to answer the Disciples question, to restore the Kingdom to Israel; Acts 1.6. Matth. 20.21. Luk. 14.15. for his Kingdom is not such a one as they dreamt of; nor to place Zebedee's children, the one at his right hand, and the other at his left; nor to bring the Lawyer to his table to eat bread with him in his kingdom. These carnal conceits might suit well with the Synagogue, which looked upon nothing but the Basket. And yet to bring in this error, the Jews, as they killed the Prophets, so must they also abolish their Prophecies, Isai. 53.2. Zech. 9.9. Isa. 9.6, 7. which speak plainly of a King of no shape or beauty, of his first coming in lowliness and poverty; of a Prince of Peace, and not of war, of the increase of whose government there shall be no end. Nor doth he come to lead the Chiliast, the Dreamer of a Thousand years of temporal happiness on earth, into a Mahometical Paradise of all corporal contentments, that after the Resurrection the Elect (and even a Reprobate may think or call himself so) may reign with Christ a thousand years in all state and pomp, and in the affluence of all those pleasures which this Lord hath taught them to renounce. A conceit which ill becometh Christians, Heb. 10.34. & 11.13. Phil. 3.20. who must look for a better and more enduring substance, who are strangers and pilgrims, and not Kings, on earth, whose conversation is in heaven, and whose whole life must be a going out of the world. Why should we be commanded, and that upon pain of eternal separation from this our Lord, to wean ourselves from the world and every thing in the world, if the same Lord think these flatteries of our worse part, these pleasures, which we must loathe, a fit and proportionable reward for the labour of our Faith and Charity, which is done in the inward man? Can he forbidden us to touch and taste these things, and then glut us with them because we did not touch them? And can they now change their Nature, and be made a recompense of those virtues which were as the wings on which we did fly away, and so kept ourselves untouched and unspotted of this evil. But they urge Scripture for it: And so they soon may: for Scripture is soon misunderstood and soon misapplyed. It is written, they say, in Revel. 20.6. that the Saints shall reign with Christ a thousand years. Shall reign with Christ, is evidence fair enough to raise those spirits which are too high, or rather too low, already, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. No sooner is the word read, but the crown is on. To let pass the divers interpretations of that place, some making the number to be definite, others indefinite; some beginning the thousand years with the persecution of Christ, and ending it in Antichrist, others beginning it with the reign of Constantine, when Christianity did most flourish, and ending it at the first rising of the Ottoman-Empire; others beginning it at the year 73, and drawing it on to conclude in the year 1073, when Hildebrand began to tyrannize in the Church; To let pass these, since no man is able to reconcile them, we cannot but wonder that so gross an error should spread so far in the first and best times of the Church as to find entertainment with so many, but less wonder that it is revived and fostered by so many in ours, who have less learning but more art to misinterpret and wrest the Scriptures to their own damnation. For what can they find in this Text to make them Kings? no more than many of them can find in themselves to make them Saints? And here is no mention of all the Saints, but of Martyrs alone, who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, v. 4. But we may say of this Book of the Revelation as Aristotle spoke of his books of Physics, that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, published, and not published; published, but not for every man to fasten what sense he please upon it. Though we cannot deny but some few of later times, and so few as are but enough to make up a number by their multiplicity of reading and subtle diligence of observation, and by dextrous comparing those particulars which are registered in story with those things which are but darkly revealed, or plainly revealed to S. John, but not so plainly to us, have raised us such probabilities that we may look upon them with favour and satisfaction, till we see some fairer evidence appear, some more happy conjectures brought forth, which may impair and lessen that credit which as yet, for aught that hath been seen, they well deserve. But this is not every man's work: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Every man's eye is not so quick and piercing to see at such distance, And we see, since so many men have taken the courage and been bold to play the interpreters of dark Prophecies, they have shaped out what fancies they please, and instead of unfolding Revelations, have presented us with nothing but dreams, as so many divers Morals to one Fable. Rev. 11. & 13. And so for two witnesses we have a cloud; for one Beast, 1 John 2. almost as many as be in the forest; and for one Antichrist, every man that displeaseth us. But let men interpret the thousand years how they please, Mark 12.24, 27. our Saviour calleth it an error, an error that striketh at the very heart of Christianity, which promiseth no riches, nor power, nor pleasure, but that which is proportioned to those virtues and spiritual duties, of which it consisteth. For in the resurrection neither do they marry wives, nor are married. Matth 22.30. We may add, Neither are there high nor low, neither rich nor poor, Gal. 3.28. but all are one in Christ Jesus. And his words are plain enough, John 18.36. Quaedam sic digna revinci, ne gravitate adorentur, Tert adv. Valentin. My Kingdom is not of this world. I should scarce have vouchsafed to mention an error so gross, and which carrieth absurdity in the very face of it, but that we have seen this monster dressed up and brought abroad and magnified in this latter age and in our own times, which, as they abound with iniquity, so they do with errors, which to study to confute were to honour them too much, who make their sensual appetite a key to open Revelations, and to please and satisfy that are well content here to build their tabernacle, and stay on earth a thousand years amongst those pleasing objects which our Religion biddeth us to contemn, and to be so long absent from that joy and peace which is past understanding. Their Heaven is, as their virtues are, full of dross and earth, and but a poor and imperfect resemblance of that which is so indeed; and their conceit as carnal as themselves, which Christianity and even common Reason abhorreth. For look upon them, and you shall behold them full of debate, envy, malice, covetousness, ambition, minding earthly things: and so they fancy a reward like unto themselves. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Like embraceth like, as mire is more pleasing to swine then the waters of Jordan. And it is no wonder to hear them so loud and earnest for riches and pleasure and a temporal Kingdom, who have so weak a title to and so little hope of any other. But God forbidden that our Lord should come, and Flesh and Blood prescribe the manner. For then how many several shapes must he appear in? He must come to the Covetous, and fill his coffers; to the Wanton, and build him a Seraglio; to the Ambitious, and crown him. No, his advent shall be like himself: He shall come in power and majesty, in a form answerable to his Laws and government. And as all things were gathered together in him, Eph. 1.10, 22. which are in heaven, and which are in earth, and God hath put all things under his feet, so he shall come unto all, to Angels, to the Creature, to Men. And first he may well be said to come unto the Angels: For he is the Head of all Principality and Power. Colos. 2.10. And as at his first coming he confirmed them in their happy estate of obedience (which we believe as probable, though we have no plain evidence of Scripture for it) so at his second he shall more fully show to them that which they desired to look into, as S. Peter speaketh, 1 Pet. 1.12. give them a clearer vision of God, and increase the joy of the good, as he shall the torments of the evil Angels. For if they sang for joy at his birth, what hosannah's and Hallelujahs will they sound forth when they attend him with a shout? 1 Thess. 4 16. If they were so taken with his humility, how will they be ravished with his glory? And if there be joy in heaven for one sinner that repenteth, Luke 15 7, 10. how will that joy be exalted when those repentant sinners shall be made like unto the Angels? when they shall be of the same Choir, Luke 20.36. and sing the same song, Glory and honour to him that sitteth upon the throne, Rev. 5.13. and to this Lord, for ever more? Secondly, he cometh unto the Creatures to redeem them from bondage. Rom. 8. 19-22. For the desire of the creature is for this day of his coming, and even the whole creation groaneth with us also But when he cometh they shall be reform into a better estate: There shall be new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 2 Pet. 3 13. Now the Creature is subject to vanity; not only to change and mutability, but also to be instrumental to evil purposes, to rush into the battle with us, to run upon the Angel's sword, to be our drudges and our parasites, to be the hire of a whore, and the price of blood. They groan as it were and travail in pain under these abuses, and therefore desire to be delivered, not out of any rational desire, but a natural inclination, which is in every thing to preserve its self in its best condition. To these the Lord will come, Acts 3.21. and his coming is called the restitution of all things, that which maketh all things perfect, and restoreth every thing to its proper and natural condition. The Creature shall have its rest; the Earth shall be no more wounded with our plowshares, nor the bowels of it digged up with the mattock; there shall be no forbidden fruit to be tasted, no pleasant waters to be stolen, no Manna to surfeit on, no crowns to fight for, no wedge of gold to be a prey, no beauty to be a snare. The Lord will come, and deliver his Creature from this bondage, perfect and consummate all, and at once set an end both to the World and Vanity. Lastly, the Lord will come to men both good and evil. He shall come in his glory, Matth 25.31, 32. and gather all nations, and separate the one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and by this make good his Justice, and manifest his Providence in the end. His Justice is that which, when the world is out of order, establisheth the pillars thereof. Sin is an injury to the whole Creation, and inverteth that order which the Wisdom of God had first set up in the World: My Adultery defileth my body, my Oppression grindeth the poor, my Malice vexeth my brother, my Craft removeth the landmark, my particular sins have their particular objects, but they all strike at the Universe, disturb and violate that order which Wisdom itself first established. And therefore the Lord cometh to bring every thing back to its proper place, to make all the ways of his Providence consonant and agreeable to themselves, to crown the repentant sinner that recovered his place, and bind and fetter the stubborn and obstinate offender, who could be wrought upon neither by promises nor by threats to move in his own sphere. The Lord will come to show what light he can strike out of darkness, what harmony he can work out of the greatest disorder, what beauty he can raise out of the deformed body of Sin. Sin is a foul deformity in nature; and therefore he cometh in judgement to order and place it there where it may be forced to serve for the grace and beauty of the whole, where the punishment of sin may wipe out the disorder of sin. Act 1 25. Gerson. Then every thing shall be placed as it should be, and every man sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to his proper place. Nec pulchrius in coe●o angelus, quam in gehennâ diabolus. Heaven is a fit and proper place for an Angel of light, for the children of God; and Hell is as fi● and proper for the Devil and his Angels. Now the ways of men are crooked and intricate, and their actions carried on with that contrariety and contradiction, that to quit and help himself out of them, and take himself off from that amazement, Martion ran dangerously upon the greatest blasphemy, Duos Ponticus Deos, tanquam dua● Symplegadas naufragit sui, adfert, quem negare non potuit, i. e. creatorem, i. e. nostrum: & quem probare non poterit, i. e. suum, Tertull. 1. adv. Martion. c. 1. and brought in two Principles, one of Good, and another of Evil, that is, two Gods: But when the Lord shall come, and lay judgement to the line, all things will be even and equal; and the Heretic shall see that there is but one. Now all is jarring, discord and confusion; but the Lord, when he cometh, will make an everlasting harmony. He will draw every thing to its right and proper end, restore order and beauty to his work, fill up those breaches which Sin hath made, and manifest his Wisdom and Providence, which here are looked upon as hidden mysteries; in a word, he will make his glory shine out of darkness, as he did Light when the earth was without form, 1 Cor. 15.28. That the Lord may be all in all. Here in this world all lieth as in a night, in darkness, in a Chaos or confusion, and we see neither what ourselves nor others are. We see indeed as we are seen, see others as they see us, with no other eyes but those which the Prince of this world hath blinded. Our Judgement is not the result of our Reason, but is raised from by and vile respects. If it be a friend, we are friends to his vice, and study apologies for it: If it be an enemy, we are angry with his virtue, and abuse our wits to disgrace it. If he be in power, our eyes dazzle, and we see a God come down to us in the shape of a man, and worship this Meteor, though exhaled and raised from the dung, with as great reverence and ceremony as the Persians did the Sun. What he speaketh is an oracle, and what he doth is an example; and the Coward, the Mammonist, or the Beast giveth sentence in stead of the Man, which is lost and buried in these. If he be small and of no repute in the world, he is condemned already, though he have reason enough to see the folly of his Judges, and with pity can null the censure which they pass. If he be of our faction, we call him, as the Manichees did the chiefest of their sect, one of the Elect: But if his Charity will not suffer him to be of any, we cast him out, and count him a Reprobate. The whole world is a theatre, or rather a Court of corrupt Judges, which judge themselves and one another, but never judge righteous judgement. For as we judge of others, so we do of ourselves. Judicio favor officit, ourselves love putteth out the eye of our Reason, or rather diverteth it from that which is good, and employeth it in finding out many inventions to set up evil in its place, as the Prophet speaketh, We feed on ashes, Isa. 44.20. a deceived heart hath turned us aside, that we cannot deliver our soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in our right hand? Thus he that soweth but sparingly is Liberal; he that loveth the world is not covetous; he whose eyes are full of the adulteress is chaste; he that setteth up an image, and falleth down before it, is not an Idolater; he that drinketh down blood as an ox doth water, is not a Murderer; he that doth the works of his father the Devil is a Saint. Many things we see in the world most unjustly done, Multa injustè fieri possunt, quae nemo possit reprehendere, Cic. de Finibus. Mic. 6.16. which we call Righteousness, because no man can commence a suit against us, or call us into question: and we doubt not of Heaven if we fall not from our cause, or be cast (as they speak) in Westminster-hall. If Omri's statutes be kept, we soon persuade ourselves that the power of this Lord will not reach us; and if our names hold fair amongst men, we are too ready to tell ourselves that they are written also in the book of life. This is the judgement of the world. Thus we judge others, and thus we judge ourselves, so biased with the Flesh, that for the most we pass wide of the Truth. Others are not to us, nor are we to ourselves, what we are, but the work of our own hands, made up in the world and with the help of the world. For the Wisdom of this world is our Spirit and Genius, that raiseth every thought, dictateth all our words, begetteth all our actions, and by it, as by our God, we live, and move, and have our being. And now, since Judgement is thus corrupted in the world, even Justice requireth it, Et veniet Dominus, qui malè judicata rejudicabit, the Lord will come, and give judgement against all these crooked and perverse judgements, and shall lay Righteousness to the plummet, Isa. 28.17. and with his breath sweep away the refuge of lies, and shall judge, and pass another manner of sentence upon us and others than we do in this world. Then shall we be told what we would never believe, though we have had some grudge and whisper and half-informations within us, which the love of this world did soon silence and suppress: Then shall he speak to us in his displeasure, and, Aliud est judicium Christi, aliud anguli su surrorum, Hier. though we have talked of him all the day long, tell us we forgot him. If we set up a golden image, he shall call us Idolaters, though we intended it not; and, when we build up the sepulchers of the Prophets, and flatter ourselves, and accuse our forefathers, tell us we are as great murderers as they; and thus find us guilty of that which we protest against, and haters of that which we think we love, and lovers of that which we think we detest, and take us from behind the bush, from every lurking hole, from all shelter of excuse, take us from our rock, our rock of air, on which we were built, and dash our presumptuous assurance to nothing. Nor can a sigh, or a groan, or a loud profession, or a fast, or long prayers corrupt this Lord, or alter his sentence, but he shall judge as he knoweth, who knoweth more of us than we are willing to take notice of, and is greater than our Conscience (which we shrink and dilate at pleasure, 1 John 3.20. and fit to every purpose) and knoweth all things, and shall judge us, not by our pretence, Rom. 2.16. our intent or forced imagination, but according to his Gospel. VENIET, He shall come, when all is thus out of Order, to set all right and strait again. And this is the end of his Coming. And now being well assured that he will come, we are yet to seek, and are ready with the Disciples to ask, Matth. 24.3. When will these things be? and, What hour will he come? VENIET, Come he will. Et hoc satìs est, aut nescio quid satìs sit, as P. Varus spoke upon another occasion; This is enough, or we cannot see what is enough. But nothing is enough to those who have no mind nor heart to make use of that which is enough. To them enough is too much: for they look upon it as if it were nothing. Therefore Christ doth not feed and nourish this thriftless and unprofitable humour, but bridleth and checketh it, putteth in his Prohibition, not to search after more than is enough; NON NOSTIS HORAM, You know not the hour, is all the answer which he who best knoweth what is fit for us to know will afford our Curiosity. For what is it that we do not desire to know? Sen. de vit. Etat. c. 32. Curiosum nobis Natura dedit ingenium, saith the Philosopher: Nature itself may seem to have imprinted this itch of Curiosity in our very minds and wits, made them inquisitive, given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an eye which never sleepeth, never resteth upon one object, but passeth by that, and gazeth after another. That he will come, is not enough for our busy but idle Curiosity to know: we seek further yet, to know that which cannot be known, the Time and very Hour of his coming. The mind of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Enormi & otiosae curiositati tantum decrit discere, quantum libuerit inquirere, Tert. de Anima, c. ult. restless, in perpetual motion. It walketh through the earth, sometimes looketh upon that which delighteth it, sometimes upon that which grieveth it, stayeth and dwelleth too long upon both, and misinterpreteth them to its own impoverishing and disadvantage. Perrumpit coeli munimenta, saith Seneca; It breaketh through the very gates of heaven, and there busily pryeth after the nature of Angels, and of God himself, but seethe it not; entereth the Holy of holies, and there is venturing into the closet of his secrets, and there is lost, lost in the search of those things, of times and seasons, which are past finding out, and are therefore set at such a distance that we may not send so much as a thought after them; which, if they could be known, yet could not advantage us. It was a good commendation which Tacitus giveth of Agricola, In vitae Agricola. Retinuit (quod est difficilimum) in sapientia modum, He did (what is difficult for man to do) bound and moderate himself in the pursuit of knowledge, and desired to know no more than that which might be of use and profitable to him. Which wisdom of his, had it gained so much credit as to prevail with the sons of men which would be thought the Children of Wisdom, they had then laid out the precious treasure of their time on that alone which did concern them, and not prodigally misspent it on that which is impertinent, in seeking that which did fly from them when they were most intentive and eager in their search. If this moderation had been observed, there be thousand questions which had never been raised, thousand opinions which had never been broached, thousands of errors which had never shown their heads to disturb the peace of the Church, to obstruct and hinder us in those ways of obedience, which alone (without this impertinent turning our eye and looking aside) will carry us in a strait and even course unto our end. Why should I pride myself in the finding out a new conclusion, when it is my greatest and my only glory to be a New creature? Why should I take such pains to reconcile opinions which are contrary? My business is to still the contradictions of my mind, those counsels and desires which every day thwart and oppose one another. What profit is it to refute other men's errors, whilst I approve and love and hug my own? What purchase were it to find out the very Antichrist, and to be able to say, This is the man? All that is required of me is to be a Christian. What if I were assured the Pope was the Beast I sought for? He appeared in as foul a shape to me before that title was written in his forehead. For I consider more what he is then what he is called. And thousands are now with Christ in heaven who yet never knew this his great Adversary on earth. And why should I desire to know the time when Christ will come, when no other command lieth upon me but this, to watch, and prepare myself for his coming? when all that I can know, or concerneth me, is drawn up within the compass of this one word, Watch, which should be as the centre, and all other truths drawn from it as so many lines to bear up the circumference of a constant and a continued watch. Christ telleth us he will come; Hoc satìs est dixisse Deo; and this is enough for him to tell us, and for us to know he telleth us that we cannot know it, that the Angels cannot know it, that the Son of man himself knoweth it not, that it cannot be known, that it is not fit to be known; and yet we would know it. Some there have been who pretended they knew it by the secret revelation of the spirit, though it were a lying a spirit or a wanton fancy that spoke within them; (For men are never more quick of belief then when they tell themselves a lie) and yet the Apostle exhorteth the Thessalonians that they be not shaken in mind, 2 Thes. 2.2. nor troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from him, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Others call in tradition. Others find out a mystery in the number of Seven, and so have taken the full age of the world, which is to end, say they, after six thousand years. And this they find not only in the six months the Ark floated on the waters, Gen. 8.4. and its rest on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh, in Moses going into the cloud, and the walls of Jericho falling down the seventh day, Exod. 24.16, 18. but in the seven Vials and the seven Trumpets in the Revelation. Josh. 6. Such time and leisure have men found perscrutari & interrogare latebras numerorum, to divine by Numbers, by their art and skill to dig the air, and find precious metal there where men of common apprehensions can find no such treasure, inter irrita exercere ingenia, to catch at atoms and shadows, and spend their time to no purpose. For Curiosity is a hard task master, setteth us to make brick, but alloweth us no straw, setteth us to tread the water and to walk upon the wind; putteth us to work, but in the dark: And we work as the Spirits are said to do in minerals; They seem to dig, and cleanse, and sever metals, but when men come they find nothing is done. It is a good rule in Husbandry, Columel. (and such rules old Cato called oracles) Imbecillior esse debet ager quàm agricola, The farm must not be too great for the husbandman, but what he may be well able to manure and dress. And the reason is good, Quia si fundus praevaleat, colliditur dominus, Because if he prevail not, if he cannot manage it, he must needs be at great loss. And it is so in the speculations and works of the mind, Those inquiries are most fruitful, and yield a more plentiful increase, which we are able to bring unto the end, which is, truly to resolve our selves, Thus it is; as a little plot of ground well tilled will yield a fairer crop and harvest than many acres which we cannot husband; for the Understanding doth not more foully miscarry when it is deceived with false appearances and sophisms then when it looketh upon and would apprehend unnecessary and unprofitable objects, and such as are set out of sight. Res frugi est sapientia, Spiritual Wisdom is a frugal and thrifty thing, sparing of her time, which she doth not wantonly waste to purchase all knowledge whatsoever, but that which may adorn and beautify the mind, which was made to receive Virtue and Wisdom and God himself. To know that which profiteth not is next to ignorance: But to be ambitious of impertinent speculations carrieth with it the reproach of folly. Hom. 29. adv. calumn. 8. Trin. What is it then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaketh, to seek with such diligence for that which is past finding out? And first the knowledge of the hour of Christ's coming is most impertinent, Acts 1.7. Psal. 31.15. and concerneth us not. It is not for us to know the times. As our days, so the times are in God's hand, and he disposeth and dispenseth them as it pleaseth him, fitteth a time to every thing, which all the wisdom of the world cannot do. Thou wouldst know when he would take the yoke from off thy neck. It is not for thee to know: That which concerneth thee is to possess thy soul with patience, which will make thy yoke easy. Thou wouldst know when he will break the teeth of the ungodly, and wrest the sword out of the hand of them that delight in blood. It is not for thee to know: Thy task is to learn to suffer and rejoice, and to make a blessing of persecution. Thou wouldst know when the world shall be dissolved. Why shouldst thou desire to know it? Thy labour must be to dissolve the body of sin, and set an end and period to thy transgressions. Thou wouldst know what hour this Lord will come. It is not for thee to know, but to work in this thy hour, and be ready and prepared for his coming. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The present, the present time that is thine, and thou must fill it up with thy obedience: That which is to come, of what aspect so ever it be, thou must only look upon and consider as an help and advantage to thee in thy work. The Lord will come, speaketh no more to me then this, To labour and sweat in his vineyard till he come. All the days of my appointed time will I wait, Job 14.14. saith Job. There is a time, and an appointed time, and appointed by a God of eternity, and I do not study to calculate or find out the last minute of it: but I will wait, which is but a syllable, but of a large and spreading signification, and taketh in the whole duty of man. For what is the life of a Christian but expectation of and waiting for the coming of the Lord? David indeed desireth to know his end and the measure of his days: Psal. 39.4. but he doth not mean so to calculate them as Arithmeticians do, to know a certain and determined number of them, so to number them as to tell them at his finger's ends, and say, This will be the last; but himself interpreteth himself, and hath well explained his own meaning in the last words, Let me know the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am; know, not exactly how many, but how few they be; let me so measure them that I may know and consider that they are but few, that in this little time I may strive forward and make a way to eternity. This was the Arithmetic he desired to have skill in. It may seem a paradox, but there is much truth in it, few men are so fully resolved of their mortality as to know their days are few, We can say indeed that we are but shadows, but the dreams of shadows, but bubbles, but vapours, that we began to die before we were born, and in the womb did move and strive forward towards the gates of Death; and we think it no disparagement, because we speak to men of the same mould, who will say the same of themselves, and lay to heart as little as we. But should we pass over Methusalem's age a thousand times, yet when we were drawing even towards our end, we should be ready to conceive a possibility of a longer race, and hope like the Sun to run the same compass again. And though we die every day, yet we are not so fully confirmed in this that we shall ever die. Egregia res est condiscere mortem, saith Seneca; The best art is the knowledge of our frailty; and he must needs live well who hath well learned to die. And egregia res est condiscere adventum Domini; Ep. 26. It is a most useful thing to have learned and well digested the coming of the Lord. For we cannot take out this as we should, but we must be also perfect in those lessons which may make us fit to meet him when he cometh. The hour of his coming is locked up in the treasury of his Wisdom, and he hath left us no key to open it, that we might not so much as hope to find it, and so misspend our thoughts in that which they cannot lay hold on, and which should be fastened on the other, to advance and promote our duty. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Fix that well which is present; here lay out all thy store, all the powers of thy soul. Whilst it is time, whilst it is day, whilst it is thy day, make ready for his coming. For, secondly, though it be in the future tense, VENIET, he will come, though it lie hid as it were in the womb of Time, and we know not when it will be brought to birth, yet at this distance it looketh upon us, and hath force enough in itself to work that fear and caution in us which the knowledge of the very hour peradventure might not do. We say we believe it; and that is enough And some have given Faith the preeminence above Knowledge, and count the evidence we have by Faith clearer and more convincing than that we have by Demonstration. But if it were not, yet even that which is but probable in other things doth prevail with us, and is as it were principium motus, the spring and beginner of all motion towards it. Lord, what Rhetoric, what Commanding eloquence is there in that which is but probable? nay, many times in that which is most improbable, if it carry any show of probability with it? Nay, if it do not, our ardent affections supply all deficiencies in the object, and hurry us along to do that which, when the heat is over, we could easily see could not be done; How doth Love carry us as it were on the wing to lay hold on that which we must needs know is out of our reach. It is but probable that Industry will make us rich: How do we toil and sweat? It is but probable that Flattery will lift us up on high, and making ourselves little will make us great: Lord, how do we strive to mishap and disguise and contract ourselves? What dwarves, what minims will we appear? How do we call contumelies favours, and feed on injuries, only because we are told that Potentates will make them Lords that make themselves their slaves; Probability is the hand that turneth every wheel, the Intelligence which moveth every sphere, and every man in it. Harken to the busy noise of all the world; behold the hollow look, the pale and careful countenance, the speaking and negotiating eye, and the active hand; see men digging, sweeting, travelling, shouldering and treading one another under foot; and if you would know what worketh all this, behold, it is nothing but that which hangeth in Futurition, that which is but probable and uncertain! And if Probability have such Power and force in other things, why should it not in this, especially the evidence being so fair and clear that it is impossible to find out or set up any better against it which might raise any doubting in us, and make us disbelieve it: To a true believer DOMINUS VENIET, The Lord will come, is enough: Nor need he seek any further. A further inquiry to be assured of the time is but inquieta inertia, a troublesome sloth and busy negligence, like Ixion's wheel, to turn us about where we shall never fasten and rest, but be circled about in a giddy and uneffective motion. Thirdly, the knowledge of the very hour can be of no use at all to forward and carry on that which we are now to do. Non prodest scire, sed metuere futura, saith Tully, To know that which is to come is of no use, but to fear it. If I know it, and not fear it, I do but look upon it as to come: And that doth but leave us settled in our lees. This leaveth the Covetous in the mine, the Revenger in his wrath, the Wanton in the strumpet's arms. If we confess he will come, and are not startled, what a poor squib would that be if we should be told he would come at such an hour: what a long hour should we make it? how should we extend and thrust it back to all eternity? Prov. 6.10. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber: For Poverty is in arms, and coming, but not yet come. Yet let me grind the poor, saith the Oppressor; Yet let me crown myself with roses, saith the Luxurious; Yet a little more dalliance, saith the Wanton; Yet let me boast in mischief, saith the Man of power. Whilst we consider things in the future, fit ut illud futurum semper sit futurum, imò fortassis nunquam futurum, saith the Father, that which is to come will be always to come, nay peradventure we shall think at last that it will never come. All future's are contingents with us, and at last are nothing. Time flieth away, and will stay its course neither for the delaier nor the uncautelous, and therefore our Lord, who knoweth what is sufficient and best for us, would not let us know any more. Quod à Christo dicitur totum est; That which he hath taught us is all that we can learn. If the knowledge of the precise hour of his coming would add but one cubit to our stature and growth in grace, Christ would have left it behind written in the fairest character: but it is hid from our eyes for our advantage, that by the doubtful and pendulous expectation of the hour our Faith might be put to the trial whether it be a languishing and dead faith, or fides armata, Tert. de Anima c. 33. a faith in arms and upon its watch; ut semper diem observemus, dum semper ignoramus, that whilst we know not when it will be, it may present itself unto us every moment, to affront and awe us in every motion, and be as our taskmaster to oversee us and bind us to our duty, that we may fulfil our work, Phil. 2.12. and work out our salvation with fear and trembling; that our whole life may be as the Vigils and Eve, and the hour of Christ's coming the first hour of an everlasting Holiday. Lastly, there is no reason why it should be known, neither in respect of the good, nor of the evil. For the good; Satìs est illis credere, It is enough for them that they believe. 2 Cor. 5.7. They walk by faith, saith the Apostle, and in their way behold the promises and comminations of the Lord, and in them as in a glass behold heaven and hell, the horror of the one and the glory of the other. And this sight of the object, which they have by the eye of faith, is as powerful to work in them obedience as if Heaven itself should fly open and discover all to them. To the true believer Christ to come and Christ now coming in the clouds are in effect but one object: for Faith seethe plainly the one in the other, the last hour in the first, the world at an end in the prediction. But to evil and wicked men, to men who harden themselves in sin, no evidence is clear enough, and Light itself is Darkness. What they naturally know, Judas 10. and what they can preach unto themselves, in that they corrupt themselves, and give their Senses leave to lead them to all uncleanness, whilst Reason, which should command, is put behind and never harkened to. These are as brute Beasts, in spite of all they have of Man within them. And if they believe Christ's coming, and will not turn back and bow, and obey their Reason, they would remain the same beasts or worse though they knew the very hour of his coming. After all those judgements Pharaoh was still the same: After the Rivers turned into blood, after Frogs and Lice, after the Plague on man and beast, after every plague, which came thick, as line upon line, precept upon precept, after all these, the effect and conclusion was, Pharaoh hardened his heart, was Pharaoh still, the same Tyrant, Exod. 10.27. Num 22. 2 Pet. 2.15. till he was drowned in the Red sea. Balaam, though the Ass forbade his folly, and the Angel forbade it, though the sword was drawn against him, and brandished in his very face, that he bowed on the ground, and fell flat on his face, yet he risen again, and took courage to betray the Israelites to that sin with the Midianitish women which brought a curse upon them, and death upon himself: Num. 31.8. for he was slain for it with the sword. What evidence can prevail with, what terror can move a wicked man hardened in his sin? who knoweth well enough, and can draw the picture of Christ coming, and look upon it, and study to forget it, and then put on an ignorance of his own knowledge; and though he know he will, yet persuade himself he will not come. And he that can thus stand out against his own knowledge in the one, may be as daring and resolute in the other, and venture on, though Hell itself should open her mouth against him, and breathe vengeance in his face. For howsoever we pretend ignorance, yet most of the sins we commit we commit against our knowledge. Tell the Foolish man that the lips of the harlot will by't like a Cockatrice, he knoweth it well enough, and yet will kiss them. Prov. 20.1. Tell the Intemperate that wine is a mocker, he will taste, though he know he shall be deceived. The cruel Oppressor will say, and sigh it out, that the Lord is his God; and yet eat up his people as he eateth bread. Psal. 14.4. & 53.4. Matth. 7.12. Who knoweth not that we must do to others as we would have others do to us, and yet how many are there (I may ask the question) that make it good in practice? Who knoweth not what his duty is, and that the wages of sin is death? Rom. 6.23. and yet how many seek it out, and are willing to travail with it, though they die in the birth? Cannot the thought of judgement move us, and will the knowledge of a certain hour awake us? Will the hardened sinner cleave to his sin though he know the Lord is coming, and would he let it go and fling it from him if the set determined hour were upon record? No: they wax worse and worse, saith the Apostle. 2 Tim. 3.13. Earth is a fairer place to them then Heaven itself: nor will they part with one vanity, nor bid the Devil avoid, though they knew the very hour, (I might say) though they now saw the Lord coming in the clouds. For wilt not thou believe God when he cometh as near thee as in wisdom he can, and as his pure Essence and infinite Majesty will suffer? and art thou assured thou wilt believe him if he would please to come so near as thy sick fancy would draw him? Indeed this is but aegri somnium, the dream of a sick and ill-affected mind, that complaineth of want of light when it shineth in thy face. For that information which we so long for we cannot have, or, if we could, it would work no more miracles than that doth which we already have, but leave us the same lethargicks which we were. In a word, if Christ's doctrine will not move us, the knowledge which he will not teach would have little force. And though it were written in capital letters, At such a time, and such a day, and such an hour the Lord will come, we should sleep on as securely as before, and never awake from this death in sin till the last Trump. To look once more upon the Non nostis horam, and so conclude; We may learn even from our Ignorance of the hour thus much, That as the Lords coming is uncertain, so it will be sudden: As we cannot know when he will come, so he will come when we do not think on it, cum totius mundi motu, Apol. c. 33. cum horrore orbis, cum planctu omnium, si non Christianorum, saith Tertullian, with the shaking of the whole world, with the horror and amazement of the Universe, every man howling and lamenting, but those few, that little flock, which did wait for his coming. It is presented to us in three resemblances, 1 Thes. 5.2, 3. Luke 21.35. 1. of travel coming upon a woman with child, 2. of a Thief in the night, and 3. of a Snare. Now the Woman talketh, and is cheerful, now she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff; and now she groaneth. Now the Mammonist locketh his God up in his chest, layeth him down to sleep, and dreameth of nothing else; and now the Thief breaketh in and spoileth him. Now our feet are at liberty, and we walk at large, walk on pleasantly, as in fair places; Now the bitterness of death is past; and now the Snare taketh us. Now we fancy new delights, send our thoughts afar off, dream of Lordships and Kingdoms. Now we enlarge our imaginations as Hell, anticipate our honours and wealth, and gather riches in our mind before we grasp them in our hand; Now we are full, now we are rich, now we reign as Kings; now we beat our fellow-servants, and beat them in our Lord's name; and in this type and representation of hell we entitle ourselves to eternity of bliss; we are cursed, and call ourselves Saints; and now, even now he cometh. Now sudden surprisals do commonly startle and amaze us, but after a while, after some pause and deliberation, we recover ourselves, and take heart to slight that which drove us from ourselves, and left us as in a dream, or rather dead: But this bringeth either that horror, or that joy, which shall enter into our very bones, settle and incorporate itself with us, and dwell in us for evermore. Other assaults that are made upon us unawares make some mark and impression in us, but such as may soon be wiped out. We look upon them, and being not well acquainted with their shapes, they disturb our fancy; but either at the sight of the next object we lose them, or our Reason chaseth them away. Awl Gel. Noct. Att l. 19 c. 1. The tempest riseth, and the Philosopher is pale; but his Reason will soon call his blood again into his cheeks: He cannot prevent these sudden and violent motions, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he doth not consent, he doth not approve these unlookt-for apparitions and fantasies. He doth not change his counsel, but is constant to himself. Sudden joy and sudden fear with him are as short as sudden. But this coming of our Lord, as it is sudden, so it bringeth omnimodam desolationem, an universal horror and amazement, seizeth upon all the powers and faculties of the Soul, chaineth them up, and confineth them to loathsome and terrible objects, from which no change of objects can divert, no wisdom redeem them. No serenity after this darkness, no joy after this trembling, no refreshing after this consternation: For no coming again after this coming; for it is the last. Ser. 140. de Tempore. And now to conclude, Veniet, fratres, veniet: sed vide quomodo te inveniet, saith Augustine: He shall come, he shall come, my brethren: His coming is uncertain, and his coming is sudden: It will concern us to take heed how he findeth us when be cometh. Oh, let him not find us digging of pits and spreading of nets to catch our brethren, spinning the spider's web, wearying and wasting ourselves in vanity. Let him not find us in strange apparel, in spotted garments, in garments stained with blood. Let not this Lord find thee in rebellion against him; this Saviour find thee a destroyer; this Christ, who should anoint thee, find thee bespotted of the world. Let not an humble Lord find thee swelling, a meek Lord find thee raging, a merciful Lord find the cruel, an innocent Lord find thee boasting in mischief, the Son of man find thee a beast. But to day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. This is your Day, and this day you may work out Eternity. Psal. 95.7, 8. This is your hour to look into yourselves, to be jealous of yourselves, Hebr. 3.7, 8. vereri omnia opera, to be afraid of every word, work and thought, every enterprise you take in hand. For whatsoever you are saying, whatsoever you are doing, whatsoever you are imagining; whilst you act, whilst you speak, before you speak, whilst you think; and that thought is a promise or prophecy of riches and delights and honours, which are in the approach and ready to meet you, or a seal and confirmation of those glories which are already with you; whilst you think, as the Prophet David speaketh, that your houses shall continue for ever; Psal. 49.11. even than he may come upon you; and then this inward thought, all your thoughts, perish, or return again upon you like Furies, to lash and torment you for ever. And therefore, to conclude; since the Premises are plain, the Evidence fair; Since he is a Lord, and will come to judge us; Since he will certainly come; Since the time of his coming is uncertain, and since it is sudden; he is no Christian, he is no Man, but hath prostituted that which maketh him so, his Reason, to his Sense and Brutish part, who cannot draw this Conclusion to himself, That he must therefore watch. Which is in the next place to be considered. The Twelfth SERMON. PART III. MATTH. XXIV. 42. Watch therefore, etc. WE have seen Christ our Lord at the right hand of God; considered him, 1. as our Lord, 2. as coming, 3. as keeping from our eye and knowledge the time of his coming: And now what inference can we make? He is a Lord, and shall we not fear him? To come, and shall we not expect him? To come at an hour we know not, and shall we not watch? This every one of them naturally and necessarily affordeth and no other conclusion can be drawn from them. But when we consult with Flesh and Blood, we force false conclusions even from the Truth itself, and, to please and flatter our sensual part, conclude against Nature, to destroy ourselves. Sensuality is the greatest Sophister that is, worketh Darkness out of Light, Poison out of Physic, Sin out of Truth. See what paralogismes she maketh; God is merciful; Therefore presume. He is patiented; Therefore provoke him. He delayeth his coming, We may now beat our fellow-servants, and eat and drink with the drunken. It is uncertain when he will come; Therefore he will never come. This is the reasoning of Flesh and Blood; this is the Devil's Logic. And therefore that we be not deceived, nor deceive ourselves with these Fallacies, behold, here Wisdom itself hath shown us a more excellent way, and drawn the Conclusion to our hands; VIGILATE ERGO; He is a Lord, and to come, and at an hour ye know not of; Watch therefore. And this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Vigilate, is verbum vigilans, as Augustine speaketh, a waking, busy, stirring word, and implieth, as the Scholiast telleth us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all manner of care and circumspection, And what are all the Exhortations in Scripture but a commentary and exposition of this Duty? There we find it rendered by Awaking, Working, Running, Striving, Fasting, Praying. We shall find it to be Repentance, Faith, spiritual Wisdom, that golden chain wherein all Virtues and Graces, that Vniversitas donorum, as Tertullian speaketh, that Academy, that World of spiritual Gifts meet and are united. When we awake, we watch to look about and see what danger is near. When we work, we watch till our work be brought to perfection, that no trumpet scatter our Alms, no hypocrisy corrupt our Fast, no unrepented sin deny our Prayers, no wand'ring thought defile our Chastity, no false fire kindle our Zeal, no lukewarmness dead our Devotion. When we strive, we watch that lust which is must predominant. And Faith, if it be not dead, hath a restless eye, an eye that never sleepeth, which maketh us even here on earth like unto the Angels. For so Anastasius defining an Angel, calleth him a reasonable creature, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such a one as never sleepeth. Cord vigila, fide vigila, spe vigila, charitate vigila, saith S. Augustine. An active Faith, a waking Heart, a lively Hope, a spreading Charity, Assiduity and perseverance in the work of this Lord, these make up the VIGILATE, the Watching here. These are the seals, Faith, Hope, and Charity; set them on, and the Watch is sure. But this is too general. To give you yet a more particular account, we must consider first, That God hath made man a Judge and Lord of all his actions, and given him that freedom and power which is libripens emancipati à Deo boni, Tert. l. 2. cont. Martion. doth hold as it were the balance, and weigh and poise both good and evil, and may touch or strike which scale it please, that either Good shall out weigh Evil, or Evil Good. For Man is not evil by necessity or chance, but by his will alone. See, Dent. 30.15.19. I have set before thee this day Life and Good, Death and Evil: Therefore choose Life. Secondly, God hath placed an apparancy of some good on that which is evil, by which Man may be wooed and enticed to it; and an apparency of smart and evil on that which is good, Difficulty, Calamity, Persecution, by which he may be frighted from it. But than thirdly, he hath given him an Understanding, by which he may discover the horror of Evil, though coloured over and dressed with the best advantage to deceive; and behold the beauty and glory of that which is good, though it be discouloured and defaced with the blackness and darkness of this world. He hath given him a Spirit, Prov. 20.27. which the Wiseman calleth the Candle of the Lord searching the inward parts of the belly; his Reason, that should sway and govern all the parts of the body and faculties of the soul; by which he may see to eschew evil, and choose that which is good; adhere to the good, though it distaste the sense; and fly from evil, though it flatter it. By this we discover the enemy, and by this we conquer him: By this we see danger, and by this we avoid it: By this we see beauty in ashes, and vanity in glory. And as other Creatures are so made and framed that without any guide or leader, without any agitation or business of the mind, they turn from that which is hurtful, and choose that which is agreeable with their nature, as the Goddess, which saith Pliny, Nat. Hist. l. 9 c. 30. carent omni alio sensu quàm cibi & periculi, have no sense at all but of their food and danger, and naturally seek the one and fly the other. So this Light, this Power, is set up in Man, which by discourse, and comparing one thing with another, the beginning with the end, shows with realities, and fair Promises, with bitter effects, may show him a way to escape Death, and pursue Life through rough and rugged ways, even through the valley of Death itself. And this is it which we call Vigilancy or Watchfulness. Deut. 4.9. Take heed to thyself, saith Moses: Tom. 1, and Basil wrote a whole Oration or Sermon on that Text, and considereth Man as if he were nothing else but Mind and Soul, and the Flesh were the garment which clotheth and covereth it; and that it is compassed about with Beauty and Deformity, Health and Sickness, Friends and Enemies, Riches and Poverty, from which the Mind is to guard and defend itself, that neither the glory nor terror of outward objects have any power or influence on it, to make a way through the flesh to deface and ruin it, and put out its light. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Take heed to thyself. PRAE OMNI CUSTODIA SERUA COR TWM, Keep thy heart with all diligence; AB OMNI CAUTIONE, Prov. 4.23. so it is rendered by Mercer out of the Hebrew, from every thing that is to be avoided; AB OMNI VINCULO, so others, from every tye or bond, which may shackle or hinder thee in the performance of that duty to which thou art obliged, whether it be a chain of gold or of iron, of pleasure or of pain, whether it be of a fair and well promising or a black temptation, keep it with all diligence, and keep it from the encumbrances. And the reason is given, For out of it are the issues of Life, PROCESSIONES VITARUM, the Proceed of many lives. So many conquests as we gain over temptations, so many lively motions we feel animated and full of God, which increase our crown of joy. All is comprehended in that of our Saviour, Watch, Matth. 26.41. and pr●y, lest you enter into temptation. If you watch not, your heart will lie open, and tentations will enter, and as many deaths will issue forth, Evil thoughts, Fornications, Murders, Adulteries, Blasphemy, as so many locusts out of the bottomless pit. To watch then is to fix our mind on that which concerneth our peace, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, Philip. 2.12. to perfect holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. 7.1. Heb. 12.28. 2 John 8. to serve him with reverence and godly fear to look to ourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought. So that by the Apostle our Caution and Watchfulness is made up of Reverence and Fear: And these two are like the two pillars in the porch of the Temple of Solomon, 1 Kings 7.11. Jachin and Boaz, to establish and strengthen our Watch. This certainly must needs be a sovereign antidote against sin, and a forcible motive to make us look about ourselves, when we shall think that our Lord is present every where, and seethe and knoweth all things, when we shall consider him, as a Witness who shall be our Judge; that all we do, we do, as Hilary speaketh in Divinitatis sinu, in his very presence and bosom; that when we deceive ourselves, & when we deceive our brethren, when we sell our Lord to our Fears or our Hopes, when we betray him in our craft, crucify him in our Revenge, defile and spit upon him in our Uncleanness, we are even then in his presence. If we did firmly believe it, we would not suffer our eyes to sleep, nor our eye lids to slumber. How careful are we, how anxious, how solicitous in our behaviour, how scrupulous of every word and look and gesture, what Critics in our deportment, if we stand before them whom we call our Betters, indeed our fellow dust and ashes? And shall we make our face as adamant in the presence of our Lord? shall we stand idle and sport and play the wantoness before him? Shall we beat down his Altars? blaspheme his Name? beat our fellow servants before his face? Shall we call him to be witness to a lie, make him an advocate for the greatest sin, suborn his Providence to own our impiety, his Wisdom to favour our craft, his Permission to consecrate and ratify our sin? Can we do what a Christian eye cannot look upon, which Reason and Religion condemn and even Pagans tremble at? Eccl. 23.17. Tertul. de Testm. animae, c. 2. Vnde haec tibi anima non Christiani? can we do it, and do it before his face whose Eye is pure and ten thousand times brighter than the Sun? DEUS VIDET, and DEUS JUDICAT, God will see, and God will Judge, is taken out of the common treasury of Nature, and the Heathens themselves have found it there, who speak it as their language: And if his awful Eye will not open ours, our Lethargy is mortal. We are Infidels, if we believe it not; and if we do believe it, yet dare do those things which afflict his eye, we are worse than Infidels. Let us then look upon him, think him present, and stand upon our guard. Psal. 4.4. Let us stand in awe, and not sin. Let one Fear call upon another, the Fear of this Lord upon the Fear of cautelousness and circumspection, which is as our angel-keeper, to keep us in all our ways, in the smooth and even ways of peace and in the rough and rugged ways of adversity; to lead us against our enemies, which are more than the hairs of our head, as many as there are temptations in the world, and to help us to defeat them; to be our best buckler to keep off the darts of Satan, and as a canopy to keep our virtues from soil; to keep our Liberality cheerful, our Chastity fresh and green, our Devotion fervent, our Religion pure and undefiled; to waste the body of Sin, and perfect and secure our Obedience; in a word, to do that which the Heathens thought their Goddess Pellonia did, to drive and chase all evil out of our coasts. For let us well weigh and consider it, let us look upon our enemies, the World with all its pageantry, the Flesh with all its lusts, the Devil with all his snares and wiles and enterprises, let us look upon him coming towards us either as an Angel of light to deceive us, or as a Lion to devour us, and then let us consider our Lord and Captain, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Heb 3.1. opening the gates of heaven unto us, manifesting his glory, streaming forth his light, ready with his strength, free in his assistance, pouring forth his grace, now triumphing over these our enemies, and leaving us only the chase and pursuit of them to fill up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some small matter that is behind, Coloss. 1.24. which is nothing in respect of that which he both did and suffered; let us lay this to heart, and view it well, all our dangers and all our advantages and we shall find that it is not the strength nor multitude of our adversaries, nor yet our own weakness and infirmity, which we so willingly acknowledge, nor the craft of Satan (for we have Wisdom itself on our side) nor his strength or power (for he hath none) but our want of watchfulness and circumspection, that giveth us the blow, and striketh us on the ground. For want of this our first Parents fell in Paradise, and had certainly fallen, saith S. Chrisostom, had there been no Serpent, Fp. ad Clymp. no Tempter at all. For he that watcheth not tempteth the Tempter himself who would not assault us so often did we not invite him, nor fling a dart towards us did he see us in our armour, with our buckler, and upon our watch. By want of this Adam fell; and by use of this Adam's posterity after the fall recovered their state, escaped the corruption which is in the world, and fled from the wrath to come. So necessary is this for a Christian, that had we no other defence but this, yet we could not be overcome. Fortis saepe victus est, cautus rarissimè; The strong man hath often been ruined with his own strength; but he that standeth upon his guard, though the adversary lay hard at hand, yet is never overthrown. We may look back with comfort upon the eternal purpose and decree of God, I mean to save penitent believers; but we must give diligence to make our calling and our election sure. 2 Pet. 1.10. We cannot but magnify the Grace of God which bringeth salvation; Tit. 2.11. but we must work it out with fear and trembling. We cannot deny the power of the Gospel; Philip. 2.12. 2 Cor. 2.16. 2 Tim. 4.8. but it is Watchfulness that maketh it the savour of life unto life. We look for a crown that is laid up; but it is Watchfulness that must put it on. And now having as it were set the watch, we must next give you the particular orders to be observed in our Watch. And we must frame and fashion them not only by the majesty of the Lord which is to come, but also by the power and force and manner of working of those temptations which we are to cope withal and watch against, that when they compass us about, we may find away to escape them. Solus Christianus novit Satanam, saith Tertullian: It is the character of a Christian, and it is peculiar to him, to know the Devil and his enteprises. Veget. l. v. Et difficilè vincitur qui potest de suis & adversarii copiis judicare, saith Vegetius; It is a very hard matter to overcome him who tru●y knoweth his own strentgh and the strength of his adversary. First we must know ourselves, how we are framed and fashioned, and how the hand of God hath built us up. And we shall see that he hath ever laid as open to tentations, Job. 7.20. & 16.12. Nazianz. Orat. 38. and set us up, as Job speaketh as a mark, for the enemy to shoot at; that Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one creature, but made up of two different natures, the Flesh and the Spirit, and put into this world, which is a shop of tentations, hung full with vanities, which offer themselves, and that with some importunity to the eye, and ear, and every sense he hath. Eccles. 7.29. Into this when God first put him, he made him upright but withal mutable: The root of which mutability was his Will, by which he might incline to either side, either bargain or pass by, either embrace temptations or resist them. Legem dedit Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Naz. Orat. 38. In hoc est lex constituta, non excludens, sed probans libertatem, saith Tertullian, To this end a Law was enacted, not taking away, but proving and trying the liberty which we have, either freely to obey, or freely to transgress. Else why should God enact a Law? For the Will of Man looketh equally on both. And he being thus built up did owe to his Maker absolute and constant obedience: and obedient he could not be if he had not been thus built up. To this end his Understanding and Will were to be exercised with arguments and occasions, which might discover the resolution and the choice and election of Man. Now these arguments and occasions are that which we call Temptations; Which though they naturally light upon the outward man, yet do they formally aim at the inward, and are nothing, do nothing, till they seize upon the Will, which may either join with the Sensitive part against the Reason, which maketh us to every good work reprobate; or else with our Reason against our Sensual appetite, which worketh in us a conformity to the Will of God: for God willeth nothing to be done which right Reason will not have us do. The Will is that alone which draweth and turneth these temptations either to a good end by watchfulness and care, or by supine negligence turneth them to a bad, turneth them from that end for which they were permitted and ordained, and so maketh Satan's darts more fiery, his enterprises more subtle, his occasions more powerful, and his persuasions more persuasive than indeed they are; so that what God ordained for our trial and crown, by our security and neglect is made a means to bring on our downfall and condemnation. We must therefore in the midst of temptations, as in a School, learn to know ourselves. And in the next place we must learn to know our enemies, and how they work and mine against us, examine those temptations which make toward us, lest we judge of them by their outside, look upon them, and so be taken with a look; lest, as the Romans observed of the barbarous Nations, that being ignorant of the art of engining, when they were besieged and shut up, they would stand still and look upon the enemy working on in the mine, not understanding quò illa pertinerent quae ex longinquo instruebantur, what it meant, or wherefore those things were prepared, which they saw afar off and at distance, till the enemy came so near as to blow them up and destroy them, so we also behold temptations with a careless and regardless eye, and not knowing what they mean, suffer them to work on, to steal nearer and nearer upon us, till they enter into our souls, and dwell there, and so take full possession of us. And first we may lay it as a ground, That nothing properly provoketh itself, as Fire doth not provoke itself to burn, nor the Sun to shine. For the next and necessary causes of things are rather Efficients than Provocations, which are always external either to the person, or principal, or part which is the principal and special agent. And so the Will of man doth consummate and finish sin, but provoketh it not, but is enticed to that evil, or frighted from that which is good, by some outward object, which first presenteth itself unto the Sense, which carrieth it to the Fancy which conveyeth it to the Understanding, whence ariseth that fight and contention between the inferior part of the Soul and the superior; the Sensual appetite and the Reason, not to be decided or determined but by the Will. And then the Will, like Moses, Exod. 17.11. holdeth up his hands as it were, and is steady and strong, the Reason prevaileth; and when it letteth them down, the Sense. The Senses than are, as Hierome calleth them, fenestrae animae, the windows of the Soul, through which tentations enter to flatter and woe the Fancy and Affections to join with the principal faculties of the Soul to beget that Sin which begetteth Death: And if you will observe how they work by the Senses upon the Soul, you will soon find that they do it not by force and battery, but by allurement and speaking it fair, or else by frowns and terrors; that there is no such force in their arguments which spiritual wisdom and vigilancy may not assoil, that there is no such beauty on them which may not be loathed, no such horror which we may not slight and contemn. First they work us occasions of sin. And all the power that Occasion hath is but to show itself: If it kill, it is, as the Basilisk, by the eye, by looking towards us, or indeed rather by our looking towards it. Occasion is a creature of our own making; we give it being, or it would not be: and it is in our power, as the Apostle speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Cor. 11, 12. to cut it off. When we see the Golden wedge, we know it is but a clod of earth. We see beauty, and can call it the colour and symmetry of flesh and blood, of dust and ashes; and unless we make it so, it is no more. Indeed we commonly say, Occasio facit furem, that Occasion maketh a thief; but the truth is, it is the Thief that maketh the occasion. For the Object being let in by the Senses, calleth out the Soul, which frameth and fashioneth it, and bringeth it to what form it please; maketh Beauty a net, and Riches a snare. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Bas. in Psal. 1 Hieron. And therefore bonum est non tangere, it is not safe to see or touch. There is danger in a very touch, in a cast of the eye. Upon a look or touch the Soul may fly out to meet the Object, and be entangled unawares. utinam nec videre possimus quod facere nobis nefas est: We may sometimes make it our wish not to see that which we may not do, not to touch that which may be made an occasion of sin, not to look upon wine when it is red, Prov. 23.31. nor the strange woman when she smileth. For, in the second place, Objects are not only made occasions of sin, but are dressed up and trimmed by the Father of lies (who taketh up a chamber in our Fancy) in that shape and form, in those fair appearances, which may deceive us. There is a kind of Rhetoric and eloquence in them, but not that of the Orators of Greece, which was solid and rational, but that of the later Sophisters, which consisted in elegancies and figures and Rhetorical colours, that which Plato calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, flattery and popular eloquence. For as they who deliver up themselves to Fortune, and tread the ways to honour and the highest place, do commonly begin there with smiles where they mean to shake a whip, and cringe and bow and flatter the common people, whom they intent to enslave, stroke and clap them, and so get up and ride the Beast to their journey's end: so do these tentations insinuate and win upon the weaker part of man, whilst the stronger is left to watch; work upon that part first which is easier to be seduced then the Reason or Will, which must needs deny them admittance if they came and presented themselves in their own shape, and were not first let in by the Senses and Fancy, and there coloured over and beautified, and in this dress sent up unto them. Indeed the Senses are merely passive, receive the object, and no more: The Eye doth see, and the Ear hear, and the Hands feel, and their work and office is transacted. And thus, if I be watchful, I may see Vanity, and detest it: I may hear Blasphemy, and abhor it; I may touch, and not be defiled. But, as the Prophet speaketh, Death cometh in at the windows, Jer. 9.21. and so by degrees entereth into the palace of our Mind. The Civilians tell us, Possessio acquiritur, etiamsi in angulo tantùm ingrediamur; We take possession of a house though we come but into a corner of it: So through our negligence and unwariness many times, nay, most times, it falleth out that when the temptation hath gained an entrance at the eye or ear, it presseth forward to the more retired and more active faculties, and at last gaineth dominion over the whole man: from the Senses it is transmitted to the Fancy, which hath a creating faculty to make what she pleaseth of what she list, to put new forms and shapes upon objects, to make Gods of clay, to make that delightful which in itself is grievous, that desirable which is loathsome, that fair and beautiful which is full of horror? to set up a golden calf, and say it as a God. August. lib. Music. c. 11. Et habentur phantasmata pro cognitis; These shows and apparitions are taken for substances, these airy phantasms for well-grounded conclusions: And the Mind of man doth so apply itself unto them, ut, dum in his est cogitatio, ea intellectu cerni arbitramur, that what is but in the Fancy and wrapped up in a thought is supposed to be seen by the eye of the Understanding in the same shape: What we think, is so; and with us in these our distempers Opinion and Knowledge are one and the same thing. And this inflameth and maddeth the Affections, that they forget their objects, and look and run wild another way: Our Hatred is placed on that which we should love, and our Love on that which we should detest; we fear that which we should embrace, and we hope for that which we should fear; we are angry with a friend, and well pleased with an enemy: Now profaneness soundeth better than a hymn or a Psalm of thanksgiving, Hilar in Psal. 118. a fable is more welcome than the oracles of God, & blandior auri species quàm hominis aut coeli aut lucis, a piece of gold is a more glorious sight than Man the image of his Maker, or the Heaven wherein he dwelleth, or the Light itself. So true is that of the Orator, Quintil. l. 10. c. 3. Aliud agere mentem cogunt oculi; By this means the Eye diverteth the Mind of man from its proper work, that it cannot attend and busy itself to discern betwixt good and evil, and so watch, and stand upon its guard. I called tentations not only Occasions but also Arguments; but such Arguments which, as I told you, conclude not, which beget not knowledge but opinion, and prevail not with wise men but with fools, who commonly for want of circumspection entertain and swallow down uncertain things for those which are certain, and that which is doubtful for that which is true. They who have wisdom for their guide, judge of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. Sophist. Elench. c. 12. according as they are in themselves, according to the truth; attempt nothing, do nothing, upon opinion or a bare appearance, but before they make choice do weigh and examine the object: But uncautelous and unadvised men do but see, and presently embrace that which is most deformed in itself, and hath nothing to commend itself to them but the fucus and paint which themselves have laid on. Good God, how friendly and familiar are we with that which pleaseth the Eye and Fancy, Magna ista quia parvi sumus, credimus, Sen. Praef. ad N. Q. before the Reason hath looked upon it? Take all the sins which we commit, what better ground or foundation have they, on which they rise to that visible height, then false opinion? Our Ambition soareth and mounteth aloft with this thought as with a wing, That Honour will make us as Gods. Our Covetousness diggeth and sweateth with this assurance, That Riches are the best friend. Our Revenge is furious and bloody, because we think that to suffer is cowardice. We run after evil, and study for a curse, for some glimpse or show it hath of some great blessing. We on the earth, which is fading, and whose fashion passeth away, for some resemblance we think it hath to Heaven and Eternity. Et inanibus phantasmatibus tanquam dictis epulis reficimur; Aug. de ver● Relig. c. 51. These vain imaginations, these dreams of happiness, are but as a painted banquet: For as junkets in a picture may delight the eye, but not fill the stomach, so do these sudden and weak conceptions tickle and please the fancy perhaps, but bring leanness into the Soul, and leave it empty and poor. And no marvel. For when the Sense is thus pleased, when the Fancy hath sported and played with that which delighted the Sense, the Affections grow unruly, and Reason is swallowed up in victory, so that God seemeth to be the enemy, and the Devil a friend, bringing good news unto us, and speaking pleasing things to us, such as are Music to our ears, whereas God seemeth to come in thunder, with terror and command, to drive us to our watch, providing a knife for our throat, shutting up the eye, cutting off the right hand, muzling up the mouth that it speak no guile, writing sad characters upon that which our Sense and Fancy had painted and dressed up, as, Touch not, Taste not, Col. 2.21. Handle not. Now that temptations work thus by the Sense, and enter and make their passage into the inward man, is evident not only in those grosser sins which turn the very soul itself into flesh (nam victa anima libidine fit Caro, saith the Father, When the soul is polluted with lust, it loseth its spirituality, and is transubstantiated as it were into flesh) but is seen also in those which are more retired and inward to the Soul; not only in the practice of our life, but also in the errors of our doctrine. And on this ground S. Paul putteth Heresies into his black catalogue, and numbereth them amongst the works of the Flesh. Gal. 5.19, 20. And if we look upon those who are the authors and somenters of Error, we shall find that they wilfully shut their eyes and ears against the truth, which offereth itself and bespeaketh them with arguments and reasons undeniable, and decline to Falsehood, by leaning rather to that which is convenient then to that which is true, harkening more to earthly and sensual motives then to the voice of God, which calleth them, This is the way. Honour and Riches and Love of this world make up that body of Divinity which must be a Directory for them to walk by. The eye readeth the Text, and the eye letteth in the interpretation: For the love of that I delight in is urgent with me, and persuadeth me to understand it so as it may savour and countenance that love. Thus do tentations both to sin and Error creep in at these doors and inlets of the Senses, and like thiefs steal in by night, coloured over with the pleasures and clouded with the pomp of the world, and so find easy admittance, and steal away the Truth and Love of God out of our hearts whilst we sleep. And if a fair temptation do not make entrance with a smile, a bitter and grievous Temptation may force a passage with its horror. For thus according to their divers and several aspects they work both upon the Irascible and Concupiscible power. If an enemy be loud against us, we have a tempest within us. If Jacob hath the blessing, Esau hateth him. At the sight of Beauty, if I take not heed, my Love beginneth to kindle; at the next look it flameth. The approach of danger striketh me with fear; nay, a shadow and representation will do it. I may take a promontory for a navy, and a field of thistles for a body of pikes. Not only that which is true, but even that which is feigned, that which is but colour, which is but found, which is but a superficies, but an apparition, but a shadow, being carelessly let in and entertained, may raise this tumult and sedition in the Soul. A fair promising temptation cometh upon parley and treaty and conditions, insinuateth and winneth upon us with its smiles and flatteries; but a fearful and boisterous temptation playeth upon us with all its artillery, with smart and shame and poverty and imprisonment and death, maketh forward with a kind of force and violence, Tull. Offic. 1. & tumultuantes de gradu dejicit, overthroweth us with some noise. And as the Senses convey the tentations, so do the Affections, if we do not watch and suppress them, make sensible alterations in the heart, and make themselves visible to the very Eye. Profectò, saith Pliny, Ardent, intenduntur, humectant, connivent: hinc illae misericordiae lacrymae, Plin. Nat. H. l. 11. c. 37. Eccl. 13.21. in oculis animus inhabitat; The mind dwelleth in the Eye; there it is visible to be seen. In its joy it leapeth there, in its grief it languisheth there, in its fear it droopeth there, in its anger it threatneth there, in its hope it looketh out cheerfully, and in its despair it sinketh in again, and leaveth the living man with no more motion than a carcase. The heart of man changeth his countenance, saith the Wise man. If we stand not upon our guard, the state and peace of our mind will soon be overthrown. Respexit oculis, saith S. Ambrose, & sensum mentis evertit; os libavit, & crimen retulit; The man did but look back, and his mind was shaken; he did but open his ear, and lost a good intention; he did but lightly touch and shadow the object, and took in a sin; he did but touch, and was on fire. You see now the force and strength of the enemy, you see him in his mine, and you see him in his march, with his flatteries and menaces, with his glories and terrors, with his occasions and arguments: And if to these you oppose your prudency and watchfulness, your fortitude and Christian resolution, you put him to flight, or tread him under your foot. For first, temptations may enter the Senses without sin. To behold the object, A. Gell. Noct. Att. L. 19 c. 2. Tertull. de Coron. Mil. c. 5. to touch, or taste (which are called belluini sensus, our more brutish senses) is not to commit sin, because God himself hath thus ordered and framed the Senses by their several instruments and organs. Auditum in auribus fodit, visum in oculis accendit, gustum in ore conclusit, saith the Father; He hath kindled light in the Eyes, he hath digged the hollow of the Ear for Hearing, and hath shut up the Taste in the Mouth or Palate, and hath given Man his Senses very fit for the trial and reward of virtue. For as he made the Eye to see, so he made every thing in the world to be seen. Frustrà two essent si non viderentur, saith Ambrose. They were to no end if they were not to be seen: And seen they may be to our comfort and to our peril. As temptations may enter in at the Eye or Ear or any of the other senses, so we may make them the matter of virtue, as well as the occasion of sin. In a word, make a covenant with our Eye, bridle our Taste, bind our Touch, purge our Ears, and so sanctify and consecrate every sense unto the Lord; and this is indeed to watch. Secondly, temptations may enter the thoughts, and be received into the Imagination, and yet, if we set our Watch, not overcome us. For as yet they are but as it were in their march, bringing up their forces, but have made no battery or breach into the soul. For as God hath Blood, Uncleanness, and all the foul actions which are done in the world, written in his book, and yet every leaf thereof is fair and clean as Purity itself; so may the Mind of man mingle itself with the most polluted objects that are, and yet be a virgin still, chaste and untouched. I may entertain all the Heresies that are in my thoughts, and yet be orthodox. I may think of evil, and with that thought destroy it. It is not the sight of the object, nor the knowledge of evil, nor the remembrance of evil, nor the contemplation of evil that can make me evil; for, if I watch over myself and it, I may think of it and loathe it, I may remember and abhor it. For how could a Prophet denounce judgement against sin, if he did not think of it? How could I abhor and avoid sin, how could I repent of it, if it were not in my thought? This we cannot doubt of. But than Thirdly, the Sense and Fancy may receive the object with some delight and natural complacency, and yet without sin, if we stand upon our guard, suffer it to win no more ground, but then oppose it most when it most pleadeth for admittance: For thus far it will advance. And as the rational and intellectual delight is from some conclusion gained and drawn out of the principles of discourse, which is the work of Reason; so there is a sensible complacency, Arnob. l. 7. adv Gent. which is nothing else but adulatio corporis, the pleasing of the sense, by the application of that which is most agreeable to it, as of a better red and white to the Eye, of a more pleasant voice to the Ear. That which is sweet the Taste judgeth so, that which is fair the Eye receiveth so; for this is natural to it and inseparable from it: and so it is to the Fancy to entertain objects in that shape and form they represent themselves. But then we must stay and question them here at their first approach and arrival in these their rays and glory. God hath made Man keeper of his heart, as of a castle; which he betrayeth not till he hath delivered it up into the enemy's hands. Bern, Clavis hujus castri cogitatio est; The key of this castle is his Thought: this openeth his Heart, and may shut it; this giveth way and room for the tentation to enter; which is not done till he think as the enemy would have him, till he busy and roll about his thought, which is as the turning of a key to open a door and passage unto him. I may think it is a fair sight, and my Will may turn from it. I may think it Music, and my Will may be deaf. I may think it pleasant to the taste, and my Will may distaste and loath it, when Reason hath discovered death in the apple. But when we draw near to it, and in a manner invite it to enter; when we delight in that Beauty which attempteth our Chastity, that Pleasure which assaulteth our Continence, and stay and dwell, and solace ourselves with these unlawful objects; than it is more than a thought, it is more than a natural complacency, it is a sin: for not only the Sense is pleased, but the Will. For we would not have set it up so high in our fancy, we would not have deified it there, if we had not been willing to fall down and worship it. And now, though it be but a thought, it is a work of the Flesh, wrought and finished in the Mind, and wanteth nothing but opportunity to bring it into act. Nec enim cogitatus, licèt solos, De resurrect. carnis, c. 15. licèt non ad effectum per carnem deductos, à collegio carnis auferimus, saith Tertullian; So far is it that the Soul should be alone in the actions of our life, that we cannot take these thoughts which are alone, and not yet brought into act, from the society and fellowship of the Flesh, which worketh in the Soul, as the Soul doth by it. For in the Flesh and with the Flesh and by the Flesh that is done by the Soul which is done in the heart and inward man. Fourthly, Nullus in homine naturalis appetitus qui n●n potest virtuosè impleri, Holcot in l. Sap. ser 42. our natural Inclination or Appetite to join with those objects which occasion sin, if it do not proceed and work beyond the limits which God hath set up, is not irregular or sinful. For there is no natural appetite, no natural inclination of man, which in the effect may not be drawn up to end in some virtuous action; no fuel, no sparkle in our nature which may not be improved, and fixed at last as a star in the firmament of the Soul, and therefore is good, and tendeth to good as well as to evil. My inclination to anger may be drawn up unto a godly zeal, or end in meekness; my inclination to meats, in sobriety and temperance; my inclination to carnality may either be restrained in a virgin's life, or made honourable in a married. My Affections and Desires were imprinted in me by Nature, and therefore by the hand of God himself, and are not in themselves vicious, but may be good and profitable and advantageous to me in the race I have to run. What though my inclination and desire look towards pleasure? my Anger prompt and urge me to revenge? my Fear drive me from that danger by undergoing which I might secure myself from a greater? It is their nature, and they are left in me to this end. For God hath also set up a power within me, my Reason, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a natural judicatory, by which I discern that which is good from that which is evil, by which I may be familiar with the Laws of God, well skilled in spiritual wisdom; and by that becalm all tumults in my soul, moderate and regulate my affections, and if they be too urgent, subdue and crucify them, set them their bounds which they shall not pass, which are Righteousness and the Laws of God; that I prefer not my grief or pleasure or any other inclination or affection before the will of God, which hath placed them in me, not to destroy me, but to be serviceable to him, and conducible to that end for which he left them in me. I may make my Anger a Magistrate to punish my sin, my Fear a Centinel to warn me of danger, my Sorrow a Penitentiary to water my couch with my tears, my Hope a pillar to lean upon. And how can that be sin without which I cannot be virtuous? If I could not be angry, I could not be meek: If I had no desire, I could not be chaste: if I were void of fear, I could not watch: if I could not rebel, I could not obey: if I could not be evil, I could not be good: if I had no inclination to vice, I could not be virtuous. For this is the work of Reason and Virtue, to subdue and regulate the Inclinations, to draw that unto good which might have been misled and carried unto evil. And our Watchfulness consisteth in this, in making that useful which might have been hurtful, in making that a friend which might have been an enemy, in taking the danger out of an inclination, the sting out of a temptation, and with it the victory. What can we resemble God in more than in the destruction of Sin? and this we may do by the help of our Passions. My Joy singeth Psalms to him; my Fear observeth him, and trembleth before him, my Anger revengeth his quarrel, when my Indignation is against myself; my Sorrow payeth him the tribute of tears; my Love hasteth with a steady eye to that which is good; when that is present, it is transformed into Joy; when to come, it is quickened into Hope; when past, it is poured forth into Desire. All natural inclinations may be brought to work for our good and for the glory of God who gave them. We must learn to distinguish between our natural Desire and our Will, else we shall bring him in guilty of sin who took away the sins of the world; who though he came to do the will of his Father, and was willing to do it, Luke 22.42. yet in his agony desired that that cup might be taken from him without drinking of which it could not be done. And this Desire doth not derogate from his obedience, but commend it, that he brought down this natural desire under the will of his Father, and would drink that cup which his humane nature trembled at, Maxima obsequii gloria est in eo, quod aequi mium velit, Plin. Paneg. Not my will, but thine be done. Herein is obedience, if a man doth the will of God even against his will, that is, his natural desire. When my breasts are full of milk, and my blood danceth in my veins, and my natural inclination is strong within me, when Beauty not only tempteth but soliciteth, and opportunity and the twilight favour me; when my natural desire is eager and vehement, when I thus would, and might, and will not; then am I chaste; an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven. When my Choler would draw my sword, and my Reason locketh it in my scabbard, then am I meek. When I am brought to the trial of my faith, and my Fear would carry me away from that persecution which rageth against me for the truth's sake, and I cleave to the Truth, and chase this Fear away which would carry me away, or awe and overmatch it by the readiness and strength of the Spirit, and resolve against those terrors which would shake me from my rock (for I may fear, and yet suffer) then am I a Soldier of Christ. When I am fastened to the stake, and am made a spectacle to thousands, to some a spectacle of pity, to others of reproach; when I see the light, the joy of the whole earth, the Heavens above me, and the land of the living, where I was wont to walk; when I see all the ceremony and pomp of Persecution and Death; when the executioner is ready to put fire to my funeral pile; when my flesh trembleth, and nature shrinketh from that which will abolish it; when in this fit of trepidation a conditional pardon is offered, and I would yet will not receive it, because even the saving letters that are in it are killing; when the outward man would not be thus sacrificed, and yet I offer him up; then the crown is ready for me, and the flame of fire, in which I shall be reduced almost to nothing, is my chariot to carry my soul up to receive it. I cannot say that this strife and contention is in all; for the grace of God's Spirit may so settle and quiet it that it shall scarce be sensible: but where it is sensible, it is no sign that the tentation hath prevailed, but rather a strong argument that we are not as yet lead and shut up in it, but forcing a way and passage out of it; that though the Strong man thus come against us, yet there is something in us stronger than he, something opposite and contrary to the tentation, which will not suffer it to come so near as to shake our constancy, or drive us from our resolution. It may lay hard at us to make us leave our hold: and to repress and keep it back, to strengthen and lift up ourselves that we do not fall, is the effect of our Watchfulness and Christian Fortitude, Rom. 8.37. by which we are more than conquerors. To conclude this, Though the Sense and Fancy receive the object, which is a tentation; though our natural temper incline to it, and raise in us a kind of desire to it, which is but a resultancy from the flesh; yet if we stand upon our guard, and watch, we shall be so far from sinning, that we shall raise that obedience upon it which maketh a way to happiness, and the Soul shall be sospes, Hieron. Apronio. & fidei calore fervens inter tentamenta diaboli, as S. Hierome speaketh, safe and sound, vigorous and lively in the midst of all these tentations, shall be undefiled of that object which is fair, and unshaken of that which is terrible to the sense. Put on then the whole armour of God, stand upon your guard, Eph. 6.11. set up the Spirit against the Flesh, your Reason against your Sense; watch one eye with another, your carnal eye with a spiritual eye, your carnal ear with a spiritual ear, check your fancy, bound your inclination; If the Flesh be weak, let the Spirit be ready: if one raise a liking or desire, let the other work the miracle, and cast it out. And this is to work light out of darkness, good out of that which might have been evil, life out of that which might have been death: This is indeed to watch. And to the end that we may thus watch, let us out of that which hath been said gather such rules and directions as may settle and confirm us in our Watch, and carry on our care and solicitude unto the end, that we may watch, and so not enter into temptation. And first we must study the temptations themselves, so study them as to wipe off their paint, strike off their illecebrae and beauty, behold them in their proper and native colours and representations. Optimus imperator qui habet cognitas res hostium; Veget. He is the best Commander, the best Watchman, who knoweth his enemy, and can see through his disguise and visor, through his counterfeit terrors and lying boasts, and knoweth what he is. Indeed nothing can make tentations of any force but the opinion we have of them. It is not Poverty that afflicteth me, but the opinion that Poverty is evil. It is not the evil itself but my own thoughts which deserve this ill at my hands. I am afraid of it because I think it horrid, and whilst I think I make it so. It is not the blow of the tongue that can hurt me; for it is but a word, it is not a thunderbolt; and if it were, Sen. Nat. Quast. yet the Stoic will tell us, inhonestius est dejectione animi perire quàm fulmine, It is not so great an evil, nor so dishonourable, to be struck with a thunderbolt as to be killed with fear; far worse that my fancy should wound me then the tongue of an enemy. For what secret force can there be in a calumniating tongue to pierce through our very hearts, and to shake and disturb our minds? We can hear it thunder, and not be cast down: but so improvident and cruel we are to ourselves that a breath from Malice or Envy will lay us on the ground. Non ex eo quod est fallimur, sed ex eo quod non est; We are not deceived with the realities but with the disguises and appearances of things, with those shapes which we have given them. We first make them idols, and then fall down and worship them. We carelessly take in the object, and let our fancy lose to work and hammer and polish it, as Poets do make Gods of men, and seas of little rivers. And in this fair outside, in which we have dressed them, things do deceive us. If we would look nearer into them, if we would define them, res involutas evolvere, unfold and lay them open, take them out of that gaudiness in which they are wrapped, they could not have this operation, nor thus work upon us. Sapiens est, cui res sapiunt ut sunt; He is a prudent man, to whom things savour and relish as they are. And our Vigilancy and spiritual Wisdom consisteth in distinguishing one thing from another, in abstracting that evil that may be from that good that appeareth, in discovering a Sophism from a Demonstration, in being able to sever the colour and appearance of a thing from the thing itself, Glory from Riches, Misery from Poverty: For truly these are not in them, but are to be looked for and feared in something else. Did we contemplate only that which is properly theirs, which is only theirs, and not that which they have not but ex dono, by our gift, we should not so often stoop and submit to vile offices, nor forsake our Reason to join with our Sense: We should then look through the flatteries of the world, and behold the inward horror they conceal; We should look through the terrors of the world; and consider that inward sweetness and light which many times breaketh through them like lightning through a dark and sullen cloud; We should not thus honour them with our fear, nor would our hearts so often fail at the very sight of them; We should not forfeit our souls to save our estates, wound our conscience to secure our purse, be perjured rather then imprisoned, and so run into hell from the face and frown of a tyrant. But, as Gregory observeth, Anima rebus praesentibus dedita abscondit sibi mala sequentia, Hom. 39 in Isa. when the Soul mixeth with the world, and cleaveth to these temporary things, when it is buried as it were in the flesh and carnal pleasures, it draweth the veil before its face, and obscureth and hideth from itself those evils which are sure to follow; which could she truly discern, she would watch and take courage against that temptation which she now not only yieldeth to but embraceth. And that we may throughly discern them (which is the office of our Christian Vigilancy) it will be necessary for us to compare them. M. Seneca, Cont. 164. For the Orator will tell us, Faciliùs latent quae non comparantur: Those things which we look upon with a single eye, but once, do commonly lie hid, and we see them as if we saw them not; but when we look them over again, and compare them with something better than they, than we see them nearer, and have a more direct and full view of them: We see they are nothing, or nothing what they seemed; as when the Sun is up, the lesser lights are obscured, and the glory of the stars is not seen. Beauty is delightful; but what is it to the splendour of Virtue? who would look upon a face, that could see Virtue naked? What is Honour, that is blasted with a breath, with a frown, to immortal Glory? What is the Merchant's Pearl to the Kingdom of Heaven? What are Pleasures which are but for a season to those which are for evermore? Hebr. 11.25. What is a span of Time, a Moment, to Eternity? And certainly were these outward things, which do but please and tempt and withdraw us from better, the only reward of goodness, these airy, fugitive, envenomed glories all that we should find at the end of our race, no wise man would stoop to reach them up. If these were the end of our hopes, we were of all men most miserable. 1 Cor. 15.19. If this were all the heaven that were promised, we should not believe there was either a God or Heaven. Compare them, if you please, worldly glories with spiritual blessings. The one come toward us smiling, and make us mirth and melody, but they soon turn their back, and leave us sad and disconsolate, in the very shadow of death: The other present themselves at first with great distaste to flesh and blood, because we look upon them, through a sad and dark medium, through Disgrace and Affliction and Death itself; but if we look often, and converse familiarly with them, we shall see in them Beauty, and Riches, and Heaven, and God himself. And is it not a great deal better for a while to watch and strive and fight it out, and afterwards rejoice and triumph as conquerors, then by the impatience of one hour to be slaves for ever? De Patientia. Quid enim est malum nisi impatientia boni? saith Tertullian: For what is evil, what is our yielding to temptations, what is the slacking of our watch, but our want of patience towards that which is good? Thus if we compare them, we shall soon discover their deformity, and on holy desires and strong resolutions, as with the wings of a dove, fly swiftly away, that we may be at rest. Thus if we know them, they can hardly hurt us. For what Pliny spoke of Monsters and Prodigies, is true either of fair or black Tentations, Ostentorum vires in eorum potestate sunt quibus portenduntur; Prout quaeque accepta sunt, ità valent, Plin. Nat. hist. l. 28. c. 3. As of the one, so of the other, their power is no greater than they would have it to whom it is showed and presented, and are of force only so far as they are received, have no power to hurt us but from ourselves: And therefore we must deal with them as they did with those prodigies, neglect and flight them, that they may not hurt us; beat down, crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts; disgrace and vilify every imagination that exalteth itself against God; hath them with a perfect hatred. For not to yield is to overcome. To study, and learn, and know temptations, and find out where their great strength lieth, and cut it off; to consider them as they are, not in appearance, but reality; to contemn and put them by, is that which maketh way to victory, and prepareth us for the coming of the Lord. Nihil in bello oportet contemni. But thirdly, let us not so neglect and slight them as to let them come up too near us: for so to neglect an enemy is to strengthen him: But let us stand at the doors, and repress and put them back at the first sight either of their false glory or their borrowed terror. Psal. 119.37. Let us turn away our eyes, Nemo diu tatus periculo proximus. Cypr. Epist. 61 that they behold not vanity. Periculosum est crebrò videre, per quae aliquando captus sis: A dangerous thing it is, nay, a folly, to behold those objects, and look upon them often, which may be a snare unto us; to dally with the point of that sword which may enter our bowels, to sport with that serpent which may sting us to death. What should they do long in the Eye? Why should they stay so long in the Fancy till she gilled and beautify them, and set them up as an idol to worship? No; let us watch, and rouse up ourselves, and beat down every altar as soon as it is erected there: Nay, stay the Fancy in its work, repress them here in causis, in their beginnings; take these Babylonish brats, and dash them against the stones. Psal. 137.8, 9 For he that doth not meet and withstand an evil in the approach, hath fairly invited it to come forward. Qui morbo non occurrit, sibi manus infert; He that doth not use speedy means to keep back a disease, is as he that killeth himself. A thought begetteth Delight, Delight begetteth Consent, Consent is seen in Action, Action begetteth Custom, Custom Necessity, Necessity Death. It was but an Object, but an Apparition, but a thought at first, and now it is Death. And he that was willing a Thought should lead in the front, was willing also that Death should come in the rear. It is not safe thus to dally with a Temptation; to resolve not to act it, and yet to act in the mind, which will soon make the basis and groundwork of a resolution; to be afraid of the action, and yet commit the sin; to nourish that sin in my bosom which I am ashamed to be seen with abroad, which will yet at last break forth before the Sun and the people; to harbour that in my closet which within a while will be on the house top. That of Bernard is most true, though it be in rhythme, Non nocet sensus ubi non est consensus; The sense hurteth not where there is no consent. It is no sin for the Eye to see, or for the Ear to hear, or for the Fancy to set up objects within her in that shape in which they appear: But it is a hard matter, as S. Hierome speaketh, integritate mentis abuti voluptatibus, to abuse those pleasures which daily present themselves, to a good end; to have them (as Aristippus had his Lais) and not to have them; to live in pleasure without that delight which maketh tentation a sin. We may say of Temptations as he did of Fortune, una est ad illam securitas, non toties illam experiri; The best security we have against Fortune's fickle inconstancy is, not to make trial of her too often, not to want her: So of Tentations; It is not good to look too often upon them when they flatter, not to see too often, not to hear too often, not to open our eyes or our ears to vanity. For as they who busy themselves in worldly affairs, when all things succeed prosperously, do begin at last to dote on riches, and love them for themselves, which they sought for at first but for their necessity; so what we look upon at first as a common object, by degrees insinuateth itself, and is made familiar to us, winneth our affection to it, delighteth and overcometh us, and what did at first stand at the door, and beg an entrance, at last entereth in, and taketh full possession of us, and commandeth in chief. Heb. 3.1. Last of all, let us consider the Apostle and high Priest of our profession, CHRIST JESUS, even this Lord who is to come, who hath opened the treasuries of heaven, brought down Life and Immortality, displayed his rich and precious promises of heaven and everlasting happiness, all which he will make ours, if we make good but this one word, but this one syllable, Watch. This is the price of Heaven; This he died for, that we should be a peculiar people unto him, even his Watchmen; that as he for the joy which was set before him endured the Cross, despised the shame, Heb. 12.2, 3. & 13.8. suffered the contradictions of sinners, and yet was yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever, so we by his power and the efficacy of his Spirit, by the virtue of his Precepts and the glory of his Promises, may establish ourselves, watch over ourselves, secure ourselves in the midst of snares, and so be in the world as out of the world; walk in the midst of temptations and be untouched; Dan. 3.25. walk in the midst of all these fiery trials, as the three Children did in the furnace, and have no hurt; hear the Music of the world, but not hearken to it; behold its allurements, and not be moved; be one and the same in all the changes and variety of temptations, the same when they flatter, and the same when they threaten, which is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be like unto our Lord Christ. And because the Watchman watcheth in vain unless the Lord keepeth the City, we must call upon this Lord to watch with us, Psal. 127.1. and to watch over us, who is not gratiae angustus, as S. Ambrose speaketh, no niggard of his grace; but as he hath given us a command to watch, so he hath given us another to depend upon him for assistance. Greg. Hom. 36. Et scimus quia petentes libenter exaudit, quando hoc petitur largiri quod jubet; We know it is impossible he should deny us our requests, when we desire him to grant us that which he desireth we should have, his help and assistance to do that which he commandeth. Do we desire it? He wisheth it. Do we beg it of him? He beseecheth us to accept it. Do we beg his assistance against the lusts of the Flesh? He commandeth us to crucify them, against the pollutions of the world? Gal. 5.24. His will is our sanctification. Against the Devil? If we will, 1 Thes. 4.3. he will tread him under our feet. He commandeth us who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Master of the race, Rom. 16. 2●. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Overseer and captain of the watch, by whose power and wisdom we may keep back all our enemies. If the Devil suggest evil thoughts, he inspireth good. If the enemy lay hard at us that we may fall, his mercy is ready to hold us up. If he be subtle, our Lord is Wisdom itself. In all our trials, in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgement, he is our Lord, and his grace is sufficient for us. If we fail and miscarry, it is because we will not join him with us; because we beg his assistance, and will not have it; call upon him for help and weary him with our refusals; beseech him to do that which we will not suffer him to do; bespeak him to watch over us, and fall fast asleep. If you will repent, repent, Is. 21.11. If you will inquire, inquire. Vide Castalionis perutilem Tract. de quinque impedimentis honae mentis, Job 8.9, Psal 39.5. saith the Watchman. If you would watch, why do ye not? How many years have you worn out in this spiritual exercise? Nay, to fall lower, have we devoted two or three months? Nay, lower yet, how many weeks have we spent? A week is not long; but how many days? Our days on earth are but a shadow; but how many hours? And Hours, we say, have wings, and fly away; (I am ashamed to ask again) How many minutes hath it cost us? Our life is but a span; how much of this Span? How little of this Little, what a nothing of this Nothing hath this great business took up? O that we could say with Job, Job 14.14. Psal. 119.164. Psal. 55.17. Acts 24.25. All the days of my appointed time; or with David, Seven times a day; or were it his morning, his noon, his evening. But I fear all is shut up in Felix his convenient season, that is, when the World and our Flesh, when our Lusts and the Devil will give us leave: And then what faint and feeble breathe, what thin and empty conceptions, nay, what noisome exhalations, what contradictions, what sins are our prayers? Let us then call upon the Lord to be present with us, and to assist us in our watch: Eph 6.14. But let us gird up our loins when we call upon him. Let us watch and pray, pray and watch. Let us endeavour when we pray, and God will help our endeavours: Let us intent what we desire, and he will grant it; Let us mean what we speak, and he will hear us. For he never shutteth his ears against his own words; Matth. 7.7. and his own words are, Ask, and it shall be given you. Ask the blessings of the right hand or the left, and he will give you them, or that which is better for you. But if you ask his grace, his assistance, you are heard before you speak: For he is all Grace, all Goodness, all Rays, all Beauty, and will fill you with himself: Prov. 8.31. for his delight is to be in the sons of men, and to make them like him. Trouble not yourselves then with what he will do, or not do, but be busy in your watch, watch and pray in this your hour, that you may know him, and be known of him; that at your last day and hour you may know and find him what now you believe him to be, your Righteousness, your Lord, your Saviour. This is your hour; This span of time, this moment, is that on which, dependeth your Eternity. If in this your hour you watch, and be ready to go out and meet him, he will receive you with joy, Math. 8.11. even receive you to his table, there to rest, and sit down, Luk. 13.28. and delight yourselves with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the Prophets, and all the Apostles, and all the Martyrs, all your fellow-watchmen, and with them to sing praises to this Lord for evermore. The Thirteenth SERMON. JAMES 1.27. Pure Religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. NOthing more talked of in the world than Religion, nothing less understood, nothing more neglected; there being nothing more common with men then to be willing to mistake their way, to withdraw themselves from that which is indeed Religion, because it standeth in opposition to some pleasing error which they are not willing to shake off, Multi sibi sidem ipsi totuis consttiwnt quàm accipiunt, dum quae volunt sapiunt & nolunt sapere quae verá sunt; cùm sapientiae haec veritas sit, ea interdum sapere quae nolis Hilar. l. 8. De Trin. Jam. 1.22, 23. Ch. 4.3. Changed 1 26. and by the help of an unsatisfied and complying fancy to frame one of their own, and call it by that name. That which flattereth their corrupt hearts, that which is moulded and attempered to their brutish designs, that which smileth upon them in all their purposes, and favoureth them in their unwarrantable undertake, that which biddeth them, Go on and prosper in the ways that leadeth unto death, that with them is true Religion. In this Chapter, and indeed in every Chapter of this Epistle, our Apostle hath made this discovery to our hands. Some there were, as he observeth, that placed Religion in the ear; did hear, and not do, and rested in that: Some placed it in a formal devotion; did pray, but pray amiss, and therefore did not receive: Some placed it in a shadow and appearance, seemed to be very religious, but could not bridle their tongue, and were safe they thought under this shadow. Others there were that were partial in themselves, despisers of the poor, Ch. 2.4.6, 17, etc. Ch. 3.6. that had faith, but no works, and did boast of this. Others had hell fire in their Tongue, and carried about with them a world of iniquity, which did set the wheel, the whole course, of Nature on fire. Last of all, some he observed warring, and fight, and killing, that they might take the prey, Ch. 4.1, 2. and divide the spoil. Yet all these were religious. Wisd. 1.12. Every one sought out death in the error of his life; Phil. 3.14. and yet every one seemed to press forward towards the mark, for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To these, as to men ready to dash upon the rock & shipwreck, doth our Apostle cry out as from the shore, to turn their compass, and steer their course the right way. Seeing them as it were run several ways, all to meet at last in the common gulf of eternal destruction, he calleth and calleth aloud after them. To the superstitious, to the profane, to the disputer & the scribe, to them that do but hear, and to them that do but babble, to them that do but profess, and to them that do but believe, the word is. Be not deceived; That is not it: but this is pure Religion. This is, as the Prophet speaketh, a voice behind them, Isa. 30.21. saying, This is the way, walk in it. This is as a light held forth to show them where they are to walk, as a royal Standard set up to bring them to their colours. This doth infinitatem rei ejicere, as the Civilians speak, taketh them from the Devils latitudes and exspatiations, from frequent but fruitless Hearing, from loud but heartless Prayer, from their beloved but dead Faith, from undisciplined and malicious Zeal, from noise and blood, from fight and warring, which could not but defile them, and make them fit to receive nothing but the spots of the world, from the infinite mazes and by-paths of error, and bringeth them into the way where they should be, where they may move with joy and safety, Eccl. 12.13. looking steadfastly towards the end. Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Whatsoever Divines have taught, whatsoever Counsels have determined, whatsoever Schoolmen have defined, whatsoever God spoke in the old times, whatsoever he spoke in these last days, that which hath filled so many volumes, and brought upon us that weariness of the flesh which Solomon complaineth of, Eccl. 12.12. in reading that multitude of books which the world doth now swarm with, that which we study and contend and fight for, as if it were in Democritus his well, Rom. 13.9. or rather in Hell itself, quite out of our reach, or if there be any truth that is necessary, any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, even in this of S. James, Pure Religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows, etc. I may call it the Picture of Religion in little, in a small compass, yet presenting all its lines and dimensions; the whole Signature of Religion, fit to be hung up in the Church of Christ, and to be looked upon by all, that the people which are and shall be born may truly serve the Lord. May it please you therefore a while to cast your eyes upon it, and with me to view, I. The full Proportion and several Lineaments of it, as it were its essential Parts, which constitute and make it what it is. We may distinguish them, as the Jew doth the Law, by Do, and Do not. The first is affirmative, To do good, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. The second is negative, Not to do evil, To keep ourselves unspotted from the world. II. The colours and Beauty of it; first, in its Purity, having no mixture; secondly, its Vndefiledness, having no pollution. III. The Epigraphe or Title of it, the Ratification or Seal which is set to it to make it authentic, and that not of men or by men, but by the hand of God himself, Matth. 3.17. & 17.5. which drew the first copy and pattern, This is pure Religion before God and the Father. As he gave witness to his Son from heaven, This is my beloved Son; so doth he also to Christian Religion, Hebr. 12.2. of which he is the Author and Finisher, HAEC EST, This is it, and in this I am well pleased; Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. Let us now in order view these. And these two, To do Good, and To abstain from Evil, our Charity to others in the one, and our Charity to ourselves in the other; in being as those Dii benefici, those Tutelar Gods, to the Widows and Fatherless, and as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keeping all evil from ourselves, I call the essential parts of Religion, without which it can no more subsist then a man can without a soul. Jam. 2.26. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Not that we exclude Faith, or Prayer, or Hearing of the Word. For without Faith Religion is but an empty name, and it cometh by Hearing, and is increased by Devotion. Amb. in Psal. 118. Faith is a foundation upon a foundation: for as Truth is the foundation of Faith, so is Faith the foundation of an holy Conversation: In this we edify ourselves, and in this we sustain and uphold others: In this we stand, and in this we raise up others. From Faith are the issues of life: from Faith, as from a fountain, flow those waters of comfort which refresh the widow and the fatherless, and that water of separation which purifieth us, Numb. 31.23. and keepeth us unspotted and white as snow. But our Apostle mentioneth none of these; and I will give you some reason, at least a fair conjecture, why he doth not. First, here where S. James telleth us what pure Religion is, he doth not so much as name Faith. For indeed Faith is the ground of the whole draught and portraiture of Religion; and, as we observe in it in pictures, it is in shadow, not expressed, but yet seen. It is supposed by the Apostle, writing not to Infidels, but to those who had already given up their names to Christ. Faith is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematics, which Tully calleth initia Mathematicorum, beginnings and principles, which if we grant not, we can make no progress in that science. S. Paul calleth Faith a principle of the doctrine of Christ. Heb. 6.1. And what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto Christians which they had already embraced, to direct them in that wherein they were perfect, to urge that which they could not deny? not deny? nay, of which they made their boast all the day long? No: S. James is for ostend mihi. He doth not once doubt of their faith, but is very earnest to force it out, that it may show itself by works. Then Faith is a star, when it streameth out light; and its beams are the works of charity. Then Faith is a ship, when pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it, 1 Tim 1 19 that it dash not on a rock, and be split. Then Faith is the soul of the soul, when by its quickening and enlivening power we run the ways of Christ's commandments. Purè credunt, pure ergo vivant, pure ergo loquantur, saith the Father; Their belief is right, therefore let their conversation be sincere. No other conclusion can naturally be deduced from Faith; and of itself it can yield no other: And this it will yield, if you do not in a manner destroy it, and spoil it of its power and efficacy. For what an inconsequence is this, I believe that Christ hath taught me to be merciful, Luk. 6 36. 1 Tim. 4.8. as my heavenly Father is merciful; that Charity hath the promise of the world to come; Therefore I will shut up my bowels? This I am sure is one part of our belief; if it be not, our Creed is most imperfect: and yet such practical conclusions do our Avarice and Luxury draw. Our Faith is spread about the world, but our Charity is a candle under a bushel. O the great error and folly of this our age, which can show us multitudes of men and women who as the Apostle speaketh, are ever learning, 2 Tim. 3.7. and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth; who have conned their Creed by heart, but have little skill, or forgot the skill they have, in the royal Law; who cry up Faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord, Jer. 4.7. Ch. 2. v. 17, 20, 26. and are very zealous for it, yet suffer it to decay and waste till it be dead, as my Apostle speaketh, eat out the very heart of it by a careless and profane conversation, as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple which they so much adored. And this may be a second reason why S. James mentioneth not Faith in his character of Religion. The power and efficacy of Faith having been every where preached-up, men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts with the contemplation of that fundamental virtue, that they left no room for other virtues, not so efficacious indeed to justify a sinner, yet as necessary as Faith itself; they did commend and extol the power of Faith, when it had no power at all in them; nay, (which is the most fatal miscarriage of all) they did make Faith an occasion through which sin revived, which should have destroyed in them the whole body of sin; Rom. 6.6. it being common to men at last to fix and settle their minds upon that object which hath been most often presented to them, as the country peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome, began at last to think there was no other city but that. If we look forward to the second chapter of this Epistle, we shall think this more than a conjecture. For there the Apostle seemeth to take away from Faith its attribute of saving; Can faith save a man? What an Heretic, what a Papist would he be that should but put up this question in these our days wherein the SOLA JUSTIFICAT hath left Faith alone in the work of our salvation? and yet the Question may be put up, and the Resolve on the negative may be true, Faith cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith, and hath not works. Thus though S. James dispute indeed against Simon the Sorcerer and others, as we may gather out of Irenaeus, yet in appearance he leveleth his discourse against Paul the Apostle. For, Not by works, but by faith, saith S. Paul; Not by faith, but by works, saith S. James; and yet both are true: the one speaking to the Jews, who were all for the Law; the other to those Christians who were all for Faith. To these, who had buried all thought of Good works in the pleasing but deceitful contemplation of Faith, our Apostle speaketh no other language but, Do this, and exalteth Charity to the higher place, that their vain boasting of Faith might not be heard: For Faith, saith he, hath no tongue, nay, nor life, without her. And thus in appearrance he taketh from the one, to establish the other, and setteth up a throne for Charity, not without some show and semblance of prejudice to Faith. For last of all, (to give you one reason more) Faith indeed is naturally productive of Good works. For what madness is it to see the way to eternity of bliss, and not to walk in it? Each article of our Creed pointeth as with a finger to some virtue to be wrought in the mind, and published in the outward man. If I believe that Christ is God, it will follow, I must worship him: If he died for sin, the consequenee is plain enough, We must die to it: If he so loved us, the Apostle concludeth, We must love one another. Charity is the proper effect of Faith; and upon Faith and Charity we build up our Hope. If we believe the promises, and perform the conditions, if we believe him that loved us, and love him, and keep his commandments, we are in heaven already. But yet we may observe that the corruption of our hearts findeth something in Faith herself to abate and weaken her force and power, and to take off her activity, and so maketh the very object of Faith an encouragement to evil, and (which is a sad speculation) the Mercy of God a kind of temptation to sin. Merey is a precious ointment, and mercy breaketh our head; Mercy blotteth out sin, and Mercy reviveth it; Mercy is our hope, and Mercy is made our confusion. We should sin no more, Psal. 136. but we do sin more and more, because his mercy endureth for ever: We are the worse for the Goodness of God: We post to destruction, because he is said to make haste to help us: We turn the grace of God into wantonness, and make this Queen of his glorious Attributes to wait on our lust: Of a covering, a purging, a healing, a saving, (I tremble to speak it) we make it a damning Mercy. For had we not abused it, had we not relied upon it too much, had we not laid upon it all our uncleanness, our impenitency, our wilful obstinacy in sin, it would have upheld us, and lifted us up as high as heaven; but our bold presumption layeth hold on it, and it flingeth us off, and we fall from it into the bottomless pit. This than we may take for a sufficient reason why our Apostle putteth not Faith into his description of pure Religion. In the next place, as he doth not mention Faith, so he passeth by in silence rather than forgetteth those other excellent duties, Prayer, and Hearing of the Word. For whatsoever high esteem we put upon these two, howsoever we magnify them till they are nothing, till ourselves are worse than nothing, worse than the beasts that perish, yet are they not the end: And their end is perdition who make them so, and who think that to ask a blessing is to have it, when they put it from them; or that to hear of God is to love him, and to hear of that happiness which he hath laid up is to be in Paradise. The perfection of the creature, saith the Philosopher, is ad naturae suae finem pervenire, to attain to the end for which he was made. And the end of the Christian is to be like unto Christ, that where he is, he may be also: That is his end, John 14.3. that is his perfection. Now to draw this home, these two, to Hear, and to Pray, do not make us like unto Christ, but are means to renew the image of God in us, that so we may resemble him. They are not the haven to which we are bound, but are prosperous and advantageous winds to carry us to it. Quod per se bonum est, semper est bonum; That which is good in itself and for itself, is always good; as true Piety, true Religion: but those duties which tend to it, have their raward or punishment as they reach or miss of that end. What is Hearing, if it beget not obedience? what are Prayers, if they be but the calves of our lips? Oh, it is a sad question to be asked, when we shall see Christian's full of malice and deceit, Have they not heard? Rom. 10.18. They have heard that Malice shall destroy the wicked, that Deceit is an abomination, that Oppression shall eat them up; yet will be such monsters, as if they had never heard. Oh, it is a sad expostulation to the wicked, Have they not heard? And as sad a return may be made to prayers. We may stretch out our hands, Isa. 1.15. and God hid his eyes from us; we may make many prayers, and he not hear. We may lift up our hands and voice unto heaven, and our minds stay below wallowing in the mire of foul pollutions, mixed and engendered with the vanities of the world. For as we may fast to strife and debate, Isa. 58.4. so we may pray to strife and debate. As there may be a politic Fast, so our Prayer may have more in it of craft than devotion. We may make it a trade, a craft, an occupation, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stoutly labour and hold out, Rom 12.12. Matth. 11.12. & 23 14. not to take the kingdom of heaven, but to devour widows houses. We may make this Key of the gates of heaven become a picklock to open chests, and so debase it to most vile offices; which is a sin cujus non audeo dicere nomen, for which I have no name bad enough. And what is Prayer then? What are the Means, if we rest in them as in the end? what are they, if we draw and force them to a bad end? what are they, if we make no use of them at all, or make this sad and fatal use of them? if our Prayers bring down a curse, if our Hearing flatter us in our disobedience, if we hear, and pray, and perish? These and whatsoever else of this nature, have all their worth and efficacy from Religion, from Charity to ourselves and others. These are the wings on which our Prayers ascend and mount up to the presence of God, to bring down a blessing from thence: These sanctify our Fasts: These open the ears of the deaf, Matth. 13.14. that hearing they may hear and understand: These consecrate our Pulpits, and are the best panegerycks on our Sermons, making them indeed the word of God, Hebr. 4.12. powerful in operation. Without these our Prayers are but babbling, and the Sermons which we hear are but so many libels against us, or as so many knells and sad indications that they that hear them are condemned and dead already. To visit the fatherless and widows in affliction, that is, To be full of good works, to renounce and abstain from the pleasures of the world (for those pleasures we dote on, those riches we sweat for, are those that bespot us) is a far harder task then to say a hundred Pater nosters, to continue our prayers, as S. Paul did his preaching until midnight, Acts 20.7. or to hear a Sermon every day. Bid the wanton leave the lips of the harlot, bid the ambitious make himself equal to them of low degree, Rom. 12.16. 1 Tim. 6.18. bid the mammonist be rich in good works; and if they do not openly profess it, yet the conjecture will be easy and probable, that the wanton will choose rather to fast twice in the week with the Pharisee than to make himself an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven; Luke 18.12 Matth. 19.12. the ambitious and covetous will rather say their prayers (for such can but say them) then to stay themselves in the eager pursuit of their ends but so long as to give an alms; the ambitious will pray and hear, and do any thing, rather than fall lower; and the Miser will chain his ears to the pulpit rather than open them to the complaint of the poor. Orat. ad Ditescentes. S. Basil observed long since, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. that he knew many who without any great pains might be brought to fast and pray, and perform all parts of religion which were not chargeable, but could not be won with the most powerful eloquence or strongest reason to any part of it which did cost them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but one halfpenny. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a cheap religion, is as easy as cheap: but, Go, sell all that you have, Matth. 19.21. and give to the poor, is a bitter pill, which we hardly let down and with a sour countenance: And should we prescribe it now to men of this iron age, would they not, as S. Paul speaketh in another case, 1 Cor. 14.23. say that we are out of our wits? In the last place, these two, if they be truly in us, are never, can never be, alone, but suppose Faith, which is sigillum bonorum operum, as Chrysologus speaketh, Serm. 23. the seal to every good work, to make it currant and authentic. He that is perfect in these, cannot be to seek in the rest. He that can govern a ship in a storm, when the sea rageth and is unquiet, may easily manage a cockboat in a calm. He that can empty himself to his brother, that thinketh the bellies of the poor the best granaries for his corn and the surest treasuries for his money, that can give unto God the things that are Gods, Matth. 22.21. and return them back by the hands of his Ambassadors, the poor, who beseech us in his name; he that is an exile at home, hath banished himself from the world he lives in, and so useth it as if he used it not; 1 Cor. 7.30, 31. he that hateth sin as an infectious plague, and in a holy pride will keep his distance from it, though it bow towards him in the person of his dearest friend; that abhorreth an Oath, though his friend sweareth it; that loatheth Lasciviousness, though his brother acteth it; that detesteth Sacrilege, though his father were enriched by it, and passed it over to him as an inheritance: He that can thus keep himself unspotted of the world, will lift up pure hands, and beat down his body, and be ready to hearken what the Lord God will say. He that sendeth up so many sacrifices to God, he that thus maketh himself a sacrifice, will offer up also the incense of his prayers. He that can abstain from sin, may fast from meat. He that hath broke his heart, will open his ear. In a word, he that approveth himself in these two, cannot but be active and exact in the rest. And now having shown you what is but shadowed in this picture and description of Religion, let us look upon the picture itself, so look upon it as to draw it out and express it in ourselves in every limb and part of it, 1 Cor. 14.25. that they that behold us may say that God is in us of a truth, and glorify him at the sight of such religious men. Eccl. 11.1. And first we see Charity stretching forth her hand, and casting her bread upon the waters, the bitter waters of Affliction; going about to the widow and fatherless, and doing good; going about as Christ did, and working miracles, giving eyes to the blind, and food to the hungry, and light to them that sit in darkness, and a staff to the lame, an oracle to those who doubt, and a pillar to those who droop and are ready to sink under the burden of their sins; doing all those things which Jesus did and taught, walking in love as Christ loved us. Ephes. 5.2. And this we may well call a part of Religion, and a fair representation of it. For by this the image of the likeness of God is repaired in us, saith Bernard, and is made manifest in us and as it were visible to the eye. In every act of charity he that dwelleth on high cometh down in the likeness of men, speaketh by the tongue and giveth by the hand of a mortal man, moveth in him, and moveth with him to perfect this work. This maketh us as God, in stead of God, one to another. For, Homini homo quid praestat? One man is not superior to another as he is a man: In the Heraldry of Nature all are of the same degree, all are equal; for all are men: But when Charity filleth the heart of a man, and stretcheth forth his hand, than he taketh an higher place, the place of God, is his Ambassador and Steward, not of the same essence with God, but bearing about with him his image, saith Clemens Alexandrinus. Put ye on, saith S. Paul, Strom. 2. Col. 3.12. bowels of mercy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the elect of God. When we have put these on, we then are indeed the elect of God, endowed with his spirit, carrying about with us the mercies of God, sent as it were from his mercy-seat with comfort and relief to those who are minished and brought low by oppression, affliction and sorrow. We may flatter ourselves, Psal. 107.39. and talk what we please of Election, and if we please entail it on a Faction: but most sure it is, without Charity our election is not sure, 2 Pet. 1. 7-10. and without bowels of mercy we can be no more elect than Judas the traitor was; Elect, that is by interpretation, The sons of perdition. It is doing good alone that maketh us a royal priesthood: and this honour have all his Saints. 1 Pet. 2.9. Psal. 149 9 The kings of the Gentiles, saith our Saviour, exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, benefactors, or gracious Lords; are called what they should be, not what they are: for if they were gracious and benefactors, than were they kings indeed, anointed with the oil of mercy which is sent down from heaven. That day on which this distilled not from him on others Titus the Emperor did count as lost. Diem perdidi; so it is in Suetonius, but Zonaras hath it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I have not reigned to day; This day I was not God's Vicegerent. We read that God gave Solomon largeness of heart; 1 Kings 4.29. and Pineda glosseth it, liberalem fecit, He made him liberal and merciful. And we read that David was a man after Gods own heart; 1 Sam. 13.14. and Procopius upon the place giveth this as the probable reason of that denomination, that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a lover of the poor; merciful, as God is merciful. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Imitation giveth us a kind of nearness and familiarity with God. That in which we represent him maketh us one with him, Matth. 12.50. maketh a man, as Christ speaketh, his brother, and sister, and mother. This is our affinity, this is our honour, this is in a manner our Divinity on earth. For God and Man, saith Synesius, Epist. 30. have but one only thing common to them both, and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to do good. Heb. 13.16. Therefore to do good and to distribute forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. This than may well go for one part or limb of Religion. In the next place, as in the visitation of the fatherless and widows all charity to our brother is employed, so all charity to ourselves is shut up in the other, in keeping ourselves unspotted of the world. And this phrase of keeping ourselves is very significant, and hath its weight. For those spots which defile us and make us such leopards, are not so much from the world as from ourselves; as a cheat is not only from the cunning of the impostor, but from the want of wisdom and experience in him that is deceived. It is ignorance that promoteth the cheat, that draweth the power and faculty into act, that maketh him that hath a subtle wit injurious: and it is an evil heart that makes the world contagious. Wisdom preventeth a cheat, and watchfulness a spot. This world in itself hath nothing in it that can defile us. Gen. 1 31. For God saw all that he made was good, Tertull. de ●pectaculis, c. 2. yea, very good. Yet Nihil non est Dei, quod Deum offendit, there is nothing by which we offend God, but is from God. That Beauty which kindleth lust, is his gift; that Gold which hath made that desolation upon the earth, was the work of his hands. He giveth us the bread we surfeit on; Psal. 24.1. he filleth the cup that intoxicateth us. The world is the Lord's, and all that therein is: but yet this world bespotteth us not, because it is his, who cannot behold, much less could make, any unclean thing. We must therefore search out another world. And you need not travel far; for you may stay at home, 1 ep. 2. 16. and find it in yourselves. S. John hath made the discovery for you in this first Epistle, where he draweth the map of it, and divideth it to our hands into three provinces or parts; 1. the lust of the flesh, where unlawful Pleasures sport themselves; 2. the lust of the eyes, where Covetousness buildeth her an house; 3. the pride of life, which whetteth a sword for the Revenger, erecteth a throne for the Ambitious, raiseth up a triumphant arch for the Vainglorious. This is the world, saith S. John, even a world of wickedness. This inverteth the whole course of Nature, and maketh the wheel of the Creation move disorderly. This world within us maketh that world without us an enemy, Prov. 31.30. Prov. 20.1. 1 Tim. 6.9. maketh Beauty deceitful; Wine, a mocker; Riches, a snare: worketh that into sin out of which we might have made a key to open the gates of heaven: droppeth its poison under every leaf, upon every object, and by its mixture with the World engendereth that serpent which spiteth the poison back again upon us, and not only bespotteth and defileth, James 1.15. but stingeth us to death. For when Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and when sin is finished, it defileth a man, and leaveth those spots behind it which deface him, and give him a thousand several shapes. The Schools call it maculam peccati, the blot and slain of sin, which is of no positive reality, but a deprivation and defect of beauty in the soul, and varieth, as a shadow doth, according to the diversity of those bodies that cast it. We see then that there is a world within us, as well as without us. And when these two are in conjunction, when our Lust joineth itself to the things of this world, Luke 15.13, 15 as the Prodigal is said to do to a master in a far country, then followeth pollution and deformity, and as many spots as there be sins, which are as many as the hairs of our head. Beauty bringeth in deformity; riches, poverty; plenty, leanness into the soul. Prov. 4.23. Therefore, to conclude this; to keep our hearts with all diligence, and to keep ourselves unspotted of the world, is a main and principal part of our Religion, and will keep us members of Christ and parts of the Church, Col. 3.5. when Profaneness and Covetousness, which is idolatry, shall have laid her discipline, her honour, in the dust. A man of tender bowels and a pure heart is as the Church; Matth. 16.18. The gates of hell cannot prevail against him. By this we intimate that we worship God, and draw near unto him, as near as flesh and mortality will permit. Our escaping the spots and pollutions of this world maketh us followers of that God who marketh every spot we have, 2 Pet. 2: 20. and is not touched; who seethe us in our blood and pollution, Ezek. 16.6. and is not defiled, who beholdeth all the wickedness in the world, and yet remaineth the same for ever, even Goodness and Purity itself. 2 Pet. 1.4. This maketh us partakers, as S. Peter speaketh, of the Divine nature. In a word, to be in the world, and tread it under our feet; to be in Sodom, and yet be Lots; to be on the hills of the robbers, and do no wrong; to be in the midst of snares, and not be taken; to be in Paradise, to see the apple pleasant to the sight to be compassed about with glorious objects of delight and pleasures, and not to taste, or touch, or handle, is the nearest assimilation that dust and ashes, Col. 2.21. that mortal Man, can have to his Creator. I may well then call these two the Essential parts of Religion. Of which as you have taken a short several view, Antigoni imaginem Protogenes obliquam fecit, ut quod corpore decrat, picturae potiùs deesse videretur; tantúmque eam partem ostendit quam totam poterat ostendere. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 35▪ c. 10. so be pleased to observe also their mutual dependence and necessary connexion. If either be wanting, you spoil the whole piece. Neither will my Charity to my brother entitle me to Religion, if I be an enemy to myself; nor will my abstaining from evil canonize me a Saint, if my goodness be not diffusive on others. If we draw-out in ourselves the picture of Religion but with one of these, we do but like the painter who, to flatter Antigonus, because he had but one eye, drew but the half-face. First, to visit the fatherless and widows, i. e. to be plenteous in good works, ista sunt quasi incunabula pietatis, saith Gregory; These are the very beginnings and nursery of the love of God. And there is no surer and readier step to the love of God, whom we have not seen, 1 John 4.20. then by the love of our Brethren, whom we see. Tunc ad alta charitas mirabiliter surgit, cùm ad ima proximorum se misericorditer attrahit, saith the same Father; Then our Charity beginneth to improve itself, and rise as high as heaven, when it boweth and descendeth and falleth low, to sit with a Brother in the dust. And if you search the Scriptures, if you look over Christ's Sermon on the mount, you will easily be induced to believe that to serve one another in love is the greatest service we can do to God who made us all, and to this end. Alterutra diligentia charitatis, as Tertullian calleth it, This mutual and reciprocal work of charity in upholding each other is that which maketh us indeed the servants Christ. Secondly, as Compassion to our brethren is a fair preparation to purity of life, so doth Purity of conversation commend our liberality, and make it to be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord. Compassion in a profane and impure person is but a sudden forced motion, is but by fits and starts; for sure it cannot stay and dwell in such a sty. He that walloweth in the pleasures of this world, and devoteth himself to riot and luxury, cannot gain the title of religious by some cup of cold water, or some piece of money which he giveth. He that gathereth by oppression, and then let's fall an alms, doth but steal an ox to make a sacrifice; Perdere scit, donare nescit, as Piso said of Otho; Tac. 1 Hist. He knoweth how to blast and spoil, but not how to give an alms. And commonly those winds blow not out of the Treasury of the Lord, this bounty floweth not from the clear fountain of Divine Love, but hath some other spring. Thus to visit the fatherless and widows, to reach out that hand unto them which is stained with the blood of others, is not pure and undefiled Religion. It may be bread, it is not an alms, that is brought by the hand of an oppressor or a Pharisee. Therefore, in the next place, as they bear this fair correspondence, and mutually uphold each other, so we must not think it possible to separate them. Some there be who come on slowly to the works of charity, because they are not guilty of those sins which have shame written in their very foreheads, pigri ad exercenda bona praecipua, Hom. 36. in Evang. quia securi quòd non commiserint mala graviora, as Gregory; They are very backward to do good, because they have not been overforward to do evil; dull and heavy to the performance of the best deeds, because they have not been active in the worst: men, for the many of them, of more forecast than conscience, that own their morality not to the love of God, but to the world; knowing well enough that those vices which the world crieth down are commonly enemies to thrift, delightful, but costly; there being scarce any one of them which is not a stake in his way who maketh haste to be rich; and therefore they do abstain that they may not abstain; they abstain from these disgraced expensive vices, that their abstinence from these may be as a warrant or commission for them to make their brethren their daily sustenance, Psal. 14.4. & 53.4. to eat them up as they eat bread, and devour these Temples of the Holy Ghost with as little regret as they do those which are made with hands. And this is a common fault amongst Christians, to think the performance of one part of our duty to be an apology for the neglect of the other, and that the observance of some few precepts will absolve us from the breach of all the rest; that a sigh is louder than an oath, and can sooner call down a pardon then the flying Book can bring a curse; Zech. 5.1, 2, 3. that the diligence of the ear will answer for the boldness of the hand, that a Fast will make Sacrilege a virtue, and the keeping of the seventh day acquit us of those sins which we have resolved already to commit in the other six. Indeed, saith Basil, the first rise and motion in Religion is to departed from all evil, but yet it is a great deal easier to do nothing at all, then to finish and perfect a good work. THOU SHALT NOT KILL, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL, these are negative precepts, and require but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, forbearance and sitting still, a not drawing to the harlot's lips, a not touching the wedge of gold, a not taking up the instruments of cruelty, but To love our neighbour as ourselves, To sell all and give to the poor, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, In Psal. 1. are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, works fit for a soldier and strong man in Christ. We must beat down many enemies, many wild passions, in our way, before we can raise ourselves to this height. Nor can any man take this honour to himself but he that is called and fitted of God, as were Abraham and Isaac, and those Patriarches and Apostles who were full of good works. Both then are required at our hands; and if God hath joined them both together, let no man take upon him to divorce or put them asunder. For, in the next place, these two thus linked and united together will keep Religion pure and undefiled; which, I told you, are as the colours and beauty of it, the beauty of Holiness, which hath its colour and grace from whence it hath its being and strength, and, if it be true, will shine in the perfection of beauty. Religion, if it be true, and not a name only, is as a virgin pure and undefiled, and maketh us so, and espouseth us to Christ. Basil. De Virginitate. And, as the Father telleth us, Omnia virginis virgo sunt, all that a virgin hath is so, a virgin: Her eyes are not touched with vanity, her ears not deflowered with evil communication, her thoughts not ravished with the insiliencie of wanton desires, her taste not violated with studied dainties and devised meats, but all is like herself, a Virgin. So is true Religion, simple and solid, full of itself, having no heterogeneous matter, but ever the same, and about the same. There is nothing in our Love which soureth our Justice, nothing in our Justice to kill our Compassion, nothing in our Liberality to defile our Chastity, nothing in our Fear to beat down our Confidence, nothing in our Zeal to consume our Charity. Tertull. De corona militis. Christianus nusquam est aliud; A true Religious man is always himself. And as Religion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, pure, without mixture; so it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, undefiled, and cannot subsist with pollution and profaneness. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Now are our Olympics, now is the great trial to be made before God and the Father. 2 Tim. 2▪ 5. And our Religion consisteth in this, to fight it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, legally, a condition they were bound to who were admitted to those games and exercises. Before they did contend, a proclamation was made to this purpose, whether they were not servants, or thiefs, or otherwise of an infamous life; and if any of these were proved against them, they were put back. The same proclamation is made from heaven to those who enter our Olympics, who enter Religion and give up their names to Christ, that they may fight for mastery and be crowned. Our Saviour telleth them they must sit down, Luke 14.31. and consider what that is wherein they have engaged themselves, how full of trouble and danger, how many thorns and lets there be in their way, how many adversaries. It is not enough to name Christ; 2 Tim. 2.19. but they that name him must departed from all iniquity, and carefully provide that the Integrity of their life rather commend their Religion, than Religion be suborned and brought in to countenance the Irregularity of their manners. We cannot but observe, that from the corruption of men's lives all those corruptions and mixtures have crept into Religion which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to those spots which men have received from the world. Ambition hath brought in her mixture, and Covetousness hers; and Pleasures have dropped their poison, and left their very mark and characters in the doctrines of men, which are framed and fashioned to favour and advance that evil humour which first set them up. Covetousness and Ambition may set up a chair or Consistory, and from thence shall provision be made to feed and nourish them both to a monstrous growth. Nam ut in vita, Lib. 12. c. prim. sic in causis spes improbas habent, saith Quintilian. Those unlawful hopes and foul desires which sway us in our lives, appear again and show themselves as full of power to pervert and misled us in point of doctrine. One would think that the world had nothing to do in the School of Christ; that Mammon could not hold the pen of the Scribe, or conclude in the Schools, or have a voice and suffrage in a Council; that Money and Honour and Pleasure could bring nothing to the stating of a Question: but through the corruptness of men's minds and manners it hath in all ages so fallen out that these have been the great deciders of controversies; have started Questions, and resolved them; have called Counsels, and decreed with them. We may be soon persuaded it was no other spirit then this which was sent from Rome in a cloak-bag to the Council of Trent. We have seen enough to raise such a thought, That the Church hath been governed by the world, that that which we call Religion hath been carried on by private Interest. From hence are those corruptions of Truth, and mixtures in Religion; from hence those generations of Questions, those catalogues of Heresies; from hence so many Religions, and none at all. For Faction cannot be Religion, since it cutteth off the fairest part and member she hath, Charity. And thus, if Religion lose one of these colours, she loseth her beauty. If she be not pure, she cannot long be sincere and entire: and if she be defiled, she will receive additions; the worship of Saints to the worship of God, the fire of Purgatory to the blood of Christ, the Indulgence of man to the free Pardon of God, Irreverence and profaneness to our hatred of Superstition, and to our Zeal Oppression and Murder. In a word, if it be not pure, without mixture, and undefiled, without pollution, it is not Religion. And now I have showed you the Picture of Religion in little, represented it to you in these two, Doing of good, and Abstaining from evil; filling the hungry with good things, and purging and emptying ourselves of all uncleanness. You have seen its beauty in its graceful and glorious colours of Purity and Undefiledness; Dignum Deo spectaculum, a Picture to be hung up in the Church, nay, before God himself. And thus it appeareth, before God and the Father, and hath its ratification from him. God was the first that set it up to be looked upon. He hath revealed his will by his Son, who is the Wisdom of the Father, who gave unto us the words which his Father gave him, John 17.8. which give us a full an exact rule of life, a method of obedience and glory, the way to be like him in this world, and to see him in the next. And there needeth no other method, no other way, no other Rule, neither a Basil, nor a Benedict to enlarge it. Nor is it of so easy and quick dispatch that it hath left to men leisure for further practice, nor so imperfect that it should need supply from a second hand. Why should the fancy, the unsettled and whirling fancy, of a Man, who is ignorant as a beast before him, take the boldness to prompt and instruct the wisdom of the Almighty? Quod à Deo discitur totum est; All that we need learn, all that we can learn, God alone can teach us. By this Christian Religion hath the prerogative above all other Religions in the world. For though there be many that are called Gods, 1 Cor. 8.5, 6. as S. Paul speaketh, though there be many that are called Religions, yet unto us as there is but one God, so there is but one Religion, which is commentum Divinitatis, the invention, or rather the Revelation, of the Deity, and had no author, could have no author, but God himself. Take that which seemeth to carry a fairer show than the rest, and cometh abroad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like Agrippa and Bernice, Acts 25.23. with great pomp and ceremony, with voluntary Humility and blind Obedience, with Sackcloth and Fasting, with a Pilgrim's staff, with Penance and Satisfaction; and we know from what hands it came; of men, and by men, who, many of them, drew Religion out of the soul into the outward man, betook themselves to this bodily exercise as to a sanctuary, so to avoid the continual luctations and lasting agonies of the mind, entered Religion (that is the phrase) but carried little Charity, and all those spots they received from the world, along with them. What voice from heaven did Charles the fifth, the Duke of Parma, and others hear, that having lived in all state and pomp, they should count it meritorious to be buried in the hood of a Capuchin? or what satisfaction is this before God and the Father? Again, take that which indeed is called Religion, and with that noise and vehemency as if there were none but that, yet is it as different from Religion as a picture is from a man. Take all our mimic Gestures, our forced and studied Deportment, our Pharisaical extermination of the countenance, our Libelling the Times which we help to make evil, our Zeal, our Revenge and Indignation against Sin in all but ourselves, all these are but puppets of our own making, a creation of a sick and distempered fancy, Luke 16.15. and do but justify us before men, as our Saviour speaketh; and those too no wiser than ourselves; but that which followeth defaceth all our pageantry, Spectat nos ex alto Deus rerum arbiter: Men see us, who see but our face; but God also is a spectator, and He knoweth the heart. Take that Zeal, which consumeth not ourselves, but others about us; this fire is not from Heaven, nor was it kindled by the Father of lights. That hand which is so ready to take a brother by the throat, was never guided by the Author of our Religion, who is our Father. That tongue which is full of bitterness and reviling, Isa. 6.7. James 3.6. was never touched by a Seraphin, but set on fire of hell. These are not Religions before God and the Father. But this Religion, TO DO GOOD, and TO ABSTAIN FROM EVIL, ex alto originem ducit, acknowledgeth no Author but the God of heaven, hath God and the Father to bear witness to it, was taught by the Prophets, thundered out by the Apostles and by Christ himself who is the Author and Finisher of our Faith and Religion. Hebr. 12.2. This may serve first, to make us in love with this Religion, because it hath such a Founder as God the Father, who is wisdom itself, and can neither be deceived, nor deceive us. Men and brethren, Acts 13.26. whosoever among you feareth God, to you is this word of salvation sent, sent to you from Heaven, from God and the Father. In other things you are very curious, and ever desire to receive them from the best hands. What a present is a picture of Apelles making, or a statue of Lysippus? Not the watch you wear, but you would have it from the best artificer. And shall our Curiosity spend itself on vanities, and leave us careless and indifferent in the choice of that which must make our way to eternity of bliss? Shall we make darkness our pavilion round about us, and please ourselves in error, when Heaven boweth and openeth itself to receive us? Shall we worship our own imaginations, and not hearken what God and the Father shall say? What a shame is it, when God from heaven pointeth with his finger to the rule, HAEC EST, This is it, that we should frame a Religion to ourselves, that every man's fancy and humour, or (which is the height of impiety) every man's sin, should be his Lawgiver? that when there can be but one, there should be so many Religions, arbitrary Religions, such as we are pleased to have because they smile upon us, and flatter and bolster up our irregular desires; a hearing Religion, and a talking Religion, and a trading Religion, a Religion that shall visit the widow and orphan, but rather to devour then refresh them? Behold, and look no farther; God the Father hath made a Religion which is pure and undefiled to our hands. Therefore, as Seneca counselleth Palybius, when thou wouldst forget all other things, cogita Caesarem, entertain Caesar in thy thoughts; so that we may forget all other sublunary and worldly (I may say, Hellish) Religions, let us think of this Religion, whose Author and Founder is God, whose wisdom is infinite, whose power uncontrollable, whose authority unquestionable. For talk what we will of authority, the authority of Man is like himself, and can but bind the man, and that the frailest and earthliest part of him: only God is Rex mentium, the King of our minds, and no authority in heaven or on earth can bind or lose a Soul but his, who first breathed it into man. Come then let us worship and fall down before God the Father, the Maker both of us and of our Religion. Again, if S. James be canonical and authentic, if this be true Religion, than it will make up an answer sufficient to stop the mouth of those of the Romish party who are very busy to demand at our hands a catalogue of Fundamentals, and where our Church was before the days of Reformation. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as it is in the Proverb. These and such like questions they put up unto us, as Archytas did his rattles into children's hands to keep them from doing mischief, that being busy and taken up with these, we may have less leisure to pull down the idols of Rome, or discover her shame. Do they ask what truths are fundamental? Faith supposed, as it is: Here they are, Charity to ourselves, and others. Nihil ultrà scire, est omnia scire; To know this, Tert. De prascript. is to know all we need to know. For is it not sufficient to know that which is sufficient to make us happy? But if nothing will satisfy them but a catalogue of particulars, They have Moses and the Prophets, they have the Apostles; Luke 16.29. and if they find their Fundamentals not there, in vain shall they seek for them at our hands. They may, if they please, seek them there, and then number them out, as they do their Prayers, by beads, and present them by tale. But if they will yet know what is fundamental in our conceit, and what not, they may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, draw out with both hands. For first let them observe what points they are in which we agree with their Church, and, if they be in Scriptu e, let them set them down, if they please, as fundamental in our account: And on the other hand let them mark in what points we refuse Communion with them, and they cannot but think that we esteem those points for no Fundamentals. And again, do they who measure Religion rather by the pomp and state it carrieth with it then the power and majesty of the Author, whose command alone made it Religion, ask us where our Religion was in the days before there was a withdrawing from the Communion with that Church, we may answer, It was here in the Text. For HAEC EST, this is it. And if they further question us where it was professed, we need give no other reply then this, It was professed where it was professed. If it were not professed in any place, yet was it true Religion. For the Truth dependeth not on the profession of it, nor is it less truth if none receive it. But professed it was even amongst them, in the midst of them, round about them. But wheresoever it were, this was it; This was true Religion before God and the Father, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. To conclude then; Men and Brethren, are these things so? Is this only true Religion, To do good, and to abstain from evil? What a busy noise then doth the world make for Religion, when it offereth itself and falleth so low, offereth itself to the meanest understanding, the narrowest capacity, and throweth itself into the embraces of any that will love it? Littus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonabat. Religion is the talk of the whole world; it is preached on the housetops, and cried up in the streets: we are loud for it, and smother it in that noise: we writ for it, and leave it dead in that letter, to be found no where but in our books: we fight for it, and it is drowned in the blood that is spilt, and S. James', that is, Christ's, Religion is little thought of, but trampled under foot in the quarrel. If this should take place amongst the sons of men, we should have more religion and less noise. This is it which alone is able to slumber this noise, to still the raging of the sea, and the tumults of the people. This would make the hand of the Scribe write less, and to more purpose; This would break the bows, and cut the spears, and burn the chariots with fire. Can this Religion, could the Gospel of Christ prevail; could we deny ourselves, and take up the cross, and keep ourselves unspotted from the world, there would be then no wars, nor rumours of wars. Let us not deceive ourselves: It is the neglect and want of this that hath been the main cause of all the hot contentions and digladiations which have been, and as yet are, in the Church of Christ, I mean amongst those who call one another Christians; whose mark and badge it is to love one another, but they lie one to another, and love the world, and in a base but fierce emulation justle one another out of it, and so lose the thing, and retain nothing but the name, which is less than a shadow; rejoice together at the news of a Saviour, and neglecting this Religion in the Text, are all lost; are disciples of Christ, but such disciples as shall be punished with more stripes than they that never heard of his name. Luke 12.47, 48. This, this is it that condemneth the world, that maketh it an Aceldama, a field of blood, an hell itself, full of confusion. For if men had been careful to walk by the same rule, which was as plain and manifest as if it had been written with the Sunbeams, and kept themselves in a joint obedience to this Religion, to those truths wherein they could not but agree, and not sought out many inventions, the seed-ploots and nurseries of contention and debate (for from hence they spring, and here they will grow, and grow thick and multiply) if our Religion had been pure and undefiled, it had saved many a poor carcase from the fire, and, I may be bold to say, many a soul from hell. And though men's opinions in other matters had been as different as their shape and complexion, yet their agreement in the known duties of Religion would have been a fence and bulwark strong enough to have kept Contention from breaking in with fire and sword. But when Ambition and Covetousness and other low and vile respects had taken possession of the hearts of men, than matter of Religion became matter of faction, and the fuel of that fire which consumed many, but troubled all; Then began men to rack the Scriptures, to make them speak what they would have them, even that which might dilate their phylacteries, and stretch forth the curtains of their habitation, and feed that noxious humour in them which was most predominant, and like those soldiers in Tacitus, malle victoriam quàm pacem, to desire not peace, but victory; though most times, which side soever prevailed, it was not so much against an adverse party as the Truth itself. This hath been a great, nay, the greatest, evil under the Sun, and hath brought in so many Religions into the world, that many men are not as yet well resolved which to choose; the Devil's subtlest engine to bring in at last an opinion, That there is no Religion at all. By this you may see of what sovereign use my Text is, even as a precious balm, which can easily allay the swelling and raging controversies with which the Church is so much troubled; Mare oleo tranquillatur, Plin. Nat. hist. l 2. c. 103. as some Philosophers have told us that Oil poured into the sea when it is most tempestuous doth presently calm it. Many have wished that there were a Judge of controversies, which might appease the broils with which Christendom is distracted; and some have thought it necessary, and therefore have set one up, and built a chair with this privilege, That he that sitteth in it, though he be an Heretic, can never err. Behold, here is a Judge of controversies, teaching every man to judge, and give sentence of life or death in himself. If this be his Religion, he is alive, and shall live for evermore; But if he cast this behind him, and shut Charity out of doors, he is condemned already. This is our Judge of controversies, and I think we need no more. The Jews say that when Elias shall come, he shall resolve all their doubts: Lo, Matth. 17.10, 11 Elias is come already, and in these words of my Text hath sufficiently resolved all controversies in Divinity so far forth as is necessary for our information. Thou canst not now ask, What lack I yet? for here are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all that Jesus did teach. And if we can interpret this Text, that is, express and manifest it in our lives and conversation, then have we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, confidence, with God and the Father. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: Phil. 3.15. Let us cleave to this, and make it our guide and angel in our way. And if you be otherwise minded, if in other things less necessary you err as men, God shall reveal even the same unto you, as far as his wisdom seethe it necessary. It is the excellent counsel of S Paul. Let us be thus minded; and let us have this picture of Religion drawn out by S. James ever hanging before our eyes: Let us look upon it, let us walk with it, let us go to bed with it, let us carry it about with us whithersoever we go; I was about to say, Let us fall down and worship it: You need not fear superstition: for this is the worship of God himself. Oh let it be as an ornament to our heads; let us hang it up in our best room, our hearts, but so as to show it to the widow and the fatherless. Let us make it, Plin. Nat. h. l. 38. c. 8. as Polycletus called his most excellent piece, Canona, a rule and pattern, by which we may draw and express it, and make it visible in our life and conversation: Matth. 5.16. that Men may see it, and glorify God, even the Father which is in heaven; that Angels may see it, and applaud it; that God himself may see it, and fix an Euge upon it, Well done; for it is done before me, and according to the pattern which I set up. And this shall keep us at peace within ourselves; this shall make our enemies at peace with us: Prov. 16.7. this shall be to us righteousness and peace: and glory and peace shall be upon us, as many as walk according to this rule, Gal. 6.16. and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. Which God grant, etc. The Fourteenth SERMON. 1 SAM. III. 18. And Samuel told him every whit, and hide nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good. THese words are the words of old Eli the Priest, and have reference to that message which young Samuel brought him from the Lord, such a message as made both the ears of every one that heard it tingle. Come see the work of Sin, what desolation it maketh upon the earth. Hophni and Phinehas the two profane and adulterous Sons, must die; old Eli, their indulgent Father, the High Priest, must die; Thirty four thousand Israelites must fall by the sword of the Philistines; The Ark, the glory of Israel, must be taken, and delivered up in triumph unto Dagon. This was the word of the Lord which he spoke by the mouth of the child Samuel: v. 19 Rom. 4.17. and not a word of his did fall to the ground. What God foretelleth is done already. With him who calleth the things that are not as if they were, as the Apostle speaketh, there is no difference of times, nothing past, nothing to come; all is present. So that Eli saw this bloody Tragedy acted before it was done, saw it done before the signal to battle was given, saw his sons slain whilst the flesh hook was yet in their hands, saw himself fall whilst he stood with Samuel, saw the Israelites slain before they came into the field, and the Ark taken whilst it was yet in the Tabernacle: A sad and kill presentment, whether we consider him as a Father or as a High Priest; as a Father, looking upon his Sons falling before the Ark which they stood up and fought for; as a High Priest, beholding the people slain and vanquished, and the Ark, the glory of God, the glory of Israel, in the hands of Philistines. But the word of the Lord is gone out, Isa. 55.11. and will not return empty and void. For what he saith shall be done, and what he bindeth with an oath is irreversible and must come to pass. And it is not much material whether it be accomplished to morrow or next day, or now instantly, and follow as an echo to the Prediction. Nam una est scientia futurorum, saith S. Hierome: Ad Pammach. adversus errores Joan. Hierosol. The knowledge of things to come is one and the same. And now it will be good to look upon these heavy judgements, and by the terror of them be persuaded to fly from the wrath to come, as the Israelites were cured by looking on the Serpent in the wilderness. For even the Justice of God, though it speak in thunder, maketh a kind of melody, when it toucheth and striketh upon an humble, submissive, yielding heart. Behold old Eli, an High Priest, to teach you, who being now within the full march and show of the enemy, and of those judgements which came apace towards him like an armed man not to be resisted or avoided, and hearing that from God which shook all the powers of his soul, settleth and composeth his troubled mind with this consideration, That it was the Lord, and with this silenceth all murmur, slumbreth all impatience, burieth all disdain, looketh upon the hand that striketh, and boweth and kisseth it; and being now ready to fall, raiseth himself up upon this pious and heavenly resolution, It is the Lord. Though the people of Israel fly, and the Philistines triumph, though Hophni and Phinehas fall, though himself fall backward, and break his neck, though the Ark be taken, yet DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good. Which words are a Rhetorical Enthymeme, persuading to humility and a submissive acquiescence under the hand, the mighty hand, of God, by his power; his justice, his wisdom, which all meet and are concentred in this DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. He is omnipotent, and who hath withstood his power? He is just, and will bring no evil without good cause: He is wise, and whatsoever evil he bringeth, he can draw it to a good end: And therefore FACIAT QVOD BONUM IN OCULIS SVIS, Let him do what seemeth him good. Or you may observe first a judicious Discovery from whence all evils come, It is the Lord. Secondly, a well grounded Resolution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to behave himself decently and fittingly, as under the Power and Justice and Wisdom of God. Let him do what seemeth him good. The first is a Theological Axiom, It is the Lord: There is no evil in a city which he doth not do. Amos 3.6. The second a Conclusion as necessary as in any Demonstration, most necessary I am sure for Weakness to bow to Omnipotency. In a word, the Doctrine most certain, It is the Lord; All these evils of punishment are from him: And the Resolution, which is as the Use and Application of the Doctrine, most safe, Let him do what seemeth him good. Of these we shall speak in their order. And in the prosecution of the first (for we shall but touch upon and conclude with the last) that you may follow me with more ease, we will draw the lines by which we are to pass, and confine ourselves to these four particulars, which are most eminent and remarkable in the story: 1. That God's people, the true professors, may be delivered up to punishment for sin, 2. That in general judgements upon a people the good many times are involved with the evil, and fall with them; 3. That God's people may be delivered up into the hands of Philistines and aliens, men worse than themselves; 4. That the Ark, the glory of their profession, may be taken away. These four points, I say, we shall speak of; and then we shall fix up this Inscription, DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord; and when we have acquitted his Justice and Wisdom in all these particulars, we shall cast an eye back upon the Inscription, and see what beams of light it will cast forth for our direction. In the first place, of Hophni and Phinheas the Text telleth us that they harkened not unto the voice of their Father, 2 ch. v. 25. because the Lord would destroy them, Which word Quia is not causal, but illative, and implieth not the cause of their sin, but of their punishment. They did not therefore sin because God would punish them; but they harkened not to the voice of their father, therefore the Lord destroyed them: As we use to say, The Sun is risen, because it is day: for the day is not the cause of the Suns rising, Chap. 2.12. but the Sun rising maketh it day. They were sons of Belial, vessels already fitted for wrath, as we may see by their many fowl enormities; and therefore were left to themselves and their sins, and to wrath, which at last devoured them! God's decree, whatsoever it be, is immanent in himself, and therefore cannot be the cause of disobedience and wickedness, which is extraneous and contrary to him: Nor can there be any action of God's, either positive or negative, joined with his decree, which may produce such an effect. And what need of any such Decree or Action to make the sons of Eli disobedient, who refused to hearken to their father, Chap. 2.17. or to harden them, whose sin was very great before the Lord? But we must conclude these two within the four and thirty thousand that were slain. And now the delivering up the people in such a number to the sword may seem to prejudice and call in question the Justice of God. What? his people? his own people, culled out of the Nations of the earth? must these fall by the sword of Aliens, of enemies to God, Gen. 18.25. that know not his Name? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Yes, he will: For even in this DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. Isa. 50.1. For as the Lord once said to his people, Where is the bill of your Mother's divorcement whom I have put away? so here he may ask, Where is that bill and obligation which I made to protect you? If there be any brought forth, we shall find it rather like a Bill of sale, than the Conveyance of an absolute gift. On the one side God promiseth something on his behalf, on the other there is something required on ours. Read the Covenant and Contract between God and his people: Gen. 17.8. They had his promise to be their God, Exod. 29.45. Gal. 4.28. and were the sons of promise: But then these promises were conditional; and in every conditional promise there is an obligation and command. Leu. 26.12. I will be their God, that is his promise; and they shall be my people, that is their duty: and if these meet not, the promise is void and of none effect. There is not a more true and natural gloss upon this promise than that of Azariah, 2 Chron. 15.2. Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, The Lord is with you whilst ye are with him: and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Both must go together, or both are lost. If Israel will be God's people, than the promise is firm, being founded on the eternal essence of God, and so as constant and immutable as himself: but if they break his commandment, and put it from them, then to be their God were not to be their God, then to make good his promises were to vilify and debauch them. Tertul. This were liberalitatem ejus mutare in servitutem, to turn his liberality into slavery, prodigally to pour the precious oil of his goodness into a vessel that cannot hold it, to protect and countenance a man of Belial because he beareth the name of an Israelite. Therefore Isai 27.11. where God upbraideth his people of folly, he presently cancelleth the bill, and putteth them out of his protection, Therefore he that made them will not have mercy upon them, and he that form them will show them no favour. What though they be the people which he hath purchased? yet he will take no care of his own purchase. Though they be his possession, he will give them up. He will not do what he promised, and yet be Truth itself. For if they do not their duty, he did not promise. Though he made them and form them, yet he will not own them, but forsake and abhor his own work: he will surrender them up, and deliver them to destruction. Even here, upon the forehead of a desolate and rejected Israelite, we may set up this Inscription, DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. And now if we look up upon the Inscription, we may read and interpret it without a guide, and learn not to trifle with God, because he is our Lord, not to mock him with our Hypocrisy, and force our Profession to countenance our Sin, to be worse than Philistines because we are Israelites, to be his enemies because we call ourselves God's people, to be worse than Turks or Jews because we are Christians. Oh the happy times of the infant Church, when the Pagan could find nothing amongst the Christians to accuse but their Name! And than what times are these, when you can scarce see any thing commendable in the Christian but his Name? You may call it if you please, the Dotage or Blindness of the Church. For The Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord! The Israelite, Jer. 7.4. The Israelite! The Christian, The Christian! The Protestant, The Protestant! This is the Music with which most use to drive away the evil Spirit, all sad and melancholic thoughts from their hearts. But indeed saith Basil, the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, doth dance and leap for joy, to hear it, when he heareth not withal the noise of our groan, of our prayers, of our good works, nor the harmony of a well tuned and well-composed life to go up to heaven along with it. Oh what pity is it that God should place us in Paradise, in a place of pleasure and safety, and we forfeit it! that he should measure out unto us, as it were by the line, a goodly heritage and we pluck up our own hedges, and lay ourselves open to every wild-beast! that he should make us his people, and we force him to be our Enemy! in a word, that our inheritance should beggar us, our security betray us, and our royal prerogative undo us! And further we carry not this consideration, but pass to the second particular. II. In so great a number as four and thirty thousand, I may say, in the whole common wealth of Israel (for a Commonwealth may suffer in a far less number) we cannot doubt but some there were that feared the Lord: And shall there be, as the Wiseman speaketh, Eccl. 9.2. the same event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, Horat. odd 3.2. and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not? Gen. 18.23. Will God Incesto addere integrum? will he destroy the righteous with the sinner? This indeed is the depth of God; and a great part of the world have been troubled at the very sight of it: but yet, if we behold it with that light which Scripture holdeth forth, we shall find it is not so unfordable but we may make some passage through it. 1. If we could not make answer or render any reason, yet this ought not to prejudice or call in question the justice of God's proceed, especially with us men, who are of dull and slow understandings. When we have wearied ourselves in searching out the causes of natural things, yet after all our sweat and oil we cannot attain so far as to know why the grass under our feet is green rather then purple or of any other colour; and therefore we are far below those Supernaturals, most unfit to search out those causes which God may seem to have locked up in his own breast. God is the Lord of all the earth, Josh. 3.11, 13. and as the Psalmist telleth us, a thousand years in his sight are but as one day, Psal. 90.4. so in the case we now speak of a thousand, a million, a world of men, are with him but as one man. When the Lord Chief Justice of Heaven and Earth shall sit to do judgement upon sinners (what Caligula once wantonly wished to the people of Rome) all the world before him have but as it were one neck, and if it please him, by that jus pleni dominii, by that full power and dominion he hath over his creature, he may, as he welnear did in the Deluge, strike it off at a blow. His judgements are past finding out, and therefore not to be questioned. A Platone dicitur Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Vide Plutarch. Quaest convival. l. 8. q. c. He is the great Geometrician of the World which made all things in number, weight and measure, and doth infinitely surpass all humane inventions whatsoever: and therefore we cannot do him less honour than Hiero King of Sicily did to Archimedes the great Mathematician. When he saw the engines he made, and the marvellous effects they did produce, he caused it to be proclaimed that whatsoever Archimedes did after affirm, how improbable soever it might seem, yet should not once be called into question, but be received and entertained as a truth. Let the course of things be carried on as it will; let Death pass over the door of the Egyptian, and smite the Israelite; let God's Thunder miss the house of Dagon, and shiver his own Tabernacle; yet God is just, and true, and every man a liar that dareth but ask the question, Why doth God this? Look over the book of Job, and you shall see how Job and his Friends are tossed up and down on this great deep. For it being put to the question why Job was so fearfully handled, his Friend's ground themselves upon this conclusion, That all affliction is for sin, and so lay folly and hypocrisy to his charge, and tell him roundly that the judgements of God had now found him out, though he had been a close irregular, and with some art and cunning hid himself from the eye of the World: But Job on the contrary as stoutly pleadeth and defendeth his innocency, his justice, his liberality, and could not attain to the sight of the cause for which Gods hand was so heavy on him: Why should his Friends urge him any more, Job 19.22. or persecute him as God? They dispute in vain, Job 21.34. for in their answers he seethe nothing but lies. At last, when the controversy could have no issue, Deus è machina, God himself cometh down from heaven, and by ask one question putteth an end to the rest, Job 38.2. Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge? He condemneth Job and his Friends of ignorance and weakness, in that they made so bold and dangerous an attempt as to seek out a cause, or call God's judgements into question. 2. Because this is a point which may seem worthy to be insisted upon (for it hath well-nigh troubled the whole world to see the righteous and wicked tied together in the same chain, and speeding alike in general and ecumenical plagues) that Man's reason may not take offence and be scandalised, we will give you some reasons why God should hold so unrespective a hand. First, good reason it is that they who partake in the sin should partake also in the punishment. Now though in great and crying sins the righteous partake not with the wicked, yet in smaller they evermore concur. For who is he amongst the sons of men that can presume himself free from these kind of sins? And then if the wages of the smallest sin can be no less than death and eternal torment, we have no cause to complain if God use his rod, who might strike with the sword; if he chastise us on earth, who might thrust us into hell. This is enough to clear God from all injustice. For who can complain of temporal who doth justly deserve eternal pains? Or why should they be severed in the penalty who are joined together in the cause? But further yet, what though the fault of the one be much the less, yet it will not therefore follow, if we rightly examine it, that the punishment should be the less. For though it may seem a paradox which I shall speak unto you, yet it will stand with very good reason that great cause many times there may be why the smaller sin should be amerced and fined with the greater punishment. In the Penitential Canons he that killeth his mother is enjoined ten years penance, but he that killeth his wife is enjoined far more. And the reason is immediately given, not because this is the greater sin, but because men are commonly more apt to fall into the sin of murdering their wives, than their mothers. It is true, the reason is larger than the instance; and it teacheth us thus much, That in appointing the mulct for sin men ought not only to consider the greatness of it, but the aptness of men to fall into it. For that of St. Augustine is most true, Tantò crebriora, quantò minora: Because they are the less, men presume the oftener to commit them. And therefore it may seem good wisdom, when ordinary punishment will not serve to redress sins, to enhance and improve their penalty. We read in our books, that there was a Law in Rome, that he who gave a man a box on the ear was to pay the sum of twelve pence of our money: And Aulus Gellius doth tell us, that there was a lose but a rich man, who being disposed to abuse the Law, was wont to walk the streets with a purse of money, and still as he met any man he would give him a box on the ear, and then twelve pence. Now to repress the insolence of such a fellow there was no way but to increase the value of the mulct. Which course the God of heaven and earth may seem to take with us, when his ordinary and moderate punishments will not serve to restrain us from falling into smaller sins: He sharpeneth the penalty, that at last we may learn to account no sin little which is committed against an infinite Majesty, and not make the gentleness of the Law an occasion of sin. And to this end he coupleth both good and bad in those general plagues which by his providence do befall the world. He speaketh evil, he doth evil to whole Nations, amongst whom notwithstanding some righteous persons are. Ah sinful nation! a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, Isa. 1.4, 10. princes of Sodom, people of Gomorrah; these are the names by which he styleth the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, amongst whom we cannot doubt but there were many good; though no other, yet certainly Isaiah the Prophet, who spoke these words. And as he giveth them all one name without regard of difference, so he maketh them all good and bad to drink alike of one cup of captivity, though no doubt many of great uprightness, though Daniel and his fellows, were among them. I will give you one reason more, and I borrow it from S. Augustine who in his first book of the City of God touching upon this question, Why the righteous partake with the wicked in common calamities? maketh one especial cause to be, That they use not that liberty they ought in reprehending of sinners, but by their silence do as it were consent and partake in their sin, and therefore in justice ought to partake in their punishment. For indeed a great error it is, and of so great an allay, that it taketh us out of the shadow and protection of the Almighty, outlaweth us from his common favours, to imagine that the duty of reprehension is impropriate ad pertaineth only to the Minister. It is true, the right of public reprehension is entrusted as it were upon his office alone. For if every member were a Tongue, where were the Ear? If every man were a public Teacher, where were the Hearer? We need not preach against this: for put it once in practice, and it will soon preach down itself. For if every man will act the King, the Play is at an end before it gins; And if every man can teach in public, I see no reason why any man should learn. Yet as Tertullian spoke in another case, in publicos Hostes omnis homo miles est, against traitors and common enemies every man is a Soldier; so is it true here, Every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire, is for this business, by counsel, by advice, by rebuke a Priest; neither must thou let him lie there, to expect better help. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him, or, Levit. 19.17. according to the Hebrew, that thou bear not sin for him. This is spoke not to the Priest, but to the people. And in this respect the Cure of Souls is committed to every man as well as to the Priest. Every man thus hath a cure of souls, either of his child, or his servant, or his friend, or his neighbour. And if any of these perish through our default, their blood shall be required at our hands. For if we be bound to bring home our brother's beast, if we find him go astray, much more are we bound to bring home our straying brother himself. Common charity requireth thus much at our hands: And to make question of it, is as if thou shouldst ask with Cain, Am I my brother's keeper? Art thou his keeper? Yes, thou art, and his keeper, to keep him in all his ways; his Physician, to heal him; his Counsellor, to advise him; his Priest, his Bishop, to rebuke and exhort him with all long-suffering. And the neglect of this duty, though in itself a great sin, yet in this respect is much greater, because it interesteth us in other men's sins. It maketh a chaste man in some sort guilty of uncleanness, an honest man accessary to theft, a meek man a kind of second to the murderer; it bringeth the innocent person at least under the temporal curse that followeth those sins which his soul hateth, but hath not soul enough to reprehend, and so falleth into the same fire which he should have striven to have pulled his brother out of. Therefore to conclude this; since the neglect of this duty doth as it were pull down the banks, and open a wide gap to sin and wickedness, we have no reason to be at a stand and amazed, if we see the righteous person sometimes overwhelmed with those floods to which himself hath opened the way, or under those judgements which his intempestive silence, as well as other men's open sins, hath called down upon a Nation. And this may suffice to clear God's Justice from all imputation in the execution of his general judgements. 3. It may be we need not move any question at all about this matter: For in those common calamities which befall a people it may be God doth provide for the Righteous, and deliver him, though we perceive it not. Some examples in Scripture make this very probable. The old World is not drowned till Noah be shipped and in the Ark; the shower of fire falleth not on Sodom till Lot be escaped; Daniel and his fellows, though they go away into captiviy with rebellious Judah, yet their captivity is sweetened with honours and good respects in the Land into which they go, and (which was a kind of leading Captivity captive) they had favour, and were entreated as friends by their enemies, who had invaded and spoiled them. And may not God be the same still upon the like occasions? How many millions of righteous persons have been thus delivered, whose names notwithstanding are not where recorded? Some things of no great worth are very famous in the world, when many things of better worth lie altogether buried in obscurity, Hor. l. 4. odd 9 — caruerunt quia vate sacro, because they found none who could or would transmit them to posterity. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona. No doubt but before and since millions have made the like escapes, though their memory lieth raked up and buried in oblivion. But suppose the righteous do taste of the same cup of bitterness with the wicked, Calamitas non est poena, militia est, Min. Felix. yet it hath not the same taste and relish to them both. For Calamity is not always a whip, nor doth God always punish them whom he delivereth over to the sword. To lose my goods or life is one thing; to be punished another. It is against the course of God's providence and justice, that Innocency should come under the lash. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen. 18.25. Yes, he shall: yet without any breach of justice he may take away that breath of life which he breathed into our nostrils, Rom. 5.14. though we had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. For he may do what he will with his own, Matth. 20.15. and take away our goods or lives from us when and how he pleaseth, because he is Lord over them, and we have nothing which we received not from his hands. God is not always angry when he striketh; nor is every blow we feel given by God the avenger: He may strike as a Father. Therefore these evils change their complexions and very natures with the subject upon whom they are wrought. They are as Devils and have the blackness of darkness to some, but are as Angels and messengers of light to others. They lead the righteous through the valley of death into the land of the living, when the wicked are hewn down by the sword to be fuel for the fire. What though they both be joined together in the same punishment, as a Martyr and a Thief in the same chain? August. De civitate Dei. l. 1. c. 8. yet manet dissimilitudo passorum in similitudine passionum: Though the penalties may seem alike, yet the difference is great betwixt the patients, though the world perhaps cannot distinguish them; and Death itself, which is a key to open the gates of hell to the one, may be to the other what the Rabbins conceive it would have been to Adam had he not fallen, but osculum pacis, a kiss of peace, a gentle and loving dismission into a better state. To conclude this then; A people, a chosen people, a people chosen out of this choice, God's servants and friends, may be smitten; Josiah may fall in the battle, Daniel may be led into captivity, John Baptist may lose his head; and yet we may hold up our Inscription, DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. Let us now a little see what use we may make of this doctrine. And first since the judgements of God are many times poured out upon whole nations without respect, and beat upon the righteous as well as the wicked, let us not be rash, either to judge others when the hand of God hath touched them, or to flatter ourselves when he seemeth to shine upon our tabernacle. For the hand of God may touch, may strike down to the dust, whom notwithstanding he meaneth to lift up to the highest pitch of happiness; and he may shine upon the tabernacle of others, when he is coming towards them in a tempest of blackness and darkness. For though affliction be often the punishment of sin, yet it is not always so. There were worse sinners than those Galilaeans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, Luke 13. and they were not the greatest sinners on whom the tower of Siloa fell. Good and bad may fall together in the battle; and they may survive and escape the edge of the sword who amongst the bad were the worst. The sword, as David said, 2 Sam. 11.25. devoureth one as well as another. But what it was that did put an edge to the sword, and strength to the hand of the enemy, can be certainly known to none but God, whose providence he moveth by is like the light he dwelleth in, so past finding out that no mortal eye can reach and attain it. I will not be so bold as to make Prosperity a sign of a bad man, or Affliction and Poverty of a good: For in whatsoever estate we are, we may work out our salvation. Abraham the rich man was in heaven, Luke 16. and the poor man in his bosom. Through Afflictions, if we bear them, and through riches, if we contemn them, and so make them our friends, we may enter into the kingdom of heaven But it will be a part of our spiritual wisdom to be jealous rather of the flatteries of this world than of its frowns, because the one maketh us reflect upon ourselves, the other commonly corrupteth and blindeth us; and where Affliction slayeth her thousand, Prosperity, we may justly fear, killeth her ten thousand. It will be good indeed, when calamity seizeth upon us, to seize upon ourselves, to judge and condemn ourselves; to say, This Fever burneth me up, for the heat of my lust; This Dropsy drowneth me for my intemperance; This Lethargy is come upon me for my forgetfulness of God's commands, and my drowsiness in his service. And here if I err, the error is not dangerous, but advantageous; for this error leadeth me to the knowledge of myself. But when the like calamities befall others, to draw the same inference, and positively to conclude the same of them, is boldly to take the chair, and deliver my uncharitable conjectures for the oracles of God. The messenger that brought the sad news, That Israel was fled before the Philistines, 1 Sam. 4.7. said no more than what was too true; but had he also inferred, that the Philistine was better than the Israelite, or that God did favour him more than the other, he had brought the Truth to usher in a lie, he had related that which he knew, and affirmed that which he could not know. For Israel may fly before the Philistine, and yet God is not the God of Ekron, but of Israel. In the second place, as we must not be rash to judge others when they are cast down, so must we not be ready to flatter ourselves when some kindly gale of prosperity hath lifted us up above our brethren, or to make Prosperity a mark of a righteous person, as they of the Papacy do of the true Church. For this were indeed to set Dagon above the Ark, to plead for Baal; to consecrate every sin, and make it a virtue; to place Dives in Abraham's bosom, and Lazarus in hell; to prefer Mahomet before Christ; to pull Christ out of his kingdom, the Martyrs out of heaven, and to pluck the white robes from those who were sealed, and who washed them white in the blood of the Lamb● this were to countenance Nimrod, Rev. 7.14. and Nabuchadnezzar, and Alexander, and all the privileged thiefs and robbers of the earth. This were to countenance all the oppressors and murderers of the world, who have been so unhappy as to be happy in bringing their bloody purposes to an end. For though good intents may have an happy end, yet those arts are much to be suspected which have nothing else to commend them but prosperity and good success. A conquered Israelite is not always so evil as a victorious Phelistine. For if Prosperity were an argument under the Law (which yet it was not; for who then more fat, more lusty and strong than the wicked?) yet I do not see how it can be so under the Gospel, where affliction is not threatened but promised, nay given; To you it is given to suffer for Christ's sake; Phil. 1.29. where Persecution cometh forth with a crown on her head; Blessed are ye when men persecute you. And indeed this conceit of temporal felicity thwarteth the scope and primary intent of the Gospel, which biddeth us look upon our actions with no other perspective but the rule, and in respect of our conformity to that count all the prosperity in the world as dung. For if I be an adulterer, can impunity make me chaste? if I be a murderer, shall that be my sanctuary? If I be an oppressor, can my gathering of riches make me just? If I do that which Nature and Religion forbid, and a Heathen would tremble to think on, shall I comfort myself, that it is done without sin, because I have done it without control? Let us not deceive ourselves. When we have plunged ourselves in sin, and are fast in the devil's chain, prosperity and good success will prove but a weak deceitful ladder to climb up by into heaven. For let us on the one side behold the Israelite flying before the Philistine: For ought we know, he may be flying also from his sin unto his God. Let us behold the four and thirty thousand dead in the field, and can we think that they all together fell into hell because they all together fell in the battle? Or shall we call the Philistines the people of God, because they vanquished them to whom God himself had given that name? Luke 10.30. Let us look upon the man who fell amongst thiefs, who stripped him, and wounded him, and left him half dead, and who can tell but that he less deserved thus to be handled then the Priest and the Levite, who did but look, and pass by on the other side? Behold a man destitute, afflicted, tormented, clad with rags, full of sores, covered over with disgraces and contumelies, a man of sorrows, a Lazar of no reputation; for aught an eye of flesh can discern, he may be a man of God also, a man designed to eternity: and that deformity which thy pride scorneth to look upon may be but his pilgrim's habit in which he is travelling to the new Jerusalem. And now on the other side, behold a man whom all the blessings which are promised under the law have overtaken, a man honoured in the city, conquering in the field, blessed in the fruit of his body, blessed in his cattle and flocks of sheep, boasting of his hearts desire, puffing at his enemies, as the Psalmist speaketh, Psal. 10.5. & 12.5. chase them before him, treading them under his feet: Why art thou cast down, oh my soul? and why art thou vexed within me? there may be but a wall of earth, and that mouldering too, between this man, this God, and eternal destruction. It is not Quà, but Quò; it is not, Which way, but, Whither you go, is considerable. One man may go through a prison, through fire and water, into Paradise; and another may ride in triumph into hell. Let us not then make either Misery the livery of a bad, nor outward Happiness of a good man. For Misery, though it be a sorry covert, may be clothed upon with Honour and Glory; and Prosperity, though it be like Herod's royal apparel, glorious as the Sun, and dazzling a carnal eye, yet it will fall at last from us, and we may fall too into the lowest pit. In a word, these are no marks to judge by, nor is the outward man the image of the inward; but, the judgement is the Lords, Deut. 1.17. 2 Tim. 2.19. who alone knoweth them that are his. We will give you but one Use more, and so conclude. In the last place, the sight of this Inscription, It is the Lord, that sometimes spareth the Philistine, and striketh the Israelite, and when he striketh, sometimes throweth down the righteous with the wicked, and involveth them both in the same judgement, this, I say, may strike terror into us, and make us afraid of those sins which bring general judgements on a Nation, as Oppression, Uncleanness, Profaneness, Sacrilege, Hypocrisy. These crying and importunate sins will not let the Judge alone, but break the vials of his wrath, even whilst he holdeth them in his hand, unwilling to pour them forth. I say, the consideration of the general judgements of God is a notable argument to work the conversion of the most obstinate sinner in the world. Shall we continue in those sins which we see carry a train that will enwrap our Posterity, our Family, our whole Country, yea, like the Dragon's tail in the Revelation, draw down the stars from heaven, bring good men, even the Saints of God, within the compass and smart of them? Parce Carthagini, si non tibi, said Tertullian to Scapula; If you will not be good to yourself, yet spare Carthage; spare your Country, spare the Charets of Israel and the horsemen thereof; spare those Lots which keep your Sodom from burning; who, when a Nation is ready to sink and dissolve, bear up the pillars of it. Psal. 75.3. 1 Cor 6.2. Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the world? saith S. Paul. They, being first acquitted by Christ, shall sit with him as his friends and assessors, and judge and condemn those sins which brought them within the reach of God's temporal judgements, and overwhelmed them in the common calamity and ruin of their country. 3. We pass now to the third particular. If Israel must fall, yet let him not fall by the sword of a Philistine. Tell it not in Gath, 2 Sam. 1.20. publish it not in the streets of Askelon, was part of the Threnodie and Lamentation of David on the like occasion: and he giveth his reason, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. Besides the misery to have such an enemy rejoice in their misery, which will make that affliction which is but a whip prove a scorpion, this defeat might seem to cast some disgrace even upon their Religion; there being nothing more common in the world then to commend a false Religion by some fatal miscarriage of the Professors of the true, then to judge of Religion by its State and spreading, then to cry it up for orthodox when the Church hath peace, and to anathematise it as heretical when she is militant and under the Cross. Nothing more common with wavering and carnal men then to lull themselves asleep in most dangerous errors by no other music than the cries and lamentations of those who oppose them. If Hophni and Phinehas fall in the battle, if Eli the High Priest break his neck, if the the Ark be taken, than Dagon is God, any thing is God, which is either the work of our hands or of our fancy. Therefore this may seem not only a rueful but a strange spectacle, and (as Diogenes said of Harpalus a notorious but prosperous thief) testimonium adversus Deum dicere, Cic. De Nat. Deor. l. 3. to stand up as a witness against God himself, and his government of the world. But Tertullian will tell us, Malus interpres Divinae providentiae, humana infirmitas; The weak and shallow considerations of men are but bad interpretations of the providence of God, The wit of man is a poor jacob's staff to take the height and depth, the true and full proportion, of it. For as we cannot judge of the beauty of the Universe, because in regard of the condition of our mortality we can be placed but in part of it, and so cannot at once, at one cast of our eye, see the whole, in which those parts which offend us are at peace; no more can the Soul of man, which is confined within a clod of earth, judge of the course and method of that Providence which is most like itself in those events which seem most disproportionable, which is then most strait and even when sinners flourish, and just men are oppressed; most equal, when the honest man hath not a mite, and the deceitful a talon; 1 Kings 22.27. when the true Prophets are fed with bread of affliction, and every Balaam hath his wages; when Israel falleth, and the Philistine prevaileth; because we cannot behold him but in this or that particular, and can no more follow him in all his ways than we can grasp the world in the palm of our hands. By this light we may discover first, That true Religion cannot suffer with the professors of it, Hebr. 11 ●7. but when they are slain with the sword, and wander up and down destitute, afflicted, tormented, is still the same, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, of the same hue and complexion, and in true esteem more fair and radiant when her poor witnesses are under a cloud and in disgrace. Nay, I will be bold to say, and whosoever rightly understandeth the nature of Religion will never gainsay it, that if it had not one professor breathing on the earth, not one that did dare to name and own it (as Elijah once thought there was but one) yet Religion were still the same, 1 Kings 19.10, 14. reserved in the surest archives we can imagine, even in sinu Dei, in the bosom of God the Lawgiver; Religion being nothing else but a defluxion and emanation from him, a beam of his eternal Law. So that that which maketh and constituteth a true Israelite, which is one inwardly, Rom. 2.29. as S. Paul speaketh, and in the spirit, hath too much of Immortality, of God, in it to fall to the ground or exspire and be lost with the Israelite. Let not your hearts be troubled; Religion can no more suffer then God himself. For seconly, If Religion could suffer, it suffered more by the Priests and people's sins then by the Philistines sword: for by them the name of God and Religion was evil spoken of, Isa. 52.5. Rom 2.24. and that which cannot suffer was made the object of malice and scorn, and, as Nazianzene spoke of Julian's persecution, it was both a Comedy and a Tragedy, Invect. 2. a Comedy full of scoffs and obtrectations, and a Tragedy full of horror, and yet the Comedy was the more Tragical and bloody of the two. God jealous of his honour awaketh as one out of sleep, Psal. 78.65. returneth the scoff upon the Philistine, and maketh up the last Act of the Tragedy in his blood. First he punisheth the guilty Israelite, and then the Executioner. Psal. 78.66. The Psalmist saith, He smote them in the hinder parts, and put them to perpetual shame, forcing them to make the similitude of their Emerods' in gold, and to send them back with the Ark as an oblation for their sin. So you see here God's method by which he ordinarily proceedeth. First he prepareth a sacrifice, as we read Zeph. 1.7. that is, appointeth his people to slaughter; then bids his guests, sanctificat vocatos suos, as the Vulgar readeth it, he sanctifieth, that is, setteth apart, these Philistines, that they may be as Priests to kill and offer them up. And when this is done, God falleth upon the Priests themselves, and maketh them a sacrifice; Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: Zeph 2.4. they shall drive out Ashdod at noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted out. And now we may conclude that God is just in all his ways, Psal. 145.17. and righteous in all his judgements, and fix up our Inscription upon this particular also; When Israel is delivered up into the hand of the Philistine, DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. And now, if we look well upon the Inscription, we shall find it to be like the pillar of the cloud, Exod. 14.20. a cloud of darkness to the Philistine, but giving light to the Israelite. First, the Philistine, hath no reason to boast of this as a preferment, that he is made the instrument of God in the execution of his judgements upon his people. We shall find that this hath been one of the most dangerous and fatal offices in the World. Nabuchadnezzar was by God called into it, Jer. 50.21. Go up against the land of Merothaim, or of Rebels. And he did lead Israel into captivity. — V 23. But hear the word of the Lord; Jer. 51.41. Jer. 25.18. How is the hammer of the Lord cut asunder and broken? Jerusalem is taken, but Sheshach also shall fall. That cup which was sent to Jerusalem and the Cities of Judah, and the Kings thereof, — V 26, etc. and put into their hands to drink, is afterward put into the hand of the King of Sheshach to drink, and to be drunken, to spew, and fall, and rise no more. Thus saith the Lord, ye shall certainly drink it. And he giveth the reason, — V 29. For lo I begin to bring evil upon the City which is called by my Name, (or, where my Name is called upon) and shall ye go free? shall ye go utterly unpunished? If ye can raise such a hope, then hear a voice from heaven which shall dash it to pieces; I have said it, and I will make it good; Ye shall not go unpunished. I have begun with my own house, but I am coming towards you in a tempest of fire, to devour yours. I have shaken my own tabernacle, and the house of Dagon shall not, cannot stand. They whom God appointeth executioners of justice upon his people are like the Image which the Tyrant saw in his dream, partly iron, Dan. 2.42. and partly clay, partly strong, and partly broken. God findeth them apt and fit, full of malice and gall: Whose hands were fit to fling stones at David then his whose mouth was full of curses? Who fit to keep God's people in bondage than Pharaoh? Who fit to lead them into captivity than he whom God did afterwards drive into the fields amongst the beasts? Who could have crucified the Lord of life but the Jews? Then finding them apt and fit, he permitteth these serpents to spit their poison, giveth these hangmen leave to do their office. This his not hindering them was all the warrant and commission they had. Jer. 50.21. Go up against the land, can be no more than this; I know you are upon your march; and I will not stand in your way to stay you● but you shall do me service against your wills, with that malice which my Soul hateth. For we cannot think that God inspired the Tyrant, or sent a Prophet to him with the message to bid him do that which he threatneth to punish. No: he doth but permit them, and give them leave to be his executioners. And in this his permission is their strength. They pursue the Israelite, and lay on sure strokes. Their Malice is carried on in a chariot of four wheels, made up of Cruelty, Impatience, Ambition, Impudence, and drawn, as Bernard expresseth it, In Cant. Ser. 39 with two wild horses, earthly Power and secular Pomp. And now they drive on furiously; and God is as one asleep, as one that marketh them not, because he will not hinder them: But within a while he will awake, strike off their chariot-wheels, and restrain them; Job 38.11. say to them, as he doth to the swelling Sea, Hitherto you shall go, and no farther: And then they are but clay, they crumble and fall to nothing. Why should the Philistine boast himself in his mischief? Psal. 52.2. the goodness of God endureth yet daily: It is every day and in every age the same. It is no concluding argument, That we please God, when we are employed in the punishment of those that offend him: Nor can we thus argue, no more than we can attribute reason and wisdom to an Ass, because it pleased God once to make use of so contemptible a creature to reprove the folly of a Prophet. Numb. 22.27. 2 Pet. 2.16. Secondly, this cloud giveth light to the Israelite, by which he may order his steps with more caution and wariness. Our Saviour saith we may make a friend of Mammon, Luk. 16.9. and S. Chrysostom addeth, even of the Devil himself; so may a true Israelite make a friend of a Philistine, and they who survive may learn by the four and thirty thousand who were slain; who being dead yet speak unto them and us to fly from the wrath of God, who, when we rebel against him, can punish us by far worse than ourselves. Oh, who would not look upon those sins as the most horrid spectacles in the world, for the punishment of which God should cull out such instruments as are under a greater curse, fit for the fire, than those on whom they are used? If we go on and continue in sin, Joel 2.25. God may send out his great army against us, the Locust, the Cankerworm, the Caterpillar, and the Palmerworm, and eat up our harvest. Hab. 2.11. He may raise up every creature, even timber out of the wall, to speak against us. And if we still stand out against him, he may raise up some accursed alien, some Philistine, some child of perdition, to wreak his vengeance upon us. And who would not be afraid of that cup of bitterness which must be brought to him by the hand of a Philistine? and forsake sin, if not for the punishment, yet for the executioner? A sad sight it was to see David the father whipped for his adultery by his Son, and David the King chastised by his subject, who should have kissed his feet, 2 Sam. 16.11. of whom he himself saith, The Lord bid him do it; to see a whole nation carried away captive by a Man who did afterwards degenerate into a Beast; to see so many thousand Isaelites fall at the feet of Idolaters, of the servants of Dagon: But the Inscription is indelible; What is written, is written: DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. 4. Now in the last place, not only the Priests and the People, but the Ark itself was delivered up, the Ark of God's Covenant, and the Ark of his strength; Psal. 132.8. Numb. 7.89. Hebr. 9 4. Exod. 31.18. 1 Sam. 4.21, 22. Job 40.5. from whence God gave his Oracles, wherein were the Tables of the Laws, the Testimony written by the finger of God; the Glory of God, as Phinehas his wife calleth it; even this was made a prey to cursed Aliens, and brought in triumph into the house of Dagon, Chapter 5. And here we may lay our hands upon our mouth, as Job, Once have we spoken, yea twice; but here is a great depth, horror and amazement; and we may fear to proceed any further. What? will God defeat his own command? deliver up his own Ordinance? Psal. 78.61. deliver up his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hands? Yes; even here it is the Lord. God did it, because he suffered it to be done; did it, as one asleep, Psal. 78.65. withdrew himself. When he awaketh, than he will lift up his hand, and it shall fall heavy upon the Philistine, and bruise him to pieces. Then it shall be his power and arm; now it is but his connivance and permission. What the rage of the persecutor, what the Philistine, what the Devil doth, God is said to do; and in many places of Scripture it is called his will: 1. Because he willingly permitteth it. For should he interpose his power, it could never be done. 2. Because he foretelleth and threatneth it, and bindeth it with an oath; as he doth here: 1 S m. 3.14. which he would never do, if he meant to hinder it. 3. Though he willeth not the thing itself, Murder, Sacrilege, and the Profanation of his Ark, yet notwithstanding some good will of God is accomplished by it. And even in the most horrid execution some good will of God may be accomplished. He delivered up Christ to be crucified; but his will was to save the World: And he that was willing his Son should suffer, yet hated the Jews, and for that very fact made their house desolate. He found them in the gall of bitterness, and left them so, to do his will when they broke it. The Malice was their own, and God suffered them to breathe it forth; but the issue and event thereof was an act of Gods Will, of his Wisdom, of his Power. And thus here he delivered up the Ark; but it was to preserve it: as Agesilaus abrogated the Laws of Lycurgus, that he might establish them: semper esse possent, aliquando non fuerunt, Valer. Max. l. 7. c. 2. saith the Historian; They were laid aside a while, that they might remain and be in force for ever. So God suffereth his Ark to be led into captivity, that it might conquer, first Dagon, than the Israelite; that it might strike off the hypocrisy of the Israelite, and work and fashion him to the will of God, of whom the Ark was but a representation: He suffered it to be removed for a time that it might be restored again both to its place and dignity. For we may observe in the Israelites what, if we could be impartial; we might soon discover in ourselves in the use of those helps which God hath graciously afforded us; They both honoured and dishonoured the Ark; they gave too high an esteem, and yet undervalved it; they called it their God, and made it their idol. A strange contradiction, yet so visible in the course and progress of carnal worshippers, that he that seethe them in their race, would think they run two contrary ways at once, are very religious, and very profane; invade heaven with violence, and yet drive furiously to the lowest pit. First, we have just reason to imagine that when the Ark was taken up upon the Levites shoulders, and they sang, Let God arise, Numb. 10.35. Psal. 68.1. (which was the set and constant form) they spoke not by metaphor, but as if indeed they had their God on their shoulders. For when Israel was smitten ver. 2. Let us bring, say they, the ark of the Covenant, ver. 3. The Ark is brought out, and now victory is certain: for when it cometh amongst us, it will save us, say they. But, as Epictetus once taught his Scholars, that they should so behave themselves that they might be an ornament to the Arts and not the Arts unto them; so the integrity of the Jew should have been a defence to the Ark, and not the Ark made use of to stand up for a profane impenitent Israelite. For what a wile and sophism of Satan is this, to persuade 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 rob 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 ourselves, I shall think there is no such thing as Error in the world. But again, in the second place, and on the contrary, as they did deificare Arcam, as the Father speaketh, even deify the Ark, attribute more unto it then God ever gave it, or was willing it should have; so they did also depretiare, vilify and set it at naught. They called it their strength, their glory, their God; but employed it in base offices than ever the Heathen did their Gods, Pulcra Laverna, Da mihi fallere, etc. 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 bind 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 than they did when it stood in their own Tabernacle, learn the right use of it now, which they had so foully abused when they enjoyed it. In a word, God striketh off their embroidery, that they might learn to be more glorious within. I remember, there is a constitution in the Imperial Law, Si feudatarius rem feudi, etc. 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 Emperor 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 wool, 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 days, her new-moons, and her sabbaths; as if he had said, I will defeat my own purpose, I will nullify my own ordinance, I will abolish my own law, I will put out the light of Israel, which to my people hath been but as a meteor to make them wander in the crooked ways 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 fancies 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 fancies 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 oppressor do with power? what should Hophni and Phinehas, adulterers, oppressors, 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 departed 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, DOMINUS 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 hypocrisy with the blood of those four and thirty thousand Israelites. Look upon the Ark, but not so as to be dazzled therewith, and to dote on the glory and beauty of it, not so as to lose the sight of yourselves, 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 fit to receive the Devil than the sop; at once to magnify, and profane it; to call it the Bread of life, and make it poison. This is to come near the Ark, and to handle these holy things, without feeling; in a word, this is to make them first an idol, 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 than they are, we in effect make them less than they are, and at last nothing, of no use at all. Nay, we make that a snare unto us which was made for a help. Every creature within the bounds of its nature is useful and profitable: so also these external helps, the Ark of God, the Word, and Sacraments of the Church, are great blessings, and highly to be honoured, whilst we use them to that end for which they were first instituted, whilst we walk within that compass and circle which God hath drawn, according to that form which he hath showed us. That Jew deserveth not the name of an Israelite that either by word or gesture dishonoureth the Ark, when we see he was not permitted to touch it: But he that of a sign of the presence of God, in the day of battle shall make it his God, is so much a Jew that he deserveth to be fling out of the Synagogue. And that Christian that boweth not to the majesty of the Word, and receiveth it not as a letter and epistle from God, as S Augustine calleth it, that esteemeth not of the Sacraments as those visible words, the signs and pledges and conveyances of God's great love and favour to us in Christ, hath too little of the Christian to make him so much as one of the visible Church: But he that is high in his panegyrics, and ever calling, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth; and then lieth down to sleep, or, if he be awake, is only active in denying the power of that Word he so much magnified and called for, and thinketh he hath done all duties and offices to God if he do but give him the ear (which is to trust in the Ark more than in God;) he that shall make the Sacrament first an idol, and then a seal to shut up treason in silence, as the Jesuit, or use it as an opiate once or twice in the year to quiet his conscience, his viaticum and provision rather to strengthen him in sin then against it; he that shall thus magnify, and thus debase it, thus exalt, and thus tread it under foot, is guilty of Heresy, saith Erasmus, which is not properly an Heresy, but yet such a kind of Heresy may make him Anathema though he be of the Church; and at last sever him as a Goat from the Sheep. And now let us judge, not according to the appearance, let us judge righteous judgement: Or rather, if you please, do but judge according to the appearance. Cast an eye upon these unhappy times, which, if they be not the last, yet so much resemble those which, as we are told, shall usher in the great day, that we have great reason to look about us as if they were the last: Weigh, I say, the controversies, the business of these times; and concerning those duties and transactions which constitute and consummate a Christian, you shall find as great silence in our disputes as in our lives and practice. The great heat and contention is concerning Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the Government and Discipline of the Church: It is not, Whether we should deny ourselves, and abstain from all fleshly lusts; but, Whether we may wash, or not; Whether eat, or not; Whether Christ may be conveyed into us in Water, or in Bread; Whether he hath set up a chair of infallibility at Rome, or a consistory at Geneva; Whether he hath ordained one Pope, or a million. What digladiations, what tragedies are there about these points? And if every particular fancy be not pleased, the cry is as if Religion were breathing out its last; when as the true Religion consisteth not principally in these; but these may seem to have been passed over to us rather as favours and honours and pledges of God's love, then as strict and severe commands. That we must wash, and eat, are commands, but which bring no burden or hardship with them, the performance of them being most easy, as no whit repugnant to flesh and blood: It is no more, but Wash, and be clean, Eat in remembrance of the greatest benefit that ever mankind received. All the difficulty is in the performance of the vow we make in the one, and the due preparation of the soul for the other, which is the subduing of our lusts and affections, the beautifying of our inward man. This is truly and most properly the service of Christ, the Ark of our Ark, the Glory of our Glory, and the crown of all those outward advantages which our Lord and Master hath been Pleased to afford us. We may ask with the Prophet, Mich. 6.6, 7. Wherewith shall we come before the Lord, or bow ourselves before the high God, Will he be pleased with the diligence of our Ear? with our Washing, — v. 8. and Eating? and answer with him, He hath showed thee, O man, what he doth require, to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Go to Shiloh, and there learn we to disdeceive ourselves by the example of the Israelites; if all our Religion be shut up, with theirs, in the Ark, all in outward ceremony and formality, God strike both us and the Ark we trust to, recover and call back those helps and gracious advantages from such prodigal usurpers. For when all is for the Ark, nothing for the God it representeth; when we make the Pulpit our Ark, and chain all Religion to it; when the lips of the Preacher, which should preserve knowledge, Mal 2.7. Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. and be as a Ship, as Basil speaketh, to convey that Truth which is more precious than the Gold of Ophir, bringeth nothing but Apes and Peacocks, loathsome and ridiculous fancies; when the hearers must have a song for a Sermon, and that too many times much out of tune; when both Hearer and Speaker act a part as it were upon a stage, even till they have their Exit, and go out of the world; when we will have no other laver but that of Baptism, no bread but that in the Eucharist; when we are such Jewish Christians as to rely on the shell and outside, on external formalities and performances, more empty and less significant and effectual than their ceremonies; we have just cause to fear that God will do unto us as he did unto Shiloh, or, as he threatened the same people Amos 8. send a famine into the land, not a famine of bread, but of hearing the word, (and such a famine we may have, though our loaves do multiply, though Sermons be our daily bread;) that he may deprive us of our Sacraments, or deliver them up to Dagon, to be polluted by Superstition, or to be trodden under foot by Profaneness, (which of the two is the worst;) that we may even loath and abhor that in which we have taken so vain, so unprofitable, so pernicious delight; and condemn ourselves and our own foul ingratitude, and with sorrow and confusion of face subscribe to this Inscription, DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord. And now we have settled the Inscription upon every particular. And it may seem at first not well placed, but as the head of Jupiter upon the body of a Tyrant; a merciful God plucking up and destroying his own people, fight for the Philistine against the Israelite, as if a dead Israelite were of a sweeter savour in his nostrils then a dead Philistine, and the Ark better placed in the house of Dagon then in his own Tabernacle: But look again, and consider it aright, and you will say it is rightly fixed. For the ways of God are equal, but ours are unequal: Ezek. 18.29. and nothing but the inequality of our ways maketh God's seem unequal. He remaineth the same God in the fire and in the earthquake which he was in the still voice; the same when he slew the Israelites, and when his light shone upon their tabernacle. His glorious Attributes cross not one another. His Justice taketh not from his Mercy, nor his Mercy from the equity of his Justice; but he is just when he bindeth up, and merciful when he woundeth us. His Justice, his Wisdom, his Mercy are over all his works. Psal. 145.9. Psal. 136.15, 17, 18. The same God that overthrew Pharaoh in the Red sea, that slew great and mighty Kings, did deliver up his own people, good and bad, did deliver them, into their enemy's hands, did deliver up the Ark to Dagon: For his Justice, his Wisdom and his Mercy endure for ever. Psal. 136. And now, having gone along with old Eli in his Discovery, we cannot but take up his Resolution, Let him do what seemeth him good We called it Eli's Use, or Application of his Doctrine; and let us, for conclusion, make it ours, and learn to kiss the Son, lest he be angry; nay, to kiss him, Psal. 2.12. and bow before him, when he is angry; to offer him up a peace-offering, our Wills, of more power than a hecatomb, than all our numerous Fasts and Sermons, to appease his wrath, and to bring peace and order again into the World: that our Wills being his, being subdued by his Spirit, and delivered up into that blessed captivity to be under his beck and command, they may stand out against all our natural and carnal desires, and check and quiet them. This is the truest surrendry we can make: This maketh us of the same mind with Christ, who would not, Quod vult effici, id ipsum concedi bi non vult, De Trin. l. 10. Acts 9.6. saith Hilary, have that granted which he would have done, did not refuse the Cup, but desired it might pass from him. As Saul, when he was struck to the ground, cried out, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? so let us, when God's hand is upon us, in our trembling and astonishment say, Lord, what wouldst thou have us to suffer? Thy will be done, though it be in our destruction. By this we testify our consent with him. This is our friendship with God: and they who, as Abraham was, are God's friends, 2 Chr. 20.7. Isa. 41.8 James 2.23. have idem velle & idem nolle, will and nill the same things with God, are ready to follow him in all his ways; when he seemeth to withdraw, and when he cometh near us; when he shineth upon us, and when he thundereth; in what he commandeth, and in what he permitteth; in what he absolutely will do, and in what he maketh way for only, and will suffer to be done; to follow him in all, and bow before him. Non pareo Deo, sed assentior: Epist. 96. ex animo illum, non quia necesse est, sequor, saith the heathen Seneca: I do not only obey God, and do what he would have me, but I am of his mind: and whatsoever is done in heaven and earth, is done as I would have it. The world is never out of frame with me; I see nothing but order and harmony, no disturbance, no crossness in the course of things. Wisd. 7 22, 24 For that Wisdom which is the worker of all things, is more moving than any motion, and passeth and goeth through them all, reacheth from one end to another mightily, and draweth every motion and action of men to that end, in which, if we could see them, we should wonder and cry out, So, so, thus we would have it. The stubornest knee may be made to bow, and obedience be constrained; Balaam obeyed God, but it was against his will. But the true Israelite doth it with joy and readiness; and though he receive a blow, he counteth it as a favour: For he that gave it hath taught him an art to make it so. Psal. 135.6. God doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth, saith the Psalmist. God willeth it, and doth it; and when it is done, our will must bow before it, and we must say with old Eli, Let him do what he will. Take the Will of God in those several ways the Scripture and the light of Reason hath discovered it to us, and in every kind we must subscribe, and what he doth we must will, and what he will have us suffer must seem good in our eyes. There is voluntas naturalis inclinationis & desiderii, that desire and inclination which naturally was in him to work and wish the good of his creature, which is the proper and natural effect of his Goodness. For he created us for our good and his glory. And there is an other Will, voluntas praecepti, the Law and Ordinance which he hath laid upon his creature, which is every where in Scripture called his Will. For as he ordained his creature for good, so he made known unto it the means by which it should attain to that good for which it was at first ordained. Now we cannot but yield in these. For can there be any question made whether we will set a Fiat and subscribe to our own good? It is strange that any man should be unwilling that God should love him, unwilling to be happy, or loathe that way which so great Love hath designed to bring him to this end. The number is but few of those that do this Will; but it is the voice of the whole Christian world, That this Will should be done. But there is yet further, as we may observe, voluntas occasionata, a secondary and consequent Will in God, not natural, but occasioned, and to which he is in a manner constrained. The severity of God, the miseries and afflictions of this life, induration of wilful and stubborn sinners, eternal pains laid up in the world to come, are the effects of this occasioned Will. Besides this, there is voluntas permissionis, his permissive Will, by which he doth give way so far as he thinketh good to the intents and actions of evil men. He doth not command them, he doth not secretly suggest them, nor doth he incline the Agents to them, not incline the Philistines to invade that land which is none of theirs, but by his infinite prescience, foreseeing all actions and events possible, he determineth for reasons best known to himself to give way to such actions which he saw would be done if he gave way. And to these two we cannot but yield, unless we will deny him to be God. For if we believe him just, or wise, we cannot but say, FIAT, Let him do what he will: Let him be angry, and let him carry on his anger in what ways and by what means he please. He is our Father, and loveth us: O felicem, cui Deus dignatur, irasci, Tertull. and if we will be enemies to ourselves, he doth but an act of Justice and of Mercy if he use the rod. What though he give line to wicked men to do that which his soul hateth, and suffer that to be done which he forbiddeth? He permitteth all the evil that is done in the world: If he did not permit it, it could not be done. And if he did not permit evil, Obedience were but a name: For what praise is it not to do that which I cannot do? Whatsoever evil he suffereth, his Wisdom is always present with him (for he is Wisdom itself) and can draw that evil which he but suffereth to be done, and make it serve to the advancement of that good which he will do. He will make it as the hand of Justice, to punish offenders, and execute his will; and as his Rod or Discipline, to teach sinners in the way. If we could once subdue our wills to that will of his which is visible in his precepts, if we could answer love with love, and love him, and keep his commandments, John 14.15. we should have no such averseness from the other two, no such dislike if he do what he is forced to do, or permit that to be done which he hath condemned already. If we do whatsoever he commandeth us, and be his friends, what is it to us, Job 38.31. Deut. 28.23. Job 38.38. though he bind the sweet influences of the Pleyades, or lose the bonds of Orion? though he make the heavens as brass, and the earth as iron? though the clods cleave fast together, and the clouds distil not upon them? What is it to us, if he beat down his own Temples, when the tower of Babel reacheth up to heaven? if the black darkness be in Gosh●n, and the Egyptians have light? if fool's sport and triumph in their folly, and the whip be laid on the back of the innocent? What is it to us how or where he casteth about his hailstones and coals of fire? Si fractus illabatur orbis, Horat. od. 3. l. 3. Impavidos ferient ruinae. In all these sad and dismal events, in these judgements which fall cross with our judgement, and, as the eye of flesh looketh upon them, to the mind of God himself, in all these perplexities, these riddles of Providence, the friend of God is still his friend, and favoureth, nay, applaudeth whatsoever he doth, or is pleased to suffer to be done, which he would not suffer, did not his Justice and Wisdom require it, which are able to make the most crooked paths strait, to fill every valley, and level every mountain, to work good out of evil; and so make all those seeming extuberancies, that which to us seemed disorder and confusion, that which our ignorance wondered at, smooth and plain and even at the last. It is the Lord: When that word is heard, let every mouth be stopped, or let it declare his glory amongst the nations, and his wonders among the people. Psal. 96.3. Phil. 2.10. At that word let every knee bow, both of things in heaven, and things in earth; let Men and Angels say, Amen; His will be done. DOMINUS EST, It is the Lord, is the antecedent; and the most natural consequent or conclusion that can be drawn from it is this of old Eli the High Priest, FACIAT QVOD BONUM IN OCULIS, Let him do what seemeth him good. To conclude then, When we are thus wrought and fashioned to God's hand and will, thus meek and yielding to his sceptre; when we follow him in all his ways, and question not but obey his Providence, which is the bridle of the world, and fit for no hands but his; when with old Eli here we join our Faciat with his Fecit, and are willing he should do whatsoever is done; when the Lord thunders from heaven, and shooteth his arrows abroad, and we can look upon them sticking in our own sides, and say, Thus, thus it should be: Psal. 19.9. The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether; then we have the spirit of God, and we have the will of God: And these arrows will be to us as Jonathan's were to David, 1 Sam 20 20, etc. signs and warnings to fly from some danger near at hand, that those evils we suffer may work that patience which may make us cooperarios Dei, as Tertullian spoke of Job, De patiented. fellow-workers with God, and join us with him in the conquest of those temptations which they bring along with them; Rom. 5.4, 5. that our Patience may beget Experience how weak and frail we are when we are moved and guided by our own will; and this Experience, Hope, even that Hope which, being founded on the promises of the God of truth, can neither deceive us nor make us ashamed; a Hope that our Ark will return, and God will restore to us all those helps and advantages which he shall think necessary for us in this our warfare. He that hath the will of God, hath this hope, built upon his Power and Wisdom, which always accompany his Will. He that hath the will of God, hath what he will, hath power and wisdom; In the strength of which we shall be able to lift up our heads in the midst of all the busy noise the World shall make; 1 Cor. 15.58. be steadfast and immovable when the tempest is loudest; and when our sun shall be darkened, Matth 24.29. and the stars fall from heaven, when there shall be sects and divisions and great perplexity, Luke 21.25. when our Ark shall be taken, and the glory depart from Israel, we shall be able to look upon all with an eye of Charity, or, as Erasmus speaketh, with an Evangelical eye, and walk on in a constant course of piety, and contention with those infirmities which so easily beset us, beating down sin in ourselves, though we cannot destroy error in our brethren, and so become, as Nazianzene once spoke of his people of Nazianzum, like the Ark of Noah, and by this our spiritual wisdom escape that deluge and inundation of Contention which hath near overflowed and swallowed up the whole Christian world, and so walk upon these floods and waves, Christ himself going before, till we rest upon our Ararat, our holy Hill, that new Jerusalem, that City of peace, where there will be no envy, no debate, no sects, no divisions, no contentions, no wars, no rumour of wars, but love and peace and unity and joy and unconceivable bliss for evermore. The Fifteenth SERMON. JOHN VI 56. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. THese words are our Saviour's: And it was usual with this our good Master by things visible to the eye to lift up his hearers minds and thoughts to spiritual and heavenly things, and to draw his discourse from some present occasion or business in hand. He curseth the figtree which had nothing but leaves, Matth. 21.19. Sterelitas nostra in fic●●. Luke 11.39. to correct our sterility and unfruitfulness. At the table of a Pharisee, upon the sight of the clean outside of his cup he discovereth his inward parts full of ravening and wickedness. At Jocob's well he poureth forth to the woman of Samaria the water of life. John 4. After he had supped with his disciples, he taketh the cup, John 15. and calleth the wine his Blood, and himself the true Vine. Thus did Wisdom publish itself in every place upon every occasion. The Well, the Table, the highway-side, every place was a pulpit, every occasion a text, and every good lesson a Sermon. To draw this down to our present purpose. In the beginning of this chapter, Christ worketh a miracle, multiplieth the loaves and fishes, that the remainder was more than the whole; A miracle of itself able to have made the power of God visible in him: and something indeed it wrought with them; For behold, they seek him, they follow him over the Sea, v. 24. the ask him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? v. 25. But our Saviour knowing their hypocrisy, answereth them not to what they ask, but instructeth them in that they never thought on; Verily, verily, you seek me, v. 26. not for the miracle, but the loaves. But behold, I show you yet a more excellent way: I show you bread better than those loaves, better than Moses his manna. I am that bread of life: My flesh is meat indeed, v. 48. v. 55. and my blood is drink indeed. And he commendeth it unto them by three virtues or effects: 1. That it filleth and satisfieth; which neither the Loaves nor Moses his manna could do. He that cometh to me, v. 35. that devoteth himself to me, shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. 2. That it is living bread, bread that giveth life, v. 51. which Moses manna could not do, but was destroyed with them that eaten it in the wilderness. 3. v. 49. That it was bread which had power to incorporate them, to embody them, to make them one, and give them union and communion with the Lord of life; in the words of my Text, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, that is, (as Christ himself, who best knew his own meaning, interpreteth it) that believeth in me, v. 35. that so feedeth on the mystery of my Incarnation, that can look upon my cross to which my flesh was fastened, and there with the eye of faith behold and wonder at those rich treasuries of Wisdom, of Patience, of Humility, of Obedience, of Love, which are the truest title and superscription that could be written on my cross; that can look upon the several passages of my blessed oeconomy, and receive and digest them, and turn them into nourishment: that can look upon my Birth, and be regenerate and born again; upon my Precepts, and make them his daily bread; upon my Cross, and be crucified to the world; upon my Resurrection, and be raised to newness of life: He that thus eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. You have the occasion and sum of these words. For more than an allusion to our eating and drinking in the Sacrament I cannot see: and that too (though the Church of Rome would have more) is more than we can prove. I may call it the true Character of a Christian: And who could draw it better than Christ? It consisteth, as you see, of two parts: 1. The Christian's or the Believer's part, He dwelleth in Christ. 2. Christ's part: He dwelleth in every man that is regenerate. So that in this our Union with Christ there passeth a double action, one from us to Christ, another from Christ to us. And as in arched buildings all the stones do mutually uphold each other; and if you remove and take one away, the rest will fall; so do these two interchangeably hold up and prove one another: For if we dwell not in Christ, Christ will not dwell in us; and if he dwell not in us, it is impossible we should dwell in him. Or we may resemble these two, our relation to Christ, and Christ's to us, to the two Cherubins covering the Mercy-seat with their wings, Exod. 25. and having their faces one to the other, with the Covenant in the midst between them. The Cherubins, though they were both Cherubins, and very like, yet were two distinct Cherubins: So though our dwelling in Christ and Christ's dwelling in us tend to the same end, yet they are two: and the Covenant is in the midst between them; If we will be his people, he will be our God. If we dwell in him, he will dwell in us. Take it then in these two propositions or doctrines, 1. That something, some act is required on our parts; which is here expressed by dwelling in him. 2. Something is done by Christ, some virtue, some efficacy proceedeth from him; which is here called dwelling in us. In both which is seen that mutual and interchangeable reciprocation between Christ and a regenerate Soul; As he dwelleth in Christ, so Christ dwelleth in him; and as Christ dwelleth in him, Cant. 6.3. so he dwelleth in Christ. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. We begin with the first, That some act of ours is required; which is here expressed by dwelling in him. Now to dwell in Christ is a phrase peculiar to this our Evangelist; and he often useth it, both here, and in his first Epistle. It is full and expressive and operative, implying a real and durable interest in Christ, a reliance and dependence on him alone, not only on his Person, (that they are bold to do who crucify him again) but also on his Offices, as he is a King to govern us, a Priest to mediate and intercede for us, and a Prophet to teach us; such a dependence as maketh us truly his Subjects, his Purchase, his Disciples. We usually say the lover dwelleth not in himself, but in him he loveth. He dwelleth there, and delighteth in such an habitation, nor is ever satisfied with the pleasures of it; Gen. 44.30. as we read that Jacob's soul was bound up with the soul of Benjamin, his life was knit with the young man's life, his life hanged and depended on his. And by this we may discover what is meant by this phrase. When our souls are bound up with Christ's, when our understandings, wills and affections are bound up with his will (for what Cassian speaketh of his Monk, is true of the Christian, Nescit judicare, Nescit judicare quisquis didicit perfectè obedire, l. 4. de instit. Cae●ob. he hath no judgement, non habet suum velle, he hath no will of his own) when our understandings, wills and affections are Christ's, as if we were but one flesh and one blood and one soul, that we will neither know nor serve nor hearken to any but Christ, that we will have no King, no Priest, no Prophet, but him, than we dwell in him. More particularly thus, If we dwell in Christ, we shall, 1. discover and admire his majesty; 2. acknowledge his power, and love his command; 3. rely and depend upon him alone as our sure castle and protection: We shall dwell as it were within the beauty of his rays, within his jurisdiction, and under the shadow of his wing. 1. If we dwell in Christ, we shall discover and admire his Majesty. We may observe that every thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in any eminency, sendeth a kind of majesty from it, as the Sun doth its beams, which maketh a welcome and pleasing glide into the minds of men, and at once striketh them with admiration and with love. Sometimes this appeareth in the persons, sometimes in the manners and behaviour of men; sometimes in the order and polity of a well-governed Commonwealth. So we read the skin of Moses' face, after he had talked with God, Exod. 34.29, 30. did shine so bright that Aaron and the people were afraid to come near him. So when holy Job went out to the gate, the young men saw him, and hid themselves, Job 29.7, 8. and the aged arose, and stood up. It showeth itself also in a well-ordered Commonwealth. It was called majestas pop. Romani, Majestas est in imperio, atque in omni Pop. Rom. dignitate, Quint. l. 7. justit. c. 3. Matth. 17.2, 6 the Majesty of the people of Rome. Now if Christ be considered by thee as one in eminency and supreme, thou wilt behold him not only fair and lovely, but clothed with Majesty. I do not mean his Majesty in his transfiguration, when his face did shine as the Sun, and his Disciples fell on theirs; nor his Majesty when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead; and yet these are fit objects for the eye of Faith to look on: but his Majesty in his cratch, his Majesty in his humility, his Majesty on the cross; even here the thief discovered it, and it was imputed to him for righteousness, and made the Cross itself a gate and passage into Paradise. But these are too remote, and, for the many, we look upon them as at distance, have so small regard of them as if they concerned us not. We can see Majesty in a lump of flesh, in those that cannot save themselves, sooner than in him we call our Saviour. But then canst thou discover Majesty in him now, Majesty in his discipline. Wisdom in the foolishness of Preaching, Power in weakness, now in this life? when he is whipped and spit upon, and crucified again; when he liveth covered over with disgraces and contumelies; when his Precepts are dragged in triumph after flesh and blood, and whatsoever it dictateth; when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifige's; for one formal hypocritical acknowledgement, a thousand spears in his sides; when the Truth is what we will make it, the Gospel esteemed no more than a fable, and Christ himself (if we look into men's lives) the most disesteemed thing in the world. When thou seest him in this cloud, in this disfiguration, in this Golgotha, where is thy faith? what eyes hast thou? Doth he not still appear a worm, Psal. 22.6. and no man, a man of sorrows? When thou seest him thus, Isa 53.2, 3. is there any form that thou shouldest desire him? Or dost thou even now see his glory as the glory of the onely-begotten Son of God? 1 John 1.14. Doth he now appear to thee as the Head of all principality and power? Col. 2.10. Canst thou see him in that naked Lazar, that persecuted, forlorn, imprisoned Saint? Doth his Majesty shine through the vanities of this World, and make them loathsome? through thy labour of charity, and make it easy? through persecution, Hebr. 6.10. and make it joyful? In the midst of rage and derision, of fury and contumely, is he still to thee the King of glory? Psal. 24.8, 10. Then thou dwellest in him, even in the beauty of holiness. 2. If we dwell in Christ, we shall be under his Command. For they who command us, do in a manner take us into themselves, they possess and compass, bound and keep us in on every side. And if we dwell in Christ, we shall be within his reach and power; we shall not have our excursions, and run from him into the streets and high ways again, into Beth●aven, the house of vanity. I say, we shall be under Christ's command, we shall be his possession, his propriety. For Man is a little world: I may say he is a little Commonwealth. De Resurrect. carn. c. 40. Tertullian calleth him fibulam utriusque substantiae, the clasp or button which toeth together divers substances and natures, the Soul and the Body, the Flesh and the Spirit. And these two are contrary one to the other, Gal. 5.17. saith S. Paul, are carried divers ways; the Flesh to that which pleaseth it; and the Spirit to that which is proportioned to it, looking on things neither as delightful nor irksome but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the soul. These lust and struggle one against the other: and Man is the field, the theatre where this battle is fought, and one part or other still prevaileth. Many times, nay, most times, (God help us) the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to join with her against the Spirit: and then Sin taketh the chair, the place of Christ himself, and setteth us hard and heavy tasks; setteth us to make brick, but alloweth us no straw, biddeth us please and content ourselves, but affordeth us no means to work it out. See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines, to dig for metals and treasure, for that money which will perish with him. See how Lust fettereth another with a look, with the glance of an eye, bindeth him with a kiss, a kiss that will at last by't like a Cockatrice. See how Self-love driveth us on, as Balaam did his beast, on the point of the sword? Thus Sin doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, exercise its force and power, Rom. 6.12. Lord it and King it, reign in our mortal bodies. Again sometimes, (and why but sometimes?) but sometimes the Will sanctified and upheld and encouraged by the Spirit of Christ, taketh the Spirit's part, determineth for it against the Flesh, chooseth any thing which the Spirit commendeth, though it be compassed about with terrors and fearful apparitions, though it be irksome and contrary to the Flesh: And when we depose Mammon, Matth. 16.24. crucify the flesh, deny ourselves, separate ourselves from ourselves, from our wilfulness and stubbornness and animosities, and so place Christ in his throne, Eph. 3.15. reinstate ourselves into his house, his family, his kingdom, that Christ may be all in all. And thus it is; Whilst this fight and contention lasteth in us, which will be as long as we last in our mortal bodies, something or other will lay hold on us, and have command over us. There is no aequilibrium in a Christian man's life, no time when the scales are even, when he hangeth, as Solomon is pictured, between heaven and hell; but one side or other still prevaileth. Either we walk after the Flesh, Rom. 8.1. when that is most potent; or after the Spirit, when that carrieth us along in our way against the solicitations and allurements of the Flesh: One of them is always uppermost. It will therefore concern us to take a strict account of ourselves, and impartially to consider to which part our Will inclineth most; whether it be hurried away by the Flesh, or led sweetly and powerfully on by the Spirit; which of these beareth most sway in our hearts; whether we had rather be led by the Spirit, Rom. 13.14. or obey the Flesh in the lusts thereof; whether we had rather dwell in the world with all its pomp and pageantry, in a Mahometical Paradise of all sensual delights, or dwell with Christ, though it be with persecutions. Suppose the Devil should make an overture to thee, as he did once to our Saviour, of all the kingdoms of the world, Matth. 4.8. and the Flesh should plead for herself, (as she will be putting in for her share) and show thee Honour and Power, all that a heart of flesh would leap at, in those Kingdoms; and on the other side the Spirit, thy Conscience enlightened, should check thee, and pull thee back, and tell thee that all this is but a false show, that Death and Destruction are in these kingdoms veiled and dressed up with titles of honour, in purple and state; that in this terrestrial Paradise thou shalt meet with a fiery sword, the wrath of God, and from this imaginary painted heaven be thrown into hell itself: Here now is thy trial; here thou art put to thy choice. If thy heart can say, I will have none of these; If thou canst say to thy Flesh, What hast thou to do with me? who gave thee authority? who made thee a ruler over me? If thou canst say to the Spirit, Thou art in stead of God to me; If thou canst say with thy Saviour, Avoid, Satan; I know no power in heaven or in earth, no dominion, but Christ's, than thou art in his house, in his service (which is no service, Rom. 8.21. but the glorious liberty of the sons of God) than thou art in him; thou mayest assure thyself, thy residence, thy abode, thy dwelling is in Christ. 3. If we dwell in Christ, we shall rely and depend on him as on our tutelary God and Protector. And so we may be said to dwell in him indeed as in a house, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, says the Civilian, our fort and sanctuary; common perfugium, saith Tully, our common place of refuge. And what is our hope? whither should we fly, but to him? I am thine, Psal. 119.94. Psal. 73.25. save me, saith David, because I am thine; because I have none in heaven but thee, and on earth desire none besides thee. Thou art my house, my castle, my fortress and defence, thou art my hope to the end of the world, thou art my Christ. And this is a principal mark of a true Christian, of a man dwelling in Christ, that he wholly flingeth himself into his protection, that he here fixeth his hope, and doth not busy himself to find any shelter but here. For as the full persuasion of the almighty power of God was the first rise to Religion, the fountain from which all worship, whether true or false, did flow, (for without this persuasion there could be none at all) and we find this relying on God's power not only rewarded but magnified in Scripture; so the acknowledgement of God's wonderful power in Christ (by which he is able to make good his rich and glorious promises, to subdue his and our enemies, to do abundantly above all that we can conceive, to work joy out of sorrow, peace out of trouble, order out of confusion, life out of death) is the foundation, the pillar, the life of all Christianity: And if we build not upon this, if we abide not, if we dwell not here, we shall not find a hole to hid our heads. For man, (such is our condition) even when he maketh his nest on high, when he thinketh he can never be moved, when he exalteth himself as God, is a weak, indigent, insufficient creature, subject to every blast and breath, subject to misery as well as to passion, subject to his own, and subject to other men's passions; when he is at his highest pitch, shaken with his own fear, and pursued with other men's malice, rising and soaring up aloft, and then failing, sinking, and ready to fall; and when he falleth, looking about for help and secure. When he is diminished and brought low by evil and sorrows, he seeketh for some refuge, some hole, some Sanctuary to fly to, as the Wiseman speaks of the Coneys; They are a generation not strong, and therefore have their burrows to hid themselves in, Prov. 30.26. Now by this you may know you dwell in Christ, If when the tempest cometh; you are ready to run under his wing, and think of no house, no shelter, no protection but his. Talk what we will of Faith; if we do not trust and rely on him, we do not believe in him. For what is Faith, but as our Amen to all his promises, our subscription to his Wisdom and Power and Goodness? And here we fix our tabernacle, and will abide till the storm be overpast. Believe in him, and not trust in him? You may say as well the Jews did love him when they nailed him to the cross. Matth. 8.26. Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? said Christ to his Disciples. That Faith was little indeed which would let in fear when Christ, the Wisdom of the Father and the mighty Power of God, was in the ship; little, less than a grain of mustardseed, which is the least of seeds; so little, that what Christ calleth there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, little faith, he plainly calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unbelief, Matth. 17.20. The faith of this world, the weak and cowardly faith of this world, speaketh of principalities and powers, great swelling words, yet at the sight of a cloud not so big as a man's hand striketh in, and is not seen, but leaveth us groaning under every burden, (for to such a faith every light affliction is a burden) leaveth us to complaints and despair, or to those inventions which will plunge us in greater evils then those we either suffer or fear. The unbelieving man, that dwelleth not in Christ, hath either no place to fly to, or else that he flieth to is as full of molestation and torment as that he did fly from. He flieth to himself from himself: He flieth to his wit, and that befooleth him; he flieth to his strength, and that overthroweth him; he flieth to his friend, and he faileth him. He asketh himself counsel, and mistrusteth it; He asketh his friend counsel, and is afraid of it. He flieth to a Reed for a staff, to Impotency and Folly; and hath not what he looked for when he hath what he looked for. He is ever seeking ease, and never at rest. And when these evils without him stir up a worse evil within him, a conscience which calleth his sins to remembrance, what a perplexed and distracting thing is he? what shifts and evasions doth he catch at? He runneth from room to room, from excuse to excuse, from comfort to comfort. He fluttreth and flieth to and fro, as the Raven, and would rest, though it were on the outside of the Ark. This is the condition of those who are not in Christ. But he that dwelleth in him, that abideth in him, knoweth not what Fear is, Col. 2.3. because he is in him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and power are hid, and so hath ever his protection about him. He knoweth not what danger is; for Wisdom itself conducteth him. He knoweth not what an enemy is; for power guardeth him. He knoweth not what misery is; for he liveth in the region of happiness. He that dwelleth in him cannot fear what Man, what Devil, what Sin can do unto him, because he is in his armoury, abideth safely as in a Sanctuary, 2 Tim. 1.12. under his wing. I know whom I have trusted, saith S. Paul; not the World; not my friends, not my Riches, not myself. Not only the World and Riches and Friends are a thin shelter to keep off a storm, but I know nothing in myself to uphold myself: but I know whom I have trusted, my Christ, my King, my Governor and Counsellor, who hath taken me under his roof, who cannot deny himself, but in these evil days, in that great day, will be my patron, my defence, my protection. Thus doth the true Christian dwell & abide in Christ, 1. admiring his majesty, 2. loving his command, 3. depending wholly upon his protection. These three fill up our first part, our first proposition, That some act is required on our parts, here expressed by dwelling in him. We pass now to our second, That something is also done by Christ in us, some virtue proceedeth from him, which is here called dwelling in us. There goeth forth virtue and power from him, from his promises, from his precepts, from his life, from his passion and death, from what he did, from what he suffered, as there did to the woman who touching the hem of his garment was healed of her bloody issue; Mark 5. Luke 8. a power by which he sweetly and secretly and powerfully characterizeth our hearts, and writeth his mind in our minds, and so taketh possession of them, and draweth them into himself. The Apostle telleth us he dwelleth in us by his spirit; Rom. 8, 11, 14 and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life; Eph. 2.22. and that we are the habitation of God through the spirit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his tabernacle, his temple, which he consecrateth and setteth apart to his own use and service. There is no doubt but a power cometh from him; but I am almost afraid to say it, there having been such ill use made of it. For though it be come already, Rom. 1.16. (for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation) yet is it still expected: expected indeed, rather than hoped for. For when it doth come, we shut the door, and set up our will against it; and then look faintly after it, and persuade ourselves it will come at last, once for all. There is power in his Precepts: for our Reason subscribeth, and signeth them for true. There is power in his Promises; they shine in glory: These are the power of Christ to every one that believeth: And how can we be Christians, if we believe not? But this is his ordinary power, which like the Sun in common profertur, is shown on all at once. There yet goeth a more immediate power and virtue from him, (we deny it not) which like the wind worketh wonderful effects: but we see not whence it cometh, John 3.8. nor whither it goeth, neither the beginning, nor the end of it, which is in another world. The operations of the Spirit, by reason they are of another condition than any other thought or working in us whatsoever, are very difficult and obscure, as Scotus observeth upon the Prologue to the Sentences, for the manner not to be perceived, no not by that soul wherein they are wrought. Profuisse deprehendas; quomodo profuerunt, non deprehendes, as Seneca in another case; That they have wrought you shall find; but the secret and retired passages by which they wrought are impossible to be brought to demonstration. But though we cannot discern the manner of his working, yet we may observe that in his actions and operations on the soul of man he holdeth the course even of natural agents, in this respect, that they strive to bring in their similitude and likeness into those things on which they work, by a kind of force driving out one contrary with another to make way for their own form. So Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac Jacob, and every creature begetteth according to its own kind. Plato said of Socrates' wise say that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the children of his mind, so resembling him that you might see all Socrates in them. So it is with Christ: Where he dwelleth, he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself. He altereth the whole frame of the heart, driveth out all that is contrary to him, 2 Cor. 10.5. all imaginations which exalt themselves against him, and never leaveth purging and fashioning us till a new creature like himself be wrought, till Christ be fully form in us. Gal. 4.19. So it is with every one in whom Christ dwelleth. And this he doth by the power of his Spirit, 1. by quickening our Knowledge; by showing us the riches of his Gospel, his beauty and majesty, the glory and order of his house, and that with that convincing evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship; by filling our soul with the glory of it, as God filled the tabernacle with his Exod. 40. that all the powers and faculties of the soul are ravished with the sight, and come willingly, as the Psalmist speaketh, fall down willingly before him; by moving our soul as our Soul doth our Body, that when he saith Go, we go; and when he saith, Do this, we do it. So it is in every one in whom Christ dwelleth. 2. He dwelleth in us by quickening and enlivening our Faith. Eph. 3.17. He dwelleth in our hearts by faith so that we are rooted and grounded in love. We read of a dead faith, Jam. 2.20. a faith which moveth no more in the ways of righteousness than a dead man sealed up in his grave. And if the Son of man should come, he would find enough of this faith in the World. From hence, from this that our Faith is not enlivened, that the Gospel is not throughly believed, but faintly received cum formidine contrarii, with a fear, or rather a hope, that the contrary is true, from hence proceed all the errors of our lives. From hence ariseth that irregularity, those contradictions and inconsequences in the lives of men, even from hence, that we have Faith but so as we should have the World: We have it as if we had it not, 1 Cor. 7. and so use it as if we used it not, or, which is worse, abuse it: Not believe, and be saved; but believe, and be damned. And we are vain men, James 2.20. saith S. James, if we think otherwise, if we think that a dead faith can work any thing, or any thing but death. But when it is quickened, and made a working faith, when Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith, than it worketh wonders. We read of its valour, that it subdueth kingdoms, Hebr. 11.23. and stoppeth the mouths of lions. We read of its policy, 2 Cor. 2.11. that it discovereth the Devil's enterprises or devises. We read of its medicinal virtue, Acts 15.9. that it purifieth the heart. We read too furta fidei, the thefts and pious depredations of Faith; It stealeth virtue from Christ, Matth. 9.20, 21. and taketh heaven by violence. Yea, such a wonderful power it hath in that soul in which Christ dwelleth, & 11.12. that it worketh out our corruption, and stampeth his image upon us: It worketh in us the obedience of faith, Rom. 1.5. that is, that obedience which is due to Faith, and to which Faith naturally tendeth, and to which it would bring us, if we did not dull and dead and hinder it. Christ first worketh in us a universal and equal obedience. For if he dwell in us, every room is his. There are, saith Parisiensis, particulares voluntates, particular wills, or rather particular inclinations and dispositions, to this virtue, and not to another; as, to be liberal, but not temperate; to be sober, but not chaste; to fast, and hear, and pray, but not to do acts of mercy. These are virtues but in appearance; they proceed from rotten and unsound principles, from a false spring, but not from Christ. And so they make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite; a good speaker, Duos in uno homine Syllas fuisse crediderit, Valerius Max. l. 6. c. 9 and a bad liver; a Jew and a Christian; an Herode, and a John Baptist; a Zealot, a Phinehas, and an Adulterer; and, as the Historian said, two Sylla's in one man; like a Playbook and a Sermon bound up together. But these, I told you, are not true virtues, but proceed many times from the same principles which vices do: for I may be a Hypocrite and a man of Belial for the same end. But where Christ dwelleth he purgeth the whole house, not one, but every faculty of the soul, that is the whole man; as he raised not a part, but all Lazarus. For if any part yet favour of rottenness and corruption, we cannot say that Lazarus is risen. He worketh, I say, an universal and equal obedience, in every respect answering to the command and working of Christ, as a Circle doth in every part look upon the point or Centre. Secondly, Christ worketh in us an even and constant obedience. The Apostle calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Col. 2.5. the firmity and steadfastness of our faith in Christ. The Philosopher well observeth that the Affections do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. l. 2. Ethic. c. 1. 5. lightly move us, raise some motion in the mind, trouble us, and vanish; so that one affection many times driveth out another, as Amnon did Tamar, our Love ending in Hatred, our sorrow in Anger, and our Fear in Joy: But from Virtue we are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be strongly disposed, to be confirmed and established in our actions. So the reason of that unevenness, instability and inconstancy in the conversation of men, that they are now loud in their Hosanna, and anon as loud in their Crucifige, now in Abraham's bosom, and anon into Dalilah's lap, now fight, anon cursing, now very Seraphical, and anon wallowing in the mire, is from this, That they have no other motive, no other principle, than peradventure some private respect, or a weak impression of some good lesson they have lately heard, and some faint radiations from the truth; and therefore they can rise no higher than the Fountain, and will soon run out with it. Now it is not so with the true Christian, in whom Christ dwelleth. He moveth with the Sun, which never starteth out of his sphere; he hath Christ living in him, and the power of the Gospel assisting him in every motion; and so cannot have these qualms of devotion, these waver, this unevenness, these Cadi-surgia, Ephr. Sytus. as the Father calleth them, these rise and fall, these marches and halts, these proffers and relapses, because Christ is living in him, 1 John 3.9. 1 Pet. 1.5. because the seed of God abideth in him, and he is kept by this power of Christ unto salvation. Thirdly, Christ worketh a sincere and real obedience in that heart in which he dwelleth: And this is proper to the true Christian. For the actions of an hypocrite are not natural, but artificial, not like unto the actions of a living soul, but like unto the motions of that artificial body which Albertus made, not proceeding from any life, but forced as it were by certain wheels and engines, by Love of a good name, by Fear of smart, or Hope to bring their purposes about. Thus many times the Hypocrite walketh to his end in the habit of a Saint, when no other appearance will serve. But where Christ dwelleth, there is his Spirit; and where his Spirit is, there is truth; and he fashioneth and shapeth out our affections to the things themselves, and maketh them such as so fair an object requireth. As his promises, so our affections are Yea and Amen. 2 Cor. 1 20. As his reward is real, so is our love to it real. As the Gospel and Heaven and Christ is true, so are our affections towards them hearty and sincere; true, as he is true, and faithful, as he is faithful. So then (to conclude this) Christ dwelleth in every true Christian, not as a contracted or divided Christ, as the ancient Heretics made him, but, as the Apostle speaketh, fully and plentifully. Secondly, he dwelleth in him as Christ, yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever; not as Baal, Hebr. 13.8. 1 Kings 18.27. now present with us, and anon asleep. Lastly, he dwelleth in him, not, as Martion blasphemed, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a phantasm or apparition, (for so he is in every hypocrite) but true and perfect God, by the same power his Father gave him, as truly dwelling in him by his virtue and efficacy as he now doth in glory in the highest heavens. And now we have have seen both the parts; 1. Our part, to dwell in Christ; 2. His gracious act, to dwell in us. Let us a little look back upon this great light, and see what matter it will further afford us for our instruction. First, we must look back upon the resemblance, the two Cherubins, and see how they keep their places, and never turn away the face, but eye each other continually; and by them learn not to turn away from Christ, but to look up upon the Finisher of our faith, as he looketh upon us; and to dwell in him, as he dwelleth in us: which maketh up our union and communion with Christ, and knitteth us together in the bond of love. As it is between Christ and his Father, so it must be between us and him: I am in the Father, and the Father in me, John 14.11. John 17. and, All mine is thine, and thine mine, and, I glorify him, and he glorifies me. And this relation betwixt him and his Father is the ground and foundation of that reference and union which is between Christ and a regenerate soul. And then see how it echoeth between them? My beloved is mine, Cant. 6.3. John 10.17. & 6.56. and I am my wellbeloveds. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. They dwell in me, and I in them. O happy interchanges! O blessed reciprocation, when Christ looketh upon us in love, and we look back upon him in faith working by love; when he shineth upon us with all his graces, and we reflect back again upon him, not in his person (for he needeth it not, being the fullness of him that filleth all things) but in ourselves, searching the inward man, and decking and preparing a place for him; reflect upon him in that poor Lazar, in those his brethren, and our brethren; nay, even in our enemies, for even in them he is pleading for them, Mat. 5.44. and commanding us to love them; I say unto you, Love your enemies. Nay further yet, reflect upon him in his enemies. And can Christ be in his enemies? Not indeed so near as to dwell in them, but so near unto them as to call unto thee to pray for them, to pity them, to restore them. John 10.16. For even they may be in the number of those his other sheep which he will bring into his fold. Oh remember the resemblance, but withal remember the thing too, and be very careful to uphold this relation, this blessed reciprocation between Christ and thy soul. Secondly, from this great sight, Christ dwelling in Man, and Man in Christ, let us rouse up ourselves, and take courage to set a price upon ourselves, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. as Pythagoras counselled, to honour and reverence ourselves, to remember we are Men, and so have something of God in us, are made partakers of the high calling in Jesus Christ, and not to debase and dishonour ourselves, to become vile in our imaginations, and place them on that which is far below the exalted nature of Man. And shall I persuade you to think well of yourselves? I may as well make use of Logic, and raise arguments to prevail with a hungry man to eat. For how greedily do we suck in air? What a perfume is the breath of fools? In what perfection of beauty would we be seen to every man? In what shape of glory would we be fixed up in their fancy? What gods would we be taken for? Praise is a most sweet note, and we delight to hear it? But what a thunderclap is a reproach? How sick are we of a reprehension? What a loss is the loss of another man's thought? What an Anathema is it (it is a vulgar phrase) to be out of his books? And yet in the midst of all disgraces and calamities, when we are made the scorn of the world, when fools laugh at us, and drunkards sing of us, nay, when wisemen condemn us, amongst them all there is none who entertaineth a viler thought of us than we do of ourselves: for we think ourselves good for nothing but to be evil. We think indeed we highly honour ourselves when we take the upper seat and place others at our footstool; when with Herode we put on royal apparel and make us a name; when men bow before us, and call us their Lords: we think so, and this thought dishonoureth us, degradeth us from that high honour we were created to. For is not the life better than meat, Matth 6.25. and the body than raiment? Is not the soul better than all these? 1 Cor. 9.27. Then we honour ourselves, when we beat down our bodies, Rom. 12.16. when we beat down our minds, and make ourselves equal to them of low degree: Then we tread the ways of honour, look towards our original, Isa. 51.1. unto the rock out of which we were hewn, are candidates of bliss, Matth. 8.11. and stand for a place in heaven, to sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. Synes. ep. 57 For Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an honourable creature, of a high and noble extraction; honourable no doubt, seeing the Son of God was content to die for him, only that he might dwell in him. And if Christ, who knew well the worth of a soul, did so honour us as to unite our nature in his person, and lift up himself upon his Cross to draw our persons after him, then will it necessarily follow (and Ingratitude itself cannot deny the consequence) that we also ought to honour ourselves, and not fall under the vanity of the creature in a base disesteem of ourselves, as if we were fit for nothing but to be fuel for hell; not make that a stews of uncleanness, a forge of mischief, a workhouse of iniquity, which Christ did choose to make his house to dwell in, his temple to sit in, and his heaven to reign in. Oh, let us remember our high extraction, our heavenly calling, and not thus uncover ourselves, be thus vile and base in the sight and presence of Christ. And that we may thus honour ourselves, our third inference shall be for caution, That we do not deceive ourselves, and think that Christ dwelleth in us, when we carry about us but slender evidence that we dwell in him. It is an easy matter to be deceived; and we never fall with such a slide and easiness into any error, as into that which is most dangerous and fatal to the soul. In the affairs of this life, Lord, how cautelous are we! We ask counsel, we look about us, we use our own eyes, and we borrow other men's eyes: and if we be overreached, how discontent and crestfallen are we, as those who have been beaten in battle, and have lost the day: but in that which most concerneth us we seek out many inventions, we harken to every false Prophet, to ourselves the worst counsellors that are; we study to be deceived, and count it a punishment to be taught. And thus we see some flattering Christ with their lips, some breathing forth blasphemy against him, and yet all Christians: Some oppressors, grinding his face; some revengers, Errantis paena est doceri, Plat. piercing his sides; the sacrilegious robbing him; most treading him under foot; and yet all Christians: Some free from gross and open, yet full of speculative and secret sins, of envy, malice and rancour, and yet all Christians. Be not deceived. Christ may dwell in us with our infirmities, so they be but infirmities; but not with our wilfulness and hypocrisy. He that taketh courage to venture on a sin because it is a little one, maketh it a great one; and it is not infirmity, but presumption. Christ, saith S. Bernard, was born indeed in a stable, but not in a sty, and will bear with something that favoureth of the man, of the brutish part of the man, but not with foul pollutions and wilful abominations, not with those sins which lay waste the conscience, and devour all the better part, all that is Spirit within us. He is indeed a house, a sanctuary for every troubled soul, but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a common receptacle, for all offenders, as Celsus bitterly urged against Christ in Origen; not a companion for thiefs and harlots, but a Physician to heal them; not a house for every thief to lurk in, nor a temple for Satyrs and profane persons to dance in. If we dwell in Christ, we dwell in a Lamb; which we cannot do with so much of the Lion and Viper, so much rage and malice and venom within us. Last of all, some there be (and that not a few) who think they dwell in Christ, when they join themselves to such a Church, such a company, such a congregation; think themselves in the habitations of peace, when they are in the tents of Kedar, of blackness and darkness. And this is the great error of those of the Church of Rome, which draweth with it all the rest, beareth a train like the red Dragon's tail in the Revelation, which swept down a third part of the stars, Rev. 12.4. and cast them to the earth. For doth she not in a manner tell us that within her territories we are safe, upon what terms soever we stand with Christ; and though we dwell in Christ, that is, perform all Christian duties, yet if we dwell not in her, be not incorporated with her, our faith, our hope, all our endeavours are in vain, and so instead of a Church we have set up an idol, as great an idol as they have made the Virgin Mary: For the one as well as the other must go for a Mother of mercy. And do we not with grief behold it so in other factions, though as distant from this as the East is from the West? Do they not meet in this, to count all goats that are not within their fold, to leave no way to happiness but in their company? Do not they look upon their condition as most deplorable who do not cast in their lots with them, who are not of the same collection and discipline, of their fraternity, which they call the Church of Christ? Why should men thus flatter themselves? It is not our joining to this particular Church, or that new-phancied and new-gathered Congregation, but our dwelling in Christ, our eating his flesh and drinking his blood, our feeding on and digesting his Doctrine, growing thereby, can make us Christians. And as an unnecessary separating myself from, so an uncharitable and supercilious uniting myself with this or that Congregation may endanger my estate and title in Christ, and my dwelling in the one (if I take not heed) may dispossess me of the other. For I conceive there is no policy, no discipline so essential to the Church as piety, as our obedience to Christ. Suppose I were in a wilderness, did my soul lie, as David speaketh, Psal. 57.4. amongst lions, yet might I dwell in Christ. Be the government and outward policy what it will, nay, be there but a slender appearance of any, yet might I dwell in Christ. Nay, did Persecution seal up the Churth-doors, and leave no power to censure inordinate livers; were there no more left than a DIC FRATRI, Tell it to thy brother between thee and him; Matth. 18.15. yet might I dwell in Christ. Heb. 11.37, 38. Else why was their faith commended who wandered up and down in sheepskins and goatskins, in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth? But then, if we dwell not in Christ, if we do not love him, and keep his Commandments, I cannot see what Church, what Congregation can be a sanctuary to shelter us. Our crying, The Church, The Church, will be but as the Jews crying, The Temple, Jer. 7.4. 1 Cor. 13.1. The Temple of the Lord, but as the sound of brass, or or tinkling of a cymbal; a sad knell, a fearful sign and indication of men departed from Christ, and cast out of doors, being dead in their sins. Oh then let us take heed, as the Apostle exhorteth, that no root of bitterness spring up to trouble us, Heb. 12.15. and thereby to trouble corrupt and defile many; that we bless not ourselves in our hearts, and say, Deut. 29.19. We shall have peace, when we walk in these unpeaceable imaginations, call that Religion which is indeed sensuality. For when one saith, 1 Cor. 3.4. I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollo's; when one saith, I am of this Congregation, and another, I am of that; are ye not carnal; And we may observe, the Apostle doth not say, when one is, or, when one thinketh he is; but, when he saith that he is, when he is so pleased and delighted in it, so resteth upon it that he must vent and preach and publish it to the prejudice and censure of oothers, then, when they thus say it, are they not carnal? Do they not please themselves, and commit folly in their own souls? Where Pride mixeth and engendereth with Covetousness and Worldly respects, and begetteth Malice, Debate, Envy, Backbiting, Persecution, let us then take heed of this root of bitterness, that beareth gall and wormwood, and let us watch over ourselves, that we embrace not a name for a thing, a company for a Church, our humour and fancy for Christ, and tha●●e do not so join ourselves with others that we lose our hold and place in Christ. Therefore, in the last place, let us make a strict survey, and impartially commune with our own hearts, and see how we have held up the relation between Christ and us, whether we can truly say we are his people, and he is our God. This added to the rest maketh up a number, an account. Without this our joining with such a body or company, nay our appearing in his Courts, our naming him, and calling upon his name, are but cyphers, and signify nothing. It is not the Church, but the Spirit of Christ, and our own consciences, which can witness to us that we are inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, and dwell in Christ. We read Gen. 45. that when Jacob had news that his son Joseph lived, his heart fainted, for he believed them not; but at the sight of the chariots which Joseph sent to carry him his spirit revived: So it is here: When we shall be told, or tell ourselves (for ourselves are the likeliest to bring the news) that we have been of such a Church, of such a Congregation, and applaud ourselves for such a poor and unsignificant information, bless ourselves, that the lines are fallen unto us in so goodly a place, Psal. 16.6. when we shall have well looked upon and examined all the privileges and benefits we can gain by being parts of such a body, all this will not assure us, nor fix our anchor deep enough, but will leave us to be tossed up and down upon the waves of uncertainty, fainting and panting under doubt and unbelief. For, to recollect all in a word, our admiring the Majesty of Christ, our loving his command, our relying on his protection, and resting under the shadow of his wing; again, our sense and feeling of the operation of the Spirit of Christ, by the practic efficacy of our knowledge, the actuation and quickening of our faith, and the power of it, working an universal, constant, sincere obedience, these are the chariots which Christ sendeth to carry us out of Egypt unto our celestial Canaan. And when we see these, and by a sweet and well-gained experience feel the power of them in our souls, than we draw near in full assurance; then we joyfully cry out with Jacob, It is enough; then we know that our Joseph is alive, and that Christ doth dwell and live in us of a truth. And now to conclude, and by way of conclusion to enforce all these, to imprint and fasten them in your hearts, what other motive need I use then the thing itself, Christ in Man, and Man in Christ? For if honour, or delight, or riches will move us, here they are all, not as the world giveth them, but as Truth itself giveth them. A sight into which the Angels themselves stoop and desire to look into. 1 Pet. 1.12. To be in Christ, to dwell in Christ, if a man did perfectly believe it of himself that he were the man, non diu superstes maneret, said Luther, he would even be swallowed up, and die of immoderate joy. Here now is Life and Death set before us, Heaven and Hell opened to our very eye. If we do not dwell in Christ, if we be not united to him, we shall join ourselves with something else, with flesh and blood, with the glory and vanity of the world, which will but wait upon us to carry us to our grave, feed us up and prepare us for the day of slaughter. Oh who would dwell in a land darker than darkness itself? who would be united with Death? But if we dwell in Christ, and he in us; if he call us, My little children, and we cry, Abba Father; then; what then? Who can utter it? The tongue of Men and Angels cannot express it. Then as he said to the Father, All mine are thine, and thine are mine, so all his is ours, John 17.10. Col. 1.24. and all ours is his. Our miseries are his; and when we suffer, we do but fill up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ. He is in bonds, in disgrace, in prison with us; and we bear them joyfully, for we bear them with him who beareth all things. Our miseries, nay, our sins are his: He took them upon his shoulder, upon his account: He sweat, he groaned, he died under them, and by dying took away their strength. Nay, our good deeds are his; and if they were not his, they were not good: Hebr. 13.15. for by him we offer them unto God, by his hand, in his name. He is the Priest that prepareth and consecrateth them. Our Prayers, our Preaching, our Hearing, our Alms, our Fasting, if they were not his, Nazianz. were but, as the Father calleth the Heathen man's virtues, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a fair name, a title of health upon a box of poison, the letter Tau written in the forehead of a reprobate. Again, to make up the reciprocation, as all ours are his, so all his are ours. What shall I say? His Poverty, his Dishonour, his Sufferings, his Cross are ours. Yes, they are ours, because they are his. If they had not been his, they could not be ours; none being able to make satisfaction but he, none that could transfer any thing upon man but he that was the Son of man and Son of God. His Miracles are ours: for for us men and for our salvation were they wrought. His Innocency, his Purity, his Obedience are ours: For God so dealeth with us for his sake, as if we were innocent and pure, as if we ourselves had satisfied. Let S. Paul conclude for me in that divine and heavenly close of the third chapter of his former Epistle to the Corinthians, Whether Paul, or Apollo's, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is Gods. And if we be Christ's, Rom. 8.17. than we be heirs, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. As he is heir, so have we in him right and title to be heirs, and so we receive eternal happiness not only as a gift but as an inheritance. In a word, we live with him, we suffer with him, we are buried with him, we rise with him: and when he shall come again in glory, we, who dwell in him now, shall be ever with him, even dwell and reign with him for evermore. The Sixteenth SERMON. PART I. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.— Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: For why will ye die, O house of Israel? WE have here a sudden and vehement outcry, Turn ye, turn ye. And those events which are sudden and vehement (the Philosopher telleth us) do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, leave some notable mark and impression behind them. An earthquake shaketh and dislocateth the earth; a whirlwind rendeth the mountains, and breaketh in pieces the rocks. What is sudden, at once striketh us with fear and admiration. Greg. in loc. Certainly reverenter pensandum est, saith the Father; This call of the Prophet requireth a serious and reverend consideration. For if this vehement ingemination be not sharp and keen enough to enter our Souls, and divide asunder the joints and the marrow, here is a Quare moriemini? a Reason to set an edge on them. If his gracious and earnest call, his Turn and his Turn will not turn us, he hath placed Death in the way, the King of terrors, to affright us. If we be not willing to die, we must be willing to turn. If we will hear Reason, we must hearken to his Voice. And if he thus sendeth his Prophets and his voice from heaven after us, if he make his Justice and Mercy his joint Commissioners to force us back; if he invite us to turn, and threaten us if we do not turn, either Love or Fear must prevail with us to turn with all our hearts. And in this is set forth the singular mercy of our most gracious God. Parcendo admonet, ut corrigamur poenitendo. Before he striketh he speaketh. When he bendeth his bow, when his deadly arrows are on the string, yet his warning flieth before his shaft, his word is sent out before the judgement, the lightning is before his thunder. Ecce, saith Origen, antequam vulneramur monemur. When we (as the Israelites here) are running on into the very jaws of Death, when we are sporting with our destruction in articulo mortis, when Death is ready to seize on us, and the pit openeth her mouth to take us in, the Lord calleth and calleth again, Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. And if all this be too little, if we still venture on and drive forward in forbidden and dangerous ways, he draweth a sword against us, and setteth before us the horror of death itself, Why will ye die? Still it is his word before his blow, his Convertimini before his Moriemini, his praelusoria arma before his decretoria, his blunt before his sharp, his exhortations before the sentence. Non parcit, ut parcat; non miseretur, ut misereatur. He is full in his expressions, that he may be sparing in his wrath. He speaketh words clothed with death, that we may not die; and is so severe as to threaten death, that he may make room for his mercy, and not inflict it. Why will ye die? There is virtue and power in it to quicken and rouse us up, to drive us out of our evil ways, that we may live for ever. This is the sum of the words. The parts are two: 1. an Exhortation, 2. an Obtestation or Expostulation; or a Duty, and a Reason urging and enforcing that Duty. The Exhortation or Duty is plain, Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; The Obtestation or Reason as plain, Why will ye die, O house of Israel? I call the Obtestation or Expostulation a Reason: and good reason I should do so; For the Moriemini is a good Reason; That we may not die, a good Reason why we should turn. But it being tendered to us by way of expostulation, it is another Reason, and maketh the Reason operative and full of efficacy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reason invincible and unanswerable. For this very Expostulation is an evidence fair and plain enough that God would not have us die: and then it is as plain, that if we die, we have killed and destroyed ourselves against his will. Of these two in their order; And first of the Exhortation and Duty. In which we shall pass by these steps or degrees: 1. We will look up upon the Author, and consider whose Exhortation it is; 2. Upon the Duty itself; and 3. in the last place, upon that pugnacem calorem, that lively and forcible heat of iteration and ingemination, Turn ye, turn ye, the very life and soul of Exhortation. And first we ask. Quis? Who is he that is thus urgent and earnest? And, as we read, it is Ezekiel the Prophet. And of Prophets S. Peter telleth us that they spoke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Pet 1.21. as they were moved by the holy Ghost. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Bas. in Isai. 1. And they received the word, non auribus, sed animis, not by the hearing of the ear, but by inspiration and immediate revelation, by a divine character and impression made in their souls. So that this Exhortation to repentance will prove to be an Oracle from heaven, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Divine and celestial remedy, the prescript of Wisdom itself, and to have been written with the finger of God. And indeed we shall find that this duty of Turning, the true nature of Repentance, was never taught in the School of Nature, never found in its true effigies and image, in all its lines and dimensions, in the books of the Heathen. The Aristotelians had their Expiations, the Platonics their Purgations, the Pythagoreans their Erinnys; but not in relation to God or his Divine goodness and providence. Tert. De poenit. Aratione ejus tantum abfuerunt, quantum à rationis autore; They were as far to seek of the true reason and nature of Repentance as they were of the God of Reason himself. Many useful lessons they have given us, and some imperfect descriptions of it, but those did rise no higher than the spring from whence they did flow, the treasure of Nature, and therefore could not lift men up to the sight of that peace and rest which is eternal. They were as waters to refresh them; and indeed they that tasted deepest of them had most ease, and by living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according to the directions of Nature, gained that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that peace and composedness of mind, which they 〈…〉 Happiness, and which was all they could attain to. Tully and C●●●●● not such divided and distracted souls as Catiline and Cethegus; Aristot. l. 1. Eth. c. 13. 〈◊〉 had not those ictus & laniatus, those gashes and rents in his heart, 〈◊〉 had. Even their dreams were more sweet and pleasant than those of other men, as being the resultancies and echoes of those virtuous actions which they drew out in themselves by no other hand than that of Nature; which looked not beyond that frailty which she might easily discover in herself, and so measured out their happiness but by the Span, by this present life: Or if she did see a glimpse and faint show of a future estate, she did but see and guests at it, and knew no more. Reason itself did teach them thus much, that Sin was unreasonable. Nature itself had set a mark upon it, omne malum aut timore aut pudore suffudit, had either struck Vice pale, Tert. De poenit. or died it in a blush; did either lose the joints of sinners, or change their countenance, and put them in mind of their deviation from her rules, by the shame of the fact, and the fear they had to be taken in it. These two made up that fraenum naturae, that bridle of Nature, to give wicked men a check, and make them turn, but not unto the Lord. For were there neither heaven nor hell, neither reward nor punishment, yet whilst we carry about with us this light of Reason, Sin must needs have a foul face, being so unlike unto Reason. And if we would suffer Reason to come in to rescue, when our lose affections are violent, we should not receive so many foils as we do. A natura sequitur ut meliora probantes, Quint. l. 6. c. 6. pejorum poeniteat. Not to sin, to forsake sin, Nature itself teacheth; but Nature never pointed out to this plank of Repentance, to bring a shipwrackt soul to that haven of rest which is like itself, and for which it was made immortal. Turn ye, turn ye, is dictum Domini, a doctrine which came down from heaven, and was brought from thence by him who brought life and immortality to light. 2 Tim. 1.10. For it is impossible that it should ever fall within the conceit of any reasonable creature to set down and determine what satisfaction is to be made for an offence committed against a God of infinite Majesty. What fit recompense can God receive from the hand of Dust and Ashes? What way can Men find out to redeem themselves, who are sold under sin? Ten thousand worlds were too little to pay down for the least of those sins which we drink down as an Ox doth water. The Ocean would not wash off the least spot that defileth us. All the beasts of the Mountains would not make a sacrifice. Spiritus fractus, Psal. 51.17. Naz. Or. 3. sacrificia Dei. Other Sacrifices have been the inventions of men, of the Chaldeans, and Cyprians, and but occasionly and upon a kind of necessity providently enjoined by God: But a relenting and turning heart is his Sacrifice, nay his Sacrifices, instar omnium, worth all the sacrifices in the world; his own invention, his own injunction, his own dictum, his own command. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He hath but one sacrifice, Naz. Or. 15. and that is the sacrifice of purgation, a cleansed, purged, contrite heart, a new creature. For when the inventions of men were at a stand, when Discourse and Reason were posed, and could make no progress at all in the ways of happiness, not so far as to see our want and need of it; when the earth was barren, and could not bring forth this seed of Repentance; Lib. De poenit. Deus eam sevit, saith Tertullian; God himself sowed it in the world, made it publici juris, known to all, That he would accept of a Turn of true Repentance, as the only means to wash away the guilt of sin, and reconcile the Creature to his Maker. So that as Theodoret called the Redemption of mankind the fairest and most eminent part of God's Providence and Wisdom, so may we too give Repentance a place and share, as without which the former, in respect of any benefit that can arise to us, is frustrate and of no effect. A thing it is which may seem strange to flesh and blood: Quod fieri posse Cicero non putavit, Lact. l. 6. De ver. cult. c. 24. and Lactantius telleth us that Tully thought it impossible. But indeed a strange thing it may seem, that the sigh of a broken heart should slumber a tempest, that our sorrow should bind the hands of Majesty, that our repentance should make God himself repent, our Turn turn him from his wrath, and a change in us alter his decree. Therefore to Julian that cursed Apostate it appeared in a worse shape, not only as strange but as ridiculous. Where he bitterly derideth Constantine for the profession of Christianity, Julian. Caesar. he maketh up the scoff with the contempt and derision of Repentance: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Whosoever is a corrupter or defiler of women, whosoever is a , whosoever is an unclean person, may be secure: It is but dipping himself in a little water, and he is forthwith clean. Yea, though he wallow again and again in the mire, and pollute himself with the same monstrous sins, let him but say he hath sinned, and at the very word the sin vanisheth: Let him but smite his breast, or strike his forehead, and he shall presently without more ado become as white as snow. And it is no marvel to hear an Apostate blaspheme (for his Apostasy itself was blasphemy) no more than it is to hear a Devil curse: Both are fallen from their first estate, both hate that estate from whence they are fallen, and they both howl together for that which they might have kept, and would not. Upon repentance there is DICTUM DOMINI, Thus saith the Lord; and this is enough to shame all the wit; and confute all the blasphemy of the world: As I live, saith the Lord, I will not the death of a sinner, but that he turn. And in this consisteth the privilege and power of our Turn: This maketh Repentance a virtue; and by this word, by this institution, and the grace of God annexed to it, a Turn shall free us from death, a tear shall shake the powers of heaven, a repentant sigh shall put the Angels into passion, and our Turning from our sin shall turn God himself from his fierce wrath, and strike the sword out of his hand. Turn ye, turn ye, then is Dictum Domini, a voice from Heaven, a command from God himself. And it is the voice and dictate of his Wisdom, an attribute he much delighteth in, more than in any of the rest, saith Nazianzene: Orat. 1. It directeth his Power: for whatsoever he doth is done in wisdom, Wisd. 11.20. in order, number, and measure. Whatsoever he doth is best. His rain falleth not, his arrows fly not, but where they should, to the mark which his Wisdom hath set up. It accompanieth his Justice, and maketh his ways equal in all the disproportion and dissimilitude which showeth itself to the eye of flesh. It made all his Judgements and Statutes. It breathed forth both his Promises and Menaces, and will make them good. In Wisdom he made the heavens, and in Wisdom he kindled the fire of hell. Nothing can be done either in this world or the next which should not be done. Again, it ordereth his Mercy: for though he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, Exod. 33.19. Rom. 9.15, 18. yet he will not let it fall but where he should, not into any vessel but that which is fit to receive it. Psal. 145.9. His Wisdom is over all his works, as well as his Mercy, He would save us, but he will not save us without repentance. He could force us to a Turn, and yet I may truly say he could not, because he is wise. He would not have us die, and yet he will destroy us if we will not turn. He doth nothing, either good or evil, to us, which is not convenient for him, and agreeable to his Wisdom. Nor can this bring us under the imputation of too much boldness, to say the Lord doth nothing but what is convenient for him: for it is not boldness to magnify his Wisdom. They rather come too near, and are bold with Majesty, who fasten upon him those counsels and determinations which are repugnant and opposite to his Wisdom and Goodness, and which his soul hateth; as, That he did decree to make some men miserable, to the end he might make his Mercy glorious in making them happy; that he did of purpose wound them that he might heal them; That he did threaten them with death whose names he had written in the book of life, That he was willing Man should sin, that he might forgive him; That he doth exact that Repentance as our duty which himself will work in us by an force; That he commandeth, intreateth, beseecheth others to turn and repent, whom himself hath bound and fettered by an absolute decree that they shall never turn; That he calleth them to repentance and salvation whom he hath damned from all eternity. If any, certainly such beasts as these deserve to be struck through with a dart. No, it is not boldness, Exod. 19.12. Hebr. 12.20. but humility and obedience to God's will, to say He doth nothing but what becometh him and what his Wisdom doth justify. Eph. 1.8. He hath abounded towards us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Paul, in all wisdom and prudence. His Wisdom findeth out the means of salvation, and his Prudence ordereth and disposeth them. His Wisdom showeth the way to life, and his Prudence leadeth us through it to the end. Wisdom was from everlasting. Prov. 8.23. And as she was in initio viarum, in the beginning of God's ways, so she was in initio Evangelii, in the beginning of the Gospel, which is called the wisdom of God: And she fitted and proportioned means to that end, means most agreeable and connatural to it. She found out a way to conquer Death, and him that hath the power of Death, the Devil, Hebr. 2.14. with the weapons of Righteousness; to dig up Sin by the very roots, that no work o● the flesh might shoot forth out of the heart any more; to destroy it in its effects, that though it be done, yet it shall have no more force than if it were annihilated, then if it had never been done; and to destroy it in its causes, that it may be never done again; Immutabile, quod factum est: Quint. l. 7 to draw together Justice and Mercy, which seemed to stand at distance, and hinder the work, and to make them meet and kiss each other in Christ's Satisfaction and ours: for our Turn is our satisfaction, all that we can make. Condigna estsatisfactio mala facta corrigere, & correcta non reiterare, Bern. de ●ust. Dom. c. 1. Satisfactio, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Antioch. ●●neil. can 2. These she hath joined together, never to be severed; Christ's Sufferings with our Repentance; his agony with our sorrow, his blood with our tears, his flesh nailed to the cross with our lusts crucified, his death for sin with our death to it, his resurrection with our justification. For he bore our sins that he might cast them away, he shed his blood to melt our hearts, he died that we might live and turn unto the Lord, and he risen again for our justification, and to gain authority to the doctrine of Repentance. Our CONVERTIMINI, our Turn, is the best Commentary on his CONSUMMATUM EST, It is finished: for that his last breath breathed it into the world. We may say it is wrapped up in the Inscription, John 19.19. JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS: For in him, even when he hung upon the cross, were all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge hid. Col. 2.3. In him his Justice and Mercy are at peace: for, to reconcile us unto God, he reconciled them one to another. The hand of Mercy was lifted up, ready to seal our pardon; we were in our blood, and her voice was, Live; we were miserable, Ezek. 16.6. and she was ready to relieve us; our heart was sick, and her bowels yerned: But than Justice held up the sword, ready to latch in our sides. God loveth his Creature, whom he made; but hateth the Sinner, whom he could not make: And he must strike, and yet is unwilling to strike. If Justice had prevailed, Mercy had been but as the morning dew, Hos. 6.4. & 13.3. and soon vanished before this raging heat: And if Mercy had swallowed up Justice in victory, God's hatred of sin and his fearful menaces against it had been but bruta fulmina, and portended nothing, but been void and of none effect. Psal. 130.3. Deus purgari homines à peccato maxime cupit, ideoque agere poenitentiam jubet. Lact. l. 6. c. 24. If God had been extreme to mark what is done amiss, men would have sinned more and more, because there would have been no hope of pardon: And if his Mercy had sealed an absolute pardon, men would have walked delicately, and sported in their evil ways, because there would have been no fear of punishment. And therefore his Wisdom drew his Justice and Mercy together, and reconciled them both, in Christ's propitiatory Sacrifice and our duty of Repentance, the one freeing us from the guilt, the other from the dominion of sin. And so both are satisfied, Justice layeth down the sword, and Mercy shineth in perfection of beauty. Rom. 3.3. God hateth Sin, but he seethe it condemned in the flesh of his Son, and fought against by every member he hath: He seethe it punished in Christ, and punished also in every repentant sinner that turneth from his evil ways: He beholdeth the Sacrifice on the Cross, and the Sacrifice also of a broken heart, and for the sweet savour of the one he accepteth the other, and is at rest. Christ's death for sin procureth our pardon, and our death to sin sueth it out. Christ suffereth for sin, we turn from it. His satisfaction at once wipeth out the guilt and penalty, our Repentance by degrees destroyeth Sin itself. Tert. De anima, c. 1. Haec est sapientia de schola caeli; This is the method of Heaven; This is that Wisdom which is from above: Thus it taketh away the sins of the world. And now Wisdom is complete; Justice is satisfied, and Mercy triumpheth: God is glorified, Man is saved, and the Angels rejoice. Heus tu, peccator, De poenit. c. 8. bono animo sis, vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur, saith Tertullian; Take comfort, sinner; thou seest what joy there is in heaven for thy return. What music there is in a Turn, which beiginneth on earth, but reacheth up, and filleth the highest heavens! A repentant sinner is as a glass, or rather Gods own renewed image, on which God delighteth to look; for there he beholdeth his Wisdom, his Justice, his Mercy, and what wonders they all have wrought. Behold the Shepherd of our souls! see what lieth upon his shoulders! Luke 15.5, 6. You would think a poor Sheep that was lost: Nay, but he leadeth Sin and death and the Devil in triumph: And thou mayest see the very brightness of his glory, and the express image of his three most glorious attributes, which are not only visible, but also speak unto us to follow this heavenly method. His Wisdom instructeth us, his Justice calleth upon us, and his Mercy, his eloquent Mercy, bespeaketh us; a whole Trinity of Attributes are instant and urgent with us, to turn from our evil ways. And this is the Authority (I may say, the Majesty) of Repentance: It hath these three, God's Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, to seal and ratify it, and make it authentic. We come now to the Dictum itself. It being God's, we must well weigh and ponder it. And we shall find it comprehendeth the duty of Repentance in its full latitude. As Sin is nothing else but aversio à Creatore, & conversio ad creaturam, an aversion and turning of the soul from God, and an inordinate conversion and application to the Creature; so by our Repentance we do refer pedem, start back, and alter our course, work and withdraw ourselves from evil ways, and turn to the Lord, by cleaving to his laws, which are the mind of the Lord; and having our feet enlarged, we run the way of his commandments. A strait line drawn out at length is of all lines the weakest, and the further you draw it, the weaker it is; nor can it be strengthened but by being redoubled and bowed and brought back again towards its first point. The Wise man telleth us that God at first made man upright, Eccles. 7.29. that is simple and single and sincere; bound him as it were to one point; but he sought out many inventions, mingled himself and engendered with divers extravagant conceits, and so ran out not in one but many lines, drawn out now to this object, by and by to another, still running further and further, sometimes on the flesh, sometimes on the world; now on Idolatry, anon on Oppression; and so at a sad distance from him in whom he should have dwelled and rested as in his centre. Therefore God, seeing Man gone so far, seeing him weak and feeble, wound and turned about by the activity of the Devil and sway of the Flesh, and not willing to lose him, ordained Repentance as a remedy, as in instrument to bend and bow him back again, that he might recover, and gain strength and subsistency in his former and proper place; to draw him back from those objects in which he was lost, and to carry him on forward to the rock out of which he was hewed. Whilst he is yet in his evil ways, all is out of tune and order: for the Devil, who hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Chrysost. hom. de Penitent. invert the order of things, placeth shame upon Repentance, and boldness and senslesness upon Sin: But Repentance is a perfect Methodist; upon our turn we see the danger we played with, and the horror of those paths in which we sported: we see in our flight a banishment, in every sin a hell and in our turn a Paradise. Divers words we have to express the true nature of Repentance, but none more usual, full and proper than this of Turning: This includeth all the rest. It is more than a bare Knowledge of our sins, more than Grief, more than an Acknowledgement or Confession, more than a Desire of change, more than an Endeavour: For if we do not turn a termino, ad terminum, from one term or state to another; from every sin we now embrace, to its contrary; if we do not fly and loathe the one, and rest and delight in the other; our Knowledge of sin is but an accusation, our Grief is but a frail and vanishing displacency, Lugentibus lachryma quietis & recreationis loco sunt. Moses Mairmon. Doct. perplex. l. 3. c. 41. our Tears are our recreation, our Desires but as thought, and our endeavours proffers: But if we turn, and our turn be real, these instruments or antecedents, These disposing and preparing acts must needs be so also, true and real. We talk much of the Knowledge and Sense of our sin, when we cannot be ignorant of it; of Grief, when we have no feeling; of Confession and Acknowledgement, when the heart is not broken; of a Desire to be good, when we resolve to be evil; of an Endeavour to leave off our sins, when we feed and nourish them, and even hire them to stay with us: — In udo est Maenas & Attis. Pers. sat. 1. Our Repentance is languid and faint, our Knowledge without observation, our Grief without compunction, our Acknowledgement without trepidation, our Desire without strength, and our Endeavour without activity. But they are all complete and made perfect in our Turn and Conversion: If we turn from our sins, than we know them, and know them in their deformity, and all those circumstances which put so much horror upon them. If we turn, our head will be a fountain of tears, Jer. 9.1. and the eye will cast out water; our Confession will be loud and hearty, Lam. 1.16. our Desire eager and impatient, our Endeavours strong and earnest and violent. This Turn is as the hinge on which all the rest move freely and orderly. Optima paenitentia, nova vita, saith Luther; The best and truest repentance is a new life. A Turn carrieth all the rest along with it to the end, the end of our Knowledge, of our Grief, of our Acknowledgement, of our Desires and Endeavours. For we know our sins, we bewail them, we acknowledge them, we desire and endeavour to leave them, in a word, we turn, that we may be saved. First, it includeth the Knowledge of our sins. He that knoweth not his malady, will neither seek for cure, nor admit it. He that knoweth not the danger of the place he standeth in, will not turn his face another way. Isid. Pelusiot. l. 1111. ep. 149 He that dwelleth in it as in a paradise will look upon all other that yield not the same delight as upon hell itself. He that knoweth not his ways are evil will hardly go out of them. Malum notum res est optima, saith Luther; It is a good thing to know evil. For the knowledge of that which is evil can have no other end but this, To drive us from it to that which is good. When Sin appeareth in its ugliness and monstrosity, when the Law and the Wrath of God and Death itself display their terrors, that face is more than brass or adamant that will not gather blackness, and turn itself. But this prescript, To know sin, one would think should rather be tendered to the Heathen then to Christians. Act 15.29. Quando hoc factum non est? quando reprehensum? quando non permissum? Cic. pro M. Caelio. Rom. 1.31. To them some sins were unknown, as Revenge, Ambition, Fornication, and therefore they are enjoined to abstain from them; yet even those which the light of Nature had discovered to them, they did commit, though they knew that they who did commit them were worthy of death. But to Christians it may seem unnecessary: For they live in the Church, which is spoliarium vitiorum, a place where Sin is every day reviled and disgraced, where it is anatomised, and the bowels and entrails, yea every sinew and vein of it shown. I should say our Church were Reform indeed, if we did commit no sins but those we do not know. Many things we do, saith the Philosopher, Ethic. 1.3. c. 22 (we may say, Most sins we commit) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not which Reason persuadeth, but which the Flesh betrayeth us to; Pers. Sat. 5. not to which our Knowledge leadeth us, but our Sensuality. Stat contra ratio; Reason, when we sin, is not so foiled or beaten down, but it standeth up against us, and opposeth us to our face. It telleth the Miser that Covetousness is idolatry; Cor. 3.5. the Wanton, that Lust is that fire which will consume him; the Revenger, that diggeth his own grave with his sword. It is indeed commonly said that reason is corrupt; but the truth is, that which we call corrupt Reason is our passion or sensuality; for that cannot be Reason which directeth us to that which is unreasonable. The sense doth too oft get the better, but can never silence or corrupt Reason so as to make it call evil good, or good evil: That is the language of the Beast, of the Sensual part. And for aught I see, we may as well assign and entitle our good actions to our Sensitive part, when we keep, as our bad to our Reason, when we break the Law. Reason never yieldeth, and our Knowledge is still the same. In Lust it commendeth Chastity, in Anger meekness, in Pride Humility. When we surfeit on those delights which Sin bringeth with it, our Reason plainly telleth us that they are deadly poison. We need not then be over solicitous to secure this Ingredient, the Knowledge of our sins, to bring it into the Recipe of our Repentance. For there be but few which we know not, fewer which we may not know if we will, if we will but take the pains to put it to the question either before the act, What we are about to do; or after, What it is we have done. For it is a Law, a plain Law, we are to try it by, not a dark riddle. And if we do mistake, it is easy to determine what it was that did work and frame and polish the cheat. Not a sin cometh with open mouth to devour us, and swallow up our peace, but it is but of that bulk and corpulency that we cannot but see it: and though we may peradventure here turn away our eye, yet we cannot put it out. Our Knowledge will not forsake us; and our Conscience followeth our Knowledge. This may sleep, but cannot die in us. This is an evil spirit that all the music in the world will not ease us of. Though we set up bulworks against it, compass ourselves about with variety of Delights, and fence ourselves in with Honour and Power, which we make the weapons of unrighteousness, yet it will at one time or other make its sallies and eruptions, and disturb our peace. God hath placed it in us, Exod. 28.30. as he fixed the Vrim and Thummim on the breastplate of judgement, by which he might give answer unto us what we are to do, what not to do; what we have done well, and what amiss; as he did to the Priest, who by the viewing the Breastplate saw whether the people might go up, or not go up. But when we have once defiled our Conscience, we care not much for looking towards it; and we lose the use of it in our slavery under Sin, Esr. 2.63. Neh. 7.65. Psal. 19.12. Levit. 4.2. Heb. 9.7. as they lost the use of their Vrim and Thummim at the Captivity of Babylon. But than who knoweth how oft he offendeth? who knoweth his unadvised errors? his inconsiderate sins? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his ignorances', those which he entertaineth, as the Septuagint render it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unwillingly, which steal in upon him at unawares, even whilst he is busy in subduing others; as we see one part of an army may be surprised, and fly, whilst the other conquereth. The best of men through the frailty and mutability of their nature may receive many such blows, and not feel them. It fareth with us in the course of our life as it doth with travellers in their way; Many objects, many sins, we pass by, and not so much as cast an eye that way, which yet in themselves are visible enough, and may be seen as well as those we look upon with some care, and sometimes with astonishment. Yet even these secret and retired sins are known and condemned both by our Fear and Hatred. We know such there be, though we know not what they are, nor can call them by their name: and our begging pardon for them is our defiance of them, and declareth not only our sorrow for them, but our anger against them; it breatheth revenge, though we know them not, and sheweth how roughly and disdainfully we should handle them if we did. The Knowledge then of our sins is a thing presupposed in our Turn. And so, in the next place, is the Grief and Sorrow which ordinarily doth arise from such a convincement. Some displacency it will work, though not of strength enough to move us or drive us from that which we make a paradise, but is our Tophet; and turn us to embrace that condition and estate which at first presenteth the horror of a prison, but is a sanctuary. Now Grief is not sub praecepto, under any command; Quint. Decl. 185. nor indeed can it be. Medicamenta mandata non accipiunt. You may prescribe Physic, but you give it not with a command; nor can you say, Thus it shall work. You may exhort me to look about me, and consider my estate, but you cannot bid me grieve. When we wish men to fear, or hope, to be sad, or merry, we speak improperly and ineffectually, unless our meaning be they should enter into those considerations which may strike a fear, or raise a hope, work a sorrow, or beget a joy. The Apostle preacheth to the Jews, Acts 2. putteth his goad to their sides, and the Text saith, They were pricked in their heart: Acts 2.37, 38. and it followeth, Then Peter said unto them, Repent. His words were sharp, and did prick them at the heart, but they were no commands. The command is, Repent, and be baptised. What a sea of words may flow, and yet not a drop fall from our eye? What fearful prognostics may we see, what mournful threnodies may we hear, and yet not be cast down, or change the countenance? Nay, what penance may we undergo, and yet not grieve? For Grief followeth the Apprehension and Knowledge of the object, and riseth and falleth with it, varieth as that varieth. If our Apprehension be clear, our Sorrow will be great: if that be pure, this will be sincere; if it be inward, this will be deep. But if it be superficial this will be but in the face; if it be flitting and unsettled, this will vanish at the sight of the next object which presenteth itself with less distaste; vanish like the lightning, which is seen, and gone. Sin is a heavy burden, Psal. 38.4. saith David. It is so, when it is felt, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, hard to be born; Moles, saith Augustine, of a great bulk and weight: And it is not a sigh or a groan, a forced displacency, it is not such weak and faint heaves of the soul, that can remove such a mountain. Isa. 38.14. We see some who mourn like a dove, and chatter like a crane, when the hand of God toucheth them for their sin; who speak mournfully, look mournfully, go mournfully all the day long; who are cast down (you would think indeed) to the lowest pit: and it is easy to mistake a Pharisee for a Penitentiary. We read of some who did afflict and penance themselves with so much severity that they fell in morbum poenitentialem, as Rhenanus observeth upon Tertullian, into a strange distemper which they called the poenitentiary disease, because it was contracted in the days of Penance. But all this doth not make up the full face of Repentance, nor complete our Turn. We may hang down our head like a bulrush, Isa. 58.5. we may fast till we have more need of a Physician then a Divine, (and yet too much need of both) we may even seem to be afraid of ourselves, to be weary of ourselves, to run out of ourselves, and yet not Turn: For these may be rather apparitions than motions. Fasting Lamentation, and that displacency which sin carrieth naturally along with it, are glorious expressions and probable symptoms of a wounded spirit, but yet many times they are nothing else but the types and shadows of Repantance, signa non signantia, signs indeed, but such as signify nothing. Qui peccata deplorat, ploranda minimè committat, saith Gregory; He truly bewaileth his sin, who doth no longer practise what he will be forced to bewail. He giveth a perfect account of his debts, who is resolved never to add to the Bills. He truly turneth, who will never look back. Haec poenitentiae vox est, In Psal. 118. lacrymis orare, saith Hilary; Tears and Complaints are the voice and language of Repentance. If you see a Turn, you see a Change also in the countenance. But many times vox est, & praeterea nihil; it is the voice of Repentance, and nothing else. For Sorrow and Dejection of mind have not always the same beginnings, nor do our Tears constantly flow from the same spring and fountain. Omnis dolor fundatur in amore, say the Schools; All Grief is grounded on Love. For as it is my Joy to have, so is it my Grief to want what I love. And our Grief may have no better principle than the Love of ourselves, and then it cometh à fumo peccati, from the troublesome smoke which Sin maketh, or rather from the very gall of bitterness; a Grief begot betwixt Conscience and Lust, betwixt the Deformity of Sin and the Pleasure thereof, betwixt the Apprehension of a real evil and the Flattery of a seeming good; When I am troubled, not that I have sinned, but that it is not lawful to sin; much disquieted within me that that sin which I am unwilling to fly from is a serpent that will sting me to death, Prov. 20.17. Prov. 23.32. that there is gravel in the bread of deceit; that that unlawful pleasure which is at present as sweet as honey, should at last by't like a cockatrice; that the ways in which I walk with delight should lead unto death; that that Sin which I am unwilling to fling off, hath such a troop of Sergeants and Executioners at her heels: And so it cometh à fumo gehennae, from the smoke of the bottomless pit, from Fear of punishment; which is far from a Turn, but may prepare, mature and ripen us for Repentance. But than it may come from the Fear of God wrought in us by the apprehension of his Justice and Mercy, and Dominion and Power to judge both the quick and the dead: And this Grief is next to a Turn, and the immediate cause of our Conversion; when out of the admiration of God's Justice, Majesty and Goodness I am willing to offend myself for offending him, and offer up to him some part of my substance, the Anguish of my soul, the Groans of contrition, and my Tears, Anastast. Bibl. Patrum. which are ex ipsa nostra essentia, sicut sanguis martyrum, from our being and essence, and are offered up as the blood of Martyrs. 3. And this Grief will, in the third place, open our mouths and force us to a Confession and Acknowledgement of our sins: I mean a sad and serious acknowledgement, which will draw them out, and not suffer them to be pressed down, and settle, like foul and putrified matter, in the bottom of the soul, as Basil expresseth it. For the least grief is vocal, In Psal. 38. the least displacency will open our mouths: Yea, where there is little sense, or none, we are ready to complain. And, because S. Paul's Humility brought him so low, we look for an absolution, if we can say (what we may truly say, 1 Tim. 1.15. but not with S. Paul's spirit) that we are the chiefest of sinners. Nothing more easy then to libel ourselves, where the Bill taketh in the whole world. And the best of Saints as well as the worst of sinners, Psal. 51.5. how willing are they to confess with David that they are conceived in sin, and born in iniquity? How ready are we to call ourselves children of wrath, and workers of all unrighteousness? What delight do we take to miscall our virtues? to find infidelity in our Faith, wavering in our Hope, pride in our Humility, ignorance in our Knowledge, coldness in our Devotion, and some degrees of Hostility in our very Love of God? What can the Devil, our great adversary and accuser, say more of us than we are well pleased to say of ourselves? But this Acknowledgement is but the product of a lazy Knowledge? and a faint and momentany disgust. It cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoic speaketh, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Epict. Arr c 2. c. 15.1. It is but the calves of our lips, not the sacrifice of our hearts. We breathe it forth with noise and words enough. We make our sins innumerable, Psal. 40.12. more than the hairs of our head, or the sands on the seashore: but bring us to a particular account, and we find nothing but cyphers, some sins of daily incursion, some of sudden subreption, some minute and scarce visible sins, but not the figure of any sin which we think will make up a number. He that will confess himself the chief of sinners, upon the must gentle remembrance and meekest reprehension will be ready to charge you as a greater, or peradventure take you by the throat. But this is not that Confession which ushereth in Repentance, or forwardeth and promoteth our Turn. It is rather an ingredient to make up the cup of stupefaction, which we take down with delight, and then fall asleep, and dream of safety and peace in the midst of a tempest, yea, even when we are on the brink of danger, and ready to fall into the pit. David, it is true, 2 Sam. 12.13 Aug. Hom 4.1 In his tribus syllabis flamma sacrificii coram Domino ascendit in coelum. said no more but Peccavi, and his sin was taken away. Tantum valent tres syllabae, saith S. Augustine; Such force there was in three syllables. And can there be virtue in syllables? No man can imagine there can. But David's heart, saith he, was now a sacrificing; and on these three syllables the flame of that sacrifice was carried up before the Lord into the highest heavens. If our Knowledge of our sins be clean and affective, if our Grief be real, than our Confession and Acknowledgement will be hearty; Isa. 16.11. Job 30.27. Lam. 1.20. our bowels will sound as a harp, our inwards will boil, and not rest, our heart will tremble and be turned within us; our sighs and groans will send forth our words, as sad messengers of that desolation which is within: Our heart will cry out as well as our tongue. My heart, my heart is prepared, saith David; Psal. 57.7. which is then the best and sweetest instrument when it is broken. 4. And these three, in the fourth place, will raise up in us a Desire to shake off these fears, Heb. 12 1. and this weight which doth so compass about and enfold us. For who is there that doth see his sins, weep over them, exsecrate them by his Tears, and condemn them by his Confession, that doth see Sin clothed with death, the Law a kill letter, the Judge frowning, Fletus humana●um necessitatum verecunda exsecratio, Sen. Contr. 8.6. Death ready with his dart to strike him through that would be such a beast as to come so near, and hell opening her mouth to take him in, and doth not long and groan and travel in pain and cry out to be delivered from this body of death? Who would live under a conscience that is ever galling and gnawing him? What prisoner, that feeleth his fetters, would not shake them off? Certainly he that can stand out against all these terrors and amazements, that can thwart and resist his Knowledge, wipe off his Tears, fling off his Sorrow, baffle and confute his own Acknowledgement, slight his own Conscience, mock his Distaste, trifle with the Wrath of God which he seethe near him, and play at the very gates of Hell; he that is in this great deep, and will not cry out; he that knoweth what he is, and will be what he is; knoweth he is miserable, and desireth not a change; such an one is near to the condition of the damned Spirits, who howl for want of that light which they have lost, and detest and blaspheme that most which they cannot have; who because they can never be happy, can never desire it. But to this condition we cannot be brought till we are brought under the same punishment; which nevertheless is represented to us in this life, in the sad thoughts of our heart, in the horror of sin, and in a troubled conscience, that so we may avoid it. The type we see now, that we may never see the thing itself: And the sight of this (if we remove not our eye at the call and enticement of the next approaching vanity, which may please at first, but in the end will place before us as foul an object as that we now look upon) will work in us a desire to have that removed which is now as a thorn in our eyes; a desire to have God's hand taken off from us, and those sins too taken away which made his hand so heavy; a desire to be freed from the guilt, and from the dominion of sin; a desire that reacheth at liberty, Tusc. q. l. 5. and at heaven itself. Eruditi vivere, est cogitare, saith Tully; Meditation is the life of a Scholar. If the mind leave off to move and work and be in agitation, the man indeed may live, but the Philosopher is dead. And, Vita Christiani, sanctum desiderium, saith Hierom; The life of a Christian is nothing else but a holy desire drawn out and spent in prayers, deprecations, wishes, obtestations, pant and long, held up and continued by the heat and vigour and endless unsatisfiedness of the desire, which, if it slack and fail, or end in an indifferency or lukewarmness, leaveth nothing behind it but a lump and mass of corruption: for with it the life is gone, the Christian is departed. 5. But, in the last place, this is not enough, nor will it draw us near enough unto a Turn. There is required, as a true witness of our Convincement, of our Sorrow, of the heartiness of our Confession, of the truth of our desire, a serious Endeavour, an eager contention with ourselves, an assiduous violence against those sins which hath brought us so low, even to the dust of death and the house of the grave; and Endeavour to order our steps, to walk contrary to ourselves, to make a covenant with our eye, to purge our ear, to cut off our hand, to keep our feet, to forbear every act which carrieth with it but the appearance of evil, to cut off every occasion which may prompt us to it; an Endeavour to work in the vineyard, to exercise ourselves in the works of piety, to love the fair opportunities of doing good, and to lay hold on them, to be ambitious and inquisitive after all those helps and advantages which may promote this endeavour, and bring it with more ease and certainty to the end. This is as the heaving and struggling of a man under a burden, as the striving in a snare, as the throws of a woman in travail, who longeth to be delivered; this is our knocking at the gates of heaven, our flight from the wrath to come. Thus do we strive and fight with all those defects which either Nature began or Custom hath confirmed in us. Thus do we by degrees work that happy change, that we are not the same but other men. Val. Max. l. 8. c. 7. As the Historian speaketh of Demosthenes, whose studiousness and industry overcame the malignity of nature, and unloosed his tongue, Alterum Demosthenem mater, alterum industria enixa est, The mother brought forth one Demosthenes, and industry another; so by this our serious and unfeigned endeavour eluctamur per obstantia, we force ourselves out of those obstacles and encumbrances which detained us so long in evil ways, we make our way through the clouds and darkness of this world, and are compassed about with rays of light. Nature made us men; evil Custom made us like the beasts that perish; Grace and Repentance make us Christians, and consecrate us to eternity. All these are in our Turn, in our Repentance; but all these do not complete and perfect it. For I am not turned from my evil ways, till I walk in good; I have not shaken off one habit, till I have gained the contrary; I am not truly turned from one point, till I have recovered the other; I have not forsaken Babylon, till I dwell in Jerusalem. Turn ye from your evil ways, in the holy language is, Turn unto me with all your heart. Work out one habit with another. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. 2. Ethic. c. 1. Let your actions now control and demolish those which you built up so fast. That which set them up, will pull them down, Perseverance and Assiduity in action. The Liberal hand casteth away our Alms and our Covetousness together; Often putting our knife to our throat destroyeth our Intemperance; Often disciplining our flesh crucifieth our Lusts; Our acts of Mercy proscribe Cruelty; Our making ourselves eunuches for the Kingdom of heaven stoneth the Adulterer; Our walking in the light is our turn from darkness; Our going about and doing good is our voluntary exile and flight out of the world and the pollutions thereof: Then we are spiritual, when we walk after the Spirit, and when we thus walk we are turned. I know Repentance in the writings of Divines is drawn out and commended to us under more notions and considerations then one. It is taken for those preparatory acts which fit and qualify us for the Kingdom and Gospel of Christ: Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matth. 3.2. It is taken for that change in which we are sorry for our sin, and desire and purpose to leave it; which serves to usher in Faith and Obedience. But I take it in its most general and largest acception, for Leaving of one state and condition, and constant cleaving to the contrary; for Getting ourselves rid of every evil habit, and investing ourselves with those which are good; or to speak with our Prophet, Ezek. 18.27, 31. for Turning away from wickedness, and doing that which is lawful and right, for Casting away all our transgressions, and making us new hearts and new spirits. I am sure this one syllable Turn will take in and comprehend it all. For what is all our preparation, if when we come near to Christ, we start back? what are the beginnings of obedience, if we revolt? what is the bend or Turn of our intention, if we turn aside like a deceitful bow? what is our sorrow, if it do but bow the head, and leave the heart as wanton as before? what is our desire, if we have but the strength of a thought? what is our endeavour, if it shrink and contract itself, and is lost at the sight of the next temptation? But our Turn supposeth all these, and taketh in all the dimensions of Repentance, the body and full compass of it; and though it be but a word, yet it is as expressive and significant as any other in Scripture, and containeth them all. It includeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our Regeneration. For if we turn, we turn à termino ad terminum, Titus 3.7. from one term to another. And as in generation and our natural birth there is Non ens tale and ens tale, a progress or mutation from that which was not to that which now is, so it is in our Turn. It was Nehushtan, a rude piece of brass; it is now a polished statue of Piety: It was a child of wrath; Luke 15. 3●. it is now a child of blessings: Rom. 12.2. It was dead, and is alive. And it taketh in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Cor. 5.17. our Renovation or Renewing. Behold, old things are passed away, all things are become new. The sinner that turneth leaveth his strange apparel and his filthy rags behind him, and cometh forth glorious in the robes of righteousness. And it comprehendeth our Cleansing or Purification. i Cor. 5.7. He that turneth from his evil ways, hath purged out his old leaven, and is made a new lump. Repentance is as Physic to the soul, but not to be given ad pondus & mensuram, so many grains, or so many drams, by measure and proportion. Non est piriculum nè sit nimium, quod ei maximum debet. We may take too little; there is no fear at all that we should take too much of it. Repentance for our sins is the business of our whole life. For indeed what is Perseverance, but an entire and continued Repentance, a constant turning away from our evil ways? When Sin hath corrupted our faculties, we purge it out by Repentance: and when it is dead, we bury it by Repentance; and it is quite lost and forgotten in the ways of righteousness. And being turned, we never look back, never cast a thought after it but with sorrow and anger and detestation. And when it appeareth before us, it appeareth in a fouler shape and in greater horror than we beheld it in when we first fell upon our knees for pardon. For the more confirmed we are in goodness, the more abhorrent we are of evil, and defy it most when we stand at the greatest distance. We never loathe our disease more than when we are purged and healthy. There is another word, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which hath a good sense put upon it, which yet the word doth not naturally yield. Matth. 21.32. It rather signifieth a trouble of mind then a turn. It is spoken of Judas himself, Matth. 27.3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he repent himself: And what a Repentance was that, which he should have repent of? what a Turn was that, that choked him? Had his Turn been right, he might have died a Martyr, who died a Traitor, and a murderer of his Master and himself. L. 27. c. 2. De Aconito; Ea est natura, ut hominem occidat, nisi invenerit quod in homine perimat. Deep melancholy and trouble of mind is like that poisonous plant which Pliny speaketh of, which if it do not take away the disease, killeth the man. Judas indeed was called the son of perdition, but it was because he destroyed himself. But there yet is another word, which is more proper, and more used, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Turn and change of the mind. What? of the Understanding? (There may be such a change, and yet no Turn, no Repentance. For how many have been brought to a knowledge of their sins, who could never be induced to leave them!) nay, but of the Will. For this sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the primitive, and the compounds of it, 1 Cor. 2.16. do bear Who hath known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the mind, the will, the decree of the Lord? Rom. 1.28. And, God delivered up those that retained him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to a reprobate mind, that is, a will to do those things which are not convenient; not to knowledge of evil, but to the practice of it. And, To those who are defiled, saith S. Paul Tit. 1.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, even their mind, that is their will, is corrupted; as appeareth by their evil works in the next verse. So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signify a good understanding, or a good mind or opinion; These will beget but a compliment, but good words, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; James 2.16. nor a good wish; but a good will, which giveth those things which are needful for the body. In like manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, signifieth not only prescience and foresight, but government, care, and direction, which are free actions of the Will. We might instance in more, but to our present purpose; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, primarily and properly signifieth an act of the Will, not as it necessarily followeth the act of the Understanding, but as it ought to follow by the command of God, although we see it doth not always follow. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, not knowing, that is, not willing to know, that it leadeth thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to repentance? Rom. 2.4. And the Apostle speaketh to those who did judge such things, yet did the same, v. 3. and did know the will of God, v. 18. So, Repent, and do the first works, Rev. 2.5. And in most places it is thus taken. You may call it a Transmentation; but it is a subduing and turnning of the Will and Affections, that the whole man may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Nazianz. not the same, but another man: before hurried away by his passion, but now walking by the right rule; before spreading and diffusing himself on variety of unlawful objects, now recollected into himself, and looking forward on God alone. Why will ye die? The main Turn is of the Will. For we see the face of it, here in the Text, is set upon Death itself; and therefore to be turned away. It is not our natural concupiscence, not the dulness of our Understandings, not the violence of our Passion, not our Weakness, that we die; it is our Will destroyeth us. If the Will be turned, the Understanding is also changed, not to know what it cannot be ignorant of, but to be subservient and instrumental to the Will, in drawing it nearer and nearer to that end for which it hath determined its act, in finding and squaring out materials to the building up of the temple of the Holy Ghost. For Heaven is Heaven, and Hell is Hell, Virtue is Virtue, and Vice is Vice to the Understanding, nor can it appear otherwise: For in these we cannot be deceived. What Reason can that be which teacheth us to act against Reason; Gen. 27.40. Esau knew well enough that it was a sin to kill his brother; but his Reason taught him to expect his Father's funeral. 1 Kings 21. Ahab knew it was a crying sin to take Naboth's vineyard from him by violence; and therefore he would have paid down money for it. And his painted Queen knew as much: but that the best way to take possession of his vineyard was to dispossess him of his life, and that the surest way to that was to make him a blasphemer, this was the effect and product of Reason and Discourse; Which is the best servant when the Will is right, and the worst when she is irregular. Reason may seek out many inventions for evil, and she may discover many helps and advantages to promote that which is good; she may draw out the method which leadeth to both, find out opportunities, bring in encouragements and provocations to both; but Reason never yet called evil good, or good evil: for than it is not Reason. The Apostle hath joined both together, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If they be wicked, they are unreasonable and absurd, 2 Thes. 3.2. for they do that which Reason abhorreth and condemneth at the first presentment. So the Will, you see, is origo boni & mali, the principal cause of good and evil. That I will not understand when I cannot but understand, is from the Will. That the Judge is blind when he seethe well enough what is just and what is unjust, is not from the Bribe, but the Will. That my Fear shaketh me, my Anger inflameth me, my Love transporteth me, my Sorrow casteth me down, and my Joy maketh me mad, that my Reason is instrumental and active against itself, that my Passions rage and are unruly, is from my Will, which being fastened to its object draweth all the powers of the Soul after it. And therefore, if the Will turn, all these will turn with it, turn to their proper offices and functions; the Understanding will be all light, and the Affections will be all peace: for the proper act of every faculty is its peace. When the Understanding contemplateth that truth which perfecteth it, it resteth upon it, and dwelleth there, as upon a holy hill: But when it busieth itself in those things which hold no proportion with it, as gathering of wealth, raising of a name, finding out pleasures, when it is a Steward and Purveyour for the Sense, it is restless and unquiet; it now findeth out this way, anon another, and by and by disapproveth them both, Affectiones ordinata sunt virtutes, Gers. and contradicteth itself in every motion. When our Affections are leveled on that for which they were given us, they lose their name, and we call them Virtues; but when they fly out after every impertinent object, they fly out in infinitum, and are never at their end and rest. Place Love on the things of this world, and what a troublesome and tumultuous passion is it, tiring itself with its own haste, and wasting and consuming itself with its own heat? but place it on Piety, and there it is as in its heaven, and the more it spendeth itself, the more it is increased. Let your Anger kindle against an enemy, and it is a Fury that tormenteth two at once; but lay it on your sin, and there it sitteth as a Magistrate on a tribunal, to work your peace. That Sorrow which we cast away upon temporal losses is a disease that must be cured by Time; but our Sorrow for sin is a cure itself, a second Baptism; it washeth away the causes of that evil, and dyeth with it, and riseth up again in comfort. That Joy which is raised out of riches and pleasure is raised as a meteore out of dung, and is whiffed up and down by every wind and breath; but if it follow the harmony and health and good constitution of the Soul, it is as clear and pure and constant as the heavens themselves, and may be carried about in a lasting and continued gyre, but is still the same. And this Turn the Affections will have, if the Will turn; then they turn their faces another way, from Beth aven to Beth-el, from Ebal to Gerizzim, from the Mount of curses to the holy Hill. We cannot think that in this our Turn the powers of the Soul are pulled to pieces, and our Affections plucked up by the roots, that our Love is annihilated, our Anger destroyed, our Zeal quenched. By my Turn I am not dissolved, but better built. I have new Affections, and yet the same; now dead and impotent to evil, but vigorous and active in good. My steps are altered, not my feet, my Affections, cut off. The character is changed, but not the book. That Sorrow which covered my face for the loss of my friend, is now a thicker and darker cloud about it, because of my sin. That Hope which stooped so low, as the earth, as the mortal and fading vanities of the world, is now on the wing, raising itself as high as heaven. That Zeal which drove S. Paul upon the very pricks, to persecute the Church, did after lead him to the block, to be crowned with Martyrdom. If the Will be turned, that is, captivated and subdued to that Will of God which is the rule of all our actions, it becometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a shop and workhouse of virtuous and religious actions; and the Understanding and Affections are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fellow workers with it, ready to forward and complete the Turn. S. Bernard telleth us that nothing doth burn in hell but the Will; and it is as true, Nothing doth reign in heaven but the Will. In it are the wells of salvation, and in it are the waters of bitterness; in it is Tophet, Hom. 8. and in it is Paradise. Totum habet, qui bonam habet voluntatem, saith Augustine. He hath run through all the hardship and exercises of Repentance, who hath, not changed his Opinion, or improved his Knowledge, but altered his Will. For the Turn of the Will supposeth the rest, but the rest do not necessitate this. When this is wrought, all is done, that is, the Soul is enlightened, purged, renewed, hath its Regeneration and new creation. In a word, when the Will is turned, the Soul is saved: the Old man is a New creature; and this New creature changeth no more, but holdeth up the Turn, till he be turned to dust, and raised again, and then made like unto the Angels. The Seventeenth SERMON. PART II. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, etc. THis Turn is a Turn of the whole man, of the Understanding, of the Affections, yea, of the Senses, of the Eye, of the Ear, from vanity of the Taste, from forbidden fruit of the Touch, from that which it must not handle; a Turn of the outward man as well as the inward, of the deportment and behaviour, of every motion and gesture: but the principal and main Turn is of the Will, from that which is not worth a look or a thought to that which is desirable in itself, and doth alone perfect and in a manner glorify it in its approximation to and union with the Will of God. We may say of it as Tertullian doth of the Soul itself, It is Totum hominis, & toto homine majus quid; De Testim. animae, c. 1. It is as the whole man, and something greater than the whole. It is like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. James, James 3.4. the rudder and helm by which all the other powers and faculties of the soul, and every member of the body, are turned about, when they are driven as it were of fierce winds; and which bindeth them to those objects for which they were especially made, and in which they may rest as in a haven. This is the true Turn. But this itself hath been turned, the Convertimini hath been turned about by the wind of several fancies. Take Origen's conceit, That all things shall return back into God, as all things flowed from him at the first, and then this Turn may seem to reach home to the very Devils themselves. Take the Novatian strictness and severity, and it will not reach so far as Men. Some we see stand much upon an outward visible Turn, upon the ceremony and pomp of Repentance, and so have turned and changed that name, and called it Penance. Others have brought in cervam pro Iphigenia, a beast instead of a virgin, the turn of an erring soul, that will err more and more; or rather exsanguem poenitentiam, an invisible Turn, or a Turn in a picture, a forced sigh, a seeming displacency, open or private Confession, a very thought, for Repentance. Some again extend Repentance ad praeterita, and make it reflect only upon sins past, and so leave us in the very point of turning, turning from our evil ways, but not unto God; which is an act, they say, not of Repentance, but of spiritual Wisdom. This is tuditare negotia, in Lucretius his phrase, to beat out work where there is none, and to make a business and noise where they need not. For what Turn is that which leaveth us where we were? What Repentance is that for which we are not the better? Can we say the evil man is changed, that is not good? or the angry man changed, who is not meek? or the proud changed, Rom. 12.16. who will not make themselves equal to them of the lowest degree? But thus the Convertimini hath been turned about, from the streets to the Temple, from the Temple to the closet, from confession to a sigh, from the eye and tongue to the heart, from the heart to the eye and tongue, and almost lost in the dispute. Repentance is brought forth and presented now in this dress, now in that, (you might think she were turned wanton) but few entertain her in her own shape, in that matrone-like deportment and severity which always attendeth her: Or if they admit her with a whip, it is such a one as ploweth the back, but not toucheth the soul. The doctrine of Repentance hath filled many volumes, but the true practice of it may be comprised in a manual. And yet to settle the Turn upon its proper hinge, that it may turn to the rights, as we say; In this great disagreement every party speaketh some truth, and, for aught appeareth, may subscribe one to the other. The Turn is safe amongst them: for that none deny. Must I confess my sins? The Protestant affirmeth it. Must I renounce my sins? The Papist dareth not deny it. Must I leave my sins? It is true; but it is not enough to make up the Turn: for I may forbear the act, and yet cleave to the sin. I may be an adulterer, and not touch a woman, and remain in the stews, when I am gone out of it. 1 Cor. 9.27. Must I beat down my body, and fast and pray, and for a time deny myself that which is lawful, and which the Giver of every good gift hath put into my hands? This is a Penance which the Protestant will allow. Gal. 5.24. And must I crucify my lusts and unruly affections? This soundeth as loud and is as much cried up at Rome as at Geneva. Public Repentance hath the advantage of Antiquity, whose practice some have thought the best commentary on the Scripture: And the inward Turn is so necessary, that even they commend and require it who are settled on their lees. Contrition is necessary, and New life is necessary; to turn from our evil ways is necessary, and to turn to God is necessary; to abstain from evil is necessary, and to do good is necessary. So that out of these several characters we may draw out the true definition of Repentance, as the Ancients are said out of the several writings of the heathen Philosophers to have made up a complete body of the practic part of Christian Philosophy. You will say, they of Rome make Repentance a Sacrament: An error indeed: but not so bold and pressing on the foundation as many other errors of that Church are. Yet though it be not a Sacrament, let our Repentance be visible: Let our Confession be so hearty that our Absolution may be sealed in heaven. But then they bring in Satisfaction. It is true, they do, and in another dress than that in which the Ancients shown her, even Satisfaction of condignity. There is no reason we should think so: 2 Cor. 7.11. yet let our indignation, our revenge, our zeal be such, as if we meant not only to deprecate, but, if it were possible, to satisfy. Each party may make use of the others conceptions, even of error itself, to the advantage of the truth, and make that which seemeth an argument against him, a remedy, and so fill up the Convertimini, our Turn, in every part. God forbidden we should be of the same opinion in the one, and it will be our greatest happiness to join together, and yet in a holy emulation contend who shall make the fairest progress in the other. Plut. in vitâ Aristidis. If others, as it was observed of those Governors who ruled in Athens before Aristides, bring in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, much ridiculous unnecessary stuff, (as they did build galleries, erect statues, hang up pictures, and the like) let us, with good Aristides, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, bend the whole course of our policy to the raising up of virtue and righteousness; let us bring in such a Repentance, make such a Turn, as may bring us forward towards happiness, by our bringing forth fruits worthy amendment of life. Matth. 3 Then shall the ceremonious part advance the thing itself, and the substance cast a lustre back again upon the ceremony; Then shall our verbal confession be made visible, and our Turn will show that it was more than a voice; Then, when we thus end our fast, it will be plain that God was in capite jejunii, that his grace began it; Then shall our sorrow for our sin be made perfect in our love of goodness, Then shall our righteousness break forth like the light, and shine upon our tears, and our tears cast a glorious radiation, and reflect back again upon our righteousness; Then shall my piety make my sorrow music, and my grief shall water my piety, and make it more abundant; Jer. 9.1. My head shall be a fountain of tears, and my heart a wellspring of life: And this will make up the Convertimini, even accomplish and consummate my Repentance. Thus much in general of the Turn, and the true nature of Repentance. We shall yet press it further, and make it more visible in its Properties; Which we may easily discover in this lively and forcible heat of iteration and ingemination of the word, Turn ye, turn ye. And indeed so remarkable it is that we cannot let it pass, but must stay our meditations, and fix them here, even fix them upon this vehement earnestness and urgency, which is the very life and soul of Exhortation. For some great matter it must needs be, some great danger at hand, that maketh God thus call, and call again, that maketh him thus reiterate his words, Turn ye, turn ye. We may say, his Wisdom, his Justice, his Mercy constrained him; and now he speaketh it as it were in passion. From this it is that Omnipotency itself may seem to bow and descend to wishes, to obtestations, to exhortations, to entreaties, which are far below the Majesty of God; and to call upon us with more earnestness of affection, with more heat and reality, then vile dust and ashes, than Man, impotent, perishing Man, Man that is nothing, doth upon him. What? is not one Turn enough; Must my Turn answer his call? and must I turn, and turn again? Nothing is enough to him, because he is just, and wise, and merciful. And every Turn is not enough for us: We cannot turn far enough from sin, nor near enough to him. We are never near enough, John 17.21. till we are one in him by our obedience. The heathens, we know, fancied to themselves not only Deam Agenoriam, a Divine Power to stir them up to action, but Stimulam also, another Power to prick them forward, and make them more active in that they took in hand. For they could make whatsoever they saw or thought of, whatsoever they feared or desired, a God; and finding such a Power, place it where they pleased. Those Powers severed by them, are truly united and one in him who is truly One, and who alone hath power. He is not only Hortus, to shake off our sloth by exhortation; but also Agenorius, to incite us to action and set us awork, and Stimulus, to goad us and drive us forward. Turn ye, turn ye; this Ingemination is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God's goad: and when we delay, or do but turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nazianzen speaketh, when our Turn is an half and imperfect Turn he putteth it to our sides, and pricketh us forward to turn again. He beginneth, he forwardeth, he facilitateth our Turn, he urgeth us, nor will let us shrink back till we have made perfect our Turn. S. Basil calleth it plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Tautology. One Convertimini had been enough, Comment. in Isai. had plainly expressed what God intended: but, as if we could never turn enough, as if we could never turn far enough from our evil ways, He calleth and calleth again; Turn ye, even now turn ye. Though ye be turned, ye may not turn to the right way: Though ye be turned to th' right way, ye are in danger still. Turn ye, turn ye. Ye are not safe enough when ye are safe, nor turned enough when ye are turned, unless ye turn again. At the beginning of the verse God is at VIVO EGO, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked: I would have you turn. Heb. 1.16. And an Oath, saith the Apostle, is for confirmation, And here he useth a vehement ingemination, Turn ye, turn ye. And Tautologies in Scripture, saith S. Basil, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Apostles own word, for confirmation. Felice's nos, saith Tertullian; Happy we for whose sake God will swear; but unhappy we, if he swear in vain; although it cannot be in vain. Matth. 6.7, And happy we, for whose sake God, who hateth babbling, will yet multiply words, nay, reiterate the same; but most unhappy we, if we harken not to his voice, if our Turn and conversion be not as real as the ingemination is loud and vehement; if there be not a religious Tautology, a constant, reinforced, continued Turn in our Repentance. To draw then the lines by which we are to pass; We may observe There be two main lets and hindrances of our conversion, I may call them retinacula poenitentiae, that hang upon us, and hold us back, when we should turn; Despair on the one side, and Presumption on the other. Despair maketh it too late to repent; Presumption maketh it soon enough, though it be never so late. Presumption maketh and breaketh a resolution every day; Despair will make no more. Presumption maketh an evening, a bedtime Repentances She will turn at last: Despair, no Repentance at all, Never, never. Now this ingemination is as thunder to them both; loud in the ears of those that despair; Turn ye, turn ye; It is not too late: and terrible in the ears of those that presume; Turn ye, turn ye; It cannot be soon enough. And as lightning, it flasheth in the face of the presumptuous sinner, showing him the horror of his ways, and that Death is in the way; and it discovereth to the drooping, or rather dead soul, the riches of God's mercy, that though Death be in the way, at the very door, yet Death is not unavoidable. From this Ingemination than we may gather, First, God's love to Repentance, to rouse us from Despair. Secondly, the necessary and essential Properties of Repentance. It must be 1. matura conversio, a speedy and sudden Turn; Turn ye, turn ye, lest it be too late: 2. Sincera conversio, a real Turn, a Turn in good earnest: 3 Plena poenitentia, as the Ancients used to speak, a full Repentance, a total Repentance, a Turn from all our evil ways, a Turn never to look back again: And these will keep us from Presumption. Of these in their Order. Turn ye, turn ye, is a vehement ingemination to rouse us from Despair. And indeed no greater argument can be brought against Despair, than God's Bowels and Compassion, than his loud and open proffer of mercy. For if it were too late to Turn he would not thus call after us. If we could not turn at all, one call were too many; and then what need this noise, this ingemination? Bring in the most despairing Christian living, and if this voice from heaven awake him not, I must pronounce him not only dead in sin, but in hell already. For it is easy to observe that the ground of all despair is not from hence, that we cannot, but that we will not turn. Which much resembleth that despair which chaineth the damned Spirits in the place of torment. So far we are like to them, that we despair for want of Charity which they can never have, nor the despairing sinner, as he thinketh; and therefore will not have: not for want of Faith, which they have as well as he, Jam. 2.19. and tremble. We despair not, I say, for want of faith: For it is plain, if we did not believe, we could not despair, unless peradventure we do, with some, conceive of Faith as that instrument or habit by which we apply and appropriate Christ's merits and promises to our souls; which indeed is rather an act of our hope then of our Faith; Despair being nothing else but the disability of applying Christ's merits to ourselves, which is the effect, not of Infidelity, but ungodliness. For we believe, This is the way, and we know we have not walked in it, Isa. 30.21. and so despair. We are not where in Scripture commanded to be assured of our salvation; 2 Pet. 1.10. but we are enjoined in plain terms to make our election sure. Nor are we any where in Scripture forbidden to despair; but if we make not good the condition, we are forbid to hope, and in that commanded to love Christ, and keep his commandments, Joh. 14.15. 1 Joh. 5.2. that we may never despair. Miserable Dilemma, when I must neither despair nor hope! for I cannot let in Despair, till I have let in that monster sin, which begat it: and when that is let in, and hath gained the dominion, there is no room for Hope. Ask Judas himself, and he will tell you there is a God: For if there were no God, no Heaven, no Hell, there could be no such thing as Conscience. Ask him again, and he will tell you he is true, or he denieth him to be God. Coloss. 1.27. He will tell you of the riches of the glorious mystery of our redemption, and that in Christ remission of sins is promised: Luk. 24.47. But his many sins, and his late sin of betraying his Master, cast so thick a cloud over his judgement, that he cannot see any beam of mercy cast towards him; and so he concludeth both against God and himself, There is mercy for thousands, but none for Judas; Exod. 20.6. & 34 7. Matth 9.13. Matth. 27.5. God calleth sinners to repentance, but not Judas; and when all the world may turn, he will go and hang himself. Thus may our sins go over our heads, and over those mercies too which might be over our sins, and make us very witty to argue and dispute against ourselves, even to dispute ourselves into hell. A neglect of our duty begat Despair, and Despair basely disproveth and augmenteth our neglect. And if we judge rightly, our non posse is a noll., we cannot turn because we will not turn: For if we would but turn (which we may if we will) Despair would sink and vanish out of sight, and Mercy would shine forth through the cloud, and give light enough to fly far from that evil the fear of which had covered our faces, and in a manner buried us alive: for a despairing man is but a dead carcase, actuated not by a Soul but by a Devil. We need not seek far for arguments. Despair is an argument against itself: For if there could never be any. The best that we have heard of is but the Logic of Fools, which is Logic without reason; I cannot hope, because I cannot hope. It is true, a despairing person cannot hope, in statu quo nunc, as they speak, in the state and condition he is now in. And there is reason for that: For why should an enemy to God hope for his favour? Why should Dives hope for a place in Abraham's bosom? And yet he may hope for God's favour; resolve to turn from his evil ways; and this will first build up him in righteousness, and then build up a Hope upon the ruins of Despair. Sin is the foundation of Despair, and, if we repent not will bear it up: But upon our Turn Righteousness casteth down the foundation itself, and with it Despair, and in the fall grindeth it to pieces; and in the place of it erecteth a pillar, a saving Hope, a Hope which is not ashamed to enter the Holy of Holies, and lay hold on the Mercy-seat, which was hidden and veiled before. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Psal. 42. & 43. and why art thou troubled within me? Trust thou in the Lord: And if thou fear him, and leave thy evil ways, thou mayest trust him: He will not, he cannot fail thee. Thou hast him fettered and entangled with his own promises, which are Yea and Amen; and all the powers on earth, 2 Cor. 1.20. all the Devils in hell, nay, his own Power, cannot reverse them: For his Justice, his Wisdom, his Mercy hath sealed them. Read his character; and he made it himself; Psal. 116.5. He is merciful, righteous, and full of compassion: And S. Ambrose it was that observed it, that here is Mercy twice mentioned, and Justice but once. And he addeth for our encouragement; what? to hope? nay, but to turn, that we may hope; In medio Justitia est, gemino septo inclusa Misericordiae; Justice is shut up in the midst, and hedged in on every side with Mercy. If thou turn from thy evil ways, Mercy shineth upon thy tabernacle, and Justice is the same it was, but confined and bound up, that it cannot, that it shall never, reach thee to destroy thee. When thou sinnedst, he was just to punish thee: and now thou turnest from thy evil ways unto him, 2 Tim. 4.8. he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a righteous Judge, still, but to receive and reward thee. They in the Primitive times who fell away for fear of persecution, and afterwards returned to the bosom of the Church, and confessed and bewailed their apostasy (though it were rather a verbal than a real one having been drawn thereunto rather by fear of smart then by hatred of the Gospel) were said by the Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Lib. De Lapsis. which S. Cyprian interpreteth elatum primâ victoriâ hostem secundo certamine superare, to recover the field, and by a second onset to foil that enemy who did glory in a former conquest, and to defy the Tempter after a fall. The Novations called themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Puritans of those times: And they had good reason so to do, as good reason as a deformed man hath to call himself Boniface, or a wicked man to write himself Innocent,: For they were proud, merciless and covetous, (Nazianzene layeth it to their charge) goodly and fit ingredients to make up that sweet composition of Purity. These withstood the receiving of lapsed persons into the Church, but not without the Church's heaviest censure. Saint Hierome, for all their name, calleth them by one quite contrary, immundissimos, the impurest men of all the world, pietatis paternae adversarios, the enemies of God's mercy and goodness. Orat. 14. And Nazianzene telleth them their Religion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, impudence, and uncleanness, which had nothing but the name of Purity; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ibid. which they made, saith he, a bait to catch and cajol the ignorant and unwary multitude, who are taken more with the Trumpet of a Pharisee then with his alms, and are fed with shows and pretences, as they say Chameleons are with air, For, as Basil and Nazianzene observe, that severe doctrine of those proud and covetous men drove the offending brethren into despair; and despair plunged them deeper in sin, and left them wallowing in the mire, in their blood and pollution, being held down by a false opinion that no hand could draw them out, and that pardon was impossible; whereas a Convertimini, the doctrine of Repentance, might have raised them from the ground, drawn them out of their blood and filth, Hebr. 12.12. strengthened their feeble knees, and hands that hung down, put courage and life into them, to turn from that evil which had cast them down, and to stand up to see and meet the salvation of th' Lord. And this is the proper and natural effect of Mercy, to give sight to the blind, that they may see; to bind up a broken limb, that it may move; to raise us from the dead that we may walk; to make us good, who were evil. For this it shineth in brightness upon us every day, to enlighten not only them who sit in darkness, but many times the children of light themselves, who though they sit not in darkness, yet may be under a cloud, raised up and settled in the brain, not from a corrupt, but from a tender and humble heart. For we cannot think that every man that saith he despaireth is cast away and lost, or that our erroneous judgement of our state and condition shall be the rule by which God will proceed against us and judge us at the last day; that though we have set our hearts to serve God, and have been serious in all our ways, though we have made good the condition, that is, our part of the Covenant, as far as the Covenant of Grace, and the equity and gentleness of the Gospel doth exact, yet God will refuse to make good his part because we cannot think well of ourselves, but, though we have done what is required, persuade ourselves that we are fallen so short in the performance of our duty that we shall never reach to the end; in a word, that God will forbear to pronounce the EUGE, Well done, because we are afraid, and tremble at all our works; that he will put us by and reject us, after all the labour of our charity, for a melancholic fit; that he will condemn the soul of any man for the distemper of his body, or for some perturbation of his mind which he had not strength enough to withstand, though he were strong in the Lord, Ephes. 6.10. and in the power of his might did cheerfully run the ways of his commandments. It were a great want of charity thus to judge of those whose troublesome and most afflicting error was conceived and form in the very bowels of charity. For sometimes it proceedeth from some distemper of the body, from some indisposition of the brain. And, if we have formerly striven and do yet strive to do God service, he is not so hard and austere a Master as to punish us for being sick. Sometimes it ariseth from some defect in the Judicative faculty, through which as we make more Laws to ourselves, and so more sins, than there are, so we are as ready to pass sentence against ourselves, not only for the breach of those laws which none could bind us to but ourselves, but even of those also which we were so careful to keep. For as we see some men so strong, or rather so stupid, that they think they do nothing amiss; so there be others, but not many, so weak, or rather so scrupulous, that they cannot persuade themselves they ever did any thing well. This is an infirmity and disease, but not epidemical. The first are a great multitude, which it is hard to number, quocunque sub axe; They are in every climate, and in every place, but most often in the Courts of Princes, and in the habitations of the Rich, who can do evil, but will not see it; who can make the loud condemnation of a fact and the bold doing it the business of one and the same hour, almost of one and the same moment. The others are not many: for they are a part of that little Flock: Luk. 11.32. And the good Shepherd will not drive them out of the fold for the weak conceit they had that they had gone too far astray. Error is then most dangerous and fatal; when we do that which is evil; not when we shun and fly from it as from the plague, and yet cannot believe we are removed far enough from the infection of it. Therefore again, Despair may have its original not only from the acrasie and discomposedness of the outward man, or from weakness in judgement, and ignorance of our present estate, (which may happen to good men, even to those who have made some fair proficiency in the School of Christ; and to which we are very subject amidst that variety of circumstances, that perplexity and multiplicity of thoughts, which rise and sink, and return again, and strangle one another, to bring in others in their place) but it may be brought in by our very care and diligence and intensive love. For care and Diligence and Love are always followed with Fears and Jealousies. Love is ever a beginning till all be done, and is but setting out till she be at her journey's end. The liberal man is afraid of his alms, the temperate mistrusteth his abstinence; the Meek man is jealous of every heat; Pietas etiam tuta pertimescit, Piety is afraid even of Safety itself, because it is Piety, and cannot be safe enough. And if it be a fault for a man thus to undervalue himself, it is a fault of a fair extraction, begotten not by blood, Joh. 1.13. or the will of men, not by Negligence and Wilfulness and the pollutions of the Flesh, but by Care and Anxiety and an unsatisfied Love, which will sometimes demur and be at a stand in the greatest certainty; so that, though the lines be fallen to him in a fair place, Psal. 16.6. and he have a goodly heritage, a well-setled spiritual estate, yet he may sometimes look upon it as bankrupts do upon their temporal, worn out with debts and Statutes and Mortgages, and next to nothing. Every man hath not a place and mansion in heaven who pretendeth a title to it, nor is every man shut out who doubteth of his evidence. This diffidence in ones self is commonly the mark and character of a good man, who would be better. Though he hath built up his assurance as strong as he can, yet he thinketh himself not sure enough, but seeketh for further assurance, and fortifieth it with his Fear and assiduous Diligence, that it may stand fast for ever: Whereas we see too many draw out their own Assurance, and seal it up with unclean hands, with wicked hands, with hands full of blood. We have read of some in the days of our forefathers, and have heard of others in our own, and no doubt many there have been of whom we never heard, Phil. 1.27. whose conversation was such as became the Gospel of Christ, and yet they have felt that hell within themselves which they could not discover to others but by ghastly looks, outcries, deep groans, and loud complaints to them who were near them; that Hell itself could not be worse, nor had more torments than they felt. And these may seem to have been breathed forth, not from a broken, but a perishing heart; to be the very dialect of Despair. And indeed so they are: For Despair, in the worst acception, cannot sink us lower than hell. But yet we cannot, we may not be of their opinion, and think what they said, that they are cast out of God's sight. No, God seethe them, looketh upon them with an eye full of compassion, and most times sendeth an Angel to them in their agony, Luke 22.43. as he did unto Christ, a message of comfort to rouse them up. But if their tenderness yet raise doubts, and draw the cloud still over them, we have reason to think (and who dareth say the contrary?) that the hand of Mercy may, even through this cloud, receive them to that Sabbath and rest which remaineth for the people of God. Hebr. 4.9. I speak of men who were severe to themselves, watchful in their warfare, full of good works, and constant in them, and yet many times, when they were even at the gates of heaven, and near unto happiness, felt sore terrors and affrightments. These being full of Charity could not be quite destitute of Hope, although their own sad apprehensions and the breathe of a tender conscience made the operation of it less sensible. Their Hope was, not like Aaron's rod, cut off, dried up, and utterly dead; but rather like a tree in winter, in which there is life and faculty, yet the absence of the Sun and the cold benumbing it suffereth no force of life to work: But when the Sun draweth near, and yieldeth its warmth and influence, it will bud again and blossom, and bring forth leaf and fruit. The case then of every man that despaireth is not desperate. But we must consider Despair in its Causes, which produce and work it. If it be exhaled and drawn up out of our corrupt works and a polluted conscience, the steam of it is poisonous and deleterial, the very smoke of the bottomless pit. But if it proceed from the distemper of the body, which seizeth upon one as well as another, or from weakness of judgement, which befalleth many who may be weak and yet pious, or from an excessive solicitude and tenderness of soul, which is not so common, we cannot think it can have that force and malignity as to pull him back who is now striving to enter in at the narrow gate, or to cut him off from salvation who hath wrought it out with fear and trembling. Phil. 2.12. At the day of judgement the question will be, not what was our opinion and conceit of ourselves, but what our conversation was; not what we thought of our estate, but what we did to raise it; not of our fancied application of the promises, but whether we have performed the condition. For then the promises will apply themselves. God hath promised, and he will make it good. We shall not be asked what we thought, but what we did. For how many have thought themselves sure, who never came to the knowledge of their error till it was too late? how many have called themselves Saints, who have now their portion with hypocrites? how many have fancied themselves into heaven, whose wilful disobedience carried them another way? On the other side, how many have believed, and yet doubted? how many have been sincere in the ways of righteousness, and yet drooped? how many have fainted even in their Saviour's arms, when his Mercies did compass them in on every side? how many have been in the greatest agony, when they were nearest to their exaltation? how many have condemned themselves to hell, who now sit crowned in the highest heavens? I know nothing by myself, 1 Cor. 4.4. saith S. Paul, yet am not thereby justified. Hoc dicit, Dialogo adv. Pelagium. nè forte quid per ignorantiam deliquisset, saith S. Hierom: Though he knew nothing, yet something he might have done amiss which he did not know. Though our conscience accuse us not of greater crimes, yet our conscience may tell us we may have committed many sins of which she could give us no information: And this may cast a mist about him who walketh as in the day. Rom. 13.13. In a word, a man may doubt, and yet be saved; and a man may assure himself, and yet perish. A man may have a groundless hope, and a man may have a groundless fear. And when we see two thus contrarily elemented, the one drooping, the other cheerful; the one rejoicing in the Lord whom he offendeth, the other trembling before him whom he loveth, we may be ready to pity the one, and bless the condition of the other, cast away the elect, and choose the reprobate. Therefore we must not be too rash to judge, but leave the judgement to him who is Judge both of the quick and dead, and will neither condemn the innocent for his fear, nor justify the man that goeth on in his sin for his assurance. Take comfort then, thou disconsolate soul, Psal. 44.19. which art strucken down into the place of dragons, and art in terror and anguish of heart. This fear of thine is but a cloud, and it will drop down and distil in blessings upon thy head: This agony will bring down an Angel: This sorrow will be turned into joy, this doubt be answered, this despair vanish, that Hope may take its proper place again, the heart of a penitent. Thy fear is better than other men's confidence, thy anxiety more comfortable than their security, thy doubting more favoured than their assurance. Timor tuus, securitas tua. Thy fear of death will end in the firm expectation of eternal life. Though thou art tossed on a tumultuous sea, thy mast spent, and thy tackling torn, yet thou shalt at last strike in to shore, when those proud Sailors shall shipwreck in a calm. Misinterpret not this thy dejection of spirit, thy sad and pensive thoughts, nor seek too suddenly to remove them. An afflicted conscience in the time of health is the most hopeful and sovereign Physic that is. Thy fear of death is a certain symptom and an infallible sign of life. There is no horror of the grave to him that lieth in it. Death only is terrible to the living: And then there can be no stronger argument that thou art alive, than this, that thou doubtest thou art dead already. And lift up thy head too, thou despairing and almost desperate sinner, whom not thy many sins, but thy unwillingness to leave them, hath brought to the dust of death; who first blasphemest God, Psal. 22.15. and then drawest the punishment nearer to thee then he would have it, and art thy own hangman and executioner, not that pardon is denied, but that thou wilt not sue it out. Look about thee, and thou mayest see Hope coming towards thee, and many arguments to bring it in: An argument from thy Soul, which is not quite lost till it be in hell; and if thou wilt possess it, it shall not be lost: An argument from thy Will, which is free and mutable, and may turn to good as well as evil: An argument from the very habit of Sin that presseth thee down, which though it be strong, yet is it not stronger than the Grace of God and the activity of thy Will: It is very difficult indeed; but the Christian man's work is to overcome difficulties: An argument from those shoals and multitudes of Offenders who have wrought themselves out of the power of death and the state of damnation; from many who have committed as many sins as thou, but this one, of Despair, from those Publicans and sinners who have entered into the kingdom of heaven: An argument from thy own Argument, which thou so unskilfully turnest against thyself. It is no argument; it is but a weak peremptory Conclusion held up without any Premises or Reason that can enforce it. For Despair is but Petitio principii, proveth and concludeth the same by the same, maketh our Sins greater than God's Mercies because they are so, and Repentance impossible because it is so. Though the Soul be not quite lost till it be lost for ever; though the Will be free, and Grace offereth itself; though the voice of God be, Turn; though multitudes have turned, and that which hath been done may be done again; though the argument be no argument, yet Despair doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, against what reason soever hold up the Conclusion. Thou sayest that God cannot forgive thee. If he cannot, than he is not merciful, neither is he just, and so he is not God; and then what needest thou despair? We begin in sin, proceed to blasphemy, and so end in despair. But a God he is, and merciful: But thy sins are greater than his mercies; which is another blasphemy, and bringeth in something more infinite than God, taketh God's office from him, dispenseth his Mercies, of which he alone is Lord, shutteth up his rich treasury of Goodness, when he is ready and willing to lay it open; and so ruineth us, in despite of God. But thou sayest thou canst not repent; which is thy greatest error, and the main cause of thy despair. For when the heart is thus hard, it beateth off all succours that are offered, all those means that might be as oil to supple it. Thou canst not, is not true: Thou shouldst say, Thou wilt not repent: for if thou wilt, thou mayest. For thou canst not tell whether thou canst repent or no, because thou never yet didst put it to the trial, but being in the pit, didst shut the mouth of it upon thyself, and stop it up with a false opinion of God and of thyself, with dark notions and worthless conceits of impossibilities. Behold, God calleth after thee again and again. His Grace (as a devout Writer speaketh) is most officious to take thee out, his Mercy ready to embrace thee, if thou do not stubbornly cast her off. Behold a multitude of Penitents, who having escaped the wrath to come, beckon to thee by their example to follow after them, and retire from these hellish thoughts and conclusions unto the same shadow and shelter where they are sale from those false suggestions and fiery darts of the enemy. And if this will not move thee, then behold the blood of an immaculate Lamb streaming down to wash away thy sins, and with them thy despair; to raise thee from thy grave, this sepulchre of rotten bones and baneful imaginations, that thou mayest walk before him in the land of the living; to beget Repentance, and to beget Hope; Hebr. 2.18. to pity us in our tentations, who was sensible of his own; and to drive Despair from off the face of the earth. For why should the name of a Saviour and Despair be heard of in the same coasts? If it breathe within the curtains of the Church, it is not Christ but the Devil and our Sensuality that bringeth it in. The end of Christ's coming was to destroy it. For this he came into the world; for this he died. Ask Christ, saith S. Basil, what he carrieth on his shoulders. It is the lost sheep: Luke 15.5, 7, 10. Ask the Angels for whom they rejoice. It is for a sinner that repenteth. Ask God for what he is so earnest as to call and call again. It is for those who are now in their evil ways. Ask the Shepherd, Matth 18 12. Luke 15.4. and he will tell you he left ninety and nine, to find but one lost sheep. His desire is on us; and he had rather we would be guided by his shepherds-staff then be broken by his rod of iron. If thou wilt return, return. His Wisdom hath pointed out to it as the fittest way; His justice yieldeth and will look friendly on thee, whilst thou art in this way; and his Mercy will go along with thee, and save thee at the end. If thou wilt, thou mayest turn: and if thou wilt turn, thou shalt not daspair; or if a cloud overspread thee, it shall vanish at the brightness of Mercy, as a mist before the Sun. Here then is balm of Gilead; Turn ye, turn ye, a loving and compassionate call to turn even those who despair of turning; a Doctrine of singular comfort. But this Balm is not for every wound, nor will it drop and distil upon him who goeth on in his sin. Mercy is as strong drink and wine, Prov. 31.6. to be given to them who are ready to perish, and to such who have grief of heart. Many times it falleth out by reason of our presumption and hardness of heart, that there is more danger in pressing some truths then in maintaining some errors. Care not for the morrow, is as music to the Sluggard, Matth. 6.34. Prov. 6.10. and he heareth it with delight, and foldeth his hands to sleep. If we commend Labour, the Covetous hath encouragement enough to drudge on, to rise up early, and lie down late, to gain the meat that perisheth. Psal. 127.2. John 6.27. John 4.23.24. If we but mention a worship in spirit and truth, the Sacrilegious person taketh up his hammer, and down goeth Ceremony and Order and the Temple itself. How many Solifidians hath Free grace occasioned? How many Libertines hath the indiscreet pressing of the Freedom we have by Christ raised? The Gospel itself, we see, hath been made the savour of death unto death; and Mercy, malevolent. At what time soever, etc. hath scarce with many left any time to repent. Therefore it will concern us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nazianzene speaketh, Epist 20 add Basil Magn. 2 Tim. 2.15. Luke 12.42. with art and prudence to dispense the word of truth, or, as S. Paul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to cut it out, as they did their sacrifices, by a certain method, to give every one his proper food in due season. Some dispositions are so corrupted that they may be poisoned with antidotes. Therapeut. Theodoret observeth that God himself did not fully and plainly teach the Jews that doctrine of the Trinity, lest that wavering and fickle nation might have took it by the wrong handle, and made it an occasion of relapse into that idolatrous conceit, which they had learned in Egypt, of worshipping many Gods. The Novatians error; who would not accept of Penance after Baptism, so much as once, though no Physic for a sinner, yet might have proved a good antidote against Sin: For men, had they believed it, would (some at least) have been more shy of sin, and more wary in ordering their steps, and shunned that sin as a serpent, which would excommunicate them, and shut them for ever out of the Church. And therefore the orthodox Fathers, even there where they oppose that assumed and unwarranted severity of the Novatian, deliver the doctrine of Repentance with great caution and circumspection, and with a seeming reluctancy. Invite loquor, saith Tertullian; Tert. De poeui● Bas. tom. 1. hom. 14. I am made unwilling to publish this free mercy of God. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Basil, I speak the truth in fear. For my desire is that after Baptism you should sin no more; and my fear is, you will sin more and more, upon presumption of repentance and mercy. He would, and he would not publish the free mercy of God in Christ: He was bound to preach Repentance, and yet he feared. What meaneth that profuse yet sparing tender of God's Mercy? those large Panegyrics, and as great jealousies: Why did they so much extol Repentance, and yet malè ominari, presage such an evil consequence out of that which they had presented to all the world in so desirable a shape? Before the Father was so taken and delighted with the contemplation of it, and discovered so much power in it, that he thought the Devils themselves in the interim and time between their Fall and the Creation of Man might have repent, and been Angels of light still: but now he draweth in his hand, and putteth it forth with fear and trembling. Before he held out Repentance as a board or plank to every shipwrackt soul, but now he he feareth lest Repentance itself should become a rock. One would think the holy Father himself were turned Novatian. And to speak truth, that which was the Novatians pretence to deny Repentance after Baptism, drew those expressions from him, and was the true cause which made him publish it with so much fear, nè nobis subsidia paenitentiae blandiantur; That men might not be betrayed by the flattery and pleasing appearance of that which should advantage them, and levelly their thoughts on that benefit which it might bring to them, and boldly claim it as their own, though they be willing to forget and leave unregarded that part of it which should make way to let it in; That hearing of so precious an antidote, they might not presume it will have the same virtue and operation at any time, and so after many delays make no use of it at all; That the doctrine of Repentance might not make us stand in more need of repentance; in a word, That that which is a remedy, might not, by our ill handling and applying it, be turned into a disease. Look into the world, and you will see there is great need of so much fear, and of such a caution. For more fall by presumption then by despair. Non tam morbis quàm remedio laboramus: By our own folly and the Devil's craft our disease doth not hurt us so much as our remedy. Repentance, which was ordained as the best Physic to purge the soul, is turned into that poison that corrupteth and killeth it. What wand'ring thought, what idle word, what profane action is there which is not laid upon this fair foundation, Hope of pardon? which yet will not bear up such hay and stubble. We call Sin a disease; and so it is, a mortal one: But Presumption is the greatest, the very corruption of the blood and spirits, of the best parts of the soul. We are sick of Sin; it is true: but that we feel not: But we are sick, very sick, of Mercy, sick of the Gospel, sick of Repentance, sick of Christ himself; and of this we make our boast. And our bold reliance on this doth so infatuate us, that we take little care to purge out the plague of our heart, which we nourish and look upon as upon Health itself. We are sick of the Gospel: for we receive it and take it down, and it doth not purge out but enrage those evil humours which discompose the soul: John 13.27. We receive it as Judas did the sop; we receive it, and with it a devil. For this bold and groundless Presumption of pardon maketh us like unto him, hardeneth our heart first, and then our face, and carrieth us with the swelling sails of impudence and remorselessness to an extremity of daring, to that height of impiety from which we cannot so easily descend, but must fall, and break and bruise ourselves to pieces. Praesumptio, invericundiae portio, saith Tertullian; Presumption is a part and portion, and the upholder of Immodesty. It falleth, and careth not whither; it ruineth us, and we know not how; it abuseth and dishonoureth that Mercy which it maketh a wing to shadow it. It hath been the best purveiour for Sin and the kingdom of Darkness. We read but of one in the Gospel that despaired, Matth. 27.5. Acts 1.25. and hanged himself, and so went to his place; but how many thousands have gone a contrary way with less anguish and reluctancy, with fair but false hopes, with strong but feigned assurances, and met him there? Oh it is one of the Devils subtlest stratagems to make Sin and Hope of heaven to dwell under the same roof, to teach him who is his vassal to walk delicately in his evil ways, to rejoice always in the Lord, even then when he fights against him, to assure himself of life in the chambers of death. And thus every man is sure: The Schismatic is sure, and the Libertine is sure; the Adulterer is sure, and the Murderer is sure; the Traitor is sure: they are sure, who have no savour, no relish of salvation. The Schismatic hath made his peace, though he have no charity: The Libertine looketh for his reward, though he do not only deny good works, but contemn them: The Adulterer absolveth himself without Penance: The Murderer knoweth David is entered heaven, and hopeth to follow him: The prosperous Traitor is in heaven already; His present success is a fair earnest of another inheritance; That God that favoureth him here will crown him hereafter. Every man can do what he list, and be what he list; do what good men tremble to think of, and yet fear not at all, but expect the salvation of the Lord; first damn, and then canonize himself. For the greatest part of the Saints of this world have been of their own Creation, made up in the midst of the land of darkness, with noise, with thunder and earthquakes. We may be bold to say, If Despair hath killed her thousands, Presumption hath slain her ten thousands. Foolish men that we are, who hath bewitched us, that we lay hold on Christ, when we thrust him from us? make him our own and appropriate him, when we crucify and persecute him every day? that we had rather fancy and imagine then make our election sure? that we will have health, and yet care not how we feed, or what poison we let down? that we make salvation an arbitrary thing, to be met with when we please, and can as easily be Saints as we can eat and drink, as we can kill and slay? Good God what mist and darkness is this, which maketh men possessed with Sin, that is an enemy ready to devour them, to be thus quiet and secure? Can we or would we but a little awake, and consult with the light of our Faith and Reason, we should soon let go our confidence, and plainly see the danger we are in whilst we are in our evil ways, and find Fear tied fast unto them. So saith S. Paul, But if you sin, Rom. 13.4. fear. Christian Security and Hope of life is the proper and alone issue of a good Conscience through faith in Christ purged from dead and evil works. If we will leave our Fear, Hebr. 9.14. we must leave our Evil works behind us. Assurance is too choice a piece to be beat out by the fancy, and to be made up when we please; at a higher price, then to be purchased with a thought. It is a work that will take up an age to finish it, the engagement of our whole life; to be wrought out with fear and trembling; Phil. 2.12. not to be taken as a thing granted, as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and so set up as a pillar of hope, when there is no better basis and foundation for it then a forced and fading thought, which is next to air, and will perish sooner. The young man in the Gospel had yet no knowledge of any such Assurance-office, and therefore he putteth up his question to our Saviour thus, Good Master, Matth. 19.16. Mark 10.17. what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? He saw no hope of entering in at that narrow gate with such prodigious sins. And our Saviour's answer is, Keep the commandments, that is, Turn from thy evil ways; Be not Envious, Malicious, Covetous, Cruel, False, Deceitful. Despair is the daughter of Sin and Darkness; but Confidence is the emanation of a good Conscience. What Flesh and Blood maketh up is but a phantasm, which appeareth, and disappeareth; is seen, and vanisheth; so soon gone, that we scarce know whether we saw it, or no. There can be no firm hope raised but upon that which is as mount Zion, Psal. 125.1. and standeth fast for ever; which is our best guard in our way; nay, which is our way in this life, and when we are dead will follow us. Eras. Adag. Nothing can bear and afford it but this. Vnum arbustum non alit duos erithacoes. Sin and Assurance are birds too quarrelsome to dwell in the same bush. Therefore, if you sin, fear; or rather turn from your evil ways, 1 John 3 21. and then you shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, boldness and confidence towards God. We must therefore sink and fall low, and mitigate our voice, and speak more faintly and remissly, when we call after the Presumptuous sinner to turn, as if his last period were near, and it were almost too late for him to begin. We must not magnify Repentance too much, lest he make it a Pass and Warrant to sin again, and so have more need of it. We may tell him, what is most true, Repentance is a command indeed, but praeceptum ex suppositione, as Aquinas speaketh, a command not absolute, but upon a Si, a supposition. We are not commanded to repent, as we are to believe, as we are to fear God, and to honour our Parents; but upon supposition. If we sin, we have an Advocate that will plead for us, if we repent. The command which is absolute is, to do Gods will. Repentance is tabula post naufragium, saith S. Hierom, a plank reached out after shipwreck. But it is better to ride in the ship in a calm, then to hang on the mast in a tempest. Repentance is a virtue, but of that nature that the less we stand in need of it, the more virtuous we are. It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a purgative potion; but it is better never to be sick then to rise from our beds by the help of a Physician. It was commendable in him that could say, He thanked God, he was now reconciled to his mother; but he was more praiseworthy who replied, that he thanked God that he was never reconciled to his, for he never offended her. It is good to repent; but it is better not to sin. Oh, it is a great happiness to be restored to the favour of God; but it is a greater, never to lose it. It is good to appease him; but it is our safest course never to anger him. In a word; It is better to be ever with God, then by famine or pestilence to be forced to return: better not acquire an evil habit, then shake it off; better never set a step in evil ways, then be called out of them with so much noise; better never err, than turn. It will concern us then not to put too much trust and confidence in our helps, not to be careless of our health upon presumption of remedy, Rom. 6.1. not to sin because grace hath abounded, not to spend prodigally upon hope of supply, not to oblige ourselves too far because we see a hand of Mercy ready to cancel the bill. How many have these hopes deluded? How many have been betrayed by their helps? How many Cities had now stood, Fit, ut ea parte capiantur urbes qua suut munitissime, Polyb. l. 7. had they had no other walls but their men? Whilst we trust in these, we neglect ourselves, and so make them not only useless but disadvantageous to us. We are foiled by our strength, poisoned with our physic, lost and betrayed in the midst of our fort, with all our succours and artillery about us. We trust in God, and offend him; look steadfastly towards the Mercy-seat, and fall into the bottomless pit. Therefore let us not be too bold with God's Mercy, but learn to fear the Lord and his goodness; Hos. 3.5. not make Mercy an occasion of sin, and so consequently of judgement, which she is so ready to remove. At the very name of Mercy, at the sound of this Music, we lie down and rest in peace. It is Mercy that saveth us, and we wound ourselves to death with Mercy. As he that looketh upon the Sun with a steady eye, when he removeth his eye, hath the image of the Sun presented almost in every object; so when we have long gazed on the Mercy-seat, our eye beginneth to dazzle, and Mercy seemeth to shine upon us in all our actions, and at all times, and in every place. We see Mercy in the Law, quite abolishing and destroying it, silencing the many Woes denounced against sinners. When we sin, Mercy is ready before us, that we may do it with less regret, that no worm may gnaw us. When our Conscience chideth, Mercy is at hand to make our peace. And this in the time of health. And when our strength faileth, and sickness hath laid us on our bed, we suborn and corrupt Mercy to give us a visit then, when we can scarce call for it; to stand by us in the evil day, when we can do no good; that we may die in hope, who had no charity; and be saved by that Jesus, whom we have crucified. And as it falleth out sometimes with men of great learning and judgement, who though they can resolve every doubt, and answer the strongest argument and objection, yet are many times puzzled with a piece of Sophistry; so it is with the formal Christian: He can stand out against all motives and beseechings, against all the batteries of God, all his Calls and Obtestations, against the terrors of hell, and sweet allurements of promises, but is shaken and foiled with a Fallacy, with the Devil's Fallacy à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter, That Mercy doth save sinners that repent, and therefore it saveth all. And upon this ground, which glideth away from us, upon this reason, which is no Reason, the Pleasures which are but for a season shall prevail with us, Hebr. 11.25. when Heaven with its bliss and eternity cannot move us; and the trouble which Repentance bringeth to the flesh shall affright us from good, more than the torments which are eternal can from sin. And therefore, to conclude, let us fear the Mercy of God; so fear it, that it may not hurt us; so fear it, that it may embrace us on every side; so fear it, that it mave save us in the day of the Lord Jesus. Let our song be made up, as David's was, of these discords, Mercy and Judgement. Psal. 101.1. Let us set and compose our life by Judgement, that we may not presume; and tune our Fear by Mercy, that we may not despair. Remember we were prisoners, and remember we were redeemed: Remember we were weak and impotent, and remember we were made whole; Remember what Christ hath done for us, and remember what we are to do for ourselves, Phil. 2.12. and so work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and then draw near with a true heart, Hebr. 10.22. in full assurance of faith, to the throne of Grace, that God's Wisdom and Justice and Mercy may guide us in all our ways, till they bring us into those new heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness, where God shall be glorified in us, 2 Pet. 3.13. and we glorified in him to all eternity. The Eighteenth SERMON. PART III. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, etc. THE word is loud, the call sudden and vehement: And we have heard it loud in the ears of them that despair; Turn ye, turn ye; it is not too late: and terrible to them that presume; Turn ye, turn ye; it is not soon enough: And to these it cannot sound with terror enough: For we see Presumption is a more general and spreading evil. It lameth and cripleth us, maketh us halt in our Turn, that we turn not soon enough: Or if some judgement or affliction turn us about, our Turn is but a proffer, a turn in show, not in reality: Or if we do turn indeed, it is but a Turn by halves, a Turn from this sin, but not from all: Or a false hope deludeth us, and we are ever a turning, and never turn. Our December is our January; our last month is our first day of the year; our thirty days hence, Cato cras proficiscetur, h e. post triginta dies. Plutarch. in vita Cat. Utic. nay, our last hour, is to morrow, is now, as Cato's servants used to say of him: Our picture is a man; our shadows, substances; our feigned repentance, true; our limb, a body; our partial Repentance, a complete one; and a single Turn from one sin, universal. Therefore the Schools tell us that Presumption standeth at greater opposition with Hope then with Fear. One would think indeed that Presumption did include Hope, and shut out Fear: and so she doth, even lead us madly over all, over the Law and over the Gospel, over the threaten of God and the wrath of God, upon the point of the sword, upon death itself. But yet Presumption is a deordination of Hope, rather a brutish temerity and a wilful rashness than Hope. It moveth contrary to her. Hope layeth hold on the promises, but it is the condition that stretcheth forth her hand: she looketh up to heaven; but it is this Turn, it is Repentance, that quickeneth her eye: But Presumption runneth hastily to the Promises; but leapeth over the condition, or treadeth it under her feet: Presumption is in heaven already, without grace, without Repentance, without a Turn. Or at best it is serotina, latewards, in the evening, in the shutting up of our days; or ficta, a formal repentance; or manca, a lame and imperfect Repentance. A false Hope it is, and therefore most contrary to Hope, and therefore no Hope at all. Now this sudden and vehement call should have mo●e force and energy with it then to awake and startle us only, and make us for a while look about. It is so loud, to hasten our Repentance, to give it a true being and essence, to complete and perfect and settle it for ever. Our Repentance is our Sacrifice: And it must be 1. Matulinum sacrificium, a morning, early Sacrifice: 2. Vivum, a living Sacrifice, breathing forth piety and holiness; not a dead carcase, or the picture of Repentance: 3. Integrum, a Sacrifice without blemish, perfect in every part: and 4. Juge, a continued sacrifice, a Repentance never to be repent of, a Turn never to turn or look back again. I. There is a time for all things under the Sun, saith the Wiseman, Eccles. 3. and it is a great part of wisdom, occasionem observare properantem, to watch and observe a fair opportunity, and not to let it slip away between our fingers, to hoist up our sails dum ventus operam dat, Sin. ep. 7. as he in Plautus speaketh, whilst the wind sitteth right to fill them. And as it is in civil actions, so it is in our Turn, in our Repentance. If we observe not the wind, if we turn not with the wind, with the first opportunity, we set out too late. When another wind will come towards us is most uncertain; the next cannot be so kind and favourable. We confess, Nullus cunctationis locus est, in eo consillo quod non potest landari nisi peractum, Otho apud Tac. l. 11. Hist. Advise and Consultation in other things is very necessary; but full of danger in that action where all the danger is not to do it. Before we enter upon an action, to sit down, and cast with ourselves what may follow at the very heels of it, to look well upon it, to handle and weigh it, to see whether life or death will be the issue of it, is the greatest part of our spiritual wisdom: But after sin to demur, and when we are running on in our evil ways, to consult what time will be best to turn in, what opportunity we shall take to repent, bewrayeth our ignorance, that when time is we know it not, or our sloth, that though we see the very nunc, the very time of turning, though opportunity even bespeaketh us to turn, yet we carelessly let it fly from us, even out of our reach, and will not lay hold on it. Thus saith Solomon, The desire of the slothful slayeth him: Prov. 21.25: He desireth, but doth nothing to accomplish his desire; and so he desireth to be rich, and dieth poor. He thinketh his Ambition will make him great; his Covetousness, rich; his Hope, happy; that all things will fall into his lap sedendo & votis, by sitting still and wishing for them: and this keepeth his hands within his bosom: Not so much his Sloth, as his Desire killeth him. Turn ye, turn ye, the very sound of it might put us in fear that Now were too late, that the present time were not soon enough: But the present is too soon with us; We will turn, We will find a convenient time. All our turning is in desire, Desire delayeth our Turn, and Delay multiplieth itself to our destruction. We will then enforce this duty, 1. from the Advantage and benefit we may reap from our strict observing of opportunity, 2. from the Danger of delay. First, Opportunitas à Portu, saith Festus; Festus verbo Opportunes. Dicitur ab eo q●òd navigantibus maximè utiles optatique siut portus. Opportunity hath its denomination from the word which signifieth a haven. I may say, Opportunity is a haven. We see they who are tossed up and down on the deep make all means, stretch their endeavours to the farthest, to thrust their torn and weather-beat vessel into the haven where they would be. Quàm optati portus! How welcome is the very sight of the shore to shipwrecked persons! what can they wish for more? Behold, saith the Apostle, 2 Cor. 6.2. now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Here is a haven, and the tide is now: Now put in your broken vessel, now thrust it into the haven. Opportunity is a prosperous gale; Delay is a contrary wind, and will drive you back again upon the rocks, and dash you to pieces. Indeed a strange thing it is that in all other things Opportunity should be a haven, but in this, which concerneth us more than any thing, a rock. Job 14.15. Prov. 7.9. Gen. 27.41. The twilight for the Adulterer, Isaac's funeral for Esau's murder, Felix his convenient time for a bribe: Acts 2●, 25, 26. And to Opportunity they fly tanquam ad portum, as to a haven: The Adulterer waiteth for it, Esau wished for it, Felix sought for it. What should I say? Opportunity worketh miracles. It filleth the hands with good things, raiseth the poor out of the dung, defeateth counsels, conquereth Kingdoms. It is the best Physician, and doth more than Art can do; without it Art can do nothing. It is the best Politician, and without it Wisdom can do nothing. It is the best Soldier, for without it Power can do nothing. It is all in all in every thing: But in our spiritual polity and warfare it hath not strength enough to turn us about; it is not able to bow our knee, or move our tongue, much less to rend our heart. Yea, such is our extremity of folly, such is the hardness of our hearts, Ipsa opportunitas fit impietatis patrocinium, One opportunity raises in us a hope of another; and maketh us waste our time in the ways of evil, which should be spent in our Return; extendeth our hopes from day to day, from year to year, from one hour to another, even till our last minute, till Time flieth from us, and Opportunity with it: till our last sand; and when that is run out, there is no more time for us, and so no more opportunity. The voice of Opportunity is, Psal. 95.7, 8. Hebr. 3.7, 8. To day, Now, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. This is his voice, Now: It is true; but there may be more Nows then this, (and it is but There may be) to morrow may yield an opportunity. Thus we corrupt her language. In my youth, it is true; but I may recover it in my riper age. My feeble age will have strength enough to turn me; or I may turn in my bed, when I am not able to turn myself. Now? there be more Nows then Now: What need such haste? My last prayer, my last breath, my last gasp may be a Turn. Psal. 49.13. Now this our way uttereth our foolishness. For what greater folly can there be, then, when Grace and Mercy and Heaven is offered, now to refuse it? Plutarch. Vitâ Pelopidae. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let Sin devour the opportuniy, and to morrow we will turn, is a speech that ill becometh a mortal's mouth, whose breath is in his nostrils; Psal. 39.5. for it may be his last. His age is but a span long, but a hand-breadth, as nothing in respect of God. The Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Tertullian Nullificamina, others Nihilitudines, or Nihilietates, which is Nothings. And in such a Nothing shall I let slip that opportunity which may make me Something, even eternal? Shall I make so many removes, so many delays within the compass of a span? Whatsoever my span, my nothing may be, my opportunity is not extended beyond this span, is no larger than this nothing: And here is the danger, Whether this Span be now at an end and measured out, I cannot tell. My Span may be but a finger's breadth, my age but a minute; that which I fill up with so many Nows, so many opportunities, Nothing: And then if I turn not now, I am turned into hell, where I can never turn. Care not then for the morrow: Matth. 6.34. let the morrow care for itself. There is no time to turn from thy evil ways but now. Secondly, it is the greatest folly in the world thus to play with danger, to seek death first in the errors of our life, Wisd. 1.12. and then, when we have run out our course, when death is ready to devour us, to look faintly back upon light. For the endeavours of a man that hath wearied himself in sin can be but weak and faint, like the appetite of a dying man, who can but think of meat, and loathe it. The later we turn, the less able we be to turn: The further we stray, the less willing shall we be to look back. For Sin gathereth strength by delay, devoteth us unto itself, gaineth dominion over us, holdeth us as it were in chains, and will not soon suffer us to slip out of its power. When the Will hath captivated itself under Sin, a wish, a sigh, a thought is but a vain thing, nor hath strength enough to deliver us. One act begetteth another, and that a third: Many acts make up a habit, and evil habits hold us back with some violence. What mind, what motion, what inclination can a man that is drowned in sensuality have to God, who is a Spirit? a man that is buried in the earth (so every covetous man is) to God, who sitteth in the highest heavens? he that delighteth in the breath of fools, to the honour of a Saint? Here the further we go, the more we are in. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1. Rhet. c. 11. That which is done oft hath some affinity to that which is done always, saith Aristotle. When an arm or other limb is broke, it may have any motion but that which was natural to it: And if we do not speedily proceed to the cure, it will be the more difficult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to set it in its right place again, that it may perform its natural functions. Now in Sin there is a deordination of the Will, a luxation of that faculty. Hence weakness seizeth upon the Will: and if we neglect the first opportunity, and do not rectify it betimes, and turn it back again, and bend it to the rule, it will be more and more enfeebled every day, move more irregularly, and, like a disordered clock, point to any figure but that which should show the hour, and make known the time of the day. We may read this truth in aged men, saith S. Basil. Orat ad Ditescentes. When their body is even worn out with age, and there is a general declination of strength and vigour, the mind hath a malignant influence on the body, as the dody in their blood and youth had upon the mind, and being made wanton and bold with the custom of sin, it heighteneth and inflameth their frozen and decayed parts to the pursuits of pleasures past, though they can never overtake them, nor see them but in effigy, in that image or picture which they draw themselves. They now call to mind the sins of their youth with delight, and act them over again when they cannot act them, as youthful as when they first committed them. They have milk, they think, in their breasts, and marrow in their bones. They periwigg their Age with wanton behaviour. Their age is threeseore and ten, when their speech and will is but twenty. They boast of what they cannot act, and would be more sinful if they could; and are so, because they would. It is a sad contemplation, how we startled at sin in our youth, and how we ventured by degrees, and engaged ourselves; how fearful we were at first, how indifferent afterwards, how familiar within a while; and then how we were settled and hardened in it at the last: What a Devil Sin was, and what a Saint it is become: what a serpent it was, and how now we play with it? We usually say, Custom is a second Nature: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Arist. Ibid. and indeed it followeth and imitateth natural motion. It is weak in the beginning, stronger in the progress, but most strong and violent towards the end. Transit in violentiam voluntas antiqua; That which we will often, we will with eagernerness and violence. Our first onset in sin is with fear and reluctation; we then venture further, and proceed with les regret; we move forwards with delight; Delight continueth the motion, and maketh it customary; and Custom at last driveth and bindeth us to it as to our centre. Vitia insolentiora renascuntur, saith Seneca: Sin groweth more insolent by degrees; first it flattereth, then commandeth, after enslaveth and then betrayeth us. First it gaineth consent, afterwards it worketh delight, Jer. 6.15. at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a shamelesness in sin, (Were they ashamed? Nihil magis in natura sua laudare se dicebat, quam ut ipsius verbo Vtar, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Suet. Caligula. They were not at all ashamed) nay, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a senslesness and stupidity, and Caligula's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a stubbornness and perverseness of disposition, which will not let us turn from sin. For by neglecting a timely remedy, vitia mores fiunt, our evil ways become our manners and common deportment, and we look upon them as upon that which becomes us; upon an unlawful act, as upon that which we ought to do. Nay, peccatum lex, Sin, which is the transgression of the Law, 1 John 3. ●. is made a Law itself. S. Augustine in his Confessions calleth it so, Lex peccati est violentia consuetudinis. That Law of Sin, which carrieth us with that violence, is nothing else but the force of long custom and continuance in sin. For sin by custom gaineth a kingdom in our souls; and having taken her seat and throne there, she promulgeth Laws: Lex alia in membris meis repugnavit legi mentis mea, & Rom. 7. Lex 〈◊〉 peccati est violentia consuetudinis, qua trah●tur & tenetur etiam invitus animus, eo merito, quo in eam volens illabitur. Aug. l. 8. Confess. c, 5. Psal. 127.2, If she say, Go, we go; and if she say, Do this, we do it. Surge, in quit Avaritia: She commandeth the Miser to rise up early, and lie down late, and eat the bread of sorrow. She setteth the Adulterer on fire, and maketh him vile and base in his own eyes, whilst he counteth it his greatest honour and preferment to be a slave to his strumpet. She draweth the Revengers sword. She feedeth the Intemperate with poison. And she commandeth, not as a Tyrant, but, having gained dominion over us, she findeth us willing subjects: She holdeth us captive, and we call our captivity our liberty. Her poison is as the poison of the Aspic: She biteth us, and we smile; we die, and feel it not. Again, it is dangerous in respect of God himself, whose call we regard not, whose counsels we reject, whose patience we dally with, whose judgements we sl ght; to whom we wantonly turn the back when he calleth after us to seek his face, Psal. 27.8. and so tread that Mercy under foot which should save us. We will not turn yet, upon a bold and strange presumption, That though we grieve his Spirit, though we resist and blaspheme his Spirit, yet after all these scorns and contempts, after all these injuries and contumelies, he will yet look after us, and sue unto us, and offer himself, and meet and receive us, at any time we shall point as most convenient to turn in. It is most true, God hath declared himself, and as it were become his own Herald, and proclaimed it to all the world, The Lord, Exod. 34.6, 7. merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness, and truth, keeping mercy for thousands. He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, most lovingly affected to Man, the chief and prince of his creatures. He longeth after him, he wooeth him, he waiteth on him. His Glory and Man's Salvation meet and kiss each other: for it is his glory to crown Man. Nor doth he at any time turn from us himself, till we on the World and Sensuality, and divorce him from us; till we have made our heaven below, chosen other Gods, which we make ourselves, and think him not worth the turning to. Jer. 23.23. He he is always a God at hand, and never goeth from us, till we force him away by violence. How many murmur and rebellions, how many contradictions of sinners hath he stood out, and yet looked towards them? Amos 2.13. How hath he been pressed as a cart under sheaves, and yet looked towards them? How hath he been shaken off and defied, and yet looked towards them? He receiveth David after his adultery and murder, after that complication of sins the least of which was of force enough to have cast him out of God's presence for ever. He receiveth Peter after his denial; and would have received Judas, had he repent, after his treason. He received Manasses when he could not live long: and he received the Thief on the Cross, when he could live no longer, Psal. 100.5. Heb. 13.8. All this is true. His Mercy is infinite, and his Mercy is everlasting, and is the same yesterday and to day and for ever: But, as Tertullian saith well, De pudicit. c. 10. non potest non irasci contumeliis misericordiae suae, God must needs wax angry at the contumelies and reproaches which by our dalliance and delay we fling upon his Mercy, which is so ready to cover our sins. For how can he suffer this Queen of his Attributes to be thus prostituted by our lusts? How can he endure to to see men bring Sin into the world under the shadow of that Mercy which should take it away, and advance the kingdom of darkness, and fight under the Devil's banner with this inscription and motto lifted up, The Lord is merciful? What hopes of that soldier that flingeth away his buckler? or of that condemned person that teareth his pardon? or of that sick man that loveth his disease, and counteth his Physic poison? The Prophet here in my Text, where he calleth upon us with that earnestness, Turn ye, turn ye, giveth us a fair intimation, that if we thus delay, and delay, and never begin, a time may come when we shall not be able to turn. It may seem indeed a harsh and hard saying, a doctrine not suitable with the lenity and gentleness of the Gospel, which breatheth nothing but mercy, to conclude that such a time may come, that any part of time, that the last moment of our time, may not make a Now to turn in; that whilst we breathe, our condition should be as desperate as if we were dead; that whilst we are men, our estate should be as irrevocable as that of the damned spirits, with this difference only, that we are not yet in the place of torment, which nevertheless is prepared for us, and will as certainly receive us as it doth now the Devil and his angels. It is harsh indeed, but may be very profitable and advantageous for us to think that such a time may be which may be our last for Grace, though not our last for life; that we may live, and yet be dead eternally; a time, when there will remain no more sacrifice for sin. Heb. 10.26. I cannot say we should make it an article of our Creed, and yet I know no danger in believing it. It may prove fatal to us to disbelieve it, or look upon it as an error which deserveth to be placed in the catalogue of Heresies. And therefore, though you subscribe not, yet there is no reason you should anathematise it; because we find some parts of Scripture which look this way, and so far seem to enforce it that we have rather reason to fear there may be some truth in it; since our wilful delays are but as the degrees to it, as the ready way to that gulf out of which it will be impossible to lift up ourselves; at least impossible in the Lawyer's sense; impossible, as those things which may be, but seldom come to pass. It is a part of wisdom to fear the worst, nor can we be too scrupulous in the business of our Salvation. God telleth Abraham that he will judge the Amorites, Gen. 15.14, 16. but he will stay to the fourth generation, till their iniquity be full; and when it is full, than he will strike. Our Saviour thus bespeaketh the Pharisees, Matth. 23.32. Fill you up the measure of your forefathers: Which is not a command, but a prediction, that they should fill up the measure of their sin, and then be ripe for punishment. For when men have run out the full length of their line than it is God's time to draw it in, and give them a check, to pull them on their back, to be buried in ruin for ever. Luk. 19.41, 42.43. When our Saviour beheld Jerusalem, the Text telleth us he wept over it, wept over it as at its funeral, as if he now saw the enemy cast a trench round about it, as if he saw it lie level with the ground. Will you hear his Epicedium or Funeral speech, which he uttered with great passion, the tears running down his cheeks? Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace, IN HAC DIE TVA, even in this thy day! A day than they had: But when this day was shut in, then followeth, NUNC AUTEM, but now they are hid from thine eyes: Which ushereth in that blackness of darkness for ever. Oh that thou hadst! Then was liberty of choice. But now, thou art bound and fettered under a sad impossibility for ever. And that we may be thus bound hand and foot before we be cast into utter darkness, S. Paul doth more than intimate, when he telleth us of the Gentiles, Rom. 1.28. that as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, to retain him as a merciful God, retain his love and favour by the true worship of him, he also gave them over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to a reprobate mind; he left them in that gall of bitterness, in which they delighted. Tradidit repletos, non replendos, Isid. Pelus. l. 4. ep. 102. saith the Father; He gave them over, not to be filled; but being filled already with all iniquity, he delivered them over to a reprobate mind. They retained not God in any part of their time; and now time is run out, is at an end, and will be no more. They would be evil; and now they cannot be good. The Jewish Doctors had a proverb that God in this his proceeding did but farinam jam molitam molere, do that which was done already to his hands, grind that corn that was ground already, and leave them who would be left to themselves and their own hellish wickedness, which was their ruin. Hom. 22. c. 11. For that of Basil is most true, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Judgement followeth Mercy at the heels, to take revenge upon those who wantonly abuse her, striketh them dead who will not live, and sealeth them up to damnation who are condemned already. You may now turn and God will receive you: This is the dialect of Mercy. But you shall not, if you thus put it off from time to time: That is the voice of an angry and despised God. Oh that thou hadst known in this thy day! See, Mercy gave Jerusalem a day, and shined brightly in it; and by that light she might have seen the things that concerned her peace. But now they are hid from thine eyes, are as the black lines of Reprobation drawn out by the hand of Justice. It was thy day, but now it is shut up, and Nox est perpetuò una dormienda; Thy Sun is set for ever; all is night, eternal night: The light is hid from thine eyes, and thou shalt never see it more. You will say this was spoken to a People, to a Nation. It is true: But may it not also be so with every particular person? may it not be so with one Pharisee? with one viper, as well as with a generation? Was it not so with Judas as well as with Jerusalem? I have read that a Body, a Society, a Commonwealth may fall under a censure, and be subject unto penalty: yet Bodies do not offend but in their parts. It is not Rome that committeth the fault, but Sempronius, or Titius, who are parts of that Commonwealth. Not the Amorites alone, not the sect of the Pharisees, not Jerusalem alone, but every man may have diem suam, his allotted time, in which he may turn from his evil ways. And this day may be a Feast-day, or a day of trouble; it may beget an eternal day; or it may end in the shadow of death and everlasting darkness. Oh that Men were wise! but so wise as the creatures which have no reason! so wise as to know their seasons, to discover this their day, wherein they may yet turn! Oh that we could but behold that decretory hour, or but place it in our thoughts, and make it our fear that such a one there may be, in which Mercy shall forsake us, and Justice cut off our hopes for ever! Certainly we should not then make so many Days in our year; we should not resolve to day for to morrow, and to morrow for the next day, and so drive it forward till the last sand, till we can resolve no more. He that thinketh so lightly of Eternity as to think it may be wrought out in a moment, and yet will not allow it so much but when he please, hath just cause to fear that his Day is passed already. Now though there may be such a day, such a moment, yet this day, this moment, like the day of judgement, is not known to any. And it may seem on purpose to be removed out of our sight, that we may be jealous of every moment of our life, and that when the Devil tempteth, the World flattereth, the Flesh rebelleth, we may set up this thought against them, That this may be our last moment, and if we yield now, we shall be slaves for ever. 2 Pet. 3.15. For as the long-suffering of God is salvation, so is every day, every hour of our life, such a day, and such an hour as carrieth along with it eternity either of pain or bliss. That thou mayest therefore turn now, think that a time may come when thou shalt not be able to turn. Sen De Benef. 2.5. Tardè velle nolentis est; Not to be willing to turn to thy God now, is to deny him. Delay is no better than defiance. And why shouldest thou hope to be willing hereafter, who art not willing now; and art not willing now, upon this false and deceitful hope that thou shalt be willing hereafter? Wilful and present folly is no good presage of after-wisdome. It is more probable that a froward Will will be more froward and perverse, then that after it hath joined with the vanities of this world, and cleaved fast unto them, it should bow and bend itself to that Law which maketh it death to touch them. He that leapeth into the pit upon hope that he shall get out, hath leapt into his grave, at least deserveth to be covered over with darkness, and buried there for ever. Fear then lest the measure of thy iniquity be almost full, and persuade thyself thy next sin may fill it. Think this is thy Day, thy hour, thy moment. And though peradventure it may not be, yet think it may be thy last. It is no error, though it be an error.: For, if it be not thy last, yet in justice God might make it so: for why should heaven be offered more than once? And if it be an error, it is an happy error: for it will redeem us from all those errors which Delay bringeth in and multiplieth, even those errors which make us worse than the Beasts that perish. A happy error! I may say, an Angel, that layeth hold on us, and snatcheth us out of the fire, out of the common ruin, and hasteneth us to our God. A happy error, which freeth us from all other errors of our life. And yet, though it may be an error, (for it is no more than it may be,) it is a truth: For only one Now is true. There may be many more Nows, it is true, a now to morrow, and a now hereafter, and a now on our deathbed; but these are but May-bees; and these potential truths concern us not: for that which may be, may not be. That which concerneth us is an everlasting truth, To day, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. If you harden them to day, and stand upon May-bees, than they may be hard for ever. Therefore, if you expect I should point out to a certain time, the time is now, Turn ye, turn ye, even now. Now the Prophet speaketh, now the words sound in your ears; Now, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For why was it spoken but that we should hear it? It is an earnest call after us: and if we obey not, it is an argument against us that we deserve to hear it no more. We are willing that what we speak should stand; not a word, not a syllable, not one tittle must fall to the ground. If we speak to our servant, and say, Go, he must go; and if we say, Do this, he must do it nunc, now, dicto citiùs, as soon as it is spoke. A deliberative pausing obedience, obedience in the future tense, to say he will do it when he pleaseth, strippeth him of his livery, and thrusteth him out of doors. And shall Man, who is dust and ashes, seek a convenient time to turn from his evil ways? Shall our now be when we please? Shall one morrow thrust on another, and that a third? Shall we demur and delay till we are ready to be thrust into our graves, or (which will follow) into hell? If the Lord saith, Turn ye, turn ye, there can be no other time, no other Now, but Now. All other Nows and opportunities, as our days, are in his hands; and he may close and shut them up, if he please, and not open them to give thee another. Domini, non servi, negotium agitur: The business is the Lord's, and not the servant's; and yet the business is ours too: but the time is in his hands, and not in ours. Now then turn ye, now the word soundeth and echoeth in your ears. Again, Now; now hast thou any good thought, Deus ad homines, imò, quod propius est, in homines venit, Sen. Ep. 73. any thought that hath any relish of salvation? For that thought, if it be not the voice, is the whisper of the Lord, but it speaketh as plain as his thunder. If it be a good thought, it is from him who is the Fountain of all good, and he speaketh to thee by it, as he did to the Prophets by visions and dreams. In a dream, Job 33.15, 16. in a vision of the night, (I may say, In a thought) he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction. And why should he speak once, and twice, and we perceive it not? Why should the Devil, who seeketh to devour us, prevail with us more than our God, that would save us? Why should an evil thought arise in our hearts, and swell and grow, and be powerful to roll the eye, to lift up the head, to stretch out the hand, to make our feet like hind's feet in the ways of death; and a holy thought, a good intention, which is as it were the breath of the Lord, be stopped and checked and slighted, and at last chased away into the land of oblivion? Why should a good thought arise, and vanish, and leave no impression behind it; and an evil thought increase and multiply, shake the powers of the soul, command the Will and every faculty of the mind, and every part of the body, and at last bring forth a Cain, an Esau, a Herode, a Pharisee, a profane person, an adulterer, a murderer? Why should we so soon divest ourselves of the one; and morari, stay and dwell, and fool it in the other, sporting ourselves as in a place of pleasure, a Seraglio, a paradise? Let us but give the same friendly entertainment to the good as we do to the bad, let us but as joyfully embrace the one as we do the other, let us be as speculative men in the ways of God as we are in our own, and then we shall make haste, and not delay to turn unto him. We talk much of the Grace of God; and we do but talk of it. It is in all mouths, in some but a sound in others scarce sense, in most a loud but faint acknowledgement of its power, when it hath no power at all to move us; an acknowledgement of what God can do, when we are resolved he shall work nothing in us. We commend it, Tit. 2.11. and resist it; pray for it, and refuse it. Behold, the Grace of God hath appeared to all men, appeared in the doctrine of the Gospel: and it appeareth in those good thoughts which are the proper issue of that doctrine, and are begot by the Word of Truth. When the heart sendeth them forth, she sendeth them as Messengers of Grace, to invite and draw us out of our evil ways. And if the Devil can raise such a Babel upon an evil thought, why may not God raise up a Temple unto himself upon a good? I appeal to yourselves, and shall desire you to ask yourselves the question; How often have you enjoyed such gracious ravishing thoughts? how often have you felt the good motions of the Spirit? how oft have you heard a voice behind you, Isa. 30.21. say, Do this? How many checks, how many inward rebukes have you had in your evil ways? how oft have these thoughts followed and pursued in the ways of evil, and made them less pleasing? what a damp have they cast upon your delight? what a thorn have they been in your flesh, even when it was wanton? How oft are you so composed and biased by these heavenly insinuations that heart and hand are ready to join together as partners in the Turn? How oft would you, and yet will not turn? How oft are you the Preacher, Eccles. 1.2. and tell yourselves, Vanity of vanities: all is vanity, and that there is no true rest but in God? I speak to those who have some feeling and presage of a future estate, Hebr. 6.5. some taste of the powers of the world to come (for too many, we see, have not; I speak this to our shame) Now is the Time, Now is the Now. Pers. sat. 3. — nunc, nunc properandus, & acri Fingendus sine fine rota— Now thou must turn the wheel about, and frame and fashion thyself into a vessel of honour, consecrate unto the Lord; Now make up a child of God, the new creature. Now we must nourish and make much of these good motions and inclinations wrought in us either by the word of God, or the rod of God. They are fallen upon us, and entered into us; but how long they will stay, how long we shall enjoy them, we cannot tell. A smile from the World, a dart from Satan, if we take not heed, if we be not tender of them, may chase them away. This is the time, this is the Now. For at another time, being fallen from this heaven, our cogitations may be from the earth earthly, such gross and dirty thoughts as will not melt but harden in the sun: Our faculties may be corrupt, our understandings dull and heavy, our wills froward and perverse, that we shall either not will that which is good, or so will it as not to have strength to bring forth and draw it into act. If we approve and look towards it, we shall soon start back as from an enemy, as from that which suiteth not with our present disposition, but is distasteful to it; tanquam fas non sit, as if it were some unlawful thing; as we read of the Sybarite, who was grown so extremely dainty that he would fall into a cold sweat and faint at another man's labour. Now therefore, Now let us close with it, whilst it appeareth in beauty, and is amiable in our eyes; whilst our will beginneth to bend, and our heart inclineth to it. If we let this so fair an opportunity pass, within a while Vanity itself will appear in glory, and that Holiness which should make us like unto God will be taken for a monster: There will be honey on the Harlot's lips, and gall on Chastity; a Lordship shall be more desirable than Paradise, and three lives in that then eternity in Heaven. Now God is God; and if we do not Now fall down and worship him, the next Now Baal will be God, the World will be our God, and the true God, whom but now we acknowledged, will not be in all our ways. The first Now, the first opportunity, is the best; the next is most uncertain, the next may be never. But now, if we will stand to distinguish times by the events, as by their several faces, the divers complexions they receive either from peace or trouble, from prosperity or adversity; then certainly the best time to turn to God is when he turneth his face to us, cùm candidi fulgent soles, when God shineth brightly upon our tabernacles, and speaketh to us, not out of the whirlwind, but in a still voice; when Plenty crowneth the Commonwealth, and Peace shadoweth it; when God appeareth to us, not as Jupiter to Semele, in thunder, but as to Danae, in a shower of gold. It is best to open to him whilst he standeth as it were at the door, and intreateth entrance, and not stay till he knock with the hammer, or break in upon us with his sword. To turn to him now in this brightness will rather be an act of our Love then of our Fear, and so make our Repentance a free-will-offering, a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour unto God. This will make it evident that we understand the voice of his calling, the language of his benefits, the miracle which he worketh, which is, to cure our inward blindness with clay, with these outward things, that we may see to turn from our evil ways unto the Lord. This is truly to praise the Lord for all his benefits, this is truly to honour him, to bear ourselves with that fear and reverence that we leave off to offend this God of blessings. Negat beneficium, qui non honorat; he denieth, he despiseth a blessing, that doth not thus honour it. Ingratitude is contumelious to God; it is the bane of merit, the defacer of goodness, the sepulchre and the hell of all blessings: for by it they are turned into a curse. Ingratitude loatheth the light, loatheth the land of Canaan, and looketh for milk and honey in Egypt. This is it the Prophets every where complain of, that the people did enjoy the light of God's countenance but by it walked oh in their evil ways, and made no other use of it then this, That they did per tantorum bonorum detrimenta Deum contemnere, Ad Celantiam as Hierom speaketh, lose the favour of God in their contempt, and were made worse by that which should have turned them from being evil; that being Gods pleasant plant, Isa. 5.7. they brought forth nothing but wild grapes. To apply this to ourselves; Dare we now look back to the former times? What face can turn that way, and not gather blackness? God gave us light, and we s●●t our eyes against it. He made us the envy, and we were ambitious to make ourselves the scorn of all nations. He gave us milk and honey, and we turned it into gall and bitterness. He gave us plenty and peace, and the one we loathed, as the Jews did their Manna; the other we abused. Our Peace brought forth War, as Nicippus Sheep in Aelian did yean a Lion. God spoke to us by peace, and we were in trouble till we were in trouble, till we were in a posture of war. He spoke to us by plenty, and we answered him by luxury. He spoke to us by love, and we answered him by oppression: He made our faces to shine, and we ground the faces of the poor. He spoke to us in a still voice, and we defied the Holy One of Israel. Every benefit of his cried, Zech. 11.12. Give me my price; and lo, in stead of turning from our evil ways, delighting in them; in stead of leaving them, defending of them; in stead of calling upon his Name, calling it down to countenance all the imaginations of our hearts, Gen. 6 5. which have been evil continually. This was the goodly price that he and all his blessings were prized at. Zech. 11.13. And then, when this light was thus abused, our Sun did set, our day was shut in, that Now, that Then had its end. Psal. 105.32. The next call was in thunder, and he gave us hail for rain, and flaming fire in our land. Such a then, such an opportunity we had; and we may say with shame and sorrow enough, that we have lost it. But since we have let slip that time of peace, that acceptable time, yet at least let us turn now in the storm, Psal 107.28, 29. Matth 24.29. that God may make a calm. Let us turn to him in our trouble, that he may bring us out of our distress. Now, when our Sun is darkened, and our Moon turned into blood, when the knowledge of God's Law and of true Piety beginneth to wax dim, and the face and beauty of Religion to whither; When the Stars are fallen from heaven, when the teachers of truth fall from the profession of truth, and set that up for truth which setteth them up in high places; When the powers of heaven are shaken, when the pillars of the Church sink, and break asunder into many sects and divisions, which is as music to Rome, but maketh all walk as mourners about the streets of Jerusalem; when Religion, which should be the bond of love, is made the title and pretence of war, the fomenter of that malice and bitterness which defileth it and putteth it to shame, and treadeth it under foot; Luke 21.25. When the Sea and the waves thereof roar, when we hear the noise and tumult of the people, which is as the raging of the Sea, but ebbing and flowing with more uncertainty and from a cause less known; Now, in this draught and resemblance of the end of the World, when God thus speaketh to us in the whirlwind, thus knocketh with his hammer, calleth thus loud unto us, Turn ye, turn ye, let us bow down our heads, and in all humility answer him, ECCE ACCEDIMUS, Behold, Jer. 3 22. Matth. 18.7. we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God. For, as our Saviour speaketh of offences; so may we of these judgements and terrors which he sendeth to fright us to him, NECESSE EST VT VENIANT; It must needs be that they come, not only necessitate consequentiae, by a necessity of consequence, supposing the condition of our nature, and the changes and chances of a sinful world; or rather supposing the corruption of men's manners, which can produce nothing but tumult and sedition, plagues, famine, and war (for what other fruit can grow from s ●●h evil trees?) but necessitate finis also, in respect of the end for which they are sent. For God, in whose power both men and their actions are, doth not only not hinder them by his mighty hand, but permitteth them, and by a kind of providence sendeth them upon us, partly for our trial, but especially for our amendment, that finding gall and wormwood upon every pleasure and vanity of the world, and no rest for our feet in these tumultuous waves, we may flee to the A●k, and turn to him with our whole heart. And certainly, if judgement's work not this effect, they will work a far worse. If they do not set a period to our sin, they are then but the beginnings of sorrow, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, the prologue to that long and lasting Tragedy, sad types and forerunners of everlasting torments in the bottomless pit. As yet they may be but an argument of God's love, the blows of a Father, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, In 10. Esai. as Basil calleth them, blows to turn us out of our evil ways. O felicem servum, cujus emendationi instat Dominus, cui dignatur irasci! saith Tertullian; De patiented. 11. Oh happy servant, whom God taketh such care to amend! whom he thus diggeth about, and watereth with his discipline of Affliction; whom he thus purgeth, that he may bring forth fruits meet for repentance; whom he loveth so well as to be angry with him; to whom he giveth so great honour and respect as to chastise him; Ibid. quem admonendi dissimulatione non decipit, whom he thus plainly telleth of his sin and danger, and writeth and imprinteth it as it were in his very flesh; whom he doth not in his anger dissemble with and deceive; that is, let alone, that he may ruin himself; seem to favour, that he may destroy him; touch not, that he may grind him to pieces. Nam quanta est poena, nulla poena? Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all, and nothing more deplorable than the happiness of a wicked man. For when God is silent, and will speak no more, than he hath his axe in his hand to cut us down, that we bear no more fruit. And such a Now, such a time there may come, when God hath called again and again, when he hath spoken to us, and spoken within us, when he hath spoken to us from his Mercy-seat, and spoken in thunder, that he will speak no more. And this no doubt hath befallen many thousands, whom God in justice delivered to chains of darkness to be reserved to judgement, whom he would not frown upon, whom he would not look upon, whom he would not trouble, whose eyes he would not open to see the danger they were in; but as they colluded and trifled with him, so he laughed at their folly and madness, and left them to themselves, to run on with pleasure, with hope, with confidence, untouched, unrebuked, unregarded, to their destruction. All that are lost are not in hell: for they that are now there, were lost before, vivi, videntésque, even whilst they walked in the land of the living; lost, when they were called upon, and would not hear; lost in the midst of Prophets and Apostles; lost in the Church; lost in the mercies of God, which they rejected; lost in the judgements of God, which they slighted; lost before they were utterly lost; lost, when they left God, and when God left them. Judas had his name, The son of perdition, before he hanged himself, and before he went to his own place. It may seem strange indeed, but it is true; and there is no reason it should seem strange. For why should it seem strange that God should leave us once, who have left him so often? that when he can do no more to his Vineyard, he should pluck up the hedge, Isa. 5. and lay it open to bring forth nothing but briers and thorns? that when we have abused his Mercy, he should be angry? that when we defy him, he should fling us off? that when we will be evil, he should let us alone? It is our own folly that maketh it a Paradox. Our Ignorance of ourselves and of God, our high and vile esteem of his Mercy, our false glozing and misinterpreting his Judgements, have made it a heresy, anathematised and exploded it. And now any Now, any time, is soon enough with them who will sin, but would not be punished; who put God from them, but would not be left to themselves; who would repent, and yet sin; would be saved, but not now. These are the Solecisms of Delay, the contradictions and absurdities of wilful sinners, such who would turn, yet will go on in their sins. It were easy to fill our mouth with arguments. But Delay in our onsets and progress to Eternity is of so foul and monstrous an aspect, that there need no tongue of Men or Angels to set forth the horror of it. Every eye that seethe it must needs turn itself away, every thought that receiveth it must distaste and condemn it; even the heart that is deceived with it cannot but tremble at it. Amongst so many that have perished, amongst so many that may perish by it, it never yet found one patron, any one man that had a good word for it, or did dare to say it were not a sin to trust to it. Even when we delay, we condemn ourselves, and yet still hope, and still delay. We condemn it in others; and of those who have been long evil we are too ready to say, They will never be good. He that hearkeneth to the call, and turneth at the first sound of it, condemneth it: for he flingeth it off as if Death were in it. He that expecteth an hour, when the hour is Now, condemneth it, condemneth it by his very expectation, condemneth it by his fear? For he that doth but hope for such an hour, cannot but entertain some fear that it may never come, and so conclude against himself, that that opportunity which hath a being and subsistence, is far better, and to be preferred before that which love of vanity and his hope hath made up, which is nothing but in expectation. Thus we delay, and check, and comfort ourselves, and yet delay, and destroy ourselves, and look for salvation in medio gehennae, In Cant. Ser. 75. saith Bernard, in the midst of hell, which is wrought already, and must be wrought out by us, in medio terrae, in the midst of the earth. For conclusion then; Turn ye, turn ye; that is, Turn ye now. There is but one Now: There may be many more; but most true it is, there is but one. Hom. 41. Tene quod certum; dimitte quoth incertum, saith Augustine. Let us lay hold on that which is certainly ours; let us not send our thoughts and hopes afar off to that which hath no better foundation to rest on then Uncertainty itself. Let us not hope to raise Eternity upon a thought of that which may be, or rather of that which may not be. For we may as well consult and determine what we will do when we are dead, as what we will do in this kind hereafter. If it be never wrought out of its contingency, if it never come to pass, the difference is not great: For that which may be, and that which never shall be, may be the same, That which may be and may not be hath no entity at all, Arestot. De incerp. c. 9 and so cannot be the object of our Knowledge, nor bear either an Affirmation or Negation. And wilt thou settle a resolution on such a Contingency? resolve to do that at such a time which thou canst not tell whether it will ever come or no? resolve upon that of which thou canst neither affirm nor deny that it shall ever be? Wilt thou hazard the favour of God, thy soul, and salvation upon the hope of that which is not, and may be nothing? This were to let go Juno, and embrace a cloud; to set thy happiness on the cast of a die; to call the things that are not, as if they were; in brief, to set up an idol, a false hope, a gilded nothing, and fall down and worship it, and forsake that present opportunity which is the voice of God, and bespeaketh us to make no more delays, but to turn Now. The word now soundeth; let us hearken now. We have been told by him who had it from Christ, 2 Cor. 6.2. as Christ had it from his Father, that now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation: and we were never yet told of any other day. Did ever yet any Prophet or Apostle exhort you to turn to morrow. At what time soever, is not, When you please; but, Though you have not yet left your evil ways, yet now you may turn. At what time soever, is Now. Divinity, or the Doctrine of the Gospel, is practical, and considereth not contingencies, but necessaries. In it there is nothing presented to us in the future tense, but Salvation, which is a thing of another world. The means are all derived to us in the present, To day if you will hear his voice; Psal. 95.7. Deny yourselves; Take up your Cross; Mortify your fleshly lusts to day; Believe now; Love him now; Hope in him now. That which is to come, or may be, in respect of our duty, is not considerable in that science, but left in his hands who is the Ancient of days; Dan. 7.9. who being eternal may indulge as many opportunities as in wisdom he shall think fit, but his command is Now. He may receive us at any time, but he bindeth us to the present. We have been told, nay, we can tell ourselves, that Now is better than To morrow; that we have but one day, one moment, which we can call ours, and after that Time may be no more. We have heard that Delay is a Tyrant, a Pharaoh, layeth more work upon us, Exod. 5.7, 8. doubleth and trebleth, nay infinitely multiplieth our task, and yet alloweth us no straw; withdraweth the means, the helps and advantages we had to turn, or else maketh us weak and impotent, less able to use them; delivereth us over to more difficulties, more pangs and troubles and tormenting agonies, than we should have felt if we had cast her off, and begun betimes: And shall we yet delay? We have heard that it is a sin to delay, and maketh Sin yet more sinful; that it is the Devils first heave to throw us into that gulf out of which we shall have neither power nor will to come; that it is a leading sin, the forerunner to the sin against the Holy Ghost, which shall never be forgiven. And shall we yet delay? Mat. 12.31. We have been taught that it is high presumption to leave Christ working out his part of the covenant in his blood once shed for us, Non expectat De●s frigescentes senect●●is annos▪ nec ●mortuam jam per aetatem vitiorum cons●etudinem▪ Vult longi p●aelii militem. Hilar. in Psal. 118. Beth. and interceding for us for ever, and wilfully to neglect our part, and drive it off, from time to time; from the cheerfulness and vigour of youth to the dulness and laziness of old age, to withered hands and trembling joints, to weak memories, heavy hearts, and dull understandings, to unactive amazedness to the Would but Cannot of a bedrid-sinner; then to strive against Sin when we are to struggle with our disease; then to do it when we can do no thing; and when we cannot finish and perfect our Repentance, to fill and make it up in a thought or sigh, in a faint and sick acknowledgement, which are rather sad remonstrances against our former neglect and delay, then infallible testimonies of demonstrative declarations of a wounded and broken heart: This we have been told, and shall we yet delay? In brief, we have been taught, that Delay if we cut it not off betimes, will at last cut us off from the Covenant of Grace; 2 Cor. 1.20. that it will make the Gospel as killing as the Law, the promises, which are Yea and Amen, Hebr 12.19. nothing to us; that it will make a gracious God a consuming fire, Psal 115.17. Agens poenitentiam, & reconciliatus cùm sanus est, & postea bene viveus, securus hinc exit. Agens poenitentiam ad ultimum, reconciliatus, si ecurus hinc exit, ego non sum securus. Aug. Hom. 41. and Jesus a destroyer; That a dying man can no more turn to God than the dead can praise him; That after we have thus seared our consciences, and drawn out our life in a continued disobedience, the Gospel is sealed up, and concerneth us not at the hour of death, who would not lay hold of one hour of our life to turn in; That such cannot go the same ordinary way to heaven with the Apostles and Martyrs and the souls of just men made perfect, with those who put off the old man and put on the new, with those who escaped the pollutions of the world, and were never again entangled in them; but are left to that Mercy which was never promised, and which they have little reason to hope for, having so much abused it to their own perdition. All that can be said is scarce worth their hearing, Non dico, Salvabuntur; non dico, Damnabuntur; We cannot say they shall be saved; we cannot say they shall be damned. They may be safe; but of this we cannot be sure, because we have no revelation for it, but rather for the contrary. Only, God is not bound to rules and Laws, as Man is, no, not to his own, but keepeth to himself his supreme right and power entire, may do what he will with his own, take that for a Turn which he hath not declared to be so, and do that which he hath threatened he will not do. But it is ill depending upon what God may do. For, for aught that is revealed, he will never do it. He will never do it to him who presumeth he will because he may, and so putteth off his Turn and Repentance to the last, leaveth the ordinary way, and trusteth to what God may do out of course: He will never do it to a man of Belial, who runneth on in his sins, yet looketh for a chariot to carry him into heaven. We have no such doctrine, nor the Church of Christ. Her voice is, Turn ye now; at last will be too late. This is the doctrine of the Gospel. But yet the judgement is the Lords. All this we have heard, and we cannot gainsay or confute it: And shall we yet delay? Certainly, if we know these terrors of the Lord, and not turn now; we shall hardly ever turn. If we hear and believe this, and do not repent, we are worse than Infidels. Our Faith shall help the Devil to accuse us; and it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha then for us If we hear this, and still fold our hands to sleep, still delay, if this noise do not stir and move us, if this do not startle us in our evil ways, we have good reason to fear we shall never awake till the last Trump, till that day, till the last day, which is a day of Judgement, as this our day is of Repentance. We say we believe that now heaven is offered, and now we must strive to enter in; we say we pray for it, we hope for it, we long for it; If we do, then Now is the time. Festina fides, alacris devotio, spes impigra, saith S. Ambrose. Epist. c. 10. Ep. 82. Faith is on the wing, and carrieth us along with the speed of a thought, through all difficulties, through all distastes and affrightments, and will not let us stay one moment in the house of vanity, in any slippery place where we may fall and perish. Devotio est actualis voluntas prompte faciendi quae ad Dei cultum spectant. Aquin. 22. q. 82. art. 1. Praepropera velocitate pietatis pene aute coepit perfectus esse vam disceret, Pontius Diaconus de Cypriani vita. Devotion is full of heat and activity; and Hope that is deferred is an affliction. If we are led by the Spirit of God, we are led apace, drawn suddenly out of those ways which lead unto death, called upon to escape for our lives, and not to look behind us, and (as it was said of Cyprian) we are at our journey's end as soon as we set out. God speaketh, and we hear; he begetteth good thoughts in us, and we nourish them to that strength that they break forth into action; he poureth forth his grace, and we receive it; he maketh his benefits his lure, and we come to his hand; he thundereth from heaven, and we fall down before him. In brief, Repentance is as our Passeover: By it we sacrifice our heart, and we do it in the bitterness of our soul, and in haste, and so pass from death to life, from darkness to light, from our evil ways to the obedience of Faith; and God passeth over us, seethe the blood, our wounded spirits, our tears, our contrition, and will not now destroy us, but seeing us so soon and so far removed from our evils ways, will favour us, and shine upon us: and in the light of his countenance we shall walk on from strength to strength, through all the hardship and troubles of a continued race, to that rest and peace which is everlasting. Thus much of the first property of Repentance; It must be matura conversio, Hieron. Paulino. a speedy and present Turn. Festina, & haerentis in salo naviculae funem magìs praecide quàm solve. The Nineteenth SERMON. PART FOUR EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, etc. TO stand out with God, and contend with him all our life long, to try the utmost of his patience, and then in our evening, in the shutting up of our days, to bow before him, is not to turn. Nor have we any reason to conceive any hope that a faint confession or sigh should deliver him up to eternity of bliss, whom the swinge of his lusts and a multiplied continued disobedience have carried along without check or control to his chamber and bed, and to the very mouth of the grave; who delighted himself in evil till he can do no good. Delay, if it be not fatal to all, (for we dare not give laws to God's Mercy) yet we have just reason to fear it is so to those that trust so to God's Mercy as to run on in their evil ways till the hand of Justice is ready to cut their thread of life, and to set a period to that and their sins together. Turn ye, turn ye, that is, now, that it be not too late. Proceed we now to the second property of Repentance, the Sincerity of our Turn. This Ingemination in the Text hath more heat in it; for it serveth not only to hasten our motion and Turn, but to make it true and real and sincere. When God biddeth us turn, he considereth us not as upon a stage, but in his Church, where every thing must be done, not acted; where all is real, nothing in shadow and representation; where we must be holy, as he is holy; perfect, as he is perfect; true, as he is true: where we must behave ourselves as in the house of God, 1 Tim. 3.15. which is not pe●gula pictoris, a Painter's shop, where all is in show, nothing in truth. Joel 2.13. Not our garments, but our hearts must be rend; that as Christ our head was crucified indeed, not in show or phantasm, as Martion would have it, so we may present him a wounded soul, a bleeding repentance, a flesh crucified, and so join as it were with Christ in a real and sincere putting away and abolishing of sin. God is Truth itself, true and faithful in his promises: ☜ Psal. 33.9. If he speak, he doth it; if he command, it shall stand fast: and therefore he hateth a feigned forced, wavering, imaginary Repentance. To come in a visor or disguise before him is an abomination. Nor will he give true joy for feigned sorrow, heaven for a shadow, everlasting happiness for a counterfeit and momentany Turn, and eternity for that which is not, for that which is nothing. And Repentance, if it be not sincere, is nothing. Nazianz. Orat. 19 The holy Father will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, That which is feigned is not lasting. That which is forced faileth and endeth with that artificial spring that turneth it about, as we see the wheels of a clock move not when the plummet is on the ground, because the beginning of that motion is ab extrà, not from an internal form, but from some violence or art without. Seneca. Simplex recti cura, multiplex parvi: There is but one true principle of a real, Turn, the fear of God; there may be very many of a false one. Septem mendaciis eget mendacium unum, ut verum videatur, De Indulg. Martin Luther said that one lie had need of seven more, to draw but an apparency of truth over it, that it may pass under that name: So that which is not sincere is brought in with a troop of attendants like itself, and must be set off with great diligence and art; when that which is true commendeth itself, and needeth no other hand to paint or polish it. What art and labour is required to smooth a wrinkled brow? Matth. 6.16. What ceremony, what noise, what trumpets, what extermination of the countenance, what sad looks, what tragical deportment must usher in an Hypocrite? What a penance doth he undergo that will be a Pharisee? How many counterfeit sighs and forced groans, how many fasts, how many sermons must be the prologued 〈◊〉 false Turn, to a nominal Turn? For we may call it turning from our evil ways, when we do but turn and look about us to secure ourselves in them, or to make way to worse. Ahab and Jezabel did so; Absalon did; the Jews did so, Fast to smite with the fist of wickedness, Isa. 58.4. and to make their voice to be heard on high. A false Turn, Wickedness itself may work it: Craft and Cruelty may blow the trumpet in Zion, Joel 2.15. and sanctify a fast. A feigned Repentance, Oppression, Policy, Love of the world, Sin itself may beget it, and so advance and promote itself, and be yet more sinful. And commonly a false Turn maketh the fairest show, and appeareth in greater glory to a carnal eye then a true one. Plin. Panegyr. Ingeniosior ad excogitandum simulatio veritate; Hypocrisy is far more witty, seeketh out more inventions, and many times is more diligent and laborious, than the Truth: because Truth hath but one work, to be what it is, and taketh no care for outward pomp and ostentation, nor cometh forth at any time to be seen, unless it be to propagate itself in others. Now by this we may judge of our Turn, whether it be right and natural or no. As we may make many a false Turn, so there may be many false springs and principles to set us a turning. Sometimes fear may do it, sometimes Hope, sometimes Policy, and in all the Love of ourselves more then of God: And then commonly our Tragedy concludeth in the first scene, nay in the very prologue; our Repentance is at an end in the very first Turn, Nemo potest personam diu far. Ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt, Sen. 1. de Clem. c. 1. in the very first show. Ahab's Repentance was but a flash at the Prophet's thunder; Pharaoh's Repentance was driven on with an East-wind, and compassed about with locusts; an inconstant, false and desultory Repentance. I cannot better compare it then to motions by water-works: Whilst the water runneth, the devise turneth round, and we have some Story of the Bible presented to our eyes; but when the water is run out, all is at an end, and we see that no more which took our eyes with such variety of action. So it is many times in our Turn, which is no better than a pageant; Whilst the waters of affliction beat upon us, we are in motion, and may present divers actions and signs of true Repentance: Our eyes may gush out with tears; we may hang down our head, and beat our breast; our tongue, our glory may awake; our hands may be stretched out to the poor; we may cry Peccavi, with David, put on sackcloth with Ahab, go for●● with Peter: But when these waters of bitterness are abated or cease, t●●n our motion faileth, our Turn is at an end, our tears are dried up, our tongue silent, our hands withered, and it plainly appeareth that our Turn was but artificial, our motion counterfeit, and our Repentance but a kind of puppit-play. Malorum vestigia, quasi in salo posita, Lib. 2. epist. 10 fluctuant & prolabuntur saith Hierome: The wicked walk in this world as on the waves of the sea; they make a proffer to go and walk, but soon sink and fall down: Their motion is wavering and inconstant. And he giveth the reason, Fundamenta fidei solida non habent, They have no sure grounding. Nor doth the love of goodness, but something else, thus startle and disquiet them in evil. Saul's whining at Samuel's reproof, 1 Sam. 15.24, 30. 1 Kings 21.27. Acts 24.25. Ahab's mourning and humbling himsef at Elijahs prophesy, Felix trembling at Paul's preaching, were not voluntary and natural motions, but beat out by the hammer. The loss of a kingdom, the destruction of a family, the fear of judgement may drive any Saul to his prayers, cloth any Ahab with sackcloth, and bring motum trepidationis, a fit of trembling, upon any Felix, lose the joints of any heathen. For, as it is observed that the very Heathen retained some seeds of truth, and although they had no full and perfect sight of it, but saw it at a distance, falsum tamen ab absurdo refutârunt, yet condemned error and falsehood by that absurdity which was visible enough, and written as it were in its very forehead; so in the most rotten and corrupt hearts there are Divinae veritatis semina, some seeds of saving knowledge, but choked and stifled with the love of vanity and the cares of this world. Hereupon though they do not hate sin, yet the horror of sin, or that smart which it bringeth along with it, maketh them sometimes turn away, and make a seeming flight from that sin which they cannot hate. What therefore the Philosopher speaketh of Friendship is here very appliable, That friendship is most lasting which hath the best and surest ground, which is built and raised upon Virtue: Arist. Eth. 8. c. 8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the friendship of wicked men is as unconstant and unstable as themselves; for they want that goodness which is the confirmation and bond of love. If it rise from Pleasure, that is a thinner vapour than a man's life, and appeareth a less time, Jam. 4.14. and then vanisheth a way; and the friend goeth with it. If you lay it on riches, they have wings, Prov. 23.5. and that love which was tied to them flieth away with them. Nothing can give it a sure and firm being but Piety, which is as lasting as the heavens. Profit and Pleasure and by-respects are but threads of tow; and when these are broken, than they who had but one mind and soul, are two again. And so also it is with us in our converse and walking with our God. Joh 15.14. His friends we are, if we keep his say, if the love of his name be as it were the form and principle that moveth and carrieth us towards him, if we turn in his name: But if we do it upon false grounds, upon such motives as will rather change our countenance and gesture than our minds, and make us seem good for a while to be worse for ever after; if we vomit up our sin to ease our stomach, Mali non apparent, ut plus liceat malignari. Bern in Cant 6.6. 2 Pet. 2.22. Zech 5. and then lick it up again; if we turn, that the flying book of curses overtake us not; we then give him but a single Turn, nay, the shadow of a Turn, for a double call; our Conversion is not sincere and true. There must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, something to strengthen it, that something will make us like him, that will knit and unite us to him. Our Repentance must be fully form in our hearts before it speak in sorrow, be poured forth in tears, hang down the head at a fast, and take the penitential habit. Our Turn must be begun and continued by Faith and Obedience, and then we shall not only be baptised in the tears of our Repentance, but withal receive our Confirmation. And let us thus turn. For first, false Repentance is a sin greater than that I turn from. To make a show of hatred to that I most love, is to love it still, and make my guilt greater by an additional lie. To seem to be sorry for that I delight in, to forsake that I cleave to, to renounce that I embrace, to turn from that I follow after, maketh my condition in some respects worse than that of the Atheist: For I do not only deny God, but deny him with a mock, which is a greater sin than not to think of him. If we profess we turn, and yet run on, we sin in professing that which we do not, and we sin in not doing that which we profess. If we profess we do it, why then do we it not? and if we do it not, why do we profess it? A show of what I should be accuseth me for not being what I show: As we see the Ape appeareth more deformed and ridiculous because it is like a Man; and a Strumpet is never more despicable then in a Matrons stole; as Nazianzene speaketh of women that paint themselves, Orat. 19 A. Gell. Noct. Attic. l 1.2, Aristippus in purpu●a sub magna gravitatis specie nepotatur, Tert. Apol. 46. Athenaei Deipnosoph. l. 13. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their beauty showeth them more deformed, because it is counterfeit. The very heathen could say, Odi homines philosophâ sententia, ignauâ operâ; I hate those men who are Stoics in word, and Epicures in deed, whose virtue is nothing else but a bare sentence in Philosophy, with some advantage from the gown and beard. Sophocles, who had no more chastity than what he was to thank his old age for, yet could lash and with great bitterness reproach Euripides, and pass this censure upon him, That he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, very bitter against women in his Tragedies; but more kind than was fitting in his chamber. Aristoph. Eupolide. The Comedian, to make Socrates ridiculous to the people, bring him upon the stage measuring the leaps of Fleas, and disputing and putting it to the question what part it was they made a noise at; but never thought he had sufficiently exposed him to laughter, till he brought him in discoursing of Virtue, and in his very lecture of Morality stealing a piece of plate. For he known nothing could be more absurd then for a Philosopher to play the thief, and then too when he was prescribing the rules of Honesty. Now if the very Pagans by the light of nature could condemn Hypocrisy by their very scorn, and deride and hate it; no sentence can be severe enough against it in a Christian, because the abuse of goodness is far the greater, by how much the goodness which is abused is more excellent and leveled to a better end. And therefore a formal Penitent is the grossest hypocrite in the world. Besides this, in the second place, God, who is Truth itself, standeth in extreme opposition to all that is feigned and counterfeit. An Alms with a trumpet, a Fast with a sour face, Devotion that devoureth widows houses, do more provoke him to wrath than those vices which these outward formalities seem to cry down. Nothing is more distasteful to him then a mixed and compounded Christian, made up of a bended knee and a stiff neck, of an attentive ear and a hollow heart, of a pale countenance and a rebellious spirit, of fasting and oppression, of hearing and deceit, of Hosannas and Crucifiges, of cringes, bowings, flatteries, and real disobedience. Absalom's vow, Jehu's sacrifices, Simon Magus his Repentance, Non amat falsum autor veritatis. Adulteriumest apud illum omne quod fingitur, Tert. de Ep. c. 23. Ahab's fast his soul doth hate, or any Devil that putteth on Samuel's mantle. And he so far detesteth the mere outward performance of a religious duty, that when he thundereth from heaven, when he breatheth out his menaces and threaten on the greatest sinners, the burden is, They shall have their portion with hypocrites. Exod 20.25. we read, Thou shalt not build an altar of hewn stone, nor shalt thou lift up a tool upon it. Why not lift a tool upon it? They used the hatchet, saith Nazianzene, to build the Ark, to frame the staves of Shittim-wood; they wrought in gold and silver and brass with iron instruments; they put a knife to the throat of the sacrifice; yet here, to lift up a tool upon any stone of the Altar, is to pollute it. And why not pollute the Ark as well as the Altar? The Father giveth the reason, The stones of the Altar were by the providence of God and a kind of miracle found fitted already for that work, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because, saith he, Orat. 19 whatsoever is consecrate to God must not borrow from the help of art, must not be artificial, but natural. If we build an altar unto God to sacrifice ourselves on, the stones must be naturally fitted, not hewn out by art; not a forced groan, a forced acknowledgement, artificial tears, but such as nature sendeth forth when our grief is true. To avoid this danger then, let us ask ourselves the question, whether we have gone further in our Turn then an Ahab, or an Herode, or a Simon Magus, and even by their feigned Turn learn to make up ours in truth. For did Ahab mourn and put on sackcloth? 1 Kings 1.27. Mark 6.20. Acts 8.23, 2●. did Herode hear John Baptist, and hear him gladly? did Simon Magus desire Peter to pray for him, even then when he was in the gall of bitterness? what anxiety, what contrition must perfect my conversion? Si tanti vitrum, quanti margarita? If glass cast such a brightness, what must the lustre of a diamond be? And thus may we make use even of Hypocrisy itself to establish ourselves in the truth, make Ahab and Herode arguments and motives to make our Repentance sure. For, Aristot. Metaph. 2. as the Philosopher well telleth us that we are not only beholding to those who accurately handled the points and conclusions in Philosophy, but even to Poets, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, who did light upon them by chance, and but glance upon them by allusion; so may we receive instruction even from these Hypocrites, who did repent tanquam aliud agentes, so slightly as if they had some other matter in hand. We must fast and put on sackcloth with Ahab, we must hear the word with Herode, we must beg the prayers of the Church with Simon Magus; but finding we are yet short of a true Turn, we must press forward, and exactly make up this divine science, that our Turn may be real and in good earnest, that it may be finished after his form who calleth so loud after us, that it may be brought about, and approved to him in all sincerity and truth. Thus much of the second property of Repentance. The third is, It must be poenitentia plena, a total and universal conversion, a Turn from all our evil ways. If it be not total and universal, it is not true, A great error there is in our lives, and the greatest part of mankind are taken and pleased and lost in it, To argue and conclude à part ad totum, to take the part for the whole, and from the slight forbearance of some one unlawful act, or the superficial performance of some particular duty, to infer and vainly arrogate to themselves a hatred of all sin, and an universal obedience: as if what Tiberius the Emperor was wont to say of his half eaten meats were true of our divided, our parcel and curtailed Repentance, Omnia eadem habere quae totum, Suet. Tiber. Caes. cap. 34. Every part of it, every motion and inclination to newness of life, had as much in it as the whole body and compass of our Obedience, and there were that mutual agreement and sympathy of duties in a Christian that Physicians say there is of the parts of a living creature, the same sapour and taste in a disposition to goodness that there is in a habit of goodness, as much heat and heartiness in a thought as in a constant and earnest perseverance, in a Velleity as much activity as in a Will, as much in a Pharisees pale countenance as in S. Paul's severe discipline and mortification, De locis i● Homine. and, as Hypocrites speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the least performance all the parts of our obedience; in a mere approbation, a desire; in a desire, a will; in a leaving one evil way, a turning from all; and in cutting off but one limb or part, the utter destruction of the whole body of sin. And therefore, as if God looked down from heaven, and from thence beheld the children of men, and saw how we turn, one from luxury to covetousness, another from superstition to profaneness, a third from idols to sacrilege, from one sin to another; or from some one great sin and not from another, from our scandalous, but not from our more domestic, Psal. 68.33. retired and speculative sins; he sendeth forth his voice, and that a mighty voice; TURN YE, TURN YE; not from one by-path to another; not from one sin alone, and not from another also; but turn ye, turn ye so that ye need turn no more, turn ye from all your evil ways. In corporibus aegris nihil nociturum medici relinquunt, Curt. l. 6. c. 3. Physicians purge all noxious humours out of sick and crazy bodies: And so doth the great Physician of souls sanctify and cleanse them, that he may present them to himself, Eph. 5.26.27. 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 ways 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 ourselves; because they vow Poverty, let not us make haste to be rich; Prov. 28.22. 2 Pet. 2.10. Judas 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 wasteful expenses, to satisfy for my bowing to an idol 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 ourselves 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 Schismatics: 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 ways, to Unity and Identity, to that Good which is ever like itself, the same in every part of it, and never contrary to itself. 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 ways 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 prophecy 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 ways, 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 ways. 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 only 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 than one of these, but they who die possessed 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 alms, bow the knee before God, or open his hand to his brother; be it what it will be in itself, 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 most true it is, that if we be induced and beautified with many virtues, yet the habit of one sin is enough to deface them, to draw that night and darkness about them that they shall not be seen, to put them to silence, that they shall have no power to speak or plead for us in the day of trial. Though they be not sins, not bright and shining sins, (for I cannot see how Darkness itself should shine) yet they shall become utterly unprofitable. They may peradventure lessen the number of the stripes, Luke 12.47, 48. but yet the unrepentant sinner shall be beaten. For what ease can a myriad of virtues do him who is under arrest? Nay, what performance can acquit him who is condemned already? Reason itself standeth up against it, and forbiddeth it. For what obedience is that which answereth but in part, which followeth one precept, and runneth away from another? And then what imperfect monsters should the kingdom of heaven receive? a Liberal man, but not chaste; a Temperate man, but not honest; a Zealous man, but not charitable; a great Faster, and a great Impostor; a Beads man, and a Thief; an Apostle and a great Preacher, but a Traitor. Monstrum horrendum, inform! Such a monstrous misshapen Christian cannot stand before him who is a pure and uncompounded Essence, the Same in every thing and every where, One and the same, even Unity itself. Again, every man is not equally inclined to every sin. This man loveth that which another loatheth: and he who made the Devil fly at the first encounter, may entertain him at the second; he who resisted him in lust, may yield to him in anger; he who will none of his delicates, may fail at his terrors; and he who feared not the roaring of the Lion, may be ensnared by the flattery of the Serpent. For the force of temptations is many times quickened or dulled according to the natural constitutions and several complexions of men, and other outward circumstances, by which they work more coldly or more vehemently upon the will and affections. A man of a dull and torpid disposition is seldom ambitious, and one of a quick and active spirit is seldom idle. The choleric man is not obnoxious to those evils which melancholy doth hatch, nor the melancholic to those which choler is apt to produce. As hard a matter it may be for some men to commit some one sin as it is for others to avoid it; Luk 12.19, 20. as hard a matter for the one Fool in the Gospel to have scattered his goods, Luke 15.13. as it was for the other Fool, the Prodigal, to have kept them; as hard a matter for some to let lose their anger, as it is for others to curb and bridle it. Some by their very temper and constitution with ease withstand lust, but must struggle and take pains to keep down anger. Some can stand upright in poverty, but are overthrown by wealth. Some can resist this temptation by slighting it, but must beat and macerate themselves, and use a kind of violence, before they can overcome another, which is more suitable, and flattereth their constitution. And this we may find by those darts we cast at one another, those uncharitable censures we pass. For how doth the Covetous condemn and pity the Prodigal? and how doth the Prodigal loath and scorn the Covetous? How doth the Lukewarm Christian abominate the Schismatic, and the Schismatic call every man Lukewarm, if he be not as mad as himself? How doth this man bless himself, and wonder that any should fall into such or such a sin, when he that committeth it wondereth as much that he should fall into the contrary? The Enemy applieth himself to every humour and temper, and having found where every man lieth open to invasion, he striveth to make his battery where we are most assaultable, and entereth with such forces as we are ready to obey; with a Sword, which the Revenger will snatch at; with Riches, which the Covetous will dig for; with a dish of Dainties, which the Glutton will greedily devour. And what bait soever we taste of, we are in his snare. He hath his several darts, and if any one pierce the heart, he is a conqueror. For he knoweth the wages of any one sin unrepented is death. Rom. 6.23. We are indeed ready to flatter and comfort ourselves in that sin which best complieth with our humour, evermore to favour and pardon ourselves in some sin or other, and to make our obedience to one precept an advocate to plead for us and hold us up in the breach of another. Luke 18.11. I am not as other men are, there are more Pharisees than one that have spoken it. Some sin or other there is, either Profit, or Pleasure, or the like, to which by complexion we are inclined, which we oft dispense with, as willing it should, stay with us: As Augustine confesseth of himself, that when he prayed against Lust, he was not very willing to be heard, and afraid that God would too soon divorce him from his beloved sin. At the same time we would be good, and yet evil; we would partake of life, and yet join with that which tendeth unto death; we would be converts, and yet wantoness; we would turn from one sin, and yet cleave fast to another. Oh let me hug my Mammon, saith the Miser, and I will defy lust. Let me take my fill of love, saith the Wanton, and I will spurn at wealth. Let me wash my feet in the blood of mine enemies, saith the Revenger, and all other pleasure I shall look upon, and loath. I will fast and pray, saith the Ambitious, so they may be wings to carry me to the highest place, where I had rather be then in heaven itself. Every man may be induced to abstain from those sins which either hinder not or promote that to which he is carried by the swing of his natural temper and disposition. Every nation in the times of darkness had its several God, which they worshipped, and neglected others: So every man almost hath his beloved sin, which he cleaveth to; and rather than he will turn from it, he will fling off all respect and familiarity to the rest; he will abstain from evil in this kind, so he make take in the other, which is pleasant to him: he will be for God, so he may be for Baal too: he will not Touch, Col. 2.21. so he may Taste; he will not look on this forbidden tree, so he may pluck and taste of the other. And this is to sport and please ourselves in that evil way which leadeth to death. For what though I scape the Lion, Amos 5.19. if the Bear tear me in pieces? What it is to lean our hand, and rest upon the forbearance of some sins, if a Serpent by't us? What is to turn from many sins, and yet be familiar with that which will destroy us? Saul, we know, 1 Sam 15. spared many of the Amalekites, when Gods command was to put all to the sword; and the event was, he spared one too many, 2 Sam. 1. for one of them was his executioner. God biddeth us destroy the whole body of sin, Rom. 6.6, 12. to leave no sin reigning in our mortal bodies; and if we favour and spare but one, that one, if we turn not from it, will be strong enough to turn us to destruction. Again, it is Obedience only that commendeth us to God, and that as exact and perfect as the equity of the Gospel requireth; and so every degree of sin is rebellion. God requireth totam voluntatem, the whole will; for indeed where it is not whole, it is not at all, it is not a will: and integram poenitentiam, a solid, entire, universal conversion. True obedience, saith Luther, non transit in genus deliberativum, doth not demur and deliberate: I may add, non transit in genus judiciale, It doth not take upon itself to determine which commandment is to be kept, and which may be omitted; what is to be done, and what to be left undone. For as our Faith is imperfect, if it be not equal to the truth revealed; so is our Obedience imperfect, when it is not equal to the command: and both are unavailable, because in the one we stick at some part of the truth revealed, and in the other come short of the command, and so in the one we distrust God, in the other we oppose him. What is a Sigh, if my Murmuring drown it? What is my Devotion, if my Impatience chill it? What is my Liberality, if my Uncleanness defile it? What are my Prayers, if my partial Obedience turn them into sin? What is a morsel of bread to one poor man, when my Oppression hath eaten up a thousand? What is my Faith, if my Malice make me worse than an Infidel? The voice of Scripture, the language of Obedience is, to keep all the commandments; the language of Repentance, to departed from all iniquity. All the Virtues in the world cannot wash off the guilt of one unrepented sin. Mic. 6.7. Shall I give my first born for my transgression, saith the Prophet, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Shall I bring the merits of one Saint, the supererogations of another, and add to these the treasury of the Church? Shall I bring my Alms, my Devotion, my Tears? All these will vanish at the guilt of one sin, and melt before it as wax before the Sun. For every sin is, as Seneca speaketh of Alexander's in killing calisthenes, De Benef. crimen aeternum, an everlasting sin, which no virtue of our own but a full complete Repentance can redeem. As oft as it shall be said that Alexander slew so many thousand Persians, it will be replied he did so, but withal he slew calisthenes: He slew Darius, it is true; and calisthenes too: He won all, as far as the very Ocean, it is true; but he killed calisthenes. And as oft as we shall fill our minds and flatter ourselves with the forbearance of these or those sins, our Conscience will check and take us up, and tell us, But we have continued in this or that beloved sin: And none of all our performances shall make so much to our comfort as one unrepented sin shall to our reproach. And now because in common esteem One is no number, and we scarce count him guilty of sin who hath but one fault, let us well weigh the danger of any one sin, be it Fornication, Theft, Covetousness, or whatsoever is called sin; and though perhaps we may dread it the less because it is but one, yet we shall find good reason to turn from it, because it is sin. And 1. Every particular sin is of a monstrous aspect, being committed not only against the Law written, but against the Law of Nature, which did then the soul when the soul did first inform the body. For though we call those horrid sins unnatural which S. Paul speaketh against Rom. 1. yet in true estimation every sin is so, being against our very Reason, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the very first law written in our hearts, Or. 34. saith Nazianzene. Sin is an unreasonable thing, nor can it defend itself by discourse or argument. If heaven were to be bought with sin, it were no purchase: for by every evil work I forfeit not only my Christianity, but my Manhood; I am rob of my chiefest jewel and I myself am the thief. Who would buy eternity with sin? who would buy immortality upon such loathsome terms? If Christ should have promised heaven upon condition of a wicked life, who would have believed there had been either Christ or heaven? And therefore it is laid as an imputation upon Man, Solum hoc animal naturae fines transgreditur; No Creature breaketh the bounds and limits which Nature hath set but Man: And there is much of truth in it; Man, when he sinneth, is more unbounded and irregular than a Beast. For a Beast followeth the conduct of his natural appetite, but Man leaveth his Reason behind, which should be more powerful, and is as natural to him as his Sense. Man, Psal. 49.20. saith the Prophet David, that understandeth not is like to the beasts that perish. And Man that is like to a beast, is worse than a Beast. No Fox to Herode, Luke 13.32. no Goat to the Wanton, no Tiger to the Murderer, No Wolf to the Oppressor, no Horseleech to the Covetous. For Beasts follow that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, instinct of nature, by which they are carried to the object; but Man maketh Reason, which should come in to rescue him from sin, an instrument of evil; so that his Reason, which was made as a help, as his God on earth, serveth only to make him more unreasonable. Consider then, though it be but one sin, yet so far it maketh thee like unto a Beast, nay worse than any; though it be but one, yet it hath a monstrous aspect: and then turn from it. 2. Though it be but one, yet it is very fruitful, and may beget another, nay, multiply itself into a numerous issue, into as many sins as there be hairs of thy head. It is truly said, Omne verum omni vero consonat; There is a kind of agreement and harmony in truths: And the devout Schoolman telleth us that the whole Scripture is but one copulative proposition, because the precepts therein contained are many, and yet but one, many in regard of the diversity of those works that perfect them, yet but one in respect of that root of charity which beginneth them. So peccatum est multiplex & unum; There is a kind of dependency between sins, and a growth in wickedness, one drawing and deriving poison from another, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Epiphanius speaketh of Heresies, Haeres. Basilid. as the Asp doth from the Viper, which being set in opposition to any particular virtue, creepeth on, and multiplieth, and gathereth strength to the endangering of all. And Sin may propagate itself, 1. as an Efficient cause, Removens prohibens, weakening the power of Grace, dimming the light of the Gospel, setting us at a greater distance from the brightness of it, making us more venturous taking off the blush of modesty, which should restrain us. One evil act may dispose us to commit the like, and that may bring on a thousand. 2. As a Material cause. One sin may prepare matter for another; thy Covetousness beget Debate, Debate enrage thee more, and that not end but in Murder. 3. Last of all, as the Final cause. Thou mayest commit Theft for Fornication, and Fornication for Theft; that thou mayest continue a Tyrant, be more a Tyrant; that thou mayest uphold thy oppression, oppress more; that thou mayest walk on in safety, walk on in the blood of the innocent; that thou mayest be what thou art, be worse than thou art, be worse and worse, till thou art no more. Ambition led Absalon to Conspiracy, Conspiracy to open Rebellion, Rebellion to his Father's Concubines, at last to the oak, where he hung with three darts in his side. Sin, saith Basil, like unto a stone cast into the water, multiplieth by infinite gires and circles. The sins of our youth hasten us to the sins of our age, and the sins of our age look back upon the follies of our youth. Pride feathereth my Ambition, and Ambition swelleth my Pride. Gluttony is a pander to my Lust, and my Lust a steward to my Gluttony. Sins seldom end where they begin, but run on till they be infinite and innumerable. And now this unhappy fruitfulness of Sin may be a strong motive to make me run away from every sin, and fear any one evil spirit, as that which may bring in a Legion. Can I think that when I tell a lie I am in a disposition to betray a kingdom, could I imagine that when I slander my neighbour I am in an aptitude to blaspheme God; could I see Luxury in Gluttony, and Incest in Luxury; Strife in Covetousness, and in Strife Murder; in Idleness Theft, and in Theft Sacrilege; I should then turn from every evil way, and at the sight of any one sin with fear and trembling cry out, Behold, a troop cometh. 3. But if neither the Monstrosity of Sin, nor the Fruitfulness of Sin moveth us, yet the guilt it bringeth along with it, and the obligation to punishment may deter us. Sin must needs then be terrible when she cometh with a whip in her hand. Indeed she is never without one, if we could see it. All those heavy judgements which have fallen upon us, and pressed us well-neer to nothing, we may impute to what we please, to the madness of the people, to the craft and covetousness of some, and the improvidence of others, but it was Sin that called them down, &, for aught we know, but one. For one sin, as of Achan, all Israel may be punished. For one Sin, as of David, Josh. 7. 2 Sam. 24. threescore & ten thousand may fall by the plague. For Jonah's disobedience a tempest may be raised upon all the Mariners in the ship. And what stronger wind can there blow then this to drive us every one out of every evil way? How should this consideration leave a sting behind it, and affect an startle us? It may be my Sacrilege, may the Church-robber say; It may be my Luxury, may the Wanton say; It may be my bold Irreverence in the house of God, may the profane man say; whatsoever sin it is, it may be mine, which hath wrought this desolation on the earth: And than what an Achan, what a Jonah, what a murderer am I? I will confess with Achan, build an altar with David, throw Jonah overboard, cast Sin out of my soul, that God may turn from his fierce wrath, and shine once again both upon my Tabernacle and upon the Nation. 4. But, in the last place, if God's anger be not hot enough in his temporal punishments, it will hereafter boil and reek in a caldron of unquenchable fire: He will punish thee eternally for any one sin habituated in thee, which thou hast not turned from by Repentance. S. Basil maketh the punishment in hell not only infinite in duration, but in degrees and increase; and is of opinion that the pains of the damned are every moment intended and augmented, according as even one sin may spread itself from man to man, from one generation to another, even to the world's end, by its venomous contagion and ensample. Think we as meanly and slightly of sin as we will, swallow it without fear, live in it without sense, yet thus it may (for aught we can say to the contrary) multiply and increase both itself and our punishment, and this of S. Basil may be true. My Love of the world may kindle my Anger, my Anger may end in Murder, my Murder may beget a Cain, and Cain a Lamech; and from Cain, by a kind of propagation of Sin, may proceed a bloody race throughout all generations: and I shall be punished for Cain, and punished for Lamech, and for as many as the contagion of my sin shall reach: and I shall be punished for my own sins, and I shall be punished for my other men's sins, as Father Latimer speaketh; and my punishment shall be every moment infinitely and infinitely multiplied and increased. A heavy and sad consideration it is, and very answerable and proportionable to this loud and vehement Ingemination, CONVERTIMINI, CONVERTIMINI, Turn ye, turn ye, able to turn us, and so to turn us that we may turn from every evil way. Our Turn, as ye have heard, must be true and sincere; and it must be universal: We must turn with all our heart, and we must turn from all our sins. There is yet one property more required, that it be final, that we hold on unto the end. And without this the other three are lost, the Speediness, the Sincerity, the Universality of our Repentance are of no force. Though it were true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in respect of its essential parts, and in respect of its latitude and extent, yet it is not true in respect of its latitude and extent, yet it is not true in respect of its duration, unless we turn once for all, and never fall back unto those paths out of which horror and grief and disdain did drive us. It may work our peace, and reconcile us for a time; but if we fail and fall back, even our Turn, our former Repentance, forsaketh us, and Mercy itself withdraweth, and leaveth us under that wrath which we were fled from. Therefore in our Turn this must go along with us, and continue the motion, the consideration of the great hazard we run when we turn from our evil ways, and after turn back again. For first, as a pardon doth nullify former sins, so it maketh the sins we commit afterwards more grievous and fatal. It is observed that it is the part of a wise friend etiam leves suspiciones fugere, to shun the least suspicion of offence, Hitr. ad Pammach. & Marcel. nè quod fortuitò fecit, consultò facere videretur, lest what might formerly be imputed to chance or infirmity, may now seem to proceed from wilfulness: So when we turn, and God is pleased so far to condescend as to take us to his favour, and of enemies not only make us his servants but call us his friends, it will then especially concern us to abstain from all appearance of evil, 1 Thess. 5.22. to suspect every object as the Devil's lurking-place, in which he lieth in wait to betray us; lest we may seem to have begged pardon of our sins, not out of hatred, but out of love unto them, and to have left our sins for a time to commit them afresh. We are bound now not only in a bond of common duty, but of gratitude. For God's free favour is numella, as a clog or yoke, to chain and fetter and restrain us from sin, that we commit not that every day for which we must beg pardon every day. A reason of this we may draw from the very Love of God. For the Anger of God in a manner is the effect and product of his Love. He is angry if we sin, because he loved us; he is displeased when we yield to temptations, because he loved us: and his Anger is the hotter, because his Love was excessive. As the Husband who most affectionately loveth the wife of his youth, Prov. 5.19. and would have her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe, but to himself alone, will not allow so much love from her as may be conveyed in a look or glance of an eye; is jealous of her very looks, of her deportment, of her garments, and will have her to behave herself with that modesty and strangeness, ut quisquis videat, metuat accedere, that no man may be so bold as to come so near as to ask the question, or make mention of love; and all because he most affectionately loveth her: So much, nay, far greater, is the love of God to our souls, which he hath married unto himself, in whom he desireth to dwell and take delight: and so dearly he loveth them, that he will not divide with the World and the Flesh, but is strait in passion if we cast but a favourable look upon that sin by which we first offended him, if we come but near to that which hath the show of a rival or adversary. But if we let our desires lose, and fall from him, and embrace the next temptation which wooeth us, than he counteth us guilty of spiritual whoredom and adultery; his jealousy is cruel as the grave, Cant. 8.4. and his jealousy, which is an effect of his Love shall smoke against us. First it was Love and Jealousy, lest we might tender our service to strange Gods, cast our affections upon false Riches and deceitful Pleasures; and now we have left Life for Death, preferred that which first wounded us before him that cured us, it is Anger and Indignation, that he should lose us whom he so loved, that we should fling him off who so loved us; that he should create, and then lose us, and afterwards purchase and redeem us, and make us his again, and we should have no understanding, but run back again from him into captivity. For, in the Second place, as our sins are greater after reconcilement, so if they do not cancel the former pardon, (as some are unwilling to grant) yet they call those sins to remembrance which God cast behind his back. For as good works are destroyed by Sin, and revive again by Repentance, so our evils which are covered by Repentance revive again by Sin. Not only my Alms are devoured by my Oppression, my Chastity deflowered by my Uncleanness, my Fasting lost in my Luxury; but my former sins, which were scattered as a mist before the Sun, return again, and are a thick cloud between me and the bright and shining mercy of God. Not that there is any mutability in God: No; God doth not repent of his gifts, but we may of our Repentance, and after pardon sin again, and so bring a new guilt upon our souls; and not only that, but vengeance upon our heads, for the contempt of God's Mercy, and slighting of his former pardon. For nothing can provoke God to anger more than the abuse of his goodness and mercy; nor doth his wrath burn most violently, then when it is first quenched and allayed with the tears of a sinner, and afterwards kindled again by his sin. Then he that was well pleased to be reconciled, will question and condemn us, and yet make good his promise; he that forgot our sins, will impute our sins, and yet be Truth itself. For remission of sins is a continued act, and is and remaineth whilst the condition which is required remaineth; but when we fail in that, the door of Mercy, which before was wide open unto us, is shut against us. For should God justify and forgive him who breaketh his Obligation, and returneth to the same place where he stood out against God, and fought against him? Shall he be reconciled to him who will be again his enemy? Ezek. 18.21; 2●. If the righteous relapse, his righteousness shall not be mentioned; nor shall the wickedness of the wicked be mentioned, if he repent. The change is not in God, but in ourselves. Aliter & aliter judicat de homine aliter & aliter disposito; He speaketh in mercy to the penitent, but in anger to the relapsed sinner. The rule of God's actions is constant, and like himself: And in this particular this is the rule, this his decree, To forgive the penitent, and punish the relapsed sinner. So he forgiveth the sinner when he repenteth, and punisheth him when he falleth away. And why should it be put to the question, Whether God revoke his first Pardon? Quid prodest esse, quod esse non prodest? as Tertullian speaketh. If we think he did it not, or cannot do it, yet what profit is it that that should remain which doth not profit, nay, which doth aggravate our sin? Or what Pardon is that which may remain firm, when he to whom it was given for his revolt may be turned into hell? Matth 18. When the servant falleth down, the Lord is moved with compassion and looseth him, and forgiveth him the debt: But when he taketh his fellow-servant by the throat, he delivereth him to the torments, till he pay the utmost farthing. God is ever like unto himself, constant to his rule; and he forgiveth and punisheth for this reason, because he is so, and cannot change. As we beg pardon upon promise, so doth God grant it upon supposition of perseverance. He doth not pardon us our sin that we should sin again. If we break our promise, we ourselves make a nullity of the Pardon, make it of as little virtue and power as if it had never been. The Schools tell us that the Sacraments are protestationes fidei, protestations of our faith: So is our Prayer for pardon a protestation and promise of Repentance, which is nothing else but a continued obedience. We pray to God to cast our sins behind his back, Isa. 38.17. with this resolution, to exstirpate them: And upon this condition God sealeth our Pardon: Which we must make a motive, not to sin and fall back, but to lead a new life, and to perform constant obedience. If we turn, and turn back again God may turn his face from us for ever. Again, in the third place, we have reason to arm ourselves against temptation after pardon, because by our relapse we not only add sin to sin, but are made more inclinable to it, and anon more familiar with it, and so more adverse and backward to acts of piety. For, as Tertullian observeth, Lib. 1. ad uxorem, c 8. Viduitas operiosior virginitate, it is a matter of more difficulty to remain a widow then to keep our virgin; not to taste of pleasure, then, when we have tasted, to forbear: So it is easier to abstain from sin at first, then when we are once engaged, and have tasted of that pleasure which commendeth it. And when we have loathed it for some bitterness it had, for some misery or some disease it brought along with it, and afterwards, when that is forgot, look towards it again, and see nothing but those smiles and allurements which first deceived us, we then like and love it more than we did before it gave us any such distaste; and at last can walk along with it, though Wrath be over our heads, and Death ready to devour us: And what we did before with some reluctancy, we do now with greediness: we did but lap before with some fear and suspicion, but now we take it down as the ox doth water. And what an uneven and distracted course of life is this! to sin, and upon some distaste to repent, and, when that is off, to sin again, and upon some pang that we feel to repent again, and after some ease to meet and join with that which hath so pleased, which hath so troubled us! The Stoic hath well observed, Homines vitam suam amant simul, & oderunt; Some men at once both hate and love themselves: Now they send a divorce to Sin, anon they kiss and embrace it; now they banish it, anon recall it: now they are on the wing for heaven, anon cleaving to the dust; now in their Zenith, by and by in their Nadir. S. Ephrem the Syrian expresseth it by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, calleth it a falling rise, or a rising fall, a course of life consisting of turning and returning, rising and relapsing, sinning and repenting. Men find it more for their ease deprecari crimen quàm vacare crimine, to ●●g pardon for sin committed then to forbear committing it after; and so they sin, and repent, and sin again; and as solemnly by their sin renounce their repentance, as they do by their repentance recant their sin. We deal with our beloved sin as Maecenas did with his wife, quam, Epist. 114. cùm unam habuit, millies duxit, saith Seneca, who had but one, yet married her, and divorced her from him, and then married her again, a thousand times. First we look upon the painted face and countenance of Sin, and are taken as it were with her eye and beauty, and then draw near, and embrace it: But anon the worm gnaweth us, our conscience is loud and troublesome, and then we would put it from us. When it flattereth, we are even sick with love; but when it turneth its worst face towards us, we are weary of it, and have an inclination, a velleity, a weak and feeble desire to shake it off. Our soul loveth it, and loatheth it: we would not, and we will sin, and all upon presumption of that mercy which first gave us ease, upon hope of forgiveness. Quis enim timebit prodigere quod habebit poste à recuperare? saith Tertullian: De pudicitia, c. 9 For who will be tender and sparing of that which he hopeth to recover though lost never so oft? or be careful of preserving that which he thinketh cannot be irrecoverably lost? So Repentance, which should be the death of Sin, is made the Security of the Sinner; and that which should reconcile us to God, is made a reproach to his Mercy, and contumelious to his Goodness. In brief, that which should make us his friends, maketh us his enemies. We turn and return, we fall and rise, and rise and fall, till at last we fall never to rise again. And this is an ill sign, a sign our Repentance was not true and serious, but, as in an intermitting fever, the disease was still the same, Gravedinosos quosdam, quosdam torminosos dicimus, non quia semper sint, sed quia saepe sint. Tull. Tusc. q. l. 4. De sanitate tuenda. only the fit was over: or, as in the epilepsy or falling sickness, it is still the same, still in the body, though it do not cast it on the ground. And such a Repentance is not a Repentance, but to be repent of, by turning once for all, never to turn again. Or, if it be true, we may say of it what Galen said of his art to those that abuse it, who carry and continue it not to the end, Perinde est ac si omnino non esset, It is as if it were not all, nay, it is fatal and deleterial. It was Repentance, it is now an accusation, a witness against us that we would be contra experimenta pertinaces, even against our own experience taste that cup again we found bitter to us, run into that snare out of which we had escaped, & turn back into those evil ways where we saw Death ready to seize upon us, & so run the hazard of being lost for ever. These four are the necessary requisites and properties of Repentance. It must be early and sudden, upon the first call. For why should any thing in this world stop and stay us one moment in our journey to a better? Is not a span of time little enough to pay down for Eternity? It must be true and sincere. For can we hope to bind the God of Truth unto us with a lie? or can a false Turn bring us to that happiness which is real? It must be perfect and exact in every part. For why should we give him less than we should, who will give us more than we can desire? or how can that which is but in part make us shine in perfection of glory? Last of all, Rev. 2.10. it must be constant and permanent. For the crown of life is promised unto him alone who is faithful unto death. Turn ye, turn ye, now, suddenly; in reality, and not in appearance; Turn ye from all your evil ways; Turn, never to look back again. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Septuagint render it, to turn for ever, and so to press forward in the ways of righteousness till we are brought to that place of rest where there is no evil to turn from, but all shall turn to our salvation. Thus much of the Exhortation, Turn ye, turn ye. The next is the Reason or Expostulation, For why will ye die, O house of Israel? The Twentieth SERMON. PART V. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. For why will ye die, O house of Israel? WHY will ye die? is an Obtestation or Expostulation. I called it a Reason; and good reason I should do so. For the moriemini is a good reason, That we may not die, a good reason to make us turn. But being tendered to us by way of expostulation, it is another reason, putteth life and efficacy into it, and maketh it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reason invincible and unanswerable. The Israelite, though now in his evil ways, dareth not say he will die, and therefore must lay his hand upon his mouth, and turn. God, who is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, free from all passion, being to deal with Man subject to passion, seemeth to put on Passion. Exprimit in se, ut exprimat de te, saith S. Augustine; He expresseth a kind of anger, that thou mayest abhor thyself for sin: He seemeth sorrowful, that thou mayest be melted into tears: He putteth on a kind of wonder, that thou mayest have confusion of face. Will ye die? why will ye die? It moveth him much that Israel, his chosen people, should die: that his house, that he built upon a strong foundation, and strengthened and supported on every side, should, even whilst he shined upon it, sink and swerve and fall to ruin; that the signature on his right hand should be defaced; that the apple of his eye should be thus touched. This is enough to put God himself into passion, to make him cry out and complain, QVARE MORIEMINI, Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Certainly the manner of speech maketh it evident that moved he was. So it is; Affections are commotions, saith the Philosopher, and many times make us speak what otherwise we would not. Figura dictionis, the tenor of our speech, varieth with our mind, and our very action and gesture and voice put on the shape of our affections. The language here is sharp and violent, not per rectam orationem, by way of a plain and positive declaration of our mind, but by a sudden and well-prest interrogation: It is quick and round, and leaveth a mark and imputation behind it. He saith not, The ways ye walk in are evil; turn from them: If ye turn not, ye run upon your death: but, QVARE MORIEMINI? Why will ye die? The question putteth it out of all question that God was either angry, or sorrowful, or struck with admiration. The language of a quiet mind is as quiet as the mind: This is sudden and vehement, the very dialect of one in passion. What coast soever the wind came from, the storm is raised, the tempest is high. QVARE MORIEMINI; Why will ye die? is the voice of anger and sorrow, the breathe and noise of a troubled mind. Indeed all those attributes of God's Will which we call affections, from some likeness and analogy they bear with ours, his Goodness and Love, his Anger and Hatred, his Fear and Grief, may seem to meet here in this Obtestation. His Love speaketh: for he would not have us die. His Anger speaketh: for he is angry with us because we will not live. He hateth Death, and therefore would destroy it. His Hope speaketh: Isa. 3●. 1● for he doth expect and wait that he may be gracious. And he is even jealous of men that they will yet run on in their evil ways: and then he speaketh in his Fear, and is brought to his Nè fortè, I will not do this, lest they sin, Exod. 33.3. and I consume them in the way. He is brought lower yet, even to a kind of Despair, QVID FACIENDUM? What should I do to my vineyard, Isa. 5.4. which I have not done? He loveth us even when we are his enemies, that we may be his friends: He is afraid of our ruin, when we run boldly toward it: He is troubled at our folly, when we pride ourselves and triumph in it: He serveth with our sins, and is wearied with our iniquities, Isa. 43.24. when we run at large, and feel them not: He is sorry for our transgressions, when we leap and rejoice in them: He would be our God, and we will not be his people: He would have us live, and we will die. Good God what an horrid spectacle is an Israelite, a Christian in viis malis, that runneth on in his evil ways? God cometh not near him but in a tempest: at the very first sight of him he is in passion, beginneth to ask questions, is at his QVARE? Why will ye do this? And we cannot easily discern whether it be Quare exprobantis, an upbraiding question; or Quare indignantis, an angry question; or Quare dolentis, a question raised and forced out by grief; or Quare admirantis, a question of one amazed at such extremity of folly; or Quare accusantis, whether it be not the form of a Bill of accusation, and he draw articles against them. Indeed this last includeth all: For by way of upbraiding, in grief and anger, full of astonishment, seeing such strange contempt, he proceedeth against them ex formula, formally and legally, as we use in our Courts of Justice. So that here, as Rhetoricians will tell us, Interrogatio pro accusatione est, this Question is a plain Indictment. And the arguments to convince them are drawn, 1. Ab Inutili, from the danger of the way; Ducit ad mortem, It leadeth unto death. 2. Ab absurdo, from the incongruity and absurdity which apparently followeth if they turn not; That any should be willing to die is a great folly, but nothing more absurd than that Israel should, that the house of Israel should fall to pieces, and ruin itself. So then for the Convertimini, or Repentance, a reason we find; but for the Moriemini, for Death, none at all; nay, many reasons there are we should not die: First, God's Goodness, who calleth after us, warneth us of the danger; qui minatur mortem, nè inferat, who threatneth death, that we may not die. Secondly, He hath made us an house, built us together on a sure foundation, that we may mutually support each other from ruin and destruction. Thirdly, Death as the Philosopher calleth it, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the most terrible thing that can show itself to flesh and blood, able to fright any man from those ways which lead unto it. So that the conclusion which can follow hence can be no other than this. If we die, it will be in nobis ipsis, in ourselves, and we shall be found guilty of our own destruction, and the only murderers of our own souls. We have here a large field to walk over, but we must bond our discourse within the compass of those observations which first offer themselves, and without any force or violence may naturally be deduced from the words. And we shall first take notice of the course and method God taketh to turn us. He draweth a sword against us; he threatneth Death, and so awaketh our Fear, that our fear, may carry us out of our evil ways. Secondly, God is not willing we should die. Thirdly, He is not any way defective in the administration of the means of life, Last of all, If we die, the fault is only in ourselves, and our own wills ruin us; Why will ye die, O house of Israel? We begin with the first, the course that God taketh to turn us; He asketh us, Why will ye die? In which we shall pass by these steps or degrees; Show you 1. what Fear is; 2. how useful it may be in our conversion; 3. that it is not only useful, but good and lawful, and enjoined both to those who are yet to turn, and those who are converted already. The fear of death and the fear of God's wrath may be a motive to turn me from sin, and it may be a motive to strengthen and uphold me in the ways of righteousness, God commendeth it to us, & timor iste timendus non est, we need not be afraid of this Fear. Death is the King of terrors, to command our Fear, that seeing Death in our evil ways ready to destroy us, Job 18.14. we may look about and consider in what ways we are, and for fear of death turn from sin, which leadeth unto it. Thus God doth amorem timore pellere, subdue one passion with another, drive out Love with Fear, the Love of the world with the Fear of death. He presenteth himself unto us in divers manners according to the different operations of our affections; sometimes with his rich promises, to make us hope; and sometimes with fearful menaces, to strike us with fear; sometimes in glory, to encourage us; and sometimes in a tempest and whirlwind, Clem. Alexandr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. to affright us. He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, various and manifold in the dispensation of his goodness; that if Hope drive us not to the promises, yet fear might carry us from death, and Death from sin, and so at last beget a Hope, and delight and ravish us with the glory of that which before we could not look upon. Now what Fear is we may guests by Hope; for they are both hewed as it were out of the same rock. Expectation is the common matter out of which they are framed. As hope is nothing else but an expectation of that which is good, so Fear, saith the Philosopher, hath its beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from the imagination of some approaching evil. Arist Rhet. 2. c. 6. Where there is Hope, there is Fear, and where there is Fear, there is Hope: For he that doth fear some evil may befall him, retaineth some hope that he may escape it; and he that hopeth for that which is desirable, standeth in some fear that he may not reach and possess it. So you see Hope and Fear, though they seem to look at distance one upon the other, yet are always in conjunction, and are leveled on the same object till they lose their names, and the one end in Confidence, the other in Despair. Now of all the passions of the mind Fear may seem to be the most unprofitable. Wisd. 17.12. Curt. l. 3. For the Wise man will tell us it is nothing else but the betraying of those succours which Reason offereth. And the Historian speaking of the Persians, who in their flight fling away their weapons of defence, shutteth up all with this Epiphonema, Adeò pavor ipsa auxilia formidat; Such is the nature of Fear that it disarmeth us, and maketh us not only run from danger, but from those helps and succours which might prevent and keep it off. It matureth and ripeneth mischief, anticipateth evil, and multiplieth it, and by a vain kind of providence giveth those things a being which are not. Spe jam praecipit hostem, saith the Poet; It presenteth our enemy before us when he is not near, and latcheth the sword in our bowels before the blow is given. And indeed such many times are the effects of Fear. But as Alexander sometimes spoke of that fierce and stately steed Bucephalus, Curt. l. 1. Qualem isti equum perdunt, dum per imperitiam, & mollitiem uti nesciunt? What a brave Horse is spoiled for want of manning? so may we of Fear; A most useful passion is lost because we do not manage and order it as we should. We suffer it to distract and amaze, when it should poise and bias us: We make it our enemy, when it might be our friend to guard and protect us, and by a prophetical presage or mistrust keep off those evils which are in the approach ready to assault us. For prudentia quaedam divinatio est, Vit Pompon. Attici. our Prudence, which always carrieth with it Fear, is a kind of divination. Our Passions are as winds, and as they may thrust us upon the rocks, so they may drive and carry us on to the haven where we would be. All is in the right placing of them. Passiones aestimantur objectis; Our passions are as the objects are they look on, and by them they are measured, and either fall or rise in their esteem. To fear an enemy is Cowardice, to fear labour is Slothfulness, to fear the face of man is something near to Baseness and Servility, to be afraid of a command because it is difficult is Disobedience: but Pone Deum, saith S Augustine, place God as the object; and to fear him, not only when he shineth in mercy, but when he is girded with Majesty; to fear him not only as a Father, but as a Lord; nay, to fear him when he cometh with a tempest before him, is either a virtue, or else leadeth unto it. Now to show you how fear worketh, and how useful it may be to forward our Turn, we may observe first, that it worketh upon our Memory, reviveth those characters of sin which long custom had sullied and defaced, and maketh that deformity visible which the delight we took in sin had vailed and hid from our sight. When the Patriarches had sold their brother Joseph into Egypt, for ten years' space, and above, whilst they dreaded nothing, they never seemed to have any sense of their fact, but looked upon it as lawful or warrantable sale, or made as light of it as if it had been so. Joseph was sold, and they thought themselves well rid of a Dreamer. But when they were now come down into Egypt, Gen. 42.21, 22 and were cast into prison, and into a fear withal that they should be there chained up as captives and slaves, then, and not till then, it appeared like an ill bargain; then they could give it its right name, and call it a sin against their brother; We are doubtless guilty of our brother's death, say they one to another: And, Said I not, saith Reuben, that you should not offend against the lad? Thus whilst our Sun shineth clear without cloud or tempest, all conscience of sin is asleep, and we forget what we have done, even as soon as we have done it, and it is to us as if it never had been, or appeareth in such a shape as we can delight in: But when the weather changeth, and the tempest is loud, when the pale countenance of Death is turned towards us, than our countenance changeth, because our mind doth so; we have other thoughts and other eyes, and by the very sight of Death are led to the sense of sin: Now our sin, which was buried in oblivion, is raised again, and appeareth in its own shape, with that terror and deformity that we begin to hate, and at last are willing to destroy it. Death hath a terrible look, but the sight of Death may make us live, Numb. 21.9. as the brazen serpent did heal those who were bitten in the Wilderness only by being looked upon. For, Secondly, having a sense and feeling of our sin, we begin to advise with ourselves, and ask counsel of our Reason, which before we had left behind us; and our thoughts, which were let lose and sent abroad after every vanity that came near us, are collected and turned inward upon themselves, to revolve and see what an ill flight they made, and what poison they gathered where they sought for Manna, and how they were worse then lost in such deceitful objects. Aristot. Rhet. 2. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Fear bringeth us, saith the Philosopher, to consultation. Call the steward to account, Luke 16 3. and he is presently at his, What shall I do? When a King goeth to war, (and War is a bloody and fearful trade) the Text telleth us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Luke 14.31. he sitteth down first and taketh counsel. Fear is the mother of a Device, and Consultation dieth with Fear. When we presume, counsel is but a reproach, and is taken as an injury; and when we despair it is too late. There be three things, saith S. Basil, which perfect and consummate every consultation, and bring it to the end for which it was held: First, we consult; secondly, we settle and establish our consultations; and last of all, we gain a constancy and perseverance in those actions which our consultations have engaged and encouraged us in: And all these three we owe to Fear. Did we not fear, we should not consult: did not Fear urge and drive us on, we should not determine: and when this breath departeth, our counsels fall, and all our thoughts perish. Present Christ unto us in all his beauty, with his spicy cheeks and curled locks, with honey under his tongue, as he is described in the Canticles, present him as a Jesus, and we grow too familiar with him. Present him on the mount at his Sermon, and perhaps we will give him the hearing. Present him as a Rock, and we see a hole to run into sooner than a foundation to lay that on which is like him: and we run on with ease in our evil ways, having such a friend, such an indulgent Saviour always in our eye. 1 Thes. 4.16. But present him descending with a shout and with the trump of God, and then we begin to remember that for all these evil ways we shall be brought into judgement. Eccl. 11.9. Our counsels shift as the wind bloweth, and upon better motion and riper consideration we are ready to alter our decrees. For these three follow close upon each other, P●llemus, horrescimus, circumspicimus, Epist. saith Pliny: First Fear striketh us pale, then putteth us into a fit of trembling, at last wheeleth us about to see and consider the danger we are in. This consideration followeth us, nor can we shake it off; longiorísque timoris causa timor est: This wind increaseth as it goeth, driveth us to consultation, carrieth us on to determine, and by a continued force bindeth and fasteneth us to our counsels. And therefore Aquinas telleth us that our Turn proceedeth from the fear of punishment tanquam à primo motu, as from that which first setteth it a moving. For though true Repentance be the gift of God, yet fear worketh that disposition in us by which we turn when God doth turn us. The Fear of punishment restraineth us from sin: In that restraint a Hope of pardon showeth itself: Upon this Hope we build up and strengthen our Resolution: And at last we see the horror of sin, not in the punishment, but in the sin; hate our folly more than the whip, and our evil ways more than Death itself. And this we call a filial Fear, which hath more of Love then Fear, and yet doth not shut out Fear quite: For a good son may fear the anger of a good father. And thus God is pleased to condescend to our weakness, and accept this as our reasonable service at our hands, though our chiefest motive to serve him at first were nothing else but a flash from the Quare moriemini? nothing else but a Fear of Death. For, in the last place, this is a principal effect of the fear of punishment; In Psalm 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil: As it bringeth us to consultation, so is it a fair introduction to piety itself. Fear taketh us by the hand, and is a Schoolmaster unto us: And when fear hath well disciplined & catechised us, than Love taketh us in hand, and perfecteth our conversion: So that we may seem to go from Fear to Love as from a School to an University. Gen. 28.12. Jacob seethe a Ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reaching up to heaven: And we may observe that Jacob maketh Fear the first step of the ladder: For when he awaketh, as in an ecstasy he cryeth out, How dreadful is this place? v. 17. So that Fear is as it were the first rung and step of the ladder; God is on the top; and Angels ascend and descend, Love and Zeal and many Graces are between. Think what we please, disgrace it if we will, and fasten to it the badge of Slavery and Servility, yet it is a blessed thing thus to fear, it is the first step to happiness; and one step helpeth us up to another, and so by degrees we are brought ad culmen Sionis, to the top of the ladder, to the top of perfection, to God himself, whose Majesty first woundeth us with fear, and then gently bindeth us up, and maketh us to love him; who leadeth us through darkness, through dread and terror, into great light; maketh us tremble first, that we may at last be as mount Zion, and stand fast and firm for ever. Psal. 125.1. We now pass and rise one step higher, to take a view of this Fear of punishment not only as useful but lawful, and commanded not under the Law alone, but also under the Gospel; as a motive to turn us from sin, and as a motive to strengthen and uphold us in the ways of righteousness; not only as a restraint from sin, but as a preservative of holiness, and as a help and furtherance unto us in our progress in the ways of perfection. It may indeed seem a thing most unbefitting a Christian, who should be led rather then drawn; and not a Christian alone, but any moral man. Therefore Plato calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an illiberal and base disposition, to be banished the School of Morality: And our great Master in Philosophy maketh Punishment one of the three things that belong to slaves, as the rod doth, saith Solomon, to the fools back. To be forced into goodness, Prov. 26.3. to be frighted into health argueth a disposition which little setteth by health or goodness itself. But behold a greater than Plato and Aristotle, our best Master, the Prince of Peace, and Love himself striveth to awake and stir up this kind of fear in us, telleth us of hell and everlasting darkness, of a flaming fire, of weeping and gnashing of teeth; presenteth his Father, the Father of Mercies, with a thunderbolt in his hand, Luk. 12.5. with power to kill both body and soul; showeth us our sin in a Death's head and in the fire of hell; as if the way to avoid sin were to fear Death and Hell: and if we could once be brought to fear to die, we should not die at all. Many glorious things are spoken even of this Fear. The Philosopher calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Bas. in Psal. 31 Tert. De poenit. c. 6. the bridle of our Nature; S. Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the bridle of our lusts; Tertullian, Instrumentum poenitentiae, an instrument to work out Repentance. Pachomius placeth it supra decem millia paedagogorum, maketh it the best Schoolmaster of ten thousand. Harken to the Trumpet of the Gospel, be attentive to the Apostles voice; What sound more frequent than that of Terror, able to shake and divide a soul from its sin? Had Martion seen our Saviour with a whip in his hand, had he heard him cursing the Figtree, and by that example punishing our sterility, had he weighed the many woes he pronounced against sinners, perhaps he would not have fallen into that impious conceit of two Gods. For though the dispensation have not the same aspect under the Law as under the Gospel, yet God is the same God still, as terrible to sinners that will not turn as when he thundered from Mount Sinai. 2 Cor. 5.11. And if we will not know and understand these terrors of the Lord, if we make not this use of them, to drive us unto Christ, and to root and build us up in him, the Gospel itself will be to us, as the Law was to the Jews, a kill letter. For again, as humane laws, so Christ's precepts have their force and life from reward and punishment. And to this end we find not only scripta supplicia, those woes and menaces which are written in the Gospel, but God hath imprinted a fear of punishment in the very hearts of men. Juvenat, ●at. Esse aliquos manes, & subterranea regna, That there remain punishments after life for sin, was acknowledged by the very Heathen. And we may easily be persuaded, that had not this natural domestic fear come in between, the world had been far more wicked than it is. We see many are very inclinable to deny that there is either Heaven or Hell, and would believe it because they would have it so; many would be Atheists if they could, but a secret whisper haunteth and pursueth them, This may be so; There is an appointed time to die and after that judgement may come; There can be no danger in obedience, there may be in sin; and this, though it do not make them good, yet restraineth them from being worse. Quibus incentivum impunitas, timor taedium; Freedom from punishment maketh sin pleasant and delightsome, and so maketh it more sinful; but fear of punishment maketh it irksome, bringeth reluctancies and gnawings and rebukes of conscience: For without it there could be none at all. Till the whip is held up, there is honey on the harlot's lips, and we would taste them often but that they by't like a cockatrice. Non timemus peccare, timemus ardere: It is not sin we so much startle at, but hellfire is too hot for us. And therefore S. Peter, when he would work repentance and humility in us, placeth us under God's hand; 1 Pet. 5. ●. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God: which expresseth his Power, his commanding attribute. His omniscience findeth us out, his wisdom accuseth us, his justice condemneth us; Potentia punit, but it is his Hand, his Power, that punisheth us. Take away his Hand, and who feareth his Justice, or regardeth his Wisdom, or tarrieth for the twilight to shun his all-seeing Eye? But cùm occidat, when we are told that he can kill and destroy us, then, if ever, we return, and seek God early. Psal. 78.34. Again, as the Fear of death may be Physic to purge and cleanse our souls from the contagion of sin, so it may be an antidote and preservative against it: It may raise me when I am fallen; and it may supply me with strength, that I fall not again. It is a hand to lift me up; and it is an hand to lead me when I am risen, inter vada & freta, through all the dangers that attend me in my way. As it is an introduction to piety, so is it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Gregory Nyssene, Tract. 1. in Psalm. c. 8. a watch and a guard upon me to keep me, that no temptation, no scandal, no stone of offence, make me turn back again into my evil ways. For we must not think that when we are turned from our evil ways, we have left Fear behind us. No, she may go along with us in the ways of righteousness, and whisper us in the ear that God is the Lord most worthy to be feared. She is our companion, and leaveth us not, nor can we shake her off till we are brought to our journey's end. Our Love, such as it is, may well consist with Fear, with the Fear of judgement. Look upon the blessed Saints. David, a man after Gods own heart, yet he had, saith chrysostom, L. 1. De compunct. c. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Psal. 6.1. Isa. 38.14, 15. Rom. 14 10. the memory of God's judgements written in his very heart. His thoughts were busied with it, his meditations fixed here, and it forced from him, DOMINE, NE IN FURORE, Correct me not, O Lord, in thy anger, nor chastise me in thy wrath. Hezekiah, one of the best of the Kings of Judah, yet walked in the bitterness of his soul, did mourn like a dove, and chatter like a Crane. S. Paul buildeth up a tribunal, and calleth all men to behold it, We shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ. 1 Tom. ep. 141. S. Hierom had the last trump always sounding in his ears. And declaring to posterity the strictness of his life, his tears, his fasting, his solitariness, he confesseth of himself, Ille ego, qui ob gehennae metum tali me carcere damnaveram, scorpiorum tantùm socius & ferarum; I that condemned myself to so straight a prison as to have no better companions than scorpions and wild beasts, for fear of hell and judgement did all this. And he was not ashamed to acknowledge that not so much the love unto piety, nor the Author of it, as the dread of hell and punishment confined and kept him constant in the practice of it. And what should I say more? Hebr. 11.32. for the time would fail me to tell you of other Saints of God, who through fear wrought righteousness, obtained promises, out of weakness were made strong. Behold Love in its highest elevation, in its very Zenith; behold it when it was stronger than Death; Cant. 8.6. look upon the glorious army of Martyrs. They had trial of cruel mockings and scourge, Heb. 11.36, 37 yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, and slain with the sword. And greater love hath no man, saith our Saviour, than this, John 15.13. that a man lay down his life for his friend. In Psal 118. And yet S. Ambrose will tell us that this great love was upheld and kept in life by this gale of wind, by Fear; that the fear of one death was swallowed up in the fear of another, the fear of a temporal in the fear of an eternal. The bloody Pagans, to weaken their faith urged the fear of present death; Consul tibi; Pont. Diac. vit. Cypriani. Noli animam tuam perdere: Favour yourself; Cast not away your life; Reverence your age: And these they thought suggestions strong enough to shake their constancy and resolution. But the consideration of the wrath of God and eternal separation from him did strengthen and establish them: What is my breath to eternity? What is the fire of persecution to the fury of God's wrath? What is the rack to hell? Et sic animas posuerunt; With these thoughts they laid down their lives, and were crowned with Martyrdom. We cannot now think that these Martyrs sinned in setting before their eyes the horror of death and fear of hell, or think their love the less because they had some fear, or that their love was lost in that which was ordained and commanded as a means to preserve it. Their love, we see, was strong and intensive, and held out against that which laid them in the dust; but lest it should faint and abate, they borrowed some heat even from the fire of hell, and made use of those curses which God hath denounced against all those who persevere not to the end. The best of men are but men, but flesh and blood, subject to infirmities, so that in this our spiritual warfare and navigation we should shipwreck often, did we not lay hold on the anchor of Fear as well as on that of Hope: Each temptation might shake us, each vanity amaze us, L. 6. Mor. c. 27 each suggestion drive us upon the rocks: but ancora cordis, pondus timoris, saith Gregory; the weight of Fear as an anchor poiseth us, and, when the storm is high, settleth and fasteneth us to our resolutions. We walk in the midst of snares, Ecclus. 9.13. saith the Wise man; and if we swerve never so little, one snare or other taketh us; for there be many, a snare in our lusts, a snare in the object, a snare in our religion, and a snare in our very love. If Fear come not in to cool and allay it, to guide and moderate it, our Love may grow too warm, too saucy and familiar, and end in a bold presumption. Therefore S. Paul, in that his parable of the Natural and Wild Olive, advising the new-engrafted Gentile not to wax bold against the Root, Rom. 11.20. maketh Fear a remedy: Be not high minded, saith he; Trust not to your love of God, nor be overbold with God's love to you, because he hath grafted you in: but fear. And he giveth his reason, v. 21. For if God spared not the natural branches, much less will he spare you. Fear then of being cut off, if S. Paul's reason be good, is the best means to repress in us all proud conceits and highness of mind, which may whither the most fruitful and flourishing branch, and make it fit for nothing but the fire. Thus is fear necessary, and prescribed to all sorts of men, to them that are fallen, that they may rise, and to them that are risen, that they may not fall again; to them that are weak, that they may be strong, and to those that are strong, that their strength deceive them not. And yet an opinion is taken up in the world, That Fear was only for Mount Sinai, that it vanished with that smoke, and was never heard of more when that Trumpet was laid by. Hebr. 12.18, 19 We will not have this word spoken to us any more. There is no blackness nor darkness nor tempest in the Gospel: but all is to be done out of pure love, Luke 1.74. that we being delivered from our enemies may serve him without fear. Nor is this conceit of yesterday; but the Devil hath made use of it in all ages as an engine to undermine and blow up the Truth itself, and so supplant the Gospel, which is the wisdom of God unto salvation; that so he may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Gregory Nyssen speaketh, sport with us in our evil ways, lead us on in our dance and wantonness of sin, and so carry us along with music and melody to our destruction. Tertullian in his book De Praescriptionibus adversùs haeret. c. 43. mentioneth a sort of Heretics who denied that God was to be feared at all: unde illis libera omnia & soluta, whence they took a liberty to sin, and let lose the reins to all impiety. Saint Hierome relateth the very same of the Marcionites and Gnostics; In 4. Hos. and it is probable Tertullian meant them: For say they, jis qui fidem habent nihil timendum: If we have Faith, we may bid Fear adieu, how many and how foul soever our sins be. God regardeth what we believe, not what we do; and if our faith be true, the obliquity of our actions cannot hurt us. J. Gers. T. 1. After these, ex eodem semine, from the same root, sprung up the Begardi and Begardae, and others, who from their opinion, That no sin could endanger the state of those who were predestinated and justified, took their name, and were called Praedestinatiani, the Praedestinarians. After these, the Libertines breathed forth their blasphemy with the like impudence, Calvin. contra Errores Anabaptistarum. whom Calvin wrote against. These made Sin to be nothing else but fancy and opinion; Regeneration, a deposition and putting off all conscience, a casting off all fear and scruple, and a returning into Paradise, where it was a sin to judge between good and evil. If they saw a man appalled with checks of conscience, they would cry out, O Adam, adhuc aliquid cernis? Oh Adam, dost thou yet see and discern any thing? The old man is not yet crucified in thee. If they saw any trembling, or speaking sadly of the judgements of God, they would reprove, and pass this censure upon them, That they had yet a taste and relish of the Apple; That that morsel would choke them. If they saw any man displeased with himself, and cast down because of his sins, they called it the abiding of sin in him, and a captivity under the sense and motions of the flesh. With them Sin; the Old man, the Flesh, were nothing but in opinion; and not to think of sin, to put off this opinion, was to put on the New man. And amongst us there have been some men so bold, or rather so frantic, as to profess it; and too many so live as it were true. For there be more Libertines than those that go under that name. Thus hath the Devil in all ages striven and made it his Masterpiece to pluck up Fear by the very roots, that no seed of it might remain; to remove custodem innocentiae, as Cyprian calleth it, Epist. ad Damasum. this keeper and preserver of Innocency and all other Virtues. Like a subtle captain, he first setteth upon the watch, that he may with the more ease enter the Soul of man, and so rob and spoil him of all those riches and endowments which are the only price of bliss and eternity. And in these latter days he hath used the same art, hath set up Faith and Love against Fear, the Gospel against Christ, and the Spirit against himself; that so faith might die, and Love wax cold; that the good tidings might make us forget our duty, and the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry Abba Father, Rom. 8.15. blot out the memory of that lesson which hath declared his power, and taught us that he is a Lord. Indeed a weak error it is, and it is an open and easy observation, that they who please and hug themselves in it are very weak, even children in understanding. Gerson the devout School-man telleth us it is most commonly in women, quarum aviditas pertinacior in affectu, Mulieres omnes propter infirmitatem consilii majores nostri in tutorum ●otestate esse voluerunt, Cicero pro Muraena. fragilior in cognition, whose affections commonly outrun their understanding, who affect more than they know, and are then most inflamed when they have least light. And it is in men too, too many of whom are as fond of their groundless fancies and ill-built opinions as the weakness of the other sex could possibly make them, are as weak as the weakest of women, and have more need of the bit and bridle then the beasts that perish. What greater weakness can there be then to follow a blind guide, to deliver ourselves up to our fancy and affective Notions, and to make them masters of our Reason, and the only Interpreters of that word which should be a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths? Psal. 119.105. If we check not our Fancy and Affections, they will run madding after shadows and apparitions. They will show us nothing but Peace in the Gospel, nothing but Love in Christianity, nothing but Joy in the Holy Ghost. They will set our Love and Joy on wheels, and then we are strait carried up to heaven in these fiery chariots. One is Elias, another John Baptist, another Christ himself. If the Virgin Mary have an Exultat, they have a Jubilee. If S. Paul be in the Spirit, they are above it, and above right Reason too. The Spirit is theirs, if he put on that shape which best liketh them. If he be a Spirit of Counsel, we are Secretaries of his closet, Isa. 11.2. and can tell what he did before all times, and number over his Decrees at our finger's ends: If a Spirit of strength, we bid defiance to Principalities and Powers: If a Spirit of wisdom, we are filled with him, and are the Wisemen and Sages of the world, though no man could ever say so but ourselves: If a Spirit of Joy, we are in an ecstasy; if of Love, we are on fire. But if he be a Spirit of fear, there we leave him, and are at odds with him; we seem to know him not, and cannot fear at all, because we 〈…〉 to think that we have the Spirit. It is true, whilst we stand thus affected, a Spirit we have, but it is a Spirit of Illusion, which troubleth and distorteth our intellectuals, and maketh us look upon the Gospel ex adverso situ, on the wrong side, on that which may seem to flatter our infirmities, not that which may cure them. And as Tully told his friend that he did not know totum Caesarem, all of Caesar; so we know not totum Christum, all of Christ. We know and consider him as a Saviour, but not as a LORD: we know him in the riches of his promises, but not in the terror of his judgements: we know him in that life he purchased for repentant sinners, but not in that death he threatneth to unbelievers. For to let pass the Law of Works; we dare not come so near as to touch at that, we cannot endure that which was commanded: Hebr. 12.20. Let us well weigh and consider the Gospel itself, which is the Law of Faith. Was not that established and confirmed with promises of eternal life, and upon penalty of eternal death? Matth. 8.12. In the Gospel we are told of weeping and gnashing teeth, of a condition worse than to have a millstone hanged about our necks, Matth. 18.6. and to be thrown into the bottom of the sea, and that by no other than by the Prince of Peace, Christ himself, who would never have put this fear in us, if he had known that our Love had had strength enough to bring us to him. Therefore he teacheth us how we shall fear rectâ methodo, Matth. 10.28. Luke 12.4, 5. to be perfect Methodists in Fear: and that we misplace not our Fear upon any earthly Power, he setteth up a NE TIMETE, Fear not them that kill the body, and when they have done that, have done all, and can do no more. And having taken away one fear, he establisheth another; But fear him who can cast both body and soul into hellfire: And that we might not forget it (for such troublesome guests lodge not long in our memory) he driveth it home with an ETIAM DICO, Yea, I say unto you, fear him. Now Him denoteth a Person, and no more: and then our Fear may be Reverence, and no more; it may be Love, it may be fancy, it may be nothing. But qui potest is equivalent to quia potest, and is the reason why we must fear him, even because he can punish. And this, I hope, may free us from the imputation of sin, if our Love be blended with some Fear, and if in our obedience we have an eye to the hand that may strike us, as well as to that which may fill us with good things. If Christ, who is the Wisdom of the Father, think it fit to make the Terror of Death an argument to move us, we cannot have folly laid to our charge if we be moved with the argument. Fac, fac, saith S. Augustine, vel timore poenae, si non potes adhuc amore justitiae; Do it, man, do it, if thou canst not yet for love of justice, yet for fear of punishment. I know that of S. Augustine is true, Brevis differentia legis & evangeliis, Amor & Timor; Love is proper to the Gospel, and Fear to the Law: But it is Fear of temporal punishment, not of eternal: for that may sound in both, but is loudest in the Gospel. The Law had a whip to fright us, and the Gospel hath a Worm to gnaw us. I know that the beauty of Christ is that great work of Love, the work of our Redemption, should transport us beyond ourselves, and make us, Cant. 2.5. & 5.8. as the Spouse in the Canticles is said to be, even sick with love: but we must consider, not what is due to Christ, but what we are able to pay him, and what he is willing to accept; not what so great a benefit might challenge at our hands, but what our frailty can lay down. For we are not in heaven already, but passing towards it with Fear and trembling. And he that bringeth forth a Christian in these colours of Love, without any mixture of Fear, doth but (as it was said of the Historian) votum accommodare, non historiam, present us rather with a wish then an history, and character out the Christian as Xenophon did Cyrus, non qualis est, sed qual●● esse deberet, not what he is, but what he should be. I confess, thus to fear Christ, thus to be urged and chased to happiness, is an argument of imperfection. But we are Men, not Angels: We are not in heaven already, we are not yet perfect, and therefore have need of this kind of remedy, as much need certainly as our first Parents had in Paradise, who before they took the forbidden fruit might have seen Death written and engraven on the tree, and had they observed it as they ought to have done, had not forfeited the garden for one apple: Gen. 3.8. Had this Fear walked along with them before the cool of the day, before the rushing wind, they had not heard it, nor hide themselves from God: In a word, had they feared, they had not fallen: for they fell with this thought, that they should not fall, that they should not die at all. Imperfection though it be to fear, yet it is such an imperfection asleadeth to perfection: Imperfection though it be to fear, yet I am sure it is a greater imperfection to sin, and not to fear. It might be wished perhaps that we were tied and knit unto our God quibusdam internis commerciis, as the devout School man speaketh, with those inward ligaments of Love and Joy and Admiration, that we had a kind of familiar acquaintance and intercourse with him; that as our alms and prayers and fasting come up before him to show him what we do on earth, so there were no imperfection in us, but that God might approach so nigh unto us with the fullness of joy, to tell us what he is preparing for us; that neither the Fear of hell nor the Hope of heaven and our salvation, but the Love of God and Goodness were the only cause of our cleaving to him; that we might love God because he is God, and hate Sin because it is sin, and for no other reason; that we might with S. Paul with the increase of God's glory, Rom. 9.3. though with that heavy condition of our own reprobration. But this is such an heroic spirit, as every man cannot rise unto, though he may at last rise as high as heaven: This is such a condition as we can hardly hope for whilst we are in the flesh. We are in the body, not out of the body. We struggle with doubts and difficulties: Ignorance and Infirmity are our companions in our way: And in this our state of imperfection contenti simus hoc Catone; Dictum Augusti, cum hortaretur ferenda esse praesentia qualiacunque sint, Suet. Octav. August. c. 87. We must be content to use such means and helps as the Lawgiver himself will allow of, and not cast off Fear upon a fancy that our Love is perfect (for this savoureth more of an imaginary metaphysical subtlety, of a kind of ecstatical affectation of piety, than the plain and solid knowledge of Christian Religion) but continue our Obedience and carry on our Perseverance with the remembrance of our last end, with this consideration, Deut. 27 26. That as under the Law there was a curse pronounced to them that fulfil it not, 2 Thess. 1.8. so under the Gospel there is a flaming fire to take vengeance of them that obey it not. It was a good censure of Tully, which he gave of Cato in one of his Epistles; Thou canst not, saith he to his friend, love and honour Cato more than I do; but yet this I observe in him, Optimo animo utens, & summâ fide, nocet interdum Reip. L. 2. ad Attic. ep. 1. He doth endamage the Commonwealth, but with an honest mind and great fidelity: for he giveth sentence as if he lived in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Platonis, non in faece Romuli in Plato's Commonwealth, and not in the dregs and rascaltry of Romulus. And we may pass the same censure on these Seraphical Perfectionists, who will have all done out of pure Love, nothing out of Fear; They remember not that they are in faece Adami, the offspring of an arch-rebel, that their father was an Amorite, and their mother an Hittite, Ezek. 16.3, 4 5 and that the want of this Fear threw them from that state of integrity in which they were created, and by that out of Paradise; and so with great ostentation of Love they hinder the progress of Piety; and setting up to themselves an Idea of Perfection they take off our Fear, which should be as the hand to wind up the plummet that should continue the motion of our Obedience. The best we can say of them is, Summâ fide & pio animo nocent Ecclesiae; If there mind be pious, and answer the great show they make, then with a pious mind they wrong and trouble the Church of Christ. Nunquam rectè fecit ut facere videretur, sed quià aliter facere non poterat, Vell. Paterc. l. 2. Hist. For suppose I were a Paul, and did love Christ as Cato did virtue, because I could do no otherwise; suppose I did fear sin more than hell, and had rather be damned then commit it; suppose that every thought, word and work were amoris foetus, the issues of my Love; yet I must not upon a special favour build a general doctrine, and because Love is best make Fear unlawful, make it sin to fear that punishment the Fear of which might keep me from sin. For these were in S. Paul's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 14.13. to put a stumbling block in our brother's way, with my Love to overthrow his Fear, that so at last both Fear and Love may fall to the ground. For is there any that will fear sin for punishment, if it be a sin to fear? What is the language of the world now? We hear of nothing but filial Fear. And it were a good hearing if they would understand themselves: for this doth not exclude the other, but is upheld by it. We are as sure of happiness as we are of death, but are more persuaded of the truth of the one then of the other, more sure to go to heaven then to die, and yet Death is the gate which must let us in. We are already partakers of an angelical estate; we prolong our life in our own thoughts to a kind of eternity, and yet can fear nothing. We challenge a kind of familiarity with God, and yet are willing to stay yet a while longer from him: We sport with his thunder, and play with his hailstones and coals of fire: We entertain him as the Roman Gentleman did the Emperor Augustus, Macrobius in Saturnal. coena parcâ & quasi quotidianâ, with course and ordinary fare; as Saul 1 Sam. 15. with the vile and refuse, not with the fatlings, and best of the sheep and oxen. Did we dread his Majesty, or think he were Jupiter vindex, a God of Revenge, with a thunder bolt in his hand, we should not be thus bold with him, but fear that in wrath and indignation he should reply as Augustus did, Non putarum me tibi, fuisse tam familiarem, I did not think I had made myself so familiar with my Creature. I know the Schools distinguish between a Servile and Initial, and a Filial Fear. There is a Fear by which we fear not the fault, but the punishment; and a Fear which feareth the punishment and fault withal; and a Fear which feareth no punishment at all. I know Aquinas putteth a difference between Servile Fear and the Servility of Fear, as if he would take the Soul from Socrates, and yet leave him a Man. These are niceties more subtle than solid, Senec. epist. in quibus ludit animus magìs quàm proficit, which may occasion discourse, but not instruct our understanding. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, As near as we can, let us take things as they are in themselves, and not as they are beat out and fashioned by the work and business of our wits; and than it will be plain that, though we be Sons, yet we may fear, fear that evil which the Father presenteth before us to fright us from it, that we may make the Fear of death an argument to turn us, and a strong motive to confirm us in the course of our obedience, that it is no servility to perform some part of Christ's service upon those terms which he himself alloweth and hath prescribed to us. Let us call it by what name we please (for indeed we have miscalled it, and brought it in as slavish and servile, and so branded the command of Christ himself) yet we shall find it a blessed instrument to safeguard and improve our Piety; we shall find that the best way to escape the judgements of God is to draw them near, even to our eyes. For Hell is a part of our Creed, as well as Heaven: God's threaten are as loud as his promises; and could we once fear Hell as we should, we should not fear it. For I ask, May we serve God sub intuitu mercidis, with respect unto the reward? It is agreed upon on all sides that we may: for Moses had respect unto the recompense of the reward, Hebr. 11.26. Hebr. 2.12. and Christ himself did look upon the joy that was set before him. Why then may we not serve God sub intuitu vindictae, upon the fear of punishment? Will God accept that service which is begun and wrought out by virtue and influence of the reward, and will he cast off that servant which had an eye upon his hand, and observed him as a Lord? Why then hath God propounded both these, both Reward and Punishment, and bid us work in his Vineyard with an eye on them both, if we may not as well fear him when he threatneth as run to meet him when he cometh towards us, and his reward with him? Let us then have recourse to his Mercy-seat, but let us tremble also and fall down before his Tribunal, and behold his Glory and Majesty in both. But it may be said, and some have thought it their duty to say it, that this belongeth to the wicked, to the Goats, to fear; but when Christ speaketh to his Disciples, to his Flock, the language is, NOLITE TEMERE, Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's will to give you a Kingdom. Luke 12.32. It is true, it is your Father's will to give it you, and you have no reason to fear or mistrust him: But this doth not exclude the Fear of the wrath of God, nor the use of those means which the Father himself hath put into our hands, not that Fear which may be one help and advance towards that Violence which must take it. For our Saviour doth not argue thus, Matth. 11.12. It is your Father's will to give you a Kingdom; Therefore persevere not for any fear of punishment: But the Fear which Christ forbiddeth is the Fear of distrustfulness, when we fear as Peter did upon the waters when he was ready to sink, and had therefore a check and rebuke from our Saviour, Why fearest thou, oh thou of little faith? So that, Fear not, Matth. 14.31. little flock, is nothing else but a dissuasion from infidelity. A Soldier that putteth no confidence in himself, yet may in his Captain, if he be a Hannibal or a Caesar; for an army of Hearts may conquer, said Iphicrates, if a Lion be the leader: So though we may something doubt and mistrust, because we may see much wanting to the perfection of our actions, yet we must raise our diffidence with this persuasion, that the promise is most certain, and that the power of Heaven and Hell cannot infringe or null it. We may mistrust ourselves; for of ourselves we are Nothing: 2 Cor. 12.11. Gal. 6.3. 2 Cor. 1.20. but not the Promises of CHRIST; for they are Yea, and Amen. But they are ready to reply, that the Apostle S. Paul is yet more plain Rom. 8.15. where he telleth us that we have not received the spirit of bondage, to fear again, but the spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba Father. And it is most true that we have not received that Spirit; for we are not under the Law, but under Grace, we are not Jews, Rom. 6.14. but Christians. Nor do we fear again as the Jews feared, whose eye was upon the Basket and the Sword, who were kerbed and restrained by the fear of present punishment, and whose greatest motives to obedience were drawn from temporal respects and interests; who did fear the Plague, Captivity, the Philistin, the Caterpillar, and Palmerworm, and so did many times forbear that which their lusts and irregular appetites were ready to join with. We have not received such a spirit: For the Gospel directeth our look not to those things which are seen, 2 Cor. 4.18. 1 Cor. 12.31. but to those things which are not seen, and showeth us yet a more excellent way: But we have received the Spirit of adoption; we are received into that Family where little care is taken for the meat that perisheth, where the World is made an enemy, John 6.27. Matth. 6.34. Phil. 2.12. where we must leave the morrow to care for itself, and work out o●● salvation with fear and trembling; Psal. 56.11. where we must not fear what man, but what God can do unto us; observe his hand, as that hand which can raise us up as high as heaven, and throw us down to the lowest pit; love him as a Father, and fear to offend him; Psal. 2.12. Luke 1.74. love, and kiss the Son, lest he be angry; serve him without fear of any evil that can befall us here in our way, of any enemy that can hurt us, and yet fear him as our Lord and King. For in this his grant of liberty he did not let us lose against himself, nor put off his Majesty, that we should be so bold with him as not to serve but to disobey him without fear. Nor doth this cut off our Filiation, our relation to him: for a good son may fear the wrath of God, and yet cry, Abba, Father. 1 John 4.18. But then again we are told by S. John that there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear: All fear; he excepteth none, no, not the fear of punishment. L. de fugâ in persecutione. I know Tertullian, interpreting this Text, maketh this fear to be nothing else but that lazy Fear which is begot by a vain and unnecessary contemplation of difficulties, the fear of a man that will not set forward in his journey for fear of some Lion, some perilous beast, some horrible hardship in the way. And this is true, but not ad textum, nor doth it reach S. John's meaning; which may be gathered out of Chapt. 3. v. 16. where he maketh it the duty of Christians to lay down their lives for the brethren, as Christ laid down his life for them. And this we shall be ready to do if our Love be perfect, cast off all fear and lay down our lives for them. For true Love will suffer all things, and is stronger than Death. Cant. 8.6. But Love doth not cast out the Fear of God's wrath: for this doth no whit impair our love to him, but is rather the means to improve it. When we do our duty, we have no reason to fear his anger; but yet we must always fear him, that we may go on and persevere unto the end. He will not punish us for our obedience, and so we need not fear him: but if we break it off, he will punish us; and this thought may strengthen and establish us in it. Hebr. 4.1. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should come short of it. But we may draw an answer out of the words themselves as they lie in the Text. For it is true indeed, Charity casteth out all fear, but not simul & semel, not at once, but by degrees. As that waxeth, our Fear waineth: as that gathereth strength, our Fear is in feebled: Et perfecta foràs mittit; When our Love is perfect, it casteth Fear out quite. If our Sanctification were as total as it is universal, were our Obedience like that of Angels, and could never fail, we should not then need the sight of heaven to allure us, or God's thunder to affright us: But Sanctification being only in part, though in every part, the best of Christians in this state of imperfection may look up upon the Moriemini, make use of a Deaths-head, and use Gods Promises and Threaten as subordinate means to concur with the principal; as buttresses to support the building that it do not swerve, whilst the foundation of Love and Faith keep it that it do not sink. A strange thing it may seem that, when with great zeal we cry down that Perfection of Degrees, and admit of none but that of Parts, we should be so refined & sublimate as not to admit of the least tincture & admission of Fear. Now in the next place, as Fear may consist with Love, so it may with Faith, and with Hope itself, which seemeth to stand in opposition with it. First, Faith apprehendeth all the attributes of God, and eyeth his threaten as well as his Promises: God hath established and fenced in his Precepts with them both. If he had not proposed them both as objects for our Faith, why doth he yet complain? why doth he yet threaten? And if we will observe it, we shall find some impressions of Fear, not only in the Decalogue, but in our Creed: To judge both the quick and the dead, are words which sound with terror, and yet an article of our belief. And we must not think it concerneth us to believe it, and no more. Agenda and credenda are not at such a distance but that we may learn our Practics in our Creed. God's Omnipotence both comforteth and affrighteth me: His Mercy keepeth me from despair, and his Justice from presumption. But Christ's coming to judge both the quick and the dead is my solicitude, my anxiety, my fear. Nor must we imagine that, because the Faith which giveth assent to these truths may be merely historical, this Article concerneth the justified person no more than a bare relation or history: For the Fear of Judgement is so far from destroying Faith in the justified person, that it may prove a sovereign means to preserve it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaketh, to order and compose our Faith, In Psal. 32. which is ready enough to take an unkind heat, if Fear did not cool and temper it. In Prosperity, David is at his NON MOVEBOR, I shall never be moved. Psal. 30.6. Before the storm came, Peter was so bold as to dare and challenge all the temptations that could assault him, ETSI OMNES, NON EGO, Matth. 26. Although all men deny thee, yet not I, yet was he puzzled and fell back at two or three words from a silly maid. To keep us from such distempers, it will be good to set God's judgements always before our eyes. And as Faith, so Hope, which is as the blood of the soul, to keep it in life and cheerfulness, may be over heated. Our Expectation may prove unsavoury, if it be not seasoned with some grains of this salt; and Hope, like strong wine, may intoxicate and stupify our sense, if, as with water, we do not mix and temper it with this Fear. Therefore the Prophet David maketh a rare composure of them both, TIMENTES CONFIDITE, Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord: As if where there is no Fear, Psal. 115.11. there were no confidence. And without Fear there would be a strange a taxie and disorder in the soul, and our hope would breathe out itself, and be no more Hope but Presumption. Navigamus, saith S. Hierom, spei velo; We hoist up the sails of Hope. Now if the sails be too full, there may be as much danger in the sail as in a rock, and not only a Temptation but our Hope may wreck us. Then our Hope saileth on in an even course, when Fear, as a contrary wind, shorteneth and stayeth her: Tert. de. Idol. c. ult. then inter sinis & scopulos, she passeth by every rock and by every reach; tuta, si cauta; secura, si solicita; safe, if wary; and secure, if solicitous. To recollect all, and conclude; Thus may Fear temper our Love, that it be not too bold; our Faith, that it be not too forward; and our Hope, that it be not too confident: It may make our Love reverend, our Faith discreet, and our Hope cautelous, that so we may go on in a strait and even course with all the riches and substance of our Faith, from virtue to virtue, from one degree of perfection to another. I made Fear but a buttress; Tertullian calleth it fundamentum, De cultu Foem. c. 2. the foundation of these three Theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. And when is the foundation most necessary? Not when the timber is squaring, and the walls rising, but when it is arched and vaulted, and compact by its several contignations, and made into an house. Then, if the foundation be not sure, mole suâ ruit; not the rain and the wind & the floods, but even it's own weight will shake and disjoint and throw it down. When we are shaped and framed and built up to be Temples of the holy Ghost, then, Ecclus. 27.3. if thou keep not thyself diligently in the Fear of the Lord, in the Fear of his displeasure and his wrath, and in the fear of the last account, this house, this Temple, will soon be overthrown. For as the Temple was said to be built in great joy and great mourning, that they could not discern the shout of joy for the noise of weeping, Ezr. 3.12, 13. so our spiritual building is raised and supported with great hope and great fear; and it may be sometimes we shall not discern which is greatest, our fear or our hope. But when we are strong, 1 Cor. 12.10. then are we weak; when we are rich, then are we poor; when we hope, than we fear: and our weakness upholdeth our strength, our poverty preserveth our wealth, and our Fear tempereth our Hope, that our strength overthrow us not, that our riches beggar us not, that our hope overwhelm us not. Quantò magìs crescimus, tantò magìs timemus; the more we increase in virtue, the more we fear. Thus manente timore, stat aedificium, whilst this butteress, this foundation of Fear lasteth, the house standeth. Thus we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Phil. 2.12. I speak not this to dead in any soul any of those comforts which Faith or Love or Hope have begotten in them, or to choke and stifle any fruit or effect of the Spirit of love: Phil. 1.9, 10. No; I pray with S. Paul, that your love may abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, yet more and more, but, as it follows there, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in knowledge and in all judgement; that you may discern things that differ one from another; a fancy from a reality, a flash of Love from the pure flame of love, a notion of Faith from true Faith, and Hope from Presumption. For how many sin, and yet how few think of punishment? How many offend God, and yet call themselves his friends? How many are wilful in their disobedince, and yet peremptory in their hope? How many run on in their evil ways, and leave Fear behind them, which never overtaketh them, but is furthest off when they are nearest to their journey's end, and within a step of the Tribunal? For that which made them sinful maketh them senseless. And they easily subborn false comforts, the weakness of the flesh, which they never resisted, and the Mercy of God, which they ever abused to chase away all fear; and so they depart (we say) in peace, but are lost for ever. For as the Historian observeth of men in place and authority, Curtius' de Alexandro. Cùm se fortunae permittunt, etiam naturam dediscunt, when they rely wholly upon their greatness and authority, they lose their very nature, and turn savage, and quite forget that they are Men: in like manner it befalleth these spiritualised men, who build up to themselves a pillar of assurance, and lean and rest themselves upon it; They lose their nature and reason, and forget to fear or be disconsolate, and become like those whom the Philosopher calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because their boast was they did not fear a thunderbolt. Fear not them that can kill the body, Matth. 10.28. Isa. 53.1. Psal. 29.5. Psal. 72.18. saith our Saviour. Whom do they fear else? Who hath believed our report? or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? That arm which breaketh the Cedars of Libanus in pieces, that arm which only doth wondrous works, is ever lifted up, and we sport and walk delicately under it, when we tremble and couch under that which is as ready to whither as to strike. Behold dust and ashes invested with power, behold Man, who is of as near kin to the Worm and Corruption as ourselves, and see how he aweth us, and boundeth us, and keepeth us to on every side. If he say, Do this, we do it. We subscribe to that as a truth which we know to be false, we make our Yea, Nay, and our Nay, Yea; we renounce our understandings, and enslave our wills, change our Religion as we do our clothes, and fit them to the times and fashion; we pull down resolutious, cancel oaths; we are votaries to day, and break to morrow; we surrender up our souls and bodies; we deliver up our Conscience in the midst of all its cry and gainsayings, and lay it down at the foot of a fading and transitory Power, which breatheth itself forth as the wind whilst it seeketh to destroy; which threatneth, striketh, and then is no more. When this Lion roareth, every man is afraid, is transelemented, unnaturalized, unmanned, is made wax to receive any impression from a mighty but mortal hand. And shall not the God of heaven and earth, who can dash all this Power to nothing, deserve our Fear? shall we be so familiar with him as to contemn him? so love him as to hate him? Shall a shadow, a vapour, awe us; and shall we stand out against Omnipotency and Eternity itself? Shall Sense, brutish Sense, prevail with us more than our Reason of Faith? And shall we cross the method of God, make it our wisdom to fear man, and count it a sin to fear God, who is only to be feared? This were to be wiser than Wisdom itself, which is the greatest folly in the world. I have brought you therefore to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to this School of Fear, set up the Moriemini, shown you a Deaths-head, to discipline and catechise you, that you may not die, but live, and turn from your evil ways, and turn unto him who hath the keys of Hell and of Death; who as he is a Saviour, Rev. 1. 1●. so is he also a Judge, and hath made Fear one ingredient in his Physic, not only to purge us, but to keep us in a healthful temper and constitution. And to this, if not the danger of our souls, yet the noise of those who love us not, may awake us. Stapleton, a learned man, Promptuar. Moral. but a malicious fugitive, layeth it as a charge against the Preachers of the Reformed Churches, that they are copious and large in setting forth the Mercies of God, but they pass over graviora Evangelii, the harsher but most necessary passages of the Gospel, suspenso pede, lightly, and as it were on their tiptoes, and go softly, as if they were afraid to awake their hearers; That we are mere Solifidians, and rely upon a reed, a hollow and an empty Faith. Bellarmine is loud, that we do per contemplationem volare, hover as it were on the wings of Contemplation, and hope to go to heaven in a dream. Pamelius in his Notes upon Tertullian is bold upon it, That the Primitive Church did anathematise us in the Marcionists and Gnostics; and if they were Heretics, than we are so. And what shall we now say? Recrimination is rather an objection than an answer: And it will be against all rules of Logic to conclude ourselves good because they are worse, or that we have no errors because they have so many, and that none can err but he that sayeth he cannot, and for which we call him Antichrist. This bandying of Censures and Curses hath been held up too long with some loss and injury to Religion on both sides. Our best way certainly to confute them is by our practice; so to live that all men say the Fear of God is in us of a truth, to wove Love and Fear into one piece, to serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in trembling; Psal. 2.11. Hilar. in Ps. 2. sit timor exsultans, & exsultatio tremens, that there may be Trembling in our Joy, and Joy in our Fear: not to divorce Jesus from the LORD, nor the Lord from Jesus; not to fear the Lord the less for Jesus, nor love Jesus the less for the Lord, but to join them both together, and place Christ in the midst. And then there will be a Pax vobis, peace unto us. His ointment shall drop upon our Love, that it be not too bold; and distil upon our Fear, that it faint not and end in despair; that our Love may not consume our Fear, nor our Fear chill our Love; but we may so love him that we do not despair, so fear him that we do not presume: That we may fear him as a Lord, and love him as Jesus. And then when he shall come in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, we shall find him a Lord, but not to affright us; and a Jesus, to save us. 1 Joh. 4.17. Our Love shall be made perfect, all doubting taken from our Faith. Nay, Faith itself shall be done away, and the Fear of Death shall be swallowed up in victory; and we, who have made such use of Death in its representation, shall never die, but live for evermore. And this we have learned from the MORIEMINI, Why will ye die? The One and Twentieth SERMON. PART VI. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. — why will ye die, O house of Israel? Prov. 7.27. WE have led you through the chambers of Death, through the school of Discipline, the school of Fear. For why will ye die? Look upon Death, and fear it, and you shall not die at all. Thus far are we gone. We come now to the house of Israel; Why will ye die, O house of Israel? To name Israel is an argument. Take them as Israel, or take them as the house of Israel; take the house for a building, or take it for a family, and it may seem strange and full of admiration that Israel, which should prevail with God, Gen. 32.28. Psal. 122.3. should embrace death; that the house of Israel, compact in itself, should ruin itself. In Edom it is no strange sight to see men run on in their evil ways: Psal. 120.5. In Meseck or the tents of Kedar there might be at least some colour for a reply: but to Israel it is gravis expostulatio, a heavy and full expostulation. Let the Amorites and Hittites, let the Edomites, let God's enemies perish; but let not Israel, the people of God, die. Why should they die? The Devil may be an Edomite; but God forbidden he should be an Israelite. The QVARE MORIEMINI? why will ye die? we see is leveled to the mark, is here in its right and proper place; and being directed to Israel is a sharp and vehement exprobration: O Israel, why will ye die? I would not have you die. I have made you gentem selectam, a chosen people, that you may not die. I have set before you life and death: Deut. 30.15, 19 Life, that you may choose it; and Death, that you may run from it: And why will ye die? My sword is drawn to affright, not to kill you; and I hold it up, that I may not strike. I have placed Death in the way, that you may stop, and retreat, and not go on. I have set my Angel, Num. 22.23. my Prophet, with a sword drawn in his hand, that at least you may be as wise as the beast was under Balaam, and sink and fall down under your burden. I have imprinted the very image of Death in every sin. And will ye yet go on? Will ye love Sin, that hath such a foul face, such a terrible countenance that is thus clothed and apparelled with Death? Quis furor, o cives? What a madness is this, O ye Israelites? As Herode once upbraiding Cassius for his seditious behaviour in the East, Philostrat. in vit. Herodis. wrote no more but this, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Herode to Cassius: Thou art mad. So God may seem to send to his people, GOD, by his Prophet, to the Israelites: You are mad. Therefore do my people run on in their evil ways, because they have no understanding. Isa. 5.13. For now look upon Death; and that affrighteth us: Look upon God, and he exhorteth us: Reflect upon ourselves, and we are an Israel, a Church of God. There is no cause of dying, but not turning; no cause of destruction, but impenitency. If we will not die, we shall not die; and if we will turn, we cannot die at all. If we die God passeth sentence upon us, and condemneth us, but killeth us not, but perditio tua ex te, Israel, our destruction cometh from ourselves. It is not God, it is not Death itself, that killeth us, but we die because we will. Now by this touch and short descant on the words so much truth is conveyed unto us as may acquit and discharge God as no way accessary to our death. And to make our passage clear and plain, we will proceed by these steps or degrees, and draw out these three Conclusions: 1. That God is not willing we should die; 2. That he is so far from willing our death that he hath plenteously afforded sufficient means of life and salvation; which will bring in the third and last, That if we die, our death is voluntary, that no other reason can be given of our death but our own will. And the due consideration of these three may serve to awake our Shame, as Death did our Fear, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Orat. 20. as Nazianzene speaketh, another help and furtherance to work out our salvation. And that God is not willing we should die, is plain enough, first from the Obtestation or Expostulation itself; secondly, from the Nature of God, who thus expostulateth. For 1. Why will ye die? is the voice of a friend, not of an enemy. He that asks me why I will die, by his very question assureth me he intendeth not to destroy me. God is not as man, Numb. 23.19. that he should lie. What he worketh, he worketh in the clear and open day. His fire is kindled to inflame us, his water floweth to purge and cleanse us, his oil is poured forth to supple us. His commands are not snares, nor his precepts accusations. He stampeth not the Devil's face upon his coin. He willeth not what he made not; Wisd. 1.13. and he made not Death, saith the Wise man. He wisheth, he desireth we should live; he is angry and sorry if we die. He looketh down upon us, and calleth after us; he exhorteth and rebuketh and even weepeth over us, Luk. 19.41. as our Saviour did over Jerusalem: And if we die, we cannot think that he that is Life itself should kill us. If we must die, why doth he yet complain? why doth he expostulate? For if the Decree be come forth, if we be lost already, why doth he yet call after us? How can a desire or command breathe in those coasts which the power of an absolute will hath laid waste already? If he hath decreed we should die, he cannot desire we should live, but rather the contrary, that his Decree be not void and of no effect. Otherwise to pass sentence, and irrevocable sentence, of death, and then bid us live, is to look for liberty and freedom in Necessity, for a sufficient effect from an unsufficient cause; to command and desire that which himself had made impossible, to ask a dead man why he doth not live, and to speak to a carcase and bid it walk. Indeed by some this, Why will ye die? is made but sancta simulatio, a kind of holy dissimulation: so that God with them setteth up Man as a mark, and then sticketh his deadly arrows in his sides, and after asketh him why he will die. And, Why may he not, saith one, with the same liberty damn a soul as a hunter killeth a deer? A bloody instance! As if an immortal soul, which Christ set at a greater rate than the world itself, nay, than his own most precious blood, were in his sight of no more value than a beast, and God were a mighty Nimrod, and did destroy men's souls for delight and pleasure. Thus though they dare not call God the Author of sin (for who is so sinful that could hear that and not anathematise it?) yet others, and those no children in understanding, think it a conclusion that will naturally and necessarily follow upon such bloody premises. And they are more encouraged by those illboding words which have dropped from their quills. For say some, Vocat, ut induret; He calleth them to no other end but that he may harden them; He hardeneth them, that he may destroy them; He exhorteth them to turn, that they may not turn; He asketh them why they will die, that they may run on in their evil ways, even upon Death itself. When they break his command, they fulfil his will: and it is his pleasure they should sin, it is his pleasure they should die. And when he calleth upon them not to sin, when he asketh them why they will die, he doth but dissemble: for they are dead already horribili decreto, by that horrible antecedaneous decree of Reprobation. And now tell me; If we admit of this, what is become of the Expostulation? what use is there of the Obtestation? why doth he yet ask, Why will ye die? I called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reason unanswerable: But if this fancy, this interpretation take place, it is no reason at all. Why will ye die? The answer is ready (and what other answer can a poor praecondemned soul make? Domine Deus, tu nôsti, Lord God, thou knowest. Thou condemnedst us before thou madest us: Thou didst destroy us before we were. And if we die, even so good Lord; For it is thy good pleasure. Fato volvimur, It is our destiny. Or rather, Est Deus in nobis: Not a Stoical Fate, but thy right hand and thy strong arm hath destroyed us. And so the Expostulation is answered, and the Quare moriemini? is nothing else, but Mortui estis. Why will ye die? that is the Text: The Gloss is, Ye are dead already. But, in the second place, that this Expostulation is true and hearty, may be seen in the very nature of God, who is Truth itself, who hath but one property and quality, saith Trismegistus, and that is Goodness. Therefore he cannot bid us live when he intendeth to kill us. Consider God before Man had fallen from him by sin and disobedience, and we shall see nothing but the works of Goodness and Love. Psal. 8.3. The heavens were the works of his fingers. He created Angels and Men: He spoke the word, and all was done. Hom. in Famem & siccitatem. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? saith Basil; What necessity was there that he should thus break forth into action? Who compelled him? who persuaded him? who was his counsellor? He was all-sufficient, and stood in need of nothing. l. 4. c. 28. Non quasi indigens plasmavit Adam, saith Irenaeus; It was not out of any indigency or defect in himself that he made Adam after his image. He was all to himself before he made any thing, nor could million of worlds have added to him. What was it to him that there were Angels made, Athenag. Legat. pro Christianis. or Seraphim, or Cherubin? He gained not. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, said Aristotle; For there could be no accession, nothing to heighten his perfection. Did he make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Athenagoras calleth it, as an instrument to make him music? Did he cloth the lilies, and dress up Nature in various colours, to delight himself? Or could he not reign without Man? saith Mirandula, God hath a most free and powerful and immutable will, and therefore it was not necessary for him to work, or to begin to work, but when he would: For he might both will and not will the creation of all things without any change of his will. But it pleased him out of his goodness thus to break forth into action. Sext. Emperic. adv. Mathemat. pag. 327. Will you know the cause, saith the Sceptic, why he made world? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He was good. Nihil ineptius, saith one, quàm cogitare Deum nihil agentem; There is nothing more vain then to conceive that God could be idle or doing of nothing. And were it not for his Goodness we could hardly conceive him ad extrà agentem, working any thing out of himself, who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all-sufficient and blessed for evermore, infinitely happy, though he had never created the heaven and the earth, though there had neither been Angel nor Man to worship him: But he did all these things because he was good. Bonitas, saith Tertullian, Adu. Martion l. 2. otium sui non patitur; hinc censetur, si agatur: Goodness is an active and restless quality, and it is not when it is idle: It cannot contain itself in itself. And by his Goodness God made Man, made him for his glory, and so to be partaker of his happiness; placed him here on earth, to raise him up to heaven; made him a living soul, ut in vita hac compararet vitam, that in this short and transitory life he might fit himself for an abiding City, Heb. 13.14. and in this moment work out Eternity. Thus of himself God is good, nor can any evil proceed from him. If he frown, we first move him; if he be angry, we have provoked him; if he come in a tempest, we have raised it; if he be a consuming fire, we have kindled it. Heb. 12.29. We force him to be what he would not be; we make him Thunder, who is all Light. Tert. advers. Marc. l. 2. c. 11. Bonitas, ingenita; severitas, accidens: Alteram sibi, alteram rei Deus praestitit, saith the Father: God's Goodness is natural; his Severity, in respect of its act, accidental. For God may be severe, and yet not punish. For he striketh not till we provoke him. His Justice and Severity are the same, as everlasting as Himself, though he never speak in his wrath, nor draw his sword. If there were no Hell, yet were he just; and if there were no Abraham's bosom, yet were he good. Luk. 16. If there were neither Angel nor Man, he were still the Lord, blessed for evermore. In a word, he had been just, though he had never been angry; he had been merciful, though Man had not been miserable; he had been the same God, just, and good, and merciful, Rom. 5.12. though Sin had not entered in by Adam, and Death by Sin. God is active in good, and not in evil. He cannot do what he doth detest and hate, he cannot decree, ordain, or further that which is most contrary to him. He doth not kill me before all time, and then in time ask me why I will die. He doth not condemn me first, and then make a Law that I may break it. He doth not blow out my candle, and then punish me for being in the dark. That the conviction of a sinner should be the only end of his exhortations and expostulations, cannot consist with that Goodness which God is, who, when he cometh to punish, facit opus non suum, saith the Prophet, Isa. 28.21. doth not his own work, doth a strange work, a strange act, an act that is forced from him, a work which he would not do. And as God doth not will our Death, so doth he not desire to mani-his glory in it, which (as our Death) proceedeth from his secondary and occasioned will. For God, saith Aquinas, Aqui 1. 2 2. q 132. art. 1. ● seeketh not the manifestation of his glory for his own, but for our sakes. His glory, as his Wisdom and Justice and Power, is with him always, as eternal as himself. No choir of Angels can improve, no raging Devil can diminish his glory, which in the midst of all the Hallelujahs of Seraphim and Cherubin, in the midst of all the blasphemies of Men and Devils is still the same. And his first will is to see it in his Image, in the conformity of our wills to his, where it shineth in the perfection of beauty, rather than where it is decayed and defaced, in a damned Spirit; rather in that Saint he would have made, then in that Reprobate and cursed soul which he was forced to throw into the lowest pit: And so to receive his glory is that which he would not have, which he was willing to begin on earth, and then have made it perfect and complete in the highest heavens. Tert. ibid. Exinde ad mortem sed antè ad vitam. The sentence of death was pronounced against Man almost as soon as he was Man; but he was first created to life. We are punished for being evil, but we were first commanded to be good. God's first will is, that we glorify him in our bodies and in our souls: 1 Cor. 6.20. But if we frustrate his loving expectation here, than he rouseth himself up as a mighty man, and will be avenged of us, and work his glory out of that which dishonoured him, Prov. 14.28. and write it with our blood. In the multitude of the people is the glory of a king, saith the wisest of Kings; and more glory, if they be obedient to his laws then if they rebel and rise up against him. That Commonwealth is more glorious where every man filleth his place, then where the prisons are filled with thiefs and traitors and men of Belial. And though the justice and wisdom of the King may be seen in these, yet it is more resplendent in those on whom the Law hath more power than the Sword. In heaven is the glory of God best seen, and his delight is to see it in the Church of the first born and in the souls of just men made perfect: Hebr. 12.23. It is now indeed his will, which primarily was not his will, to see it in the Devil and his Angels. God is best pleased to see his creature Man to answer to that pattern which he hath set up, to be what he should be, and what he intended. And as every artificer glorieth in his work, when he seethe it finished according to the rule, and that Idea which he had drawn in his mind; and as we use to look upon the work of our hands or wits with that favour and complacency we do upon our children when they are like us; So doth God upon Man, when he appeareth in that shape and form of obedience which he prescribed. For then the Glory of God is carried along in the continued stream and course of all our actions, breaketh forth and is seen in every work of our hands, is the echo of every word we speak, the result of every thought that begat that word. It is Music in God's ears, which he had rather hear then the weeping and howling of the damned; which he will now hear, though the time was when he used all fitting means to prevent it, even the same means by which he raised those who now glorify him in the highest heaven. God then is no way willing we should die; not by his natural Will, which is his prime and antecedent Will. For Death cannot issue from the Fountain of Life. By this Will was the Creature made in the beginning, and by this preserved ever since: by this are administered all the means to bring it to that perfection and happiness for which it was first made. For the Goodness of God it was which first gave being to Man, and then adopted him in spem regni, designed him for immortality, and gave him a Law by the fulfilling of which he might have a taste of that joy and happiness which he from all eternity possessed. And therefore, secondly, not voluntate praecepti, not by his Will expressed in his commands, precepts and laws. For under Christ this Will of his is the only destroyer of Death, and being kept and observed swalloweth it up in victory. For how can Death touch him who is made like unto the living Lord? or how should Hell receive him whose conversation is in heaven? Phil. 3.20. Ezek. 20.11, 13, 21. If we do them, we shall even live in them, saith the Prophet: And he repeateth it often, as if Life were as inseparable from God's Laws as it is from the living God himself; by which, as he is Life in himself, so to Man, whom he had made, 2 Tim. 1.10. he brought life and immortality to light. And these his Precepts are defluxions from him, the proper issue of his natural and primitive Desire, of that general Love of goodwill which he did bear to his Creature and the only way to draw on that Love of friendship, that nearer relation, by which we are one with him, and he with us, Rom, 8.16. by which he calleth us his children, and we cry, Abba, Father. His first Will ordained us for good; his second Will was published and set up as a light to bring us to that good for which we were made and created. But we are told there is in God voluntas permissionis, a permissive Will, or a Will of permission. And indeed some have made great use of this word permission, and have made it of the same necessitating power and efficacy with that by which God made the heaven and the earth. For we find it in terminis in their writings, Positâ peccati permissione, necesse est ut peccatum eveniat, That upon the permission of sin it must necessarily follow that sin must be committed. They call it permission, but before they wind up their discourses, the word, I know not by what Logic or Grammar, hath more significations put upon it then God or Nature ever gave it. Romani, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant, say the ancient Britons in Tacitus; The Romans, Vita Agricol● where by fire and sword they lay the land waste, and turn all to a wilderness, call it Peace. So here the word is permission; but, currente rotâ, whilst they are hot and busy in their work, at last it is excitation, stirring up, inclining, hardening; Permittere is no less than Impellere, Permission is Compulsion, and by their Chemistry they are able to extract all this out of this one word, and more, as, That God will have that done which he forbiddeth us to do; That God doth not will what he telleth us he doth will; That some are cast asleep from all eternity that they may be hardened: And all this with them is but permission. And to make this good, we are told That God hath on purpose created some men with an intent to permit them to fall into sin. And this at first sight is a fair Proposition, that carrieth truth written in the very forehead: But indeed it is deceitful upon the weights; One thing is said, and another meant. God hath created some: And why some, and not all? For no doubt the condition of creation is the same in all. And why with a purpose to permit them to fall into sin? Did he not also create them with a purpose that they should walk in his commandments? Certainly both, and rather the last than the former. For God indeed permitteth sin, but withal forbiddeth it; but he permitteth, nay he commandeth us to do his will. Permission looketh upon both, both upon Sin, and upon Obedience: on the one side it meeteth with a check, on the other with a command; that we may not do what is but permitted, and forbidden; and that we may yield ready obedience to that which is not permitted only, but commanded. It was a custom amongst the ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Naz. Or. 3. to number and cast up their accounts with their fingers, as we do by figures and counters; whence Orontes the Persian was wont to say, Eundem digitum nunc decem millia, nunc unum ostendere, that the same finger with some alteration and change did now signify Ten thousand, and in another posture and motion but One. The same use some men have made of this word permission which they did of their fingers. In its true sense and natural place it can signify no more than this, A purpose of God not to intercede by his Omnipotency, and hinder the committing of those sins which, if he permitted not, could not once have a being: But men have learned so to place it that it shall stand for Ten thousand, for Inclination and Excitation and Induration, and all those fearful expressions which leave men chained and fettered with an inevitable necessity of sinning; and so they make that which in God is but merely permission infallibily effective, and so damn men with gentler language and in a softer phrase: He permitteth them. That he doth; that he must do: but their meaning is, His absolute will is that they should die. And let them shift as they please, and wind and turn themselves to slip out of reach, after all defalcations and subtractions they can make, it will arise near to this sum, which I am almost afraid to give you, That God is willing we should die. For to this purpose they bring in also God's Providence. To this purpose? I should have said, to none at all. For though God rule the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by this law of Providence, as Nazianzene calleth it, though he disposeth and ordereth all things and all actions of men, yet he layeth not any law of Necessity upon all things. Some effects he hath fitted with necessary causes, Prima part q. 22. art. 4. that they may infallibly fall out, saith Aquinas; and to other effects, which in their own nature are contingent, he hath applied contingent causes; so that that shall fall out necessarily which his Providence hath so disposed of; and that contingently, which he hath left in a contingency. And both these in the nature of things necessary and contingent are within the verge and rule of his Providence, and he altereth them not, but extra ordinem, when he would do some extraordinary work, Psal. 104.19. when he would work a miracle. The Sun knoweth his seasons, and the Moon its going down, and this in a constant and unchangeable course; but yet he commanded the Sun to stand still in Gibeon, and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon. Josh. 10.12. But then I think all events are not as necessary as the change of the Moon or the setting of the Sun; for all have not so necessary causes: Unless you will say, to walk or stand, to be rich or poor, to fall in battle or to conquer, are as necessary effects as Darkness when the Sun setteth, or Light when it riseth in our Horizon: And this indeed may bring in a new kind of Predestination, to walk or to stand, to Riches and Poverty, to Victory and Captivity, as well as to everlasting Life and everlasting Perdition. But, posito, sed non concesso; Let us suppose it, though we grant it not, that the Providence of God hath laid a necessity upon such events as these, yet it doth not certainly upon those actions which concern our everlasting welfare, which either raise us up to heaven, or cast us down to destruction. It were not much material (at least a good Christian might think so) whether we sit or walk, whether God predetermin that we be rich or poor, that we conquer or be overcome. What is it to me though the Sun stand still, if my feet be at liberty to run the ways of God's commandments? What is it to me if the Moon should start out of her sphere, if I lose not the sight of that brightness which should direct me in my way to bliss? What were it to me if I were necessitated to beggary, so I be not a predestinate bankrupt in the city of the Lord? Let him do what he will in heaven and in earth; let the Sun go back, let the Stars lose their light, let the wheel of Nature move in a contrary way, let the pillars of the world be shaken; Let him do what he will, it concerneth us not further then that we say, Amen, so be it. For we must give him leave, who made the world, to govern it. If all other events and actions were necessary, we might well sit down, and lay our hands upon our mouth: But here lis est de tota possessione: We speak not of riches and poverty, or fair weather and tempests, but of everlasting life and everlasting damnation: And to entitle God either directly or indirectly to the sins and death of wicked men, so to lay the Scene that it shall appear, though masked and vailed with limitations and distinctions; and though they be not positive, yet leave such premises out of which this conclusion may easily be drawn; is a high reproach to God's infinite Goodness, a blasphemy (however men wipe their mouths after it) of the greatest magnitude. Not to speak the worst; it is to stand up, and contradict God to his face; and when he sweareth he would not have us die, to proclaim it to all the world that there be thousands whom he hath killed already, and destroyed before they were, and so decreed to do that from all eternity which in time he swore he would not do. I speak not this to rake the ashes of any of those who are dead, that either maintained or favoured this opinion, nor to stir the choler of any man living, who may love this child for the father's sake; but for the honour of God and his everlasting Goodness, which I conceive to be strangely violated by this doctrine of efficacious Permission, or by that shift and evasion of a positive Efficiency joined (as it is said) inseparably with this Permission of sin, which is so far from colouring it over, or giving any loveliness to it, that it rendereth it more horrid and deformed, and is the louder blasphemy of the two, which clotheth, as it were, a Devil, with Light, who yet breaketh through it, and rageth as much as if he had been in his own shape. Permission is a fair word, and bodeth no harm, but yet it breatheth forth that poisonous exhalation which killeth us: For but to be permitted to sin is to be a child appointed to death. The ancients, especially the Athenians, did account some words ominous, and therefore they never used to speak them. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Prison they called the House; Helladius apud Photium. the Hangman the Common Officer; and the like. And the Romans would not once mention Death, or say their friend was dead; but, Humanitus illi accidit: We may render it in the Scripture-phrase, He is gone the way of all the earth. Josh. 23.14. 1 Kings 2.2. What their fancy led them to, Religion should persuade us, to think that some words there be which we should be afraid to mention when we speak of God. Excitation to sin, Inclination, Induration, Reprobration, as they are used, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, illboding words. But yet we must not, with the Heathen, only change the language, and mean the same thing, and call it Permission, when our whole discourse driveth this way, to bring it forward, and set it up for a flat and absolute Compulsion. For this is but to plough the wind, to make a way which closeth of itself as soon as it is made: This is not to teach men, but to amaze them. Sermo per deflexus & anfractus veritatem potiùs quaerit quàm ostendit, saith Hilary; When men broach these contradictions to known and common principles, when they make these Meanders, these wind and turn, in their discourses, they make it also apparent that they are still in their search, and have not yet found out the Truth. Let us therefore fontem à capite fodere, as near as we can, lay open the ground of this mistake and error, and we shall find it to be an error as great as this, and to have the same taste and relish with the fountain from whence it flowed. They who make Gods permissive will effective, at the very mention of Gods will think of that absolute will of his which cannot be resisted, by which he made the heavens and the earth, and so acknowledge no will of God but that which is absolute and effective; as if that will of his by which he would have us do something were the same with that by which he will do something himself; and so in effect they make not only the conversion but the induration of a sinner the work of Omnipotency. But were not men blind to all objects but those they delight to look on, they might easily discern a great difference, and that Gods will is broken every day. His natural Desire, which is his will to save mankind, is that fulfilled? If it were, there could be no hell at all. His Command, that is, his will, what moment is there wherein that is not resisted? We are those Devils who kindle that fire which he made not for us. We are those sons of Anak, those giantlike fighters against Heaven, who break his commands with as great ease as Samson did his threads of tow. We are those Leviathans, who break the bounds he hath set us, Job 14.27, 29. who esteem iron as straw, with whom the threaten which he darteth at us are accounted as stubble. And can we, who so often break his will, say that his will is always fulfilled? Again, we must not imagine that all things that are done in the world are the work of his hand, or the effect of that power by which he bringeth mighty things to pass. Nor can we so much forget God and his Goodness, as to imagine that upon every action of man he hath set a DIXIT, ET FACTUM EST, He spoke the word, and it was done; he commanded, and it became necessary. For some actions there be which God doth neither absolutely will, nor powerfully resist, but in his wisdom permitteth to be done, which otherwise could dot be done but by his permission. Nor doth this will of Permission fall cross with any other will of his: Not with his Absolute will; for he absolutely permitteth them: Not with his Primary and Natural will: for though by his Natural will he would bring men to happiness; though he forbidden sin, though he detest it, as that which is most contrary to his very nature, and which maketh Men devils and enemies to him; yet he may justly permit it: And the reason is plain. For Man is not as God, qui sibi sufficit ad beatitudinem, who is all-sufficient, and Happiness itself; and therefore he was placed in an estate where he might work out his own happiness, but still with a possibility of being miserable. And herein was the Goodness and Wisdom of God made visible. As from his Goodness it was that he loved his creature, so in his Goodness and Wisdom he placed before him good and evil, that he might lay hold on happiness, and be good willingly, and not of necessity. For it is impossible for any finite creature, who hath not his completeness and perfection in himself, to purchase heaven, but upon such terms as that he might have lost it; nor to lose it, but upon such terms as that he might have took it by violenee. For every Law supposeth as a possibility of being kept, so also a possibility of being broken, which cannot be without permission of sin. 1 Tim. 1.9. Lex justo non est posita. If Goodness had been as essential to Man as his nature and soul, by which he is: if God had interceded by his Omnipotenty, and by an force kept Sin from entering into the world; the Jews had not heard the noise of the trumpet under the Law, nor the Disciples the sermon on the mount under the Gospel; there had been no use of the comfortable breath of God's Promises, nor of the terror of his Threaten. For who would make a law against that which he knoweth will never come to pass? A Law against sin supposeth a permission to sin and a possibility of sinning. Lastly, it standeth in no show of opposition to Gods Occasioned and Consequent will. For we must suppose sin, before we can take up the least conceit of any will in God to punish. Omnis poena, si justa est, peccati poena est, saith Augustine in his Retractations; All punishment, that is just, is the punishment of sin; and therefore God, who of his natural goodness would not have man commit sin, out of his justice willeth man's destruction, and will not repent. L. 2. adv. Martion. Sic totus Deus bonus est, dum pro bono omnia est, saith Tertullian; Thus God is entirely good, whilst all he is, whether merciful or severe, is for good. Minus est tantummodò prodesse, quia non aliud quid possit, quàm prodesse: His reward might seem too lose, and not carry with it that infinite value and weight, if he could not reach out his hand to punish as well as to reward: and some distrust it might work in the creature, that he could not do the one, if he could not do both. So then sin is permitted, though God hate sin. That which bringeth us to the gates of Death is permitted, though God hath tendered his will with an oath that he will not have us die. Though he forbiddeth sin, though he punisheth it, yet he permitteth it. I have said too little; Nay, he could not forbid and punish it, if he did not permit it. Yet Permission is permission, and no more; nor is it such a Trojane horse, nor can it swell to that bulk and greatness, as to hid and contain within it those monsters of Fate and Necessity, of Excaecation and Excitation, of Incliation and Induration, which devour a soul, and cannot be resisted; which bind us over unto Death, when the noise is loud about us, Why will ye die? For this Permissive will of God, or his will of Permission, is not operative or efficacious: Neither is it a remitting or slackening of the will of God, upon which sin (as some pretend) must necessarily follow; nor is it terminated in the thing permitted, but in the permission itself alone. For to permit sin is one thing, and to be willing that sin should be committed is another. It is written in the leaves of Eternity, that God will not have sin committed, as being most abhorrent and contrary to his nature and will; and yet this permission of sin is a positive act of his will: for he will permit sin, though he hath clothed it with Death, to make us afraid of it; and upon pain of eternal damnation he forbiddeth us to sin, though it were his will to permit it. These two, To be willing to permit sin, and To be willing that sin should be committed, are as different in sense as in sound; unless we will say that he who permitteth me to be wounded when I would not look to myself and hold up my buckler, did cast that dart at me which sticketh in my sides. We have been told indeed, Qui volens permittit peccata, certè vult voluntate permissiuâ ab aliis fieri, That he that is willing to permit sin, by that permissive will is willing also to have that sin committed. But it is so unsavoury, so thin and empty a speech, that the least cast of the eye pierceth through it. It is a rotten stick whittled by unskilful hands to make a pillar to uphold that fabric of the fancy, the absolute decree of Reprobation. Take away this supporter, That God will have that to be done which he permitteth, that is, That he will have that to be done which he forbiddeth, and down falleth th● Babel of Confusion to the ground. And now what is God's Will? This is his will, even your sanctification. 1 Thess. 4.3. Luke 7.30. Acts 20.27. S. Luke calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the counsel of God; and so doth S. Paul. His counsel is his wish, his desire, his will, his natural, sincere and constant will. And it savoureth of much vanity and weakness to talk and dispute of God's decree, which in respect of particulars must needs be to us most uncertain, when we certainly know his will, when he crieth, To day, if you will hear his voice; when his precepts and his laws are promulged, HODIE, To day, to inquire what he did before all eternity. We may rest on the Goodness of God, who would not have created us if he had not loved us; I have made thee, I have form thee, Isa. 43.7. I have created thee, saith God, for my glory: On the Mercy of God, with which it could not consist to precondemn so many to misery before they were: On the Justice of God, which cannot punish without desert; and that could not be in the Creature before he was: Psal. 89.47. On the Wisdom of God, which doth nothing, much less doth make Man, for nought; doth not stamp his image upon him to deface it, nor useth to make and unmake, to build and pull down, to plant and dig up: On the Grace of God, which hath appeared unto all men, Tit. 2.11. John 17.3. that they may know him to be the only true God, and him whom he hath sent, Christ Jesus. But now we are told that some places of Scripture there are which seem to give God a greater hand in sin then a bare and feeble and uneffective permission. For God biddeth the Prophet, Go, tell the people; Isa. 6.9, 10. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and be converted. Now to make their heart fat, and their ears heavy, and to shut up their eyes, is more than a bare permission; it is in a manner to destiny & appoint them to death. Most true, if it can be proved out of this place that God did either. But it is one thing to prophecy a thing shall be done, & another to do it. Hector in Homer foretelleth Achilles' death, & Orodes the fall of Mezentius in Virgil, and our Saviour the destruction of Jerusalem▪ but neither was Hector's prophecy the cause of Achilles' death, nor Orodes' of Mezentius, nor our Saviour's of the destruction of Jerusalem. Go, and tell them, maketh it a plain prediction what manner of men they would be to whom Christ was to speak, stubborn and refractory, and such as would harden their faces against the truth. If you will not take this interpretation, our Saviour is an Interpreter one of a thousand, Job 33.23. Matth. 13.14, 15. nay, one for all the world: He telleth his disciples that in the multitude was fulfilled the prophecy of Esay, which saith, By hearing you shall hear, and not understand, etc. For this people's heart is waxed fat, and their eyes have they closed, that they might not see. And here, if there eyes were shut, it were fit one would think, they should be opened. True, saith Chrysostom, if they had been born blind, or if this had been the immediate act of God: but because they wilfully shut their eyes, he doth not say simply, They do not see; but, Seeing they do not see, to show what was the cause of their blindness, even a perverse and froward heart. Matth. 12.24. They saw the miracles; they said he did them by Beelzebub. He telleth them that he is come to show them the will of God; they are peremptory and resolute that he is not of God; and being corrupt Judges against their own sight and understanding, they were justly punished with the loss of both. For it is just that he should be blind that putteth out his own eyes. Yet was not this incrassation or blinding through any malevolent influence from God; but this action is therefore attributed to God, because whatsoever light he had afforded them, whatsoever means he had offered them, whatsoever he did for them, was through their own fault and stubbornness of no more use to them then colours to a blind man, or as the Wiseman speaketh, than a mess of pottage on a dead man's grave. Eccl. 30.18. We might hear sylvam ingentem commovere, meet with many other places of Scripture like to this; but we will touch but one more, and it is that which is so common in men's mouths, and at the first hearing conveyeth to our understanding a show, and appearance of some positive act in God, which is more than a bare permission. Exod. ●. 3. God telleth Moses in plain terms, I will harden Pharaoh's heart. And here I will not say with Gerson, Aliud est littera, aliud est literalis sensus, That the letter is one thing, and the literal sense another; but rather with Hilary, De Trin. l. 8. Optimus est lector, qui dictorum intelligentiam ex dictis potiùs exspectet quàm imponat, & retulerit magìs quàm attulerit, He is the best reader of Scripture who doth rather wait and expect what sense the words will bear, then on the sudden rashly fasten what sense he please, and carry away the meaning, not bring one; nor cry, This must be the sense of the Scripture, which his presumption formerly had set down. Sure I am, none of the Fathers, which I have seen, make this induration and hardening of Pharaoh's heart a positive act of God: Nor S. Augustine himself, who was more likely to look this way then any of the rest, although he interpreteth this place of Scripture in divers places. Feria 4. post 3. Dominic. in Quadrages. Pharaoh non potentiâ sed patientiâ Dei indurabatur, Idem, Ser. 88 I will but mention one; and it is in one of his Lent-Sermons, Quoties auditur cor Pharaonis Dominum obdurasse, etc. As often as it is read in the Church that God did harden Pharaoh's heart, some scruple presently ariseth not only in the minds of the ignorant Laity, but also of the learned Clergy. And for these very words the Manichees most sacrilegiously condemned the Old Testament. And Martion, rather than he would yield that Good and Evil proceeded f●om the same God, did run upon a grosser impiety, and made another, two Principles, one of Good, & another of Evil. But we may lay this, saith he, as a sure ground & an infallible axiom, Deus non deserit nisi priùs deserentem, God never forsaketh any man till he first forsake God. When we continue in sin, when the multitude of our sins beget Despair, & Despair Obduration; when we add sin to sin, & to make up the weight that sinketh us; when we are the worse for God's mercy, & the worse for his judgements, when his mercy hardeneth us, and his light blindeth us; God then may be said to harden our hearts, as a father by way of upbraiding may tell his prodigal and thriftless son, Ego talem te feci, It is my love and goodness hath occasioned this, I have made thee so by sparing thee when I might have struck thee dead, I have nourished this thy pertinacy; although all the father's love and indulgency was grounded upon a just hope and expectation of some change and alteration in his son. Look upon every circumstance in the story of Pharaoh, and we cannot find one which was not as a hammer to malleate and soften his stony hearts; nor do we read of any upon whom God did bestow so much pains. His ten plagues were as ten commandments to let the people go: And had he relented at the first, saith chrysostom, he had never felt a second: So that it will plainly appear that the induration and hardening of Pharaoh's heart was not the cause but the effect of his malice and rebellion. Magnam mansuetudinem contemtae gratiae major sequi solet ira vindictae; The contempt of God's mercy (and there is mercy even in his judgements) doth always make way for that induration which calleth down the wrath of God to revenge it. We do not read that God decreed to harden Pharaoh's heart; but when Pharaoh was unwilling to bow, when he was deaf to God's thunder, and despised his judgements, and scorned his miracles, God determined to leave him to himself, to set him up as an ensample of his wrath, to work his Glory out of him, to give him up to his own lusts, which he foresaw would lead him to ruin and destruction. But if we will tie ourselves to the letter, we may find these several expressions in several texts, 1. Pharaoh hardened his heart; 2. Pharaoh's heart was hardened; 3. God hardened Pharaoh's heart; and now let us judge whether it be safer to interpret God's induration by Pharaohs, or Pharaoh's by God's. If God did actually and immediately harden Pharaoh's heart, than Pharaoh was a mere patient, nor was it in his power to let the people go, and so God sent Moses to bid him do that which he could not, and which he could not because God had hardened him: But if Pharaoh did actually harden his own heart (as it is plain enough he did) than God's induration can be no more than a just permission and suffering him to be hardened, which in his wisdom and the course he ordinarily taketh, he would not, and therefore could not hinder Sufficit unus Huic operi; One is enough for this work of induration, and we need not take in God. To keep to the letter in the former shaketh a main principle of truth, That God is in no degree Author of sin: but to keep to the letter in the latter cleareth all doubts, preventeth all objections, and openeth a wide and effectual door to let us in to a clear sight of the meaning of the former. For that Man doth harden his own heart is undeniably true; but that God doth harden the heart is denied by most, is spoken darkly and doubtfully by some; nor is it possible that any Christian should speak it plainly, or present it in its hideous and monstrous shape, but must be forced to stick and dress it up with some far-fetched and impertinent limitation or distinction. For, lastly, I cannot see how God can positively be said to do that which is done already to his hand. Induration is the proper and natural effect of Sin: And to bring in God alone is to leave nothing for the Devil or Man to do, but to make Satan of a Serpent a very Fly indeed, and the Soul of man nothing else but a forge and shop to work those sins in which may burn and consume it everlastingly. God and Nature speak the same thing many times, though the phrase be different. That which the Philosopher calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ar●stot. l. 7. Eth c. 1. freity and brutishness of nature, and in Scripture is called hardness of heart. Every man is shaped & form & configured, saith Basil, to the actions of his life, whether they be good or evil. One sin draweth on another, and a second a third, and at last we are carried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of our own accord, and as it were by the force of a natural inclination, till we are brought to that extremity of sin which the Philosopher calleth Freity, a shaking off all that is Man about us; and the holy Ghost, Rom. 1.28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reprobate mind. And such a mind had Pharaoh, who was more and more enraged by every sin he had committed, as the Wolf is most fierce and cruel when he hath drawn and tasted blood. For it is impossible that any should accustom themselves to sin, and not fall into hardness of heart, and indisposition to all goodness. Therefore we cannot conceive that God hath any hand in our death, if we die; and that Dereliction, Incrassation, Excaecation, Hardness of heart are not from God, further than that he hath placed things in that order that, when we accustom ourselves to sin, and contemn his grace, blindness and hardness of heart will necessarily follow, but have no relation to any will of his but that of Permission. And then this Expostulation is real and serious, QVARE MORIEMINI? Why will ye die?— Now to conclude; I have not been so particular as the point in hand may seem to require, nor could I be in this measure of time, but only in general stood up in defence of the Goodness and Justice of God. For shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen. 18.25. Shall he necessitate men to be evil, and then bind them by a law to be good? Shall he exhort and beseech them to live, when they are dead already? Shall his absolute Dominion be set up so high from thence to ruin his Justice? This indeed some have made their Helena: but it is an ugly and ill favoured one. For this they fight unto death, even for the Book of life, till they have blotted out their names with the blood of their Brethren. This is dressed out unto them as savoury meat set for their palate who had rather be carried up to heaven in Elias fiery chariot then place it thither with trouble and pain. That GOD hath absolutely decreed the salvation of some particular men, and passed sentence of death upon others, is as music to some ears, like David's harp, to refresh them, and drive away the evil spirit. Et qui amant, sibi somnia fingunt. men's desires do easily raise a belief; and when they are told of such a decree, they dream themselves to heaven. For, if we observe it, they still choose the better part, and place themselves with the Sheep at the right hand: and when the controversy of the inheritance of Heaven is on foot, to whom it belongeth, they do as the Romans did, who, when two Cities contending about a piece of ground made them their Judge to determine whose it was, fairly gave sentence on their own behalf, and took it to themselves. Because they read of Election, they elect themselves; which is more indeed then any man can deny, and more I am sure than themselves can prove. And now, O Death, 1 Cor. 15.55, 56 where is thy sting? The sting of Death is Sin; but it cannot reach them: and the strength of Sin is the Law; but it cannot bind them: For Sin itself shall turn to the good of these elect and chosen Vessels. And we have some reason to suspect that in the strength of this Doctrine, and a groundless conceit that they are these particular men, they walk on all the days of their life in fraud and malice, in hypocrisy and disobedience, in all that uncleanness and pollution of sin which is enough to wipe out any name out of the book of Life. Sen. Controu. Hoc saxum defendit Maulius, hinc excidit. For this they rouse up all their forces; this is their rock, their fundamental doctrine, their very Capitol: and from this we may fear many thousands of souls have been tumbled down into the pit of destruction; at this rock many such elect Vessels have been cast away. Again, others miscarry as fatally on the other hand. For when we speak of an absolute Decree upon particulars unto the vulgar sort, who have not cor in cord, as Augustine speaketh, who have their judgement not in their heart but in their sense, they soon conceive a fatal necessity (and one there is that called it so, fatum Christianum, the Christian man's Destiny) t●ey think themselves in chains and shackles that they cannot turn; when they cannot be predestinate not to turn, but to die because they will not turn. I will give you a remarkable instance, and out of Mr. Calvine; Quintinus, Contr. Libertin. c. 13. And yet his own followers use the same words, bring the same Texts, and apply them as the Libertines did. Vide Piscat. Aphorismos. the Father of the Libertines (as Calvine himself calleth him) as he rideth in company, by the way lighteth upon a man slain and lying in his gore: and one ask, Who did this bloody deed? he readily replieth, I am he that did it, if thou desire to know it. And art thou such a villain, saith the party again, to do such an act? I did it not myself, saith he; but it was God that did it. And being asked again, Whether may we impute to God those heinous sins which in justice he will and doth so severely punish? So it is, said he; Thou didst it, and I did it, and God did it. For what thou or I do, God doth; and what God doth, that thou and I do: for we are in him, and he in us; he worketh in us, he worketh all in all. Quintinus is long since dead, but his error died not with him. Fortaliter constitutum est quando & quantoperè unus▪ visque nostrûm pietatem colere vel non colere debeat. Piscator. ad Duplicat. Vorstii, p. 228. For it is the policy of our common Enemy to remove our eye as far as he can from the Command; and he cannot set it at a greater distance then by fixing it on Eternity, that so, whilst we think upon the Decree, we may quite forget the Command, and never fly from Death, because, for aught we know, we are killed already; never do our duty, because God doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth; never strive to be better than we are, because God is all in all. Let us then walk on in a middle way, and neither flatter nor afflict ourselves with the thought of what God may do, or what he hath done from all eternity. Let us not busy ourselves in the fruitless study of the Book of life, Rev. 5.3, 5. which no man in heaven or in earth is able to open and look into, but only the Lion of the tribe of Judah. In that book, saith S. Basil, Comment in Isai. 10. no names are written but of them that repent. Let us not seek what God decreeth, which we cannot find out; but harken to what he commandeth, which is nigh us, even in our mouths. Rom. 10.8. The book of Life is shut and sealed up: but he hath opened many other Books to us, and biddeth us sit down and read them? The book of his Works, of which the Creatures are the leaves, and the characters the Goodness, and Power, and Glory of God: The book of his Words, Matth. 1.1. 2 Cor. 3.2. The Book of the Generation of JESUS CHRIST, to be known and read of all men: and if these words be written in thy heart, thy name is also written in the book of Life. And the book of thy Conscience; for the information of which all the Books in the world were made. And if thou read and study this with care and diligence and an impartial eye, and then find there no bill or indictment against thee, than thou mayst have confidence towards God that he never passed any decree or sentence of death against thee, and that thou art ordained to life. This is the true method of a Christian man's studies, not to look too steadfastly backward upon Eternity, but to look down upon ourselves, and ponder and direct our paths, and then to look forward to eternity of bliss. We read of the Philosopher Thales, that lifting up his eyes to observe the course of the stars, he fell into the water: Which gave occasion to a damsel called Thressa of an ingenious and bitter scoff, That he who was so busy to see what was done in heaven could not observe what was even before his feet. And it is as true of them who are so bold and forward in the contemplation of God's eternal Decree, many times they fall dangerously into those errors which swallow them up. They are too bold with God, and so negligent of themselves; talk more what he doth, or hath done, or may do, then do what they should; are so much in heaven, and to so little purpose, that they lose it. But the Apostle's method is sure, 2 Pet. 1.10. to use diligence to make our election sure, and so read the Decree in our Obedience and sincere Conversation, and if we can persuade ourselves that our names are written in the book of Life, yet so to behave ourselves, Phil. 2.12. so to work on with fear and trembling, as if it were yet to be done. As it was told the Philosopher that he might have seen the figure of the stars in the water, but could not see the water in the stars: All the knowledge we can gain of the Decree is from ourselves: It is written in heaven, and the characters we read it by on earth are Faith and Repentance. If we believe and repent, than God speaketh to us from heaven, and telleth us we shall not die. If we be dead to sin and alive to righteousness, we are enroled, and our names are written in the book of Life. Here, here alone is the Decree legible; and if our eye fail not in the one, it cannot be deceived in the other. If we love Christ, and keep his commandments, we are in the number of the elect, and were chosen from all eternity. Be not then cast down and dejected in thyself with what God hath done or may do by his absolute Power. For thou mayst build upon it, He never saved an impenitent, nor will ever cast away a repentant sinner. Behold, he calleth to thee now by his Prophet, QVARE MORIERIS? Why wilt thou die? Didst thou ever hear from him, or from any Prophet, a MORIERIS, that thou shalt die, or a MORTWS ES, that thou art dead already? Thou hast his Prayers, his Entreaties, and Beseeching; He spreadeth forth his hands all the day long. Isa. 65.2. Rom. 10.21. Deut. 32.29. Luke 1.55, 73. Thou hast his Wishes; Oh that thou wert wise, so wise as to look upon the MORIEMINI, to consider thy last end. Thou hast his Covenant, which he swore to our forefathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever. His Comminations, his Obtestations, his Expostulations thou mayest read; but didst thou ever read the Book of life? Look on the MORIEMINI, look on the Death's head in the Text; look not into the Book of life. Thou hast other care that lieth upon thee, thou hast other business to do. Thou hast an Understanding to adorn, a Will to watch over, Affections to bridle, the Flesh to crucify, Temptations to struggle with, the Devil to encounter. Think then of thy Duty, not of the Decree; and the sincere performance of the duty will seal the Decree, Eph. 4.30. and seal thee up to the day of redemption. It is a good rule which Martin Luther giveth us, Dimitte Scripturam ubi obscura est, tene ubi certa; Where the Text is dark and obscure, suspend thy judgement, and where it is plain and easy, express and manifest it in thy conversation; which is the best descant on a plain song. Thou readest there are vessels made to dishonour: Rom. 9.21. 2 Tim. 2.20. Whether God made them so, as some will have it, or they made themselves so, as Basil and Chrysostom interpret it, it concerneth not thee. That which concerneth thee is plain, thou mayest run and read it, 1 Thes. 4.4. Judas 20. that thou must possess thy vessel in honour, and build up thyself in thy holy faith. The Quare moriemini? is plain. It is plain that God is not willing thou shouldest die, but hath showed thee a plain passage unto life. He hath not indeed supplied thee with means to interpret riddles and untie knots and explain and resolve hard texts of Scripture; but he hath supplied thee with means of life, hath brought thee to the gates of paradise, Psal. 16.6. to the ways of life, to the wells of salvation. The lines are fallen to thee in a fair place. Behold, he hath placed thee in domo Israelis, in the house of Israel, in domo salutis, in the house of salvation. Which is next to be considered. The Two and Twentieth SERMON. PART VII. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. For why will ye die, O house of Israel? GOD is not willing we should die. He is Goodness itself, and no evil can proceed from him, no not the evil of punishment: For it is his strange work, Orat. Quid Deus non sic autor mali. and rather ours then his, saith Basil. If our sins did not call and cry out for it, he would not do it, as delighting rather to see his glory in that image which is like him then in that which is defaced and torn and mangled and now burning in hell. Ipse te subdidisti poenae; that is the stile of the Imperial Law. His wrath could not kindle, nor Hell burn, till we did blow the coals. We bring ourselves under punishment, and then God striketh, and we die, and are lost for ever. It was his Goodness that made us; and it was his Goodness which made a Law, and made it possible to be kept. And in the same stream of Goodness were conveyed unto us sufficient and abundant means, by the right use of which we might be carried on in an even and constant course of obedience to that Law, and so have a clearer knowledge of God, a nearer union with him, a taste of the powers of the world to come, Hebr. 6.5. Psal. 16.12. a share and part in that fullness of joy which is at his right hand for evermore. And why then will ye die, O house of Israel? And indeed why should Israel, why should any of the house of Israel, die? For take it in the letter, for the Jews, take it in the application, for us Christians; take it for the Synagogue, which is the type, Rom. 9.6. or take it for the Church, which is Israel indeed, as the Apostle calleth it, and a strange thing it is, and as full of shame as wonder, that any one should die in the house of Israel, or perish in the Church. Si honoratior est persona, Salvian. l. 1 de Gub. M. major est peccantis invidia; The malice of sin is proportioned to the person that commits it. It is not so strange a thing to die in the streets of Askelon as in the house of Israel, nor for a Turk or Infidel to be lost as for a Christian. For though the condition of the person cannot change the species of the sin (for Sin is the same in whomsoever it is) yet it hath not so foul an aspect in one as in another; it crieth not so loud in the dark as in the light. It is most fatal and destructive where there are most means to avoid it, and most mortal where there is most light to discover its deformity. A wicked Israelite is worse than an Edomite, and a bad Christian wors● then a Turk or a Jew. To be in the house of Israel, to be a member of the Church, is a great privilege; but if we honour not this privilege so far as to make our deportment answerable, even our privilege itself being abused and forfeited will change its countenance, and accuse and condemn us. We find it as a positive truth laid down in the Schools; and, if it were not in our Books, common Reason would have showed it us in a character legible enough; Aquia. 2. 2. q. 10. art. 3. Graviùs peccat fidelis quàm infidelis, propter sacramenta fidei, quibus contumeliam facit. Of all Idolaters an Israelite is the worst, and no swine to the unclean Christian; no villain to him, if he be one. For here Sin maketh the deeper tincture and impression, leaveth a stain not only on his person but also on his profession, flingeth contumely on the very Sacraments of his faith, and casteth a blemish on his house and family; whereas in an Infidel it hath not so deadly an effect, but is vailed and shadowed by Ignorance, and borroweth some excuse from Infidelity itself. For first, to speak a word of the house of Israel in the letter, and so to pass from the Synagogue to the Church; Apol. c. 18. The Jews were domestica Dei gens, as Tertullian calleth them, the domestic and peculiar people of God, Judg. 6.37, 38. like Gideon's fleece, full of the dew of Divine benediction, when all the world was dry besides. Rom. 3.2. To them were the oracles given, those oracles which did foretell the Messiah, and by which they might more easily know him then the Gentiles. Rom 9.4. To them pertained the adoption: for they were called the Children of God. Deut. 14.1. They had the Covenant written in Tables of stone, and the giving of the Law, and constitutions, which might link and unite them together into a body and society. They had the service of God, they had their sacrifices, but especially the Paschal Lamb. For that their memory might not let slip his statutes and ordinances, God did even catechise their eyes and make the least ceremony a busy remembrancer. Behold a Tabernacle erected, Aaron and his sons appointed, Sacrifices slain, Altars smoking, all so many ocular Sermons. They might behold Aaron and his sons ascending the Temple, Levit. 16.21, 22. laying all their sins upon the head of a sacred Goat, that should carry them out of the City. They might behold him entering the vail with reverence. His garments, his motion, Ad Fabiol. de vest. sacerd. his gesture, all were vocal. Quicquid agebat, quicquid loquebatur, doctrina erat populi, saith S. Hierome; His actions were didactical as well as his doctrine, the Priest himself was a Sermon, and these were as so many antidotes against Death. v. 25.26. Our Prophet reproveth them for their capital and mortal sins, adultery, murder, and idolatry; and God had sufficiently instructed and fortified them against these. He forbade Lust, not only in the Decalogue, but in the Sparrow; Murder in the Vulture and Raven and those birds of prey. Novatian. de cib. Judaicis. Israelitae mundarentur, pecora culpata sunt; To sanctify and cleanse his people, he blameth the beasts as unclean (which they could not be of themselves, because he made them) and layeth a blemish upon his other creatures to keep them undefiled. And to keep out Idolatry, he busied them in those many ceremonies, which he ordained for that end, 1a. 1ae. nè vacaret idololatriae servire, saith Aquinas, that they might not have the least leisure to be Idolaters. So that, to draw up all, they might learn from the Law, they might learn from the Priest, they might learn from the Sacrifice, they might learn from each Ceremony, they might learn from Men, they might learn from Beasts, Isai 5.4. to turn from their evil ways: and God might well cry out, What could have been done more that I have not done? and speak to them in his grief and wrath and indignation, Why will ye die, O house of Isreal? But to pass from the Synagogue to the Church, which excelleth merito fidei & majoris scientiae, in respect of a clearer faith and larger knowledge; to come to the time of Reformation, Heb. 9.10. in which all things which pertain to the full happiness of God's people were to be raised to their last height and perfection; to look into the Law of liberty, Jam. 1.15. which letteth us not lose in our own evil ways, but maketh us most free by restraining and tying us up, and withholding us from those sins which the Law of Moses did not punish: And here Why will ye die? If it were before an obtestation, it is now a bitter sarcasme, as bitter as Death itself. It is improved and driven home à minori ad majus by the Apostle himself: 2 Cor. 3.11. For if that which should be abolished was glorious, much more shall that which remaineth, whose fruit is everlasting, be glorious. And again, Hebr. 12.25. If they escaped not who refused him who speak on earth, from mount Sinai, by his Angel, how shall we escape, Acts 7.38. if we turn away from him who spoke from heaven by his Son? For the Church is a house, but far more glorious, Eph. 2.20, 21. built upon the foundation of the Apostles & Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head cornerstone, in whom all the building coupled together groweth into a Temple of the Lord. The whole world besides are but rubbage, as bones scattered at the graves mouth. The Church is compact, knit and united into a house; and in this house is the armoury of God, Cant. 4.4. where are a thousand bucklers and all the weapons of the mighty, to keep off Death, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith to quench all the fiery darts of Satan, as they be delivered into our hands, Eph. 6.16, 17. And as it is a House, so is it a Family of Christ; Eph. 3.15. Of whom all the family of heaven and earth is named; Who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great Master of the household. For as the Pythagorean, fitting and shaping out a Family by his Lute, required 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the integrity of all the parts, as it were the set number of the strings; 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an apt composing and joining them together, as it were the tuning of the instrument; and lastly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a skilful touch, which maketh the harmony: So in the Church, if we take it in its latitude, there be Saints, Angels, and Archangels; if we contract it to the Militant (as we usually take it) there be some Apostles, Eph. 4.11. some Prophets, some Pastors and Teachers; there be some to be taught, and some to teach; some to be governed, and some to rule; which maketh up the Integrity of the parts. And then these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, coupled and knit together by every joint, by the bond of Charity, Eph. 4.16. which is the coupling and uniting virtue, as Prosper calleth it, Eph. 4.5, 13. by the unity of faith, by their agreement in holiness, having one faith, one baptism, one Lord. And at last, every string being touched in its right place begetteth Harmony, which is delightful both to heaven and earth. For when I name the Church, I do not mean the stones and building (some indeed would bring it down to this, to stand for nothing but the walls) but I suppose a subordination of parts (which was never yet questioned in the Church, but by those who would make it as invisible as their Charity) not the Foot to see, and the Eye to walk, and the Tongue to hear, and the Ear to speak; not all Apostles, not all Prophets, not all Teachers; but, 1 Cor. 12.29. 1 Cor. 15.23. Naz. Or. 26. as the Apostle saith it shall be at the resurrection, every man in his own order. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Order is our security and safeguard. In a rout every man is a child of death, every throat open to the knife: but when an army is drawn out by art and skill, all hands are active for the victory. Inequality indeed of persons is the ground of disunion and discord, but Order draweth and worketh advantage out of Inequality itself. When every man keepeth his station, the common Soldier hath hi● interest in the victory as the well as the Commander: And when we walk orderly every man in his own place, we walk hand in hand to heaven and happiness together. For further yet, in the Church of God there is not only a Union and an Order, but also, as it is in our Creed, a Communion of parts. The glorious Angels, as ministering Spirits, are sent to guard us, and no doubt do many and great services for us, though we perceive it not. The blessed Saints departed, though we may not pray for them, yet may pray for us, though we hear it not. And though the Church be scattered in its members through all the parts of the world, yet their hearts meet in the same God. Every man prayeth for himself, and every man prayeth for every man. Quod est omnium, est singulorum; That which is all men's is every man's, and that which is every man's belongeth unto the whole. For though we cannot speak in those high terms of the Church as the Church of Rome doth of herself, yet we cannot but bless God and count it a great favour and privilege, that we are filii Ecclesiae, as the Father speaketh, children of the Church, and think ourselves in a place of safety and advantage, where we may find protection against Death itself. We cannot speak loud with the Cardinal, Bellarm. praefat. ad Controu. Si Catholicus quisquam labitur in peccatum. If a Catholic fall into a sin, suppose it Theft or Adultery yet in that Church he walketh not in darkness, but may see many helps to salvation, by which he may soon quit himself out of the snare of the Devil. Maternus ei non deest affectus; She is still a Mother even to such Children. Her shops of spiritual comfort lie open; Isa. 55.1. there you may buy wine and milk, Indulgences and absolution, but not without money or money-worth. Be you as sick as you will, and as oft as you will, there is Physic, there are cordials to refresh and restore you. I dare not promise so much in the House of Israel, in the Church of Christ: for I had rather make the Church a school of Virtue than a sanctuary for offenders and wanton sinners. We dare not give it that strength, to carry up our Prayers to the Saints in heaven, or to convey their Merits to us on earth. We cannot work and temper it to that heat, to draw up the blood of Martyrs, or the works of supererogating Christians (who have been such profitable servants that they did more in the service of God than they should) into a common Treasury, and then shower them down in Pardons and Indulgences. But yet though we cannot find this power there (which is a power to do nothing) yet we may find strength enough in the Church to keep us from the Moriemini, to save us from Death. Though I cannot suffer for my brother, Gal. 6.2. yet I may bear for him, even bear my brother's burden. Though I cannot merit for him, yet I may work for him. Though I cannot die for him, I may pray for him. Though there be no good in my death, nor profit in my dust, Psal. 30.9. yet there may be in the memory of my good counsel, my advice, Consult. c. de Relig. 5. my example, which are verae sanctorum reliquiae, saith Cassander, the best and truest relics of the Saints. And though my death cannot satisfy for him, yet it may catechise him, and teach him how to die, nay, teach him how to overcome Death, that he shall not die for ever. And by this Communion it is that we work Miracles, that in turning the Covetous, turning his bowels in him, we recover a dry hand and a narrow heart; in teaching the Ignorant, we give sight to the blind; in settling the inconstant and wavering mind, we cure the palsy. We can well allow of such Miracles as these in the Church, but not of lies. For as there is an invisible union of the Saints with God, so is there of Christians amongst themselves. Which union, though the eye of flesh cannot behold it, yet it must appear and shine and be resplendent in those duties and offices which do attend this union, which are so many hands by which we lift up one another to happiness. As the Head infuseth life and vigour into the whole body, so must the members also anoint each other with this oil of gladness. Each member must be active and industrious to express that virtue without which it cannot be one. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth, saith the Apostle. Not seek his own? 1 Cor. 10.24 what more natural to man? or who is nearer to him than he himself? but yet he must not seek his own, but as it may bring advantage to, and promote the good of others; not press forward to the mark, but with his hand stretched forth to carry on others along with him; not go to heaven, but saving some with fear, and pulling others out of the fire, Jud. 23. and gathering up as many as his wisdom and care and zeal toward God and man can take up with him in the way. And this is necessary even in humane societies and those politic bodies which men build up to themselves for their peace and security. Turpis est pars quae toti suo non convenit; That is a most unnecessary superfluous part or member for which the whole is not the better. in sermone literae, saith Augustine, as letters in a word or sentence, so Men are elementa civitatis, the principles and parts which make up the Syntaxis of a Republic: And he that endeavoureth not the advancement of the whole, is a letter too much, fit to be expunged and blotted out. But in the Church, whose maker and builder is God, Heb. 11.10. this is required in the highest degree, especially in those transactions which may enlarge the circuit and glory of it. Here every man must be his own and (under Christ) his brother's Saviour. For as between these two Cities, so between the happiness of the one and the happiness of the other, there is no comparison. As therefore every Bishop in the former ages called himself, Episcopum Catholicae Ecclesiae, a Bishop of the Catholic Church, although he had jurisdiction but over one Diocese, so the care and piety of every particular Christian in respect of its diffusive operation is as Catholic as the Church. Every soul he meeteth with is under his charge, and he is the care of every soul. Jam. 5.20. In saving a soul from death every man is a Priest and a Bishop, although he may neither invade the Pulpit nor ascend the Chair. I may be eyes unto him, as it was said of Hobab. Numb. 10.31. I may take him from his error, and put him into the way of truth. If he fear, I may scatter his fear; if he grieve, I may wipe off his tears; if he presume, I may teach him to fear; and if he despair, I may lift him up to a lively hope, that neither Fear nor Grief, neither Presumption nor Despair swallow him up. Thus may I raise a dead man from the grave, a sinner from his sin; and by that example many may rise with him who are as dead as he: and so by this friendly communication we may transfuse ourselves into others, and receive others into ourselves, and so run hand in hand from the chambers of Death. And thus far we dare extend the Communion of Saints, place it in a House, a Family, a Society of men called and gathered together by Christ; raise it to the participation of the privileges and Charters granted by Christ, calling us to the same faith, leading us by the same rule, filling us with the same grace, endowing us with several gifts, that we may guard and secure each other; and so settle it in those Offices and Duties which Christianity maketh common, and God hath registered in his Church, which is the pillar of truth; 1 Tim. 3.15. where all men's Joys and Sorrows and Fears and Hopes should be one and the same. And then to die surrounded with all these helps and advantages, of God above ready to help us, of Men like unto ourselves pressed out as auxiliaries to secure and relieve us, of Precepts to guide us, of Promises to encourage us, of Heaven even opening itself to receive us, then to die, 2 Sam 3.33, 34. is to die as fools die, to suffer their hands to be bound, and their feet put in fetters, and to open their breast to the sword. For to die alone is not so grievous, not so imputable, as to die in such company, to die where it is no more but to will it and I might live for ever. Oh how were it to be wished that we well understood this one Article of our Faith, the Communion of Saints! that we knew to be Vessels to receive the Water of life, and Conduits to convey it! that we would remember that by every sin we bring trouble to a million of Saints, and by our obedience make as many Angels merry; Luk. 15.13, 30. that when we spend our portion amongst harlots, we do not only beggar ourselves, but rob and spoil our brethren; that when we yield ourselves to the enemy, we betray an Army! Oh that we knew what it were to give counsel, and what it were to receive it; what it were to shine upon others, and to walk by their light! Oh that we knew the power and the necessity of a Precept, the riches and glory of a Promise! that we would consider ourselves as men amongst men invited to happiness, invited to the same royal feast! If this were rightly considered, we should then ask ourselves the question, Why should we die? Why should we die, not in the wilderness amongst beasts, upon our turf or stone, where there is none to help; but in domo Israelis, in a house, and in the house of Israel, where Health and Safety appear in every room and corner? Why should we fall, like Samson, with the house upon us, and so endanger and bruise others with our fall? If I be a string, why should I jar, and spoil the harmony? If I be a part, why should I be made a schism from the body? If I be under command, why should I beat my fellow-servants? If a member, why should I walk disorderly in the family? Why should I, why should any, die, in the house of Israel? And now to reassume the Text, Why will ye die, O house of Israel? What a fearful exprobration is it? What can it work in us but shame and confusion of face? Why will ye die? ye that have Christ for your Physician, the Angels for your Ministers, the Saints for your example, the Church a common shop of precious balm and antidotes? ye who are in the House of Israel, where, you may learn from the Priest, learn from the oracles of God, learn from one another, learn from Death itself, not to die? In this House, in this Order, in this Union, in this Communion, in the midst of all these auxiliary troops to fall and miscarry; To have the Light, but not to see it; the bread of Life, but not to taste it; To die with our antidotes about us, Quale est de Ecclesiâ Dei in Ecclesiam Diaboli tendere de coelo in coenum? Tert. De spect. c. 25. Aug. De Civ. Dei, l. 14. c. 15. to go per port●● coeli in gehennam, thorough the house of Israel into Tophet, thorough the Church of Christ into hell, may well put God to ask questions, and expostulate, and can argue no less than a stubborn and relentless heart, and not only a defect but a distaste and hatred of that piety, quae una est sapientia in hac domo, which is the only wisdom and most useful in the house of Israel, which is our best strength against our enemy, Death. And here to apply this to ourselves; Let us compare the state of the house of Israel with the state of the people of this Nation, and Jerusalem with this City, Isa. 5.4. and we may say, What could God have done more for us which he hath not done? Only his blessings and privileges will rise and swell and exceed on our side, and so make our ingratitude and guilt the greater. They had their Priests and Levites, we have our Pastors and Ministers. They had their Temple and Synagogues, we our Parochial Churches. They had their Sacraments, Circumcision, and the Paschal Lamb; Acts 15.21. we, Baptism, and the Lords Supper. They had Moses preached in their Synagogues every Sabbath day; so have we. I speak like a fool; we have more, the Gospel interpreted, or abused, every Sabbath-day, nay, every day of the week; I had almost said, every hour of the day. We are baptised with a Sermon, and we are married with a Sermon, and we are buried with a Sermon. When we take our journey, a Sermon is our farewell; and when we return, it is our welcome home. If we feast, a Sermon is the Grace before it. If we sail, a Sermon must weigh anchor. And if we fight, a Sermon is the alarm to battle. If we rejoice, we call to the Preacher to pipe to us, that we may dance (for many times we choose our Preachers as we do our Musicians, by the ear and fancy, not by judgement. And it must needs be a rare choice which a Woman and Ignorance makes) and such an one is to us as a lovely song of one that hath a very pleasant voice. And if we be in grief, he must turn the key, Ezek. 33.32. and change his note, and mourn to as, that we may lament. A Sermon is the grand Salad, to usher in every dish; like Sosia or Davus in the Comedy, scarce any scene or part of our life without it. It is Prologus galeatus, a Prologue that will fit either Comedy or Tragedy, every purpose, every action, every business of our life. In a word; What had the House of Israel which we have not in measure pressed down? They had the favour and countenance of God, they had the blessings of the Basket: So had we, if we could have pinned it, and kept them in, and not played the wantoness in this light, and so let them fly away from us, that we can but look after them, and sadly say, We had them. They had Temporal blessings; we have Graces and Spiritual endowments, more Light, richer Promises, more and more gracious Privileges than they. Their administration was with glory, but ours is more glorious. 2 Cor. 3.7, &c Glorious things are spoken of this City, glorious things are seen amongst us, able to deceive a Prophet, nay, if it were possible, the very Elect. For he that shall see our outward formality, the earnestness, the demureness, the talkativeness of our looks and behaviour, when we flock and press to Sermons; he that shall hear our noise and zeal for Religion, our anger and detestation against Idolatry, even where it is not; he that shall scarcely hear a word from us which soundeth not as the word of God; he that shall see us such Saints abroad, will little mistrust we come so short of the honesty of the Pagans in our shops and deal. He that shall see such a promising form of godliness, cannot presently discover the malice, the fraud, the uncleanness, the cruelty that lieth wrapped up in it like a Devil in light. He that shall see this in the City, cannot but say of it as the Prophet Samuel did of Eliab, Surely the Lords anointed is here. This is the faithful City; 1 Sam. 16.7. This is the City of the Lord. But God, who seethe not as man seethe, nor looketh on the outward appearance, but on the heart, may account us dead for all these glories, this pageantry, this noise, which to him is but noise, as the found of their trumpet who will not fight his battles, but fall off and run to the enemy, as a song of Zion in a strange land, psal. 137.3, 4. even in the midst of Babylon. We read in our books that it was a custom amongst the Romans, when the Emperor was dead, in honour of him to frame his image of wax, and to perform to it all ceremonies of state, as if the image were the living Emperor; The Senate and Ladies attended; the Physicians resorted to him to feel his pulse, and Doctorally resolved that he grew worse and worse, and could not escape; a Guard watched him; Nobles saluted him; his dinner and supper at accustomed hours was served in with water, with sewing and carving and taking away; his Nobles and Gentlemen waited as if he had been alive; there was no ceremony forgot which State might require. Thus hath been done to a dead carcase; and if we take not heed, our case may be the same. All our outward shows of Churches, of Sermons, of Sacraments, our noise and ostentation, which should be arguments of life and antidotes against death, may be no more then as funeral rites performed to a carcase, to a Christian, to a City, whose iniquities are loathsome, of an ill-smelling savour to God. The great company of Preachers (whereof every one chooseth one according to his lusts) may stand about it, and do their duty, but as to an image of wax or a dead carcase: the Bread of life may be served in, and divided to it by art and skill, as every man phansieth; it may be fitted and prepared for every palate when they have no taste nor relish of it, and receive no more nourishment than they that have been dead long ago. Be not deceived: Psal. 68.19. Benefits are burdens (God loadeth us daily with benefits, saith David) burdens which, if we bear not well and as we should do, will grind us to pieces. All prerogatives are with conditions; and, if the condition be not kept, they turn to scorpions. They either heal, or kill us; they either lift us up to bliss, or throw us down to destruction. There is heaven in a privilege, and there is hell in a privilege; and we make it either to us. We may starve whilst we hang on the breasts of the Church; we may be poisoned with antidotes. Those mouths that taught us may be opened to accuse us; the many Sermons we have heard may be so many bills against us; the Sacraments may condemn us, the blood of Christ cry loud against us, and our profession, our holy profession put us to shame. John 14.9. Have I been so long with you, and knowest thou not me, Philip? saith our Saviour. Hast thou had so good a Master, and art thou y●t to learn? Hast thou been so long with me, and deniest thou me, Peter? Hast thou been so long with me, and yet betrayest me, Judas? Hath Christ wrought so many works among us, and do we go about to kill and crucify him? Hath he planted Religion, true Religion, amongst us, and do we go about to dig it up by the roots? Hath the Gospel sounded so long in our ears, and begot nothing but words? words that are deceitful upon the balance? words which are lies? So many Sermons, and so many Atheists? So much Preaching, and so much defrauding? So many breathe and demonstrations of love, and so much malice in the house of Israel? So many Courts of justice, and so much oppression? So many Churches, and so few Temples of the Holy Ghost? What? profess Religion, and shame it? cry it up, and smother it in the noise? and for a member of Christ make thyself the head of a faction? What? press on to make thyself better, and make thyself worse? go up to the Temple to pray, and profane it? What? go to Church, and there learn to pull it down? Why, Oh why, will ye thus die, O house of Israel? Oh then let us look about us with a thousand eyes; let us be wise, and consider what we are, and where we are; that we are a House, and so ought, every man, to fill and make good his place, and mutually support each other; that we are a Family, and must be active in those offices which are proper to us, and so with united forces keep Death from entering in; that we are the Israel of God, his chosen people, chosen therefore that we may not cast away ourselves; 1 Tim. 3.15. that we are his Church, which is the pillar and ground of truth, a pillar to lean on, that we fall not, and holding out and urging the truth, which is able to save us, that we may not die. We have God's Word to quicken us, his Sacraments to strengthen and confirm us, his Grace to prevent and follow us. We have many helps and huge advantages: And if we look up upon them, and lay hold on them; if we harken to his Word, resist not his Grace, neither idolise nor profane his Sacraments, but receive them with reverence, as they were instituted in love; if we hear the Church, if we hear one another, if we confirm one another, Rom. 6.9. Gal. 7.16. if we watch over ourselves and one another, Death shall have, can have, no more dominion over us; we shall not, we cannot die at all; but as many as thus walk in the common light of the house of Israel, peace shall be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. And now we must draw towards a conclusion, and we must conclude and shut up all in nobis ipsis, in ourselves. If we die, it is quia volumus, because we will die. For look above us, and there is God, the living God, the God of life, saying to us, Live. Look before us, and there is Death breathing terror, to drive us from it; showing us his dart, that we may hold up our buckler. Look about us, and there are armouries of weapons, treasuries of wisdom, shops of physic, balm and ointments, helps and advantages, pillars and supporters to uphold us, that we may stand, and not fall into the pit, which openeth its mouth, but will shut it again, if we fly from it; which is not, cannot be, is nothing if we do not dig it ourselves. The Church exhorteth, instructeth, correcteth: God calleth, inviteth, expostulateth: Death itself threatneth us, that we may not come near: Thus are we compassed about auxiliorum nube, with a cloud of helps and advantages. The Church is loud; Death is terrible; God's Nolo is loud, I will not the death of a sinner, Ezek. 33.11. and confirmed with an oath, As he liveth. He would not have us die: And it is plain enough in his lightning and in his thunder, in his expostulations and wishes, in his anger, in his grief, in his spreading out his hands, in his administration of all means sufficient to protect and guard us from it: And it excludeth all Stoical Fate, all necessity of sinning or dying. There is nothing above us, nothing before us, nothing about us, which can necessitate or bind us over to Death, so that if we die, it is in our volo, in our Will; we die for no other reason but that which is not reason, Quia volumus, Because we will die. We have now brought you to the very cell and den of Death, where this monster was framed and fashioned, where it was first conceived, brought forth and nursed up. I have discovered to you the original and beginnings of Sin, whose natural issue is Death, and shut it up in one word, the Will. That which hath so troubled and amused men in all the ages of the Church to find out; that which some have sought in heaven, in the bosom of God, as if his Providence had a hand in it, and others have raked hell, and made the Devil the author of, who is but a persuader and a solicitor to promote it; that which others have tied to the chain of Destiny, whose links are filled by the fancy alone, and made up of air, and so not strong enough to bind men, much less the Gods themselves, as it is said; that which many have busied themselves in a painful and unnecessary search to find out, opening the windows of Heaven to find it there, running to and fro about the Universe to find it there, and searching Hell itself to discover it, we may discover in our own breasts, in our own heart. The Will is the womb that conceiveth this monster, this viper, which eateth through it, and destroyeth the mother in the birth. For that which is the beginning of action, is the beginning of Sin, and that which is the beginning of Sin, is the cause of Death. In homine quicquid est, sibi proficit, saith Hilary; In Psal. 118 There is nothing in Man, nothing in the world, which he may not make use of to avoid and prevent Death: And in homine quicquid est, sibi nocet; There is nothing in Man, nothing in the world, which he may not make an occasion and instrument of sin. That which hurteth him may help him. That which circumspection and diligence may make an antidote, neglect and carelessness may turn into poison. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil; As Goodness, so Sin is the work of our Will, not of Necessity. If they were wrought in us against our will, there could be neither good nor evil. I call heaven and earth to witness, Deut. 30.19. said GOD by his servant Moses, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. And what is it to set it before them, but to put it to themselves, to put it into their own hands, to put it to their choice? Choose then which you will. The Devil may tempt, the Law occasion sin, Rom. 7.11. the Flesh may be weak, Temptations may show themselves; but not any of these, not all of these, can bring in a necessity of dying. For the Question or Expostulation doth not run thus, Why are you under a Law? Why are you weak? or, Why are you dead? for reasons may be given for all these, and the Justice and Wisdom of God will stand up to defend them: But the Question is, Why will ye die? for which there can be no other reason given but our Will. And here we must make a stand, and take our rise from this one word, this one syllable, our Will: For upon no larger foundation than this we either build ourselves up into a temple of the Lord, or into that tower of Babel and Confusion which God will destroy. We see here all is laid upon the Will: But such is our folly and madness, so full of contradictions is a wilful sinner, Wisd. 1.16. that though he call Death unto him both with words and works, though he be found guilty, and sentence of death passed upon him, yet he cannot be wrought into such a persuasion, That he was ever willing to die. Tert. Apol c. 1. Nolumus nostrum, quia malum agnoscimus; We will not call sin ours, because we know it evil; and so are bold to exonerate and unload ourselves upon God himself. It is true, there is light, but we are blind, and cannot see it: There is comfort soundeth every where, but we are deaf and cannot hear it: There is supply at hand, but we are bound and fettered, Jer. 8.22. and can make no use of it: There is balm in Gilead, but we are lame, and have no hand to apply it. We complain of our natural weakness, of our want of grace and assistance. When we might know the danger we are in, we plead ignorance. When we willingly yield our members servants unto sin, Rom. 6.13, 19 we have learned to say, We did not do it plenâ voluntate, with full consent and will; and what God hath clothed with Death, we cloth with the fair gloss of a good intention and meaning. We complain of our bodies and of our souls, as if the Wisdom of God had failed in our creation. We would be made after another fashion, that we might be good; and yet when we may be good, we will be evil. And these webs a sick and unsanctified fancy will soon spin out. These are receipts and antidotes of our own tempering, devised and made use of against the gnawings of conscience: These we study and are ready and expert in, and when Conscience beginneth to open and chide, these are at hand to quiet it and put it to silence: We carry them about for ease and comfort, but to as little purpose as the women in Chrysostom's time bound the coins of Alexander the Great or some part of S. John's Gospel to ease them of the headache: For by these receipts and spells we more envenom our souls, and draw nearer to Death by thinking to fly from it, and are tenfold more the servants of Satan because we are willing to do him service but not willing to wear his livery. And thus excusando exprobramus, our apologies defame us, our false comforts destroy us, and we condemn ourselves with an excuse. To draw then the lines by which we are to pass; we will first take off the Moriemini, the cause of our Death, from our Natural weakness, and from the Deficiency of Grace: For neither can our natural weakness betray, nor can there be such a want of grace as to enfeeble, nor hath Satan so much power as to force the Will, and so there will be no necessity of dying either in respect of our natural weakness, or in regard of Gods strengthening hand, and withholding his grace. And then in the next place we will show that neither Ignorance of our duty, nor Regret or Reluctancy of Conscience, nor any Pretence or good Intention can make Sin less sinful, or our death less voluntary. And so we will bring Death to their doors who have sought it out, who have called it to them, who are confederate with it, and are worthy to be partakers thereof. And First, Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Why will ye die? we may perhaps answer: we are dead already. — Haeret lateri lethalis arundo. The poisoned and deadly dart is in our sides. Adam sinned, and we die. Omnes eramus in illo uno, cum ille unus nos omnes perdidit; We were all the loins of that one man Adam, when that one man slay us all. And this we are too ready to confess, that we are born in sin. Nay, we fall so low as to damn ourselves before we were born. This some may do in humility; but most are well content it should be so, well pleased in their pedigree, well pleased to be brought into the world in that filth and uncleanness which God doth hate, and make the unhappiness of their birth an advocate to plead for those pollutions, for those wilful and beloved sins, which they fall into in the remaining part of their life, as being the proper and natural issues of that Weakness and Impotency with which we were sent into the world. But this is not true in every part. That weakness, whatsoever it is, can draw no such necessity upon us, nor can be wrought into an apology for sin, or an excuse for dying. For to include and wrap up all our actual sin in the folds of original weakness, is nothing else but to cancel our own debts and obligations, Licentiam usurpare praetexto necessitatis. Tert. De cult. Faemin. and to put all upon our first parent's score, and so make Adam guilty of the sins of the whole world. Our natural and original weakness I will not now call into question, since it hath had such Grandees in our Church, men of great learning and piety, for its nursing Fathers, and that for many centuries of years: but yet I cannot see why it should be made a cloak to cover our other transgressions, or why we should miscarry so often with an eye cast back upon our first fall, which is made ours but in another man; nor any reason, though it be a plant watered by the best hands, why men should be so delighted in it, why they should lie down and repose themselves under its shadow; why they should be so willing to be weak, and so unwilling to hear the contrary; why men should take so much pains to make the way to happiness narrower, and the way to death broader than it is; in a word, why we should thus magnify a temptation, and desparage ourselves; why we should make each importunate object as powerful and irresistible as God himself, and ourselves as idols, even nothing in this world. Petrarch. 1.3, R. S. c. 1. Magna pars humanarum que relarum non injusta modò materiâ sed stulta est; The world is full of complaints and excuses; but the complaints which the world putteth forth are for the most part most unjust, and void of that reason which should present and commend them. For when our souls are pressed down and overcharged with sin, when we feel the gripes and gnawings of our conscience, we commonly lay hold on those remedies which are worse than the disease, and suborn an unseasonable and ill-applied conceit of our own natural weakness (which is more dangerous than the temptation) as an excuse and comfort of our overthrow. We fall, and plead we were weak; and fall more than seven times a day, and hold up the same plea still; till we fall into that place where we shall be muzzled and speachless, not able to say a word, where our complaints will end in curses, in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Hieron. Amando. Omnes nostris vitiis favemus, & quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad naturae referimus necessitatem; We are all tender and favourable to our own sins; and because they pleased us when we committed them, we are unwilling to revile them now, but wipe off as much of their filth as we can, because we resolve to commit them again; and those transgressions which our Lusts conceived and brought forth by the midwifery of our Will, we remove as far as we can, and lay them at the door of Necessity, and are ready to complain of God and Nature itself. Now this complaint against Nature when we have sinned is most unjust; For God and Nature hath imprinted in our souls those common principles of goodness, That good is to be embraced, and evil to be abandoned, That we must do to others as we would be done to, those practic notions, those anticipations, Natura nos ad optimam mentem genuit, Quint. l. 12. Inst. as the Stoics call them, of the mind, and preparations against Sin and Death, which, if we did not wilfully stifle and choke them, might lift up our souls far above those depressions of Self-love and Covetousness, and those evils which destroy us, quae ratio semel in universum vincit, which Reason with the help of Grace overcometh at once. For Reason doth not only arm and prepare us against these inroads and incursions, against these (as we think) so violent assaults, but also, when we are beat to the ground, it checketh and upbraideth us for our fall. Indeed to look down upon ourselves, and then lift up our eyes to him from whom cometh our salvation, Psal. 62.1. & 121.1. is both the duty and security of the sons of Adam. And when we watch over ourselves, and keep our hearts with diligence, when we strive with our inclination and weakness as well as we do with the temptation, Psal. 103.14. then if we fall, God remembreth whereof we are made, considereth our condition, that we are but men; and though we fail, his mercy endureth for ever. But to think of our weakness, and then to fall; and because we came infirm and diseased into the world to kill ourselves; Wisd. 1.12. to seek out Death in the error of our life, to dally and play with danger, to be willing to join with the temptation at the first show and approach, as if we were made for no other end, and then to complain of weakness, is to charge God and Nature foolishly, and not only to impute our sins to Adam but to God himself. And thus we bankrupt ourselves, and complain we were born poor; we cripple ourselves, and then complain we are lame; we deliver up ourselves, and fall willingly under the temptation, and then pretend it was a son of Anak, too strong for such grasshoppers as we. We delight in sin, we trade in sin, we were brought up in it, and we continue in it, and make it our companion, our friend, with which we most familiarly converse, and then comfort ourselves, and cast all the fault on our temper and constitution and the corruption of our nature, and we attribute our full growth in sin to that seed of sin which we should have choked, which had never shot up into the blade, and born such evil fruit, but that we manured and watered it, and were more than willing that it should grow and multiply. And this though it be a great sin, as being the mother of all those misshapen births and monsters which walk about the world, we dress and deck up, and give it a fair and glorious name, and call it Humility; Which is, Humilitas maximum fidei opus, Hil. in Psal. 130. saith Hilary, the hardest and greatest work of our faith, to which it is so unlike, that it is the greatest enemy it hath, and every day weakeneth and disenableth it, that it doth not work by charity, but leaveth us Captives to the world and sin, which but for this conceit it would easily vanquish and tread down under our feet. We may call it Humility, but it is Pride, a stubborn and insolent standing out with God that made us upon this foul and unjust pretence That he made us so, humilitas sophistica, saith Petrus Blesensis, the humility of hypocrites, which at once boweth and pusheth out the horn, in which we disgrace and condemn ourselves, that we may do what we please, and speak evil of ourselves, that we may be worse. Rom. 7.24. Oh wretched men that we are! we groan it out, and there is music in the sound, which we hear, and delight in, and carry along in our mind, and so become wretched indeed, even those miserable sinners which will ever be so. And shall we call this Humility? If it be, Col. 2.18. it is, as the Apostle speaketh, a voluntary humility, but in a worse sense. He is the humblest man that doth his duty: For that Humility which is commended to us in Scripture, letteth us up to heaven? this, which is so epidemical, sinketh us into the lowest pit. That Humility boweth us down with sorrow, this bindeth our hands with sloth; that looketh upon our imperfections past, this maketh way for more to come; that ventureth and condemneth itself, condemneth itself, and ventureth further; this runneth out of the field, and dare not look upon the enemy. Nec mirum, si vincantur, qui jam victi sunt; And it is no marvel they should fall and perish whom their own so low and groundless opinion hath already overthrown. For first, though I deny not a derived Weakness, and from Adam; though I leave it not after Baptism as subsistent by itself, or bound to the centre of the earth, with the Manichee, nor washed to nothing in the Font, with others; yet it is easy to deceive ourselves, and to think it more contagious than it is, more operative and more destructive than it would be, if we would shake off this conceit, and rouse ourselves, and stand up against it. Ignaviâ nostrâ fortis est: It may be it is our sloth and cowardice that maketh it strong. Certainly there must be more force than this hath to make us so wicked as many times we are, and there be more promoters of the kingdom of Darkness in us then that which we brought with us into the world. Lord, what a noise hath Original sin made amongst the sons of Adam? and what ill use hath been made of it? When this Lion roareth, all the Beasts of the forest tremble, and yet are beasts still. We hear of it, and are astonished, and become worse and worse; and yet there are but few that exactly know what it is. When we are Infants, we do not know that we are so, no more than the Tree doth that it grows: Much less can we discover what poison we brought with us into the world, which (as it is the nature of some kind of poison) though it have no visible operation for the present, may some years after break forth from the head to the foot in swell and sores full of corruption, and not be fully purged out to our lives end. Again, in the opening and dawning of our reason we have scarce so much light as to see ourselves by, and we understand little more than the rod, which we soon forget, and boldly venture upon the same fault for which we felt it, and should count it a virtue and our bounden duty to do it, but for the smart it bringeth with it, which yet can work in us little conscience of guilt. And then in our riper age our blood runneth in our veins with more heat, and we are active and strong to act over that with some sense and feeling which we learned but imperfectly in our nonage, which our nurse prattled into us, which servants read to us with a licentious tongue and wanton behaviour: and many times we repeat and express those rudiments and principles of thrift which those who are set over us do commonly first teach, and we show ourselves as perfect in them as those old gray-headed Atheists that taught them. These we take up betimes, Wantonness, Revenge, Love of the world; and being used unto them, they are no burdens: and if at any time they wring us, we have learned so much at Church as to cast them off upon Adam, to ease ourselves with the remembrance of our natural Weakness, though we know not what it is, nor have learned it half so perfectly as we have done those other lessons, which have no evil in them, as we think, but that which is of ancient extraction, derived from the first evil that was ever seen under the sun. But then in our old age, which is a complication and collection of all sins, as well as diseases, how should a dim eye discover it in the midst of so many evil habits wreathed and plaited one within another, Covetousness wrought in with Luxury, and with Luxury Cruelty, each thwarting and yet friendly complying one with the other? Can we now say that these sins were thus multiplied and raised to such a height by the power and continued force of that fatal legacy which our first Parents left us? Or was this the best crown wherewith our mothers crowned us in the day of our conception▪ Can we labour and toil, can we affect and study sin, can we make it our business, our ambition, to walk in our evil ways, and say that we were put in them from the beginning, and forced forward by the violent hand that first put us in? Indeed the old man, the old sinner is glad to hear of another Old man, although he never intendeth to crucify him, nor well understandeth what it is, no more than the vulgar do Antichrist, which in their fancy is a Beast, Job 32.7. and hath horns. Multitude of years (though Age be talkative) yet many times know no more of this primitive and so much famed evil than they who are but of yesterday. Job 8.9. Even they who have been brought up in Nob, in the City and University of Priests, have not all agreed in their discovery of this evil, but have presented it in so many shapes that it will be hard to choose and say, This is the right, this, this it is. I am sure their opinions are more than the sins can be which Original sin doth necessarily bring into act. The Anabaptists in the days of our fore fathers called it somnium Augustini, See Molanct. l. c. de perc. S. Augustine's dream. Some make it a sin, and some a punishment only, some make it both. Some have made it to be nothing but the want and deprivation of original righteousness, or an habitual aversion and opliquity of the will. Others have made it the image of the Devil. There be that conceive the whole essence of Man to be corrupted. There be that make it an Accident; and there have been that have made it a Substance: and there have not been wanting those who have made it nothing. All agree in this, That there is something in us which we must strive to subdue and keep under. Some call it our Natural inclination, which may be the matter of virtue as well as of vice; others, Original sin, which to yield to is to die, but to curb and restrain, to fight against and conquer it, is the great work and business of a Christian. I speak not this to take away our original Weakness, but to take it away from being an excuse: For, In the second place, our natural Weakness is so far from cxcusing our sin, or making it less voluntary, that we are bound by our very profession to crucify this old Adam in us, Rom. 6.6. Col. 3.5. to mortify our earthly members and lusts, non exercere quod nati sumus, not to be what indeed we are; to be in the body, but out of the body; to tame the wantonness of the Flesh. For did we not for this give up our names unto Christ? were we not baptised in this Faith? It is my Melancholy, saith the Envious; It is my Choler, saith the Revenger; It is my Blood, saith the Wanton; It is my Appetite, saith the Glutton: and so every man runneth on in his own ways, because the wind that driveth him cometh from no other treasury but himself, no other corner but his corrupt heart. Fructu peccatorum utuntur, ipsa subducunt; They are content to reap the fruit and pleasure of sin, but withdraw the sin itself, and remove it out of the way. But this is not the right use of our natural Weakness, which may be left in us, but (as all agree) to humble, not disarm us; to show we are men, weak and impotent in ourselves, not to make us proud and rebellious against our God, but to set us upon our guard, and make us bestir ourselves, and call up all our forces, and send our Prayers as Ambassadors to Heaven for help and secure against this inmate and domestic enemy. The Envious should purge his Melancholy, Rom. 12.15. and rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep; the Choleric bridle his Anger, and make it set before the Sun; Eph. 4.26. the Wanton quench that fire in his Blood, and make himself an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven; Matth. 19.12. the Glutton, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Julian. Antio chens. Prov. 23.2. wage war with his Appetite, and set a knife to his throat. If this care were general, if we understood Christianity aright, and did strive and struggle with ourselves (the best Contention in the world!) if we did do an act of justice upon ourselves, perform that judicatory part of the Gospel, labour to bind this Old Man in chains, Gal. 5 24. and crucify the Flesh with the lusts and affections, we should not complain, or rather speak so contentedly, of Adam's fall; not bemoan ourselves, and yet be pleased well enough in in; not take that doctrine with the left hand which is offered to us with the right, or, as he spoke in the Historian, sinistrâ dextram amputare, cut off our right hand with our left, and by a sinister and unnecessary conceit of our own weakness rob and deprive ourselves of that strength which might have defended us from Sin and Death; which now is voluntary, because we cannot derive it from any other fountain than our own Wills. For, Last of all, be the blemishes in the Understanding and Will, which we are said to receive by Adam's fall, what they may be, either by certain knowledge or conjecture, yet we shall not die unless we will. And if such we were all, yet now we are washed, now we are sanctified, 1 Cor. 6.11. now we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Leper who is cleansed complaineth no more of his disease, but returneth to give thanks. The Blind man who is cured doth not run into the ditch, and impute it to his former blindness, but rejoiceth that he can now see the light, and walketh by the light he seethe. And we cannot without foul ingratitude deny but what we lost in Adam we recovered again in Christ, and that improved and exalted many degrees. For, Not as the offence, Rom. 5.15, 19● so is also the free gift, saith the Apostle. For as by the offence of one many were made sinners, that is, were under the wrath of God, and so considered as if they had themselves committed that sin, so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous, made so not only by imputation (That we would have, and nothing else; have sin removed, and be sinners still) but made so, that is, supplied with all helps and with all strength that is necessary and sufficient to forward and perfect those duties of piety which are required at the hands of a justified person. For do we not magnify the Gospel from the abundance of light and grace which it affordeth? Do we not count the last Adam stronger than the first? 2 Cor. 10.4.5. Is not he able to cast down all the strong holds, all the towering imaginations which Flesh and Blood, though tainted in the womb, can set up against him. And therefore, if we be truly (what we profess ourselves) Christians, this Weakness cannot hurt us; and if it hurt us, it is because we are not Christians. To conclude; If in Adam we were all lost, in Christ we are come home and brought nearer to heaven. Et post Jesum Christum, when we have given up our names unto Christ, and profess ourselves members of that mystical Body whereof he is the Head, all our complaints of Weakness and disability to move in our several places is vain and unprofitable, and injurious to the Gospel of Christ, Rom. 1.16. which is the power of God unto salvation. And a gross and dangerous error it is, when we run on and please ourselves in our evil ways, to complain of our hereditary infirmities, and the weakness and imperfection of nature. For God may yet breathe his complaints and expostulations against every son of Adam that will not turn. Though you are weak, though you have received a bruise by the fall of your first Parents, yet in me is your strength; and then, Hos. 13.9. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? We must now remove those other pretences of Flesh and Blood; But in our next and last Part. The Three and Twentieth SERMON. PART VIII. EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways: For why will ye die, O house of Israel? WE are told, and can tell ourselves, that Sin is a burden: and he that lieth under ● burden seeketh Ease. Nor doth he always ask counsel of his Reason to choose that which is made and fitted to remove it; but oftentimes through the importunate irksomeness of his pain he layeth hold on that which is next; and that's the best; though it leave him under the same load and pressure, and all his art and contrivance hath gained no more than this, that he thinketh it lighter than it was, when it is the same, but with a large addition of weight. And thus we sin, but cannot persuade ourselves we were willing to sin: we run upon our death, and yet it is that which both our eye and our will abhorreth. We die: for, 1. we were born weak, 2. we want means to avoid death, 3. we want light to see our ways, 4. we walk on in them, but we walk in pain; and though we make no stop, yet we have many a check: We would not, and yet we will go on; we condemn ourselves for what we do, and do it: And, last of all, we seek death, but we mean life; we do those things whose end is death, but to a good end, and so make our way to heaven through hell itself; intent well, and do those things which can have no other wages but death. These are pillows which we sew under our own elbows; Original weakness; Want of grace; Ignorance of our ways; the Reluctancy of our Conscience, which we call Involuntariness: And if these be not soft and easy enough to sleep on, we bring in a good meaning and a good intention to stuff and fill them up. And on these we sleep securely, Judg. 16. as Samson did in the lap of Delilah, till our strength go from us, and we grow weak indeed, fit for nothing but to grind in his prison and to do him service who put out our eyes; able to die and perish, but not able to live; strong to do evil, but faint and feeble and lost to that which is good. For as we have sought for ease from the beginning of the world, so have we also from the Beginning of the Gospel, Mark 1.1. as S. Mark hath it. As we have brought in the first Adam infecting and poisoning us, so we would find some deficiency in the second; as if that Grace which he plenteously spreadeth in our hearts had not virtue enough to expel the venom and purge it out. As we pretend want of strength, so we pretend want of help and succour, the want of that Grace which we might have, which we have, but will not use. And there is nothing more common in the world, even in their mouths who know not what it is. What mention we the Many? What talk we of those who like those narrow-mouthed vessels receive but little because it is poured out too fast; and many times have as little feeling of what they receive as those earthen vessels to which we compared them? Grace, it is in every man's mouth: the sound of it hath gone through the earth; and they hear it, and echo it back again to one another. They talk and discourse of it, and yet all are not saved by that Grace they talk of. Ebrius ad phialam, mendicus ad januam; August. The Drunkard speaketh of it in his cups, and by the Grace of God he will drink no more, and yet drinketh drunk till there be no appearance in him either of Grace or Nature, either of the Christian or the Man. The Beggar he maketh it his Topick, and hopeth it will melt him he beggeth of into compassion; and yet he hath not power to unfold his hands to work, that he may need no relief. Grace soundeth in every ear, and every ear is delighted with it; and it is to them as the sound of a consecrated Bell is to the superstitious, and they conceive it hath power to drive the Devil out of their coast; whilst they not fall but run into those temptations which they might have overcome by that Grace they talked of. What speak we of these? Even they who have a great name for learning, and are of the first rank and file, have not brought it forth ●o the Sun and to the people in that simplicity and nakedness that upon the first sight they may say, This is it. Sometimes it is an infused Habit; sometimes it is a Motion or Operation; sometimes they know not how to distinguish it from Faith and Charity. It is one and the same, yet it is manifold. It exciteth and stirreth us up; it worketh in us, and it worketh with us? it preventeth and followeth us. And thus they handle Grace as the Philosophers do the Soul: they tell us what wonders it worketh, but not its essence; they tell us what it doth, but not plainly what it is. But let us take it in its most plain and vulgar sense, for that special and supernatural assistance which promoteth and upholdeth us in that course and those actions which carry us on to a supernatural end; but not shut out that Grace of God by Christ Jesus, by which we are justified, which in Scripture is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Grace and favour of God, and in most places is opposed to the Works of the Law; nor those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those gifts and graces, as Quickness of wit, Depth of understanding, and the like; nor God's Mercies, by which we are so often entreated; nor his promises, which do even woe and allure us; nor any beams of the glory of that Gospel which are all agents and instruments in working us out a crown, in bringing us to that end for which we were made and designed. And he that shall look back upon these, cannot conceive that God will shorten his hand, and be deficient and wanting to us in that help and assistance which is fit and necessary for us in this our race; that he will speak to us by his Son, speak to us by his blood, speak to us by his mercies, speak to us from heaven, and then leave us, as the Ostrich doth her young ones in the sand, open to injuries and temptations, naked and without help to defend us against that violence which may tread us to death? This certainly cannot consist with his Justice and his Goodness, Rom. 8.32. who having given us Christ, will with him give us all things; (for how should it be otherwise? saith S. Paul) who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, Jam. 1.5. saith S. James. To pretend a want of Grace and assistance from God, what is it but to cast all our imperfections upon him, as well as upon Adam? as if we sinned, and were defective in our duty, not through our own negligence and corrupt and perverse wills, but because God refused to give us strength to do it; gave us a Law, and left us in fetters; bid us go and meet him in our obedience, 2 Sam. 19.26. when we were as lame as Mephibosheth, and had no servant to help us; as if the heavens were as brass, and denied their influence, and God did on purpose hid himself, and withdraw his grace, that we might fall from him and perish. And therefore Hilary passeth this heavy censure upon it, Impiae est voluntatis, It is the sign of a wicked heart, and one quite destitute of those graces and riches which are the proper inheritance of believing Christians, to pretend they therefore want them because they were not given them of God. A dangerous error it is: And we have reason to fear it hath sunk many a soul to that supine carelessness and deadness from whence they could never rise again. For this is one of the wiles of our enemy, to make use not only of the flying and fading vanities of this world, but even of the best graces of God, to file and hammer them, and make them snares, and so work temptations out of that which should strengthen us against them. Faith is suborned to keep out Charity; the spirit of Truth is named to lead us into error, and the power of God's Grace hath lost its authority and energy by our unsavoury and fruitless panegyrics. We hear the sound and name of it, we bless and applaud it, but the power of it is lost, not visible in any motion, in any action, in any progress we make in those ways in which alone Grace will assist us. It floateth on the tongue, but never moveth either heart or hand. Non est bonae & solidae fidei, omnia ad voluntatem Dei refer, ut non intelligamus aliquid esse in nobis ipsis Tertull. Exhort. ad castitatem. For do we not lie still in our graves, expecting till this trump will sound? Do we not cripple ourselves in hope of a miracle? Do we not settle upon our lees, and say, God can draw us out? wallow in our blood, because he can wash us as white as snow? Do we not love our sickness, because we have so skilful a Physician? and since God can do what he will, do what we please? This is a great evil under the Sun, and one principal cause of all that evil that is upon the earth. It maketh us stand still, and look on, and delight in it, and leave it to God alone and his power to remove it, as if it concerned us not at all, and it were too daring an attempt for us mortals, the sons of Adam, to purge and cleanse that Augean stable which we ourselves have filled with dung; as if God's Wisdom and Justice did not move at all, and his Mercy and Power were alone busy in the work of our salvation: Busy to save the adulterer; 1 Cor. 6.15. for though he be the member of an harlot, yet when God will he shall be made a member of Christ: to save the seditious, for though he now breathe nothing but hailstones and coals of fire, yet a time will come where he shall be made peaceable, whether he will or no: to save them who resolve to go on in their sin: for God can check them when he please, and bring them back to obedience and holiness: in a word, 2 Pet. 2.3. to save them whose damnation sleepeth not. I may say with the Father, utinam mentirer, Would to God in this I were a liar: But we have too much probability to induce us to believe it as a truth, that they who are so ready to publish the free and irresistible power of God's Grace, and call it his honour, dishonour him more by the neglect of their duty, which is quite lost and forgot in an unseasonable acknowledgement of what God can, and a lazy expectation of what he will work in them, and so make God Omnipotent to do what his Wisdom forbiddeth, and themselves weak and impotent to do what by the same Wisdom he commandeth, and then (when they commune with their heart, and find not there those long and pant after piety, that true desire and endeavour to mortify their earthly members, which God requireth, when in this Dialogue between one and himself their hearts cannot tell them they have watched one hour with Christ) flatter and comfort themselves, that this emptiness and nakedness shall never be imputed to them by God, who, if he had pleased, might have wrought all in them in a moment by that force which flesh and blood could never withstand. And thus they sin, and pray; and pray, and sin: and their Impiety and Devotion, like the Sun and the Moon, have their interchangeable courses: it is now night with them, and anon it is day, and then night again; and it is not easy to discern which is their day, or which is their night, for there is darkness over them both. They hear and commend Virtue and Piety; and since they cannot but think that Virtue is more than a breath, and that it is not enough to commend it, they pray, and are frequent in prayer; pray continually, but do nothing; pray, but do not watch; pray, but do not strive against a temptation, but leave that to a mightier hand to do for them and without them, whilst they pray and sin; call upon God for help, when they fight against him, as if it were God's will to have it so. If he would have had it otherwise, he would have heard their prayers, and wrought it in them: And therefore he will be content with his Talon though hide in a napkin, which if he had pleased might have been made ten; and with his seed again, which if he had spoke the word had brought forth fruit a hundred-fold. Hence it cometh to pass that, though they be very evil, yet they are very secure; 1 Joh. 5.4. this being the triumph of their Faith, not to conquer the world, but to leave that work for the Lord of hosts himself, and in all humility to stay till he do it: For they can do nothing of themselves, and they have done what they can, which is nothing. And now this heartless and feeble and (if I may so speak) this do-nothing devotion, which may be as hot on the tongue of a Pharisee, and tied to his phylactery, must be made a sign of their election before all times, Gal. 5.21. Phil. 3.18. who in time do those things of which we have been told often that they that do them shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. I do not derogate from the power of God's Grace: They that do are not worthy to feel it, but shall feel that power which shall crush them to pieces; They rather derogate from its power, who bring it in to raise that obedience, which coming with that tempest and violence, it must needs destroy and take away quite. For what obedience is there where nothing is done, where he that is under command doth nothing? Vis ergò ista, non gratia, saith Arnobius; This were not Grace or Royal favour, but a strange kind of emulation to gain the upper hand. We cannot magnify the Grace of God enough, which doth even expect and wait upon us, woe and serve us. It is that unction, that precious ointment, 1 John 2.27. 1 Thess. 5.19, 20. S. John speaketh of: but we must not pour it forth upon the hairy scalp of wilful offenders, who loath the means, despise prophecy, quench the spirit, and so hinder it in its operation, of men who are as stubborn against Grace as they are loud in its commendations, as active to resist as to extol it. For this is to cast it away and nullify it, this is to make it nothing by making it greater, nay, to turn it into wantonness. But it may be said, That when we are fallen from God we are not able to rise again of ourselves: We willingly grant it. That we have therefore need of new strength and new power to be given us, which may raise us up: We deny it not. And thirdly, That not only the power but the very act of our recovery is from God: Ingratitude itself cannot deny it. But then, That man can no more withstand the power of that grace which God is ready to supply us with then an infant can his birth, or the dead their resurrection; That we are turned whether we will or no; is a conclusion which those premises will not yield. This flint will yield no such fire, though you strike never so oft. We are indeed sometimes said to sleep, and sometimes to be dead in sin: but it is ill building conclusions upon no better Basis than a figure, and, because we are said to be dead in sin, infer a necessity of rising when we are called. Nor is our obedience to God's inward call of the same nature with the obedience of the Creature to the voice and command of the Creator: for the Creature hath neither reason nor will, as Man hath; nor doth God's power work after the same manner in the one as in the other. How many Fiats of God have been frustrate in this kind? How often hath he smote our stony and rocky hearts, and no water flowed out? How often hath he said, Fiat Lux, let there be light, and we remained still in darkness? We are free agents; and God made us so, when he made us men: and our actions, when his power is mighty in us, are not necessary, but voluntary; nor doth his Power work according to the working of our fancy, nor lie within the level of our carnal imaginations, to do what they appoint, but it is accompanied and directed by that Wisdom which he is, and he doth nothing, can do nothing, but what is agreeable to it. As it was said of Caesar in Lucan, though in another sense▪ Velle putant, quodcunque potest; we think that God will do whatsoever he can: But we must know that as he is powerful, and can do all things, so he is wise, and sweetly disposeth all things as he will; and he will not save us against our will. For to necessitate us to goodness, were not to try our obedience, but to force it. Et quod necessitas praestat, depretiat ipsa; Necessity taketh off the price and value of that it worketh, and maketh it of no worth at all. And then God doth not voluntarily take his Grace from any; but if the power of it defend us not from Sin and Death, it is because we abuse and neglect it, and will not work with it which is ready to work with us. For Grace is not blind, as Fortune, nec cultores praeterit, nec haeret contemtoribus; She will neither pass by them who will receive her, nor dwell with those persons which contemn her, nor save those who will destroy themselves. To conclude this; He is most unworthy to receive Grace who in the least degree detracteth from the power of it: And he is as unworthy who magnifieth and rejecteth it, and maketh his life an argument against his doctrine, saith Grace cannot be resisted, and resisteth it every day. He that denieth the power of God's Grace is scarce a Christian; And he is the worst of Christians who will not gird up his loins and work out his salvation, but loitreth and standeth idle all the day long, shadoweth and pleaseth himself under the expectation of what God will do, and so turneth his grace into wantonness. Let us not abuse the Grace of God, and then we cannot magnify it enough: But he that will not set his hand to work upon a fancy that he wanteth Grace, he that will not hearken after Grace, though she knock and knock again (as Fortune was said to have done at Galba's gate) till she be weary, hath despised the Grace of God, and cannot plead the want of that for any excuse, which he might have had, but put it off, nay, which he had, but so used it as if it had been no Grace at all. They that have Grace offered, and repel it, they that have antidotes against Death, and will not use them, can never answer the expostulation, Why will ye die? And certainly he that is so liberal of his Grace hath given us knowledge enough to see the danger of those ways which lead to Death: And therefore, in the next place, Ignorance of our ways doth not minuere voluntarium, make our sin less wilful, but rather aggrandise it. For first, we may, if we will, know every duty that tendeth to life, and every sin that bringeth forth death. 2 Cor. 2.11. We may know the Devils enterprises, saith S. Paul. And the ignorance of this findeth no excuse, when we have power and faculty, light and understanding. When the Gospel shineth brightly upon us, to dispel those mists which may be placed between the Truth and us, Sub scientiae facultate nescire, repudiatae magìs quàm non compertae veritatis est reatus, Hil. in Psal. 118. then if we walk in darkness and in the shadow of death, we shall be found guilty not so much of not finding out the truth, as of refusing it, as Hilary speaketh of a strange contempt in not attaining that which is so easily achieved, and which is so necessary for our preservation. I know every man hath not the same quickness of apprehension, nor can every man make a Divine; and it were to be wished every man would know it. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is not for him that thresheth out the corn to resolve controversies or State questions. But S. Peter requireth that every man should be able to give an answer, 1 Pet. 3.15. a reason of his faith: And if he can do that, he knoweth the will of God, and is well armed and prepared against death, and may cope with him and destroy him, if he will. And this is no perplexed nor intricate study, but fitted and proportioned to the meanest capacity. He that cannot be a Seraphical Divine may be a Christian: He that cannot be a Rabbi may be an honest man. And if men were as diligent in the pursuit of the truth as they are in managing their own temporal affairs, if men would try as many conclusions for knowledge as they do for wealth, and were as ambitious to be good as they are to be rich and great, if they were as much afraid of God's wrath as they are of poverty and the frown of a mortal, this pretence of want of knowledge would be soon removed and quite taken out of the way. Tit. 2.11. Acts 17.30. For now the Grace of God hath appeared unto all men, and commanded all men every where to repent, and turn from their evil ways. What apology can the Oppressor have, when Wisdom itself hath sounded in his ears, and told him, Leu. 19.18. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself? for even flesh and blood would soon conclude that no man will oppress himself. What can the Revenger plead after the thunder, Rom. 12.19. Vengeance is mine? What can the Covetous pretend, when he heareth, Go, sell all, and give to the poor? What can the Seditious say, Matth. 19.21. when he is plainly told, He that resisteth shall receive damnation. Rom. 13.2. Can any man miss his way where there is so much light to direct him? when he brought a great part of his lesson along with him into the world, which he may run and read, and understand? How can he there err dangerously where the Truth is fastened to a pillar, where there is such a Mercury to show him his way? And therefore, in the second place, if we be ignorant, it is because we will be ignorant. If we could open a window into the breasts of men, we should soon perceive a hot contention between their Knowledge and their Lusts, struggling together like the twins in Rebekah's womb, till at last their Lust supplanteth their Knowledge, and gaineth the preeminence. Nolunt intelligere, nè cogantur & facere, saith Augustine; They will not understand their duty, lest that many draw upon them an obligation to do it; nor will they see their error, because they have no mind to forsake it. For their Knowledge pointeth towards life, but not to be attained to but by sweat and blood, which their Lust loatheth and trembleth at. And therefore this knowledge is too wonderful for them, Psal. 139.6. nay, it is as the gall of bitterness unto them. As Nero's mother would not suffer him to study Philosophy, quia imparaturo contraria, Suet. Nerone, c. 25. because it prescribeth many moral virtues, as Sincerity, Modesty, and Frugality, which sort not well with the Crown, and must needs fall cross with those actions which Polity and Necessity many times engage the Monarches of the earth; so do these look upon the Truth as a thing contrary to them, as checking their Pride, bridling their Malice, bounding their Ambition, chiding their Injustice, threatening their Tyranny, and so they study to unlearn, suppress and silence it, and will not hear it speak to them any more, but set up a Lie, first the child, than the parasite of their Lusts, and enthrone it in its place to reign over them, and guide them in all their ways. I remember Bernard in one of his Sermons upon the Canticles telleth us that he observed many cast down and very sad and dejected upon the knowledge of the Truth, not so much for that it did show them the danger they were in, and withal an open and effectual door to escape, but that it choked the passages, and stopped up the way to their old asylum and sanctuary of Ignorance. For Truth is not only a light, but a fire to scorch and burn us, not only a direction, but a Satire: It teacheth us to deny ungodly lusts; Tit. 2.12. and, if we obey not, it censureth and condemneth us. This Ignorance than cannot excuse our Sin, or make our Death less voluntary, because our Lust hath taken the place of Knowledge, and dictateth for it, and we grope at noonday, and will not see those sins which, though they be works of darkness, yet are as visible as the light itself. Rebellion is not therefore no sin, because it cometh gravely towards us in the habit of Zeal and Religion. Profaneness is not excusable, because fanatic persons count Reverence Superstition. Deceit is not warrantable, because I hold it as a positive truth, That the wicked have title to the things of this world, and my fantastic Lusts have drawn out another conclusion, where there was no medium, no premises to be found, That I am a righteous person; and then followeth a conclusion as wild as that, That I may rob and spoil them. But these are but bella tectoriala, artificial daub, and the weakest eye may see through them, and discover a monster. And as Tully in one of his books De Finibus telleth us that those Philosophers who would not plainly say that Pleasure was their summum bonum or chiefest happiness, but Vacuity of sorrow and trouble, did vicinitate versari, bordered and came near to that which they first called it: so the world hath found out divers names to colour and commend their foulest sins, but bring them to the trial, and they must needs mean one and the same thing, and that Zeal and Rebellion, Devotion and Profaneness, Taking from the wicked and downright Cozenage are at no greater distance than these two, a Fiend and a Devil, but that the Devil is then worst when he taketh the name of an Angel of light. 2 Cor. 11.14. The truth is plain enough, but the Prince of this world hath so blinded men that they will not see it. For their Lust, which laid their Conscience asleep, hath taken the chair, and prescribeth for it, and driveth them on to do that which was never done nor seen, Judg. 19.30. Wisd. 2.11. to tread all Laws of God and man under feet, and make their strength the Law of unrighteousness. I know not whether we may call this Ignorance or no. It is too good a name for it, and nothing but our Charity can make it so, or grace it so much. If it be Ignorance, it is a proud, puffing, majestic, insolent ignorance. Maimonid. More Neroch. part. 3. c. 41. The Jewish Rabbis might well say, Error doctrinae reputatur pro superbia; This ignorance is nothing but pride, or the issue of it, even of that pride which threw Lucifer down from heaven, and raiseth men here upon earth to fling them down after him. But, in the last place, to conclude this; If this Ignorance be not affected, or rather forced, and made a pillow to sleep on, yet if it proceed only from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, non-attention, and supine negligence to keep it out, yet in matters which concern life and death we are as much bound to know the means how as to strive to attain the one and escape the other. Pet. Aerod. de Reb. judicat. de Eide & Relig. c. 5. Idem. For what I ought to do, I ought to know. The Jews have a saying, Delinquit propheta, qui à propheta decipitur; It is a great fault in a Prophet to be deceived, though by another Prophet. The Civilians; Imperitia medicorum dolo comparatur, Ignorance in a Physician is a kind of cheat, and a bloody cheat; Plin. N. Hist. for the ignorant Physician negotiatur animas hominum, saith old Cato in Pliny, doth trade, and deceive men out of their lives when they most trust in him. If a man be ignorant, and will administer Physic, he will kill: If a man be ignorant, and will preach, he will also prophesy lies: If he be a Magistrate, and will govern, he will also shake the pillars of the Commonwealth. If he be a Christian, and be ignorant, then as he will profess, so also will he run into the snares of the Devil. And this his Ignorance is no plea against that Law which he was bound to know as well as to keep. Ex toto noluisse debet, Sen. Contr. l. 5. c. 5. qui imprudentia defenditur; He that will plead ignorance ●r Error for an excuse, must have his whole will strongly set up against it, and then the great difficulty or impossibility of avoiding it may be his advocate and speak for him: but if he make room for it when he might exclude it, if he embrace that which may let it in, or make no use of the light that detecteth it; if he will, or reject not, or be indifferent; if he distaste the truth for some cross aspect it hath on his designs, and love a lie because it smileth upon them and promoteth them, than this Ignorance is a sin, and the last the greatest, and therefore cannot make up an excuse for another sin, for those sins which it bringeth in in triumph; but it is so much the more malignant, in that he had light, but did turn his face away and would not see it, or did hate and despise it, and blow it out. For he that will not know the ways of life, or calleth his evil ways by that name, may well be asked the question, Why he will die. Ignorance then is not always an excuse. For some are negligent and indifferent, will not take the pains to lift themselves up to the truth by those steps and degrees which are set for them and are the way unto it, and so walk as in the night which themselves have made, because they would not look upon the Sun. Others study and affect it; and when the truth will not go along with them to the end of their designs, they persuade themselves into those errors which are more proportioned to it, and will friendly wait upon them, and be serviceable to fill and answer that expectation which their lust had raised, and call them by that name. They will not know what they cannot but know, nor see Death, though he stand before them in their way, and so are led on with pomp and state, with these false persuasions, with these miserable comforters, to their grave. But, in the next place, when we find some check of conscience, some regret, some gainsayings in our mind, that we are unwilling to go on in these evil ways, and yet take courage and proceed, we are ready to please ourselves with this thought, and are soon of the opinion, that what we are doing, or have done already, if it be evil, yet is done against our will: And if Destruction overtake us, it seizeth on them that did so much hate and abhor it that they shook and trembled when it did but show itself to them in a thought. And this I take to be an error as full of danger as it is void of reason, of no use at all, but to make us favour ourselves, and engage and adventure further in those ways which lead unto death. I deny not but as there is great difference in sins, so there may be a difference also in committing them; that the righteous person doth not drink down sin with that delight and greediness which the wicked do, that they do not sport themselves in the ways of death, nor fall into them with that easiness and precipitancy, that they do not count it as a purchase to satisfy their lusts: and that most times the event is different; for the one falleth down at the feet of God for mercy, the other hardeneth his heart and face, and will not bow. But yet I cannot number it amongst the marks and characters of a righteous man, or (as some love to speak, and may so speak if they well understood what they said) of one of the elect, when he falleth into any mortal grievous sin, as Adultery, Murder, and the like, that he doth not fall plenâ voluntate, with full consent and will, but more faintly and remissly, as it were with more gravity than other men; that he did actually fall, but was not willing to fall, that is, that he did will indeed the sin which he did commit, but yet did commit it against his will. Nor can I think our consent is not full, when we chide and rebuke the tentation, and yet suffer it to win ground, and gain more and more advantage against us; when we have some grudge, some petty murmurs in ourselves, and in our hearts defame those sins which w● show openly in our actions. For when we have done that which is evil, we cannot say we would not have done it; when we have made room for Sin to enter, we cannot say that we would have excluded it. For first, I cannot see how these two should meet so friendly, a double Will, nay, a contrary Will, in respect of one and the same act, especially when Sin is not in fieri, but in facto esse, when the temptation hath prevailed, and the Will determined its act. Indeed whilst the act was suspended, and our mind wavering and in doubt where to fasten, which part to embrace, whether to take the wedge of gold, or to withdraw; whether to smite my brother, or to sheathe up my Sword and Anger together; whether to taste or not to taste the forbidden fruit; when it was in labour as it were, and did strive and struggle between these two, the Delightfulness and Unlawfulness of the object, between the Temptation and the Law, Gal. 5.17. whilst the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, there may be such an indifferency, a kind of willing and nilling, a proffer and distaste, an approach and a pause, an inclination to the object and a fear to come near: But when the Sense hath prevailed with the Will to determine for it against the Reason, James 1.15. when Lust hath conceived, and brought forth, then there is no room for this indifferency, because the Will hath determined its act, and concluded for the Sense against the Reason, for the Flesh against the Spirit. For we must not mistake the fluctuations and pawses and contentions of the mind, and look upon them as the acts of the Will, which hath but one simple and indivisible act, which it cannot divide between two contraries, so as to look steadfastly on the one, and yet reflect also with a look of liking upon the other. Matth. 6.24. Our Saviour hath fitted us with an instance, Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. If we know then what the Will is, we shall know also that it is impossible to divide it, and shall be ashamed of that apology, to say we sin semi-plenâ voluntate, with an imperfect, with an half Will, we know not how. There may be indeed a kind of velleity and inclination to that which is good, when the Will hath embraced that which is evil: there may be a probo meliora, a liking of the better, when I have chosen the worse part: But this is not a willing, but an approbation and an allowing of that which is just, which ariseth from the light of our Mind and the law of our Understanding, from that natural Judgement by which we discern that which is evil from that which is good; and it is an act of our Reason, not of our Will. And thus I may will a thing, and yet dislike it; I may embrace, and condemn it: I may commend Chastity, and be a Wanton; Hospitality, and be a Nabal; Clemency, and be a Nero; Christianity, and be worse than a Jew: I may subscribe to the Law that it is just, and break it; I may take the cup of Fornication, and drink deep of it, for some pleasant taste it hath, when I know it will be my poison. And therefore, in the second place, this renitency and resistency of Conscience is so far from apologizing for us, as for such as sin not with a full consent, that most times it doth add weight to our sin, and much aggravate it, and plainly demonstrate a most violent and eager consent of the will, which would not be restrained, but passed as it were the rampire and bulwark which was raised against it to the forbidden object. Neither the Law, nor the voice and check of Conscience (which is to us in the place of God) could stop or restrain us, but we play the wantoness, and dally with Sin as the wanton doth with his strumpet; we do opponere ostium, non claudere, put the door gently to, Senec. N. Q. l. 4. 2. but not shut and lock it out; but it is welcome to us when it knocketh, but more welcome when it breaketh in upon us. We frown, and admit it; chide, and embrace it; bid it farewell, when we are ready and long to join with it, make a show of running from it, when we open ourselves to receive and lodge it in our heart. Again, if the pravity and obliquity of an act is to be measured and judged by the vehement and earnest consent of the will, than the sin which is committed with so much reluctancy will prove yet more sinful, and of a higher nature than those we fell into when we heard no voice behind us to call us back. For here the will of the sinner is stubborn and perverse, and maketh haste to the forbidden object against all opposition whatsoever; against the voice of the L●● which is now loud against him; against the motions of the Spirit, which he striveth to repel; against the clamours of Conscience, which he heareth and will not hear; even against all the artillery of Heaven. It doth not yield to the tentation when no voice is heard but the Tempter's, nothing discovered but the beauty and allurement of the object, nor upon strategeme or surprisals; but it yieldeth against the thunder of the Law and dictate of Conscience: it admitteth Sin, not in its beauty and glory, when it is dressed up with advantage, and cometh toward us smiling to flatter and woe us, but it joineth with it when it is clothed with Death, when it is reviled by Conscience, and hung round about with all the curses of the Law: it swalloweth down Sin, not when it is as sweet as honey, but when it hath a mixture and full taste of the bitterness of gall: and so, though our sin be against our Conscience, yet it is not against our Will, and therefore is the more voluntary. Besides, in the last place, this is a thing which almost befalleth every man that is not delivered over to a reprobate sense, whose eye of Reason is not quite put out, who is not unmanned, and hath quite lost all feeling or sense of that which is evil and that which is good. Nay, it was in Cain, it was in Judas, it is in every despairing sinner, or else he could not despair. These pauses and deliberations, these doubtings and disputes and divided thoughts are common to righteous and to wicked persons. — Duplici in diversum scindimur hamo; Pers. sat. 5. Hunccine an hunc sequimur?— Most men are more or less thus divided in themselves. And, as Plautus observeth that it is the humour of some men, when they are at a feast, to dislike the dishes, but no whit the more to abstain; Culpant, sed comedunt tamen; they find fault with their meat, and yet eat it up: so it is with us; We oft disrelish Sin, and swallow it down; we cannot but condemn Sin, and we are as ready to commit 〈◊〉 and with him in the Comedy ask, Quid igitur faciam? What shall we now do? when we are knocking at the harlot's door, and ready to break forth into action. And therefore this conceit, That a regenerate man doth not sin with a full consent, in that his conscience calleth after him to retire in the very adventure, is very dangerous, and may be mortal to the heart that fostereth it. For when this conceit hath filled and pleased us, we shall be ready with Pilate to wash our hands when they are full of blood, Matth. 27.24. and cry out we are innocent when we have released Barrabas, let lose our Sense, Appetite and Affections to run riot, and delivered Jesus the Just one to be scourged and crucified, delivered up our Reason to be a slave, and ministerial to all those evils which the Flesh or Devil can suggest, and delivered up our Affections to be torn and scattered as so many straws upon a wrought sea, and never at rest: in a word, we shall contemnere peccata, quia minora putamus, slight and pass by our sins in silence, because we will not behold them in their just shape and proportion, in that horror and terror and deformity which might fright us from them. And this conceit is a greater tentation then that which first took us; for it bringeth on and ushereth in the tentation, taketh from it all its displacency, that it may enter with ease; and when it hath prevailed, it shutteth out Repentance, which should make way for that mercy and forgiveness which alone must make our peace. Every man favoureth himself, and is very open to entertain any doctrine which may cherish and uphold this humour, and make him less wicked, or more righteous, than he is. And though at first we find no reason which commendeth it to us, and craveth admittance for it ●et because it speaketh so friendly to our infirmities, and helpeth to raise up that which we desire to see in its height, we take it upon trust, and believe it to be true indeed, and stand up and contend for it as a part of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints. Judas 3. And having this mark of the righteous, That we sin, but check ourselves in it, we take ourselves to be so, righteous persons, though we be so ill qualified, that an impartial eye beholdeth it, and findeth so much probability, as pointeth to it as to the mark of the Beast. It is with many of us as it was with the slave in Tacitus, Annal. 2. who being like Agrippa in outward favour and the lineaments of his body, did also take upon him to counterfeit his person, and being asked by Caesar, How he came to be Agrippa, stoutly answered, As thou camest to be Caesar. Nemo non benignus sui judex; There are but few, or none at all, that are not too favourable judges in their own cause; and though they be slaves and servants unto Sin, yet will be ready to put on the person of a Prince, of a Saint, of a chosen vessel, and by the help of Imagination and the frequency of those, pleasing and deceitful thoughts at last verily believe himself to be so. And if reluctancy and regret, and the turning away of the face of the soul, the Conscience, at the evil we do, be a mark of a regenerate man, then certainly a very pagan, a notorious sinner, may find this mark about him, and though he commit sin with greediness, yet may he lay him down, and rest and sleep upon this conclusion, That hating sin as he doth, and committing that sin which he thinketh he hateth, his name may be written in heaven, and he be also one of the elect. But then, to conclude this, a strange thing it may seem that we should first wound our Conscience, and then force her to pour in this balm; first not hear her speak, and then bring her in to make this plea, that we did not hear her; first slight and offend her, and then make her our advocate; I spoke unto you, and you heard not: It is your happiness. Had I not spoken, your sin had been greater than it is. And thus we do evil with less danger (That is our ●●●ught) because we first told ourselves that we should not do it. But call we our sin what we please, a sin of infirmity, or a sin with a half-will, with a half consent, with a will and no will, Non mutatur vocabulis vis rerum, Quintil. l. 9 Inst. c. 1. Words and names have no power to change and alter the nature of our sin, or to abate any degree of its poison and malignity. And pretend we what we will, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the sentence and judgement is the Lord's; and in his sight even those sins which we do with reluctancy and some contention with ourselves, are voluntary, and without repentance bind us over to death. Even of them who sin though they check and condemn themselves before the act, who say they would not, and yet do it, this Question may be asked, Why will ye die? We come now to the last pretence, which is commonly taken up by men who are willing to be evil, but not willing to go under that name. And we shall but touch it; for it will soon fall to pieces with a touch. This pretence is made up of a bad will and a good intention or meaning, which is indeed of a good will and a bad; the one being leveled on the end, the other on the means that lead unto it; and the one is set up to commend and authorise the other. For, as some think, if the end be fair, it casteth a beauty and lustre upon the way that leadeth to it, though it be as foul as Sin can make it. And then, when our Will is evil, it is not evil, because it looketh further than that evil, to something that is so good that by its virtue it will transform and change the nature of it, and make it like unto itself. And, if we look into the world, we shall find that nothing hath deceived men more, nothing hath wrought more mischief on the earth, than a groundless thought, That that must needs please God which is done to a good end, with a good mind, and an ardent affection and zeal; That of the two Tables we may break the one, to secure and preserve the other; That we may serve God when we break his will, and honour him when we deface his image; That that sin which may damn a soul (and the least may do that) is not considerable, if we carry it along but in our hopes to that end which we have set out with the fair title of Good, though it may sometimes be a greater sin than that which we would make use of to raise it up. But we must suppose it good. But yet we cannot think it can have such a strange and more than omnipotent virtue to change every thing, even that which is most contrary to it, into its self, or to make things not to be what they are, or at the same time to be both good and evil. This is but a sophism, but a cheat, put upon us by the Devil. For there be two things to make up a good intention, or else it is not good: first it must be leveled to a right and warrantable end, and then carried to it in a due and orderly course, by those means which are fitted and proportioned to that end. And sure Sin is so unlike to that which is good, that it were easier to dissolve the Earth, and then set it upon its pillars again, then to draw Good and Evil to such a subordination as to serve to advance one another. What a strange sight would it be to see such a Fig grow on such a Thistle? to see one evil Spirit drive out another, which commonly bringeth in seven worse than himself? to see Religion brought into the world upon the Devil's shoulders? Besides, every thing that is good, whether it be a Natural good or a Civil good or a Divine good, hath its proper and peculiar means ordained and fitted to it, either to procure or preserve it. If I desire Health, Temperance and a good Diet are the means. If I would have Food and Raiment, Industry is the means. If I would keep my Friend, Fidelity is the means. If I would have a well-ordered Family, Discipline is the means. If I would establish a Commonwealth, Prov. 20.28. Justice is the means: That, that alone will uphold it, saith Solomon, who was the wisest of Kings, and knew the fittest means for that end. But who ever heard of any use that Sin was ever of? what end can that be proportioned to? If there be any, it is not worth the naming: The end of it is Damnation. Run to and fro through the earth, look about in every corner of the universe, search all the records from Adam to this moment, you shall never find any other. For our Health; it destroyeth it, striketh us in the very gates of life, cutteth us off in the midst of our days, and tumbleth our grey hairs with sorrow into the grave. 1 Cor. 11.30. For this many are weak and sick amongst us, and many are asleep. For our Food; it maketh it gravel in our mouths. It strippeth us of our raiment, and driveth us amongst swine. For Friendship; it may tie a knot, but it will fly in pieces of itself: for the friendship of evil men is as false and deceitful as themselves. Fluctus in simpulo, Proverb. Tull. 3. Deleg. For our Families; it raiseth a tempest even in these basons, these little bodies, these petty resemblances of a Republic: It setteth father against son, and son against father; it maketh a servant a traitor, raiseth enemies within doors, and draweth out a battaglias in a cottage. For Commonwealths; the least sin may sooner overthrow them then the greatest set them up, and of all their glories they cannot show any one that was brought in by either. It may raise them for a time perhaps to some height; but than it getteth up above them, lieth heavy upon them, presseth them down, breaketh them to pieces, and burieth them in their rubbish. This Sin doth; and shall that which can do nothing but work desolation be a fit prop for Religion to lean on when she seemeth to sink, or to bring her back when the voice is that she is gone out of our coasts? Can Evil be fit for any thing but that which is like it? Bernard. De modo bene vivendi, c. 15. But we are told, Tale erit opus tuum, qualis intentio; That our work doth follow the nature and quality of our intention. True, if the Intention be evil: If I build a Church to set up idols; if I build a College to perpetuate my name; If I be very holy on the sudden, and pay my vow to usurp a Crown; if I do a good act in itself for some evil end: for then the intention altereth and changeth the nature of it, and maketh it like unto itself. And the reason is plain, Because any one bad circumstance is enough to make an action evil, Greg. Past. Cur. part. c. 4. but bonum ex causâ integrâ, the concurrence of all is required to denominate it good. Multa non illicita vitiat animus; The mind and intention doth bring in a guilt upon those actions which are otherwise lawful, but cannot make that just which is forbidden, cannot answer for the breach of a Law. Briefly, a good intention and a good action may be joined together, and be one, nor can they be good but in in this conjunction: but to join a good intention to a bad action, is, with Mezentius in the Poet, to tie a living body to a carcase. It may colour indeed and hid a bad action, but it cannot consecrate it. It may disguise a man of Belial, but it cannot make him a Saint. It may be as a ticket or a pass to carry a wicked man to the end which he setteth up, and there leave him more secure it may be, but without doubt more wicked than before. For Murder now hath no voice, Faction is Devotion, Sacrilege is Zeal; all is well, because we mean well, We fix up a good intention in our fancy, and that is our polestar, and having that in our eye we may steer our course as we please, and bulge, but swell our sails, and bear forward boldly, till at last we are carried upon that rock which sinketh us for ever And therefore, to conclude this, a good Intention cannot pull out the sting from Death, nor the guilt from Sin; but if we sin, though it be with an honest mind, we sin voluntarily. In brief, though we know it not to be a sin, though from the tribunal of Conscience we check ourselves before we commit it, though we do evil but intent good, though we see it not, though we approve it not, though we intent it not as evil, yet evil it is, and a voluntary evil, and without repentance hath no better wages than death; and this Expostulation may be put up to us, QVARE MORIEMINI? Why will ye die? For we cannot say but they are willing to die who make such haste to the pit of ruin, and in their swift and eager pursuit of Death do but cast back a faint look toward the land of the living. We must now draw towards a conclusion, and conclude and shut up all, even Death itself, in the Will of man. We cannot lay it upon any natural Weakness, nor upon the Want of grace and assistance. We cannot plead Ignorance, nor the Distaste and Reluctancy of our mind. Nor can a good Intention name that Will good which is sixth on evil, nor the Means which we use commend and secure that end which is the work of Sin, and hath Death waiting upon it. If we die, we can find no other answer to this question, Why will ye die? but that which is not worth the putting up: It is quia volumus, because we will die. Take all the Weakness or Corruption of our nature; look upon that inexhaustible fountain of Grace, but, as we think, dried up; take the darkness of our Understanding, the cloud is from the Will; Nolumus intelligere, We will not understand. Take all those sad symptoms and prognostics of death, a wand'ring unruly fancy; it is the Will whiffeth it about. Turbulent Passions; the tempest is from the Will. Etiam quod invitus facere videor, si facio, voluntate facio; even that which I do with some reluctancy, if I do it, I do it willingly. All provocations and incitements imaginable being supposed, no Love, no Fear, no Anger, not the Devil himself, can determine the Will, or force us into action: and if we die, it is quia volumus, because we will die. If Death be the conclusion, that which inferreth it is the Will of man, which brought Sin and Death into the world. And this may seem strange, that any should be willing to die. Ask the profanest person living, that hath sold himself to wickedness, and so is even bound over to Death, and he will tell you he is willing to be saved: Heaven is his wish, and eternal happiness his desire. As for Death, the remembrance of it is bitter unto him. Death! Eccl. 41.1. if you do but name it, he trembleth. The Glutton is greedy after meat, but loatheth a disease. The wanton seeketh out pleasures, but not those evils they carry with them under their wing. The Revenger would wash his feet in the blood of his enemy, but not be drowned in it. The Thief would steal, but would not grind in the prison. But the Philosopher will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Aristot. Eth. 2.1. The beginning of all these is in the Will. He that will be intemperate will surfeit; he that will be wanton will be weak; he that taketh the sword will perish by the sword; Matth. 26.52. he that will spoil will be spoiled; and he that will sin will die. Every man's death is a voluntary act, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. out of any natural appetite to perish, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by his own choice, who did choose it, though not in se, not in itself, which is so terrible, but in causis, as the Schools speak, in its causes, in those sins in which it is bound up, and from which it cannot be severed. Sin carrieth Death in its womb; and if we sin, we are condemned and dead already. We may see it smile upon us in some alluring pleasure, we may see it glitter in a piece of gold, or woe us in the rays of Beauty, but every smile, every resplendeney, every ray is a dart, and striketh us through. Why will we die? Why? The holy Ghost is high and full in the expressing it. We love Death: and Love, saith the Father, Prov. 8.36. is vehemens voluntas, a vehement and an active will. It is said to have wings, and to fly to its object: but it needeth them not; for it is ever with it. The Covetous is kneaded in with the world; they are but one lump: It is his God, one in him, and he in it. The Wanton calleth his strumpet his Soul; and when she departeth from him, he is dead. The Ambitious feedeth on Honour, as it is said Chameleons do on air; a disgrace killeth him. Amamus mortem, we love Death; which implieth a kind of union and connaturality and complacency in Death. Again, exsultamus rebus pessimis, Prov. 2.14. we rejoice and delight in evil; Ecstasin patimur, so some render it, we are transported beyond ourselves, we talk of it, we dream of it, we sweat for it, we fight for it, we travel for it, we triumph in it, we have a kind of trance and transformation, we have a jubilee in sin, and we are carried delicately and with triumph to our death. Isa. 28.15. Nay, further yet, we are said to make a covenant with Death: We join with it, and help it to destroy ourselves. As Jehoshaphat said to Ahab, 1 Kings 22.4. I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; we have the same friends and the same enemies, we love that that upholdeth its dominion, and we fight against that that would destroy it. We strengthen and harden ourselves against the light of Nature and the light of Grace, against God's whispers and against his loud calls, against his exhortations and obtestations and expostulations, which are strength enough to discern Death, and pull him from his pale horse. And all these will make it a Volumus at least, not a Velleity, as to good, but an absolute vehement Will. After we have weighed the circumstances, pondered the danger, considered and consulted, we give sentence on Death's side; and though we are unwilling to think so, yet we are willing to die. To love Death, to rejoice in Death, to make a covenant with Death, will make the Volumus full. To the question, Why will ye die? no other answer can be given but, We will. For if we should ask further, Yea, but why will ye? here we are at a stand, horror and amazement and confusion shut up our mouth in silence, as Matth. 22.12. when the Guest was questioned how he came thither, the Text saith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, capistratus est, he was muzzled, he was silent, he could not speak a word. For conclusion then; Let us, as the Wiseman counselleth, keep our heart, Prov. 4.23. our Will, with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life, and out of it are the issues of Death. Let us take it from Death, and confine and bind it to its proper object, bind it with those bonds which were made to bind Kings and Nobles, the most stout and stubborn and imperious heart, bind it with the Fear of Death, with the Fear of that God which here doth ask the question, and not seek to ease ourselves by an indiscreet and ill-applied consideration of our natural Weakness. For how many make themselves wicked because they were made weak? How many never make any assay to go, upon this thought, That they were born lame? Original Weakness is an article of our Creed, and it is our Apology; but it is the Apology of the worst, of the Covetous, 1 John 2.16. of the Ambitious, of the Wanton; when it is the lust of the eyes that burieth the covetous in the earth; the lusts of the flesh, that setteth the Wanton on fire; the pride of life, that maketh the Ambitious climb so high. Prima haec elementa, these are the first Elements, these are their Alphabet. They learn ●●●m their Parents, they learn from their friends, they learn from servants to raise a bank, to ennoble their name, to delight themselves in the things of this world. These they are taught, and they have their method drawn to their hands. By these evils words, which are the proper language and dialect of the world, their manners are corrupted: And for this our father Adam is brought to the bar, when it is Mammon, Venus and the World that have bruised us more than his fall could do. Secondly, pretend not the Want of Grace. For a Christian cannot commit a greater solecism then to pretend the want of that which hath been so often offered, which he might have had if he would; or to conceive that God should be unwilling he should do his will, unwilling he should repent and turn unto him. This is a charge, as well as a pretence, even a charge against God, forbidding us rise up and walk when we were lame, and not affording us a staff, nor working a miracle. Grace is of that nature that we may want it though it be not denied, we may want it when we have it: and indeed we want Grace as the covetous man wanteth money, we want it because we will not use it, and so we are starved to death with bread in our hands. For if we will not eat our daily bread, we must die. In the next place, let us not shut up ourselves in our own darkness, nor plead Ignorance of that which we were bound to know; which we do know, and will not; which is written with the Sunbeams; which we cannot say we see not, when we may run and read it. For what mountainous evils do men run upon? what gross, what visible, what palpable sins do they foster, quae se suâ corpulentiâ produnt, sins which betray themselves to be so by their bulk and corpulency? Sacrilege is no sin: and I cannot see how it now should, for there is scarce any thing left for its gripe. Lying is no sin; it is our Language, and we speak as many lies almost as words. Perjury is no sin: for how many be there that reverence an oath? Jura, perjura, jusjurandum rei servandae, non perdendae, conditum est, Plaut. Rud. Act. 5. sc. 3. Mantile, quo quotidianae noxae extergentur, ●aber. is an Axiom in our Morality and Polity, and secureth our estates, and intaileth them on our posterity. Deceit is no sin; for is is our trade. Nay, Adultery is no sin; you would think with the Heathen, with those who never heard of the name of Christ; nay, but with those who call upon it every day, and call themselves the knowing men, the Gnostics, of this age. And whilst men love darkness more than light, with some men there will scarce be any sins upon that account as sins till the day of judgement. Next, bring not in thy Conscience to plead for that sin which did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, beat, and wound, thy Conscience. For the office of thy Conscience is, before the fact to inform thee; and, after the fact, if it be evil, to accuse thee: and what comfort can there be in this thought, That thou didst not follow her information; That she called it a sin, and thou didst it; That she pointed out to it as to a rock, and thou wouldst needs choose it for thy haven? No, commonly this is the plea of those whose hearts are hard, and yet will tell you they have a tender conscience. And so they have; tender, in respect of a ceremony or thing indifferent: Here they are struck in a manner dead, quite beside themselves, as if it were a basilisk; here they are true and constant to their conscience, which may err: but not tender in respect of an eternal Law, where it cannot mistake: Here they too often leave their conscience, and then excuse themselves that they did so. In the one they are as bold as a Lion, in the other they call it the frailty of a Saint. This they do with regret and some reluctancy, that is, by interpretation, against their will. Last of all, do not think thy action is not evil because thy Intention was good. For it is as easy to fix a good intention upon an evil action as it is to set a fair and promising title on a box of poison. Hay and stubble may be laid upon a good foundation; 1 Cor. 3.12. but it will neither head well nor bed well, as they say, in the work of the Lord. We must look as well to what we build as to the Basis we raise and set it on, or else it will not stand and abide. We see what a fire good Intentions have kindled on the earth, and we are told that many of them burn in hell. I may intent to beat down Idolatry, and bury Religion in the ruins of that I beat down. I may intent the establishing of a Commonwealth, and shake the foundation of it. I may intent the Reformation of a Church, and fill it with Locusts and Caterpillars innumerable. I may intent the Glory of God, and do that for which his Name shall be evil spoken of; and it will prove but a poor plea, when we blasphemed him, to say we did it for his Glory. Let us then lay aside these Apologies: for they are not Apologies, but accusations, and detain us longer in our evil ways then the false beauty and deceitful promises of a tentation could, which we should not yield to so often, did not these betray us, nor be fools so long, if we had not something to say for ourselves. And since we cannot answer the Expostulation with these, since these will be no plea in the court of Heaven, before the tribunal of Christ, let us change our plea, and let us answer the last part of the Text with the first, the Moriemini with the Convertimini; answer God that we will turn, and then he will never ask any more, Why will ye die? but change his language, and assure us we shall not die at all. And our answer is penned to our hands by the Prophet, Behold, Jer. 3.22, 23. we come, we turn unto thee: for in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. And our Saviour hath registered his in his Gospel, and left it as an invitation to turn, Matth. 11.28. Come unto me, all ye that be weary of your evil ways, and are heavy laden, feel the burden you did sweat under whilst you were in them; and I will ease you, that is, I will deliver you from this body of Sin, Rom. 7.24. fill you with my Grace, enlighten your Understandings, Hebr. 10.22. sprinkle your hearts from an evil Conscience, direct your Eye, levelly your Intentions, lead you in the ways of life, and so fit and prepare you for my kingdom in Heaven. To which he bring us, etc. The Four and Twentieth SERMON. 1 COR. XI. 25. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. THat which is made to degenerate from its first institution, is so much the worse, by how much the better it would have been if it had been leveled and carried on to that end for which it was ordained. The truth of this is plain and visible, as in many others, so in this great business of the Administration of the Lords Supper: Which in its right and proper use might have been as Physic to purge and as Manna to feed the soul to eternal life; but being either raised higher or brought lower than itself, either made more or less than it is, either made miraculous or nothing, hath become fatal and destructive, and hath left most men guilty of the body and blood of our Lord. 1 Cor. 11.27. Some we see have quite changed and perverted the Ordinance of Christ, scarce left any shadow or sign of its first institution, have made of a Supper for the living a Sacrifice for the dead, turned the Minister into a sacrificing Priest, Bread and Wine into very Flesh and Blood and Bones, the Remembrance of Christ's death into the Adoration of the outward elements; have written books, filled many volumes in setting out the miraculous virtue it hath, of which we may say as Pliny did of the writings of those magical Physicians, that they have been published non sine contemtu & irrisu generis humani, not without a kind of contempt and derision of all the world, as if there breathed not in it any but such who were either so brutish as not to know, or such fools as to believe whatsoever fell from the pen of such idle dreamers. Others fall short, are more coldly affected, and lose themselves in a strange indifferency, as not fully resolved whether it be an institution that bindeth or no, and look upon it rather as an invention of man than the word and command of Christ. Others run far enough from Superstition, as they think, and are great enemies to Popery, and yet unawares carry a Pope with them in their belly, lean too much to the opus operatum, to the bare outward action, think what they will not say, that if they come to the Feast, it is not much material what garment they come in; the outward elements are of virtue to sanctify the profaner himself; that though they have been haters of God, yet they may come to his Table; though they have crucified Christ, yet here they may taste and see how gracious he is. These extremes have men run upon, whilst they did neglect the plain and easy rule by which they were to walk; the one upon the rock of Superstition; the other, as it falls out most commonly, not only from the Error which they were afraid of, but from the Truth itself, which should be set up in its place. We see at the first institution almost, and when this blessed Table was as it were first spread, that many abuses crept in to poison the Feast. Some by factiousness, others by partiality, and some by drunkenness profaned it, v. 21. did come and sit down, and eat and drink, but to their punishment and damnation. Therefore S. Paul having laid open their gross errors and profanations, and set their irregularities in order before them, prescribeth the remedy, and calleth them back to the first institution, and the example of Christ himself. First he showeth the Manner of Christ's institution, v. 23-25. He took the bread, and gave thanks, broke it, and gave it them, and secondly, the Mystery signified thereby; The breaking of the Bread and pouring out of the Wine represent the bruising of his Body and shedding of his Blood for the remission of sins. Last of all, the End of the institution and celebration of the Lord's Supper, in the words of my Text, This do ye, as oft as ye do it, in remembrance of me. These words I read to you as S. Paul's, but indeed they are Christ's, delivered by Paul, but received from Christ, as he telleth us v. 23. In them you may behold Christ's Love streaming forth, as his blood did on the cross. For not content once to die for us, he will appear unto us as a crucified Saviour to the end of the world, and calleth upon us to look upon him, and remember him, whom our sins have pierced; presenteth himself unto us in these outward elements of Bread and Wine, and in the breaking of the one and pouring out of the other is evidently set forth before our eyes, Gal. 3.1. and even crucified amongst us, as S. Paul speaketh, thus condescending and applying himself to our infirmities that he may heal us of our sins, and make and keep us a peculiar people to himself. And since the words are Christ's, we must in the first place look up and hearken to him who breatheth forth this Love; secondly, consider what task his Love hath set us, what we are to do; thirdly, ex praescripto agere, since it is an injunction whose every accent is Love, do it after that form which he hath set down, after the manner which he hath prescribed. So the parts are four; 1. the Author of the institution; 2. the Duty enjoined, to do this; 3. to do it often; 4. Lastly, the End of the institution, or the Manner how we must do it, we must do it in remembrance of him, i. e. of all those benefits and graces and promises which flowed with his blood from his very heart, which was sick with Love. And with these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion at this time. First, we must look upon the Author of the institution. For in every action we do it is good to know by what authority we dot it. And this is the very order of Nature, Lib l. 1. de Morib. Eccl. c. 2. saith S. Augustine, ut rationem praecedat autoritas, that Authority should go before and have the preeminence of Reason; that where Reason is weak, Authority may come in as a supply to strengthen and settle it. For what can Reason see in Bread and Wine to quicken or raise a Soul? What is Bread to a wounded spirit, 1 Cor. 8.8. or Wine to a sick soul? For neither if we eat, are we the better, the more accepted; nor if we eat not, are we the worse, saith S. Paul. It is true, the outward Elements are indifferent in themselves, but Authority changeth and even transelementeth them, giveth them virtue and efficacy a commanding power, even the force of a Law. He that put virtue into the Clay and Spittle to cure a bodily eye, may do the same to Bread and Wine to heal our spiritual blindness. He that made these a staff to our bodies may make them also a prop to our souls, when they droop and sink. And then if he say, This do ye, though our Reason should be at a stand, and boggle at it as at a thing which holdeth no proportion with a Soul, yet we must do it because he saith it. It may be said, Jam. 1.21. Is not his Word sufficient, which is able to save our souls? Is it not enough for me to beat down my body, to pour forth my prayers, to crucify my flesh? No: Nothing is sufficient but what the authority of Christ hath made so. Nescit judicare, quisquis didicit perfectè obedire, is true in matters of this nature: We have no judgement of our own; our wisdom is to obey, and let him alone to judge what is fit who alone hath power to command. Authority must not be disputed with, nor can it hear, Why should I do this? For such a question denieth it to be Authority. If it were possible that God, to try our obedience, should bid us sow the rocks, or water a dry stick, or teach a language we do not know (as the Jesuits do their Novices) a necessity would lie upon us, and woe unto us if we did it not: How much rather than should we obey when he commandeth for our advantage, giveth us a law that he may give us more grace, bindeth us to that which will raise us nearer to him; when he spreadeth his table, prepared his viands, biddeth us eat and drink, and then saith grace, biddeth a blessing himself unto it, that we may grow up in his favour, and be placed amongst those great examples of eternal happiness? Look not then on the Minister howsoever qualified. For a brass-seal maketh the same impression which a ring of gold doth: and it is not material whether the seal be of base or purer metal, so the image and character be authentic, saith Nazianzene. Look not on the outward Elements: for of themselves they have no power at all, no more than the water of Jordan had to cure a leper, but their power and virtue is from above. The force and virtue of a Sacrament lieth in the institution; all the power it hath is from the Author. Before it was Bread, but common Bread; now it is Manna, the Bread of strength, the Bread of Angels. And this truth thou mayst build upon; nor doth the Church of Rome deny it. And though they have added five Sacraments, and may add as many more as they please. Quicquid arant homines, navigant, aedificant, any thing we do may be made a Sacrament: When the Fancy is working she may spin out what she please. Yet they cannot deny that every Sacrament must have immediate institution from Christ himself, from his own mouth, or else it is of no validity: and therefore they are forced to pretend it, though they cannot prove it, in those which themselves have added for their own advantage. Think then when thou hearest these words, Take, eat; This is my body which was broken, thou hearest thy Saviour himself speaking from heaven. Think not of the Minister, or the meanness of the Elements, but think of him who took thee out of thy blood, and sanctified thee with his, and by the same power is able to sanctify these outward Elements; 1 Cor. 10.16. by the virtue of whose institution the cup of blessing which we bless, which he blessed first, shall be to every one that cometh worthily the comunion of the blood, and the Bread which we break, which he first broke, the communion of the body of Christ. And thus much of the Author. Let us now consider what he enjoineth us to do. The Command is to do this, that is, to do as he did, though to another end, to take Bread, and to give thanks, and eat it; and so of the Cup, to take and drink it. And if this be done with an eye to the Author, and a lively faith in him, this is all: For this Table was spread not for the dead, but for the living This, I say, is all. But some have stretched this word beyond its proper and natural signification. Others, and that a multitude, do rest under the shadow of the word, content themselves in the outward action, do do it, and no more; which indeed is not to do it. For though this word to do be not of so large a significatton as the Church of Rome hath drawn it out in, that they might build an Altar, and offer up Christ again, which they say is to remember him, yet is it not so scant and narrow as Ignorance and Profaneness make it. Advers. Const. Aug. Verba non sono, sed sensu sapiunt, saith Hilary; We must not tie ourselves to the sound, but lay hold on the sense of the words. And this word to do though it be less than the little cloud in the book of the Kings, 1 Kings 18.44. nothing near so big as a man's hand, yet, if it be interpreted, it will spread and be as large as Heaven itself, and containeth within its sphere and compass all those stars, those graces and virtues, which will entitle us to bliss, by fitting and qualifying of us to do it. For indeed non fit quod non fit legitimè, that is not done which is not done as it should be. Those duties in Scripture which are shut up in a word are of a large and diffusive interpretation. When God biddeth us hear, he biddeth us obey. When he biddeth us believe he biddeth us love. When he awaketh our understanding he commandeth our Hand. When he biddeth us do this he biddeth us perfect our work. For Hearing is not Hearing without Obedience. Faith is dead if it work not by Charity; and Knowledge is but a dream without Practice; and we do not that which we do not as we should. To do this then is not barely to take the Bread and eat it: This Judas himself might do; this he doth that doth it to his own damnation. And therefore though it be not now common Bread and common Wine, but consecrated and set apart for this holy use, yet we must be careful that we attribute no more unto them than Christ the Author doth. We must not suffer our eyes to dazzle at the outward Elements nor must we rest in the outward Action. For this were in a manner to transsubstantiate the Elements, and bring the Body and Blood of Christ into them; which nothing can do but Faith and Repentance: This were to make the very action of Receiving opus privilegiatum, as Gerson speaketh, to give it a greater prerogative than was ever granted out of the court of Heaven: This were to rest in the means as in the end, and at once to magnify and profane it; This were to take it as our first parents did the Apple, that our eyes may be opened, and then to see nothing but our own shame: This were to eat, and to be damned. But this we shall not need to insist upon. For it is sufficient to point out to it as to a thing to be done. And that we may do it, besides the Authority and Command and Love of the Author, we have all those motives and inducements which use to stir up and incite us unto action, even then when our hands are folded and we unwilling to move, as, 1. the Fitness and Applyableness of it to our present condition, 2. the Profit and Advantage it may bring, 3. the Pleasure and Delight it carrieth along with it, 4. the Necessity of it; which are as so many allurements and invitations, as so many winds to drive us on, and make us fly to it as the Doves to their windows. Isa 60.8. And first it fitteth and complyeth as it were with our present condition, blanditur nostrae infirmitati, and even flattereth and comforteth and rouseth up our weakness and infirmity. As our Saviour speaketh upon another occa●●on, John 12.30. 2 Cor. 5.7. This voice, this institution, came for our sake. We walk by faith, saith the Apostle: Et hoc est nostrae infirmitatis, saith the Father, and this is a sign and an argument of humane infirmity, that we walk by faith, that God can come no nearer to us, nor we to him, that we see him only with that eye which, 1 Cor. 13.12. Gen. 2.18 etc. when it is clearest, seethe him but as in a glass, darkly. And therefore as God sent Adam into the world, and gave him adjutorium simile sibi, a help convenient and meet for him, so doth he place us in his Church, and affordeth us many helps meet for us and attempered to our frailty and humane infirmity. He speaketh to our Ear, and he speaketh to our Eye; he speaketh in thunder, and he speaketh in a still voice. He passeth his promise, and sealeth and confirmeth it. He preacheth to us by his word, and he preacheth to us by these ocular Sermons, by visible Elements, by Water to purge us, and by Bread and Wine to strengthen us in his grace, and omitteth nothing that is meet and convenient for us. When God told the people of Israel that he would no longer go before them himself, he withal telleth them he would send his Angel, which should lead them; and when we are not capable of a nearer approach, he sendeth his Angels, his Word, his Apostles, his Sacraments, which like those ministering Spirits, Hebr. 1.14. minister for them who are heirs of salvation. And, not content with the general declaration of his mind, he addeth unto it certain seals and external signs, that we may even see and handle and taste the word of life. 1 Joh. 1.1. And as it was said by Laban and Jacob, when they made a covenant, Gen. 31.48. etc. This stone shall be witness between us, so God doth say to thy soul by these outward Elements, This covenant have I made with thee, and this that thou seest shall witness between thee and me. Do thou look upon it, and bring a bleeding renewed heart with thee, and then do this; and I will look upon it, Gen. 9.16. as upon the Rainbow, and remember my covenant which was made in the blood of my Son. I thus frame and apply myself to thee in things familiar to thy sight, that thou mayest draw nearer and nearer to that light which now thy mortal eye, thy frailty and infirmity, cannot attain to. And shall we not meet and embrace that help which is so fitted and proportioned to us? Secondly, Profit is a lure, and calleth all men after it. And if you ask with the Apostle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; What profit is there? Rom 3. 1●2 we may answer with him, Much every manner of way. For what is profit but the improvement of our estate, the bettering of our condition? As in the increase of jacob's , the doubling of Jobs sheep, as when David's sheephook was changed into a sceptre, here was improvement and advantage. And this we find in our spiritual addresses, in our reverend access to this Table, a great improvement, in some thirty, in some sixty, in some an hundred fold, Mark 4.20. a Will intended, a Love exalted, our Hope increased, our Faith quickened, more earnestly looking on God, more compassionately on our Brethren; more Light in our Understanding, more Heat in our Affections, more Constancy in our Patience; every vicious Inclination weakened, every Virtue rooted and established. What is but brass it refineth into gold, raiseth the man, the earthy man, to the participation of a Divine nature. And shall we not be covetous of that which is so profitable and advantageous? Thirdly, Pleasure is attractive, is eloquent, and pleadeth for admittance. Who will not do that which bringeth much delight and pleasure when it is done? And here in this action of worthy Receiving is not that short transitory Meteor, the flattery and titillation of the outward man, but that new heaven which Reason and Religion create in the mind: Isa. 9.3. the joy of the harvest, as the Prophet speaketh, Psal. 126.5. for here we reap in joy what we sowed in tears: the joy and triumph of a Conqueror; for here we tread down our enemy under our feet: the joy of a prisoner set at liberty; for this is our Jubilee. And such a joy the blood of Christ, if it be tasted and well digested, must necessarily bring forth, a pure, refined, spiritual, heavenly joy. Precious blood, saith S. Peter, 1 Pet. 1.19. not to be shed for a trifle, for that joy which is no better than madness; and the blood of an immaculate Lamb, not to be poured forth for a stained, wavering, fugitive joy, for a joy as full of pollution as the World and the Flesh, from whence it springeth. Bring but a true taste with thee, a soul purged from those vicious humours which vitiate and corrupt it, and here is not only Bread and Wine, Psal. 4.7. but living Bread, Bread that putteth gladness into the heart more than Corn and Wine can. Here is Christ, here is Joy, here is Heaven itself. And shall we not do that which filleth the heart with so much joy in the doing it? Shall we not take and eat that which is so pleasant to the taste? Last of all, it is not only convenient, pleasant and profitable, but it is necessary to do it. For if this Sacrament could have been well spared, that men might have well kept the Law of the inward man without it, our Lord, who came to beat down all the rites and ceremonies of the Law, would not have raised up this. But he knew it necessary, and therefore left it upon record, as binding as a Law, and for aught we find, nay without all doubt, did never recall or dispense with it. Do this, is plain; and Do it often, is plain enough; but Do it not, or Do it seldom, is never read. But he calleth and commandeth us to his Table, to feed on the Body and Blood of Christ, and in the strength thereof to walk before him and be perfect: that when our souls be run to decay, when good habits are weakened, and the graces of God discoloured and darkened in us, when our knees are enfeebled, and our hands hang down, when our faculties begin to shrink and be parched as with the drought of summer, we may come to this fountain, and fill our cisterns, and recover our former strength and beauty. Our fault it is, and a great one, to be ever enquiring what bindeth and what is necessary: and if Necessity drive us not, like dull beasts we will not mend our pace, and are more led by Omri's statutes, by humane laws, than Christ's instituitions; when, if we rightly weigh it, whatsoever is convenient for us, whatsoever may be advantageous to us in the service of our Lord, should be as powerful with us as if it came under the imperial form of a Law; and what is convenient and fitted to us in such a case, is also necessary for us in the same condition; necessary, I say, if a more violent necessity come not to cross and hinder it: for when nothing is wanting but a will, than a necessity lieth upon us, and woe unto us if we do it not. So now you have them all four: And to conclude this, if these will not quicken and move us to come, we are dead in sin, and have lost our taste. Will convenience move us? We talk much of it. Here is a duty fitted and proportioned to our present condition. Will Profit move us? and whom doth not Profit add a wing to? Lo, here it is in this duty, the due performance of which repayeth all our cost and pain with interest. Will Pleasure move us? and whom doth not Pleasure transport? Here is Joy, here is Paradise, here is Pleasure, and there is none but it. Last of all, will Necessity move us? It is said that will drive us; and if the rest be but gentle gales, this is as a whirlwind. Behold, here is Necessity, a duty as necessary as our own wants and the authority of our High Priest and King can make it, who hath not only commanded us to do it, but to do it often; Which now offereth itself to our consideration. As often as you do it, implieth a doing it often, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 includeth a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and doth not leave it at large to our will and pleasure, as an arbitrary thing, to be taken up when our discretion shall appoint the time. I will not be so bold as to prescribe how often, nor is it necessary to be determined. Every man's want and necessity in this should be a law unto him; and as oft as he findeth his soul to droop and faint, here he is to refresh it; as oft as he feeleth the inward man to decay, here to repair it; as oft as he seethe the temple of the holy Ghost to gather dust and filth, here to sweep and purge it; when his faith beginneth to fail, here to confirm and strengthen it. If we come like rude and unmannerly guests, once is too often; but if we purge and cleanse our hearts, if our stomaches be clean, if we come prepared for the feast, often we may come, but we cannot come too often. Sic vive, saith S. Ambrose, Si quotidianus est cibus cur post annum sumis? Amb. l. 6. de Sacram. c. 4. Cypr. ep. 54. & 69. ut quotidie mereare accipere; So pass every day of thy life that thou mayest be fit to do it every day. I will not urge nor bind you to the practice of the first Christians, who received every day, because in time of persecution, as children appointed to die, they looked upon every day as their last: Although S. Cyprian will tell us they did it also in times of peace, and Sanit Augustine calleth it Quotidianum ministerium Dominici corporis, Epist. 180. a daily office and ministry. The truth is, the Sacrament is fit for every day, but we are not every day fit for it: And in this different variety of circumstances of time, and the dispositions and qualifications of men, every man must be his own judge and lawgiver; and yet the royal Law bindeth him to be fit every day. A great shame it is that any man should be dragged to a feast. For what a strange law would that seem which should bind a hungry man to eat, or a sick man to take physic, or a dying man to taste of the water of life? Look upon the primitive Christians, whose practice hath been accounted the best interpreter of Scripture, and if thou canst not with them do it every day, yet let every fair opportunity set thy day. Christ's dead yet all-quickning Carcase is the same still, Matth. 24.28. and we should be Eagles, as well as they, to fly to it. The Blood of Christ is the same, his death as full of virtue and efficacy; he is still a fountain of life to them who will taste him; nor was his most precious Blood shed for the first Christians, and in tract and continuance of time dried up. At this fountain we may draw as well and as oft as they, if our pitcher be as fit. And if we loved the cup of blessing, 1 Cor. 10.16. we should not fear how oft it came into our hands. But to speak truth, we have degenerated from that Devotion, that Love, that Zeal, which inflamed their breasts, and retain nothing but the memory of their exceeding piety, which we look upon rather as a pious error than a just and regular devotion. And because we are unfit and therefore unwilling to do it, we persuade ourselves that Superstition had an early birth, and did follow Religion at the heels to supplant it, that by their busy and too frequent remembrance of Christ the primitive Christians did rather flatter than worship him, or at best that they did that which with more Christian prudence they might have left undone: For if it were Devotion then, it could not be lost in the body and flux of time, which could have no such influence upon it as to change 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 magnify it, and to do it when we please. The duty itself 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 distinguished 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 ourselves from our brethren for things no whit essential to Christianity, hath force enough not only 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 fancies, for these men have more need of our tears and prayers then our confutation. I had rather remove those hindrances and retardances, those pretences 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 approaches 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 pretence 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 qualify ourselves 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 showeth 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 than 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 whilst 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 Christ's blood 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 punished if he do it not. For not only 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 superior; 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 only when the Will is directly carried to the omission itself, 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 hindered from doing that which I am bound to do, and which I would willingly and might easily do but for this obstacle which I myself set up against myself, 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 myself, I will yet sin. For he that will not prepare himself will not sit down at Christ's Table. But we may hear sometimes 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 lie. But if it be not a lie, it is and will be accepted as our preparation. For godly sorrow bringeth forth repentance not to be repent of; 2 Cor. 7.10. and every Penitent is a fit Communicant. He that hath mingled his tears with his Saviour's blood is a welcome guest at this Table. What then is to be done in this case, when the conscience of some habit of sin keepeth us from coming? Certainly a great sin it must needs be to make one sin an apology for another, to excuse a sin of omission by a sin of commission, and when I will not do that which I should, to put in this plea, That I have done what I should not. This knot then, like the Gordian knot, must be cut asunder with the sword, with the sword of the spirit. That habit of sin must be shaken off: and we must use a violence upon ourselves, strive and labour with earnestness, and by practising that which is contrary to it, to be less and less fettered and entangled every day. For to remain in it cannot be Infirmity or Weakness (for that name we give even to Malice itself) but Obstinacy and a pleasing and wilful Perseverance in sin. Why wilt thou not come? or rather why wilt thou still sin? For what wert thou made a Christian? For what did the grace of God appear? For what did his most precious blood gush out of his sides, but to purge and cleanse thee from thy sin? Why dost thou love thy disease? Why dost thou favour thy flesh and corruption? Why dost thou envenom and fester thy sore? Why art thou such a Judas as first to betray thy Saviour, and then hang thyself? Why dost thou still stand out, and wilt not be cured? Why dost thou prefer thy Sin before the Sacrament, thy husks before the Bread of life? Why art thou sick, and wilt be sick, dying, and resolved to die? Thou wilt not come because thou hast sinned. Break off thy sin, and come. If thou condemnest thyself, why dost thou not forsake thyself? Dost thou acknowledge what thou art, and yet continue what thou art? Thou who will't strike that man to the ground who standeth in the way to honour or wealth, hast not heart enough to destroy that sin which thou sayest doth obstruct thy passage, and keep thee from this Feast, from the Table of the Lord, which was spread on purpose that thou shouldst first demolish and remove thy sin, and then come and eat. This then is but an hindrance and a block of offence of our own hewing, an evil spirit which we invited to us; and we must cast it out. Tell me, canst thou believe? Why, then thou mayst come. Is thy faith strong enough to cast down those imaginations which set themselves up against Christ, 2 Cor. 10.5. to work in thee holy desires and resolutions? And art thou now in an agony, in a blessed contention with thyself? Art thou serious in the resistance of thy enemy, and dost thou gain some conquest over him every day? Then thou mayst come, though thou art not yet made perfect. For we must remember (that the weaker Christian lie not down under his burden, not able to move towards the cup of blessing when it is reached forth unto him) we must remember, I say, that Faith and true sanctifying Grace have a wide latitude, that they are not so quick and active in one man as in another, and yet may save both. There be who by continual watching over themselves, by continual struggling with themselves, by a vehement and incessant pressing forward, are welnear come unto the mark; who have so confirmed themselves in the profession and exercise of Christian Religion that they run their race with joy, and are scarce sensible of a tentation; who have made Holiness so familiar to them that no wile or enterprise of Satan can divorce them; In a word, who by that seed which is in them keep themselves that the Wicked one toucheth them not, 1 John 3.9. and 5.18. Luke 14.18. etc. as S. John speaketh. These have no Oxen nor Farms, these are not married to the World, and therefore they will come. Again, there be some who are but as it were Incipients in the School of Christ, in their way, labouring and panting forward, as it were in fieri, in the making, framing and composing themselves by that royal Law which the Church of Christ holdeth forth unto them; who though they have for some time sucked the breasts of the Church, and received the sincere milk of the Word, 1 Pet. 2.2. are not yet grown thereby into perfect men in Christ Jesus, have not yet that strength to destroy the whole body of sin, but fall sometimes into this sin, sometimes into that; but those they fall into are not so many nor so manifest, not so offensive and hurtful to others, not of that number or bulk as to shut them out of the Church, or to exclude them from the Communion of Saints. Phil. 3.12. These have not yet attained, but they follow after: Though they have an eye toward the world, yet they come to Christ's Table with a firm resolution to pluck it out: Though their right hand offendeth them, yet they will cut it off, and with all their strength and with all their soul shake off the yoke of sin, and take Christ's upon them, and even now are they hot and intentive on that work. These men, I say, may, nay aught to come, and here quicken their Faith, improve their Charity, strengthen and fix their Resolutions. And they who are so severe and overrigid as to drive them from it, do shut themselves out, though not from the Table, yet from the Feast, and are more unfit than they, because they want that Charity which is required of a guest, Matth. 12.20. even that Charity which will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. Numb. 11.29. It was a pious wish of Moses; Would God all the Lords people were Prophets: And it were as much piety to wish, and with his spirit, Would all Christians were perfect, that every one were as S. Paul, 1 Cor. 4.4. and knew nothing by himself. But we are in via: And as travellers on the way, one man maketh more haste than another, walketh with more ease and delight, slippeth not, falleth not so often; another walketh after, though not with the same speed and cheerfulness, because he meeteth with rubs and difficulties, which he every day contendeth with; and both at last by the guidance of the same Spirit and by the power of a compassionate Saviour come to their journey's end, and he that goeth before and he that cometh more faintly and slowly after meet at last and sit down together in the same heaven. And now in such variety of tempers, such diversity of tentations, amongst so many errors, which some men quit themselves of with less some with more trouble, we may applaud those who are near the top of perfection, but we must not despise those who are in their ascent, and labouring and striving forward after them; not quench the spirit in any man, though it burn not so brightly in some as it doth in others who are more fully enlightened; not shut them out as unclean beasts, because they discover something of the frailty of man. Even such as these it is plain S. Paul admitted in this chapter, and he pleads for them Gal. 6.1. as for those who are to be restored with the spirit of meekness: and we cannot shut them out from his Table or presence, whom Christ is so willing to meet, when being weary and heavy laden they come unto him. Nor doth this admitting weaker Christians open a door to let in wilful offenders, nor a gap to let in the Goats to feed in the same green pastures with the Sheep. These beasts, Hebr. 12.20. if they come too near, will be thrust through with a dart. But then all sins are not of the same malignity; and we must put a difference between Judas' fall and Peter's. All sins do not strike us out of the Covenant, and therefore do not drive us from Christ's Table, where we are to renew and confirm it. There be some sins which are devoratoria salutis, and swallow up all hope of salvation whilst they remain in us. There be peccata fortia, boisterous and mighty sins, Amos 5.12. which do urge the Justice of God, and even weary and conquer his clemency: There be others which weaker Christians through frailty fall into even in the state of grace, and which God will not be extreme to punish, though in justice he might, but remaineth a Father still of those who seriously endeavour, yet sometimes fail, for his covenants sake which he made in his Son Jesus Christ: And of these sins S. John speaketh, If we sin, 1 John 2.2. we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is a propitiation for our sins. In a word, if all that sin were excluded, the Feast were at an end; and if some that sin were not excluded, the Table were no more a Table, but an Altar for thiefs and murderers to fly to. Fear then of infirmity is no excuse; but we should shake it off with our sin. It is an evil spirit of our own raising; and we must conjure it down. But there is another pretence, and it is drawn from a high conceit of the Sacrament, and an apprehension of an excessive and Angelical kind of perfection which some conceive is necessary to the due celebration of it: And so they are going towards it, but make no speed; are in action, but do nothing; are coming, but never come. This may seem to be great humility; but, as Bernard speaketh, ista humilitas tollit humilitatem, this humility putteth true Humility from its office. For it is she alone that taketh us by the hand, and leadeth us to this Supper. Dicendo se indignum fecit se dignum, saith the same Father of the Centurion in the Gospel. If we can truly say, We are unworthy, we make ourselves worthy, and thus we set forward towards it. But groundless Scrupulofity, which many times is rather the issue of Pride than the daughter of humility, seethe the way, and then sitteth down in it, and then maketh every pebble a mountain, puzzleth and perplexeth us; setteth us a framing and fashioning dangers and inconveniences to ourselves, and summing them up, like the man in Lucian, who sat on the seashore numbering each wave as it came towards him, till at last the waves, driving one another, beat on and wrought themselves over his head, and drowned him. In a word, it weakeneth and disenableth us in the performance of our duty, and with it we are so good that, as the Italian proverb is, we are good for nothing. This is but a scruple indeed, and it weigheth no more, and the least breath is strong enough to blow it away. For upon the same inducement we must seal up our lips, and never pray; we must stay at home, and not go to Church. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; what mortal is fit for these things? How can Dust and Ashes speak to the Majesty of Heaven? What ear is purged enough to hear his word? Whose feet are clean enough to tread his courts? And why do we pretend Weakness or Unworthiness? Are we too weak, are we too unworthy, to do his will? Or can Christ command us that which our Unworthiness will make a sin for us to do? When the trumpet hath sounded, when the Law is promulged, this fear must vanish. When our Saviour hath once spoken it, Take, eat; this is my body, shall we neglect to do it, and make this our plea, That we are not worthy to do it? When he would cleanse and purge us, shall we cry, We are unworthy? unfit to do his will, but not unfit to break it? unfit to be redeemed, but not unfit to perish? unfit to empty ourselves of our pollution, but not unfit to settle on our lees? Oh it is ill thus to apologise and dispute and fret ourselves to destruction, to lie sick and bedrid in sin, and say we are unfit and unworthy to be healed. And what Reverence is that to Christ, which crucifieth him again, and trampleth his blood under our feet? For not to receive it, not to be purged and bettered by it, I am sure is in the highest degree to dishonour it. I shall insist the longer upon this, for I see too many withdraw and put from them this favour and grace of God, and call it Reverence: But they might well blush at this their apology, if they did rightly consider what Reverence is. Now Reverence is nothing else but a kind of justice paying back that which is due to a benefit, for some good it hath brought or may bring unto us, and is either our verbal or our real gratitude. Ye shall reverence my Sanctuary, Levit. 19.30. for here we offer up ourselves to God, and God descendeth in blessings upon us. The word of the Lord is reverend; Rom. 1.16. Psal. 119.128. Psal. 111.9. for it is the power of God unto salvation. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts, saith David; and, Holy and reverend is his name: for whatsoever good we do we do in God's name. And yet see, if we take not heed, Eccl. 5.1. if we keep not our feet, we may bow in his temple, and offer up the sacrifice of fools. We may greedily hearken what God will say, and yet despise his word. We may call upon his Name, do wonders in his Name, and yet blaspheme it; as the Jews bowed before Christ when they mocked him, and spit upon him, and smote him on the head. No: Reverence is the payment of a debt: And what is due to the Sanctuary? 1 Tim. 2.8. Even that we should lift up holy hands. What do we owe unto the Word? Even obedience. And what reverence is due to the Sacrament? In Scripture we read of none in terminis: for there need no command to bind us to honour it. Who will not reverence that love which is breathed forth from Majesty? Who doth not reverence the meanest gift that cometh from the hands of a King? But what Reverence is that that refuseth it? Or is he reverend who, when he is invited to a royal feast, will not come? What Reverence is that that leaveth Christ's Body as it were hanging on the Cross, and his Blood poured out on the ground, and will not stoop to take it up? If we look upon it well, we shall find that excuse hath not a more ugly face in any defect which it is brought in to countenance then in this. For tell me, why should we not be afraid to hear the Word? Why have we such itching ears? Why do we throng and press into God's courts? Is there not as great a preparation due unto that? Is it so easy a matter to fling off all our unruly affections? Are we so soon made fit to speak unto God that he may hear, or to hear when he doth speak? Or may we as soon do it as pull off our shoes from our feet, and make good the thing itself as easily as we can the representation? Indeed we make it our Apology, but it is foul Ingratitude: And we cannot call it by a worse name: for it taketh in all, our Negligence, our Lukewarmness, our Imprudency, our Carnality, our Love of those evils which first trouble us, and then make us loathe our peace, first make us sick, and then afraid of the Physician. This excuse, I am sure, is not put up by those whom Christ biddeth departed into everlasting fire. They do not say, We are unworthy to feed, or cloth, Matth. 25.44. or visit thee, but, We never saw thee hungry, or naked, or in prison. They did not think that Christ had been shut in prison with John the Baptist, or that he had begged in Lazarus. If Heaven should open itself to receive thee, wouldst thou stay below with Sin and Misery, and cry thou art unworthy to strive to enter in? Behold, here in the Sacrament Paradise is as it were again laid open to thee, and no Cherub standeth against thee, and shall this weak Pretence of a wilful sinner be as a flaming sword to keep thee from the tree of life? Say then to these Pretences, as thou shouldst to Satan, who is the forger of them, Avoid, get you behind me. For this is a command laid upon all Christians, and supposeth all able to receive it; and no man is infirm or weak or unworthy but he that maketh himself so. God's commandments are not grievous, saith S. John; 1 John 5.3. and amongst them all there is not one less grievous than this. For is it not easier to do this then to deny ourselves, to take up the cross, to love our enemies, Matth. 16.24. Matth. 5.44. 1 John 3.16. to lay down our lives for the brethren? And yet under this heavy obligation we lie. Whether we make it good or no I know not; but, whether it be done or not, no man, I think, did ever put up this pretence, That he was unworthy to do it. And shall we even offer ourselves to the hardest task, to the weightier matters of the Gospel, and startle and fly back and be afraid of the Sacrament? Are we fit to receive Christ's commands, which exact our goods and our life, and shall there be a time when we shall be unfit to receive the pledges of his love? Are we worthy to be Christians, and not worthy to be Communicants? I do not here forbidden Preparation: for it is that I urge and press. But Unworthiness is the worst excuse, because we are bound to cast it off, and we cannot more dishonour the Sacrament then by not receiving it. For from what root but that of Bitterness doth this evil weed, this baneful pretence, spring up? Let us take an inventory of all those things which occasion it, and we shall find them all to be such fruit of which we may well be ashamed. The best of them is our Calling and necessary Employments in the world. And is the World, which passeth away, 1 Cor. 7.21. of such value with us, that we will not leave it behind us for a while to meet with Christ at his Table; Is our daily bread sweeter to us then the bread of life? Is Mammon a greater God than God himself? But then the rest are of that nature that we should be afraid to think of them; Lukewarmness in religion, Love of our sins, Unwillingness to part with them, or to be saved too soon. These are the rotten bones which lie under this painted sepulchre, this glorious pretence of great Reverence to the Sacrament; Our Farm, our Ox, our Wife, our Vanity, our Sin is preferred before Christ, and then we say we reverence him. But now take this pretence of Reverence with the best interpretation you can give it. Suppose they that pretend it are not men devoted to the world and vanity, but such as do try and examine themselves every day, and keep a careful watch over their hearts: And yet it is scarce probable such men should pretend Unworthiness: For these tares of excuses commonly grow upon the Rocks and Barrenness, and not upon good ground. But suppose this high Reverence they have of the Sacrament may keep them off, and make them afraid to come near; Yet, as S. Paul speaketh in another case, This is utterly a fault in them. If not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1 Cor. 6.7. yet it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. It is not so bad as Profaneness, but a fault it is and a neglect too large for this excuse to palliate and cover. For 1. by this their abstaining they do either pity or condemn those that are more forward, as persons that venture too far upon that formidable mystery, which they look upon at distance, and tremble, and dare not come near; as those that do not well consider what they do, and therefore are bold to do it; as men whom not Conscience but Presumption bringeth to the Altar. They will say perhaps they pass no such censure on their brethren, they condemn them not: But yet they may, and speak not a word, Hebr. 11.7. condemn them by their actions, as Noah did condemn the world by his faith. For when in our behaviour we turn our back upon them, there is something of a sharp reprehension flieth from us, like an arrow from a Parthians bow, after those who walk another way. And this utterly is a fault, Rom. 14. by my not eating to condemn them that eat. This is contristare fratres, to grieve our brethren, to make them think that mors in olla, 2 Kings 4.40. death is in the pot, danger in eating the Bread of life. This is to walk uncharitably, Rom. 14.15. and, for aught we know, to destroy him with our not eating for whom Christ died. Or 2. their refraining to come may keep others at the same distance. And it is not easy to determine utrùm pejor res an pejori exemplo agatur, as Cato speaketh to another purpose in Livy; whether is more dangerous, their absence to themselves, or the example to others. For if Moses turn his back, who will not be afraid to come near to the mount? If men of more reserved conversation, who keep themselves unspotted of the world, tremble and dare not come nigh, how many weak Christians, who hope here to receive their additional strength, be struck with terror, and so refuse to come, and think of these mysteries as the Germans in Tacitus did of those offices which they performed to their Goddess Hertha, De morib. Germanor. the Earth? The Goddess was washed, and they who ministered unto her were swallowed up in the same lake: Arcanus hinc terror, sanctáque ignorantia, saith the Historian, quid sit illud quod tantùm perituri vident; Hence a secret terror and holy ignorance possessed them, who wondered what that Divine power should be which none could see but they who were to perish in the sight. For to minister to it was to die. I know we cannot give too much reverence unto the Sacrament, we cannot give enough. But that servant doth but little honour his master, who will bow and cringe, and kiss his hand, and keep at distance, and yet sleep in his service. Obedience and Reverence are twins, they are born and grow up and die together. I am not truly reverend till my Obedience speaketh and publisheth it: If I obey not, my Reverence is but a name, and profiteth nothing, as S. Paul spoke in another case, If I be a breaker of the law, Rom. 2.25. my circumcision is made uncircumcision. If I do not come as Christ commandeth, I may call it Reverence, but he will count it a great dishonour to his love. We complain much of the Superstition of the Romish party, we are angry with their Altars, their vestments, their bowings and cringes, and count it a kind of theatrical Idolatry; and I think without breach of charity we may; for, as they make it, it is one of the greatest Idols in the world: But we must take heed how we cry down Superstition in others, whilst we suffer it to lie at our own doors; how we condemn it for a monster as it walketh abroad, when we hug and cherish it in our own breasts. Superstitio error insanus est: amandos timet, quos colit violat Quid enim interest utrum Deos neges an infames? Sen. ep. 123. For what is Superstition but a groundless fear? what is it but a fear where no fear is, or, if there be, a fear which we are bound to abolish? A fear to do our duty is something worse than superstition. If we do not make the Sacrament an Idol, yet by this kind of lazy reverence we make it nothing in this world, and as much as in us lieth frustrate the Grace of God, which in these outward Elements is presented in a manner to the eye. I have dwelled the longer on this subject because I see this duty so much neglected: Some not fit to come, others not so much unfit as unwilling: Some so spiritual, or rather so carnal and profane, that they contemn it; some so careless, that they seldom think of it, but suffer their soul to run to ruin, not to be raised and repaired till it be taken from them: Some pleading their own infirmity, others the high dignity of these mysteries. The best of which pretences is a sin, which one would think were but a hard and uneasy pillow for a sick conscience to rest on. Not come, because I care not? not come, because I will not? not come, because I dare not? Not come? That utterly is a fault, and Neglect doth aggrandise it, Contempt doth make it yet greater, and Infirmity and Conceit of our unworthiness is another fault, and our high Esteem of the ceremony cannot wipe it out, but it showeth itself even through this Reverence, and showeth us guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ, though we eat not this Bread nor drink this Cup. We pretend indeed we cannot, but the truth is we will not come. Let us not then bring in our Unworthiness as an excuse: For such an Apology is our doom which we pass against ourselves, which removeth and setteth us far off from any relief of that mercy which should seal our pardon, because we say we need it not. We ought not to do what we ought to do, and, We are unworthy to do our duty, is brought in as an excuse, but it is our condemnation. Let us then do it, and let us do it often: And, in the last place, let us do it to that end for which Christ did first institute and ordain it: Let us do it in remembrance of him. And now we may imagine that this is a thing soon done, a matter of quick dispatch. For as the Jews had Moses, Acts 15.21. so have we Christ read in our Churches every Sabbath-day, He is the story and the discourse of the times: We name him almost as often as we speak, too often name him, because not with that reverence which we should: But thus to remember him may be a greater injury than forgetfulness: Better we never knew him then thus to remember him. And therefore we must remember that this Remembrance consisteth not in a bare calling back into our mind every passage of his glorious oeconomy, by bringing him from his cratch to his cross, and from his cross to his grave. For words of Knowledge in Scripture evermore imply the Affections. When Joseph desired Pharaohs Butler to remember him, his meaning was he should procure his liberty. Gen 40.14. Neh. 13.22. When Nehemiah prayeth to God to remember him, he interpreteth himself, and pardon me according to the multitude of thy mercies. When the Thief on the cross bespeaketh Christ to remember him when he came into his kingdom, he then begged a kingdom. Luke 23.42. Indeed such a benefit deserveth to be had in everlasting remembrance. For what is a jewel of a rich price in the hands of a fool, who hath no heart to receive and keep it? Prov. 17.16. What were all the glory of the Stars and of the Sun and of the Moon, which God hath ordained, if there were no eye to behold them? How can seed be quickened if the womb of the Earth receive it not? What a pearl is the Gospel, if the Heart be not the cabinet? and what is Christ if he be not remembered? We must then, and upon this occasion especially, open the register of our soul, and enrol Christ there in deep and living characters. For the Memory is a preserver of that which she receiveth. But it is not enough for us to behold these glorious phantasms, and carry them about with us as precious antidotes, Cont. Faust. Manic l. 6. c. 7. unless we bring them ab intestino memoriae ad os cogitationis, as S. Augustine speaketh, from the inward part of the Memory to the mouth and stomach of the Cogitative faculty, which is our spiritual rumination and chewing of the cud; unless we do colloqui cum fide, hold a colloquy within us, and catechise our Faith, and inquire whether we remember Christ as we should; whether our Faith be as strong, our Hope as steadfast, our Charity as fervent as so great Love requireth? whether it be such a Faith, and such an Hope, and so intensive a Charity as Christ and his love thus diffused abroad might beget; whether Christ be hung up in this gallery of our soul only as a picture, or whether he be a living Christ, and dwelleth in us of a truth. For the Memory, as it is the womb to form and fashion Christ, so it may yield good blood to nourish him. And in this sense that of Plato may be true, Plato solus in tanta gentium syluâ, in tanto sapientum prato, idearum & oblitus & recordatus est, Tertull. De anim. c. 12. Gal. 4.19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, We learn and are instructed by those notions which were formerly imprinted in our Memory. We do conceive and are in travel, as S. Paul speaketh, with Christ, till he be fully form in us. We work him out in cogitatorio, in the elaboratory of our Hearts. When we have Christ in our thoughts, and his precepts always before our eyes, as in a book which checketh us at every turn, and by a frequent contemplation of them draw our souls out of those encumbrances which many times involve and fetter them; when we recollect our Mind into itself, and fasten it to this Rock, where it may rest as upon a holy hill, from whence it may look down and behold every object in its proper shape, look upon an Injury as a benefit, or Persecution as a blessing, and see Life in the face and countenance of Death; then and not till then we may be said to remember Christ. For can he remember a meek Christ, who will be angry without a cause? Can he remember a poor Christ, that maketh M●mmon his God? Can he remember the Prince of peace, who is wholly bend to war? Can he remember Christ, who is as ready to betray him as Judas, and nail him to the cross as Pilate? Better he were quite razed out of our memory then that we should thus set him there as a mark to be shot at, then to be thus set up to be scorned and reviled and spit upon and crucified again; better never to have known him, then to know and put him to shame. And therefore, if we will remember him, we must contemplate him in his own sphere, in that site and aspect which he looketh upon us; deliberare, & causas expendere, well weigh and consider upon what terms and conditions we did first receive and entertain him in our thoughts and memories. And this will drive Christianity home, make it enter into the soul and spirit, fasten and rivet Christ into us, and make him a part of us, that his promises and precepts and the virtue of his death and passion may be in our memory as vessels are in a well-ordered family, whence upon every occasion we may readily take them out for our use, find a defence against every temptation, a buckler for every dart, that so the Love of Christ may swallow up all reluctancy in us in victory. This giveth us a true taste and relish of the sweetness of those blessings and benefits which we receive in the Sacrament. The sweetness of honey, saith Basil, is not known so well by the Philosopher's discourse as by the taste, which is a better and surer judge than the most subtle Naturalist: No more are the benefits of Christ and his Gospel, though uttered by the tongue of Men and Angels, understood so well by the words which convey them, as in a heart melted and transformed into the Love of Christ, as in the mind of man when it is the same mind which is in Christ Jesus. There Christ is remembered indeed, there he is placed, not as in the high-Priests hall, to be mocked and derided and blasphemed, but as in his throne, in his heaven, where he dispenseth his light, his joy, his glory, such glory as no Elequence is equal to, no language can express, not S. Paul himself, who was caught up into Paradise, and tasted the sweetness of it, but telleth us no more than this, that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Cor. 12.4. the words were unspeakable words, words which it was not possible for a man to utter. Which was in effect to tell us he did feel, but could not tell us what it was. And thus to taste Christ is to remember him. And first, this taketh in our Faith. I do not mean a dead and unactive faith: For that leaveth us dead and buried in a land of Oblivion, never looking upon Christ or his benefits, not gathering any strength or virtue from him, no more considering this our Highpriest then if he had never offered himself, never satisfied, never been. But I mean a faith that worketh by love, a faith that followeth Christ through every period and stage and passage of his blessed oeconomy; a faith that is a disciple, and followeth him whithersoever he goeth, looketh upon him in time of prosperity, and clotheth him in the days of affliction, forgetteth them, remembering him; in injuries, and forgiveth them; in death itself, and maketh him our Resurrection; maketh us one with him, that we cannot think or speak or move, that we cannot live, nor die, without him. Now the time of receiving the Sacrament, of receiving these pledges of Christ's Love, and these pledges of our Faith, is the time of actuating and quickening and increasing our Faith, that it may be more apprehensive, more opperative, more lively, that it may even spring in our hearts at the mention of Christ, at this representation of his Body and Blood, Luke 1.48. as the babe did in Elisabeths' womb at the Virgin Mary's salutation. For our Faith, as it may have its increasings and improvements, so it may have its decreasings and failings. It may be weakened by the daily incursions which the World and the Devil make upon it, by presenting objects of terror to daunt and enfeeble it, objects of delight to slumber and charm it. It may be weakened by the daily avocations and common actions of our life, that we may not cleave so close unto Christ, not eye him with that intention, not love him with that fervour, not obey him with that cheerfulness which we should, but be in a disposition ready to fall off, and let go our hold of him. And therefore as we must at all times stir it up and actuate it, so especially in our approaches to the Lords Table. For in this doth our preparation to it, in this doth the benefit and power of the Sacrament, principally consist. Here our Saviour as it were doth again present himself to us, open his wounds, show us his hands and his side, speak to us as he did to Thomas, Reach hither your fingers, John 20.27. and behold my hands; and reach hither your hands, and thrust them into my side. Take, eat; This is my body. And be not faithless, but believing. Here shake off that chillness, that restiveness, that acedie, that weariness, that faintness of your Faith; here warm and actuate and quicken it, that it may be a working, fight, conquering Faith. For thus to do it is to do this in remembrance of Christ. Secondly, It taketh in Repentance. By this we do most truly remember Christ: remember his Birth, and are born again; for Repentance is our new birth: remember his Circumcision, and circumcise our hearts; for Repentance is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great circumcision, saith Epiphanius: go about with him, doing good; for Repentance is our obedience: remember him on his Cross; for Repentance setteth up a Cross in imitation of his, and lifteth us up upon it, stretcheth and dilateth all the powers of our soul, pierceth our hearts, and so crucifieth the flesh and the affections and lucts thereof. Our Repentance, if it be true, is an imitation of Christ's suffering, a revenge upon ourselves for what the Jews did to him, the proper issue and effect of his Love. For what Christ worketh in us he first worketh upon us, maketh us see and feel and handle his Love, that we may be active in those duties of love which by his command and ensample we own to him, and in him to our brethren. He died to be a propitiation for our sins, that is, 1 John 2.2. & 4.10. that he might make sin to cease, for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth. He giveth us strength by Repentance quite to extinguish and abolish sin. Thus if we repent, thus if we do, we do it in remembrance of him. And this we are always to do, but then especially when we prepare ourselves to make our addresses to Christ's Table. For though Repentance be the fruit of a due Examination of ourselves, yet we may and must examine our Repentance itself: And the time to do it is now. Now thou art to renew thy Covenant, thou must also renew thy Repentance. In the feast of the Atonement the Lord telleth his people, Leu. 23.29. Whatsoever soul should not be afflicted that day, should be cut off. This is a day for it, in this day thou must do it: This is the season to ransack thy soul, to see how many grains of Hypocrisy were left behind in thy former Repentance, what hollowness was in thy Groans, what coldness in thy Devotion; to see what advantage Satan hath since taken, what ground he hath won in thy soul. And then in remembrance of Christ's Love set afresh to the work of Mortification; wound thy heart deeper, lay on surer blows, empty thyself of thyself, of all that rust and rubbish which thy Self-love left behind. And then stir up those graces in thee which through inadvertency and carelessness lie raked up as in the ashes. In a word, refine every Virtue, quicken every Grace, intent thy Will, exalt thy Faith, draw nearer to Christ, and so renew thy Covenant, and sit down at his Table. And thus if thou do it, thou dost it in remembrance of him. I might here take in the whole train, the whole circle and crown of Christian graces and virtues, and draw them together, and shut them within the compass of this one word Remembrance; for it will comprehend them all; Knowledge, Obedience, Love, Sincerity, Thankfulness (from whence the Sacrament hath its name, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) Meditation and Prayer. For he that truly believeth and repenteth, as he is sick of sin, so is he sick of Love, of that Love which in the Sacrament is sealed and confirmed to us; he is full of saving knowledge, is ever bowing to Christ's sceptre, is sincere and like himself in all his ways; will meditate on Christ's Love day and night, will drive it ab animo in habitum, as Tertullian speaketh, from the mind to the motions and actions of the body, from the conscience into the outward man, till it appear in liberal hands, in righteous lips; and in attentive ears; will breathe forth nothing but Devotion, Prayers, Hallelujahs, Glory, Honour and Praise for this his Love: And so he will become as the picture and image and face of Christ, reflecting all his favours and graces back upon him; as a pillar engraven with God's loving kindnesses, a memorial of God's goodness thankfully set up for ever. And thus to do it is to do it in remembrance of Christ. To conclude; Thus if we do it, if we thus remember him, he will also remember us, Cant. 8.6. remember us, and set us as seals upon his heart, and signets on his arm, remember us as his peculiar treasure. And as our Remembrance of him taketh up all the duty of a Christian, so doth his Remembrance of us comprehend all the benefits of a Saviour. Our Love of him and his Love to us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Nazian. orat. 17. will be as matter and fuel to nourish and uphold this remembrance between us for ever. We shall remember him in humility and obedience, and he shall remember us in love and power. We shall remember him on earth, and he shall remember us in heaven, and prepare a place for us. He shall remember our affliction, and uphold us; he shall remember our prayers and make them effectual; our alms, and make them a pleasing sacrifice. He shall remember our failings, and settle and establish us; our tears, and turn them into joy. He shall remember all that we do or suffer, all but our sins; those he hath buried in his grave for ever. And now we are drawing near to his Table with fear and reverence, he will remember us, and draw nearer to us in these outward Elements than Superstition can feign him, beyond the fiction of Transubstantiation: Psal. 36.8. He will abundantly satisfy us with the fatness of his house; feed us, though not with his flesh, yet with himself; and move in us, that we may grow up in him. In a word, he will remember us in heaven more truly than we can remember him on earth, and distil his grace and blessings on us, be ever with us, and fill our hearts with rejoicing; Which will be a fair pledge of that solid, pure and everlasting joy in the highest heavens. And, Lord, remember us thus, now thou art in thy Kingdom. The Five and Twentieth SERMON. 1 COR. XI. 26. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show (or, show ye) the Lord's death till he come. THere is nothing so good in itself but it may prove the the worst of evils if it be not carried on to its right end, and fitly applied to that use for which it was ordained. Frustrà est, quod rationem finis non ducit, saith the Philosopher. Every thing hath its use from its end: If it decline from that, it is not only unprofitable but hurtful. I do not warm myself with a plainer, nor smooth a table with fire: for this were not only vain, but would destroy my work. The Arts themselves are not liberal but when they make men so, free and ingenuous. Arithmetic and Geometry are but a kind of Legerdemain, if they teach men only metiri latifundia, & accommodare digitos avaritiae, to measure Lordships, and to tell money. What need we instance in these? The Word of God, which bringeth salvation, may bring death, if it be not received with the meekness of a babe, that we may grow thereby. The Sacrament, the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which hath been magnified too much, and yet cannot be magnified enough, was ordained as Physic to renew and revive and quicken our souls; but if it be not received to that end for which it was first instituted, it is not Physic, but damnation, Non QUID, sed QUEMADMODUM: vers. 29. It is not the bare Doing of a thing, but the Manner of doing it, the driving it on to its right end, which giveth it its full beauty and perfection. A sincere Heart and the Glory of God set the true image of Liberality on the gift of a mite; Attention and Obedience make the Word the savour of life; Humility and Repentance sanctify a fast; and Showing of the death of the Lord maketh us truly partakers of his body and blood. Our Saviour Christ hath fully decided this controversy in a word, and with one breath as it were hath said enough to still the tumults of the disputers, which have been as the raging of the sea, and to settle all the vain and needless controversies of this age; John 6.63. even in this, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The flesh profiteth nothing: it is the Spirit that quickeneth. For to say his flesh profiteth nothing, is a plain declaration that he meant not to give it us to eat. That which is nourishment to the body is not proportioned to the soul; nor will that which reneweth a soul restore the body to a healthful temper. Who would go about to recover a sick man with an Oration of Tully's, or set a joint with an axiom of Philosophy? Who can restore a sick soul with bread and wine, with flesh or blood? Although these two parts, the Soul and the Body, are knit and united rogether, and do sympathise, so as that which refresheth the body doth affect and please the mind, and that which cheereth the mind doth strengthen the body; yet both the parts receive that which is proper to them, the body that which is of a corporeal nature, and the soul that which is spiritual, and both mutually communicate to each other the fruit and benefit of both, without the least confusion of their operations and proprieties: Although we see the actions of the body, as Hunger and Thirst, many times attributed to the soul, and the functions of the soul, as to Will, and the like, to the body. Therefore we must distinguish between the Meritorious cause and the Efficiency and Application of it; which are both jointly necessary, but their manner of operation is divers. It was necessary that the flesh and blood of Christ should be separated from each other in his violent death on the cross, that his most precious blood should be poured out for remission of sins; but to make it a physical potion, to make it nourishment to our souls, it was not necessary that his bodily substance should be taken into ours: For if it should, our Saviout telleth us it would profit nothing. And the reason is plain, Because the merit and virtue of his death, which is without us, is made ours, not by any fleshly conjunction or union with him who merited for us by offering himself, but 1. by his Will, by which he in a manner maketh it over unto us, and 2. by our due receiving of it, which is made complete by our Consent, and Faith, and Giving of thanks, which is the work alone of that Spirit which quickeneth and giveth life. The blessed Virgin did no doubt partake of the merit of Christ, but not because she conceived and bore him nine months in her womb, but in that she conceived him by faith in her heart. Luke 11.27, 28. The womb was blessed that bore him, and the paps that gave him suck: but they rather were blessed who heard his word, and kept it. The Flesh and Blood of Christ doth truly quicken us, as it was offered up for us a sacrifice on the cross, as a meritorious cause, and as he gave it for the salvation of the world: But it doth not quicken by being received into our bodies, but by being received into our souls. His merit was enough to save the whole world; and yet his merit were nothing, if not applied: and that application is not wrought without, but within us, not by the Spirit of life, but by the force and power of his death and passion, the meritorious cause. Rom. 8.2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death. What need we hear stir this Water of life, and turn it into gall and bitterness? Why should this Bread be gravel between our teeth? Why should Christ's love be made the matter of war and contention? It is called the Body and Blood of Christ; and it is called Bread and Cup in my Text: And it is a miserable servitude saith Augustine, signa pro rebus accipere, to take the signs of things for the things themselves, and not to be able to lift up the eye of our mind a-above the corporeal creature to take in eternal light. That we may lift up ours, let us fix it upon the end for which Christ offered his body and blood, and upon the end for which we are to receive the Sacrament and signs of it: And let one end be the measure and rule of the other. Let Christ lifted upon the cross draw us after him, to follow as he leadeth. His body was bruised and his blood shed to purge us from all iniquity, and to make us a peculiar people unto himself: That was Christ's end. And our end must be proportioned to it, So to receive the Sacrament of his body and blood that it may be instrumental to that end. Which cannot be by eating his flesh and blood, that flesh which was crucified, and that blood which was shed. One would think it impossible that any should think our Saviour should command us that which is impossible, or show us a way which cannot lead to the end. Flesh and Blood taken down into the stomach can no more feed and quicken a Soul than it can enter into the Kingdom of heaven: But his Obedience, his Humility, his Cross and Passion, his meritorious Suffering and Satisfaction, these have power and influence on the Soul: These are here presented to us, as Manna, and better than Manna: and if we take them down and digest them, they will turn into good blood, and feed us to eternal life. His Body and Blood were thus given, and thus we must receive them. Our Saviour calleth it his Body, and his Blood; and S. Paul calleth it the Bread, and the Cup: Nor is S. Paul contrary to Christ, but determineth and reconcileth all in the end both of Christ's suffering and our receiving, in the words of my Text, As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup ye do show [or, show ye] the Lord's death till he come. In which words the Death of the Lord of life is presented to us, and we called to look up upon him whom our sins have pierced through to behold him wounded for our transgressions, ex cujus latere aqua & sanguis, Isa. 53.5. utriusque lavacri paratura, manavit, as Tertullian; out of whose side came water and blood, to wash and purge us, which make the two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. And the effect of both is our Obedience in life and conversation; that we should serve him with the whole heart who hath bought us at so dear a price; that we should wash off all our spots and stains and foul pollutions in the laver of this Water and the laver of this Blood. And therefore as he offered himself for us on the Cross, so he offereth himself to us in the Sacrament, his Body in the Bread, and his Blood in the Cup, that we may eat and drink and feed upon him and taste how gracious he is; Which is the sum and compliment and blessed effect of the duty here in the Text, to show the Lord's death till he come. For he that showeth it not, manducans non manducat, eating doth not, as Ambrose: doth eat the Bread, but not feed on Christ: But he that fully acquitteth himself in this, shall be fed to eternal life. Let us then take the words asunder: And there we find What we are to do, and How long we are to do it; the Duty, and the Continuation of it; the Duty, We must show forth Christ's death; the Continuation of it, We must do it till he come again to judgement. In the Duty we consider first an Object, what it is we must show, the death of the Lord; Secondly, an Act, what it is to show and declare it. The death of the Lord, a sad but comfortable, a bloody but saving spectacle. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to show, a word of as large a compass as Christianity itself. And the duration and continuation of it, till he come, that is, to the end of the world. Of these in their order. The object is in nature first, and first to be handled, the death of the Lord. And this is most proper for us to consider: For by his stripes we are healed, and by his death we live. And in this he hath not only expressed his Love, but made himself an example, that we may take it out, and so show forth his death. First, it is his Love which joined these two words together, Death and the Lord, which are farther removed than Heaven is from the Earth. For can the Lord of life die? Yes: Amor de coelo demisit Dominum; That Love which brought him down from his throne to his footstool, that united the Godhead and Manhood in one Person, hath also made these two terms, Death and the Lord, compatible, and fastened the Son of God to the Cross; hath expressed itself not only in Beneficence but also in Patience, not only in Power but also in Humility, and is most lively and visible in his Death, the true authentic instrument of his Love. He that is our Steward to provide for us, who supplieth us out of his rich treasur●, who ripeneth the fruit on the trees and the corn in the fields, who draweth us wine out of the vine, and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and the fleece of the flock, will also empty himself, and pour forth his blood: He who giveth us balm for our bodies, will give us physic for our souls, will give up his ghost to give us breath and life. And here his love is in its Zenith and vertical point, and in a direct line casteth the rays of comfort on his lost creature. This Lord cometh not naked, but clothed with blessings; cometh not empty, but with the rich treasuries of heaven; cometh not alone, but with troops of Angels, with troops of promises and blessings. Bonitas foecunda sui; Goodness is fruitful and generative of itself, gaineth by spending itself, swelleth by overflowing, and is increased by profusion. When she poureth forth herself and breatheth forth that sweet exhalation, she conveyeth it not poor and naked and solitary, but with a troop and authority, with ornament and pomp. For Love bringeth with it whatsoever Goodness can imagine, munera & officia, gifts and offices; doth not only give us the Lord, but giveth us his sufferings, his passion, his death; not only his death, but the virtue and power of it, to raise us from the lethargy and death of Sin, that we may be quick and active to show and express it in ourselves. Olim morbo, nunc remedio laboramus; The remedy is so wonderful, it confoundeth the patiented, and maketh health itself appear but fabulous. Shall the Lord of Life die? why may not Man, whose breath is in his nostrils, be immortal? Yes: he shall; and for this reason, Because it pleased the Lord of Life to die. We need not adopt one in his place, or substitute a creature, a phantasm, as did Arius and Martion, in his office: For he took our sins, and he will take the office himself, Isa. 63.3. he will tread the wine press alone, and will admit none with him. Nor doth this Humility impair his Majesty, but rather exalt it. Though he die, yet he is the Lord still. The Father will tell us that they who denied this for fear were worse than those who denied it out of stomach, and the pretence of his honour is more dangerous than perverseness. For this is to confine and limit this Lord, to shorten his hand, palos terminales figere, to set up bounds and limits against his infinite Love and absolute Will, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to shape and frame him out to their own fancy, and indeed to blaspheme him with reverence; to take from him his heavenly power, and put into his hand a sceptre of reed. His Love and his Will quiet all jealousies and answer all argument's whatsoeever. It was his will to die: and he that resteth in God's Will doth best acknowledge his Majesty. For all, even Majesty itself, doth vail to his Will, and is commanded by it. What? the Lord of life, equal to the Father, by whom all things were made, shall he die? Yes: quia voluit, because he would. For as at the Creation he might have made Man, as he made other creatures, by his Word alone, yet would not, but wrought him out of the clay and fashioned him with his own hands; so in the great work of our Redemption he did not send an Angel, one of the Seraphim or Cherubin, or any finite creature, which he might have done; but at the word's speaking He crieth, Lo, I come to do it myself. Look upon this object of Majesty and Humility yet once again, and see the power and omnipotency of his Love. In this laying down his life for us he was pleased to give a price infinitely above the merchandise, and, as in the world some buyers are wont to do, to buy his own affection to us, to pay down not a talon for a talon, but a talon for a mite, Himself for a worm, and his Love for the world? nay, by his infinite Love to bond as it were his infinite Power, his infinite Wisdom and his illimited Will. For here his Power, Wisdom and Will find a NON ULTRA, and are at the furthest. He cannot do, He cannot find out, He cannot wish for us more than he hath done; then, being equal with God, to take upon him the form of a servant, and in that form to humble himself to the death of the cross. How should this spectacle of Love and Power, of Majesty and Humility, affect and ravish our souls! How should this fire of Love, these everlasting burn, kindled in our flesh, inflame us! That benefit is great which preventeth our prayers; That is greater which is above our hope; That is greatest which pre-occupateth and forestalleth our desires: But what is that which over-runneth our opinion, and even swalloweth it up in victory! Had not he revealed his will, and told us he would die, we could not have desired it but our prayers had been turned into sin, our hope had been madness, and our opinion impiety. All that we can say is, that it was his infinite Love: And his Love defendeth his Majesty, and exalteth the Humility of his Cross, and maketh it as glorious as his Throne. For when he was fastened to it, when he died, it was his Throne, and from it he threw down Principalities and Powers, and Sin, and Death itself. Love hath this privilege, that it cannot be defamed. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Plato: By a kind of law it hath the prerogative of Honour, and maketh Bondage free, Disgrace honourable, Infirmity omnipotent, Death life; it worketh a harmony out of these two inconsistent terms, Death and the Lord, which is the joy of the whole earth. Thus is Christ's Death made a spectacle unto us, and his Love bespeaketh us to behold it; and there neede●h no other Orator to persuade us. For where Love is denied, the tongues of Men and of Angels are but as a tinkling cymbal. But this is not all; For, In the second place, Christ hangeth not on the cross only as a sacrifice: That every eye is willing to behold, even the eye of flesh, the eye that is full of adulteries: But he standeth there as an Ensample to us of Humility, Patience, Obedience, Love. This Altar hath an inscription, TOLLITE CRUCEM, Take up your cross, and follow me. Not an Ensample alone: that cometh too short: Nor a Sacrifice alone: for shall he be offered up for those who deny him? Not an Ensample alone: For flesh and blood may follow him, but never overtake him, no not in those ways which he marked out with his blood, of Obedience and Love. Nor Satisfaction alone: For how can he satisfy for those who will be in evil what he is in good, yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever? 1 Pet. 2.21. Christ suffered for us, saith S. Peter, leaving us an ensample, that we should follow his steps, Can an humble Saviour be a sacrifice for the proud? Can a meek Saviour die for a revenger? Can a poor Christ give himself for him who will neither cloth nor feed him? Can he in whom there was found no guile, plead for him who is full of deceit? Can a Lamb be a sacrifice for a Fox, a Wolf, or a Lion? He is sacrificed; and all is done on his part: There is a CONSUMMATUM EST, It is finished: But our Obedience is not shut up in that, but beginneth where Christ's did end, and by the power and force of his Love must be carried on in an even and constant course unto our Consummatum est, till we end. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, We have redemption, Ephes. 1.7. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a pattern, Jussit fieri qui fecit. He sacrificed himself for us, 1 Tim. 1.16. that we might offer ourselves a lively sacrifice to the lord Jesus Christ is a pattern to them who shall believe on him to life everlasting. We dare not say, with some, that Christ came into the world non ad satisfactionem, sed exemplum; not to satisfy at all, but to direct us by his example in the ways of life; not to pay down our debts, but to teach us an art of thrift, to be able to pay them ourselves: But most true it is, if we make him not an ensample, he will not be a sacrifice, nor will there remain any sacrifice for sin. God forbidden that our Malice should shelter itself in his Love, that his Meekness should be a buckler for our Revenge, that his Righteousness should shadow our Unrighteousness, that all our Obedience should be lost in his Sacrifice; that because he suffered so much to lead us the way, we should take the less care to follow after him; that by the Gospel, as by the Law, Sin should revive; that the Law should convince the conscience, and the Gospel flatter it; that the Law should affright sinners, and Christ encourage them; that the Cross of Christ, which is a School of virtue, should be made a Sanctuary for wilful offenders; that Christ should nail the handwriting against us to his cross, and then let fall a Dispensation from all righteousness, and make it less necessary for us to observe so strictly the moral Law; that this ease and benefit should accrue to Christians by the death of Christ, that we may be more indulgent to ourselves, do what we list, Pardon lying so near at hand; that we should destroy ourselves, because he is a Jesus; pollute ourselves, because he is Christ to anoint us; be more rebellious, because he is our Lord; and live in sin, because he died for it. A conceit so unreasonable that even common reason abhorreth it. Had our Saviour given up his ghost, and left no precept behind him; had his Apostle been silent, and said no more but that he died for our sins, the weakest understanding might easily draw out this conclusion, that we are to forsake them. For why should he die for that which he was willing should survive? Or who would lay his axe to the root of the tree, and not cu● it down to the ground? And yet as gross a conceit as it is, we open our hearts to receive it: And it is summus seculi reatus, the great guilt of the age, the pit out of which locusts swarm which are as scorpions to bring evil on the earth. Were it not for this Physic, men would not be so sick; were it not for hope of reconciliation, men would not dare so oft to offend: and (which is most strange) had not Christ so loved us, we had not persecuted him; had he not been a sacrifice, we had been more willing to have made him an ensample. For we hope his Love, that nailed him to the cross, will be ready to meet and secure and embrace us in any posture, in any temper whatsoever, though we come towards him clothed with vengeance, Zeph. 1.8. in anger and fury, with strange apparel, in wantonness and lust, polluted and spotted with the world. Thus doth the sophistry of our Sensual part prevail against the demonstrations of Reason, which doth bring Christ in as dead for our sins, but withal as a Lord to help us to destroy Sin by the power of his death. For both these are friendly linked together in the Lord's Death, his Love and his Ensample. Et magnum nobis quàm parvo constat exemplum! And this great example how little doth it cost us! Not to be spit upon and buffeted and crucified, not to suffer and die: It is no more than this, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to show it forth in ourselves till he come; Which is the Act here required, and my next Part. And this we must do if we will be fitted for this Feast, and be welcome guests at the Lord's Table. Divines have told us of a threefold manner of feeding on the flesh of Christ; a Sacramental alone, a Spiritual alone, and a Sacramental and Spiritual both: Which distinction may not be rejected if it be rightly understood. 1. They that come to this Table and receive the Sacrament without faith and devotion, may be said indeed to eat the Body of Christ, (as that name is usually given to the Sacrament and sign; and the Sacrament of the body of Christ after a manner is the Body of Christ) and yet that of S. Augustine is true. He that showeth not forth his death eateth not his flesh; but is guilty of the body and blood of Christ; a Communicant, and no Communicant; an enemy, and not a guest; fitter to be dragged to the bar then to be placed at his Table. And what a morsel is that with which we take down Death and the Devil together? 2. Some there be whom not contempt and neglect, but necessity, the great patroness of humane infirmity, keepeth from the Lord's Table and Sacrament; and yet they show his death, look up upon his cross, draw it out in their heart in bleeding characters, apply it by faith, and make it their meditation day and night: And these, though they feed not on him Sacramentally, yet spiritually are partakers of his body and blood, and so made heirs of salvation, though they eat not this bread nor drink of this cup. For what cannot be done cannot bind. Some Actions are counted as done, though they be never brought forth into act. If the heart be ready, though the tongue be silent, as a viol on the wall, yet we sing and give praise. Persecution may shut up the Church-doors, yet I may love the place where God's honour dwelleth. Persecution may seal up the Priest's lips, shut me up in prison, and feed me with no other bread then that of affliction; yet even in the lowest dungeon I may feed on this Bread of life: I may be valiant, and not strike a blow: I may be liberal, and not give a mite; hospital, when I have not a hole to hid my head in. He that taketh my purse from me doth not rob me of my piety; he that sequestereth my estate, yet leaveth me my charity; and he that debarreth me the Table, cannot keep me from Christ. As I told you out of Ambrose, Manducans non manducat; I may eat the Bread, and not be partaker of the Body: so Non Manducans manducat, Though I take not down the outward elements, yet I may feed on Christ. But happy, yea thrice happy, is their condition who can do both; so receive panem Domini, the Lord's bread, that they may receive also pane 〈◊〉 Dominum, be partakers of the Lord himself, who is the Bread of life. Blessed is he that thus eateth Bread with him at his Table: For he feedeth on him Sacramentally and spiritually both: Here he findeth those gracious advantages, his Faith actuated, his Hope exalted, his Charity dilated, the Covenant renewed, the Promises and Love of Christ sealed and ratified to him with his blood. And this we shall do, this comfort and joy we shall find, even a new heaven in our souls, if we show, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, preach and publish, his death. Which we may look upon at first as a duty of quick dispatch; but if we look upon it again, & well weigh and consider it, we shall find that it calleth for and requireth our greatest care and industry. For it is not to turn the story of Christ's passion into a Tragedy, to make a scenical representation of his death, with all the art and colours of Rhetoric to declaim against the Jews malice or Judas' treason or Pilat's in justice; but rather to declaim & preach against ourselves, to hate and abhor & crucify ourselves Nos, nos homicidae; We, we alone are the murderers. Our Treachery was the Judas that betrayed him; our Malice, the Jew which accused him; our Perjury, the false witness against him; our Injustice, the that condemned him. Our Pride scorned him, our Envy grinned at him, our Luxury spit upon him, our Covetousness sold him. Our corrupt blood was drawn out of his wounds, our swell pricked with his thorns, our sores lanced with his spear, and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life. This indeed doth show his death: This consideration doth present the Passion, but in a rude and imperfect piece. The death of the Lord is shown almost by every man, and every day. Some show it, but withal show their vanity and make it manifest to all men. Some show it by showing the Cross, by signing themselves with the sign of it. Some to show it, show a Body which cannot be seen, being hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine. Some show their wit instead of Christ's Passion, lift it up, as he was upon the cross, show it with ostentation. Some show their rancour and malice about a feast of Love, and so draw out Christ with the claw of a Devil. Phil. 1.15. Some preach it, as S Paul speaketh, out of envy and strife, and some also of good will. Some preach it, and preach against it. Some draw out Christ's Passion and their Religion together, and all is but a picture, and then sound a trumpet, make a great cry, as the painter who had drawn a Soldier with a sword in his hand, did sound an alarm, that he might seem to fight. But this doth not show the Lord's death, but, as Tertullian speaketh, id negat quod ostendit, denieth what it showeth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to show, to preach, the death of the Lord is more. We may observe that in Scripture words of Command and Duty carry with them more than they show, and have wrapped up in them both the Act and the End, and are of the largest signification in the Spirit's Dictionary. To HEAR, is to Hear, and to Do. To KNOW, is to Know, and to Practice. To BELIEVE, is to Believe, and to Obey. The Schools will tell us, FIDES absque addito in Scriptura formata intelligitur; Where Faith is named in Scripture without some addition, as a dead Faith, a temporary Faith, an hypocritical Faith, there evermore that Faith is commended which worketh by Charity. And so to show, or to preach, the death of the Lord, is more than to Utter it with the tongue and Profess it. For thus Judas might show it, as well as Peter: thus the Jews might show it, that crucified him: Thus the profane person, that crucifieth him every day, may show it. Yea, Christ's death may be the common subject for discourse, and the language of the whole world. Therefore our showing must look farther, even to the end. For what is Hearing without Doing? What is Knowledge without Practice? What is Faith without Chari●y? What is showing the death of the Lord, if we do it not to that end for which he did die? Our hearing is but the sensuality of the ear; our Knowledge, but an empty speculation; our Faith, but fancy; and our showing the death of the Lord, a kind of nailing him again to the cross. For to draw his picture in our ear or mind, to character him out in our words, and yet fight against him, is to put him to shame. We must then understand ourselves when we speak to God as we understand God when he speaketh to us, and in the same manner we must show him to himself and the world as he is pleased to show and manifest himself unto us. Christ did not present us with a picture, with a phantasm, with a bare show and appearance, of suffering for us: Nor must we present him with shadows and shows. And what is God's showing himself? Psal. 80. Thou that sittest between the Cherubims show thyself, saith the Psalmist; shine thou clearly, to our comfort, and to the terror of our enemies. God manifesteth his Power, and breaketh the Cedars of Libanus. He maketh known his Wisdom, and teacheth the children of men. He publisheth his Love, and filleth us with good things. His Words are his blessings, and his demonstrations in glory. He speaketh to us by peace, and shadoweth us by plenty, and our garners are full. And see how the creature echoeth back again to him! The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth [welleth out] speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. God's language is Power; God's language is Love; and God's language is Hope. God planted a vineyard, Isa. 5. that expresseth his Power: and built a tower in it, and made a wine-press therein; there is his Love: and he looked for grapes; there Hope speaketh: for he that planteth, planteth in hope. He spoke by his Prophets, he spoke by his judgements, and he spoke by his mercies; but still he spoke in hope: for he doth neither shine nor thunder but in hope. This is the heavenly dialect: and we must take it out. We must not speak as one that beggeth on a stage, but as he that beggeth on the high way, naked and cold and pinched with hunger. Verba in opera vertenda: By a religious Alchemy we must turn words into works, and when God speaketh to us by his Prophets, answer him by our obedience; when he speaketh to us in Love, give him our hearts; and when he looketh for grapes, be full of good works. This is Christ's own dialect, and he best understandeth it, and his reply is a reward: But from shows and words he turneth away his ears, and will not hear; that is, (for still in God's language more is understood then spoke) he will bring us to judgement. And now we see what it is to show the death of the Lord; not to draw it out in our imagination, or to speak it with the tongue, but to express the power and virtue of it in ourselves, to labour and travel in birth till Christ be fully form in us, till all Christian virtues, which are as the spirits of his blood, be quick and operative in us, till we be made perfect to every good work. And thus we show his death by our Faith. For Faith, if it be not dead, will speak, and make itself known to all the world; speak to the naked, and cloth him; to the hungry, and feed him; to those who err and are in darkness, and shine upon them. This is the dialect of Faith. But if the cold frost of temptations, as S. Gregory speaketh, hath so niped it that it is grown chill and cold, and can speak but faintly; if we have talked so long of Faith till we have left her speechless; if she speak, but imperfectly and in broken language, now by a drop of water, and now by a mite; and then silent; show the death of Christ only in some rare and slender performance; behold, this is your hour, and the power of light; this your time of receiving the Sacrament is the time to actuate and quicken your Faith, to make it more apprehensive, more operative, more lively, to give it a tongue, that it may show and preach the wonderful works of the Lord. And as we show the Lord's death by our Faith, so we show it by our Hope; which, if it be that Hope which purifieth the heart, will awake our glory, the Tongue. If it be well built and underpropped with Charity, it will speak, and cry, and complain. And the language is the same with that of the souls under the Altar. How long, Lord? Rev. 6. How long shall the Flesh fight against the Spirit? How long shall we struggle with temptations? When wilt thou deliver us from this body of death? When shall we appear in the presence of our God? Though we fall, we shall rise again. Though we are shaken, we shall not be overthrown. Though thou killest us, yet we will trust in thee. This is the dialect of Hope. And here at this Table we must learn to speak out, to speak it more plainly, to raise and exalt it to a Confidence; which is the loudest report it can make. Thirdly, we show and preach the Lord's death by our Love; Which is but the echo of his Love. And we speak it fully, as he doth to us; fill up the sentence, and leave not out a word; make it manifest in the equality and universality of our obedience, as he offered up himself a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for us. Quicquid propter Deum fit, aequaliter fit. Our love to Christ must be equal, and like himself; not meet him at Church, and run from him in the streets; not embrace him in a Sermon, and throw him from us in our conversation; not flatter him with a penny, and grind him with our oppression; not build him a tabernacle in his glory, and deny him at his cross. No: Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua, Josh. 1. Whatsoever he commandeth, it will do; and whithersoever he leadeth, it will go, against powers and principalities, against tribulation and persecution, against the power of darkness and the Devil himself. This is the dialect of Love. And if Love wax cold, that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue, here is the Altar, and from it thou mayst take a live coal to touch it, that it may revive and burn within thee. And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame. If this work not a miracle in us, and dispossess us of the dumb spirit, it is because of our unbelief. Again, we show the Lord's death by our Repentance, which speaketh in groans and sighs unutterable. When we die to sin, we than best show the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours, and his agony in our struggling and contention with ourselves. His complaints are heard in ours, and are the very same, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We are lifted up as it were on a cross, the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated, our hearts are pierced, our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth, and, when all is finished, will give up the ghost. And then when we rise to newness of life, it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth. A penitent sinner is the best show of, the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour. And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Blood our wounds must needs bleed afresh, our Anger be more hot, our Indignation higher, our Revenge more bitter, and our Complaints louder. Here we shall repent of our Repentance itself, that it is not so serious, so true, so universal as it should be. Here our wounds, as David speaketh, will corrupt and putrefy: But the blood of Christ is a precious balm to cure them. Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints, take away our sorrow, and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption. Last of all, we must show the Lord's death with Reverence. With Reverence? why, the Angels desire to look into it, Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it; and shall not Dust and ashes, sinning, dying men, fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death, which is Sin, and swallowed up Death itself in victory? Let us then show the Lord's death with fear, and rejoice with trembling. By Reverence I do not mean that vain, unnecessary, apologizing Reverence, which withdraweth us from this Table, and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks, because we have made ourselves unworthy to go to our Father's house; a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin, begot of Sin, and multiplying Sin; the Reverence of Adam behind the bush, who was afraid and hid himself, unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him; a Reverence struck out of these two, Conscience of sin, and Unwillingness to forsake it. And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician, maketh the wounded afraid of balm, and a sinner run from his Saviour? This Reverence we must tread under foot, with the mother that bore it, and dash it against the Rock, the Rock Christ Jesus. First be reverend, and sin no more; and then make our approaches to Christ with reverence. Show our death to sin, that we may show the death of the Lord for it. First leave our sin behind us, and then draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith. When, as Job speaketh, we are afraid of all our works; of our Faith, that it is but weak, and call to him to strengthen it; of our Love, that it is not hot enough, and then stir it up; of our Hope, that it is but feeble, and then feed it with the blood of Christ; of our Sorrow, that it is not great enough, and then drop a tear; of our Repentance, that it is not sincere enough, and then smite our hearts; look upon the wounds of Christ, and then rip up our own, that they may open and take in his blood; when we are afraid of our Reverence, that it is not low enough, and then lay the cross of Christ upon it, all the benefits of a Saviour, and our own sins, to press it down lower, and make him more glorious, and us more vile in our own eyes: When we have thus washed our hands in innocence, and our souls in the blood of the immaculate Lamb, than Faith will quicken us, and Hope embolden us, and Love encourage us, and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar. For these are operative, and will evaporate, will break thy heart, humble thy look, cast down thy countenance, bow thy knee, and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat, the Table of the Lord. Thus if we show his Death, he will show himself to us a Lord and a Saviour, he will show us his hands and his side, he will show his wounds and his blood; the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls, and water and refresh them; and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre, with great joy, even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Six and Twentieth SERMON. 1 COR. XI. 28. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian, whether Moral or Ceremonial, there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Clemens. Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise, and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves. Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties, or else we shall come short in the performance of them, so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone. Eccl. 5.1. It is good to go up to the house of the Lord, but we must first keep our feet, subdue our foul and irregular affections. It is good to offer sacrifice, but we must first cleanse our hands, or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools. It is good to give alms with our right hand, but so that our left hand know it not. It is good to pray, but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets. It is good to fast, but without a disfigured face. In all our approaches to God we must keep our feet, walk forward with reverence and preparation: for the place is not only holy, but dangerous to stand in. There is danger in giving Alms, danger in a Fast, danger in Prayer: And as there is danger in forbearing, so there is danger also in coming to the Lord's Table. And the reason why we do not perfect every good work, is because we do not reverence it as we should, not gird up our loins and lift up our hearts with that devotion and preparation which is due unto it. We think to Give an alms is but to fling a mite into the treasury; to Fast, but to abstain for a day; to Pray, but to say, Lord hear me; and to show Christ's death till he come, but to sit down at his Table, and eat of his bread, and drink of his cup. But this is to dishonour and undervalue those duties which duly performed would honour and glorify us; This is to be officiperdae in this sense also, to destroy our work before we begin it. For what place can a strict obedience have amongst those thoughts which choke and stifle it? Or what welcome is he like to find at such a Feast that cometh, as the Corinthians did, drunk to the Table? Where the birth is so sudden, so immature, how can it choose but prove abortive? No: He that will offer up his prayers, must offer up more than the calves of his lips: He that will have an open hand, must first have a melting heart: He that will fast, must first feed on himself, eat and work out all the corruption of his heart. Behold, here God hath spread his Table, and invited you to a Feast, to a feast of the Body and Blood of his Son. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come, and take of this Bread of life and Water of life freely. But what? Vers. 18, 19 shall we come as Schismatics or Heretics? Shall we come with pride and malice, with contempt of the Church, and bringing shame to our brethren? Shall we come drunken? This is not to discern the Lord's body, not to discern the Bread which in the Sacrament is to him the Lord's body, from common bread. He that thus cometh, and eateth, and drinketh, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, as guilty as those Jews that crucified him. For this is to put him to open shame, Hebr. 6.6. to count of him no more than as if he had been an Impostor, and so to tread him under foot. Here certainly no caution can be enough, though we look about us, as he speaketh, with a thousand eyes. This consideration should work and imprint in us such a care and solicitude as should severely and impartially weigh what on either side, either fear of danger or hope of advantage, love of a Saviour or terror of a Judge, may suggest: how better than Manna this spiritual refreshment may be, and how it may be turned into poison. This the Corinthians laid not to heart. And on the same pillow of supine negligence and inconsideration do too many Christians at this day lie and sleep: And as men in passion or some sudden amaze cannot have leisure to believe what they feel and suffer, so do they not believe what they cannot but know, or not consider what they believe, which is far worse than to be ignorant. They discern not the Lord's body, mistake the shadow for the substance, rest in the outward act of eating and drinking, look upon nothing but that which is visible in the ceremony, think not on the end to which it tendeth, and so use it not with that spiritual sense and feeling which is answerable to the institution. Therefore against this wilful blindness and ignorance, this supine and profane negligence, doth our Apostle here draw up his whole force and strength to demolish it. He blameth them, and he directeth them; he useth his rod, and he bespeaketh them in the spirit of meekness; and, like a skilful artist, he first openeth and searcheth the wound, and then with a gentle hand, a hand of love, he applieth this sovereign plaster in my Text; To avoid this evil, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of this Bread, and drink of this Cup. The words are plain, and we need not descant upon them, nor labour in dividing of them. Here are two things presented to us; 1. Our Qualification for, and 2. our Admission to the Feast. 1. a Duty, To examine ourselves; 2. a Grant or Privilege, To eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Or 1. our Preparation, and 2. our Welcome. Or 1. our Initiation, and 2. our Consignation. First we must examine ourselves; and then we are received and admitted in Sanctum Sanctorum, into the Holy of Holies, unto the participation of these Mysteries, to eat of this Bread, and to drink of this Cup. Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of this Bread, and drink of this Cup. Examination is in order first, and therefore first to be handled. And this we shall find to be a duty of no quick dispatch, but which requireth care and a curious and diligent observation, whether we look upon it in the generality, or in its particular application and reference to the blessed Sacrament. Examine ourselves? Why, that is assoon done almost as said. We can do it in the twinkling of an eye, some few days before, the eve before, the hour before the time. We think we do it, though we never do it. But if we look nearer on it, we shall find it business enough for our whole life. For to examine ourselves, is to take a true and strict survey of all the passages of our life; to follow our Thoughts, which have wings, and fly in and fly out, bring in and drive out one another; to call to remembrance our Words, which have wings too, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fly from us, but leave an impression and guilt in the soul; and to number our Actions, and weigh them all in the balance of the Sanctuary; to gain a distinct knowledge of our spiritual estate; to read an Anatomy-lecture on ourselves, to anatomize and dissect our Hearts, which are deceitful above all things; to follow Sin in all the Meanders and Labyrinths it maketh, to pluck off its dress, to wash off its paint, to drive it out of the thicket of excuses, and by the light of Scripture to take a full view of ourselves; Psal. 119.59. in a word, to consider our ways, to consider, not to glance upon them, but to look upon them again and again, to look through them, to look steadfastly and with an impartial eye, so to fix our thoughts on them that we may turn our feet unto God's testimonies. And by this course we shall find in what Grace we are defective, with what Sin we are most stained; what is to be mortified and destroyed, and what is to be exalted and improved in us. And to the right performance of this duty there is, I say, great care and diligence required, because we are to deal with ourselves, who are commonly the greatest enemies we have, who are our own seducers, our own deceivers, our own parasites, our own murderers; soon pleasing ourselves, and afraid of that truth which may displease us; receiving the kiss of flattery as a debt, ready to take names and titles which are not due unto us, and never thinking of any change to the better, quia nos optimos credimus, because we believe ourselves to be good in the highest degree. And the reason is plain. For it is not with the soul as with the body, saith Theodoret. The diseases of the body for the most part steal upon us and invade us against our will; but the maladies of our soul are voluntary: Those besiege us, as enemies; but we set open the gates to the other, as to friends. Nor are we so jealous of the one as of the other; which maketh them the less visible, and our search and examination more necessary. Omnem corporis calorem calumniamur; We are jealous and suspicious of the least heat we feel in our bodies, and call it a Fever; we muster up all our forces, we diet ourselves, we ask counsel of the Physician. But sin moveth and reigneth in our hearts, is obeyed and bowed to and served, and yet not seen. Who maketh any provision against Sin? Who seeketh any antidote or preservative against the plague of the heart? We wallow in our own blood as on a bed of roses. Prov. 23.34. We lie down in Sin as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or on the top of a mast, in the greatest danger, and perceive it not. We swill down Sin, and think no more of it then the drunken man, when he hath slept out his wine, thinketh of what he hath spoken or done. Vers. 35. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. The drunkard after his sleep calleth again for his liquor. We are various and manifold in our ways, and every day most unlike ourselves; now lifted up with pride, anon cast down with sorrow; now presuming, anon despairing; now triumphing, anon howling; the same men, but never ourselves; driven on, as by so many contrary winds, into the same gulf of destruction: And all this for want of due and frequent examination of ourselves. For from this proceed, first, Ignorance, secondly, Self-love, thirdly, Pride and Pertinacy, comes & foams ignorantiae, the daughter and nurse of them both: Which carry men blindfold in dark and slippery places, now casting them into the water, and then into the fire, driving them on against every rock and stone of offence, and at last dashing them to pieces. From this, I say, proceedeth, 1. Ignorance, the worst kind of ignorance, ignorance of ourselves, a false persuasion that all is well, because we cannot see what we want. For what though I knew not any truth in Philosophy? What though I knew not many truths in Divinity? What though I knew not the natural causes and events of things, the course of the Sun and the Moon? This ignorance can lay no imputation but on those who profess those Arts. But to be a stranger at home, to draw that curtain which hideth me from myself, to be going with the fool to the stocks when I think I am in the way to honour, to have an host of enemies, a legion of Devils, within me, and entertain them as friends; to be a forward Scholar foris, in the things of this world, and a non-proficient in conclavi, in the closet of my heart; to know all things but those which most nearly concern me, and to study every man but myself, is the grossest and most dangerous Ignorance in the world: not ignorantia purae negationis, an ignorance unavoidable, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an ignorance which proceedeth from a depraved disposition, wrought in us by some sophism and delusion, by a careless and customary embracing of appearances for truths, and catching at shadows whilst we mind not the substance. Whilst we neglect that candle within us, and the light of Scripture, with which we should survey and try our ways, there must needs follow that darkness which will cover the face of the soul, and we must walk in darkness, as S. John speaketh, and not know whither we go. Sometimes Sin clotheth itself with excuses, sometimes with the mantle of Virtue itself. Every sin is a little sin, a sin of infirmity, a sin with half a will, compensativum peccatum, a sin to a good end, which will expiate the sin, and make it a virtue. We sin, and know it not; or we know it, but will not understand it. And at last the heaven is black with clouds, and it is night with us, and we see no sin at all. Frenzy is zeal, because it is like it; Faction is Christian animosity, because it resembleth it; Sacrilege is true devotion, because it cometh with a bosom to sweep away those things which Superstition hath abused; and whatsoever the Devil's claw doth, is done in nomine Dei, in the name of the Lord of hosts. In this night of Ignorance we cannot do the thing that is right, because we cannot see ourselves; but even these palliations and excuses, which aggravate our guilt, are made current and authentic, and taken for virtues. For, In the second place, from this root of bitterness springeth up that noisome and venomous weed of Self-love, which spoileth us of all our crop and harvest, making our heaven as brass, and our earth as iron, our intellectuals stupid, and our wills perverse, so that we become deaf to the Truth and to the wisest charmer, and will sooner hearken to a false Prophet, that will become our Advocate, and plead for us, and acquit us, then to seven, nay seventy times seven, men who can render a reason. Prov. 26.16. Caro quotidianis adulationum cuneis appetit constipari, saith Gregory; Flesh and blood could not subsist, nor stand out against the Spirit of God and the power of the Gospel, if it were not compassed about and shadowed with troops of such flatteries as these, of pleasing but false comforts, which at last will fail, and never lead us into everlasting habitations. I charge you, O you daughters of Jerusalem, O ye Prophets of the Lord, that you stir not up nor awake this Self-love till she please. There is no millstone nor adamant more unyielding to the stroke of the hammer then the heart of man once possessed with love of itself. Do you check it? It will revile you. Do you prophesy evil unto it? It will imprison you. Do you condemn it? It will murder you. Do you bring a trumpet? A whisper is too loud. Do you speak of danger? Security is its cushion, and it resteth and sleepeth upon it, and dreameth of Paradise in the very chambers of Death. 2 Tim. 3.1. Our blessed Apostle S. Paul foresaw this, and prophesied of such perilous times; and, but that I love not to speak evil of the times, I should say these were they; wherein men should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lovers of themselves; that is, blind to themselves, ignorant of themselves. And then what an Iliad, what an army of evils follow, whilst Self-love leadeth in the front? First, Lovers of their own selves, and then Covetous, Boasters, Proud, Blasphemers, Disobedient to parents, Unthankful, Unholy, Without natural affection, Truce-breakers, False-accusers, Incontinent, Fierce, Despisers of those that are good, Traitors, Heady, , Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. And take that which followeth, Having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it. And indeed Self-love contenteth itself with a form, but will never lead us on so far as to the expression of the power of Godliness. Glorious shows, fair pretences, holy intentions, probable excuses, which all make up but the statue and image of Religion, these Pygmalion-like she doteth upon, and so runneth on in the course of sin as a blind horse doth with a mill, from hypocrisy to deceit, from deceit to oppression, from worse to worse, and at last sooth falleth in love with them as if they were virtues indeed which will crown us everlastingly, hiding us from our own eyes, and making that the best argument we have, that God seethe us not. For if the knowledge of God did enlighten us and were in us of a truth, if we could beg but so much time from our Self-love as to look into ourselves, we should then quickly see the Devil in his own shape and likeness, and every vice in its proper horror and deformity. And such an uncouth and ghastly sight would soon turn our melody into lamentations, change our countenance, lose our joints, and turn our love of ourselves into hatred and detestation; which is truly the Love of ourselves, or a fair step and rise unto it. For Self-examination would drive out Self-love, and by drawing us near unto ourselves would draw us near unto God. And were we once near unto God, we, who are those great ones in our own eyes, would appear but as atoms, as nothing. In the night, when the Stars are remote from the Sun, we may then discern one star of this magnitude, and another of that; then, as the Apostle speaketh, one star differeth from another in glory: but in the day, when they are in the same hemisphere with the Sun, then that which before was a bright and twinkling star is not seen; and though one Star be greater than another, yet we cannot by our eye discover whether there be any Star or no. So it falleth out in that dark night which Ignorance and Self-love make, we shine as stars in the firmament, and our very darkness is brighter to us then the light itself: but when we have chased away this mist and cast off this darkness by a sad and serious discussion of ourselves, when we draw near unto God, and by reflection of light from him see every nook and corner of our hearts, when the Sun of righteousness thus appeareth in our hemisphere, then that which was before a star is nothing; that which was beauty in the dark, in this day is rottenness and deformity; these Stars are fallen from their firmament, from their painted heaven made up of Pleasure and Profit and the Love of ourselves. De coelo descindit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This light descendeth from above, from the Father of lights. And till by this light we see ourselves in our own shape and likeness, and every sin in its proper magnitude and malignity, we know neither God nor ourselves; but we love ourselves, and not God; which is indeed, if Wisdom may interpret it, Prov. 8.36. to love Death itself. Now in the third place, as Ignorance begetteth Self-love, so doth Self-love increase our Ignorance, and both together engender Pride. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, doth soon bring in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, haughtiness of mind. And haughtiness of mind setteth us in our altitudes, at a strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above the Law, above the Truth, above wholesome Doctrine, above those who are set over us in the Lord, and above God himself: A sin that threw down Lucifer from heaven, and every day excommunicateth and divideth us from ourselves, that despiseth counsel, hateth reproof, is death to admonition, maketh the Flesh tutor and counsellor to the Spirit, and every man a parasite and a Devil to himself. Therefore, saith the same Father, every sin is a kind of contumelious pride. The injurious person lifteth up himself against Justice; the incontinent man, against Chastity, and laugheth at that strictness which maketh a covenant with the eye; the profane person smileth at reverence; in a word, the fool looketh big upon the wise. For, as the Physicians tell us of their succedanea and agnata, certain distempers which commonly follow the disease, and are the very dregs of it; so where this pestilent contagion of Pride hath once infected the soul of man and the powers of it, there must needs follow a strange kind of dyscrasy and distemper, even all the sins we are obnoxious to, which are nothing else but the consectaries as it were of this foul and venomous humour, all of the same blood and consanguineous with it. All those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as S. Paul calleth them, those wand'ring notions and strong imaginations, are the vapours of a heart corrupted with Pride; So are those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, disputes and subtle reasonings against God and our own souls, Syllogismi verè destructivi, destructive Syllogisms; where Pride and Disobedience make up the Premises, and both naturally meet with Death and Hell in the Conclusion. Now these three, Self-love, Ignorance of ourselves, and Pride, take us from ourselves, bury us alive, and make us but the walking sepulchers of ourselves. For he that thus loveth himself, flattereth himself, and with his flatteries covereth and raketh up himself as under earth: And he that knoweth not himself, is in the house of darkness and the land of oblivion: And he that is proud, when he is at the highest, is falling into the lowest pit, nay he is fallen already, and his own eye shall never see him any more, or, if he be above ground, he is but like those dead carcases which they say the Devil taketh, and walketh up and down with. Certainly he that is possessed with these three is lost, is dead, is buried to himself, and nothing can dispossess him, or raise him from the dead, but an impartial Examination of himself, which will shake the powers of this grave, and raise him from this pit of darkness and desolation. For the Philosopher Seneca could tell us, Non emendabis te, nisi deprehenderis; Thou shalt never be able to amend thyself, till thou find thyself out; and thou shalt never find out thyself, unless thou seek and search with diligence. This is a grave of thine own digging, and thou must go down thyself into it, and discover thine own rottenness and corruption, before thou canst be delivered from this body of death. Nor is it enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to stoop and look into it, as Peter and John did into our Saviour's: For quoth ferè fit, non fit; A perfunctory and flight examination is none at all; and that which is but almost done, is not done. No. Scelera propiùs admovet; Thou must draw thy sin nearer and nearer unto thee, that it may appear in its full horror, without its dress and paint, that monster which it is, that thou mayest revile and destroy it. When the Patriarches had sold their brother Joseph into Egypt, for ten years' space and above they saw it not to be a sin, or at such a distance that it never troubled them: but when affliction drew it nearer to them, they then cried, Guilty; We are verily guilty, said they, of our bother's blood. How still and quiet are the most crying sins, because we will not hearken to them? and what a Nothing is the greatest sin, because we will not look steadfastly upon it? Nor is it enough to look upon it thyself with distaste, as upon a loathsome and stinking carcase; for Sin cannot but work some distaste if it be looked upon: But thou must try it by all the kill circumstances which made it a sin, and made it more sinful, that Contrariety it beareth to God and his purity, that huge Incongruity it carrieth to that image after which thou wert created, that Opposition it standeth into a most just Law so fitted and proportioned to thee, and that sting it hath, nay, that Sting it is: for it is the very sting of Death. And then if thou groan in the spirit, and trouble thyself, as thy Saviour did at Lazarus' tomb, if thou cry loud unto the Lord, and send up strong groans and supplications, this Lazarus, this dead sinner, will come forth. And this thou must do in every sin; Find it out, and so find out and deprehend thyself: Not only those grosser sins, which are open, as the Apostle speaketh, and manifest to all men, and carry shame in their very foreheads; as Adultery, Drunkenness, Murder, quae suâ se corpulentiâ produnt, which betray themselves by their bulk and corpulency, which are like those rocks that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, eminent in sight above the waters: But those sins also which are as rocks covered with waves, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, close and invisible; as Malice, Revenge, Ambition, Love of the world, Evil thoughts, Lose desires, which are of a closer and more retired nature, and so much the more dangerous by how much they are the less sensible; even all those speculative sins which are acted within the compass of the heart, and which no man can see; and as they are espied by none, so neither can they be restrained by any but ourselves. Those grosser sins, which commonly disturb and break the peace of that Commonwealth whereof we are a part, outward Laws, and the authority of those who are set over us, may cut down, as the Angel did the branches and the body of the Tree, Dan. 4. but we may bind the stump and preserve it in our hearts. For to grub up the root, to rectify the heart, to take away speculative and secret sins which no other eye can search and find out but our own, this every man after due examination must do himself; every man must be his own Angel. For, In the next place, to draw out the full compass of this Duty, and so give it you in its utmost extent and latitude, this Examination reacheth further than the word in its native signification can import. For To Examine is but To weigh and ponder, To bring thyself and thy actions to a trial, To behold thy own shape, To see what thou art, and in what state and condition, and in what relation towards thy God; To open and spread thy conscience, which S. Augustine calleth stolam animae, the garment of the soul, and observe what is lose and ravelled by negligence; what is stained and defaced by luxury, what is singed by anger, what is cut and mangled by envy, what is sullied by covetousness. This is a good and advantageous work: But then this work must not end in itself; but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, propose the true end, and draw all up to it; which is, To purge the conscience. To supply what is defective, To repair what is defaced, To beautify what is slurred, To complete what is imperfect; which is, to renew ourselves in the inward man. Finis specificat actionem; It is the end that commendeth the action, and giveth it its perfection. Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to prove and examine, here in the Text, the Apostle ver. 31. interpreteth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. What is here to examine, is there to judge, ourselves: Which includeth Repentance, Revenge on ourselves, Tears, and Fasting, and Contrition, and Humiliation, all that severe discipline of Striving and Fight with ourselves, of Denying ourselves, of Demolishing imaginations, and of Crucifying our flesh, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, great Circumcision, of the heart; all this we must pass through before we have brought our Trial and Examination to an end, before we can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, perfect, fit to be received into the presence of God, and admitted to his Table. For what a vain work were it to examine a thief, if we do not judge him? to implead him, and bring witnesses, if, after the bill is found, we proceed not to sentence and condemn him? Or wouldst thou find a thief lurking in a corner of thy house, and not drive him out? Canst thou see a sin rising up in thy soul ready to devour thee, and not drown it with thy tears? behold Oppression, and not strike out its teeth? Adultery, and not stone it? Deceit and Fraud, and not put it to shame? Hast thou found out the Devil in a garment of light, and wilt thou still be a Pharisee? Or again, after a survey, hast thou found thy soul run to ruin and decay, and wilt not thou take pains to repair it? a feeble Faith, and not strengthen it? A wavering Hope, and not uphold and support it? Or canst thou see thy Charity waxing cold, and not stir it up and enliven it? Shall thy House, the Temple of the holy Ghost, fall upon thee, whilst thou standest and lookest on, and at last art sunk and lost in the ruins? This were like that unwise builder, to begin, and not be able to make an end; or, as the custom at feasts was, at the beginning to bring forth good wine, and, when we have well tasted of it, then that which is worse: Which is to make the beginning nothing, nay worse than nothing: For it is the greatest folly in the world to discover an ambush, and yet fall into it; to see an enemy, and not avoid him. The sin groweth greater, if we look upon it, and not run from it. If we behold its ugly threatening countenance, and not bid defiance to it, it becometh that Basilisk which killeth us by being looked upon. Our Examination then must be exact and accurate, a Judgement of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and temper of our soul, an impartial Weighing of all our deeds and actions, till we have rectified what is amiss, and improved and established all that is imperfect and failing. We must try and examine our actions as the Levites did their sacrifices, and not offer them up if there be any blemish on them; that so we may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, prove to ourselves, Rom. 12.2. have a full sense and experience in our own souls, what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. It is true, we must first look into ourselves; and he is too much his own enemy that hath no mind to look upon himself. But what is a look? what is the motion and twinkling of an eye? The labour of the eye is too little from a man on himself, especially when he standeth in an indifferent aspect between two eternities, the one of pain, the other of bliss; or when he is either declining towards the gates of hell, or in a fair approach and forwardness to the holy Hill, Then let him look, and look again. Juvat usque morari. His eye cannot dwell long enough upon himself in either site and position. Then he may look, and hate himself with profit and advantage; look upon himself declining, and with violence pluck himself out of the fire; look upon himself pressing forwards toward the mark, and mend his pace; crucify himself, and then Angelify himself; look and hate, hate and tremble, tremble and amend himself, and by his true repentance seal up the scrutiny, ratify his examination, Eph. 5.10. and so prove what is acceptable to the Lord, and what will make him accepted when he cometh to his Table. The Apostle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reacheth farther, ye see, than a bare Examination of ourselves. We may take a survey of ourselves, and yet remain ourselves. We may see the breaches Sin hath made, and not make them up; see a foul house, and leave it unswept; see the danger we are in, and love it, and perish in it. Who is there almost that sinneth, and seethe it not, even when he will not see it? Who almost sinneth, and feeleth it not, and yet will not feel it? The blood which the Murderer sheddeth stareth in his face, and crieth against him, and yet he thirsteth for more blood. The Adulterer is whipped with the beauty that caught him, and yet he neigheth still, and his eye is full of the adulteress. The rust of the gold and silver, which is the Oppressour's God, witnesseth against him, and will eat out his flesh as fire; yet he coveteth still, and, with the daughters of the Horseleech, crieth, Give, Give. How soon is a sin seen, and how soon doth it vanish out of sight, in a clear day? What a force hath Health, and Power, and Profit, and Prosperity to make the greatest sin invisible, and remove it out of sight? Profit persuadeth, Power commandeth, Prosperity flattereth; and at this Music Conscience falleth asleep; or if she speaketh, is no more heard then if she were dead indeed: her checks and chide are not regarded. To escape a temporal disgrace, we increase our shame, and blush not. To redeem ourselves from a present judgement, we add those sins which fill up our measure full, and fit us for eternity of torment. Thus we may examine ourselves, and yet not know ourselves; see our sins, and not see them. We walk on delicately: The rich Oppressor is just; the cunning Politician, honest; a prosperous villain, a Saint. There is no man but at some time or other seethe his sins, (for Sin cannot hid its horror till we veil it) no man that doth not take some short survey of himself; but then he taketh off his eye to look for refuge and sanctuary, and becometh ten times more the child of the Devil then before. This cometh far short of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, far short of Self examination; Which is not fully accomplished and brought to its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and height till it end in amendment and newness of life. The reason is plain: There is nothing perfect and complete till it hath atteined its end. Frustrà est quod rationem finis non ducit; Every thing that hath its use from its end, if it reach it not, is unprofitable. The Arts are then Liberal, cùm liberos faciunt, saith the Ppilosopher, when they make men free and ingenuous. Wit beareth the reproach of Folly, if it make us not wise. Riches will gather rust, if we make not friends of them. Grace itself will destroy us, if we turn it into wantonness. To see a Sin is to see nothing but Death, if we forsake it not. And to examine ourselves is but to draw up a bill of accusation against ourselves, if we do not in this sense also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, amend and approve ourselves. Then our Examination is exact, when we have seen our pollution, and purged it out; when we have seen the leprosy of our souls, and washed out every spot; when we have seen a weak and decaying soul, enfeebled with lust, shaken with anger, torn and distracted with the love of the world, even sinking to the condition of a damned spirit, seen it, and trembled at it, and then out of these ruins raised up a Temple to the holy Ghost. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to examine and approve ourselves. This is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our preparation, to the Feast. Thus we may approach the Lord's Table, having ransacked the house, and swept it; having seen the plague of our heart, and purged it out; having seen every deformity of the old man, and fled from it, and made ourselves new creatures. For how shall we come to a feast of Love whilst we are in the gall of bitterness? How can we come to the Supper of the Lamb with the teeth of Lions? How can we be partakers of the Lord's Table, and of the Table of Devils? No: it is not a day's, a month's, a year's examination that will fit us for God's presence, and make us welcome guests. For what is it to make a discovery of the enemy, and not conquer him? What is it to see our sins and the horror they carry with them, and yet embrace them? What is it to condemn them with our mouth, and then justify them in our mortal bodies, I mean, the actions of our life? As Luther well said, Optima poenitentia, nova vita, that the best and truest repentance consisteth in newness of life; so is our Examination then complete when we have made good the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in its full extent and sense, when we have tried and approved ourselves, when we have seen and judged and condemned ourselves, and then repaired in ourselves that image of God and goodness which upon a strict survey we saw defaced and almost lost. Let us not please and flatter ourselves in our formalities, in a lazy and unsignificant devotion, cast-down looks, forced sighs, open confessions, some-few day's sequestration of ourselves from the noise and business of the world which we delight in, from those sins which we carry about with us when we seem to leave them, and which we cast a look of love back upon when we renounce them. Be not deceived, God is the purest essence; Heaven and Happiness are realities; the Lord's Table is not a phantasm or apparition, but presenteth that food which will feed and nourish us; all God's promises, gifts and blessings, whatsoever he speaketh, whatsoever he doth, are real, and will not enter the heart which is not like them and fitted for them. These realities are not bought with shows and shadows; this dew from heaven will not fall upon the hairy scalp of him that goeth on still in his sins. A thousand looks and trials are not so effectual as one single victory over one single lust. Examination is but lost labour without amendment. A survey is the extremity of folly, if I look, and search, and see the errors and faults in my spiritual building, and then let it sink and fall to the ground. Realities must be answered with realities. We must be good ground for the good seed: If it fall upon stony places, a look of the Sun will scorch it; and, having no ro●t, it will soon whither away. Not a drop of mercy can fall but into a broken heart. The Sacrament is but the sign of the thing, and yet it conveyeth the thing itself into a prepared heart. For as the Priest consecrateth and setteth apart the Bread and Wine to this holy use, so doth the Receiver after a manner consecrate them to himself, and by complete and perfect Examination and Approving of himself receiveth the outward signs, and with them Christ, and all the riches and glories of the Gospel, all the blessings and comforts it affordeth. This is the true Examination, this is the true preparation. Silent and hearty Devotion receiveth the promises and blessings, sealeth the promises, maketh them blessings; when they withdraw themselves, or rather prove curses to them who fill up their Examination and Trial of themselves with noise and shows. I urge this the rather, because we see some care taken for the one, but the other laid aside and buried in the land of oblivion. We can forbear for a time our common employments, nay our common delights. We can enter our chamber, and commune with our hearts, but leave off before the Dialogue be perfect. We can confess, and fast, and pray, go mournfully and hang down our heads like a bulrush: And all this is requisite and praiseworthy; but all this doth not fill up nor fully express the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, doth not bring our Examination home to its end. The main is a Good Christian & a Just man. The sum and end of all is, Eecl. 12.13 the fear of God, and Obedience to his commandments. Let the bridegroom go out of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet, as the Prophet Joel exhorteth; let us take off our thoughts from lawful contents: but we then approve and prepare ourselves for that mercy of God which shineth in these pledges of his love, & casteth its beams upon us even from these outward Elements, when we sequester ourselves from ourselves. Let the bridegroom go out of his chamber; yea, and let the sinner go out of himself. Let the Blood thirsty man stifle & murder his malice, and crucify his lusts and affections: Let the Covetous rise from the dead, rouse himself from the earth wherein he lieth buried, and tread it under his feet: Let the Proud degrade himself, and make himself equal to them of low degree: Let the Contentious bind himself in the bond of peace: Let the Wanton make himself an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven: Let every man fight against that lust which is predominant and prevaileth in him: And then he hath past and gone through his Trial, he hath duly examined and approved himself, and may eat of this bread, and drink of this cup. This is as that clean linen cloth in which the body of Jesus must be wrapped. It will not lie in noise and shows and shadows, in the thin cobwebs of our own spinning; much less will it abide in a soul torn and distracted, or bespotted with the world and the flesh. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? Isai. 1. saith the Lord. To what purpose is this outward pomp and formality? Why do we send out our thoughts, and fasten them upon these, and not employ them on that which will take them up and exercise them to their utmost extent, and which indeed deserveth our greatest care? These things we ought to do, and not to leave the other undone. Let me tell you; A good Christian is fitted and prepared for the Lord's Table at all times. And accordingly in the first and purest times they did receive almost at every meeting and refreshment. This was their practice till Iniquity broke in, and made Religion a trade and merchandise, to promote men's ends, to fill their purses, not to purify their souls. Nor did they forget that other ceremonious preparation; nor was it possible they should. For he that hath sweat in the heat of the day, will not fail or fall short to perform those offices which may be done in the cool. He that stood out and shown his strength in that great work of mortification, will not shrink in or contract himself, and neglect that part of piety which is more easy, and not so terrible to flesh and blood. He that can deny himself, can deny his affairs. He that flieth from sin, may easily abstain from meat. He that can shut himself out of the world, will find it no hard task to retire for a while from the business of the world. He whose whole life is a seeking of God, or, as the Father speaketh, one continued prayer, cannot but lift up his heart and pour forth his soul in earnest supplications on this solemn occasion. In a word; they are both necessary, the one as the end, the other as the means. We must trouble ourselves in those things: but one thing is necessary indeed, Holiness of life, without which we cannot see God, and with which we shall see him; with which we receive Christ in the Sacrament, and without which we receive but a sop, but bread, and with it the Devil, our own condemnation. The other without this are but the noise of those who cry, Lord, Lord, open unto us, and receive no other answer from him but this, I know you not. This is the main, the chief ingredient, I may say, the very essence, of our Preparation. He is most meet to receive Christ who carrieth him always about with him: but into a froward heart, into a heart filled with nothing but sin and formality, into a hollow heart, he will not enter. The Love of the world cannot receive a poor Christ; The Pride of life cannot receive an humble Christ; The Lust of the flesh cannot receive a chaste Christ. The sinner who confesseth, and crucifieth him, cannot receive him. Those Antichrists cannot receive Christ; no though they knock, and knock again; though they cry, and cry aloud; though they fast, and pray, and sequester themselves at some set times. Then only we are fit to receive him when we are Christiformes, made conformable to him. The humble and obedient heart is his house, his Temple; and he will dwell in it; for he taketh a delight therein. Sequester then yourselves; draw your thoughts, and apply them to this great benefit; fast, and pray, and commune with yourselves: but do not then say, We have done all that thou commandest us: but let all these begin and end in obedience and holiness. Let that be on the top, the chief mark you aim at: Tie it to you as an ornament of grace upon your head, as a chain about your neck, all the days of your life. This will make you fit for Christ, fit to receive his Body and Blood and all the benefits of his Cross, and his love will stream forth in the blood which he shed, and feed and nourish your souls to eternal life. This I conceive to be the full compass of this duty of Examining of ourselves. And as it is necessary at all times, so ought we especielly at this time to use it, when we are to approach the Table of the Lord, to make it our preparation before the receiving of the Sacrament. He that neglected the Passeover was to be cut off from among his people: And he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, without examination of himself, eateth and drinketh his own damnation, because he discerneth not, that is, neglecteth, the Lord's body. Here at this Table thou dost as it were renew thy Covenant; and here thou must renew thy Examination, and see what failings and defects thou hast had, and what diligence thou hast used in keeping of thy Covenant; and bewail the one, and increase and advance the other. Consider whose Body and Blood it is thou art to receive, and in what habitude and relation thou art unto him; and try thy Repentance, thy Faith, thy Charity. For these unite thee to Christ, bring thee so near as to dwell in him, transform thee after his image, and so give thee right and title to him and to all the riches and wisdom which are hidden in him. Examine first your Repentance therefore, Whether it be true and unfeigned, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that circumcision made without hands. Col. 2.11. Whether it be moved and carried on by a true spring, hatred of sin, and love of Christ; Whether it be constant and uniform and universal consisting not in a head hanging down and a heart lifted up, in to-day's sorrow and tomorrow's relapse, in the detestation of idolatry and the love of sacrilege. For this is, as Luther saith, poenitere simul, & non poenitere satis, to repent and not repent, to rise and fall, and fall and rise. This is not to repent, but prevaricate; to forsake our own cause, and promote the Devil's. No: that Repentance which must place us at this Table must devote and consecrate us wholly to him whose Table it is: And as our sins crucified him, so must our repentance crucify us, and offer us up unto him as a holocaust or whole-burnt-offering who offered up himself a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. In the next place, the Apostle exhorteth us to examine ourselves whether we be in the Faith, or no; 2 Cor. 13.5. to prove ourselves whether Christ be in us. Without Faith there is no true Repentance. There may be some distaste; some regret, some sorrow, but not according to God. Some distaste even those have had who never heard of Christ. But it will not raise and improve itself, not draw on a constant and serious resolution to shake off that which distasteth us, to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, till Faith possesseth our hearts, and a firm persuasion that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. 2 Cor. 5.19. I believed, and therefore I spoke, saith David. We believe, and therefore we examine ourselves, and take a strict survey of our souls; we groan under our burden, and desire ease; we find ourselves sick, and run to the Physician; we find ourselves dead in sin, and fly to the Fountain of life. Faith is the salt which seasoneth all our actions: Nor will Christ admit us to his Table without it, nor give himself to those who do not believe in him. Faith is the mouth of the soul, and with it we receive Christ. To come unto him, and receive him, and believe in him, are one and the same thing. As the Word preached did not profit them that heard it, Hebr. 4.2. not being mixed with faith, not having this salt; so the Sacraments are but bare signs, and signify nothing, to them that believe not. Accedens Verbum ad elementum facit Sacramentum; non quia dicitur, sed quia creditur, saith Augustine; The Word added to the Element maketh a Sacrament; not because it is spoken, but because it is believed. That is, without faith it profiteth nothing in respect of us, although by Divine institution it hath force and power, and aught to quicken and enliven us. By the eye of Faith alone we follow Christ through every passage and period of his blessed oeconomy; we behold him in the manger, in his swadling-cloths, and worship him; we follow him in the streets, going about and doing good, and imitate him; we behold him in his agony, and are nailed with him to his cross; we see him rising and ascending, and behold the heavens open and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God; and lastly, we behold him here in the Sacrament, and lift up our hearts, above these visible Elements, to those things which are spiritual and invisible; we see in them Christ's body lifted up upon the cross, as the Serpent was in the wilderness, and by this sight, by this Faith, we are cured. Here in the Sacrament our Saviour again presenteth himself unto us, openeth his wounds, showeth us his hands and his side, speaketh to us as he did to Thomas, Reach hither your fingers, and behold my hands; and reach hither your hands, and thrust them into my side: Take, eat; This is my body: and be not faithless, but believing: Here shake off that chillness, that restiveness, that weariness and faintness of your faith; here warm and actuate and quicken it. Here God doth not show us his face, his extraordinary glory and majesty; which not mortal can behold, and live; but we see him as it were in his backparts, and in these outward Elements. Here he exhibiteth and giveth us his Son, who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person; in whom he hath manifested his Wisdom, his Justice, his Love; in whom he hath made the fullest discovery of himself, that he is to us merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; whom he offereth unto us to be seen with the eye of our faith, to be embraced with the arms of our affections, to be received into the stomach of our souls, and so to be conveyed through all the powers and parts of the inward man, that we may grow up in him who is our Head, and being partakers of him, be made partakers of that glory which he hath purchased for us. All this is made good unto us by Faith: but, In the last place, not by a dead and unactive Faith, looking up upon Christ but gathering no strength or virtue from him, and no more considering our high Priest then as if he had never offered himself, never satisfied for us; (for how can we think that heaven should be built upon such air? that that peace which passeth our thought should be bought at so cheap a rate as a thought?) but a Faith which worketh by Charity, and that both towards God, and towards our brethren. For these two Christian virtues are inseparable, and bear witness one to the other. My Faith begetteth my Charity, and my Charity publisheth and declareth my Faith. They go hand in hand, and help and advance each other. He that separateth them, doth not thereby prove that they are separate in themselves, but that they are separate from him, and that he hath but one of them, and that also not the thing, but the name. For what Faith is that that worketh not by Love? and what Love is that that is not kindled in us by Faith? They are like Hypocrates his twins, they live and die together. When Faith is alive, Charity is working of miracles, healing the sick, giving eyes to the blind, and scattering her bread on the waters. When Faith doth but float on the tongue, Charity is but good words, Depart in peace, etc. When Faith waxeth feeble, Charity is but cold: and when Charity cannot stretch out the hand nor open the mouth, the Apostle telleth us Faith is dead. It hath been the great fault of the world to make Faith an Idol, and Charity Nothing. But we must join them together before we come to Christ's Table, or else we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, approve ourselves. Nay, they must be joined together, or they will not subsist, but such a Faith and such a Charity as are heard but neither seen nor felt, such a Faith and such a Charity as are but names, and may be written on the visor of an hypocrite. Let them therefore both meet and be united in our trial and preparation to this Sacrament, which is a Sacrament of Union not only of the Head with the Members, but of the Members one with another under one Head. Christ joineth us unto himself by Love, and by the same Love commandeth us to grow up together into one body, and not to fly asunder by pride and malice and contention. He that loveth God, will love his brother also. If we believe in Christ, if the eye of our Faith be so clear as to see him with all his riches and glories, with that glory which he hath prepared for us, we cannot but love him; and if we love him, this Love will distil to the very skirts of his garment, to the lowest member he hath. Our Love of God consisteth in our admiration of his Majesty, in a due acknowledgement of and subjection to his Wisdom and Justice and Power, which we see but at distance, in those effects which they produce: but it is most visible in these our communications one to another. I love God, is soon said: but, it is a lie, saith S. John, if I love not my brother also. It is reported of this Evangelist, in whose Epistles this precept of LOVE is so often mentioned, that being aged, and brought to the congregation in a chair, because through weakness he was not able to hold out in a continued speech, his whole Sermon was but a repartition of these words, Children, love one another. And being asked the reason, his answer was, Quia praeceptum Christi est; &, si solum fiat, sufficit; That it was the precept of the Lord; and if this only were observed, all was done. And no doubt it is the peculiar precept of the Lord, and sufficient of itself. For if it be done as it ought, it cannot but proceed from the Love of God, since the Love of ourselves and the Love of the world is the only hindrance of this Love. For why doth an injury stir my blood and invenom my gall, but because I love my passion, and had rather be its slave then at the command of Christ to master it? Why doth a disgrace cloud me with melancholy, but because I had rather have my name great on earth then written in the book of life? Why do we persecute and oppress our brethren, but because we seek rather esteem from men then the face and favour of God? Private interest is the great God of this world, to which most do homage, before which millions of men fall down and worship, and then leave the Love of God behind them, tread their brethren under feet, and make that desolation which at this day we see on the earth. Love of one another is a plant of our heavenly Father's setting: But where doth it grow? May we find it in the Commonwealth? There is Love. but it is set in dung, in earthly hopes or fleshly respects: And it groweth up in show of some bulk and greatness; but it beareth no better fruit than Compliment and Good language. If you shake and trouble it, this fruit falleth, and is turned into stones: It beginneth in a kiss, and endeth in a wound. Like the thiefs Salvian speaketh of, it embraceth, and killeth. Shall we look for it in the Church? That is a Paradise indeed; and there it should grow. But than it is in that Church which is not seen: for there is little of it in that which is visible. There are almost as many sects as men. There every fancy is a sword keen enough to make a division: Every slight opinion setteth men at variance: and for that which is but opinion, for that which is nothing, men by't and devour one another. A Church militant indeed it may well be called in this sense: For there is nothing but wars and fight, noise and confusion; such a Church Militant as in the greatest part of it shall never be Triumphant. And yet here, in the Church visible, it is preached on the house tops. Here it is taught by the Word, and here it is taught by the Sacrament: But to the most the one is but a sound, and the other a sign: and if it be but a sound, and no more, it is a knell; and if we receive no more than a bare sign, we receive more than we should, the sentence of condemnation. In a word, where there is no true Charity, there can be no true Church; and where there is the least Charity, there it is least Reformed. Talk not of Reformation, Purity and Discipline: They may be but names, and make up a proud, malicious faction: but it is Charity, and Charity alone, that can build up a Church into a body compact, within itself. Malice and Pride and Contention do build indeed, but it is in gehennam, downwards to hell, and present men on earth as so many damned Spirits: And there is no greater difference between them then this, that the one may, the other can never repent. An imbittered faction is a type and representation of Hell itself. Let then Faith and Charity meet in our Trial and Preparation. Faith is a foundation; but if we raise not Charity upon it, to grow up and spread and dilate itself in all its acts and operations, it is nothing, it is in vain, and we are yet in our sins. Let not Anger or Rancour or Malice keep you from this Table, and bring you within that sad Dilemma, That you must, and may not come; That to come, and not to come, is damnation. And do not forfeit so great mercy to satisfy so vile and brutish affections. Lose not the hope of being Saints by pleasing yourselves in being beasts. Why should LOVE be wrote so thick on your walls, and scarce any character, any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, any title of it in your hearts? The Heart is the best table to receive it: There engrave it with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, and then it will be legible also in your actions. Remember it was Love that brought down Christ from heaven, that nailed him to his cross, that drew his heartblood from him, and all to beget Love in us, Love of God, and Love of our Brethren. And let this Love rule in our hearts, and put down all our Malice, Bitterness and Evil speaking, all these our enemies, under our feet. Sacrifice and offer them up before we come to the Altar: then shall we be fit to sit down at this Table. Thus we must put our Charity to trial. For this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a feast of Love. Examine therefore whether thy Charity be firm and strong, such a Charity as is stronger than Death, a Charity that in Christ's cause will stand out against Poverty, Imprisonment, and Death itself; a Charity, which in respect of thy brethren will bear all things, bear injuries, kiss the hand that striketh thee, bow to them that are in the dust, condescend to the lowest, a Charity which will die for the brethren. For that Charity which speaketh big, and doth nothing, scattereth words, but casteth no bread on the waters, defieth a tempest, and runneth away at a blast, can embrace a brother, and yet persecute him, forgive, and yet wound him, (that is, love, and yet hate him) will never fit and qualify us for this feast of Love. Let us then examine ourselves: And let us consider also him that inviteth us, the Apostle and high Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Consider him as our high Priest; and that we shall soon do. For what captive would not be set at liberty? Who that hath a debt to pay would not have a Surety that should pay it down for him? Who that hath a request to put up would not have an Intercessor? All this we may desire, and yet not consider him as our high Priest. And we must not think that he was such an high Priest for such as would not consider him; and that he came to free those who did love their fetters, to satisfy for wilful bankrupts, to deliver them who all their life time delight in bondage, to offer up those prayers which malice or oppression or deceit or hypocrisy have turned into sin. Therefore let us also consider him as our Prophet, putting into our hands those weapons of righteousness, that spiritual armour, those helps and advantages which are necessary and sufficient to work our liberty, to strike off our fetters, and demolish in us the Kingdom of Sin: And here put it to the trial, and ask thyself the question, Art thou willing to hearken to this Prophet? Art thou willing he should teach thee? Wouldst thou not make the way to heaven wider, and his yoke easier, than he hath made it? Hast thou not looked on these helps and advantages as superstitious and unnecessary? As he is thy Prophet, so art not thou his interpreter, and hast taught him to speak friendly to thy lusts and sensual appetite? Hast thou not given a large swinge to Revenge, let out a longer line to Christian Liberty, and given a broader space for the Love of the world to trade in, then ever this Prophet did? This is not to consider him, but effoeminare disciplinam, to corrupt his discipline, and to make Christianity itself, which is a severe Religion, wanton and effeminate by the interpretations. And therefore thou must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, examine thyself, yet more and more. Bring it to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to a judgement, till thou hast censured and condemned those thy glosses, and presented in thy conversation an Expurgatory Index of them all; till thou canst digest his precepts, with all the aloes and gall, with all the hardness and bitterness, that is in them; and then thy stomach also and thy heart will be prepared for this Bread of life, for this celestial Manna. Last of all, canst thou consider him as thy King and Lord? Is his fear to thee as the roaring of a Lion, and his wrath as messengers of death? And art thou willing to kiss, to bow and worship him, that he be not angry? Canst thou discover Majesty in him now? Majesty in his discipline, wisdom in his Laws, power in weakness, now in this life, when he is whipped and scourged and crucified again, when his precepts are made subject to flesh and blood, and dragged in triumph after the wills of men, when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifiges, for one formal and hypocritical acknowledgement a thousand spears in his sides? Who hath most command over thee, the Prince of this world, or this King? Will not a smile from beauty move thee more than the glory of his promises? Art thou not more afraid of the frown of a man of power then of his wrath? Will not the love of the world drive thee against more pricks and difficulties than the love of a Saviour? Will not that carry thee from east to west, when the command of this King shall not draw thee a Sabbath day's journey to visit the fatherless and widows. Art thou of the same mind with him? Are thy will and affections bound up in his will? Is his will thy Law, and his Law thy delight? Then he is thy Priest, and hath sacrificed himself to make thee a Feast; He is thy Prophet to invite and fit thee, and thy King to welcome thee; and he shall gird himself, and make thee sit down to meat, and will come forth and s●rve thee, that is, will fill thee with all those comforts, every thee with all those blessings, give thee all that honour, which he hath promised to those who try and examine, and make themselves fit to be guests at his Table. I must conclude; though I should proceed to the second Part, the Grant and the Privilege. But he that hath performed the first, is already entitled to the second, and may, nay aught to, eat of that bread, ●nd drink of that cup: For even the Privilege itself is a Duty. But the time is spent, and, I fear, your patience. I will but reassume my Text; and there needeth no more Use: For, you see, my Text itself is an Exhortation. Let a man examine himself. A man, that is, every man. Let him that taketh the tribunal, and sitteth upon the life and death of his brethren; that exalteth himself as God, and taketh the keys out of his hand, and bindeth and looseth at pleasure; that wondereth how such or such a man, who is not his brother in evil, as factious as himself, dareth approach the Table of the Lord; let him examine himself. Let him look into himself, and there he shall see a great wonder, a Wolf and a Lamb, a John Baptist and a Herod, a Devil and a Saint bound up together in one man; the greatest prodigy in the world, and as ominous as any, ominous to his neighbours, ominous to Commonwealths, and ominous to all that live in the same coasts. And let them examine themselves who with their Tribunitial VETO forbidden all to come to this Feast who will not submit to their Examination. Young men and maids, old men as well as children, they that have been catechised and instructed in season and out of season, whom they themselves have taught for many years, all must pass by this door of Trial to the Table of the Lord. I shall be bold to ask them a question, since they ask so many? WHERE IS IT WRITTEN? Ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina. It is plain in my Text that we are bound to examine ourselves: but, that some should be set apart to examine others, we do not read. And quorsum docemur, si semper docendi simus? why are we taught so much, if we are ever to learn? Certainly that Charity believeth little which will suspect that a man full of years, and who hath sat at his feet many of them, should now in his old age and grey hairs be to be instructed in the principles of faith. It is true; we cannot be too diligent in instructing one another in the common salvation; we cannot labour enough in this work of building up one another in our holy faith; and it concerneth every man to seek knowledge at those lips that preserve it, and, if he doubt, to make them his oracle who are set over him in the Lord: For Ignorance, as well as Profaneness, maketh us uncapable of this Privilege, unfit to come to this Feast. But this formal and magisterial Examination, for aught we can judge, can proceed from no other Spirit then that which was sent from Rome to Trent in a Cloak-bag, and there at the XIII. Session made Auricular Confession a necessary preparative for the receiving of the Sacrament. Sacramental Confession and Sacramental Examination may have the same ends and the same effects; and there may be as idle and as fruitless questions asked at the one as at the other. But I judge them not, only call upon them in the Apostle's words, Let them examine themselves whether Love of the world, Love of preeminence, or Love of men's souls do fan that fiery zeal which is so hot in the defence of it. Let them also examine themselves who are God's familiars, and yet fight against him; who know what is done in his closet, and do what they please at his footstool, and so upon a feigned assurance of life build nothing but a certainty of death; who think, nay profess, and write it, that the Elect (of which number you may be sure they make themselves) may fall into the greatest sins, Adultery, Murder, and Treason, and yet still remain men after God's heart, and the members of Christ; and that to think the contrary is an opinion Stygiae & infernalis incredulitatis, which upholdeth a Stygian and hellish incredulity, and can proceed from none but the Devil himself; Let these I say, examine themselves. And if this Luciferian pride will once bow to look into this charnel-house of rotten bones, if the hypocrite will pluck off his visor, and behold his face naked, as it is, in the glass of God's Word, we need not call so loud on open and notorious offenders. Intestinum malum periculosius; These intestine, secret, applauded errors are most dangerous, and that wound which is least visible must be most searched. But the exhortation concerneth all: Let the Pharisee examine himself, and let the Publican examine himself. Let the Oppressor examine himself, and melt in compassion to the poor. Let the Intemperate examine himself, and wage war with his appetite. Let the Covetous person examine himself, and tread Mammon under his feet. Let the Deceitful man examine himself, and do that which is just. Let him that is secure, and let him that feareth; Let him that is confident, and let him that wavereth; Let the proud spirit, and let the drooping spirit, examine himself; Let every man examine himself. Let every man that nameth Christ, and in that Name draweth near to his Table, depart from all iniquity. And then behold, here is a Grant passed over to them; a Privilege enroled and upon record. They may eat of this bread, and drink of thi● cup; taste and see how gracious the Lord is; be partakers of his body and blood, that is, of all the benefits of his Cross, Redemption, Justification, his continued and uninterrupted Intercession for us, Peace of conscience, unspeakable Joy in the holy Ghost: And when he shall come again in glory, they shall have a gracious reception and admittance to sit down at his Table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the Patriarches, and all the Apostles, and that noble army of Martyrs, in the Kingdom of heaven. And with these ravishing thoughts I shut up all, and leave them with you, to dwell and continue and abound in you, and to bring you with comfort on the next great Lords day to the Table of the Lord. The Seven and Twentieth SERMON. GAL. I. 10. The last part of the Verse. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. WHich words admit a double sense, but not contrary; for the one is virtually included in the other. As first; If I should yet do as I did when I was a Jew, seek to please men, and to gain repute and honour and wealth, fit my doctrine to their corrupt disposition, I should never have entered into Christ's service, which setteth me up as it were in opposition to the world and the counsels of the world, and so layeth me open to scorn and hatred, to misery and poverty. Or more plainly this; If, being an Apostle of Christ, I should yet please men, attemper my doctrine to their taste and relish, whatsoever I call myself, yet certainly I shall in no degree approve myself to be the servant of Christ. And in this sense if we view the form and manner of the words, they are at the first sound but a mere supposition of S. Paul's; but if we hear them again, and well observe and consider them we shall find them to be a Satire, and bitter reprehension of those false Apostles who did mingle and confound Christ and the Law, and of all those who shall leave the truth behind them to meet and comply with the humours of men; I say, a plain and flat redargution, but clothed in the garment and habit of a hypothetical proposition. Nobis non licet esse tam disertis. It is not for us Latins to be thus elegant. The Latin Poet speaketh it of himself, but indeed lasheth that too much liberty which the Greeks assumed to themselves. And If I yet pleased men, is as a finger pointing out to the false Doctors, who were pleasers of men. Again, as it is an artificial Reprehension, so if you shall please to look upon it intentively, you shall find it to be a Rule and Precept. For, as some Commentatours on Aristotle have observed, that his rule many times is contained and lieth hid in the example and instance which he bringeth, as when he giveth you the instance of a Magnificent man, you shall there easily discover the face and beauty and full proportion of Magnificence; so what S. Paul, speaking of himself, layeth down as a Supposition, is indeed a Rule and Precept. And this which hath been observed of Aristotle is the constant method of the holy Ghost: That which is brought for instance is a Precept. When Joshua speaketh of himself, Josh. 24.15. I and my household will serve the Lord, he draweth the character of a good Master of a family. When Job saith, I put on righteousness, and it clothed me, Job 29.14. Psal. 6.6. he fitteth a robe for a good Magistrate: When David saith, I water my couch with my tears, he hath presented us with the most lively picture of a Penitentiary. My meat is to do the work of him that sent me, John 4.34. are the words of our Saviour in S. John's Gospel, and, as they lie, seem to be but a bare narration, but they are a command, and speak in effect thus much unto us, that as to him it was, so to us it must be even meat and drink to do the will of our Father which is in heaven. And here, If yet I pleased men, I were not the servant of Christ, S. Paul speaketh it of himself, but it is a command given to all those who have given up their name unto Christ; and every man may make this deduction to himself. That to please men and to serve Christ are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, incompatible, and cannot stand together; That the best way to keep Christ's livery on our backs, is not to be so much slaves unto men as to please them. And then these three things are wrapped up in this Supposition; 1. our Apostles Purgation of himself, That he is no pleaser of men, 2. a sharp Reprehension of men pleasers; 3. a flat Command against it. Or thus, Here is something implied, and something plain and positive. That which is implied is, That most men are willing to be pleased. That which is plain and positive is, That there be others that will be too ready to please them. And then the parts will be three. We shall discover 1. the humour of desiring to be pleased, and the danger of it; 2. a humour which is ready to meet and answer the other, an art and readiness of pleasing others, of knowing their taste and palate, and dishing out instructions with such sauces as shall delight them, of making addresses to them in that shape and posture which they most love to look upon, and are ready to welcome and reward; and 3. last of all, the huge distance and inconsistency which is between these two, the pleasing of men, and the being a servant of Christ. And of these we shall speak plainly in their order. And first we need not doubt that most men desire to be pleased, and it may seem a needless labour to go about to prove it: For do but whisper, do but breathe, against their humour, and you have made a demonstration that it is so. S. Paul indeed maketh it his wonder, v. 6. I wonder that you are so soon removed. And we might well wonder at his wonder, but that his miror carrieth with it more of reproof than admiration. For the consideration of this humour, this desire to be pleased, taketh off our admiration: And when we have discovered this, we cease to wonder, though we see men transplant themselves out of a goodly heritage into a barren soil, from the Gospel of Christ, which bringeth salvation, but withal trouble to the flesh, to another Gospel, which is no Gospel, but excludeth both; in a word, to see men begin in the spirit, and end in the flesh. Omnis rei displicentis etiam opinio reprobatur, saith Tertullian; The very thought of that which displeaseth us displeaseth us almost as much as the thing itself. For indeed it is nothing but thought that troubleth us; and it is not the matter or substance of Truth, but Opinion and our private Humour, which maketh Truth such a bitter pill that we cannot take it down. It was the usual speech of Alexander the Great to his Master Aristotle, Doce me facilia; Leave, I pray you, your knotty and intricate discourses, and teach me those things which are easy, which the Understanding may not labour under, but such as it may receive with delight. And it is so with us in the study of that Art of arts which alone can make us both wise and happy; We love not duros sermons, those hard and harsh lessons which discipline the flesh, and bring it into subjection, and demolish those strong holds which it hath set up, and in which it trusteth. A Parasite is more welcome to us then a Prophet. He is our Apostle who will bring familiar and beloved arguments to persuade us to that to which we have persuaded ourselves already, and further our motion to that to which we are flying. We find almost the parallel in the 30 of Esai. 10. v. of those who say to the Seers, See not; and to the Prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits, men who had rather be cozened with a pleasing lie then saved with a frowning and threatening truth, rather be wounded to death with a kiss then be roused with noise, rather die in a pleasant dream then be awaked to see the pit opening her mouth, and even speaking to them to fly, and save themselves from destruction. I may appeal to your eye, and tender you that which your observation must needs have taken up before both at home in yourselves and abroad in others: for he that doth but open his eyes, and look into the world, will soon conceive it as a common stage, where every man treadeth his measures for approbation and applause, where every man acteth his part, walketh as a Parasite to himself, and all men one to another: that is, do the same which the Israelites did after the molten calf, slay every man his brother, Exod. 32 27. and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour, every man being a ready executioner in this kind, and every man ready and willing to die. We will therefore in the next place search this evil humour, this desire of being pleased: And we shall be the willinger to be purged of it, if either we consider the causes from which it proceedeth, or the bitter effects which it produceth. And first, it hath no better original than Defect, than a wilful and negligent Failing in those duties to which Nature and Religion have obliged us, a Leanness and Emptiness of the soul, which not willing to fill itself with Righteousness, filleth itself with air, with false counsels and false attestations, with miserable comforts. In time of necessity, when we have nothing to eat, Luke 15.16. Prov. 28.1. we fall to with the Prodigal, and fill our belly with husks. The wicked fly when none pursueth, fly from themselves to others, and from others to themselves; chide themselves, and flatter themselves; are troubled, and soon at rest; fly to the Rule which condemneth them, to absolve them, and suborn one Text to infringe and overthrow another; as he that hath no good Title is bold on a false one. Citò nobis placemus: It is a thing soon done, and requireth no labour nor study, to be pleased. We desire it as sick men do health, as prisoners do liberty, as men on the rack do ease: For a troubled spirit is an ill disease; not to have our will is the worst imprisonment; and to condemn a man's self in that which he alloweth and maketh his choice, Rom. 14.22. is to put himself upon the rack. We may see it in our civil affairs and matters of lesser allay: When any thing lieth upon us as a burden, how willing are we to cast it off? how do we strive to pluck the sting out of every serpent that may by't us? how do we study to work out the venom out of the worst of evils? When we are poor we dream of riches, and make up that which is not with that which may be. Prov. 23.5. When we have no house to hid our h●●ds, we build a palace in the air. When we are sick, this thought turneth our bed, That we may recover; and if the Physician cannot heal us, yet his very name is to us as a promise of health. We are unwilling to suffer, but we are willing, nay, desirous, to be eased. Basil telleth us of young men, that when they are alone or in some solitary place, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, feign unto themselves strange Chimaeras, suppose themselves Lords of countries and favourites of Kings, and (which is yet more) though they know all this to be but fancy and a lie, yet please themselves in it as if it were true indeed. We all are like Aristotle's young man, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, full of hope; Rhetor. l. 2. c. 14. and when there is no door of hope left, we make one. And so it falleth out in the managing of our spiritual estate, we do as the Apostle exhorteth (though not to this end) cast away every thing that presseth down, but so cast it away as to leave it heavier than before; prefer a momentary ease, which we beg or borrow or force from things without us, before that peace which nothing can bring in but that grief and serious repentance which we put off with hands and words as a thing irksome and unpleasing. For could we be sick, we might be well; did not we love our disease, we might shake it off: But we are sick, and will be so. There is something wanting, and a supply is our shame, being an argument of that defect which we are unwilling to acknowledge. A Physician doth but upbraid us, and Truth doth but rob us of our content; and therefore we please ourselves in our disease as in health itself, and had rather languish and die then be told we are sick. And this, in the second place, proceedeth even from the force and power of Conscience within us, which if we will not hearken to as a friend, will turn Fury, and pursue and lash us; and, if we will not obey her dictates, will make us feel her whip. This is our Judge, and our Executioner. She whippeth the Sluggard, stoneth the Adulterer, hangeth and quartereth the Traitor, bloweth upon the Miser's store, and maketh the lips of the Harlot by't like a cockatrice. Psal. 139.7. Whither shall they go from her spirit and power? whither shall they fly from her presence? The Philosopher will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they fly from themselves, Aristot. l. 9 Eth. c. 4. yet carry themselves about with them whithersoever they go. Now every thing that is oppressed doth naturally desire ease, and so do we; but finding it a laborious thing to quiet the Conscience, and that it cannot be done but by yielding and bowing our backs to her whip, by running from ourselves and from those sins which pleased our Sense, but enraged our Conscience, we seek out many inventions, and advance our sins against her, till they prevail, and even put her to silence. For in evil men the worst part doth the office of the better, corrupteth the records, mitigateth the sentence, pronounceth life in death. The Sensual part is their Conscience, their God. It biddeth them do this, and they do it; and when it is done, it is a ready Advocate to plead for it and defend it. It conceiveth and bringeth forth the Monster, and then giveth it what name it please. It was a crying sin; it hath now lost its voice. It was Uncleanness; it is now Frailty. It was Treason; it is now the love of our Country. It was Perjury; It is now Prudence. Riches commend Covetousness; Honour, Treason; Pleasure, Wantonness. That which begetteth Sin, nurseth it up, till it grow up to strength to oppose itself to Conscience, and degrade and put her from her office, and bring in a thousand sorry excuses to take her place, in the midst of which she cannot be heard; not heard against Riches, whose Sophistry is preferred before her Demonstrations; not heard against Beauty, which bewitcheth us, and makes us fools; not heard against Honour, which lifteth us up so high that we cannot hear her; not heard against Power, which is the greatest Parasite in the world, and calleth in a world of Parasites to bow before us and bless us in the Name of the Lord. And thus we are first pleased to sin, and then are easily pleased in it. We are in danger, and will not know it: and when the God of Israel is angry, 2 Kings 1.2, 3. we will hear what the God of Ekron will say. In a word, we raise a storm in ourselves, & whistle it down; we wound ourselves, and skin it over: we are too soon troubled, and too soon eased; & might recover, were not our remedy more fatal than our disease. Thus you see this humour of being pleased is very predominant in most men. In the third place, as it proceedeth from the power and force of Conscience, which will speak it she may be heard, and doth speak even when she is not heard, so it doth from the lustre and glory of Piety and Holiness, which spreadeth her beams and darteth her light in the very face of them who have proscribed her, sent her a bill of divorce, and put her away. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, For Goodness is equally venerable to all men. Not only good men speak well of her, but her enemies praise her in the gates. Who is so evil that he is willing to go under that name? How angry will a Strumpet be if you call her so? Call a Pharisee a Hypocrite, and he will thrust you out of the Synagogue. Though I bow down before an image, yet I am not an Idolater; though I break the bonds of peace, yet I am not factious; though I never have enough, yet I am not covetous; I am not evil, though I do those things for which we justly call men so. Our rule here is quite contrary to that known and received axiom of the world, Malo me divitem esse quàm haberi. In the managing of our worldly affairs we had rather be rich then be accounted so, but in the course of our Religion we are rich enough, we are good enough, if we have but the name that we are so; we are good enough, if none dare call us evil. And thus it is both in the errors of our Understanding and of our Will. In the one we think it better to pretend to knowledge, and rest ourselves in that, then to be taught to alter our mind. Quintil. l. 3. Instit. c. 1. Malumus didicisse quàm discere: That we know something already is our glory, but to submit ourselves to instruction is an argument of imperfection; and therefore we account it a punishment to be taught. And this is the reason why so few have retracted their errors, and why most have stoutly defended them, even a Loathness to seem to have erred; which mightily reigneth in most men, but especially in all pretenders unto knowledge; Nature itself having annexed a shame unto these two, above all other things which naturally befall us, Lust and Ignorance. For, as the Italian proverb is, A learned fool will be a fool ever. And so it is in the errors of the Will. In the practic errors of our life we would not know ourselves, nor have others know, Eccles. 1.18. that we have done any thing amiss. He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. When the knowledge of the Truth inciteth us to follow after it, and the force of Custom draweth us back, we are as it were at war and divided in ourselves; our motion is unquiet, as the bounding of a heady steed with the bit in his mouth. We are in our own way, and impatient of a check; and we hate those counsellors which are willing to be eyes to us, and lead us out of danger. Tell a Heretic he is so, he will anathematise you. Tell a Schismatic he is so, he will fly from you as from the plague. Tell a Persecuter he is so, and he will rage's more, and make it good upon yourself; deny it, and yet make it too manifest that he is so. For the Will of man loveth the channel which it hath chosen, and would run on smoothly and evenly without interruption: But when it meeteth with any stop or bank, it beginneth to rage and foam, and cast up mire and dirt in their faces who do attempt to stop its course. Volumus errare, we will err; and he is an enemy that telleth us the truth. Volumus peccare, we will sin; but he that telleth the Sinner, Thou art the man, shall not be received as a Prophet, but be defied as an adversary. Sin is of a monstrous appearance; who can stand before it; and therefore we either cloud and hid it with an excuse, or dress it up in the mantle of Virtue, in the habit and beauty of Holiness; as Pompey, to commend the theatre which he built, called it a Temple. And these are the causes which beget and nurse up this evil humour in us, this Desire to be pleased, this Unwillingness to be troubled, though it be to be plucked out of the fire; 1. a Defect in ourselves, which when we cannot fill up with righteousness, we do with the shadow of it; 2. the power of Conscience, which when we cannot quiet, we slumber and cast into a deep sleep; and 3. the glory and beauty of Goodness, which forceth from us, though not a complacency, yet an approbation; and maketh them lay claim unto her who have violently thrust her out of doors. He that loveth to err loveth not to be told so; he that is not righteous will Justify himself, and the worst of men desire to bear up their head and esteem with the best. Let us now see the danger of this humour, and the bitter effects it doth produce. And first, this Desire to be pleased placeth us out of all hope of succour, leaveth us like an army besieged when the enemy hath cut off all relief. It is a curse itself, and carrieth a train of curses with it. It maketh us blind to ourselves, and not fit to make use of other men's eyes. It maketh our rain powder and dust, Deut. 28.24. corrupteth all that counsel and instruction which as moisture should make us fruitful. It maketh us like to to the Idols of the Heathen, to have eyes, and see not, to have ears, Psal. 115. and not to hear; living dead men, such as those to whom the Pythagoreans set up a sepulcral pillar, such as Plato saith do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sleep in hell; men made up of contradictions; in health, and therefore desperately sick; strong, and therefore weak; and never more fools than when they are most wise. Plus quàm oportet sapiunt, & plùs quàm dici potest desipiunt, saith Bernard; They are wiser than they should be, and more deceived than we can express. Look on the Galatians in this Epistle, and you shall see how this humour did bewitch them, and what fools it made them. They had received the spirit by the hearing of faith; Gal. 3.2. but this spirit did shake and trouble them, frowned upon that which they too much inclined to, and therefore they turn the ear from S. Paul, and open it to let in the poison of asps, which the lips of those false Apostles carried under them; and for no other reason but because they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, make a fair show in the flesh, Gal. 6.12. make them put on the form and shape of a Jew to avoid the fury of the Roman, who did then tolerate the Jew, but not the Christian. And how many have we nowadays who do Galatizari, as Tertullia's phrase is, who are as foolish as the Galatians, Gal. 3.1. and make this humour the only rule by which they frame and measure out their Religion? who make it as their Mistress, and love it most than when it is exploded? who will hear no teacher but that Pharisee who hath made them his proselytes? Every man is pleased in his Religion; and that is his Religion which pleaseth him; that he will rely upon, and anathematise S. Paul, or any Angel, Gal. 1.8, 9 if he shall preach any other Gospel but that. Our two Tables are not written with the finger of God; our Religion is not framed in the Mount, but here below, in the region of Phantasms, by Flesh and Blood, which must not be displeased, but swelleth against every thing that doth not touch it gently and flatter it, and so maketh us like to the Beasts that perish, who have no principle of motion but their Sense: Nay, worse than they: for they have no Reason, but we have Reason indeed, sed quae suo malo est atque in perversum solers, Seneca. but which is made instrumental against itself, taught to promote that which it condemneth, to forward that which it forbiddeth, and serveth only to make us more unreasonable. For, in the second place, this humour, this Desire to be pleased, doth not make up our defects, but maketh them greater; doth not make Vice a virtue, but Sin more sinful. For he is a villain indeed that will be a villain and yet be thought a Saint, such a one as God will spew out of his mouth. And what is it to acknowledge no defect, and to be worse and worse? Rev. 3.1. to seign a Paradise, and be in Hell? to have a name that we live, and to be dead? And what content is that which is more mortal than ourselves, and will soon end, and end in weeping and lamentation? Better, far better, were it that a sword did pass through our heart, that the hidden things of darkness were brought to light, 1 Cor. 4.5. and the counsels of our heart made manifest to us, then that it should be dead as a stone, senseless of its plague; better we were tormented into health then that we should thus play and smile and laugh ourselves into our graves. Look upon those sons of Anak, those giantlike sinners against their God, who have bound up the Law, Isa. 8.16. and sealed up the testimony which is against them; who will do what they please, and hear what they please, and nothing else; who deal with the Scripture as Caligula boasted he would with the civil Law of the Romans, Sueton. Calig. c. 34. take care nè quid praeter eos loquatur, that it shall not speak at all, or not any thing against them: Look upon them; I forget myself: for I fear we look upon them so long till our eyes dazzle at the sight, and we begin to think that is not truth which these men will not hear: But yet look upon them, not with an eye of Flesh, but that of Faith, an Evangelicall eye, and it will rather drop then dazzle, pity then admire them. O infelices, quibus licet peccare! Oh most unhappy men of the world, who have line and liberty to destroy themselves! whom God permitteth to be evil, as in wisdom he may, and then in justice permitteth to defend it! whose chariot-wheels he striketh not off t ll they are in the Red-sea! whom he suffereth, when they would not hearken to his voice, to be smothered to death with their own power, and the breath and applause of fools! Oh it is the heaviest judgement in the world not to feel and fear a judgement till it come. It may be said perhaps, what in all ages hath been said, and not without murmur and complaining, Behold, these are the wicked, yet they prosper in their ways. Their pride compasseth them about as a chain, Psal. 73.6, 12. their violence covereth them as a garment. They feel no pangs, no throws, have no luctations, no struggle within them. They call themselves the children of the Most High. And what evil can be to him that feeleth it not? What is Hell to him that is not sensible? But these are but the ebullitions and breathe of Flesh and Blood, that seethe no more of Man then his face and garment. For what seest thou? A painted sepulchre; but thou dost not see the rotten bones within. Thou seest triumphs and trophies without, but within are horror and stench. Thou seest the Tree of life painted on the gates; open them, and there is Fire and Brimstone, Hell and Damnation. Thou hearest the Tongue speak proud things; but thou seest not the worm which gnaweth within. All this Music is but a Dirge sung at their funeral; their joy but an abortive and untimely birth begot by Pleasure and Power and Wealth, a shadow cast from outward contentments: when these depart, this joy perisheth. For, in the third place, this humour, this Desire to be pleased, doth not take the whip from Conscience, but enrageth her; layeth her asleep, to awake with more terror. 1 Tim. 4.2. For Conscience may be seared indeed, but cannot be abolished; may sleep, but cannot die, but is as immortal as the Soul itself. Conscience followeth our Knowledge, and it is impossible to chase that away; impossible to be ignorant of that which I cannot but know. It is not Conscience but our Lusts that make the Music. For in the common and known duties of our lives Conscience doth not, cannot misled us. Whose Conscience ever told him that Murder or Treason were virtuous? But our Lust having conceived and brought forth Sin, licketh and shapeth it to the best advantage. He that is taken in adultery will not say that Adultery is no sin, but that Flesh was weak, and Beauty importunate, saith Hilary. He that revengeth w●ll look more on the foulness of the injury than the irregularity and exorbitancy of his wrath. He that troubleth the peace of Israel will make Necessity his plea, or say he troubleth none but those that trouble Israel. Thus Conscience may be suppressed, but not totally; and for a time, but not for ever. It may be slumbered by diversion of the mind from troublesome thoughts, by immersing it in pleasures and delights, by the lullabies of parasites and false prophets, and so be in a manner held down by the weight of the flesh: but still it is not dead, but sleepeth. And then when these are removed, when Pleasure shall turn her back and worse side, when the false Prophets are dumb, when the Flesh hath a thorn in it, she will awake as a giant out of wine, and be more active and clamourous then before. Call in thy Power and thy Honour, suborn the Pleasures of the world to make thy peace, seek out some cunning Artist, who can teach, what a Philosopher once professed, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the art of indolency, a way to be free from pain and grief; when thy Conscience urgeth one place of Scripture, do thou answer it with another; when the letter killeth, do thou put life into it with a gloss; and when it putteth thee to trouble, do thou strive to put it to silence; yet Conscience will be Conscience still; and keep her sting, and by't and wound the deeper yet. For to seek remedy against the gnawings of Conscience from these outward formalities and flatteries, is to strive to take away grief with that which is the cause of it, to destroy it with that which begetteth it, to diminish it with that which increaseth it, and to cure a wound with poison. What though we have some pause and ease? we can have no holiday but what we make ourselves; and that will make our other days more black and dismal. For that ease which I forced and gave myself doth but multiply my pain, and leave it to return upon me again with violence and advantage. Nay, our Conscience doth not stay so long, but many times layeth hold on us in a triumph, in all our state and glory, and in our clearest day will break through all those bulworks which we have set up against her, and seize upon us when we shall say, We shall never be moved; will shake us when we say, Tush, God doth not see; will strike through our loins, and when we plead, will tell us we lie; when we breathe nothing but spirit, will pronounce us most carnal hypocrites; will be as the finger on the wall, when we are quaffing in the vessels of the Sanctuary. You will say, But who seethe it? Why, Dan. 5. the King, the sacrilegious King, saw it, who was guilty. For who can feel the sting of another man's conscience? And it is no good argument to say, We do not see it, and therefore it is not done. For what close offender will publish the sorrow of his heart? Who will tell you what stripes he feeleth? Who is resolved to cleave fast to that for which he is beaten? He whose ways tend to death, when he maketh most haste, and even feeleth himself falling in, yet will not tell you he is going into hell. And this is the sad condition of all those who will, who must be pleased, who will hear nothing that is contrary to them, that is, nothing that may help them; who are devils to themselves, and help the Tempter to overthrow them; who never acknowledge a disease till it be incurable, never see themselves but in hell, never feel any pain till it be eternal. We proceed now to lay open the other evil humour, of Pleasing men, which is more visible and eminent in the Text. And indeed to desire to be pleased and to be ready to please, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Isidore Pelusiot, to flatter and to be flattered, bear that near relation the one to the other that we never meet them asunder. It is the Devil's net, in which he catcheth two at once. If there be an itching ear, you cannot miss but you shall find a flattering tongue. If the King of Sicily delight in Geometry, the whole Court shall swarm with Mathematicians. If Nero be lascivious, his Palace shall be turned into a stew or brothel-house, or worse. Lib. 8. Non deerit Alexandro talia concupiscenti perniciosa adulatio, saith Curtius. Alexander, that loved to be flattered, had Parasites enough. If the Donatists be factious, there will be a Primianus and a Maximinianus to lead them. Accedit dignum patellâ operculum, as S. Hierom applieth this proverb to this very purpose; These dishes, that will receive nothing but juncats, shall find covers to fit them. And if we look into the world, and see how men every day change with the fashion of the world, altar their notes, and turn them to the times, what Echoes they are when Power speaketh; if we turn over those multitude of Pamphlets, which for the most part are nothing else but the monuments of men's flattery and base condescendency (for what error yet hath shown so foul a face as not to find a patron:) if we consider what Mountebanks we have in Divinity as well as in Physic, who seek not men, but theirs, not to cure others souls, but their own poverty; we shall find reason enough to be jealous that there hath been a kind of conspiracy made to meet and satisfy this so inordinate and pernicious desire, and to betray the truth of Christ to this foul and loathsome humour. We must inquire then What it is to please men, and from whence it proceedeth that men, who naturally love to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be eminent above their brethren, can work themselves to such baseness as to fall down and lick the dust of their feet, and help them to destroy themselves, to the ruin of both. For both he that maketh the Music and he that heareth it fall together into the same hell to howl for ever. And first we must not imagine that S. Paul doth bring in here a Cynical morosity or a Nabal-like churlishness; that none may speak to us, and we speak nothing but swords; ●●●l. 59.6, 14. that we should make a noise like a dog, and so go round about the City; that we should be as thorns in our brethren's sides, ever pricking and galling them, that we should, as Appius in Livy, accusatoriam vitam ducere, breathe nothing but railing accusations, nothing but what may strike others with fear, or cast them down with sorrow, or raise their anger and indignation. No, S. Paul was now no such rigid and morose Disciplinarian: for now he is an Apostle, and not a Persecutor. Hieron. ad Heliodor. Epitah. Nepotiani. Manè lupus rapax Benjamin àd vesperam dividit escam, Ananiae ovi submittens caput: He was, as Benjamin, of whose tribe he was, a ravening Wolf, but now he boweth down his head to Ananias, who was a sheep, and of the flock of Christ, and breatheth nothing but meekness. There is not a more pleasing, more tractable, more pliable creature in the world than a Christian. If his brother persecute him, he is his Beadsman, and prayeth for him; if he injure him, he is his Priest, and absolveth him; if he err, he is his Angel, to keep him in all his ways, and bring him back; if he mourn, he putteth on sackcloth; and if he rejoice, he is one at the feast. He appeareth not to him in any shape that may disquiet or trouble him, Gen. 33.10. 1 Cor. 10.33. but, as Esau, did to Jacob, that he may see his face as if he saw the face of God himself, Even I, saith S. Paul, please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I please them, the same word with that in the Text. And in another place I am made all things to all men; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I am made, 1 Cor. 9.22.— 19, I even frame and fashion and force myself to it. Though I am free, I make myself a servant; I undergo all the humility, the drudgery, the hardship of a servant. To the Jew I became a Jew, that I might gain the Jew: — 20, And you have an example of it, Acts 21.23, 26. To those that are under the Law, as under the Law; to the Gentiles, who were not bound to Moses Law, as a Gentile. To them that were without Law, as without Law; — 21. as we find Acts 17.22. A Christian Proteus, that wrought himself into any shape which might bring advantage to them who beheld him. He was a Jew to the Jew to make him a Christian; to them that were without Law, as without Law, to confirm them in the truth of the Gospel; to them that were weak, as weak, to make them strong; as all things to all men, not to fill his purse, but to gain their souls; to cut of Circumcision by permitting Circumcision; to converse with the Gentile, and passing by to throw down their Altar by the inscription, Acts 17. and by THE UNKNOWN bring them to the knowledge of the living God; by being without the Law bring the Gentile to the grace of the Gospel; and thus cedendo vincere, by seeming to yield to overcome. And this is not the pleasing of a Parasite, but of an Apostle and careful Father, even that discretion and wisdom which Quintilian commendeth in a Schoolmaster, whose duty it is, non statim onerare infirmitatem discentium, sed temperare vires, Lib. 1. Inst. c. ● not presently to overburden the weak capacity of Novices, but to temper and moderate his own strength, and consider not what he can teach, but what they can learn; with Jacob, to lead his flock on softly, lest they die. Gen. 33.13, 14 Besides the act itself was not unlawful, because the Synagogue was indeed dead, but not yet buried, but to be buried with honour. And it was Judaeis factus tanquam, it was only amongst the Jews. For what himself did amongst the Jews at Jerusalem, he reproveth S. Peter for doing it amongst the Gentiles at Antioch, Gal. 2.11, 14. Nihil Paulo indignum quod efficit Deo credere, saith Hilary; That which bringeth a Jew or Gentile to Christ, may well become S. Paul an Apostle of Christ. When we so please men that we please God also, we cannot please them enough. But when the case was otherwise, when the Truth and honour of God were in hazard, than S. Paul is in a manner Saul again, Acts 13.11. 1 Cor. 5.5. and breatheth forth threaten and slaughter. He striketh Elymas the Sorcerer blind, delivereth up the incestuous Corinthian to Satan, and when they are puffed up, is ready with his goad to let out the wind, cometh toward them in that imperious strain, What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod? which, I am sure, 1 Cor. 4.18.21 are not pleasing words, but quae cum ictu quodam audiuntur, such as are heard with a kind of smart, and leave impression behind them Quàm exserta acies macherae spiritualis? as Tertullian speaketh; How naked and keen is the edge of reprehension? In faciem impingit, he striketh them on the face; in os caedit, he beateth them on the mouth; jam vero & singulari stylo figit, and sometimes pointeth them out as a mark, and darteth his reprehension, and sticketh it in them. What then would he do if he lived now, and saw what we see? Thus you see both these are true: We may please men, Ex Deo magis quam in contumeliam Dei hominibus placendum, Hil. in Psal. 52. and we may not please them. We must please them; and we must not please men, if we will be the servants of Christ. For, if you please, you may conceive that relation betwixt God and Man which is betwixt our Reason and our Sense. Now Sin may seem to be nothing else but the flattery of our Sense: because when I break the Law, my will stoopeth down to please my Sense and betray my Reason. But yet when I please my Sense I do not always sin: For I may please my Sense, and be temperate; I may please my Eye, and make a covenant with it; I may please my Taste, Job 31.1. and yet set a knife to my throat: Prov. 23.2. I may please my Sense, and it may be my health and virtue as well as my sin. So in like manner to please men against God is the basest flattery, and S. Paul flingeth his dart at it; but to please men in reference to God is our duty, and taketh in the greatest part of Christianity. For thus to please men may be my Allegiance, my Reverence, my Meekness, my Longanimity, my charitable Care of my Brother. I may please my Superior, and obey him; I may please my obliged Brother, and forgive him; I may please the poor Lazar, and relieve him; I may please an erring Brother, and convert him: and in thus doing I do that which is pleasing both to God and Man. What then is that which here S. Paul condemneth? Look into the Text, and you shall see Christ and Men as it were two opposite terms. If the Man be in error, I must not please him in his Error; for Christ is Truth; If the Man be in sin, I must not please him, for Christ is Righteousness. And in this case we must deal with men as S. Augustine did with his Auditory when he observed them negligent in their duties, We must tell them that which they are most unwilling to hear: Quod non vultis facere, bonum est, saith he; That which you will not do, that which you are afraid of and run from, that which with all my breath and labour I cannot procure you to love, that is it which we call to do good. That which you deride, that which you turn away the ear from with scorn, that which you loathe as poison, that which you persecute us for, Quod non vultis audire, verum est; That which you distaste, when you hear, as gall and wormwood, that which you will not hear, that which you call strange doctrine, Lib. 7. de Reutr. fort. c. ult. that is Truth. As Petrarch told his friend, Si prodesse vis, scribe quod doleam; If you will profit and improve me in the ways of goodness, let your pen drop gall, writ something to me which may trouble and grieve me to read. So when men stand in opposition to Christ, when men will neither hear his voice nor follow him in his ways, but delight themselves in their own, and rest and please themselves in Error as in Truth, to awake them out of this pleasant dream, we must trouble them, we must thunder to them, we must disquiet and displease them. For who would give an opiate pill to these Lethargicks? To please men then is, to tell a sick man that he is well; a weak man, that he is strong; an erring man, that he is orthodox; instead of purging out the noxious humour, to nourish and increase it; to smooth and strew the ways of Error with roses, that men may walk with ease and delight, and even dance to their destruction; to find out their palate, and to fit it; to envenom that more which they affect, as Agrippina gave Claudius the Emperor poison in a Mushroom. What a seditious flatterer is in a Commonwealth, that a false-Apostle is in the Church. For as the seditious flatterer observeth and learneth the temper and constitution of the place he liveth in, and so frameth his speech and behaviour that he may seem to settle and establish that which he studieth to overthrow; to be a Patriot for the public good, when he is but a promoter of his private ends; to be a servant to the Commonwealth, when he is a Traitor: so do all seducers and false-teachers; They are as loud for the Truth as the best champions she hath, but either subtract from it, or add to it, or pervert and corrupt it, that so the Truth itself may help to usher in a lie: When the Truth itself doth not please us, any lie will please us, but than it must carry with it something of the Truth. For instance; To acknowledge Christ but with the Law, is a dangerous mixture: It was the error of the Galatians here. To magnify Faith and shut out Good works, is a dash. That we can do nothing without Grace, is a truth; but, when we will do nothing, to impute it to the want of Grace, is a bold and unjust addition. To worship God in spirit and truth, Joh. 4.23. our Saviour commandeth it; but from hence to conclude against outward Worship, is an injurious defalcation of a great part of our duty. Gal. 5.1. To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, the Apostle commandeth it; but to stand so as to rise up in the face of the Magistrate, is a Gloss of Flesh and Blood, and corrupteth the Text. Rom. 13.1. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, that is the Text; but to be subject no longer than the Power is managed to our will, is a chain to bind Kings with, or a hammer to beat all Power down, that we may tread it under our feet. And when we cannot relish the Text, these mixtures and additions and subtractions will please us: These hang as Jewels in our ears; these please, and kill us; beget nothing but a dead Faith and a graceless life; not Liberty, but Licentiousness; not Devotion, but Hypocrisy; not Religion, but Rebellion; not Saints, but Hypocrites; Libertines and Traitors. The Truth is corrupted, saith Nyssene, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Orat. 1. contra Eunom. by subtraction, by alteration, by addition. And these we must avoid the rather because they go hand in hand as it were with the Truth, and carry it along with them in their company, as lewd persons do sometimes a grave and sober man, to countenance them in their sportiveness and debauchery. De nostro sunt, sed non nostrae, saith Tertullian: De Proscript. They invade that inheritance which Christ hath left his Church. Some furniture, some colour, something they borrow from the Truth, something they have of ours, but ours they are not. And therefore, as S. Ambrose adviseth Gratian the Emperor, of all errors in doctrine we must beware of those which come nearest and border as it were upon the Truth, and so draw it in to help to defeat itself; because an open and manifest error carrieth in its very forehead an argument against itself, and cannot gain admittance but with a veil, whereas these glorious but painted falsehoods find an easy entrance, and beg entertainment in the Name of Truth itself. This is the cryptick method and subtle artifice of Men-pleasers, that is, Men-deceivers, to grant something, that they may win the more and that too in the end which they grant; not rudely at first to demolish the Truth, but to let it stand a while, that they may the more securely raise up and fix that Error with which it cannot stand long. S. Paul saw it well enough, though the Galatians did not; Gal. 5.2. If you be circumcised, Christ profiteth you nothing, that is, is to you as if there were no Christ at all. If the false Apostles had flatly denied Christ, the Galatians would have been as ready as S. Paul to have cut them off, because they had received the Gospel; but joining and presenting the Law with Christ, they did deceive and please them well, who began in the Spirit, and did acknowledge Christ, but would not renounce the Law propter metum Judaeorum, for fear of their brethren the Jews. Now these Men-pleasers, these Crows, Dictam Diogenis, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Athen. Deipnos. l. 6. c. 17. which devour not dead but living men, are from an evil egg and beginning, are bred and hatched in the dung, in the love of this world, and are so proud and fond of their original that it is their labour, their religion, the main design of their life, to bring the Truth, Religion and Christ himself in subjection under it. And to this end they are very fruitful to bring forth those misshapen issues which savour of the earth and corruption, and have only the name of Christ fastened to them as a badge, to commend them, and bring them to that end for which they had a being, which is to gain the world in the name, but in despite, of Christ. And these are they who, as S. Peter speaketh make merchandise of men's souls, nummularii sacerdotes, 2 Pet. 2.3. as Cyprian calleth them, Doctors of the Mint, who love the Image of Caesar more than the image of God, and had rather see the one in a piece of gold than the other renewed and stamped in a mortal man. And this image they carry along with them whithersoever they go, and it is as their Holy Ghost to inspire them. For most of the doctrines they teach savour of that mint, and the same stamp is on them both: The same face of Mammon which is in their heart is visible also in their doctrine. Thus Hosea complained of the false Prophets in his time, Hos. 4.8. They eat up the sin of my people; that is, by pleasing them they have consented to their sin, and from hence reaped gain: for flattery is a livelihood. Or, they did not seriously reprehend the sins of the people, that they might receive more sacrifices, on which they might feed. Some render it, Levabant animum suum ad peccata populi, They lifted up their soul, anhelabant, they even panted, after their sin, desired that they might sin, that they might make advantage; and so made them evil, to make themselves rich. For from hence, from that for which we cannot find a name nor have a thought bad enough, from a Desire to be rich, breaketh forth that mark of a slave, our desire to please. S. Paul hath made a window into their breasts, that we may see them with the same hand coining their Doctrine and Money; Rom. 16.18. They that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Serpents they are to deceive, and the curse of the Serpent is upon them, Upon their belly they go, and they eat dust all the days of their life. For a wonderful thing it is to see how the Love of the world will transform Men into any shape, sometimes to fawn like a Dog, sometimes to rage like a Lion, and then to lurk like a Fox; how like the Charity of the Gospel, it maketh them to bear all things, 1 Cor. 13.7. believe all things, endure all things, yea, contumelias in questu habere, & injuriis pasci, to count-contumelies gain, and to feed sweetly on injuries, to speak what they do not think, to like what they condemn, to mortify themselves, to lie, and cringe and bow and fall to the ground, which is a kind of Mortification; more than they will do for Christ, who bringeth poverty, disgrace and contempt, and hath no reward but that which is laid up for the future. This brought Plato the great Philosopher a shipboard to sail to Dyonisius his Court, and there laid him down at his feet; Orat. 3. 1 King. 22. this made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. as Nazianzene speaketh, prefer a halfpenny before his Gods. This was the evil spirit in the mouth of those lying Prophets, which did prevail with Ahab, to go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead. This maketh men speak, not with men's Persons, but with their fortunes; not with the sinner, but with the rich and noble man. And this Spirit is abroad still, and persuadeth some into their graves, and some into hell, raiseth every storm and every tempest, and maketh that desolation which we see upon the earth. Val. Max. l. 4. c. 3. We read that Aristippus found Diogenes washing his herbs and roots, his daily food, and in a kind of pity or scorn told him, that, if he would flatter Dionysius, he need not eat these, nor tie himself to such course far: But Diogenes replieth like a Philosopher, and returneth his saying upon him, Si tu ista esse velles, Dionysio non adulareris, If thou couldst content thyself, and feed on these, thou wouldst never be so base as to flatter Dionysius. And certainly if we could with the Cynic be content with Nature for our purveyour, and look for no supply but from her hand; 1 Tim. 6.8. ●ab. 2.5. 1 Joh. 2.15. having food and raiment, as S. Paul speaketh, could we be therewith content; did we not enlarge our desires as Hell, and send our hopes afar off, did we not love the world, and the things of this world, we should not thus debase and annihilate ourselves a●, being men ourselves, to make ourselves the shadows of other, in their morning to rise with them, at their noon and highest to come up and close with them, and then at their night to fall out and leave them in the dark; we should not mould and fit our best part to their worst, our Reason to their Lust, nor make our fancy the elaboratory to work out such essays as may please and destroy them; we should not foment the anger of the Revenger to consume him, nor help the Covetous to bury himself alive, nor the Ambitious to break his neck, nor the Schismatic to rend the seamless coat of Christ, nor the Seditious to swim to hell in a river of blood; but we should bind the Revengers hands, break the Miser's idols, bring down the Ambitious to the dust, make up those rents which Faction hath made, and confine the Seditious to his own sphere and place. For who would favour or uphold such Monsters as these but for pay and salary? In a word, if every man did hate the world, every man would love his brother. Jam. 1.27. If every man did keep himself unspotted of the world, every man would be his Brother's keeper. When the world pleaseth us, we are as willing to please the world, and we make it our stage, and act our parts; we call ourselves Friends, and are but Parasites; we call ourselves Prophets, and are but Wizards and Jugglers: we call ourselves Apostles, and are Seducers; we call ourselves Brethren, though it be in evil, and like Hippocrites his Twins we live and die together: We flatter, and are flattered; we are blind, and leaders of the blind, Matth. 15.14. and fall together with them into the ditch, and bring our burden after us. We please men to please ourselves, lull them into a pleasant dream, 2 Pet. 2.3. and our damnation sleepeth not. You see now what it is to please men, and from whence it proceedeth, from whence it springeth, even from that bitter root, the root of all evil, the Love of the world. Let us now behold that huge distance and inconsistency which is between these two, the pleasing of men, and the Service of Christ. If I yet please men, I am not the servant of Christ. I am thy servant, saith David Psal. 119.125 grant me understanding to know what it is to be thy servant. In Loc. Latet sub familiaribus verbis maxima fidei & conscientiae professio, saith Hilary; By this familiar word Servant we bind our Faith and Conscience to the will and command, and beck of him we serve. The servant of Christ, is a title too great, too high an honour for a mortal Man, too high for an Emperor, for an Apostle, for an Angel, for a Seraphim: But since he is pleased to give it, we are bound to make it good, that every action and motion, and thought of ours may be to him, that whether we live, we may live unto him, and whether we die, Rom. 14 8. we may die unto him; that whatsoever we do, we may be the Lords. And first, we cannot do both, not serve Men and Christ, no more than you can draw the same straight line to two points, to touch them both. You cannot, saith Christ, serve God and Mammon. Matth. 6.24. One master may have many servants, but one servant cannot have many masters. Imperium dividi potest, Amor non potest; Power and Command may stretch and spread and divide itself to many, but Love and Observance cannot be carried & leveled but on one. Nor can the mind, saith Quintilian, seriously intent many things at once: Quocunque respexerit, desinit intueri quod propositum fuerat; To whatsoever it turneth itself, it turneth from that which it first looked upon, and loseth one engagement in another, because it cannot fit and apply itself 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, & see 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 itself; 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 than Disservice, than 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 easy to say, and we say it too often; for the Devil 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 oil into our brother's ears, but we drop sometimes a penny into the Treasury. Thus we please others, and we please ourselves, 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 seethe him do must do likewise. Isai. 62.10. Now Christ is called God's Servant; and he broke through Poverty, Disgrace, and the terrors of Death itself, that he might do his Father's will, omitted no tittle or jota 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, plucked off every visor, ploughed up every conscience, and thus shook the powers of Hell, Joh. 6.38. and destroyed the Kingdom 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 choir 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 than we were; 2 Cor. 2.10. & 5.20. but beseech them in Christ's stead and in the person of Christ, and speak like him in whose mouth there was neither flattery nor g●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 aught we know it may be the last word we speak; speak the truth, though it nail 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 than 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 havoc made of his Church, he cried out, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And in this every false Teacher is worse than Peter when he was at the worst, every flatterer is worse than Judas, every seducer is worse than the Jews when they nailed 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 quàm dominum, saith Columella; It is a most unfit and disadvantageous thing for the Farmer or Husbandman to be wiser than his Lord. For when the Lord commandeth one thing, and the Servant thinketh it fit 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 than 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 talon, 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 wisdom itself prescribeth; when he condemneth the Love of the world, to put in immoderate, and yet keep no moderation in our Love; when he forbiddeth us to be angry, to lay hold of that without a cause, and yet suffer every breath to raise a tempest in us; when he saith, Swear not at all, to persuade men to swear, and swear again, though it be against a former oath; when he biddeth us pray for our enemies, to be so bold as to curse our friends and our brethren. It is a great and dangerous folly thus to trifle with our Master, and delude his Precepts. And what do we with these distinctions and limitations and mitigations but shake Christ's livery off from our backs, and thrust ourselves out of his service? And then, tell me, whose servants are we? Quot nascuntur domini? For this one Master, whose service we have cast off, how many Masters and Tyrants do we serve? servants to the Flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof; servants to Covetousness, which setteth us, with the Gibeonites, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, Josh. 9.21. condemneth us to the mines and brick-kiln; servants to Ambition, which will carry thee from ste● to step, from degree to degree, till thou break thy neck; servants to Pleasure, which, like the Egyptian thiefs, will embrace and strangle thee; and servants to other Men, would that were all! nay, but to other men's Wills and Lusts, which change as the wind, now embracing, anon loathing, now ready to join with that which in the twinkling of an eye they fly from. Et quot nascuntur domini? How many Masters must thou serve in one man? servants to their Lusts, which are as unsatiable as the Grave; servants unto Error, which is blind; and to Sin, which is darkness itself: even mancipia Satanae, the bondslaves of Satan, with Canaan's curse upon us, A servant of servants shall he be, Gen. 9.25. NON SUM SERWS CHRISTI, I am not the servant of Christ, is Anathema Maran-atha, the bitterest curse that is. For conclusion then, Let them who are set apart to lead others in the ways of Truth and Righteousness take heed they lead them not in the ways of Cain, and take from them their spiritual, as he did from his brother his temporal life. Let them who subscribe themselves Your servants in Christ, (In every Epistle thus they writ) be careful to make it good, that their Epistle prove not a compliment, and their subscription a lie. Athen. Deipn. l. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Scire uti soro. Let them who do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fit their conversation and doctrine to the times, and so make them worse; who force the word of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to speak in favour of Philip, or any great Potentate, as he was; who make it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a buskin, to be pulled on and fit any design, any enterprise; let them remember what they are called, and what they call themselves, the Servants of Christ, of that Christ who will one day call them to an account, require the blood of those who are under their charge at their hands, call upon them as Augustus Caesar did upon Quinctilius Varus, Quinctili Vare, red legiones. Give an account of your Stewardship: Where are the Legions, those souls which I committed to your hands? the souls of them you betrayed to the World, and left them Mammonists; the souls of them you betrayed to Pride and made them factious; the souls of them you betrayed to Discontent, and made them seditious; the souls of them you betrayed to Cruelty, and made them murderers? Luke 11.51. Their blood will be upon you, and verily it shall be required of this generation. 1 Cor 6.20. And let them who are taught, remembering that they are bought with a price, and are the servants of Christ, cleave fast to him, and not be driven from him with every wound of doctrine, not judge of the doctrine by the person, but of the person by his doctrine. In Christianity, saith S. Hierom, Non multum differunt decipere & decipi, There is no great difference between these two, To take a cheat, and to offer one; for both are deceived, and both perish. The one cometh with a veil, the other is willing to draw it over his face: The one putteth out the others eyes, and the other is willing to be blind, and both rejoice at the work, both cry, So, so; thus we would have it. When we see so many so diffident in all things but that which should fit them for happiness, taking nothing upon trust but the doctrines of men; Judas 16. when we shall see them have men's persons in admiration, and their eyes dazzle at every mushroom in Divinity that groweth up in a night; when we shall see them debauch their Reason, and deliver up their Understandings and Wills to a Face, to a Voice, to the Gesture and Behaviour and Sleight of men; when every empty cloud that cometh towards them shall be taken for heaven, and he that speaketh not so much reason as Balaams' Ass shall be received for a Prophet; when men are so inclined, so ready, so ambitious to be deceived, we need not wonder to see so many blind Bartimeus' in our streets, who grope at noon day, and stumble at every straw, that blindness is happened to Israel, that Truth is become a monster, and Error a Saint, that the Pharisees have more Disciples than Christ. Men and brethren, what should I say? Why should you desire to be pleased? If we thus please you, we damn you. Why should we study to please you? If we study to please you, we damn ourselves. It is not your favour, your applause which we affect: We know well enough out of what treasury those winds come, and how uncertainly they blow. One applause of Conscience is worth all the triumphs in the world. Bring then the balance of the Sanctuary, the touchstone of the Scripture: If our Doctrine be not minus habens, be not light, but full weight; if it be not refuse silver, but current coin, and bear no other image but of the King of Kings, even for the Truth's sake, for our common Master's sake, whose servants we are, 1 Pet. 2.1, 2. Jam. 1.21. lay aside all malice and guile and hypocrisy, and with the meekness of a newborn babe receive it, that you may grow thereby. But if nothing yet be Truth which doth not please you, than what shall we say, but even tell you another truth? Vero verius, most true it is, You will not hear the Truth. And therefore, in the last place, let us all, both Teachers and Hearers, purge out this evil humour of pleasing and being pleased, and let us, as the Apostle exhorteth, Hebr. 10.14. Ephes. 4.25. consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. Let us speak truth every one to his neighbour: For we are members one of another. It is an error to think that the duty of Admonition is impropriate and pertaineth only to the Minister. Adversùs publicos hostes omnis homo miles est, saith Tertullian in another case; Against traitors and common enemies every man is a soldier. Every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire is for this business, by counsel, by advice, by rebuking, is a Priest: Nor must he let him lie there to expect better help. Thou shalt not see thy brother sin, but thou shalt rebuke and save thy brother. Leu. 19.17. Common charity requireth thus much at thy hand: And to make question of it is as if thou shouldst ask with Cain, Am I my brother's keeper? This is the true and surest method of pleasing one another. For Flattery, like the Bee, carrieth honey in its mouth, but hath a sting in its tail; but Truth is sharp and bitter at first, but at last more pleasant than Manna. He that would seal up thy lips for the Truth which thou speakest, will at last kiss those lips, and bless God in the day of his visitation. And this if we do, we shall please one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to edification, Rom. 15.2. and not unto ruin. And thus all shall be pleased; the Physician, that he hath his intent; and the Patient in his health: The strong shall be pleased in the weak, and the weak in the strong; the wise in the ignorant, and the ignorant in the wise: And Christ shall be well pleased to see Brethren thus to walk together in unity, strengthening and inciting one another in the ways of righteousness: And when we have thus walked hand in hand together to our journey's end, he shall admit us into his presence, Psal. 16.11. where there is fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore. The Eight and Twentieth SERMON. COLOSS. II. 6. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. NOthing more familiar in Scripture then to compare a Christian man's life to a Walk, and Christianity to a Way. Acts 24.14. After the way which they call Heresy, so worship I the God of my Fathers, saith S. Paul. And the resemblance fitteth very well. For as they who travel in the way meet with variety of objects; it may be a Plant or Flower, In Psal. 1. saith S. Basil, it may be a Serpent or a Lion; objects to delight them, and objects to terrify them, all to retard and detain them, and stay them longer from their journey's end; so in the course of Religion, in our way to happiness, every step is with danger; our paths are ensnared, and our progress entangled. If a Plant or Flower, the pomp and glory of the world, Prov. 22.13. stay us not, yet there is a Lion in the way, difficulties we must struggle with, 2 Cor. 7.5. Serm. 1. in Matth. and there are Fears in the way, fightings without and terrors within. Inter casus ambulamus, saith Augustine; We walk in the midst of ruin, where every object may prove a temptation, and every temptation an overthrow; nay, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Isidore, with our ruin about us. Not only the way, but our feet also are slippery. We need not go far for instance; for every man may find one in himself: But we will take this which S. Paul hath put into our hands, of the Colossians; the occasion of my Text. And of them S. Paul professeth in this Epistle, that they had made a fair onset in Christianity, and were forward in their way. v. 5. He beholdeth them with joy, and rejoiceth to see them walk, to see their order, and their steadfast faith in Christ. But withal perceiving some uneven steps, some dangerous swervings and declinations from the will of Christ, and those ways which his wisdom drew out in the Gospel, he calleth loud upon them, and at once commendeth and instructeth them, and armeth them against those false teachers who by their mixtures and additions had made another Gospel. He commendeth them for their choice of their way, and directeth them how to walk in it. v. 8 But there was Philosophus in via, the Philosopher in their way, with his subtleties to spoil and rob them: And then the word is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let no man make a spoil of you, draw you by force out of the way, by the vain deceit of philosophical speculations. And there was Angelus in via, an Angel in the way, v. 18. with his glorious excellencies to amaze them: And here the word is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let no man defraud you of your reward, of that liberty which Christ hath granted you, which maketh a fair and open way to you without the mediation of Angels. Last of all, there was Lex in via, the Law in the way, with her shadows and ceremonies to detain them: And there the word is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let no man judge, or condemn, v. 16. you of a holiday, or new-moon, or the sabbath days. Harken not to the Philosopher, but to him in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, v. 9 and to that wisdom which the holy Ghost teacheth. Bow not to an Angel, 1 Cor. 2.13. Col. 2.10. but to him who is head of all Principality and Power. And look not unto the Law, which is but a shadow; but to the body, the truth and solidity of the things themselves, which is in Christ. These three are all: And these three are one; I may say, these three cautions and directions are but one, at least drawn up and collected in this one which I have read unto you; Three several lines, but meeting in this centre, Walk in Christ, as ye have received him, which is as a light from heaven to direct us in our way, that we be not taken by the deceit of Philosophy, that we stoop not to the glory of Angels, that we catch not at the Shadow, when we should lay hold on the Substance. In a word, this keepeth us close to Christ and his doctrine, which must not be mixed or blended, either with the Law, or Philosophy, or that voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels, which is Idolatry. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. At the very hearing of this Exhortation I know every man will say that it is good and wholesome counsel, well fitted and applied by S. Paul to the errors and distempers of that Church to which he writ, but not so proper and appliable to ours. For so far are we from being ensnared with Philosophy, that we see too many ready to renounce both their Sense and Reason, to be less than Men, nay to be inferior to the Beasts, neither to discourse nor see, not to see what they see, nor to know what they cannot be ignorant of, that they may be Christians; as if Christ came to put out our eyes, and abolish our Reason. And for Voluntary worship; there is no fear of that in them who will scarce acknowledge any obligation, and can with ease turn a Law into a Promise. Will that profane person ever stoop to an Angel who is thus familiar with God himself? And for the Law; it goeth for a letter, a title, and no more. For Ceremonies; they were but shadows, but are now monsters. Christ in appearance left us two, and but two: and some have dealt with them as they use to do with monsters, exposed them to scorn, and fling them out. Prov. 25.11. So that this counsel now in respect of us will not appear as an apple of gold with pictures of silver, but may seem to be quite out of its place and season. But yet let us view it once again, and we shall find that it is a general prescript looking forward, and appliable to every age of the Church, an antidote against all errors and deviations: And if we take it as we should, it will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, look round upon all, and either prevent or purge out all error whatsoever. For though our errors be not the same with the Colossians, yet they may proceed from the same ground, and be as dangerous, or worse. Peradventure we may be in no danger of Philosophy, but we may be in danger of ourselves; and our Self-love may more ensnare us then Philosophical subtleties can do. We may be too stiff to bow to an Angel; but our eyes may dazzle at the power and excellency of Men, Eph. 4.14. and we may be carried about from doctrine to doctrine, from error to error, with every breath of theirs, as with a mighty wind. And though we stand out against the glory of an Angel, yet we may fall down and miscarry by the example of a mortal man. In a word, we may defy all Ceremonies, and yet worship our own imaginations, which may be less significant than they. Let us then, as the Apostle elsewhere speaketh, Hebr. 13.22. suffer this word of exhortation. Let us view and handle this word of life, and it will present us with these two things: 1. A Christian man's Duty, in these words, AMBULATE IN CHRISTO, Walk in Christ. 2. The Rule by which we must regulate our motion, and be directed in our Walk, SICUT ACCEPISTIS; We must so walk in him as we have received him. Which two stand in flat opposition to two main errors of our life: For either we receive Christ, and not walk in him; or walk in him, but not with a SICUT, not as we have received him. Of these in their order. In the handling of the first we shall point and levelly our discourse at two particulars, and show you; 1. That Christianity is not a lazy and idle profession, a sitting still, or a standing, or a speculation; but a Walk. 2. Wherein this Walk or motion principally consisteth. First, we find no word so expressive, no word more commonly used in holy Writ then this; To walk with God, Gen. 5.22, 24. to walk before God, Gen. 17.1. and 24.40. to walk by faith, 2 Cor. 5.7. to walk in good works, Ephes. 2.10. and in divers other places. For indeed in this one word, in this one syllable, is contained the whole matter, the end and sum of all, all that can be brought in to make up the perfect man in Christ Jesus. For first, this bringeth forth a Christian like a pilgrim or traveller, Phil. 3.13. forgetting what is behind, and weary of the place he standeth in, counting those few approaches he hath made as nothing, ever panting and striving, gaining ground, and pressing forward to a higher degree, to a better place. As there is motus ad perfectionem, a motion to perfection, so there is motus in perfectione, a motion and progress even in perfection itself; the good Christian being ever perfect, and never perfect till he come to his journeys end. Secondly, it taketh within its compass all those essential requisites to action. It supposeth 1. Faculty to discover the way; 2. a Power to act and move in it; 3. Will, which is nothing else but principium actionis, as Tertullian saith, the beginning of all motion, the imperial power, which as Queen commandeth, and giveth act to the Understanding, Senses, Affections, and those faculties which are subject to it. And besides this, to Walk implieth those outward and adventitious helps, Knowledge in the Understanding, and Love in the Will, which are as the Pilgrims staff, to guide and uphold him in his way. Rom. 13.13. 2 Cor. 5.1. His Knowledge is as the day to him, to walk as in the day: And his Love maketh his journey shorter, though it be through the wilderness of this world to a City not made with hands, Hebr. 9.11. nor seen. Faculty without Knowledge is like Polyphemus, a body with power to move, but without eye sight to direct, and therefore cannot choose but offend and move amiss. And Faculty and Knowledge without Love and Desire are but like a body which wanting nourishment hath no sense of hunger to make it call for it, and therefore cannot but bring leanness into the soul. For be our natural faculty and ability what it will, yet if we know not our way, we shall no more walk in it then the traveller sound of body and limb can go the way aright of which he is utterly ignorant. Again, be our Abilities perfect, and our Knowledge absolute, yet if we want a Mind, and have no Love, if we suffer ourselves to be overswayed by a more potent affection to something else, we shall never do what we know well enough, and are otherwise enabled to. Now To walk in Christ taketh in all these, Faculty, Power, Will, Knowledge, Love. Then you see a Christian in his Walk, Psal. 19.5. rejoicing as a mighty man to run his race, when the Understanding is the counsellor, and pointeth out, This is the way, walk in it; Isa. 30.21. and the Will hath an eye to the hand and direction of the Understanding, boweth itself, and as a Queen draweth with it those inferior faculties, the Senses and Affections; when it openeth my Eye to the wonders of God's Law, Psal. 119.18. Job 31.1. and shutteth it up by covenant to the vanity of the World; when it boundeth my Touch and Taste with Touch not, Taste not any forbidden thing; Col. 2.21. when it maketh the Senses as windows to let in life, not Death, Jer. 9.21. and as gates shut fast to the World and the Devil, and lifting up their heads to let the King of glory in; Psal. 24.7.9. when it composeth and tuneth our Affections to such a peace and harmony, setting our Love to piety, our Anger to sin, our Fear to God's wrath, our Hope to things not seen, our Sorrow to what is done amiss, and so frameth in us nunc modulos temperantiae, nunc carmen pietatis, as S. Ambrose speaketh, now the even measures of Temperance, now a psalm of Piety, now the threnody of a Broken heart, even those songs of Zion which the Angels in heaven & God himself delight in. All these are virtually included in this one duty, to walk in Christ: And if any of these be wanting, what proffers soever we make, what fancies soever we entertain, what empty conceptions soever we foster, yet flesh and blood cannot raise itself on these wings of wind; nor can we be more faid to walk than they who have been dead long ago. For so far is the bare Knowledge of the way from advancing us in our Walk, that it is a thing supposed, and no where under the command, as it is merely speculative and endeth in itself; no more than to See, or Feel, or Hear. And so essential is this motion of Walking to a Christian, that in the language of the Spirit we are never truly said to know till we walk; and that is made imperfect knowledge which receiveth those things which concern our peace no otherwise then the Eye doth colours, or the Ear sounds, it never being once named or mentioned in the Scripture but with disgrace. He that saith, I know him, 1 John 2.4. and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar. So that to define our Walking by Knowledge and Speculation is a kind of heresy which rather deserveth an Anathema, and should be driven out of the Church with more zeal and earnestness, than many, though gross, yet silly and impertinent errors, which pass abroad about the world, but under that name. For first, the speculative Knowledge is but a naked assent, and no more, and hath nothing of the Will. The Understanding is not an arbitrary faculty, but necessarily apprehendeth objects in that shape and form they represent themselves. Nor is it deceived, even when it is deceived; I mean, in things which concern our Walk. For the bill and accusation against us is not, That we do not, but, Thatwe will not, understand. Nolumus intelligere, nè cogamur & facere, saith Augustine; We will not know our way, for no other reason but because we are most unwilling to take the pains to walk in it. Therefore in every Christian Peripatetic there must be something of the Seraphin, and something of the Cherubin, heat as well as light, love as well as knowledge. For Love is active, and will place on, where Knowledge doth but stand at gaze. Amor intrat, ubi cognitio forìs stat; Hugo de S. Vict. Matth. 11.12. Love will make a battery and forcible entrance, and take the kingdom of heaven by violence, whilst Speculation standeth without, and looketh upon it as in a map. What talk we of Knowledge and Speculation? It is but a look, a cast of the minds eye, and no more, Deut. 32.49. & 34.1, 4. and doth but place us as God did Moses once upon mount Nebo, to see that spiritual Canaan which we shall never enjoy. And then what comfort is it to know what Justification is, and to want that hand of a quick and active Faith which alone can lay hold on Christ? to talk of Election, and never make it sure? to dispute of Paradise, and have no title to it? to speak of nothing more than Heaven, and be an heir of Damnation? And then what a fruitless mock-Knowledge is that which setteth God a walking, whilst we sleep and dream? which maketh the Master of the vineyard work and sweat, and standeth idle itself all the day long? which hath a full view of what God hath done before all time, and no power at all to move us to do any thing in this our day? when we are well seen in the Decrees of God, and little move in our own Duties? when we can follow God in all his ways, and tell how he worketh in us, Phil. 2.12. and are afraid of that fear and trembling with which we should work out our salvation? can speak largely of the power of God's Grace, and resist it? of Perseverance. and fall more than seven times a day? This Knowledge, I say, is but a bare assent, and so far from being enjoined us, that, as the case now standeth, Ignorance were the safer choice; and rather than thus to know him, 1 Cor. 14.38. we may say with the Apostle, Let him that is ignorant be ignorant still. For, in the second place, as we use it, it worketh in us at the most but a weak purpose of mind, a faint velleity, a forced involuntary approbation, which we should shake off if we could, as we do a friend which speaketh what we would not hear, and calleth that poison which is as honey to our taste. For who can see such sights, and not in some degree be taken with them? Who can look upon the Temple, and not ask, What buildings are these? Mark 13.1. Who can see the way to life, and not approve it? But you know, I may purpose to rise, and yet fold my hands to sleep; I may commend the way, and not walk in it. Nay, how often do we pray, John 6.34.— 27. Give us ever of this bread of life, and yet labour most for this bread that perisheth; which we at once revile and embrace, and speak evil of it, because we love it; when Heaven is but as a picture, which we look upon, and wonder, and refuse, and hath no better place of reception than that common inn of all wild and lose imaginations, the Fancy? Christ is the way, John 14.6. is in every man's Creed: And if this would make us Walkers, what a multitude of Sectaries, what a herd of Epicures, what an assembly of Atheists, what a congregation of fools, I had almost said, what a Legion of Devils might go under that name? For even the Devils themselves have acknowledged Christ: and this way is not evil spoken of, nay, it is magnified, of them who had rather wallow in the mire then walk in it. How is Christ made not only panis quotidianus, our daily bread, but sermo quotidianus, the talk of every day and hour? In our misery we implore his help; In his Name we lie down, and in his Name we rise up; In his Name we prophecy. If afflictions beat upon us, he is called upon to calm the storm. If our conscience chide us, we have learned an unhappy art and skill to force him in to make our peace. We love to talk of him: We many times leave our necessary callings and trades most unnecessarily, but to hear of him. But all these may be rather proffers then motions, rather pleasing and flattering thoughts then painful ambulations, as S. Augustine speaketh of himself in his Confessions, cogitationes similes conatibus expergisci volentium, L. 8. c. 5. thoughts like to the endeavours of men half asleep, who would be awaked, and cannot; who move and stir, and lightly lift up the head, and then fall down fast asleep. I have been too liberal, and given them more strength than they have, I mean, than these Gnostics give them, whom they neither move nor stir, but leave them in their prospect, fast asleep. Or at the best, in the third place, this inclination, this approbation is but a dream; Virg. Aen. 2. Visus adesse mihi, etc. Christ may seem to walk with us, when he is not in all our ways. And as in dreams we seem to perform many things; we do all things, and we do nothing; Nunc fora, nunc lights, laeti modò pompa theatri, etc. Auson. Ephem. we plead, we wrestle, we fight, we triumph, we sail, we fly, we see, not what is, but hath been or should be done, and all is but a dream: So when we have made a phansiful peregrination through all the pleasant fields and rivers of milk, through all the riches and glory of the Gospel, and delights which it affordeth; when we have seen our Saviour in his cratch, led him to mount Calvary, beheld him on his cross, brought him back with triumph from his grave, and placed him at the right hand of God, we may think indeed we have walked all this while with Christ: but when our conscience shall recover her light which was darkened with the pleasures and follies of this present life, when she shall dart this light upon us, and plainly tell us that we have not fasted with Christ, that we have not watched one hour with him, Matth. 26.18. Acts 10.38. Gal. 5.24. Hebr. 6.6. Rom. 13.14. that we have not gone about with him doing good, that we have loved those enemies which he came to destroy, that we have been so far from crucifying our flesh that we have crucified him again to fulfil the lusts thereof; that the World, and not Christ, hath been the Form which moved us in the whole course of our life; behold, than it will appear that all was but a dream. Foolish men that we are, who hath bewitched us? We dispute, we writ books, we coin distinctions, we study for the Truth, we are angry for the Truth, we lose our Peace for the Truth, we fight for the Truth, we die for the Truth, and when all is done, upon due examination, nothing is done, but we have spun a spider's web, which the least breath of God's displeasure will blow away. We have known the way, and approved it, have subscribed that, This is the way, but have made no more progress towards our journeys end then our picture hath: we have but dreamt of Life, Psal. 23.4. Isa. 9.2. and are still in the valley of the shadow of death. And now, what saith the Scripture? Awake thou that sleepest, Ephes. 5.14. that dreamest, and stand up from the dead. Let us not please ourselves with visions and dreams, with the suborned flattery of our own imaginations. Let us not think that if we seek the way, and like it, and speak well of it, we are in heaven already, or have that Hope, that well grounded neverfailing Hope, which may entitle us to it. Why should such a thought arise in our heart? a thought that maketh us worse than fools or madmen, and will keep us so, courting of sin, labouring in iniquity, and with greediness working out our own destruction; a thought that shutteth out God, and maketh an open entrance for a legion of Devils, and then welcometh and attendeth them. For all the sins which the Flesh is subject to, or the Devil can suggest, may well stay and find a place of rest with such a thought. Why should we please, and lose ourselves in such a thought? See, here is water; what doth let me to be baptised? Acts 8.36. said the Eunuch to the Philip. Here is light; what hindereth that we do not walk in it? Behold, Heaven openeth itself, and displayeth all its beauty and glory; why do we run from it? Knowledge directeth; but we will not follow. Knowledge persuadeth; but we will not hearken. Knowledge commandeth; but we rebel. We are illuminated, we profess we know Christ; but we will not be sanctified: Tit. 1.16. For by our works we deny him. Our knowledge followeth and pursueth us, we cannot shake it off; it stayeth with us whether we will or no; it goadeth, it provoketh, it chideth, it importuneth; it triumpheth within us, but yet not over us, because those vanities which we are too familiar with will not suffer us to yield. We cannot be ignorant of what we know; but we are too often unwilling to do that of which we cannot be ignorant. Ourselves love undoeth us, and our own Will driveth us on the rocks, whilst the light within us pointeth out to the haven where we should be: And the Knowledge within us, which did exhort, instruct and correct, is made a Witness against us, Luk 12.47, 48 Matth. 4.16. and a Judge to condemn us to more stripes than they shall feel who had not so much as a glance of light, but did sit in darkness and in the shadow of Death. Let us then not fly, but walk; not hover aloft in the contemplation of what is to be done, but stoop down and do it; subdue our Will to our Knowledge, our Sense to Reason. Let us learn to walk, and by walking be more learned than before. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Orat. 3. For Practice, saith Nazianzene, is to Knowledge, what Knowledge is to it, a foundation. As we build our Practice upon Knowledge, (for we must know before we can walk) so we raise our Knowledge higher and higher upon Practice; as Heat helpeth Motion, and is increased by it, and the torch burneth brighter, being fanned by that air which it inlightneth. Psal. 25.14. The secret of the Lord is revealed to them that fear him, and his covenant to give them more understanding, saith David. Let us then join, 2 Pet. 1.6, 8. as S. Peter exhorteth, with Knowledge Temperance, and with Temperance Patience, and with Patience Godliness: And these will make that we shall neither be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, idle, and not walk, nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, walk, but to no purpose, unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. For to join these two, Knowledge and Practice, and to abound more and more, is to walk in Christ. And thus we see a Christian man's life is not an empty and airy speculation, a Sitting still, or Standing, but a Walk. Let us now in the second place see wherein this motion or Walk principally consisteth. And you may think perhaps that I shall now point out to the Denial of ourselves, Matth. 16.24. show you Christ's Cross to take up, and bid you follow him; bid you fight against the World, and all that is in the World, the lust of the flesh, 1 John ●. 16. the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; bid you lay hold on Christ, love Christ, be adopted, be regenerate, be called and converted. With these generalities the Religion of too many is carried along; not with the thing itself, but the name. And with these names and notions they play and please themselves, as the silly Fly doth with the flame of the taper, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. till they lose their wings and feet, and become but a body, a lump that can neither walk nor move. They deny themselves with an oath, and yet are themselves still as greedy and rapacious as before; They take up the Cross, but it is to lay it on other men's shoulders; They follow Christ, but, as Peter did, afar off, or rather as the Jews, to crucify him; They fight against the world, that is, against one another, who shall possess it; (For even this we do not do, not fill our coffers, but in the name of Christ and Religion;) They lay hold on Christ, but it is to carry him along with them to promote and further their designs; They love him, it is plain they do, and yet give him not a cup of cold water when he beggeth at their door; They love him as they do one another, till it is put to the trial. They are adopted, but not of his family; regenerated, but are liker the Father of lies then him they pretend to. They are called and converted; for they know the very hour and moment of time when they heard the voice, and said Amen to it. Lord, what a noise have these phrases, these words, made in the world! and yet it is the world still, James 3.6. Sen. Controu. even a world of wickedness? As the Orator said of Figures, Possumus sine his vivere, We may live and be saved with less noise. For all these signify but one and the same thing. To deny ourselves, to take up the cross, to follow Christ, to fight against the world, to lay hold on Christ, to love him, to be adopted, regenerated, and converted, all is no more than this, to believe in Christ, and to be sincere, upright, just and honest men. Yet these words are words of holy Writ, the language of the Spirit of God, and they are all full and significant: nor can I give you a fairer interpretation of my Text, He that denieth himself, walketh in Christ; He that loveth Christ, walketh in him; he that is adopted, regenerate, converted, walketh in Christ: But this is too general, and I see but ill use made of these excellent expressions. They should make us better, but through our own wilful folly they make us worse. For we may shape ourselves how we list in our fancy, and be quite the contrary. We will therefore interpret this Walk in Christ, by that of S. Paul, Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 1 Cor. 7.20. Grot. in loc. Where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he was called, pointeth out and designeth (as a learned man hath observed) the time of his heavenly Calling; and so both callings are made compatible, and friendly linked together; my condition of life in this world, and my calling to a better; my being a part of the Commonwealth, and my being a member of Christ. For Christ came not to break Relations, or to disturb Commonwealths; not to shut up the Tradesman's shops, not to block up the sea to the Merchant, not to take the Husband man from the plough. I may do all these, and yet deny myself, and take up the Cross, and fight against the world. Or rather I cannot do all these unless I do the other; I cannot abide in one calling as I should, unless I walk worthy of the other; not be a good Merchant, unless I be a good Christian (that we doubt not;) nay, but not walk in Christ, unless we walk in our Calling. The life, saith S. Paul, Gal. 3.2 which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God; that is, Those things which I do pertaining to the flesh, and which this natural and mortal life requireth, as to eat, drink, converse with others, and to seek my meat by the sweat of my brows (which may seem to have no relation to a spiritual life) I do them in the faith of the Son of God. For in all these things I have always an eye to the rule of Faith: I make that my Star and my Compass to steer by; and my care is to make every action of my life in my temporary conformable and consonant to my heavenly calling. And the reason is plain; For even our natural and civil actions, as far as they are capable of honesty or dishonesty, pertain or have reference to Faith. For although Christ's Religion do not necessitate or compel men to engage in this or that particular action or calling, yet notwithstanding it is a rule sufficient to govern and direct us in any, to keep us in a fair correspondency and obedience to Reason and the Will of God, the Faith and Religion of Christ being practical, and having that force and efficacy which may be shown and manifested in all the civil actions of our life. As the Jewish Rabbins report of the Manna the children of Israel eaten in the wilderness, that it had this wonderful property, Wisd. 16.21. that it would fit itself to every man's taste; look what viand or meat it was that any was delighted with, it would in taste be like unto it; so doth Christianity, like that Manna, doctâ quadam mobilitate, by a certain secret force, apply itself to every taste, to every calling. Read the Sermon on the mount, and those Epistles which the holy Apostles sent to several Churches, and tell me, What is there delivered (the Foundation first laid) but an Art of governing ourselves, and of conversing with men? 1 Cor. 7.21. Or there it is. Art thou called, being a servant? Eph. 6.9. Art thou called to be a Servant? Serve as in the sight of Christ. Art thou called to be a Master? Remember thou hast a Master in heaven. Art thou a Husbandman? Religion will hold the plough with thee. Art thou a Tradesman? It will buy and sell with thee. Art thou a Scholar? It will study with thee. If thou go into the Vineyard, Matth. 20. it will bear the heat of the day with thee till the evening, and then pay thee thy wages. If thou sell, it will oversee thy weights and measures. If we bargain, it will remember us that we defraud not one another: 1 Thes. 4.6. This counsel was given to the Thessalonians, who were most of them men of Trade and Merchants. When we speak, Ephes. 4.25. it biddeth us cast away lying. Thus doth Christian Religion spread its beams through every corner of the earth, shining upon us at every turn and every motion, waiting upon us in every condition of life, keeping every man within the bounds of his Calling and of Honesty. And whilst we follow this light, walk within these bounds, stretch not, as S. Paul speaketh, 2 Cor. 10.14. beyond measure beyond our line, we may be truly said to walk in Christ. Therefore, to make some use of this, let us not deceive ourselves, and think we never walk in Christ, but when we walk to Church to hear some news of him; that when we have shut him out of our houses and shops, we shall be sure to meet with him again at Church. If we never serve him but in his own house, we have some reason to fear we never serve him worse; never Walk less, than when we walk so far. Certainly, if the End be better and more noble than the means, than our even and upright motion in our several conditions must needs have the preeminence. For here, in the Church, we are called; but there we work in the Vineyard: here we take out our lesson, there we con it; here we receive rules to guide us, there we practise them; here Christ is form in us, Gal. 4.19. 1 Tim. 3.16. there he is manifested, as it were, in our flesh, in our outward actions; in a word, here we are taught to go, there we walk in Christ. Oh then, let us not so perversely honour Christ as to dishonour him, or think that he who passed through the contumelies of our nature, as Tertullian speaketh, and was made like unto his brethren, should disdain to be with us, and to walk with us in our calling, be it never so mean; That Christ is disgraced when we call him into our counting-houses or our shops; that we do not walk in Christ, when we sweat in our calling. Luke 3.12, 14 You know what S. John Baptist said to the Soldier, and to the Publican. And certainly if the Publican in his Customhouse, if the Soldier with his sword in his hand, may walk in Christ, I know no calling so mean, no trade so low, as to be excluded. It was a witless and groundless Etymon which he gave who said they were called Mechanic arts quia intellectus in iis quodammodo moechatur, because the Understanding in these manual trades seemeth to adulterate and pollute itself. For nothing can pollute a Soul but Sin and Dishonesty. And the Soul is then most pure, when passing as it were through these earthy and carnal affairs, she ordereth them aright, and receiveth nothing that is earthy or carnal from them, retaining still, in the midst of these employments, her native and proper spirituality. Gen. 3. Adam himself is set to till the ground: Gen. 6. Noah is a Shipwright: Gen. 24. you shall see Rebeccah with bracelets indeed on her arms, but with a pitcher on her shoulder. Judg. 6. Gideon receiveth his Commission to be Captain of Israel whilst the flail was in his hand. And when did our Saviour call the Disciples but as they were mending their nets? And quite to take off this imputation, Luke 2. ●1. Coll. cum Tryph. Judaeo himself descended to a trade, and was obedient to his parents. Justine Martyr saith he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ploughs and yokes. Be our calling what it will, we then walk truly in Christ when we walk honestly in it. Not only our attention, our sighs, our groans, our often mentioning Christ's name, but our silence, our honesty, our industry may make us Christian Peripatetics. Let us then, in the name of Christ and Religion, abide in our particular calling. Whatsoever Providence hath placed us in, high or low, rich or poor, let us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, abide, in it against all temptations whatsoever: 1 Cor. 7.20. bear them, bear up against them, by his power; keep a good conscience against the flatteries of the world, and the lowering and bitter menaces of Poverty. In his name rise up early, and lie down late: In his name cast out those evil Spirits, those false suggestions, which may hinder us in our Walk, and so press forward in a constant and uninterrupted motion, never shaken nor changed with the manifold changes & chances of this fading world; and then we shall be not only Christ's Servants, but his Companions and Friends, he will call us so. And then when Christ thus goeth along with us in all our ways, when we walk on earth, but by this light from heaven, we may assure ourselves by thus walking we walk in Christ. We pass now from the Duty, To walk in Christ, to the Manner, How we must walk in him, or the Rule by which we must regulate our motion; SICUT ACCEPISTIS, We must so walk as we have received him. As you have received Christ, so walk in him; that is, Since you have received him walk in him. And in this sense we may take it; Rest not in the outward Profession: Think not that you are only vessels to receive him; ye must be also channels or conduits through which he must be conveyed. He must pass through every vein, through every faculty of your souls and every member of your bodies, and so be made visible in the actions of your life. To receive him and not to walk in him will but swell and enlarge the burden of our accounts; as to receive any good from him, and not to use it to that end for which it is was given, is the worst evil that can befall us. Many receive him, because he cometh with so much beauty that they cannot refuse him, Psal. 45.2. because they are convinced that he is fairer than the children of men, and most worthy to be received. Psal. 8 2. For not only out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the mouths of wicked men, hath God ordained strength; and Wisdom is justified, M●tth. 11.19. not only of her friends, but of her enemies. Many receive Christ as it were in a throng; they applaud Christianity, and dare not refuse it, lest the multitude of those they live with should confute and silence them. Greg Hom. 32. in Evang. Si nomen Christi in tanta gloria non esset, tot professores Christi sancta Ecclesia non haberet, saith Gregory; If the name of Christ were not so high and glorious in the world, the Church would fall short in her number of Professors, whereof many make but a proffer at Christianity for companies sake. This the Apostle may seem either to have seen or been afraid of, either to have had it in his eye or in his jealousy: and therefore he striveth to remove or to prevent it. It is far the lesser evil not to know Christ's name then thus to receive him; an unhappy ignorance finding some mercy even in judgement, of which a fruitless and ungrateful knowledge is not capable. And in this sense we may take it. But if we look forward, and consider the many cautions the Apostle putteth up against Philosophy, Traditions of men, and the law of Ceremonies, Nihil peregrinum audite, Oecum. in loc I see not but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here may be an adverb of Similitude and Likeness: And then the sense will run thus, Walk in him in that manner you have received him, as he was presented & delivered to you by me, or, as S. Judas interpreteth it, as he was delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, once for all, unto the Saints. Judas 3. Sicut edocti estis, v. 7. Otherwise we receive him not, or receive something else for Christ, or something more or something less than Christ. And as the danger is great if we receive him not, so is it no less if we receive him not 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 error & 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 than a Type, in an aerial & fantastical body; a Christ, & not a Christ; a Christ divided, & a Christ contracted; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, and many Christ's, indeed as good none at all: So in the practical part, in respect of his Doctrine, we often err, 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 ourselves, Cant 5.11, 13. Cant. 2.5. our consciences will tell us. With his curly locks and spicy cheeks, with his flagons 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 sceptre; a Son that will be kissed (we like that well) but not be angry. Some receive him without the Law, not only taking away the rigour of it, but abolishing it quite; removing it out of our sight, not only 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 only 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 expected 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 nailed 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 Schismatic divideth him, the Heretic tradeth with him. The Ambitious scorneth him, the Covetous selleth him, the Oppressor whippeth him, the Mocker spiteth 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 errors 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 show thee the colour, the full proportion of every step and motion, if thou look steadfastly upon it and not go away, and forget, and then look upon others in their walk, or make thy own fancy a glass like that which Pliny said did hang in the temple of Smyrna, in which thou mayst see every thing but thyself. 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 ●●gurat digit●s. Is illam p emendo quasi dolore afficit. and make thy paths straight, if thou do not dolorem verbo afferte, as David complaineth of his enemies, bring grief unto it, wrist and wreath and shape and figure it by violence, fit it to thy action, and make Light itself 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 malefactor. Ad omnia occurrit veritas; The Rule will help us at all losses in our way, if we do not choose and delight to wander, and call Error itself Truth, because it giveth us of that forbidden fruit which is pleasant to our eye and taste, or which our Humour or Fancy or Lust have marked out as our chiefest happiness; For these are the best and most authentic Interpreters of this world, these are the Doctors in our Israel. How readest thou? that is the Rule; not, How thinkest thou? How wishest thou? How wouldst thou have it? And we must walk SICUT ACCEPIMUS, as we have received. This is set up against all other Sicuts, all other Rules whatsoever, and biddeth us beware of men, beware of ourselves, Matth 10.17. and try every spirit. For it is not SICUT VIDIMUS, as we see others walk; 1 Joh. 4.1. nor SICUT VISUM EST, as it may seem good in our own eyes; for no man more ready to put a cheat upon us then ourselves: nor SICUT VISUM 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 ways, 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 joining 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. None of these will fit us, but SICUT ACCEPIMUS as we have received from Christ and his Apostles; which is the only sufficient Rule to guide us in our Walk. 1. Not SICUT VIDIMUS, as we have seen others walk. No; though their praise be in the Gospel, and they are numbered amongst the Saints of God. For, as S. Bernard calleth the examples of the Saints condimentum vitae, the sauce of our life, to season and make pleasant what else may prove bitter to us (as Job's Dunghill may be a good sight for me to look upon in my low estate, and his Patience may uphold me; David's Groans and Complaints may tune my sorrow; Saint Paul's Labours and Stripes and Imprisonment may give me an issue, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a way, 1 Cor. 10.13. a power, to escape the like temptation by conquering it: I may wash off all my grief with their tears, wipe out all disgrace with their contumelies, and bury the fear of Death in their Graves) so they may prove, if we be not wary, venenum vitae, as poison to our life and walk. For, I know not how, we are readier to stumble with the Saints then to walk with them, readier to lie down with David in his bed of lust then in his couch of tears, readier to deny Christ with Peter upon a pretence of frailty then to weep bitterly out of a deep sense of our sin. In the errors and deviations of my life I am Noah and Abraham and David and Peter, I am all the Patriarches and all the Apostles; but in that which made them Saints I have little skill, and less mind to follow them. It will concern us then to have one eye upon the Saint, and another upon the Rule, that the actions of good men may be as a prosperous gale to drive us forward in our course, and the Rule the Compass to steer by. For it will neither help nor comfort me to say I shipwrackt with a Saint. James 2.1. My brethren, saith S. James, have not the faith of Christ in respect of persons. It is too common a thing to take our eye from the Rule, and settle it upon the Person, whom we gaze upon till we have lost our sight, and can see nothing of Man or Infirmity in him. His Virtue and our Esteem shine and cast a colour and brightness upon the evil which he doth; upon whatsoever he saith, though false; or doth, though irregular; that it is either less visible, or if it be seen, commendeth itself by the person that did it, and so stealeth and winneth upon us unawares, and hath power with us as a Law. Can S. Augustine err? There have been too many in the Church who thought he could not, and, to free him from error, have made his errors greater than they were by large additions of their own, and fathered upon him those misshapen births which, were he now alive, he would startle at and run from, or stand up and use all his strength to destroy. Can Calvine or Luther do or speak any thing that was not right? They that follow them, and are proud of their names, willing to be distinguished from all others by them, would be very angry, and hate you perfectly, if you should say they could. And we cannot but be sensible what strange effects this admiration of their persons hath wrought upon the earth, what a fire it hath kindled, hotter than that of the Tyrant's furnace: Dan. 3. For the flames have raged even to our very doors. Thus the Examples of good men, like two-edged swords, cut both ways, both for good and for bad; and Sin and Error may be conveyed to us not only in the cup of the Whore, but in the vessels of the Sanctuary. They are as the Plague, and infect wheresoever they are, but spread more contagion from a Saint then from a man of Belial. In the one they are scarce seen, in the other they are seen with horror. In the one we hate not the sin so much as the person, and in the other we are favourable to the sin for the person's sake, and at last grow familiar with it as with our friend. De Abrog. priv. Miss. Nihil perniciosius gestis sanctorum, said Luther himself; There is nothing more dangerous than the actions of the Saints not strengthened by the testimony of Scripture: and it is far safer to count that a sin in them which hath not its warrant from Scripture then to fix it up for an ensample: for it is not good to follow a Saint into the ditch. Let us take them, not whom men (for men may canonize themselves and others as they please) but whom God himself as it were with his own hand hath registered for Saints. Hebr. 11.32. Numb. 25.7, 8 Psal. 106.30. Samson was a good man, and hath his name in the catalogue of Believers; Phinehas, a zealous man, who stayed the plague by executing of judgement: but I can neither make Samson an argument to kill myself; nor Phinehas, to shed the blood of an adulterer. Lib. 2. de Baptismo. q. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hebr. 10.24. S. Basil observeth, that amongst those many seeming contradictions in Scripture one is of a Fact or Work done to the Precept. The Command is, Thou shalt not kill; Samson killed himself, Phinehas with his spear nailed the adulterous couple to the earth: but every man hath not Samson's spirit, nor Phinehas' commission. The Father's rule is the rule of Wisdom itself; When we read in Scripture a Fact commended which falleth cross with the Precept, we must leave the Fact, and cleave to the Precept. For Examples are not rules of life, but provocations to good works. SICUT VIDIMUS, As we have seen, then is not a right SICUT. We must be like unto Elias, but not consume men with fire; like unto Peter, but not cut off a man's ear; like unto S. Paul; 1 Cor. 11.1. but himself correcteth it with a SICUT EGO CHRISTI, as I am unto Christ. 2. In the next place, if not SICUT VIDIMUS, as we have seen others, than not SICUT VISUM FVERIT, as it shall seem good in our own eyes. For Fancy is a wanton, unruly, froward faculty, and in us, as in Beasts, for the most part supplieth the place of Reason. Vulgus ex veritate pauca, Pro Roscio Comaedo. ex opinione multa aestimat, saith Tully; The Common people (which is the greatest part of mankind: for vulgus is of a larger signification than we usually take it in) are led rather by Opinion then by the Truth, because they are more subject and enslaved to those two turbulent Tribunes of the Soul, the Irascible and the Concupiscible appetite, and so more opinionative than those who are not so much under their command. It is truly said, Affectiones facilè faciunt opiniones, Our affections will easily raise up opinions. For who will not soon fancy that to be true which he would have so? which may either fill his hopes, or satisfy his lusts, or justify 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 ways into several evils, and do scarce touch at Truth in the way. Opinion buildeth our Church, chooseth 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 than Truth. For though Opinion have a weaker groundwork than 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 Fancy that in David's time beat down the carved works with axes and hammers? that it was but a thought that destroyed the Temple itself, that killed the Prophets, and persecuted the Apostles, and crucified the Lord of life himself? And therefore it will concern us to watch our Fancy, 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 Fancy sporteth and pleaseth itself with vain and airy speculations, let us suspect and quarrel them, and by degrees present unto it the very face of Truth, as the Stoic 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 idols which our Passions by the help of Fancy 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 SICUT VISUM EST, as it seemeth good unto us, yet we may SICUT VISUM 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 Fancy, 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 than 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 Fancy still; it is our own Spirit, not the holy Ghost. Matth. 24.24. 1 John 4.1. For as there be many false Christ's, 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 Fancy Idem Accio Titióque: Both are alike in this. And if the Pope could persuade me that he never opened his mouth but the Spirit spoke 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 Impostors 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 pretence of the Spirit. If I be a Zealot, 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 authorise? 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 walked 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 myself; for it is a subject fit for a whole Sermon than 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 only 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 only walketh but runneth the ways of God's 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 than 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 in the world. Behold the Profane Gallant, who walketh and talketh away his life, Malunt Remp. turbari quàm comam, Sen. who divideth himself between the comb and the glass, and had rather the Commonwealth should fly in pieces then one hair of his periwig should be out of its place, whom we bow and cringe and fall down to as to a golden Calf; I tell you, the meanest Artisan that worketh with his hands, even he that grindeth at the mill, is more honourable than he. Take the speculative fantastic Zealot, the Christian Pharisee, that shutteth himself up between the ear and the tongue, between hearing much and speaking more, and doing contrary, the worst Anchorete in the world, bring full of oppression, deceit and bitterness; I may be bold to say, The vilest person, he that sitteth with the dogs of your flock, Job 30.1. Phil. 3.18. is more honourable, more righteous than he, and of such as these S. Paul spoke often, and he spoke it weeping, that they did walk, but walk as enemies to the cross of Christ. Let then every man move in his own sphere orderly, 1 Cor. 7.20. abide in the calling wherein he is called. And in the last place, that we may move with the first Mover, Christ, the Beginner and Author of our Walk, let us take him along with us in all our ways, Heb. 12.28. harken what Christ Jesus the Lord will say, that we may walk before him with reverence and godly fear: Psal. 85.8. Exod. 37.9. Not SICUT VIDIMUS, as we have seen; but look we upon one another as the two Cherubims, touching and moving one another, but with the Ark of the testimony in the midst betwixt us, and by that either inciting or correcting one another in our walk: Nor SICUT VISUM FVERIT, as it shall seem good in our own eyes; for nothing can be more deceitful than our own thoughts: Nor SICUT VISUM SPIRITVI S. as every Spirit may move us which we call Holy; for it may be a lying spirit, and ●ead us out of our way into those evils which grieve that blessed Spirit whose name we have thus presumptuously taken in vain: But SICUT ACCEPIMUS, as we have received Christ Jesus. Let us join example with the Word, and it will be no more as a meteor to misled us, but a bright morningstar to direct us to Christ. Correct our Fancy by the Rule, and it will be sanctum cogitatorium, an alembick, an holy elaboratory of such thoughts as may fly as the doves to the windows of heaven. And last of all, try the Spirit by the Word (for the Word is nothing else but the breathing and voice of the Spirit) and then thou shalt be baptised with the Spirit and fire. The Spirit shall enlighten thee, Matth. 3.11. John 16.13. and the Spirit shall purge and cleanse thee, and lead thee into all truth. The Spirit shall breathe comfort and strength into thee in this thy walk and pilgrimage, and thou shalt walk from strength to strength, Psal. 84.7. from virtue to virtue, even till thou come to thy journeys end, to thy Father's house, to that Sabbath and rest which remaineth to the people of God. Hebr. 4.9. A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sir George Whitmore, Knight, Sometime Lord Mayor of the City of LONDON: Who departed this life Decemb. 12. 1654. at his house at balms in MIDDLESEX. PSAL. CXIX. 19 I am a stranger in the earth: hid not thy commandments from me. THis Psalm is a Psalm of David; So S. Augustine, and Hilary, and others: or gathered by him, or out of him. And it is nothing else but a collection of Prayers and Praises, a body of devout ejaculations, which the Greek Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lively sparkles, breathed forth from a heart on fire and even sick with love: And they fly so thick that observation can hardly take the order of them. The method of Devotion followeth and keepeth time with the motion of the Heart, which is as various and different as those impr●ssions which Joy or Grief, Fear or Hope make in it; Which either contract and bind it up, and then it struggleth and laboureth within itself, and conceiveth sighs and groans which cannot be expressed, or breaketh forth into complaints and strong supplications; v. 39 v. 77. Take away the rebuke that I fear, Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live, and the like; or else dilate and open it, and then it leapeth out of itself, and breatheth itself forth with exultation and triumph in songs of praise and Hallelujahs; v. 57 v. 97. v. 72. O Lord, thou art my portion; O how I love thy Law! The Law of thy mouth is better unto me then thousands of gold and silver. In this verse which I have read unto you, and chosen as the fittest subject for this present occasion, the Heart having looked abroad out of itself, and reflected back into itself, draweth out in itself the Picture of a Stranger or a Pilgrim: and having well looked upon it with the serious eye of Contemplation, which is the heart of the Heart and the soul of the Soul, having surveyed the place of its habitation, how frail and ruinous it is, as a tent subject to the winds, beat upon by every storm, and at last to be removed, it goeth out of itself, and seeketh for shelter under the shadow of God's wing, sendeth forth strong desires for supply and support in hoc inquilinatûs sui tempore, as Tertullian speaketh, in this time of its so journing and pilgrimage, for that supply which is most answerable to the condition of a stranger upon earth and which may best conduct him to the place for which he was born and bound. He asketh not for Riches: they have wings, Prov. 23 5. and will fly away, and leave him in his walk; or if they stay with him, they will but mock and delude him: Not for Honour: that is but a breath, but air, and may breathe upon him at one stage, and at the next leave him, but never forward him in his way: Not for Delightful vanities: these are but ill companions, and will lead him out of his way. The best supply for a stranger here upon earth is from heaven, from the place not where he sojourneth, but to which he is going; the best convoy, the will and commandments of God; the word of God, the best lantern to his feet. Psal. 119.105. Whilst these are in his eye and heart, he shall pass by slippery places, and not fall; he shall pass through fire and water, he shall walk upon the Lion and the Asp; Psal. 66.12. & 91.13. he shall meet with with flattering objects, and loathe them; with terrors and contemn them; use the world as if he used it not; be in poverty, 1 Cor. 7.31. and yet not poor; in affliction, but not distressed; in many a storm, and pass through, and rejoice in it; live in the world, and yet be dead to the world; and so make his way through the valley and shadow of death to his journeys end, Psal. 23.4. to that rest which remaineth for the people of God, who are but strangers, Hebr. 4.9. and pilgrims 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: hid 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 dazzle the eyes of men, yet if we will define them aright, and set them out as they are, they are but strangers and pilgrims 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, Hid 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 Pilgrim, 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 hid 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 show 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 speech 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 wandered in deserts, and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth: or of some Ascetical Monk devoted and shut up in some cloister, or of some Anchorete shut up between two walls. This speech 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 highways, 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 nickname, but a solecism, if he be not at home in every place. But the holy Ghost regardeth not this Rhetoric, observeth not this art, which indeed is made up but by the eye. His method is è schola Coeli, drawn out by that Wisdom which form and fashioned us, and knoweth whereof and what we are made. And that which flesh and blood counteth a solecism, with him is the most exact propriety of language. What with us is looked 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 Lord's 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 only Lords and proprietaries of it? King's are Domini rerum temporúmque, Lords of the times and of all affairs, and carry all before them. 1 Sam. 8.11. etc. 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 terror 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 Pilgrim. 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 Pilgrim, 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 closerts this Pilgrimage is best vowed: For the way to Heaven is as near out of Britain as Jerusalem. And here you have a King to lead you, and his example to accompany you. For the words which I now read do as it were bring him to the Church, where he presenteth himself before the Altar, layeth down his Crown and Sceptre, and taketh as it were his Scrip and his Staff, and voweth himself a Pilgrim; I am a stranger in the earth. And now to give you some reason why the holy Ghost maketh choice of a King to teach this lesson. First, in this he setteth over us the best and wisest Masters, because the Scholars and Disciples of Experience, Quam usus genuit, & mater peperit memoria, Peripatetici dicunt generari prudentiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, A. Gell. Noct. Att. l. 13. c. 8. James 1.23, 24 begot by Use and conversation in the world, and brought forth by Memory. For those Conclusions which we gain by evidence of Reason may be as sure but not so operative and impressive as those which are drawn out by frequent and sensible Observation. Those we behold as we do our face in a glass, as S. James speaketh, and then go away, and forget them. And commonly they beget a Knowledge which endeth in itself, and so becometh more fatal than Ignorance. But those Lessons which Experience bringeth us do leave a mark and impression behind them, and even the soul, and so fill it that it must vent and evaporate, discourse to itself and to others what it hath seen and felt; and it floweth naturally and forcibly from the very depth of Apprehension. He maketh the fairest and the liveliest show of a stranger who showeth him in purple and on the throne. He will soon persuade you that you are mortal who first showeth you Death in his own face. He writeth most effectually who doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dip his pen in his mind, and then draw out those conclusions which long and sad experience hath taught him. For who fit to declaim against Riot than he that hath fed with Swine? Who can be a better orator against Intemperance than he that hath found the delusion of Wine and the rage of Drink? Who can Disgrace Beauty more than he that hath felt it by't like a Cockatrice? When Dives was in hell, how ready was he to be a Preacher of righteousness to his brethren? Experience doth make men both willing and able instructers. And certainly to cast a slur on Vanity, to decry the glory of the World, to teach the uncertainty of Riches and the folly of Ambition, to demonstrate that there is no solid or lasting joy to be founded on any thing under the Moon, they are best able who have had experience, and are examples of both fortunes; who have wallowed in wealth, and been mocked by it; who have lain in pleasure, and been stung; who have catcht at any evil that might carry them to that height they aimed at, and then been thrown down by the same evil that brought them up; who by long experience know what Riches and Pleasures are, what wings the one have, and what horror the other leave behind them when they turn their back; who having had all their vain wishes made good, are brought at last to unwish and execrate them all, and forced to make this their last, That they had never had what they so much desired. Never was the world more severely censured then by those who have made most trial of it. No theme more usually handled by all sorts then that of the Contempt of the World, nusquam tamen humanum genus tam incredulum, tam surdum est, and yet who heareth what himself saith, or who believeth his own report? The greatest part of men that speak against it do it not out of hatred but out of love to the World. For who more desirous to pluck the purple robe off from the rich man's back then he that longeth to wear it himself? His invisa saeneratio quibus succurrere videtur, Columel. How greedily do men surfeit on that meat which their injustice hath plucked out of the mouths of others? It is with the World as with Money let out upon use; Men hate and revile it, yet are willing and use all means to bring it into their hands, though upon the hard and so much loathed condition of Interest. The Philosophers have largely written of this subject, but most of that they wrote they wrote upon conjecture and guests, and scarce believed themselves in what they wrote. They have written best who have been disciplined by their own folly, and have been taught (not by the best, but yet) by the surest Mistress, Experience, who have been so roughly handled in the ways which they chose and delighted in that at last they were even forced to that proficiency, that they did indeed believe themselves. Solomon, who was a King, and wrote a bitter Satire against the World, did first taste the gall of every vanity, and then he wrote more fully and more profitably than ever yet any Philosopher did in his cell. For having run over the whole work of the creation of the world, having watched the course of things and every motion of his own heart, having been turned round as it were on the wheel of Vicissitude and Change, at last he settleth and resteth upon a Conclusion which was drawn forth out of the full treasury of his Experience: First he thought in his heart of what he had seen, Eccl. 1.13, 14. & 2.1, 3, 15. and then he said in his heart, and fixed it up in lasting characters to be read in the world to the end of it, That all that was in it was vanity. And therefore when a King thus pronounceth of himself that he is but a stranger, it must needs carry a far greater weight and argument of truth then if a private unexperienced man had spoken it. David had experience of peace and war, of riches and poverty, of pleasures and woe. He had been a private and public person; a Shepherd, a painful calling; a Soldier, a bloody trade; a Courtier, an honourable slavery, which joineth together in one the Lord and the Parasite, the Gentleman and the Drudge; and he was a King, a glorious name, filled up with fears and cares: All these he had passed through, and found least rest when he was at the highest, less content in the Throne then in the Sheepfolds: All this he had observed and laid up in his memory: And this his confession is an Epitome and brief of all, and in effect he telleth us that whatsoever he had seen in this his passage, whatsoever he had enjoyed, yet he found nothing so certain as this, That he had found nothing certain, nothing that he could abide with or would abide with him, but was still as a passenger and stranger on the earth. Now, to give you a second reason why the Spirit of God maketh choice of a King to preach this Lesson; As he chooseth the best and most experienced Masters, so doth he condescend and indulge to our infirmity, and appointeth the fittest for us, and those of whom we will soon learn. Our first question commonly is, Who is the Preacher? We deliver up our Judgements to our Affections, and converse rather with men's fortunes than their persons, and make use of no other rule in our censure of what is done or said then the Man himself that did or spoke it. If Honour or Power or Wealth have made the man great in our eyes, than whatsoever he speaketh is an oracle, though it be a doctrine of Devils, and have the same Father which all other lies have. Truth doth seldom go down with us unless it be presented in the cup in which we love to divine and prophesy. Eccl. 9.15. There was a poor wise man found, saith Solomon, that delivered the city by his wisdom, but none remembered or considered this poor wise man. For Poverty is a cloud, and casteth a darkness over that which is begot of light, sullieth every perfection that is in us, hideth it from an eye of flesh, which cannot see Wisdom and Poverty together in one man; whereas Folly itself shall go for Wisdom, and carry away that applause which is due to it, if it dwell in the heart or issue from the mouth of a purple and gallant fool. sumu●, sic judicamus; As we are, so we judge: and it is not our Reason which concludeth, but our Sense and Affection. If we love Beauty, every painted wanton is as the Queen of Sheba, and may ask Solomon a question; If Riches, Dives with us will be a better Evangelist then S. Luke; If our eyes dazzle at Majesty, Acts 12.21, 22 Herodes royal apparel will be a more eloquent orator than he that speaketh, and the people shall give a shout, and cry, The voice of a God, and not of a man. Do but ask ourselves the question, Doth not Affection to the person beget Admiration in you, and Admiration commend whatsoever he saith, and gild over Error and Sin itself, and make them current? Do not your Hopes or Fears or Love make up every opinion in you, and build you up in your most unholy faith? Is not the Coward or the Dotard or the Worldling in your Creed and Profession? Do you not measure out one another as you do a tree by the bulk and trunk, and count him best who is most worth? Is not this the compass by which you steer? Is not this the bond of your peace? the cement of all your friendship? Doth not this outward respect serene or cloud your countenance, and as the wind and the state of things change, make you to day the dearest friends, and to morrow the deadliest enemies? Can you think ill of them you gain by? or speak ill of them you fear? Can he be evil who is powerful? or dare you be more wise than he that hath thirty legions? We may say this is a great evil under the sun: But it is the property of the blessed Spirit to work good out of evil, to teach us to remember what we are by those who so soon make us forget what we are; to make use of Riches, which we dote on, of Power, which we tremble at, of that Glory which we have in admiration, to instruct us to the knowledge of our condition, and to put us in mind of our mortality and frailty by Kings, whom we count as Gods. Behold, a King from his throne proclaimeth it to his subjects and all the world, That his Power is but as a shadow cast from a mortal, his Glory but his garment, which he cannot wear long, and his Riches but the embroidery, which will be as soon worn out. And when we have gazed and fallen down and worshipped, and are thus lost in our own thoughts, if we could take away the film from our eye which the world hath drawn over it, and see every thing in its nature and substance as it is, we should behold in all these rays of glory and power and wealth nothing but David the stranger. So that we see Kings, who are our nursing-fathers', are become our Schoolmasters to teach us. Psal. 49.10. For we see that ignorant and foolish men perish, and they die as fools die, not remembered nor thought on, as if nothing fell to the ground but their Folly. The beggar dyeth; Luke 16.22. but what is that to the rich, who cannot see him carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom? The righteous also perish, and no man layeth it to heart. I, Isa. 57.1. but Kings of the earth fall, and cannot fall but with observation; they fall as a star, are soon missed in their orb, and soon forgot. But then living Kings make their Throne a Pulpit, and preach from thence and publish to the world their own frail and fading condition, measure out their life by a span, Psal. 39.5, 12. Psal. 85.8. and prophesy the end of it, call their life a Pilgrimage; and shall we not hearken what the Lord God doth say by such royal Prophets? Shall their Power make us beasts of burden to carry it whithersoever their beck shall direct us, and shall not their Doctrine and Example persuade us that we are men, travelling men, hasting to another country? Behold then here David a Prophet and a King made and set up an ensample to us. And if David be a stranger upon the earth, we can draw no other conclusion than this, Then certainly much more we. If David and all his Fathers, if pious Kings and bloody Tyrants, if good and bad found no settled estate, no abiding place here, why should we be so foolish and ignorant as to turmoil or sport and delight ourselves under the expectation of it? If Kings be pulled down from their thrones and fall to the dust, we have reason to cast up our accounts, and reckon upon it that we are gliding and passing, nay posting and flying as so many shadows, and that our removal is at hand. 1 Cor. 10.11. For these things happened to them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition. They prophesied to us, and they spoke to us. I may say, They died to us, and to all that shall follow them, to the last man that shall stand upon the earth. When Adam had lived nine hundred and thirty years, Gen. 5.5. he died, led the way to his posterity, not that they should live so long, but that they should surely die, every son of his, till the second coming of the second and last Adam. Abraham was a stranger, and Moses a stranger, and David a stranger, that we might look back upon them, and see our condition. When Patriarches and Prophets and Kings preach, not only living but dying, not only dying but dead, we shall not only die but die in our sins if we take not out the lesson, and learn to speak in their dialact and language, ACCOLAE SVMVS ET PEREGRINI, We are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. And so we pass from the Person, I, King David, and come to take a nearer view of his Condition and Quality, I am a stranger in the earth. We pass now from the King to the Stranger and Pilgrim. And yet we cannot pass from the one to the other; for they are ever together. There is so near a conjunction between them, that though the one appear in glory and the other in dishonour, the one sit on a Throne and the other lie in the dust, yet they can never be put asunder nor separated one from the other. He that is a King is but a Pilgrim, and he that is a Stranger was born and designed unto a Kingdom, and a greater Kingdom than david's was. Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests, and we shall reign upon the earth: Rev. 5.10. This is the song of Pilgrims, and they sing it to the Lamb. The Kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force. And these violent men are such as are pilgrims and strangers. Matth. 11.12. To that place they travel, endure many a storm, many a fall and bruise in their way: So that the immediate way to be a King is first to be a stranger in the earth. Now that Man is naturally a stranger on the earth, we have the Word of God written and the Word of God within us, both the holy Scripture and right Reason, to instruct us. Both these are as the voice of God, and by these he speaketh unto us, & calleth us by our name when he calleth us Strangers. And first, in the Old Testament the life of Man is every where almost termed a pilgrimage. So Jacob, when Pharaoh asked him how long he had lived, Gen. 47.8, 9 in his answer doth as it were correct his language, The days, saith he, (not of my life, but) of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. So that in the language of Jacob Life and Pilgrimage are all one. The same is the language of the New Testament. Whilst we are in the flesh. PEREGRINAMUR A DOMINO, 2 Cor. 5.6. saith S. Paul, we are absent, we are travellers, we are wanderers, from God: But we are returning to him, on our way, pressing forward to our home. And though we make haste out of the world, yet as S. Bernard observeth, some savour, some taste, something that is from the earth earthly, we shall carry about with us till we come to our journeys end. Not only they are strangers who, with the Prodigal, take their journey into a far country, and cleave to every vanity there; but they who are shaking them off every day, yet look more than they should, and like more than they should, and are not yet made perfect. Not only they are strangers from God who are aliens from the house of Israel, Eph. 2.12. Hebr. 11.10, 13. but they who, with the Patriarches, confess themselves strangers in the land which is allotted them, and look for a City whose foundation and builder is God. It is the observation of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Dardanus, That the Saints in Scripture are not where called inhabitatores terrae, the inhabitants of the earth. There is a Woe, saith he, denounced against sinners, in the eighth of the Revelation, and under that name, VAE HABITATORIBUS TERRAE, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth. And S. Augustine almost speaketh the same, where he putteth this difference and distinction between them, That the righteous can only be said esse in tabernaculo carnis, to be in this tabernacle of flesh; to be there as the Angels are said by the Schoolmen to be in uno loco quòd non sint in alio, to be in one place because they are not in another, but to be circumscribed no where: And they are only said to be on the earth, because they are not yet in heaven, but nevertheless have their conversation there. But the wicked do habitare in tabernaculo carnis, dwell on earth, and have their residence in it, and may pass into a worse, but never into a better, place. And these, though they will not be strangers to it, yet are strangers on the earth, and pass away from that to which their soul was knit, on which they fixed their hope, with which they glutted their desires & raised their joy, yea, which was their heaven; they pass away and fall from it, and shall see it no more. This then is the voice and language of Scripture. In the second place, this even common Reason may teach us, which is the voice of God, and is our God upon earth, and should be in his stead and place to command and regulate us here. And if we were not first lost in ourselves, if we were not strangers to ourselves, we should not seek for a place of rest in that world whose fashion every day changeth, and which must at last with its work be burnt with fire. For do we not see by this common light that the Mind of Man is a thing of infinite capacity and utterly insatiable, and here on earth never receiveth full content? Content is that which all men have desired, but never yet any did attain; but still, as one desire is satisfied, another riseth; and when we have all that we desired, we will have more. Now we would have but this; and when we have it, it is nothing: for our measures are enlarged by being filled. Are you learned enough? Nay; but there be yet more conclusions to be tried. Are you ever wise enough? If but once you be deceived, you will complain that a thousand things which might have been observed have past your sight. But are you ever rich enough? The Fool in the Gospel was not, till his soul was fetched away; nor Dives, Luke 12.20. & 16.23. till he was in hell. Nay, are you not most miserably poor when you are most abundantly rich? Do you not want most when you have most? or was ever your heart so much set on riches as when they did increase? Hath the Ambitious any highest place, any vertical point? One world was not enough for Alexander; nay, had there been as many as those Atoms of which Democritus made it up, he would have wished after more. Our appetite cometh by eating; and our desires are made keen and earnest by enjoying. Majora cupere ex his discimus, The obtaining of something doth but prompt us to desire more. And now to draw this to our present purpose; If the things of this world be not able to satisfy us, if never man yet found full content, if nothing on earth can allay this infinite hunger of the soul, which certainly was not imprinted in us in vain, if we cannot find it here, though we should double and triple Methusalehs age, if we cannot find it in the world, though we should live to the end of it, we cannot think that the Earth should be our country, but that the things which we so highly esteem, more than our life, more than our soul, are unnatural and strangers to us, and we unto them, and we must turn ourselves about, and look towards something else, which may meet and fill our desires, which here find nothing to stay, but every thing to enlarge them. Here are Delights that vanish, and then show their foulest side; here are Riches that make us poor, and Honour that maketh us slaves; here are nothing but phantasms and apparitions, which will never fill us, but feed the very hunger of our souls, and increase it. There in our country, at our journeys end, there is fullness of joy, which alone can satisfy this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and infinite appetite. Psal. 16.11. Therefore the Earth is but our stage to walk through; Heaven is our proper place and country, and to this we are bound. Here we are but strangers. Si velimus, accolae; si nolimus, accolae; If we will, we may be strangers: and if we will not, but love to dwell and stay here, yet we shall be strangers whether we will or no. And as we are, so our abode here is that of strangers in another country; as of those who are ever in their way and moving forwards, never standing still, but striving to go out of it, whose whole motion and progress is a leaving it behind them When Adam was Lord of all the world, he was but a stranger in it. For God made him naked in Paradise, and withal gave him no sense of his nakedness: And the reason is given by S. Basil, That Man might not be distracted and called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from meditation upon God, that the care of his flesh might not steal away his mind from him that made him. So that Adam was made a stranger when he was made the sole Emperor of the world. But when he was fallen, God clotheth him with skins, ut illum veluti morte quadam indueret, saith Proclus in Epiphanius, that he might cloth him as it were with Death itself, which was represented unto him in the skins of dead beasts; that he might always carry about with him the remembrance of it, the most suitable garment that a stranger or pilgrim can wear. A stranger cometh not to stay long in a place; he is here (as we say) to day, and gone to morrow: so is Man. Psal. 9.25. & 4.2. Psal. 90.9. He flieth as a Post, or rather as a shadow, and continueth not; at an end as soon as a tale that is told, and not so long remembered. There may be many errors in his way, but there is none in his end: Which way soever he traveleth, wheresoever he pitcheth his tent, his journeys end is the Grave. De Anim●, c. 50. Hoc stipulata est Dei vox, hoc spopondit omne quod nascitur, saith Tertullian; This is the stipulation and bargain which God hath made with every soul: By being born we made a promise and obliged ourselves to die. We are bound in a sure obligation, and received our souls upon condition to resign them pure and unspotted of the world. James 1.27. Would you know when we pay this debt? We begin with our first breath, and are paying it till we breathe out our last Hoc quod loquor indè est, Whilst I speak and you hear we are paying part of the sum, and whether this be our last payment we cannot tell. I am dying whilst I am speaking. Every breath I fetch to preserve life is a part taken from my life. I am in a manner entombed already, and every place I breathe in is a grave; for in every place I moulder and consume away, in every place I draw nearer and nearer to putrefaction. Suet. vit. Claud Cas. We may say as those mariners who were to fight and die did, as they said by Claudius the Emporour, Morituri te salutant, O Emperor, dying men salute thee. So we pass by and salute one another, not so much as living, but as dying men. Whilst I say, Good morrow, I am nearer to my end, and he to whom I wished it is nearer to his. One dying man blesseth, and one dying man persecuteth another, that is, one Pilgrim robbeth another. In what relation soever we stand, either as Kings or Subjects, Masters or Servants, Fathers or Children, we are all Morituri, but dying men, all but strangers and pilgrims. Comfort thou thyself then, thou oppressed innocent; It was a dying man that put the yoke about thy neck. And why dost thou boast in mischief, Psal. 52.1. thou man of power? In the midst of all thy triumphs and glories thou art but a dying man. He that kisseth thy lips is but a dying man, and he that striketh thee on the face is but a dying man. The whole world is but a Colony, every age new planted with dying men, with pilgrims and strangers. This you will say is a common theme and argument: and indeed so it is; for what more common than Death? And yet as common as it is, I know not lessen so much forgotten as this. For who almost considereth how he came into the world, or how he shall go out of it? Ask the wanton, the Mammonist, the Ambitious of their minute, and they will call it Eternity. Sol iste, dies nos decipit etc. The present, the present time, that deceiveth us; and we draw that out to a lasting perpetuity which is past whilst we think on it. Such a bewitching power hath the Love of the world, to make our minute eternity, and eternity nothing, and the day of our death as hard and difficult to our faith as our resurrection. For though day unto day uttereth knowledge, though the Preacher open his mouth, Psal. 19.2. and the Grave open hers, and we every day see so many pilgrims falling in; though they who have been dead long ago, and they who now die, speak unto us; yet we can hardly be induced to believe that we are strangers, but embrace the world, and rivet ourselves into it, as if we should never part; we deny that which we cannot deny, resolve on that which we cannot think, will not be persuaded of that which we do believe, or believe not that which we confess, but place Immortality upon our mortal, and so live as if we should never die. And can we, who thus every day enlarge our thoughts and hopes, Psal. 90.10. and let them out at length beyond our threescore years and ten, measuring out Lordships, building of palaces, anticipating pleasures and honours, creating that which will never have a being, and yet delighting in it as if we now had it in possession; can we, who love the world as that friend from which we would never part, but lose all others for it; can we, who would have this to be the world without end, and have scarce one thought left to reach at that which is so, and to come; can we, who love and admire and pride ourselves in nothing more, in nothing else, say or think we are pilgrims and sojourners and strangers in the earth? It is true, strangers we are (for all are so) and passing forward apace to our journey's end, but not to that end for which we were made. Therefore that we may reach and attain to it, we must make ourselves 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 ourselves 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 man's 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. Hid not thy commandments from me, saith David. And he spoke 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 by't us; here are Pleasures and Terrors, all to deceive and detain us. Here we meet with that Archenemy to all strangers and pilgrims 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 Hermit did, or as a Satire 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 Satire, yet we feel him as voluptuous; though we do not see him as a Wolf, yet we apprehend him thirsting after blood; 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 than any Centaur. 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 Oppressor, who is a Wolf; in that Tyrant and Persecutor, 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 itself. Therefore God hath opened his Armoury of heaven, and given us his Commandments to be our light, our provision, our defence in our way; to be as our Pilgrims staff, our Scrip, our Letters commendatory; Ps. 91.11. to be our Angels to keep us in all our ways: And there is no safe walking for a stranger without them. And as when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, God reigned 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 whilst they are in via, in this their peregrination, ever and anon beset with temptations which may detain 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 itself to every taste, 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, etc. 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 itself. 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 than 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 fixed, no pleasure, no terror, nothing in the world can concern us, but they are to us as those things which the traveller in his way seethe 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 lie in our way, but we pass by them as impertinencies, as dangers, as things which may pollute a soul more than a dead body could under the Law: The stranger, the pilgrim, 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, G●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 come nearer and nearer to the end of our Faith, the end of our Hope, and the end of our Love. For he that looketh upon the commandments and keepeth them hath the will of God; and he that hath his will hath all that Wisdom can find out or Power bring to pass, hath God's Providence and Almightiness his companions, his guides, his protection in his way: and the World, the Pomp and Vanity of it, can no more prevail against him then against God himself; but where God is there shall this stranger be also, when passing through all these he shall come to his journey's end. For first (that we may make some use of this, and so conclude) this our conformity to the will of God in keeping his commandments will make us observe a decorum, and being strangers in the earth to behave ourselves as strangers in it, for necessity's sake give a perfunctory and slight salute, not look upon it as a friend, not trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, 1 Tim. 6.17. as S. Paul exhorteth, suspect and be jealous of every thing in it, as we use to be of every man we meet in a strange place, and as plain countrymen, Theoph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. who are ignorant of coins, suspect and try every piece they see, and though it be current, yet fear it may be counterfeit: So to say within ourselves. This Beauty which smileth may by't as cockatrice, This Wine which looketh red may be a mocker, These Riches may be my last receipt, This Strength may ruin me, This Wit may befool me, That which maketh me great in my own eyes, that for which I flatter and worship myself, and tread all others with scorn under my feet, may make me the least in the Kingdom of heaven, nay quite shut me out; This Beauty may bring deformity into my soul; This Wine may be, as the Manichees called it, Fel principis tenebrarum, the gall of the Prince of darkness; These Riches may beggar me, and my Perfections undo me. Far better is it for a stranger to be cautelous and wary then venturous and foolhardy, better for him to fear where no fear is then to be ready to meet and embrace every toy and trifle that smileth and killeth. Now by this we arm ourselves against all casualties and misfortunes: which is more than all the Conveyances and Devises of the Law, more than the providence of the wisest, can do. For what can fall out by chance to him who is ever under the wing of the Almighty? Or what can he lose who hath denied all unto himself, and himself too in every aspect and relation to the world? This is our Provision, & this is our security. He that will be secure must learn to be a stranger: He that will lose nothing must learn to have nothing. And then as our Obedience to Gods will doth keep us in a decorum, so it teathe us by looking on the World with an eye of jealousy to make it our friend, a friend of Mammon, and a friend of a Temptation. For so we make that which was dangerous beneficial unto us, and rise up as high as heaven upon that which might have been our ruin, by looking upon it with the suspicious and jealous eye of a stranger. Secondly, it supplieth us with arms and strengtheneth us against all afflictions which may beat upon us, all miseries which befall us, all contumilies which may affront us in our way. For what are all these poor sprinklings, & these weak breathe of wind and air to us, when we remember we are but strangers in the world? The world knoweth us not, 1 Joh. 3.1. because it knoweth not God, as S. John telleth us. We are peregrini deorsum, cives sursum, strangers here below, but citizens' above. What can they who are so unlike to the world, who contemn the world, expect less? Here there will be Shimeis to revile us, Zedekiahs to smite us on the cheek, Oppressors to grind us, and Tyrants to rob and spoil us when they please: and if we will have them our friends, we must make ourselves like them, and go to hell along with them: But the commandments of God are an antidote against all these. For these evil cannot trouble us if we make use of the right remedy, which is not where to be found but in Christ, Col. 2.3. in whom all the treasuries of wisdom are hid. But one error of our lives it is, and a great one, to mistake the remedy of evils; nec tam morbis laboramus quàm remediis, nor doth our disease and malady so much molest us as the remedies themselves. The Poor man thinketh there is no other remedy for poverty but riches, the Revenger cannot purge his gall and bitterness but with the blood of his enemy, the Sick is quieted with nothing but with health. But indeed these are not remedies answerable to the nature and operation of these several diseases: for the Poor man may become rich, and be poorer than before; the Revenger may draw blood, and be more enraged then before; the Sick man may be restored to health, and be worse than before. The Will of God is the truest and most sovereign physic: And his will is, that we estrange ourselves from the world, that our hearts be fixed on him, and on those pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore. Ps. 16.11. And then there will be no such things as Poverty or Injuries or Sickness; or at least they will not appear so to us, which is all one. Nay, which is more, now they are not what they are unto us, nor do we see that horour in them which they that dwell in the world do: but, as S. Paul speaketh, when we are poor, ● Cor. 6 ●0. & 12.10. than we are rich; when we are weak than we are strong; when we are in disgrace, than we are honourable; when we are persecuted, than we are happy; when we are sick, than we are best in health, and even see our journey's end. Nihil imperitius impatientia, Impatience, which ever accompanieth the neglect of God's commands, is the most ignorant, unskilful, unexperienced, ungodly thing in the world. For these complaints in poverty, this impatience of injuries, this murmuring in our sickness, are ill signs that we love the pleasures of the world more than the will of God, that we see more glory in a piece of earth then in virtue, that we are more afraid of a disgrace then of sin, that we bow with more devotion and affection to the World then to God, and so cannot make this glorious confession with our Kingly Prophet, that we are accolae and peregrini, strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. Thirdly, our Conformity to the will of God is a precious antidote against the Fear of Death. Hebr. 2.14, 15. The Fear of Death? why, we were delivered from that when Christ took part with us of flesh and blood and through death destroyed him who had the power of death, the Devil. Why should any mortal now fear to die? It is most true; Christ died, and by his death shook the powers of the Grave. Consummatum est, all is finished, and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies, and of this last enemy Death. Job 18.14. But for all this his triumph Death may be still the King of terrors and as dreadful as before. All is finished on his part: but a Covenant consisteth of two parts; and something is required on ours. He doth not turn Conditions into Promises, as some have been willing to persuade themselves and others. It must be done, is not, Thou shalt do it; If thou wilt believe, is not, Thou shalt believe. But every Promise, every Act of grace of his, implieth a Condition. He delivereth those that are willing to be delivered, who do not feed Death, and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible. 1 Cor. 15.56. All the terror Death hath is from ourselves, our Sin, our Disobedience to the commands of God, that is his sting: And our part of the Covenant is, by the power and virtue of Christ's death every day to be plucking it off from him, & at last to take it quite away. We, we ourselves, must rise up against this King of terrors, and in the Name and Power of Christ take the sceptre out of his hand, and spoil him of his strength and terror. And this we may do by parts and degrees; now cut from him this sin, now that; now this desire, and anon another; and so die daily, as S. Paul speaketh, die to Profit, die to Pleasure, die to Honour, be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us and a sting in him, and so leave him nothing to take from us, not a desire, not a hope, not a thought, nothing that can make us fear Death. Then we shall not look upon it as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already, or a passage into a worse condition, from that we loved too well to that we never feared enough; but we shall consider it as a Sleep, as it is to all wearied pilgrims; as a Message sent from heaven to tell us our walk is at an end & now we are to lay down our staff and scrip, and rest in that Jerusalem which is above, Tert. De patientia. for which we vowed this pilgrimage. Et quis non ad meliora festinat? What stranger will be afraid to return to his Father's house, or lose that life quam sibi jam supervacuam, fecit, which by dying daily to the world he hath already made superfluous and unnecessary? To conclude this▪ He that truly feareth God can fear nothing else; nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here, who love to feed with swine on husks, Luk. 15.16. Heb. 6.5. because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come, who wish immortality to this mortal before they put it on, who are willing to converse and trade with Vanity for ever who desire not with David to be spared a little, but would never go hence. Psal. 39.13. Last of all, this will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead, or rather fallen asleep or rather at their journey's end. For why should any man who knoweth the condition of a stranger, how many dangers and how many cares and how many storms and tempests he is obnoxious to, hang down the head and complain that his friend hath now passed through them all, and is set down at his journey's end? Why should he who looketh for a City to come, Hebr. 13.14. be troubled that his fellow-pilgrime is come thither and entered before him? It might be a matter of holy emulation perhaps, but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see, unless it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep God's commandments, which might give us a taste of a better estate to come, unless it be because we have not well learned to act the part of a stranger Miserable men that we are, that we will be, that know not our own quality and condition, that are strangers, & yet unwilling to draw near ourselves, or to see others come to their home, but think them lost where they are made perfect. We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now to be removed to a place of torment and not of rest, and to be either nothing or more miserable than he was in a region of misery. We send out shrieks and outcries to keep time with his gasps, to call him back, if it were possible, from heaven, and to keep him still under the yoke & harrow; when as the fainting of his spirits, the failing of his eyes, the trembling of his joints, are but as the motion of bodies to their centre, most violent when they are nearest to their end. And then we close up his eyes, and with them our hopes, as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into air; when indeed there is no more than this; One pilgrim is gone before his fellows, one is gone & hath left others in their way in trouble, and more troubled that he is gone to rest. Migrantem migrantes praemisimus, saith S. Hierome; We are passing forward apace, and have sent one before us to his journeys end, his everlasting sabbath. With this contemplation doth Religion comfort and uphold us in our way, and keepeth us in that temper which the Philosopher commendeth as best, in which we do sentine desiderium, Sen. ad Marciam. & op primere: She giveth Nature leave to draw tears, but then she bringeth in Faith and Hope to wipe them off; She suffereth us to mourn for our friends, but not as men without hope. Nature will vent, and Love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1 Thess. 4.13. saith the Orator, ever querulous and full of complaints, when the object is removed out of sight: and God remembreth whereof we are made, Ps. 103.14. is not angry with our Love, and will suffer us to be Men: But then we must silence one Love with another, our natural Affection with the Love of God; at least divide our language thus, Alas my Father; Alas my Husband, Alas my Friend: but then, He was a stranger, and now at his journeys end. And here we must raise our note, and speak it more hearty, Rev. 14 13. Blessed are such strangers: Blessed are they that die in the Lord: even so, saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours. For conclusion; Let us fear God, and keep his commandments: Eccl. 12.13. This is the whole duty of a stranger, to observe those Laws which came from that place to which he is going. Let these Laws be in our heart, and our heart will be an Elaboratory, a Limbeck, to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of the world, through which we are to pass: It shall be a Rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it; It shall be a Shop of precious receipts & proper remedies against every evil; It shall be spoliarium Mortis, a place where Death shall be stripped and spoiled of its sting and its terror; It shall be the Temple of God, an House of feasting and joy, where Sorrow may look in at the window, at the sensitive part, but be soon chased away; It shall be even ashamed of its tabernacle of flesh, 2 Cor. 5.4. and pant and beat to get out, that it may be clothed upon and mortality be swallowed up of life. In brief, this will make us strangers, and keep us strangers, even such strangers as shall be made like unto the Angels and whom, when they come to their journey's end, the Angels shall meet and welcome, and receive into their Father's house, where they shall rest and rejoice for evermore. I have done with my Text, and now must turn your eyes and thoughts upon this Pilgrim here, this Honoured and worthy Knight, who hath now passed through the busy noise and tumults of this world to his long home and rest. In which passage of his (as I have received it from men of place and worth and unquestioned integrity) he hath so exactly performed the part and office of a stranger and Pilgrim, that he is followed with the applause of them that knew him. And as in his death he is become an argument to prove the doctrine which I have taught, so in his life he made himself a great ensample for them to look upon who are now travelling and labouring in the same way. Look upon him then in every capacity and relation, either as a part of the Commonwealth, or a member of the City, or a Father of a Family, and you shall discover the image and fair representation of a Stranger in every one of these relations. For no man can take this honour to himself to be a good Commonwealths-man, or a good Master of a family, but he who is as David was, a Stranger. All the ataxy and disorder, all the noise we hear and mischiefs we see in the world, are from men who love it too well, and would live and dwell and delight themselves in it for ever. For the first, I may truly say as Lampridius did of Alexander Severus, He was vir bonus & Reipublicae necessarius, a good man and of necessary use in the Commonwealth. He laid all the strength he had to uphold it, and preferred the peace and welfare of it to his own, as well knowing that a private house might sink and fall to the ground, and yet the Commonwealth stand and flourish, but that the ruin of the whole must necessarily draw with it the other parts, and at last bury them in the same grave. And here he found as rough a passage as Aufidienus Rufus in Tacitus did in that commotion and Rebellion of Percennius, l. 1. Annal. who was pulled out of his chariot, loaden first with scoffs and reproaches, and then with a fardel of stuff, and made to march foremost of all the company, and then asked in scorn whether he bore his burden willingly, or whether so long a journey was not tedious and irksome to him? So was this worthy Knight taken from his wife, whom he entirely loved, and from his children, those pledges of his love, and conveyed to ship, and by ship to prison in a remote City, where he found some friends; and then was brought back from thence to a prison nearer home, where, if the Providence of God had not gone along with him and shadowed him, he had met the plague. So that in some measure that befell him which S. Paul speaketh of himself, 2 Cor. 11.26. He was in journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of his own countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils on the sea, in perils amongst false brethren. But it may be said, What praise is it to suffer all this, 1 Pet. 4.15. & 2 19, 20. if he suffer as an evil-doer, and not for conscience towards God? I come not hither to dispute that, but am willing to refer it to the great Trial, which shall open every eye to behold that truth which now, being dazzled with fears and hopes, and even blinded with the love of the world, it cannot see. But if it were an error, and not knowledge but mistake, that drove him upon these pricks, yet sure it was an error of a fair descent, begot in him by looking steadfastly on the truth, and by having a steady eye on the oath of God. Eccl. 8.2. And if here he fell, he fell like a Christian who did exercise himself to keep a good conscience. Acts 24.16. For he that followeth not his Conscience when it erreth will be as far from harkening to it when it speaketh the truth: For even Error itself showeth the face of Truth to him that erreth, or else he could not err at all. And yet (I need not fear to say it) it is an error of such a nature that it may rather deserve applause then censure even from those who call it by that name. For we do not use to fall willingly into so dangerous, vexatious and costly errors, errors which will strip us and put a yoke upon us, errors which will put us in prison. No, to fly from these we too oft fly from the Truth itself, when it is as open as the day, and commandeth our faith though not our tongue, and forceth our assent when we renounce it. Private Interest, Love of ourselves, Fear of restraint, Hope of advancement, these are the mothers commonly of this monster which we call Error when we do not err, and in these it is engendered and bred, as serpents are in carrion or dung. He that erreth and loseth by it, erreth most excusably, and showeth plainly that he would not err: For who would do that which will undo him? Again, take him in the City. In this he bore the highest honour, and filled the greatest place, yet was rather an ornament to it then that unto him. For he sat in it as a stranger and a pilgrim, as a man going out of the world, nor did so much consider his power as his duty, which looked forward, and had respect to that which cannot be found in this, but is the riches and glory of another world. Therefore this world was never in his thoughts, never came in to sour Justice, to turn Judgement into wormwood by corrupting it, or into vinegar by delaying it. There were no cries of orphans, no tears of the widow, no loud complaints of the oppressed to disquiet him in his passage, which use to follow the oppressor even to the gates of hell, and there deliver him up to those howl which are everlasting. How oft hath he been presented to me, and that by prudent and judicious men, as the honour and glory of the City? And thus he went on his way, full of temptations and troubles and full of honours, even of those honours which he refused. For you may remember how he bore that great office, and you may remember how he refused it, and gained as much honour in the hearts of men by the last as by the first, as much honour by withdrawing himself and staying below as he did formerly in sitting in the highest place with the sword in his hand. For the state and face of things may be such as may warrant Demosthenes wish and choice, and make it more commendable in exilium ire quàm tribunal, to go into banishment then to ascend the tribunal. And he best deserveth honour who can in wisdom withdraw himself, and he can best manage power who knoweth when to lay it down. Bring him now from the public stage of Honour to his private house, and there you might have seen him walking, as David speaketh, Psal. 101.2. in the midst of his house in innocency and with a perfect heart, as an Angel or Intelligence moving in his own sphere, and carrying on every thing in it with that order and decorum which is the glory of a stranger, whose moving in it is but a going out of it to render an account of every act and motion. You might have beheld him looking with a settled and unmoveable eye of love on his Wife, walking hand in hand with her for forty four years, and walking with her as his fellow-traveller, with that love which might bring both at last to the same place of rest. You might behold him looking on his Children with an eye of care as well as of affection, initiating them into the same fellowship of pilgrims; and on his Servants, not as on slaves, Quid servus? Amicus humilis. but as his humble and inferior friends, as Seneca calleth them, and as his fellow-pilgrimes too. And thus he was a domestic Magistrate, a lover and example of that truth which Socrates taught, That they who are good Fathers of their family will make the best and wisest Magistrates, they who can manage their own cockboat well may be fit at last to sit at the stern of the Commonwealth. For a private family is a type and representation of it, Vit. Constant. nay, saith Eusebius, of the Church itself. I confess I knew him but in his evening, when he was near his journey's end, and then too but at some distance. But even then I could discover in him that sweetness of disposition and that courteous affability, which by S. Paul are commended as virtues, but have lost that name with Hypocrites, with proud and supercilious men, who make it a great part of their Religion to pardon none but themselves, and then think that they have put off the Old man when they have put off all Humanity. In these homiletick virtues I could discern a fair proficiency in this reverend Knight: And what my knowledge could not reach was abundantly supplied and brought unto me by the joint testimony of those who knew him, and by a testimony which commendeth him to Heaven and God himself, the mouths of the poor, which he so often filled. Thus did he walk on as a stranger, comforting and supporting his fellow-pilgrimes, and reaching forth his charity to them as a staff. Thus he expressed himself living, and thus he hath expressed himself in his last Will, which is voluntas ultra mortem, the Will, the Mandate, the Language of a Dead man; Speculum morum, saith Pliny, the Glass wherein you may see the Charity, that is, the Face, the Image of a Pilgrim; by which he hath bequeathed a Legacy of Comfort and Supply (a plain acknowledgement that he was but a stranger on the earth) to every Prison, Hebr. 13.3. and to many Parishes within this City. He remembered them who are in bonds, as one who himself was in the body, and sometimes a prisoner as they. I know, in this world it is a hard thing justum esse sine infamia, to be good, and not to hear ill: expedit enim malis neminem esse bonum; for evil men make it their work to deface every fair image of virtue, & then think well of themselves when they have made all as evil as themselves: But it was this our honoured Brother's happiness to find no accuser but himself, I may truly say I never yet heard any Report hath given him an honourable pass. The voice of the Poor was, He was full of good works; the voice of the City, He was a good Magistrate; the voice of his equals, He was a true friend; the voice of all that I have heard, He was a just man; and then our Charity will soon conclude, He was a good Christian: for he lived and died a Son of the Church, Acts 24.14. of the Reformed; and according to the way which some call Heresy, some Superstition, so worshipped he the God of his fathers. Eccl. 12.5. And now he is gone to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. He is gone to the grave in a full age, when that was well near expired which is but labour and sorrow, Psal. 90.10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Cyril speaketh, grown in Wisdom and grace, which is a fairer testimony of age then the Grey hairs or Fourscore years. Eccl. 12.7. His body must return to the dust, & his soul is returned to God that gave it. Hebr. 11.4. And being dead he yet speaketh, speaketh by his Charity to the Poor, speaketh by his fair example to his Brethren of the City, to honour and reverence their Conscience more than their Purse, — vitámque impendere vero, to be ready to resign all, even life itself, for the truth. He speaketh to his Friends, and he speaketh to his Relict, his virtuous & reverend Lady, once partner of his cares and joys, his fellow-traveller, and to his Children, who are now on their way, and following apace after him, Weep not for me. Why should you weep? I have laid by my Staff, my Scrip, my provision, and am at my journey's end, at rest. I have left you in a valley, in a busy tumultuous world: but the same hand, the same provision, the same obedience to God's commands will guide you also, and promote you to the same place, where we shall rest and rejoice together for ever more. There let us leave him in his eternal rest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, with all the Patriarches and Prophets & Apostles, all his fellow Pilgrims & strangers, in the Kingdom of Heaven. The end of the First Volume. Imprimatur. Ut mortuus etiam loquatur, qui tam piè & eleganter locutus est vivus. M. FRANK, S. T. P. Ro. in X to Patri Do. Epo. Lond. à Sacr. Dom. XLVII. SERMONS PREACHED At the Parish-CHURCH of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, LONDON. The Second Volume. By the late Eminent and Learned Divine ANTHONY FARINDON; B. D. Divinity Reader of his MAJESTY'S Chappel-Royal of Windsor. The Second Edition. LONDON, Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott. MDCLXXII. TO THE Right Honourable Sir ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN, Knight and Baronet, Lord Chief Justice of His majesty's Court of Common Pleas. RIGHT HONOURABLE, THis Book cannot fail of Noble Patronage, when Your Lordship is but given to understand that it is an Orphan of Mr. Farindon's, whose fatherless Children have had so comfortable experience of Your Goodness. And we hope this Address will meet with favourable acceptance, since we can assure Your Lordship that it is in pursuance of the Reverend Author's intention; Who hath been often heard to say, that, if he lived to publish any thing more in print, he would inscribe it to You, as an expression and testimony of that high veneration and gratitude which he owed to that charitable Hand which in the late bad times had been a succourer of many of his persecuted Brethren, and of himself also. Go on, Sir, to be truly Honourable, by being truly Religious; and still deserve the blessing of the Clergy and the prayers of the Fatherless: Then, as God hath graciously heard them for your advancement upon earth, He will hear them also for your eternal advantage. Which is, Sir, the hearty prayer of Your Lordship's most humble Servants, John Millington the Author's Executor. John Powney the Author's Executor. To the Reader. READER, THese Sermons of that Eminent and Learned Preacher, Mr. Farindon, had been in thy hands long before this, if the Reverend and worthy Person who first undertook the publication had not been forced to lay the Work aside, that he might the better attend some public and weighty occasions. Now thou hast them carefully and faithfully set forth. And if our pains herein, as we hope, give thee content, we shall be encouraged to take the like in perusing the rest of the Author's papers, and publishing such as we shall conceive worthy of his name and thy reading. Farewell, and pray for Thy servant in Christ Jesus, Anth. Scattergood, D. D. A TABLE directing to the TEXTS of Scripture handled in the following SERMONS. SErmon I. John 5.35. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. Serm. II. Matth. 5.4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Serm. III. John 5.14. 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. Serm. IU. John. 5.14. Behold, thou art made whole. Serm. V. John 5.14. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. Serm. VI Luke 6.24. But woe unto you that are rich: for ye have received your consolation. Serm. VII. 1 Pet. 5.6. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Serm. VIII. 1 Pet. 5.6. Humble yourselves, etc. Serm. IX. Col. 3.2. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Serm. X. Prov. 23.23. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. Serm. XI. Prov. 23.23. Buy the truth, etc. Serm. XII. Matth. 5.10. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Serm. XIII. Philipp. 3.10, 11. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Serm. XIV. Acts 1.10, 11. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into heaven: this same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Serm. XV. 1 Cor. 6.20. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are Gods. Serm. XVI. 1 Cor. 6.20. For ye are bought, etc. Serm. XVII. 1 Cor. 12.3. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Serm. XVIII. 1 Cor. 12.3. Wherefore I give you, etc. Serm. XIX. Isa. 55.6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Serm. XX. Matth. 6.12. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Serm. XXI. Matth. 6.12. As we forgive our debtors. Serm. XXII. Psalm 122.1. I was glad when they said unto me, let us, or, we will, go into the House of the Lord. Serm. XXIII. Psalm 122.1. I was glad, etc. Serm. XXIV. Matth. 6.33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Serm. XXV. Matth. 6.33. But seek ye first, etc. Serm. XXVI. Matth. 6.33. But seek ye first, etc. Serm. XXVII. Matth. 6.33. But seek ye first, etc. Serm. XXVIII. Galat. 6.7. Be not deceived: God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Serm. XXIX. Galat. 6.7. Be not deceived, etc. Serm. XXX. Thess. 4.18. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Serm. XXXI. Thess. 4.18. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Serm. XXXII. Acts 11.13, 14. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, what meaneth this; others mocking said; These men are full of new wine. Serm. XXXIII. Luke 11.27, 28. And it came to pass as he spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lift up her voice, and said unto him; Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said; Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it. Serm. XXXIV. Luke 11.27, 28. And it came to pass as he spoke these things, etc. Serm. XXXV. Colos. 3.1. If then you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Serm. XXXVI. Philipp. 1.23. For I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to departed, and to be with Christ, which is far better. Or, For I am greatly in doubt on both sides, desiring to be loosed, and to be with Christ, which is best of all. Serm. XXXVII. 1 Cor. 11.1. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Serm. XXXVIII. Prov. 28.13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy. Serm. XXXIX. Matth. 24.25. Behold I have told you before. Serm. XL. Luke 18.12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. Serm. XLI. James 1.25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Serm. XLII. James 1.25. But whoso looketh, etc. Serm. XLIII. James 1.25. But whoso looketh, etc. Serm. XLIV. James 1.25. But whoso looketh, etc. Serm. XLV. James 1.25. But whoso looketh, etc. Serm. XLVI. James 1.25. But whoso looketh, etc. Serm. XLVII. James 1.25. But whoso looketh, etc. The First SERMON. JOHN V. 35. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice 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 show 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 itself: But in respect of men, whose understandings are passive, and receive nothing but by illumination, nor can apprehend intellectual objects without light, no more than 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 errors and mistakes; and there is need of a Prophet, and more than a Prophet, of a John Baptist, to point out as it were with the finger, Behold the Lamb of God, and plainly to show 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 darkened 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 errors and falsehoods 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 only 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 judgement, which is the force and vigour of Reason; not only to entreat, but besiege it; to speak to us by the tongue of men like unto ourselves, 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 ways. 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 rejoice in his light. Which words contain 1. an Elegy 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 only 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 rejoice 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 momentany, 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 ourselves within some few; and show you, 1. What this Heat was with which the Baptist burned; 2. What the Light was with which he shined; that we may warm ourselves 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 passed 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 rejoice in it. 2. the flitting humour and inconstancy of the Jews, they rejoiced in this light but for a season. And here is a minus dicitur; Lesle is said, but more understood. For that they delighted but for a season, implieth thus much, that their error was wilful; because they indeed delighted, but would make no use of that light which might have led them to the knowledge of their Messiah. 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 quàm scitè, drawn out and unfolded rather by our Devotion then our Wit. We shall have absolved all, if we show 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 than 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 prophesy; and Baalam fell into a trance, saw the vision of the Almighty, took up his parable, and breathed forth a prophecy, a prophecy 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 spoke as they were moved, but were not holy men; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil; but the word of Prophecy 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 Ass' 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 premises, or by the evidence of the things themselves, or by Divine inspiration and extraordinary radiation, is not always 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 itself, or by a Divine supernatural hand. In a word, if the Truth open and display itself, the Understanding cannot but receive it. If the Spirit come upon Saul, he must prophesy. These radiations and flashes of light upon the Understanding do not always make us burn within ourselves, 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 itself 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 always 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 woe and embrace it, when I am willing to lay down my life for it, than 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 days to Love: Be it Disgrace, it enobleth it: Be it Poverty, it enricheth it: Be it Torment, it sweeteneth 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 horror of a prison, a frown, so soon loosneth our joints, 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 Horror itself 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 spoke of himself: It is fed with what it doth, 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 ourselves, 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 terrors, it striveth and struggleth with itself, 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 neither with possibilities nor events; sed plus vult posse quàm omnia, it would do more than it is able, more than all, more than it doth, more than it, can do. And then tell me, what a spark is our Love? Christ indeed came to kindle it, but it is scarce visible on the earth. Last of all, as Fire, Love ascendeth and mounteth upwards, even to the Holy place, to the bosom of God himself. It came from heaven, and towereth towards it. For he that abideth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him, saith S. John. Here it is as out of its sphere and element, and never at rest nor at home but in God. In a word, where this love is, there is the good will of him who dwelled in the bush. Where this love is, there the lamp burneth, and all is on fire. Amor fons & caput omnium affectionum, saith Martin Luther; Love is the source and original of all other affections. It setteth our Anger on fire, and putteth the spear into Phinehas his hand. It setteth our Sorrow a bleeding, and maketh rivers of water gush from our eyes. It maketh our Fear watchful, that we may work out our salvation with trembling. It exalteth our Joy: Oh how I rejoiced, saith David, when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord! It raiseth our Hope, even to hope above hope. It mixeth and incorporateth itself with every passion. Our Love with Anger is Zeal; with Fear, Jealousy; with Hope, Confidence; with Sorrow, Repentance; and with Joy it is Heaven. And thus by the Love of the Truth the man of God is made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Chrysostom speaketh, a man of fire, conquering all difficulties, and consumed by none. He standeth in the midst of scoffs and derision and detraction and of all temptations as in the midst of a field of stubble or dry flax or straw, and is not hurt at all. They that come near him do but sing and torment themselves; as thorns crackle and make a noise and vanish into smoke, and the man is safe. Such a burning light, such a man of fire, was John the Baptist. who bare witness to the Truth, and for the love of the Truth lost both his liberty and his life; who preached it in the womb, and preached it in the wilderness; who preached it by living, and preached it by dying, and preached being dead. S. Chrysostom telleth us that he spoke most when his head was off. In a word, the love of Truth did so inflame him that he may seem (what the Rabbis fancy of Elijah, in whose spirit he came) to have sucked not-milk but flames of fire from his mother's breasts. And so much for his Burning. Now, in the next place, as he burned with the love of Truth, so he shined also by the manifestation of it, which was as the spreading and displaying of his beams. As he was hot within, so he was resplendent without. As he had this fire within himself, so there was a scintillation and corruscation on others. And it was visible in his severity of life, in his raiment, in his fasting, in his doctrine, in his boldness in reprehending the Pharisees and Saducees, in his laying the axe to the very root of the trees, in fulfilling of all righteousness. For we must not conceive of this fire as S. Basil phansieth of the elementary fire, that God did divide and sunder the two qualities of Heat and Light, of Burning and Shining, and placed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the burning quality, in hell, where the fire burneth, but shineth not; and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the shining quality, in heaven, which shineth, but burneth not. This was but a fancy, though of a learned and judicious man. No: where this fire is, there will be light; nor can we sever them. The Knowledge indeed of Truth many times breatheth in no other coasts then where it was conceived, may dwell in a cloister, or a wilderness, in men qui non possunt pati & multitudinem, who cannot walk the common ways, Saints indeed in private, but of no public use (but yet even here is some light, in the wilderness, in a cell, or grott:) But when to the Knowledge of Truth we have added the Love of Truth, our heart will wax hot within us, and the fire will burn, and we who before was possessed with a dumb spirit, do speak with the tongue, yea, cannot but speak the things which we have heard and seen: then we cannot contain ourselves within ourselves, but have those glorious eruptions: then we shine upon others, who burn in ourselves. As the heat is, such is the light; as the burning within, such the shining without. When we shine alone, in mere outward performances, in the pomp of devotion, in the rolling of the eye, in the lifting up of the ear, in the motion of the tongue, in the extermination of the countenance, it is but a false and a momentary light, but as the light of a glow-worm in the night, which proceedeth from some other cause, not from heat; It may be a flash of Ambition, or some scintillation of Vainglory, or the very sparkles of Faction: and, like lightning, dum micat, extinguitur, it is extinguished in the very fl●sh. When we burn alone, when we cast not forth beams, but breathe forth hailstones and coals of fire; when we wax hot as an oven, but cast forth no light at all; when we lash the iniquities of the times, and are ourselves those fools on whose back the whip should be laid; when we cry down sin, and are men of Belial; when all the heat is for Religion, and all the light we see is Faction and Rapine, it is too plain that we burn, but we are set on fire by hell. For if the heat be kindly, the light will be glorious: If it be from heaven, it will not feed itself with earth and the things of this world. If our light be manifest and permanent, if our light so shine that men may see it, and for it glorify the Fountain of light, it must needs proceed ab intimo & pleno fervore devotionis, from this inward burning, from this true and full heat of Devotion. Where there is heat, there is light; and where there is light, there is heat. And these two, Heat and Light, seem to contend for superiority. Quo calidior radius, lucidior; The more hot the beams are, the more light there is. And this Light reflecteth upon the Heat, to make it more intense; and the Heat hath an operation upon the Light, to make it more radiant; and by a reciprocal influence on each other they are multiplied every day. My Love of the Truth spreadeth my Holiness, and maketh it known unto all men; and my holy Conversation dilateth and improveth my Love of the Truth. My Love of the Truth maketh me increase and abound more and more; and the nearer I draw to perfection, I do the more and more love the Truth. The more I burn, the more I shine; and the more I shine, the more I am on fire. Thus was John Baptist, and thus is every true Christian, not only a burning but a shining light. And we may well compare the Profession of the Truth and Holiness of life to the Light that shineth. The path of the just is as the shining light, Prov. 4.18. saith Solomon. For as Light serveth not only to illustrate the medium and make it diaphanous, but casteth also a delightful lustre on the object, and is pleasant to the eye, in a manner quickening and reviving us; (for they who are in darkness are as in a grave, and they who are blind are as they who have been dead long ago) so the Piety of the Saints and the beauty of holiness doth not only show and manifest itself, as Light, but like Light it hath a kind of influence and powerful operation upon others: It worketh upon the fancy and imagination, which is much taken with these real resemblances and representations: and it worketh on the passions, which must be as wings to carry us to those blessed Worthies, to that pitch of holiness where they sit a spectacle to the world, to men, and to Angels. For in our definitions, and precepts, and decrees, and exhortations, Piety many times to divers men appeareth in different shapes, or eel slideth away and passeth by in silence; but being charactered in the practice and actions of the Saints, and written as it were with Light, it gaineth more force and efficacy, it presseth upon our fancy, and busieth our understanding part. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is more visible in actions then in words. Would you see Humility drawn out to the life? Behold our Saviour on the cross. Had we seen S. Paul in the flesh, we had had the best commentary on his Epistles. What fairer picture of Charity than the Widow flinging in her two mites into the treasury? of Severity and strictness of life, than John Baptist in his leathern girdle and camels hair, feeding on locusts and wild honey? There is virtue gone from them, that we may come near, and touch, and be familiar with it. There is light, that we may look upon it, and walk by it. Imaginatio provocat desiderium; A strong imagination must needs provoke in us a desire of that which pleased it, and raise up in us an holy emulation. I say, an holy Emulation; which is a mixed passion made up of Sorrow and Anger and Love and Hope; Sorrow for our defects, Anger at ourselves that we stay behind, Love of that goodness which we see in others and find not in ourselves, and Hope to equal them. And these poise and qualify each other: My Sorrow is not envious; for Hope comforteth it: my Anger is not malignant; for Love tempereth it. And they are all as so many winds to fill our sails, to swell our thoughts, and to drive on our desires to the mark. We read of Donatus the Grammarian, that as oft as he found any remarkable passage in the Ancients which might deserve applause, he was wont to say, Malè pereant antiqui, qui nobis nostra praeripuerunt; I beshrew the Ancients, who have prevented us by their inventions, and so rob us of that renown which might have been ours. A vain speech of a proud Grammarian! Malè pereant? Nay, rather, Blessed be the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and of John Baptist, and of all the glorious Saints and Martyrs, who hath set up these lights to direct us in our way, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sublime Towers with continual light and fire, to guide us in this our dangerous passage to the haven where we would be; who hath fixed these Stars in the firmament of the Church, to lighten them that are in darkness. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Blessed be God for this light. For by this light in a manner we live and move and have our being: By this light we are encouraged and provoked to walk on to perfection. And such a power and force this light hath, that, if it do not bow the will, yet it will command the understanding: if it do not prevail with us to love it, yet it will win our approbation: if it do not beget a love, yet it will force a delight, and the worst men shall be willing to rejoice in it, though it be but for a season. And so I pass from the Character and Commendation of John Baptist to the Censure passed upon the Jews; Ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. God had not now for some hundreds of years spoken to the Jews by the mouth of a Prophet; and therefore a Prophet, after so long a vacancy, could not but be welcome unto them. Quod rarum est plùs appetitur. Let Prophets run about our streets, and we are ready to stone them; but after a long silence let a John Baptist lift up his voice, and we all leap for joy. No sooner did John preach, Luke 3.15. but the people were in suspense and expectation, and all men mused in their hearts whether he were the Christ or no. And peradventure they thought that, though his beginning was obscure, as that of Moses, yet the time might come when he would show himself to be the Messiah, restore the Kingdom to Israel, and be, as Moses, their Captain and fight their battles, and make them lords of all the world: This, I say, they might conceive of John: But this was not the light with which he did shine. And to root out this conceit, he confessed, John 1.10. and denied not, but confessed I am not the Christ. That which so gloriously shined in him was his Strictness of life and Holiness of conversation. And such is the activity of this light, such is the lustre and power of Holiness, that it will work a complacency and delight even in them who oppose it. And this is the glory and triumph of Truth and Goodness, that it striketh a reverence into those that neglect it, findeth a place in his breast whose hand is ready to suppress it, and worketh delight where it cannot win assent. We may embrace a truth, and condemn it; commend Chastity, and be wantoness; and, with the Jew, not hearken to the voice of the Crier, and yet rejoice in his light. And the reason is manifest. For as there is a sensitive joy, which is nothing else but the pleasing and titillation of the sense by the application of that which is convenient and agreeable to it, as of a better white and red to the Eye, a more pleasant voice to the Ear, more savoury meat to the Taste; so there is a rational and intellectual joy, which is nothing else but the approbation of Reason in the apprehending of that which is proportioned to it; an assent to a conclusion drawn out of the common principles of discourse, or at most but a resultancy from it. For Truth is fitted to the Understanding as Colours are to the Eye, or Music to the Ear. The remembrance of Josiah, saith the Wiseman, is like a perfume, as honey in all men's mouths, and as music at a banquet of wine. For as these take and delight the Sense, so doth Goodness the Reason. If John Baptist burn and shine, the light shall shine in glory, and the eye which is ready to close itself against it, yet shall for a while look up upon it with delight. This is the activity of this Light, and the power and energy of Truth and Goodness. Now in the next place, there is in the nature of Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a flitting humour, which cannot hold out long. We may sooner number the atoms of the world than the motions and fluctuations of our heart; now leaping, anon dead; now delighting in the light, and by and by ready to put it out. It is not only as S. Paul saith, What I do, that I would not do; but. What I would, that I will not; What I desire, that I refuse, and almost in one and the same moment. At the first taste it is honey, at the second gall, and at a third honey again, and then again as bitter as Death. We never continue at one stay. All the delight we take is but for a season. Now we seal our determinations with an EXPEDIT, approve them as very expedient; and anon check them with a NON LICET, renounce them as altogether unlawful. Now the ground and cause of this change is either from imperfect information at the first: and then it is not Inconstancy, but the Alteration of our mind; as Tully commendeth Antiochus, that what he stiffly defended in his younger days he as sharply condemned in his age, & poenituit illum illa sensisse, than it much repent him that he had ever been of that opinion. Or it proceedeth, as it did here in the Jews, from some inconvenience not foreseen, but now fully apprehended; not that they did not see the light, but that it discovered something which they were unwilling to see. The piety, the severity, the power of John Baptist both in word and deed, were as evident as the Sun beams; but his boldness in reprehending them, his doctrine of Repentance, his pointing out to Christ with the finger as to their Messiah, whom they accounted but a common man, this swallowed up their delight in victory, and wrought a distaste in them of him whom they could not but commend. And thus it fareth with us. We rejoice in Truth and Holiness so far as they will comply with our desires, mount with our Ambition, bow down with our Covetousness, flatter our Lust: where finding them sometimes going along with us a mile, we compel them to go two, even to the end of our desires: that if we cannot beg applause from our thoughts, we may at least procure their silence; that if they will not say unto us, Euge, they may not say, Anathema; in a word, that if we cannot keep joy itself, we may at least retain its shadow. For again, secondly, they delighted not in the Light and in the Truth for itself, for then no question their delight would have been longer lived) but for some by-respect; as hoping that John was either that Messiah that was to come, or could tell them news of another: But when he shown them a Messiah in the form of a servant, whom they had shaped to themselves as a Captain and a Conqueror, their content soon ended in dislike, and their delight in displeasure. Thus it often falleth out, that one passion swalloweth up another, the stronger the weaker; that Anger which is high doth quench that Love which is not so intense. In the course of our life it is so: In sin we do but versuram facere, borrow of our Covetousness to satisfy our Lust; of our Ambition, to supply our Revenge. For one vice many times falleth cross with another. Without spending my money I cannot enter the foolish woman's house, nor without pawning my Honour wade to Revenge. And it is so in virtue. I cannot be temperate, but I must curb my appetite; I cannot be chaste, but I must bridle my lust; I cannot sighed on the Spirit's side, but I must beat down the Flesh. And it is so here: The love of one object abateth the love of another, especially if it smile upon it. If we are willing to be deceived, we shall not long rejoice in that light which showeth the imposture. If the Jews dote on a temporal Kingdom, John Baptist's light cannot please them long, because it discovereth a Kingdom of another form and polity, a Kingdom which is not of this world. We may suppose that the emphasis of the censure lieth in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that they delighted but for a season: but it reacheth to the light itself, and their rejoicing in it. For this made their error wilful, and their ignorance of Christ inexcusable. The very means we have to avoid error maketh it the fouler: and the light showeth us the mark which is set up; and, if we press not to it, our shame. To be ready harnessed, and then turn our backs, maketh our cowardice more notorious. Righteousness like the morning dew is exhaled and drawn up by the wrath of God, and poured down on our heads in vengeance. Delight inviteth us to improve it, and may be heightened into a Resolution: and beginnings may bring us to the end. Felix's trembling might have ended in the Fear of God; Agrippa's Almost, in a perfect man in Christ Jesus; and the Jews rejoicing in the light of John Baptist might have led them to that true Light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Thus I have opened unto you a large field full of delightful and profitable objects; John Baptist burning, and John Baptist shining, and the Jews rejoicing; a bright and burning lamp set up, and the Jews delighting in it, delighting in it though they were Jews, and being Jews delighting in it but for a season. We have but led you through it; for the time would not permit to stay and build a tabernacle, a more full or larger discourse. We will detain you no longer, but whilst we add a word or two for application, and so leave all to be enlarged by your private meditations. Ye have now seen the glorious lustre of John the Baptist; and we need add no more for application. For, as Nazianzene speaketh of Cyprian the Deacon, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, But to remember him, is a fair invitation to the love of truth and to Holiness; for being dead he yet speaketh to every one of us, whether Preacher or Hearer, Priest or People. For in this there is no distinction, though profane men are willing to make one, and urge this as a good argument, He is a Priest, a Preacher, therefore he must be a lamp, a burning and shining light, whilst themselves take the liberty to be stocks and stones, Idols, or as dry as the stump of a tree, fit to make nothing but firebrands. A strange conceit! that Salvation should 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 separation shall come, than 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 yourselves 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 engendered in a cloud, in a thick and wand'ring 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 which Philosophy speaketh of, simul fit & cadit, is, and falleth and vanisheth at once, or leaveth that heat behind which will consume both ourselves and others. When our private fancy or some passion bloweth 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 blood, 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 only pillar to underprop and establish it. For as these are ready to commend their fancies 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 only 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 than Baptists, more frantics and mad men than Saints. For S. Hierom will tell us, Nihil tam facile quàm 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 rejoice 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 days which Fabius Pictor spoke of, felices futuras arts, 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 men's breasts: For, if you please to look about you, you may behold the world itself on fire, which the blood of many thousands have not as yet quenched; ●●u may behold, not the Turk against the Christian, but Christian against Christian; not Papist against Protestant, but Protestant against Protestant; all on fire ready to consume one another. What mutual stabbings, what digladitions amongst them? What fiery contentions, not who shall be the best, but who shall be the loudest? not who shall convert, but who shall supplant? not who shall save, but who shall destroy the other? Par pari refertur, & invicem nobis insanire videmur; We return scorn for scorn, and reproach for reproach; and each side and faction seemeth mad unto the other, and to a discreet slander by they both are so. And though they have neither the spirit nor heat of John Baptist, yet they take up his words, and call one another a generation of vipers. Oh what wantonness in religion? what religion in railing? what disgrace fling upon learning, and what honour to ignorance? What hardness of heart, and contempt of God's word and commandment? How many controversies are there raised in the world about a dead Faith, I mean matter of opinion? and what little noise about Charity, which is the soul and life of Religion? How many anathemas thundered out for the one, and how few voices lifted up for the other? How many will fight for a Ceremony, who will not fight against their lusts? How many are hot for a new Discipline, whose charity nevertheless is very cold? Still, saith Gerson, we adhere to the things which are adinventionis nostrae, of our own invention and phansying. Here we are so busy in tithing mint and cumin, that we forget those things which are mandati Divini and come under the command of God, the weightier things of the Law, those excellent and heavenly precepts of Christianity. Such a fire hath our self-love and self-opinion kindled, which consumeth the fairest part of our crop and harvest. For the sting of malice is never more venomous than when pretence of religion and of knowledge, the proper issue of covetousness and love of the world, thrusteth it forth. Then the Devil's weapons are most fiery when he darteth them from him in the shape of an Angel of light. I cannot be so particular in my application as I intended; for the time hath cut me off. And what should I talk of our fire, or our light? Our fire is from hell, and our light is out. Our heat is unkindly, and our light a flash. Or if we be lamps, it is such as the Furies carry in their hands, to pursue and persecute one another; not such lamps as were set up in the Temple, but such as were put into Gideon's pitchers, a terror to all that come near us. And we are indeed more like to the Jews then to the Baptist. They rejoiced in the light for a season; and what hath our delight in the Truth been but for a season, as our life is a vapour which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away? nay, not so long as that span. For what inflexions and fluctuations are there in all our ways? what fits in our devotion; The time was, when John Baptist was a light. What a Star was a Preacher? What beauty in our Government? what a heaven in our Order? But now the Prince of this world hath so blinded us, that what before was a spectacle like heaven, is now become as full of horror as hell; that we hate the light for shining; and the beams for the light; that we would blow it out for no other reason but because it is a light: And now every man, the meanest of the people, is a Baptist, a crier in the wilderness, in the streets, in every house; not to make the ways of the Lord strait, but to smooth their own to honour and wealth, and in the worst sense to exalt every valley, and to levelly every high hill and make it it low. We hear many times the doctrines of Truth, which are the beams of this light, as a pleasant song, as music at a feast, but when we are to draw them near us and apply them, when the Truth layeth hold of us and biddeth us stay, not do what we would not do, and yet will do for our skin, we make an escape and slip out of the way, & versa est cithara in luctum, all our melody is at an end. Sometimes we change for some terror without, and sometimes for some fightings within; sometimes for fear, and sometimes for hope; sometimes for hatred, and sometimes for love; sometimes because we will change, and sometimes we know not why. And if we have not set up to ourselves, with the Jews, a glorious Messiah, yet we dream of Canaan and Paradise, of Riches and Abundance, of Liberty and independency, and we hope to reign as Kings. And these fancies choke our delight, seal up our lips, silence our applause, cancel our decrees, that we will not see the light in its brightness, nor profess that Truth which is written in our hearts. Oh that the parallel should run thus even on this side! God grant that Judgement draw not the line, and it run as even on the other, in the event! I may say with the Baptist, Repent: Mat. 3.2. Rom. 11.20.21. for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand, or with S. Paul, Be not highminded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, but cut them off for their wavering and infidelity, let us take heed lest he also spare not us. Amongst many other prodigies which were seen before the destruction of Jerusalem, there was also a voice heard in the Temple by the Priests going to their morning-office, MIGREMUS HINC, Let us leave this place. And behold their house is left unto them desolate. The delight in John was lost in their error: and their wilful error hath scattered them about the world, and made them a proverb of obstinate impiety. Now these things are written for our ensample, that we should not sport and play the wantoness with the light that shineth, that so we may hear no such voice, no Migremus hinc; that God may yet stay with us, who is now ready to departed out of our coast; that he may not leave us to that wisdom which will befool us, to that strength which will fail us in the time of trial, to those riches which we make no use of, but treasure up as a prey for the enemy; but rather gather ourselves together before the decree come forth, before that voice be heard (one would think we heard it now) before the day of his extreme anger come upon us; rather behold the light when it shineth, and delight in it, and persevere unto the end; that he may still shine upon our tabernacles; that there may be many lights to burn and shine amongst us; that we may look up and rejoice in them, and not stay here, ready to fly off, but confirm and settle our delight, and by this light walk from strength to strength, till we shall all shine as stars in the firmament, and appear before God in Zion. The Second SERMON. MATTH. V 4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. THese words of our Saviour present the Christian in sables, multo deformatum pulvere, with ashes sprinkled on his head, his garments rend, his heart broken, himself a companion, a man, a friend of sorrow. Hi me comites qui tenent, Cura, miseriae, aegritudo, lacrymae, lamentatio, saith he in Plautus. But it is the Christian's language. We must look to meet with misery, and cares, and sickness, and lamentation: We must learn to be poor, and we must learn to be miserable. Blessedness indeed is a fair inscription, but like that upon Semiramis her tomb, That he who opened it should find within it great treasury. But when Darius had broken it up, he found only a writing which told him. If he had not been a wicked person, he would never have broken up a sepulchre to look for treasure. So Blessedness here is a fair title; but remove it, and we find nothing but Mourning within, and withal a sharp reproof for him that searcheth the Gospel to find the World or Pleasure there. For it was not the error of the Jew only, to expect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a glorious and great Messiah, that should fill their treasury with wealth, and bring in a new Paradise of pleasures, and make an everlasting Jubilee; but even the Disciples did for a while dream on the same pillow, and in their Master looked for the pomp and glory of the world. This was so gross a conceit, that it had been less prejudicial to the Jews never to have heard of Christ. For the greatest cause why they refused him when he came, was, because he came in a posture so opposite to their expectation. What, a Messiah with poverty? a Christ with contempt? a Christ with mourning? Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula? Farewell Christ with his Legend the Gospel. It is most true that the Father telleth us, Christi humilitas multos offendit; The humility of Christ offendeth many. As it hath dashed some on the rocks of Heresy, so it hath drowned others in the gulf of Profaneness: As it hath driven some to deny his Divinity, so it hath moved others to crucify him again. There are many Jews who were never circumcised, many who are willing to receive Christ with honour and riches and pleasures, but not with disgrace and poverty and affliction. Regnare volumus; We are willing to reign with Jesus, but not to mourn with Jesus. Hence I cannot but think that this Sermon of our Saviour's was made to this end, to take off all conceit of wealth or pleasure, and to dig up by the very roots this gross and dangerous error. In discipulos transfert pleniorem gratiam, disciplinae auctioris capacitatem, saith Tertullian; he filleth his Disciples hearts with more abundant grace, that they may be fitted to receive his discipline. He that will be a disciple of Christ must be of the same mind with Christ, must know what his Kingdom is, and that it is not of this world; that there is a star fixed even in this cloud of sorrow consolation in mourning; yea, that this cloud is a star, this mourning is blessedness. Ill weeds must be destroyed before you can sow good corn; Nor is the soul capable of Divine truth and saving knowledge, till it be purged and cleansed from the dross of this world, till we can raise our Happiness (as Christ doth) out of mourning, and set this Diamond in this clay. It is the observation of St. Basil upon Psal. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. It is the method of Scripture, every where to place mourning before joy, the night before the day. Deut. 32.39. Psal. 30.5. Percutiam, & sanabo, saith God, I will smite and I will make whole. Weeping for a night, and joy followeth in the morning. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. First the punishment, than the blessing; first smiting, then healing; first mourning, than consolation. First we mourn, as men climbing up the Hill; then we sing, as at rest on the top of Zion: first we set sad tunes in the valley of tears, the Church militant; then we chant out an Anthem, an Hymn of joy, in the Church triumphant. Our division now is easy. We have here 1. an Affirmation; Blessed are they that mourn: 2. a Confirmation, or Reason; For they shall be comforted. But we must alter a little this method, and by degrees reconcile these two so opposite to our sense, Blessedness, and Mourning: And then we shall pass by these lines. First we shall show you, What may be here meant by mourning; Secondly, How useful and behooveful it is for Christians to mourn: Which will bring in the last, How mourning worketh consolation. Of these we shall speak in order. I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is the word. And it is not Grief, but Mourning, which is here commended. But because Mourning, if it be true, supposeth Grief, we may well understand both. Indeed Grief is inward, in the heart and soul, but Mourning is written in our face, floweth in our tears, is visible in our habit, and loud in our complaints. It is that ceremonious piety which we perform for our friends deceased. Interdictum ne capite damnatos lugerent, saith Suetonius; Tiberius forbade that the kinsmen of those whom he condemned to death should mourn. Qui lugent, abstinent à conviviis, ornamentis, & alba veste; They who mourn abstain from banquets, fling off their ornaments and white apparel. The common gesture was to sit down. Residentur mortui, saith Tully; We sit down at the tombs of the dead, to bewail them. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion. And Ezek. 8.14. Psal. 137. Sedebant mulieres plangentes Adonidem, There sat women weeping for Tammuz. And John 19.25. it is said of the mother of Christ, and of his mother's sister, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that they did not sit but stand by the cross, because, though they were full of sorrow, yet they might not seem to mourn for him who suffered for treason against Caesar. And this I take to be the proper signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with praefica, a woman hired to weep and lament and howl for the dead. But then, I suppose, this includeth Grief also, which hath always been the lot of Christians. For if the question be asked, Who are those that weep and mourn in the world? we must point them out amongst the best. The wicked live, become old, yea, Job 21.7. are mighty in power. They are merry in hell: for they always carry their hell about with them. They are condemned already; and they leap and dance with the sentence, with vengeance hanging over their heads. Their houses, saith holy Job, are safe from fear; neither is the rod of God upon them. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. But for the righteous; it is not so with them. They are killed every day; The drunkards make songs of them: They hang down the head like a bulrush; Their whole life is accounted madness. This indeed was painful for David to know; it was even his sickness. But when he went into the Sanctuary of God, and considered his wisdom and providence guiding every thing to its end, and changing the face of things, putting a lustre and glory on that which flesh and blood looked upon with horror, and compassing that about with woes which it beheld with admiration; then understood he their end, the end of both. Psal. 73. The one placed in slippery places, tumbled down into destruction; the other lifted up their heads, because salvation and comfort drew near. For Pleasure and Grief, as they have divers aspects, so also have contrary effects. Pleasure smileth, and Grief weepeth; but there is bitterness in those smiles, and joy in those tears. II. Now to show how useful Mourning is, it will not be amiss to compare them both, both Delight and Mourning. For certainly when our Saviour joineth Blessedness and Mourning, he layeth a kind of imputation upon Pleasure, as it it were the very mother and nurse of all misery. Naturally we seek it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Aristotle, from our tender years: And all our life long we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, incline to pleasure, as a stone doth to the centre. Xerxes' proposed great rewards to those who did invent new delights. The Roman Emperors set up offices à voluptatibus; They had their Arbitri, their Praepositi, their Tribunes of pleasure; and they accounted none more generous than those who were most sportful. Homer bringeth in the Gods themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, spending their time in mirth and jollity. So hath Pleasure bewitched the world, that without it nothing is received; without it the world itself were nothing. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. And as if Nature had not afforded us variety enough, we have made a kind of art of pleasure. We have mingled it with our labour, made that as easy as we could; we have mingled it with our sorrow, ready to receive it even into a broken heart; and we have mingled it with our Religion, attempered that to our sense, made it gentle and pliable, more answerable to our lusts and sinful desires. For who doth not make his burden sit as easy as he can? Who would not have a Religion that should bow and condescend to his desires, that should grant charters and indulgences to the flesh, and so à deliciis transire in delicias, pass from delight to delight, from sensual delight to spiritual, out of a Seraglio, a stews, a theatre, into heaven? And this hath brought in that deluge of sin and misery, that when Religion threatneth us with scorpions, with crosses, with tribulations, with mortifications, we silence her, or put our own words into her mouth, teach her to speak placentia, more pleasing things, and so retain her name, but make her departed out of our coasts. S. Basil calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the devil's hook, with which he haileth men to destruction, by which he striveth mentem facere amentem, to divide the mind from itself, and distract it, & Dei templum in theatrum voluptatum vertere, to change the temple of God into a theatre of luxury. For indeed all the evil that befalleth us is from ourselves, from our bodies, which we strive to pamper up. Had we not eyes, we should not be so blind; and had we not ears, we should not be so deaf. Did we not too much favour our bodies, our souls would flourish more, be more active and vigorous in those duties which must make them perfect. There is, saith Gregory Nazianzene, a kind of warlike opposition between the Body and the Soul, and they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, pitch their tents one against another. When the Body prevaileth, the Soul is down; when that is most active, even like a wanton heifer or a wild ass, then is the Soul sick, even bedrid with sin. Empedocles the Philosopher taught that Lis and Amicitia, Enmity and Friendship, were the two common principles of all things in the world: But had he carefully observed the composition of Man, he had found Enmity good store, but Friendship none at all. For from whence do all our turbulent affections spring? Philo will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that they are the natural issues of our flesh. From whence those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, inquinations and pollutions, of the soul? from whence those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, tumults, those thunders and earthquakes? All these are from the earth, earthly; For that which is born of the flesh, is flesh. And the body is not only an enemy, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a castle of defence, for all the enemies the soul hath. It was a wise wish of Archytas, that he might rather be taken with madness then with pleasure. And Simplicius accounted it a great benefit of Nature that no pleasure was of long continuance, nè diu insani essemus, that we might not be long mad. For she leadeth the Senses in triumph, and Reason captive at their heels, to wait upon them and be ministerial to them. What evil ever yet befell any almost but from Pleasure? She befooleth the wise; Look upon Solomon: She perverteth the just; Behold David: She weakeneth the strong, as we see in Samson. Assyria drew its last breath at a feast: Gluttony betrayed Babylon, and riot Nineveh: And we had been at this day a happy Nation, had we not been lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Every man seeketh his own private pleasure; and within a while he seethe it snatched from him and buried in the ruins of the whole. Death itself would have no such strength, but that it borroweth aid and a subsidiary force from Sensuality and Pleasure, Quae violas lasciva jacit, foliisque rosarum Dimicat, & calathos inimica per agmina fundit; Prudent. which destroyeth us, not with a sword and a spear or the weapons of the mighty, but with violets and roses, with smiles and flattery, with colours and tastes, with delights, with nothing. Which maketh the Father cry out, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; What should we do, what would be our end, if, temporal pleasures had been firm and lasting! which being but brittle and frail, more mortal than Mortality itself, do yet chain and fetter us unto themselves; and when we cleave most unto them, fly from us, but leave such an impression and mark behind them that we prefer them before true Happiness, and fall off from them as Lucifer did from heaven: For when we lose them we are in hell. Clemens Alexandrinus saith they make men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like wax, that the devil may set what impression he pleaseth upon them; now the bloody face of Murder, anon the wanton looks of Lust, the grim visage of Anger and the horror of Cruelty. Pleasure boweth the Covetous; for he loveth to look upon his wealth: It lifteth up the head of the Proud; for he is his own paradise, and walketh in the contemplation of himself as in the palace which he hath made: It whetteth the sword of the Revenger; for his delight is in blood: It grindeth the teeth of the Oppressor; for the poor are his bread. It is the first mover (I may say, the form) of every sin. From hence arise those motions contrary to Reason which destroy all sanctified thoughts, which do (as the Philosopher speaketh) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, rob us of consultation, oppress and put out the light of the soul, and leave us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as it were fight in the dark, in the midst of Ignorance and Confusion. Like those Egyptian thiefs, they first embrace, and then strangle us. The Sun now affordeth no light, the heaven is not spangled with stars, but filled and veiled with clouds. And as Diomedes could not see the Goddess in the cloud, no more can we see the face of Truth and beauty of Virtue in this darkness and confusion. And can we now expect comfort from those whose very comforts are mortal, which please with hurting, and hurt with pleasing, and their end is desolation and mourning? Occidua res est omnis voluptas; All sensual delight, even when it riseth, is in its setting and going down, and then casteth a long shadow, which is nothing but grief. And as when the Sun setteth, the shadows increase, and the shadow of an infant presenteth a giantlike shape: so the least pleasure, when it declineth, portendeth a sorrow far greater and larger than itself. Besides, this sorrow not only followeth at the heels of pleasure, but keepeth pace with her. For every pleasure resisteth itself, is impatient of itself; and when it increaseth itself, it destroyeth itself; becometh offensive, and maketh men weak and impotent in their embraces, and so turneth enemy unto itself. We read in Epiphanius, that the Egyptians having put into one vessel many serpents together, and shut them up close, to try the event, in time one stronger than his fellows having consumed all the rest, when now no more remained, began to eat up himself: So Pleasure is a serpent to deceive us, and a serpent to destroy itself. For when we have spent our time and spirits in luxury and riot, to please our sensual and brutish part, at last Pleasure reflecteth upon itself, and wasteth itself. For it is not only true that Tully saith, Liberalitas liberalitatem exhaurit; that Liberality indiscreetly used destroyeth and exhausteth itself; but we find it as true, Voluptas voluptatem exhaurit, Pleasures immoderately taken consume themselves, and return upon us nothing but pain and misery, and voluptas voluptate perit, by Pleasure Pleasure dieth. We will now leave this theatre of Pleasure, whereon whosoever acteth, faileth, and is thrown off, and for a while walk amongst the tombs. I called it Pleasure, but it deserveth not that name, which being lost leaveth an eternal loss behind it. For who would so affect a feast as to forfeit his health and appetite but to taste it, and for one dram for go all gust and delicacy? Let us then enter the house of Mourning, and see what glorious effects it doth produce. And we shall find it a friend to virtue, the guard of our life, and a kind of Angel to guide us in all our ways. And in this respect God may seem to have preferred us before the Angels, in that he hath built us up of flesh and blood, in that he hath given us so many senses, and so many powers of our souls, as so many crosses. For an Angel cannot mourn, cannot fast, cannot suffer persecution; but the soul of man, being united to the body, is carried up by those to an Angelical estate. I know S. Paul brandeth worldly sorrow, and maketh the effect of it no better than death. 2 Cor. 7.10. And a better effect it cannot have whilst it is worldly and sensual. Grief for a disgrace received may make me dishonour myself more, to speak and do those things which are not seemly. Sorrow for the loss of my goods may distract me, leave me miserable, but scarce a man. The loss of a friend may draw on the loss of my life. For when we find nothing but misery in misery, we are willing to run from it, though we run out of this life; and this, whilst our sorrow is fixed upon that evil that raised it. But the devout School man will tell us, Luctus sensualis trahit per●ccidens in luctum bonum, that this grief may draw on also repentance unto salvation not to be repent of, that is a repentance that will comfort us. For comfort may be brought to us in a stream of bitterness. The rod of God is a rod of iron to bruise us to pieces, till we harken to it and obey it: But when I understand its language and discipline, when I see the plague of my heart in the distemper of my body, my lust in a fever, and my intemperance in a dropsy, when I discover greater evils then those I mourn for, than I devert my grief upon these, where it may be laid out with more advantage; then this rod is no more a rod, but a staff to comfort me. Thus we may be drowned, and we may be washed and refreshed in our tears; and the house of Mourning may be our prison, and it may be our school; and by the help of that Spirit who is the Comforter we may work comfort out of that grief which was ready to swallow us up. Our own experience will teach us that one of the greatest provocations to sin is, not to feel the wrath of God in those outward calamities which produce this mourning. The Pythagoreans, where they speak of the Affections, call them virtues, and do thus distinguish them. Some they say are virtutes animi purgati, signs and indications of a mind cleansed and renewed already. Hope and Joy cannot be but in a virtuous soul: For as where health is, there is cheerfulness; where youth is, there is comeliness; where Music is, there is an exsultancy: so where goodness is, there is joy. Others are virtutes animi purgatrices, virtues which purge and cleanse the soul; as Fear and Grief. For, like Physic, by degrees these purge out ill humours, raise the soul to a kind of health, and make it at length a mansion for Joy and Comfort. As we see clothes deeply stained will not let go their spots without the loss of some part of their substance; so when those maculae peccati, as the Schools call them, the spots and pollutions of sin, have sunk down far, and deeply stained and sullied us, they will hardly be washed out without some loss and impairing of ourselves, without these purgatives of Grief and Mourning, which bring leanness into our souls. Haud levioribus remediis restinguendus est animus quàm libidinibus exarsit. The Physic must be proportioned to the disease; if that be violent, the Physic must needs be strong that purgeth it. Dei sancti infirmiores sunt, quia si fortes sint, vix sancti esse possunt, saith Salvian; The Saints of God do many times lose their joy and strength, because it is a very hard matter to be in prosperity and to be Saints. It is observed, that in Commonwealth's dissensions, seditions and luxury are longae pacis mala, the issues of a long-continued peace: And many times States are rend in pieces through civil dissensions, if outward wars hinder not. S. Augustine telleth us, Plùs nocuit eversa Carthago Romanis quàm adversa, that Carthage in her rubbish brought more disadvantage to Rome then when she stood out in defiance as an enemy. And were it not for this outward jar in our bodies by sickness, and in our souls by disgrace and other calamities, we should find no peace within; for the soul hath no such practising enemy as the body, wherein she liveth. And as Cato thought it good husbandry to maintain some light quarrels and jars amongst his houshold-servants, lest their agreement amongst themselves might prejudice their master; so it may seem spiritual wisdom for the Soul, that the body and inferior faculties be kept in perpetual jar, that there be a thorn in the flesh, something set up in opposition against it, lest it prove wanton, and hold out too stubbornly against the Spirit. Febris te vocare potest ad poenitentiam, saith Ambrose. It may so fall out, that the sight of a Physician may more promote thy conversion then the voice of a Preacher; a Fever, than a Sermon. The heathen Orator could tell us, Optimi sumus, dum infirmi sumus, that we are never well but when we are sick, never better than when we are worst. In this case, saith he, who sendeth his hopes afar off? who waiteth upon his ambitious and covetous desirest who thinketh of his pleasure and wantonness? who shutteth not up his ears against detraction and malicious speech? how do we betake ourselves to our beads and prayers? so that if you would look out the perfect pattern of a true Christian, you shall find it no where so soon as on the ground and on the bed of sickness. The heathen shutteth up all in this conclusion, Look, saith he, what the Philosophers with many words and large volumes do endeavour to teach, that can I most compendiously teach both myself and you; Tales esse sani perseveremus, quales nos futuros profitemur infirmi; Let us be indeed such when we be well, as we promise we will be when we are sick. A lesson almost equivalent to that great commandment, and contains in it all the Law and the Prophets. We mourn, I am sure, in our sickness: For what is sickness but the very drooping and languishing of our spirits? And it may seem to be a part of that discipline by which the Apostles did govern the primitive Church. For when S. Paul had delivered over the incestuous person to Satan for the mortifying of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, S. Chrysostom and S. Ambrose do jointly interpret it, that S. Paul did with him as God did with Job, deliver him to Satan to be afflicted with diseases and sickness, under which he might mourn. And this is the reason why our Saviour thus joineth Blessedness and Mourning together, because this is the end for which we are delivered up to sorrow and grief, ad interitum carnis, for the mortifying of the flesh, and the refreshing of the spirit, ut in ipsa sit censura supplicii in qua fuit causa peccati, that that part may smart with sorrow which hath offended with pleasure and riot. Look back upon the ancient Worthies of the Church, and you would think they made Sorrow a science, and studied the art of mourning. For as if the Devil had not been the Devil still, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as S. Chrysostom calleth him, a spiritual executioner, to afflict them; as if the World had left off to be the World, an enemy, and had not misery enough to fling on them; as if there had not been an Ishmael left to persecute Isaac, nor a Dragon to pursue the Woman in the wilderness, they did sit down, and deliberate, and condemn themselves to sorrow and mourning. Ingrediatur utique putredo in ossibus meis, saith Bernard; Let infirmity seize upon my body, let rottenness enter and fill up my bones, let it abound in me; only let me find peace of conscience in the day of my tribulation. The Heathen conceived they did it, not for the exercise of virtue, but, as Philosophers did abstain from pleasures, that death might be less dreadful, nè desiderent vitam, quam sibi jam supervacuam fecerant, that they might not nourish too much hope of life, which they had now made superfluous and unnecessary to them by a voluntary abdication of all delights. Indeed this might be one reason. And Tertullian replieth, Si ita esset, tam alto consilio tantae obstinatio disciplinae debebat obsequium; If it were so, yet this was the power of Christian discipline, to learn to contemn death by the contempt of pleasure. Jejuniis aridi, in sacco & cinere volutantes, saith the same Father; We are dried up with fasting, and debarred of all the comforts of this life we roll in sackcloth and ashes. What should I mention their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their minds dejected, their bodies macerated, their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sufferings in secret, which was, saith the Father, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, full of pain and grief? You might behold them kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs, washing the feet of Lazars, wallowing at the Temple-doors, on their knees begging the prayers of the Saints. You might see them stripped and naked, their heir neglected, their bodies withered, and their knees of horn, as Nazianzene speaketh Orat. 12. But what do I mention these? This would go for superstition in these days, as every thing else doth that hath but any savour of dejectedness and humility. Religion then hung down the head, and went in blacks: it is now grown lofty and bold, walketh in purple, and fareth deliciously every day. The way to comfort was strait and narrow then: it is made broader now, even the same broad way which leadeth to destruction. There were some of old who so far exceeded in fasting and austerity, ut indigerent Hippocratis fomentis, that they stood more in need of the counsel of a Physician then of a Divine: but few nowadays are like to offend this way; we stand in need rather of the spur then of the bridle. Their austerity may at least commend unto us Sadness and Mourning as a thing much be fitting a Christian, and very conducible to happiness. The Philosopher will tell us, Melancholici sunt ingeniosi, that melancholic men are most commonly witty and ingenious, because their thoughts are settled and fixed, and not called aside by every vain object which interveneth. Certainly blessed are those dumps which unrivet us from the world; blessed are those afflictions which lift us to heaven; blessed is that sigh whose echo is a pious conversation; and that wormwood is an antidote which maketh the world distasteful. But to leave this, as a sight we do not love to look upon; we will yet show you a more particular and fuller sight of Blessedness in the valley of Tears and land of Mourning. And we may easily observe how Mourning worketh 1. upon the Understanding; 2. upon the Will; 3. upon the Memory; and how it ordereth and composeth rotam nativitatis, the whole wheel and compass of our Nature. 1. We see not only the seeds of moral conversation, those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, common notions, which are born with us, but also those seeds of saving knowledge which we gather from Scripture and improve by instruction and practice, never so darkened and obscured as when pleasures and delights have taken full possession of our souls. As we see in some sick men, that the light of their reason is dimmed, and their minds disturbed; which proceedeth from those vicious vapours that their corrupt humours exhale: So is it in the Soul and Understanding; which could not but apprehend things aright if it were not dazzled and amazed with intervenient and impertinent objects and phantasms: but being blinded by the God of this world, it seethe truth indeed, but through the vanities of the world, which, as coloured glasses, present the objects like unto themselves. In our ruff and jollity how little do we see of ourselves? At what a distance do we see our sins? even as we do the stars, which appear to us not much bigger than an ordinary candle, when indeed they are greater than the whole earth. If sin prosper, it is an heroic act, a glorious virtue; which, had it failed, had nailed us to the cross. Sin hath now the face of Virtue: Envy is Emulation; Covetousness, Thirst; Prodigality, Bounty; Faction, Faith; Rebellion, Religion; the Gospel, Liberty. All things appear unto us as upon a stage, in masks and vizards and strange apparel. Quis sibi verum discere audet? Who is he in this case that will tell himself the truth, and impartially censure his own actions? but when the hand of Justice, or rather of Mercy, shall lead us into the house of mourning, when calamity shall cut off our hopes of enjoying such pleasing objects as had taken us up and bound us to themselves, than the Understanding hath more liberty than before to retire into itself, than it beginneth evigilare, to awake as a man out of sleep, to enjoy a kind of heaven and serenity, which did before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Platonic speaketh, sleep in a hell of confusion and darkness. Now the seeds of Goodness, being freed from the attractive force of allurements, begin to recover life and strength, and sprout forth into those apprehensions which bring with them a loathing of that evil which we made our delight. Now every sin appeareth in its own shape: now Envy is Murder, and Covetousness Idolatry, and Prodigality Folly, and the Gospel not a Sanctuary for Libertines, but Mourners. Psal. 30.6. In my prosperity, saith David, I said, I shall never be moved; but what followeth, Thou didst hid thy face, and I was troubled. And what followeth that? I cried to thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I made supplication. It is strange, saith Calvine, that God should enlighten David's eyes by hiding his face, without the light of whose countenance knowledge itself is no better than darkness: but we find it most true, that prosperity doth most times infatuate us, but afflictions, which make us mourn, do make us wise. 2. The Will of man, as it is a free, so is it a perverse and froward faculty, and Planet-wise moveth in its own way contrary to the strong circumvolution of the first mover. And though it cannot be compelled or forced to determine thus or thus, yet is it attemptable and may be wrought upon by allurements and threaten. Folly may be bound up in it; but the rod of discipline may scatter it. And to this end are all the exhortations and beseechings and menaces in the Gospel. If Pleasure be powerful now to sway her to forbidden objects, Adversity may be as powerful to withdraw her, and settle her irregular motion. Now Esau will kill his brother Jacob; within a while he blesseth him. Now David longeth for the water of the well of Bethlehem; anon he loatheth it as the blood of men, and will not drink of it, but poureth it out unto the Lord▪ All the blessings and curses under the Law were leveled at the Will. And though Prosperity be fair-spoken and too persuasive; yet Affliction is the more vehement Orator, and bringeth with her vineas & pluteos eloquentiae, her engines of battery, which make a forcible impression, and shake the soul. For shall a smile have power upon the Will, and shall thunder be repelled? If lust deceive me, rottenness in my bones may make me wise. What I will in my jollity, in the days of my mourning I will not. For having followed the deceitful allurements of the world, and finding gall and bitterness upon every seeming delight; having found death on the harlot's lips, and misery in every way she wandereth; having fed on husks in a strange country, and been almost famished; the same Will that set me on my journey, and brought me thither, will change, and turn me back again to my Father's house. 3. Afflictions revive those decayed characters in the Memory, whether of God's blessings, or our own sins. How soon in our days of pleasure do we forget God? how soon do we forget ourselves? How many benefits, how many sins are torn out of our memory? Who remembreth his own Soul in his lust, or can think he hath a Soul? Who thinketh of Reason in Intemperance? who thinketh of Sin in Jollity? Did Zimri ever think of Treason and Murder in those seven days he wore his Master's Crown, and sat upon his Throne? We may observe, that those things which slip glibly and smoothly down our throats in the days of our mirth, in time of adversity are like gravel in our mouths. The Patriarches made no scruple of the sale of their brother Joseph for fourteen years together; but at last being cast into prison, they call their sin to mind, Gen. 42.21. and that upon no apparent reason, We are verily guilty concerning our brother; therefore is this distress come upon us. Sorrow is to us à memoria, and proveth, like Joseph to his brethren, a remembrancer unto us: It removeth the callum, the hardness, from our consciences, and maketh them quick of sense: Ab ipso morbo remedium sumit, it worketh treacle out of the Viper, remedy from the disease, light out of darkness, and maketh Sin itself beneficial and advantageous to us: For it draweth it out of the Affection into the Memory, where it is as operative to destroy, as it was in the Affection to increase itself. For but to remember sin, and to contemplate the horror of it, and the Hell it deserveth, is enough to bow our wills, and break our hearts, and lay them open, that they may be fit receptacles of comfort. He were a bold sinner that durst look his sin full in the face. Now affliction and mourning bring us to this sight, wipe off the paint of Sin, strip her of her scutcheons and pendants, of her glory and beauty, and show her openly in all her deformity, not with Pleasure and Honour and Riches, but with the Wrath of God, Death and Hell waiting upon her, that we may defy and mortify Sin, and then triumph over it. And then we are brought back from the valley of the shadow of death into green pastures, and led beside the still waters, the waters of rest and refreshing: for God is with us, and his rod and his staff, with which he guideth us, comfort us, as it is Psal. 23. And now in the last place, you see the rock out of which you must hue your Comfort, even out of Sorrow itself; Or you may see Joy and Comfort shoot forth from Mourning, as lightning from a thick and dark cloud; Or rather this Consolation ariseth not so much from Affliction and Mourning itself as from the cause of it. Sometimes we mourn in prison and in torments for righteousness sake. And there cannot be a greater argument out of which we may conclude in comfort, than this, that at once we are made witnesses and examples of righteousness; at once glorify God, and purchase a crown of Glory for ourselves. And thus comfort is conveyed to us through our own blood. Sometimes we suffer disgrace and loss of goods, because we had rather be poor then be as rich and evil as they that make us poor; and sit in the lowest form, then be higher and worse. This troubleth us, and this comforteth us. For thus to be poor, is to be in the Rich man's bosom; thus to be in the dust, is to be in Heaven. Sometimes we mourn as under the rod, and are brought to Affliction as to a School of discipline. And if we can read and understand the mystery of Affliction, as Nazianzene calleth it; if we can see mercy in anger, a Father in a Lord; if we can behold him with a rod in his hand, and healing under his wings, and so learn the lesson which he would teach us; learn by poverty to enrich ourselves with grace; by disgrace, to honour ourselves; by imprisonment, to seek liberty in Christ; if we can learn by those evils which can but touch us, to chase away those which will destroy us; if we can be such proficients in this School; this also may trouble us, and this will comfort us. If we harken not to the rod, it may prove a Scorpion: But if we thus bow, and kiss it, it will not only bud and blossom, as Aaron's did, but bring forth the sweet fruit of Consolation. And thus this miracle of Consolation is wrought in us, first by the power of God's Grace, which maketh his smitings healings, and his wounds kisses; and then by a strong actuating and upholding our Reason in the contemplation of God's most fatherly power and wisdom, which will check and give laws to the inferior powers and faculties of the soul, and draw them in obedience unto itself, that all melancholic fancies may vanish, all sensual grief may be swallowed up in victory in this, in the content and rest we find in the end which we obtain, or for which we suffer and mourn. So the blessed Virgin had comfort even when she stood by the Cross weeping, and her soul was filled with it even then when it was pierced through as with a sword. In a word, mourning is a remedy; and all remedies bring comfort. And this is of the number of those remedies quae potentiae suae qualitate consumptâ desinunt cùm profuerint, which having consumed and spent its virtue, vanisheth away, and leaveth to be, when it hath wrought its just effect. For he that is comforted feeleth not what he feeleth, but his contemplation carrieth his mind to heaven when his senses peradventure labour under those displeasing objects which are contrary to them. At the same time Moses may be in the Mount, and the common people rebel and commit idolatry below: At the same time the Martyr may roar on the rack, and yet in his heart sing an hymn of praise to the King of Glory. Reason may so far subdue the Flesh as to make it suffer: but it cannot make it senseless; for than it could not suffer; than it were not flesh. Affliction will be heard, and felt, and seen in its violent operation, seen in its terror, heard in contumelies and reproaches, and felt in its smart; but in all these the Spirit is more than conqueror, and delighteth itself with terror, feedeth and feasteth on reproaches, and findeth a complacency in smart and pain itself. And then when we are under the rod, and suffer for sin and not for piety, as sensual grief may occasion spiritual, so spiritual sorrow and displacency hath always comfort attending it. For sorrow and comfort in course affect the soul, and with such dispatch and celerity that we rather feel then discern it. The devout School-man giveth the instance in the quavering and trembling motion of a Bell after the stroke, or of a Lute string after the touch, and observeth such an Harmony in the heart by the mutual touch of Sorrow and Comfort. And David hath joined them together in the second Psalm, Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. When Affliction striketh the heart, the sound will end in Joy, and Comfort will be the resultance. Mourning is a dark and melancholic thing, and maketh a kind of night about us: but when the Spirit saith Let there be light, there will be light, light in the Understanding, rectitude in the Will, order and peace in the Passions, serenity in the Soul; sin not in the Affection but in the Memory, where it is kept to be whipped and crucified; health in the Soul, strength in our spiritual Pulse, cheerfulness to run the ways of God's commandments; the best and only comforts in the world, true symptoms of a spiritual health, and fair pledges and types of that everlasting comfort which the God of all consolation will give to those who thus mourn in Zion. For conclusion, to apply all to ourselves in a word; I need not exhort you to hang down the head, and mourn, and walk humbly before your God. Behold, God himself hath spoken to us in the whirlwind: He hath spoken in thunder, and shaken our Joys, beat down all before our eyes in which our eyes took pleasure, and of which we could say we had a delight therein. He hath shaken the pillars of the earth. He hath shaken the pillar of Truth, the Church. He hath shaken every house; for what house, what estate tottereth not? He hath shaken our Confidence: We dare not trust others, we dare not trust in ourselves 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 only 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 deify himself in his Honour? shall the Wanton still crown himself with roses? shall every man sport and play in his own cockboat, 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 mouldered into Sects and crumbled into Conventicles, Religion enslaved and dragged to vile offices? true Devotion spit at, and Hypocrisy 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 itself open themselves wide, when our Miseries bespeak us, when our Sins bespeak us, when every evil is so powerful an orator, 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 ourselves, and not the public; that we cried up the Church as the Jews did the Temple, but cared not for it; that Religion was only written in our banners, whilst we fought for ourselves; that we spoke for Order, but rejoiced 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 enlarge myself; 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 horror and amazement and distraction, motives enough to melt you, and yourselves 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 itself 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 oppressed; then caring for his vineyard, when he letteth in the wild bores to spoil it. Again, do not murmur, 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 Thiefs did, our Saviour will give us no answer: but if we mourn before him, and humbly entreat 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 murmur, 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 crucify our lusts and overcome the world; here in this disorder compose our affections, in this confusion make our peace; here, even in this Commonwealth, make ourselves Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem; here in the ruins of a Church marry ourselves unto Christ; here amongst scorpions and dragons fit ourselves for the company of Angels; be miserable and mourn, to rejoice 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 fullness 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 men's 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 both restoring feet to the lame, speech to the dumb, and eyes to the blind; so letting his bowels and compassion drop on both that both body and soul might be healed. The miracle on the body is as a forerunner to prepare the way and draw on the miraculous renewing of the soul. In this Chapter we have a man healed of an infirmity under which he had lain eight and thirty years. Jesus looketh upon him with an eye of pity, prepareth him for the cure by ask him whether he would be made whole; and then speaketh the word, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a wonder in a wonder, as Basil speaketh. He that had none to put him into the pool when the Angel troubled the water, found one that did but speak, but bid him rise, and raised him up. The cure is now wrought, the man is made whole, and hath taken up his bed, and walketh. All is done. The man maketh haste to the Temple, to offer up his sacrifice of praise. Vers. 13. And Jesus is withdrawn, hath conveyed himself away; because of the multitude. Every trifle we do must be rung up with applause: but Christ withdraweth, not willing to hear a noise from the people, though he had wrought a miracle. For he did no miracle, as the Father speaketh, ad simplicem ostentationem potestatis, only to show his power: nec miracula tantùm propter miracula faciebat; nor did he work miracles, saith Augustine, for the miracles sake, but to glorify his Father, to confirm and ratify his Doctrine, to cure men's bodies. That is done: but that is not enough. Christ hath a further end, to do a cure upon their souls: for he is the Saviour of both body and soul; and when he showeth his power in the one, he doth it to promote his power in the other. These things he did that they might believe and be saved. And therefore that mercy which looked upon this man when he lay in one of the porches by the side of the pool, is awake still; and Christ hath him in his thought though he be removed from his eye. He seeketh, and followeth, and findeth him in the Temple, there as it were to interpret his miracle, and declare the end for which he had wrought it, to show the meaning of it, to make it didactical and instructive. And this was seasonable, in time of health to remember him of his disease, and acquaint him with that which before haply he was ignorant of the cause of it, Sin. Nemo aeger diligit concionantem medicum; When we are sick, a preaching Physician is as troublesome as our disease. Diseases must be removed by the virtue of herbs, and not of Rhetoric. But when we are up, and walking, than admonitions and cautions and prescripts are necessary to keep us from the like disease or a worse. At the pool's side Christ doth but look upon the man, and ask him a question; but afterward he poureth forth himself, and more fully instructeth him in the Temple. First he stirreth him up with an ECCE; Behold, thou art made whole. Consider that thou walkest, and consider that thou hast been sick thirty and eight years. Consider thy health, and remember thy disease. Then he bringeth in a Caveat, and teacheth him to beware of that which had made him so impotent; NOLI AMPLIUS PECCARE; Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee. Here we may see Christ's Mercy distilling as the honeycomb, every cell dropping sweetness. Here is 1. misericordia solicita, or prosequens; mercy solicitous to complete and perfect the cure; Jesus findeth him in the Temple. 2. Misericordia excitans; mercy stirring and rousing the man up to remember and consider his former and present condition; Behold, thou art made whole. 3. Misericordia praecipiens; mercy teaching and prescribing for the future; Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee: The mercy of a Saviour, who is a Friend, to find us out; a Monitor, to admonish and remember us; and a Doctor, to teach us. In these three we have the full portraiture and face of Mercy. Mercy can do no more than follow and find us out, and remember us, and instruct us. Her last act is in the other world; If we now hearken to her voice, she will then crown us. Of these three here we shall speak in their order; 1. that Christ found him; 2. that he put him in remembrance; 3. that he taught him. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple. He found him there, not by chance, but by counsel and providence and of set purpose, seeking him there where he knew he should find him. This was done by chance, is the language of the lower world, of mortal men, whose eye of providence is not so quick but that many things befall them not looked for, and for which they can give no reason. S. Augustine had used those words, FORT and FORTUITUM; but at last he retracteth, and thinketh them words not fit to be heard in the school of Christ. Who though he were in the flesh, and in a manner cast our nature over his Divinity as a veil, did act by the power of God, but in the form of a servant; spoke as never man spoke, and did as never man did, but yet as a man. Mat. 12.25. He knew thoughts. He knew what was in man, the inwards of their souls, John 2.25. the heart of their hearts. H● ●●w Nathanael when he saw him not, John 1.48. when he was under the figtree. He seethe us when we see not him, thinketh of us when we think not of him, and is with us when we are yet afar off. He biddeth the woman of Samaria call her husband, John 4.16. and yet telleth her that he whom she then had was not her husband, to wit, according to the Law. It is said of the Isle of Rhodes, that there is no day in the year so cloudy, but the Sun one time or other is seen in it: So Christ's Majesty displayed its beams as occasioned required, and manifested itself in our flesh. To know men's thoughts, to see them where the eye could not reach them, to discover what no man could know, these speak him to be a most excellent Person. The woman in the fourth of John could not but perceive he was a Prophet; but she might have cried out with Peter, Thou art the Christ, Matth. 16, & John 6. the Son of the living God. Again, he he found him in the Temple; he found him where he knew he was; and this, to finish his work, to perfect his cure. Though the miracle be done, yet there is more to do, even a greater miracle than this. Though the man rise, and walk, and go to the Temple, yet he carrieth with him a paralytical soul, luxatum judicium rationis, his Understanding and Will, the faculties and parts of his soul, lose and out of joint, which, like a dead limb, though they did not grieve him, yet did not help him or bring him forward to that end for which the miracle was wrought. Therefore the same providence and mercy which raised him up at the pool's side, found him out in the Temple, to make yet deeper impressions in him, to open his understanding, that he might know what he was yet ignorant of, who it was that had made him whole, and so believe in him and be saved. For indeed we are too ready to gaze so long on the miracle till we forget the hand that wrought it, to delight ourselves so much in health as not to think of the Physician, and to lose a benefit by our enjoying of it. Christ must therefore appear a second time, again and again, and find us out, or we shall lose him and ourselves for ever. Christ will find them, will be found of them, that seek him not, that they may learn to seek him. His love is never weary, and yet never resteth, but in its end. He worketh miracles; and can he do more? Yes; give light to the miracle, and make it a lesson to instruct us; even sow his miracles, that we may reap the fruit of them; cure our eyes, that our understandings may be opened to know him; give us ears, that we may hearken to his word; restore our limbs, that we may take up our cross, and follow him; that the diseases of our bodies being cured may be to us as the serpent in the wilderness was to the Israelites, to be looked upon that we may be healed; that our former deafness may make us more ready to hear what God will say, our former blindness may make us more delight to behold the wonders of his Law, our former palsy may teach us not to be wavering or double-minded, but to move regularly in the ways of God, and to persevere therein unto the end. The miracle is even cast away if it have no further operation then on our bodies: Christ's love is cast away if we take his loaves, and feed not on him; if we behold his miracles, and not believe; if he give us sight, and we see him not; if he give us life, and we be dead to him; if he give us health, and we make our strength the law of unrighteousness; if we draw not down his miracles to that end for which he wrought them. Rise, saith he, take up thy bed, and walk. The lame impotent man doth so, and goeth his way: but Christ followeth him, as if the miracle were yet nothing; followeth him to the Temple and then beginneth his cure when the man was whole. Mark 8. When he first put his hands upon the blind man, he saw men walking as trees. This was miraculous, but not a miracle. But Christ again put his hands upon his eyes; and then he looked up, and saw every man clearly. Christ ever worketh to perfection. He came into the world, that they that see not may see, and that they that are lame may go: but he doth not leave them when they but see men walk like trees, in a weak and uncertain knowledge of him: he doth not begin, and desist, but followeth his cure, presseth upon us, giveth us daily visits, leaveth no means unassayed, no way untrodden, nothing unattempted, which his wisdom thinketh fit. His end is to drive up every thing to the end; to make his miracles, his benefits, his miraculous birth, his glorious oeconomy, his victorious death and passion, powerful to attain their end, to wit, the glory of his Father, and the salvation of our souls. If I do not love the Creatou●●●●t is all the beauty of the Universe? If I do not repent, what are a● 〈◊〉 glories of the Gospel? If I do but walk, and go, and rejoice in my health, what is the miracle of curing? How should this love of Christ affect and ravish our souls! how should this fire kindled in our flesh inflame and incite us to cooperate with him, and to help him to his end! Nor will he take it as a disparagement, if, when he hath wrought what he pleased, we put to our hand, and work what we ought; if when he hath wrought a miracle, we do our duty; if when he hath made us whole, we fly that sin as a serpent which first bitten us and struck us lame; if when he hath provided us materials to our hand, and taught us to be workmen, we build up ourselves in our most holy Faith. Oh it is a foul and sad ingratitude to defeat Christ of his end, and, when he would finish his work, to hinder him; when he maketh his benefits a reason why we should sin no more, to be so unreasonable as to sin more and more; to look no further than the miracle which is done, than the benefit we receive; to feel our blood dancing in our veins, to see our garners full, to have our bodies cured, and our estates cured, and then think all is done. Behold, Christ still followeth after us, to find us out; nor will he leave us so. For most true it is, he would not work miracles but for this end. Where he saw unbelief ready to step in between the miracles and the end, he would not do them. Matth. 13.58. He did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief. No: whatsoever he did, whatsoever he spoke, was for us men, and for our salvation. As he said of the voice of the Angel which was heard as thunder from heaven. Joh. 12.29, 30. This voice came not for me, but for your sakes; so all his miracles, all his benefits, even the Creation itself, are for our sakes. He made not the world for himself: For his happiness is in himself. Patuit coelum antè quàm via, saith the Father: He made heaven for Man, and then shown him the way to enter into it and take possession of it. Whatsoever he doth in heaven and in earth tendeth to draw us nearer to him. He would not thunder, but to make us melt; he would not come towards us in a tempest, but to teach us to bow to his power, and so make it a buckler to defend us; he would not shine upon us, but to draw us to the true light; he would not have sent his Prophets, he would not have sent his Son, to work wonders amongst us, but to draw us with these cords of love to himself, and that we might believe God to be the only true God, and him whom he hath sent, Jesus Christ. For this end Christ found this man, and for this end he seeketh out us, that all his miracles and benefits and promises may have their end. And why then should he still suffer such contradiction of sinners? Why do we then rejoice at our health, and be afraid of his precepts? be willing to be raised, and yet sti●● carry that enemy about with us which first cast us down? rise and walk, and then sin again? This is to defeat the miracle, to abuse the mercy, and to resist the power of Christ, that though it work what we wonder at, yet it shall not work to the end, and have that effect which was intended, and is proper to it. Again, if Christ urge forward his work, and desisteth not, but followeth us still to find us out when we think all is done, maketh a miracle but the preface and forerunner of a greater work, it will concern us to uphold this course of love both to others and our se●●es. 1. To others: To be instant in season and out of season, in our leisure and in our business; To stir up and quicken in them the beginnings of grace; Not upon ill success to go back and fall off, but still to labour and travel with them, as S. Paul speaketh, till Christ, that is, all Christian duties, be fully form in them; To be their solicitours, their advocates, their remembrancers, and wh●n God hath wrought a miracle, and delivered them from poverty or prison or death, to speak to them ●●●ok back and behold. What though we prevail not? yet let us 〈◊〉 desist. The husbandman doth not take off his hand from the plough for one bad year, nor doth the merchant leave off navigation for one wreck at sea. Spargenda est manus, saith Seneca: succedet aliquando multa tentanti: We must scatter again and again: all will not be lost, after many attempts. The sour in the Gospel sowed his seed in four places, though it came up and yielded increase but in one. Jer. 20.8, 9 The word of the Lord, saith the Prophet, was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But it followeth, His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. He than that cannot expect his brother, that cannot hope well of his brother, is neither a true Prophet nor a good Christian. That plain Axiom of S. Augustine is of good use, De nullo vivente desperandum; We may not despair of any man alive but whilst he breatheth we must hope, we must pray for him, and find him out, and instruct him. That common speech of some in S. Chrysostom's time, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Leave off from admonishing and counselling these kind of men, the Father calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the deceit of the Devil, an engine made by him to undermine and shake all religion and piety. Some we have had of late who have pronounced it unlawful to pray for the salvation of all men; An error of so monstrous a shape that former ages were afraid of it, and it was reserved for this last and worst age, to wait upon its misshapen dam, that ill-begotten fancy of the absolute decree of Reprobation. I could not easily believe that any should take delight in such a speculation, which striketh off all hope of salvation, and all care of our brother withal, that he may go whither he will: For whithersoever he goeth, he is lost for ever, never to be found. This doctrine leaveth some men in worse case than the Swine in the Gospel. The Devils entered into them indeed, but presently carried them violently into the sea, and drowned them: but by this doctrine some men there be prepared on purpose to be an habitation of Devils for ever. But withal I see, they who cut off all hope of life from some, and with it the prayers and instructions of the Church, are all sheep themselves, pure and innocent, and so sure of their salvation that in this they rest as in a miracle, as if nothing more were to be done, and therefore they will not work it out. They tell us, That some be vessels of wrath, and therefore that we ask and attempt an impossible thing; That the condemnation of many and the Salvation of all cannot both be brought to pass, because this implieth a contradiction. I answer; It is true, it implieth indeed a contradiction, that ●ll should be saved, yet many damned: but yet I see no force in the contradiction to fright us from our devotion, or shut up our mouths, that we may not instruct and remember every man of his present condition; that when we have begun, we may not follow and find him out, and instruct him yet more fully. This foundation standeth very sure, The Lord knoweth who are his: But we do not read in Scripture that God hath any where imparted this knowledge unto any man. Suppose it were true that God doth indeed sit in heaven and pass an irreversible sentence upon the lives of some certain men; yet doth this nothing concern us, nor can we judge by any outward marks upon our brother what God doth in his secret closet and counsel. Judgement belongeth unto him, and duty unto us. Let God do what he please in heaven, or in earth; a necessity lieth upon us, and wo-will be unto us if we instruct not our brother. Nor is the secret will of God any rule of our actions, nor can it be. For it is the property of a Rule to be manifestly known; and if it be not known, it is not a Rule. The rule that concerneth us is as manifest as the light, That we must love our brother; That we must find him out, and instruct and save him; That we must begin and promote and, as far as in us lieth, perfect and finish this work; That we must seek the conversion of all men. Haec regula ab initio Evangelii decucurrit; This is a constant and everlasting rule, and hath run along in a continued stream of light ever since the Son of righteousness did arise in the hemisphere of the Church. But for what God will do with particulars, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there is a thick cloud cast, a veil drawn before it, that no mortal eye can discern the least glimpse or scintillation of it. We read in the Scripture that the number of true believers is but small: but my duty to my brother, in praying for him, and promoting his spiritual health, is not grounded upon that act which apprehendeth the number of the elect to be but few, but upon that which apprehendeth the mercies of God to be infinite, and that it cannot stand with his goodness to make any man purposely to destroy him. And it is an act of our Charity, which, like some artificial glasses, multiplieth the object a thousand times. And this is a kind of privilege and prerogative which Charity hath above Faith. Christ hath already begun with my brother; the miracle is wrought; his wounds are still open, and they will drop their medicinal power and virtue upon the weakest member he hath, yea, upon him that is yet no member; and my care must be to help him to apply it. There is no heart so much stone which Christ's blood cannot soften and out of it raise a child unto Abraham. No piece so crooked ever sprung from Adam's root but of it God can erect a statue of himself. None is so miserably desperate of whom we are not bound to nourish a hope. No man is so lost, but he may be restored. Whilst he is in this state of life, he is in statu merendi, or demerendi, in the way to bliss, or in the way to destruction. And if he were at the very brink, yet the hand of Mercy may pull him back. No fatal decree, no malignant aspect from heaven hath so blasted him as to make him uncapable of thy help. If there be any such, ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina, let the Predestinarian show it. As God once said by his Prophet, Where is the bill of divorce? so may we, Where is the decree? And if we cannot show it, it is to us as if there were none at all. There is nothing can concern us but but what we may know; and that is our duty, writ in legible characters as with the sunbeams, Thou shalt love thy brother as thyself. It is a strange kind of Despair, to despair of our brother when we should cure him; a Despair flowing from the bitter fountain of Hypocrisy and Uncharitableness. For Love looketh many times on unwelcome truths, and is unwilling to read them as truths. Are we told our friend is dead? Amor noluit dictum, Love would have it unsaid. And can it then be music in our ears to hear that some of our brethren are damned from all eternity? that they were built up as men, after the image of God, on purpose to be made for hell? Why should we love to hear this? why should we delight to preach it? It is almost a miracle that we can believe it. We cannot think that all that Christ preached unto were saved; yet he who knew what was in man preached unto them. And therefore we must not look upon our brother in the volume of Eternity, but in the leaves of Time; and consider, not what he was, nor what he is, but what he may be; not what a crooked piece he is, but what an image of Christ we may make him; and, by the example of our Saviour, follow him with our care, and find him out. Despair will stay us, Hope will send us after him. Forsitan & huic in sepulcro scelerum jacenti dicat Christus, Lazare, veni foràs: How know we whether Christ may not call unto him lying and rotting in his sin as in a grave, Come forth? Or if he should yet after all this care perish, yet thou shalt save thyself, because thou wouldst have saved him. Fac quod debes, & eveniat quod vult, is an old plain Arabian proverb, and will be good counsel to the world's end; Do what thou shouldest, and fall out what will: Do thy duty, and thou hast done all, though nothing be done. Coin not suppositions, pretend not difficulties or impossibilities, presage not ill success. How readest thou? That is the rule; and thou must walk by it. Look not on Christ in the bosom of his Father, but as he walked upon earth; and follow him, and by his example follow thy brother with thy counsel. If he harken to thee, thou hast won thy brother. If not; yet thou art doing Christ's ' work; which will sooner bring thee to him, than thy gazing back, and looking what God did from all eternity. That may settle thee to dwell in him, but this will strike thee with the spirit of giddiness. S. Chrysostom bringeth in even Judas himself, whom, though he was called the child of perdition, yet his Master ceased not by counsels and threaten, by admonitions and benefits, to have either persuaded or deterred him, by any means to have won and kept him, from betraying him: And this, saith he, Christ did to teach us to perform our duty to our brother, whether he will hear, or whether he will forbear. Whatsoever the success shall be, blessed shall he be whom his Lord at his coming shall find so doing. 2. It will concern us to do the same on ourselves, to find ourselves and all our defects out. Non emendabis te, nisi te deprehenderis; Till this we cannot mend and better ourselves. If we do not see how little ground we have gone over, and how much still remaineth, if we do not reach forth, Phil. 3.13. as S. Paul speaketh, to that which is before, we shall make no progress. Heb. 6.1. We are not to rest on the principles and beginnings of piety, but to go on to perfection. If we begin with a miracle, with alacrity and cheerfulness in the profession of Christianity, and then flag and fail and fall back; if we rise up and walk, and then be worse paralyticks than before, the miracle is lost, the first grace and favour will change countenance, and stand up and accuse us; and that which bespoke us to go, and might have promoted us to happiness, will appear to our condemnation. It is a dangerous thing to be the worse for Christ's goodness, more miserable by his favours, more impotent when we are healed, more bold and daring after a miracle, to rest in beginnings as in the end, to riot it on benefits, and to be brought back on those wings which should carry us on to perfection; Unto which we ought still to press forward as the Angels mounted to heaven on Jacob's ladder, step by step, rung by rung, by degrees. Luke 14.30. Commonly we are cured too soon. We begin to build, and are not able to finish. We do not sit down, and cast with ourselves what will cost us. We do not weigh the labour, the dangers, the inconveniencies which attend this Profession, the loss of our goods, the hazard of our lives, the displeasure of friends, the daily wrestle and fightings not only with principalities and the powers of darkness, but with ourselves. These are not in our thoughts. But to take the name of Christ, to give up our names unto him, to be called Christians, that is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our Zenith, our perfection. When Christ hath bid us rise and walk, when he hath called us by his Gospel out of the world, when we can reckon ourselves as members of his Church, we say as Esau did to his brother Jacob, Christ hath dealt graciously with us, and we have enough; we walk on in a vain shadow, in an imagination, in a dream; comfort ourselves, we bless ourselves, we assure ourselves, as if we were pressing forward in the ways to happiness. And the truth is, we begin too soon, we are perfect too soon, comforted too soon, assured too soon. And we may justly fear that the greatest part of Christians are so soon in heaven that they will never come there. For how are we taken and delighted with the most slender performances! How doth the heart leap at the gift of a penny? What music is there in a sigh, though breathed from an hallow heart? what refreshment in a fast, though it be to blood and oppression? What a heaven do we feel when have we made a good profession? What a Sabbath day's journey have we taken when we have heard a Sermon? How doth one good action, one good word, one good thought exalt and canonize us? How are small beginnings, any thing, nothing, taken for that violence which must take the kingdom of heaven? And this is the bitter effect of hypocrisy. For when we will not be what we should be, we study to appear both to ourselves and others what we are not. Thus are we content to tithe mint anise and cumin, and to omit the weightier matters of the Law, judgement, mercy and truth; to begin in the spirit, and end in the flesh. Outward profession, false shows, fair pretencces, proffers and beginnings, these are the portion, the substance, the riches of the hypocrite: As the impotent man here, when he was made whole, went his way, and placed all his happiness in this, thought of nothing but this, that he was made whole. Therefore Christ's care, we see, was to find him out, and more fully to instruct him, to show him a greater defect, the cause of the former, to discover a worse disease to be cured. So do we settle and fix our minds on common favours, on our calling, our profession, on good intentions and good thoughts; and not look forward to the denial of ourselves, to the crucifying of the flesh, to the purging of the soul; nor look backward upon these beginnings, or, if we do, we behold them on the wrong side, not as beginnings, but perfection itself. Even these beginnings are significant, if we would understand them, and they bespeak us to press forward: Every benefit is an obligation. Take up thy bed, and walk; the words are plain; but there is more understood then said. There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a depth, in them, which is not fathomed at first. When our Saviour cometh to interpret them, they will bear this sense, Sin no more. In a word, every beginning looketh forward to the end. For that which hath a beginning may have an end. For nothing can be done or be begun to be done, saith the Philosopher, which is impossible. A good beginning, if it be not brought to perfection, is an argument against us that we have left it as the Ostrich doth her eggs in the sand, never to be hatched and nourished, but to be crushed by every foot, and broke by every wild beast. Therefore if it be but one talon, one favour, one benefit, we must improve it. If it be Riches, thou must be rich in good works. If it be Strength, thou must labour in thy calling. If it be Length of days, thou hadst them from his right hand, and thou must not still be a child in understanding. If it be Health, thou must work out thy salvation. If Beauty, thou must not make it a snare. If Eloquence, thou must speak to the heart of the oppressed. If a Good profession, thou must make it good. If a Good thought, it was Christ that sent it, and thou must not be so unkind as to stifle it. If a Good resolution, it was his hand and power that raised it and it will be sacrilege for thee to pull it down. To conclude this; As Christ's love and care did still look forward, so must ours. As he findeth us out, so must we find out ourselves. Nor must our endeavours end, no more than his loving kindness doth in this miracle. And thus much we gather from Christ's care here in following and finding the man out; and further we carry not this consideration. We will now follow him into the Temple; Jesus findeth him in the Temple; a place proper and fit for the man that was healed to offer his sacrifice of praise in, and a place fit for Christ to teach and admonish him in. And it is as requisite sometimes to observe the Place as the Time. In his Temple, Psal. 29.9. Psal. 22.22. Psal. 96.9. saith David, doth every one speak of his glory; and, I will praise thee in the midst of the great congregation; and, Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Nor doth an hymn of praise sound so well or yield such music in private as in the Temple, the place where God's honour dwelleth. Here we publish our gratitude, and by that teach others how they should tune their harps and set their songs. Here it goeth up with a shout; here we all render to God those things that are God's, Power, and Wisdom, and Mercy, and rejoice and sing as it were in ourselves that God is so wise and powerful and merciful, and so give him what we can, all honour and praise. Here the Angels are present, saith Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Scribes to register every word that we speak. Here are the tribes gathered together, even the tribes of the Lord; and every man speaketh of his wondrous works. Here God himself is present, weighing and pondering the thoughts and affections of men. For if where two or three be gathered together in his name, Matth. 18.20. God be in the midst of them, present with them, and favour them; then certainly where many are met together, he is at hand ready to receive their sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. I cannot but think that this recovered Paralytic leapt for joy as soon as he could stand up; that he went along praising of God; that this thought came along with him, and brought him to the Temple. I acknowledge that of Tertullian to be true, In triviis habet pietas suum secretum, A pious and thankful heart hath its Oratory wheresoever it is: But yet Devotion is more proper in its proper place; it is more proper to praise God in the house of God; nor is any service so powerful as that which is tendered in public. Thou canst not, saith the Father, praise God so well in thine own private house as in God's. There thou findest many fires to kindle thy zeal, the presence and example of others, the reverence of order, the presence of God. Here we meet together as an army, like that fulminatrix Legio, that thundering Legion, to besiege a●● invade the Majesty of Heaven, to force God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, say the Greek Fathers, to put him so to it that he cannot but accept us. And God not only requireth modestum fidei, the modesty of our faith, and private devotion; but likewise he requireth these things to be done in public by troops and shoals of men. Haec vis grata Deo; With this kind of force and violence God is well pleased. So acceptable is this to God, that when David had but a thought to build an house to this purpose, God told him that he did well, when he had done nothing, neither might do any thing, 2 Chron. 6.10. only had the design in his heart, and did think and resolve to do it. This man than did what was fit to be done, the work of the place in the place of the work; he did what others, what the Apostles, what Christ himself did. He did not stay himself with this thought, That he might return to his own house, and perform his devotions there. No: he goeth to the Temple: And in the Temple Christ findeth him, and showeth him yet a more excellent way. To make some use of this; I know the Temple is demolished; not a stone left upon a stone: But yet all places of public worship did not fall with the Temple. Even common Reason doth teach all Nations to erect and set apart places for this end. For how can many meet together but in one place? Temples we still must have, where we may offer, though not beasts, as the Jews did, yet the calves of our lips, and the breathe and groans of a broken and contrite heart, which is a sacrifice that God will not despise; where we may worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and also present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service. Yet I do not plead the absolute necessity of our public meetings in Churches. Indeed there is not, there cannot be any such necessity. For God will not suffer necessity to lie upon any thing but that which is in our power. It is absolutely necessary that we should pray: For that we may do if our tongue were tacked to the roof of our mouth. It is necessary that we should eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ: For that we may do though we receive not the Sacrament. It is necessary that we should serve the Lord: For that we may do though every Church were beat down with axes and hammers. Necessitas, lex temporis; Necessity is the Law of the times: And whilst this Law is over us, we are free from all Law of Order or Ceremony, not tied to circumstances of Time and Place, neither to the Sabbath nor the Temple; which otherwise might well require our due observation. For where Necessity is of a truth, there in truth is no Law. Quicquid cogit, defendit; Whatsoever it compelleth us to do, it excuseth when it is done. Then a grot or a cave or an upper room may serve for a Church. But when the fetters of Necessity are once shaken off, and this Law canceled, then even Convenience itself is Necessity, and that which is most advantageous for us bindeth us most. Than not to go to Church out of humour, or out of a groundless fancy that any other place is as holy, is to be a Recusant indeed, and in the worst sense. Heb. 10.25. Then to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, is a ridiculous schism, and the first step downwards to Apostasy. We see men run first from one congregation, and then from another, and at length from all, and so from Religion, from the Truth, from Christ himself. Stocks they are and stones who attribute Holiness to walls. And yet stocks they are and stones that do profane and disgrace them. What, are Churches holy? A stout question to be put up by the masters of the Assembly, a nail to be driven home to open the heart, and to discover a Papist or Prelatical Protestant; Which terms have now the same signification. What, are Churches holy? Yes, they are; but not otherwise then as set apart for holy uses, no otherwise then in relation to the end. And then certainly they are as holy as they who are so witty to give them new names, and who prefer their Parlours or their Stables before them. For these will be as holy as they are, if men do not profane them; And they will serve for that end for which they were erected: but these men, ever wanton in their religion, and never religious but in wantonness and contention, set up other ends of their own, and soon forget and fly from that for which they were created, that they may overtake the other, and then write Holiness in their forehead, and proclaim it to all the world, th●t they are holy, and they alone. And no marvel they will not admit the Church, the place of public worship, to be holy, who dare not call the Mother of Christ himself a Saint. The time was, Beloved, when this was counted a holy language, and holy men of God, the Doctors and Martyrs of the Church, spoke it, and feared not to gain thereby that foul imputation of being superstitious. The time was when Sacrilege was a sin: But now men have learned an art to do what that Lamb of God never did, to take away sins by committing them; to take them away, and make them no sins; to take them away, and make them virtues. And to them nothing is holy. For first they look upon the Holy things as a prey and in a manner sweep away the rest with them. For to compass this, the Word must be no more the Word of God, but what they will make it, a nose of wax, to be tempered and fitted to what form they please: Prayer is made a formality, a babbling formality: The Sacraments are not so much as signs; The Water is dried up in the Font; and the Lord's Supper is no more then, what the Anabaptists heretofore called it, a twopeny feast: And for Discipline, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; where is it? the very name of it is lost. First they condemn what they hate, because it standeth in the way in which Covetousness leadeth them, and then they study arguments to ratify and make good that sentence of condemnation; which if you be so bold as to answer and confute, they pursue you as a troubler of Israel; as if they should give you a blow on the face, and tell you it were to this end, to keep you off from making a riot. Oh Folly, whence art thou come to cover the face of the earth, and to shake the pillars of the Church? How hath the Love of the world filled our mouths with arguments, with murmur and dispute, Phil. 2.14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with bitter dispute, which add not one cubit, one hair, to the body of Religion or growth of Piety? Wherein when we have run never so far the one from the other, if common Reason may prevail, we shall meet again, and find it nothing else but a quarrel and controversy about words. But how shall common Reason find a place in those hearts which are so filled with the World? And therefore men are bold to ask the question, Whether the Word of God be his Word or no; Whether there be a Temple, or a Church; Whether there be any Priests or Ministers of the Gospel; Whether every man may not take that Office upon him; What use there is of the Sacraments; When, and How, and By whom they are to be administered. God grant it be not at last put to the question, Whether there be any God, or no. But you will say, This will not fit, nor can it be set to, our Meridian. I wish it may not, nor to any other; but rather to any than ours. But surely I cannot see how Profaneness and Sacrilege can drive out Superstition. I will say no more; but methinks I see them opening a wide gate to let Irreligion and Atheism in. But from all Sedition and privy Conspiracy, from all false Doctrine and Heresy, from Hardness of heart, and Contempt of God's Word and Commandment, Good Lord, deliver us. To conclude; To the Temple the man went who was made whole; and in the Temple Jesus found him. In the Temple he praised God; and in the Temple Christ instructed him. Acts 3.1. To the Temple went Peter and John at the hour of prayer. And into the Temple went up the Pharisee and the Publican, the one a Sectary, the other odious to a proverb; yet no scruple, no contention between them: both went up together to the Temple to pray. And as they had a Temple, so have we the Church: And if theirs was the Holy place, as it is called, so is ours, being ordained to the same end; I may say, to a better: Theirs, to offer up the flesh of beasts; ours, to offer up ourselves: Theirs, for corporal and carnal; ours, for spiritual sacrifices: And why not ours then as Holy as theirs? God himself cannot imprint Holiness in a stone: All is from the end. The Church is a house of prayer; let it not be made a den of thiefs, to rob God of his glory. It is Bethel, the House of God; let it not be made Bethaven, a House of vanity. Let our devotion, and not our vanity, here display itself. Let the contention be, not who shall be most vain, most fantastic; but who shall be most devout, most humble, most reverend. It is a house of peace; oh what pity, what shame is it that we should from this place first hear the alarm to war! It is a house where God's Honour should dwell; let not Ziim and Ochim, satyrs and screech-owls, profane persons, dance and revel here. Last of all, it is a place consecrate, that is, set apart for God's worship; then, if there be such a sin, it it will be foul sacrilege to pull it down. I will read to you some part of Psalm 83. Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For lo, thy enemies make a tumult; and they that hate thee, have lift up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.— They said, let us take to ourselves the houses of God in pessession. O my God, make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind.— Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name, O lord— That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most High over all the earth. Tell me now, Is this a Psalm set to those times, or a Prophecy of ours? He that awaketh not, he that trembleth not at this thunder, is not asleep, but dead. Seneca speaketh of some who seem to be made, as serpents and vipers, for no other end but to hiss and trouble the world: And such are they who disgrace and profane places set apart for public devotion. What is there in a Church that a religious mind can check at? If we must meet together, what scruple can arise concerning the place? If any do arise, it riseth like a fog, and steameth from a foul and corrupt heart, from Pride the mother of Pertinacy and Contradiction, which will not be brought down to conform to the counsels of the wise, no, nor to the wisdom of God himself, but calleth Truth Heresy, because others speak it; Bounty, waste, because others lay it out, Reverence, superstition, because others bow; and will pull down Churches, because others build them; kicketh at every thing that is received, nihil verum-putans nisi quod diversum, thinketh nothing true but that which is divers and contrary; nothing true, but that which breatheth in opposition against the Truth; as ridiculously but more maliciously scrupulous than Tyridates in Pliny, who would not venture on shipboard, nor could endure navigation, because he thought it an unlawful thing to spit into the sea. For see; God hath reigned down Manna upon us, and we startle, and ask, What is this? God hath given us his Word, and we quarrel it. He hath given us the Sacrament of Baptism, and we ask, By whom, At what ages and How we must be washed. It was a River, than a Font, now a Basin; and can you tell, can they tell who trouble these waters, what it will be next? If God prevent it not, it will be Nothing. Christ hath invited us to his Table, and we know not whether we should sit, or stand, or kneel; whether we must come as subjects, or as his fellows and companions; whether we receive him really, or in a trope and figure; whether we may not do it too often. As Seneca speaketh of Philosophy, so may we of Christianity, Fuit simplicior aliquando inter minora peccantes; When men were more sincere, they were less scrupulous, and had no leisure to find knots in every bulrush, in that which was made smooth and even to their hands. They did do their duty, and not run about the world and ask How and When they must do it, especially where the duty was open and easy to the understanding, that they might run and read it. They heard the Word, and obeyed it. They did submit to those who were supreme, and not ask How they should be governed; The great question of the world at this day, and that which troubleth the world. They honoured their Pastors, and were not busy to teach them how to teach them. They were baptised for remission of sins. They received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and fed on Christ. They went into the Temple, the Church, to pray with and in the midst of the congregation, but never consulted nor asked counsel how to pull it down. In a word, they were religious, and did not seem so. Christ found the man he had cured in the Temple, and there taught and instructed him: And if he find us there, he will teach and instruct us also by them to whom he hath committed the Oracles of God. Hitherto we have been in the Temple, and yet we are but in the porch of our Text. It is high time now to proceed, and to hear what the Oracle, what Christ, doth say; Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worst thing come unto thee. Here mercy, having freed the man of his Palsy, spreadeth her wings further, to shadow and protect him from a worse disease, even Sin. Before she did but walk, and seek: now she speaketh, and poureth herself forth as a precious oil upon his soul, to cleanse and heal it. And this (though we are not willing to think so) is the greater mercy of the two. There is far more mercy in the Remembrance, Tit. 2.11. in the Precept, then in a Miracle. The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. A saving grace, and appearing! Who is not willing to behold such an apparition? who doth not clap his hands and rejoice, as if Heaven itself did open to take him in? But there it followeth, Teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. This indeed is the opening of heaven, but to flesh and blood it is as the driving us out of paradise, a kind of excommunicating of us out of the world, a removing and separating of us from those delights which flatter the sense, a sight we abhor to look upon, as full of horror as hell itself. A saving Grace we love, but not a teaching Grace; a miracle, but not a prescript: And yet Grace cannot save us unless it teach us; and a miracle hath no power without a prescript and direction. If we would be saved, we must work out our salvation. Therefore, before we view the words in particular, and lay out the full extent of the Remembrance of what was done to the impotent person already, and the Prescription of that he was to do for the future, we shall observe that which is visible enough to a discerning eye, the Difference between the corporal and spiritual cure. In the first Christ's power alone did show itself. He spoke the word, and it was done. He bade him, Rise; and he did rise, and walk. But in the other he maketh him a party and co-agent: he biddeth him behold and consider what was done, and sin no more. Which is in effect, to watch and set a court of guard upon himself; to fly Sin, as that serpent which first bitten him; to fight against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world; to fight against, nay, to crucify, himself. It is a good rule and very useful which the Father giveth, That it is not good, but full of danger, for men sic omnia ad Dei voluntatem referre ut nihil putent esse in seipsis, so to refer all to the will and power of God as to imagine there is nothing for themselves to do; as if we were indeed, not compared to stones, but were altogether as senseless, as uncapable as they; as if we had, not an Understanding to be enlightened, but no Understanding at all; not a Will to be rectified, but no Will at all; not Affections to be crucified, but no Affections at all; as if the New man were not made out of Man, but, as Man was at first, created out of a lump of earth: or as if, being thus created, he did not understand, and will, and love, and hate, and grieve, and fear; did nothing but what was wrought in him by force and violence. It is not good thus to imagine, that all things we do, or see done, are the works of God's hand and the effect of that power which bringeth mighty things to pass. We cannot so far forget God, and his Wisdom and his Goodness, as to conceive that upon every action of man there is set a DIXIT, ET FACTUM EST, He spoke the word, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. For we must know that some actions there be quas Deus nec vult, nec non vult, sed permittit, which God neither absolutely willeth, nor powerfully resisteth, but in his wisdom permitteth to be done, which otherwise could not be done but by his permission: Others there be quas vult fieri, sed non vult facere, which he would have done, but will not do them but with us. And thus we see nothing is more resisted, more broken, than the will of God which he manifesteth in his commands. And his complaint against the world, his condemnation of the world, is, That men will not obey, will not do what he would have them. Nor doth that will of Permission thwart or fall cross with any other will of his. 1. Not his Absolute will: For he absolutely permitteth them. He putteth life and death before the children of men; and when he hath done what his Wisdom and Goodness require, he leaveth them to their choice. 2. Not his Natural will and inclination, by which he desireth the creatures good, and useth all means to bring it to happiness. For though by his natural and primitive will he would have all men happy, (For he created them to that end. He made not Hell for Man; much less did he make Man for Hell. What? make Man to damn him? God forbidden!) though he forbiddeth Sin, biddeth us sin no more, though he detesteth it as that which is most contrary to that Goodness which he is, and which maketh Men and Devils enemies to him, yet he may justly permit it. He commandeth us to be good, and useth all means to make us so, but not violence. He commandeth us; but not as he doth the Sea and the Winds, who must obey and be still when Omnipotency speaketh. For if he thus commanded, than not only the Ox and the Ass would know their Master's crib, but every Man would consider, and know his Maker: then, as the Stork and the Turtle and the Crane know their appointed times, so also would Man know the judgements of the Lord. This were indeed to break our hearts with his voice, as he doth the cedars of Libanus. Again, Man is not as God, qui sibi sufficit ad beatitudinem, who is all-sufficient and Happiness itself; and therefore he was placed in an estate where he might work out his own happiness, but with the help and assistance of God, and still with a possibility of being miserable. And herein, saith Tertullian, was the wisdom and goodness of God seen: Nec enim ratio sine bonitate ratio est, nec bonitas sine ratione bonitas; For neither can Reason subsist without Goodness, nor is that Goodness which Reason commendeth not. But God is infinite, as in power, so in wisdom and goodness: And therefore as from his goodness it is that he loveth his creature, so in his wisdom he hath placed before him good and evil, ut bonum non necessitate obiret, sed voluntate, that he might draw near to him, and be obedient, and so be blessed, not of necessity, but willingly. Nulla laus est non facere quod facere non potes, saith Lactantius. Will you say a Lion is a Lamb, when he is within the grates? Will you call an Eunuch, chaste? or a man in fetters, patiented? Was Bajazet no Tyrant when he was in the iron cage? It is no commendation, saith the Father, not to do that which thou canst not do: Then it can be none, to do that which thou canst not but do. And in this consisteth our obedience, that we do that which many times is contrary to us, but always that we do that which, if we would, we might not do. For it is impossible for any finite creature, which hath not his completeness and perfection in himself, to purchase heaven upon other terms then these, that he might have lost it. We need not look on any secret decree of God. If it be secret, it is out of our ken and reach, who scarce see things which are before our eyes, but consider men ut viatores, as in their way. And we may without fear of imputation of error conclude that it was possible for the justest man alive to have been wicked. If not, why did he strive and labour and offer violence to himself? And that it was possible for the wickedest man alive to have been just; for Judas, not to have betrayed his master: Else, why do we condemn him of despair▪ and make that his greatest sin? Villicus, si velit, omnia rectè facit, saith Columella of Husbandry; The farmer, if he will, may do all things in it as he should. And it is true in Divinity. Augustine, the great Champion for the Grace of God, saith, Homo potest peccare, Contra Faust. Manich. Lib. 22. & Deum negare; &, si nolit, non facit; Any man may sin, and deny God; but he doth not, unless he will. And to take the will from that to which it doth incline, and draw it to that which God commandeth, is that which we call Obedience. In the ways of Goodness God doth help us, but not force us: he useth all means which he in his eternal wisdom knoweth fittest, but doth not by his omnipotent power bind and constrain us. He that is necessarily good is not good: And it is impossible he should be evil who is fettered in the chains of impossibility of being good. In a word, God forbiddeth sin, but permitteth it; commandeth obedience, but doth not force it. God biddeth us sin no more; but he doth not tell us we cannot sin again; for this were to take away the first by adding the second. For how can these two stand together, Sin no more, and, You cannot sin again? God doth what he can: and when he doth what he can in this respect, he doth not always make us good. Say I this of myself? or doth not even the Scripture speak as much? Doth not God say as much? Isa. 5.3, 4. and he cannot blaspheme himself. Judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard He maketh the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah his and their own Judges. What could I have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it; he omitted nothing which might make it fruitful. Hoc satìs est fecisse Deo. And could he have done any more? Yes, he might: he might have made it bring forth good grapes. God saith he could not, who is Truth itself. Nor doth this any whit derogate from his omnipotent Power. For even his Power doth seem to bow, and act by his Wisdom: And he can no more do what his Wisdom hath not set down then he cannot be wise, than he cannot be God. 3. That will of God's to permit sin, and not to intervene with his omnipotency to hinder it, doth not contradict that will which we call voluntatem praecepti, his will expressed in the Command which he layeth upon his creature: but the one supposeth the other. For he doth not command us not to sin, as he commanded the Paralytic to take up his bed and walk. For every law, as it supposeth a possibility of being kept, so supposeth a possibility of being broken; which could not be, if God thought fit to make use of his uncontrollable and absolute power. Lex justo non est posita. If Goodness had been as essential to Man as his Nature and Soul by which he is, if God's Omnipotency had interceded, and by its force opposed Sin, that it had not entered the world by Adam, nor been known to his posterity, the Jews had not heard the noise of the trumpet at the promulgation of the Law, nor the Disciples the Sermon on the mount under the Gospel; there had been no use of the comfortable breath of God's promises, nor of the terrible sound of his threaten. For who will make a Law against that which he knoweth will never come to pass? Last of all, God's Permissive will standeth in no show of opposition to his Occasioned and Consequent will, by which he raineth down vengeance upon the disobedient. For we must suppose a power to obey; whether natural, or (as it is) given, we need not dispute: but a power there must be; but not such a power which is always and infallibly brought into act. We must suppose Sin, or Obedience, before we can take up the least conceit of any will in God to punish, or to reward. Omnis poena, si justa est, peccati poena est, saith Augustine; All punishment which is just is the punishment of sin: And therefore God, who biddeth Man sin no more, out of his justice willeth his destruction when he sinneth and will not repent. Sic totus Deus bonus est, dum pro bono omnia est, saith the Father; Thus God is entirely good, whilst all he is, whether merciful or severe, is for good. Minus est tantummodo prodesse, quia non aliud quid possit quàm prodesse; His reward might lose and not carry with it that infinite value, if he could not reach out his hand to punish as well as reward: And some distrust it might work in the creature that he could not do one, if he could not do both. In a word, neither is the Conversion nor the Induration of a sinner a work of God's incontrollable power, nor of that will by which he made the heaven and the earth, and by which he healeth the lame, and raiseth the dead: For when he speaketh the word, the lame shall walk; and when the trumpet soundeth the dead shall rise: But how oft is his will to save us resisted? How oft would I, saith Christ, and you would not? For if it were fulfilled, there could be no Hell at all. Again, the command is his will: and what moment is there wherein that is not resisted? We are those devils which kindle that fire which he made not for us. We are those sons of Anak, those giantlike fighters against Heaven, which break God's commands with as much ease as Samson did his cords that bond him. We are those Leviathans which break those bounds which God hath set us: Which we could not do, if he were pleased, if he could be pleased, if his wisdom would permit him, to interpose his power to hinder us. But it may be said that we lie in sin, as this Paralytic did by the pool's side, not able to help ourselves, and therefore have no power to work out our conversion. We willingly grant it. And therefore we have need of new strength and new power to be given us. We deny it not. And therefore not only the power but the very act of our conversion is from God. Who ever yet denied it? But then, that Man can no more withstand his conversion then this man did his cure, or an infant can its birth, or the world could its creation, or the dead can the resurrection; that we are converted whether we will or no; is a conclusion which these premises will not yield. This flint will yield no such fire, though you strike it never so oft. We are said sometimes to sleep, and sometimes to be dead in sin; and we are commanded to awake, and rise: but it is ill building conclusions upon no better a basis then a Figure; and because we are said to sleep, or be dead in sin, to infer a Necessity of rising when we are called. Nor doth God's power work after the same manner in the one as in the other: nor is our obedience to God's inward and outward call of the same nature with the obedience of the creature to the voice and command of the Creator. How many Fiats of God's have been frustrate in this kind? How often hath he called, and we answered not? How often hath he spoke the word to us, to be up and doing, and we have done nothing? How often hath he smote our rocky and stony hearts, and no water flowed out? How often hath he said, Let there be light, and we still remain in darkness? We are free agents; and God made us so when he made us Men: and our actions are voluntary, not necessary. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil; Goodness is the work of our Will, not of Necessity. If it could be wrought in us against our will, it could not be Goodness. What more voluntary than Goodness? saith Augustine; which, if it were not voluntary, could not bear that name. They who would be wiser than God, and did seem to murmur that in their natural constitution there was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a necessity of being good, and an Impeccability, an impossibility of being evil, did neither love good nor hate evil. The Father telleth them in that book which he wrote, That God was not the author of sin, that in this vain desire to raise man to that pitch which nothing but fancy could set up, they much dishonoured him, and that in seeking to make him more than an Angel they made him less than a Man, and preferred a beast before him. P●●l. 2.13. It is true, God is said to work in us to will and to do of his good pleasure; but this is so far from taking away of our power that it is brought as a reason by S. Paul why we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling. God doth indeed work it in us, but he doth it by giving us the knowledge of his promises, by exciting and strengthening us by his Spirit. He worketh it who supplieth us with all sufficient means to work it. And the honour is due unto him who is the first Cause, who is α and ω, by whose grace we begin and perfect it. He useth his power, but not violence, Hebr. 13.21. working in us that which is wellpleasing in his sight, stirring us up unto it, and, when we thought not of it, preventing us with his grace; administering mean and helps; suggesting occasions; cherishing and fomenting it in our hearts. Thus he doth it, but not without us. He doth it, but not whilst we lie like men asleep, or as dead men in their graves; non nobis nesciis, vel invitis, vel otiosis, saith the Father; not when we are ignorant of his working, or unwilling to receive his impressions, or standing idle all the day; but when we will entertain him, when we endeavour, and make use of those means which he hath plenteously afforded us, when we strive to enter in at that wide and effectual door which he hath opened. He hath opened his will, and he hath opened the heavens unto us, and shown us all the beauties and glories thereof; but we must take it by violence. He shineth upon us, and striketh us on our sides; but we must shake off our fetters, and gird ourselves, and follow after him. I did at first think but to touch this: and indeed I have not spoken of it so largely as I might: But thus much I have spoken because I perceive the Devil hath made use not only of the flying and fading vanities of this world, but of the best graces of God, to file and hammer them, and make snares of them, and hath wrought temptations out of that which should strengthen us against temptations. Faith is suborned to keep out Charity; the Spirit of truth is taught to lead us into error; and the power of God's Grace hath lost its activity and energy by our unsavoury and fruitless panegyrics. We hear the sound and name of it, but the power is not visible in our motions; it floateth on the Tongue, but never moveth the Heart, or the Hand. For do we not lie still in our graves, expecting till this trump will sound? Do we not cripple ourselves in hope of a miracle? Do we not settle upon our lees, and say, God can draw us out? Do we not wallow in our blood, because he can wash us? Do we not love our sickness, because we have so skilful a Physician? and since God can do what he will, do not we what we please? This is a great evil under the Sun, and one cause of that evil which is upon the earth, and maketh us stand still and look on it, nay delight in it, and leave it to God alone and his power to remove it; as if it concerned not us at all, or it were too daring an attempt for us mortals to purge and cleanse that Augean stable which we ourselves have filled with dung; as if God's Wisdom and Justice did not move at all, and his Mercy and Power were alone busied in the work. The Fourth SERMON. PART II. JOHN V. 14. Behold, thou art made whole. SO dull and heavy we are, even after a miracle, so senseless after Christ hath laden us with his benefits, that we have need of a Monitor, a Doctor: The Historian calleth him circumspectorem, one that may look about us, and take care of us when the cure is done. As he who after victory road in triumph had a public servant behind him whose office it was to cry out unto him, Respice post te; hominem memento te esse, Look behind thee; remember thou art also a man: So have we need of continual monitions and excitations to put us in mind of what we are. For when we are made rich, how soon do we forget we were poor? When we are in health, how soon do we forget we were sick? When we are upon our legs, and walk, how soon do we forget the miracle? Or, if we do not forget it (for how can it slip out of our memory so soon between the Pool and the Temple? how can Christ's mercy be quite lost in this span of time?) yet we do not well weigh and consider it; which is indeed to forget it. Not a Jew but could have related the story of their leading out of Egypt, and of dividing the Sea and making the waters stand as a heap; yet the Psalmist is positive, They forgot his works, Psal. 78.11. and his wonders which he had showed them. The impotent man here could not look upon himself, or cast his eye upon one limb, but he must needs remember the miracle, and who it was that wrought it: Yet it was not so in his heart as to work it and draw it to its end. And this is rather a Thought than Memory. Therefore Christ seeketh him out, and findeth him, and then doth lacessere memoriam, rub and revive his memory with an ECCE, Behold, thou art made whole. Where we have two things present themselves unto our view as most remarkable; 1. What it is Christ calleth him to behold; 2. What it is to behold it. So you have the Object, and the Act: the Object, Thou art made whole; the Act commended or enjoined, to behold and consider it. For the first; No eye is fit to behold a benefit then his that received it; none fit to consider a miracle than he on whom it was wrought. Therefore God, though he giveth, and upbraideth not, yet every where almost in Scripture draweth large catalogues of the favours he hath done for his people. He maketh the Creation, the Choice, the Deliverance of them so many arguments and motives to win them to obedience. Isa. 43.7. I have made thee; Isa. 42.6. Ezek. 16.6, 9 Hos. 11.3. I have created thee. I have called thee in righteousness. I said unto thee, when thou wert in thy blood Live. I washed thee with water, and anointed thee with oil. I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by their arms. Who hath wrought and done it, Isa. 41.4. calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord the first, and with the last, I am Herald The whole Scripture is a register of God's noble acts and of his goodness which he hath showed to the sons of men. And all this to what end? that we should praise him? Yes. But with the breath of a mortal? Qualis laus quae è macelto peti potest? What praise is that which we may hear in a shambles? which may be sent forth from a rotten sepulchre, from the hollow heart of an hypocrite? Nay, what are all the Anthems and Hosannas and Hallelujahs of all the men on earth and of all the Angels in heaven? What is it to him whose glory is in himself and with himself everlastingly, and which is above all the earth? No: He remembreth us of them that we may remember them. He setteth them up as representations of his love, that we may look upon them, and delight in them, and draw them out in our souls, and place them there, not only as pictures of his Love, but also as intimations and expressions of his Will. For in every benefit there is some will of his signified. Every benefit carrieth with it a command to use it to the right end for which it was given. Seneca saith well, Multum interest inter materiam beneficii & beneficium, There is great difference between the matter or outside of a benefit and the benefit itself. That may be heard and seen and handled; this is seen only with the eye of the mind, which beholding it, and judging aright of it, and discovering the end for which it was given, maketh it a benefit indeed. It is here as they speak in the Law, Do, ut des; and, Facio, ut facias: I give thee something, that thou mayst return something back again; I do this for thee, and this that I do doth even bespeak thee to do something that is answerable and proportioned to it. So Health doth even bespeak us to be up and doing, and to run with cheerfulness the race that is set before us: Riches do even call upon us to be liberal, and make friends of them: Power doth in a manner command them that have it to break the jawbone of the wicked, and to be a shadow to the oppressed: And Wit and Wisdom do even persuade us to be wise unto salvation: For to this end they were given, and we must behold them so that they may have this end. Benefits are cords of love, which tie us to those who give them: Therefore as they seem to please and flatter, so they also instruct and oblige us. Beneficia, onera; Benefits are burdens. Psal. 6●. 19. He loadeth us daily with his benefits, saith the Psalmist. Burdens they are which we must bear, and not run wildly away with, and lay them where a wanton fancy or our lusts shall direct. For what was said of our Saviour, may be said of his Mercies? If we fall upon them, that is, neglect them, we shall be broken; but if they fall upon us, if we draw the neglect on to the abuse of them, they will grind us to powder. Christ every where setteth an Ecce, as a finger pointing out to his benefits, that we may behold and consider them. For he raineth not Manna down upon us, but that we should gather it: He shineth not upon us, but that we should walk in his light: He doth us good that, first, his benefits may have their end, and make us good; and secondly, that they be not driven to a contrary end, and so prove fatal to us. And now the Ecce is a Cave; the Indication, a Caution; Behold, and take heed. First, a benefit is a fair object set up on purpose to be looked upon, to be read and studied and interpreted. Bonum nihil est quàm interpretatio mali, saith Lactantius; That good which we receive is a kind of interpretation and comment on that evil which we have escaped. We best see the horror of Poverty in Wealth, of Weakness in Power, of Ignorance in Wisdom, of Sickness in Health: And by comparing them together, the brightness of the one with the sadness and disconsolateness of the other, we may gain this lesson or conclusion; That our former poverty should ballast our present abundance, that we be not highminded; our former low condition poise our power, that we be not insolent; our former ignorance temper and qualify our knowledge, that we be not puffed up; and our former infirmity check and manage our health, that we be not wanton; That the providence of God was in them both, that both may have their true and proper end. Thou shalt compass, saith David, Psal. 5.12. the righteous with thy favour as with a shield. Now a Shield is not for show, but use: And God putteth his benefits into our hands, and reacheth them to us, as the Lacedaemonian woman did shields unto their sons, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, either to bring them back with conquest, or to be brought home dead upon them. To cast shields away, or not to use them as shields should be used, is a foul disgrace. Some render that place, Thou hast compassed them as with a crown. And a Crown sitteth not upon the head only as an ornament, or indication of power, but hath this Inscription, EITHER MANAGE IT WELL, OR LAY IT DOWN; it hath Duty as well as Glory engraven in the circle of it. I may say, God's benefits compass us about as the heavens do the earth, and have their operation and influence upon us, to bring forth something answerable and proportioned to them. For if these heavens be brass, it is because our earth, our souls, are iron. What is all the beauty of the firmament, if we be blind? What can the Sun and Stars, what can the sweat influences of the Pleyades work upon a dead tree or a rotten stick? The Philosopher will tell us that that which is not driven to its right end is frustrate and vain. For every thing hath its use from its end; and if it attain not that; it is altogether unprofitable. Vnumquodque est propter suam operationem; Every thing is, and hath its being, for that which it hath to do. All things, even the best things, beyond or beside their end are unuseful. Seneca telleth his friend that the Arts were then Liberal, cùm liberos facerent, when they made men free and ingenuous, and taxing the vices of the times; that Arithmetic and Geometry were of no use at all, if they only taught men metiri latifundia, & digitos accommodare avaritiae, to measure Lordships, and tell money. What is Health? A great blessing; without which we move as upon a wheel or rack; without which we live as in a prison; without which we have a being, but in misery: Health, the peace of the body, the lustre of beauty, the glory of power, the delight of riches, the honour of the Physician! without which Beauty and Riches and Power aut nihil sunt, aut nihil prosunt, are either nothing, or nothing worth. And yet Health itself is nothing, if not made use of to that end for which it was given; nay, worse than nothing, worse than a disease. It is then worth an ECCE, a Behold, worth the considering. And it was given our Paralytic to this end, to work peace and harmony in his soul, to draw on a NOLI PECCARE, Sin no more; that he might take heed of Sin, which raiseth a sedition, a mutiny, a war, and maketh a confusion and a chaos in the soul. Behold, thou art made whole, putteth him in remembrance he had been lame and impotent. For the present time hath relation to that which is past; what we are, to what we have been. And thus day unto day showeth knowledge: the Present looketh back to the Past, and the Past uttereth speech to the Present. At the pool's side the impotent man was at school; now he is to repeat his lesson and show his proficiency. His disease was his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his Preparation; the day of his health, his great Feast-day; Noli peccare ampliùs, Sin no more, that is the Celebration. First, Diseases are documents, they are sermons, better and more powerful, saith the Father, than those which we preach. They were the discipline of the primitive Church; the hands of God, with which he formeth and fashioneth us to that figure and proportion in which he would see us, repaireth a greater loss by a lesser, the ruins of the soul with the shake and vexations of the body. 1 Cor. 5. S. Paul, in the name of Jesus Christ delivereth the incestuous person unto Satan: Which was nothing else but to deliver him, as God did holy Job, to be afflicted with diseases. So that we may well account Sickness a part of Apostolical Discipline, only to the mortifying of the flesh, that that part might smart which had offended, and the soul be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. In time of health, when the blood danceth in our veins, we easily suffer ourselves to be abused with false shows. Quis sibi verum dicera audet? Who then dare tell himself the truth, and impartially censure his own actions? But when sickness hath corrupted our blood, than the scales fall off from our eyes; and we read in an Ague our inconstancy, in a Fever our lust, in a Dropsy our intemperance. In health things appear as upon a stage, in disguises and strange apparel: but in the time of sickness we see them as in the tiring-house, every thing in its own face and shape. So that the very Heathen could say, Optimi sumus dum infirmi sumus, We are never better than when we are sick. This is God's method, to make a diseased body physic for a sick soul. And this effect it should have, and sometimes it hath. But many times we forget our lesson, and therefore have need of an Ecce, a Remembrance, when we have taken up our bed, and walk at large. But indeed health is the most fit and proper time to serve God, when God shineth upon our tabernacle; than not to sin, when every part and limb we have may be made an instrument and weapon of righteousness, when not only the will but the body is free; then to do good, when we have liberty to do either good or evil. Now he is a subject capable of advice: Remember thou art made whole. THOU. The consideration of the person importeth much. For all advice and counsel are lost if the person to whom they are given be uncapable. There were that put the Communion-bread into the mouth of the dead. And we read that old Beda by the lewdness of his servant was brought to preach to a heap of stones. But when our Saviour delivered this great lesson, he did not preach unto a stone, but to one that was made whole, to one unto whom having been long sick, even thirty eight years, he had restored his health. Nor had he given him the gift of Health in any other measure then such as became the giver, even full measure, pressed down; not penurious, scant, and with an evil eye. We cannot think otherwise but that the man was now become strong and whole & perfectly healthy; that is by interpretation (for it will best bear this sense) Christ had made him a fit hearer of this lesson, Sin no more; and therefore he fixeth an Ecce upon it, Behold, thou art made whole. Whilst he lay sick by the pool of Bethesda, our Saviour gave him no such lesson, because he was not then capable of it; but by making him strong and healthy, he made him capable. An Ecce upon our Health is an Ecce fixed in its proper place. Then is the best time to hear of our duty when we are best able to perform it. Who would speak to the Grass to grow? or to a stone to lie still and not move? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Sin no more; Sin not again. He that is capable of this precept must have an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an again, some power and faculty to sin again. But when either by sickness or age men have not this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this again, when Appetite and Desire fail, when the flesh being beat down can scarce raise up a will in them to sin again, than they do not forsake sin, but sin forsaketh them. Sophocles the Poet was wont to say that he was much indebted to his old age, and held it as a great benefit, that he was freed thereby from the tyranny and rage of Lust. And what a benefit is this? If it be a benefit, it is such a one as himself sometimes spoke of, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a gift no gift, a gift as good as none at all. For a better than Sophocles, S. Basil, will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Temperance in old age is not temperance; it is impotency. Old men are not temperate, but they can be no longer intemperate. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The very carcase that lieth rotten in the grave hath as fair a title to Temperance as they. Would you be righteous indeed? Health is the time. For in sickness you have nothing left you but a will, and that many times as saint and sickly as yourselves, if not dead within you. At best, if you have the habit of Virtue, it is there more like a faculty and power then a habit, and is no more in respect of action. You are but as artificers when their shop is shut up, as Apelles without a hand or pencil, or as a Musician that is dumb. But in health a good lesson may be a sword to enter and divide asunder the soul and spirit; and it may evaporate and break forth and triumph in action, be heard from your tongue, and felt from your hand, and show itself in every motion as you walk. When there is blood in your veins and marrow in your bones, when you are in health, then is the best time to conquer sin by strength of reason. Domitius Afer, a famous Orator, being now grown old, and his strength and memory decayed, would needs still come to the bar, and plead: and therefore it was said of him, malle eum deficere quàm desinere, that he had rather fail through impotency then cease and leave off in time convenient. Such may seem to be the resolution of most men: They will rather fail through weakness then cease to sin whilst their strength lasteth, and any oil is left in their lamps. How many do we see every day, upon whom the evil days are come, feeble and weak to all good purposes, as those who have been dead long ago, but ad peccandum fortes, strong and active and youthful in sin; having their hair white, but their affections and ambition green, violently framing and forcing themselves to be sportful and gamesome, and peruking their age with youthful behaviour! And yet these men peradventure at the last cast, when their members are dried up and done, can be content to offer them up to God, as the old forworn fencers amongst the Romans were wont Herculis ad postem arma figere, to offer up their weapons in Hercules' Temple, when they could make no further use of them. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, complained the God of War in the Poet, when he saw such unbeseeming gifts and monuments offered up in his Temple: And so may the Lord of hosts complain much more, These darkened and distracted understandings, these faltering memories, these crooked wills, these dulled and blurred senses, these juyceless and exhausted and almost dead bodies, these arms of statutes, these pictures of men wasted and spent in the service of sin, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, These are not the weapons and faculties I made. Fit they are for the grave and rottenness, but utterly unfit for the Temple of the Lord of hosts. Behold, thou art made whole. That is the time: that is God's time, and thy time; that is the accepted day, the day in which thou must work out thy salvation. To this end thou wert taken out of the porch by the pool's side, and set on thy legs, to this end thou art bid to walk, that thou mayst sin no more. For, in the second place, if Health have not this end, it will have a worse, a contrary one. As there are but two places, Heaven, and Hell; so are there but two ends, God's, and the Devil's: and we never stray from the one, but we run to the other. We never turn our back to Jerusalem, but we make forwards towards a strange land. It is as impossible to stand still between both, and not move to one of them, as for a man, that hath the use of reason, to be neither good nor evil. For the mind of of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ever in motion: and if it do not follow those graces and favours which God affordeth for our viaticum and help in our way, it will force them to a bad end, and make that which might have been the savour of life unto life to become the savour of death unto death. Health is the gift of God, and should be used as his gift, and returned back as a sacrifice to him, crowned with the spoils of Satan and the triumphs over sin: And if it be not thus used and offered, it will be a sacrifice to Devils, instrumental to all wickedness, and advantage to Fraud, a help to Ambition, a bawd to Uncleanness, the upholder of Revenge, the nurse of Pride, an assistant to Covetousness, and the very life of War. We may be evil on the bed of sickness: but in health we publish and demonstrate it: Then the deceitful coineth his plots, the ambitious soreth, the wanton neigheth, the revenger draweth his sword, the proud lifteth up his head, the miser toileth, and the soldier washeth his feet in the blood of his enemies. Quid non est Dei, quod Deum offendit? saith the Father: There is nothing we receive from God but by it we may offend him. Nihil tam sacrum quod non inveniat sacrilegum; Nothing is so sacred but it may be sacrilegiously abused: nothing is given us to a good end but it may be diverted and forced to a bad one. Wit is the gift of God, to this end, Prov. 8.12. to find out knowledge of witty inventions; to devise cunning works, to work in gold and silver and brass; Exod. 31.4. to find out arts, to find out musical tunes, Eccl, 44. to the glory of him quia illa omniae quae possunt inveniri primus invenit, as Lactantius speaketh, who first shown what was afterwards found out: And we see it hath been brought down to indite for our lusts and malice, for our sorrows and triumphs, for every passion which transporteth us; it hath wrought in Satire and Elegy, to feed our malice, and to encourage our lust; it hath made Philosophy perplexed, Divinity a riddle, and Trades mysterious, and is a golden cup, as Augustine speaketh, in which we drink and carouse ourselves to the Devil. Again, Riches are the gift of God: And though he reacheth them forth but with his left hand, Prov. 3.16. yet we may make of them a key to open the Kingdom of heaven: And to that end they were given. Yet the rich of this world too often make them the instruments of Pleasure, the fuel of Vice, a Patent and Prerogative to do what they please, a Canopy to walk under and commit evil with more state and majesty, a Supersedeas against Conscience; in a word, a 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 oppressor, 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 Commonwealth, 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 Razor, 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 blood, and make him a Saint who hath no other father then him who was a murderer 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 itself; to make Men beasts, and God nothing in this world; to make the Commonwealth an asylum and Sanctuary for Libertines, a nest of Atheists, a Synagogue of hypocrites, in a word, a map and representation of Hell itself. 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 itself 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' 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 master's 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 judgement. God will confound our Wisdom, blow upon our Riches, and shake our Power; and our Wit shall ruin 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 devour 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 Heretics, 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 Clinic, or a Recluse, confined to his bed, or shut up between two walls, all the days 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 than the cast and twinkling 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 inflame 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 showed 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 acknowledgement 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 ourselves, and we behold ourselves mouldering away and decaying; and yet we do not behold ourselves. 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 die daily, and yet think we shall not die 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 than death. Our Paralytic did rise and walk, and could not but behold it; yet Christ here in the Temple calleth upon him with an ECCE, to behold it better. How then shall we paraphrase this Ecce? or in what is our Consideration placed? Shall we say BEHOLD is, Think of it? shall we place it in a Thought? What is a Thought but a cast of the soul's eye, and no more? and the next object may call and carry it away. The language of the mind, saith Bernard. Many times it is a salutation, a compliment, and no more. It is now, and now it is not, and so it endeth in itself. There are, saith the Father, paralyticae cogitationes, thoughts, like the man here in the Text, paralytical, weak and wavering and inconstant, which cannot reach a hand to the will, nor guide any faculty of the soul or part of the body. Every thought is not the mother of action: for we do not always what we think. He that thinketh Honesty a virtue, is not always an honest man. We may be driven about with the wind of opinion from object to object, and never settle on any. What is sooner conceived, what is sooner smothered, what sooner riseth, what is sooner laid then a Thought? Shall we then place this BEHOLD, and Consider, in the Memory? That indeed, saith Plato, is the health both of the Sense and Understanding: it is the treasury of all things, saith Tully. I may say it is the Gallery where the object, the benefit, may hang to be often looked upon. There, when the Eye hath let in the object, the Fancy and Understanding may place it. But then they may bring something which is heterogeneous and divers from it, to blur and deface it. One thought may hang it up, and another pull it down. Or the business of the world may be drawn before it as a curtain, and leave it there as in a dark room or in the land of oblivion, till an Ecce, till some Anamnestes, some Remembrancer, draw the veil aside, and leave the picture open to our view. Our Memory is the frailest part we have. Therefore, Remember it, is not a full and perfect comment on the ECCE, Behold. Shall we place it then in Meditation? That indeed may seem to reach it. For that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Wiseman, that is all. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Aristotle; It doth dilate and enlarge a benefit, spread and show its length and breadth and depth. It is the soul of the soul, saith Tully; the agitation and heat, as the Orator speaketh, of our imaginative part. And if this heat remit not, but continue and increase, it will express the Ecce, and may go for Consideration. But the circumsistant matter doth many times abate and cool it. Pleasure smileth, the World flattereth, Vanity showeth itself in its best dress; and then our meditations sink and fall, and are buried in these false shows and apparitions, and have no power or force till we are called back with an Ecce, till they have a kind of Resurrection. We may then meditate on a benefit, and yet not behold and consider it. Where then shall we place the Ecce? or what is it to consider of an object aright? I remember the Schools speak of cogitatio practica, of a practic Thought. I may say there is a practic Memory, and a practic Meditation; which doth consider not only ultimum, but usque ad ultimum; which vieweth the object not only to the utmost, but every circumstance precedaneous to it; the benefit, and the person on whom it was conferred, and the person who did it; the Physician, the Patient, the Cure, the Disease. Nay, it looketh also ultra ultimum, beyond the object, and considereth the end of it, and what naturally it should produce; and so judgeth of it aright; and than it draweth up the will to the judgement, to settle us and carry us on in a constant course of gratitude, and in a continuance of those actions which are proportioned to our judgement and which right reason would have us to. For as in Scripture we are then said to know God, when we love him; so do we then behold and truly consider a benefit, not when we make mention of it with our lips, or when we think of it, or remember it, or meditate on it (which is but the extension of our thoughts) but when we fasten it, and make it a part of ourselves, and as it were our form and principle of motion, to promote those actions and that obedience in us for which the benefit was conferred and the miracle wrought. This the Father calleth the circular motion of the mind; which first settleth upon the object, and then is carried back into itself, and there boweth and swayeth the powers of the soul; it collecteth itself into itself from foreign and impertinent occurrences, and then joineth all its forces and faculties to the accomplishment of that good to which the benefit inviteth us. Behold, thou art made whole: If we behold and consider that aright, we shall sin no more. For conclusion then, To behold and consider is not a duty of such quick dispatch. and yet it is of singular use. It it our poise and bias in all ways, to make us run evenly to the mark that is set before us. It is our compass, to guide and steer our course amidst the waves, the ebbings and flow, the changes and chances of this world. It is our Angel, to keep us in all our ways. It is as the opening of a window into the closet of our souls, that that light may enter which may discover every mote and atom, where before there was nothing but vacuity. It is a spy, to discover the forces of the enemy; and it is the best strength we have against him. It is the balance of the Sanctuary, wherein we weigh every benefit to a grain. It is the best divider; it giveth to God those things which are God's, and to man those things which are man's. It wipeth the paint off from Sin, and discovereth Horror; it taketh tentation from Beauty, and showeth us fading Flesh; it strippeth Riches of their glory, and pointeth unto their wings; it degradeth Power from its excellency, and observeth it now sinking, anon falling like Lucifer from heaven. It looketh on the World as a great dunghill, on the Flesh as carrion, and on the Devil as a damned spirit. It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it is wrought in us by the Spirit of God, and it is all in all. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits? saith David. And what doth God require? This is all, To behold and consider his benefits aright. Consideration is our sacrifice of thanksgiving. Then are we truly grateful when we pay God back in his own coin, show him his own image and superscription; a Witty man, wise unto salvation; a Beautiful man, adorned with holiness; a Rich man, merciful as he is merciful; a Powerful man, just as he is just; a man in Health, active and cheerful to run the way of God's commandments. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. Thus to behold God's benefits, whether Beauty, or Wit, or Riches, or Health, is to make them benefits indeed. But if we turn them into wantonness, they will be turned into judgements: we shall be the verier fools for our Wit, the poorer for our Riches, the more deformed for our Beauty, the more despicable for our Power, our Health shall be worse than a disease, and Miracles themselves shall stand up to condemn us. But if we behold, that is, consider them, they will be as the influences of heaven, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, defluxions, from God himself, distilling upon us to refresh and quicken us, and make us active in those duties which return them back again with praise unto their Fountain. And in the strength of them we shall walk on from faith to virtue, from virtue to knowledge, from knowledge to temperance, from temperance to patience, till we are brought into the presence of God who is the giver of all things. In a word; If we thus behold and consider God's benefits; we shall sin no more; nor shall a worse thing come unto us. Which is our third and last part, and cometh next to be handled. The Fifth SERMON. PART III. JOHN V. 14. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. MAN hath not found out more ways to destroy himself, than God hath to save him. You shall find God's preventing mercy; his following mercy; Psal. 59.10. Psal 23.6. Psal. 119. Psal. 6.2. his reviving and quickening mercy; his healing mercy. Here they are all, even a multitude of mercies, Healing, Preventing, Following, and Reviving. Here, I told you, is 1. Misericordia solicita, Mercy solicitous to perfect and complete the cure. The healing of this impotent man's body was but as a glimmering light, as the dawning of the day. Mercy will yet shine brighter upon him. 2. Misericordia excitans, Mercy rousing him up to remember what he was by the pool's side, and to consider what he now is in the Temple. And these two we have already displayed before you. 3. The last now showeth itself in rays and light and full beauty, Misericordia praecipiens, Mercy teaching and prescribing for the future. I may call it a Logical, Rational, Concluding Mercy, making the miracle as the Premises, and drawing from it Salvation as the Conclusion; Behold, thou art made whole: Therefore sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. The words are plain, and need not the gloss of any learned Interpreter. And we find that those lessons which are most plain are most necessary; as those things which are most common are most useful. When we are to build an house, we do not go to the mines for gold, or to the rocks for pearl, but to the quarry for stone. Corn, which feedeth us, groweth almost in every field; and Sheep, which cloth us, graze in flocks upon the mountains. But those things quibus luxuria Pretium fecit, which would be of little esteem did not our luxury set a price upon them, are remote, and in a manner hidden from us, and we find them out with labour and hazard of our lives. So it is in spiritual matters: Those truths which are necessary lie open and naked to the understanding, so that he that runneth may read them: But more abstruse and subtle speculations, as they are not necessary, so are they set at distance and are hard to find out. For it is not Curiosity but Humility that must build us up in our most holy Faith. And yet, the plainest truths in Scripture require our pains and labour as much as the obscurest. We may observe, that in the winter-season, when the Sun is far removed from us, we lay ourselves open, and walk the fields, and use means to receive the light and heat of it: but in the summer, when it is almost over our heads, we retire ourselves, and draw a curtain, to exclude both light and heat. The same behaviour we put on in our Christian walk: When the Sun of righteousness cometh near us, and shineth in our very faces, we run, with Adam, into the thicket, and hid ourselves in excuses: but when he withdraweth and as it were hideth himself, and will not tell us what is not necessary for us to know, we gaze after him, and are most busy to walk where we have no light. The obscurer places in Scripture are like unto the Sun in winter: We delight to use all means to gain the light and meaning of them. But the plainest are like the Sun in summer: They come too near our Zenith, their light and heat offend us, they scald and trouble us by telling us plainly of our duty; and therefore we use art, and draw the curtain against them to keep off their heat: As we have heard of the people of afric that they every morning curse the Sun, because the heat of it annoyeth them. These plain words of the Text are a notable instance. For, to defeat the true meaning of them, what art do we use, what curtains do we draw? When we should sin no more, we question the possibility of the precept, and whether there be any such estate or no: As if Christ did bid us sin no more, when he knew we could not but sin again and again. And then we multiply our sins as we do our days, and make them keep time almost with every hour and moment of our life. And to this end we draw distinctions before the words, to keep of their light. SIN NO MORE, that is, Not unto death: or, SIN NO MORE, that is, Not with a full consent, Not without some reluctancy or struggling of conscience. And now where is this Text? Even lost and swallowed up and buried in the glosses of flesh and blood. We may, we think, observe it, and yet sin as oft as the flesh or the world shall require it. Let us then take some pains to raise the Text from this grave, and take off those in which it is enwrapped; let us draw it from those clouds and curtains wherewith it is obscured. In the course of our speech we shall meet with some of them. Now we shall take the words in their natural meaning as they lie. And in them you may observe, 1. the Prescript or Caution, Sin no more; 2. the Danger of not observing it. If we sin again, a worse thing will come unto us. And by these we may try ourselves as the Eagle doth her young ones. If with open eyes w● can look upon the Text as it lies in its full strength and meaning, then are we of the true airy; but if we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, if we be weak sighted, and cannot endure the light and heat of it, we may then justly suspect ourselves to be but bastard and counterfeit Christians. First of all we shall consider how far the words, Sin no more, do extend and stretch themselves; secondly, the Possibility of keeping of them. The first is a consideration of some consequence, that we may not violate the word of God, nor do the Scripture any wrong. We see many interpret Scriptures as Jonathan shot his arrows, sometimes beyond, sometimes beside, sometimes short of the sense of them. Now that we may take the extent of these words aright, we must observe that our Saviour doth not say, Sin no more in this or that sin, but simply and positively, Sin no more. And out of this necessarily followeth this conclusion, He that will enter into the kingdom of heaven must have no sin remaining in him. And of this we have a fair representation in the present miracle: Which, as all miracles are, was complete and absolute. The impotent man had his bodily health perfectly restored. So it is also in the cure of the Soul: That is a thorough and exact change. The Lion is turned into a Lamb, the Leopard into a Kid, and the Old man into a New creature. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene. Most men applaud and even bless themselves if they abstain from some sins which they observe in others. The Luxurious person comforteth himself, because he is not such a cormorant as that Usurer; and that Usurer huggeth himself, for not being such a swine as that Drunkard. The Zealot is almost in heaven already, because he is not so brutish in his understanding as that Idolater; and he maketh it an argument of his love to Christ, that he hateth the very sign of his Cross: and that Idolatry applaudeth himself, seeing he is not so wicked as he who breaketh all the commandments of Christ by an indiscreet and irregular defending of one. But however men may satisfy themselves with their parcel and partial obedience, certainly it will never content him who offered up himself a whole sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. We are told by those who have skill in , that if we would have fair and white flocks of sheep, we must have especial care that the rams be white. Neither is it enough that their fleece be fair, but we must also see that they have not a black spot under their tongue. For if they have, though their coats be never so white, they will quickly change the colour of the stock. And so it is with us: Though we wash and purge ourselves of sin, though our fleece seemeth never so white and fair, yet whilst there is this black spot under our tongue whilst there is one sin lurking in us, this one will prove enough to make us unprofitable in the flock of Christ. The young man in the Gospel that had kept all the commandments from his youth, who would not have taken him for a goodly sheep in this flock? But you see the great Shepherd of the flock, our blessed Saviour, quickly espied the black spot under his tongue; Yet one thing wantest thou; go, sell all that thou hast. His stomach turned at this: and therefore our Saviour sendeth him away with this sad farewell, How hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God If that which the Schools teach us be true, then is the danger of this one black spot, of some one sin remaining, very great, and the contagion reacheth very far: For it is a conclusion of theirs, That whosoever is in the state of any one mortal sin unrepented of, all that he doth, his Alms, his Prayers, his Divine offices, and whatsoever good act besides, it forwith becometh mortal sin. If that be not true, yet certainly this is, If our righteousness be never so great, though it shall not become sin, yet thereby it shall become unprofitable. Again, we observe that every man is not equally prone to every sin; but, according to different tempers and constitutions that is loathed by one which is liked by another: And it is the policy of our Enemy to assault us where we lie most open, and to lay such baits in our way as are most agreeable to our humour. Therefore, as Quintilian adviseth Schoolmasters to observe the several dispositions of their scholars, and accordingly to apply themselves unto them; so must we study ourselves, observe our own inclination, and be most instant and diligent against that temptation which it looketh towards with most favour and complacency. Animadvertenda ea peccata maximè quae difficilè praecaventur, saith Tully. We must keep a steady eye and watch over those tentations which we are most like to fall into, and to which the bent of our corruptions doth especially sway us. Let the Melancholic beware of Envy, the Choleric prepare himself against injuries, the Glutton put a knife to his throat, the Wanton beat down and chastise his body. As wise Captains use to plant their engines where the city is weakest; and as it is the wisdom of Governors iis malis maximè mederi quibus Resp. maximè laborat, to be most diligent to cure those evils with which the Commonwealth is most molested; and as good Physicians purge out the predominant humour; so must we take a strict survey of ourselves, and set the strongest guard there where we are most attemptable. If it be Anger, tie it up; if Lust, quench it; if Sloth, chase it away. Ante omnia necesse est teipsum astimare; It is the chief and principal Work of man, to weigh and ponder himself. For as it is good to know our own strength, so is it also useful to take notice of our own weakness, that we may make use of our strength to defend us there where we are weakest, and to quench the fire of that dart which is most likely to enter. In a word, thus looking into ourselves let us provide against that danger which threatneth abroad; and by often ripping up our hearts, let us purge and cleanse them as Moses did his hand by putting it again into his bosom. When God sent Saul out against Amalek, he gave him charge to put all without exception to the sword: but Saul, as we find, took upon him authority to dispense with God's command, and found pretences to spare many of the people. And see the event of this irregular and unseasonable mercy. He spared one too many, and preserved him to be his executioner. For he that he gave him his last blow and bereft him of his life was an Amalekite. 2 Sam. 1. And thus it is with us many times. We go out in these spiritual battles of the Lord, even as Saul did against Amalek, too too favourably and peaceably inclined, and spare many times where we ought to kill: Whereas our charge is not a partial charge, like that of David, Touch not the young man Absolom; Touch not the sons, the sins of your desire: nor like that of the King of Syria, Fight not against small or great, save only with the King of Israel; Fight not against those lesser sins, nor against those which by their bulk and corpulency betray themselves, and are loathed as soon as seen: But our Commission is general, without limitation, Sin no more. All must to the sword: The whole body of sin, as S. Paul calleth it, must be destroyed. For if any one of these Amalekites live and reign in us, and escape our hands, even this one will find time and place to be our executioner. We read that Tully had learnedly defended Popilius, and saved his life; and he, for a reward, afterwards cut off his Patrone's head. You may easily apply it; God grant we may never feel it applied. He that cherisheth his sin, which he should extirpate, he that favoureth his sin, he that defendeth his sin, which he should arraign and condemn, shall meet the same fate, and fall as Tully did, have no fairer a return made. All he shall have from it is, it will find a time to be his headsman. If you will yet sin again, you let that in to dwell and be familiar with you which, the more friendly it is used, the more enemy it will be, and through all its smiles and flatteries make a way to fall upon you and destroy you. Let us now pass from the Extent of the words to the Possibility of keeping them. And if it were impossible to keep them, our Saviour, who is Wisdom itself, would not leave it as a prescript. He must needs be a good interpreter of Christ's words who lay in his bosom, John the Disciple whom he loved. 1 John 1.8. And he, though he tell us that, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, that is, If we say we have no need of Christ and the knowledge of the Gospel to purge us from our sins; yet chap. 5.18. is positive, that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. So that a difference we may observe between peccata habere and peccare, between To have sin and To sin. Joh. 9.41. As you may find it also, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; John 15 22. that is, your sin would he padonable: and, If I had not come they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin. So that To have sin is not to remain in sin, but To be guilty of those sins which God doth not but might punish, if he would be extreme to mark what is done amiss; To sin by ignorance or subreption, to feel those sudden motions and perturbations, those ictus animi, those sudden blows and surprisals of the mind, but then to mark and watch them, and to be ready against them at the next assault. For the less voluntary sin is, the less sin it is. And even these suggestions and motions are not so natural and rooted in us, but that by long custom and violence upon ourselves they may be so subdued as they shall not, or but seldom, rebel, and assault, and beat down the power of Reason. It may be done, and no doubt in many Saints of God it hath been done. Which perfection though others attain not to, they do not therefore presently come under the sentence of death. For all sin doth not lay waste the conscience: All sin is not inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace, which presupposeth a possibility of avoiding all those sins which are repugnant to it: as great sins; and little sins, if we be bold to commit them because they are little. For thus a little sin (little, I mean, in comparison) may become a great sin. Nay, every sin which we carelessly admit, of which we say as Lot did of Zoar, Is it not a little one? and my soul shall live, even this may wound us to death. For should we wilfully secure that enemy which he who made so gracious a Covenant with us came to destroy? No: If we fail by infirmity, yet we must not fail through want of care and diligence. For he that is born of God, saith S. John, keepeth himself, that is, setteth a watch and court of guard upon himself; and that Wicked one toucheth him not. For he is ready upon his guard, with his buckler of faith, to quench and repel the fiery darts of Satan. And, though he be tempted, yet he falleth not into tentation. It is true; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Father speaketh. Man, who is of a compounded nature, is the subject of that discord which Sin bringeth in. God only, who is of a simple and uncompounded essence, is impeccable. For Simplicity and Indivisibility of essence is always at peace with itself, and cannot receive any change or alteration. That Man is peccable, himself doth plainly demonstrate by being a Man: But that he should sin, that is, remain in sin, is rather a matter of history then prophesy. For he that forbiddeth him to sin, prophesieth, nay, telleth him plainly, that he may not sin. The Law supposeth a possibility of being kept: And that we sin, is made good by the event rather than by reason: For what reason can there be given that we should sin since nothing is more contrary to Reason then Sin. A necessity there was that Man should be subject and obnoxious to sin; for otherwise he had not been capable of virtue: but that he should break out actually into sin there was no necessity. Nulla necessitas delinquendi, quibus una necessitas non delinquendi, saith Tertullian: There was no tie of necessity lay upon him to offend, who was fenced and bound in by a Law that he might not offend. But the Scripture, saith S. Paul, hath concluded all under sin, Gal. 3 22. Rom. 3.23. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. The Apostle delivereth this as matter of fact, not as a conclusion drawn out of necessary principles. For he doth not say, All must sin, but, All have sinned. Therefore we may observe in that hot contention between the Orthodox and Pelagians, when to build up Perfection in this life the Pelagians brought in the examples of the Saints of God, which either had committed no mortal and devouring sin in the whole course of their lives, or else had broke off their sins by repentance, and afterward persevered to the end in holiness of life, they found opposition on all hands, not one being found who would give this honour to the Saints. But where they urge that Perfection is not impossible; where they speak not the esse, but de posse, not that it is so, but that it may so; not that men do not sin, but that they may not, S. Augustine himself joineth hands with them: Nam qui dicunt esse posse hominem in hac vita sine peccato, non est illis continuò incantâ temeritate resistendum; We must not be so rash as unwarily to oppose them who say it is possible for a man to live without sin in this life. De peccator remiss l. 2. c. 6. And he addeth this reason; For if we deny a possibility, we at once derogate from the Will of man, which inclineth to it, and from the Power and Mercy of God, who by his helping hand and gracious assistance may bring it to pass. So that the only difference between them was but this; The one thought it possible by the power of Nature; the other, by the infusion of Grace. I know it was decreed at the Council of Carthage, and other Councils, 1. That every man ought to say, Forgive us our trespasses; 2. That he ought to say it, not for others alone, but for himself also; 3. Not ex humilitate, sed vere; not out of humility, confessing what they were not; but truly what they were. And all these Decrees may well stand, and be as unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians, and pass for everlasting truths, and yet no necessity of fixing up this doctrine of the Impossibility of not sinning on the gates of the Temple, and proclaiming it as by the voice of a trumpet in the midst of the Congregation. This doctrine is the sweetest music flesh and blood can hear: This sounding in the ears of men which delight in wickedness, lulleth them in a pleasant sleep, till they dream (for they dare not speak it) that they are bound to that Law which they are made to break, and that it is one part of their duty to sin. It is most true, and, if we deny it, the truth is not in us, that we have all sinned. But who ever read in the Scripture that we cannot but sin? We are bound to ask forgiveness of our sins, and that veraciter, truly, because, as S. James speaketh, in many things we offend all. But this petition is put as in relation to sins past, not in relation to sins not yet committed, unless conditionally only: And who will build a supposition upon that which infallibly will come to pass? Nè peccemus is in order before Si peccamus. We are commanded first, Not to sin; and then followeth the supposition, If we sin. So that NE PECCEMUS, and SI PECCAMUS, That we sin not, and If we sin, make up this one conclusion, That we may, or may not, sin. And this suiteth best with the Precept or Command, Sin not at all, and this in the Text, Sin no more; with our Promise made in Baptism, where we solemnly bid defiance to the World, the Flesh and the Devil; and with our Prayer for forgiveness, which we cannot accent and pronounce as we should but with a firm resolution to sin no more. For how dareth he ask pardon for his sins who is resolved to sin again and again upon hope of pardon? So then we may truly and humbly beg pardon of sins past: But it is neither Truth nor Humility to make God a liar, who proposeth himself a pattern of Perfection; Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect: to make him a Tyrant, in first crippling us, and then sending us about his business; in commanding us to do what he knoweth cannot be done; in giving us that flesh which our spirit cannot conquer; in letting lose that Lion whom we cannot resist; in laying us naked to those temptations which we cannot subdue. No. 1 Cor. 10.13. God is faithful, saith S. Paul, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able; above that which he will make us able, if we seek him. It is not said, God is merciful, or, God is gracious, as being a more indifferent and arbitrary thing; but, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God is faithful. So that we cannot bring in a Necessity of sinning without prejudice to the Truth and Sincerity of God. But then, as God is faithful and true, not to let in an enemy stronger than his Grace can make us, so is he also gracious and merciful, si peccemus if we sin, if in the midst of so many enemies, inter tot errores humanae vitae, if in such slippery ground, we step aside, and fall, as Jonathan, in the high places, to reach forth his hand and lift us up again; But with this proviso, That we look better to our steps, and be more careful how we walk hereafter. The one keepeth us from presumption, the other from despair. For we do not ask forgiveness of our sins upon these terms, that we cannot but sin; but we beg pardon with this promise, that we will sin no more. But further yet, if this doctrine were true, That Sin is absolutely unavoidable, and that we are so fettered and shackled with an impossibility of performing our duty that the Grace of God cannot redeem us, (as indeed it hath neither Reason nor Scripture to countenance it) yet sure it cannot be but very dangerous to tell it in Gath and publish it in Askalon, to urge and press it to the multitude, who are too prone and ready to make an Idol of that Serpent which is lifted up to cure them. Omnes homines nostris vitiis favemus & quod propriâ facimus voluntate, ad Naturae referimus necessitatem, saith S. Hierome; We are all too apt to favour and speak friendly to our sins, and are glad when we cannot but sin, that we may sport and play in the ways which lead unto death, and sin with less remorse and regret. Gaudemus de contumelia nostra; We make that our triumph which is our shame? proclaim our Will as innocent, whilst we arraign our natural Constitution, and lay all the guilt on a fatal Necessity of sinning. We are indeed bound to acknowledge our sin; and without it there is no remission: but a bare acknowledgement is not enough. We are ready to say, We have sinned, and ready to say, We cannot but sin; that we may sin again. We are ready to acknowledge our sins, especially in a lump and body. Oh would we were as ready to forsake them! This thought of the Not-possibility of avoiding sin followeth us, I fear, in all our ways, and standeth between us and those sins we have left behind us. And if at any time we cast an eye back upon them, we look on them with favour through this imagination of Weakness, as through a pane of painted glass, which discoloureth them, and maketh the greatest sin appear in the hue and shape of a sin of Infirmity. Then those Furies of lust are not so terrible, those monsters of sins are not so deformed, those sins which devour have not a tooth. For how should they feel a bruise who are so just as to fall and sin not seven, but seventy times seven times in a day? To conclude this; Let us take Christ's words, as near as we can, as they lie. They are plain; Sin no more. And they were no Prescript at all, if there lay upon us a necessity of sinning again, if by the power of Christ we could not quit ourselves of those sins which cannot consist with the Gospel and Covenant of Grace. This Doctrine concerning the Possibility of keeping this Prescript of Christ, men that are willing to sin are not willing to understand. Flesh and blood runneth from it as from an error of a monstrous shape; and, that they may be yet more wicked, they count it as an heresy. But flesh and blood shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And we cannot think but our Saviour meant as he spoke, and would not have laid it as a command on us, to sin no more, if such a necessity lay upon us that we must needs sin again. For he that is born of God, that is, is a Christian indeed, sinneth not, that is, falleth not into any sin which is inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace. For would we have Christ perform his part of the Covenant, and we break ours? Can we love him, and not keep his commandments? or can we keep his commandments, and break them? Can we lift up our hearts with this talon of lead upon them? Can we hope to go to heaven, and yet remain in that sin which in the sight of God is as loathsome as hell itself? No: saith S. John, He that is born of God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keepeth himself, that the wicked one toucheth him not: toucheth him not, so as to bring him into his snare; toucheth him not, so as to strike him down. For 1. God requireth no other obedience but that which is given up with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our understanding, and with all our strength. He is no such hard Master as to require brick and give no straw; to bid us do that which he knoweth we cannot do. 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people, Deut. 30.6, to love him with all their hearts, to teach them, to write a new Law in their hearts, that they shall do his will; and if they do it not, the sin must lie at their door, and God be true, and they liars. 3. God himself beareth witness of many that they did it; of the people, that they sought the Lord with their whole desire; 2 Chr. 15.15. of Asa, that his heart was perfect all his days; 2 Chr. 15.17. 2 Kings 22.2. of Josiah, that he did that was right in the sight of the Lord, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left. Quid disperamus? quid deficimus? quicquid fieri potuit, potest: Why then should we despair? why should we thus faint and fall under the command, as under a burden which neither we nor our fathers could bear? If the dry tree, they under the Law, could bring forth such fruit, shall the green tree, watered with more abundant grace, be barren and bear none at all? Shall temporal blessings and but a shadowed light draw them to that height of Perfection which the rich promises of the Gospel and a full sight of heaven itself and the gracious assistance of a good God cannot lift us up unto? Shall Publicans and Sinners, shall Jewish worshippers, enter before us into the kingdom of God? and shall we, whom the Sun rising from on high hath visited, only look upon the light, and gaze at heaven, till we are shut out? Shall they be able to do their duty, and we shut up all in an humble confession (as we call it) of our weakness and inability? Shall we be strong to nothing but sin? Beloved, God requireth Obedience as he doth our Alms, according to that which we have, and not according to that which we have not, an obedience answerable and proportioned to our strength; Not to sin against the dictate of conscience; Not to omit that which we know we ought to do; Not to commit that which we condemn before and when we do it; To press forward, with S. Paul, to the mark. He requireth that Perfection of parts, that it be universal, though not total; in every part, though but in part. And this part of the distinction we run away with, and delight in; and think we are seasoned well enough with sanctifying qualities, when we are in the gall of bitterness; think our hearts clean, when they are receptacles and a very stew of polluted thoughts; our Fancies sanctified, when they are but the shops of vanity; our Wills rectified, when they do but look on that which is good, and fasten and join on that which is evil. Therefore besides this Perfection of parts God requireth also that Perfection of degrees; not such a perfection to which nothing can be added, but to which something is added every day. For Perfection in the highest degree, which cannot be increased and improved, is impossible in this life. But such a Perfection as by the assistance of Grace we may attain unto, such as is always accompanied with an earnest and serious endeavour of growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is the work and business of this life, not to be reserved for the future; not to be begun in earth, and finished in heaven, as some of late have loved to speak. For that Perfection in the other world is not a duty, but a reward. When our breath is gone from us, we are extra statum merendi, aut demerendi. Precepts were given for this world, not for the next. Here we are to work out our salvation, there to enjoy it. Our labour is in the vineyard, there is the penny. Our wedding garment must be worn here, there we shall put on immortality. All that is to be done is to be done in this life: the next is either misery, or bliss. And shall we be content with any degree of perfection, in hope that the same hand of Mercy will crown and perfect us at once? Shall we yield to God any measure of obedience in this world upon this most dangerous presumption, that he will fill it up in the world to come? Shall we come short of our duty here, because some have taught us, what we are willing to learn, that God will make it up for us in the highest heavens? I am no Pelagian nor Perfectionist, nor would I make the way to heaven narrower than it is; yet I am unwilling to betray either the Truth or my Text, and say Christ doth not require what he doth require, that we may do what we list, and have what we list. They who make the way wider for flesh and blood to walk in, are but false guides, and, to avoid the needle's eye, run into the very mouth of destruction. It is good advice that of S. Augustine, Nemo sibi promittat quod non promittit Evangelium; Let no man make the promise larger than the Gospel hath made it. Let no man take upon him to be wiser than Christ. Let no man say that is impossible which he is unwilling to do, and which he never attempted. Let no man say, This cannot be done, when he is resolved to do the contrary. It is a good observation of the Fathers, That many things seem very absurd to weak and unskilful men which wise men embrace as truths, & eò elatiùs laudant quò abjectiùs stulti aspernantur, and do therefore more extol and magnify because they who will not understand have set them at a low price. And the Philosopher will tell us, That those opinions which bear no show of truth with them, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, more powerful to persuade ignorant men than the truth itself, though never so plain. How many truths now-a days are taken for the inventions of brainsick men by those who have little brains and scarce common sense to judge of them? And as it is in points of speculation, so by the disorder of our passions it falleth out in matters of practice. For he that will be evil, will be ignorant. He that knoweth well enough that Gold is but earth, looketh upon it as upon a God. He that knoweth well enough that Honour is but a breath, yet is still climbing up to the pinnacle. He that can declaim against Covetousness, studieth wealth more than the Bible. He that cryeth down Hypocrisy may be a very Pharisee. He that knoweth that without holiness we cannot see God, promiseth to himself the beatifical vision though a little holiness serveth his turn, and he delighteth to call and make himself an unprofitable servant. And all this is, because men will not take notice of what they cannot but see, in Wealth uncertainty, in Honour vanity, in Hypocrisy the Devil himself. This their way uttereth their foolishness, saith the Psalmist. For a great folly it is thus wilfully to mistake. Imperitia nonnullorum Catholicorum, venatio est Haereticorum; The ignorance of many, saith Augustine, that call themselves Catholics, hath made them a prey to Heretics. Uncautelous Christians, void of spiritual wisdom, expose themselves to that great Nimrod the Devil, who hunteth after their souls to drive them into his toil. For let us but appeal to our own experience, and we cannot but confess, that they are not the greatest sins, but the weakest, that have this power over us. Murders, and Parricides, and Rapes, and Treasons, and the rest of that rabble of arch-sins, are not the strongest: for then sure they would reign with the greatest latitude. But Wand'ring thoughts, Idle words, Petty lusts, Inconsiderate wrath, Immoderate love to the things of this world, and the rest of that swarm of ordinary sins, these are they which have the largest extent and dominion; and some of these, or all of these, more or less prevail with every man. Now there can be no reason given why we should stand strong against the greater sins, and fail and yield at the approach of the lesser; unless we were like that fabulous rock in Pliny, which if a man thrust at with his whole body, he could not move it, yet a man might shake it with one of his fingers; unless the Laws of men have more force than the statutes of God, a prison be more terrible than hell, and the anger of a mortal man more formidable than the wrath of the Almighty. Certainly thus to walk, and to think we are in our way if greater sins assault us not, and to go on cheerfully with the burden of the lesser about us, as if they were no hindrance at all, and we could not remove them, is to deceive ourselves, to walk upon that Lion which will devour us, to tread upon that Basilisk whose very eye will infect and poison us, and to run upon that Sword which will pierce through our hearts. I have on purpose enlarged myself upon this point, because I would not be misunderstood, nor that doctrine should seem strange which is so profitable, and requireth no more at our hands but this, to stand upon our guard, to be sedulous and serious in fight against our lusts, and in the duties of Christianity, not to neglect the grace of God, nor to receive it in vain, not to wihstand the power of the Gospel and the rich alluring promises of Christ, not to let this dull earth prevail with us more than the beauty and glory of heaven; which if it were performed (as under the penalty of eternal Death we are bound) we should not then complain, or rather be glad, of our weakness, nor think that impossible which we are bound by covenant and vow to perform. Satanae nullae sunt feriae; The Devil keepeth no Holy day: No more should we, but be as ready to observe him in his march as he is to invade us. So necessary is cautelousness and circumspection, that if we had no other buckler or defence, yet we should not fall so often as we do. Fortis saepe victus est, cautus rarissimé: The strong man hath often been ruined with his own strength; but he who hath his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel, though the enemy set hard at him, yet is he seldom overthrown. Without this we lie open and naked to him, but with it no violence can hurt us. If we watch and prepare ourselves, we shall sin no more, or, if we do, not remain in sin, in any one sin which is inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel of Christ. Ye have seen the Extent of this Command, Sin no more, and the Possibility of keeping it. Let us now draw all nearer to ourselves by way of application. And first, let us take heed that we build not our hopes on air, on fancy, but on a sure foundation, one of the seals and inscriptions whereof is, 2 Tim. 2.19. Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. It is one of the subtlest of the Devil's stratagems, to make him believe he is the child of God who is his vassal. The Roman Story telleth us that an army of theirs having by night fallen into a place of great disadvantage and danger, whilst the night lasted the soldiers were quiet, but no sooner did the light appear, and shown them the peril and hazard wherein they stood, but they fell to tumult and combustion. Assurance is not the work of fancy, but of the heart, to be wrought out with fear and trembling. How easily do men fall into sin, and then lift themselves up with this thought, and so go in peace? but when this thought shall perish, they fall again, like a dead man held up a while by violence, who can stand no longer than he is held up. Thus every man may commit sins, and yet not be the servant of sin; and whatsoever the premises be, they are bold to make this conclusion, That they have their part in Christ. It is a great deal more common to infer what pleaseth us upon a gross mistake then upon a truth, and to assure ourselves of peace upon no better evidence then that which flesh and blood and the love of ourselves is ready to bring in, and to persuade ourselves the sting of Death is out, and sin cannot hurt us, when we are full of nothing but malice and envy and uncleanness. And what an assurance is this! An assurance without a warrant, an assurance which ourselves have only subscribed to with hands full of blood. Sin no more, and then you may have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, boldness and confidence towards God. 1 John 3 21. Therefore, in the next place, let us confess our weakness to the glory of God's Grace, but not suborn it to shadow and countenance our negligence and wilful disobedience, and then give it the name of a virtue, and call it our Humility. For that is true Humility with God, quae caeteris cingitur virtutibus, which is compassed about and guarded with the troop of all other virtues, not which walketh securely in the midst of a multitude of transgressions. When Christ biddeth us sin no more, shall we be so humble as to sin more and more? Pusillanimitas fingit quod sit Humilitas; This is not Humility, but base Pusillanimity and supine Negligence; an Humility wrought in us by the love (not of God, but) of the world; not any one of the fruits of the good Spirit, but of the Prince of darkness, who careth not in what demure posture we fall, so we fall into his snare. Pure Humility before God and the Father is this, Wholly to rely on him who is our strength and salvation, and will never fail us unless we shrink and turn the back; To adore him in his precepts, and embrace him in his promises; To lay hold on every good thought and inclination, to foment and cherish it, and not to make darkness our pavilion, when he walketh in the midst of his seven golden candlesticks, and speaketh unto us by his Spouse, the Ministry of his Church; To consider that as there be many temptations to sin, so there be many fair allurements and provocations to obedience; that as our Senses be the doors and portals by which Satan entereth, so Reason is made to stand as a Sentinel, and the Will by the assistance of God's Grace hath power to shut them up against him; and not to shape a weakness in our Fancy which will make us weaker, and carry it about with us as our Bona Dea, or tutelary Saint, to intercede for us and defend us from the guilt of sin; Not to suppose that impotency which will quite disenable us; Not so to acknowledge our sinful disposition as to make it either an occasion or apology for sin; but, as we have vowed and are bound by Covenant, to strive and fight against it with all our heart and soul and with all the faculties we have; To confess and bewail our weakness, and look up to the God of all power, and then advance and press forward as if we were strong. Thus our obedience will stretch itself to the extent of the precept, in that sense it is prescribed, and we shall sin no more. To this end, thirdly, let us not flatter ourselves in a kind of ordinary course, in a kind of fashion and formality of religion, and bless and applaud ourselves if we stand innocent from great transgressions, from scandalous sins, such as have shame written in their foreheads, and such as the laws of men make dangerous or fatal: As if to escape the prison were to be redeemed from hell; and as if no disease were killing but the Plague, when yet we see common diseases bring the heads of thousands into the grave. If God could be held upon such easy and cheap terms, if to abstain from great sins were not to sin at all, then were the greatest Saints of God most miserable, who made no end of cleansing their hearts, and washing their hands in innocency. Paul was a chosen vessel, and Daniel greatly beloved; these were the great favourites of God, and likely of all others to find their Lord must indulgent; yet they watched and prayed, and were frequent in prayer; which they needed not have done if their obedience might have been accepted at a cheaper rate. Oh if this be the case of men so just, so careful, so high in the favour of God, what then shall be the end of our partial, imperfect and broken service? If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Now the reason of this is plain. It is obedience only that commendeth us to God, and that as exact and perfect as the equity of the Gospel requireth. And then every degree of sin is rebellion: and can we raise rebellion, and yet not forfeit our obedience? Sin no more, and your obedience is perfect: If you sin again, you are but rebels. Watch therefore, and pray, lest thou enter into temptation. Strive and fight against that sin which hath the Dominion over thee. Thou sayest thou dost: But how long? How many months, how many weeks, how many days, how many hours hast thou set apart for this spiritual exercise, for this agony and contention? And if thou canst not name a month, a week, a day, an hour, in which thou hast bid defiance to thy sin, thou hast no reason to wonder that that sin should prevail against thee which thou never yet hadst will or courage to fight against in any one the least part of thy span of time. Lastly, take the Father's counsel, Nè sit tibi minimum non negligere minima, Let it not seem a small thing to thee to watch and fight against the smallest and least sins, even those which are as nothing in thy eyes. For even these may make a breach to let in Death upon thee. Therefore thou must take up the whole armour of God to resist and keep them out. One evil humour unpurged may be the death of the body, one cranny unstopped may be the drowning of the ship, one little sin unrepented of may be the destruction of the soul. Then take heed thou make not use of thy father's art, of hiding thy sin, of paring and filing it, till what was great be nothing. How soon will a sin vanish out of sight in a clear day! What a force have Profit and Power and Prosperity to make the greatest sin invisible, or set it out of sight? Profit persuadeth, Power commandeth, Prosperity flattereth, and at this music Conscience falleth asleep. A rich Oppressor is just, a cunning Politician is honest, and a prosperous gallant Villain is a Saint. What need we fear to sin again, when Sin itself is made a virtue? These, Profit, Power, Prosperity, are the Devils carpets which he spreadeth in our way, or his green pastures through which he leadeth us to the chambers of Death. Let us then take heed of these as of Hell itself, and not sin again, though it may make me rich; not sin again, though it may make me great; not sin again, though it may raise me to the highest place, from thence to look down upon our shame, and count it glory. But let us abstain from all appearance of sin, from the face and representation of it, and hate it in a picture. Thus if we watch over ourselves, if we seriously strive and fight against sin, we shall sin no more; or, if we do, we shall sin as men, not Angels; fall of frailty, not as Lucifer from heaven. And then if after a strict watch and guard set upon ourselves we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins. Now from the Extent of this Precept, and the Possibility of observing it, we come, in the last place, to discover the Danger of not observing it, threatened in these words, Lest a worse thing come unto thee. That these words, Sin no more, are plain, and that Christ meant as he spoke, appeareth by this Commination, Lest a worse thing come unto thee. For if we will read his meaning in his words, we may say this is machaera conditionalis, his conditional sword, as the Father calleth it; which, if we sin again, will be latched in our sides. If one evil will not cure us, God's quiver is full, and he hath more arrows to shoot. Sin no more; Take heed thou be not the same thou wert before those thirty eight years; nor commit that sin again which crippled thee and brought thee to the pool's side. If thou darest yet venture, a worse punishment standeth at thy doors, ready to seize upon thee. Now, a Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one living creature made up of two divers substances, the Soul and the Body, so the danger which besetteth him, the evils which compass him about and threaten him, are of a divers nature: Some strike at the body, others enter the soul. There are terrors by night, and the arrow that flieth by day; and there is another plague, the plague of the Heart. A worse thing will come unto thee, worse to thy Body, and worse to thy Soul. Thou shalt be a worse Paralytic, and a worse Man; nearer to death, and nearer to hell. The reiteration of thy sin shall awake heavier judgements, which shall fall both on thy outward and on thy inward man. We shall speak something of them both; and first of God's Temporal judgements. The last is the worst. It was so with Pharaoh. The death of the Firstborn in Egypt was more terrible than the Frogs, or the Locusts, or the Hail, or the Murrain. It was so with God's own people. He punished them; and they sinned still; and he increased their punishment. When they were fed to the full; they did commit adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlot's houses; As fed horses in the morning, they neighed after their neighbour's wives: God hireth out foreign enemies, Egypt and Assyria; he sendeth out his great army, his Caterpillars and Palmer-worms; he hireth out Nabuchadnezzar, and calleth him his servant, and payeth him his wages. How oft did they provoke him? and how oft did he punish them? He leadeth them into Captivity, and bringeth them back again: For all this they sinned yet more against him, and committed those sins which even the Heathen were ashamed of. And at last they killed the Prince of life, and crucified their Messiah, who was manifested unto them by signs and wonders. And now, behold, their house is left desolate, and they are become the scorn of Nations and a proverb to all the world. Afflictions and calamities sometimes are corrections, sometimes executions. In the first God cometh as a Father; in the last, as a Judge. God goeth like the Consuls of Rome; Virgas habet & secures; He hath a Rod and an Axe carried before him. At first he chastiseth us with his Rods, and then with his Axe. Job on the Dunghill, David flying before Absalon, these felt his Rod: But the old World before the Flood, the Cananite and the Amorite when their wickedness was full, the Jews and Jerusalem, these were hewn down with the Axe. This impotent man at the pool's side was but under the Rod; but when Christ telleth him, if he sin again a worse thing should fall unto him, he showeth him the Axe, and holdeth it over his head. Quod solus fulmen mittit Jupiter, placabile est, saith Seneca; perniciosum, de quo deliberate: The first thunderbolt God sendeth carrieth not so much fire with it; but rather light, to show us our danger: But if we put him to deliberate, and to enter into controversy with us, if we put him to the question, What shall I do that I have not done? the next will scatter us and dash us to pieces. The first is light; the second is a consuming fire. Correct us, O Lord, in thy judgement, not in thy fury, is a prayer for the first kind, against the second. Pius Quintus, lying on his death bed, grievously tormented with the Stone, was often heard to send forth this pious prayer, Domine, addas ad dolorem, modò addas ad patientiam; Lord, add unto my grief, so thou add unto my patience. Patience in this kind, as it is the best remedy of a disease, so doth increase our crown and glory. O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus, cui dignatur irasci! Oh happy servant, whom the Lord taketh such pains to correct, whom he loveth so well as thus to be angry with him! But if we will not hearken to his Rod, than he whetteth his Axe, and maketh it ready. Perdidimus utilitatem calamitatis; We have lost all the profit which we might have received. He hath spent his rods in vain, and therefore if we take not heed, he will strike us so as to cut us off, and will give us our portion with sinners. The judgements of God are like unto the Waters which came out of the Temple. At first they are shallow, and come up but to the ankles; anon they are deeper, Ezek. 47. and come up to the loins; and at last they are so deep that we can gain no passage over them. Thus doth the Justice and Providence of God follow us in all our ways. Aeschylus calleth it the harmony of God; others, his Geometry, by which he observeth a kind of method and measure and proportion. Librat iter ad iram suam, saith the Psalmist, Psal. 78.50. He maketh a way to his anger. He weigheth the Punishment and the Sin as in the scales. He correcteth us, if we fall; and if we will fall again, Hos. 5.5. he layeth on heavier strokes. He maketh our iniquity testify against us, maketh what we do witness and proclaim that to be just which we suffer: Which though it be not always visible to the eye (for Deo constat justitiae suae ratio; The reason as of God's Mercy so also of his Justice is ever with himself) yet is it certain, and judgement followeth the wicked whithersoever they go, and hangeth over them as the sword did over Damocles, by a hair, ready to fall. And that it falleth not, but leaveth them in their ruff and jollity, in their pride, going on in their sin, is to their greatest punishment. Nam quanta est poena, nulla poena! Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all; and nothing is more deplorable than the happiness of a wicked man. For the delay of punishment is but to make it more seasonable; to stay it now, and inflict it at such a time and in such a place and after such a manner as God's wisdom knoweth to be fittest. God's ways are in the whirlwind, saith Nahum; and his footsteps are not known, saith the Psalmist; yet his end is certain, to work an harmony out of the greatest disorder, to raise beauty out of the deformed body of Sin, and to turn their glory into shame who dishonour him. For Sin and Punishment are nothing of themselves, but in us they are something; the one voluntary, the other penal. The voluntary is a foul deformity in nature, and therefore the penal is added to order and place it where it may be forced to serve for the grace and beauty of the whole, where the punishment of sin may either chase it away, or else wipe off the dishonour of sin. If we sin, he correcteth us: but if we sin again, a worse thing will certainly fall unto us. A worse thing than his eight and thirty years' sickness; nay, a worse evil than any of those which change the countenance, whither the body, and burn up the bones as a hearth; an evil that withereth up the soul, maketh it impotent and unable to help itself, and less capable of the help of Grace. For as pardon doth nullify former sins, so it maketh those we commit afterwards more grievous and fatal. For those sins which we commit after reconciliation are of a higher nature than those we committed before. And as it is observed that it is the part of a wise friend, after reconcilement etiam leves suspiciones fugere, to shun the suspicion of offence, nè quòd fortuitò fecisset, consultò facere videretur, lest what might formerly be imputed to chance may now seem to proceed from wilfulness: so when God is pleased so far to condescend as to take us into his favour, to work a miracle upon us, and, of enemies, not only to make us his servants, but to call us his friends, it will then especially concern us to abstain from all appearance of evil, to suspect every object we behold as the Devil's lurking-place in which he lieth in wait to betray us, and not commit that any day of which we beg pardon every day, lest we may seem to have begged pardon of our sins not out of hatred but love unto them, and to have left our sins to commit them afresh. We are bound now not only in a bond of common duty, but of gratitude. For God's free favour is numella, a kind of clog and yoke, to chain and fetter and restrain us from sin. A reason of this we may draw from the very love of God. For the Anger of God in a manner is the effect or product of his Love. He is angry we sin, because he loved us; He is displeased when we yield to temptations, because he loved us; And his anger is the hotter, because his love was excessive. As the husband which most affectionately loveth the wife of his youth, would have her not allow another so much love from her as may be conveyed in a look or glance of the eye, is jealous of her very looks, of her deportment, of her garments, and will have her so behave herself, ut quisquis viderit metuat accedere, that no man may be bold to approach so near as to make mention of love; and all because he affectionately loveth her: So much, nay far greater, is the love of God to our souls, which by pardon he hath married unto himself, in whom he desireth to dwell and take delight. So dearly he loveth them, that he will not divide with the World and the Flesh, but is strait in passion if we cast but a favourable look, or look friendly upon that sin by which we first offended him, if we come but near to that which hath the show of a rival or adversary: But if we let our desires lose, and fall from him, and embrace the next temptation that wooeth us, than he counteth us guilty of spiritual whoredom and adultery, his Jealousy is cruel as the grave, and the coals thereof are as the coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame. And this Jealousy, which is an effect of his Love, shall smoke against us. First it was Love and Jealousy, lest we might tender our service to strange gods, and cast our affections upon false riches and deceitful pleasures; but now, when we have left Life for Death, and preferred that which first lamed us before him that cured us, it is Anger and Indignation, that he should lose us whom he so loved, that we should fling him off who so loved us; that he should create, and then lose us, and afterwards purchase and redeem us and make us his again, and then we should have no understanding, but run back again from him into captivity. For, in the second place, as our sins are greater after reconcilement, so they cancel the former pardon, and call those offences to remembrance which God had cast behind his back. For as good works are destroyed by sin, and revive again by repentance; so our evil works, which are covered by repentance, revive again by sin. Not only my Alms are devoured by Oppression, my Chastity deflowered by Uncleanness, my Fasting lost in Luxury, but my former sins, which were scattered as the mist before the Sun, return again and are as a thick cloud between me and the bright shining mercy of God. Not that there is any mutability in God. God repenteth not of his gifts: But we may repent of our repentance, and after pardon sin again, and so bring a new guilt upon our souls; and not only that, but vengeance also upon our heads for the contempt of his mercy and slighting of our former pardon. Irascitur enim Deus contumeliis misericordiae suae: Nothing provoketh God to anger more than the abuse of his goodness and mercy: Nor doth his wrath at any time burn more violently then when having been first quenched and allayed with the tears of a sinner it is after kindled again by his sin. Then he that was well pleased to be reconciled will question and condemn us, and yet make good his promise: he that forgot our sins will impute our sins, and yet be Truth itself. If the righteous relapse, his righteousness shall not be mentioned: Ezek. 18.21, 24. nor shall the wickedness of the wicked be mentioned, if he repent. For the change is not in God, but in ourselves. Aliter & aliter judicat de homine aliter & aliter disposito. He speaketh in mercy to the penitent, but in anger to the relapsed sinner. The rule of God's actions is constant: And in this particular this is his rule, this is his decree, To forgive the penitent, and to punish the relapsed sinner. So he forgiveth the sinner when he repenteth, and punisheth him who falleth away. Why should we ask whether God revoke his former pardon? Quid prodest esse quod esse non prodest? If we think he did not, yet what profit is it that that should remain which doth not profit, nay which doth aggravate our sin? What pardon is that that leaverh us? When the servant falleth down, the Lord is moved with compassion, and looseth him, Matth. 18. and forgiveth him the debt: But when he taketh his fellow-servant by the throat; he delivereth him to the tormentors, till he pay the utmost farthing. God is ever like himself, and constant to his rule: and he forgiveth and punisheth for this reason, because he is constant and cannot change: As we see Fire burneth and consumeth the stubble, but not the harder metals, and yet hath but one essence, but one and the same operation. Besides, as we beg pardon upon promise, so doth God grant it upon supposition of perseverance. He doth not pardon us our sin that we should sin again. And if we break our promise, we ourselves have made a nullity of the grant. For, as the Schools tell us that the Sacraments are protestations of faith, so is our Prayer for pardon a protestation and promise of repentance. We pray to God to cast our sins behind his back, with resolution to forsake them; and upon this condition God sealeth our pardon: Which we must make a motive, not to sin, but to a new life and constant obedience. Repentance for one sin may be the business of our whole life. And indeed what is Perseverance else but an entire and continued repentance? When Sin reviveth in me, I kill it by repentance; and when it is dead, I bury it by repentance: And I never cast a thought back, but I look upon it with horror and detestation. Optima poenitentia, nova vita, saith Luther; The best repentance is new life drawn on in an uninterrupted course unto the end. Again, after pardon we have reason to arm ourselves against temptations, because relapses are dangerous, and do not only add sin to sin, but make us more inclinable to it, more familiar with it, and more averse and backward to piety. Tertullian observeth, Viduitas operosior virginitate, that it is a matter of more difficulty to remain a widow then to keep our virgin; not to taste of pleasure, then, after we have tasted, to forbear it: So it is easier to abstain from sin at first, then when we are once engaged, and have tasted of that honey and pleasure which commendeth it; and then, when we have loathed it once for some bitterness it had, for some disease and misery it brought along with it, and afterwards forget that bitterness, and looking towards it again see nothing but those smiles and allurements which first deceived us, we like and love it more than we did before it gave us any distaste: And at last we are incorporated as it were and consubstantiated with it, and can merrily walk along with it, though wrath hang over our heads and Death be ready to devour us. What we did before with some reluctancy, we now commit with greediness. We did but lap before with some fear and suspicion; but now we take sin down as the ox doth water. An ill sign this that our repentance was not true and serious, but like an intermitting fever: The disease was not gone, though the fit were over. Alternae inter cupiditatem & paenitentiam vices sunt: We leave what we embraced, and we embrace what we left. Sin and Repentance, like the Sun and the Stars, have their interchangeable courses. Now it is day, anon darkness. We sin, and repent; and repent, and sin again: As solemnly by our sin do we renounce our repentance, as by our repentance we recant our sin. And this ariseth from Repentance itself, Sin taking an occasion by that which was ordained as a means against it. Quis enim timebit prodigere quod licebit postea recuperare? Who will be nice and sparing of that which he thinketh he may easily recover, though lost never so oft? Or who will be careful to preserve that which cannot be irrevocably lost? Thus, as we handle the matter, Repentance, which should be the death of Sin; is made the security of the Sinner: and that which should reconcile us to Christ, is made a reproach to his mercy and contumelious to his goodness, and an occasion of our sinning more and more, and so of a worse thing, the worst and last of all, Destruction, coming unto us. I shall in a word or two make some Use of what hath been spoken, and so conclude. First, this should teach us to be sensible even of God's temporal judgements, and, as David speaketh, to tremble at them. For not to be sensible of God's judgements is the greatest judgement that is. Whilst they are in our eye, they may work that humility in us which may turn them away; but when they are far above out of our sight, Mercy withdraweth, and letteth them fall to crush us to pieces. Amos 3.4. Will the lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey? Shall God's judgements be in vain? Behold, the lion hath roared, but who doth fear? God hath thundered, but the earth hath not melted. He hath reigned down vengeance upon us, but the apple of our eye hath rested. He hath reigned down his hailstones and coals of fire, and we look upon them as the Jews did upon their Manna, and ask, What is this? Shall I ask? What weeping and mourning? what contrition? what sackcloth and ashes? what drooping and hanging down of the head? Nay, where was not the garment of joy, the bed of ivory, and the sound of the viol? At first we trembled at God's judgements, but now we can look upon them, and converse with them, and rest under the darkest shadow they cast. They are blessings to some, but judgements to few: As it is in the fable of the Fox; When he heard the Lion first roar, he was amazed and astonished; but when he had heard it often, he durst approach the beast himself. The menaces and judgements of men every day shake and shiver us, as often as they are breathed forth; they unnaturalize, unprinciple, unman us; they beat us from our disposition and from our resolutions; they drive us out of ourselves, and mould us into several shapes, and never a one like the other: but against the judgements of God we stand as a rock, the same Hypocrites, the same Profaneners, the same Wantoness we were. A sad sign, that the vials of God's wrath are not yet poured out, but the dregs remain. Therefore, in the next place, let us study them. What? study Calamity? study Horror and Amazement? study the Rod? That were to dwell in the region of blackness amongst clouds and lightning and thunder. And why may we not study them as well as S. Hierom did the general Conflagration? who, wheresoever he was, heard the last Trump always sounding in his ears. Certainly we shall find this the most profitable study that is. Other studies may adorn our Understandings; this will settle the Will, and build up the New man. Other studies, may advance us in this world; this will raise us out of the dust, above the vanities of this world, above judgements themselves, and place us in the highest Heavens. Other studies may make us rich, or wise, or honourable; this will make us Saints. What though God's judgements be past finding out? yet we may study them with profit. Indeed to direct God's arrow to the breast of my brother, and to say that for his sin this evil hath befallen us, or to say that for his sin he was struck blind, or poor, or lame, is to be too bold with God's quiver. But to levelly the arrow at myself, to look upon the hand of God, and to think that my sin hath lifted it up to strike, and that the blow may in justice fall upon me, is to to be a good proficient in this study. Perfectò errando non erramus; Thus erring we do not err. For it is an happy error that maketh us wiser than we were, and that worketh mercy out of judgement itself. Thus we may read the providence of God driving every thing to its right end, working good out of evil, sending evil to make us good, teaching us by his corrections to sin no more, and so keeping us from the wrath to come, that that worst thing come not unto us. The Sixth SERMON. LUKE VI 24. But woe unto you that are rich: for ye have received your consolation. AT the very first hearing of these words every man will be ready to say, This is a hard saying: who can hear it? For every man almost either is rich or desireth to be so; and To be rich and To desire to be rich with Christ are the same thing, and there is a Woe pronounced to them both: Woe to them that have the good things of this world in possession; and, Woe to them that have them in desire: Woe to them that love the world, and reign in it; and, Woe to them that love the world, though they have not so much as a fox hath, a hole to hid their heads in. Certainly this is a hard saying: but then we must remember also that the way to happiness is very hard; and Christ Jesus our Captain and Leader knoweth best which way to lead us. Aliud est judicium Christi, aliud anguli susurronum, saith Hierome; The judgement of the Son of God and of the sons of men are not the same. It is one thing what we whisper one to another; another, what Christ proclaimeth from heaven. What we call Beauty, he calleth a snare; what we call Riches, he styleth vanity; what with us is Honour, with him is Shame; where we fix a Blessing, he fixeth a Woe; and what we cry up with, Grace, Grace unto it, he calleth Anathema. Behold, the rich man showeth himself, and the poor man trembleth, his equals flatter, yea, his superiors will bow unto him. For not only the Crutch but even the Sceptre also will do homage to Riches. Lord! what a God is a rich man upon the earth! how he commandeth all, and they obey him! how he commandeth the Law and the Judge, and they obey him! He saith to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to a third, Do this, and he doth it. But yet this God is at the best but as the Gods of the Heathen, silver and gold; nay, not of so lasting and abiding a nature as that silver and gold which he possesseth, but a sick God, a mortal God, a God ready moulder away into dust and ashes. And here, when riches increase, when the world smileth, when men speak well, when the people fall down and worship, in the midst of all this pomp and bravery, this pride and jollity, when the Rich man singeth a Requiem to his soul, Soul, take thy rest, and praiseth his Gods of silver and gold, Christ pronounceth a Woe unto him in the words of my Text; Woe unto you that are rich: for ye have received your consolation. Which words are as the hand-writing on the wall, Dan. 5.6. to change the countenance of the rich, and to lose the joints of his loins. Here Christ may seem to deal with us as Jacob did with Joseph when he brought before him his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseth, to place his left hand where we would have him place his right, or rather to curse where we do bless, to kindle a hell in that which we have made our paradise, to fix a Woe upon our Crown, and to say Woe unto us when we think ourselves encircled with joy and happiness. To be rich is every man's wish; but we startle at the very sound of a Vae. But since Christ hath put them together, it will be impossible to put them asunder; but they must stand as we read them, Woe unto you that are rich: for ye have received your consolation. The words divide themselves into two parts: 1. a Woe denounced, Woe unto you that are rich. 2. a Reason given, For ye have received your consolation. And indeed if we weigh the Reason, we shall not so much wonder at the Wo. For we may say of Riches as Job did of his friends, that they are but miserable comforters. And if we have no other consolation then from these, or receive these as our consolation, our last receipt will be Woe, misery and torment. The Reason then, you see, must make good the Wo. All the danger is in receiving riches: for Woe be to Rich men, because they have received their consolation. We will therefore show, 1. In what conjunction these two, Woe and Riches, do stand; 2. How they may be sundered: find out why Riches are so dangerous to receive, and how we may receive them without any danger. And with these we shall exercise your devotion at this time. woe unto you that are rich; and, It is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; and, Go to now, you rich men, weep and howl; these all are the phrases and language of the Holy Ghost. And though peradventure they may be softened and mitigated by just and lawful interpretations, so that when the letter killeth, the spirit may give life; though we may take off the Woe from Riches by having and contemning them, and the impossibility of being saved from ourselves by scattering them, and the weeping and howling by not rejoicing in them; though we may be rich, and no Woe befall us; yet Christ is thus pleased to deliver himself in terms plain and positive, in illboding and portending words, that at least we may be jealous of Riches, and think it rather a matter of danger then content to bear up our heads with the best, and to be rich in this world. Luke 16. in that dialogue between Abraham and the Rich man, Abraham doth not lay to the rich man's charge any great or notorious crime, but doth only tacitly and inclusively remember him of his cruelty to Lazarus. That which he plainly accuseth him for, is his being rich; Son, ver. 25. remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things, ver. 19 And it is said of him, that he was a rich man, that he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and that he fared sumptuously every day. This, this was his fault; He was rich, only to be rich,; he was rich while Lazarus was poor: he was clothed in purple and fine linen, as if his riches served to cloth only his own back: and he fared deliciously every day, as if he had known no other treasury for his wealth save his own belly. If we be rich therefore, let us learn to be poor; if we be gorgeously arrayed, let us turn our purple into sackcloth; and if we far sumptuously, let us, as the Wiseman adviseth, put a knife to our throat, and, as Julian spoke of himself, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, let us wage war with our own belly. But, What, will ye haply demand, is it then unlawful to be rich? Pelagius indeed thought so, and taught so, grounding his doctrine upon this Text, and that other, Matth. 19.23, 24 But he was justly censured for it by the Church as an heretic. Yet this I say, Though that opinion of his, That no rich man can possibly be saved, be an error, yet it is salutaris error, a very wholesome mistake; and if such as love the world could entertain it as a truth, it might prevail with them to hate it: it might persuade the covetous churl to become liberal, the glutton to divide his meal between himself and the hungry, the wanton to deny himself oftentimes even lawful recreations, the swaggering gallant to lay aside his bravery, and to cloth the loins of his naked brother with the fleece of his sheep. What harm could there be if these men were thus caught by craft, and by this error deceived into happiness? It is the Physician's method, to cure diseases by something that is contrary to them: so this point of Pelagianism might serve for a good remedy against the Love of the world, and to think it a sin to be rich might be a wholesome prescription for him who maketh his Riches his God: whereas on the contrary out of that which indeed is truth many a rich man draweth dangerous consequences, and flattereth himself in his sin, hoping that that gate which standeth open to Riches, will not be shut to the love of them; and since rich Abraham, who loved Hospitality, is in heaven, he presumeth he shall follow him, though by oppression he eateth up more than Abraham fed: he dispenseth with himself in that which made Abraham happy, and yet is conceited he shall be as happy as that great Father of the faithful. It is not good therefore to press doctrines of liberty, though they be true; such as tell us that War, and Swearing, and Feasting, and Recreations, and the like, are sometimes lawful; lest if such seeds be often sown, we find too rank an harvest; lest men turn liberty into licentiousness, recreation into riot, and feasting into revelling; and hearing that Swearing and War are not unlawful, multiply as many oaths as words, and make that a cause of war which is not worth a thought. Ye see our Saviour here, to the end he may chase away the love of Riches, setting a mark of terror upon them, and crying, Woe to rich men; Which cannot be literally and generally true: For all rich men are not not accursed. But it is the safest way to remove men as far from danger as may be. It is safest for some men to conceive Feasting unlawful, that they may avoid gluttony; or Sports unlawful, that they may not be wantoness; to be afraid of an Oath, that they may not be perjured; not to flatter themselves too much in the lawfulness of War, that they delight not in blood, but rather remember that lesson of Moses, or indeed of God, When thou goest out with the host against thine enemies, Deut. 23.9. then keep thee from all wickedness. In a word, though it be not unlawful to be rich, yet it is safest for most men, according to the sound of our Saviour's words both here and elsewhere, to believe that it is unlawful, and to live as if they believed so, that so though their belief be not altogether free from error, their conversation may be without covetousness. But so far is the world from having that opinion of Riches, that they have goodly and glorious titles bestowed upon them. They commend themselves unto us under the honest names of Thrift, and Frugality, and Wisdom. Yea, they commend our very vices; and, which is more, they are taken up as arguments of piety, as symptoms and certain indications of the love and favour of God. Is it not our usual phrase, He is a frugal and a prudent man? See how God hath blessed him! When Jesus wept at Lazarus his tomb, the Jews were ready to draw this conclusion, John 11, 35, 36 See how he loved him. And indeed it was a probable deduction: For Love will force a tear when the beloved object departeth from us. But the world's inference concerning Riches is not so natural; God hath filled his basket and poured abundance into his bosom; see how he loveth him! A false deduction this: But the world is full of such dangerous and unnatural inferences. How many are there who conclude that men are good when they see them rich and prosperous? Amongst a herd of Mammonists Dives had been a Saint. On the contrary, how many think themselves forsaken when they lie in the dust? when even in that dust they may be as near to bliss as he that sitteth on his throne. God is styled the Father of the poor and fatherless; but no where doth he call himself the Father of the rich. How many think they have prepared their souls for heaven when they have but set their house in order, and think that to leave a fair inheritance to their children is to gain one to themselves in the kingdom of God? as if there were no more than this, to thrive well, to make their Will, to die, and to be Saints. Thus have we sanctified, yea, even glorified Riches; we account them blessings, and signs and rewards of righteousness. But if these be the rewards we look for, if we rest upon these, we are of all men most miserable. For you see Riches are accompanied with a woe, because we have received them as a reward, because we have received them as our consolation. How many doth God so reward whom he will punish with the Devil and his angels? Nabal was so rewarded; and he died a fool. The fool was so blest; 1 Sam. 25. Luke 12.16.20. and his soul was sunddenly taken from him. The Heathen were so rewarded: for their justice was crowned with victory, as Augustine observeth. Nabuchadnezzar was never in the Calendar of Saints; yet God rewardeth him with Egypt for his service against Tyre. Ezek. 29, 18.19, 20. And what blessings and rewards are those which are common to us with Fools and Pagans and Tyrants? Qualia sunt vota quae flentur? what wishes are these which, when we enjoy them, draw tears from our eyes? What rewards are those which are not lasting, yet are the last we shall receive? What blessings are those which have a woe to attend them? Certainly we cannot but be jealous of them, we cannot but suspect them. Suspectam habe hanc indulgentiam, saith Tertullian: It is good to suspect this indulgency. For as in God's favour is life, so in this kind of indulgence, if we be too much in love with it, may be death. Therefore, as Bernard saith, Misericordiam hanc nolo, Domine, I will none of this kind of mercy, of mercy which may draw judgement after it. Oh what a reward is laid up, if we would stay for it, and not trust in uncertain riches! We may rest upon it, and assure ourselves, that he that doth most good, and receiveth the least in this life, is the most happy person. For to him God speaketh even as he did unto Abraham, Gen. 15.1. I am thy exceeding great reward. And how empty is the Creature to him that enjoyeth the Creator? What poor glass is a Diamond to him that is familiar with Virtue? What trash is Riches to him who is filled with Grace? What nicknames are the empty titles of secular Honours, to him that knoweth the glory of a Saint? What a nothing is the world to him that hath studied Heaven? Further yet: Riches are accounted as Necessaries, and as Ornaments of virtue, and under that name we receive and entertain them. But necessaries they are not, when we either not use them, or abuse them to riot; when we either lock them up, or send them abroad as purveyors and proctor's for our lusts, making them either the hire of an harlot, or the price of blood. And ornaments of virtue they are not, which must needs be a stranger to us whilst we are so familiar with the world. But indeed receive them under what name we please, we shall find they are not necessary, nor at all material to perfection. For what can these add to a Man? What can they add to a Philosopher? What can they add to a Saint? They can neither make us more reasonable, nor more wise, nor more pious; which yet we may be more and more when we are stripped of these trappings. Virtus censum non requirit; nudo homine contenta est; Virtue requireth nothing but a man. Neither riches nor poverty, neither greatness nor lowness prevail with God, but a new creature; I say, a new creature, which may thrive and grow up to perfection, although he never wore purple, although he lie on a dunghill. What S. Paul said of Idols, we may say of Riches and Poverty, They are nothing in the world; there is no such matter in truth and reality. This difference betwixt rich and poor is a creature of our own making. For let us look about us and consider well, and we shall find Virtue to be the main end of our life. To this we were created, saith S. Paul; for this we are men. And this is performed in any estate, in poverty, sickness, disgrace, imprisonment. For these which carry such horror with them are materia virtutis as well as riches, health, honour, liberty. I may shine as well in my Patience and Humility as in my Bounty and Liberality. Nay, I may be poor, and yet charitable; have nothing to give, yet have a hand as ready to be stretched forth as his that scattereth his bread upon the waters. Virtue may be kept up in any state; and a man may express his spiritual wisdom as well in rags as in purple: Nay, we may walk on with less trouble and encumbrance, having fling off this luggage. Congeratur in te quicquid multi locupletes possident; When thou hast all that heart can wish, when thou art lord of all the wealth that lieth in the bosom of the earth, thou must empty thyself, if not of it, yet of the love of it, or thou canst have no familiarity with Virtue. Till we have bid the World adieu, till we neglect Riches, till we contemn them, till we can say, Non opus est nobis fortuna, till we can say to Riches, We have no need of you, though we walk at large as in a kind of terrestrial paradise, yet a Woe attendeth us, and followeth us at the very heels. Again, Riches are not only not necessary to religion and virtue, but rather a hindrance, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. They take us down from our third heaven, and take us off from the contemplation of future happiness and bind our thoughts to the vanities of the earth, which so press them down and weary them that they cannot aspire. They are retinacula spei, fetters of our Hope. For now where is our Hope? Even in the bowels of the earth. They are degraders of our Faith. For whilst we walk in this vain shadow, how many degrees doth our Faith fall back? The more we trust in uncertain riches, the less we trust in God. They are coolers and abaters of our Charity. For they make us ungrateful to God, severe to ourselves, and cruel to our brethren. Therefore Basil giveth this reason why God left Adam naked in Paradise, That he might not be taken from the contemplation of the Creator by conversing too much with the creature, and by care for the things of this world. By looking on the forbidden fruit our first parents forfeited at once their obedience and Paradise: and how many of their children have lost their part in Christ and in heaven by fixing their thoughts too steadfastly on the things of this life? A woeful condition certainly, thus to be bound in chains, thus to stck fast in deep mire that we cannot look up! Further yet, as Riches are an hindrance and obstacle to good, so are they instrumental to evil. They facilitate and help it forward, and are as the midwife to bring it to its birth, which otherwise peradventure had died in the womb, in the thought, and never seen the Sun. If sin make our members the weapons of unrighteousness, Riches are the handle without which they cannot well be managed. Every man cannot grind the face of the poor, every man cannot take his brother by the throat, every man cannot go into the foolish woman's house, every man cannot bribe a Judge, every man cannot be as wicked as he would. And it may seem to be a part of God's Restraining grace, to take Riches from some men, as he took off the wheels of Pharaoh's chariots, that they may not pursue their brethren. But when the purse is full, the heart will more easily vent all the poison it hath, in a reproach, in contempt, in a blow, in an injury, in oppression. Whilst Poverty, as a bank or bulwark, boundeth our malice, Riches let it overflow and drive all before it. When Riches increase, our tongues are our own, and our hands are our own; who is Lord over us? Power to do what we list may make us do what otherwise we never thought on. When Locusta at the command of Nero had tempered poison, and it had not wrought so suddenly as he expected upon Britannicus, the Tyrant beat her with his own hand: and when she told him it was art to conceal it, and take off the envy from the fact, he scornfully replied, Sanè legem Juliam timeo; What do you think that I am afraid of the Julian Law against Murderers? Certainly Nero had not been such a Tyrant, had he stood in fear of any Law, and would have been a better Subject than he was an Emperor. How happy had it been for the Rich man in the Gospel, had he been a beggar! How happy would it be for some men now, if they had no power at all! I have said enough to work in you a jealousy against Riches, and make you suspect them, but not enough to fasten the Woe upon rich men. For Riches may be dangerous, and yet a rich man may haste and escape away, as Lot did out of Sodom, and have no Woe, like fire and brimstone, fall upon him. Riches are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, neither good nor evil, but of a middle nature, and, as he said of Rome, Talis est, qualem quisque sibi velit, are such as we will make them. They may be instruments of evil, and they may be promoters of good: So that the man draweth on the Woe, and not the Riches. When our Saviour had told his Disciples that it is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, he addeth, to free them from amazement, With man it is impossible; but with God all things are possible. Possible? what, to bring a rich man with all his load through the narrow gate; No; but to take off his load? What? to bring in a covetous rich man, a luxurious rich man, an injurious rich man into God's kingdom? No; but by the power of his grace to free him from the contagion and danger of Riches, that he may have them as if he had them not, and so use them as not to abuse them to lust, to riot, to oppression. Nec diviti obsunt opes, si eis bene utatur, saith Hierom; nec pauperem commendat egestas, si inter sordes peccat: Riches hurt not the wealthy, if they use them well; nor do rags commend the poor, if their souls be as base and sordid as their habit. For what is it to turn Anchorete, and to shut myself up between two walls, if my thoughts do measure out a kingdom? What is it to cloister up myself, if there be a tumult and a very Fair in my soul? The poor and the rich in this are both alike. What is it then that draweth the Woe upon the rich? Even the rich themselves, by receiving Riches as necessaries, as rewards, as impediments of virtue, and instruments of vice; by receiving them, as it is in the Reason which Christ giveth of pronouncing this Woe, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as their consolation, as their portion for ever. This is it which in my Text fasteneth the Woe upon the rich; Woe be unto them: for they have their consolation. They have what they looked for. They make their Riches their fort of defence, as if the Lord of hosts had no strength to defend them. They make Riches their Saviour, as if Christ's redemption were nothing worth. They make Riches their Comforter, as if there were no Holy Ghost. The word in the Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Paracletus is one of the titles of the Holy Ghost: He is called an Advocate, a Solicitor, a Comforter. Now the rich which trust in their Riches, make them their Advocate, to plead for them; their Solicitor to manage their affairs, to find them out new delights, to work their revenge, to purchase them honour, to comfort and encourage them in sin. I had almost said, They make them their Holy Ghost; I am sure they worship them as if there were no other. As for the true Holy Ghost, they grieve, they resist him at pleasure; and let him departed when he will, they are still lusty and strong. But if their holy (or rather unholy) Ghost leave them but for a while, they sit in the dust, and will not be comforted. When they have lost a farm, or piece of money, you cannot comfort them with a text of Scripture: but when they have lost their God by some crying and loathsome sin, they will soon forget it at the reading of a Will. A legacy from a friend will raise them up when their soul is sinking to hell; but all the promises of the Gospel will not make them merry when the body is in prison. They can dance with all their sins about them, but sink down at a disgrace. Still the God of this world is their God of consolation. The true Holy Ghost never cometh but he bringeth sad and disconsolate thoughts, maketh a wilderness within them and a kind of desolation. Vae, saith our Saviour; Woe unto them: for they have their consolation. You have seen the Rich and Woe in a sad conjunction, a most malignant one, as any Astrology hath discovered. I am unwilling to leave them so; and therefore in the last place I must find out some means to put them asunder, that we may receive Riches without danger; which is indeed to lead the camel through the needle's eye. And there is but one way of severing them, and that at first sight an unpleasing one, To sever the Riches from the Man, and to cast them away; and then the Woe is blotted out. Yet is it not so hard as it seemeth. For we may retinendo relinquere, saith Gregory, cast them away, and yet keep them still; keep them, not as our consolation, but to the comfort of others; keep them as strangers and enemies, and make them our friends. 1. We must bring Riches into a subordination, nay into a subjection, to Christianity. We may be rich, if we can be poor. For as the Philosopher telleth us that they who will betake themselves to the study of Philosophy, either must be poor, or behave themselves as if they were so; so is it in Christianity. He that entertaineth her must entertain her alone, and nothing but her; he must give her the supremacy in all things: He must receive her as his Honour, his Riches, his All; or in these his deportment must be as if he had them not. Animus cujusque is est quisque; The mind of man is the man: We may add, it is not only the man, but every action of the man: For every action receiveth its proper stamp and character from the mind. The mind is it that maketh us weak in strength, and strong in weakness; that maketh us rich in poverty, and poor in abundance; that maketh us hang down the head in joy, and triumph in sorrow. Non areâ, sed corde divitiae metiendae; We measure wealth by the fullness, not of the chest, but of the mind. Nazianzene commendeth his brother Caesarius, that he did sub laruâ servire aulae, waited on Julian, but served Christ; was an Anchorate within, and a Courtier without. And so it is with every Christian: He is not always what he seemeth, but liveth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, another man's life, and acteth another man's part. He buyeth, but doth not possess; he useth without use, he chideth without revenge, he reproveth without anger; when he is strong, then is he weak; and when he is rich, then is he poor. These are not such contradictions but we may compose and reconcile them by the mind, which useth the body and outward things but as a disguise. We see the eyes a fountain of tears; but we see not the mind bathing itself with joy in those tears: We see the forehead of Heraclitus; but we see not the heart of Democritus: We see a man crowned with Honour and Riches; but we see not the mind which esteemeth all these as dung. 2. That the mind may be rightly affected, we must root out of it all love of Riches. For if we set our hearts upon them, the love of them will estrange us from Christ, and make us Idolaters. The Poet will tell us, — Deos, qui colit, ille facit. Not he that nameth the name of God, but he that adoreth and worshippeth him, is he that maketh him a God. And what is our worshipping of Riches but our confidence and trust in them? Col. 3.5. Therefore S. Paul calleth Covetousness Idolatry, because there is nothing that stealeth away our heart from God more than the love of Riches. Think not that he only is an Idolater that boweth his knees to an image. He is an Idolater who hath secretly set up the World in his heart. An putas tunc te primùm intrare meritorium cum domum meretricis intraveris? saith Ambrose to the libidinous person; Dost thou think that thou didst then first enter the stews when thou camest in at the harlot's doors? Tunc intrasti, cum cogitationes tuas meretrix intravit; Then thou first enterdst, when the harlot first entered thy thoughts. So dost thou think that Riches were then first thy Idol when thou didst travel and labour for them, when thou offeredst up thy body, thy soul, thine ease, thy credit, thy religion to them? Nay, than thou wert an Idolater when first this Idol found a way into thy heart. I must bring you yet further, from not loving, not desiring Riches, to contemning of them. For though I have emptied my store, and cast it before the wind, yet till I have made Riches the object of my fear, till I can say within myself, This Lordship may undo me, These riches may beggar me, This money may destroy me; till in this respect I make it the object of my contempt, and look upon it as a bait of Satan, I am not so far removed but that still the Woe hangeth over me. The Philosopher will tell us that it was the custom of superstitious persons, when they saw or met any ominous and illboding creature, presently to destroy it: If they saw a Raven, they would kill him with stones; if they met with a Cat, they would cut off his head; thinking by this to turn all the evil upon the creatures themselves, which did portend evils. Beloved, Riches and Treasures are prodigies: Prout accepta sunt, ita valent: They presage evil to our souls: and we have no way to elude them but by contemning them. If we do not slight them and fling disgrace on them, they will have that force upon us which they threaten. Whilst we neglect to place contempt upon Riches, where we should, Riches cause us to cast contempt upon our brethren where we should not. We look big on them, we will not change language with them; we think we honour them when we bid them sit down at our footstool, or under our table, to pick up the crumbs. Nay, further yet, they draw contempt upon ourselves, and make us vile and base; they make us bow and condescend to low offices, even lower than his that sitteth with the dogs of our flock. We lackey it after them; we toil and drudge, we flatter and lie, that we may obtain them; we watch them and guard them; and if they be divided from us by the same violence and fraud by which we first gathered them, we fling ourselves upon our beds, and are sick for them, we weep like Rachel for her children, and will not be comforted, because they are not. Cyprian saith, Multos patrimonia sua depresserunt in terram; Great patrimonies and large revenues with their weight have pressed many men down to the earth; and all by having them in too great esteem. For as when a man taketh a wedge of lead upon his shoulders, it presseth and boweth his body to the earth; but if he put it under his feet, it will lift and keep him from the ground: So when we place Riches above us, and look upon them as upon our heaven; when we prefer them before salvation, and make Gain our Godliness; it must needs be that they will press us down to hell: but if we keep them below as slaves, and tread them under our feet, and contemn them as dung in comparison of Christ, they will then lift us up as high as heaven. Aut humiliter servient, aut superbè dominabuntur: If we slight them, they will be good servants to us, and profitable for many uses: but if we give them our respect, they will command as Tyrants. Let them not then take the throne in thy heart, but draw them down under thy footstool, under the lowest thought thou hast. For how can thy thoughts fall so low as Riches, when thy conversation is in heaven? Therefore, in the last place, let me commend unto you a godly jealousy of yourselves. Suspicion in such a case as this is very useful, where the least degree of love to them, in respect of God, is extremity, and many times our providence and care for ourselves and our families, in which we please ourselves, and for which others praise us, signify the same thing: and we embrace the world too close, when we say we do not love it: The lust of the eyes many times breaketh forth, with rapine and deceit and oppression at its side, yea, and mingleth itself with the common businesses of our calling. For we may love the World, and yet do no man injury: Nor have we quit ourselves of the World, when we have persuaded ourselves that we are honest men. How many millions love the World and Riches, and neither know it, nor will know it? It is the Devil's Sophistry to deceive us into a belief that we are not what we are. It is good wisdom therefore in a Christian, etiam tutissima timere, not only to fear shipwreck in a storm and a tempest, but even in a calm; to fear sometimes, though there be no cause of fear. It is a safe conclusion of the Canonists, In foro interiori praestat praesumere delictum ubi non est; In Courts of penal justice we may not without breach of charity suspect more evil than we need; but in the inward Court of Conscience we cannot be too jealous: We must censure the secret passages and inclinations of our hearts; and it will be safe for us at least to suspect ourselves, though there be no reason. For show me, he that can, one passage of Scripture that looketh favourably on Riches. Luke 18.24, It is plainly said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God but it would puzzle the wit of the best Logician in the world to draw out of Scripture but by way of consequence this conclusion, BEATI DIVITES, Blessed are the rich. Indeed, when men are rich, the Scripture giveth them good counsel what to do. Not to trust in them, To make them a sacrifice, To distribute and communicate, which indeed is to contemn them, to empty them out. It counselleth us to be rich in good works; and then the Vae will fly away from us as a mist doth before the Sun. I am unwilling to leave the Rich and the Woe so near together, but would set them at that distance that they may never meet. To conclude then, let us not be too familiar which Riches, lest whilst we embrace them we take the plague, and the Woe enter into our very bowels. The love of the world is a catching disease, and it is drawn on with dallying, with a very look. The covetous man, saith Aristotle, first seeketh money for his want, and then falleth in love with it. And love of money increaseth with our heaps, so that even a mountain of gold is counted but a molehill. He that is grown rich complaineth he is poor: And so indeed he is, poorer than that Lazar that lieth naked at his door. This plague, the Love of the world, is got insensibly, we know not how. For the Eye is the burning-glass of the soul; and as we see in glasses of that nature, if we wag and stir them up and down, they produce no flame, but if we hold them fixed and steady between the Sun and the object, it will presently kindle; so if we plant our eyes, and hold them steady betwixt the glittering wedge of gold and the catching matter of our heart, it will unite and grow strong, and strike a fire into our soul, which is not so easily quenched as it might have been avoided. We see nothing but glory in Riches, when they are gendering a Wo. Let us therefore rather look upon them as strangers: for our traffic and our trading should be in heaven. Alienum est à nobis omne quod seculi est, saith Hierome; The World and a Christian are of a divers nature and constitution. We do not traffic for gold where there are no mines: nor can we find God in the world. He that maketh him his purchase, will find business enough to take up his thoughts, and little time left for conference and commerce in the world, scarce any time to look upon it, but by the By and in the passage, as we use to look upon a stranger. A look is dangerous; a look of liking is too much: but a look of love will bury us in the world; where we are sown in power, but are raised in dishonour. We rest and sleep in this dust; and when we awake, the Woe which hung over our heads falleth upon us. In a word then, let us not only look upon Riches as strangers, but handle them as serpents, warily, lest they sting us to death. Let us take them by the right end; and than that which was a serpent may prove a rod to work wonders. Your riches, like the widow's oil, shall increase by being poured forth; and you shall purchase most when you sell all that you have. So you shall turn the Vae into an Euge, the Woe into a Blessing. Make these strangers, these enemies, these Riches of unrighteousness, to be friends, by keeping a kind of state and distance from them. Work off their paint, force from them their deceitfulness and malignancy. Make them such friends as shall plead and intercede on your behalf, be your Harbingers to prepare a place for you, and when you fail, when they fail, open the gates of heaven, and make a way for you to be received into everlasting habitations. The Seventh SERMON. PART I. 1 PET. V 6. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. I May call my Text ITINERARIUM MENTIS AD DEUM, The Journal of the Soul to God; or, A bref Discovery of the way to heaven, and of the occurrences and remarkable passages therein. For here we have two terms, Humility, and Exaltation; a Valley, and a Hill; a Valley of tears, and a holy Hill. Now, you see, there is a great distance between these two terms, as great as between SURSUM and DEORSUM, below and above. And between these two there is a God to be bowed to, an hand to awe us, and a mighty hand to shake and shiver us into a spiritual nothing. Whether it be his hand which he reacheth forth to help us, or his hand which he stretcheth forth to strike us; whether it be his hand with which he leadeth his people, or his hand with which he bruiseth the nations; his hand of Mercy, or his hand of Vengeance; his hand it is, and a mighty hand; mighty to lay us on the ground, and mighty to raise us up again, able to turn our dunghill into a throne, our sackcloth into a triumphant robe, and our humility into glory. Now Humility is causa removens prohibens, the cause that putteth by all obstacles and retardances, that prepareth our way and maketh our paths strait; nay causa movens, the moving cause, that hath an operative causality and efficacious virtue in it, illex misericordiae, as Tertullian, that matureth and ripeneth us for God's mercy, and draweth on and inviteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his mighty hand, to crown us. Fear not, Marry, saith the Angel; for thou hast found favour with God. And fear not, thou virgin, humble soul; thou shalt find favour with God. Thy vileness is thy honour; thy low estate is thy high preferment; thy minoration, thy exinanition, thy nothing, is thy All: For see; Humility looketh directly upon Glory. Between them there is but a short line; nay there is an hand in the Text that draweth them both together, and uniteth them as it were in punto. The whole line, the whole course of a Christian is Humility and Glory. And as in a Line there be infinite Points, yet thou canst not say, Here is this point, and here is that, to distinguish them: so our Humility must be continued, degree upon degree, sigh upon sigh, contrition upon contrition, so close, so without pause or interval, as to be imperceptible. I am sure our Exaltation shall be infinitely and imperceiveably continued. Only here is the difference; Our Humility is drawn on in a strait but short line, it hath it extremes, an end it hath; but our Exaltation shall be everlasting, and run round in a Circle, as Eternity. This is the sum of these words. The Division now is easy. The parts are but two: First, our part, Humbling of ourselves; Secondly, God's part, he will raise us up again. Now the Wiseman will tell us, There is a season to every thing, and a time to every purpose; A time to break down: That is our time, a time of hammering and breaking our hearts, and levelling ourselves with the ground. And a time to build up; a time to heal those broken hearts, to raise up those ruins, and out of that rubbish to erect a Temple: That is God's time. A time there is, a certain time Tempus humilitatis, tempus vitae: Our life must measure out our Humility: Indeed a short time: Thou hast made my days a hand breadth. And then God's Exaltation cometh in time, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a due time. Nay our Exaltation beginneth here, before we can tell over our fingers. And when the number is out, for our Sub we shall have a Super; God will exalt us above ourselves, above the condition of Men, unto an Angelical estate. For our Humility not a span long we shall gain an excessive mass and weight of everlasting glory. In brief, we have here 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a form of Discipline or spiritual Exercise, Humble yourselves; 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Overseer or Master of that exercise, who hath not only an eye, but a hand, a mighty hand, over us; 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Garland or Reward, which, when we have gone through and performed, that hand which is over us will put on, He shall exalt us in due season. These are the main Parts. Other particulars we shall meet with and touch upon in our way. And 1. we shall show you that this Humbling ourselves is a Christian's exercise; 2. Wherein it consisteth; 3. the Extent of it. Then we shall come to a more particular delineation of the manner or degrees of our Humiliation; and so conclude with the Motives, the mighty hand of God, over us, and the same hand holding forth a reward, He shall exalt us in due time. With these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion. When the Apostle exhorteth us to humble ourselves, he may seem to set us our task, and like those Egyptian Masters command us to our work, a work more hard to flesh and blood then making of Brick. He that biddeth us make ourselves less and lower than ourselves, doth no less disparage and torment us then he that setteth us to the brick-kill. S. Paul mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, bodily exercise; 1 Tim. 4.8. as Abstinence from Dainty meats, Wine, and Women. And you may find him at this exercise, beating down his body, and bringing it into subjection; 1 Cor. 9.27. beating it black and blue; as the phrase signifieth. And here S. Peter prescribeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a spiritual exercise, to purge and cleanse the soul, and empty it of all those bad humours which puff and swell it, to examine and sift, to afflict and rack it. This is a far harder task then to beat down the body; it is harder to subdue the inferior part of the soul to the superior then to waste and macerate the body. Therefore the Prophet expresseth it by the drudgery of the body; Hos. 10.12. Blow up your fallow ground: Where he seemeth to paint out the Humble man, with seed in his bosom, a sickle in his right hand, and a plough in his left, ploughing up his soul with the contemplation of his own vileness and the admiration of God's Majesty. This labouring and ploughing and mortifying of fleshly lusts is that in which alone true Christianity consisteth. 2 Cor. 10.4. The Apostle bringeth the Christian in as a Soldier making a battery upon himself, like Joshua beating down the walls of Jericho, pulling down strong holds, casting down imaginations, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And what hard exercise can it be to beat down an imagination? What trouble is it to check a thought? Yes: A thought may rise with that strength, and tower so high, and so strengthen itself with the content and pleasure it carrieth along with it, that it may be an harder matter to force and suppress it then to break down the tower of David. It is far easier to blow the ground then the heart. Humility then will not grow up of itself; we must blow for it. The Civilians divide the fruits of the earth into naturales and industriales: into those which naturally spring up of themselves, as Grass, and Plants, and divers Herbs, which Nature sendeth for plentifully out of the womb of the earth without the help of man; and those which she doth not bring forth without the midwifery of our labour, as Corn, and that which is sowed in the earth. And such a diversity we may observe in our souls. Many inclinations and dispositions grow up in us as the Grass or the Flowers of the field Many vain and extravagant thoughts soon shoot up, even out of disciples hearts. Our Saviour, who saw them before they peeped out, asketh them, Why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Luke 24.38. But those Virtues which must make us happy are fructus industriales, fruits which will not grow up of themselves, nor shoot forth and flourish in their full beauty, till the soul and mind of man be dressed and manured, and then watered with the dew of heaven, the grace of God, till we have wrought them out with fear and trembling. God doth give the increase; but every Christian must plant and water. Humility is the gift of God; but yet we must give all diligence to humble ourselves. We will apply this, and so proceed. It is too common an error in our spiritual husbandry and the business of our salvation; Because we have heard of some who have been suddenly changed, and endued with all virtues from above, as S. Paul, who in the morning was a ravening Wolf, and before night as tame and meek as a Lamb; to conceive presently that it may be so with us; That though we lie weltering in our own blood, though we stand still in our old ways, yet a time will come when a hand shall suddenly be reached out of heaven to pluck us thither whether we will or no; That when God shall please to sow Humility in our hearts, it will soon grow up, and though it be less than a grain of mustardseed, grow up as high as heaven: That we may soon have Humility enough to draw on the Exaltation. And this conceit hath brought that poverty and leanness into our souls; this hath kept us in our altitudes, that nothing can pull us down, no not the hand of God, can make us to descend into ourselves, and take a survey of the nakedness and devastation of our souls. We are like the lilies of the field, Matth 6.28. we neither toil, nor spin, and yet we grow, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of us. We labour not, we strive not, we fight not with ourselves: We let any thought arise and grow; and sport under the shadow of it: and if Humility will be gained with a sigh or a feigned and formal confession, so far we are content to humble ourselves. And this we may deplore with tears of blood, but cannot hope to remove, though we should speak with the tongue of men and Angels, since it hath taken such deep root in the hearts of men, that they who cry down this Expecting of grace and Fight against grace, and who had rather see a fair show of it in their lives then in their Panegyrics, and would think it a more delightful sight to see them grow in grace then commend it and resist it, are themselves cried down, and counted bringers in of new doctrine and enemies to the Grace of God, because they would establish it. And so the Drunkard may swill his bowls, and cheer up his heart in the days of his youth, and expect that happy hour when Sobriety and Temperance shall possess him unawares. The Oppressor may grind the face of the poor more and more, since God's Grace is sufficient to melt his heart. He may hope he may be honest one day, who as yet resolveth to be a knave. He that is turbulent in all his ways, who, like a Haggard, checketh at every feather, and is troubled with every gust of wind, nay with every breath, may imagine that Grace will soon settle and compose his mind, that Content and Peaceableness will one time or other suddenly fall upon him as a sweet and pleasant sleep. He that hath a high look and a proud heart, may be brought down and humbled in the twinkling of an eye. And what is this but to cast away the Grace of God, as S. Paul speaketh; to turn it into wantonness, as S. Judas, to make it nothing else but a pretence and excuse to prolong our time in the tents of Kedar, to encourage us to sport it on in our evil ways like the wild ass or the wanton heifer? Oh 'tis a dangerous thing to attribute so much to Grace as to make it void and of no effect; to cry up its power, and be unwilling to feel it; to say it can do that which we will not suffer it to do. It is the constant voice of Scripture to commend God's Grace, but withal to awake our industry; to encourage us with the sight of so sure a guide, and then bid us, Up, and be doing. God beseecheth us to be reconciled, and commandeth us to reconcile ourselves. His will is, that we should be saved; and his will is, that we should work out our salvation. He persuadeth us to be patiented; and he persuadeth us to possess our souls with patience. Where we are told that he worketh in us both to Will and to Do, Phil. 2.13. it is given as a reason why we should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, MAGIS OPERARI, work more strenuously and intentively, AUGESCERE IN OPERE, as some, increase and abound in our work. Grace is a good wind to drive us on, but must not be made a pillow to sleep on. Humbled God would see us; and he enjoineth us to humble ourselves. S. Ambrose speaketh it plainly, Non vult invitos cogere, he will not save us against our wills. And if we stand out, and will not, he cannot save us. Non vult importunus irruere, he breaketh not in by violence; but, when he entereth, he calleth thee to open. And this maketh our Humility voluntary, that thy Will may lead thee, and not Necessity draw thee. A forced Humility is but Pride in a chain, and a stubborn heart with a weight of led upon it. Pharaoh's Humility, Zech. 5. driven on with an East-wind, and compassed with Locusts; Ahab's Humility, at the sound of the Prophet's thunder. For here is the difference; The righteous fall to the ground, the wicked are tumbled down. Their Humiliation is like Haman's going before Mordecai, not like David's dancing before the Ark; like the submission of a condemned man to the block, which upon refusal he had been dragged to. There is, saith the devout Schoolman, Humilitas poenalis, and Humilitas medicinalis; Humility, which is not a virtue, but a punishment; and Humility, which is not a punishment, but a medicine: Humility, which is gall and wormwood; and Humility, which is an antidote. When the vial is broken upon my head, it poisoneth me; but when I temper it myself, and take it down, it is a cordial. The Gospel our Saviour calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a yoke, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a burden: a yoke, which, if we yield not our necks, will break them; and a burden, which, if we bow not under, will sink us: but when Humility beareth it, it is easy; and when it weareth it, light. To be humbled then is not enough; we must humble ourselves, and take some pains to do it: Not enough, to be on the ground, unless our hand hath thrown us down: Not enough, to be in sackcloth, unless we have put it on: Not enough, to be crucified, unless we crucify ourselves. Take them both together, Be humbled, and Take pains to humble yourselves, and you have crowned S. Peter's Exhortation. We come now to our second Consideration, and must show you Wherein this Humbling of ourselves consisteth. The Orator will tell us, Virtutis laus in actione consistit; Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation, and is then actually when it worketh. And thus S. Paul exhorteth Timothy, 1 Tim. 4.7. to exercise himself unto godliness, which is learned by doing it: and Plato, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to exercise the soul. Every virtue is seen in its proper act. Thus Temperance doth bind the appetite, Liberality open the hand, Modesty compose the countenance, Valour guard the heart, and Humility work its contrary out of the mind, every thing that riseth up, every swelling and tumour of the soul: 2 Cor. 12.20. The Apostle calleth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, puffings up, for Riches, or Learning, or Eloquence, or Virtue, or something which we admire ourselves for: the elation and lifting up of our mind above itself, 2 Cor. 10.14. the stretching of it beyond its measure, setting it up against the Law, against our brethren, against God himself; making us complain of the Law, start at the shadow of an injury, commit sin, and excuse it; making our tongues our own, our hands our own, our understandings our own, our wills our own; leaving us Independents, under no Law but our own. Psal. 131.1. Prov. 16.18. The Prophet David calleth it the highness or haughtiness of the heart; and Solomon, the haughtiness of the spirit, which is visible in our sin, and visible in our apologies for sin; lifting up the eyes, Psal. 10.4. and lifting up the nose, as the phrase signifieth, lifting up the head, making our neck brass, as if we had devoured a spit, as Epictetus said. I AM, AND I ALONE, is soon written in any man's heart: and no hand but that of Humility can wipe it out. For the mind of man is much subject to these fits of swelling. Humility our very nature riseth at. Habet mens nostra sublime quiddam & impatiens superioris, saith the Orator; men's minds naturally stand on tiptoe as it were, and cannot endure to be overlooked. HUMILITY! It is well we can hear her name with patience. It is something more that we can commend her. But quale monstrum, quale sacrilegium! saith the Father; O monstrous sacrilege! we commend Humility; and that we do so, swelleth us. We shut her out of doors when we entertain her. When we deck her with praises, we sacrilegiously spoil her, and even lose her in our panegyrics and commendations. We see what light materials we are made of, what tinder we are, that the least spark will set us on fire. It is the world's usual detraction from men eminent either in virtue or learning, to say they are proud, and then they think they have railed loud enough. But put case they are; alas! a very fool will be so. And he that hath not one good part to gain the opinion of men, will do that office for itself, and wonder the world should so mistake him. Doth Learning, or Virtue, or our good parts puff us up, and set us in our altitudes? No great matter: the wagging of a feather, the jingling of a spur, any thing, nothing will do it; nay, to descend yet lower, that which is worse than Nothing will do it, Psal 10.3. Wickedness will do it. He boasteth of his heart's desire, saith David. Prov. 2.14. He blesseth himself in evil; He rejoiceth in evil, saith Solomon. He tickleth and flattereth himself in mischief. And what are these benedictions, these boastings, these titillations in evil, but as the very breathe and sparkles of our Pride? The wicked is so proud, he careth not for God: he is not in all his ways. When Adam by pride fell from his obedience, See, saith God, the man is become like unto us. He speaketh by an Irony: A God he is, but of his own making. Before he broke the bonds of his allegiance, he was a Man, but innocent, immortal, of singular endowments, and all truly and really: but now having swelled himself, and stretched beyond the line, a God he is, but per Mycterismum, a God that may be scoffed at, a mortal, a dying God, a God that will run into a thicket to hid himself. His greatness is but figurative, his misery real. Being turned out of Paradise, his fancy is left to deify him. This is our case, and our teeth are on edge with the same sour grapes. We are proud, and sin; and are proud in our sin. We lift up ourselves against the Law; and when we have broken it, we lift up ourselves against Repentance. When we are weak, than we are strong: When we are poor and miserable, than we are rich: When we are naked, than we cloth ourselves with pride as with a garment. And as in Adam, so in us, our greatness is but a tale and a pleasing lie, our sins and imperfections true and real; our Heaven spread out by our fancy, and our Hell burning. A strange paradox; A high look, and the soul as low as the lowest pit. Martin Luther said well; that we were all born with a Pope in our belly: and we well know what the Pope hath long usurped, Infallibility and Supremacy, which like the two sides of an Arch mutually uphold each other. Do we bring his Immunity from error into question? Lo, he is Supreme Judge of controversies; and we may well guests which way the question will be stated. Do we question his Supremacy? His Parasites will tell you he is infallible. Now we may well ken what Luther meant. Naturally it is so in us: Our Pride maketh us incorrigible; and the thought we are so, increaseth our Pride. We are too high to stand, and too wise to be wary. And now see how the worm swelleth into an Angel: We now stand upon our Supremacy; and it must be a hand, a mighty one, that must pluck us from our chair, and humble us. For when the Heart forgetteth it is flesh, it becometh a stone: And you cannot see Christ's impress, Humility, upon a stone. Learn of me: for I am humble. The ear is deaf, the heart stubborn, the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 1.28. saith S. Paul, reprobate, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Theodoret, a reverberating mind, a heart of Marble, that violently beateth back the blow that should soften it. HUMILIAMINI then, Humble yourselves, is good counsel. And it cometh in time, like the hand of a skilful Musician, that, when the strings of an instrument are racked and wound up too high, turneth the pins, and letteth them down some notes lower; that so upon a skilful touch we may have an harmony. This is the proper work of Humility, to abate swelling, to humble the heart, to hammer the rock, Dan. 5.22. Jer. 23.29. and break it to pieces, to drive it into itself; to pull it down, and by the consideration of the hand of God and its own emptiness to levelly it; to place it under its self, under the Law, under God; to bind it in as it were with cords, and let out its corrupt blood and humours, and so sacrifice it to that God that framed it; in a word, depressing it in itself, that it be not too wise, too full; and reflecting it upon itself, that it may behold itself of more value than the whole world; and then shutting it up in itself, that it wander not abroad after those vanities which will soon fill it with air and swell it. This pulleth out our eyes, that we may see, spoileth us of our wealth, that we may be rich; taketh us out of the rays, that we may have light; taketh us from ourselves, that we may possess ourselves; biddeth us departed from God, that we may enjoy him. This is janitrix Scholae Christi, saith Bernard, the Doorkeeper to the School of Christ; and if we bow, or lie prostrate, she will let us in. This is as John Baptist, to prepare the way of the Lord, to make every mountain low, and the rough places plain; to bow a lofty head, and sink a haughty eye, and beat down a swelling heart. In a word; this is the best Leveller in the world; and there needeth no other than this. Ye see, Beloved, in what our Humility consisteth, in placing us where we should be, at the footstool of God, abhorring ourselves, admiring his Majesty; distrusting ourselves, relying on his wisdom; bowing to him when he helpeth us, and bowing to him when he striketh us; denying ourselves, and making surrendry to him alone; nothing in ourselves, and all things in him. This will more plainly appear in the extent of this duty, which reacheth the whole Man. Humble yourselves, saith the Text; and yourselves includeth the whole man, both body and soul. It was the speech of S. Augustine, Domine, duo creâsti, alterum prope te, alterum prope nihil; Lord, thou hast made two things in the world; one near unto thyself, divine and celestial, the Soul; the other base and fordid, next to nothing, the Body. These be the parts which constitute and make us Men, the subject of Sin, Rom. 6.12. and therefore of Humility. Let not Sin reign in your mortal body, but let Humility depose it, and pluck it from its throne. Ind delinquit homo, unde constat, saith Tertullian; From thence Sin is, from whence we are. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene; With ourselves we fight against ourselves. We carry about with us those forces which beset us. We ourselves are that army which is in battle-array against us. Our enemies are domestic, at home, within us. And a tumult must be laid where first it was raised. Between Soul and Body there is, saith Nazianzene, a kind of warlike opposition, and they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, pitch their tents one against th● other. When the Body prevaileth, the Soul is down. And when ●he Body is on the bed of sickness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, then is the 〈◊〉 as high as heaven: and when the Soul is sick, even bedrid with sin, than the Body is most active. In both there is matter for a Humiliamini; in both are excrescences and extuberations to be lopped off and abated. The Body is to be beat down and humbled, that the Soul may thrive; and the Soul is to be checked, contracted and depressed in itself, nè in multa diffluat, that it do not spread or diffuse itself on variety of objects. It must not be dimidiata humilitas, an Humility by halves, but holocaustum, a whole burnt-offering, both Body and Soul wasting and consuming in this holy conflagration. I know not how good duties are either shrunk up in the conveyance, not driven home by the masters of the assemblies, or else taken into pieces in the performance. Doth God ordain Sacrifice? He shall have it till he be weary, and forbidden that which he enjoined. Doth he proclaim a Fast? See, the Head is hanged down, the look is changed, and you may read a famine in the face; and yet the Fast is not kept. HUMBLE YOURSELVES! Why so we will: He shall have our knee, our look; he shall see us prostrate on the ground, say some who are as proud as when they stood up. He shall have the heart, no knee, of us, say others as proud as they. Satis Deus habet, say they in Tertullian: Cord suspiciatur: If we can conceive a humiliation, and draw forth its picture in our heart, or rather fancy it, it is enough. We are most humble when we least express it. So full of contradiction is the hypocrite. And what a huge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gulf is there between Hypocrisy and Humility! The Hypocrite, reaching at impossibilities, can serve God and Mammon; be humble in the height of pride; saluâ fide peccare, sin without the least injury to his faith; be reverend, and profane; humble, and yet exalt himself against all that is called God, and so go to hell in a pleasant dream. Thus do we divide our Humility; nay, thus do we divide ourselves from ourselves, our souls from our bodies. Either our Humility is so spiritual that we cannot see it, neither dropping at the eyes, nor hanging on the looks, nor looking on the ground; or so corporeal, that we see it all. God hath his part, and we a part; and then the conjecture is easy who hath the other. But ourselves includeth both. Neither is my Body myself, nor my Soul myself, but I am both Body and Soul, fibula utriusque naturae, saith Tertullian, the button and connexion in which they are tied both together; and my Humility lasteth no longer than whilst I am one of both. Whilst then we are so, let us give God both; And first, the Soul. For there is no vice more dangerous, or to which our nature is more subject, then spiritual Pride. Other vices proceed from some ill in us, or some sinful imbecility of nature; but this many times ariseth out of our good parts. Others fly from the presence of God; this dareth him to his face, and maketh even Ruin itself the foundation of her tabernacle. Intestinum malum periculosius; The more near the evil cleaveth to the soul, the more dangerous it is. I may wean myself from the world, fling off her vanities, and take my soul from sensual objects: But Pride ultima exuitur, is the last garment which we put off. When we are naked we can keep her; and when we can be nothing, we can be proud. Therefore the Schools have placed Humility in the soul, as a canopy covering and shadowing both the faculties, moderating the Understanding, and subduing the Will. For our Understanding walketh too oft in things too high for her, yet thinketh she is above them: And our Will inclineth to things forbidden because they are so, and cannot endure the restraint of a command: The two greatest evils under the Sun; We are either too, wise, or too wilful. Now the Pride of our Will is quickly seen, and therefore the more curable. It showeth itself in the perverseness of the outward man. It lifteth up the hand, it moveth the tongue, it rolleth the eye, it is visible in each action: and there be laws to check and curb it. But quae latent nocent; The serpent at the heel, an overweening conceit of our own knowledge, of our own goodness, how invisibly doth it enter us! how deceitfully doth it flatter us! how subtly doth it ensnare us! Rene sapimus in causa nostra; We are too wise in our own cause. We have digged deep, and found the truth, which others did but talk of. We cannot be deceived; and the thought that we cannot be deceived doth most deceive us. This is it which divided Philosophers into so many sects that we can hardly name them. This hath divided Christians, which have but one name, and given them so many that we cannot number them, and made Religion so perplexed a thing that but to think of her is full of danger, saith Cassander. This rendeth the Church with Schism. For if you observe the behaviour of the Schismatic, you may behold him walk as if he had the Urim and Thu●●●im in his breast: For by a thought, which is but a look of the mind, he discovereth and determineth all things. So dangerous is this spiritual Pride both to ourselves and others. Therefore, in a word, it will concern us to captivate both our Understanding and our Will, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 12. be over wise, not be wise in our own conceits, not be Gnostics, and seem to know what we do not know, nay sometimes not to seem to know what we do know. And this will safeguard us from error, and our brethren from offence. Then it concerneth us also to subdue our Will to Reason and the Rule; to subject our Will, contrary to our natural desire and inclination, to the will of God; ad nutum ejus nutu citiùs obedire, to obey every beck of his sooner than a beck is given, in the twinkling of an eye; not to do what thou wilt, but to obey in that thou wouldst not; which is the crown of thy Obedience, put on by the hand of Humility. And this is the Soul's Humility. But is this enough? No: A body hast thou prepared me. It is not inward Humility will fill the precept. God must have the Knee, the Tongue, the Eye, the Countenance. Philosophus auditur dum videtur; The Philosopher, and so the Christian, is heard when he is seen. Come, saith the Psalmist, let us worship and fall down. You may best take Humility's picture when the body is on the ground. You may mark her how she boweth the body, watch her in a tear, take hold of her in a look, follow her in all her postures, till she faint and droop and lie down in dust and ashes. Oh beloved, the time was when heaven was thought a purchase, when Humility came forth in this dress, multo deformata pulvere, with ashes sprinkled on her head, and her garments rend, like a Penitentiary. You might have beheld her kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs, washing the feet of Lazars, wallowing at the Temple-doors, adgeniculatam charis, begging the prayers of the Saints. You might have seen her rent and torn, stripped and naked, the hair neglected, the eye hollow, the body withered, the feet bare, and the knees of horn, as Nazianzene speaketh in his 12. Oration. Then was Humility not sunk into the soul, but written and engraven in the body in capital letters, that you might run and read it. But I know not how the face of Christendom is now much altered, and Humility grown stately. She hath bracelets on her arms, and diamonds on her head. She is fed daintily, and set on her feet. BE HUMBLE! That we can without hat or knee, with a cheerful countenance, nay with a brazen face, with the same behaviour in the house of God with which we swagger in a theatre. Humility with an humble look, a bowed knee, a bare head, a composed countenance! away with it; that is Pharasaical. I will not mention what I too often see and lament. For now it is accounted Religion to be irreverent. But let us not deceive ourselves. God hateth the visor of Humility, but not her face. If she borrow of the pencil, she is deformed; but appearing in her own likeness, lovely. It is true; the Thought may knock at heaven, when the body is in the dust, and, when that is shut up between two walls, may measure out a Kingdom, and the whole world be too narrow for an Anchorete. But it is as true that Humility never seizeth on the mind, but draweth the body after. If I lose my friend, my look will tell you he is gone. If a robber spoil all that I have, there is a devastation of the countenance. But a wounded spirit who can bear? If thy soul be truly humbled, thy bones will consume, as David speaketh, the eye will wax old, thou wilt forget to eat thy bread. Think what we will, pretend what we can, flatter ourselves as we please; I shall as soon believe him chaste whose eyes are full of adulteries, him modest whose mouth is an open sepulchre, him charitable who grindeth the face of the poor, as that man devout and humble in his heart who is irreverent in his gesture. For I cannot imagine, nor can any man give a reason, why every passion, nay every vice, should show itself in the outward man totâ corpulentiâ, as the Father speaketh, in its full bulk and dimensions; that Anger should shake the lips, and set the teeth, and die the face sometimes pale, sometimes red; that Sorrow should make men put on sackcloth, rend their garments, beat their heads against the wall, as Augustus did for the loss of Varius; that even Dissimulation should bewray itself by winking with the eye, Prov. 10.10. that every Vice and every Virtue should some way or other discover itself to the eye, only Devotion and Humility should shrink in and withdraw itself, lurk and lie hid in the inward man, as if it were ashamed to show its head; that we should be afraid to sit bare, afraid to kneel, afraid to be reverend; that it should be made a sin to sit bare, a sin to kneel, a sin to be reverend; that to come and fall down, though it be in the house of God, is to worship Dagon. Reason and Religion help us, and destroy every altar, and break down every image, and burn it with fire, and chase all Superstition from the face of the earth. And let all the people say, Amen. But God forbidden that Reverence and humble expressions should be swept out with the rubbish, that the wind which drove out Superstition should leave an open way for Profaneness and Atheism to enter in. And let all the people say Amen to that too. For if we do not present our bodies, as well as our souls, a living sacrifice, glorifying God in every motion, our service will scarce be reasonable. Rom. 12.1. And the same tempest will drive down before it Religion and Reason both. I must conclude; Fly Idolatry; Fly Superstition: but fly Profaneness and Irreverence also: and run not so fast from the one as to meet with the other. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Extremities are equalities. They are both equal in this, that they are extremes: And it is hard to judge which is the worse. Consider yourselves, behold your frame, and how you are built up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of both, Body and Soul. Empty and humble your Souls, bow your Understandings, subdue your Wills, be lower and lower, viler and viler yet in your own eyes. But let this Humility have so much power as to draw the Body after it, to bow and bend it, to lay it on the ground at his footstool whose hands did make and fashion it. If it be true Humility, this power it will have. And this Humility God will behold and favour: He will dwell in an humble Soul, and delight in a prostrate body; and at the restauration of all things he will reunite the body and the soul, and exalt them in the highest heavens, there to fall down before the Lamb, and praise him for evermore. The Eighth SERMON. PART II. 1 PET. V 6. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. IN these words we have 1. a Duty, Humble yourselves: 2. Reason's enforcing it; one pointing to the hand of God, his mighty hand; another implied in the note of Illation, Therefore, which reflecteth upon the verse before my Text; Where Pride meeteth with check, God resisteth the proud. If we will not humble ourselves under his hand, his hand will humble us. So that Humble yourselves therefore is the conclusion, and the Power and the Will of God are the Premises, both aeternae veritatis, of necessary and eternal truth; and all make up a perfect Demonstration. But such is our weakness and ignorance, nay such is our perverseness, that we thwart principles; and, whatsoever the Premises are, stand out against the Conclusion. Of God's Power we may cry out with the Prophet, Who hath believed our report? or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And his Will we do but pray it may be done, and fulfil our own. What now will move us? Our last part presenteth a most winning motive: And it is God's hand still, but his hand not armed with a thunderbolt, but holding out a reward, an Exaltation stronger than a Demonstration. Goodness is more persuasive than Power, and a Promise more rhetorical than a Command. Omnes mercede ducimur. He that commandeth with promise, he that cometh with a reward, shall more prevail then seven wise men that can render a reason. Of the Duty we have spoken already in general. We called it an Exercise; and we shown you in what it doth consist. We gave you the extent of it, and told you that it is an exercise full of pain and toilsome, in which we fight against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness, and against the wantonness of the flesh; beating down imaginations, all averseness in the Understanding, and all frowardness in the Will; subduing both Soul and body to the obedience of the truth; working wonders in the Soul, and manifesting itself also in the outward man, in a cast-down eye, in a weak hand, in a feeble knee, glorifying God both in soul and body. Let us now descend to a more particular delineation. And there is a word in my Text which, if well and rightly placed, giveth all the lines and dimensions of it; and that word is but a Preposition, and the Preposition but a monosyllable. But the sound of it is harsh in our ear, and findeth no better entertainment and welcome with us then if it were a Satire or a Libel. It is the Preposition SUB. We must humble ourselves under. Et quantum turbat monosyllabon? How are we troubled with this one monosyllable? Our nature is stiff and stubborn, and this Preposition, this monosyllable, is a yoke. SUB TUTORIBUS, under tutors, a hard Text for the Heir. G l 4.2. O how doth he expect and long for the appointed time, when he shall be his own man and Lord of all! SUB POTESTATE DOMINI, under the power of the Master, so should Servants be. Eph. 6.5. But they are not so always, with good will doing service. It is many times but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the downcast of the eye. You see them on the ground, at your feet; but in their mind they are on horseback. SUB POTESTATE VIRI, under the power of the husband, Gen. 3.16. is scarce good Scripture with every Wife. No: set the Servant on horseback, make the Heir a Lord, and the Wife the head; either no coming under, no SUB at all, or else misplace it. But SUB PRAECEPTO, under the Command, there we should be. For as that was made for us, so were we elemented and made up and sitted for that, for a Law and Precept: Which whilst we keep under, we are in the way to perfection. In Religion there is Order, and in Order there is a SUB, a coming under. Here there is a precept, Humble yourselves. How come we under it? No otherwise than if we were brought under a yoke. Every command is our captivity, every injunction an imprisonment. Lex ligat; Enact a Law, and we are in fetters. Nay, Lex occidit; the Law is a kill letter in this sense too: He that bringeth us a command might as well present us with poison or a sword, and bid us kill ourselves. At the first hearing one goeth away sorrowful, another angry; another laborem fingit in praecepto, hath seen a lion, some perilous difficulty, in the way. Every man is ill-affected, and wisheth him silenced that bringeth it. Nay further yet; The Gospel of peace, an Angel bringeth it; yet we know what entertainment it found. Nay, how was he entreated who is α and ω, the Beginning and the End, the Author and Finisher of the Gospel? Let him be crucified, say the Jews. Ecquis Christus cum suâ fabula? say the Heathen; Away with Christ and his Legend. And now we, who name Christ, and delight in that name, and make our boast of the Gospel all our life long, how do we struggle and strive under it, as dying men do for breath! Deny yourselves; Take up your cross; they are the voice of Wisdom crying out unto us, and no man regardeth it. Not SUB LEGE, under the Law; the Gospel hath taken away that SUB: but not SUB GRATIA, we are unwilling to come under Grace, and SUB CHRISTO, under Christ himself. The shadow of his wings is as full of terror to us as the shadow of Death. This, this was it which killed God's Prophets, stoned his Messengers, burned his Martyrs, crucified the Lord of life himself, and at this day crucifieth him afresh, and putteth him to open shame, our want of Humility, our falling out with and not obeying the Gospel of Christ. It is the Apostle's phrase. 2 Thes. 1.8. This trampleth under foot the blood of the new Testament, as if it were a profane and unholy thing. But we must remember that this SUB, this neglected and scorned Preposition, is that we hold by, all we can show, all the Patent we have for heaven. Had not Christ come SUB TEGMINE CARNIS, as Arnobius speaketh, under the covert of our flesh, in the form of a servant; had he not been made SUB LEGE, under the Law; had he not been brought SUB CULTRO, under the knife, at his circumcision; had he not been SUB CRUSE; undergone the Cross, we had been SUB PECCATO, under sin, under the cross, and as low as Hell itself. It it most true; Nothing but Humility could save us. And when we could not bring an Humility equal to our Pride, nor a Repentance answerable to our Disobedience, than He that was above all was made under the Law, Col. 1.24. and humbled himself. But yet there be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, something behind, of the afflictions and humility of Christ. Not that his Humility was imperfect; but, that ours be also, his required. For an humble Head and proud Members, an humble Christ and a stiff necked Christian, is a foul incongruity, a monster made up of God and Belial. Something than of Christ's Humility is behind, not that his Humility was imperfect, but that ours is also requisite; not ex parte operationis suae, as if he had not fully accomplished the work of our Redemption, but ex parte cooperationis nostrae, in respect of something to be performed by us: not that it was his Talon, and our mite; his three parts, and our one. No: he paid down the price of our Redemption at one full and entire payment, and that de suo, of his own; he borrowed not of us. His SUB, his Humility, was able to raise a thousand worlds: and yet our Humility must come in with a SUB too; we must be under his yoke, under his afflictions, under his cross, and under him in all obedience, that so we may be conformable to his death, and die to sin, as he died for it. Humility without Obedience, without a SUB, without Subjection, is a cross Humility, nay it is the very height of pride. In Humility there is a SUB, Heb. 10.20. a coming under; and by it the Christian liveth, and moveth, and hath his being. His whole life is Humility, every motion of his is in Humility, and his very essence and being is Humility. This is the new and living way, hard and rough, but leading to life. And in this the Christian moveth and walketh humbly before his God, not opening his eyes, but to see the wonders of his Law; not opening his mouth, but in Hallelujahs; not opening his ears, but to his voice; not ordering his steps, but with fear and trembling; being (as he defined a Monk) assidua naturae violentia, nothing else in himself but a continued and assiduous violence, and beating down of the corruptions and swell of the flesh. This spreadeth and diffuseth itself through every vein and branch, through every part and action of his life. When he casteth his bread upon the waters, his hand is guided by Humility. When he speaketh to God in prayer, Humility conceiveth the Petition. When he fasteth, Humility is in capite jejunii, beginneth the fast. When he exhorteth, Humility breatheth the exhortation forth. When he instructeth, Humility dictateth. When he correcteth, Humility maketh the rod. Whatsoever he doth, he doth as under God. Nay, in his Faith is Humility: for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Theodoret, a voluntary submission of his soul: In his Hope is Humility: for it waiteth in expectation, Rom 4.18. waiteth even against Hope itself. In his Charity is Humility a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it endureth all things. Proprii actus singularum virtutum, say the Schools, Virtues both Moral and Theological, like the celestial Orbs, have their peculiar motion proceeding from their internal forms, but Humility is the Intelligence which keepeth and perpetuateth that motion; as those Orbs by some are said to have the conservation of their motion by some assistant Form without. Behold, I show you a Paradox; A Christian is the freest and the most subject creature in the world, set at Liberty, and yet kept under. Even our Christian Liberty hath its SUB, admitteth of a restraint, is brought under, and bindeth us ab illicitis semper, quandoque & à licitis, from unlawful things always, and sometimes from that which is lawful. S. Paul, I am sure, was as free as we; and yet he nameth some case wherein he humbleth and abridgeth himself so far as not to eat flesh whilst the world standeth. I say, 1 Cor. 8.13. our Christian Liberty hath its SUB; Nay, it hath many. And it is the greatest part of our Humility to confine it. First, it cometh SUB SOBRIETATE. Sobriety and Temperance must bond and limit the outward practice of it. Gen. 9.3. God hath given every moving thing that liveth to be meat for us. He hath opened the Heavens, and and let all creatures down to us, as he did to Peter in his trance, and biddeth us rise, kill, and eat. All meats, all drinks are lawful. But there is a SUB. Humility must be our Carver and our Cupbearer. And we must so eat and so drink that our hearts be not overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, that our table become not a snare, and that we make not those things which God hath ordained for our health, an occasion of falling. So for apparel, we have freedom to use any cloth, any colour: but Humility must come in and check and limit this Liberty, that we abuse not the creature to pride and vanity. Next, our Christian Liberty cometh SUB CHARITATE, under Charity, both to myself, and to my brethren. For ourselves, we must remove every thing out of the way which may offend us, though as useful as our right Hand, or as dear as our right Eye. And so for others; we must not use the creature with offence or scandal to our weaker brethren. LICET is a word of enlargement, and giveth us elbow-room; but NON EXPEDIT, It is not expedient, cometh in case of scandal to pinion us, that we reach not out our hand to things otherwise lawful. A NON EXPEDIT maketh a NON LICET. The questions and cases are infinite in particular, and multiplied more than needs by the pride, not weakness, of men, who will startle and cry out at a thing indifferent in itself and laudable in its use, and yet greedily swallow down the most mortal sin. But yet the position in general is plain, That in some things our Humility must pity others Pride, and that for their sakes we may and aught to condescend, and for charity's sake abridge ourselves of some part of our Christian Liberty; which cometh SUB CHARITATE, under Charity, the mother of Humility. There is another SUB, SUB AUTORITATE, under Authority. And, this, if you please to consult the verse immediately before my Text, you will think the Apostle especially meant. For he exhorteth the younger to submit themselves to the elder, and all of them to be subject one unto another, and to be clothed with Humility. And this may seem to be the most proper SUB of all. For our Sobriety, we too often get above it, and tread it under our feet; and the bond of Charity we break as it were a thread at pleasure. But Authority carrieth with it a command; and when our Christian Liberty like a flood casteth down all before it, this steppeth in, and speaketh in the voice of God himself, Hitherto thou shalt go, and no further. It is true; where the Spirit is, there is freedom: and it is as true; where the Spirit is, there is obedience, and he is a Spirit of Obedience as well as of Truth. And if we make no better use of our Liberty then to fling it over our shoulders and wear it is a cloak of maliciousness, he is ready to pull it off and tell us our duty. That for all our Liberty we are to serve one another; That Christianity destroyeth not relations, of Son to Father, of Servant to Man, of Wife to Husband, of Inferior to Superior, but establisheth them rather, 1 Pet. 2.13. That we must submit to every ordinance of man, and that it is his will it should be so, Vers. 15. The rule is certain and everlasting, Omne verum omni vero consonat; Not only in Arts and Sciences, but in matters of practice and Christian discipline, there is a kind of harmony and dependency of Truths; one devoureth not another: Nor is my Duty to my Superior lost in my Christian Liberty. Beloved, the want of this SUB, of so much Humility as to keep our own place, hath cost Christiendom dear, and so shaken the Church of Christ that she hath fallen asunder by Schisms, mouldered into Sects, and crumbled into Conventicles, and found her greatest enemies in her own house. Christian Liberty, if we keep it within its bounds, is Christ's purchase and legacy, and the Christian's patrimony and inheritance. But if we suffer it to fly out and overflow, and break down its banks and limits, and to be driven on violently with every wind of doctrine, it will at last bring in a deluge of disorder, and the dissolution of the Church itself; and for a Congregation of Saints it will present us with a herd and rabble of Corahs' and Rabshakehs and Shebas, whose surname is Christian. No: Liberty must not only have Sobriety and Charity to restrain it, but lawful Authority to countermand it. This is the full compass of our Christian Liberty, drawn out by the hand of Humility itself. And therefore we must not, as S. Basil speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, remove these everlasting bounds. For, if we run over them, or pluck them up, our LICET is a NON LICET; what is lawful is made sinful: our very Liberty enthralleth us, and we most rashly and unwisely enslave ourselves with a privilege. And therefore I should tell you of another SUB to strengthen this. And it is involved in it; and without it there is no Subjection, without Subjection no Coming under, and without that no Humility. I cannot tell whether I should call it a SUB, or no. For here is no descent, no coming under. It is only to be what we are, to keep our own places, and to know what rank or station we are in; That Corah rise not up against Moses, nor Absalon think his head fit for his father's crown; That every Artisan meddle not in our matters of Divinity; That Mechanics teach not Superiors how to govern, nor Divines how to preach. A Subordination will do well. In the course of Nature we plainly, see it; the Heaven stretched forth as a canopy to compass the Air, the Air moving about the Earth, and the Earth keeping its Centre, and the Centre . The Sun knoweth his season, and the Moon her going down. The Stars start not out of their spheres. Heavy bodies asccnd not, nor do light bodies strive downwards. All the parts of the Universe are linked and tied together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by the law of Providence, and to this end that they may subsist and stand fast for ever. It is so in the ways of Grace, which entereth not violently, but by degrees, thy Faith under Hearing, and thy Obedience under Faith; thy Experience under Patience, and thy Hope under Experience. And it is so, or should be so, in every Body either Civil or Ecclesiastical. Every member must keep its place and office: The Foot is not to see, nor the Eye to walk, nor the Tongue to hear, nor the Ear to speak. Not all Prophets, not all Teachers, not all Apostles; but every man▪ in his own order. As a garden, saith Nazianzene, drawn out by a skilful hand presenteth the eye with more delight than one single flower doth and as the Heaven with all its ornaments is more glorious than one single Star, and as the Body is more beautiful than the Hand or Eye; so a well-ordered Church, where it is, is more glorious than one man of what eminency soever, more glorious than when every man will be a Church himself, and every man teach and grovern every man; it being the glory of the Church not to be one, but one of many, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, a body fitly joined and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, and entire body made up of the collection of all the members into the unity thereof, so that each member hath its place and dependency and subordination, and cannot subsist without it. We see what amazing effects are wrought when the Waters are lifted up into the Air, or when the Air getteth into the caverns of the Earth. We hear it from above in thunders, and we feel it from below in earthquakes; Thunder and Earthquakes, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, names of perturbation and disorder. And what Thunder is in the air, that is Sedition in a Commonwealth; and what Earthquakes are, that are Schisms in a Church. They rend and tear the body of it, as we read that some Earthquakes have removed pieces of ground from one place to another. And all this is for want of Humility, for want of this SUB, Subordination; all because every wheel will not move in its own place, a wheel within a wheel, or a sphere within a sphere, but every man in the first orb, the great wheel compassing all. A great evil this under the Sun: and if it hath not had edge enough to cut us to the heart, our hearts are stone, and therefore to be removed by Humility. Every man must learn to keep his SUB, his dependence, and not at pleasure, with the help of a pretence, leap over it. Every man, wherein he is called, ought there to abide, and not start aside into another's place; not superbire. not superire: It is the School-man's Etymon; not be proud, and walk over his station, and then look down with contempt upon the place where he should stand. I may now perhaps seem to some to stand guilty of a foul neglect of those circumstances which should as it were stand about my Text and guard it; I may seem to have mistake both the Times and my Text. For in these times to speak of Subordination is in effect to chide the Winds, to whistle down a Tempest, to commend Order in a wilderness, and, when all is consumed with fire, conclamare cives, to call out to neighbours to help to quench it. But, Speciosum nomen Ordinis, saith Hilary; The name of Peace and Order is a fair and specious name, and the doctrine of it is never unseasonable. And if Confusion seem the best order to some, as Snow appeared black to Anaxagoras, yet it may still have the same face and countenance to others, at least put them in remembrance from whence they are fallen. But what is this to Humility? Yes, much, as the Apostle speaketh, every manner of way. You might expect perhaps that I should have showed you the blushing Cheek, the drooping Eye, the cast down Countenance, the Head hanging down like a bulrush; that I should have commended to your Lowliness and Dejection of mind, Contempt and Hatred of ourselves. And so I have, and I have done it in this, in commending to you practic Humility. For so a learned Writer paraphraseth my Text, Deo vos regendos permittite, Submit yourselves to God's government, and walk in those ways which he hath appointed for you. And if we look back upon particulars, we shall find it true. For the Servant to be under the Master, is to be under God: For, this is the will of God, saith the Apostle, For the Wife to be under the power of her Husband, is to be under God: For he so ordained it. For the Son to be under the Father, Gen. 3. is to be under God: It is his first command with promise. For Man to be under the Law, is to be under God: For the Law is nothing else but the mind of God. To be under the Gospel, is to be under God: For he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of it. And then to bond our Christian Liberty, to bring it under, under Sobriety, Charity, Authority, is to place ourselves under God, even under the shadow of his wings: For his wing and power spreadeth itself over all these. He gave us our Charter thus interlined, he passed over this Liberty unto us with these exceptions and limitations, that it should not break the bounds of Sobriety and the rules of Charity, nor fly lose, and lift itself up against Authority. And this we must do if we will put Humilitie's mantle, and be God's humble servants; we must have our SUB, we must come under, under the Precept, under the Gospel, under ourselves, under the meanest thought we have. Our Christian Liberty must come under Sobriety, under Charity, under Authority. And this will make us Descendent right, in our right point and aspect, in our Nadir, even SUB DEO, under God himself. Thus have we run the whole compass of the Duty, and at last brought you under the mighty hand of God. For that we may humble ourselves, the Apostle here bringeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Theodoret calleth it, the plough of Reason, to blow up the fallow-ground of our hearts, and dig up Pride by the very roots; and he calleth us to the consideration of God's Power, of his mighty hand, with which he bindeth Kings in chains, and Nobles with fetters of iron; with which he bruiseth the nations, and breaketh them to pieces like a potter's vessel. And if any thing will strike reverence into us, and melt and thaw our petrified hearts, God's Power will. If his Eye, his care and providence over us, if his Ear, his facility in hearing our complaints, if his Tongue, his Prophets and Teachers, will not, yet his powerful hand should humble us. Sure I am, this is the rule of Wisdom itself: and, if you will trust S. Peter and his keys, this is the low door of Humility; and the righteous must enter into it. Unto the Mighty bow we should: For what he will do we know not, but what he can do we know, even in a moment humble us so that we shall never lift up our heads again: And when we are advancing our plumes, and thinking what goodly creatures we are, he can humble that thought too, and strike us into a spiritual dejection; nay, annihilate that thought, and, which is worse, punish that thought, which hath but the continuance of a thought, Psal. 46.6. everlastingly. The Lord uttered his voice, and the earth melted, saith the Psalmist. When Power speaketh, every thing, even the mountains and rocks, and those Hearts which are more exalted and harder than they, should melt. We see how the Power of Man, of as near kin to the Worm and Rottenness as we, doth rule and awe us; how it doth unnaturalize and unprinciple and unman us, and even transform us into Beasts; how it fettereth the Hand, and naileth the Tongue to the roof of the mouth; how it maketh us kiss the hand that striketh us, worship what we hate, and fall down before any Idol it shall set up; how it maketh us to say that we do not think, to swear to that we know a lie, to do that which we were never resolved to do, to do that to day which we loathed and abhorred yesterday; We see how many proselytes it maketh, how he is able to baptise a Jew, and circumcise a Christian, and make them both at last turn Turks: And shall not the hand of God bow us, to whom all Power belongeth? Shall the breath of mortals make the earth to tremble and shake? and shall it be earth still, or a senseless and rock, when God is angry? Why are we so led by Sense, and yet so much commend the Eye of Faith as to give her a more certain knowledge then that of Sense, and yet fear that we see more than that we believe? fear the shaking of a mortal's whip more than the scorpions of a Deity? fear a prison more than Hell, and the frown of a man more than the wrathful displeasure of God? Why do we call him the mighty God, and make it an article of our Creed, when we do not believe it? And if we believe it, why do we sleep when God thundereth, and startle when Man threateneth? Why do ye fear? Why do ye not fear? Why do you fear where no fear is, and not fear him who alone is to be feared, O ye of little faith? Beloved, what can God do more than he hath done to make bare his arm and manifest his power? His Voice is in his thunder, his Power is in his judgements, his mighty Hand is always over us. But hath it not of late been as visible as that Hand Belshazzar saw written upon the wall? Might we not even read a TEKEL and a PERES in capital letters? Do we not see how little we weighed, and how much we lost? I will not ask now, Whose thoughts have troubled him? Whose joints have been loosed? Whose knees have smote one against another? But, What hath this Hand, this mighty Hand, this visible Hand, wrought in us? Hath it dulle● the teeth of the Oppressor, or deadened the appetite of the Intemperate? Hath it beat the deceitful weights out of the bag? Hath it bound the hand of the Sacrilegious, or stopped the mouth of the Blasphemer? Hath it plucked the phylacteries from the Pharisee, or the visor from the Hypocrite? Hath it turned our harp into mourning, or our purple into sackcloth? Miserable men that we are! and the more miserable that we feel it not, but lie under God's hand, nay feel the weight of it, and so behave ourselves as if he had no hand at all! To be under his hand when he striketh, and not to bow; to be broken and bruised, and yet not humble; to be brayed as it were in a mortar, and be as very fools as before, O dolour! what a grief is this? saith the Father: nay, what a judgement is this? To be under God's hand, and not to bow; to be under judgement, and not to feel it, is the last and greatest judgement in this world. But the best sight of God's Power is in his Mercy. For his Mercy hath a hand as well as his Justice; and there is a Crown and Diadem in the hand of the Lord, as well as a Thunderbolt. Isa. 62.3. And indeed our Humiliation is never so kindly, never so proper, as when it is the product of Mercy. There is mercy with thee, that thou mayest be feared, Psal. 130.4. saith David. This was the end why the acceptable year of the Lord was preached, and a Jubilee proclaimed. God was reconciled to his enemies, that they might be friends; he bought them with a price, that they might bow before him; he was willing to forget their pride, that they might renounce it: And that they may be low in their own conceit, he placeth them high in his favour, and entitleth them to a Kingdom: He sealeth their pardon, that he might sow Humility in their hearts. This was the true end why Repentance and Forgiveness of sins was published, to set a period to sin, and to destroy him who is King over the children of pride. For if the hand of God and eternal death had laid upon all mankind, if there had been no hope of mercy and reconciliation, there had been no place for Humility; but sad Despair of ever being high, and Certainty of being cast down for ever, had swallowed up all Humility and Religion in victory. But now Deus sevit poenitentiam, saith Tertullian; God first sowed the seed of Repentance, that Humility might grow up with it; proclaimed pardon of sin, that men might be humbled for their sin; calleth himself a Father of mercies, that we his children might be the more willing to acknowledge ourselves to be but dust and ashes. For we may observe that nothing hath more force and energy to conciliate and bow the hearts of men than Mercy and Beneficence. Nunquam magìs nomina facio, quàm cùm dono, saith Seneca; I never oblige men more than by giving. Who can swell under an obligation? Who can withstand these everlasting burn? Who can rise up under that hand which is sealing his pardon? Who will not be his humble servant that will knock off his fettets and set him at liberty? Magnes amoris, amor; Love is the loadstone to draw on Love, even that Love which is the mother of Humility. And therefore we shall find that the Saints of God did never so humble (shall I call it, or disgrace?) themselves as when they were in greatest favour. If Jacob have an Angel sent unto him, Gen. 32. than he strait contracteth and shrinketh himself, I am less than the least of thy blessings: Vers. 10. for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands. When Nathan had pronounced David's pardon, than he lieth down on the ground, washeth his couch with his tears, writeth those Penitential Psalms in perpetuam rei memoriam, and setteth them up as so many pillars of remembrance, that the generations which were not born might see his Humility, and praise the lord What am I? or what is my father's household? saith he. And when S. Paul had received favour, I may ask, What was he? A servant of Christ; An elect vessel. And he was so; for God himself styleth him so. But what doth he write himself? what is his style? 1 Cor. 15. The very lest of the Apostles; An abortive, born out of due time, such as they use to cast it away. 1 Tim. 1.15. The chief of sinners. In the register of God, a Saint: but in his own eyes, the greatest of sinners. Thus have all the Saints of God bowed themselves under the hand that raised them up, have been humbled with favours, never lower than when they have been in the third heaven, bended most when they have been laden with benefits; like ears of corn in harvest, full and hanging down the head, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God; mighty to destroy you, and mighty to save you. And that we may be active in this Christian exercise, in the last place, look upon the Motive and Reward; which might yield us matter for a large discourse, but must now serve only for a conclusion. Humble yourselves, and he shall exalt you. 1. This is God's method, his analytical method, by which he resolveth us into our principles, into a spiritual Nothing, and then raiseth us up into a new creature; first beateth down the sinner, and then raiseth up the Saint; first striketh us to the ground, and then ripeneth the heavens, and showeth us Christ sitting at the right hand of God. It is his method, to heal us by contraries, to cure us by diseases, to raise us by ruin; first to wound, and then to kiss us. These two, Humility and Glory, stand well together, and we must not separate them. 2. Nay, as Christ calleth his Cross his exaltation, so is Humility ours. We are lifted up upon it, as he was upon his Cross; lifted up above the errors and vanities of the world, lifted up to converse with Seraphim and Cherubin, nay to have fellowship with God himself. It lifteth up our Understanding to apprehend God. For the lower we are, the clearlier we see him. Humility seethe that which is veiled to Pride. It lifteth up the Will co embrace him. For Humility and Obedience are our embracing of God. It lifteth up the Affections, and setteth them on things above. It lifteth us up, and buildeth us up a Temple, a receptacle for God. Isa. 57.15. For he that dwelleth in the highest Heaven, will dwell also in the lowly spirit, in the highest heaven, which is his habitation above; and in the humble spirit, which is his heaven below. It is, saith the devout School-man, the most potent Monarchy in the world, making us rich by making us poor, making us strong by making us weak, making us Kings by making us servants, making us wise by making us fools, giving us all things by leaving us nothing, laying us at God's foot that we may sit in his bosom. Scio quibus viribus opus est, saith the Father; I know what strength I had need of to persuade high minded men to be humble, or that Heaven is so low-arched that we must stoop to enter. But the eye of Faith (I had almost said, of Reason) may soon discover Humility in these rays of glory. And he that shall set himself seriously to this Christian exercise of Humbling himself under God, shall certainly find the force and omnipotency of this virtue, and what wonders it can work in his soul; shall feel it cheering his spirits, strengthening his hand, slumbering all tumults, filling his heart, and fortifying it against all assaults of the Enemy, against all the darts of Satan, against all those evils which could not hurt us, did we not stand so high, and think too well of ourselves, as of privileged persons exempt from those temptations which are common to men. This is the power, the Monarchy of Humility; 1 Cor. 10.13. To raise up our Understandings to supernatural truths, to behold a loathsome World, which others dote on; delightful Statutes, which others are afraid of; blessed Afflictions, which others tremble at; To place our Wills under God's will, which is to make us one with him; To rouse our Affections to things above. And this it will do in our mortal bodies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, when it is most seasonable, in these last times, these worst of times, these times of darkness and blackness: And then when this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, when Time shall be no more, it will make our exaltation complete, and crown us with immortality and eternal glory. The Ninth SERMON. COL. III. 2. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. THe whole scope and drift of this Epistle is, That all the hope of man's happiness is placed in Christ alone, and that therefore we must rest in the faith of Christ, and live according to the prescript of the Gospel. Now the voice of Christ and the Gospel is, Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof, that is, the things above; and, Love not the world, nor the things of the world, that is, the things on the earth. The words are, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifieth To Esteem, or Judge rightly of. So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Matth. 16.23. Thou savourest not the things of God; Thou judgest not aright of them. Sometimes, To Care for, or Desire. So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 8.6. the desire of the flesh. To savour, Rightly to Judge of, To affect and desire the things above, that is it which Christian Religion enjoineth. And it implieth both an act of the Understanding, Conceiving aright of these things; and an act of the Will and Affections, Approving and embracing them; Fastened to the things above, but averse and flying the things on the earth. And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the things above, are either the End, or the Means; either the Kingdom of heaven and the beatifical Vision of God, or those things which lead unto it, the graces of the Spirit, Faith, Charity, Holiness, Contempt of the world; which are those seeds which grow up into a tree of life, and the way by which we press unto the mark. And our affections must be set on both: For he that loveth not Obedience, loveth not Pardon; he that loveth not the Cross, loveth not the Crown; he cannot long for heaven, whose conversation is not there already. Now these are the things above. For the things on the earth, they are not worth a gloss or descant, and we understand them but too well. These are the words: And they divide themselves as the Law is divided, into Do, and Do not; an Affirmation, and Negation; calling and inviting our affections to the things above, and taking them off from the things on the earth. We will draw them both together in this general and useful Observation or Doctrine, which naturally, without tort or violence, issueth from them both, That the chief end and work of Christian Religion is, To abstract and draw the soul of man from sensual objects, and level and confine it to that object which is most fitted and proportioned to it, even the things above. A Doctrine which cannot be gainsayed, but yet is not received of men with that firm and reverend persuasion of mind it should. For who hath believed this report? We must therefore make it good both by Scripture and Reason. And, first, we hear David, the father, professing that God's word was a lamp unto his feet, Psal. 119.105. and a light unto his paths, a light to burn by night, 2 Pet. 1.19. a light that shineth in a dark place, leading us from Egypt to the Promised land, through the darkness of this world to that light which no eye of flesh can attain; guiding us from that which is pleasant to that which is honest, from that which is fair to that which is good, from that which flattereth the sense to that which perfecteth the reason; taking our thoughts from this world, and fixing them on that new world wherein dwelleth righteousness. And we may hear Solomon, the son, as it were paraphrasing it, Prov. 15.24. and rendering it into other words, The way of life is above to the wise, that he may departed from hell beneath. Above to him that is wise, who looketh upon no light but that from heaven, which discovereth the deceit and inconstancy and danger of those objects which may display to the sense a beauty like that of heaven, but to us are made as hell beneath, and tend thither. For he that followeth his eye to the next vanity, his ear to every pleasant sound, his taste to every dainty, his senses to every fair object that offereth itself, is not wise. And therefore we may hear the Son of David indeed, but wiser than Solomon, tell his Disciples, John 15.19. John 17.6. Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. And I have manifestd thy name to the men which thou gavest me out of the world. And indeed what is the whole Gospel of Christ but Spoliarium sensuum? a confinement, a punishment, a kind of execution, of the sensitive part, teaching us to beat down and tame, to crucify and mortify the flesh, to deny ourselves, and our sensual inclinations, in which we are most ourselves, and least ourselves, most tractable, and lest what we should be, Men; where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the beast, the brutish part, swalloweth up the Man, the Reason: in a word, to be dead to the world. This is the constant language of the Gospel, of that wisdom which descended from above. For the time past, 1 Pet. 4.3. saith S. Peter, may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, to have lived in the flesh, in the lusts of men: But now Christ hath suffered in the flesh, we also must be of the same mind, and cease from sin, and not defeat him of his end, which was, to set an end to our lusts, and destroy the works of the flesh. The time past may suffice, nay it is too much. But now light is come into the world, we must walk as children of the light, and by that light discover horror in Beauty, poverty in Wealth, dishonour in Glory, a hell kindling in those delights which are our Heaven upon earth. The ear, that harkened to every Siren's song, must be stopped; the eye, that was open to vanity, must be shut by covenant; the fancy checked, the appetite dulled, the affections bridled, and we must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, spiritualised substances; though immured in matter, in the gross and carnal part, in the flesh, yet out of the flesh; having eyes, yet see not; ears, yet hear not; hands, but touch not; in a word, chosen, culled, abstracted from the world. I will give you one reason from the Nature and excellency of the soul; another, from that huge Disproportion which sensual objects hold with that diviner part. We may ask with the Psalmist, Psal. 89.47. Hast thou made all men in vain? Or rather we cannot ask the question. For without question God made not such an excellent creature but for an excellent end; I created him for my glory, I have form him, yea I have made him. Isa. 43.7. God made Man to communicate his goodness and wisdom to him, to make him partaker of the Divine nature, and a kind of God upon earth, to imprint his image on him, by which according to his measure and capacity he might represent God, 1. by the Knowledge, not only 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 itself, groaneth 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 groan in himself, waiting for the adoption and redemption of his body, not only 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 itself, 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 only to forge deceit, to contrive plots, to find out the twilight, an opportunity to do mischief, to invent instruments of music, 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 than 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 axe to the root of the tree, did levelly 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 only 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 cranny that may let the soul out to wander after the things of this world; toeth us up closer than humane Reason could, and improveth and exalteth our Reason to busy itself 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 Gospelers 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 woo, so lay hold on, a thing of nothing, or worse than 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 trod 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 music, 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 Cherubin; elevated thoughts, towering 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 satisfy 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 than disgrace. The fashion of this world, saith the Apostle, passeth away: And what is that that passeth away to that which is immortal? The Heart of man is but a little member; It will not, saith S. Bernard, give a Kite its break fast: and yet it is too large a receptacle for the whole world. In toto nihil singulis satìs est; There is nothing in the whole Universe which is enough for one particular man, in which the appetite of any one man can rest. And therefore since Satisfaction cannot be had under the Sun, here below, we must seek for it above. And herein consisteth the excellency, the very life and essence of Christian Religion; To exalt the Soul, to draw it back from mixing with these things below, and lift it up above the highest heavens; To unite it to its proper object; To make that which was the breath of God, Gen. 2.7. breathe nothing but God, think of nothing, desire nothing, seek for nothing but from above, from whence it had its beginning. The Soul is as the Matter; the things above, the Form. The Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (so Plato calleth Matter) the receptacle, of things above, as the Matter is of Forms: And it is never rightly actuated, or of a perfect being, till it receiveth the heavenly graces. The Soul is the Pot, the Vial, (so Chrysostom calleth it) not wherein is put Manna, but the Son and the holy Ghost, and those things which they send from above. The Soul is as the Ground, and these the Seed, the Soul, the Matrix, the Womb, to receive them. Matth. 13. And there is a kind of sympathy betwixt the immortal Seed and the Heart and Mind of Man, as there is between Seed and the Womb of the earth. For the Soul no sooner seethe the things above unveiled and unclouded, not disguised by the interveniencie of things below, by disgrace, poverty, and the like, but upon a full manifestation she is taken, as the Bridegroom in the Canticles, with their eye and beauty. Heaven is a fair sight, even in their eyes whose ways tend to destruction. For there is a kind of nearness and alliance between the things above and those notions and principles which God imprinted in us at the first. Therefore Nature itself had a glimpse and glimmering light of these things, and saw a further mark to aim at then the World in this span of time could set up. Hence Tully calleth Man a mortal God, born to two things, to Understand, and Do. And Seneca telleth us that by that which is best in Man, our Reason, we go before other creatures, but follow and seek after the first Good, which is God himself. Again, as these things bear a correspondence with the Mind and Soul of man as the Seed doth with the Womb of the earth, so hath the Soul of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a formative faculty, to shape and fashion them, and by the influence of God's Grace and the kindly aspect of the Spirit to bring forth something of the same nature, some heavenly creature, to live in the world and hate it, to walk in it and tread it under its foot, THE NEW MAN, which is renewed after the image of God, Vers. 1●. made up in righteousness and holiness. The beauty of Holiness may beget that Violence in us which may break open the gates of heaven; the virtue of Christ's Cross may beget an army of Martyrs; and the Glory above may raise us up even out of the dust, out of all our faculties, to lay hold on it; that so we may be fitted as with planes, and marked out as with the compass, as the Prophet Esay speaketh in another sense; that we may be fitted to glory and those things above, as others are to destruction. Rom. 9.22. 2 Tim. 4.8. 1 Cor. 2.9. John 14.3. And hence this glory is said to be laid up, and to be prepared for them which love God. And our Saviour now sitteth in heaven to prepare a place for them, even for all those who by setting their affections on things above are fitted and prepared for them. Thus you see it is the chief work and end of Christian Religion to abstract and draw the Soul from sensual and carnal objects, and to levelly and confine it to that object which is fitted and proportioned to it, even the things above. This is the work of the Gospel, by which if we walk, we shall suspect and fear the things below, the pleasures and glory of this world, as full of danger, and set our affections on those things which are above, and so have our conversation in heaven, from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, Let us now see what use we can make of this, and draw it near to us by application. And certainly, if Christian Religion doth draw the Soul from that which is pleasing to the Sensitive part, than we ought to try and examine ourselves and our Religion by this touchstone, by this rule, and be jealous and suspicious and afraid of that Religion which most holdeth compliance with the Sense and with our worldly desires, which flattereth and cherisheth that part at which the Soul goeth forth, and too often bringeth back Death along with her; which doth miscere Deum & seculum, join God and Mammon, the Spirit and the Flesh, Christ and the World together, and maketh them friendly to communicate with each other, and so maketh the Christian a monster, crying, Abba, Father, but honouring the world; falling down, and worshipping Christ, not in a stable, but in a palace; taking him not with persecution and self-denial, but with honours, riches and pleasures, which in true esteem are but as the Apostle termeth them, dung. I will not mention the Heathen. For what Religion can they have who are without God in the world? Nor yet Mahumetism; although we see with what ease it prevailed and got a side, and overflowed the greater part of the world, because it brought with it a carnal Paradise, an eternity of lusts, and such alluring promises as the sensual part could relish and digest well enough, though they were never foe absurd. If from these we pass over into Christendom, we shall soon see Christian Religion falling from its primitive purity, remitting much of its rigour and severity, painted over with a smiling countenance, made to favour that which formerly it looked upon as capital, and which deserved no better wages than death. For how hath the Church of Rome fitted and attempered it to the sensitive part and most corrupt imaginations, pulled off her sackcloth, put on embroidery, and made her all glorious without; Allaying it with Worshipping of Saints, which is but a carnal thing; and Worshipping of Images, a carnal thing; Turning Repentance into Penance; Fasting, into Difference of meats; Devotion, into Numbering of beads; Shutting up all Religion in Obedience and Submission to that Church; Drawing out Religion from the heart to the gross and outward act? With what art doth she uphold herself in that state and pomp we behold her in at this day? How doth she apply Religion to every Humour? I had almost said, to every sin? For the Melancholic and discontent she provideth a Cloister; for the Active and Ingenious, great Employments; for the Ambitious, the Government of the world. How subtle and cunning hath she been to discern all humours and dispositions whatsoever? Look upon the Pope, and you shall see he layeth claim to all Dominion and State imaginable; and that because he pretendeth Religion requireth it. Look upon the Carthusian, and he will possess nothing; and that upon the very same reason. And thus to please every man's sense and humour, she hath framed a Religion in which extreme Poverty is made to piece and comply with extreme Luxury and Ambition. And is this, think you, to set our affections on things above? These certainly are things below our Reason, below our Religion; and unless we keep them below and tread them under foot, they will never lift us up above into heavenly places. But let us take off our eye from these, and more profitable employ it at home. And if the God of this world hath not quite blinded us, we shall soon see that we, who boast of our Religion all the day long, have also as Martin Luther used to speak, a Pope in our belly. We call our Church the pure and best reformed Church. Reformed, it is true, from Superstition: (would to God it were! for who more superstitious?) but is it so from Covetousness? We have some reason to fear that we did not cast out the Pope and the World together. For tell me, and tell me no more than your own Conscience will tell you; Do we confine our thoughts and desires to things above? or rather do we not call down things above to wait upon our lowest thoughts? Do we leave the World, and follow Christ? or do we not make use of Christ to usher in the World; as that Pagan in Ammianus Marcellinus, FACITE ME EPISCOPUM ROMANUM; Make me Bishop of Rome, and I will presently turn Christian? Are we not christians, or of this or that sect and faction of Christians, because it will make us something in the world? Do we not make Christ take Martha's part, and cumber him with many worldly things, and then leave him out in that which is necessary? Do we not trade, do we not deceive, do we not revenge, do we not fight in the name of the Lord Jesus? Behold, same have fitted their Religion to their ambition, and given it wings to fly to the highest seat. Some have drawn it down to wait on their delights, and made it sportful. Others have brought it low, to comply with their covetous desires: Nec avaritia nostra nobis sufficit, nisi avarum Christum faciamus; Nor are we content to travel greedily for the things below, and to bestow all our wisdom upon them, as the Wiseman speaketh, unless we call in Christ and Religion to countenance the matter, and seem as covetous as we. It is observed of the Romans, that before the corruption and decay of manners amongst them, they would not entertain a servant or officer but of a perfect and goodly shape; but afterwards, when luxury and riot prevailed, they diligently sought out, and counted it a kind of elegancy and state to take into their retinue, dwarves and monsters, men of a prodigious appearance, ludibria naturae, those errors and mockeries of Nature: So we may observe it to have fallen out in the profession of Christian Religion. In the rise and dawning of the Gospel men did lay hold on that faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints, and framed their lives to the simplicity and plainness of the rule; and he was esteemed the best Christian who was likest unto Christ, and who sought those things which are above, where Christ is. But when this glorious light had passed more degrees, men began to play the wantoness in the light, to seek out divers inventions, and Christian Religion was made to give way to those sick and loathsome humours which did pollute and defile it. Do we not see how every man almost hath learned an art to make a Religion to himself? to bury himself alive in the earth, and yet persuade himself he is ascending into heaven? to walk with atoms and shadows here below, and yet make you believe his conversation is above? to revenge, and yet be meek enough? to be wanton, and yet an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven? to chide the world, and tug it? to disgrace, and worship it? to be full of malice, cruelty, uncleanness, and yet a Saint? And in these fancies and creations of the mind do men please and delight themselves, and call it Religion, though it be as different from the true copy of Religion as a Monster is from a Man of perfect shape. And that Religion is commonly cried up with admiration which hath nothing marvellous in it but deformity. Beloved, Christianity is a most severe Religion: And as she pointeth to the things above, and to Christ, who is the author and finisher of Religion, so she casteth all disgrace upon things below, calleth them deceitful, transitory, uncertain, and Life itself but a vapour. But yet, I know not how, as we have disgraced and discoloured Religion in our manners, so we have taken pains to make it wanton and effeminate in our discourses. These precepts, Love not the world, Resist not evil, Lay not up treasures on earth, which are to flesh and blood but bitter pills, we have so gilded over with favourable glosses and interpretations that they have lost their purgative quality, work no change in us, but leave us as covetous, as revengeful, as wanton, as before. Set our affections on things above; that we will; but not give them such room in our hearts as to shoulder out our affections to the world, as to discharge us of that multitude of business in which nothing but our sensuality hath engaged us, as to bind and fetter us so that we shall not walk at liberty and with a full swinge in those ways which lead to Honour and Wealth, as to take off our eyes from those objects which we cannot but see, or our hand from reaching at that which fairly offereth itself, as to take us out of the world. Which is in effect to deny the power of Religion; to keep a form, but wound Christianity to the very heart. Christianity, I say; which is nothing else but as the sounding of a retreat, the voice of God, to call us out of the world. Oh beloved, God give us a full taste of the powers of the world to come! For when we give the World a full look, and cast but a negligent glance upon the things above; when we fix our wills and link our souls with vanity, and have but a sick and faint desire, a velleity, to be with Christ; are we not carnal? or do we set our affections on things above? When we count no sin venial, and yet commit every sin with that freedom and indifferency as if it were so, are we not carnal? When we hate a supposed evil in others more than we do a real one in ourselves, and then bid them departed from us, and are pleased and tickled with this bold defiance, and make it a sign and evidence of a good conscience to censure and condemn others for a bad, and count it our heaven upon earth to make every place a hell which we go out of, S. Paul himself will ask the question, Are you not carnal? I will but add; Do we settle our affections on things above, when we count it a heresy to affirm that ever Saint lived who did not oftener offend than do his duty? and think that God doth accept our faint and weak endeavours, the dawnings and small beginnings of obedience, our proffers to go out of the world, though we make it our Seraglio and place of pleasure? When we first upon false grounds and premises conclude that we are from the heaven, heavenly, even the beloved children of God, chosen out of the world; and then as boldly conclude that we are, like Thetis' son, invulnerable, that no sin how foul soever, no dart of Satan, can hurt us, though it stick in our sides; when we make these pillows of security, and lie down and sleep upon them, do we then truly set our affections on things above? Let us not deceive ourselves. These fancies and imaginations descend not from above, but are earthy, sensual, and devilish; or, at best, but as the sparks in a chimney, which fly upwards as if they would reach the firmament and fix themselves amongst the stars, but upon a sudden fail and fall and vanish into nothing; and Christian Religion chaseth them out of the soul, as the Devil's emissaries and spies sent to allure and corrupt it, to draw it from the object which is fitted to it, things above, and bow and incline and fasten it to vanity and to things below, which are nothing, or nothing worth, and, being from the earth, earthy, hold no proportion with the Soul, which is an immaterial substance, breathed into us by our Father which in heaven. The time is spent, and we must conclude. And we cannot conclude more appositely then with that of the Prophet. Isa. 51.1. Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look upon your own frame and original; and look unto the rock, even the Rock Christ Jesus, out of which ye were hewn again, to be lively stones, 1 Pet 2.5. to be built up a spiritual house. Remember you are Men; and remember you are Christians. Remember you are Men; and than you cannot but observe (for Tully, an heathen, observeth it) something Divine in you, something aspiring, and lifting you up above all lying vanities, above the vanity of vanities of this world. Remember the sublimity and the excellency of your Nature, and fall not down below that which is so far below you. And then remember you are Christians, of a more noble extraction, begot again unto a lively hope, a hope that layeth hold of, and in a manner taketh possession of, the things above; and a lively faith, which is the victory that overcometh the world: And these will discover the falsehood of things on the earth, and display the beauty of things above; will be able to number them, and call them by all their names. Faith will tell thee, This beauty is deceitful; This wine, a mocker; This strumpet, a deep ditch; These riches have wings, and will fly away; and that thou thyself art but a shadow, and will fly from them. And it will lift up thy eyes to the hills, from whence cometh thy help, to see no riches but in Grace, no health but in Piety, no beauty but in Holiness, no treasure but in Heaven, no delight but in the things above. And as thou lookest upon thyself in these two capacities, as a Man, and as a Christian; so look upon thy right hand and upon thy left. Look upon the things above, and the things upon the earth; and thou shalt find that between these, as between heaven and hell, there is a great gulf, that thou canst not set thy affections on both, thou canst not love God and Mammon. And therefore let those things which are above be above and have the preeminence; and draw them not down to give attendance and lackey it after the things on earth. For when the name of Religion and a deceitful earthy mind meet, they engender and bring forth those monsters which do blast the world, and work that desolation which hath been seen upon the earth. When the Love of the world cometh, as the Devil did to Christ, with Scripture in its mouth, and worldly-minded men have HOLINESS written in their foreheads, what can we expect but the abomination of desolation? what can we look for but that men should be twofold the children of hell more than before? For no Impiety is more raging than that which cometh towards us in the name of the Lord. That Sword is sharp, and will eat flesh, which Religion doth furbish. Let then, I say, the things above have the first place, be as our Polestar to guide and move us whilst we walk amongst the things on earth, that they do not bespot and pollute us. Let Religion choose our Servant, our Friend, our Magistrate. For we see when private Interest maketh the choice, we many times are undone by having our desire: We purchase no more of a Servant but his eye; of a Friend, but a fair countenance; of a Magistrate, but one whose purse is his magistrate and governeth him: Our Servant may prove a Judas; our Friend, a winter-brook, of no use in a drought when we want him; and the Magistrate, as Briareus, with a hundred hands to lay hold on bribes, scarce so good as Caligula's Horse which he made Consul, only in this like him, that ye may bridle and ride him. Private Interest and the Love of the world put no difference at all between the Vine and the Bramble, most commonly cleaveth to that which it thinketh will best shadow it, though it be a Bramble. But God's ways are the safest, if we would choose them. For when we leave them, then to Endor we go, to the witch, to the Devil himself, who may delude, but cannot secure us. When the children of Israel called upon Aaron, Up, make us Gods which shall go before us, you see the leader they made themselves was but a molten calf. Tertullian thus expresseth it, Praecessit illis bubulum caput, That which went before them was but a Calf's head. The Love of the world walketh but in a vain shadow, and bringeth little with it but sorrow: and private Interest doth not settle but shake the pillars of the earth. For howsoever it may please us now, and bring our ends about, yet our eye is not clear enough to see what bitterness will be at the end. And we do but play and sport in the ways which we have chosen as the little fishes do in the river Jordan, till at last they fall into the Dead sea. Our word is as vain and mortal as ourselves, but God's word standeth for evermore. I will not press this further in this place; and I hope there is no need I should: For I hope better things of you; that not Faction, which the Devil raiseth here on earth, but true Religion, which God sent down from above, shall now and at all times teach you how to make your choice. I will conclude with that with which I should have begun, the Coherence of my Text with the first verse. For this is a consequent of that, and we are therefore exhorted to set our affections upon things above because we are risen with Christ. For without this manifestation there is no Resurrection. If we be still earthly-minded, we are not risen with him. In other things it is natural, when we rise, to show ourselves. If we rise to honour, you may see us in the streets, like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts, with great pomp. If we rise in our estates, you may see it in our next purchase. If in knowledge, which is a rising from the grave of Ignorance, then Scire tuum nihil est; we are sick till we vent. And shall we manifest and publish our rising in the world, and not our rising with Christ? Shall Dives appear in purple, and Herod in his royal apparel? shall the rich fool be known by his barns, and every scribbler be in print? and may we rise, and yet lie in our Graves? rise with Christ, and yet lie buried alive in the earth? rise with him, and have no affection to the things above? rise with him, and yet be slaves and captives to that world which by rising he overcame? This were to conceal, nay to bury, the Resurrection itself. Nay rather, since we are risen with him, let the same mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus the Lord. Let us be seen in our march; Walk before God in the land of the living; Look upon the things above; Converse with Cherubin and Seraphim; Count the things on the earth but dung; Let us look upon the World as an enemy, and overcome it, that the last enemy, Death may be destroyed; Let us begin to make our bodies, what we believe they shall be, spiritual bodies, that the body being subdued to the Spirit, it may appear we are risen with Christ here, and when he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead, we may have our second resurrection to that glory which is reserved above for us in the highest heavens for evermore. The Tenth SERMON. PART I. PROV. XXIII. 23. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. IT will not be worth the while to seek out the coherence of these words with the precedent sentences or proverbs. For this would be a vain curiosity, to seek what is not to be found, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to blow the winds, and (which was imputed as folly to Caligula) conari quod effici posse negatur, to busy ourselves in doing that which cannot be done. The words are plain; and they present you with a merchandise which far excelleth all other, and hath one property which is not seen in any other merchandise, It must be bought, but not be sold. It is an observation of tully's, De offic. l. 2. c. 42. That those tradesmen who buy of the merchant to sell again are commonly but a sordid and base kind of people; nihil enim proficiunt, saith he, nisi admodum mentiantur, They get nothing, except they lie for advantage. I am not experienced in the truth of this: But we see here the wisest of men doth more than intimate that they who buy the Truth to sell it again, are guilty of much baseness, and profit nothing unless they lie strenuously. For what but a Lie can be gained by parting with the Truth, since whatsoever is not truth must needs be a lie? And in this again appeareth another main difference betwixt our spiritual thrift and thriving in the world. For old Cato, an excellent husband for the world, and one who writ of Husbandry, giveth us a rule quite contrary to our Text, Patremfamilias' vendacem, De Rè rusti● cap. 2. non emacem, oportet. To buy is an argument of want; to sell, a sign of store: Wherefore a good husband will endeavour so to abound that he may be ready to sell to supply the necessities of others, rather than to buy to make up his own. But ye see here Solomon, a more excellent husband for the Truth than Cato was for the World, giveth us a rule quite contrary to his, Emaces esse oportet non vendaces. Selling is no part of our spiritual husbandry: there is nothing here but buying. He that selleth the Truth, or parteth with it upon any terms whatsoever, giveth great cause to suspect that he is in danger to decoct and break. Which that we may better perceive and understand, let us enter upon the words of the Wiseman, and see what instructions they will afford us. First, the merchandise presenteth itself: and we must look upon it, and consider what Truth it is that is here meant. Secondly, the nature and quality of the merchandise; which will set a value and price upon it Thirdly, we shall observe, Neminem casu sapere, That we cannot find Truth by chance, neither will it fall upon us as a dream in the night; but we must go towards it, lay out something for it, and purchase it. Fourthly, we shall find it necessary to inquire, What it is to buy the Truth Fifthly and lastly, we shall show, how the Truth may be sold. These particulars without tort or violence, naturally & of their own accord, arise from the Text: Which in the general is divided as the Jews divided the Law, into do and DO NOT. The first part is affirmative, Buy the Truth: the second negative, Sell it not. Of these in their order. First, we must inquire What Truth is. Aristotle defining Goodness, telleth us it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, quod omnia appetunt, that which the appetite and desire of all is carried to. And if I defining Truth, should tell you that Verum est, quod omnes fugiunt, Truth is that which all men are afraid of, I think I should not speak much amiss. For I find St. Augustine thus speaking to his auditors, Quod non vultis audire, verum est. Do ye inquire what Truth is? That which ye will not hear, that which with all my pains and zeal I cannot persuade you to, That is Truth. In the Gospel we read that Pilate asked our Saviour, John 18.38. What is Truth? but, when he had said this, he went out, saith the Text. He thought the answer would not be worth the staying for. Many, like Pilate, are content to ask what Truth is, and when they have done, go their way, and dare not abide the answer. Audire nusquam, veritatem, regium est. We think it a goodly thing, to live as we list, without check or reproof, and never be told the truth. For Truth is sharp and piquant, and our ears are tender. Some Truths peradventure are music to the ear, but strike not the heart: Others are harsh and ill-sounding; and when we hear them, we entreat they may not be spoken to us any more: as the Israelites did when the Law was promulged with thunder and lightning, and the mountain smoked, we remove ourselves, and stand afar off. But that we may not seem to do as Pilate did, ask what Truth is, and then go our way, let us a little recount what kinds of Truths there be in the world, that so amongst them all we may at last single out that which here by Wisdom itself we are instructed to buy. And indeed Truths there are many kinds. First, there are Truths proper to the studies of great Scholars and learned men, truths in Nature, in the Mathematics, the knowledge of natural causes and events, of the course of the Sun and of the Moon, and the like. These, we confess, are excellent truths, and they deserve to be bought, though we pay dear for them. With these truths God was pleased supernaturally and by miracle to endow King Solomon, 1 Kings 4.33. when he gave him the knowledge of Beasts, Birds, Creeping things, and Fishes, of Stones, and of Plants, from the Cedar in Lebanon to the Moss that groweth upon the wall. Yet this is not that Truth which we are here commanded to buy. Again, there are many excellent Truths concerning the preservation of our Bodiess which are also well worthy to be bought. Health is the chief of outward blessings, without which all the rest lose their name. For present all the glory and riches and pleasures of the world to a sick person, Eccl. 30.18. and what are they but (as the Wiseman speaketh) like messes of meat set upon a grave? for he can no more taste and relish them then a dead man sealed up in his monument. Therefore, as the same son of Sirach saith, Eccl. 38.1. honour the Physician with the honour due unto him, for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth▪ and he that is wise will not abhor them. — 4. Yet the skill of the Physician is not that Truth that Solomon here biddeth us buy. Further yet, there are many necessary Truths which concern the making and executing of Laws, and the government of Commonwealths and Kingdoms. By these the world is ordered peaceably, and every wheel made to move in its proper place. Without these Commonwealths would become as the hills of robbers: Innocency alone would prove but a thin and weak defence in the midst of so many several tempers and dispositions as we daily encounter. These Truths therefore are worth the buying also. With skill in these did God honour his Priests under the Law. Mal. 2.7. The Priest's lips were to preserve such knowledge, and the people were to seek the Law at his mouth: and he was ordained to judge betwixt cause and cause, betwixt man and man. But neither yet is this the Truth here recommended to us. We may descend lower yet, even to the very Plough, and find many useful conclusions and truths in Husbandry and Tillage, whereby food and raiment and other necessaries for the body are provided, without which we could not subsist. Of these truth's God professeth himself the Author. For the Prophet speaking of the art of the ploughman, telleth us that his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. Isa. 28.26, etc. For the fitches' are not threshed with a threshing-instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cumin; but the fitches' are beaten out with a staff, and the cumin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised, etc. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. Yet neither is this, nor any other of these truths, that Truth which is here meant. For first, all these Truths concern only those particular persons whose breeding and vocation calleth them to them. All are not to buy them, but two tantùm quibus est necesse, such whose education and occasions lead them to them. If all were one member, saith S. Paul, 1 Cor. 12.19. where were the body? If all men were subtle Philosophers, or skilful Physicians, or learned Lawyers and Politicians, or painful Husbandmen, the world could not well subsist. Again, all are not fitted for every truth, for every calling: All, if they had a heart thereunto, Prov. 17.16. yet have not a price in their hand. Every Philosopher is not fit to hold the plough, nor every one that handleth an ox-goad to be a Physician, nor every Physician to plead at the bar. These arts seem to be of a somewhat unsociable disposition; and a very hard thing it is for a man to learn and practise perfectly more than one of them: for the mind being distracted amongst many things, must needs entertain them but brokenly and imperfectly. Sic opus est mundo; and thus Divine Providence hath ordered it. But the Truth here is of a more pliable nature; and therefore the commandment is given to all: All must buy it. It is put to sale and proffered to the whole world; to him that sitteth on the throne, and to her that grindeth at the mill; to the Husbandman in the field, to the Philosopher in the Schools, to the Physician in his study, and to the Tradesman in his shop. No man, of what calling or estate soever, is unfit for this purchase: The poorest that is may come to this markets and find about him money enough to purchase the commodity. Yea, let him go whither he will, and live amongst what people and in what part of the world he please, whether at Jerusalem or amidst the tents of Kedar, in the city or in the wilderness, he shall still find himself sufficiently furnished for this bargain. And that he buyeth serveth both for this world and the next; it will prove both a staff and a crown, it will direct his feet in his pilgrimage, and crown his head at his journeys end. All the other Truths I reckoned up to you, as they may be bought, so also they may be sold and forgone: Yea, there may come a time when they must all give place to the Truth in my Text, and become the price for which it must be bought, and be accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, loss and dung, Phil. 3.7, 3. that we may gain it, as S. Paul speaketh of his skill and forwardness in the Jews religion in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. But though those Truths continue with us all our life, yet at last they will forsake us. Who will look for a Philosopher, or a Physician, or a Lawyer, or an Husbandman in the grave? But the Truth here, as it must be bought, so it must never be sold by us: It will not leave us at our death, but lie down with us in the grave, and rise up with us to judgement: At the last day it will be our Advocate or our Judge, and either acquit or condemn us. If now, in this our day, we lay out our money, our substance, that is, ourselves, upon it, then in that terrible day of the Lord it will look lovelily upon us, and (as the blood of Christ doth) speak good things for us: But if we place it under our brutish desires and lowest affections, it will help the Devil to roar against us; and he, who now hindereth our market, will then accuse us for not buying. Christ himself is not more gracious than this Truth will be to them that buy it: But such as esteem it trash and not worth the looking on, to them shall it procure tribulation and anguish; to them the Sun turned into darkness and the Moon into blood, the whole world on fire, the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God, shall not be so terrible as this Truth. And now, before I was ware, I have told you what the Truth here is that we are to buy. Shall I say with the Poet, — cujus non audeo dicere nomen, that I dare not utter its name? It hath no name. Men, it seemeth, have been afraid to speak of it, and therefore have given it no name. The Wiseman here in the Text bestoweth on it certain titles, calling it Wisdom, and Instruction, and Understanding: but all these do not fully express it, being words of a large signification, and comprehending a multitude of other Truths beside it. Will ye know indeed what this Truth is? It containeth all those Precepts and conclusions that concern the knowledge and service of God, that conduce to virtue and integrity and uprightness of life, and that are carefully observed by all quos Deus in aeternae felicitatis exemplis posuit, whom God meaneth to bring to endless felicity and to place among the ensamples of his love. If this Truth doth not manage and guide the Will, than our passions, those pages of opinion and error, will distract and disorder us; Lust will inflame us, Anger swell us, Ambition lift us up to that formidable height from whence we must needs fall into the pit. But the Truth casteth down all Babel's, and casteth out all false imaginations, which present unto us appearances for realities, yea plagues for peace, which make us pour out our souls on variety of unlawful objects, and pitifully deceive us about the nature and end of things. What a price doth Luxury set on wealth, and how doth it abhor poverty and nakedness! What an heaven is the highest place to Ambition! and what an hell disgrace, though it be for goodness itself! How doth a jewel glitter in the eye! and what a slur is there on virtue! What brightness hath the glory of the world! and how sad and sullen an aspect have Religion and Piety! And all this is till the purchase be made which our Text commendeth. No sooner have we bought the Truth, but it discovereth all, pulleth off every mask, and suffereth us no longer to be blinded and beguiled, but showeth us the true face and countenance of things. It letteth us see vanity in riches, folly in honour, death and destruction in the pomp of this world. It maketh poverty a blessing, misery a mercy, a cottage as good as the Seragglio, and death itself a passage to an happy eternity. It taketh all things by the right end, Exod. 4.4. and teacheth us how to handle and deal with them; as Moses taking the serpent by the tail had it restored to its own shape. In a word, the Truth here meant is that which S. Augustine calleth legem omnium artium, & artem omnipotentis artificis, a Law to direct all arts, an Art taught by Wisdom itself, by the Maker of all things. It teacheth us to love God with all our hearts, to believe in him, and to lead upright lives. It killeth in us the root of sin, it extinguisheth all lusts, it maketh us tread under foot pleasure and honour and wealth; it rendereth us deaf to the noise of this busy world, and blind to that glaring pomp which dazleth the eyes of others. Hâc praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus; It goeth before us in our way, and through all the surges of this present world it bringeth us to the vision and fruition of him who is Truth itself. Therefore this concerneth us above all other Truths; yea, others are of no use at all, further than by being subservient to this they help us to our chief end, our union to God, who is the first Truth, and our communion with him. If I know mine own infirmities, what need I trouble myself about the decay of the world? If the word of God be powerful in me, what need I search the secret operations of the stars? Am I desirous to know new things? The best novelty is the New creature. What folly it is to study the state and condition of the Saints, and in the mean time to take no pains to be one? to be curiously inquisitive how my soul was conveyed into me, and wretchedly careless how it goeth out? to dispute who is Antichrist, when I myself am not a Christian? to spend that time in needless controversies, in which I might make my peace with God? to be more careful to resolve a doubt then to cure a wounded spirit? to to maintain my opinion, then to save my soul? to be ambitious to reconcile opinions which stand in a seeming opposition, and be dull and heavy in composing my own thoughts and ordering my counsels? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Aescls ill. Not he that knoweth much, but he that knoweth that which is useful, is wise. Why gaze we on a bugle or piece of glass, when we are to bargain for a pearl, for that Truth which doth alone adorn that mind which was made not to join with shadows and phantasms, but to receive wisdom and virtue and God himself? Thus I have given you some kind of view of the merchandise, and shown you in general what the Truth here meant is. Now that it may appear unto you the more desirable and more worth the buying, in the next place I will discover the nature and quality of it. Neither will I do as those are wont who expose their wares to sale, over praise the commodity, so to kindle the buyer and make him more easily part with his money, or else show it by an half-light; but I will deal plainly with you, according to that Law of the Aediles or Clerks of the market in Rome, by which he who sold any thing was to disclose to the buyer what fault or imperfection it had: If he were selling an house wherein the plague was, he was to proclaim, Pestilentem domum vendo, that he sold an infected house. And indeed I might tell you that Truth is a virtue like unto the Plague, which will not only destroy us, but make all that know us to shun us. I might show you that the retinue which usually wait upon her, are, Sequestration, Nakedness, Disgrace, Persecution, the Sword, and Death itself. Bona mens, si esset venalis, non haberet emtorem, saith Seneca: And we find it true, that Truth is so dangerous and troublesome, that if she were to be sold in the market, she would hardly meet with a chapman. But when I present the Truth as a dangerous, displeasing, costly thing, I intent not, like the Spies, to bring up an evil report upon that good land, N●mb 13.32. as if it did eat up the inhabitants, and so to dishearten any man from the pursuit of Truth. No: the land is pleasant and fruitful, flowing with milk and honey: go up, and possess it. But as Antigonus, when he heard his soulder's murmur because he had brought them into a place of disadvantage, having by his wisdom freed them from that danger, and brought them to a fairer place, where they might hope for victory, Now, saith he I expect ye should not murmur, but praise my art, that have brought you forth into a place so convenient: So if any under the conduct of Truth be at any time in great straits and difficulties, let him but possess his soul with patience under the leading of the same Truth, and he shall at last be brought forth into pleasant and delightful places, even into the paradise of God. For as our Master Aristotle speaketh of Pleasures, that if they did but look upon us when they come to us as they do when they turn their backs and leave us, we should never entertain them; so may we on the contrary say of this Truth, If we saw the end of it, as we do the beginning we should run after it and lay hold on it with restless embraces. For though at the first meeting we see nothing written in her countenance but Woe and Desolation; yet if we spend our time with her, we shall find her to be the fairest of ten thousand. And it is the wisdom of God to place the greatest good in that which to flesh and blood hath the appearance of the greatest evil. And when the beauty and glory of Truth is once revealed unto us, the horror of it will scarce appear, or, if it do, but as an atom before the Sun. And now, to show you the fairer and better side of Truth, I might tell you, Prov. 3.18, & 14. Matth. 13.46. that She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her; that The merchandise of her is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof then fine gold; that she is that rich Pearl in the Gospel; that She is that Girdle, Ephes. 6.14. cingulum omnium virtutum, as the Father speaketh. It not only girdeth and enricheth the man (as Faithfulness shall be the girdle of his reins) but also confineth Virtue itself, Isa. 11.4. and keepeth it within the bounds of moderation: whereas Falsehood is boundless and infinite, and passeth over all limits. I might tell you further, that Truth is a Pillar, and such a one as is both a Pillar and a Foundation too. For though we read that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth, 1 Tim. 3.15. yet she is such a pillar as those were in the Temple of Diana, which, being tied to the roof, were upheld by the Temple, and not the Temple by them. For indeed it is the Truth that upholdeth the Church, and not the Church the Truth, further than to present and publish it. If you take truth away, the Church will not be invisible only, but nothing. We believe One Catholic and Apostolic Church; but that which maketh her One, and Catholic, and Apostolical, is the Truth alone. For what Unity is that whose bond is not Truth? And how is that Catholic, which is not? and that which is not true, is not at all, is but an Idol, and so nothing in this world. Or can we call that Apostolical, where Truth itself is anathematised and shut out of doors? No. It is this saving Truth which maketh the Church one, Catholic, and Apostolic; without which they are but bare and empty names; without which all that we hear of Antiquity, Consent, Succession, Miracles, is but noise, but the paintings of a Church, but the trophies of a conquered party, but as the vain hopes of dying men, or indeed but as flattering Epitaphs on the graves of Tyrants, which dishonour them rather than commend them: As it was said of Pallas, Epitaphium pro opprobrio fuit, His glorious Epitaph did more defame him then a Satire. Yea, yet further, I might tell you how that in some sense that may be spoken of this Truth which was spoken of Christ himself, John 1.3. That all things were made by it, and that without it not any thing was made that was made, not any thing that concerneth our everlasting peace. It is it that sealed the promises, signed the New Testament and made it Gospel, finished our faith, gathered the Church, upheld it militant, and will make it triumphant. But all this is too general. To make this Truth therefore appear to be a precious merchandise indeed, let us consider, that 1. It is fit and proportionable to the Soul of Man, which is made capable of it, and is but a naked, yea (which is worse) a deformed thing, till this Truth array and beautify it; is under want and indigence, till this Truth enrich and supply it, till it give wings unto it, as Plato saith, wherewith it may lift up itself aloft, and fly from the land of darkness to the region of light. Whilst our soul receiveth no impressions, whilst it doth no more but only inform the body, whilst it is simplex, as Tertullian speaketh, qualem habent qui solam habent, is but such a soul as those creatures have whose soul serveth only to make them grow and be sensible, so long in respect of outward operation we little differ from the Beasts of the field: When, instead of this Truth, it receiveth the characters of darkness, the spots and pollutions of the world, when it is nothing else but as a table written with lies, we are far worse than the brute Beasts; When we savour of the things of God, Matth. 16.23. our Saviour hath given us the name, we are as Devils: But when the soul is characterized with the Truth, when the true light shineth in our hearts, we are Men, we are Saints, and shall be like unto the Angels, the soul is what she was made to be, a receptacle and temple of God, and destined to happiness, Now in Christ Jesus, that is, in this Truth, ye, Eph. 2.13. who sometimes were far off, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, are made nigb by the blood of Christ, and behold those things which concern your happiness, as those do who are brought near and even united to the thing that they would have. 2. At this is proportioned to the Soul, so it is to every soul, to all sorts of men: It equally concerneth all, of what calling or condition soever: It is a merchandise which cannot be bought by a deputy, cannot be recovered by a proxy: Like the Sun, it looketh upon all, and must be looked upon by all: It is fitted to all, and bindeth all: And therefore the buying of it, the study of it, and of every branch of it, concerneth you who are our hearers, as much as us who teach it. It is not of so large a compass but the narrowest understanding may contain it. God will not shut us out of heaven because we cannot untie every knot and answer every doubt. I never could think it a matter of wit and subtlety to become a Christian. There is (saith S. Hierome) sancta rusticitas, a kind of holy plainness and rusticity, simplicitas idiotarum amativa, as Gerson speaketh, a simplicity of the unlearned which is full of love and affection, which like men at distance from that which they desire, look more earnestly towards it. Numb. 11.29. It is to be wished indeed that all the Lord's people were prophets: for knowledge is a rich ornament of the soul. But he that doth not attain deep knowledge with the wisest, may attain true happiness with the best; as a man may put into the haven in a small bark as well as in an Argosy. Mark 12.42.44. He who giveth all that he hath for the Truth, though it be but two mites, his serious but weak endeavours, shall be sure of a good pennyworth. He that buyeth what we can shall have enough. And therefore it is fitted to all, to all nations, to all sexes, to all ages, to all tempers and constitutions, to the Jew and to the Gentile, to the bond and to the free, to the Scribe and to the idiot, to the young and to the aged. None so much a Jew, so much a slave, so dull and slow of understanding, none so much a Lazar, so much a Barzillai, so over run with sores, or decrepit with age, but he may buy the Truth. Freedom and slavery, circumcision and uncircumsion, quickness and slowness of wit, youth and age, in respect of this purchase are alike. 3. As it is fitted to all, so it is lovely and amiable in the eyes of all, even of those who will not buy it. What? amiable, and not be desired? Yes; it is so in this spiritual Mart. We can conceive it good, and refuse it; we can behold its beauty, and not woe it: we can say it is a rich pearl, and yet prefer a pebble on the beach before it; say, How amiable are the courts of Truth! and yet never enter them. For in this Knowledge and Desire do not always meet, but the Will oftentimes planet-wise slyly creepeth on her own way, contrary to the strong circumvolution of the First mover; the Understanding pointeth one way, and the Affections sway us another: The Understanding looketh upon Truth as a prize, yet the Will rejecteth it as a vanity: the Understanding judgeth it to be the best good, yet the Will turneth from it as from the worst of evils. The good that I would, Rom. 7.19. that is, which I approve, that do I not. But in our temporal affairs these faculties of the soul are seldom at variance; but profit and advantage of this kind we seek with all our soul, with all our heart, with all our understanding. But for this heavenly commodity, though we have not an heart to buy, yet we have an head to judge of the worth and value of it .. Even the fool in this is as wise as Solomon, and can say that this Truth is more precious than rubies. Prov. 3.15. But, as they who knew the judgement of God, Rom. 1.31. that they who commit all unrighteousness are worthy of death, did not only do the same, but had pleasure in them that did: so on the other side, many who know this Truth to be the best merchandise, do not only not traffic for it themselves, but are enemies to them that do, and hinder and persecute them all they can, are angry at them that do what themselves judge to be best. And this is the glory and triumph of Truth, Matth. 11.19. that she is justified not only of her children, but of her very enemies, that she striketh a reverence in those that neglect her, is magnified by those who revile her, and findeth a place in their breasts who suppress her. When the poor merchants of Truth are proscribed, and her children appointed to die, then doth Truth hold up her sceptre in the very inward parts of the raging persecutors, and forceth them to condemn themselves for condemning them, to honour those whom they have delivered to shame and death, and in their heart to null that sentence which their fury and sensuality have put in execution. And thus we retain in publico sensu, in the common stock of Nature, enough to discover what we should buy: But to venture and traffic, to spend and lay out ourselves upon it, is the work of that Grace which subdueth the Flesh to the Spirit, and crucifieth the Affections and Lusts; which have more power upon the Will then the Reason, and may dim the eye of the Understanding, but never quite put it out. For who ever was so much a traitor, as to condemn Fidelity? What adulterer did ever yet write a panegyrics on Uncleanness? Who was ever so evil as to commend evil? Who did ever so ill govern his life as not to wish he might die the death of the righteous? Num. 23.10. When evil is laid to the charge of wicked men, they count it an heavy charge; and therefore, to shift it off, are fain to run themselves within the danger of a worse, and to call evil good, Psal. 14.1. & 53.1. and good evil. Which yet they do but say in their heart, as the Fool doth in the book of Psalms that there is no God: They do not think, but say it in their heart, say it by rot●, as that which they would have to be truth, but know to be false. 4. Yet to raise the price of this jewel higher, know that, if we buy not the Truth, not only our wealth and riches, but even the goodly and gracious endowments of our souls also are nothing worth. For want of this one purchase, where is the rich Glutton now? nay, where is the scribe? 1 Cor. 1.20. where is the wise? where is the disputer of this world? What a poor Worse than nothing is a rich Atheist, or an honourable Hypocrite? What speak we of Riches and Honour? Virtue itself is of small use if it take not this Truth along with it. We are taught by Divines, that by the fall of our first parents we did utterly lose some things; and though other excellent things do still remain, yet the profit of them is in a manner quite lost, and they are of little or no use to the mere natural man, who hath not yet ventured at this mart. For that is of small use which bringeth us not to the main end. It is a wonder to observe, what gifts of Wisdom, Temperance, moral and natural Conscience, do not only appear in the books, but also appeared in the lives of many heathen men utterly void of the knowledge of this Truth: Yet what advantage were those things to them, since without the Truth all the good that remaineth in the natural man can never help him one foot toward the atteinment of eternal happiness? Take we the wisest and honestest Heathen that ever was, a Socrates or an Epictetus, a Fabricius or a Cato, let him have all the graces that are, this Truth only excepted, let him not only be morally virtuous, but also endure all disgrace and torment for virtue's sake (and not only Christianity but even moral goodness hath sometimes been persecuted) let him be a Regulus, and undergo what so many Christians refuse to do, only because he dareth not break his oath; let us, I say, set before ourselves a man in whom all moral excellencies concur, and then judge what a purchase that of Truth is. For what shall all those endowments profit him, when, having put off his body of flesh, he shall find one and the same place provided for him that is for the wickedest wretch that ever lived? Then what is the Christians Hearing, and Fasting, and Praying, if this Truth do not seal and ratify them? Shall I say, Not so good as the virtues of the Heathen? Nay, far worse. If their virtues were splendida peccata, shining and glorious sins, as S. Augustine censureth them, what then is our ceremonious hypocrisy? Certainly a sin as great as theirs, but not so glorious; the foul face of deceit and rapine showing itself through all the paint. Nor will it stand us in so much stead as their graces do them, which serve to lighten the weight of their punishment, and to diminish the number of their stripes: For sure there is not the same degree of torment inflicted upon Regulus and Epictetus that is upon Nero and Julian. But our abuse of the duties which are servants unto Truth, our form of godliness working with the power of iniquity, maketh abomination itself more abominable, and hell hotter than it otherwise would be. It is Truth which casteth a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a loveliness, both on natutal graces and outward performances, and so doth attract and draw the favour of God unto them. These are as it were the matter and body of a Christian, a thing of itself dead, without life: the soul that quickeneth this body, is the Truth. This maketh Hearing a religious duty, sanctifieth a Fast, presenteth Alms as a sacrifice, giveth beauty and lustre to every virtue. All the virtues which commend us to God, are of the same kindred, and of near relation to this Truth; but without this they shall never come to have any part of the vision of God; as Joseph said unto his brethren, Ye shall not see my face, Gen. 43.5. except your brother be with you. This is the high prerogative of Truth, That it commendeth all our endeavours, and beautifieth all our actions; That it is the pillar of our Hope, the life of our Faith, and the soul and spirit of our Charity. For what is a failing Hope, a dead Faith, a cold Charity good for? What advantage is there in a feigned Temperance, a forced Sorrow, a superficial Repentance? Certainly none at all: They are of no value, not markable, because the seal of Truth is not upon them. 5. Though it be exceeding rich, yet the purchase of it will put us to no expense. It is bought without money or money-worth. Censum non requirit; nudo homine contenta est: It requireth nothing but a man. God doth not set it to sale to put us to charges; nor is it reason he should. For although those things we buy in the world become our own, and we have power to dispose of them as we please; yet the Truth is exposed to sale, as Diogenes was, with this question, Who will buy a Master? He that buyeth the Truth, selleth not his estate, but his liberty, and buyeth a Lord and Master, to whom he must bow, and to whose disposal he must submit himself. He that buyeth the Truth, must be servant to the Truth, and not the Truth to him. Yea, the Truth may as well be said, to buy us, as we it. For it cometh with its reward in its hand: It commandeth, and withal promiseth; which is a kind of bargain and contract: Do this, and live; Be my servants, and ye shall reign for evermore. 6. That we may not be mistaken in our bargain, take dross for silver, embrace a cloud for Juno, shades and phantasms and darkness for light, falsehood for Truth, this merchandise is set forth to sale in its own shape and face, not masked or veiled with riddles and obscurity. Though some places of Scripture be, as Gregory observeth, like meat, which by long meditation and study must be broken and chewed before they can be taken down; yet the precepts of faith and good life, which fill the whole compass of this Truth, are like drink, and may be received and digested as we find them. Therefore here if we mistake, we cannot plead excuse, nor hope for pardon. For this is, as Hilary speaketh, sub scientiae facultate nescire, to grope at noon, to be ignorant when God hath granted us the fairest possibility of knowledge, hath plainly revealed his will, and discovered not the hinder parts, but the very face of Truth. To be ignorant where the object inviteth and wooeth our understanding, bringeth us in guilty not of ignorance, but wilfulness; not of an unhappy miss, but contempt. It is a common complaint (And complaints for the most part are but apologies) that the merchants of Truth hid their wares, or show them by an half-light; that the Preacher is too deep, that he flieth aloft beyond the reach of common capacities. But as it is his duty to descend to them, so it is not also theirs to make so fair a progress as to be able to rise up to him? Quorsum docemus, 2 Tim. 3.7. si semper docendi sitis? as Quintilian told his scholars: Why do we teach you, if ye be always learning, and never come to the knowledge of the truth? Why do we so often present the Truth before your eyes, if ye will always be Bats, and never dare to look upon the Sun? The Truth is, the Preacher is not too deep, but the Auditors will be dull and heavy: And the reason why they are not taught, is, because they will not learn. For if you do fontem à capite fodere, lead them to the head of this fountain, give them a reason for that easy truth which they acknowledge, you are strait with them an Heraclitus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dark and obscure. Behold, the fountain's head is open, and the streams flow sweetly; why do we not taste? The Truth is exposed to the sun and the people; why do we not buy? Luke 1.78. The dayspring from on high hath visited us; why are we still in darkness? Is it not dulness of understanding, but pride and sloth, that keepeth us ignorant. We are not too weak, but we are too wise to learn. It is a good saying of the Rabbins, Error doctrinae pro superbia reputatur: To err where the Truth is so manifest, is a sign of pride; and they who thus mistake, consult not with the Truth, but with flesh and blood. Rom. 13 1. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, is a Text plain enough; and yet we see many times Faction go for Faith, and Rebellion for Religion. Phil. 2.12. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, is as plain; yet Fear is accounted Diabolical, and a dead Faith the only foundation. 1 Pet. 2.16. Use not your liberty as a cloak for malitiousness; Who is such a child in understanding as to number this among those things which are hard to be understood? and yet how many have wrested it to their own destruction! 2 Pet. 3.16. or hath the seditious boutefeu any other garment to cover him but his Christian Liberty, when he steppeth forth in fury to break the bond of Peace? This maketh many religions, and no religion. Self-conceit and a desire to seem wise headeth one sect, Covetousness another, Ambition a third; and this plain and easy Truth is left behind to feed a little flock. Talk what we will of Priests and Jesuits, of Heretics and Schismatics; it is Mammon and the Love of the world, and Pride, that make proselytes: and where the first seduce a thousand, these last seduce ten thousand: for in this we cannot be deceived unless we first love the cheat. And therefore as we must not take falsehood for truth, so we must be careful not to take those truths for necessary which are not so. The Truth was never more sincere and pure then while it was contained all in one Creed, and that a short one, as Erasmus saith: When there were more, the practical knowledge of it was less: When this merchandise was spread abroad and divided into many parcels, it was less seen. S. Paul calleth it (a) Rom. 12.6. the proportion of faith, (b) 2 Tim. 1.13. the form of sound words, (c) Tit. 1.1. the truth which is after godliness; To believe in God, to love him, to obey him; To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Tertullian speaking of these is bold to pronounce, Nihil ultrâ scire est omnia scire; To know nothing beyond, or more than this, is to know all that we should know. And if we did but practise this, we should have less noise and trouble to know what it is we ought to practise. If we did walk according to this rule, peace would be upon us, Gal. 6.16. and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. But the great neglect of that integrity which should distinguish Christians from the world hath brought in that deluge of controversies which hath welnear covered and overwhelmed the face of the Church. What malice, what defiance, what digladiations, what gall and bitterness do we see amongst Christians? What ink, what blood hath been spent in the cause of Religion? How many innocents' have been defamed? how many Saints anathematised? haw many millions cut down with the sword? And yet this is all, Believe, and repent. Oh what pity is it, that this royal Truth should be lost amid the noise and tumults which are raised for truths not necessary! that the foundation should be cast down and buried in the outworks! that true Piety should be trod under foot in the scuffle for that which is not essential to it, and hath no more of it then its name! To conclude this point; Ye see the merchandise, what that Truth is ye are to buy. 1. It is fitted and proportioned to your souls: Do ye fit and apply your souls unto it. Oh what a poor, deformed thing is a soul without it! a representation of a damned spirit. 2. It is fit for all sorts and conditions of men: Therefore let old men and children, scribes and idiotes, Tradesmen and Scholars, come to this market: for it is the next way unto heaven. 3. It is comely and amiable: Let us therefore make it our choice, espouse our wills unto it, love and embrace it; not kiss, and wound it; nor worship it in our heart, and persecute it in our brethren. What madness is it to leave this Horn of beauty, and to join with a fiend or a monster! 4. As it is lovely in itself, so it giveth a loveliness to all other gifts, blessings, and endowments whatsoever. Why should thy Money perish with thee? Why should thy Wit, in which thou delightest, thy Strength, whereof thou boastest, yea, thy Hearing, thy Fasting, thy Praying, perish with thee? Why should all thy virtues be as a cloud, and as the early dew, fall and go away? Why should all thy good be good for nothing? 5. Lastly, it will put thee to no expense: Then thou hast no excuse; for thou carriest the price about with thee. Come therefore, and buy it without money or money-worth: And then thou needest not ask, with the Lawyer in the Gospel, Luke 10.25. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? for thou hast the price in thine hand; This Truth is it, the price of the kingdom of heaven; and with it thou shalt purchase glory and immortality and eternal life. The third point that offereth itself to our consideration, is, That the Truth must be bought: It will not be ours unless we lay out something, and purchase it: Buy the Truth. If ye look into the holy Scripture, the shop where it is to be had, ye shall find it ever carrying its price along with it. Under what name soever it goeth, the price is as it were written upon it. John 6.27. If it be called that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, labour for it. If it be called salvation, the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, magìs operamini, work more, intent and double your labour, Phil. 2.12. work it out. If it be called the faith, as it is, Judas 3. the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we must earnestly contend for it. And the Apostle biddeth us beware that we be not wearied and faint in our minds, Heb. 12.3. start back, fly off, and offer no more, because the price is so high. Here is care required, and labour, working, and doubling our work, contention, and perseverance till the last minute: All which we give out of our proper substance: For when we lay them out, we spend ourselves. We do not stumble upon this Truth by chance, as we may sometimes upon a Pearl or a piece of Gold. All the things under the Moon are as changeable in their approaches, in their acquisition, in their loss, as that planet is: Sometimes we must travel and hazard our lives for them; sometimes we find them, and they are even fling upon us. We are wont to call such as are suddenly made rich the Children and Favourites of Fortune: But in this market Fortune and Chance have no hand at all; she can neither help nor hurt. They who come to this Emporium or Mart know not the face of Fortune, neither when she smileth, nor when she frowneth, but leave her behind them when they beat this bargain: Nay, they know her to be nothing: They place their hopes neither upon Chance, nor upon Necessity. If Truth were brought to us any of these ways, we could not be said to buy it. Do I buy that chain which I am forced to wear; or that pearl which lying in my way I do but stoop for and take up? I cannot think that ever Heaven did open itself and take in those who never thought of it; nor that any Saint did stumble on it, and enter by chance. Luke 15.4. If the Truth be found, it is found as the lost Sheep was: we go after it, and sweat and labour and search for it, till we find it. They were the Pharisees of old that brought Fate in, and a Necessity of all events: And they may well bear the same name, who, though they abhor the word, yet countenance the thing itself, and leave the Truth and all Virtues else as it were upon the cast of a die. For with them we neither do nor suffer any thing but we are born and bound to it: And they run upon the same absurdity which the Pharisees did; attribute all to Fate and Destiny, or to that which is in effect the same, and yet believe a Resurrection; leave us in the chains of Necessity, and yet promise life to all that buy the Truth, and threaten death to all that sell it; make us necessarily good or evil, and yet the objects for Rewards and Punishments to work upon. But this fatal Necessity doth overthrow itself: For if it lead or force all things to their end, if it work all in us, than it worketh this also, That we cannot believe it: And it is necessary I should deny this Necessity; for I was destined to pronounce against Destiny, and my fate it is to acknowledge no such thing as Fate. No: the Truth is established as the heavens, that it cannot be moved: And as it looketh toward Eternity, so there is a settled and eternal course by which it is conveyed unto us. Wisdom hath set it out to sale, not left it in the uncertain hands of Chance, nor in the infallible conduct of Fate and Destiny. She standeth by the way, in the places of the paths: Prov. 8.2. Isa. 55.1. but her voice is, Come, and buy. It is true; Truth, as well as Faith, is the gift of God. But first, every gift is not received; or, if it be, yet he that received it might have refused it; and so Necessity hath no place; and a gift it is, though it be not received, as a Pearl may be a merchandise, though it be not bought. Truth is the gift of God, a light kindled by him and set up in the firmament of his Church; and there it shineth, though men turn not their eyes that way, but fix them on the earth. Ephes. 2.8. Faith had been the gift of God though all the world had been infidels. The Civilians tell us there is a twofold Donation, pura, and conditionalis: There is an absolute gift, which the giver bestoweth to no other end but to show his bounty; he giveth it because he will give it: And there is a conditional gift, which exacteth something from him who must receive it: It is here, Do, ut des; I give thee this, that thou mayest give something for it. And such a gift is Truth; such a gift is Heaven. We are Men, to woe and draw the Truth; and not Statues, to have it engraven upon us, and then remain as little moved with it, as insensible of it, as if we were stones. We read of infused Habits; and though those texts of Scripture which are brought to uphold them are not so sure and firm a foundation that they may stand there unshaken, yet, because the opinion is so generally received, we are not over-ready to lay it by. But if they be infused, as they are infused into us, so they are not infused without us: They are poured, not as water into a cistern, but into living vessels fitted and prepared for them. For if they were infused without us, they could never be lost. If we did not buy the Truth, we could never sell it. If Wisdom were thus infused into us, we should never err: If Righteousness were thus infused, the Will would ever, as an obedient handmaid, look up upon that Wisdom, and never swerve or decline from it: If Sanctity were thus settled on the Affections, they could never rebel: The Understanding could never err; for this Wisdom would ever enlighten it: the Will could not be irregular; for this Righteousness would always bridle it: the Affections could not distract us; for they would ever be under command. For as they were given without us, so bringing with them an irresistible and uncontrollable force, they would work without us. But we shall find that all these are conditional gifts, and that according to the method of Truth itself we cannot receive till we ask, nor find till we seek, Matth. 7.7. Psal. 24.7, ●. nor enter the everlasting gates of Truth till we knock. And those who follow this method, the Truth hath its proper and powerful operation in them. It is their viaticum, provision for their way, meat to feed them and nourish them up to an healthful constitution: And it is a garment to cloth them, and to defend them from those poisonous blasts and breathe of their spiritual enemy, which might annoy and distemper them. But in those who fancy to themselves a large and supernatural pouring in, when they receive nothing, nor do any thing that they may, there is no room for Truth; for they are filled with air, with their own flitting imaginations. And if the Truth do enter, it entereth them not as Truth, but is wrested and corrupted, and made the abetter of a lie. Scripture is either mangled by them, or put upon the rack, used as Procrustes used his guests, either cut off in some part of it, or stretched too far. It lieth in their stomach like an undigested lump, and is turned into a disease. It is like a garment not well put on; it sittteth not well upon them; they wear it, and it becometh them not: They wear it either for show, to take the beholder, or as a cloak of maliciousness, to deceive and destroy him. We may observe that that which is so easily gotten, and beareth only the name of Truth, is more busy and operative many times than that which we gain by lawful and prescribed means, then that which we buy: For it moveth like a tempest, and driveth down all, even the Truth itself, before it. Look over the whole catalogue of the sons of Belial, and take a view of all the turbulent spirits that have been in the world, and ye shall find the most of them to have been Enthusiasts, pretenders to an unsought for and sudden revelation; most wicked, because so soon good; and extremely ignorant, because wise in an instant. James 3.17. But the Truth which is from above, and is not thrown down but bought from thence, is pure, and peaceable, and easy to be entreated, full of good works, and without hypocrisy. And itself is conveyed into us the right way, so it ordereth every motion and action, regulateth the whole progress of our life, and maketh it like unto itself. That may seem an harsh saying of Metellus Numidicus; and had a Christian Divine uttered it, Gell. lib. 1. c. 6. he had gone for a Pelagian; His demum Deos propitios esse aequum est qui sibi adversarii non sunt. Dii immortales approbare virtutem, non adhibere debent: It is a kind of justice that God should be favourable to those who are not enemies to themselves. God sitteth above, as one that hath set us our task, and observeth our hands, and doth not do all himself. But his reason certainly is orthodox; Quid nos à Deo diutiùs exspectemus, nisi errationibus finem faciamus? What can we expect from the God of truth, if we still follow lies, and will make no end of running from the truth? God hath so ordered that nothing of great moment can be suddenly done. Every work must find us fitted and prepared, or else we shall find it will fly out of our reach. Hence the Philosopher giveth this reason why there be so few wise men, Quia pauci Sapientiam dignam putant nisi quam in transitu cognoscant, Because the most have so low an opinion of the Truth that they think her not worth saluting, unless it be by the by. The reason why men know not the Truth, is, because they reverence it not, but think it is a wind which will blow when they list, that it will enter them without entreaty, become theirs when they please, yea, whether they will or no. This is the cause why Truth, which is the best merchandise; is so seldom bought, and fancies of our own are entertained in its place. Hence it is that all our silver is dross, our coin counterfeit, and our actions bear so little of the image and face of Truth upon them; that To be merciful, is, but to fling a mite into the treasury; To fast, is, to abstain for a day To pray, is, but to say, Lord, hear me, or (which is worse) to multiply words without sense; To love the Truth, is, but to hear it preached; To be a Christian, is, only to profess it; To have faith, is, to boast of it; To have hope, is, to say so; and, To be full of charity, is, but to do good to ourselves. These graces, we deny not, are infused: yet they are gained, increased and confirmed in us by care and diligence. Faith cometh by hearing, saith the Apostle. Rom. 10.17. We cannot but observe, that in our greener years we are catechised and instructed; and in our riper age, when reason is improved in us, we look over our evidence again and again, and by the miracles and innocency of our Saviour, and by the excellency of his doctrine, and by the joint testimony of the Apostles, and the huge improbability that they should deceive us, Judas 20. we are built up (and building implieth labour) on our most holy Faith, which worketh by Charity: Gal. 5.6. When that Faith which is not thus bought, but is brought in without any motives or inducements, without study or meditation, which is not bought but created by ourselves, and so is a fancy rather than Faith, bringeth forth nothing praiseworthy, is not a foundation of good works, but a mere pillar of our own setting up to lean upon, and to uphold and comfort a spirit that would otherwise droop when we have committed evil. If men's Faith did cost them more, sure they would make more use of it then they do. And for Hope; What is it but a conclusion gathered by long experience, by curious and watchful observation, by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our soul, and an exact search of all the actions of our life? which, if answerable to the Truth, produce a firm Hope: if not, our Hope we may call an anchor, Heb. 6.19. but it is of no more use than an anchor painted upon a wall; or rather it is not an anchor, but a rock at which we may shipwreck and sink. I might instance in more: For thus it is in all the passages of our life: There is nothing wrought in us but with pains, at lest nothing that is worth possessing. Nay, those evils which we should dispossess ourselves of, do not always enter with ease. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith chrysostom; Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labour and cost. How laborious is thy Revenge! how busy thy Cruelty! how watchful and studious thy Lust! what penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to! And if our vices cost us so dear, and stand us at so high a rate, shall we think that that Truth will run after us, and follow us in all our ways, which bringeth along with it an eternal weight of glory? Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible, can our airy and empty speculations, can the wantonness of our ear, can our confidence and ignorance strait make us Evangelists? Or is it probable that Truth should come è profundo putei, out of the bottom of the well, and offer herself to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it, and will let down no pitcher to draw it up? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Olymp. od. 5. as Pinder speaketh: Labour and cost wait still upon the Truth: Nor will she visit and abide with us, unless these usher her in and attend upon her. Like Jabez, Truth is most honourable, but we bear it with pain. 1 Chron. 4.9. In a word, Truth is the gift of God, but conditional, given on condition that we fit ourselves to receive it. It cometh down from heaven, but it must be called for here on earth. Think not it will fall upon thee by chance, or come to thee at any time; Eccl. 11.9. & 12.1. if not in the days of thy youth yet in the evil days, and the years in which thou shalt have no pleasure; that it will offer itself in thine old age, on thy bed of sickness; that it will join and mingle itself with thy last breath, and carry thy soul to happiness. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Now is the market: now is the Truth set to sale as it were by the voice of the crier: and if thou wilt have it, thou must buy it. Ye see that Truth is a rich merchandise, and that it must be bought: Now, in the next place, we must know what it is to buy it. As in all purchases, so here something must be laid down: And though we cannot set a price upon the Truth worthy of it, it being in itself unvaluable, and all the world not able to weigh down the least grain of it; yet something there is which must be given for it. The very heathen thought nothing to dear to purchase it; amongst whom we read of some who fling away their goods and riches, and bid defiance to pleasures, ut nudam veritatem nudi expeditíque sequerentur, saith Lactantius, that being stripped of all they might meet with the naked Truth, and embrace her. So highly did they value the Truth that therein they placed their summum bonum, their chief happiness. If ye ask what the price is ye must give; the answer is short; Ye must give yourselves. Ye must lay down yourselves at the altar of Truth, and be offered up as a sacrifice for it: Ye must offer up your Understandings, fit and apply them to the Truth: Ye must offer up your Wills, and bow them to it: Ye must strip and empty yourselves of all your Affections, at least be free from the power of them. For the Affections raise a tempest in the soul, and make it swell, as stormy winds do the sea, so that the Mind can no more receive the Truth than the troubled waves can receive and reflect the image of our face. Not only the seeds of moral conversation, those practic notions with which we were born, but also those seeds of saving Truth which we gather from the Scripture and improve by instruction and practice, are then most obscured and darkened when pleasures and delights take possession of our affections. As we often see in persons sore distempered with sickness, the light of their reason dimmed and the mind disturbed, by reason of vicious vapours arising from their corrupted humours; so it is in the soul and understanding, which could not but apprehend the Truth, (being so fitted and proportioned to it, as ye have heard) if it were not dazzled and amazed with impertinent objects and phantasms that intervene, if the affections did not draw it to things heterogeneous and contrary to it. Being blinded hereby, it beholdeth all objects through the affections, which, as coloured glasses, present all things much like unto themselves. Thus Falshood getteth the face and beauty of Truth; and that appeareth true which pleaseth, though it hurt. For the Affections do not only hinder our judgement, but prevent and preoccupate it. Truth is plain and open to the eye; but Love or Hatred, Hope or Fear coming in between, teach us first to turn from it, and after to dispute against it. The Love of our country maketh Truth and Religion national, and confineth it within a province. The Love of those whom our worldly affairs draw us to converse with shutteth it up yet closer, and toeth it to a city, to an house: And to put off this Love we think is to wage war with Nature. The Love of riches formeth a cheap and thriving Religion: The Love of honour buildeth her a chair: The Love of pleasure maketh her wanton and superstitious. That which we Love still presenteth itself before our eyes, and thence we take materials to build up that congregation which alone we think deserveth the name of a Church. So that if we never beheld the face of the men, yet by the form and draught of their Religion we may easily judge which way their affections sway them, and to what coast they steer. And as Love, so Hatred transformeth not men alone, but also the Truth itself, and maketh it an heresy, though in an Apostle, yea though in our Saviour. Luke 16.13. No man can serve two masters, is as undeniable a principle as any in the Mathematics; yet because Christ spoke it, the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided him. Luke 16.14. Micaiah was a true Prophet; but Ahab believed him not, because he hated him. 1 Kings 22.8. How many Truths are condemned by the Reformed party only because the Papists teach them? And how many doth that Church anathematise because the Protestant holdeth them? Maldonate in his Commentary on the Gospel is not ashamed to profess of an interpretation of one passage there, that he would willingly subscribe and receive it as the truest, had it not been Calvin's. And have not we some who have condemned even that which is Truth, and which is delivered in the language of Scripture and in the very same words, upon no other reason but because it is still retained in the Mass-book? As Tacitus speaketh of an hated Prince, Inviso semel Principe, seu bene seu malè facta premunt; when a person is once grown odious in our eyes, whatsoever he doth or saith, whether good or evil, whether true or false, is as odious as he. If an enemy do it, the most warrantable act is a mortal sin; and, when he speaketh it, the Truth itself is a lie. All the argument we have against it is the person that speaketh it: for we will not use his language: As it is said of Marius, that he so hated the Grecians, that he would not walk the same way that a Greek had gone, though it were the best. Further, we must lay down at the feet of Truth our Fears. For Fear is the worst counsellor we can have. Nunquam fidele consilium dat metus, saith Seneca: It never giveth us true and faithful counsel; but flying from that which we fear, it carrieth us away in its flight from the Truth itself. Perjury is a monstrous sin, of that bulk and corpulency that we cannot but see it; yet Fear will lift up our hands, and bind us to that which we know to be false, and within a while teach us to plead for it. Fear, saith the Wiseman, Wisd. 17.12. is nothing else but the betrayer of those succours which Reason offereth. When we are struck with Fear, we are struck deaf, and will neither hearken to ourselves, nor to seven wise men that can render a reason. Prov. 26.16. This made (a) Gen. 3.8, 10. Adam hid himself. This sealed up the lips of (b) John 12.42 many chief rulers among the Jews, so that though they believed on Christ, yet because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. And this opened the mouth of Peter to deny him. He that is afraid of what evil may befall him, is not a fit merchant to buy the Truth: For though he have the price in his hand, Prov. 17 16. he hath no heart to it: A blast, a puff of wind will drive him from this market. And as Fear, so Hope will soon betray and deceive us. The Hope of honour, of profit, of favour, of preferment, Balaam's reward, 2 Pet. 2.15. Judas 11. will make us leave the ways of Truth, and run after his error. For this taketh us from ourselves, enslaveth our understandings, and alienateth our minds, that we dare not venture and bid frankly for the Truth, nay we will not admit it, nor hearken after aught that is displeasing to those Balaks who can promote us to honour. Numb. 22.17, 37. Thus we see daily the power of a mortal man is more prevalent than that which we so magnify, the Grace of God, and the Court gaineth more proselytes than the Church, men's religion being drawn by their hopes, not of Eternity, but of Riches, which have wings, and of Honour, which is but a breath. Prov 23.5. Magnus Deus est Error, as Martin Luther speaketh; Error is the great God of this world; and Hope waiteth upon it, to bring in multitudes for reward, whilst Truth, with all her glorious promises, Luke 12.32. findeth but a little flock. For thus do those fools argue; Why should we despise so good a friend, who can raise us from the dunghill, and make us hold up our heads with the best; and follow such a guide as Truth, which will lead us upon pricks, into prison, unto the block? This is the Sophistry of our worldly Hopes; and it easily deceiveth us, who are far sooner convinced with false shows then with the real arguments and enforcements of Truth. Besides this, we look upon it as a kind return and a piece of gratitude, to join in error with them who feed our lusts, to make them our prophets who have made themselves our patrons, to have the same authors of our faith and of our greatness, and with the same cheerfulness to receive their dictates and their favours. The world is full of such parasites, Phil. 3.19. whose belly is their God, whose Hope looketh downward on the earth, and so keepeth them from the sight of the Truth; who cannot see a sin or an error in them that pour down these fading and perishing graces on them. For if they should grant they err in any thing, they might be brought at last to fear that they err also in this, in doing them good and heaping benefits upon them. Thus do our hopes blind us: And therefore, if we will purchase the Truth, we must cast them away. And yet, Beloved, we need not cast our Affections quite away. They are implanted in us by the same hand which set up a candle, Prov. 20.27. as the Wiseman calleth the light of Reason, in the soul: And God hath placed them in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in such order that they may be very useful and advantageous to us. They may indeed (as ye have heard) be powerful to withdraw us from the Truth; and they may also be serviceable and instrumental to promote it. Wherefore the Apostles counsel is, that we crucify the affections, Gal. 5.24. 2 Cor. 10.5. not quite extinguish them; that we bring them into a glorious captivity and obedience to the Truth. I may buy food with a piece of gold; and I may buy poison: I may surrender my affections to Error; and I may bestow them on the Truth. And happy is that man who is ready thus to spend and to be spent. 2 Cor. 12.15. For he who thus spendeth himself, he who thus wasteth and tameth his affections, doth not quite lose them, but loseth only that of them which would destroy him. Therefore in this negotiation we must observe the method of Socrates, and drive out one love with another, and one hatred with another, supplant one hope, and chase away one fear with another. First, Love is a passion imprinted in the soul for this end, that it may be fixed on the truth: And when once it is so, it will be restless and unquiet till it have purchased it. It will overcome all difficulties, it will meet the Devil in all his horror, it will meet him in his armour of light, and pass through all to this mart: Nor is there any thing that can hinder it or keep it back; Rom. 8.38. neither death, nor life, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. No; Love beareth us, and carrieth us aloft over all, as it were on the wings of the wind, and bringeth us to the Truth. Let us so love the Truth, that we buy it; and so buy it, that we love it the more. These two are always in conjunction, as the Heat and Light of the Sun: The hotter the Sunbeams be, the more light there is; so the more heat there is in my Love, the more bright is the light of the Truth; and the more this light shineth, the more servant is my Love. The love of Truth, and the Truth which we love, are mother and daughter each to the other, mutually begetting and bearing one another. We speak of traffic; and it is Love alone that maketh all the bargains that are made. For who ever yet bought that which he loved not? and can there be too great a price set upon that we love? if we truly love a thing, what will we not give for it? As we deal with our Love, so let us also with our Hatred. Why should I hate any man, who am myself a man? But then to transfer my hatred from the person to the Truth, and to revile it for his sake, cometh near to that which we call the sin against the holy Ghost. The Truth is the same, in whomsoever it be, and aught to be received for itself. Else we must blot out one article of our Creed: for the Devil himself confessed Jesus to be the Son of the most high God. Mark 5.7. The Truth rather should force us to the love of the man, than our hatred of the man make us enemies to the Truth. It is true; Though Socrates be a friend, and Plato be a friend, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Ethic. l. 1. c. 4. yet the Truth is to be preferred before them both: And it is as true; Though Socrates be an enemy, and Plato an enemy, yet the Truth, whosoever professeth it is still to be accounted a friend. Whether in Heretic or Orthodox, whether in Papist or Protestant, whether in Arminian or Calvinist, the Truth is ever the same: And he who cannot look through all these impertinent considerations and by-respects, will prove as great an enemy to the Truth as those he condemneth. He who casteth a veil of his own working over his face, cannot behold the beauty of Truth, cannot see to buy it. If we will buy the Truth, we must learn to hate this Hatred, and to fling it out; we must learn to abstract the man from his opinion; what he saith or holdeth, from what he appeareth to us. For while we judge of things by the person, whom we first hate, and then draw him out in our minds in a monstrous shape, Virtue and Truth in him will appear to us under the same loathed aspect; yea Scripture itself in his mouth will be heretical, and whatsoever droppeth from his pen will be poison. Hence it hath come to pass, that we have heard the innocent condemned, and things laid to their charge which they never did; that they have been branded with the name of murderers, who abhorred murder; of injurious, who suffered wrong; of persecutors, who were oppressed; of idolaters, who hated idols; of heretics, who were the strongest pillars of the Truth. We are wont to say, Love is blind: and tell me now, Is not Hatred blind also? In the next place; let one Fea● chase away another: Let the Fear of God, whose wrath is everlasting, expel the Fear of Man, whose breath is in his nostrils, whose anger and power, like the wind, breathe themselves out; who, whilst he destroyeth, destroyeth nothing but that which is as mortal as himself. The reason why we miss of Truth, is, because we are so foolish and ignorant that we Fear man more than God, and the shaking of his whip then the scorpions of a Deity. How hath this ill-placed Fear unmanned us! how hath it shaken the powers of our soul, and made us say what we do not believe, and believe that to be true which we cannot but know is false! There hath passed an ungracious speech amongst us, and often rung in our ears, and this base degenerate Fear did dictate it; Men have been so bad and bold as to say, They had rather trust God with their souls then Man with their estates and lives. Had they not thought they had stated the question, they would not have proclaimed it with such ostentation, they would not have sung it out, and rejoiced in it. Certainly, if a proverb (as the Philosopher saith) be a public testimony, and do discover the constitution of the place where it is taken up, than our Jerusalem is not the city, nor our Country the region of Truth. Trust man with our estates! When we persevere in the Truth, and suffer for it, we trust not our estates with Man, but put them into his hands who gave them, and who can make the greatest Leviathan, that playeth in the sea of this world, Job 41.31. and maketh it boil like a pot, disgorge himself, and cast out the prey: We do not trust them with Man, but offer them a sacrifice to the Lord. But, we will trust God with our souls, say they. See how a lie multiplieth in our hands. We will trust God with our souls, and pollute them; and when we have polluted them, still trust in the Lord. It is good to trust in the Lord: but it is good too to take heed what a soul we trust him with. Wilt thou trust an unclean soul with the God of purity? a soul guilty of blood, with the God of mercy? a distracted soul, with the God of peace? an earthy soul, with the God of heaven? a perjured soul, with that God who is Truth itself; Let not thy love of the world, and thy fear of losing it, draw so false and foul conclusions from so radiant and excellent a truth. And if thou art in earnest, and wouldst buy the Truth, Matth. 10.28. then fear not them which kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; Luke 12.4, 5. but fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell; yea I say unto you, fear him. Now in the last place, what is our Hope? If it be in this life only, we are of all men the most miserable. 1 Cor. 15.19. For this world is not the region of Truth: here is nothing to be found but vanity and lies; Pergula pictoris; veri nihil, omnia falsa. Here are false Riches, painted Glories; deceitful Honours. I may say, the world is a monument, a painted sepulchre, and within it lie Error, Delusions and Lies, like rotten bones. And wilt thou place thy Hope here, upon that which is a lie? Shall this be thy compass to steer by in thy travel and adventure for Truth? Shall the lying Spirit, the God of this world, be thy holy (or rather unholy) Ghost to lead thee to it? O spem fallacem! This is a deceitful Hope, and will lead thee into by-paths and dangerous precipices, wheel and circled thee about from one lie to another, Mark 9.22. cast thee (like that evil spirit) into fire and water, waste and wash away thy intellectual and discerning faculties which should sever Falsehood from Truth, make thy religion as deceitful as thy hopes, and, when all thy hopes and thoughts perish, deliver thee over to the Father of lies. Be sure then to take of thy Hope from these things on earth: why should it stoop so low? And raise it up to enter into that within the veil; Hebr. 6.19. that it may not fly after shadows and phantasms, but lay hold on the Truth itself; that the World and the Devil may find nothing in thee to lead thee from the light into that ignorance which is darker than darkness itself; that thou mayest say to them, What have I to do with you? and so pass on with courage and cheerfulness to the purchase of that Truth which abideth for ever. The Eleventh SERMON. PART II. PROV. XXIII. 23. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. YE have heard of part of the payment: But the price of the Truth is yet higher, and there is more to be given. And indeed we shall find that the merchandise is unvaluable, and that it will be cheap when we have given all for it. What are the Vanities of the world, yea what is the whole World itself, nay, what is our Understanding, Will, and Affections, what is Man, in comparison of that Truth without which he is worse than nothing? What is it then that we must lay down more when we come to this mart? We must part with that which cleaveth many times so close unto us that we cannot so much as offer any thing for the Truth. First, we must remove all Prejudice out of our minds, that they may be still tanquam rasa tabula; though they have something written in them, yet that they receive not any opinion so deeply in as not to be capable of another which hath more reason to commend it; that they cleave not so close to that which was first entertained upon weak, peradventure carnal, motives, as to stand out against that which bringeth with it a cloud of witnesses and proofs, yea light itself, to make entrance for it. Secondly, we must remove all Malice, all distaste and loathing of the Truth; we must take heed we do not wilfully reject it, as if it concerned us not, nor were worth the buying. Till our mind be clear of both these, Prejudice and Malice, we may talk of the Truth, but only as a blind man doth of the light; we may commend the Truth, but as a man of Belial may honour a Saint; we may cry out, Magna est Veritas, & praevalebit, 1 Esdr. 4.41. and yet the Truth hath no power at all over us; we may look upon ourselves as Temples dedicated to the Truth, and yet we put it far from us. These two evil Spirits than we must cast out before the Spirit of Truth will enter into us. I shall now therefore show the horror and danger of them both, that ye may eject them, and so become fit merchants of the Truth. I. Praejudicium est, quod obstat futuro judicio, saith the Civilians; Prejudice is that which hindereth and keepeth off any further and future judgement. It hath always pertinacy to accompany it, which as a rock beateth back all those batteries which Reason can make. The mind is so settled upon one conclusion that it looketh upon all others as false, though they be true: Dan. 6.8, 12. Our own sentence is like the Law of the Medes and Persians, unalterable: We are resolved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Philosopher speaketh, to hold fast our conclusion, against all the strength of reason and argument that can be brought to the contrary. This is in effect to do what the Spies did who were sent to view the land of Canaan, Numb. 13.32. to bring up an evil report of the Truth, that we dare not venture to buy it; this is to condemn the Truth, and suffer no advocate to stand up and speak in its defence. Nor indeed do we lie and labour so much under the rage of our Affections as under the tyranny of Prejudice, For our Affections most commonly are blind, and so without prejudice. When they carry us along with violence, we do not judge, but choose. Vnicuique sua cupiditas tempestas est; Every man's inordinate desire is not only a wind to drive him forward, but a tempest to wheel and whirl him about from error to error, till a spirit of giddiness possess him that he cannot discern any thing as it is. And as, according to the common saying, nulla tempestas diu durat, no tempest is long, but soon breatheth itself out, so is it here; the cloud of Passion is quickly blown over, Gen. 27.41, 44, 45. Gen. 33.4. and then the eye is clear. In his Wrath Esau will kill his brothor Jacob: but when time had turned his fury away, he became a brother again, and ran to meet Jacob, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and wept. Then he would shed his brother's blood, now his own tears. David's Lust brought him to a forbidden bed; but the voice of a Prophet maketh him wash it with tears. Fear made Peter deny and forswear his Master; but the crowing of a cock and a look from Christ make him deny his denial, and weep bitterly. What is done out of Affection, we do we know not how: we do it, and the greatest reason we have many times, is, because we do it. If in passion we pass any judgement, it is not long-lived, but wasteth and decayeth and dieth with the passion. But Prejudice is a rooted and lasting evil; an evil we are jealous of, because we think it good; we build upon it as upon a foundation; and he that but breatheth upon it, that but looketh towards it, appeareth as an enemy that cometh to dig it up. Sometimes indeed Prejudice is raised in us by the Affections; sometimes the Affections intermingle and interweave themselves with it; but commonly the Affections come in the rear of Prejudice, and follow as its effects, and help to strengthen it. We love him that is of our opinion, because it is ours; and we hate him that contradicteth it. Upon the same reason we are afraid of every proffer, angry at every word that is spoken against it. And this gathereth every conventicle, mouldeth every sect, coineth every heresy: This is that Sword which our Saviour speaketh of, Matth. 10.34, 35, 36. that divideth a man from his father, and the daughter from her mother, and maketh enemies of those who are of a man's own household: This is that East wind which bringeth in those Locusts that cover the face of the Church, Exod. 10, 13, 15 and make it dark, and eat up all those fruits which we should gather. Prejudice then doth suppose Judgement. Judgement doth in a manner form it: otherwise it could not be Prejudice. Nor do we understand by Prejudice all judgement made and passed beforehand in the mind: For such judgement may be true as well as false. Nor would we so free the mind from Prejudice as to leave it unsettled and in doubt, determining and concluding nothing: For this were to cast out the soul itself, by depriving it of Reason, and Judgement, which is the prime act and proper effect of Reason, without which it cannot be an humane Soul. We leave the mind free to judge; but not so to dote on and deify its own decree and determination as to fall down and worship it; so to favour and fix upon it. so to stand to it, as to stand strong, or rather stubborn, against all those reasons that are fit and ready, and may be brought to oppose and demolish it. Nor do we hear mean those conclusions which are known and assented to as soon as they are tendered and presented to us, which with their light overcome us, and make us yield at the first sight; as, That we ought to worship God, live honestly, injure no man, give every one that is his, be grateful to our benefactors, honour our parents, and the like: For here Prejudice hath no place: In these our first judgement is our last, because it must needs be right: Once we determine, and proceed no further. But we understand those deductions and inferences which we make when we apply those known truths to particular practice; which peradventure we may do with diligence, and with the help and advice of others, and yet not so build and establish our conclusions as to make them necessary, everlasting and indisputable. For a man may dishonour God when he thinketh he worshippeth him; one may oppress his neighbour, and call it justice; be profane, yet canonize himself for a Saint; conclude one beholding to him, whom he injureth; be disobedient to his parents, and think he honoureth them; lift up his heel against his patron, and yet persuade himself that he exactly observeth all the rules of gratitude. Here Prejudice may come in, and be as a veil before our eyes, that we cannot see the Truth which we should buy for our use; which must needs withdraw itself when we worship our own imaginations, when we conclude and rest upon that judgement as right which we have preconceived, when we set up those reasons which peradventure we framed when we consulted with flesh and blood, against all that can be said to the contrary, and precondemn all other judgement as false, because it steppeth from this and cannot agree with it. Suppose the first judgement in these be true, yet is it no derogation from the Truth in this kind to be put to the question. 2 Cor. 13.5. If we be in the faith, yet we may examine ourselves, 1 Pet. 3.15. and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us. If the Spirit be of God, yet it may be tried whether it be of him, or no. 1 John 4.1. Every thing of this nature may be brought to the trial, 1 Thes. 5.21. that we may hold fast that which is good. But then, if it be true, yet it is not always so certain as those speculative conclusions and known principles which none ever yet denied who had but so much reason as to prove him a man. To be deaf therefore to all other information under pretence of infallibility, to shut out a clearer light upon presumption that he is fully enlightened already, ejus est qui mavult didicisse quàm discere, is the property of him alone who loveth his credit more than the Truth, and counteth it a disgrace or punishment to learn any thing. In conclusions then of this nature the mind must ever be free and disengaged, not so wedded to its own decrees as to be averse and strange when a fair overture is made of better. For I may err as well as judge aright. For how hath Error so multiplied, and whence proceed the greatest part of the errors of our life, but from this presumption, That we cannot err? If men were either impartial to themselves, or so humble as to hearken to the judgement of others, the Prince of this world would not have so much in us, nor should we be in danger of so froward a generation. If men were not so soon good, they would not be so often evil. Nor doth this willingness to hear reason blast or endanger that Truth which Reason and Revelation hath implanted in us; nay, it rather watreth it, and maketh it flourish. For when hath gold a brighter lustre than when it is tried? And this attentiveness and submission to what may be said either for or against it, is a fair evidence that we fell not upon it by chance, but have fastened it to our soul by frequent meditation, and are rooted and established in it. Neither doth it argue any fluctuation or wavering in the mind, or unfixedness of judgement. For he doth not waver who followeth a clearer light and better reason, and cleaveth unto it. Mutatio sententiae non est inconstantia, saith the Orator: To disannul a former judgement upon better evidence, is not inconstancy; it is the stability rather and persevering act of Reason, its certain and natural course, to judge for that which is most reasonable. And the mind doth no more waver in this, than the Planets do err or wander; which are said to do so, because they appear now in this, now in that part of the heavens, but yet they keep their constant and natural motion. For this entertaineth Truth for itself, and suffereth not Error to enter but under that name, and, when Truth appeareth in glory, in its rays and beams, in that light which doth best discover it; chaseth Error away as a monster, and boweth to the sceptre of Truth. It is never so wedded to Error though never so specious, as not to be ready to give it a bill of divorce when Truth shall offer itself to its embraces. But it may be said, That the mind must needs waver and be lost in uncertainties, because it struggleth as yet with doubts, and knoweth not whether there may not be better reasons brought then those which she hath already signed and subscribed to. I say, this is not true: Nay, rather the mind doth therefore not waver or fluctuate, because it doth not know it. For till it do know that better reasons can be brought, it is bound to that conclusion which, for aught yet appeareth, hath the best to confirm it. Any evidence is the best till a better be brought: And until a better be brought, it is not Prejudice to lay claim to the best. We are yet in via, in our way; we yet dwell in houses of clay and tabernacles of flesh; we struggle with doubts and difficulties; Error and Misprision are our companions here: In many things we err all; and in many things we err in which one would think it were impossible to mistake, and are never more deceived then where we think ourselves infallible. God alone hath this prerogative, Not to err, To see all things exactly with a cast of his eye, and ad nudum, as the Schools speak, naked as they are. Our knowledge in comparison of his is but ignorance: We have need of instruction upon instruction, Isa. 28.10, 13. Psal. 19.2. precept upon precept, line upon line, and that day unto day, every day, should teach us knowledge. That knowledge and certainty we have is such as we are capable of, and such as is available to that end for which we were made, sufficient to entitle us to happiness; but is not like that in God, but rather an uncertain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or kind of doubting in comparison of his infallibility. Our certainty is such as the wisdom and goodness of God hath fitted to our condition in this life: and it is then in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection when we give diligence to use those means that are afforded us that we may judge rightly of all things, when we judge according to that light and evidence which showeth itself, and judge not otherwise till a clearer light appeareth. Thus S. Paul was a Champion of the Law, and after a Martyr of the Gospel; Thus he persecuted Christians, and thus he died a Christian. Thus St. Peter would not converse with the Heathen, Acts 10. as polluted and unclean; and thus he after looked upon them as purified by God, preached to them, and baptised them. This hath brought into the world all those Recognitions, Retractations, Recantations, which are not only as confessions, but triumphs over a conquerred error, rejoicings and jubilees of men who had sat in darkness but have found the light. He who is not fitted and prepared for better information, and will not yield upon surer evidence, but so magnifieth the impressions that were first made in his mind as to rest upon them as infallible, maketh himself aut Deum aut bestiam, as the Philosopher speaketh, either a God, or a beast; and the more a beast by making himself as God, undeceiveable and that cannot err: for so, as a beast, he lieth under every burden, every error, though it be so gross and mountainous as to press him to death. In a word, he that doth not empty his mind of Prejudice, that doth not expectorate and drive this evil far from him, is not fit to be a purchaser of the Truth. Dedocendi officium gravius & prius quàm docendi; Our first task and hardest is to unlearn something that we have been taught; and after with more ease we shall learn better. We must first pluck up the weeds, that Truth may fall as in good ground, and bring forth fruit. Matth. 13. 5-8. For that is good ground, not only where Truth groweth, but which is fit to receive it. All forestalled imaginations and prejudicated opinions are as thorns to choke it up; or they make the heart as stony ground, in which if the Truth spring up, it is soon parched for lack of rooting, and withereth away. What can that heart bring forth, or what can it receive, which is full already? Ye have heard what Prejudice is: In the next place consider the danger of it, how it obstructeth and shutteth up the ways of Truth, and leaveth them unoccupied, or, to allude to the words of my Text, how it spoileth the market. I have showed you the Serpent; I must now show you its Sting. And indeed as the Serpent deceived Eve, Gen. 3. 15. so Prejudice deceiveth us. It giveth a No to God's Yea; maketh Men true, and God a liar; nulleth the sentence of death, and telleth us we shall not die at all. Ye shall die, if this be the interpreter, is, Your eyes shall be opened; and to deceive ourselves is to be as Gods, knowing good and evil. I do not much mistake in calling Prejudice a Serpent. For the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula: the working of its venom maketh men dance and laugh themselves to death. How do we delight ourselves in error, and pity those who are in the Truth: How do we lift up our heads in the ways that lead unto death, and contemn, yea persecute them that will not follow us! What a paradise is our ditch, and what an hell do we behold them in who are not fallen into it! Our flint is a diamond, and a diamond is a flint; Virtue is vice, and vice virtue; Error is truth, and truth error; Heaven is covered with darkness, and hell is the kingdom of light. Nothing appeareth to us as it is, in its own shape; but Prejudice turneth day into night, and the light itself into darkness. A settled prejudicated, though false, opinion will build up as strong resolutions as a true one. Saul was as zealous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel: Heretics are as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the Truth, the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as the Christian for Christ. Habet Diabolus suos martyrs, Even the Devil hath his Martyrs as well as God.. Mark 9.22. And it is Prejudice that is that evil Spirit that casteth them into fire and into water, that consumeth or drowneth them, 1 Sam. 15.32. that leadeth them forth like Agag, delicately, to their death. If this poison will not fright us, if these bitings be insensible, and we will yet play with this Serpent, let us behold it as a fiery Serpent, stinging men to death, enraging them to wash their hands in one another's blood, turning plough shares into swords, and fithes into spears, making that desolation which we see on the earth, beating down Churches, grinding the facc of the innocent, smoking like the bottomless pit, breathing forth Anathemaes, proscriptions, banishment, death. If there be war, this beateth up the drum; If there be persecution, this raised it; If a deluge of iniquity cover the face of the earth, this brought it in. Is there any evil in the City which this hath not done? This poison hath spread itself through the greatest part of mankind; yea, even Christendom is tainted with it: and the effects have been deadly. Error hath gained a kingdom; and in the mean while Truth, like Psyche in Apuleius, is commended of all, yet refused of most; is counted a pearl and a rich merchandise, yet few buy it. Ye have seen it already in general and in gross: We will make it yet more visible, by pointing as it were with the finger, and showing you it in particulars. And first, its biting is most visible and eminent in those of the Church of Rome. For ye may even see the marks upon them, Obstinacy, Perverseness, Insolency, Scorn and Contempt, a proud and high Disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason, or of any man that shall be so charitable as to teach them, which are certainly the signs of the bitings of this Serpent Prejudice, if not the marks of the Beast. Quàm gravis incubat! How heavy doth Prejudice lie upon them, who have renounced their very Sense, and are taught to mistrust, yea deny, their Reason? Who see with other men's eyes, and hear with other men's ears, nec animo sed auribus cogitant, do not judge with their mind, but with their ears. Not the Scripture but the Church is their oracle: And whatsoever that speaketh, though it were a congregation of heretics, is truth: And so it may be, for aught they can discover. For that theirs is the true Catholic Church, is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that which must be granted and not further sought into: Once to doubt of it, is heresy. This prejudice once taken in, That that Church cannot err, and though not well digested, yet in a manner consubstantiated and connaturalized with them, frustrateth, yet forbiddeth, all future judgement, yea inhibiteth all further search or enquiry, which may uncloud the Reason, and bring her into that region of light where she may see the very face of Truth, and so regain her proper place, her office and dignity, and condemn that which she bowed and submitted to when she was made a servant and slave of men, and taught to conclude with the Church, though against herself, to say what that saith, to do what that biddeth, to be but as the echo of her decrees and canons; though it be but in one, as in her Bishop; in many, as in the Consistory; in more, as in a general Council; though it be but a name. For they that lie under this prejudice, in a manner do profess to all the world that they have unmanned themselves, Prov. 20.27. blown out that candle of the Lord which was kindled in them; that they received eyes, but not to see; ears, but not to hear; and reason, but not to understand and judge; that they are ready to believe that that which is black is white, and that snow itself is as black as ink (as the Academic thought) if the Pope shall think good so to determine it. To dispute with these is operam ludere, to lose our labour and misspend our time. It is altogether vain to seek to persuade those who will not be persuaded though they be convinced, nor yield when they are overcome. Though seven, yea seventy times seven, wisemen bring reason and arguments against them, they do but beat the air. What speak we to him of colours who must not see, or urge him with reason who hath renounced it? There cannot be a more prevalent reason given then that which Sense and Experience bring: yet we see Bread and it is flesh; we see Wine, and it is very Blood, because the Church saith it. There cannot be a more reasonable thing then that Reason should be our judge: yet Reason is not Reason, if the Church say it. They that will not believe their Sense, how can they believe their Reason? And how can they believe their Reason, who have debauched and prostituted it and bound it to the high Priests chair? Do they give that honour unto the Saints which is due unto God alone, and call upon them in the time of trouble? Psal. 50.15. It is very right and meet and our bounden duty so to do; for the Church commandeth it. Must there be a fire more than that of Hell? The Church hath kindled it. Must the Merits of the Saints be drawn up into a common treasury, and thence showered down in Indulgences and supplies for them who are not so rich in Good works? The Church is that treasury; and her breath hath called them up. Whatsoever is said or done must have a Bene dictum, and a Bene factum subscribed under it, is Truth and Righteousness, if the Church say and do it. So the Church is let down, as the Tragedians used to do some God or Goddess when they were at a loss or stand, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as by slight and engine, to solve the difficulty and untie the knot, and so make up the Catastrophe. Or it serveth them as Anaxagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the Metaphysics, to answer and defeat all arguments whatsoever. And this prejudice of theirs they back and strengthen with many others; Of Antiquity; making that most true which is most ancient, and the Truth itself a lie if it shown itself in glory but yesterday. And yet omnia vetera nova fuere; that which is now old was at first new: and by this argument Truth was not Truth when it was new, nor the Light Light when it first sprung from on high, and visited us. Truth, though it find Professors but in its later age, yet is the first born; because Error is nothing else but a deviation from it. Error cometh forth last, and layeth hold on the heel of Truth, to supplant it. They have another prejudice, of Counsels; as if the most were always the best, and Truth went by voices. Nazianzen was bold to censure them, as having seen no good effect of any of them. And we ourselves have seen, and our eyes have dropped for it, what a mere name, what prejudice can do with the Many, and what it can countenance. Besides these, they have others; Of Miracles, which were but lies: Of Glory which is but vanity: Of Universality, which is bounded and confined to a certain place. With these and the like that first prejudice, That the Church cannot err, is underpropped. And yet these depend upon that: Such a mutual implication there is of Errors, as in a bed of Snakes. If the first be not true, these are nothing: And if these pillars be once shaken, that Church will soon sink in its reputation, and not sit so high as to dictate to all other Churches in the world. And these are soon shaken: for they are but problems, and may justly be called into question and brought to trial. For if they have any thing of Truth, it is rather verisimile then verum, rather the resemblance of Truth than Truth itself: And this a foul error may have. And to fix my judgement upon a resemblance, is most prejudicial. For a thing may be like the Truth, and appear in that likeness, which is not true, and therefore must needs be false. A resemblance or likeness participateth of both, and may be either true or false. I have looked too long abroad upon this Queen of Churches; but it was to set her up as a glass to see our own. She saith we are a schismatical, we are bold upon it that we are a Reformed Church; and so we are. But may not Prejudice find a place even in Reformation itself? May we not dote upon it, as Pygmalion did upon the statue, and so please and flatter and laugh ourselves to death? Illiacoes intra muros peccatur, & extra. Hor. l. 1. Ep. 2. Rome alone is not guilty of Prejudice, but even some members of the Reformation also, who think themselves most nearly united to Christ when they run furthest from that Church; though sometimes by so doing they run from the Truth. For what is this else but prejudice, to judge all is well with us because the lines are fallen to us in so pleasant a place as a purged Church? to be less reform, because that is Reform? or to think that an heaven and happiness will be raised up and rest upon a word, a name? What is this but to run round in a circle, and to meet the Church of Rome where we left her? What is this but to speak her very language, That to be in this Ark, this Church, is to be safe? and, when a flood of Sin and Error hath overwhelmed us, to think we are securely sailing to our Ararat, our eternal rest? Or what hope is there that he should grow and increase in grace, who, if he be planted once in this Church, or that Sect, counteth himself a perfect man in Christ Jesus? Almost every Sect, and every Congregation laboureth under this prejudice, and feeleth it not, but runneth away with its burden, Oh unhappy men they that are not fellow-members with us! though it be of such a body as hath but little Charity to quicken it, and no Faith to move it, but a fancy. Yet these cannot but do all things well; these cannot err: and they who will not cast in their lot with them, Prov. 1.14. and have the same purse, are quite out of the way, can speak nothing that is true, nor do any thing that is good. Matth. 23.5. Do ye not see the Pharisees spread their phylacteries? do ye not hear them utter the same dialect? Luk. 18.11. We are not as those Publicans. I might enlarge myself: but I know ye understand me, and can tell yourselves what might be said further by that which hath been said already. To be yet more particular; The Lutherane Church doth grant indeed that every particular Church may err; and so doth not exempt itself: But do not many of them attribute as much to Luther as the other do to their Church? Are they not ready to subscribe to whatsoever he said, upon no other reason or motive but because he said it? Do they not look upon him as upon a man raised up by God to redeem the Truth, and show it to the world again, after it had been detained in unrighteousness and lost in ceremony and superstition? And is not this Prejudice equal to the former? Do not they depend as much upon a person as the Papists do upon their Church, so that to them whatsoever he said is as true as an article of faith, and whatsoever is not found in him is heretical? quasi fas non sit dicere, Lutherum errâsse, as if it were unjust and an injury to think that Luther could err in any thing. I accuse him not of error; yet we know he was but a man; and we know he erred, or else our Church doth, in many things: It were easy to name them. But suppose he had broached as many lies as the Father of them could suggest, yet those who in their opinions had raised him to such an height, would with an open breast have received them all as oracles, and have licked up poison if it had fallen from him. For they had the same inducement to believe him when he erred which they had to believe him when he spoke the Truth. We do not derogate from so great a person; we are willing to believe that he was sent from God as an useful instrument to promote the Truth: But we do not believe that he sent him as he sent his Son into the world, that all his words should be spirit and life; John 6.63. that in every word he spoke, whosoever heard him, heard the Father also. Thus ye see how Prejudice may arise, how it may be built upon a Church, and upon a person, and may so captivate and depress the Reason that she shall not be able to look up, and see and judge of that Truth which we should buy. I might instance in others, and those too who have reform the Reformation itself, who have placed the Founder of their Sect as a star in a firmament, and walk by the light which he casteth, and by none other, though it come from the Sun itself; Who fixing their eye upon him alone, follow as he led, and in their zeal and forward obsequiousness to his dictates many times outgo him, and in his name and spirit work such wonders as we have shrunk and trembled at. But manum de tabula, we forbear; lest whilst we strive to charm one serpent, we awake an hundred, and those such as can by't their brethren, as Prejudice doth them. I shall but instance in two or three prejudicial opinions which have been, as a portcullis, shut down against the Truth. The first is, That the Truth is not to be bought, nor obtained by any venture or endeavour of ours, but worketh itself into us by an irresistible force, so as that when we shall have once got possession of it, no principalities or powers, no temptation, no sin can deprive us of it, but it will abide against all storms and assaults, all subtlety and violence; nay it will not remove, though we do what in us lieth to thrust it out; so that we may be at once possessors of it, and yet enemies to it. Now when this opinion hath once gained a kingdom in our heads, and we count it a kind of treason or sacrilege to depose it, why should we be smitten, Isa. 1.5. why should we be instructed any more? Argument and reason will prove but paper-shot, make some noise perhaps, but no impression at all. What is the tongue of the learned to him who will hearken to none but himself? We talk of a preventing Grace to keep us from evil; but this is a preventing ungracious perverseness to withhold us from the Truth. For when that which first speaketh in us, which we first speak to ourselves, or others to us, who can comply with that which is much dearer to us then ourselves, our corrupt humour and carnality, when that is sealed and ratified for ever, advice and counsel come too late. When Prejudice is the only music we delight to hear, what is the tongue of Men and Angels, what are the instructions of the wise, but harsh and unpleasant notes, abhorred almost as much as the howl of a damned spirit? When we are thus rooted and built up in error what can shake us? It is impossible for us to learn or unlearn any thing. For there is no reason we should be untaught that which we rest upon as certain, and which we received as an everlasting truth written in our hearts by the finger of God himself, and that, as we think, with an indelible character. Or why should we study the knowledge of that which will be poured by an omnipotent and irrefragable hand into our minds? Who would buy that which shall be forced upon him? When the Jew is thus prepossessed, when he putteth the Word of God from him, Acts 13.46. and judgeth himself unworthy of everlasting life, than there is no more to be said then that of the Apostles, Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. Another Prejudice there is powerful in the world, somewhat like the former, namely a presumption that the Spirit of God teacheth us immediately, and that a new light shineth in our hearts never seen before; that the Spirit teacheth us not only by his Word, but against it; That there is a twofold Word of God; 1 Verbum praeparatorium, a Word read and expounded to us by the ministry of men; 2. Ver●um consummatorium, a Word which consummateth all; and this is from the Spirit. The one is as John Baptist, to prepare the way; the other as Christ, to finish and perfect the work. It pleaseth the Spirit of God, say they, by his inward operation to illuminate the mind of man with such knowledge as is not at all proposed in the outward Word, and to instill that sense which the words do not bear. Thus they do not only lie to the holy Ghost, but teach him to dissemble; to dictate one thing, and to mean another: to tell you in your ear, you must not do this; and to tell you in your heart, you may: to tell you in his proclamation, Matth. 5.21. you may not be angry with your brother; and to tell you in secret, you may murder him: to tell you in the Church, Matth. 21.13. you must not make his house a den of thiefs; and to tell you in your closet, you may down with it even to the ground. Juven. Sat. 8. Ind Dolabella est, atque hinc Antonius, inde Sacrilegus Verres. From hence are wars, contentions, heresies, schisms; from hence that implacable hatred of one another, which is not in a Turk or a Jew to a Christian. For tell me; What may not they say or do who dare publish this? when their Fancy is wanton, It is the Spirit; when their Humour is predominant, It is the Spirit; when their Lust and Ambition carry them on with violence to the most horrid attempts, It is the Spirit; when they help the Father of lies to fling his darts abroad, It is the Spirit. It is indeed the Spirit, a Spirit of illusion, a bold and impudent Spirit, that cannot blush. For when it is agreed on all sides that all necessary truths are plainly revealed in Scripture, what Spirit must that be which is sent into the world to teach us more than all? In a word, it is a Spirit that teacheth us not that which is, but that which our Lusts have already set up for truth; A new light, which is but a meteor to lead us to those precipices, those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover; Such a Spirit as proceedeth not from the Father and the Son, but from our fleshly Lusts, 1 Pet 2.11. from the beast within us, that fighteth against our Soul. I am weary of this Spirit: I am sure the world hath reason to be so, and to cast it out. There is a third, which I am ashamed of; and I have much wondered that ever any who with any diligence had searched the Scriptures, or but tasted of the word of truth, could have so ethnic a stomach as to digest it. But we see some have taken it down with pleasure; and it serveth as hot waters, to ease them of a pang, of that worm which gnaweth within them. Shall I name it to you? It is Tying of the Truth to the wheel of Fortune, or, to set it forth in its fairest dress, to the Providence of God; which moveth in a certain course, but most uncertain to us, and is then least visible when it is most seen: A Prejudice raised out of prosperity and good success; Which befalleth the bad as well as the good, 2 Sam. 11.25. as the Sword devoureth one as well as another. If Event could crown or condemn an action, Virtue and Vice were not at such a distance as God and Nature have set them: That would be Virtue in this age which was Vice in the former; that which is true to day, might be false to morrow. For the same lot befalleth them both: That storm which now beateth upon the one, may anon be as sharp and violent against the other. And indeed Virtue is most fair and glorious in the foulest weather. This action hath prospered in my hand, Therefore God hath signified it as just, is an argument which an Heathen would deny who had but seen the best intentions and goodliest resolutions either by subtlety or violence oft beaten down to the ground. Certainly no true Israelite could thus conclude, 2 Kings 22.2. who had seen Josiah walking in all the ways of David his father, 2 Kings 23.29. and yet at the last stricken down by the hand of Pharaoh Nechoh in the battle at Megiddo. It was indeed the argument of the Epicure against the Providence of God, Lucret. l. 2. Aedes saepe suas disturbat; That Jupiter let fall his thunderbolts upon his own houses and temples. But the Christian can draw no such inferences and conclusions; who knoweth the ways of God are past finding out; Rom. 11. 3●. Gal. 6.14. that the world must be crucified unto him, and he unto the world; that he must * Acts 14.22. make his way through many afflictions and troubles to his everlasting rest. All that can be said, is▪ God permitteth it: For for any command, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; where is it to be found? And how can we conclude of that which we do not, cannot know? Permit it he doth; and so he doth all the evil in the world: for if he did not permit it, it could not be done. Hence it is that the storm falleth upon the best as well as upon the worst: But to the one (though ye call it a Storm) it is indeed a gracious rain, to water and refresh them; as for the other, it sweepeth them away and swalloweth them up for ever. God's Judgements are, like his Spirit, Joh. 3.8. a wind that bloweth where it lifteth; and we hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; neither for what cause in particular they are sent, nor what is their end. Permission is no fit basis to build a Command upon: Nor can Approbation be the consequent where Permission only is the antecedent. We can no more draw such a conclusion from such premises, than we can strike water out of a flint, or fire out of a cake of ice. The wicked prosper in their ways; Every Sorcerer is not struck blind; Every sacrilegious Ananias is not stricken dead; Every Sodom is not consumed with fire: But this doth not justify Sorcery and Sacrilege and Unnatural lust. And, The righteous are cast down, and perish; Every just man doth not flourish as a green bay-tree; Nay rather (as the Apostle saith, Not many wise, not many noble, 1 Cor. 1.26. etc. so) not many just, not many righteous do flourish: But this doth not condemn Innocency, nor on the sudden as it were transubstantiate and change Virtue into Vice. I have the rather brought this Prejudice forth, and exposed it to shame, because it is common, especially amongst the common sort, who are as good Logicians as they are Divines, whose very natural Logic, their Reason, is tainted and corrupted by the world, in which they live, and to which in a manner they grow. It is vox populi, the language of the Many, and it is taken up too oft; He hath taken a wrong course; Ye see God doth not bless it: This is not just; For it doth not thrive. A Prejudice this, which quite putteth out their eyes, that they cannot distinguish evil from good, nor good from evil; the Devil's snare, and he hath scarce such another in which he taketh so many. He was unfortunate; Therefore he was not wise: He prospered in his ways; Therefore his ways were right. It is plebiscitüm, an Ordinance of the people: And sometimes it is senatus consultum, an Ordinance of those who count themselves wise: And it hath been rescriptum Imperatoris, the rescript and determination of the highest: A Prejudice, which may drive a man, like Nabuchadnezzar, amongst beasts, and make him worse than they; An opinion, which first withereth a soul, that it can bear no fruit, and then leaveth it as fuel for hell fire for ever; An opinion bellied like the Trojane horse, in which lie lurking oppression, Deceit, Treason, all the enemies of Truth, and the Father of lies, the Devil himself, ready to break forth, and destroy and devour a soul; A foundation and basis large enough to raise a Babel upon, all the evil we can do, all the evil we can think, even confusion itself. The hope of good success may flatter me into the greatest sin; and when success hath crowned that hope, it will dress that sin in the grave mantle of Virtue and Piety, and so shut out Repentance for ever. Ye see the danger of Prejudice. It lieth as a serpent in our way, Gen. 49.17. as an adder in our path, to by't our heels, to hinder us that we cannot travel to the market where Truth is to be bought. Let us therefore lay aside all Prejudice, and as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Truth, 1 Pet. 2.2. that we may grow thereby. Let us not build our faith upon any particular Church, or Sect: For it is possible that a Church may err, and so deceive us. Hear, O Israel, when the Church speaketh; but not so as when God speaketh and publisheth his commands. Hear the Church, Matth. 18.17. but then when she speaketh the words of God. Let not a name and glorious title dazzle our eyes. He will make but an ill bargain who wanteth his eyesight. Again, let not the authority of any man be the compass by which we steer. For it may point to Beth-aven, and call it Beth-el; present us with a box whose title is TRUTH, when it containeth nothing but the poison of Falsehood. Why should there be such power, such a spell, such witchcraft in a name? Why should the Truth be built upon a Church? which must be built upon it, or else it is not a Church. Or why upon a name, which, though it be glorious in the world, is but the name of a man, who is subject to error? Tolle mihi è causa nomen Catonis, saith Tully. Cato was a name of virtue, and that carried authority with it; and therefore the Orator thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Muraena. So tolle è causa nomen Augustini: Take away the name of Augustine, of Luther, Acts 4.12. of Calvine, of Arminius, when ye come to this mart. There is but one name by which we can be saved; and his name alone must prevail with us: Hebr. 12.2. He only hath authority, who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Let us honour others, but not deify them, not pull Christ out of his throne, and place them in his room. There is not, there cannot be any influence at all in a name to make a conclusion true or false. If we have fixed it on high in our mind, as in its firmament, it will sooner dazzle than enlighten us. And it is not of so great use as men imagine. For they that read or hear can either judge, or are weak in understanding. To those who are able to judge and discern Error from Truth, a Name is but a name, and is no more esteemed. For such look upon the Truth as it is, and receive it for itself. But as for those who are of a narrow capacity, a Name is more likely to lead them into error then into truth; or, if into Truth, it is but by chance; for it should have found the same welcome and entertainment, had it been an error, for the Names sake. All that such gain, is, They fall with more credit into the ditch. Wherefore in our pursuit of Truth we must fling from us all Prejudice, and keep our mind, even after sentence past, free and entire to change it upon better evidence, and not tie our faith to any man, though his rich endowments have raised his name above his brethren; follow no guide but him that followeth right Reason, and the Rule; not be servants of men: for though they be great, yet there is a greater than they; though they be wise, yet there is a wiser than they, even he that is the Truth itself. Let Augustine be a friend, and Luther a friend, and Calvine a friend, but the Truth is the greatest friend, without which there is no such thing as a friend in the world. When the rule is fixed up in a plain and legible character, though we may and must admit of the help of advice and the wisdom of the learned, yet nothing can fix us to it but right Reason. He who maketh Reason useless in the purchase of Truth, maketh a Divine, and a Christian, a beast, or a mad man. Suprae hoc non potest procedere insania: It is the height and extremity of madness, to judge that to be true and reasonable which is against my Reason. For thus we walk amongst Errors as Ajax did amongst the Sheep, and take this or that Error for this or that Truth, as he did the Rams, one for Menelaus, another for Ulysses, and a third for Agamemnon. It hath been said indeed that right Reason is not always one and the same, but varieth and differeth from itself according to the different complexions of times and places. But this even Reason itself confuteth. For that which is true at Rome is true at Jerusalem; and that which was true in the first age of the world, is true in this, and will be true in the last, though it bind not alike. That Truth which concerneth our everlasting peace, Hebr. 13.8. that which we must buy, is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. And as the Truth, so our Reason is the same; even like the decrees proposed to it, Prov. 20.27. it never changeth. This candle, which God hath kindled in us, is never quite put out. Whatsoever agreeth with it is true, and whatsoever dissenteth from it is false. Affectus citò cadunt, aequalis est ratio, saith the Stoic: The Affections alter and change every day; but Reason is always equal and like unto itself, or else it is not Reason. The Affections, like the Moon, now wax, anon wane, and at length are nothing: They are contrary one to another, and they fall and end one into another. What I loved yesterday, I loath to day; and what now I tremble at, anon I embrace: What at the first presentment cast me down in sorrow, at the next may transport me with joy. But the judgement of right Reason is still the same. She is fixed in her tabernacle as the Sun, still casteth the same light, spreadeth the same beams, rejoiceth to run her race from one object to another, and discovereth every one of them as it is. When we err, it is not Reason that speaketh within us, but Passion. If Pleasure have a fair face, it is our Passion that painteth it. If the world appear in glory, it is our Passion that maketh it a God. If Death be the terriblest thing in the world, it is our Fear and a bad Conscience that make it so. Right Reason can see through all these, and behold Riches as a snare, Pleasure as deceitful, and Death, though terrible to some, yet to others to be a passage into endless life. We may err with Plato, and we may err with Socrates: we may err out of Passion and Prejudice; these being the Mother and Nurse of Error: But that we should err, and yet have right Reason on our side, is an error of the foulest aspect; for it placeth error in Truth itself; which is not Truth but as it agreeth with right Reason. It is true indeed, right Reason hath not power enough of itself to find out every Truth. For as Faith, Eph. 2.8. so all the precepts of Truth are the gift of God, commentum Divinitatis, saith Tertullian, the invention of the Deity. But it is true also, that Reason is sufficient to judge and discern them when they are revealed, according to his mind who revealed them, and set up this light within us to this end. Though the thing be above Reason, yet Reason can judge it true, because God, who is Truth itself, revealed it. Take away the use of Reason, ye take away all election and choice, all obedience, all virtue and vice, all reward and punishment. For we are not carried about in our obedience as the Spheres are in their motions, or the brute creatures in theirs, as natural or irrational agents. Nor can he who maketh not use of his Reason on earth be a Saint in heaven. We are rewarded, because we chose that which right Reason told us was best: And we are punished, because we would not discover that evil which we had light enough to see, but did yield to our lusts and affections, and called it Reason. The whole power of Man is in Reason; and the vigour and power of Reason is in Judgement. Man is so built, saith S. Augustine, ut per id quod in eo praecellit attingat illud quod cuncta praecellit, that by that which most excelleth in him, Reason, he may attain to that which is the best of all, eternal happiness. Ratio omnis honesti comes est, saith Seneca: Reason always goeth along with Virtue. But when we do evil, we leave Reason behind us, nor is it in any of our ways. Who hath known the mind of the Lord at any time? Rom. 11.34. or who hath been his counsellor? It is true; here Reason is blind. Though it be decked with excellency, and array itself with glory and beauty, Job 40.9, 10. it hath not an eye like God, nor can it make a law as he, or foresee his mind. But when God is pleased to open his treasury, and display his Truth before us, than Reason can behold, apprehend and discern it, and by discourse, which is the inquisition of Reason, judge of it how it is to be understood and embraced. For God teacheth not the beasts of the field, or stocks, or stones, but Men made after his own image. Man indeed hath many other things common to him with other creatures: but Reason is his peculiar. Therefore God is pleased to hold a controversy with his people, to argue and dispute it out with them, and to appeal to their Reason; 1 Cor. 11.13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Judge within yourselves. To judge what is said, is a privilege granted to all the children of men, to all who will venture for the Truth. It is time for us now to proceed to the other hindrance of Truth. Therefore II. We must cast away all Malice to the Truth, all distasting of it, all averseness from it. Certainly this is a stone of offence, a bulwark, a mountain in our way, which if we remove not, we shall never enter our Canaan that floweth with milk and honey, we shall never take possession of and dwell in the tabernacles of Truth. Now Malice is either direct and downright, or indirect and interpretative only: And both must be laid aside. The former is an affected loathing of the Truth; when the Will affecteth the ignorance of that which is right, and will err because it will err, when it shuneth, yea hateth, the Understanding when it presenteth it with such Truths as might regulate it and divert it from error; and this to the end that it may beat back all remorse, silence the checks and chide of Conscience, and slumber those storms which she is wont to raise, and then take its fill of sin, lie down in it as in a bed of roses, and solace itself and rejoice and triumph therein. Then we are embittered with honey, hardened with mercy, enraged by entreaties; then we are angry at God's precepts, despise his thunderbolts, slight his promises, scoff at his miracles: Then that which is wont to mollify, hardeneth us the more, till at length our heart be like the heart of the Leviathan, as firm as a stone, Job 41.24. yea as hard as a piece of the nether mill stone. Then satis nobis ad peccandum causa, peccare; it is a sufficient cause to do evil, that we will do it. And what impression can Truth make in such hearts? What good can be wrought upon them to whom the Scripture attributeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 1.28. a reprobate mind; who have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reverberating mind, an heart of marble, to beat back all the strength and power of Truth; unto whom God hath sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Thes. 2.11. Rom. 1.18. strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; who hold the Truth in unrighteousness, and suppress and captivate it, that it cannot work its work; who oppose their Wrath to that Truth which persuadeth patience, and their Lust against that which would keep them chaste; who set up Baal against God, and the world against Christ? Eph. 4.19. These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, past feeling, and have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Eph. 4.18. they have their understanding darkened. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, For wickedness by degrees doth destroy even the principles of goodness in us, Hos. 4.11. blindeth our eyes, and taketh away our heart, as the Prophet speaketh, and maketh us as if we had no heart at all: Either 1. by working out of the understanding the right apprehension of things. For when the Will chooseth that which is opposite to the Truth, non permittit Intellectum diu stare in dictamine recto, it swayeth the Understanding, taketh it off from its right dictates, maketh it deny its own receptions, so that it doth not consider that which it doth consider; it averteth and turneth it to apply itself to something that is impertinent, and maketh it find out reasons, probable or apparent, against that Truth which had its former assent, that so that actual displacency which we found in the entertainment of the contrary may be cast out with the Truth itself. We are willing to leave off to believe the Truth, that we may leave off to condemn ourselves. When this light is dim, the Conscience slumbreth; but when it spreadeth itself, than the sting is felt. In our ruff and jollity we forget we have sinned: but when the hand of vengeance removeth the veil, and we see the Truth which we had hid from our eyes, than we call our sins to remembrance, and they are set in order before us. Where there is knowledge of the Truth, there will be conscience of sin; but there will be none if we put that from us. Or else 2. positively; when the Will joineth with Error, and embraceth that which is evil, and then setteth the Understanding on work to find out the most probable means, and the fairest and smoothest ways to that which it hath set up for its end. For the Understanding is both the best and the worst counsellor. When it commandeth the Will, it speaketh the words of wisdom, giveth counsel as an oracle of God, and leadeth on in a certain way unto the Truth: But when a perverse Will hath got the upper hand, and brought it into a subserviency unto it, then, like the hand of a disordered dial, it pointeth to any figure but that it should: Then it attendeth upon our Revenge, to undermine our enemy; it teacheth our Lust to wait for the twilight; it lackeyeth after our Ambition, and helpeth us into the uppermost seat; it is as active for the covetous as for the liberal, and filleth his garments; as conclusive for the malicious as for the meek, and filleth his hands with blood; findeth out as many ways to destruction as it can to life. This in Scripture is termed Folly, and Error. Isa 5.13. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no understanding, saith God by his Prophet; not that they had no understanding, but that they used their understanding amiss, making it a conduct to them in their evil ways, which should have been their guide in the ways of Truth. Where is the wise? 1 Cor. 1.20. where is the disputer of this world? We may look upon them with admiration, and bow before them as the grand Sophies of the world: But in the book of God, where Wisdom itself speaketh, they have their true name, and are set down for Fools. Now as there is a direct, positive and wilful Hatred of the Truth, so there is also Malitia interpretativa, as the Schools speak, a Malice which doth not show its face so openly as the other, is not so soon understood by ourselves or others, but may easily be discovered and found out if we take the pains to interpret it; a Malice which we carry about with us when we think it is not near us. And this is it; When we use no more diligence to know the Truth then if we did directly affect Ignorance, when we have so low an opinion of it that we think it not worth the saluting, nisi in transitu, but only by the By. This, if ye open and interpret it, is no better than Malice. For, not to love the Truth, is to hate it; not to draw it near to us and embrace it, is to thrust it far from us. Lata●culpa, nimia negligentia, saith the Law; A careless negligence is a great fault; Malitiae soror, saith the Poet, the sister of Malice, and goeth hand in hand with her. For what is the reason that Folly is with us? The Heathen could tell us, Quia illam fortiter non repellimus; Because we like its company well enough, and do not rouse up ourselves to drive it away: Quia citò nobis placemus; Because we are soon at peace and well pleased with ourselves; because we do not open our breasts to the Truth, but to our own and others flatteries, and touch but lightly upon so great a thing. Thus at once we love the Truth, and hate it; will not be better because we think ourselves the best; are soon wise, and ever foolish. I may call this a Pharisaical, hypocritical Malice, which hideth and showeth itself all at once. We cannot give a more favourable interpretation, but must needs look upon it as a malicious distaste of the Truth. It is neither a willing nor a nilling to refuse the Truth, properly so called: for we neither choose it, nor absolutely refuse it; we neither seek it, nor plainly shun it; but stand still when we should make haste towards it; hold the price in our hand, and never proffer it, but (what Antony imputed to Augustus as an argument of his cowardice) lie supinely on our backs, and look up to heaven, when we should fight, when we should be up and doing. This is properly, I say, neither a choosing nor a refusing: But because it should be one of them, and is not, it is therefore in esteem the contrary. Because we do not love the Truth, to which our Love is due, we may be truly said to hate it: Because we do not lay down the price for such a jewel, it is argument of force enough to make it good, that it is not in all our hearts. This interpretative Malice hath taken hold of the greatest part of mankind, and so entangled and puzzled them in the mazes and labyrinths of Error, that they wander from vanity to vanity, and can never find the way out. Many are hurried away by their Affections; more swallowed up by Prejudice, and buried therein as in a grave. Few there be that are professed enemies to the Truth; but this indirect Hatred of it even covereth the face of the earth like a deluge, and there remain but a few souls within the Ark. Every man almost commendeth Truth, yet most proscribe her, and give her a bill of divorce: Every man professeth himself a Scholar of the Truth, but few learn it: Every man cometh to the market, but few buy. The Blood thirsty will detest cruelty in others, and yet wash his feet in the blood of the innocent: The Oppressor will plead for mercy to the poor, and yet grind their face; will cry down persecution, and yet raise one: The wanton will fling a stone at an adulterer; and defile himself: The Intemperate will make a panegyrics on Temperance, and be a beast. Virtue, I say, is as the Sun; and we see it: but when we should receive its rays and influence into ourselves, and grow thereby; we turn away our face, and understand not what we do understand, and see not when we see: we see it at distance; but, when we should draw it near unto us, and apply it, we are stark blind. Then Cruelty is Mercy; Oppression, justice; Intemperance, temperance; an Evil is any thing but what it is. Jer. 4.22. Thus the Prophet saith of the Jews, My people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Justine Martyr; This ignorance sometimes is called Ignorance, and sometimes hath the name of knowledge in the Scripture. Such knowledge is ignorance; nay, it is worse than ignorance, because we draw it not forward to its end, but run to the contrary, and so fall more dangerously than if we saw nothing at all, but were blind indeed. Again, how many precepts of Truth are there, which, though delivered in plain terms we will not understand? Luke 14.13,— 14. When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And a reason is annexed; And thou shalt be blessed: for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. Yet what rich man's table is furnished with such guests? Do we not look upon this Evangelical precept as the Priest and the Levite did upon the wounded man, Luke 10.31, 32 and pass by on the other side? We are so far from counting it a duty; that it appeareth to us a mere solecism and gross absurdity in behaviour: And we doubt not to receive the reward promised, though we make not ourselves ridiculous by performing the duty. Again, Luke 6.35. Lend, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, looking for nothing again. The words are plain, and they are the words of Wisdom; and yet what can be more heretical to the covetous? In udo est veritas: All the truth we have floateth upon our tongues: Why else should any Truth distaste us? why should we be displeased at any, afraid of any, neglect any, as if it concerned us not; Why should we take any Truth down by halves? To instance in the sum of Religion; Matth. 5.48. Our Saviour commandeth, Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect: but how easily do we persuade ourselves that we have nothing to do with this precept! how perfunctorily do we look upon it! what tricks and devices do we seek to shift it off withal! It may be but a Counsel, we think: Or, if it be a Precept, it is in Perfection as in Baptism, Votum sufficit; A wish, a desire is enough: God will favour our weak endeavours; nay, approve our negligence. Hence we make no progress in the ways of piety, dwell and delight in error, and neglect that Truth which might save us. Quis haec instituit Tropica? Christ, I am sure, never set up these Tropics. Do we preach to you Christian Liberty? Ye kiss our lips, and are ready to cast it over you as a cloak of maliciousness. 1 Pet. 2.16. But do we then go about to take it from you, when ye make so bad use of it, and to put your wedding garment about you, even Charity, which should bond and confine your Liberty? Then we are looked upon with an eye of contempt, as bringers-in of new doctrine. Do we build up to the Saints of God assurance of salvation? Ye are in heaven already: For when this news is brought, every man almost is a Saint. But do we tell you that this Assurance is no arbitrary thing, to be taken up at pleasure, but the offspring and fruit of something else? do we beseech you not to deceive yourselves? do we tell you what ye call Assurance, may be a groundless fancy, carnal security, or stupefaction? Behold, than your countenance is changed, and we are not the same men, nor our feet so beautiful as before. And the reason hereof is, Because we love no more Truth than is for our turn. Perfection we will learn, but not learn to be perfect: Freedom we like, but not to be restrained: Assurance we will build upon, but not build up an assurance. Thus far we will go, but proceed no further; take the Truth, as the Devil urged Scripture, by halves; take that part of it which complieth with and flattereth our distempers, and neglect and never seek into the rest; veritatem summâ terrâ quaerere, seek for the Truth in its top and surface, but never dig deep for it, for fear of raising up against ourselves noisome damps and poisonous fogs from this rich mine of Truth. And thus we may be enemies to the Truth when we think we love it; and, though we do not bid open defiance to it, yet be at as sad a distance from it as they that do. For to defy the Truth, and not to care for it, differ not so much, but that they both end in the same fatal ignorance, and both leave us in the dark. To conclude; Let us offer violence to ourselves, and redeem ourselves from these. Let us moderate and regulate our Affections, and take from them all the strength they have to hinder us in our purchase: Let us remove all Prejudice, that we may be fit to judge aright of all things: And let us not harden our hearts when Truth is ready to make its impression in them; nor yet have little heart to it, which is in effect to harden our hearts. For Truth will neither dwell with him who shutteth it out, nor yet with him who maketh no preparation to receive it; neither apply itself to our Pride, nor to our Sloth; neither enter a man of Belial, nor a lukewarm Laodicean. Till the mind be clear of these, no light can enter; till the heart be disburdened of these, it is an hard and an heavy heart, not fit to be lifted up unto the Truth. Thus much of the Impediments to be removed. It behoveth us in the next place to consider what Helps the God of Truth affordeth us for the obtaining of the Truth, and to make use of them. There be indeed many, but I shall name but three. 1. Meditation, or a fixing of our thoughts upon the Truth, a continual survey of the beauty of it, a recollecting ourselves, a renewing the heat and fervour that is in us. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher, Meditation is a kind of augmentation or growth. This will make the Truth more visible and clear, and more appliable than before. The Word written is but a dead letter; the Word spoken is but a sound; but Meditation maketh it of energy and force to quicken and enliven us. It is like those Prospectives which this later age hath found out, whereby we discover Stars which were never seen before, and in the brightest stars find spots otherwise not to be discerned. By Meditation we see Christ at the right hand of God, and the glory and riches of the Gospel: By it we behold the World loathsome, which before we doted on; God's Statutes most delightful, which before we abhorred; Afflictions profitable, which before we trembled at: By it we find out the plague of our hearts, and the leprosy of our souls, which before appeared to us as spots, as nothing. This help we have by Meditation. 2. Prayer. Oratio viam ostendit, & nos deducit, saith Bernard; Prayer showeth us the way, and leadeth us along in it. It draweth down grace, to supply the defect of nature; it calleth for strength and wisdom, to resist and overcome temptations; it procureth the assistance of the Spirit, to relieve and uphold the infirmity of the mind; it carrieth us on cheerfully to this Mart, so that neither hopes nor fears can turn us out of the way. Certainly Prayer for the Truth can never return empty, seeing it asketh that which God is most ready to give, which he putteth to sale continually. Cic Orat. de arusp. resp. The heathen Orator could discover so much; Faciles sunt preces apud Deos, qui ultra nobis viam salutis ostendunt. When God calleth us to him, and we desire to come near him, we pray for that which he would have. Prayers may be heard and rewarded, and yet not granted. Non tribuit Deus quod volumus, ut tribuat quod malumus, saith Hierome: God doth not give us what we will, that he may give us that which is better. Our prayers for temporal blessings may seem to be but spiritual flatteries, wherein we speak God fair for our own ends. Like Quadrigarius his darts, Gell. l. 9 c. 1. our prayers, if shot upwards, fly more sure to the mark; but if downwards, at our own ends, seldom hit. Exauditur Diabolus, Matth. 8.31, 32. 2 Cor. 12.8, 9 non exauditur Apostolus: The Devils had their request granted; yet we read that the Apostle was denied. But he that prayeth for the Truth, prayeth in the name of Christ; he that desireth that which appertaineth to salvation, Joh. 16.23. orat in nomine Salvatoris, prayeth in the name of his Saviour, and therefore cannot be denied. Earnest Prayer for the Truth seasoneth the heart, and maketh it, as the Father speaketh, exceptorium veritatis, a fit receptacle of the Truth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Angel to the Centurion; Acts 10.4. Thy prayers are come up for a memorial before God. It is an illusion to the Incense under the Law. Our Prayer first ascendeth as incense, and cometh up unto God as a sweet-smelling savour, and then down cometh an Angel, the Truth, to tell us so, to assure us that our suit is granted. Our Prayer ascendeth, and in its ascent raiseth up the heart to heaven, where it entereth the treasury of God, and obtaineth this Pearl. I will not say, with some, that Prayers do this ex opere operato, by the very repetition, by numbering them out by tale, as they do their beads. This hath too rank a savour. Yet, I know not how, after the heat of devotion and fervency of Prayer there follow those holy fires, and strange and glorious irradiations and illuminations, which present and show themselves to us in our search of Truth. When by Prayer we have as it were reposed and lodged our souls in the bosom of our heavenly Father, there are presently poured back upon us, even in the midst of our common actions, celestial and divine cogitations; and the image and copy of our devotions is still obvious to our eye, and followeth us whithersoever we go. Our Prayers are as Music in the ears of the most High; and our improvement and increase in knowledge is the resultance. And as he that hath looked on the Sun with a steady eye, hath the image of the Sun presented to him in every object which he beholdeth; so he that fixeth his thoughts on God, and is as it were lift up near near unto him by true devotion, must needs find light in all his ways, and feel the efficacy of his prayer in his daily conversation. 3. Exercise and practice of those Truths we learn. Without this, Prayer doth not ascend as incense from the altar, but as common smoke, and hath no sweet savour at all. Without this, Meditation is but the motion and circulation of the Fancy; the business, or rather idleness, of that sort of men who come into the market only to look on and gaze; the mind flieth aloft, but like those birds of prey which first tower in the air, and then stoop at carrion: But the practice of the Truth we know doth fix it to us, and make it as it were a part of us; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoic speaketh, driveth the doctrine home, Eccl. 12.11. as a nail fastened by the Masters of the assemblies. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher; What we learn to do, we learn by doing. One act of Charity prompteth me to another: One denial to my appetite draweth on another, and that a third, and at last I put on resolution, and am rigid and obstinate to its solicitations: One conquest over a temptation strengtheneth me for a second. As it was said of Alexander, Quaelibet victoria instrumentum sequentis, Every victory he got made way to another; so every step in the ways of Truth bringeth us not only so far on our way, but enableth us with more strength to go forward; and the further we go, the more active we are. He that giveth a penny to the poor, and inureth his hand to giving, may in time sell all that he hath, Matth. 19.21. and at last lay down his life for the Gospel. Aude, hospes, contemnere opes. Virg. Aen. 8. It is but putting on courage, and attempting it, which is the fairest bidding for the Truth; and then we who see it but through a cloud, darkly, 1 Cor. 13.12. through a cloud of Affections, through a cloud of Prejudice, yea through darkness itself, an inward detestation of it, shall with open face, 2 Cor. 3.18. as the Apostle speaketh, behold the glory of it, and be changed into the same image, from virtue to virtue, from proffers to resolutions, from beginnings to perfection, even by the power of that Truth which we behold. And this is truly to buy the Truth, to buy it, not for ostentation, but for use; to buy it, not to be laid up in a napkin, Luke 19.20. but to demonstrate its activity against all illusions, that they deceive us not; against all occasions, that they withdraw us not; and against all temptations, that we be not led into them. And thus, as it is with the Angels, Contemplation shall not hinder but promote our Obedience, and our Obedience exalt our Contemplation: and by working by the Truth, we shall more nearly behold the copy by which we work, and be more familiar with it. To conclude; These things we must lay down, and these means we must make use of, if we intent to purchase the Truth, and make it our possession. And now ye see what it is to buy the Truth. I now pass to the negative part of my Text, Sell it not: And this may serve for my Conclusion. For one contrary interpreteth another. If to buy the Truth be to seek and draw it to us for our use, then to sell it must needs be to put it from us, to give it up to our Passions, our Prejudice, our Distaste or Malice, and so to alienate it that it shall be as a thing that concerneth us not, of no use to us at all. Venditio omnem contractum complectitur; saith the Law. And in this sale there is a contract with our Affections and Lusts, with the World, with every Trifle and Vanity; which is in effect a contract with the Devil, himself. By this we part with all our right and title, and fling it from us. Now as the buying of the Truth of all bargains is the best; because, whereas in all other bargains, let them be driven how you can, the gain of one party is loss to the other, in this bargain there is only gain, and no loss at all; the buyer gaineth, and yet no seller loseth: so the sale of the Truth of all bargains is the worst and the most foolish. For in other sales however somebody ever loseth, yet somebody getteth; what the seller loseth, the buyer getteth: but when the Truth is sold, there is nothing but mere loss; no man is, no man can be, the better for the sale of the Truth: Vendentem tantùm deserit & minuit: Only the seller groweth the worse; there is no buyer groweth the better. When Ahab came to Naboth to procure from him his vineyard. Give me, 1 Kings 21.2. saith he, thy vineyard, and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or I will give thee the worth of it in money. See here three mighty tempters, the King, Money, and Commodity, whereof which is the strongest it is hard to determine: the weakest of them prevaileth with most men: Notwithstanding Naboth holdeth out against them all; v. 3. The Lord forbidden it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. Beloved, the Truth is our lot, our inheritance. Agnoscite haereditatem in Christo, saith the Father; Acknowledge and keep the inheritance ye have by Christ; not Peace only, but Truth also, which is the mother of Peace. Let no temptation, though as strong as the King, as Money, as Profit, make us yield to the sale of it; but let our answer be like that of Naboth, God forbidden that we should give away the inheritance of Christ: God forbidden that, when the World proferreth fairly to us, we should give it for a smile; or, when our Lusts solicit, we should give it up to satisfy them; or, when the Persecutor breatheth nothing but terror, we should sell it to our fears, and at every question that is asked us deny and forswear it: God forbidden we should sell it, as bankrupts do their lands, for want; or, as wantoness do, for pleasure; or, as cowards do, for safety; or, as Esau did his birthright, for hunger; or, as the Patriarches sold Joseph, for envy. For this were to sell ourselves for that which is not bread. Isa. 55.2. Let the Truth be like the Land of promise, which might not be sold for ever, Levit. 25.23. because it was the Lord's: and so Truth is the Lords: and to be destitute of the Truth, Ephes. 2.12. is to be without God in this world. Let us therefore love the Truth, and keep it and hold it fast; and we shall find the merchandise thereof better than the merchandise of silver, Prov. 3.14. and the gain thereof then fine gold. Isa. 23.8. The merchants hereof are princes, and the most honourable traffickers of the earth, even Kings and Priests unto God. The Lawyer's question to Christ was, Revel. 1.6. What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? Matth. 19.16, 17. The answer whereunto is, Keep the commandments, that is being interpreted, the Truth: for they both interpret each other. This is the price of eternity: With this in our hearts, in our inward parts, but made manifest by our hands, in our outward actions, we draw near unto happiness in full assurance of faith: With this we purchase peace here; for it is one seal to the covenant of peace; and it shall open the gates of heaven, and give us possession of the kingdom of peace, with the God of Truth and Peace, for evermore. Which God grant. Amen. The Twelfth SERMON. MATTH. V 10. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. THis is the last Beatitude of the eight, and looketh back upon all the rest. For by this the Christian is brought to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to his height and perfection, being never nearer heaven than when he is trod under foot upon earth, never more righteous than when he suffereth for righteousness, never more glorious then in his blood. The first seven consist in action: Where we may behold the Poor man fight against the Pomp of the world; the Mourner slighting of Pleasure; the Meek subduing his Anger; the Just man hungering and thirsting after righteousness, feeding on it himself, and commending it as the best food to others; working it himself, and promoting it in others; the Merciful binding up wounds, and scattering his bread; the Pure man washing his hands in innocency, and cleansing his heart; and the Peacemaker closing up every breach, and tying the bond of love, at peace with himself and all men, drawing all men together, as far as in him lieth, to be of one mind and one heart. This last which I now propose unto you, consisteth in passion, in a willingness and readiness of mind to suffer for all these. And this is the seal and ratification of the rest; an argument, a protestation, a demonstration, that the rest were in us of a truth. And as the first fit us for the last, so this declareth and manifesteth the first. Then we may know we are righteous, when we are ready to suffer for righteousness sake; then our Love is made known, when we bear about with us the marks of the Lord Jesus. For it is a higher degree of perfection to suffer for doing of good, than it is to do it. In the first we stand out against ourselves; in the last, against ourselves and others: In the first we fight against our lusts and affections; in the last, against principalities and powers, against fire and sword, against the king of terrors, Death itself. Greater love than this hath no man, John 15.13. that a man lay down his life for his friends. And therefore Aquinas telleth us that this last Beatitude carrieth with it the perfection of all the rest: For he that to nourish and uphold the rest, is ready, as S. Paul speaketh, to spend himself, and to be spent, to lose his own head and life rather than one hair, one tittle or jota should fall from them, doth manifest to God and proclaim to the world that he hath discovered beauty and glory and a heaven in them, that his body and goods and life laid in the scales are found too light in comparison of them, that they are of no use unless it be to make up a sacrifice to be offered for them. When we are willing to part with our goods; when we can leave the pleasures which last but for a season, and go into the house of mourning; when we can chase away our anger, and make it set before the Sun; when we can make righteousness our daily bread, and long for it more than for the honey or the honey comb; when we have melting and compassionate hearts; when we have clean hearts, unspotted of the world; when we are at peace with all men, and strive to make all men at peace with one another, we have made a fair progress in the ways of righteousness: But nondum ad sanguinem, Hebr. 12.4. we have not yet resisted unto blood. When we can lay down our lives for righteousness sake; when we can do that which is just, and suffer for that we do, then have we crowned the rest, and fitted our own heads for a crown of glory. He that can suffer what the rage of man or Devil can inflict rather than let go his righteousness, he maketh it plain that it is his possession, his inheritance, his life, fastened to his soul, never to be divorced; his honour, when he is in disgrace; his riches, when he hath not a hole to hid his head in; his tabernacle in a storm, his delight in torment; and when the sword shall part the soul from the body, ascending up to heaven, and accompanying it to the place of bliss. For when the man is killed, the Saint is gone home, and is escaped to the holy hill. In this relation and dependence doth this Beatitude stand with the rest. If we be not righteous, we cannot suffer for righteousness sake: and if we be truly righteous, Persecution is a blessing; Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake. I have a large field to go over, an Aceldama, a field of blood, a Golgotha, a place of dead men's skulls, where you shall see some stoned, some sawen asunder, some slain with the sword, others having trial of cruel mockings and scourge, of bonds and imprisonment, but withal (that the eye of flesh cannot discover) Blessedness waiting upon them and shadowing them in the midst of horror. Here is a fair inscription upon a bitter roll, a pleasing preface to a tragical theme, a promise of pleasure in misery, of honour in dishonour, of life in death, of heaven in hell. Here we may see persecution making us strong by making us weak, making us rich my making us poor, making us happy by making us miserable, and driving us through this field of blood into paradise. The parts of the Text are manifestly but two: a Blessing pronounced, Blessed are they that suffer persecution; and a Reason given, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But we may by a plain and natural deduction make them three; 1. That they who begin in the other Virtues and Beatitudes must end in this; or, in the Apostle's words, They that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. 2. That Persecution bringeth no blessing but to those who suffer for righteousness sake. 3. That to those it doth: Which comprehendeth the Inscription, Blessedness; and the Reason of the inscription, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We find here Persecution and Blessedness joined together, wrought by the same hand, a hand of mercy, and like sweet and bitter water flowing from the same fountain, a fountain of love. For it is God's love and mercy to give us a kingdom, and it is his love and mercy to bring us to it by sufferings, to bring us as the Apostles speaketh, Acts 12.22. through much tribulation, through the noise and tumults of this world, to a place of rest. Agnosco haereditatem meam in cruse, saith Bernard; I am an heir to the Cross as well as to the Kingpom. They are both entailed upon us, both made over to us in the same patent or lease. You may find it registered, Mark 10.30. Houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, and eternal life, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with persecutions. It is threatened, 2 Tim. 3.12. (I mistake; it is promised) All that will live godly shall suffer persecution. And this cannot be a threat, an angry denunciation: For in God's anger is death. When he striketh the righteous, it is as fire to try them; but when he smiteth the ungodly, it is as fire to consume them. It is permitted: For without his will a hair cannot fall from our heads. It is ordained: Decernuntur ista, non accidunt, as Seneca speaketh; These things come not by chance, but by decree. No sooner had God made Paul a chosen vessel, but he doth in a manner expose him to the hammer; Go; he is a chosen v●ssel unto me: and it followeth, Acts ●. 15 ver. 16. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. So that it is also a Prophecy, prophesied here, and chap. 21. Nam sicut verbis, sic rebus▪ prophetatum est, saith Tertullian: There is a prophecy by words, and a prophecy by things. Paul's girdle, with which Agabus bond himself, did plainly foretell that the Apostle should be bound at Jerusalem, Acts 21.11. Matth. 18.7. and delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles. For, as our Saviour speaketh of Offences, so may we of Persecution; It must needs be that it will come, not only necessitate consequentiae, by a necessity of consequence, supposing the frail condition of our nature, and the changes and chances of a wicked world; but necessitate finis, in respect of the end for which it is sent, for which God, in whose power both men and their actions are, doth not only not hinder it by his mighty hand, (for God's Omnipotence waiteth as it were upon his Wisdom; and he cannot do what is not fit to do) but permitteth it, and by a kind of providence letteth the storm fall on the head of the righteous, for their trial, and his glory. We know, Rom 8.28. saith S. Paul, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. We know that all those evils which every day affront and assault them, befall them not only by the general permission of God, but by a special decree, which tendeth to their good. For they who are called according to his purpose, that is, who are odedient unto his call, may draw life itself out of these waters of Marah, and upon these evils raise themselves nearer to God. For it followeth, Whom he did foreknow, that is, ver. 29. whom he approved as true believers in his Son, (for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies, Rom. 11.2.) them also did he predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, those did he constitute, ordain and set up to be like unto his Son, to suffer, as he did upon the Cross, to be partakers of his sufferings, and to go the same way which he did to glory, seculi fluctus, Christo praeeunte, calcare, to tread upon the proud waves of this world, Christ leading the way before them. For as it became him i● whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings; and because they suffer with him, he is not ashamed to call them brethren, Hebr. 2.10, 11. so it becometh us to look upon Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith, and with him to endure the cross. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, Rom. 8.30. that is, ordain and constitute to be conformable to the example of his Son, them he also called, to suffer persecution. For hereunto are ye called, 1 Pet. 2.21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the same word S Paul there useth, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. And so, Let no man be moved by these afflictions: 1 Thes. 3.3. for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto; that they are ordained by God, who doth not only not hinder, but order and dispose the causes of them. And then whom he thus calleth, those he justifieth, he strengtheneth and assisteth them that they persevere in the obedience of righteousness, and so are made the more just. And those who are thus justified, who persevere to the end, those he glorifieth. And this may seem more agreeable to the mind and scope of the Apostle, if we either observe what goeth before or what followeth after, than that fancy which hath found materials here to file out a Chain of Decrees, and yet hath left men doubtful and to seek which is the first link. Let every man abound in his own sense, so it be not to the prejudice of the Truth and the glory of God. That the righteous are ordained to suffer for righteousness, and so to be like to the Sun of righteousness, is laid down in terminis, in plain words. We need not seek for more proofs out of Scripture: These are plain and positive. And the reason is as plain, even written with the Sunbeams. For 1. in this God dealeth with them as a loving father: He doth it ad probationem fidei, for the trial, or rather the demonstration, of their faith; to make it appear that they do not gratiam fingere in odio, make a profession of their love, when they hate him in their heart; depend upon him for their salvation and happiness, and when persecution cometh, leave him and exchange him for the world: rather yield, and fall under the burden, then stand fast in the faith, and retain him as their God. Our praying to him, our bending our knees, our magnifying his name, our Hosannas and Hallelujahs, our falling down at his footstool, are but communia signa, as the Orator speaketh in the like case, but deceitful signs and indications of our affection towards him. For the language of an enemy may be as pleasing as that of a friend: A Pharisee may be louder in prayer then a disciple of Christ. There must some occasion and opportunity be offered, some danger, some cross, that may fright me; and when I withstand all, and cleave fast unto Christ, than it will appear that I am his friend and servant. This is it which bringeth forth the true professor in his own shape, and unmasketh the Hypocrite. Nauclerum tempestas, Christianum persecutio probat, saith the Father; A mariner is best seen in a tempest, and a Christian is best known when persecution rageth. In a calm sea, when the weather is fair, and no wind nor tempest stirreth, inglorius subit portum, the pilot indeed arriveth at the wished for haven, but without praise or honour: But cùm strident funes, & strepent gubernacula, when the tackling is torn, and the mast rend, when the storm is violent, and the sea high-wrought, then to drive to shore commendeth his skill, and maketh him glorious to the beholders. When our life is becalmed, when no temptetion beateth upon it, who can tell whether we do not sub alterius habitu alteri militare, wear Christ's colours, but fight for his enemies? And therefore Gregory observeth of Job, Si non flagellaretur, non agnosceretur, Job had never been known, had he never been tormented. If God had not pulled down his hedge, we had seen perhaps the man in the land of Uz, but not Job the example of patience. Persecution is the matter and occasion of Virtue, which is then in her full lustre when she doth eluctari os extra nubem, strike and force herself out of that cloud which doth meet her in her course, and would obscure her. Faith and Hope are not the virtues of the Church triumphant, but militant. And we must buckle on the whole armour of God, and stand ready-harnessed against the day of battle. Not to fight, is not to overcome: For it is opposition that crowneth the conqueror. Many professors we have, many who say, Lord, Lord, and live and die Christians, of whom though we must hope well, yet are we not certain that they are Saints. For how know we whether he who held fast his profession when all was quiet and still about him, would not have let go his hold upon the blast of a strong temptation? How know we whether he who spoke glorious words in the sunshine, would not have renounced them had the weather altered and the heavens been dark about him? whether he who went for a defender of his faith till he fell down into his grave, would not have forsaken it at the sight of a sword, or would have gone along with it to the stake and the fire, and have took his death upon it? It falleth out with some Christians as it doth with deformed women: Non animus illis deest, sed corruptor: They are indeed very chaste, but not for want of will in themselves to play the wantoness, but for want of will in others to defile them, and are more beholden to a bad face then a pure mind for their integrity. Many are not achan's, because there is no wedg● of Gold before them; many are not Judasses', because there is no proffer made of thirty pieces; many deny not Christ with Peter, because there is none to question them. Our faith is never seen in its full proportion and beauty, till she come forth russata sanguine, in her red garment, with her back ploughed upon, in her own gore and blood. Thus doth God bring forth his choicest servants into the field against the sword and persecution, his mighty men, as if David should employ the chiefest of his mighty men to break through the host of the Philistines; as if Alexander should appoint a Parmenio, or Caesar a Scaeva, old experienced soldiers, to bear the brunt of the battle. Thus doth God handle those quos in magnis aeternae beatitudinis constituit exemplis, whom he meaneth to make as great examples to draw others to the pursuit of eternal happiness, and to fix them in the firmament of the Church for all eyes to behold: 1 Pet. 1.7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. (Beza rendereth it experimentum, the trial; but it implieth more the approbation of faith. For in this sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often used in Scripture: as Rom. 1.28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reprobate mind, a mind that cannot be approved; and Rom. 2.18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, approvest the things that are excellent; and in divers other places) That the trial (the approbation) of your faith may be found to praise and glory. For it is spoken of the righteous, whose minds he must needs see and know who searcheth the heart and reins. And therefore well knowing them, he approveth them, bringeth them forth before the Sun and the people to act their parts as on a theatre, putteth them upon difficulties, draweth them out as Gideon did his three hundred, and sendeth the rest to their tents; not tryeth, but approveth them, as his soldiers, and biddeth them fight his battles. As Gregory well expresseth; When he is disposed to set up a picture in his Church to be well observed of all that shall come after, that the people which shall be born may praise the Lord, he doth it not by limning and painting, but by the art of cutting and embroidery: He dealeth not in colours, as the Painter, which according to his fancy he tempereth and layeth out to the view of the eye; but he dealeth, as the Embroiderer, in more costly matter, which he cutteth into pieces and fragments. To adorn his Church with some rare pictures of Christian virtues, he taketh his children, and cutteth and mangleth them as it were into bits and pieces with crosses and calamities, and then maketh them up again into most heavenly and angelical forms, to be looked upon by others in his Church militant, and to look upon himself in the Church triumphant; a glorious spectacle, a picture of great use, a speaking image, encouraging the good, and persuading the evil to become good; prevailing many times with those Tyrants and executioners whose hands God made use of in this his work, and making them take up that cross, and bear it, which before they laid upon other men's shoulders; teaching them to be martyrs who were the greatest murderers. Therefore, in the second place, this is the reason why God suffereth this mixture of good and evil, why he suffereth Tyrants and bloodthirsty men to go on and prosper in their ways. Ideo tolerantur mali, ut probentur boni, saith Augustine; Therefore is there a toleration of evil men, that good men might be manifested to the world. The Disposer of all things suffered the Church to be rend and torn with Heresies and Schisms, ut Basilius meus cognosceretur, saith Nazianzene, that Basil might be known, that his piety and wisdom might be seen in making them up. If there were not evil men, there could be no persecution. For I cannot see how good men should persecute one another. It is more probable that Satan should rise up against Satan, and one Devil cast out another, than that one righteous man should pursue another. Evil men may rage's against evil men, because they are evil: For that that made them brethren in evil, may make them enemies. Herod and Pilate may fall out, and then be made friends, Luke 23.12. and join their forces against Christ, and then fall out again. Many there may be that may pursue the innocent as one man, and hold out their swords together, and bend their forces to rob and spoil them; and then, when they are to divide the spoil, turn the points of their swords at another's breasts. Evil changeth its countenance; but Goodness is always like itself, and loveth itself, and every man that loveth it. A good man can no more do evil to him that is like him, than one minister of light can to another, or a Seraphin to a Cherubin. Nor can he persecute an evil man; for it is the greatest part of his goodness to bless him. No; Persecution is the firstborn of the Prince of this world: and he sendeth it into the world to be entertained and made much of by the children of this world. For from whence cometh it but from Envy and Malice and Covetousness and Ambition? which if they cannot find an occasion of doing evil, will make one, and force it out of Good itself. As the Apostle every where joineth Covetousness with Uncleanness, so may we with Hatred and Persecution. These are they that make that desolation on the earth; these are those Phaethons' which set the world on fire. Look back upon every age of the Church, and tell me, was there ever rend or schism which these made not? was there ever heresy which these coined not? was there ever fire which these kindled not? was there ever torment which these invented not? was there ever evil in a city which these have not done? Howsoever we talk like Saints, and walk like Angels, though we oppress our brethren with more formality of devotion then ever the Pharisees devoured widows houses, and pretend with Cillicon that we are going to sacrifice, when we are about to set a city on fire, these are but as the voice of Jacob; when the blow falleth, we shall feel that the hands were Esau's. The righteous are led as sheep to the slaughter, but Covetousness leadeth them on in the name of righteousness. Persecution never rageth more than when a worldling, a man of Belial, striketh in the name of the Lord. Again, as the men of this world cannot pass to the end of their hopes but by striking down those who seem to stand in their way, cannot be rich but by making others poor, not be mighty but by making others weak, not be at liberty but by binding others, not soar to their desired height but by laying others in the dust, not live at ease unless they see others in their grave, (which are the several kinds of persecution, as it were the stings of that Scorpion:) so the righteous are fitted and qualified for all, are ready to be diminished and brought low, to be poor, to be weak, to be bound, to be disgraced, to sit in the dust, ●o lie in the grave; suspecting riches, afraid of liberty, loving the lowest place, and dying daily; set forth, as S. Paul speaketh, as a spectacle, 1 Cor. 4.9. as men appointed to die. Tertullian rendereth it, elegit veluti bestiarios, culled out and set apart to fight with beasts; a mark for Envy, to shoot out her eye at; for Malice, to strike at, spit at; for every Shimei to fling a stone at, and a curse together; for every Zibah to cozen; for every Judas, to betray; a mark for all the Devil's artillery, for all the fiery darts the malice and subtlety of the Devil can draw out of hell. They must appear, saith Seneca, as fools, that they may be wise; as weak, that they may be strong; as ignoble, that they may be more honourable; and this for no other reason but because they are righteous. For they are made contentious men, men that strive with the whole earth, as Jeremiah speaketh of himself. They shake every corner of the earth, every thing that is earthy. Their Liberality shameth the miser, their Chastity stoneth the adulterer, their Mercy accuseth the oppressor, and their Honesty arraigneth the thief; occasion enough to raise a persecution. For nihil scandalosius justitiâ; There is not a more scandalous thing in the world than Righteousness. For as it knitteth all righteous men together in a bond of peace, so it upbraideth and condemneth the wicked, and so maketh them Enemies. Heb. 11.7. By this Noah condemned the world. And nihil periculosius justitiâ, there is nothing in the world more dangerous than Righteousness. For as it condemneth the world, leaveth it open to the sentence of condemnation, so doth the world also condemn it: first, by reproaching it, and bringing an evil report on it, as an unnecessary, thriftless, troublesome, seditious thing: secondly, by selling it; as the Wanton doth for a smile, the Covetous for that which is not bread, the Ambitious for a breath, a blast, the Superstitious for a picture, an Idol, which is nothing: and thirdly, by seeking to drive it out of the world by violence against the friends and lovers of it. Duo amores duas faciunt civitates; Two several kind of Loves make up two Cities, one of the World, and another of the Lord; and these two are ever up in arms one against the other. Righteousness conquereth the World, and the World persecuteth Righteousness. The world, saith S. John, knoweth not the godly, and therefore handleth them as spies and traitors. Whilst the righteous are in the world, which is one of their greatest enemies, they must needs suffer persecution. Therefore, in the third place, if we consider the Church, which is at her best nothing else but a collection and a body of righteous men, we shall find that, whilst she is on the earth, she is Militant: And no other title doth so fully express her. For do we say she is Visible? The best and truest parts of her are not so: 2 Tim. 2.19. For the Lord only knoweth who are his. Do we call her Catholic and Universal? She is so, when her number is but small; she was so, when Christ first built her as an house upon a rock, open to all; though not many rich, not many noble entered. Shall we give her the high and proud Title of Infallible? Although she be so in many things, without which she cannot be a Church, yet in many things we err all. But when we draw her in her own blood, when we call her Militant, when we bring her in fight not only against Flesh and Blood, against Men, but against all the Powers of Darkness, than we show and describe her as she is. To say she is the body of Christ, filled with him who filleth all things, is to set her up as a mark for the World and the Devil to shoot at; and thus to set her up, is to build her up into a Church. So that though Persecution come forth with more or less horror, yet to say the Church is ever free from all persecution, is as full of absurdity as to say a man may live without a Soul. But now take it with all its terror, accompanied with whips and scorpions, with fire and sword, with banishment, and with death itself, yet is it so far from destroying this body of the righteous which we call the Church, that it rather establisheth, enlargeth and adorneth it. For this is the Kingdom of Christ: And Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, but culled and chosen out of the world. John 18.35 And in this the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of Christ differ; That which doth ruin the one, doth build up the other. The sword and fire and persecution demolish the Kingdoms of this world; but these evermore enlarge the Church, and stretch forth the curtains of her habitation. Those may perish, and have their fatal period; but this is everlasting, as his love is that built it, and shall stand fast for ever. Those are worn out by time; but this is but melted and purged in it, and shall then be most glorious when Time shall be no more. Therefore I may be bold to present you with a speculation which may seem a paradox, but being well examined will be found a truth; and it is this; That persecution is so far from ruining the righteous, that it is to them as peace. For if Peace signify the integrity and whole perfection of ones good estate, as it doth in Scripture often, then may Persecution well deserve that name, which bringeth the righteous out of the shadow into the sun; setteth them on the stage, there to act their parts, spectantibus Angelis & Archangelis, before God and Angels and men; maketh them more glorious, putteth them to their whole armoury, their whole strength, the whole substance of their faith, as Tertullian calleth it, that they may suffer, and conquer; which is indeed to build them up into a Church. And therefore Nazianzene calleth it the mystery of persecution, where one thing is seen, and another done, where glory lieth hid in disgrace, increase in diminution, and life in death itself; ecclesiae in attonito, the righteous stirring and moving in their place in the midst of all these amazements and terrors of the world. And thus some analogy and resemblance there is between the persecution of the righteous and the peace of the world. For as in times of peace we every one sit under his own vine and figtree, every one walketh in his own calling, the merchant trafficketh, the tradesman selleth, the husbandman tilleth and ploweth the ground, and the scholar studieth; so the time of persecution, though it breatheth nothing but terror, is by God's grace made the accepted time to the godly, and the day of salvation; a day for them to work in their calling, when they sit under the shadow of God's wings; when they study patience and Christian resolution; when they plough up their fallow ground, and sow the seeds of righteousness; when they traffic for the rich pearl, and buy it with their blood; when every one in his place acteth by the virtue, and to the honour and glory, of the Head, who himself was consecrate and made perfect by sufferings. We may demonstrate this to the very eye. For never did the branches of the true Vine more flourish than when they were lopped and pruned; never did they more multiply then when they were diminished. Constantine, we are told, brought in the outword peace of the Church: but it is plain and evident that Christianity did spread itself in Asia, afric and Europe in far greater proportion in three hundred years before that Emperor than it did many hundred years after. For Persecution occasioneth dispersion; and dispersion spreadeth the Gospel. It is S. Hierom's observation in the life of Malchus, That the Church of Christ was sub tyrannis aurea, that under tyrants it was as gold tried in the fire, giving forth the lustre of pure doctrine and faith; Sed postquam coepit habere Christianos Imperatores, but when the Emperors themselves were Christians, she grew up in favour and outward state, but fell short in piety and righteousness, and, as Cassander professeth of the Church of Rome, Crescentibus divitiis, decrevit pietas; what she got in wealth and pomp, she lost in devotion, and at last grew rich in all things but good works. In time of persecution and dispersion how many children were begot unto the Church! When persecution was loudest, than the righteous did grow up and flourish. When tyrants forbade men to speak in the name of Christ, then totius mundi vox una Christus, then was Christ, as the same Father speaketh, become the voice and language of the whole world. Plures efficimur, quoties metimur, saith Tertullian; When the righteous are driven about the world, and when they are driven out of the world, than they multiply. To conclude this; So far as righteousness or the Graces of the Spirit from bringing any privilege to exempt men from persecution, that through the malice of Satan and the corruption of men they are rather provocations to raise one, and make Persecution itself a privilege. For, in the last place, it cometh not by chance that the righteous are persecuted. What hath Chance to do in the school of Providence? No; Persecution is brought towards the righteous by the providence and wisdom of a loving Father. Tam pater nemo, tam sapiens nemo; No such Father, and none so provident. I say, by the providence and wisdom of God, which consisteth in well ordering and bringing every thing to its right end by those means which he findeth most proper and fit for that end; which commonly run in a contrary course from that which humane infirmity, flesh and blood, would find out. Isa. 55.8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord, but as far removed as Heaven from Earth. And as he hath made the Heaven's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaketh, the veil of his Divine majesty; so in all his proceed upon men he is Deus sub velo, a God under a veil; hidden, but yet seen; in a dark character, but read; not touched, but felt; tunc optimus, cum nobis videtur non bonus; then most favourable, when he seemeth to frown; merciful, when he seemeth angry; gracious, when he seemeth to put the sword into the persecutour's hand; the same God yesterday in the calm, and to day in the storm; raising the righteous as high as heaven, when in appearance he hath opened the gates of hell to devour them; whilst flesh and blood stand at gaze, and wonder at his counsels and dispositions, and understand them not, till the spirit revealeth them, as David speaketh, in the sanctuary. Psal. 73. Were flesh and blood to build a Church, it should not be an House subject to the wind and waves but some house of pleasure, a royal palace; it should not be in Egypt, or Babylon, or in the land of the Philistines, but in Paradise. For we would go to heaven without any condition or difficulty; have fathers, and brethren, and houses, a hundred-fold, without persecution; march to the Land of Canaan, and meet with no serpents in the wilderness, not see a son of Anak to oppose us; we would reign, but not suffer; hear God, but not in the whirlwind; see him, but not in the fire; would have the Kingdom, without persecution; that is, would have God neither provident, nor just, nor wise; that is, would have no God at all. These are these dictates, the results, the evaporations of flesh and blood. But God's method is best, and is drawn out by his manifold wisdom, Eph. 3.10. Nor indeed, considering what materials we be made of, could it possibly be otherwise. Perversitas, quam putas, ratio est; That is good order which we take to be confusion, and that which we call Persecution is favour and mercy. For could we be brought to God any other way, he would not so much as touch us with his rod: Or could we take possession of his kingdom without it, he would not thus chase us into it by the fury and sword of the persecutor. But our corruption can hardly be let out but with the lance: The Old man must sit heavy on us, that we may put him off; and the World must breathe fire and brimstone in our faces, that we may loathe it. Persecution showeth what a prison, what a hell the world is, how ready it is to overflow our fading delights with gall, that we may fly out of it to a better place. If we will, we may make our persecutor our Apostle to preach Jesus Christ unto us. And therefore, as Theodoret calleth the Redemption of man the most excellent part of God's providence, so the manner of bringing it about by these sad and unwelcome means to flesh and blood is from the same Providence: Which as it set an Oportet upon Christ, though his dispensation was most free, Heb. 2.10. It became him for whom are all things, etc. to consecrate the Captain of our salvation through sufferings; so there is an Oportet set upon the righteous, Acts 14.22. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. Nor indeed, take us as we are polluted and unclean, could we possibly enter any other way: we could not enter the new heavens, but purged and refined by persecution into the new creature, cured by diseases, healed by bruises, raised by falls, and made happy by misery; taught by the counsel of the wise, and taught by the contradiction of sinners; helped by Prophets, and advantaged by Tyrants; directed by the Apostles, and hastened by Persecutors to our inheritance: For in some sense we may say, Persecution giveth us livery and seisin, and maketh it ours. The Text itself implieth so much, Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I have now brought you into this Aceldama, this Field of blood, where you may behold the ungodly for their own lust persecuting the poor, where you may behold hypocrites and deceitful men bending their bow, and shooting at the righteous in secret, and mighty men drawing their swords and drenching them in their blood. A sad sight, to see righteousness under the whip and harrow! But withal you may discover not only an Angel going before them, as before the children of Israel in the wilderness, but Christ himself leading them through these terrors and amazements to a place of refreshing, to a City not made with hands, to the kingdom of heaven, Oportet, they must suffer; but there remaineth a Sabbath for the children of God. Persecution is the lot, the inheritance of the righteous: that was our first part. We will now present you with the second; That every man that suffereth hath not title to this Blessedness in the Text; but only those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Which comprehendeth all those duties which the Gospel requireth at their hands who have given up their names unto Christ. For it is possible that a man may suffer for one virtue, and neglect the rest; may suffer to preserve his chastity, and yet be covetous; may keep his virgin, and be a thief; may give up his goods rather then bow to an Idol, and be an yet adulterer; may sacrifice to no God but the God of Israel, and yet bow in the house of Rimmon; nay may suffer for some truth which he is fully persuaded of, and yet hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. For tell me; May not a Jew stand more for the circumcision of his flesh then of his heart? for the Sabbaths bodily rest, than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that quietness of mind, which is the proper effect of righteousness? For the one he will lose his life; for the other he doth not lay out many thoughts. He will starve before he will eat a piece of swines-flesh, and yet not put his knife to his throat to keep off intemperance. He can suffer for the Law, and yet break it. Bid a Christian deny the Lord that made him, and Christ that redeemed him, and he will rather suffer his tongue to be cut out then to speak that word; but yet will in his life deny him every day: he will curse the Jew, and yet crucify Christ: he will venture sea and land, put his fortunes and life in hazard, for a new discipline, and yet take no pains to be a disciple of Christ. Such an advantage many times hath education and custom upon us; such a power hath the love of the world, of our name or credit, above the truth of Christ, which calleth us out of the world. Again, this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this full persuasion of mind, is prevalent on both sides, both in good and evil, both for truth and error. A thief may go as cheerfully to his death as a martyr. The Egyptians, saith Tully, would endure any torture rather than violate their Ibis, or an Asp, or a Dog, or a Crocodile. The Priests of Mithras passed the sword, the fire, and famine, even fourscore several torments, and that with ostentation of alacrity, only that they might be his Priests. We have read of Heretics who have sung in the midst of the flames: Nay of Atheists; as Scipio Tettus, who now burning for setting up a school of Atheism, clapped his hands in the midst of his torments. Such strength hath persuasion on both sides: In illis pietas, in istis cordis duritia operatur; The love of the truth prevaileth in the righteous, and the love of error in the other. Such a power hath the Devil over those hearts which by God's permission he possesseth. He can persuade Judas to deny his Master, and he can persuade him to hang himself. He can drive men into error, and lead them along in triumph, rejoicing, to their death. He can teach men first to kill others, than themselves. He can first make the grossest error delightful, and then death itself. Habet & Diabolus suos martyrs: For the Devil hath his martyrs as well as God. The Manichees were Martyrs: for they boasted that they suffered persecution; and yet did those outrages which none but persecutors could do. The Donatists were Martyrs; and yet did ravish virgins, break open prisons, fling the Communion-bread to dogs. Garnet was a Martyr, and Faux a Martyr, when they would have blown up a Kingdom; which may be done without gunpowder. The Massalians in Epiphanius buried their bodies who were killed for despising and denying the Law, and for worshipping of Idols, and sung hymns and made panegyrics on them, and called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sect of Martyrs. So that, you see, every man is ready to say he is persecuted, every man suffereth for righteousness sake, every man is a Martyr. In every nation and in every people, in every sect and in every conventicle we may find Martyrs. But this is not the noble army of Martyrs, where none are listed but those who suffer for righteousness sake. It is not pretence but Truth, that must set this crown upon our heads. This is praise worthy, saith St. Peter, 1 Pet. 2.19.20. if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, and that not an erring conscience, (it is very strange we should err in any of those things for which we must suffer) For what glory is it, if when you are buffeted for your faults, you take it patiently? but if when you do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. St. Bernard determineth all in brief, proposing to us two things which make death precious, and persecution a blessing; vitam, & causam; sed ampliùs causam quàm vitam: the life of them that suffer, and the cause for which they are persecuted; but the cause more than the life. For seldom will an evil man suffer in a good cause: and he is not good who suffereth in a bad; for that for which he suffereth maketh him evil. If he suffer as a malefactor, he is one. But when both commend our sufferings, then are they praiseworthy: That sacrifice is of a sweet-smelling savour which both a good cause and a good life offer up. And first the Cause; it must be the love of Righteousness. For we see, as I told you, men will suffer for their lusts, suffer for their profit, suffer for fear, suffer for disdain; as Cato is blamed by Augustine for killing himself because the haughtiness of his mind could not stoop to be beholden to Caesar; and therefore, cùm non potuit pedibus, fugit manibus; whom he could not fly from with his feet, he did with his hands, and killed himself: Which argued a lower spirit, and was an act of more dejection and baseness, than it would have been to have kissed the foot of Caesar. Some, we see, will venture themselves for their name, and hazard their souls for reputation, which is but another man's thought. But neither are these, our pleasure, our profit, our honour, causes why we should suffer death, or venture our lives. To be willing rather to lose my goods then my humour, and my life then my reputation, is not to set a right estimate upon them. For my goods are God's blessings, and I must not exchange them but for better: My life is that moment on which eternity dependeth, and we should not look back upon that opinion of honour which remaineth behind us, but rather look forward upon that infinite space, that eternity, of bliss or pain which befalleth us immediately after our last breath. Be sure your cause be good, or else to venture goods or life upon it is the worst kind of prodigality in the world. For he that knoweth what life is, and the true use of it, had he many lives to spare, yet would be loath to part with any one of them but upon the best terms. We must deal with our life as we do with our money: We must not be covetous of it, desire life for no other use but to live, as covetous persons desire money only to have it: Neither ought we to be prodigal of life, and trifle it away upon every occasion. To know when and in what cases to offer ourselves to suffer and die is a great part of our spiritual wisdom. Nam impetu quodam & instinctu currere ad mortem, cum multis common: Brutishly to run upon and hasten our death, is a thing that many men may do; as we see brute beasts many times run upon the spears of such as pursue them. Sed deliberare, & causas expendere, utque suaserit ratio, vitae mortisque consilium suscipere vel ponere, ingentis est animi: Wisely to look into and weigh every occasion, and, as judgement and true discretion shall direct, so to entertain a resolution either of life or death, this is indeed true fortitude and magnanimity. Every low and light consideration is not to hold esteem and keep equipage with that Truth which must save us. There is nothing but Righteousness which hath this prerogative, to call for our lives; and it will pay them back with eternity: Righteousness, which is nothing else but our obedience to the Gospel of Christ and those precepts which he hath left behind to draw us after him. We must rather renounce our lives and goods than these; rather not be men than not be good Christians. Matth. 10.39. Here that is true, He that findeth his life (for they who, to escape danger, deny the truth, count that escape a thing found and gained, look upon it as a new purchase of themselves: but he that thus findeth his life) shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. The loss of our lives for righteousness sake is a purchase. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven. For this Stephen was stoned, Paul beheaded, the Martyrs tortured. So persecuted they the Prophets which were before you. In the next place, as a good Cause, so a good Life doth fit and qualify us to suffer for righteousness sake. Non habent martyrum mortem, qui non habent Christianorum vitam, saith Augustine: He dieth not the death of a Martyr, who liveth not the life of a Christian. An unclean beast is not fit to make a sacrifice. Nor will the crown of Martyrdom sit upon his head who goeth on in his sin. It is to the wicked that God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes? and, What hast thou to do to suffer for them? For he that suffereth for them, declareth them. Therefore S. Augustine calleth the Donatists, who in a perverse emulation of the glory of the true Martyrs leapt down from rocks, and fling themselves into the water, and were drowned, sceleratos homicidas, wicked homicides and unnatural murderers of themselves. What Cyprian speaketh of Schism, is as true of other mortal sins not repent of, Non Martyrium tollit, not Martyrdom itself can expiate or blot it out. For can we think that he that hath taken his fill in sin all his life long, and still made his strength the law of unrighteousness, should in a moment wash away all his filth and pollutions baptismo sanguinis, with his own blood? It may supply for those other pious souls who were never washed in the other laver, that of Baptism, because persecution or death deprived them of that benefit: for what cannot be done cannot oblige: But how a man should draw out his life in an open hostility to Christ, and trifle with him and contemn him all his days, and then before repentance and reconciliation (which indeed is in the very act of hostility) bow to him and die for him, I cannot see. Take S. Paul's black catalogue of the works of the flesh, Adultery, Gal. 3. fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revel; and not one of these but will infringe and weaken the testimony of any man, and render him a suspected witness in our Courts on Earth: And shall the truth of Christ stand in need of such Knights of the post, who will speak for her when they oppose her? Take that beadroll of wicked men which the Apostle prophesied should come in these last and perilous times; 2 Tim. 3. 15. Lovers of their own selves, Covetous, Boasters, Proud, Blasphemers, Disobedient to parents, Unthankful, Unholy, Without natural affection, Truce-breakers, False accusers, Incontinent, Fierce, Despisers of those that are good, Traitors, Heady, High minded, Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, and may not the Gospel be ashamed of such Professors and Martyrs as these? Or shall we look for heaven in hell, and hope to find a Martyr amongst a generation of vipers? Or is he fit to be advocate for any truth, who hath the faith of Christ with respect of persons? Then we shall have factious Martyrs, seditious Martyrs, malicious Martyrs, profane Martyrs, sacrilegious Martyrs. And if these be Martyrs, we may say of them as Tertullian did of the Heathen Gods, Potiores apud inferos. There be honester men in hell then these. No; a good Cause and a good Life must be our conductors to the Cross, must lead us by the hand to the fiery trial, must as it were anoint us to our graves, and prepare us for this great work. Otherwise whatsoever we suffer, is not properly Persecution, but an execution of justice. It may be here perhaps demanded, What then shall he do who having fettered himself in the snare of the Devil, hath not yet shaken it off by true repentance, whose conscience condemneth him of many gross and grievous sins which yet himself hath not condemned in his flesh by practising the contrary virtues? What shall a notorious sinner do if he be called to this great office, if his fortunes and life be brought in hazard for the profession of some article of faith, or some truth which he believeth is necessary to salvation? What shall he do, being shut up between these three, a bad conscience, assurance of that truth he professeth, and the terror of death? Shall he hold fast the truth, or subscribe to the contrary? Shall he suffer without true repentance of his former sins, or repent of the truth which he professeth? Shall he deny against his conscience what he knoweth to be true; or shall he suffer, and comfort himself in this one act as a foundation firm enough to raise a hope on of remission of sin? Here is a great straight, a sad Dilemma, like that of the servant in the Comedy, Si faxit, perit; si non faxit, vapulat; If he do it, he may perish; and if he do it not, he may be beaten. He may suffer for the truth, and yet suffer for his sins: and if he do it not, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. But, beloved, this is an instance like that of Buridan's ass between two bottles of hay, knowing not which to choose; an instance of what peradventure never or very seldom cometh to pass. We may suppose what we please; we may suppose the heavens to stand still, and the earth to move; (and some have thought so;) we may suppose what in nature is impossible: And this, if it be not impossible, yet is so improbable that it hardly can gain so much credit as to win an assent. For that he who all his life long, hath cast Christ's word's behind him, should now seal them with his blood that they are true; that a conscience so beaten, so wasted, so overwhelmed with the habit of sins, should now take in and entertain a fear of so little a sin as the denial of one truth in respect of the contempt of all; that he that hath swallowed this monstrous camel should strain at this gnat; that he that hath trampled Christ's blood under his feet, should shed his own for some one dictate of his, is a thing which we may suppose, but hardly believe. Or tell me, Where should this sting and power of conscience lie hid? Or can conscience drive us to the confession of one truth, which had no power to withhold us from polluting ourselves with so many sins? Holding faith, saith S. Paul, 1 Tim. 1.19. and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made ship-wreck. So near an alliance there is between Faith and a good Conscience, that we must either keep them both, or lose them both. Faith, as Saint Paul intimateth in that Text, is as the ship, and an undefiled Conscience as the rudder. If you strike off the rudder, or let it go, the ship will soon dash against the rocks. But yet let us suppose that such a case may fall out, though very rarely, that the Conscience having been asleep for a long while, may at length be awakened by the horror of a prison and captivity, and then break forth with power and strength, to make such a man a champion for the Truth. We may here say, Men and brethren, what shall this man do? Shall he forsake the Truth against conscience? God forbidden. For if that which is not of faith, that is, of conscience and a full persuasion of mind, be sin, then that which is against it is greater. But may he not deny it with a mind to gain further time of repentance, and so to fit himself to this work, to make himself a better and more acceptable sacrifice to God? No; this is as dangerous as the other. For evil is no good foundation to raise up that which is good upon. We must not, saith S. Paul, do evil, that good may come thereby. And how can we hope that God should give us time to repent of our former sins, when we add this sin to the rest, the Denial of the Truth? Why may we not rather fear that he will cut us off in this very thought, who to fly from the fire of his jealousy run further into it? Certainly we cannot merit of God by our demerits. We cannot make one sin a way to the remission of the rest. It is not likely we should be carried into heaven on the Devil's back, or go through hell into paradise. What shall he do then? Shall he lay down his life? Yes, he must: for it is better to die then to sin; better to breathe out my last then to countermand my conscience; better not to be, then to be an apostate. But then, you will say, being pressed down with the burden of his sins, how shall he be able to lift up his head? What hope can breathe to comfort him in the midst of so many clamours and affrights? When Conscience is loud against him, what shall silence her? Whither should he fly, or whither should he go; Even let him bow to that power which is over him, and now come and desire him, and in all humility beg the prorogation of life for so much time, in which he may approve his repentance, and make it evident both to God and man. But if this be not granted (as persecutors are alwaves in haste, cannot sleep till he that offendeth them be in his grave) then let him throw himself down before the throne of God and before his mercy-seat, and with the Thief on the cross confess he doth receive the due reward of his deeds, and with him cry loud unto Jesus to remember him. And why should not we hope well of this man, though he came in but at the eleventh hour of the day, nay when his sun was even setting, and his day well-near shut up? Although he hath not the excuse, that no man hired him, yet he hath this comfort, that his Lord may do what he will with his own; He may rouse up himself with the extraordinary favour and mercy of God, whose eye is good, howsoever ours be evil; and who, though he hath bound us to timely repentance, yet hath not bound himself not to accept of the latest, if it be serious. And that this man's is so, no better argument can be brought then that which is written with his own blood. And now what is his hope? His hope is even in Christ; if not the most certain hope, as certain as theirs who have served him in righteousness and holiness all the days of their life, yet it cometh so near unto it that there cannot be one more certain than this. And to conclude this, we need not fear to number him amongst those who are persecuted for righteousness sake; amongst those of whom that voice from heaven speaketh, Rev. 14.13. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those who are destined as sacrifices, and appointed as children to death) for they shall rest from their labours, and their works shall follow them. And thus have you seen Persecution entailed as it were upon the children of God; and, What it is to suffer for righteousness sake: Thus have we led you through this Field of blood: Let us now look back upon it, and see what we can bring along with us for our further use and instruction. And it looketh indifferently both upon those whose feet are swift to shed blood, and on those righteous persons who are fitted to pour it forth. Eadem catena militem & custodiam: They are as it were linked together. The persecuted and persecutor imply and suppose one another, and are never asunder. But let them that suffer have the first place. And first, knowing these terrors, as the Apostle speaketh, seeing Persecution is as it were entailed upon the righteous person, seeing there is a kind of providence and necessity it should be so, let us learn first, as S. Peter speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not to think it strange concerning this fiery trial; not to dote too much upon this outward guilded peace and perpetuity in public profession; or when we see these things, think some strange thing is come unto us. For what strange thing is it, that wicked men should persecute the righteous, that a serpent should by't, or a lion roar, that the world should be the world, and the Church the Church? Or what is now done which hath not been done in all the ages of the world? For let us ask the days of old, and they will tell us, that outward Peace and Perpetuity of profession have more diligently attended Superstition and Idolatry then true Profession. Look upon the Kingdom of Judah, and see how there, as upon a stage, the service of God and Idolatry had interchangeably as it were their scenes, and mutually succeeded one another: But Superstition was still longer-lived, and breathed with less trouble, then true Religion, which did shine for a while in peace, but was soon over-shadowed with a cloud. All that I shall say is but what our Saviour said to Nicodemus of our new birth, Nolite mirari, Wonder not at it: For whatsoever changes and alterations there be in the outward profession of Religion, Religion and the Church are ever the same; the same in a cloud and obscurity that they were when they shined gloriously before the sun and the people; the same in persecution which they were in peace, but far more glorious. For from these outward things (if we would speak in the holy language) befalleth the true Church of Christ neither peace nor war: but as the blessed Angels have their motions and qualities and attributes which we are utterly ignorant of, yet known to themselves; so Peace and War and Persecution, and other attributes we give the Church, are such as the Church is, and not like unto the world. Wonder not then: for the Church hath its peace even in persecution. And that we may not think it strange, let us not frame and fashion to ourselves a Church by the world. For by looking too steadfastly upon this world, we carry the impression it maketh in us whithersoever we go: and that maketh Persecution appear to us in such a monstrous shape, that we begin to question the providence of God in suffering it to rage within his territories. How doth it amaze us to see Innocency trod down by Power, to see a Saint whipped by a Devil? But in the world we are born, in the world we are; the world is the greatest part of our study: and hence it cometh to pass that in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and his Church we are ready to fancy something to ourselves like unto the world. Temporal Felicity and Peace is the desire of the whole world; and upon this some have made it a note and mark of the true Church; like the Musician in Tully; who being asked what the Soul was, answered, that it was an harmony; & is à principiis artis suae non recessit; He knew not, saith he, how to leave the principles of his own art. From hence it is that when we see persecution and the sword and fire rage against the true professors, we are at our wit's end, and think that not only the glory is departed, but the light of Israel is quite put out; that when desolation hath shaken a Kingdom, the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church; As groundless a conceit well near as if we should take the description of Heaven in the Revelation to be true in the letter, and that it is a City of pure Gold, that the foundations of the walls are adorned with precious stones; that every gate is a pearl, and the streets shine like glass. Let us then wipe out this carnal error out of our hearts, That the Kingdom of Christ doth hold proportion with the form and managing of these Kingdoms below here on earth; that the same peace doth continue, and the same division and p●●secution dissolve and ruin both; that the same violence which removeth the Candlestick doth blow out the light: And let us abstract and wean our selusi from the world, let us be dead to the world, let us crucify the world; in a word, let us not love the world nor the things of the world, and we shall then begin to think persecution a blessing, and all these conceits of outward peace and felicity will vanish into nothing. And therefore, in the third place, let us cast down these imaginations, these bubbles of wind blown and raised up by the flesh, the worse part, which doth soon bring on a persecution, and soon fear one; and let us in the place of these build up a royal fort, build up ourselves in our most holy faith, and so fit and prepare ourselves against this fiery trial. For as those are called mysteries which are precedaneous and go before the mysteries, and he may be said to fight who doth but flourish and arm and fit himself for the battle; so the blessed Spirit of God every where calleth upon those who are his soldiers, to watch and stand upon their guard, to put on the whole armour of God, that when the devil assaulteth them in a storm of persecution, they may be able to stand, Eph. 6.11. to look upon the sword beforehand, to take it up and handle it, to dispute it out of its force and terror, and so by a familiar conversing with it beforehand, by opposing our hopes of happiness and the promises of life to the terrors that death may bring, opposing the second part of my Text to the first, the Kingdom of heaven to persecution, we may abate its force and violence, and so by a due preparation conquer before we suffer, and leave the persecutor no more power but to kill us. And to this end let us view and well look upon the beauty and glory of Righteousness, and learn to love it, to make it our counsellor, our oracle, whilst the light shineth upon our heads; to let it have a command over us, and when it saith, Do this, to do it. For if we thus make it our joy and our crown, display it abroad in every action of our life in the time of peace, we shall not part with it at a blast, nor fling it off and forsake it in time of persecution. If we love Righteousness, Righteousness will love us, and cleave close to us, when our friends and acquaintance leave us, and fall away like leaves in Autumn. A good conscience is an everlasting, neverfailing foundation; but the clamours and checks of a polluted one will give us no leisure at all to build up an holy resolution. For when we have a long time detained the truth in righteousness, kept it down as a prisoner, and not suffered it to work in us; when in the whole course of our life we have kept her captive under our sensual lusts and affections, it is not probable that in time of danger and astonishment it should have so much power over us as to win us to suffer for its sake; but these sensual lusts, which in time of peace did keep the Truth and Righteousness under, will now show themselves again in time of persecution, and be as forcible to deter us from those evils which are so but in show and appearance, as they were to plunge us into those evils of sin which are true and real. If then thou wilt be fitted for Persecution, and so for Blessedness, first persecute thyself, crucify thy flesh with the lusts and affections; raise up a persecution in thy own breast, banish every idle thought, silence every loud and clamorous desire, whip and correct every wand'ring fancy, beat down every thing that standeth in opposition to Righteousness; be thus dead unto thyself, and then neither death nor life, neither fear of death nor hopes of life, neither principalities nor powers, neither present evils nor those to come shall ever be able to shake thy confidence, or separate thee from the love of Righteousness which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And now, as we have brought the Righteous person into this Field of blood, and prepared and strengthened him against the horror of it; so must we bring the Persecutor also, that he may behold what desolation he hath made. Why boastest thou thyself in thy mischief, O mighty man? That thou hast sped, that thou hast divided the prey? that thou hast made Innocence itself to lick the dust of thy feet? that thou hast spilt the blood of the righteous as water on the ground? Thus did the tyrants of old triumph and dance in the blood which they shed. Behold, thou persecutest thyself; and though the righteous fall under thee, yet thou sufferest most. Every blow thou givest them, entereth into thy own soul; that power with which thou beatest them down, as a whirlwind carrieth them to heaven, but driveth thee back to the pit of destruction. Thou makest them the off scouring of the world, which will quickly loath virtue in such a dress, but thou makest them glorious in the sight of God. Thou wreakest thy wrath upon them, but treasurest up wrath for thyself. Thou spoilest them, that is, makest them richer; thou disgracest them, that is, makest them more honourable; thou tormentest them, that is, increaseth their joy; thou sendest them into their graves, that is, into heaven. An eye of flesh cannot discern this; but the eye of faith glorieth in the Martyr, and pitieth the murderer. For when he looketh upon those he hath oppressed, and pleaseth himself in it; So, so, thus would I have it; he doth but subscribe to the sentence which is already past against him, and in effect triumpheth in his own damnation. Nor can this help him, (although sometimes it doth comfort him) That God hath delivered them into his hand, and so make power an argument of justice, and good success a sign and mark of a predestinate Saint. For God may deliver the soul of his turtle-doves into the hand of the wicked, and yet they be as wicked as before; Psal. 71.11. You know who they were that cried God hath forsaken him. God may deliver the Jews into captivity, and yet the Heathen be aliens still. He doth not only deliver up Sihon King of the Amorites, and Og King of Basan, but his own people into his enemy's hands. For it is one thing, what God is willing to permit; another, what he is willing should be done. He permitteth all the murders and massacres and tragedies that have been acted in the world; but his permitting them is no Plaudite, no approbation of them. He permitteth all the sin that hath or shall be committed, from Adam the first man to him that shall stand last upon earth; and yet that conclusion standeth firm, The wages of sin is death. Rom. 8.32. He delivered up his Son for us all, and yet his blood was upon those Jews that spilt it. Neither is good success or ill success an argument of God's favour or dislike. Lazarus was not in Abraham's bosom, only because he was poor; nor Dives in hell, for that he was rich. Josiah did not fall to hell when he fell in battle; nor was Pharaoh-Necho a Saint, because he slew him. But yet I should sooner suspect prosperity then adversity, because it hath slain so many fools. Blessed are they that are persecuted: the words are plain. But where do we read, Blessed are they that prosper in their ways? Go and prosper; and that shall be a sign to thee that thou art highly beloved? Let this either in terms or by deduction be produced out of Scripture, and I will strait subscribe to a conclusion which may canonize Infidels and Turks, Cain and Nimrod, and those brethren in evil, Judas and the Jews, and the Devil himself, who too often prevaileth in his wiles and erterprises, and leadeth us captive according to his will. Then that of Christ will be true in this sense also, That Publicans and sinners, harlots and men of Belial shall enter the kingdom of heaven, and the children of the kingdom, the poor unfortunate children, shall be shut out. I am weary of this argument: And I hope there is none amongst us which will nourish such a serpent in his bosom, which may at first flatter him, show him an apple, something that is fair to look upon, but at last sting him to death; an opinion which may drive him upon any pricks, on those sins which the righteous do tremble to think of; an opinion which may waste and consume a soul, and make it like to the souls of the beasts that perish. I had rather turn my speech to them that suffer, and so conclude; and exhort them to humility and patience under the cross. For Patience is one of the fairest branches of Righteousness, the proper effect of Faith, Rom. 5.3. for which we suffer all things, and by which we suffer nothing; which maketh tribulation joyful, the cross a crown, and persecution a blessing. Adam brought in Labour, and Abel Patience; Sin invented the one, and Righteousness the other. Phil. 4.13. And by the virtue of it S. Paul professeth he could do and suffer all things. And this, the omnipotency of Patience, is demonstratively true. For if the eye of our faith were as clear as the reward is glorious, we should not be either dazzled with the smile and beauty of a flattering, nor dismayed with the terror of a black temptation; but pleasure would be vanity, and persecution a crown. For what is this span of misery to bliss without end? Persecution strippeth thee, and Persecution clotheth thee. Persecution beateth at the door of life to let out thy soul, and it openeth the gates of heaven to place it there. It is that violence which taketh the Kingdom of heaven. He that is persecuted for righteousness beleaguereth Heaven, undermineth it, payeth down a price for it, his sufferings; Which, though they be but momentany and too light, yet are accepted as full weight. To sit at my right hand and at my left, is not mine to give, saith Christ. Vendit, Matth. 20.23. non intuitu consanguinitatis dat; He doth not give it, saith Augustine, for relation and kindred's sake, but he selleth it. Coelum venale, Deúsque: see, Heaven is set at a price, and the price is thy blood. As there is a covenant, so there is a contract, a bargain, between God and man, and the covenant is a contract; My son, saith God, give me thy heart; Give me a contrite heart, a bleeding heart, a broken heart; and thou shalt have for grief joy, for labour rest, for dishonour glory, for ignominy honour, for death life, and for poverty a Kingdom. For Persecution, which is but momentany, advanceth to a Kingdom which shall have no end. The Thirteenth SERMON. PHILIPP. III. 10, 11. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. THat I may know him, carrieth but an imperfect sense, and sendeth us back to that which goeth before: Where we shall find our blessed Apostle at his holy Arithmetic, at a strict computation, ad digitos & calculos cogentem, casting up his accounts as it were at his finger's ends. He beginneth with Circumcision, ver. 2. proceedeth to the Law, ver. 5. riseth up to the Righteousness which is in the Law, ver. 6. He taketh in his Stock, his Tribe, his Sect, his Zele, his unblameable Course of life. And that his Audite may be exact, ver. 8. he bringeth in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all things. These be the Particulars. But what is the Sum? Circumcision, the Law, Zele, Righteousness, All things, a large account; and, which is strange, the sum is Nothing. And will Nothing make a sum? Though it cannot, yet better Nothing then be at loss. But our Accountant here, S. Paul, when he hath reckoned all, sitteth down a loser. For you see his Particulars are many, but his Sum is Nothing; and, which is worse than Nothing, Loss; and lower yet, but Dung, ver. 8. the most unsavoury loss. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Circumcision is concision; and the teachers of it, dogs, ver. 2. that will not only bark but by't; evil workers, that work to pull down, and build to ruin. His confidence in the flesh he castest away: his privileges disenable him: his zeal is madness: the Law, and the righteousness thereby, oh! he is ashamed of it. He will by no means be found in it, ver. 9 His gain is loss; all things, but dung, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, garbage and filth to be thrown to dogs, ver. 8. Obsecro, expone te paululum, saith the Father; Good Apostle, what paradoxes, what riddles are these? Unfold thyself. What? Circumcision, Nothing? Thyself bledst under the knife. The Law, Nothing? Why, it was just, and true, and holy, and good. And Righteousness, the very name is precious. Expone te paululum. We are in a cloud, and besieged with darkness: we cannot believe S. Paul himself without an exposition. Verily a strange contemplation it is: and we may at first conceive S. Paul now to have been, not in the third heaven, but in a cloud. Every step is in darkness, every word a mystery. But yet follow him to ver. 8. and some day appeareth; the dayspring from on high hath visited us. And then the Philosopher will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, That which is most excellent is most desirable. Bring in the knowledge of Christ, and righteousness by faith, and the righteousness which is of the Law is not a wish, nor worth the looking on. In Comparisons it is so. One object may carry that lustre and eminency above another that they will scarce stand together in comparison. What is a Bugle to a Crown? What is a Cottage to a Kingdom? What is Gold to Virtue? What is unrighteousness to the Law? And what is the Law to Christ? My Apostle then concludeth well, Circumcision is nothing, and the Law is nothing, and gain is loss, and all things are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dung, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. It is now day with us, and Christ himself appeareth. But every dawning is not a day: Every apparition is not a full manifestation. A general notion of Christ is not light enough, but leaveth him still as it were in shadows and under the veil. To know him is life; but to know him crucified, saith S. Paul. As Apelles in every line, so Christ is most clearly seen in the several passages of his glorious dispensation and oeconomy. Christ crucified, Christ risen from the dead, Christ on the wings of the wind in his ascension, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a great spectacle, worthy our contemplation, an object as full of light as comfort. Who would not go forth to see such a sight? Behold then, Faith ver. 9 draweth and openeth the veil, and presenteth Christ, not only in his blood and sufferings, but in his triumph and resurrection, with the keys of Hell and of Death, with power and authority! And can we wonder to see S. Paul contemn and spurn at all that he hath, to sell all that he hath, for this Pearl? Should he take up dung, and leave a diamond? Can we think he forgetteth himself when he desireth to be forgetful of those things which he hath cast behind him? Or what posture can we think to behold him in but in that of Extension, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ver. 13. stretched forth and earnestly reaching at the object? For see, his supply far exceedeth what before he could not want, and the gain answereth and confuteth each particular of his loss. Do the evil workers cry up Circumcision? S. Paul doth so little need it that himself is the supply; For we ourselves are the circumcision, ver. 3. That which maketh and constituteth a Christian is the Circumcision of the heart. Rom. 2.29. Do they thunder out the Law? He is as loud for the knowledge of Christ. Do they plead Righteousness? He pleadeth it too, but his plea is stronger, the Righteousness through the faith of Christ: they plead the Law, which worketh wrath, and cannot give life. In a word; He will renounce his stock, his tribe, his sect, the Law, and will be no more a Jew or Pharisee, that he may be a Christian; That he may know him, and the power of his resurrection, etc. This is the dependence of my Text. Apart it affordeth thus much variety. We have here our Apostles desire leveled on two things; To attain, and To know; To attain to the resurrection of the dead, and To know Christ, and the virtue of his resurrection and passion. The first is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the prime architectonical end, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Philosopher would call it, that which setteth all a working; a Resurrection to glory. The second comprehendeth those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, intermediate operations, which lead us to this end. To rise to glory is a glorious end, and it is proposed to all: but none attain to it but by the knowledge of Christ, and by the power of his resurrection, and by the fellowship of his sufferings, and conformity to his death. I know there is a subordination of Ends: but here we cannot suddenly determine which is S. Paul's principal and chief end; his desire is carried with that vehemency, and so fixed on both. He desireth to attain, and he desireth to know; and he would not know but that he might attain, nor attain without this knowledge. He would rise with Christ in glory, but he would rise and suffer with him here first in this life. He would be a Saint in heaven, but first a Christian on earth. His desire is eager on both; and it is not easy to discern where the flame is hottest. I told you he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, extended and stretched forth: And so he is, like Elijah on the child, on each part and limb of Christ's oeconomy. For though he mention only his Passion and Resurrection, yet he includeth the rest. And we must remember to take the great work of our Redemption (though the passages and periods of it be various) for one continued act. S. Paul would be born with Christ, and he would die with Christ, that he might rise with Christ, and that he might reign with Christ. His desire is eager, but not irregular. He would not be with Christ, if he were not first like him; nor have Glory without Grace; nor attain, if he did not know; nor go to heaven without Christ's unction, which may make him conformable to him. My Division now is easy. Our Apostle desireth to know, and to attain. And as Knowledge hath its Object, so have our Desires theirs, which is their end. And here we have them both: the Object of our Knowledge, delivered first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a generality, UT COGNOSCAM ILLUM. That I may know him, that is, Christ; secondly, dilated and enlarged in two main particulars, 1. Resurrection, 2. his Passion. In the one he beholdeth power, in the other fellowship and communion; which includeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a conformity to his death. Christ indeed is risen, but he suffered first; so must we be conformable to his death, if we will feel the power of his resurrection. So these three be most considerable, 1. Christ, 2. the power of his resurrection, 3. the fellowship of his sufferings, these are three rich Diamonds, and if they be well set, (if we take the words in their true Syntaxis, and join configuratus to cognoscam, our conformity to his death to our knowledge of his sufferings and resurrection) we shall place them right, even so fix them in the Understanding part that they will reflect or cast a lustre on the Heart, even such a lustre as will light us through the midst of rocks and difficulties unto the end here aimed at, the Resurrection of the dead. Of these then in their order: Of the Object first; then of the Nature of our Knowledge; which will bring us to the End, though beset with words of fear and difficulty, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, if by any means. We begin, I say, with the Object in general, That I may know him. We begin with Christ, who is Α, and Ω, the beginning and the ending. From whom we have saith the Father, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to live, and to live well, and to live for ever. If we begin without him, we run into endless mazes of error and delusion; every onset is danger, every step an overthrow. And if we end not in him, we end indeed, but it is in misery without an end. John 17.3. To know him is life eternal. Then our Ignorance must needs be fatal, and bring on a death as lasting. For where can we be safe from the Deluge but in the Ark? Where can we rest our feet but upon this Stone? Where can we build but upon this Foundation? For let Philosophy and the Law divide the world into Jew and Gentle, and then open those two great Books of God, his Works and his Words, and see, the Philosopher hath so studied the Creature that he maketh his God one, Rom. 1 23. and turneth his glory, saith the Apostle, into the similitude of corruptible Man, nay, into Birds, and Beasts, ●●d Creeping things. And the Jew's proficiency reached but so far as to know he was the worse for it. On every letter he findeth gall and wormwood and the very bitterness of Death. The Philosopher hath learned no more than this, that he can be but happy here; and the Jew, that without a better guide he must be unhappy for ever. Reason, the best light the Heathen had, could not show them the unsteady fluctuations of the mind, the storms and tempests of the soul, the weakness of nature, and the dimness of her own light, how faint her brightness is, how she is eclipsed with her own beams; how Reason may behold indeed a supreme, but not a saving, Power, because she will be Reason. It is true; the light of Reason is a light, and from heaven too: But every light doth not make it day, nor is every star the Sun. And though we are to follow this light which every man brought with him into the world; yet if we look not on that greater Light, the Sun of Righteousness, which hath now spread his beams over the face of the earth, we cannot but fall into the ditch, even into the pit of destruction. The light then of Reason will not guide us so far in the ways of happiness as to let us know we stand in need of a surer guide; and therefore the Gospel, you know, is called that wisdom which descended from above. But now, in the next place, for the Jew; Ye will say that the Law was the Law of God, and so made to be a lantern to their feet, and a light to their paths. 'Tis true; it was so. But the Apostle will tell us that by this light too we may miscarry, as being not bright enough to direct us to our end, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Heb. 7.18. because it giveth a weak and unprofitable light. In the verse before my Text S. Paul seemeth to run away from it, and utterly to renounce the Law, not quoad substantiam, not indeed in regard of the duties therein contained, but quoad officium justificandi, in that it could not justify, not make him perfect, not lead him to his end. It may threaten, accuse, contemn and kill: and so in Scripture it is said to do: And then what guilty person will sue for pardon from a dead letter, which is inexorable? We may say of the Law as S. Paul speaketh of the yearly sacrifice, Heb. 10.1. that is did not make the comers thereto perfect, but left behind it a conscience of sin; not only ex parte reatus, a conscience that did testify they sinned, and affright them with the guilt, but ex parte vindictae, a conscience which questioned not only their sin, but their atonement, and told them plainly that by the Law no man could be justified. And therefore S. Chrysostom, on that place, will tell us, In that the Jews did offer sacrifice, it seemed they had conscience that accused them of sin; but that they sacrificed continually, argued that they had a conscience too, which accused their sacrifice of imperfection. Wherefore then served the Law? The Apostle answereth well, Gal. 3.19. It was added because of transgressions; not to disannul the Covenant, but as an attendant an additament, as a glass to discover sin. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Clemens, The Law doth not beget sin, (for that it cannot do) but manifest it. Non est in speculo, quod ostenditur. I may show you a Death's head in a glass, but there is no such horrid substance there: And the Law, which is most perfect in itself, may represent my wants unto me, and make me fly to some richer Treasury for a supply. Now to draw this home; When both Lights fail, when the Law of Nature is so dim that it cannot bring us to our journey's end, and the Law written is as loud to tell us of our leasings as to direct us in our way, what should we do but look up upon the Sun if righteousness, Christ Jesus, who came to improve and perfect Nature, and who is the end of the Law and the end of our hopes and the end of our faith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Father calleth him, that great Sabbath, in which the Jew and the Gentile may rest; in which the Father resteth as well pleased, and the holy Ghost resteth; in whom the Saints and Martyrs and the whole Church have their eternal rest? For such an high Priest became us, saith the Apostle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, separate from sinners, Heb. 7.26. separate from the Gentile's blindness, and separate from the Jew's stubbornness and imperfection, of a transient mortality and a permanent beatitude, a God and a Man, that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, gather together into one, both Jew and Gentile, Law and Reason, make the Law Natural useful and the Law written useful, that so those fair whispers of Truth which misled the Gentile, and that loud accusing Truth which affrighted the J●w, may be in subserviency and attendance on Christ himself, that the light of Nature and the light of the Law, which were but scattered beams from his eternal Brightness, may be collected and united in Christ again, who is Α and Ω, the Beginning and the End, in which Circle and Compass they are at home, brought back again to their Original. And do we not now begin to look upon our Reason as useful indeed, but most insufficient to reach unto the End? Do we not renounce the Law, ourselves, all things? Do we not melt in the same flame with our Apostle? Is it not our ambition to be lost to all the world, that we may be found in Christ? Shall we not cast all things behind us, that we may look forward upon him? What would we not be ignorant of, that we may know him? That we may know him, we will know nothing else. Our understandings here are fixed, and cannot be removed. Nor shall our contemplation let him go, till we have seen him rising from the dead, and known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the power of his resurrection. Which is the next Object we are to look upon, and our next Part. That Christ is risen from the dead, is an article of our Faith, fundatissimae fidei, saith the Father, a principle of the Doctrine of Christ, a truth so clear and evident that the malice and envy of the Jew cannot avoid it. For let them be at charge to bribe the watchmen, and let the watchmen sleep so sound that an earthquake cannot wake them, and then say his Disciples stole him away, this poor shift is so far from shaking, that it confirmeth our faith. For, if they were asleep, how could they tell his Disciples stole him away? Or, if they did steal him, what could they take away more than a carcase? He is risen; he is not here: If an Angel had not said it, yet the Earthquake, the Clothes, the Grave itself did speak without an epitaph. Or, if these were silent, yet where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote it, a Lie doth confute itself, and Malice helpeth to confirm the Truth. For it we have a verdict given up by Cephas and the twelve, 1 Cor. 15.5. we have a cloud of witnesses, even five hundred brethren, and more, who saw him. We have a cloud of blood too, the testimony of Martyrs, who took their death on it, so certain of this Truth that they sealed to it with their blood, and because they could not live to publish it, proclaimed it by the loss of life. And can we have better evidence? Yes: we have a surer word, the word of God himself, a surer verdict then of a Jury, a better witness than five hundred, a louder testimony than the blood of Martyrs. And we have our Faith too, which will make all difficulties easy, and conquereth all. And therefore we cannot complain of distance, or that we are so many ages removed from the time wherein it was done. For now Christ risen is become a more obvious object then before. The diversity of the Mediums have increased and multiplied him. We see him through the blood of Martyrs, and we see him in his Word, and we see him by the eye of Faith. Christ is risen according to the Scriptures. 1 Cor. 15. Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem, saith S. Augustine; When the Jews stumbled at him, he presented but the bigness of a stone: but our Infidelity can find no excuse, if we see him not now he appeareth as visible as a mountain. Christ then is risen from the dead. And we have but touched upon it, to give you one word of the day in the Day itself. But that our Easter may be a feast indeed, and our rejoicing not in vain, let us, as the Apostle speaketh, go on to perfection, and make a further search, to find the reason of our joy in the power of his resurrection. And what is the power of his resurrection? The Apostle telleth us, it was a mighty power. Eph. 1.19. Indeed it rend the rocks, and shook the earth, and opened the graves, and forced up the dead bodies of the Saints. We may add; It made the Law give place, and the Shadows vanish; it abolished the Ceremonies, broke down the Altars, leveled the Temple with the ground. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, great wonders, all. Magnitudo virtutis ostenditur in effectu; The greatness of power is most legible in the effects it worketh. And here the volume is so great that the world cannot contain it. Come see, saith the Angel, the place where the Lord lay. A Lord he was, though in his grave. And by the same power he raised both himself and us. By the same power he shook the earth, and will shake the heaven also, Heb. 13. disannulled the Law, and established the Gospel; broke down one altar, and set up another; abolished Death, and brought Life and Immortality to light, 2 Tim. 1.10. shall raise our vile bodies, and shall raise our vile souls. Shall raise them? He hath done it already. Conresuscitavit, saith the Apostle, Eph. 2.6. we are raised together with him both in soul and body, and all by the power of his resurrection. For 1. Christ's Resurrection is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at least, an exemplary cause, of our spiritual rising from the death of sin. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene; Christ is risen from the dead, that we may follow after him, we who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, planted together, in the likeness of his death, Rom. 6.5. dead to our lusts, as he was to the functions and operations of life; and planted with him in the likeness of his resurrection, rising and exalting ourselves, and triumphing over Sin and Death; so grafted in him that we may spring and grow green, and blossom and bring forth fruit, both alike, and by the same power. Now as Christ's Resurrection is a pattern of our soul's resurrection, so is it of our body's also. For we are not of Hymenaeus and Philetus mind, to think the resurrection passed already, and make it but an Allegory. No: Christ hath cast the model of our body's Resurrection also. Plato's Idea and common Form, by which he thought all other things had their existence; was but a dream. This is a real pattern. The Angel descended at his, and shall at ours. He is risen in our nature. Isaac's figurative Resurrection, Joseph's Pit, and Prison, Jonah's Whale, Daniel's Den, were but types and bare resemblances: This is a pattern with power. He hath showed it us already, and at his second coming he will give us power to take it out. For as an artificer hath not lost his art when he hath finished one piece, no more did Christ his power when he raised himself. No: it worketh still even to the end of the world. Perfectissimum est exemplar minùs perfecti: That which he wrought upon himself was most exact and perfect, a fit pattern for that he means to work on us; which will be like to his indeed, but not so glorious. Not that Christ is so like us that he cannot work but by a pattern, nor raise us out of our graves unless he look back into his own. Our imaginations are not so gross. But Christ hath drawn forth his Resurrection as exemplary ex parte resuscitandorum, for us, to show how we should rise, and that upon our graves shall be written too the epitaph of Resurrection, They are risen; they are not here. Thus is Christ the exemplary cause of our resurrection. But this indeed demonstrateth not a power; nor will a pattern raise me. I may have the copy of the Universe, but I cannot make another world. I may behold the picture of Christ rising from the dead, and not be able to draw a line after it. Christ is risen; I read it in Scripture, and believe it too: but this will no more raise me up, than it will make me valiant to read of Scipio or of Julius Caesar. I confess, Objects have a moving and attractive force, but no such forcible causality. The Heavens are a fair sight, but they will not make a blind man see. And shall a bare pattern then make a dead man rise again? It is true; If it were only a pattern, and no more, it could not; or if he who gave us the pattern, who was the pattern, had not given us an instrument to work by, even Faith, the instrumental cause of our spiritual Resurrection. And now it doth raise us up as the object of our Faith, merely by being looked upon, as the brazen serpent did heal those who were bitten in the wilderness. Besides this, we may boldly say there is a proper efficiency in Christ's Resurrection, an influence and virtue flowing from it upon us; a dew, as the Prophet calleth it, a dew on our souls, and a dew on our bodies, a dew which will recover a withered soul, and make a dead body grow again. Our Apostle plainly saith Rom. 4.25. By it we are justified, and by it we are raised. For if there went forth virtue from his very garment, why may not a power proceed also from his Resurrection; I know Christ is all in all, not bound nor confined to any instrument. If he had not risen, yet, as God, he might have raised us. But when he dieth and riseth again for our sakes, when he useth this to this end, we may well call it an efficient cause, because he made it so. But did not Christ finish all upon the cross? Nor do I attribute all to his Resurrection, but a power to perform something after the Consummatum est, when all was done, a power to apply his merits, and make his satisfaction sure pay; as the stamp and character doth not better a piece of gold, but make it current. I told you before, the whole work of our Redemption, though the passages be various, is in esteem but one continued act: Nor in laying out the causes of our salvation must we sever and divide the Passion from the Resurrection: And yet we never read that either the Resurrection did satisfy, or the Passion raise us; and we may be bold to say, without any derogation to Christ's Death and Passion, that we are raised again by the power of his Resurrection. And now, Come, see in Christ's Resurrection thy own. Nostra natura in Christi hypostasi revixit, saith the Father: Our nature was united in Christ's Person, and in him revived. As he took of us To die once, so we take from him To rise again, and live for ever. Son of man, can these bones live? Ezek. 37.3. it was said to the Prophet in the valley of bones, Can these dry bones, this dust scattered before the wind, this flesh burnt to ashes, or devoured by fishes, or digested by Cannibals, after so many alterations and dispersions and assimilations, live? Yes: He will prophesy upon these bones, and call them from the four winds, and the breath of Christ's Resurrection shall revive them. And this is not a bold presumption, as the Heathen termed it. For though my flesh be eaten by a Cannibal, and that Cannibal by a beast, and that beast by fishes, and those fishes by men, and those men by fishes again, though I have all these dispersions and transmigrations of my flesh, yet am I still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the storehouses of a powerful Lord: and he will recollect and restore me to my own substance again, & de Caio Caius reducetur, as Tertullian speaketh, the same Caius that died shall be raised up. Think, saith he, what thou wert before thou wert; and then thou canst not doubt but that he that made thee by his word of Nothing, can gather thy sacttered parts again by the power of his resurrection. But if power be most seen in the performance of the greatest difficulties, see yet a more uncouth and horrid spectacle, more irrecoverable than rottenness, more senseless than a carcase: Behold a dead Soul in a living body, which is dead, and yet dieth every moment; behold a man who, if he were not mortal, would be dead and dying to all eternity. You will say the man liveth, and eateth, and talketh, and is in health. I, but his Soul is dead, by which he liveth; and than what life is that which Death itself doth actuate? For see a Man, the statue of himself, who being destitute of Grace hath lost his Reason, or maketh no other use of it but to misled him. Aures assunt, sed migravit auditor; His Ears are open, but his hearing is gone. Eyes he hath, but seethe no more than a dead corpse with the eyes open. His Tongue is nailed to the roof of his mouth, and he keepeth silence, but only from good. No action, no motion, no affection. His Understanding is the house of darkness and oblivion; his Will, a wandering shadow; his Affections, distracted and blown before the wind, scattered like so many straws on a wrought sea, from billow to billow, from vanity to vanity, from one excess to another. Son of man, can these bones live? Can these broken sinews of the soul come together again? Can such a disordered clock, where every wheel is broken, be set again? Can this dead soul, this almost a Devil, be made a Saint, and walk before God in the land of the living? We stand amazed, and must answer with the Prophet, O Lord God, thou knowest. This knowledge is too wonderful for us, that we cannot attain to it: But, Lord God, thou knowest that this dissolved, p●●rified, carcase-Soul may see the light again; that Mary Magdalene may rise from sin as well as her brother Lazarus from the grave; that my Understanding which is now an Egypt, a land of darkness, may be a Goshen, full of light; that my Will may leave her erratic motion from good to evil, and from evil to worse, and settle and fix on the Truth itself, and be guided by one rule; that my Affections may dwell at home; that that lively image of Truth, which the Father of lies defaced, may be renewed again, ut interpolator se opus Christi doleret perdidisse, as S. Hierom; that as the envy of the Devil was great in our destruction, so he shall rage's more and more, find hell more hell than it is, to see us now built up fairer in our restauration. Thus thus they are Christ's, as they have crucified the lusts and affections, so are they risen with Christ. And indeed we cannot well tell how to distinguish Christ's Resurrection and ours; they are so linked together. He is risen, and we are risen, and we risen both together. His Easter-day and ours are but one and the same Feast. We were not a royal priesthood, nor did reign till now: but then when Christ was risen, as Tertullian speaketh, we had our inauguration. For if we view the passages of a Christian's life, there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that joineth and linketh Christ and us together, and maketh us one with Christ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, conformed to him, in my Text. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Col. 3.1. If ye be risen together with him. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 6.4. We are buried together with him in baptism. The threefold immersion into the water, which was in use in the first times, shown them in the grave three days with Christ, and their Emersion brought them up again as risen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, Ye are buried with him. Col. 2.12. And in these waters they promised to leave their filth and corruption. It is sufficient they did lie there; the remainder of their life must be a Resurrection. But it may be said, If this be the power of the Resurrection, why is it not so extended as to be effectual in all? We answer, so it is, as far as is convenient for that power to work, and the subject is capable. Tota humanitas Christi influit in omnes homines; Christ's Humanity hath an influence and operation upon all mankind. He took it all, and will raise it all. Our Apostle is plain and positive; As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive again. All; even the wicked too; But they barely by his power as a Judge; The godly, by a kind of fellowship with their elder Brother: B, by the virtue of his Resurrection. And thus it worketh upon a Body with that power which is requisite to raise a body that is now putrefied and incinerated and almost annihilated: And it worketh upon a Soul with such a power as is fitted to a soul, which hath an understanding and a will, though biased and perverted and carried from their proper operations for which they were made. It is the great error of the world, and the mother and nurse of all the rest, that that maketh men worse than the beasts that perish, that they think their souls are to be raised up here in this life in the same manner as their bodies shall be at the last day, and that their first resurrection may be wrought as their second shall be, in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye. We would be gathered into heaven as we are unto our fathers, by a kind of order or course of Nature, or by that word and power which created us. We would have the heavens bow themselves, and take us in, and make our passage unto bliss through the same wide way which leadeth unto Death. We would out of our graves, and leave no grave-cloths, nothing of our mortality or corruption behind us. And yet I do not read of any precept to bind us, or counsel to persuade us, to contribute any thing to, or put a hand to forward, the resurrection of our bodies. Nor can there be any: For it will be done whether we will or no. But to awake from that pleasant sleep we take in sin, to cast off the works of d●rkness, to be renewed and raised in the inward man, we have line upon line, precept upon precept. We have promises that if we gain a part in this first resurrection, we shall be blessed. And though Christ work in us both the will and the deed, yet a necessity and law lieth upon us, and woe be unto us if we work not out our salvation with fear and trembling. It is a lazy and wilful ignorance, so to magnify Christ's power as to leave him none at all, no power over our wills to regulate them, or over our affections to compose and subdue them, but the very same which raised him out of his grave. And this maketh us rot and stink in ours. This hope destroyeth all hope. For what hope of recovering or raising him who will be sick upon this presumption, that his Physician is able and willing to cure him whether he will or no? For may he not thus raise up Devils as well as Men? And what great difference between them and an obstinate sinner, who hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reprobate mind, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Theophylact expresseth it, a mind of marble, which will receive no impression, neither from the beauty of God's promises nor from the terror of his threaten; which reverberateth and beateth back every precept, and that Hammer of God which beateth upon it; which neither the glory of Heaven nor the fire of Hell can melt: What great difference is there, I say, between them? In them there is the same detestation of Divine justice, the same perverseness of will, the same blasphemous thoughts in the heart. All the difference is, that these are not in termino, as the damned Spirits are, and so not under an impossibility of being raised. But Death maketh them the very same. For every obstinate offender that dieth without repentance carrieth a Devil along with him into the next world, that is, a stubborn and uncorrected will, which did ever detest, and now will curse, the righteous will of God. Beloved, if we have no part in that first Resurrection, it is not from any desect of power in Christ's. For as he raiseth up every man in his own order, so doth he after his own manner of working. He calleth and groaneth at our graves, as he did at Lazarus' For can we think that he who made such haste out of his own, can be well pleased to see us rotting in ours? It is a good rule Tertullian giveth, That it is neither honour to Christ nor wisdom for ourselves, to give him so much power as to think there is nothing in ourselves, and, because he can bear all the burden, not to touch it with one of our fingers. For this is to defeat his Will of its end, and his Power of its operation, and as much as in us lieth to bury the Resurrection itself. To conclude this; Behold, the Lord shall descend with a shout, and with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead bodies shall arise. And this is the Resurrection of the body. And behold, he descendeth with a shout, with his own voice, with the trump of God which is his Gospel; he descendeth and knocketh, and is willing to enter the heart of Man, though it be but a sepulchre of rotten bones. And they that hear his voice do come forth, and walk in newness of life. And this is the first Resurrection. But it is too plain, every man doth not hear Christ's voice: and the power of his Resurrection is still the same. For here something is required at our hands; something we are to do ourselves. And though all supply be from him, and we have nothing which we have not received, yet he is pleased to take it as our contribution. In this he doth not love to be alone. For what is an Object without an Act? What is the beauty of the firmament, if there were no eye to discover it? Therefore if we will have Christ anoint us, or his Resurrection powerfully to raise us, we must, with S. Paul, learn to forget all other things, and stretch ourselves towards him, and earnestly study to know him, and the power of his Resurrection; Which is next to be considered; That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection. We cannot take in all, and therefore will conclude with this. That I may know him. Why, who knoweth him not? They that blaspheme him, know him; they that betray him, know him; they know him, that persecute and crucify him in his members every day; they that make use of his name, not to cast out Devils, but to be so, the accusers and destroyers of their brethren, who make use of the name of a Saviour to pluck up and root out even those that know him and his resurrection. And if to know him be all, then with Hymenaeus and Philetus we may say the resurrection is passed already, all graves are open, and not only many Saints, but even Devils themselves, are risen. But we must remember that in Scripture works of knowledge imply the Affections, and Knowledge is commonly linked and joined with its end. If a man say he knoweth him, 1 John 2.4. and keepeth not his commandments, he is a liar. He that shall say he knoweth Christ, that he receiveth and embraceth his doctrine, that he loveth him, and is his disciple, and yet keepeth not his commandments, which is the only argument of Love, the best approbation of his Doctrine, and the true badge and mark of a Disciple, is a liar: and he that saith he knoweth the power of his resurrection, and is not risen from the dead, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. For how can he at once embrace his doctrine, and reject it? love Christ, and yet despise him? be a disciple, and betray him? And what a soloecism is the power of the Resurrection in his mouth who loveth his grave, and will not be raised up? It is not speculative but practic knowledge that the Apostle here studieth. For that knowledge which endeth in itself is worse than Ignorance; because Ignorance may somewhat mitigate and lessen our neglect, but Knowledge, professed Knowledge, doth enlarge the bill and hand writing which is against us, and draweth it out in more bloody and kill characters then before. This Knowledge is not here meant. For, 1. This speculative Knowledge is a naked assent, and no more, and hath nothing in it of the Will. For the Understanding is not an arbitrary but a necessary faculty, and cannot but apprehend things in that shape and form they represent themselves in. And therefore towards our Resurrection there is required something of the Seraphim and something of the Cherubin, Heat as well as Light, and Love as well as Knowledge. For Love is active, and will remove every stone and difficulty, when speculative Knowledge and idle Faith may leave us in our graves, only looking upwards, but bound hand and foot. Love will make a battery and forcible entrance into heaven, whilst Speculation standeth without and looketh upon it as in a map. For Speculation is but a look, a cast of the eye of the Understanding, and no more, and doth but place us, as God did Moses on mount Nebo, to see that spiritual Canaan which we shall never enjoy. And then what comfort is it to know what Justification is, and want the hand of a lively Faith to lay ●old on Christ? what Sanctification is, and yet to stand it out, and resist the blessed Spirit? to read, and believe it too, that a good conscience is a continual feast, and not to taste of one of her dainties? to dispute of Paradise, and have no title to it? to know Christ, and not savour of his ointment? and the power of his resurrection, and be more unremovable than a rock, more unrecoverable than they who have been dead long ago, and are in a manner to be restored out of Nothing? And what a fruitless Knowledge is that which can speak largely of God's Grace, and resist it? of Perseverance, and fall more than seven times a day? This is not true Knowledge, but a bare assent, and so far from being enjoined in Scripture, that in respect of it Ignorance may seem the safer choice; and, rather than thus only to know, we may say with the Apostle, Let them that be ignorant, be ignorant still. For 2. This bare naked Knowledge doth work in us at the most but a weak purpose of mind, a faint velleity, a forced and unvoluntary approbation. For who can see such a sight, and not in some degree be taken? Who can see the glory of his Resurrection, and not be moved? Who can look upon the Temple, and not ask, What buildings are these? Who can see the way to life, and not approve it? Christ is the way, and Christ is risen, that we might rise from sin: We know it, and confess it: But if this would raise us up, what a multitude of Sectaries, what a herd of Epicures, what an assembly of Pharisees, what a congregation of fools (I had almost said, what a Legion of Devils) were already risen with him? We know Christ; we talk of nothing more; In our misery we implore his help; In his name we lie down, and in his name we rise up; In his name we cast out Devils; When affliction beateh upon us, he charmeth the storm; when our conscience chideth us, he maketh our peace; In adversity, in distress, in the tempest of a torn and distracted soul, he is all in all; We talk of him; we feed on him in the Sacrament; we many times leave our callings but to hear of him: But yet all these may be rather proffers then motions, rather pleasing thoughts then painful struggle with ourselves, rather a looking upwards then a rising, cogitationes similes conatibus expergisci volentium, as S. Augustine speaketh of himself in his Confessions, thoughts like unto the endeavours of men half-asleep, who would and would not be awaked, who seem to move and stir, and lightly lift up the head, and then fall down fast asleep, fall back again into their graves and into the place of silence. Nay, 3. This Speculation, this naked approbation, is but a dream. Visus adesse mihi. Christ may seem to rouse us when he moveth us not at all. And as in dreams we seem to perform, we do every thing, and we do nothing; Nunc fora, nunc lights; we plead, we wrestle, we fight, we triumph, we sail, we fly; and all is but a dream: So, when we have seen the Gospel as in a map, when we have made a phansiful peregrination through all the riches and glories and delights it affordeth; when we have seen our Saviour in the cratch, led him into the High priest's hall, followed him to mount Calvary, seen him on his cross, brought him back again with triumph from his grave, we may think indeed we are risen with him: But when Conscience shall begin to be enlightened, and dart her piercing rays upon us, and plainly tell us that we have not fasted with him, that we have not watched with him, that we have not gone about with him doing good, that we have been so far from crucifying our flesh for his sake, that we have crucified him again to fulfil the lusts thereof; that the World, and not Christ, hath been the form that moved us in the whole course of our life; that our rising hath been nothing else but deceptio visûs an apparition, a phantasm, a juggling, and Pharasaical vaunting of ourselves; behold, than it will appear that all was but a dream; that we have seen Christ rising from the dead, and acknowledged the power of his resurrection, but are no more risen ourselves then our pictures; that we have but dreamt of life, and are still under the power of Darkness and in the valley and shadow of Death. For conclusion then; What saith the Scripture? Awake thou that sleepest, and stand up from the dead. For this is to know and feel the power of Christ's resurrection. Let us not please ourselves with visions and dreams, with the flattery of our own imaginations. Let us not think that, if we have magnified the power of the Resurrection, we are therefore already risen. For we can never demonstrate this power, till we actually rise. Let Knowledge beget Practice, and Practice increase our Knowledge. Let us know Christ, that is, obey him. Let us know the power of his resurrection, that is, rise from the death of Sin to walk in righteousness. For this is with open face to behold the glory of Christ and his Resurrection. This practic and affective Knowledge maketh us one with Christ, Col 3.5. Rom 6.6. Col. 3 3. 2 Cor. 5.15. giveth us a fellowship of his sufferings, conformeth and fashioneth us to his death, mortifieth our earthly members, destroyeth the whole body of sin, maketh us die with Christ, and live unto Christ, unto him who died for us, and is risen again. By this we are made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, limmers, nay the very pictures, of the Passion and Resurrection; that we may be dead to sin, and alive to righteousness; that we may deal with our Sin as ●●e Jews did with Christ, hate and persecute it, lay wait for it, send forth a band of soldiers, all the strength we have, to apprehend and take it, drag it to the bar, accuse and condemn it, revile, and spit in its face; that there may be vinegar in our tears, and gall in our Repentance; that we may nail Sin to the cross, and put it out of ease, that it live but a dying life, not able to move our members, more than he can his who is nailed to a tree, that it faint and languish by degrees, and at last give up the ghost; and than that we may rise again, that the good Spirit may descend from heaven, and remove the many stones (the many vicious habits and customs) that lie heavy upon us, that we may leave our graves and our grave-cloths behind us, all pretences and palliations, all ties and bonds of sin, and whatsoever hath any scent or savour of corruption. To conclude; This is truly to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection. And this Knowledge will melt us, this liquefaction will transform us, and this transformation unite us to Christ, and this union will be our exultation, and this exultation an everlasting jubilee. In a word; This will quit us of all uncertainties, lead us through all difficulties; and by these means we shall attain to, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a bare, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a full resurrection; which no death, no evil shall follow; a Resurrection to eternity of life, of bliss and glory. The Fourteenth SERMON. ACTS I. 10, 11. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel. Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. HEaven is a fair sight, and every eye beholdeth it: but without Jesus we would not look upon Heaven itself. Here we have them both presented to the eye. This Jesus was taken up into heaven; and that t●● Disciples might see it, he led them out as far as to Bethany, Luke 24.50. he brought them to mount Olivet, to an open and conspicuous place, and made them spectators of his Triumph, that they might preach it to the whole world. Christ was willing to employ their sight to confirm this main Article of the Ascension. But yet as Christ liketh not every touch, but there is a NOLI ME TANGERE, Touch me not, because I am not yet ascended; so there is a QUID STATIS INTUENTES? a check given to the eye, because he is ascended already. When the cloud hath taken him up, no looking after him. He loveth to be seen, not to be gazed after. Our love he approveth, but not our curiosity. Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as they were looking steadfastly toward heaven, there stood by them, saith the Text, two men IN ALBIS, in white apparel; in the same colour they saw them in at his Tomb; and as there, so here, they came not by chance, but were dispatched as messengers from heaven, at once to draw the Disciples eyes from needless gazing, and to confirm them in the belief of their Master's Ascension. The one they do by way of Question, Why stand ye gazing into heaven? the other by a plain and positive Resolution, This Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. And this hath always been methodus coelestis, the Angel's method, first to question, then to resolve: And the Resolution is a reason of the Question. We may be sure an Angel will not ask a question in vain. They ask the Disciples, Why seek ye the living amongst the dead? Luke 25. and their Resolution followeth, nay is shut up and implied in the very Question, He is not here; he is risen; a reason why they should not seek him there. And here, Why stand ye gazing? that is the Question, but backed with an Answer and Resolve, He is taken up, but he shall come again. We have many circumstances here not unworthy our observing; but the allotted time will not permit to take a survey of them all. We shall therefore fix our meditations on the two main and essential points; the Question, checking the Disciples needless and unprofitable curiosity; and the Resolution, settling and establishing them in their holy faith: For why should they thus gaze after him? This same Jesus, whom they thus gaze after, is not lost, but shall so come in like manner as they have seen him go into heaven. With these we shall exercise your Christian devotion at this time. We begin with the Angels Question. It must needs be to purpose what an Angel speaketh, what he speaketh to such persons as Disciples, what he speaketh at the Ascension, what he speaketh not per rectam orationem, by a plain and positive declaration of his mind, but by a kind of sudden and abrupt interrogation; Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? Commonly our Questions are, as the Apostle styleth them, unprofitable, in anger, to show our authority, and what wonders we can work with a frown. The Pharisees were full of them, ever and anon ask Christ questions; but the Text telleth us it was but to entrap him in his speech. Our Questions sometimes are a snare, sometimes a rod or sword, Doctors we are, but not Angelici, not Angelical Doctors, we have so little of the Angel in us. We must therefore for the speaker's sake weigh the Question well. The Question here is, Why they stand gazing into heaven. And shall we blame the Disciples for looking up to heaven? shall any Angel ask them why they look after Christ? Christ himself had brought them thither to that purpose, to see, and to believe, and to be witnesses of his Ascension. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, To See we desire above all things, saith the Philosopher. We most delight in that sense, because it is the best and surest inlet of knowledge. Perfectò in oculis animus inhabitat, saith Pliny; the Mind dwelleth in the eye. Therefore Chrysostom calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a part and member, not of the body, but of the soul, which she may make use of as well in the school of Christ as in that of Nature. For to prevent so great a sin as Infidelity, Christ was pleased to make Sense itself an agent and help even in matters of Faith. He might have ascended, and no eye beheld him; nor could the Disciples have challenged him of the concealment of the Truth. They had varieties of Prophecies; They had heard of the everlasting gates to be lifted up for the King of glory to enter in; Their Master's own words confirmed by so many miracles, witnessed that it behoved Christ to die, to rise again, and to be taken up from them and ascend. But out of the riches of his goodness he vouchsafeth them a more familiar and apparent testimony: He taketh them to mount Olivet, that as they had felt and handled him after his Resurrection, so they might see and behold him taken up at his Ascension. For what Aquinas speaketh of Reason we may apply to Sense, Quae per sensum innotescunt non sunt articuli fidei, sed praeambula ad articulos: For though Sense cannot beget Faith, yet it may work a disposition to it, and help to confirm us in it. For what religion can men of sense and reason count that which destroyeth them both, and taketh away their use quite? No: God hath not given us our senses for nought. auditum in auribus fodit, sic visum in oculis accendit, saith Tertullian, As he hath digged and thrust the Hearing into the ear, so he hath as it were kindled up the Sight as the light of the eye; and by Sense itself he awaketh and confirmeth our Faith. Therefore the same Father in his book De anima much blameth the Academics for making the judgement of the Senses deceitful and uncertain. Non licet nobis in dubium sensus istos revocare, nè in Christo de fide illorum deliberetur: To question the Sense, is, saith he, to question Christ himself. We may then say that he saw not Satan falling down from heaven, that he heard not his Father's voice from thence, that he touched not Peter's wife's mother, that he smelled not the savour of Mary's ointment, that he tasted not that wine which he consecrated as the memorial of his bloody passion: Atque in Apostolis ludificata est natura; Yea, Nature itself deceived the Apostles, so that they beheld him not transfigured in the mount, they felt him not when their hands were in his sides, nor did they see him here on mount Olivet ascending into heaven. Read, saith he, S. John's testimony, 1 John 1.1. and ye shall find, That which we have seen, which we have heard, which we have looked upon, that declare we unto you. So then, Why look ye up into heaven? one would think were a Question not well asked or put up to Christ's Disciples. But it cometh from an Angel. We see Christ was willing they should behold him going into heaven; yet the Angels ask them why they look up: Their eye gathered strength to their Faith; yet the Angels question their eye. Something or other than we may be sure was not well in the Disciples: For God and his Messengers cannot speak divers things, Christ and his Angels cannot be at odds and variance. The truth is, this was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a look, and no more; for Christ was willing they should see him: but it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a gazing, an earnest looking after Christ when he was out of sight; as if they would, saith Chrysostom, call him back with a look, as if they expected a sudden return. They will not take Christ's own words for his return, but they follow him with their eyes, & plus oculo tribuunt quàm oraculo, as Bernard speaketh of men of curious speculation; They will satisfy their eye rather than believe an oracle. A great evil under the Sun, When we have seen Christ, as much of him as he is pleased to show us, to look after him still; and though he went from us but now, yet to expect he should return presently. I will not call this Incredulity, but Imbecility and Weakness of faith. Which further showeth itself in the Disciples admiration and amazement. For it was a steadfast look fastened on the object, as if they were troubled, wondering at what they had seen, and not satisfied with seeing; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, gazing still, and ready to let out their souls at their eyes. And now, Why gaze ye into heaven? is no more than needs. For though the ascension of a body into heaven be indeed wonderful, yet if the body be Christ's, the Lord of heaven and earth, why should they put on wonder, or stand gazing? Magni est ingenii, saith Tully, revocare mentem à sensibus; It is a great part of wisdom to take the mind from the burden of the senses, to call and free her from the toil and pressure of admiration; to consider every thing in itself; to abstract it from all those outward appearances and accidentals which are but the creatures of our fancy. And it is the strength, nay, the victory, of Faith, to consider Religion the same in times of persecution and in times of peace, to see Christ's glory as well on the cross and in the grave as in his taking up into heaven. A true Disciple should be like the Philosopher's Magnanimous person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not given to wonder; like Cyrus his Soldier in Xenophon, wondering at nothing, but intent upon the General's command, not looking after shows. For Admiration is a kind of apoplexy of the soul; it maketh us like them that dream, nay like unto the dead. So we lose Christ by looking after him. For when we wonder, we can do nothing else, but are lost and swallowed up in this gulf. And why should they wonder at Christ's Ascension? They should have wondered rather, saith the Father, that he came down from heaven then that he returned thither, that he was born, that he did descend into the earth, nay, into the lowest parts, even hell itself: This was the far greater miracle. But such is our frailty, and so much addicted we are to our sense, that what is least familiar to it affecteth it most, and the greatest things decrease and are even lost by being seen too often. Not the greatest but the rarest things are matter of our admiration. Sol spectatorem, nisi cùm deficit, non habet; The Sun is not looked upon, nor the Moon observed, but when they are in the Eclipse. Si quid turbatum est, If any thing cross the order of Nature, then presently we look up. Doth a man rise from the dead? we are amazed and besides ourselves: Tot quotidie nascuntur, nemo miratur; Every day so many are born before our eyes, and we wonder not. Doth Christ turn water into wine? we are strait astonished: See, saith Augustine, quod semel fecit in hydriis, unoquoque anno facit in vitibus, what he did once in the water-pots, he doth every year in the Vines. Thus we wonder and admire, and it is a wonder we should so: We stand amazed and troubled at that which is not worth our thought: We are deeply affected and even transported beyond ourselves with that from which we should wean our affection. We wonder that Christ will not do that for us which will undo us; that he will not stay and walk with us, when we are not fitted for his company. We wonder what is become of him, when he is but gone to send us a Comforter. We wonder he should withdraw himself, when his absence is for our sakes. 2 Cor. 5.16 Though the Apostles had known Christ in the flesh, yet now henceforth they were to know him so no more, but to have considered him as the King of Heaven and Judge of all mankind, and, according to his command, not to have spent or misplaced a look, which might stay them from their duty and their return to Jerusalem. We need not further enlarge this. But yet further to enforce the Angels Question, the Text telleth us that a cloud received him out of their sight: a cloud; as if it had on purpose not only been prepared as the chariot for Christ, but drawn too as a veil before the Disciples eyes, to turn them away from seeking any longer after him. For why should any gaze up into heaven when Christ was in the cloud? We may see Christ, but not look after him then. We may see him on mount Olivet, we may see him ascending, when one foot is as it were in the cloud; but when the cloud hath received him out of our sight, we must make a covenant with our eyes, and gaze no more. We believe that he is the eternal Son of God; and Faith is all our vision here: But if we still gaze, to know how the Father begot the Son, being of the same essence with him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Father, there is a cloud cast, a veil drawn, and we must look no further. We believe the Divine Nature is united to the Manhood: But if we look for the manner of this union 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we may gaze our eyes out, and receive no answer. We see he lifteth up one on high, and layeth another in the dust; He shineth upon the tabernacle of the wicked, and beateth down his own Temple; He crowneth a man of Belial, and bindeth his own servants to the mill or brick-kiln: Sequere Deum; Do thou follow God in those ways he hath appointed for thee, and not gaze after him in those of his which are past finding out. The reasons of God's operations and proceed are unfoordable, and in many things he will be a God afar off, out of thy ken and eye; seen, and yet invisible; felt, but not touched; near at hands and yet at an infinite distance from his creature. And here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, is better than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is better to shut our eyes then to gaze, better to do nothing, then to be busy and curious. For what shall we gain by our intentive look, by our gaze, by our curious search? No satisfaction; not the sight of Christ, but coelum pro Christo, as the Disciples here gaze upon the heaven, but see not Christ; or rather nubem pro Christo, see a cloud and darkness and distraction, but Christ we shall not see. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Father: Gaze not after Christ; for thou canst not see him. And now you see, Why gaze ye up into heaven? is a good question. But we must take in and urge the other, Why stand ye gazing? For indeed had they not stood, they had not gazed Had they remembered our Saviour's command, which but now sounded in their ears, that they were to go and remain at Jerusalem, and expect the coming of the holy Ghost, they had not now been at Bethany, nor had been seen by the Angels in this posture of standing. We may now think perhaps that Curiosity is res operosa, a busy and toilsome thing. And so it is. It treadeth mazes and labyrinths, seeketh out hidden and unknown paths, walketh without light; looketh, but seethe not; knocketh, but openeth not; moveth, but goeth not: and the only issue it bringeth forth is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, loss of time, in which we might have sought, and found; knocked, and opened; moved, and pressed forward to the mark, to our journey's end. It stayeth us at Bethany, pleasing our own fancy, gazing after that which cannot be seen, or were of no use if we did overtake it with our eye, when we should be at Jerusalem doing the will of our Master. It maketh us gaze after Christ, when we should look for the holy Ghost. To stand gazing on the mount was not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the work which was enjoined the Disciples, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nothing to the purpose, a needless work, opus quo nihil opus, a work better a great deal left undone Calvin saith well, They did not, what every wiseman should, reputare finem, propose to themselves an end; but looked up and gazed, and all to no end. And it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a work which did not concern them. It concerned them not to have been in monte, on the mount, but in coenaculo, in their chamber at Jerusalem. Terrullian saith well, Vbi quod oportet negligitur, quod non oportet adhibetur; When we run and are active in needless offices, we are lame and impotent, and cannot stir a foot towards necessary performances. When we neglect our duty, you may be sure to find us with our eyes open, gazing up into heaven. It is an epidemical error, to look after Christ when he is out of sight; to have our eyes on heaven, when our business is below; to look after Christ's glorified body, to contemplate his Session at the right hand of God, and his Intercession for us, and to delight our thoughts with them, and make them ours, make them what we please; but that Christ which is still on earth, that Christ which we should put on, I mean, that Virtue, that Innocency, that Meekness, that Patience, that Obedience, which he left behind him for us to take and wear till his coming again, we scarce once cast an eye upon; and yet without these, though we gaze our eyes out, we shall never see him. To apply this; Those curious searches after Truth, which many times discover her beauty, and yet have her trampled under feet; that eager desire of Knowledge, which endeth in itself; those Hosannas and Gloria Patri's, those often blessings and magnifyings of God and Christ; those revile of Sin, which we love, and Panegyrics of Virtue, which we neglect; those complaints without sorrow, and sorrow without repentance; our running and flocking to Sermons, where we find lettuce for our lips, nay further, those wishes, those desires, those resolutions, but faint resolutions, to be good; what are they but as so many looks cast after Christ? what are they but compliments? and compliments are but gazings. And what have we seen all this while? Heaven perhaps, or some apparition of our own making, a Christ of our own shaping, a flattering conceit that we are greatly beloved of God; but have not gained so much as a glimpse of that Jesus which ascended. We choose that part of Religion which is easiest and most attempered to our sensual part and private humour. Mint and cumin we will tithe to a seed, but the weightier matters of the Law we will not touch with one of our fingers. For it is easier to gaze after Christ then to stay at Jerusalem, easier to commend Virtue then to embrace it, easier to hear the Word then to do it, easier to hang down the head for sin then to fling it away, easier to mourn or fast a day then to amend for ever, easier to libel Vice then to hate it, easier to disgrace Sin then to conquer it. Be not deceived. It is not our standing and gazing thus, but our walking in our calling, our honest conversation with all men, our denial of ourselves, and our holiness towards God, that must bring us to the sight of our Saviour. And if we will hear good news from him, any message of peace and comfort, we must leave the Mount, and go strait back to Jerusalem. For if obedience be better than sacrifice, then certainly it is better than gazing. It is the rule of our Saviour, He that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad, he that gazeth, Matth. 12.30. standeth still, and worketh not. But the Devil's rule runneth thus, He that scattereth not, gathereth with him. To sit still, and gaze, and do nothing, though we bind up no sheaves, maketh us fit harvest-men for him. Operosè nihil agere, to be busy to no purpose; to have a quick ear, and a withered hand; to defy sin, but not destroy it; to hear, and not do, is a great part of his service. Why stand ye still? It is high time ye were at Jerusalem, say the Angels. And they say so still, Up, and be doing: Let not fancy, which maketh you Gods, make you worse than the beasts that perish. Bury not yourselves alive in a grave of your own hewing out, a vain and flattering imagination. Christianus non habet ferias; A Christian hath no holidays, no times of leisure, to stand and gaze. Why stand ye gazing here? Come down from the mount; make haste, and bestir yourselves. Ipsa festinatio tarda est; Assoon as Christ's command is out of his mouth, Haste itself is but slow-paced, nor is it possible we should come soon enough to Jerusalem. Curiosity is a gazer; but festina Fides, saith S. Ambrose, Faith and true Obedience, like Christ at his Ascension, are on the wing. She hath indeed an eye to see; but her hand is as quick as her eye. She doth not gaze after Christ, but seeketh him with her whole heart. When the cloud hath received our Saviour, she looketh no more, but returneth from the mount to Jerusalem; Where you may see her clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, strengthening the weak, cheerful and active, like that blessed Spirit of love which begat her. Here let us stay, here let us be fixed and move for ever, move in that sphere and compass in which Christ hath placed us; here let us employ all the faculties of our souls and all the members and senses of our bodies; not let our hand reach to touch that which may seem better to us; not let lose our eyes to wander after vanity, after strange and unprofitable objects; not open our understandings to unnecessary speculations; not let our fancies gad and fly after those things which delight now, and torment anon, and are never of any use at all. Now Christ is ascended, let us no more gaze after him, nor ask the question whether he rend the spheres, or passed through them whilst they yielded and gave way to his glorified body as the air doth to ours. Nor need we go on pilgrimage to Bethany to see the prints and marks of Christ's footsteps; which some say are yet visible on the Mount. For this were to fall upon the Disciples error, and to gaze still; this were quite to forget the Angels Question, Why stand ye gazing here? and to lose ourselves in the byways and mazes of vain curiosity. The Philosopher will tell us that that which is best in Kings, their Magnificence, Bounty, Clemency, is open to the view, and made common and public to every eye; but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what is hidden is dangerous; their secret intents and counsels we do not know but with some hazard of our lives and states, The holy Father N●zianzene maketh the application for me, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Christ is our King, and he hath made his Law, his Grace, his Gospel, his Oracles, his Sufferings, his Resurrection, his Ascension, as common to us as the Sun. Faith, Hope, and Charity, who may not look on these? But those things which he hath veiled and drawn a cloud over, as they are concealed, so are they unnecessary, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, They are, saith he, to be placed in the last rank. Why stand ye gazing here, where the ground is so unsettled? It is the observation of Aristotle, that Place must be : For if the thing on which we are seated be fluid and slide away from under us, it is impossible it should serve us either for motion or rest. And it is easy to observe how these unnecessary niceties and speculations glide and slide away from under us, so that to endeavour to overtake them, and rest and fix ourselves upon them, is as if we should strive to tread the waters and walk upon the wind. No doctrine to be raised here, no satisfaction to be had. We may search, but we shall never find; we may gaze our eyes out, and see no more of Christ then the Disciples here did when he was in the cloud. To conclude this; Let us remember Christ's words, remember what he hath said unto us, and do it. Let us go with him to Bethany, and see him in his ascent: but when the cloud hath received him, let us gaze no more, but return to Jerusalem. Let us see as much of Christ as he is pleased to show us, and rest in that, and by that light walk before him as becometh Disciples, have our conversation worthy of the Gospel of Christ. And so from the Angels Question, Why stand ye here gazing into heaven? we pass to the Resolve, This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Here are many Particulars observable, and we cannot but glance upon them and touch them as we go. First, the Person who ascended JESUS, a Saviour. That is his name, given indeed unto others, as the name of God was to Moses, to Judges, to Kings; but than it is but a deputative or assumed, appellation. For it is one thing to be called Jesus; another, really and essentially to be so: one thing, to be so in type and figure; another, to be so from all eternity. Indeed, saith Nyssene, in respect of his various operations upon men he hath many names. He is a Sword, to divide asunder the soul and the spirit; He is a Light, to dispel the mist of ignorance; He is a Lamb, for meekness and innocency; and a Lion, for power. But facilè intelliges quomodo multa bona sit Jesus, saith Origen; In this one name of JESUS all is contained. For if he be a Sword, it is to pierce and wound our souls with remorse, that he may heal them; if Light, not to dazzle, but to lighten those that sit in darkness; if a Lamb, it is to make himself a sacrifice; if a Lion, it is to destroy the Destroyer. Whether he be a Sword, or a Fire, or a Light, or a Lamb, or a Lion, all is that he may be JESUS, a Saviour. Whether he shine or burn, strike or heal, whether he humble himself to death, or triumph over Death, whether he be born, or suffer, or die, or rise again, or ascend, all is to open the gates of glory, and perfect the great work of our Salvation. All that he said, all that he did, is comprised in this word JESUS. SOTER, saith Tully; hoc quantum est! Ita magnum est ut Latino uno verbo exprimi non potest. This name JESUS, this name Saviour, how great is it! Even so great that in Latin we cannot find any one word to express it. The best expression we have is our joy and gratitude, as the Prophet Habakkuk speaketh, GAUDERE IN DEO JESU NOSTRO, to rejoice in God our JESUS, our salvation. For consider what was taken up: His Body; even that Body that was ploughed upon, spit upon, whipped, nailed to the cross, sealed up in the grave: JESUS taken up in our nature, taking with him the earnest of our flesh and nature, and carrying it to heaven, pignus-totius summae illuc quandoque redigendae, a pledge and certain assurance that the whole lump, all his members, shall follow after. And may not they now awake and sing that dwell in the dust, who are buried alive in the scorn of the world, and who are raked up in the pit of oblivion? Behold, JESUS is taken up: And if he be taken up in our nature, he will draw all men after him, the prisoner to a place of liberty, his despised servants to sit at his table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the poor into Abraham's bosom, and them that mourn to his right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore. And that Jesus ascended, in the next place, the Angels themselves appeal to the Disciples eye and sense. Which appeal is left as a fair testimony of his Ascension, and as a strong confirmation of faith. Ye have seen him thus taken up. And it is left upon record for our sakes, who notwithstanding are too ready to dispute ourselves out of our faith, and to require stronger proofs and fairer evidence than the matter and object can afford, and are still driving forward towards Impossibilities. We would see God, who is invisible; know Christ in the flesh, who is now in heaven; call back the times past, to present us with the sight of Christ, and his Apostles, and all his miracles; and make that which Faith only can apprehend, the object of our Sense. For this temptation hath taken hold on many, who have been ready to ask why Christ did not in every age of the world most gloriously show himself unto the world, who would have matters of Faith written with the Sunbeams, and the Ascension of Christ made manifest to the eye. Thus, whilst they seek to establish, they take away the nature of Faith quite. For if these mysteries of salvation were as evident to the Sense as it is that the Sun doth shine, the apprehension of them would not be an act of our Faith, but of our Knowledge: and not to believe without such an evidence is as great an error as to believe without any evidence or confirmation at all. And therefore, saith Tertullian, Christ shown not himself openly to the people after his resurrection, ut fides, non mediocri praemio destinata, difficultate constaret; that faith, which is destined to a crown, might not consist without some difficulty, but commend itself by our obedience. Nec tam veniam quàm praemium habet ignorare quod credis; Not perfectly to know what thou believest, doth so little stand in need of pardon, that it will procure and bring with it a reward. What obedience is it for a man to assent to this, That the whole is greater than the part, That the Sun doth shine, or to any of those truths which are so visible to the eye that they force the understanding, and leave there an impossibility ●o descent; But when the object is in part hidden, and in part seen, when the truth which I assent to hath more probability to speak for it and persuade it then can be brought to shake and weaken it, John 20.29. than our Saviour himself pronounceth, Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. Again, it were in vain that Christ should thus visibly every day show himself. We have Moses and the Prophets; We have the testimony of his Disciples, who saw him ascend: And if we will not believe them, neither would we have believed if we had been with them on mount Olivet, and seen him received up into the cloud. For if we will not believe God's word, we should soon learn to discredit his miracles, though they were done before the Sun and the people. God reigned down Manna upon the Israelites: For all this they sinned still, and believed not his wondrous works. The Pharisees saw Christ's miracles, yet would have stoned him. The people said, He hath done all things well; yet these were they who crucified the Lord of Life. And the reason is plain: For though Faith be an act of the Understanding, yet it dependeth upon the Will: Whence it cometh to pass that many men build up an opinion without any basis or foundation at all, without any evidence, nay against all evidence whatsoever. Quot voluntates; tot fides; So many Wills as there are, nay so many Humours, so many Creeds there be: For every man believeth as he will. I dare appeal to men of the poorest observation and least experience. What else is that which turneth us about like the hand of a dial from one point to another, from one persuasion to a contrary? What is that that wheeleth and circleth us about, that we touch at every opinion, and settle on none? How cometh it to pass that I now tremble at that which anon I embrace, though I have the same evidence? that that is not Perjury to day which was so yesterday? that that is Devotion and Zeal now which from my youth upwards to this present I branded with the loathsome name of Sacrilege? How is it that my belief shifteth so many scenes, and presenteth itself in so many several shapes? Beloved, it is the prevalency and victory of our Sensitive part over our Reason that maketh so many several, so many contrary, impressions in the mind. Self-love and the Love of the world, these frame our Creeds, these plant and build, these root out and pull down, build up a belief, and then beat it down to the ground, and then set up another in its place. For commonly we believe and disbelieve for the same reason. We are Atheists for advantage, and we are Christians for advantage. We embrace the Truth for our profit and convenience, and for our profit we renounce it? and we make the same overture for heaven which we do for destruction; will believe any thing for a truth that flattereth our humour, and count that Truth itself a heresy that thwarteth it. In a word, that we believe not the Truth, is not for want of evidence, but for want of will. Last of all, the knowledge a Christian hath of these high mysteries can be no other but by Faith. Novimus, si credimus. Christian, dost thou believe? Thou hast then been at mount Olivet, and seen thy crucified Saviour ascend into heaven. With S. Stephen thou hast seen the glory of God, and Jesus standing at his right hand. And though thou canst not argue or dispute, though thou canst not untie every knot and resolve every doubt, though thou canst not silence the Jew, nor stop the mouth of the unbelieving Arheist, yet qui credit, satis est ei quod credat, there is required of thee no more than to believe; and to believe is salvation. One man, saith the Father, hath faith; another hath also skill and ability to stand out against all the world, and com● forth a defender of the faith; another is strong and mighty in faith, but not so able with art and skill to maintain it: The one is doctior, non fidelior; The one hath advantage and preeminence over the other in learning and knowledge▪ but not in faith; may be the deeper scholar, but not the better Christian; may be of necessary use titubantibus, to men who doubt, but not credentibus, to those who stand fast in the faith and liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free: Both have the same evidence, and it may be as powerful in the one for practice as it is in the other for speculation and argument. We know those who saw Christ suscitantem mortuos, raising up men from the dead, believed not, when he believed and confessed him who saw him pendentem in ligno, hanging on the cross. Surgunt indocti: Simple and unlearned men take the kingdom of heaven by violence, when the great Rabbis stand below and make no approach. Illi ratiocinentur, nos credamus: Let the wise, and the scribe, and the disputer of this world argue and doubt; our rejoicing is in our faith: Let them dispute, we will fall down at this great sight: Let them reason, we will believe, not only that this Jesus was thus taken up, but that he shall come again; Which is another article of our Creed, and our last part, and must now serve only for conclusion. And it is good to conclude with comfort. And VENIET, He shall come again, was not only a Resolve, but a Message of comfort, by two Angels, who stood by in albis, in the colours of joy, to comfort the Disciples, who were now troubled and did stoop for heaviness of heart, because Christ was taken away: He shall come again, Prov. 12.25. was that good word, which did make their hearts glad, made them return to Jerusalem as Christ ascended into heaven, in Jubilo, in triumph. But now it may be a word of comfort, yet not unto all that shall hear it. That which is comfort to one, may be a sentence of condemnation to another. The VENIET, He shall come again, may open as the heavens to receive the one, and as the gates of hell to devour the other. For what is a promise to him that is not partaker of it? What is comfort to him that will not be comforted? What is heaven to a child of perdition? It is a word of the future tense, as all promises are of things to come. And it is verbum operativum, a word full of efficacy and virtue, to awake and stir up our Faith, to raise our Hope, and inflame our Charity: It hath a kindly aspect upon all these; And first upon our Faith. For ideò abcessit Dominus ut fides nostra aedificetur; Our Saviour was therefore taken up into heaven, that our faith, which may reach him there, may be built up here on earth. He therefore lay hid, that this eye might search him out. Faith is a kind of Prospective or optic instrument, by which we see things afar off as if they were near at hand, and things that are not yet as if they now were. It turneth Veniet into the present tense, and beholdeth Christ as ●ow already descending with a shout. And this is sancta impudentia fidei, the holy boldness and confidence of Faith, to break through all difficulties whatsoever; if the object be in heaven, to place it on earth; if it be invisible, to make it visible; and if Christ say he will come, to say he is come already. And now, Beloved, try and examine yourselves whether ye be in this faith. In other things how cautelous we are! what counsel do we ask! how do we use our own and other men's eyes! and how are we grieved, how crestfallen, if we be overreached, as one that is beaten in battle, and hath lost the day! But then how easily are we abused how willing to deceive ourselves, how well pleased to err, where the error is fatal and deleterial to the soul! Will not a weak and groundless opinion, a fancy, a shadow, be taken for that Faith which is the substance of things not seen? Glorious things are spoken of Faith. It is called a full assent, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a full assurance, a full persuasion of mind. And is ours so? Nay, for the most of us, would we did but believe the second coming of Christ as we do a story out of our own Chronicles, nay as many times we believe a lie! Would our faith were but as a grain of mustardseed! Even such a faith, if it did not remove mountains, yet would levelly many, would silence many a proud word, would restrain us from those sins which have nothing of the pain, but are as loathsome as Hell itself. Nequicquam segniùs credita movent quàm cognita, saith one; Those things which are but credible, and believed, move and set us a working many times as powerfully as those things which we know. What maketh us venture ourselves by sea and by land, rise up early and lie down late, bear all things, endure all things, but a firm belief that this is the way to honour and wealth? What Faith then is that which cannot strike the timbrel out of our hands, nor the strumpet out of our arms, which cannot make us displease ourselves, nor unfold our arms, not silence a word, not stifle a thought, but leaveth us with as little life and motion as those who have been dead long ago, although the VENIET, the doctrine of Christ's second Advent, sound as loud as the Trump shall do at the last day? Faith shall we call this? or a Dream? or an Echo from a sepulchre of rotten bones, which, when all the world proclaimeth Christ's second coming, resoundeth it back again into the world? a Faith that can speak, but cannot walk nor work? a Faith that may dwell in the heart of an hypocrite, a murderer, a traitor, a Devil? For all these may believe, or at least profess, that Christ will come again, and yet be that liar, that Antichrist, which denieth Jesus to be the Christ, or that he ever came in the flesh. Secondly, as this VENIET casteth an aspect upon Faith, so it doth upon Hope, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the blood of our soul, saith Clement, without which it will be faint and pale, and languish. Therefore oportet habere aliquem spei cumulum, saith Terrullian: this addition of Hope to Faith is most necessary. For if we had all Faith, and had no Hope, this all would profit us nothing. Faith without Hope may be in hell, as well as on earth. For magnify Faith as much as you please, and make it an Idol, and fall down and worship it: It is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation, BY FAITH WE ARE SAVED: But we have reason to fear that this true saying hath damned many, not in itself (for so Truth can bring forth nothing but life) but through the corruption of men's hearts, which turneth Manna itself into poison, and Life into Death. And let me tell you, Hope will not raise itself upon every Faith, nor is Faith always a fit basis for Hope to build on. He that despaireth believeth, or he could not despair. For who can droop for fear of that VENIET, that Judgement, which he believeth will never come? Oh foolish men that we are! who hath bewitched us, that we should glory in Faith and Hope, make them the subject of our songs of praise and rejoicing, when our Faith is but such a one as is dead, and our Hope at last will make us ashamed; when our Faith is the same which is in hell, and our Hope will leave us with the Devil and his Angels? a Faith worse than Infidelity, and a Hope as dangerous as Despair, and that serve only to add to the number of our stripes? yet this is the Faith, this is the Hope of the world! These are thy Gods, O Israel! Therefore, in the third place, that we may join these two together, Faith and Hope, we must draw in that excellent gift of Charity, which is copulatrix virtus, the coupling virtue, not only of Men but, of these two Theological virtues. For, as I told you, though Hope do suppose Faith, yet Faith may show itself when Hope is thrust out of doors; and many there be who have subscribed to the VENIET, that Christ will come again, who have small reason to hope for his coming. How many believe that he will come, and bring his reward with him, and yet strike off their own chariot-wheels, and drive but heavily towards it? How many believe there is a Judge to come, and wish there were none? Faith and Hope dwell not in the heart till Charity hath taken up the room: But when she is shed and spread abroad in our hearts, than they are in conjunction, and meet together, and kiss each other. Therefore this promise of Christ's coming is a threat, a thunderbolt, if these three Graces meet not; if Faith work not by Love, and both together raise a Hope. And as VENIET here looketh upon our Faith and Hope, so it calleth for our Charity. For velimus, nolimus, veniet; whether we will or no, whether we believe or no, whether we hope or no, he will certainly come: But when we love him, than we love also his appearance, and his coming: 2 Tim. 4.8. And our Love is a subscription to his promise, by which we truly testify our consent, and sympathise with him, and say Amen to the Angels promise; Amen, Even so, come Lord Jesus. That of Faith may be forced, that of Hope may be groundless, but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription. Though I know he will come, yet I shall be unwilling he should come to me as an enemy; that he should come to me when I sit in the chair of the scornful, or lie in the bed of lust; that he should come to me, and find me with a strumpet in my arms, or a sword in my hand, fight against that Power which is his ordinance. For doth any condemned person hope for a day of execution? But when I love him, and bow before him, when I have improved his Talon, and brought myself to that temper and constitution that I can idem velle & idem nolle, will and nill the same things, and be of the same mind with that Jesus who is to come, when I have made myself the friend of the Judge, then Spes festina, then Hope is on the wing, then substantia mea apud Christum, as the Vulgar readeth it, my expectation, my substance, my being is with Christ: Nec pareo Deo, sed assentior; And I do not only subscribe to the VENIET, to his coming, because he hath decreed and resolved it, but because I can make an hearty acknowledgement that the will of Christ is just and good, and I assent, not of necessity, but of a willing mind. And as he who testifieth these things, confirmeth the Angel's promise, with this last word, Surely I come quickly; so shall I be able truly to answer, Even so, come, Lord Jesus. In the last place, this VENIET, this foretelling of Christ's second coming, hath another operation, and is powerful to work in us Fear and Circumspection, the very prop and foundation of those three Theological virtues, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the preservative of all the good we have: It tempereth our Love, that it be not too bold; our Faith, that it be not too forward; and our Hope, that it be not too confident; It is as a watch and guard upon us to keep us in all our ways. VENIET, is of the future tense; and though it be most certain that Christ will come, yet the time is not determined, that we may so love Christ as that we may be fit to believe and hope and long for his coming. The VENIET may end this moment, and the promise be made good as well this day, or the next, as a thousand years hence. The When God hath kept as a secret in his own breast, ut pendulâ expectatione solicitudo fidei probetur, saith Tertullian, that by suspending our expectation, and leaving us uncertain of the time, he may make trial of the watchfulness of their faith whom he meaneth to place among the few but great examples of eternal happiness. Semper diem observant qui semper ignorant, semper timent qui quotidie sperant: Whilst men are ignorant of the day, they observe every day, and fear that Christ may come this minute, who they know will come at last. Veniet, fratres, veniet; sed vide quomodo te inveniet, saith Augustine; Brethren, he will come, he will come assuredly, and we must be careful how he findeth us when he cometh. He will come, not, as at the first, in the form of a servant, but as a King; not as a sheep that openeth not his mouth, but with a mighty voice shaking the heaven and earth, with Angels and with Archangels; by the power of his Trump raising the dead out of their graves, and bringing them all to his seat of judgement. He shall come in great majesty and glory. So come, say the Angels, as ye have seen him go into heaven. Which pointeth to the manner of Christ's coming, and should now come to be handled. But the time will not permit. Only for conclusion let us remember that he shall come, and shall not keep silence, that a fire shall devour before him, and a tempest round about him; that he shall come cum totius mundi motu, cum horrore orbis, cum planctu omnium, si non Christianorum; with an earthquake and the horror of the world, and with the lamentation of all, except Christians: Et qui nunc ventilat gentes per fidem, tunc ventilabit per judicium; And he that now winnoweth the nations, and separateth them one from the other, by faith, will then search and divide the whole world by his last and decretory sentence. And let this noise startle the Adulterer in his twilight, strike the sword out of the hand of the Rebellious, and awake the Atheist out of his deep sleep and lethargy. For this Jesus, this same Jesus, shall so come, who placed Adultery in the eye, and Murder in the thought, and commanded to give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar'●; and he shall judge the Adulterer, and the seditious Rebel, according to that Gospel which he preached in great humility, and which many Christians, Atheistical Christians, trample under their feet with as great pride. 2 Cor. 5.11. And let this terror of the Lord, as S. Paul calleth it, persuade men to lay aside every weight, and those sins which do so easily beset us; our Covetous desires, which fasten us to the dust; our Pride, which though it lift up our heads on high, yet at last will have a fall; our Ambibition, which though it reach the pinnacle, yet cannot build its nest in heaven; our Seditious and Atheistical imaginations, which can never enter that place where Obedience and Humility sit crowned: for neither Covetousness, nor Pride, nor Rebellion can ascend with Christ, who was humble, and yet the Prince of peace. But SURSUM CORDA, Let us lift up our hearts, even lift them up unto the Lord. Let our conversation be in heaven. Imitemur quod futuri sumus; Let our life be a type of the Ascension, and our present holiness an imitation of our future bliss. Let us mortify our earthly members now, that then they may be glorified. Let us ascend in heart and with all the powers of our soul now in this life, that when this Jesus shall come again in glory and great Majesty, we may be caught up in the clouds, and meet the Lord in the air, and be with him for evermore. The Fifteenth SERMON. PART I. 1 COR. VI 20. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. WE have in our last presented before your eyes the bloody and victorious Passion and glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The later our Apostle mentioneth ver. 14. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power; raise us, not only out of the grave, but out of that deep prison and dungeon wherein Sin and Satan have laid us. For this is the end of both: For this end Christ suffered, and for this end he risen again: For this end he paid down a price, even his blood, to strike off those chains, and bring us back into the glorious liberty of the sons of God; to gain a title in us, to have a right to our souls, to guide them, and a right to our bodies, to command them, as he pleaseth. But though the price be paid, yet we may be prisoners still, if we love our fetters and will not shake them off, if we count our prison a paradise, and had rather sport out our span here in the ways of darkness then dwell for ever in the light. Christ hath done whatsoever belongeth to a Redeemer; but there is something required at their hands who are redeemed; namely when he knocketh at our graves and biddeth us come forth, to fling off our grave-clothes, and follow him; not to stay in our enemy's hands, and love our captivity, but to present ourselves before our Captain, and show him his own purchase, a soul that is his, and a body that is his, a soul purged and renewed, and a body obedient and instrumental to the soul, both cheerful and active in setting forth his glory. This is the conclusion of the whole matter, this is the end of all, not only of our Creation (which the Apostle doth not mention here; although even by that God hath the right of dominion over us) but also of our Redemption, which is later and more special, and more glorious, as one star differeth from another in glory. Take all the Articles of the Creed, take Christ's Birth, his Death, his Resurrection; his Glory is the Amen to all. Take all God's Precepts, all his Promises, and let them stand (as they are) for the Premises, and no other Conclusion can be so properly drawn from them as this, That we should glorify God. The Premises are drawn together within the compass of the first words of my Text, EMPTI ESTIS PRETIO, Ye are bought with a price; and the Conclus●●n in the last, ERGO GLORIFICATE, Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. So the Parts, you see, are as the Persons are, the Redeemer, and the Redeemed, two: 1. a Benefit declared, Ye are bought with a price; 2. a Duty enjoined, Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. The first remembreth us what God hath done for us; the second calleth upon us to remember what we are to do for him, to give unto God those things which are God's, to glorify him in our body, and in our spirit, which are God's. These are the parts; and of these we shall speak in their order. First, of the Benefit, Ye are bought with a price. This Purchase, this Redeeming us, supposeth we were alienated from Christ, and in our enemy's hand and power, 2 Tim 2.26. in the snare of the Devil, and taken captive by him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, taken by him as it were in war. And indeed till Christ bought us, his we were, even made servants to him, as servants use to be, venditione, by sale, and jure belli, by right of war. We had sold ourselves, as S. Paul speaketh, unto him; sold our birthright for a mess of pottage, sold ourselves for that which is not bread; for that Pleasure, which is but a shadow; for those Riches, which are but dung; for that Honour, which is but air. Every toy was the price of our blood. He opened his false wares, and we pawned and prostituted our souls, and gave up our hope of eternity for his pianted vanities and a glittering death. His was but a proffer; and we might have refused it: But we believed that Father of lies, and so gave up ourselves into his power; and his we were by bargain and sale. And as we were his by sale, so we were his in a manner by right of war. For he set upon us, and overcame us, not so much by valour as by stratagem, by his wiles and devices, as S. Paul calleth them. For not only the Sword, but those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Polybius speaketh, deceits and thefts of war, work out a way to victory: And he that faileth in the battle is as truly a captive when art and cunning as when force and violence maketh him bow the knee and yield. This our enemy setteth upon a soul as a soul, with forces proportioned to a soul, which cannot be taken by force, no though he were ten times more a Lion, more roaring, than he is. He hath indeed rectas manus; some blows he giveth directly, striking at our very face: And he hath aversas tectásque; others he giveth cunningly and in secret. But when we see the wounds and ulcers which he maketh, we cannot be ignorant whose hand it is that smote us. He is that great invisible Sophister of the world, saith Basil. He mingleth himself with our humour and inclination, and so casteth a mist before us, and cloudeth our understanding, that we may be willing to lay hold of Falsehood for Truth, of Evil for Good; and by a kind of legerdemain he maketh Virtue itself promote sin, and Truth error. And as there, so in his wiles and enterprises, ipsa fallacia delectat, we are willing to be deceived and taken, because the sleights themselves are delightful to us. The Devil's Temptations are in this like his Oracles, full of ambiguities. And as Demosthenes said of Apollo's Oracle, that it did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, speak too much to the desire and mind of Philip, so do these flatter each humour and inclination in us, and at last persuade us that that which we would have true is true indeed. And thus do we give up all into the Enemy's hands, and are taken captive and brought under the yoke, sub reatu peccati, under the guilt of sin, which as a poisoned dart sticketh in our sides, and galleth and troubleth us wheresoever we go. I cannot better call a bad conscience then flagellum Diaboli, the Devil's whip, with which he tormenteth his captives, and maketh large furrows in their soul. As the Roman lords did over their slaves, in terga & cervices saevire, imprint marks and characters and (as the Comedian speaketh) letters on their backs; so doth this, laniatus & ictus, wounds and swell and ulcers. He is not so much a slave that is chained to an oar as he that liveth under a bad conscience. Now empti estis; From this slavery we are redeemed by Christ. For being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and the noise of the whip is heard no more. Next, we were sub dominio peccati; we were under the power and dominion of Sin, so that it was a Tyrant, and reigned in us. If it did say, Go, we did go, even in slippery places and dangerous precipices, upon the point of the sword and death itself. Like that evil spirit in the Gospel, it rendeth and teareth us, and casteth us on the ground, and maketh us foam at our mouths, foam out our own shame, it casteth us into the fire and water, burneth and drowneth us in our lusts. And if it bid us, Do this, we do it: We are perjured, to save our goods; beat down a Church, to build us a banqueting-house; take the vessels of the Sanctuary to quaff in; fling away eternity, to retain life; and are greater devils, that we may be the greater men. Whilst Sin reigneth in our mortal bodies, the curse of Canaan is upon us; we are servi servorum, the slaves of slaves. And if we will judge aright, there is no other slavery but this. Now empti estis; By the power of Christ these chains are struck off. For he therefore bought us with a price, that we should no longer be servants unto Sin, but be a peculiar people unto himself, full of good works, which are the ensigns and flags of liberty, which they carry about with them whose feet are enlarged to run the ways of God's commandments. Again, there is a double Dominion of Sin; a dominion to Death, and a dominion to Difficulty; a power to slay us, and a power to hold us that we shall not easily escape. And first, if we touch the forbidden fruit, we die; if we sin, our sin lieth at the door ready to devour us. For he, saith our Saviour, that committeth sin, is the servant of sin, obnoxious to all those penalties which are due to sin, under the sentence of death. His head is forfeited, and he must lay it down. Ye are dead, saith S. Paul, in trespasses and sins: not only dead, as having no life, no principle of spiritual motion, not able to lift up an eye to heaven; but dead, as we say, in Law, having no right nor title but to death; we may say, heirs of damnation. And then Sin may hold us, and so enslave us that we shall love our chains, and have no mind to sue for liberty; that it will be very difficult (which sometimes is called in Scripture Impossibility) to shake off our fetters, Sin gaining more power by its longer abode in us; first, binding us with itself; and then with that delight and profit which it bringeth, as golden chains, to tie us faster to itself; and then with its continuance, with its long reign, which is the strongest chain of all. But yet empti estis; Christ hath laid down the price, and bought us, and freed us from this dominion, hath taken away the strength of Sin, that it can neither kill us, nor detain us as its slaves and prisoners. There is a power proceedeth from him, which if we make use of, as we may, neither Death nor Sin shall have any dominion over us; a power, by which we may break those chains of darkness asunder. Look up upon him with that faith of which he was the author and finisher, and the victory is ours. Bow to his Sceptre, and the Kingdom of Sin and Death is at an end. For though he hath bought us with a price, yet he put it not into the hands of those fools who have no heart, but laid it down for those who will with it sue out their freedom in this world. For that which we call liberty is bondage, and that which we call bondage is freedom. Rom. 6.20. When we were the servants of sin, we were free from righteousness, and we thought it a glorious liberty. But this Liberty did enslave us. Prov. 10.24. For that which the wicked feared shall come upon him. They that built the tower of Babel did it that they might not be scattered; and they were scattered, say the Rabbis, in this world, and in the world to come. So whilst men pursue their unlawful desires, that they may be free, by pursuing them they are enslaved, enslaved in this world, and in the world to come. But let us follow the Apostle, But now being made free from sin, Rom. 6.22. you are servants unto God. See here a service which is liberty, and liberty which is bondage, the same word having divers significations, as it is placed. And let us sue out Liberty in its best sense in foro misericordiae, in the Court of Mercy. Behold, here is the price, the blood of Christ. And you have your Charter ready drawn, If the Son make you free, John 8.36. Acts 16. that is, buy you with a price, ye shall be free indeed. Which words are like that great earthquake when Paul and Sylas prayed and sung Psalms. At the very hearing of them the foundation of Hell shaketh, and every man's chains are loosed. For every man challengeth an interest in the Son, and so layeth claim to this freedom: Every man is a Christian, and so every man free. The price is laid down, and we may walk at liberty. It fareth with us as with men who, like the Athenians, harken after news; Whilst we make it better, we make it worse, and lose our Charter by enlarging it. But if we will view the Text, we may observe there is one word there which will much lessen this number, and point out to them as in chains who talk and boast so much of freedom: And it is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ye shall be free indeed, not in show or persuasion (For Opinion and Fancy will never strike off these chains) but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, really, substantially free, and indeed, not free 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in appearance, or in a dream, which they may be whose damnation sleepeth not. Many persuade themselves into an opinion (they call it an Assurance) of freedom when they have sold themselves. Many sleep, as S. Peter did, between the two soldiers, bound with these chains. Many thousands perish in a dream; build up to themselves an assurance, which they call their Rock, and from this rock they are cast down into the bottomless pit: and that which is proposed as the price of their liberty, hath been made a great occasion to detain them in servitude and captivity; which is the more heavy and dangerous because they call it Freedom. Therefore we must once more look back upon that place of S. John; and there we shall find that they shall be free whom the Son maketh free: So that the reality and truth of our freedom dependeth wholly upon his making us free. If he make us free, if we come out of his hand, form by his Word, and transformed by the virtue of the price he gave for us, than we shall be free indeed. If we have been turned upon his wheel, we shall be vessels of honour. And now it will concern us to know aright what the meaning of his buying is, and the manner how he maketh us free. 1 Cor. 7.23. By Purchase, by buying us with a price, and so it is here. Col. 2.14. By Taking away the hand-writing which was against us, and nailing it to his cross. Eph. 5.2. By Satisfaction, being made a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God for us. But then also, (which must not be left out, unless we will dimidiare Christum, 1 John 1.7. take Christ by halfs) by Purging and cleansing us from all our sins. And all by the virtue of this price. For he did not buy us, that we should sell ourselves: He did not pay our debts, that we should run on in arrears: He did not buy us out of the power of Satan, to leave us there: He did not satisfy for sins, to make us greater sinners: And what Purgation is that which leaveth us more unclean beasts then before? Christ doth both, or he will do neither. He freeth us from the condemnation of sin, and he freeth us from the tyranny and dominion of sin. His blood speaketh better things then that of Abel: It speaketh for pardon, but speaketh for repentance; it distilleth sweetly to wash out the guilt of sin, and to wash out the pollution of sin. In a word, Christ did not pay down a price for our liberty, to leave us still in bonds; he did not come down from heaven, to carry us thither with all our sins, that is, with Hell, about us: But when he buyeth us out of prison, he looketh and waiteth to see with what cheerfulness we will come forth: When he calleth us to liberty, he calleth to us as the Angel did to S. Peter, Gird yourselves, cast your sins from you, and follow me. FACIO UT FACIAS, as it is in the Law, Ye are bought with a price; that is Christ's act. But our act also is required, which may bear a fair correspondence and analogy with his. Ye are redeemed; that is the Benefit, and a great one: and, Therefore glorify God, our Duty, is the inference. And our Duty should as naturally issue from a Benefit as Light doth from the Sun, or a Conclusion from its Principles. If Christ begin, and pay down the price, we must, and right reason will have us, conclude, Therefore glorify God in our body, and in our spirit, which are God's. This, I say, is our Duty, and commendeth itself in the next place to your consideration. It is the nature of a Benefit to bind us to the performance of that which shall make it a benefit, to establish a Law which shall establish that, and make it beneficial. Love will empty itself, but it will not lose itself, but deriveth its influence upon the heart it shineth on, to work something in it which may bear some similitude and likeness to its self, which indeed is Glory. When God speaketh to us in love, he expecteth that it should echo back again upon him in glory. For why should so great love be lost? And lost it is, and even dead in us, if it work no life nor spirit in us to magnify his name, if we look upon it as that which will deliver us whether we will or no, and save us though we slight it. God loveth us, that we may love him, and so love ourselves. And all his commands, all our duties and obligations are founded on his love. Therefore as he hath a bright and piercing, so he hath a jealous eye. His name is Jealous. Exod. 34.14. And if we will see his likeness and representation, we may behold it in the Prophet's vision, where he presenteth God like unto a man made of amber, Ezek. 8.2. whose upper part did shine, and his lower was of fire. Which representeth God unto us as a Lover, and a Jealous Lover. The appearance of brightness did express the purity and vehemency of his Love: And it never shined brighter than in our Redemption. And the fire downward, his Jealousy and Anger, which will smoke against those that dishonour him after such a favour. Of all the attributes of God this of Love seemeth to have the dominion and preeminence, and showeth and declareth itself by most manifest signs and notorious effects. And this Love in God, as in Man, is always accompanied with Jealousy, which cannot endure a rival or an enemy, or that that which he bought with a price should be snatched out of his hands. Nec adversarium patitur, nec comparem; He can neither endure an adversary, nor a sharer. A sharer is no better to him then an adversary. His Love carrieth the resemblance of the love of a husband to his wife. And so he speaketh to Jerusalem as to his espoused wife, Thy beauty was perfect which I put upon thee: But thou playedst the harlot, Ezek. 16. and hast poured forth thy fornications on every one that passed by. Where we may conceive God to be as it were in trouble and in rage, in such a passion as a man is when he taketh his wife in the act of adultery. And his anger is the greater because his love was so great. For Jealousy (which is nothing at first but the vehemency of Love) when it hath an image of jealousy set up to provoke it, groweth hotter and hotter, and at last burneth like fire. God's Love is jealous, and would not be cast away; and here in this his buying us it shineth most brightly: wherefore, if it work nothing in us by its beams, it will become a fire to consume us. For shall Christ call us to glory, and we dishonour him? Shall his Love make up the Premises, and shall we against nature deny the Conclusion? Shall the benefit come towards us, and we run from our duty: Shall he redeem our souls from hell, and our bodies from the grave, and shall we prostitute and pawn and sell them to the Destroyer? No: The Glory of God is like Himself, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Beginning and the End, the first wheel and the last. Take the whole subsistence of a Christian, in the state of Grace and in the state of Glory, and it is nothing else but one continued and constant motion of glorifying God. For why hath God done these great things for us, why did he buy us with a price, but ad laudem gloriae suae, as S. Paul repeateth it again and again, Ephes. 1. to the praise of his glory; and S. Peter, that we show forth his praise? 1 Pet. 2.9, Herein is my Father glorified, saith Christ, that you bear much fruit. Jo●n 15.8. So you see our Redemption principally dependeth upon the glory of God. Eph. 3.10. In that it beginneth: For it was his manifold wisdom that made way for it. For that it is furthered and promoted: For we are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man according to the riches of his glory. Eph. 3.16. Then it is completed to his Glory. The same word in Scripture includeth both, Revel. 19.1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Salvation, and the Glory of our salvation. It is the voice of the people in Heaven, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and honour and power to the Lord our God. The choicest and last end which God proposeth to himself in the work of our salvation is the manifestation of his perfection, that is, his Glory; Which consisteth in the unfolding and displaying his essential proprieties by acts proper to them. And here they all meet and are concentred, his Justice, Wisdom, Power, Mercy; His Justice satisfied, his Wisdom manifested, his Power raiseth us from the dead, and his Mercy saveth us; and in all God is glorified. For this 1. we glorify him in our spirit, in our inward man, by transforming ourselves into the likeness of his Son, who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the brightness, of his Father: And we are too in a lower degree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the brightness, of God. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is brightness, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is more than brightness, even such a bright thing which hath a lustre cast upon it from some other thing. As in us all the light which is seen in these dark souls of ours is from the Father of lights. His Justice, his Mercy, his Wisdom shine upon us; and all those graces in us are but the reflection of his light: And this reflection of his Graces is his Glory. Commonly when we hear mention of the Glory of God, we think of nothing but the calves of our lips. But there is a louder language, of our Conformity to his will: There his glory appeareth as in his holy Temple. No choir of Angels can improve, no raging Devil can diminish his Glory. He is the same in the midst of all the Hallelujahs of Seraphim and Cherubin, in the midst of all the blasphemies of Men or Devils. But as the Woman is the glory of the Man in being subject to him, so are we the glory of God when we do his will. For then it may be said that God is in us of a truth, shining in the perfection of beauty, in those graces and perfections which are but beams of his, in our Meekness, in our Justice, in our Courage and Resolution, in our Patienc●; which are the Christian's tongue and glory, and do more fully set forth God's glory then the tongues of men and of Angels can; these are the best Doxology of the Saints. For how well pleased is God to see his creature Man to answer that pattern which he hath set up, to be what he should be and what he intended! For as every artificer is delighted and glorieth in his work when he seethe it finished according to the rule by which he did work; and as we use to look upon the works of our hands or wits with favour and complacency; as we do upon our Children, when they are like us; so doth God upon Man, when he appeareth in that shape and form of obedience which he prescribed. Thus should the Glory of God be carried on along in the continued stream and course of all our actions, and break forth and be seen in every work of our hands: it should be the echo of every word we speak; the echo of every word? nay, the spring of every thought that begat that word. It may seem indeed a hard thing to keep this intention alive, and not to think or speak or act but when this is present before us; not to do a good deed till we have told ourselves we will do it for God's glory. And it is so, a hard thing. Nor doth God require at our hands an actual and perpetual intention of his glory. Thou mayest, nay thou dost, work to his glory when thy thoughts are busy and intent upon thy work, though peradventure his glory doth not so fill thy heart as to fix it on it. The Glory of God must be the primum mobile, the first motive of our Obedience; and the force and virtue of that must carry it about from virtue to virtue. We see an arrow flieth to the mark by the force of that hand out of which it was sent. He that traveleth on the way may go forward in his journey though his thoughts sometimes be carried and look upon some occurrences in the way, and do not always fix themselves upon the place to which he is going. So when the Will and Affections are quickened and enlivened with the love of God's Glory, every word and action will carry with it a savour and relish of that fountain from whence they spring. An Architect doth not always think of the end for which he buildeth his house, but his intention on his work doth sometimes so fully take him that that is left out and as it were forgotten, when it is not forgotten, but always supposed: And though he make a thousand pieces, yet he still retaineth his art, saith Basil. So though we cannot make this first intention of God's glory keep time with us in all the passages of our Christian conversation, and send up every action thus incensed and perfumed, yet the smell of our sacrifice shall ascend and come before God, because it is breathed forth from that heart which is Gloriae ara, an altar dedicated wholly to the Glory of God. Only thy care must be to keep it, as thy heart, with diligence; to nourish and strengthen it, that, if it seem to sleep, yet it may not die in thee; to guard and barricado thy heart against all contrary and heterogeneous imaginations, all earthy, all wand'ring thoughts, which may, as Jacob, take this firstborn, this first intention of God's Glory, by the heel, and supplant it, and rob it of its birthright. For these extravagant and contradicting thoughts will borrow no life from thy first intention of God's glory, but the intention of God's glory will be lost and die in these thoughts. Remember then to beautify thy inward man, and fill it with the glory of God, that it may be as a gallery hung round with the fairest pictures and representations of his Glory, those virtues & perfections which will make thee like him; that thou mayest be nothing else but the praise and Glory of thy Maker; that thou mayest sing a new song, nunc Pietatis carmen, nunc modulos Temperantiae, as Ambrose speaketh; now a song of Zion, a Psalm of Piety; and again, the composed measures of Temperance and Chastity; that thou mayest be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and so make up a Gloria Deo in a complete and perfect harmony. And thus we glorify God in our spirit. But, in the next place, a body hast thou prepared me; and we must glarifie God in our bodies also. God must have our Knee, our Tongue, our Eye, our Countenance. Philosophus auditur dum videtur; The Philosopher, and so the Christian, is heard when he is seen. Come, saith the Psalmist, Psal. 95.6▪ let us worship, and fall down .. Nunquam vericundiores esse debemus quàm cùm de Diis agitur, saith Aristotle in Seneca; Modesty and reverence never better become us then in those intercourses which are made between God and us. We enter Temples, saith he, with a composed countenance: Vultum submittimus, togam adducimus; We cast down our looks, we gather our garments together: and every gesture is an argument of our inward reverence. Tam corpus est Homo quàm anima, saith the Father; The Body is Man as well as the Soul: And he consisteth of one as well as the other: When the Body and Soul are parted, the Man is gone. This Flesh of ours, though it hear ill, and seem as an adversary to rise up against the Spirit, yet it may prove a singular instrument to advance God's glory, and so lift up Man to happiness. Adeò Caro est salutis cardo, saith Tertullian; Our flesh is the very hinge on which the work of our salvation turneth itself. For tell me; What Christian duty is there which is not performed by the body's ministry? Caro alluitur, ut anima emaculetur; It is washed, to purify the soul; It taketh down bread, to feed it; From it we borrow a Hand, to give our alms; an Ear, to let in faith; a Tongue, to be a trumpet of God's praise. Fast, Persecution, Imprisonment, nay Martyrdom itself, de bonis carnis Deo adolentur, are the fruits of the flesh subdued and conquered by us. So that Angels themselves may seem in this respect to come short of us mortals. They cannot suffer, they cannot die for God, because they have no bodies. You cannot scourge, you cannot imprison, you cannot sequester an Angel, you cannot behead him: but all this you may do unto a mortal man, and so make him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like unto, and even equal to the Angels. I do not read that men are made equal to the Angels till they are dead, till their earthly tabernacles be dissolved and built up a- again, till their natural body be raised a spiritual body. Till than we must glorify God as Men; and let the Angels have their Hallelujahs and worship by themselves. Let all the Angels worship him; and let the Sons of men fall down and kneel before him. And let us think the better of our external worship, because we see that which is spiritual and angelical is represented unto us in Scripture by this of ours. To thee all Angels cry aloud: and yet who ever heard an Angel's voice? And the Angels stood round about the Throne, and fell before the Throne on their faces, that is, they glorified God. Angels are said to have Voice, and Hands, and Feet, that we, who have them indeed, may use them to his glory. S. Hilary upon Psal. 143. well expresseth it, Homo ipse decem quibusdam chordis, manibus & pedibus, extentus; Man in his body, his Hands and his Feet, is set as an instrument with ten strings, and in every gesture and motion toucheth them skilfully to make a harmony, to sing a new song to the God of heaven, a song composed of divers parts, of Spirit and Flesh, of Soul and Body. Every faculty of the soul, every member of the body must bear a part. What is the elavation of the Soul? Certainly a sweet and high note. But then the prostration of the Body tempereth it, and maketh it far more pleasant. What? the ejaculations of the Soul? Yes, and the incurvation of the Body; the lifting up of the Heart, yea, and of the Hands and Eyes also. A holy Thought? yea, and a reverend Deportment. These make him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle speaketh, perfect and complete. Otherwise he is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a half-strung, a half-tuned Instrument. We are yet in the flesh, Men, not Angels; and we have Knees to bend, and Hands to lift up, and Heads to uncover. Why should we be Angels so soon, Angels here on earth? Why should our glorifying be, as theirs is, invisible? The surest way to happiness is to keep our condition, to make good our worship in our flesh, to bow and prostrate ourselves here, that when time shall be no more, we may be as the Angels in heaven. Glorifying too spiritual is the same with too carnal. For that men will not glorify God but in their spirit, is but a vapour raised out of the dung, an exhalation from the flesh. That men are such enemies to outward expressions and bodily reverence, proceedeth from a spirit, but it is a spirit of slumber, a dreaming spirit, a dumb spirit, a lazy spirit, a stubborn spirit that will not bow, a spirit of contradiction: I had almost said, from the spirit of Antichrist. For he doth not confess and glorify Jesus so far and fully as he should: And not to confess Christ is from the spirit of Antichrist. 1 John 4.3. For conclusion; Let us look up upon the price with which we were bought; and let God's exceeding love in redeeming us raise up in us a love of God's glory, which may be so intensive and hot within us ut emanet in habitum, that it may not be able to contain itself within the compass of the heart, but evaporate and work itself out into the outward gesture, and break forth out of the conscience into the voice, which may open her shop and spiritual wares, and behold her own riches and furniture abroad; her Liberality in an open hand, her Sorrow trickling down the cheeks, her Humility in a dejected countenance, and her Reverence in a bare head and a bended knee; that the body may be the interpreter of the soul, and its many different postures and motions be a plain commentary to explain and discover that more retired and indiscernible devotion within. This should be our constant and continued practice here on earth, to stand as candidates for an Angel's place by glorifying God here in our earthly members, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a prologue and preface to that which we shall be and act hereafter. It was a fancy which possessed many of the Heathen, that men after death should much desire and often handle those things which did most take and affect them when they lived. So Lucian bringeth in Priam's young son calling for milk and cheese and such country cates, which he most delighted in on earth. Even now saith Maximus Tyrius, doth Aesculapius minister physic, Hercules try the strength of his arm, Castor and Pollux are under sail, Minos is on the bench, and Achilles in arms. This was but a fancy, but a fiction: But it is a fair resemblance of a Christian in this respect, whose span is but a prologue to eternity, a short and imperfect declaration of that which he shall act more perfectly hereafter; whose life is Grace, and whose eternity shall be in Glory, which is nothing else, saith the devout School-man, but gratia consummata nullatenus impedita, Grace made perfect and consummate, finding no opposition, no temptation to struggle and fight with. For though there will be no place for Alms where there is no poverty; no use of Prayers, where there is no want; nor need of Patience, where there can be no injury; yet to Praise and Glorify God are everlasting offices, tribute due to God's Power and Goodness and Wisdom, which are as everlasting as Himself, to be rendered him here on earth in our spirits and in our bodies, and to be continued by us with Angels and Archangels in the highest heavens for evermore. The Sixteenth SERMON. PART II. 1 COR. VI 20. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. THese words are a Logical Enthymeme, consisting of two parts; an Antecedent, Ye are bought with a price; and a Consequent naturally following, Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's; God's by Creation, and God's by Redemption; the Body bought and redeemed from the dust, to which it must have fallen for ever; and the Soul from a worse death, the death of sin, from those impurities which bond it over to an eternity of punishment; and therefore both to be consecrated to him, who bought them. How God is to be glorified in our spirit we have already shown, to wit, by a kind of assimilation, by framing and fashioning ourselves to the will and mind of God. He that is of the same mind with God, glorifieth him, by bowing to him in his still voice, and by bowing to him in his thunder; by harkening to him when he speaketh as a Father, and by harkening to him when he threatneth as a Lord; by harkening to his mercy, and by harkening to his rod. For the Glory of a King is most resplendent in the obedience of his subjects. In a word, we glorify God by Justice and Mercy and those other virtues which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, defluxions and emanations, from his infinite goodness and light. In a just and perfect man God shineth in glory, and all that behold him will say that God is in him of a truth. The Glory of God is that immense ocean into which all streams must run. Our Creation, our Redemption are to his glory. Nay, the Damnation of the wicked at last emptieth itself and endeth here: This his wisdom worketh out of his dishonour, and forceth it out of blasphemy itself. But God's chief glory, and in which he most delighteth, is from our submissive yielding to his natural and primitive intent, which is, that we should follow and be like him in all purity and holiness. In this he is well pleased, that we should do that which is pleasing in his sight. Then he looketh with an eye of favour and complacency upon Man his creature when he appeareth in that shape and form which he prescribed, when he seethe his own image in him, when he is what he would have him be; when he doth not change the glory of God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things; when he doth not prostitute that Understanding to folly which should know him, and that Will to vanity which should seek him, nor fasten those Affections to the earth which should wait upon him alone; when he falleth not from his state and condition, but is holy as God is holy, merciful as God is merciful, perfect as God is perfect. Then is he glorified, then doth he glory in him, Deut. 30.9. and rejoice over him, as Moses speaketh, as over the work of his hands, as over his image and likeness, not corrupted, not defaced. Then is Man taught Canticum laudis, nothing else but the Glory and Praise of his Maker. Thus do we glorify God in our spirit. Now to pass to that which we formerly did but touch upon; Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, made up of both, of Body and Spirit; and therefore must glorify God not only in the spirit, but in the body also. For such a near conjunction there is between the Body and the Soul, that nothing but Death can divorce them; and that too but for a while, a sleeping-time; after which they shall be made up into one again, either to howl out their blasphemy, or to sing a song of praise to their Maker for evermore. If we will not glorify God in our body by chastity, by abstinence, by patience here, we shall be forced to do it by weeping and gnashing of teeth hereafter. It is true, the body is but flesh, 2 Cor. 4.11. yet the life of Jesus may be made manifest in this our flesh. It is but dust and ashes; but this dust and ashes may be raised up and made a Temple of the holy Ghost, a Temple in which we offer up, ch. 6.19. not beasts, our raging lusts and unruly affections, nor the foul stench and exhalations of our corrupted hearts, but the sweet incense of our devotion; not whole drink offerings, but our tears and strong supplications; such a Temple which itself may be a sacrifice, a holy and acceptable sacrifice, Rom. 12.1. & post Dei templum, sepulcrum Christi, saith Tertullian; and being a Temple of God, be made a sepulchre of Christ, by bearing about in it the dying of our Lord Jesus. For when we beat it down, and bring it in subjection, when we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keep it chaste and pure, quench those unholy fires which are even ready to kindle and flame up in it, bind and tie it up from joining with that forbidden object to which its bent and natural inclination carrieth it; when we have set a watch at every sense, at every door which may be an inlet to the Enemy; when we have learned so far to love it as to despise it, to esteem of it as not ours but his that made it, to be macerated and diminished, to be spit upon and whipped, to be stretched out on the rack, to be ploughed up with the scourge, to be consumed in the fire, when his honour calleth for it; when, with S. Paul, we are ready to offer it up, then is the power of Christ's death visible in it, and the beauty of that sight is the glory of God. First, we glorify God in our bodies, when we use them for that end to which he built them up; when we make them not the weapons of sin, but the weapons of righteousness; when we do not suffer them to make our Spirit and Reason their servants, to usher in those delights which may flatter and please them, but bring them under the law and command of Reason, Touch not, Taste not, Handle not, which by its power may check the weakness of the Flesh, and so uphold and defend it from those allurements and illusions, from that deep ditch, that hell, into which it was ready to fall and willing to be swallowed up. Now, saith S. Paul, vers. 13●. the body is not for fornication. It was not created for that end. For how can God, who is Purity itself, create a body for uncleanness? Not then for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body; Who made it as an instrument which the mind might use to the improvement and beautifying of itself, as a vessel to be possessed by us in holiness and honour, 1 Thes. 4.4. his Temple, and thy vessel; his Temple, that thou mayest not profane it; and thy vessel, that thou mayest not defile and pollute it, nor defile thy soul in it. For this kind of pleasure is always clouded with impurity, and carrieth its filth along with it. When it passeth those bounds which that God who knoweth whereof we are made hath set up with this Inscription, Hitherto thou shalt go, and no further, NOT BURN, BUT MARRY, when it breaketh out beyond this, brutish men may in their ruff and jollity count it what they please, call it their Pleasure, their Paradise, but it breaketh forth like a plague and infection, and is as loathsome as Hell itself. The Apostle, Rom. 1.26. calleth ungoverned lusts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vile and dishonourable (he might have said brutish) affections. But indeed Beasts in this are not unconfined, as Men; they do not kick at and revolt from that law and order of Nature in which they were made, so oft as Men do, who should have dominion over them and themselves; nor have they that kerb of Reason, which Man hath, to check and bond them. And therefore that wand'ring lust of theirs, which carrieth them with a swinge and violence to the next object, doth not dishonour them; for it leaveth them what they were, but Beasts still. But Man, who hath a power within him to control his flesh and temper and regulate every inclination; who hath a spirit given him to spiritualise his flesh, and not his flesh to effeminate his spirit; when he letteth the weaker prevail against the stronger, the worse part against the better, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Philosophers call the body, the beast, against the Man, doth not only pollute his soul, but leaveth a peculiar and proper blemish upon his body, and may be compared to the beasts that perish. Nay, he is worse than they: For when Man is compared to the Beasts, he is the worst of all the herd. It is against the very nature of the body thus to be used, against that order which God hath constituted and established amongst men. The body is not for fornication. It was not made to bow to every smile, to be ravished with every sound, to worship every painted Jezebel, but for the Lord, and in the power of his strength to be killed and crucified, and, when it looketh forward beyond its bounds, to feel the curb, to be so subdued as if it were not, as if it were soul, or at least in a perpetual subserviency and obedience to it. Indeed if you read ver. 15. you will think, if it be not as the soul, yet it hath near affinity with it, and is copartner of the same honour. Know ye not, saith S. Paul, that your bodies are the members of Christ? What? this vile body of ours to be a member of Christ? Yes: he bought it, and united it to his mystical body, as well as the soul, and will at last raise it up, and make it like unto his most glorious body. And what doth the Apostle infer; Even that which may make the wanton blush, which may make him an Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? It is an argument ab absurdo, which will either drive us from uncleanness, or upon a most fatal and hellish absurdity. Even the young man in the Proverbs, who was destitute of understanding, would soon agree that it were the greatest folly in the world to think the soul can be united to Christ though it bring the member of an harlot along with it, or to excuse ourselves by nature and the inclination of our temper; or, because there is a fire within us, to think it is better to let it burn and consume us then to quench it; or that God may be glorified, as he was by the Three children, in this fiery furnace; that God may be glorified, when that body which is the work of his hands is dishonoured. Fly fornication, saith the Apostle, vers. 18. Other sins that a man committeth are without the body: but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Malice and Theft abuse the hand, Pride lifteth up the head, Curiosity rolleth the eye, Anger changeth the countenance and dyeth the face, Sloth foldeth the arms, Envy gnaweth the heart; but Lust and Uncleanness is a noisome steam exhaled from the flesh, which, when it hath conceived and brought forth, blasteth and polluteth it. Even Nature itself hath declared thus much, in that it brought in that custom amongst the Heathen (for what else could bring it in?) after unlawful pleasures to wash and bathe themselves, by which they did at once acknowledge, and strive to purge away, that pollution. Other sins are from the flesh, but this is more carnal than any of them; it leaveth more spots and loathsome impressions on the flesh; yea, many times it bringeth its Hell, its fire, into it; it-maketh itself so visible in the very face and body of man that you may run and read it or rather run from the man for fear of the fornicator now branded and disguised with his sin. I remember Sallust speaking of Covetousness disgraceth it in these words, that it doth corpus animumque virilem effoeminare, effeminate and corrupt not only the mind but also the body of man. And Phavorinus in Gellius giveth the reason; Because they who make haste to be rich are many of them sedentary men, versed only in the easy and delicate ways of gain; as the Usurer, whose plough, as they say, goeth on the Sabbath, and whose work is done while he sleepeth; and many others, who we see grow rich without sweat of brow or trouble of body. And in such no marvel if the vigour and generosity of their minds and bodies do languish and be lost. Or rather this is the reason, Because the covetous person hath his mind like a bow always bend, set continually upon his gain; and having all his thoughts gathered together and sent that way, he letteth them lose but seldom to employ them for the behoof either of his body or his soul. Now one would think that of Sallust were a more proper expression of the effects of Uncleanness: For certainly that doth effeminate both the mind and the body. Indeed it doth more: It not only weakeneth but polluteth both. Nay, it is the Devil's net with which he catcheth two at once, and dishonoureth them both: For what difference between an harlot, and the member, nay, the body, of a harlot? For he that joineth himself with a harlot is one body. For two (saith he) shall be one flesh. vers. 16. Therefore Christ, who came to purge both body and soul, doth guard and sense it against the very appearance of this sin, doth omnium sylvam libidinum caedere, as the Father speaketh, cut down the whole wood, and lop off every branch and sprig of Lust. He toeth up the Tongue from filthy communication, shutteth up the Eye from looking upon that beauty which may raise a desire, stoppeth the Ear that it open not to flattery, cutteth off the very beginnings and first offers and rise of lust; that we may either draw it dry, which is a glorious conquest; or keep it in the proper channel which was ordained for it, and where it may pass with honour; that so the Man may either be an eunuch for the kingdom of heaven, or soli uxori masculus, a man to his wife alone, and so glorify God in his frail and mortal body. I would not be a Pharisee to boast; but yet I know nothing by myself but that I may fling a stone at the adulterer: Nor am I so much a Pharisee as to point out to that Publican at whom I should fling it. I know Jess by others than I do by myself. For as I see not their actions, so I cannot see their heart, nor what fire it is that burneth upon that Altar. But yet, when I see Vanity every day advance her plumes and tread her wanton measures before the Sun and the people; when I read a Law that makes Adultery death, and then hear some of them that made it a Law make it a jest; first set up a Mormo, and then laugh at it; when I see men talk with their eyes, and speak with their feet, and teach and invite with their fingers, as the Wiseman describeth it; when I see those affected gestures which are the forerunners and prologues to the foulest acts; when I see both men and women dressed up with that advantage as if they would set themselves to sale, and provoke one another, not to good works, but to those of darkness; when I hear those evil words which corrupt good manners, (a verse of a Poet, but sanctified and made canonical by S. Paul) or rather those evil words which are the marks of the plague in the heart, the symptoms and indications of a corrupted and nasty soul; when I see Obscenity as well as Oaths made an ornament of speech; when I observe an art and method that some use in foaming out their own shame; when it is become the mode of the time, and he is the best Wit that is thus wanton, and he the best speaker that speaketh words clothed with death; when I see and hear this, (as who seethe and heareth it not?) I cannot but fear that there are more fornicators than those who are marked in the hand, more Adulterers, than those who die on the tree. When I see men thus walk upon hot coals, I cannot but think that their feet will be burned: When I see this thick and fuliginous smoke, I cannot but look down towards the lowest pit, and say, Certainly that is the place from whence it came. But this is not to glorify God in our body, but to glory in our shame. Nor can any light be struck out of such a Chaos, nor the Glory of God be resplendent in such a sink. Let us then, in the next place, as Julian the Apostate speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wage war with this our flesh; let us deny our appetite, that our lust may not be importunate; let us afflict our body by fasting and abstinence, discipline and keep them under, and bring them into subjection. For talk what we will of Fasting, till the body be afflicted, and sensible of that affliction, it is no fast. The fast is not complete till the body be subdued. Then by the power of God we have the conquest, and his is the Glory. But what glory is it to him to see his image shut up and buried in a full body, as in a grave? what honour to see an active and immortal soul as dull and earthy as that clod of clay which encloseth it? to see the work of his hands set up against him? to see the body wanton, and the soul, which he breathed in, breathe nothing but filth? to see the man whom he made for life, nourished up for the day of slaughter? What glory can it be to him to see that which should be his Temple become a kitchen, a stews? I will not prescribe you the rules of Abstinence. The Pythagoreans abstained from living creatures, because they fancied to themselves a Transmigration of Souls: the Manichees from herbs and plants; because they thought that Earth itself had life. Montanus gave laws of Fasting, and had three Lents. What mention we these, who were but Philosophers and Heretics? There be that cry down Heresy, and anathematise it, who abstain from Flesh; and from Eggs, because potentially flesh; and from Milk too; Take heed of that; that is sanguis albus, white blood, saith Bellarmine. This is not to fast; to forbear those ordinary meats, and feed on dainties. But they are far worse who, to confute them, will have no Fast at all; who make it a matter rather of dispute then practice, and instead of fasting, ask whether a Fast may be enjoined or no, whether the Church have power to appoint a fast, whether it be not a sin to fast as the Papists do. And so from non Pontificium we are even fallen to nullum, from no Popish fast to no fast at all, or are driven to a fast as Balaam's ass was to the wall, by the terror of the sword. It will not be much material now to determine (although it is soon done) who hath the power of proclaiming a Fast. When God is to be glorified in our bodies, every man is his own Magistrate, and may enjoin himself a fast when he please, and without blowing a trumpet. Though he cannot work a miracle, yet he may fast with Christ, and may use Fasting to that end our Saviour did. As Christ made it an entrance into his calling and Prophetic office, so may the Christian make it a praeludium to his warfare: He may fast, that he may repent; he may fast, that he may give alms; fast, that God may see the conquest of the Spirit over the Flesh, and glory in it. If Fasting hath its magistery and operation, as the Fathers speak, it may be a wing to our Prayers, and a nurse of our Devotion. It is not itself a virtue; but it is instrumentum virtutum, an instrument to work out perfection. The end of Christian discipline consisteth not in it; but by it we are brought with more ease unto our end. It is virtus animi purgativa, as the Pythagoreans speak, a purgative virtue, that cleanseth and prepareth the soul for religious endeavours, sweepeth and adorneth it as a place for God's Honour to dwell in. And as it cometh from the heart (for a broken heart will soon proclaim a fast) so it reflecteth upon the heart again, and confirmeth that affection which begat it. It sharpeneth our Sorrow, it swelleth our Anger, it inflameth our Zele, it raiseth our Indignation, it keepeth fresh our tears, it correcteth and prepareth the body by a kind of art; the body, which, as the Historian speaketh of the common people, aut humiliter servit, aut superbè dominatur▪ must either crouch under us as a servant, or will soon insult over us as a lord Statim ubi par esse coeperit, superius erit; Let it be once your equal, and it will presently be your master. These bodies of ours are at the best but Gibeonites: And if we come to terms of truce with them, it must be but as Joshua did with the Gibeonites, that they may be our bond slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water; our Almoners, to distribute our bounty; our servants. to bear our burdens, to sweat, to smart to pine away, that the Soul may be in health. For what was noted of Caligula is true of our Body; It is the worst master, and the best servant. And as S. Paul at first was the greatest persecutor of the Gospel of Christ, yet afterwards proved the greatest propagator and preacher of it; so the Body that presseth down the soul, may be disciplined and taught to lift it up, to carry it along, to act with it in the way of righteousness. That Body, which is a prison, may be a theatre, for the Mind to show itself in all its proper operations. That Body, which is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sepulchre, of a dead soul, may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Temple, wherein we may offer up sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour unto the Lord. That Body, in which we dishonoured God, stood out against him, and defied him, may bow and fall down before him, and glorify him. When the Body is subject to the Soul, the Sense obedient to Reason, and the Will of man guided by the supreme rule, the Will of God, not swerving either to the right hand or the left, than every string is in its right place, than every touch, every action is harmonious, then there is order, which indeed is the glory of the God of Order. In the third place, as the Body is thus hewed and squared and made up a Temple of God, so is it also made fit to be a sacrifice. When it is purged and disciplined and subdued, then is it best qualified for that lavacrum sanguinis, to enter the laver of persecution, and to be baptised with its own blood; and being now taken out of the mouth of the roaring Lion, by the same power to tread him under foot; nec solùm evadere, sed devincere, and not only to escape his paws, but to overcome him. Let us fancy, as we please, an easy passage to the Tree of life; we shall find there is a flaming sword still betwixt us and it. Let us study to make our ways smooth and plain to Happiness; yet we are all designati martyrs, no sooner Christians then culled out and designed to Martyrdom. And if there were no other prison, yet the world itself is one: and we are sometimes brought out to be spit upon; sometimes, as Samson, to make men sport; sometimes to be stripped, and not pitied; sometimes to the block, or to the fire; sometimes to fight with beasts, with men more savage than they. Our prison is not so much our custody as our punishment, and we are in a manner thrown out of it whilst we are in it; and whilst we are in it; we suffer. For to glorify God, is to speak the truth of him; and to speak the truth of him many times costeth us our tongues and our lives. John Baptist may speak many things to Herod, and Herod may give him the hearing; but if to the glory of God he tell Herod that truth which above all it concerneth him to know, this at the first shall lose John his liberty, and at the last his head. Nay, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to discharge his message faithfully, to bear witness to the Truth, and glorify his Father, must be content to lay down his life. The Truth of God, by which he is most glorified, like the Tyrant's fiery furnace, scorcheth and burneth up those that profess it; hominem martyrem excudit, forgeth and fashioneth the man into a Martyr. He that endureth to the end glorifieth God, and is glorified himself. Nec aliud est sustinere in finem quàm pati finem; To endure to the end is nothing else but to endure the end. We all speak it often, Glory be to thee, O Lord, and the calves of our lips are a cheap and easy sacrifice: For we speak it in the habitations of peace. But should we hear the noise of the whip, should Persecution rush in with a sword in her hand, Deficient vires, nec vox, nec verba sequentur, our heart would fail us, and we should not have a word to speak for the Glory of God. Would any take in Truth and Sword and all into his bowels? Would we so glorify God as to lay our Honour and Life in the dust? We do not well consider what the Glory of God is; and yet it is the language of the whole world, and the worst of men speak it as well as the best, the Hyeocrite loudest of all. You may hear it from the mouth of the bloud-thirstty man; and it is more heard than his Murder, which maketh the greatest noise in the other world. But it is not done in a word, or a breath: For then God might have a MAGNIFICAT from Hell: Even the Devils may cry, Jesus thou Son of the living God. It is not to enter his house with praise, and his courts with thanksgiving: No, not to comprehend with all Saints what is the length, and height, and depth, and breadth of his Greatness; to know that it is in breadth immense, in height most sublime, in length eternal, in depth unfoordable. No; not to suck out ubera beata praeconii, as Cassiodore calleth the Psalms, those breasts which distil nothing but praise. No: A MAGNIFICAT, an EXSULTATE, a Triumph, a Jubilee will not reach it. Then we truly glorify God in our body, when we do it openly, when Persecution rageth when the fire flameth in our face, when the Sword is at our very breasts. Then to speak his glory, when for aught we know it may be the last word we shall speak; to profess his name in the midst of a crooked and froward generation; to defend his Truth before Tyrants, and not be ashamed; to be true Prophets amongst a thousand false ones; to suffer for his name's sake, this is to glorify him in our body. And these three, Chastity, Temperance, Patience, present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. For good reason it is that we should be chaste; for he is pure: that we should fast, and afflict our bodies; for it is a lesson which he taught us himself in our flesh: that we should offer up our bodies for him, whose body was nailed to the cross for us. A chaste body, a subdued body, a body ready to be offered up, is his Temple indeed, the place where his glory dwelleth. And now we pass to a fourth, the Glorifying God by those outward Expressions which are commanded by the Spirit, but performed by the Body alone, glorifying of him by our Voice and Gesture and reverend Deportment, by our outward Worship. And indeed if the three first were made good, we need not be so urgent for the fourth. If we could prevail with men to abstain from fleshly lusts which fight against the soul, we should bring in that Reverence which doth preach and promulge that abstinence. If we were glorious within, our clothing also would be wrought gold. If the power of Godliness had once filled the Heart, it would evaporate and breathe itself forth, and command the Head, the Hand, the Eye, the Knee. Where true Devotion is the Text, the Gloss and Commentary is outward Reverence; which is as inseparable from Religion as Light is from the Sun. When all flesh had corrupted its ways, when the wickedness of men was great upon earth, than broke in this Deluge of profaneness, and the Ark, the Church, floateth upon the face of it with some few persons, who strive to save themselves from such a froward generation. When Covetousness came in gravely, in the mantle of Religion, and with a broom in its hand, to sweep and purge the Temple, every thing it swept out, though Gold, was but rubbish and filth, and went under the name of Superstition: But it did not sweep so clean but it left some riches, that is, some Superstition, behind; and to rid that remainder away, it blasted those harmless and useful Ceremonies, that outward Reverence which the Saints and Martyrs of the purest times made their badge and cognizance to distinguish them from Infidels and Atheists. And, not content to pluck off the visor, it mangled the very face of Religion. and left no more sign of devotion in men then in the pillars of the Church, which are present both alike, the one as reverend as the other. And it is no wonder that men should cry down outward Worship, when they have in their doctrine given so deep a wound to Religion itself. For these Spiritual men are they who have published it to the world, and left it upon record to all posterity, That the foulest sins, quae culmen criminum tenent, which sit at the top and are the ugliest in appearance, as Adultery, Murder, and the like, are so far from endangering the elect, that they advantage them rather; That a man may make himself the member of an harlot, and yet remain a member of Christ still. When we hear this, the other petty cracks need not astonish us, That Bishops are the limbs of Antichrist; Priests, the Locusts of the lowest pit; the remembrance and honourable mention of the Saints, Superstition; and bowing and kneeling, Idolatry: I say, we need not wonder at this. For as old Cato, when the women of Rome broke in tumultuously into the Senate to hinder the promulgation of a Law which was enacting there to restrain their luxury, told the Senators that this was their fault, and they might blame themselves; for if they had taught their wife's modesty at home, they should not have seen them so bold in the Senate-house; so all that Irreverence which we see in the house of God is not kindled, as we may think, from that false fire of Irregular zeal, but this Irregular zeal, this false Fire is struck out of the flint, out of an hard and obdurate heart, not to consume the Zealot, but his brethren; not to eat up himself, but devour others, and so make way for Covetousness and Sacrilege, those ravenous wolves, to divide the spoil. Oh what a Zele is that which is the issue of Covetousness and Oppression! Like mother, like daughter, as the Prophet Ezekiel speaketh. We see those goodly Manors, those Honours and Riches, which Law and Justice hath set out of our reach; and then our heart is hot within us, and this fire burneth; and we call it Zele: And with this we can draw them near unto us, and make them ours; nay, justify Oppression itself, and make it Law; cry down Ceremony and Reverence, as dogs bark at the Moon; call it Superstition, and know not what it is. For when we are asked what Superstition is, we are struck dumb. This is Superstition; that is concluded: that is, it is we know not what. It is very hard, one would think, that there should be no use of the members of the body but in sin; that Devotion should be shut up in the inward man, and when it commandeth the Hat, the Hand, the Eye, the Knee, it should lose its name, and be called Idolatry; that the Body should be all motion in civil worship, change and vary it gestures, bow and cringe and tremble before that mortal whose breath is in his nostrils, and in those offices which are due to an eternal God should be a statue. 'Tis true indeed, Devotion and all other virtues are principally in the mind; but they are evermore consummate by outward acts. The Philosopher will tell us, Virtutis tota laus in actione consistit, that the whole praise of Virtue is in action, For what habit is that which produceth no act? What Liberality is that which never stretcheth forth the hand? What Temperance is that which putteth not the knife to the throat? What Fortitude is that which beateth down no strong hold? What Patience is that which beareth nothing? And then, what Devotion is that which is dumb, nay which is dead, and moveth neither hand nor foot? Habet de suo anima cogitare, velle, cupere, disponere, saith Tertullian. The Soul hath from itself to Think, to Will, to Desire, to Dispose: sed ad perficiendum operam carnis exspectat; but to complete and perfect these, it calleth for and expecteth the help and aid of the Body. What Music is that that is not heard? What an artificer is he that hath no hand? That art deserveth not the name which endeth in itself. For every Habit, as it is an act in respect of the power from whence it came, so is but a power or faculty in respect of the act. Certainly that Devotion is but a fancy which never speaketh, nor boweth, nor falleth down and worshippeth. It is of good useth which Irenaeus observeth, Alia Deus mandat principaliter, alia per consequentiam; There be some duties which God doth more principally enjoin, others but by necessary consequence. The purity of the heart he first looketh upon, and then the gracious effects of it made visible in the flesh and outward man. My son, give me thy heart; that is the first. But, My son, give me thy hand, and knee, and, as David speaketh, every member that thou hast; this also is the voice and command of God. If you ask where God doth expressly command this ceremonious and outward worship, I answer; It was not necessary God should. For even Nature itself commandeth it; and common Reason, which is a Law within us, may teach us that that Body, which is God's, should bow before him. And if peradventure God hath not expressly commanded it, yet virtually and in the general he hath. Abel offered a sacrifice to the Lord; and the Text saith that the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offering: But that God commanded him to bring an offering, Gen 28. it is not written. Jacob set up a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it, and called it the house of God: But we do not read that God ever spoke to him concerning the erecting of that pillar. Let us stand to Calvin's judgement in this; and he with many is an author one of ten thousand. He in the fourth Book of his Institutions and tenth chapter, proveth that Bowing of the knee in the service of God is of Divine authority by no other argument then S. Paul's general rule, 1 Cor. 14.40. Let all things be done decently and in order. For, saith he, in that DECORUM which is here prescribed is included Adgeniculation. He might have added the Uncovering of the head, which is of the same nature, and by which we acknowledge our subjection and dependence both in civil & religious worship. What talk we of an express command? There were never yet any boggled at this, or were afraid to be reverend, who were not bold enough to beat down all before them which stood between them and their ends, and break those commands which are as express and manifest as if they had been written with the Sunbeams. Truly religious, and not reverend? You might as well say, A man without a soul. Neque vera neque falsa religio sine ceremoniis consistit, saith S. Augustine against Faustus the Manichee; So necessary is Ceremonious and outward worship, that neither true nor false Religion can subsist without it. I might here much enlarge my discourse; but the time is spent, and, I fear, your patience. Therefore instead of pressing you with argument, I shall put up but this request to those who are so scrupulous of a bare head or a bended knee in the house of God, That they would in their retirement commune with their own hearts, and ask themselves the question, What is the principal motive of that their too-familiar and bold deportment; Whether it be indeed Religion that maketh their knees as the knees of the Elephant, and putteth them in the same posture at Church which they use in a Theatre, and maketh them more bold with their God then with their fellow-Dust and ashes: Or whether it may not be Pride; and then, why should Pride set her foot within God's Sanctuary? Or Fancy, or Humour; and what is a phansiful and humorous worshipper? Or a Custom ill taken up, and which hath no more to speak for it but that it is taken up; and what custom is that in religious worship which destroyeth it? In a word, Whether Reverence and Devotion be not better seen in those expressions and gestures which are proper to it and best show it forth, then in those which are more than probable arguments against it, and openly deny it. If men would truly ask this question, and impartially answer themselves, I think the Preacher would have less reason to open his mouth again in the defence of God's glory, nor should we see that profaneness and irreverence which that Church we call the whore of Babylon blusheth at, nay (for I mistook) rejoiceth in, and proclaimeth to all the world, that, having no reverence, we have no Church; so that one is bold to tell us we worship not God, but the Devil. And indeed we cannot deny but some such there are amongst us, who place religion in irreverence, and think themselves never more devout than when they are most profane. They call it their familiarity and fellowship with their elder Brother; little considering that we are then most familiar with our God when we stand at an humble distance; that not Presumption and Boldness, but Modesty and Humility draw us near unto him; that when we are united to him, we must tremble before him; that our kissing him, is our worship; that when in all humility we serve him, than he will gird himself, and come forth, and serve us, and embrace us as his friends for being his servants. For our familiarity with God is our subjection and submission to his will, which maketh us one in Christ and God, as the Father is in him, and he in the Father. What? John 17.21. shall we be so familiar as to neglect God? so familiar, as to sit in his throne? so familiar, as to defy him to his face? Think what we please, and please ourselves, if we will, in these our Seraphical, or rather Diabolical, imaginations; A devout soul, and a lofty eye, a high look, a stiff knee, a withered hand, a covered head, a careless gesture, or rather a careful and affected irreverence, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cannot meet together, are as inconsistent as fire and cold. It is not possible that this fire should burn within us, and our reverence be so congealed and bound up as with a frost. Beloved, the time was when heaven was thought a purchase, when Devotion came forth in this dress, multo deformata pulvere, with ashes sprinkled on her head, and her garments rend; and that was called the purest time. They had their genuflexions, their incurvations of their body, which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by the name of that Repentance which they expressed, I might tell you they signed themselves with the sign of the Cross, and by that sign, when they were led muzzled to execution, made confession of their faith. They presented themselves at Church as before the Throne of God: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us stand decently. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us stand before God with fear and reverence. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us stand wisely and soberly, and with great care and vigilant observation. But the face of Christendom is much altered, and the hour is come when men will not worship God but in spirit and truth; which they cannot do, especially in public, unless they worship him with the body also. Our Holiness is in the inward man, so inward that prohibet extraneum, it forbiddeth all outward worship. Had Nazianzene's mother, devout Nonna, lived in these days, what a superstitious Papist had she gone for? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to honour and reverence the holy consecrated things with an humble and silent admiration, never to turn her back to the Communion-Table, nay not to spit upon the pavement, what a piece of ceremonious and needless curiosity would this have been taken for in these days? Not turn the back to the Communion-Table? we dare sit upon it. Be reverend in the Temple? No: make it a Marketplace, to bargain in; a Theatre, to swagger in, to make ourselves a spectacle, but not in S. Paul's sense, to God, to men, and to Angels; here to display our colours, to try our Titles, to blazon our Arms. What was Religion and devout Reverence in the first age, in this latter age must needs go for Superstition and Idolatry. Many of our women are too spiritual to be like Nazianzen's mother Nonna. Pardon the nearness and like-sounding of the words; sure, I think, some Nun she was. And this is it, saith S. Ambrose, which blasteth and spoileth the whole crop and harvest of our Devotion: This is truly cum parvo peccato ad ecclesiam venire, cum peccatis multis ab ecclesia recedere, to bring some sins with us to Church, but carry away more; for fear of the smoke to leap into the fire; for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwreck on Profaneness; for fear of Will-worship not to worship at all; like Haggards, to check at every feather, to be troubled at every show and appearance, to startle at every shadow; and where GLORY TO THE LORD is engraven in capital letters, to blot it out, and write down SUPERSTITION. I see I must conclude. Beloved, fly Idolatry, fly Superstition; you cannot fly far enough: But withal fly Profaneness and Irreverence; and run not so far from the one as to meet and embrace the other. Be not Papists; God forbidden you should: But be not Atheists; that sure (talk what we will of Popery) is far the worse. Do not give God more than he would have; but be sure you do not give him less. Why should you bate him any part, who giveth you all? Behold, he breathed into you your Souls, and stamped his Image upon them: Give it him back again, not clipped, not defaced, but representing his own graces unto him in all holiness and purity. And his hands did form and fashion your Bodies, and in his book are all your members written: Let THE GLORY OF GOD be set forth and wtitten as it were upon every one of them, and he shall exalt those members higher yet, and make thy vile Body like to his most glorious body. In a word; Let us glorify God here in soul and body, and he shall glorify both soul and body in the day of the Lord Jesus. The Seventeenth SERMON. PART I. 1 COR. XII. 3. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the holy Ghost. THat Jesus is the Lord was seen in his triumph at Easter, made manifest by the power of his Resurrection. The earth trembled, the foundations of the hills moved and shaken; the graves opened at the presence of this Lord. Not the Disciples only had this fire kindled in their hearts, that they could not but say, The Lord is risen, but the earth opened her mouth, and the Grave hers: And now it is become the language of the whole world, Jesus is the Lord. All this is true: But we ask with the Apostle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, What profit is it? What profit is it if the Earth speak, and the Grave speak, and the whole World speak, if we be dumb? Let Jesus be the Lord; but, if we cannot say so, he may and will be our Lord indeed, but not our Jesus; we may fall under his power, but not rise by his help. If we cannot say so, we shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fall cross with him, nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, speak the quite contrary. If we cannot call him Lord, then with the accursed Jew we do indeed call him Anathema, we call the Saviour of the world an accursed thing. Si confiteamur, exsecramur; If we confess him not, we curse him: And he that curseth Jesus needeth no greater curse. We must then, before we can be good Christians, go to school., and learn to speak not only Abba, Father, but Jesus the Lord. And where now shall we learn it? Shall we knock at our own breasts, and awake our Reason to lead us to this saving truth? Shall we be content with that light which the Laws and Customs of our Country have set up, and so cry him up for Lord as the Ephesians did their Diana, for company? and sit down and rest ourselves in this resolution, because we see the Jew hated, the Turk abhorred, and Heretics burned, who deny it? Shall we alienis oculis videre, make use of other men's eyes, and so take our Religion upon trust? These are the common motives and inducements to believe it. With this clay we open our eyes; thus we drive out the dumb Spirit: And when we hear this noise round about us that Jesus is the Lord, our mouth openeth, and we speak it with our tongue. These are lights indeed, and our lights, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, deceitful. My Reason is too dim a light, and cannot show me this great conjunction of Jesus and the Lord. Education is a false light, and misleadeth the greatest part of Christians, even when it leadeth them right. For he that falleth upon the Truth by chance, by this blind felicity, erreth, when he doth not err, having no better assurance of the Truth than the common vogue: He walketh indeed in the right way, but blindfold: He embraceth the Truth, but so as for aught he knoweth it may be a lie. And last of all, the greatest Authority on earth is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a faint, uncertain and failing proof, a windy testimony, if it blow from no other treasury than this below. No: we must have a surer word than this, or else we shall not be what we so easily persuade ourselves we are. We must look higher than these. Cathedram habet in coelo; Our Master is in heaven. And JESUS IS THE LORD is a voice from heaven, taught us, saith the Apostle, by the holy Ghost, who is vicarius Christi, as Tertullian calleth him, Christ's Vicar here on earth, and supplieth his place, to help and elevate our Reason, to assure and confirm our Education, and to establish and ratify Authority. Would you have this dumb spirit dispossessed? The Spirit who as on this day came down in a shower of tongues must do it. Would you be able to fetch breath to speak? The holy Ghost must spirare, breathe into us the breath of spiritual life, enable us by inspiration. Would we say it? we must teach it. If we be ignorant of this, the Apostle here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, would have us to understand, that No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the holy Ghost. And now we have fitted our Text to the Time, the Feast of Pentecost, which was the Feast of the Law. For then the old Law was given, then written in tables of stone. And whensoever the Spirit of the living God writeth this Law of Christ, THAT HE IS THE LORD, in the fleshly tables of our hearts, then is our Pentecost, the Feast of the holy Ghost; then he descendeth in a sound to awake us, in wind to move and shake us, in fiery tongues to warm us and make us speak. The difference is; This ministration of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle speaketh, far more glorious. And as he came in solemn state upon the Disciples this day, 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: Though not in a mighty wind, yet he rattleth our hearts together: Though no house totter at his descent, yet the foundations of our souls are shaken: No fire appeareth, yet our breasts are inflamed: No cloven tongues, yet our hearts are cleft asunder. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Every day to a Christian should be the day of Pentecost, the Feast of the holy Ghost. We may now draw the lines by which we are to pass, and take our Text into those material parts it will afford. And they are but three: 1. the Lesson we are to learn, To say Jesus is the Lord; 2. the Teacher, the holy Ghost; 3. his Prerogative, he is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our chief Instructor, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our sole Instructor: Not only none to him, but none but him. Without him all other helps are obstacles, all directions deceits, all instructions but noise, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, None can say, Jesus is the Lord, but by the holy Ghost. Of these parts in their order. In the first part we must consider, first, What the Lesson is; secondly, What it is to say it. The Lesson is but short, Jesus is the Lord; but in it is comprised the sum of the whole Gospel. Here is JESUS, a Saviour; and DOMINUS, the Lord: And as they are joined together in one Christ, so no man must put them asunder. If we will have Christ our Saviour, we must make him our Lord: And if we make him our Lord, he will then be our Saviour. Now to hear of a Saviour is Gospel, the best news we can hear. Gospelers we all would be: and when this trumpet soundeth, then, Hear, O Israel, is a good preface, and we are willing to be attentive: But the Lord is a word that startleth us; that carrieth thunder with it, calleth for our knee and subjection: As if we were again at mount Sinai, and the mountain smoking, we remove ourselves, and stand afar off. A Saviour is music to every ear, but a Lord is terrible. In the first and best times of the Church, the first and greatest labour was to win men from Idols to the living God, to teach them to love that Name besides which there is no other name under heaven to be saved by. No strife or variance then, unless it were whose zeal should be most fervent, whose devotion most intensive, who should most truly serve him as a Lord whom they believed to be their Saviour. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Only Piety and Profaneness divided the world. But when the Church had stretched the curtains of her habitation, and peace had sheathed the sword which had hewn down thousands that professed the Gospel, and sealed their Profession with their blood, than arose hot debates and contentions about the Person of Christ; his Godhead and his Lordship were called into question. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, DOMINUS, DOMINICUS; the Lord but half a Lord▪ The word indeed S. Augustine himself had used, but after retracted it. Some would make him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a mere man, adopted to the participation of Divine honour. Some contracted him, some divided him; like men who had found a rich Diamond, and then fell to quarrel what it was worth. In all ages Christ hath suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Hebr. 12.3. the contradictions of sinners. For every sinner standeth in a contradiction to Christ: not only Judas who betrayed him to the Jews; and the Jews, which crucified him; but the sinner, who for less than thirty pieces of silver selleth and betrayeth him every day. Not only the Heretic, who denieth him to be the Lord; but the Hypocrite, who calleth him Lord, Lord, and doth not his will; the Wanton, who betrayeth him for a smile; the Covetous, that giveth him up for bread, for that which is not bread; the Ambitious, that selleth him for breath, for air; and the Superstitious, that selleth him for his picture, for an Idol, which is nothing. For we know, saith S. Paul, that an Idol is nothing in the world. Every sin, every sinner is a contradiction to this Lord. Not only Judas and Christ, and Pilate and Christ, are terms contradictory; but the rich man and Christ, the profane person and Christ. Not only they that persecute him, but even they that fight for him; not only they who say he is not the Lord, but they who cry, Lord, Lord, may stand at as great a distance from him as that which is not doth from that which hath a being. For in this respect they are not, they have no Entity at all. They have nothing of Christ, nothing of his Innocency, his Meekness, his Goodness. And as an Idol is nothing in the world, so are they nothing in the Church. All the being they have is to be without God in this world, which is far worse than not to be. How many give to themselves flattering titles? They call themselves the Regenerate, the Elect, the Children, Servants, Friends of this Lord, when they are but contradictions to him, as contradictory to him as Nothing is to Eternity, as that which is worse than Nothing is to Goodness and Happiness itself. To this day there are that make his Honour not their practice but dispute, and whilst they are busy to set the bounds of his Dominion, let Jesus slip, and lose him in controversy. Nor did ever Christian Religion receive more wounds then from them who stood up as champions in her defence; who let go the Law, in the bold inquisition after the Lawgiver; and forget the service which they own, by putting it too often to the question, How he is the Lord. For the greatest error is in our practice; and as it is more dangerous, so it is more universal. Salvian will tell us of the Arians in his time, Errand, sed bono animo errant; non odio, sed affectu Dei; They erred indeed, but with a good mind; not out of hatred, but affection to Christ. And though they were injurious to his Divine Generation, yet they loved him as a Saviour, and honoured him as a Lord. But we are more puzzled in agendis quàm in credendis, in our Practics then in our Creed, and are sick rather in the heart then in the head. Preach the Gospel; we are willing to hear it, and we kiss the lips that bring it: But let Christ speak to us as a Lord, Keep my commandments, we are deaf, and place all Religion in bringing the very principles of Religion into question, and make that our argument which should be our rule. Or, if we give him the hearing, the Good news hath swallowed up the Law; the Gospel, our Duty; and Jesus, the Lord. The truth is, our Religion for the most part wanteth a rudder or stern, to guide and carry us in an even course between Love and Fear, between God's Goodness and his Power. As Tully said, Totum Caesarem, so we, Totum Christum non novimus, We know not all of Christ. When we hear he is a Saviour, we fetter ourselves the more: And when we are told he is a Lord, we sit down a●d dispute. As he is a Saviour, we will find him work enough: but as he is a Lord, we will do nothing. When we hear he is a Stone, we think only that he is LAPIS FUNDAMENTALIS, a sure stone, to build on; or LAPIS ANGULARIS, a corner stone, to draw together, and unite things naturally incompatible, as Man and God, the guilty person and the Judge, the Sinner and the Lawgiver; and quite forget that he may be LAPIS OFFENSIONIS, a stone of offence, to stumble at, a stone on which we may be broken, and which may fall upon us and dash us to pieces. And so not looking on the Lord we shipwreck on the Saviour. For this is the great mistake of the world, To separate these two terms, Jesus and the Lord, and so handle the matter as if there were a contradiction in them, and these two could not stand together, Love and Obedience; nay, To take Christ's words out of his mouth, and make them ours, MISERICORDIAM VOLO, NON SACRIFICIUM, We will have mercy, and no sacrifice. We say he is the Lord; it is our common language. And though we are taught to forget our Liturgy, yet we remember well enough, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our Lord, have mercy. And here Mercy and Lord kiss each other. We say the Father gave him power, and we say he hath power of himself. Psal. 2. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, saith God to Christ. And Christ saith, I and the Father are one. We believe that he shall judge the world, John 5.22. and we read that the Father hath committed this judgement to the Son. Dedit utique generando, non largiendo; God gave him this commission when he begat him, and then he must have it by his eternal generation as the Son of God. So Ambrose. But S. Augustine is peremptory, Whatsoever in Scripture is said to be committed to Christ, belongeth to him as the Son of Man. Here indeed may seem to be a distance; but in this rule they meet and agree: God gave his commission to Christ as Man; but he had not been capable of it it he had not been God. As he is the Son of God, he hath the capacity; as the Son of man, the execution. Take him as Man, or take him as God, this Jesus is the Lord. Cùm Dominus dicatur, unus agnoscitur, saith Ambrose. There is but one Faith, Vers. 4, 5, 6. and but one Lord. In this chapter, operations are from God, gifts from the Spirit, and administrations from the Lord. Christ might well say, You call me Lord, and Master: and so I am; a Lord, as in many other respects, so jure redemtionis, by the right of Redemption, and jure belli, by way of conquest. His right of Dominion by taking us out of slavery and bondage is an easy Speculation: For who will not be willing to call him Lord who by a strong arm and mighty power hath brought him out of captivity? Our Creation cost God the Father no more but a DIXIT: He spoke the word, and it was done. But our Redemption cost God the Son his most precious blood and life, only that we might fall down and worship this our Lord; A Lord that hath shaken the powers of the Grave, and must shake the powers of thy soul; A Lord, to deliver us from Death, and to deliver us from Sin; to bring life and immortality to light, and to order our steps, and teach us to walk to it; to purchase our pardon, and to give us a Law; to save us that he may rule us, and to rule us that he may save us. We must not hope to divide Jesus from the Lord: for if we do, we lose them both. Save us he will not, if he be not our Lord, and if we obey him not. Our Lord he is still, and we are under his power; but under that power which will bruise us to pieces. And here appeareth that admirable mixture of his Mercy and Justice tempered and made up in the rich treasury of his Wisdom: his Mercy, in pardoning sin; and his Justice, in condemning sin in his flesh, Rom 8.3. and in our flesh, his Mercy, in covering our sins; and his Justice, in taking them away: his Mercy, in forgetting sins past; and his Justice, in preventing sin that it come no more: his Mercy, in sealing our pardon; and his Justice, in making it our duty to sue it out. For as he would not pardon us without his Son's obedience to the Cross, no more will he pardon us without our obedience to his Gospel. A crucified Saviour and a mortified sinner, a bleeding Jesus and a broken heart, a Saviour that died once unto sin, and a sinner dead unto sin, Rom. 6.10. these make that heavenly composition, and reconcile Mercy and Justice; and bring them so close together that they kiss each other. For how can we be free, and yet love our fetters? how can we be redeemed from sin, that are sold under sin? how can we be justified, that resolve to be unjust? how can we go to heaven with hell about us? No: Love and Obedience, Hope and Fear, Mercy and Justice, Jesus and the Lord, are in themselves, and must be considered by us, as bound together in an everlasting and undivided knot. If we love his Mercy, we shall bow to his Power. If we hope for favour, we shall fear his wrath. If we long for Jesus, we shall reverence the Lord. Unhappy we if he had not been a Jesus! and unhappy we if he had not been a Lord! Had he not been the Lord, the world had been a Chaos, the Church a Body without a Head, a Family without a Father, an Army without a Captain, a Ship without a Pilot, and a Kingdom without a King. But here Wisdom and Mercy and Justice, Truth and Peace, Reconcilement and Righteousness, Misery and Happiness, Earth and Heaven meet together and are concentred, even in this everlasting Truth, in these three words, JESUS EST DOMINUS, Jesus is the Lord. And thus much of the Lesson which we are to learn. We come now to our task, and to inquire What it is to say it. It is soon said: It is but three words, JESUS EST DOMINUS, Jesus is the Lord. The Indian saith it, and the Goth saith it, and the Persian saith it, & totius mundi una vox CHRISTUS est; Christ Jesus is become the language of the whole world. The Devils themselves did say it, Matth. 8.29. Jesus thou Son of God. And if the Heretic will not confess it, dignus est clamore daemonum convinci, saith Hilary; What more fit to convince an Heretic than the cry of the Devils themselves? Acts 19 The vagabond Jews thought to work miracles with these words. And we know those virgins who cried, Lord, Lord, open unto us, were branded with the name of fools and shut out of doors. Whilst we are silent, we stand as it were behind the wall, we lie hid in the secret pavilion of our thoughts; but the Tongue is the door by which we go out, and manifest and expose ourselves to the public view. But even this gate, this door, may be a wall, a pavilion to screen us; and many times we are least seen when we are most exposed. For words are deceitful upon the balance. When you come to weigh them, those words which went for talents weigh not a mite; and though they present unto us the softness of butter, yet upon the touch and trial they have an edge, and wound like swords. To bless with the mouth and curse with the heart is the Devil's lecture, who in these last Atheistical times hath set the heart and tongue at such a distance that they hold no intelligence. Hosanna is the word, when we wish Christ on the cross; and we call him Lord, when we trample him under our feet. If we look upon the greatest part of Christendom, we may take them not for a Church, but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a convention or congregation of idle talking men, who say it, and never say it; say it often but never speak it as they should. To say it then is of a more spreading signification, and taketh in the Tongue, the Heart, the Hand; taketh in 1. an outward Profession, 2. an inward Persuasion, 3. a constant Practice answerable to them both. This is the best language of a Christian, when he speaketh by his Tongue, his Eye, his Ear, his Hand, by every member that he hath. Rom. 10.9. First, we are bound to say it. That we may be saved, we must confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus. 1 John 4.15. God dwelleth in him that confesseth Jesus is the Son of God. The Mouth is named by S. Paul in allusion to that of Moses, The word is in thy mouth. Where by a Synecdoche the Mouth is mentioned, when all the other parts of the body are understood. For if the Mouth were enough, if to say it were sufficient, there needed no holy Ghost to descend to teach it. We might learn to say Jesus is the Lord as the Pie or Parrot did to salute Caesar, and between our Jesus Domine and the birds Ave Caesar the difference would not be great. And indeed if we send our eyes abroad, and take a survey of the conversation of most Christians, we shall find that our Confession is much after the language of birds; To name Christ, and speak well of his name; To bless the child Jesus, and to curse the Jews; this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the total of our Say, of our Confession. And if we were to frame a Religion out of men's lives, as one is said to have done a Grammar out of Homer's works, we should find none but this. For what can we discover in most men's lives but noise and words? How good is the Lord! How beautiful are the feet of Jesus! Doth any man speak against Jesus? Ad ignem & leones; Let him die for it. And thus some say it because they are inwardly convinced and willing to think so. For not only out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but also out of the mouths of wicked men, hath God ordained strength. And Jesus is justified and magnified not only by his children, but also by his enemies. Again, some are Christians in a throng, and dare not but say it for very shame, dare not oppose it, lest the multitude of those they live with should confute or silence them, or stone them to death. Si nomen Christi in tanta gloria non esset, tot professores Christi sancta Ecclesia non haberet, saith Gregory; If the name of Christ had not been made glorious on the earth, the Church of Christ would fall short in her reckoning and number of Professors; whereof the greatest part name him but for company's sake. And that is the reason why so many fall from him in time of persecution, and are so ready to forget him. For that Religion which we take up by the way will never bring us forward upon the point of the sword. Besides, the Heart doth not always sympathise and keep time with the Voice, but is often dull and heavy when our Hosannas and Hallelujahs are loudest; nay, most times turneth away from that which our Profession tendeth to. The Voice may be for Jesus, and the Heart for Mammon; the Voice for Christ, the Heart on his Patrimony; the Voice for his miracles, the desire for his loaves: We may say he is the Lord, when are ready to crucify him. O miserable disproportion and contradiction of Voice and Heart! Foolish men that we are, to profess the Gospel is true, and yet so live as it were most certainly false! I did not well to mention this. For thus to say it, is not to say it. This Confession is at best but a beam cast forth from the light of Reason, but an acknowledgement against our wills; and we may truly say, Vox est, & preterea nihil; It is a voice, a sound of words, and no more. Thus they may name him who never name him but in their cursed oaths and exsecrations; who shall be said never to have named Jesus because they name him too often; and whom he will not know, because they have been too familiar with him. Thus the Profane person may say it, who teareth him pieces; the Sacrilegious person, who devoureth him; the Covetous, who selleth him; the Ambitious, who treadeth upon him; the Devil, who will have nothing to do with him; and that white Devil, the Hypocrite, that trumpet of an uncertain sound, that monster with the voice of an Angel and the malice of a fiend. But this is not to say it. And we must learn to distinguish between Samuel and the Devil which the witch brought up in his mantle. Outward Profession will not reach home. But, In the next place, as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a word floating on the tongue, so there, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a word conceived and shaped in the mind, the word of the Heart, a kind of dialogue within ourselves, as Plato calleth it, when by due examination and comparing one thing with another, and well weighing the inducements and evidences which are brought, we are well persuaded of the Truth, and settle ourselves upon this conclusion, That Jesus is the Lord. We commonly call it Faith; Which of itself is operative, as a fire in the bones, which will not be concealed. My heart was hot within me; and whilst I was musing, the fire burned: Psal 39 Psal. 116. then spoke I with my tongue, saith David, I believed, and therefore have I spoken. The love of Christ constraineth us, saith S. Paul. And indeed of its own nature so it will. For it is of an active nature. Sometimes we read of its valour; it stoppeth the mouths Lions: Sometimes of its policy; it is not ignorant of the Devil's enterprises: Sometimes of its strength, that it removeth mountains: And we find furta fidei, the thefts and pious depredations of Faith. But that Faith should be idle, or speechless, or dead, is contrary to its nature, and proceedeth from our depraved dispositions, from Love of the world and Love of ourselves, which can silence it, or lull it asleep, or bury it in oblivion. Thus we may have Faith as if we had it not, and use it as we should use the world, as if we used it not: or worse, abuse it; not believe, and say it; but believe, and deny it: not believe, and be saved; but believe, and be damned. For the Devil can haereticare propositiones, make propositions which are absolutely true, heretical. Believe, and be saved, is as true as Gospel; nay, it is the Gospel itself: but by his art and deceit many believe, and are by so much the bolder in the ways which lead unto Death; believe Jesus to be the Lord, and contemn him; believe him to be a Saviour, and upon presumption of mercy make themselves uncapable of mercy; and because he saveth sinners, will be such sinners as he cannot save; because they believe he taketh away the sins of the world, will harden themselves in those sins which he will not take away. Many there be who do veritatem, sed non per vera, tenere, maintain the Truth, but by those ways which are contrary to the Truth, make that which should confirm Religion destroy Religion, and their whole life a false gloss upon a good Text; having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it; crying, Jesus is the Lord, but scourging him with their blasphemies, as if he were a slave; and fight against him with their lusts and affections, as if he were an enemy; sealing him up in his grave, as if he were not that Jesus, that Saviour, that Lord, but, in the Jews language, that deceiver, that blasphemer. But this is a most broken and imperfect language. And though we are said to believe it when we cannot believe it, to have the habit of Faith when we have not the use of Reason, and so cannot bring it forth into act, as some Divines conceive; though it be spoke for us at the Font, when we cannot speak; and though, when we can speak it, we speak it again and again, as often almost at we speak, Lord, Lord; though we gasp it forth with our last breath, and make it the last word we speak; yet all this will not make up the Dicere, all this will not rise to thus much as to say JESUS IS THE LORD. Therefore, In the third place, that we may truly say it, we must speak it to God as God speaketh to us, whose word is his deed, who cannot lie; who, Numb. 23.19. if he saith it, will do it; if he speak it, will make it good. And as he speaketh to us by his Benefits, which are not words but blessings, the language of Heaven, by his Rain to water the earth, by his Wool to cloth us, and by his Bread to feed us; so must we speak to him by our Obedience, by Hearts not hollow, by Tongues not deceitful, by Hands pure and innocent. Our heart conceiveth, and our obedience is the report made abroad. And this is indeed LO QUI, to speak out, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to make our works vocal, and our words operative; to have lightning in our words; and thunder in our deeds, as Nazianzene spoke of Basil; that not only Men and Angels may hear and see and applaud us, but this Lord himself may understand our dialect, and by that know us to be his children, and accept and reward us. In our Lord and Saviour's Alphabet these are the Letters, in his Grammar these are the Words, Meekness and Patience, Compassion and Readiness to forgive, Self-denial and Taking up our cross. This must be our Dialect. We cannot better express our Jesus and our Lord then idiomate operum, by the language of our works; by the language of the Angels, whose Elogium is, They do his will, (the Tongue of Angels is not so proper as their Ministry, for indeed their Ministry is their Tongue;) by the language of the Innocents', who confessed him to be the Lord, not by speaking, but by dying; by the language of the blessed Martyrs, who in their tumultuary executions, when they could not be heard for noise, were not suffered to confess him, said no more, but took their death on it. And this is truly to say Jesus is the Lord. For if he be indeed our Lord, then shall we be under his command and beck. Not a thought must rise which he would control, not a word be uttered which he would silence, not an action break forth which he forbiddeth, not a motion be seen which he would stop. The very name of Lord must awe us, must possess and rule us, must enclose and bond us and keep us in on every side. Till this be done nothing is done, nothing is said. We are his purchase, and must fall willingly under his Dominion. For as God made Man a little World, so hath he made him a little Commonwealth. Tertullian calleth him Fibulam utriusque substantiae, the Clasp or Button which toeth together two divers substances, the Soul and the Body, the Flesh and the Spirit. And these two are contrary one to the other, saith S. Paul, are carried divers ways; the Flesh, to that which is pleasing to it; and the Spirit, to that which is proportioned to it, looking on things neither as pleasing nor irksome, but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the perfection and beauty of the soul. Gal. 5.17. They lust and struggle one against the other, and Man is the field, the theatre, where this battle is fought: and one part or other still prevaileth. Many times, nay most times, the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to join with her against the Spirit, against those inclinations and motions which the Word and the Spirit beget in us: And then Sin taketh the chair, the place and throne of Christ, and is Lord over us, reigneth, as S. Paul speaketh, in our mortal bodies. If it say, Go, we go; and if it say, Come, we come; and if it say, Do this, we do it. It maketh us lay down that price for dung with which we might purchase heaven. See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines, to dig for metals and treasure, for that money which will perish with him. See how Lust fettereth another with a look and the glance of an eye, and bindeth him with a kiss, which will at last by't like a serpent. See how Self-love driveth on thousands, as Balaam did his beast, on the point of the sword. And thus doth Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 6.12. Lord it and King it over us. And in this bondage and slavery can we truly say, Jesus is the Lord, when he is disgraced, deposed, and even crucified again? Beloved, whilst this fight and contention lasteth in us, something or other will lay hold on us, and draw us within its jurisdiction, something or other will have the command of us, either the World, or the Flesh, or Jesus. Therefore we ought to consider what it is that beareth most sway in our hearts, what it is we are most unwilling to lose and afraid to departed from: Whether we had rather dwell in the world, with all its pomp and pageantry; in the flesh, in a Mahumetical paradise of all sensual delights; or with Jesus the Lord, though it be with persecutions. Suppose the Devil should make an overture to thee, as he did to our Saviour, of all the Kingdoms of the world; and the Flesh should plead for herself, (as she will be putting in for her share) and show thee Pleasure and Honour and Power, and all that a heart of flesh can desire in those Kingdoms? and on the other side, Jesus the Lord should check thee (as he doth in his Gospel) and pull thee back, and tell thee that all this is but a false show, that this present show will rob thee of future realities, that the pleasures which are but for a season are not to be compared to that eternal weight of glory; that in this terrestrial Paradise thou shalt meet with the sword and wrath of God, and from this seeming painted heaven fall into hell itself: Here now is thy trial; here thou art put to thy choice. If thy heart can now truly say, I will have none of these; if thou canst say to thy Flesh, Who gave thee authority over me? What hast thou to do with me? if thou canst say with thy Jesus, Avoid, Satan; and then bow to Jesus, and acknowledge no power in heaven or in earth, no Dominion, but his, than thou hast learned this holy language perfectly, and mayst truly say, JESUS EST DOMINUS, Jesus is the Lord. And now to apply it in a word; Is it not pity, nay, a great shame, that Man, who was created to holiness, who was made for this Lord, as this Lord was made man for him, whose perfect liberty is his service, whose greatest honour is to be under his Dominion, and whose crown of glory it is to have Jesus to be his King, should wait and serve under the World, which passeth away; should be a parasite to the Flesh, which hath no better kin than Rottenness and Corruption; should yield and comply with the Devil, who seeketh to devour him; and fling off the service of Christ as the most loathsome, painful, detestable thing on earth, who is a Jesus to save him, and a Lord that hath purchased him with his blood? Is Jesus the Lord? Nay, but the World is the Lord, and the Flesh is the Lord, and the Devil is the Lord. This is Vox populi, the language of the world. And therefore Saint Cyprian bringeth in the Devil thus bragging against this Jesus, and magnifying his power above his, and laughing us to scorn whom he hath filled with shame; Ego pro istis sanguinem non fudi, I have not spent one drop of blood for these. I gave them wine, to mock them; I presented them beauty, to burn them; I made riches my snare, to take them; I flattered them to kill them: All my study was to bring them to death and everlasting destruction. Tuos tales demonstra mihi, Jesus; Thou that openedst thy bowels and pouredst forth thy blood for them, show me so many servants of thine, so ready, so officious, so ambitious to serve thee. And what a shame is this to all that bear the name of Christ, and call him both their Jesus and their Lord, that the malice of an enemy should win us, and the love of a Saviour harden us; that a Murderer should draw us after him, and a Redeemer drive us from him; that Satan an Adversary and the Devil an Accuser should more prevail then Jesus the Lord! Lacrymis magìs opus est quàm verbis. Here let us drop our tears, and lay our hands upon our mouths, and abhor ourselves in dust and ashes, go into the house of mourning, the school of Repentance, and there learn this blessed dialect, learn it, and believe it, and speak it truly, JESUS EST DOMINUS, Jesus is the Lord. For conclusion; Ye that approach the Table of the Lord to receive the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, consider well whose Body and Blood it is. Draw near; for it is Jesus: but draw near with reverence; for it is the Lord. And as he was once offered upon the Cross, so in these outward elements he now offereth himself unto you with all the benefits of his death. For here is comprehended not only Panis Domini, but Panis Dominus; not only the bread of the Lord, John 6. but also the Lord himself, who is that living Bread which came down from heaven. And how will ye appear before your Jesus, but with love and gratitude, and with that new song of the Saints and Angels. Rev. 5.12. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing? And how will ye appear before your Lord, but with humility and reverence, with broken hearts for your neglect, and strong and well-made, resolutions to fall down and worship and serve him all the days of your life? For if the ancient Christians, out of their high esteem of the Sacrament, were scrupulous and careful that not one part of the consecrated Bread nor one drop of the consecrated Wine should fall to the ground, but thought it a sin, though it were but a chance or misfortune; quanti piaculi erit Deminum negligere? what an unexpiable crime will it be to neglect the Lord himself? If the Sacrament hath been thought worthy of such honour, what honour is due to Jesus the Lord? Bring then your offerings and oblations, and offer them here, as he offered himself upon the cross, your Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh, your Temporal goods, your Prayers, your Mortification, that this Lord may hold forth his golden sceptre to you, that you may touch the top of it, and be received into favour. For what else doth the Eucharist signify? We call the Sacraments the signs and seals of the Covenant of Grace: But they are also, saith Contarene, the protestations of our Faith, by which we believe not only the articles of our Creed, but the Divine Promise and Institution. And Faith is vocal, and will awake our Viol and Harp, our Tongue, and all the powers and faculties of our soul, and breathe itself forth in songs of thanksgiving. And they are the protestations of our Repentance also, which will speak in sighs and groans unutterable. And they also are the protestations of our Hope, which is ever looking for and rejoicing in and talking of that which is laid up. And they are the protestations of our Charity, which maketh the tongue and hand as the pen of a ready writer, whose words are more sweet, whose language is more delightful than that which is uttered by the tongues of men and of Angels. And if ye thus speak in Faith, speak in the bitterness of your souls, speak in Hope, and speak in the heavenly dialect, which is Love, ye then truly say, JESUS EST DOMINUS, Jesus is the Lord. And this Jesus shall be your Jesus, shall plead and intercede for you, fill you with all the comforts and ravishments of his Gospel. And this Lord shall descend to meet you here, and welcome you to his Table: And when he shall descend with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God, he will enable and encourage you to meet him in the air; and take you up with him into heaven, that ye may be and rejoice with Jesus the Lord for evermore. Which the Lord grant for his infinite mercy's sake. The Eighteenth SERMON. PART II. 1 COR. XII. 3. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the holy Ghost. WE have hitherto detained you in the Lesson; Which is indeed a short one, but in it is comprised the whole Gospel. For when we have let lose our fancy, and sought out many inventions, when we have even wearied ourselves in the uncertain gires and Meanders which our imaginations cut out, when we have laid out that time in following that we cannot overtake which we should have employed in that work which is visible and put into our hands, when our Curiosity hath even spent itself, this is all, Jesus is the Lord. And to profess him to be the Lord, whom we must obey in all things, who hath power in heaven and in earth, a power to command our Understandings to bow to the Truth, and our Wills to embrace it, is compendium Evangelii, the sum of Religion, the whole intent and scope of the Gospel of Christ. This is the Lesson. And I told you in the next place, we must learn to say it, that is, first, to Profess it. But that is not enough. All Nations have said it, and the Devils have said it: And what Religion is that in which the sons of perdition and the Devils themselves may join with us? What a Profession is that which may be heard in Hell? What a poor progress do we make towards happiness, if the cursed Spirits go along with us and reach as far as we? There is then, secondly, verbum mentis, a word conceived in the mind, a persuasion of the Truth. And this also may come too short. For many times there is not so much Rhetoric and power in this to move us to our duty as there is in a piece of money or a painted face to carry us from it; but it lieth useless and of no efficacy at all, suffering our members to rebel, our flesh to riot it, our passions to break lose and hurry us into byways and dangerous precipices; speaking to us for the Lord, whilst we despise and tread him under foot. For if we consider that intimacy and familiarity that many men have with those sins which cannot but present to the mind so much monstrosity as might fright them from them, if we behold with what eagerness and delight men pursue that which is as loathsome as Hell itself, how they labour and dig for it as for treasure, how they devote both body and mind to its service, how every trifle is in esteem above Grace, and every Barrabas preferred before Jesus the Lord, we might easily be induced to conclude that they do not believe that there is a God, or that Jesus is the Lord, but as the Heathen in scorn did ask, Ecquis Christus cum suâ fabulâ? count the Gospel and Christianity as a fable. For it is not easy to conceive how a man that is verily persuaded in his heart that Jesus is the Lord, and that to break Christ's command is to forfeit his soul, that for every wilful sin he loseth Paradise, and for a moment's brutish pleasure he shall find no better purchase then an irreversible state in hell, should dare to do that which he doth every day in a kind of triumph and Jubilee, or dip but the tip of his finger in the water of bitterness which he drinketh down greedily as an ox. But upon a review and more mature consideration we may observe that Sin is not always the effect of Infidelity, but sometimes of Incogitancy; and because we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stoop and look intentively, upon this truth, that we have indeed learned this lesson, but, when we should make use of it to restrain us, are willing to forget that Jesus is the Lord. We believe that we shall die, but so live as if we were eternal. We believe there is hellfire; but stolen waters are sweet, and quench those flames. We believe that there is a heaven; but every trifle is a better sight. We believe that Jesus is the Lord; but the object that next smileth upon us becometh our Master. We believe, but are willing to forget what we believe, Heaven and Hell, the Law and the Gospel, and the Lord himself. In a word, we believe that Death is the wages of sin, but the pleasures and vanities of the world come towards us in a gaudy and triumphant march, and swallow up this faith and this persuasion in victory, detain it and put it in chains, that it is not able to do its office, not to move and work by Charity. For if Heaven did display all its glory, and Hell breathe forth all its terror, yet if we do but look upon it, and then turn away our eye, our persuasion will soon shrink back, and withdraw itself, and leave us naked and open to every temptation, weak and impotent, not able to struggle and resist it, and we shall laetari in rebus pessimis, rejoice in evil, sport and delight ourselves at the very gates of hell, as an intoxicated thief may laugh and jest at the ridge of the gallows. Be not then too well persuaded of every persuasion: For if it be but the word and the language of the mind, it may soon be silenced. And therefore we must nourish and foment it, stir it up and enliven it, that, in the last place, it may be of force to move the Tongue and the Hand; that as the Heart doth speak to the Lord by a sincere belief, Lord, I believe, so we may speak it with our Hands and Eyes and Feet, and sound it out with every member that we have, and together make that glorious report which may enter the highest heavens, Lord, we are ready to do whatsoever thou commandest; that we may pray in his ears, and weep in his ears, Numb. 11.18. that our Alms may speak louder than our Trumpet, and our Fasting and Humility may howl unto him, and not our exterminated face; that he may hearken to our thoughts as well as to our words; and that an universal Obedience may declare our Faith, as the heavens do his glory. This is the language of Canaan, the celestial dialect, and not, as some of late have been ready to make it, the language of the Whore of Babylon; as if Faith only 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 Commonwealth; 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 joined together, than we shall speak this language plainly, and men will understand us, and glorify 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 terror 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 easy 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 Mathematics, 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 than heaven, broader than the sea, and longer than 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 join 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 only 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 itself as high as Heaven, and cloth it with eternity; whose least beam is more glorious than 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 strait 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 murderer, 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 practic, 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 Flood, for show, 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 spiritualise 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, enlightening, warming, and purging our hearts; Matth. 3.11. which are the effects of Fire. First, by sanctifying our knowledge of him; by showing 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 fullness of demonstration, that it passeth through all the faculties of the soul, and over-ruleth them; that it moveth our soul, as the soul doth our body. For such a Knowledge (and such a knowledge is only meant in Scripture) doth ever draw with it Affection and Practice, that we may love the Lord, and call him Lord, and make it the crown of our rejoicing to be subject to his Dominion. Secondly, by quickening and enlivening and even actuating our Faith. For this Spirit dwelleth in our hearts by faith, Eph. 3.17. maketh us to be rooted and grounded in love, enableth us to believe with efficacy. For from whence proceed all the errors of our life? From whence ariseth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaketh, that irregularity, those contradictions and consequences in the lives of men, that to day they wash, and to morrow wallow; to day bow, and to morrow exalt themselves; now mourn like doves, and anon rejoice, and vaunt as giants; now sigh, and anon curse; now sin, and by and by repent, and then sin again; like wanton lovers, quarrel, and embrace; love, and hate almost in the same moment; from whence is this double-mindedness and wavering, but from hence, that we admit not the Spirit in his office, nor suffer him to quicken and enliven our faith, but vex and grieve him, and drive him away by our vain and carnal imaginations, as Bees are driven away with smoke? If we did not inquietare Spiritum tenerum & delicatum, as Tertullian is bold to style him, disturb and disquiet this tender and gentle Spirit; if we did handle him with humility and peace and quietness, and not with choler and anger and grief and other carnal passions, which he will not come near; if we made not ourselves such vultures, when this Dove is ready to descend, he would certainly draw near unto us, even into our hearts, and do his office, and fill us with all spiritual knowledge, and seal us up to the day of redemption. A Teacher than he is. But great care is to be taken that we mistake him not, or take some other Spirit for him. For indeed the world is too Spirit-wise, and there were never greater Pneumatomachi, Fighters against the Spirit, in the Church of God, then in these our days. The Eunomians, the Sabellians, they who questioned his Divinity, they who made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an inferior, a servant, yet never entitled him to Profaneness, to Sacrilege, to Murder. Now whatsoever we say of Jesus; whatsoever we do to Jesus, the Spirit is the Teacher. We say, he is the Lord, by the Spirit; and we say this Lord looketh for neither knee nor hand, nor any reverence, by the same Spirit. That he hath Dominion over us, and must have our service, we say it by the Spirit; but we are bold upon it, that we must serve him out of pure love, but by no means out of fear, by the same Spirit. Each Dream must go current for an Inspiration; and men think themselves enlightened with Illusions. The fanatic Anabaptist, though the Devil be in the vision, thinketh he seethe a glorious Angel, and boldly concludeth that the Spirit teacheth him: And then, quicquid dixerit, legem Dei putat; whatsoever Text he meeteth with, he will commend his gloss and interpretation for the dictate of the holy Ghost. Doth S. Paul preach Christian Liberty? What then doth the Magistrate with the sword of Justice in his hand, the Judge on the tribunal, or the King on his throne? Will you hear them in their own dialect? An Hezekiah is no better than a Sennacherib, a Constantine as insufferable as a Julian; every King is a Tyrant, and every Tyrant a Devil. MEUM ET TUUM, Mine and Thine, are harsh words in the Church. They are almost of the wind of the Carprocrations in Clemens, who, because the Air was common, would have their Wives so too. Mundus senex & delirus, said Gerson of the like; The world is now grown aged, and beginneth to dream dreams. And if we prodigally lend our ears to every one that upon presumption of the Spirit will stand up and prophesy, we may hear news as from Heaven indeed, but such as the Devil was the father of. Whatsoever the Text be, the Interpretation is, Jesus is the Lord, thus to be feared, that is, such a Lord as we will make him, a Lord that must countenance us to do our own wills, and send his Spirit to truck and traffic for us, to be our Minister to advance our lusts, our Conduct to bring us to that end we have set up, to be ready at hand when our Ambition or Covetousness will call for him, that we may hold him up against himself, and bring him in as an auxiliary for his enemy. If we murder, the Spirit moveth the hand; if we pull down Churches, it is with the breath of the Spirit; if we would bring in a Parity, the pretence is, The Spirit, cannot endure that any should be Supreme, or Pope it, but ourselves. Our Humour, our Madness, our Malice, our Violence, our implacable Bitterness, our Railing and Reviling are all the Inspirations of the Blessed Spirit. Simeon and Levi, Absalon and Ahithophel, Theudas and Judas, the Pharisees and Ananias, they that despite the spirit of grace, they that grieve the Spirit, they that resist him, they that blaspheme him, they that draw him down to their carnal ends, and entitle him to their several purposes, (as the Popish Priests give the names of several Saints to one Image, for their advantage, and to multiply their oblations) these Scarabees bred in the dung, these Impostors, these men of Belial, must go no longer for a generation of vipers, but the Scholars and Friends of the holy Ghost. May we not now make a stand, and put it to the question, Whether there be any holy Ghost, or not? or, if he be, Whether he teacheth us? Indeed these appropriations and violent engrossings of the Spirit have, I fear, given growth to conceits almost as dangerous; That the Spirit doth not spirare, breatheth no grace into us; That we need not call upon him; That the Text that telleth us the holy Ghost teacheth us, is that holy Ghost that teacheth us; That the letter is the Spirit; and the Spirit, the letter; An adulterate piece new-coined, an old Heresy brought in a new dress and tyre upon the stage again: That he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an unheard of Deity, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an ascriptious and supernumerary God. I may say, more dangerous than those that quite take him away. For to confess the Spirit, and abuse him; to draw him on as an accessary and abettor, nay a principal, in those actions which Nature itself abhorreth and trembleth at, is worse than to deny him. What a Spirit, what a Dove is that which breatheth nothing but gall and wormwood, but fire and brimstone? What a Spirit is that which is ever pleading and purveying for the Flesh? Petrarch will tell us, Nihil importunius erudito stulto, That there is not a more troublesome creature in the world than a learned fool: So the Church of Christ and Religion never suffered more than from carnal men who are thus Spirit-wise. For by acknowledging the Spirit they gain a glorious pretence to work all wickedness, and that with greediness; which whilst others doubt of, though their error be dangerous and fatal, yet parciùs insaniunt, they cannot be so outrageously mad. But yet it doth not follow, because some men mistake the Spirit and abuse him, that no man is taught by the holy Ghost. The mad Athenian took every ship that came into the harbour to be his; but it doth not follow hence, that no wise and sober merchant knew his own. To him that is drunk things appear in a double shape and proportion; geminae Thebae, & geminy soles, two cities for one, and two Suns for one: Can I hence conclude that all sober men are blind; Because I will not learn, doth not the Spirit therefore teach? And if some men take Dreams for Revelations, must the holy Ghost needs lose his office? This were to run upon the fallacy non-causae pro causâ, to deny an unquestionable and fundamental truth for an inconvenience, to dig up the Foundation because men build hay and stubble upon it, or, because some men have sore eyes, to pluck the Sun out of his sphere. This were to dispossess us of one evil Spirit, and leave us naked to be invaded by a Legion. To make this yet a little plainer; We confess the operations of the Spirit are in their own nature difficult and obscure, and, as Scotus observeth upon the Prologue to the Sentences, because they are quite of another condition than any thought or working in us whatsoever, imperceptibiles, not to be suddenly perceived, no not by that soul in which they are wrought. In which speech of his, doubtless, if we weigh it with charity and moderation, and not extremity of rigour, there is much truth. Seneca telleth us, Quaedam animalia, cùm mordent, non sentiuntur; adeò tenuis illis & fallens in periculum vis est, The deadly bitings of some creatures are not felt; so secret and subtle a force they have to endanger a man: So, on the contrary, the Spirit's enlightening us and working life in our hearts can at first by no means be described; so admirable and curious a force it hath in our illumination. Non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi profuit; profuisse deprehendes: That it hath wrought; you shall find; but the secret and retired passages by which it wrought are impossible to be reduced to demonstration. We read that Mark Antony, when with his Oration he shown unto the people the wounded coat wherein Caesar was slain, populum Romanum egit in furorem, he made the people almost mad: So the power of the Spirit, as it seemeth, wrought the like affection in the people, who, when they had heard the Apostles set forth the passion of Christ, Acts 2. and lay his wounds open before their eyes, were wrapped as it were in a religious fury, and in it suddenly cried out, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Text, They were stung, and as it were nettled, in their hearts. Now this could not be a thing done by chance, or by any artificial energy and force in the Apostles speech; this, I say, could not be. For, if we observe it, Christ was slain amongst them; and what was that to them? or why should this hazard them more than the death of many other Prophets and holy men, who through the violence of their Rulers had lost their lives? And what necessity, what coactive reason was there to make them believe that He was to save and redeem them, who not long since had cruelly crucified him? Dic, Quintiliane, colorem. What art was there, what strong bewitching power, that should drive the people into such an ecstasy? Or what could this be else but the effect of the operation of the holy Spirit, which evermore leaveth the like impressions on those hearts on which he pleaseth to fasten the words of the wise, Eccl. 12.11. which are like unto goads, quae cum ictu quodam sentimus, saith Seneca; we hear them with a kind of smart; as Pericles the Orator is reproved to have spoken so that he left a sting behind in the minds of his Auditory? And this putteth a difference betwixt natural and supernatural and spiritual Truths. We see in natural Truths either the evidence and strength of Truth, or the wit and subtlety of conceit, or the quaintness of method and art, may sometimes force our Understanding and lead captive our Affections; but in sacred and Divine Truths, such as is the knowledge of the Dominion and Kingdom of Christ, the light of Reason is too dim, nor could it ever demonstrate this conclusion, Jesus is the Lord, which the brightest eye that ever the world had could of itself never see. Besides, the art by which it was delivered was nothing else but plainness; and by S. Paul himself, the worthiest Preacher it ever had except the Son of God himself, it is called the foolishness of preaching. But as it is observed that God in his works of wonder and his miracles brought his effects to purpose by means almost contrary to them; so many times in his persuasions of men he draweth from them their assent against all rule and prescript of art, and that, where he pleaseth, so powerfully that they who receive the impressions seem to think deliberation, which in other cases is wisdom, in this to be impiety. But you will say perhaps that the holy Ghost was a Teacher in the Apostles times, when S. Paul delivered this Christian axiom, this principle, this sum of Christianity, when the Church was in sulco & semine, when the seeds of this Religion were first sown, that then he did wonderfully water this plant, that it might grow and increase: But doth he still keep open School? doth he still descend to teach and instruct us on whom the ends of the world are come? Yes certainly, he doth. For if he did not teach us, we could not vex him; if he did not work in us, we could not resist him; if he did not speak unto us, we could not lie unto him. He is the God of all spirits to this day: And uncti, Christians, we are: And an anointment we have, saith S. John; and whilst this abideth in us, we need not that any man teach us: for this unction, this discipline, this Divine grace, is sufficient. And though this ointment flow not so plenteously now as of old, yet we have it, and it distilleth from the Head to the skirts of the garment, to the meanest member of the Church. Though we be no Apostles, yet we are Christians; and the same Spirit teacheth both. And by his light we avoid all by-paths of error that are dangerous, and discern, though not all Truth, yet all that is necessary. They had an Ephah, we an Hin; yet our Hin is a measure. They had a full harvest, we our sheaf; yet our sheaf may make an offering. Though our coin be smaller, yet the same image and stamp is on them both; and the Spirit will own us, though we weigh less. All this is true: But yet I must still remember you, that, whilst I build up the power of the Spirit, I erect no asylum or sanctuary for illusions and wilful mistakes; and when I have raised a fort and strong-hold for sober Christians, I mean it not a shelter or refuge for madmen and phantastics. God forbidden that Truth should be banished out of the world, because some men by false illations have made her factious; or that Error should strait be crowned with approbation, because perhaps we read of some men who have been bettered with a lie. The teaching of the Spirit, it were dangerous to teach it, were there not means to try and distinguish the Spirit's instructions from the suggestions of Satan, or the evaporations of a sick and loathsome brain, or our own private Humour, which is as great a Devil. Beloved, 1 John 4.1. saith the Apostle, believe not every spirit, that is, every inspiration; but try the spirits, whether they be of God; for many false prophets are gone out into the world, that is, have taken the chair, and dictate magisterially what they please in the name of the Spirit, when themselves are carnal. And he giveth the rule by which we should try them, Vers. 2, Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God; that is, Whosoever striveth to advance the Kingdom of Christ, and to set up the Spirit against the Flesh, to magnify the Gospel, to promote and further men in the ways of innocency and perfect obedience, which infallibly lead to happiness, is from God, that is, every such inspiration is from the Spirit of God. For therefore doth the Spirit breathe upon us that he may make us like unto God, and so draw us to him, that where he is we may be also. But those inspirations which bring in God to plead for Baal, which cry up Religion to gain the world; which call their own discipline Christ's Discipline, which he never framed, and spurn at his, to maintain their own; which tread down Peace and Charity and all that is indeed praiseworthy under their feet, to make way for their unguided lust to place it more delicately to its end; which sigh out Faith and Grace and Christ, like mourners about the streets which attend a funeral, when the World and Satan hath filled their hearts, and thus sow in tears that they may reap the profits and pleasures of this present world with joy; which magnify God's will, that they may do their own; these men, these spirits, cannot be from God. By their fruits ye shall know them: For their hypocrisy, as well and cunningly wrought as it is, is but a poor cobweb-lawn, and we may easily see through it; even see these spiritual men sweeting and toiling for the Flesh, these Saints digging in the minerals, labouring for the bread that perisheth, and making haste to be rich. For though many times their wine be the poison of dragons, and their milk not at all sincere, yet they are not to be bought without money or money-worth. Though GLORIA PATRI, Glory to God on high, be the Prologue to the Play; (for what doth a Hypocrite but play?) yet the whole drift and business of every Scene and Act is, cheerfully to draw altogether in this, From hence we have our gain. The Angel speaketh the Prologue, and Mammon and the Flesh make the Epilogue. Date manus. Why should not every man give them his hands? Surely such Roscii, such cunning Actors, deserve a Plaudite. By their fruits ye shall know them. For what though the voice be jacob's? Ye may know Esau by his hands. What though the Devil turn Angel of light? Ye may know him by his claws, by his malice and rage. For how can an Angel of light tear men in pieces? By their fruits ye may know them. So ye see this inconvenience and mischief, which sometimes is occasioned by the Doctrine of the Spirit's Teaching, is not unavoidable. It is not necessary, though I mistake, and take the Devil for an Angel, that the holy Ghost should be put to silence. Though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings, yet God forbidden that all Israel should be swallowed up in the same gulf. Samuel runneth to Eli, 1 Sam. 3. Vers. 9 when the voice was God's; but was taught at last to answer, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. Though there were many false Prophets, yet Micaiah was a true one. Though there be many false Prophets come into the world, yet the Spirit of God is a Spirit of truth, and is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our chief, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our sole Instructor; Our last Part; In which we shall be very brief. We are told in the verse next after the Text, There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And we may say, There are diversities of teachers, but the same Spirit, because; be the conveyances and conduits never so many, through which the knowledge of our Lord Jesus is brought unto us, if the Sririt move not along with it, it may be water indeed, but not of life. Because all means are but instrumental, but He the prime Agent, we may well call him not only the chief, but the sole Instructor. The Church of Christ is DOMUS DOCTRINAE, the House of learning, as it is called in the Chaldee Paraphrase; and COLUMNA VERITATIS, 1 Tim. 3.15. the Pillar of the truth, because it presenteth the knowledge of Christ, as a Pillar doth an Inscription, and even offereth and urgeth it to every eye, that it may not slip out of our memories; and SCHOLA CHRISTI, the School of Christ, in respect of his Precepts and Discipline. Such glorious things have been spoken of the Church. But now methinks this House is ruinous, this Pillar shaken, this School broken up and dissolved, and the Church, which bore so great a name, standeth for nothing but the walls. A Jesuit telleth us that at the very name of the CHURCH hostis expalluit, the Enemy, that is, such as he called Heretics, did look pale and tremble. But what is it now amongst us? Nothing, or but a Name; and in truth a Name is nothing. And that too is vanishing: for it is changed into another: And yet it is the same: for they both signify one and the same thing. So prevalent amongst us is that Fancy and Folly which is taken for the Spirit. A Church no doubt there is, and will be; but we only see it, as we do the Church Triumphant, through a glass, darkly. Or she may be fair as the Moon, clear as the Sun; but sure she is not terrible as an army with banners. Secondly, the Word is a Teacher: And Christ by open proclamation hath commanded us to have recourse unto it. The treasures thereof are infinite, the minerals thereof are rich, assiduè pleniùs responsura fodienti; The more they are digged, the more plentifully do they offer themselves, that all the wit of men and Angels can never be able to draw them dry. But even this Word many times is but a word, and no more. Sometimes it is a kill letter. Such vain and unskilful pioners we are, that for the most part we meet with poisonous damps and vapours instead of treasure. I might add a third Teacher, Christ's Discipline; which, when we think of nothing but of Jesus, by his rod and afflictions putteth us in remembrance that he is the Lord. This Teacher hath a kind of Divine authority, and by this the Spirit breatheth many times with more efficacy and power then by the Church or the Word, then by the Prophets and Apostles and holy Scriptures. For when we are disobedient to his Church, deaf to his Word, at the noise of these many waters we are afraid, and yield our necks unto his yoke. All these are Teachers: But their authority and power and efficacy they have from the Spirit. The Church, if not directed by the Spirit, were but a rout or Conventicle; the Word, if not quickened by the Spirit, a dead letter; and his Discipline, a rod of iron, first to harden us, and then break us to pieces. But AFFLAT SPIRITUS; the Spirit bloweth upon his Garden the Church, and the spices thereof flow: And then to disobey the Church, is to resist the Spirit. INCUBAT SPIRITUS, The holy Ghost sitteth upon the seed of the Word, and hatcheth a new creature, a subject to this Lord. MOVET SPIRITUS, The Spirit moveth upon these waters of bitterness, and then they make us fruitful to every good work. In a word; The Church is a Teacher, and the Word is a Teacher, and Afflictions are Teachers; but the Spirit of God, the holy Ghost, is all in all. I might here enter a large field full of delightful variety: But I forbear, and withdraw myself; and will only remember you that this Spirit is a spirit that teacheth Obedience and Meekness; that, if we will have him light upon us, we must receive him as Christ did, in the shape of a Dove, in all innocency and simplicity. He telleth us himself, that with a froward heart he will not dwell; and then sure he will not enlighten it. For as Chrysostom well observeth that the Prophets of God and Satan did in this notoriously differ, that they who gave Oracles from God gave them with all mildness and temper, without any fanatic alteration; but they who gave Oracles by motion from the Devil, did it with much distraction and confusion, with a kind of fury and madness: so we shall easily find that those motions which descend not from above, are earthly, sensual, and devilish; that in them there is strife and envying and confusion and every evil work: but the wisdom which is from above, from the holy Ghost, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, James 3. full of mercy and good fruits. Be not deceived. When thy Anger rageth, the Spirit is not in that storm. When thy Disobedience to Government is loud, he speaketh not in that thunder. When thy Zele is mad and unruly, he dwelleth not in that fiery hush. When the faculties of thy soul are shaken and dislocated by thy stubborn and perverse passions, that thou canst neither look nor speak nor move aright, he will not be in that earthquake. But in the still voice, and the cool of the day, in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; the calm and tranquillity and peace, of thy soul, he cometh, when that storm is slumbered, that earthquake settled, that thunder stilled, that fire quenched. And he cometh as a light, to show thee the beauty and love of thy Saviour, and the glory and power of thy Lord. And though he be sole Instructor, yet he descendeth to make use of means; and if thou wilfully withdraw thyself from these, thou art none of his celestial Auditory. To conclude; Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly, that Jesus is the Lord, and assure thyself that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak? Mark well then those symptoms and indications of his presence, those marks and signs which he hath left us in his word to know when the voice is his. For though as the Kingdom of heaven so the Spirit of God cometh not with observation, yet we may observe whether he be come or no. Remember then, first, that he is a Spirit, and the Spirit of God, and so is contrary to the Flesh, and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it, or let it lose to insult over the Spirit. For this is against the very nature of the Spirit, as much as it is for light bodies to descend, or heavy to move upwards. Nay, Fire may descend, and the Earth may be moved out of its place, the Sun may stand still, or go back, Nature may change its course at the word and beck of the God of Nature: but this is one thing which God cannot do; he cannot change himself, nor can his Spirit breathe any doctrine forth that savoureth of the World or the Flesh or Corruption. Therefore we may, nay we must, suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be effects and products of the blessed Spirit, when we observe them drawn out and leveled to carnal ends and temporal respects. For sure the Spirit can never beat a bargain for the world, and the Truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchase. When I see a man move his eyes, compose his countenance, order and methodise his gesture and behaviour, as if he were now on his deathbed to take his leave of the world and to seal that Renouncement which he made at the Font; when I hear him loud in prayer, and as loud in reviling the iniquities of the times, wishing his eyes a fountain of tears to bewail them day and night; when I see him startle at a misplaced word as if it were a thunderbolt; when I hear him cry as loud for a Reformation as the idolatrous Priests did upon their Baal; I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount, going up into heaven: But after all this devotion, this zeal, this noise, when I see him stoop like the Vulture, and fly like lightning to the prey, I cannot but say within myself, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen from heaven? how art thou brought down to the ground, nay to hell itself? Sure I am, the holy Ghost looketh upward, moveth upward, directeth us upward: and if we follow him, neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung. Remember again, that he is SPIRITUS RECTUS, a right Spirit, as David calleth him, Psal. 51. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, winding and turning several ways, now to God, and anon, nay at once, to Mammon; now glancing on heaven, and having an eye fixed and buried in the earth. And that he is a Spirit of truth. And it is the property of Truth to be always like unto itself, to change neither shape nor voice, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to speak the same things. He doth not set up one Text against another; doth not disannul his Promises in his Threats, nor recall his Threats in his Promises; doth not forbid Fear in Hope, nor shake our Hope when he biddeth us fear; doth not command Meekness to abate my Zele, nor kindle my Zele to consume my Meekness; doth not preach Christian Liberty to take off Obedience to Government, nor prescribe Obedience to infringe and weaken my Chiristian Liberty. Spiritus nusquam est aliud; The holy Spirit is never different from itself, never contradicteth itself. And the reason why men who talk so much of the Spirit do fall into so gross and pernicious errors, is from hence, that they will not be like the Spirit in this; but upon the beck of some place of Scripture, which at the first blush and appearance looketh favourably on their present inclinations, run violently on this side, animated and posted on by those shows & appearances which were the creatures of their Lust & Fancy, never looking back to other testimonies of Divine authority, that army of evidences, as Tertull. speaketh, which are openly pressed out & marshaled against them, which might well put them to an halt & deliberation, which might stay and drive back their intention, and settle them at last in the truth, which consisteth in a moderation. O that men were wise, but so wise as to know the Spirit before they engage him, to look severely & impartially upon their own designs, & as seriously consider the nature of the blessed Spirit, before they voice him out for their abettor, or make use of his name to bring their ends about! Not to do this, I will not say is the sin (though perhaps I might) but sure I am it is a great sin, even Blasphemy, against the holy Ghost. But I must conclude, Let us then, as the Apostle speaketh, examine ourselves, and bring ourselves and our actions to trial. Prove yourselves, and prove the Spirit. Are your steps right, and your ways strait? Do your actions answer the rule, and still bear the same image and superscription? Are you obedient to the Church, and do you not think yourselves wiser than your Teachers? Are you reverend to God's word, and receive it with all meekness, without respect or distinction of those persons that convey it? To come close to the Text; Do you not divorce Jesus from the Lord? riot it upon his mercy, and then bow to him in a qualm and pinch of conscience? Do you not fear the Lord the less for Jesus, nor love Jesus the less for the Lord? Are you as willing to be commanded as to be saved, and to be his subjects as his children? Are you thus qualified? And are you still the same, not making in your profession those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, crooked and unsteady bend, those staggerings of a drunken man; now meek as Lambs, and anon raging like Lions; now hanging down the head, and anon lifting up your horn on high; at the altar forgiveness, and in your closet revenge; courting your brother to day, and to morrow taking him by the throat? Are you as ready to bow the knee in Devotion, and stretch forth the hand in Charity, as you are to incline your ear to a Sermon? Are you in all things in subjection unto this Lord? Is this proposition true? and dare ye subscribe it with your blood? JESUS IS THE LORD. Then have ye learned this language well, and are perfect Linguists in the Spirit's dialect. Then let the rainfall, and the floods come, let the winds and waters of affliction beat thick upon us, and the waves of persecution go over our soul, let the windy sophisms of subtle disputants blow with violence to shake our resolution, in the midst of all temptations, assaults and encounters, in the midst of all the busy noise the world can make, we shall be at rest upon the rock, even upon this fundamental truth, That the Spirit is the best teacher, and That Jesus is the Lord. In which truth the Spirit of truth confirm us all for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. The Nineteenth SERMON. ISA. LV. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. THE withdrawing of every thing from its original, from that which it was made to be, is like the drawing of a strait line, which the further you draw it, the weaker it is; nor can it be strengthened but by being redoubled, and brought back again towards its first point. Now the Wiseman will tell us, Eccles. 7.29. That God hath made man upright, that is, simple and single and sincere, bound him as it were to one point; but he hath sought out many inventions, mingled himself and engendered with divers extravagant conceits, and so run out not in one, but many lines, now drawn out to that object, now to another, still running further and further from the right, and from that which he should have stayed in and been united to as it were in punto, in a point and so degenerated much from that natural simplicity in which he was first made. This our Prophet observeth in the people of Israel, that they did their own ways, Chap. 58.13. Chap. 63.17. and erred from God's ways, run out, as so many ill-drawn lines, one on the flesh, another on the world, one on idolatry, another on oppression, every man at a sad distance from him whom he should have dwelled and rested in as in his Centre. Therefore in every breath almost and passage of this Prophecy he seemeth to bend and bow them, as it were a line, back again, to draw them from those objects in which they were lost, and to carry them forward to the rock out of which they were hewn, to strengthen and settle and establish them in the Lord. All this you have here abridged and epitomised;— Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. The words are plain, and need not the gloss of any learned interpreter. If we look steadfastly upon the opening of them, we shall behold the heavens open, and God himself displaying his rays and manifesting his beauty, to draw men near unto himself, to allure and provoke them to seek him, teaching dust and ashes how to raise itself, to the region of happiness, mortality to put on immortality, and our sinful nature to make its approaches to Purity itself; that where he is we may be also. The parts are two. 1. A Duty enjoined Seek ye the Lord. 2. The Time prescribed when we must seek him, while he may be found. But because the Object is in nature before the Act, and so to be considered; we must know what to seek before we can seek it: and because we are ready to mistake, and to think that we seek God, when we seek something else, that we seek him, when we sit still, and that we may seek early enough when it is too late: We shall therefore commend to your Christian consideration these three things; first, the Object, Whom we must seek; secondly, the Act, What it is to seek; and lastly, the Time, When we must seek. Of these in their order. We told you, the Object is in nature first, and first to be considered. And could we take a perfect and exact view of the object here, did we behold God so far as he hath made us capable, we should not miscarry so often and so dangerously as we do, we should not have those turn and wind, those stops and pauses and intervals, those unsteady motions in our search. Quantò magìs appropinquat Deo cognitio nostra, tantò praecellentior ejus videtur majestas, saith Ambrose: The nearer we draw to God to see him, the more we admire his Majesty. All the dulness and hesitancy in our seeking, all our coldness and lukewarmness proceedeth from no other fountain than our ignorance and mistake of God. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Justine Martyr; The manifold errors and impieties of our life arise from our manifold mistakes of God. To let pass the Epicure, who brought in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a brutish sensuality; the Cynic, who professed an open freity and savageness; the Peripatetic, who as he circumscribed the providence of God, so confined our happiness within this span of life; and Plato, who indeed made it our happiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to become like unto God, but, as S. Paul speaks, held the truth in unrighteousness, and placed his ceremonious piety upon a multitude of Gods. All these were vain and restless in their imaginations, tossed on a tumultuous sea, where they saw no port to sail to; or, if they did, it was but through a mist, and then, as Nazianzene speaks, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, making a second adventure they were shipwreckt, where they thought to harbour. To let these pass; We Christians, who profess we know the true God, Tit. 1.16. do nevertheless in our works every day deny him, and for no other reason but because we know him not, or are willing to mistake him. We put out the eye of his Providence by our distrust, we circumscribe it by seeking out our own inventions; we make him like unto ourselves, and in that likeness worship him: And though we acknowledge but one, yet we fall down and worship many Gods, even our own imaginations: That Diagoras his religion might seem as firm and safe, who would have no God, as ours, who acknowledge but one, and yet make so many. For as we may make some objects greater and fairer than they are, and so fix our desires upon those things which in themselves are not worth a thought; so we may in a manner contract God, who is infinite, and make him lesser than he is; and so either not seek him, or seek him but faintly, without whom all these great things we so hunt after, aut nihil sunt, aut nihil prosunt, are either nothing, or nothing worth. With Asa, we seek, 2 Chron. 16.12, not to the Lord, but to the Physicians, as if God could not heal: We put our trust in our armies, as if God were not the Lord of hosts: And we sweat for wealth, as if the earth were not his, nor he all-sufficient. Only we are content to make use of his name: and when we have used all art and cunning and deceit, when we have consulted with the Devil himself to compass our ends, when we have left God behind us in the pursuit of these things, we are bold to say that God hath raised us from our beds, hath made us rich, hath crowned us with victory. In our Physician we can see a Deity, in our army's victory, in our wealth security; but God, who is indeed our health, our strength, our sure rock and foundation, appeareth to us but at distance: Nor do we behold the beauty which alone is able to ravish our souls, which alone can provoke and satisfy our desires, as through a glass, darkly, but through the mist and fog of our own unwarranted desires, which make him like unto us in all our deformities and irregularities. And thus we multiply those objects which are nothing, and colour that over with eternity which is but rottenness; but are blind to that which is immense and infinite, to that light which shineth in full perfection of beauty. We must be careful then to fix and settle our thoughts on the right object, to contemplate it as it is in its own nature, without any addition or defalcation; we must consider God as sufficient in himself for eternal happiness, and as an everlasting and overflowing fountain of goodness to make his creature happy; as a light in himself, and as the Father of lights to enlighten them that sit in darkness. As St. Augustine speaks, Bonum hoc, & bonum illud; tolle bonum hoc, & illud, & vide bonum ipsum, si potes, & Deum videbis; This is good and , and that is good and ; but take away that, and this, and behold Happiness in itself, and thou seest the face of God; thou beholdest that Good which is an object large enough for thee and all the world to look upon. Count nothing evil with him, and count nothing a blessing without him. Without him a horse, an army, are but vain helps, honour but a bubble blown up and lost in the making, wealth but the food of the moth and canker: But with him one man shall chase a thousand, with him he that sitteth in the dust is as honourable as the highest, and Lazarus richer than Dives. Without him the greatest good is destructive; but with him the greatest curse shall crown us. Esto tu Dei, & erit tuus Deus; Make God alone thy object, and he will be thy God. Quaerite quod quaeritis, sed non ubi quaeritis: Seek that you do seek; seek for peace, for health, for victory, for content; but not there where you commonly seek, in plants and herbs of the earth, in an arm of flesh, in the heaps that you have raised, but in God alone. And here we must observe, 1. That God hath made himself an object to be sought; 2. That he is the sole and adequate object of our desires: That we may seek him; That we must seek him alone. First, God hath appeared and manifested himself in his creatures, in the works of his hands, and is better known by them then Apelles was by his curious line. Every one of them hath this inscription, He hath made us, Rom. 1.19. and not we ourselves. This S. Paul calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that which may be known of God. Hence we may conclude that he is a powerful and infinite Essence, Vers. 20. and hath power over all things. For the invisible things of him are clearly seen by the things which are made. And the same Apostle telleth the Athenians, Act. 17.14, etc. that God made the world, and all things therein; and made of one blood all nations, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us, not far from us, if we will seek him. The Schools call it vehiculum creaturae, the chariot of the creature, by which we may be carried up as Elijah was, to Heaven; by which Man, who amongst all the creatures was made for a supernatural end, is lifted up nearer to that end. For as the Angels have the knowledge of the Creature in the Creator himself, saith Bernard: (for what a poor sight is the Creature to an Angel, that seethe the face of him that made it!) so Man by degrees gaineth a view of God by looking on the works of his hands. Secondly, As God manifesteth himself in his creature, so he appeareth as a light in our very souls. Prov. 20.27. He hath set up a candle there: Solomon calleth it so, The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly; a light to all the faculties of the soul, and to all the parts of the body, to guide and direct them in the seeking after God. By this light it is that thou lookest upon thyself, and art afraid of thyself. By this light they that are in darkness, they that are darkness itself, the profanest Atheists in the world, at one time or other behold themselves as stubble, and God as a consuming fire, behold that horror in themselves which striketh them into a trembling fit. This candle may burn dim, being compassed about with the damp of our corruptions; but it can no more be put out then the light of the Sun. In my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. I am a Saint of God, a man of blessings, guided, assisted, applauded by God himself: Here the candle burneth dim. But when Fortune, or rather Providence, shall turn the wheel, and throw me on the ground, than it will blaze, and by that light I shall behold God my enemy, whom I called my friend and fellow-worker. Whilst we are men, we have reason, or we are not men; and whilst the spirit remaineth, it is a candle, though we use it not as we should, but are guided rather by the prince of darkness. Thirdly, to quicken and revive this light, God hath sent another Light into the world; God was made manifest in the flesh, 1 Tim. 3 16. John 1.14, saith S. Paul. The Word was made flesh, not only to dwell amongst us, but to teach us, to improve the light of nature, and all those principles of the knowledge of good and evil with which we were born. John 17.26. He declared his father's name, he made him visible to the eye, and set him up as an ensample of purity and justice, of mercy and love; His Flesh being the window through which Immortality and Eternity and God himself was discovered to mortal men; that so he might join finem principio, the end to the beginning, Man to God; that so we might seek him in the light of his face. God being made thus conspicuous in his Gospel, Psal. 89.15. shining in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face and person of Jesus Christ, who is the brightness of his glory, 2 Cor. 4.6. Hebr. 1.3. and the express image of his person. And indeed to seek God is not to seek his essence, which is past finding out, but his will, which christ hath fully manifested in his Gospel. This true light hath made God an object indeed, hath given us a more distinct knowledge of him then the light of Nature could do, hath declared his attributes, revealed his will, rend every veil, cleared all obscurity, scattered every mist and cloud, made him of an unknown a known God; hath revealed his arm, his power, to punish us, if we seek him not; hath opened his bowels, proclaimed a jubilee, a reinstating of all those who will forsake their old ways, and seek him with their whole heart. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, Ephes. 2.10. 2 Cor. 5.17. which God hath ordained before that we should walk in them, that so we might be new creatures, that, as he created the world out of a rude heap or mass without form, to bring forth fruits, so he might make us of disobedient and disorderly men, composed and pliable to his will; that he might draw us out of the chaos of our own confused imaginations, and redeem us from bondage into the glorious liberty of the sons of God; which liberty consisteth alone in seeking and serving him. Thus than you see, though God be invisible and incomprehensible, yet he hath discovered himself so far as to draw us after him; we may see so much of him as to seek him, so much as to make us happy and unite us to him. And is not this enough? Is it not enough for us to be happy? Unhappy we, if we neglect this delight by desiring more! Unhappy we, if we do not seek him because he is not as visible as ourselves! This were indeed to make him like unto ourselves, to confine and limit him, that is, to deny him to be God: this were to be the worst Anthropomorphites in the world, to give God hands, and eyes, and voice, and not believe he is unless he object and offer himself to our very senses. And yet see, he doth in a manner present himself to thy very sense. For why shouldst thou not hear him in his thunder, see him in his miracles, feel him in every work of his hands? Or rather, why canst thou not hear him in his Word? for that is his voice: see him in thyself? for thou art built up after his image; and no hand but that which is Almighty could have raised such a structure. Why canst thou not feel him in his sweet and secret insinuations, in the inward checks he giveth thee when thou art doing evil, and in his incitements to piety? When we feel these, we may truly say, Est Deus in nobis, that God is in us of a truth. Hold up then the buckler against this temptation, against this fiery dart of Satan, which is of force, if thou repellest it not, to consume and waste thy soul; this temptation, I say, That God and Divine things appear not in so visible a shape as thou wouldst have them. What folly is it to aim at impossibilities, and to desire to see that which cannot be seen? It is plain, they are the worst and meanest things that are open to the eye. Who ever saw Virtue, saith Ambrose: who ever handled Justice? And wouldst thou, dust and ashes, have thy God appear in such a shape as thou mayst behold him? Walk then by faith: For that is the eye thou hast to see him with whilst thou art in this mortal body. And by the light which shineth in his works, in thyself, and in his word, quasi porrectâ manu, as Lactantius speaketh, as with a hand stretched out, he beckeneth to thee, to raise thee from the dust and out of thy blood, that thou mayst lift up thy head to look up and seek him, who is so manifest to the eye and so willing to be found. For in the next place, as God is an object to be sought, so he is the sole and adequate object of our desires. For howsoever they may wander, and with the Bee seek honey on every leaf and plant, yet they are unquiet and restless, and never satisfied, but in God. Therefore as he hath graciously condescended to open and discover some part of his beauty and majesty, that we might love him, and fall down and worship him; so he hath also made the mind of man a thing of infinite capacity, utterly unsatiable in this world: There is not any finite thing which can possibly give it full content. Covetousness is not filled with riches, Ambition is not dulled or taken off with honours, nor Lust quenched with pleasure. These daughters of the horseleech, when they are full and ready to break, still cry, Give, Give. Hoc habent, non respiciunt; They never look back upon what they have, but still drive forward for more. If these things were fit objects to seek, they would no doubt do what at first sight they promise, satisfy the desire: But Desire maketh haste, and flieth towards them; and when it hath overtaken them, is as restless as before. Sitis altera crescit: Still, as one desire is satisfied, another ariseth. Nay the same desire multiplieth itself. We wander from one object, from one vanity, to another, and many times back again unto the same: and that befalleth us which befalleth unskilful bvilders, quibus sua semper displicent, ut semper destruant quod semper aedificent, who are always displeased with what they do, and what they build they destroy, and then build again: We will, and we will not, and we will again, and indeed know not what to will. Or it fareth with us as it doth with some men who have queasy stomaches; our appetite cometh by eating; majora cupere ex his discimus; the obtaining of some is the way and means to desire more. Now we cannot think that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this infinite appetite, of a soul is a thing that befalleth us by chance: For then certainly it would not be always, nor would it be in all. For those things, saith the Philosopher, which fall out always, or for the most part, cannot be casual, but have set and constant cause. And if this vast appetite be not casual and by chance, than it must needs be implanted in the soul by God himself. And if so, than it must necessarily have something to which it tendeth. For it is a known axiom in Philosophy, Deus & natura nihil frustra faciunt, God and Nature make nothing in vain. Look into the body of man; so many parts, so many passages, so many desires, yet none of them in vain. He that hath made hunger, hath made bread to staunch it: he that hath made thirst, hath made drink to quench it: he hath fitted some object to every look and inclination, to every motion and desire. And we cannot think but that the same God hath proportioned something to this infinite Thirst and Hunger in the soul, to allay it: Which if we cannot find here, neither in the seat of Honour, when it is built highest; nor in our barns and granaries, when they are most filled; nor in the field of Pleasure, when it yieldeth most variety; neither in the Throne, nor in our Treasures, nor in Dalilah's lap; seeing the whole world is not large enough for the heart of man, nor can afford any thing that can fill it, though we walk about it, and double Methusalah's age, nay though we should not end but with it, we shall be forced to confess that we must seek satisfaction somewhere else, even in God, who can alone satisfy this infinite appetite of our souls, in whose presence there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore So having presented to you the true Object, and shown you what you must seek, to wit God alone, I pass to the Act, to teach you what it is to seek him; which is my next part; Seek ye the Lord. Having discovered the beauty and majesty of the Object, one would think our desire should be on the wing, nor should there need the voice of a Prophet to quicken us and bid us seek him. The Prophet David, Psal. 24. telleth us there is a generation of them that seek the Lord. Some seek him in lectulo, in their bed, have peradventure a pleasant dream of God, talk much of him, as men may do in a dream; and when judgement shall awake them, behold it was but a dream, to be interpreted, as dreams use to be, by contraries. Some seek him in plateis, in the wide and open streets, think to find him with ease, with harkening after him; but than it followeth, quaerunt, sed non inveniunt eum, they seek him, but they do not find him. Some seek him, and sit still, and gaze; some seek him, and gad and wander; some seek him, and are unwilling to find him, as St. Augustine in his Confessions telleth us that he prayed to God against sin, but was afraid God should hear him too soon, especially in the sin of lust, quam malebat expleri quàm extingui, which he had rather should be satisfied then quenched. Every man is a severe Justiciary against another man's sin, but a patron and protector of his own. Sin! oh it is an ugly monster; and every man is ready to fling his dart at it. Sin! it is that for which the Land mourneth, by which the Church is rend, and the whole world put out of frame This the worst sinners breathe forth with as much ease as they commit sin. But In my rebellion, saith the traitor, In my lust, saith the wanton I● 〈◊〉 oppression, saith the covetous, In this sin the Lord be merciful to m●●● m●●●ful unto me, though I love it, and love to commit it. Some sin or other there is to which our natural temper and complexion swayeth us, which we can willingly hear reviled, and which we can disgrace ourselves, and yet are unwilling to leave it behind us when we seek. Nay, we may say as the Disciples did to Christ in the Gospel, A multitude there be that throng and press upon God, as if they could not overtake him soon enough: How doth their zeal wax hot as an oven! how do their words fall from them, not like dew, but like hailstones and coals of fire! how do they mourn for Zion, and cry down the iniquities of the time, when no man's iniquity cryeth louder for vengeance than theirs: how do they monopolise the Spirit, appropriate Assurance of salvation, and entail the inheritance of Heaven on themselves and them of their own sect! Putares eos jam in coelo esse, You would think they were in heaven with God already. Is there not a kind of competition and holy emulation who shall be nearest to God, who shall find him soon? This is the generation of them that seek the Lord, that is, a generation of vipers. For let me tell you; For all this stir and noise, for all this pressing and thronging, we may be far from God. And if we bring our endeavours to the balance, we shall find that our seeking commonly falleth short and is too light. Take all those parts which make it up, and we shall find peradventure some approaches, some elevations of the mind, theoricos animi conatus, as the Schools call them, some thin and airy speculations, the busy but fruitless labour of the thoughts, similes conatibus expergisci volentium, as St. Augustine speaketh, like to the turn and strive of men who would awake when sleep is heavy on them; they strive to rise, and then fall down upon their pillow fast asleep. All our seeking is for the most part but the sudden flight of the soul, the business of the mind, the labour, nay the lust, of the ear, verbum abbreviatum, a short word, a proffer, an ejaculation, a breath, an intention, a thought: & inanibus phantasmatibus tanquam pictis epulis reficimur; These phantasms, these vain imaginations, these dreams of God, are but as a banquet in a picture. For as painted junkets may delight the eye, but not fill the stomach (A painter's shop is but a poor ordinary:) so do these weak but glorious conceptions of the mind tickle and please the fancy perhaps, (A Saint is sooner canonised in the brain then in the heart) but bring leanness into the soul, and leave it empty and poor. A great error there is in our lives, to argue à part ad totum, to take the part for the whole, and from the superficial performance of some particular duty to conclude and vainly arrogate to ourselves an universal obedience; as if what Tiberius the Emperor was wont to say of his half-eaten meats, were true also of our divided duties, our parcel and curtailed seeking of God, Omnia eadem habere quae totum, every part of it, every motion and inclination to it, had as much in it as the whole body and compass of obedience; and as if there were that mutual agreement and sympathy of duties in a Christian which Physicians say there is of the parts of a living creature, the same sapor and taste in a disposition to goodness that is in a habit of goodness, the same heat and heartiness in a thought or word that is in a constant and earnest perseverance, in a velleity as much activity as in a will, as much in a Pharisee's exterminated countenance as in St. Paul's severe discipline and mortification, and, as Hypocrates speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the least performance all the parts of our obedience; in a mere approbation, desire; in a desire, will; in a displacency, repentance; and in a wish, our seeking. Saepe sibi de se mentitur mens ipsa, saith Gregory; We never lie more often and more foully then to ourselves. The mind is made the Devil's forge, in which he worketh and shapeth those pleasing errors which destroy it; so prone we are to deceive ourselves. Where our seeking of God is defective and lame, we underprop it with a thought; a thought that we run the ways of God's Commandments, when we lie weltering in our own blood. We call a sight of God, a seeking of God; a looking after him, a embrace; nay our very running from him, a cleaving to him, and our covenant with hell, our peace with God; as erring men call opinion knowledge, and heretics anathematised all others as so; as we commonly call the dawning or first appearance of light the Day, though the Sun be not yet up. And this is nothing else but, in the Father's phrase, texere operibus vacuis araneae telam, to spin out these empty and thin speculations as the spider doth his web, which every breath will sweep away, or, as Basil speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be broad awake, and yet to see visions, or, which is more true, to dream dreams. You will ask me then, What is it to seek the Lord? I deny not any of these; but these are not all. Lectio inquirat, contemplatio degustet; Let us search the Scripture, to find him there; let our contemplation taste and feed upon him; let our thoughts be full of him; and let us sing his praises every day: But nisi vim feceris, coelorum regna non capies, saith Hierome; God is not found, the Kingdom of Heaven is not taken but by violince. To win God, we must first overcome ourselves, quantum possumus, imò plus quàm possumus, as far as we can, nay, if it be possible, more than we can. In a word, we must seek him in those ways in which he is pleased to lead us: For if we should choose our own ways, we should strait be in his Cabinet, and in his Throne, ordering and marshailing his decrees; when it will be far safer for dust and ashes to keep its proper station, to move in its own sphere, and to walk below, and seek him here on earth, it's allotted place. We are all sick of our father's disease, and, instead of seeking, desire to be as God, but not in that which will make us like him. We would know as God, foresee as God, when this knowledge is too high for us, this prescience and foresight would make us never a whit the wiser. For what profit were it to foresee that evil which I cannot avoid? or what could this bring but a mere vexation of spirit? And if we had his power, (which is impossible) it would undo us. Omnipoteney in a mortal would be the most incongruous and dangerous thing in the world. If man had an illimited power, certainly the world could not subsist; we should soon be raining down fire and brimstone; we should never be seen but in a tempest round about us, in thunder and lightning. We see that little power, that derived power we have, what desolations it hath made on the earth. No, to desire these, the knowledge of things to come, or a power to do what we will, is not to seek the Lord. Let the Prophet then interpret himself in the verse immediately following my Text, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord. This is to seek him, not a thought, not knowledge, not an inefficacious faith, not a vain and empty speculation, but an universal obedience and conformity to his will; not when we cry, Lord, Lord, but when we do the will of our Father which is in Heaven, than we seek him. For our seeking of him is nothing else but a bowing of the will, and conforming it to his law, against those assaults and tentations which as so many winds beat upon it to drive it from that object to which God hath confined it; to that indeed which it may cleave to, being a free faculty, but that there is a Veto, a prohibition, writ upon it, to dull, and by degrees to take off that inclination. For talk what we will of seeking him, (as who talk more than they that scarce look after him?) yet we never seek him till we have lost, denied, and hated ourselves. Yet by the surrendry of our wills we do not lose them, but make them more ours. For herein consisteth the beauty and rectitude and true liberty of the will, in that it conformeth to his will who is Wisdom itself, and followeth his imperious command. Multum est abnegare quod habes, sed valde multum est negare quod es, saith Gregory: It is much for a man to renounce what he hath; but it is very much, and more praiseworthy, to renounce what he it; and yet he is not truly till he doth renounce it. For as St. Bernard telleth us, nihil ardet in inferno praeter propriam voluntatem, nothing sinketh us to hell but our own will; so is it most true, nothing bringeth us to God but denial of ourselves and renouncing of our wills. That is the best holocaust when our will is sacrificed. For as they who lay siege to cities, when they have taken the chief and principal fort, soon make themselves masters of the town; so it fareth in our spiritual warfare and search. Till we have given up our will unto God, taken it from those vanities and forbidden objects which we most hunt after, and sacrificed it to him, we seek him not, though we call upon him louder than those idolatrous priests did upon their Baal. Till he hath taken that, we are none of his. For though he fetter our hands, and put out our eyes, and tack up our tongues to the roof of our mouths, yet we may still stand out and fight against him, by murder without a hand, by blasphemy without a tongue, by lust without an eye. For though the Will be frustrate of its effect, yet it remaineth a will still, and may finish and determine its act, and make us guilty as evil-doers, when nothing is done. But when this principal fort, this commanding faculty, is taken and captivated, than God taketh possession of all, entereth with all his graces, dwelleth there, and reigneth as King for ever: All the faculties of our soul, all the parts of our body are ready at his beck; we seek him, and we find him; the Understanding is open to saving knowledge, the Memory faithful to retain it, the Fancy catcheth not at shadows, but becometh an elaboratory and workhouse of wholesome thoughts, which are winged to fly after God. Then we do not only seek, but run after God, totâ fidei substantiâ, as Tertullian speaketh, with the whole strength and power and substance of our faith: our Eye seeketh him, whilst we wait on his providence; our Ear seeketh him, whilst we harken to his voice; our hands seek him, whilst we cast our bread upon the waters; our Tongue seeketh him, by being an instrument of his glory; our Faith layeth hold on him, our Hope attendeth him, our Patience waiteth upon him, and our Love embraceth him, and will not let him go. You may call it what you please, Obedience, or Holiness, or Repentance, or Denial of ourselves and Renouncing of our wills; but this is truly to seek the Lord. That we may thus seek the Lord, we must make use of that light which God holdeth up unto us, and those means which he hath graciously afforded us to help and forward us in our search. Some duties there are which look further than those acts which seem to perfect and accomplish them; and if they attain not that end, they are nothing, yea, which is worse, they are sins; but being rightly performed, they expedite and facilitate those actions of our life which being linked and united together are as an ornament of grace unto our head, and chains about our neck, in which dress and glorious habit we make our approaches unto the Lord. I name but three; Hearing and Reading of the Word, Fasting, and Prayer. Exercising ourselves in these is commonly called seeking the Lord by those who either do not or will not understand what they speak. Many thus seek him who nevertheless run from the presence of the Lord further than Jonah did, not to some Tarshish, or to the bottom of the ship, but to Hell itself. They hear, and run from him; fast and run from him; pray, and run from him. They hear, that they may sin; fast that may continue in it; pray, that it may prosper: and, as if it were some head corner stone, they bring it out with shoutings, and cry, Grace, Grace, unto it. But we must remember, these are means appointed, but not to this end; and next, that they are the Means, and not the End. For, first, the Word of God, as it is the mother which begetteth this desire in us, so is it the nurse to cherish it: as it first began that motion which tendeth to God, so it improveth every day our activity in seeking, keepeth every wheel in its own place, fitteth and applieth itself to every one of the generation of seekers, of what state and condition soever. But now, If all be hearing, where is our smelling? where is our eye, and hand? And if to hear of him be to seek him, there needeth no Prophet's voice to rouse us up, there needeth no Moses to bid us, Hear. Oh Israel. For they who are lame and impotent cripples, and so lie at the beautiful gate of the Temple, and cannot move at all, when he biddeth them take up their cross, and follow him; without the help of a Peter, without a miracle, will walk, and leap and be as swift as a roe to run to a sermon to hear of him. But this indeed is to abuse those helps and means which God doth plentifully afford us. For Hearing of itself is of singular use, if it drive to a right end; and therefore it was wise counsel which Demosthenes gave, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to work the first cure upon our ear, that it may be fit to receive the Word of God; and convey it downward into the heart, and so beget a new creature, a child of God; that we may not count Hearing seeking, but so hear that we may seek the Lord. Secondly, that our ears may be purged, that we may have clean ears, and so have pure hands, we must beat down our body, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, bring it into subjection, by Fasting and abstinence, make it a servant, that every part may be ready at the beck of Reason. For to this end Fasting is enjoined, not to a politic but spiritual, not a natural but a supernatural end. God forbidden that a fast should either keep us evil or make us worse. It is but as a stage-play, as the Anabaptists call it, if it be not leveled to its right end; which is, not to afflict, but to purge and refine us, to withdraw us from the present momentany pleasures, that we may be fitted for the future; for those which are not seen, which are eternal; that we may so abstain from meats ut solo Deo alamur, as Tertullian speaketh of Moses and Elias, that we may feed on God alone, which is to seek him. Last of all, Prayer is of great force and availeth much, saith Saint James. It is the best guide and conduct to lead us in our way. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nyssene, it addeth wings unto us, even the wings of a Dove, that we may fly after God, and be at rest. It is impossible that it should return empty, if we ask for grace, not wealth, that we may do God's will, and not that we may bring our own purposes about, and then say it is his will. The wicked are not heard; for God regardeth not their prayers, but loatheth them as an abomination: And yet they are heard, and have that which they request granted them, but for another end, even as God gave the Israelites a King, in his wrath and indignation, and to their further condemnation. But when we bow before God, and desire power and ability to seek him, that is, to walk in his ways, we pray for that which God is always ready to give. We pray that we may seek him who beseecheth and commandeth us to seek him, who sendeth his Prophets to call upon us to seek him. Such prayers are as music in the ears of the Almighty, and our diligence in seeking him is the resultance. We may call Prayer with Dionysius the Areopagite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a bright and radiant chain, by which we ascend unto God, and God descendeth unto us, by which we are drawn to follow and seek the Lord. To conclude this part then, these three, Hearing, Fasting, and Prayer, as they are helps to forward our repentance, so are they signs of a troubled spirit, probable symptoms of a heart thirsting and panting after God; and yet through the corruptions of our hearts they are nothing else but bare signs and types and shadows. Signs, but such as signify nothing; Types, but such as have no Antitypes; Shadows, of which the substance was never seen. For, as it was observed of the Jews, that the greatest sacrifices, so it may be amongst Christians, that the most frequent hearers, the greatest fasters, and they that are longest and loudest in prayer, may be the greatest sinners. It is well we can be brought to these, if it be in God's name: but commonly some other wind driveth us to the Temple; some other hand putteth on our sackcloth; and our love, nay the Prince, of this world may bring us on our knees; and then in these our devotion is terminated, and if we can well pass over these, (as we may well, for we delight and pride ourselves in them) we think we have God in a chain, and bound him with our merits, that we have passed through as many punishments as they did who were to be consecrated to Mithras the God of the Persians. In a word, in these three, Hearing, Fasting and Prayer, our devotion, our seeking is at an end; We please and content ourselves with the service of the ears, of the body, of the lips; with a Sermon, I should say, many Sermons; with a Fast, and that is not complete without something which they call by that name; with the labour of the lips, with a Prayer, and that too must have something of the Sermon, and something of the Libel: when as indeed our turning to God is the best commendation of a Sermon; to lose the bonds of wickedness, of that wickedness we now stand guilty of before God and men, is the best sanctifying of a Fast; and to seek the Lord with all the heart, the most effectual Prayer we can make. To this end are these duties enjoined, and to this end alone they are useful and serviceable, that we may seek the Lord. We have beheld the Object which we must seek, the Lord, who is the sole and adequate object of our desires, in whom alone they may rest. If we desire Wealth, the earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is; if Strength, he is the Lord of Hosts; if Wisdom, he created her, and poured her out upon all his works; if Life, he is the living God; if Immortality, he only is immortal. And if we seek not him, our riches are snares, our greatest wisdom the greatest folly, our strength will overthrow us, and our momentany life will deliver us over to eternal death. We have also seen what it is to seek the Lord; namely to seek him in Christ, to seek him in those ways of obedience and humility which he hath drawn out unto us in his Gospel; in a word, to bow our wills, and receive him into our hearts that God in us may be all in all. Now we pass from the Act to the Time, when we must seek the Lord; while he may be found; my last part. And do we ask when we should seek the Lord? We do not well to ask it, because we should not stay so long as to ask the question before we seek him. Huic rei perit omne tempus, quodcunque alteri datur; All time is lost to this which we bestow in any thing else. For shall we prefer our pleasure, our profit, our health, our life before God? Nor is there need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is, not to do it. Fides pura moram non patitur. If we love God, and truly believe in him, we cannot be so patiented as to endure the least delay. We may miss of happiness, but certainly we cannot meet it too soon. I know God may be found at any time which we can call ours, at any time of our life, in the morning, or at noon, in the heat of the day, or in the cool of the evening: But a great presumption it is to promise to ourselves to seek and find him when we please. He may be found in our old age; but it is most safe to remember him in our youth: he may be found in affliction; but it is not good to stay till the rod be on the back: he may be found in war; and yet it is hard to find the God of peace in war; and therefore it is a folly to delay seeking him till we see the glittering spear, and hear the noise of the whip and the prancing of the horses. If we will determine and fix a time, we must take the first opportunity, lay it to the first beam and dawning of our reason. The second or third opportunities, though they come not peradventure too late to find him, yet they come too late for us to begin to seek him, because we lost the first, which for aught we knew might have been the last. To morrow may be; but Now is the while and time. Care not for the morrow; let the morrow care for itself. There is no time to seek him but Now. For 1. It is the greatest folly in the world thus to play with danger, to seek death first in the errors of our life, and then, when we have run our course, and death is ready to devour us, to look faintly back upon life. For the endeavours of a man that hath wearied himself in sin, can be but weak and faint, like the appetite of a dying man, who can but think of meat, and loathe it. The later we seek, the less able we shall be to seek; the further we stray, the less willing to return. For Sin gathereth strength by delay; devoteth us unto itself, gaineth a dominion over us, holdeth us as it were in chains, and will not soon suffer us to slip out of its power. When our Will hath captivated itself under sin, a wish, a sigh, a thought are but vain things, nor have they strength enough to deliver us. One act begetteth another, and that a third; many make up a habit; and evil habits hold us back with some violence from God. What mind, what motion, what inclination can a man that is drowned in sensuality have to God, who is a spirit? a man buried in earth, (for so every covetous man is) to God, who is in Heaven? he that delighteth in the breath of fools, to the honour of a Saint? Here the further we go, ●he more we are in. That which is once done hath some affinity to that which is done often; and that which is done often is next to that which is done always. We say Custom is a second nature; and indeed it imitateth natural motion: It is weak in the beginning, stronger in the progress, but strongest towards the end. Our first engagement, our first onset in sin is with fear and reluctation; we then venture further, and proceed with less regret, we move forward with delight; delight continueth the motion, and maketh it customary; and custom at last driveth and bindeth us to sin as to our centre. For though God in Scripture be said to Harden our hearts, and some be very forward to urge those Texts, as if Induration were not our fault, but God's, and would be comfort even in hell, if we could say his hand threw us in; yet Induration and hardening of the heart is the natural and proper effect of continuance in sin. For every man is shaped and configured to the actions of his life, whether they be good or evil. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit; nor can a good tree bring forth evil. Virtue constraineth us, and Vice constraineth us. One sin draweth on another, and a second a third; and at last we are carried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of our own accord, and as it were by natural inclination, and brought to that extremity of sin which the Philosopher calleth freity or brutishness; and the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reprobate mind, to delight in sin, to triumph in sin, to consecrate sin, and call it virtue and religion, to that difficulty of seeking God which the Lawyers call Impossibility in things which may, but yet seldom, come to pass. For though God may be found even of these, yet we have just cause to fear that few thus disposed ever seek him. 2. It is dangerous in respect of God himself, whose call we regard not, whose counsels we reject, whose patience we dally with, whose judgements we slight, to whom we wantonly turn our backs, and run from him when he calleth after us to seek his face, and so tread that mercy under our feet which should save us, and will not seek him yet, because we presume that, though we grieve his Spirit, though we resist his Spirit, though we blaspheme his Spirit, yet after all these scorns and contempts, after all these injuries and contumelies, he will yet sue unto us, and offer himself, and be found at any time in which we shall think convenient to seek him. It is true, God hath declared himself by his servant Moses, and as it were become his own Herald to proclaim his own titles. The Lord, the Lord God, Exod. 34.6, 7. merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Manasseth was the most notorious offender of all the Kings of Judah, and wrought much wickedness, saith the Text, even above all the Amorites; and this he did not for a little space, but even till he was grown old; and yet we see that patience attended his return, and accepted his person, when he prayed and humbled himself. So loath is God to withdraw himself whilst there is any hope that we will seek him. For he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, most lovingly affected to man the chief and prince of his creatures; he wooeth him, he longeth after him he waiteth on him, he wisheth he were so wise as to seek him. His glory and Man's salvation meet and kiss each other; for it is his glory to crown him. Nor doth he at any time leave us himself till we dote on the world and sensuality, and divorce him from us; till we have made our Heaven below, chosen other Gods, and think him not worth the looking after. In a word, he is always a God at hand, never goeth from us till we force him by violence. When he went to lead his own people through the wilderness, how many murmur and rebellions did he endure ere he left them? Till they committed that intolerable sin in Horeb, in which it seemeth they were resolved to try the strength of his patience he did himself in person conduct them in the way. Exod. 32. And after, he telleth them he would not himself go before them, left he should destroy them, but he sendeth his Angel, his vicegerent, to supply his room: so that even when he left them, he left also room for mercy; and he forsook them, that he might not forsake them; forsook them in some degree, that he might not be constrained to forsake them for ever. Since therefore God is so loath to hid himself from us or cast us off, till we have cast off all care and thought of seeking him, I would be very loath to wrong that property of his in which he seemeth so much to rejoice, or set bounds to his mercies, which are infinite. Yet, as Tertullian speaketh, non potest non irasci contumeliis misericordiae suae, we cannot imagine but God must needs wax angry at the contumelies and reproaches which by our dalliance and delay we fling upon his mercy, which is so ready to cover our sins. For how can he suffer the Queen of his attributes to be thus prostituted to our lusts? What hope of that soldier that kicketh away his buckler? or of that condemned man that flingeth his pardon into the fire? or of that sick man who loveth his disease, and counteth his physic poison? The Prophet here, when he calleth upon us to seek the Lord while he may be found, giveth a fair intimation, that a time there may be when he will not be found; unless we be so wise as by prayer and repentance to prevent it. I shall therefore be bold to deliver a doctrine to you, somewhat harsh, I confess, but very profitable (for that that troubleth a sick man, cureth him:) And therefore if ye will be unwilling to believe it, because you are willing to stay out a little longer; and be absent from your God; yet it is good to be jealous of it, and think that there is great possibility it may be true, lest he withdraw himself and departed for ever. We have a saying in our civil businesses, that it i● good to forecast the worst; for the best will mind itself. Let us but apply this rule to our spiritual business, and to the point in hand, concerning our late seeking and God's forsaking us; and the doctrine which I shall commend to your Christian consideration is this, That though God do long expect, and hold out his hand unto us, as himself by his Prophet speaketh, yet at length he pulleth it in again, and his patience is at an end; That there is a Donec, a While, a space and compass of time set to every one of us according to the wisdom of Almighty God, to some more, to some less, to all sufficient, in which if we return and seek him, we are accepted, but if we let it slip and pass by, we have broken our day, our bond is forfeited, and God may take the forfeiture, may from thenceforth withdraw his grace from us, and give us over to a reprobate sense, to a heart that cannot repent; That then there will be no more room for repentance, remain no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of vengeance to consume the adversary. We see he did so with the old world before the Flood; he prefixed a time, set them an hundred and twenty years, wherein he looked upon them, Gen. 6. stayed for them, and waited their amendment; as if he should have said, An hundred and twenty years I have left you to seek me in. But when they ceased not in this time to trespass against his patience, as soon as the time prefixed was expired, he brought in the flood upon them, and swept them away. And as it was in the beginning, so it may be with us now: For God doth nothing at one time which he may not do at any time. As it was with them, so it is very probable it may be with every one of us: Our time is set, it may be so many years, it may be so many months, it may be so many days, and if we return not before our glass be run, there can remain nothing but an expectation of a flood, and wrath to be poured down upon our heads. Caesar knew that if he passed the river Rubicon with his army, there was no remedy but he must be proclaimed a traitor to his country. Solomon told Shimei, that if he passed the river Kidron, he should surely die; and so it was. And so hath God confined us, we have our Rubicon, our Kidron, our bounds, our limits, which if we pass we shall surely die, our blood shall be upon our own heads. Not but that God would even now be found if we did seek him; for whensoever we seek him, he will be found: but that when God doth upon our long trifling with him withdraw his grace, it will be impossible for us to seek him. It is ill colluding, ill trying conclusions with a Deity. I do not deliver this unto you as an article of your Creed; and yet I may; and I know no danger in believing it: but it may prove fatal to disbelieve it, or to look upon it as an error, and place it in our catalogue of Heresies. Which that we may not do, I shall commend unto you some parts of Scripture which seem much to enforce it. Gen. 15.16. God telleth Abraham that he will bring his posterity into the land of the Amorites; but yet he will stay to the fourth generation, till their iniquity be full; and when it is full, he will strike. Matth. 23 32. Our Saviour thus bespeaketh the Pharisees, Fill you up the measure of your fathers; which is not a command, but a prediction that they should fill up the measure of their sin, and then be ripe for punishment. For when wicked men have run out the full length of their line, when their time is run out to the last sand, then is God's time to give the check, and pull them on their backs. Luke. 19. 4● When our Saviour Christ drew nigh to Jerusalem, and wept over it because of the exceeding hardness of their hearts; he broke forth into a very passionate strain, Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace, VELURE IN HAC DIE TUA, even in this thy day! A day they had; but when their Sun was set, then followeth NUNC AUTEM, but now they are hid from thy eyes; which is that night that ushereth in the blackness of darkness for ever. Oh that thou hadst; then was liberty of choice: but now, thou art bound and fettered under a sad impossibility for ever. Which speech is a passion of Christ's Humanity; his bowels of compassion yearned within him, and at the very sight of Jerusalem he could not but pour it forth: And he may seem to have spoken it in the very moment in which God's patience was tired out, and his set determination of Judgement first began. This he spoke at the very time when the decree came forth. For it is not hard to observe how Christ doth tie together the last instant of Jerusalem's possibility of returning and the first instant of the impossibility of her reclaim. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Judgement followeth Mercy at the heels, to take revenge upon those who wantonly abuse her. Psal. 116.5. God is merciful and just. These two are always joined together. Mercy alone would beget in us a supine carelessness; and the terror of judgement without a fair hope of mercy would soon fright us into despair: therefore Mercy to whom mercy belongeth, and Justice to whom justice belongeth. When the rays of Mercy cannot melt us, when Mercy cannot do its work, make us capable of mercy, she withdraweth and hideth herself, and Judgement maketh its approach in a tempest, cometh upon us as an armed man, and cannot be resisted. God will not be found, and you may seek him; that is the dialect of Mercy: God may be found, but you shall not be able to seek him; that is the voice of a despised and angry God. Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace, VELURE IN DIE HAC TUA, even in this thy day! See Mercy gave Jerusalem a day, and shined in it; by which light she might have seen the things that concerned her peace. NUNC AUTEM, But now, now it is past; are as the black lines of reprobation, drawn out by the hand of Justice. Oh that thou hadst known now: whilst I speak, whilst the word is in my mouth; yet it is time; hitherto is thy day. NUNC AUTEM, But now the word is spoken, that time is past, and cannot be recalled. Hitherto was DIES TUA, thy day: but now the night is come. Hitherto the light did shine, and thou mightest have seen it: but now, omnium dierum soles occiderunt, thy Sun is for ever set, and darkness is come upon thee, and that which might procure thy peace is hid from thy eyes for ever. Beloved, compare Jerusalem's state with the age of a man, and you shall find as in that so in this there is a HAEC DIES TUA, a This thy day, in which thou mayest seek God and work thy peace; and a NUNC AUTEM, a Now, when they shall be hidden from thine eyes. Every man hath his day, his allotted time, in which he may seek and find God; Hic meus est, dixere, dies. And this day may be a feast-day, or a day of trouble; it may beget an eternal day, or it may end in the shadow of death and everlasting darkness. Oh that we men were wise, but so wise as the creatures which have no reason, so wise as to know our seasons, to discover saltem hanc diem nostram, this our day, wherein we may yet see the things of our peace! Oh that we could but behold that decretory moment in which mercy shall forsake us, and justice cut off our hopes for ever! But though there be such a day, such a moment, yet this day, this moment, like the day of Judgement, is not known to any: and God hath on purpose hid it from our eyes, that we might have a godly jealousy of every moment of our life to come, lest peradventure it may be the NUNC, the Now, wherein those things which concern our peace may be hidden from our eyes. 2 Pet. 3.15. For as the long-sufferance of the Lord is our salvation, so is every day, every hour of our life. On this hour, on this moment Eternity may depend. And who would perfunctorily let pass such an hour, such a day, which carrieth along with it eternity either of pain or bliss? Flatter not thyself, that thy day may be a long day, or that thy last day may be that day. Think not in thy heart, that the NUNC AUTEM, the decretory Now, is yet afar off; that whensoever thou seekest the Lord, he will be found; that when every action of thy life hath its proper season, thy seeking of God hath none but what thou thyself appointest; that thy failing in an hour may forfeit thy estate on earth, but thy prodigally misspending of many years can no whit endanger thy title to Heaven. Repentance indeed hath a blessing whensoever it cometh. Pharaoh, Judas, Julian the Apostate, could they have repent, might have been saved. But God, who hath promised to Repentance a blessing at all times, hath not promised repentance, or power to repent, when we list. He that hath promised to be found at any time that we seek him, hath not promised that we shall seek him when we please. If thou pass thy NUNC, thy Now, thy allotted time, he may give thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a heart that cannot repent nor seek him. And it is justice with God to punish continuance in sin with final impenitency, and to leave that heart which will not be softened unto itself, till it be harder than the neither millstone. Ephraim is joined to idols: Hos. 4.17. let him alone. And if the heart be alone, it will soon turn stone, and harden of itself. The examples of Manasseh, of him that was called at the eleventh hour, of the thief on the cross, are solatia poenitentium, non subsidia rebellium, saith Augustine; These are left as comforts to the truly penitent, not to cheer and strengthen the heart of a rebellious sinner. These beckon to us, and call upon us, If you will inquire, inquire; return, come, Isa. 21.12. but put no dispensation into our hands to seek when we please. It will be good then for us, if we will not believe this doctrine, to be at least jealous of it, as if it were most true; to make every Now the last, now to cast away our sins, for fear that they may cleave as fast unto us as the leprosy did on Gehazi and his seed, even for ever. Pietas etiam tuta pertimescit; It is the part of a pious mind sometimes to fear where no fear is, and in the most plain and even ground to suspect a stone of offence. Nor can we possibly be too scrupulous of our own salvation. That thou mayst therefore meet with the Lord IN INVENIRI SUO, whilst he may be found, think that a time may come when thou mayst not be able to seek him. Such a thought, if it improve itself into a resolution, will enlarge thy feet to seek and run after him. Fear lest the measure of thy iniquity be almost full, and persuade thyself thy next sin may fill it; such a fear will make thee as bold as a lion in the ways of God. Such a persuasion that thou mayst fail and fall, is far more safe than a groundless, fantastical faith that thou shalt stand fast for ever. Think that there is a Rubicon, a river Kidron, set thee, which if thou pass thou shalt die the death. Think this is thy day and time of seeking, and, though it be not, yet think it the last. If it be an error, it is a happy error that hasteneth thee to thy God. If it be not the last, if thy day have yet more hours, more Nows in it, yet the night will come, when thou canst not seek him; a night on thy understanding, that thou shalt not have light to seek him; a night of spiritual dulness, when thou shalt have no mind to seek him; and thy last night, Death itself, when thou canst seek no more. And therefore let us seek him in this our day, whilst he calleth upon us, before our measure be full; for than he will speak no more: before we are passed our bounds; for there Death waiteth upon us ready to arrest us: before our glass is run, our day spent; for then time shall be no more. Let us seek him IN INVENIRI SUO, whilst he may be found. And here if you expect I should point out to a certain time, the time is Now. Now the Prophet speaketh, now the word soundeth in your ears. To day, now, if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts. For why is it spoken but that we should hear it? Seek him now, is an exhortation; and if we obey not, it is an argument against us that we deserve to hear it no more. We are willing that what we speak should stand; not a word we utter must fall to the ground. If we speak to a friend, and he turn away the ear, it is a quarrel: If we speak to our servant, and say, Go, he must go; if we say, Do this, he must do it; and he must do it now, dicto citiùs, as soon as it is spoken. A deliberative, pausing obedience, obedience in the future tense, to say, I will do it, strippeth him of his livery, and thrusteth him out of doors. And shall dust and ashes take a convenient time to seek the Lord? Shall our Now be when we please? Shall one morrow thrust on another, and that a third? Shall we demur and delay it till we are ready to be thrust into our graves? If the Lord say, Now, this Now is it, and no other: For all other Nows, as our days, are in his hands; and he may shut them up, if he please, and not open them, to give thee another. Domini, non servi, negotium agitur; The business is the Lord's, and not the servant's, and the time is in his hands, and not in ours. Now then, now the word soundeth in thy ears, now is the time. Again, now that thou hast any good thought, any thought that hath any relish of salvation: For that thought, if it be not the voice, if the whisper of the Lord. If it be a good thought, it is from him who is the fountain of all good, and he speaketh to thee by it, as he did to the Prophets by visions and dreams; In a dream, in a vision of the night, in a thought, than he openeth the ears of men, Job 33.15.16. and sealeth their instruction. And why should he speak once, and twice, and we perceive it not? Why should the Devil, that would destroy us, prevail with us more than our God, who would save us? Why should an evil thought arise in our hearts, and swell, and grow, and be powerful to roll the eye, to lift up the head, to stretch out the hand, to make our feet like hinds feet in the ways of death; and a holy thought, a good intention, which is it were the breath of the Almighty, be stopped, and checked, and slighted, and at last chased away into the land of oblivion? Why should a good thought as a bubble vanish as soon as it is seen, and an evil thought increase and multiply, shake the powers of the soul, command the will and every ●a●●●y of the mind, and every part of the body, and at last bring forth a Cain, an Esau, a Herod, a Pharisee, a profane person, an hypocrite, an adulterer, a murderer? Why should we so soon divest ourselves of the one, and morari, stay and devil in the other, as in a place of pleasure, a Seraglio, a Paradise? Let us but give the same friendly entertainment to the good as we do to the bad, let us as joyfully embrace the one as we do the other, let us fix our heart on the things above as we do on the things below, let us be as speculative men in the ways of God as we are in our own, and then we shall seek the Lord. I appeal to yourselves, and shall desire you to ask yourselves the question; How often do you enjoy ravishing thoughts? How often do you feel the good motions of the Spirit, and seem as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to walk on the pavement of heaven, to converse with Seraphim and Cherubin, and to be lulled in your Saviour's lap? How often are you so composed and biased by these sweet and heavenly insinuations, that heart and hand are ready to join together as partners in the seeking of the Lord, the heart ready to indite a good matter, and the tongue and hand to be as the pen of a ready writer? How often art thou the Preacher, and telleth thyself Vanity of vanities, all is vanity? that there is no rest but in God? I speak to those who have any sense and feeling of a future estate, any taste of the powers of the world to come, (for too many, we see, have not: I speak this to our shame) now is the time; — nunc, nunc properandus, & acri Fingendus sine fine rota; now thou must turn the wheel about, and frame and fashion thyself into a vessel of honour consecrate unto the Lord, make up a child of God, the new creature. Now nourish and make much of these good motions: They are fallen upon us and entered into us, but how long they will stay, how long we shall enjoy them, we do not know. A smile from the world, a dart from Satan, if we take not heed, may chase them away. Let us now run, and meet our Saviour, whilst he knocketh, and lay hold on him; lest if we seek him not whilst he cometh crowned with all his rays and beauty, whilst he may be found, he withdraw himself that we shall not find him, or, which is worse, so forsake us that we shall not seek to find him, or, if we do, then seek him when we shall find nothing but despair. This is the DONEC, the While, the time, the Now. For at another time, being fallen from this heaven, our cogitations may be from the earth, earthy; such dirty thoughts as will not melt but harden in the sun. Our Faculties may be corrupt, our Understandings dull and heavy, our Wills froward and perverse, that we can either not will that which is good, or so will it that we shall not act it, approve, incline to it; look towards it, and then start back as from an enemy, as from that which suiteth not with our present disposition, but is distasteful to it. Now, now let us close with it, whilst it is amiable in our eyes, whilst our heart is towards it. For another time Vanity itself may appear in glory, and Obedience may be a monster. Now God is God, but anon the World will be our God, and we shall seek and worship that. The first Now, the first opportunity is the best; the next is uncertain; the next may be never. But now if we will stand to distinguish times by the events, by the several complexions they receive either by prosperity or adversity, certainly the best time to seek the Lord is when he seeketh us, when he shineth upon our tabernacle, when he wooeth us by his manifold blessings. The best time to call upon him is when he calleth upon us, and loadeth us daily with his benefits; cùm prata rident; when our valleys do stand so thick with corn that they do even laugh and sing; when God speaketh to us not out of the whirlwind, but in a still voice; when Plenty crowneth the Commonwealth, and Peace shadoweth it; when God appeareth to us, not as the Poet's Jupiter to Semele, in thunder, but as to Danae, in a shower of gold; whilst he standeth at the door, and knocketh as it were with his finger, by the motions of the blessed Spirit; and not stay till he knock with the hammer of his judgements, till he break in upon us with his sword: Because than t● seek him in this brightness will rather be an act of our love then of our fear, and so make our seeking a free-will-offering, a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour unto God, and make it evident that we understand the language of his benefits, the miracle which he worketh, which is to cure our blindness with this clay, with these outward things, that we may see to seek him. And this is truly to praise the Lord for his goodness, Psal. 107. Hos. 3.5. this is to fear the Lord and his goodness, to bear ourselves with that fear and reverence that we offend not this God of blessings. Negat beneficium qui non honorat; He denieth a benefit that doth not thus honour it, and is contumelious to that God that gave it. Ingratitude is the bane of merit, the defacer of virtue, the sepulchre, the hell of all blessings; for by it they are turned into a curse: It loatheth the land of Canaan, and looketh for milk and honey in Egypt. Oh beloved, dare we look back upon former times? What face can turn that way, and not gather blackness? God looked favourably upon us, and we lifted up the heel against him: He gave us light, and we shut our eyes against that light: He gave us wealth, and we abused it to pride and avarice and vanity: He made us the envy, and we were ambitious to make ourselves the scorn of all nations: He gave us milk and honey, and we turned it into gall and bitterness: He sent the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, the blessings of the right hand and of the left, plenty and peace; the one we loathed, as the Jews did their Manna, the other we abused: He sent peace, and we desired war: He broke the sword, and we furbished it: He placed and settled us under our own vines and figtrees, and we were in trouble till we were in trouble, till we were in a posture of war: He spoke to us by plenty, and we answered him by luxury: He spoke to us in love, and we answered him by oppression: He made our faces to shine, and we ground the poor's: He spoke to us by peace, and we beat up the drum: He spoke to us in a still voice, and we defied the Holy one of Israel. Every benefit of his spoke, Give me my price: and lo, instead of seeking him, running from him; instead of sanctifying his name, profaning it; instead of calling upon his name, calling it down, and forcing it to countenance all the imaginations of our heart, which have been evil continually. This was the goodly price that he was prized at of us. Zech. 11.13. And then our Sun did seem to set, our day was shut up, that Now, that Then had its end; what can we expect, but that the next Now, the next time he should come in thunder, give us hail for rain, and flaming fire in our land? But such a Then, such an opportunity we had, and thus we lost it. And if we have let slip this time of peace, this acceptable time, yet at least let us seek him now, when if we seek him not, we shall find nothing but destruction; seek him in the storm, that he may make a calm; call upon him in our trouble, that he may bring us out of our distress: Seek him now, when our Sun is darkened, and our Moon turned into blood; when the knowledge of his law and of true piety beginneth to wax dim, and the true face and beauty of religion to whither; when the stars are fallen from heaven, the teachers of the truth from the true profession of the truth; when the powers of the heaven are shaken, when the pillars of the Church are shaken and broken asunder into so many sects and divisions; (which is as music to to Rome, but maketh all walk as mourners about the streets of Jerusalem;) when RELIGION, which should be the bond of love, is made the motto in our banners, the title and pretence of war, the nurse and fomenter of that malice and bitterness which putteth it to shame and treadeth it under foot: Now when the sea and waves thereof do roar, when we hear the noise and tumult of the people, which is as the raging of the sea, but ebbing and flowing with more uncertainty and from a cause less known; when nation riseth up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, nay when kingdoms are divided in themselves, in this draught and resemblance of the end of the world; when he thus speaketh to us in the whirlwind, when he thus knocketh with his hammer, when he calleth thus loud to us to seek him, we should now bow down our heads, and in all humility answer him, Thy face, O Lord, will we seek. Matth 18 7. For as our Saviour speaketh of offences, so may we of these afflictions and terrors which God sendeth to fright us, It must needs be that they come, not only necessitate consequentiae, by a necessity of consequence, supposing the condition of our Nature and the changes and chances of a sinful world, but necessitate finis, in respect of the End for which they are sent, for which God, in whose power both men and their actions are, doth not only not hinder them by his mighty hand, but permitteth them, and by a kind of providence sendeth them upon us, partly for our trial, but especially for our amendment, that finding gall and wormwood upon every pleasure and vanity of the world, finding no rest for our feet in these tumultuous waves, we may fly to the Ark, and seek him with our whole heart. For when neither the oil of God's grace will soften and supple our stony hearts, nor his Word, which is his sword, pierce them, when we cannot be restrained by the spirit of meekness, then Cedo virgam, than he cometh with his rod, that, if we will not make ourselves the children of perdition, the smart of that may drive us unto him. And certainly if afflictions work not this effect, they will a far worse; If they do not set an end to our sin, they are but the beginnings of punishment, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, a prologue to that long and lasting Tragedy, the sad types and forerunners of everlasting Torments in the bottomless pit. As yet they are but an argument of God's love, the blows of a Father, to bring us to his hand. O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus, cui dignatur irasci, saith Tertullian, O happy servant, whom the Lord is careful thus to correct, whom he loveth so well as to be angry with him, to whom he giveth so great honour and respect as to chastise him! But if we lose this affliction, make no advantage of it, lose that profit which God intendeth by it, than he is no longer a Father, but a Judge; and this punishment is no longer Correction, but Execution. He hath spent his rods, and now he will take his axe in hand; and, as the Prophet speaketh, he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, Dan. 9.27. and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make the land desolate, until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured out upon it. For the judgements of God are like to those waters which came out of the Temple, at first they are shallow, and come but to the ankles; Ezek. 47. anon they are deeper, and come up unto the loins; but at length they are so deep that they give no passage over. And therefore let us beware of God's judgements betimes whilst they are yet foordable, when they are come but to the ankles, when they are but corrections: but if we stay till they come to the loins, let us haste and pass them through; for if we tempt his patience longer, and wade yet a little further, we shall find no passage at all by which to fly and escape from the wrath to come, but it will swallow us up everlastingly. And here (to make some Use of this) we may cry out with the Prophet Jeremiah, Be astonished, O you Heavens, at this, Jer. 2.12. and be ye horribly afraid, be ye very desolate: For Men, who have understanding, are become more unreasonable than the beasts, more senseless than the Heavens, than stocks or stones, than Idols; who have eyes, yet see not the judgements of the Lord; ears, and yet hear not his voice when he is angry; hands, and yet feel not the scorpions of a Deity. Prov. 23.35. God hath stricken us, yet we are not sick; he hath beaten us, and we felt it not. Our wickedness hath not corrected us, and our backslidings have not reproved us. God hath been jealous of us, and we still provoke him to jealousy, and would be stronger than he; we strive, and try it out with him, as if he had no arm to strike, or we had skill and activity to avoid the blow. Nay the sword is latched in our sides, and we walk delicately with all his judgements about us, feel it not, though he hath sent a fire into our bones. He hath clothed himself with vengeance, and we strut in purple; he is angry, and we are wanton; he frowneth, and we smile; he hath hewn down thousands of us with the sword, and we walk about dressed up like coffins with herbs and flowers, carrying our own funerals about with us. He hath threatened to remove our candlestick, and we so little fear it, that it is our study to prevent him, and do it ourselves; to send us false Prophets, and we are ready to receive them as angels of light; to destroy our Sanctuary, and it is our religion to beat it down. What can God do to us to make us believe he is angry? what worm can gnaw us, what fire scorch us, but that of Hell; Should he appear visibly before us with all his artillery in his hand, unless he struck us dead, we should attempt to besiege and invade him. For what can he almost do in this kind which he hath not done? What hailstones and coals of fire hath he which he hath not reigned down upon us? He may seem even to have emptied his quiver, and drawn at several times all his judgements out of the treasury of his wrath, yet we are still the same. As it was in the days of Noah, we eat, and drink, and be merry, and the same profane, sacrilegious, covetous, malicious, proud, unmerciful men, the same giantlike sinners, till the general flood, till judgement sweep us away. Like Caligula, that monster of men in Seneca, we threaten and challenge Jupiter himself to battle; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If thou trouble me, I will trouble thee. So mad, saith Seneca, that he thought Jupiter could not hurt him; or, if he did, that he could revenge it, and return it back again upon Jupiter. We do not indeed speak it, (for what Atheist will profess he is so?) but in effect we do it, even fight against Heaven, and bid defiance to God himself, thinking it humility enough to hearken after him, and honour enough to mention his name, though it be with the tongue of a Pharisee. When were there more symptoms and indications of an angry God; when were there more demonstrations of a gainsaying people? When was there more misery? when was there more vanity? When was there more cause of humility? when was there more pride. It was no great wonder that this horrid monster Pride should find an entrance and room amongst those spiritual substances the Angels, because in heaven there could no calamity approach near unto them or seize upon them to allay and abate that tumour. SED QUID SUPERBIS, PULVIS ET CINIS? Why art thou proud, dust and ashes? which could not be said to Lucifer. And therefore, as we began, so we must end, Be astonished, O Heavens, at this, be horribly afraid, be ye desolate: For Desolation itself cannot humble mortal Man, whose breath is in his nostrils. For when God's judgements are near us, when they are about us, when they are entered into out very bowels, we put them far from us, place them over our heads, out of our sight. Yet run over all the flying book of curses, look back and contemplate all the fearful judgements of God, with which he used to redeem his glory, and avenge him upon a proud, and stubborn people, Famine, Plague, Sword, the Burning of Sodom, the Drowning of the old world, and you shall not find so great a judgement as this, Not to be sensible of God's judgements. What is it then, not to be bettered? what is it, to be hardened by them? Let us pray then to God with the Prophet David, Psal. 51. Create in us new hearts, and renew a right spirit within us; or, as it is Ezek. 11.19. Take away these hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh; or rather, with Bonaventure, that God would take from us these hearts of flesh, such as they are, and give us hearts of stone: for were they stone, they would be more sensible than ours; and God by these his judgements, as he did once by the hand and rod of Moses, may strike our hearts, more stony and obdurate than the rock, and the waters of true contrition may flow out in such a stream which may first carry away our sins, and then his judgements. We will conclude with the speech of our Saviour to the women of Jerusalem when he was going to his cross, with some little change, Luke 23.28. Daughters of Jerusalem, saith he, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. If we will not seek God for his own sake, who is the fountain of goodness, and only to be sought, yet let us seek him for ourselves; and if not for ourselves, yet for our wives and children, for our City, for our Country, for our Church. For Sin is as the Dragon's tail in the Revelation, which sweepeth down many stars along with it, involveth millions of those who committed it. Let God's mercy allure, let his judgements terrify us. If we seek him, he will be found, though it be through his rays, or through the storm, by his blessings, or by his judgements; yet if we seek him, he will be found. Let us have as much feeling as the Cedars of Libanus, which are shaken with his voice. Let us seek him, for there may be more wrath yet left in his vials; let us seek him, that he pour it not forth; that our gold become not dim, Lam. 4. that the precious sons of Zion become not as earthen pitchers; that the tongue of the suckling cleave not to the roof of his mouth for thirst; that they amongst us who are brought up in scarlet, embrace not the dunghills; that our Jerusalem be not made a heap of stones: And therefore let us with one heart and mind make a covenant to seek the Lord, 2 Chron. 15.12 who now seemeth to stand behind the cloud and hid himself from us. This is a Holy League, a blessed Covenant indeed, and we never yet read of any other. Let those who have lost him by pride, bow and seek him by humility; those who have lost him by luxury, seek him by temperance and severe discipline; those who have lost him by profaneness, seek him by reverence and devotion. Let all seek him, that he may be found of all, and return to the many thousands of his Israel; that we may be found in him in peace, without spot and blameless; and he may be found to us as light shining upon our Tabernacles, but as a consuming fire devouring the adversary; that the trial of our faith, which is much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. 1.7. and he may be found to us our exceeding great and everlasting reward. The Twentieth SERMON. PART I. MATTH. VI 12. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. BEing to prepare you for a feast, even the Supper of the Lamb, there to partake of the body and blood of Christ, of all those benefits which issued from him with his blood, and are the effects of his love, I could not invite your thoughts or call your meditations to a fit and more proper object then this, the Mercy of God covering your sins, and at once working Mercy in you towards your brethren: his Grace and Pardon, and the Condition required to make it ours: And here we have them both in this Petition; God shining upon us with the bright beams of his mercy, that it may reflect from us upon others; Christ's blood distilling upon our souls to melt them, that as he was merciful, we may be merciful, as he forgiveth us our debts, we may forgive our debtors. In which Petition there are two parts or members, which evidently show themselves: In the first is comprehended that which we desire; in the second the cause or manner (S. Cyprian calleth it the Law) by which we put it up; Forgive us our debts, SICUT, as we forgive our debtors. God is ready, if we be well qualified; but if we forgive not, than he shutteth his ears, and is deaf to our petition. For with what measure we meet, he will measure to us again. If we take our brother by the throat, he will deliver us to the gaoler: If we will not forgive our brother an hundred pence, a disgrace, some injury, some debt, something which would be nothing if we were merciful, he hath no reason to forgive us all. Secundum nostram sententiam judicabimur: He will pass no other sentence upon us then that which we have subsribed to in this Petition. We beg for pardon on this condition, SICUT ET NOS, If, or As, we forgive our debtors: And if we make not good our condition, we do but prompt the Judge to the severity of a denial, and ex ore nostro, are condemned already out of our own mouth. Let us then take a view of them both; both of what we desire, Forgiveness of our debts; and what we bind ourselves to in this request, Forgiveness of others. In the first we shall consider, 1. Why Sins are called debts; 2. What Remission of sin is; What it is we desire when we pray for forgiveness of sins. And this will fill up our first part. In the second part, 1. Who these Debtors are we must forgive; 2. What Debts, or Trespasses they be; 3. In what the parity or similitude consisteth, what extent the SICUT hath, and how far our forgiveness must answer and resemble God's. And of these we shall speak in their order. First, our Sins are compared to pecuniary Debts: And they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there is a kind of analogy and proportion betwixt them. For what S. Matthew here calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debts, S. Luke calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sins. And we may contemplate the wisdom of the holy Ghost in making choice of this resemblance, in fashioning himself to the natural affections of men, and bringing us to a sight of the deformity of our sins by that which is familiar to our eyes. When we say that Sin is a transgression of the Law, we are bold to ask whether it be a Substance and real thing or a Defect, whether it be a Privation or Positive act. We talk of the Act of sin, and the Habit of sin, and the Gild of sin. And we give it divers names according to its several effects and operations: We call it a stain, because it defaceth the image of God; a pollution, because of that contagion with which it doth infect the soul; a prevarication, because it is a kind of collusion and defeat of the command; a crime, because it deserveth to be brought to the bar and accused; wickedness and abomination, because it is injurious to the Majesty of the Highest. But none of these appellations do express Sin so lively to the very sense as when we call it a debt. Those names many times fly about us like atoms in the air, show themselves to the understanding, and strait vanish away; or, if they enter, they make no deep impression: but this word is a goad; cum ictu quodam auditur, we hear it with a kind of smart. Rem invisibilem per visibilis rei formam describit; It conveyeth unto us that which is in its own nature invisible (for who ever handled Wickedness? who ever saw the wrath of God?) by the forms of things that are visible and familiar to us, that we may more deeply apprehend and more firmly remember them. And as in many places of Scripture God draweth reasons from outward blessings, making our love to them a motive to bring us to himself, so here he applieth himself to our infirmity; and to drive us from sin, calleth it by that name we love not to hear; as mother's use to fright their froward children with the names of Hags and Spirits and Hobgoblins. And this is the wisdom of the holy Ghost, to take us by craft; To win us to Wisdom by calling it a bracelet or ornament; to bring the ambitious to him by telling him of a Kingdom; to invite the voluptuous to a banquet, and to fullness of joy; the covetous, to a treasury which no rust can corrupt; the Libertine, by proffering a service which is perfect freedom; as also to fright us from sin by giving it some terrible appellation, by mention of nakedness and cold, of fire and brimstone, of a gaoler, an arrest, a prison, of slavery and thraldom, and by calling it a debt. Let us now see the several respects in which our Sins and pecuniary Debts bear analogy and likeness. Debitum in Scriptures delicti figura est; Debt in Scripture figureth out unto us the nature of Sin. For we no sooner fall into sin but we run into debt, saith Augustine. In debt there are supposed 1 Mutuum & commodatum, something lent and committed to our charge. 2. Obligatio, an obligation and bond between the creditor and debtor; 3. When the debt is not paid, a Forfeiture; 4. and lastly, a Penalty, which the debtor is liable to if he break with the creditor. First, there must be mutuum, something committed to our use: And then he that entrusted it doth quasi manu suâ tenere creditorem, hath the debtor in his power, and holdeth him fast by some instrument or bond. Secondly, the debtor, when he faileth of his conditions, is abnoxius creditori; the creditor may enter his action, and arrest and imprison him. It is sufficient but to name these; For they are as plain and discernible in Sin as they are in pecuniary debts. First, God is our Creditor, and hath delivered into our hands all the wealth and riches we have, and committed them unto our trust. He hath lent us an Understanding, to apprehend him; a Will, to obey him; Affections, to lay hold on him. Credidit mandata; Rom 3.2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Paul. It is the very word the Civilians use: He hath committed his Commandments and Oracles. And all these I may call rather Lones then Gifts. For as he that dareth his money doth not lose the propriety nor the dominion and right of that which he intrusteth, no more doth God of that substance which he putteth into our hands. He hath not made a free and absolute gift, but left it us only to traffic with it till he come. He hath not given us Understandings, to make them sinks of error, but magazines of saving knowledge; nor Wills, to be shops of deceitful wares, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Work-houses of virtue; nor Affections, to distract and scatter them, to send them to the high places, or the house of the wicked woman, but to keep them at home, to compose and order them, that they may wait as handmaids on Reason. He hath not thus built us up that we should destroy ourselves; nor committed these riches to us that we should be bankrupts in the city of the Lord. He hath not given us Laws, to break them, but hath left them quasi dilectionis suae pignus servanda, as a depositum and pledge of his love, that we may be faithful to observe them, and give unto God those things which are God's, to wit, imaginem & monetam ipsius inscriptam nomine, his own coin, his own image, not clipped, not defaced, not misspent and wasted, a just obedient man, the fairest picture and representation of his Maker. Whatsoever is in Man, as it may help to profit and enrich him, so it may help to strip and impoverish him. His Understanding and Will may save him, and they may destroy him. The Commands and Laws of God may direct, and they may judge him; they may be a light to lead him to bliss, and they may be a bill of accusation against him, and adjudge him to darkness. All is in the use or abuse of those good things which God hath committed to our trust. In the next place; From this which God hath put into our hands ariseth our Obligation: And we are bound to God in all obedience, not only in respect of that power he hath over all; he having made us, not we ourselves; but also in respect of his free beneficence and bounty in committing these things unto our charge. In receiving the Law, and will and faculty to observe it we make a kind of contract and covenant with God. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Aristotle; The Law itself is a kind of contract and covenant, because he that cometh under the Law hath bound himself to fulfil it. We are not lose to do what we please, but, as the Roman servants, who manured and tilled the ground, in vinculis & custodia, we work in a manner in chains and fetters. A necessity is laid upon us, and woe unto us if we observe not the Law. Nec enim beneficium sed officium est facere quod debes, as he well spoke in Seneca; For it is not a good turn; but a duty, to do that which we should, and which we own by contract and covenant. And thus we come under many obligations. We own God our Love, by desiring to be united to him, and to be where he is: which Love consisteth not in a flitting affection or weak inclination towards him, but is a rational approbation and submission and voluntary cleaving unto him in all things. We own him our Fear; qui non in metu, sed obedientia est; Which is not seen in a trembling amazement, but in an active obedience; when we fear the displeasure of God more than his rod, the frown of God more than the punishment, the sentence from his mouth more than the death we shall suffer; when we fear not so much what we would not feel as what we ought not to do, when we fear to be in debt more than imprisonment. And we own him our Confidence; not to trust in ourselves or in our own strength, but to make him our rock and our foundation; (And this will keep us from those debts and engagements which want and the love of the world may bring upon us) Not to think with the Epicures and Atheists, otiosum esse Deum, & neminem in rebus humanis, that God is asleep, a mere Nobody in the world, or that he doth not see or look upon the children of men; but that he hath made a contract with us, to withhold no good thing from us if we serve him, and to compass us about with his favour as with a shield: So that though he cannot be bound by any Law, yet he hath bound himself by promise, and will come and bring his reward with him, if we be not wilful bankrupts, and take delight to bring ourselves into debt and to break our covenant with him. I cannot stand to number all the ways by which we stand obliged to our God: I will therefore comprehend all in that axiom of the Civilians, Debita tot praesumuntur, quot sunt Scripturae; We have as many engagements as there are instruments and writings between us: And these are to be numbered by God's commands. And these are not private and peculiar precepts, quibus respondere liberum est, Nolo, which some must keep, and others may answer they will not; but universal and common, and binding all alike. Haec obligationis nostrae ratio est, secreto fidelissimo hunc thesaurum depositi & commendati nobis praecepti reservare, saith Hilary; This is the nature and force of our obligation to God, to keep his commandments, and faithfully to preserve that rich treasure which he hath deposited and laid up with us and commended to our charge. For, In the next place, not to keep covenant with God, but prodigally to misspend that substance which he gave us, nay, not to improve it, but when he cometh to ask for his Talon to show him a Napkin, is a plain Forfeiture, and bringeth us in danger of the Law: And though we did owe ourselves before, even all that we have, yet we were never properly Debtors till now. But now it is debitum liquidum, a plain and manifest Debt, because we can give no account of what we have received at God's hands. For what account can he give of his Soul, who hath sold it to sin? What tender can he make of his Affections, who hath buried them in the world? What Love can he present, that hath pawned it to vanity? What Fear can he make show of, who lived as if God could not be angry? Or how should he appear before God, who is long since lost to himself? For St. Augustine needed not to have retracted that speech of his, UT REDDERER MIHI, CUI ME MAXIM DEBEO, That I might be restored to myself, to whom I did especially owe my slf, and changed it into this, UT REDDERER DEO, that I might be restored and paid back unto God, unto whom alone I am due. The truth is, Till Man be quite lost to himself, to his Reason, and Obedience, and all that may style him Man, he is still in manutenentia Dei, in the hands and power and protection of God: But when Man prodigally spendeth his estate amongst harlots, and breaketh his covenant with God, he maketh another contract, with the World, the Flesh and the Devil. For Sin as it is in one respect a forfeiture, and bringeth us in debt, so on the other side it is a contract and bargain, such as it is. For can we call Death and Hell a purchase? What hath Luxury brought in but rottenness to my bones, and emptiness to my purse? What hath my Soul gained but blackness and darkness, and deformity? What have I for my Trust in the world, but Despair in God? for my Integrity and Honesty which I fling away, but Wealth perhaps, or Honour, or Pleasures, which are but for a moment? Which all are but speciosa supplicia; Though we look upon them as glorious and gaudy ornaments, and wear them as chains about our necks, yet are they but shackles and the very chains of darkness. In a word, what have we for the Favour of God which we slighted, but a gnawing Worm and a tormenting Conscience? For, In the last place, the Penalty followeth: Qui autor legis, idem est & exactor. He that lent me these sums, cometh to require and exact them at my hands; and I have nothing to give him which I may call my own, but the breach of his Law; and he hath power not only to sell me to Punishment for sin, and to Sin for punishment, but to expose me to shame; not only to kill the body, but to put both body and soul into hell. The penalty cometh in close upon the breach of contracts. We have not such a God in the New Testament as Martion the heretic fancied to himself, qui solis literis prohibet delinquere, who giveth no further check and restraint unto sin then by letters and words, that doth fear to condemn what he cannot but disapprove, that doth not hate what he doth not love, and who beareth with that being done which he forbade to be done. No: He whose voice was in the thunder, This thou shalt do, thundereth still, Ego condo mala, It is I that create all those evils which flesh and blood trembleth at. His Sword hath still this inscription, SI NOLUERITIS, HIC GLADIUS VOS COMEDET, If you will not obey, this sword shall devour you. Now in Obligations between man and man the Forfeiture and Penalty are expressly set down; and the Creditor cannot exact two talents where the penalty is but one: but here though the penalty is expressed, yet not the measure, unless in those comfortless terms, That they are immeasurable; Which when God remitteth and forgiveth to the penitent, he manifesteth his infinite Goodness; but when he inflicteth it, as due to him who would needs die in his debt, he magnifieth his Justice. And S. Augustine giveth the reason, Quia meliùs ordinatur natura, ut justè doleat in supplicio, quàm ut impunè gaudeat in peccato, Because it is far better ordered that Justice should bring the impenitent to smart in punishment, than that Impunity should encourage him forever to triumph in sin. And he that peremptorily will offend, doth by consequent will also the punishment which is due unto him. Thus he that would not give God his obedience, and so pay him his own, must give himself to be dragged into prison. He that would not be brought under the power of the Law, must be brought under the stroke of the Law. He that would not once read it when it is written for our instruction, and presented in a golden character with precious promises, must look upon it when it is a kill letter and as terrible as Death. For Divines will tell us, Per peccatum homo Dei potestati non est subtractus; Man, though by sin he runneth away from his God, yet is still in his chain; and though he have put on the Devil's livery; yet he is still within the verge and reach of God's power, who can deliver him up to Satan, and make his new master, whom he serveth, his gaoler and executioner. For the Obligation still holdeth, and God hath the hand-writing against us, as S. Paul calleth it: Which whether we term the Decalogue, with some, which was written with the finger of God; or our own Memory, with others, which is nothing else but a gallery hung round about with our own deformities; or whether, with Aquinas, we call it the Memory of God, where our sins are written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond; whatsoever it is, and wheresoever you place it, it still looketh towards us. In the Law there is horror; and in God's memory, our sins, where they are sealed up as in a bag, Job 14.17. where he keepeth them as his proofs and evidences, by which he may convict us; and that they may be in a readiness, Lam. 1.14. hath bound our transgressions by his hands. And lastly, in our own memories are the very same bills and accusations which are in the register of God. Nam qui peccat, peccati sui 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 than the hairs of my head. Thus I have showed 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 burdened with Sin. First, we know what a burden 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 music itself as harsh and unwelcome as howling and tears; how it doth outlaw 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 ourselves, afraid of others, and to take every man we meet for a Sergeant to arrest us: And such a burden is Sin, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Chrysostom, hard to be born, a yoke to gall us, a talon 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 quàm sub tali conscientia vivere? who would not rather die a hundred times than 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 swell 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 Satyrs 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 Sacrilege and Oppression have made; a type of the day of Judgement, and a representation of Hell itself. 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. For 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 cancel them, far easier not to be indebted then to procure our Apocha and acquittance: and it is nothing so difficult to ●●oid sin at the first, when it flattereth, as to purge it out when it hath stung us as a serpent. God ●●lleth Cain so, If thou dost well (and thou mayest yet do well) shalt thou not be accepted? Gen. 4.7. and if thou dost not well, sin lieth at the door, ready to arrest thee. And the reason is plain, and given by Columella, though to another end, Operosior negligentia quàm diligentia; Sloth and carelessness and neglect put us to more trouble and pain, create us more business, than 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 triple 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 only drive us to consultation how to expel 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 reentry, he bringeth with him seven worse than himself. And thus both Sin and Debt bring on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an unfoordable gulf of difficulties and business. In the third place, the Wiseman 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 curse and rail 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 murmur 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 talon 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 public, because they have miscarried in the managing of their private estates; So when sinners are in a great straight, and dare not approach 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, than they begin to neglect and contemn God, and do despite to the holy Ghost; then his precepts are hard say, 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. For a Debt and a Forfeiture may be paid at last: and if the debtor be not able to pay, he may give his service, his body, some satisfaction; and some satisfaction is better than none: But he that committeth Sin, is the servant of sin for ever, and can never redeem it; if for no other reason, yet for this alone, that he did commit it. For not a myriad of virtues can satisfy for any one breach of our obligation, and no hand but that of Mercy can cancel and make it void. If we be in debt with God, nothing can quit us but forgiveness. And therefore we pray, Forgive us our debts. And so we fall upon our next part, What is meant by Remission of sins, or Forgiveness of debts. And here we lie prostrate before the throne of God, and desire forgiveness: And what that is we cannot be to seek, if we consider those judicial terms which the Scripture useth. For we read of a a 1 Cor. 4.4. Judge, of a b 2 Cor. 5.10. judgement seat, of a c Rom. 2.15. witness, of a d Rom. 3.19. conviction, of a e Col. 2.14. hand-writing, of an f 1 John 2.1. Advocate, and in this Petition our sins are delivered in the notion of debts. So that when we pray for the forgiveness of our sins, we do as it were stand at the bar of God's justice, and plead for mercy; acknowledge the hand-writing, but beseech him to cancel it; confess our sins, but sue out our pardon, that we may be justified from those things from which by the Law we could not; and though we are not, yet for his sake who is our Surety and Advocate; to count us righteous, and pronounce us innocent. This is all we learn in Scripture concerning Remission of sins. Et quicquid à Deo discitur, totum est, as the Father speaketh, That which we learn from God is all we can learn. But as the Philosophers agreed there was a chief good and happiness which man might attain unto, but could not agree what it was; so it hath fallen out with Christians: They all consent that there is mercy with God, that we may be saved; they make Remission of sins an article of their Creed: but then they rest not here, but to the covering of their sins require a garment of righteousness of their own thread and spinning, to the blotting out of their sins some blood and some virtue of their own, and to the purging them out some infused habit of herent righteousness; and so by their interpretations and additions and glosses they leave this Article in a cloud, than which the day itself is not clearer. As Astronomers, when a new star appeareth in their Hemisphere, dispute and altercate till that star go out and remove itself out of their sight; so have we disputed and talked Justification and Remission of sins almost out of sight. For there is nothing more plain and even, without rub or difficulty, nothing more open to the eye; and yet nothing at which the quickest apprehensions have been more dazzled. Not to speak of the heathen, who counted it a folly to believe there were any such thing, and could not see how he that killed a man should not be a homicide, or he no adulterer who had defiled a woman; quibus melius fide quam ratione respondetur; whom we may give leave to reason, whilst we believe. It hath been the fault of Christians, when the truth lay in their way, to pass it by, or leap over it, and to follow some fancies and imaginations of their own. How many combats had S. Paul with the false brethren who would bring in the observation of the Ceremonial and Moral Law as sufficient to salvation? How did he travel in birth again of the Galatians, that Christ might be truly form in them? And yet how many afterwards did Galaticari, as Tertullian speaketh, were as foolish as the Galatians? How many made no better use of it then to open a gap and make a way to let in all licentiousness and profaneness of life? nay, went so far as to think it most necessary? as if Remission of sins were not a medicine to purge, but a provocative to inerease sin. Nor was this doctrine only blemished by those monsters of men who sat down and consulted, and did deliberately give sentence against the Truth, but received some blot and slain from their hands who were the stoutest champions for it, who though they saw the Truth, and did acknowledge it, yet let that fall from their pens which posterity after took up to obscure this doctrine, and would not rest content with that which is as much as we can desire, and more than we can deserve, Remission of sins. Hence it was that we were taught in the Schools, That Justification is a change from a state of unrighteousness to a state of righteousness; That as in every motion there is a leaving of one term to acquire another, so in Justification there is expulsion of sin, and infusion of grace: Which is most true in the concrete, but not in the abstract; in the Justified person, but not in Justification, which is an act of God alone. From hence those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those unsavoury and undigested conclusions of the Church of Rome, That to justify a sinner is not to pronounce but to make him just; That the formal cause of Justification is inherent sanctity; That our righteousness before God consisteth not only in remission of sins; That we may redeem our sins as well as Christ, we from temporal, as he from eternal pain. And then this Petition must run thus, FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, that is, Make us so just that we may need no forgiveness; Forgive us the breach of the Law, because we have kept the Law; Forgive us our sins, for our good works; Forgive me my intemperance, for my often fasting; my incontinency, for my zeal; my oppression, for my alms; my murder, for the Abbey and Hospital which I built; my fraud, my malice, my oppression for the many Sermons I have heard. A conceit which, I fear, findeth room and friendly entertainment in those hearts which are soon hot at the very merry mention of Popery or Merit. In a word, they say and unsay, sometimes bring in Remission of sins, and sometimes their own Satisfaction; and so set S. Paul and their Church at such a distance, that neither St. Peter himself, nor all the Angels and Saints she prayeth to, will be able to reconcile them, and make his Gratis and their Merits meet in one. It is true, every good act doth justify a man so far as it is good, and God so far esteemeth them holy and good, and taketh notice of his graces in his ●●●ldren; he registereth the Patience of Job, the Zeal of Phinehas, the Devotion of David; not a cup of cold water, not a mite fling into the Treasury, but shall have its reward: But yet all the works of all the Saints in the world cannot satisfy for the breach of the Law. For let it once be granted, what cannot be denied, that we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, guilty and culpable, before God, that all have sinned, Rom. 3.19. and are come short of the glory of God, than all that noise the Church of Rome hath filled the world with concerning Merits, and Satisfaction, and inherent Righteousness, will vanish as a mist before the Sun, and Justification and Remission of sins will appear in its brightness, in that form and shape in which Christ first left it to his Church. Bring in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the Patriarches and Prophets and Apostles, and deck them with all those virtues which made them glorious, but yet they sinned. Bring in the noble army of Martyrs, who shed their blood for Christ; but yet they sinned. They were stoned, they were sawen asunder, they were slain with the sword; but yet they sinned: and he that sinneth is presently the servant of sin, obnoxious to it for ever, and cannot be redeemed by his own blood, because he sinned, but by the blood of him in whom there was no sin to be found. JUSTIFICATIO IMPII, This one form of speech, of justifying a sinner, doth plainly exclude the Law and the works of it, and may serve as an axe or hammer to beat down all their carved work and those Antics which are fastened to the building, which may perhaps take a wandering or gadding fancy, but will never enter the heart of a man of understanding. We do not find that beauty in their forced and artificial inventions, that we do in the simple and native Truth; neither are those effects which are as radiations and resultances from Forgiveness of sins, so visible in their Justification by Faith and Works as in that free Remission which is by Faith alone. The urging of our Merits is of no force to make our peace with God. They may indeed make us gracious in his eyes after Remission, but have as much power to remove our sins, as our breath hath to remove a mountain, or put out the fire of hell. For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of that of Alexander's in killing calisthenes, crimen aeternum, an eternal crime, which no virtue of our own can redeem. As often as any man shall say, He slew many thousands of Persians, it will be replied, He did so, but he killed calisthenes also. He slew Darius; but he slew calisthenes too. And as often as we shall swell our minds and fill them with the conceit of our good deeds, our Conscience will reply, But we have sinned. Let me add my Passions to my Actions, my Imprisonment to my Alms; let me suffer for Christ, let me die for Christ; But yet I have sinned. Let us outgo all the ancient examples of piety and sanctity; But yet we have sinned: And none of all our acts, can make so much for our glory and comfort as our sin doth for our reproach. Our sins may obscure and darken our virtues, but our virtues cannot abolish our sins. For what peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel, as our sins, be so many? Ot what ease can a myriad of virtues do him who is under arrest, under a curse, who, if Mercy come not in between, is condemned already? And therefore we may observe those Justiciaries who will not build upon Remission or Not-imputation of sins, how their complexion altereth, how their colour goeth and cometh, how they are not the same men in their Controversies and Commentaries that they are in their Devotions and Meditations. Nothing but Merit in their ruff and jollity, and nothing but Mercy on their deathbeds; nothing but the blood of Martyrs then, and nothing but Christ's now; nothing but their own Satisfaction all their lives, and nothing but Christ's at their last gasp. Before, magìs honorificum, it was more honourable, to bring in something of our own towards the Forgiveness of our sins: but now, for the uncertainty of our own Righteousness, (which were no whit available to a guilty person, if it were certain) because there is no harbour here, Christ's Righteousness is called in with a Tutissimum est, as the best shelter; And here they will abide till the storm be overpast. To conclude then; Remission of sins hath no relation or dependence on any thing which is in man, is not drawn on or furthered by any merit of ours, but is an act of the Mercy and Providence of God, by which he is pleased to restore us to his favour, who were under his wrath, to count us righteous, who were guilty of death, and in Christ to reconcile us unto himself; and, though he have a record of our sin, yet not to use it as an indictment against us, but so to deal with us as if his book were razed, and so to look upon us as if we had not sinned at all. Et merebimur admitti jam exclusi; And we, who were formerly shut out for our sin, shall be led into the land of the living by a merciful and perfect and all-sufficient Mediator. It is his Mercy alone that must save us. This is as the Sanctuary to the Legal offendor: This is as mount Ararat to Noah's tossed Ark; as Noah's hand to his weary Dove; as Ahasuerus his golden sceptre to the humble penitent. Come then, put on your royal apparel, your wedding garment, and touch the top of it: But touch it with reverence. Bring not a wavering and doubtful heart, an unrepented sin, a rebellious thought with thee. For canst thou touch this Sceprre in thy lust or anger? canst thou touch it with hands full of blood? Such a bold irreverent touch will turn this Sceptre into a Sword, to pierce thee through. For nothing woundeth deeper than abused Mercy. Behold, God holdeth it forth to thee in his Word; Come unto him all ye that are heavy laden, and touch it, and you are eased. He holdeth it forth in his Sacrament, first in the flesh of his Son, and then in the signs and representations of it; and here to touch it unworthily, is to touch, nay to embrace, Death itself. The woman in the Gospel came behind Christ, and did but touch the hem of his garment, and was healed. Most wretched we, saith the Father, who touch him, nay feed on him, so oft in his Sacrament, and our issue of blood runneth still, we are still in our sins; our Pride as swelling, our Malice as deadly, our Appetite as keen, our Love of the world as great as before: and all because we do not touch it with reverence, nor discern the Lord's body, which must not be touched by every rude and unclean hand! Wash you, then, make you clean; and then, as your Sins are pardoned, so here your Pardon is sealed with the blood of the Lamb. Here thou dost see thy ransom: Only believe, and come with a heart fit to receive him. The best entertainment and welcome thou canst give him is a broken, contrite and reverend heart, a a heart fitted for such a Lord, such a Captain, such a King. For, as one well sayeth, the Sacraments are nothing else but protestationes fidei, the public protestations of our Faith. They who come to the Lord's Table, by their very coming do publicly profess that they believe not only every Article of their Faith, but also this Divine promise and institution, by which Christ will renew and strengthen and establish his Covenant to every worthy receiver. Leave then thy wavering, thy inconstancy, thy diffidence, thy formality, thy hypocrisy, thy malice, before thou approach. For wilt thou come to the Feast of the Lamb with the teeth of a Lion? Wilt thou come to him in whom there was no guile found, with a deceitful heart? Wilt thou come to a meek Saviour, with a heart on fire? Wilt thou come to him who forbiddeth a wand'ring look, with a stews about thee? Wilt thou bring the love of the world along with thee, to him that overcame the world? Wilt thou come to the Son of God, with the subtlety and malice of a Devil? Thy coming is thy protestation not only of thy Faith but of thy Repentance; and if thou thus defeat and contradict thy own protestation, I will not say what manner of Protestant thou art, but the world affordeth many such at this day: And how darest thou meet thy Saviour in this ugly disguise, carrying about with thee a world of wickedness under protestation? The Canonist will tell us, Sacramentum & mortis articulus aequiparantur, that we are considered at the Sacrament as on our Deathbed. And on our deathbed we are likelier to be attempted with thoughts of dejection then of presumption. Here we lay down our malice; here we loathe our lust; here we fall out with Mammon; here we look down upon Honour; here we go out of the world; here we are meek and humble and tractable; here we are commonly what we should be in our health. Consider thyself then at this Table as on thy Deathbed, and here lay aside every weight, and every sin that doth beset us; lay them down, not as sick men sometimes do, to take them up again in health, but drown them in the blood, and nail them to the cross of thy Saviour, never to look back upon them but with sorrow and disdain. Here shake off all inclination to them as far as is possible, and take up a firm resolution never to entertain them again: and then thou art fit to come to Christ, and feed at his Table; then, as he is brought into the world, and hath brought himself into the Sacrament, and will be so far present as to exhibit himself and all his love and favour in them, so he will bring himself into thy soul, and fill it with all joy. The One and Twentieth SERMON. PART II. MATTH. VI 12. — As we forgive our debtors. HEre we have the Condition, or the Cause, or the Manner, or, as St. Cyprian calleth it, the Law, by which we put up the foregoing Petition: Forgive us our debts, SICUT, as we forgive our debtors. If we perform the Condition, than Remission of our sins (as the promise of it) is Yea and Amen: But if we perform it not, to us it is but a promise: And though it be not kept, it is not broke, because we made not good the condition. And these two, the Promise of reward, and the Duty or Condition, mutually look upon each other; the Reward upon the Duty, to facilitate and make it easy; and the Duty upon the Reward, to draw it on: And as we find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in Relatives, they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. God's Mercy is operative ●n us, and our forgiveness is operative upon God. His is powerful to produce the like goodness in us; and ours is powerful to sheathe his sword, as having the promise of Remission of sins. God doth forgive our debts, that we may forgive our debtors; and we forgive our debtors, that he may be reconciled to us. Heaven speaketh to Earth, and Earth to Heaven. The influence of God's mercy melteth our hearts; and they being melted are capable of mercy. The lines by which we are to pass are these. 1. We must see what these Debts are which we must forgive. 2. The manner how we must forgive them, or the Extent and Force of this SICUT; In what the parity and similitude consisteth; and how far our Forgiveness of our brother's debts must answer the Remission of our sins. 3. The Dependence which is between these two, God's forgiveness, and ours; What power and influence God's Mercy should have upon us to work in us the like tenderness and softness towards our brethren; and what force our Forgiveness hath to make God merciful to us, to draw his hand to seal us, and to seal to us the Remission of our sins, against the great day of our Redemption. Of these we shall speak plainly and in their order. As we forgive our debtors. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our debtors, saith S. Matthew: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Luke, every one that is indebted to us. So that this duty is of large extent: This royal and heavenly disposition, which is required of a Christian, hath no bounds, no limits, neither in respect of time, nor place, nor person. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, Let your softness, your tenderness, your moderation, be known unto all men, to Jew and Pagan, to good and evil. Nemini malum pro malo; Render to no man evil for evil. For as the grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, so must our Charity enlarge itself, and, like the Sun, non uni aut alteri, sed statim omnibus in common proferri, display its beams universally on all, on every man that is a brother and a Neighbour: And now under the Gospel every man is so. He is my neighbour and brother who loveth me, and he is my neighbour and brother who hateth me: He is my neighbour who bindeth up my wounds, and he is my neighbour who gave me those wounds: He is my neighbour who taketh care of me, and he is my neighbour who passeth by me on the other side: And my goodness must open and manifest itself to all men, must be as catholic as the Church, nay as the World itself. Whosoever maketh himself our debtor, maketh himself also the object of our mercy; and whatsoever the debt is, Forgiveness must wipe it out and cancel it. Every debtor than must be forgiven. And that we may better understand the condition here required, we must consider what the debts are. For commonly we call those debts alone which are pecuniary, and esteem them our debtors whose names are in tabulis & kalendario, in our Bonds and Obligations. But the word is of larger extent; and the Civilians will tell us that he is not a debtor alone who hath sealed a Bond and standeth engaged for a sum of money; but, Debtor est cum quo agi potest; He is a debtor against whom I may enter an action; he is a debtor who is any ways obliged to me. For obligatio parit actionem, an obligation doth naturally produce an action. Now as there be divers sorts of Obligations, so there be of Debts. As there is obligatio ex contractu, an obligation upon contract and stipulation, so there is obligatio ex debito & maleficio, an obligation by some offence or evil we commit against our neighbour, either by theft or rapine, by damage or injury. For not only my Goods but my Good name is mine, and my Body is mine; and he that falleth upon my goods, and taketh them away, he that falleth upon my sheep and camels, and driveth them away, he that sharpeneth his tongue as a razor to wound my reputation, he that putteth forth his hand to touch my flesh and my bones, obligeth himself, and becometh my debtor. Qui injuriam facit, minor est; He that doth an injury, for that very reason is under him that suffered it, and obliged to him; the greatest Tyrant to the meanest peasant in the land. Indeed I may forfeit all these to the Law and Justice, and so make my riches and possessions; nay my life and good name, as debts. For in punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher, There is a kind of giving and receiving, in which the nature of all contracts consisteth. He that receiveth by injustice, must give punishment, his goods to be confiscate, his name to infamy, his body to prison, and his life to the Law. So that when the hand of violence or deceit taketh from me my goods, when the cruel and bloodthirsty man spoileth me of my life, when the tongue that is set on fire by hell rageth against my good name, when evil men defraud and spoil me, though they rejoice as those who have made a great purchase and conquest, yet if they cast up their accounts, and take a just calculation, they shall find that all this is but debt, and that they are obliged to those whom they have put in fetters, engaged to those whom they have disgraced, and indebted to those whom they have made poor. Briefly, to take the full compass and latitude of this word debts; Whatsoever may distaste us, whatsoever may raise our anger, whatsoever may bear an action; be it an injury which the Law doth punish, or a disgrace and contumely, quàm magis queri quàm exequi possumus, against which we can oppose nothing but complaint; be it a blemish on our name, or a furrow on our back, or a devastation of our estate; be it Ishmael's scoff, or Shimei's railing, or Zedekiah's blow on the cheek; whatsoever our weakest enemy can think or speak, whatsoever our strongest can do against us, whatsoever we may unjustly suffer, all these come under this name, and may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, debts. And now, having showed you what these Debts are, we come next to declare the Manner how we must forgive them, and to draw out the force and extent of this SICUT, that we may see wherein the parity and similitude consisteth, and how our forgiveness of our brother's debts must answer God's remission of ours. And here we cannot well tell how to fix the SICUT, whether upon ourselves or upon God, nor suddenly determine whether God should forgive us as we forgive, or we forgive as God doth. For first, as S. Hierome, falling upon that speech of our Saviour, Be it unto thee according to thy faith breaketh forth into a pious admiration of it; Hanc ego vocem audire nolo; I will not hear this speech; for it is terrible in my ears. For if it be done unto me according to my faith, I am utterly lost; because the Envious man hath sown tares amongst the wheat: so we may more feelingly and truly pronounce, that if God do forgive but as we forgive, we may be cast into prison with our pardon and release in our hands. For what is our Forgiveness? We forgive many times when we cannot revenge; we do not by't because we have no teeth. We forgive the loss of our honour, which Ambition hath made something; the loss of our goods, which our Covetousness hath set a price upon. We forgive a blow for fear of a greater. Our Forgiveness is commonly the child of Fear, or Necessity, or Weakness; or, at the best, shaken from us by this thunder, That if we forgive not, we ourselves shall lie in prison till we have paid the utmost farthing. SICUT ET NOS, as we forgive, is such a condition as we shall hardly trust to, a part of our Pater Noster, but we most unfit to say it. But then, for us to forgive as God, is impossible. For Mercy, which is but a quality in us, is essential in him; And he punisheth and forgiveth without any change at all. I may say both his Revenge and Forgiveness are effects of the same Goodness, which he is. When we offend him, it is impossible to stand in his sight, because he is good: but when by repentance we leave off to be evil, we then draw near unto him, for the same reason. And thus to the good he is a wing to shadow them, but to the evil a consuming fire. So that there will be found a greater distance between our Forgiveness and his then there is between heaven and earth, between a mortal Man and immortal God; And the SICUT will hold on neither side. If God should forgive as Man, we were most miserable; and for Man to forgive as God, is impossible. We must then limit and confine the SICUT, the similitude, to the thing itself, to Remission of debts; and the likeness must be placed in this, not that we forgive as God, or God as us, but that as God forgiveth our debts, so we forgive our debtors. But now because a condition and necessity is laid upon us to forgive our debtors, though we cannot raise it to so high a pitch as to equal his, yet we must make his the rule and pattern of ours. Neque enim aliter in nobis erit dignitas Divinae majestatis, nisi imitatio fuerit Divinae voluntatis, saith Leo; For we can be no otherwise partakers of his excellency and Divine majesty then by imitation of his Divine will. And if any virtue, than this certainly of Mercy and Compassion doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, make us like unto God: And to strive for perfection in this kind, though our perfection cannot in any kind equal his, is the greatest commendation we can give a Christian; That which Quintilian giveth to Tully in respect of Eloquence, Defuit ei summa illa, ad quam tamen nemo propriùs accessit: He cometh short of the perfection of God; yet none ever came nearer than he. Now though we cannot but be unwilling that God should proportion out his forgiveness by ours, yet we shall find it a great part of our spiritual wisdom to regulate ours by his, and to forgive our debtors SICUT, as he forgiveth us. And first, God's Forgiveness is free and voluntary. He looketh for no motives abroad, but forgiveth us secundùm misericordiam, according to his mercy, according to that which is in God, not according to that which is in man. Ex se sumit seminarium miserendi, saith the Father; He hath the seminary of mercy in himself, and borroweth not the seeds of it from any other. Nothing to move God but the mercy of God. If we will seek the true cause, we must go out of the world: for all that is in the world is enmity with God. All the benefits which his hand of mercy reacheth forth, are tendered to us with this inscription, Ipse quia voluit, Jam. 1. Because he will, he giveth them us. And he forgiveth us for no other reason but because he will. And this is the right SICUT by which we must set our Forgiveness. Our Forgiveness must flow from a melting heart. For that Forgiveness which hath need of so many motives, so many allurements, so many submissions, to uphold it in life and being, cannot be divine, or from the heaven, heavenly, but will soon fall to the ground, and vanish. What Forgiveness is that which is bought with the knee, and with a tear, which modesty draweth on, which humility beggeth? Most men, saith Aristotle, forgive those who fall at their feet, who confess an injury, and repent of it. We willingly lift them up who cast themselves down and submit themselves, quia hoc facere tanquam majores videmur; because Forgiveness is an act of a Superior; and when Emulation is wasted and spent Humanity groweth up in its room. And therefore to me it is a most unnecessary question, Whether a man be bound to forgive an injury before he that hath done the wrong doth acknowledge it; although it be grounded upon that of our Saviour, If thy brother trespass against thee seven times in a day, Luke 17 4. and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. For Remission is an act of Charity, which hath no limitation of time or person. For we are not only commanded to forgive others, but to do them good, and to pray for them. But here Christ speaketh of our brother whom we must rebuke and reprehend, ver. 3. that, if we could, we should not give him open indications of a reconciled mind till we had reproved and gained him: but then, if he will not suffer a word of exhortation, if he withdraw himself from us, as unwilling to be showed his error, our charity must follow him still; nor must we be unmerciful because he is stubborn; and, because he turneth his back unto us, withdraw our bowels from him. What talk we of preparation of mind? for even bitterness itself may consist with such preparation. For by this it seemeth I may hate my brother before reconciliation, and prepare, nay resolve, to forgive him when I see him upon his knees. These distinctions, of preparation and the act, of general Love and particular, of inward Forgiveness and outward, are but commenta humani ingenii, the work of our fancy, or rather of our malice, and serve for no other use but to make our Forgiveness less voluntary, yea to make it none at all. For thus I may be prepared to love my brother, and yet hate him all the days of my life; I may love him as my brother, and hate him as my enemy; I may love him in my heart, and pursue him with my sword; and so excuse my uncharitableness by my brother's rancour, which my charity should cover. Then our Forgiveness is set at the true SICUT, when we have gained that Godlike disposition, to multiply it, and make it keep time with our brother's offences; when we are as active to forgive as he is to offend. This showeth that Charity is even in a manner natural to us, and floweth sweetly from us as waters from their fountain, so that there need no submissions or deprecations, no tears nor beseechings to draw them from us, nor can any frowardness or obstinacy in our brother stop their course. This giveth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a kind of ascent, to draw near to ●●d, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a kind of Deification, and maketh us children like to 〈◊〉 Father which is in heaven. Again, as God's Forgiveness is free and voluntary, so is it full and plenary. He hath made Christ a propitiation for our sins, nay, not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. He casteth them behind him, never again to behold them; he burieth them in oblivion, that he may never remember them: He passeth them by, as if he saw them not; putteth them away, that they hurt us not; casteth them into the sea, that they drown us not; washeth them away, that they defile us not; covereth them, that they appear not. And thus he presenteth us at once both with physic, and instruction; with a pardon, and a precept; and by giving us a plenary indulgence teacheth us a duty. And how sweet should that command be which is thus presented in an hony-comb! He teacheth us; and, that we may learn, we have motives from his Mercy-seat, not only to forgive offences, but so to esteem them as if they had never been done. And indeed, to make our Forgiveness of them complete, and levelly it by the true SICUT, the best way is to cast them out of our thoughts: For whilst they lodge there, they are but tentations, and may renew that flame which is now well abated; and having the same aspect, in which they first appeared, cannot be looked upon often but with danger. These we best overcome, as the Parthians did their enemies, fugiendo, by flying from them. For how great a matter will a little fire kindle! In other things tanta injuria oblivio, quanta est gloria ejus cujus est injuria, oblivion and forgetfulness is as hurtful and injurious to us as that is praiseworthy which it removeth out of our sight. Memory is the health of the Understanding, saith Plato; but in respect of injuries Oblivion is a benefit, because it freeth us not only from evil, but from the danger of it; leaveth it not as a coal ill-quenched, which every puff of air, every occasion, may fan and kindle again; but doth utterly extinguish it. For as it is well said, Pax non est, si veteres ad bellum causas relinquat, That peace deserveth not the name of peace which leaveth any way open for war to break in again; so Forgiveness is not forgiveness, when we do but forgive, and are willing to look back upon the injury which is passed, and to converse familiarly with that which is as apt to provoke us to wrath now it is past as when it was first done. For these representations present it to our mind not as past, but as now done: As when Antony brought Caesar's bloody robe into the marketplace, the Orator telleth us the people were so affected ut non occisus esse Caesar, sed tunc maximè occidi videretur, that they conceived it not as a thing done and passed, as if he were killed already, but as if he were now under the parricides hands. Certainly no blot can be great enough for injuries: nor are they truly and sincerely forgiven till we are willing, till we study, to forget them. Nemo diu tutus, periculo proximus, There is no long safety to be expected where danger is at hand. Therefore we must in this, as in all other duties, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, follow God, as the Pythagoreans counselled. For if we measure ourselves by ourselves, if we raise not the SICUT as high as our Father, of whom we beg mercy, we shall fail of the condition, and so bring upon ourselves an uncapability of pardon. But to forgive freely and voluntarily, to forgive sincerely and fully, to take off not only our anger from injuries, but to drive them out of our memory, is Divino more ignoscere to forgive as God. And indeed, in the next place, this maketh us like unto God, and investeth us with his power, by which we overcome all injuries whatsoever, and scatter them as dust before the wind: By this we break the cedars of Libanon in pieces, the tallest enemies we have; by this we ●ill the raging of the sea and the madness of the people; (For who would 〈◊〉 forgive a bedlam?) by this we pour coals of fire upon our most obdurate enemies, and melt and thaw them; by this we work miracles. And indeed Mercy is a great miracle. For, Beloved, that power which we use in resistance and revenge, is not power, but weakness. Vera magnitudo est, non posse nocere; verior, nolle; The true power by which a Christian prevaileth is seen in this, not to be able to do hurt; the greatest power, not to be willing. And if we will make a truce with our Passions, and a while consult with Reason, we shall soon discover that the desire to show our power in revenge of an injury hath its beginning from extreme weakness. Omnis ex infirmitate feritas, saith Seneca; All fierceness and desire of revenge is from infirmity, and proceedeth from that womanish and brutish part of man, nay from those vices which make us worse than the beasts that perish. Chap. 4.1. From whence come wars and fightings? saith S. James, from whence contentions and strifes? come they not from hence, even from your lusts which war in your members? from Pride, Covetousness, Luxury, Ambition, and Self-love? In urbe luxuria creature, saith Tully, ex luxuria exsisttat avaritia necesse est, ex avaritia erumpat audacia, unde omnia scelera gignuntur; In the city Luxury is begot; and that calleth in Covetousness, as a necessary supply to feed and nourish it; Covetousness bringeth in Audacious and impudent behaviour; and this filleth all with Blood and Oppression. Ambition giveth the stab for a lie; Covetousness layeth hold on the throat for a penny; Luxury will wade to pleasure, though it be through blood; and Self-love maketh every look a frown, every frown a blow, and every blow death: And this is extreme weakness and infirmity. We may think indeed we have done wonders when we have laid our brother at our feet, when we have put him in fetters, and ripped up his bowels, and made him pay his debt with his blood: but in all this our glory is our shame. For in this contention we never triumph till we yield. When we are weak, then are we strong; when we suffer disgrace, then are we honourable; and we overcome not when we resist, but when we die. By this an enemy is a friend: By this, saith the Father, the Mother in the Macchabees priùs viscera carnifici quam verba impendit, gave the executioner her bowels, but not a word. This restoreth what was stolen from me, bringeth back what the robber taketh, keepeth my name, when it is most defiled, as a precious ointment, and maketh the day of death better than the day of my birth. In a word, this Deus averruncus chaseth away all evil whatsoever, cancelleth all debts, is a severe act, and the only antidote against Malice, (which cannot be overcome, saith the Apostle, but with good) and showeth from whence it hath its original, by manifesting itself in a full and plenary forgiveness of all injury and oppression and contumely, of all that cometh under the name of debt. I may now seem perhaps to have stretched this Condition too far. For we are very willing that God should enlarge his mercy, but that ours be drawn into as narrow a compass as may be. We would clip our wings to cover but a few; but call upon him to spread his wings to cover all offences. And therefore it is safer to stretch the condition then to contract and confine it, because we are so ready transilire lineas, to leap over the bounds which are set us, and so take line and liberty to exact some debts, and at last break lose upon all, and when our revenge hath its full swinge, say we seek but our own. I had rather therefore tell you what you may not do then what you may. And if you shall ask me whether it be not lawful in some cases to fetch back and exact your own, I shall say, as St. Augustine do of Time, If you ask me once, I can tell you; but if you ask me again, I can give you no answer. For I fear such a question proceedeth from an evil disposition, which would fain break its bounds. For can Charity ask how far she may molest a brother, and be Charity? Would Mercy, which should run like a river, and overflow to refresh every dry place, seek out inventions to divert or damn up herself? Shall we strive to make the condition easier, which in respect of the promise would be very easy, though it were much harder than it is? But yet by this I neither strike the sword out of the Magistrate's hand, nor make the Laws of men void and of no effect. For the Condition here is put in respect of injuries. For though it be far better I should lose my coat then revenge myself, because by the law of equity no man can be judge in his own cause; yet let the Magistrate restore my coat to me, and the act is not revenge, but justice. Justice, saith Plutarch, accompanieth God himself, and breatheth revenge against those who break his Law; which men also by the light of nature use against one another. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as they are citizens and members of a body politic. This SICUT therefore, this Condition, is laid down to order and compose our minds to the pardon of those wrongs which are offered to our private persons; but it bindeth not the Judge, who is a public person, and standeth in the midst as it were between two opposite sides, to draw them together and make them one again; to use his power not only rescindendo peccatori; to cut of the wicked from the earth; but also communi dividundo, to divide every man his own right, his own possessions; and he looketh upon the offender vultu legis, with no other countenance then that of the Law. In my own cause it is lawful for me to do what I will with my own, I may give it, I may suffer it to be torn from me; and thus to do may be my virtue which may crown me: but when I sit on the tribunal as a Judge, the cause is not my own; and to pardon injuries which are done to other men, may be injustice, or corruption, at least groundless and inconsiderate pity; but a virtue it cannot be. And as we pull not down tribunals, so neither do we disannul Laws. Sunt jura, sunt formulae, saith the Orator; There be laws and forms prescribed almost for every thing, that no man may err or mistake himself either in genere injuriae, or ratione actionis, either in the nature of the injury or of his action: expressae sunt ex uniuscujusque damno, dolore, incommodo; and they are drawn out and fitted to the grievance, the incommodation, the injury of any man: And by these we may contestari litem, declare and make protestation of our suit before the Judge; and as the town clerk of Ephesus, telleth Demetrius & the craftsmen, Acts 19.58. if we have a matter against any man, the Law is open, & we may implead one another. Both are true, we must forgive our brother, and we may implead him. It is true, the rules of Charity are of a larger extent than those of the Law. If thou own an hundred measures of oil, Charity taketh the bill, and sitteth down quickly, and writeth fifty; but the Law observeth a just Arithmetical proportion, a talon for a talon, & measure for measure. And it is as true that Charity beginneth at home, and that he that provideth not for his family, is worse than an infidel. A truth it is, but much mistaken and misapplied, and pulled on like a buskin by the Love of the world on every angry design and purpose, and so maketh men far worse than infidels. But in another kind, Non est plena humanitas, te excluso, saith the Father; Charity is not full and complete, if it reach all men but thyself; and we subscribe, and shut up our bowels to all but ourselves: Cùm omnes te habeant, esto tu de habentibus unus, When all partake of thy goodness, be thou one of that All; and we like it so well that that one is all. We will not lay a clog upon the consciences of private men, nor deter them from imploring the aid of the Magistrate: for this were to cut off the fairest piece of wisdom, which showeth itself in justice and executing judgement, which checketh the course of the violent, and stoppeth him in his full career. The sword of Justice is both a sword and a buckler too, if it be not in the hand of a man of Belial; for than none fall down by it but the innocent. And to deny or stop the course of Justice, were mutare regna in magna latrocinia, to let in oppression and violence, and make Commonwealths the receptacles and congregation of thiefs, and every City like to the hills of the robbers. But yet let me tell you that good and holy men have been always jealous of it. Augustine in his Enchiridion telleth us, that the justice of our cause, which we pretend and bring in to safeguard our charity, is commonly but an excuse. For so to go to Law with a brother, omnino delictum est, is utterly a fault. Yet, saith he, since the Apostle permiteth the judgements of things pertaining to this life in the Church of Christ, but forbiddeth it with great vehemency before the unbelievers, manifestum est quòd secundùm veniam concedatur infirmis, it is plain enough that he doth but indulge thus much to the weaker sort. Bonus non rectè vindictam injuriae petit, quam tamen judex rectè infligit; A good man may not always seek that revenge and punishment which yet the Law and Judge may most justly inflict. And we know the Poetry of the Schools, Expedit infirmis, licet absque dolo, sine lite; Praelatis licet hoc non, expedit Anachoretae: It is lawful for weaker Christians; lawful, if there be neither fraud nor deceit; which maketh the Law a rock to true men, an haven for pirates, a castle for thiefs, and a prison for the innocent. And to establish this law and course of proceeding, we have all the four Causes brought in. 1. the Efficient or Impulsive cause: Lawful it is, if neither envy, nor hatred, nor covetousness, nor desire of revenge draw it on. 2. the Material cause: if we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, contend for smoke, for matters of nought, and which can be nothing worth but to the Lawyer, qui alienum jurgium praedam suam putat, who rejoiceth at a needless quarrel and contention as at a great spoil. 3. the Formal cause; that we go to Law legally, that we lay no snares, suborn no false witness, study not to entangle the cause, or to obscure the truth. 4. and lastly, the End or Final cause; It must not be to the loss or infamy of our brother but the recovering of that which is ours, and to the glory of God, who as he is the giver, so is he the preserver of all things. All this is true; but we must consider that many truths are very dangerous, as even good meats are to sick and queasy stomaches. Because there are Laws, we count it little less than a virtue to implead our brother according to those Laws. And for those precepts of giving up our coat, of turning the other cheek, of being ready rather to receive a wrong then return it, we can wind and shift ourselves out of them as we please. We can be angry, and sin; we can weary the Magistrate with our suits, and call upon him for revenge, and though we ruin one another, yet all is but play, as Abner calleth it, when all fall down together. 2 Sam. 2.14. Thus upon that which is lawful we build many times that which is unjust; upon a good foundation lay hay and stubble: Et unde possumus esse boni, qui in bonis sic sumus mali? Why should we flatter ourselves that we are good, who can thus turn good into evil, and are very wise and cunning to deceive and cheat ourselves? Again, it is not safe to let the reins too lose, and to measure out to men that Charity which should diffuse and pour itself abroad, and say, Thus much is Enough. For what Aristotle speaketh of the common people, is most true of the common sort of Christians. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Though they be never filled with Pleasures, and never satisfied with increase of Wealth, yet they are content with a small portion of Virtue, willing to take that as it were on the point of a knife; so much Truth as will keep them out of prison; so much Liberality as to give a mite, or a cup of cold water; so much Religion as to go to Church; so much Patience as not to strike first; so much Charity as to undo their brethren, but to undo them by Law; as to kill a man, and be innocent. The Historian observeth that Nero's mother did use all means to alienate his mind from the study of Philosophy, quòd imperaturo esset contraria; because it might give a check to his power, and stint him in things conducible to his State, though not just and honest; because it commendeth many virtues propter quas Reges laudari non solent, as Tully speaketh, which are not so agreeable with the Majesty of Kings, as Frugality, Mercy, Patience, Humility, and the like, and withal delivereth many precepts which fall cross with those actions and proceed which Princes cannot let slip without danger to their Crown and Dignity. The same opinion which Nero's mother had of Philosophy in respect of Kings, most Christians have of the precepts of Christ in respect of themselves: They thwart their dispositions, cross their delights, coop them up and confine them, that they cannot fly at pleasure to the throat of their brother, that they cannot stoop at every prey, nor have their full swinge in the ways of the world; commanding love, where they think they have reason to loath; sheathing their sword, when their Honour lieth at the stake; driving them from the tribunal, when their cloak is taken from them; enjoining patience, when the enemy insulteth: and therefore they are unwilling to study them; or, if they do, it is not to put them in practice, but to coin distinctions and limitations and restrictions, that so they may be the more easy. As Pliny speaketh of arelius the painter, that he did Deas pingere, sed dilectarum imagine, paint the Goddesses, but to the likeness and proportion of his own Mistresses; so do we deal with Christ's precepts, paint and colour them over, that they may resemble those courses which we most affect; and so we bring in God to plead for Baal, and make the Spirit an advocate for the Flesh: that they may comply with our Ambition, and help us to climb; with our Covetousness, and help us to dig in the mines; with our Anger, and help it to manage a sword. So by the labour of the brain and the trick of an unsanctified wit we may forgive all debts, and yet exact some; we may go to law for our coat, though we are bound to give him who took it away our cloak also: we can perform that command, Lend, looking for nothing again, and yet at pleasure, for a hundred pence, for a trespass, for a word, take our brother by the throat; we can love him, and destroy him; be very charitable, and yet wash our feet in his blood. I confess, these precepts of our Saviour do not consistere in puncto, are not to be read in that narrow compass they lie, but have their certain latitude: but this giveth us no authority to stretch the curtain till we tear it to pieces; and, because they will admit a mitigated sense, to smother them quite with those glosses which flesh and blood are ready to suggest; and, since they may be drawn to countenance us in our necessity, to draw them farther yet, to favour and uphold us in our lust and wantonness; since they may be made something more than they appear, to distinguish, and limit, to pair and file them till they be nothing. And therefore, that we may conclude this, it will concern every man first to take heed unto his ways, nec nimis credere affectui suo qui nunc est, not to be over-credulous and trust to that affection and temper of mind which he first putteth on when he impleadeth his brother. For it may be but Uncharitableness wrapped up in a warrantable thought, as a piece of carrion in a fair napkin: It may begin in a still voice, but this wind may rise. Though his first intent be to recover his own, his second may be to endamage his brother, and this may end at last in a cloud of blood, in a firm resolution to ruin him. Though he begin legally, he may be led by degrees to unwarranted and unlawful courses, which will make it at last a sin to recover his own. And again, to be very wary quo animo, quibus consiliis, with what mind, with what advice he bringeth his brother to the bar. Necessitas, humanae fragilitatis patrocinium; Necessity is a good plea: but where Necessity enforceth not, nay where it doth seem to enforce, I may say as S. Paul doth of Marriage, He that impleadeth his brother may do well; but he that impleadeth him not, doth better. And I cannot but commend to you that resolution of S. Hierom, Mihi etiam vera accusatio adversùs fratrem displicet. Nec reprehendo alios, sed dico quid ipse non facerem; It is irksome and troublesome to me to bring or hear any accusation, though never so true, against a brother. I pass no censure upon those who do, but I openly profess what myself would not do. Before I leave this point, let me tell you, that we must not think the worse of Mercy because it is tendered to us upon conditions, or that it is less free because it bringeth with it these engagements. Non est vim admovere, aliquid cum certâ conditione promittere, saith the Orator; To promise with condition, is not to offer violence, or to entangle him to whom the promise is made. Nihil mansuetius hâc conditione, saith the Father; There is nothing more mild and gentle than this Condition, where God putteth all the power into our own hands, maketh us our own judges, and giveth us a kind of commission either to condemn or pardon ourselves. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bringeth in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene: Remission begetteth Remission. Secundùm nostram sententiam judicabimur; The Judge shall pass no other sentence at the last day then that which we have subscribed to already with hands lifted up in this Prayer. And we may observe, that this Petition hath this one thing proper and peculiar to it, which none of the rest have, that it is put up upon condition: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, As we forgive, saith S. Matthew; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, For we forgive, saith S. Luke. S. Mathew's SICUT doth express a kind of likeness and proportion between that forgiveness which we desire of God and that which we grant to our brother. And S. Luke's SIQUIDEM is tendered for the cause, or in the manner of a cause, which emboldeneth us to put up this Petition: Not as the efficient and impulsive cause, which will necessarily produce its effects; but as that which by Logicians is called causa sine quâ non, as without which Pardon is impossible; or quae removet prohibens, which removeth all hindrances and obstacles, and maketh way for our desires, which otherwise we could not once dare to confess and tender. For should we sue for mercy with our hands full of blood? Can he that draggeth his brother to the prison dare to look back upon the mercy-seat? Can we fall down for pardon with a full resolution to revenge? Or can we hope to be heard in oratorio, in the chapel or oratory, when we have left our brother in carcere, in prison: or that our devotion will be louder than the noise of his chains? Take both expressions, and you have both a similitude and a cause declared, which though it be not causal to force, yet it carrieth with it a strong motive to persuade a grant. Our blessed Saviour implieth thus much in those words which immediately follow the AMEN and conclusion of this Prayer, Vers. 14, & 15. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Which is a plain commentary and exposition of this Condition, and a reason why it is annexed to the Petition. And here we cannot but make a stand, and conceive that some reason there was which moved our Saviour thus to reinforce the duty, which was fully comprehended in the Condition before. He was not content to join it to that Petition which containeth all the hope and expectation of a Christian, to make it a Condition without which there can be no remission of sins; but he often repeateth and taketh it up again and again; first here, (and that in appearance against all Grammar and method, there being placed between not only an entire Petition consisting of two parts, or (as some will have it) two several Petitions, but also the clause or conclusion of the whole Prayer) and again, Matth. 18. in the parable of the King calling his servants to account. And indeed though in strictness of Grammar and method that re-inforcement of this duty of Forgiveness, v. 14, 15. cannot be referred to any Petition but this, and is as a seal to the Condition to make it more authentic, yet Christ's method is de schola coeli, taken from no school but that of heaven; nec unam sequitur orbitam, nor is tied to one path alone; and it is drawn many times, not from the nature of the things themselves, but from the temper and disposition of men; now cometh fairly towards them, and by and by pauseth or steppeth aside, and then returneth, to make a deeper impression, that it may fasten the Divine precepts in our memory, and that we may digest them and turn them into Nourishment. And if you consider the multitude to which he spoke, he may seem to have used singular art: For the Orator observeth, that to the common and ignorant people sparsa compositis sunt numerosiora, those things which seem disorderly scattered are of more force than those which are bound within a certain method. As a sword maketh way into the body, so do good precepts into the mind, morâ magis quàm ictu more by pauses and intervals and often repetitions then by force and strength. Having now laid down before you, first, what these Debts are which we must forgive; secondly, the Manner how we must forgive them, or the Extent and Force of the Sicut, in what the parity or similitude consisteth, and how far our Forgiveness of our brother must answer the Remission of our sins; we will lead you on forward to what remaineth, the Dependence and Relation which is betwixt these two, God's Forgiveness and ours, and show you first, what power and influence God's Mercy should have on us, to work the like tenderness and softness in our hearts towards our brethren; and last of all, what force our Forgiveness hath to make God merciful to us, to draw his hand to seal to us the Remission of our sins. First, God's Mercy, though it be essential to him, yet is one of those virtues which are in a manner communicable, diffused and poured on us, to make us like him, and which by way of analogy and some degree of proportion must be found in the sons of men. Who is great besides our God? and who is Everlasting but the Lord? What hath our Mixture of his Uncompoundedness? or our Bounds and Limits of his Immensity? What hath our Span of his Eternity? Or what do these attributes work in the creature which carrieth any likeness or resemblance to them? But his Truth, his Justice, his Mercy, as they shine in God in perfection of beauty, so do they cast their beams upon men, and kindle in them that truth, that justice and mercy which we may consider as so many reflections from him. He that loveth, is born of God, saith S. John: He that is just, is like unto him: and he that is merciful, is his child. And therefore the Schools call them virtutes exemplares, no otherwise virtues in God but as they are exemplary; because those Divine virtues, which are essential to him, must be looked upon by us as patterns and copies. We must be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful. For he is thus pleased to set up himself as a copy of that Goodness which he will exact at our hands: so that those patterns of holiness which we are bound to follow, are to be taken not only from his bare commandment, but from the object of his will revealed; I mean those constant practices in which he manifesteth himself to his creature every day, which are so many express proofs and invincible arguments that his will is always holy and just in those perfections whereof our general duties are the imperfect representations. He that biddeth us forgive our enemies, hath mercy in store for them: He that commandeth us to bless our persecutors, doth tender his blessings to them that persecute him: He that biddeth us be loving to our neighbour, is the Father and God of love. And those virtues which he worketh in us, he maketh good upon us: He maketh us even see and feel and handle his mercy, that we may be active in those duties of love which we own unto our brethren. As he hath made himself a great example of mercy, so he hath made us capable of it; made us as wax, on which his image and superscription may be wrote, and which may receive those impressions which his gracious operation upon us doth naturally work. He hath given us Understandings, to behold and observe him in those ways in which he maketh himself in a manner visible to us: He hath given us a Will, which is the mistress of our actions, and must apply itself to the will of God revealed in his word, and not to those actions which are nothing else but real contradictions to his, and as so many spots and defacings of his image in us. Now the Philosopher will tell us, Simile generat sibi simile; Naturally every thing produceth that which is like unto it; as Fire turneth all matter that is combustible into itself, a man begetteth a man, a sheep a sheep, and a lion a lion: So the natural and proper effect of God's Mercy to us should be Mercy in us; and of itself it can produce nothing else. The goodness of God cannot make us evil, nor his Mercy harden our hearts; nor can any poison be drawn from the Fountain of life. When we walk in the midst of God's mercies, compassed about with rays, and yet breathe nothing but fire and ruin to our brethren; when we are compassed about on every side with mercy, and yet carry with us no smell or savour of that mercy; when God showeth himself a Father, and we are no more like him then a Tiger is to a Man; the defect is not in the Agent or Example, but in the Matter it worketh upon; not in God's Mercy, but our Will, which is various and mutable, and like the Chamaeleon taketh any colour which the next object presenteth, and is sooner drawn to fashion and apply itself to the world then to God, and so resisteth the force of his example, and by that means many times draweth gall and wormwood out of the very bowels of Mercy. For when we say that God's Forgiveness of our sins hath power to work in us the like compassion to others, we do not give it that causality which doth necessarily and irresistibly produce such an effect: For though it be powerful in itself, yet it doth not so work as the Sacraments by some are said to do, ex opere operato: His infinite Mercies may leave our hearts as stone. The promise of Remission of sins doth not as naturally beget love in us as Fire doth heat; but it is powerful tanquam ordinatum ad hoc, as the Schools speak, as ordained to this end: It hath the power of an object or exemplary cause. I confess, objects have a moving and attractive force, but no invincible operation. The heavens are a fair sight; but they do not make a blind man see. I may read of Julius Caesar, and not be valiant; of Solomon, and not be wise; of Aristides, and not be just. But yet they have the power of an object, which is, to present themselves to our very eye, to dart light even in our faces, to pierce the very inwards of our hearts, to besiege and beleaguer us, to beseech and persuade us: and prevail they will, if we stand not out wilfully, and fight against them. What power, what commanding eloquence is there in them? How are we able to stand out against those everlasting burn? Why should not God's mercy be more prevalent than any injury? Why should not his example have more force than a temptation? Why should not Reason be a better orator than Sense? Why should not Christ's Mercy bring forth my Love, and his Death my Mortification? For as S. Peter telleth us that the long-suffering of God is repentance, because indeed it should produce no other effect; so might I as properly say, God's readiness to forgive is our mercy and charity to our brother, because it is proffered for this end. Nor is it of less power and energy because through our default it worketh no such effect. If the earth be as brass, shall we say the due of heaven hath no virtue? If we put out our eyes, shall we say the Sun doth not shine? Because we make God's Mercy but as a shadow to cover us, shall we also count it no more than a Type, which signifieth much, but worketh nothing at all? That it may therefore have its proper effect in us, we must consider what it is that hindereth its operation, and what is required of us that it may work kindly in us, and so bring forth that effect which is natural; what is the reason why it doth not always prevail, and what we must perform on our parts that it may, And we may plainly see that we ourselves harden our faces and our hearts against it; that we are busy in the works of darkness, when God's Mercy shineth round about us; that we have decked ourselves for harlots, and woo and draw them to us, whilst God's Mercy standeth at the door, and knocketh, and can find no admittance; that we have firted our minds for those guests alone which will defile them; how one piece of silver can force our hand to our brother's throat, when all the commands of God cannot take us off; how the glory, the vanishing glory, of the world is the lamp we walk by, and not the everlasting word of God: how our hearts are stone; and can Mercy make an impression and set the image of God upon a stone? Besides, one great hindrance and impediment is begot within us and derived from ourselves. For at the very name of Mercy, as at the sound of music, we lie down, and rest in peace, and sleep, as if Mercy had no other work to do but to save us. And thus we make ourselves the worse for the mercies of God; shut up our bowels, because he openeth his; make no conscience of sin, because he is ready to forgive; will not be rich in good works, because he is bountiful of his merits; as if we only were the adequate object of mercy, even then when we return with the spoil, with our feet died in the blood of our brethren. It fareth with us as with the children of rich parents; we are prodigal upon presumption of supply, revel licentiously upon hope of sanctuary and patronage, and like Nero spend all upon the false hope of treasure. Non tam malè nobiscum ageretur, si non tam bene; It would not have been so ill with us, if it had not been so well. That which should make us happy, maketh us miserable. We read of a Gaoler, and Torment; but we soon forget that: and when we bear about with us malice enough to constitute a Devil, we rely still on a merciful Lord. Again, we are like to those Sophisters in Aristotle, who to that which was first proposed would soon yield assent. That God is merciful, and will forgive, is most plain, even written with the Sunbeams: but when we should apply our wills to this rule, and consider this position not only as a principle in Divinity, but also as a didactical example, we presently fall off, hunt out tricks and evasions, and are very wise to deceive ourselves. Whatsoever the premises are, though drawn out of the very bowels of Mercy, yet flesh and blood are very apt and ready to deny the conclusion. Christ loved us; Therefore we must love one another; Ephes. 5. it is S. Paul's Enthymeme or argument. And this Petition may be resolved into the very same, God forgiveth us; Therefore we must forgive one another. But such is our blindness and perverseness, that though we are willing to subscribe to the Antecedent, (for we would sin still, and be forgiven) yet we are ready in our practice to deny the Consequence. We have faith enough to see the riches of the Gospel, to 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 premises, 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 blood, 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 itself; to turn them into the very blood 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 form 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 blood 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 than death. This was the chain which bond 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 bloody cruelty had devoted their bodies to the fire. By frequent contemplation of God's love we draw our soul from out of those encumbrances which many times involve and fetter her, we recollect our mind into itself, 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 whilst 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 undo none but the covetous. Yea it seethe 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 show 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 thoroughfare 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 proffer, 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 blood 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 ourselves 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 I had pity on thee? This is the natural and most necessary inference that can be drawn from these premises. What a sick soul than is that which, when Mercy overshadoweth her, bringeth forth a monster breathing forth hail stones and coals of fire, even that cruelty which devoureth those she should foster? This is the most false illation can be made. For God freely proffereth remission of sins to work in us the like mind and affection; and pardoneth all by proclamation, that we may forgive one another. To conclude this; It is with this great example of God's Goodness to us as it is with his Word, and Spirit, and other benefits: They are powerful to work miracles, to heal the sick, to give eyes to the blind, to give life to the dead, to remove mountains, any difficulty whatsoever; but they do not necessarily produce these effects, because there still remaineth an indifferency in the will of man, and a possibility to resist. It is the office of the Spirit to seal us to the day of our redemption; and he is powerful to do it: but he doth not seal a stone, which will take no impression; or water, which will hold no figure. His Word is his hammer: but it doth not batter nor soften every heart. How often is his Word in their mouth, how often do they publish his mercies, his wonderful mercies, to the world, whose very mercy notwithstanding is cruelty? His Benefits are lively in themselves; but dead and buried in an ungrateful breast. Therefore to make his Mercy efficacious, to let it work what it is very apt to work, let us not only hear God when he speaketh to us by it, and go out to meet him when he cometh towards us by his exemplary goodness, put off our shoes from our feet at the appearance of this great light, to wit, all our turbulent motions, beat down all the contradictions of our mind, and take the veil from before our eyes, that we may discern his Mercy as it is, working remission of sins; but withal planting that love in our hearts which must grow up to shadow all the trespasses of our brethren. And this power and influence the Mercy of God hath to work in us the like softness and tenderness of heart to others, if we hinder it not, if Covetousness and the Love of the world and that False love of ourselves, and other vile affections, stand not up and oppose it. We must now in the next place weigh the Force and Power which our forgiveness of our brethren hath to move God to show mercy unto us. And indeed it may seem to have some causality in it. For, as I told you, the SICUT in S. Matthew is ETENIM in S. Luke: as we forgive, saith the one; for we forgive, saith the other. But indeed they are both one; and ETENIM is no more than SICUT. And it is observed that this conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, though it carry with it the appearance of a Causal, yet both in the New Testament and in humane Authors serves sometimes for nothing else but to make up the connexion. For take Compassion and all the virtues which are commended to our practice, take that Charity which is the fulfilling of the Law; yet all will not make up a Cause, either efficient or formal, Rom. 3.24. of Remission of sins, which is the free gift of God. But because our Saviour hath told us that if we forgive men their trespasses, our heavenly Father will forgive us, we may say it is a Cause, a cause so far as without it there is no remission of sins. For though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, though I give my bread to the poor, and my body to be burnt, yet if I have not charity, if I do not forgive my enemies, there is no hope of remission. Or it is, as I told you, causa removens prohibens; a cause in this respect that it removeth that hindrance, that obstacle, that mountain which standeth between us and the Mercy-seat. For God's Goodness is larger than his Beneficence. He doth not do what good he can, he doth not do what good he would; because we are uncapable. He doth not shine in full beauty upon us, because we are nothing but deformity. We will not suffer him to be good, we will not suffer him to be merciful, we will not suffer him to wipe out our sins by forgiveness, we set up our rampiers and bulworks against him, and our Malice is strong against his Mercy. But so far it is a cause, and may be said to produce it, as the effect is commonly attributed to such causes which, though they have not any positive causality, yet without them the effect cannot be accomplished. Thus Blessedness is placed as a title and inscription upon every virtue, Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are the merciful. Every virtue maketh us blessed; but not every virtue without all: So naked and destitute is every virtue if it be not accompanied with all: nor is any virtue truly a virtue if it do not savour and relish of the rest. For it is universal obedience that God requireth at our hands. And though forgiveness of sins go as it were hand in hand with every virtue, yet it is so in every virtue that we cannot find it but in all. We are baptised for remission of sins; We believe to remission of sins; We forgive, that our sins may be forgiven: Yet none of these are available alone; not Baptism without Faith, nor Faith without Love. The profession of Christianity taketh in all that is praiseworthy, all virtues whatsoever. As the Orator telleth us that to his art of Oratory not only Wit and Pronunciation and Command of language, but also the Knowledge of all the arts are necessary; quae etiam aliud agentes ornat, & ubi minimè credas excellit; which adorneth our speech when we do not intent it, and is a grace which showeth itself in every limb and part of it, and is very eminent where we do not see it: So though the habits of Virtues be as distinct as their names, yet they all meet in that general Obedience and Sanctity of life which denominateth a Christian. And there is not any virtue but hath some appearance and is in part visible in every one. My Christian Fortitude showeth itself in my Temperance, my Temperance in my Bounty, my Faith in my Charity, and my Charity in my Hope. And as in an army of men, though the Captain and Leader be commonly entitled to the victory, yet was it wrought out by the several and particular hands of every common soldier, and by the united force of the whole battalion, so that we truly say, All did overcome, and, Every one did overcome: So we may attribute Remission of sins to every virtue, which we can never obtain but by the embracement and practice of them all. Our Saviour's words then, If ye forgive, ye shall be forgiven, must be interpreted by other places. For the whole Scripture is as it were but one copulative proposition, saith the devout Schoolman, knitting and uniting all parts together, and confirming and expounding one by another: And therefore we must not take every proposition as it lieth, and in that sense it first representeth, but compare one part with another. He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved, saith our Saviour: Hence, saith S. Augustine, some were ready to collect that Faith in Baptism was abundantly sufficient to remission of sins, although it were naked and alone, and destitute of all other virtues. Others upon this, Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven, inferred, that to forgive others was enough. Others upon that of our Saviour, Luke 11.41. Give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all things are clean unto you, concluded, that to open our hands was to wash them, that alms were enough. But this is to be v●ise against the Scriptures, which is the greatest folly in the world; This is to be too familiar and bold with the Scripture, whose language we know not; This is to walk in darkness with a light in our hands, and make that a stone of offence which should be our foundation to build on. For this manner of expression is common in Scripture, simply to attribute the effect to that thing which cannot produce it alone, but is very prevalent to help it forward. So, If ye shall forgive, your Father will forgive you, doth not show what is sufficient, but what is necessarily required to the expiation of sin. And when Christ telleth the Pharisees that if they give alms, all shall be clean unto them, we cannot conceive that Alms is a sufficient cause in itself to make them clean who give them, since it is very possible that a man may give alms, even all he hath, (which peradventure Christ meaneth by Alms in that place) and yet notwithstanding be dead in those trespasses and sins which make him unclean, and consequently make all things unclean unto him, Tit. 1.15. Dan. 4.27. as the Apostle speaketh. For as our Saviour bespeaketh the Pharisees, so doth Daniel the great King Nabuchadnezzar, that he should redimere peccata eleemosynis, or, as it is rendered out of the Fountain, abrumpere & abscindere; redeem, that is, break and cut off his sins by showing mercy to the poor: Not that these acts of mercy taken by themselves can break off sins; although they have some force and power to forward the work: But our Saviour speaketh to the hypocritical Pharisees, who have this mark set upon them in Scripture, to be Covetous and Cruel; and the Prophet to an oppressing Tyrant. And what could Christ more properly oppose to their outward washings then Alms? or the Prophet to his cruelty, than Mercy? Give alms, was a precept shot home to the mark, and rightly directed to them both, to strike the Corban out of the Pharisees mouth, and as fitly to the Assyrian Tyrant, who did eat up God's people as he did eat bread. For a general receipt will never work a particular cure. Non curamu● hominem, sed Socratem, saith the Philosopher: All cures are done upon particulars; and the Physician tempereth his potion to the constitution of his patient. If we will do a cure upon the Pharisee, we must bespeak him to break off his sins by alms; If we will purge his soul, we must teach him to empty his purse; because his disease is Covetousness. If we will reclaim the wanton, we must forbid him to look upon a woman. If we will quiet the revenger, we must tell him that Forgiveness is the price with which he may purchase heaven. And we attribute to every one the act of all, because it standeth in opposition and fighteth against that sin which hath the largest power and kingdom in him. What profit then hath Mercy and Compassion? and what doth it avail? I may answer with the Apostle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Much every manner of way. For it is that virtue in respect of which we come nearest to God, and most resemble him who is a God that blotteth out transgressions; and therefore it worketh a kind of complacency in him. When we are angry and discontented, when our countenance falleth, and we push as it were with the horn, I know not what we are: We are not Men; we are driven on as it were by a Fury, and are Furies ourselves, and blast every one that cometh near us: We are the children of that father who was a murderer from the beginning: We have eyes, and see not; ears, and hear not; understandings, and will not understand; but Malice is as our form or soul, and actuateth us; biddeth us go, and we go; do this, and we do it. Or rather, it is that dumb spirit that teareth us, and maketh us wallow & foam and gnash with the teeth. The mildest censure can be passed upon us, is, that we are like to the beasts that perish. But when we condescend to our brother's infirmity, and lift him up; when our Mercy is always awake, and cannot be so surprised with injury as to keep it back; when we are more troubled at the sin our brother committeth then at the wrong he doth, and so at once forgive and pray for him; we are as God unto him. For Majesty showeth itself more gloriously in love then in power; yea, it is most powerful in love. There peradventure it layeth an enemy at our feet, here it maketh an enemy a friend; There it destroyeth a body, here it conquereth a soul; There it beateth down a man; here a strong imagination; There it is managed by a mad passion, here it followeth the wisdom of God; There it beateth back a few injuries, here it covereth a multitude of sins; That maketh men as beasts, this maketh them Gods one to another. Last of all, this Christianlike disposition, by which we forgive one another, is seldom, I may say never, alone. For we must pass through more tentations than Mithras Priests did torments, before we can attain to this heavenly perfection. We pass through the glory of the world, and slight it; the persuasions of the flesh, and deny them; the grudge of the mind, and silence them: we must learn to be poor, to be contemned, to be diminshed: a lesson which we can never take out till the flesh be subdued to the spirit, till the world be conquered, and all those our spiritual enemies trodden under foot. For can he that thinketh he hath never enough, suffer himself to be spoiled? can he that doteth on honour, put up a disgrace? can he who is immersed in pleasure, bear with any thing that soureth it? Will covetousness lose a penny? can Ambition spare a leg? can Pride receive a check? can Luxury endure a restraint? Castigat qui dissentit: Not only he that standeth in my way to honour, or wealth, or that crosseth me in my pleasure, but also he that casteth not his lot in with me, troubleth me. He is an enemy who telleth me the truth; he is an enemy who is not a parasite. Can we look for forgiveness out of that breast which is as a troubled sea, ever casting out mire and dirt? Or have we read of, or have we seen the man that will not be pious, yet can forgive? that can be so cruel to himself, and yet mild and merciful to his brother? No: it requireth a mind well exercised and brought under, crucified to the world, weaned from vanity, the love of which maketh us impatient of others, and impatient of ourselves, yea, such haggards as to check at every feather. We must know our brother in another shape, in another relation, before we shall forgive him: We must know him in Christ the fountain of love, who brought forgiveness into the world when he brought immortality to light; And then, if we know him in him, we shall know nothing in him which may not command our pardon. We shall know him in him who purchased our pardon with his blood; we shall forgive him as we are forgiven; we shall cover our brother's trespasses for his sake who hath prepared a robe of righteousness to cover ours, and for his sake forgive ours brother's debts who paid down our debts to the utmost mite. Then shall we feel the power of this virtue, and how prevalent it is with God. Then, as we have manifested ourselves to be his children by the performance of the Condition, so will he manifest himself to be our Father, in removing our transgressions from us as far as the East is from the West. Now for conclusion, I cannot better bespeak you then in the words of S Paul, I pray you, brethren, in Christ's stead, be reconciled unto God. And that is done by acknowledgement of the forfeiture, by confessing your debts. There is no hindrance of it but in yourselves; for, if you will, he is presently reconciled. He calleth for it, he desireth it, he waiteth for it: and if you arise and go towards him, he runneth to meet you; falleth on your neck, and kisseth you. It is but to leave off fight against him, and he is reconciled. It is but to run no further in arrears, and the writing is canceled. Wash every character, the least sin, with your tears, and Christ's blood is shed already, and floweth as fresh as from the cross to blot them out. Tu agnosce, & Deus ignoscet: Do thou acknowledge the debt, and God hath forgiven it. Perform the condition, and the promise will apply itself; nay, it is applied already, At what time soever a sinner repenteth. And again I pray you, be reconciled unto your brethren. You have for that the strongest and most winning motive, the Mercy of God, the best Topick we can find; more persuasive in itself then all the eloquence of the learned, than the tongues of men and of Angels; of power to ravish a soul, and transport it beyond itself, and leave it deaf and dead to the flattery of the flesh and to the kill music of the world. For what can move me to pardon, if Pardon cannot move me? What can make me, if Mercy cannot make me, merciful? And shall my Wealth or Reputation kindle that fire within me which the bowels of God and the blood of Christ cannot quench? Bring not then hither any lurking unrepented sin; but bury it in the cliffs of a broken heart and in the wounds of thy Saviour. Bring not a grudging mind, nor the least surmise against thy brother, but smother it, and bury it in the land of oblivion. Leave not thy sin to day, to resume and embrace it to morrow; nor let thy wrath so set as to rise with more horror hereafter: But destroy the whole body of sin, and purge out all the leaven of maliciousness. Be reconciled unto God, and be reconciled to your brethren; and then come and draw near to this feast of Love: Take, eat; This is his body which was broken for you: and, Take, drink; This is the New Testament in his blood which was shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. These are the pledges of his love; and withal pignora fidei, the pledges of our faith, to actuate and quicken it, to make it more apprehensive, more operative, more lively. Here then confirm your faith, exalt your hope, enlarge your charity, and so declare the Lord's death till he come. And when he that came to visit us in great Humility, and visiteth us again and again in his Sacrament and by the sweet operation of his blessed Spirit sealeth our pardon, and sealeth us up to the day of our redemption, shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, we shall be ready to meet him, as fearing no bill, no indictment against us; and we shall be ever with him, who hath paid our ransom; and he shall call us his friends, his children, his brethren; and he shall make us partakers of that glory which he hath prepared for us from the beginning of the world. To which he bring us who died for us, Jesus Christ the righteous. The Two and Twentieth SERMON. PART I. PSAL. CXXII. 1. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us (or, We will) go into the house of the Lord. WHether this Psalm of degrees, or excellent Song, as some term it, were a Psalm of David, or to David, or delivered to the Masters of Music by the hands of David; Whether it was penned by him when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem, and there seated as in its certain place, which before had been carried up and down, now to this place, anon to another, as several occasions and the exigence of the times required; and so was fitted for the people publicly to sing when they should go up to their solemn Feasts; Or whether it was penned by a prophetic spirit for those Jews who being returned out of Babylon should repair Jerusalem, and build the second Temple; Whether this Psalm were fitted for the Tabernacle, or for the first Temple, or for the second, it is not much material to inquire, Nor will it advantage to make diligent search where there is not so much light as that of conjecture to direct us. The Psalm might well serve for all, for the Tabernacle, for the first Temple, for the second: And almost all agree that it was composed by David: And he beginneth it as a Song should begin; with LAETATUS SUM, I was glad, or I rejoiced; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so the Septuagint; Jucundatus sum, so St. Augustine: I was merry at heart, as those who meet at a costly banquet. I may entitle this Psalm David's Delight, or his Triumph, or his Jubilee. Now when the heart is glad, when the countenance shineth, when the tongue is loud, we may well think there is something more than ordinary presented to the sight. For Joy, when it is visible in the face, when it is set to Music, is a manifest indication and a loud proclamation, that there is somewhat without that hath either flattered our sense or complied with our reason. The effect doth in some sort demonstrate the cause: And the cause of Joy is the union and presence of some good. And as the cause is, such is the effect; as the object is, such is the joy. If our joy spring from the earth, it is of the same nature, earthy, muddy, gross, unclean: Eccl The Wiseman calleth it madness. But if it be from heaven, and those things which are above, it is bright, serene and clear. What is it then that maketh David so glad that he thus committeth his joy to a Song, and publisheth it to the world? The next words tell us: Something that he heard; the voice of a company earnest in expectation, and loud in expression, hasting and even flying to the service of God, and to the place where his honour dwelleth: They said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord. Now, if ye look upon the object so divine, and consider David, a man after God's own heart, ye cannot wonder to find him awakening his harp and viol, and tuning his instrument of ten strings, to hear him chanting his Laetatus sum, and to see him even transported and ravished with joy. So now you have the parts of the Text: 1. David's Delight; 2. the Object, or Reason of it. In the Object there are circumstances enough to raise his joy to the highest note. First, a Company, either a Tribe, or many of, or all, the people; They said unto me. So in another place he speaketh of walking to the house of God in company. Psal. 55.14. A glorious sight, a representation of heaven itself, of all the Angels crying aloud, the Seraphim to the Cherubin, and the Cherubin echoing back again to the Seraphim, Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth. Secondly, their Resolution to serve the Lord; dixerunt, they said it: And to say in Scripture is to Resolve. We will go, is either a Lie, or Resolution. Thirdly, their Agreement and joint Consent; We: This is as a Circle, and taketh in all within its compass. If there be any dissenting, unwilling person, he is not within this Circumference, he is none of the We. A Turk, a Jew, and a Christian cannot say, We will serve the Lord: and the Schismatic or Separatist shutteth himself out of the house ●f the Lord. We is a bond of peace, keepeth us at unity, and maketh many as one. Fourthly, their Cheerfulness and Alacrity. They speak like men going out of a dungeon into the light, as those who had been long absent from what they loved, and were now approaching unto it, and in fair hope to enjoy what they most earnestly desired: We will go; We will make haste, and delay no longer. Ipsa festinatio tarda est; Speed itself is but slow-paced. We cannot be there soon enough. Fifthly and lastly, the Place where they will serve God; not one of their own choosing; not the Groves, or Hills, or High-places; no Oratory which malice, or pride, or faction had erected; but a place appointed and set apart by God himself: Servient Domino in domo sua, They will serve the Lord in his own house. They said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord. Thus much the Object affordeth us, enough to fill such an heart as David's with joy. Now let us look upon the Psalmist in his garment of joy: And we may observe, First, the nature of his Joy: It was as refined as spiritual, as heavenly as its object. What they said was holy language; and his Joy was true and solid, the breathing and work of the Spirit of truth. Secondly, the Publication of it. He could not contain himself, Psal. 39.3. but, his heart being hot within him, he spoke with his tongue; and, not content with that, he conveyed his speech into a song: He said it, he sung it, he committed it to song, that the people being met together at Jerusalem might sing it in the house Lord. I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord. These are the Parts: and of these we shall speak in order. We begin with the Object: for in nature that is first. We cannot tell what a man's Joy is till we see what raised it. The Object therefore of David's joy must be first handled. Therein the first circumstance is, That there were many, a Company, that resolved to go into the house of the Lord. v. 4. The tribes go up, saith the Psalmist, even the tribes of the Lord, unto the Testimony of Israel; that is, the people of Israel go up according to the covenant made with Israel. Psal. ●8. 11. And The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it. He speaketh as if there were some virtue in Number. And so his son Solomon, Two (and if two, Eccles. 4.9. then certainly many) are better than one. Yet such an imputation lieth upon the Many, that peradventure I might well have omitted this circumstance. Non tam bene cum rebus humanis agitur ut plures sint meliores; The world was never yet so happy, that the most should be best. 1 Cor. 1.26. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, saith St. Paul. And, Many are called, saith Christ, but few are chosen. Matth. 20.16. It was the Many that resisted the holy Ghost, that stoned the Prophets, that persecuted the Apostles: It is the Many that now divide the Church, that disturb and shake the commonwealth, that work that desolation on the earth. What security, nay what religion, can there be, when our estates and our lives, when Truth itself must be held by Votes, must rise or fall by most voices? Christus violentiâ suffragiorum in crucem datus, saith Tertullian. This is it which layeth the cross upon us, which nailed the Son of God himself to the Cross. I did not well to mention it. For indeed it is the error not of the Church of Rome alone, but of all others also, to judge of the Church by the multitude of Professors, as the Turk doth of an army by its number, nec aestimare, sed numerare, not to weigh and consider what the professors are but to number them: And they have made Multitude a note of the true Church: As if to show you the Sunrising, I should point to the West; or, where there are but a few, cry out, Behold, a troup cometh, Matth 7 14. Luk. 13.23.24 Our Saviour saith there are few that shall be saved. But say they, if ye will know the true Church indeed, behold the multitudes and nations, behold the many that join with her, that fall down and worship her. Every faction striveth to improve itself: Every Heretic would gain what proselytes he can: Every Church would stretch forth the curtains of her habitation: All would confirm themselves in their error by the multitude of those who are taken in it. Cùm error singulorum fecerit publicum, errorem singulorum facit publicus. First the error of some few spreadeth itself, and is made public; and then being made public and commended by the Many, it soon taketh in and involveth the rest. That there are many, then, is but a weak motive to work a good opinion in us of those we behold, or to fulfil our joy. I need not stand to confute this Tenent any further: Your very eye will discover the falsehood of it. For take away the Wolves in Sheep's clothing; take away Heretics and Schismatics; take away those sons of Belial, open profaners; take away the proud, the disobedient, the traitor, the lukewarm professor, the formalist; take away those who profess Religion only for companies sake, and so because there are many so; and then tell me what is become of the Many, or how many there be, how many to raise a Prophet's joy. Certainly, there is not, there cannot be, any force or efficacy in number: nor hath it any influence at all to make evil good, or an hypocrite a saint. Devotion is the same in millions and in one single man. Etiam tres Ecclesiam faciunt, saith Tertullian, Even three make up a Church. Yea, some have thought that at the passion of Christ the Church was in the Virgin Mary alone. Thus it is in reality, and in respect of the truth: But in respect of us (whose Charity must give sentence, and not our Faith; who have indeed a Tribunal within in us, but from thence can judge none but ourselves) many professors, a multitude of those who come to serve God, is a glorious sight, a representation of heaven itself. The tribes come up, v. 4. even the tribes of Lord, saith David. To him all God's people were holy and every one that came up was a true professor. Faith maketh up a Church as Gideon did his army, taketh not up all she meeteth, Judge 7. but out of many thousands selecteth a band of three hundred and no more: But Charity seethe not any which may not fight and conquer. To Faith Christ's flock is a little flock: Luke 12.32. but Charity seethe none that call upon the name of God which may not be gathered into his fold. If they be the tribes of the Lord, if they come up, David will rejoice: and the increase of the number will increase his joy: The more come up, the gladder will he be. Prov. 14.28. In the multitude of people is the honour of a King: And in the multitude of professors is his joy. And this God himself requireth; not only modestum fidei, our modest and secret tetirements, our private devotions in our chamber. Yet even there the light of his countenance shineth upon us. He whose providence reacheth over all, findeth us out even in the wilderness, in the closest grot or cave. He that heareth all men, heareth every man. He went out with Isaac into a Gen. 24.63. the field, when he prayed; he heard Job from the dunghill; he was with David when he b Psal. 6.6. washed his bed with his tears, with Jonah in c jon. 2.1. the whales belly, with Daniel when d Dan. 6.10. he kneeled upon his knees in his chamber three times a day: And though thou prayest in secret d Dan. 6.10. he that seethe in secret will reward thee openly. e Matth. 6.6. f Deut. 6.4. 1 Pet. 5.7. The Lord our God is one; and he careth for every one. And now from this the argument will hold well, That if God careth for every one, he careth for many, and is better pleased to see many professors than one, and to hear many call upon him then one alone; That he is best pleased when many sons are brought unto glory. Heb. 2.10. One is no number, yet One may make a Church. If in that great apostasy and decay of religion, 1 Kings 9.10 1 Kings 19 there had been none but Elijah jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, Elijah had been the Church. Yet the single service of one is not so powerful and prevailing with God as the joint service of many. He is willing to seal as many thousands as will come in: Rev. 7. And the more come in, the more willing he is to seal them. He heareth every man: but where men meet together, Matth. 18.20. he is in the midst of them. Quasi manu factâ, like an army, they besiege him, and in a most accepted way invade the Majesty of heaven. Such violence is very welcome to God; to this he boweth his ears, and is most willing to yield. For yield he must to his own glory: and his glory shineth brighter in many then in one. If his image in one single person delight him, how greatly will it delight him to see it in many! If he favourably look on one poor beadsman, on one penitent, upon his knees, how brightly will he cause his face to shine upon a thousand! Triumphus Dei, passio martyris; When one Martyr suffereth, God triumpheth. And if he hath a triumph in one Martyr, what hath he in an army? This made the holy Fathers oft times break out into expressions of joy and congratulation, when they saw the people flocking and thronging into the Church. S. chrysostom falleth into a large commendation of Fear, & maketh a kind of panegyrics on Persecution itself, because it had made the people leave the theaters, and driven them in shoals to God's house. S. Hierome telleth us that in the primitive times the Hallelujah of the Congregations was like the noise of many waters, and their Amen like a clap of Thunder. To conclude this; Though there be no virtue in number; though the proverb, Plures mali, be very true, that the most are the worst; though Heraclitus said well, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that One may be better than thirty thousand, and an innumerable company be of no account; though, as chrysostom saith, one Elijah, or one David, put in the scales against a world of ungodly men, would far outweigh them all; yet, as the Apostle exhorteth, let not us forsake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the assembling of ourselves together, Hebr. 10.25. but let us make up a company, make the Many as many as we can. Evil beginneth haply in one, and then spreadeth in many: And as many may become evil, so many may be made good. We see here many, the tribes, the people, resolve on that which was very good, and so made David glad. They said, We will go into the house of the Lord. And so we are fallen upon 2. Their Resolution; DIXERUNT, They said. To Say in Scripture is to Resolve. I said, I will take heed to my ways, that is, Psal. 39.1. I resolved to set a watch upon myself. For there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a word that floateth on the tongue, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a word conceived and shaped in the inward man, a word spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from the very heart, verbum operis, a word which is a work, which will break forth into action, a word like unto that of God, who spoke, and it was done; Psal. 33.9. Psal. 62.11. who speaketh, and repenteth not. God hath spoken once, that is, immobiliter, saith a Father: His word is immutable. IBIMUS, We will go. Here is their Resolution, a strong will begotten of Love, vehemens & bene ordinata voluntas, a vehement and well-ordered will. Lord, Psal. 26.8. I have loved the habitation of thy house, saith the Psalmist. This is invictissimè & constantissimè velle, as S. Augustine speaketh, a preserving and unconquered will, a resolution taken up once for all; not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoics speak, an assent that it is fit so to do, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an active motion, by which the mind is carried along and in a manner forced to that it desireth; a full persuasion, as that of Abraham, Rom. 4. as that of S Paul, Acts 21. who, Rom. 4.21. Acts 21. 11-14. though he was so sure to be bound and put in fetters by the Jews at Jerusalem, yet he would go up thither, and by no arguments, nor entreaties, nor tears be persuaded to the contrary; as that of Martin Luther, who would enter the city Worms, though every tile on every house were a devil; as that of the blessed Martyrs, whom neither threats nor flatteries could at all work upon, but their firm and settled purpose of mind added strength to the weaker part, animated and quickened and as it were spiritualised their bodies, and made them subservient and ministerial to bring their resolution into act: Hence in a manner they suffered as if they suffered not: They seemed to be ignorant of their stripes, senseless of their wounds, unconcerned in their torments: Death appeared to them in as fair a shape as Life itself; yea, was desired before it. This is it we call Resolution; to will, and do; or, to will, which is to do. For quicquid imperavit sibi animus, obtinuit; Whatsoever the mind commandeth itself, whatsoever it resolveth on; is as good as done already. For when we have looked upon the object, and approved it, when we have beheld its glory, and confirmed ourselves in the liking of it, when we have cast by all objections which flesh and blood may bring in, of danger, or difficulty, when we have fastened the thing to our soul, and made it as it were a part of it, when it is become, as Christ saith, our meat, John 4.34. than there is such an impression of it made i●●he heart, such a character, as is indelible, and we are as violently carried towards it as an hungry man is to his food and refreshment; neither difficulty, nor danger, neither principalities, nor powers, neither life, nor death can so stand between as to keep us from it. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed, saith David; Psal. 57.7. and then he cannot but sing and give praise. The heart being fixed to the object, carrieth it about with it, is joined to it even when it is out of sight, when at the greatest distance. Finis operi adulatur: The end we propose, and the glory thereof, doth give light and lustre to our endeavours, yea and cast a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and loveliness even on that which would deter us from it, and leaveth not in us the consideration or memory of any thing besides itself. This is Resolution: This maketh an IBIMUS, We will go, significant: without this we cannot clearly pronounce IBIMUS, we cannot truly say, We will go into the house of the Lord. Such a resolution David here observed, at least supposed, in the people of Israel. For whether the Ark were to be settled, or the Temple to be edified, or re-edified, any of these might well stir up a desire in them and a resolution to see it done. For the Ark was a Sam. 4.21, 22. Psal. 78.61. the glory of Israel: and, b Jer. 7.4. The Temple of the Lord, was a frequent and solemn word in their mouths; they c Psal. 44.8. made it their boast all the day long: their long absence therefore could not but whet their desire, raise their expectation, fix and settle their will, and make them impatient of delay: Oh when shall we appear in the presence of God When shall we go into the house of the Lord! Thence we heard the oracles of God; There is the mercy-seat; There we offered sacrifices and burnt-offerings; There we called upon God's name; There are set thrones of judgement, the thrones of the house of David; There the glory of the Lord appeared, and made it as heaven itself. We will go. This was their Resolution. We now pass to behold. 3. Their Agreement and joint Consent; Which is visible in the pronoun WE, We will go. Much hath been said of Pronouns, of the power and virtue of them; of Meum, and Tuum; what swords they have whet, what blood they have spilt, what fires they have kindled, what tumults they have raised in the world. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; saith Nazianzene; How long shall we hear in the Church these quarrelsome words, Mine, and Thine; My understanding, and Thy understanding; My wit, and Thy wit; My preacher, and Thy preacher; My Church, and Thy Church? It is not Mine, or Thine, but Ours. WE is a bond of peace and love, that toeth us all together, and maketh us all one. We are all Israelites, we are one people, we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fellow-citizens, and members of the same body; We have one Law, one Temple, one Religion, one Faith, one God, one Heaven; & cur non omnes unus dicantur? saith Origen; and why may not all then be one? Yes, we are all one: And there is as great unity between us, if we be of the same body, saith Cyprian, as there is between the beams and the Sun, between rivers and their fountain, between branches and their root. WE taketh in a whole nation, a whole people, the whole world, and maketh them one. DECERNIMUS, We decree, We ordain, is taken for a word of state and majesty; but it is indeed a word of great moderation and humility; an open profession, that though Prince's command, yet they do it not alone, but by the advice and counsel of others: For in making a Law the King and his Counsel are but one. So WE maketh Manasseh and Ephraim, all Israel, all the Tribes, one. WE maketh a Commonwealth; and WE maketh a Church. Though there be Lords and peasants, Pastors and people, Acts 1.15. though the number of the names together be an hundred and twenty, yea, many millions, yet WE by interpretation is but one. 1 Cor. 12.8. etc. To one is given the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge; to another, faith; to another, the gifts of healing; to another, the working of miracles, etc. But it is by one and the same Spirit. And as there is but one Spirit, so there is but one Christ; and in him we, that are many; are but one. It is a good observation of S. Basil, That the Love of God is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, exclusive of our Love to others, but calleth it in, that it may not be I and Thou, but WE, and one. I say, it calleth it in, to fill up the measure thereof, but so that it hath dependency thereon. The Love of God knitteth all Loves to itself, and itself to all. We may call it, with the Philosopher, conglobatum amorem, so many loves heaped together, 1 Joh. 4 21. but beginning from one, even the Love of God: For this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also. Tota vita sanctorum, negotiatio, saith St. Augustine; The whole life of the Saints is a kind of traffic and Merchandise. We all venture together: Every man ventureth for himself and for his brethren, singuli pro omnibus, & omnes pro singulis, every man for all, and all for every man. We all go together: For Religion maketh all one: and the most excellent parts of it are not mine, nor thine, but ours, our common Faith, our Self-denial, our Fear, our Joy, our Riches, our Peace. Whatsoever conquereth, winneth me the garland; whosoever prayeth, is my advocate. He prayeth, and I pray; he against my ambition, and I against his distrust; he against my presumption, and I against his diffidence. We go up to the house of the Lord together, and we hope to go to heaven together. Such is the virtue of this Communion, that though I live in a society where more scatter then gather more are bankrupt then thrive, yet by my charity and compassion I may gain by their loss, and have interest in the good of every man, and by my prayers and ready assistance improve my spiritual estate by every man's loss. They that are ignorant of this cannot pray, nor go to Church together. For he loveth not any, no, not himself, who loveth not all. We say, Love beginneth at home; but it spreadeth its garment over all; otherwise it is not begun. My heart must be hortus deliciarum, a garden of delights, a paradise wherein are set and deeply rooted these choice plants, the Love of God, the Love of myself, and the Love of my brethren. He that rooteth up one, destroyeth all: He that taketh my brother from me, divideth me from myself: And when I take my love but from one, my heart is no longer a paradise, but a wilderness. Deo non singularitas accepta est, sed unitas, saith the Father: God liketh not singularity, where every one is for himself; but unity, where all are one. We all go together: Nor do I lose by keeping myself within this circle or compass. For my scattering is my possession, my losing is my gain, my bounty is my thrift. He that giveth not his love, hath it not: but when he giveth, he hath in more abundance. And is it not now pity that we should be more than one? Is it not a shame that we should be divided, and so go up together, and not go up together? be a press, a throng, a confused multitude, and not a body? or fly asunder, and be many Wees, We of Paul, 1 Cor. 1.12. We of Apollo's, We of Cephas, We of this congregation, and We of that? Ye will soon say so when ye see what it is that keepeth this WE, this body, compact within itself, and what it is that divideth and scattereth it. First, God is a God of peace, and hateth division. For although Christ said he came to send a sword upon earth, he declareth not his purpose, Matth. 10.30. but prophesieth the event, and showeth not what he would bring, but how men would abuse his doctrine, as if indeed he had come on purpose to set the world on fire. He could not come with a sword; for he breathed nothing but peace: All his precepts and counsels naturally tend to make all men of one mind and one heart. Charity will bear any burden; Liberality buyeth and purchaseth peace; Temperance keepeth Reason in her chair undisturbed, that she may command peace; Patience is a reconciler, melteth an enemy, and transformeth him into a friend; Humility stoopeth, and falleth down at every footstool, and boweth itself to woe and beg and beseech us to be at unity. A Christian will be any thing that is not evil, do any thing that is not sin, suffer any thing, to preserve unity. Further, those duties which we do as superiors, and which are wont to give distaste to others, as Reprehension, good Counsel, Discipline, even these have no other end but unity; these are enjoined us as preservatives, that we may be one. 1. Reprehension seemeth indeed to be a sword, and to cut deep: For we fly from the face of him that bringeth it: Every word is a wound, and the greatest Prophet our greatest enemy. But if Reproof be a sword, it is a Delphian sword, or like his that did both wound and cure at once: Its end is peace and unity. It is like to the shepherd's whistle, calling us back when we are gone astray and near to danger, John 10.16. and reducing us to that one fold and one shepherd. 2. Counsel also bringeth an imputation along with it, and a silent charge against him to whom it is given: but it is the charge, not of a severe judge, but of a kind friend, of a tender brother. It is presented as physic, not as poison. It is the diet of a sick mind, saith Clemens; and its end is to cure the diseased party, that neither his leprosy break out, nor himself be shut out of the congregation. It is to him, as Moses said to his father-in-law, Numb. 10.31. instead of eyes, to discover to him his danger, and to show him the way he should go. In a word, it is like careful dressing of a part which is ready to fester, that it may not be cut off, but be healed. 3. Discipline is indeed the Pastoral rod, and machaera spiritualis, a spiritual sword: And this cutteth off a part from the whole, and leaveth the body WE less in number than it was. Yet he whom it cutteth off may say WE still. For it doth not cut him off from the inward communion, but from the outward only; and that, to the end he may be brought in again. Vulnus, non hominem, secat; & secat ut sanet: The Apostle rendereth it, ● Cor. 5.5. The flesh is destroyed, that the spirit may be saved. This weapon non nocet nisi pertinacibus: The blow hurteth not if it meet not with a stiff neck. It severeth offenders, that it may gather them: it driveth them out, that it may draw them in; it anathematizeth them; that it may canonize them; it restraineth them, that it may free them; it putteth them to shame, that they may be ashamed to stay out. And the Church, when they return unto her, laeto sinu excipit, with joy receiveth them into her bosom: and then We are one again. So there is nothing in the Church to drive any out of it, nothing in the We to divide it. Whatsoever things are true, ●it. 4.8. whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, these make a company, a congregation, at unity within itself; these make many one, and carry them together to the house of God with joy and triumph. We must then seek for the cause of dis-union abroad: For Religion can no more make it, than the Sun, when it shineth, can produce darkness. Light and darkness may assoon meet in one as true Religion and Division. No; Inimicus homo, the envious man, the Devil, doth this. It is Covetousness, and Pride, and Malice, and Envy, the fruitless fruits of the evil Spirit, that have torn the seamless coat of Christ, yea, that have divided his body, that have set up the partition-wall, and made of one many. 1. Aemulatio, mater schismatum, saith Tertullian; Envy is the mother of division: An evil eye, which striketh and hurteth when others are in glory; which when it cannot behold its own good, delighteth in others evil. Arius will break forth, and trouble all, if Alexander be in the chair before him. 2. Covetousness, that would not only depopulate, but gather in the whole world unto itself. Etiam avaritia quaerit unitatem, saith S. Augustine: Even Covetousness is a great lover of unity, would swallow all into itself: And then where were the WE? It is the observation of Aristotle, that that friendship which is entertained for pleasure, is subject but to few quarrels; that which is for virtue and honesty, to none: but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all complaints and quarrels arise from that which is grounded upon profit. While they are assistant to one another's designs, so long they have but one purse, but one soul; but when they come short and fail, than they fly asunder, and keep distance, and look back upon one another as enemies. They are one to day, and to morrow they are divided. Quòd unum velimus, duo sumus: We therefore disagree, because we are so like; we are not one and the same, because we love one and the same thing. Quod vinculm amoris esse debebat, seditionis & odii causa, idem velle: That which should draw and knit us together, divideth and separateth us, namely, having the same desires, the same mind, the same will. Covetousness neither careth for union, nor community: And this is it which raiseth seditions in the Commonwealth, and maketh rents in the Church. This sent that swarm of Flies and Locusts, the Novations, the Puritans of those times, disciples of Novatus, who would be styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, pure. But saith Nazianzene, as pure as he was, he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, very covetous: A disease which may seem to have cleaved to his sect and followers throughout all generations to this day. Consider of it, judge, and give sentence. 3. Ambition looketh not back, leaveth all behind, will be on the top of the ladder. Pride lifteth up the nose, as the Psalmist speaketh, keepeth distance; and her word is, a Isa. 65.5. Go from me: for I am holier than thou. b Rev. 18.7. I sit as a queen. c Isa. 47.8. I am, and none else besides me. The proud man loveth to be alone, and would have no companion; but would be learned alone, beautiful alone, rich alone, strong alone, religious alone. d Luk. 18.11. I am not as other men; I am not as this Publican, was the Manifesto of a Pharisee; and he was proud. To conclude; These vices, which distract us in ourselves, can never make nor keep us at one with others. No; it is Humility, and Patience, and Contempt of the world, and the Love of Christ, which alone knit this love-knot, e E●h. 2.14, 15. break down the partition wall, and make them one, cause f Psal. 133.1. brethren to dwell together in unity, draw them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Septuagint have it, to the same thing, to have the same faith, the same purpose, the same mind, the same wealth, the same wit, the same understanding, or to be as assistant to one another as if they were the same; in a word, which make them one in Christ, as g Joh. 10.30. Christ and the Father are one; that they be of the same choir, and sing the same song with the people of Israel; IBIMUS, Let us (or, We will) go into the house of the Lord. I have been carried away, ye see, as with a stream: but the waters were pleasant. Bonum & jucundum, saith the Psalmist; Psal. 133.1. Good and pleasant it is for brethren to go together. There is but one stage more, and we shall be at the journey's end, even at the Temple-gates; but one circumstance to consider, and we shall lead you in; and that is 4. Their alacrity and cheerfulness in going. I told you, their long absence rendered the object more glorious. For what we love and want, we love the more and desire the more earnestly. When Hezekiah, having been sick unto death, had a longer lease of life granted him, Isa. 38.1.— 22. he asketh the question, What is the sign (not, that I shall live, but) that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? Love is on the wing, cheerful to meet its object; yea, it reacheth it at a distance, and is united to it while it is afar off: But when it draweth near, and a probable hope leadeth us towards it, then is Love's triumph and jubilee. Love, saith one, is a Sophister and a Philosopher, witty and subtle to compass its own ends; a Magician, able to conjure down all difficulties and oppositions that lie in its way. How doth the Covetous haste to be rich, the Ambitious fly to the pinnacle of State, the Glutton run to a banquet! When the fool had filled his barns, he sung a Requiem to his soul. When Haman was advanced by the King, Luk. 12.19. Esth. 5.10, 11. he sent and called for his friend, and Zerish his wife, and told them of his glory. We read of one who hired a horse from the cirk to ride to a feast. Love is always in haste, delighting itself in thoughts of hope, and carried on them as on the wings of the wind. Thus it is in sensual Love, and thus it is also in spiritual, When we have once tasted the good word of God, Hebr 6.5. and the powers of the world to come, when our hearts are possessed with love of God's glory, when our minds are truly principled, when, as the Apostle speaketh, Colos 2.6, 7. we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, and are rooted and built up in him, Lord! what an heaven is virtue! what glory is there in obedience! what beauty in holiness! what a holy place is a Church! how do we faint and pant, not only after religion and the service of God, but even after the means which may bring us unto it! with what joy do we embrace all opportunities! how do we bless and magnify every Ordinance! how doth every occasion appear unto us as the cloud that covered the Tabernacle! what a light is every glimmering! what a Sun is every star! how doth the least help raise us up, and the smallest advantage fill us with joy! Psal. 119.60. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. We no sooner say, We will go, but we are at our journey's end: We make haste, and delay not to keep God's commandments. Alacrity is a sign that devotion is sincere, and as it were natural. Nature runneth her course cheerfully, without interruption, and displayeth herself with a kind of triumph in every creature. The Moon knoweth her appointed seasons; Psal. 104.19. and the Sun, his going down: And the Spheres are constantly wheeled about with a perpetual motion: Iterum redeunt per quod ibant, They still hast from the same point, and back to it again. Naturae animalium à nullo doctae sunt, saith Hipprocrates; The natures and qualities of living creatures are not conveyed into them by long instruction; but what they do they do by nature, and that with ease and alacrity. Who taught Fire to burn, or Trees to grow? Who taught heavy bodies to descend, or light ones to mount aloft? We may say they were all taught by God, by that Power which Philosophers call Nature. And thus it is with those who being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, taught of God, are well-affected unto and love his service; they have as it were a second nature put into them. Rom. 12.2. 2 Cor. 5.17. The Apostle calleth it a renewing of the mind, and a new creature. They are carried with facility and cheerfulness to their end, and strive forward to the things which are above with as great propensity and readiness as light bodies move upwards. Psal. 42.1. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, saith the Psamist. As Nature is operative and forcible in the one so is the Spirit in the other: And as Nature doth her work with ease, so doth Grace. All difficulty and slowness is from the earth, earthy, from the flesh, from corruption. An unclean heart maketh virtue an heavy task; but a right spirit maketh it a delight. Nihil difficile amanti: There is nothing of difficulty in that which a man loveth. The fool goeth to his duty as to the correction of the stocks: Prov. 7.22. But he that is wise, and loveth goodness, is delighted with the very thought and contemplation thereof even when it is beset with terror and difficulty. A good man hath more reluctancy to evil than an evil man to good. He falleth not from his duty but by some strong temptation which surpriseth him unawares: but the other nè rectè quidem facere sine scelere potest, as Tully speaketh of Vatinius, committeth an offence even when he doth that which is right, and defileth a good deed in the doing. The one loveth the work it ; the other is dragged to it as an ox to the slaughter. Prov. 7.22. It was well said of Hilary, Minus est facere quam diligere; To do a virtuous act is not so considerable as to love it. For it may be done grudgingly and with an evil mind; which is indeed not to do it, but to turn bread into stones, honey into gall and bitterness, that which should feed and cherish into an offence. But when Love hath wrought in us an alacrity to our duty, than it is in a manner become natural to us. We call it an Habit: And it is a fair note of a virtuous habit, if the acts of virtue be performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with oblectation of mind. For if the soul be well disposed and qualified, if it be fitted and shaped to that which is good, joy maketh an effusion and flux there, and letteth out the heart, IBIMUS, We will go into the house of the Lord; We long to be there; We will hasten our pace; We will break through all difficulties in the way: No chains shall keep us back but those of Necessity: And though these lay hold on us, yet if our will be free and have determined its act, the duty is dispatched. If we look toward the Temple with a longing eye, we serve God there, though we enter not into it. For plus est diligere quàm facere: If I love and will, I have done my work before I begin. Again, cheerfulness is a sign of perfection in our devotion. Till a thing be perfect, it is in a manner straightened and contracted in itself, there is in it a kind of striving towards its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in a journey, though it is some pleasure to look back upon that part of the way which we have left behind us, yet it troubleth us to look forward upon that which is yet before us, and we are never merry indeed till we sit down at our journey's end. Semivirtues, dispositions, faint inclinations to duty, may warm, perhaps, but cannot inflame us; they make us neither active, nor cheerful, nor constant in our ways. Non facimus assiduè, non aequaliter, saith the Stoic; We do our duty neither constantly, nor equally; We do it to day, and leave it undone to morrow; We do this thing to day, and to morrow the quite contrary: One day, as St. Hierome saith, in the Church; another, in the theatre: one day, devout; another, profane: to day hang down the head like a bulrush, to morrow lift up our heads on high and exalt ourselves without measure. This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this irregularity and inconstancy of behaviour, as St. Basil calleth it, is visible in the lives of those men whom the love of God hath not built up and rooted in that which is good. For the seeming goodness of such is not natural, but forced and artificial; like the motions in water-works, which, while the water runneth in the trough, present us with some delightful sight, it may be some history of the Bible, as the Faith of Abraham, the Devotion of David, the Humility of the Publican; but when the water is once run out, all is done, and there is no more to be seen. Thus outward respects, love of a good name, profit and advantage, may carry us about a while, and present us to the view as men washed and cleansed, as Prophets and holy persons: but when those fail, we suddenly fall to the mire where we first wallowed, and are three times more polluted then before. For that form of godliness did not proceed from a right principle, from the love of that we did, but from the love of something else which is contrary to it; from the love of the Flesh, which Religion crucifieth; from the love of Profit, which Piety casteth behind her; from the love of Glory, which Devotion blusheth at; from the love of the World, which Faith treadeth under foot; from fear of the Law, when we should have no other law but Piety. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh, saith our Saviour: John 3.6. Nor can the flesh work in us a love to and cheerfulness in the things of the Spirit. The flesh perfecteth nothing, contributeth nothing to a good work: Nor doth any thing work kindly till it come to perfection. Perfection and Sincerity work our joy. In Scripture we find even inanimate and senseless things said to be glad, when they attain unto and abide in their natural perfection. a Ps 19.5. The Sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. b Ps. 65.12, ●3 The little hills rejoice on every side. The valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing. Prata rident. So Solomon, c Prov. 13.9. The light of the righteous rejoiceth, because it shineth clear and continually. The blessed Angels are in a state of perfection; and their motion from place to place, the Schools say, is instantaneous and in a moment, as sudden and quick as their will by which they move. Therefore they are drawn out with wings, Isa 6. and said to go forth like lightning: Which signifieth unto us their alacrity & speed in executing all God's commands. Their constant office is to be ready at his beck; and they ever have the heavenly characters of his will before their eyes, as a Father speaketh. And such also will our activity and cheerfulness be in devotion and the service of God, if we be thus animated and informed as it were with the love thereof, if our minds be shaped and configured to it, as S. Basil saith. If either the Word, or the Sword, either the power of the truth, or calamity and persecution, hath made it sweet unto us, and stirred up in us an earnest expectation and longing after it, then IBIMUS, We will go; go with cheerfulness to the house of mourning, and sit with those who are in the dust; go to that Lazar, and relieve him; to that prisoner, and visit him; to our friends, and counsel them; to our enemies, and reconcile them; with the Jews here, go to the Temple, to the Church, and pray for the Nation, Joel 2.17. and say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach; go, and fall down, and worship him; yea, go to the stake, and die for him. Psal. 39.3. When this fire burneth within us, we shall speak with the tongue, and that with a cheerful accent, IBIMUS, We will go into the house of the Lord. And so we are fallen upon our last circumstance. 5. The place of their devotion, the house of the Lord. When a company go to serve the Lord, they must needs go to some place: For how can they serve him together but in a place? Adam and his sons had a place, Gen. 4.3, 4. The Patriarches had a place, altars, and mountains, and groves. In the wilderness the people of God had a movable Tabernacle. And though Solomon said that a Acts 7.48. 1 Kings 8.27. God dwelleth not in temples made with hands, yet b Acts 7.47. Solomon, that said so, built him an house. And the work was commended by God himself, not only when it was finished and brought to perfection; but even while it was yet but in design, and was raised no further than in thought: The Lord said unto David, 2 Chron. 6.8. Forasmuch as it was in thine heart to build an house for my name, thou didst well in that it was in thine heart. And when Christ came, he blessed in this house, prayed in it, taught in it, disputed in it; he drove the profaners out of it; he spoke by his presence, by his tongue, by his gesture; he giveth it its name, and in a manner Christneth it, Matth. 21.13. by calling it his house, and the house of prayer. For though he came to strike down the Law, yet he came not to beat down right Reason: Though he did disannul what was fitted but for a time, as Sacrifices, and all that busy and troublesome, that ceremonious and typical Worship; yet he never abolished what common reason will teach us is necessary for all ages. How could he require that men should meet together and worship him, if there were to be no place at all to meet in? Or what needed an express command for that which the very nature of the duty enjoineth, and necessity itself will bring in; He that enjoineth public worship, doth in that command imply that there must be a certain public place to meet in. We hear indeed Christ saying to the Jews, John 2.19. Destroy this Temple; but it was to make a window in their breasts, that they might see he knew their very hearts. — 21. He bid them do what they meant to do. He spoke of the Temple of his body saith the Text: and they did destroy both his body and their own Temple. For they who had nothing more in their mouths then The Temple of the Lord, Jer. 7.4. set fire on the Temple of the Lord with their own hands, as Josephus relateth. And so their Ceremonies had an end, so their Temple was destroyed; but not to the end that all Churches and places of public meeting should be for ever buried in its ruins before they were built. That house of the Lord was dissolved indeed; but at the dissolution thereof there was no voice heard that did tell us we should build no more in any other place. The first Christians, we may be sure, heard no such voice. For assoon as persecution suffered them to move their arms, they were busy in erecting of Oratories, in a plain manner indeed, answerable to their present estate: But when the favour of Princes shined upon them, and their substance increased, they poured it out plentifully this way, and founded Churches in every place: Nor did they think they could lay too much cost upon them: none counted that waist which was expended about so good a work. They built sumptuous houses for God's worship, and rejoiced; and after-ages applauded it both by their words and practice; they magnified it, and did the like. Such cost hath ever gone under the name of Piety and Devotion, till these later times, when almost all are ready with Judas to condemn Mary Magdelene for pouring forth her ointment. John 12. 3-6 Churches were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Houses of the Lord, and so were esteemed; and not Idol Synagogues, not Sties, till Swine entered into them, and defiled them, and holp to pull them down. We know God dwelleth not in Temples made with hands, Acts 7.48. & 17.24. nor can his infinite Majesty be circumscribed: we remember, and therefore need not to be told, that Christ said to the woman of Samaria that the hour was coming when men should neither in that mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father, John 4.21, 23. but should worship him 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 enjoineth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 Priest's office. I am ashamed to exercise myself 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, than it is holy; not holy as he is holy, but holy because it is his. Why startle we? It is no illboding 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 Comedy, is enough to turn it into a Tragedy. 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 enthroned 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 Wisdom, 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, signify 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 jealousy: 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 pretence 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 pretence: And if we lean upon it whilst 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 itself. 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 ruins 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 spoke it: Then it was not superstition, but great devotion. And no other language was heard almost till the days of our grandfathers. But then Covetousness under the mask of false Zele (which was rather burning then hot, and carried with it more rage than charity) swallowed up this Devotion in victory, led it in triumph, disgraced and vilified it, and gave it an ill name. Then the Devil shown 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 administered; 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 administered 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 nature is capable. The Scripture is holy, because it breatheth and conveyeth holiness; The Sacraments are holy, because they help to promote it; Some Times are holy, because they occasion it; the Sabbath itself is holy only in respect of its end, the practice of holiness; Discipline is holy, as being the way to restore it; Some Persons are holy, because they are the helpers of our joy; 2 Cor. 1.24. which is a beam of Holiness: Then also some Places must be holy, I will not say, and yet the wisest have said it, because sensible helps to stir up devotion and to better our best actions; for we are so spiritual, so elevated, so Seraphical, that we need no such helps, and we are bold to profess it; but here we meet together for holiness sake, as a congregation or Church holy to the Lord; here holiness is breathed into us, and here we receive it; here we assemble as so many copies of holiness, and one transcribeth from another: here God is present, you will say, with men, and, if with the men, in the place; here he speaketh to us, and here we speak to him; here he delivereth his oracles, and here we receive them; here he proclaimeth his Law, and here we promise obedience; here he wooeth and beseecheth us, and here we kneel and importune him; here he promiseth, and we rejoice; here he threatneth, and we tremble; here he speaketh as a Father, and we bless him; here he thundereth, and we bow before him, even God in his holy place. Wherefore if we loved holiness, we should love the house of God for its ends sake; if we loved holiness, we should love any thing that doth perfect it, yea that doth but promote, but begin it, any means, time, person, place that is ministerial to it; we should love all these for holiness, that is, for the Lord's, sake; and not strain at a gnat, that we may swallow a camel; not question a name, or attribute, or title, that we may devour the thing; not raise a tempest in a basin, where there is so little water; nor contend about that which yieldeth so little matter of strife. Oppugnat Christum, qui illi stultè favet: An indiscreet defence of Christ and his glory doth dishonour him. For whilst we thus look towards his glory (for it is but a look) we lose it in that look; whilst we thus contend for it where there is no cause, the blow we give in defence of it beateth it to the ground. Beloved, all storms may be slumbered, all tempests calmed by these two words, DOMUS DOMINI, It is the house of the Lord. And if it be the house of the Lord, than it should be honoured as his house; not honoured as he himself is, for it is not capable of such honour, but honoured because it is his; honoured, as we bless the poor, and give him an alms, for the Lord's sake. Honoured, you will say; what, adorned and beautified? A stout question to be put! Yes certainly, so far honour it as to make it the more useful for that end for which it was erected, and adorn it as far as the rules of decency and the nature of the place will permit. For quod docet, ferè prodest, as the Orator saith; That which is decent, not only presenteth a grace and beauty, which may take our eye and please it, but carrieth also its profit along with it, and is advantageous to the work we have to do. God did never yet tell us that it is his delight to dwell beggarly; nor should it be ours to serve him so. In the Prophet Malachi he complaineth of Israel's unkindness, Mal. 1.6. that though he was their Father, yet they honoured him not; and though he was their Master, yet they feared him not; and that they despised his name. And when they seemed ignorant wherein they had despised his name, Mal. 1.7.— 8. he telleth them, In that they offered polluted bread upon his altar, and in that they said, The table of the Lord is contemptible; in that they offered the blind, and the lame, and the sick, such as they would not have offered to their governor. What if their hearts were upright in them? (By their questions, Wherein have we despised thy name? Wherein have we polluted thee? it seemeth they thought so) yet to think any thing good enough for God, was an high contempt offered to the Majesty of heaven. Prov. 23.26. My son, give me thy heart. It is true: but, my son, give me that too which is fit to be offered to thy Father, thy Master, thy Lord: Esteem not that good enough for me of which thou thyself hast no esteem. All the creatures in the world, from the Gnat to the Elephant, all the things in the world are alike to God; for they are all the works of his hands: but he taketh them upon our account, and expecteth that from us whereon we set the greatest price. For how can our affection be shown in giving that we care not for, but are as willing to lose as to keep it? That of S. Paul is an universal and eternal rule, and concerneth all the men in the world, from Adam to him who shall stand the last upon the earth, 1 Cor. 14.40. Let all things be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, decently. This is it we first look upon: And what decorum can it be that your private houses, where some few meet, should be trimmed and set out with all advantage, and the house of God, where many hundreds assemble, should be ruinous and sordid, even to the offence of the eye? that you should have a fairer room where you meet to eat then where you meet to pray? that God by dust and ashes should be served in dust and ashes, inter ruta caesa, amongst rubbish and lumber? that decency should be confined to yours, and find no room in the house of God? Yet this is the decorum which those who call themselves Spiritual men would observe, that Luxury should dwell in state, and Devotion in a cottage: In which they show so little of the Christian that nothing appeareth of the Man. For what man, till he be unmanned by the spirit of delusion and madness, can be so unreasonable? Who can account what is laid out in this kind to be unnecessary waist, but either a Judas, who would have it in his purse, or such an one as Julian's Treasurer, who thought the vessels of the Church too rich and glorious for the Son of Mary? The Kingly Prophet could not attain to such a speculation; but from his own house he draweth an argument to build and beautify the Lord's; I dwell, saith he, 2 Sam. 7.2. in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. This he deemed the most incongruous thing in the world; and therefore he would not give sleep to his eyes, Psal. 132.4, 5. nor slumber to his eyelids, until he found out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. Psal. 26.8. This argument David's devotion framed, because he loved the beauty of God's house, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. We render it the habitation: Which giveth us thus much to understand, Psal. 96.7. & 110.3. That God doth dwell in the beauty of holiness. I will not show you the face of Antiquity: For we must either fling dirt at it, or else hid our own; either censure our forefathers too-much devotion, or be ashamed of our own miserable neglect and profaneness. I will not show you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the beauty and glory of their Churches, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, most worthy to be looked upon. I will not show you them raised up to an height unmeasurable, as Eusebius speaketh, more beautiful than their first founders had made them; nor with what joy the Christians then (more devout, I fear, more sincere, nay more zealous than they of after-ages) beheld them in their rich and better attire. I might repeat many of their penegyrical exsultations, when it was so; and their sad complaints, when it was otherwise. Even they did allow it who seemed to speak against it. Vestiant parietes marmorum crustis, faith Hierome; Let them line the walls with marble, and gild them, which feel it not: Non reprehendo, non abnuo; I do not censure it, I am not against it: This is good and laudable. But better it were the temples of the holy Ghost were made glorious with piety. And indeed in those days, when Devotion cried up the building and beautifying of Churches, and they did much glory in it, yet in time of necessity and persecution they would strip their Churches to clothe their naked, and sell their rich vessels to buy bread for the hungry. Their pious affection to God and Religion made them account such cost very convenient and useful: but they never looked upon it as a matter of absolute necessity, without which Religion would fall to the ground. While they could, they were willing in some measure to take from themselves that they might add to the splendour of God's house: But when they were in straits, they comforted themselves in this, That God would accept the largeness of their hearts and their zealous affections. They well knew necessaria praeferenda esse non necessariis, that those duties which are absolutely necessary are to be preferred before those which have no such binding necessity to commend them. And this is enough; and they that quarrel it say nothing. These are the best arguments till better are brought, and till better are brought we may well rest in these. Call the place appointed for public worship by the name which God himself hath given it, call it God's house; and count it holy, but for no other reason but because it is his; and then for his sake, for Religion's sake, for our own sake give it that honour which is due unto it; fit and prepare it for that end for which it was set up, Psal. 96.7. that so we may meet together and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. What I would add by way of application, I shall defer till the next opportunity. The Three and Twentieth SERMON. PART II. PSAL. CXXII. 1. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us (or, We will) go into the house of the Lord. 1. THey were many that went to the house of the Lord; the tribes, even the tribes of the Lord, go up. And though there be no virtue nor power in Number, yet we see it was that which made David glad at the heart, that God was praised in the great congregation and among much people. Psal. 35.18. Therefore let us also exhort and provoke one another to go up to the Lord's house, and gather as much company as we can to his service. In the Devil's work one is too many; but in God's many are too few. For no number, but All, are fit for him who hath right and title to every man, and whose dominion reacheth over all. For other ends, a number, a multitude, is soon gathered together. How do men run to see a man clothed in soft raiment! How hastily have we seen thousands join in a Covenant! and within a while after as hastily engage to the contrary! How many confused assemblies have we seen, where the greatest part knew not why they were met together! Acts 19.32. yet being met, how have they kept tune, and cried up they knew not what! like Demetrius and his fellow-crafts-men, they cry, Great is their Diana, though it be but a puppet. Vbi plures erant, omnes fuere, as Tacitus saith: Where the mo●● are, there will soon be more, and all will join with the many. And shall Ambition and Covetousness, shall Malice and Envy, shall Folly itself have such force as to muster multitudes, yea armies of men, and shall Religion and Christ have so thin and poor a retinue? Shall the Devil's chapel receive more than God's Church? But for us the question had never been put, Luke 13.23. Are there few that shall be saved? For God calleth all: and we may resolve for that which is good as well as for that which is evil, for God as well as for Mammon. 2. DIXERUNT, They said, and they resolved, that they would serve the Lord. And so must we; not say and promise only, but say and resolve it; not only see that which is good, but see to the end, contemplate the beauty and glory of it, till we have drawn it in, and in a manner consubstantiated it with our souls. It is a strange thing to consider, how resolute we are in that which we should abhor as Death itself; that no law, no terror, no danger can beat us from it; what decrees we make in ourselves to be rich; how peremptory we are to revenge; with what wings we fly to honour; what fiery spirits we have in lust, and how we put on the courage of a horse and even neigh after that which is forbidden; how we hold up our resolution till the twilight, in which time we might have parleyed with ourselves, and reasoned down our resolution. On the contrary, what shaking and paralytical thoughts have we about that which most concerneth us, and what weak and feeble approaches do we make towards it! Isa. 37.3. When the child is ready for the birth, we have no strength to bring forth. We resolve to be chaste, yet pollute ourselves; we resolve to go to Church, yet upon the weakest inducement stay at home; we resolve to be honest, yet break our faith; not to take God's name in vain, and yet are perjured. The reason is plain▪ The Prince of this world hath more power over us then that God who made it. And therefore, if we will resolve to serve the Lord, we must do what our Saviour hath done already, and what he hath taught and enabled us to do, John 12 31. We must cast the Prince of this world out. 3. They agreed in their resolution; IBIMUS, We will go. In like manner we must resolve together. To go alone is dangerous. S. Cyprian and others of the Fathers will tell us, that Schism is a sin not to be expiated, no not with martyrdom; and that to die for the Head will little avail him who hath divided the Body. But the truth is, If we resolve to serve the Lord, though we be millions, we shall all agree and be one. Religion, pure Religion and undefiled, cannot raise a schism in the Church: For if there be an error, she teacheth us to pardon it, if an injury, to forget it. A religious man, saith Nazianzene, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, simple and sincere, in himself, ever like himself; but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; various and manifold, towards others: He applieth himself, as S. Paul did, to all, and is made all things to all men: And when they do not gather together, 1 Cor. 9.19, &c there is nothing in him to hinder it. Look upon all the contentions that ever were in the world, observe the persons that raised them, mark their original; and ye shall see that the name of Religion was only taken in to carry them on, but it was something else that gave them life and continued them. Private ends and love of the world first kindle the fire; and then the name of Christ is taken up, that it may rage's the more; the name of Christ, who hath left unto us that water of life which would easily quench it. For I cannot yet see how a truly-religious man should be a schismatic. If he be, he doth it oblitus professionis suae, quite beside the meaning of his profession, the chief end whereof is to gather all into one, Eph. 4.3. and to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. 4. They went cheerfully and with great alacrity. A prompt and ready mind, an active and vigorous will in God's service is all in all. My son, give me thy heart, saith God. Prov. 23.26 And when we have given him that, then, Awake, viol and harp; Awake all the powers of my soul; Stir up yourselves, all the parts of my body: then we do our duty, and serve God with all our strength and might; then our feet are as hind's feet, and we run the ways of God's commandments. Hab. 3.18. Psal 119.32. Chrysostom saith the Church is the place of Angels and Archangels, the presence-chamber of God, yea heaven itself: And shall not we go more cheerfully towards heaven than others do to hell? If we go to Church but for fashion, for company, or out of formality; if Love drive us not forward, it is plain that we are not willing to come into God's presence, and had rather mingle ourselves with our worldly affairs than appear before God and his Angels in his house. Shame, or fear, or compliance may serve as wings to bear us to Church, but they will never carry us up so high as heaven: He that mounteth thither, ascendeth in a jubilee, with melody and joy. 5. The Church is the house of God: Let us therefore enter his gates with joy, Psal. 100.4. and his courts with rejoicing: and not raise needless questions, which edify not. Here we receive the doctrine of truth, the commands of God; which are as Angels descending from above: here we breathe out our souls, and send up our holy desires; which are as so many Angels of commerce between God and us. Hoc opus, hic labor est; This is the business of the day, this is the work of the place. What gaze we upon the walls, the fabric, the fashion, the beauty of it? Why perplex we ourselves and others where there is no reason, and blow up bubbles, which swell, and are strait nothing? It is an observation of the Ancients, That they who can once prevail with themselves to desire nothing more than piety and virtue, and to have no other intent then to be good men, will rest in that contentedness which Religion bringeth, as on a holy hill, and will never descend and stoop to low considerations. True Devotion never questioneth what fashion, what form, what beauty the place hath where it must show itself. He that fighteth against his lust, and so beateth down the beast within him, he that presseth forward only to that end for which he should go to the house of the Lord, and maketh it his chief aim to serve him, will never startle at that which cannot hinder, but may facilitate and promote the end he aimeth at; he will not fall out with colours, nor tremble at the sight of a picture, it may be of a leg or an arm; much less will he question the fashion, that he may pull down the fabric. No; this humour springeth not from devotion or from a tender conscience; neither indeed can it. For a tender conscience is always so: it doth not stumble at a straw, and leap over a mountain; it doth not check at a feather, at that which is nothing in itself, but hath all its value and dignity from its end. This humour hath its original from Pride and Covetousness; as Hypocrates saith all the distempers of the body have their original from Choler and Phlegm: from pride, I say, foolish pride, which misliketh every thing; and covetousness, that would make every thing a prey. 1 Cor. 11.16. But, as S. Paul saith, if any man seem to be thus contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Churches of God. Neither was there any such contention till those latter times, when Sacrilege lifted up the axe and the mattock to break down the carved works, yea to dig up the very foundations of the houses of the lord 1 Pet. 2.1. Wherefore, as S. Peter exhorteth, let us lay aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrises, and envies, and all evil speakings; and so go together to the house of God. It is his house: therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the ancient form was, let us appear there with reverence. What though he be no more present here then in any other place? Yet I am sure thou oughtest to be as reverend as if he were. It is his holy place. What though it hath no inherent holiness? we cannot say it hath. Yet it is thy part to carry thyself as one that hath. Raise not idle questions, but be serious in thy duty. Do not bring a groundless fancy along with thee, and leave thy duty behind thee in the land of oblivion. Sanctorum vel sola recordatio sanctitatem parit, saith a Father; The very remembrance of the Saints by a kind of influence and insinuation may work holiness in us: And if we could once chase away these empty and insignificant fancies, these impertinent and heretogeneous thoughts, which spring from the Flesh as serpents out of carrion or dung, I see no reason but we might gain some advantage from the places of God's worship. To conclude this point; IBIMUS, We will go; or, EAMUS, Let us go, into the houses of the Lord, and bless his name for these blessed opportunities of Time and Place to serve him in; bless him for those who erected these fabrics, and bless him for those who repair and adorn them; and by the right use of these means build we up ourselves on our most-holy f●ith, Judas 20. and so deck and beautify our souls that they may be fit temples of the holy Ghost. And then, whensoever we spread forth our arms in this place, God will stretch forth his hand, and help us; when our prayers ascend as incense, he will receive them as a sweet-smelling savour, when we bow our knees to him, he will bow down his ear to us; when we speak, he will hear, and return our prayers back again into our bosom; when we pour out our petitions, he will pour down his blessings, peace of conscience, with all things necessary for this life; which are a pawn and pledge and earnest of those everlasting blessings, glory, honour, and immortality. Thus we have led you into the house of the Lord, the main circumstance in the Object of the Psalmists joy. The place we are going to, and the thing we are about, may be of such a nature, that Many may be worse than none, Resolution may be pertinacy and madness, Agreement and Union may be conspiracy, and Hast may be precipitancy. A man had better in some things be like Mephibosheth, lame on both his feet, then like Asahel, light of foot as a wild roe. 2 Sam 9.13. & 2.18. Ye have read, how that pursuing after Abner, he turned not to the right hand nor to the left, from following Abner, — 19 and so ran strait to his own death. Psal. 1.1. There be too-too many who walk in the counsel of the ungodly, and stand in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat of the scornful, There may be a Synod of Heretics, a Senate of rebels, as ye know there is a Legion of Devils. Pliny telleth us, Mark 5.9. Major coelitum populus quàm terrae, that there were more people in heaven then on earth: and it might be true, when they made God's; for they might make as many as they pleased: But the broad way hath most travellers; Matth. 7.13. there they go in shoals, in bodies, in companies, in Societies, and some under the name of JESUS: And our Saviour saith that many there be which go in at the wide gate. Secondly, resolve men may, and oftentimes resolve they do, and are resolute in that which they should abhor: Their Dixit is a Factum est; they say, and do it: no law, no conscience, no thunder from heaven can deter them from it. Matth. 2 6. Give me money enough, and I will betray my Master, said Judas: and he did do it, betray him into the hands of his enemies. Thirdly, men may gather together and be united to do mischief; thiefs and murderers may cast in their lots together, and have all one purse: Prov. 1.14. Yea men of disagreeing and different principles may agree and combine in the same wicked design; though they have several judgements, yet may they be brethren in iniquity: Gen. 49.7. Judg. 15.4, 5 they may be tied together as Samson's foxes were; though their heads look divers ways, and one be an Anabaptist, another a Brownist, a third a Disciplinarian, a fourth a Seeker, a fifth a Quaker, a sixth— (but there are so many Sects that I cannot tell you their names) though their looks and language be never so opposite, yet they may be linked together by the tails, and carry those firebrands between them that may burn up the harvest. As Paterculus said of Jugurtha and Marius, In iisdem castris didicere quae postea in contrariis facerent, They learned their skill in arms both in the same camp, which they afterwards practised in divers, even one against the other; So have the Jesuits and these Sectaries taken up some common principles, (and we know in whose camp they learned them) which they make use of to drive on their purposes, and yet defy one another as much as Jugurtha and Marius ever did. Many wicked men ye see may agree; we see too many do, and their agreement breaketh the peace, and maketh the body of Christendom fly asunder into so many pieces and parts, with that noise and confusion that we tremble to behold it, ridente Turcâ, nec dolente Judaeo, whilst the Turk laugheth, and a Jew pulleth the veil closer to his face, and comforteth and applaudeth himself in his error. Last of all, as men may resolve and agree, so may they encourage themselves in evil, Rom. 1.32. and not only do the same thing, but as S. Paul speaketh, have pleasure in them that do it; they may go together with a shout and with a merry noise, sport in the miseries, dance in the ruins, and wash their feet in the blood of the innocent; and their word still be, So, Psal. 35.25. so, thus we would have it. Thus, I say, the Many may resolve, agree, and delight in that which is forbidden; they may have a firm heart, they may have but one heart, they may have a merry heart, in that which is evil; their hearts may be fixed, their hands joined, and their feet swift to shed blood. Prov. 1.16. Isa. 59.7. Rom. 3.15. Therefore we must look forward to the last circumstance, the Place, the house of the Lord, the Service of God: This shineth upon all the rest, and beautifieth them. Many here make a Church: To Resolve here is obedience: To Agree here is peace, the peace of God, which maketh us one, of the same mind, of the same will. To be one in place, and not in mind, is poena, saith a Father; it is not a blessing, but a punishment; To be one in mind, and not in place, is bonitas, goodness; To be one in place and in mind both, is felicitas, greatest happiness: Then, in the last place, to Go together cheerfully to the house of the Lord is an expression of that joy which is a type and earnest of that which is in the highest heavens. There is nothing here, we told you, which a religious mind can check at: No just scruple can arise concerning the place, seeing we have God's word for it under the Law, and Christ's word for it under the Gospel, that it is God's house: If any do arise, it riseth like a fog, it steameth from a foul and corrupt heart, from Pride and Covetousness, the mothers of Pertinacy and Contradiction; Which cannot be brought to conform to the counsels of the wise, no not to the wisdom of God himself; but call Truth heresy, because others speak it; Bounty waist, because others lay it out; Reverence superstition, because others bow; would pull down Churches, because others build them; spurn at every thing; nihil verum putant nisi quod contrarium, think nothing true but what is divers and contrary and breatheth opposition against the Truth. This is a great evil under the Sun, to quarrel even the blessings of God, to be angry with light, to stand up against our helps, and to disgrace that for which the Saints of God have offered up the calves of their lips, Hebr. 13.15. the sacrifice of praise, from generation to generation. But when we have no peace within, we trouble all that is about us: When the love of ourselves and of the world hath gained a throne and power within us, it presently raiseth a tempest▪ distracteth and maddeth our passions, and sendeth them abroad; our Anger on that we should love, our Fear on that we should embrace, our Sorrow on that which should make us glad? our Anger on the Temple, whilst our Love is carried with a swinge to the gold of the Temple. And then what an unruly thing is Fancy in men, who talk much, and know little, in men of narrow minds and heavy understandings, in men who have bound their reason to the things of this world, and not improved it by the knowledge of the truth! What Comedies and Tragedies will it make! what ridiculous, but withal sad, effects will it produce! If this humour were general, as it is in too-too many, within a while we should not know where, or when, or what to pray; we shall not know how to move ourselves, how to stand, or go, or kneel; we should make some scruple and be troubled to take up a straw; we should fall out with others, and disagree with ourselves; we should to day build a Church, and within a while pull it down, and shortly after set it up again; we should kneel to day, and stand to morrow, and every day change our postures, and appear in as many shapes as Proteus; we should do, and undo, and every day do what we should not do; be Antipodes to all the world, and (which is strange) to ourselves also, and so, having been every thing, at last turn Apostates; first oppose the private spirit to Scripture, and then (as some have done of late) deny it to be the word of God; first wrist and abuse it, and then take it quite away. These are the common operations of a sick and distempered brain, the evaporations of a corrupt heart. Nor can we look for grapes from thorns, nor for figs from thistles. Matth. 7.16. It cannot be expected that things sacred should escape the hands of Violence and Profaneness, till men begin to love Religion for itself, and cease to think every thing unlawful that may be spoken against; till they have learned that totum Christiani, that which maketh a Christian indeed, learned to subdue their affections to the truth, and not to draw down the truth to be subject to their unquiet and turbulent passions. When true devotion hath once purified and warmed our hearts, we shall not trouble ourselves or others with low and groundless questions concerning God's house: Though he be indeed every where, yet we shall think him more present here then in any other place, more ready to shine upon us, to distil his blessings as dew upon us, in his own house then in our closet or shop; more ready to favour the devotion of many assembled together, then of one single person, and yet hearing and favouring both. Or, if we do not think the Lord more present here then elsewhere, yet we shall demean ourselves as if we did think so; we shall use all reverence, as in the sight of God, before whom we present ourselves; we shall use all reverence, as being before the holy Angels. What? you will say, do Angels come to Church? Yes. They did in St. Paul's time: And certainly they do still, unless we chase them away with our irreverence. One argument that the Apostle useth why women should be veiled and covered in the Church, and men uncovered is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because of the Angels. 1 Cor. 11.10. Nor need we strain and study for an interpretation, and say he meant the Pastors of the Church, because in Scripture sometime they are called Angels. Hagg. 1.13. Mal. 2.7. For this is too much forced, and maketh the reason less valid, and putteth the Veil upon the Man as well as the Woman. Nor can we understand the evil Spirits, Psal. 78.49. Matth. 25.41. Rev. 12.7, 9 Hebr 1.14. which are not where called Angels but with addition. Nor can I see any reason why we may not understand the holy Angels to be there meant. For they are ministering Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation; then doubtless they minister to us in the Church assoon as in any other place. They rejoice at the conversion of a sinner; Luke 15. ●, 10 then doubtless they rejoice also at our prayers and praises in the house of the Lord. But, say some, the Apostle in that place exhorteth women to imitate the reverend and modest behaviour of the Angels, Isa. 6.2. who are said to cover their faces before the throne of God. But then this again would concern Men as well as Women. All will be plain, if we consider that at that time it was a received custom for women to be veiled, and men uncovered in the Church. 1 Cor. 11.7.— 13. The words are plain; A man indeed ought not to cover his head: and, Is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? If the women therefore will not be covered because of men, — 11. let them do it because of the Angels, who are sent by Christ into the congregations of Christians, to take care of them, to help them in every occasion, and withal to observe whether they behave themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1 Cor. 14.40. decently and in order. Here they are present in the name of their Lord; here they stand as witnesses of what is done: To them, as to their Lord that sent them, modest and reverend behaviour is pleasing; boldness, profaneness and disorder, hateful. As they do their duty in ministering to us, so they rejoice to see us do ours in serving God. Why should they be grieved who are so ready to attend on us? Therefore it will concern Women not to neglect or alter the custom of the Church, lest by so doing they give offence to the blessed Angels, who are great lovers of decency and order, and make them, who would minister to them, to become witnesses against them, upon the beck of Majesty, executioners of judgement upon their heads. This I take to be the meaning of the Apostle in that place. Reverence is due to the house of God, not only because God is present there; Ye shall reverence my sanctuary: Levit. 19.30. I am the Lord, but because the Angels are present there also, who are the ministers of the God of order, and rejoice in our order, and are offended at the contrary. Further yet, a reverend deportment in the Church is necessary in respect of men. Some men by their severity and eminency in virtue have obtained to themselves this privilege and prerogative, that no man dareth do any evil or undecent thing in their presence. Seneca saith, neminem ausurum coram catone peccare, no body had the impudence to do any thing amiss before Cato. And Tully saith of him, Oh happy man of whom no man ever durst ask any thing that was unfit to be given! And Job saith, Job 19 8. that when the young men saw him, they hide themselves; and the aged arose, and stood up. But there is a reverence due in this place in respect of every man in the place, lest we offend some, and teach others; offend some, who know what order and decency is; and teach others, who understand so little of it that they are not willing to learn more, but come to Church, one would think, on purpose to be irreverent, as if it were a part of the Service; as if they counted it devotion, not to be devout; reverence, to be profane; humility, to outface the Congregation and God himself. And indeed why should they thus confidently do it, if they did not place a kind of religion in it, especially in this place, which is set apart only for religious duties: But let them know that by thus doing they not only offend God and his holy Angels, but also scandalise pious and well-affected persons, and confirm and encourage those who are negligent and profane in their unbeseeming and irreligious behaviour. Job 32.7. For when days do this, and multitude of years by their example teach it as a piece of wisdom, Job 8.9. they that are but of yesterday, that is, the younger sort, will quickly be as wise, that is, as irreverent, as they. I will not press this any further, 1 Cor. 11. 1●. but only say with the Apostle, Judge in yourselves: Is this comely? And that you may judge aright, ye must resolve the thing, the action, into its first principle, from whence it had its rise and beginning, as the Schools speak. Consider with yourselves what it is that moveth you to this careless and graceless deportment. Whether Scripture, or Reason? The Word of God it cannot be; for that breatheth nothing but reverence and devotion. It biddeth us keep our feet when we go to the house of God. Eccles. 5.1. I do not find that we are any where bid to take such care of our heads: We need no spur for that. Neither can Reason plead for us; but contrà stat ratio, Reason is against us, and telleth us in our ear, That we should be more reverend before God and his Angels then in the presence of Men, in the house of the Lord then in a great man's parlour; That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, holy duties are to be performed holily, that is, with reverence, which ever attendeth and waiteth upon holiness, and is inseparable from it; as on the contrary no two things are more unlike and at greater distance one from the other then Holiness and Irreverence. Dic, Quintiliane, colorem: What colour then have we for rude and unhandsome demeanour in God's house? Fear of superstition; That hath long since received its death's blow; and it is now buried, but not in its proper grave, a regular devotion, but rudely and disorderly raked up in profaneness. Fear that others should imagine we did reverence to the walls? Nothing but extreme ignorance can raise such a thought. For who knoweth not that a wall is but a wall? and that he that setteth up a cottage, may build a Church? He that passeth this sentence upon thee, may as well conclude thou art not a man, or that coming into the house of God thou leavest thy reason behind thee. But thou art weak and sickly. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, This is but a shift and excuse. For if thou art sick, thou mayest (I might say, thou art bound to) stay at home. God will have mercy, and not sacrifice: Hos. 6.6. Matth. 9.13. & 12.7. And his mercy shall stay with thee in thy private closet, when his sacrifice doth not draw thee to the Church. He doth not require thy presence to hasten thy end, but looketh favourably upon thy private devotion which prepareth thee for it. What is the matter then? I fear it is Pride, which swelleth in opposition against every plant which itself hath not planted, and would root it out. Quod ego volo, pro canone sit, as Constantius the Arian said: The continued practice of the Church for many hundred years is no Directory for us: What we say or do, that must go for Canonical, that must be the rule. And so, to seem wise, we become, I am unwilling to say what; but the best and wisest men have ever accounted it the extremest folly in the world. For what wisdom, what honour is it, first to be unreasonable, and then to comfort ourselves with this thought, That we are wiser than our teachers, and then all the holy men of God that went before us? In a word then, It is but an humour; let us purge it out: it is pride; let us beat it down. It is the house of the Lord ye come into; and there reverence is due. Ye know well enough, and are not to seek, what Reverence is. I am sure, that behaviour in Churches which is of common use is so unlike it, that ye cannot commit a greater solecism then to give it that name; unless ye call it so as the Poet calleth Covetousness sacred, because it is a cursed thing; or as War is termed Bellum, that is, good and pleasant, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because it is not so, but the worst and most displeasing thing in the world. We will go into the house of the Lord.] This one word LORD, one would think, might answer all arguments, purge out every evil humour, check and pull down our pride, bow our hearts and knees, I might add, uncover our heads, especially in the time when we perform that which we call Divine Service. This one word LORD should be of more force to bring in reverence into the Church, than any argument that Humour or Pride or Faction have contrived, to keep it out. We have long insisted upon the Object of David's joy; we will now therefore leave it, yet so as to have it ever and anon in our eye, while we consider the other part of the Text, and behold the Psalmist in his triumph and jubilee, in these words, LAETATUS SUM, I was glad. Herein we observe, 1. The Nature of David's delight. It was like the Object, like himself, after God's own heart, a company going to the house of the lord Psal. 69.9. And what fit object for him to look upon, whom the zeal of God's house and a studious care to preserve it holy had even ea●●n up? A Temple filled with Tribes falling down and worshipping must needs fill that heart with joy which was before filled with devotion. Those things which delight us, saith the Philosopher, are always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. fitted and suitable to our nature: And this maketh our delights so various, so contrary. The Philosopher flingeth his money into the sea, because he hath a pure and desecate soul, and hath wrought himself into a contempt of wealth, and set up his disposition against it, and had rather find out one conclusion then thousands of gold and silver. But the Covetous, who hath a gross and earthy soul, as he maketh wealth his God, so he maketh it his heaven too, and would no doubt believe the Gospel if it did convey a rich Manor to him, as it doth the means of his salvation. The news of a Lordship fallen to him is more welcome than those glad tidings the Angels brought at the birth of our Saviour: For Mammon is his Jesus. Every man is delighted as he is elemented, and joy is shaped and configured to the soul that receiveth it. The Envious hath an evil eye, an evil disposition; and his joy is in another man's sorrow, 2 Pet. 2.14. like light struck out of darkness. The Wanton hath an eye full of the adulteress, a soul in a manner turned into flesh; and his delight is in his shame. Phil. 3.19. The Revengeful hath a sanguine soul, and cruelty as it were actuateth it, as it doth his body; and he triumpheth in blood. The Ambitious hath an airy soul; and his joy is shut up in a box of air, whereto every man hath a key, to shut it and open it at pleasure. Elijah was zealous for God, and of so hot and fiery a temper, that the Jewish Doctors say he sucked not milk but fire from his mother's breasts; and his delight was to break down the altars of Idolaters. Ps. 84.2, 3, 4, David had a devout soul, longing and fainting for the courts of the Lord, blessing the Sparrow and the Swallow, which built their nests so nigh the altars of the Lord of hosts, and blessing those who dwell in his house, and are still singing his praises: Therefore the sight of a company going together to the house of ihe Lord is more delightful unto him then the crown upon his head. He rejoiceth in their number, he is exalted in their resolution, he findeth music in their unity, and a banquet in their cheerfulness, and the house of God is his heaven. Their number, their resolution, their unanimity, their alacrity, their presence in the house of the Lord, these dilate his heart, these awake his viol and harp, these are his delight, because they are all set and tuned to the glory of God. That which his heart is fixed on casteth a loveliness upon every circumstance and occasion which may advance it. His own piety filleth him with joy, and other men's piety increaseth that joy within him. 2 Kings 4.2. etc. Psal. 84. 1●. Like the widow's oil, it is joy in the vessel, and it is more joy in the effusion and pouring out. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! and how amiable is the Tribes going thither! That joy is only worthy of the name which is divine and heavenly, and hath piety for its groundwork either in ourselves or others. And as our Love to God is the effect of his love to us, so doth our Joy resemble his. For as he hath his heaven, his happiness, always within him, it being essential to him, and as eternal as himself; so he hath as it were bowed the heavens, and come down, and in some measure revealed himself to Man the work of his hands, and made him to this end for immortality and eternity, to be in some degree partaker of that happiness which he is. And this his goodness breatheth itself forth in his Laws; which were made for our sake, and not for his; for he needeth us not: In his passionate Wishes; a Deut. 32.29. Oh that men were wise! b Deut. 5.29. Oh that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! In his Beseeching and Entreaties, and his c Isa. 65.2. Spreading out his hands all the day long: In his Obtestations and Complaints; d Ezek. 18.23, 32. Have I any pleasure at all in the death of the wicked? e Mich. 6.3. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? And when men make good his wish, by being good to themselves; when they hearken and yield to his beseechings, and will be those happy creatures he would have them be; when their obedience stoppeth his complaints, and they tread the ways of happiness, than he expresseth himself in joy, I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people. Isa. 65 19 Luke 15.7, 1● And this is the joy in heaven. There the Angels joy over one sinner that repenteth And, Si deliciae Angelorum lacrymae meae, quid deliciae? saith Bernard; If my tears be the joy of Angels, what is my joy? And this is the joy of the sons of men, si caeperint esse Angeli, if they strive forward to an Angelical estate; if they be Deiformes, as one speaketh, if they be followers of God; if they be Christiformes, Ephes. 5.1. Rom. 13.14. Hebr. 6.5. have put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and tasted of the powers of the world to come. As there is a Communion of Saints, so is there a communication of their joy. Every one rejoiceth in himself, and his joy reflecteth upon every one. Phil. 2.2. Fulfil ye my joy, saith St. Paul to the Philippians: And when they have the same love and are of the same mind, than his joy is full. See how he breaketh forth into variety of expressions: They are his joy. That is not enough. Phil. 4.1. They are his dearly beloved and longed for; they are his crown. So he also telleth the Thessalonians, that they are his hope, and joy, 1 Thes. 2.19.— 20. and crown of rejoicing; and again, that they are his glory and joy. And he calleth the Corinthians his epistle, and letters of commendation, 2 Cor. 3.1, 2, 3 written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. Sometimes he is their Apostle; and they are his epistle written in his heart, which all men know and read, 2 Cor. 3.2. and which he himself readeth with delight. Sometimes he is their Priest, and espouseth them to the Lord; 2 Cor. 11.2. and this contract made is his wedding-feast. To the Galatians he speaketh like a Mother, Gal. 4.19. and saith he traveleth in birth again of them; and when Christ is form in them, he hath joy as a mother that hath born a child into the world. John 16.21. Thus it is in heaven; and thus it is on earth. Each Christian is a glass to another, wherein they mutually behold themselves. I see my tears in my brother's sorrow, and he seethe his sorrow in my tears: I see my joy in his piety, and he seethe his piety in my joy: I cry aloud for him, and his prayers are the echo of my cry: I cast a beam of comfort upon him, and he reflecteth a blessing upon me. Quod est omnium est singulorum, That which is all men's is every man's, and that which is every man's belongeth unto the whole. Proprietas excommunicatio est, saith Parisiensis, Propriety is an excommunication. When I appropriate my devotion to myself, I do in a manner thrust my brother out of the Church, nay I shut myself out of heaven, I at once depose and exauctorate both myself and him. Nay I cannot appropriate it: for where it is, it will spread. It is my sorrow, and thy sorrow; my fear, and thy fear; my joy, and thy joy. Ye see here the Tribes go up to the house of the Lord with joy; and this joy raiseth another, or rather the same, a joy of the same nature, in David. At the very apprehension of it he taketh down his harp from the wall, and setteth his joy to a tune, and committeth it to a song; I was glad when they said, etc. And thus I am fallen upon 2. The second thing observable in the Psalmists joy, the Publication thereof. He setteth it to Music, he conveyeth it into a song, and, as the Chaldee Pharaphrast saith Adam did assoon as his sin was forgiven him, he expresseth sabbatum suum, his Sabbath, his content and gladness, in a Psalm, that it might pass from generation to generation, and never be forgotten, but that this sacrifice of thanksgiving, which himself here offereth, might still upon the like occasion be offered by others unto the world's end, and that the people which should in after-ages be created might thus praise the Lord. Thus David hath passed over and entailed his joy to all posterity. This is thanks and praise indeed, when it floweth from an heart thus affected, when it breaketh forth like light from the Sun, and spreadeth itself like the heavens, and declareth the glory of God. Gratè ad nos beneficium pervenisse indicamus effusis affectibus, saith Seneca; Then a benefit meeteth with a greateful heart, when it is ready to pour forth itself in joy, and the affections not being able to contain themselves are seen and heard, shine bright in the countenance, and sound aloud in a song. Certainly Gratitude is neither sullen, nor silent, Saul's evil melancholic Spirit cannot enter the heart of a David, nor any heart in which the love of God's glory reigneth. At the sight of any thing that may set it forth the pious soul is awaked, and the melancholic and dumb spirit is cast out, Psal. 47.1, 4. nor can it return whilst that love is in us. When God hath chosen our inheritance for us, then, O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. To draw towards a conclusion; By this rejoicing spirit of David's we may examine and judge of the temper of our own. If we be of the same disposition with him, no sight, no object will delight us, but that in which God is, and in which his glory is seen; We shall not make songs of other men's miseries, nor keep holiday when they mourn; We shall not like any thing, either in ourselves or others, which dishonoureth God's name; Prov. 2.14, In a word, we shall not rejoice to do evil, nor take pleasure in the frowardness of the wicked: But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our whole life will be one holiday, one continued Sabbath and rest in good. Of what spirit then are they who rejoice not in their own miseries, but in their sins? who take great delight and complacency not only in the calamities, but also in the falls and miscarriages, of others, especially if they cast not in their lot and make one purse with them? Prov. 1.14. who, as Judas did, carry their religion and their purse in the same hand, whose religion is in their purse, and openeth and shutteth with it? who, that they may triumph in the miseries, rejoice first in the defects, whether seeming or real, of their dissenting brethren? Every man that looketh towards Jerusalem, Luke 9.53. and will not stay with them at their Samaria, must be cast out of doors, Criminibus debent hortos, praetoria, campos. They own their wealth and possessions, shall I say, to other men's crimes? no: they own them to their own. For a great sin it is to delight in sin; but to make that a crime which is not a sin, is a greater: What is it then to turn piety itself into sin? To call an asseveration an oath, is a fault at least: And than what is it to call devotion superstition, the house of God a sty, and reverence idolatry? Yet if these were sins, why should my brother's ruin be my joy? Why should I wish his fall, delight in his fall, follow him in his fall, as the Romans did their sword-players in the theatre, with acclamation, So, so, thus I would have it. We cannot say this proceedeth from piety, or is an effect of charity. 1 Cor. 13.6. For Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth: Charity bindeth up wounds, doth not make them wider: And when people sin, Charity maketh the head a fountain of tears, but doth not fill the mouth with laughter: Charity is no detractor, no jester, no Satirist: it thinketh no evil: 1 Cor. 13.5. it is not suspicious: It cannot behold a Synagogue of Satan in the Temple of the Lord, nor Superstition in a wall, nor Idolatry in reverence. This evil humour indeed proceedeth from Love; but it is the love of the world, which defameth every thing for advantage; laugheth at Churches, that it may pull them down; maketh men odious, that it may make them poor; and dealeth with them as the Heathen did with the first Christians, putteth them into bears skins, that it may bait them to death. This certainly is not from David's, but from an evil spirit. Nor can it be truly termed Joy, unless we should look for joy in hell, and content in a place of torment. rejoicings and jubilees of this sort are like unto the howl of devils. In the Devil there cannot be joy. My drunkenness cannot quench the flames he burneth in; my evil conscience cannot kill that worm which gnaweth him; my ignorance cannot lighten his darkness; my loss of heaven cannot bring him back thither: Should he conquer the whole world he would still be a slave. But yet in the Devil, though properly there be no joy, there is quasi gaudium, that which is like our joy in evil, which we call Joy, though it be not so. And it is in him, saith Aquinas, not as a passion, but as an act of his will. When we do well, that is done which he would not; and that is his grief: and when we sin, we are led captive according to his will; and that is his joy. 2 Tim. 2.26. And such is the joy of malicious wicked men: for whom it is not expedient nor profitable that those who are not of the same mind with them should be good, and therefore against their will. And to this end, where they cannot find a fault, they will make one: And this fiction of theirs must be as a sheet let down from heaven, Acts 11.01, 13 with a command to arise and kill and eat. And at the sight of a prodigy of their own begetting they rejoice and divide the spoil. For conclusion then; Let us mark these men, and avoid them. And let us mourn and be sorry for their joy, the issue not of Christian Love, but of Pride and Covetousness, and which hath not God's glory for its object, but their own. Let them murmur; let us rejoice: let them reproach us; let us pray: let them break witless jests; let us break our stony hearts: let them detract; let us sing praises: let them cry; Down with it, Down with it, even to the ground; let us reverence God's Sanctuary; let us remember the end for which it was built, and draw all our thoughts, words and gestures to that end; let us so behave ourselves in the Church that we may be Temples of the living God, and worship God in the beauty of holiness. Why should we not rejoice with David, and tune our harps by his, our devotion by his songs of thanksgiving? The same God reigneth still, the same end is set up, and the same means appointed for that end. Let us press hard to the end, and then no scruple can arise. Let not our sins and evil conscience trouble us, and nothing will trouble us. Come, let us worship, and fall down; that is one end: and our everlasting happiness is another: And these are so linked together that ye cannot sever them. The end cannot be had without the means, and the means rightly used never miss of their end. And then God's glory and our happiness will meet, and run on together in a continued course to all eternity. Oh then let us so use the means, ut profectum pariant, non judicium, as S. Augustine speaketh, that they may have their end, and not end in judgement. Why should any benefit, opportunity, occasion, that looketh this way, be lost, and so lie dead and buried? why should it lose the effect it should have? Why, when God soweth his grace and favour, should nothing grow up but wormwood and bitterness? Why should Heaven bow itself, and Earth withdraw? Why should God honour us, and we dishonour his gift? Let us therefore put on David's spirit, and enter God's courts with joy, and his house with rejoicing; let us come to Church with one heart and one soul. Prov. 8.31. And as God's delight is to be with the children of men, so let our delight be to converse with him in all humility (And Humility is an helper of our Joy:) let us bow our knees, and lift up our hearts, and upon those altars burn the incense of our prayers, and offer up the sacrifice of our praise; and let our obedience keep time with our devotion. Thus if we present ourselves before God in his house, he will rejoice over us, and his Angels will rejoice with us and for us, and we shall joy in one another's joy; and when all Temples shall be destroyed, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, Isa. 34.34. we shall meet together in our Master's joy, and there with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven sing praises to him for evermore. To which joy he bring us, who can hear from heaven, and grant our requests, and fill us with all joy, even the God of love, the Father of mercy, and the Lord of heaven and earth. Soli Deo Gloria. The Four and Twentieth SERMON. PART I. MATTH. VI 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. THE Decalogue is an abridgement of Morality, and of those precepts which direct us in the government of ourselves, and in our converse with others: And this Sermon of our Saviour is an improvement of the Decalogue. Herein you may discover Honesty of conversation, Trust in God, and the Love of his kingdom and his righteousness mutually depending on each other, and linked together in one golden chain, which reacheth from earth to heaven, from the footstool to the throne of God. Our conversation will be honest, if we trust in God; and we shall trust in God, if we seek his kingdom and his righteousness. For why is not our Yea Yea, and our Nay Nay? Why are not we so ready to resist evil? Why do we not love our neighbour? Why do we not love our enemy? Why do we arm ourselves with craft and violence? Why do we first deceive ourselves, and then deceive others? The reason is, Because we love the world. Why do we love the world? Because we are unwilling to depend on the providence of God. Why do we not trust in God? Because we love not his kingdom and his righteousness. He that loveth and seeketh this, needeth no lie to make him rich; feareth no enemy that can obstruct his way; knoweth no man that is not his neighbour, nor no neighbour that is not his friend; layeth up no treasure for the moth or rust; serveth not Mammon; nor needeth to be sent to school to learn the providence of God from the fouls of the air or the lilies of the field. This is the sum and conclusion of the whole matter: The kindgdom of God and his righteousness is all, comprehendeth all, is the sole and adequate object of our desires: And therefore our Saviour calleth back our thoughts from wand'ring after false riches, taketh off our care and solicitude from that vanity which is not worth a thought, and leveleth them on that which hath not this deputative and borrowed title of Riches, even that kingdom and righteousness which is riches and honour and pleasure and whatsoever is desirable: For even these are of her retinue and train, and she bringeth them along with her as a supplement or overplus. Do you fear injury; This shall protect you. Do you fear disgrace? This shall exalt you. Do you fear nakedness and poverty? This shall clothe and enrich you. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. In these words our Saviour setteth up an Object for his Disciples and all Christians to look on? first, the kingdom of God; the price and prize of our high calling: Which we need not speak of: we cannot conceive it; the tongue of men and Angels cannot express the glory of it. Secondly, his righteousness: this is the way to God's Kingdom. Next, you have the Dignity of the Object; it must be sought: then, the Preeminence of it; it must be sought first: and last of all, the Motive, or Promise, or Encouragement to make us seek it; which answereth all objections which the flesh or the world can put in: All these other things shall be added to you. These be the parts of the Text: and of these in order. The Kingdom of God is the end; and we must look on the glory of that, to encourage us in the way. Righteousness is the way; and we must first know what it is before we can seek it. And it is not at such a distance that we cannot easily approach it. It is not in heaven, that we should ask what wings we should take to fly unto it: neither is it beyond the sea, that we should travel for it. Non nos per difficiles ad beatam vitam quaestiones vocat Deus, saith Hilary. God doth not hid himself, and bid us seek him: he doth not make darkness a pavilion about that Righteousness which he biddeth us seek; but he hath brought it near unto us, and put it into our very mouths and hearts: and as he brought immortality and eternal life to light, so he hath also made the way unto it plain and easy; so that no mist can take it from our eyes but that which we cast ourselves, no night can hid it from us but that which our lusts and affections make. It is a good observation of Seneca the Philosopher; Nullius rei difficilis inventio, nisi cujus hic unus inventae fructus est, invenisse; God hath so settled and ordered the course of things, that there is nothing very hard to find out but that of which after all our labour we can reap no other fruit but this, that we can say we have found it out. Quod supra nos, nihil ad nos, as Socrates was wont to say; Those curious speculations which are above us and out of our reach, commonly pay us back nothing for that study and weariness of the flesh which we undergo in the pursuit of them, but a bare sight and view of them, which may bring some delight perhaps, but no advantage, to our minds. As Favorinus in Gellius well replied to a busy and talkative Critic, Abundè multa docuisti, quae quidem ignorabamus, & scire haud sanè postulabamus; Sir, you have taught us too too many things, which in truth we are ignorant of, but of that nature that we did not desire to know them, because they were of no use at all: So many questions there have been started in Divinity which have no relation to righteousness, or to the kingdom of God, which we study without profit, and may be ignorant of without danger. And when men stand so long upon these, they grow faint and weak in the pursuit of Righteousness; lose the sight of that which they should seek, whilst they seek that which profitteth not; as the painter, who had spent his best skill in painting of Neptune, failed in the setting forth of the majesty of Jupiter. In hoc studio multa delectant, pauca vincunt, as the Philosopher speaketh: In the study of Divinity we may meet with many things which may touch our thoughts with some delight; but the number of those is not great which will forward and promote us to our end. Righteousness is the object here, the way; and who understandeth it not? whose mouth is not full of it? The very enemies of Righteousness know it well enough, and bear witness to it; but through the corruption of men's hearts it cometh to pass that, as sometimes we mistake one object for another, set up Pleasure for an Idol, and Mammon for a God, so we do many times not so much mistake as wilfully misinterpret that which is proposed unto us as most fit and worthy of our desires. When the duty is hard, and frighteth us with the presentment of some difficulty, proposeth something which our flesh and sensual appetite distasteth and flieth from, then malumus interpretari quàm exsequi, we had rather descant and make a commentary upon it then fully express it in the actions of our life and conversation. As the Etrurian in the Poet bound living and dead bodies together, so do we join that Righteousness which is indeed the way to the Kingdom of God, to our dead and putrified conceits, to our lukewarmness, to our acedy and sloth, nay to our sacrilege and impiety, to our disobedience and want of natural affection, to our high contempt of God's Majesty: Or, as Procrustes dealt with his guests upon his bed of iron, we either violently stretch it out, or cut it shorter in some part or other, that if our actions cannot apply themselves to it, it may be brought down and racked and forced to apply itself to our actions. If Righteousness excludeth Superstition, yet it commendeth Reverence; and even Idolatry itself shall go under that name. It forbiddeth the love of the world, but it biddeth us labour with our hands; and this labour shall commend our tormenting care and solicitude, and make Covetousness itself a virtue. It dulleth the edge of revenge, and maketh my anger set before the Sun; but it kindleth my zeal, and that fire shall consume the adversary. Thus we can be righteous, and Idolaters; we can be righteous, and Covetous; we can be righteous, and yet wash our feet in the blood, not of our enemies, but our Brethren: we can be what we will, and yet be righteous; and that is Righteousness, not which the wisdom of God hath laid before us as our way, but that which flesh and blood shall set up with this false inscription, Holiness to the Lord. And our weakest, nay our worst, endeavours, though they stretch beyond the line, or though they will not reach home, but come far too short, yet we call them by this name, and they must go for Righteousness. Not the way we should, but the way we do walk in, though it be out of the way, though it lead to death, that is the way. We can take God's honour from him, and do it with reverence; we can be covetous, and not love the world; we can breathe forth the very gall of bitterness, and spit it in our brother's face, and yet be meek. So what Hilary speaketh, in another but the like case, is most true, Multi fidem ipsi potiùs constituunt quàm accipiunt; Many there be, even too many, even the most, who rather frame a religion to themselves, and call it Righteousness, then receive one. What they will, is Righteousness; and what is Righteousness, they will not: cùm sapientiae haec veritas sit, interdum sapere quae nolis; when this is the greatest part of true wisdom, to be wise against ourselves, against the wisdom of our flesh, to condemn our appetite and our fancy of extreme folly, when they put in for their share, and would divide with righteousness. To be wise against this wisdom, is to be wise unto salvation; to make haste to that object, not which flattereth our sense, but which is most proportioned to our reason; to seek that which we would not have, the straight and narrow and rugged way, which leadeth to this Kingdom; to seek the Truth, though it imprison us, and bind us to a stake; Temperance, though it wage war with our appetite; Chastity, though it shut up our eyes; Self-denial, though it take us from ourselves, and in a manner cut us off from the land of the living, and divide us from those pleasures and contents without which life itself to most men is as terrible as death. The sum of all is; Many call that Righteousness which is not worth the seeking, which we should run and fly from. Nec tamen mutatur vocabulis vis rerum, as the Father well speaketh; yet the name will not change or alter the nature of things, no more than Socrates can be another man if we should call him Plato. Since than Righteousness, as it is used, is an ambiguous term, we will distinguish it, that so by the many counterfeits we may at last discover the true coin, even that Righteousness which hath the stamp and image of Christ upon it, and so may seek it, and sell all that we have, and buy it. First, there is justitia Philosophorum, the Righteousness of the Philosophers; which is nothing else but uprightness and honesty of conversation; ut forìs ita & domi, ut in magnis ita in parvis, ut in alienis ita in suis agitare justitiam, as the Orator speaketh, to do that which is just in great matters and in small, at home and abroad, in that which concerneth ourselves and in that which concerneth others. Without this Commonwealths are nothing else but magna latrocinia, but as the mountains of prey, where the stronger man bindeth and spoileth him who is not so strong as himself. This Righteousness the very heathen by the light of Nature attained to. Our Saviour telleth us that even the Publicans (whom Tertullian ranketh amongst the heathen, though many of them were Jew's) did love those that loved them. They who made use only of that light which they brought with them into the world, did walk near unto the Truth. Planè non negabimus, saith the Father, philosophos juxta nostra sensisse; We cannot deny but that the heathen Philosophers did many things which Christ commanded. And though upon an uncertain adventure, and in a storm, yet they did touch upon the haven, which, having no further light, they could not arrive at. Yea, they did love many time's Virtue for itself, & studium potiùs quàm fructum, the study of it rather than the fruit and reputation and honour which they reaped. Cato was so famous that his name became a name of Virtue rather than of a man. Aristides was not just only, but Justice itself. And what temperance, what chastity, what natural conscience of justice and honesty did adorn and beautify not only the writings but the lives of many of the Philosophers? Yet TEKEL, weigh them in the balance, and they are found too light; nor did all these add one hair to their stature, to bring them nearer to life and immortality. If we number up all the wise precepts they have delivered, all the glorious examples they have shown and transmitted to posterity, we may peradventure find enough to shame many who profess Christianity, but not that Righteousness which is required of Christians, and which would have raised them to the Kingdom of heaven. They not being built upon the true Foundation, all their Righteousness was to them but as the Rainbow before the Flood, for show, and for no saving use at all. For these virtues may be in those men qui justitiam nesciunt, saith Lactantius, who know not what true Righteousness is; as they have been at all times, by the help and concurrence of nature and careful education. Yet this Righteousness, though it come short, is commended to us in Scripture. Having your conversation honest amongst the Gentiles, 1 Pet. 2.12. that whereas they speak against you, for your profession of Christianity, as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, and which themselves approve by the light of nature, be drawn to the love of Christianity itself, and so glorify God in the day of visitation. This Righteousness is not enough; but this is required. Absit ut sic, saith S. Augustine; sed utinam vel sic! God forbidden a Christian should stay here; but would to God many Christians had attained so far! God forbidden it should be so; but, if we look upon the Many, we may wish it were but so. And what a sad wish is this we are put to, that Christians were but as good and Righteous as Heathens! Secondly, there is justitia Judaeorum, the Righteousness of the Jews: A great part whereof I may almost say God did rather indulge then command. Had they been able to bear it, he had laid a far heavier burden upon them then he did: and had not their eye been so weak, he had showed them a more excellent way: But, as a tender Father, he had regard to their persons and condition when he prescribed them that form of Righteousness: and the weakness and unqualifiedness of the persons was the occasion of that defect which was in their Law. Many things were permitted to them, both in respect of outward impurity and inward purity of mind, which afterwards God would not make lawful to those which were to fulfil all righteousness. And yet between that Righteousness which he then commended, and that which he after under the Gospel exacted, there is no repugnancy and contrariety, but diversity only. For he that did omit that which he was permitted to do, did not take an eye for an eye, nor a tooth for a tooth, was so far from doing any thing against the Law, that he did that which the Law especially intended, which was not foams but limbs furoris, did not nourish or provoke, but set bounds to their malice. Quod permittitur, suspectam habet permissionis suae causam; That which is permitted is to be suspected for that very cause for which it is permitted. Possum dicere, saith the Father, Quod permittitur, non est bonum; I may say, That which is permitted is not good. For that which is good commendeth itself by its proper and native goodness, as Justice, Temperance, Self denial, and the like. These are good in themselves and for themselves, these tend to good, these will end in good, and will bring us thither through all the troops and armies of evils which may assault us in the way. But that which is permitted only, supposeth some defect in those for whose sakes it is indulged. Usury, Revenge, Divorce, and the like, were permitted; but the reason why they were indulged is a plain reproof and accusation of them to whom they were indulged: The words are plain; it was for the hardness of their hearts. Matth. 19.8. Sunt aliqua quae non oportet fieri, etiamsi licet, could the Heathen say; There be some things which we may with more commendations omit then do, though they be lawful to be done. This Righteousness then of the Jew will not reach home: unless we can imagine that the business of a Christian is to seek after shadows and ceremonies, and to rest in that which nothing but weakness and imperfection, nay nothing but hardness of heart, can make lawful for us; unless we will conclude that the Law can make us perfect, and that which is so weak and unprofitable, bring us to the kingdom of God. Hebr. 7.18. There is a third kind of Righteousness mentioned in Sc ipture, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, the learnedest amongst the Jews, and those who were most famous for sanctity and strictness of life. Christ himself speaketh of their Righteousness; and the Righteousness of some of them was true according to the Law. Matth. 5.20. For where our Saviour telleth us that except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, he meaneth not hypocritical; but real righteousness, saith Chrysostom. Otherwise he had compared not Righteousness with Righteousness, but Righteousness with Hypocrisy, which is the greatest unrighteousness. And yet all this will not reach home, nor make up that which the Christian is to seek. For even these wise and righteous persons did come short of true wisdom and righteousness. The sons of Levi, who did purify others, were to be purified themselves, that they might offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Mal. 3.3. S. Paul himself, who was a Pharisee, and had sat at the feet of G●maliel, where he learned the Law, telleth us, That he was unblameable, Phil. 3.6. but touching the righteousness which is by the Law. And what Seneca speaketh is true in this case also, Angusta est innocentia, ad legem bonum esse; That righteousness is but of a narrow compass which looketh no further than the Laws, which restraineth no more than the outward man. Therefore the Apostle in many places calleth the Law the Law of works, not only in opposition to the Law of faith, but to that better and more perfect Law, which doth not only bind the hand, but the thought. The Righteousness which was by the Law was indeed justifiable, but before men; and had no other reward but of the Basket, of temporal blessings: And, in plain terms, we read of none else. But the Righteousness which hath the promise of this life and of that which is to come, whose reward is eternity of bliss, is more spiritual, and offereth up no other sacrifice then the man himself is busy in purging and cleansing the soul; in rooting out those evils which are visible and naked to God, though the eye of flesh cannot behold them; in curing those diseases which neither Jew nor Gentile were sensible of, but rejoiced in them as in health itself. For this is it with which Christ, and his blessed servant S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, upbraid the Jews, that they would not yield their necks to Christ's yoke, though it were easy, nor put their shoulders to his burden, though it were light; that they would not be obedient to the righteousness of God, which is spiritual, but set up and established and gloried in one of their own. The Righteousness then neither of the Heathen, nor of the Jew in general, nor of the strictest Sect of them, the Scribes and Pharisees, is meant here in this place; nor indeed doth it deserve that name. There is then a fourth kind, justitia Christianorum, the Righteousness of Christians: Which was revealed by the most exact Master that ever was, and commanded by that Majesty which pierceth the very heart and reins, and which cannot be contemned. Now even Christians themselves do not agree about this Righteousness, but have made and left the word ambiguous. Some stand much upon an Imputed Righteousness; and it is true which they say, if they understood themselves: and upon Christ's righteousness imputed to us; which might be true also, if they did not interpret what they say. For this in a pleasing phrase they call to appear in our elder Brother's robes and apparel, that, as Jacob did, we may steal away the blessing. Thus the adulterer may say, I am chaste with Christ's chastity; the intemperate, I am sober with Christ's temperance; the covetous, I am poor with Christ's poverty; the revenger, I am quiet with Christ's meekness: And if he please, every wicked person may say that with Christ he is crucified, dead and buried; and that, though he did nothing, yet he did it; though he did ill, yet he did well, because Christ did it. For no better use can be drawn out of such doctrines as do not offer themselves unto us, but are forced out of the word of God. We have a story in Seneca of one Calvisius Sabinus, who thought he did himself what any servant of his did: Putabat se scire quod quisquam in domo suâ sciret; Such an opinion possessed him, that he thought himself skilled in that which any of his family knew: If his servant were a good Poet, he was so too; if his servant were well limbed, he could wrestle; if his servant were a good Grammarian, he could play the Critic. Now Christ, we know, took upon him the form of a servant; he came not to be served, but to serve: and some men are we I content to be of Sabinus his mind, to think that whatsoever Christ did they do also, or at least that they may be said to do it. If he fasted forty days and forty nights, they fast as long, though they never abstained from a meal: If he overcame the Devil when he tempted him, they are also victorious, though they never resist him: If Christ was as a sheep which opened not his mouth, they also are sheep, though they open theirs as a sepulchre. Therefore what the Stoic speaketh of that man, Nunquam vidi hominem beatum indecentiùs. I never saw man whose happiness did less become him, will fit and apply itself to these men; This Righteousness, if they have no other, doth but ill become them, because it had no artificer but the fancy to make it. For that Christ's Righteousness is thus imputed to any, we do not read; no, not so much as that it is imputed; though in some sense the phrase may be admitted. For what is done cannot be undone, no, not by Omnipotency itself: for it implieth a contradiction. Deo qui omnia potest, hoc impossibile, saith Hierom: God, who can do all things, cannot restore a lost virginity, or make that to be no sin which was a sin. He may forgive it, blot it out, bury it, not impute it, account of it as if it had never been; but a sin it was. We read indeed, Rom. 4.3. that Faith was imputed to Abraham for righteousness. And the Apostle interpreteth himself out of the 32. Psalms, Blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works; that is, as followeth, whose sins are forgiven, to whom the Lord imputeth no sin. And Abraham believed God, Gal. 3.6. 2 Cor. 5.21. and it was imputed to him for righteousness. And We are made the righteousness of God in him, that is, we are counted righteous for his sake. And it is more than evident, that it is one thing to say that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us; another, that faith is imputed for righteousness, or, which is the very same, our sins are not imputed unto us: Which two, Imputation of faith for righteousness, and Not-imputation of sin, make up that which we call the Justification of a sinner. For therefore are our sins blotted out by the hand of God, because we believe in Christ, and Christ in God. 1 Cor. 1.30. That place where we are told that Christ of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, is not such a pillar of Christ's Imputed righteousness, in that sense which they take it, as they fancied when they first set it up. For the sense of the Apostle is plain, and can be no more than this, That Christ by the will of God was the only cause of our righteousness and justification, and that for his sake God will justify and absolve us from all our sins, and will reckon or account us holy and just and wise; not that he who hath loved the error of his life is wise, or he that hath been unjust, is righteous in that wherein he was unjust, or he that was impure, in that he was impure, is holy, because Christ was so; but because God will for Christ's sake accept & receive and embrace us as if we were so: Unless we shall say that as we are wise with Christ, and holy, and righteous, so with Christ also we do redeem ourselves: For he who is said to be our righteousness, is said also to be our redemption in the next words. I would not once have thought this worth so much as a salute by the way, but because I see many understand not what they speak so confidently; and many more, and those the worst, are too ready to misapply it; are, will be every thing in Christ, when they are not in him; and well content he should fight it out in his own gore, than they, though they fall under the enemy, in him may be styled conquerors. Why should not we content ourselves with the language of the Holy Ghost? That certainly is enough to quiet any troubled conscience; unless you will say it is not enough for a sinner to be forgiven, not enough to be justified, not enough to be made heir of the kingdom of heaven. But yet I am not so out of love with the phrase as utterly to cast it out; but wish rather that it might either be laid aside, or not so grossly misapplied as it is many times by those presumptuous sinners who die in their sins. If any eye can pierce further into the letter, and find more than Imputation of faith for righteousness, and Not imputation of sins for Christ's righteousness sake, let him follow it as he please to the glory, but not to the dishonour of Christ: let him attribute what he will unto Christ, so that by his unseasonable piety he lose not his Saviour; so that he neglect not his own soul, because Christ was innocent; nor take no care to bring so much as a mite into the Treasury, because Christ hath fling in that talon which at the great day of accounts shall be reckoned as his. So that men be wary of those dangerous consequences which may issue from such a conceit, quisque abundet sensu suo, let every man think and speak as he please, and add this Imputation of Christ's righteousness to this, which I am sure is enough, and which is all we find in Scripture, Forgiveness and Not-imputation of sins, and the Imputation of faith for righteousness. I pass then to this Righteousness, the Righteousness of Faith, which indeed is properly called Evangelical Righteousness, because Christ, who was the publisher of the Gospel, was also author and finisher of our Faith. And here we may sit down, and not move any further, and call all eyes to behold it, and say, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, This is it. Nec curiositate opus est post Jesum Christum; When Christ hath spoken, and told us what it is, our curiosity need not make any further search. The Righteousness of faith is that which justifieth a sinner: Rom. 1.17. For the just shall live by faith or, as some render it, the just by faith shall live. Mar. 9.23. If thou canst believe, saith our Saviour: and Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, Acts 16.31. and thou shalt be saved and thy household, saith S. Paul to the Gaoler. Isa. 55.1. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to these waters; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money or money-worth. I doubt not but every man is ready to come; every man is ready to say, I believe; Lord, help my unbelief. But here it fareth with many men as it doth with those who first hear of some great place fallen unto them, but afterwards find it is as painful as great: The later part of the news soureth and deadeth the joy of the former, and the trouble taketh off the glory and dignity. Believe, and be saved, is a message of joy; but, Believe, and repent, or, Repent, and believe, is a bitter pill. But we must join them together; nor is it possible to separate them: they both must meet and kiss each other in that Righteousness which is the way to the Kingdom of God. It is true, Faith is imputed for righteousness; but it is imputed to those who forsake all unrighteousness. Faith justifieth a sinner; but a repentant sinner. It must be vera fides, quae hoc quod verbis dicit, moribus non contradicit; a faith which leaveth not our manners and actions as so many contradictions to that which we profess. Faith is the cause and original of good actions, and naturally will produce them: and if we hinder not its casuality, in this respect it will have its proper effect, which is to Justify a sinner. This effect, I say, is proper to Faith alone; and it hath this royal prerogative by the ordinance of God: but it hath not this operation but in subjecto capaci, in a subject which is capable of it, In a word, it is the Righteousness of a sinner, but not of a sinner who continueth in his sin. It is a sovereign medicine, but will not cure his wounds who resolveth to bleed to death. For to conceive otherwise were to entitle God to all the uncleanness and sins of our life past, to make him a lover of iniquity, and the justifier, not of the sinner, but of our sins. Christ was the Lamb of God which took away our sins. John 1.29. And he took them away, not only by a plaster, but also by a purge; not only by forgiveness, but also by restraint of sin. He suffered those unknown pains that we should be forgiven, and sin no more; not that we should sin again, and be forgiven. He fulfilled the Law, but not to the end that we should take the more heart, break it at pleasure, and add rebellion to rebellion, because he hath put a pardon into our hands. We must therefore seek out another Righteousness. And we may well say we must seek it; for it is well near lost in this. Imputed Righteousness is that we hold by; and Inherent righteousness is Popery or Pelagianism. We will not be what we ought, because Christ will make us what we would be: We will not be just, that he may justify us; and we will rebel, because he hath made our peace: As men commonly never more forfeit their obedience then under a mild Prince. But if the love of the world would suffer us to open our eyes, we might then see a Law even in the Gospel, and the Gospel more binding then ever the Law was. Nor did Christ bring in that Righteousness by faith, to thrust out this, that we may do nothing, that we may do any thing, because Faith can work such a miracle. No, saith S. Paul, he establisheth the Law. He added to it, he reform it, he enlarged it, made it reach from the act to the look, from the look to the thought. Nor is it enough for the Christian to walk a turn with the Philosopher, or to go a Sabbath-day's journey with the Jew, or make such a progress in Righteousness as the Law of Moses measured out. No, Christ taught us a new kind of Righteousness; and our burden is not only reserved, but increased, that this Righteousness may abound; a Righteousness which striketh us dumb, when the slanderer's mouth is open and loud against us; which boundeth our desires, when vanity wooeth us; setteth a knife to our throat, when the fruit is pleasant to the eye; giveth laws to our understanding, chaineth up our will, when Kingdoms are laid at our feet; shutteth up our eyes, that we may not look upon a second woman, which a Jew might have embraced; calleth us out of the world, whilst we are in the world; and maketh us spiritual, whilst we are in the flesh: Justitia sincera, a sincere Righteousness without mixture or sophistication; and justitia integra, an entire and perfect Righteousness, Righteousness like to the love of our Saviour, integros tradens integrum se danti, a Righteousness delivering up the whole man, both body and soul, unto him who offered up himself a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. For conclusion of this point, and to make some use of it; Beloved, this is the Object we must look on; And we must use diligence, and be very wary, that we mistake it not, that we take not that to be our Juno which is but a cloud, that to be Righteousness which flesh and blood, our present occasions, our present necessities, our unruly lusts and desires may set up, and call by that name. This is the great and dangerous error in which many Christians are swallowed up, and perish, not to take Righteousness in its full extent and compass, in that form and shape in which it is tendered, and so fulfil all righteousness; but to contract and shrink it up, to leave it in its fairest parts and offices, and to work all unrighteousness, and then make boast of its name. And thus the number of the Righteous may be great, the Goats more than the Sheep, the gate wide and open that leadeth unto the Kingdom of God. Thus the Hypocrite, who doth but act a part, is righteous; the Zealot, who setteth all on fire, is righteous; the Schismatic, who teareth the seamless coat of Christ, is righteous; he whose hands yet reek with the blood of his brethren, is righteous; righteous Pharisees, righteous Incendiaries, righteous Schismatics, righteous Traitors and Murderers; not Abel, but Cain the righteous: All are righteous. For this hath been the custom of wicked men, to bid defiance to Righteousness, and then comfort themselves with her name. We will not mention the Righteousness of the heathen: For they being utterly devoid of the true knowledge of Christ, it might perhaps diminish the number of their stripes, but could not add one hair to their stature, or raise them nearer to the Kingdom of God. Nor will we speak of the Righteousness of the Jew: For they were in bondage under the Elements of the world; nor could the Law make any of them perfect. We Christians, on whom the Sun of Righteousness hath clearly shined, depend too much upon an Imputed Righteousness. An imputed Righteousness? why, that is all. It is so, and will lift us up unto happiness, if we add our own, not as a supplement, but as a necessary requisite: not to seal our pardon; for that it cannot do, but to further our admittance. For we never read that the Spirit did seal an unrighteous person, that continued in his sin, to the day of his redemption. No; Imputed Righteousness must be the motive to work in us inherent Righteousness: and, God will pardon us in Christ, is a strong argument to infer this conclusion, Therefore we must do his will in Christ. For Pardon bringeth greater obligation than a law. Christ died for us, is enough to win Judas himself, those that betray him, and those that crucify him, to repentance. The death of Christ is verbum visibile, saith Clement, a visible word. For in the death of Christ are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Righteousness. If you look upon his Cross, and see the inscription, JESUS OF NAZERETH KING OF THE JEWS, you cannot miss of another, HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS TO THE LORD. There hung his sacred body, and there hung all those bracelets and ornaments, as Solomon calleth them, those glorious examples of all virtues: There hung the most true and most exact pictures of Patience and Obedience and unparallelled Love; And if we take them not out, and draw them in ourselves, imputed Righteousness will not help us, or rather it will not be imputed. What? Righteousness imputed to a man of Belial? Christ's Love imputed to him that hateth him? his Patience to a revenger? his Truth to the fraudulent? his Obedience to the traitor? his Mercy to the cruel? his Innocency to the murderer? his Purity to the unclean? his Doing all things well to those who do all things ill? God forbidden. No: let us not deceive ourselves. Let us not sleep in sin, and then please ourselves with a pleasant dream of Righteousness, which is but a suggestion of the enemy, whose art it is to settle that in the fancy which should be rooted in the heart, and to lead us to the pit of destruction full of those thoughts which lift us up as high as heaven. Assumed names, false pretences, forced thoughts, these are the pillars which uphold his kingdom, and subvert all Righteousness. Vera justitia hoc habet, omnia in se vertit; True Righteousness complieth with nothing that is contrary or divers from it. It will not comply with the Pharisee, and make his seeming a reality; it will not comply with the Schismatic, and make his pride humility; it will not comply with the prosperous Traitor; and make him a Father of his country; it will not fit our Ambition in the eager pursuit of honour, nor our Covetousness in grasping of wealth, nor our Luxury in doting on pleasures. Righteousness treadeth all these imaginations under her feet, and will at last rise up against those Impostors which work these lying wonders in her name. She changeth and transelementeth all into herself, the love of the World, the love of Honour, the love of Pleasure into the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. To conclude, This is the Object we are to look on; and if we receive and embrace it, if we seek it, and seek it first, it will supply us with all things necessary for us in the way, and at last bring us to the Kingdom of God. The Five and Twentieth SERMON. PART II. MATTH. VI 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. IN our former discourse we have lifted up the Object, that you might behold the beauty and majesty of it, and so fall in love with it, that your desires may be on the wing, and that you may seek it with your whole heart; Which is my next part, and cometh now to be handled: But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. Let us now see what it is to seek it. For as we mistake one object for another, set up Pleasure for an idol and Mammon for a God, and call that Righteousness which is as distant from it as the heavens are from the lowest pit; so we are willingly deceived in our seeking of it, and make it but the sudden flight of the soul, the business of the fancy, the labour or rather the lust of the ear. As David speaketh, there is Generatio quaerentium, a generation of them that seek Righteousness. Some seek it in their bed, have peradventure a pleasant dream of it, talk of it as men do in their sleep. Some seek it, and sit still and gaze. Some seek it, and are unwilling to find it; bound and limit their desires, which in the pursuit of Righteousness should admit no bounds. Our desires after it may be too weak and faint; they cannot be too vehement. Some never think themselves wiser stewards for God and themselves then when they favour themselves, and say, This is too much; benigni Dei interprete, too too favourable interpreters of God and his commands, boldly concluding he is not so hard a taskmaster as he maketh show of, and with the false Steward in the Gospel, when the debt is an hundred measures of oil, taking the bill, and writing fifty. Commonly, when we fail and fall short in our performance, we make not that use we ought of the rule, to quicken and enliven our endeavours, but by our weak endeavours judge the rule itself; and whatsoever, how little soever we do, this is it which God requireth. If we do but think of Righteousness, if we do but speak of it, if we do but look after it, or faintly pray for it, that with us is to seek the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness. Every groan is Repentance; Agrippa's modicum, our Altogether; every, Lord, Lord, that Violence which taketh the Kingdom of heaven; every look, a liking; every inclination a desire; and every desire, a seeking of Righteousness. Now there are three duties in which the formal Christian seemeth so to please himself as if to pass over them were to finish his course, and enter into heaven, and of which he maketh his boast all his life long; public Profession of the Gospel, hearing of the Word, and tendering of his Prayers unto God; Naming of Christ, Hearing what he will say, and Speaking to him that he may hear. These three are all by which we can discover his desire or endeavour; and in the strength of these he walketh on, and that securely, all the days of his life, thinking not that bitterness will be at the end. Let us stay a while and take a view of them. And first, if we send our eyes abroad, and take a survey of the conversation of most Christians, we may be persuaded that the mere profession and naming of Righteousness, the speaking well of it, is all the pains they take in seeking it. For what can we discover in most men's lives but noise and words? What a place is Heaven! What Manna is Righteousness! how happy are they that seek it! and no more. But this is too short: so far from seeking, that it may consist with loathing; and it may proceed from some other cause then a desire or love of Righteousness. Some speak well of it, because they are convinced, and cannot think otherwise. For not only out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but even out of the mouths of wicked men, hath God ordained strength. And Righteousness is justified, not only by her children, but also by her enemies. Again, some are righteous in a throng, applaud Righteousness for very shame, dare not with open face oppose it, left the multitude of those they live with should confute and silence them. Si nomen Justitiae in tanto honore non esset, tot professores hodie non haberet; If the name of Righteousness were not glorious in the world, she would fall short in her reckoning and number of professors, whereof many make but a proffer & approach towards her for companies sake. Besides, the Desire doth not always sympathise and keep time with the Voice, but often is dull and heavy when our songs of praises are loudest. The voice may be for Diana, the desire for gain; the voice for a new discipline, the desire for preeminence; the voice for liberty, the desire for dominion; the voice for the glory of God, the desire for our own; the voice for the good of the Church, the desire for the wealth of the Church; the voice for Righteousness, the desire for the things of this world. O miserable disproportion and contradiction of Voice and Desire; of what we approve, and what we would have! Foolish men that we are, to say Righteousness is the fairest object, and yet to loathe it! to profess the Gospel is true, and yet to live as if we were certain it were false! I did not well to mention this, for this hath nothing of desire in it; this is not to seek, but to run from Righteousness. At best it is but a beam cast from the light of reason, an acknowledgement against our wills, an echo from a hollow cave or sepulchre of rotten bones, which when all the world crieth up Righteousness, resoundeth it back again into the world; of so little activity, that we may truly say, Vox est, & preterea nihil; It is a voice, an echo, and no more. This then is not to seek Righteousness. In the second place, S. Paul hath told us of itching ears, 2 Tim. 4.3. And we may observe some to have a greedy desire to hear of Righteousness. And their listening after it, their attention, may seem to come near it: Yet Righteousness dwelleth not in their heart, or hand, but only in their ear: Who for fear they should not find it, get them a heap of teachers, as S. Paul prophesieth of them, but it is according to their own lusts; teachers, whom they must teach, as a master doth his scholar that lesson which he must but repeat again. The Preacher and the hearers may seem to abound in charity: for they are always of the same mind in all things. He is our Preacher; we have made him ours: And then how do we love his errors! how do we applaud his ignorance! how do we cry up those frivolous toys and that witless wit which little conduce to Righteousness, and are far below the majesty of the word of God O pudor! would the Father have cried; What a shame is this! Can we conceive any thing more ridiculous? Nay, what a grief is this, that so many should take such pains, and be at such charge, to be deceived! that so many should please and flatter themselves to their own destruction! I will therefore grow further upon you, and be bold to conclude, that in this formality of hearing (I say, in this formality of hearing, because I would not be mistaken: for hearing of itself is the ordinary means of salvation: but in this formality) we betray more vanity than we do in any other action of our life. For tell me, is it not a vain thing to take up water in a sieve? to let in, and out? nay, to let in, and loath? and in this reciprocal intercourse of hearing and neglecting to spin out the thread of our life, and at the end of it to look for the kingdom of heaven? to come so oft to hear of Righteousness with a resolution to let it pass no further than the ear? to give Righteousness no larger place to breathe in then from the pulpit to our pew, from the Preacher's mouth to our ear? to come in all our vanity to hear a declamation against Vanity? nay, to make a Sermon of Righteousness a prologue to that unrighteousness which an Heathen would have cursed? to have the ear full of Righteousness, and the hands full of blood? Certainly if those actions be vain which are not driven to a right end, than this Hearing is in vain. Did I call it a vain action of our life? I will yet increase upon you, and be bold to pronounce it a Sin; and that of the greatest magnitude. Will you have it in plain terms? It is no less than a mockery of God. For do we not in a manner tell God to his face (for our very thoughts are words to him) Lord, we will come into thy courts to hear of Righteousness, and leave that and the Church together behind us: We will hear the burden of pride, and make it a garment to us; of Temperance, and drink down the thought of it; of Chastity, and defile it: We will hear of Righteousness, and set up all the faculties of our souls and all the members of our bodies against it, except the Ear. What is this but to be learning our Alphabet all the days of our life, and never put the letters together to make up one word or syllable towards Righteousness? What is this but to think to please God with a piece of service which doth most please our sense? What is this but to mock God? Be not deceived: God is not mocked. Righteousness is res morosa, a coy and severe thing, and will not dwell in the hollow of the ear, but must be seen in the world; in our houses, in the education of our children; in the streets, in our modest deportment; in the Church, in our reverence; in the Commonwealth, in our peaceable conformity. Every place must be a shrine for Righteousness, nor is she confined to the Church alone. Therefore S. Basil will tell us that Hearing in Scripture is of another nature from that which we so much delight and pride ourselves in. For when God biddeth us hear, his meaning is we should obey. He that hath ears to hear, saith our Saviour, let him hear. Why; Speak, Lord, and thy servant must needs hear. But, let him hear, that is, let him seek Righteousness. Bare Hearing then will not reach home. There is yet a third thing behind. Though our Profession and frequent Hearing do not, yet the Breathing forth of our Prayers and Supplications to God may reach home. As I do not derogate from Hearing, but Hearing only; so I cannot attribute enough to Prayer. Hearing may seem to be a duty conditional and respective, in respect of the weak condition of our nature. If we could obey without it, Hearing were of no use at all. But Prayer is absolute and necessary, to which we should be bound, were we again in Paradise. For even the Saints and Angels tender their Prayers. And Christ himself, in whom there was no sin, in the days of his flesh offered up strong supplications, and doth yet intercede and pray for us. This than may come near it. When we are on our knees, and breathe forth our desires to God, we may seem to be like the dry and parched ground, and to open ourselves, that the dew from heaven, this Righteousness, may distil upon us and fill us. But yet we must not be too hasty to determine and conclude this is it. For that may befall Praying which doth Hearing: It may be alone; and our prayers may be loud and frequent when our desires are asleep; nay, our Desires may run contrary to them, and deny our Prayers. We may ask for fish, when we would have a serpent; ask for Righteousness, when we desire riches; and beg for eternity in heaven, when we had rather dwell and delight ourselves with the children of men. Many times we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wander from ourselves, and follow our flying thoughts, to that vanity which we pray against. Our understandings are taken up with two contrary objects; Now a sigh, anon a burning thought; now an eye lifted up to heaven, anon full of the adulteress; now a strong abjuration of sin, and before the Amen be said as strong a resolution to retain it. We grind the face of the poor, and desire God to instill thoughts of mercy into us: We every day break his Law, and are every day earnest with him that we may keep it: We pray for Righteousness, which God is readier to give than we to ask, and upon the fairest proffer turn our backs, and (which is an extremity of folly) will not have that which we so oft beg upon our knees. We are then yet to seek what it is to seek Righteousness. For our Profession we may carry with us when we run from Righteousness; our frequent hearing is but a listening after it, or rather after something which may be as music to the ear; and, last of all, we may pray for it, and seek the contrary. You will ask then, What is it to seek Righteousness? I deny not but there may be great use of these, but these do not reach home. Well said S. Hierom, Nisi vim feceris, regnum coelorum non capies: Righteousness is not found, nor the Kingdom of Heaven taken, but by violence. Will you have it in a word? Velle justitiam, est quaerere justitiam: To have a Will ready to entertain it, a Heart ready to leap out and meet it, to love and embrace it, to express it in every part of it, is to seek it. This setteth a seal, and ratifieth our Profession; This maketh our Hearing fruitful; This giveth Wings to our Prayers; that they make haste and fly to the Mercy-seat; This seasoneth and giveth a sweet-smelling savour to every sacrifice. Isa. 1.19. Si volucritis, If you consent and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land. If you will, you shall find and taste what sweetness is in Righteousness. And this we may suppose is assoon done as said: For who is unwilling? who is so wicked, as not to say he will be righteous? I will be righteous, is a promise made and broken almost every moment. It may be made by Balaam as well as by Moses, by Judas as well as by Peter. I would be righteous, but I love the world, saith the Covetous; I would be righteous, but I fulfil my lusts, saith the Wanton: that is, I would be righteous, but I will be wicked. In the way every man saith he will, till he cometh to his journey's end, till that sad time when his will itself shall be a punishment. Have you seen a meteor twinkle like a star, and then shoot and fall? or a taper blazing, and then out? Have you seen some creatures swelling into some bulk and greatness, and at a touch or breath contracting and shrinking in themselves to nothing? Then have you seen an emblem and resemblance of that which we call to will: A charge, and a flight; a venture, and a retreat; a proffer, and a falling back; a lap, and away. This is our Willing, this is our seeking of Righteousness. I dare not say, that to Will is an act of the Understanding; but if we define it by the practice of the major part of Christians, it is no more. And this is one of Satan's wiles and erterprises, this is the subtlest engine he hath to undermine and blow up the greatest part of mankind, to persuade them that they then lift up their hearts when they do but lift up their voice, that they truly desire that which they would not have, and seek that which they would not find; seek Righteousness, when they would loathe it, I do not the good which I would; but the evil which I would not do, that do I; They are the words of S. Paul Rom. 7.19. but how are they made an apology for sin! For he that knoweth little of S. Paul doth easily remember this, though he understand it not: And we may observe it familiar in their mouths who say they would be righteous, when they will be wicked; who pretend they desire one thing, when they resolve the contrary. But we may say of these words as Job did of his friends, They are but miserable comforters. For S. Paul speaketh as in his own person, but not of himself; by this modest way to insinuate the truth which he intended. He doth here, as himself speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as in a figure transfer that to himself which indeed cannot belong but to the unregenerate man. 1 Cor. 4.6. And for this we have the joint testimony of the Fathers of the three first ages of the Church. For to Will here is no more than to Approve, nor can it be. And the reason is plain: For he that doth truly will, cannot but do those things which show a willing mind. He that will be rich doth not gather wealth by saying he will be rich, but doth rise up early, and lie down late, and eat the bread of carefulness. He that will marry a Wife is not made a husband by that intention, by saying he will be married. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Chrysostom; If thou dost will indeed thou canst not but do those things which manifest and demonstrate that will. For nihil aliud quàm ipsum velle, est habere quod volumus; It is S. Augustine's: Truly to will a thing is to have it. We cannot say he ever would be righteous, who is not. When we speak to Christ, Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make us righteous, Christ returneth no other answer but this, I will, I command it; and tribulation and anguish shall be upon every soul that is not righteous. Never did any yet set forth with a willing mind whom God brought not to their journey's end. It is but, Open thy mouth wide, and he will fill it. But further yet, simply to Will doth not reach home, nor fully express what is meant by seeking. Though to Will is indeed to seek, yet more is here meant; to wit, a free and cheerful will, a will subjugated and subdued to the will of Christ, a will begot of love unfeigned; which is nothing else but a vehement & well-ordered will. And this is in S. Augustin's phrase, invictissimè & perseverantissimè velle, a cheerful persevering, unconquered will; a resolution made once for all, like the decrees of God himself, which cannot alter, whose word is immutable; like his promises, Yea and Amen from which neither debth nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor any other creature shall ever move us. And first, it must be a Cheerful and ready will, like the motion of the Angels, instantaneous and in a moment, as sudden as their will. Zech. 1.8. they are described in the posture of standing, as in readiness to do God's Will, and Isa. 6. with wings flying, with naked feet; and they are said to go forth like lightning; which charactereth out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their prompt and ready alacrity and speed in executing all God's commands. Their constant office is to be ready at God's beck: and therefore the Father conceiveth that they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the heavenly characters of God's will always before their eyes. Behold here is the Object, Righteousness; and we cannot move towards it nisi in quantum caeperimus esse Angeli, but so far forth as we begin to be like unto the Angels, whose Elogium is, that they do his will. Our desires should be on the wing, our devotion cheerful and active, our feet naked to run the way of God's commandments. For, as the Schools tell us that the motion of the Angels is sudden and instantaneous, because they are moved only per suum velle, by their will; so here, if our will truly move, our Righteousness will break forth as the morning, Isa. 58.8. and spring forth speedily. Quicquid volui, illico potui; Whatsoever I will do, I presently may do: Nay, if I truly will it, I have done it already. Delay is a strong argument of an unwilling mind. It may perhaps be joined with that will which we call communem & nudam, a common and naked will, or rather a faint and feeble desire, or a forced approbation of Righteousness; but it is of a poisonous nature, and infecteth the whole soul, and at last leaveth not so much as an inclination; lameth and cripleth us, and turneth our weak desire to Righteousness into a strong resolution against it. At first we applaud the precept as just, and we think we are bound to do it; nay, perhaps faintly determine to betake ourselves to action: but as water taken from the fire groweth colder and colder, and at last by some circumsistent cold is congealed into ice; so this resolution waxeth fainter and fainter, and in the end, per frigus tentationum, as Gregory calleth it, by the i'll cold of some tentation, is bound up; and we who before had Righteousness in our wish, have it not now in all our thoughts, but set all the powers of our soul against it. If the will be not cheerful, it is not Angelical, it is no will at all. Again, it must be Constant, as also the Angels is. They are pictured out unto us in those mystical Wheels, Ezek. 1. to show 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their perpetual and constant motion; and in the shape of Young men, to express the vigorous force and continual instauration of their obedience. For an Angel cannot wax old, or weary and faint. He doth not minister to day, and to morrow slack his obedience; is not to day an Angel of light, and to morrow a devil; but is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, constant and in his ministerial office, which is his Righteousness. So should our will to Righteousness be constant and ever the same; not a good intention, and then flag. We must not have those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, immutations and reflections in our proposals and desires, which Nazianzene observed in Julian the Apostate; to night passing a just sentence, and the next morning reversing it; not to day fasting, and to morrow thirsting after blood; not setting the knife to our own throats now, and anon to our brothers; heri in ecclesia, hodie in theatro, yesterday in the Church, and to day in the theatre; now humbling ourselves, and within a while swelling above measure. For if we have these ebbings, and flow in our pursuit of Righteousness, now swelling towards it, & anon falling back, it is manifest we never sought it, Quae modò sunt, modò non sunt, is qui verè est non acceptat, saith the Father; He that is truly and everlastingly, doth not accept of those desires which now are, and anon are not, of those fits in devotion, those transitory offers, which like some creatures appear not but at some times of the year. For if we look towards Righteousness, if we begin to move towards it, and some black or smiling tentation strike as it were the hollow of our thigh, and put our desires out of joint, that they either move not at all, or move irregularly, we may flatter ourselves that we are still in our quest after Righteousness, but indeed we are posting to the gates of death. Did I say our will should resemble the will and motion of Angels? Our seeking of Righteousness should be like Gods seeking of us, which is real and hearty, and ever the same: For he would save us, when we will perish; and it is not he but we that in a manner alter his decrees, change his counsels, reverse his purposes, break his promises: For how oft would he, and we would not! We talk much of God's decrees. I am sure he hath decreed it shall be to us even as we will. If we will be saved, he is ready to crown us. But if instead of Righteousness we seek death in the error of our life, if we will perish we perish; but it is against his first and primitive will, which was serious and without dissimulation to save us. And such should our wills be to Righteousness. For if we can flatter ourselves, and think that God will be content with our faint desires and feeble wishes, we cannot in any reason expect any other comfort from him, then that he should tell us that he also did desire our salvation, did wish that we would be wise. If we pretend we are willing to be gathered into his garner, what other answer can he give but this, Oh how oft would I have gathered you, and you would not! How willing was I to have set the crown of glory upon your heads, which yet I will not do against your wills! Oh that there were that proportion and analogy which is meet, and which even common reason requireth, between our desire of Righteousness and God's desire of our Happiness, between his will to do us good and our will to do our duty! Oh that we were as willing to be righteous as he is we should be glorious! What a shame is it that he should bow the heavens and come down, and we run into holes and caverns, and with Dathan and his complices bury ourselves quick in the earth; for so every covetous man doth, saith Origen: that he should appear in his glory and beauty, and we should dote on that which is of near alliance to the worm and rottenness; for so every lustful man doth: that he should look upon us and woe us in our blood, and we wallow still, and not once look up upon him; for this every unrepentant sinner doth: that he should wait, and we delay; that he should bid us live, and we love death; that he should be sorry for our sin, and we triumph in our sin; that he should long, and we loath; that his bowels should yern, and our hearts be stone; that Righteousness should spread her beams, display all her beauty, and we turn away from it, and join ourselves with Deformity and Death; that God should bid us seek him, and we should seek Bethel and Gilgal, the vanities of the world, which shall come to nought! This, this is it which will draw the hand-writing against us in capital letters, and be as terrible as Hell itself. That we may then raise our desires, and levelly them with the Object, that we may not deceive ourselves, and think we seek Righteousness, when our desires are carried another way, let us, as the Stoics admonish, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, check and stay our fancy, prove and examine it by the right rule. By this men may know you are my disciples, saith our Saviour; and by this you may know you do indeed seek Righteousness. First, there will be in us a sense and feeling of vacuity. The fuller we are of Righteousness, the more sensible we are of want. Nor do any more earnestly seek it then they who have made it theirs, and hold it as it were in possession. I have not yet attained, saith S. Paul when he had attained, but I press forward. The Pharisee is ever full, but to the righteous ever something is wanting. And this putteth a difference between our spiritual & our carnal desires. The body is mortal and changeable; decayeth, and is repaired, and therefore hath an appetite which is soon dulled or changed: The soul is of a more refined essence, and hath an appetite fitted and proportioned to it, infinite and unsatiable, and made so by its very object, which raiseth a desire when it is received, which is favourable and benevolent, and admitteth at once of content and desire. The more Righteousness we have, the more we desire; and when we have found most, we seek most. Therefore the Philosopher's rules of moderation have here no place. For when the desire is turned towards the right object, there can be no excess, nor can we give it wing enough. Our Love cannot be too ardent, nor our Sorrow too great, nor our Anger too loud: Nor can we fear that should be too much, which cannot possibly be great enough. We cannot knock too hard at ●he gates of heaven, nor seek too earnestly after Righteousness. I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, was the boast of lukewarm Laodicea, Rev. 3.17. Rev. 18.7. 1 Sam. 15.13. who was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I sit as a queen, and shall know no sorrow, was the boast of Babylon. I have fulfilled the commandment of the Lord, was the voice of Saul, a rejected King. I am, and I alone; I am more righteous than thou; I am a Saint, is commonly the language of those who are children of the Father of lies. These sounds we hear not but from empty vessels. But the holy language is not so high and lofty; nor do we hear from the righteous what they are, but what they would be. When they are rich, then are they poor; when they are strong, then are they weak; when they are full, then are they empty; and when they have found, than they seek. How have the perfectest men in Christ Jesus, the fairest plants in the paradise of Righteousness, deplored their want and emptiness! How; when they embrace this object, do they look upon it as if it were at distance, almost quite out of sight! How they still bargain for the rich pearl in the Gospel, even when they have bought it! Nihileitas mea, My nihileity, My nothingness, saith one. Postremissimus omnium, the last of the last, even behind the last of all, saith another; a superlative of a superlative. The least of the Apostles, The chiefest of sinners, saith another, the best servant that Christ Jesus ever had upon earth. Lord how long have I been absent from this beauty of holiness! how little have I enjoyed it! How ignorant is my knowledge! how feeble my devotion! how cold my charity! How fare am I from being like unto an Angel! but then how far am I from being like unto God How much do I want of that Righteousness which becometh the Gospel of Christ! In a word, when we truly seek Righteousness, we seek it with that heat and eagerness as if we had never sought it, never panting more after the water of life then when we are full. For, in the second place, where there is this desire, there is a taste and a savour of the power of Righteousness. What we seek, we seek for some good we find in it. The Philosopher calleth it a pregustation; as, in a newborn babe, of milk, which maketh it so greedy of the teat. Ex quibus sumus, ex illis nutrimur; We are nourished with something which is congruous and proportionable to that of which we consist. And that is the reason why one man is affected with this, another with that, and every object doth not please every eye alike. It is so with the body, and it is so with the soul. In the ways of evil we find it. The Envious man hath an evil eye, an evil disposition; and if full of envy, then followeth, murder, deceit, malignity: The Wanton hath an eye full of the adulteress, and he waiteth for the twilight: The Revenger hath a sanguine soul, and he thirsteth for blood. And it is so in the ways of Righteousness. For as they who are after the flesh savour the things of the flesh, Rom. 8.5. so they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. They that have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a soft and sweet disposition, are ever pouring themselves forth in mercy, and seeking the opportunity to do good: They that have a broken heart breathe forth nothing but groans and prayers and supplications. David was described to be a man after God's own heart; and Procopius telleth us, that was seen in his bounty and liberality. For where the heart is of a Divine constitution, there will follow the labour and pain, or, as Tertullian calleth it, the operation, of love. Nihil incongruum appetitur, We seek and desire that most which is most proportioned and agreeable to our disposition, to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and temper of our soul. If the same mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus, if Christ, as Paul speaketh, be fully form in us, we shall seek the things of Christ, which have near relation to those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God; and every thing which standeth in opposition to Christ, will be as distasteful to us as if it were Antichrist. In a word, if we love Righteousness, we shall seek it. For, in the last place, this will force a boldness upon us to venture upon any thing, how terrible soever, which the World and the Devil can place between us and Righteousness. Be it Pleasure, we slight it; be it Wealth, we count it dung; be it Honour, we disgrace it. We shall lose all that we have rather than our honesty, be poor rather then perjured, forfeit our life rather than our fidelity, deliver up our blood to the persecutor rather than our conscience, be any thing that his power can make us rather than be those unrighteous persons which none can make us but ourselves. We shall seek Righteousness through good report and evil report, through honour and dishonour, through the valley of tears and shadow of death, through hell itself, even that hell which wicked men and atheists make upon earth. Righteousness is most amiable and lovely and attractive in itself; but it doth not appear so to flesh and blood, but to men of divine constitution, who can receive it with the greatest horror can be put upon it, with poverty and contempt, with mockings and scourge, with imprisonment and death itself. When we are carnal, and our wills perverse, than we turn away from the precepts of Righteousness, our spirits fail us, and our hearts are dead within us, as if Righteousness were a Medusa's head to turn us into stones. Then we begin to paint it over, to make restrictions and limitations, that we may seem to come near unto it; we call Evangelical precepts counsels, we make that which is necessary arbitrary, and call great plagues peace. What lesser sin do we not dispense with? what greater do we not favour? What art have we to fit Righteousness to our blackest designs, to make it comply with faction, sedition and sacrilege? For have not these strutted abroad in state and Majesty under his name? Hath not the Devil thus shown himself as an Angel of light? What a swinge have we given to Covetousness and Revenge, which the Law of Christ hath tied up short, to a Contempt of the world and Love of our Enemies! How are we afraid of a ceremony, and rejoice in a sin! How doth the Devil seem to roar in an Organ, and what music is there in a Drum! How slow are we to lift them up who lie in the dust, and how swift to shed blood! How unwilling is the Conscience to be touched, and how ready to be seared! How tender is the Conscience to be offended, and how soon is it polluted! A sign that we do but talk of Righteousness for our present advantage, and not seek it for our eternal good. Did we love and seek it indeed, we should love the thing, and not only the name; we should love it in every part, we should embrace it all at once. Desiderium est motus quidam, saith the Philosopher; Desire is a kind of motion of the soul, by which it maketh its approaches to the object, or rather an instantaneous motion by which it flieth and joineth with it in a moment: But the soul of man doth often look towards Righteousness when we cannot say it moveth that way: for meeting with some distaste and opposition, some fear within or terror without, some misery, some cross, it standeth at gaze, and turneth and maketh a most dishonourable retreat. Many begin in the spirit, but at the sight of some light tentation, which to them is as a Lion in the way, they slip aside, and end in the flesh; and all this because the desire was not strong enough which first led them on. For, to conclude, when that is cheerful and vehement and constant, it marcheth on valiantly in the ways of Truth and of Righteousness, goeth forth in its power, treadeth under foot that Pleasure which flattereth, triumpheth over those evils which bring terror, maketh way through divers tentations, and so buildeth and rooteth itself in Righteousness, so seeketh it that it findeth it and never loseth it, but by its guidance and conduct passeth by all flatteries and affrightments into the kingdom of heaven and everlasting glory. The Six and Twentieth SERMON. PART III. MATTH. VI 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. WE have already presented you with the Object, and the Dignity or Beauty thereof, and shown you what this Righteousness is, and what it is to seek it. We come now to show you the Excellency and Preeminency of the Object, of Righteousness before all these other things. And behold, our Saviour here prescribeth and toeth us to a method in our search; We must seek it first; and these things shall be added. Where our Saviour seemeth to speak with some kind of scorn and indignation that our infirmity should force him to name the things of this life, as we commonly say, the same day with the things of the life to come: Wherefore having expressly named the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he passeth slightly over the rest, as disdaining to name them, otherwise then by the general name of these things. As Hezekiah pulling down the brazen Serpent, calleth it not otherwise then by the scornful name of NEHUSHTAN, brazen stuff; so Christ willing to pull down in us the things of this life, (after which we have run a whoring more than ever the Jews did after the brazen Serpent) telling us of Divine matt●●s, willeth us first to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then shall all these things, this brass, this Nehushtan, this leaden, pewter, or at the best brazen, stuff of the world, be cast in upon us. This is the method which is prescribed; and this we must follow. If the first stone in our building be Righteousness, then will the things of this life come in; otherwise no: or, if they do come, they come not because of God's promise, but from some other cause; and it had been better they had never come. As it is with those who build, some things they provide for the main wall and foundation, other things only for ornament and furniture. Now that building must needs prove weak, where that is laid for the foundation which was only provided for garnish. These outward things are but a seeming kind of furniture for this life; but the main wall is Righteousness. Her foundations, saith the Psalmist, are in the holy hills. Now S. Paul telling us of some bvilders, who having laid a good foundation, lay upon it hay and stubble, showeth what great damage they shall sustain for so doing. And if this be the case of those bvilders whose foundation is supposed to be good, what can we imagine shall be the loss of those whose very foundation is hay and stubble, who have made the things of this world their prime and corner stone, and bring it forth with shoutings, crying, Grace, Grace, unto it? First then seek Righteousness. And FIRST is a word of order: And Order is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher, a divine thing, of wonderful force and efficacy. For cost may be laid out, matter provided, labour bestowed, and all to no purpose, if there be not a set course and order observed in our proceed. Nihil negligentia operosius, said Columella well; There is nothing putteth us upon more business than Negligence, and nothing doth more entangle and turmoil then Disorder. For if we begin amiss, we must begin again, or else our work will fail and be lost between our hands, will die and perish, as some infants do, in the very womb. The experience of the meanest Artist amongst you is able to tell you thus much. Whosoever goeth to practise his trade, cannot begin where he list. Something there is to be done in the first place, without which he cannot go unto the second; something in the second place which will not be done except something be done before it. Some order there is, which prescribeth a law and manner to his action, which being not observed, nothing can be done. As in all other businesses, so in this great business of Christianity, we must not think that we may hand over head huddle up matters as we please, but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keep a method, an order, a course in our proceed: not first these things, and then his Righteousness; but first his Righteousness, and then these things. They who have commended to us the great use of Method and Order in our studies, tell us that if a man could assure himself thirty years of study, he might with more advantage spend twenty of them in finding out some course and order in study, and the other ten in studying according to this order, then spend the whole though in very diligent study, if with misorder and confusion. Howsoever it may be with Method and Order in our Academical studies, certainly in our study which concerneth the practice of Righteousness it cannot choose but be with great loss of labour and industry, if we do not observe that order and method which here our Saviour prescribeth. Simplicius, in his Comments upon Aristotle, maketh a question whether youths in the reading of Aristotle's books should begin with his Logicks, where he teacheth men to dispute and reason, or with his Ethics, where he teacheth Civility and Honesty. For if they begin, saith he, from his Logicks without Morals, they are in danger to prove but wrangling Sophisters; and if from his Morals without Logic, they will prove but confused. Thus indeed it fareth in the knowledge of Nature, where all things are uncertain; thus with those Students who have Aristotle for their God; scarcely will all their Logic show them where they should begin, or where they should end. But in Christianity all things are certain; the end certain, and the way certain; and our best Master, Christ, hath written us a spiritual Logic, hath showed us a method and order, what first to do, 〈◊〉 ●ext, and how to range every thing in its proper place. And he that shall follow this method may be secure of his end; nor is it possible he should lose his pains. Never was any true Student in Righteousness an unproficient. Now the excellency of this method will appear by comparing the one with the other, the Soul with the Body, and the temporal things of this life with spiritual. First, what is this Body of ours but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nyssene calleth it a prison, an ill savoured sink, a lump of flesh which mouldereth away and draweth near to corruption whilst we speak of it? But the Soul is Divinae particula aurae, a beam as it were of the Divinity, which in this dark body of ours is as the Sun to the Earth, enlivening, quickening and cheering it up; Phiala, in qua non includitur Manna, sed Pater & Filius & Spiritus Sanctus, as Ambros; A golden vessel, to receive not Manna; which, if you lay it up till the morning, will stink and breed worms; but the Father and the Son and the graces of the Spirit, which are eternal. It was a speech of S. Augustine's, Domine, duo creasti, alterum prope te, alterum prope nihil; Lord, thou hast created two things, the one Divine, celestial, of infinite worth; the other base and sordid; the Soul, and the Body; the one near unto thyself, the other next unto nothing. Now our care should carry a proportion to the things we care for. We are not so diligent to keep a counter as a diamond. Alexander, when amongst the spoils of Darius he found a rich and precious box thought nothing to be good enough to be laid up in it but Homer's Works. And the Sacred Writings were decked and adorned with jewels and gold and precious gems, saith Zonaras; by which the Christians expressed their reverence and love to those Sacred Volumes. But what cabinet can we find for the Soul? Where should that be laid up but in the bosom of God? Shall we leave that poor and naked, when ourselves abound in wealth? Shall our body's rest in a house of cedar, and our soul in a nasty sty? How many Heathen Philosophers have fling away their wealth to enrich their nobler part? How have they been ashamed to think their souls were in their bodies? as Eunapius speaketh of Jamblicus. One flingeth his gold into the sea; another strippeth himself; a third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, did macerate his body, and keep it down, that he seemed to have made it his labour to have turned it into soul. And shall Christians make it their study and delight to immerse the soul in the body, and to turn it into flesh? to take such care of their flesh as if they were nothing but flesh, and had no soul at all? No: As the soul is more excellent than the body, so it must first be in our care, first in our devotion. Look upon all the commendable actions which purchase us praise with God, and what are they but acts of open war and hostility against the body? Temperance and Continence, what are they but the subduing of our fleshly lusts, which fight against the spirit? Care and Diligence, what are they but a petpetual war with Sloth and Idleness, upon which this dull and earthy mass of our bodies is prone to relapse? Piety and Devotion, what are they but a neglect, or rather an open defiance unto all things which seem to savour of love and care for the body? so that here Love were treason, and Agreement nothing but conspiracy, and Peace pactio servitutis. For if we entertain any covenant of peace with our flesh, it can be but such a one as Nahash the Ammonite offered to make with the men of Jabesh Gilead, upon condition we will pull out our eyes. The flesh, 1 Sam. 11. the more we suppress it, the more we love it; the more we beat it down, the more we exalt it; and when we mortify it, we do even spiritualise it, and in a manner upon this corruptible put on incorruption. Our first care must be to subdue the body, and keep it under, which is indeed to honour it. If our affections be leveled aright, if we keep a true and exact method in our search, we shall not talk so much of Riches as of Righteousness; we shall be enquiring what news from heaven, what the state of that Court is, what place, what degree we shall have there; of Faith and Holiness and Obedience, without which no man shall see God. For, in the next place, what comparison can we make between spiritual and temporal blessings? the one of inestimable price, the other not worth the naming. S. Hilary, commenting upon the first Psalm, speaketh of some who, interpreting the book of Psalms, thought it some discredit to that book that terrene and secular matter should so often interline itself, and therefore all their interpretations they made respectively to spiritual things and God himself. Which conceit, though an apparent error, yet that Father condemneth not, but mildly pronounceth of it, Haec eorum opinio argui non potest; This opinion of theirs cannot be condemned: for it is the sense of a mind piously and religiously affected; and it is a thing unblameable, by favourable endeavour to strive to fit all things to him by whom all things were made. For what if we were not told of a Land flowing with milk and honey? what if we saw not riches and plenty in God's left hand, and length of days in his right? What if we were not told of riches and honour and prosperity? could we think there were nothing to be sought for? All the gold in Ophir is not to be compared with one religious thought, nor can there be any greater preferment then to be a Saint. Indeed these things are nothing. Nihil habent solidi, nihil firmi; There is no solidity, no holdfast in them. When we see them, we do not see them: when we feed on them, we are not satisfied: when they are, they are not. Vanae spes hominum; The hopes of men are vain, when they seek these things, that are not, as if they were. Vanae rerum species; the species and show of these things are vain. They appear to us as in a dream: they come, and are gone; and stand by us, and vanish; and behold, when we awake, all is but a dream. No glory on Honour, no brightness on Gold, no lustre on Beauty; but that which in my dream was all, when my eyes are open, is nothing but vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Eccles. 1.2. Excude aliquid quod sit perpetuò tuum, said Pliny to his friend; If thou wilt spend thy time upon any thing, spend it upon that which shall be always thine. Now temporal things are neither ours, nor are they lasting. Apud te sunt, sed tua non sunt; They are with thee, but they are not thine. Dum placent, transeunt; When they most please thee, they pass away. In thy youth they please thee, and that dyeth into age: In thy age they please thee more: For covetousness as it increaseth with our heaps, so it doth with our age; and we then love riches most when they are even upon the wing, ready to fly away. And then Death unladeth the Ass, taketh thee from thy wealth when thy soul is even bound with it; cutteth off a thousand hopes, defeateth a thousand purposes, and when thou art joining land to land, leaveth thee no more than will serve to bury thee; and then Earth to earth. All thy hug of thyself, all thy pride, all thy busy and forecasting thoughts, all thy delights perish. Our lands and possessions are but the way in which we set our foot, but keep footing we cannot: others come apace after us, and take them up. Nunc ager Vmbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli Dictus, erit nulli proprius, sed cedit in usum Nunc huic, nunc alii: He that hath a Lordship or a Manor, hath but his footing there; possession he hath not: Another cometh after, and after him another, whilst that remaineth like the way; and delivereth up all alike to their last home. Only Righteousness is that jewel which none can rob us of; nec unquam definit esse nostra postquam coeperit, nor will it ever leave us, when we have once made it ours. There are little stones, we are told, lying in some fields, which Philosophers call lapides speculares, which at some distance sparkle and send forth light, but when we come near them have no appearance at all, nor can they be found: Like to those are these things; our Saviour would not name them: Riches and Honour, when we stand at distance, and do not enjoy them, present themselves in glory and in a shape of allurement; but when we come near them, when we are possessed of them, they have not the same countenance, nor are so glorious. A Crown hath cares, Honour hath burden, and Riches anxiety and danger. Envy and malice wait close upon them, ready to sweep them away. Taedet adeptos quod adepturos torfit; That which set my desires on fire, bringeth smoke enough with it to smother them. That which I bowed to as to a God, I am now ready to run from. I looked upon them as upon a staff; but when I had taken them up into my hand, they proved a Serpent. But, in the third place, there is great danger in seeking them at all: and though we seek them, as we think, in the second place, we may seek them too soon. For our advancement in temporal things may prove a hindrance to our improvement in spiritual. But if the last be first, the first will be none at all. In illis opera luditur; We lose time in getting them; and when we have got them, we lose them; or if we do retain them, non sunt subsidia, sed onera, they are rather burdens than helps, and, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the instruments of sin. S. Basil ask the question why God made Adam naked in Paradise, and withal gave him no sense of his nakedness, telleth us the reason was, that he might not be distracted, nor called away from meditating upon God. For these arts, saith he, which provide for the flesh, have been occasion of care and business, than which nothing could have been more noxious to that state in which then Adam was. Had it so pleased God, saith he, it had been much better that the soul had been left naked in the day of her creation, and never been clothed with this garment of flesh: For from hence hath proceeded that swarm of cares and business with which our life is overrun, which draweth us from Divine speculation and meditation upon the things of God, which is the proper work of the soul. For consider the Soul in itself, and what relation or reference hath it to any earthly thing? Care for meats and drinks and apparel, for posterity, to heap up riches, to be ambitious of honours, all these rigid Publicans, which demand and exact so much of our time and labour, befell the Soul upon the putting on of this clothing of the body. At what time the earth received the Curse that it should bring forth briers and thorns, at the same time sprang there up this abundance of Arts and Trades, this variety of callings and occupations, with which the world is overrun as with briers and thorns: For had we stood in our original integrity, we had had but one care, but one art, one common trade and calling, the worship and service of God. Cain aedificavit civitatem, pessimorum more, stabile hujus seculi domicilium putantium, saith Gregory; Cain was the first that built a city, upon a groundless conceit, which possesseth the hearts of many, that the houses they build are not of clay, but to stand and last for ever. Josephus telleth us he was the first that ever found out weights and measures; and he passeth this severe censure upon it, That by this he did pristinam sinceritatem ignaram talium artium in novam quandam versutiam depravare, corrupt the former innocency and sincerity by bringing in a new kind of providence and craft, which before, as it stood in no need, so was it altogether ignorant of any such art. The Philosopher will tell us that the use of these common things is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an hindrance to contemplation; and S. Basil, that we cannot well pray for spiritual graces, unless the mind be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unclouded of the mist and fog of the cares of this world. Haec sunt vincula, hae catenae, saith S. Cyprian; These be the bonds and chains, with which the soul is still clogged, that she cannot mount, and seek those things which are above, our faith oppressed, our understanding bound, and our mind shut up. Why then should we seek so earnestly for that which is not ours, and which pertaineth not to us, not to that which maketh us men, and by which we are capable of happiness, and so faintly look after true riches as if we were afraid to find it? Nay, why should we shun it, and run from it, as if it were a Lion in the way to devour us, and to ravish from us all that which we delight in as most convenient for us? Why do we take the one as it were on a knives point, and greedily swallow down and devour the other? Talibus bonis non fiunt homines boni; sed aliunde facti boni bene utendo faciunt ut ista sint bona: You call them Goods; but I tell you, saith the Father, by such goods men are not made good, but being made good by Righteousness, by using them well they make them good. And therefore the desires of temporal goods before spiritual are not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Scholiast mistook, unprofitable, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as it is in the Text, vain and foolish. You will say perhaps that you know all this, that Wisdom is better than Wealth; that you are not ignorant of the method of the Lord's prayer, that every child can tell that Fiat voluntas tua is before Da nobis, the petition for Obedience before that for Bread. Nor do I think that any man saith his Pater noster backwards. It is true, in the Church we pray orderly; but how is it in our closet? This method twangeth upon the tongue, but not upon the heartstrings. There, quae turba phantasmatum? what troops of phantasms? what multitudes of suggestions? Do we not wish for wealth when we pray for Righteousness? Are we not willing that God should mistake us, and give us the one for the other? How is the mind lost every moment, in ipso conatu elabens, of such lubricity that it slideth away from that which it seemed to lay hold on! We may call this a seeking, if we please; and we may put in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and persuade ourselves that we seek it first, because we commend it, as we may do a man whom we mean to tread under our foot; But we cannot be so wicked as to think that God doth hear us when we bring pias preces, holy prayers, and animam triticeam, as the Father speaketh; a soul kneaded up as it were of corn and wine and wealth. For this is to thwart that method which God hath drawn out, to blot out his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and not first to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, nor in our desires to prefer spiritual graces before temporal blessings. This is in domo Jesu Jesum non quaerere, in Christ's house not to seek for Christ; to study the world in the Church; to seek for transitory, mortal, fading blessings in the temple of eternity. Christ therefore in this Text hath showed us a method and order, what first to seek, what next, and how to range every thing in its proper place. If we follow this method, we lay hold on not only spiritual but also temporal promises. For these things are annexed as a promise to Righteousness, not Righteousness as a promise to these. All things necessary follow that unum necessarium, that one thing necessary. But if we break this method, by a strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 placing wealth above Righteousness, we have forfeited our hopes to both. For if we like best of our own method and our own courses, God dealeth with us no otherwise then parents do with their children who forsake their rules, and like best of their own ways; they think it meet that they should take the event and fortune of them, and leave them to themselves; which is indeed utterly to forsake them. And what is a Mammonist in the midst of his heaps, what is a man of power in the midst of his triumphs, what is a Tyrant on the throne, without God? Yea, so much the more dangerous is our error in not observing that order which Christ hath given us, because it cannot afterward be remedied, but we have for ever lost the claim both to Righteousness and these things. As Cato said of errors committed in Battle, Praeliorum delicta emendationem non recipiunt, quia poena statim sequitur errorem; Errors in other kinds may be afterwards amended, but the error of a battle cannot possibly be remedied, because the inconveniency immediately followeth the mistake: So in this case the error admitteth of no amendment: for if we have not observed this method of our Saviour, if any thing have possessed our thoughts above the thought and study and care of heavenly and spiritual things, we lie open to the inconvenience, to have a writ of outlawry against us, to be fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth, and (which is the worst of evils, though we make it the least) to be shut out of the kingdom of heaven. For, in the fourth place, if we do not seek Righteousness first, we may flatter and deceive ourselves as we please, but we seek it not at all. For who will think that merchant doth traffic for diamonds who is most careful to gather up apes and peacocks? Who will think he loveth Penelope that maketh his first and most ceremonious addresses to her maids? Our Saviour in this chapter hath laid down the reason of this in a plain Axiom; No man can serve two masters; no more than you can draw a strait line to two divers points, and terminate it in them both. Zeph. 1.5. You cannot swear by the Lord and by Malcham. It is not, Non oportet, You ought not to do it; but, Non potestis, You cannot do it. It is a thing most impossible; not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nazianzene speaketh, as inconvenient and incongruous, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for want of strength and ability. We who are so quick and active in the service of Mammon, must needs be dull and heavy in the service of Christ. We who grasp the world, have not a hand to give. When so many thoughts are thronging and pressing after the world, what a poor feeble imagination is that which is left to entertain Christ! When our desires are on the wing in the pursuit of vanity, what heart can there be for the Kingdom of Heaven, if it should bow itself towards us? or what would we give for Righteousness, though we have the price in our hand? When our Understanding is made as the mint, and our Memory the countinghouse, there can be no fit place for Christ to take his rest in. When we have dulled all the faculties and powers of our souls in the raising and erecting this Idol, how shall we use them as instruments to make a statue for Christ? It is impossible. If I am ready to rise up early when Covetousness 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, & see 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 itself; 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 than 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. 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 choose a clod of earth before it? What is it to call Christ Lord, and crucify him? For reason will tell us, even when we most dote upon the world, that Wisdom is better than rubies, that Christ is to be preferred to Mammon, that it is better cum Christo affligi quàm 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 joineth 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 illboding 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 dazzled 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 christian 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 die, 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 itself 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 dunghill; 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 murdering 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 buzz about us like flies in Summer. This is the coiner of Heresies, which are nothing else but the inventions of worldly-minded men, working out of the elaboratory of their fancy 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 Precedent 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 error; conscience may sway and bow others in some things from the truth: but let me tell you, in that which is plain and evident, in the open and bright way of Righteousness, the conscience never did, never can err. Did ever any man's conscience persuade him against a manifest law? Did reason ever tell any, Thou mayest kill, Thou mayest be perjured, Thou mayest bear false witness? No: It is not conscience, but the love of this world, that maketh a negative precept affirmative. That is the Tribune that setteth us at liberty, and letteth us lose against the Law itself, though it be written with the Sunbeams; before which we draw a cloud of excuses or pretences, and fight against Righteousness with its name. From the corruptions of men's lives have corruptions crept into Religion, which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to those lusts and desires which are mighty and prevalent in us, to carry us with a swinge into those enormities and irregularities which Righteousness forbiddeth. in vita, sic in causis spes improbas habemus, saith Quintilian: Those unlawfal hopes and foul affections which sway us in our lives, appear again, and show themselves as full of power to pervert and misled us in point of doctrine, and for a while to take all scruple from the conscience. Conscience may err, and persuade me that is Superstition, which is indeed Devotion: But when I raise my own house upon the ruins of God's house it is not Conscience but Covetousness that is the architect. Conscience may incite me to redeem my brother from error, when he is as free as the truth can make him: But it is the love of the world that is the persecutor which strippeth him of his possessions. For if he were guilty, yet a tender conscience would shrink at such an intrusion. Conscience may check at the gold of the Temple; but it is the love of these things which putteth it into the bag. Conscience not well informed may startle at the one; but it would run from the other, did not the love of the world draw it back, and lay it asleep with the music it maketh. But it will awake again, if not with a pinch from a tedious disease, or some other calamity, yet most certainly at the sound of the last trump, and be that worm which shall gnaw the dreamer for ever. Let us not deceive ourselves; The Kingdom of God and his Righteousness were the alone desirable object, and first to be sought after, before that faction and schism did rend & divide the Church, before it mouldered into sects, and crumbled into conventicles, before the Pope Kinged it and the Disciplinarian Popeed it in the house of God, beating their fellow-servants, not for being unrighteous, but for not being righteous after their form and prescript, for not setting their Religion to their mode and fashion. For when men did look and like and delight in the things of this world, than was this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this First, blotted out, and Righteousness left behind, and in the place thereof succeeded Ceremony, Formality, Superstition, Faction; then Godliness was gain, and private interest conscience; then that divided voice was heard, Lo, here is Christ, and, there is Christ; here in this Congregation, or there in that Conventicle; here in this government, or there in that, or here in no government; here in this secret chamber, and there in that desert, in that wilderness of beasts, of Tigers and Bears, which by't and devour each other. Then did men lie down and sleep on those heaps which they had gathered in the name of Righteousness; then did they batten in their wealth; then did they bless and say an Ave, an Hail to themselves, as highly favoured; then did they flatter themselves, when this golden shower fell into their laps, as if Righteousness had poured it down, and God himself were in it: Then injustice was counted Righteousness; faction, Zeal, and humane policy, Religion. This mischief, this ruin hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, want of method, beginning where we should end, wrought amongst Christians, and made our very name to be loathed of those who are without, the Turk and the Jew; who can say no worse of us then this, and think that this they may say truly, That we follow Christ to gain the world, and give Righteousness the fairest title, but the lowest place. — Pudet hoec opprobria nobis Et dici potuisse, & non potuisse refelli. And is it not a shame for us that this may be said, and said truly? that Christianity should be thus scorned and blasphemed for their sakes who profess it? For conclusion then; Let us not think ourselves wiser than Wisdom itself; let us not count ourselves better Methodists then our Saviour: but let us keep the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where it should be, and where Christ hath placed it, on Righteousness. Let us observe exactly in our spiritual building what Vitruvius requireth in Architecture, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, order and disposition; that in our Religion there may be nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ill-placed. Why should Righteousness come after these things, and God after Mammon? There is not, there can●t be, a greater absurdity, a greater solecism, than this: an absurdity which maketh men and Angels and God himself ashamed of us: a thriftless, destructive absurdity, which maketh us poorer by making us rich, more vile by making us honourable, and which, ●hen we think it lifteth us up, tumbleth us down into the lowest pit. For, as the School-man telleth us, to follow too much the sway of our sensuality, and to neglect the direction of Reason, which is the best methodist, tam sensualitatem quàm rationem extinguit, doth not only put out the eye of our reasonable part, and leave that dark, but at last extinguisheth the very power of sense itself: so our devotion and desires, if they waste and consume themselves where they should not show themselves, if we place them on these things, on temporal, and not spiritual, or on temporal before spiritual, they never fly to the mark, but miss of both, they neither fill our hands with plenty, nor our souls with that spiritual Manna which should nourish us to eternal life; or, if they do come home, and reach these things, they serve us to no other purpose then the Tyrant's daggers of silver and ropes of silk, ut cariùs pereamus, that we may fall and perish with more state and cost and pomp than other men. But Christ's method is de schola coeli, from heaven, heavenly, and will lead us thither, through poverty and riches, through honour and dishonour, and never fail. In a word, Righteousness, if it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, first, in our desires, if it have the upper room and a throne in our heart, bringeth with it both the promises of this life and that which is to come, and will make us happy here, in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgement; it will open the gates of heaven, and let us in to that happiness which is everlasting in the Kingdom of God. The Seven and Twentieth SERMON. PART IU. MATTH. VI 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. YE have already heard what the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness is, what it is to seek it, and that it must be first sought. And indeed it is first. It hath the priority of Nature. Christianis coelum patuit antequam via, saith the Father; Happiness is first, and then the way to it; the end before the means, Righteousness before these things, the condition to be made good before the promise; seek first, and then these things shall be added. And it hath priority of Dignity; not that which Caesar aimed at, to have no superior; but that of Pompey, to have no equal. For what is all the gold of Ophir to one good thought? what is this clod of earth to an immortal soul? what are pearls and diamonds and all the glory of the world to the Kingdom of heaven? And being thus exalted in itself, it should have the same elevation in our desires, or rather our desires and endeavours should raise themselves to that height where alone they are at rest. Eleganter Divina sapientia ordinem instruxit, ut post coelestia terrenis locum faceret, saith Tertullian; Christ hath drawn out an elegant and exact order, that after heavenly things he might make room for those which we stand in need of here upon the earth. First let us seek the kingdom of God and his Righteousness, and then we may securely expect these things. We may expect them ad sustentationem corporis, to uphold this mouldering and ruinous tabernacle of ours. Therefore it is called the staff of bread, Leu. 26.26. a chief staff, such a one as is set in the midst to bear up all the tent. Or else we may expect them ut instrumenta virtutis, as instrumental to the soul, that she may accomplish those virtues in herself which are the means and way to happiness and the Kingdom of heaven. And, first, Doth God take care for oxen? saith the Apostle. Doth God take care for this beast of ours, the Body, which so often groweth wanton, and kicketh up the heel, and throweth the rider? Yes: he made the body as well as the soul, and his providence watcheth over both. We are not such Manichees as to think the Devil made the Body. Certè domus animae caro est, saith the Father; & inquilinus carnis, anima: The flesh is the house of the soul, and the soul is the inmate of the body. Desiderabit igitur inquilinus ex causa & necessitate hujus nominis profutura domui; Whilst the soul is dwelling in the body, she naturally desireth and procureth those things which may uphold the building. Not that the soul is thus supported, but only contained; and it is impossible she should be contained, unless the house wherein she dwelleth be upheld from ruin. The Body indeed is of another substance and condition from the Soul; but it was added ut supellex & instrumentum in officina vitae, saith the Father, as an implement and instrument in the shop of life. If we cloth it not, if we feed it not, if we prop it not up with meats and drinks, with cordials and physic, within a few hours it will throw out the Tenant, and fall to the ground. And therefore that God who placed all things before us, and yet bounded and confined our desires, who hath given us more then enough, yet biddeth us take heed of surfeiting, hath taught us also non contemnere carnem, not to neglect and despise our flesh; not to give it too many stripes, for fear it become despicable in our eyes. He hath a hand which filleth all things, and he is ready to open it when we open our hearts and desires unto him. Creatorem non in coelo tantùm miramur: He is not therefore a Creator only because he made the world, and the heavens are the works of his fingers; but his Deity and providence is seen in feeding the young Ravens which call upon him; much more is it then seen in feeding those creatures which are food for the use of man, which are good, and not to be refused, but received with thanksgiving. For he it is, who when the heavens are as brass, and the earth as iron, sendeth a gracious rain upon his inheritance, and refresheth it when it is dry, that watereth abundantly the furrows thereof. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon; Psal. 72.16. and they of the City shall flourish like the grass of the earth. It is true; Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, and God shall destroy both it and them. 1 Cor. 6, 13. And other creatures are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil in his Hexameron, from feeding: but Man was never termed so; who must learn with the Father, to use meat not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his work, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as a thing which he doth take, but so as if he had rather not take it; and to receive it, as Augustine said he did, non ut nutrimentum, sed ut medicamentum, not as food and nourishment, but as physick: But yet we must consider that every thing is useful in its place and for that end for which it was ordained. The knowledge of one conclusion in Philosophy is of itself of more worth than all the viands of the earth; yet Philosophy will not do that which a morsel or two of bread will do, preserve me from famishing. I had rather, saith Tully, be author of that Defence which Crassus made for Curius then ride in triumph for the taking-in of any fort or castle in the world; yet it had been far better that Curius should fall from his cause, and lose the day then that the Commonwealth of Rome should not have taken-in the Castle of the Ligurians. I had rather be a Phidias then a carpenter; yet when the Ivory statue of Minerva will but at most delight my eye, a house raised by a carpenter will keep me warm and healthful. And when we speak of meats and drinks and temporal goods, we do not weigh what they are, but what is their use. Prov, 8.19. The fruit of Wisdom is better than gold, and her revenue then choice silver. What are all the pearls and diamonds and riches of the world to one good thought? And yet that thought, which lifteth me up to heaven, that Wisdom, which crowneth me, will not feed me or preserve me from falling. Every thing is useful for that end for which it was made. The staff of bread was made to uphold me, the temporal blessings of this world to comfort and sustain me, that I may move in my sphere and place, walk before the Lord in the land of the living, and with cheerfulness and alacrity study that wisdom which will make me wise unto salvation. For, in the next place, they are not only given in usum vitae, to support the outward man, but they may also be instrumental to the soul in her proper acts, in her endeavours and approaches to the first Good: They may be made the weapons of righteousness. Non enim auri vitium est avaritia; Covetousness is not the fault of gold, nor Gluttony of meat, nor Intemperance of wine; but they are the faults of men, who abuse these blessings, which God hath not shut us out from, nor placed any Cherubin or flaming sword to keep us from them. Deficitur non ad mala, sed malè, saith Augustine; These things are not evil in their own nature; but our defect is in this, that even against the order of Nature we abuse these things to evil which are naturally good. All the riches in the world cannot raise a cloud, saith Basil; but yet we see the widows two mites did purchase heaven. All the dainties in the world cannot bring us back into Paradise: yet a cup of cold water shall not lose its reward. To this end, saith Tertullian, God hath opened the windows of heaven, and reigned upon us his temporal blessings, ut per licentiam utendi continentiae experientia procederet, that having free liberty to use the creature, we may manifest our temperance and continency and chastity and all those virtues which make mortal men like unto their Creator. Necessity was that which first did cloth us; but afterwards Ambition and Vanity succeeded, and brought in ingenia vestificinae, those many unnecessary arts of making garments of several fashions, and most of them for show only, and of no use at all. God hath made us whole ears, saith Cyprian, but Vanity hath bored them: he hath made us bare necks, but Luxury hath chained them: he hath given us white sheep, but Ambition hath died them: he hath created us free bodies, but the Devil hath bound them: he hath made us natural faces, but Wantonness hath painted them: he hath made us men and women, and we have made ourselves walking pictures. Did we bate but the tenth part of superfluities in this kind, we might have enough for ourselves and our brethren, we might feed and cloth ourselves, and Christ too, wheresoever we see him naked and hungry. When we seek these, we leave Righteousness behind, which should turn them into blessings, and pursue those excesses which are of no use at all For who is the stronger for a peruke? Whose face is the fairer for painting? unless I will call that beauty which I may lay upon a post or a rotten stick. Whose head acheth the less for a feather? What gallant is so warm in his silks as a shepherd is in his ●●ize? Or are my feet the nimbler for my jingling spurs? Nec tegunt ista corpus, sed detegunt animam: These vanities do not cover the body, but discover the mind and disclose the inward man, a naked soul in a tricked up body, a vessel of more sail and slag than bulk and burden. Be not so proud of it: For it is an argument more than probable, that the inside is but course, even a torn and ragged and ill-shapen soul. We may say of our superfluities in this kind as Pliny speaketh of those famous Pyramids in Egypt; They are nothing else but otiosa & stulta pecuniae ostentatio, the vaunting proclamations of wealth and abundance, of so much that we know not how to use it. We may well say what Judas spoke out of covetousness, Ad quid perditio haec? To what end is this loss? These superfluities had better been sold and given to the poor. To that end we may desire them, and yet leave Righteousness in its place. For to seek any thing in reference to Righteousness, is to seek Righteousness first. Christ is poor in the beggar; but the rich man supplieth him: he is stripped with the naked; but the rich man clotheth him: he lieth wounded by the wayside; but the r●ch man hath oil and wine and a piece of money for his cure. This is the only end and why Christ hath permitted us to seek these things, that they may wait upon Righteousness, and when she saith, Go, be ready to go to that poor cottage, that house of mourning, that prison, and at her command to strengthen the weak knees and the hands that hang down. Not that we should quaerere summa in infimis, place our heaven on earth, our happiness in vanity; but per corporalia ad incorporalia venire, as Augustine speaketh, by these corporal things ascend higher and nearer to eternal, and by a religious Chemistry extract Manna out of meat, the water of life out of drink, grace out of riches, and perfection out of plenty. Therefore Augustine recanted what he once said, Sensibilia penitus esse fugienda. That temporal things were utterly to be avoided; because they may be to us as the Gibeonites were to the Israelites, drawn to the service of Virtue and Righteousness; they may be as the ground, where we may sow plenteously, and reap plenteously. For the Soul of man is placed in medietate quadam, as it were in a middle region, having below it the corporeal and sensible Creature, and above it the Creator both of body and soul. And it may make use of temporal blessings, if it do not make an idol of them, if it do not yield up itself to the Creature so as to forget the Creator, and so handle that which is from the earth earthy as to loath that which is from heaven heavenly. For as all is good which God hath made, from the Soul to the Atoms in the air; so the soul cannot miscarry amongst these, if she can distinguish and weigh and choose them, give to every thing it's own place, place lesser things under greater; corporal under spiritual; and so, ordering her love aright, make use of the body to safeguard herself, and with temporal things purchase eternal. Deus largiendo terrena suadet ad coelestia; When God openeth his hand to give us earthly blessings, he openeth his mouth too▪ and bespeaketh us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to make the body a workhouse for the good of the soul, and by these houses of clay gain a title to that lasting city, whose builder and founder is God. For sensible things are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, a kind of types and representations of spiritual. Paradise may put us in mind of heaven: my money may put me in mind that I am God's coin, and must bear no image nor superscription but his: my treasure on earth, which a thief may steal, may mind me of that treasure which no moth nor rust can corrupt, which no craft or power can take from me. I may see Grace in riches, Piety in health, Holiness in a garment, and Eternity in earth. This we may do, this we must do; look first upon Righteousness, and there meet these things; and then look through all these things upon Righteousness, as counting them but dung in respect of it, in which alone we rest; and look through Righteousness upon these things, as that which seasoneth and sanctifieth every part of our life, every action, every thought of ours; without which all our endeavours are but as so many approaches to death, and with which they are so many advantages and promotions to life. And this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to keep a method, an order, a right course in our proceed. These outward things are but impedimenta, the baggage of Righteousness, which cannot, as one speaketh, well be spared or left behind, but many times hinder the march? and therefore great care must be taken that they lose not nor disturb the Victory. We must then first make good the victory, as Alexander once told Parmenio when his carriage was in danger: we must by Righteousness overcome the world; and then our baggage will be safe, and these things will follow us, as captives do victors in their triumphs. Let us first seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto us; which is the Promise annexed, my last part, and cometh now in a word to be handled. In this Promise God may seem to deal with us as indulgent fathers do with their children: If we do what we should, he will give us that which we desire: By an argument drawn from gain and profit he laboureth to win our love to himself; and, as Rebecca dealt with old Isaac, he provideth us such meat as our soul loveth. Profit and commodity is a lure that calleth the greatest part of the world after it. Most that we take in hand to do is copied out according to that pattern of Judas, What will you give me? What profit, what commodity will accrue unto me? is the preface and way to all our actions. This is the price of good and evil: Men are hardly induced to do either but by the way of bargain and sale. It was the Devil's question unto God concerning Job, Doth Job serve God for nought? hast thou not hedged him in on every side? Indeed in this the Devil mistook Job's mind: for Job served not God for this, but for another cause. Yet there might be some reason to ask the question. For who is there amongst the sons of men that can content himself to serve God for nothing? Aristotle discoursing concerning the qualities and conditions of man's age, telleth us that young men for the most part consider not so much profit as equity and duty, as being led by their natural temper and simplicity, which teacheth them rather to do what is good than what is profitable. And we may observe natural conscience more strong and prevailing in youth then in age. But old men have ends of their actions: their minds run more upon profit and gain, as being led by advice and consultation, whose property it is to have an eye to conveniency, and not so much to goodness when it cometh towards them naked and bare. I will not deny but there may be some found that are but young in the world, men that are children in evil, to whom it may be said as one sometime told Amphiaraus, that they have not tasted how sweet gold is▪ nor know how pleasant a savour gain hath: Yet no doubt most men, even in their youngest days, are old and expert enough in the world. For we bring with us into the world the Old man; whose wisdom and policy it is to have an ear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not to enterprise any thing but for some further end than itself, either pleasure, or profit, or honour. These are thy Gods, O Israel: These are the Gods of the world: These, like God, sit at the top of Jacob's ladder, and all our actions are but steps and rounds to go up unto them. God and Righteousness is not reward enough to draw men on. Now God, who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Clemens speaketh, even studieth ways to save us, and is witty in inventing means to bring us unto him, amongst other ways of his hath made this weakness of ours a means to draw us home. Matth. 13.29. And as the Husband man in the Gospel would not have the tares pulled up for fear the wheat should come up with them; so God doth in a manner tolerate these tares in us, lest the rooting out of our affections to the things of this life might draw a little too near the quick, and quite choke up the love of God. Or as a skilful artificer, that worketh upon ill materials, if he cannot make what he would, yet he maketh that which the stuff and matter will afford. The New Testament indeed is not so frequent in mentioning earthly blessings: and the reason that they are not there so fully taught, may be, because they are supposed to be learned and known, as being sufficiently stood upon in the Old. In the Old there is scarce any page which doth not entitle righteous men to the possession of some temporary good. Yet even under the Gospel Righteousness hath its part of the blessings of this world, whether of soul, or body, or goods. And what the son of Sirach spoke of those excellent men who lived before his time, we have seen true in Christian Commonwealths; The noble famous men reigned in their kingdoms, they bore excellent rule in their wisdom, wise sentences were found in their instructions: They were rich also, and could comfort; They lived quietly at home. Be it therefore Power, or Wisdom, or Riches, or Peace, or any other of those apples of Paradise which seem to the world so fair and lovely and so much to be desired, God hath not reigned them down upon the Cities of men so as that he hath left his own dry and barren and utterly unfurnished with them. I will not d●spute unto whom of right these blessings belong, whether to reprobate or the righteous. They who have moved this question have styled themselves Righteous, and to gain these things have committed those sins which none but a reprobate could do. For did ever any righteous person oppress or rob his brother? But in this they do the same which the old Romans did, who, when two cities, contending for a piece of ground, did make them their Judge and Umpire, wisely gave sentence on their own behalf, took it from them both, and adjudged it to themselves. First, they are righteous, (and a Saint is soon made up in their fancy) and then every man is a wicked person whom they intent to spoil. The thief is righteous, and the oppressed innocent a reprobate. But let the title to these things rest where it will. Of this we may safely presume, that God, who is Lord of all the earth, and in whom originally all the right to these things is, doth so put forth his hand and dispose them as that they who first seek Righteousness cannot doubt of that portion of them which shall be sufficient for them. Only let us be sure to keep our condition, and God will make good his promise. It is not our great care for them, our early rising or late sitting up, our sweeting and thronging and bustling in the world, that bringeth them in. Christ's method certainly is the best, nor can Wisdom itself err. The best and surest way to have these things is, not to seek them, not too earnestly to ask them. For when our Saviour telleth us all these things shall be cast in upon us, he chalketh out unto us the true way to make ourselves possessors of them, and in effect telleth us that, if we ask as Solomon did, we shall be rewarded as Solomon was. When God, 1 Kings 3. had said to Solomon, Ask what I shall give thee, and Solomon had asked only an understanding heart to discern between good and evil, Because, saith God, thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, or the life of thy enemies, lo, I have done according to thy words. Thou hast thy desire. But I will do more than this, and give thee that which thou askedst not, even riches and honour, so that among the Kings there shall be none like unto thee all thy days. Here then is the true method (though little followed in the world) of prevailing with God for temporal blessings. As when Jacob had got him Leah and Rachel to be his wives, Laban gave him Zilpah and Bilhah as handmaids to wait on them; a gift which Jacob never requested: so doth God give some blessings like to Leah and Rachel, principal and excellent blessings; some he addeth like Zilpah and Bilhah, earthly blessings, of an inferior and base nature, as handmaids and attendants on the former: If we sue unto him for the former, for Leah and Rachel, the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness, he will give us the later, Zilpah and Bilhah, these earthly things, these handmaids and servants to Piety, though we never ask them. I know it is a hard matter to persuade the world of the truth of this doctrine. For what is Righteousness to the world? Is it not as an art teaching not to be rich, not to be great, not to thrive in proportion to the rest of the world? As S. Peter telleth us, there would come mockers, who should ask, Where are the promises of his coming? and, Do not all things continue alike since the creation? so there may be who will ask, Where is this promise of adding these things made good to the righteous? Is it not with them as it is with other men? nay, is it not worse with them then with any men? Is any man poor, and are not they poor? Is any man weak, and are not they weak? Is any persecuted, and are not they persecuted? Are they not spoiled every day of these things? and are they not spoiled because they are righteous? We must then remove some errors which are like motes in the eyes of common Christians, that they cannot see God's hand open, and pouring down blessings, even these things, upon them. 1. We are too prone to mistake the nature and quality of God's promises. When he telleth us he will add these things, we presently conceive that he will come down unto us in a shower of gold; that he will open the windows of heaven, and fill our garners; that he is obliged by this promise to exempt us from common casualties, to alter the course of things for our sakes, and when Poverty cometh towards us as an armed man, to fight against it and tread it down under our feet; when common calamities overflow as an inundation, to provide for us an Ark, as he did for Noah, to float in till the waters abate. But the promise of God giveth us no ground thus far to presume: Nor is there any way of avoiding common casualties but by preparing ourselves to bear our part. As the sword devoureth, so poverty seizeth on one as well as an other. Nor is it any new thing in the world to see that Lazar at the rich man's door who within a while shall be in Abraham's bosom. Psal. 34.19. Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord shall deliver him out of all. This comfort the righteous have above all the world beside, that in all general deluges, of Famine, Captivity, Pestilence, God doth extraordinarily take care of those which are his, and that in such a manner as the world useth not to do. When his own people were led into captivity, the Psalmist telleth us, Psal. 106.46. that he gave them grace and favour in the eyes of their enemies, and made all those who had led them away captive to pity them, which was, to make them mighty and victorious in their chains. When the Goth had taken Rome, he gave security by public proclamation to all those who fled into the Temples of the blessed Apostles, and made it death for any man to molest them. In which example S. Augustine justly triumpheth, and challengeth all the ethnic Antiquity of the world beside to show where ever it was heard that the Temples of the Gods did give security to those who fled unto them. And then he maketh it evident that all the distress and infelicity which befell the city of Rome at the time of sacking it was but out of the common casualties and custom of war, but all the graces and mercies by which men found refuge and security came only for righteousness sake and through the power of the name of Christ. In these common miseries therefore which befall Cities and Commonwealths we may easily read not so much this edict of the Goth as the proclamation of God himself, Touch not mine anointed, Psal. 105.15. and do my prophets no harm. God can make good his promise when it seemeth to be broken, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, can find out means when all men's inventions fail. He doth more than we can challenge, when he seemeth to do less than he doth promise; and sometimes secretly, but always most certainly, is as good as his word. 2. Many times this promise is made good unto the righteous, when yet his present misery weakeneth his faith so, and so dulleth its eye, that he perceiveth it not. For as the Jews would not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, receive Christ because he came not in that pomp and state in which they expected their Messiah; so if God come not home to our desires, we are ready to think that his hand is shortened, or that he hath withdrawn himself: Whereas we ought to consider that, be it little or much that he affordeth us, it is sufficient to make good his promise. For that a righteous man thriveth at all, that he hath any footing in the world, is merely from God, and not the will of the world. For the righteous man, like Scaeva, must stand up against a whole host: He hath the Prince of this world, and all that is in the world, for his enemy: And if God should permit them once to their proper swinge, the condition of the righteous were most miserable. But he striketh off the chariot wheels of those Egyptians that pursue them, and putteth an hook into their nostrils, so that against their wills they become instruments of good to them whom they most hate. Besides, the righteous because of righteousness are in a manner proscribed the world, debarred of many of the thriving arts that are there taught. They cannot flatter for a reward, nor lie for advantage; they cannot worship the golden calf, supple and humour the rich man for his countenance and favour; they cannot tread those paths which lead to honour and preferment: and therefore if these things come, it must needs be that God himself doth pour them on them. The ravens feed Elijah. 1 Kings 17. 1 Kings 19 An Angel bringeth him meat. A Prophet is taken up by the hair of the head to carry a mess of pottage for Daniel's dinner. Now whether God send his ravens or his Angels, whether the rarest dainties or but a mess of pottage, the care of God is the same, and the miracle as great. 3. This promise is not absolute, but made over to us upon condition: These things shall be added, not to exclude Righteousness, or thrust it from its seat; but to be as an handmaid to wait upon it and serve it. And therefore if God see that these things will slug and retard us in the pursuit of Righteousness, he will withdraw them. When he addeth them, it is because his mercy endureth for ever: and when he withdraweth them, it is because his mercy endureth for ever. That love which opened his hand, doth shut it up; and that which gave us these things, will leave us nothing. His love fitteth and applieth itself to our condition: for his mercy endureth for ever. How many things doth he give us which we would not have, because he loveth us? How many things doth he withhold from us which we would have, because he loveth us? Better it is, and more honour, to lie on the dunghill with Righteousness, then to sit on the throne without it. If the competition be between the Kingdom of God and these things, then, Domine, nolo hanc misericordiam, saith Bernard; Lord, I will have none of this kind of mercy, this pleasing kill mercy; none of these riches, that will undo me; none of these temporal blessings that will make eternity itself a curse. Then God is liberal in denying me, is better than his promise when he seemeth not so good as his promise. For when he promised to add these things, he did not mean to destroy us. 4. In the the last place, If God do not add all these things, and so make good the promise in the letter, yet Righteousness itself will supply all defects, and make even nothing itself all these things unto us. In respect of Righteousness it is alike gainful either to enjoy the things of the world or not to enjoy them. And no man can doubt of this but he that knoweth not, or will not know, what Religion is, who is divorced from Righteousness and married to the world. Nay, if I may use the word, I may be bold to say, It is as meritorious, and as great a part of Righteousness, to know how to want these things for God's sake, as it is know how to abound, and use them to his service. We read of Epaminondas a noble Theban, that when the people in scorn had put him into a base office, he did rather rejoice in it then disdain it, and told them that he would manage it with that wisdom and resolution that he would make it a place of as great honour and credit as any was in the State. And this Righteousness can much more do; It can make the lowest and basest estate equivalent unto the most honourable calling in the world, and by the grace of God, who made us out of nothing, is able and doth make nothing as beneficial unto us as if we were made Lords of all the creatures. That is not Honour, that is not Riches, which unrighteous men call by that name. For is an Ass honourable in purple, or rich when he is laden with gold and diamonds? Yes; he is as honourable as a raging Tyrant, as Herod in all his royalty, as an unjust Judge, as he that will be great and not be righteous. For they both, both the Ass and the Man, bear their honour and riches alike; but the Ass more innocently. Beloved, neither to enjoy nor to want is a thing of any worth with God, nor doth he consider or esteem it: But to know how to use, and how to want, this becometh beneficial unto us. For who is poorer than he that hath, and enjoyeth not? that swimmeth in rivers of milk and honey, and cannot taste them? And he that hath nothing in this world, if he hath not this art of enjoying Nothing, Perdidit infelix totum nil, hath utterly lost the benefit of this Nothing. When Job from so great an estate had fallen to nothing, nay too worse than nothing in this world, to misery, which is a whip, and under contempt, which to a generous mind is a scorpion, by patience and humble Submission under the hand of God, by receiving calamities and giving thanks, he purchased a greater measure of glory then if he had never tasted of them: Nay, he made his poverty a purchase: for his estate, his sheep, his camels, his oxen, and his asses, were doubled to him. Whatsoever was transitory and perishing he received with interest, and the greatest interest; and but the just number of his children, (it is Basil's observation) because they still lived in their better part, and would all be restored at the resurrection. Such purchases doth Righteousness make, such advantages and improvements doth she find. It is for want of Righteousness that many do want, and make their want a greater increase of evil unto them. For the sting of poverty is impatience. Repining at God's providence, secret indignation and envy against those that abound, these are the furies which pursue them, and make their misery more malignant; these heap up wrath against the day of wrath, these make them unfit either to live or die, and deliver them from one hell into another. Or, if they can quiet and compose their minds, and make show of calmness and contentedness, it is rather senslesness and wretched stupidity then religious discretion: as little children laugh at their father's funerals, because they do not understand their loss. But to resign ourselves into the hands of God, whose we are; to make his will ours, though it be to make us a proverb of misery; to be throughly contented to be any thing, to suffer any thing which he will have us; to want without repining; this is the work of righteousness, this is a part of piety as great as giving our bodies to the fire, as entertaining of Christ and his Prophets, as founding of Churches, or building of Hospitals, or doing whatsoever else is commended to us. A man thus qualified is fitted for the highest employment in the Church, even for the glory of Martyrdom: Yea, he is a Martyr already sine sanguine; though he come not under the sword, nor shed his blood. This is an addition indeed, greater than that in kind: This maketh our very poverty as rich as the greatest wealth, a dungeon more honourable than the highest place, and that a heaven upon earth which carnal men tremble at and run from even into hell itself. In a word, this blesseth our store, promoteth our counsels, maketh profit itself profitable; this taketh away the name of Rich and Poor, and maketh them both the same. For betwixt Rich and Poor in this world in respect of our last landing as it were and entrance into our haven, it is but as in S. Paul's broken ship, Acts 27.43, 44 Some by swimming, some on broken parts of the ship, some this way, some that, some in one condition, some in another, but all by the conduct of Righteousness, come safe to land; rich and poor, high and low, weak and strong, the brethren of low degree and they in the highest seat, all, at last, meet together in the haven, in the Kingdom of heaven. For conclusion then; You have seen Righteousness what it is, and that it is in itself, that it is before all things, and that it draweth all things after it, not only the dew of heaven, but the fatness of the earth; in her womb, like Rebecca, bearing twins, a Jacob and an Esau, spiritual and temporal blessings, the Kingdom of heaven and the world with all that therein is, as an appendix or addition. This is the Object: And this is Christ's method, that Righteousness should be first in our desires, because it is all in all, and bringeth the rest along with it. And this method we must exactly follow. For why should not we think Christ a perfect Methodist? Why should the Flesh and the World so prevail with us as to persuade us that Wisdom itself may be deceived? Our own experience might easily confute us. For we see men are never more fools, never more foully fail of their ends, than when they will be wiser than God, and prescribe to Wisdom itself: then they seek out many inventions, follow their uncertain providence through the many turn and wind and mazes and labyrinths which it hath made, please themselves in their own ways, dream of happiness, and in the end meet with ruin and destruction. They seek for meat, and are more hungry than before; they pursue Honour, and lie in the dust; they are greedy of Riches, and become beggars; they cry, they fight for Liberty, and are made slaves. Their craft deceiveth them, their policy undoeth them, their wisdom befooleth, their strength ruineth them. They think they are making a staff to lean on, and when they have shaped and fashioned it, behold it is a rod to scourge them. This we have seen with our eyes, folly shamed and defeated in her own ways, and confounded in her method and course of proceeding. The thoughts of men are perverse, and their method contrary to that which true Wisdom prescribeth. For it proceedeth ab apparentibus ad vera, from apparent good things to real evils; from that which may satisfy my Envy, or feed my Covetousness, or flatter and fulfil my Lusts, to that which ●ill destroy both body and soul. It beginneth in honour. and endeth in dishonour; it beginneth in pleasure, and endeth in torment; it beginneth in visions and dreams and pleasant speculations of what may be, and endeth in bitterness and horror and amazement. The method of this world is no method, and the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. And it would appear so to us too, if it had not first blinded us and put out our eyes. For how do the children of this world, who are wise in their generation, every day fail under their own wisdom, fall under their own strength, and that before the sun and the people! Let us then forsake our own ways and method, and follow that which is prescribed by Wisdom itself, which proceedeth ab asperis ad laeta, from that which appeareth irksome to that which is truly delightful, which leadeth us through rough and rugged ways into a paradise of pleasure, through the valley of death into the land of the living, through many tribulations into heaven. This one would think were a strong motive and inducement to follow it. But there is more yet. Our Saviour doth even blandiri, condescend to flatter our infirmity, and provideth for our bodies as well as our souls. For the same method will serve both. The love of Righteousness is our purveyour here for these things, and our harbinger for the Kingdom of God. Would you see this miracle wrought? It is daily wrought: And if it be not wrought on you, it is because of your unbelief. Faith is required as a condition not only for the working of miracles, but also for the procuring of every blessing of God. And if we believe, if we distrust not, if we question not the providence and promise of God, it will be made good upon us; and we shall have enough here, and more than we can desire hereafter; we shall receive these things, and make of them such friends as, when all these things shall fail, will receive us into everlasting habitations. Which God grant unto us for Jesus Christ's sake. The Eight and Twentieth SERMON. PART I. GALAT. VI 7. Be not deceived▪ God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. WE shall not take these words in that reference they bear to the foregoing verse, in which they that are taught in the word are exhorted to communicate to those who teach them in all good things. For this is a Doctrine not so suitable to these times: And were S. Paul now alive to preach it, he would be set to his old trade of making of Tents: his practice would be turned upon him to confute his doctrine, and that made a duty which was but a charitable yielding and condescension for the Church's sake. If for their sakes, and to take off all scandal and offence from the Gospel of Christ, he will labour with his hands, this his voluntary submission shall be made a Law to bind him and his posterity for ever. Teach he should, and labour he should with his hands. He that teaches must labour, and every laborour may teach. Every man may teach, and none communicate. So that Text of communicating is lost quite, and the duty of Teaching left to every one that will take it up. Every man may be a teacher, every man a S. Paul, though he never sat at the feet of Gamaliel. We will not then take our rise here, but call your thoughts rather to a view of my Text as it looks forwards to the next verse, He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; which presents the show of a reason, but is indeed no more than a plain commentary on this verse. And in this sense my Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a precious antidote against Error, against those errors which are most fatal and dangerous to the soul, the errors in our life and conversation. In many things, saith S. James, we offend and err all. For 1. few men have learned that precept of Pythagoras, to Reverence themselves, to give that reverence to their own Judgement and Reason which they will to the beck of a Superior, the voice of a Custom, or the vote of the beast of many heads, the Multitude. And though Error have a foul name, yet we are never better pleased then when we put a cheat upon ourselves, bowing to our Sense, and as stiff as adamant to our Reason; never lying more grossly then when we speak to ourselves, and bear both the parts in the Dialogue. How easily do we persuade and win ourselves to that which if a Prophet should commend unto us, we would not receive him in that name, and for which we should anathematise an Angel? 2. Being deceived, and making a kind of sport and pastime in our error, we are very ready to entertain a low conceit even of God himself, as if blindness might happen to his all-seeing eye, and he might also be deceived and mocked. When through negligence or wilfulness we cannot raise ourselves to be like unto him, so far as possibility will permit; we make him like unto us, smiling upon us and favouring us in all our undertake. Men asleep in sin dream of a sleeping God, and men who have blinded themselves fancy a God that will not see. Lastly, having made Darkness as a pavilion round about us, we drowse on securely, and dream of life in the very shadow of Death, securi adversus Deos hominesque, fearing neither God nor Man, little heeding what we sow, and not weighing well what we shall hereafter reap. Now to men thus asleep, running wilfully into error, and then delighting themselves in it, our Apostle lifts up his voice; Awake you that thus sleep; Be not deceived. And this precept he strengthens, and doubles by two infallible positions, the one grounded on the Wisdom of God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God is not mocked; the other on his Justice, which gives to every man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according to his work. For what a man soweth, that shall he also reap. In sum thus; Be not deceived; that is, Deceive not yourselves in those plain and obvious duties of Christianity: For as God's Wisdom cannot subscribe to this wilful error, so his Justice will punish it: There is no deluding the eye of the one, nor avoiding the stroke of the other. It is a foolish error to think you may do what you list, and have what you list; that you may sow tares, and reap good corn; that you may sow to the flesh, and reap from the spirit. The parts than are three; 1. a Dehortation from error, Be not deceived. In which we shall point out first to the Nature, and then to the Danger of the error we must fly from. 2. a Vindication of the Wisdom of God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God is not mocked. I call it a Vindication of God's Wisdom, not that God hath need of any to stand up and speak for him: for God's Wisdom will justify itself; and he that denies him to be wise, denies him to be God: But in respect of a secret persuasion which finds place and lurks in the hearts of those who deceive themselves, That God will not be so severe as he gives himself out for, but will measure their actions by the same rule and line which themselves make use of. And to strive to shake and remove this persuasion will be a sufficient discharge of this point. 3. The last is a Declaration of the Justice of God proportioning the harvest to the seed. And this shall serve only for conclusion, and as a motive to enforce the rest, that upon the wings of Hope or of Fear we may make haste and fly away from this den of Error. Be not deceived: These words have the form of a general Dehortation from all error, but must be taken in a more restrained and limited sense. For to be free from all error is not to put off the Old man, but to put off our Humanity. There be some truths to which common understandings are not equal, which either stand at such a distance that we cannot ken them, or want a fit medium to convey their species and representations. For the Understanding, like the bodily eye, is not of the same quickness and sharpness in all. One man discovers the star itself, when another scarce sees my finger that points to it. Nor need we draw it to fundamental truths in such a manner as to go in quest to find out the exact number of them, and to deliver it by tale to them who are so vain as to demand it at our hands; as now of late, being put to their shifts, they of the Church of Rome have learned to do; as if after sixteen hundred years and more Christians were at loss, and to seek for that without which they cannot be Christians. It may suffice that the Will of God is the main fundamental point of our Religion, the several branches whereof he hath spread abroad, and most plainly revealed in his Gospel. The will of God contained in his word is plain, though the mysteries are great, delivered to us as oracles, but not as riddles; his will, I say, not only concerning what he will do in Christ for us, but also concerning what he will have us to do ourselves, as he hath chosen us in him, Eph. 1.4. that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Now whethersoever of these two we look upon, Be not deceived, is a good Caveat, the errors on both sides deing dangerous. But the metaphor of Sowing in the Text, which implieth an outward act, directeth our discourse to the last. And matters of Faith are like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those initia Mathematicorum, as Tully calleth them, the beginning and principles of that Science. S. Paul termeth them the principles of the doctrine of Christ. Numb 6. ● These must be taken for granted: for we speak not to infidels, but to such as have already given up their names unto Christ. Be not deceived, then, is in effect, Deceive not yourselves in the common actions of your life: which then befalls us, when contrary to the evidence which we already have, and which fairly offers itself, if we would entertain it, we proceed to action, and venture upon that which we know, or may easily know, is unlawful, if we will but pause and consult with Reason, and so wander in the region of light, deceive ourselves when the day is brightest, and so lose ourselves in the mist which we ourselves cast; when at once we proffer, and check ourselves, and yet resolve to condemn what we embrace, and embrace what we were afraid of; when we drink down sin for some pleasant taste it hath when we know it will be our poison. The Prophet David plainly expresseth it, Nolunt intelligere; They will not understand, and seek God. Psal. 3.6. The error then in practice is from the Will alone, which is swayed more by the flatteries and sophistry of the Sense then by the dictates of the Understanding; as we many times see that a parasite finds welcome and attention, when we stop our ears to seven wisemen that can render a reason. An error of a foul aspect, and therefore we look upon it but at distance, through masks and disguises; we seek out divers inventions, and out of a kind of fear that we may not err at all, or not err soon enough, we make Sin yet more sinful, and help the Devil to deceive us. Sometimes we comfort ourselves with that which we call a punishment; and being born weak, we are almost persuaded it is our duty to fall. Sometimes the countenance of the Law is too severe, and we tremble and dare not come near, and because we think it hard to keep, we are the more active to break it. Sometimes we turn the grace of God into wantonness, and since he can do what he please, we will not do what we ought. Sometimes we turn our very remedy into a disease, make the Mercy of God a kind of tentation to sin, and that which should be the death of the sin the security of the sinner. Sometimes we hammer out some glorious pretence, propose a good end, and then drive furiously towards it, though we perish in the way; to defend one Law, break all the rest; pluck the Church in pieces to fit her with a new garment, a new fangled discipline; fight against the King for the good of the Commonwealth; tread Law and Government under foot to uphold them; say it is necessary, and do it, as if there could be an invincible necessity to sin. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil calleth it, the Devil's mothod to bring-in God himself pleading for Baal, and to suborn the Truth as an advocate for Error. For to make up the cheat, he paints our error in a new dress, makes it a lovely, majestic error, that we begin to bow and worship it. Similitudo creat errorem, Error, saith Tully hath its being from the resemblance which one thing bears to another. It is Presumption, but it is like Assurance: It is Sacrilege, but it is like Zeal: It is Rebellion, but it is like the Love of our country. For as the common principles of truth may be discovered in every sect, even in those opinions which are most erroneous; so the common seeds of moral Goodness have some show and appearance in those actions which are wholly evil. There is something of Love in Effeminacy, something of Zeal in Fury, some sound of Fidelity in the loudest Treason, something of the Saint in the Devil himself. These are fomenta erroris, these breed and nourish Error in us; these bring forth the brat, and nurse it up: S. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, certain wand'ring and stubborn imaginations, the vapours of a corrupt heart, exhaled and drawn up into the brain, where they hang as meteors, irregularly moving and wheeled about by the agitation of a wanton fancy; and S. Pau'ls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, strong disputes and subtle reasonings against God and our own souls. The Vulgar translates it consilia, deleberate counsels to undo ourselves. We consult and advise, we hold a kind of Parliament within us; and the issue is, we shake and ruin that State which we should establish. Nor do these minuere voluntatem, make our error less wilful, but aggrandise it; for of themselves they have no being, no reality, but are the creation of the mind, the work of a wanton fancy, created and set up to sanctify and glorify our error. There is no such terror in the Law, till we have made it a kill letter; no difficulty, which our unwillingness frames not; no pretence, which we commend not; no deceiving likeness, which we paint not. Still that is true, Cor nostrum nos decepit, our Heart hath deceived us. Our reason is ready to advise, if we will consult: and it is no hard matter to divest an action of those circumstances with which we have clothed it, and to wipe out the paint which we ourselves have laid on. But as S. Augustine well observes, Impia mens odit ipsum intellectum; When we forsake our Reason and Understanding, we soon begin to distaste and hate it; and because it doth not prophesy good unto us, but evil, are unwilling to hear it speak to us any more: from thence we hear nothing but threaten, and menaces and the sentence of condemnation. It exhorteth and corrects and instructs, it is a voice behind us, and a voice within us, and we must turn back from the pleasing paths of error if we listen to it. Timemus intelligere, nè cogamur facere, we are afraid to understand our error, because we are unwilling to avoid it, we are afraid to hear of Righteousness, who are resolved to be unjust. And what was an apology for Ovid may be applied to us to our condemnation, Non ignoramus vitia, sed amamus; We are not ignorant of the errors of our life, but we do love them, and will be those beasts which we know must be thrust through with a dart. I have now brought before your eye the Error we must fly from; and the Apostle exhorts us to make haste, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Be not deceived, It is tendered as good counsel, but indeed is a law. For, as Tertullian speaks, If the ground of every Law be Reason, Lex erit omne quod ratione constiterit, à quocunque productum est, Whatsoever Reason commends, must be a law to us, though it be not written in tables of stone, nor proclaimed by the voice of the herald. So had not this exhortatation been Apostolical, yet it might well carry with it the force of a Law, because nothing is more opposite to Reason then Error. I may say it is not only a Law, but compendium totius E●angelii, the sum of all the precepts of the Gospel, or rather a ●●●lar to preserve them all; pressing upon us a duty which if well observed, will fit and qualify us for all the duties of our life. And therefore what the Pope usurps upon weak grounds, or none at all, is the prerogative, or rather the duty, of every Christian in those things which concern his peace, to be infallible. One is no further a Christian n●si in quantum caeperit esse Angelus, then so far forth as by casting off error more and more, he gins to have a taste of an Angelical estate. And now we should descend to application. And I could wish I could not apply it. But if I should apply it, I must make use of the Rhetoric of the ancients, who in a copions' subject were wont to tell their auditors that they were impoverished with plenty, straightened with abundance, dulled and cloyed with too much matter, and cry out with them, Where should I begin? or how should I end? For we may behold the World as a theatre or stage, and most men walking and treading their paces as in a shadow, all in show and visor, nothing in substance; masked and hidden from others, and masked and hidden from themselves; fond of themselves, and yet enemies to themselves; loving, and yet hating, flattering, and yet wounding, raising, and yet destroying themselves; in their forehead Holiness to the Lord, in their heart a legion of Devils; breathing forth Hosannas, when they are a nailing their Saviour to the cross; canonising themselves saints, when the Devil hath them in his snare, hugging their error, proud of their error, glorying in their shame; wiser than the Law, wiser than the Gospel; above command, nauseating and loathing all advice and counsel, whatsoever Reason or Revelation breathes against them, as the smoke of the bottomless pit. We may behold the Covetous grasping of wealth, smiling at them that love not the world, and counting them fools because they will not be so; but this man is sick, and dyeth, this man perisheth, and where is he? We may behold the Ambitious in his ascent and mount, and in his height looking down with scorn upon those dull and heavy spirits who will not follow after; and yet every step he rises is a foul descent, and he is never nearer to the lowest pit than when he is at his height. This man falls, and is dashed to pieces, and where is he? Behold the Seditious, who moves and walks and beats up his march in the name of the Lord of hosts, and thinks God beholding to him when he breaks his Law; this man dyeth, and perisheth, and where is he? Where is the Saint, when the Covetous, the Ambitious, the Seditious, man are in hell? Oh beloved, would we could see this, and beware of it betimes, before the Son of man comes, who will pluck off our masks and disguises, and make us a woeful spectacle to the world, to men, and to Angels! Oh what a grief is it that we should never hear nor know ourselves till we hear that voice, Depart from me, I know you not! that we should deceive ourselves so long, till Mercy itself cannot redeem us from our error. That we should never see ourselves but in Hell! never feel our pain till it be eternal! Oh what a sad thing is it that we should seal up our eyes in our own blood and filth! that we should delight in darkness, and call it light! that we should adore our errors, and worship our own vain imaginations, and in this state and pomp and triumph strut on to our destruction! To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts. Hic meus est, dixere, dies. This is our day to look into ourselves, to examine ourselves, to mistrust ourselves, to be jealous of ourselves, vereri omnia opera, as Job speaks, to be afraid of every work we do, of every enterprise we take in hand, to hearken to God when he speaks to us by ourselves, (for Reason is his voice as well as Scripture: By the one he speaks in us, by the other to us) to consult with our Reason and the rule, to hear them speak in their own dialect, not glossed and corrupted by our sensual affections; to strive with ourselves, to fight against ourselves, to deny ourselves, and in this blessed agony and holy contention to lift up our hearts to the God of light, to take up that of the Prophet David, and make it our prayer; Lord, deliver us from the deceitful man, that is, from ourselves. I need not stand any longer upon this: For even they that deceive themselves will willingly subscribe to all that I have said: and commonly none defy Error louder than they who call it unto them both with hands and words. We will therefore rather, as we proposed, discover the Danger which men incur by joining with it, that we may learn by degrees to shake it off, to detest and avoid it. In the first place, this wilful deceiving of ourselves, this deciding for ourselves against ourselves, for our Sense against our Reason, this easy falling upon any opinion or persuasion which may bring along with it pleasure, or profit, or honour, all things but the truth; is that which lays us open to every dart of Satan, which wounds us the deeper, because we receive it as an arrow out of God's quiver, as a message from Heaven. For we see a false persuasion will build up in us as strong resolutions as a true one. Saul was as zealous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel; heretics are as ready for the fiery trial as the orthodox, the Turk as loud for his Mahomet as the Christian for his Christ. In a word, Error produceth as strange effects as Truth. Habet & Diabolus suos martyrs; for the Devil hath his martyrs as well as Christ. That which is a sin now, and so appears, a crying mortal sin, and we stand at distance, and will not come near it; anon Profit or Pleasure, those two parasites which bewitch the soul, plead for it, commend it, and at last change the shape of it, and it hath no voice to speak against us, but bids us, Go on and prosper. It was a monster, but now it is clothed and dressed up with the beauty of Holiness, and we grow familiar with it. It was as menstruous rags, but now we put it on, and cloth ourselves with it as with the robes of righteousness. A false persuasion hath the same power which the Canonists give the Pope, to make Evil good, and Vice virtue. It is a sin; but if I do it not, I shall lose all that I have: and then I do it, and then it is no sin. It was Oppression; it is now Law: It was Covetousness; it is now Thrift: It was Sacrilege; it is now Zeal: It was Perjury; it is now Wisdom. Persuasion is a wheel on which the greatest part of the world are turned and circled about, till they fall several ways into several evils, and do but touch at the Truth by the way. Persuasion builds a Church, and Persuasion pulls it down. Persuasion formeth a Discipline, and Persuasion cancels it. Persuasion maketh Saints, and Persuasion thrusts them out the Calendar. Persuasion makes laws, and Persuasion abollisheth them. The Stoics call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a kind of preoccupation of the minds, the source and original of all the actions of our life, as powerful when we err as when the Truth is on our side, and commonly carrying us with a greater swinge to that which is forbidden then to that to which we are bound to by a law. This is the first mover in all those irregular motions of a wanton and untamed will; This is the first wheel in the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in his devises and enterprises. From this in evil, as from God's Grace in good, proceed both the Will and the Deed. For when this Persuasion is wrought in us, when by degrees we have lessened that honour, and detestation of Sin which God hath imprinted in the mind of every man; when we have often tasted those delights which are but for a season; when this false inscription, From hence is our gain, hath blotted out the true one, The wages of Sin is Death, (for we seldom take down this sop but the Devil enters) when either Fear of inconvenience or Hope of gain hath made us afraid of the Truth, and by degrees driven us into a false persuasion, and at last prevailed with us to conclude against our own determinations, and to approve what we condemn; then every part of the body and faculty of the soul may be made a weapon of unrighteousness, than we rejoice like giants to run our race, though the way we go be the way that leads unto Death. Good Lord! what a world of wickedness may be laid upon a poor, thin, and groundless Persuasion! What a burden will Self-deceit bear! What mountains and hills will wilful Error lie under, and never feel them! Hamor and Shechem must fall by the sword, Gen. 34.26. and their whole city must be spoilt; and what's the ground? Nothing but a mongrel Persuasion made up of Malice and Religion; vers. 31. Should he deal with our Sister as with an harlot? Joseph must be sold; and what's the reason? Behold, the dreamer cometh. Absalon would wrest his father's sceptre out of his hand? What puts him in arms? Ambition, and that which commends Ambition, a thought that he could manage it better; Oh that I might do justice! King and Nobles and Senators, all must perish together at one blow: For should Heretics live? Holy things must be devoured: For should Superstition flourish? Such inconsequences and absurdities doth Self-deceit fall upon, having no better props and pillars to uphold her then open Falsehood, or mistaken or misapplied Truth. For as we cannot conclude well from false premises; so the premises may be true, and yet we may not conclude well. For he that saith, Thou shalt not commit adultery, hath said also, Thou shalt not kill. He that condemns Heresy, hath made Murder a crying sin. He that forbids Superstition, abhorreth Sacrilege. All that we call Adulterers are not to be slain; All that we term Heretics are not to be blown up; All that is or seems to be abused is not presently to be abolished: For Adulterers may be punished, though not by us; Heretics may be restrained, though not by fire; and things abused may be reserved, and put to better uses: And yet see upon what a Nothing this Self-deceit upholds itself! For neither were they all adulterers that were slain by those brethren in evil; nor were they Heretics who were to be blown up; nor is that Superstition which appears so to them whom the prince of this world hath blinded. Oh what a fine subtle web doth Self-deceit spin to catch itself? What a Prophet is the Devil in samuel's mantle? How do our own Lusts abuse us when the name or thought of Religion is taken in to make up the cheat! How witty are we to our own damnation! O Self-deceit, from whence art thou come to cover the earth? the very snare of the Devil, but, which we make ourselves; his golden fetters which we bear with delight, and with which we walk pleasantly, and say, The bitterness of death is past; and so we rejoice in evil, triumph in evil, boast of evil, call evil good, and dream of paradise when we are falling into the bottomless pit. Secondly, this Self-deceit which our Apostle forbiddeth hath brought an evil report upon our Profession, upon Christianity itself, there having scarce been found any of any Religion who have so wilfully mistaken and deceived themselves in the rules of their Profession as Christians. Christianity is a severe Religion; and who more lose than Christians? Christianity is an innocent Religion, and full of simplicity and singleness; and who more deceitful than Christians? The very soul of Christianity is Charity; and who more malicious than Christians? The Spirit that taught Christianity came down in the shape of a Dove; and who more vultures than Christians? What an incongruity, what a soloecism is this? The best Religion, and the worst men? Men who have learned an art to make a Promise overthrow a Precept, and one precept supplant another, sometimes wasting and consuming their Charity in their Zeal, sometimes abating their Zeal with unseasonable Meekness; now breaking the second Table to preserve the first, and defying the image of God in detestation of Idolatry; now losing Religion in Ceremony, and anon crying down Ceremony when all their Religion is but a compliment. Invenit diabolus quomodo nos boni sectationibus perdat, saith Tertullian, By the deceit of the Devil we take a fall many times in the pursuit of that which is good, and are very witty to our own damnation. What evasions, what distinctions do we find to delude the precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles? As it hath been observed of those God-makers, the Painters and Statuaries of the Heathen; that they were wont to paint their Goddesses like their mistresses, and did then think them most fair when they were most like that which they most loved; so hath it been with many professors of Christian Religion, they temper the precepts of it to their own fancy and liking, they lay upon them glosses and interpretations, as it were colours, to make them look like unto that which they most love: So that, as Hilary observes, quot voluntates, tot fides, there be as many Religions as there be Tempers and Dispositions of men; as many Creeds as Humours. We have annuas & menstrnas fides: We change our Religion with our Almanach, nay with the Moon; and the rules of Holiness are made to give attendance on those sick and loathsome humours which do pollute and defile it. If I will set forth by the common compass of the world, I may put in at shore when my vessel is sunk; I may live an Atheist, and die a Saint; I may be covetous, disobedient, merciless, I may be factious, rebellious, and yet religious still; a religious Nabal, a religious Schismatic, a religious Traitor; I had almost said, a religious Devil. For this, saith S. Paul, the name of Christ is evil spoken of, that worthy Name, as S. James calleth it, by those who by our conversation should be won to reverence that Name: For this that blessed Name is blasphemed, by which they might be saved. Omnes in nobis rationes periclitantur, that I may use Tertullia's words, though with some change; We are in part guilty of the blood of those deceived Jews and Pagans, who now perishing in their error, might have been converted to the faith, had not the Christian himself been an argument against the Gospel. It might well move any man to wonder, that well weighs the simplicity and severity of Christian religion, from whence it should come to pass, that many Christians surpass even Turks and Jews in fraud, deceit, and cruelty: And the resolution is almost as strange: For by the policy of Satan our very Religion is suborned to destroy itself, which freely offering mercy to all offenders, many hence take courage to offend more and more, pardon being so near at hand. They dare be worse than Turks, upon this bare encouragement, that they are Christians. So that to that of S. Paul, Rom. 7. Sin took an occasion by the Law, we may add, Sin takes an occasion by the Gospel, and so deceiveth us. It is possible for an Atheist to walk by that light which he brought with him into the world: Even Diagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might have been an honest man. For that Wisdom which guides us in our common actions of morality is nothing else, saith Tully, but ratio adulta & perfecta, Reason improved and perfected. But the Christian hath the advantage of another light, another la, a light which came down from heaven, and a royal Law, to which if he take heed he cannot go astray. Miserable error shall I call it? It is too good a name. It is Folly and Madness thus to be bankrupt with our riches, to be weaker for our helps, to be blinded with light, in montes impingere, as S. Augustine speaks, having so much light, to run upon such visible, palpable and mountainous evils; to enter the gates of our enemies as friends, and think ourselves in Dothan when we are in the midst of Samaria. Let us not deceive ourselves, which were bought with a price, and redeemed from error; Let us not flatter ourselves to destruction. It is not the name of Christian that will save us, no more than Epictetus his lamp could make a Philosopher. Nay, it is not the name of Christ that can save us, if we dishonour it, and make it stink amongst the Canaanites and Perizzites, among Turks and Jews and Infidels. Behold, thou art called a Christian, and restest in the Gospel, and makest thy boast of Christ. If thou art a Christian, then know also thou art the Temple of Christ, not only in which he dwells, but out of which he utters his oracles to instruct others in the ways of truth. If thou art a Christian, thou art a member of Christ; a member, not a sword, to wound thy sick brother unto death. The folly of thy ways, thy confidence in error doth make the Turk smile, and the Jew pluck the veil yet closer to his face. It is a sad truth, but a truth it is, This stamping Religion with our own mark, and setting upon it what image and superscription we please, hath done more hurt to Christianity then all the persecutions for Christ, to this day. These by diminishing the number of Christians have increased it, and by the blessing of God have added to the Church from day to day such as should be saved. The Sword and the Flame have devoured the Christian; but this is a gulff to swallow up Christianity itself. What Seneca spoke of Philosophy is true of Religion, Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantes; When men did frame and square their lives by the simplicity and plainness of the rule, it was not so hard and busy a thing; and there were fewer errors, when the greatest error was Impiety: But after by degrees it began to spend, and waste itself in hot and endless disputations, one faction prescribing to another, and promulging their dictates as Laws (which many times were nothing else but the trophies of a prevailing side) waxing worse and worse; deceiving, and being deceived. And now all is heat and words; and our Religion for the most part (if I may so speak) is a negative religion, hath no positive reality in it at all. Not to be a Papist, is to be a Christian; not to love the picture, is to be a Saint; not to love a Bishop, is to be a Royal Priesthood; not to be a Brownist or Anabaptist, is to be Orthodox. Should a Pagan stand by and behold our conversation, he might well say, Where is now their God? Where is their Religion? Thus hath the Church of Christ suffered from her own children, from those who suck her breasts. She had stretched her curtains further, to receive in those who were without, had they not been frighted back by the disconsonancy and horror of their lives whom they saw in her bosom, and she had had many more children, had not they who called her Mother been so ill-shapen and full of deformity: and that is verified in her which was said of Julius Caesar, Plures illum amici confoderunt quàm inimici; She hath received more wounds from her friends then from her enemies. Last of all, This Error in life and conversation, this wilful mistake of the rule we should walk by, is an error of the foulest aspect, of greater allay than any other. For in some things licet nescire quae nescimus, it is lawful to err; Error in itself having no moral, culpable deformity. In some things oportet nescire quae nescimus, we must not be too bold to seek, lest we lose our way. Some things are beside us, some things are above us, some things are not to be known, and some things are impertinent. In some things we err, and sin not: for errantis nulla est voluntas, saith the Law; He that hath no knowledge hath not will. But Self deceit in the plain and easy duties of our life is so far from making up an excuse, that it aggravates our sin, and makes it yet more sinful. For we blind ourselves, that we may fall into the ditch; we will err, that we may sin with the less regret; we place our Reason under the inferior part of our soul, that it may not check us when we are reaching at the forbidden fruit; we say unto Reason as the Legion of Devils said to our Saviour, What have we to do with thee? art thou come to torment us before our time? Art thou come to blast our delights? to take the crown of roses from off our heads? to retard and shackle us when we are making forward towards the mark? to remove that which our eye longeth after? to forbidden that which we desire, and to command us to hate that which we best love? We persuade down Reason, we chide down Reason, we reason down Reason, and will be unreasonable, that we may be worse than the beasts that perish. First we wash our hands with Pilate, and then deliver up Jesus to be crucified. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that thus deceivest thyself. Yea, so far is this Self-deceit from making up an excuse, that it deserveth no pity. For who will pity him who is willing to be deceived, who makes haste to be deceived, who makes it his crown and glory to be deceived? Had it been an enemy that deceived me, or had it been a friend that deceived me, every man would be ready to say, Ah my brother, or, Ah his glory, but when it is I myself deceive myself, when I myself am the cheater and the fool, and never think myself wiser then when I beguile myself, it is a thing indeed to be lamented with tears of blood, but yet it deserves no pity at all. Nulla est eorum habenda ratio qui se conjiciunt in non necessarias angustias, saith the Civilian; The Law helps not those who entangle themselves with intricate perplexities; nor doth the light of the Gospel shine comfortably upon those who will not see it. It is a true saying, He that will not be saved, must perish. Died Abner as a fool dyeth? saith David. Doth this man err as a fool erreth? or is he deceived for want of understanding? or because of the remoteness and distance of the object? Then our Saviour himself will plead for him, John 9 If you were blind, you should have no sin. But in the Self-deceiver it is not so. His hands are not bound, nor his feet tied in fetters of brass. His eye is clear, but he dims it. The object is near him, even in his mouth and his heart, but he puts it from him. The law is quick and lively, but he makes it a dead letter. He turns the day into darkness, gropeth at noon as at midnight, and turns the morning itself into the shadow of death. We have a worthy Writer, who himself was Ambassador in Turkey, that hath furnished us with a polite narration of the manners of the people, and the customs of the places. Amongst the rest he tells us what himself observed, that when the Turks did fall to their cups, and were resolved to fill themselves with such liquor as they knew would intoxicate and make them drunk, they were wont to make a great and unusual noise, with which they called down their Soul to the remotest part of their bodies, that it might be as it were at distance, and so not conscious of their brutish intemperance. Beloved, our practice is the very same, When we venture upon some gross notorious sin, which commends and even sanctifieth itself by some profit or pleasure it brings along with it, we strait call down our Reason, that it may not check us when we are reaching at the prey, nor pull us back when we are climbing to honour, nor work a loathing in us of those pleasures which we are drinking down as the ox doth water; we say unto it, Art thou come to blast our riches, and to poison our delights? Shall we now part with the wedge of gold? shall we fly the harlot's lips as a cockatrice? Shall we lay our honour in the dust? Shall every thing which our soul loveth be like the mountain which must not be touched. Avoid Reason; not now Reason, but Satan, to trouble and torment us. What have we to do with thee? Thou art an offence unto us, a stone of offence, a scandal. And now if there be a Dixit Dominus against us; if the Lord say it, he doth not say it; if a Prophet speak it, he prophesies lies; if Christ speak it, we bid him Departed from us, for we will be sinful men: And hence it comes to pass that our error is manifest, and yet not seen: that our error is known, but not acknowledged; that our error is punished, but not felt. Hence it comes to pass that we regard not the truth, we are angry with the truth, we persecute the truth; that admonitions harden us, that threaten harden us, that judgements harden us; that both the sunshine and the storm, when God shines upon us, and when he thunders against us, we are still the same; knowing enough, but basely prostituting our knowledge and experience to the times and our lusts; false to God and ourselves, and so walking on triumphantly in the errors of our life; dreaming of eternity, till at last we meet with what we never dreamt of, death and destruction. Read 2 Kings 8. and see the meeting of Elisha and Hazael. The Text saith, v. 11, 12, 13. The man of God wept. And when Hazael asked him, Why weepeth my Lord? the Prophet answered; Because I know the evil that thou wi●t do to the children of Israel: Their strong holds thou wilt set on fire, and their young men thou wilt slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child. What did Hazael now think? Even think himself as innocent as those children. What is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing? Should the same weeping Prophet have wept out such a Prophecy to some of after ages, and have told them, Thus and thus you shall do; actions that have no savour of Man or Christian, actions which the Angels desire not to look upon, and which Men themselves tremble to think on; would they not have replied as Hazael did, Are we Dogs and Devils, that we should do such things? And yet we know such things have been done. I might here enlarge myself, and proceed to discover yet a further danger. For Error is fruitful, and multiplies itself. It seldom ends where it gins, but steals upon us as the Night, first in a twilight, then in thicker darkness. Only the difference is, it is commonly night with us when the Sun is up and in our hemisphere. We run upon Error when Light itself is our companion and guide. First we deceive ourselves with some gloss, some pretence of our own: Our passion, our lust, our own corrupt heart deceiveth us. And anon our Night is dark as Hell itself, and we are willing to think that God may be of our mind, well pleased with our error. Now against this we must set up the Wisdom of God; Be not deceived: It is not so. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God is not mocked, saith our Apostle. This I called the Vindication of God's Wisdom, my second part: Of which in the next place. The Nine and Twentieth SERMON. PART II. GALAT. VI 7. Be not deceived▪ God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. HAving done with the first part of the Text, a Dehortation from Error, in these words, Be not deceived, I proceed to the second, which I call a Vindication of God's Wisdom, in the next words, God is not mocked, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an undeniable position. The eyes of the Lord, saith the Prophet, 2 Chron. 16.9. run to and fro throughout the whole earth. Deus videt, and Deus judicat, are common notions which we receive è censu naturae, out of the stock and treasury of Nature, there being such a sympathy betwixt these principles and the mind of Man, that so far forth as the acknowledgement of these will bring us; the soul is naturaliter Christiana, a Christian by nature itself, without the help of Grace. There was no man ever who acknowledged a God, but gave him a bright and piercing eye. This is a seed which may be sown in any ground, and will grow up even in Epicurus his garden; Who denied indeed the Providence, but not the Foreknowledge of God, as thinking the events and motions of things on earth rather below his care then out of his sight: And though he had the confidence to deny the Administration, he had not the power to deny the Nature of God. In a word, it is a principle of Nature written in our hearts by the finger of God himself, and we must first lose ourselves before we can blot it out. And yet as undeniable as it is, S Peter foretells that there will come mockers in the last times, even mockers of God. And the words here are not a bare negative proposition, and no more, but a silent reprehension, and being urged and preached as it were, a plain intimation, that some there might be who deceiving themselves in their religion, would take courage at last to question a principle of Nature. Psal. 10. His mouth is full of cursing, and deceit, and fraud; under his tongue is mischief and vanity, saith David, and then it follows in the close, God hath forgotten, he hideth his face, Ezek. 9.9. and will never see it, nor require it. The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seethe not. Ps●l. 53.1. They say, as the fool doth in his heart, There is no God; say it rather by rote, as that they would have, then make an article of their faith. For none believe that there is no God but they for whom it were better there were none indeed. None believe he doth not see but those who do those works of darkness which he cannot look upon but in anger. May we then conclude that there be some who attempt to cousin God, as the Cerarians did their Jupiter, who think they can b●ffle him, and put a trick upon him; obtrude dross for silver, and a gilded sin for true holiness and righteousness? A hard saying, this; who can bear it? Yet such no doubt there are, and we have just cause to fear not a few who are secretly possessed of such a fancy. For this their folly is manifested unto all men, as the Apostle speaketh. And it shows itself 1. in vita hominum, in men's Lives; 2. in votis hominum, in the Wishes of wicked men; 3. in study, in their Desire and Study to make themselves believe it▪ And first, if we look into the lives and conversations of men, we shall find the whole course and order thereof to be nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a kind of scene, and as it were an action upon a stage. What masks and disguises do they put on, and all populo ut placeant, that they may deceive the people, who indeed are delighted with shows, and will swallow down any pill, be it to their own ruin and destruction, if it be gilded over with a fair pretence, who cannot think themselves wise but by being constant, or rather stubborn, fools. Thus first they deceive and mock themselves, than they deceive and mock others; come forth in this show and saintlike majesty, as Herod in his royal apparel, that they may be taken for Gods, not Men. And now they dare tell any Prophet in the world, (though they peradventure will not call him Blessed of the Lord) that they have fulfilled the Commandment of the Lord. For having gained this applause, they tread their measures with more state and majesty, they begin to feel themselves to be those persons whom they did present, as Quintilian observes of some Players, that they put on that affection which they were but to express, and went weeping off the stage. Now they are Holy, now they are Just, now they are Defenders of the faith, and by degrees work in themselves a belief that God also is of their opinion, delighted in shows and apparitions: And therefore in this habit, which at first they did put on but for a purpose, they commend themselves to God himself, like the Pantomime or Dancer in Seneca, who because he pleased the people well, was wont every day to go up into the Capitol, and dance before Jupiter, and thought he did the God great pleasure in it. Did I say this folly was seen in the course of men's lives? You may think it is rather hid there. It is true; but so hid, as the Bee was in the gum, & latet, & lucet; hide, but so hid that with half an eye we may see it well enough; For the Hypocrite, though he carry on his actions with that art and subtle continuance as if he would deceive the eyes of the Sun and of Justice, yet some one thing or other there will be which shall discover and unmask him. I have performed the commandment of the Lord, said Saul to Samuel. And Samuel said, 1 Sam. 15.13. What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear. I am just and holy, saith the Hypocrite; what meaneth then this loud Oppression, this raging Malice, this devouring Covetousness, which are as the bleating of the sheep, and lowing of the oxen to discover all, and make this Angel of light as full of horror as the Devil himself? And as it is seen in close and painted iniquity, so is it most visible in open profaneness, in those sins which we commit before the Sun and the people. And in these we do not so much mock God as laugh him to scorn; think that he will keep silence at our Oaths, shut his eyes at our uncleanness, fall asleep whilst we watch whole nights in prodigious intemperance, and be at last a Father of mercy to those rebellious children which defy him to his face. Such Mockers the world is full of: These Locusts swarm, and cover the face of the earth, and corrupt the whole land. Quae regio in terris? What corner of the earth is there where these do not quarter? Look into the Court; there the King is the Preacher, and his example a lasting Sermon. I doubt not but there be many who do sub larva servire aulae, as Nazianzene spoke of his brother Caesarius, who wait upon the King to do service to the King of Kings, and make their place here but a step to a better in heaven; Yet if we may prophesy in the King's Court, we may discover some who by their colour and complexion, do not make show as if they had lived so near the Sun, or within the beams and influence of so resplendent an example. Look into the Camp; I cannot think but there be many there qui sub paludamento alterius alteri militant, who in their coat-armour serve the Lord of Hosts, and so live as those that fight his battles: But are there none whose very words are clothed with death, and whose swords are instruments of violence. God grant there be no legio sulminatrix in this sense, no thundering Regiment, to call down the tempest of God's wrath, not upon their enemies, but themselves. Look into the Temple; There God is present, we may be sure, as present as in heaven itself; and no doubt many come to it as to the place of his habitation: But we may with the cast of an eye discover not a few, who come disguised indeed, as if they meant to hid themselves from God, but of so irreverent deportment as if the place were not dreadful, and God were not here. Look into the City; That is Jerusalem, the faithful city: But how is the faithful city become an harlot? what is her Religion but a mockery? What mock fasts, when she fasts to turn away God's judgement, and is herself the greatest judgement God hath sent upon the land? What mock-prayer, whilst she prays for that she will not have, prays for peace, and beats up the drum? I should not indeed have given her her portion with the Hypocrite, but that her show of holiness is too thin a scarf, and her wickedness is too transparent: Look into the Country; I know there is sancta rusticitas, that God may be served with the hammer in the hand, and will hearken to an hallelujah sung at the Blow tail; But what coldness do we find amongst many? what indifferency? what halting between God and Baal? I hope there are not many (but a few are too many) of those who can salute Anthony or Caesar as occasion serves, and will be very good subjects when the King prevails. And now last of all look into the Church; that indeed is made a spectacle unto the world, unto Angels, unto men, and hath been looked upon with such an evil eye that now we can scarce see it unless we will seek it in a Conventicle which they call a Synod, a great part whereof scarce understands the word: Yet look upon this Heaven in its beauty, before the powers of it were shaken, and we fear we might have seen some Angels fallen from their estate, some wand'ring stars, some reaping plentifully that did sow nothing, that indeed had nothing to sow, many striving to enter in, but not at the straight gate. Go run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem; Look into that part of the world which we call Christendom; and there you shall see Religion follow and lackey it to the World, to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; varying in its shape and complexion as that altars and changes, running along in the same stream and channel; looking towards one haven, but carried as it were with the tide into another; carried captives according to the will of the enemy, and yet triumphing in the name of the Lord. There you may see men that call themselves the Temples of the Holy Ghost, like those Egyptian Temples, of a fair and glorious fabric without, but having nothing but Cats and Crocodiles within instead of Gods. There you may observe the same men professing Christ, sighing and groaning out Christ, and yet putting him to open shame, making this poor Christ a way to Riches, this humble Christ a way to Honour; making this meek Lamb a Butcher; bringing him, as the Jesuit doth, as a patron and promoter and abettor of all the cruelty they practice upon their brethren; of all their unjust designs not an accessary, but principal; for they are begun and ended in his name; The same Christians ravished at the glory of his Promises, and crest-fallen at the voice of his Command; confessing themselves sinners, yet not sensible of their sin; proclaiming Heaven the only blessed estate, and yet never moving towards it; bound to the Haven of rest, and yet steering their course into the gulf of destruction; calling Christ, with one Prophet, the desire of all nations, and yet looking upon him with so small regard as if, as another Prophet speaketh, there were nothing to be seen in him that we should desire him; begging Life most importunately, and yet most passionately making love to Death; made up of so many contradictions, that it might pose a considering man, and make him at one view resolve, as the Cynic did when he beheld the Philosopher, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Man is the most generous plant in nature, and at another view, with the same Cynic, when he saw the soothsayers, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, pronounce Man the most ridiculous creature in the mass. Run, I say, to and fro through the world, by the wonderful frame whereof we might learn to know God; but we turn away our eye from Christ, and learn to mock him by its vanities. These are the last days, and S. Peter's prophecy is fulfilled. It is become the language of the world, an oeconomical language, Tush, God doth not see. Atheism and Profaneness will certainly bring this gray-headed World with sorrow to its grave. For, as Demodocus said of the Melesians that they were not fools, but did the same things which fools use to do, so may we of these profane mockers; Atheists we will not call them, but most plain it is they do the very same things for which we call men so. And thus much of the first point, That the Conversation of men for the most is but a mockery of God. We see then that this disease doth eructare se ab animo in superficiem, as Tertullian speaks, exhale and breathe itself forth, and is visible in the outward man. And the behaviour of many, profess what they will, is but a mocking of God. But further yet, in the second place, it may be in votis. We may not only live as if God did not see, but we may wish from our hearts that he had no eye at all. For we never make worse wishes than when we are the servants of Sin, our Wishes commonly being proportioned to our Actions. Lust brings forth the one, and Fear the other. If we sin, we fear; and if Fear be the mother and midwife of our Wish, the Wish that it brings forth will prove a monster. Take us in any state, in any condition but this, & non satis patemus Deo, we are never open enough to God. Fling us into prison, and we desire our sighs may come before him: Led us into captivity, we cry out with the Prophet, Behold, Lord, for we are in distress: Lay us on our bed of sickness, and we call upon him to look upon us, and to come so near as to turn our bed: Lay us in our grave, and our hope is he will breathe upon our dust: but when we sin, and our conscience presents unto us the countenance of an angry God, than we put him far from us; we are willing he should departed from us, who have departed from him; we wish for some rock to hid us, or some mountain to cover us from his sight; then we could be content, and it is even our wish, that he had no eye at all. We have an author who hath written a book De arte nihil credendi, of the Art of believing nothing; and he lays it down as a tried conclusion, Oportet priùs Calvinistam fieri qui Atheus esse vult, He that would be an Atheist, must first turn Calvinist: Which Maldonate the Jesuit receives as he would an Oracle. But know from what coasts it breathes; and may name it a profane scoff and a most malicious speech, merum pus & venenum. Yet this use we may make of it, That we watch the Serpent's head, and beware the beginnings of evil: For if we once serve in the Devil's tents, we may be engaged further than we ever thought we should; and by going from our God we may learn to slight and mock him. For there be steps and degrees and approaches to Atheism; nor is any man made an Atheist in the twinkling of an eye; and this wilful deceiving of ourselves leads apace that way, even to a distaste of God. We first mock ourselves, and then are willing to mock him. For we never hate God till we have given him just reason to hate us. Odium timor spirat, saith Tertullian, Hatred is an exhalation from Fear: and we then begin to wish he had no Eye when we have cause to fear the weight of his Hands. This is a sad declination even to the condition of the damned spirits, nay of the Devil himself, whose first wish was, To be as God; the next, That there should be no God at all. And thus much of the second point, That we may have it in voto, in our wish and desire, to delude and mock God. But now, in the third and last place, we may yet descend a step lower, even to the gates of Hell itself. I may say, lower yet: for as we may have it in voto, so we may have it in study: As we may wish it were so, so may we strive and study to believe it, and use all means to make it present itself unto us as an article of our Creed; which the damned cannot do. We may strive to blot out those characters which are indelible, to raze out those afflicting thoughts of God out of our memory, to drown the cry of one sin with the noise of more, to feed our Love of the world with more wealth, our Lust with more uncleanness, and our Revenge with more blood, make a sin a virtue, a crying sin an advocate, by committing it often, and answer our chiding Conscience with a song. There be, Amos 6. saith the Prophet, that put far from them that evil day, and to this end they chant to the sound of the viol, and invent instruments of music, like David. They bespeak the Vanities of the world to come in and make their peace; call in the pleasure of the Flesh to abate the anguish of the Spirit; work out the very thought of evil by the content and profit they reap in doing it; laughing and jesting sin out of their memory; adding sin unto sin, till their conscience be seared as with a hot iron, as the Apostle speaks. Magnis sceleribus etiam jura naturae intereunt saith the Orator: Whilst we are thus familiar with the works of darkness, the light of Nature gins to wax dim, and by degrees to vanish out of fight. First, as Bernard speaketh, a spiritual chillness possesses the soul, and finding no resistance, seizeth on the inward man, infects the very bowels of the heart, chokes up the very ways of counsel: And then these domestic and inward remembrances, the voice of Nature, and the principles of Reason, fail, and speak in a broken and imperfect language. In a word, they are to us as we would have our God be; not at hand, as the Prophet speaketh, but afar off. The Historian will tell us that Theivery and Piracy were so frequently practised in some part of Greece that they were accounted no crimes at all. And we read of those African parents, that they made it a sport, nay a religion, to sacrifice their children, and could not be dissuaded from that inhuman custom, and long it was before, being conquered, they were forced to lay it down. And if we look abroad into the world, we shall find some few indeed of those tender consciences, who frame a law to condemn themselves by, and so make more sins than there are: But quocunque in populo, quocunque sub axe, in every nation, in every corner of the earth, we meet with those, who frame mischief by a law, take a pride to quarrel at Articles of their faith, and are as active to nullify the law of works. Is Blasphemy a sin? they speak it as their language. Is Sacrilege a sin? All things are alike to them, as unholy as themselves. Is Revenge a sin? It an Heroic virtue. Is adultery a sin? It was a sin, a mortal sin; but in these latter and perilous times it hath spoke better things to them who are bold to present it as pleasing to their Understanding as to their Sense. Is Rebellion a sin? There be that call it by another name. If the Son of man come, shall he find sin upon the earth? Certainly, admit our glosses, apologies, distinctions, evasions, take us in our big triumphant thoughts there will be none that do evil, no not one. For what we read of the men of the first age, that they know not what it was to die, but fell to their graves, as men use to fall upon their beds, is true of many now in respect of their spiritual estate; they fall into sin as if it were nothing but to lie down and rest, to satisfy the sense, and please the appetite; as if to sin were as natural as to eat. And now all is night about us: But even in this darkness there is sometimes a scintillation, a beam of light darted in upon us, which waxeth and waineth as the hand of God is upon us or removed. In our ruff and jollity it seems well-near exstinct, but in our misery and afflictions it revives many times and gins to move, and at last, when God strikes us to the ground, when our feather is turned into a night cap, when Death comes towards us on his pale horse, it kindles and blazes as a Comet that foretells our everlasting destruction. Now this our way uttereth our foolishness. For what a folly is it to follow a Meteor exhaled from the earth, and not that light which is from heaven heavenly? to be driven about with a , and unmoveable as a rock when the Truth speaketh? to preserve a wand'ring thought before an everlasting principle? to embrace a suborned deceitful solicitation, and turn ourselves from those native and importunate suggestions, from the dictates and counsel of the Spirit of God, and, though they haunt and pursue us, run from them as from our enemies; as if we were like to that fabulous rock in Pliny, which you could not stir with all your strength, but yet might shake with the touch of your finger? We may say of this as the Father doth of Idolatry, It is summus seculi reatus, tota causa judicii; It is a vocal crying sin, which like the importunate Widow in the Gospel, will not suffer the Judge to rest, till he do justice. This filleth the world with the evil of sin and of punishment: not so much a firm opinion that God may be deceived and mocked, as a bold presumption by which we make him such a God as we would have him, a God that may be trifled with, a God that, like the Heathen Gods, may be taken by the beard; that those fierce astonishing speeches, which we find in Scripture are but words of art, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, spoken to affright men, rather than words of intended truth, which will bring effect according to their natural meaning; as indulgent fathers many times threaten their children with much hard language, which they never intent to make good. And this conceit of God's facility and easiness, that he so quickly admits of excuse, is the principal ground and occasion of all the sins in the world. To make it plainer yet, and point out to some particulars in which we mock God when we imagine no such thing, and so to conclude this point; I cannot imagine, when I consider that Majesty which no mortal can comprehend, that Dust and Ashes, the works of God's hand, should be able to put a trick upon him, and mock him. This were to set his creature in his Throne, and place extreme Weakness and Folly above Wisdom itself. Psal. 50. Thou verily thoughtest I was like unto thee, saith God to the Hypocrite. It was but a thought, a wavering imagination, which enters, and goes out, and never remains at one stay. God is not, cannot be mocked. For if he had believed there was a God, Diagoras himself would not have mocked him, nor ever thought it possible. But the truth is, as the relation stands betwixt God and his creature, Man is said to do that which he doth not, which he cannot do; to fight with him, who is omnipotent; to dispute with him, whom we cannot answer one of a thousand; to contend, to grieve him, who cannot be moved; to weary him, to press him as a cart is with sheaves, who by his word made, and by his word beareth all things, who is to himself an everlasting sabbath and rest. Non ille minùs peccat, cui sola deest facultas, saith the Casuist. We do not do it the less because we cannot do it, because we would do it if we could. Ipsa sibi imputatur voluntas, saith the Father; To will it is to do it. To look upon a woman, and lust after her, is to commit adultery; yet the woman as chaste as before: So God cannot be mocked, yet we may mock him. As in the rape of Lucrece two are in the fact, yet but one, as Augustine speaks, committed adultery. For if Tully could truly say, that to resist the Law of Nature and to walk contrary to that light which we brought with us into the world is nothing less than Gigantum more bellare cum Diis, to wage war with the Gods as the Giants did, then may we as truly affirm, that to dissemble with God, to flatter him with our lips when our heart is far from him, to fall down before him in a compliment when we break his laws, to act our part as upon a stage, to wish he had no eye, to study to believe it, is to mock him. To be more particular yet; For yet you may ask wherein we mock him? For we are very slow and unwilling to believe any evil of ourselves, and are hardly induced to think we ever did that which we do every day. Mock God nay, God forbidden. And that God forbidden, that prayer, Mal. 3.7. is but a mock. God calls to the Jews, Return unto me; and they reply, Wherein shall we return? as if they never had been averse from him, but had been always with him, even in his bosom. And vers. 8. Ye have rob me, saith God; and they say, Wherein have we rob thee? as if they were utterly ignorant of any such matter, but had been wholly employed in bringing tithes into his store-house and meat into his house. They forsook him, they robbed him; and yet are innocent. They did, and did not: and God himself is made no better than a columniator. So that this position is true in this sense also, God is not mocked; for no man thinks, no man will acknowledge, no man dares profess, that he mocks him. But we cannot thus shake off the guilt, nor put it from us. For when we do those things to God which we do to men, when we mock them, this is enough to put us into the seat of Mockers, and enrol us amongst the Mockers of God. When Laban gave Jacob blear-eyed Leah, for beautiful Rachel, Gen. 29.25. it was a mock: What hast thou done? saith Jacob; did not I serve thee for Rachel? why hast thou mocked me? When Micah laid an image in the bed for David, and said he was sick, it was a mock: For Saul said unto Micah, why hast thou deceived me? When God requires justice and righteousness, and we bring him vain oblations; when he calls for the heart, and we lift up our voice; when he calls for a working, fight, conquering faith, and we give him a dead faith; when God calls for Faith, which is a stone, a cornerstone, to build that Obedience upon which shall reach to Heaven, and we make Faith a pillow to sleep on, and sin the more securely because we believe; when God bids us strengthen our hands that hang down, and we open our ears; when God bids us, Up and be doing, and we count all done in Hearing; when God calls for a New creature; and we return him circumcision and uncircumcision, empty sacraments and lazy formalities; Deut. 15. when God requires a sacrifice without blemish, and we offer up that which is lame or blind; when God requires perfection, and we give him our weak, blind, halting endeavours; when God seeks a Man, and we give him a picture; Psal. 35.16, what are we but hypocritical mockers. For what are Hypocrites but Players, the Zanias of Religion, whose art it is to deceive? who are so long conversant in outward performances that they rest in them as in the end of the Law, are content with shows and expressions, and at last think there is no service, no religion, but in these. As the poor Spartan travailing into another country, and seeing the beams and posts of houses squared and carved, which he had never seen before, asked if trees did grow so in those countries: So these mockers of God, these formal professors, having been long acquainted with a form of Godliness, sqared and carved, and set out with show and advantage, considering what eloquence there is in an attentive Ear, a turned Eye, an Angel's Tongue, a forced Sighs, to win applause, and make them glorious in the eyes of men, fall at last upon this Spartans' conceit, and think that Trees grow so, and that there is no other natural shape and face of God's service but that: which is to deceive themselves and mock God. These are lubidria scenâ & pulpito digna, mockeries fit for the State and Theatre then the Churches of Christ, in which we present the all-seeing eye of God with one thing for another; with a Masker, and say he is a King; with a Slave, and say he is a Conqueror; with a Dreamer, and say he is a Believer; with a Man of Belial, and say he is a Christian; with a Devil, and say he is a Saint. We must now resume our Text. For all this, though we desire to mock God, though we do that which is but a mockery of God, though we care not for God, though we contemn God, though we slight his counsels, resist his will, tender him one thing for another, or something which he would have, but not all, though we abate the terror of the Law, by some fair pretence; yet, God is not mocked, is an everlasting truth, as everlasting as Himself; and therefore, saith a learned Writer, it is to be understood cum effectu; God is not mocked, that is, God will not let such mockers go unpunished. For as he sees their thoughts before they are shapen, hears their words before they are spoken, beholds their actions before they are done; and his clean and piercing Eye follows them through every grot and cave, sees them through all their wind and turn, through those Meanders and Labyrinths in which they think to lurk and hid themselves, so He will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 return the mock upon them. If they mock God, God will laugh them to scorn; his Justice shall demonstrate his Providence, and the weight of his hand make them feel that he had an Eye. I cannot better conclude this second part, then with that with which the Psalmist concludes his fiftieth Psalm, O consider this, ye that forget God, (ye that mock God; for he that forgets him, mocks him) lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. What a mock was that of the Athenians to Antony, which cost them a thousand talents? What a mock was that of Calisthenes to Alexander, which cost him his life? But than what a mock will that be which mocks both body and soul into hell fire? And this is the difference between our Mock and Gods: Ours doth not, cannot, reach him we aim at. His Mock, as the Wiseman speaks, flies like an arrow to the mark. In our Mock there is nothing but folly and vanity; in his there is reaking indignation, fire and brimstone, the scorching heat whereof who may abide. Our Mock is as a dart shot upwards, and his Mock returns it upon our own pates. We mock him, and he remains the same for ever: He mocketh us, and that is our misery, our hell, for evermore. Oh then forget him not, mock him not, rather kiss, that is, worship him. Kiss him, not with a Judas' kiss,; worship him, not as the Pharisee, with an outward, ceremonious, empty, unsignificant worship, but fall down before him in simplicity and singleness of heart. Worship him, as God speaks to you, and lie not, Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in him with reverence. For tribulation and anguish to them that mock him; but glory and honour and immortality to them who worship him in spirit and truth. Both these are joined together in the last part of my Text, For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Which words, as I told you, declare the Justice of God, in proportioning the Harvest to the Seed, and come now to be handled. This is a strong motive. And it is the method of God, to cure us by something which is contrary unto us, to check one passion with another, and when we love ourselves so well as to undo ourselves, to awake our Fear and so control and silence our Love. It is a high flown fancy, or rather a bold phrase of the Physician, who makes it a part of his religion to think that there was never any man s●ared into heaven, I cannot tell what chariot he may get up in, nor yet do I think that every man is struck to the ground as S. Paul, to be lifted up to heaven. But no doubt many a Saint hath a mansion there, which took their first rise, and continue that motion, upon the wings of Fear, and that it might not slack and abate, borrowed some heat from the fire of Hell. Fear takes us by the hand, and is a Schoolmaster unto us. And when Fear hath well catechised us, than Love takes us in hand, and perfects the work. So that in S. Basils' judgement we pass from Fear to Love as from a School to an University. Oh that men were wise; would they were so wise as to fear the great day of retribution! nay, would they did believe it! Glorious things are spoken of Faith. We call it a full assent, and we call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a full assurance. The holy Ghost hath called it the evidence of things not seen; Is ours so. Is ours within the compass of this definition? Would to God it were, nay, would to God many of us did but believe that such a time of reaping there will be as firmly as we do a story out of our own Chronicle; nay, as many times we believe a . Would our faith were but as a grain of mustardseed! Even such a faith, if it did not remove mountains, yet would chide down many a swelling thought, would silence many a proud word, would restrain us from those actions which have nothing of pain, but are as loathsome as Hell itself. I will not give it so hateful a name as Infidelity, (for then how many Christian Infidels should we have?) but it is languor fidei, as Tertullian speaks; The faith of many is very weak, sickly, and feeble. For whether good or evil, we sow the one so sparingly, the other so plentifully, as if we should never reap. These words might yield us many useful observations; but we will handle them only in reference to our former parts, as they look back and cast an eye of terror upon the Deceivers of themselves and Mockers of God, that is, upon wicked men. And first we shall take notice of the metaphor of Sowing; which requires not only Air and Water and Earth, but Industry also, as Palladius tells us; And than our Observation will be, That Wickedness, though it have a fair countenance, and promises much ease and delight, yet is a painful and destracting thing. It doth not always come up of itself; it is sown, and much cost and labour we bestow upon it. Secondly, we shall look upon the Harvest; a harvest not worth the looking on, a harvest not worth the reaping, And did not my Text imply so much, I should not call it by that name. For what a harvest is Damnation? And yet you know in the Gospel there is a harvest foretold for the Tares as well as for the Wheat. Poena sequitur culpam, Punishment follows close upon Sin. And this is God's mocking of us, which consists in giving every seed it's own body; If we sow to the Flesh, he clothes it with Death. And herein consists his Justice and his Providence, 1. in punishing of sin; 2. in fitting and proportioning the punishment to it. First, Sowing implies labour and industry. This Phrase is often used. They have sown the wind, and shall reap the whirlwind; Hos. 8.7. They have laboured much to little purpose. And Job 4.8. They that plough wickedness, and sow iniquity, reap the same: As they that expect the year and a good Harvest, first manure and blow the ground, then scatter their seed upon it; so do wicked men first turn their thoughts, as the Husbandman doth the earth, lutosas cogitationes, saith Bernard, earthly dirty thoughts, busily tending the Flesh, as if it were a field to be tilled, racking their memory, calling up their Understanding, debauching their Reason, fitting their instruments, watching opportunities, putting all things in readiness to bring their purposes about, which is as it were their Ploughing; and then they break forth into action, which is their Sowing: and then springs up either Adultery, or Murder, or Oppression. Behold he travaileth with iniquity, he hath conceived mischief; He is in as great pain as a woman with travail: And all this trouble is to bring forth a Lye. Psal. 7.14. Scarce any sin but costs us dear. For first, as there is lucta, a kind of contention in doing a good work, a holding back of the Flesh when the Spirit is ready; for when the Spirit is ready, the Flesh is weak, saith our Saviour: So in the proceed of wicked men there is also lucta, some secret struggling and complaining of the Spirit when the Flesh is ready. When the Hand is held up to strike, the Eye open to gaze, and the Mouth to blaspheme, there be fightings within, and terrors without; there is a Law staring in our face, like a Tribune with his Veto, to forbid us; a Conscience chiding, a Judge frowning, a Hell opening its mouth to devour them; all which must be removed, as Amasa's body, or else they will stand still, 2 Sam. 20. 1●. and not pass and venture on to that which they intended. These Fightings must cease, these Terrors be abated, their Conscience slumbered, the Law nulled, the Judge forgot, Hell fire put out, or sow they cannot. For if these did appear in their full force and vigour, did they look upon these as truths, and not rather as our mormos and illusions, how could they put such seed into the ground? Again, secondly, though their Will have determined its act, yet there may be many hindrances and retardancies, many cross accidents intervene, to hinder the work. The child may be brought to the birth, and there may be no strength to bring forth; The Seed may be ready to be sown, and the hand too weak to scatter it. For the Will is not always accompanied with Power: God forbidden it should. It was but a weak argument which Luther brought against the Freedom of the Will from the Weakness and inability of performance: Ostendant, saith he, magni illi Liberi arbitrii ostentatores, Let them, saith he, who boast of Freewill, show any power they have to kill so much as a fly. For a limited Power, is no argument of a limited Will. He that cannot get his bread may wish for a Kingdom; and he that cannot kill a fly may will the destruction of the whole world. Now this limitation of their Power, this weakening their strength in the way, makes them go forth with sorrow, carrying their seed of iniquity, and not able to scatter it. This makes them mourn and cover the Head, as Haman; flings them on the bed, with Ahab; makes them hang themselves, as Ahithophel did. This many times puts them on the rack, strikes them with care and anxiety, fills them with distracted thoughts, which choke one another. The Covetous man would be rich; but he must rise up early, and lie down late, and eat the bread of sorrow. The Ambitious would climb but he must first lick the dust. The Seditious would trouble the waters, but is afraid they may drown him. Nemo non priùs peccat in seipsum; There is no man sins, but first he offends and troubles himself before he conveys the poison of his sin on others. He that hurts his brother, felt the blow first in his own bosom. We read of the work of Faith, and labour of Charity: And it is true, it is not so easy a matter to believe, nor so easy a matter to be charitable, as many suppose, who cannot be brought to study either, but must have them on gift. Virtus duritiâ exstruitur: A Christian is a Temple of the holy Ghost; but it is Hardness and Industry that must help to build him up. But yet we cannot but observe that there is as much care taken (I am unwilling to say, more) in the sweeping and garnishing a habitation for Satan. What Gibeonites are we in the Devil's service, and what lazy dreamers in the family and house of God? More cost is bestowed in sowing to the Flesh then in sowing to the Spirit. It is the service of Christ, but Drudgery of Satan: both are sowing; but we make that of the Flesh the more laborious of the two. To apply this in a word; We read in our books of a devout Abbot, who beholding what cost and art a woman had bestowed in attiring herself, fell a weeping, and, Oh, said he, what a misery is this, that a woman should bestow more labour upon the dressing of her body, than we have done in the adorning of our souls; that she should put more ornaments on her head, than we have been careful to put into our hearts! What a misery is it, that we should wish for heaven, and contend for earth! that Mary's part should be the better, but Martha's the greater! Oh what a sad contemplation is it, that many men will not be persuaded to take so much pains to go to heaven and eternal rest as many thousands do to go to hell and everlasting Torments! that we should sweat for the bread that perisheth, and but coldly and faintly ask for the bread of life! that we should heap up riches; James 5 3. which will eat our flesh as it were fire, and be ever afraid of that Grace which will raise us from the dead! that we should watch for the twilight, an opportunity to do evil, and let so many opportunities of doing good fly by us not marked, nor regarded! lay hold on any opportunity to destroy our brother, and let pass any that prompts us to help him! that we should labour and travel and spend ourselves in the one, and be so weary and faint and dead in the other! that we should take more delight to feed with swine then to eat at Christ's Table! that the way to Death should be to us as the straight and narrow way, and that only broad and easy which leadeth to life! in a word, that we should sow so sparingly in the one, and so plentifully in the other; so cheerfully in the one, and so grudgingly in the other; when the harvests are so different; when the one shall bring us full sheaves of Comfort, the other yield us nothing but Corruption, and that Corruption which is worse than Nothing! And so I pass from the Labour of the wicked in sowing to their Harvest. I would not call it so: but something it is they shall receive answerable to their labour. For whatsoever a man s●wes, that shall he also reap. James 1.15. The Seed is sown; Lust hath conceived, and brought it forth, and with it brought forth Death, something answerable to it. Generate mortem, It begetteth Death, as a mother bringeth forth a child like unto herself. And what more natural and more congruous than that a Mock should beget a Mock; and Laughter, Scorn; and Neglect, Anger; and Sin, Death? If you set at naught all my counsel, I also will laugh at your calamity, Prov. 1.25. saith the Wisdom of God. If you forsake him, he will forsake you, 2 Chron. 15.2. saith Azariah. If you will walk contrary to me, Leu. 26.27, 28. I will walk contrary to you also in fury, saith God by Moses. If they stand out with him, Jer. 44.11. he will set his face against them. Such a reciprocation there is between the Seed and the Harvest, between Sin and Punishment. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher; as in all contracts there is a giving and receiving. He that receiveth by theft, that poenas, (That is the phrase) must give punishment. Ipse te subdidisti poena; It is the stile of the Imperial Law; You have sinned, and brought yourself under punishment; you have sinned, and must pay for it. He that tastes the lips of the Harlot must feel the biting of the Cockatrice. He that eateth stolen bread shall find it gravel in his mouth to break his teeth. It was suavis, sweet, it will in the end be lapidosus, as Seneca renders it; stony bread? Pride goeth before Destruction, Prov. 16.18. saith Solomon, goeth before it and ushereth it in. The wages of sin is Death, saith S. Paul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a metaphor taken from war, which is a kind servitude for which they received diarium, bread every day: so that Punishment is the Sinners allotted daily bread. The Latin word is merces, Wages, as due to the Sinner as Hire is to the Labouror, and follows as naturally as Harvest doth the Seedtime. Sin and Punishment are bound up as it were in the same volume, in the beginning Sin, in the close Punishment, as the Seedtime and the Harvest are in the compass of the same year. Nay Sin carries Punishment in its very womb, and can be delivered of nothing else: So that when the sinner is punished, that is but done which in a manner is done already. The Hebrew Doctors say, Molitur farina molita, That corn is ground which was ground before; a dead lion is killed; and a burning torch is put to the city which is on fire already. And if we observe it, the metaphor of Sowing doth speak so much. For the Seedtime is but a kind of prophecy, or rather an expectation, of the Harvest. The husbandman is said exspectare annum, to expect the year; in proximum annum dives, rich upon the next year? For he that ploughs, 1 Cor. 9.10. ploughs in hope, saith S. Paul; and he that sows, sows in hope. The Seed lies in the womb of the Earth; and Sin, in the womb of Time; and yet a little while, and the harvest will come. Only the one is more certain than the other, and here the metaphor will not hold. For he that sows corn doth not always reap. The heavens may be as brass, and the earth as iron. Terra eunucha, as one speaks, the earth may be barren, and not bring forth. But he that sows to the flesh, shall certainly reap corruption. He smote the people in his wrath, and none hindereth; Isa. 14.6. some time there is indeed between the Stripe and the Punishment; but what is some time to eternity? For as sinners mock God, so God may seem in a manner to mock their security with his delay, admonendi dissimulatione decipere, not to favour them so much as to be angry with them, as to give them any warning; to use the same method in punishing which they do in sinning. They defer their repentance, and God deferreth his punishment. They say, Tush, he doth not see; and he is as still and silent as if he did not see indeed. They are stubborn in their ways; and he prepares his deadly weapons. Cum perversis perversè ages, saith the Prophet David by a kind of a Catachristical metaphor, With the froward thou wilt show thyself froward, or perverse and obstinate, as they. He will deal with them by law of Retaliation, that there shall be a kind of analogy and proportion of conveniency and likeness between the fact and the punishment; that is their ways were crooked, though they seemed straight, so the punishment which he inflicts shall be just, though it seem perverse, as being of another hue and colour from his behaviour to them in the time of their ruff and jollity; that as they once judged their actions good because they felt no smart, so now they shall know them to be evil by the smart which they shall feel, and find what seed they sowed by the harvest which they shall reap. And in this is seen, first, the Justice, and secondly, the Providence of God. For first, though God delight not in the death of a sinner; though he made not Hell for Men, nor Men for Hell; yet he is delighted in his own Justice, according to which punishment is due to sinners. For is it not just that he that sows should reap? I say, God is delighted in his Justice: He himself with it as with a garment, as with a robe of honour, is clad with Zeal as with a cloak, he puts it on as an helmet of salvation upon his head; he rouseth himself up as a mighty man; he cries out, Ah, I will be avenged of my enemies! Though the pillars of the earth shake, and the world be burnt with fire, and the Heavens gathered together as a scroll; yet God's Justice is as eternal as himself, and stands fast for evermore. Dives' wealth cannot bribe it, Tertullians' eloquence cannot charm it, Herod's glory cannot bow it, all the power and wealth and eloquence of the world cannot move it; but it is leveled at Sin, and through all these sends its arrow to it as to a mark: And neither God nor Man deny but that it is just, saith Plato, that he that sins should be punished, that he that sows should reap. Secondly, here is manifestly seen God's Providence, which brings Sin itself, the most disorderly thing in the world, into order, and maketh that which stands us against his law to meet with his Justice, and that which runs from the order that his Mercy hath set up to be driven to the order of Equity. For Sin is an offence against the Creation, a breach and invertion of that order which the Wisdom of God did at first establish in the world. My Adultery defileth my body, my Oppression grindeth the poor, my Anger rageth against my brother; my particular sins have their particular objects, but they all strike at the Universe, and at that order which was at first set up. Luke 15. Father, I have sinned against thee, and against heaven, saith the Prodigal; against thee, and against thy Power, and that Order which thou hast established in the highest heavens. And therefore his Providence ruleth over all, to reduce this inequality to an equality, and this confusion into order; to show what harmony it can work in the greatest disorder, what beauty he can raise out of the deformed and unnatural body of Sin; striking them down by his hand who would not bow to his will. Sin and Punishment are nothing of themselves, but in us, or rather in the ways of God's Providence they are something. The one is voluntary, that is Sin; the other penal, that is Smart. That which is voluntary, Sin, is a foul deformity in nature and in that course which God hath set up; and therefore the penal is added, to order and place it there where it may be forced to serve for the grace and beauty of the whole; that the punishment of Sin may wipe out the dishonour of Sin; that he who against the will of God would taste the pleasure of Sin may against his own will drink deep of the cup of Bitterness. Interest mundo; Therefore it concerns the world, and all that therein is, that Sin be punished, and that every thing be set in its own place. This the whole creation seems to groan for, this it earnestly expects, this is the Creatures Jubilee, Rom. 8. it is deliverance from the bondage of corruption. Turpis est pars quae suo toti non convenit, It is an ill member for which the whole body is the worse. in sermone litterae; As Letters in a Word or Sentence, so Men are the principles and parts which concur to make up a Church. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, For Men are the World, and Men are the City, and Men are the Church. Now every impertinent and unpunished Sinner is a letter too much, or rather a blur in that sentence; Let the hand of Providence therefore blot it out. Let the whip be on the fools back, and the sword in the murderer's bowels. Let Dives be in Hell; let every seed have its own body, and every work its proper wages; and then every thing is in its own order and place: and then the World is the work of God's Hands, the Church is the body of Christ, and the composition is entire. So this is an everlasting truth; God's Justice requires it, his Providence works it, the very Creature groans for it. And deceive we ourselves, if we will, and mock God, if we dare; If we do not well, sin lieth at the door, Gen. 4.7. ready to break in with a whip and vengeance upon us. For whatsoever a man sows, that also shall he reap. For, in the next place, God doth not only punish sin, but fits and proportions the punishment to the sin, both in this life, and in that which is to come. He observes a kind of Arithmetical proportion, and draws both parts together; that the one may not crack of his purchase, nor the other complain of his loss; that the Sinner may not boast of his sin, nor God lose any part of his glory. The Prophet David hath fully expressed it, He made a way to his anger; LIBRAVlT ITER, Psal. 78 50. he weighed it as by the scales. As they increased, they sinned against me: Hos. 4.7. Therefore I will change their glory into shame. Rom. 1.25. As they changed the truth of God into a lie, so God delivered them up. An Arithmetical and just proportion: They took away God's glory, and they pay him with shame, with the shame of a sinner, which is God's glory. God under the Law did appoint particular punishments for particular sins; as Famine by drought for Detaining of Tithes, Pestilence for Injustice, to destroy those that would not destroy the wicked, nor plead the cause of the oppressed; fierce and devouring Beasts for Perjury and Blasphemy; and Captivity for Idolatry. Leu. 10. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, and were consumed by fire from Heaven; Adonibezek had his thumbs cut off and his great toes; Judg. 1.6. and in the next verse he confesseth, Threescore and ten kings having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: As I have done, so God hath requited me. Absalom's hearts desire was to get his Father's crown; and you may behold him with three darts thrust through his heart. 2 Sam. 18, So in all ages it hath been observable, that men have been taken in their own net, and been buried in the pit which they digged. For this, saith S. Basil, is not only a punishment, but the very nature of Sin, to make a net and to dig a pit for itself. The Thief twists the halter that hangs him; the Envious eateth out his own heart; the Angry man slayeth himself; the Wanton beast is burnt up with his own heat; the Ambitious breaketh his own neck; the Covetous pierceth his own soul, and is choked, as Crassus was, with his own gold; the Proud man breaks with his own swelling; the Seditious is burnt with the fire he made. So near doth Punishment follow Sin at the heels that in Scripture often one name and word serveth to signify both, and Sin is taken both for the guilt and the Punishment. And this in this world; But in the next Tophet is ordained and prepared of old, fitted and proportioned to every one that goes on in his sin; as fit for an unrepentant sinner as a Throne is for a King, or Heaven for an Angel. For as there is some analogy between the joys a good conscience yields on earth and thoss which we shall have at the right hand of God: ●●br 6.4. (The Apostle calls it a taste of the heavenly gift: and the Schoolmen tell us, that Glory is the consummation of Grace, which looked towards it and tended to it.) So is Sin an emblem of Hell, carrying with it nothing but disorder, confusion and torment. Anselme thought it the uglier Hell of the two, and more to be abhorred. In Hell there is stench; what more unsavoury than Sin? in Hell there is pain; what more tormenting than Sin? in Hell there is weeping; what more lamentable than Sin? in Hell there is a worm; what more gnawing then Sin? Sin entered in, and then Hell was created. Had there been no Sin, there had been no Hell at all. And therefore as it resembles it, so it tends to it as naturally as a Stone doth to the centre. Against the righteous the gates of Hell will not open, but they are never shut to the wicked, ever ready to receive him and take him in, as his due and portion. For again, is it not fit that they who have made an agreement with it, that with their words and works have called it to them, that have studied and laboured for it all their life long, that have made it their business, that have broke their sleep for it, that have had it in their will and desire, should at last be thrown into that place which they have chosen, and which they have made such haste to all the days of their life? Is it not fit that what they sow, that they should also reap? You will say, This is impossible, impossible that any man should will it, should desire it, should be ambitious of that place of horror, and count it a preferment; But, beloved, as much as it may be, this is the case and condition of every obstinate and unrepenting sinner. For he that counts Sin a preferment, must count Punishment a preferment too, which can no more be separated from Sin then Poison from a Serpent. When thou first sinnest, thou bowest towards Hell, when thou goest on in thy sin, thou runnest to destruction; and to die, and to be in Hell, are the same period and term of thy motion. Prov. 8.36. When thou lovest Sin, thou lovest Death. When thou drawest in Sin as the Ox doth water, thou drawest in the flames of Hell. When thou thinkest thyself in Paradise, thou art falling into the pit of Hell. The Philosopher gives the reason, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The beginning is from thyself; if therefore the end is from thyself, the cause is from thyself, and therefore the effect is from thyself. For will any man say that the Glutton is sick, the Wanton rotten, the Sluggard poor against his will, when they greedily do those things which naturally bring along with them Sickness, Rottenness and Poverty? Will you say he had a mischance that wilfully leapt into the Sea? We will Death, we love Death; nay further yet, exsultamus rebus pessimis, we rejoice to do evil; Prov. 2.14. We are in an ecstasy, transported beyond ourselves, in our third heaven (as S. Paul was in his) we talk of it, we dream of it, we sweat for it, we fight for it, we travel for it, we embrace it, we have a kind of exsultation and jubilee in Sin; And what is this but to hoist up our sails and make forward towards the gulf of Destruction and the bottomless pit? So that, to conclude this, by the Justice of God, by the Providence of God, by our own Wills, as by so many winds, by the tempest of our Passions, as well as that of God's Wrath, we are driven to our end, to the place prepared and fitted for the Devil and his Angels, and for all those who have loved their tentations, and embraced them with more affection than they have the oracles of God. For if we thus deceive ourselves and mock God, God will mock us to our own place: Still it is, What a man soweth, that shall he also reap. We will but look back, and so hasten to our journey's end; add one word of application, and so conclude. And 1. that we be not deceived, let us, as S. Augustine exhorts, operam dare rationi; let us therefore diligently observe the dictates of Reason, and be attentive to the Spirit speaking in the Scripture; not neglect the light of the one, nor quench the heat of the other. The Scripture cannot deceive us but when we are willing to deceive ourselves. When we are averse from that it bids us love, and place our love where it commands our hatred, than we are not interpreters but fathers of the Word, as he spoke of Origine, and put what shape and sense we please upon it. Nor can we urge the obscurity of the Text, especially in agendis, in matters of practice; for I never thought it a matter of wit and subtlety to become a Christian. And if we weigh the plainness and easiness of Scripture, and the time and leisure which most have, but misspend upon their lusts and the world; I might bespeak them as chrysostom bespoke his auditory, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; What need have you of a preacher? For why should our Wit serve us rather to make us rich then good? Why may we not try out as many conclusions for saving Knowledge, as we do for Riches and Honour and the things of this world? 2. Let us not seek death in the error of our lives. Let us not plunge ourselves in error, and then study to believe that which we cannot believe without fear and trembling. Let us not present God unto us in a strange and alien shape, in that monstrosity which we affect, and so make him like unto ourselves. Quid tibi cum Deo, si tuis legibus? What hast thou do with God, if thou wilt be thy own Lawgiver, and wilt live, and be judged by no other Laws but those which thyself makest? This is indeed to take the place of God, whilst we give him but the name. Oh beloved, it is ill trying conclusions with him who tryeth both the heart and the reins. From him no cloud can shadow us, no deep can cover us, no secret grot or cave can hid us. And if we act by our own laws, yet we shall be judged by his. And what paint soever we put upon our sins, he that numbereth the stars will number them all, and call them by their right names. What we call Religion shall be with him Profaneness; What we call Faith with him shall be but Fancy; What we call the Cause of God shall be the cause of our Damnation. Quantas cuncque tenebras superfuderis, Deus lumen est; Cast what mists you will, build what labyrinths you please, God is Light, and will find out thy Sin, that monster, that Minotaur. Be not deceived; God is not mocked, but is rather more jealous of his Wisdom then of his Power. At the very sight of Sin his Anger waxeth hot; but when we would hid our sin from his sight, his Jealousy burneth like fire. For he that sin●eth dallieth with God's Power, but he that palliateth his sin playeth with his Wisdom, and tryeth whether he can fraudulently circumvent and abuse him. He who sinneth would be stronger than God; but he who shifteth a sin into the habit of Holiness by a pretence, would be wiser than God, potior Jupiter quàm ipse Jupiter: Then which no impiety can be greater. 3. And last of all, let us remember the end. When we sow, look forward toward the Harvest. Say we within ourselves, What may this which I now sow bring forth? Will Light grow up here and Joy? or shall I reap nothing but Darkness and Corruption and Desolation? This fancy pleaseth me now, this thought ravisheth me, this action is my crown, my joy; it is sown in honour, in pleasure, in applause; but what will it be when it riseth again? what will it be at the harvest? Will a gloss or pretence alter the nature of the seed, and change it, as we ourselves shall be, in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye? Let us never build a resolution but upon this of the Apostle, What a man sows, that shall he also reap. O quanta subtilitas judiciorum Dei! saith Gregory; Oh the subtle and exact method of the Justice of God, which gives to every seed it's own body. The Eye which would not look upon God shall be filled with horror; The Understanding which would not receive Light shall receive no impression but of Darkness and everlasting separation. And the Will which made the sin, shall itself be made a punishment. It is now a wanton Thought, it well then be a gnawing Worm. It is now Lust, it will be a burning Flame. It is now Blasphemy, it will be Howling and Gnashing of Teeth. We must now conclude; and we cannot better conclude, then with that of S. Peter; Brethren, if these things be so, if you believe there be such things, be deligent that at the great harvest you may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless, free from Self-deceit, walking and trembling before your God; not ploughing the Wind to reap the Whirlwind, but sowing seed in Righteousness and Sincerity, that you may reap Peace and Joy in this life, a fair promising Spring which gives a full assurance of a rich Harvest of Glory and Immortality in the life to come. Both which God grant us through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Thirtieth SERMON. PART I. THESS. iv 18. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. THe words are plain and easy: They are as the Use of that Doctrine of the Coming of the Lord which is set down at large in the precedent verses, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, etc. a doctrine seasonably opened and applied to the Thessalonians, now hanging down their heads with grief, and weeping over the graves of their friends as men without hope, inter praecepta virtutum & spem resurrectionis, even then when S. Paul's doctrine and the hope of the Resurrection should have armed them against all assaults, even then languishing and falling away, and bating from their spiritual growth, as if they had almost forgotten that article of their Belief, the Coming of the Lord, and lost not only their friends, but their faith. It was fitted for them, and in this case! but it may serve for any Meridian, for any who are brought low by oppression, evil and sorrow. It was preached in the first age of the Church, when she began to be militant, which was as soon as she began: And it is an antidote as it were put into her Hands, which she may use even in her last age; which she must use till she be triumphant. And therefore we will not bind and confine it to this present case of the Thessalonians, but, propose it as a preservative against all evil whatsoever. And since the two affections which weigh down the afflicted are Sorrow and Fear, we will set up this to remove them both. For be sorry, why should they? Let the Heathen be so, who are without Hope. And fear what need they? Have they lost their friends! they do but sleep. Have their goods been torn from them? They shall receive an hundred fold. Is their life in jeopardy? It is in his Hands who is coming, who shall descend from heaven with a shout, and the voice of the Archangel; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: wherefore comfort one another with these words. These words I called a Use of that Doctrine which S. Paul had formerly preached at Thessalonica; and it lieth in the form of an exhortation, in these black and gloomy days, in these last and perilous days, in these days of misery and mourning, most necessary, when so many weak hands are to be H●ld up and so many feeble knees to be strengthened. Herein briefly I observe the Matter, and the Manner; the Action, and the Rule or square of that action. The Matter, Comfort you one another; the Manner how this duty must be performed, with these words. But for our more plain and orderly proceeding, we will speak first of the Object, or Persons ALII ALIOS, one another. And these we shall look upon first in their common nature and condition, as they are of the same passions, Wis. 7.3. subject to the same infirmities, falling upon, as the Wiseman speaks, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the earth which is of like Nature, All men have the like entrance into life, and the like going out, and I may say are subject to the same depressions and miscarriages, which even Life, that we are so unwilling to part with, hath wrapped up in her, and carries as in her womb; a short life, and full of misery. Next, we will look upon them in that near relation which they have one to another, and that as they are either Men, or Christians. For the second doth not take away, but establish, the first. Grace doth not destroy Nature, but perfect it; and if the last be upheld the former can never fall to the ground. And this alii alios, the Persons, will afford us; Comfort you one another. Secondly, this Habitude and mutual Dependence doth even invite the Act; which will be our next consideration, What it is to comfort one another. And this in the third place, requires the Rule and Method how we should perform it, with these words; with the words of Truth, with the words of the Gospel: Which is indeed to draw the waters of Comfort out of the wells of Salvation. You have then 1. the Persons, one another; 2. the Act, Comfort; 3. the Method, with these words: Wherefore comfort one another with these words. First, of the Persons one another. And indeed one man is the image of another; because the same image of God is on all. Every man is as the Text, and every man is as the Commentary. Every man is what he is, and yet one man interprets another, and declares what he is. We be as glasses each to other; and one sees in another not only what he is, but what he may be. The Beggar is a glass for a King, and a King for a Beggar. The Sheephook hath been turned into a Sceptre, and the crowns of mighty Kings have been cast to the ground. These things I writ to thee, saith Plato, of Man, who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by nature and condition mutable, now on the wing for heaven, anon cleaving to the dust; now sporting in the Sunshine of prosperity, and anon beaten down with a storm; now rejoicing with his friends, and anon bewailing them; now with a shining, anon with a cloudy countenance; now with a cheerful, anon with a dropping eye; now filling his mouth with laughter, and anon roaring for the very grief of his heart. Men are happy, saith Aristotle, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as men; as Men, who are turned upon the wheel of Change, now looking towards heaven, and anon on the ground. Such is Man, and such is every man: And every man may see himself in every man. He may see himself in another's Fear; which betrays the soul, I may say scarce leaves a soul, leaves not, as Augustine speaks, cor in cord, a heart in a heart; betrays it of all its succours, of those helps which Reason or Scripture brings; and therefore in Scripture it is said to lay hold on us, to come upon us, to fall upon us, to fall upon us as a mountain or Hill. A burden certainly it is; and we lie buried under it, not able to move hand or foot, not able to look towards that which might rid and ease us of it, but looking towards some Hill to hid us, or mountain to cover us! Doth any man lie under this weight? Every man may. One tells another what his condition is. Again, one may see himself in another's Grief, which is another burden that presseth down. Why art thou cast down, Psal. 42. saith David, O my soul, bowed down as with a burden: And Psalm 40. Innumerable evils have taken hold of me, I feal the weight upon my Head: for so the phrase signifies. For heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop, saith his son Solomon; incurvat, bows it, crookeneth it, casts it down: it dries the bones, it dims the eyes, it dulls the spirits, it deads' the Heart, it weakens the memory, it takes the man from the man, and makes him like unto those who have been dead long ago. In grief we know not what to do; we do we know not what. The hands hang down, the knees are weak, the eye is on the ground. What part is there of the body, what faculty of the soul, that can look up? And such is Man; such is every man. Is any man? then every man may be thus cast down. Alii alios; one tells another what his condition is. Yet turther, one may see himself in another's Complaints and Repine. Fear and Sorrow are the mother and the nurse that begin and foment all Murmuring, which is nothing else but a kind of distaste and grudging of the mind. Why dost thou set me up as a mark? saith Job; Why do thy terrors affright me? Why hast thou cast me off? saith David, Why go I so heavily all the day long? Imperari dolori silentium non potest. Fear and Grief will be ask of questions, cannot be silent. This is the foul ill-favoured issue of Fear and Grief, a Giant that fights against Heaven, a Monster that breathes its poison in the very face of God. I call it a Monster. For it is begotten of divers passions, which meeting and engendering in the heart, bring it forth to quarrel the wisdom and question the providence of God to censure his counsels, and condemn his proceed. Why should the heathen, and the people imagine a vain thing? Why should my enemy live, and my friend die? why should wicked men prosper in their ways; and the righteous be trodden under foot? Why should Pharaoh sit on a throne, and the Israelites labour at the brick-kil? This doth Fear and Grief force out of the heart; and out of this abundance the mouth speaketh? And such is man; such is every man. Doth one man complain and murmur? Another may. And he that speaks to his heart to comfort him, may have the same luctations and swell in his, which may at last break forth into the like murmur and complaints. One man sees the changeableness of his mortal condition in another; sees that he may be every thing, and that, as the Psalmist speaks, he is nothing. In his best condition and in his worst condition another man is his glass. In another's sickness he may see that disease which may seize on himself: In another's poverty he may behold his own riches with wings. In another's disgrace he may perceive his own honour falling to the ground: And in another's death he may read his own mortality, and look upon himself as a living dying man. In what appearance or representation soever he beholds another, he sees either a picture or prophecy of himself. When he sees a Man, a man of sorrows, a man of fears, a man breathing forth complaints, a man washing his couch with his tears, those streams of blood which issue forth from a wounded heart, he beholds himself. One man's necessities are but a lesson and an argument which plainly demonstrate what another man may be. They are also a silent and powerful appeal to his Compassion, and a secret beseeching him to do unto him as he would be done unto in the like case, to be of the same mind, which certainly he will be when with this Lazar he lies at the gates of another. ONE ANOTHER is of a large extent and compass, takes in the whole Church, I may say takes in the whole world; makes it a Church, without which it were but a scattered multitude; makes it a World, without which it were but a Chaos and a confusion. One is divers from another, and that we can hardly distinguish them they are so like; a circle, whose every part is like unto every part, and whose every part should be united in love as in a point. I need not carry this consideration further. It is so obvious and visible that every eye sees it which the God of this world hath not blinded. We may run and read it in that relation in which men stand one to another as Men. Nature itself hath hewed and fashioned out all mankind as it were out of the same quarry and rock, into a body or society, as a City Compact within itself. Isay 51 1. Look unto the rock out of which you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit, whence you are digged, Look to the common seed-plot and matter out of which you were all extracted, and there you shall see that near relation which is between one and the another; how one man, and every man, (which makes one man as every man, and every man as that one) is not only a child of Corruption, and kin to the Worm and Rottenness, but the workmanship of an immortal Hand, of an unlimited Power, who hath built up one and every one in his image, and according to his likeness: Which image, though it may be more resplendent and improved in one than another, yet is that impression which is stamped on all. One man and every man hath the same image and superscription. From the same rock and vein are hewn out the weak and feeble man, and Ish, the man of strength. From the same hand is the face we turn away from, and the face which we so gaze on. Of the same extraction are the poor and the rich: For we are neither poor nor rich by nature. He that made that face which gathers blackness made also that face that shines. He that made the Idiot, made the Scribe. He that made Dives, made the Lazar at his door. And here ONE ANOTHER, is but one; the Strong as the Weak, the Wise as the Simple, the Rich as the Poor. For he that made thee casts an equal eye on them all. And who hath made all these? Have not I the Lord? And if he hath made them all, and linked them together in one common tye of Nature quis discernet? who shall divide and separate them one from another, the wise from the simple, the strong from the weak, the rich from the poor. One is as another; and all is but one another. Some distance some difference, some precedency may show itself to the eye of flesh; and yet even an eye of flesh may see how to gather and reunite them together as one and the same in their original. Look unto the rock and vein out of which they were Cut, and one and another are the same. But now besides this common extraction, the God of Nature, who hath built us out of the same materials, hath also imprinted those principles, and notions and inclinations in every man which may be as so many buttresses and supporters to uphold one another, and make us dwell together as one man. He hath left a Law within us which we call the Law of Nature, which is the same in one man and in another. S. Paul calls it a Law. And one would think it were as superfluous and needless to make any Law to bind us one to another as to command children to love their Parents, or Parents to be indulgent to their children. But a Law it is within us, and our natural bent and inclination carries us to this, to love and comfort one another. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; could the ancient Comedian say, How gracious and how helpful a creature is one man to another, if he continue a Man, and receive no other new form, no other new impression by Self-love and these transitory vanities below, if he be not biased and wheeled from his Natural motion by the world? And in this relation all men stand one to another by Nature. One man is as another: and every man by himself is a weak indigent creature, a tottering sinking house; if standing yet ready to shall; if rich, in a possibility to be poor; if lifted up on high, in the way to a fall; if walking delicately, yet near to his death; subject to danger, when he hath escaped it; and open to injuries, when he offers them; when his heart is merry, near to that evil which may swallow him up and fill him with sorrow: And therefore by his very temper and natural disposition he is a sociable creature; as needing, so desirous of those mutual offices by which we support and uphold each other. Fac nos singulos, take us asunder by ourselves, and what are we? But as a mark for every venomous shaft; as a tottering wall, in danger of every touch; as a reed, to be shaken with every wind. Therefore Nature hath supplied this noble but weak creature, Man, with those helps which shall uphold and strengthen him against all these; first, with Reason, by which he may discover Evil in its approach and prepare against it, or take away its terror and smart when it is come; and secondly, with the Society of others, which may be as so many seconds and as a guard mutually to help and assist each other. And here their being Divers makes them more One. For as there are divers men, so there are divers gifts and divers administrations. One man exceeds in wisdom, another abounds in wealth; one man surpasseth in strength, another in providence; one man is rich, another is poor. And whatsoever distinguisheth them on earth sets them one above another; Nature hath made them equal, nay servants one to the other, to serve one another in love; The Poor man may assist the rich with his wisdom, and the Rich relieve the poor with his wealth, The Strong man may carry the Lame, and the lame direct the strong; the one may be as eyes, the other as legs, and so make up each others defect. So ONE ANOTHER, that is, all men, may be as one. But now, in the next place, there is a nearer relation, which binds Men together in a bond of peace, their relation in Christ. Major est fraternitas Christi quam sanguinis; The fraternity and brotherhood they have by Christ is a greater and nearer rye then that they have by Nature. In him they are called to the same faith, baptised in the same laver, led by the same rule, filled with the same Grace, sealed with the same seal, ransomed with the same price, comforted with the same glorious promises, and shall be crowned with the same glory. And being one in these they are to be as one in all duties and offices which are required to the perfect accomplishment of these. They must join hand in hand to uphold one another on earth, and to advance one another to that glory which is prepared for one as well as for another in heaven. And thus they are linked together in one by Charity, which is copulatrix virtus, as Cyprian calls it, that coupling uniting virtue; which as a command lies on every man. Matth. 22.38. Thus our blessed Saviour in his answer to the Lawyer though he calls that commandment which binds us to the love of God the first and greatest commandment, yet adds The second is like unto it, like unto it, in respect of the same Act, say some, because by one and the same act of Charity we love both God and our Neighbour; in respect of the same Object▪ saith chrysostom, because I therefore love my neighbour because I love God; for if I love him not for God and in God, I love him not at all, God is the principal object of my Love, because he is good, and Goodness itself: But this Goodness I see shining in his Creature, which he hath also made capable of Glory; and I cannot truly fall down and worship him, unless I love and adore him also in his Creature. For as there is an invisible union of the Saints with God, by which God hath joined to himself and made one as it were his Church in his Son by the virtue of the holy Ghost; so is there also an union of the Saints amongst themselves, consisting in a sweet and brotherly uniting of their Souls together, which is the cementing of Gods holy Temple, the constituting and building of Christ's Church. Now this union, though the eye of flesh cannot behold it, yet it must appear and shine and be resplendent in those duties and offices which must attend it. As the Head infuseth life and vigour into the whole body, so must the Members also anoint each other with this oil of Gladness. Each member must be busy and industrious to express that virtue without which it cannot be so. Thy Charity must be active in thy Hands, in casting thy bread upon the waters; vocal in thy Tongue, in ministering a word of comfort in due season; compassionate in thy Heart, leading thee to the House of mourning, and making thee mourn with them that mourn, and lament with them that lament. It must be like the Sun, which casts its beams and influence on every man. Semper debio charitatem, quae cùm impenditur debitur, saith Augustine, Love is a debt we own one to another, that we may be one; a debt every man owes to every man; a debt which though I always pay, I always own, and even when I pay it, I remain still a debtor. For again, if we be Christians, then though we are many members, yet are we many members of that body, 1 Cor. 12.12. which is one, partakers of the same bread of life; 1 Cor. 10.17. nay, being many we are one bread and one body: That which was dispersed into many, being gathered thus, is but one. Partakers of the same Sacraments, which our Saviour did not only institute as memorials of his death, and as channels and conveyances of comfort to our sick and weary souls, but also as remembrances unto us of that debt of Charity which, unless we will forfeit our title of Christian, we are bound with cheerfulness to pay one to another. Multa sunt, sed illa multa sunt hoc unum; ONE ANOTHER includes many, but those Many are but this one mystical body. Each member is lame and imperfect by itself, and stands in need of this uniting. What the Hand is, that is the Foot; and what the Eye is, that is the Hand, in that respect it is a member; for all are members. S. Paul in the Pulpit was no more a member then the Thessalonians to whom he writ. He that is a perfect man is no more a member than he that is a new born babe in Christ: and he that is least holds his relation as well as he that is greatest in the kingdom of Christ. Now if all be members, and the same body, each must concur to cherish each other, that the whole may be preserved. Take but an Arm from the body, but a Hand from that arm, but a Finger from that hand, and the blemish is of the whole. In the Church of Christ communis metus, gaudium, timor; here we are all one, and all men's joys and sorrows and fears are one and the same. As each Man (as I told you before) so each Christian is as a glass to another, and they are mutually so. I see my sorrow in my brother's tears, and he sees his tears in my sorrow. He sees my Charity in my alms, and I see his Devotion in his prayers. I cast a beam of comfort upon him, and he reflects a blessing upon me. There is a preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture which joins men together, makes ONE ANOTHER as one, and draws a multitude to unity. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rom. 12. Let us weep with them that weep, and lament with them that lament. Luc. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the woman in the Parable, Rejoice together with me; Eph. 2. for I have found my groat. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we are fellow-citizens with the Saints, They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, together, upholding and rejoicing one another in every function. Phinehas is meek with Moses, and Moses is zealous with Phinehas. A Christian is chaste with Joseph, and reputes with Peter; is rich with his brother's wealth, prudent with his brother's wisdom, mighty with his power, and immortalised with his eternity. The Angels rejoice at our conversion, and we praise God for the Angel's joy: they ministering to us on earth, and we converse with them to heaven; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we are together in what estate soever, in joy together, and in grief together, rising and drooping both alike; suffering together, mourning together, praying together. And if we observe that form of prayer which Christ hath taught us, our prayer is not then private when we pray in private. OUR FATHER, taketh in ONE ANOTHER, even the whole Church. We cannot pray for ourselves, unless we pray for others also. Nay, he prays not well, saith Calvine, that gins not with the Church. The Church prays for every man, and every man for the whole Church. Quod est omnium, est singulorum, that which is all men's is every man's, and that which is every man's belongs unto the whole. And thus much we have found in the Object, in ONE ANOTHER, even enough to draw on the Act: For on these three, our common Condition, our Relation as Men, and our Relation as Christians, as on a sure foundation, doth our Saviour and his blessed Apostles build us up in our holy love, build us up as so many parts mutually upholding one another, and growing up into a Temple of the Lord. These are the Principles and the Premises; and from these they draw this Conclusion, That being thus linked and united and built together, we should uphold and comfort one another: Which is my second part, the Act itself, to Comfort, and offers itself next to your Christian consideration; CONSOLEMINI ALII ALIOS, Comfort one another. To comfort is a word of a large and much extended sense and signification, spreading itself equally with all the army of sorrows and with all the evils in the world, and opposing itself to all. To comfort may be, to be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, and to put the hand to uphold that which is failing. Sustentanda domus jam ruitura, saith Tully; It is as the underpropping of a house ready to sink. Comfort you, comfort you my people, saith God, Isa. 40.1. speak comfortably to Jerusalem, LOQUIMINI AD COR, Speak to the heart of them. Speak and do something which may heal a wounded heart, rouse a drooping spirit, give it a kind of resurrection, and restore it to its former estate; which may work light out of darkness, content in poverty, joy in persecution, and life in Death itself. To Renew, Restore, Quicken, Lift up, Refresh, Encourage, Sustain, all those are in this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, comfort ye. For Alas, my brother, or, Ah his glory, are but words, verba sine penu & pecuniâ, as he in Claudius speaks, words without help, prescripts without medicine, most unactive and unsignificant words. To a man naked and destitute of food, Depart in peace, Be warmed, Be filled, are but words, but faint and liveless wishes, especially if they proceed from him who can do more, and yet will do no more, then speak and wish. They are the dialect of the Hypocrite, whose religion floats on his tongue, or is written in his forehead; whose heart is marble, when his words are as soft as butter; whose Charity is only in picture and show, and whose very Mercy is cruelty. For what greater cruelty can there be then to have a box of ointment in our hand, and not to pour it forth on him that languisheth, but leave him dying, and say we wish him well! No, to Comfort is to restore and set one another at rights again, the Erring by counsel, the Weak by assistance, the Poor by supply, the Sorrowful by sweet and seasoanble argument and persuasion. Otherwise it is not comfort. For what comfort is that which leaves us comfortless! which leaves the Ignorant in his darkness, the Poor in want, the Weak on the ground, and the Sorrowful man in his gulf! LOQUIMINI AD COR, Speak to the Heart. If we speak not to the heart, to lift up that, our words are wind. Comfort by Counsel is very useful for those who mourn in Zion. Rei infinitatem ejicere, optima medicina; To bond the cause of men's grief, to remove those many circumstances which increase and multiply it, and so to bring it in as it is, and show what little cause men have to grieve, is the best Physic in this particular. Our present and future condition, our Mortality and our Resurrection, are of force enough to wipe all tears from our eyes, and to make our Grave appear as a house of rest rather than as a pit of destruction. But this is but one particular in which we are obliged to this duty Comforting one another. Charity hath more hands than Briareus, and more eyes than Argus: She hath an eye on every one, that is, as the Canonist speaketh, persona miserabilis, a miserable and wretched person. She hath a hand on every sore and malady. And yet she hath but one hand and one eye, but reached forth and rolling on every corner of the earth; where storms arise, ready to slumber and becalm them. Now to Comfort is a work of Charity: and Charity hath a double act, actum elicitum, and actum imperatum, an inward act, and outward; and the latter is the perfecting and consummation of the former. For what a poor empty Thing is a Thought or a Word without a Hand? and what an uncharitable Thing is Comfort without Compassion? then I truly comfort my brother, when my Hand is active as well as my Heart. And yet if they be true, they are never severed: For if the Bowels yearn, the Hand will stretch itself forth: and those comforts which are sincere and real are nothing else but the largess and donatives of the Heart. It was a speech of a churl in Plautus, familiam alere non possum misericordiâ; Compassion and Charity will not feed a family. But the Christian is the better husband, Qui spargit ecclesiae, colligit sibi; He that scattereth his comforts to the distressed, gathereth for himself, and in a religious policy by emptying his store filleth his garners. This was the practice and the policy of the first and purest times, verba in opera vertere, to turn words into works, that they might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, words of comfort, but quickened and enlivened with action. Frequent visitation of the sick, sustentation of the needy, gratulations and benedictions speak plainly the sickness and the heat of their Charity, and upbraid the verbal Religion of these latter times, which breathes forth air instead of comfort, and talks of the way to heaven but never treads in it. That was Comfort indeed, which clothed the naked, and fed the hungry, made the dry stick blossom, and revived the drooping spirits, as jacob's were revived when he saw the chariots which his son Joseph had sent. To draw towards a conclusion; We must well consider from what principle this Act is wrought, from what spring it moves. For we may think we do it when we do not so much as think to do it. We may give scorn and contempt for comfort, or comfort with scorn and contempt; which is panis lapidosus, bread made up with gravel, that will trouble us in taking it down. Our comfort may proceed from a hollow heart; and than it is but a sound, and the mercy of a bloody Pharisee. It may be ministered through a trumpet; and than it is lost in that noise. Nay, it may be an act of cruelty, to make Cruelty more cruel: as we read of an Emperor that did never pronounce sentence of death sine perfectione clementiae, but with a preface of Clemency, a well-worded mild prologue before a Tragedy. Lastly, Comfort may be the product of Fear. We may be free in our comforts for fear of offence, and help one that we displease not another. And what pity is it that so free and noble a virtue as Charity should be enslaved. But indeed Charity is not bound; nor is that Charity which is beat out with the hammer, and wrought out of us by force. All these are false principles, Pride, Hypocrisy, Vainglory, Fear; and Charity issues from these as water through mud, and is defiled in the passage. Therefore it is best raised on the Law of Nature and on the royal Law of Grace. These are pillars that will sustain it. Remember them that be in adversity, as being yourselves also in the body, Hebr. 13.3. in a body mortal and corruptible, a body of the same mould, 1 Cor. 15.53. like to that which you cherish and uphold. And then, we are to love and comfort one another even as Christ loved us, saith the Apostle. Christ is our pattern, our motive, the true principle of Charity: and what is done it should be, though it be but the gift of a cup of cold water which is done, in his name. Then the waters of comfort flow kindly and sweetly when they relish of a bleeding heart and the blood of a merciful Redeemer. Then this act is mightily performed when we do it as the sons of Adam and as the members of Christ, Acts 17.26. when we do it as men of one blood, and of one common faith. Tit. 2.4. And now to conclude; Let us do it, yea, let us be ambitious to do it. For as we have great motives, so we have many occasions, sad occasions, to draw it forth. Day unto day uttereth knowledge. Every day presents us with some object or other. And Occasion they say will make a thief; why should it not make a Comforter? If it can work out evil out of a corrupt, I see no reason why it should not work out this good out of a compassionate heart, why it should not work that compassion in us which will stream forth in rivers of comfort. Shall Occasion be no where powerful but in evil? I remember Chrysologus speaking of the Rich man in the Gospel tells us that God did on purpose cast Lazarus down at his gate, that he might be pietatis conflatorium, as a forge to melt his iron bowels. Tot erant pauperis ora, quot vulnera; he had so many mouths to bespeak and admonish the rich man as he had sores and wounds. His whole body, and his ulcerated flesh was as a stage prepared and fitted for Compassion and Piety to act their parts on. Here is water, Act. 8. saith the Eunuch to Philip, what now hindereth but that I may be baptised? Here is a fair opportunity, here is a Lazar at the gates; what hindereth? why doth not Compassion break forth as the morning, and Comfort spring forth suddenly? Here are sores; why do we not dress them? Here is an empty mouth; why do we not fill it? Here is a naked body; why do we not part with our vain superfluities (I might say with our own garment) to cover it? Here God speaks, and Man speaks, and Misery speaks; and are our Hearts so hard that they will not open, and so open the Mouth, and open the Hands. Shall our Pride and Scorn and not our Piety, make an answer? Beloved, God hath laid many Lazars at our Gates, presented us many sad and bleeding spectacles, laid them down at our feet, before our very eyes; it is pity we should not be as much affected with them as we are with those we never saw; that a relation from a far should pierce us, and the lamentations which bring in our cares should leave us such rocks as no Moses, no Prophets of the Lord, can force one drop of water from; that we should gush out in the one and be dry in other. I could show you many such spectacles: I need not show you; for you see them every day. I could show you naked and miserable men; I could show you a naked and miserable Church, stripped of all her ornaments, of all the glory wherewith her Mother, the persons Charity of former times, had clothed her. Her light is well-neer put out; yet the apple of our eye resteth; God hath thundered, but our earth is not melted; he hath poured forth his indignation, yet his arm is not revealed unto us. Where are our sighs and lamentations? Who hath sat down and wept at the remembrance of Zion? Nay, where was not the Garment of joy, the bed of Ivory, and the sound of the viol? Where hath Vanity more displayed itself then in the midst of those evils which were sent from God to pull it down? When were our eyes more wanton then in the midst of those ruthful objects which might put them out? When were we worse than under that discipline which should make us better? And indeed what comfort can we look for here from proud covetous wanton men? You may look as well for Liberty in a prison, or for joy in hell, Beloved, let the same mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus; and then, and not till then, are you fit for this duty. Shake off the Love of the world, which he came to overcome. Crucify the Flesh, for which he was crucified, and then you will love those men for whom he died. Then will you weep over Jerusalem, as he did; strive to make up the breaches of it, and cement it even with your tears and blood. Then will you have so much piety, as to bewail the decay of it. Then will you be ready to reach forth the hand to them who lie in the dust; And if ye cannot help them up, ye will at least pity them. And where we cannot help, Compassion is comfort. Then shall we lay hold on every occasion of doing good, and bless God for it. Then shall we live together as Men, as Brethren, as Angels; pouring forth this oil, and receiving it; watering, as Solomon speaketh, and being watered again. And in this mutual dispensation of blessings and comforts, helping and supporting one another, we shall be carried along in the same stream towards the Haven where we would be, and press forward as it were hand in hand to those joys and comforts which are laid up for those who comfort one another by the God of consolation in the Kingdom of heaven. And now I should pass to my last part, the Rule or Method we must use in this Duty: but of that in the afternoon. The One and Thirtieth SERMON. PART II. 1 THESS. iv 18. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. WE have spoken of the Persons, one another; and of the Duty, comfort. We pass now to our last part, the Manner or Method how the Duty must be performed; with these words. Hence we may gather 1. That we must observe a rule and method in this Duty. Every box will not yield us Physic; we cannot find this balm in every place, nor draw 〈◊〉 water of comfort out of every well. 2. That this is methodus de coelo, that this method is taught, not in the school of nature, but of Christ. No words will produce comfort but the words of Wisdom itself. To take it more generally and by way of deduction, We shall find it in the Word of God; and more particularly, in these words concerning the coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the dead: So we shall draw the waters of Comfort out of the wells of salvation. With these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion at this time. First, in every action we must look to the manner, and observe a right method in our proceeding. For he that is out of the way, though he walk and walk on all the days of his life, shall never come to his journey's end. He that gins amiss is yet to begin; and the further he goes, the further he is f●om the end. As S. James speaks of Prayer, Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss; so we seek Comfort, and find not, because we seek amiss. Lord, in what errors and perplexities do we entangle ourselves! what mazes and labyrinths do we toil in! what dangerous praecipices do we venture on! how do we mistake poison for physic, hell for heaven, a prison for paradise! how many evils do we run and bruise ourselves upon to fly the face of one, and yet carry it along with us! Quàm operosè perimus? What pains do we take to ease, that is, to trouble and vex and undo ourselves? When we are in restraint, we seek liberty, and more enslave ourselves; When we are in pain, we seek ease and our torment is increased; When we are sick, we take physic, and die. Our eyes run to and fro through the earth; we seek comfort in every place and under every leaf, and under every leaf we find a serpent. Our Fancy is our Physician, and other men's fancies are our physicians. We ask ourselves counsel, and they are fools that give it: We ask other men counsel, and they are deceitful, flattering, miserable comforters. We would be at ease, and seek out many inventions, and pass by that which is so easy to be found. For want of method and a right progress in our ways our life is nothing else but a continuation of error: Nec tam morbis quàm remediis laboramus, nor do our diseases trouble us so much as our remedies. And as they will say, Lo here is Christ, and, Lo there is Christ, so they will say, Lo here is comfort, and there is comfort: But as those are false Christ's, so are these false and deceitful comforts; as those Christ's are Antichrists, so these comforts are curses, greater than those we fly from. In poverty we seek for wealth; and that makes us poorer than we were. In prison we seek for enlargement; and enlargement fettereth us more, binds us hand and foot with the cares of this world. In the dust we look up unto the highest place; and we no sooner fill it but we are filled with care. These are not fit remedies; Wealth is no cure for poverty, nor Enlargement for restraint, nor Honour for discontent. This is not the true method: but we walk as in a vain shadow, as in a dream▪ We dream that we eat, and when we awake we are hungry: we dream of abundance, and still we want: we dream of honour, and are lower than he that is on the dunghill: we dream of liberty, and are slaves; of pleasure and comfort, and are miserable. Thus it is in temporal evils, in those evils which are not so until we make them so. And thus it is, and much more, in those evils which are truly so, and which make us evil. When it thundereth, we hid ourselves: When God comes towards us in the cool, in the wind of the day, we run into the thicket: When our Conscience holds up the whip; we fly from it; when it is angry, we flatter it. We comfort ourselves against God's jealousy, till it burn like fire; against the checks and bitings of Conscience, till it be a worm that will g●aw us everlastingly. When the tempest is loudest, we lull ourselves asleep. We are as willing to forget sin as to commit it. And the Devil is not more subtle in his tentations then in suggesting those foeda peccandi solatia, as S. Hierom calls them, those foul and dangerous refreshments of a perishing soul. Either he casts our sins behind us; or, if they be before us, we look upon them as Lot did upon Zoar; Are they not little ones; and our soul shall live. Thus we comfort ourselves, that either it is a first sin, or that it is a small sin, or that, others have committed a greater sin. We pollute ourselves in every high way, and under every green tree; and every thing we see casts a shadow to comfort us. We comfort ourselves by ourselves, and by others; by our own weakness, and by others weakness: And we comfort ourselves by Sin itself. We find comfort not only in heaven above, but in the earth below, and in the depth of hell itself. We comfort ourselves by the mercy of God, by the vanity of the creature, by the subtlety of Satan. And thus we find out antidotum adversus Caesarem, an antidote against vengeance and the wrath of God: but this Antidote is poison, these remedies are vexations, these comforts are as Devils to torment us more. Tranquillitas ista tempestas est, saith S. Hierome, This calm is more dangerous than a tempest: This haven we fly to shipwrecks and overwhelms a soul which, if we took a right method, and applied that medicine which the true Physician hath prescribed, might, though through a storm, have seen that light by which it might escape and fly away and be at rest. For the best comfort is that which is wrought out of the sense of sin, as that joy is most ravishing which we gain out of sorrow; cùm consoletur dolour, when, as S. Augustine speaketh, Grief itself is made a comforter. Aegra anima Deo pronxima, saith Nazianzene, The s●ck soul, and not that soul only which is sick, but which groans and complains in its sickness; God is best acquainted with. He will descend and visit that soul, and make it glad with the joy of his countenance: It is good and safest to observe a method in this, as we do exactly also in all things else. The Tradesman hath his way to gather wealth; and he calls it his craft or mystery. And he will not fail in the least minim or punctilio; for if he do, he may prove a bankrupt. The Soldier hath his art and discipline, his military rules: For there is a method observed even in killing of men. And to mistake or fail in any one of them is to commit an error that can never be recalled or remedied; not to fight according to rule is to lose the victory. Ars, non virtus indocta, praestat victoriam; It is art and method, not rude and boisterous valour, which wins the day, and crowns the conqueror. The Philosopher hath his method. Yea Philosophy itself is nothing else but method, and an orderly carrying the mind of man from one thing to another, from one conclusion to another. As there is a time, so there is a way, for every thing under the Sun. There is a certain means for every purpose, a certain order in coming to every end we set up; and so there is in this, in comforting ourselves, or others; which if we observe not, the more waters we draw, the more foul and bitter they will be; the more physic we take, the sicker we are; the more we comfort ourselves, the more we stand in need of comfort; and thus to keep off our Hell makes it burn more ragingly then before. And how have we failed in the true method of Comfort! how have we drawn this water out of every puddle and sink. We go not to jacob's well, to the true fountain of comfort; or, if we do, we have nothing to draw with. Our vessels are broken, not a sherd left that will hold this water; no Understanding, and less Will, they being taken up with fallacious hopes and comforts of this world. Can we draw this water out of the wells of Salvation! We had rather draw blood out of the hearts of our oppressors, and wash our feet in their blood, and so be at rest, a comfort it would be to see every Nabuchadnezzar, every Tyrant, turned into a beast, and driven into the field; to see them that trouble us cut off, and made as dung for the earth, to see the Sacrilegious person struck dead. Let thine enemies perish, O Lord, let thine enemies perish; that is our prayer, and it was our Comfort to see it; and till we see it we will not be comforted. Thus we err, and such immethodical christians we are. For God's Providence is not to wait upon our wills and affections, but our wills and affections must bow and submit to it, and wait upon it as the eye of the servant looks upon the hand of his master, not to guide it; but to obey and kiss it as well when he withdraws it from us as when he stretcheth it out to help us. The hope of enemy's destruction might have been a comfort under the Law, because than it was a promise that one should chase a thousand; they shall come out one way; and flee seven ways. Then they could say, Lo, thine enemies shall perish, thine enemies shall perish, even in this world. But there is no such promise under the Gospel, and therefore no such comfort to be looked for. This affords us no other strength and supply then that of Grace, nor arms us against any enemies but those of our soul. It makes us valiant, not against our enemies according to the flesh, but against Impatience, and Distrust, and Murmuring, which fight against our peace. By this we are exalted and even triumph over those enemies which tread us under their feet. This is all our strength, all our artillery; and this is enough: For though God help us not, but leave us under the harrow, and to the will of our enemies; yet he is still a God of consolation. He is thy Physician; why then shouldest thou be turned after thy own way and method, who art never better pleased then with that which will hurt thee? Behold, he hath shown thee a more excellent way, a way to find comfort, not by the removal of the thorn, but by keeping it in thy flesh; not by taking away the cup of bitterness, but by sweetening it; by helping thee when thou hast no help, and delivering thee when he doth not deliver thee. He hath broke open the Treasury of comfort; he hath opened the fountains above: he will comfort thee with his Truth; his word is Truth. This is his way, This is his method; and it will be our greatest wisdom to observe it: Wherefore comfort you one another with these words. In General, with the Word of God. For the Scripture is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a common shop of comfort; and here thou mayst buy it without money, or money worth. Here thou mayst buy it; and, if not here, thou wilt never find it. That comfort which thou gainest out of other shops, out of that shop of vanity, the World, or that shop shadows, thy own Fancy, or that shop of lies, the mouth of the Parasite, is but vain, but vanishing, but false wares; Bestia pharmacopolae, that Julian the Pelagian upbraids St. Augustine with, like that beast the Apothecary promised his patient of wonderful virtue, which before the morning came had eaten up herself. All these comforts die in themselves, and out of them, when they perish, nothing is begot but woe and bitter lamentation. A man in trouble which stands in need of this physic is as a bowed wall and tottering fence, and nothing can comfort him but that which can settle him. When we have wearied ourselves in vain, wracked our imaginations, busied our thoughts, studied remedies, we still remain in our shaking and trembling condition. Call in all the glories of the world, invent instruments of music like David, bring the merry harp and the lute: these may refresh us for a while; but the evil spirit will come again upon us, as it did upon Saul. These are but weak props to uphold and settle a tottering fence. Let us call in the arm of flesh, make use of our own strength; That may ruin us. But Wisdom is better than Strength, Eccles. 9.16. call in that: This is but sensual, and earthly, and will soon moulder away. All our turning of devices will be but as the potter's clay, which will break and crumble between our fingers We shall kindle a fire, and be compassed about with the sparks, Isa. 50.11. and walk in the light of our own fire; and then what shall we have, We shall lie down, saith the Prophet, in sorrow; Upon these we walk as on the Ice, magis tremimus quàm imus, and do rather tremble then go. Now we lift up ourselves upon them, and anon we fall and are bruised upon them: they glide away from us, and they can neither settle us, nor we fix and be settled upon them. That on which we must settle as in our place of rest, must be itself . And no such thing is to be found in the world, in this shop of change, where every thing is in a continual flux, whose very being is hastening to its end, toties mutata, quoties mota, changed almost in every motion; the same, and not the same; fitting to day, and contrary to morrow; comfort to day, and bitterness to morrow; now an Oracle, and anon a lie, a displeasing kill lie; now the joy, and anon the anguish of the heart; now making it leap, and next morning turning it into a stone? Why should we seek for the living amongst the dead? Why should we cheapen certainty in this shop of change? Why should we seek for Constancy in a decaying world? Why should we seek for ease in that which is, and, whilst I say so, is no more? Why should we seek for true and substantial Comfort in a region of shadows? This is to disquiet ourselves in vain, to make us Gods of clay to go before us, which will moulder and fall to nothing in our hands, to lose all comfort in the seeking it. Quaerite quod quaeritis, sed non ubi quaeritis, as Augustine: Seek that you seek for, Consolation, but not where you seek it, in the world, in the inventions of men, which are more mental than themselves. But we may hear of it in Ephrata: or we may find it in the fields of the wood in the City of woods, where the Ark was and the Testimony; we may find it in the Word of God, which is as mount Zion, and will stand fast for evermore. For again, as our Saviour tells Nicodemus, John 3.6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, is of the same nature, fading and mortal; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit, is heavenly and divine: So whatsoever is of God, all those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those emanations and defluxions from him, savour of him, of his Wisdom, of his Goodness, of his Immortality. His Word is an Incorruptible word, which liveth and abideth for ever. 1 Pet. 1.23. It is from an immortal God, and leads to immortality. His Hope is a lively Hope; quickening us to Eternity; his Joy, such as no man can take away; John 16.22. his Peace a lasting Peace, lasting as long as the Moon endureth; Psal. 72.7. his Promises, and so his Comforts, Yea, and Amen. 2 Cor. 1.20. All other comforts are of the earth, earthy, of a fading and perishing condition. As our Thoughts, they perish with us, nay they perish before us; as shadows, falling with those bodies that cast them; as Bubbles raised out of our flesh, blown up and lost; as very Nothings as ourselves. But the Comforts of God have their rise from eternity, and so have a solid constant being, subject neither to wind nor tempest▪ to the injuries neither of Times nor Men, but in the pit and in the gulf of sorrows they boy us up, and lift us above them, that we can walk upon the surging waves, and not sink for fear. As they spring from immortality, so they grow up and are ever green; they begin in time, and never end, but are carried on along in the infinite and immense gyre and circle of Eternity. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And herein is the excellency of those Comforts which we gather in this Paradise, the Word of God, above those we rake up in the wilderness, the vain and vast inventions of the world. First, they are more general; As the light they shine from one end of the world to the other, upon the whole Microcosm, the whole little world of Man; upon the whole mass of Evil; and body of sin. Nothing, no evil is hid or removed from the light and influence of them. They reach David in his flight, and they reach him in his bed of tears. They refresh the Lazar at the Gate, and they refresh the Sinner at the mouth of Hell. They raise us from the dunghill; and when sin hath taken hold of us they lift up our head: Some faint and shallow comforts even the Heathen found out, and that but for some miseries; but here is an amulet against all. These comforts do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ruin round the whole army of miseries, and defeat them all. A wounded spirit who can bear? And a wounded spirit what Philosopher could ever cure? What Gilead, what balm had they to heal it? Being without this Word, they were without God in the world. They hung as it were upon a cross, tormented as it were between these two, Fear of punishment, and a miserable Ignorance how to avoid it, between some light, and utter darkness. The medicine which must cure a wounded spirit is to be found not in schola Platonis, in Plato's School, but in portica Solomonis, in the Porch of Solomon, in the Temple, in the Word of God, where he is manifested in whom all the treasuries of Comfort and Peace are hid, the Mediator, Christ Jesus, Rom. 5.10. who died to reconcile us to God. Secondly, comforts drawn from Scripture are solid and true, being built upon a surer foundation, upon the unchangeable and everlasting will of God, who as he hath made us fit for such impressions, obnoxious and liable to all those evils which either he sends or permits to fall upon us, so he hath also fitted and proportioned a salve for every sore, a remedy for every evil, and hath made ourselves the elaboratories and assemblies to extract and distil them. He hath made us both the patients and physicians, and hath directed us to this Garden of Eden, this fruitful seed-plot, the Scripture, even to this Tree of Life, whose leaves are to heal the Nations. The Philosopher's Comforts were like their Virtues, faint and void of life, but paper-comforts, begotten either by meditation, or by a continual habit of sufferings; by abandoning all natural affections; by comparing a less evil with a greater; They had lost something, but retained something still; by comparing of Times, the present with the future, It is now evil, it will be better, and so leaping over their misery, and carried beyond it on the wings of Hope, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a word, by Example, by the End, by fatal Necessity, by Continency and Chance, which are but idols, and so Nothing in this World. These were their Topics, a thin and bare shelter for a man to repose himself in when the Storms of misery beat upon him. But the Word of God, which is his Will and Mind evermore attended with his Omnipoteny, chafeth them all away, as the Sun doth a mist; pulls out the sting of Death and the sense of every evil; makes Afflictions the messengers and angels of God, sent and commanded and directed by him, swayed and governed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by his hand of Providence, 1 Cor. 10.13. which first tempers them to our strength, and then maketh them as the weapons of righteousness to destroy Sin, and such evils as prevent a greater evil; for we are therefore chastened that we may not be condemned, 1 Cor. 11.32. and lastly makes them in this span of time, this moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. These are the Divine Topics, or rather Demonstrations. The Goodness, the Wisdom, the Providence of God are Premises aeternae veritatis, eternally and unchangeably true. And out of them, if we depend upon them, we can draw no other Conclusion but Comfort. Other comforts are but phantasms and apparitions; these are Angels. Others are but as lightning; dammicant, exstinguuntur, they are exstinguisht in the very flash: These are those Everlasting Burn which never go out. Others are as deceitful as the Serpent which suggests them like the forbidden fruit; We take them that we may not die, and we die by taking them; But these are as God himself; True, as he is true; and lasting, as he is lasting. Other waters soon are turned into blood; but this reteins both its colour and nature, and springs up into everlasting life. And thus you see what a store-house of Comfort, what a paradise the Scripture is. But yet we must be very careful how we gather Comforts from thence, and how we apply them: And we must fit and prepare ourselves to receive them. The Wisdom of God is the best guide; but it will not sustain him who delights to walk in slippery places. The Providence of God reacheth unto all; but it will not protect him who loveth danger. His Mercy is over all his works; but it will not cover a stubborn unrepentant sinner. As Jehu said to Jorams Horsman; What hast thou to do with peace. So what comfort can the foolish man find in the Wisdom, the careless in the Providence, or he that is cruel to himself in the Mercy of God? yet God remains still the same, the wise, the provident, the merciful God, the Holy One of Israel. When we need Comfort, here it is to be found; but it will not fit every one that needs it. It is the property of men in any perplexity to seek for ease and comfort: &, si non inveniant, facient, if they find none, they will frame some to themselves▪ and cull out that part of Scripture which will not fit them, as men in distress will lay hold on that which will not help them. There be very few Rachel's in the world, that will not be comforted: the most either seek out false Comforts, or apply true ones falsely, and so make that their poison which well and rightly applied would have been an antidote. Judas would not make use of rich and precious balm of Mercy; yet how many misapply it, and so break their necks, and forfeit their souls, and fall into the same place into which he did? Many will not say what St. James says they ought to say, If the Lord will, we will do this or that; and yet will do what the Lord hateth upon this presumption that he wills it? How many walk safely under the Canopy of God's Providence? and how many doth their Presumption tumble down when they think they are under it! How many will not be wise, nor provident, how many are ungracious, upon no other motive than this, that God's Wisdom and Providence and Grace is sufficient for them! We are too bold with Scripture, and with the precepts and comforts it contains. When we are unwilling to do what we should, or in trouble for what we have done, we are like men penned up, and yet eager after liberty, who strive to make a way to escape, though they beat out their Brains at the door of the Prison. The Covetous man comforts himself by the laborious Ant in the Proverbs; the Ambitious, by that good Ointment in Ecclesiastes. The Hypocrite hath his Text too, let your light so shine, though his doth but blaze. The Contentious man is glad to see Saul and Barnabas at odds. The bloody Gallant sleeps with David in his tent. The Schismatic is bold upon his Christian Liberty. The Lethargic Christian walks along in the strength of God's Mercy: And he that hath no part in the first resurrection challenges as great an interest as Abraham and Isaac in the second. Few there be, saith our Saviour, yet all believe they shall be saved. The gate is straight, yet all enter, the Miser with his bags, the Ambitious with his train, the Revenger with his sword, the Wanton with his lusts, the Hypocrite with his mask, Balaam with his wages, Corah with his complices, the Covetous in his sweat, the Schismatic in fire, the Tyrant in blood. All have sinned; and all are saved. All fall, and all rouse themselves up with some misapplyed text of Scripture. And if this were true, if it were as they thought, we might conclude with Pliny, Major caelitum populus quàm terrae, that Heaven was better peopled then the Earth. But it is ill walking through a painted Paradise into torment, ill pleasing ourselves with those thoughts which will perish, and leave us to destruction. It is ill building up a Heaven in our fancy, and losing of that which hath a foundation, whose builder and maker is God; to be happy in a flying thought, and then to dwell with Misery for ever. O that so many should be saved in this world, and yet so many perish in the next! These are solatia deceptoria, as the Father calls them, truly, though barbarously, deceitful rather lies then comforts; the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by which he doth stupefie us, and take from us all pain and sense of evil; comforts that betray us; tormenting easments; David's music to remove the fit that will return again. And in carking after these we are as foolish as the shipwrackt person in Hierocles, who instead of a plank of the ship laid hold on the anchor, which sunk him with a swinge and violence into the bottom of the sea. The Scripture, it is most true, is full fraught with the waters of Comfort; but we must be very wary how we draw them. Sometimes we draw them out of curiosity, to pry into the closet of God's secrets: Sometimes out of pleasure and delight; for not only the story, but the precepts therein contained must needs please our reason, being so fitted and proportioned to it: But they are never more deadly than when we make that a Cordial which we should use as a Purge, the Comforts of the Gospel are milk and honey to the humble soul, but deadly poison to him that runs on in his Sin. Experience will teach us that a foul corrupt stomach turns that which should nourish the body into a disease. And as it is in our bodies, if they be distempered, good diet is so offensive to them, and our appetite is only to trash and fantastical diet; so if the crasis and constitution of our soul be vitiated and overthrown, the comforts of the Gospel will be but like the sop which Christ gave Judas, occasions of diseases and death. To think of these as Comforts is but to deceive ourselves: for though we seem to relish and maintain some show of life, yet these false and misapplied comforts are but as physical and confectionary diet: With it we cannot continue long, and there is but a span between us and Death. Thus than you see the Comforts drawn out of Scripture be best, but not unless they be well used and fitly applied. We have some reason to be afraid of our Comforts as well as to desire them; for they may come too soon, when we are not fit for them; or we may take draw those to us that are not fit for us. We may take them, as the Stoic speaks, ex adverso situ, on the wrong side, by a wrong handle, and so sink under them as under a burden. As it was said of the Fountain of all Comfort, Christ himself; We may fall upon them, and be broken; and they may fall upon us, and grind us to powder. And so we shall walk delicately to our death, and die in our Physicians arms, with our Cordials about us. We conclude; From all evil and mischief, from the crafts and assaults of the Devil, and from all false and misapplied comforts, good Lord, deliver us. And thus much be spoken in General and by way of deduction, and in sensu quem faciunt, in that sense which the words will naturally yield: We come now to take them in sensu quo fiunt, in that sense in which the Apostle took them in this particular; and we will but touch upon it by way of conclusion: Comfort you one another with this article of your faith, the coming of the Lord, and the Resurrection of the dead. And to speak truly, this is the ground of all comfort, and without this all the rest were but a fancy: all the promises, all our hopes, our faith itself were vain, and we were yet in our sins; under a burden, and none to help us; under misery, and none to comfort us. Virtue indeed and Piety are amiable in themselves, being the beauty of that Image in which we were made. If there were no future estate, yet they would be the fairest garment that a reasonable creature could be seen in, they would be still what they are, but of small use. Malo nullum bonum quam vanum, saith the father; I had rather have no good at all, then that which is in vain. Quid prodest esse, quod esse non prodest; What profit is it that they think should be, which when it is doth not profit us at all? But the coming of Christ will bring us to the Vision of God, which, like Aristotle's Sophia in his Ethics, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suum in se continet, contains all contents and comforts, and is to be desired for itself alone! This s the true fountain then of consolation; but it is like the pool of Bethesda, which was not medicinal till an Angel had stirred it. Our fancied and humours may be as so many evil Angels, and defile and take away the virtue from it. We may a little change St. Paul's words, Why should it be thought a thing so desirable with some men, Acts 26. that Christ should come again? For should he come to meet the Adulterer in the twilight, the Murderer with his sword in his Hand, the Sacrilegious person with his axes and hammers? should he come and find thee chipping and commixting his coin, abusing his Comforts, should he come and find thee drawing him on to countenance those sins which he first came to destroy? Shall he come and find thee more hypocrite than the Pharisees that opposed him, more bloody than the Jews that crucified him? Shall he come and see thee not casting out Devils, but doing their works, in his name? Can there be any ccmfort now to hear the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God? Can there be comfort in that fire which shall devour before him, or in that Tempest which shall be round about him? Hilary mistook that place of David, My soul breaketh, for the desire it hath to thy judgements always, yet his sense is good, Non desiderat judicium David, sed ut desideret concupiscit; David doth not here desire that the day of judgement should come, but his desire is that his innocency may so qualify him that he may safely desire it; He doth not so much comfort himself that it will come, as he longs to be prepared that it may come with comfort. That these words then, that all the comforts of the Gospel, which are upheld by this of the coming of the Lord, may prove comfortable and physical, we must use them as physic, be very wary in applying them. We talk much of Applying the promises and comforts of the Gospel, and I should not much mislike the phrase, if either men understood what they said, or did not so dangerously abuse it. But how easy is it to bring that to us by our fancy which will never come near us? how easy to apply that which will not fit us? May not a beggar fancy himself into the royal apparel of a King? Fancy makes Saints every day more than the Truth doth, and yet Heaven is never a whit the fuller? Men may think they have a place there, may say they are assured of it, who if they shake not off their presumption, and fall down in all the Humility of repentance, will never come there? The Truth is, If we perform the condition, the promises and comforts will apply themselves, and be made good unto us. If we be righteous, God will not suffer us to perish; if we faint, he will uphold us; if we be troubled, he will comfort us; if we believe, comfort is at hand; if we be risen with Christ here, we shall leave our miseries behind us, and rise with him in glory? Then we may wait upon his descent with joy, and make the shout, and the voice of the Archangel Music, and the doctrine of his Coming cordial and comfortable to our souls, we may then comfort ourselves with these words, which breathe nothing but Majesty and Terror to others. For conclusion; Let us seek Comfort in loco suo, in its proper pla●e: let us draw it out of its true fountain: E coelo misericordia; the sea● of Mercy is Heaven, and from thence are all those comforts derived which refresh a weary soul labouring under the burden of misery and sorrow, even from the Wisdom and Goodness and Providence and Justice of God, who preserves our tears, registers every groan, can tell the number of our sufferings, looks on and behold us stemming the waters of bitterness, and struggling with injuries, and will not forget the work and labour of our love, Heb 6.10. Let us not seek it in the Earth, that sends forth nothing but noisome vapours and corruption, the region of change and uncertainty. The comfort that grows there is but Herba solstitialis, springs up, and blossoms, and fades, and all in the twinkling of an eye; Let us not dig for it in the Minerals, seek for it in the Riches and Glory of the world; for they have wings, and all the comfort they bring flies away faster than they. When our Sins shall compass us about, when our Conscience shall pursue us, and Death come towards us, when we bear about with us the sharp rebukes of the one, and fear the terrors of the other, it will yield us but small comfort to sit down and think that we are rich. Let us not place it in Hopes, in hopes that our misery will end: for this is rather to delude then comfort ourselves. Hope sees afar off, not that which is, but that which may be, and most times falls off from the object, whilst it looks on it; as it is in the picture of a Battle, not a stroke struck, nothing gained. What redemption is that which is made in a thought, let us not seek it in the bowels of our Enemies, and wish them out: for what will it profit us to see them spoilt who spoiled us, them destroyed who destroyed us. This is but the comfort of Devils, and will but torment us more, as it doth them. They would bring others to the same condemnation, and are deeper in themselves. But let us seek for it in the bowels of that Lamb which took away the sins of the world, in the bowels and mercy of a God of consolation. Let us wait upon his Justice, his Wisdom, his Providence with patience, till our appointed time shall come: and if in our span of time it come not, yet this is comfort enough, that our redemption draweth very near, and that comfort will come when there will be no span, no measure of time, when Time shall be no more. Here if we fix our hope, it will be spes viva, a living substantial hope: but if we fix it not here, it will be but a faint representation of comfort, that will pass away like a shadow, and be no more. Here then let us build it up, let us lay it upon this foundation, upon the Apostles and Prophets, the word of God, Jesus Christ himself being the Head cornerstone; who shall descend and come again, male judicata rejudicaturus; who shall reverse every false sentence, and condemn the Judge that gave it, and manifest his Justice and Providence in setting all at rights, in the punishment of the triumphant sinner, and the exaltation of the innocent who is trod under feet; in changing the scene and face of things, and showing Dives in Hell, and Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. Here we may find physic for every disease, and comforts for all maladies. Here the sick may find a bed, the feeble a staff, the hungry bread, the prisoner liberty. Here the disconsolate may find what the Philosopher professed, but could not teach, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an art to forget all grief. With these words well understood and well applied we may bathe ourselves in our tears, we may feed ourselves with hunger, cloth ourselves with nakedness, and make ourselves rich with nothing: we may descant on our misery, and make each sigh and groan Musical. With these words we may comfort one another; the rich may comfort the poor, that he shall want nothing; and the poor the rich, that he shall have more than he can desire: the blind may comfort the deaf, that he shall hear the trump; and the deaf the blind, that he shall see his Saviour come again in glory. The Church that is now militant may comfort herself that she shall be triumphant. Here we converse with dust and ashes, with the shapes of Men, and malice of Devils, or, if with saints, with saints full of imperfection. Here are Nimrods', and Nero's, and worse than Nero's, men who do but what mischief they can, and the Devil himself can do no more: Illic Apostolorum chorus, & martyrum populus; there are the Apostles and martyrs. This is but the valley of tears, there all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, and we shall need no comfort, because we shall feel no sorrow, but serve God day and night, and with the glorious company of the Apostles, and the noble army of Martyrs, with the whole Church, sing praises to the God of consolation for evermore. To which place of everlasting consolation he bring us who purchased our peace with his blood, Jesus Christ the righteous. The Two and Thirtieth SERMON. ACTS II. 13, 14. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said; These men are full of new wine. OF all the expressions of our distaste a Scoff is the worst. Admonition may be physic, a Reproof may be balm, a Blow may be ointment; but Derision is as poison, as a sword, as a sharp arrow. It was the height of Jobs complaint, that contemptible persons made jests on him: And it was the depth of Samsons calamity, that when the Philistines hearts were merry, they called for Samson to make them sport. That which raises our anger, presents some magnitude to our eyes; but that which we entertain with scorn is of no appearance, not worth our thought, less than nothing. But now every thing is not always as it appears, especially to the eye of the scoffer: For we see things of excellency, and such as are carried about in a higher sphere, may be depressed, and submitted to jests. We cannot cull out a better instance then that which we have here, the miracle of this feast of Pentecost, not done in a corner, but in a full assembly and the face of the world. In a general congregation of men out of every nation under heaven, a Wind rusheth in; Flatus, qui non inflavit, sed vegetavit, saith S. Augustine, a blast, which did not blow them up, but quicken, and make them lusty and strong: Tongues as of fire, which sat upon them; Ignis, qui non cremavit, sed suscitavit; a fire, which did not burn and consume, but enliven and refresh them. The Wind was violent, and the Spirit was in the wind; The Tongues were as of fire, and the Spirit was in that fire; they were cloven, and the Spirit was in the cleft. Christ was as good as his word: This sound was the echo of his promise; this REPLETI SUNT, they were filled with the holy Ghost, a commentary on EGO MITTAM, and the filling of their Hope. Christ's ASCENDIT endeth in DONA DEDIT, and his promise in a miracle. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; How high a mystery is this, saith Nazianzene, how venerable! Christ had finished his work; his Birth, his Circumcision, his Tentation, his Passion, his Resurrection, his Ascension: which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the corporeal things of Christ. These being all past, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, now the Spirit gins to move, but not as it did on the face of the waters, and as the nature of a Spirit is, invisible, but in state, in things sensible, in a rushing wind to the Ear; in tongues of fire to the Eye, both heard and seen. Certainly a great mystery, a great miracle it was. And Miracles should not be the subject of scorn, but admiration; they should check and suppress our mirth in silence and astonishment. But to press this further yet; This miracle is most seen in the gift of Tongues. For whether they spoke but one language, and God worded it in the ear so that it was heard of every man, as his own proper dialect, or whether they spoke in the several language of every nation, to the Persians in theirs, to the Medes in theirs, and to the Elamites in theirs, as is very probably gathered out of the text by Nazianzene and others, a miracle it was, and could not be wrought by any other hand than that of Omnipotency. Commonly Knowledge whether of things or languages, is the daughter of Time and Industry. Quis unquam de noviter plantatis arbusculis matura poma quaesivit? Who ever looked for fruit from a branch scarcely yet engrafted in the stock? Est etiam studiis sua infantia, saith the Orator. As the bodies of the strongest men, so even studies have their infancy and their growth, and slowly after long time and much care and attendance they ripen and improve by degrees to perfection. But here the course and natural order of things was strangely altered. For men not learned, Galilaeans, not of the best capacity, began to speak with other tongues on a sudden, Greek, Persian, Arabic, Parthian; and not common and vulgar things, but MAGNALIA DEI, the wonderful works of God. Their skill and knowledge was as sudden as the wind or fire. Put now these together, and you will wonder as much to see any countenance framed to laughter as to see the tongues and the fire, and be amazed at the scoff and mock as much as at the miracle. But the observation is old and common, That where the finger of God is most visible, there the Devil will put in his claw, to deface the beauty of God's work, to alter the face and complexion of the greatest miracles, that they may appear as trifles and merriments. If God send his fiery Tongues upon his Apostles, the Devil will also set the tongues of men on fire. If God send a mighty wind, there shall another blow out of the Devil's treasury, to blast and scatter all the marks and characters of God's power. If the Apostles speak with tongues, there shall be tongues as active as the pen of a ready writer to scoff and disgrace them, and to pour contempt on that which God hath made wonderful in our eyes; tongues that shall call the breathing of the Spirit a frenzy, and the speaking of languages the evaporation and prating of drunkards, and that shall make the greatest miracle mere mockery. You may hear them speak in my Text, Others mocking said; These men are full of new wine. In which words briefly we observe these particulars: 1. the Object of their derision, and what it was they mocked at; 2. the Persons, not all, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, others, some of them; 3. the Scoff itself, These men are full of new wine. Out of the first we may learn thus much, That even Miracles may be scoffed at. Next we may observe what manner of persons Scoffers are, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but some of them, some of the rout; or if of higher place, none of the best. For the last, when we have more nearly looked upon it, and brought it to the touch and trial, we shall find it to be but a lie, coined out of the Devil's 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 easy 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 show, 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 inflame 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 entertainment finds the miracle? what welcome hath the holy Ghost? No other than 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; too others, of mirth; And this the Father calleth Judaicum opprobrium, a reproach 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 furnace: But when God stretcheth forth his Hands to produce effects which follow not the force of secundary causes, to make Nature excel herself, to improve her operations beyond the sphere of her activity, than 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 signify 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 juggler; 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 baptised 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 defence of Christianity, all the reply he made was this, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I have read, understood, and condemned it. To which S. Basil most fitly and ingeniously replied, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 straight think they understand them; and their censure is as sudden as their thought: but the Father's 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 errors of our life. This doth what the Pope is said by some to do, make Virtue vice, and Vice virtue. This makes fools prophets, and Christ a deceiver. This makes us neither see virtue in others, nor the most visible and mountanious sin in ourselves. By this rule the innocent are murderers, and murderers saints. From hence it was that Christ appeared to some no more than the Carpenter's 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 than mocking. Our Lust, which waits for the twilight, mocks at his Omniscience; Tush, God seethe 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 Wisdom itself; yet how many think he will not make inquisition for blood, 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 God's Mercy? The miracle of this Feast, if you will admit S. Augustine's 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 Catholic Church where all languages are spoken: and yet this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this scoffing and derision, is the most usual figure in the World's Rhetoric; and he that cannot answer an argument can break a jest. The ground of all is infidelity, the proper issue of obstinate and wilful Ignorance, which brought forth these men here, not isaac's, you may be sure, but yet children of laughter. I will give you a reason of this from a heathen man. Plato well observeth that none can taste and judge of that sweetness which Truth affords but the Philosopher, because they want that organ or instrument of judgement which he useth. And that organ which he useth cannot be applied by Covetousness, Ambition and Lust, which are the only jacob's staves the Many use to take the altitude of Truth by; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Philosopher's instrument is Reason. So in Divine mysteries and miracles, we cannot reach the sense and meaning of them, we cannot raise ourselves to them, without an humble, pure, free, and unengaged spirit, which is the best instrument of a Christian. When our taste faileth us, and we cannot distinguish that which is sweet from that which is sour, nor relish meats as they are, it is a sure symptom and indication of some a crazy and distemper in the body; and when God's blessings and graces are not relished, when his Manna is Gall, when we cannot digest his Miracles, we may be sure the Soul wants that temper and disposition which is salus, nay anima animae, not only the health, but the very soul of the soul. Indeed Reason might have taught these men that this was a miracle. For rude and illiterate men to speak on a sudden all languages, was more than all the Linguists in the world could teach. And I persuade myself, that from no other principle arose that question of those amazed doubters, vers. 12. What meaneth this? But to read the riddle we must blow with another heifer than Reason. To dive into the sense of the miracle can proceed from no other Spirit then that whose miracle it was, even him who enlightens them that sit in darkness, and who makes the humble and docile soul the seat of his habitation, both his School and his Scholar. Reason is a light, but obnoxious to damps and fogs and mists, till this great Light dispel and scatter them. Julian was a man as well furnished with natural endowments as any Emperor of them all, yet we see he used it as a weapon against the Truth, and wounded Religion more with his scoffs then with his sword. His Comical part, saith the Father, wss far worse than his Tragical. When he had received his death's wound, as some have thought, by a dart from Heaven, he confessed that wound came from the hand and power of Christ, and he did it in a phrase of scorn, VICISTI, GALILAEE; The day is thine, O Galilean. Indeed the greatest scoffers at Religion have been men for the most part eminent in natural abilities, whose Reason notwithstanding could not show them their own fluctuations, the storms and tempests of their souls, she being eclipsed with her own beams. Passions and private concernments make her not a servant but an enemy to the Truth, not to give sentence for, but to plead against it, nay to make it ridiculous. Some think, these mockers here were Pharisees, the great Doctors, and interpreters of the Law: And of them the question was asked, Do any of the Pharisees believe in Christ? And the reason is most pregnant; for though the acts of the Understanding be natural and not arbitrary, and though it apprehend things necessarily in those shapes in which they are represented, yet when a perverse Will rejects those means which are offered, when by-respects call loud upon us to be heard, than the mist falls, and Darkness is as a pavilion round about us; then the object is removed out of sight, or appears in that false shape which must needs deceive us by pleasing us, because it is that shape which we ourselves have given it: From hence it is that as it is in the deformity of the body, so it is also in that of the soul: Nothing is so deformed in the one but some man loves and dotes upon it, as we read of one that did love and imitate the distortion of his friend's countenance: so nothing is so false in the other but some man hath put it into his Creed, as it was noted of the Philosophers, the great Wizards and Clerks of the world, that there was no opinion so absurd and dissonant from reason that found not amongst them some to defend it, who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keep the conclusion, and maintain it against all evidence whatsoever. The miracle here was done before the sun and the people, yet Malice could find nothing but matter of mirth in it. They did not only deny, but slight it, against evidence as clear as the Day itself. Now that men bear themselves so stiff upon their opinion beyond the strength of evidence, is from the Will over-laid with Passions. Hence proceeds the strength of Faction in all decisions, the continuance and growth of Error; this is it which enlarges the courtains of its habitation, every man supplying by his Will what is wanting in his evidence. Hence it is that the most plain truths meet with contradiction, that great plagues are called Peace, that absurdities are reverenced, that miracles are ridiculous, that most things are unlike themselves, and appear in new shapes every day, and seldom in their own. Hence is all error, all misprision, all derision, all blasphemy. Hence Evil is good, and Good evil; Truth falsehood, and Falshood truth; that which is not worth a thought, is deified, and that which is Divine is contemned. With this fire from hell were these scoffers inflamed; and whilst this fire burned, they spoke with their tongues, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. And so we come to our last part, to examine the Mock itself. This was not only a Scoff but an Accusation. And the Orator will tell us, that there be divers reasons which make men take upon them the person of an Accuser. Sometimes Ambition draws the libel, sometimes Hatred, sometimes Hope of reward. And if we inquire what moved the Scoffers here to lay this foul imputation on the Apostles, Oecumenius will tell us that it was nothing else but Perverseness and Averseness of disposition, which commonly takes non causam pro causâ, and indifferently passeth censure upon any cause, or do cause at all. And this is bred by Opinion, and not by Truth. If they understood not when the Apostles spoke, how could they say they were drunk? and if they did understand, why did they scoff? They were men settled in the very dregs of Error and Malice; and having taken up an opinion, they would not let it go, no not at the sight of a miracle. Can that Fire be from heaven which must consume the Law? Can that Wind blow out of God's treasury which scatters their Ceremonies? Can those Tongues be touched with a coal from the altar which prophesy against the Altar? Do you wonder? At what do you wonder? It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but the gibberish of men cupshot. When the fit is over, and their heads composed, they will be silent enough, and speak neither Greek nor Persian, but be as very idiots as before. Perniciosissimum humano generi, saith Augustine, It is most dangerous both to men and manners, cùm veritas imperitorum populorum irrisione sondescit, when the Truth confirmed by a miracle, or which is so open and manifest that it needs no miracle to confirm it, shall be cried down and laughed and hooted out of the world by the scorns and jests of malicious and ignorant people: when Piety itself shall be driven out of the world by a scoff; when that which may lift us up to heaven must be trodden under foot, because fools like it not. We will therefore praescribere accusatoribus, as the Civilians speak, put in our exception in its right place, against these mockers. And first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Truth, or at least Probability, should be the rule. And what probability, nay what show of probability, was there that the Apostles were drunk? It was their great feast, and then it was a constant custom, as Josephus relates it, for the Jews to fast till the sixth hour; and now it was but the third hour, about eight or nine of the clock in the morning. Besides, they were altogether in private for fear of the Jews: And rebus attonitis, in the midst of fears and terrors, men use rather to ask advice of their Reason then to drown it in liquor. Who takes the cup into his hand when his enemy is at his elbow, and ready for aught he knows, to mingle his blood with the wine! Again, others wondered: Jews, and Proselytes, and Romans, (perhaps some of them who crucified Christ) and some of all nations, confessed in plain terms that they heard them speak every one in his own language: so that we may be sure we have a major, if not the better, part against them. Lastly, it was the feast of Pentecost, too early in the year, if Chrysostom's observation be true, for them to have new wine to fill them. But Malice and Ignorance run over all, regard not circumstances, forget all probabilities that may make against them. What speak we of customs? Though they used to fast till noon, yet now they may be drunk in the morning, and drown their fears in wine. If all the world give in evidence, they laugh on; they consider not national customs, they oppose a cloud of witnesses; they invert the order of Nature, and make it Autumn at Whitsuntide. But yet though there were no reason nor probability to justify their scoff, some show and some appearance there was to countenance it. The Apostles after this gift of Tongues talked much, they were fervent and hot, and peradventure their countenance was cheerful and of a ruddy colour, saith Gregory, they being filled with joy, though not with wine. Mysticum est, ut quod per ludibrium dicitur rei ipsa conveniat; They made a mockery of the mystery; but there was a mystery in their very mock. The Disciples were full indeed with new wine, with the wine of the New Testament, and, as drunken men, they were merry and cheerful, they publish secrets, they fear no face, they regard no power, they regard not themselves; being free, they run into bondage; before hid in a chamber, now preaching on the housetops; before affrighted with the voice of a silly damsel, now boldly speaking in omni praetorio, in omni consistorio, before every tribunal, in every consistory, lifting up their voices before Kings, and not ashamed. Cupiunt esse quod antè despexerunt, & odisse incipiunt quod erant; They begin to be what they despised, and to despise what they were. Drunk indeed any Jew might think them, that chose misery before content, fasting before delights, watching before rest, dangers before safety, and poverty before the glory of the world. Hoc spiritali mero calebant; This was the wine that filled them; this was the intoxicating cup that overcame them, and transported them beyond themselves: sic inebriabat ut magis sobrios faceret; It so overcame them that it made them more wise and sober then before. Some show, some resemblance than these mockers had, which might help to prompt their malice, and make up a scoff. Something they observed in the Apostles which they thought with the people might well pass under the name of Drunkenness; the people, I say, which are the only paper to print a on, which they sell to one another for nothing. There you may imprint, or sow, or engrave as you please; they will soon learn a lie, and assoon teach it; and anon it multiplies, and every valley and obscure corner is ready to echo it back again. Behold, saith S. James, how great a matter a little fire kindles, c. 3. And he might well call the Tongue a fire: for we find it is like that of a beacon, which not only burneth itself, but occasioneth the firing of others, and at last sets the whole Commonwealth in an uproar and combustion. At first it is but a mock, at last it cuts like a sword. At first it doth but offend the ear, at last it draws blood. At first it strikes at ceremony, at last it beats down a Church. At first it sports with the man, at last it cuts off his head. The persecution of the Apostles began, you see, in a scoff. At first they are drunk, anon they are setters forth of new doctrine, babblers, heretics, not fit to breathe in the world. This hath always been, and to this day is, the great error of the world, to make shadows substances, similitudes identities, the faintest representations truth. hannah's lips moved when she poured out her soul before God; 1 Sam. 1.13. and old Eli tells her she was drunk. David in great joy danced before the Ark, and in his wife Michols eyes be was but a vain fellow. What speak we of David? 2 Sam. 6.20. Behold Christ himself, a greater than David, when the multitude followed him, when he taught them, and confirmed his doctrine by miracles, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his friends, his kinsmen, seeing him laying himself open to the malice of his enemies, went to lay hands on him: for they said, Mark 3.21. He is besides himself. And to this day this argument a simili holds strong; and what is but like, nay what is not like, but seems so to us, we conclude to be the very same. Upon this ground Faith was called presumption by the Heathen, because it is like it: Christianity is called madness; for when we mortify the flesh, and estrange ourselves from the world, most that behold us think us not well in our wits. At this day true Devotion goes for fancy, Reverence for superstition, Bowing for idolatry. The Litany is conjuring, because it is like it; as like it as a saint is to a murderer, as hearty and well-grounded Devotion is to babbling and blasphemy and nonsense. True Pastors are Baal's priests; for both are men. The Pulpit (as the Anabaptist called it) is a prescript place or a Tub; for both are wood. Our Fasts are stageplayss, wherein one acteth Sin, another Judgement, a third Repentance, and a fourth the Gospel. And the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a twopenny 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 fancy, 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 Saviour's counsel is, Judge not according to the appearance, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according to the face and countenance of things. For how easy is it to paint and present them as we please. Many times an evil eye makes an evil face, putteth horror upon Religion itself, 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 virtues with the black mantle of Vice: she covers Devotion with Frenzy, Honesty with Folly, and Reverence with Superstition: and that only 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 hid themselves in noise and formality, yet are they seen well enough in their furious march, to the Honours 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 backed with Power, though Reason and Argument forsake them, you shall be forced to take them at their word. Quàm sapiens argumentatrix videtur sibi ignorantia humana! Good God what subtle disputers do Ignorance and Malice account themselves (for these are disputers of this world) where Fancy goes for Reason, Humour for the Spirit, and a Scoff for an impregnable argument; where we see ridicula potiùs quàm firma tela, weapons to be laughed at rather than to be feared, rather bulrushes than spears; syllogisms truly destructive, which may ruin 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 only a probabili. He tells them it was not probable they should be drunk so soon, at such a feast, at the third hour 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 reverend 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 than Superstition, Devotion rather than 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 than 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 extinguish it. All the power and rage and malice of bloody 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 straightway put out, saith Tully; so scoffs and detraction and wilful and malicious misinterpretations soon vanish into nothing. Crepitant, & solvuntur; These hailstones rattle for a while on the housetop, 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 show 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 fuel 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 anatomised, as a beast cut down the back, than all thoughts shall be discovered, all veils removed, all visours plucked off. Then spiritual Joy shall not be madness, the Breathe 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 disconsonant to the ways of those who are deeply immersed and drenched in the world, and which by them is in esteem as Madness or Drunkenness, shall receive the reward of Soberness and Truth. O how happy were it for these mockers if they were thus distempered, thus superstitious; if they took this cup of the Lord, and did add drunkenness to thirst, and even fill and glut themselves with it! They cannot be too reverend, too spiritual, too absurd and ridiculous to the world and worldly men. He that seems wise to these, must needs be near of kin to a fool; and he whom they admire must be ridiculous. Aliud est judicium Christi, aliud anguli susurronum. Whom the world laughs at, Christ will honour; whom they make their slaves, with Christ are Kings; and whom they scorn, he will crown. And then these scoffers shall be had in derision, and they who are filled with the Spirit shall for ever drink of the river of his pleasures, and shall sit down with him at his table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and these Apostles here, and drink that new wine with him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that spiritual immortal joy, in the kingdom of his Father, in the presence of God, where there are pleasures for evermore. To which He bring us who sent his Spirit down upon us, Jesus Christ the righteous. The Three and Thirtieth SERMON. PART I. LUKE XI. 27, 28. And it came to pass as he spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lift up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. WE cannot say more of our Saviour in the days of his flesh then this, He went about doing good. Acts 10.38. Job 29.15. He was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and health to the sick. And as he cured men's bodies of diseases, so he purged their souls from sin. As he went, his steps dropped fatness. Scarce proceeded there a word from his blessed lips that breathed not forth comfort. In this chapter, he cast out a devil which was dumb, and the people wondered. v. 14. But such is the rancour and venom of Envy and Malice that no virtue, no miracle, no demonstration of power can castigate or abate it. What is Virtue to a Jew? or what is a Miracle to a Pharisee? When the devil was gone out, saith the Text, the dumb spoke; a work not to be wrought but by the finger of God: But if a Pharisee look upon it, it must change its name, and be said to be done by the claw of the Devil: For some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the prince of the devils. Others tempting him, sought from him a sign from heaven; as if this were not such a one, but rather proceeded from the pit of hell and from the power of darkness. It is the character of an evil and envious eye to look outward, extrà mittendo, not to receive the true species and forms of things, but to send out some noxious spirits from itself, which discolour and deface the object. Hence Envious men are thought, as S. Basil saith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to infect every thing they look upon, and, like the Basilisk, to kill with a very look. What do they cast their eye upon that they do not poison and corrupt? Is it Temperance? they call it Stupidity. Is it Justice? they call it Cruelty. Is it Wisdom? they call it Craft. Is it Honesty? they call it Folly and Want of foresight. Is it a Miracle? they call it Magic and Sorcery, and a work of Beelzebub. Wherefore, saith the Father, was our Saviour made a mark for every venomous dart? wherefore was he so sorely laid at by the Jews, by the Scribes and Pharisees? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, For nothing else but his wondrous works. And what were they? His curing of the sick, feeding of the hungry, restoring of the dead to life, casting out of devils. And therefore as he confirmed his doctrine by miracles, so Malice putteth him to another task, to make good his miracles by reason and argument. And this he doth 1. argumento ducente ad absurdum, by an argument which will either bind them to silence or drive them upon the face of an open absurdity. For what an absurd thing were it for Satan to drive out himself? and 2. argumento ducente ad impossibile: For if Satan be divided against himself, it is impossible his kingdom should stand. Proficit semper contradictio stultorum ad stultitiae demonstrationem, saith Hilary: The contradiction of sinners and fools striveth and struggleth to gain ground, and to overrun the Truth but the greatest proficiency Folly maketh is but to make herself more open and manifest; like Candaules wife, who was seen naked of all but herself. But Truth is as unmovable as a rock, which (as the Father speaketh of the Church) tunc vincit cùm laeditur, tunc intelligitur cùm arguitur, tunc obtinet cùm deseritur, then conquereth when it receiveth a foil, is then understood when it is opposed, and is then safe when it is forsaken. Let the Jews rage, and the Pharisees imagine a vain thing, let Envy cast a mist, and let Malice smoke like a furnace, yet Christ's miracles shall be as clear as the day wherein they were wrought, and the mouth of Iniquity shall be stopped. Out of his own mouth shall the Pharisee be convinced, and Christ shall be as powerful in his words as in his works, so powerful in both that even è ●urba, out of that multitude which did oppose him one witness or o●her shall rise to bear testimony to the truth, to point out to the finger of God by which this miracle was wrought, to magnify and bless not only our Saviour, but even the very womb that bore him, and the paps that he had sucked. For it came to pass as he spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lift up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed, etc. My Text divideth itself between the Woman and Christ. First the Woman taketh occasion from what she had heard and seen to magnify Christ; Then Christ taketh occasion from her speech to instruct her, and let her at rights. She calleth Christ's mother blessed; He showeth her a more excellent way, by which she may come to be as blessed as his mother. She talketh of Blessedness; He telleth her what it is. He condemneth not her affection, but directeth and leveleth it to the right object; and (as the Pythagoreans method of teaching was) he indulgeth something, that he may gain the more. Be it so; Blessed is the womb that bore me, and the paps that gave me suck; QUINIMO, But much rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. To be my Mother is but a temporal privilege, but to hear and keep my word is eternal happiness. He taketh not away the first, but he doth establish the second. Briefly then, we may observe these two parts; 1. the Woman's attestation; 2. Christ's reply; the Woman's dictor, and Christ's. In the first Wisdom is justified of one of her children against all the gainsayings of the Jews and contradiction of sinners; to the second Wisdom herself pointeth out to true happiness, openeth her treasuries to all who will receive her instructions, and proclaimeth an everlasting jubilee to those who hear the word of God, and keep it. In the handling of the former part we shall pass by these steps. First we will point out the Occasion of the speech; As he spoke these things, it came to pass. Next, we will take notice of the Person who took hold of the occasion, and made so good use both of Christ's miracles and doctrine. We find no name at all; but some upon no ground conjecture that it was Martha's maid. The Text saith no more but, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a certain woman of the company, but one of a multitude, and that an unknown obscure woman, not those learned clerks the Scribes and Pharisees. Thirdly, we shall propose to your Christian imitation the vehemency and heat of her Affection. Her heart was hot within her, and the fire burned, and at last it braced forth into a pure flame, and she spoke with her tongue. She did not conceal and suppress her thoughts, nor whisper them into the ear of a stranger, but lift up her voice, that the deadliest enemies of Christ, even the Pharisees, might hear. Lastly, we will weigh and consider the speech itself, Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked, and tender it to you, as near as we can, in its full weight. And all these particulars will amount to this sum, That a poor silly woman saw more of the excellency of Christ then did all the Doctors and Masters of Israel. These materials our first part affordeth us to work upon. Now as the Woman from what she had heard and seen took occasion to magnify Christ, so from her affection and free testimony Christ taketh occasion further to instruct her. Blessed is the womb that bore thee, saith the Woman; Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it, saith Christ: Which maketh our second part. Wherein we shall consider 1. the Form, 2. the Matter and Substance of the words. For the Form, some would have the words adversative; others, merely affirmative. Some place them in opposition to the Woman's affection: Others, too jealous of that honour which is given to the blessed Mother of Christ, make them a plain and naked affirmation, willing rather that Christ's words should want of their weight then that one jote or tittle of the Woman's honour should fall to the ground. I will not be too solicitous to take up the quarrel between them: nor indeed is it worth the while. The very first words, Yea, rather; make it plain that the Woman's Blessed was defective and wanted weight; and therefore Christ, who is the Wisdom of the Father, filleth it up. He doth not (which is the best kind of redargution) with any bitterness deny what she saith, but by a gentle corrective setteth her at rights. She commendeth and magnifieth a corporal, he preferreth a spiritual birth. For as there is fructus ventris, the fruit of the womb, so is there partus mentis, a conception and birth of the mind. We conceive Christ by our hearing the word: but when we keep it, Christ is fully form in us, and we bring forth fruit meet for repentance. The Woman than commendeth one birth, and Christ enjoineth another; and, as Socrates taught his scholars, so our Saviour leadeth the Woman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from like to like, from the admiration of a temporal to the knowledge of the spiritual birth, from one Blessedness to another. And thus the matter and substance of Christ's words affordeth us these three things; 1. conceptum, a kind of Conception, by hearing of the word; 2. partum, a kind of Birth or Bringing-forth, by keeping it; 3. gaudium, Joy after the delivery, not temporal, but spiritual, even that Blessedness which every good Christian is as capable of as the Mother of Christ, and which is laid up not only for her who bore him in her womb, but also for all those who keep him in their heart; Yea, rather, saith Christ, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. These be the parts of my Text; and of these in order. Blessed is the womb that bore thee, etc. saith the Woman. And that which occasioned and moved her thus to lift up her voice was the power of Christ's Works and Words. When she saw him mighty in both; when she saw the wonders that he wrought, and how mightily he convinced the Scribes and Pharisees; when he had confirmed his doctrine by miracles, and his miracles by reason, she plainly discovered the finger by which they were wrought, and without any further deliberation she pronounceth him a most divine and excellent person. To cure diseases with a word or with a touch, to cast out devils, to raise the dead, could not proceed from any other power then his who doth whatsoever he will both in heaven and in earth. And to this end it hath pleased God to give testimony to his truth as it were by a voice from heaven, that we might believe and acknowledge that truth for the confirmation whereof such things were wrought before the sun and the people as none but God can do. For what our Saviour speaketh of that voice from heaven which was as thunder, John 12.28, 29, 30. is most true of this outward testimony; This voice from heaven cometh not because of Him, but for our sakes, who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Luke 24.25. slow of heart to believe, and will not be induced to subscribe to the truth unless we see it written with the sunbeams, unless it be made plain and manifest by signs and wonders. Jo. 4.48. And such a plain and clear testimony the Jew had need of. For all changes, especially of Religion, are with difficulty; it being proper to men to be jealous of every breath, as of an enemy, if it blow in opposition to ought they have already received; and, though it be the truth, to suspect it, because it breatheth from a contrary coast. And therefore he that will remove the mind from that which it hath once laid hold on, and wherein it is already settled, must bring with him more than ordinary motives and inducements, even such as may work a kind of conquest upon the Understanding. Now the end of Christ's coming was to make such a change, to alter what long-before had been established by God himself, to rend the veil of the Temple in twain, to abolish the law of Ceremonies which God by the hand of Moses had given, vetera concutere, to sound the trumpet, and with it to shake the walls of Jerusalem, to disannul the Law, and to establish the Gospel; magni opus moliminis, an enterprise of great difficulty, and therefore to be wrought with might and main, by wonders and great signs. As the Law was promulged with thunder and lightning, so must the Gospel also by a voice from heaven, even by great miracles, which are the dialect and language of Power, and are from heaven, heavenly. For in every Miracle there are two things, as Aquinas saith, Quod fit, and Propter quod fit; 1. the Thing done; which must exceed the power of Nature and that order which God hath settled and established in the world: and 2. the End for which it is done; which is always supernatural, for confirmation of some necessary truth. Indeed if we consider the omnipotency of the Agent, properly there is no miracle at all; It being as easy for the Creator of all things to alter the course of Nature as at first to establish it; to bid the Sun stand still, as to command it to run its race; to put out the Stars, as to light them in their spheres; to give sight to the blind, as at first to give them eyes; to unloose the tongue, as to make it. Deus ita magnus est in operibus magnis, ut minor non sit in minimis, saith S. Augustine; God is so great in his greatest works, that he is no whit less in his least, as great in the making of a Fly as of an Angel. The Divine hand is always like itself, even in the production of those things which are most unlike: But to us some works are wonderful, quia inordinatè veniunt, because they transcend the common course and order of things. And it hath pleased God in his Divine goodness to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for our sakes and for our salvation to be various and manifold in the expression of his power, and when we cannot behold him as we should in those obvious and plain but wonderful characters engraven in the book of Nature, to present us with those which the hand of Nature cannot draw. He openeth the eyes of the blind, that we, who sat in darkness, may see the true light; he multiplieth the loaves, that we may hunger after righteousness; he maketh the dumb to speak, that we may sing his praises; he casteth out the devil, that we acknowledge him to be God. Quot miracula, tot documenta: Every miracle was a lesson; not only for show, but for instruction, and to work in us the obedience of faith. For though God alone be the Author of our faith, yet he worketh it in us by this means. By his wonders, as by a kind of iradiation from himself, he illuminateth the Understanding, and maketh the Will pliable, so that we readily embrace the truth, which before we were afraid of. He who having been born blind received his sight, John 9.30▪ wondered that the Pharisees should not know whence he was who had opened his eyes, and thought their blindness almost as great a miracle as his recovery. By this light, and by the gracious and wonderful speeches which flowed from him, the Woman here in the Text saw those excellencies that were in Christ, and discovered him to be no common and ordinary person: She made a right use of the light whilst it shone in its brightness. As Christ did and spoke these things, it came to pass, saith the Text. Her free acknowledgement did as it were keep time with the miracle: for no sooner had Christ ended his speech but she lifteth up her voice. Now, as the Apostle saith of Abel, Hebr. 11.4. this Woman being dead yet speaketh. She bespeaketh us, to have Christ's wondrous works in remembrance, to lay hold on all occasions which may either beget or confirm our faith, &, dum ventus operam dat, vela explicare, whilst the wind bloweth, whilst the Spirit breatheth, to unfold our sails, that we may be carried on in a strait and even course to the knowledge and practice of the truth which will make us happy. This is indeed to make the right use of God's works and words, and to drive them to the right end. Vnumquodque propter suam operationem, saith the Philosopher; Every thing is and hath its being for its proper operation, for the work it hath to do. If miracles work no alteration in us, they are no miracles to us: If God's words prevail not, we nullify them; by our infidelity and disobedience, as much as in us lieth, we make the works and words of God of none effect, and shorten the arm and weaken the hand of the Almighty. What were all the beauty in the world, if there were no eye to descry it? What are all the riches of the Gospel without faith? What were the greatest miracle, if all the world were Pharisees? Non videt, qui non credit, miracula, saith S. Augustine: To him that believeth not Miracles have lost their force, and are not wonderful. But ye will say perhaps that Miracles are now ceased: We see no sign, we behold no wonder; No blind receive their sight; no dumb spirits are cast out in our streets. It is true; nor is it necessary there should; not so necessary now the Church hath stretched forth the curtains of her habitation as when she scarce had a being: That watering is not requisite now she is grown and become a tree that was when she was like a grain of mustardseed. Matth. 13.31, 32. Of the miracles of these times we may say what Livy saith of the prodigies of his, Quò magìs credebant simplices & religiosi homines, eò plura nuntiantur; The forward credulity of simple and devout souls hath much increased their number. The Legend had not been so full, had men been slower of belief, and not so ready to credit what every impostor hath been active to invent. But yet though Miracles are ceased, and we see no more signs, though Christ cast not out devils, nor raise the dead, yet still he speaketh these things, and still he teacheth us: And we may say we see him curing diseases, giving sight to the blind, ears to the deaf, feet to the lame, a tongue to the dumb, casting out devils, and raising the dead, because his word endureth for ever, 2 Pet. 1.19. and, as S. Peter saith, is firmior sermo, and the surest testimony we can have. And if we will not believe his word, neither would we believe though we saw him now raising up one from the dead. Further, I may say with S. Gregory, Quod corporaliter tunc faciebat Christus, illud S. Ecclesia spiritualiter quotidie facit, What Christ did in person then, he doth every day now spiritually by the Church. When by our ministry the Covetous is brought to stretch forth his hand to help the poor, then Christ hath recovered a dry hand; when the Ignorant learn his statutes, he giveth sight to the blind; when we open our lips, which Fear had sealed up, so that we dare speak of him before tyrants and not be ashamed, than he hath cast out a spirit which was dumb. But I rather keep me to the words of the Text; As he spoke these things. Doth he not still speak the same things? Hebr. 13.8. Jesus Christ is yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever. Nec refert, saith the Father, per quem, sed quid, & à quo; It is not material whose tongue is made use of, so it be Christ that speaketh these things. And how often doth he speak these things? But where is the FACTUM EST? that which cometh to pass is scarcely discernible. Auditis, laudatis; Ye hear him speak, and perhaps ye commend him. Deo gratias; God be thanked for that yet. But when this is done, nothing cometh to pass. Semen accipitis, verba redditis; Ye receive the seed of the Word, and all the harvest we see is but weeds. We see it not in the extension of your hands, in the largeness of your alms; in the lifting up of your hands, in your devotion at prayers; we see it not in your reverence, meekness and patience. Well saith the Father, Toleramus illae, & tremimus inter illa, We suffer it, and tremble at it. Your words are but leaves; it is fruit and increase that we require. Be not deceived: Every good lesson should be unto you as a miracle to move you to give sentence for Christ against the Pharisees and all the enemies he hath; against the Pride that despiseth him, the Luxury that defileth him, that Disobedience that trampleth him under foot. Every good motion (for therein Christ speaketh to us) should beget a resolution; every resolution, a good work; every good work, a love of goodness; and the love of goodness should root and establish and build us in the faith: In a word, every DIXIT of Christ's should be answered with a FACTUM EST from us; every work, every word of his should be a sufficient motive and a fair occasion to us to magnify the power of the Speaker in our souls; and in our bodies, and, with this Woman here, in the very face of the enemy, in the midst of all the noise Detraction can make, to lift up our voice, and give testimony unto Christ, who is so powerful both in word and deed. And so I pass from the Motive and Occasion to the Person, who from what she saw and heard gave this free attestation; A certain woman of the company. Here are two circumstances that may seem to weaken and infringe the testimony, and take from the credit of the miracle; 1. that she was a Woman, and 2. that she was but one of the multitude. S. Gregory will tell us, MULIER tam pro infirmitate ponitur quàm pro sexa, That this word Woman in Scripture sometimes noteth the Sex, and sometimes signifieth Infirmity. And in the ancient Comedians, Mulier es, is a term of reproach. For, as the Schoolman hath observed, foeminarum aviditas pertinacior in affectu, fragilior in cognition; The affections of Women commonly outrun their understanding, and they are then most in flame when they have least light. Again, this circumstance, That she was but one of the multitude, might have been laid hold on by the Pharisees as an argument against Christ. Might they not have reviled her as they did the man who was born blind and received his sight, and said unto her, Thou art but one, Joh. 9.34. and dost thou teach us? But such is the nature of Truth that it can receive no prejudice, but will prevail against all contradiction, though it have but one witness, and find no better champion than a Woman. Suis illa contenta est viribus, nec spoliatur vi suâ, etiamsi nullum habeat vindicem, saith Arnobius; She resteth upon her own basis, and is content with her own strength, which she cannot lose though she find no undertaker. Truth doth not fail, though a Pharisee oppose it, but is of strength sufficient to make the weakest of its champion's conqueror. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, 1 Cor. 1.25. and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Neither Number nor Sex hath so much power upon Truth as to alter its complexion. Whether they be many or few, weak or strong, that profess it, Truth is still the same, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of one and the same hue and colour. Gen. 49.19. As it was said of Gad, A troop may overcome it, may silence and suppress it for a while; but it shall overcome at the last: Yet a conceit hath possessed the world, That there is a kind of virtue or magic in Number, and the Truth breatheth only in those quarters where there are most voices to proclaim it. And many are so bewitched that they think it a gross absurdity for one man in the defence of Truth to stand up against a multitude; and they will make this advocate, because he is but one, an argument against the Truth. What would these men have thought of Christ, had they seen him among the Pharisees, or heard the shout of the people crying aloud, John 18.40. Not this man, but Barrabas? Indeed neither the Paucity nor the Number of professors is an argument to demonstrate the Truth: These pillars do not support her. We have rather great reason to suspect the doctrine that is cried up by the voice and hum of the multitude. I have much wondered that they who talk so much of the Church, have made this a note and mark whereby we may know it. For experience hath sufficiently taught us that, were it to put to the vote of the multitude, we should scarce have any face of a Church at all. It never went so well with the world that the most should be best: Therefore S. Hierome is peremptory that multitude of associates demonstrate rather an Heretic than a Catholic. We may be then well content to hear the Church of Rome boast and triumph that she hath enlarged her dwelling, and spread herself from one end of the world unto the other; and to lay it as an imputation upon us, that our number is so small that we scarce are visible, — sed illos Defendit numerus, junctaeque umbone phalanges; The whole world is theirs, praeter Italian & Hispaniam totam: All Italy, and all Spain is theirs. And besides these, and many other Kingdoms, which the Cardinal reckoneth up, they may take-in the New world for advantage. An happiness which we heretics cannot hope for. Non enim debet nunc incipere Ecclesia crescere, cùm jam senuerit, saith he; For the Church cannot increase now she is old and hidebound and past growth. Who would ever have thought that so sick and loathsome meditations should have dropped from so learned a pen? Might not the ancient Heretics have taken-up the same plea when the whole world, as S Hierome speaketh, was become Arian? And himself confesseth that if one province alone hold the true, faith, that one province may be truly styled Catholic. Some reason perhaps they may have to rely upon Number, because indeed they have neither reason nor authority to uphold the state and supremacy of their Church. Therefore, having no better forces, they make use of this their forlorn hope, like men who having a bad cause care not what aid they take-in. The Orator said well of the three hundred Spartans now doubting to go up against the numerous army of Xerxes, Lacones se numerant, non aestimant, that the Spartans did number, not esteem themselves: And it might be justly said of us if this Mormo should affright us, if we should distrust our cause because there be so many that oppose it. What though a troop cometh? Yet if the Truth be on our side, one of us shall be able to chase ten thousand. Isa. 37.6. Be not afraid of the words which ye have heard, as the Prophet said to Hezekiah; Be not afraid of their number, nor ashamed of the Truth when her retinue is but small. The multitude may perish that are born in vain, as the Lord said to Esdras: And we say of it as Tertullian doth of the unveiling of Virgins, Id negat quod ostendit, Multitude is so far from being a note of the Church that it doth rather deny then demonstrate it. For see, amongst so many men in comparison, but few there are who profess the name of Christ; amongst so many professors, but few orthodox; amongst so many orthodox, but few righteous persons; amongst the multitude, but one woman that lifteth up her voice in the behalf of Christ. And as it was no prejudice to the Truth that she was but one, no more was it that she was a Woman. For why might not a woman whose eye was clear and single see more in Christ then the proudest Pharisee who wore his phylacterie the broadest? All is, not in the miracle, but in the eye, in the mind, which being goggle, or misset, or dimmed with malice or prejudice, beholdeth not things as they are, but through false mediums, putteth upon them what shape it pleaseth, receiveth not the true and natural species they present, but vieweth them at home in itself as in a false glass, which returneth back by a deceitful reflection. And this is the reason why not only Miracles but doctrinal Precepts also find so different entertainment. Every man layeth hold on them and wresteth them to his own purpose, worketh them on his own anvil, and shapeth them to his own fancy and affections; as out of the same mass Phidias could make a Goddess, and Lysippus a Satire. Do ye wonder to hear a Woman bless the womb that bore Christ, and the Pharisees blaspheme him? It is no wonder at all. For though the acts of the Understanding depend not on the Will, and the Mind of man necessarily apprehendeth things in those shapes in which they present themselves; yet when the Will rejecteth those means that are offered, when Anger raiseth a storm, and Malice and Prejudice cast up a mist, than the Understanding groweth dim, and receiveth not the natural shapes of things, but those false appearances which the Affections tender to it. When the Will is perverse, non permittit intellectum diu stare in dictamine recto, saith Scotus: The Understanding followeth her planetary motion, and having no better guide runneth into the very den of Error. Therefore the complaint in Scripture is, They will not understand. Experience will teach us how common a thing it is in the world, for men to stand stiff in their opinions against all evidence whatsoever, though it be as clear as the day. S. Augustine observeth of the Manichees, Scio esse quosdam qui quanquam bono ingenio ista videant, malâ tamen voluntate quâ ipsum quoque ingenium sunt amissuri, Lib. de morib Manich. pertinaciter negant; I know, saith he, many of you who have sharp and quick understanding, and cannot but see the truth; but your Will is evil, which betrayeth the Understanding, and leadeth you to that pertinacy that will never consent to the truth, but seeketh out rather what probably may be said against it. And this very reason Arnobius giveth of the Heathens obstinacies; Quid facere possumus considerate nolentibus, etc. saith he; What can we do or say, or how can we convince them who will not be induced once to deliberate, and weigh things as they are, nor condescend to speak and confer with themselves and with their own reason? This I take to be the meaning of that in Hilary, Quot voluntates, tot fides; every man frameth his belief by his disposition and his will. So many wills, so many faiths. He might as well have said there be as many Creeds as passions. For the Passions are subversivae rationis, apt and ready to captivate the Will; and to overthrow the Reason, even when she standeth most erect against Error, and looketh most steadfastly on the truth. While Reason hath the command, they are profitable servants; but when she yieldeth, they are cruel tyrants, and put out her eyes. It is wonderful to see what a power they have in changing the face and countenance of objects. Fear maketh a shadow a man, and a man an hobgoblin; Anger mistaketh a friend for an enemy; Love of the world putteth horror upon virtue; and obstinate Malice can set nothing but the Devil's face in a miracle. Common reason no doubt did persuade the Pharisees here that Christ had wrought a miracle, and we cannot but think that they saw as much of the beauty of Christ's excellencies as the Woman: But their gross conceit of the Messiah and their love of Moses law made them find no room to entertain Him who came in a posture so contrary to their expectation; no, though even in the midst of them God approved him by miracles, Acts 2.22. wonders and signs, as they themselves knew. It was their knowledge that kept them ignorant, 1 Cor. 26, 27. and their wisdom made them fools. Not many wise after the flesh▪ not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise, saith S. Paul; Not that God did reject and cast men off because they were wise, or mighty, or noble; and choose others only for this cause, because they were poor. We must not think so, saith Oecomenius, No; Tros Tyriúsve fuat, nullo discrimine habetur. Wise or ignorant, mighty or mean, noble or ignoble, all are one to God, neither is there with him any respect of persons. But the poor received the Gospel, and the rich and mighty and wise did not, because it brought with it a check to their wisdom, cast disgrace on their riches and a slur on their nobility, with which they were so filled that there was no room for Christ. Nec enim vult aeterna Sapientia haberi, nisi ubi habens nihil de suo tenuit, ut illam haberet; The eternal Wisdom of God will keep residence in that soul only which emptieth itself to receive it. Nor can we purchase the pearl, a clear sight of Christ, Matth. 13.46. but we must sell all that we have, our wisdom, our riches, our nobility, our self-love, and our corrupt affections. It is not Riches nor Wisdom that invites Christ; It is not Simplicity nor Poverty that excludes him: Humility and Self-denial usher him in; and enter he will if we make him room. He will manifest himself, you see, to a poor silly woman, and the quicksighted Pharisee shall not see him. And the reason was, because she was meek and humble, did not so dote on what she had already learned as to be unwilling to learn any more, but brought a mind well prepared to receive instruction. The Pharisees on the contrary were so possessed and blinded with prejudice that they saw not the virtue in Christ which was manifest to this woman. It was Prejudice that shut the door against the Truth, and that would by no means admit of those works which came in to bear witness to it. Certainly a most dangerous disease this. It maketh a man angry with his physician, and to count his physic poison; it maketh him loath to acknowledge, yea even to hear, that evidence which may convince him. This malady is very common in the world: Yea, the Church is not purged from it to this day. For though we have no Pharisees, yet we have such, qui quicquid dicunt, legem Dei putant, who call their very errors the law of God, and dictates of the Spirit; who cannot endure the least show of opposition, but, like wanton lovers, stick closest to their beloved error when it is exploded. Some lessons they so abhor that they cannot endure so much as the name and mention of them: and is it probable they will ever come so near as to woe and buy the Truth who are afraid of her very shadow? We complain many times of the weakness of our capacities, of the abstruseness of the teacher, and of the obscurity of the Scripture; and this we think a sufficient apology for our ignorance: but none of these nor all of these will make up a just excuse. The truth is, we will not hear the Truth; and the reason why we are no better scholars is, because we will not learn. If it were not so, why should any truth displease us? why in any dress? why should we take it upon the point of a knife so tenderly, as if we were afraid it would hurt us? Quid dimidiamus veritatem? why do we take it down by halves? It is an easy matter to observe how men's countenances and behaviour, yea and their affections, altar, in hearing of that doctrine which suiteth with their humour, and that which seemeth to be leveled against some fond opinion of theirs long resolved upon. Their stomach riseth strait against this; but the other is sweet in their mouths, and they devour the whole roll, though in itself it be as bitter as gall. Do we preach Christian Liberty? ye kiss our lips. But do we bound it with Charity to our neighbour, and Obedience to Government? that note ye think is harsh and tuned too near the ruggedness of the times. Do we build up to the Saints of God an Assurance of salvation? ye are in heaven already. But do we tell you that this Assurance cannot be had at pleasure, but must be wrought out with fear and trembling? Phillip 2.12. Do we tell you that that which ye call assurance may be not security but stupefaction? Do we beseech you not to deceive yourselves? Behold, we are not the same men, but setters out of new doctrine; and, verso policy vulgi, with the turning of your finger, we are in the dust, and stabbed with a censure. He who clothed not Truth to others fantasy, he who presenteth more of Truth than can be easily digested, shall be shut out of doors cum veritate sua, naked and destitute, and shall have none but Truth to keep him company. Though he speak these things, even the same truth that Christ did, the Pharisees will cry him down; and well it is if one woman, some one witness of the multitude, bless his lips that speaketh it. Prejudice will make a man persuade himself that is false which he cannot but know is most true. That which to a clear eye is a gross sin, and appeareth horror, to a corrupted mind may be as the beauty of holiness. For where Covetousness and Self-love have taken up the heart, and conceived, and brought forth Prejudice, it is an easy matter for a man to dispute himself into sin and infidelity. For the fancy hath a creating power to make what she pleaseth or what she list, to put new forms and shapes upon objects, to make Gods of clay, to make that delightful which in itself is grievous, that desirable which is loathsome, that fair and beautiful which is full of horror, to set up a golden calf, and say it is a God. And many times habeantur phantasmata pro cognition, these shadows and apparitions are taken for substances, these airy phantasms for well-grounded conclusions; and the mind of man doth so apply itself unto them, that what is but in the fancy is supposed to be seen by the eye of the Understanding. And thus many times we place our hatred on that which we should love, and our love upon that which we cannot hate enough: We fear that which we should hope for, and hope for that which we should fear; we are angry with a friend, and kiss an enemy. Thus one man trembleth at that which another embraceth; one man calleth that sacrilege which another calleth zeal; one man looks upon it as striking at God himself, another as pleading his cause; one man calls it murder, another the work of the Lord. What beauty can there be in Christ if a Pharisee look upon him? We read of the leaven of the Pharisees, and sure this is it. For it leaveneth the whole lump, all our opinions, all our actions, All have a kind of taste of it. Whatsoever come in to strengthen an anticipated opinion, whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires, or complies with our Covetousness, or Ambition, or Lustful affections, we readily embrace, and believe it to be true because we wish it so, and because it is conducible and behooveful for those ends which we have set up. Every fallacy is a demonstration, every prosperous event is a voice from heaven to confirm us: But if it thwart our inclination, if it run counter to our intendments, than Truth itself, though manifested with signs and wonders, will enrage us; and we shall first disgrace him that brings it, and then nail him to the cross. We see here Christ cast out a devil which was dumb, and the dumb spoke, and the people wondered. The Pharisees saw it, and the Woman saw it: the one saw nothing but that which could not be seen, one devil casting out another; the other saw the finger and mighty power of God, and when she saw it, she lift up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked. And so we descend to that which we proposed in the third place, the vehemency and heat of her Affection, which could not contain itself in her heart, but broke forth at her mouth. And herein we shall consider. 1. That she spoke, 2. What she spoke. She lifted up her voice, etc. Matth. 12.34. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, saith our Saviour. When that is full it cannot contain itself, sed emanat in habitum, eructat à conscientia in superficiem, ut & forìs inspiciat quasi supellectilem suam; It evaporateth itself into the outward habit, breaks forth into voice, opens her shop and wares, that she may behold her own provision and riches abroad. Hence the Fathers call the motion of the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, circular, by which the soul of man is carried from the object into itself; where after some pause, or rather upon the first impression, she calls all her faculties together, and then takes-in the members of the body and by them conveyeth herself to the very eye and ear, and in a manner is both heard and seen. It is so in evil, and it is so in good. Habent suas voces affectus; Every affection hath its proper language and dialect. If we be afraid, we lift up our voice, and cry, Whither shall we fly? If we grieve, we break forth into threnodies and lamentations. If we hope, we ask, How long? How long? If we be angry, we breathe forth hailstones and coals of fire. See, cùm nolit, cor prodit; The heart, when it is full, cannot but open itself: and though it would conceal itself, yet it must vent. The angry man speaks nothing but swords and challenges, Gen. 4.8. the language of Cain. For so the Septuagint, to make the sense plain, add this clause, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us go into the field. Where S. Peter giveth the character of profane and unclean persons, amongst other marks he setteth this is as one, that they have eyes full of adultery, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, full of the adulteress; as if they carried her about in their very eyes, and had always her image before them, and therefore must needs speak swelling words of vanity. 2 Pet. 2.14.18 The covetous person converseth with Gold as with his God; he speaks of it, he dreams of it, he commits idolatry with it; dum tacet, hoc loquitur, when he is silent, he talks of it within himself; In every place of Scripture Wickedness is brought forth not only with a hand, but with a tongue. 2 Sam. 13.11. Come lie with me, my Sister, saith Amnon. Give, Prov. 30.15. Prov. 1.14. Wisd. 2.8. Give, saith the Covetous. Come, let us cast in our lots together, saith the wicked. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, say they. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. And so it is in the ways of Goodness; First it fills the heart, than it makes the tongue as the pen of a ready writer. First it speaks within us, and then we preach it on the housetop. My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared, saith David. Psal. 57.7. And then it follows, I will sing, and give praise. First his heart is full, and then he speaks to his glory, his Tongue, to awake. And Psal 45.1. v. 8. My heart hath indicted a good matter; ERUCTAVIT, or EBULLIIT, My heart hath fried, or boiled a good matter: A similitude taken from the meat-offering, or mincah, in the Law, which was dressed in the pan. First it is but prepared in the Prophet's heart, Leu. 2.5. and then grace is poured out in his lips, by which he presenteth it. For we sacrifice our voice to God as we do our bodies, saith Nazianzene. When the Priests and the Sadduces did straight threaten the Apostles, Acts 4.17, 18. v. 20. that they should speak thenceforth no more in the name of Christ. Peter and John answered, We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is impossible, as the Law calls that impossible which ought not to be done. Nay, it cometh near to a physical impossibility, it is almost impossible in nature to love the truth, and not to publish it. 2 Cor. 5.14. The love of Christ constraineth us, saith S. Paul. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we are in travel as it were with the Truth, and long to be delivered. It is a grievous thing for a man at liberty to be bound; and one would think the same fetters would serve for the Feet and Hands and tongue, and tie them up all at once; yet saith S. Paul, I suffer trouble as an evil doer, 2 Tim. 2.9. even unto bonds, but yet the word of God is not bound. The mind is free, and the tongue is free, and I speak as boldly as if I were at liberty. Such a symphony, such a fair correspondence there is between the Heart and the Tongue, that they send up the same hymn and song of praise unto God. The love of the truth turneth the heart, and the heart the tongue. Inter cor & linguam totum salutis humanae genitur sacramentum, saith Chrysologus. Between these two the business of our salvation moveth and is carried about: For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, Rom. 10.10. and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For what is faith in the heart if it have no tongue nor hand? The Father calls it a sacrament or mystery: for a divine power is the midst of them. The Heart speaks unto God; for he understands the language of our thoughts: The Mouth and the Tongue satisfy men. Or to speak truly, they must join together, both for the service of God and edification of men: for on these two, as on two golden hinges, not only Faith, but Charity, and all those other virtues which encircle and compass her about as with a crown, hang and turn about in that order and glory which is delightful to God, to Angels, to men. And this is the advantage that Love hath of Knowledge: Knowledge may be idle and unactive, but Love is a restless thing, and will call up and employ every part of the body and every faculty of the soul to compass its end. Love is active, and will place it on where Knowledge doth but stand at gaze. Knowledge doth not always command our tongue; nay many times we speak and act against our knowledge: but who speaks against that which he doth love? who will trample that under his feet? Speculation may be but a look, a cast of the eye of the Understanding, and no more; but Love hath already taken in the object, and devoured it, and made it one with the soul. Knowledge many times begets but a purpose of mind, a faint velleity, a forced and involuntary approbation; but Love joins the Will and the Tongue and the Hand together, and indeed is nothing else but a vehement and well ordered will. Knowledge may be but a dream; but Love is ever awake, up, and doing. 1 John 2.3. I may so know the truth that I may be said not to know it; but I cannot so love the truth that I may be said to hate it. For though the Scripture sometimes attributeth knowledge of the truth to them who so live as if they knew it not, yet it never casts away the precious name of Love on those who so live as if they loved it not. A Pharisee, an hypocrite may know the truth; but it was never written that they loved it; but that they loved the praise of men more than of God. And this was the reason that they had eyes, and saw not; ears, and heard not, nor understood; that they had tongues, and spoke not; that they would not be persuaded when they were convinced, and withstood the truth when they were overcome. In a word, Knowledge may leave us, like unto the idols of the heathen, with hands that handle not, and mouths that speak not: Love only emulateth the power of our Saviour, and works a miracle, casts out the spirit which is dumb. For when he spoke these things, not the Pharisees, but a woman of the company lift up her voice. And thus her heart was truly affected, and she lift up her voice. As the Prophet speaks, Jer. 20.9. The Love of Christ was in her heart, as a burning fire shut up in her bones, and she was weary of forbearing, and she could not stay. It was like that coal of the Seraphins, which being laid on her mouth, Isa. 6.7. she spoke with her tongue. Now in the next place, what was it that begat her love but the admiration of Christ's person, his power, and his wisdom. This was it which kindled that heat within her which broke out at her lips. Plato calls Admiration the beginning of Philosophy. We admire and dwell upon the object, and view it well, till we have wrought the Idea of it in our minds. Whence Clemens citeth this saying out of the Gospel according to the Hebrew; Qui admiratus fuerit, regnabit; qui regnabit, requiescet; He that at first admires that which to him is wonderful, shall at last reign; and he that reigns, shall be at rest, shall not waver or doubt, or struggle formidine contrarii, with fear that the contrary should be true, and that that which he saw should be but a false apparition and a deception of the sight. This woman here saw, and wondered, and loved; she saw more than the Pharisees, to whom a sign from heaven appeared in no fairer shape than the work of Beelzebub. She saw Christ's miracles were as his letters of credence that he came from God himself. She had heard of Moses, and his miracles; but beholds a greater than Moses here. For 1. Christ's miracles breathed not forth horror and amazement, as those of Moses did in and about the mountain of Sinon. Nor 2. were they noxious and fatal to any, as those which Moses wrought in Pharaohs court and in Egypt. He did not bring in tempest and thunder, but spoke the word, and men were healed. He did not bury men alive, but raised men out of their graves. He brought upon men no fiery serpents, but he cast out devils. If he suffered the devils to destroy the hogs, yet he tied them up from hurting of men; and what is a Hog to a Man? In a word, Moses' miracles were to strike a terror into the people, that he might lead them by fear; but Christ's were to beget that admiration which might work love in those whom he was to lead with the cords of men, with the bonds of love. All Christ's miracles were benefits: Acts 10.38. For he went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed with the devil: for God was with him. Christ's miracles were above the reach and power of Nature. Nature had no hand in the production of any of them? All that we wonder at are not Miracles: not an Eclipse of the Sun, which the common people stand amazed at, because they know not the cause of it. Nor is that a Miracle which is besides the ordinary course of Nature; For then every Monster should be a Miracle: Nor that which is done against Nature; for so every child that casteth a stone up into the air doth work a Miracle. But that is a Miracle which is impossible in Nature, and which cannot be wrought but by a supernatural Hand. 2. Christ's miracles were done not in a corner, but before the sun and the people. This Woman here heard the dumb speak, she see the blind see, the lame go, and the lepers cleansed. Miracles, when they are wrought, are not the object of our faith, but of our sense. They are signs and tokens to confirm that which we must believe. 3. Christ's miracles were done as it were in an instant. With a touch, at a word he cured diseases, which Nature cannot do, though helped by the art of the Physician. All the works of Nature, and of Art too, are conceived and perfected in the womb of Time. 4. Last of all, Christ's miracles were perfect and exact. When he raised Jairus' daughter, Luke 8.55. he presently commanded them to give her meat. When he cured Peter's wives mother, forthwith she was so strong that she arose, and ministered unto them. Matth. 8. 1●. He gave his gifts in full measure; nor could more be desired then he gave. And shall not these miracles and these benefits appear, wonderful in our eyes? Shall not his Power beget Admiration, and Admiration Love, and Love command our voice? Shall a woman see his wonders, and shall we be as blind as the Pharisees? Shall she lift up her voice, and shall we still keep in us the devil that is dumb? It came to pass as he did and spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lift up her voice, and said. And now we should pass to what she said; but I see the time passeth away. Let us therefore make some use of what hath already been said, and so conclude. And first let us learn from this woman here to have Christ's wonderful works in remembrance, to look upon them with a steadfast and a fixed eye, that they may appear unto us in their full glory, and fill us with admiration. For Admiration is a kind of voice of the soul. Miracula obstupuisse, dixisse est, saith Gregory. Thus Silence itself may become vocal, and truly to wonder at his works is to profess them. This motion of the heart stirred up with reverence to the ears of the uncircumscribed Spirit is as the lifting up of the voice, which speaks within us by those divers and innumerable forms and shapes of admiration, which are the inward expressions of the soul. When the soul is in an ecstasy, when it is transported and wrapped up above itself with admiration, than it speaketh, nay it cryeth, unto the Lord. When S. Paul was caught up into paradise, and heard those unspeakable words which he could not utter, his admiration supplied that defect, and was as the lifting up of his voice unto God. For what is a Miracle if it be not wondered at? Or is it fit a Miracle should pass by us as a shadow, unregarded? Is it fit that that which was done for us men and for our salvation should not move us so much as those common things which are done before our eyes every day? that we should be little affected with that Gospel which was thus confirmed by signs and wonders? that nothing should be wonderful in our eyes but that▪ which is not worth a thought? For what is that we wonder at? Even that from which we should wean our affection? we wonder at those things in the pursuit of which we ourselves become monsters. We wonder at Wealth, and are as greedy as the Horseleech. We wonder at Beauty, and become worse than the beasts that perish. We wonder at Honour, and are those Chameleons that live on air. We have men's persons in admiration, Judas 16. and make ourselves their Horse or Mule, which they may ride at pleasure. We wonder at Power, and become stocks or stones, and have no more motion of our own then they? These appear to us in glory, these dart their beams upon us, and we are struck with admiration: But mirabilia legis, the wonderful things of the Law, the wonderful things of the Gospel, we scarce open our eyes to behold them, and but faintly desire God to do it for us. His wonderful counsel in sending his Son we do but talk of; The mystery of our Redemption is hidden still; God's eternal will, that is our sanctification, we scarce spare an hour to think on; his precepts are not in so much esteem as the statutes of Om●i. What a glorious spectacle is a clod of earth? and what a Nothing is Heaven? Behold, these are the wonderful things of Christ, To unite God and Man, to tie them together by a new covenant, to raise dust and ashes to heaven, this is a great miracle indeed. To draw so many nations and people to the obedience of faith, to convert rich men by poor, learned men by illiterate, and by those whom they persecuted and put to death, so that they brought in their riches and honours and usual delights, and laid them down as it were at the feet of those poor instructers whom they counted as the offscouring of the world; To make not only his Precepts, but the Meekness, the Patience, the Silence, the very Death of his Professors, as so many Apostles and Messengers to win them to the faith; this if we did truly consider and weigh as we should, would busy and intent our thoughts, and raise and improve them into that amazement and admiration which would join us to that innumerable company of just men, and make us of the number of those who shall be saved. Many things, saith Hillary, Christ hath done for the sons of men, the blessed effect of which is open as the day though the cause be bid; and where Nature comes short, Faith steps forward and reacheth home. In his quoque quae ignoro, non nescio; Even in those which my understanding is too narrow to receive, I am not utterly ignorant, but walk by faith, and admire that which my good Master doth, and yet will not let me know. It is no miracle, no mystery at all, which deserveth not admiration. Secondly, by her lifting up her voice, and blessing the womb that bore Christ, which was a kind of adoration (for Admiration had not so shut up her devotion and love but that it was vocal and reverend) we are taught to magnify our Saviour with the Tongue, and Hand, and Knee, and every member we have, as David speaketh. For these also have their voice, and we may confess Christ not only with the tongue, but with our adorations and genuflexions and those outward expressions which are equivalent to it. Auditur philosophus, dum videtur; Though he hold his peace, yet the Philosophers very gesture is a lecture of morality. Therefore where we read that Man was made a living soul; Gen. 2.7. the Chaldee renders it, & factus est in spiritum loquentem; He was made a speaking soul, to speak the praises of his Maker with every faculty and part he hath. For as God made both Body and Soul, so he requires both the inward devotion of the one and the outward expressions of the other; a Soul, saith Isidore, which may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by its operative devotion call down God from heaven, and in herself frame the resemblance of his presence; and a Body, which may make that devotion and love visible to the very eye. It is S. Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians, 1 Thes. 5. ●3. that God would sanctify them wholly, that the soul and body may be blameless in the day of the Lord; that Holiness might be as an impression which from the soul might work upon the body, and give force and motion to the whole man, This is to sanctify them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not in part, but all of them, not to sprinkle but to baptise them with holiness. Profanus and non integer are the same in Tertullian: and it is profaneness, not to give God all. Athanasius makes the Soul as a Musician, and, the Body, which consists of the Tongue, and other members, as a Harp or Lute; which she may tune and touch till it yield a celestial harmony, a song composed of divers parts, of Spirit and Flesh, of Soul and Body, of every faculty of the soul and every part of the body must accord with the elevation of the soul? Certainly a sweet note! But then the lifting up of the voice mends it, and makes it far more pleasant. An ejaculation from the Soul, yea and the sound thereof from the Tongue and Hands and Knees; a holy Thought, yea and a zealous and reverend depottment, these make a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle speaks, perfect and complete. Otherwise, as the Poet spoke of the beggar half wrotten and consumed, he is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an half-strung and half-tuned instrument. Look back unto former and purer times, and you shall see Devotion visible in every gesture, in their Walking, in their sitting, in their Bowing, in their Standing up; you shall hear it in their Hymns and Psalms, in their Hallelujahs and Amens, which were, saith Hierome, as the voice of many waters, or as a clap of thunder. You shall hear the Priest blessing the people, and the people echoing it back again unto the Priest; the Priests praying, and the people answering the Priests, which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their Antiphones or Responsals. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us stand decently; They did spoke it, and they did it. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us stand with the fear of God, They spoke it, and they did it. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us stand wisely and soberly, and with great care and vigilant observation; they spoke it, and they did it. And S. chrysostom giveth the reason, Because God is present with us invisibly, and marks every motion of the body, as well as every inclination of the mind. But, I know not how, the face of Christendom is much altered; and what was Religion and Devotion then, hath now changed its name, and in this latter age must needs go under that much loathed name of Superstition and Idolatry. For tell me, are we not ashamed almost to say our prayers? are we not afraid to say Amen? Is it not become a disgrace to bear a part in the public service of God? A Te Deum or an Hallelujah would be indeed as a clap of thunder to fright us from the Church: for we lift up our hearts so high that we have no voice at all. Superstition, I confess, is a dangerous sin, but yet not so dangerous as profaneness, which will talk with God in private, and dare him to his face in his Temple; which, with the Gnostick, will give him the Heart, but not vouchsafe the Tongue; which will leave the Priest alone to make a noise (and sometimes, God knoweth, it is but a noise) in the pulpit. And this is but to run out of the smoke into the fire, for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwreck on Profaneness; for fear of will-worship, not to worship at all; to imprison Devotion in the soul, and lend her neither voice nor gesture; though Christ be miraculous in all his ways, and doth wonders in the midst of us, to seal up our lips, and only commune with our own corrupt hearts, and be still. No lifting up of the voice or hands, no bowing of the knee in our coasts. But I do but beat the air, and labour in vain. For now it is religion, not to express it; and he is most devout who doth least show it. O when will this dumb devil be cast out! A strange thing it is, that every thing else, even our Vices, should be loud and vocal, and Religion should be the only thing that should want a tongue, that Devotion should lie hid and lurk and withdraw itself into the inward man. For this is not to honour God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with might and main, with soul and body, with heart and knee and tongue; this is not to render to God that which is Gods; Which how to do without these outward expressions, is as hard for the eye of Reason to see, as it is for the eye of Sense to discern that Devotion which is so abstract and spiritual. Certainly this poor Woman in the Text will rise up in judgement against this generation, who no sooner saw the excellency of Christ's person, but she lifted up her voice, and blessed the womb that bore him, and the paps which he had sucked. Last of all, this Woman's voice is yet lifted up, and calls upon us to lift up ours, even before the Pharisees. And such we shall find in every street and in every Synagogue, who devour more than widows houses with long prayers, draw blood with the sword of the Spirit, and serve the prince of this world in the name of the Lord. If our fear were not greater than our love, amongst these we should lift up our voice like a trumpet, and put these monsters to shame, strike off their visor with noise; and bring in Truth to tear off the veil of their Hypocrisy. For what? shall we not lift up our voice for Truth but when she hath most voices on her side? Must Truth be never published but in the times of peace? or must a song of praise be never chanted out but in a quíre of Angels? Shall we only walk towards our Saviour, as Peter did, whilst the face of the sea is smooth, then be undaunted and fear nothing; but when a wave comes towards us, presently sink? Whilst all Things go with us smoothly, without any rub or wave of difficulty, how shall our Faith and Love be discovered? who shall distinguish between a true and superficial professor? For the Love of man to Christ is no otherwise discovered then the Love of man to man. The love of a Christian cannot be known but by a great and strong tentation. A Pharisee before us is a tentation, Difficulty and danger are nothing else but a tentation, which is therefore laid in our way, to try if any thing can sever us from the love of Christ and his Truth. If we start back in silence, we have betrayed the Truth to our fears, and left it to be trod under foot by a Pharisee. We may call it Discretion and Wisdom to start aside at such a sight, and to lay our hands upon our mouths: but discretio ista tollit omnem discretionem, as Bernard speaketh, this discretion takes away all discretion, this wisdom is but folly: For from this cowardice in our profession we first fall into an indifferency, and at last into open hostility to the Truth: We follow Truth as Peter did Christ, afar of, and then deny it, and at last forswear it, and join with the Pharisees and help them to persecute those that profess it. So the Libellatici of old first bought a dispensation from the judge to profess the name of Christ, and at last gave it under their hands that they never were Christians: He that can dispense with a sin, will soon look friendly upon it, and at last count it a duty. He that will take an oath in his own sense (which indeed is nonsense) will easily be induced to take it in any sense you shall give it him. He that can trifle with his God, will at last blaspheme him to his face. Beloved, you may judge of the Heart by the Voice, which falls and rises according to those heats and colds the Heart receives, When this is coldly affected, we know not how to speak; we venture, but speak not out; we profess, and recant; we say, and unsay, and know not what to say: quasi super aristas ambulamus, we tread as tenderly as if we were walking upon ears of corn, and as men that go upon the ice: magis tremimus quàm imus, we rather tremble then go. But when our Heart is hot within us, the next occasion sets our Tongue at liberty. We read in our Poets, that Achilles for a time lurked in woman's apparel, but was discovered by Ulysses bringing him a sword, which he no sooner saw but he brandished it. So the soldier of Christ is not known till some difficulty, like the sword of Ulysses be brought before him: then he will bestir and move himself to cope with it: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If we be Christians dangers and difficulties will sharpen and draw us on, and our voice will be loudest when a Pharisee is near. To conclude; When we hear men speak between their teeth, or hoarsely, as if they had lost their voice, when they falter in their speech, and speak in points of Divinity as Bassianus did when he had slain his brother Geta, ut qui malint intelligi, quàm audiri, as willing to be understood indeed, but not to speak out, and so cunningly disperse their doctrine that they may instruct their friends, yet give no advantage to their enemies, you may be sure the Heart is not warm, nor really affected: But when we speak with boldness what we have heard and seen, when we cast down our gauntlet, and stand in defence of the Truth against the world; when neither Pharisee nor Devil can silence us, but in omni praetorio, in omni conscitorio, in every judgment-seat, in every consistory, when Malice and Power come towards us in a tempest, we lift up our voice, and dare speak for the Truth when others dare persecute it, it is an evident sign that a fire is kindled within us, and we are warmed with it; that with the Woman here we see some excellencies in Christ, some beauty and majesty in the Truth, which others do not, whose lips are sealed up. In a word; to speak of Christ before the Pharisees, to lift up our voice, and speak of his name when, for aught we know, it may be the last word we shall speak; to be true prophets amongst four hundred false ones; when the Pharisees call Christ Beelzebub, to cry Hosanna to the Son of David; to bless the womb that bore him, and the paps that gave him suck, when others say he is a Samaritane, and hath a devil, is truly to make this devout▪ Woman a pattern, to make that use of her voice which she did of Christ's voice and of his miracle, who could not contain herself, nor keep silence, but having received in her heart the lively character of Christ's power and wisdom, in the midst of his enemies, in the midst of a multitude, when some reviled him, and others were silent, she lift up her voice, and blessed the womb that bore him, and the paps which gave him suck; Which is her Diction, our next part, and should come now to be handled: but the time being past, we shall reserve it for part of our task in the Afternoon. The Four and Thirtieth SERMON. PART II. LUKE XI. 27, 28. And it came to pass as he spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lift up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. WE have already handled the circumstantial parts of the Text: We are now to treat of the substantial, the Woman's speech, and our Saviour's. We begin with the Woman's, Blessed is the womb that bore thee, etc. And that the mother of Christ was blessed we need not doubt. For we have not only the voice of this woman to prove it, but the voice of an Angel; Blessed art thou among women; Luke 1.28. v. 31, 32. and Thou hast found favour with God, and shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, even the Son of the Highest. And we have her cousin's testimony in the very words of the Angel, Blessed art thou amongst women, v. 42. and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And we have the witness of a babe unborn, who leapt in the womb, & prophetavit antequam natus est and spoke this truth when he could not speak. And indeed, though the womb be not capable of true blessedness (which all the privileges and prerogatives in the world, of Birth, or Honour, or Wisdom, or Strength, cannot reach: for neither the earth nor paradise itself can bring forth this fruit of Blessedness, which is only at the right hand of God, who gins it here, and completes it in the highest heavens) yet to be the Mother of Christ carries with it a kind of resemblance and likeness with that which is truly Blessedness. For Blessedness is a state and condition in which is treasured up all the perfection which created substances are capable of, all defects and imperfections (which mingle themselves with the best things here on earth, and taint and corrupt them) being quite removed and taken away. As if we seek for Pleasure, we shall find it in Heaven, both pure and fine from those dregs which do here invenom and embitter it, and make even Pleasure itself tedious and irksome. If you would have honour, here it is without burden. Here are Riches, and no fear of losing them. Here is Life, without vexation, here is Life without end. This the Womb is not capable of; yet we may see a representation of it in the Womb of the Virgin, in the birth of our Saviour; which was not ordinary, but miraculous; where she that brought the Child, had the joy of a Mother, and the honour of a Virgin, had all things but the imperfection of a Mother. I will not labour in this argument. Thus far we may safely go; All generations shall call her blessed, and while we speak of the Mother in her own language and in the language of the Son, we have truth and religion on our side. But yet some there be who will not venture so far, and though they allow her blessed, yet bogle at the Saint, as a name of danger and scandal: and because others have dressed her up toyishly with borrowed titles they do little less than rob her of her own, and take it to themselves; take it from the Mother of Christ, and give it to a wicked and an adulterous generation. Others, on the contrary side, by making her more than a Saint, have made her an Idol. They have placed her in the House of God as Mother of the family; put into her hands the keys of Mercy, to let in whom she please; called her the Fountain of life, the Mother of the living, and the Raiser of the dead; written books of her miraculous Conception, and Assumption, and of the Power and Majesty she hath in heaven; Of which we may say as Pliny doth of the writings of the Magicians, that they have been published non sinu contemptu & irrisu generis humani, not without a kind of contempt and derision of men, not without this insolent thought, that men would be so brutish as to approve, and such fools as to believe whatsoever fell from the pen of such idle dreamers. For thus without the least help of the breath of the Spirit, and without any countenance from any syllable in the word of God, they have lifted the holy Virgin up, and seated her in God's throne, and every day plead her title in the very face of Christendom; and as Tully spoke of some superstitious frantic Philosophers, quidvis malle videntur quàm se non ineptos, they seem to affect and hug this gross and ungrounded error, and had rather be any thing than not be ridiculous. But these extremes have men run upon whilst they neglect that rule by which they were to walk; the one upon the rock of Superstition; the other (as it oft falls out in disputes of this nature) not only from the error they oppose, but from the Truth itself which should be set up in its place. Between these two we may walk safely, and guide ourselves by the Woman's voice and the Angel's voice, and call her Blessed, and Saint, though not God; and we may place her in heaven, though we set her not in the throne: BLESSED, as the occasion of so much good. For when we see a clear and sylver stream, we bless the Fountain: And for the glory and quickening power of the beams some have made a God of the Sun. Whatsoever presents itself unto us in beauty or excellency, doth not only take and delight us, but in the midst of wonder forceth our thoughts to look back to the coasts from whence it came. For Virtue is not only glorious in itself, but casts a lustre back upon generations past, and makes them blessed: it blesseth the times wherein it acts, it blesseth the persons wherein it is, and it blesseth all relations to those persons, and the nearest most. We often find in Scripture famous men and women mentioned with their relations. Arise, Barak, thou son of Abinoam. Blessed shall Jael be, Judg. 5. the wife of Heber the Kenite. David the son of Jesse; Solomon the son of David. Blessed was Abraham, who begat Isaac; and blessed was Isaac, who begat Jacob; and then thrice blessed was she, who brought forth the Blessing of the world, JESUS CHRIST a Saviour. Therefore was Barrenness accounted a curse in Israel, because they knew their Messiah was to be born of a woman, but did not know what woman should bring him forth. Again, if it be a kind of curse to beget a wicked son, or, as Solomon did, the foolishness of the people. Eccl. 47.23. The Historian observes that many famous men amongst the Romans either died childless, or left such children behind them that it had been better their name had quite been blotted out, and they had left no posterity. And speaking of Tully, who had a drunken and a sottish son, he adds, Huic soli melius fuerat liberos non habere; It had been better for him to have had no child at all, than such an one. Who would have his name live in a wanton intemperate s●t? who would have his name live in a betrayer of his country, in a bloody tyrant? If this curse reflect upon those who have been dead long ago, and is doubled on the living; who look upon those whom they call affectus, their affections, and caritates, their love, as their greatest grief and torment; then certainly a great blessing and glory it is for a parent to have a virtuous child, in whom he every day may behold not only his own likeness, but the image of God, which shines in the face of every looker on, and fills their hearts with delight and their mouths with blessings. If it be a tyrant, a Nero, we wish the doors of his mother's womb had been shut up, Job 3.10. and so sorrow and trouble hid from our eyes. Ventrem feri, saith the mother herself to the Centurion who was sent to kill her; Strike, strike this cursed belly that brought forth that monster. But if it be a Father of his country, if it be a wise, just and merciful Prince, if he be a Titus, we bless the day wherein he was born, we celebrate his Nativity, and make it a holiday, and we bless the rock from whence he was hewn, the very loins from whence he came. And therefore to conclude this, we cannot but commend both the Affection of this Woman and her Speech, the one great, and the other loud. For the greatness, the intention of the affection is not evil, so the cause be good; and it cannot move too fast, if it do not err. If the sight of virtue and wisdom strike this heat in us, it is as a fire from heaven in our bowels. And such was this woman's affection begot in her by Wisdom and Power, and both Divine. It risen not from any earthly respect, secular pomp or outward glory, but she hearing Christ's gracious words, and seeing the wonders which he did, the fire kindled, and she spoke with her tongue. And she still speaketh, that we may behold the same finger of God as efficacious and powerful in Christ to cast out the devil out of us; the devil which is dumb, that we may speak his praises; and the devil that is deaf, that we may hearken to his words; the devil that is a serpent, that we may lay aside all deceit; the devil that is a lion, that we may lay aside all malice; the devil that wicked one, that we may be freed from sin; that so we may put on the affection of this Woman, and with her lift up our voice, and say, Blessed is the womb that bore Christ, and the paps which he sucked. And further we carry not this consideration. We come next to our Saviour's gentle Corrective, IMO POTIUS, Yea, rather. And this, Yea rather, comes in seasonably. For the eye is ready to be dazzled with a lesser good, if it be not diverted to a greater, as he will wonder at a storm that never saw the Sun. We stay many times and dwell with delight upon those truths which are of lesser alloy, and make not any approach towards that which is saving and necessary; we look upon the excellencies of Christ, and find no leisure to fall down and worship him; we become almost Christians, and come not to the knowledge of that truth which must save us and make us perfect men in Christ Jesus. The Philosopher will tell us that he that will compare two things together, must know them both. What glory hath Riches to him who hath not seen Virtue, as Plato would have her seen, naked, and not compassed about and disguised with difficulties; disgraces and hardships? What a brightness hath Honour to bind that hath not tasted of the Favour of God? What a Paradise is carnal pleasure to him that a good Conscience never feasted? What a substance is a Ceremony to him that makes the Precepts of the Law but shadows? How doth he rely on a Privilege who will not do his duty? How blessed a Thing doth she think it to bring forth a Son that can work miracles, who knows not what it is to conceive him in her heart who can save her? Therefore it is the method of Wisdom itself, to present them both unto us in their just and proper weight, not to deny what is true, but to take off our thoughts, and direct them to something better; that we may not dote so long on the one as to neglect and cast off the other. From wondering at his Miracles Christ calleth us to the contemplation of the greatest miracle that was ever wrought, the Redemption of a sinner; from his Miracles to his Word, for the keeping of which they were wrought. For to this end Christ manifested himself by signs and wonders, that we might manifest ourselves to be his by our obedience, that where he is there we may be also; which is blessedness indeed. John 1.49. When our Saviour told Nathaniel he saw him under the figtree, Nathaniel calls him the Son of God and King of Israel. This was as it were the spring and beginning of his faith; and our Saviour makes much of it, and cherisheth it; Dost thou believe because of this? thou shalt see greater things than these; This is as the watering of it, the crowning of his first gift with a second. He shall see the heaven opening, and the Angel's ministering unto him at his passion, resurrection and ascension. In my Text the Woman had discovered Christ's excellency, and Christ discovers to her his will, his Father's will, the doing of which will will unite her unto him whom she thus admired, and make her one with him, as He and his Father is one. Blessed parents! yea, rather Blessed thou, if thou hear my word, and keep it. This is a timely grace, to lead her yet nearer to the kingdom of heaven: The lifting up of her voice was too weak to lift up those Everlasting gates? This was a seasonable Reprehension shall I call it, or Direction? It hath something of both, but so little of the rod that it is rather a staff to uphold the woman, and to guide her in the ways of Blessedness. Blessed is the womb that bore thee, it is a truth, but a dangerous truth to dwell on: Yea; rather, points out to another truth upon which we may look with more profit and advantage; Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. That magnifieth my Mother; but this will make him that observes it my brother, and mother and sister. Et major fraternitas fidei quàm sanguinis, Faith and Obedience keep us in a nearer relation to Christ then Blood. And now we if we look into the Church, we shall find that most men stand in need of a Yea, rather, who will magnify Christ and his Mother too, but not do his will; will do what they ought to do, but leave that undone for which that which they do was ordained. Lord, how many Beatitudes have we found out, and seldom touch upon the right! FELIX SACRAMENTUM! Blessed Sacrament of Baptism! The Father gins his book so de Baptismo. It is true; but there is an IMO POTIUS, Yea, rather blessed are they that have put on Christ. Blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper! It is true; but yea, rather blessed are they that dwell in Christ. Blessed Profession of Christianity! yea, rather blessed are they that are Christ's. Blessed Cross! The Fathers call it so. Yea, rather blessed are they that have Crucified their flesh with the affections and lusts. Blessed Church! Yea, rather blessed are they who are members of Christ. Blessed Reformation! Yea, rather blessed are they that reform themselves. The greatest debate is concerning these. What degladiations, what tragedies about these! And if every fancy be not pleased, the cry is as if Religion was breathing out its last, when Religion consists not principally in these; and these may seem to have been passed over as pledges of love as well as commands, and were passed over to this end. For we are baptised, that we might put on Christ. We come to his Table, that we may feed on him by faith. The Cross is magnified, that we may take it up. The Church was reform, that we should purge ourselves not only of superstition, but also of profaneness and sacrilege, and those sins for which the name of Christ is blasphemed amongst the heathen. The Philosopher indeed tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that in respect of variety of circumstances it is a hard matter many times to make our choice, or in our judgement to prefer one thing before another. And in some cases this is true; but in this particular we speak of all the difficulty rises, not from the object, or from the understanding, but from the will. For we will choose that which is easy rather than that which is best; that which will fit our humour, rather than that which will save our soul: And therefore we have need not of gentle but corroding physic; of an Imò potiùs to be pressed home upon us again and again in the sharpest accent. For when a man hath followed his thoughts to those pleasing objects which they so readily fly to, when he hath run his compass, and fastened on that which flatters his sense, and called it Blessedness, he runs further and further from Blessedness, and holds nothing of it but the name. Thou mayst wash at the Font, and yet pollute thyself; thou mayst eat at Christ's Table, and not be fed; thou mayst be of the Church, and yet be Anathema; of the reformed Church, and yet be worse than an Infidel. Blessed are all these, because they help to make us blessed, and are appointed as means for that end: But IMO POTIUS, Yea rather, must draw them home, and settle us in this Fundamental Truth, Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. Which is the Resolve, and Conclusion of the whole matter; and with it we shall conclude. This Resolve of Wisdom itself, as it doth cool and moderate our affections towards the outward and temporal favours and blessings of God, towards those of his right Hand, and those of his left, so it doth intent and quicken them towards that which is Blessedness indeed. James 1.25. It sets us up a glass, that Royal Law, that perfect Law of liberty, which if we look into, and continue in it, being not forgetful hearers, but doers of the work, we shall be blessed in it. We may seek for Blessedness in the field abroad, in outward favours and privileges, but lo here it is found. Blessedness, like Christ himself, is a α & ω, the first and the last; the end, and yet the first mover of us in these ways which lead unto it. Christiano coelum antè patet quàm via; Heaven is first opened to a Christian, and then the way; and he that walks in this shall enter into that. Now what is Blessedness but a state of perfection, and an aggregation of all that is truly good, without the least tincture and show of evil, as Boethius speaketh. This cannot be found but in the most perfect Good, even God, who is Perfection itself, whose pleasure, whose delight, whose paradise is in his own bosom. This he opens, and pours a part on his creature; of which we do in a manner take possession, and taste of its pleasant fruits, when we keep his word and law, which is nothing else but a beam of that law which was with and in God from all eternity; and by which, as we are made after the image, so are we transformed into the similitude of God. Thus Plato himself calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our assimilation to, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our union with God, in whom alone those two powers of the soul, those two horseleeches, 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. Hic Rhodus, hic saltus; This is the end, and this is the way. Our Saviour here seems to make two, Hearing, and Doing, but indeed they are but one, and cannot be severed; for the one leads into the other, as the Porch into the Temple. It is the great error of the times, conjuncta dividere, to divide those duties which God hath joined together: to have quick ears, and withered hands; to hear, and not to do; to let in, and let out; nay, to let in, and to loath. And in this reciprocal intercourse of hearing and neglecting many spin out the thread of their lives, and at the end thereof look for Blessedness. And certainly if Blessedness would dwell in the ear, there would be more blessed on earth then in heaven. And if an open ear were the mark of a Saint, what great multitudes, how many millions, are there sealed to be kept unto salvation? But to hear is not enough; and yet it may be too much, and may set us at a sadder distance from Blessedness than we had been at if we had been deaf. Our Ear may turn into a Tongue, and be a witness against us. For that plea which the hypocrites make, Luke 3.26. We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets, is a libel and an accusation, and draws down a heavier sentence upon them? For he bids them departed from him, who would work iniquity after they had heard him in their streets. Blessed are they that hear the word of God, reacheth not home; and therefore there is a conjunction copulative to draw it closer, and link with Obedience; Blessed are they that hear the word of God, AND keep it. So this conclusion will necessarily follow, That Evangelical Obedience and the strict observation of the doctrine of Faith and Good works is the only and immediate way to Blessedness. For not the hearers of the word, but the doers, shall be justified, Rom. 2.13. saith S. Paul. And indeed there is no way but this. For first, God hath fitted us hereunto. For can we imagine that he should thus build us up, and stamp his own image upon us, that we should be an habitation for owls and Satyrs, for wild and brutish imaginations? that he did give us Understandings to find out an art of pleasure, a method and craft of enjoying that which is but for a season? Was the Soul made immortal for that which passeth away as a shadow; and is no more? or have we dominion over the beasts of the field, that we should fall and perish with them? No, we are ad majora nati, born to eternity; and in ourselves we carry an argument against ourselves if we keep not God's word. Indeed Faith, in respect of the remoteness of the object; and its elevation above the ken of Nature, may seem a hard lesson, yet in the Soul there is a capacity to receive it: and if the other condition, of Obedience and Doing Gods will, did not lie heavy upon the Flesh, the more brutish part, we should be readier scholars in our Creed then we are. If we could hate the world, we should be soon in heaven. If we would embrace that which we cannot but approve, our infidelity and doubtings would soon vanish as a mist before the Sun. Augustine hath observed in his book De Religione, that multitudes of good moral men, especially the Platonites, came in readily, and gave up their names unto Christ. But the Agenda, the precepts of practice, are as the seed, and the heart of man as the earth, the matrix, the womb to receive it. They are so proportioned to our Reason that they are no sooner seen but approved, being as it were of near alliance and consanguinity with those notions and principles which we brought with us into the world. Only those are written in a book, these in the heart: At the most, the one is 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 applauds it. Doth he bless Meekness? The mind of man soon says, Amen. Doth he command us to do to others as we would others should do to us? We entertain it as our familiar and contemporary; Doth he prescribe Sobriety? We soon subscribe to it: for what man would profess himself a beast? And hence it comes to pass that we see something that is good in the worst, that we hear a panegyrics of Virtue from a man of Belial, that when we do evil we are ready to maintain it as good, and when we do an injury we call it a benefit. For no man is so evil that he desires not to seem good? There is, saith Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the the Soul of man, a natural distaste of that which is evil. But Virtue, though it have few followers, yet hath the votes of all. Temperance; the drunkard will sing her praises. Justice; every hand is ready to set a Crown upon her Head. Valour is admired of all, and Wisdom is the desire of the whole earth. So you see God's precepts are proportioned to the Soul, and the Soul to God's precepts, which hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a formative quality, a power to shape and fashion and to bring forth something of the same nature, a creature made up in obedience, in holiness and righteousness. Christ's exhortation to Prayer begets that devotion which opens the gates of heaven, his command to take up the cross begets an army of martyrs; his command to deny ourselves lifts us up above ourselves, to that Blessedness which is everlasting. Secondly, as the precepts of Christ are proportioned to the Soul, so being embraced they fill it with light and joy, and give it a taste of the world to come. For as Christ's yoke is easy, but not till it is put on; so his precepts are not delightful till they are kept. Aristotle's Happiness in his books is but an Idea, and Heaven itself is no more to us till we enjoy it. The precepts of Christ in the letter may please the understanding part, which is always well affected and inclinable to that which is apparently true, but till the Will have set the Feet and Hands at liberty, even that which we approve we distaste, and that which we call honey is to us as bitter as gall. Contemplation may delight us for a time, and bring some content, but the perverseness of our Will breeds that worm which will soon eat it up. It is but a poor happiness to think and speak well of Happiness, as from a mount to behold that Canaan which we cannot enjoy. A thought hath not strength and wing enough to carry us to bliss. But when the Will is subdued and made obedient to the Truth, than God's precepts, which are from heaven, heavenly, fill the soul with a joy of the same nature, not gross and earthy, but refined and spiritual, a joy that is the pledge and the earnest, as the Apostle calls it, of that which is to come. When the Will is thus subject, and framed and fashioned according to the rule and pattern which God hath drawn, it itself as it were with the light of heaven, which is the original of this chaste delight. Then what a pearl is Wisdom? what glory is in poverty? what honour in persecution? what a heaven in obedience? Then, how sweet are thy words unto my taste! Psal. 119.103. yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth, saith David. In quibus operamur, in illis & gaudemus: for such as the work is, such is the joy. A work that hath its rise and original from heaven, a work drawn out according to the law which is the will of God, begun in an immortal soul and wrought in the soul, promoted by the Spirit of God and the ministry of Angels, and breathing itself forth as myrrh or frankincense amongst the children of men, will cause a joy like unto itself, a true and solid joy, having no deceit, no carnality, no inconstancy in it, a beam from heaven, kindled and cherished by the same Spirit; a joy which receives no taint nor diminution from those sensible evils which to those that keep not God's word are as Hell itself, and the only Hell they think of, but giving a relish and sweetness to that which were not evil if we did think it so, making Poverty, Disgrace, and Death itself as fuel to foment and increase it; upholding us in misery, strengthening us in weakness, and at the hour of death and in the day of judgement streaming forth into the ocean of eternal Happiness. Blessedness invites, attends and waits upon Obedience, and yet Obedience ushereth it in, being illix misericordiae; it inviteth God's Mercy, and draws it so near as to bless us, and it makes the blessing ours, not ex rigore justitiae, according to the rigour of justice, as I call that mine which I buy with my money. For no obedience can equal the reward. And what can the obedience of a guilty person merit? but ex debito promissi, according to God's promise, by which he hath as it were entailed Blessedness on those who hear his word, and keep it: Hebr. 6.10. and God is not unrighteous to forget our work and labour of love. Oh let neither our obedience swell and puff us up as if God were our debtor, nor let us be so afraid of merit as not to keep God's word. Let not our anger against Papists transform us into Libertines, and let us not so far abominate an error in judgement as to fall into a worse in practice; let us not cry down Merit, and carry a Pope, nay Hell itself, along with us, whithersoever we go. Let us not be Papists; God forbidden: And God forbidden too that we should not be Christians. Let us rather move like the Seraphims, which having six wings, covered their face with the uppermost, Isa. 6.2. and not daring to look on the majesty of God; and covered their feet with the lowest, as acknowledging their imperfection in respect of him; but flew with those in the midst, ready to do his will. Let our obedience be like unto theirs: Let us tremble before God, and abhor ourselves: but between these two let the middle wings move, which are next to the Heart, and let our hearty Obedience work out its way to the end. For conclusion; Let us not look for Blessedness in the land of darkness, amongst shades and dreams and wand'ring unsettled phantasms. Fancy is but a poor petard to open the gates of heaven with: Let us not deceive ourselves. To call ourselves Saints will not make us Saints; to feign an assurance will not seal us up to the day of redemption. Presumption doth but look towards Blessedness whilst Disobedience works a curse, and carries us irrecoverably into the lowest pit. What talk we of the imputed righteousness of Christ, when we have none of our own? what boast we of God's grace, when we turn it into wantonness? The imputed righteousness of Christ is that we stand to when we are full of all iniquity: and this we call appearing in our elder brother's robes and apparel, that, as Jacob did, we may steal away the blessing. Thus the Adulterer may say, I am chaste with Christ's chastity; the Drunkard, I am sober with Christ's temperance; the Covetous, I am poor with Christ's poverty; the Revenger, I am quiet with Christ's meekness; he that doth not keep his word, may keep his favour; and, if he please, every wicked person may say that with Christ he is crucified, dead and buried. As Calvisius Sabinus in Seneca thought he did do himself what any of his Servants did; if his servant were a good Poet, he was so; if his servant were well-limbed, he could wrestle; if his servant were a good Grammarian, he could play the Critic. And so if Christ fasted forty days and forty nights, we fast as long, though we never abstain from a meal: If Christ conquered the devil when he tempted him, we also are victorious, though we never resist him; If Christ opened not his mouth when he was haled to the slaughter, we also are as sheep, though we open our mouth as a sepulchre. And therefore as Seneca speaks of that rich man, Nunquam vidi hominem indecentius, I never saw a man whose Happiness did less become him: so most true it is, This obedience is but an unbeseeming garment, because it had no other artificer but the Fantasy to spin and work and make it up. Beloved, if we keep God's word, he will keep his, and impute righteousness to us though we have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God What talk we of applying the promises, which he may do who is an enemy to the cross of Christ. If we keep his word, the promises will apply themselves. And indeed applying of the promises is not a speculative, but a practic thing, an act rather of the Will then of the Understanding. When the Will of man is subject to the will of God, this dew from heaven will fall of itself. Upon them that walk according to the rule shall be mercy and peace, and upon the Israel of God. To conclude; If we put on the Lord Jesus, if we put him on all, his Righteousness, his Obedience, his Love, his Patience, that is, if we keep his word, he will find his Seal upon us by which he will know us to be his, and in this his likeness he will look upon us with an eye of favour, bless us here with joy and content, and so fit and prepare us for everlasting blessedness at the end of the world, when he shall pronounce to all that have kept his word that blessed welcome, Come ye Blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom 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 survey, 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, only 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 ourselves the joys 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 terror to the outward man, and so full of irksomeness 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 strive with ourselves; so many agonies, so many crucifyings of ourselves, so many pant 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 ourselves, 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 days 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 Baptism. 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 lain 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 ourselves 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 nearer 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 Peter's 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 grovelling 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 cloak 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 stripped 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 Logic: for it teacheth us to frame an argument or reason by which we may conclude unto ourselves 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 wherein he was buried, so these things of the world, in which we lie 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 interchangeably and mutually rest upon and hold up one another; and if you remove and take one away, the rest will fall: So it is here; These two especial stones of our spiritual building, our first Resurrection, and our Seeking of things above, do mutually hold up and mutually prove one another. For take away but the stone of our first Resurrection, and that of Seeking the things above will immediately fall; and take away the Seeking of the things above and there is no first Resurrection. Let us but grant that we are risen with Christ, and certainly we shall seek the things above: and if we find our minds fixed on the things above, we may infallibly conclude unto ourselves that we are risen with Christ. But I must come to my Division. These words, as all other conditional speeches and propositions do, naturally divide themselves into these two parts; 1. the Antecedent or foregoing part, If thou be risen with Christ; 2. the Consequent or following part, then seek those things which are above. We shall limit and bond our discourse within these three considerations: 1. That our conversion and newness of life is a Rising; which we ground upon these words, If you be risen. 2. That this our conversion and rising must be early, without delay; for which we have warrant in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The Apostle speaks in the time past; For he saith not, If you do rise; or, If you will rise; but, If you are risen, as supposing it to be already done. 3. Lastly, That the manifestation of our conversion, of this our rising with Christ, consists in our seeking of those things which are above, as Christ's was by appearing to his Disciples, and showing to them his hands and his feet. If you be then risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. Of these in their order. Though there be many words in Scripture by which our Newness of life is expressed, yet our Apostle in divers places of his writings makes especial choice of this of rising, as Ephes. 2.1. You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins; and v. 5. even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together in Christ; and hath raised us up together with Christ. And again chap. 5. he maketh use of that of the Prophet Isaiah, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. Omnis causa eousque in Adam censetur, donec in Christo r●●●●atur, saith Tertullian; Every soul is dead with the first Adam, 〈◊〉 it be raised up to life with the second: We may truly say of it, that it is departed, because God, who is the life of the Soul, is departed from it. And it being destitute of the favour of God, which should actuate and quicken it, the stench of Sin seizeth upon it, the worm of Conscience gnaws it, the horror of Infidility makes it like unto the fiends of Hell, & fit in sepulcro corporis vivo funus animae jam sepultum, and a living body is made the sepulchre to a dead soul: a soul that is dead, and yet dies every moment, multiplies as many deaths as sins, and, if that of the Schools be true, Peccator peccat in suo infinito, would be dead and dying to all eternity. Son of man, can these bones live? as the Spirit of God says unto the Prophet, Ezek. 37. Can these broken sinews of the Soul come together and be one again? Can such a disordered Clock, where every wheel is broken, be set again: Can this dead Soul be made a Saint, and walk before God in the land of the living? We may answer with the Prophet, Lord God, thou knowest: Thou knowest that this dissolved, putrified carcase may see the light again; that Mary Magdelene may rise from sin, as well as her brother Lazarus from the grave; that as we are fallen with Adam, so we may rise again with Christ; that these Stones being form into the faith of Abraham, may be made the children of Abraham, and this generation of vipers, having spit out their venom, may bring forth fruits worthy amendment of life. And this our conversion may well be styled a Rising for many reasons; for many ways it resembles it. First, the World may well go not only for a Prison, but a Grave. All the pomp and glory of it are but as dust and ashes; wherein we are raked up and buried. All the desires, all the pleasures of it, are but as the grave-cloths wherewith we are bound. And in the midst of these allurements, in the midst of these glories and sensual objects, the Soul rots and corrupts, and even stinketh in the nostrils of God. In the midst of all the greatness the world can cast upon us the Soul becomes worse than nothing: The Love of the world is as unsatiable as the Grave, and devours souls, as that doth bodies. But when through the operation of the Spirit we are taken out of the world, we have our resurrection. Then it may be said of us as Christ said of his disciples, They are not of the world; for I have chosen them out of the world; John 17. I have set them apart, and made them my peculiar people, that they may escape the pollutions of the world. 2 Pet. 2.20. They are born in the world, and in the world they are born again unto me. In the world they are, but not of the world. In the world they are, and in the world they traffic for another world, passing by this as not worth the cheapening; looking upon Beauty as upon a snare, loathing Riches as dung, and afraid of Pleasures as of Hell itself. They have a being, but not living in the world; for their life is hid with Christ in God. But as Christ, when he was risen, stayed yet a while upon earth before he ascended: so do Christians make a short abode and sojourn for a time in it as in a strange country, looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. In the world they have nothing: for they have forsaken all, surrendered all the things of the world to the world, Matth. 16. Luke 14. earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they are our Saviour's own words, by which not only the act of forsaking is signified, but such an affection of the mind, as placeth all things under Christ, is ready to fling them away if they cannot keep them, with Christ; having as if they had not, possessing as if they possessed not, having stepped into the world as mariners do sometimes out of their ship to the shore, there gathering these cockles, but ready upon the sign given to cast them away, and return with haste into the ship. So that in respect of the world it may be said of them as the Angel said of Christ, Why seek you the living amongst the dead: they are risen, they are not here. Secondly, at our Resurrection there will be a great change. For though we shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed. This corruptible 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 reform 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 itself, and Death devoureth us. For let us call the World what we please, our kingdom, 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 gins to appear to be that which he was not. So, no change, no resurrection. It is a gross error, 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 alas 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 passed 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 proffer, 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 unreprovable in God's 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 ourselves a mountain, and when we have done all it is but a molehill; 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 perverseness 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 Eunuches, saith our Saviour. Some are chaste, 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 form 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 God's 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 ourselves: 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 prince of this world, above every high thing that exalteth itself against Christ and the knowledge of God. He is not partiarius divinae sententiae, a divider with God and the World, in one part from the heaven, heavenly, and in the other part from the earth, earthy; but he is awake and alive, and active in the performance of every good duty. His obedience is universal and equal, like unto a Circle, and consists in an equality of life, in every respect answering to the rule, the command of God, as a Circle doth in every part equally look upon the Point or Centre. And being thus qualified, we may say of him as the Disciples did of Christ, SURREXIT VERE, Luke 24.34. He is risen indeed. Thus than you see our Regeneration is here expressed by our rising with Christ. We might afford you many other resemblances; but we must hasten. But here some man may say, How are the dead raised? and by what power do their souls come to this state of life? I will not say with the Apostle, Thou fool. But certainly there is no man so weak in faith but must confess that he that raiseth our vile bodies, must also raise our vile and unclean souls; he that calleth us from the dust of the grave, must also call us from the death of sin; he that changes our bodies must renew our minds. In our corporal resurrection and in our spiritual resurrection God is all in all. But yet the Soul doth not rise again as the Body, which is dust and near to nothing; but as a soul which hath an Understanding, though darkened; and a Will, though perverted; and Affections, though disordered. And as we pray, Turn us, so we promise that we will turn unto the Lord. He purgeth us, and we cleanse ourselves, He breaks our hearts, and we blow them up. We are told that he createth a new heart in us, and we are exhorted to be renewed in our minds. But solus Deus, for all this God doth all. For this New creature springeth up indeed out of the earth, and groweth up and flourisheth, illapsa maturantis gratia, by the influence of Gods maturing and ripening grace, which drops upon our hearts as the rain, and distils as the dew upon the tender herb. Take, if you please, S. Bernard's determination; and it is this, This our rising, saith he, is from God, and from Man; from God's grace, and from Man's will; but not so as if these two were coordinate, but subordinate. Grace and our Will do not share the work between them, sed totum singula peragunt, but each of them perform the whole work; Grace doth it wholly, and our Will wholly. God doth save us, and we work out our salvation, sed ut totum in illo, sic totum ex ipso, but so that it is wrought by the Will of man, so is man's Will wholly enabled thereunto by the Grace of God, which determineth the will, if not physically, at least morally. And this may satisfy any but those qui vinci possunt, persuaderi non possunt, who may be overcome with the force of truth, but not persuaded. We may ask the question, How we are raised? Divines may dispute and determine at pleasure: But it would be a more profitable question to ask ourselves, Whether we are willing to be raised? Whether when God calls us, and the Angel is ready to roll away the stone, when his countenance shines upon us, and when all lets and impediments are removed, we had not rather still rot in our graves then be up and walking. We may ask with the woman that went to the sepulchre, Who shall roll away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre? but we must ask and examine ourselves also, Whether we are well content it should be removed, and not rather defer our rising in hope that a time will come when we shall be plucked out of our graves whether we will or no, and vainly think, that we had not lain so long in the dust had God been willing to raise us. This is not to magnify the Grace of God, but to turn it, as S. Judas speaks, into wantonness, v. 4. and in a manner to charge God with our death, as if he were well pleased to see us in the grave, who calleth on us and commands us to come out, and threatens a worse place if we make not haste to come out. To attribute good by our Rising to God, is our duty; and we deserve not his grace if we will not acknowledge it: but to attribute our not Rising to him is a sin, and a sin which we must rise from, or we shall never rise. Hos. 13.14. Wherefore as he says, I will ransom thee from the power of the grave, I will redeem thee from death; so he says also by the Prophet Esay, and the Apostle repeats it Ephes. 5. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give the light. That this our Conversion, or our Rising with Christ, must be like Christ's Resurrection, early and without delay. The Apostle's word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ye are risen with Christ. This manner of speech which the Apostle uses is a most effectual persuasion. In civil business we have a rule, Fides habita saepe obligat fidem; It is a good means to make one an honest man, to pretend that we take him to be a very honest man, and deal with him as if indeed he were so. For shame to fail of that expectation which goes of a man many times makes him do better than he would. With this art doth S. Paul deal with his Colossians, and by pretending, that he supposeth them to be already risen he doth most effectually persuade them to rise. For they cannot rise too soon; they cannot rise soon enough. For it is not here as it is in other affairs. It is a property of things belonging to the world not to be seasonable but at certain times; and there is nothing which doth so much commend our actions as the choice of fit times and seasons in which they are done. Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, intempestivenes, and to be ignorant of times and occasions fitting every business, is counted amongst men a great vice and imperfection. For the World is like a Theatre in which all things cannot come at once upon the stage, and every thing hath but its part, its proper scene and time of action. It is with the things of this world as with harps and other curious instruments of music, which are put out of order with every change of weather: So the alteration of every circumstance brings them out of tune. But the things of God are of another nature. As himself is, such are they, always the same. Pietas omnium horarum res est, omnium aetatum, The practice of Godliness is at all times seasonable. That precept of S. Paul, Be instant in season, and out of season, concerns not only the Preacher of the word, but also every person that hath ears to hear it. If we preach the word at midnight, Acts 20. as S. Paul did; if with David we rise up early before the morning watch, if we pray seven times a day, if in our secret chamber, if in public before the congregation, if before princes, yet still is it seasonable. Now as all other parts of religious exercise, so our Regeneration and first Conversion unto God, which is here called rising, wheresoever it comes, can never be intempestive. Though it come in our old age, as it did to S. Peter, yet God is able to strengthen the weakness and imperfections of age. Though it come in our youth, as it did to S. John, yet God is able to rule and guide the most corrupt ways and passions of youth. Though it come in our childhood, as the word of God came unto Samuel, yet God is able to give understanding to childhood, yea God is able to open the mouths of babes and sucklings. Yet may you not take this as spoken to patronise any man in deferring and putting off his conversion from day to day, or that we may presume to make choice of what time we list, as if God would attend our leisure; but rather, to commend to you quickness of dispatch, and to show that you can never choose a time too soon. S. Paul here speaks not in the present, If you do arise: for this would argue that there were sometime when we were not risen: Nor in the future, If you would arise: for this were to give us some respite; Yet a little slumber, yet a little sleep; I may stay yet a little while in the grave; and yet rise soon enough: But he speaketh in the time past, If you are already risen, thus to anticipate and forestall all times for God. Our Saviour speaking in the Gospel of some parts of religious exercise, saith, These things ought you to do, and not to leave the other undone. Indeed those actions of religion the occasions of which come oft in our way, and which are often to be done, of these it is sufficient to say, These we must do: But this act of godliness of which we now speak, our Regeneration and new Birth, is of another nature. It is done but once by us in all our lives, and we may not say of it, HAEC OPORTET FACERE, This we must do; FECISSE OPORTET, NON FACERE, This aught to have been done long since, it must not be now to do. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Plato on another occasion; It is not now a time to take advise, but to use advise long since taken. Before our conversion to God whatsoever time was spent was lost: siquidem hominis Dei facta non debent aliunde numerari nisi ex quo, à Deo natus est; Christians must begin to account their lives, not from their natural birth, but from the day of their return unto God. Fui quidem annos sexaginta, vixi vero tantum septem, was the speech of an ancient Roman Gentleman; I have been indeed, saith he, threescore years, but I have lived but seven. Even from this heathen may we learn to distinguish betwixt to Be and to Live. Be it that we have spent our lives in studies and deep speculations, or in honourable employments, or in some gainful trade and vocation, yet all this is nothing, quia non ad utilitatem nisi saeculi partim, because before this first Resurrection the profit of these redoundeth only to the world. All the time thus spent we may account ourselves to have been, but not to have lived. Our Saviour according to the prophecies which went before of him, was to lie three days and three nights in his grave: And most true it is that he did so: For the Scripture is plain. Yet many Divines have had much ado to show how it was so. Such haste made he out of his grave that we can scarcely account his three days and three nights. He was buried on Friday about the ninth hour, and on the first day he risen about the dawning of the day, thus purposing as it were to give Death no more time than needs he must for the fulfilling of the Scriptures. And this is not done without a kind of mystery. For as Christ's Resurrection is a type and figure of our Rising from sin, so his lying in the grave resembles the state of our Regeneration in which we are but as dead men. Betimes in the morning, whilst it is yet dark, in the first dawning of our reason, ought we to arise to newness of life. For as soon as there is any possibility of becoming a Christian, every moment after that is too late, and too much time is taken from God. Indeed advise and consultation commend other actions, and out of good discretion and Judgement many times it is, that it is long before we set upon them, and our delay is accounted our wisdom: But in this action counsel is unseasonable, neither can there be any reason why we should delay it. It is not in the building up ourselves in our most holy faith, as it is in other buildings. The wise man in the Gospel intending to build a tower, first sits down and considers his means, whether he be able to compass it. But in this we need not advise with our purse. Though it be a high tower, yea higher than that of Babel, and reacheth up to heaven itself, yet none so poor but is of sufficient ability to finish it. When our Saviour Christ called his Disciples, we read not of any that made scruple but forthwith as soon as they were called, without casting any doubt or scruple at all, they immediately arose and followed him. No need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is not to do it. When S. Cyprian was before the Magistrate, and now ready to be condemned to the fire for Christ and his cause, the Magistrate began to counsel him to advise better, and take him to deliberate; but the blessed Martyr replies, Fac quod tibi praeceptum est: in retam justâ nulla consultatio; Do you, saith he, what you have commission to do; In so just an action as this there is no need of consultation. Again, as it is with new vessels, they savour long of the liquor with which at the first they were seasoned, and the longer the liquor lies in them the stronger will they relish of it; Even so it is with us; Whilst yet we are but new vessels, even as soon as we come from the wheel, from the hand of our Maker, by the envy of the Devil we become vessels of dishonour, seasoned with sin, as it were with unsavoury liquor; and of this more or less we savour all the days of our life. The best way then, if not quite to wash out, yet to abate at least, this teint and evil favour, is betimes to change the liquor, and not to suffer the infection to grow stronger by longer standing. Thirdly, when question was sometime made, At what time of age it was best for men to marry, it was answered, That for old men it was too late, and for young men too soon. This was but a merry reply. But the truth is many of our civil businesses whensoever they are done, are either done too soon or too late; for they are seldom done without some inconvenience: But this our Rising may peradventure be too late for old men, but it can never be too timely for the young. It is a lesson in Husbandry, Serere nè metuas, Be not afraid to sow your seed; when the time comes, delay it not. And it is a good lesson in Divinity, Vivere nè metuas, Be not afraid to live; You cannot be alive too soon. Vult, & non vult; He wills, and he wills not, is the character of a Sluggard, which would rise, and yet loves his grave; would see the light, and yet loveth darkness better than light; like the twin Gen. 38. puts forth his hand, and then draws it back again; doth make a show of lifting up himself, and sinks back again into his sepulchre. Awake then from this sleep early, and stand up from the dead, at the first sound of the trump, at the first call of grace. But if any have let pass the first opportunity, let him bewail his great unhappiness, that he hath stayed longer in this place of horror, in these borders of hell, than he should, and as travellers which set out late moram celeritate compensare, recompense and redeem his negligence by making greater speed. And now we should pass to our last consideration; That the manifestation of this our Conversion and Rising consists in the seeking of those things which are above. But the time is welnear spent, and the present occasion calls upon me to shorten my Discourse. For conclusion; Let me but remember you, that this our Rising must have its manifestation; and as S. James calls upon us to show our faith by our works, so must we show and manifest our Resurrection by our seeking those things which are above: It is not enough, with S. Paul, to rise into the third heaven, but we must rise and ascend with Christ above all heavens. Nor can we conceal our Resurrection, and steal out of our graves; but as Christ arose and was seen, 1 Cor. 15. as S. Paul speaks, of above five hundred brethren at once: and as S. Luke having told us of Christ, The Lord is risen; presently adds, and hath appeared unto Simon; so there must be after our Resurrection an Apparuit, we must appear unto our brethren, appear in our Charity, forgiving them; in our Patience, forbearing; in our Holiness of life, instructing them; in our Hatred of the world, and our Love of those things which are above. Indeed some men's rising is but an apparition, a phantasm, a shadow, a visor, and no more: But this hinders not us when we are risen, but we may make our appearance; nor must the Pharisee fright away the Christian. Quaedam videntur, & non sunt; Many things appear to be that which indeed they are not: But this action cannot be if it do not appear: If there be no apparition there is no Resurrection. It is natural to us, when we rise, to sh●w ourselves. If we rise to honour; Acts 25. you may see us in the streets, like Agrippa and Bernice, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with great pomp. If we rise in our Estates, (for that is the Worldlings Resurrection, and not to rise thus with him is indeed to be dead) you may see it in the next purchase. If we rise and increase in knowledge (which is a rising from the grave of Ignorance) then scire meum nihil est, we are even sick till we vent: knowledge is nothing it the world cry us not up for men of knowledge▪ And shall we be so ready to publish that which the world looks upon with an evil eye, and conceal that from men's eyes which only is worth the sight, and by beholding of which even evil-doers may glorify God in the day of visitation. Shall Dives appear in his purple, and Herod in his royal apparel, and every scribbler be in print, and do we think that rising from sin is an action so low that it may be done in a corner? that we may rise up, and never go abroad to be seen in albis, in our Easter-day-apparel, in the white garment of Innocency and Newness of life, never make any show of the riches and glory of the Gospel? have all our Goodness locked up in archivis, in secret, nothing set forth and published to the world? What is this but to conceal, nay to bury, our Resurrection itself? Nay rather since we are risen with Christ, let us be seen in our march, accoutred with the whole armour of God. Ephes. 2. ●0. Let us be full of those good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them, for by these we appear to be risen, and they make us shine as stars in the firmament. We may pretend perhaps that God is the searcher and seer of the heart. Well, he is so: sed tamen luceat opera, saith the Father, yet let thy light shine forth: make thy apparition. For as God looketh down into thy heart, so will thy good works ascend and come before him, and he hath pleasure in them. Lift up your hearts; They are the words we use before the Administration: and you answer, We lift them up unto the Lord. Let it appear that you do. And therefore as you lift up your hearts, so lift up your hands also. Lift up pure and clean hands, such hands as may be known for the hands of men risen from the dead. Let us now begin to be that which we hope to be, spiritual bodies, that the Body being subdued to the Spirit, we may rise with Christ here to newness of life, which is our first Resurrection, and, when he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead, we may have our second Resurrection, to glory, in that place of bliss where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. To which he bring us who is our Resurrection and Life, even Jesus Christ the righteous, who died for our sins, and risen again for our justification. To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be all honour and glory for evermore. The Six and Thirtieth SERMON. PHILIPP. I. 23. For I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to departed, and to be with Christ, which is far better. Or, For I am greatly in doubt on both sides, desiring to be loosed, and to be with Christ, which is best of all. WE may here behold our blessed Apostle S. Paul as it were between heaven and earth, doubtfully contemplating the happiness which his Death, and the profit which his Life may bring, perplexed and labouring between both, and yet concluding for neither side. To be with Christ is best for him; to remain on earth is best for the Philippians. What can be better for him then heaven? and what can be better for his brethren then by his ministry to be fitted and prepared for heaven? It is much better, saith he, for me; there he lays hold on Abraham's bosom: v. 24. But it is more needful for you; and I know I shall abide with you all; v. 25. there he doth as it were pull his hand back again, as willing to lose so much time out of paradise to serve his brethren on earth, a valley of tears and misery. There be poor to be fed, poor souls to be delivered out of the snare of the Devil, and snatched out of the fire, the Church to be increased, God to be honoured in his Saints; and now though pressing forward to the prize and price of his high calling, he stays and demurs, he checks his desires; he desires, and he desires not; he is in a great straight; he feels a double motion in himself, and in appearance a contrary motion, a desire to live, and a desire to be dissolved, a desire to be with Christ, and a desire to remain with his brethren, both springing from the same principle, the Love of God. He would lay down his earthly tabernacle because he loves him, and he would abide in the flesh because he loves him. Mortem habet in desiderio, vitam in patientiâ, saith S. Hierome; He desires to die, and yet is willing to live; and to both the love of Christ constraineth him. For, saith he, I am in a great strait, desiring to departed (or, to be loosed) and to be with Christ, which is far better. In this speech S. Paul presents unto us his Doubt and his Desire: his Doubt, which to choose, Life or Death; and his Desire fixed on the last, his Departure and Dissolution; a desire so reasonable that it leaves no room for doubt. For 1. he doth not simply and absolutely desire it, but upon reason; and his reason is most warrantable, most undeniable, he would departed, to be with Christ. 2. That reason is backed with another, with a MULTO MAGIS MELIUS, It is far better. These carry strength enough, one would think, to deliver S. Paul out of his strait, to redeem him from all perplexed doubtings. For it is an easy matter to choose when we know what is best. When the object appears unto us with a multò magis melius, it is a foundation sure and firm enough, and we may soon build a resolution on it. What doubt, when the object appears in such beauty and excellency? When heaven gates stand open, who can doubt to go in? When Christ is so near a man, as but to be dissolved and loosed is to meet him, shall he draw back and doubt: and yet S. Paul doubts and is in a great strait, and professeth he knows not what to choose. We will therefore in the first place behold him in his Straight, and consider his Doubt; and then in the second commend to you his Desire. And the topics or reasons to commend it by are wrapped up in the object, even in Death itself: For 1. it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a dissolution, a resolving of the whole into its parts. 2. It brings us to Christ; and then we cannot but conclude that that is much the best, and the fittest object for our desire to fasten itself upon. These are the particulars; and with these we shall exercise your devotion at this time. First let us behold S. Paul in his strait, and there see him ignorant, and yet knowing, what to choose; doubting, and yet resolving what is best. What to choose I wots not, and, to be with Christ is best, in the Text; v. 21. and in the next verse, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And we may say with Bernard, Affectus locutus est, non intellectus, that it was the language of his Love and Affection, not of his Understanding. Yet he spoke with the spirit, and he spoke with his understanding also. His Understanding did dictate what was best for himself, and he well understood what was best for them; but his Love to Christ and them put upon him these golden fetters, bound him within this straight, and swallowed up his Love to himself; nay to his Will and Understanding, in victory. And now he will not have what he desires, he knows not what he knows, and cannot choose that which he cannot but choose. Such riddles doth Love make, and yet unfolds them; such perplexities doth it bring us to, and yet resolves them; such seeming contradictions doth it put us upon, and yet makes them plain. The Apostle would be with Christ, and yet remain with the Philippians; he would be dissolved, and yet live; he would be in paradise, and yet stay on earth; he would have what is best for himself, and yet will have what is best for the Philippians furtherance and joy of faith; and his Love of God's glory and the Churches good reconciles all. This hath the praeeminence in all; this bows and sways his will from that which was best for himself to that which was best for others; this answers all objections; this is able to justify the greatest solecism; this hath a privilege, that it cannot be defamed. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Plato; By a kind of law Love hath the prerogative of Honour, makes slavery free and disgrace honourable, makes earth a fit place for a Saint than heaven, makes service more necessary than reward, and made this Apostle willing to retire even when he was entering into his Master's joy. The Glory of God and the Good of his Church, being put in the scales outweigh our Will and earnest Desire, and make us willing prisoners for a while, longer in these tabernacles of flesh. S. Paul here was willing to prolong his trouble, to defer his joy, and to stay some time from Christ, that he might carry more company along with him. From this heroic spirit and height of love was that strange wish of his to be accursed from Christ for his brethren's sake. Pro amore Christi noluit habere Christum, Rom. 9.3. saith Hierom, his Love of Christ did seem so far to transport him that no honour him he would even lose him. And so some of latter time have interpreted those words, That he was willing to purchase the salvation of his brethren with the loss of his own, and to redeem them from destruction to fall into it himself. But this had been such a love, cujus non audeo dicere nomen, a love which was never yet heard of in the world. This had been a wish inconsistent with Love. For how can one man's soul be the price of another? Nor can it be lawful for any Christian to wish the loss of that which he is bound to work out with fear and trembling; Or, if it were, it would far exceed the love of Jesus Christ himself, who was Love itself. The Apostles love was great unto his brethren, but not irregular: It laid aside all respect of himself, but not of the precepts of Christ: It trod down the Man, but not the Christian under its feet: It devoted the Honour and Repute and Esteem which he had in Christ's Church to his brethren, but not his Soul. I could wish to be accursed, to be Anathema, i. e. to be in esteem as a sacrilegious person, who for devouring holy things is Anathema, cut off and separated from the society of men, to suffer for them the most ignominious death, (for so the word doth often signify) to be separate from Christ, from the body and Church of Christ, and of his Apostle and Ambassador, to be made the offscouring of the world, the most contemptible person on earth, a spectacle to God and to men and to Angels. And this could not but proceed from an high degree and excess of Love. Love may break forth and pass over all privileges, honours, profits, yea and life itself, but it never leaves the Law of God behind it. For the breach of God's law is his dishonour; and love, if it be spiritual and heavenly, is a better methodist then to seek to gain glory to God by that which takes it away; at the same time to cry Hail to Christ, and crucify him. It was indeed a high degree of the Love of God's Glory and his brethren's salvation which expressed this wish here from the Apostle, and which brought him into this straight: but his wish was not irregular, and his Doubt was not of that nature but he could make himself away to escape, and did resolve at last against himself for the Glory of God and for the good of his brethren. For the Glory of God first. That that must be the first, the first mover of our Christian obedience. For though there be other motives, and we do well to be moved by them, the Perfecting of our reason, the Beautifying of the Soul, and the Reward itself, yet this is first to be looked upon with that eye of our faith wherewith we look upon God. Heaven is a great motive, but the Glory of God is above the highest Heavens, and for his Glories sake we have our conversation there. We do not exclude other motives as unfit to be looked upon. For it is lawful, saith Gregory, for a Christian remunerationis linteo sudores laboris sui tergere, to make the sight of the reward as a napkin to wipe off the sweat of his brows, and comfort the labour of his obedience with hope. But the chief and principal matter must be the Glory of God. The other ends are involved in this, sicut rota in rota, as a wheel within a wheel, a sphere within a sphere: but the Glory of God is the first compassing wheel, which must set all the rest a working. We must neither live nor die, but to God's glory. The Glory of God and our Happiness run round in the same cord or gyre, but the Glory of God is primum mobile, still on the top. And then our Love to God comes nearest and hath the fairest resemblance to the Love God hath to us; whose actions are right in themselves, though they end in themselves; whose glory is the good of his creature. In a word, he that loveth God perfectly, cannot but deny himself, neglect himself, perish and be lost to himself; but then he riseth again and is found in God, whilst he thinks nothing but of him, whilst he thinks he is loved of him, and thus lives in him, whilst he is thus lost. Amor testamentum amantis, Our Love to God should be as our last will and testament, wherein we deliver up all to him, our whole life on earth, and some few years which we might have in heaven, to him we thus love. To this high pitch and unusual degree of love our Apostle had attained. What is his desire but to be with Christ? Oh for the wings of a Dove! for he cannot be with him soon enough. But then the desire of God's Glory stays him in his flight, and deteins him yet longer among the sons of men, to make them the sons of God, and so to glorify God on earth. And this inclination to glorify God is in a manner natural to those who are made partakers of the Divine nature; and the nearer we come to the nature of God, the more do we devote and surrender ourselves for his glory. We will do any thing, suffer any thing, for the glory of God. In the next place; This Love of God's Glory hath inseparably united to it the Love of our brethren's Good. For wherein is God's Glory more manifested then in the renewing of his image in men, who are filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to the glory and praise of God. It is true, Phil. 1.11. the Heavens declare the Glory of God: But the glory of God is not so resplendent in the brightest Star, in the Sun when he runneth his race, as in the New creature, in Man transformed by the renewing of his mind. There is God's image, nay, saith Tertullian, his similitude and likeness: There he appears in glory; There is Wisdom, his Justice, his Mercy are displayed and made manifest; There his glory appears as in his holy Temple. For as the Woman is the glory of the Man, in being subject to him, so are we the glory of God when we are Deiformes, when our Will is subject and conformed to him, when our Will is bound up in his Will. For then it may be said, that God is in us of a truth, shining in the perfection of beauty, in those graces and perfections which are the beams of his, in our Meekness, and Liberality, and Justice, and Patience, and Long-suffering, which are the Christians Tongue and Glory, and do more fully set forth Gods praise then the tongues of Men and Angels can do. Thus God's Glory is carried along in the continued stream and course of all our actions; Thus doth it break forth and is seen in every work of our hand, and is the echo and resultance of every word we speak: The echo of every word, nay, the spring of every thought, which begat that word and work. Now to improve the Glory of God in his brethren, to build them up in their most holy faith, and upon that foundation to raise that Holiness and Righteousness which are the fairest representations of it, did S. Paul, after that contention and luctation in himself, after he had looked upon that place which was prepared for him in heaven, and that place of trouble and anxiety to which he was called on earth, determine for that which was not best for himself but most fit and necessary to promote God's glory by the furtherance of the Philippians faith. And thus as every creature doth by the sway of Nature strive to get something of the like kind, something like unto itself, as Fire by burning kindles and begets itself in every matter that is combustible, so doth every true Disciple of Christ strive to make every man he sees a disciple. Abraham; as he was called faithful Abraham, so made himself the father of the faithful, and did command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, which was to beget them in the Lord. Joshua and his household will serve the Lord. David, having tasted how gracious the Lord was, calls others to make trial, and drink of the same cup. This is the good man's, nay the Angels, Jubilee, to see others turn unto the Lord. The weeping Prophet wished his head a fountain of tears when men dishonoured God by their rebellion. Moses wish was that all the people could prophesy. One Prephet draws on a goodly fellowship of Prophets, one Apostle a glorious company, one Saint a noble army. For when the spirit of Holiness, whose operation is like that of Fire, is hot within men, it spreads itself violently like that element which hath voracitatem toto mundo avidissimam, as Pliny speaks, is a restless element, and either spreads or dies. Grace being kindled from the Father of Lights, from him who is Light itself, takes in others, and licks up every thing about it, as the fire did which Elias called down from heaven. S. Paul being inflamed with this heat, what would not he do? what would not he suffer? He would spend and he spent; he would offer up himself a sacrifice for the Philippians; he would stay on earth when he desired to departed; he would abide in the flesh, an irksome thing to one so spiritualised, and now ready to put on the crown which was laid up for him; he would retire for a while even from Joy itself, that the Philippians might become what he was truly styled, the Servants of Jesus Christ. We may think it perhaps a strange sight, to see so great an Apostle, so filled with revelations, one that had been in the third Heaven, to be now in such a straight; one that had received the Truth, neither by men, nor of men but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, to doubt and to be ignorant what to do. But thus to be at a stand and in doubt, thus to consider both conditions, of this and the next life, and then to conclude against himself for the Glory of God and the Salvation of his brethren, could not but proceed from a most heroic and divine Spirit, a Spirit that had subdued the Flesh, nay conquered itself, and preferred the Glory of God before his own Will, though regular and warrantable, the same Spirit which was in Christ, qui quod voluit effici, id ipsum concedi sibi non voluit, as Hilary speaketh, who would not have that granted which he would have done. I say, none but those who have such a spirit are subject to such a doubt, none but those who are thus free are brought to such a strait. They who are fleshly and wordly-minded, the children of this world, are so wise indeed in their genaration, that they are never thus perplexed, they never demur or doubt with S. Paul, they are never shut up in his strait. No; as they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come, so it is not in all their thoughts. Nusquam aqua haeret, they never stick or are in perplexity, but are sudden and positive, and soon conclude for themselves, Here, here let us build us a tabernacle; Here amidst the fading pleasures and flying vanities of this world; here, amongst shadows and apparitions, amongst those kill tentations which we love, amongst those occasions of evil which we will run and meet and embrace; in the midst of all the snares the Enemy can lay, which we delight to be caught in, and look upon our fetters as ornaments: Here let us dwell for ever, for we have a delight therein. What is the Glory of God unto us, who thus glory in our own shame? What will we do to save our brother's Soul, who so prodigally prostitute our own? Not a spark of the fire in us which was in S. Paul, no trouble, no doubt in us, not the least consideration of God, ourselves and our brethren. And thus we pass on securely, wantonly, delicately, not fearing the bitterness of death, never in any straight till we are shut up in that prison out of which we shall never come out. And this is the most pleasing and the most sad condition we can fall into. This security is our danger. This lifting ourselves up is our ruin. A diligent, troubled, perplexed Christian shall find light in darkness, resolution in doubting, and a way to escape in the greatest strait. To conclude this; If the same mind were in us which was in S. Paul, if the same mind were in us which was in Christ Jesus, we should then look upon our calling to be Christians as the most delightful and the most troublesome calling. We should not hope to pass through it without rubs and difficulties, without doubts and dispute in ourselves: We should compare one thing with another, often put up questions, and have fightings and struggle in ourselves: We should desire that which is best for ourselves, and conclude for that which is best in the sight of God. For this we must do, even sometimes curb and restrain ourselves in our lawful desires, and, when we set forth forth for the Glory of God, leave them behind us, stay his leisure to do him service; deny ourselves in our own desires; desire to put off the flesh, and yet resolve to abide in the flesh; lay down all our wills and desires, and bow to the will and Glory of God. With S. Paul here, we may retain both, a resolution to glorify God in our mortal bodies, and a desire to be loosed and to be with Christ, cheerfully entertain the one, and yet earnestly desire the other. They were both here in the Apostle, and the same Love was mother and nurse to them both. I am in a great strait; It was Love perplexed him; and the Love of Christ raised up this desire to be with him. For I am in a great strait, desiring to be loosed, and to be with Christ. And so we pass from S. Paul's Doubt to his Desire. And indeed had be not been in this straight, he had not had this desire; which nothing can raise up but the Love of God and his glory. This Desire carries nothing in it that hath any opposition to the will of God. It is not wrought in us by Impatience, or Sense of injuries; for the Christian hath learned to forgive them: Not by Contumely and Disgrace; for the Christian can bear & contumeliam contumeliae facere, and so fling disgrace upon Contumely itself. It is not the effect of any evil; for the Christian can overcome evil with good. The Stoics indeed thought quaerendam potiùs mortem quàm servitutem ferendam; That the best remedy for Slavery, Contumely, or a tedious Sickness was to force the Soul from the body, which was now become a prison and place of torment to it. And in this they did contradict themselves, who brought in their Wiseman senseless of pain, even on the rack and wheel. When the Body is an unprofitable burden, unserviceable to the Soul, oportet educere animam laborantem, we ought to do drive the Soul out of such an useless habitation. Cum non sis quod esse velis, non est quod ultrà sies; When thou art what thou shouldst be, there is no reason thou shouldst be any longer. Quare mori voluerim quaeris? En, quia vivam; Would you know the reason why I would die? The only reason is, because I do live. These were the speeches of men strangers from the commonwealth of Israel, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of those who were without, without Christ, and so without God in this world. But the Christian keeps his station, and moves not from it injussu Imperatoris, but when the Lord of all the world commands; who hath given us a Soul to beautify and perfect with his graces, but hath not given us that power over it, when it is disquieted and vexed, as he hath given to the Magistrate over us if we offend and break the peace of the commonwealth. Qui seipsum occidit, est homicida, si est homo, He that kills himself is a murderer and homicide, if he be a man. And he that thus desires death, desires it not to that end for which it is , to be with Christ, but to be out of the world, which frowns upon him, and handles him too roughly, which he hath not learned to withstand, nor hath will to conquer. This desire is like that of the damned, that hills might cover them, and mountains fall on them, that they mig●● be no more. No; this desire of S. Paul is from the heaven, heavenly, drawn from that place where his conversation was, wrought in him by the will of God, and bowing in submission to his will; a longing and panting after that rest and sabbath which remains, after that crown which was laid up for him. And this Desire filled the hearts of all those who with S. Paul loved God in sincerity and truth, in whom the Soul, being of a divine extraction, and like unto God, and cleaving and united to him, had a kind of striving and inclination to the things above, and was restless and unquiet till it came to rest in him who is the centre of all good. Here they acted their parts in the world as on a stage, contemned, hated, reviled it, trod it under foot, and longed for their exit to go out. Vae mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est, saith David; Woe is me that I sojourn in it any longer. So Elias, who could call down fire from heaven, give laws to the clouds, and shut and open heaven when he would, cries out unto God, It is enough; Take away my life: for I am not better than my fathers. And this affection the Gospel itself instills into us in that solemn Prayer, Thy kingdom come, wherein we desire, saith Tertullian, maturius regnare, & non diutiùs servire, to reign in heaven sooner, and not to stay longer and serve and drudge upon the earth. Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death, this whole state and generality of sins, of Calamities, and those evils which the world swarms with, life brings along with it. So Pharaoh speaking of the Locusts which were sent, Entreat, saith he, the Lord your God to take away this death from me. This desire that was in S. Paul, in some degree possesseth the heart of every regenerate person and is nourished and fomented in them by the operarion of the blessed Spirit, as a right spirit, a spirit of Love, working in us the Love of God, and as a spirit of Peace filling our hearts with Peace, making our conscience a house of Peace, as the Ark of God, as the Temple of Solomon, where no noise was heard; We love Christ, and would be there where his honour dwelleth, our conscience is at rest, and we have confidence in God. Now first, to love God is not a duty of so quick dispatch as some imagine. It is not enough to speak good of his name, to call upon him in the time of trouble, to make laws against those which take his name in vain, to give him thanks for that he never did and will certainly punish, to make our boast of him all the day long. For do not even hypocrites and Pharisees the same? But to love him is to do his will, and keep his commandments. John 17. By this we glorify him. I have glorified thee on earth, saith Christ, and the interpretation follows, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do, that is, I have preached thy law, declared thy will, published both thy promises and precepts, by the observation of which men may love thee, and long after thee, and be delivered from the fear of death. Idem velle, & idem nolle, ea demùm est firma amicitia; then are we truly servants and friends to God, when we have the same will, when we have no will of own. The sting of Death is sin; and there is no way to take it out, to spoil this King of terror of his power, but by subduing our Affections to our Reason, the Flesh to the Spirit, and surrendering up our wills unto God. Then we dare look Death in the face, and ask him, Where is thy terror? Where is thy sting? God loves them that love him, nay he cannot but love them, bearing his Image, and being his workmanship in Christ; And he that is thus loved and thus loves cannot but hasten and press forward, and fly like the Doves, as the Prophet speaketh, to the windows of heaven. It is a famous speech of Martin Luther, Homo perfectè credens se esse haeredem Dei, non diu superstes merueret; A man that perfectly and upon sure grounds doth believe himself to be the child and heir of God, would not long survive that assurance, but would be swallowed up and die of immoderate joy. This is that transformation and change by which our very nature is altered. Now Heaven is all, and the World is Nothing. All the rivers of pleasures which this world can yield cannot quench this love. What is Beauty to him that delights in the face of God? what is Riches to him whose treasure is in heaven? what is Honour to him who is candidatus Angelorum, whose ambition is to be like unto the Angels? This true unfeigned Love ravisheth the soul, and setteth it as it were in heavenly places: This makes us living dying men, nay dead before we depart; not sensible of Pleasures which flatter us, of Injuries which are thrown upon us, of Miseries which pinch us; having no eye, no ear, no sense, no heart for the world; willing to lose that being which we have in this shop of vanities, and to be loosed, that we may be with Christ. Secondly, this Love of God and this Obedience to his will not only placeth us upon, but, as Solomon speaks, makes us an everlasting foundation, by raising up in us a good conscience. And this it doth as necessarily as fire sendeth forth heat, or the Sun light. For it is impossible to love God sincerely, and not to know it; and it is as impossible to know it, and not to speak it to our own heart, and comfort ourselves in it. For Conscience follows Science. A light it is which directs us in the course of our obedience; and when we have finished our course, by the Memory it is reflected back upon us: It tells us what we are to do, and what we have done. We have a kind of short but useful Genealogy in S. Paul, 1 Tim. 1.5. The end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. From Faith unfeigned ariseth a good Conscience; from that, the Purity of the inward man; from that, that Peace which maketh us draw near with confidence to the throne of Grace. A golden chain, where every link fits us in some degree for a dissolution; nay where every link is unseparably annexed to each other, and with it we cannot but tend naturally and cheerfully, yea and hasten, to our place of rest. For our Conscience is our Judge, our God upon earth: And if it be of this royal extraction, the product of our Faith and Obedience, it will judge aright: it will draw the Euge to us, and tell us what sentence the Judge will pass at the last day: and we even now hear in our ears; Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into thy master's joy. And when our Conscience hath passed this sentence upon us, we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, boldness and confidence, towards God. This, this is an everlasting foundation; and upon it we build as high as Heaven. Our thoughts and desires, our long and pant, soar up even to that which is within the vail, which is yet hidden, and we are earnest to look into. Let us then exercise ourselves to have always a conscience void of offence, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The word intimates the clearness of a way, where no spy can discover any thing amiss. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Suidas is speculator, explorator, a Scout, a Spy: So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a conscience clear and free from offence. The want of this makes Death a King of terrors, and puts more horror in the Grave than it hath. When Death comes towards wicked men on his pale horse, it comes as a Sergeant to arrest them, to put them out of possession of that which they had taken up as their habitation for ever; to banish them out of the world, which they made their paradise, and to let them into eternity of torment, If we love the world, how can the love of God abide in us? We plead for titles, saith a learned Gentleman of our own, who had large experience of the vanity and deceitfulness of the world, and was exemplum utriusque fortunae, an example of both fortunes, good and evil; We plead for titles till our breath fails us; we dig for riches whilst strength enables us, we exercise malice whilst we can revenge; and then when Age hath beaten from us both youth and pleasure and health it s lf, and Nature itself loatheth the House of old Age, we then remember, when our memory gins to fail, that we must go the way from whence we must not return, and that our bed is made ready for us in the grave. At last looking too late into the bottom of our conscience (which the Vanities of the world had locked up from us all our lives) we behold the fearful image of our actions past, and withal this terrible inscription, THAT GOD SHALL BRING EVERY WORK INTO JUDGEMENT. Thus he. And this our way uttereth our foolishness, in increasing the fear of Death and Judgement by striving to chase it away; never thinking of Death's sting till we feel it; putting by all sad and melancholy thoughts in our way, till they meet us again with more horror at our journey's end. This is it which makes Death, which is but a messenger, a King, yea, a King of terrors. We can neither live, nor are willing to die, with such a conscience; whereas had we learned, as Seneca speaks, and studie● Death; had we not fed and supplied this enemy with such weapons a make him terrible; had we cut from him now this, now that desire, an anon another (for Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fights against us with ourselves with our Wantonness, and Luxury, and Pride, and Covetousness,) ha● we spoilt him of those things which make Death terrible and the D●●vil our accuser, we might have boldly met him, nay desired to meet him For why should they fear Death who may present themselves with com●fort before God, and shall meet Christ himself in all his glory coming i● the clouds. To conclude; Death shall be to them who love God and keep a good conscience, a messenger of peace, a gentle dismission into a better world, an Ostiary to let us in to the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore. Our Apostle here calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but a departing or dissolution. To which we should lead you, but we cannot now so fully speak of it as we would, and as the matter requires: we will therefore reserve it for some other time. The Seven and Thirtieth SERMON. 1 COR. XI. 1. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. THat which the Philosopher telleth us in the first of his Ethics, that we must not look for that certainty in Moral Philosophy which we do in the Mathematics, is most true, And the reason is as plain: For the Mathematician separateth and abstracteth the forms and essences of things from all sensible matter. And these forms are of that nature for the most part that they admit not of the interposition of any thing. Inter rectum & curvum nihil est medium; Between that which is strait and that which is crooked there is no medium at all: for there is no line which is not either strait or crooked. But in Morality and in the duties of our life, the least circumstance varieth and altereth the matter, and the forms there handled have something which cometh between; so that there is an inclination which draweth us near sometimes to the right hand, sometimes to the left, sometimes to one extreme, sometimes to another. And in respect of this variety of circumstances it is that the Philosopher telleth us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is a hard matter many times to make our choice, or in our judgement to prefer one thing before another. Therefore they who have given us precepts of good life, have also delivered us rules to guide us in this variety of circumstances, that we swerve neither to the right hand nor to the left. For, as in artificial works the artificer's hand is busy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the production of a new piece or work, but his skill consisteth and is most seen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the contemplation of the rules of art: So in the duties of Christianity semper in manu regula, as Seneca speaketh. Though the Christian be busy and intentive on his work, to promote and finish it, yet his eye is always upon the rule. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He that walketh without a rule winneth no ground. Not to prolong the time in mentioning divers instances which offer themselves, we will lay hold of this here, of our Apostles; Who walking as it were before the Corinthians in the ways of Christianity, calleth to them to follow after; but withal, for fear of danger, directeth their eyes to look upon the Rule. St. Paul is a great ensample, but Christ is a greater, both an Ensample and a Rule. And if this great Apostle of Christ follow not the Rule, we must leave him in his way: Be ye followers of me; But than it followeth, even as I also am of Christ. Which words contain 1. a Duty, Be ye followers of me; 2. a Direction, even as I also am of Christ. Give me leave to carry your meditations and devotion along with me, whilst I speak, 1. of the Use of Example and Imitation in general, 2. of the Object. St. Paul nameth himself; but we must not think that he appropriateth or taketh to himself the honour to be a pattern to others, but implieth all the Saints of God; who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lively and powerful ensamples. As the Logicians use the name of Socrates and Plato, and the Lawyers of Sempronius and Seius, when they indifferently mean any man; so St. Paul, though he speak in his own person, yet excludeth no man who, like himself, is a follower of Christ. Of these we shall speak in order. What the Orator said of his art of Oratory, Magna pars artis consistit imitatione, that a great part of that art did consist in imitation, is true also in our Christian Philosophy. Longum iter per praecepta: At the hearing of the precepts of Piety we are unwilling to set forth; when we are in our way, we place it on but slowly; and if we make any commendable progress, we are ready upon the least rub and opposition to retire and turn. How many are so foolish as to begin in the spirit, and end in the flesh? But when the ensamples of good men shine in our eyes, and revive the dull and slurred characters which are now fading and ready to slip out of our memory, there is some hope we will gather strength and recover our spirits, that we will mend our pace, and walk on cheerfully in those ways of Righteousness which the blessed Saints of God have made smooth and even by their glorious and fruitful ensample. Chastity is not so hard a lesson after so many Virgins; Taking up the cross hath not that horror upon it, since so many thousands have made it amiable; nor is Perseverance so tedious a virtue, when we look upon that glorious army of Martyrs who have stood out the shock of all temptations, and suffered unto death. Praeceptis obtemperare nolentibus adjunguntur exempla; To rouse and actuate the Will, which doth so slowly bow to the precept, God hath added ensamples of men of the same mould, to flatter and woo it to obedience. Nor is the truth of this so plain as the reason is obvious. Man is a phansiful creature, led on by Imagination, which conveyeth the species of things to the Understanding. Which being a counsellor to the Will, as one calleth it, presenteth them in that shape which maketh them lovely; presenteth Virtue as possible, as easy, as delightful, having been the choice of so many that have gone before us; presenteth her with a crown in her hand, which she will set on the head of every one that will embrace her. For the Understanding cannot perfect its act but by applying itself and having recourse to those phantasms which are nothing else but the likenesses and images and representations of things made up in the Fancy and Imagination. Hence St. Basil telleth us that our thoughts, which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, incorporeal hands, to lay hold on objects, are nothing else but as so many pictures drawn out by the Soul in their true colours and proportion. And this Experience itself doth teach us. When we would rightly apprehend a thing, we frame unto ourselves certain phantasms in the manner of ensamples, which the more visible and sensible they are the deeper impression do they make in the Understanding. The Philosopher, after he hath laid down his rules, giveth his proofs by letters and figures. And he giveth the reason in his Priors, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that so he might make things more plain, and lay them open to the eye. The Orator, in his Institutions, thought it good counsel, Pueris eburneas literarum formas offer, that parents, the better to teach their children, should cut them letters out in Ivory, or in any other metal their tender years did take delight in, that so they might tractare & nominare, look upon them and handle and often name them, and so learn to read even in their very sport. And we read of a Gentleman of Rome, who finding his son slow to learn, provided him four and twenty play-fellows like himself, and named them by the names of the letters of the Alphabet, that so his son might the better remember them. The use of Fables and Apologues, we know, is very ancient. And one lesson we have in Plato's Gorgias, how to draw together Fables and their application, which he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the head and principal part of the narration. For these representations do wonderfully please and flatter the imaginative part, which is most taken with the likenesses and images of things, more with the picture many times then with the essence of the thing itself. Achilles was a man of a goodly shape, and Thersites of a contemptible presence; yet in pictura aequè afficit Thersites, si sit similis, ac Achilles: We take as much delight to see the Picture of Deformity, if it be drawn to the life, as of Comeliness and Beauty. In luctu & moerore voluptas, saith the Philosopher; There may be pleasure in grief and sorrow; Not that Horror and Grief are delightful in themselves, but in their representation. To instance nearer home; We are not taken so much with the Kingdom of heaven as when we behold it in the Merchant's Pearl. We understand Christ's Office best when we are told he is a Shepherd which layeth down his life for his Sheep. To say, The day of Judgement cometh upon us on a sudden, striketh us not with that terror as when we hear it will steal upon us as a thief. The Usurer may teach us Christian thrift, and how to increase and multiply our talon. We may read our folly in the foolish Virgins, and our wisdom in the Wise. And this is the very reason which the Fathers give why our Saviour spoke so often in Parables. Because we stand in need of the help of ensamples, our Saviour himself, whose life was ensample enough to have instructed the whole world, proposeth others. The cruel Miser may read his destiny in Dives' burning tongue. Non guttam, qui non micam; He that would not give a crumb of bread, could not beg a drop of water. The Samaritane shall instruct the Lawyer; and if the Lawyer approve the mercy of the Samaritane, our Saviour is ready to drive the example home and apply it, Go, and do thou likewise. If the Disciples grow ambitious, and ask who shall be greatest, he will bring a child in the midst. If they be contentious, to wipe out that stain, he will wash their feet; If I your Master have washed your feet, you, who are but fellow-servants, aught to wash one another's feet, in all humility descend to the lowest office which the necessity of your brothers may require and call for. If the Master hath done it, it is no service, but an honour, to be like the Master, The Schools will teach us, Naturalia signa magis significant quàm positiva; Those signs which by their very nature and a kind of secret imitation signify things are far more expressive than those which art and humane invention have framed to this purpose, and most times we are better taught by things then by words, as we know a man better by his picture then by his name. Therefore some have been of opinion that the best and surest way to knowledge is that which the Egyptians of old used, and the men of China use to this day, to learn by Hierogliphics. Words may admit of glosses and interpretations, and therefore we are forced, as Tertullian speaketh, vindicare proprietatem vocabuli sorti suae, in our doctrines and disputes to vindicate and preserve the propriety of words entire: otherwise, we teach not that which we intent to teach, and two may dispute to the world's end, and yet be two and at odds. Fides nominum salus est proprietatum: Unless you retain their proper signification, there is no trust in words at all. To be justified by faith, the word is plain enough; and yet after 1600. years we are not agreed what it is to be justified. And the difference is but verbal: for some take the word in this sense, and some in that, and so dispute Andabatarum more, as blind men fight, blindfold and in the dark. The duties which concern our peace are written with the Sunbeams, and yet we cannot well read and understand them; but, when we should be up and doing, doubt, and ask the question what it is we are to do. Nec vitae discimus, sed scholae; We misspend that time in fruitless questions which was measured out unto us that in it we might be fruitful in good works. If I am to give, I stay my hand, because I will not know to whom I am to give, or how much. If I am to fast, I would first be resolved of the manner, and the time, and at last conclude and rest in that which is least terrible to the flesh: To change my diet, or to miss a meal, is to fast. If I am to pray, I am troubled whether I may use a form, or do it as the spirit, that is, my own fancy, shall on the sudden give me utterance. O what a strange darkness hath overspread the world, that men cannot yet see what it is to Fast, to Pray, to Give an Alms! What needless controversies and disputes hath it been filled with concerning the Church, and Heresy and , and the like! Quot palaestrae opinionum? quot propagines quaestionum? What wrestling in opinions? what multiplying of questions? which had all been stated, settled and composed, had not each party made advantage of the words which are capable of that sense and signification which either side will lay upon them. Therefore Martin Luther saith well, Omnes abutuntur his vocabulis; These words have been foully abused: Non enim fidei, sed suis studiis ea aptant; For men have so handled the matter in their disputes, that they have shaped and form them to their own purpose; not to the building up of each others faith, but of that polity in the Church which they affect. The CHURCH sometimes is a Congregation of Saints; and sometimes, like Noah's Ark, it taketh in both clean and unclean beasts; Sometimes it is a Body whose Head is in heaven; and sometimes it is a Body whose Head is also visible on earth. FAITH sometimes is an Assent and a full Persuasion of the truth of what is delivered in the Gospel; and sometimes it is an Application of the promises: With some it is an Instrument, and with some a Condition. And is confined to evil alone; which is not the freedom but the slavery of the Will, For can there be a greater slavery then to be free, that is, to be bound with the chains of darkness? Thus you see it is with words: But that representation which one thing giveth of another is more lively and constant; is not capable of so much ambiguity and dispute, but carrieth about with it the same face and countenance. It is true, the Rule in all things must have the preeminence: but we are too ready to make the Rule what we please; and many times it passeth by unregarded. But being written out in the practice of the Saints, it is of great force and efficacy. St. Paul in the flesh was the best commentary on his own Epistles. Would you define Humility to the life? behold Christ on the Cross. What better character of Zele then Phinehas with his spear nailing the adulterous couple to the ground? What fairer picture of Charity than the poor widow casting in her two mites into the Treasury? Would you know the true nature of Contrition and Repentance? You need not pass per spineta Scholasticorum, through the briers and intricate disputes of the Schools, but may learn it more perfectly in the practice of the primitive Saints: Behold them kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs, washing the feet of Lazars, wallowing at the Temple doors, adgeniculatos charis, on their knees begging the prayers of the Saints, with their hair neglected, their eyes hollow, their bodies withered, their feet bare, and their knees of horn, as Nazianzene poureth it out to us in a 'slud of eloquence, and draweth the picture for us. These were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Isidore speaketh, the living statues of all Christian Philosophy for us to look upon; more lively figures of true Christian Piety then all the dogmata, all the positions and definitions, of the Schools. And this I take to be the reason why God himself hath given us a fair catalogue of all the virtues of men and women famous in their generations, and hath been pleased to put it into the hearts of the living to preserve the memory of the dead. For this were the Diptyches 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 died in the Lord, and were at rest. To this end Churches were dedicated 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-days, honoured their memories, framed Panegyrics 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 than 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 fastened to their orbs, and so move together with them? We are on the dunghill, 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 pattern, may become as glorious a star as he, yea, by his holy emulation peradventure far outshine 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 ourselves 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 repent of; and our indignation is not on the Saint we look upon, but on ourselves; 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 wholesome 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 carrieth 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 hind's feet, not to follow but to run after those who are gone before, and are now in termino, at their journey's 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 showed 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 men's 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 steadfastly 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 triumph to follow after. In a word, by the virtue of Imitation it is that we become meek with Moses, patiented 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 magnify, but few follow. QUOTIDIE MORIOR, I die daily, was his Motto; and we had rather choose another, who tremble at the very thought that we must die once. St. Paul, a mark for all the miseries in the world to shoot at; In afflictions, necessities, distresses, in stripes and imprisonment, in watch and fastings; Who would be drawn out in these colours? Who would be such a Paul, though it were to be a Saint? Fellow 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 done: we never set a finger to the work. But the Emphasis is here in the Object; Be ye followers of me, and as many as with me follow Christ. All the Saints of God are a copy for a Christian to take out: And he is scarce a good Christian who, though he attain not to it, striveth not to be as good as, nay better then, the best. There are no bounds set to our Coveting the best gifts, none to this holy Ambition. For can we be too like Christ? Can we come too near heaven? Who would not be the happiest in heaven? and therefore who should not be the best on earth? It is good to look over this Paradise, and pick the choicest flowers. As the Orator telleth us, that he that will attain to the sublimity and majesty of speech, must fancy to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how Demosthenes, or Plato, or Thucydides would have spoken upon such a subject; so should we in the ways of Christianity contemplate with ourselves what St. Paul, or St. Peter, or some other of the blessed Martyrs, would have done in such a case. Would they have turned the back in the day of battle, or have spoke or sworn against their conscience at the sight of a glittering Sword? Would they have struck sail at every Pirat's threat? How did they pray, and fast, and endeavour towards the end? What Resolution was there in one? what meekness in another? what Patience in a third? what Perseverance in all? Quid ergò? non satis est sic omnia facere quemadmodum Paulus fecit? Quintilian asketh the question of Tully; and I of St. Paul, more famous for Piety than he for Eloquence; Is it not enough to do all things as St. Paul did, and make him our pattern? Yes certainly: And he maketh a glorious onset that doth but seriously attempt. But, as he there goeth on, it will be very advantageous in the ways of Eloquence to imitate the force and vigour of Caesar, the acuteness of Caelius, the diligence of Pollio, and the judgement of Calvus: So must we look upon St. Paul, and withal take notice of the particular virtues of other holy men of God; and it well be our spiritual wisdom to make that our own which is best in every man. This is that commendable diligence which Nazianzene admired in great Athanasius, that he placed before his eyes Moses, and Aaron, and Samuel, and Elias, and other men of God, and culled out the Meekness of one, the Zele of another, the Constancy of a third, aliorum multa, aliorum omnia, many virtues from some, all from others, and so made up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one specious and glorious image of goodness. This honour have all God's Saints. Though we may not worship them, or pray unto them (This were to dishonour not only that God who crowned them, but themselves also: for Honour, where it is not due, is a kind of contumely) yet this honour we must give them, to follow them on the same ladder by which they ascended up to heaven. By this we raise them as it were from the dead again, we revive their memories, we personate them in the world and act their parts. Our actions are the resultances of theirs, our praises the echoes of their songs, and ourselves the living pictures of the Saints. Nor can any scruple here arise to deter us. For though we are offended with their Pictures, we need not startle at their Piety: Though we will not be Idolaters (God forbidden we should) yet we must be Saints: Though we fall not down and worship them, yet we must follow them: Though there be no profit in their dust, yet there may be in their memory: Though they hear us not, yet we may hear of them with delight and advantage, and hear them calling us out of the world to that bliss which they enjoy; Though we may not worship their dead bones, yet we are bound to imitate their piety and goodness, which are verae Sanctorum reliquiae, as Cassander speaketh, the true relics of the Saints. Nec parva virtus, Dei amicos sic honorare, saith the Father; And it is no small virtue thus to honour the Saints and friends of God. For those that thus honour them, God will honour everlastingly. And thus much be spoken concerning the Use and Benefit of Example, and also of the Object here, St. Paul, and, under his name, all the Saints of God; In whom we must behold that which made them Saints, and take it out and express it in ourselves, that we also may deserve that name. We should now descend to take notice of the Abuse of Examples; Which we may avoid by having Christ in our eye as well as the Saints: Be ye followers of me; but than it followeth, even as I also am of Christ. But let us first make some use of that which hath already been spoken. And first, let us with thankful hearts lay hold on those helps and means which God hath fairly offered and setteth up in our way, to forward us in our passage unto bliss, to kindle and revive our hope, to strengthen our weak hands and feeble knees, that we may run the ways of God's commandments, which to flesh and blood are rugged and unpleasant, full of rubs and difficulties. And why should we despair to trace those paths which so many have trod before us, or reach that glory which so many have already attained? Heaven was not made for St. Paul alone, but for as many as will be like him. It is true, the Grace of God is sufficient for us; nor can we magnify it enough, if we understand what we say: But to talk of the Grace of God, and not make use of it, is to be an enemy to it. This is to cry Hosanna to the Son of David, and then to crucify him. We have the Grace of God to stir and move us, but not to carry us by violence into heaven. We have his promises of Peace and Eternal life; and that is a Grace. We have the ministry of the Angels, who do many good offices for us to this end; though we perceive it not; and this is a Grace, a favour: For Grace and favour are all one. And we have the ministry of Men, who either went before us, or are our companions in our way; and this is a Grace. Grace worketh in us by means, by the Word, by Promises, by the ministry of Angels, and by the ministry of Men, by their Doctrine, and by their Ensample: And, having such a wide, open and effectual door, Grace doth lead, but will not thrust, us in. And therefore let us glorify God for his Grace by making use of it, by harkening what the Lord God will say, though he speak unto us by men like unto ourselves, subject to the same passions and infirmities. Let us not loathe the water of life, when it is conveyed to us in earthen vessels, but think that God speaketh to us by St. Paul, and by all the Saints; that he speaketh to us by their words, and by their works. Let us think we hear him say, Go, and do likewise. Did I say, God speaketh by St. Paul, and by all the Saints? There be who will allow Paul holy, but not Saint; which is as if they should say he were a reasonable creature, but not a Man. But Saint is a name of danger, and hath brought men on their knees to commit Idolatry. By this argument the Sun must also lose its name, and not be called the Sun, because some have worshipped it. But it hath been given to wicked men, Saint Ignatius, and Saint Garnet And I fear it is given at this day to those who are as wicked as they. But God forbidden that an honest man should lose his name because sometimes it is given to a Knave, and because we call him Honest friend, who is our deadly enemy. What though the Pope have canonised them, and wrote them down in red letters in the Calendar? That, I am sure, cannot expunge their names out of the Book of life, nor yet unsaint them; unless you will say that a Virgin is no more a Virgin if once a strumpet call her so, or that Christ was not the Son of the living God because he was called by that name by a Legion of Devils. Such Gnats as these do these men strain at, who every day before the sun and the people shallow down camels. They check at every feather, and pull millstones upon their heads. They will not call Paul and the Apostles and the blessed Martyrs Saints; oh take heed of that! but they take that title to themselves, and in that name work not wonders, but commit those abominations which the blessed Saints of God abhorred. They scruple at the name of Saint, and triumph in that of a man of Belial. They tremble at a shadow which themselves cast, and court a monster. They startle at a straw, and play with a thunderbolt. O beloved, let not us be afraid of the name Saint, not be afraid to give it to others, though our Humility will not let us fix it on ourselves. There were Saints at Corinth, and Saints at Philippi, and Saints at Colosse, and Saints at Ephesus: St. Paul calleth them so: And shall we be afraid to give him and the rest of the Apostles, and the Martyrs of Christ, that name? Nay rather, In the second place, let us bless God for his Saints, and look upon them, and follow them in those ways which made them Saints, though honour and dishonour, through fire and water, through terrors and affrightments, through the valley of death, into the land of the living and the paradise of God. Let their glory work in us an holy emulation. Let us be sorry to see ourselves at such a distance; let us be angry at our own backwardness, let us love that virtue which hath crowned them, and let us labour in hope to overtake them, and live with them in the same region of happiness. Envy is a torment, but Emulation filleth us with Hope, which is a comforter. Indeed when we speak of the glorious Saints of God, we need make no mention of Envy: we are free enough from that. If any man be rich, or mighty, or honourable, or learned, we are presently on the rack: But if any man be good, we are well content he should be so alone. Righteousness and Temperance, and Martyrdom, which are bought at a dear rate, and cost us our very life and blood, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, without envy. We look back upon those Worthies which were our forerunners in the way to heaven, as upon sad and uncouth spectacles. We are ready to fright ourselves with the conceit of impossibilities; we talk of nothing else. The Law, we say, is impossible, and to follow the Saints is impossible. And why is it not to reign with them also impossible? And all this is for want of that Hope which we are as willing to stifle as the Examples of good men are active to kindle it in our hearts. Beloved, these great Ensamples are strong arguments against us; nec tàm praecipiunt, quàm convitium faciunt; they do not only call after us, but upbraid us if we follow not. They have virtue and power in them to raise a hope within us which may stir us up to action, and pull our hands out of our bosom. Quid deficimus? Quid desperamus? Quicquid fieri potuit, potest: Why do we faint or despair? Whatsoever hath been done by any Saint of God, may be taken up by us and done again. The very Heathen maketh it his argument; Ignem Mutius, exsilium Rutilius; Mutius overcame the fire: Socrates, poison: Rutilius, banishment; Cato, death. Singula vicerunt jam multi; & nos vincamus aliquid; Many have overcome several evils; let us overcome something. Is obedience difficult? Abraham would have sacrificed his son, his only son, at the command of God. Is Patience a burden? Job blessed God when he lay on the dunghill. Is Humility distasteful? You may behold the King of Israel in a dance. Is Martyrdom terrible? We have a cloud of ensamples, purpuratas nubes, those purple clouds, which have watered the field of Christ with showers of blood, that after them there may grow up Martyrs through all generations. This power, this influence have the Examples of the Saints, if we will but receive it, that we may grow up thereby. Brethren, I may boldly speak to you of the blessed Patriarches, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and of the blessed Apostle S. Paul, that they are both dead and buried: And though we have not their sepulchers with us, yet we have their Inscriptions; PERFECT NOAH; FAITHFUL ABRAHAM; DEVOUT DAVID; PAUL THE SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST; Which we should read and translate into ourselves, to drive us to Perfection, to confirm our Obedience, to nourish our Faith, and to raise the heat of our Devotion. Therefore, In the last place, let us emulate the best. Par est optimum quemque ad imitandum proponere, saith the Philosopher; It is fit we should propose the best patterns. Nay, Stultissimum est, it is folly not to do so, saith the Orator. Elige Catonem, saith Seneca; Choose such a man as Cato for thy example. Elige Paulum; Choose such a one as S. Paul, S. Peter, S. Stephen. And when any difficulty or tentation assaulteth thee, as S. Cyprian would often call for Tertullian's Works, DA MAGISTRUM, Give me my Master, so do thou, Da Magistros, Give me the examplcs of those glorious Saints of God, to settle and compose and establish me in all my ways. A shame it is that after so long a time, after so many fair and bright examples, after so great a multitude of Professors, when all Arts and Sciences are advanced every day, Grace and Holiness should suffer a kind of solstice, nay go back more than ten degrees; That so many Peter's and Paul's should pass by us, and not so much as their shadow reach us; That so many examples of perfection should shine in the Church, and we grope as in darkness, and follow meteors and illusions and false lights; That we should read of Joseph's Chastity, and be caught with every smile; of Mose's Meekness, and storm at every breath that crosseth us; of Job's Patience, and when calamity is but in the approach, roar as upon a rack; of Paul's Beating down his body, and pamper ours; of Paul's Keeping a good conscience, and lay down ours at every beck; That we should read of the acts of so many Saints, and do contrary, and yet hope to be as good Saints as they; That we should do the works of the Father of lies, and yet call him our Father who is the Good of Truth. Beloved, if we look upon the command, we shall find that every man should be a Joseph, a Moses, a Job, a Paul: For it looketh alike upon all. The same Law bindeth us, the same reward inviteth us, the same promises allure us, the same heaven openeth to receive us, if we obey. Our God is the same, and we are the same, and heaven is the same. Our great mistake is, that we conceive that a demensum, a certain measure of saving and sanctifying grace is given to every man, and so no man can be better than he is; that God hath set a bound to Piety, as he hath done to the Sea, Hitherto it shall go, and no further. Hereupon we lie down, and comfort ourselves, and turn the grace of God into wantonness; as if it were our duty not to be the best, and God would take it ill at our hands if we were as good as S. Paul. Be not deceived: We are called here to follow S. Paul, not as Peter did Christ, a far off, but to come up close to him, as near as we can, in all holiness and righteousness; to stretch our endeavours to the farthest, and with him, to press on towards the mark. We may come too short: it is impossible we should exceed. For though there be degrees of Holiness, and the Saints, as the Stars, differ from each other in glory; yet his light will soon be put out that maketh it not his ambition to be one of the greatest magnitude. If we come short, God will accept us; but not, if we fall short; because we thought it as needless as troublesome to mend our pace, consulting with flesh and blood, which soon concludeth, It is enough, and will teach us to ask ourselves that unprofitable question, What should we be as good as S. Paul? Fear not: It is no presumption to follow Paul in all the ways of holiness; it is no presumption to exceed him. Not to follow him, and expect the same crown, is great presumption: But to strive to follow him to the highest pitch, is that holy Ambition which will fit our heads for a diadem. And it was his wish whilst he was on earth, that every man were as he was except his bonds. To conclude then; Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise in any Saint, let us think on these things: Let us chew, and digest, and turn them into good blood; let us shape and fashion them in our hearts till they break forth into the like actions; that we acting the Saints, and following them here on earth, may with them follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; that our good works, by which we resemble them whilst we live, may follow us when we are dead, and make us like unto the Angels of heaven, blessed as they are, and blessing God for evermore. But so it is; Good examples glitter in our eyes, and we look up and gaze upon them as little children do upon a piece of gold, which they are ready to exchange for a counter. We are swift enough to follow the Saints of God in their errors and deviations, but are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ill expressers of their piety and religion. And there is as great danger in their examples where they betray themselves to be men, as there is profit where they are led by the Spirit of God. Therefore S, Paul putteth in a Caution; commendeth Imitation, but limiteth it; exhorteth the Corinthians to follow him, but withal restraineth them with a SICUT; Be ye followers of me; but, even as I also am of Christ; My last Part: Of which briefly. Those things which degenerate are so much the worse by how much the more useful they had been if they had been leveled by the rule. Therefore in Imitation besides the Persons, we must also consider What it is we must imitate in them. We must no farther follow them then they do the Rule. Ut in pessimis aliquid optimi, ita in optimis aliquid pessimi, saith St. Hierom. The best men are not privileged from sin and error: And as in the most men there is some good thing, though clouded with much corruption, so in the best Saints of God there may be something amiss, though scarcely seen, because of the splendour of those many virtues with which it is encompassed. For as many vices do darken one single virtue, so many virtues may cast a colour upon some one sin and error, and make it in appearance fair and beautiful, even like unto them, and commend it to our imitation. Here then is need of a SICUT, of a Caution and Limitation. For proclivis malorum imitatio; Men are too prone to follow that which is evil, especially where the person by his other better endowments not only palliateth but addeth authority to his fault or error. Examples of famous men are like unto two-edged swords, which cut deep both ways, both for the good, and for the bad. Against good examples we too oft hold up some buckler of defence, that they may not reach us: but evil examples we receive toto corpore, with an open body, and with a willing mind, and are well pleased they should wound us unto death. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many times of good men, those actions which fall from them by chance or inadvertency, we are more ready to take out then their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the works which made them famous to all the world and canonised them for Saints. Saepe vitium pro exemplo est: If there be any thing irregular in them, that we set up for a pattern and example. Tully telleth us of Fusius, that he fell short of those sinews and strength of eloquence which was in Caius Fimbria, and attained nothing but a bad gesture and the distortion of his countenance. And Quintilian observeth that there were many in his time, who thought they had gained a Kingdom in Eloquence, if they shut up every period and clause with esse videatur. But that is most remarkable which Gregory Nazianzene relateth of divers who were admirers of Basil, that they did imitate in their behaviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his corporal defects and blemishes, his paleness, his gate, his tardity and slowness of speech: And when he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a man collected in himself and much given to meditation, they affecting the like deportment fell into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sad kind of melancholy and stupidity. These defects many times overtake us, because we look upon the person, and never consider the Rule. How many are Sarahs', but to tell a lie? Rebekahs', but to deceive? Davids, but to revenge, or worse? Therefore St. Augustine, speaking of the sin of David in the matter of Uriah, observeth that many upon the reading of that story did aedificare in ruinam, build their fall upon David's fall, and framed unto themselves this reason, Si David, cur non ego? If David did thus, then why not I? And as we err in taking the Saints vices to be virtues, so do we many times grossly mistake those graces which do most commend them. Multos saepe fallunt quae similia sunt, saith Hilary; Those things which are like one another do oft deceive us. Multa quae tarditatis & ignaviae sunt, gravitati & consilio tribuuntur; That which was Gravity in the copy, is but Sloth and Dulness in the transcript. That which was Zele in Phinehas, is Madness in another. That which would have been Obedience in Abraham, would be cruel Murder in any man else. That may be Gravity in the Saint which is Stupidity and Senslesness in me. Hope, when transcribed by imitation, may be Presumption; Bounty, Prodigality; Peaceableness, want of Courage; Devotion, Superstition. The Orator faith well, Multa fiunt eadem, sed aliter; Many do the same things, but not after the same manner. A thief fighteth stoutly, but we call him not Valiant. A bad servant complaineth not under the whip, but we commend not his Patience. A traitorous Jesuit may smile perhaps at the very ridge of the gallows, but we do not call it Martyrdom. How soon is the complexion of a good duty changed and altered? How fair is it in one, and what deformity hath it in another? It is gold here, and anon it is but a counter: at one time sealed with an Expedit, approved as very expedient; at another checked with a Non licet, forbidden as altogether unlawful. To draw towards a conclusion; There are some duties which are local: Not the same Ceremonies at Eugubium as at Rome. There are duties fitted to the times: Not the same Discipline in the Church in the time of peace and in the time of persecution: Not the same face of the Church now that was in the Apostles time: now were it fit that in all things it should be drawn like to that. Lastly, there be personal and occasional duties, which in some persons and upon some occasions are praiseworthy, but in others deserve no other reward but Death. The command is, Thou shalt not kill. Samson killed himself; but every man is not a Samson, hath not Samson's spirit. Phinehas with his spear slayeth the adulterous couple; but every man is not a Phinehas, nor hath Phinehas' Commission. S. Basil's rule is most certain; Where we find a contradiction between the Work and the Precept, when we read a fact commended which falleth cross with the command, we must leave the fact and adhere to the precept. David was a good man, but no Apology for adultery: Solomon, a wise man, but no pretence for Idolatry. S. Peter was a Rock, but we may dash upon this Rock, and shipwreck: and if we follow him in all his ways, we may chance to hear a serious check from Christ himself, Get thee behind me, Satan. Be followers of Elijah; but not to consume men with fire. Be followers of Peter; but not into the High Priest's hall, to deny our Master. Be followers of S. Paul, and of all the blessed Saints of God; but with S. Paul's Correction, As they were of Christ. Christ is the great Exemplar, the supreme and infallible Pattern, which all are to conform unto, a perfect Copy for every one to imitate, a principal standard Rule, by which all other rules are to be examined, and according to which all our lives ought to be squared and sitted. Put ye on, saith the Apostle, Rom. 13.14. the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is, according to Chrysostom's exposition, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so to be clothed with him from top to toe that nothing appear in us but that which is of Christ. All our affections must be suitable unto his: Let the same mind be in you, Phil. 2.5. saith S. Paul, which was in Christ. In all our actions we must tread in his steps: I have given you an example, saith he, that ye should do as I have done unto you. Joh. 13.15. In all our sufferings we must take up our cross, and follow him, Heb. 12.1, 2. and, as it is, we must run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, Yet we must not here conceive that we are bound to walk in an universal conformity unto Christ in all things. For there were many actions of his, which as they far exceed our natural abilities, so they require not our imitation. It is not safe for us to follow him on the Sea, lest we sink with Peter; nor into the Wilderness, to invite the Tempter by a solitary retiredness. We are as unable to fast forty days and forty nights, as we are to feed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes. We cannot command the Winds to be still, nor Devils to come out, nor drive away Diseases with a word, or with a touch. In brief, we cannot follow Christ in the way of his Miracles: They afford us matter of wonder, not of imitation: Neither, secondly, must we think to imitate him in his works of Merit. Luk. 17.10. Do well we must, and suffer ill we may: But when we have done all, we are still unprofitable servants. And though we suffer never so much, yet are the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Therefore, in the third place, Rom. 8.18. we must follow Christ only in the works of his ordinary Obedience. And thus he was unto us a living Commentary on his own written Law, or rather a living and breathing Law for us to live by. He was subject to his Parents, obedient to the Magistrate, assiduous in his calling, painful in preaching, frequent in praying, zealous of God's glory, and ever obedient to his will. He was in his life an exact pattern of Innocence; He went about doing good, and there was no guile found in his mouth; at his death, of Patience; When he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not: in both, and in all, of Piety and Humility. Beloved, we may assure ourselves that we do and walk aright, when we frame and fashion our lives according to this Rule, when we express and represent the life of Christ in our conversation, when we so walk, even as he walked, 1 Joh. 2.6. when in all our carriage and behaviour we can truly say, Sic oculos, sic Ille manus, sic ora ferebat, Thus did, or thus said my Saviour. The lives and actions of men are subject to error; and the best of God's Saints in all ages have had their falls. David is said to have been a man after God's own heart; yet if we should follow David in all his paths, he would lead us into those two fearful precipices, Adultery, and Murder. Peter was a great Apostle; but if we should imitate all Peter's actions, we should not follow Christ, but deny him. In our imitation therefore of men, we must observe the Apostles Caution here in the Text, and be followers of the Saints, even as they also are followers of Christ; and no further. When they go awry from Christ's example, we must leave them, be they what they will, and carefully follow the president that our Lord hath set us. He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. He never went astray himself, Joh. 14.6. neither can he misled us. He will be unto us as the Pillar of the cloud and of sire was to the Israelites, a sure Guide to the Land of promise, to the heavenly Canaan. If we keep our eye still fixed upon him, and heedfully and constantly follow his conduct, we shall walk in the ways of Truth and Peace, walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, worthy of the name whereby we are called, CHRISTIANS; we shall give testimony of the truth and sincerity of our Faith, and perform the promise and profession made at our Baptism, which is to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and be made like unto him; we shall adorn the Gospel, honour our Master, and glorify our Father which is in heaven; in a word, we shall guide others in the way to happiness by our good example, shining among them as lights in the world, and we ourselves, having served our own generation by the will of God, shall in the regeneration and the times of restitution of all things be received by him whom we have followed into those mansions of rest and glory which he is gone to prepare for us, that where he is, there we may be also. The Eight and Thirtieth SERMON. PROV. XXVIII. 13. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy. Rom. 12.16. Prov. 3.7. Prov. 26.12. BE not wise in your own conceits. It is St. Paul's counsel. And it is the Wiseman's counsel also. And he giveth the reason for it. Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool then of him: more hope of him that hath no use of reason, then of him that hath, and abuseth it; that draweth it down to vile and base offices, that maketh it ministerial and serviceable to his lusts; that first employeth it as a midwife to bring forth that sin which his lust hath conceived, and then, when it hath brought it forth, maketh it as a nurse to cherish it; first to find out ways to mature and perfect it, and then to cast a shadow to cover it. Certainly there is more hope of a fool then of him. For a fool setteth not up to himself any end, and so is not frustrate or defeated of it: But he that is wise in his own conceit is the more unhappy fool of the two; for he proposeth to himself an end; and doth not only fail and come short of it, but falleth and is bruised on a contrary. He promiseth to himself glory, and meeteth with shame; he looketh towards Prosperity, and is made miserable; he flattereth himself with hope of Life, and is swallowed up by death: he smileth, and pleaseth and applaudeth himself, and perisheth; he lifteth up himself on high, and falleth and is buried in the mire and filth of his own conceits. That which he seeketh flieth from him, and that which he runneth from overtaketh him. The truth of which hath been visible in many particulars, and written as it were with the blood of those who have sought death in the error of their lives; and here Solomon hath manifested it in this Proverb or wise sentence which I have read unto you. For how happy do we think ourselves, if we can sin, and then hid and cover our sin from our own and others eyes? and yet Wisdom itself hath said, He that doth so, shall not prosper. What a disgrace do we count it to confess and forsake sin? and yet he that doth so, shall find mercy. Our ways are not as God's ways. That which we gather for a flower, is a noisome and baneful weed; that which we make our joy, is turned into sorrow; that which we apply to heal, doth more wound; our balm is poison, and our Paradise Hell. Ye have heard of the wisdom of Solomon; Harken to it in this particular, which crosseth the wisdom of this world; He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Which words teach us these two things; 1. The Danger of covering or excusing our sins; He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: 2. The Remedy or way to avoid this danger; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy. The first we shall especially insist upon, and show it you in respect 1. of God, 2. of ourselves. First, the danger of covering our sins appeareth in this, that sin cannot be covered, cannot admit of excuse. Omnis excusatio sui aequitate nititur, say the Civilians, All excuse is founded on equity, and none is good but so far as equity commendeth it As far then as Sin may be covered or excused, so far it is not sin, at least not liable to punishment. For our own experience will tell us, that where excuse with reason may run, there it exempteth the accused both from fault and punishment. We read, Levit. 10. Vers. 19 that when Aaron's sons had not eaten the goat of the sin-offering according to the Law, and Aaron had made that reasonable excuse which we find, that his sorrow for his two sons Nadab and Abihu had made him unfit to eat of those Holy things, which they were to do rejoicing, Deut. 12.7. Deut. 26.14. and when they brought their sanctified things, they were to say, I have not eat thereof in my mourning, when he had made this excuse, the Text telleth us, When Moses heard that, he was content. And this is the difference betwixt Moral and Ceremonial Laws: Aliud sunt imagines, saith Tertullian, aliud definitiones: Imagines prophetant, definitiones gubernant: We are governed, not by Ceremonies, which pass away as a shadow; but by Laws which are immutable and indispensable. Ceremonies are arbitrary; and not only Reason, but God himself doth in this case frame excuses, and putteth them in our mouth, and covereth what deformity soever they may present to men, that cannot but misinterpret what they understand not. David in his Hunger eateth of the shewbread; the priest denieth him not; Matth. 12.7. Hos. 6.6. and our Saviour in the Gospel, acquitteth him out of the Prophet. I will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Better all Ceremony should fall to the ground then any one Hungry soul should starve for bread. But the laws given to the sons of men as a rule of life, are not ceremonial and temporary, but real and eternal; nor can those sins which break them receive any cover or palliation: And to plead excuse or dispensation against these, is to turn mercy into sacrifice, to plead for Baal, to cover and bolster up and justify sin, which is the greatest sin of all. When Sacrifices were omitted, or the Sabbath for some reasons not observed, we do not find that God doth complain; and Christ maketh it lawful, nay necessary, in some particulars; a sin, not to do that which otherwise would be a sin; not to neglect the Sabbath to save the life of a man, nay of an ass. What Ceremony almost can we name which hath not at some time upon just occasion been omitted? But when the Moral Law is broken, when God's people fall into Idolatry, or follow lies, when they are murderers or oppressors, than he hath a controversy with them, and pleadeth against them: Here no cover will fit, no paint nor pargeting will serve; all the excuses in the world will not keep off the sentence of death. To imagine that God will admit of excuse for the breach of such a Law as is eternal, and bindeth all men, and at all times, were, as the Father saith, to make God Circumscriptorem suae sententiae; by a kind of fraud to avoid and defeat his own decree. This were to make his goodness imaginary, his severity a fancy, his commands nothing but security for offenders. This were to turn his justice into iniquity, and his wisdom into folly. So to cover our sin, is but to make it greater, and increase the punishments. He that covereth it, shall not prosper. To urge this reason taken from God further yet; We find the two attributes of God, his Wisdom, and his Power, the highest attributes which he hath. As his Power is unlimited, so he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wisdom above all wisdom whatsoever. In his actions ad extrà these two always concur. As by his Power the creatures were created, Psal. 104.24. so in wisdom hath he made them all, Psal. 104.24. saith the Psalmist. Yet his Power seemeth to be subordinate to and receive direction from his Wisdom. And therefore though all the attributes of God be infinite, and consequently equal, yet his Wisdom seemeth to have the precedency, the first and highest place. It is so, we see, in his creature Man; Ingenii damna majora sunt quàm pecuniae; He that disparageth our Wisdom, hath laid upon us the bitterest imputation he can. We can hear with patience many times that others are richer or stronger than ourselves. No man is vexed within himself that he is not a Milo, or an Hercules, or a Croesus. But he that detracteth from our Wisdom is an enemy indeed: Nulla contumeliosiùs fit injuria; He doth us the greatest injury in the world that calleth us fools. Qui velit ingenio cedere, rarus erit. We cannot wonder then if we observe the same in God, if we see and read him more jealous of his Wisdom then of his Power; that his indignation should wax hotter against the Excuse then the Sin. For he that committeth sin dallieth with his Power, but he that covereth and palliateth sin playeth with his Wisdom, trieth whether he can per fraudem obrepere, fraudulently circumvent and abuse God. He that sinneth would be stronger than God; but he that covereth his sin, striveth as it were to put out his all-seeing eye, and to be wiser than he, potior Jupiter quàm ipse Jupiter, as he in the Comedy saith, a wiser Jupiter than Jupiter Himself; which no impiety can equal. And therefore we may observe, that God forgiveth the greatest sins when they are laid open and confessed, but casteth an angry look and layeth an heavy hand upon those sins which would hid and cover themselves with excuses. 1 Sam. 15. 2. Sam. 12. We have a notable instance of this in David and Saul; Take but the pains to compare them both, and you will at the first view be soon persuaded that the heavy sentence which Samuel denounced against Saul, should have passed upon David; that of the two David more deserved to have had the Kingdom rend from him, & the Sceptre torn out of his hands. For bring their sins to the balance, and compare them both. Saul spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen: And what error was here, but only that the commandment was broken? For when he spared the oxen and the sheep, who was the worse? Quid meruistis oves? what sin was it to be merciful to the dumb and innocent creature? Besides, his end and pretence was good; He did it to sacrifice them to the Lord. But to the sin of David no oratory is equal. Who can express the heinousness of it? Saul offendeth against but one command, and that a positive one, and which was only for the present, and with which God did often dispense; but David against an eternal Law written in his Heart, with which God never did, never will dispense. Again, Saul's sin was but one; but David's was, peccatum complicatissimum, a sin carrying a train with it, of which the least in appearance was greater than that of Saul's: first, Adultery; then an Attempt to make Uriah drunk; then Murder, not only of Uriah himself, whose bed he had defiled, but also of all those who fell with him. And to this we may add his long continuance in sin, even a whole year, without any sense or feeling of it. It will not be easy to find out a parallel hereunto either in Divine or Humane story; either amongst the Israelites, or amongst aliens from the commonwealth of Israel? I would not rip up the bowels of this Saint, or show you the full horror of his sin, but to this end, to discover and show you withal this most necessary truth, the danger of covering a sin. We see David easily reconciled to God, but Saul cast off eternally without possibility of pardon. Yet Saul confesseth his sin, thought it were late. I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and Samuel prayeth for Saul, Vers. 24. and yet nothing prevaileth. Now the reason of this may be plainly gathered out of the Text. Nathan no sooner cometh to David, and showeth him his fault, but he presently without any ambages or circumstance confesseth it, and upon confession receiveth pardon; which followed the confession as close as an Echo doth the sound: 2 Sam. 12.13. I have sinned is answered with, The Lord hath put away thy sin. But with Saul it was otherwise: For he denyeth, and then wipeth his mouth, and receiveth the Prophet with a compliment, Blessed be thou of the Lord; 1 Sam. 15.13. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Being after taken and detected, he shifteth his sails, and turneth the point of his compass, and tryeth by fair pretences and excuses whether he can catch God with guile; The people, v. 15. saith he, spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God. He breaketh the commandment of God upon pretence of sacrifice, and so as much as in him lieth abuseth the Wisdom of God with a kind of mockery and deceit. And this is it which made that great difference between the action of David and the action of Saul, and that great breach between Saul and his God. What a dangerous thing is it then to study to cover a sin! How great is this sin, which not only trespasseth against the highest attribute of God, but also defeateth and cutteth off the usual ways of reconcilement! After other sins committed, the means to make our way to God's favour, are, Confession, and the Prayers of the Saints, one for another. St. James telleth us so much, chap. 5.15, 16. Now covering and excusing our sin evacuateth them both. Saul you see made liberal, though late, confession of his sin; Samuel, faithful Samuel, one of the greatest of the Lord's Prophets, earnestly prayeth for him; yet neither the delinquents confession nor the Prophet's prayer procure any thing at the hand of God. The prayer of the righteous shall save the sick, saith St. James: Then certainly covering and excusing a sin is a very desperate sickness, which the prayer of so righteous a person as Samuel was could not recover. Nay, which is more, the prayer of the Prophet is not only refused, but he is straightly charged to pray for him no more. 1 Sam. 16.1. How long saith God, wilt thou mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him? This sin then of Covering sin is it not a sin unto Death? Either it is so, or not far from it. There is but one sin for which in Scripture we are forbidden to pray. There is a sin unto death, saith St. John, 1 Joh. 5.16. I do not say that thou shouldst pray for it. I conclude nothing, but wish them who delight to cover their sin; who sin often, and yet never sin; who run away with the dart in their sides, and never feel it, to lay this to heart. For see Samuel here is forbidden to pray for Saul. To conclude this; What a strange sin is this sin of Excuse, which being liker to a circumstance of sin then a sin, yet maketh a lesser sin exceed the greatest, and the greatest to be greater than it is; which maketh a wanton look worse than adultery, anger then murder, the breach of a temporal Law more dangerous then of an eternal! The Schools say well, Maximum peccatum excusatio, quia quodlibet peccatum facit majus: That must needs be the greatest sin which maketh every sin greater. Not to leave yet the consideration of the greatness of this sin in respect of God; When sin hath entered our heart, and shown itself in the active irregularity of our members, there are but these five ways observed in our deportment and behaviour against it: either 1. Concealing or Denial; so Sarah denied that she laughed. Gehazi, Gen. 18.15. 2 Kings 5.25. when he had run after Naaman for a reward, boldly told his Master, Thy servant went not whither. Or 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Alleviation and lessening the fault, when we excuse ourselves à tanto, though not à toto, let something of our fault appear, and cover the rest: Or 3. Despair; as in Cain, and Judas: Or 4. penitential Confession; as in David, and Job; Or 5. Excuse; as in Saul. These five are 〈◊〉 Prophets baskets of figs, the good, very good; Jer. 24.1, 2, 3. and that is but one 〈◊〉 the evil, very evil and naughty: but the worst of all is Excuse. For in Denial and Concealment, though we deny the fact, yet we acknowledge it to be Evil; Nolumus nostrum, quia malum agnoscimus; We would never deny it, did we not confess it to be Evil. In Alleviation there is confession made, but tenderly: Something we confess to be amiss, but not much. And in Despair there is a large acknowledgement, but to no purpose. And the despairing sinner, though he destroyeth himself, yet deserveth our pity more than the former. To despair is not so much a sin as the committing those sins which plunged him in that gulf. Concealment, Denial, and Alleviation are wilful errors, to avoid the punishment which is due unto our sin: but Despair is an argument against itself; calleth the punishment on the offender further than God is willing; executeth the delinquent, not for want of pardon, which is ready to be sealed, but of suing it out. But of all, the Apologizer, who is ready with a veil to cover his sin, who can make a circumstance an anvil to forge an excuse on, is far the worst. In the rest there is some acknowledgement made, and so far they partake of the nature of penitential Confession. Some confess too little, others too much: The two first come short of Repentance, the third exceedeth: The two first confess tenderly, the other unprofitably. But in him that covereth his sin with excuse there breatheth no air of penitential Confession; but instead thereof he maintaineth that to be good which his conscience will tell him is evil. I may deceive and cousin the wicked, saith the Hypocrite, who is more wicked than they. I may sin, because I am weak; and break the command, because I cannot keep it; and multiply actual sins, because of original. Gen. 34. Simeon and Levi murder the Shechemites, and the excuse is ready, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot? The sacrilegious person taketh the houses of God into possession; for should they be abused to superstition? The foulest sin hath a mantle to cover it, and sometimes walketh under a Canopy of state. We sin, and will not be said or thought to sin; and this maketh sin more sinful. This doth fores occludere misericordiae; not shut out the sin, but God himself; letteth fall a Portcullis between God's mercy and our soul; emptyeth God, as it were, who of himself is an inexhaust fountain of mercy, ever ready to flow, and will not suffer him to be what he is, to be so good as he is. For by our impenitency he cannot do us what good he would; we will not suffer him to be merciful; we will not suffer him to wipe out our sins by forgiveness, but hid them as much as we can from his light and beams; cover them, that he may not see them, and by our evasions and excuses leave him no sin to wipe out. To conclude this point; If we sport thus with God's Wisdom; if we strive to deceive him caecâ die, in these dark shops and grots of excuses; if we think that any cover will keep us from his eye, who is greater than our Conscience, and seethe more of us than we do when we are most impartial to ourselves and see most; if we thus dally and trifle with Wisdom itself, Mercy, which triumpheth over Justice, will yield to Wisdom; and if we cover our sins, 1 Joh. 1.9. and not lay them open by Confession, we shall find God just and faithful, but not to forgive us our sins, not to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We might here enlarge: But we pass from the danger in respect of God, to that in respect of ourselves. There is no one sin to which our Nature more strongly inclineth us then this of covering and excusing our sin. So pleasing is excuse to our disposition, so inseparable from Sin, that cum ipso scelere nascitur, & soror & filia, it is both the daughter and sister of Sin. We travel with Sin and Excuse as Thamar did with twins: Excuse is not the first; for Sin first maketh the breach, and then calleth for Excuse: but though it be not the first, yet it followeth close at the Heels. Now to give a reason for this; First, it is the very nature of Sin, not only to infect the soul, but to bewitch it, that it shall either not feel it, or not be willing to evaporate and expel it. It is compared to a Serpent: and the poison thereof is much like unto that of the Aspic which Cleopatra put to her arm; It casteth us into a kind of sweet and pleasant slumber, and killeth us without pain. We are smitten, and we feel it not; we are stricken, Prov. 23 35. and are not sick; we are in the very mouth of Hell, and yet secure. It is called a burden, and yet we feel it not, nor doth it burden or lie heavy upon us. But as it is with those who lie under the water, they feel no weight though whole seas run over them; foe is it with those who are overwhelmed and drowned in sin, they feel no weight; or if they do, they soon relieve and ease themselves. I say, a burden it is, and we are careful to cast it from us; but not that way which God prescribeth, but after a method forged and beaten out by our own irregular fancy: we do not cast it away by loathing it, and loathing ourselves for it, by resolving against it, by fearing the return of it, as we would the fall of a mountain upon our heads; but we cast it upon our own Weakness and Infirmity, which will not bear it; upon God's Long-suffering and Mercy, and presume to continue in it; upon Christ Jesus, and crucify him again; upon Excuse, which is but sand, and cannot bear that which pressed the Son of God himself to death. Soli filii irae iram Dei non sentiunt; They only are insensible of the Anger of God who are the children of Wrath. Secondly, though God hath set up a tribunal in our hearts, and made every man a judge of his own actions, yet there is no tribunal on earth so much corrupted and swayed from its power and jurisdiction as this. No man is so partial a judge in another man's cause as in his own. No man is so well pleased with any cheat as that which he putteth upon himself. Though God hath placed a Conscience in us, Exod. 28.30. as he put the Urim and the Thummim in the breastplate of judgement, by which he might give answer unto us, what we are to do, and what not to do; what we have done well, and what amiss; as the Highpriest by viewing his breastplate saw whether the people might go up to War, or not go up: yet when we have once defiled our Conscience, we care not much for looking upon it; or, if we do, it giveth no certain answer; but we lose the use of it in our slavery under sin, as the Jews lost the use of their Urim and Thummim at the Captivity of Babylon, as appeareth Ezr. 2.63. Neh. 7 65. The use of it, I say, which is to (a) Rom. 2.15. accuse, to (b) 1 John 3.20. condemn, to (c) Wisd. 17.10. torment, to make us have (d) Deut. 28.65. a trembling heart, and (e) Levit. 26.36. a faint heart. For it doth none of these offices, neither accuse, nor convince, nor condemn, nor afflict, nor strike with fear. At best it doth but show the whip, and then put it up again. It changeth and altereth its complexion, as our sins; and hath as many names as there be evil dispositions in men. Our conscience checketh us, and we silence it; Sin appeareth, and we cover it. Our conscience would speak more plainly, if we did not teach it that broken and imperfect language, to pronounce Sibboleth for Shibboleth, to leave out some letter, some aspiration, some circumstance in sin. Or rather, to speak truth, the Conscience cannot but speak out to the offender, and tell him he hath broken the Law; but as we will not hearken to Reason when she would restrain us from sin, so we slight her when she checketh us for committing it. We will neither give ear to her counsel, and not sin, nor yet hearken to her reproof when we have finned; neither observe her as a Counsellor, nor as a Judge; neither obey her as a friend, nor as an enemy. Hence it cometh to pass that at last in a manner it forgetteth its office, and is negligent in its very property; is a Conscience, and yet knoweth nothing; a Register, yet recordeth nothing, or, if it do, in so dark and obscure a character as is not legible; a Glass, and reflecteth nothing, but a Saint for a man of Belial; a Book of remembrance, but containeth not our deceit and oppression and sacrilege, but the number of Sermons we have heard, the Fasts we have kept, though for blood, the many good words we have spoke, though from a hollow and unsanctified hart, from our indignation against the world, which hath nothing worse init then ourselves. And this is the most miserable condition a sinner can fall into. Rom. 1.18. This is, saith St. Paul, to hold the truth in unrighteousness, by an habitual course of sin to depress and keep under the very principles of Goodness and Honesty; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to hold and have full possession of the Truth, Luk. 19 but make no use of it; to hid and bury it, as the bad servant did his pound in a Napkin, bury it in the loathsome sepulchre of a rotten and corrupt soul: as if having a medicine about me, I should choose to take down poison; having plenty, starve myself to death; having Honey and Manna, lay it by till it stink, and feed on Husks; having a Conscience, not keep it; suborn my Counsellor to be my Parasite; be endued with Reason, and use it only to make me more unreasonable; neglect and slight it when it bids me not do this; and when I have done it, paint and disguise it, that I may not know the work of mine own hands, nor see that sin which was the misshapen and deformed issue of my lust. Again, this sin of covering sin is more natural than any sin beside. We cannot name any that agreeth with all natures & complexions, as this doth. All are not apt to commit the same sin; Anger draweth this man's sword; Lust fasteneth a second to the harlot's lips; Fear betrayeth a third to idleness and a spiritual lethargy; Ambition and Pride lift up another above himself; and Covetousness burieth many in the earth. He that is wax to one sin, is marble to another. Envy slayeth one, Lust is a deep ditch to another, Wrath consumeth a third: But Excuse is a cover that will fit all sins; which though they have divers complexions, yet will all admit and receive this paint. Excuse as a servant waiteth upon all, and is officious to offer attendance on the foulest. It is a servant and slave to the murderer, to the wanton, to the oppressor, to the covetous. What is unwilling to stand to a trial, will run to Excuse, as to a counsellor, for advice; Quae tum maximè gratiosa est, cum caedit. We embrace it when it strangleth us; kiss and biddeth it most welcome, when it woundeth us to death. To make it yet plainer how incident it is to our nature to be covering that which hath an ill appearance, to be framing apologies; We may observe that there is something in Man naturally which casteth him upon this vice, which is not in the Devil himself, Depuduit, The Devil hath hardened his forehead, and cast off all shame of sin. It is his trade and profession to sin himself, and draw others to the like perdition: And they are his children who have cast off all shame. Jer. 6.15. Were they ashamed? no, they were not at all ashamed, saith the Prophet, not ashamed of that which was most ridiculous, most abominable. To sin, and not to blush, to discover our nakedness, and not be ashamed, is a sad declination to the condition of the damned spirits, the next step to hell. For God hath imprinted in Man a natural shame of sin; which maketh him to fly from the eyes and ears of men, to make darkness his pavilion, to retire into grots and caves, to betake himself to corners and privacy; which are nothing else but the badges of sin. Sin hath a foul face, and her best friends are ashamed of her company. Sin is a favourite, which we embrace; and Sin is a monster we fly from. Sin is the greatest evil: it hath that name; and therefore when we commit it, it is not sin. They that make her familiar with them in the closet, will not go about with her in the streets, as ready to disgrace sin as to commit it: Nor could she ever prevail with those who were most enamoured with her, to acknowledge her without a blush. Nolim latere, siquid egero benè. Nec opto testes, siquid egero malè. saith Phaedra, in the Poet. Our good deeds we bring forth at noonday, before the Sun and the people; but no night is dark enough to cover our sin. Now God left this impression of shame upon us to keep us within compass, that we should not commit sin, to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Father calleth it, to be a great help and furtherance to us in the ways of virtue. For why should we bring forth such fruits, which when we look upon them will change our countenance, and die it with a blush? And this effect Shame should have: But by the policy and envy of Satan that which should naturally keep us from committing sin, doth as naturally draw us to conceal it; and what was made as a means to prevent it, is made a cloak to cover it. That we may therefore confess and forsake our sins, and so find mercy, we must strive to take this inconvenience away, and be careful how we use it. For it is of an ambiguous quality: it is what we will make it. Sometimes it is poison, and sometimes an antidote; sometimes it is the savour of life unto life, and it may prove the savour of death unto death. It is a bridle to our Nature, to keep us in a regular and even motion: sometimes we must put it on, and sometimes we must take it off again. When we are solicited to sin, let us add it to our Nature. The Poet will tell us, Pudere quàm pigere praestat totidem literis. We cannot render the conceit, but the sense is good in all languages; Shame is far better than Repentance. And thus we see that good men are chary of their modesty, but the wicked harden their faces as steel. They use their shame as they do their Garment, quae quantò obsoletior est, tantò incuriosiùs habetur, which the more it is worn, is the more slightly and carelessly laid up. Let us not sin for shame; for nothing can shame or disgrace us but sin: But when lust hath conceived and brought forth sin, when it is committed, let us take off shame again, and be as bold to confess, as we were to offend. Ego rubori locum non facio, cùm plus de detrimento ejus acquiro, I give no room to shame when I am to repent, for I gain by her loss, and am most humble when I fling her away: Et ipse hominem quodammodo exhortatur, Nè me respicias; pro te mihi melius est perire; when unseasonable modesty and shame itself seemeth to bespeak and exhort us not to regard her, becometh an orator against herself, and telleth us, that unless we perish we cannot be safe, nor build up our repentance but upon her ruins. Shame is a good buckler to oppose against sin: but if sin hath once got the better of us, if we sly the sight of sin and are ashamed to confess, we fly as Horace telleth us he once did, relictâ non bene parmulâ, and leave our buckler behind us. Nay Shame, saith Parisiensis, is as a Prelate or Bishop before sin, and doth those several offices set down by St. Paul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it instructeth, 2 Tim. 4.2. correcteth and rebuketh us. But after sin we must proceed to degradation, and put it from its chair: For if we suffer it to usurp and exercise jurisdiction over us, it will suspend and silence us, and make us an Anathema. Away then with that shame which will increase our shame: Away with that shame which is not yet, and yet sealeth up our mouth that it may be. Is it a shame to confess? Confess, though it be a shame. For though there be shame, it shall be debilis & inermis, weak and feeble and disarmed, not able to speak a word to accuse thee. Praestat palam absolvi quàm damnatum latere: Open absolution is better than private and secret damnation. Better to be saved in thunder then lost in silence: Better to be covered with shame, and live, then to cover our sins for shame, and perish: Better to be a proverb of reproach on earth than a firebrand in hell: Better to blush now, then burn for ever. To draw towards a conclusion; Ye see in the Text penitential Confession reaching even to the Mercy-seat. The sinner falleth down, breaketh his heart, openeth his mouth, breatheth his sins out, loatheth and forsaketh them, and Mercy scattereth them, annihilateth them, looketh upon them as if they were not. Let us not then be more ashamed of confession than we are of mercy itself. Let us learn exuere hominem, to put off man, to put off the old man, to unnaturalize ourselves, and forget this though natural yet unseasonable modesty. Est quaedam praevaricatrix modestia, est quaedam sancta impudentia; There is a modesty which betrayeth us; and there is an holy and sanctified shamelesness and impudence, when we lay our sins open and naked before God in their most deformed shape. Sin is never less deformed in the eye of God then when it is in its own shape. Masks and paintings and disguise in other things, if they add no beauty, yet they conceal deformities; but in Sin all this cost and labour is lost. Nothing more deformed in the eye of God than a periwigged and painted sinner, than a carnal man talking of the spirit, than a wicked man wiping his mouth, and saying, I have done no evil. Behold the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth: From him no cloud can shadow us, no deep can cover us, no mountain can hid us. To him we are never more open than when we are most concealed. He looketh not at our sins when we read the roll and Catalogue ourselves: But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his revengeful eye, is never off them when we seal the book, or fold it up in silence, when we study to disguise and conceal them. Quintilian tells us, Animalcula quaedam in foraminibus mobilia, in campo deprehenduntur; Some kind of small creatures there are, which whilst they be amongst their burroughs and starting-hole are hardly taken; but bring them into the open field, and they are quickly seized on: We cannot but apply it ourselves. Let us play least in sight with God as we please, whilst our sins, like those little foxes which spoil the vineyard of God, do earth themselves or lurk in the holes and burroughs of excuses, we shall never take them; but being brought forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, into confession before God, as into the open field, we shall quickly seize upon them, and destroy them. Tegentis, non fatentis, crimen est, saith St. Ambrose: Sin is never more sin, hath never more upon it, then when it is covered. He that confesseth his sin, hath found a plaster for it; but he that covereth it, flingeth it away, and by too much tenderness suffereth his sore to fester. For Sin is a disease and distemper of the soul; and as we observe of some diseases of the body, if it doth eructare se in superficiem, as Tertullian speaketh, if it breathe forth itself, and drive its poison outward by confession, it is like the Physicians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and restoreth the soul to its healthful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and constitution: but if it strike inward, and hid itself in the heart, it is fatal and deleterial. Sin is as the Leprosy; and every sinner in whom the plague of sin is, must be like the Leper under the Law, Levit. 13.45. his must be rend, and his head bare, and he must put a covering upon his upper lip, and he must cry, Unclean, unclean. And this we may observe, that the Saints of God did so far abhor this sin of covering sin, and so jealous have they been of it, that they may seem to have bowed the stick too much the other way, and to have erred too far on the other hand, and studied expressions and forms of speech to that purpose. Psal. 51. When David bewailed his sin before God, he thought it not enough to say he had not been free from sin since he was a child of a day old; he durst not entitle himself to so much as a day's innocency; therefore he went up to the womb, and confessed himself to be born in sin. Nay, this he thought too much yet, and therefore went up to the instant of his conception; In sin hath my mother conceived me. He left not himself any moment free from pollution. And so St. Paul, that worthy servant of Christ Jesus, shriving and confessing himself, useth few, but most quick and comprehending, words: It is a faithful saying, and by all means to be received, 1 Tim. 1 15. that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Now what should that great sin be which should denominate him the chiefest of sinners? If any, then certainly it was this, that he persecuted the Church; and yet even this himself professeth he did ignorantly. And as Origen, considering with himself the occasion which moved Lot's daughters to incest, breaketh forth into this speech, Vereor nè illarum incestus castior sit multarum pudicitiâ, that he feared much that this incest of theirs had more of chastity in it then the virginity of others; so we may be easily persuaded that there was more of piety in St. Peul's persecuting the Church than many others have who seem to maintain and cherish and defend it. For what moved him to it? Zeal for the Law which God himself had made, a jealousy lest the glory should departed from Israel, and that service and religion be beat to the ground which God himself had established. And yet St. Paul himself hath recorded it, and all posterity must believe it, that for this action of his, whatsoever it was, he nameth himself the chief of sinners. This, saith the Father, is the property of every child of God, to accuse himself for little sins as for great; to hid his sins by revealing them, to diminish them by addition, to make them little, yea nothing, by making them great. Confessio, poenarum compendium, Confession setteth a quick period to all sin and punishment. Cum accusat, excusat; cùm squalidum facit, magìs mundatum reddit; even worketh a miracle, lifteth a man up, when it casteth him down, maketh him most glorious, when it most dishonoureth him; beautiful when it defileth him, when it accuseth, it excuseth; and when it condemneth, it absolveth; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (it is the expression of the Greek Father) in a manner making the Judge ashamed, holding his hand when he is ready to strike, striking the thunderbolt out of his hand, and changing the shadow of death into a glorious morning. Though we have run from him into a far Country, yet if we return, and say, We have sinned, he that was our Judge will be our Father, and will run, and fall upon our neck, and kiss us; and for open confession, give us open absolution; and put upon us the best robe, even cloth us with the garment of righteousness, behold us as his children, and by his his' blessed spirit seal us up to the day of our Redemption: In a word, we shall find mercy here to quicken and refresh our sick and weary souls, and the same mercy shall crown us for evermore. The Nine and Thirtieth SERMON. MATTH. XXVIV. 25. Behold, I have told you before. IT is the observation of Chrysostom, That there was never any notable thing done in the world which was not foretold, and of which there was not some prediction to usher it in and make way for it. These things have I told you, Joh. 16.4. saith our Saviour to his Disciples. That when the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. And in my Text, Behold, I have told you before of the fearful signs which shall be the forerunners of Jerusalem and of the end of the world; Which two are so interwoven in the prediction that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them. Behold, I have told you before; that you may be ready with the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, that it come not upon you unawares, but find you ready, as those who have overcome it when it was yet afar off, in its approach, and pulled out its sting and poison before it struck its terror into you. Our blessed Saviour here layeth open to his Disciples, and in them to all succeeding generations, those evils which should be the forerunners of his second coming and of the end of the world, as Famine, and Pestilence, and Earthquakes, and Wars, and Fearful sights, treacherous Parents, false Brethren, deceiful Kinsfolk, and Friends worse than enemies, that when these things come to pass, they might the less trouble us; as darts, which pierce not so deep when they are foreseen. Did I say, that they might the less trouble us? Nay, this prediction must have a stronger operation on us then so. These fearful apparitions must not trouble us; but that is not enough: we must make right use of them, and by them be admonished to prepare and fit ourselves for Christ's second coming. They must be received as Messengers and servants to invite us to the great Supper of the Lamb. In the words may it please you to observe with me three things; 1. the Persons to whom this prediction is made, I have told you; 2. The things foretold, mentioned in this Chapter; 3. the End of the prediction, or the Reason why they are foretold, That we may behold and consider them. These three, the Persons, the Things, and the End, shall exercise your devotion at this time. First, for the Persons. Though these words were spoken to the Apostles, yet if we look nearer upon them, they will seem especially to concern us; and if we reflect upon ourselves, we shall find that we indeed are the men to whom they are spoken. The Apostles who received them from the mouth of our Saviour, were but as cisterns or water-pipes to convey them to us, but we are the earth which must drink them in. The Apostles, who were the hearers of them, have many hundred years since resigned up their souls to their almighty Creator, and were never earum affines rerum quas fert senecta mundi, never had the knowledge of those things which are to accompany the declining age of the world. Not they therefore certainly, but we, on whom the ends of the world are come, are the natural hearers, if not of this whole Sermon, yet of a great part of it, namely of that which concerneth Christ's coming to judgement. Nor can we think of it as of some strange thing, that our Saviour should direct his speech unto us, who stand at so great a distance from him, even sixteen hundred years and more removed from the time he spoke. There is no reason we should. For our Saviour was God as well as Man: And it is not with God as it is with Man. With Man, who measureth his actions by Time, or whose action are the measure of Time, (for Time is nothing but duration) something is passed, something present, something to come: But with God, who calleth the things that are not as if they were, as the Apostle speaketh, Rom. 4.17. there is no difference of times; nothing past, nothing to come; all is present; no such thing with him as First and Last, who is Alpha and Omega, both First and Last. He that foretelleth things to come, it mattereth not whether they come to pass ten, or an hundred, or a thousand years after; quia una est scientia futurorum, because the knowledge of things to come is one and the same, saith S Hierom. Adam, the first man who was created, and whosoever he shall be that shall stand last upon the earth, are to God both alike. They that walk in valleys and low places see no more ground than what is near them, and they that are in deep wells see only that part of the heaven which is over their heads; but he that is on the top of some exceeding high mountain, seethe the whole country which is about him: So it standeth between us mortals and our incomprehensible God: We that live in this world are confined as it were to a valley or to a pit; we see no more than the bounds which are set us will give us leave; and that which our wisdom or providence forseeth when the eye thereof is clearest, is full of uncertainty, as depending many times upon causes which may not work, or, if they do, by the intervening of some cross accident may fail: But God, who by reason of his wonderful nature is very high exalted, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as from some exceeding high mountain, as Nazianzene speaketh, seethe at once all men, all actions, all causualties present and to come, and with one cast as it were of his eye measureth them all. Now that we may draw this home; Our Saviour Christ, when he spoke these words, did an act of his Godhead, and spoke to the things that were not as if they were; and to him, when he gave this warning, were we as present as his Disciples were who then heard him speak, or as we ourselves now are: And therefore in good congruity he might speak unto us how far soever removed we may think ourselves to be. But that we may plainly see that we are the men whom these words most properly concern, let us, in the next place, consider the things foretold: And when we find out those things, we shall see that, tanquam exserto digito, every one of them as it were with a finger pointeth out unto us. And find them we shall, if we look upon passages precedent and subsequent to the Text. For take the predictions literally, or take them morally, with that interpretation which is put upon them by the learned, and we need not make any further enquiry after the Persons, because they so nearly concern us. Look over this Chapter, and you shall find mention of Deceivers and false Prophets, of Nation rising against Nation, 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 ourselves 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 show 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 ploughshares, but ploughshares into swords; Christians, I say, divided; and that made a just cause, or rather a pretence 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 blood; 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 threatening that to their own house and to the own loins, 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 battle-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 ourselves, 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. Judas describeth them, wand'ring 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 anathematising that to day which they subscribed to yesterday, unsavoury salt, fit to be trodden under foot and fling 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 darkened, and our Moon turned into blood? 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 than these? Talk what we please of Centauris, Sulla's, 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 shower of Flesh, or Stones, of Tempests and Whirlwinds: these, these are more ominous; these are all, these do 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 will be, if the meat we feed on be but husks. Last of all, if we look upon the state of Christendom, what is it but as a troubled sea? or what do we hear but the raging of the sea, and the madness of the people? So that now, if ever, it will concern us to fear at least that these things which were foretold by Christ are come upon us, to watch over ourselves diligently, and to prepare for his second coming. Therefore we are called upon the behold and consider them; Behold, I have told you before. And there is good reason we should behold. For these things fall not out by chance (Fate and Chance in the things of God are but names, and have no power at all) but by the providence of God they are sent upon us, that so Christians, to whom the promise of Christ's coming is made and the signs thereof revealed, might the more apprehend it, and the better provide to entertain it; look and observe any signs 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 spectators of these times, and stand by, for aught 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 fallen into those times in which it will be most behooveful 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 days, 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 pass them by perfunctorily, as if they were no signs at all, and as if they were not set up for us to look upon, nor think, when we are under the same which are here foretold, they are not the same which are here meant. For suppose we should be in an error, and the world were yet to last many millions of years, and these Wars and Rumours of wars, these Fearful sights and great Signs, these Persecutions, this Falsehood of kindred and friends, and this Distress of nations, are not sent to accompany the world to its grave or funeral pile; yet would it be as happy an error as we could fall into, if at the sight of them we did believe and tremble, and so trun to the Lord our God. Devotion is devotion, though an error occasion it; and watchfulness is a Christian virtue, though raised and awaked by a false alarm. If I be cured, it is not much material whether Peter or his shadow do it. If they have this effect, to make us take ourselves from the world, and look up to heaven, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God it matters not whether they be these very signs foretold, or only like them. And if they be like them, what sin can it be to take them for the same? Error could do no hurt at all, if we were never deceived but thus If I did live every day as if the world were to end the next, my life would be a continual walk with God. That Error is an happy error which freeth me from all those errors which lead unto death. Let us then make this use of these Signs, at least think they may be the same. And for aught we know they may be the same. The Trump may sound, and the Son of man may come, whilst I am speaking of it. It may be now; it may be many years hence: but if I make it now to me, this Now is not too soon, nor do I hasten his coming. A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, saith Christ: And though they had many signs, and those signal, yet were they as wicked and adulterous as before. Though they had many signs, yet could they not judge of the first coming of Christ. They could foresee foul weather by the louring and redness of the sky in the morning, but could find no prognostic of their Messiah from his Prophets before he came, nor from his Miracles when he was come. So we, though we have seen many signs, many prodigies, though we have seen more than is foretold, even that which we cannot easily believe though we have seen it, yet all these wars & rumours of wars, all this noise and tumults, all these terrors, all these signs of a drooping and decaying world have not power enough upon us to beget so much as a fear of the second coming of Christ, as those other signs could not work a belief of his first. We talk much of the Mark of the Beast in the Revelation: Psal. 10.5. I am sure it is the mark of such another beast as he, the Atheist; that God's judgements are far above out of his sight, a thing he looketh not after nor considereth; and though they be before his eyes, yet are they far above out of his sight. Rom 6.1. Though the foundations of the earth be shaken, yet doth he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, continue in sin. Though there be wars and rumours of wars, war is his harvest, nor can his heart dance after any music but that of the trumpet. Though the world be on fire, he standeth and warmeth himself by it. What though there should be plagues and pestilences? There cannot be a greater plague than himself. A wicked Atheist, a bloody Hypocrite, is the worst evil of the place he liveth in. What though there be persecution? With him it is sport; and always the whip is in his hand. What though the Sun be darkened? He hateth the light. What though the Moon be turned into blood? It is a colour he delighteth in. What though the world be towards its end? It is but his ending with the world. Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil est; That is an article of the Epicure's Creed, and the Atheist's too, After death is nothing, and Death itself is nothing. To him signs do not signify, terrors are not terrible, and miracles are nothing. All the illboding objects he beholdeth he interpreteth, as wise Captains did use to do Comets, or Eclipses, or any unusual event, to his own advantage. Let the Sea roar and the waves make a noise, let the Heavens be shaken, and the Stars fall, he is as wicked as before, a stubborn Atheist, still the same, till he fall into hell. So true is that of the Psalmist, An unwise man doth not well consider this, and a fool doth not understand it. But whoso is wise, Psal. 92.6. Psal. 107.43. will observe these things, and he shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord, Now this Behold should be unto us as the last trump, and awake us out of our sleep in sin, as that shall awake us from the grave. For it is not a bare cast of the eye, and no more, but an intentive earnest look upon the object and the end; upon these signs, and what is meant by them. He that well considereth them, will have his mind, as the Historian spoke of Julius Caesar, like a bow always bend. And first, the sound of this should awake us from that security in which our self-love hath lulled us asleep. The Love of ourselves draweth on the Love of the world: and when we love the world, our wish frameth our Creed for us; and though we cannot think the world will endure always, yet we do think so; though we cannot believe it, yet we do believe it, at least so live as if we did believe that it will never have an end. And these signs pass away from us as insensibly as the fashion of the world doth: or, if they make any impression in us, they are those of murmuring and despair. For self-love and love of the world have so fully taken possession of us, that the sight of these signs changeth our countenance, looseneth our loins, troubleth our thoughts, Dan 5. as the hand w●iting on the wall did Belshazzar's, but doth not work in us that repentance which might raise up in us that confidence that we should not fear at all. He that loveth himself cannot love the coming of the Son of Man, nor the signs of it. Now by love of ourselves I do not mean that love which Nature itself hath imprinted in every man, and which Christ himself hath made the measure and rule of our love to others, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. For Self-love, as the word Tyrant, beareth a very good sense, but by our abuse it is made a sin and term of reproach. We cannot love ourselves too well: but may love ourselves so inordinately that all the venom and malice in the world cannot hurt us more. Hence it cometh to pass that, as S. Bernard saith, Nihil ardet in inferno praeter propriam voluntatem, Nothing suffereth in hell but our own will, because nothing but our own will can cast us into that place of torment; for our will alone it is that damneth us: so nothing more endangereth us then Self-love, which either blindeth us, that we cannot see these signs, or causeth that when we behold them, we tremble, and our hearts whither and fail for fear. These two are of such consanguinity and nearness that we know not well how to distinguish them. Foyes he that thus loveth himself is always rigidus in suam perniciem, obstinate and wilful to his own destruction. Sic se diligat homo ut sibi prosit, saith Augustine; Let a man so love himself that he may profit and advantage himself his better self, his Soul. Nam animus cujusque est quisque; A man's mind is himself: and if he adorn and beautify that, if he prepare that for happiness, than his love and all his actions rest upon a right and proper centre. But if he pollute his soul, if he fight against his soul, if he make his Reason a servant to his Lust, which should be a mistress to control and check it, if he thus transform himself into a beast, he will be a most unfit spectator of these signs: if he thus deform himself, he will undo himself. If this be love, it is such a love that bewitcheth me, that blindeth me, that deceiveth and cheateth me, that first putteth out my eyes, and then setteth me to grind at the mill, that depriveth me of my judgement, and maketh me worse than the beasts that perish. The Covetous man loveth wealth; and that pierceth his soul: The Ambitious loveth honour; and that is a snare, The Wanton loveth beauty; and that biteth like a cockatrice: The Angry man loveth revenge; and that keepeth his wound green, which otherwise patience would heal. Our first parents loved themselves, and tasted the pleasant fruit; and were thrust out of Paradise for it: Achan loved himself, and would finger the wedge of gold; and was stoned for it: Ahab loved himself, and would have Naboth's vineyard; and dogs licked his blood for it: Judas loved himself, and received the thirty pieces; and he burst asunder for it. What could an enemy do more than Self-love hath done to them in whose bosom she hath found a place? It stoneth, it hangeth, it killeth, it distracteth, it tormenteth and destroyeth; and what can an oppressor or a tyrant, what can the Devil do more? But this is not all. For, as the Historian speaketh of Covetousness, which is but a branch of it, Animum & corpus effoeminat; It corrupteth both body and mind, and maketh them soft and tender and effeminate. First it corrupteth the mind, and then weakeneth and enervateth the body: it maketh us either insensible, as stocks and stones; or else too sensible of every blast, of every breath that cometh but towards us: it filleth our hearts with impatience, and our mouths with complaints. If it be a drop, it is a storm; if it be a breath, it is a tempest; if it be good counsel, it is a reproach; if it be an easy burden, we dare not touch it with one of our fingers: If it be an object of a terrible aspect, we study to forget it; we would not believe it when we do believe it; we would not see it when it is in our eye. In prosperity self-love advanceth our plumes; but when the weather changeth, our spirits fail. The Philosopher telleth us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that Self-love is a pusillanimity or weakness of mind, afraid of every shadow, loathing every thing, flying every thing, groaning at the very sight of any thing that breatheth in opposition to us. And if Self-love doth so shorten our strength, weaken our eyes, and dead our spirits, that we cannot look as we should upon those evils of common quotidian incursion and which we meet with every day, it is not probable we should behold these spectacles of terror, the forerunners of the last Judgement, with that profit and advantage and comfort which we should: the Sun darkened and the Moon turned into blood, and the world, for aught we know, falling about our ears, will be no signs to prevail with us to make ready and prepare for another world. If we cannot meet the Son of Man at his first coming, how shall we meet him at his second? If we cannot meet him when he cometh and speaketh peace to us, peace in times of peace, and peace in times of tribulation, how shall we be able to meet him when he cometh in terror to judge both the quick and the dead? If we cannot behold the signs of his coming as we should, how shall we be able to stand up at his appearance? This is one reason why we do not behold what is here foretold with that profit we should, even our Self-love, our inordinate and perverse love of ourselves. A second reason hereof is Want of faith. And this Behold here is sounded forth to awake and quicken our faith. For if we know whom we have believed, and believe what we have read, then may we look upon these signs, even all the calamities of the world, with comfort: But if this be a reason, than reason may seem to be on our side, and to make us such Eagles as to look upon these bright but fearful apparitions. For certainly there is no want of faith. There is nothing more talked of. Ebrius ad phialam, mendicus ad januam; Every man filleth his mouth with it; the upright man for honesty, the perjured for deceit, the drunkard at his cup, and the beggar at the gate. Faith is become the language of good and bad, of the pure in spirit and the hypocrite, of the Saint and that Devil that taketh his name, of the whole world. Faith is to be found in every corner of Christendom: but such a Faith as that Peace, was the name of which only was written on the walls of a Monastery when the whole Convent were together by the ears in hot debate and contention. Multi sibi potiùs fidem constituunt quàm accipiunt, saith Hilary; and it is true in this sense also: It is a general fault in the world, not to entertain that faith which should strengthen and establish us to behold these things, but to frame and fancy one of our own, to spin out one, as the spider doth his web: and such a thin web it is that the blast of any temptation sweepeth it away. And on this we lay all our sins, even that weight which presseth down; as if we should set up a great Colossus on a reed which will not bear one finger of it. There is no want of this Faith; nec nobis opus est fide ista, nor is there any need or use of it. But the Faith which must make us fit spectators of these things which are here foretold, and which indeed we have seen, or something like unto them nay the very same, the Faith that must qualify and prepare us for Christ's second coming, must be like his coming, full of glory and power; must shake the powers of the Grave, must awake those that sleep, must demolish Sin, must make us like unto Christ, not only in his passion, but also in his rising from the dead, must be to us as the trump of God, to call us out of our graves; not fides inermis, a weak and unarmed faith, which hath neither buckler nor sword, which can neither defend nor strike a stroke, but is well content to stand by, and see our Saviour fight it out; but fides pugnax, a faith armed against the day of trial, that can fight it out against principalities and powers, and against all the fearful signs which shall be set up; and fides vincens, a faith that overcometh the world; and the love of the world; and fides triumphans, a faith that every day triumpheth over Sin and the Devil, maketh a show of them openly, and manifesteth itself to God, to Angels, to men. This Faith hath a clear and strong eye, and can look upon these terrible signs. By this faith Christ doth dwell in our hearts, and if Christ dwell there, Ephes 3.17. he bringeth with him courage and resolution. How fit is he to behold the Sun darkened, who hath this light in him? to see the falling of the Stars, who hath this bright Morningstar fixed in his heart? And what if the world end, if he be with him who is the Beginning and the End? This Faith will make us fit to behold any object, will settle us in the knowledge of the providence of God, of which we had before but certain confused notions, little better than dreams. This Faith is like the emperor's large Emerald, in which he beheld wars and ruin, slaughter and desolation, whose colour tempered the object, and made it appear less terrible than it was. This Faith heareth a voice from heaven speaking to the whole host and army of calamities, to all these fearful signs which shall usher in the end of the world, as David did concerning Absalon, Do the young man no harm; Do my anointed, my peculiar people, no harm: In a word, this Faith will stay with us, will wait and attend us, in the midst of all this tumult and confusion: And when the powers of heaven are shaken, and the elements melt with fire, and the world is ready to be dissolved, it will bring us good news of help at hand: Fear you not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. For this Faith always bringeth with it Repentance; which is another end why we are called upon to behold these things. For that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that long-suffering of God's, which calleth us to repentance, improveth and increaseth the means as we increase our hardness. The more heavy our sleep is in sin, the more noise and stir God maketh to awake us. After we have spent our estate amongst harlots, and fed with swine, yet, if we return, he will receive us. If we will not behold and consider him when he shineth upon our tabernacles, yet if we fall down before him when these signs appear, when he cometh with a tempest round about him, than he will receive us. When the world regardeth us not, when it frowneth upon us, when it is ready to be dissolved, yet if we return, he will receive us. In wars and rumours of wars, when the Sun is darkened, and the Moon turned into blood, yet if we return, he will receive us. Never was the world so full of wickedness as in this last age of it: for as our forefathers went before us in time, so do we before them in iniquity: And therefore were there never greater means to reclaim it. So that this time of judgement is a time of mercy, wherein Mercy, even whilst Justice holdeth up the sword, whilst she is striking, spreadeth her wing, and waiteth till we come under the shadow of it. And these signs, if we will behold them as we should, and make them so, may be signs of the dissolution of the body of Sin as well as of the frame of the Universe. For the long-suffering of God is repentance, saith S. Peter, and will bring forth the fruits of it, if it be not abused and hindered. And the destruction of a sinner is never so absolutely decreed by God, but that there is still hope of recovery, even then when his foot is upon the very brink of death and desolation. Let him then pull back, and return to his God, and he shall find that with him there is mercy and plentiful redemption. Behold I have told you before; And I have told you, that you may behold and consider it, that you may excutere veternum, awake from that sleep in which security and self-love have lulled you, that you may quicken your faith, and perfect and complete your repentance, and so be signed with these signs, that the Spirit may sign and seal you to the day of redemption. And this is the compass of the Ecce: And in this compass we may walk and behold these signs, behold them with a watchful eye, with a believing eye, with a repentant eye, washing off all their malignity with tears. These are the several rays of consideration. And if we thus behold these signs, we shall be also fitted and prepared to meet Christ at his second coming. Being thus qualified, we shall look upon all the illboding calamities in the world, which appear unto us in a shape of terror, as upon so many John Baptists, telling us that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand; we shall-look upon Death when he cometh towards us on his pale horse, and not fear him; we shall look upon the Son of man when he cometh towards us with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God, and it shall be as music to us. For he hath promised that where he is, we shall be also: and he hath made death, and these signs, and the dissolution of the world itself, a promise. For if we should not die, if the world should not be dissolved, we could not enjoy the promise. But when these signs shall usher him in, when he shall come again, then shall he free us from the yoke and harrow, from oppression and tyranny; Then the meek shall be higher than the proud, and Lazarus richer than Dives; Then that bloody hypocrite which called himself a Saint, shall have his portion with the Devil and his Angels; and the innocent, the despised, condemned innocent, shall look up and lift up his head: Then, though the heavens be shaken, he shall stand fast as Mount Zion; though the sea roar, he shall be at peace; though the Stars fall, his heart shall be fixed; — Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinae:— And when the Son of man shall come in the clouds, he shall be ready to meet him; and when the heavens shall be gathered together as a scroll, he shall be received into those new heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness; and when all is dissolved, and the world is at an end, he shall live and reign with him who made it, and who dissolved it, world without end. To which blessed estate he bring us who hath foretold these things, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. The Fortieth SERMON. LUKE XVIII: 12. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. A Vain boast of a proud Pharisee, who cometh into the Temple not as a petitioner, but as a Herald, and openeth not his defects, but proclaimeth his worth. If we view him well, we shall find him faulty in each part of his prayer. He beginneth with thanks; God, I thank thee; but it is thanks reflecting upon himself. The Pharisees, as Josephus observeth, did not deny the Divine assistance, did not shut out God quite, but attributed the first and most to themselves; they acknowledged common blessings without relying on peculiar mercies, and did rather plead before God's throne then sue before his mercy-seat. So our Pharisee here prayeth not as if he desired to be heard, but as one that exacted what was due to his merit. Quod justitia aedificaverat, superbia destruebat, saith Paulinus. What his seeming righteousness had built up, his pride and vainglory pulled down to the ground. In the progress of his prayer he expresseth contempt of his brother; I am not as this Publican; as if the defect of the one did enhance the worth of the other, and that Publican the sinner did add to the merit of this Pharisee the boaster. In the conclusion, in the words of my Text, like Solomon's fool, he commendeth himself, and that too but for the shell and outside of a religious act; I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. We have here a catalogue of sins not committed, and of good duties performed: but if we cast it up, we shall find the sum to be nothing: a catalogue drawn out by pride and vainglory, and coloured over and guilded by hypocrisy. You would think indeed you saw a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile; but pull off the visor, and you shall see a Pharisee; break open the painted sepulchre, and you shall behold nothing but dead men's bones and rottenness and corruption. In the Text we have two things to consider, the Person, and his Performances; the person triumphing in his acts, and the acts reproaching the person. He did more than was required, fasted twice in the week, and gave more in tithes than the Law exacted, even of mint and cumin, and of all that he possessed, and yet was a breaker of the Law. He did more than he ought, yet came short of what he ought. Jejunia, ut beneficia; he urgeth his fastings and tithing as benefits, and behold, they are turned into sins. I fast, I pay tithes, is not a commendation but a libel in the mouth of a Pharisee. Or, if you please, we shall take the words 1. in the form and manner in which they are proposed; and he speaketh them Church-wise, in the form of a prayer: 2. in the substance and matter of them; and there we shall discover three notorious vices, Pride drawing on Vainglory, and both ushering in Hypocrisy: and out of them we shall draw some conclusions which may be useful for our observation. First, I fast twice in the week. Were we not told in the Text that he went up into the Temple to pray, this language of his could not be thought a prayer. The stile is too lofty, against the very nature of Prayer. For whether we take Prayer to be an ascent or the mind unto God, or a religious affection and breathing of the soul, in all its defects and necessities, in all its returns and acknowledgements to God (for Prayer doth as if were divide us from ourselves, layeth us on the ground, in dust and ashes: So low fell Abraham Gen. 18. And David, when he spoke to God, could not but cry out, Who am I? 2 ●om. 7. or what is my father's house? When the soul looketh towards Majesty, the rays of it beat her back upon herself, there to behold her own emptiness and vileness.) Take Prayer, I say, how we please, we cannot draw it to make it fit the Pharisees speech here, I fast twice in the week. Hoc faciebat ut orans apud se esset, saith the Father; He drew not nigh to God, but dwelled in the vain contemplation of himself, and looked upon his performances as it were through a multiplying glass, which made them seem more and greater than they were. When Philip King of Macedonia laid siege to the fair city of Samos, he told the citizens that he came a wooing to it; but the Orator well replied that it was not the fashion in their country to come a wooing with a fife and a drum: So here we may behold this Pharisee in the posture of a beggar or petitioner, going up to the Temple to pray, and yet telling God he standeth in no need of him; as if, saith Chrysostom, a beggar, that were to crave an alms, should hid his ulcers, and load himself with chains and rings and bracelets, and cloth himself in rich and costly apparel; as if a beggar should ask an alms in the robes of a King. Job 31.27. His heart did flatter him in secret, and with his mouth he did kiss his hands, as Job speaketh. Coming before his Physician, he hideth his sores, and showeth his sound and healthful parts, in a dangerous case; like a man struck in a vein, that voideth his best blood, and retaineth his worst. And this is against the very nature of Prayer; which should lay us at the feet of God, as nothing before him; which should raise itself and take its flight on the wings of Humility and Obedience; which should contract the mind in itself, and secure it from pride; which should depress the soul in itself, and defend it from vain glory; which should so fill it that there may be no room for hypocrisy. Then our devotion will ascend as incense, Exod. 30.35. pure and holy, seasoned with the Admiration of God's Majesty and the Detestation of ourselves. But if it be not thus seasoned, but relish of the corruption of a hollow heart, it will be but as the smoke of the bottomless pit, or, (which is as offensive to God) the breathe and evaporations of a Pharisee. And so far we find this Pharisee faulty, if we consider the form of his words as a prayer. In the next place, if we consider the matter and substance of the Pharisees words, we shall find him a Devil to himself, (so every Proud man is, saith Climacus) puffed up and swelled with the wind of his own conceit. Grandis tumor est, sed contrarius s●nt▪ that seethe all rom: His veins are full, but it is with bad blood; and Pride ●●, of Fight-the spirits of it, which maketh it run disorderly, and break fo● Anger, of biles and ulcers, into that which we call our Glory, but it is our f●● noise Pride maketh us to forget our dependence on God, and to hate an ●e: quality with our brethren. It turneth our loudest thanks into ingratitude. I fast, and, I am not an adulterer, leaveth God in the rear, to help when all is done. I am a great faster, that engageth his God; and, I am not as this Publican, that excommunicateth his brother. Pride is a sin which indeed had its birth in heaven, in Lucifer; but, as if it had forgot which way it fell, it never had the power to return thither again, but here on earth remaineth the Devil's emissary, to betray Virtue itself, to spoil and rob us of our spiritual endowments, to poison each stream, to defile each action, to turn our prayers into sin, to make our good deeds stink in the nostrils of the Almighty, to corrupt a fast, to blow our alms before the wound with the breath of a trumpet, to make a sacrifice murder, and a gift an injury. Sin hath a foul face, and of itself is misshapen: therefore the Devil's art and labour is to make Goodness so too, to set his inscription upon God's coin, his Devil's face upon Angelical perfections. Ignorance begetteth Pride, and Pride increaseth ignorance. This maketh us leave God behind us, to whom we should cleave tanquam principio, as the beginner and donour of all good things, and to think that the fountain and original of all good is in ourselves; to think so when we do not think so. It maketh us, like Ananias, Acts 5. give God a part, but keep back the greatest part to ourselves. The proud is as he that transgresseth by wine. He doth not see what he seethe, Hab. 2: nor understand what he knoweth, but speaketh and judgeth of things most absurdly. Pride is the Drunkenness of the soul. And it is the Idolatry of the soul, making us bow to ourselves, and burn incense to our own yarn, as the Prophet speaketh. It is a kind of Murder; it maketh us kill ourselves with smiling, and dote ourselves to death. It is the Adultery of the soul; it divorceth us from God, and maketh us couple and engender with our own fancies. Adulteri sumus: nos amari volumus, non sponsum, saith Augustine; We are plain adulterers: we would have ourselves to be loved, and not the bridegroom. It is a False witness and a lying glass, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a witness drawn out of our own house, our own corrupt hearts, giving us for men, when we are but children in understanding; witnessing either not the truth, or not the whole truth; bringing in the flesh for the spirit, a ceremony for the substance, a rite for religion, hearing for obedience, profession for practice, the lesser things of the Law, mint and cumin, for the weightier things of the Law, and a part for the whole. And indeed these formalities oftener swell us up then sincere obedience. For obedience, if it be sincere, is humility, and keepeth us under God's hand; but Pride commonly buildeth all its glorious superstructures upon defect, upon appearances and shows. He who is only a Jew outwardly boasteth more than he who is a Jew inwardly; and the formal Christian is more supercilious than he that mindeth the things of Christ, and is more ●aken with the hearing of a Sermon then the other with doing of the Word. If he can pray, and fast, and hear, he is more exalted in himself then he that denieth himself, and taketh up Christ's cross, and followeth him. Knowledge falsely so called puffeth up, but charity edifieth. Lastly, I may say Pride is covetous and envious. Amat avaritia unitatem: Covetousness would draw all and make it one in itself. The Pharisee in the Text had a deep die and tincture of it, So blinded he was that he saw none but himself; I am, and I alone; I fast twice in the week; and what is this Publican; So he standeth as upon terms with God, and defieth his brother. First he attributeth to himself (though not the total, yet) the principal cause of that good was in him, and then looketh down and contemneth the low dejected estate of the poor Publican. Thus whilst other sins fly the presence of the Almighty, Pride dareth oppose him to his face, and maketh even Ruin itself the foundation of her tabernacle. Next to the sin of Pride followeth Vain glory the daughter of Pride; An hateful mother, and an hateful daughter. As Choler is nothing else but spuma sanguinis, the froth of Blood, so is Vainglory nothing else but spuma superbiae, the froth of Pride. Pride, like the foolish woman in the Proverbs, is loud and talkative. She speaketh in our garments, in our gestures, in every motion, in every look. When the heart is full of it, the tongue will be as the pen of a ready writer. Doth a Pharisee give alms? You shall hear a trumpet. Doth he pray? You shall see him in the corners of the streets. Doth he fast? You shall see it in his countenance, or he will proclaim it in the Temple, I fast twice in the week. Let a Monk but for some time cloister up himself, and fast, and strait, saith S. Hierom, putat se esse alicujus momenti, he beginneth to contemplate himself, and thinketh him his enemy that doth not admire him. He one day's retirement must not lie hid: for he will speak it, by not vouchsafing a word to his equal. Let a blind Votary devote himself to poverty, or go in pilgrimage to some Saint, and his own opinion full soon will canonize him, and he will write it on the cloister-walls. Let the formal Christian keep the Sabbath day holy, though not more holy than the devotion, or rather itch, of his ear can make it; let him keep this one commandment, though he break all the rest; let him keep the feast, though with the leven of malice and wickedness, and he will make this one day the boast and comfort of every day of the week, and vent himself in a censure, which is the voice and language of Vain glory, publishing his own praise in a sharp reprehension of others, and proclaiming his piety in the sentence of their condemnation. For Vainglory cannot speak more plainly than thus, I am not as that Publican. Indeed a good name is as a precious ointment, Eccl. 7. and every Christian is bound to preserve it. Quisquis famam custodit, in alios misericors est: I am merciful to others, when I am careful of the preservation of my own good name: for by this I let fall no spark to kindle a suspicion in him which may flame out at last into an uncharitable censure. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Praise is a sweet and delightful note: but if I sing it myself, or take delight in hearing it, I may take in death at my ears. This Siren's song may slumber me, but I may die in this slumber. For as is the mother, such is the daughter: As after pride cometh a fall, so after this glorying cometh shame. And indeed they are both built up upon the same materials, upon thin and airy speculations; and they feed on shadows instead of meat, as the Chameleons do on air. Vilia popularis aurae mancipia, they suck and draw in the breath of popular applause, which turneth oftener than the wind, is now loud in an Hosanna, and anon louder in a Crucifige; now maketh Gods, and then stoneth them. And as they feed on air, so are they made out of air, the ebullitions and resultances of formalities, and shows and outward performances. A truly pious mind keepeth at home in itself, is modest and silent, Deo solo contentus judice, feasteth on a good conscience, is ambitious of no eye but his that seethe all things, desireth no other Euge but his. Of Mortification, of Fight with ourselves, of Denying ourselves, of bridling our Anger, of quenching our Lusts, of composing our Affections there is little noise in the world, unless it be in our pulpits; as little noise as practice: but Fasting and Prayer and Alms busy not the mind so much as the tongue; and as we bring them forth with no great travel and pain, so we love to see them gracious in men's eyes, and to reflect back upon us with honour. I fast twice in the week, must be writ in the forehead of a Pharisee, that men may see it, and learn to call him Rabbi, Rabbi. He is his own chronicle, his own history, and the multitude must read and applaud it. Therefore our Saviour putteth in a caution, When ye fast, look not sour, as the hypocrites; Matth. 6.16. for they disfigure their faces, that they may seem to men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. Now in the third place, these two, Pride and Vainglory, usher in Hypocrisy. They are augmentum sterilitatis, & simulationis janua: As they bring a leanness into the soul and a barrenness of good works, (for what doth he bring forth that is delivered of a shadow?) so they make up that gate which standeth wide open to let in Hypocrisy. For he that lifteth his head on high, he that would have his name carried about by the breath of the people, he that would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some great one, will fill up that greatness, though it be but with shows; and, though he be not, yet will he seem to be that for which he desireth to be pointed at, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, This is the great faster, This is the devout man. This will make some sound and noise which may echo back upon him. Nay, Hypocrisy is more curious and busy many times than the Truth itself: It hath nothing, and yet seemeth to have more of Religion then that which is truly so. So a Parasite is wont to exceed a friend, a Mountebank to promise more than a Physician, a Sophister to be more grave than a Philosopher, a babbler more formal than a Divine, and a Pharisee more strict and severe than a Disciple of Christ. Hypocrisy and Ostentation with the Orator are all one. We read of Nero, who was a great actor on the stage, that representing the madness and fury of Hercules, and being, as the argument of the Fable required, bound with chains, a certain soldier beholding him thought he had been assaulted with violence, and ran to his rescue: So hath every age afforded us some skilful actors of their parts; Kings, that are but slaves; Prophets, that are but impostors; and Saints, that are but images, who can rage's in their zeal, and pour forth bitter imprecations, when themselves are that execrable thing that should be put away; who censure all, condemn what is best, shake that which should stand, and set up a Babel on the ruins of Jerusalem. And all this is performed with that earnestness and life that standers by, not so cunning, but even as wise as themselves, never once deliberate, or ask the question, Are these things so? but conclude that it is so in truth, and so run in with as great fury to assist them, and never discover that it was fraud and cruelty and oppression that made the noise, that it was not Hercules, but the Tyrant that acted his part. For the people, who are but shadows, are much taken with shows; ex veritate pauca, ex opinione multa aestimant; they are not led by the Truth, but turned about upon Opinion as on a wheel. For bring an actor from the school of Statilius, saith Tully, and though he excel even Roscious himself, yet no man will take the pains to behold him; but let one come from Roscius' school, and spectators will flock to him, although he be far worse than Statilius. Vulgus pessimus veritatis interpres; The common people are the most corrupt interpreters of truth; for they look upon it, and call it Error. They make Saints and Reprobates at pleasure, and will canonize a man of Belial, if he be of their humour and faction, when they set the mark of the Beast upon him who maketh conscience of his ways, and is so good that he cannot be like them. Therefore ambitious and vainglorious men were always great flatteres of the people, and still gave them lettuce fit for their lips. The Pharisee is for the streets and the multitude; there you shall behold him spreading his phylacteries an large. I fast twice in the week; his Doxology is fitted for himself. Ego runneth through his whole Litany. Thrice is the glory, is not in his Pater noster. And if truth may expound it, I fast, by interpretation is, I am proud, I am vainglorious, I am an hypocrite. From the Pharisee's Fast we may draw out this useful observation, That an outward act, though enjoined by God, and though to the eye of man most exactly performed, if it proceed not from a pure and single heart, if it be not driven to that end for which it was commanded, is so far from finding acceptance with God, that it is odious and hateful in his sight. Some duties there are which are relativi juris, and are commanded for a further end; as Prayer, and Hearing, and Fasting, and the like: and there be others that have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Aristotle speaketh of Sapience, their end in themselves; as Denying ourselves, Crucifying the old man, Putting on the new, Piety, and Sincerity: all these are done for themselves, and have no other end, unless it be glory. The first always have reference to the last. We pray, and hear, and fast, that we may be fit for the harder works. If we pray as we should, the power and efficacy of prayer followeth and assisteth us in our daily conversation: If we hear as we should, we shall obey: If we fast as we should, we shall abstain from sin. What though we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, buffet and discipline our flesh? what though we should, what Dominicus Loricatus is said to have done, give ourselves in one Lent five and forty thousand stripes? what though we should with the Euchite take S. Paul's words literally, and pray continually? what though we hear the word every day, and that from morning to night? yet when all is done, nothing is done, unless all be drawn home to the end for which all were enjoined, which is, sincere and universal obedience: Without which we cannot think those services acceptable to God, but, as things which degenerate, so much the worse by how much the better they had been if they had been carried and brought home to a right end. What a sin is it that Prayer, which was made to open the gates of heaven, should devour widows houses? that I should open my ears and greedily suck in the doctrine of truth, and then as greedily confute the Preacher by my practice? And what is a Fast, if it be for oppression and blood? Fasting is no virtue, saith S. Hierom, who liked of Fasting well enough: Adjumentum est, non perfectio sanctitatis; It is a good help and way to virtue, but it is no part of the perfection and beauty of holiness. And it will concern us to take heed how we flatter ourselves when we fast, as if we had performed some special part of God's service, and to lose the benefit it might have brought with it. Magìs hoc providendum est, nè tibi hoc, quòd licita contemnas, securitatem quandam illicitorum faciat, lest by Fasting, or the rest, we think we have highly merited at God's hands, and that our abstinence from what is lawful encourage us not and countenance us in something that is most unlawful, and thus make Fasting a stolen and bawd for our sin. Behold, saith the people to God, we have fasted, and thou regardest it not. They thought that to hang down the head for a day was religion, when their lives were otherwise spotted with uncleanness. And it is the nature of Ceremony to put a trick as it were upon Devotion, and to assume that unto itself which is due to Religion. And as it was sometimes said of Church men's wealth, Religio peperit divitias; sed filia devoravit matrem, so standeth the case between Ceremony and Religion; Religion was the first that brought it forth, and the daughter with many men eateth up the mother: Those duties which were ordained to promote Holiness of life, undermine and supplant it, and then stand in its place; obtain not the end, but are either taken for it, or drawn to worse. We fast, as Saul made the people, for a day; and then, as they did at night, 1 Sam. 14. we eat with the blood. Therefore what S. Paul spoke of Circumcision is true of Fasting; They are in a manner both made of the same matter and upon the same mould; Circumcision, and so Fasting, verily profitteth, if thou keep the Law; but if thou break the Law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision, thy Fasting is turned into sin. Again, these duties which look further than themselves, and are instrumental to others, are of easier dispatch than those which they are ordained to advance. It is far easier to fast, to pray, to hear, to tithe mint and rue and anise and cumin, then to do the weightier matters of the Law, judgement, mercy, and faith. These we must make our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or preparations; the greatest difficulty is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the work itself. It is an harder matter to fight against lust then to fast for a day; to be in the body, and yet out of the body; it is harder to crucify the flesh then to punish it with the loss of a meal. It is harder for the wanton to make himself an eunuch then to forbear his bread; harder for the Mammonist to ●●e rich in good works then to pay his tithes. To sacrifice the oalves of our lips ●●o open our ears, to afflict ourselves for a day, many slender motives, many by and earthy respects may persuade us. How soon will war or famine or a plague bring us into the house of mourning▪ and pull us on our knees? when not all these judgements, nor the terror of the wrath to come, can prevail with us to deny ourselves, can prevail with the covetous to scatter his bread, with the sacrilegious to hold off his hand from that which is holy, with the oppressor to beat out his teeth, with the wanton to keep his feet from the house of the foolish woman. Heaven itself hath not force enough to keep us out of hell, nor hell terror enough to drive us from it. Here, here is the agony and contention, here is the struggling, the labour, the warfare of a Christian; not in hearing, but in doing; not in abstaining from meat, but from sin. Here the mind is put to the utmost of its activity; here it is put upon the rack; here it is in labour and travel, not to bring forth a hollow eye or an open ear, a sigh or groan, or many prayers, but a new creature. Hoc opus, hic labor est. This is a work indeed, the work of a Christian. Formalities and outward performances, Hearing and Fasting, and the like, are set forth, like those labourers in the parable, early in the morning, and begin the work; but true Piety, Obedience and Self-denial, these bear the burden and heat of the day. Those may change, nay, may be turned into sin; but these abide for ever, and are as lasting as the heavens. Thirdly, the strict and severe observing of outward duties many times maketh us more slack and remiss in those which are more essential and necessary; as Euphranor the painter, having wearied his fancy and art in drawing the pictures of the petty Gods, failed and came short in setting out the Majesty of Jupiter. How often doth Sacrifice swallow up Obedience? May not a man be more deceitful for his Prayers, more wicked for the many Sermons he hath heard, and more bloody for a Fast? May not a man cry out with Saul, I have kept the commandment of God, when he hath broke it? sit down and rest in these types and shadows, and deal with the substance as the Jews did with Christ, revile and spit upon it, and put it to open shame? That of the Father is true, Vbi quod non oportet adhibetur, quod oportet negligitur; Where we place our diligence in that which is less, we withdraw and take it off from that which is more necessary; are great fasters, and greater sinners. A Pharisee is never more a wolf or a viper then after a fast. Last of all (for I must hasten) God is not so much glorified in a Fast as in the renewing of his image, which is more visibly seen in a chaste, just, pious, merciful man then in all the Anchorets or Fasters in the world. For herein we are like him and resemble him. We cannot say we hear as God doth hear, or fast as God doth fast, or pray as God doth pray; but we are just as God is just, holy as God is holy, and merciful as God is merciful. Look not for the face of God in the hollow of the ear or the wrinkles of the face: Look not for him in a forced sigh or groan: Look not to see him always in thy outward mortification: For there thou seest at most but his hinder parts, what he commandeth last. The fullest view a mortal eye can have of him is in piety and innocency of life, which are the works of his hand, and weak and imperfect representations of him. And this is his glory, that we are like unto him, and in this he rejoiceth; as an artificer is delighted in his work, when he seethe it finished according to that Idea which he had set up in his mind, and looketh upon it with the same favour and complacency as he doth upon his child which resembleth him: so looketh God upon his creature, when he seethe him built up according to that pattern which he hath made, and which was in himself; when he seethe him in that shape and form of obedience which he prescribed; when he is what God would have him be, a follower of God. This is his glory, above all the Hallelujahs and Hosannas of men and Angels. In a word, this is the end for which he gave us those hard and unpleasant laws of Fasting▪ and Abstinence, and that chargeable one (as we think) of Hearing. For this we pray, for this we hear, for this we fast. And if these duties lift us up to this, they are accepted: If not, they but carry us the wrong way, from Bethel to Bethaven, from true godliness to lying and vanity, and they are an abomination. And when God thundereth from heaven and breatheth forth his menaces against the greatest sinners, the sentence is, They shall have their portion with hypocrites. For 1. Nothing is more opposite to God, who is Truth, than a Pharisaical hypocrite, whose whole life is a lie, opposite to his Justice; which as it punisheth all and every part of wickedness, so it exacteth all and every part of sanctity; which will not dispense with a moral, positive and eternal precept upon the performance of a temporay and occasional one; which exacteth his will to be performed not by halves, but commandeth us implere legem, to fulfil his Law, to fill it up with our obedience; which will not take a days fast for an age of intemperance, a bow of the head for a blow on the face, nor the hearing of an hour for the deceit and cozenage of a week; which will not take the shadow for the substance, nor a picture for a Christian: in a word, which will not admit of our courage and resolution in sin for our active, yet unactive, endeavours in bodily exercise; which will not take the helps, the abused helps, for the end, nor favour the Devil for the Saint he is like. The voice of Justice is, These things thou oughtest to have done, and not to have left the other undone. 2. Hypocrisy is opposite to God's Wisdom, and is a mockery of him, hiding us from his all-seeing eye; as if he could not behold Oppression and Sacrilege through a Fast; as if he could not discover us fight against heaven, because our march is grave and solemn, and we sin against him in his name; as if he could not see Jeroboam's wife in her disguise, nor the Devil in Samuel's mantle; as if he that made the Eye were blind, and he that made the Conscience were not greater than it, and saw all things, even those we will not see, and those we cannot see: for who ever yet forded his own heart? Why should we then provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we wiser than he? Quid prodest inclusam habere conscientiam? Patemus Deo: Why should we first beat and wound our conscience with sin, and then heal and skin it over with a ceremony? for howsoever it be shut to thee, thy heart is open to God, more open than Drusus' house in the story, that had neither windows nor doors. Though thy mask be on, and thou art acting thy part upon the stage of the world, yet thou art in the eye and presence of a just and wise God. To him thy compliment is a lie, thy dissimulation open, thy thoughts as vocal as thy words, thy darkness as clear as the light, and thy whisper as loud as thunder. He can sever thy dross from thy gold, thy oppression from thy fasting, thy sacrilege from thy zeal. And he who telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names, will tell the number of thy sins, as numberless as they, and call them all by their names, thy Oppression oppression, thy Fraud fraud, thy Profaneness profaneness, though they lie hid and covered over in a fast, in thy ceremonious, specious and hollow devotion. And now where is thy hope? In a shadow, in a ceremony, in a broken reed, which will pierce through thy hand, and aggravate thy sin. Job 8. The hope of the hypocrite shall be cut off, said Bildad. Nay, his joy is but a moment, saith Zophar. Job 20. And a Moment, we know, is indivisible, of less continuance than a thought. Philosopher's will not allow it to be a part of Time. How can that hope last which hath no better a pillar to lean on then a phantasm, which appeareth and is not? I fast twice in the week, I pay tithes of all that I possess, is a fair Item in a Pharisee's catalogue; but it is foisted in, and, when God looketh upon it, it is a bill of accusation. And now you have seen the Pharisee's phylacteries pulled off, the hypocrite unmasked, let us take a short survey of ourselves by way of application, and so conclude. And here, as S. Ambrose speaketh of the story of Naboth, Vetus tempore, usu quotidiana, It is very ancient, but renewed every day in the practice of men, so may we say of the Pharisees; The Sect is vanished, but there is a generation of such vipers still, lifting up their heads and their voices as high as they, as very hypocrites as they; as holy as they, and as seditious as they; as holy as they, and as deceitful as they; as holy as they, and as covetous as they; as holy as they, and as imperious as they; as holy as they, and as bold Dictator's as they. Mali thripes, mali ipes: Neither is better, for both are bad, and it is not easy to determine which is worse, but when they show us their teeth and their horns. You may see them in the Temple and in every street, hear them giving thanks, and blessing themselves; making that a Law which is none, and slighting the rest; straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel; stumbling at a straw, and leaping over a mountain; startling at a child, at that which is harmless, and embracing a monster; silent and crafty when they are overpowered, and loud and cruel when they prevail; Lambs when they list, and Lions when they can. I need not be large in their character; you may know them by their language, I fast twice in the we e. They fast, and they pray, and they hear, and they believe, and they are assured of heaven. They are, and they alone: The rest stand before them as Publicans or excommunitate persons. Can any good thing, can any Prophet, come out of Nazareth? Can any know any good, or do any good, that is not of that faction? Enlarge thy phylacteries, if thou canst, thou Pharisee, and paint that sepulchre of rotten bones, which thou art, with more art and coriosity than these; blow thy trumpet louder, or draw thy face to more figures then these. Lord, what is now become of Religion? It was placed in judgement and mercy; it is now managed with cruelty and craft: It was committed to every nation and all people; it is now shut up in a party: It was seated in the Will and Understanding; it is now whirled about in the Fancy: It was a wedding-garment; it is now made a cloak of maliciousness: It was once true, He that loved Christ, and kept his commandments, was his Disciple; but he is now no good Christian who is so, if he be not so after such a mode and such a fashion. We see it in the Church of Rome; No salvation out of her territories: God grant we feel it not nearer home. Beloved, he that shall look abroad, and well consider the conversation of many, may be tempted perhaps to an unworthy thought, that either there is no Religion, or that Religion is nothing. For wherein is it placed? In a Fast, and that to our own wills; in Hearing, and that but vain; in Prayer, and that many times but babbling; in Faith, and that but dead; in Formalities and Shows. It's sound is gone through the earth, and it is lost in the noise. Religion we fight for, and Religion we fight against: Religion we extol, and Religion we shame: We cry it up, and tread it under foot, and are never less religious than when the Pharisee speaketh within us, and telleth the world and maketh it known to all the people that we are so. Non apparemus mali, ut plus malignemur: We will not appear evil, that we may do the more evil; seem very good, that we may be worse and worse. Let us take an Inventory of our Jewels and our best things, let us set down our virtues. We fast with all our sins about us, full of iniquity, and many times feed it with a fast: We fast, and make it a prologue sometimes to a Comedy, sometimes to a Tragedy; and at once call down judgements, and deprecate them; humble ourselves before God, and provoke him. We hear, and that is all: and would to God that were all. But here that curse is upon it, Deut. 28.38. We carry much seed out, but gather little in. We hear much, and remember little, and practise less; nay, we practise the contrary to that which we heard with so much attention and delight. We pray for one thing, and desire another: We make it a trade, a craft and occupation, to take indeed a pearl, but not the kingdom of heaven. I, but we believe, I am unwilling to say Faith is a ceremony; but in many it is not so much, and signifieth nothing at all; a meteor hanging in the fancy which portendeth nothing but sterility and barrenness; rather a scutcheon for show then a buckler to quench a fiery dart. We call Christ a foundation, and we build upon him: We lay our cruelty upon him, who was a Lamb; our malice upon him, who prayed, who died for his enemies; our pride upon him, who made himself of no reputation; our hypocrisy upon him, who was Truth itself; and our rebellion upon him, who was a pattern of obedience. We believe in Christ, and crucify him again. For this the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, Rom. 1. 1●. because we hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. For this his Anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still; not so much for the breach as for the contempt of his word and commandments, not so much tor our offending him as for our dallying with him, not so much for our sin as for our hypocrisy; not only for our obedience, but for our hearing; not only for our defects, but for our devotion; not only for our infidelity, but for our faith; not only for our intemperance, but for our fast. For what can provoke God more than to see such pearls trod under foot by swine? I do not mention paying of tithes; for neither the Law of God nor of man can defend them, nor any thing else that looketh like a prey. And therefore, for conclusion, let me bespeak you as Christ did his Disciples, Take heed of the leven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy; Luke 12. for it will leven and sour the whole lump, the whole body of your Religion, taint and poison your Fast, frustrate your Hearing, turn your Prayer into sin, make your Faith vain, and leave you in your sins. The One and Fortieth SERMON. PART I. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. THere is nothing more talked of then the Gospel, nothing more wilfully mistake, nothing more frequently abused. The sound of it is gone through the earth, is heard from the East to the West, but men have set and tuned it to their own lusts and humours: No Psalm will please us but a Psalm of Mercy: For Judgement is a harsh note. Mercy and Judgement, though David put them together in his Song, with us are such discords that they yield no harmony. Mercy and Judgement, Law and Liberty, though they may meet and delight us, though they must meet to save us, yet we set them at distance, cleave to the one, and hate the other; please and delight ourselves under the shadow of Mercy, till Judgement falleth upon as a tempest to overwhelm us; lose our Liberty in our embraces; forfeit Mercy by laying hold of it; and the Gospel of Christ is made the Gospel of man, nay, saith S. Augustine, Evangelium Diaboli, the Gospel of the Devil himself. This our blessed Apostle had discovered in the dispersed Tribes, to whom he wrote; That they were very ready to publish and magnify the Gospel, that they loved to speak of it, that they loved to hear of it; that they were perfect in their Creed, that Faith was set up aloft and crowned, even when it was dead; that they did believe, and were partial; that they did believe, and despise the poor; that they did believe, and blaspheme that worthy Name by which they were called: And therefore to draw them back from this so dangerous a deviation, Vers. 19 he exhorteth them, first, to hear the word of truth (that he disliketh not) but then, secondly, to receive it into their hearts purged from all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. Vers. 21. And in the third place, to drive it home, he urgeth them to the Practice and full Obedience of what they hear and believe. His first reason is, Because to hear and not to do is to put a cheat upon ourselves, to defraud ourselves of the true end of Hearing; which when we do; we must necessarily fall upon a worse end. If we hear, and not do, we shall do that which will destroy us. His second reason is taken ab utili, from the huge advantage we shall reap by it. For Blessedness is entailed not upon the Hearers, but the Doers of the Word; as you find it in my Text, But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, etc. In which words you have, I. the Character of a true gospeler, of a Christian indeed, He looketh into the Gospel, and he continueth in it by frequent meditation and by constant obedience; by not forgetting, and by doing the work which the Gospel enjoineth. This is his Character. II. his Crown; He shall be blessed in his deed. So that here the Apostle taketh the Christian by the hand, and pointeth out to him his end, namely Blessedness: And, that he may press forward to it, he chalketh out his way before him, the Gospel, or the doctrine of the Gospel of Christ. Here if he walk and make progress, here if he remain and persevere, the end is Blessedness; and it is laid up for him, and even expecteth and waiteth to meet him. Thus we see it, and thus we set forward towards it. Doing is the Duty, and Blessedness is the Reward. These are the Parts. In the first, the Character of a true Christian, you have the Character of the Gospel itself, and that, one would think, a strange one. For who would look for Law in the Gospel? or who would look for liberty in a Law? The Gospel is good news, but a Law is terrible; we cannot endure to hear that which is commanded: And one would think that the Law were vanished with the smoke at mount Sinai. And Liberty is a Jubilee, bringeth rest and intermission; but a Law toeth and fettereth us to hard tasks, to be up and doing, to labour and pain. And yet there is Law in the Gospel, and there is Liberty in the Gospel: and these two will friendly join and comply together; and the truest way to liberty is by this Law. The Gospel then, or the Doctrine of the Gospel, is 1. a Law, and so requireth our obedience; 2. a perfect Law, and exacteth a perfect and complete obedience; 3. a Law of liberty, that our obedience may be free and voluntary. And these, if we continue to the end, will draw on the reward, which is the end of all, the end of this Law, the end of our obedience; We shall be blessed in our work. We begin with the Character of the Gospel, or the doctrine of the Gospel. And, first, we see, the Apostle calleth it a Law. And though it may seem an improper speech to say the Gospel is Law, yet it will bear a good and profitable sense. For there is a new Law as well as an old. Et lex antiqua suppletur per novam, saith Tertullian; The old Law receiveth addition and perfection by the new. Take it in what sense you please, in the best and most pleasing signification, it implieth a Law. If you take it for a Testament, as it is called, that is the Will of the Testator; Hebr. 7.22. and his will is a Law. It is called so, mandatum, a command, an injunction; contestatio mentis, saith Gellius, a declaration of our mind. John 17.14. I have given them thy word, saith Christ. I have delivered all thy mind and will: which we are bound to observe as a Law. Take it for a Covenant: It is called so, the new covenant. And what is a Covenant but a Law? It was a Law upon Christ, to do what belonged to his office; and it is a Law upon us, to do our duties; unless we can think that Christ only was under the Law, that we might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lawless, and do what we please. Take it, as the name importeth, for Good news; Even that pleasing sound, the Angel's Anthem, the Music of Heaven may convey a Law. For what was the good news? That we should be delivered from our enemies. That is but an imperfect narration, but a part of the news. The Law is tied as fast to it as we are to the Law, That we should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. Take it in the Angel's words; To you is born a Saviour. And though TO YOU may take all mankind within its compass, and be as large as the whole world, yet it is a Law that appropriateth and applieth these words, and draweth them down to particulars. For though they take in all, yet they do not take in a Libertine or lawless person. To you a Saviour, is no good news to the impenitent sinner, to him that will not be obedient to this Law, to the Gospel of Christ. Facit infidelitas multorum ut non omnibus nascatur qui omnibus natus est, saith Ambrose. To you a Saviour is born, is universally true: but Infidelity and Disobedience interpret it against themselves. He is not your Saviour, unless you receive him with his own conditions: and his conditions make a Law▪ and are obligatory. For, in the last place, look upon his promises, of Expiation and Pardon and Remission, of Life and Eternity, look upon them in all their brightness and radiancy; and even from thence you may hear a Law, as the Israelites did from the thick cloud and thunders. For Love may have a Law bound up in it as well as Terror. Love hath its commands. Indeed it is itself a Law, especially the Love of the God of Love, who is equal to himself in all his ways, whose promises are made (as all things else which are made by him) in order, number, and weight, whose Love and Promises are guided and directed by his Justice and Wisdom. He doth not promise to purge those who will wallow in the mire, or to pardon those who will ever rebel, or to give them life who love death, or eternal, pure, spiritual joy to those who seek eternity only in their lusts. No: his promises are always attended with conditions fitted to that Wisdom that made them, and to our condition that receive them. He doth not ex conditionibus facere promissiones, as some have been bold to say, condition with us to do his will, and then turn the condition into a promise; but rather ex promissionibus facere conditiones, make conditions out of promises. For every promise in the Gospel is loaded with its condition. Thou shalt be saved; but it is, if thou believe: There is lex Fidei, the Law of Faith. I will give thee a crown of life; but it is, if thou be faithful unto death: There is lex Factorum, the Law of Works. For they are not all Credenda in the Gospel, all articles of Faith: there be Agenda, some things to be done. Nor is the Decalogue shut out of the Gospel. Nay, the very articles of our Creed include a Law, and in a manner bind us to some duty: and though they run not in that imperial strain, Do this, and live, yet they look towards it as towards their end. Otherwise to believe them in our own vain and carnal sense were enough, and the same faith would save us with which the Devils are tormented. No: thy Faith, to which thou art also bound as by a Law, is dead, that is, is not faith, if it do not work by a Law. Thou believest there is a God: Thou art then bound to worship him. Thou believest that Christ is thy Lord: Thou art then obliged to do what he commandeth: His Word must be thy Law, and thou must fulfil it. His Death is a Law, and bindeth thee to mortification. His Cross should be thy obedience; his Resurrection, thy righteousness; and his Coming to judge the quick and the dead, thy care and solicitude. In a word; in a Testament, in a Covenant, in the Angel's message, in the Promises of the Gospel, in every Article of thy Creed thou mayest find a Law: Christ's Legacy, his Will, is a Law; the Covenant bindeth thee; the Good news obligeth thee; the Promises engage thee; and every Article of thy Creed hath a kind of commanding and legislative power over thee. Either they bind to some duty, or concern thee not at all. For they are not proposed for speculation, but for practice; and that consequence which thou mayest easily draw from every one, must be to thee as a Law. What though honey and milk be under his tongue, and he sendeth ambassadors to thee, and they entreat and beseech thee in his stead and in his name? Yet is all this in reference to his command, and it proceedeth from the same Love which made his Law: And even these beseechings are binding, and aggravate our guilt, if we melt not, and bow to his Law. Principum preces mandata sunt; the very entreaties of Kings and Princes are as binding as Laws, preces armatae, entreaties that carry force and power with them, that are sent to us as it were in arms to invade and conquer us. And if we neither yield to the voice of Christ in his royal Law, nor fall down and worship at his condescensions and loving parleys and earnest beseechings, we increase our guilt, and make sin sinful in the highest degree. Nor need we thus boggle at the word, or be afraid to see a Law in the Gospel, if either we consider the Gospel itself, or Christ our King and Lord, or ourselves, who are his redeemed captives, and own him all service and allegiance. For, first, the Gospel is not a dispensation to sin; nor was a Saviour born to us, that he should do and suffer all, and we do what we list. No: the Gospel is the greatest and sharpest curb that was ever yet put into the mouth of Sin. The grace of God, saith S. Paul, hath appeared unto all men, teaching us, that is, commanding us, Tit. 2.11. to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Libertas in Christo non fecit innocentiae injuriam, saith the Father; Our liberty in Christ was not brought in to beat down innocency before it, but to uphold it rather and defend it against all those assaults which flesh and blood, our lusts and concupiscence, are ready to make against it. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He taketh away those sins that are passed by remission and pardon; but he setteth up a Law as a rampire and bulwark against Sin, that it break not in and reign again in our mortal bodies. There Christ is said to take away, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the sins, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the sin, of the world, that is, the whole nature of Sin, that it may have no subsistence or being in the world. If the Gospel had nothing of Law in it, there could be no sin under the Gospel: For Sin is a transgression of a Law. But flatter ourselves as we please, those are the greatest sins which we commit against the Gospel. And it shall be easier in the day of judgement for Sodom and Gomorrah then for those Christians who turn the grace of God into wantonness, who sport and revel it under the very wings of Mercy, who think Mercy cannot make a Law, but is busy only to bestow Donatives and Indulgences, who are then most licentious when they are most restrained. For what greater curb can there be, then when Justice, and Wisdom, and Love, and Mercy, all concur and join together to make a Law? Secondly, Christ is not only our Redeemer, but our King and Lawgiver. As he is the wonderful Counsellor, Isa. 9▪ 6. Psal. 2.6. so he came out of the loins of Judah, and is a Lawgiver too. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. The government shall be upon his shoulder. He crept not to this honour, Isa. 9.6. but this honour returned to him as to the true and lawful Lord With glory and honour did God crown him, and set him over the works of his hands. Heb. 2.7. As he crowned the first Adam with Understanding and freedom of Will; so he crowned the second Adam with the full Knowledge of all things, with a perfect Will, and with a wonderful Power, And as he gave to Adam Dominion over the beasts of the field, so he gave to Christ Power over things in heaven and things on earth. And he glorified not himself: Heb. 5.5. but he who said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee: he it was that laid the government upon his shoulder: Not, upon his shoulders: For he was well able to bear it on one of them. For in him the Godhead dwelleth bodily. And with this power he was able to put down all other rule, authority and power, 1 Cor. ●5. 24. to spoil principalities and powers, and to show them openly in triumph; to spoil them by his death, and to spoil them by his Laws, due obedience to which shaketh the power of Hell itself. For this, as it pulleth out the sting of Death, so also beateth down Satan under our feet. This, if it were universal, would be the best exorcism that is, and even chase the Devil out of the world, which he maketh his Kingdom. For to run the way of Christ's commandments, is to overthrow him and bind him in chains, is another hell in hell unto him. Thirdly, if we look upon ourselves, we shall find there is a necessity of Laws to guide and regulate us, and to bring us to the End. All other creatures are sent into the world with a sense and understanding of the end for which they come, and so, without particular direction, and yet unerringly, proceeded to the attaining of it. The Stork in the air knoweth her appointed times, Jer. 8.7. and the Turtle, and the Crane, and the Swallow observe the time of their coming. Pliny speaking of the Bees telleth us, Quod maximè mirum est, mores habent; A wonderful thing it is to see that natural honesty and justice which is in them. Only Man, the sovereign Lord of all the creatures, whom it most principally concerned to be thus endowed, was sent into the world utterly devoid of any such knowledge, & nisi alienâ misericordiâ sustinere se nequit, as Ambrose speaketh, and without foreign and borrowed help never so much as getteth a sight of his own proper end. Amongst natural men none there are in whom appetite is so extinct, but that they see something which they propose unto themselves as a scope of their hopes and reward of their labours, and in the obtaining of which they suppose all their happiness to reside. Yet even in this which men principally incline to, direction is so faulty, particulars so infinite, that most sit down in the midst of their way, and come far short of that mark which their hopes set up. And if our Wisdom be so feeble and deficient in those things which are sensible and open to our view, what laws, what light, what direction have we need of to carry us on in the way to that happiness which no mortal eye can approach? Hannibal, in Livy, being to pass the Alps, a thing that time held impossible, yet comforteth himself with this, Nullas terras coelum contingere, nec inexsuperabiles humano generi esse, That how high soever they were, they were not so high as heaven, nor unpassable, if men were industrious. The pertinacy of Man's industry may find ways through deserts, through rocks, through the roughest seas. But our attempt is far greater. The way we must make is from earth to heaven; a thing which no strength or wit of man could ever yet compass. Therefore Christ our King, who knoweth Man to be a wand'ring and erring creature, would not leave it to his shallow discretion, who no sooner thinketh but erreth, nor setteth down his foot but treadeth amiss; but he cometh himself into the world, promulgeth his Laws, which may be to him as Tiresias his staff in the Poet, able to guide his feet were he never so blind: and in his Gospel he giveth him sound directions no way subject unto error, guideth him as it were with a bridle, putteth his Law into his heart, chalketh out his way before him, and, like a skilful Pilot, sheweth him what course to take, what Syrteses, what rocks to avoid, lest he make an irrecoverable shipwreck of body and soul. His Laws are the Compass, by which if he steer his course he shall pass the gulf, and be brought to that haven where he would be. 1 Pet. 2.9. Rom. 2. 6. Therefore hath Christ called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. And we are the called of Jesus Christ, gathered together into a Church, an House, a Family, a City, a Republic. Our Conversation, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, municipatus, as Tertullian rendereth it, our Burgership, is in heaven. And the Philosopher will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He that will erect a Society, a Commonwealth, must also frame Laws, and fit and shape them to that form of Commonwealth which he intendeth. For Laws are numismata Reipublicae, the coins as it were by which we come to know the true face and representation of a Commonwealth, the different complexions of States and Societies. And Christ our King hath drawn out Laws like unto his Kingdom, which are most fit and appliable to that end for which he hath gathered us into one body. His sceptre is a sceptre of righteousness; and his Laws are just. He came down from heaven; and his Laws carry us back thither. He received them from his Father, John 10.18. as himself speaketh, and these make us like unto his Father. These govern our Understanding, nè assentiat, that it yield not assent to that error which our lusts have painted over in the shape of Truth; and these regulate our Will, nè consentiat, that it do not bow and choose it; and these order our Affections, that they may be servants, and not commanders, of our Reason. These make a heaven in our Understanding; these place the image of God in our Will, and make it like unto his; these settle peace and harmony in the Affections, that they become weapons of righteousness, and fight the battles of our King and Lawgiver: My Anger may be a sword; my Love, a banner; my Hope, a staff; and my Fear, a buckler. In a word, Christ's Laws will fit us for his Kingdom here, and prepare us for his Kingdom hereafter. Therefore, in the next place, they are necessary for us, as the only means to draw us nigh unto himself, and to that end for which he came into the world. Every end hath its proper means, fitted and proportioned to it. Knowledge hath study; Riches have labour and industry; Honour hath policy. Even he that setteth up an end which he is ashamed of and hideth from the Sun and the people, draweth a method and plot in himself to bring him to it. The Thief hath his night and darkness; and the Wanton, his twilight. And his hope entitleth and joineth him to the end, though he never reach it. In the Kingdom of Satan there are rules and laws observed. A thought ushereth in a Sin, and one Sin draweth on another, and at last Destruction. And this is the way of that wisdom which is but foolishness. And shall men work iniquity as by a law? and can we hope to be raised to an eternity of glory, and be left to ourselves? or to attain it by those means which hold no proportion at all with it? Will the Gospel, the bare Tidings of peace, do it; Will a fancy, a thought, a wish, an open profession, have strength enough to lift us up to it? Happiness in fancy is a picture, and no more: In a wish, it is less; for I wish that which I would not have: And barely to profess the means; and acknowledge the way unto it, is to give myself the lie, nay to call myself a fool: for what greater folly can there be then to say, This is the way, and not to walk in it? If we were thus left unto ourselves, all our happiness were but a dream, and every thought a sin against the holy Ghost. We should wish our King neither just, nor wise, nor holy: we should call him our King, and leave him no sceptre in his hand, no power to make a Law; look forward toward the mark, and run backward from it; give Christ a Hail, and crucify him; call an innocent Christ our King, and be men of Belial; an humble Christ, and swell above our measure; a merciful Christ, and be cruel; a just Christ, and be oppressors; hope to attain the end without the means, and against the means, and so go to heaven with hell about us. And indeed Wickedness could never so fill the hearts of men, if they did not entertain this conceit, that the Gospel and the Law are at as great a distance as Liberty and Captivity. And by this the Gospel declineth, and groweth weak and unprofitable, not able to make a new creature, which is made up in righteousness and holiness and obedience to those Laws which, had not the Prince of this world blinded us, we might easily see and take notice of, even in the Gospel itself. For Christ did neither dissolve the Law of Nature, nor abrogate the Moral Law of Moses, but improved and perfected them both. He left the Moral Law as a Rule, but not as a Covenant, pressed it further than formerly it had been understood, and shown us yet a more excellent way. And as God gave to Adam a Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as matter for the freedom of his will, to see which way it would bend, and to try his obedience: So did Christ in this new Creation, even when he came to heal the , and set at liberty those that were in prison, publish his precepts, which are not Counsels but Laws, as matter of that obedience which will keep our heart from polluting again, and strengthen our feet that we may standfast in that liberty wherewith he hath made us free. For without obedience to these Laws the plague is still at our heart, and our fetters cleave close to us. He is come, and hath finished all; and for all this we are yet in our sins. I will not say with Tertullian, Quisquis rationem jubet, legislator est; Whosoever commandeth that which Reason suggesteth is a Lawgiver: For every man that can speak Reason hath not authority to make Laws. But Christ was not only the Wisdom of his Father, but had Legislative power committed to him, being the supreme Head over all men, that by his Laws as well as his Blood he might bind them to that obedience which may make them fit citizens of his new Jerusalem. And as he is CHRIST, anointed by his Father, anointed to his office, to teach and command, so he distilleth his ointment on every member of his: And the same anointing teacheth us of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and maketh us christian's, that we may be obedient to the Christian Law. Christ saith, This new Commandment I give you; and his Apostle calleth it a Law: and we need not be afraid of the name. We will but draw it down to ourselves by way of use and application, and so conclude. And first, we should not be afraid of the word Law, if we were not afraid of our Duty; nor look up upon God's decree, which is hidden from us, but fulfil the royal Law, which is put into our mouth and into our hearts. For his Decree and his Command are not at such opposition but the command may be a decree also. And he decreed to save us by Faith and Obedience to his Evangelical Laws; and he decreed to crown us, but by those means which are fit to set the crown upon our heads. Therefore we cannot but condemn that conceit which hath stained the papers of many who call themselves Gospelers, and polluted the lives of more, That Christ came into the world to do his Father's will, that is, to redeem us; but not to do his Father's will, that is, to teach and command us; Which is in effect to redeem us, and yet leave us in chains: That Christ is a Saviour, and not a Lawgiver: That the Gospel consisteth rather in certain Articles to be believed, then in certain Precepts to be observed: That, to speak properly, there is no precept at all delivered in the Gospel: That it belongeth to the Law to command: That the breath of the Gospel is mild and gentle, and smelleth of nothing but frankincense and myrrh, those precious promises, which we gaze upon till our eyes dazzle that we can see nothing we have to do, no thought to stifle, no word to silence, no lust to beat down, no temptation to struggle with; but we let lose our fancy, and our thoughts fly after and embrace every vanity; we set no watch to the door of our lips; we prove not our works; but do whatsoever the flesh suggesteth; because we have nothing to do, we tempt even Temptation itself, and will be captives because we have a Saviour: for we are taught, and are willing to believe it, That the will of God is laid down in the form and manner of a Law, but not so to be understood by the Elect (which every man can make himself when he please) but as a Promise, which God will work in those his chosen ones, but will not work in others, who from all eternity are cast away: That Faith itself, which is the chief and primary precept of the Gospel, is rather promised then left as a command. Qui amant, sibi somnia fingunt; With such ease do men swallow the most gross and dangerous falsehoods, and then sit down and delight themselves in those fancies, which could find no room but in the sick and distempered brain of a man sold under sin and bound up in carnality. For if we would but look upon Christ, or upon ourselves, and consider what is most proper to unite us to him; if we would but hear him when he speaketh, You cannot love me, unless you keep my commandments; we should not thus smooth and plain our way to run upon the pricks; we should easily with one cast of our eye see what distance there is between a Promise and a Law, and distinguish them by the very sound, which flesh and blood and our weariness in the paths of righteousness do so easily join together and make one. Caelum mari unitur ubi visio absumitur, quae quamdiu viget, tam diu dividit, saith Tertullian; At some distance the heavens seem to close with the sea, not so much by reason of the beams which are cast upon it, but because the sight and visive power is weary and faint, which whilst it remaineth quick and active is able to divide objects one from the other. In like manner we may conceive that a Promise and a Precept, which are in their own nature divers and several things, (for a Promise waiteth upon a Precept, to urge and promote it; and obedience to the Precept sealeth the Promise, and maketh it good unto us) yet may sometimes be taken for the very same. For the Promises are glorious, and cast a lustre upon the Precepts, that they are less observable; and so our duty is lost in the reward, that looketh towards us. Besides this, it could not be that men should so mistake, but that their eyes are dull and heavy by gazing too long upon the absolute decree of Predestination in which, though they be never so far asunder, the Precept and the Promise may well meet, they think, and be concentred. Certainly a dangerous error! of which many a soul may be guilty, and know it not; call the doctrine of the Gospel a Law, and yet bury it in the Decree, as in a land of oblivion. And what is this but to make Christ's Sermon on the mount, not a catalogue of holy duties, but rather a collection of promises? They will say perhaps, that the Gospel is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, good news. And so it is the best that ever was brought from Heaven to Earth; and yet nothing the worse because it containeth both Promises and Laws. For they are as it were of the same blood and kindred, and in a manner connatural one with the other. No promise without condition, no precept without a promise annexed. What need then these chemical, or rather fantastical, extractions to sever them one from the other? For is it good news that we shall be saved? and is it not good news that we must work out our Salvation? Is the Promise good news? and is not the Law good news? Is Heaven a fair sight? and is a Law so terrible; Is it good news to the captive that his fetters shall be struck off? and is it not good news that he must shake them from him? Is he welcome that showeth us the way to happiness? and shall we turn away the face when he biddeth us walk in it? Let us not deceive ourselves. He that truly desireth heaven, desireth holiness. He that looketh for the Promise, loveth the Law. He that will meet Christ at his second, must fall down before him at his first coming. He that longeth for the Euge, the reward, will take delight also in his Law. He that taketh Christ for a Saviour, will bow before him also as a Lord. We cannot possibly dimidiare Christum, divide Christ, and take him by halves: Nor can we divide a Christian, to hang, as Solomon is painted, between Heaven and Hell; lifting himself up at the Promises, and treading the Precepts under foot; magnifying Grace, and denying the power of it; trusting in God, and yet sacrificing to his own nets; adoring his providence, yet consulting with the witch, the Devil, at Endor; seeking his inventions, driving on his purposes, and carrying on his ends with those winds which can blow out of no treasury but that of Hell. For if these might consist and stand together, the camel with his bunch, the miser with his load, the high-swollen Politician, (that is, the Gallant knave) the deceitful with all his nets, the revenger with the sword in his hand, all these giantlike sinners, might enter in at the needle's eye, at the narrow gate. For the grace of God hath appeared unto all men, and the promises are made unto all men: and if there be no condition, no Law in the Gospel, then homini homo quid praestat? then all are Sheep, and there be no Goats; then the Disciples might have spared their question, Are there few that shall be saved? for Judas might have entered in as well as John, and Simon Magus as Simon Peter. But, Strive to enter in at the straight gate, is indeed an exhortation; and Christ's exhortations are laws: for he exhorteth us to nothing but that which we are bound to by covenant, and which the very nature and tenor of the Gospel requireth. In a word, To deny ourselves, To take up our cross, To love our enemies, are Precepts, and no where else to be found but in the Gospel; and are all beams and emanations from God's eternal Law, by which his Love, his Wisdom, his Justice are manifested to all the world. For none but these could so fitly draw us near unto him, or raise our nature to a capacity of eternal glory. Therefore, to draw it yet homer, Whilst we thus gaze upon the Mercy-seat, and never look upon the Tables of the covenant; whilst we take the sceptre out of Christ's hand, and leave him nothing but a reed, whilst we leave him to tread the wine-press alone, leave him to the pain and drudgery of his office, and take from him his Legislative power, we take his place, and are a Law unto ourselves: Our thoughts are our own, our tongues are our own, our hands are our own: for who is Lord over us? we are domini rerum temporúmque, commanders of the times and of our actions. Quae sylva legum? What a wood of Laws, what a world of Lawgivers have we? and Christ is left alone, hanging on the cross! Every sect, every faction, is strait a framing of Laws and making of Articles and publishing of Constitutions to uphold itself. And as they fall or rise, as the times favour or frown on them, so they either give or are subject unto Laws, which are as the trophies and triumphs of a prevailing party. Now the Papist giveth laws to the Protestant, and draggeth him to the stake: Anon the wheel is turned, and the face of the Commonwealth changed, and the Protestant proscribeth him. The Papist hateth the Lutheran, and the Lutheran the Calvinist; and they of the Reformed party hate one another, as by a Law: And no peace can be expected till they yield to one another's Laws, though the law of charity, which is Christ's Law, be lost and trodden under foot in the quarrel. Lord, how ready are we to make Laws, who will acknowledge none but those we make, no not his who was called, Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, of the increase of whose government there shall be no end! Which so amuseth the Many, who are but novices in the School of Christ, that they talk much of Religion, and are ever to choose, because they have not yet learned to bow to Christ, and serve him, but in a faction. It was the reply of a Prince in Germany to the Lutherans, when they would have persuaded and drawn him in to be one of their party, If I join myself to you. I am condemned by others; and if I comply with others, I fall under your sentence. Quid fugiam, video; quid sequar, haud video: What to shun, I see; but what to follow, in this diversity of Laws and shapes of Religion, I cannot apprehend. From hence have been raised those many needless controversies and unprofitable questions which have not taught but distracted the world, and have made more noise than reformation; to make men good, they have made men worse; and to stretch the curtains of a Church, or rather a Faction, (for every Faction is a Church) they have enlarged the Kingdom of Satan. From hence are wars, from hence are tumults, from hence that fire in the world, which would soon be quite put out if the Law of the Gospel might take place: for, if we could once bow to that, there could be none at all. What speak we of the Laws of men? There is a Law in the members, Rom. 7.23. and that swayeth and governeth the world, when the Evangelical Law is laid a side. It is a dream of Mercy and Liberty that giveth it strength and power, that giveth it a full swinge to tread down Powers and Principalities, Laws and Precepts, and all that is named of God. Ambition maketh Laws, Jura, perjura; Swear, and forswear; Arise, kill, and eat. Covetousness maketh Laws; condemneth us to the mines, to dig and sweat, Quocunque modo rem. Gather, and lay up. Come not within the reach of Omri's statutes, of humane Laws, and you need not fear any Law of Christ. Private Interest maketh Laws, and indeed is the Emperor of the world, and maketh men slaves, to crouch and bow under every burden, to submit to every Law of man, though it enjoin to day what it did forbid yesterday; to raise up our heads, and then duck at every shadow that cometh over us: but we can see no such formidable power in the Royal Law of Christ, because it breatheth not upon it to promote and uphold it, but looketh as an enemy that would cast it down; biddeth us deny ourselves; which we do every day for our lusts, for our honour, for our profit; but cannot do it for Christ, or for that crown which is laid up for those that do it. Thus every thing hath power over us which may destroy us; but Christ is not harkened to, nor those his Laws which may make us wise unto salvation. For we are too ready to believe, what some have been bold to teach, that there are no such Laws at all in the Gospel. Therefore, in the last place, let us cast this root of bitterness out of our hearts; let us look upon it as a most dangerous and baneful error, an error which hath brought that abomination of desolation into the world and into the lives and manners of Christians which have made them stink amongst the inhabitants of the earth, amongst Jews and Pagans and Infidels, which tremble to behold those works of darkness which they see every day not only done but defended by those who call themselves the children of light. Because in that name we by't and devour one another, for this they despise the Gospel of Christ, because we boast of it all the day long, and make use of it as a Licence or Letters patent to be worse than they, riot it in the light, beat our fellow-servants, defraud and oppress them, which they do not in darkness and in the shadow of death. The first Christians called the Gospel legem Christianam, the Christian Law, and so lived as under a Law, so lived that nothing but the name was accused: But the latter times have brought forth subtle Divines, that have disputed away the Law; and now there is scarce any thing left commendable but the name. A gospeler, and worse than a Turk or Pagan; a gospeler, and a Revenger; a gospeler, and a Libertine; a gospeler, and a Schismatic; a gospeler, and a Deceiver; a gospeler, and a Traitor; a gospeler that will be under no Law; a gospeler that is all for Love and Mercy, and nothing for Fear; I may say, the Devil is a better gospeler: for he believeth and trembleth. And indeed this is one of the Devils subtlest engines, veritatem veritate concutere, to shake and beat down one Truth with another; to bury our Duty in the Good news, to hid the Lord in the Saviour, and the Law in the covering of Mercy; to make the Gospel supplant itself, that it may be of no effect; to have no sound heard but that of Imputative righteousness. From hence that irregularity and disobedience amongst Christians, that liberty and peace in sin. For when Mercy waiteth so close upon us, and Judgement is far out of our sight, we walk on pleasantly in forbidden paths, and sin with the less regret, sin and fear not, pardon lying so near at hand. To conclude then; Let us not deceive ourselves, and think that there is nothing but Mercy and Pardon in the Gospel, and so rely upon it till we commit those sins which shall be pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come. Nemo promittat sibi quod non promittit Evangelium, saith Augustine, Let no man make the promise larger than the Gospel hath made it, nor so presume on the Grace of God as to turn it into wantonness, so extol it as to depress it, so trust to Mercy as to forfeit it: but look into the Gospel, and behold it in its own shape and face, as pardoning sin, and forbidding sin; as a royal Release, and a royal Law: And look upon Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, as a Jesus to save us, Psal. 2. and a Lord to command us; as preaching peace, and preaching a Law, Rom. 8.3. condemning sin in his flesh, dying that sin might die, and teaching us to destroy it in ourselves. In a word; let us so look into the Gospel that it may be unto us the savour of life unto life, and not the savour of death unto death; so look upon Christ here that he may be our Lord to govern us, and our Jesus to save us; that we may be subject to his Laws, and so be made capable of his mercy; that we may acknowledge him to be our Lord, and he acknowledge us before his Father, that Death may lose its sting, and Sin its strength, and we may be saved in the last day through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Two and Fortieth SERMON. PART II. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. THat the Precepts of the Gospel do bind us as Laws, ye have heard already, and how the Doctrine of the Gospel is a Law. We must in the next place see how it is a perfect Law. And first, That is perfect, saith the Philosopher, cui nihil adimi, nec adjici potest, from which nothing can be taken, and to which nothing can be added. Such is the Gospel. You cannot add to it, you cannot take from it one lota or tittle. If any shall add unto these things, Rev. 22.18. God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any shall take away from them, God shall take away his part out of the book of life. There needeth no second hand to supply it: and that hand deserveth to be cut off that shall corrupt or alter it. For look upon the End, which is Blessedness; There you have it drawn out in the fairest lines that flesh and blood can read, in as large a representation as our humane nature is capable of. Then view the Means to bring us to that end; They are plainly expressed and set out there in such a character that we may run and read them, open to our understanding, exciting our faith, raising our hope, and even provoking us to action. There is nothing which we ought to know, nothing which we must believe, nothing which we may hope for, nothing which concerneth us to do, nothing which may lift us up to happiness and carry us to the end, but it is written in the Gospel as it were with the Sunbeams. S. Paul giveth it this character, that it is profitable, that is, 2 Tim. 3.16, 17. sufficient, for doctrine, which is either of things to be believed, or of things to be done; for reproof, of greater and more monstrous crimes; for correction, of those who fall by weakness or infirmity; for instruction in righteousness, that those who have begun well may grow up in grace and every virtuous work; that the man of God may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, perfect and consummate, throughly furnished unto all good works. Take him in what capacity you please; there, in the Scripture, (in the New Testament especially) yea and in that alone, he may find what will fill and qualify him, and fit him in every state and condition. Take him in the worst condition, as an unbeliever; there is that will beget faith, and form Christ in him: as wavering in the faith; there is that will confirm him: as believing, and fallen into error, or sin; there is that will restore him: as rooted and built up in Christ; there is that will settle and establish him: as under the cross; there is that will strengthen him: as crowned with peace; there is that will crown that crown, and settle it on his head: as in health; there is that will make him run the ways of God's commandments: as in sickness; there is that will tune his groans, and quicken him even when he is giving up the ghost: as a King; there is that which will manage his sceptre: as a Subject; there he may learn to bow. Take him as a Master or a Servant, as Rich or Poor, as in prison or at liberty, living or dying; there he shall find what is necessary for him in that condition of life, even to the last moment and period of it; and not only that which is necessary, but under that formality, as necessary, so fitted and proportioned to the end that without it we can never attain it. They that lay hold of it, shall have peace with God: and they who despise it, shall have a worm ever gnawing them. These shall go away, saith our Saviour, into everlasting punishment; but the righteous (who look into this perfect Law) into life eternal. Will you behold the Object of your Faith? There you shall see not only a picture of Christ, but Christ even crucified (as S. Paul speaketh to the Galatians) before your eyes. Will you behold that Faith which shall save you? There you shall behold both what she is, and what wonders she can work. Have you so little Charity as not to know what she is? There you may see her in every limb and lineament, in every act and operation which is proper to her, her Hand, her Ear, her Eye, her Bowels. There you may see what is worth your sight. Et quod à Deo discitur, totum est, We can learn no more than God will teach us. When we affect more, and pour forth all the lust of our curiosity to find it out, we at last shall be weary, and sit down, and complain that we have lost our labour. For thus Curiosity, which is a busy Idleness, punisheth itself; as a frantic person is punished with his madness. Quicquid nos beatos facturum est, aut in aperto est, saith Seneca, aut in proximo; Whatsoever can make us happy, is either open to the eye or near at hand. We will instance but in one, and that the main point, Justification; because the Church of Rome hath set it in the front of those points of doctrine which are imperfectly or obscurely delivered in the Gospel, and therefore require a visible and supreme Judge of controversies to settle and determine them. It is true indeed; The Gospel hath been preached these sixteen hundred years, and above, and many questions have been started and many controversies raised about Justification. For though men have been willing to go under the name of Justified persons, yet have they been busy to inquire how Justification is wrought in them: They are justified they know not how. Many and divers opinions have been broached amongst the Canonists, and Confessionists, and others: Osiander nameth twenty. And there are many more at this day. And yet all may consist well enough, for aught I see, and still that sense which is delivered in Scripture as necessary remain entire. For 1. it is necessary to believe that no man can be justified by the works of the Law precisely taken. And in this all agree. 2. It is necessary to believe that we are not justified by the Law of Moses, either by itself, or joined with Faith in Christ. And in this all agree. 3. It is necessary to believe that Justification is by Faith in Christ. And in this all agree. 4. That Justification is not without Remission of sins and Imputation of righteousness. And in this all agree 5. That a Dead Faith doth not justify. And here is no difference. 6. That that is a Dead faith which is not accompanied with Good works and a holy and serious purpose of good life. And in this all agree. 7. Lastly, that faith in Christ Jesus implieth an advised and deliberate assent that Christ is our Prophet and Priest and King: Our Prophet, who hath fully delivered the will of his Father to us in his Gospel, the knowledge of all his precepts and promises: Our Priest, to free us from the guilt of sin and condemnation of death by his blood and intercession: Our King and Lawgiver, governing us by his Word and Spirit, by the virtue and power of which, we shall be redeemed from death, and translated into the Kingdom of heaven. And in this all agree. Da si quid ultrà est; And is there yet any more? All this, which is necessary, is plainly delivered in the Gospel. And what is more, is but a vapour from Curiosity; which when there is a wide door and effectual, is ever venturing at the needle's eye. This is so plain that no man stumbleth at it. But those interpretations and comments and explications which have been made upon this nihil ampliùs quàm sonant, make a noise, but no Music at all: nec animum faciunt, quia non habent: nor can they add spirit to us in the way to bliss, because they have none. And as we find them not in the Scripture, so have we no reason to list them amongst those doctrines which are necessary. As to instance, for the act of Justification; what mattereth it whether I believe or not believe, know or not know, that our Justification doth consist in one or more acts, so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest blessing that God can let fall upon his creature, and believe that by it I am made acceptable in his sight, and though I have broke the Law, yet shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed; whether it be done by pardoning all my sins, or imputing universal obedience to me, or the active and passive obedience of Christ? The act of Justification is the act of a Judge, and this cannot concern us so much as the benefit itself, which is the greatest that can be given; not so much as our duty, to fit us for the act. Oh that men would learn to speak of the acts of God in his own language, and not seek out divers inventions, which do not edify, but many times rend the Church in pieces, and expose the truth itself to reproach, which had triumphed gloriously over Error, had men contended only for that common faith which was once delivered to the Saints! My sheep hear my voice, saith Christ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil; They hear and obey, and do not dispute and ask questions. They taste, not trouble and mud that clear fountain of the water of life. And as in Justification, so in the point of Faith by which we are justified; What profit is there so busily to inquire whether the nature of Faith consisteth in an obsequious assent, or in the appropriation of the grace and mercy of God, or in a mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ? What will this add to me? what cubit, what hair, to my stature, if so be I settle and rest upon this, that the Faith by which I am justified must not be a dead faith, but a faith working by charity? Oh let me try and examine my Faith, let me build myself up in it, and upon it those actions of Obedience and Holiness which are the language of Faith, and speak her to be alive! and than I shall not trouble myself too much to determine utrùm fides quae viva, or quà viva, Whether a living Faith justifieth, or whether it justifieth as a living Faith; Whether Good works are necessary to Justification as Efficient or Concomitant. For it is enough to know that a dead Faith is not sufficient for this work, and that Faith void of good works is dead; and therefore that must needs be a living Faith which worketh by charity. Whether Charity concur with Faith to the act of Justification, as some would have it: Whether it have an equal efficacy, or unequal, or none at all. Whether the power of justifying be attributed to Faith as the fountain and mother of all good works, or as it bringeth these good works into act; or it have this force by itself alone, as it apprehendeth the merits of Christ, although even in that act it is not alone. In the midst of all this noise, in the midst of all these doubts and disputations, it is enough for me to be justified. And what is enough, if it be not enough to be saved? Which I may be by following in the way that is smooth and plain, and not running out into the mazes and labyrinths of disputes. It is the voice of the Gospel behind thee, HAEC EST VIA, This is the way; FAITH WORKING BY CHARITY: and thou mayest walk in it, and never ask any more questions. But if men will inquire, let them inquire: But let them take heed that they lose not themselves in their search, and dispute away their Faith; talk of Faith, and be worse than Infidels; of Justification, and please themselves in unrighteousness; of Christ's active obedience, and be to every good work reprobate; of his Passive obedience, and deny him when they should suffer for him; of the inconsistency of Faith and Good works in our justification, and set them at as great a distance in their lives and conversation; and because they do not help to justify us, think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation. For we are well assured of the one, and fight for it, and most men are too bold and confident in the other. But the doctrine of the Cospel is a perfect Law, and bindeth us to both, both to believe and to do; for it requireth a working and an active Faith. In the book of God all our members were written. All our members? yea, and all the faculties of our soul. And in his Gospel he hath framed laws and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act, in every motion and inclination; which, if the Eye offend, pluck it out; if the Hand, cut it off; limit the Understanding to the knowledge of God; bind the Will to obedience; moderate and confine those two Turbulent Tribunes of the soul, the Concupiscible and Irascible appetites; direct our Fear, levelly our Hope, fix our Joy, restrain our Sorrow; condescend to order our Speech, frame our Gesture, fashion our Apparel, set and compose our outward Behaviour. Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious: And the time would fail me to mention them all. In a word then; This Law is fitted to the whole man, to every faculty of the soul, to every member of the body; fitted to us in every condition, in every relation, in every motion: It will reign with thee, it will serve with thee: It will manage thy riches, comfort thy poverty; ascend the throne with thee, sit down with thee on the dunghill: It will pray with thee, fast with thee; labour with thee, rest and keep a Sabbath with thee: It will govern a Church, it will order thy family: It will raise a kingdom within thee, not to be divided in itself, free from mutinies and seditions and those tumults and disturbances which thy flesh with its lusts and affections may raise there: It will live with thee, stand by thee at thy death, and be that Angel which shall carry thee into Abraham's bosom: It will rise again with thee, and set the crown of glory upon thy head. And is there yet any more? Or what need there more than that which is necessary? There can be but one God, one Heaven, one Religion, one way to Blessedness; and there is but one Law: And this runneth the whole compass; directeth us not only ad ultimum, sed usque ad ultimum, not only to that which is the end, but to the means, to every passage and approach, to every help and advantage towards it, leadeth us through the manifold changes and chances of this world, through fire and water, through honour and dishonour, through peace and persecution, and uniteth us to that one God, giveth us right and title to that one heaven, and bringeth us home to that one end for which we were made. And is there yet any more? Yes: Particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this Law. It is true: But then they are cases of our own making, cases which we need not make, sometimes raised by weakness, sometimes by wilfulness, sometimes even by that sin itself which reigneth in our mortal bodies. And to such this Law is as an axe to cut them off. But be their original what it will, if this Law reach them not, or if they bear no analogy or affinity with those cases which are contained in the Gospel, nor depend upon them by any evident and necessary consequence, they are not to be reckoned in the number of those which are necessary, because we are assured from the Truth itself that all such are within the reach and verge of this Law. Some things indeed there be which are indifferent in themselves, quae Lex nec vetat, nec jubet, which the Law neither commandeth nor forbiddeth, but become necessary by reason of some circumstance, of Time, or Place, or Quality, or Persons, etc. For quod per se necessarium est, semper est necessarium, that which is necessary in itself is always necessary. But some things are made necessary for some place, some person, some times, and yet are in their own nature indifferent still: Lex haec ad omnia occurrit: This Law reacheth even these, and containeth rules certain and infallible to guide us even in these, if we become not Laws unto ourselves, and fling them by; to wit, the rules of Charity and Prudence, to which if we give heed, it is not possible we should miscarry. It is Love of ourselves and Love of this world, not Charity and spiritual Wisdom, which make this noise abroad, this desolation on the earth. The acts of Charity are manifest. 1 Cor. 13. She suffereth long, even errors and injuries, and doth not rise up against shadows and apparitions? is not rash, to beat down every thing that our own hand hath not set up; is not puffed up, swelleth not against an harmless and useful constitution, though it be of man; doth not behave itself unseemly, layeth not a necessity upon us of not doing that which Authority even then styleth an Indifferent thing when it commandeth it to be done; seeketh not her own, treadeth not the public peace under foot to procure our own, which is to satisfy an ill-raised humour; is not easily provoked, checketh not at every feather, nor startleth at that monster which is a creation of our own; thinketh no evil, doth not see a serpent under every leaf, nor Idolatry in every bow of devotion. If we were charitable, we should be peaceable. If Charity did govern men's actions, there would be abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth. Multa facienda sunt, non jubente lege, sed liberâ charitate, saith Augustine; Charity is free to suffer and do many things which the Law doth not expressly command; and yet it doth command them in general, when it enjoineth Obedience to Authority. The acts, I say, of Charity are manifest: But those of Prudence are not particularly designed. Prudentia respicit ad singularia; That eye is given us to view and consider particular occurrences: And it dependeth upon those things which are without us; whereas Charity is an act of the will, and here we cannot be to seek. For how easy is it to a willing mind to apply a general precept to particular actions? especially if Charity fill our hearts, which is the bond of perfection, and the end and compliment of the Law, which indeed is our spiritual wisdom. In a word; In these cases when we go to consult with Reason, we cannot err, if we leave not Charity behind us. But the time will not permit to press this further. All that I intended was, to show the Perfection of the Gospel, how sufficient means it administereth to bring us to to the end for which it was promulged. So than it is perfect in itself. In the next place, it is perfect in respect of the Law of Moses. That indeed was the Law of God, and so made to be a lantern to our feet, and a light to our paths. But the Apostle telleth us that this light is not sufficient for us, Heb. 7.18: as being not bright enough to direct us to our end, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because it was a weak and unprofitable light. Besides, as the Law was altogether unsufficient to justify a sinner, so was it defective in respect of light, which is more abundantly poured forth in the Gospel. In the Law it is written. Thou shalt not commit adultery: Under the Gospel an Eunuch may commit that sin, and do it with his eye: For he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her, is guilty of that pollution, saith our Lawgiver. The Law permitted many wives: The Christian is soli uxori masculus, a Man to his wife alone, an Eunuch to all the Sex besides. The language of the Law was, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But now it is, Good for evil, and a blessing for a curse. Et Lex plus quàm amisit invenit, saith Ambrose;. The Law was no loser by this precept, but a gainer. For the more perfect it is, the more it is a Law. You have heard it spoken to them of old, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy: But I say unto you, Love your enemies. Here it is plain that Christ did advance and increase the strictness of the Law by adding something to it. In melius reformavit; He reform it and made it better than it was. Heb. 9.10. The Gospel is called the time of reformation. Christ did enlarge the Law, he set his last hand to it, and did perfect it. The Gospel, saith Nazianzene, is far easier than the Law, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in respect of the hope that is set before us, and that great reward which is promised. Such a mark will draw us. The sight of Heaven smootheth every path, maketh the weak strong, bringeth him in as a giant to run his race. Otherwise it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, far more painful and laborious, hath a straighter way and a narrower gate. In a word; Whatsoever Moses required, that doth our Lawgiver exact, and more; an Humility more bending, a Patience more constant, a Meekness more suffering, a Chastity more pure, a Flesh more subdued; because the heavenly promises are more and more clearly proposed in the Gospel then under the Law. For is not Eternity a stronger motive than the Basket and temporary enjoyments? is not Heaven more attractive than the Earth? or when should we more love God then when he displayeth himself in all his beauty? Hence it is that the old Law in comparison of the Gospel is said to be imperfect. Heb. 7.19. Rom. 10.4. Gal. 3.24. And Christ is called the end of the Law. And the Law, a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. We know there is a Righteousness most proper to the Gospel, which the Jew saw through types and figures, as through a glass, darkly: but we see face to face, by open manifestation. And this very righteousness of Faith is so far from excluding the righteousness of Works, that the Gospel exacteth them more than the Law, and justifieth none that are not full of them, And in this respect, as the Christian hath more helps and light then the Jew, so he must as far exceed the perfection of a Jew as the grace of the Gospel doth the rigour of the Law. Crescit onus cum beneficio; The larger the privilege, the greater the burden. A greater tribute is due unto Love then to Fear. And our Saviour hath proposed it as an everlasting Truth, That to whom much is given, of him much shall be required. And therefore he hath left these precepts more heavy on the back of Christians then formerly upon the Jews. Not that the Law of Moses was not perfect in its kind and in itself, but that it was less perfect than the Gospel: So that what Christ brought in non adversario sed adjutore praecepto, not by an opposite or contrary but an helping precept, destroyed not what God esteemed as best then to be done, but took away that which he permitted to be done only for a time. It was no sin for a Jew to hate his enemy, or in some case to take revenge; at least it was not imputed as a sin: not but that it was far better, and more acceptable to God, to have done otherwise, but because God was pleased so far to indulge to their present condition and the hardness of their hearts, as not to propose it under the commanding terms of a Law. But Christ, as he is more indulgent to us in giving his graces, so he is less indulgent to us in giving his graces, so he is less indulgent to us in exacting his Laws. And that Christ doth not permit so much unto us, is plain by the EGO VERO, But I say vuto you. By which he did not only clear the Law from those false glosses with which the Scribes and Pharisees had corrupted it, but added something to it, not to contradict but perfect it. For had he meant to have expunged the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees, no doubt he would have mentioned them, whom he so often taxed by name: And had it been their leaven, he would have done what he often did, enjoined his Disciples to beware of it. Besides, the Scribes and Pharisees were not of so long standing as Josephus thinketh. This Sect had not its beginning long before Christ. And it is probable that when the gift of prophecy ceased, than men who were ambitious of a name and reputation did seek to gain it by severe discipline and austerity of life, which might lift them up as high in the opinion of the people as the foretelling of things to come did the Prophets before them. But I say unto you, implieth then an addition to the Law of Moses, or to that sense in which the Jews understood it, and to which they were bound. Let the Apostle conclude for me; The Law made nothing perfect, Hob. 7.19. brought none to that true and inward sanctity: But if any attained to it, they owed it not to the Law, but borrowed it, as it were, from the grace of the Gospel: But the bringing in of a better hope did, by which we draw nigh unto God. The Jews were under tutors and governor's, in bondage under the elements of the world; but at the appointed time our Lawgiver brought us Laws from heaven, out of the bosom of his Father, and shown us yet a more perfect & excellent way. I might here enlarge myself; but we will only draw down all to ourselves by application, & so conclude. And if the Doctrine of the Gospel be a perfect Law, of abundant power and sufficiency to bring us to our end, than we may pass a censure upon those who argue it of great imperfection, and therefore are bold to add to it, or call it a dead letter, and so receive it not as a Law, but make one of their own; as those of the Church of Rome, and the Libertines, or, as they call themselves, Spiritual men. And we may observe that, though they look several ways, yet they both tread their measures alike, and finding themselves at loss, finding no satisfaction in the Gospel to their pride and ambition, to their malice and lust, and seeing they cannot draw it to their part, will put up and suborn something of their own to supply that defect. Both agree in this, to make something besides and above the Scripture the rule of their faith and actions. But some difference and dissimilitude there is between them. The Libertine layeth a foundation for a lose, inconstant and uncertain Religion; the Church of Rome, for an engrossed, impropriated and tyrannical Religion. For what the inward Word is to the Libertines, that to those of the Romish faction are Traditions and the Authority of the Church. The inward Word is common, or rather proper, to every particular man, hath no other word without itself to regulate it; and therefore is free for every man. And so we may have as many Religions as there be several senses and inward words, as they call them, spoken or conceived: And so there be as many Religions as there be men. Proveniunt oratores stulti, novi adolescentuli: Young men and maids, old men and children, I may say, fools and madmen, may hear this word, or rather speak this word to themselves, and so set up a Religion. Again, the Authority of the Church, and Traditions, being carried on by themselves, and looking on no outward Word as a common rule to try them by, put out the eyes of every private man, divest him of his reason and judgement, and leave him in the dark, that he may be subject unto that Church alone, and seek light from her as from the greatest luminary, altenis oculis videre, alienis pedibus ambulare, see with her eyes, and observe her steps, and follow her precisely, though it be in those paths which lead to the pit of destruction. The Libertine attributeth it sometimes to one man; the Papists, to the Church; and, when the accounts are cast up, that is but one man. Both agree in this, that they challenge to themselves infallibility in judgement. We have a Revelation, saith the one; We have Traditions, saith the other, and a Church that cannot err. The inward word, saith the Libertine; The Church, the Church, the ecumenical, Catholic Church, saith the Papist. These are their spells and charms with which they take the simple and unwary people, who are carried about with every puff of doctrine, and are always ripe and fitted for a cheat; qui quod vident, non vident, who will not see what they cannot see; who receive every novelty as an oracle, every new fancy as the dictate of the Spirit, and never bless or applaud themselves more than when they are deceived. In a word: The Libertine maketh as many Popes as there be men who pretend a skill in this Pythonick art and ventriloquy, who can hear their lusts and passions speak within them, and say it is the voice of the Spirit; who do not stay till the third call, but at every motion of the Flesh, at every whirl of their Fancy, are ready to answer, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. And thus every man be a Pope. But the Papists erect but one, and set him in his throne, to whom all other men must bow as to the Head 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 itself, 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 error, what foul sin may not show its head and advance itself 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 virtue to day; virtue is vice, and vice virtue, 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 authority 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, Murder, 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, withal 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 Authority of the Church leadeth him on: And they open their wardrobe, and show us their Traditions, such deceitful ware, that we no sooner look upon it, but it vanisheth out of sight. Again, must some new fancy 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 itself 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 disannul his own Law, and ratify 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 threatened 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 than the Jews did: For they only nailed Christ's body to the cross, these crucify 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 offspring of an idle fancy and a heart bespotted with the world, be the voice of God, than 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 reflection of myself upon myself. 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 itself, 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 myself. And it is the voice of God, and not of man. Of this they have had sad experience in foreign 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, than it is no Word, or the Word of a fool, that uttereth more than 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, than it may be received of the understanding, and uttered with the tongue, and written in a book; and then the same imputation will lie 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 blood. I am even weary of this argument. But men have not been ashamed openly to profess what we blush within ourselves to confute. And this Word within, this loathsome fancy, this Nothing, hath had power to invenom the Word of life itself, 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 his Word, in his perfect Law. There we shall see a true Christ, his full image, his will. There we shall see him as he is, behold him in his Nature, in his Offices, behold him with all his graces, his precepts, his promises, with all the riches of his Gospel. There we shall with open face (not through the veil of Types and Ceremonies, not through our own carnal lusts and fancies) behold as in a glass, accurately and studiously observe, the glory of our Lord and Lawgiver, and be changed into the same Image, be like unto him, heavenly as he is heavenly, be changed from glory to glory, from the glory to serve him to the glory to reign with him, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, and the power of his Word and perfect Law. By the power of which Law we walk on from strength to strength, from virtue to virtue, from one perfection to another, till we be perfect men in Christ Jesus, and fitted for that crown, which is prepared and laid up for all those who love him in sincerity and truth, and bow before him and keep his commandments, and are obedient to this perfect Law. The Three and Fortieth SERMON. PART III. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. WE began the last day to speak of the Perfection of the Gospel, our Second point in the Character the Apostle here giveth us of it: And the time not then permitting us to handle it throughly, we shall make it the subject also of our present discourse. We told you, that God, who proposed eternity of Happiness as the end of all Man's actions, was never deficient or wanting in the administration of those means which might raise him to it. God who built his Church upon a Rock, upon the confession of that faith which will lift it up to heaven, made it Militant, and gave it rules and orders, Laws and precepts, by the observation of which it might become triumphant. Take Man in what capacity you please, in the Gospel he may find that which will fill and fit him in every condition. We shown this at large. Now we will add something, and then apply all more home to ourselves. God, as he made Man after his own image, so made him to be partaker of that happiness which He is. This he called him to, and pointeth out the way which leadeth to it: This is the way; walk in it and be blessed. And first he set up a light within him, conveying it in those natural impressions which Tertullian calleth a legal Nature, or a natural Law. By that light which is impossible to be extinguished, every man that hath had some mediocrity of civil education is enabled to discern what is good and just, what evil and unjust. From this light breaketh forth one main beam, which shineth in all men's faces, even that known precept so much commended by Heathens themselves, As ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye unto them. A command so equitable, that the most unjust dare not quarrel it; so evident, that, if it were possible to study ignorance, none, could ever attain to that height as to lose the knowledge of it. Non iniquitas delebit, saith Augustine; Sin itself, though it blur and deface, yet cannot utterly blot it out. And one would think those characters which God hath so firmly and deeply imprinted upon our souls were light enough to carry us on in our way. And we find that by the help of this light alone some Heathens, who never knew Christ, have raised themselves to that pitch and height of natural and moral goodness that most Christians seem to stand in the valley below, and look up and gaze upon them with admiration, to see them to have made a fairer progress, and steered a steadier course of virtue, by the leading of this star, than themselves have done by the lustre of the Sun of righteousness. But yet this is not enough. Sublimius quid sapit Christianus; The Christian, how faintly soever he goeth forward, yet looketh higher than the natural man could possibly sore upon the wings of natural endowments. He that draweth out his actions by the line and level of Nature only is not yet a Christian. Natura est prima omnium disciplina, saith Tertullian; Nature is our first School mistress: But God added to this his written Law, and in the last days spoke by his Son, and revealed his will perfectly and fully in the Gospel. Instrumentum literaturae adjecit, siquis velit de eo inquirere; He hath drawn an instrument, and to Nature and Moses added his Gospel; in which whosoever will inquire may most fully learn his will. Here we are taught that fundamental lesson, to Believe; Which the Father calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a voluntary submission of the soul, the obedience of the will, and applying it to every precept. Here we have those Divine precepts of Sanctity and Holiness, the faithful commentaries of God's will; which, though they present nothing to our understanding to which the wisest Philosophers would not have subscribed, yet forbade some things which were not absolutely unlawful by the Law of Nature; even those acts in which though to a natural eye there appeared no irregularity, yet Reason itself would soon conclude it were better not to do then to do them. For many lessons there be which by the wit of man had never been collected, had not Christ, the true Lawgiver, gathered them to our hands. What is said fabulously of some grounds in Italy, that they bear an Olive, and under that Olive a Vine, and under that Vine Corn, and under that Corn omne olerum genus, all kind of profitable herbs, and that without any hindrance of each other, is most true of the doctrine of the Gospel: There is in it such a real and profitable fertility, that it beareth and yieldeth all, the fatness of the Olive, the sweetness of the Vine, the strength of Corn, something for every temper, something that will prove food for every stomach. The will of God declared by Christ is all these, and more. And in the Gospel it is proposed and laid open to the eye in its full proportion. That doctrine which leadeth to happiness is plain and obvious. Who knoweth not what it is to Believe in Christ, and to Deny ungodliness and worldly lusts? Who understandeth not our Saviour's Sermon on the mount? If there be any more doctrines than we find in the Gospel, then certainly they are of the number of those quae saluâ fide ignorari possunt, which will not endanger us if we know them not. And did we practise what is easy to know, we should not thus be troubled to know what to practise. It is not any defect in the rule, any obscurity in the Gospel, but the neglect of piety and religion, and that integrity of life which should distinguish Christians from all the world, that hath brought in that deluge of controversies which hath well-near covered and overwhelmed the face of the Church. What hath the business of the world been for these many hundred years but to establish a supreme Judge of the will of God in his chair of Infallibility? And now having been driven upon so many apparent inconveniences and absurdities, they begin to demand at our hands a Catalogue of Fundamentals. Which in effect is no more, then to ask us what the will of Christ is; as if we were yet to learn. We might well reply to them as the Lacedæmonians once did to the Thebans calling upon them either to give them Battle or to confess and yield themselves the weaker; Whether are the better soldiers, let the world judge, and our many victories speak: but they would be wiser than to fight at their summons, or come out into battle when they did think it fittest. Upon the same reason, we are not bound to answer every impertinent challenge which these Roman champions send, or go out in quest after our Faith, which is manifested to all men. For this were indeed, with Saul, to seek asses, but not with the same event, in our way to find a Kingdom. In the mean time let them take the pains to seek them themselves; unless they will rest contented with this resolution, That whatsoever is fundamental and necessary is plain and evident in the Scripture. He who commandeth us to do his will, did never mean to hid it from us, or show it us in the dark. Nobis curiositate non est opus post Jesum Christum; Having this rule of Jesus Christ, we need not be further curious; nor make enquiry after his will, since we have the Gospel, which is his Will and Testament, and his perfect Law. To interline the Scripture with Glosses, to coin what Traditions they please, and make them as current as that Word which is purer than refined gold, is for those who cannot endure that Glass which showeth them their deformity, or would have it like the Magician's glass, to show them nothing but what they desire to see. These would deal with the Scripture as Caligula boasted he would with the Civil Law of Rome, quite abolish it, nè quid jurisperiti respondere possint praeter eum, That no Civil Lawyer might be able to speak but what he would have him, and, so there might be no other Law but his will. But I must detain you no longer upon this. Traditions, we told you, such as the Church of Rome pretendeth, are but deceitful ware, brought in to put off worse, and make the grossest error fair and saleable. And the inward word of the Libertine is the echo of his own lust and concupiscence. Every man may hear it; for every man may speak it to himself. This man may hear it, and another man may hear it. And I may admit of one as well as the other, since there is as good evidence for the one as for the other, nothing but their bare word. We must now draw a third inference: And it is this; That if the doctrine of the Gospel be a perfect Law, and so delivered to us, then are we bound to square our actions by it, and make them answerable to it in every part, uti illa respicit, continuò respicere, as he giveth charge in the Comedy, to look as that looketh, to move as that directeth, to make this Law our compass to direct us in our way, to fit and proportion our obedience to it, that it may take in the whole circle of all those virtues which speak us to be Christians, as S Paul speaketh, Whatsoever things are true, Phil. 4.8. whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, any praise, all these come within the compass of our obedience, which must be perfect as the Law itself is perfect. Nor need we startle at the name of Perfection. For it is not such a Perfection as is in God. Never could such a Law be laid upon Man, who is but dust and ashes, subject to many infirmities; as subject to err as to think, to tread awry as to move. Nor such a Perfection as is in the Angels, quibus immortalitas sine ullo malorum periculo & metu constat, whose happiness is removed from all danger or fear of change, as Lactantius speaketh, For which though we have no plain evidence in Scripture, yet even from thence we may gather reason enough to move us to believe it. But a Perfection answerable to Man's condition a Perfection which may consist both with Sin and Error; into which Man may sometimes either through inadvertency or frailty fall, and yet be perfect. Be perfect as God; That is impossible. For ille quod est, semper est; & sicut est, ita est; what he is, he always is; and as he is, so he is. His Perfection is his Essence, as incomprehensible as himself. Be perfect as Angels; No: We are at best a little lower than they; and our Perfection will have some savour of that flesh and blood which we carry about with us. And here the Law is given to men, and so requireth a Perfection of which Man is capable; not a Legal, but an Evangelical Perfection. For the Legal Perfection included all manner of impeccancy, and shut out all imperfection, all infirmity, all inadvertency. Do this, and live. If thou do it not, thou shalt die. Do exactly; Avoid precisely. This was the language of the Law, and therefore it did not justify a sinner; for even morally it was impossible. But the Evangelical Perfection is proportioned to every man's strength; and so, various and different, according to the several qualifications of men, who begin well, make good progress in the ways of piety, and at last are perfect. One man as yet laboureth and struggleth under a temptation; another man is scarce moved with it; and both may be perfect in their kind. And though Perfection be not equal in all, yet that restless and Sabbathless desire of proceeding further must be common to them and the same; a desire to gain more strength, to stir up that grace of God which is in them, to be nearer heaven and God every day; a desire to improve the approbation of that which is good into a love of it, the dislike of that which is evil into an hatred of it; a desire to tread that Serpent under my foot which I begin to be afraid of; every day to use a violence upon ourselves, by one Text of Scripture humbling our Pride, by another cooling our Lust, by a third controlling our Wrath, and so by degrees mortifying our affections, spoiling ourselves of all our animosities, of all those grudge and oppositions which may stand between us and that state of Perfection which our mind is so wholly fixed upon. And even this desire of proficiency, if it be true and serious, and not faint and imaginary, may go under the name of Perfection, because it tendeth to it. So there is the Perfection of a beginner; for he is a perfect beginner: and the Perfection of a proficient; for he is a perfect proficicent: And there is a higher degree of Perfection, of those who are so spiritualised, so familiar with the Law of Christ, that they run the ways of his commandments. But there is none so perfect but he may be perfecter yet, none so high but he may exalt himself yet further in the grace and favour of God: And even the beginner, who seemeth to follow Christ yet a far off, by that serious and earnest desire he hath to come nearer may be brought so near unto him as to be his member. For there be babes in Christ, and there be strong men: And Christ looketh favourably even upon those babes, and will take them into his arms, and embrace them. For his mercy is a garment large enough to cover all, to reach even from the top to the last round and step of that ladder which being reared on earth reacheth up to heaven, and to carry on those who first set foot in the ways of life, with a desire to ascend higher. For all these are within, within the pale of his Church. Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and they who love and make a lie, who have no relish of heaven, no savour of Christ's ointment, no desire of those things which are above, no taste of the powers of the world to come. For where this desire is not, where it is not serious, Christ is quite departed out of those coasts. For Christ did not build his Church as Plato form his Commonwealth, who made such Laws as no man could keep; but he fitted his Laws to every man, and requireth no more of any than what every one by the strength which he will give may exactly accomplish. It is a precept of a high nature, and which fl●sh and blood may well shrink at, be ye therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Mat. 5.48. This is a hard and iron speech, and he must have the stomach of an Ostrich that can digest it. Therefore the Church of Rome hath sauced it, to make it easy of digestion; and hath made it not a peremptory Precept, but a Counsel or Advice, left it to our free choice whether we will keep it or no. To neglect and pass it by, will hazard aureolam, non auream, (it is their own distinction) not the crown of life, but some brooch or top, some degree of happiness there. And this is a great error, either to add to or to take off from that burden which it hath pleased Christ our Lawgiver to lay upon us. Seem this precept never so harsh, this burden never so heavy, yet if we consult with that patience and strength wherewith it hath pleased Christ to endue us by his blessed Spirit, we shall be able to bear it without any abatement or diminution. For we may deal with it as Protagoras did with his burden of sticks, dispose of it in so good order and method as to bear it with ease, and have no reason to complain of its weight. It is not so hard as we at first suppose. And that we may gather from the illative particle Therefore; Which hath reference to the verses going before, and enjoineth a Love above the love of Publicans, whose love was negotiatio, a bargaining, a trafficking love, who paid love for love, loved none but those who loved them; and so raiseth our Love to the love of our heavenly Father as to the most perfect rule, and then draweth it down to compass and bless even the worst enemies we have. And so this Perfection here doth not signify an exact performance of all the commandments, but the observation of this one, The Love of our neighbour; and that not in respect of the manner of observing it but the act itself, That we love not only our friends, but our enemies. And this indeed is a glorious act, worthy the Gospel of Christ. For to love them that love us is but a kind of necessary and easy gratitude, the first beginnings and rudiments of Piety, the dawning of Charity: But when we have attained to this, to love them that love us not, that hate us, that persecute us, than our Charity kindled from the the Love of our Father shineth forth in perfection of beauty. He that can do this hath fulfilled the Law. For he that can love him that hateth him, will love God that loveth him, will love him when he frowneth on him, when he afflicteth him, when, as Job speaketh, he killeth him. For indeed he cannot do one, but he must do both. But then for the manner of that love, there he must needs come short of the pattern. Dust and ashes cannot move with equal motion in this sphere of Charity with the God of Love. That we may love our enemies is possible; but that we love them with the same extension or intention of love as God loveth them, is beyond our belief and conceit, and so impossible to be reached by the best endeavours we have. God may give us strength, but he cannot give us his arm. He may make us wise and strong and good, but not as good and wise and strong as himself. What cruelty is our Mercy to his? What weakness in our Power to his Almightiness; How ignorant is our Knowledge to his light; If we speak of Wisdom, he alone is wise; if of Power, he only can do what he will in heaven and in earth. If we speak of Mercy, his Mercy reacheth over all his works. Man is a finite, mortal creature; and all his goodness and wisdom and mercy are as mortal and changeable as himself? and if it do measure out his span, and hold out to the end of it, yet it will retain a taste and relish of the cask and vessel, of flesh and mortality and corruption. But yet the Law is perfect, and required a perfect man, & cum Dei adjutorio in nostrâ potestate consistit, saith Augustine often, and it is in our power with the help of God's grace to be perfect. Rom. 16.25. God doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, establish us; 1 Cor. 1.8. he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, confirm us, he doth work in us to will and to do, by giving us the sight of his glory, and by his Spirit exciting and strengthening us. He doth it that giveth sufficient helps and advantages to do it: The whole honour of every effect is due and returneth to the first Cause. By this help we may be perfect, as perfect as the prescript of the Gospel and the new covenant of Grace requireth. For 1. God requireth nothing that is above our strength: And certainly we can do what we can do; we can do what by him we are enabled to do. I can do all things, saith S. Paul, through Christ that strengtheneth me. We may love him with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our strength. And this is all. 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people, Deut. 30. that they should thus love him. And his promises are Yea and Amen, even in temporal blessings, much more in spiritual. And if we fail, yet his promise is true; and we have lied against our own souls. He gave us strength enough, and we have betrayed it to our lusts and the vanities of the world, have fallen with our staff in our hand, failed in the midst of all advantages, and suffered ourselves to be beaten down in our full strength, when there were more with us then against us. 3. Last of all, he hath born witness from heaven, and hath registered the names of those in his book who have walked before him with a perfect heart; as a 2 Chron. 15.17. 1 Kings 15.14. Asa, b 1 Kings 3.6. David, c 2 Kings 23.25. Josiah. And this under the Old Covenant. Much more than may we attain to it under the New, which was brought in to this end to make every thing perfect. For there can be no reason given why Christ, who is the Son, should not make more perfect men than Moses, who was but a Servant; why the Gospel should not make as good Saints as the Law. Divines usually distinguish between Perfection of parts and Perfection of degrees. The first, they say, must be brought into act by cleaving not to one alone, but to every commandment of God, and casting down every imagination, beating down every tentation, that may stand between them and it: The second is but in wish. But in truth there is no reason why they should thus quite shut out that Perfection of degrees. For though in the highest degree it cannot be; (it being the nature of Love, Not to consist within any terms; To have no Non ultrà in this world; To think not of what is done already, but what is further to be done, or, in the Apostle's phrase, To forget that which is behind; and to reach forth to those things which are before, and never to be at rest but on the holy hill?) Yet there is no reason why we may not admit of a Perfection of degrees even in this life, that is, that Perfection may be intended to as high a degree as the assistance of God's grace and the breath of the Spirit, if we hinder not, will raise it. For every stream will rise as high as its spring. And this is always joined with a firm purpose of pressing further, of proficiency and being better every day, of growing in grace, of passing from virtue to virtue, from perfection to perfection, according as we have more grace, more strength, more light; which will increase with our work, and raise itself with our endeavours. For to him that hath it shall be given; and he that walketh in the light shall have more irradiations and illuminations. To this Perfection we may ascend higher and higher, add degree unto degree, be more and more perfect, more strong against tentations, more cheerful in our obedience, more delighting ourselves in the Law of the Lord. But he that denieth the Perfection to be possible even in this life, instead of easing his soul endangereth it; instead of magnifying the Gospel of Christ, denieth the power of it; and layeth a pillow of security for flesh and blood to rest on, to sleep out the time in the vineyard even to the last hour, and so to pass to torment in a dream. Indeed Perfection is so often mentioned in Scripture that men are not unwilling to acknowledge there is such a thing: but then, consulting with flesh and blood, they have found out an art to make it what they please; As it is too common a thing, when we cannot raise our endeavours and fit and proportion them to the rule, to bend and draw down the Law itself, and make it condescend and apply itself to our infirmities, and even flatter our most loathsome lusts and affections. Thus we find Perfection confined to Orders and Offices, to Monks and Votaries; nay, wrapped up in a Monk's coul. Men have counted it a kind of Perfection, to be sick and die, and be buried in one. Some have placed Perfection in a sequestered life: When, though they leave the world and the company of men, they may still carry themselves along with them, and in the greatest silence and retiredness have a tumult, a a very market in their souls. And he that converseth in public may possess all things, and yet use them as if he used them not; may have a companion, and be alone; may be a great commander, and yet more humble than his servant; may secretum in plateis facere; make a cell in the streets, and be alone in the midst of an army. Perfection we may call it; but (as one faith) there is no greater argument of Imperfection than this, non posse pati & multitudinem, not to be able to walk without offence in the public ways, to entertain the common occasions, to meet our enemy and encounter him in all places, to act our parts in common life upon the common stage, and yet hold fast our uprightness, shine in the midst of a froward generation, and keep ourselves unspotted of the world; to be Lambs with Lions, and Kids with Leopards; to live in the coast where Malice breatheth, and yet be meek; where Rebellion is loud, and not forfeit our obedience; where Profaneness vaunteth itself, and yet be religious; to be honest in the tents of Kedar, to be Lots in Sodom, and so to save ourselves from a froward generation: Not to be able to do this, is a great imperfection. For Religion can show itself in any place, in any soil; in any air; in the closet, and in the field; in the house, and in the Temple. This man may have a proud heart in a cottage; another, a low and humble soul in a palace. For every man's thoughts are not as low built as his house, nor do every great man's imaginations tower in the air. In terra omni non generantur omnia, saith the Orator; We cannot find all creatures in every soil. But a Perfect man is a creature, a plant, which may grow up in any place. Carry a pure heart with thee, and thou art safe in a throng: But if thy heart be polluted, thou art not safe, no not in a grott or cave, or in the most retired solitariness. Again, some have placed Perfection in Poverty and a voluntary abdication of the things of this world. And yet we see that as Riches may be a snare, so Poverty may be a gulf to swallow us up; and that Riches may be an instrument to work out Perfection, as well as Want. And our skill, though it be as great in one as in the other, yet it is more glorious in the one then in the other; as we look more upon a Diamond that is well cut, then upon a pebble-stone. He is the poorest man that is poor when he is rich. It is said, GO, SELL ALL THAT THOU HAST: I may do this, saith Gregory, and keep it. That we must leave our lands and possessions, and father and mother: I may do this, and yet be Lord of my land, and love my father and mother. We may use our wealth in this world tanquam tabulâ in fluctibus, saith Augustine, as a plank or board in a shipwreck, neither fling Riches from us, nor draw them too near us; neither cast them away as burdensome, nor yet embrace them as firm and sure; & bene utendo career, want them by well using them. Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man in hell: yet may a poor man follow the rich man into hell, and many a rich man have a room in the same bosom with Lazarus. In nostro arbitrio est vel Lazarum sequi, vel Divitem; It is in our power, in what estate soever we are, to choose which we will follow, Lazarus, or Dives. All that can be said is this, that they who are not able to manage their wealth, and so have reason to fear it, may do well to cast it away. But they who can be poor in wealth, are the strongest Christians. Both Riches and Poverty are equal in this, that as they may be made occasions to sin, so they may be made also helps to Perfection. Thirdly, some have placed Perfection in Virginity, which they call making themselves eunuches for the kingdom of heaven; and have laid an imputation upon the state of Matrimony as most imperfect, as too much savouring of the world and carnality, and no better than what the Manichees called it, honestam concubitûs defensionem, a fair plea and an honest apology for lust. Nusquam, said Martin Luther, Satanas per Papam sic insanit ac in castitate & libidine tractanda; The Devil never seemed to rage's more than in those discourses the Papists make of Chastity and Lust. That they may fright men from that which is lawful and honourable, to that which is foul and unwarrantable, thus they number up the inconveniences of the married life; The noise of the family, the deceitfulness of servants, the luxury of the wife, the frowardness of children; as if these inconveniences were more dangerous then Sin. Virginity, they say, is an Angelical estate. And we are willing it should be so esteemed, but cannot see but Perfection may find a place in Matrimony as well as in Single life, and that the one may people heaven as well as the other. And those inconveniencies and troubles, as they may prove occasions of sin, so may be made materia virtutis, matter out of which we may raise those virtues which shall be pleasing in his eye who did first institute this state in Paradise. Nor do I conceive to what purpose it should be to bring Matrimony and Virginity into the Scales to weigh them together. For what can accrue from hence but this, to defame the one because it may seem some grains lighter than the other? For when they have stretched their wits, and taken pains in comparing them, they must at last meet and agree in this, that Perfection may sit them both, and bring as many Husbands and Wives into heaven as Virgins. Virginity, they grant, is not terminus, sed instrumentum perfectionis, not the end in which Perfection is terminated, but the way to bring us to it, an instrument to work it out. And, for aught can be said to the contrary, so may Marriage also be. Bring both to the balance, if you please. By Virginity and an unmarried life I avoid occasions, I hid myself from many dangers, which might otherwise come towards me; I withdraw myself from the many cares and troubles of this life. Et virginitas nihil magìs timet quàm seipsam, Virginity is afraid of nothing but itself, and hath but this one trouble, to defend itself. Operosius est Matrimonium; But Matrimony wrestleth with more difficulties, and having happily striven through them, and made way to the end, may seem to have made a greater and more glorious conquest. Certainly, to marry a wife, and by my good ensample to keep her an undefiled spouse of Christ; to have children, and by careful education to make them Saints; look upon Christ, and behave myself in my house as he doth in his Church; to make his Marriage of the Church a pattern of mine, as mine is a sign and representation of his, will make my way as passable to perfection and eternal life, and set the gates of heaven as open to me, as an unmarried life shall to him who hath bound himself by vow to keep his virgin. Perfection then is not tied and married to a single, but may join and go hand in hand with a married life. I might add to this, their vow of Blind obedience, which they call the sepulchre in which their Will is buried; and that of Mission, by which they bind themselves to go whithersoever their Superior commandeth, to do whatsoever he enjoineth, to run upon the point of the sword, to leap into the Sea, to adventure on those actions which are most absurd, to teach a language which they do not know. All these appear as freewill offerings; but if we look nearer upon them, they are no better than the sacrifice of fools. Of these indeed we find large eulogiums in the writings of the Ancients, which Posterity hath much enlarged, making that a part of their policy which was their forefather's devotion. For we may imagine those high expressions of theirs were occasional, forced by the times, or rather manners of men, who were worldly and sensual, such as could endure no yoke. And from men of this temper iniquum petebant, ut aequum ferrent, they required more than was necessary to be done that they might do something, that they might know some bounds, and not run into all excess of riot, and commit what disorder they pleased. They extolled Virginity, that men might not wallow in lusts; They declamed against Riches, that men might not love the world; They commended Solitariness, that men might be of the company of evil men; and pressed a ready obedience to men, that they might beget in them a greater reverence to the commandments of God: For if I must yield to the will of my brother, what then must I do to my Maker; This is the fairest plea can be made for them. But to tie Perfection to this or that state of life, which is enjoined to all, is to call that common which God hath cleansed, and to appropriate holiness to that kind of life which is many times stained with uncleanness. Most certain it is, Perfection is enjoined to every Christian: but every man attaineth not to it by the same means. As there are divers mansions in God's house, so there are divers ways and courses of life by which we pass unto them. Indeed there is but one way to heaven, but one Religion: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is but one but it divideth itself, to all estates and conditions of life, to all sexes, to all actions whatsoever. It may be fitted to Riches as well as to Poverty; it will live with Married men as well as with Votaries; it will abide in Cities as well as in a Cell or Monastery. Why should I prescribe Poverty; I may make Riches my way. Why do I enjoin Single life; I may make Marriage my way: Why should I not think myself safe but when I am alone; I may be perfect amidst a multitude. Whether in riches or poverty, in marriage or single life, in retiredness or in the city, Religion is still one and the same. And in what estate soever I am, I must be perfect as perfect as the Evangelical Law requireth. In every estate I must deny myself, and take up the cross, and follow Christ. I fear this tying Perfection to particular states and conditions of men hath made men less careful to press toward it, as a thing which concerneth them not. For why should a Layman be so severe to himself as he that weareth a gown? Why should a Knight be so reserved as a Bishop? It is a language which we have heard. But I conclude this with that which the Wiseman spoke on another occasion, Say not thou, Why is this thing better than that? For every thing in its time is seasonable, Poverty or Riches, Marriage or Single life, Solitude or Business. And in any of these we may be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect. For conclusion then; Let this perfect Law of Christ be always before our eyes, till Christ be fully form in us, till we be the new creature, which is made up in holiness and righteousness: Let us press forward in whatsoever state we are placed, with all our strength, to perfection, from degree to degree, from holiness to holiness, till we come ad culmen Sionis, to the top of all. Art thou called a Servant? Be obedient to thy Master, with fear and with singleness of heart, as unto Christ. Art thou called a Master? Know that thy Master also is in heaven. Let every man abide in that calling wherein he was called to be a Christian, and in that calling work out Perfection. Place it not on the Tongue, in an outward profession. For the Perfect man is not made up of words and air and sounds. If he be raised up out of the dust, out of filth and corruption, it must be in the name, that is, in the power, of Christ. There be many good intentions, saith Bernard, (and it, is as true, There be many good professions) in hell. Place it not in the Ear. For we may read of a perfect Heart, but we have not heard of a perfect Ear. If there be such an attribute given to it, it is when it is in conjunction with the Heart. Faith cometh by hearing. It is true, it cometh. The perfect man may pass by through this gate; but he doth not dwell there. Neither place it in thy Fancy. The Perfection which is wrought there is but a thought, but the image of Perfection, the picture of a Saint. And such Images too oft are made and set up there; and they that made them, fall down and worship them. Neither let us place it in a faint and feeble Wish. For, if it were serious, it were a Will; but, being supine and negligent, it is but a Declaration of our mind, a Sentence against ourselves, that we approve that which is best, and choose the contrary; turn the back to heaven, and wish we were there. It was Balaam's wish but it was not his alone, Oh let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. And let us not, interpret Scripture for and against ourselves, and when we read, BE YE PERFECT, make it our marginal note, Be ye perfect as far as you are able, as far as your lusts and desires and the business of this world will permit. That is, Be ye imperfect. I will not say, If one of our Angels, (and such Angels there be amongst us,) but If an Angel from heaven bring such a Gloss, let him be Anathema. Neither let us, because we are taught to say, when we have done all that is commanded us, that we are unprofitable servants, resolve to be so, unprofitable. For we are taught to say so, that we may be more and more profitable. For it is not the scope of that place to show us the unprofitableness of our Obedience; but rather the contrary: Beacuse when we have made ready, and girded ourselves, and served, it shall be said to us also, Luk 17.8. that we shall afterward eat and drink. Much less doth it discover our weakness and impotency to that which is good, and our propensity to evil. For the Text is plain; We must say this, when we have done all that is commanded us. And if we have done it, we can do more. Nor is it set up against Vainglory and Boasting, but against Idleness and careless neglect in preforming that which remaineth of our duty. Because that which remaineth is of the same nature with that which is done already, as due to the Lord that commandeth it as our first obedience, when you have gone thus far, you have done nothing unless you go further. When you have laboured in the heat of the day, it is nothing, unless you continue till the evening. Something you have done which is commanded: behold, God commandeth more, and you must do it: Continue to the end; and then he will bid you sit down and eat. He that beginneth, and leaveth off, and bringeth not his work to an end, he that doth not all, hath done nothing. Thus let us make forward to Perfection, and not faint in the way: Let us not be weary of well-doing, as if we were lame and imperfect; but let us press forward to the end, stand it out against tentations, fight against the principalities and powers of this world, and resist unto blood: Let us make up our breaches, and strengthen ourselves, every day take in some strong hold from the adversary, beat down the flesh and keep it in subjection, that it may be a ready servant to the Spirit; weaken the lust of the eyes, humble our pride of life, and abate the lust of the flesh; be more severe and rigid to our fleshly appetite, and never leave off whilst we carry this body of sin about us. And then, as S. Peter exhorteth, let us give diligence to add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness; and let these abound in us more and more, that we be not barren and unfruitful. And when we have thus begun, and pressed forward, though with many slips and failings, (which yet do not cut us from the covenant of grace, nor interrupt our perseverance) and at last finished our course, we shall come unto mount Zion, and to the City of the living God, and to an innumerable company of Angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect; where we, and every thing shall be made perfect; where there is perfect Love, perfect Joy, perfect Happiness for evermore. The Four and Fortieth SERMON. PART IU. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, be being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. THese two days we have been treating of the Perfection of the Gospel, called by S. James a perfect Law. And yet there remaineth something to be said. The rules and orders which Christ hath given us to observe are plain and easy and open to the understanding. Adblandiuntur nostrae infirmitati, They friendly walk hand in hand with the weakest, to lead him to his journey's end. How readest thou? Canst thou keep the commandments? Or hast thou kept them from thy youth? Wantest thou yet any thing? Then repair to some further rule. For us, we may well presume we have done enough, when we have done what our Lawgiver requireth. For Christ did make Laws for his Church as Phaleas, in Aristotle, did for his Commonwealth, who took good order for preventing of smaller faults, but left way enough to greater crimes. No: he struck down all, digged up all by the roots, both the cedars and the shrubs, both the greatest and the smallest. He laid his axe to the very beginnings of them, and would not let them breathe in a thought, nor be seen in a look. Nor did he, like that famous Grecian painter, begin his work, but die before he could perfect it. It were the greatest opposing of his will to think so. He left nothing imperfect, but sealed up his Evangelical Law, as well as his Obedience, with a Consummatum est. What he began he ever finished. In a word; His will is most fully and perspicuously expressed in his Gospel. But yet, to urge this home, this giveth no encouragement to contemn those means which God hath reached forth to direct us in our search. For as we do not, with the Church of Rome, pretend extreme difficulty of Christ's Law, and upon this pretence strike the Scripture quite out of the hands of the Laiety, and occupy their zeal with other matters, as Archytas did children with rattles, to keep them from handling things more precious; so do we require an exact diligence both in reading the Scripture, and also in ask counsel of grey hairs, and multitude of years, of men of learning and understanding, whom God hath placed over them in his Church. And if the great Physician Hypocrates thought it necessary in his art for those who had taken any cure in hand, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to ask advice even of idiots and unexpert men, much rather ought we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ask counsel of God by prayer and meditation, and of those whom God hath set up to teach us those things which concern our everlasting-peace. The Gospel, as it is said of the Civil Law, Vigilantibus scriptum est, is written to watchful and industrious men. Though the lessons be plain, yet we see many times Negligence cannot pass a line, when Industry hath run over the whole book. Nor can we think that that Truth which will make us perfect, is of so easy purchase that it will be sown in any ground, and, like the Devil's tares, grow up whilst we sleep. S. Hierom speaketh of some in his time, qui solam rusticitatem pro sanctitate habebant, who accounted rusticity and ignorance the only true holiness, and called themselves the scholars of the Disciples, who were simple and unlearned fishermen; quasi id circo sancti sint quòd nihil scirent, as if their ignorance were a good argument of their piety, and they were therefore holy because they knew nothing. I cannot say that such we have in these our days. No: They are not such who profess ignorance, but are as ignorant as they could be, and profess it not: yea, they stretch beyond their line, and exalt themselves to teach even their Teachers. Like the Lilies of the field, they labour not, they study not, and Solomon with all his wisdom was not so wise as one of these. Some crumb falleth from their master's table; Some empty and unsignificant passage they catch at from some Doctor and Preacher that pleaseth them, and whom they call theirs; as well they may; for he bringeth them lettuce fit for their lips: and theirs let him be. And this filleth them so full, more than the whole loaf of another; and it runneth out at their mouth in some censure of those Truths they neither do nor will understand. But bring them to the trial, and you shall find them as well skilled in the Truth and Gospel as poor Mycillus in Lucian was in coins, who knew not whether a penny were square or round. But even these know more of the will of Christ than they put in practice. Faith; It is their common language. Religion; They talk of nothing more. The Truth of Christ; They fight for it. Piety; It dwelleth with them. Purity; It is their proper passion, or essence rather. Honesty of conversation, Justice, and Integrity; The truth is, we have just cause to fear they do but talk of it. But I am willing to take my hand from this sore: And I did but add this to the rest as a necessary caution, that we might not neglect this light which shineth in our faces, and pointeth out to our journey's end, even to Perfection. Now if you ask to how many degrees this Perfection may be intended, the answer is easy; Our Perfection hath not NON ULTRA in this world; nor is he a good Christian who striveth not to be best; Nec est periculum nè sit nimium quod esse maximum debet; There is no danger of excess in that which can never be great enough. They who ask what degrees of Perfection are sufficient, think they may sit down and rest in any, think any holiness sufficient to bring them to the sight of God. But a Christan's Perfection must not be measured by the ordinary standard, by some scant and thrifty measure: It must be large and liberal, heaped up and thrust down, measured out not by the King's shekel, but by the shekel of the Sanctuary, which was double to the other. When our Saviour giveth a Law unto our Lust, he restraineth not only Adultery and Fornication and the rest of those grosser sins, but telleth us that the Sanctity of a Christian suffereth not so much as a lascivious look in the eye, or a wanton thought in the heart. When he rectifieth the vice of our Speech, he forbiddeth not only profane Oaths, impure language, and the like, but censureth every Idle word; so that a Christian can scarce breathe without danger. Where he prescribeth unto us a measure of Patience, he not only forbiddeth all Revenge, but every contumelious word, every angry thought, and setteth us at such a distance from Anger and Revenge, as that he commandeth us to pray for those that curse us; That so men might be sooner weary of their improbity then we of our goodness. As S. Hierom spoke to his friend Paulinus, so doth Christ in his perfect Law unto us who will be his disciples; Nihil in te mediocre. Te contentus sum: totum summum, totum perfectum desidero; I cannot brook in you any mediocrity: I can hear of nothing but fullness, nothing but perfection, nothing but excess. In donationibus factis Ecclesiae optima mensura est rerum donatarum immensitas, saith a Canonist; Would you know in what measure you should give unto the Church? There is no other measure, saith he, of such gifts but Greatness. Would you know in what measure you ought to be perfect? Immensitas est mensura; The true measure of Perfection is Immensity and Excess. For he that hath not yet attained to it, Ephes. 4.13. must yet look earnestly toward it, and make it his mark, till he come to a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The weak in faith must be strong in faith, and they that begin well are bound to press forward toward the end. There is indeed in Scripture mention made of a measure of faith; and men have applied it to signify a measure of Holiness supposed to be wrought by God in the hearts of Christians; as if God did give the gifts of necessary righteousness and common honesty in some scant and defective measure, to some more, to others less, which is in effect to say, Where we see but little honesty, there God hath given but little: And the reason why one man is not so honest as another is not from the man himself, but from God, who was more liberal to the one then to the other. And here I confess my weakness, nor could I ever attain to discover the truth of this conceit; but I see it carried up and down as a Passport or Licence to be weak, an Apology for our infant estate in Christ, for an old man and a child in understanding, for weakness and infirmity. We are but such, we think, as God doth make us: and, if he had pleased, we might have been more perfect than we are. But tell me; Doth God give us that in measure which he requireth of us in excess? Doth he command us to be men, to grow in grace, and then withdraw himself, and leave us in an impossibility of getting out of our swadling-bands? Must we ever speak as a child, and do as a child? and are we so shrunk up and bedwarfed that we shall never become men, nor put away childish things? Let us take heed: It was the evil servant in the Gospel that charged his Master with hardness, that he gathered where he scattered not, that he reaped where he sowed not. I know that the Talents are distributed unequally, to some one, to some two, to some five: but then they are peculiar Talents, and for honour, and not common and necessary. The first Talon, the grace of necessary Righteousness, as it cometh from God, so is not given by measure. In this every man should be his own measure. Why one man is more or less honest than another, the reason is not in God, but in ourselves. For God's word to every one is, Be ye perfect. But the peculiar graces and Talents of ornament, these God giveth only in part and in such measure as seemeth best to his wisdom. And so every man cannot be as strong as Samson, nor as learned as Solomon, nor prophesy as Jeremy, nor work miracles as S. Paul. All this is from God. But why we are not righteous as Noah, devout as David, zealous as Elias, we must find the cause in ourselves, and not lay the defect on God; who in th●se graces of necessity requireth Perfection at our hands, and therefore the judgement is alike upon all. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaketh, Judgement shall be proportionable to the gift. For God will require no more but the account and use of what he gave. And there can little reason be shown why we should fancy to ourselves such a thrift in God in the dispensation of those graces which are necessary, who commandeth us to be perfect, and delighteth himself and taketh pleasure in our obedience. The Scripture, it is true, speaketh to us sometimes babes in Christ, of such as have need of milk, and not strong meat; of Lambs as well as of Sheep. It is plain, and I must acknowledge it: But yet I dare be bold to deny that this is an apology to continue in sin, or to excuse any man if he come short of that Perfection which is required in the Gospel. For the babe in Christ of whom the Scripture speaketh is not one defective in integrity of life, but unripe in knowledge, not deeply seen in the dark mysteries of Scripture. And such a one S. Paul meant when he spoke of the weak in faith, whom he adviseth not to bring to doubtful disputations. Perfection in knowledge requireth time; Perfection in holiness, resolution. To conclude this, on which I have insisted longer than I intended; The Rule, the Law is perfect, and so requireth perfect obedience. For we must not paint and set out Christians, as the Church of Rome doth Christ, an infant in his mother's arms, as babes still rather then perfect men: But we must apply ourselves and proportion our actions to this perfect Rule, carry the image of it about us whithersoever we go, as our signet to engrave and shape and seal every thought and word and action, that so we may grow up in grace, and be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. And further we press not the consideration of this second attribute of the Gospel, Pefection; but bring you to The third and last, That it is a Law of Liberty. And certainly, before the Gospel sounded, all was captivity. We were held under the Law, an inexorable Law, under the power of Sin and Satan, the hardest taskmasters that are. We were captives, Luk. ●. 18. we were in a dungeon, imprisoned in thick and palpable darkness; and not only so, but blind; we wanted not only light, but eyes: We were in fetters and chains, and were bruised with them. But the sound of the Gospel was as the sound of the trumpet at the year of Jubilee; then we recovered our eyes, and saw a great light; our captivity was led captive, our chains fell off; and we, who were under Sin, driven out from the face of God, under the power of that Law which is a kill letter, obnoxious to all the woes denounced against sinners, did recover and receive our liberty, were redeemed and brought back again, and by free pardon, quasi jure postliminii, as by a law of recovery, reinstated into that liberty which we lost, and so did omnia nostra recipere, receive all that might be ours, our Filiation, our Adoption, our title to a Kingdom; & putamur semper fuisse in civitate, as the Law speaketh, and we are graciously accepted as if we had never been lost; as if we had always been free-denizons of the City of God, and never wandered from thence; as if we had never forfeited our right: In a word; Our sins are wiped out, as if they had never been. And thus we were made free, 1. à reatu peccati, from the Gild of sin; which whosoever feeleth bathe his Tophet, his Hell, here; and whosoever committeth it, doth at some time or other feel it. It made Hezekiah chatter like a crane and mourn like a dove. It withered David's heart like grass, and burned up his bones as an hearth. It made Peter's tears flow in bitterness. What should I say more? It made Judas hang himself. Quis enim potest sub tali conscientiâ vivere? For who can live under the guilt and conscience of sin? But there is Balm in Gilead for this. 2. We are made free à dominio peccati, from the Power and tyranny of Sin. Which many times taketh the chair, and setteth us hard and heavy tasks; biddeth us make brick, but alloweth us no straw; biddeth us please and content ourselves, but affordeth us no means to work it out; condemneth one to the mines, to dig for that money which will perish with him; fettereth another with a look, or with a kiss; driveth a third, as Balaam did his beast, on the point of the sword, through all the checks of conscience, the terrors of the Law, every thing that standeth in its way, to the pit of destruction. This power Sin may have, and too oft hath, in us. But the power of the Gospel is greater than the power of Sin; then the power of any Act, and can abolish it; of any Habit, and may weaken and scatter it; and is able to pull Sin from its throne, and put down all its authority and power. 3. We are made free à rigore Legis, from the rigour, from the strict and exact observation of the Moral Law, which God at first required: From the Law, I say, as it was a kill letter. For this yoke is cast away when we put on the yoke of Christ, who indeed requireth, as you have heard before, more holiness, more integrity, and greater perfection than the Law did; but yet is not so extreme to mark what is done amiss, nor doth he under this gracious dispensation punish every infirmity, inadvertency, and imperfection, which the Law did. HOC FAC, ET VIVES; Do this, and thou shalt live. And not to do it exactly, is to break it, and die. 4. We are made free à servitute legis Ceremonialis, from the servitude of the Ceremonial Law; a busy and toilsome and expensive servitude; in quâ non vivebant, sed puniebantur, saith S. Hierom, in which they did not live, but were punished: A burden, saith the Apostle, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. This deliverance may seem more proper to the Jew: For how could the Gentiles be freed from that Law of Ceremonies, to which they were never bound? For where S. John telleth us that if the Son make us free, we shall be free indeed, he speaketh of the freedom from the guilt and condemnation of sin, which S. Paul in no place, that I remember, calleth our Christian liberty, although he speaketh of it in many places, but not under that name. 5. Last of all, this Law of Liberty passeth over to us, as by patent, the free use of the Creature, that we are not bound by any Religion to these or these meats, but may indifferently use or not use them. The earth is the Lords and all that there in is; and he hath given it to the children of men. But yet he was pleased upon some reasons to grant some meats for use, and to forbid others as unclean: Not that any were in their own nature unclean: For whatsoever he made, was good: Sed, ut homines mundarentur, pecora culpata sunt; But to reform and purge the manners of men, he seemed to lay an imputation of Uncleanness upon the creature; which could not be unclean in itself, because it was the work of his hands. In the Camel, saith the Father, he condemneth a crooked and perverse life; in the Sow, that walloweth in the mire, he forbiddeth all pollution of sin; in the Lizard, our inconstancy and uncertain variety of life; in the Hare, our lust; in the Swan, our pride; in the Bat, our delight in darkness and error. These and the like enormities the Law did exsecrate in these creatures: And the Jews were subject to these ordinances, TOUCH NOT, TASTE NOT, HANDLE NOT. Which indeed were not so much prohibitions as directions and remedies; that what was taken from their lusts might be added to their manners. And such a restraint was fit for them, who preferred the onions and garlic of Egypt before Manna itself, and would not have liberty, that they might still stay by the flesh pots of their enemies, who were Lords over them. But now claves macelli Christus nobis tradidit, saith Tertullian, Christ hath put the keys of the shambles or market into our hands. The great sheet is let down from heaven, and we may rise, and kill, and eat. Every creature of God is good, 1 Tim. 4.4. and none to be refused, but to be received with thanksgiving, and requireth no more sanctification, or cleansing, but by the word of God and by prayer. And, Whatsoever is set before you, eat, ask no question for conscience sake. 1 Cor. 10.25, 27. And, The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the holy Ghost. And he that is scrupulous in this, Rom, 14.17. and is fearful to touch or taste, hath his face set as if he were returning to Jerusalem, calleth that common which God hath cleansed; as weak and vain as that Philosopher who would not venture into a ship because he thought it a sin to spit into the Sea. These are the particulars of that Liberty which this perfect Law bringeth with it. All which I once intended severally and more fully to handle. But it would require more time than the present Power that is over us hath been willing to allow us. We will therefore more strictly keep ourselves to the words of the Text, and see how we may reconcile these two things in appearance so contrary, a Law, which hath a severe and rigorous aspect, and Liberty, which hath so pleasing and flattering a countenance; the Law, which toeth us up, and Liberty, which seemeth to let us lose to do what we please. For in this sense the world seemeth to take it, which is fuller of Libertines then of Christians; Who when they are under a Law are in bonds, and never think themselves free but when they are a Law unto themselves, that is, when they are the veriest slaves in the world. Et libertas libertate perit, Liberty is made a gulf to swallow up itself. It was a grave complaint of S. Hierom, Non reddimus unicuique rei suum vocabulum; We are guilty of a strange Misnomer, and do not give every thing its due and proper name. Some call Disobedience Liberty, and are not free, they think, but with their Quod volumus sanctum est, when they are let lose to do what they please. Every man desireth Liberty, and forfeiteth it; every man calleth for it, and chaseth it away; every man would bring her in, and proscribeth her. Nay, we may rise up and fight for her, and when the day is ours and the battle ended, find ourselves in chains. For when we cry so loud for it, we desire nothing but the name. That which our desires and hopes fly to, when we have overtaken and laid hold of it, changeth its countenance; and we look upon it, and repent, and bemoan ourselves, and say, when it is too late, This is not it which we meant. And thus it falleth out not only in civil affairs, but in religious, in the work and business of our Salvation. When we are rich, then are we poor; when we are lose, than we are in fetters; when we reign as kings, then are we slaves; being free from righteousness, Rom. 6.20. we are the servants of sin, saith S. Paul. Licet ut volo vivere, To live as I please, is to lose my liberty. And therefore, to draw it home to our present purpose, a Law is so far from being an abridgement to our Liberty, that it is rather a pillar to uphold and sustain it, or rather it is the foundation upon which it is built, and on which it will stand fast for ever. Nor is there any liberty but under some Law. For that is Liberty which preserveth, not which destroyeth, a thing; by which it keepeth its own native qualities, or improveth them. The Obedience of the Creature to the Law of his kind is his Liberty. The Angels have a Law by which they work. And their Law in respect of God is, All ye his Angels, praise him. And their Law in respect of Men is, Ye Angels, that do his will, a Law which bindeth them to works of ministerial employment. And their obedience to this Law is their Liberty. As the foundation of all Evangelical glory and Perfection is in obedience, so the happiness of the Intelligences, saith the Philosopher, consisteth in their subjection to the First, When the Angels, reflecting on their own beauty and excellency, would be like unto God, they fell, saith S. Judas, from their first estate, from their Liberty, and then would have no God at all; and so were driven out of their habitation, and reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day. Obedience confirmeth an Angel; but Desire to break his bounds and limits throweth him down from his heaven and Liberty, and bindeth him in chains for evermore. It is so in heaven: And it is so also below. God made a Law for the Rain, and gave his decree unto the Sea; and so to every creature: And as they keep the Law of their kind unwittingly, so their preservation is a kind of liberty. The Sun hath then its liberty, when as a giant it runneth its unwearied course, not if it should stand still and rest itself; and the Moon, when it knoweth its seasons, not if it should wander from its beaten way. But this indeed is not properly liberty, because we speak of those creatures which can do no otherwise then they do, so that with them Necessity is a kind of liberty; and to be drawn from their proper or natural course, Rom. 8. Servitude. And thus S. Paul telleth us of the bondage of the creature, and of its groaning to be delivered, being made subject by man to vanity, dragged and forced to be instrumental and serviceable to his lusts. But it is so really in civil affairs. Nothing more unlike Liberty then that which men call unto them with that heat and violence; both by their words and works. Unless you call it a liberty, to be unjust; a liberty, to oppress; a liberty, to manifest our folly and our wickedness; a liberty, to go into hell. O infelices, quibus licet peccare! Oh unhappy they who have such a liberty, to undo themselves! What should they do with liberty, who are ever the same, and never the same; who domineer to day, and cringe to morrow; who take up a resolution they know not how, and lay it down again they know not wherefore; prone to mercy in a fit, and in a fit as swift to shed blood; who are led by opinion, and not by truth; who consult and give sentence, and then repeal it, and after repeal the repeal itself; who call for light, and are soon angry with it; choose a religion, and abhor it; raise a faction, and anon persecute it; frame a government, and then demolish it? His opus est lege; What should such a Beast do without a curb? What should these move but under a Law, who must be made good to themselves and others against their will? Free them from a Law, and they take liberty, a liberty to undo themselves. In a word; The obedience of the Creature is his Liberty; the obedience of the Angels is their Liberty; the obedience of Man is his Liberty. For leave him to himself, to his wild lusts and affections, and there can be no greater enemy to destroy him then himself. So then a Law and Liberty may well consist and stand together. Nay, God hath joined them together, and no man must put them asunder; joined them together, even in this great Jubilee, in this proclamation of Remission and Liberty. For every Pardon is also an Obligation: As it cancelleth one bill, so it leaveth no room for a future: As it pardoneth sins past, so it hath the force of a Law, and forbiddeth us to sin again. SIN NO MORE, is a Law written even upon the Mercy-seat. When we are pardoned, there is mors criminum, & vita virtutum, as Cyprian speaketh: Sin must die, and we are bound as by a Law to live to righteousness. When the Understanding is a magazine of saving knowledge, and the Will embraceth the truth of the Gospel, and the Affections are poised and carried on by the love of Christ exhibited in this Law, and all the faculties of our souls and members of our bodies are subject to this perfect Law, then are we like unto Christ, like unto God. We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a divine constitution, or, according to Seneca's high expression, imbecillitatem hominis, & securitatem Dei, with the frailty and imbecility of Man we have the security and liberty of God, or, more truly, that which resembleth his: We are indeed the freest and noblest creatures in the world. On the contrary, an Understanding that purveyeth for the world, a Will that reacheth after it, an Anger that is raised with every breath, a Fear that ducketh at every frown, a Hope that swelleth at every pleasing object, a Joy that is loud at every folly, a Love that kisseth every idol, an Eye wandering after every vanity, an Ear listening after lies, are the faculties and passions and members, or rather the marks and reproaches, of a stigmatised slave. For can he be thought free, who employeth all the power he hath to make himself a prisoner? No liberty then without subordination and subjection to this Law. Behold, I show you a mystery, which you may think rather a paradox; A Christian, a gospeler, is the freest, and yet the most subject creature in the world; the highest, and yet the lowest; delivered out of prison, and yet confined; set at liberty, and yet kept under a Law! S. Paul saith to the Galatians, Brethren, you have been called unto liberty. Gal. 5.13. He meaneth Liberty in things indifferent, neither good nor evil in their own nature. There our fetters are broken off. Only use not your liberty as an occasion to the flesh. There we are limited and confined. So that Christian Liberty itself is under a Law, which bindeth us ab illicitis semper, quandoque & à licitis, from unlawful things always, and sometimes from that which is lawful. Nay, it is under many Laws. 1. The Law of Sobriety and Temperance, which must bond and limit the outward practice of it. God hath given, as I told you before, every moving thing that liveth, to be meat for us. Gen. 9 ● All meats under the Gospel, all drinks are lawful, fish and flesh, bread and herbs, and the rest. But there is a Law yet to bond us. We are free, but not so free as to surfeit and be drunken, and to devour our souls with care for our bodies, to make an art of eating, and indulge so long to luxury till we can indulge no more. Wine is from the vine; In which, saith S. Augustine, God doth every year work a miracle, and turn water into wine. But if Sobriety be not the cup bearer, if we look not on Temperance as a Law, it may prove to us what the Manichees feigned it to be, fell principis tenebrarum, the gall of the Prince of darkness. Again, all apparel, all stuff, all cloth, all colours, are lawful. Fo● he that clotheth the grass of the field, will do much more for us. But this Liberty doth not strait write us Gallants, nor bolster out our excessive pride and vanity; this doth not give us power to put the poor's and Christ's patrimony on our backs. Modesty must be our Tirewoman to put on our dress and our garments, and not Fancy and Pride. Tertullian thought it not fit to supplicate God in silk or purple, Cedò acum crinibus distinguendis; Bring forth, saith he, your crisping-pins and your pomanders, and wash yourselves in costly baths: and, if any ask you why you do so, Deliqui, dicito, in Deum; say, I have offended against God: Itaque nunc maceror & crucior, ut reconciliam me Deo; and therefore I thus macerate and afflict myself, and am come in this gay and costly outside, that I may reconcile myself too God. Thus did he bitterly and sarcastically l●sh the luxury of his times. What, think you, would he say if he saw what we see every day, even when the days are gloomy and black, & Ecclesia in attonito, when men's hearts even fail them for fear, and Vengeance hovereth over us, ready to fall upon our heads? But if he were too streight-laced, we ought to remember that Apparel was for covert, and not for sight; to warm the body that weareth it, and not to take the eye of him that beholdeth it. We have freedom to use, but Modesty and Temperance must be as Tribunes, and come in with their Veto, and check and manage this Liberty, that we abuse not the creature. 2. Our Liberty is bounded with another Law, even the Law of Charity; Of Charity, I say, both to myself, and to my brethren. For ourselves; A right hand is to be cut off, and a right eye plucked out, if they offend us. We must remove every thing out of the way which may prove a stone to stumble at, though it be as useful as our Hand, and as dear as our Eye; at least, make a covenant with our Eye and with our Hand, to forbear those lawful things which may either endanger the body or occasion the ruin of the soul. For what is an Eye, a Hand, to the whole? And what a serpent is that occasion which, If I touch it, will sting me to death? And, as for ourselves, so also for others, we must not use the creature with offence or scandal of our weaker brethren. LICET, It is lawful, is the voice of Liberty; but the Charity of the Gospel, which is as a Law to a Christian, b●●ngeth in an EXPEDIT, and maketh only that lawful in this case which is expedient. For as every thing which we please, as Bernard speaketh, is not lawful; so every thing that is lawful is not expedient. Nihil charitate imperiosius; There is nothing more commanding then Charity, and no command fuller of delight and profit then hers. For how quickly doth she condescend to the weakness of others? How willing is she to abridge herself rather then they should fall? What delight doth she take to deny herself delight, that she may please them? She will not touch nor taste that they may not be offended. And then thus in matters of this nature to restrain Liberty bringeth with it huge advantage. For how will he fly with ease from that which ●e may not do, who can for another's sake abstain from that which he may? Liberty is a word of enlargement, and giveth us line, biddeth, Rise, and eat: but a NON EXPEDIT, It is not expedient, which is the language of Charity, putteth the knife to our throat, cometh in case of scandal to pinion us, that we reach not our hand to things otherwise lawful. A NON EXPEDIT maketh a NON LICET; It is not expedient, in matters of this indifferency, is the same with It is not lawful. The Gospel, you see, then is a Law of liberty, but it is also a Law to moderate and restrain it. Lastly, as it is a Law of liberty, so it limiteth and boundeth it in respect of those relations which are between man and man, between Father and Son, Master and Servant, Superior and Inferior. For Christ came not to shake these relations, but to establish them. He left the Servant, the Son, the Subject, as he found them; but taught them to bow yet a little lower before their Master, their Father, their Lord, for the Gospel's sake; to do it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with fear and reverence, as to the Lord, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not as the heathen slaves in chains, but, in simplicity and truth, as unto Christ, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with good will, not driven on with the goad and whip, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as servants, not of men, but of Christ. He giveth them liberty, yet toeth them up and confineth them, in the Family, in the Commonwealth, in the Church. A Christian is the most free and the most subject creature in the world. And accordingly it was not heard that any Christian for some hundreds of years did break his bands, or rise up against Authority. Not a more obedient Son, not a more humble Servant, not a more faithful Subject, than a Christian. For when Presumption on our Christian Liberty, like a flould, is ready to cast down all before it, there is a Law in the Gospel which steppeth in, and speaketh in the voice of God himself, Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further. We say, nay Christ saith, that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, truly free: and he saith, and hath taught us both by his word and ensample, that we must be truly charitable, truly sober, truly obedient. The error in these later ages hath been, to remove this Liberty, and take it from Sin and Conscience, and set it up against the face of the Superior, and so to levelly and throw down all relations. We are now not free from the bondage and guilt and dominion of Sin, not free from the clamours of Conscience, wherein our Christian Liberty principally consisteth, but free from Dependence, free from all Subjection; and thus we forfeit our Freedom by defending it, fling of our obedience to those who are set over us, and so come under a worse yoke, even the yoke of the Devil. For conclusion then; Let us with joy and thankfulness remember that we are called to liberty, but let us not forget that we are under a Law to regulate and bond us; that this royal Law is not nulled and maid void by our Liberty, nor our Liberty lost in this Law; that it speaketh nothing but Peace and Liberty, but withal exacteth Obedience, which is the instrumental cause, the helper and promoter of them both; that Christ hath taken from us one yoke, but put upon us another, and that an easy one; Which if we fling from us or break asunder, our Liberty will fly away, and leave us in bonds, enslaved to our own passions and lusts, bowing to every Master but our Master which is in heaven, who bought us with a price, waiting on our Ambition, lacquaying it after the World, sweeting in a Faction, busy and toiling in a Sedition, and carried on with a swinge upon the weak and feeble wings of an opinion of Liberty, and so making ourselves evil, because we have learned that the Son hath made us free. And therefore let us stand fast in our liberty. And the only way to settle and fix us is this Royal Law. To this if we take heed, carrying along with us that Charity, Sobriety, Modesty, Prudence, which it requireth, we shall stand, and not incline and sink either to the right hand or to the left; neither fall into such a superstitious tenderness as not to be able to take up a straw, nor yet run into that profaneness as to beat down all relations before us, to see neither Father, nor Master, nor Magistrate, having our eyes dazzled with the beauty and glory of our Christian Liberty. To conclude; Brethren, you have been called to liberty: Only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, to promote that in its lusts and affections. You are made free from the Gild of sin: Add not guilt unto guilt, nor blood unto blood: Be not worse than Jews and Turks, because you are Christians. You are made free from the Dominion of sin: Make use of the power of the Gospel to triumph over it: You are made free by this Law of liberty, but you must work out this your Freedom with fear and trembling. The Gospel is of power to break our bands asunder, but we must shake them off: For it doth not redeem those who love their captivity, and delight rather in their fetters then enlargement. If thou wilt, thou shalt be saved; and if thou wilt, thou art set at liberty. Again; ye are free from the Rigour of the Law, and walk now rather as before a Father then before a Judge: But even a Father may be angry, and his anger may be heavier than that of a Judge, if we abuse his lenity, and turn his grace into wantonness; if we be too daring and bold under his indulgence and loving kindness, and, as the flesh swayeth and leadeth us, venture now upon these acts of sin, now upon others, and be less careful what we do, because he will not be extreme to mark what is done amiss; and so at last make up those cords of vanity, that cart-rope of iniquity, with which we shall be dragged, not as sons, but as slaves and beasts to the slaughter. Lastly, you are made free, and have liberty to use the Creature: Use it to his glory that gave it; that the bread that you eat, the garments you wear, the beam in the house, cry not out and witness against you. And you are free from Ceremonial precepts, but not from Order and Discipline; free in things indifferent, but not left in this indifferency to do what you please. In a word; free, but yet bound; bound to serve one another in love, and bound even by the Law of Nature (which this Law of Liberty doth not abrogate) to do every thing decently and in order. And thus if you walk, as free and yet serving, poising and moderating your Liberty by a Law, manifesting your freedom even in this service, and exalting this your service in your Liberty, you shall be free indeed, free in whatsoever relation you stand, either in Family, or City, or Church, or Commonwealth, and by it be made free-denizons of the City of the Lord, who shall deliver you from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of his sons in the highest heavens, where you shall be free for evermore. The Five and Fortieth SERMON. PART V. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. HAving now finished our first Part, The Character of the Gospel, we pass to our second, the Character of the true gospeler. And first we find that he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, look into the perfect Law of liberty. And one would think that were soon done. Who doth not look into the Gospel? He that loveth it, looketh into it; and he looketh into it who is an enemy to it. But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a word of a fuller signification, and implieth not a slight cast of the eye, a careless and perfunctory look, but a look with the bend and incurvation of the body. John 20. ●. It is the word S. John useth, he telleth us that Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stooping down, Vers. 21. and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying. And again, of Mary Magdalene, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre. And of the Gospel itself S. Peter saith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that the Angel's desire (or love) to look into it. It is then a serious, fixed, earnest look, not a bare and inefficacious knowledge, that is here meant. For who knoweth not the Gospel? To whom hath not this arm of the Lord been revealed? They that blaspheme it, look upon it. They that deny the power of it, look upon it. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth more, not a naked knowledge, but a knowledge with the bending and incurvation of the Will. If a man say he looketh into the Gospel, and knoweth Christ, and keepeth not his commandments, he is a liar. 1 John 2.4. He that looketh but slightly looketh not at all, or to as little purpose as if he had been blind. He that saith he knoweth the power of the Gospel, and yet is obedient to the flesh and the lusts thereof, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. For how can one at once look into the Gospel, and see the glory of it, and despise it? What a Soloecism is the Gospel in his mouth who is yet in his sins? It is not a looking but a looking into, not speculative but practic knowledge, that must bring on the end, and crown us with blessedness. It were better not to look on the Gospel, then to look and not to like; better to be blind then so to see: for if we were blind, we should have no sin, that is, none so great; we should have some excuse for our sin. Carelessly to look on the Law of liberty is not a window to let in Religion, but a door and barricado to keep it out of the heart. For what a poor habitation is a Look for the Gospel and Grace to dwell in? The Gospel is a royal Law, and a Law of Liberty, Liberty from the guilt and from the dominion of sin: We look upon it, and are content well it should be so: We know it, and subscribe to it: But if this would make us Gospelers, what an assembly of Pharisees and Hypocrites, what a congregation of men of Belial, might be the true Disciples of Christ? I had almost said, What a Legion of Devils might go under that name? We look into the Gospel, and talk of nothing more; In our misery and affliction, in anguish and distress of conscience, we confess the Gospel must charm the storm, and give medicine to heal our sickness. Thus we preach, and thus have you believed. But all this is nothing, if you do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, bow and bent and apply yourselves to the Gospel. If you acknowledge its all-sufficiency, and trust in the arm of flesh; If when the tempest of affliction beateth upon you, you make a greater tempest in your souls; If ye look, and go away and forget, by such neglectful looking upon it ye make the word of life a kill letter. For what is it to see Sin condemned in Christ's flesh, and to justify it in our own? to sing that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that triumphant song, over Death, and wilfully to run upon that disobedience of which Death is the wages? to see Satan trod under our feet, and yet to make ourselves his slaves? to look upon Life, and yet to choose Death? to look upon a Law, and break it; upon a Law of Liberty, and be servants of Sin, worse than bored slaves? To look then into the Law of liberty is, so to weigh and consider it as to write it in our hearts, and make it a part of ourselves. For every Look will not make a Christian. The Jews did look upon Christ; but they did not look upon him as the Lamb of God: for than they had not butchered him. We may look upon the heavens, the work of God's fingers, upon the Moon and the stars, which he hath ordained, upon this wonderful frame, Rom. 1: 19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that which may be known of God; but we do not always, as David speaketh, so look upon it as to consider it: And then it doth not raise us up to a due admiration of God's Majesty, nor bring us down to a due acknowledgement of our Subjection: We are no more affected with it then as if all were still without form, and void, a lump or Chaos. At first it is a glorious sight, and no more; and at last when we have familiarly looked upon it, it is nothing. We look upon ourselves mouldering and decaying; and yet we do not look into ourselves: for who considereth himself a mortal? Dives in purple never thought how he came into the world, nor how he should go out of it. We neither look backward, to what we were made; nor forward, to what we shall be. Can a rich man die? He will say he shall; but doth he believe himself? Can Herod, an Angel, a God, be struck with worms? We die daily, and yet think we shall not die at all. In a word; We are any thing but what we are, because we do not look into nor consider ourselves. We look upon Sin, and condemn it; and sin again: For we do not look into it, and consider it as the work of the Devil, as the deformity of the Soul, as a breach of that Law of liberty which was made to free us, as that which hath no better wages than death and eternal separation from the God of life. If we did look into it, and consider it, we could not commit it. For no man ever yet did considerately destroy himself. What then is it to look into the Law of liberty, and in what is our Consideration placed? He that heareth these say of mine, and doth them, saith our Saviour, is he that looketh into this Law, and observeth it: He hath an Evangelical eye; I may say, an Angelical eye: for he boweth and inclineth himself to see. And no man hath a clear eye but he that doth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith our Saviour. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a firm purpose of Doing, which is to look into. We must distinguish between an active and a Contemplative look or assent. Then we look into this Law, than we actively assent, when we have first considered what difficulties accompany this Law, what fightings within, and terrors without; what a body of sin we carry about with us; what pleasing, what black temptations are ready to meet us at every turn; what enemies we have abroad, and what in our own bosom; how not only the way, but our feet also are slippery. Then we must consider that eternal weight of glory which Christ hath promised to those who are obedient to this Law. And then exactly observe that certain and inseparable connexion which is between this Law and Blessedness; that if the one be observed, the other must naturally and necessarily follow; that if we be true Gospelers here, we shall be Saints hereafter. If this be looked into and rightly considered as it should, the Will must needs bow and be obedient to this Law, which, as it is compassed with difficulty, so it leadeth to happiness, which bringeth a span of trouble and an eternity of bliss. From hence ariseth that Love of Christ and his Law which is the root and foundation of all obedience, Ephes. 3. 1●. upon which we build up as high as heaven. For with such a Look we see the heavens open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; nay, coming, and having his reward with him. It is the same method which our Saviour teacheth. Luke 14.28. For you must do in Looking as you do in Building. Which of you, saith Christ, intending to build a house, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? If you will look into this Law of liberty, you must count what it may cost you. It may cost you your goods; It may cost you your credit, even with those who profess the same thing with you, who are ready to forsake you; It may cost you your blood: But all these losses shall be made up and recompensed with eternity. Canst thou see that smiling Beauty, and turn away the eye? Canst thou see that Honour ready to crown thee, and defy it? Canst thou behold Riches, and esteem them as dung? Canst thou meet the raging persecutor, and pity and pray for him? Canst thou meet Death itself with all its pomp and horror, and through all these undauntedly press forward towards Heaven? Then thou hast stooped down, inclined thyself, and looked into this Law of liberty. For if we have not this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and full persuasion, if we have not laid this foundation, and approved this Law of liberty, both in our understanding and practice, as the only way to happiness, we may look and look again upon it, and be stark blind, see nothing in it, nothing of that heaven and bliss which is promised. And then every breath is a storm, every temptation will be an overthrow; then every light affliction, every evil that cometh towards us, will remove the eye from this Law, and place it on itself, which we shall look on till we faint and fall down for fear, and forfeit our obedience, & even study how to make that false which is so contrary to our lusts and affections. Faith and a good Conscience make it a just and full look: If we put that away, 1 Tim. 1.19. presently concerning faith we make shipwreck. For as in Scripture we are then said to know God when we love him; so do we truly look into and consider this Law, not when we make mention of it with our lips, when we think of it, remember it, meditate of it, which is but the extension of our thoughts, but when we draw it & fasten it to our soul, make it as our form and principle of motion, to promote those actions, that obedience in us, for which the Law was made. This the Fathers call the circular motion of the mind, which first settleth upon the object, then is carried back into itself, and there boweth and swayeth the powers of the soul, and collecteth itself into itself from all foreign and impertinent occurrences, and then joineth all its forces and faculties, its Will and Affections, to the accomplishing of that Good to which the Law of liberty inviteth us. To look into the Law, ye see, is of larger extent than the words do import at first sight: and is of singular use. It poiseth and biasseth us in all our ways, that we may run evenly to that Blessedness which is set before us. It is our Compass, to steer our course amidst the waves, the ebbings and flow, the changes and chances of this world. It is our Angel, to keep us in all our ways. It is as the opening of a window into the closet of our souls, that that light may enter which may manifest every mote and atom, where there was nothing before but vacuity. It is our Spy, to discover the forces of our Enemy, and it is the best strength we have against him. It is as the balance of the Sanctuary, to weigh every blessing in the Gospel to a grain. It is the best divider, giving to God those things that are God's, and to man those things which are man's. It wipeth the paint off from sin, and discovereth its horror. It taketh temptation from Beauty, and showeth us fading flesh, dust and ashes. It strippeth Riches of their glory, and pointeth unto their wings. It seethe a deceiver in the Devil; in Christ, a Lord and Saviour; and in his royal Law it beholdeth Heaven and eternity of bliss. All this virtue and power hath this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this looking into the Law, and due considering of it: Which by being looked into becometh the savour of life unto life; but, when we take off our eye, is made the savour of death unto death. A steady and heedful look purchaseth, and a careless glance forfeiteth, our Liberty. To look is to be free; and not thus to look, is to have Canaan's curse upon us, to be servants of servants for ever. And now, tell me, how many be there that thus look into the Gospel? how many that thus weigh and consider it? Many walk, saith S. Paul (Many look, we may say) of whom we may speak weeping, that they are enemies to the Law of liberty. The Papist looketh into it, and there he findeth a Triple crown. The Schismatic looketh into it, and he findeth a sword to divide him from his brethren. The Anti-papist Jesuit looketh into it, and findeth the draught and model of a new Discipline. The Enthusiast and Spiritual man looketh into it, and findeth nothing but Ink and Words. The Libertine looketh into it: For the Law is in himself. Quarunt quod nusquam est, inveniunt tamen; They look and seek that which cannot be found, and yet they find it, every man his humour and the corruption of his own heart. There is much in the Eye. For the Law of liberty is still the same; It moulteth not a feather, changeth not its shape and countenance: But it may appear in as many shapes as there be tempers and constitutions of the eyes that looketh into it. An Evil eye seethe nothing but faction and debate. A lofty eye seethe nothing but priority and preeminence. A Bloodshot eye seethe nothing but cruelty, which they call Justice. All the errors of our life, as the Philosophers speak of the colours of the Rainbow, are oculi opus, the work of the Eye. For the Law itself can lend nothing towards them, but stareth them in the face, when the eye hath raised them, to shake and demolish them. It were good then to clear our eye before we look into the Law, lest whilst we find what pleaseth us, we find what will ruin us. But oh that we should have such eagle's eyes in the things of this world, and be such Bats in the Gospel of Christ! The Covetous looketh into the world, and that hath power to transform his soul into earth. The wanton looketh upon beauty, and that turneth his into flesh. David beholdeth Bathsheba in her bath, and is on fire. Ahab looketh upon Naboth's vineyard, and is sick. The eye of flesh pierceth deep into the object, and the object pierceth as deep into the soul. But we look and look again into the Law of liberty, but so faintly that we draw no power from it to renew us in the inward man. It is a Law of liberty, and we look upon it, and yet are slaves. We speak much of Faith, which is the eye of the soul, and what wonders it worketh. And indeed it would do so, if it were right and clear. It is the substance of things not seen. And if it draw Heaven and Glory so near us as to make them as certain to us as those things we see, it were impossible we should turn the back to Eternity to follow a flying and transitory vanity, to pursue that which is as mortal as ourselves, and must perish with us, and doth most times perish before us. For Faith, and a full persuasion of the means to the end which we propose, is the hinge on which all the actions of men move and are turned. The Worldling seethe this is the way to wealth, and he laboureth and sweateth in it. The Ambitious looketh upon this as his way to the highest seat, and he treadeth it in pain, moveth forward in it, though he meet with many rubs and difficulties, many a disgrace, many a curse, as he moveth. If we believe and are fully persuaded that this will bring us to our end, we lay hold of it and follow its conduct, though it lead us against the pricks. Well said Tertullian, Nemo non in causa Dei facere potest, quod in sua potest; Every man may do that for his soul which he doth for his body; for his place in heaven, which he doth for his estate on earth. And if our persuasion were as full for the one as for the other, if our eye of faith were as clear, and our intention as strong, we should see more glory in the Gospel then in all that pomp which swayeth and boweth and inclineth us to it, and should fly from the one, and cleave to the other; see Heaven in this Law of liberty, and then take it by violence. For why should not our Faith be as powerful in the things of God as our Sense is in the things of this present life? To conclude then; The light of the body is the eye, if the eye be single, Matth. 6.22. the whole body will be light. The Judgement, the Persuasion, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the eye of the soul, saith Hierocles. And the body in this place is the Mind. For what the Sight is in the Eye, that is the Judgement in the Mind: And if that be single and clear, it will look and look into an object, and fully consider it. It will see the Gospel, and in it see wonders; see lepers cleansed, blind men receiving their sight, and the dead raised to life again. It will see it is a Law, and bow to it; as a perfect Law, and make us perfect to every good work; as a Law of liberty, and enlarge our feet, that we may run the way of God's commandments: It will see it, and in it that glory and riches which will ravish the eye; see it as a ladder reaching up to heaven, and ascend up upon it; see it, and with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord and Lawgiver, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, and the power of this Law of liberty; see it, and so be brought at last to the beatifical Vision, a nearer and clearer sight of God; Which is the end of all, the Blessedness here promised to them that do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, thus earnestly look into the perfect Law of liberty. The Six and Fortieth SERMON. PART VI. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. WE have presented before your eyes the first part of the Character and Description of the true gospeler; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He bendeth and inclineth and boweth all the faculties of his soul to look into the perfect Law of Liberty, to weigh and consider it. But this is not enough. It followeth therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and continueth therein. To look into it, and not remain in it, is to fall away, to fall as a star, as Lucifer, from heaven. If we see the riches and glories of the Gospel, and approve and delight therein, and then exchange them for that vanity which it teacheth us to tread under foot, give up all to our lusts and unruly affections, you know our doom; Our last end is worse than our beginning. Though we have known Christ, yet he will not know us; though we have embraced the Gospel, yet it shall not save us, but we shall be judged according to that Gospel which we have looked into and approved and then cast behind us, that we might follow our own inventions and the dictates of the flesh, which will lead us to destruction. This latter part doth establish the former, and maketh our look a fixed and steadfast look, a look which entereth in within the veil, even to the holy of holies, and endeth not but in the blessed vision of God himself. See, here they are linked and joined together, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty, and continueth therein, wreathed as it were one with the other. We cannot continue in it unless we look into it; and if we continue not, our look is nothing; nay, it is worse than nothing: For we look and see that which might save, and will condemn us. Therefore to keep them thus united, the Apostle draweth an exact method, and prescribeth the means: 1. He must not be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a forgetful hearer; he must meditate in it: 2. He must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a doer of the work, the Singular for the Plural, a doer of those works which the Evangelical Law requireth. And these two as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses when they were heavy, will hold up ours, on the one side, and on the other, that they may be steady unto our evening, until the going down of our Sun, that we may persevere to the end, and be saved. And with these we shall exercise your Devotion at this time. The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like to that which our Saviour useth, Matth. 24.13. Mark 13.13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. From thence cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that Patience so much commended in the Scripture. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, We have need of patience, Heb. 10.36. that after ye have done the will of God, that is, done it to the end, ye may receive the promise; a Patience which standeth strong against all incursions, — belli molem quae sustinet omnem, which undergoeth the shock of the whole war, observeth the enemy in all his stratagems, wiles and enterprises, meeteth and encountereth him in all his assaults, meeteth him as a Serpent, and is not taken with with his flattery, meeteth him as Lion, and is not dismayed at his roarring, but keepeth and guideth us in an even and constant course in the midst of all his noise and allurements, and so bringeth us, though shaken and weather-beaten, unto our end, to the haven of rest, where we would be. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, We have need of patience. Quid enim malum, nisi impatientia boni? saith Tertullian; For what is Evil, but an impatience of that which is good? What is Vice, but an impatience of virtue? Pride will not suffer us to be brought low; Covetousness will not suffer us to open our hand; Intemperance will not suffer us to put our knife to our throat. The Love of the world is impatient of God himself. His Word is a sword, and his commands thunderbolts: At the sound of them we are afraid, and go away sorrowful. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, We have need of patience. For we must run our race in a constant and uninterrupted course, in an awful reverence to our Lawgiver, living and dying under the shadow of his wings, that whether we live or die, we may be the Lord's. Non habitat nisi qui verè habitat, say the Civilians; He is not said to dwell in a place who continueth not in it. And he doth not remain in the Gospel who is ready upon every change of weather, upon every blast and breathing of discontent, to change his seat. He doth not remain in it, who, if the rain descend and the floods come and the winds blow, will leave and forsake it, though it be a rock which will easily defend him against all these. For what evil can there be against which it hath not provided an antidote? what tempest will it not shroud us against? Bring Principalites and Powers, the Devil and all his artillery, unus sufficit Christus, the Gospel alone is sufficient for us. And in this we see the difference between the World and the Church. The world passeth away, 1 Cor. 7.31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The fashion of the world, the scene, is every day changed, and presenteth things in another shape. But the Church is built upon a Rock, Matth. 16. upon CHRIST; that is, upon that Faith in Christ which worketh by charity. And he who is built upon this Rock, who is fully persuaded that Christ is the best Master, and that those duties which he teacheth are from heaven heavenly, and will bring us thither, is sufficiently armed against the flattery of Pleasure, the lowering countenance of Disgrace, the terrors of Poverty and Death itself, against all wind and weather whatsoever that might move him from his place. Look into the world: There all things are as mutable as itself. Omnia in impia fluctuant, All things ebb and flow in wicked men, fly as a shadow, and continue not. Their Righteousness is like the morning dew, Hos. 13.3. dried up with the first Sun; their Charity, like a rock, which must be struck by some Moses, some Prophet, and then upon a fit or pang, no gushing forth, but some droppings peradventure, and then a dry rock again; their Vows and Promises, like their shadows, at noon behind them; their Friendship, like Job's winter-brooks, overflowing with words, and then in summer, when it is hottest, in time of need, quite dried up, consumed out of its place; their Temperance, scarce holding out to the next feast; nor their Chastity, to the next twilight. The world and the fashion of it passeth away; but on the contrary, the Gospel is the eternal word of God. And as the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, Rom. 11.29. Prov. 8.18. so his graces are durable riches; opes densae, firm and well compacted, such as may be held against all assaults; like him from whom they descend, yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever: Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unfeigned; Love, abiding; Hope, an anchor. He that is a true gospeler doth remain and continue, and not wander from that which is good to that which is evil; is not this day a Confessor, and to morrow an Apostate; doth not believe to day, and to morrow renounce his Creed; doth not love to day, and loath to morrow; doth not hope to day, and droop to morrow; but unum hominem agit, he is the same man, and doth the same things assiduè & aequaliter, constantly and equally. He remaineth not in the Gospel in a calm only, and leaveth it when the winds rise: but here he will remain, fixed to those principles, and acting by them, when the Sun shineth, and when the storm is loudest. By the Gospel he fixeth and strengtheneth all his decrees and resolutions and determinations, that they are ever the same, and about the same; now beating down one sin, anon another; now raising and exalting this virtue, anon that. If you ask him a question, saith Aristides the Sophister, of Numbers or Measures, he will give you the same answer to day which he will give you to morrow and the next day, and at the last breath that he draweth. In the next place, if we do not remain in the Law of liberty, we do not obey it as we should. For to remain in the Gospel and to be in Christ, are words of stability and durance and perpetuity. For what being is that which anon is not? What stability hath that which changeth every moment? What durance and perpetuity hath that which is but a vapour or exhalation drawn up on high to fall and stink? To remain in the Gospel and to remain for ever may seem two different things; but in respect of the race we are to run, in respect of our salvation, they are the very same. We will not here dispute Whether Perseverance be a virtue distinct from other graces; Whether, as the Angels (according as some Divines teach) which stood after the fall of the rest, had a confirming grace given them from God, which now maketh them utterly uncapable of any rebellious conceit, so also the saving graces of God's Spirit bring with them into the soul a necessary and certain preservation from final relapse. For there be who violently maintain it; and there be who with as great zeal and more reason deny it. To ask, Whether we may totally and finally fall from the grace and favour of God, is not so pertinent, as it is necessary to hearken to the counsel of the Apostle, and to take heed lest we fall, to take heed lest we be cut off, and to beware of those sins which if we commit we cannot inherit the kingdom of God. For what will it avail, if we be to every good work reprobate, to comfort ourselves that we are of the number of the elect? What will it help us, if by adultery and murder and pride and malice we make ourselves the children of death, to lie down and dream that our names are written in the book of life? And what folly is it to fall and fall again, and think we cannot fall eternally? to be ashamed of the Gospel, to do those things upon which the Gospel itself hath fixed many Woes, and yet to say we remain in it? Why should we ask, Whether David fell away totally, when he fell so dangerously that, had he not repent, he had fallen into hell? But I had rather commend Perseverance unto you as a condition annexed to every virtue; so Bernard: as that which compasseth every good grace of God about as with a shield; so Parisiensis: as that gift of God which preserveth and safe-guardeth all other virtues; so Augustine. For though every good gift and every perfect gift be from above, Jam. 1. ●7▪ though those virtues which beautify a Christian soul descend from heaven, and are the proper issues and emanations as it were from God himself; yet Perseverance is unica filia, saith Bernard, his only daughter and heir, and carrieth away the crown. She alone bringeth the disciple of Christ into the King's bedchamber. For he that endureth to the end shall be saved. He runneth in vain, who runneth not to the mark. He runneth in vain, that fainteth in the way, and obtaineth not. Whatsoever is before the end, is not the end, but a degree unto it. What is a Seed, if it shoot forth and flourish, and then whither? What is a gourd, which groweth up in a night, and shadoweth us, and then is smitten the next morning with a worm and perisheth? What is a fair morning to a tempestuous day? What is a sabbath-days journey to him who must walk to the end of his hopes? What is an hour in Paradise? What is a look, an approach towards heaven, and then to fall back and be lost for ever? Beloved, to begin well, and not to persevere; to give up our names to Christ, and not to dwell in him; to be partakers of the holy Ghost, and then to chase him away; to be in the faith, and not established; to be in love, and not abide in it; to have hope, and cast it away; to have tasted of the powers of heaven, and be shut out; to look into the Gospel, and not remain in it, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Chrysostom, the most miserable spectacle in the world, more miserable than the murdering of a child in the womb, and depriving him of life before he see the Sun. And the reason is plain. For it doth not only make our beginnings nothing, and to be in vain; (that is not the worst; and yet the beginnings of life are so precious, as who would lose them? who would lose his title to a fair Lordship? but than who would lose his title to Eternity? but now (which is a sad speculation) our beginnings are not only lost, but cast an ill and malevolent look and aspect upon our progress and proceed, which are so unlike them; and we are the worse because we were once good. If Lucifer fall from heaven, he is a Devil; and he that remaineth not in the Gospel, a revolted Christian, is the worst of men. You did run well; who did hinder you? And are you so foolish, that, Gal. 5.7. having begun in the Spirit, you will end in the flesh? To run well, and then to faint, to embrace the Truth, and then to deny it; to be dispossessed of an evil spirit, and then to sweep and garnish the house for him, is to receive him, and with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; to become more foul, because once cleansed; more entangled, because once free; more blind, for the first light; more dangerously sick, because of a relapse; and the last state is worse than the first; nay, is worse for the first, and had not been so fatal if the first had not brought the beginnings of life. And therefore look into the Gospel by all means; but then be sure to remain in it. A good beginning must be had, but let the end be like unto the beginning. Let not Jupiter's head be set upon the body of a Tyrant; as the proverb is, A young Saint, and an old Devil: but let Holiness, like Joseph's coat of many colours, be made up of many virtues, but reaching down to the very feet, to our last days, our last hour, our last breath. For this is our eternity here on earth; & propter hoc aeternum consequimur aeternum. Our remaining in the Gospel, our constant and never-ceasing obedience to it, is a Christian's Eternity below. And for this span of obedience, which is the mortal's Eternity, we gain right and title to that real Eternity of happiness in the highest heavens. To remain in the Gospel and to be blessed for ever, are the two stages of a Christian; the one here on earth, the other in the kingdom of heaven: To look into the Gospel, that is the first: And the second is like unto it, to remain in it, to set a court of guard about us, that no deceitful temptation remove us out of our place. Vera & tota & pura Virginitas nihil magis timet quàm semetipsam, saith Tertullian: Virginity, if it be true and entire and pure, is afraid of nothing more than itself, it being then most in danger, most attemptable, as that which may soon be defiled by a touch or look. And when we have embraced the Gospel, we are indeed out of all other danger but only the danger of losing our station or place. For our Perseverance is a virtue which is never in actu completo, never hath its complete act in this life. Whilst we live, we are men; and whilst we are men, we are mutable. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith S. Paul. Not as though I had already attained, Phil. 3.12. or were already perfect; but I follow after, certain of the reward of perseverance, but not certain of perseverance. For there is no certain victory, saith S. Hierom, till the earthly house of this frail tabernacle be dissolved. Whilst we breathe, we are in danger; and therefore whilst we breathe, we must watch. And this was the doctrine of the ancient Fathers, yea, of Augustine himself, and Prosper, that followed him. Nor doth this Doctrine draw dry the wells of Salvation, nor stop the current of those comforts which flow from the inexhaust fountain of the Goodness of God. No: They ever flow fresh and the same; but they do not water a dead, but a bleeding heart. The Grace and favour of God is then medicinable, and doth rouse and revive our drooping spirits, when we receive i● not in vain: And we are certain of it, when we stand fast, and hold the profession of our faith without wavering, not when we fall into those sins which are enmity to God, and shut him out with all his comforts. We may be certainly persuaded that his Grace is sufficient for us, and will never forsake us, whilst we hold up our obedience, and carry it on in a continued course; that he is with us, whilst we are with him: But we cannot be certain that we shall persevere, when we do not persevere; that God's grace and favour is the same, when we kiss him, and when we oppose him; when we bow before him, and when we lift up ourselves against him. He doth indeed look upon us in our blood, but we cannot be sure of his favour and loving kindness till we be cleansed. The ground of all comfort is to remain in this Law of liberty: but what comfort is it to persuade myself I do remain in it even then when I am an enemy to the Gospel of Christ? I say, this taketh not one drop of comfort from those who love Christ and keep his commandments. For their comfort is, that they do persevere in the grace and favour of God; and that, as long as they are obedient, they are under his wing. If our conscience condemn us not, then have we boldness and confidence with God. And what greater consolation can there be then this, that whilst I remain in the Law of liberty, I shall be blessed? whilst I abide in the Vine, I cannot whither? whilst I am built upon the Rock, I cannot be shaken? And if I seek not my comfort here, where shall I find it? All the comfort which a Christian can have in this life is, that he is in Christ Jesus, and by his power hath crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. And it will be in vain to look back on Eternity: For in the leaves of Eternity it is written in a character indelible, that none but they that repent shall be saved. Thus the fountain of comfort lieth open to those who are obedient to the Gospel, but is shut to those who stand out. No drop of comfort is due to them who are free from righteousness and servants to sin. To these, and whilst they are in this condition, to these, and as they are such, belong reprehensions and comminations and woes; as the whip is most proper for the fool's back, and not a robe of honour; tribulation and anguish upon every soul that sinneth, and repenteth not, that he may repent. When Nathan came to David after that complication of sins, he doth not smooth him up, and tell him, Thou art a man after God's own heart; Thou art a child of God, an elect vessel: Be of good comfort; thou art fallen into this great sin, but not from the favour of God; thou art fallen, but if thou fall never so oft, thou canst not fall for ever. But when David himself had pronounced the sentence of death against the offendor, he telleth him to his face, Thou art the man that hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; and with this rod he smote the rock, a heart unsensible of sin, and the waters gushed forth, and watered his couch; and being open to let out those waters of bitterness, it was open also to receive those of comfort, which stream from the rivers of the Lord, and make glad the heart. Comfort is the inheritance of him that abideth in Christ, not of him that departeth from him, and leaveth him upon his Cros●, and crucifieth him again. To say we are certain of perseverance in what condition soever, is to say we are certain to persevere when we do not persevere, and so maketh Solicitude and Watchfulness in the ways of Christianity unnecessary, divideth and separateth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, maketh a look enough, and leaveth remaining as a thing arbitrary; or at least maketh them both one; so that to look into the Gospel will be to remain in it. For according to this new doctrine the same certainty of perseverance belongeth to them who fall and to them who stand, to them who are weary and to them who continue in well-doing; the same certainty may be had without which is and must be acquired and maintained by the exercise of piety alone. And this is to tread the air, or fluctuate upon the waters, when we shall find no rest for our foot but on the Ark: This is to set up a heaven in our fancy, and gaze upon it, till we quite lose the sight of that which is the portion of the Saints: This is to build without a foundation, or a foundation which is but air. But no other foundation can any man lay but that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ; that is, the doctrine of the Gospel of Christ. And upon due obedience to this we may raise our certainty as high as heaven: Here it will lie firm and sure; no wind shall scatter it, no tempest shake it; but it will remain in us as long as we remain in our obedience to this Law of liberty, the Gospel of Christ. To remain in it, and To be certain of happiness, are joined together by God, and no man, no Devil, can put them asunder. In a word; To fall away, and To be certain, are incompatible; but To remain, and To be certain, stand fast together for ever, and are unseparable. I might here enlarge myself, and show you that this denial of the certainty of our Perseverance, as it doth not any way deprive the true Christian of his spiritual comfort, but is rather an helper or promoter of it, so neither doth it derogate from God's power. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene, he doth not uphold us against our will. And it is power he useth, and not violence; a power which may beget, but not destroy obedience; which cannot consist with violence and necessity. Nulla laus, non facere quod facere non potes; It is no commendation not to do that which thou canst not do: And what virtue, what obedience is it to do that which thou canst not but do? The precept or Law supposeth a power left in him to whom it is made either to obey or disobey. Nor doth it defeat God of his end and purpose. For his end was upon condition; and his end was to punish him that remaineth not, and to crown him that persevereth. But I am unwilling to lead you into the briers. The truth is, the way is plain and easy; but some men have made it rugged and uneven by walking in it, as he told the Orator who complained he was fallen in locum spinosum, into a thorny and difficult place, Pedes hîc non spinas calcant, sed habent; The thorns were on his feet, not in the way. Men have raised that dust with which they were troubled; and made that difficult which was easy, by groundless and unnecessary doubts. For what should we talk of Not-falling, when we see a man lying in the pit? of Certainty of standing, when he is most certainly on the ground? of Remaining, when he is gone away? of his Perseverance, who hath committed those sins of which S. Paul saith, He that doth them shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven? We will therefore proceed to the next point, the Means we must use to remain in this Law of liberty. And 1. we must not forget what we hear; 2. we must do the work. We shall but lightly touch and paraphrase them, and so draw towards a conclusion. I. That we may remain, we must not be forgetful hearers. For, as it is true, qui obscurè loquitur, tacet, he that speaketh darkly, or as S. Paul speaketh, in an unknown tongue, is as if he were ●umb and silent; so he that heareth and forgetteth is as if he were deaf. Both fall short of that end for which Speech and Hearing were ordained. This is to take up water in a sieve, to let in and out, nay to let in and loath, and in this reciprocal intercourse of Hearing and Forgetting to spin out the thread of our life, and at the end thereof to look for Blessedness, which is due only to the doing of the work. This is to give the Law of Liberty no more space to breathe in then from the pulpit to our pew, from the Preacher's mouth to our ear. No: If we will remain in it, we must hear, and not forget; that is, we must remember it, bind it as a sign upon our hand, and as frontlets between our eyes, (which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unmoveable) writ it on the posts of our doors, Deut. 6.8. nay, writ it in our hearts, and by continual meditation make it more visible, more clear, more appliable than before; make that which written i● but a dead letter, or spoken is but a sound, of power and energy to quicken and enliven us; make this Law as powerful as the voice of God when he teareth the rocks and breaketh the cedars of Libanus, mighty through God to cast down imaginations, and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of itself. And this is to look upon it as the Priest did upon his Breastplate, upon the Urim and Thummim, to direct what to do, and what not to do; when to go out against the enemy, and when to shun him; when to encounter a temptation, when to fly from it. Thus we set it up in defence of itself, set it up against that alluring Vanity which may steal away our Love; against that Doubt, that Suggestion, which may enfeeble our Hope; against that Temptation which may shake our Faith; and so keep us in it, keep us in all our ways, that we forsake not our station. This is to hear indeed. Audire, est aedificare, saith Augustine, To hear is to build up and settle ourselves in this Law of Liberty. Mens videt, mens audit, as Epicharmus said; It is the Mind that seethe, and the Mind that heareth: Without it the Eye itself is blind, and the Ear deaf, of no use at all, when they end in themselves. II. We must not only hear the Word, and remember it, but do the work, by a religious Alchemy verba in opera v●rtere, turn Words into Works, that they may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, words quickened and enlivened with action. And this will make our soul like unto the Law, sign and it with it; this will drive it home, as a nail fastened by the Masters of the assemblies, make it enter the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow. This is, as the Philosopher speaketh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to try and exercise the mind by frequent actions, or, as St. Paul, to exercise ourselves unto all godliness. 1 Tim. 4.7. Et quantum valet exercitatio! as Aeschylus cried out at a swordfight. O the force and power of practice and exercise! The people are troubled, and the wounded man is silent! As Experience is a multiplication of particular remembrances, so is a Habit, which is a second Nature, a body as it were made up of many actions. Piety and Religion is increased and confirmed by use. And as the painful Bee in opere nascitur, is bred in the honey it maketh; so is Goodness raised and exalted in the work that it doth. Every good act is a degree to another. Every portion of Grace is generative, nourisheth itself, and if it be not hindered, begetteth a numerous issue. Patience begetteth experience; experience, hope; hope, Rom. 5.4. confidence. As it was said of Alexander, Unaquaeque victoria instrumentum sequentis, Every conquest he gained made way to a new one; so every step we make in the way to happiness bringeth us not only so far in our way, but enableth us with strength to go forward. The further we go, the more active we are. He that denieth his Hunger, will not hearken to his Lust: He that is harsh to his appetite in one request, will more easily put it off in a second: He that struggleth with a temptation now, will anon chase it away: He that is liberal to the poor, may in time sell all that he hath, and at last lay down his life for the Gospel. Some, we see, there be who for want of exercise and experience are shaken with every wind, with every breath, with shows and apparitions, and are overthrown with a look either of allurement or terror; who know not what temptations mean, and so suffer them to work and steal nearer upon them, till they enter into their souls; nay, they are ready to tempt Temptation itself, and greedily invite that to them which will destroy them. Others there are who by frequent exercise and assiduous luctation and striving with themselves have gained such an habit of Piety, and so subdued the Flesh to the Spirit, that they find no such great difficulty in the combat, but rejoice as mighty men to run the race. To them Music is a sound, and no more; Gold, but a clod of earth; Beauty, burr a vanishing colour. They look upon shining temptations, and are not taken, upon the blackest temptations, and are not dismayed, but stand and remain in that Law of Liberty to which they were called, free from the guilt of sin, and so free from the dominion of sin, that they slight its terrors, and deny its flatteries, defy, and keep it out not only when it threatneth, but when it fawneth and beggeth an entrance. Such is the power of this spiritual Exercise; such advantage we have by our continued obedience and doing the work. The Hebrew Doctors have found out a double Crown, Auditionis, and Operis, one for Hearing, another for the Work. I would not the Ear should lose its ornament; yet sure, Obedience and the Doing of the work have the especial promise of the crown. It is S. Paul's doctrine, Not the hearers of the Law are just before God, Rom. 2.13. but the doers of the Law shall be justified For conclusion then; Beloved, let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and let us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, patiently remain in it. Let us not give it a lodging in the hollow of the Ear; for so it will not long stay with us, but the next vanity or the next business will drive it away, and take its place. Nor let us make a room for it in our Fancy: For it is an easy matter to think we are free when we are in chains. Who is so wicked, that he is not ready to persuade himself he is just? And that false persuasion too shall go for the dictate of the Holy Ghost. Paganism itself cannot show such monsters as many of them are who call themselves Saints. But let us gird up our loins, and be up, and doing the work, those works of piety which the Gospel enjoineth. It is Obedience alone that toeth us to God, and maketh us free denizens of that Jerusalem which is above. In it the Beauty, the Liberty, the Royalty, the Kingdom of a Christian is visible and manifest. For by it we sacrifice not our Flesh but our Will unto God, and so have one and the same will with him; and if we have his will, we have his power also and his wisdom to accompany it, and to to fulfil all that we can desire or expect. Servire Deo, regnare est; To serve God, is to reign as Kings here, and will bring us to reign with him for evermore. Let us then stand fast in our obedience, which is our liberty, against all the wiles and invasions of the enemy, all those temptations which will show themselves in power and craft to remove us from our station. In a calm to steer our course, is not so difficult; but when the tempest beateth hard upon us, not to dash against the rock, will commend our skill. Every man is ready to build a tabernacle for Christ when he is in his glory; but not to leave him at the Cross, is the glory and crown of a Christian. And first let us not dare a temptation, as Pliny dared the vapour at Mount Vesuvius, and died for it. Let us not offer and betray ourselves to the Enemy. For he that affecteth and loveth danger is in the ready way to be swallowed up in that gulf. Valiant men, saith the Philosopher, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, quiet and silent, before the combat; but in the trial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ready and active: But audacious, daring men are commonly loud and talkative before encounters, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, flag, and fail in them. The first weigh the danger, and resolve by degrees; the other are peremptory, and resolve suddenly, and talk their resolution away. It is one thing to talk of a tempest at sea; another, to discourse of it leaning against a wall: It is one thing to dispute of pain; another, to feel it. Grief and Anguish hath not such a sting in the Stoics gallery as it hath on the rack: For there Reason doth fight but with a shadow and a representation, here with the substance itself. And when things show themselves naked as they are, they stir up the affections. When the Whip speaketh by its smart, not by my fancy; when the Fire is in my flesh, not my understanding; when temptations are visible and sensible, than they enter the soul and the spirit, than they easily shake that resolution which was so soon built, and soon beat down that which was made up in haste. Therefore let us not rashly thrust ourselves upon them; But, in the second place, let us arm and prepare ourselves against them. For Preparation is half the conquest. It looketh upon them, handleth and weigheth them before hand, seeth where their great strength lieth, and goeth forth in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Christ, and so maketh us more than conquerors before the sight. And this is our Martyrdom in peace. For the practice of a Christian in the calmest times must nothing differ in readiness and resolution from times of rage and fire. As Josephus speaketh of the military exercises practised amongst the Romans, that they differed from a true battle only in this, that their battle was a bloody exercise, and their exercise a bloudless battle: So our preparation should make us martyrs before we come to resist ad sanguinem, to shed a drop of blood. To conclude, as the Apostle exhorteth, let us take unto us the whole armour of God, that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand; to stand against the horror of a prison, against the glittering of the sword, against the terror of death; to stand as expert soldiers of Christ, and not to forsake our place, to stand as mount Zion, which cannot be moved; in a word, to be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. For, whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. The Seven and Fortieth SERMON. PART. VII. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed. TO Persevere or continue in the Gospel, and To be blessed for ever, are the two stages of a Christian, the one here on earth, the other in heaven, and there is scarce a moment, but a last breath, between them, nothing but a mouldering and decaying wall, this tabernacle of flesh, which falleth down suddenly, and then we pass and enter. And that we may persevere and continue, means are here prescribed; first, assiduous Meditation in this Law; we must not be forgetful hearers of it, but look into it as into a glass; vers. 23, 24. yet not as a man that beholdeth his natural face in a glass, and then goeth away and forgetteth himself, not as a man who looketh carelessly, casteth an eye, and thinketh no more of it; but rather as a woman, who looketh into her glass with intention of mind, with a kind of curiosity and care, stayeth and dwelleth upon it, fitteth her attire and ornaments to her by a kind of method, setteth every hair in its proper place, and accurately dresseth and adorneth herself by it. And sure there is more care and exactness due to the soul then to the body. Secondly, that we may continue and persevere, we must not only hear and remember, but do the work: For Piety is confirmed by Practice. To these we may now add a third, which hath so near a relation to Practice, that it is even included in it and carrried along with it: And it is; To be such students in Christ's School as S. Paul was. Acts 24.16. To study and exercise ourselves to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men. Not to trifle with our God, or play the wanton with our Conscience: Not to displease and wound her in one particular, with a resolution to follow her in the rest: Not to let our love of the world or fear of danger make that a truth which we formerly looked upon as a foul and pernicious error; to be afraid of it in a calm, and ready to embrace it in a tempest: Not to dispute and persuade ourselves to that which nothing but the horror and advantage which attendeth it could make lawful. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzene; Do not play the Sophister against thyself, nor invent an art and method to hasten thy ruin and destruction. These petty concessions, as we think, these easy but base condescensions are ominous and prophetical, and presage and foretell a greater fall: They look towards the lowest pit, to the very abyss and depth of sin, and thither they tend. What may not he be induced in time to do, who upon no better reason or motive then the love of himself and the suggestion of the flesh is ready to put up the question to himself, May I not do this? a question which he never thought of before. How far may he run in the ways of Error, when but to ask the question is to go too far? This is the first knock at the gates of Death: and he that is so bold as to knock will venture further, even into her chambers: For when our fears or hopes either flatter or affright us to choose that which before we looked upon with some distaste, and had set up a resolution, though but a weak one, against it, we then begin to gild it over with some fair pretence, and would fain learn how to make it good, and so approve our choice, which appeared in another shape unto us before the course of the world and of things was altered. I would not engage myself now, and within a while, I think I am bound to it. It is now Perjury, anon a lawful and a necessary Oath. Now I cannot look upon the Idol: my present Interest calleth upon me and cajoleth me, I soon learn to look, and at last fall down and worship it. Thus it falleth out when we are not strict observers of our Conscience in the least commands: for than we soon put her off, and fling her by in her greatest, and as fools, as the Father speaketh, Ludimus adversûs nos ipsos, we play and sport ourselves and with danger, and are witty and subtle to our own destruction. We do more than the Pope ever did, though he be liberal of his Pardons: We grant our Indulgences to ourselves. We graze, and play, and run at large; and, when the tempest approacheth, we run to the burroughs of excuses, as those little beasts in the Proverbs do to the holes of the rocks. We do that which we should not do, and which at first we would not do; and then say, God be merciful to us in this. We venture upon that which we once thought a sin; and though that thought will not quite leave us, yet we say of it as Lot did of Zoar, Is it not a little one? and my soul shall live. A little one it may be, but as little as it is, the very condescension to it under that name may prepare the way and make the path smooth to let in the greatest. O quàm parvis veniunt summa mala principiis! How great a matter doth a little fire kindle! How doth he that is willing now to slip, at last fall and bruise himself to pieces? For the same motive which brought me thus far, may yet carry me further out of my way. That which brought me to sleep on the bank, may at last tumble me into the stream and drown me; especially if it arise out of worldly respects. That which maketh me slight my Conscience in the least, may gain advantage and strength by that neglect, and have force to debauch and prostitute her in the greatest sin. That which maketh me lie, may make me steal. That which maketh my countenance fall, may make me a murderer. It is not the last cup that intoxicateth. It is not the last day that bringeth on age. My age began in the womb. When I began to live, I began to die. It is not the last sin that hardeneth us: For Induration came in and began with our first yielding and condescension. It was a high strain of the Orator accusing Popilius for Cicero's death, Occisurus Ciceronem, incipere de●uit à patre; He could not have killed Cicero, if he had not begun with his own father, and first murdered him. But a lesser sin than that might have led him to it. That boy that hath heart enough but to put out a Quail's eyes, may at last take courage and embolden himself to imbrue his hands in the blood of his father. The Thurificatores amongst the Ancients did not renounce their faith when they offered up a little incense to heathen Gods; yet were they counted as Idolaters, and cast out of the Church. The names of the Libellatici and Traditores are infamous to this day, whereof the one signed their Apostasy with their own hand, and the other with their own hands gave up God's Word to be burnt in the fire. And some there were amongst them who bought it out with their money, and purchased a licence not to do it; yet these were numbered amongst the Lapsi, those that were fallen away, and passed with the heaviest censure of the Church upon them. And what shifts, what evasions, what witty, witless devices have we heard of in these our days? How have men studied perdition, and gloried in their shame? What would they do? What would they not do? How have they grown worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived; learning this cursed art of cheating themselves, and teaching it others; and then applauding each other in this their discretion and wisdom, and laughing at and despising those simple and self-willed souls that had so much conscience, and so little wit, as not to save themselves, that is, not to serve Christ and the world! And these are CHRISTIANS. They profess Christ's name, they hear his Word, and they never hear enough. They talk of Heaven, but mean their Purse; and to safeguard this, will forfeit that; to save a penny will give up their reason, and to satisfy their appetite, deny their conscience. Christians they are, but such Christians that, if they retire not and repent, may in time become circumcised Jews. There is as fair, or rather as foul, a probability for the one as the other. Dost thou startle at the name of Jew? Thou didst so at first, and waste as much afraid of that which now thou embracest, and hast conscience to defend even against thy conscience. Beloved, Conscience was never given us to toy withal, but to hold and possess and keep unspotted; which when once upon low and base respects we put away, we are strait in danger concerning faith and our profession to make shipwreck, and so be fit to be delivered to Satan to fill us with all iniquity. 1 Tim. 1.19, 2●. Every wilful sin, every wilful violation of conscience, if deliberately drawn on by the love of the world, is a step and degree to Apostasy. Every wilful sin is fruitful, and seldom endeth in itself. He that telleth a lie, is in a disposition to betray a Kingdom: He that slandereth his neighbour, is in an aptitude to blaspheme God. We may see Wantonness even budding out of Luxury, Strife shooting forth out of Covetousness, & out of Strife Murder. He that yieldeth up his Conscience for his flesh and State, will be the more pliable to yield it up when they call for it upon the hardest terms. Take heed of these yield and condescensions. Saepè peccat, qui semel. One fall naturally draweth on another, and that a third, till we come in profundum, to the very bottom. Every little sin, if we commit it because we think it little, is a great one, and carrieth as it were written in its forehead, BEHOLD, A TROOP COME. Therefore, to conclude this, let us not trifle with our conscience, but honour it. And we honour our Conscience as we do our God: for she is as our God upon earth. We honour her, when we observe her, and bow to every beck; harken what she will say, and do it; and what she forbiddeth, avoid, not touch, not taste, not handle; ●●ye from it as from a serpent, that doth now flatter, but will hereafter sting us to death. It is no honour to commend Conscience, and wound her; to call her a Temple of Solomon, a Paradise of delights, the Court of God, and the Habitation of the Spirit, as Bernard calleth a good Conscience: Then we honour her, when we make her so; when we let her keep her throne, when we bow to her sceptre, when the image of her Dictates is visible in all the emanations of our Soul; in our Thoughts, when they are such as she would mould; in our Words, when we speak after her; and in our Works, when she doth begin and finish them; When we subscribe to her first commands, which we received when we were free from all interpellations of Fear or Hope, and fall not off at their after-solicitations to the contrary, and then build up a false persuasion in honour of it, and call it Conscience; offend and sin against her, and then give up her name to an Idol. When she commandeth silence, and we blaspheme; when she lifteth up our heart to heaven, and our thoughts are full of adulteries; when she prescribeth patience, and we strike; when she bindeth our hands, and we break lose; when she sealeth up our lips, and we will open them to perjury; when by-respects shall win us to that of which she hath said, see you do it not; when we are not what she would have us to be, but fashion ourselves to the world, and yet bear her image and superscription, are the worst of men with a Good conscience; then we dishonour her, place her under our lusts and most loathsome desires, take her from her throne, and lay her in a Golgotha. They who look as she looketh, and speak as she speaketh, and do as she commandeth, they who obey her, these alone are they who honour her. And then, as she is our God on earth, that is, as she is in the place of God, so what God spoke of himself will be verified of our Conscience also, They that honour her, she will honour. She will be as our Angel to keep us in all our ways, that we hurt not our foot against any stone of offence; She will root and build us up in the faith, and in a constant obedience to this perfect law of liberty: She will settle and establish us to remain in it, and set the crown upon our heads, even all the Blessedness this life is capable of, and that Blessedness which remaineth for ever in the life to come. And so we have brought you to the last and best of all, the Reward, set down in the last words, This man shall be blessed in his deed. This is the End of all, and the End is the crown of all. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Aristotle; The End is that which all look upon. In this all our desires and endeavours and counsels meet and rest. It is that which giveth force to a Law, which maketh Perfection something, and Liberty a gift: And without it a Law were void and no Law, Perfection were nothing, and Liberty but a name. The end shineth and casteth an influence and lustre upon all, upon the Law, upon Perfection, upon Liberty. For we are obedient to the Law, we strive forward to Perfection, we stand fast in our Liberty for some end, and that is Blessedness. Reward and Punishment are the two adamantine pillars, saith Plato, of a Commonwealth: And they are the two pillars which uphold the Church. Democritus called them Gods that bear and uphold all things. These lead us under a Law, guide us to Perfection, and uphold us in Liberty. If those were not, these could not be; but all Law, Perfection and Liberty would fall to the ground. If Heaven were not happiness, it were not worth a thought, much less our violence. To enjoy something better than what we do, is the basis and foundation on which every action is raised. For who doth any thing only that he may do it? That action is vain that endeth in itself. Fruition is the ultimus terminus, the last end, of all Knowledge and Volition. For To know only to know, is no better than Ignorance. And in every act of the Will it is manifest: For no man willeth only that he may will, no man loveth only that he may love, no man hateth only that he may hate, no man hopeth only that he may hope; but in every proffer, inclination and determination of the Will we look further than the act in which it endeth. When we desire any thing, we do it with an intent to be united to it, to meet and embrace it, and from that union something else in which the desire may rest and be fully satisfied. This made Moses meek, Abraham obedient, David devout, Job patiented. This made Apostles and Martyrs; this led them through honour and dishonour, through good report and evil report, and at last brought them to the cross and to the block, the next stage unto Blessedness. For that which moveth the Will to obedience of the Law is before the obedience itself, as that which exciteth and worketh it. If this be not set up, there is no such thing as Conscience or Obedience; at least, our Conscience would lose its office, and neither accuse nor excuse us, neither be our comforter nor tormenter. If there were no Hell, there were no worm: and if there were no Heaven in the next, there were no joy in this life. The Apostle is plain. Without faith, that is, Heb. 11.6. without a full persuasion of a future estate, it is impossible to please God. And, He that cometh unto God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And in this appeareth the glory and excellency of the Gospel of Christ, of this Law of Liberty, that 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. BLESSEDNESS 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 only 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 fly for refuge, saith the Apostle, to lay hold upon the hope which is s●t before us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. We fly 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 steadfast; 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 settleth our Hope; and on our Hope our Obedience is raised to reach that Blessedness on which our Hope is settled. 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 ways which lead unto it. Christiano coelum antè patuit quàm via; Heaven is opened to a Christian, and then the way. And he that walketh in it, shall enter in; he that doth 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 Cherubin, 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 Commandments; 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 show 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 itself, 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 Horseleeches, 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 doth 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 only 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 owls and satyrs, 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 ourselves, 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 Platonics, 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. Only 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 enjoin Sobriety? We soon subscribe to it. For what man would profess himself a beast? And from hence it cometh to pass that we see aliquid optimi in pessimis, something that is good in the worst; that we hear a Panegyric of Virtue from a man of Belial; that Truth is cried up by that mouth which is full of deceit; that when we do evil, we would not have it go under that name, but are ready to maintain it as good; that when we do an injury, we call it a benefit. No man is so evil that he desireth not to enrol his name in the list of those who are Good. Temperance; the drunkard singeth her praises. Justice; every hand is ready to set a crown upon her head: Wisdom is the desire of the whole earth. So, you see, these precepts are fitted to the soul, and the soul to these precepts. But, secondly, as this Law of Liberty is proportioned to the Soul, so being looked in and persevered in it filleth it with light and joy, giveth it a taste of the world to come. For as Christ's yoke is easy, but not till it is put on; so his precepts are not delightful till they are kept. Aristotle's Happiness in his books is but an Idea; and Heaven itself is no more to us till we enjoy it. The Law of Liberty in the letter may please the Understanding part, which is always well-affected and inclinable to that which is apparently true; but till the Will, which is the commanding faculty, have set the feet and hands at liberty, even that which we approve we distaste, and that which we call honey is to us as bitter as gall. Contemplation may delight us for a time, and bring some content; but the perverseness of the Will breedeth that worm which will soon eat it up. For it is a poor happiness, to speak and think well of Happiness, to see it as in picture, quae non ampliùs quàm videtur delectat, which delighteth no longer than it is seen; as from a mount to behold that Canaan which we cannot enjoy. A Thought hath not wing and strength enough to carry us to Blessedness. But when the Will is subdued and made obedient to this Law, than this Law of Liberty, which is from the heaven heavenly, filleth the soul with a joy of the same nature, with a spiritual joy, of which the joy in heaven is the compliment and perfection, with a joy which is not only the pledge but the earnest of that which is to come. When the Will is thus subact and framed and fashioned according to this Law, according to this pattern which God hath drawn, than it clotheth itself as it were with the light of Heaven, which is the original of this joy. Then what a pearl is Wisdom? What glory is in Poverty? What a triumph is it to deny ourselves? What an ornament is the Cross? What brightness reflecteth from a cup of cold water given to a Prophet? What do you see and feel then when you intercede with your Bounty, and withstand the evil days, and take from them some of their blackness and darkness? when you sweeten the cup of bitterness, the only cup that is left to many of the Prophets? when you supply their wants, and stretch forth your hand to keep them from sinking to the dust? when you do this to the Prophets in the name of Prophets? Tell me; doth it not return upon you again, and convey into your souls that which cannot be bought with money or money-worth? Are you not made fat and watered again with the water you poured forth? Are you not ravished in spirit, and lifted up in a manner into the third heaven? I cannot see how it should be otherwise. For that God which put it into your hearts to do it, when your hearts have eased and emptied themselves by your hands, is with you still, and filleth them up with joy. Every act of Charity payeth and crowneth itself, and this Blessedness always followeth the giver. But hath the receiver no joy but in that which he receiveth? Yes: he may, and aught, or else he is not a worthy receiver. It is indeed a more blessed thing to give then to receive, and therefore there is more joy. But the receiver hath his; and his joy is set to his songs of praises to God, and acknowledgements to man. There is music in Thanks; and when I bless the hand that helped me, I feel it again. My praises, my prayers, my thanks are returned with advantage into my bosom. The giver hath his joy, and the receiver hath his. It is a blessed thing to give? and it is a most becoming and joyful thing to be thankful. In quibus operamur, in illis gaudemus, saith Tertullian: As the work is, such is the joy: A Work, that hath its rise and original from heaven, drawn out according to the royal Law, which is the will of God, begun and wrought in an immortal soul, and promoted by the Spirit of God and ministry of Angels, and breathing itself forth as myrrh and frankincense amongst the children of men: And a Joy like unto it, a true and solid joy, having no carnality, no inconstancy in it, a beam from heaven, kindled and cherished by the same Spirit; a joy which receiveth no taint or diminution from sensible evils (which to those who remain not in this Law are as hell itself, and the only hell they think of) but giving a relish and sweetness to that which were not evil if we did not think it so; making Poverty, Disgrace, and Death itself as fuel to foment and increase it; upholding us in misery, strengthening us in weakness, and in the hour of death and in the day of judgement streaming forth into the ocean of eternal happiness. BEATUS ERIT IN OPERE; He that doth the work shall be blessed here in this life, in his works; and, when he is dead, his works shall follow him, and compass him about as a triumphant robe. Thus Blessedness first inviteth, then attendeth and waiteth upon Perseverance in obedience; and yet obedience ushereth it in, illex misericordiae, first the work of God's Grace and Mercy, and then drawing it so near unto us as to bless us. And it maketh the blessing ours, not ex rigore justitiae, according to the rigour of justice, as I call that Mine which I buy with my money: (For no obedience can equal the reward. And what can the obedience of a guilty person merit? All is from Grace, saith S. Paul. And when the will of God is thus made manifest, he deserveth nothing but a rebuke that disputeth longer of Merit. Nor can I see how a guilty and condemned person can so much as give it entrance into his thought. It did go once but for a work, good or evil, and no more: If it be more in its best sense, it is then more than it can be, and so is nothing;) but ex debito promissi, according to God's promise, by which he hath as it were entailed Blessedness on those who look into the Law of Liberty, and remain in it. Heb. 6.10. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love. O then neither let our obedience swell and puff us up, as if God were our debtor; nor let us be so afraid of Merit as not to do the work. Let not our anger against Papists transform us into Libertines: and let us not so far abominate an error in judgement as to fall into a worse in practice; cry down Merit, and carry a Pope, nay Hell itself, along with us, whithersoever we go. Let us not be Papists: God forbidden. And God forbidden too that we should not be Christians. Let us rather move like the Seraphims, Isa. 6. ●. who having six wings, covered their face with the uppermost, as not daring to look on the Majesty of God, and covered their feet with the lowest, as acknowledging their imperfection in respect of him, but flew with those in the midst, ready to do his will. Let us tremble before him, and abhor ourselves; and between these two let the middle wings move, which are next to the heart, and let our constant obedience work out its way to the end, which is Blessedness. For whoso looketh into the perfect Law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. And here I must set a period to my discourse, as the present Power that is over us hath to the exercise of my Ministerial function. And I could not better conclude then in Blessedness. That is the end and conclusion of the whole matter; the end of this Royal Law; for thither it tendeth: the end of Perfection; for to that it groweth up: and the end of our Liberty; for thither it moveth. In Blessedness they end; or rather they do not end, but are carried on with joy and triumph and exsultation to all eternity. I might here wish you (and what good thing would I not wish you?) the blessings of the basket, the blessings of the right hand and the blessings of the left, all the blessings promised in the Law, and those blessings which are the glory of the Gospel: I might here wish you those fourteen parts of Blessedness reckoned up by the Father; whatsoever is Blessedness, or whatsoever tendeth to it. But here they all meet and are concentred. This is your strength, your liberty, your security, your joy, your wisdom. Your wisdom is Obedience to this Law; and Obedience striveth and hasteneth to overtake and join itself with this Blessedness, which includeth all that we can desire, nay more than we can conceive. Quid à Deo praestari possit homini habenti felicitatem? saith Augustine; What can God do more for us then make us blessed? And therefore when men say, Lo, here is Christ, or, There is Christ; Lo, here is Blessedness, or, There is Blessedness, go not after them. For here, here alone, it is to be found. Seek it not in your Fancy, in a forced and false persuasion that you have attained it, when you run from it; that you are in a Paradise, when you are seeking death in the error of your life, and are even at the mouth of hell. For Blessedness will not lie wrapped up in a thought. That hath made many thousands of Saints which shall never see the face of God. What is an imaginary Saint? What is a painted Heaven? What is Blessedness in conceit? Next, seek it not in Formalities, in the ceremonious diligence of Hearing, and Fasting, and loud Profession. All the formalities and ceremonies in the world will not make a ladder to reach it; all this noise will not call it down. But then seek it not in a Faction, in a Discipline, in this or that Polity or Government; For it will not be found in the rents and divisions which we make. It is tied to no place; it may be found in any. This Law of Liberty never made Papist, or Calvenist, or Lutheran, or Presbyterian. It is the Christian Law, and maketh Christians; and maketh Christians, to make them blessed. Cùm omnes felicitatem expetant, vix centesimus quisque eam à Deo exspectat; All desire Blessedness, and not one of an hundred will take it from God, or that which he offereth, but they make one of their own, such a Blessedness as leaveth them miserable: they do that which is evil, and comfort themselves with a thought: they neglect the Law, and bless themselves in formalities; in Hearing, when they are deaf to every good work; in Fasting, when they fast to blood and oppression; in Praying, when they deny themselves what they pray for; in loud Profession, which is as a loud lie. When they swim in their own gall, in the gall of bitterness, they think themselves in the rivers of Canaan which flow with milk and honey. They applaud themselves in their malice and deceit, in every evil work. They are what they should not be, and yet are blessed, because they are of such a Faction, of this Consistory, of this Classis, of this Conventicle; that is, they are blessed because they are not so. Oh that men were wise! oh that they would be blessed! Then would they look for it where it is, in this Law of liberty, and Obedience to it; in this Law, which doth purge the Ear, and sanctify a Fast, and give wings to our Prayers; which plucketh the visor from the face of the Hypocrite, and strippeth him of his formalities; which scattereth the people that delight in war, and is a kill letter to them that first displease God by their impiety, and then please and bless themselves in a faction; Which is rem quietissimam inquietudine quaerere, to seek for a sad, serious, quiet thing in distraction, to seek for constancy in a whirlwind, reality in a shadow, life in a picture, peace in tumult, and joy and Blessedness in hell itself. For conclusion then; That we may find Blessedness, let us look into this Royal Law, that was made for Blessedness, and Blessedness for it. And we may look into this Law in the blackest day, in the darkest time. When Superstition flattereth, we may look into it; and when Profaneness is bold, we may look into it. When we are poor, this will make us rich; when we are despised, this will honour us; when we are silenced, this will speak for us; when we are driven about the world, this will make it a journey to Paradise; and though we be imprisoned, this cannot be bound; and though we die, this is eternal, as eternal as that God whose Law it is, his everlasting Gospel. It will not leave us at our death, but lie down with us in our graves, and rise again with us to judgement, and set the crown of glory on our heads. And to the true love of this Law, to this Blessedness I commend you. It is my gift, my last wish, that the grace of God may dwell in you plenteously, and strengthen you to every good work. It is the blessing of him 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 groans 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 magnify 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 join 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 by't us, through this Aceldama, this Field of blood, 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 fullness 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. Hypocrates. 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. alembics. 12. contingency 957. 24. not to be. 51. truly. 977. 26. tuneth. 98●. 12. at a star. 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 two. 11. 234. two. 37. 776. Acknowledgement 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, etc. 1003. Aerius, 65. Affections are not in themselves vicious, 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, etc. 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, etc. 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 steadily 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, etc. and work unspeakable comfort, 768, 769. What use we should make of them, 925. 598. 801. and how we must behave ourselves 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. Allegory, 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 Oppressor, 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 subtle 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 rejoice 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. Apolinarius, 12. Apostles. The Spirit was given them, but in measure, and by degrees, and not without using of means, 61. Apparel vain and superfluous, an argument of a ragged and ill-shapen soul, better sold, & given to the poor, 897. Modesty must be our tirewoman, not Pride, 1101, 1102. Appearances deceive and draw us into sin, 261, etc. 268. The way not to be deceived by them is to compare them with things that are real, 269. Appetite. v. Inclination. Aquinas' answer to his sister, 89. Archimedes, how honoured for his great skill, 292. Arians, their opinion of Christ, 5. 8. Their error occasioned by their love, 762. Aristippus, 508. Aristotle, 496. What Alexander would have him teach him, 497. Arius, 12. 65. Ark. The Ark, in a manner idolised by the Israelites, taken by the Philistines, 300, etc. Arts and trades, whence, 889. Ascension. v. Christ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the ancient Fathers, what; and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, who, 68 Assurance of some, ill-grounded, 578, 579, 608. 691. 742. 975. 993. A child of God may want Assurance, and a wicked man may have it, 344, etc. 396. 400. Sin and Assurance will not dwell together, 351, 352. 494. How Assurance is to be gotten, 351. 608. v. Despair. Athanasius, 12. He is commended for his diligent imitation of worthy men, 1021. Atheists, 41, 42. 46. None becometh an Atheist on a sudden, 922. Augustine, 526. How far he granted Possibility of perfection, 110. His error about Baptism, 81. Authority of Superiors, to be obeyed, 639, etc. The AUTHOR, forbidden to exercise his function, 1127. His Benediction and Farewell to his Auditors, 1128, 1129. B BAlaam, 253. 549. Baptism, not absolutely necessary, 81. Barrenness, why accounted a curse in Israel, 987. Basil, 1025. His counsel about Alms, 145. and to duty, 743. Beasts, far better than sinful Man, 378. Beauty, Honour, Riches, mean objects for the Soul of man, 648. Beauty of Man, wherein, 107. Begardi, 392. Beginnings of grace and goodness should be carried on to the end, 555. 578. Believe, and Repent, the sum of the Gospel and of our duty, 60. 61. Benefits bind us to our benefactors, 105. 578, 579. 590. Birds in India, of a strange nature, 91. Bishop. An Universal B. not expedient, 233. Blessedness, what, and whence to be had, 985. 990. 1127, 1128. Where B. will not be found, 1127, 1128. B. is promised to several Virtues, but not to be obtained but by all, 831, 832. Blessedness it is that exciteth us to obedience, 1123. B. is entailed on the godly not ex rigore justitiae, but ex debito promissi, 993. 1126. Our B. beginneth here, and is completed in heaven, 1123, 1124. Blessings. What use we ought to make of God's B, 590, 591. 598. v. Benefits, A good child is a blessing, 987. Boasting is not the language of true Saints, 882. Body, God made our Bodies, & food and raiment for them, which his will is that we make use of, 896. A tricked-up B. is a probable argument of a naked soul, 897. A speech of an Abbot upon the sight of a woman who had curiously attired her B. 928. He that pampereth his B. destroyeth his soul, 562. To beat down the B. is indeed to honour it, 886, 887. It is not for fornication, 750. v. Fornication. The B. is the worst master, & the best servant, 753. It is to be kept under by fasting, 752, etc. We must serve God with our B. as well as with the soul, 634, 635. 745, etc. 749. 980, 981. v. Reverence, Worsh. Our service is not complete, if it be not of the whole man, 746. 981. What it is to glorify God in our B. 749, etc. We glorify God in our B. by Voice, Gesture, & reverend Deportment, 755. etc. Christian duties are performed by the ministry of the B. 746. 756. In which respects Angels themselves may seem to come short of us, 746. We glorify God in our B. when we suffer for his sake, 553, 554. Brother. Every man ought to do his endeavour to save his brother's soul, 576, etc. Busybodies, how dangerous in Church and State, 212-215. v. Meddling. Though they hap to do what is good, yet it is not good from them, 215. They who are most busy in other men's matters, are most negligent at home, 216. Fortunate Busybodies. v. Prosperous Villains. C CAin, 175, 176. the first founder of Cities, and the first finder-out of Weights and Measures, 889. Callings. Diversity of gifts infer a difference of C. 214. 657. God hath assigned every man his Calling, 213. Christianity imposeth no particular C. on any, but directeth and sanctifieth all, 521. No man, how great soever, aught to live without a C. 223. The meanest C. is honourable, 213. 216. Every one ought to keep within the bounds of his own C. 211. 216. 640. This is a lesson of Christianity, 213. 224. 521. and also a dictate of Nature, 214. This is comely, 216. advantageous, 216. necessary, 217. Devotion may mingle itself with the actions of our Callings, 221. Industry in our C. is a special fence against the Devil, 223. When we walk honestly in our Callings, Christ walketh with us, and we walk in him, 522. 528. v. Trades. Calvine, taxed, 25. v. Maldonate. He and Luther, too much admired by their followers, 526. 682. v. Kneeling. Camp. v: View. Care for children some allege to excuse their Covetousness and Fraud, 127. Cases of conscience, how to be decided, 1077. Catholic. v. Church. Cato, 868. His polity in his family, 564. tully's censure of him, 295. He is blamed for killing himself, 705. Ceremonies. Religion brought forth Ceremonies; but the Daughter oft devoureth the Mother, 1057. Ceremonies are arbitrary, and may be dispensed with; Moral laws, not so, 1024. Ceremonial religion is not the true service of God, 70, etc. The most Ceremonious persons, commonly the greatest sinners, and why, 74, etc. v. Formality. Many are afraid of a Ceremony, and rejoice in a sin, 883. Ceres, both frugifera, and legifera, 219. Cerinthus, 11. Chance and Fortune, unfit words for a Christian's mouth, 573. Changes, especially of Religion, are still with difficulty, 968. Charity, hard to be found either in Commonwealth or Church, 491. How little Charity some content themselves withal, 822, 823. 862, 863. Charity is a coupling virtue, 242. Faith and Hope, if without Charity, are false, 242. 275, 276. It is a necessary qualification of a Communicant, 490, etc. It maketh a man avoid giving offence to others, 639. 1102. and to be peaceable and obedient in the Church 59, 60. 1077. Charity and Prudence are to be our guides in things indifferent, 639. 1077. 1102. Works of Charity fill the heart with great joy, 1125. 1126. Charity maketh a man resemble God, 279. Deeds of Ch. 278. Our Charity to others must be joined with Purity in ourselves, 281. Acts of Ch. how to be performed, 942, 943. Occasions and objects of Ch. ever frequent, 943. Arguments to move us to be charitable one to another, 938, etc. St. John in a whole Sermon said nothing else but Love one another, 491. A reason given why some are so slow to actions of Ch. 281, 282. Rules to try our Ch. by, 492. v. Faith, and Mercy. Charles the V quitted his Palace for a Cell, 284. Children, if virtuous, are blessings; if wicked, curses, 987. Chiliasts error confuted, 243. Choice. We are here put to our choice, 767 CHRIST. The miserable estate of Man without him, 2, 3. If he had not been God, he could not have saved us, 3, 4. How he is the Son of God, 4, 5. His Generation, a mystery to be believed, not curiously inquired into, 5. ¶ His Incarnation, the greatest expression of God's Love, and bond of ours, 6, 22. His wonderful humility in taking our nature, 6. He representeth himself to us three ways, 7. Christ's Incarnation, by many thought absurd, and unworthy of God, 8. but we must not out of good manners either abuse God's love, or make shipwreck of our own faith, 8. 20, 21. He took not only our Flesh, but our Soul also, with the Affections, 9 but without that disorder that our Passions are guilty of, 10. 25. Of the manner how the two Natures are united, 11. This is a mystery not impossible, yet inexplicable, 11. It behoved Christ for our redemption to become Man, 13, 14. The other persons wrought in the Incarnation, but were not incarnate, 14. Christ's Incarnation was most free, yet in some sense also necessary, 14, 15. ¶ As Christ was made like unto us, so must we be like unto him, 16. No easy matter to be like him, 16. How we may be made like him, 16. Nothing so absurd and mis-becoming as for a Christian to be unlike Christ, 17. Conformity to him is that one thing necessary, 17. It is a joy to God and his holy Angels, 18. ¶ Christ is the chief of God's gifts; and the fountain of all the rest, 19, 20. 33, 34. God's Love to us, in giving his Son is highly to be admired, but upon no pretence to be denied, 20, etc. 470. This act flowed from God's mere pleasure, 22. 28. God herein appeared more kind to us then to his own dear Son, 20. and Christ to have loved us more than himself, 29. God's Love herein exceeded his Power, Wisdom, Will; yea, & far exceeded our Hopes, Desires, Opinion, 22. 471. His Mercy alone was it that moved his Will to send C. 23, 24. ¶ The manifold ways that C. was delivered for us, 24, etc. ¶ Of his Fear and Grief at his Passion, 25. Of his desire that the Cup might pass from him, 266. How the Martyrs seemed more courageous at their deaths then He, 26. In his greatest extremity he despaired not, 25. yet were his sufferings without the least allay of comfort, 27. Why He died for us Men, and for our salvation, and not for the Angels, some conjectures are produced, 28. The true cause is shown, 29. We had more hand in our Saviour's death then his Judge or Executioners, 29. It was Love that made him die for us, 470. 492. How, since he died for all, all are not saved by him, 29, etc. There is no difficiencie in him; the fault is wholly in us, 30, 31. ¶ Every worldly thing is good with Christ; but nothing, without him, 32. All things are loss and dung without him, 714, 715. How all things are ours by our being Christ's, 33. We have all things by him which tend to our salvation, 33. His Death, the strongest motive to holiness and righteousness of life, 872, etc. From his Cross, as from a Professor's chair, we may learn Innocence, Obedience, Humility, Patience, Love, 34. He died not for us that we might live as we list, 38. He died not only to be a Sacrifice for us, but also an Example to us, 471, 472. His Death should not make any, but it doth make many, presume, 472. What it is to show forth Christ's Death, 473, etc. Our part is to condemn ourselves rather then to declaim against the Actors in that Tragedy, 473. His Humility doth not empair his Majesty, but exalt it, 470. His experience of sufferings taught him to compassionate ours, 39, 40. His Compassion, not to be denied, but followed, 147, 148. What hand God had in Christ's death, 301. What we should behold and admire in Christ's Cross, 310. His Death and our Repentance must go together, 327. ¶ Why Christ, after his Resurrection, would not show himself openly, 41. Arguments to prove his Resurrection, 42, 718. The efficacy of his Resurrection on our Bodies and on our Souls, 43. 719, etc. Christ, and all that floweth from him, everlasting, 44, 45. 48. ¶ Of Christ's Ascension, 726, etc. Why the Disciples were present at their Master's Ascension 727. They are checked at their wondering at it, 728. Now Christ is ascended, what it is that we must look upon, and look to, 731, 732. Why He abode not still upon earth, 733, 734. ¶ How and why Christ is said to sit at God's right hand, 229. ¶ Of his Intercession, 45. ¶ Of his Dominion over Hell and Death, 49, 49. He hath bought us, 739, etc. It cost him more to redeem us then it did to create us, 763. v. redemption. That Jesus is the Lord, his Resurrection declared, 759. v. JESUS. If we make him our Lord, he will be our Jesus; else not, 760, etc. 1069. What contradiction of sinners Christ suffereth in all ages, 761. Few love to hear of his Lordship, 761, etc. The Arians, less eenemies to Christ then many Christians now, 762. Many confess Christ, but few do it hearty, 763, etc. What a shame it is to own any other for our Lord but Christ, 768. The Devil brought in bragging he hath more Disciples than Christ, 768. His humility offendeth many, 560. The Majesty of Christ is to be discovered and admired by us, even amidst the scorn and disgrace the world casteth upon him, 311. 493. Of his Dominion, 762. its nature, 228, etc. its power, 232. 240. its extent, 233. How he is Lord of all, though most refuse him, 234. 240. The acknowledgement of God's power in Christ is the foundation of Christianity, 313. He is our Lawgiver, 1066. v. Law. They grossly err who think Christ came to be our Redeemer, but not our Lawgiver, 1068. How his Laws excel all humane Laws, 240, etc. How men are wont to deal with his precepts, 823. We must be ruled by his command, 312. and depend on his protection, 313. He is terrible to his enemies, and gracious to his servants, 37. ¶ How we must receive Christ, 35. What it is to dwell in him, 310, etc. The benefits we have by his dwelling in us, 314, etc. Power and virtue still go out of him, 314, 315. He quickeneth our Knowledge, 315. and our Faith, 316. and worketh in us an universal, constant, and sincere Obedience, 316, 317. There is a reciprocation between Christ and the Soul, 317, 318. Christ may bear with our infirmities, but not with wilfulness and hypocrisy, 319. No Church can be a sanctuary to such as dwell not in Christ, 320. How much it concerneth us to try whether we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us, 321. By this mutual union all His become ours, and all ours his, 321, 322. ¶ Christ must be looked upon and considered, not in part, but wholly, 394. What it is to consider Him as our Priest, Prophet, King, 492, 493. What it is for a Christian to remember Christ aright, 463, etc. The mistake of the world in the manner of receiving Christ's Person, 523. as great, in respect of his Doctrine, 524. ¶ Christ was wont to draw his discourse from some present occasion, 309. The Scope of his Sermon on the mount, 560. He cured men's bodies, and purged their souls, 572. The end of his Miracles, 572, &c We must by no means defeat him of his end, but cooperate with him, 575. Many talk of Christ, and profess to follow him, but few walk as he did, 518. 520. His Example is to be followed by us, 510. v. Servant. This is the principal standard Rule, by which all are to be examined, and according to which all are to be squared, 1026, 1027. Wherein Christ is not to be imitated by us, 1026. & wherein he is, 1027. ¶ We ought to think of Christ's second coming, 235. He shall (though most put it out of their Creed) certainly come to judge all, 237. He knoweth men's hearts, and all things, 277 573. He was despised of old by most, forgotten now, 237. Why he delayeth his coming, 238, 239. Christ's second coming is an object for our Faith to look on, 240. 735. for our Hope to reach at, 242. 736. and for our charity to embrace, 242. 736. It will be, not for carnal, but spiritual and heavenly ends, 243. 954. It will be for the Advantage of Angels, Men, and other Creatures, 245, 246 His judgement will not be like ours, but according to truth, 247. The precise time of his coming, not to be enquired after, nor to be known, 248, etc. 737. What use we ought to make of the uncertainty thereof, 250. 738. It is enough to know Christ will come; it concerneth us not to know when, 251, 252. 737. It is better for us not to know it, 252. No reason why either good or bad should know it, 252. If the wicked kn●w the very hour, they would be never the better, 253. Christ's coming will be sudden, 254. he cometh, let him not find us ill employed, 254, 255. What inferences Flesh and Blood draw from the doctrine of Christ's coming, 256. The belief of Christ's second coming affordeth unspeakable comfort to the godly, but the contrary to the wicked, 952. Why he foretold the signs of his second coming, 1042. How the sight of such signs should work upon us, 1045. v. Signs. How to prepare ourselves to meet our Lord at his second coming, 1049. Though Christ deliverup his Kingdom, and be subject to the Father, yet his Dominion is everlasting, 235. 240. ¶ The doctrine of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness, grossly misinterpreted and misapplyed, 870, etc. 993, 994. He came to make us happy; which neither Nature nor the Law could do for us, 716, 717. He hath freed us from the guilt and power of Sin, 1097, 1098. from the rigour of the Moral, and the servitude of the Ceremonial Law, 1098. Many have a bare speculative knowledge of Christ, which availeth nothing at all, 723, etc. What it is for us to be crucified with CHRIST, and to rise again with him, 725. Christendom, v. View. Christian, and Christianity. A good Christian, who, 68, 69. 78. Every man may be a Christian, 661. v. Truth. Many would go for Christians that are nothing less, 319. The end of Christianity is to draw our hearts from earth to heaven, 645, etc. 649. v. Religion, Popery. But, alas! how many Christians walk quite contrary! 652. How Christian Religion is degenerated, 915. 1071. The bare name of Christian will do us no good, 291. v. Formality, Hypocrisy, Profession. Sin in a Christian is far worse than in a Turk or a Jew, 417, 418. The sins of Christians cause Christianity to be evil spoken of, 913, 914. 1071. Christians who live unchristianly are guilty of the blood of Jews and Pagans, 914. 1071. It is not the name of Christian, or of Christ, that will save us, if we dishonour it, 915. How strangely most Christians mock God, and contradict themselves, 921. Christianity maketh a man not morose and sour, but sweet and tractable, 504. It doth not discharge us from subjection to our Superiors, 639 1102, 1103. It is both the most delightsome and the most troublesome calling, 1011. A Christian is both the freest and the most subject creature in the world, 638. 1101. A true Christian is firm and constant, 1111, 1112. A strong Christian and a weak one described, 458. Christmass-day the great metropolitan feast of the year, 1. The antiquity of this anniversary solemnity. 2. Church, a word much abused, 149. Many fruitless disputes about the Ch. 10●8. Church, magnified unreasonably by the Papists, 680, 601. Prosperity, not a mark of the true Ch. 191. 295-298. It is always one and the same, how, 175. 696. never exempted from persecution, 175 etc. 709. subject to change, 190. What alterations we have had in our Engl. Ch. 191. Of how different constitution Christ's C. is from the Kingdoms of the earth, 188, 710. It is not our joining to this or that particular C. (or faction rather) but our dwelling in C. that can make us Christians, 320, 321. v. Congregation. No discipline so essential to the Church as Piety, 320. We must not make the World a platform of the Ch. 191. How the Ch. is to deal with her enemies, 194. Of the power God hath left in his Ch. 225. v. Commonwealth. Church, why called Catholic, 233. v. View. How the Church is the pillar and ground of truth, since the Truth is the pillar of the Church, 600. Even Three make a Church, 837. Yea, One, 836. Churches, anciently used, 847. how far necessary, 581. 846, 847. how holy, 581, 582. 847, etc. They should not be abused, but used to the right end, 582. How we ought to honour them, 849, 850. It is an horrible shame that our houses should be trim, and Churches ruinous and sordid, 850. How the Devotion of the ancient Christians in building and adorning of Ch. shameth the neglect of our age, 850. Though it be pious to build and beautify Churches, yet in case of necessity Churches may be stripped to relieve the poor, 851. Against such as would have no Churches, 847. Against them that will not come to Church, 581, etc. We must go to Church, not for fashion, or formality, but out of love, 853. How devout persons behave themselves in the Ch. 854, 855. 857. 864. Reverence is due in the Ch. upon several accounts, 857, 858. None quarrel at Churches but the proud and Covetous, 856. City. v. View. Col. i. 24. 638. three 12. 279. Comely. Our first thought should be, What will become us, 17. Comfort is for the godly, not for sinners, 1114, 1115. Some little comfort from Philosophy, none true and solid, 949, 950. 954 v. Scripture. If we perform the conditions, the comforts of the Gospel shall be made good to us, 953. Comforting of others, what, 941, etc. Our Comforting of others must not proceed from Pride, Hypocrisy, Vainglory, or Fear, 942. Motives to the duty, 943, 944. We seek Comfort, and miss it, because we seek amiss, 945. 948. 953. Where true Comfort is to be had, 946, etc. Commandments of God, our light, our provision, our defence in our way to heaven, 540, etc. Common people. v. Deceit. Commonwealth, to be preferred before private, 544. Commonwealth and Kingdoms, whether they have a fatal period, 213. The respect Church and Commonwealth have each to other, 224, 225. Communion. v. Lords Supper. Communion of Saints, 420. 840, etc. 861. 939, etc. Compassion, though by the Stoics cried down, is a very divine virtue, 147, 148. Without it a man cannot be a part of the Church, 148. V Mercy. Complaint and murmuring, whence, 937. Confession of sin, when hearty, when not, 333. Be not ashamed to confess thy sins now, lest thou be confounded hereafter, 1039, 1040. The way to have our sins hid is to confess them, 1040, 1041. ¶ We must confess the truth not only in times of peace, but even to the face of its enemies, 982, 983. Confidence must be in God alone, 807. Conformity to Christ, how necessary, 15, 16. v. Christ. Congregation. Every particular C. commonly damneth all for heretics that cast not in their lots with them, 319, 320. 455. 682. 1060. v. Faction. Conscience, how little regarded, 169. To sin against C. aggravateth sin fearfully, 441. C. cannot err in that which is plain and evident, 892. but Love of the world will make a man run into that his C. starteth at, 892, 893. C. may sleep, but not die in us, 330. 502. Reluctancy of C. is no certain sign of a child of God, 439, etc. The force of C. 499. 1037. No torment like to a bad C. 740, 741. The courses wicked men take to silence it, 449. 503. 688. 922. 948. 1037. If we wound our C. in one particular, though but a little, we are in the way to wound her deeper, 1120. Every wilful violation of C. is a step to Apostasy, 1121. How C. is to be honoured, 1121, 1122. When she is dishonoured, 1122. Them that honour her, she will honour, 1122. The best way to calm a raging C. 946, 947. A good Conscience is the product of Faith and Obedience, 1013. It armeth us against the fear of Death, 1013. v. Cases. Consider. We behold the Heavens, ourselves, our Sins, but consider them not aright, 595, 596. 1106. What it is to consider a thing devoutly, 596, 597. 1107. It is of singular use, 597, 598. 1108. Consolation for disconsolate souls, 347. Conspiracy. v. Union. Contentions. Of the C. among Christians, 557. Contentment not to be found on earth, 537. Contemplation. v. Joy. Controversies of these times, of what sort, 304. 1071. 1084. Their best Judge, 287. Their original, 665. Convenience. v. Necessity. Conversion of a sinner, as great a miracle as Raising of the dead, or Creating of the world, 56. [Vide pag. 587.] 375. v. Resurrection. What is God's part, and what ours, in it, 587, 588. 628, 629. 722. A Christian's life beginneth at his Conversion, 1003. Corban, what, 132. 1 Cor. i 26. 974. 1071. 1084. ¶ 30. 871. ¶ iii. 22, 23. explained. ¶ iv. 4. 347. ¶ v. 5. 565. 592. ¶ seven. 20. 521. ¶ ix. 22. 505. ¶ x. 13. 604. ¶ xi. 10. 857. ¶ xiii. 4. 1077. 2 Cor. v. 14. 67. Corrections. God's C. are the blows of a Father, and great arguments of his love, 365. Covetousness and Ambition increase by enjoyment, 537. 887. How C. beginneth and groweth in the heart, 625. v. Hope. This sin emasculateth and weakeneth both mind and body, 751. It is an enemy to Peace, 208. the main cause of Persecution, 700. and of Divisions in the Church, 842. 845. 856. What will not C. make a man do? 507, 508. It is idolatry, 623. v. Riches. Some Covetous men doubt not to be saved, because Abraham, a Rich man, is in heaven, 618. The Covetous man's Texts cleared, 222. Counsels, too much cried up by them of Rome, 681. Counsel is like good Physic, 842. Country. v. View. Court. v. View. Creation and Conservation, but one continued act, 104. v. God, & World. Creatures. Since all are clean in themselves, why divers Cr. were forbidden as unclean, 1098. Sin now disordereth and defileth all, but the last day will reduce all to order and beauty, 246. The Creature therefore longeth for the day of judgement, 302. Creatures, good in themselves, we abuse to evil, 897. Creed. Truth was purest when there was but one short Creed, 665. Cross, the way to the Crown, 174. 571. v. Affliction. Crucifying our flesh, what, 725. Cujacius, 2. 8. Cure of souls, though in some sense impropriate to the Priest alone, yet in some sense it is committed to every man, 293, 294. Curiosity, a busy idleness punishing itself, 1074. It is a busy and toilsome thing, 730. Curious gazing where God hath drawn a veil, unlawful, fruitless, dangerous, 94, 95. 164. 248, 249, 729. 1076. Custom in sinning, how got, and how hard to break, 357. It maketh sin natural, 793. v. Sin. Cyprian, 1003. 1023. D. DAngers and difficulties try and discover a Christian, 982, 983. Daniel. porphyry's judgement of his Prophecy, 166. David, how devout and pious, 860. Of his professing himself a stranger on the earth, 531-536. His sin and Saul's compared together, 1030. He seemeth to have gone further than he needed in confessing his sin, 1040. Nathan's plain dealing with him, 1115. Death, once terrible, now profitable and desirable to a Christian, 48, 49. To the godly it is a passage to heaven, to the wicked the contrary, 295. v. Obedience. Why the Stoics did desire D. 1011. and how Christians may do it lawfully, 1011, 1012. How to get rid of the fear of D. 543. 1012, etc. Nothing more common, more certain than Death, yet nothing less thought on, 538, 539. 596. Arguments to moderate our grief for the D. of friends, 543. Sin carrieth D. in its womb, 445. We are dying continually, 538. ¶ Death of the Soul. v. Resurrection. Whether God desire or decree the Death of Man, 403, etc. Man's D. proceeded not from God's primary but secondary will, 405. If we die, it is for no other reason but because we will die, 424-446. Debt one easily runneth into, but hardly creepeth out, 809, 810. How troublesome a thing it is to be in Debt, 809. Debtors sometimes pay their Creditors with ill language, 810. What Debtors Matth. vi. 12. signifieth, 816. We are all Debtors to God, 806. v. Sin, & Obligation. Deceit. v. Oppression. Common people how easily deceived, 557. Men are cautelous that they be not deceived in worldly matters, yet apt to deceive themselves in spiritual, 309. How to avoid being deceived, 933. Decency. v. Churches. Decrees. Of God's D. 403, etc. ●76. They are not the cause of Man's sin, or death, 290. They are known to himself, not to us, 576. Some taxed for meddling with them, 326. 407, 408. The Doctrine of God's D. how abused, 414, 415. 1068, 1069. The absolute Decree of Reprobation, impugned, 576, etc. Look not thou into the book of God's Decrees, but into that of his Works, that of his Word, that of thy own Conscience, 415. Delay. v. Repentance. Arguments against it, 366, etc. 369. 792, etc. 1002, etc. We are offended at Delays in our servants and others, and shall we think that God will brook them in us? 798. Deliberation. v. Advise. Delight. v. Joy. Demades Afer, 593. Demosthenes, 334. Self-Denial, no such hard thing as it is thought, 116, 117. v. Self-denial. Desires become more eager by enjoying, 537. 786. We cannot be too desirous and covetous of the best things, 1020. Nothing can satisfy our Desires but God, 1124. For He alone is the adequate object of our D. 786, 787. We must curb ourselves even in our lawful D. and bow to the will of God, 1006— 1011. Despair of no man, 576, 577. Despair, a great hindrance of repentance, 342. It's original, 342, 343. 345, 346. Arguments against it, 342, etc. 348. He that despaireth believeth, 242. 342, 343. A good man may despair, 344, 345, 346. 736. Comfort for despairing sinners, 347, etc. Devil. The various shapes he putteth on to deceive us, 539. The policies and ways he useth to enslave us, 740. He may tempt, but not force us, 260, 261. How the Devil is affected in the evil of Man, 863. Devotion, good every where, but best in the Temple, 580. The D. of the ancient Saints, 1018. Difference of meats. v. Meats. Diligence. v. Industry, & Labour. Diogenes, 508. Diptyches, what, 1019. Discipline of the Church, how wholesome, 842. Diseases were part of the Apostolical Discipline; 592, 593. Disputes. Much time misspent in fruitless D. 1018. 1075, 1076. Disquietness of a wicked man's heart, whence, 90. Dissimulation. v. Flattery. Divisions in the Church, whence, 842. v. Schisms. Dominicus Loricatus, 1056. Dominion, , and Evangelical, 33. D. is not (as some would have it) founded on Grace, 33. Donatists, self-murderers, 706. They pretended to love peace, yet were its greatest enemies, 198. Donatus the Grammarian. A proud speech of his, 553. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what, 699. Dove. The Dove, an emblem of a Christian, 130. Dream. A strange D. 66. Another, 80. Drunkenness. v. Turks. Duty. The whole Duty of Man, 60. It It is manifest unto all, 93. We must do our Duty, though scorned and derided for it, 83. Duties are measured-out by relations, 105. Performance of one Duty will not excuse the neglect of another, 281, 282. 378. Do thy Duty in promoting the good of thy brother, and leave the success to God, 576, etc. Easier Duties we choose, and neglect the weightier, 730, 731. Duties, several and different according to time, and place, and persons, 1026. Some tend to a further end, others end in themselves, 1056. ¶ Outward Duties, such as Prayer, Hearing, Fasting, when acceptable, when not, 1056, etc. These are of easier dispatch then real and solid Duties, 1057. The strict observing of outward D maketh us slack sometimes in those that be essential, 1057, 1058. God is not so much glorified in these as in the renewing of his image in us, 1058. When these are not carried-on to the right end, they are hateful to God, 1056, etc. 1061. Dwarves, by whom much set by, 98. 651. Dwelling in Christ, what, 310, etc. Christ's Dwelling in us, what, 314, etc. v. Christ. E. EAster. Controversies of old about E. needless, 94. Eccl. seven. 29. 328. Education is a false light, and misleadeth most, 760. Eggs, abstained from, 752. Election. How some abuse the doctrine of Election, 83. 414. 494. How to make it sure, 416. Eli's sad condition, 288. His humble and patiented submission under God's hand, 289. Eloquence, how to be atteined, 1020, 1021. Emperor. Ceremonies at the death of a Roman Emperor, 423. Emulation, what, 552, 553. How it differeth from Envy, 1019. 1023. End cannot be had without the means, 645. Every End hath its proper means fitted to it, 1067. What is not directed to a right End is frustrate and unprofitable, 591. A good thing not directed to a right End may prove the worst of evils, 467. 486. Remember the end, 933. The End is the crown of all, 1122. Enemies. We must love our Enemies, why, 318. 1087. We may not pray for, or rejoice in their destruction, 947. 953. England's unthankfulness and abuse of God's mercies, 364. 800. Her sore calamities urged to incite her to repentance, 364. 569, 570. 800, etc. What it was that pulled them on her, 379. England and Israel compared, 422. Her impenitency under God's judgements, set forth, 801. She hath some of the signs of the last judgement come upon her, 1044, 1045. The falling of the Stars and shaking of the powers of Heaven, applied to the Teachers of the English Church, 1044. English-mens sins, inveyed against, 1121. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strict Christians were called, 78. Enthusiast. v. Pope. Envy and Malice torment the owners most, 201. v. Emulation. Eph. iv. 16. 148. Errors, when discovered, are to be recanted, 677, etc. He who refuseth to do so, maketh himself a God, or a Beast, 679. Error in practice, worse than Error in judgement, 762. it being from the Will alone, 909. Error both in judgement and practice, why so tenaciously adhered to, 500 How full of Error the world is, 911. Persuasion when we err is as powerful as when we have truth on our side, 912. Errors of Christians, far the worst, 912, etc. Errors in some things, lawful, 915. Of the rise and growth of Error, 959. God alone is free from Error, 678. That Error is an happy error that occasioneth devotion, 1045. Eschewing of evil, easier than doing of good, 282. Essenes', 532. Eternity, 45. No such check to Sin, and spur to Virtue, as Eternity, 45, 46. We eagerly desire it, though we cannot apprehend it, 50. Ethics. v. Mathematics. Event neither crowneth nor condemneth an action, 684. Evil, how willed by God, and why, 306, 307. v. God. He would not suffer it, did he not know how to bring good out of it, 307. Evil men are suffered in the world that the good may be tried and known, 699, 700. A thing may be Evil from but one bad circumstance, 444. No Evil but hath some appearance of goodness, 910. None so Evil as not to persuade himself he is good, 1118. 1125. Even Evil men approve and praise that which is good, 991. v. Holiness, & Piety. Euripides. v. Sophocles. Eutyches, 11, 12. Examination, necessary at all times, especially before we receive the Lord's Supper, 479, etc. 486. How busy and weighty a duty it is, 480. 484. From the neglect thereof proceed Ignorance of ourselves, 481. Self-love, 481. Pride, 483. The extent and latitude of this duty, 484, etc. It is our principal work, to examine both our weakness and our strength, 601, 602. After Examination amendment must follow, 485, etc. Against such as magisterially examine others before the Communion, 494. Every man ought to examine himself, 494, 495. Examples have far more power upon our Wills then Precepts, 1016, etc. 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, etc. 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, etc. 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 than the Sin itself, 1034, 1035. Exercise. It's mighty force, 1117. Of the military Exercises of the Romans, 1118. Exod. seven. 3. 412. ¶ xx. 25. 372. Expedient. In matters of indifferency 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 showeth itself, 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 increased, 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 we see Christ, and lay hold on him, 490. The miserable condition of him that wanteth F. 314. Many fancy 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 without Righteousness will deceive them that rely on it, 130. 136. Without Charity and Good works it is nothing worth, 275, 276. Faith and Charity, like Hippocrates' twins, live and die together, 490. F. is naturally productive of good works, 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 qualify 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, etc. F. hath, as its increasings, 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 when we 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 world frame men's Creeds, 734. Many Questions about Faith may well be spared, 1075, 1076. Falling from grace. v. Perseverance. Familiarity with God, how to be held, 757. fanatics. v. Holy Ghost. Fasting, commended, 752. Different kinds of F. 752. Politic hypocritical Fasts, inveyed against, 277, 278. 1051, etc. 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 ruin, 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 errors of some Heretics that cried-down F. as out of date under the Gospel, 392. confuted, 393, etc. 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. etc. It not only 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 we need it while we are here, 395. Fear of God, a sovereign antidote against Sin, 258. Want of F. threw our first Parents out of Paradise, and now 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, etc. 399. Fear of judgement may well consist with Love, 391. 394, etc. witness God's Saints and Martyrs, 391. How Love casteth out Fear, 398. Fear beginneth the good works oftentimes which Love afterward perfecteth, 926. Fear may stand with Faith, 398. and with Hope, 399. Hope and Fear ever go together, 387. Fear keepeth them all in a due temper, 399. Christ telleth us whom we must not fear, and whom we 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, etc. but who, where is the man that doth so? 690. Fellow-feeling aught to be among us, 141. 148. v. Compassion. Fire. Basil's fancy concerning Fire, 551. Flattery and Dissimulation, how they differ, 54, 55. The holy Spirit useth neither, 54. How the world aboundeth with Flatterers, 504. A seditious Flatterer, 506. Pulpit-flatterers, 506. Flattering Preachers are worse than Judas, 510, 511. The root of Flattery is Covetousness, 507, etc. How apt we are to flatter ourselves, 442. 480. 742. 875. v. Assurance, & Presumption, & Security. Flesh. v. Body. Flesh and Spirit, contrary, 175. 562. 767. ever contending one with another, 312. Florimundus Raimundus, 556. Folly. Whence all the Folly that so aboundeth in the world, 689, 690. Fools and Madmen, what to be thought of, 96. None such Fools as they who think themselves wise, 500, 501. Forgetfulness of the World, reproved, 1116. Forgiveness. How short our Forgiveness cometh of God's, 817. God's F. is free and voluntary, and so must ours be, 818. Whether we are bound to forgive an injury before acknowledgement made, 818. God forgiveth fully, and so must we, not only forgive, but forget, 819. By this we become like unto God, 820. Though we must forgive, yet is not the office of the Judge, or going to Law, unlawful, 821. God's F. is not the less free because it engageth us to forgive, 824. What force our F. hath to obtain F. of God, 824, 825, 830, etc. What influence God's F. should have on us, 826, etc. How it cometh to pass that it doth not always work in us the likeness of itself, 827, 828. That we may forgive our Brother, we must oft call to mind and meditate upon the Mercy of God, 828, 829. and apply it aright, 829. What we must do to get our sins forgiven, 833. Grace to forgive one another is never single, but accompanied with other graces, 833. Form. A Form of godliness, nothing worth without the power thereof, 663. yet it deceiveth many, 77. 79. and contenteth them, 74, etc. 303, 304. 487. and worketh confidence and security in their hearts, 74. 76. 1127, 1128. and they conceit that God himself also is much taken with such pageantry, 82. 108, 109. Indeed the Form is accepted when the power is not wanting, 79, 80. otherwise not, 487, 488. Why a bare Form, without substance, is so hateful to God, 75-79. It hath the same motive with our greatest sins, 76. It is mere mockery, 80. 877. It is as pleasing to the Devil as it is odious to God, 77. v. Hearing, Piety, Worship. Formality. v. Outward Duties. It is compared to motions by water-works, 845. Formalities are easy, essential duties difficult, 1057. Formal repentance is the grossest hypocrisy, 372. Fornication, eloquently and excellently declaimed against, 750— 752. Excuses for it, answered, 750. It dishonoureth the body, and defileth the soul, 750. It maketh the members of Christ the members of an harlot, 750. It is of all sins the most carnal, 750. It effeminateth both mind and body, 751. It is the Devil's net to catch two at once, 751. How strictly Christ forbiddeth it, 751. What presumtions there are of its abounding in this Age, 751, 752. That the very Heathen thought it foul, appeareth from their custom of bathing after it, 751. Frailty. Of humane Frailty, 535, etc. Friendship obligeth to duty, 105. No Friendship is lasting that is not built upon Virtue, 371. A wise Friend will shun the least suspicion of offence, 380. 612. Fundamentals of Protestants Religion, 285 Fundamental and necessary points are plain and evident in Script. 1084, 1085. Funeral rites at the death of a Roman Emperor, 423. Future events, unknown to us, 250. 1043. v. Time. G. GAin. v. Profit. How greedily and basely pursued not only by Heathens, but by many Christians also, 131, 132. The gainfullest use of riches, 143. Gal. two. 20. 521. ¶ v. 21. 375. ¶ vi. 12. 501. Galene's helps in the pursuit of knowledge, 66. Gallant. The profane Gallant, a despicable wretch, 528. Gen. iii. 19 In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread, a command, as well as a curse, 218. ¶ 22. 158. 630, 631. ¶ vi. 3. 795. ¶ xlii. 21, 22. 387. ¶ Gen. xlvi. 27, 28. handsomely applied, 321. Gentleman. No Gentleman hath a licence to be idle, 222. GHOST. The HOLY GHOST, a distinct Person, 53. Several titles of his, and operations, 54. Why called the Spirit of truth, 54. 57 Though sent by the Father and the Son, yet is his coming voluntary, 56. The end of Christ's coming, and of the H. Ghosts, 52. 760. The H. Ghost, though not so solemnly as of old, yet still cometh effectually upon the faithful, 52. 760. He is ever consonant to himself, 55. He is our chief, our sole Instructor, 760. 772. Though the Church, and the Word, and Discipline be our Teachers, yet the H. Ghost may be truly called our sole Teacher, 778. How he is said to teach us all truth, 58. How he teacheth us, 773. Means must be used for the obtaining the gifts of the H. Ghost, 61. 67, 68 Into what posture we must put ourselves, if we will receive him, 779. We must be careful not to disquiet and grieve him, 773, 774. Many pretend to be led by the H. Ghost, when their design is to oppose him, 62. 64. Which is a sin perhaps more dangerous then flatly to deny him, 63. 774. Whence it is that so few follow his guidance, 65. He hath worse enemies nowadays then the Eunomians and Sabellians, 774. What horrible wickedness some in this Age entitle him to, 774. But because some mistake and abuse the Spirit, we must not thence conclude that none are taught by him, 775. He not only taught the Church in the Apostles times, but teacheth it still in all ages, 776. His operations indeed are not easily perceived, 775. but that he hath wrought we may find, 776. How we may prove the Spirit, 780, 781. and discern his instructions from the suggestions of Satan and the dreams of fanatics, 64. 66. 777. 780. Glorifying of God, what, 744, etc. 748. 754. 1009. We must glorify God in soul and in body, 744, etc. Whether an actual intention of God's glory perpetually in our mind be necessary, 745. More is required of us then to glorify God verbally, 754. God's Glory must be the first mover of our obedience, 1008. It is not so resplendent in a Star, nor in the Sun, as in the New creature, 1009. If we glorify God here, we shall glorify him to eternity, 747. Gnostics, 167. GOD cannot be spoken of with too much reverence, 7. 409. He is a most simple Essence, 78. incomprehensible, 165. Bold and curious searching of him, unlawful, 164, 165. He is to be seen by faith, not curiously gazed upon, 729. Though he be invisible, yet we may see Him by the light that shineth in his Works, in our Conscience, and in his Word, 784, etc. ¶ God delighteth in his Wisdom more than in any other of his Attributes, 326. 1029. Of his Omnipresence and Omniscience, 164. Errors concerning God's Presence, 165. Belief of God's Presence, the greatest curb of sin, 164. 167, &c 258. God's Wisdom drew his Justice and Mercy together, and reconciled them in Christ's Satisfaction and ours, 327. Counsels which some men fasten upon God contrary to his Wisdom and Goodness, 326. 407, etc. 411. God's Wisdom is the fountain of Laws, 106. His Laws are most just and unalterable, 106. They are not mere indications of His Power, but the issue also of His Love, 107. God alone is infallible, 678. The belief of God's Knowledge is natural, 918. yet most men live as if they believed it not, 919, etc. When men sin, they wish God could not know, 921. and at last they strive and study to believe he doth not, 922. God is more jealous of his Wisdom then of his Power, 933. 1034. No hiding aught from Him, 933. 1059. He is therefore more offended with the Excuse then with the Sin, 1034, 1035. How God is said not to know some things, 170. ¶ God's Omnipotency, 103. He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 103. His Power passeth through all, 104. From His Power in making us floweth His Authority over us, 104. Why He made us. v. Man. What moved Him to create the world, 404. Those Powers which the Heathen fancied to be in several Gods, are all united in the One only true God, 341. ¶ God's Omnipotence submitteth to his Will, 21. 103. and we magnify Him more by giving Him an absolute Will then an infinite Power, 21. The Will of God under a fourfold consideration, 306. 406. 585, etc. How he is said to will that that which is sinful, 301. 306. 584, etc. Whether God's Permission of sin be (as some say) effective, 407, etc. Why God permitteth Sin, which he hateth, and forbiddeth, and punisheth, 410. 585. God doth not will that sin be committed, though he is willing to permit it, 411. 585. Hardening and Blinding how ascribed to God, 411, 412. 587. Evil cometh not from God properly, but from ourselves, 417. God's secret Will is no rule of our actions, but his revealed is, 577. God's Will of Permission doth not thwart, any other will of his, 585, etc. The Will of God is not always effected, 409. 587. It is often resisted, 587. All things that are done are not the work of his Hand, 409. 584. ¶ God's Love to Man, 381, 743. His Love to Man, and his Mercy to sinners, exceeding great, 358. The infiniteness of his Love and Mercy, 22, 23. v. Christ. God's Love, of two sorts, 30. God's glory and Man's salvation are twisted together, 34. His Mercy to penitent sinners, set forth, 348, 349. But he will have no mercy on the presumptuous, 349, 350. 368. The doctrine of God's Mercy, to be delivered with great caution, 349, 350. Nothing provoketh God to anger more than the abuse of his Mercy, 358. 360. 381. 613. 794. God's Wisdom, Justice, Power, Mercy, shown in Man's salvation, 744. 763. ¶ Of God's Goodness, 404, 405. His benefits come not alone, but one is a pledge of another, 19 He serveth us more than we him, 56. God's favours must be improved, 579. Why God's favours are so often recorded and mentioned in Scripture, 590. Abuse of his gifts highly provoketh Him, 595. God is so absolute and all sufficient a Good that nothing is evil with him, nothing good without him, 784. He alone can satisfy the vast desires of Man's mind, 786. 1124. ¶ God delighteth in his Justice, 930. His Law enjoineth not things impossible, 109, etc. 118. He is not willing Man should die, 403. 424, etc. He usually warneth before he striketh, 323. He chastiseth gently at first; but, if we will not amend, he layeth on heavier strokes, 611, 612. Out of zeal to his honour we must not question His actions, 21. ¶ How strange His Providence seemeth to humane reason, 189. It runneth a course quite contrary to Man's wisdom, 703. God protecteth even the wicked, 115. He sometimes delivereth up his people to his utter enemies, 298. v. Righteous. God employeth oftentimes the worst of men to chastise his people; and when they have done their office, he throweth the rod into the fire, 299, 300. That act of Gods is a permission, not a commission, 299, 300. The glory of their profession (as the Ark was to the Israelite) may be taken away, 300. etc. God's ways are equal when they seem most unequal, 305. From God's permitting the wicked to prosper we may not conclude He loveth them, 684, 685. ¶ We need God's Grace; but whether it work irresistibly, is a question, 435, 436. God biddeth us be good, and useth means to make us so, but not violence, 585, 586, The Conversion or Induration of a sinner is not a work of God's uncontrollable Power, 587. v. Conversion. God may do what he will; but it is ill depending on that, 368. 434. Our Wills must be conformable to God's Will in all things, 305, etc. Submission to God's Will maketh a man enjoy tranquillity amid the greatest storms, 307, 308. God's ways are secret and unsearchable, but his will concerning our duty is manifest, 93. God must be obeyed, as Lord paramount, though Men say nay, 114. and though our Flesh hang back, 115. His authority and commands are not to be disputed, 451. 587, 588. ¶ God's Judgements, unsearchable, 291. As supreme Lord over us, he may take all from us at his pleasure, 294. He justly taketh his blessings away when we abuse them, 302. Nothing so terrible as the apprehension of God's Wrath, 25, 26. How careful we ought to be lest we provoke God to jealousy and anger, 381. 612, 613. ¶ God is always alike, and immutable, 381, 382. 614. Why God, who is free from all passion, seemeth to put on Passion, 384. Of those Affections that seem to be in God, 385. ¶ He cannot lie nor dissemble, 403, 404. He is Truth, and loveth it in us, 369. and hateth nothing more than Hypocrisy, 372. Why Hypocrisy is so hateful to him, 1058, 1059. He applieth himself suitably to our infirmity, 452, 453. ¶ God is all-sufficient, and standeth not in need of any thing, 404, 405. His glory being infinite can neither be improved nor impaired, 405. 590. 744. We must glorify God in our spirit, 744. 748. and in our body, 745, etc. 749. Nothing gloryfieth, nothing pleaseth God so much as our being like him, 1058. ¶ The reason of our dulness in Seeking of God is our ignorance and mistake of him, 783. Many think they seek God well when their seeking is slight and lame, 787, 788. What it is to seek him aright, 789. To that end we must hear the Word, fast, and pray, 790, etc. God should be sought without delay, 792-803. The virtues that shine in God should kindle the like in us, 826. What a shame it is that God should seek us, and we run- from him, 881. ¶ God's house. v. Church. God's service doth best in God's house, 580. When we offer unto God, we must take heed we think not any thing good enough for him, 849, 850. ¶ God's Decrees are not to be pried into, 415, 416. v. Decrees. To God all men, all actions, all events are present, 288. 1043. ¶ God's Hand is mighty, 626. 642. We should therefore stand in awe of Him, and fall down before Him, 642, 643. But his Mercy is of most force to humble us, 643. ¶ God is uncapable of defilement, 166. That which cometh from God is to be received with all reverence, 285. 847, etc. what God once saith shall infallibly be done, 288. His Decrees cause not our wickedness, 290. His Promises are conditional, and oblige us to duty, 290. Godly. A Godly man will be a godly man in any place, whether alone, or in company, 1089. v. Religion. How meek under sufferings, 176. The Godly not only submit to, but favour and applaud whatsoever God doth, 307. They are not exempted from poverty and common casualties, 901. But in general calamities God taketh extraordinary care of them, 901. The different condition of the Godly and ungodly here and hereafter, 561. Good is ex causa integra; but any one point amiss is enough to make a thing evil, 444. That which is good in itself is good always, and every where, 73. and cannot be used to an evil end, 85. Worldly things, how good, 85, 86. v. World. Nothing Good without God; every thing Good with him, 784. ¶ Good men may be full of doubts and suffer fits of despair, 344, etc. Comforts for such, 347. Good partake with the bad in common calamities, and why, 291, etc. ¶ A Good name, carefully to be preserved, 1054. ¶ Good works, how far esteemed by God, and how far advantageous to us, 812. They cannot justify the worker, 812, 813. Doing Good and Eschewing Evil must be inseparably joined, 281, 282. Many do Good works by halves, 160. Goodness is God's chief property, 404, 405. If it were essential to Man, there would have been neither Law nor Gospel 410. 586. It is not necessary, but voluntary, 587. 628, 629. It forceth approbation even from bad-men, 500, 551. 518. 1125. v. Necessity, & Piety. Gospel, far more excellent than either Philosophy or the Law, 201, 202. Though all its rules are not juris naturalis, yet some are, 224. The G. is much talked of, much mistake and abused, 1062. 1105, 1106. The G. is a Law, 1063, etc. yea, the strictest Law, 1065. How we are to look upon it, 1072. Of the Perfection of the Gospel, 1073, etc. 1094. It is perfect in respect of the End and of the Means, 1073. It alone can fill and fit a man in any condition, 1074. It ordereth every part, faculty, act, motion, inclination, 1076. It reacheth all cases that be necessary, 1077. It forbiddeth all sins, great and small, 1094. It is not only perfect itself, but far more perfect than the Law of Moses, 1078, 1079. It requireth more of us then the Law did, 1078. The Papists and Libertines censured for arguing the G. of imperfection, 1079, etc. The G. carrieth us much higher than the Moral Heathen could sore, or ken, 1084. There is neither defect nor obscurity in it, 1084. Since the G. is perfect, we must square out our actions by it, 1085. 1098. Though it be plain and easy, yet we must carefully read and hear and pray, that we may understand it, 1094, 1095. The G. not only restraineth gross offences, but idle words, wanton looks and thoughts, 1095, 1096. Why called by St. James a perfect law of liberty, 648. Before, we were captives under Sin and Satan, 1097. but by it we are freed from the Gild of Sin, 1097. from the Power of Sin, 1098. from the Rigour of the Moral, and the Servitude of the Ceremonial Law, 1098. What it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to look, into the Gospel, 1105, etc. The singular use of looking into it aright, 1108. How few do so, 1108. We must not only look upon the G. & consider it, but continue it, 1110, etc. We must not forget but remember it, 1116. We must turn the words into works, 1117, etc. God hath fitted the G. to us, and us unto it, 1124. Being looked into and persevered in it filleth the soul with light and joy, 1125, etc. Goths. When they sacked Rome, they spared those who fled into Churches, 501. Grace, much talked of, little understood, 433. What it is, 433. God will not leave us destitute of it, 433, 434. Though infused into us, it is not infused without us, 667, etc. It is an error to think every man hath a certain measure of saving Grace, 1024. 1096. Saving Gr. hath its degrees, 458. 1086. It increaseth by exercise, 1117, Grace only bringeth to God and to Glory, 106. Many lay all the stress upon the power of God's Grace, and do nothing themselves, 434, 435. 588. 628, 629. 667. 722. 1001. Gr. doth not force a man to be good, 435, 436. 584. 1022. 1115. Our duty is to use Gr. aright, and by no means to abuse it, 435. 629. 1022. Some pretending to magnify the Gr. of God, turn it into wantonness, 1001. 1022. Gr. worketh in us by means, 1022. Grace's must be tried, 38. Gr. never appeareth so bright as in time of trial, 698, 699. Riches, but trash, if compared with Gr. 619. Many fancy they have Graces which they have not, 668, 669. Some hold that Grace can neither be resisted at first, nor lost afterwards, 683. Of total and final falling from Grace, 1112, 1113. Grief. v. Joy, & Mourning, & Repentance, & Sorrow. Grief, a heavy burden, 936. One cannot properly be bid to grieve, 331. Grief at the death of friends is lawful, but it must be moderate, 543. Grief, wholesome for the soul, 563, etc. What Grief is godly, and what not, 331, 332. Grow in grace, 578. 606. H HAbits of virtue, how acquired, 205. 667. Habits of grace, though infused into us, are not infused without us, 667. Hannibal, 1066. Happiness, to be attained neither by the light of Reason, nor by the Law, but by Christ alone, 716, 717. v. Heathen. Harden. How God is said to harden hearts. 412. Hast is not good in a wrong way, 855. Hatred transformeth men, yea, and the Truth itself, 670, 671. We must not hate any man, much less the Truth for the man's sake, 672, 673. Health, how excellent a blessing, 591. It is the fittest time to serve God in, 592. If it be not employed in the service of God, it will be of the devil, 594. Hearing of Sermons, without doing, far from Religion, 221. 277. 303. 304. 522. 790, 701. 990. 1060. It is a sin, and flat mockery of God, 877. What God meaneth when he biddeth us hear, 876. How th● Word is to be heard, 512. v. Prayer. Heart. As the H. is affected, so the Tongue speaketh, 976, 977. Heathen. How far they went in the doctrine of Repentance, 324. and in moral Righteousness, 868. Many of them have outgone most Christians in the way of righteousness, 128. 663. What was the happiness they could teach and reach, unto, 324, 325. 716, 717. They retained some seeds of Truth, 371. By the light of Nature they hated hypocrisy, 372. Whether their virtuous actions were sins, 375. Their moral virtues advantaged them but little, because they were destitute of saving truth, 663, 868. Heaven. There only is blessedness to be found, 986. Heaven-gate, not so easy to be entered as some men dream, 1070. 1078. Heaven will not be atteined by a fancy, 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 emblem of Hell, 932. St. Basil's opinion of Hell-torments, 380. Heresies. Their original, 263. Hertha, 462. Hieroglyphics, 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, Days, Means, etc. are holy, 847. etc. 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 ourselves, and how not 318. Honour, a vain thing to satisfy 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, etc. 351. v. Assurance, & Presumption. 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 only remedy for Man's Pride, 6. Man's heart, naturally averse from it, 157, 630. It is the doorkeeper in Christ's School, 159. 631. It appeareth in every action of a Christian, 156. 638. Wherein it consisteth, 159. 631. Many practice it by halves, 160. 632. Humility of the Soul the chief H. 160, etc. 633. But that of the Body must not be wanting, 162. 634. Many praise H. few practice it, 630. It's proper work, 631. Many look to have this grace wrought in them without striving for it: but this is a dangerous error, 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 we receive by it, 644, 645. Humbling ourselves is a most Christian exercise, 627. A blameworthy Humility, 428. 459. That is bad H. that keepeth us from doing our duty, 459, etc. 609. Husband. A Christian H. is soli uxori masculus, 1078. Hypocrisy, not dead with the Pharisees, but alive at this day, 1059. How to be discovered, 64. v. Formality. H. setforth in its colours, 1055. The Hypocrite setforth, 171. 777. 780. A character of the Hypocrites of this Age, 1060. Hypocrites, like the wheels of a Clock, or motions by Water-works, 370. They deceive others and themselves, 919. Let them not think to hid themselves from God's all-seeing eye, 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 opposite to his Justice, 1058. and to his Wisdom, 1059. Hypocritical Fasting, Hearing, Praying. v. Fasting, etc. I. IDleness is contrary to the dictate not only of the Spirit, but even of Nature, 220. It is the mother and nurse of pragmatical Curiosity, 218. It maketh more Monks than 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 Commonwealth 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 men's Ignorance is a wilful and proud Ignorance, 437, 438. Some pretend knowledge, but are grossly 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 ourselves, the worst Ign. 481. Ignorance of some things, better than 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, etc. v. Examples. How foolishly some imitated Basil, 1025. Impatience, a sign of a worldly man, 542. Impenitence after deliverances will pull down greater judgements, 610, etc. Impenitence and Infidelity, the only unpardonable sins, 29, etc. Impossibilities are not required of us by God, 109, etc. 602, etc. 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 who have none of their own, 993. Incarnation. v. CHRIST. Inclination. v. Affections, & Thoughts. No natural Inclination or Appetite is evil in itself, 265. Good Inclinations are from God, 361, 362. Inconstancy in men's actions, whence, 317. To ●lter one's opinion upon clearer evidence, is not Inconstancy, 678. Indifferent things become necessary when commanded by lawful Authority, 59 1077. These are the only sphere that Authority moveth in, 60. In things Indifferent we must follow the rules of Charity and Prudence, 1077. We must abstain from things otherwise lawful, if not expedient, 639. 1102. Induration. v. Hardening. Industrie. It's efficacy. 1066. Industry and Painstaking, often frustrate in temporal matters, always 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 only maketh Christ's blood ineffectual, 29, etc. 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 than Poverty, Grief, Death, 126. It can have no good pretence 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 world, 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 were not there, 920. Their pretence who 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 Israel and of England, compared, 422, 423. J. JAmes. St. James and St. Paul seem to contradict each other, but do not, 276. Jealousy, what in Man; what in God, 381. 613. 643. Jer. xxv. 18-29. 299. JESUS, how excellent a name, 732, 733. That JESUS is the Lord, though Law and Custom and Education teach us, yet we cannot say it but by the holy Ghost, 759, etc. Many say so, yet but few say it, 763, 764. He who saith it aright, saith it with his Tongue, 764. 770. with his Heart, 765. 770. and with his Hand, 766. 270, etc. Oh what pity and shame it is that Man should suffer the Flesh, the World, and the Devil to Lord it over him, and not Jesus! 768. Jews, why commanded to offer sacrifice, 72. Why blamed sometimes for so doing, 80. 82. They pleased themselves exceedingly in this, and in other outward servics, 108. v. Formality. Their great privileges, 418. Privileges of Christians, greater than theirs, 419. Many things were permitted to be done by the Jews which are unlawful for a Christian, 869. Their course of sinning, 611. Jew, a term of reproach, 194. Job's case, 292. 903. Joh. vi. 63. 468. ¶ viij. 36. 742. 1 Joh. two. 4. 723. ¶ 16. 280. ¶ iv. 18. 398. ¶ v. 3. 112. St. John. v. Charity. St. John Baptist, a burning and shining light, 549, etc. How the Jews at first admired him, 553. but within a while disliked him, 554. Joy, good, and bad, 338. Sensitive, and Rational, 553. It is configured to the soul that receiveth it, 860. God's Joy over us, and our Joy in Him, and in one another, 861. Against them that rejoice in the sins or calamities of others, 862, 863. Joy that ariseth from Contemplation of good is nothing to that which ariseth from Action, 1125. True Joy floweth from Love, 153. and from Obedience, 113. 992. 1125, 1126. Sorrow is want to go before Joy, 560. Judas' repentance, 336. his despair, 343. Judge neither others sinners, because afflicted; nor thyself a Saint, because prosperous, 295, etc. 616. We may disannul our former Judgement upon better evidence without inconstancy, 676, etc. The Judgement of God and of the World, how different, 964. God's J. and Man's differ much, 616. That of Men for the most part, corrupt and partial, 246, 247. Judgement. Few believe there shall be a day of Judgement, 926. Though scoffers say Nay, it will assuredly come, 237, 238. Why it is so long in coming, 238. It cannot be the object of a wicked man's hope, 242. 737. v. CHRIST. Curious enquiry after the time of the last Judgement, condemned, 248, etc. We ought to expect and wait for it, 250. Signs of the day of Judgement, 1043, etc. Judgements. Of God's temporal Judgements, 611. Judgements justly fall even on God's own people, when they sin, 290. In general J. many times the good are involved with the evil without any prejudice to God's Justice, 291. Reasons to prove that point, 292. A fearful thing to be under J. and not to be sensible of them, 643. Judgements should fright us from sin, and drive us to God, 364. 800. If they work not that effect, they are forerunners of hell-torments, 365. 801. We should especially be afraid of those sins which are want to bring general J. on a Nation, 297. It is the greatest judgement, not to fear J. till they come, 502. 615. We must study God's J. 615. v. Punishment. Judge. The Judge's calling, necessary, 821. His office, 120. How his authority may be lawfully made use of, 822. Julian, the Apostate, 957. His liberality, 143. His malicious slander of the Christians, 148. He wounded Religion more with his wit then with his sword, 959. His death, 959. Justice, of how large extent, 119. What it is, 120. Private J. is far larger than public, 121. Our common Nature obligeth to live justly, 123. and so doth the Law of Nature, 124. 126. etc. 134. and Fear of God's Vengeance, 125. and the written Law of God, 128. especially Christ's Gospel, 129. How strict observers of Justice some Heathens have been, 128. How small esteem Justice hath in the world, 131. Motives to live justly, 134, etc. That which is not Just can neither be pleasant nor profitable, 126. v. Mercy. Justification, what, 811. The Church of Rome's doctrine, confuted, 812, 813. Faith justifieth, but none but penitents, 872. The several opinions about Justification may all be true, 1074, etc. But many nice and needless disputes there be about it, 1075. Wherein Justification consisteth, 1075. K. Keys. Power of the Keys, neither to be neglected, nor contemned, 47. Kingdoms. v. Fate. Kings, though mighty Lords on the earth, are but strangers in the earth, 532. 535. K. love not to be too much beholding to their subjects, 232. It is not expedient for the world to have only one King, 233. Kneeling in the service of God, proved by Calvine to be of Divine authority, 756. Knowledge. Want of Knowledge many allege to excuse themselves, but without cause, 437. Pretended K. how mischievous, 556, 557. Three impediments of K. 96, etc. Four ways to get K. 66. Of which Practice is the chief, 68, 69. K. is the daughter of Time and Industry, 956. What kind of K. it is that we have in this life, 678. God's ways are not to be known by us; his will and our duty easily may, 93. We should not study to know things not revealed, 248. Though the K. of what is necessary be easy and obvious, 93. 95. yet it is to be sought for with all diligence, 96. K. even in the Apostles, grew by degrees, 61. K. of all future things, if we had it, would do us no good, 789. K. of Sin. v. Sin. K. of Nature, Medicine, Laws, Husbandry, is very excellent, 656, 657. Saving K. is only necessary, 59, 60. 248. K. of Christ surpasseth all other K. 715, etc. but it must be not a bare speculative K. but practical, 723, etc. Many know the Truth, but love it not, 549. 690. Knowledge, Will, Affections, all to be employed in the walk of a Christian, 516, etc. Speculative. K. availeth nothing without Love, 517. It is but a phantasm, a dream, 518, 519. 724, 725. It is worse than Ignorance, 518. 520. 523. 690. 723. Add therefore to K. Practice, 519, 725. As K. directeth Practice, so Practice increaseth K. 520. 693. Words of Knowledge in Scripture imply the Affections, 463. Love excelleth Knowledge, 977. How God is said not to know the wicked, 173. L. LAbour is the price of God's gifts, 219. It is not only necessary, but honourable, 220. No grace gotten by us, no good wrought in us without Labour and pains, 667, etc. v industry. Sin is a laborious thing, 927. more laborious than Virtue, 928. It is sad to consider that many will not labour so much to be saved as thousands do to be damned, 928. Law. Whether going to Law be lawful, 821. Good men have always scrupled the point, 822. Cautions and rules to be observed, 822. 824. Lawful actions are sometimes to be forborn, if they be not expedient, 639. 1102. Laws, necessary for Man, 1066. Laws still are framed and given by the prevailing party, 1070. Reasons why humane Laws must needs be defective, 121. 131. If we will be just, we must do many things that mens L. enjoin not, 121. Many ways to pervert and elude the Laws, 122. 132. The Law of Nature, more firm and binding then any written Law, 124. 127, 128. How far it carried some Heathen, 1083, 1084. Laws of Men and Laws of God, compared, 168. 228. 230. The Law of God is perfect, 1088. but not so perfect as the Gospel, 1078. Christ came not to dissolve the Law either of Nature or of Moses, 1068. What arguments some Gospelers use to shake off the yoke of the Law, 1068. Some will not allow Christ to be a Lawgiver, nor his Gospel a Law, 1068, etc. What a world of Laws are they subject to that will not obey Christ's! 1070, 1071. Christ hath reform and enlarged the Law, and exacteth far more of us then the Law did, 1078, 1079. 1098. The Law of Christ teacheth us to look higher than the natural man could sore, 1084. Christ's Laws, as well as Man's, have their force and life from Rewards and Punishments, 390. 1122. Their nature and excellent effects, 1067. Whether God's Laws may be exactly and fully obeyed, 109, etc. v. Gospel. Many think Law and Liberty contrary things, and that they are never free but when lawless, 1099. But there is no liberty but under some Law, 1099. ¶ Lawgivers, the Disciples of God, 106. v. GOD. Leu. x. 10. 1033. ¶ nineteen. 17. 293. Libellatici, 1121. Libertines errors, confuted, 392, etc. v. Papists. Liberty. Our Christian Liberty wherein it consisteth, 1097, etc. Many abuse it, 640. 1103. It is restrained by Sobriety, Charity, Authority, 638, etc. 1101, etc. Men love to hear of Christian L. but not to have it confined, 691. Doctrines of Liberty, though true, yet are not to be pressed, 618. How to stand fast in our Christian Liberty, 1103. How Law and Liberty can both be said of the Gospel, 1099. etc. Obedience to Law is Liberty to Angels, to Men, to the inanimate Creatures, 1100. Lie. The Persians told their children they might lie to their enemies, but not to their friends, 134. Life of Man, short and uncertain, 356. It is too precious a thing to be prodidally fling away for a trifle, 705, 706. but it must be willingly parted with for Righteousness sake, 706. We live not indeed till our new birth, 1003. London's privileges, and London's sins, 422, 423. 920. D. Longinus, 103. LORD. This word expresseth the Majesty and Greatness of God, 103. and remembreth us of our allegiance, 114. If we will not own Christ for our Lord, he will not be our Saviour, 760, etc. 1072. v. Christ, & Jesus. Love. v. Charity, & Christ, & God. Love is the most eminent and potent among the Affections, 66. 550, 551. It's mighty force, 23. 66. 75. 192, 193. It setteth all the other Affections on work, 550, 551. It is like Fire, 550, 743. Love, Worldly, and Godly, 338. Love of ourselves, how dangerous, 856, 857. v. Self-love. They who love the World have no Love to God or Man, 890, 891. v. World. How strangely Love blindeth the Judgement, 670. That which we love is either our joy or our grief, 570. Love both in God and Man is accompanied with Jealousy, 743. What it is to love God, 1012. Its effects in the soul, 1013. It is the noblest motive to duty, 395. 743. It maketh a man earnest and cheerful in duty, 843, etc. Where Love is cold and defective, there is an irregular and inconstant behaviour, 845. It may stand with Fear, 394. v. Fear. If not tempered with Fear, it may be too bold, 396. 399. Love coupleth not only Men, but also Faith and Hope together, 242. 736. Love hath the advantage of Knowledge, 977. It is better to love good then to do it, 149. Not to love that which is good, is to hate it, 689, 690. What a strange straight St. Paul's Love of Christ brought him into, 1006, etc. 1010. Our Love should be fixed on the Truth, 672. Love of the Truth will not only burn within us, but also shine forth to others, 551, etc. Our Love of God hath inseparably united to it the Love of our Brethren, 1009. To love them that love us is but the rudiments of Charity: Christians have an higher, an harder lesson, 1087. Love of our Brother, how to be shown, 576, etc. Luk. xi. 41. 831. ¶ xii. 4, 5. 394. ¶ 32. 397. ¶ xiv. 13, 14. 690. ¶ xuj. 25 617. ¶ xvii. 10. 1092. ¶ nineteen. 41, etc. 359. 795, etc. ¶ xxii. 42. 266. Lust. v. Ignorance. Luther, 526. 682. Lutherans depend no less on Luther then the Papists do on the Pope, or on their Church, 682. The reply of a Prince to the Lutherans, 1070. Luxury. Unnecessary Arts, at first the daughters, now the nurses of Luxury, 219. Lycurgus, 231. 301. M. Madmen. v. Fools. Majesty, what, 311. Maldonate's spite against Calvine, 922. He rejected an interpretation that he held best, only because Calvine's, 671. Malice and Ign. misconstrue every thing, 961, 962. 965, 966. But their misinterpretations will not prevail against the Truth, 963. Malice against the Truth is downright or interpretative; and both must be cast away, 688, etc. Man, created and preserved by God, and why, 104, 105. 107. 115, 116. 647. 649. Why created so excellent a creature, 87. 647. His beauty and perfection consisteth in obedience and conformity to God, 107. Man is a most goodly creature, if not transformed by sin, 125, 135. By sin he is become worse than any Beast, 378. How degenerated from his original, and how to be restored, 782. How weak and indigent, 313. 938. How uneven and changeable, 383. 773. How subject to chance, 936. Other creatures can attein their ends of themselves, but Man cannot without a guide, 1066. How Christ hath honoured Man, and how he ought to honour himself, 218. He is too excellent a creature to mind earthly things, 647, etc. 653. He is a voluntary agent in the work of his conversion, 435, 436. 584-587. Man is a fair mirror to behold God in, 125. He is a theatre where the Flesh and the Spirit are fight continually, 312. 767. Every Man is a glass for another to see himself in, 936, 937. All have one common extraction, 938. In Nature's Heraldry all Men are equal, 279. All by nature are brethren, and therefore should help and not hurt one another, 123. 938. Arguments to move us thereunto, 938. What helps Nature hath supplied Man with, 939. His Body and Soul, opposite each to other, 159. His Mind, curious and restless, 218. 248. It should not be overtasked, 249. What it is that can satisfy him, 90, 91. 786. Impossible for Man to equal God, 1087. He is not to be accounted a Man, who wanteth reason, 96. The fickleness of Man's mind, whence, 554. Men love to hid their sins, and to make show of their good deeds, 167, 168. Man is never free but while he is obedient to Law, 1100, etc. v. Liberty. How Man is Lord of all his actions, 257. Man, ever laid open to tentations, how, and why, 280. Few Men fully persuaded of their mortality, 250, 251. Manichees, 8. 165. 171. 412. 705. 752. Many. v. Multitude. Martion, 8, 9 21. 23. 246. 390. 412. 808. Marry the Mother of our Lord, a blessed person, 985. Some will not call her Saint, 986. Others make her more, 986. Mark xiv. 36. expounded, 25. Marriage. v. Husband. Perfection may be had as well in a Married as in a single life, 1090. The inconveniencies of Marriage, nothing so dangerous as Sin, 1090. Martyrdom. An excellent encomium of it, 754. How to be armed for Martyrdom, 192. A good life and a good cause go to the making of a Martyr, 705. Their gallant and triumphant carriage in their sufferings, 26. 568, 569. Fear of hell made them so courageous, 391. v. Sufferings. Every Christian is designed to Martyrdom, 573. There may be a Martyrdom before Martyrdom, 82. The Devil and Error have their Martyrs as well as God and the Truth, 704, 705. 912. Some slain for throwing down Images, not allowed the title of Martyrs, 215. Massalians, 705. Mass-book. Some condemn some truths because they are in the Mass-book, 671. Masters of families, Their Duty, 545. Mathematics. No such certainty to be looked for in Ethics, as in M. 1015. Matth. v. 22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44. 1079. ¶ 48. 1087. how eluded, 690. ¶ vi. 25, 34. 222. ¶ seven. 12. 127. ¶ viij. 26. 314. ¶ x. 16. 130. ¶ xi. 30. 481. ¶ xxii. 30. 939. ¶ xxiv. Christ's Sermon in this chapter concerning the signs of his second coming nearly concerneth us, 1042, 1043. Matrimony and Virginity, weighed together, 1090. Meaning. A good Meaning or intention, a poor excuse for sin, 443. 447, 448. Means. v. End. Many gaze and dote on the Means, and regard not the end, 988, 989. Means, if not made good use of, turn to our great disadvantage, 424. 555. Measures. v. Weights. Meats now under the Gospel may be indifferently used, or not used, 1098. Maecenas, 383. Mechanic. A witless etymon of the word, 522. Meddling with other men's matters, reproved, 212. 640, 641. It is against not only the laws of Christianity, 213. but also the method of Nature, 214, 216. Meddling busy-bodies are enemies to others, and themselves also, 215. They are ridiculous and prodigious, 216. Idleness is the root of this vice, 218. Meditation on good things, how advantageous, 206. 691. It is to be seconded by Practice, 207. Meditation, what, 597. 1107. Memory. Of the Memory, 828. What a gracious efficacy the Memory of God's Mercy hath upon the soul, 828, 829. Our Memories are apt to forget God's mercies, and have need of reviving, 589. 596. ¶ What care was taken to preserve the Memory of the Saints, 1019. Mercy praised, 138. 147. It is an inseparable companion of Justice, 138, 139. We are as much bound to do acts of Mercy as not to do an injury, 139. 142, 143. Nothing more suitable to the Nature of Man than Mercy, 140. Mercy maketh Man like unto God, 279. What influence God's Mercy and ours have one upon another, 815. v. Forgiveness. Mercy maketh a sympathy and harmony in the Church, 141. Why worldly men like it not, 142. It is often rewarded in this life, but in the next infallibly, 143. The M. of the primitive Christians how far beyond ours, 144, 145. Less danger to exceed herein then to fall short, 145. Distinctions coined to elude Texts that enjoin Mercy, 146. Compassion, the spring of Mercy, 147. 149. v. Alms. To love Mercy, what, 150. Mercy is natural, 150. constant, 151. sincere, 152. delightful, 153. Objects of Mercy appear every where, 154. Motives to Mercy, 153. Our Mercy to others is the rent God respecteth for his M. to us, 154. God's Mercy and his Justice, reconciled by Christ's Death and our Repentance, 347. Why the ancient Fathers were so profuse yet sparing tenderers of God's Mercy, 349, 350. The Mercy of God, fearfully abused by some, 276. Make not Mercy an occasion of sin, 352, 353. Mercy and Judgement should compose our song, 353. Judgement followeth Mercy at the heels, 360. v. GOD. The use we should make of God's Mercies, 579. 590. 1072. Sins after Mercy, the greater, 612, 613. Mercy is of most efficacy to humble our hearts, 643. Merits. The doctrine of Merits, overthrown, 812, 813. 1126. All we can do or suffer is far short of meriting heaven, 233. 993. 1126. Messiah. Christ is not such a Messiah as the Jews looked for, and as some worldly-minded christian's frame to themselves, 33. A glorious Messiah was expected by the Jews, 553, 554. 559. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what, 336. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what, 336. Metaphors, fruitful of controversy, 46. Their use, 229. Metellus Numidicus, 668. Method and Order, how necessary to be followed, 885. as necessary in Christ's School as in humane Arts and Sciences, 68 947. Want of Method what mischief it worketh in the world, 892. etc. 945, 946. Meum and Tuum, quarrelsome words, 840. Milk, by some not allowed to be eaten, 752. Mind. v. Man. The Mind is the Man, and the action too, 622, 623. It cannot intent several things at once, 509. Whether it be not necessary that the Mind should still fluctuate and be lost in uncertainties, 678. The Mind is apt to be dazzled with some lesser good when it should be intent upon far greater, 988, 989. Ministers must not flatter, 511, 512. v. Flattery. Miracles. v. Conversion. The end and use of Miracles, 572, etc. 957, etc. 968, 969. 978. 988. In respect of the Agent properly there is no Miracle, 969. Why M. are now ceased, 970. Of Popish Miracles, 970. He that will not believe the Word, would not believe a Miracle, 734. 970. What Christ did in person he doth still spiritually by his Church, 970. Christ's Miracles preferred before Moses', 978. Christ's M. were supernatural, public, quick, perfect, 979. Miracles should fill us with admiration, 979. Miracles may be scoffed at by profane men, 956, etc. Misery, to be chosen rather than Iniquity, 127. Mockery. Most men's conversation is but a Mockery of God, 919, etc. 958. How wicked men are said to mock God, who in very deed cannot be mocked, 923, etc. God will return the Mock upon them that mock him, 925. v. Scoff. Moderation, to be observed, 56. Moderation in the pursuit of Knowledge, commended, 248. Modesty in apparel, to be used, 1101. Monitors we should be to one another, 576. Monks and Friars, censured, 220. v. Perfection, & Solitary. Montanus, 65. 752. Morality, scorned and derided by speculative hypocrites, 83. Moral Laws. v. Ceremony. Moral virtues are not natural, 199. but must be studied and laboured for, 205. Of the Moral virtues of the Heathen, 663. v. Heathen. Morose. v. Christianity. Mortality. Of our Mortality, 538. How little believed, 538. Moses, how excellent a person, 4. Mourning and Grief how they differ, 560. How behooveful, 563, etc. How it worketh upon the Understanding, 566. the Will, 567. and the Memory, 567. It worketh comfort, 568, 569. How the primitive Christians gave themselves to it, 567. Why and how we should mourn, 570, 571. The usual expressions of Mourning, 560. Mouth. The M. must confess Christ, 764. and the Heart must believe what the M. saith, 765. Multitude of professors, no sure note of the true Church, 837. 855. 971, 972. Yet a M. of professors is a glorious sight, 837. The prayers and service of one single person are acceptable to God; how much more than of a multitude? 838. Our care should therefore be to provoke and gather Multitudes (if we can) to God's service, 852. For foolish or wicked ends Multitudes are soon gathered, 852. Multitude therefore is rather a bad sign then a good one, 971, 972. Murderers of Mothers, gentlyer dealt withal then Murderers of Wives, why, 292. Murmuring. v. Complaint. Mysteries, not to be sounded to the depth, 5, 11. 53. The knowledge of them can be no other but Faith, 734. N. NAked. Why God made Adam first naked, 888. and clothed him with skins afterward, 538. Nature, one and the same in all, 123. v. Law. She runneth her course constantly and cheerfully, 844. She teacheth to forsake sin, 325. v. Heathen. Nazianzene. A strange wish of his, 66. His Mother Nonna's charity to the poor, 144. Her reverend behaviour in God's house, 758. Necessary points, easy to be known, 95. 599. 664, 665. 866. 1084, 1085. Nothing necessary but what is in our power, 581. No man necessarily either good or evil, 585, 586. 666, 667. Necessity and Convenience, in civil acts one, 3. Every thing hath its necessity from us, not from itself, except one, 17. Of the Necessity and contingency of events, 408. Others Necessities are a glass to behold ourselves in, 140. Nero, 79. 621. 1055. v. Philosophy. Nestorius, 8. Newfangledness in Religion, whence, 98, 99 Newness of life. v. Resurrection. Nonna. v. Nazianzene. Novations, how far from that purity they boasted of, 344. how harsh and unmerciful, 344. Of their Error about Penance after Baptism, 349. Novatus, 848. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometime signifieth the Will, 336. NOW is the accepted time, 363, etc. 793, etc. v. Opportunity, Repentance, Time. Numbers some find mysteries in, 249, 971. No efficacy in Number to prove a cause or a man good, 837. 971, 972. O. OBedience. Of the blind Obedience of the Papists, 1091. Obedience to Superiors is not against Christian Liberty, 639, etc. 1102. It never faileth where Charity faileth not, 59, 60. What kind of Ob. God looketh for from us, 111. 606, 607. It must be universal, 316. 373. 378. 831. 1000 even and constant, 316. 380, etc. 880. 1111, etc. sincere and real, 317. speedy, without delay, 361. 730, 731. 879. ready, without reasoning and disputing, 451. exact, 609, 610. like that of the Angels, 993. v. Angels. Some take-up and content themselves with a parcel, curtailed, slight Ob. 373. 787, 788. But that will not serve God's turn, nor ours, 374, etc. 378. Many are wont to allege want of power to excuse their want of Ob. 111. 117. But perfect Ob. is not absolutely impossible, 109, etc. 119. v. Impossibilities. Obedience is easy to such as are not unwilling, 112. and not only easy, but also pleasant, 113. Though our Ob. cannot merit, yet we must obey, 993. 1126, 1127. Motives to Ob. 116. Our Ob. is our Liberty, 1100. 1118. God often mentioneth his favours to move us to Ob. 590. Evangelical Ob. is the only way to blessedness, 991, etc. Christ's Death is a singular motive, 471, 472. Of all the motives to Ob. God's Glory is the first, 1008. v. Omniscience. Obligation. There be several sorts of Obligations, 816. Our Obligation to God, 806, 807. Occasions of sin, not to be dallied with, 261. Offenders, v. Thiefs. Offence, not to be given to weak brethren, 638. Old men's Temperance and Repentance, what to be thought of, 592, 593. Many Old men, though weak in body, yet are strong and active in sin, 593. How old sinners act their sins over again, even when they are passed acting, 357. Omnipotence, incongruous for a mortal, 789. Omniscience. Belief of God's Omniscience, the strongest motive to obedience, 164. 167, etc. One. We are all one, 840, 938, etc. Nature maketh all one, 938, 939. Christianity and Charity make us more one, 939. Every Christian duty tendeth to preserve Unity, 841, etc. Love especially knitteth the knot, 843. Envy, Covetousness, Pride dissolve it, 842, 843. Saints are at one with God, and one amongst themselves, 939. Opinion only setteth an esteem on outward matters, 85. v. World. Opinion prevaileth more with most than the Truth, 526, 527. We must not be wedded to our own Opinion so as to be averse when better is offered, 677. Opportunity, its etymology, 355. Opportunity of doing good, by no means to be let slip, 355. 363, etc. 793, etc. Nothing more advantageous, 355, 356. To neglect it, the greatest folly, 356, 366. 793. v. Repentance, Time. Oppression and Deceit, arguments not of Power and Wisdom, but of the contrary, 136. v. Injustice. Order. v. Method. How beautiful and necessary in Nature, in the Commonwealth, in the Church, in an Army, in every thing, 419. 640, 641. in Arts, in Studies, in Christianity, 885. Ordinances, if abused by us, may justly be taken from us, 303, etc. Original weakness and corruption, commonly alleged for an excuse of actual sins, 427, 428. 446. Few understand what it is, 429. Several opinions about it, 430. Be it what it will, we are bound to crucify it, 430. Be it what it will, we are now sanctified and washed from it, 431. Origen's kindness reached to the very Devils, 339. Outward worship. v. Worship. P. PApists. They are wont to demand of us a catalogue of Fundamentals, 1084. How unreasonably they declaim against Marriage, 1090. Of their vows of Monkery, Poverty, Virginity, and blind Obedience, 1089, etc. Why the Ancients gave these so large eulogiums, 1091. How they even idolise the B. Virgin, 986. Upon what pretence they keep the Scripture from the Laity, 1094. Vain boasting of the Popish Church, 420. How the P. are blinded and enslaved by Prejudice, 680, etc. There are who condemn some truths because the P. teach them, 671. We must not out of opposition to Popish errors run into worse, 374. 1127. We must not so fly Popery as to become Libertines, 993. 1127. The best way to confute the P. 401. Papists and Libertines, compared, 1079, 1080. Both enemies to the Gospel, 1079. both alike dangerous, 1080. v. Popery. Parables. Why our Saviour spoke so often in Parables, 1017. Pardon of sin, the greatest engagement to duty, 612, etc. 872, etc. 1100. Begging of Pardon is a promise of repentance, 614. v. Mercy. Passions are good or bad, as they are placed, 387. Passions swallow up one another, 554. v. Affections. Paul, like Proteus, putteth on any shape for the advantage of others, 505. St. Paul's example, though not to be reached by any, is to be followed by all, 1020. Peace. True Religion hath less outward Peace then that which is false, 709. v. Quiet. Pentecost, the feast of the Law, and the feast of the holy Ghost, 760. The wonders of that feast, 955. v. Tongues. Whether the miracle at Pentecost were in the ears of the hearers or in the tongues of the speakers, 956. The end of that miracle, 957. Arguments to clear the Apostles from the scoffers charge, 960. How the Apostles then, though not drunk, might seem to be so, 961. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what, 560. People. v. Priest. The people are much taken with shows, 1055. Perfect, what, 1073. Perfection many love to hear of, but few strive to be perfect, 691. What Perfection God requireth; and we must strive after, 606. The Perfection required of us is not like that of God, nor that of the Angels, 1085, 1086. The difference between Legal P. and Evangelical, 1086. Arguments to prove that we may be perfect, 1088. Perfection twofold; of Parts, of Degrees; both atteinable in this life, 1088, 1089. Some confine P. to Monks and Votaries, 1089. Some place it in Poverty, 1089. some in Virginity, 1090. some in blind Obedience, 1091. P. may be atteined by any person, in any condition, 1089 1092. Rules of Perfection, 1092, 1093. We must never think we are perfect enough in this life, 1095, 1096. Perfectionists, though haply they mean well, trouble the Church, 395, 396. Permission of sin, whether it signify that which some say it doth, 407, etc. v. Sin. That which is permitted is not good, 869. Permission, no sign of approbation, 684, 685. 712. Persecution of the godly, ordained by God, 697. It serveth for the trial of their graces, 698, etc. 982, 983. Many who now pass for Saints, would perhaps prove apostates, if Persecution should arise, 698, 699. The Church is then most herself when Militant and under Persecution, 701. P. is a great privilege and advantage to the Church, 701, 702. The Providence and Wisdom of our heavenly Father is wonderfully shown in it, 703. It is requisite we should this way be fitted for heaven, 703, 704. We ought not to wonder at it as a strange thing, 709, 710. Nothing maketh Persecution appear dreadful but love of the World, 710. How to arm ourselves against P. 711. The Persecutor maketh the Martyr happy, but himself miserable, 712. Motives to patience under Persecution, 713. v. Martyrdom, & Sufferings. Perseverance, necessary, 1111. Whether it be a distinct virtue from other graces, 1112. P. is not certain, 1114. The denial of the certainty of Perseverance neither depriveth the true Christian of his comfort, nor derogateth from God's power, 1115, 1116. If we persevere not to the end, all our beginnings are nothing worth, 1114. Only Perseverance crowneth us, 1113. Arguments to Perseverance, 380, etc. 1113. Persuasion, how powerful, 912. 1107. 1109. Fancy, an unruly faculty, 526. how to be dealt with, 527. to be checked, 393. Pharaoh, how said to be hardened by God, 412, 413. Pharisees, not so ancient as Josephus saith, 1079. Some account given of them, 1051. Phil. two. 13. 588. Philosophy. Why Nero's Mother would not let him study Ph. 823. What arguments Philosophers used to comfort themselves in their misery, 449, 450. Philosophy cannot show us the way to heaven, 716, 717. To be a Philosopher in word, and not in deed, is most hateful, 372. Phinehas. Of his zeal, 526. Photinus' opinion about Christ, 9 21. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what, 645. Physician. v. Ignorance. Pictures. We are oft more moved with the Picture than the thing, 1017. Piety is older than the world, and will outlast it, 73. It is never out of season, nor out of place, 73. nor ever to be dispensed with, 73. v. Religion. It is most precious, and must be greatly laboured for, 77. It is so venerable that the very show and shadow of it pleaseth, 77, 78. It is most proportionable to the soul of Man, 87. yea, of every man, 88 It is lovely in the eyes of all, even of its enemies, 89. 553. 662. 876. 991. 1125. It alone can satisfy, 90. It sweeteneth misery, and maketh it advantageous, 91. and maketh wealth useful to the highest ends, 92. It is best learned by practice, 68, 69. It is to be practised by all, people as well as Priests, 555. It is confirmed by practice, 1117. 1119. v. Practice. Pilgrimage. We are all Pilgrims, 531, etc. v. Stranger. A P. exhorted to, 532. Place. v. Worship. Plato, 508. Please. To please men and to serve Christ are incompatible, 496, etc. 509, etc. Most men desire to be pleased, 497. 975. The causes of this humour, 498, etc. The danger of it, 501, etc. Every man is pleased with his own course, 500, 501. What Pleasing of men is lawful, 504, 505. 513. what unlawful, 505, 506. Every Pleasing of the Sense is not sin, 505. We should desire what will profit rather than what will please, 506. 512. Men-pleasers, their original, 507, etc. Pleasure. v. Riches. All are naturally addicted to Pleasure, 561. Nothing more hurtful, 562. It is very short, but leaveth long grief behind it, 563. Pleasure's blind our Reason, & infatuate our minds, 566. sway the Will to forbidden objects, 567. and make us forget God and ourselves, 567. The Heathens censure of the Christians abstinence from Pleasures, 565. Pope. Every man is born with a P. in his belly, 158. 631. The Pope's Infallibility & Supremacy uphold each other, 158. 631. The Pope and the Enthusiast, both alike infallible, 527, 528. Popery. A caution against P. as a Religion framed to please the Flesh and worldly Desires, 650. Marks of the Popish Church, examined, 681. 971, 972. v. Papists. porphyry's profane speech of Daniel, 166. Poverty. Perfection, not to be placed in Poverty, 1089. Poverty, no sure token either of God's love or hatred, 295. 620, 621. Povertie's sting, Impatience, 903. To bear Poverty well, a great piece of piety, 903. v. Riches. Why God maketh one poor, another rich, 141, 142. The Poor, though they cannot challenge it, yet have a right to our goods, 140-143. Power, serviceable to noble ends, is oft most horribly abused, 594. There is neither Power nor Wisdom in Oppression and Fraud, 136. Practice. v. Knowledge, & Profession. Practise of Piety enableth us to go still forward, 1117. It is much hindered by fruitless disputes, 1018. v. Disputes. Praedestinatiani. Their opinions, 392, 393. Praise, how greedily sought after, 318. Prayer. It's nature, 1052. It is a service very acceptable to God, and very prevalent with him, 692. Prayers and Praises are good, though private, but best when public, 580. The single Prayers of one, not so powerful as the joint prayers of a multitude, 838. Many pray, and pray, and do nothing, yet are very secure, 435 Prayer for the dead, the Papists Corban, 132. Prayers will be sure to speed, if we ask what God would have us, 271. Preachers. All may not preach and teach in public, 293. Who they are that commonly gain most respect, 534, 535. Precepts. The ancient Christians used to collect moral Precepts out of Ethnic Philosophers, 129. God's Precepts though shut up sometimes in a word, are of a large extent, 452. 474. They are fitted to our Reason, and so are no sooner seen but approved, 991. And, when embraced and kept by us, they fill our hearts with heavenly joy, 992. Precepts are a slower way of teaching then Examples, 1016, etc. Precepts oft are contained in Examples, 496, 497. What to do when Examples cross Precepts, 526. No Precept without a Promise, 1069. Some lift up themselves at the Promises, but tread the Precepts under foot, 1069. Prejudice, what, 675, etc. The tyranny of Pr. is worse than the rage of the Affections, 676. The great mischief it doth, 679, etc. 975. How heavy it lieth upon the Church of Rome, 680. The Reformed Church is not quite clear, 681. 974. It shutteth the door against the Truth, 974. etc. Preparation, necessary before Christian duties, 478 Presumption and Hope, how different, 354. Pr. is a main hindrance of Conversion, 342. It is more dangerous than Despair, 349, etc. It maketh a man abuse the Mercy of God, the Merits of Christ, and the Means of salvation, 350, etc. 765, 766. 793. How apt men are to presume, 396. 400. 434. By what steps Presumptuous sinners rise to that height, 170. Arguments against Presumption, 351. Pretenders to the Spirit, dangerous persons, 683, 684. Pride is the Daughter of Self-love and Ignorance, 483. It is even natural to Man, 157. 630. Any thing, nothing, that which is worse than Nothing will make him proud, 630. The mischief that Pride doth, 483. 856. It maketh a man incorrigible, 158. 631. No vice so dangerous as spiritual P. nor any that we are more prone to, 160. 633. A large character of P. 1053. It's cure, 483. Pride of Man, to be expiated only by Christ's Humilty, 6. Priests are not (as some profanely think) the only persons that are tied to live strictly, 555. Priest and People have one and the same way to heaven, 89. Primitive Christians Devotion we now are more apt to censure then follow, 455. 566. 758. 981, etc. What austerity and abstinence they exercised, 565, 566. How devout they were in building and adorning Churches, 850. Privileges, if abused, undo us, 424. Procrastination of Repentance. v. Repentance. Profaneness, a more dangerous sin then Superstition, 981. v. Superstition. Profession of the Gospel is necessary, but not enough, 764. Inward Persuasion must go along with it, 765. and constant Practice, 766. Many profess Christ for fashion, & for company's sake, 759. 763, 764. Profit is a lure that calleth the most after it, 899. Young men's minds run less upon Profit then old men's, 899. Nothing Profitable but what is also Honest, 126. Promises and Threaten, motives to obedience, 398. Pr. are conditional, 543. 1069. Some confound Promise and Precept, 1069. Let none promise himself what the Gospel promiseth not, 607. Why God promiseth earthly blessings, 899. Such promises must not make the godly presume that they shall be exempted from common casualties, 901. God oft performeth these promises to his children, though they perceive it not, 902. Prophecies, a clear proof of Divine Prescience, 166. Prophet's speak as they were moved by the H. Ghost, 324. Many evil men have had the spirit of Prophecy, 549 Prosperity, no sign either of a good man, or of a bad, 295. 620, etc. 684. 712. It commonly doth us more hurt than Affliction, 295. 671, 672. 712. Prosperous villains, what they get, 215 217. Prosperity of sinners should not offend us, 115. Prosperity of the wicked, no good argument against God's Providence, 298. 351 684. Prosperity, a better time to turn to God in than Adversity, 363. 799, 800. Prov. xv. 24. 646. ¶ xxi. 25. 355. Providence of God, past finding out, 93. 189. 684. 703. Why man cannot judge of it, 298. It shall be manifested at the last day, 239. Psal. v. 12 591. ¶ li. 5. 1040. ¶ lxxvii. 9 opened, 22. ¶ cxix. 513. ¶ cxxxix. 14. 104. Punishment. Reward and Punishment are the two pillars of both Commonwealth and Church, 1122, etc. P. followeth Sin as Harvest the Seedtime, as Wages the Work, 929. And herein are manifested the Justice of the Providence of God, 930. God hath appointed particular punishments for particular sins 931. He sometimes punisheth per legem talionis, 931. Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all, 365. 612. v. Laws. Fear of Punishment, necessary, 387, etc. v. Fear. If less Punishments prevail not, God will inflict greater, 610, etc. Q. QUestions. The various use of Questions in Scripture, 108. 385. 727. They add oftentimes great emphasis and force, 70, 71. 385. Needless Questions to be let alone, 94. Many Questions in Divinity we may be ignorant of without danger, 866. Quiet. To be quiet, what, 198. 200. Many seem Quiet persons, and are nothing less, 198, 199. 211. Some are Quiet perforce; but, assoon as the curb is out of their jaws, most turbulent, 199, 200. Quietness is an Evangelical virtue, 201. How much of this in the primitive times, how little afterwards, 203, 204. But let whoso will be unquiet, true Christians are not, cannot be, so, 204. Quietness is to be laboured for, 205. and made our meditation, 206. and practised, 207. Self-love, a great enemy to Qu. is to be cast out, 207. and so must Covetousness, and Ambition, & Evil-surmising, 208. Three things cannot be disquieted, 209. This virtue is truly religious, Christian, honourable, 209. The best way to be Quiet, is, to abide every man in his own calling, 212 Every thing is Quiet in its own place, 214. The unquiet condition of Tyrants, 215. 217. Quintinus, 415. R. REad. Ingenious ways of teaching children to read, 1016. Reason alone is not a sufficient guide to happiness, 716, 717. Yet it must not be thought useless in matters of Religion, 686, 687. It's office is to rule the Affections, 206. v. Self-deceit. It is a light but obnoxious to fogs and mists, 959. 973. The Affections daily change, but right Reason is still the same, 687. Reason it is not, but sensuality, that leadeth us to sin, 330. 337. 428. 973. v. Nature. Affection swayeth most men more than Reason, 534, 535. Rebuke. v. Reprehension. Recreation, 618. redemption. Before we were redeemed, we were slaves to Satan both by way of Sale and of Conquest, 740. and slaves to Sin, 741. How Christ redeemed us, 741, 742, It cost more to redeem us then to make us, 763. Though Christ have fully redeemed us, yet something must be done by us, 739. 741, 742. 763. 872, 873. Universal Redemption, how far allowable, 29, etc. Reformation. Reformers of the Church, though men of B. memory, haply had done their work much better, if they had been more moderate, 133. Where our Church was before, 286. Wherewith the Papists charge the Reformed Church, 401. Regeneration. v. Resurrection. Regenerate men may sin with a full consent, 439, etc. Relapses into sin, how dangerous, 380, etc. 614. Whether they cancel God's former pardon, 381, etc. 613, 614. How apt men are to relapse, 383. Religion, much talked of, little understood, 273. Religion indeed, what it is not; and what it is. 70, etc. v. Piety. It's essential parts are, To do good, and To eschew evil, 274. Why St James in his description of pure Religion doth not mention Faith, 275. nor Prayer, nor Hearing of the Word, 276, 277. True R. is pure, simple, solid, ever the same, 282. undefiled, 282, 283, It hath God alone for its Author, 284. From the corruption of men's lives proceed the corrupt mixtures in Religion, 283. Popish R. is the invention of men, 284. and so is that of hypocritical Zelots, 284. Religions that comply with the Sense are to be abhorred, 650, 751. R. is to be taken up upon better inducements than Law and Custom, and Education, 756. 760. How shameful and sinful it is not to love and embrace the R. which hath its original from God, 285. The persuasion of God's almighty Power, the first rise to R. 313. True R. is never the less true though none profess it, 286. 298. If it were in power, it would put an end to wars and contentions, 286. It should direct us in all our ways, 653. It is the same in Riches or Poverty, in Marriage or Virginity, in a Cell or a City, 1091. v. Godly. All sorts of men may be Religious, if they will, 88 Religion cannot suffer with the professors of it, 298. If it could suffer, it would suffer more by the sins of its professors then by the sword of its enemies, 298, 299. Why R. hath many professors, but few friends, 75. 77. Many of the Reformed Church make R. serve their corrupt ends, 651. Some men's R. dwelleth only in the ear, 221. Against such as place R. in Fasting, Prayer, Hearing, and Formalities, 1060. Religion, sometimes made a pretence for most irreligious practices, 287. 1060. Of such as alter their R. according to the times, 98. Alterations of Religion, difficult, 968. The world is wont to judge of R. by its state and spreading, 298. v. Church. Remembrance of Christ at the Communion, what, 463. If we remember him, he will be sure to remember us, 466. The Word must be remembered by us, 1116. Remission. Great difference among Christians about it, 811. The Heathen counted it a folly in Christians to believe it, 811. It is not the effect of our Merits, but of God's free Mercy in Christ, 811, etc. How comfortable, how inestimable a favour, 813. Into what posture we must put ourselves to receive it, 813. It most strongly obligeth us to duty, 822, etc. Repentance, a lesson too high for the School of Nature and the books of the Heathen, 324. Tully thought it impossible, 325. Julian scoffeth at it, 326. It is God's own invention and injunction, 325. Nothing pleaseth God like it, nothing without it, 325. It is a precept, not absolute, but upon supposition, 352. He is best who needeth it least, 350. R. is a Turning from our evil ways to the Lord, 328. 374, 375. v. Turning. Knowledge of Sin, and a necessary ingredient of R. 329, etc. and so is Grief, 331. and Confession, 333. and Desire to be rid of sin, 333, 334. and a serious Endeavour to leave off sinning and to live well, 334. What true Repentance is, 335. 340, 341. It includeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 335. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 336 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 336. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 336. In R. the main Turn is of the Will, 336, etc. Many aim at R. few hit it, 339, 340. There is an outward and an inward part of R. and we must perform both, 340, 341. Why God calleth so earnestly for it, 341, etc. Two great lets of R. Despair and Presumption removed, 342, etc. How late and false and lame most men's R. is, 354. We must repent without delay, 335. 360. 1002, etc. v. Advise, Delay, Opportunity. To do otherwise is to be guilty of extreme folly, 356. 366, 367. Delay maketh the duty more difficult, 356, 357. 366, 367. 793. Yea, if the present time be not taken, a time may come when thou mayest not be able to repent, 359. 794. Arguments to make the opinion probable that such a time there is, 357. 360. 365. 795, etc. Though it be an error, it may be happy for thee to believe it, 359, etc. 795. Now, even now, without procrastination, let us repent, 361. 366, etc. 373, etc. 1001. We must hearken to good motions that God stirreth in us, and not check and choke them, 361, etc. 798, 799. Better to repent when God shineth upon us then when he thundereth against us, 363. 799, 800. But if that acceptable time have been let slip, yet at least let us turn to him in our trouble, 364. 800, 801. v. Judgements. God hath promised a blessing to R. at all times, but not power to repent when we list, 797. What use we are to make of the example of the good Thief and other late Penitents, 797. It is just with God to punish continuance in sin with final impenitency, 797. Our R. must be sincere, 369, etc. Feigned R. hath its rise from false grounds may make a fair show, but is soon at an end, 370, 371. It is worse than no R. 372. An Ahab's, an Herode's, a S. Magus' R. will not, must not, serve our turn, 372, 373. Our R. must be total and universal, 373. 600, etc. It must be lasting, and hold out to the end, 380. Relapses into sin after R. very grievous, 380, etc. v. Relapses. The course God taketh to bring us to R. 385. Fear first setteth us on repenting, 389. How necessary a qualification R. is of a worthy Communicant, 489. Some make R. an occasion of sinning more, 614, 615. The doctrine of R. to be preached warily, 349, 350. Whether the Papists do well to make R. a Sacrament, 340. Reprehension is a duty incumbent on all, 293. Neglect hereof interesteth a man in the sins of others, and also in their plagues, 293, 294. Reproof seemeth to be against us, but its end is peace, 841. Resolution. The mighty force of a well-setled Resolution, 839. We are for the most part resolute in evil, but weak and wavering in good things, 852, 853. Respect. No Respect of persons with God, 213. Resurrection. v. Christ. Christ's Resurrection, an exemplary and efficient cause of ours, 719, 720. Our dead bodies, notwithstanding all alterations and dispersions, shall be raised again, 720. R. of the dead is the very life and soul of a Christian, 995. Deny this, all is vanity and vexation, 995. The R. of the Soul, that was dead in sin, by the power of Christ's Resurrection, described, 721. In this we must do something, though we are merely passive in that of our Bodies, 722, etc. He who hath no part in the first R. shall have none in the second, 996. Newness of life, often called Rising, 997. The woeful state of a Soul not yet risen from the death of Sin, 997. Our Conversion may be styled Rising, because this World may go for a grave, 998. and because, as in that of the Body, so in this of the Soul, there will be a change 999. and that universal, of every part, 1000 In both our corporal and spiritual R. God is all in all, 1001. yet in that of the Soul we are bid to do something, 1001. It behoveth us rather to inquire Whether we are willing to be raised, then How we are raised, 1001. Our spiritual R. should be early and without delay, 1002. etc. We must manifest our spiritual R. by our good Works, 1004. and by our Affection to the things above, 654. Revelation. Of the Book of the Revelation, and its Interpreters, 244. Rev. i. 12-18. paraphrased, 36. ¶ xiv. 13. 709. ¶ xx. 6. 244. Revenge, though perhaps allowed by the Old T. is forbidden by the New, 1079. It is allowed by Philosophers, etc. is forbidden by the Gospel, 202. It is an act and argument of impotency, 820. Reverence, What, 460. Some allege Reverence to excuse their neglect of Communicating, 459, 460. Reverence and Obedience must go together, 462. Reverend gestures in God's service, not to be blamed as Idolatrous, Popish, superstitious, 963. R. though by some held superstitious, is comely and necessary, 162, 163. 745. 755, etc. and to be used in our service of God, 634, 635. v. Form, Humility, Worship. Where there is Devotion, there is also a Reverend deportment, 755. 757, 758. 981. It is due in God's house in respect of the Angels, 857. and of Men, both good and bad, 858. Covetousness and Sacrilege drive Reverence out of the Church, 755. Some questions for them to answer who scruple outward R. in the Church, 757. Irreverent persons arguments answered, 859. v. Irreverence. The Papists say of us, That having no Reverence, we have no Church, 757. The Reverence of the primitive times and that of this Age, how different, 757, 758. 981. Rewards, the most powerful Rhetoric, 636. v. Laws. Riches, and Honours, and Pleasures, the creatures of our Fancy, 32. v. World. These even Reason teacheth us to contemn, 126. 134. Why God giveth Riches, 139, etc. Neither do Riches invite Christ, nor Poverty exclude him, 974. Our Riches are then most ours when we part with them to the poor, 142. For we are Stewards rather than Proprietaries, 140. 142. The best use of Riches, 143. R. how abused, 594. 620. etc. As Riches may be a snare, so Poverty may be a gulf, 1089. R. may be an instrument of Perfection as well as Poverty, 1090. R. are not, as the World accounteth them, certain signs of God's love, 619. They are held Necessaries, and Ornaments of Virtue, yet are not so, 620. but rather an hindrance to it, 620. and helps to evil, 621. Yet they are not so in themselves, but men make them so, 621. 897, 898. Rich men are admired and even adored in the world, 616, 617. but a Woe is denounced against them by God, 616, etc. Pelagius' opinion, That no Rich man can be saved is a wholesome error, 618. What it is that draweth the Woe upon the Rich, 622. That Rich men may escape the Woe, they must cast away their Riches; but how, 622. 1090. Riches must be brought into subjection to Christianity, 622. We must not set our hearts on them, 623. 1090. We must contemn them, 623. or else they will make us contemn our brethren, 623. and draw contempt on us, 624. We must be jealous of ourselves that we love them too well, 624. How R. should be looked upon, and handled, and used by us, 625. 896, etc. Right hand; v. Christ. Righteous. The R. sometimes suffer with the wicked, and why, 291, etc. They are often preserved in public calamities, 294. Though they taste of the same cup with others, yet it hath not the same taste to both, 294. v. God's people. Righteousness. Many call that Righteousness which is quite another thing, 867. 883. 891, 892. The R. of the Heathen, though it could not save them, yet shameth many among us, 868. The R. of the Jews, very weak and imperfect, 869. The R. of the Scribes and Pharisees, what, 869. Legal and Evangelical R. how different, 870. Christ's imputed R. vindicated from misinterpretations, 870, etc. The R. of Faith, what, 872. What R. the Gospel requireth of us, 873. Many challenge the name of R. who bid defiance to the thing, 873. Imputed R. should be a motive to Inherent R. 872, etc. 993. Many conceit they are Seekers of Righteousness, when they are not, 875. To name R. yea, to commend it, is not enough, 876. Neither is Hearing of R. (as many think) enough, 877. No, nor bare Praying for it, 877, 878. Seeking of R. is To have a Will ready to entertain it, 878. and that, a cheerful, quiet, Angelical Will, 879, 880. and a Will that is constant and regular, that will make us seek R. sincerely, as God seeketh our happiness, 880, 881. If we seek R. aright, we shall still be sensible of our want of it, 881, 882. we shall love and affect it exceedingly, 882, and shall be kept from it neither by flattery nor affrightments, 883, 884. R. is to be sought in the first place, before the things of this life, 884, etc. If we seek it not first, we seek it not at all, 890. What a world of wickedness proceedeth from seeking these things before Righteousness, 891, etc. But they who first seek R. cannot doubt of a sufficient portion of these things, 900. Rom. i 28. 3. 9 ¶ seven. 19 879. ¶ viij. 15. 397. ¶ 28, 29, 30. 697. ¶ ix. 3. 1007, 1008. ¶ xi. 20, 21. 392. Romans. They having been at first all for handsome servants were afterwards as much for dwarves: applied, 651. Romish. The R. Church counteth all goats that are not within her fold, 319. S. SAbellius, 5. Sabinus. Calvisius Sabinus, a man strangely conceited, 870. 993. Sacraments. A Sacrament must be immediately instituted by Christ himself, 451. Out of Christ's side came both the Sacraments, 469. How quarrelled by many, 582, 583. They are highly to be honoured, 303. v. Word. They are too highly esteemed by some, too little by others, 81. Sacrifices, no essential part of God's service, 70, 71. not really good, & in themselves but only as commanded, 72. Why the Jews were commanded to offer S. to God, 72. v. Ceremonies, & Outward worship. The Sacrifices of Christians, 83, 84. A broken heart, the best S. 325. Chastity, Temperance, Patience present our bodies as a S. unto God, 749— 754. Sacrilege once was a sin; now some count it a virtue, 581, 582. Against S. 848, 849. 854. Saints, as St. Hierome saith, never called in Scripture inhabitants of the earth, 536. How to be honoured by us, 1021. Some forsooth will not allow the title of Saint to the Apostles and Martyrs, & yet take it to themselves, 1022. They are no less Saints because canonised by the Pope, and idolised by the Papists, 1022. Let us bless God for them, and follow them 1022, 1023. How they are to be followed, 525, 526. We should not fright ourselves with the difficulty and impossibility of imitating them, 1023. In the best Saints there is some sin and error, 1025 etc. Their examples may do much good, and much hurt, 525, 526. Men are apt to imitate their vices, and to mistake their virtues, 1025. Their memory how carefully preserved of old, 1019, Their Examples, to be followed now, 1020. but no further than themselves followed the Rule, 1025, etc. v. Examples. Whether a Saint can fall finally from grace, 1112, etc. Salvation, where to be found, 34. v. Save. Samson. Of his kill himself, 526. 1 Sam. two. 25. 289. Satisfaction, none from the Creature, 537. 786. only in God, 787. 1124. Satisfaction for sin we cannot make unto God, 325. Of Popish Satisfaction, 340. Save. God can, but will not, save us without ourselves, 434, 435. 628, 629. 722. Saul. v. David. His sparing some Amalekites, applied, 602. Scandal, not to be given to weak brethren, 639. 1102. Schisms and Sects, whence, 641. 676. Schisms proceed from want of Charity and Prudence, 59 from Envy, Covetousness, and Ambition, 842, 843. Schism is the first step to Apostasy and Atheism, 581, 582. a sin not to be expiated by Martyrdom, 853. A religious man can hardly be a Schismatic, 853. Scholars. Great Scholars sometimes come short of plain Christians in faith, 734, 735. Scipio Tettus, an Atheist, 705. Scoff. Of all expressions of distaste a Scoff is the worst, 955. It oft ushereth in Persecution, 187. Scripture, a complete and perfect rule, 58. 524, 525. v. Gospel. It is to be read diligently, 96. Who is the best reader of it, 412. It's business and end is to draw our minds from earth to heaven, 646. It is plain and easy in matters of practice, 933. and necessary points, 1084, 1085. v. Necessary. Obscurer places; like to the Sun in winter; the plainer to the Sun in summer, 600. One part must be expounded by another, 831. Corrupt passions make men interpret S. to serve their purposes, 97, 98 It is wont to be wrested by wicked men to countenance their sins, 222. 287. 349. 951. Scripture, the only shop of comfort, 948. etc. Comforts drawn hence are general and solid, 949. We must be very careful how we gather & apply comforts from thence, 950. for many are forward to misapply them, 951. Scripture-comforts are milk and honey to the humble soul, but deadly poison to the impenitent, 951. Season. Outward things have their proper Season, but the Practice of godliness is at all times seasonable, 1002. Secure persons, awakened, 434, 435. 502. Sedition and Schism, whence, 641. Seducers craft, 506, 507. Seeking of God, what, 789. v. GOD. Oh that we would seek God as he seeketh us! 881. Seek Righteousness. v. Righteousness. Self. v. Wrong. Self-conceit, most dangerous, 160, 161. 633. 1028. Self-deceit causeth a world of wickedness, 912, 913. disgraceth our Profession, 913. etc. aggravateth our sin, 916. deserveth no pity, 916. The Self-deceiver chideth down his own Reason, 916. Rules to avoid Self-deceit, 933. Self-denial, how necessary, 789. 867. Self-love, what, 1047. Self-love is lawful, but abuse maketh it a great sin, 1047. how pernicious, 207. 481, etc. 557. 856. 1046, etc. Its remedy, 482. Self-opinion, of how ill consequence, 556, 557. Sell. v. Tradesmen. The Romans, when they sold any thing, were to discover its faults to the buyer, 128. 659. To sell the Truth, what, 693. Semiramis, her tomb, 559. Sending doth not always imply subjection, 56, 57 Senses, the windows of the Soul, at which Sin and Death enter in, 261, etc. to be carefully watched, 264. Their wonderful frame, 246. 727. Tentations may enter the S. without sin, 264. 270. The S. though they beget not Faith, may help to confirm us in it, 727. That of Seeing is the principal, 727. Tertullian blameth the Academics for questioning the S. 727, 728. Sermons. Hearing of S. nothing worth without practice, 221. 277. S. used in London on sundry occasions, 422. Serve. God serveth us more than we serve him, 50. To serve our brethren is no disparagement, but an honour to us, 57 God would be served with that which we value most, 850. God is to be served with both soul and body, 160-163. 632— 635. Private Service of God is good, but public is better, 2. In our Service of God we must not rest in the work done, 451, 452. We must prepare ourselves beforehand, 478 Servant of Christ, a most eminent title, to be made good by us, 509 The duty of Christ's Servant, 510. He must follow his Master, 510. If we serve not Christ, oh how many tyrants will rule over us! 511. One Servant cannot have many Masters, 509. Servants are not to interpret but to execute the will of their Lord, 511. Seven, a mysterious number to some, 249. Shame is an effect of Sin, 1038. and should be a means to prevent it, 1039. but by the policy of Satan it is made a cloak to cover it, 1039. What use we should make of Shame, 1038, 1039. The Devil casteth-off all shame of sin, 1038. Showing Christ's death, what, 473. Sickness. Our advantage by it, 565. 592. S. is a far worse time to serve God in then health, 593. How much more easily we perceive our Sickness then our sins, 480. Signs of Christ's second coming should awaken us to repentance, 1045. Though never so many appear, Atheists and Epicures regard them not, 1046. Self-love maketh men unfit and unprofitable spectators of them, 1047, 1048. as also doth want of faith, 1048, etc. Signs wrought but in few a belief of Christ's first coming, and they now work but in few a fear of his second, 1046, etc. Sin, and Sinners. Sin is an aversion from God, and a conversion to the creature, 328. It is a deformity in Nature, and a breach of Order, 930. Sin hath for its original neither God, nor the Devil, nor our own Nature, but our own Will, 424, etc. How S. is conceived & brought forth, 260, etc. 270. 280. Our Senses, Thoughts, Fancy, Appetite may be set on objects that occasion Sin, and yet without Sin, 264, etc. Sin is not always the effect of Infidelity, but sometimes of Incogitancy 771. It was necessary Man should be subject to S. but not that he should sin, 603, 604. The doctrine of the Not-possibility of avoiding Sin, if it be true, not fit to be published, 605. Whether there be a possibility of not sinning, 602, etc. ¶ Sin, of all things, is good for nothing, 443. It doth all the mischief in the world, 444. Every Sin is unnatural, unreasonable, & maketh a Man worse than the Beasts, 378 Sin is a spot and defilement, 280. How it polluteth, 167. 1019. v. Creature. It's poison is like to that of the Asp, 1037. Death is the wages of Sin, 445. It is the nature of S. to dig a pit for itself, 931. It resembleth Hell, and naturally tendeth to it, 932. Sinners wilfully run into hell, 932. We should not sin, though we might gain heaven by it. 378. Though thou have but one sin, turn from it: for it is of a monstrous aspect, 378. Though but one, it is fruitful, and may beget another, 379. Though but one, it deserveth, and may pull down temporal punishment, 379. Though but one, if not forsaken, God will punish thee eternally in hell for it, 380. 610. And thy punishment shall be the greater there by reason of the sins of others whom thy example shall have made to sin, 380. Sinners oft escape men's laws, 233. but Christ's they shall not, 233 The sinner is most foe to himself, 119. Sinful lusts drown and darken the mind. 97. quite transform a man, 125. Little difference betwixt a Devil and an obstinate Sinner, 722. Better to suffer then sin, 126 131. There is a proportion between Sin and Punishment, 929. 931. Punishment of Sin manifesteth the Justice of the Providence of God, 930. and conduceth to the good of the Universe, 930. ¶ How Sin gaineth strength by delay, and groweth upon us, 357. 414. 793. 922. 983. If we give way to one Sin, we are likely to give way to more, 1120, 1121. Sins of Omission lead to sins of Commission, 456 What an empire Sin hath and exerciseth, 358. 741. 767. Sin, the worst Tyrant, 741. 1098. How old men act over their sins in their age, 357. How bold men make nothing of Sin, 923. ¶ Divers names that Sin hath in Scripture, 805. None expresseth it so lively as Debts 805. A fourfold analogy between Sins and Debts, 805, etc. An account of the woeful gain we make by Sin, 807, 808. The penalty of Sin, 808. The fearful gashes and torments that Sin maketh in the heart of a sinner, 809. 1097. What miserable remedies Sinners use to appease their unquiet consciences, 946. v. Conscience. It is far easier to avoid Sin then to get rid of it, 809, 810. One difference between Sins and Debts, 810. What we do when we pray Forgive us our trespasses, 811. v. Remission. God, when he forgiveth, doth not make that to be no sin which was a sin, 871. All the virtues in the world cannot wash off the guilt of one unrepented sin, 375, 376. 378. 812. 813. Mortal Sins will not be blotted-out by Martyrdom, 707. What S. Christ will bear with, what not, 319. God's pardoning of former Sins maketh those we commit afterwards more grievous, 380. 612, 613. Sins after reconcilement revive those that Repentance had covered, 381. 613, 614. ¶ Original Sin alleged to excuse actual, more than is fitting, 427, 428. 446. Our being bidden daily to beg pardon implieth not a Necessity of sinning 110, 111. 604. v. Vice. Some call their obstinate perseverance in sin Infirmity and Weakness, 456, 457. Men are wont to cloak their Sins with honest names, 499. For none so much a Sinner as to be willing to be accounted so, 500 Some say that the foulest Sins advantage rather than endanger the Elect, 755. Many applaud themselves that they abstain from some Sins they observe in others, 601. God's Permission of Sin, how understood by some, 407, etc. How God permitteth Sin, since he hateth it, 410, 584, etc. Other apologies that men use to shift-off their Sin, 432, etc. as, I. Want of help and assistance against it, 433. 447. II. Ignorance, 436. etc. 447. v. Ignorance. III. Checks of Conscience, Remorse, and Unwillingness, 439. 447. The different way of Sinning of the Righteous and the Wicked, 439. The Godly, when they have sinned, cannot plead that they have sinned against their will, 440. Sin against Conscience is exceedingly the more sinful, 441. iv A Good meaning cannot palliate Sin, 443. 447, 448. How men are wont to excuse their Sins, 171. 499. 1034, etc. That which can be excused is not a Sin, 1029. Excuse aggravateth Sin, 1029. 1040. To seek to hid our Sin is far worse than to commit it, 933. Sinners either despair, or deny, or lessen, or confess, or excuse their Sins; whereof Confession is good, the rest naught, Excusing worst, 1035, 1036. To excuse Sin is natural, 1036. more natural then to commit it, 1038. ¶ Every man is not equally inclined to every Sin, 376, 377. 601. 1038. Every man hath his beloved Sin, 378. What sins be inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace, 603. How far a Saint may abstain from Sin, 603. A little Sin may become a great one, 603. How it cometh to pass that lesser Sins have more power over us then greater, 607, 608. Many content themselves with avoiding great and gross Sins, 607— 610. We must watch and fight against the least Sin, 610. It is easier not to taste Sin at first then to forbear it afterwards, 614 Men will revile Sin, and pray against it, and yet not leave it, 787. Many are forward censurers of the Sins of others, and take no notice of their own, 377. We must not so shun one Sin as to dash upon another, 374. Sick and aged persons do not so much forsake Sin as it forsaketh them, 592, 593. All Sins must be forsaken 600. Sin is most sinful in a Christian, 417, 418. ¶ Tentations to Sin, how to be overcome, 270. Sin appeareth ugly even by the light of Nature, 325. 330. Sin must be known before it can be left, 329. We do know many Sins, and might know more, 330. Many Sins are secret, and not taken notice of, 331. but these we must fear, and hate, and beg pardon of, 331. Secrecy is the nurse of Sin, 167. Men study to conceal it. 167. We must search and find out our Sins of what sort soever, 483, 484. It is an easy thing to see Sin, but hard to leave it, 484, 485. Affliction bringeth Sin to remembrance, 567, 568. All punishments suppose Sin, 586. Fear bringeth us to the sight of our Sins, 387, 388. Fear curbeth us from sinning, 390. Prosperity maketh Sin not appear, 610. Sin cannot be sufficiently kerbed & prevented by humane Laws, 168. nor by checks of Conscience, 169. Many condemn Sin in others, and practise it themselves, 169. Hard-hearted sinners nothing will work upon, 253. Causes of men's growing resolute in sinning, 90. ¶ The way to get rid of our Sins is penitently to confess them, 1040, 1041. David, thought to have gone rather too far in confessing his sins, 1040. Saul's Sin, and David's, compared, 1030. Whether one in the state of some mortal Sin can perform a good action, 375. 601. Many men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sin, and repent, and sin again, 383. Relapses make us more inclinable to Sin, and backward to Piety, 614. To sin without shame is to be like the Devil, 1038. v. Shame. Every wilful Sin, a step to Apostasy. 1121. To have sin, what, in St. John, 602. Sinners themselves cannot but think well of Virtue, 89, 90. v. Piety. Our Sins were they that crucified Christ, 29. The Gospel is the sharpest curb of Sin, 1065. Of Speculative Sins, and Sinners, 172. Sincerity, necessary in all our actions, 369. Slavery. None comparable to that under Satan and Sin, 740, 741. v. redemption. Sluggards awakened, 220. Sobriety, to be observed in our diet, and Modesty in our attire, 639. 1101, 1102. Socrates, how jeered by Aristophanes, 372. Solitary. Whether the solitary Retiredness of Monks be, as they count it Perfection, 1089. Solomon, how painted, 1069. Of his ECCLESIASTES, 534. SON. The Son, of all the three Persons, fittest to be our Mediator, 4. 13. God hath four sorts of Sons, 4. Sophocles reproached Euripides, 372. He thanked his Old age for freeing him from Lust, 593. Sorrow, good, and bad, 338. Worldly S. worketh death, 564. Sometimes it ushereth-in Repentance and Comfort, 564. Soul. v. Body. The Soul should be set on heavenly, not earthly things, 646, etc. The Scripture commandeth so, 646. The Soul is too noble to mind the earth, 647. Nothing below proportionable to it, nothing satisfactory, 648, etc. Every man ought to take care of his brother's Soul, 576. The Soul is far more excellent than the Body, and therefore chief to be cared for, 886. Its riches and ornament, what, 78, 79. It's original, hard to know, 94. Soldiers. What S. should do, what not, 920 Speech. The manner of ou● Speech varieth with our mind, 385. Out of the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh, 976. Many speak fair, and mean foul, 764, etc. It is a shame to pretend Religion, and to be ashamed to speak out, 981, 982. v. Confess. Spirit. That the SPIRIT worketh is evident, but the manner of his working cannot be discerned, 315. Some presume the Sp. teacheth them immediately, without, yea, against the Word, 683, 684. What it is to Glorify God in the Sp. 744. 748. A pretence of the Sp. and a pretended Zele, the two grand impostures of the world, 528. Many laying claim to the S. we are to try them by the Scripture, 527 529. v. H. Ghost. Spirits cannot be defiled by intermingling with bodies, 166. The fight between the Spirit and the Flesh, described, 159. 312. 632. 707. Spiritual things far transcend temporal, 884, etc. 887, 895. Stimula, a Goddess among the Romans, 341. Stoics, condemned for choosing Death rather then Misery, 1011. Strangers. We all are but Strangers on earth, 530, etc. The Word of God is our best supply in this condition, 531. That we are S. here, proved by Scripture, 536. and by reason drawn from the Insufficiency of all things here to satisfy Man's mind, 537. Yet few believe the point, 538, 539. Our Enemies in this our Pilgrimage, 539. Our provision, and our defence, 540. How we should behave ourselves as S. 540. We ought to look on all things in the world with the suspicious and jealous eye of a Stranger, 541. Strength. Attempt nothing above thy Strength, 249. 250. Student. The Student's calling, not so easy as other men think, 223. SUB, the Preposition, much descanted upon, 637, etc. Subjection we like not, but must yield it, 637, etc. Subordination, necessary in Bodies natural, , Ecclesiastical, 640. Success many make an argument to prove themselves and their ways good, 684. But good or ill Success is not an argument of God's love or dislike, 712. Sudden surprisals, what effect they have upon us, 254. Sufferings for Christ's sake, most comfortable, 568. Suffering for Righteousness is the highest pitch of a Christian, 695. One may suffer for one virtue, & neglect the rest, 704, etc. One may suffer for Pleasure, for Profit, for Humour, for Fear, for Honour, and yet be no Martyr, 705, 706. v. Martyrdom. What shall he do who, having not yet repent of his grievous sins, must either suffer present death; or deny the Truth he believeth, 707, etc. Superiors. v. Obedience. Superstition, what, 462. We must not cry it down in others, and cherish it in ourselves, 462. Many for fear of S. shipwreck on Profaneness, 982. But we must shun them both, 758. Supper, the LORD's Supper, not absolutely necessary, 81. not to be given to Infants, nor to the Dead, 81. How slight a preparation serveth many men's turn, 81. It is ridiculously abused by the Papists, and very grossly by others, 449. 462. In this Sacrament we must look I. on the Author, Christ, 450. and not be offended at the meanness either of the Minister, or of the Elements, 451. II. on the Command of Christ, 451. which must be so observed as not to rest in the outward action, 452. Motives to invite us to the Lord's S. 452. This holy Sacrament fitteth our present condition, 452. The manifold and great benefits we receive by it, 453. 473. 490. 493. 495. The heavenly joy it putteth into our hearts, 453 It is necessary for us to come, and that often, to the Lord's Table, 454. How oft the primitive Christians did receive, how oft we should now, 454, 455. Excuses for not communicating, removed, 456. He that loveth his sin, and will live in it, sinneth if he come, and sinneth if he come not, 456. Every Penitent is a fit Communicant, 456. and so is every true Believer, 456. Not only great Proficients, but even Beginners in Christ's School (whatever some say to the contrary) may, yea, aught to come to the holy Table, 458. A conceit of our own Infirmity should not keep us away, 456-459. 463. Neither should a conceit of the high Dignity of the Sacrament do it, 459, etc. 476. They who abstain out of reverence seem to condemn them that are more forward, 461. and their refraining may keep others away, 462. How we ought to remember Christ at his Table, 463, etc. 473, etc. Then especially is our Faith to be actuated, 465. 475 489. Then we must examine and renew our Repentance, 465. 476. 489. This Sacrament if received to a wrong end, is not food, nor physic, but poison, 467. Christ's Body and Blood are not received corporally, but spiritually, 468. To receive Christ's flesh corporally would profit us nothing, 468. Three manners of eating Christ's Body, Sacramental, Spiritual, Sacramental & Spiritual, 473. We must come with Faith, Hope, Love, Repentance, Reverence, 475, etc. 489 Preparation, necessary, 478 487. How negligently and inconsiderately many come to this Sacrament, 479. 487. v. Examination. What our Preparation should be, 485, etc. 834. This Sacrament is a feast of Love, ●92. and none but they that are in Charity should come to it, 490, etc. 834. whether some should be set apart to examine others before admission to the Lord's Supper, 494. With what reverence the ancient Christians received, 768. Wretched we, if feeding so oft on Christ in the Sacram. we continue in our sins! 813. Coming to the Lord's Table is a protestation of Faith and Repentance, 769. 814. What kind of Protestants then are they who neither repent nor believe! 814. We should at the H. Table be like unto men on their deathbeds, 814. Suspicion. We must not be apt to suspect others, but we cannot be too suspicious of ourselves, 624. Swearing. The Lawfulness of S. is a point but sparingly to be taught, 618. T. TAutologies. Their use in Scripture, 342 Temperance, v. Sobriety. Temporal things, v. Spiritual, and Worldly. They are given by God to uphold the Body, 896. & also to be instrumental to the Soul, 897. Why Temporal blessings are not so oft mentioned in the N. T. as in the Old, 899. To whom the right of these belongeth, 900 God withholdeth these from us ofttimes in great mercy, 902. Neither to enjoy nor to want these things is pleasing to God, or profitable to us, but to know how to use, and how to want them, 903. Tentations, what, and how they become prevalent, 260, 261. None can prevail over him who is watchful, 259. The beginning and progress of T. 261. 270. T. are not only occasions, but also Arguments, 261, 262. Some work upon us with a smile, 262. others with a frown, 263. T. may be in the Senses, yea, in the Mind, without sin, 264. and in the Fancy, 265. That we may overcome the Tempter, let us compare the apparent good he offereth with that which is real, 269. T. must not be slighted nor dallied with, 270 T. work according to the humours and tempers of men, 376, 377. 601. We must not thrust ourselves upon T. 1118. Tertullian pretended Revelation for justification of his errors, 62. Thales, 415. Themistocles, 216. 1 Thess. two. 10.119. 2 Thess. iii. 10.222. Thiefs. A Thief, who, 220. Petty Thiefs are oft snapt-up, but the greatones none dare meddle with, 133. Thoughts are not free, but as visible to God's eye as Actions, 172. Good Th. are to be cherished, 361, 362.798, 799. Evil Th. are (but should not be) very active and powerful, 362.798. Th. how wavering & inconstant. 596 Our Th. when overbusied about some lesser good, should be diverted to that which is necessary and saving, 988, 989. Threaten and Promises sense-in Precepts, 398. v. Rewards. God threatneth that he may not punish, 323, 324. Thurisicatores, 1121. Time is nothing to God, nor in itself, 238. 1043. With God there is no difference of T. but all things are present, 1043. Times are not for us to know, 250. Better to spend the present T. well then to busy ones thoughts about the future, 250, 251. How very little of our T. is spent in spiritual exercises, 271. Time must be taken while T. serveth, 355. v. Opportunity. There is a T. when a man shall not be able to repent, 359, etc. 794, etc. v. Repentance. Nations have their set T. and so have particular persons, 359, 360. 795, etc. Very good to think every day, hour, moment, our last, 361. The present T. is the proper season to turn to God in, 361, etc. 366, etc. It is a part of Prudence to make choice of fit Times and seasons, 1002. There is no T. amiss to turn unto God. 1002. 1 Tim. two. 8.847. ¶ v. 8.222. 2 Tim. i 12.314. ¶ two. 5.282. ¶ iii. 10.222. ¶ 16, 17.1073, ¶ iv. 3.876. Tit. two. 11.584. Titus the emperor's worthy saying, 279. Tongues. Of the gift of T. at Pentecost, 956. There is an harmony between the Heart and the Tongue, 976, 977.983. Trades, many unnecessary & unlawful, 219. Tillage and Husbandry, the first T. 219. Motives to industry in our T. 521, 522. v. Calling. Worthy Persons have not disdained mean T. 522. The honest mean Trades man is more honourable than the profane Gallant, 528. What Tully thought of those Tradesmen that buy to sell again, 655. Traditions, how magnified by the Church of Rome, 1079, etc. Traditores, 1121. Transubstantiation, v. Lord's Supper, Trial. v. Examination. Tribute, how sordidly raised by some Princes and States, 131, 132. Trinity, why not plainly discovered to the Jews, 349. Trust. Bad, bold men were they who said, We will trust God with our souls rather than Men with our estates and lives, 673. Why men trust in the Creature for health, wealth, victory, & not in God, 783, 784. Truth. It's Author, and effects, 57; 58. Why so few learn it, 65. Four rules for the atteinment of it, 66, etc. Worldly men take Divine Truths for mere speculations, 113 T. is the most offensive thing in the world, 187. 656. 659. How it is persecuted by the world, 187. Love of the T. maketh a man ready to suffer for it, 192, 193. 550. God is then most glorified when we lay down our lives for the T. 754. Curious enquiry after things impertinent hinder our finding-out of the T. 248. To press some Truths is sometimes more dangerous then to maintain some errors, 349. The worst hearts have some seeds of Divine T. 371. T. is hated by most because like a Satire it lasheth them, 438. 498. v. Error. T. must be taught & received without mixture, addition, subtraction, 506, 507. That Error is most dangerous that cometh nearest to the T. 507. T. is to be spoken whatever cometh of it, 510. 982, 983. T. is seldom welcome unless we like him that teacheth it, 534, 535. T. is still the same, whether she have many advocates, or none; yet we have need of light to discover it to us, 547, 548. 971. v. Knowledge. Love of the T. resembled to Fire, 550. v. Love. T. striketh a reverence into those who neglect it, 553. 662 1125. T. is to the Understanding as Colours to the Ey, or Music to the Ear, 554. T. is a purchase all may, all aught to buy, 657. 661. What the Truth Prov. xxiii. 23. is, and how much it benefiteth us, 658, etc. No Truth so necessary to be known by us as that, 659. It's transscendent excellency, 660. It is proportioned to the Soul of Man, yea, of every man, 661. v. Piety. It is lovely in the eyes of all, even of theirs who oppose it, 662. Without this, Riches, moral Virtues, outward Performances will nought avail us 663. On what terms the T. is to be purchased, 664. T. is easy and plain to all but such as will not learn, 664, 665. T. was never more pure than while it was contained in one short Creed, 665. T. will not be had by Fate or Chance; we must bestow great pains for it, 666, etc. Why so few make this purchase, 668. How highly some Heathens valued T. 670. We must part with our corrupt Affections, as Love, Hatred, Fear, Hope, for the Truth, 670, etc. Yet these are not to be quite parted with, but made serviceable to promote the T. 672, etc. If we will buy the T. we must cast away all Prejudice, 675, etc. 974. v. Prejudice T. is not prejudiced by the antiquity of Error, 681. If we would get the T. we must not tie our belief to any man, or to any Church, 686. but make use of right Reason in the business, 686, 687. If we will buy the T. we must cast away all Malice to it, 688, etc. We must receive it, not by halves, but whole and entire, 691. We must meditate on it, 691. pray for it, 692. and exercise & practise it, 693. What a foolish bargain they make who sell the T. 693, 694. T. is invincible, & will prevail at last against all enemies, 963. 966. 971, 972. Why T. findeth so difficult entertainment among men, 973. Tully. Of his son, 987. Of his murderer, 1121. The act of that unthankful bloody villain Popilius, applied, 602. Turks. An odd practice they use when they are going to fuddle themselves, 916. Turning is the best & fullest word to express Repentance by, 329. It includeth Knowledge of Sin, 329. v. Repentance. Tyrants. v. Quiet. Tyridates, 583. U. UNbelief maketh men cowardly, restless, succourless, 314. Understanding. v. Will. It's proper office, 337 It is either the best counsellor, or the worst, 689. Unity and Union. v. One. Wicked men and Heretics may unite and combine to disturb the peace of the Church, 855, 856. Unjust men are enemies to God and others, but to themselves most, 119, 120. Unworthiness, alleged by many for an excuse of their keeping away from the Lord's Supper, 456, 460, etc. Urim and Thummim. The Conscience resembled to it, 330. 1037. V VAin. God and Nature make nothing in vain, 786, 787. Vainglory, largely described, 1054. How greedily it is sought for by most, 318. Valentinus, 12. 65. His opinion of Ch. 8. 11. Valiant & Audacious, how they differ, 1118. Vice is troublesome; Virtue only, pleasant, 113. View. The Author's View and Censure of the Court, Camp, Temple, City, Country, Church, Christendom, 920. A Virgin, what, 282. Virginity and Matrimony, laid in the balance together, 1090. Perfection is not tied and married to Virginity, 1090, 1091. Virginity is afraid of nothing more than itself, 1114. Virtue. v. Sinners. Virtues, both private & public, necessary, 196. 197. 224. 667. Virtue, not acquired without study and difficulty, 205. 335. It is the main end Of Man, and may be exercised in any estate, 620. It's praise consisteth in action, 630. 757. Moral Virtues without Godliness, little worth, 663. v. Heathen. Many commend Virtue, and commit Vice, 690. No Virtue is truly a Virtue, if alone and without the rest, 831. Volusian, 11. W. WAlk. What it is to Walk in Christ, 520 To Walk with God, what, 164. Four sorts of men who walk not with God, 170, etc. A Christian man's life is a Walk, 512. 516. It supposeth Knowledge, Power, Will, 516, etc. v. Way. Want is not want, if we want not righteousness. 903. The Godly still complain of their spiritual Wants, 881, 882. War and Contention, how mis-beseeming Christians, 60, 61. War, some ways advantageous to a Commonwealth, 564. Though War sometimes be lawful, it is safest for some to think otherwise, 618. Wars would cease if true Religion once took place, 286. Wary most are in things of this life, but careless of what concerneth the other, 319 Watchfulness, what, 257, 258. It containeth the whole duty of man, 256. No enemy could be too hard for us, if we were watchful, 259 261, 262. 608. That we may be watchful, we must learn to know both ourselves, 259. and also our enemies, 260. We must set a watch over our Senses, 264. our Thoughts, 264. our Fancy, 265. & our Inclinations & Desires, 265, etc. Rules to confirm us in our Watch, 267, etc. That we may watch, we must pray that the Lord will watch over us, 271. And having prayed, we ourselves must do our utmost endeavour, 271, 272. Wavering. Against wavering in Religion, 558. v Inconstancy. Whether the Mind can be free from Wavering, 678. Way. The Way to heaven should be made neither wider nor narrower than it is, 607. Many know the W. of life, 517. and approve it, 518. and think they walk in it, and yet do nothing less, 519. Weights and Measures, by whom first found out, 131. Whitmore. Sir George Whitmores' Encomium at his Funeral, 544. Wicked. None so Wicked but he desireth to seem good, 991. v. Sin. How Wickedness destroyeth even the principles of Goodness, 688, 689. It is a laborious & distracting thing, 927. Wicked men rejoice in the sins and miseries of others, 862, 863. What we are to think of God's protecting them, 115. They are the fittest instruments to chastise God's people, 299. v. God's people. They cannot infer from God's employing them thus, that themselves are his servants, 300. The consideration, That God chooseth Wicked men for his executioners, should make us wary not to provoke him, 300. Will. The Will is free, 260. She is Queen of the other Faculties, 516, 517. The W. may be free when the Power is limited, 927. It is the beginning of good and evil, 337, 338. No man is good or evil against his W: 584, 585. The best might have been bad, if he would; and the worst, good, 586. Man's Will is the cause of Sin and Death; and neither God, nor the Devil, 424, etc. No man that hath sinned can say he willed it not, 440. The W. finisheth sin, but provoketh it not, 260. The W. especially is turned in Repentance, 336, 337. The renouncing of our W. is the best holocaust, 789. 790. If the W. turn, the Understanding and all the other Faculties turn to their proper functions, 337, 338. When the W. is overlaid with Passions, it cloudeth and blindeth the Understanding, 959. 972, 973. The W. & Understanding both must be captivated, 160, etc. 633. There is variance often between them, 662. Our W. should ever be the same with God's, 305. To Will that which is good is more than to Approve, 878, etc. The W. passeth current with God when the Deed cannot be had, 118. 149, 150. 473. How God willeth what wicked men do, 301. Wisdom. v. GOD, Knowledge, Truth. Be not wise in thine own conceit, 160, etc. 633. To be so, is the greatest folly, 501. The world still accounteth rich men wisest, 534, 535. The W. of the World how it befooleth men, 904. They are not wise who are wise to do evil, 131. 136. True W. is to be wise against ourselves, 867. Wit. It's right use, and its abuse, 594. Woman sometimes signifieth Infirmity, 971. Women, of strong affections, but weak understanding, 393. Wonder. v. Admiration. Word. Some Words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unfit to be spoken, 409. W. and Works must go together in a Christian, 767, etc. Good Works are our best expressions, 766, etc. The W. of God, commended by many, obeyed by few, 970. slighted by Papists & Libertines, 1079, etc. 1085. He that will not believe Christ's W. would not have believed his Works, 970. The W. of God will not deceive us unless we deceive ourselves first, 524. The W. and Sacraments are highly to be honoured, but not so as to be made the NON ULTRA of our worship, 303. v. Hearing. Works. v. Word. World. God was not forced to make it, nor is the better for it, 404. Worldly things have no worth but what our opinion & desires set upon them, 32. 85. Yet with Christ they become something, 32. v. CHRIST. They serve both to support the outward man, 896. & to be weapons of Righteousness, 897, 898. God promiseth them to win our love to himself, 899. What is the best course to get them, 900. No true comfort to be found in the W. this shop of Vanity, 948. Nothing in the W. no, nor all of it, can satisfy Man's heart, 90, 91. There is no proportion between any Worldly thing and the Soul, 87. The W. cannot make one happy, 619. nor rich, 86. v. Riches. He that doth most good, & receiveth least of this W. good, is the most happy, 619. With what eye we should look upon the W. 625. We should be jealous of every thing in it, 541. All in this W. is deceitful, 674. all vain & transitory, 887. v. Spiritual. These things are nothing like when we have them to what they were before, 888. There is great danger in seeking them, 888, 889. They are not to be loved, 49. Love of the W. is a dangerous guide; 653. 892, 893. It seduceth more than all Heretics & Schismatics, 665. We cannot love the W. & God both at once, 509, 510. 890, 891. Who fittest to teach the Contempt of the W. 533 Many cry-out upon the World whose hearts are set upon it, 533. The W. without us could not pollute us, were it not for the W. within us, 279, 280. Worship. Reason teacheth to set apart places for God's W. 581, 582. 846. (v. Church.) and to W. God with our bodies, 756. 981. No Religion, whether true or false, can be without outward W. 757. Some Questions put to such as will not w. God with a bare Head and a bended Knee, 757. Though inward Devotion be the chief, yet outward W. must not be neglected, 160-163. 632-635. 744, etc. 755, etc. 980, etc. Why many are for outward W. few for inward & spiritual, 108, 109. Outward W. when rested in, is most odious to God, 74, etc. v. Formality. Wrong. He that wrongeth either God, or his Neighbour, wrongeth himself most, 119. 125. & maketh himself debtor to the wronged party, 716. v. Injustice. Z. Zele. Our Z. should burn, but with the oil of Mercy, 155. v. Spirit. We must be careful our Z. be rightly kindled, 558, etc. Speculative, fantastic Z. how to be accounted of, 528. Heretics may be as Zealous as the Orthodox, 679. Zeph. i. 7. 299. FINIS.