SIXTH SERMON preached before the King and Queen, IN Their MAJESTIES chapel at St. James's, upon the first Wednesday in Lent, Febr. 24. 1685.  
By the Reverend Father Dom. PH. ELLIS, Monk of the Holy Order of S. Benedict, and of the English Congr.  

Published by His Majesties Command.   
LONDON, Printed by Henry Hills, Printer to the King's most Excellent Majesty, for his household and chapel. 1686.   

SIXTH SERMON preached before the KING and QUEEN, Upon the First Wednesday in Lent, February 24. 1685.  
Viri Ninivitae surgent in judicio cum generatione ista,& condemnabunt eam: quia poenitentiam egerunt in predicatione Jonae. Matth. 12.41.  
The Men of Ninive shall rise at the Day of judgement, against this Generation, and condemn it; because they repented at the Preaching of Jonas. Matth. 12.41.  
THE Holy Fathers( most Sacred Majesty) taking a general View of the sinful World, and diving into the Causes of its Irregularities and Corruptions, divide Sinners into three Classes or Degrees. The First consists of such as offend out of Ignorance, proceeding from a criminal neglect either of their own, or of their Teachers. The Second is composed of such as fall through Infirmity and Inadvertence; whose Lapses are less hurtful, and more easily recovered. In the last are ranged the Impenitent and Obdurate, who wanting neither Knowledge of their Duty, nor Divine Assistance to comply with it; neither Strength to stand firm, nor Grace to recover their footing when they are down, stretch themselves on the Ground, fall asleep in the Mire, rest because they will not Think, and owe their Ease to their Insensibility.  
To the First sort of these Men we Preach, that they may be enlightened; For the Second we Pray, 
Aug. in Enchir. cap. 38.  that they may be strengthened; But the Last, says St. Augustine, we turn over to the Justice of God, as sinning against the Holy Ghost: for, Such as will not shake hands with their Errors and darling Vices, 
Bern. Serm. ●. Advent.  says St. Bernard, will not stretch forth their Arms to embrace the Truth when it presents itself before them, are seized with a mortal Lethargy, nay with obstinacy of Devils, Obstinatione Diabolica; and It is a folly, adds Hugo of S. Victor, 
Hugo Victorin. de Inst. Novit. cap. 14. Eccle. 1.15.  to go about to Convert them; Obstinatos corripere insipientia est. Indeed the Scripture warns us that it is a hard Province; Perversi difficile corriguntur. But while the Holy Ghost only declares it very difficult to reduce the Obstinate to a sense of their Misery, the same words that seem to disencourage the Undertaking, gives hopes of the Success. For tho' we red of a Nabal so inebriated with Wine and Pleasures, that neither the peaceful Admonitions of a friendly David could persuade, nor the Power of an incensed Enemy could terrify him, when Destruction was almost at his Gates: Tho' we red of a Pharaoh so infatuated with Pride and Presumption, that neither the smooth Tongue of Aaron, nor the rough Hand of Moses; neither the Eloquence of the one, nor the Chastising Rod of the other, could mollify him, when the Judgments of God poured in upon him like a Torrent: In fine, tho' in this Gospel we behold one of the most astonishing Pieces of Obduracy in the Jews, who after a Devil ejected out of a Possessed Person, and this before their eyes, and this demonstrated to be performed by the Power of God, still call for a Sign: Yet after all these Disencouragements, I will not despair of this Generation, since a Ninive was converted at the Preaching of Jonas; since a Ninive not only did Pennance in Sackcloth and Ashes, but also Preaches it to this Generation, before she rise in judgement against it. If I should compare this Generation to the Ninivites; this Metropolis of our Kingdom, to that Head and Seat of the Famous Assyrian Monarchy, it might be a compliment in any other Subject then that of Impiety: But if the Comparison were drawn upon the Resemblance of our Lives, it would relish too much of the satire; and therefore neither to disgust nor disencourage my Audience, I am desirous to make the Parallel upon our Repentance. Secutus es errantem, sequere poenitentem, said once a great Preacher to a great Offender, but a more Illustrious Penitent. If we have transcribed the Lives of the Ninivites with all their Faults, let us not be ashamed to correct and blot out the Errata: If we have followed close at their Heels in wicked Courses, let us not be ashamed to aclowledge we are tired in the ways of iniquity, and sit down with them, if not in Sackcloth and Ashes, at least to repent. We have the same Opportunity, it was at a Sermon; the same Necessity, as severe Punishment threatened, with this addition, that those individual Persons shall rise in judgement against us; the same Method chalked out to us, with this advantage, that it was successful to them, and will certainly be so to us. Their Sorrow was hearty, their Pennance was exemplary, their Repentance was speedy. The last of which shall be the peculiar Subject of my Second Part: the other Two shall be discoursed in my First; while I endeavour to bring the History of their Conversion home to ourselves, after I have begged the Assistance of the Holy Ghost, the Author of Repentance, by the usual Address to Innocence, have Maria.  

The men of Ninive shall rise, &c.  
IT is obvious to every one within These Walls, that the Son of God made this terrible Commination not only to strike a Terror into his Auditors, but also to raise in them a wholesome Confusion; not only to reproach their Stupidity, but also to animate them to a generous Emulation; protesting, that if the Ninivites could not be an Example to provoke their Repentance, they should one day become their invincible Accusers. And to what end does our Holy Mother the Church yearly repeat this Passage of the Gospel, and daily inculcate the Sense of it, but to invite her Children to an Imitation, as the only Plea remaining, as the only Defence we can make against such a cloud of witnesses, who will certainly bear us down, and convict us at the Day of judgement, if they prove not our Instruction in this Day of Salvation.  
Ninive, the Capital City of the Assyrian Monarchy, was the Babylon of those Times, Emasculated with a long Peace, Effeminate with Ease, dissolved in Luxury, banqueting, and Wantonness, under the Reign of a Sensual Prince, a Sardanapalus, whose Life, says the Historian, was more soft and infamous, then his Name; turpior vitâ, quam nomine; and whose Example had so corrupted the Manners, and stisted the Warlike Genius of his People, that they were no longer formidable, but for their horrible Excesses; no longer Masters of the World, but by drawing others into an imitation of their Crimes; no longer the Brave Assyrians, but for defying Heaven, and assailing the Throne of God, not as their Predecessors with the Tower of Babel, which they could not finish; but with the height and enormity of their Sins, which they brought to a point; 
Jon. 1.2.  Ascendit malitia ejus coram me; Their wickedness is come up before me; and reaches to Heaven. Now it was high time for Justice and Mercy to enter into deliberation, whether this Seduced People, and Seducer of Nations, should out of hand be converted or destroyed; but while the one was preparing its Thunder and Lightning, its showers of Fire and Brimstone, the other dispatches a Herald to warn them of their approaching ruin. But the Prophet Jonas, the Man pitched upon to carry the unpleasant Message, out of a human Prudence, and too warm a Zeal, declines the Office. He was unwilling to expose his Master's Honor, and his own Person, among a People where he was like to be so little considered, that the God was as unknown as the Prophet. But if possible they should own his Character, and take the Subject of his embassy into consideration, That yet forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed, probably they might repent, and more then probably God would pardon them if they did so, and Ninive would not be destroyed, and by necessary consequence Jonas must bear the Ignominy, if a false Prophet; which once detected, as it must be if the judgement follow not the Sentence, the very Motive of their Conversion would prove a dangerous Temptation to return to their former Impiety. Wherefore the Prophet finding no other way to avoid the Points of this Dilemma, not only flies from the Employment, 
Jon. 1.3.  but also hopes to escape from the face of God; he puts to Sea, makes all the Sail he can, and steers his Course as wide from the cost of Assyria, as the Wind and his Fear could bear off. When behold, the Storm he would not prognosticate to others, was gathered over his own Head! Besides his own Guilt, the Divine Hand points him out as the Occasion of it; yet he chooses rather to be cast overboard, then to tack about and make for Ninive; and tho' a Whale was ready to receive him to that end, yet his Will and his Prayers ran so strong the other way, it was three Days before she could unload her miraculous burden upon the detested Shore.  
But he was no sooner out of the Whales Belly, then he enters into himself; and terrified with the Idea of the Dangers he had passed, admiring his own no less wonderful Stupidity, and revolving his strange Deliverance, incredible almost to himself, he joyfully embraces the Employment he had so obstinately refused, and abating both of his Zeal and Apprehension, he was contented Ninive should falsify his Prediction, and by a timely Repentance prevent the Destruction he was going to denounce.  
He enters the vast City, and stoping in one of the most frequented Places, he summons the Inhabitants, Adhuc quadraginta dies& Ninive subvertetur; Yet forty days and Ninive shall be no more. The novelty of the Thing, the strange Figure of the Man, his Mien, as if he had newly risen from the Dead; the particularity of his Habit, as if he came out of another World; the brokenness of his Dialect, soon drew the Herd about him, to listen and gaze a while, and then to laugh; and without doubt the Wits and Libertines to rally him, and some in Office to threaten him. But the Preacher goes on as insensible to their Affronts, as they were at first to his Doctrine; he follows his Text, and they him, till at last, as Laughing and Crying are performed with the same Muscles of the Eyes and Face, so the same Words which at first provoked their Laughter, now spread Sorrow, Fear, and Amazement upon their Countenances, and fetch Tears out of their Eyes, but could not work a thoro' Reformation in their Hearts; till the Voice of this Unknown penetrated thro' the Town into the Court, and reached the Ears of the King, Pervenit verbum ad Regem Ninive.  
This King had as little reason as any of his Subjects to be satisfied with his own Life, and more reason to apprehended the verity of Jonas's Prediction, being conscious to himself into how dreadful a Precipice his ill Example had drawn a People, never so Complying, never so Obedient to the Prince as in his Vices. In fine, he believes the threatened judgement so much more probable, as he knew it was too much deserved. He rises therefore from his Throne, lays by the Ensigns of Majesty, puts himself in the state and posture of a Criminal, Preaches and enjoins the Pennance that he practices; Fasting and Sackcloth become the Mode, the Court and Town are presently in it, and follow it with so much eagerness, vigour and perseverance, that the Storm which was ready to break upon their Heads, disperses of itself, the Heavens clear up, the Anger of God is disarmed, and as the Prophet foresaw, he draws in the menacing Hand.  
Let us make a stand here, Christians, and rest a while in Contemplation of a History as Instructive as it is Astonishing; a Record of what passed in Ninive, an Account of the present State of most Cities in the World, and I hope a prophesy of our Repentances. It is like a good Picture, which seems to fix the Eye upon every one that regards it. I promised not to offend your Ears with any rude Comparison, or to apply caustics, to use a burning Iron where a Balsam, a gentle Remedy may work the Cure. Yet I beg leave to put you in mind, that Ninive is still threatened, but is not yet destroyed; that it survives in every City whose Impieties, whose Irreligion, whose Extortion, whose insatiable Avarice, and detestable Luxuries, cry to Heaven for Vengeance, and to avert whose total Overthrow a Jonas is dispatched. Et plus quam Jonas hîc. And how far we are short of Ninive, how little we want of equalling their Crimes, and filling up the number of our Sins, he only can tell who is more then Jonas, who numbers the Sands of the Sea.  
Ninive a Pagan Town, the Centre and Fountain of Superstition and Idolatry, butted for so many Ages in the darkness of Gentilism, where the Sun of Justice never shone, the saving Faith never  shed a Beam; amid an infinity of Deities without the Knowledge of God, labouring under a double Night, of Infidelity and of the blackest Crimes.  
But Ninive at the Preaching of a Jonas, a mere Stranger, without any thing to make himself Considerable; a Man never heard of before, a Man contemptible for his Person, with Distraction and Amazement in his Countenance, still frothy and reeking from the Belly of the Whale; without any Credentials or Proof of his Mission, without any Miracle to back his Doctrine, or other Testimony to support it, then what he gave himself; and this to a People so little prepared to receive it, that in all likelihood, he might as well have preached to the Rocks and Waves, from the Entrails of the Leviathan. Yet this Unknown Preacheth, these Infidels Believe, these wicked Men, these Monsters of Nature, even Sardanapalus is Converted: Sardanapalus sheds manly Tears, Sardanapalus does Pennance; such exemplar Pennance, that the Holy Ghost thought it material to transmit each Circumstance to Posterity; Surrexit de Solio, says the Text, He rises from his Throne, he detests that unfortunate Power which enabled him to sin without control: Abjecit vestimentum, he casts the Purple from his Shoulders, which he had not only stained, but even drenched with his repeated Crimes: Indutus est Sacco, he changes it for Sackcloth, to chastise that Flesh he had so pampered and indulged: Et sedit in cinere, and is not contented till his Mortification is accompanied with the profoundest Humility; and therefore he prostrates and rowls himself in Ashes. Res admiratione digna, &c.( cries St. John Chrysostom) O what a Spectacle! delightful and new to the Heavens, and worthy the Admiration of the whole Earth! Sackcloth and Haircloth imperiously invade and banish the Purple; Ashes and Dust tarnish the lustre of the Crown. He had sinned, and he Repents like a King. He resolves the Example, which had been such an Incentive to 'vice, should be no less exciting to Repentance. He deposes the Marks, but not the Power of a King. His Obedience to the Voice of God, does not abate of his Authority with his People: While he lies prostrate as a Criminal, he Enacts Laws, and enjoins a solemn Fast thro' all his Dominions; Homines& jumenta non gustent quicquam. And when did he issue forth this Proclamation? after he had called a Board to debate it, after he had taken the thing into Deliberation, or advised with his Council and Sages? No, says the Text, Et pervenit Verbum, as soon as this Word came to his Ear, without balancing, without hesitation, Motu proprio, immediately at the very instant he falls to work: He was already doing Pennance while he was commanding it; binding his People to comply first by Example, and then by Precept.  
But where is it that I speak? Is it not to a Christian Assembly, to a Christian Town, an ancient Theatre of Religion, and once the Metropolis of this Kingdom as well in Piety as in Grandeur and Commerce? Is it not to a Court once Peopled with Saints, once a Nursery of Heaven, illustrastrated with the Morning-brightness of the Gospel, and reflecting its Light thro' the whole World? Is it not before the Successor of St. Lucius, the first Christian King, and to the first Christian Kingdom of the Western World? Is it not to a People early Born into, and long Educated in the Bosom of the Church, having Kings for Nursing Fathers, and Queens for Nursing Mothers, nourished with the Bread of Heaven, and the Fat of the Earth? and yet amid such an overflow of Divine Blessings, such infallible Helps, such efficacious Sacraments, such moving Exhortations, we remain unshaken to the Menaces, insensible to the Promises, rebellious to the Light, and deaf to the Voice, not of a Jonas, but of a JESUS. One unknown Preacher Converted the most Heathenish, the most corrupted, the most populous City of the World, at one Sermon; while we who speak your own Language, nay even your own sense; Preach what you believe, and Menace what you apprehended; speak what you know to be just and reasonable; We, whose Mission you aclowledge, whose Character you reverence, whose Authority you do not dispute, Think it a great Victory if we Convert the meanest of this crowded Auditory, after a hundred Sermons. And do you wonder that the Ninivites shall rise in the day of judgement against this more Criminal,( I must say it) because more Obdurate Generation; which amid so much knowledge of its Duty, amid such pressing Motives, such strong Convictions, such cogent Arguments, such illustrious Examples, puts off its Repentance from day to day? But to press this is my Second Point.   

It was a notable Advice, and becoming its Author, 
Eccles. 5.8.  the wisest of Men, Non tardes converti; Do not slacken to be converted to our Lord, nor put it off from day to day. For one of the most crafty sleights of the Devil to keep an unhappy Soul in his possession, one of the falsest Steps we make, one of the most dangerous Errors we slide into, is the deferring our Repentance from time to time, till it be past time. An Error not only most pernicious, because in the highest Concern, but also the most wicked, as proceeding not from Surprise, Weakness, Inadvertence, or Ignorance,( the Heads whence other Mistakes arise) but springing from the most affencted Wilfulness, and downright Malice. People will not believe daily Experience, will not credit their common Sense, will not harken to their own Reason and Conviction; but in despite of Sense, Reason, Conscience, and Experience, will still persist in a vain and groundless Presumption, That after forty days their Ninive shall not be destroyed; that they shall have a much longer time to repent in. Yet you see Funerals pass every day under your Windows, you meet them in the Streets; you behold your Friends, your Children, your Husbands and your Wives expiring under your Roofs, giving up the Ghost in your Arms; you see them die, who had as much reason to promise themselves a longer Date of Life; you see them die, you see Ninive fall,( for when one dies, all the World dies to him) you see them die unprepared, one without any sense of a future Life, another in Despair; one is suddenly cut off, another falls in a Duel, in Drink, in Adultery: And these are dreadful, but late and almost daily Examples. You see them die impenitent, and hear them bid you beware of the same Presumption, which brought them to their eternal ruin; and yet you are deaf to all Persuasions. And if you will be so, who can help it? But then you must not wonder that the Ninivites shall rise at the Day of judgement against you; for they repented at the Preaching, at the first Sermon of Jonas. Besides, they had forty days allowed them to prevent their ruin; but you hear Truth itself protesting, that you neither do, nor shall know, not only a certain Period of days to prepare yourselves in, but not so much as one day, 
Matth. 25.13.  no not an hour; Nescitis diem neque horam. You hear the Judge menacing that Death, that judgement shall steal upon you like a thief in the night, 
Apoc. 16.15.  that is, when you rest securely, and dream of no such thing; when you are dissolved in your Pleasures, when you are intoxicated with Wine, when you are extended in Wantonness, that even this Night perhaps your Soul shall be ravished from you, Stulte hâc nocte, &c. 
luke. 12.20.  and yet in the sound of this dreadful Alarm, in sight of the threatening Hand which is writing your Sentence upon the Wall of your Chamber, upon the brink of this frightful Precipice you lye as supinely, as unconcerned, as if you had the Works of the Just, or rather as if you were already dead, and asleep, 
Aug.  not in your Beds, but in your Graves, Ad tantum tonitruum qui non evigilat, non dormit, said mortuus est.  
This Stupidity, this affencted Insensibility of ours, provoked our Blessed Saviour to such a Degree, that, contrary to his usual Meekness, he calls such People Fools, Stultos, insensate, stupid, brutish, and irrational, beyond all that can be imagined. Your God is your Accuser, and the Ninivites are your Judges; but you pronounce the Sentence upon yourselves; all the other Actions of your Life are your Condemnation. For who of you all is so senseless as to trust the smallest Temporal Concern to so great a hazard, as to expose your Life and your Estate, when you may easily secure and enjoy both the one and the other, and to run the risk of losing all, for want of a little Care, of Compounding for a small Fine, a little Trouble, a welltim'd Sigh, or a seasonable Tear? Should your House take Fire, and your Friends and Neighbors run in to give you notice of it, before the spreading flamme has taken hold of the main Timber; would you phlegmatickly reply, There is no hast in the Business, it will be time enough to bring the Engines when the Fire has reached the Foundations? Would a Man need a great Stock of Philosophy to convince you that you are a Fool, or a Madman, which is all one, since Madness is but a raging Folly? Why, your Soul is all in a flamme with a long Habit of Sin; Ignis in ossibus; you are burnt up with unlawful and lawless Desires, with Passions more raging and more destroying then Fire. The Preacher comes as a Friend to advertise you of it, bids you make hast to stop the Conflagration, lest it swallow you up in unquenchable Flames. You bid him not trouble you with that yet a while, Thirty or Forty years hence perhaps you may give him a hearing, that is to say, speaking your Sense in the other Circumstance, Let me alone till the Fire has insinuated itself into the very Heart of the Building, till it has taken such hold upon me, that it will be impossible to lay it, impossible to rescue me from the devouring Element, beyond hopes of your Assistance, or Power to help myself, when Horror reigns without, and Confusion within, till I know not where I am, what to do, which way to turn me, which way to go about to draw Tears out of my parched Eyes, or press Sorrow out of my petrified Heart, which is the only Water can quench the Criminal flamme.  
Stulte! Foolish and insensate Man! Should you find yourself overcharged with a heavy burden, which even grows upon your Shoulders, and which you are obliged to carry, or sink; would you refuse to stir a Step while you are in the Flower of your Age, in the height of your Strength? Would you tell such as advice you to work while it is yet day, 
John 9.4.  before night come upon you, to get to your Journeys end as soon as you can, That it is time enough, you will begin when you grow Old? that is to say, you will begin when you should end, when your Nature is decayed, your Spirits exhausted, your Nerves debilitated, and have more need of being carried yourself. Sinner, your Crimes are a great Load: 
Psal. 37.5.  Sicut onus grave gravata sunt supper me; Even your God, the Strong one of Israel, groans under the Weight, he can bear them no longer; he gives you warning that he is just ready to withdraw the Hand of his long-suffering patience, and leave you to yourself; 
Gal. 6.5.  Unusquisque onus suum portabit. 'tis in your own choice whether you will, now you have strength and opportunity, work them off, and lay them down at the foot of the across, by embracing a Penitential Life, or sweat under them till they sink you into Hell. And do you still deliberate upon the Point? Is the Matter so difficult, is the Case so perplexed, that you cannot tell which Party to take? or rather, is not the Necessity so evident, so pressing, so irresistible, that to demur one Day upon it, is to renounce as well your Senses as your Faith, as well your Reason as Religion? You promise yourselves late Years to repent in, when you have not the assurance of one Day; Is not this as great a Shock to Reason, as it is an Affront to Religion? Is it not to invade the Prerogative of God, by placing the times and moments in your own power and disposition? And certainly those Purposes of Repentance you so much rely on, those Resolutions you so often break and so often renew, those Promises which have so often deceived both yourself and your Confessor, cannot be true, real and unfeigned, if the Term you assign be false and imaginary. But there is no such thing as Forty years hence, there is no such thing as Twenty years hence, there is no such thing as To morrow: Procrastinated Repentance is nothing, but a present Impenitency.  
Now go and complain you are hardly dealt with, you have not time allowed you to repent, because you have not more Years allowed you to offend: Complain that the Ninivites had more favour shew'd them then you have, because they had Forty days, and you have had Forty years. Quarrel with the Divine Providence, because they were called, and repented the first day; you were called the first, and think much to repent on the last. Be very angry at the Preacher for discomposing you, and stoping you short in the career of your Sins, with a Whisper in your Ear, That the Term is just expiring, that the Sword is unsheathed over your Head, and the Hand of Vengeance is lifted up to give you the fatal Blow: Tell him he is troublesome and impertinent, because he does you the best Office in the World, and bid him go Preach to Ninive.  
He has done, and is ready to leave the Chair; but assure yourselves, the Men of Ninive will immediately succeed in his Place; you shall not be able to impose Silence upon them, their Voice shall ring in your Ears, either till their Preaching convert, or their Sentence burst your Hearts. They shall follow you thro' all the windings and mazes of Sin, they shall meet you in every crooked path which themselves traced out, and you follow; They know your Haunts, which themselves frequented; They shall meet you at the Theatre, at the Masquerade, at the rendezvous, at the game house, at the Tavern; They shall insinuate themselves in your Cabinets, and your most studied Recesses shall not exclude them. Clamabunt etenim& non silebunt; Their Sackcloth shall confounded your Niceness and Gallantry; Their Ashes shall condemn your Pride and Vanity; Their Fasting shall upbraid your Gluttony and Drunkenness; Their Humiliation shall check your Ambition; Their Sighs shall play the Ground to your music and Merriment in this time of Sorrow; Their ready Obedience to the Voice of the Preacher, shall exprobrate the insensibility of your seared Hearts; And their Examples shall give the lie to all your Excuses. In fine, those lamentable Cries of Men, Women, Children, and Animals, suing to the Throne of Mercy to prevent the Overthrow of that City, shall cry Vengeance against this, and echo it thro' the whole World, that God desires not the Damnation of Christians, who was so Merciful to Heathens; That you deserve indeed not so much warning, because your whole Life has been one continued Advertisement; That because they offended against the Law of Nature, they deserved an Eternity of Suffering, and to pass out of one Darkness into another: But because you have openly resisted the Holy Ghost, Rebelles lumini, Miserable, not for want of Light, but Impious because you rebelled against it, you have merited the Outward darkness, the Nether hell. Yet to show that God wills not the death of a Sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Extendit terminos tuos, He suspends the Sentence of your Condemnation till the remainder of this Forty days, this Penitential Season is elapsed; and sends his Prophets, the Interpreters of his Word, to acquaint you with the peremptory Term.  
And now to sum up this Discourse, as Moses did all his Remonstrance to the People of Israel, 
Deut. 30.19.  Testes invoco body coelum& terram, quod proposuerim vobis vitam& mortem, &c. I take heaven and earth to witness, that I have proposed to you life and death, and set the Blessings and the Judgments of God before your Eyes, and within your reach, to stretch out your Hand to which you please; The Heavens, which are Peopled with Saints, who desired to see those things which you see, 
Mat. 13.17.  and did not see them; to hear those things which you hear, and did not hear them; who were destitute of the many Advantages which you enjoy; The Earth, a great part of whose Inhabitants is still covered with Egyptian Darkness, and involved in the Sins of Ninive, yet at the first Sermon would repent in Sackcloth and Ashes. And I call even Hell to witness, which is thronged with so many justly condemned for Crimes incomparably less then you daily commit; That God has not been wanting on his part, that the Bowels of his Mercy are as fruitful, that his Arms are as much extended, that his Heart is as open, that his Call is as vigorous, that his Hand is as powerful and as ready to save this Generation, as when he pardoned the Ninivites, whom we Copy in our Vices, and who sit to us as a perfect Model of a hearty, of an exemplar, and of a speedy Repentance,  
Which God of his infinite Mercy, &c.    

ADVERTISEMENT.  
IN the First Sermon preached before their Majesties at Windsor, pag. 18,& 19. are these following Clauses. And tho' Almighty God, by enforcing this Precept( of the Love of Himself) with so many almost Synonimous Words, intended principally to sink this First and Greatest Commandment deeper into our Hearts; yet it has produced so contrary an Effect, even in the Minds of Learned Men, that some have not wanted Confidence to pronounce the Commandment Impossible.] This Sermon was Printed in the Words it was spoken,( tho' some endeavour to persuade the contrary;) I alleged no Authors then, and thought the Critical Reader would not have called upon me, to produce those Learned Men, it being the Doctrine in so many late Writers, and so much insisted on, and so frequently repeated by Martin Luther; 
Cens. Paris. de Praec. Legis Prop. 1.  Qui negat Deum nobis impossibile jussisse, pessimè facit,& qui hoc falsum esse dicit, plusquam pessimè facit: He that denies God hath commanded what is impossible, does very ill; and he that says, This is false, does still worse. And he instances in the Commandment of the Love of God with all the Heart, &c. and Non concupisces, Thou shalt not covet; which he frequently declares cannot be observed in this Life. It follows in the Sermon, Indeed if he that lays it upon us, did not withal promise us Strength to perform it, Pelagius and his Followers would never have been condemned for that Doctrine. Where it is visible That is put for Their, by an oversight of the Corrector; the Sense of the two Clauses being, That if God, who lays the Commandment upon us, did not give us Grace to perform it, neither Luther, &c. would have erred in declaring it Impossible, nor Pelagius have been condemned for teaching, That it might be fulfilled by the Strength of Nature, without the Assistance of Grace: For, take away the Efficacy of Grace, it matters not which of the two Opinions prevails, whether the unperforming Grace of Luther, or the No-Grace, or at the most the non-necessary Grace of Pelagius. This is the Sense of the Proposition; and it could be no other; my Business being to show how the Doctrine of the Church runs between these two extremes( an Impossibility with Grace, and a Possibility without Grace); 
Aug. de not.& Grat. c. 4.3.  Non enim Deus impossibilia jubet, said jubendo admonet,& facere quod possis,& petere quod non possis: For God does not command impossible things; but by his Command he admonisheth us to do what we can, and to call upon him to enable us in what we cannot do.   

A Catalogue of Books Printed for Henry Hills, Printer to the King's most Excellent Majesty, for his household and chapel, 1686.  

REflections upon the Answer to the Papist misrepresented &c. Directed to the Answerer. Quarto.  
Kalendarium Catholicum for the Year 1686. Octavo.  
Papists Protesting against Protestant-Popery. In Answer to a Discourse entitled, A Papist not misrepresented by Protestants. Being a Vindication of the Papist misrepresented and Represented, and the Reflections upon the Answer. Quart.  
Copies of Two Papers Written by the late King Charles II. Together with a Paper Written by the late duchess of York. Published by his Majesty's Command. Folio.  
The Spirit of Christianity. Published by his Majesty's Command. Twelves.  
The first Sermon preached before their Majesties in English at Windsor, on the first Sunday of October 1685. By the Reverend Father Dom. P. E. Monk of the Holy Order of S. Benedict, and of the English Congregation. Published by his Majesty's Command. Quarto.  
Second Sermon Preached before the King and Queen, and Queen Dowager, at Their Majesties chapel at St James's, November 1, 1685. By the Reverend Father Dom. Ph. Ellis, Monk of the Holy Order of S. Benedict, and of the English Congregation. Published by his Majesty's Command. Quarto.