PRINCETON, N. J. ro rn -Vn cSx \\d vo\ BX 5133 .T3 S476 1852 Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. The sermons of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/sermonsofrightre00tayl_1 * JAN 19 SERMONS OF THE EIGHT REV. JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. «D DROMORE. j LORD BISHOP OF DOWN, CONNOR, AND DROMORE. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. COMPRISING A COURSE FOR THE WHOLE YEAR, AND A SUPPLEMENT OF SERMONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS AND OCCASIONS. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 285 BROADWAY. 1852. u*4 CONTENTS. SERMONS FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. SERMON I. II. III. ADVENT SUNDAY. Dooms-Day Book ; or, Christ's Advent to Judgment . . . page 13,21 2 Cor. v. 10. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. SERMON IV. V. VI. The Return of Prayers ; or, the Conditions of a prevailing Prayer . . 29, 36, 44 John ix. 31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners ; but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him he heareth. SERMON VII. VIII. IX. Of Godly Fear, &c. . . 52, 59, 65 Heb. xii. part of the 28th and 29th verses. Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. SERMON X. XI. The Flesh and the Spirit . . 72, 80 Matt. xxvi. 41 ; latter part. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. SERMON Xn. XIII. XIV. Of Lukewarmness and Zeal ; or, Spiritual Fervour . . . . 87, 94, 103 Jerem. xlviii. 10 ; first part. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully. SERMON XV. XVI. The House of Feasting ; or, the Epicure?s Measures . . . . 110, 117 1 Cor. xv. 32 ; last part. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. SERMON XVII. XVIII. The Marriage-Ring ; or, the Mysteriousnes3 and Duties of Marriage . 125, 132 Ephes. v. 32, 33. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. SERMON XIX. XX. XXI. Apples of Sodom ; or, the Fruits of Sin 140, 148, 156 Rom. vi. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. SERMON XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. The Good and Evil Tongue. — Of Slander and Flatly. — The Duties of the Tongue 163, 170, 177, 184 Ephes. iv. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. SERMON XXVI. XXVII. WHITSUNDAY. Of the Spirit of Grace . . 190, 197 Bom. viii. 9, 10. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin ; but the Spirit is life, because of righteousness. SERMON XXVIII. XXIX. The descending and entailed Curse cut off 205, 212 Exod. xx. 5, 6. I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me ; and showing mercy unto thou- sands of them that love me, and keep my com mandments. SERMON XXX. XXXI. The Invalidity of a Late or Death-bed Repent- ance .... 220, 228 Jerem. xiii. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while you look for light, (or, lest while you look for light.) he shall turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. sermon xxxn. xxxm. The Deceitfulness of the Heart 236, 243 Jerem. xvii. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and des- perately wicked ; who can know it ? SERMON XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. The Faith and Patience of the Saints; or, the Righteous Cause oppressed 250, 258, 266 1 Pet. iv. 17, 18. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God : and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sin- ner appear ? 3 iv CONTENTS. SERMON XXXVII. XXXVIII. The Mercy of the Divine Judgments ; or, God's Method in Curing Sinners 273, 281 Rom. ii. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to re- pentance ? SERMON XXXIX. XL. Of Growth in Grace, with its proper Instru- ments and Signs . . 283, 294 2 Pet. iii. 18. • But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, both now and for ever. Amen. SERMON XLI. XLII. Of Growth in Sin; or, the several States and Degrees of Sinners, with the Manner how they are to be treated . 302, 309 Jude Epist. ver. 22, 23. And of some have compassion, making a differ- ence : and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. SUPPL SERMON I. The Righteousness Evangelical page 397 Matt. v. 20. For I say unto you, that except your righteous- ness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. SERMON II. The Christian's Conquest over the Body of Sin 408 Rom. vii. 19. For the good that I would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that I do. SERMON III. Faith working by Love . . . 419 James ii. 24. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. SERMON IV. Preached at an Episcopal Consecration 430 Luke xii. 42, 43. And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season ? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. SERMON V. Preached at the opening of the Parliament of Ireland 444 1 Sam. xv. 22, 23. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams :— For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. SERMON VI. Via Intelligentiae .... 455 John vii. 17. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I epeak of myself. SERMON XLIII. XLIV. The Foolish Exchange . . 317, 325 Matt. xvi. 26. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? SERMON XLV. XLVI. XLVII. The Serpent and the Dove ; or, a Discourse of Christian Prudence 333, 339, 346 Matt. x. 16; latter part. Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless a3 doves. SERMON LXVIII. XLIX. Of Christian Simplicity . 355, 361 Matt. x. 16; latter part. And harmless as doves. SERMON L. LI. LIT. The Miracles of the Divine Mercy 368, 377, 384 Psal. lxxxvi. 5. For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee. E M E N T. SERMON VII. Preached at the Funeral of the Lord Primate of Ireland 472 1 Cor. xv. 23. But every man in his own order ; Christ the first- fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming. SERMON Vm. Countess of Carbery's Funeral Sermon 489 2 Sam. xiv. 14. For we must needs die, and are as wafer spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again : neither doth God respect any person ; yet doth he devise means that his banished be not ex- pelled from him. SERMON IX. Preached upon the Anniversary of the Gun- powder Treason . 502 Luke ix. 54. But when James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did ? SERMON X. XI. The Minister's Duty in Life and Doctrine 525, 537 Tit. ii. 7, 8. In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works : in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity; sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. SERMON XII. Sir George Dalston's Funeral Sermon 549 1 Cor. xv. 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. A COUESE OF SERMONS FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. PRAYERS. A PRAYER BEFORE SERMON. O Lord God, fountain of life, giver of all good things, who givest to men the blessed hope of eternal life by our Lord Jesus Christ, and hast promised thy Holy Spirit to them that ask him ; be present with us in the dispensation of thy holy word [and sacraments*] ; grant that we, being preserved from all evil by thy power, and, among the diversities of opinions and judgments in this world, from all errors and false doctrines, and led into all truth by the conduct of thy Holy Spirit, may for ever obey thy heavenly calling : that we may not be only hearers of the word of life, but doers also of good works, keeping faith and a good conscience, living an unblamable life, usefully and charitably, religiously and prudently, in all godliness and honesty, before thee our God, and before all the world, that, at the end of our mortal life, we may enter into the light and life of God, to sing praises and eternal hymns to the glory of thy name in eternal ages, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. I In whose Name let us pray, in the words which Himself commanded, saying, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom come ; thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven ; give us this day our daily bread ; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ; for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. A PRAYER AFTER SERMON. Lord, pity and pardon, direct and bless, sanc- tify and save us all. Give repentance to all that live in sin. and perseverance to all thy sons and servants for his sake, who is thy beloved, and the foundation of all our hopes, our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus ; to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, praise and adoration, love and obedience, now and for evermore. Amen. SERMON I. ADVENT SUNDAY. DOOMSDAY BOOK; OR, CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. — 2 Cor. v. 10. Virtue and vice are so essentially distin- guished, and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well-being of men in private, and in societies, that to divide them in themselves, and to separate them by sufficient notices, and to distinguish them by rewards, hath been designed by all laws, by the sayings of wise men, by the order of things, by their proportions to good or evil; and the expectations of men have * This clause is to be omitted, if there be no eacrament that day. been framed accordingly: that virtue may have a proper seat in the will and in the af- fections, and may become amiable by its own excellencies and its appendant blessing; and that vice may be as natural an enemy to a man as a wolf to a lamb, and as darkness to light: destructive of its being, and a contradiction of its nature. But it is not enough that all the world hath armed itself against vice, and, by all that is wise and sober amongst men, hath taken the part of virtue, adorning it with glorious appella- tives, encouraging it by rewards, entertain- ing it with sweetness, and commanding it by edicts, fortifying it with defensatives, and twining it in all artificial compliances : ah1 ] this is short of man's necessity : for this will, a2 5 6 CHRIST'S ADVEN T TO JUDGMENT. Serm. L in all modest men, secure their actions in theatres and highways, in markets and churches, before the eye of judges, and in the society of witnesses ; but the actions of closets and chambers, the designs and thoughts of men, their discourses in dark places, and the actions of retirements and of the night, are left indifferent to virtue or to vice ; and of these, as man can take no cog- nizance, so he can make no coercitive ; and therefore above one half of human actions is, by the laws of man, left unregarded and unprovided for. And, besides this, there are some men who are bigger than laws, and some are bigger than judges, and some judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardice, by bribery and flattery, by iniqui- ty and compliance ; and where they have not, yet they have notices but of few causes; and there are some sins so popular and uni- versal, that to punish them is either impos- sible or intolerable ; and to question such, would betray the weakness of the public rods and axes, and represent the sinner to be stronger than the power that is appointed to be his bridle. And, after all this, we find sinners so prosperous that they escape, so potent that they fear not ; and sin is made safe when it grows great ; Facere omnia saeve Non impune licet, nisi dum facis and innocence is oppressed, and the poor cries, and he hath no helper ; and he is op- pressed, and he wants a patron. And for these and many other concurrent causes, if you reckon all the causes that come before all the judicatories of the world, though the litigious are too many, and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous, yet the personal and criminal are so few, that of two thousand sins that cry aloud to God for vengeance, scarce two are noted by the pub- lic eye, and chastised by the hand of justice. It must follow from hence, that it is but rea- sonable, for the interest of virtue and the necessities of the world, that the private should be judged, and virtue should be tied upon the spirit, and the poor should be re- lieved, and the oppressed should appeal, and the noise of widows should be heard, and the saints should stand upright, and the cause that was ill-judged should be judged over again, and tyrants should be called to account, and our thoughts should be exa- mined, and our secret actions viewed on all sides, and the infinite number of sins which escape here, should not escape finally. And therefore God hath so ordained it, that there shall be a day of doom, wherein all that are j let alone by men, shall be questioned by ■ God, and every word and every action shall receive its just recompense of reward. "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Td I8ta tov au/xatos, so it is in the best copies, not to, Sid, '"'the things done in the body," so we commonly read it "the things proper or due to the body," so the expression is more apt and proper; for not only what is done Sid ffw^oj, "by the body," but even the acts of abstracted un- derstanding and volition, the acts of reflec- tion and choice, acts of self-love and admira- tion, and whatever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit, is to be accounted for at the day of judgement : and even these may be called toto. tov ou>[unf-~$, because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body. The words have in them no other difficulty or variety, but contain a great truth of the big- gest interest, and one of the most material constitutive articles of the whole religion, and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world. Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures, that what- soever we do or suffer shall be called to ac- count, and this account shall be exact, and the sentence shall be just, and the reward shall be great; all the evils of the world shall be amended, and the injustices shall be repaid, and the Divine Providence shall be vindicated, and virtue and vice shall forever be remarked by their separate dwellings and rewards. This is that which the apostle, in the next verse, calls " the terror of the Lord." It is his terror, because himself shall- appear in his dress of majesty and robes of justice; and it is his terror, because it is, of all things in the world, the most formidable in itself, and it is most fearful to us, where shall be acted the interest and final sentence of eter- nity : and because it is so intended, I shall all the way represent it as " the Lord's ter- ror," that we may be afraid of sin, for the destruction of which this terror is intended. 1 . Therefore, we will consider the persons that are to be judged, with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrows; "We must all appear." 2. The judge and his judgement-seat ; "before the judgement-seat of Christ." 3. The sentence that they are to receive; "the things due to the body, good or bad ;" according as we now please, but then cannot alter. Every of these is Serm. L CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 7 dressed witli circumstances of affliction and afTrightment to those, to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their in- heritance. 1. The persons who are to be judged; even you, and I, and all the world ; kings and priests, nobles and learned, the crafty and the easy, the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the prevailing tyrant and the oppressed parly, shall all appear to re- ceive their symbol; and this is so far from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment, that it much increases it : for, although concerning precepts and discourses, we are apt to neglect in particular, what is recommended in general, and in incidences of mortality and sad events, the singu- larity of the chance heightens the appre- hension of the evil ; yet it is so by ac- cident, and only in regard of our imper- fection ; it being an effect of self-love, or some little creeping envy, which adheres too often to the unfortunate and miserable ; or else, because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case, and a singular unworthiness in him who is af- flicted, otherwise than is common to the sons of men, companions of his sin, and brethren of his nature, and partners of his usual accidents ; yet in final and extreme events, the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings ; and when the first day of judgment happened, that (I mean) of the universal deluge of waters upon the old world, the calamity swelled like the *lood, and every man saw his friend perish, and the neighbours of his dwelling, and the relatives of his house, and the sharers of his joys, and yesterday's bride, and the new-born heir, the priest of the family, and the honour of the kindred, all dying or dead, drenched in water, and the Divine vengeance ; and then they had no place to flee unto, no man cared for their souls ; they had none to go unto for counsel, no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that rained down from heaven: and so it shall be at the day of judgment, when that world and this, and all that shall be born hereafter, shall pass through the same Red sea, and be all baptized with the same fire, and be involved in the same cloud, in which shall be thunderings and terrors in- finite ; every man's fear shall be increased by his neighbour's shrieks, and the amaze- ment that all the world shall be in, shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace, into a globe of fire, and roll upon its own princi- ple, and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflections. He that stands in a church-yard in the time of a great plague, and hears the passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death, and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their graves, and others sick and tremulous, and death, dress- ed up in all the images of sorrow, round about him, is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow : and at dooms- day, when the terrors are universal, besides that it is itself so much greater, because it can affright the whole world, it is also made greater by communication and a sor- rowful influence ; grief being then strongly infectious, when there is no variety of state, but an entire kingdom of fear : and amaze- ment is the king of all our passions, and all the world its subjects : and that shriek must needs be terrible, when millions of men and women, at the same instant, shall fear- fully cry out, and the noise shall mingle with the trumpet of the archangel, with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens, and the crack of the dissolving world, when the whole fabric of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternal ashes. But this general consideration may be heightened with four or five circumstances. 1 . Consider what an infinite multitude of angels, and men and women shall then ap- : pear ; it is a huge assembly, when the men of one kingdom, the men of one age in a single province, are gathered together into heaps and confusion of disorder ; but then, all kingdoms of all ages, all the armies that ever mustered, all the world that Augustus Csesar taxed, all those hundreds of millions that were slain in all the Roman wars, from Numa's time till Italy was broken into prin- cipalities and small exarchates ; all these, and all that can come into numbers, and that did descend from the loins of Adam, shall at once be represented; to which account if we add the armies of heaven, the nine orders of blessed spirits, and the infinite numbers in every order, we may suppose the num- bers fit to express the majesty of that God, and the terror of that Judge, who is the Lord and Father of all that unimaginable multitude. " Erit terror ingens tot simul tantorumque populorum."* 2. In this great multitude we shall meet all those, who, by their example and their holy precepts, have, like tapers, enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousness, en- lightened us, and taught us to walk in the paths of justice. There we shall see all Florus. 8 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. L those good men, whom God sent to preach to us, and recall us from human follies and inhuman practices : and when we espy the good man, that chid us for our last drunken- ness or adulteries, it shall then also be remem- bered how we mocked at counsel, and were civilly modest at the reproof, but laughed when the man was gone, and accepted it for a religious compliment, and took our leaves, and went and did the same again. But then things shall put on another face ; and that we smiled at here and slighted fondly, shall then be the greatest terror in the world ; men shall feel that they once laughed at their own destruction, and rejected health when it was offered by a man of God upon no other condition, but that they would be wise, and not be in love with death. Then they shall perceive, that if they had obeyed an easy and a sober counsel, they had been partners of the same felicity, which they see so illustrious upon the heads of those preachers, " whose work is with the Lord," and who, by their life and doctrine, endea- voured to snatch the soul of their friend or relatives from an intolerable misery. But he that sees a crown put upon their heads, that give good counsel, and preach holy and se- vere sermons with designs of charity and piety, will also then perceive that God did not send preachers for nothing, on trifling errands and without regard : but that work, which he crowns in them, he purposed should be effective to us, persuasive to the un- derstanding, and active upon our consciences. Good preachers, by their doctrine, and all good men, by their lives, are the accusers of the disobedient; and they shall rise up from their seats, and judge and condemn the follies of those who thought their piety to be want of courage, and their discourses pedantical, and their reproofs the priest's trade, but of no signification, because they preferred moments before eternity. 3. There in that great assembly shall be seen all those converts, who, upon easier terms, and fewer miracles, and a less expe- rience, and a younger grace, and a seldomer preaching, and more unlikely circumstances, have suffered the work of God to prosper upon their spirits, and have been obedient to the heavenly calling. There shall stand the men of Nineveh, and they "shall stand upright in judgment," for they, at the preaching of one man, in a less space than forty days, returned unto the Lord their God ; but we hav e heard him call all our lives, and, like the deaf adder, stopped our ears against the voice of God's servants, "charm they never so wisely." There shall appear the men of Capernaum, and the queen of the South, and the men of Berea, and the first- fruits of the Christian church, and the holy martyrs, and shall proclaim to all the world, that it is not impossible to do the work of grace in the midst of all our weaknesses, and accidental disadvantages : and that "the obe- dience of faith, and the " labour of love," and^the contentions of chastity, and the seve- rities of temperance and self-denial, are not such insuperable mountains, but that an honest and sober person may perform them in acceptable degrees, if he have but a ready ear, and a willing mind, and an honest heart: and this scene of honest persons shall make the Divine, judgment upon sinners more reasonable, and apparently just, in passing upon them the horrible sentence ; for why cannot we as well serve God in peace, as others served him in war? why cannot we love him as well when he treats us sweetly, and gives us health and plenty, honours or fair fortunes, reputation or contentedness, quiet- ness and peace, as others did upon gibbets and under axes, in the hands of tormentors and in hard wildernesses, in nakedness and poverty, in the midst of all evil things, and all sad discomforts'? Concerning this no answer can be made. 4. But there is a worse sight than this yet, which, in that great assembly, shall distract our sight, and amaze our spirits. There men shall meet the partners of their sins, and them that drank the round, when they crowned their heads with folly and forgetful- ness, and their cups with wine and noises. There shall ye see that poor, perishing soul, whom thou didst tempt to adultery and wan- tonness, to drunkenness or perjury, to rebel- lion or an evil interest, by power or craft, by witty discourses or deep dissembling, by scandal or a snare, by evil example or per - nicious counsel, by malice or unwariness ; and when all this is summed up, and from the variety of its particulars is drawn into an uneasy load and a formidable sum, pos- sibly we may find sights enough to scare all our confidences, and arguments enough to press our evil souls into the sorrows of a most intolerable- death. For, however we make now but light accounts and evil pro- portions concerning it, yet it will be a fear- ful circumstance of appearing, to see one, or two, or ten,or twenty accursed souls, despair- ing, miserable, infinitely miserable, roaring and blaspheming, and fearfully cursing thee Serm. I. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 9 as the cause of its eternal sorrows. Thy lust I and actions, may yet have a different sen- betrayed and rifled her weak and unguarded | tence : for an early and an active repentance innocence; thy example made thy servant con- j will wash off this account, and put it upon fident to lie, or to be perjured; thy society : the tables of the cross ; and though it ought brought a third into intemperance and the dis- | to make us diligent and careful, charitable guises of a beast : and when thou seest that and penitent, hugely penitent, even so long soul, with whom thou didst sin, dragged into hell, wellmayest thou fear to drink the dregs of thy intolerable potion. And most certainly, it is the greatest of evils to destroy a soul, for whom the Lord Jesus died, and to undo that grace which our Lord purchased with so much sweat and blood, pains and a mighty charity. And because very many sins of society and confederation ; such are fornica- tion, drunkenness, bribery, simony, rebellion, schism, and many others ; it is a hard and a weighty consideration, what shall become of any one of us, who have tempted our brother or sister to sin and death : for though God hath spared our life, and they are dead, as we live, yet when we shall appear to- gether, there is a mercy that shall there sep- arate us, who sometimes had blended each other in a common crime. Blessed be the mercies of God, who hath so carefully pro- vided a fruitful shower of grace, to refresh the miseries and dangers of the greatest part of mankind. Thomas Aquinas was used to beg of God, that he might never be tempted, from his low fortune, to prelacies and digni- ties ecclesiastical ; and that his mind might never be discomposed or polluted with the love of any creature ; and that he might, by some instrument or other, understand the state of his deceased brother; and the story says, that and their debt-books are sealed up till the j he was heard in all. In him it was a great ■day of account; yet the mischief of our sin is gone before us, and it is like a murder, but more execrable: the soul is dead in tres- passes and sins, and sealed up to an eternal sorrow ; and thou shalt see, at doomsday, what damnable uncharitableness thou hast done. That soul that cries to those rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy per- petual temptations, might have followed the Lamb in a white robe ; and that poor man, that is clothed with shame and flames of fire, would have shined in glory, but that thou didst force him to be a partner in thy baseness. And who shall pay for this loss? a soul is lost by thy means ; thou hast de- feated the holy purposes of the Lord's bitter passion by thy impurities ; and what shall happen to thee, by whom thy brother dies eternally? Of all the considerations that concern this part of the horrors of doomsday, nothing can be more formidable than this, curiosity, or the passion and impertinences of a useless charity, to search after him, un- less he had some other personal concernment than his relation of kindred. But truly, it would concern very many to be solicitous concerning the event of those souls, with whom we have mingled death and sin ; for many of those sentences, which have passed and decreed concerning our departed re- latives, will concern us dearly, and we are bound in the same bundles, and shall be thrown into the same fires, unless we re- pent for our own sins, and double our sor- rows for their damnation. 5. We may consider that this infinite multitude of men, women, angels, and devils, is not inaffective as a number in Pythago- ras's tables, but must needs have influence upon every spirit that shall there appear. — For the transactions of that court are not like orations spoken by a Grecian orator to such whom it does concern : and truly it in the circles of his people, heard by them concerns so many, and amongst so many, (that crowd nearest him, or that sound limit- perhaps some persons are so tender, that it jed by the circles of air, or the enclosure of might affright their hopes, and discompose their industries and spiteful labours of repent- ance; but that our most merciful Lord hath, in the midst of all the fearful circumstances of his second coming, interwoven this one com- fort relating to this, which, to my sense, seems the most fearful and killing circumstance : " Two shall be grinding at one mill ; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two shall be in a bed ; the one shall be taken and the other left ;" that is, those who are con- a wall ; but every thing is represented to every person, and then, let it be considered, when thy shame and secret turpitude, thy midnight revels and secret hypocrisies, thy lustful thoughts and treacherous designs, thy falsehood to God and starlings from thy holy promises, thy follies and impieties, shall oe laid open before all the world, and that then shall be spoken by the trumpet of an arch- angel upon the housetop, the highest battle- ments of heaven, all those filthy words and federate in the same fortunes, and interests, jlewd circumstances, which thou didst act 2 \ 10 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. I. secretly • thou wilt find, that thou wilt have reason strangely to be ashamed. All the wise men in the world shall know how vile thou hast been : and then consider,, with who are tender of their precious name and sensible of honour; if they rather would choose death than a disgrace, poverty rather than shame, let them remember that a sinful what confusion of face wouldst thou stand, life wiii bring them to an intolerable shame in the presence of a good man and a severe, if peradventure he should suddenly draw thy curtain, and find thee in the sins of shame and lust ; it must be infinitely more, when God and all the angels of heaven and earth, all his holy myriads, and all his redeem- ed saints, shall stare and wonder at thy im- purities and follies. I have read a story, at that day, when all that is excellent in heaven and earth shall be summoned as witnesses and parties in a fearful scrutiny. — The sum is this, all that are born of Adam shall appear before God and his Christ, and all the innumerable companies of angels and devils shall be there : and the wicked shall be affrighted with every thing they see ; and that a young gentleman, being passionately j there they shall see those good men that by his mother dissuaded from entering into | taught them the ways of life ; and all those the severe courses of a religious and single j evil persons, whom themselves have tempted life, broke from her importunity by saying, ; into the ways of death ; and those who were "Volo servare animam meam ;" "I am converted upon easier terms; and some of resolved by all means to save my soul." — But when he had undertaken a rule with passion, he performed it carelessly and re- missly, and was but lukewarm in his religion, and quickly proceeded to a melancholy and wearied spirit, and from thence to a sickness and the neighbourhood of death : but falling into an agony and a fantastic vision, dreamed that he saw himself summoned before God's angry throne, and from thence hurried into a place of torments, where espying his mother, full of scorn she upbraided him with his former answer, and asked him why he did not save his soul by all means, according as he undertook. But when the sick man awaked and recovered, he made his words good indeed, and prayed frequently, and fasted severely, and laboured humbly, and conversed charitably, and mortified himself severely, and refused such secular solaces which other good men received to refresh these shall shame the wicked, and some shall curse them, and some shall upbraid them, and all shall amaze them ; and yet this is but the apxn wStVwv, the beginning of those evils which shall never end, till eternity hath a period ; but concerning this they must first be judged; and that is the second general consideration, "we must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ," and that is a new state of terrors and affrightments. Christ, who is our Saviour and is our advocate, shall then be ourjudge; and that will strange- ly change our confidences and all the face of things. 2. That is then the state and place of our appearance, "before the judgment-seat of Christ :" for Christ shall rise from the right hand of his Father : he shall descend towards us, and ride upon a cloud, and shall make himself illustrious by a glorious majesty, and an innumerable retinue, and circumstances and sustain their infirmities, and gave no j of terror and amighty power : and that is that other account to them that asked him but! which Origen affirms to be the sign of the this : If I could not in my ecstasy or dream . Son of man. Remalcus de Vaux, in Har- endure my mother's upbraiding my follies pocrate Divino, affirms, that all the Greek and weak religion, how shall I be able to | and Latan fathers " consentientibus animis suffer, that God should redargue me at | asseverant, hoc signo crucem Christi signi- doomsday, and the angels reproach my luke- ficari," do unanimously affirm, that the re- warmness, and the devils aggravate my presentment of the cross is the sign of the sins, and all the saints of God deride my follies and hypocrisies ? The effect of that man's consideration may serve to actuate a meditation in every one of us ; for we shall all be at that pass, that unless our shame and sorrows be cleansed by a timely repent- ance, and covered by the robe of Christ, we shall suffer the anger of God, the scorn of saints and angels, and our own shame in the general assembly of all mankind. This I The sign of that cross is the sign of the Son argument is most considerable to them, ' of man, when the Lord shall come to judg- Son of man spoken of, Matt. xxiv. 50. And indeed they affirm it very generally, but Origen after this manner is singular, " hoc signum crucis erit, cum Dominus adjudi- candum venerit," so the church used to sing, and so it is in the Sibyl's verses : O lignum fclix, in quo Deus ipse pependit Nec te terra capit, sed cceli tecta videbis, Cum renovate Dei t'acies ignita micabit. Serm. I. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. li ment: and from those words of scrip ture , j address to judgment shall sufficiently declare " they shall look on him whom they have, his person and his office, and his proper pierced," it hath been freely entertained, that, glories. This is the greatest scene of majesty at the day of judgment Christ shall signify his person by something that related to his passion, his cross, or his wounds, or both. I list not to spin this curious cobweb ; but Origen's opinion seems to me more reason- able ; and it is more agreeable to the majesty and power of Christ to signify himself with proportions of his glory, rather than of his humility; with effects of his being exalted into heaven, rather than of his poverty and sor- rows upon earth : and this is countenanced better by some Greek copies ; tots ^avr^ttac otj/ASiov tov txou tov avd^7iov iv 79 ovpcwcp, so it is commonly read, "the sign of the Son of man in heaven ;" that is, (say they,) the sign of the Son of man imprinted upon a cloud ; but it is in others tov vlov tov a,vdpCi7tov rov h> ovpouwV, " the sign of the Son of man who is in the heavens ;" not that the sign shall be imprinted on a cloud, or in any part of the heavens, but that he wao is now in the heavens, shall, when he that shall be in that day, till the sentence be pronounced ; but there goes much before this, which prepares all the world to the ex- pectation and consequent reception of this mighty judge of men and angels. The majesty of the Judge, and the terrors of the judgment, shall be spoken aloud by the immediate forerunning accidents, which shall be so great violences to the old consti- tutions of nature, that it shall break hervery bones, and disorder her till she be destroyed. Saint Jerome relates out of the Jews' books, that their doctors used to account fifteen days of prodigy immediately before Christ's com- ing, and to every day assign a wonder, any one of which if we should 'chance to see in the days of our flesh, it would affright us into the like thoughts which the old world had, when they saw the countries round about them covered with water and the Di- vine vengeance ; or as those poor people near Adria, and the Mediterranean sea, when comes down, have a sign and signification \ their houses and cities are entering into of his own, that is proper to him who is ' graves, and the bowels of the earth rent with there glorified, and shall return in glory. — And he disparages the beauty of the sun, who inquires for a rule to know when the sun shines, or the light breaks forth from its chambers of the east ; and the Son of man shall need no other signification, but his infinite retinue, and all the angels of God worshipping him, and sitting upon a cloud, and leading the heavenly host, and bringing his elect with him, and being clothed with convulsions and horrid tremblings. The sea (they say) shall rise fifteen feet above the highest mountains, and thence descend into hollowness and a prodigious drought; and when they are reduced again to their usual proportions, then all the beasts and creeping things, the monsters and the usual inhabitants of the sea, shall be gathered to- gether, and make fearful noises to distract mankind ; the birds shall mourn, and change the robes of majesty, and trampling upon; their songs into threnes and sad accents ; devils, and confounding the wicked, and de- rivers of fire shall rise from the east to west, stroying death : but all these great things j and the stars shall be rent into threads of light, and scatter like the beards of comets ; then shall be fearful earthquakes, and the shall be invested with such strange circum- stances, and annexes of mightiness anci di- vinity, that all the world shall confess the jacks shall rend in pieces, the trees shall glories of the Lord; and this is sufficiently distil blood, and the mountains and fairest signified by St. Paul, "We shall all be set structures shall return unto their primitive before the throne or place of Christ's judica- dust; the wild beasts shall leave their dens, ture ; for it is written, As I live, saith the and come into the companies of men, so that Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every you shall hardly tell how to call them, herds tongue shall confess to God :"* that is, at! of men, or congregations of beasts; then the day of judgment, when we are placed shall the graves open and give up their dead, ready to receive our sentence, all knees shall j and those which are alive in nature and dead bow to the holy Jesus, and confess him to in fear, shall be forced from the rocks whith- be God the Lord ; meaning that our Lord's er they went to hide them, and from caverns presence shall be such, as to force obeisance j of the earth, where they would fain have from angels and men and devils ; and his been concealed ; because their retirements j are dismantled, and their rocks are broken into wider ruptures, and admit a strange * Romans xiv. 10, 11, 12 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. L light into their secret bowels ; and the men being forced abroad into the theatre of mighty horrors, shall run up and down dis- tracted and at their wits' end; and then some men shall die, and some shall be changed, and by this time the elect shall be gathered to- gether from the four quarters of the world, and Christ shall come along with them to judgment. These signs, although the Jewish doctors reckon them by order and a method, con- cerning which they had no other revelation (that appears) nor sufficiently credible tra- dition, yet for the main parts of the things themselves, the Holy Scripture records Christ's own words, and concerning the most terrible of them ; the sum of which, as Christ related them, and his apostles record- ed and explicated, is this, "the earth shall tremble, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken j the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood that is, there shall be strange eclipses of the sun, and fearful aspects in the moon, who when she is troubled, looks red like blood ; " the rocks shall rend, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The heavens shall be rolled up like a parchment, the earth shall be burned with fire, the hills shall be like wax, for there shall go a fire before him, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred round about him :" Dies irae, Dies ilia Solvet sec'lum in favilla ; Teste David, cum Sibylla. The trumpet of God shall sound, and the voice of the archangel, that is, of him who is the prince of all that great army of spirits, which shall then attend their Lord, and wait upon and illustrate his glory ; and this also is part of that which is called the sign of the Son of man; for the fulfilling of all these predictions, and the preaching of the gospel to all nations, and the conversion of the Jews, and these prodigies, and the address of majesty, make up that sign. The notice of which things some way or other came to the very heathen themselves, who were alarmed into caution and sobriety by these dead remembrancers : Siccfim, compage soluta, Saecula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora, Antiquum repetens iterum chaos, omnia mistis Sidera sideribus concurrent : ignea pontum Astra petent, tellus extendere littora nolit, Excutietque fretum ; fratri contraria Phoebe Ibit,— Totaquc discors Machina divulsi turbabit fcedera mundi. Which things when they come to pass, it will be no wonder if men's hearts shall fail them for fear, and their wits be lost with guilt, and their fond hopes destroyed by prodigy and amazement ; but it will be an extreme wonder, if the consideration and certain expectation of these things shall not awake our sleeping spirits, and raise us from the death of sin, and the baseness of vice and dishonourable actions, to live soberly and temperately, chastely and justly, humbly and obediently, that is, like persons that be- lieve all this ; and such who are not mad- men or fools will order their actions accord- ing to these notices. For if they do not be- lieve these things, where is their faith ? If they do believe them, and sin on, and do as if there were no such thing to come to pass, where is their prudence, and what is their hopes, and where their charity ? how do they differ from beasts, save that they are more foolish ? for beasts go on and con- sider not, because they cannot; but we can consider, and will not : we know that strange terrors shall affright us all, and strange deaths and torments shall sieze upon the wicked, and that we cannot escape, and the rocks themselves will not be able to hide us from the fears of those prodigies, which shall come before the day of judgment; and that the mountains, though, when they are broken in pieces, we call upon them to fall upon us, shall not be able to secure us one minute from the present vengeance ; and yet we proceed with confidence or careless- ness, and consider not, that there is no greater folly in the world than for a man to neglect his greatest interest, and to die for trifles and little regards, and to become miserable for such interests, which are not excusable in a child. He that is youngest, hath not long to live ; he that is thirty, forty, or fifty years old, hath spent most of his life, and his dream is almost done, and in a very few months he must be cast into his eternal por- tion ; that is, he must be in an unalterable condition ; his final sentence shall pass, ac ■ cording as he shall then be found ; and that will be an intolerable condition, when he shall have reason to cry out in the bitterness of his soul, "Eternal woe is to me, who re- fused to consider, when I might have been saved and secured from this intolerable ca- lamity." But I must descend to consider the particulars and circumstances of the great consideration, "Christ shall be our judge at doomsday." Serm. II. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 13 SERMON II. PART II. 1 . If we consider the person of the Judge, we first perceive, that he is interested in the injury of the crimes he is to sentence. — " Videbunt quem crucifixerunt," "they shall look on him whom they have pierced." It was for thy sins that the Judge did suffer unspeakable pains, as were enough to re- concile all the world to God : the sum and spirit of which pains could not be better un- derstood than by the consequence of his own words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" meaning that he felt such horrible pure unmingled sorrows, that al- though his human nature was personally united to the Godhead, yet at that instant he felt no comfortable emanations by sensible perception from the Divinity, but he was so drenched in sorrow, that the Godhead seemed to have forsaken him. Beyond this nothing can be added : but then, that thou hast for thy own particular made all this in vain and ineffective, that Christ thy Lord and Judge should be tormented for nothing, that thou wouldst not accept felicity and pardon, when he purchased them at so dear a price, must needs be an infinite condemnation to such persons. How shalt thou look upon him that fainted and died for love of thee, and thou didst scorn his miraculous mercies ? How shall we dare to behold that holy face that brought salvation to us, and we turned away and fell in love with death, and kissed de- formity and sins ? and yet in the beholding that face consists much of the glories of eternity. All the pains and passions, the sorrows and the groans, the humility and poverty, the labours and the watchings, the prayers and the sermons, the miracles and the prophecies, the whip and the nails, the death and the burial, the shame and the smart, the cross and the grave, of Jesus, shall be laid upon thy score, if thou hast re- fused the mercies and design of all their holy ends and purposes. And if we re- member what a calamity that was, which broke the Jewish nation in pieces, when Christ came to judge them for their murder- ing him, who was their King and the Prince of life j and consider, that this was but a dark image of the terrors of the day of judg- ment ; we may then apprehend, that there is some strange unspeakable evil that attends them that are guilty of this death and of so much evil to their Lord. Now it is certain, if thou wilt not be saved by his death, thou art guilty of his death j if thou wilt not suffer him to save thee, thou art guilly of destroy- ing him : and then let it be considered, what is to be expected from that Judge, before whom you stand as his murderer and betrayer. But this is but half of that consideration. 2. Christ may be " crucified again," and upon a new account " put to an open shame." For after that Christ had done all this by the direct actions of his priestly office of sacrific- ing himself for us, he hath also done very many things for us, which are also the fruits of his first love and prosecution of our re- demption. I will not instance in the strange arts of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives ; but I consider that things are so ordered, and so great a value set upon our souls, since they are the images of God, and redeemed by the blood of the holy Lamb, that the salvation of our souls is reckoned as apart of Christ's reward, a part of the glori- fication of his humanity. Every sinner that repents causes joy to Christ, and the joy is so great that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of cherubim and sera- phim, and all the angels have a part of that banquet; then it is that our blessed Lord feels the fruits of his holy death, the accep- tation of his holy sacrifice, the graciousness of his person, the return of his prayers. For all that Christ did or suffered, and all that he now does as a priest in heaven, is to glorify his Father by bringing souls to God : for this it was that he was born and died, and that he descended from heaven to earth, from life to death, from the cross to the grave ; this was the purpose of his resurrec- tion and ascension, of the end and design of all the miracles and graces of God mani- fested to all the world by him. And now what man is so vile, such a malicious fool, that will refuse to bring joy to his Lord by doing himself the greatest good in the world ? They who refuse to do this, are said to "crucify the Lord of life again, and put him to an open shame ;" that is, they , as much as in them lies, bring Christ from his glorious joys to the labours of his life, and the shame of his death ; they advance his enemies, and refuse to advance the kingdom of their Lord ; they put themselves in that state, in which they were when Christ came to die for them ; and now that he is in a state that he may rejoice over them, (for he hath done all his share towards it,) every wicked man takes his head from the blessing, and rather chooses that the devil should rejoice in his destruc- B 14 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. II. tion, than that his Lord should triumph in his felicity. And now upon the supposition of these premises we may imagine, that it will be an infinite amazement to meet the Lord to be our judge, whose person we have murdered, whose honour we have dispa- raged, whose purposes we have destroyed, whose joys we have lessened, whose pas- sion we have made ineffectual, and whose love we have trampled under our profane and impious feet. 3. But there is yet a third part of this consideration. As it will be inquired at the day of judgment concerning the dishonours to the person of Christ, so also concerning the profession and institution of Christ, and concerning his poor members ; for by these also we make sad reflections upon our Lord. Every man that lives wickedly, disgraces the religion and institution of Jesus, he dis- courages strangers from entering into it, he weakens the hands of them that are in al- ready, and makes that the adversaries speak reproachfully of the name of Christ; but al- though it is certain our Lord and Judge will deeply resent all these things, yet there is one thing which he takes more tenderly, and that is, the uncharitableness of men towards his poor ; it shall then be upbraided to them by the Judge, that himself was hungry, and they refused to give meat to him that gave them his body and heart-blood to feed them and quench their thirst ; that they denied a robe to cover his nakedness, and yet he would have clothed their souls with the robe of his righteousness, lest their souls should be found naked in the day of the Lord's visitation ; and all this unkindness is nothing but that evil men were unchari- table to their brethren, they would not feed the hungry, nor give drink to the thirsty, nor clothe the naked, nor relieve their bro- ther's needs, nor forgive his follies, nor . cover their shame, nor turn their eyes from delighting in their affronts and evil acci- dents; this is it which our Lord will take so tenderly, that his brethren, for whom he i died, who sucked the paps of his mother, that fed on his body and are nourished with i his blood, whom he hath lodged in his heart and entertains in his bosom, the partners of ] his spirit and co-heirs of his inheritance, i that these should bo denied relief and suffer- I ed to go away ashamed and unpitied ; this i our blessed Lord will take so ill, that all < those who are guilty of this unkindness ( have no reason to expect the favour of the | court. ; t 4. To this if we add the almightiness of i the Judge, his infinite wisdom and know- t ledge of all causes and all persons and all ; circumstances, that he is infinitely just, in- : flexibly angry, and impartial in his sentence, there can be nothing added either to the greatness or the requisites of a terrible and an almighty Judge. For who can resist him who is almighty ? Who can evade his scrutiny that knows all things ? Who can hope for pity of him that is inflex- ible ? Who can think to be exempted when the Judge is righteous and impartial ? But in all these annexes of the great Judge, that which I shall now remark, is that indeed which hath terror in it, and that is the seve- rity of our Lord. For then is the day of ven- geance and recompenses, and no mercy at all shall be showed but to them that are the sons of mercy ; for the other, their por- tion is such as can be expected from these premises. 1. If we remember the instances of God's severity in this life, in the days of mercy and repentance, in those days when judgment waits upon mercy and receives laws by the rules and measures of pardon, and that for all the rare streams of loving-kindness is- suing out of paradise, and refreshing all our fields with a moisture more fruitful tnan the floods of Nilus, still there are mingled some storms and violences, some fearful instances of the Divine justice; we may more readily expect it will be worse, infinitely worse, at that day when judgment shall ride in triumph, and mercy shall be the accuser of the wicked. But so we read and are com- manded to remember, because they are written for our example, that God destroyed at once five cities of the plain and all the country ; and Sodom and her sisters are set forth for an example suffering the ven- geance of eternal fire. Fearful it was when God destroyed at once twenty-three thou- sand for fornication, and an exterminating angel in one night killed one-hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrians, and the first-born of„all the families of Egypt, and for the sin of David in numbering the people, threescore and ten thousand of the people died, and God sent ten tribes into captivity and eternal oblivion and indis- tinction from a common people for their idolatry. Did not God strike Corah and his company with fire from heaven ? and the earth opened and swallowed up the congre- gation of Abiram? And is not evil come upon all the world for one sin of Adam ? Did not Serm. II. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 15 the anger of God break the nation of the Jews all in pieces with judgments so great, that no nation ever suffered the like, be- cause none ever sinned so 1 And at once it was done that God in anger destroyed all the world, and eight persons only es- caped the angry baptism of water, and yet this world is the time of mercy : God hath opened here his magazines, and sent his only Son as the great fountain of it too : here he delights in mercy, and in judgment loves to remember it, and it triumphs over all his works, and God contrives incidents and ac- cidents, chances and designs, occasions and opportunities, for mercy : if therefore now the anger of God make such terrible erup- tions upon the wicked people that delight in sin, how great may we suppose that an- ger to be, how severe that judgment, how terrible that vengeance, how intolerable those inflictions, which God reserves for the full effusion of indignation on the great day of vengeance ! 2. We may also guess at it by this ; if God, upon all single instances, and in the midst of our sins, before they are come to the full, and sometimes in the beginning of an evil habit, be so fierce in his anger ; what can we imagine it to be in that day, when the wicked are to drink the dregs of that hor- rid potion, and count over all the particulars of their whole treasure of wrath ? This is the day of wrath, and God shall reveal or bring forth his righteous judgments."* The ex- pression is taken from Deut. xxxii. 34. (C Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among ray treasures? iv qutpa ix8ixrtVcu>i avraTtoSJdvu, I will restore it in the day of vengeance, for the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his ser- vants." For so did the Libyan lion that was brought up under discipline, and taught to endure blows, and eat the meat of order and regular provision, and to suffer gentle usages and the familiarities of societies j but once he brake out into his own wildness, " Dedidicit pacem subito feritate reversa," and killed two Roman boys : but those that forage on the Libyan mountains, tread down and devour all that they meet or master ; and when they have fasted two days, lay up an anger great as is their appetite, and bring certain death to all that can be overcome. God is pleased to compare himself to a lion; and though in this life he hath confined himself with promises and gracious emana- tions of an infinite goodness, and limits him- * Rom. ii. 5. self by conditions and covenants, and suffers himself to be overcome by prayers, and him- self hath invented ways of atonement and expiation ; yet when he is provoked by our unhandsome and unworthy actions he makes sudden breaches, and tears some of us in pieces ; and of others he breaks their bones or affrights their hopes and secular gaieties, and fills their house with mourning and cypress and groans and death : but when this Lion of the tribe of Judah shall appear upon his own mountain, the moun- tain of the Lord, in his natural dress of majesty, and that justice shall have her chain and golden fetters taken off, then jus- tice shall strike, and mercy shall not hold her haads ; she shall strike sore strokes, and pity shall not break the blow ; and God shall account with us by minutes, and for words, and for thoughts : and then he shall be se- vere to mark what is done amiss ; and that justice may reign entirely, God shall open the wicked man's treasure, and tell the sums and weigh grains and scruples : rial yap uityrtfp ayadfajT; ovrco xaxuv rtapa Tfa ^9 Jtysavpoi. iv r(utpq yap (^^Ttv) ixhixrteus iafpayirsOcu tov$ fuiv xaxuv Orjiavoovs, said Philo upon the place of Deuteronomy be- fore quoted : as there are treasures of gooc* things, and God hath crowns and scep- tres in store for his saints and servants, and coronets for martyrs, and rosaries for virgins, and phials full of prayers, and bot- tles full of tears, and a register of sighs j and penitential groans : so God hath a j treasure of wrath and fury, and scourges and scorpions, and then shall be produced the shame of lust, and the malice of envy, j and the groans of the oppressed, and the per- secutions of the saints, and the cares of co- vetousness, and the troubles of ambition, and the insolences of traitors, and the vio- lences of rebels, and the rage of anger, and the uneasiness of impatience, and the rest- lessness of unlawful desires; and by this time the monsters and diseases will be nu- merous and intolerable, when God's heavy hand shall press the sanies and the intole- rableness, and the obliquity, and the unrea- sonableness, the amazement and the dis- order, the smart and the sorrow, the guilt and the punishment, out from all our sins, and pour them into one chalice, and mingle them with an infinite wrath, and make the wicked drink off all the vengeance, and force it down their unwilling throats with the violence of devils and accursed spirits. 3. We may guess at the severity of tb 16 CHRIST'S ADVEN Judge, by the lesser strokes of that judg- ment, which he is pleased to send upon sin- ners in this world to make them afraid of the horrible pains of doomsday : I mean the torments of an unquiet conscience, the amazement and confusions of some sins and some persons. For I have sometimes seen persons surprised in a base action, and taken in the circumstances of crafty theft and secret injustices, before their excuse was ready ; they have changed their colour, their speech hath faltered, their tongue stammered, their eyes did wander and fix no where, till shame made them sink into their hollow eye-pits, to retreat from the images and circumstances of discovery; their wits are lost, their reason useless, the whole order of the soul is discomposed, and they neither see, nor feel, nor think, as they used to do, but they are broken into disorder by a stroke of damnation, and a lesser stripe of hell ; but then if you come to observe a guilty and a base murderer, a condemned traitor, and see him harassed, first by an evil conscience, and then pulled in pieces Dy the hangman's hooks, or broken upon sorrows and the wheel, we may then guess Us weli as we can in this life) what the pains of tnat day shall be to accursed souls : but those we shall consider afterwards in their proper scene; now only we are to estimate the severity of our Judge by the intolerable- rteGs of an evil conscience : if guilt will make a man despair, and despair will make a man mad, confounded and dissolved in all the re- gions of his senses and more noble faculties, that he shall neither feel, nor, hear, nor see, anything but spectres and illusions, devils and frightful dreams, and hear noises, and shriek fearfully, and look pale and distracted, like a hopeless man, from the horrors and confusions of a lost battle upon which all his hopes did stand ; then the wicked must at the day of judgment expect strange things and fearful, and such which now no lan- guage can express, and then no patience can endure. IIoMovs 6' oSup/ttovj xai yoovj avatyftel j 3>dty%r]. Atoj yap fivffTtapatV^T'ot $p£i>s$. Then only it can truly be said, that he is in- flexible and inexorable. No prayers then can move him, no groans can cause him to pity thee; therefore pity thyself in time, that when the Judge comes thou may est be one of the sons of everlasting mercy, to whom pity belongs as part of thine inheri- tance ; for all these shall without any re- T TO JUDGMENT. Serm. II. morse (except his own) be condemned by the horrible sentence. 4. That all may think themselves con- cerned in this consideration, let us remem- ber that even the righteous and most inno- cent shall pass through a severe trial. Many of the ancients explicated this severity by the fire of conflagration, which (say they) shall purify those souls at the day of judg- ment, which in this life have built upon the foundation of hay and stubble, works of fol- ly and false opinions, and states of imperfec- tion. So Saint Austin's doctrine was,* " Hoc agit caminus, alios in sinistra separa- bit, alios in dextra quodam modo eliquabit : The great fire at doomsday shall throw some into the portion of the left hand, and others shall be purified and represented on the right;" and the same is affirmed by Origen and Lactantius;f and St. Hilary thus expos- tulates, "Since we are to give an account for every idle word, shall we long for the day of judgment,'' "in quo est nobis inde- fessus ille ignis obeundus in quo subeunda sunt gravia ilia expiandae a peccatis anima supplicia: wherein we must every one ol us pass that unwearied fire, in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soul from sins must be endured ; for to such as have been baptized with the Holy Ghost, it remaineth that they be consummated with the fire of judgment." And St. Ambrose adds, tnat if any be as Peter or as John, they are baptized with this fire, and he that is purged here, hath need to be purged there again : "Illic quoque nos purificet, quando dicat dominus, intrate in requiem meam ; Let him also purify us, that every one of us being burned with that flaming sword, not burned up or consumed, we may enter into paradise, and give thanks unto the Lord, who hath brought us into a place of refreshment.":}: This opinion of theirs is in the main of it very uncertain, relying upon the sense of some obscure places of scrip- ture, is only apt to represent the great seve- rity of the Judge at that day ; and it hath in it this only certainty, that even the most in- ijocent person hath great need of mercy, and he that hath the greatest cause of confidence, although he runs to no rocks to hide him, yet he runs to the protection of the cross, and hides himself under the shadow of Di- * In Psalm ciii. tin Jerem. horn. 13. et in Luc. horn. 14, et Lactantius, lib. vii. Instit. c. xxi. Hilarius in PsaL cxviii, octen. 2. et in Matt. can. 2. t In Psalm cxviii. serm. 3, SKUf.IL CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 17 vine mercies; and he that shall receive the' St. Paul ;* therefore nothing shall escape for absolution of the blessed sentence, shall also being secret: suffer the terrors of the day, and the fear- r'A7tav9' o /uaxpoj xai aiup,eurtto$ Xpwoj fill circumstances of Christ's coming. The ; $u$« r afyta, effect of this consideration is this, that " if. And all prejudices being laid aside, it shall the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall I be considered concerning our evil rules, and the wicked and the sinner appear ?" "Quid j false principles; "cum cepero tempus, ego faciet virgula deserti, ubi concutietur cedrus | justitias judicabo; when I shall receive the paradisi ? Quid faciet agnus, cum tremit i people, I shall judge according unto right ;"f so we read: "when we shall receive time, I will judge justices and judgments;" so aries? Si co?lum fugiat, ubi manebit terra ?" said St. Gregory. And if St. Paul, whose conscience accused him not, yet durst not! the vulgar Latin reads it: that is, in the day be too confident because he was not hereby of the Lord, when time is put into his hand justified, but might be found faulty by the severer judgment of his Lord ; how shall we appear with all our crimes and evil habits and time shall be no more, he shall judge concerning those judgments which men here make of things below ; and the lighting round about us ? If there be need of much men shall perceive the noise of drunkards mercy to the friends of the Judge, then his and fools that cried him up for daring to kill enemies shall not be able to stand upright in his brother, to have been evil principles: judgment. i and then it will be declared by strange ef- 5. But the matter is still of more concern- 1 fects, that wealth is not the greatest fortune ; ment. The Pharisees believed that they | and ambition was but an ill counsellor; and were innocent, if they abstained from crimi-i to lie for a good cause was no piety ; and to nal actions, such as were punishable by the do evil for the glory of God was but an ill judge ; and many Christians think all is well worshipping him ; and that good-nature was with them, if they abstain from such sins as 1 not well employed, when it spent itself in have a name in the tables of their laws; but vicious company and evil compliances; and because some sins are secret and not discern i-l that piety was not softness and want of ble to man, others are public but not punish- , courage ; and that poverty ought not to have ed, because they are frequent and perpetual, been contemptible; and the cause that is and without external mischiefs in some in- ! unsuccessful, is not therefore evil : and what stances, and only provocations against God ; ; is folly here shall be wisdom there; then shall men think that in their concernments they men curse their evil guides, and their ac- have no place : and such, are jeering, and cursed superinduced necessities and the evil many instances of wantonness and revel- ' guises of the world ; and then when silence ling, doing petty spites, and rudeness, and shall be found innocence, and eloquence in churlishness, lying and pride: and beyond . many instances condemned as criminal; this, some are very like virtues ; as too much ; when the poor shall reign, and generals and gentleness and slackness in government, or' tyrants shall lie low in horrible regions; too great severity and rigour of animadver- 1 when he that lost all shall find a trea- sion, bitterness in reproof of sinners, uncivil sure, and he that spoiled him shall be circumstances, imprudent handlings of some, found naked and spoiled by the destroyer; criminals, and zeal; nay, there are some then we shall find it true, that we ought vile things, which, through the evil dis- j here to have done what our Judge, our coursings and worse manners of men, are blessed Lord, shall do there, that is, take our passed into an artificial and false reputation, . measures of good and evil by the severities and men are accounted wits for talking athe-' of the word of God, by the sermons of istically, and valiant for being murderers, Christ and the four gospels, and by the and wise for deceiving and circumventing epistles of St. Paul, by justice and charity, our brothers; and many irregularities more, , by the laws of God and the laws of wise for all which we are safe enough here. But, princes and republics, by the rules of nature when the day of judgment comes, these, and the just proportions of reason, by the thall be called to a severe account, for the examples of good men and the proverbs of Judge is omniscient and knows all things,] wise men, by severity and the rules of dis- and his tribunal takes cognizance of all cipline : for then it shall be that truth shall causes, and hath a coercive for all. " all ! , , things are naked and open to his eyes," saith Heb. lv. 13. t Psalm Ixxiv B 2 18 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. II. ride in triumph, and the holiness of Christ's I sermons shall be manifest to all the world : ! that the word of God shall be advanced over all the discourses of men, and " wisdom shall be justified by all her children." Then shall be heard those words of an evil and tardy repentance, and the just rewards of folly, "We fools thought their life mad- ness but behold, they are justified before the throne of God, and we are miserable forever. Here men think it strange if others will not run into the same excess of riot ; but there they will wonder how themselves should be so mad and infinitely unsafe, by being strangely and inexcusably unreason- able. The sum is this, the Judge shall ap- pear clothed with wisdom, and power, and justice, and knowledge, and an impartial spirit, making no separations by the propor- tions of this world, but by the measures of God ; not giving sentence by the principles of our folly and evil customs, but by the severity of his own laws and measures of the Spirit. "Non est judicium Dei ; homi- num; God does not judge as man judges." 6. Now that the Judge is come thus ar- rayed, thus prepared, so instructed, let us next consider the circumstances of our ap- pearing and his sentence; and first consider, that men at the day of judgment, that belong not to the portion of life, shall have three sorts of accusers. 1. Christ himself, who is their judge. 2. Their own consciences, whom they have injured and blotted with characters of death and foul dishonour. 3- The devil, their enemy, whom they served. 1. Christ shall be their accuser, not only upon the stock of those direct injuries j (which I before reckoned) of crucifying the ' Lord of life, once and again, &,c, but upon j the titles of contempt and unworthiness, of unkindness and ingratitude; and the accu- sation will be nothing else but a plain repre- sentation of those artifices and assistances, those bonds and invitations, those constrain- ings and importunities, which our dear Lord used to us, to make it almost impossi- ble to lie in sin, and necessary to be saved. For it will, it must needs be a fearful expro- bration of our unworthiness, when the Judge himself shall bear witness against us, that the wisdom of God himself was strangely employed in bringing us safely to felicity. I shall draw a short scheme, which, al- though it must needs be infinitely short of what God hath done for us, yet it will be enough io shame us. 1. Gcd did not only give his Son for an example, and the Son gave himself for a price for us, but both gave the Holy Spirit to assist us in mighty graces, for the verifications of faith, and the entertainments of hope, and the increase and perseverance of charity. 2. God gave to us a new nature, he put another principle into us, a third part, a perfective constitution: we have the Spirit put into us to be a part of us, as properly to produce actions of holy life, as the soul of man in the body does produce the -natural. 3. God hath exalted human nature, and made it in the person of Jesus Christ to sit above the highest seat of angels, and the angels are made ministering spirits, ever since their Lord became our brother. 4. Christ hath by a miraculous sacrament given us his body to eat, and his blood to drink ; he made ways that we may become all one with him. 5. He hath given us an easy religion, and hath established our future felicity upon natural and pleasant conditions, and we are to be happy hereafter if we suffer God to make us happy here; and things are so ordered, that a man must take more pains to perish than to be happy. 6. God hath found out rare ways to make our prayers acceptable, our weak petitions, the desires of our imperfect souls, to prevail mightily with God; and to lay a holy vio- lence, and an undeniable necessity upon himself: and God will deny us nothing but when we ask of him to do us ill offices, to give us poisons and dangers, and evil nourishment, and temptations ; and he that hath given such mighty power to the pray- ers of his servants, yet will not be moved by those potent and mighty prayers to do any good man an evil turn, or to grant him one mischief; in that only God can deny us. 7. But in all things else, God hath made all the excellent things in heaven and earth to join towards holy and fortunate effects ; for he hath appointed an angel to present the prayers of saints, * and Christ makes inter- cession for us, and the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groans unutterable ;f and all the holy men in the world pray for all and for every one; and God hath in- structed us with scriptures and precedents, and collateral and direct assistances to pray; and he encourages us with divers excellent promises, and parables, and examples, and teaches us what to pray and how, and gives one promise to public prayer, and another * Rev. viii. 3. t Rom vii. 26. Serm. II. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 19 to private prayer, and to both the blessing of expressed the sense of this inducement; being heard. 'and that this argument would have grown 8. Add to this account, that God did heap 1 so great by that time we come to die blessings upon us without order, infinitely, ' that the certain pleasures, and rare con- perpetually, and in all instances, when we fidences, and holy hopes, of a death-bed, needed and when we needed not. 9. He heard would be a strange felicity to the man, when us when we prayed, giving us all and giving he remembers he did obey, if they were com- us more than we desired. 10. He desired pared to the fearful expectations of a dying that we should ask, and yet he hath also pre- sinner, who feels, by a formidable and vented our desire. 11. He watched for us, affrighting remembrance, that of all his and, at his own charge, sent a whole order sins, nothing remains but the gains of a mis- of men, whose employment is to minister to erable eternity. The offering ourselves to our souls: and, if all this had not been enough, God every morning, and the thanksgiving to he had given us more also. 12. He promised God every night, hope and fear, shame and heaven to our obedience, a province for a dish desire, the honour of leaving a fair name of water, a kingdom for a prayer, satisfac- tion for desiring it, grace for receiving, and more grace for accepting and using the first. 13. He invited us with gracious words and perfect entertainments. 14. He threatened horrible things to us, if we would not be happy. 15. He hath made strange necessi- behind us, and the shame of dying like a fool, every thing indeed in the world, is made to be an argument and inducement to us to invite us to come to God and be saved ; and therefore when this and infinitely more shall, by the Judge, be exhibited in sad remem- brances, there needs no other sentence ; we ties for us, making our very repentance to be shall condemn ourselves with a hasty shame, and a fearful confusion, to see how good God hath been to us, and how base we have taken away all excuses from us, he hath been to ourselves. Thus Moses is said to called us off from temptation, he bears our accuse the Jews ; and thus also he that does a conjugation of holy actions, and holy times, and a lonsr succession. 16. He hath charges, he is always beforehand with us in every act of favour, and perpetually slow in striking ; and his arrows are unfeathered, and he is so long, first in drawing his sword, and another long while in whetting it, and yet longer in lifting his hand to strike, that, be- fore the blow comes, the man hath repented long, unless he is a fool and impudent : and then God is so glad of an excuse to lay his anger aside, that certainly if, after all this, we refuse life and glorv. there is no more accuse, is said to condemn ; as Yerres was by Cicero, and Claudia by Domitius, her accuser ; and the world of impenitent per- sons by the men of Nineveh, and all by Christ, their judge. I represent the horror of this circumstance to consist in this : be- sides the reasonableness of the judgment and the certainty of the condemnation, it cannot but be an argument of an intolerable despair to perishing souls, when he that was our ad- vocate all our life, shall, in the dav of that to be said ; the plain story will condemn us : appearing, be our accuser and our judge, a but the story is very much longer. And as party against us, an injured person, in the our conscience will represent all our sins to 'day of his power and of his wrath, doing us, so the Judge will represent all his Father's execution upon all his own foolish and ma- kindnesses, as Nathan did to David, when ;licious enemies. 2. Our conscience shall be our accuser : but this signifies but these two things ; 1. That we shall be condemned for the evils that we have done, and shall then remem- ber; God, by his power, wiping away the dust from the tables of our memory, and taking off the consideration and the volun- he was to make the justice of the Divine sentence appear against him. 17. Then it shall be remembered, that the joys of every day's piety would have been a greater plea- sure every night, than the remembrance of every night's sin could have been in the morning: 18. That every night, the trouble and labour of the day's virtue would havejtary neglect and rude shufflings of our cases as much passed, and turned to as very a of conscience. For then we shall see things nothing, as the pleasure of the day's sin ; but ! as they are, the evil circumstances and the that they would be infinitely distinguished crooked intentions, the adherent unhand- by the remanent effects. vAv ft rtpaZys xax6i> someness, and the direct crimes; for all into. Ttovov, 6 fifv foro? olxttou, to 5f xaXov ^£vn' ' things are laid up safely: and though we am rt Ttaujoys aiaxpov fist a fiovrjs, to ptv r;8v draw a curtain of a cobweb over them, and age* at, to Se aiixpbv fuvet ; so Musonius sew fig-leaves before our shame, vet God 20 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. II. shall draw away the curtain, and forgetf ill- ness shall be no more; because with a taper in the hand of God, all the corners of our nastiness shall be discovered. And, 2. It signifies this also ; that not only the justice of God shall be confessed by us in our own shame and condemnation, but the evil of the sentence shall be received into us, to melt our bowels and to break our hearts in pieces within us, because we are the authors of our own death, and our inhuman hands have torn our souls in pieces. Thus far the horrors are great, and when evil men con- sider it, it is certain they must be afraid to die. Even they that have lived well, have some sad considerations, and the trembling of humility, and suspicion of themselves. I remember St. Cyprian tells of a good man who, in his agony of death, saw a phantasm of a noble angelical shape, who, frowning and angry, said to him, '.* Pati timetis, exire non vultis : quid faciam vobis ? Ye cannot endure sickness, ye are troubled at the evils of the world, and yet you are loth to die and be quit of them : what shall I do to you V9 although this is apt to represent every man's condition more or less, yet concerning per- sons of wicked lives, it hath in it too many sad degrees of truth ; they are impatient of sorrow, and justly fearful of death, because they know not how to comfort themselves in the evil accidents of their lives j and their conscience is too polluted to take death for sanctuary, to hope to have amends made to their condition by the sentence of the day of judgment. Evil and sad is their condition, who cannot be contented here, nor blessed hereafter; whose life is their misery, and their conscience is their enemy, whose grave is their prison, and death their undoing, and the sentence of doomsday the beginning of an intolerable condition. 3. The third sort of accusers are the devils ; and they will do it with malicious and evil purposes ; the prince of the devils hath Ata3oXoj for one of his chiefest appellatives; k< the accuser of the brethren" he is, by his professed malice and employment: and therefore God, who delights that his mercy should triumph, and his goodness prevail over all the malice of men and devils, hath appointed one whose office is hiy%tw tw avtiTJyovta to reprove the accuser, and to resist the enemy, to be a defender of their cause who belong to God. The Holy Spirit is IIttf;ax^ro5, a defender ; the evil spirit is 4jaj3tif%9f, the accuser ; and they that in this life belong to one or the other, shall, in the same proportion, be treated at the day oi judgment. The devil shall accuse the breth- ren, that is, the saints and servants of God, and shall tell concerning their follies and in- firmities, the sins of their youth, and the weakness of their age, the imperfect grace and the long schedule of omissions of duty, their scruples and their fears, their diffi- dences and pusillanimity, and all those things which themselves, by strict examina- tion, find themselves guilty of and have con- fessed, all their shame and the matter of their sorrows, their evil intentions and their little plots, their carnal confidences and too fond adherencies to the things of this world, their indulgence and easiness of government, their wild joys and freer meals, their loss of time, and their too forward and apt compli- ances, their trifling arrests and little peevish- nesses, the mixtures of the world with the things of the Spirit, and all the incidences of humanity, he will bring forth and aggravate them by the circumstance of ingratitude, and the breach of promise, and the evacuating of their holy purposes, and breaking their reso- lution s, and rifling their vows ; and all these tnings being drawn into an entire represent- ment, and the bills clogged by numbers, will make the best men in the world seem foul and unhandsome, and stained with the characters of death and evil dishonour. But for these there is appointed a defender ; the Holy Spirit that maketh intercession for us, shall then also interpose, and against all these things shall oppose the passion of our blessed Lord, and upon all their defects shall cast the robe of his righteousness ; and the sins of their youth shall not prevail so much as the repentance of their age ; and their omissions be excused by probable intervening causes, and their little escapes shall appear single and in disunion, because they were always kept asunder by penitential prayers and sighings, and their seldom returns of sin by their daily watchfulness, and their often infirmities by the sincerity of their souls, and their scruples by their zeal, and their passions by their love, and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice which their Judge offered, and the Holy Spirit made effective by daily graces and assistances. — These, therefore, infallibly go to the portion of the right hand, because the Lord our God shall answer for them. " But as for the wicked, it is not so with them for al- though the plain story of their life be to them a sad condemnation, yet what will be answered when it shall be told concerning Serm. III. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 21 ihem, that they despised God's mercies, and feared not his angry judgments ; that they regarded not his word, and loved not his ex- cellencies ; that they were not persuaded by his promises, nor affrighted by his threaten- ings; that they neither would accept his government nor his blessings ; that all the sad stories that ever happened in both the worlds (in all which himself did escape till the day of his death, and was not concerned in them, save only that he was called upon by every one of them, which he ever heard, or saw, or was told of, to repentance, that all these) were sent to him in vain ? But cannot the accuser truly say to the Judge concerning such persons, " They were thine by creation, but mine by their own choice ; thou didst redeem them indeed, but they sold themselves to me for a trifle, or for an un- satisfying interest : thou diedst for them, but they obeyed my commandments : I gave them nothing, I promised them nothing but the filthy pleasure of a night, or the joys of madness, or the delights of a disease: I never hanged upon the cross three long hours for them, nor endured the labours of a poor life thirty-three years together for their in- terest : only when they were thine by the merit of thy death, they quickly became mine by the demerit of their ingratitude: and when thou hadst clothed their soul with thy robe, and adorned them by thy graces, we stripped them naked as their shame, and only put on a robe of darkness, and they thought themselves secure, and went dancing to their grave, like a drunkard to a fight, or a fly unto a candle ; and, therefore, they that did partake with us in our faults, must di- vide with us in our portion and fearful inter- est?" This is a sad story, because it ends in death, and there is nothing to abate or lessen the calamity. It concerns us, there- fore, to consider in time, that he that tempts us will accuse us, and what he calls pleasant now, he shall then say was nothing, and all the gains that now invite earthly souls and mean persons to vanity, were nothing but the seeds of folly, and the harvest is pain, and sorrow, and shame eternal. But then, since this horror proceeds upon the account of so many accusers, God hath put it into our power, by a timely accusation of ourselves in the tribunal of the court Chris- tian, to prevent all the arts of aggravation, which, at doomsday, shall load foolish and undiscerning souls. He that accuses him- self of his crimes here, means to forsake them, and looks upon them on all sides, and spies out his deformity, and is taught to hate them; he is instructed and prayed for, he prevents the anger of God, and defeats the devil's malice ; and by making shame the instrument of repentance, he takes away the sting, and makes that to be his medicine, which otherwise would be his death. And concerning this exercise, I shall only add what the patriarch of Alexandria told an old religious person in his hermitage. Having asked him what he found in that desert, he was answered only this, "Indesinenter cul- pare et judicare meipsum ; — To judge and condemn myself perpetually, that is the em- ployment of my solitude." — The patriarch answered, " Non est alia via; There is no other way." — by accusing ourselves we shall make the devil's malice useless, and our own consciences clear, and be reconciled to the Judge by the severities of an early re- pentance, and then we need to fear no ac- cusers. sermon nr. PART III . 3. It remains that we consider the sen- tence itself, "We must receive according to what we have done in the body, whether it be good or bad." "Judicature Domino lugubre mundus immugiet, et tribus ad tri- bumpectoraferient. Potentissimi quondam reges nudo latere palpitabunt :" so St. Je- rome meditates concerning the terror of this consideration; "The whole world shall groan when the judge comes to give his sen- tence, tribe and tribe shall knock their sides together ; and through the naked breasts of the most mighty kings, you shall see their hearts beat with fearful tremblings." " Tunc Arestotelis argumenta parumproderunt, cum venerit Alius paupercuke quaestuarice judi- care orbem terra;." Nothing shall then be worth owning, or the means of obtaining mercy, but a holy conscience ; " all the hu- man craft and trifling subtilties shall be use- less when the son of a poor maid shall sit Judge over all the world." When the pro- phet Joel was describing the formidable ac- cidents in the day of the Lord's judgment, and the fearful sentence of an angry Judge, he was not able to express it, but stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person, 22 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. III. "A. A. A. diei, quia prope est dies Domini."* It is not sense at first ; he was so amazed he knew not what to say j and the Spirit of God '.vas pleased to let that sign remain, like Agamemnon's sorrow for the death of Iphi- genia, nothing could describe it but a veil ; it must be hidden and supposed; and the stammering tongue, that is full of fear, can best speak that terror, which will make all the world to cry, and shriek, and speak fear- ful accents, and significations of an infinite sorrow and amazement. But so it is, there are two great days, in which the fate of all the world is transacted. This life is man's day, in which man does what he pleases, and God holds his peace. Man destroys his brother, and destroys him- self, and confounds governments, and raises armies, and attempts to sin, and delights in it, and drinks drunk, and forgets his sorrow, and heaps up great estates, and raises a family, and a name in the annals, and makes others fear him, and introduces new religions, and confounds the old, and changeth articles as his interest requires, and all this while God is silent, save that he is loud and clam- orous with his holy precepts, and over-rules the event ; but leaves the desires of men to their own choice, and their course of life such as they generally choose. But then God shall have his day too ; the day of the Lord shall come, in which he shall speak, and no man shall answer; he shall speak in the voice of thunder and fearful noises, and man shall do no more as he please, but must suffer as he hath deserved. When Zedekiah reigned in Jerusalem, and persecuted the prophets, and destroyed the interests of religion, and put Jeremy into the dungeon, God held his peace, save only that he warned him of the danger, and told him of the disorder; but it was Zedekiah's day, and he was permitted to his pleasure; but when he was led in chains to Babylon, and his eyes were put out with burning basins and horrible circles of reflected fires, then was God's day, and his voice was the accent of a fearful anger, that broke him all in pieces. It will be all our cases, unless we hear God speak now, and do his work, and serve his interest, and bear ourselves in our just proportions, that is, as such, the very end of whose being and all our faculties is, to serve God, and do justice and charities to our brother. For if we do the work of God in our own day, we shall receive an infinite mercy in the day of *Joel i. the Lord. But what that is, is now to be inquired. "What we have done in the body." But certainly this is the greatest terror of all. The thunders and the fires, the earthquakes and the trumpets, the brightness of holy angels, and the horror of accursed spirits, the voice of the archangel (who is the prince of the heavenly host) and the majesty of the Judge, in whose service all that army stands girt with holiness and obedience, all those strange circumstances which have been already reckoned, and all those others which we cannot understand, are but little preparatories and umbrages of this fearful circumstance. All this amazing majesty and formidable pre- paratories, are for the passing of an eternal sentence upon us, according to what we have done in the body. Woe and alas ? and God help us. All mankind is an enemy to God, his nature is accursed, and his manners are depraved. It is with the nature of man, and with all his manners, as Philemon said of the nature of foxes : H 6' av9£xa6-to$. a"K% eav rpictytvpiaj Akcortfjcaj tu; Ovvaydyoc, fucw yvatv " Every fox is crafty and mischievous, and if you gather a whole herd of them, there is not a good natured beast amongst them all." — So it is with man ; by nature he is the child of wrath, and by his manners he is the child of the devil ; we call Christian, and we dishonour our Lord ; and we are brethren, but we oppress and murder one another ; it is a great degree of sanctity now-a-days, not to be so wicked as the worst of men ; and we live at the rate, as if the best of men did de- sign to themselves an easier condemnation ; and as if the generality of men considered not concerning the degrees of death, but did believe that in hell no man shall perceive any ease or refreshment in being tormented with a slower fire. For consider what we do in the body ; twelve or fourteen years pass, before we choose good or bad ; and of that which remains, above half is spent in sleep and the needs of nature ; for the other half, it is divided as the stag was when the beasts went a hunting, the lion hath five parts of six. The business of the world takes so much of our remaining portion, that religion and the service of God have not much time left that can be spared ; and of that which can, if we consider how much is allowed to crafty arts of cozenage, to oppres- sion and ambition, to greedy desires and Serm. III. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 23 avaricious prosecutions, to the vanities of often we have tempted our brother or a silly our youth and the proper sins of every age, woman to sin and death! How often have to the mere idleness of man and doing no-|we pleaded for unjust interests, or by our tiling, to his fantastic imaginations of great- wit have cozened an easy and a believing ness and pleasures, of great and little devices, person, or given ill sentences, or disputed of impertinent lawsuits, and uncharitable others into false persuasions ! Did we never treatings of our brother ; it will be intolera- ' call good evil, or evil good ? Did we never ble when we consider that we are to stand isay to" others, Thy cause is right, when no- or fall eternally according to what we have j thing made it right but favour and money, a done in the body. Gather it all together, j false advocate or a covetous judge ? nay and set it before thy eyes ; alms and prayers '^/mj, apybv, so said Christ, " every idle are the sum of all thy good. Were thy prayers made in fear and holiness, with pas- sion and desire ? Were they not made un- willingly, weakly, and wanderingly, ani word," that is, rtdv ^/mx xtvov, so St. Paul uses it, "every false word,"* every lie shall be called to judgment ; or, as some copies read it, ndv ^ij/jLa rto^pov, " every wicked abated with sins in the greatest part of thy . word," shall be called to judgment. For by life? Didst thou pray with the same affec- , apyov, "idle words," are not meant words tion and labour as thou didst purchase thy that are unprofitable or unwise, for fools and estate ? Have thine alms been more than | silly persons speak most of those, and have thy oppressions, and according to thy pow- i the least accounts to make ; but by vain the er? and by what means didst thou judge j Jews usually understood false ; and to give concerning it ? How much of our time was spent in that ? and how much of our estate was spent in this ? But let us go one step farther: — How many of us love our enemies? or pray for and do good to them that perse- cute and affront us ? or overcome evil with good, or turn the face again to them that strike us, rather than be revenged ? or suffer ourselves to be spoiled or robbed without their mind to vanity, or to speak vanity, is all one as to mind or speak falsehoods with malicious and evil purposes. But if every idle word, that is, every vain and lying word, shall be called to judgment, what shall become of men that blaspheme God, or their rulers, or princes of the people, or their parents ? that dishonour the religion, and disgrace the ministers ? that corrupt justice contention or uncharitable courses? or lose 'and pervert judgment ? that preach evil doc- our interest rather than lose our charity ? j trines, or declare perverse sentences ? that And yet by these precepts we shall be judged. I instance but once more. Our blessed Sa- viour spake a hard saying: "Every idle word that men shall speaks they shall give account thereof at the day of judgment. For take God's holy name in vain, or dishonour the name of God by trifling and frequent swearings ; that holy name, by which we hope to be saved, and which all the angels of God fall down to and worship ? These by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by j things are to be considered, for by our own thy words thou shalt be condemned."* And I words we stand or fall, that is, as in human upon this account may every one, weeping judgments the confession of the party, and and trembling, say with Job, "Q,uid faciam, the contradiction of himself, or the failing in cum resurrexerit ad judicandum Deus ? the circumstances of his story, are the con- What shall I do, when the Lord shall come to judgment ?"f — Of every idle word — O blessed God ! what shall become of them who love to prate continually, to tell tales, to de- tract, to slander, to backbite, to praise them- selves, to undervalue others, to compare, to fidences or presumptions of law, by which judges give sentence; so shall our words be, not only the means of declaring a secret sen- tence, but a certain instrument of being ab- solved or condemned. But upon these premises we see what reason we have to raise divisions, to boast? Tc'j 8s fypovpr^st, fear the sentence of that day, who have sin- 7ti£av6f9ootd8iri av7ivov,ovxau7ittjvy6vv', "Who ned with our tongues so often, so continual- shall be able to stand upright, not bowing the knee with the intolerable load of the sins of his tongue ?" If of everv idle word we must ly, that if there were no other actions to be accounted for, we have enough in this ac- count to make us die ; and yet have corn- give account, what shall we do for those , mitted so many evil actions, that, if our malicious words, that dishonour God or do i words were wholly forgotten, we have infi- despite to our brother? Remember how ni'.e reason to fear concerning the event of *Matt. xii. 36. t Job xxxi. 14. *Eph. v. 6. 24 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm III. that horrible sentence. The effect of which i consideration is this, that we set a guard before our lips, and watch over our actions with a care, equal to that fear which shall be at doomsday, when we are to pass our sad accounts. But I have some considera- tions to interpose. 1. But (that the sadness of this may a lit- tle be relieved, and our endeavours be en- couraged to a timely care and repentance) • consider that this great sentence, although it shall pass concerning little things, yet it shall not pass by little portions, but by gene- ral measures ; not by the little errors of one day, but by the great proportions of our life; for God takes not notice of the infirmities of honest persons that always endeavour to avoid every sin, but in little intervening in- stances are surprised; but he judges us by single actions, if they are great, and of evil effects ; and by little small instances, if they be habitual. No man can take care con- cerning every minute ; and therefore con- cerning it Christ will not pass sentence but by the discernible portions of our time, by human actions, by things of choice and de- liberation, and by general precepts of care and watchfulness, this sentence shall be ex- acted. 2. The sentence of that day shall be passed, not by the proportions of an an- gel, but by the measures of a man ; the first follies are not unpardonable, but may be recovered ; and the second are dangerous, and the third are more fatal; but nothing is unpardonable but perseverance in evil courses. 3. The last judgment shall be transacted by the same principles by which we are guided here ; not by strange and se- cret propositions, or by the fancies of men, or by the subtilties of useless distinctions, or evil persuasions ; not by the scruples of the credulous, or the interest of sects, nor the proverbs of prejudice, nor the uncertain de- finitions of them that give laws to subjects by expounding the decrees of princes ; but by the plain rules of justice, by the ten com- mandments, by the first apprehensions of conscience, by the plain rules of Scripture, and the rules of an honest mind, and a cer- tain justice. So that by this restraint and limit of the final sentence, we are secured we shall not fall by scruple or by ignorance, by interest or by faction, by false persuasions of others, or invincible prejudice of our own, but we shall stand or fall by plain and easy propositions, by chastity or uncleanness, by justice or injustice, by robbery or restitution : and of this we have a great testimony by our Judge and Lord himself ; "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye loose shall be loosed there ;" that is, you shall stand or fall according to the sermons of the gospel ; as the ministers of the word are commanded to preach, so ye must live here, and so ye must be judged hereafter ; ye must not look for that sentence by secret decrees or obscure doctrines, but by plain precepts and certain rules. But there are yet some more de- grees of mercy. 4. That sentence shall pass upon us not after the measures of nature, and possibilities, and utmost extents, but by the mercies of the covenant; we shall be judged as Christians rather than as men, that is, as persons to whom much is pardoned, and much is pitied, and many things are (not accidentally, but consequently) indulged, and great helps are ministered, and many remedies supplied, and some mercies extra-regular ly conveyed, and their hopes enlarged upon the stock of an infinite mercy, that hath no bounds but our needs, our capacities, and our proportions to glory. 5. The sentence is to be given by him that once died for us, and does now pray for us, and perpetually intercedes ; and upon souls that he loves, and in the salvation of which himself hath a great interest and increase of joy. And now upon these premises we may dare to con- sider what the sentence itself shall be, that shall never be reversed, but shall last for ever and ever. "Whether it be good or bad." I cannot discourse now the greatness of the good or bad, so far (I mean) as is revealed to us ; the considerations are too long to be crowded in- to the end of a sermon ; only in general : 1 . If it be good, it is greater than all the good of this world, and every man's share then, in every instant of his blessed eternity, is greater than all the pleasures of mankind in one heap. aOavaala$ xpsitifov ov8hv fv%stao' "A man can never wish for any thing great- er than this immortality," said Posidippus. 2. To which I add this one consideration, that the portion of the good at the day of sentence shall be so great, that after all the labours of our life, and suffering persecu- tions, and enduring affronts, and the labour of love, and the continual fears and cares of the whole duration and abode, it rewards it all, and gives infinitely more ; " Non sunt condigna; passiones hujus sseculi;" all the ! torments and evils of this world are not to Serm. III. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 25 be estimated with the joys of the blessed ; it is the gift of God; a donative beyond the ih\Jiviov, the military stipend, it is beyond our work and beyond our wages, and beyond the promise and beyond our thoughts, and above our understandings, and above the ' highest heavens, it is a participation of the joys of God, and of the inheritance of the Judge himself. Ovx tativ Tithdaavh , ovb 6q>9a%iAOt'3iv tyixtbv 'H/ttfrfpost, rt £fipi tat3ftv rriipte fisyLCStrj It is a day of recompenses, in which all our sorrows shall be turned into joys, our perse- cutions into a crown, the cross into a throne, poverty into the riches of God ; loss, and af- fronts, and inconveniences, and death, into sceptres, and hymns, and rejoicings, and hallelujahs, and such great things which are fit for us to hope, but too great for us to dis- course of, while we see as in a glass darkly and imperfectly. And he that chooses to do an evil rather than suffer one, shall find it but an ill exchange that he deferred his little to change for a great one. I remember that a servant in the old comedy did choose to venture the lash rather than to feel a pre- sent inconvenience, " Q,uia illud aderat malum, istud aberat longius : illud erat prse- sens, huic erat diecula :" but this will be but an ill account, when the rods shall for the delay be turned into scorpions, and from easy shall become intolerable. Better it is to suffer here, and to stay till the day of res- titution for the good and the holy portion ; for it will recompense both for the suffering and the stay. But how if the portion be bad ? It shall be bad to the greatest part of mankind ; that is a fearful consideration ; the greatest part of men and women shall dwell in the por- tion of devils to eternal ages. So that these portions are like the prophet's figs in the vision : the good are the best that ever were; and the worst are so bad that worse cannot be imagined. For though in hell the ac- cursed souls shall have no worse than they have deserved, and there are not there over- running measures, as there are in heaven, and therefore that the joys of heaven are infi- nitely greater joys than the pains of hell are great pains, yet even these are a full mea- sure to a full iniquity, pain above patience, sorrows without ease, amazement without consideration, despair without the intervals of a little hope, indignation without the pos- *Xenoph. 4 session of any good; there dwells envy and confusion, disorder and sad remembrances, perpetual woes and continual shriekings, uneasiness and all the evils of the soul. But if we will represent it in some orderly cir- cumstances, we may consider, t. That here, all the trouble of our spirits are little participations of a disorderly pas- sion; a man desires earnestly but he hath not, or he envies because another hath something besides him, and he is troubled at the want of one when at the same time he hath a hundred good things ; and yet ambi- tion and envy, impatience and confusion, covetousness and lust, are all of them very- great torments ; but there these shall be in es- sence and abstracted beings: the spirit of envy , and the spirit of sorrow; devils, that shall inflict all the whole nature of the evil and pour it into the minds of accursed men, where it shall sit without abatement ; for he that envies there, envies not for the emi- nence of another that sits a little above him. and excels him in some one good, but he shall envy for all; because the saints have all and they have none ; therefore all their passions are integral, abstracted, perfect pas- sions : and all the sorrow in the world at this time, is but a portion of sorrow ; every man hath his share, and yet besides that which all sad men have, there is a great deal of sorrow which they have not, and all the devils' portion besides that; but in hell, they shall have the whole passion of sorrow in every one, just as the whole body of the sun is seen by every one in the same hori- zon : and he that is in darkness enjoys it not by parts, but the whole darkness is the | portion of one as well as of another. If this consideration be not too metaphysical, I am sure it is very sad, and it relies upon this : that as in heaven there are some holy spirits whose crown is all love ; and some in which the brightest jewel is understanding ; some are purity and some are holiness to the Lord : so in the regions of sorrow, evil and sorrow have an essence and proper being, and are set there to be suffered entirely by every undone man, that dies there for ever. 2. The evils of this world are material and bodily j the pressing of a shoulder, or the straining of a joint ; the dislocation of a bone, or the extending of an artery ; a bruise in the flesh, or the pinching of the skin ; a hot liver, or a sickly stomach ; and then the mind is troubled because its instrument is ill at ease : but all the proper troubles of this life are nothing but the effects of an un- C 26 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. III. easy body, or an abused fancy ; and there- fore can be no bigger than a blow or a cozen- age, than a wound or a dream ; only the trouble increases as the soul works it; and if it makes reflex acts, and begins the evil upon its own account, then it multiplies and doubles, because the proper scene of grief is opened, and sorrow peeps through the cor- ners of the soul. But in those regions and days of sorrow, when the soul shall be no more depending upon the body, but the per- fect principle of all its actions, the actions are quick and the perceptions brisk ; the passions are extreme and the motions are spiri- tual ; the pains are like the horrors of a de- vil and the groans of an evil spirit ; not slow like the motions of a heavy foot, or a load- ed arm, but quick as an angel's wing, active as lightning; and a grief then, is nothing like a grief now ; and the words of a man's tongue which are fitted to the uses of this world, are as unfit to signify the evils of the next, as person, and nature, and hand, and motion, and passion, are to represent the effects of the Divine attributes, actions, and subsistence. 3. The evil portion of the next world is so great, that God did not create or design it in the first intention of things, and production of essences; he made the kingdom of heaven drto xarajSotoJs xUfxov, from the foundation of the world ; for so it is observable that Christ shall say to the sheep at his right hand, " Receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world ;"* but to the goats and accursed spirits, he speaks of no such primitive and original design; it was accidental and a consequent to horrid crimes, that God was forced to invent and to after-create that place of torments. 4. And when God did create and prepare that place, he did not at all intend it for man ; it was prepared for the devil and his angels, so saith the Judge himself, "Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the uevil and his an gels, f 3 yjtol/Mxasv 6 rtof^p (xov *9 Sca/3(Ac), which my father prepared for the devil," so some copies read it : God in- tended i: net for man, but man would imi- tate the devil's pride, and listen to the whispers of an evil spirit, and follow his temptations, and rebel against his Maker ; and then God also, against his first design, resolved to throw such persons into that place that was prepared for the devil : for so great was the love of God to mankind, that he prepared joys infinite and never-ceasing for man, before he had created him ; but he did not predetermine him to any evil ; but when he was forced to it by man's malice, he doing what God forbad him, God cast him thither where he never intended him ; but it was not man's portion : he designed it not at first, and at last also he invited him to repentance ; and when nothing could do it, he threw man into another's portion, be- cause he would not accept of what was designed to be his own. 5. The evil portion shall be continual without intermission of evil ; no days of rest, no nights of sleep, no ease from labour, no periods of the stroke nor taking off the hand, no intervals between blow and blow; but a continued stroke, which neither shortens the life, nor introduces a brawny patience, or the toleration of an ox, but it is the same in every instant, and great as the first stroke of lightning ; the smart is as great for ever as at the first change, from the rest of the grave to the flames of that horrible burning. The church of Rome amongst some other strange opinions hath inserted this one into her public offices ; that the perishing souls in hell may have sometimes remission and re- freshment, like the fits of an intermitting fe- ver : for so it is in the Roman missal printed at Paris, 1626, in the mass for the dead; "lit quia de ejus vitae qualitate diffidimus, etsi plenam veniam anima ipsius obtinere non potest, saltern vel inter ipsa tormenta quae forsan patitur, refrigerium de abundantia miserationum tuarum sentiat :" and some- thing like this is that of Prudentius,* Sunt et spiritibus saepe nocentibus PcEnarum celebres sub Styge feriae. &c. The evil spirits have ease of their pain, and he names their holiday, that when the resur- rection of our Lord from the grave is cele- brated : Marcent suppliciis Tartara mitibus, Exultatque sui carceris otio Umbrarum populus liber ab ignibus : Nec fervent solito flumina sulphure. They then thought, that when the paschal taper burned, the flames of hell could not burn till the holy wax was spent: but be- cause this is a fancy without ground or revelation, and is against the analogy of all those expressions of our Lord, " wheie the worm diethnot, and the fire is never quench- ed," and divers others, it is sufficient to have noted it without further consideration ; the pains of hell have no rest, no drop of * Matt. xxv. 34. tVer. 41. Hymn v. lib. Cathemer. SfittM. III. CHRIST'S ADVEN T TO JUDGMENT. 27 water is allowed to cool the tongue, there is no advocate to plead for them, no mercy belongs to their portion, but fearful wrath and continual burnings. 6. And yet this is not the worst of it ; for as it is continual during its abode, so its abode is for ever ; it is continual and eternal. Tertullian speaks of something otherwise, •"Pro magnitudine cruciatus non diuturni, verum sempiterni ;" not continual, or the pains of every day, but such which shall last for ever. But Lactantius is more plain in this affair : " the same Divine fire by the same power and force shall burn the wicked, and shall repair instantly whatsoever of the body it does consume : " Ac sibi ipsi aeter- num pabulum subministrabit, — and shall make for itself an eternal fuel." Vermibus et flammis et discruciatibus aevum Immortale dedit, senio ne poena periret Non pereunte animd. So Prudentius, eternal worms, and unextin- guished flames, and immortal punishment, are prepared for the ever never dying souls of wicked men. Origen is charged by the ancient churches for saying, that after a long time the devils and the accursed souls shall be restored to the kingdom of God, and that after a long time again they shall be restored to their state, and so it was from their fall, and shall be for ever ; and, it may be, that might be the meaning of Tertullian's expression of "cruciatus non diuturni sed sempiterni." Epiph^anius charges not the opinion upon Origen, and yet he "was free enough in his animadversion and reproof of him; but St. Austin did, and confuted the opinion in his books De Civitate Dei. How- ever, Origen was not the first that said, the pakis of the damned should cease ; Justin Martyr in his dialogue with Triphon ex- presses it thus : "Neither do I say that all the souls do die, for that indeed would be to the wicked again unlooked for : what then ? The souls of the godly in a better place, of the wicked in a worse, do tarry the time of judgment; then they that 'are worthy shall never die again, but those that are designed to punishment, shall abide so long as God please to have them to live and to be pun- ished." But I observe that the primitive doctors were very willing to believe, that the mercy of God would find out a period to the torment of accursed souls ; but such a period, which should be nothing but eternal destruction, called by the Scripture, "the second death :" only Origen (as I observed) is charged by St. Austin to have said, they shall return into joys, and back again tc hell by an eternal revolution. But concern- ing the death of a wicked soul, and its being broken into pieces with fearful torments, and consumed by the wrath of God, they had entertained some different fancies very early in the church, as their sentences are collected by St. Jerome at the end of his commentaries upon Isaiah. And Ireneus* disputes it largely, " that they that are un- thankful to God in this short life, and obey him not, shall never have an eternal duration of life in the ages to come," "sed ipse se privat in sacculum saeculiperseverantia, — he deprives his soul of living to eternal ages;" for he supposes an immortal duration not to be natural to the soul, but a gift of God, which he can take away, and did take away from Adam, and restored it again in Christ to them that believe in him and obey him : for the other ; they shall be raised again to suffer shame, and fearful torments ; and according to the degree of their sins, so shall be continued in their sorrows ; and some shall die, and some shall not die : the devil, and the beast, and they that were marked with his character, these St. John sailh "shall be tormented for ever and ever ;" he does not say so of all, but of some certain great criminals ; 07tu>s av 0f6j Qtty, all so long as God please, — some for ever and ever, and some not so severely ; and where- as the general sentence is given to all wicked persons, to all on the left hand, to go into everlasting fire ; it is answered, that the fire indeed is everlasting, but not all that enters into it is everlasting, but only the devils for whom it was prepared, and others, more mighty criminals (according as St. John in- timates) : though also everlasting signifies only to the end of its proper period. Concerning this doctrine of theirs, so se- vere, and yet so moderated, there is less to be objected than against the supposed fancy of Origen ; for it is a strange consideration to suppose an eternal torment to those to whom it was never threatened, to those wrho never heard of Christ, to those that lived probably well, to heathens of good lives, to ignorants and untaught people, to people surprised in a single crime, to men that die young in their natural follies and foolish lusts, to them that fall in a sudden gaiety and excessive joy, to all alike ; to all infinite and eternal, even to unwarned people; and that this should be inflicted by God who infinitely * Lib. ii. cap. 65. 28 CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. Serm. III. loves his creatures, who died for them, who pardons easily, and pities readily, and ex- cuses much, and delights in our being saved, and would not have us to die, and takes little things in exchange for great : it is certain that God's mercies are infinite, and it is also certain that the matter of eternal torments cannot truly be understood ; and when the schoolmen go about to reconcile the Divine justice to that severity, and consider why God punishes eternally a temporal sin, or a state of evil, they speak variously, and un- certainly, and unsatisfyingly. But, that in this question we may separate the certain from the uncertain : 1. It is certain that the torments of hell shall certainly last as long as the soul lasts ; for eternal and everlasting can signify no less but to the end of that duration, to the perfect end of the period which it signifies. So Sodom and Gomorrah, when God rained down hell from heaven upon the earth, (as Salvain's expression is,) they are said "to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire that is, of a fire that consumed them finally, and they never were restored : and so the accursed souls shall suffer torments till they be consumed; who because they are immortal either naturally or by gift, shall be tormented for ever, or till God shall take from them the life that he restored to them on purpose to give them a capacity of being miserable, and the best that they can expect is to despair of all good, to suffer the wrath of God, never to come to any minute of felicity, or of a tolerable state, and to be held in pain till God be weary of striking. This is the gentlest sentence of some of the old doctors. But, 2. The generality of Christians have been taught to believe worse things yet con- cerning them ; and the words of our blessed Lord are x6ixx6v$ atwnoj, eternal affliction or smiting ; Nec mortis pcenas mora altera finiet hujus, Horaque erit tantis ultima nulla malis. And St. John,* who well knew the mind of his Lord, saith, " the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night:" that is, their torment is continual, and it is eternal. Their second death shall be but a dying to all feli- city; for so death is taken in Scripture: Adam died when he ate the forbidden fruit ; that is, he was liable to sickness and sor- rows, and pain and dissolution of soul and body : and to be miserable is the worse death of the two ; they shall see the eternal felicity of the saints, but they shall never taste of the holy chalice. Those joys shall indeed be for ever and ever; for immortality is part of their reward, and on them the seconu death shall have no power : but the wickea shall be tormented horribly and insuffer- ably, till te death and hell be thrown into the lake of fire, and shall be no more : which is the second death."* But that they may not imagine that this second death shall be the end of their pains, St. John speaks expressly what that is, Rev. xxi. 8. "The fearful and unbelieving, the abominable and the murderers, the whoremongers and sor- cerers, the idolators and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone : which is the second death :" no dying there, but a being tormented, burn- ing in a lake of fire, that is the second death. For if life be reckoned a blessing, then to be destitute of all blessing is to have no life ; and therefore to be intolerably miserable is this second death, that is, death eternal. 3. And yet if God should deal with man hereafter more mercifully and proportionably to his weak nature than he does to angels, and as he admits him to repentance here, so in hell also to a period of his smart, even when he keeps the angels in pain for ever ; yet he will never admit him to favour, he shall be tormented beyond all the measure of human ages, and be destroyed for ever and ever. It concerns us all, who hear and believe these things, to do as our blessed Lord will do before the day of his coming ; he will call and convert the Jews and strangers : conversion to God is the best preparatory to doomsday : and it concerns all them who are in the neighbourhood and fringes of the flames of hell, that is, in the state of sin, quickly to arise from the danger, and shake the burning coals of our flesh, lest it con- sume the marrow and the bones : "Exuenda est velociter de incendio sarcina, priusquam flammissupervenientibus concremetur. Ne- mo diu tutus est, periculo proximus," saith St. Cyprian ; " No man is safe long, that is so near to danger;" for suddenly the change will come in which the j udge shall be called to judgment, and no man to plead for him, unless a good conscience be his ad- vocate ; and the rich shall be naked as a condemned criminal to execution ; and there * Rev. xiv. II. * Rev. xx. 14. Serm. IV. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 29 shall be no regard of princes or of nobles, and the differences of men's account shall be forgotten, and no distinction remaining but of good or bad, sheep and goats, blessed and accursed souls. Among the wonders of the day of judgment, our blessed Saviour reckons it, that men shall be marrying and giving in marriage, yanovvtes xai iyyafu^ovtii, marrying and cross-marrying, that is, rais- ing families and lasting greatness and huge estates; when the world is to end so quickly, and the gains of a rich purchase so very a trifle, but no trifling danger; a thing that can give no security to our souls, but much hazards and a great charge. More reason- able it is, that we despise the world and lay up for heaven, that we heap up treasures by giving alms, and make friends of un- righteous Mammon; but at no hand to enter into a state of life, that is all the way a hazard to the main interest, and at the best, an increase of the particular charge. Every degree of riches, every degree of greatness, every ambitious employment, every great forlune, every eminency above our brother, is a charge to the accounts of the last day. He that lives temperately and charitably, whose employment is religion, whose affections are fear and love, whose desires are after heaven, and do not dwell below ; that man can long and pray for the hastening of the coming of the day of the Lord. He that does not really desire and long for that day, either is in a very ill con- dition, or does not understand that he is in a good. I will not be so severe in this meditation as to forbid any man to laugh, that believes himself shall be called to so severe a judgment; yet St. Jerome said it, " Coram ccelo et terra rationem reddemus totius nostrae vitse; et tu rides? Heaven and earth shall see all the follies and base- ness of thy life: and dost thou laugh ?" That we may, but we have not reason to laugh loudly and frequently if we consider things wisely, and as we are concerned : but if we do, yet "prsesentis temporis ita est agenda lsetitia, ut sequentis judicii ama- ritudo nunquam recedat a memoria : — so laugh here that you may not forget your danger, lest you weep for ever." He that thinks most seriously and most frequently of tfcis fearful appearance, will find that it is better staying for his joys till this sentence be past ; for then he shall perceive, whether he hath reason or no. In the mean time wonder not, that God, who loves mankind sc. well, should punish him so severely : for therefore the evil fall into an accursed por- tion, because they despised that which God most loves, his Son and his mercies, his graces and his holy Spirit; and they that I do all this, have cause to complain of | nothing but their own follies ; and they shall feel the accursed consequents then, when they shall see the Judge sit above them, angry and severe, inexorable and terrible; under them, an intolerable hell; within them, their consciences clamorous jand diseased: without them, all the world I on fire ; on the right hand, those men ' glorified whom they persecuted or despised ; Ion the left hand, the devils accusing; for this is the day of the Lord's terror, and who is able to abide it ? Seu vigilo interims studiis, seu dormio, semper Judicis extremi nostras tuba personet aures. SERMON IV. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS ; OR, THE CONDI- TIONS OF A PRE VAILING PRAYER. JS~ow we know that God heareth not sinners ; but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him he heareth. — John ix. 31. I enow not which is the greater wonder, either that prayer, which is a duty so easy and facile, so ready and apted to the powers, and skill, and opportunities, of every man, should have so great effects, and be produc- tive of such mighty blessings; or, that we should be so unwilling to use so easy an [instrument of procuring so much good. jThe first declares God's goodness, but this publishes man's folly and weakness, who | finds in himself so much difficulty to per- j form a condition so easy and full of advan- | tage. But the order of this felicity is knotted like the foldings of a serpent; all those parts of easiness, which invite us to the duty, are become like Hit joints of a bulrush, not bendings, but consolidations and stiffenings : t the very facility becomes its objection, and in every of its stages, we make or find a huge uneasiness. At first, we do not know : what to ask ; and when we do, then we find j difficulty to bring our will to desire it; and I when that is instructed and kept in awe, it j mingles interest, and confounds the pur- 1 poses; and when it is forced to ask honestly jand severely, then it wills so coldly, that God hates the prayer; and, if it desires c 2 30 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. Serm. IV. fervently, it sometimes turns that into pas- sion, and that passion breaks into murmurs or unquietness ; or, if that be avoided, the indifference cools into death, or the fire burns violently and is quickly spent; our desires are dull as a rock, or fugitive as lightning; either we ask ill things earnestly, or good things remissly ; we either court our own danger, or are not zealous for our real safety ; or, if we be right in our matter, or earnest in our affections, and lasting in our abode, yet we miss in the manner ; and either we ask for evil ends, or without religious and awful apprehensions ; or we rest on the words and signification of the prayer, and never take care to pass on to action ; or else we sacrifice in the com- pany of Korah, being partners of a schism, or a rebellion in religion; or we bring unhallowed censers, our hearts send up to God an unholy smoke, a cloud from the fires of lust; and either the flames of lust or rage, of wine or revenge, kindle the beast that is laid upon the altar; or we bring swine's flesh, or a dog's neck; where- as God never accepts or delights in a prayer, unless it be for a holy thing, to a lawful end, presented unto him upon the wings of zeal and love, of religious sorrow, or religious joy; by sanctified lips, and pure hands, and a sincere heart. It must be the prayer of a gracious man; and he is only gracious before God, and acceptable and effective in his prayer, whose life is holy, and whose prayer is holy ; for both these are necessary ingredients to the constitution of a prevailing prayer; there is a holiness peculiar to the man, and a holiness peculiar to the prayer, that must adorn the prayer, before it can be united to the intercession of the holy Jesus, in which union alone our prayers can be prevailing. "God heareth not sinners." — So the blind man in the text, and confidently, "this we know :" he had reason, indeed, for his confidence; it was a proverbial saying, and every where recorded in their Scriptures, which were read in the synagogues every sabbath-day. " For what is the hope of the hypocrite? (saith Job.) Will God hear his cry, when trouble cometh upon him?"* No, he will not. "For if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,"f said David ; and so said the Spirit of the Lord by the Son of David : "When distress and anguish come upon you, then shall they * Job xxvii. 9. t Psalm lxvi. 18. call upon me, but I will not answer ; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me,"* And Isaiah, "When you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ; yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. "f And again, " When they fast, I will not hear their cry ; and when they will offer burnt-offerings and oblations, I will not accept them. For they have loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord will not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins."J Upon these and many other authorities, § it grew into a proverb ; " Deus non exaudit peccatores." It was a known case, and an established rule in religion ; " Wicked persons are neither fit to pray for themselves, nor for others." Which proposition let us first consider in the sense of that purpose which the blind man spoke it in, and then in the utmost extent of it, as its analogy and equal reason go forth upon us and our necessities. The man was cured of his blindness, and being examined concerning him that did it, named and gloried in his physician; but the spiteful Pharisees bid him give glory to God, and defy the minister; for God indeed was good, but he wrought that cure by a wicked hand. No, says he, this is impossible. If this man were a sinner and a false prophet, (for in that instance the accusation was intended,) God would not hear his prayer, and work miracles by him in verification of a lie. — A false prophet could not work true miracles : this hath received its diminution, when the case was changed; for at that time, when Christ preached, miracles were, the only or the great verification of any new revelation ; and, therefore, it proceeding from an al- mighty God, must needs be the testimony of a Divine truth ; and if it could have been brought for a lie, there could not then have been sufficient instruction given to mankind, to prevent their belief of false prophets and lying doctrines. But when Christ proved his doctrine by miracles, that no enemy of his did ever do so great before or after him : then he also told, that, after him, his friends should do greater, and his enemies snould do some, but they were fewer, and very in- considerable; and, therefore, could have in them no unavoidable cause of deception, * Prov. i. 28. t Isa. i. 15. \ Jer. xiv. 12, 10. § Vide etiam, Psalm xxxiv. 6. Micah iii. 4. 1 Pet. iii. 12. Serm. IV. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 31 because they were discovered by a prophecy and caution was given against them by him 1 that did greater miracles, and yet ought to have been believed, if he had done but one ; because against him there had been no caution, but many prophecies creating such expectations concerning him, which he verified by his great works. So that, in this sense of working miracles, though it was infinitely true that the blind man said, then when he said it, yet after that the case was altered; and sinners, magicians, astrologers, witches, heretics, simoniacs, and wicked persons of other instances, have done mira- cles, and God hath heard sinners, and wrought his own works by their hands, or suffered the devil to do his works under their pretences ; and many at the day of judgment shall plead that they have done miracles in Christ's name, and yet they shall be rejected; Christ knows them not, and their portion shall be with dogs, and goats, and unbelievers. There is, in this case, only this difference; that they who do miracles in opposition to Christ, do them by the power of the devil, to whom it is permitted to do such things, which we think miracles; and that is all one as though they were; but the danger of them is none at all, but to them that will not believe him that did greater miracles, and prophesied of these less, and gave warning of their attending danger, and was confirmed to be a true teacher by voices from heaven, and by the resurrection of his body after a three days' burial: so that to these the proposition still remains true, "God hears not sinners," God does not work those miracles; but concerning sinning Christians, God, in this sense, and towards the pur- poses of miracles, does hear them, and hath wrought miracles by them, for they do them "in the name of Christ," and therefore Christ said, " cannot easily speak ill of him ;" and although they either prevaricate in their lives, or in superinduced doctrines, yet, because the miracles are a verification of the religion, not of the opinion, of the power of truth of Christ, not of the veracity of the man, God hath heard such persons many times, whom men have long since, and to this day, called heretics ; such were the Novatians and Arians; for to the hea- thens they could only prove their religion, by which they stood distinguished from them; but we find not that they wrought miracles among the Christians, or to verify their superstructures and private opinions. But, besides this, yet we may also by such means arrest the forwardness of our judg- ments and condemnations of persons dis- agreeing in their opinions from us ; for those persons, whose faith God confirmed by miracles, was an entire faith; and al- though they might have false opinions, or mistaken explications of true opinions, either inartificial, or misunderstood, yet we have reason to believe their faith to be entire ; for that which God would have the heathen to believe, and to that purpose proved it by a miracle, himself intended to accept, first to a holy life, and then to glory. The false opinion should burn, and themselves escape. One thing more is here very considerable, that in this very instance of working mira- cles, God was so very careful not to hear sinners or permit sinners, till he had pre- vented all dangers to good and innocent persons, that the case of Christ and his apostles working miracles, was so clearly separated and remarked by the finger of God, and distinguished from the impostures and pretences of all the many antichrists that appeared in Palestine, Cyprus, Crete, Syria, and the vicinage, that there were but very few Christians that, with hearty per- suasions, fell away from Christ, ©o^tov tovs drto XpKffoi ixeta8i8d%£C£, said Galen, "It is not easy to teach anew him that hath been taught by Christ:" and St. Austin tells a story of an unbelieving man, that, being troubled that his wife was a Christian, went to the oracle to ask by what means he should alter her persuasion ; but he was answered, " it could never be done, he might as well imprint characters upon the face of a torrent, or a rapid river, or himself fly in the air, as alter the persuasion of a hearty and an honest Christian ;" I would to God it were so now in all instances, and that it were so hard to draw men from the severities of a holy life, as of old they could be cozened, disputed, or forced out of their faith. Some men are vexed with hypocrisy, and then their hypocrisy was punished with infidelity and wretchless spirit. Demas, and Simon Magus, and Ecebolius, and the lapsed confessors, are instances of human craft or human weakness; but they are scarce a number that are remarked, in ancient story, to have fallen from Christianity by direct persuasions, or the efficacy of abusing ar- guments and discourses. The reason of it is the truth of the text: God did so avoid hearing sinners in this affair, that he never permitted them to do any miracles, so as to 32 THE RETURN OP PRAYERS. Serm. IV. do any mischief to the souls of good men ; and therefore it is said, the enemies of Christ came, "in the power of signs and wonders, able to deceive (if it were possible) even the very elect;" but that was not possible; without their faults it could not be; the elect were sufficiently strengthened, and the evi- dence of Christ's being heard of God, and that none of his enemies were heard of God to any dangerous effect, was so great, that if any Christian had apostatized or fallen away by direct persuasion, it was like the sin of a falling angel, of so direct a malice, that he never could repent, and God never would pardon him, as St. Paul twice re- marks in his epistle to the Hebrews. The result of this discourse is the first sense and explication of the words, " God heareth not sinners," viz. in that in which they are sinners: a sinner in his manners may be heard in his prayer, in order to the confirma- tion of his faith ; but if he be a sinner in his faith, God hears him not at all in that wherein he sins; for God is truth, and cannot confirm a lie, and whenever he per- mitted the devil to do it, he secured the interest of his elect, that is, of all that believe in him and love him, " lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting." 2. Thatwhich yet concerns us more nearly is, that "God heareth not sinners ;" that is, if we be not good men, our prayers will do us no good : we shall be in the condition of them that never pray at all. The prayers of a wicked man are like the breath of cor- rupted lungs; God turns away from such unwholesome breathings. But that I may reduce this necessary doctrine to a method, I shall consider that there are some persons whose prayers are sins, and some others whose prayers are ineffectual : some are such who do not pray lawfully ; they sin when they pray, while they remain in that state and evil condition; others are such who do not obtain what they pray for, and yet their prayer is not a direct sin: the prayer of the first is a direct abomination, the prayer of the second is hindered ; the first is corrupted by a direct state of sin, the latter by some intervening imperfection and unhandsome circumstance of action ; and in proportion to these, it is required, 1. that he be in a state and possibility of acceptation ; and, 2. that the prayer itself be in a proper disposition. 1. Therefore we shall con- sider, what are those conditions, which are required in every person that prays, the want of which makes the prayer to be a sin ? 2. What are the conditions of a good man's prayer, the absence of which makes that even his prayer return empty ? 3. What degrees and circumstances of piety are required to make a man fit to be an intercessor for others, both with holiness in himself and effect to them he prays for? And, 4. as an appendix to these considera- tions, I shall add the proper indices and signification, by which we may make a judgment whether God hath heard cur prayers or no. 1. Whosoever prays to God while he is in a state or in the affection to sin, his prayer is an abomination to God. This was a truth so believed by all nations of the world, that in all religions they ever appointed baptisms and ceremonial expiations, to cleanse the persons, before they presented themselves in their holy offices. " Deorum templa cum adire disponitis, ab omini vos labe puros, lautos, castissimosque praestatis," ssid Arnobius to the gentiles : " When you address yourselves to the temples of your God, you keep yourselves chaste, and clean, and spotless." They washed their hands and wore white garments, they refused to touch a dead body, they avoided a spot upon their clothes as they avoided a wound upon their head, [Arj xaBapcp yap xaOapov itydrttsaOav (xti ov Osy-itov jj. That was the religious ground they went upon ; " an impure thing ought not to touch that which is holy," much less to approach the Prince of purities ; and this was the sense of the old world in their lustrations, and of the Jews in their pre- paratory baptisms ; they washed their hands to signify, that they should cleanse them from all iniquity, and keep them pure from blood and rapine ; they washed their gar- ments ; but that intended, they should not be spotted with the flesh ; and their follies consisted in this, that they did not look to the bottom of their lavatories ; they did not see through the veil of their ceremonies. " Flagitiis omnibus inquinati veniunt ad precandum, et se pie sacrific&sse opinantur, si cutem laverint, tanquam libidines intra pectrus inclusas ulla amnis abluat, aut ulla maria purificent," said Lactantius ; " They come to their prayers dressed round about with wickedness, ut quercus hederd ; and think God will accept their offering, if their skin be washed ; as if a river could purify their lustful souls, or a sea take off their guilt." But David reconciles the ceremony with the mystery, " I will wash my hands, I will wash them in innocency, and so 1 Serm. IV. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 33 will go to thine altar." Hae sunt verae munditia?, (saith Tertullian,) non quas plerique superstitione curant ad omnem orationem, etiam cum lavacro totius cor- poris aquam sumentes. " This is the true purification, not that which most men do, superstitiously cleansing their hands and washing when they go to prayers, but cleansing the soul from all impiety, and leaving every affection to sin; then they come pure to God:" and this is it which the apostle also signifies, having translated the gentile and Jewish ceremony into the spirituality of the gospel, "I will therefore, that men pray every where, levantes puras manus, lifting up clean hands," so it is in the vulgar Latin ; 6aiov$ ££tpa$, so it is in the Greek, holy hands; that is the purity that God looks for upon them that lift up their hands to him in prayer: and this very thing is founded upon the natural constitution of things, and their essential proportion to each other. 1. It is an act of profanation for any unholy person to handle holy things and holy offices. For if God was ever careful to put all holy things into cancels, and im- mure them with acts and laws and cautions of separation; and the very sanctification of them was nothing else but the solemn separating them from common usages, that himself might be distinguished from men by actions of propriety; it is naturally certain, he that would be differenced from common things, would be infinitely divided from things that are wicked. If things that are lawful may yet be unholy in this sense, much more are unlawful things most un- holy in all senses. If God will not admit of that which is beside religion, he will less endure that which is against religion. And therefore if a common man must not serve at the altar, how shall he abide a wicked man to stand there ? No : he will not endure him, but he will cast him and his prayer into the separation of an infinite and eternal distance. " Sic profanatis sacns peritura Troja perdidit primum Deos ; — So Troy entered into ruin when their prayers became unholy, and they profaned the rites of their religion." 2. A wicked person, while he remains in t.iat condition, is not the natural object of pity : Etoo$ iati ?.vrCrj irii ava^uaf xaxorca- Qovvtt, said Zeno ; " Mercy is a sorrow or a trouble at that misery, which falls upon a person which deserved it not." And so Aristotle defines it, it is ?.ik?7 5 ft$ irti 1*9 7iQvrtp^> tov draitou tvyzavtLv, 'ewhen we see the person deserves a better fortune," or is disposed to a fairer entreaty, then we naturally pity him : and Sinon pleaded for pity to the Trojans, saying, Miserere animi non digna ferentis. For who pitieth the fears of a base man, who hath treacherously murdered his friend ? or who will lend a friendly sigh, when he sees a traitor to his country pass forth through the execrable gates of cities ? and when any circumstance of baseness, that is, any thing that takes off the excuse of infirmity, does accompany a sin, (such as are ingratitude, | perjury, perseverance, delight, malice, trea- |chery,) then every man scorns the criminal, and God delights and rejoices in. and laughs | at the calamity of such a person. When I Vitellius with his hands bound behind him, I his imperial robe rent, and with a dejected countenance and an ill name, was led to I execution, every man cursed him, but no i man wept. " Deformitas exitus misericor- idiam abstulerat," saith Tacitus, "The filthi- 'ness of his life and death took away pity." So it is with us in our prayers ; while we ! love our sin, we must nurse all its children ; ; and when we roar in our lustful beds, and groan with the whips of an exterminating angel, chastising those vrtoya^tpiov^ ijit&vfrias, (as Aretas calls them,) " the lusts of the lower belly," wantonness, and its mother intemperance, we feel the price of our sin„ that which God foretold to be their issues,, that which he threatened us withal, and that which is the natural consequence, and its certain expectation, that which we de lighted in, and chose, even then when we refused God, and threw away felicity, and ! hated virtue. For punishment is but the latter part of sin ; it is not a new thing and distinct from it: or if we will kiss the hyaena, or clip the lamia about the neck, we have as certainly chosen the tail, and its venomous embraces, as the face and lip. Every man that sins against God and loves (it, or, which is all one, continues in it. for ,by interpretation tnat is love, hath all the j circumstances of unworthiness towards God ; he is unthankful, and a breaker of his vows, iand a despiser of his mercies, and impudent against his judgments; he is false to his i profession, false to his faith; he is an un- friendly person, and useth him barbarously, who hath treated him with an affection not | less than infinite; and if any man does half [so much evil, and so unhandsomely to a irnan, we stone him with stones and curses, 34 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. Serm. IV. with reproach, and an unrelenting scorn. | of sorrow and carefulness ; therefore we are And how then shall such a person hope ; commanded to fast, that we may pray with that God should pity him? For God better 1 more spirituality, and with repentance; that understands, and deeper resents, and more ' is, without the loads of meat, and without essentially hates, and more severely exacts, the loads of sin. Of the same consideration the circumstances and degrees of baseness, lit is that alms are prescribed together with than we can do; and therefore proportionably scorns the person and derides the calamity. Is not unthankful ness to God a greater baseness and unworthiness than unthank- fulness to our patron? And is not he as sensible of it, and more than we ? These things are more than words ; and therefore if no man pities a base person, let us remember, that no man is so base in any thing as in his unhandsome demeanour towards God. Do Ave not profess ourselves his servants, and yet serve the devil ? Do prayer, because it is a part of that charity, without which our souls are enemies to all that, which ought to be equally valued with our own lives. But besides this, we may easily observe what special indecencies there are, which besides the general malignity and demerit, are special deleteries and hinder- ances to our prayers, by irreconciling the person of him that prays. 1. The first is unmercifulness. vOvts f£ tspov Qufibv, ovts i% d^pwrri-v^s^vcffwj atyaiptTtov tbvtteov, said one in Stobaeus; and they were we not live upon God's provision, and yet well joined together: " He that takes mercy stand or work at the command of lust or from a man, is like him that takes an altar avarice, human regards and little interests of the world ? We call him Father when we desire our portion, and yet spend it in the society of all his enemies. In short, let our actions to God and their circumstances be supposed to be done towards men, and we should scorn ourselves; and how then can we expect God should not scorn us, from the temple ;" the temple is of no use without an altar, and the man cannot pray without mercy; and there are infinite of pray - ers sent forth by men which God never attends to, but as to so many sins, because the men live in a course of rapine, or tyranny, or oppression, or uncharitableness, or some- thing that is most contrary to God, because and reject our prayer, when we have done | it is unmerciful. Remember, that God all the dishonour to him, and with all the sometimes puts thee into some images of unhandsomeness in the world ? Take heed j his own relation. We beg of God for lest we fall into a condition of evil, in which mercy, and our brother begs of us for pity : it shall be said, you may thank yourselves ; I and therefore let us deal equally with God and be infinitely afraid lest at the same time and all the world. I see myself fall by a we be in a condition of person, in which I too frequent infirmity, and still I beg for God will upbraid our unworthiness, and ; pardon, and hope for pity : thy brother that scorn our persons, and rejoice in our ca- ! offends thee, he hopes so too, and would lamity. The first is intolerable, the second is fain have the same measure, and Avould be irremediable ; the first proclaims our folly, as glad thou wouldst pardon him, as thou and the second declares God's final justice; j wouldst rejoice in thy own forgiveness. I in the first there is no comfort, in the latter am troubled when God rejects my prayer, there is no remedy ; that therefore makes j or, instead of hearing my petition, sends a us miserable, and this renders us desperate. 3. This great truth is further manifested by the necessary and convenient appendages of prayer required, or advised, or recom- judgment: is not thy tenant, or thy ser- vant, or thy client, so to thee? Does not he tremble at thy frown, and is of an un- certain soul till thou speakest kindly unto mended, in Holy Scripture. For why is him, and observe thy looks as he watches fasting prescribed together with prayer ? j the colour of the bean coming from the box For " neither if we eat, are we the better ; I of sentence, life or death depending on it ? neither if we eat not, are we the worse ;" When he begs of thee for mercy , his passion and God does not delight in that service, is greater, his necessities more pungent, his the first, second, and third part of which is apprehension more brisk and sensitive, his nothing but pain and self-affliction. But 'case dressed with the circumstance of pity, therefore fasting is useful with prayer, 1 and thou thyself canst better feel his con- because it is a penal duty, and an action of dition than thou dost usually perceive the repentance; for then only God hears sin- ' earnestness of thy own prayers to God; and ners, when they enter first into the gates of j if thou regardest not thy brother whom thou repentance, and proceed in all the regions seest, whose case thou feelest, whose cir Serm. IV. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 35 cumstances can afflict thee, whose passion is dressed to thy fancy, and proportioned to thy capacity, — how shall God regard thy distant prayer, or be melted with thy cold desire, or softened with thy dry story, or moved by thy unrepenting soul ? If I be sad, I seek for comfort, and go to God and to the ministry of his creatures for it; and is it not just in God to stop his own fountains, and seal the cisterns and little emanations of the creatures from thee, who shuttest thy hand, and shuttest thy eye, and twistest thy bowels against thy brother, who would as fain be comforted as thou ? It is a strange iliacal passion that so hardens a man's bowels, that nothing proceeds from him but the name of his own disease ; a e ' miserere mei Deus," a prayer to God for pity upon him, that will not show pity to others. We are troubled when God through severity breaks our bones, and hardens his face against us ; but we think our poor brother is made of iron, and not of flesh and blood, as we are. God hath bound mercy upon us by the iron bands of necessity, and though God's mercy is the measure of his justice, yet justice is the measure of our mercy ; and as we do to others, it shall be done to us, even in the matter of pardon and of bounty, of gentleness and remission, of bearing each other's burdens, and fair interpretation; "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us," so we pray. The final sentence in this affair is recorded by St. James, " He that shows no mercy, shall have justice without mercy as thy poor brother hath groaned under thy cruelty and ungentle nature without remedy, so shalt thou before the throne of God; thou shalt pray, and plead, and call, and cry, and beg again, and in the midst of thy despairing noises be carried into the regions of sorrow, which never did and never shall feel a mercy. ** God never can hear the prayers of an unmerciful man." 2. Lust and uncleanness are a direct enemy to the praying man, an obstruction to his prayers ; for this is not only a profa- nation, but a direct sacrilege; it defiles a temple to the ground ; it takes from a man all affection to spiritual things, and mingles his very soul with the things of the world ; it makes his understanding low, and his reasonings cheap and foolish, and it destroys his confidence, and all his manly hopes ; it * James ii. 13. makes his spirit light, effeminate, and fan- tastic, and dissolves his attention ; and makes his mind so to disaffect all the objects of his desires, that when he prays he is as uneasy as an impaled person, or a condemned criminal upon the hook or wheel; and it hath in it this evil quality, that a lustful person cannot pray heartily against his sin ; he cannot desire his cure, for his will is contradictory to his collect, and he would not that God should hear the words of his prayer, which he poor man never intended. For no crime so seizes upon the will as that ; some sins steal an affection, or obey a temptation, or secure an interest, or work by the way of understanding, but lust seizes directly upon the will, for the devil knows well that the lusts of the body are soon cured; the uneasiness that dwells there^ is a disease very tolerable, and every degree of patience can pass under it. But there- fore the devil seizes upon the will, and that is it that makes adulteries and all the species of uncleanness; and lust grows so hard a cure, because the formality of it is, that it will not be cured ; the will loves it, and so long as it does, God cannot love the man ; for God is the prince of purities, and the Son of God is the king of virgins, and the Holy Spirit is all love, and that is all purity and all spirituality ; and therefore the prayer of an adulterer, or an unclean person, is like the sacrifices to Moloch, or the rights of Flora, " ubi Cato spectator esse non potuit." A good man will not endure them; much less will God entertain such reekings of the Dead sea and clouds of Sodom. For so an impure vapour, — be- gotten of the slime of the earth by the fevers and adulterous heats of an intemperate summer-sun, striving by the ladder of a mountain to climb up to heaven, and rolling into various figures by an uneasy, unfixed revolution, and stopped at the middle region of the air, being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars, — turns into an unwholesome flame, and like the breath of hell is confined into a prison of darkness, and a cloud, till it breaks into diseases, plagues, and mildews, stink and blastings ; so is the prayer of an un chaste person ; it strives to climb the battle ments of heaven, but because it is a flame of sulphur, salt, and bitumen, and was kindled in the dishonourable regions below, derived from hell, and contrary to God, it cannot pass forth to the element of love, but ends in barrenness and murmur, fantastic S6 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. Serm. V. expectations, and trifling imaginative con- fidences ; and they at last end in sorroAvs and despair. Every state of sin is against the possibility of a man's being accepted ; but these have a proper venom against the graciousness of the person, and the power of the prayer. God can never accept an unholy prayer, and a wicked man can never send forth any other ; the waters pass through impure aqueducts and channels of brimstone, and therefore may end in brim- stone and fire, but never in forgiveness, and the blessings of an eternal charity. Henceforth, therefore, never any more wonder that men pray so seldom ; there are few that feel the relish, and are enticed witb the deliciousness, and refreshed with the comforts, and instructed with the sanctity, and acquainted with the secrets of a holy prayer; but cease also to wonder, that of those few that say many prayers, so few find any return of any at all. To make up a good and a lawful prayer, there must be charity, with all its daughters, " alms, for- giveness," not judging uncharitably; there must be purity of spirit, that is, purity of intention ; and there must be purity of the body and soul, that is, the cleanness of chastity ; and there must be no vice remain- ing, no affection to sin ; for he that brings his body to God, and hath left his will in the power of any sin, offers to God the calves of his lips, but not a whole burnt- offering; a lame oblation, but not a " reason- able sacrifice; and therefore their portion shall be amongst them whose prayers were never recorded in the book of life, whose tears God never put into his bottle, whose desires shall remain ineffectual to eternal ages. Take heed you do not lose your prayers; "for by them ye hope to have eternal life ;" and let any of you, whose conscience is most religious and tender, consider what condition that man is in, that hath not said his prayers in thirty or forty years together ; and that is the true state of him, who hath lived so long in the course of an unsanctified life ; in all that while he never said one prayer that did him any good, but they ought to be reckoned to him upon the account of his sins. He that is in the affection, or in the habit, or in the state, of any one sin whatsoever, is at such dis- tance from and contrariety to God, that he provokes God to anger in every prayer he makes: and then add but this consideration; i that prayer is the great sum of our religion, it is the effect, and the exercise, and the beginning, and the promoter, of all graces, and the consummation and perfection of many ; and all those persons who pretend towards heaven, and yet are not experienced in the secrets of religion, they reckon their piety, and account their hopes, only upon the stock of a few prayers. It may be they pray twice every day, it may be thrice, and blessed be God for it ; so far is very well ; but if it shall be remembered and considered, that this course of piety is so far from war- ranting any one course of sin, that any one habitual and cherished sin destroys the effect of all that piety, we shall see there is reason to account this to be one of those great arguments, with which God hath so bound the duty of holy living upon us, that without a holy life we cannot in any sense be happy, or have the effect of one prayer. But if we be returning and repenting sin- ners, God delights to hear, because he delights to save us : Si precibus (dixerunt) numina justis Victa remollescunt When a man is holy, then God is gra- cious, and a holy life is the best, and it is a continual prayer; and repentance is the best argument to move God to mercy, be- cause it is the instrument to unite our pray- ers to the intercession of the holy Jesus. SERMON V. PART II. After these evidences of Scripture, and reason derived from its analogy, there will be less necessity to take any particular notices of those little objections, which are usually made from the experience of the success and prosperities of evil persons. For true it is, there is in the world a gene- ration of men that pray long and loud, and ask for vile things, such which they ought to fear, and pray against, and yet they are heard; "the fat upon earth eat and wor- ship :"* but if these men ask things hurtful and sinful, it is certain God hears them not in mercy : they pray to God as despairing Saul did to his armour-bearer, "Sta super me et interfice me;" "Stand upon me and kill me; and he that obeyed his voice did him dishonour, and sinned against the head * Psal. xxii. 29 Skrm.V. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 37 of his king, and his own life. And the vi- cious persons of old prayed to Laverna, Pulchra Laverna, Da mihi fallere. da justum sanctumque videri, Noctem peccatis et iraudibus objice nubem. "Give me a prosperous robbery, a rich prey, and secret escape, let me become rich, with thieving, and still be accounted holy : n for every sort of men hath some religion 01 other, by the measures of which they propor- tion their lives and their prayers ; now, as I the Holy Spirit of God, teaching us to pray, makes us like himself, in order to a holy and an effective prayer ; and no man prays well, but he that prays by the Spirit of God, " the j Spirit of holiness," and he that prays with the spirit must be made like to the Spirit ; he is first sanctified and made holy, and then made fervent, and then his prayer ascends beyond the clouds : first, he is renewed in the spirit of his mind, and then he is in- flamed with holy fires, and guided by a bright star; first purified and then lightened, then burning and shining : so is every man in every of his prayers ; he is always like the Spirit by which he prays : if he be a lustful person, he prays with a lustful spirit; if he does not pray for it, he cannot heartily pray against it : if he be a tyrant or a usurper, a robber or a murderer, he hath his Laverna too, by which all his desires are guided, and his prayers directed, and his petitions furnished: he cannot pray against that spirit that possesses him, and hath seized upon his will and affections : if he be filled with a lying spirit, and be conformed to it in the image of his mind, he will be also in the expressions of his prayer, and the sense of his soul. Since, therefore, no prayer can be good but that which is taught by the Spirit of grace, none holy but the man whom God's Spirit hath sanctified, and therefore none heard to any purposes of blessing, which the Holy Ghost does not make for us (for he makes interces- sion for the saints; the Spirit of Christ is the precentor or rector chori, the master of the choir); it follows that all other prayers, being made with an evil spirit, must have an evil portion; and though the devils by their oracles have given some answers, and by their significations have foretold some future contingencies, and in their government and subordinate rule have assisted some armies, and discovered some treasures, and prevented some snares of chance and accidents of men; yet no man, that reckons by the measures of reason or religion, reckons witches and conjurors amongst blessed and prosperous persons: these and all other evil persons have an evil spirit, by the measures of which their desires begin and proceed on to issue; but this success of theirs neither comes from God/ nor brings felicity: but if it comes from God, it is anger; if it descends upon good men, it is a curse ; if upon evil men, it is a sin; and then it is a present curse, and leads, on to an eternal infelicity. Plu- tarch reports, that the Tyrians tied their gods with chains, because certain persons did dream, that Apollo said he would leave their city, and go to the party of Alexander, who then besieged the town : and Apollo- dorus tells of some, that tied the image of Saturn with bands of wool upon his feet. So some Christians ; they think God is tied to their sect, and bound to be of their side, and the interest of their opinion ; and they think, he can never go to the enemy's party, so long as they charm him with certain form of words or disguises of their own ; and then all the success they have, and all the evils that are prosperous, all the mis- chiefs they do, and all the ambitious designs | that do succeed, they reckon upon the account of their prayers ; and well they may : I for their prayers are sins, and their desires are evil ; they wish mischief, and they act ! iniquity, and they enjoy their sin : and if | this be a blessing or a cursing, themselves | shall then judge, and all the world shall ! perceive, when the accounts of all the | world are truly stated ; then, when prosperity shall be called to accounts, and adversity j shall receive its comforts, when virtue shall i have a crown, and the satisfaction of all sinful desires shall be recompensed with an I intolerable sorrow, and the despair of a per- ishing soul. Nero's mother prayed passion- I ately, that her son might be emperor ; and many persons, of whom St. James speaks, "pray to spend upon their lusts," and they are heard too : some were not, and very many are : and some, that fight against a just possessor of a country, pray, that their wars may be prosperous; and some- times they have been heard too : and Julian the Apostate prayed, and sacrificed, and in- quired of demons, and burned man's flesh, and operated with secret rites, and all that he might craftily and powerfully oppose the religion of Christ; and he was heard to, and did mischief beyond the malice and the effect of his predecessors, that did swim in Christian blood: but when we sum up the 38 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. Serm. V. accounts at the foot of their lives, or as soon as the thing was understood, and find that the effect of Agrippian's prayer was, that her son murdered her; and of those lustful petitioners, in St. James, that they were given over to the tyranny and possession of their passions, and baser appetites ; and the effect of Julian the Apostate's prayer was, that he lived and died a professed enemy of Christ; and the effect of the prayers of usurpers is, that they do mischief, and reap curses, and undo mankind, and provoke God, and live hated, and die miserable, and shall possess the fruit of their sin to eternal ages ; these will be no objections to the truth nf the former discourse ; but the greater instances, that, if by hearing our prayers, we mean or intend a blessing, we must also, by making prayers, mean, that the man first be holy, and his desires just and charitable, before he can be admitted to the throne of grace, or converse with God by the inter- courses of a prosperous prayer. That is the first general. 2. Many times good men pray, and their prayer is not a sin, but yet it returns empty ; because, although the man may be, yet the prayer is not, m proper disposition ; and here I am to ac- count to you concerning the collateral and accidental hinderances of the prayer of a good man. The first thing that hinders the prayer of a good man from obtaining its effects, is a violent anger and a violent storm in the spirit of him that prays. For anger sets the house on fire, and all the spirits are busy upon trouole, and intend propulsion, defence, displeasure, or revenge ; it is a short mad- ness, and an eternal enemy to discourse, and sober counsels, and fair conversation ; it intends its own object with all the earnest- ness of perception, or activity of design, and a quicker motion of a too warm and distem- pered blood ; it is a fever in the heart, and a calenture in the head, and a fire in the face, and a sword in the hand, and a fury all over ; and therefore can never suffer a man to be in a disposition to pray. For prayer is an action, and a state of intercourse and desire, exactly contrary to this character of anger. Prayer is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of gentleness and dove-like simplicity ; an imitation of the holy Jesus, whose spirit is meek, up to the greatness of the biggest example, and a conformity to God ; whose anger is always just, and matches slowly, and is without transportation, and often hindered, and never hasty, and is full of mercy : prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest ; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts, it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness ; and he that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discom- posed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier-garrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention, which presents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings ; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and I stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion Ifrom an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air, about his ministries here below : so is the prayer of a good man ; ; when his affairs have required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met I with infirmities of a man, and anger was its instrument, and the instrument became stronger than the prime agent, and raised a tempest, and overruled the man ; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts I were troubled, and his words went up to- I wards a cloud, and his thoughts pulled them I back again, and made them without inten- tion ; and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be content to loose the prayer, and he must recover it when his j anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God ; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove, and dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee, loaded with a blessing and the dew of heaven. But besides this ; anger is a combination of many other things, every one of which is an enemy to prayer; it is Tart*?, and opi£i$, Serm. V. THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 39 and tc/xio^a, and it is and it is aOpoos, and it is xo%aa^, and s7tttliAr(oi$ ; so it is in the several definitions of it, and in its natural constitution. It hath in it the trouble of sorrow, and the heats of lust, and the disease of revenge, and the boilings of a fever, and the rashness of precipitancy, and the dis- turbance of persecution ; and therefore is a certain effective enemy against prayer; which ought to be a spiritual joy, and an act of mortification ; and to have in it no heats, but of charity and zeal; and they are to be guided by prudence and consideration, rind allayed with the deliciousness of mercy, and the serenity of a meek and a quiet spirit; and therefore St. Paul gave caution, that " the sun should not go down upon our anger," meaning, that it should not stay upon us till evening prayer ; for it would hinder our evening sacrifice; but the stopping of the first egressions of anger, is a certain artifice of the Spirit of God, to prevent unmerciful- ness, which turns not only our desires into vanity, but our prayers into sin; and, re- member, that Elisha's anger, though it was also zeal, had so discomposed his spirit, when the two kings came to inquire of the Lord, that, though he was a good man and a prophet, yet he could not pray, he could not inquire of the Lord, till by rest and music he had gathered himself into the evenness of a dispassionate and recollected mind; therefore, let your prayers be without wrath. BovKstai av-tov$ avadiBd^ai §ta Gvfifio'kictv O7t0t£, 7if>00£p%OlVtO ftj fiu>[A.OV$ £V%dy,£VOl 7} £VXa' pi&tijaaargss, fi-qbav d/jjjiooT,»fti*a rj TidOog £7tiq>ip£69ac ?yj ^vxq ; " for God, by many significations, hath taught us, that when men go to the altars to pray or give thanks, they must bring no sin or violent passion along with ihem to the sacrifice," said Philo. 2. Indifferency and easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man's prayer. When Plato gave Diogenes a great vessel of wine, who asked but a little, and a few caraways, the Cynic thanked him with his rude expression: "Cum interroga- ns, quot sint duo et duo, respondes viginti; ita non secundum ea, quae rogaris, das ; nec ad ea, quae interrogaris, respondes:" "Thou neither answerest to the question thou art asked, nor givest according as thou art de- sired: being inquired of, how many are two and two, thou answerest, twenty." So it is with God and us in the intercourse of our prayers : we pray for health, and he gives us, it may be, a sickness that carries us into eternal life ; we pray for necessary support | for our persons and families, and he gives j us more than we need ; we beg for a re- moval of a present sadness, and he gives us I that which makes us able to bear twenty sadnesses, a cheerful spirit, a peaceful con- science and a joy in God, as an antepast of eternal rejoicings in the kingdom of God. But, then, although God doth very fre- quently give us beyond the matter of our desires, yet he does not so often give us great things beyond the spirit of our desires, beyond the quickness, vivacity, and fervour of our minds : for there is but one thing in the world that God hates besides sin, that is, indifferency and lukewarmness;*' which, although it hath not in it the direct nature of sin, yet it hath this testimony from God, that it is loathsome and abominable; and excepting this thing alone, God never said so of any thing in the New Testament, but what was a direct breach of a command- ment. The reason of it is, because luke- warmness, or an indifferent spirit, is an undervaluing of God and of religion ; it is a separation of reason from affections, and a perfect conviction of the understanding to the goodness of a duty, but a refusing to follow what we understand. For he that is lukewarm alway, understands the better way, and seldom pursues it; he hath so much reason as is sufficient, but he will not obey it ; his will does not follow the dictate of his understanding, and therefore it is unnatural. It is like the fantastic fires of the night, where there is light, and no heat; and therefore may pass on to the real fires of hell, where there is heat, and no light ; and therefore, although an act of lukewarm- ness is only an indecency, and no sin, yet a state of lukewarmness is criminal, and a sinful state of imperfection and indecency; an act of indifferency hinders a single prayer from being accepted; but a state of it makes the person ungracious and despised in the court of heaven : and therefore St. James, in his accounts concerning an effective prayer, not only requires that he be a just | man who prays, but his prayer must be fervent; 8iq6j3o$, tyvyri' says the Etymologicum : " Whatso- ever is terrible, is destructive of that thing for which it is so ;" and if we fear the evil effects of sin, let us fly from it, we ought to fear its alluring face too ; let us be so afraid, that we may not dare to refuse to hear him whose throne is heaven, whose voice is thunder, whose tribunal is clouds, whose seat is the right hand of God, whose word is with power; whose law is given with mighty demonstration of the Spirit, who shall reward with heaven and joys eternal, and who punishes his rebels, that will not have him to reign over them, with brimstone and fire, with a worm that never dies, and a fire that never is quenched ; let us fear him who is terrible in his judgments, just in his dis- pensation, secret in his providence, severe in his demands, gracious in his assistances, bountiful in his gifts, and is never wanting to us in what we need ; and if all this be not argument strong enough to produce fear, and that fear great enough to secure obedience, all arguments are useless, all discourses are vain, the grace of God is ineffective, and we e 2 54 OF GODLY FEAR. Serm. VII. are as dull as the Dead sea; inactive as a rock, and we shall never dwell with God in any sense, but as " he is a consuming fire," that is, dwell in everlasting burnings. AtSw$ xoi tifhafisia, Reverence and caution, modesty and fear, (ista f^XajSst'aj xai 8iov$, so it is in some copies, with caution and fear ; or if we render svTudfisia to be " fear of punish- ment, " as it is generally understood by interpreters of this place, and is in Hesychius eiftaj3«itf£at, ^v'hd'ttta'^tt, q>ofisto$63ov avrb 5pw5t, xai tyivyovtss ov» to aiaxfov, awA to 'kvrtr^ov, said Aristotle ; " Good men are guided by reverence, not by fear, and they avoid not that which is afflictive, but that which is dishonest;" they are not so good whose rule is otherwise. But that we may take more exact measures, I shall describe the proportions of Christian or godly fear by the following propositions. 1. Godly fear is ever without despair; — , * John riii. 15. i. 17. tHora. vi. 14, 15. t Rom j ments : but despair is part of the punish- ■ ment that is in hell, and the devils still do 56 OF GODLY FEAR. Serm. VII. evil things, because they never hope to>< receive a good, nor find a pardon. j] 2. Godly fear must always be with hon- j i ourable opinion of God, — without disparage- 1 1 meats of his mercies, without quarrellings at the intrigues of his providence, or the rough ways of his justice ; and therefore it must be ever relative to ourselves and our own failings and imperfections. ©aptfftV' ovHoi Zfi;j av^im >.o|w ezei. " God never walks perversely towards us, unless we walk crookedly towards him and therefore persons, — that only consider the greatness and power of God, and dwell for ever in the meditation of those severe executions, which are transmitted to us by story, or we observe by accident and con- versation,— are apt to be jealous concerning God, and fear him as an enemy, or as children fear fire, or women thunder, only because it can hurt them j Ssepius illud eogitant, quid possit is, cujus in ditione i sunt, quam quid debeat facere" (Cicero pro Quinctio) : " They remember oftener what God can do, than what he will ;" being more affrighted at his judgments, than de- lighted with his mercy. Such as were the Lacedaemonians, whenever they saw a man grow popular, or wise, or beloved, and by consequence powerful, they turned him out of the country : and because they were afraid of the power of Ismenias, and knew that Pelopidas and Pherenicius and Andro- clydes could hurt them, if they listed, they banished them from Sparta, but they let Epa- minondas alone, w$ 8ut /xhv tyCkoaotytav drtpay- fiova 8ta 6f rtsvlav aSvmtov, " as being studious and therefore inactive, and poor and there- fore harmless :" it is harder when men use God thus, and fear him as the great justici- ary of the world; who sits in heaven, and observes all we do, and cannot want excuse to punish all mankind. But this caution I have now inserted for their sakes, whose schools and pulpits raise doctrinal fears concerning God ; which, if they were true, the greatest part of mankind would be tempted to think, they have reason not to love God ; and all the other part, that have not apprehended a reason to hate bim, would have very much reason to suspect his severity, and their own condition. Such are they, which say, That God hath decreed the greatest part of mankind to eternal dam- nation; and that only to declare his severity, and to manifest his glory by a triumph in our torments, and rejoicings in the gnashing of our teeth. And they also fear God un- reasonably, and speak no good things con- cerning his name, who say, That God commands us to observe laws which are impossible ; that think he will condemn innocent persons for errors of judgment, which they cannot avoid ; that condemn who*e nations for different opinions, which they are pleased to call heresy ; that think God will exact the duties of a man by the measures of an angel, or will not make abatement for all our pitiable infirmities. The precepts of this caution are, that we remem- ber God's mercies to be over all his works, that is, that he shows mercy to all his creatures that need it ; that God delights to have his mercy magnified in all things, and hy all persons, and at all times, and will not suffer his greatest honour to be most of all undervalued ; and therefore as he, that would accuse God of injustice, were a blasphemer, so he that suspects his mercy. : dishonours God as much, and produces in himself that fear, which is the parent of trouble, but no instrument of duty. 3. Godly fear is operative, diligent, and instrumental to caution and strict walking : for so fear is the mother of holy living; and the apostle urges it by way of upbraiding : " What ! do we provoke God to anger ? Are we stronger than he?"* meaning, " that if we be not strong enough to struggle with a fever, if our voices cannot outroar thun- der, if we cannot check the ebbing and flowing of the sea, if we cannot add one cubit to our stature, how shall we escape the mighty hand of God?" And here, heighten your apprehensions of the Divine power, of his justice and severity, of the fierceness of his anger, and the sharpness of his sword, the heaviness of his hand and the swiftness of his arrows, as much as ever you can ; provided the effect pass on no farther, but to make us reverent and obedient: but that fear is unreasonable, servile, and unchristian, that ends in bondage and servile affections, scruple and trouble, vanity and incredulity, superstition and des- peration : its proper bounds are " humble and devout prayers," and "a strict and holv piety" according to his laws, and glorifi- cation of God," or speaking good things of his holy name; and then it cannot be amiss: we must be full of confidence to- wards God, we must with cheerfulness rely upon God's goodness for the issue of * 1 Cor. x. 22. S'erm. VII. OF GODLY FEAR. 57 our souls, and our final interests ; but this love to be abused ; he is malicious, and we expectation of the Divine mercy must be in are credulous; he is powerful and we are the ways of piety : "Commit yourselves to weak; he is too ready of himself, and yet God in well-doing as unto a faithful Crea- we desire to be tempted; the world is tor."* Alcibiades was too timorous ; who alluring, and we consider not its vanity ; being called from banishment refused to sin puts on all pleasures, and yet we take return, and being asked, If he durst not it, though it puts us to pain : in short, we trust his country, answered, Ta fuv oOAartar- ra, Ttfpi Bs 4a'#^S rrS ^rpt* jJ.rtrtu>s dyror'jasa, r>jv ftHauxuf o-vti rrfi "Kivxr^ ertevsyxrj are vain, and credulous, and sensual, and trifling; we are tempted, and tempt our- selves, and we sin frequently, and contract ^gifw," In every thing else, but in the question evil habits, and they become second natures, of his life he would not trust his mother, lest and bring in a second death miserable and igoorantly she should mistake the black bean eternal : every man hath need to fear for the white, and intending a favour should because every man hath weakness, and do him a mischief.'' We must, we may most enemies, and temptations, and dangers, and safely, trust God with our souls; the stake causes, of his own. But I shall only in- is great, but the venture is none at all: for stance in some peculiar sorts of men, who. he is our Creator, and he is faithful; he is our Redeemer, and he bought them at a dear rate ; he is our Lord, and they are his it may be, least think of it, and, therefore, have most cause to fear. 1. Are those of whom the apostle speaks. own, he prays for them to his heavenly " Let him that thinketh he standelh, take Father, and therefore he is an interested ' heed lest he fall."* 'Ev gimp i^vt axdvOac oix person. So that he is a party, and an ivsisiv, (Jij $rt>3iv 6 A^uoxptroj) said the Greek advocate, and a judge too ; and therefore 1 proverb, "In ordinary fish we shall never meet there can be no greater security in the with thorns, and spiny prickles :" and in per- world on God's part ; and this is our hope, ' sons of ordinary even course of life, we find and our confidence : but because we are but I in it too often, that they have no checks of earthen vessels under a law, and assaulted j conscience, or sharp reflections upon their by enemies, and endangered by temptations : ' condition ; they fall into no horrid crimes. therefore it concerns us to fear, lest we make God our enemy, and a party against us. And this brings me to the next part ot the consideration ; Who and what states of men ought to fear, and for what reasons? For, as the former cautions did limit, so and they think all is peace round about them. But you must know, that as grace is the improvement and bettering of nature, and Christian graces are the perfections of moral habits, and are but new circum- stances, formalities, and degrees ; so it this will encourage; those did direct, but grows in natural measures by supernatural this will exercise our godly fear. ! aids, and it hath its degrees, its strengths I. I shall not here insist upon the general1 and weaknesses, its promotions and arrests, reason of fear, which concerns every man, I its stations and declensions, its direct sick- thous:h it be most certain, that ever v one nesses and indispositions: and there is a state of srace that is next to sin ; it inclines hath cause to fear, even the most confident and holy, because his way is dangerous and narrow, troublesome and uneven, full to evil and dwells with a temptation; its acts are imperfect, and the man is within of ambushes and pitfalls ; and I remember' the kingdom, but he lives in its borders, and what Polynices said in the tragedy, when ' is "dubiae jurisdictionis." These men have he was unjustly thrown from his father's cause to fear; these men seem to stand, but kingdom, and refused to treat of peace but ' they reel indeed, and decline towards danger with a sword in his hand, "Anavta yap to%- and death. "Let these men (saith the Hwoe 8nva fraivitac. "Otav 8i f^^paV nov<; apostle) take heed lest they fall," for they a.ftsl'3r;taL x9ovb?\ " Every step is a danger! shake already; such are persons, whom the for a valiant man, when he walks in his ene-J Scriptures call "weak in faith." I do not ray's country :" and so it is with us : we are mean new beginners in religion, but such, espied by God, and observed by angels : j who have dwelt long in its confines, and we are betrayed within, and assaulted with- j yet never enter into the heart of the country ; out : the devil is our enemy, and we are such whose faith is tempted, whose piety- fond of his mischiefs; he is crafty, and we does not grow; such who yield a little * 1 Pet. iv. 19. t Apud Empir. in Phoenissis. 8 + 1 Cor. x. 12. 58 people that do all that they can lawfully do, and study how much is lawful, that they may lose nothing of a temporal interest ; people that will not be martyrs in any degree, and yet have good affections ; and love the cause of religion, and yet will surfer nothing for it : these are such of which the apostle speaks, Soxovaw totavcu, ''they think they stand," and so they do upon one leg, that is, so long as they are untempted ; but when the tempter comes, hen they fall and bemoan themselves, that )y losing peace they lost their inheritance. There are a great many sorts of such per- sons : some, when they are full, are content and rejoice in God's providence ; but mur- mur and are amazed, when they fall into poverty. . They are chaste, so long as they are within the protection of marriage, but when they return to liberty, they fall into bondage, and complain they cannot help it. They are temperate and sober, if you let them alone at home ; but call them abroad, and they will lose their sober thoughts, as Dinah did her honour, by going into new company . These men in these estates think they stand, but God knows they are soon weary, and stand stiff as a cane, which the heat of the Syrian star, or the flames of the sun, cannot bend ; but one sigh of a northern wind shakes them into the tremblings of a palsy : in this the best advice is, that such persons should watch their own infirmities, and see on which side they are most open, and by what enemies they use to fall, and to fly from such parties, as they would avoid death. But certainly they have great cause to fear, who are sure to be sick when the weather changes : or can no longer retain their possession, but till an enemy please to take it away; or will preserve their honour, but till some smiling tempta- tion ask them to forego it. 2. They also have great reason to fear, whose repentance is broke into fragments, and is never a whole or entire change of life: I mean those, that resolve against a sin, and pray against it, and hate it in all the resolutions of their understanding, till that unlucky period comes, in which they use to act it; but then they sin as certainly, as they will infallibly repent it, when they have done : there are a great many Chris- tians, who are esteemed of the better sort of penitents, yet feel this feverish repentance to be their best state of health; they fall certainly in the returns of the same circum- stances, or at a certain distance of time; but, Serm. VII. God knows, they do not get the victory over their sin, but are within its power. For this is certain, they who sin and repent, and sin again in the same or like circum- stances, are in some degree under the power and dominion of sin; when their action can be reduced to an order or a method, to a rule or a certainty, that oftener hits than fails, that sin is habitual ; though it be the least habit, yet a habit it is ; every course, or order, or method of sin, every constant or periodical return, every return that can be regularly observed, or which a man can foresee, or probably foretell, even then when he does not intend it, but prays against it, every such sin is to be reckoned, not for a single action, or upon the accounts of a pardonable infirmity, but it is a combination, an evil state, such a thing as the man ought to fear concerning himself, lest he be sur- prised and called from this world, before this evil state be altered : for if he be, his securities are but slender, and his hopes will deceive him. It was a severe doctrine that was maintained by some great clerks and holy men in the primitive church, " That repentance was to be but once after baptism:" "One faith, one Lord, one oap- tism, one repentance;"* all these the Scrip- ture saith ; and it is true, if by repentance we mean the entire change of our condition ; for he that returns willingly to the state of an unbelieving, or heathen, profane person, entirely and choosingly, in defiance of, and apostasy from, his religion, cannot be re- newed again; as the apostle twice affirms in his epistle to the Hebrews. But then, concerning this state of apostasy, when it happened in the case, not of faith, but of charity and obedience, there were many fears and jealousies : they were, therefore, very severe in their doctrines, lest men should fall into so evil a condition, they enlarged their fear, that they might be stricter in their duty; and generally this they did believe, that every second repent- ance was worse than the first, and the third worse than the second, and still as the sin returned, the Spirit of God did the less love to inhabit; and .if he were provoked too often, would so withdraw his aids and com- fortable cohabitation, that the church had little comfort in such children ; so said Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. 2. Al 8s awsxsU xai litaXtoflM lid "toi$ afiapt^/xaoi /.ittdrouxi, ov8h tW xaQurtaJ; /jltj 7tS7ti6-tevx67tu>v 8ia$spoimv' * Heb. vi. 6. x. 26. 2 Pet. ii. 22. OF GODLY FEAR. Sum. VIII. OF GODLY FEAR. ^9 u Those frequent and alternate repentances, that is, repentances and sinnings inter- changeably, differ not from the conditions cf men that are not within the covenant of grace, from them that are not believers," ij uojq ru ttumiu^todat oti a/xaptdvovoi, " save only (says he) that these men perceive that they sin they do it more against their conscience than infidels and unbelievers ; and therefore they do it with less honesty and excuse, xol ovx olb' ortorfpov avrotj *£tpov, rj to eiSota auapramv, rt fitravor^avra, ift ol$ qftafHtoPj rttyp/tctetv av^tj" "I know not which is worse, either to sin knowingly or willingly: or to repent of our sin, and sin it over again." And the same severe doctrine is delivered by Theodoret in his twelfth book against the Greeks, and is hugely agreeable to the discipline of the primitive church : and it is a truth of so great severity, that it ought to quicken the repentance and sour the gaieties of easy people, and make them fear : whose repentance is, therefore, in- effectual, because it is not integral or united, but broken in pieces by the intervention of new crimes ; so that the repentance is every time to begin anew ; and then let it be con- sidered, what growth that repentance can make, that is never above a week old, that is for ever in its infancy, that is still in its birth, that never gets the dominion over sin. These men, I say, ought to fear, lest God reject their persons, and deride the folly of their new-begun repentances, and at last be weary of giving them more opportunities, since they approve all, and make use of none; their understanding is right, and their will a slave, their reason is for God, and their affections for sin ; these men (as the apostle's expression is) " walk not as wise, but as fools :" for we deride the folly of those men, that resolve upon the same thing a thousand times, and never keep one of those resolutions. These men are vain and light, easy and effeminate, childish and abused; these are they of whom our blessed Saviour said those sad decretory words, " Many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." SERMON VII 3. They have great reason to fear, whose sins are not yet remitted; for they are within ' the dominion of sin, within the kingdom of darkness, and the regions of fear : light mak's I us confident; and sin checks the spirit of a j man into pusillanimity and cowardice of a girl or a conscious boy : and they do their work in the days of peace and wealthy fortune, and come to pay their symbol in a war or in a plague ; then they spend of their treasure of wrath, which they laid up in their vessels of dishonour: and, indeed, want of fear brought them to it ; for if they had known how to have accounted con- cerning the changes of mortality, if they could have reckoned right concerning God's judgments falling upon sinners, and remem- bered, that themselves are no more to God than that brother of theirs that died in a drunken surfeit, or was killed in a rebel war, or was, before his grave, corrupted by the shames of lust; if they could have told the minutes of their life, and passed on towards their grave at least in religious and sober thoughts, and considered that there must come a time for them to die, and "after death comes judgment," a fearful and an intolerable judgment, — it would not have come to this pass, in which th^ir present condition of affairs does amaze them, and their sin hath made them liable unto death, and that death is the beginning of an eternal evil. In this case it is natural I to fear; and if men consider their condition, and know that all the felicity, and all the J security, they can have, depends upon i God's mercy pardoning their sins, — they ! cannot choose but fear infinitely, if they have not reason to hope that their sins are pardoned. Now concerning this, men in- deed have generally taken a course to put this affair to a very speedy issue. "God is merciful," and " God forgive me," and all is done : it may be, a few sighs, like the deep sobbings of a man that is almost dead with laughter, that is, a trifling sorrow, returning upon a man after he is full of sin, and hath pleased himself with violence, and revolving only by a natural change from sin to sorrow, from laughter to a groan, from sunshine to a cloudy day; or, it may be, the good man hath left some one sin quite, or some degrees of all sin, and then the conclusion is firm, he is "rectus in curia," his sins are pardoned, he was in- deed in an evil condition, but " now he is purged," he "is sanctified" and clean. These things are very bad : but it is much worse that men should continue in their sin, and grow old in it, and arrive at con- GO OF GODL Y FEAR. Serm. VIII. firavation, and the strength of habitual wick- edness, and grow fond of it; and yet think if they die, their account stands as fair in the eyes of God's mercy, as St. Peter's, after his tears and sorrow. Our sins are not pardoned easily and quickly; and the longer and the greater hath been the in- iquity, the harder and more difficult and uncertain is the pardon ; it is a great pro- gress to return from all the degrees of death to life, to motion, to quickness, to purity, to acceptation, to grace, to contention, and growth in grace, to perseverance, and so to pardon : for pardon stands no where but at the gates of heaven. It is a great mercy, that signifies a final and universal acquit- tance. God sends it out in little scrolls, and excuses you from falling by the sword of an enemy, or the secret stroke of an angel in the days of the plague ; but these are but little entertainments and enticings of our hopes to work on towards the great pardon, which is registered in the leaves of the book of life. And it is a mighty folly to think, that every little line of mercy signifies glory and absolution from the eternal wrath of God; and therefore, it is not to be wondered at, that wicked men are unwilling to die; it is a greater wonder, that many of them die with so little resentment of their danger and their evil. There is reason for them to trem- ble, when the Judge summons them to ap- pear. When his messenger is clothed with horror, and speaks in thunder; when their conscience is their accuser, and their accu- sation is great, and their bills uncancelled, and they have no title to the cross of Christ, no advocate, no excuse ; when God is their enemy, and Christ is the injured person, and the Spirit is grieved, and sickness and death come to plead God's cause against the man; then there is reason, that the natural fears of death should be high and pungent, and those natural fears increased by the reason- able and certain expectations of that anger, which God hath laid up in heaven for ever, to consume and destroy his enemies. And, indeed, if we consider upon how trifling and inconsiderable grounds most men hope for pardon, (if at least that may be called hope, which is nothing but a careless boldness, and an unreasonable wilful confi- dence,) we shall see much cause to pity very many, who are going merrily to a sad and intolerable death. Pardon of sins is a mercy, which Christ purchased with his dearest blood, which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindness, but yet of great holiness and obedience, and an active living faith ; it is a grace, that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion, and labour for with a great diligence, and expect with trembling fears, and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain souls, and receive it by degrees, and it enters upon them by little portions, and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps. But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand ; and the waters, rolling towards the shore, throw up little portions of the tide, and retire as if nature meant to play, and not to change the abode of waters ; but still the flood crept by little steppings, and invaded more by his progressions than he lost by his retreat: and having told the number of its steps, it possesses its new portion till the angel calls it back, that it may leave its unfaithful dwelling of the sand : so is the pardon of our sins ; it comes by slow motions, and first quits a present death, and turns, it may be, into a sharp sickness ; and if that sickness prove not health to the soul, it washes off, and, it may be, will dash against the rock again, and proceed to take off the several instances of anger and the periods of wrath, but all this while it is un- certain concerning our final interest, whether it be ebb or flood : and every hearty prayer, and every bountiful alms, still enlarges the pardon, or adds a degree of probability and hope ; and then a drunken meeting, or a covetous desire, or an act of lust, or looser swearing, idle talk, or neglect of religion, makes the pardon retire ; and while it is dis- puted between Christ and Christ's enemy, who shall be Lord, the pardon fluctuates like the wave, striving to climb the rock, and is washed off like its own retinue, and it gets possession by time and uncertainty, by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progres- sion. When David had sinned but in one instance, interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity, it pleased God to pardon him; but see upon what hard terms: he prayed long and violently, he wept sore, he was humbled in sack-cloth and ashes, he ate the bread of affliction and drank his bottle of tears; he lost his princely spirit, and had an amazed conscience; he suffered the wrath of God, and the sword never did depart from his house: his son rebelled, and his kingdom revolted ; he fled on foot, and maintained spies against his child; he was forced to send an army against him that was dearer than his own eyes, and to fight against him whom he Sum. VIII. OF GODLY FEAR. 61 would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt; his concubines were defiled by an incestuous mixture, in the face of the sun, before all Israel ; and his child, that was the fruit of sin, after a seven day's fever, died, and left him nothing of his sin to show, but sorrow, and the scourges of the Divine ven- geance; and after all this, God pardoned him finally, because he was for ever sorrowful, and never did the sin again. He that hath sin- ned a thousand times for David's once, is too confident if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a less rate than was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious king: "the Son of David" died for his father David, as well as he did for us ; he was '* the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world ;" and yet the death, and that relation, and all the heap of the Divine fa- vours, which crowned David with a circle richer than the royal diadem, could not ex- empt him from the portion of sinners, when he descended into their pollutions. I pray God we may find the " sure mercies of Da- vid," and may have our portion in the re- demption wrought by the " Son of David ;" but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed, such which include time, and labour, and uncertainty, and watchfulness, and fear, and holy living. But it is a sad observation, that the case of pardon of sins is so administered, that they that are most sure of it, have the greatest fears concerning it; and they to whom it doth not belong at all, are as confident as children and fools, who believe every thing they have a mind to, not because they have reason so to do, but because with- out it they are presently miserable. The god- ly and holy persons of the church " work out their salvation with fear and trembling :" and the wicked go to destruction with gaiety and confidence : these men think all is well, while they are " in the gall of bitterness; " and good men are tossed in a tempest, crying and praying for a safe conduct; and the sighs of their fears, and the wind of their prayers, waft them safely to their port. Pardon of sins is ni t easily obtained ; because they who only certainly can receive it, find difficulty, and danger, and fears, in the obtaining it ; and therefore, their case is pitiable and deplora- ble, who, when they have least reason to expect pardon, yet are mcst confident and careless. But because there are sorrows on one side, and dangers on the other, and tempta- tions on both sides, it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are par- doned. For then, when they can perceive their signs certain and evident, they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies; when they cannot see the signs, they may leave their confidence, and change it into repentance, and watchfulness, and stricter observation ; and, in order to this, I shall tell you that which shall never fail you ; a certain sign that you may know whether or no, and when, and in what degree, your persons are pardoned. 1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any metaphysical and abstracted effects, but by sensible, real, and material. He that re- venges himself of another, does something that will make his enemy grieve, something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended ; and therefore, all the evils of sins are such as relate to us, and are to be estimated by our apprehensions. Sin makes God angry ; and God's anger, if it be not turned aside, will make us misera- ble and accursed ; and therefore, in propor- tion to this we are to reckon the propor- tion of God's mercy in forgiveness, or his anger in retaining. 2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evils, even whatsoever the anger of God is pleased to inflict; sickness and dishonour, poverty and shame, a caitiff spirit and a guilty conscience, famine and war, plague and pestilence, sudden death and a short life, temporal death or death eternal, accord- ing as God in the several covenants of the law and gospel hath expressed. 3. For in the lav/ of Moses, sin bound them to nothing but temporal evils, but they were sore, and heavy, and many; but these only there were threatened : in the gospel, Christ added the menaces of evils spiritual and eternal. 4. The great evil of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off from being God's people, to which eternal damnation answers amongst us ; and as sickness, and war, and other intermedial evils, were lesser strokes, in order to the final anger of God against their nation ; so are these and spiritual evils intermedial, in order to the eternal destruc- tion of sinning and unrepenting Christians. 5. When God had visited any of the sinners of Israel with a grievous sickness, then they lay under the evil of their sin, and were not pardoned till God took away I the sickness ; but the taking the evil away, I the evil of the punishment, was the pardon 'of the sin; "to pardon the sin is to spare the sinner :" and this appears ; for when F 62 OF GODLY FEAR. Serm. VIII. Christ had said to the man sick of the palsy, " Son, thy sins are forgiven thee,"* the Pharisees accused him of blasphemy, because none had power to forgive sins but God only ; Christ to vindicate himself, gives them an ocular demonstration, and proves his words : "That ye may know, the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the man sick of the palsy, Arise, and walk ;" then he pardoned the sin, when he took away the sickness, and proved the power by reducing it to act : for if par- don of sins be any thing else, it must be easier or harder: if it be easier^ then sin hath not so much evil in it as a sickness, which no religion as yet ever taught : if it be harder, then Christ's power to do that which was harder, could not be proved by doing that which was easier. It remains, there- fore, that it is the same thing to take the punishment away, as to procure or give the pardon ; because, as the retaining the sin was an obligation to the evil of punishment, so the remitting the sin is the disobliging to its penalty. So far then the case is manifest. 6. The next step is this ; that, although in * tne gospel God punishes sinners with temporal judgments.; and sicknesses, and deaths, witn sad accidents, and evil angels, and messengers of wrath ; yet besides these lesser strokes, he hath scorpions to chastise, and loads of worse evils to oppress the diso- bedient: he punishes one sin with another, vile acts with evil habits, these with a hard heart, and this with obstinacy, and obstinacy with impenitence, and impenitence with damnation. Now, because the worst of evils which are threatened to us, are such which consign to hell by persevering in sin, as God takes off our love and our affections, our relations and bondage under sin, just in the same degree he pardons us ; because the punishment of sin being taken off and par- doned, there can remain no guilt. Guiltiness is an insignificant word, if there be no obli- gation to punishment. Since, therefore, spiritual evils, and progressions in sin, and the spirit of reprobation, and impenitence, and accursed habits, and perseverance in iniquity, are the worst of evils; when these are taken off, the sin hath lost its venom and appendant curse : for sin passes on to eternal death only by the line of inpenitence, and it can never carry us to hell, if we repent timely and effectually ; in the same degree, therefore, that any man leaves his sin, just * Matt. ix. 2. in the same degree he is pardoned, and he is sure of it : for although curing the tem- poral evil was the pardon of sins among the Jews, yet we must reckon our pardon by curing the spiritual. If I have sinned against God in the shameful crime of lust, then God hath pardoned my sins, when, upon my repentance and prayers, he hath given me the grace of chastity. My drunk- enness is forgiven when I have acquired the grace of temperance, and a sober spirit. My covetousness shall no more be a damning sin, when I have a loving and charitable spirit ; loving to do good, and despising the world : for every further degree of sin being a near- er step to hell, and by consequence the worst punishment of sin, it follows inevitably, that according as we are put into a contrary state, so are our degrees of pardon, and the worst punishment is already taken off. — And, therefore, we shall find, that the great blessing, and pardon, and redemption, which Christ wrought for us, is called " sanctifica- tion, holiness," and " turning us away from our sins :" so St. Peter ; " Ye know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, ' as silver and gold, from your vain conversa- tion;"* that is your redemption, that is your deliverance : you were taken from your sinful state ; that was the state of death, this of life and pardon; and therefore they are made synonyma by the same apostle ; "Ac- cording as his Divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness :"f " to live" and "to be godly," is all one ; to remain in sin and abide in death, is all one ; to redeem us from sin, is to snatch us from hell ; he that gives us godliness, gives us life, and that supposes the pardon, or the aboli- tion of the rites of eternal death : and this was the conclusion of St. Peter's sermon , and the sum total of our redemption and of our pardon; "God having raised up his Son, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquity ;":}: this is the end of Christ's passion and bitter death, the purpose of all his and all our preaching, the effect of baptism, purging, washing, sancti- fying ; the work of the sacrament of the Lord's supper ; and the same body that was broken, and the same blood that was shed for our redemption, is to conform us into his image and likeness of living and dying, of doing and suffering. The case is plain : just as we leave our sins, so God's wrath shall be taken from us ; as we get the graces *1 Pet. i. 18. t 2 Pet. i. 3. t Acts Hi. 26. Serm. VIII. OF GODLY FEAR. 63 contrary to our former vices, so infallibly we are consigned to pardon. If therefore you are in contestation against sin, while you dwell in difficulty and sometimes yield to sin, and sometimes overcome it, your pardon is uncertain, and is not discernible in its progress; but when sin is mortified, and your lusts are dead, and under the power of grace, and you are " led by the Spirit," all your fears concerning your state of pardon are causeless, and afflictive with- out reason ; but so long as you live at the old rate of lust or intemperance, of covetous- ness or vanity, of tyranny or oppression, of carelessness or irreligion, flatter not your- selves; you have no more reason to hope for pardon than a beggar for a crown, or a condemned criminal to be made heir-ap- parent to that prince whom he would traitorously have slain. 4. They have great reason to fear con- cerning their condition, who having been in the state of grace, who having begun to lead a good life, and given their names to God bv solemn deliberate acts of will and understanding, and made some progress in the way of godliness, if they shall retire to folly, and unravel all their holy vows, and commit those evils, from which they for- merly ran as from a fire or inundation ; their case hath in it so many evils, that they have great reason to fear the anger of God, and concerning the final issue of their souls. For return to folly hath in it many evils beyond the common state of sin and death ; and such evils, which are most con- trary to the hopes of pardon. 1. He that falls back into those sins he hath repented of, does "grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by which he was sealed to the day of redemp- tion." For so the antithesis is plain and obvious: if "at the conversion of a sinner there is joy before the beatified spirits, the angels of God," and that is the consumma- tion of our pardon and our consignation to felicity, then we may imagine how great an evil it is to "grieve the Spirit of God," who is greater than the angels. The children of Israel were carefully warned, that they should not offend the angel : " Behold, I send an angel before thee, beware of him, and obey his voice ; provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions."* that is,* he will not spare to punish you if you grieve him : much greater is the evil, if we grieve him who sits upon the throne * Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. of God, who is the Prince of all the spirits : and besides, grieving the Spirit of God is an affection, that is as contrary to his felicity as lust is to his holiness; both which are essential to him. " Tristitia enim omnium spirituum nequissima est, et pessima servis Dei, et omnius spiritus exterminat, et cruciat Spiritum sanctum," said Hennas: " Sadness is the greatest enemy to God's servants ; if you grieve God's Spirit, you cast him out;" for he cannot dwell with sorrow and grieving; unless it be such a sorrow, which by the way of virtue passes on to joy and never-ceasing felicity. Now by grieving the Holy .Spirit, is meant those things which displease him, doing unkind- ness to him ; and then the grief, which cannot in proper sense seize upon him, will in certain effects return upon us: "Itaenim dico (said Seneca) ; sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, bonorum malorumque nostrorum observator et custos ; hie prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat :" " There is a Holy Spirit dwells in every good man. who is the observer and guardian of all our actions ; and as we treat him, so will he treat us." "Now we ought to treat him sweetly and tenderly, thankfully and with observation : " Deus praecepit, Spiritum Sanctum, utpote pro naturae suae bono tenerum et delicatum, tranquillitate, et leni- tate, et quiete, et pace tractare," said Ter- tullian "de Spectaculis." The. Spirit of God is a loving and kind Spirit, gentle and easy, chaste and pure, righteous and peace- able ; and when he hath done so much for | us as to wash us from our impurities, and to cleanse us from our stains, and straighten our obliquities, and to instruct our igno- rances, and to snatch us from an intolerable death, and to consign us to the day of ' redemption, that is, to the resurrection of I our bodies from death, corruption, and the I dishonours of the grave, and to appease all the storms and uneasiness, and to " make ! us free as the sons of God," and furnished j with the riches of the kingdom; and all this i with innumerable arts, with difficulty, and in despite of our lusts and reluctances, with 1 parts and interrupted steps, with waitings ! and expectations, with watchfulness and ' stratagems, with inspirations and collateral assistances ; after all this grace, and bounty, and diligence, that we should despite this j grace, and trample upon the blessings, and : scorn to receive life at so great an expense. '. and love of God : this is so great a baseness •and unworthiness, that bv troubling t/v- 64 OF GODLY FEAR. Serm. VIII. tenderest passions, it turns into the most bitter hostilities; by abusing God's love it turns into jealousy, and rage, and indigna- tion. il Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to thee." 2. Falling away after we have begun to live well, is a great cause of fear ; because there is added to it the circumstance of in- excusableness. The man hath been taught the secrets of the kingdom, and therefore his understanding hath been instructed; he hath tasted the pleasures of the kingdom, and therefore his will hath been sufficiently entertained. He was entered into the state of life, and renounced the ways of death ; his sin began to be pardoned, and his lusts to be crucified ; he felt the pleasures of victory, and the blessings of peace, and therefore fell away, not only against his reason, but also against his interest ; and to such a person the questions of his soul have been so perfectly stated, and his prejudices and enviable abuses so clearly taken ofF, and he was so made to view the paths of life and death, that if he chooses the way of sin again, if must be, not by weakness, or the infelicity of his breeding, or the weakness of his understanding, but a direct preference or prelation, a preferring sin before grace, the spirit of lust before the purities of the soul, the madness of drunkenness before the fulness of the Spirit, money before our friend, and above our religion, and heaven, and God himself. This man is not to be pitied upon pretence that he is betrayed; or to be relieved, be- cause he is oppressed with potent enemies; or to be pardoned, because he could not help it : for he once did help it, he did overcome his temptation, and choose God, and delight in virtue, and was an heir of heaven, and was a conqueror over sin, and delivered from death ; and he may do so still, and God's grace is upon him more plentifully, and the lust does not tempt so strongly; and if it did, he hath more power to resist it ; and therefore, if this man falls, it is because he wilfully chooses death, it is the portion that he loves and descends into with willing and unpitied steps. "Q,uam vilis facta es, nimis iterans vias tuas !" said God to Judah.* 3. He that returns from virtue to his old vices, is forced to do violence to his own reason, to make his conscience quiet: he does so unreasonably, so against all his fair Jer. ii. 36. ■inducements, so against his reputation, and I the principles of his society, so against his | honour, and his promises, and his former discourses and his doctrines; his censuring I of men for the same crimes, and the bitter I invectives and reproofs which in the days of his health and reason he used against his ] erring brethren, that he is now constrained I to answer his own arguments, he is en- | tangled in his own discourses, he is ashamed with his former conversation ; and it will be remembered against him, how severely he reproved and how reasonably he chastised the lust, which now he runs to in despite of himself and all his friends. And because this is his condition, he hath no way left him, but either to be impudent, which is hard for him at first; it being too big a natural change to pass suddenly from grace to immodest circumstances and hardnesses of face and heart: or else, therefore, he must entertain new principles, and apply his mind to believe a lie ; and then begins to argue, " There is no necessity of being so severe in my life ; greater sinners than I have been saved; God's mercies are greater than all the sins of man; Christ died for us, and if I may not be allowed to sin this sin, what ease have I by his death? or, This sin is necessary, and I cannot avoid it; or, It is questionable, whether this sin be of so deep a dye as is pretended ; or, Flesh j and blood is always with me, and I cannot ; shake it off; or, There are some sects of Christians that do allow it, or, if they do not, yet they declare it easy pardonable, upon no hard terms, and very reconcilable with the hopes of heaven ; or, The Scrip- tures are not rightly understood in their pretended condemnations ; or else, Other men do as bad as this, and there is not one in ten thousand but hath his private retire- ments from virtue; or else, When I am old, this sin will leave me, and God is very pitiful to mankind." — But while the man, j like an entangled bird, flutters in the net, I and wildly discomposes that which should ! support him, and that which holds him, jthe net and his own wings, that is, the laws :of God and his own conscience and per- suasion, he is resolved to do the thing, and j seeks excuses afterward ; and when he hath j found out a fig-leaved apron that he could put on, or a cover for his eyes, that he may not see his own deformity, then he fortifies his error with irresolution and inconsidera- tion ; and he believes it, because he will ; and he will, because it serves his turn : Serm. IX. OF GODLY FEAR. 65 then he is entered upon his state of fear ; and if he does not fear concerning himself, yet his condition is fearful, and the man hath vovv oZox^ov, "a reprobate mind," that is, a judgment corrupted by lust : vice hath abused his reasoning, and if God proceeds in the man's method, and lets him alone in his course, and gives him over to believe a lie, so that he shall call good evil, and evil good, and come to be heartily persuaded that his excuses are reasonable, and his pretences fair, — then the man is desperately undone u through the ignorance that is in him,-' as St. Paul describes his condition ; " his heart is blind, he is past feeling, his understanding is darkened ;" then he may "waik in the vanity of his mind," and "give himself over to lasciviousness," and shall "work all uncleanness with greedi- ness ;"* then he needs no greater misery : this is the state of evil, which his fear ought to have preven^d, but now it is past fear, and is to be recovered with sorrow, or else to be run through, till death and hell are become his portion ; " fiunt novissima illius pejora prioribus ;" " His latter end is worse than his beginning. "f 4. Besides all this, it might easily be added, that he that falls from virtue to vice again, adds the circumstance of ingratitude to his load of sins ; he sins against God's mercy, and puts out his own eyes, he strives to unlearn what with labour he hath purchased, and despises the trouble of his holy days, and throws away the reward of virtue for an interest, which himself despised the first day in which he began to take sober counsels; he throws himself back in the accounts of eternity, and slides to the bottom of the hill, from whence with sweat and labour of his hands and knees he had long been creeping ; he descends from the spirit to the flesh, from honour to dishonour, from wise principles to unthrifty practices ; like one of ''the vainer fellows," who grows a fool, and a prodigal, and a beggar, because he delights in inconsideration, in madness of drunkenness, and the quiet of a lazy and unprofitable life. So that this man hath great cause to fear; and, if he does, his fear is as the fear of enemies and not sons : I do not say. that it is a fear that is displeasing to God ; but it is such a one, as may arrive at goodness, and the fear of sons, if it be rightly managed. * Ephes. iv. 17, 18. t Matt. xii. 45. Vide 2 Pet. ii. 20. 9 For we must know, that no fear is dis- pleasing to God ; no fear of itself, whether , it be fear of punishment, or fear to offend ; the " fear of servants," or the " fear of sons :" but the effects of fear do distinguish the man, and are to be entertained or re- jected -accordingly. If a servile fear makes us to remove our sins, and so passes us towards our pardon, and the receiving such graces which may endear our duty and oblige our affection ; that fear is imperfect, but not criminal ; it is " the beginning of wisdom," and the first introduction to it; but if that fear sits still, or rests in a servile mind, or a hatred of God, or speaking evil things concerning him, or unwillingness to do our duty, that which at first was indif- ferent, or at the worst imperfect, proves miserable and malicious ; so we do our duty, it is no matter upon what principles we do it; it is no matter where we begin, so from that beginning we pass on to duties and perfection. If we fear God as an enemy, an enemy of our sins, and of our persons for their sakes, as yet this fear is but a servile fear ; it cannot be a filial fear, since we ourselves are not sons ; but if this servile fear makes us to desire to be recon- ciled to God, that he may no longer stay at enmity with us, from this fear we shall soon pass to carefulness, from carefulness to love, from love to diligence, from diligence to perfection ; and the enemies shall become servants, and the servants shall become adopted sons, and pass into the society and the participation of the inheritance of Jesus : for this fear is also reverence, and then our God, instead of being " a consuming fire," shall become to us the circle of a glorious crown, and a globe of eternal light. SERMON IX. PART III. I am now to give account concerning tin- excess of fear, not directly and abstract- edly, as it is a passion, but as it is subjected in religion, and degenerates into supersti- tion : for so among the Greeks, fear is the ingredient and half of the constitution of that folly ; AftcrtSatuowa, fnSoOna. said Hesy- chius, "it is a fear of God." ktiubaiiuw, 6ftXo5, that is more; it is a timorousness ; " the superstitious man is afraid of the f2 66 OF GODLY FEAR. Serm. IX. gods," (said the etymologist,) SeSuIjj t'ous Otobs ucrrtsp ifovs tvpdvvovs, " fearing of God, as if he were a tyrant," and an unreasonable j exacter of duty upon unequal terms, and j disproportionate, impossible degrees, and ' unreasonable, and great and little instances. 1. But this fear some of the old philoso- phers thought unreasonable in all cases, even towards God himself; and it was a branch of the Epicurean doctrine, that God meddled not with any thing below, and was to be loved and admired, but not feared at all j and therefore they taught men neither to fear death, nor to fear punishment after death, nor any displeasure of God : "His terroribus ab Epicuro soluti non metuimus Deos," said Cicero ;* and thence came this acceptation of the word, that superstition should signify "an unreason- able fear of God :" it is true, he and all his scholars extended the case beyond the mea- sure, and made all fear unreasonable ; but then if we, upon grounds of reason and Divine revelation, shall better discern the measure of the fear of God ; whatsoever fear we find to be unreasonable, we may by the same reason call it superstition, and reckon it criminal, as they did all fear; that it may be called superstition, their authority is sufficient warrant for the grammar of the appellative; and that it is criminal, we shall derive from better principles. But, besides this, there was another part of its definition, AststSou^wv, 6 ta a6\$, " one that is afraid of something besides God." The Latins, according to their custom, imi- tating the Greeks in all their learned notices of things, had also the same conception of this, and by their word superstitio under- stood " the worship of demons," or separate spirits ; by which they meant, either their minores deos, or else their jypwaj aTioOecodfatas, "'their braver personages, whose souls were supposed to live after death ;" the fault of this was the object of their religion ; they gave a worship or a fear to whom it was not due; for whenever they worshipped the great God of heaven and earth, they never called that superstition in an evil sense, except the "A&ot, "they that believed there was no God at all." Hence came the ety- mology of superstition: it was a worshipping or fearing the spirits of their dead heroes, "quos superstites credebant," "whom they thought to be alive" after their drtofltwcus, or deification, "quos superstantes credebant," " standing in places and thrones above us ; and it alludes to that admirable description of old oge, which Solomon made beyond all the rhetoric of the Greeks and Romans; " Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way intimating the weakness of old persons, who, if ever they have been religious, are apt to be abused into superstition ; they are " afraid of that which is high ;" that is, of spirits, and separate souls of those excellent beings, which dwell in the regions above ; meaning, that then they are superstitious. However, fear is most commonly its prin- ciple, always its ingredient. For if it enter first by credulity and a weak persuasion, yet it becomes incorporated into the spirit of a man, and thought necessary, and the action it persuades to, dares not be omitted, for fear of evil themselves dream of; upon this account the sin is reducible to two heads : the 1. is superstition of an undue object ; 2. superstition of an undue expression to a right object. 1. Superstition of an undue object, is that which the etymologist calls tuv ctSwtoy (jipaafjut, " the worshipping of idols ; the Scripture adds $vstv bai^oviov^, "a sacrificing to demons," in St. Paul,f and in Baruch ;% where, although we usually read it " sacri- ficing to devils," yet it was but accidental that they were such; for those indeed were evil spirits who had seduced them, and tempted them to such ungodly rites ; (and yet they who were of the Pythagorean sect, pretended a more holy worship, and did their devotion to angels); but whosoever shall worship angels, do the same thing; they worshipped them because they are good and powerful, as the Gentiles did the devils, whom they thought so ; and the error which the apostle reproves, was not in matter of judgment, in mistaking bad angels for good, but in matter of manners and choice; they mistook the creature for the Creator; and therefore, it is more fully expressed by St. Paul, in a general signifi- cation, " they worshipped the creature," rtapa tbv xtisavta, "besides the Creator ;"§ so it should be read ; if we worship any creature besides God, worshipping so as the worship of him becomes a part of re- ligion, it is also a direct superstition ; but, * Lib. de Nat. Dcorum. * Eccles. xii. 5. 1 1 Cor. x. 20. X Bar. iv. 7. § Rom. i. 25. Serm. IX. OF GODLY FEAR. 67 concerning this part of superstition, I shall not trouble this discourse, because I know no Christians blamable in this particular but the church of Rome, and they that communicate with her in the worshipping of images, of angels, and saints, burning lights and perfumes to them, making offer- ings, confidences, advocations, and rows to them; and direct and solemn Divine wor- shipping the symbols of bread and wine, when they are consecrated in the holy sacrament. These are direct superstition, as the word is used by all authors, profane and sacred, and are of such evil report, that wherever the word superstition does signify any thing criminal, these instances must come under the definition of it. They are tatrpa'a trjs xt tocos' A "katpsla rtapatov xtltiavta a ** cultus superstitum" a " cultus dcemo- num ;" and therefore, besides that they have ISiov tKsyxov, "9. proper reproof " in Christian religion, are condemned by all wise men which call superstition criminal. But as it is superstition to worship any thing rtapa tov xtlaavta, "besides the Crea- tor;" so it is superstition to worship God rtapa to fvo^uor, rtapa to rtpertov, rtap o 5ft, "'other- wise than is decent, proportionable, or de- scribed." Every inordination of religion, that is not in defect, is properly called superstition : o fuv siasfirjs $<,'fcos ©59 6 Se I SftffcScw'jUwv zoAol Qeov, said Maximus Tyrius ; j " The true worshipper is a lover of God, the superstitious man loves him not, but flatters." To which if we add, that fear, unreasonable fear, is also superstition, and an ingredient in its definition, we are taught by this word to signify all irregularity and inordination in actions of religion. The sum is this: the atheist called all worship of God superstition; the Epicurean called all fear of God superstition, but did not condemn his worship; the other part of wise men called all unreasonable fear and inordinate worship superstition, but did not condemn all fear : but the Christian, besides this, calls every error in worship, in the manner, or excess, by this name, and con- demns it. Now because the three great actions of religion are, " to worship God," " to fear God," and "to trust in him," by the in- ordination of these three actions, we may reckon three sorts of this crime; "the excess of fear," and "the obliquity in trust," and " the errors in worship," are the three sorts of superstition : the first of which is only pertinent to our present consideration. 1. Fear is the duty we owe to God, as being the God of power and justice, the great Judge of heaven and earth, the avenger of the cause of widows, the patron of the poor, and the advocate of the op- pressed, a mighty God and terrible : and so essential an enemy to sin, that he spared not his own Son, but gave him over to death, and to become a sacrifice, when he took upon him our nature, and became a person obliged for our guilt. Fear is the great bridle of intemperance, the modesty of the spirit, and the restraint of gaieties and dissolutions ; it is the girdle to the soul, and the handmaid to repentance : the arrest of sin, and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation; it preserves our apprehen- sions of the Divine Majesty, and hinders our single actions from combining to sinful habits ; it is the mother of consideration, and the nurse of sober counsels ; and it puts the soul to fermentation and activity, making it to pass from trembling to caution, from caution to carefulness, from carefulness to watchfulness, from thence to prudence; and, by the gates and progresses of repentance, it leads the soul on to love, and to felicity, and to joys in God, that shall never cease again. Fear is the guard of a man in the days of prosperity ; and it stands upon the watch-towers and spies the approaching danger, and gives warning to them that laugh loud and feast in the chambers of rejoicing, where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine, and jest, and music : and if prudence takes it by the hand, and leads it on to duty, it is a state of grace, and a universal instrument to infant religion, and the only security of the less perfect persons; and, in all senses, is that homage we owe to God, who sends often to demand it, even then, when he speaks in thunder, or smites by a plague, or awakens us by threatenings, or discomposes our easi- ness by sad thoughts, and tender eyes, and fearful hearts, and trembling considerations. But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits ; in those who are softened by nature and by religion, by infelicities or cares, by sudden accidents or a sad soul : and the devil observing that fear, like spare diet, starves the fevers of lust, and quenches the flames of hell, en- deavours to heighten this abstinence so much as to starve the man, and break the spirit into timorousness and scruple, sadness and unreasonable tremblings, credulity and trifling observation, suspicion and false 68 OF GODLY PEAR. Serm. IX. accusations of God ; and then vice, being turned out at the gate, returns in at the postern, and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths which seem to lead to heaven. But so have I seen a harmless dove, made dark with an artificial night, and her eyes sealed and locked up with a little quill, soaring upward and flying with amazement, fear, and an undiscerning wing ; she made to- wards heaven, but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument, to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defenceless kindred : so is a superstitious man, zealous and blind, forward and mis- taken, he runs towards heaven as he thinks, but he chooses foolish paths ; and out of fear takes any thing that he is told; or fancies and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections. But fear, when it is inordi- nate, is never a good counsellor, nor makes a good friend ; and he that fears God as his enemy, is the most completely miserable person in the world. For if he with reason believes God to be his enemy, then the man needs no other argument to prove that he is undone than this, that the fountain of blessing (in this state in which the man is) will never issue any thing upon him but cursings. But if he fears this without reason, he makes his fears true by the very suspicion of God, doing him dishonour, and then doing those fond and trifling acts of jealousy, which will make God to be what the man feared he already was. We do not know God, if we can think any hard thing concerning him. If God be merciful, let us only fear to offend him ; but then let us never be fearful that he will destroy us, when we are careful not to displease him. There are some persons so miserable and scrupulous, such perpetual tormentors of themselves with unnecessary fears, that their meat and drink is a snare to their con- sciences ; if they eat, they fear they are gluttons ; if they fast, they fear they are hypocrites; and if they would watch, they complain of sleep as of a deadly sin ; and every temptation, though resisted, makes them cry for pardon ; and every anger of God will break them in pieces. These persons do not believe noble things j concerning God ; they do not think that he is as ready to pardon them, as they are to pardon a sinning servant ; they do not believe how much God delights in mercy, nor how wise he is to consider and to make abatement for our unavoidable infirmities : they make judgment of themselves by the measures of an angel, and take the account of God by the proportions of a tyrant. The best that can be said concerning such per- sons is, that they are hugely tempted, or hugely ignorant. For though " ignorance,'7 is by some persons named the " mother of devotion j*9 yet, if it falls in a hard ground, it is the "mother of atheism :" if in a soft ground, it is the "parent of superstition;" but if it proceeds from evil or mean opinions of God, (as such scruples and unreasonable fears do many times,) it is an evil of a great impiety, and in some sense, if it were in equal degrees, is as bad as atheism : for so he that says, There was no such man as Julius Csesar, does him. less displeasure, than he that says, There was, but that he was a tyrant, and a bloody parricide. And the Cimmerians were not esteemed impious for saying, that there was no sun in the heavens; but Anaxagoras was esteemed irreligious for saying, the sun was ^. very stone : and though to deny there is a God is a high impiety and intolerable, yet he says worse who, believing there is a God, says, He delights in human sacrifices, in miseries and death, in tormenting his ser- vants, and punishing their very infelicities and unavoidable mischances. To be God, and to be essentially and infinitely good, is the same thing; and therefore, to deny either, is to be reckoned among the greatest crimes in the world. Add to this, that he that is afraid of God, cannot in that disposition love him at all ; for what delight is there in that religion, which draws me to the altar as if I were going to be sacrificed, or to the temple as to the dens of bears ? "- Oderunt quos metuunt, sed colunt tamen :w kC Whom men fear, they hate certainly, and flatter readily, and worship timorously and he that saw Hermolaus converse with Alex- ander, and Pausanias follow Philip the Macedonian, or Chsereas kissing the feet of Caius Caligula, would have observed how sordid men are made with fear, and how unhappy and how hated tyrants are in the midst of those acclamations, which are loud, and forced, and unnatural, and without love or fair opinion. And there- fore, although the atheist says, " There is no God," the scrupulous, fearful, and su- perstitious man, does heartily wish what the other does believe. But that the evil may be proportionable Serm. IX. OF GODLY FEAR. "39 to the folly, and the punishment to the! crime, there is no man more miserable in : the world than the man who fears God as j his enemy, and religion as a snare, and duty intolerable, and the commandments as impossible, and his Judge as implacable, and his anger as certain, insufferable, and unavoidable: whither shall this man go? where shall he lay his burden ? where shall he take sanctuary ? for he fears the altars as the places where his soul bleeds and dies ; and God, who is his Saviour, he looks upon as his enemy ; and because he is Lord of all, the miserable man cannot change his service, unless it be apparently for a worse. And therefore, of all the evils of the mind, fear is certainly the worst and the most in- tolerable : levity and rashness have in them some spritefulness, and greatness of action ; anger is valiant j desire is busy and apt to hope ; credulity is oftentimes entertained and pleased with images and appearances : but fear is dull, and sluggish, and treacher- ous and flattering, and dissembling, and miserable, and foolish. Every false opinion concerning God is pernicious and danger- ous ; but if it be joined with trouble of spirit, as fear, scruple, or superstition are, it is like a wound with an inflammation, or a strain of a sinew with a contusion or con- trition of the part, painful and unsafe ; it puts on two actions when itself is driven : it urges reason and circumscribes it, and makes it pitiable, and ridiculous in its con- sequent follies ; which, if we consider it, will sufficiently reprove the folly, and de- clare the danger. Almost all ages of the world have observed many instances of fond persuasions and foolish practices proceeding from violent fears and scruples in matter of religion, j Diomedon and many other captains werel condemned to die, because after a great naval victory they pursued the flying enemies, and! did not first bury their dead. But Chabrias, in the same case, first buried the dead, and by that time the enemy rallied, and returned, and beat his navy, and made his masters pay the price of their importune super- stition : they feared where they should not, and where they did not, they should. From hence proceeds observation of signs and unlucky days ; and the people did so, when the Gregorian account began, continuing to call those unlucky days which were so signified in their tradition or crra pater, although the day upon this account fell ten days sooner; and men were transported with many other trifling contingencies and little accidents ; which, when they are once entertained by weakness, prevail upon their own strength, and in sad natures and weak spirits have produced effects of great danger and sorrow. Aristodemas, king of the Mes- senians, in his war against the Spartans, prevented the sword of the enemy by a violence done upon himself, only because his dogs howled like wolves ; and the soothsayers were afraid, because the briony grew up by the walls of his father's house : and Nicias, general of the Athenian forces, sat with his arms in his bosom, and suffered himself and forty thousand men tamely to fall by the insolent enemy, only because he was afraid of the labouring and eclipsed moon. When the marble statues in Rome did sweat, (as naturally they did against all rainy weather,) the augurs gave an alarm to the city ; but if lightning struck the spire of the capitol, they thought the sum of affairs, and the commonwealth itself, was endangered. And this heathen folly hath stuck so close to the Christians, that all the sermons of the church for sixteen hundred years have not cured them all : but the practices of weaker people, and the artifice of ruling priests, have superinduced many new ones. When Pope Eu genius sang mass at Rheims, and some few drops from the chalice were spilt upon the pave- ment, it was thought to foretell mischief, wars, and bloodshed to all Christendom, though it was nothing but carelessness and mischance of the priest: and because Tho- mas Beckett, archbishop of Canterbury, sang the mass of requiem upon the day he was reconciled to his prince, it was thought to foretell his own death by that religious office : and if men can listen to such whis- pers, and have not reason and observation enough to confute such trifles, they shall still be affrighted with the noise of birds, and every night-raven shall foretell evil as Micaiah to the king of Israel, and every old woman shall be a prophetess, and the events of human affairs, which should be managed by the conduct of counsel, of reason, and re- ligion shall succeed by chance, by the flight of birds, and the meeting with an evil eye, by the falling of the salt, or the decay of reason, of wisdom, and the just religion of a man. To this may be reduced the observation of dreams, and fears commenced from the fancies of the night. For the superstitious man does not rest even when he sleeps ; 70 OF GODLY FEAR. Serm. IX. neither is he safe, because dreams usually are false, but he is afflicted for fear they should tell true. Living and waking men have one world in common, they use the same air and fire, and discourse by the same principles of logic and reason ; but men that are asleep, have every one a world to himself, and strange perceptions ; and the superstitious hath none at all : his reason sleeps, and his fears are waking ; and all his rest, and his very securities, to the fearful man turn into affrights and insecure ex- pectation of evils, that never shall happen ; they make their rest uneasy and chargeable, and they still vex their weary soul, not considering there is no other sleep for sleep to rest in : and therefore, if the sleep be troublesome, the man's cares be without remedy till they be quite destroyed. Dreams lollow the temper of the body, and com- monly proceed from trouble or disease, business or care, an active head and a rest- less mind, from fear or hope, from wine or passion, from fulness or emptiness, from fantastic remembrances, or from some de- mon, good or bad : they are without rule and without reason, they are as contin- gent, as if a man should study to make a prophecy, and by saying ten thousand things may hit upon one true, which was therefore not foreknown, though it was forespoken; and they have no certainty, because they have no natural causality nor proportion to those effects, which many times they are said to foresignify. The dream of the yolk of an egg importeth gold (saith Artemidorus) ; and they that use to remember such fantastic idols, are afraid to lose a friend when they dream their teeth shake, when naturally it will rather signify a scurvy; for a natural indisposition and an imperfect sense of the beginning of a disease, may vex the fancy into a sym- bolical representation ; for so the man that dreamed he swam against the stream of blood, had a pleurisy beginning in his side ; and he that dreamt he dipped his foot into water, and that it was turned to a marble, was enticed into the fancy by a beginning dropsy ; and if the events do answer in one instance, we become credulous in twenty. | For want of reason we discourse ourselves into folly and weak observation, and give j the devil power over us in those circum- •fences, in which we can least resist him. 'Ei> bptyvy SpowttT^s /juya uBtvsi, " A thief is j confident in the twilight if you suffer. impressions to be made upon you by dreams, the devil hath the reins in his own hands, and can tempt you by that, which will abuse you, when you can make no resistance. Dominica, the wife of Valens the emperor, dreamed that God threatened to take away her only son for her despiteful usage of St. Basil : the fear proceeding from this instance was safe and fortunate ; but if she had dreamed in the behalf of a heretic, she might have been cozened into a false proposition upon a ground weaker than the discourse of a waking child. Let the grounds of our actions be noble, begin- ning upon reason, proceeding with pru- dence, measured by the common lines of men, and confident upon the expectation of a usual providence. Let us proceed from causes to effects, from natural means to ordinary events, and believe felicity not to be a chance but a choice ; and evil to be the daughter of sin and the Divine anger, not of fortune and fancy; let us fear God, when we have made him angry, and not be afraid of him, when we heartily and laboriously do our duty ; our fears are to be measured by open revelation and certain experience, by the threatenings of God and the sayings of wise men, and their limit is reverence, and godliness is their end ; and then fear shall be a duty, and a rare in- strument of many : in all other cases it is superstition or folly, it is sin or punishment, the ivy of religion, and the misery of an honest and a weak heart ; and is to be cured only by reason and good company, a wise guide and a plain rule, a cheerful spirit and a contented mind, by joy in God according to the commandments, that is, " a rejoicing evermore." 2. But besides this superstitious fear, there is another fear directly criminal, and it is called "worldly fear," of which the Spirit of God hath said, " But the fearful and incredulous shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death ;"* that is, such fears, which make men to fall in the time of persecution, those that dare not own their faith in the face of a tyrant, or in despite of an accursed law. For though it be lawful to be afraid in a storm, yet it is not lawful to leap into the sea; though we may be more careful for our fears, yet we must be faithful too ; and we may fly from the persecution till it overtakes us ; but when it does, we must not change our * Eurip, * Rev. xxi. 8. Sekm. IX. OF GODLY FEAR. 71 religion for our safety , or leave the robe of baptism in the hand of the tempter, and run away by all means. St. Athanasius for forty-six years did run and fight, he disputed with the Arians and fled from their officers : and he that flies, may be a man worth pre- serving, if he bears his faith along with him, and leaves nothing of his duty behind. But when duty and life cannot stand to- gether, he that then flies a persecution by deliveriog up his soul, is one that hath no charity, no love to God, no trust in promises, no just estimation of the rewards of a noble contention. " Perfect love casts out fear" (saith the apostle) ; that is, he that loves God, will not fear to die for him, or for his sake to be poor. In this sense, no man can fear man and love God at the same time ; and when St. Lawrence triumphed over Valerianus,St. Sebastian over Dioclesian, St. Vincentius over Dacianus, and the armies of martyrs over the pro- consuls, accusers, and executioners, they showed their love to God by triumphing over fear, and "leading captivity captive," by the strength of their Captain, whose " garments were red from Bozrah." 3. But this fear is also tremulous and criminal, if it be a trouble from the appre- hension of the mountains and difficulties of duty, and is called pusillanimity. For some see themselves encompassed with temptations, they observe their frequent falls, their perpetual returns from good pur- poses to weak performances, the daily mor- tifications that are necessary, the resisting natural appetites, and the laying violent hands upon the desires of flesh and blood, the uneasiness of their spirits, and their hard labours, and therefore this makes them afraid ; and because they despair to run through the whole duty, in all its parts and periods, they think it as good not to begin at all, as after labour and expense to lose the jewel and the charges of their venture. St. Augustine compares such men to chil- dren and fantastic persons, affrighted with phantasms and spectres; "terribiles visu formae," the sight seems full of horror; but touch them and they are very nothing, the mere daughters of a sick brain and a weak heart, an infant experience and a trifling judgment : so are the illusions of a weak piety, or an unskilful confident soul : they fancy to see mountains of difficulty ; but touch them, and they seem like clouds riding upon the wings of the wind, and put on shapes as we please to dream. He that denies to give alms for fear of being poor, or to entertain a disciple for fear of being suspected of the party, or to own a duty for fear of being put to venture for a crown ; he that takes part of the intemperance, because he dares not displease the company , or in any sense fears the fears of the world, and not the fear of God, — this man enters into his portion of fear betimes, but it will not be finished to eternal ages. To fear the censures of men, when God is your judge; to fear their evil, when God is your defence; to fear death, when he is the entrance to life and felicity, is unreasonable and pernicious ; but if you will turn your passion into duty, and joy, and security, fear to offend God, to enter voluntarily into temptation ; fear the alluring face of lust, and the smooth entertainments of intem- perance : fear the anger of God, when you have deserved it ; and when you have re- covered from the snare, then infinitely fear to return into that condition, in which whosoever dwells, is the heir of fear and eternal sorrow. Thus far I have discoursed concerning good fear and bad, that is, filial and servile: they are both good, if by servile we intend initial, or the new beginning fear of peni- tents; a fear to offend God upon less perfect considerations : but servile fear is vicious, when it still retains the affection of slaves, and when its effects are hatred, weariness, displeasure, and want of charity : and of the same cognations are those fears, which are superstitious, and wordly. But to the former sort of virtuous fear, some also add another, which they cal'i angelical, that is, such a fear as the blessed angels have, who before God hide their faces, and tremble at his presence, and "fall down before his footstool," and are ministers of his anger and messengers of his mercy, and night and day worship him with the profoundest adoration. This is the same that is spoken of in the text : " Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear;" all holy fear partakes of the nature of thi> which divines call angelical, and it is ex- pressed in acts of adoration, of vows and holy prayers, in hymns and psalms, in the eueharist and reverential addresses; and while it proceeds in the usual measures of common duty, it is but human : but as it rises to great degrees, and to perfection, it is angelical and Divine; and then it apper tains to mystic theology, and therefore i? to be considered in another place ; but, for the 72 THE FLESH A ND THE SPIRIT. Serm. X. present, that which will regularly concern all our duty, is this, that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty, or God's worship, the greater it is, it is so much the better. It was an old proverbial saying among the Romans, " Religentem esse, oportet; religiosum, nefas;" " Every excess in the actions of religion is criminal;" they supposing, that, in the services of their gods, there might be too much. True it is, there may be too much of their undecent expressions ; and in things indifferent, the very multitude is too much, and becomes an undecency : and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end, or the rules, or the analogy, of the religion, it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable ; but in the direct actions of glorifying God, in doing any thing of his commandments, or any thing which he commands, or counsels, or promises to reward, there can never be excess or super- fluity : and therefore, in these cases, do as much as you can ; take care that your ex- pressions be prudent and safe, consisting with thy other duties ; and for the passions of virtues themselves, let them pass from beginning to great progresses, from man to angel, from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God ; and, whenever we go beyond the bounds of nature, and grow up with all the extension, and in the very commensuratior. of a full grace, we shall never go beyond the excel- lencies of God : for ornament may be too much, and turn to curiosity; cleanness may be changed into niceness ; and civil compliance may become flattery; and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity ; and fame and hon- our may be great unto envy; and health itself, if it be athletic, may by its very excess become dangerous : but wisdom, and duty, and comeliness, and discipline, a good mind, and the fear of God, and doing hon- our to his holy name, can never exceed : but if they swell to great proportions, they pass through the measures of grace, and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God, in the joys of an eternal glory. SERMON X. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. PART I. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matt. xxvi. 41 ; latter part. From the beginning of days, man hath been so cross to the Divine commandments, that in many cases there can be no reason given, why a man should choose some ways, or do some actions, but only because they are forbidden. When God bade the Israelites rise and go up against the Canaan- ites and possess the land, they would not stir ; the men were Anakims, and the cities were impregnable ; and there was a lion in the way : but, presently after, when God forbade them to go, they would and did go, though they died for it. I shall not need to instance in particulars, when the whole life of man is a perpetual contradiction; and the state of disobedience is called the " con- tradictions of sinners ;" even the man in the gospel, that had two sons, they both crossed him, even he that obeyed him, and he that obeyed him not: for the one said he would, and did not; the other said he would not, and did ; and so do we : we promise fair, and do nothing ; and they that do best, are such as come out of darkness into light, such as said (' they would not," and at last have better bethought themselves. And who can guess at any other reason, why men should refuse to be temperate? For he that refuseth the commandment, first does violence to the commandment, and puts on a preternatural appetite ; he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding; he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthless constitution ; smart and sickly nights, a loath- ing stomach and a staring eye, a giddy brain and a swelled belly, gouts and dropsies, catarrhs and oppilations. If God should enjoin men to suffer all this, heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws, and impossible com- mandments : for we complain already, even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us ; this is one of the im- possible laws : it is impossible for us to know when we are dry, or when we need drink ; for if we do know, I am sure it is possible enough, not to lift up the wine to our heads. And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies, we think we have so much reason against it, that God will excuse our disobedience in this case ; and yet there are some enemies, whom God hath commanded us not to love, and those we dote on, we cherish and feast them, and, as St. Paul in another case, "upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comeliness." For whereas our body itself is a servant to our soul, we make it the heir of all things, and treat it Serm. X. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 73 here already as if it were in majority ; and make that, which at the best was but a weak friend, to become a strong enemy ; and hence proceed the vices of the worst, and the fol- lies and imperfections of the best : the spirit is either in slavery or in weakness, and when the flesh is not strong to mischief, it is weak to goodness ; and even to the apostles our blessed Lord said, " The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." "The spirit," that is, o erfoio, Hdptuv, bloats ycuav ertiTtveltite xoi f'prtft. Od. 10 •'There is nothiag that creeps upon theeaith, nothing that ever God made, weaker than man ;" for God fitted horses and mules with strength, bees and pismires with sagacity, harts and hares with swiftness, birds with feathers and a light airy body ; and they all know their times, and are fitted for their work, and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation ; but man, that was design- ed to an immortal duration, and the fruition of God for ever, knows not how to obtain it; he is made upright to look up to heaven, but he knows no more how to purchase it than to climb to it. Once, man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds, or the preternatural risings of the water, but could not do it ; he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry ; and for going to heaven, he was so far from doing that naturally, that as soon as ever he was made, he became the son of death, and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandment: Km rutv fyvGu t-ixva opy-zjj, said the apostle : " By nature we are the sons of wrath," that is, we were born heirs of death, which death came upon us from God's anger for the sin of our first parents ; or by nature, that is, bvtu>$ ahrfius, " really," not by the help of fancy, and fiction of law, for so (Ecumenius and Theophylact expound it;* but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention, but to the evil state of sin, in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion ; it signifies, that our nature of itself is a state of opposition to the Spirit of grace; it is privately opposed, that is, that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity; nothing but an obediential capa- city; our flesh can become sanctified, as "the stones can become children unto Abraham," or as dead seed can become living corn ; and so it is with us, that it is necessary God should make us a new creation, if he means to save us ; he must take our hearts of stone away, and give us hearts of flesh ; he must purge the old leaven, and make us a new conspersion ; he must destroy the flesh, and must breathe into us " spiritum vitae," the celestial breath of life, without which we can neither live, nor move, nor have uur being. "No man can come unto me, (said Christ,) unless my Father draw him :" vri tpwroj aprtowa^f vte$ ovpariou, xaOartFp oi f3axxti'6/.isioi xai xopv3avtiCovtes fvOovsid^ovai, *Enhcs. ii. 3. G 74 THE FLESH AN D THE SPIRIT. Serm. X. jui^ptj av to 7iodov{nvov l§u>6i. ie The Divine ' love must come upon us and snatch us" from our imperfection, enlighten our under- standing, move and stir our affections, open the gates of heaven, turn our nature into grace, entirely forgive our former prevarications, take us by the hand, and lead us all along ; and we only contribute our assent unto it, just as a child when he is tempted to learn to go, and called upon, and guided, and up- held, and constrained to put his feet to the ground, lest he feel the danger by the smart of a fall ; just so is our nature and our state of flesh. God teaches us and invites us, he makes us willing, and then makes us able, he lends us helps, and guides our hands and feet ; and all the way constrains us, but yet so as a reasonable creature can be constrain- ed ; that is, made willing with arguments and new inducements, by a state of circum- stances and conditional necessities : and as this is a great glorification of the free grace of God, and declares our manner of co-ope- ration, so it represents our nature to be weak as a child, ignorant as infancy, helpless as an orphan, averse as an uninstructed per- son, in so great degrees that God is forced to bring us to a holy life, by arts great and many as the power and principles of the creation ; with this only difference, that the subject matter and object of this new creation is a free agent: in the first it was purely obediential and passive ; and as the passion of the first was an effect of the same power that reduced it to act, so the freedom of the second is given us in our nature by Him, that only can reduce it to act ; for it is a freedom that cannot therefore choose, be- cause it does not understand, nor taste, nor perceive, the things of God ; and therefore must by God's grace be reduced to action, as at first the whole matter of the world was by God's almightiness ; for so God " vvork- eth in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure." But that I may instance in par- ticulars : our natural weakness appears best in two things, even in the two great in- stances of temptations, pleasure, and pain ; in both which the flesh is destroyed, if it be not helped by a mighty grace, as certainly as the canes do bow their heads before the breath of a mighty wind. 1. In pleasure we see it by the public miseries and follies of the world. An old Greek said well, Qv ov8iv cWr^ws vyus iativ, aXku ei(Ji Tfov xf'pSous artav-tf j rjitovF? ** There is amongst men nothing perfect, because men carry themselves as persons that are less than money, servants of gain and in- terest; we are like the foolish poet that Horace tells of: Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere ; post hoc Securus, cadat, an recto stet fabula talo. Let him but have money for rehearsing his comedy, he cares not whether you like it or no ; and if a temptation of money comes strong and violent, you may as well tie a wild dog to quietness with the guts of a tender kid, as suppose that most men can do virtuously, when they sin at a great price. Men avoid poverty, not only because it hath some inconveniences, for they are few an^ little ; but because it is the nurse of virtue ; they run from it as children from strict parents and tutors, from those that would confine them to reason and sober counsels, that would make them labour, that they may become pale and lean, that they may become wise: but because riches is at- tended by pride and lust, tyranny and oppression, and hath in its hand all that it hath in its heart ; and sin waits upon wealth ready dressed and fit for action ; therefore, in some temptations they confess, how little their souls are, they cannot stand that assault; but because this passion is the daughter of voluptuousness, and very often is but a ser- vant-sin, ministering to sensual pleasures, the great weakness of the flesh is more seen in the matter of carnal crimes, lust and drunkenness. "Nemo enim se adsuefacit ad vitandum et ex animo evellendum ea, qua? molesta ei non sunt:" "Men are so in love with pleasure, that they cannot think of mortifying or crucifying their lust ; we do violence to what we hate, not to what we love." But the weakness of the flesh, and the empire of lust, are visible in nothing so much, as in the captivity and folly of wise men. For you shall see some men fit to govern a province, sober in their counsels, wise in the conduct of their affairs, men of discourse and reason, fit to sit Avith princes, or to treat concerning peace and war, the fate of empires and the changes of the world ; yet these men shall fall at the beauty of a woman, as a man dies at the blow of an angel, or gives up his breath at the sentence and decree of God. Was not Solomon glorious in all things, but when he bowed to Pharaoh's daughter, and then to devils? And is it not published by the sentence and observa- tion of all the world, that the bravest men have been softened into effeminacy by th<^ Serm. X. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 75 lisping charms and childish noises of women j tient and imperfect persons ? A fair slave bowed the neck of stout Polydamas, which was stiff and inflexible to the contentions of an enemy: and suppose a man set, like the brave boy of the king of Nicomedia, in the midst of temptation by a witty beauty, tied upon a bed with silk and pretty violences, courted with music aud perfumes, with promises and easy postures, invited by op- portunity and importunity, by rewards and impunity, by privacy and a guard ; what would his nature do in this throng of evils when pain is sent to us, from him that ought to send it, and intends it as a mercy when it comes. But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sickness, we are so weak and broken, so uneasy and unapt to sufferance, that this alone is beyond the cure of the old philosophy. Many can endure poverty, and many can retire from shame and laugh at home, and very many can endure to be slaves; but when pain and sharpness are to be endured for the interests of virtue, we find but few martyrs : and thev that are, suffer more within themselves and vile circumstances ? The grace of God i by their fears and their temptations, by then- secured the young gentleman, and the spirit , uncertain purposes and violence to nature, rode in triumph ; but what can flesh do in, than the hangman's sword: the martyrdom such a day of danger ? Is it not neces- sary, that we take in auxiliaries from rea- son and religion, from heaven and earth, from observation and experience, from hope and fear, and cease to be what we are, lest we become what we ought not? It is cer- tain that in the cases of temptations to volup- tuousness, a man is naturally, as the prophet said of Ephraim, " like a pigeon that hath is within; and then he hath won his crown, not when he hath suffered the blow, but when he hath overcome his fears, and made his spirit conqueror. It was a sad instance of our infirmity, when of the forty martyrs of Cappadocia, set in a freezing lake, almost consummate, and an angel was reaching the crown, and placing it upon their brows, the flesh failed one of them, and drew the no heart," no courage, no conduct, no reso- spirit after it; and the man was called off lution, no discourse, but falls as the waters from his scene of noble contention, and of Nilus when it comes to its cataracts, — it died in warm water: falls infinitely and without restraint : and if ! Qdi arms, frailemque hunc corporis usum we consider, how many drunken meetings the sun sees every day, how many markets, and fairs, and clubs, that is, so many solem- nities of drunkenness, are at this instant un- der the eye of heaven, that many nations are marked for intemperance, and that it is less noted because it is so popular, and uni- versal, and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk, or too full with meat, or greedy of lust; even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober, and temperate, and chaste, — we may well ima- gine, since all men have flesh, and all men Desertorera animi- We carry about us the body of death, and we bring evils upon ourselves by our follies, and then know not how to bear them; and the flesh forsakes the spirit. And, indeed, in sickness the infirmity is so very great, that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all religion into one virtue; patience with its appendages is the sum total of almost all our duty, that is proper to the days of sorrow ; and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers, and to employ all our aids : the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends, the advices of have not the Spirit, the flesh is the parent Scripture and the results of experience, the of sin and death, and it can be nothing else. 5. And it is no otherwise, when we are tempted with pain. We are so impa- tient of pain, that nothing can reconcile us to it : not the laws of God, nor the necessi- ties of nature, not the society of all our kin- dred, and of all the world, not the interest of virtue, not the hopes of heaven; we will submit to pain upon no terms, but the basest and most dishonourable ; for if sin brings us to pain, or affront, or sickness, we choose that, so it be in the retinue of a lust, and a base desire ; but we accuse nature, and graces of God, and the strength of our own resolutions, are all then full of employ- ments, and find it work enough to secure that one grace. For then it is, that a cloud is wrapped about our heads, and our reason stoops under sorrow; the soul is sad, and its instrument is out of tune; the auxili- aries are disordered, and every thought sits heavily ; then a comfort cannot make the body feel it, and the soul is not so abstracted to rejoice much without its partner; so that the proper joys of the soul, — such as are hope, and wise discourses, and satisfactions blaspheme God, we murmur and are impa-of reason, and the offices of religion,-— are 76 THE FLESH A ND THE SPIRIT. Serm. X. felt, just as we now perceive the joys of heaven, with so little relish, that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the rack, or the birth of an heir to one con- demned to die; he hears a story, which was made to delight him, but it came when he was dead to joy, and in all its capacities ; and, therefore, sickness, though it be a good monitor, yet it is an ill stage to act some virtues in ; and a good man cannot then do much; and therefore, he that is in the state of flesh and blood, can do nothing at all. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages ; and a strong man may be overcome, when a stronger comes to disarm him ; and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance ; but it is no better in any thing else : for nature is weak in all its strengths, and in its fights, at home and abroad, in its actions and passions ; we love some things violently, and hate others unreasonably ; any thing can fright us when we would be confident, and nothing can scare us when we ought to fear; the breaking of a glass puts us into a supreme anger, and we are dull and indifferent as a stoic when we see God dishonoured ; we passionately desire our preservation, and yet we violently destroy ourselves, and will not be hindered; we cannot deny a friend, when he tempts us to sin and death, and yet we daily deny God, when he passionately invites us to life and health; we are greedy after money, and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts ; we hate to see any man flattered but ourselves, and we can endure folly, if it be on our side, and a sin for our interest; we desire health, and yet we exchange it for wine and madness ; we sink when a persecution comes, and yet cease not daily to persecute ourselves, doing mischiefs worse than the sword of tyrants, and great as the malice of a devil. But to sum up all the evils that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh ; the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent, so averse and peevish to all good, that a man's will is of itself only free to choose evils. Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty, and yet suppose it determined to one object only ; because that one object is the thing we choose. For although God hath set life and death before us, fire and water, good and evil, and hath primarily put man into the hands of his own counsel, that he might have chosen good as well as evil; yet because he did not, but fell into an evil condition and corrupted manners, and grew in love with it, and infected all his children with vicious ex- amples ; and all nations of the world have contracted some universal stains, and "the thoughts of men's hearts are only evil, and that continually," and "there is not one that doeth good, no, not one that sinneth not;" since (1 say) all the world have sinned, we cannot suppose a liberty of in- differency to good and bad ; it is impossible in such a liberty, that there should be no variety, that all should choose the same thing; but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose ; that is so, that though naturally he might choose good, yet morally he is so determined with his love to evil, that good seldom comes into dispute; and a man runs to evil as he runs to meat or sleep ; for why else should it be, that every one can teach a child to be proud, or to swear, to lie, or to do little spites to his playfellow, and can train him up to infant follies ? But the severity of tutors, and the care of parents, discipline and watchfulness, art and diligence, all is too little to make him love but to say his prayers, or to do that, which becomes persons designed for honest purposes, and his malice shall out- run his years; he shall be a man in villainy, before he is by law capable of choice or in- heritance ; and this indisposition lasts upon us for ever ; even as Jong as we live, just in the same degrees as flesh and blood do rule US : "ZiAfmtos pav yap apjjuxstlav idtao t£%vv], •tyvZW &£ vodrjfjia lotfpoj iatai ^tdvatoi' " Art of Physicians can cure the evils of the body, but this strange propensity to evil nothing can cure but death ;" the grace of God eases the malignity here, but it cannot be cured but by glory : that is, this freedom of delight, or perfect unabated election of evil, which is consequent to the evil man- ners of the world, although it be lessened by the intermedial state of grace, yet it is not cured until it be changed into its quite contrary ; but as it is in heaven, all that is happy, and glorious, and free, yet can choose nothing but the love of God, and excellent things, because God fills all the capacities of saints, and there is nothing without him that hath any degrees of amiability; so in the state of nature, of flesh and blood ; there is so much ignorance of spiritual excellencies, and so much propor- tion to sensual objects, which in most in- stances and in many degrees are prohibited, that, as men naturally know no good, but to please a wild, undetermined, infinite Serm. X. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. appetite, so they will nothing else but what is good in their limit and proportion ; and it is with us as it was with the she-goat that suckled the wolf's whelp ; he grew up by nis nurse's milk, and at last having forgot nis foster-mother's kindness, ate that udder which gave him drink and nourishment : Improbitas nullo flectitur obsequio ; For no kindness will cure an ill nature and a base disposition : so are we in the fimt constitution of our nature ; so perfectly given to natural vices, that by degrees we degenerate into unnatural, and no education or power of art can make us choose wisely or honestly : 'Eyw 8e fiiav evytvtiav ooSa rr(v apstriv, said Phalaris; "There is no good nature but only virtue :" till we are new created, we are wolves and serpents, free and delighted in the choice of evil, but stones and iron to all excellent things and purposes. 2. Next I am to consider the weakness of the flesh, even when the state is changed, in the beginning of the state of grace : for many persons, as soon as the grace of God rises in their hearts, are all on fire, and inflamed; it is with them as Homer said of the Sirian star : Aaurtpotatos fikv by iotl, xaxbv & to cr/xa Kat ts ^)ipct TtctiXov jivptrbv bert-oiii jpototwo. II. "It shines finely, and brings fevers;" splen- dour and zeal are the effects of the first grace, and sometimes the first turns into pride, and the second into uncharitableness ; and either by too dull and slow motions, or by too violent and unequal, the flesh will make pretences, and too often prevail upon the spirit, even after the grace of God hath set up its banners in our hearts. 1 . In some dispositions that are forward and apt, busy and unquiet, when the grace of God hath taken possession, and begins to give laws, it seems so pleasant and gay to their undiscerning spirits to be delivered from the sottishness of lust, and the follies of drunkenness, that, reflecting upon the change, they begin to love themselves too well, and take delight in the wisdom of the change, and the reasonableness of the new life; and then they, hating their own follies, begin to despise them that dwell below : it was the trick of the old philosophers whom Aristophanes thus describes, rov? ctax^dvaj, tovi w^piwi-ras, *ovf airnobirtovs te'yfis* "pale, and barefoot, and proud ;" that is, persons singular in their habit, eminent in their in- stitution, proud and pleased in their persons, and despisers of them that are less glorious in their virtue than themselves ; and for this very thing our blessed Saviour remarks the Pharisees, they were severe and fantastical advancers of themselves, and judges of their neighbours ; and here, when they have mortified corporal vices, such which are scandalous and punishable by men, they keep the spiritual, and those that are only discernible by God: these men do but change their sin from scandal to danger, and that they may sin more safely, they sin more spiritually. 2. Sometimes the passions of the flesh spoil the changes of the spirit, by natural excesses, and disproportion of degrees ; it mingles violence with industry, and fury with zeal, and uncharitableness with re- proof, and censuring with discipline, and violence with desires, and immortifications in all the appetites and prosecutions of the soul. Some think it is enough in all in- stances, if they pray hugely and fervently ; and that it is religion, impatiently to desire a victory over our enemies, or the life of a child, or an heir to be born ; they call it holy, so they desire it in prayer; that if they reprove a vicious person, they may say what they list, and be as angry as they please; that when they demand but reason, I they may enforce it by all means; that when they exact duty of their children, jthey may be imperious and without limit ; I that if they design a good end, they may 'prosecute it by all instruments; that when they give thanks for blessings, they may value the things as high as they list, though I their persons come into a share of the honour; here the spirit is willing and holy, jbut the flesh creeps too busily, and insinu- ates into the substance of good actions, and spoils them by unhandsome circumstances ; and then the prayer is spoiled for want of prudence or conformity to God's will, and discipline and government are imbittered by an angry spirit; and the father's authority I turns into an uneasy load; by being thrust like an unequal burden to one side, without ] allowing equal measures to the other : and if we consider it wisely, we shall find, that in many good actions the flesh is the bigger ingredient, and we betray our weak con- stitutions, even when we do justice, or charity; and many men pray in the flesh, when they pretend they pray by the Spirit. 3. In the first changes and weak pro- gresses of our spiritual life, we find a long weakness upon us, because we are long g 2 73 THE FLESH AN D THE SPIRIT. Serm. X. before we begin, and the flesh was power- ful, and its habits strong, and it will mingle indirect pretences with all the actions of the spirit; if we mean to pray, the flesh thrusts in thoughts of the world ; and our tongue speaks one thing, and our heart means another ; and we are hardly brought to say our prayers, or to undertake a fasting-day, or to celebrate a communion : and if we remember all these holy actions, and that we have many opportunities of doing them all, and yet do them very seldom, and then very coldly, it will be found at the foot of the account, that our flesh and our natural weakness prevail oftener than our spiritual strengths : ol Tto'kvv %povov ScOevtsg, x$v "KvQtitv, ov dwdpsvoi fiabi&Lv, vrtoaxsU^ovtai,' " they are bound long in chains, feel such a lame- ness, in the first restitutions of their liberty," VTtb trs TtoXvxpovlov ?W dsa/iiiiv ovvrjOelas, " by reason of the long-accustomed chain and pressure," that they may stay till nature nath set them free, and the disease be taken off as well as the chain ; and when the soul is got free from her actual pressure of sins, still the wound remains, and a long habi- tude, and longing after it, a looking back : and upon the presenting the old object, the same company, or the remembrance of the delight, the fancy strikes, and the heart fails, and the temptations return and stand dressed in form and circumstances, and ten to one but the man dies again. 4. Some men are wise and know their weaknesses, and to prevent their startings back will make fierce and strong resolutions, and bind up their gaps with thorns, and make a new hedge about their spirits ; and what then? This shows, indeed, that " the spirit is willing j" but the storm arises, and winds blow, and rain descends, and pre- sently the earth trembles, and the whole fab- ric falls into ruin and disorder. A resolution (such as we usually make) is nothing but a little trench, which every child can step over; and there is no civil man that commits a willing sin, but he does it against his resolution ; and what Christian lives, that will not say and think that he hath repented in some degree; and yet still they commit sin, that is, they break all their holy pur- poses as readily as they lose a dream ; and so great is our weakness, that to most men the strength of a resolution is just such a restraint as he suffers, who is imprisoned in a curtain, and secured with doors and bars of the finest linen : for though " the spirit be strong" to resolve, " the flesh is weak" to keep it. j 5. But when they have felt their follies, i and see the linen veil rent, some, that are de- | sirous to please God, back their resolutions with vows, and then the spirit is fortified, and the flesh may tempt and call, but the soul cannot come forth, and therefore it triumphs, and acts its interest easily and cer- tainly ; and then the flesh is mortified : it may be so. But do not many of us inquire after a vow ? And if we consider, it may be it was rash, or it was an impossible mat- ter, or without just consideration and weigh- ing of circumstances, or the case is altered, and there is a new emergent necessity, or a vow is no more than a resolution made in matter of duty ; both are made for God, and in his eye and witness ; or if nothing will do it, men grow sad and weary, and despair, and are impatient, and bite the knot in pieces with their teeth, which they cannot by dis- puting, and the arts of the tongue. A vow will not secure our duty, because it is not stronger than our appetite ; and the spirit of man is weaker than the habits and superin- duced nature of the flesh : but by little and little it falls off, like the finest thread twisted upon the traces of a chariot, it cannot hold long. 6. Beyond all this, some choose excellent guides, and stand within the restraints cf modesty, and a severe monitor; and the Spirit of God hath put a veil upon our spi- rits ; and by modesty in women and young persons, by reputation in the more aged, and by honour in the more noble, and by con- science in all, hath fortified the spirit of man, that men dare not prevaricate their duty, though they be tempted strongly, and invited perpetually ; and this is a partition- wall, that separates the spirit from the flesh, and keeps it in its proper strengths and re- tirements. But here the spirit of man, for all that it is assisted, strongly breaks from the enclosure, and runs into societies of flesh, and sometimes despises reputation, and some- times supplies it with little arts of flattery and self-love; and is modest as long as it can be secret ; and when it is discovered, it grows impudent ; and a man shelters him- self in crowds and heaps of sinners, and be- lieves that it is no worse with him than with other mighty criminals, and public persons, who bring sin into credit among fools and vicious persons : or else men take false mea - sures of fame or public honesty, and the world being broken into so many parts of disunion, and agreeing in nothing but in confederate vice, and grown so remiss in governments, and severe accounts, everv Serm. X. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 79 thing is left so loose, that honour and public fame, modesty and shame, are now so slen- der guards to the spirit, that the flesh breaks in, and makes most men more bold against God than against men, and against the laws of religion than of the commonwealth. 7. When the spirit is made willing by the grace of God, the flesh interposes in decep- tions and false principles. If you tempt some man to a notorious sin, as to rebellion, to deceive his trust, or to be drunk, he will answer, he had rather die than do it: but put the sin civilly to him, and let it be dis- guised with little excuses, such things which indeed are trifles, but yet they are colours fair enough to make a weak pretence, and the spirit yields instantly. Most men choose the sin, if it be once disputable whether it be a sin or no. If they can but make an excuse, or a colour, so that it shall not rudely dash against the conscience with an open profess- ed name of sin, they suffer the temptation to do its worst. If you tempt a man, you must tell him it is no sin, or it is excusable; this is not rebellion, but necessity, and self- defence ; it is not against my allegiance, but is a performing of my trust ; I do it for my friend, not against my superior; I do it for a good end, and for his advantage ; this is not drunkenness, but free mirth, and fair society ; it is refreshment, and entertainment of some supernumerary hours, but it is not a throwing away my time, or neglecting a day of salvation ; and if there be anything more to say for it, though it be no more than Adam's fig-leaves, or the excuses of children and truants, it shall be enough to make the flesh prevail, and the spirit not to be troubled; for so great is our folly, that the flesh always carries the cause, if the spirit can be cozened. 8. The flesh is so mingled with the spirit, that we are forced to make distinctions in our appetite, to reconcile our affections to God and religion, lest it be impossible to do our duty ; we weep for our sins, but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends, or other temporal sadnesses ; we say we had rather die than lose our faith, and yet we do not live according to it; we lose our estates, and are impatient ; we lose our virtue, and bear it well enough ; and what virtue is so great, as more to be troubled for having sinned, than for being ashamed, and beggared, and condemned to die? Here we are forced to a distinction ; there is a valua- tion of price, and a valuation of sense ; or the spirit hath one rate of things, and the flesh hath another ; and what we believe the greatest evil, does not always cause to us the greatest trouble ; which shows plainly, that we are imperfect carnal persons, and the flesh will in some measure prevail over the spirit ; because we will suffer it in too many instances, and cannot help it in all. 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh, because the flesh pretends it is not able to do those ministries which are appointed in order to religion ; we are not able to fast; or, if we watch, it breeds gouts and catarrhs ; or, charity is a grace too expensive, our necessities are too big to do it; or, we cannot suffer pain; and sorrow breeds death, and therefore our repentances must be more gentle, and we must support ourselves in all our calamities : for we can- not bear our crosses without a freer re- freshment, and this freedom passes on to license; and many melancholy persons drown their sorrows in sin and forgetful- ness, as if sin were more tolerable than sorrow, and the anger of God an easier load than a temporal care ; here the flesh betrays its weakness and its follies : for the flesh complains too soon, and the spirit of some men, like Adam being too fond of his Eve, attends to all its murmurs and temptations ; and yet the flesh is able to bear far more than is required of it in usual duties. Cus- tom of suffering will make us endure much, and fear will make us suffer more, and necessity makes us suffer any thing; and lust and desire make us to endure more than God is willing we should; and yet we are nice, and tender, and indulgent to our i weaknesses, till our weaknesses grow too strong for us. And what shall we do to secure our duty, and to be delivered of our- selves, that the body of death, which we bear about us, may not destroy the life of the spirit? I have all this while complained, and you see not without cause ; I shall afterward tell you the remedies for all this evil. In the mean time, let us have but mean opinions of ourselves ; let us watch every thing of ourselves as of suspected persons, and magnify the grace of God, and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies, and let | us look up to him, who is the Fountain of grace and spiritual strengths: \Zsv fiaoiXsv, ta fit i ioOha, xai sv%o/xtvoi$ xai avtvxtois j Aftfti SiSou* ra 8s Xvypa xai svxofisruv drtfpv^otj" and pray that God would give us what we ask, and what we ask not; for we wan' ^ore helps than we understand, and we arc 80 THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. Serm. XI. nearer to evil than we perceive, and we bear sin and death about us, and are in love with it: and nothing comes from us but false principles, and silly propo- sitions, and weak discourses, and startings from our holy purposes, and care of our bodies and of our palates, and the lust of the lower belly ; these are the em- ployment of our lives ; but if we design to live happily, and in a better place, it must be otherwise with us ; we must become new creatures ; and have another definition, and have new strengths, which we can only derive from God, whose " grace is sufficient for us," and strong enough to prevail over all our follies and infirmities. SERMON XI. PART II. 3. If it be possible to cure an evil nature, we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief. In order to which I shall con- sider; 1. That since it is our flesh and blood that is the principle of mischief, we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments ; the physician that went to cure the hectic with quicksilver and fasting-spittle, did his patient no good, but himself became a proverb ; and he that by easy prayers and a seldom fast, by the scattering of a little alms, and the issues of some more natural virtue, thinks to cure his evil nature, does fortify his indisposition, as a stick is hardened by a little fire, which by a great one is devoured. " Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere, qua? malis cupidi- tatibus sordidatur, et, uno virtu tis ac fidei lavacro, universa vitia depellere V* " Better it is by an entire body of virtue, by a living and active faith, to cleanse the mind from every vice, and to take off all superinduced habits of sin ;" " Gluod qui fecerit, quam- libet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat, satis purus est." If we take this course, although our body is foul, and our affections unquiet, and our rest discomposed, yet we shall be masters of our resolution, and clean from habitual sins, and so cure our evil nature. For our nature was not made evil but by ourselves ; but yet we are naturally evil, that is, by a superinduced nature; just as drunkards and intemperate persons have * Lactantius. made it necessary to drink extremely, and their nature requires it, and it is health to them; they die without it, because they have made themselves a new constitution, and another nature, but much worse than 'that which God made ; their sin made this new nature; and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable : so it is in all other instances ; our nature is evil, because we have spoiled it; and, therefore, the removing the sin which we have brought in, is the way to cure our nature : for this evil uature is not a thing which we cannot avoid ; we made it, and, therefore, we mu«* help it; but as in the superinducing this evil nature, we were thrust forward by the world and the devil, by all objects from without, and weakness from within ; so in the curing it, we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit. Ba^-ftar a%oxa 8ta typsvb$ xaprtovfiavos, 'A^' *ta xsSva fiJjxGtdvst fiovtevfiata. — iEscH. We must have a new nature put into us, which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes, of holy actions and great devotion; and this nature is derived from God, and is a grace and a favour of heaven. The same Spirit, that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner, must also descend upon us, and cause us to be born again, and to begin a new life upon the stock of a new nature. 'Art bxslvov ^pfaro £ra'a xai av$pu>7tlv7j ovvvtycuvsaOat q>vai$, w -q av9poTilvrt tfi rtpoj to OeLOtepov xoivu>vlq yivrttai Oila, said Oligen ; <£ From him it first began that a Divine and human nature were weaved together, that the human nature by communication with the celestial may also become Divine;" ovx iv [lovcp ^9 IiqGov, oXka sv rtowe. tols fxsta to rtKTTsiW avoJkafifidvovOL jSt'oi/, ov Irfiovs f ckSa|f v ; "not only in Jesus, but in all that first believe in him, and then obey him, living such a life as Jesus taught :" and this is the sum total of the whole design ; as we have lived to the flesh, so we must hereafter live to the Spirit : as our nature hath been flesh, not only in its original, but in habits and affection; so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice, in design and effectual prosecutions ; for nothing can cure our old death, but this new birth : and this is the recovery of our nature, and the restitution of our hopes, and, therefore, the greatest joy of mankind. rpi%op pip $tyyo$ rXiov To 6t, Ka^oy 6b Tlovtov %bv/a ibuv fvr(vffiop, rij t f pivov ^aMovaa rCkovawvfj v'Stop. — EuRIP. Serm.XI. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. SI " It is a fine thing to see the light of the I sun, and it is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into a smooth sea and a fresh gale ; our eyes are pleased to see the earth begin to live, and to produce her little issues with parti-coloured coats :" 'AM.1 ovBsv ovtui ?jxixrCpbv, Ilcu&oiv vtoyvuv hf So^oi? ihtlv aoj. " Nothing is so beauteous as to see a new birth in a childless family and it is excel- lent to hear a man discourse the hidden things of nature, and unriddle the perplex- ities of human notices and mistakes ; it is comely to see a wise man sit in the gates of the city, and give right judgment in diffi- cult causes : but all this is nothing to the excellencies of a new birth ; to see the old man carried forth to funeral with the solemn tears of repentance, and buried in the grave of Jesus, and in his place a new creation to arise, a new heart, and a new under- standing, and new affections, and excellent appetites : for nothing less than this can cure all the old distempers. 2. Our life, and all our discourses, and every observation, and a state of reason, an l a union of sober counsels, are too lit- tle to cure a p^vish spirit, and a weak reasoning, and silly principles, and accursed habits, and evil examples, and perverse affections, and a whole body of sin and death. It was well said in the comedy: Nunquam ita quisquam bene subducta ratione ad vitam fuit, Quin aetas, usus semper aliquid apportet novi, Aliquid moneat ; ut ilia, quae scire credas, nescias, Et quae tibi putas prima, in experiundo repudies. Men at first think themselves wise, and are always most confident when they have the least reason ; and to-morrow they begin to perceive yesterday's folly, and yet they are not wise ; but as the little embryo, in the natural sheet and lap of its mother, first distinguishes into a little knot, and that in time will be the heart, and then into a big- ger bundle, which after some days' abode grows into two little spots, and they, if cherished by nature, will become*eyes, and each part by order commences into weak principles, and is preserved with nature's greatest curiosity; that it may assist first to distinction, then to order, next to usefulness, and from thence to strength, till it arrive at beauty, and a perfect creature ; so are the necessities, and so are the discourses of men; we first learn the principles of rea- 11 son, which break obscurely through a cloud, and bring a little light, and then we discern a folly, and by little and little leave it, till that enlightens the next corner of the soul: and then there is a new discovery; but the soul is still in infancy and childish follies ; nnd every day does but the work of one day; but therefore art and use, experi- ence and reason, although they do some- thing, yet they cannot do enough, there must be something else : but this is to be wrought by a new principle, that is, by the Spirit of grace : nature and reason alone cannot do it, and therefore the proper cure is to be wrought by those general means of inviting and cherishing, of getting and en- tertaining God's Spirit, which when we have observed, we may account ourselves sufficiently instructed towards the repair of our breaches, and reformation of our evil nature. 1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace, flesh into the spirit, is a firm belief, and a perfect assent to, and hearty entertainment of, the promises of the gospel ; for Holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith. " It quenches the fiery darts of the devil," saith St. Paul;* "it overcomes the world," saith St. John ;f it is the fruit of the Spirit, and the parent of love ; it is obedience, and it is humility, and it is a shield, and it is a breastplate, and a work, and a mystery, it is a fight, and it is a vic- tory, it is pleasing God, and it is that " whereby the just do live ;" by "faith we are purified," and by " faith we are sancti- fied," and by " faith we are justified," and by "faith we are saved:" by this "we have access to the throne of grace," and bv it our prayers shall prevail " for the sick," by it we stand, and by it we walk, and by this " Christ dwells in our hearts," and bv it all the miracles of the church have been done : it gives great patience to suffer, and great confidence to hope, and great strength to do, and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith, and satisfaction of al! our hopes, and the reward of all our labours, even " the most mighty prize of our high calling:" and if faith be such a magazine of spiritual excellencies, of such universal efficacy, nothing can be a greater antidote against the venom of a corrupted nature. But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding, but the principle that is * Ephes. vi. 16. 1 1 John v. 4. 82 THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. Serm. XI. designed to, and actually productive of, a holy life ; it is not only a believing the pro- positions of Scripture as we believe a proposiiion in the metaphysics, concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true or false; but it is a belief of things ihat concern us infinitely, things so great that if they be so true as great, no man that hath his reason and can discourse, that can think and choose, that can desire and work towards an end, can possibly neglect. The greatest object of our faith, to which all other articles do minister, is resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternal life, and glories infinite. Now is it possible that a man that believes this, and that he may obtain it for himself, and that it was prepared for him, and that God desires to give it him, — that he can neglect and despise it, and not work for it, and per- form such easy conditions upon which it may be obtained ? Are not most men of the world made miserable at a less price than a thousand pounds a year? Do not all the usurers and merchants, all tradesmen and labourers under the sun, toil and care, labour and contrive, venture and plot, for a little money ; and no man gets, and scarce any man desires, so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground ; not so much as will fill a great house. And is this sum, that is such a trifle, such a poor limited heap of dirt, the reward of all the labour, and the end of all the care, and the design of all the malice, and the recom- pence of all the wars, of the world ; and can it be imaginable, that life itself, and a long life, an eternal and happy life, a king- dom, a perfect kingdom and glorious, that shall never have ending, nor ever shall be abated with rebellion, or fears, or sorrow, or care ; that such a kingdom should not be worth the praying for, and quitting of an idle company, and a foolish humour, or a little drink, or a vicious silly woman, for it? Surely men believe no such thing : they do not rely upon those fine stories that are read in books, and published by preachers, and allowed by the laws of all the world. If they did, why do they choose intempe- rance and a fever, lust and shame, rebellion and danger, pride and a fall, sacrilege and a curse, gain and passion, before humility and safety, religion and a constant joy, devotion and peace of conscience, justice and a quiet dwelling, charity and a bless- ing ; and, at the end of all this, a kingdom more glorious than all the beauties the sun did ever see. " Fides est velut quoddam seternitatis exemplar, praBterita simul et prsesentia et futura sinu quodam vastissimo comprehendit, ut nihil ei praetereat, nil pereat, prseeat nihil now, " Faith is a certain image of eternity, all things are present to it, things past and things to come," are all so before the eyes of faith, that he in whose eye that candle is enkin- dled, beholds heaven as present, and sees how blessed a thing it is to die in God's favour, and to be chimed to our grave with the music of a good conscience. Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory : every man that hath this grace, is as certain that there are glories for him, if he perseveres in duty, as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving-song for the blessed sentence of doomsday. And therefore it is no matter, if these things are separate and distant objects j none but chil- dren and fools are taken with the present trifle, and neglect a distant blessing, of which they have credible and believed notices. Did the merchant see the pearls and the wealth he designed to get in the trade ol twenty years ? And is it possible that a child should, when he learns the first rudi- ments of grammar, know what excellent things there are in learning, whether he designs his labour and his hopes? We labour for that which is uncertain, and distant, and believed, and hoped for with many allays, and seen with diminution, and a troubled ray ; and what excuse can there be that we do not labour for that, which is told us by God, and preached by his only Son, and confirmed by miracles, and which Christ himself died to purchase, and mil- lions of martyrs died to witness, and which we see good men and wise believe with an assent stronger than their evidence, and which they do believe because they do love, and love because they do believe? There is nothing to be said, but that faith which did enlighten the blind, and cleanse the lepers, and washed the soul of the ^Ethiopian; that faith.that cures the sick, and strength- ens the paralytic, and baptizes the catechu- mens, and justifies the faithful, and repairs the penitent, and confirms the just, and crowns the martyrs ; that faith, if it be true and proper, christian and alive, active and effective in us, is sufficient to appease the storm of our passions, and to instruct all our ignorances, and to make us wise unto ; salvation ; it will, if we let it do its first I intention, chastise our errors, and discover Serm. XI. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. S3 our follies ; it will make us ashamed of: trifling interests and violent prosecutions, of false principles and the evil disguises of 'he world ; and then our nature will return to the innocence and excellency in which God first estated it; that is, our flesh will be a servant of the soul, and the soul a servant to the spirit; and then, because faith makes heaven to be the end of our desires, and God the object of our love and wor- shippings, and the Scripture the rule of our actions, and Christ our lord and master, and the Holy Spirit ©ur mighty assistant and our counsellor, all the little uglinesses of the world and the follies of the flesh, will be uneasy and unsavoury, unreason- able and a load ; and then that grace, the grace of faith, that lays hold upon the holy Trinity, although it cannot understand it, and beholds heaven before it can possess it, shall also correct our weaknesses, and mas- ter all our aversations : and though we cannot in this world be perfect masters, and triumphant persons, yet we be conquerors and more ; that is, conquerors of the direct hostility, and sure of a crown to be revealed in its due time. 2. The second great remedy of our evil nature, and of the loads of the flesh, is devotion, or a state of prayer and inter- course with Goc, For the gift of the Spirit of God, which is the great antidote of our evil natures, is properly and expressly promised to prayer : " If you, who are evil, give good things to your children that ask you, how much more shall your Father from heaven give his Holy Spirit to them that ask it V9 That which in St. Luke* is called ayvov 7tv£i>fia, " the Holy Spirit," is called in St. Matthew, ta fyoAa,f " good things :" that is, the Holy Spirit is all that good that we shall need towards our pardon, and our sanctification, and our glory, and this is promised to prayer ; to this purpose Christ taught us the Lord's Prayer, by which we are sufficiently instructed in obtaining this magazine of holy and useful things. But prayer is but one part of devo- tion, and though of admirable efficacy towards the obtaining this excellent promise, yet it is to be assisted by the other parts of devotion, to make it a perfect remedy to our great evil. He that would secure his evil nature, must be a devout person ; and he that is devout, besides that he prays fre- quently, he delights in it as it is a conver- sation with God ; he rejoices in God, and esteems him the light of his eyes, and the support of his confidence, the object of his love, and the desire of his heart ; the man is uneasy but when he does God service , and .us soul is at peace and rest, when he does what may be accepted : and this is that which the apostle counsels and gives in precept ; " Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice ;"* that is, as the Levites were appointed to rejoice, because God was their portion in tithes and offer- ings, so now that in the spiritual sense God is our portion, we should rejoice in him, and make him our inheritance, and his service our employment, and the peace of conscience to be our rest, and then it is im- possible we should be any longer slaves to sin, and afflicted by the baser employments of the flesh, or carry burdens for the devil; and therefore the scholiast upon Juvenal observed well, " Nullum malum gaudium est," "No true joy can be evil ;" and there- fore it was improperly said of Virgil, "Mala gaudia mentis," calling lust and wild desires, " the evil joys of the mind :" " Gaudium enim nisi sapienti non contin- gere," said Seneca; " None but a wise and a good man can truly rejoice ;" the evil laugh loud, and sigh deeply, they drink drunk, and forget their sorrows, and all the joys of evil men are only arts of forgetful- ness, devices to cover their sorrow, and make them not see their death, and its affrighting circumstances ; but the heart never can rejoice and be secure, be pleased and be at rest, but when it dwells with holi- ness : the joys that come from thence are safe and great, unchangeable and unabated, healthful and holy ; and this is true joy : and this is that which can cure all the little images of pleasure and temptation, which debauch our nature, and make it dwell with hospitals, in the region of diseases and evil sorrows. St. Gregory well observed the difference, saying that " Corporeal plea- sures-, when we have them not, enkindle a flame and a burning desire in the heart, and make a man very miserable before he tastes them ; the appetite to them is like the thirst and desires of a fever;" the pleasure of drinking will not pay for the pain of the desire ; and "when they are enjoyed, they instantly breed satiety and loathing. But spiritual rejoicings and delights are loathed by them that have them not, and despised *Lukexi. 13. tMatt.vii.il. * Phil. iv. 4. b4 THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. Serm. XL by them that never felt them but when they are once tasted, they increase the ap- petite and swell into bigger capacities ; and the more they are eaten, the more they are desired ; and cannot become a weariness, because they satisfy all the way, and only increase the desire, because themselves grow bigger and more amiable. And there- j fore when this new and stranger appetite, and consequent joy, arises in the heart of man, it so fills the faculties, that there is no | gust, no desire left for toads and vipers, for | hemlock and the deadly nightshade. Sirenas, hilarem navigantium poenam, Blandasque mortes, gaudiumque crudele, Quas nemo quondam deserebat auditas, Prudens Ulysses dicitur reliquisse. — Mart. Then a man can hear the music of songs and dances, and think them to be heathenish noises ; and if he be engaged in the society of a woman-singer, he can be as unconcern- ed as a marble statue; he can be at a feast and not be defiled, he can pass through theatres as through a street : then he can look on money as his servant, " nec distant aera lupinis ;" he can use it as the Greeks did their sharp coins, to cast accounts with- al, and not from thence take the accounts of his wealth or his felicity. If you can once obtain but a delight in prayer, and to long for the day of a communion, and to be pleased with holy meditation, and to desire God's grace with great passion, and an ap- petite keen as a wolf upon the void plains of the north ; if you can delight in God's love, and consider concerning his provi- dence, and busy yourselves in the pursuit of the affairs of his kingdom, then you have the grace of devotion, and your evil nature shall be cured. 3. Because this great cure is to be wrought by the Spirit of God, which is a new nature in us, we must endeavour to abstain from those things, which, by a special maligni- ty, are directly opposite to the spirit of rea- son and the Spirit of grace ; and those are drunkenness and lust. He that is full of wine, cannot be full of the Spirit of God : St. Paul noteth the hostility ; tf Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit :"* a man that is a drunkard, does perire cito, " he perishes quickly," his temptations that come to him, make but short work with him; a drunkard is aocoto?; our English well expresses it, it is "a soltishness," and the man is aacotowroj, a%ptu>s, d^p^oroj, " a Ephes. v. 18. useless, senseless person:" sit ov% andv7toiv tcsti to (A&vsiv xaxbv peyiotov dj/^pwjtoetatoi> ; " Of all the evils of the world, nothing is worse to a man's self, nothing is more harmful than this ;" artoatspovvt a tavtov tov typovsiv, 6 [Uycatov r^\iiv ovyaflbp E%st jy i; tpyo fov Kiptov, " abound- ing," and that " always in the work of the Lord ;" if we love passionately, we shall do all this; for love endures labour and calls it pleasure, it spends all and counts it a gain, it suffers inconveniences and is quickly reconciled to them ; if dishonours and affronts be to be endured, love smiles and calls them favours, and wears them willinslv. Alii jacuere ligati Turgiter, at que aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat Sic fieri turpis, " It is the Lord," said David, and " I will yet be more vile, and it shall be honour unto me ;" thus did the disciples of our Lord go "from tribunals, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer stripes for that beloved name ;" and we are com- manded " to rejoice in persecutions, to resist unto blood, to strive to enter in at the strait gate, not to be weary of well-doing ;" do it hugely, and do it always. " Non enim votis neque suppliciis mulieribus auxilia Deorum parantur ; sed vigilando, agendo, bene consulendo, omnia prospere cedunt." No man can obtain the favour of God by words and imperfect resolutions, by lazy actions and a remiss piety ; but by severe counsels and sober actions, by watchfulness and prudence, by doing excellent things with holy intentions and vigorous prosecu- tions. "Ubi socordiae et ignavise te tradideris, nequicquam Deos implorabis :" if your virtues be lazy, your vices will be bold and active : and therefore Democritus said well, that the painful and the soft-handed people 100 OF LUKEWARM NESS AND ZEAL. Serm. XIII. in religion differ just as good men and bad : " nimirum, spe bona," the labouring charity hath " a good hope," but a cool religion hath none at all ; and the distinction will have a sad effect to eternal ages. These are the great scenes of duty, in which we are to be fervent and zealous ; but because earnestness and zeal are cir- cumstances of a great latitude, and the zeal of the present age is stark cold, if compared to the fervours of the apostles, and other holy primitives j and in every age a good man's care may turn into scruple, if he sees that he is not the best man, because he may reckon his own estate to stand in the confines of darkness, because his spark is not so great as his neighbour's fires, there- fore it is fit that we consider concerning the degrees of the intention and forward heats ; for when we have found out the lowest de- grees of zeal, and a holy fervour, we know that duty dwells there, and whatsoever is above it, is a degree of excellence; but all that is less than it, is lukewarmness,and the state of an ungracious and an unaccepted person. I. No man is fervent and zealous as he ought, but he that prefers religion before business, charity before his own ease, the relief of his brother before money, heaven before secular regards, and God before his friend or interest. Which rule is not to be understood absolutely, and in particular in- stances, but always generally ; and when it descends to particulars, it must be in pro- portion to circumstances, and by their proper measures : for, 1. In the whole course of life it is neces- sary, that we prefer religion before any state that is either contrary to it, or a lessen- ing of its duties. — He that hath a state of life, in which he cannot at all, in fair pro- portions, tend to religion, must quit great proportions of that, that he may enjoy more of this ; this is that which our blessed Sa- viour calls " pulling out the right eye, if it offend thee." 2. In particular actions, when the neces- sity is equal, he, that does not prefer reli- gion, is not at all zealous ; — for although all natural necessities are to be served before the circumstances and order of religion, yet our belly and our back, our liberty and our life, our health and a friend, are to be neglected rather than a duty, when it stands in its proper place, and is required. 3. Although the things of God are by a necessary zeal to be preferred before the things of the world, yet we must take heed that we do not reckon religion, and orders of worshipping, only to be f* the things of God," and all other duties to be " the things of the world ;" for it was a pharisai- cal device to cry Ccrban, and to refuse to relieve their aged parents : it is good to give to a church, but it is better to give to the poor ; and though they must be both pro- vided for, yet in cases of dispute mercy carries the cause against religion and the temple. And although Mary was com- mended for choosing the better part, yet Mary had done worse, if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother. Martha was troubled with much serving ; that was " more than need," and therefore she was to blame ; and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be " more than needs ;" and some women are "troubled with over- much hearing," and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house. 4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of religion ; for although the things of the Spirit are better than the things of the world, yet a spiritual man is not in hu- man regards to be preferred before princes and noble personages. Because a man is called spiritual in several regards, and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace, or co-operating to- wards the works of the Spirit. A king and a bishop both have callings in order to god- liness, and honesty, and spiritual effects, towards the advancement of Christ's king- dom, whose representatives severally they are. But whether of these two works more immediately, or more effectively, cannot at all times be known; and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concern- ing doing them civil regards ; and possibly, " the partaking the Spirit " is a nearer re- lation to him, than doing his ministries, and serving his ends upon others ; and if rela- tion to God and God's Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civil honour, every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some kings and some bishops. But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world, so they naturally can infer only such a relative dignity, as can be expressed in spiritual manners. But because such relations are subjected in men of this life, and we now converse especially in material and secular significations, therefore we are Serm. XIII. OF LUKEWARMNESS AND ZEAL. 101 to express our regards to men of such re- I lations by proportionable expressions : but because civil excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civil ho- j nours, and spiritual excellencies do only claim them accidentally and indirectly ; therefore,, in titles of honour and human regards, the civil pre-eminence is ihe ap- pendix of the greatest civil power and em- ployment, and is to descend in proper measures ; and for a spiritual relation to challenge a temporal dignity, is as if the best music should challenge the best clothes, I or a lutestring should contend with a rose for the honour of the greatest sweetness. Add to this, that although temporal things are in order to spiritual, and therefore are less perfect, yet this is not so naturally; for temporal things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution ; and it is by a supernatural grace, that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory ; and there- fore temporal things, and persons, and call- ' ings, have properly the chiefest temporal regard ; and Christ took nothing of this away from them, but put them higher, by I sanctifying and ennobling them. But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man, than the richest trade can suppose the richest man. From callings to men, the argument is fallacious ; and a i smith is a more useful man than he that ! teaches logic, but not always to be more esteemed, and called to stand at the chairs ' of princes and nobles. Holy persons and holy things, and all great relations, are to be valued by general proportions to their correlatives ; but if we descend to make minute and exact proportions, and propor- tion an inch of temporal to a minute of spiritual, we must needs be hugely de- ceived, unless we could measure the mo- 1 tion of an angel by a string, or the progres- sions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple. And yet if these measures were taken, it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be pre- ferred before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things. A man gene- rally is to be esteemed above a woman, but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent queen ; not always this man before this woman. Now kings and princes are the best in all temporal dignities ; and i therefore if they had in them no spiritual relations and consequent excellencies, (as they have very many,) yet are not to be , undervalued to spiritual relations, which in this world are very imperfect, weak, partial ; and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency, propriety, and perfection; and then also all shall have them, according to the worth of their per- sons, not of their calling. But, lastly, what men may not challenge, is not their just and proper due ; but spiritual persons and the nearest relatives to God stand by him but so long as they dwell low and safe in humility, and rise high in no- thing but in labours, and zeal of souls, and devotion. In proportion to this rule, a church may be pulled down to save a town, and the vessels of the church may be sold to redeem captives, when there is a great calamity imminent, and prepared for relief, and no other way to succour it. But in the whole, the duty of zeal re- quires, that we neglect an ordinary visit rather than an ordinary prayer, and a great profit rather than omit a required duty. No excuse can legitimate a sin; and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit, and if he cannot reconcile them, will yet tie them together like a hyaena and a dog, this man pretends to religion but secures the world, and is in- different and lukewarm towards that, so he may be warm and safe in the possession of this. 2. To that fervour and zeal that is neces- sary and a duty, it is required that we be constant and persevering. " Esto fidelis ad mortem," said the Spirit of God to the angel of the church of Smyrna, " Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." For he that is warm to-day and cold to- morrow, zealous in his resolution and weary in his practices, fierce in the beginning and slack and easy in his progress, hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of; he sees not reason enough for religion, and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary ; and therefore he is " duplicis animi," as St. James calls him; "of a doubtful mind." For religion is worth as much to-day as it was yesterday, and that cannot change though we do ; and if we do, we have left God, and whither he can go that goes from God, his own sorrows will soon enough instruct him. This fire must never go out, but it must be like the fire of heaven, it must shine like the stars, though some- times covered with a cloud, or obscured by a greater light ; yet they dwell for ever in their orbs, and walk in their circles, and i2 102 OF LUKE WA RMN ESS AND ZEAL. Serm. XIII. observe their circumstances, but go not out by day nor night, and set not when kings die, nor are extinguished when nations change their government : so must the zeal of a Christian be, a constant incentive of his duty; and though sometimes his hand is drawn back by violence or need, and his prayers shortened by the importunity of business, and some parts omitted by ne- cessities and just compliances, yet still the fire is kept alive ; it burns within when the light breaks not forth, and is eternal as the orb of fire, or the embers of the altar of incense. 3. No man is zealous as he ought, but he that delights in the service of God : — with- out this no man can persevere, but must faint under the continual pressure of an uneasy load. If a man goes to his prayers as children go to school, or give alms as those that pay contribution, and meditate with the same willingness with which young men die, this man does " personam sustinere," " he acts a part" which he cannot long personate, but will find so many excuses and silly devices to omit his duty, such tricks to run from that which will make him happy; he will so watch the eyes of men, and be so sure to do nothing in private ; he will so often distinguish and mince the duty into minutes and little par- ticles, he will so tie himself to the letter of the law, and be so careless of the intention and spiritual design, he will be punctual in the ceremony and trifling in the secret, and he will be so well pleased when he is hindered by an accident not of his own procuring, and will have so many devices to defeat his duty, and to cozen himself, that he will certainly manifest, that he is afraid of re- ligion, and secretly hates iij he counts it a burden, and an objection, and then the man is sure to leave it, when his circumstances are so fitted. But if we delight in it, we enter into a portion of the reward, as soon as we begin the work, and the very grace shall be stronger than the temptation in its very pretence of pleasure ; and therefore it must needs be pleasing to God, because it confesses God to be the best master, religion the best work, and it serves God with choice and will, and reconciles our nature to it, and entertains our appetite ; and then there is no " ansa" or va ticihuKSi, ilxxtyoi tfcp KXsoivvfiui ;f as the sophister said in the Greek comedy, "Clouds become any thing as they are represented ; wolves to Simon, harts to Cleonymus ;" for the devil fits us with clouds, according as we can be abused; and if we love the affairs of the world, he can contrive its circumstances so, that they shall cross our prayers ; and so it is in every instance : and the best way to cure this evil is prayer; pray often, and pray zealously, and the Sun of righteousness will scatter these clouds and warm our hearts with his holy fires : but • Lam. iii. 44. it is in this as in all acquired habits; the habit makes the action easy and pleasant; but this habit cannot be gotten without frequent actions : habits are the daughters of action ; but then they nurse their mother, and produce daughters after her image, but far more beautiful and prosperous. For in frequent prayer there is so much rest and pleasure, that as soon as ever it is per- ceived, the contrary temptation appears un- reasonable ; none are so unwilling to pray, as they that pray seldom; for they that do pray often, and with zeal, and passion, and desire, feel no trouble so great, as when they are forced to omit their holy offices and hours of prayers. It concerns the devil's interest to keep us from all the ex- perience of the rewards of a frequent and holy prayer ; and so long as you will not try and " taste how good and gracious the Lord is" to the praying man, so long you cannot see the evil of your coldness and lukewarm state; but if you would but try, though it be but for curiosity's sake, and inform yourselves in the vanity of things, and the truth of pretences, and the certainty of theological propositions, you should find yourselves taken in a golden snare, which will tie you to nothing but felicity, and safety, and holiness, and pleasure. But then the caution, which I intended to insert, is this ; that frequency in prayers, and that part of zeal which relates to it, is to be upon no account but of a holy spirit, a wise heart, and reasonable persuasion; for if it begin upon passion or fear, in imitation of others, or desires of reputation, honour, and fan- tastic principles, it will be unblessed and weary, unprosperous, and without return of satisfaction ; therefore if it happen to begin upon a weak principle, be very curious to change the motive, and with all speed let it be turned into religion and the love of holy things : then, let it be as fre- quent as it can prudently, it cannot be amiss. When you are entered into a state of zealous prayer, and a regular devotion, whatever interruption you can meet with, observe their causes, and be sure to make them irregular, seldom, and contingent, that yotfr omissions may be seldom and casual;, as a bare accident; for which no provisions can be made : for if ever it come, that you take any thing habitually and constantly from your prayers, or that you distract from them very frequently, it cannot be but you t Arist. Ntpfruu. ! will become troublesome to yourself; your Serm. XIV OF LUKEWAR MNESS AND ZEAL. 105 prayers will be uneasy, they will seem hin- and in the way meets an indigent person derances to your more necessary affairs of that needs it all, may not give it to him, un- passion and interest, and the things of the world : and it will not stand still, till it comes to apostasy, and a direct dispute and less he knows by other means to pay the debt ; but if he can do both, he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a crown. contempt of holy things. For it was an But then in the case of provision for chil- oid rule, and of a sad experience, " Tepidi- dren, our restraint is not so easy, or discerni- tas, si callum obduxerit, fiet apostasia :" ble ; 1. Because we are not bound to " If your lukewarmness be habitual and a provide for them in a certain portion, but state of life, if it once be hardened by the may do it by the analogies and measures of usages of many days, it changes the whole | prudence, in which there is a great latitude, state of the man, it makes him an apostate! 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good to devotion." Therefore be infinitely care- j portion for them, and lays up a blessing for ful in this particular, always remembering inheritance. 3. Because the fairest portions the saying of St. Chrysostom ; " Docendi, of charity are usually short of such sums, praedicandiofficiaet alia cessantsuo tempore, which can be considerable in the duty of precandi autem nunquam ;" u There are provision for our children. 4. If we for reasons for teaching, and preaching, and them could be content to take any measure other outward offices ; but prayer is the ; less than all, any thing under every thing duty of all times, and of all persons, and in that we can, we should find the portions of all contingencies : from other things, in i the poor made ready to our hands sufficient- many cases, we may be excused, but from ; ly to minister to zeal, and yet not to intrench prayer never." In this, therefore, xahbv upon this case of conscience ; but the truth ^OLff^at, " it is good to be zealous." 2. Concerning the second instance I named, viz. To give alms above our estate, it is an excellent act of zeal, and needs no is, we are so careless, so unskilled, so un studied, in religion, — that we are only glad to make an excuse, and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace : we are other caution to make it secure from illusion ; contented, if we can but make a pretence ; and danger, but that our egressions of! for we are highly pleased if our conscience charity do not prejudice justice. See that ! be quiet, and care not so much that our your alms do not other men wrong; and let them do what they can to thyself, they will never prejudice thee by their abun- dance ; but then be also careful, that the duty be performed, much less that our eter- nal interest be advanced in bigger portions. We care not, we strive not, we think not, of getting the greater rewards of heaven ; pretences of justice do not cozen thyself of j and he whose desires are so indifferent for thy charity, and the poor of thine alms, and thy soul of the reward. He that is in debt, is not excused from giving alms till his debts are paid ; but only from giving away such portions which should and would pay them, and such which he intend- ed should do it : there are " lacernae divitia- rum," and crumbs from the table, and the gleanings of the harvest, and the scatterings of the vintage, which in all estates are the the greater, will not take pains to secure the smallest portion ; and it is observable, that £%dzia?os iv t§ /3owtet'a, " the least in the kingdom of heaven,"* is as much as otSa$, " as good as none ;" if a man will be con- tent with his hopes of the lowest place there, and will not labour for something beyond it, he does not value it at all ; and it is ten to one, but he will lose that for which he takes so little pains, and is content with portions of the poor, which being collected so easy a security. He, — that does bis by the hand of Providence, and united ■ alms, and resolves that in no case he will wisely, may become considerable to the j suffer inconvenience for his brother, whose poor, and are the necessary duties of chari- ty ; but beyond this also, every considerable relief to the poor is not a considerable di- minution to the estate; and yet if it be, it is case it may be is intolerable, — should do well to remember, that God, in some cases, requires a greater charity; and it may be, we shall be called to die for the good of our not always considerable in the accounts of i brother; and that although it always sup- justice ; for nothing ought to be pretended against the zeal of alms, but the certain omissions, or the very probable retarding the doing that, to which we are otherwise obliged. He that is going to pay a debt, 14 poses a zeal, and a holy fervour, yet some- times it is also a duty, and we lose our lives if we go to save them ; and so we do with * Matt. v. 16. 106 OF LUKEWARMN ESS AND ZEAL. Serm. XIV. our estates, when we are such good hus- bands in our religion, that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother, God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve, and then we lose our money and our reward too. 3. Hither is to be reduced the accepting and choosing the counsels evangelical : the virgin or widow estate in order to religion : selling all, and giving it to the poor : making ourselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven : offering ourselves to death volun- tarily, in exchange or redemption of the life of a most useful person, as " Aquila and Priscilla, who ventured their lives for St. Paul:" the zeal of souls: St. Paul's preaching to the Corinthian church without wages : remitting of r ights and forgiving of debts, when the obliged person could pay, but not without much trouble : protection of calamitous persons with hazard of our own interest and a certain trouble ; concern- ing which and all other acts of zeal, we are to observe the following measures, by which our zeal will become safe and holy, and by them also we shall perceive the excesses of zeal, and its inordinations : which is the next thing I am to consider. 1 . The first measure, by which our zeal may comply with our duty, and its actions become laudable, is charity to our neigh- bour. For since God receives all that glori- fication of himself, whereby we can serve and minister to his glory, reflected upon the foundation of his own goodness, and bounty, and mercy, and all the hallelujahs that are or ever shall be sung in heaven, are praises and thanksgivings ; and that God himself does not receive glory from the acts of his justice, but then when his creatures will not rejoice in his goodness and mercy ; it follows that we imitate this original excel- lency, and pursue God's own method ; that is, glorify him " in via misericordite," " in the way of mercy" and bounty, charity and forgiveness, love and fair compliances : there is no greater charity in the world than to save a soul, nothing that pleases God better, nothing that can be in our hands greater or more noble, nothing that can be a more lasting and delightful honour, than that a perishing soul, — snatched from the flames of an intolerable hell, and borne to heaven upon the wings of piety and mercy by the ministry of angels, and the graces of the Holy Spirit, — shall to eternal ages bless God and bless thee ; Him, for the author and finisher of salvation, and thee for the minister and charitable instru- ment : that bright star must needs look pleasantly upon thy face for ever, which was by thy hand placed there, and, had it not been for thy ministry, might have been a sooty coal in the regions of sorrow. Now, in order to this, God hath given us all some powers and ministries, by which we may by our charity promote this religion, and the great interest of souls : counsels and prayers, preaching and writing, passionate desires and fair examples, going before others in the way of godliness, and bearing the torch before them, that they may see the way and walk in it. This is a charity, that is prepared more or less for every one ; and, by the way, we should do well to con- sider, what we have done towards it. For as it will be a strange arrest at the day of judgment to Dives, that he fed high and suffered Lazarus to starve, and every gar- ment,— that lies by thee and perishes, while thy naked brother does so too for want of it, — shall be a bill of indictment against thy unmerciful soul; so it will be in every instance : in what thou couldst profit thy brother and didst not, thou art ac- countable ; and then tell over the times, in which thou hast prayed for the conversion of thy sinning brother ; and compare the times together, and observe, whether thou hast not tempted him or betrayed him to sin, or encouraged him in it, or didst not hinder him, when thou mightest, more fre- quently than thou hast, humbly, and pas- sionately, and charitably, and zealously, bowed thy head, and thy heart, and knees, to God to redeem that poor soul from hell, whither thou seest him descending with as much indifferency as a stone into the bot- tom of the well. In this thing xofoov fy%ovo$at, " it is a good thing to be zealous," and put forth all your strength, for you can never go too far. But then be careful, that this zeal of thy neighbour's amendment be only expressed in ways of charity, not of cruelty, or importune justice. " He that strikes the prince for justice," as Solomon's expression is, " is a companion of murderers ;" and he that, out of zeal of religion, shall go to convert nations to his opinion by destroying Christians, whose faith is entire and sum- med up by the apostles, this man breaks the ground with a sword, and sows tares, and waters the ground with blood, and ministers to envy and cruelty, to errors and Serm.XIV. of lukewarmness AND ZEAL. 107 mistake, and there comes up nothing but poppies to please the eye and fancy, dis- putes and hypocrisy, new summaries of religion estimated by measures of anger, and accursed principles ; and so much of religion as is necessary to salvation, is laid aside, and that brought forth that serves an interest, not holiness ; that fills the schools of a proud man, but not that which will fill heaven. Any zeal is proper for religion, but the zeal of the sword and the zeal of anger ; this is ttixpia ^tj^ou, " the bitterness of zeal ;"* and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty : for if the sword turns preacher, and dictates proposi- tions by empire instead of arguments, and engraves them in men's hearts with a poni- ard, that it shall be death to believe what I innocently and ignorantly am persuaded of, it must needs be unsafe to " try the spirits, to try all things," to make inquiry ; and yet without this liberty, no man can justify himself before God and man, nor confidently say that his religion is best: since he cannot without a final danger make himself able to give a right sentence, and to follow that which he finds to be the best ; this may ruin souls by making hypocrites, or careless and complian. against conscience or without it: but it does not save souls, though perad- venture it s'nould force them to a good opinion : this is inordination of zeal ; for Christ, — by reproving St. Peter, drawing his sword, even in the cause of Christ, for his sacred, and yet injured person, dtSdixat, firj ^prsbou juofcowpa xav tov 0f6v hoxd tl$ ixbixnv, (saith Theophylact,) — "teaches us not to use the sword though in the cause of God, or for God himself ;" because he will secure his own interest, only let him be served as himself is pleased to command : and it is like Moses' passion, it throws the tables of the law out of our hands, and breaks them in pieces out of indignation to see them broken. This is zeal that is now in fashion, and hath almost spoiled religion ; men, like the zealots of the Jews, cry up their sect, and in it their interest: fyhovai /t«x^raj, xcu /ua^cu'pas aiuavpovtaa ; " they affect disciples and fight against the opponents;" and we shall find in Scripture, that when the apostles began to preach the meekness of the Christian institution, salvations and promises, charity and humility, there was a zeal set up against them; the apostles were zealous for the gospel, the Jews were zeal- * James iii. 14. ous for the law : and see what different effects these two zeals did produce; the zeal of the law came to this, t^opv3ow ftp 7t6ut>, and tS(,wljai> /xtzpi ^avarov, and diawpovrat, and ox^oTioLr^avtti, " they stirred up the city, they made tumults, they persecuted this way unto the death, they got letters from the high priest, they kept Damascus with a gar- rison," they sent parties of soldiers, to silence and to imprison the preachers, and thought they did God service, when they put the apostles to death, and they swore "neither to eat nor to drink, till they had killed Paul." It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal, Non monstrare vias, eadem nisi sacra colenti : Quaositum ad fontem solos deducere verpos. Juv. They would not show the way to a Samari- tan, nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother; that was their zeal- But the zeal of the apostles was this, they preached publicly and privately, they prayed for all men, they wept to God for the hard- ness of men's hearts, they "became all things to all men, that they might gain some," they travelled through deeps and deserts, they endured the heat of the Sirian star, and the violence of Euroclydon, winds and tempests, seas and prisons, mockings and scourgings, fastings and poverty, labour and watching, they endured every man and wronged no man, they would do any good thing and suffer any evil, if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul; they per- suaded men meekly, they entreated them humbly, they convinced them powerfully, they watched fo-r their good, but meddled not with their interest ; and this is the Christian zeal, the zeal of meekness, the j zeal of charity, the zeal of patience, iv tovtois xaiJov ^Xot-ff^at, "In these it is good to be zealous," for you can never go far enough. 2. The next measure of zeal is prudence. For, as charity is the matter of zeal ; so is | discretion the manner. It must always be for good to our neighbour, and there need ; no rules for the conducting of that, pro- vided the end be consonant to the design, | that is, that charity be intended, and charity be done. But there is a zeal also of re- ligion or worshipping, and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions. For religion can turn into a snare; it may be abused into superstition, it may become weariness in the spirit, and tempt to tedious- ness, to hatred, and despair : and many- persons, through their indiscreet conduct, 108 OF LUKEWARMN ESS AND ZEAL. Serm. XIV. and furious marches, and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and inexperienced, have come to be perfect haters of their joy, and despisers of all their hopes ; being like dark lanterns, in which a candle burns bright, but the body is encompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron ; and these men keep the fires and light of holy pro- positions within them, but the darkness of hell, the hardness of a vexed heart, hath shaded all the light, and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others, but it turns to fire within, a fever and a distemper dwell there, and religion is become their torment. 1. Therefore our zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable. There are many institutions, customs, and usages, introduced into religion upon very fair motives, and adapted to great necessities ; but to imitate those things, when they are disrobed of their proper ends, is an impor- tune zeal, and signifies nothing but a fro- ward mind, and an easy heart, and an im- prudent head ; unless these actions can be invested with other ends and useful pur- poses. The primitive church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity, in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling, and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution ; but when the necessity went on, and drove the holy men into deserts, that made colleges of religious, and their manner of life was such, so united, so poor, so dressed, that they must love ft more non seculari," "after the manner of men di- vorced from the usual intercourses of the world still their desire of single life in- creased, because the old necessity lasted, and a new one did supervene. Afterwards the case was altered, and then the single life was not to be chosen for itself, nor yet in imitation of the first precedents; for it could not be taken out from their circum- stances and be used alone. He therefore that thinks he is a more holy person for being a virgin or a widower, or that he is bound to be so because they were so ; or that he cannot be a religious person because he is not so : hath zeal indeed, but not according to knowledge. But now if the single state can be taken out and put to new appendages, and fitted to the end of another grace or essential duty of religion, it will well become a Christian zeal to choose it so long, as it can serve the end with advantage and security. Thus also a zealous person is to choose his fastings, while they are necessary to him, and are acts of proper mortification, while he is tempted, or while he is under discipline, while he repents, or while he obeys; but some persons fast in zeal, but for nothing else ; fast when they have no need, when there is need they should not; but call it religion to be miserable or sick ; here their zeal is folly, for it is neither an act of re- ligion nor of prudence, to fast when fasting probably serves no end of the spirit; and therefore in the fasting-days of the church, although it is warrant enough to us to fast, if we had no end to serve in it but the mere obedience, yet it is necessary that the su- periors should not think the law obeyed, unless the end of the first institution be observed : a fasting-day is a day of humilia- tion and prayer ; and fasting being nothing itself, but wholly the handmaid of a fur- ther grace, ought not to be divested of its holiness and sanctification, and left like the walls of a ruinous church where there is no duty performed to God, but there remains something of that, which used to minister to religion. The want of this consideration hath caused so much scandal and dispute, so many snares and schisms, concerning ecclesiastical fasts. For when it was un- dressed and stripped of all the ornaments and useful appendages, when from a solemn day it grew to be common ; from thence to be less devout by being less seldom and less useful ; and then it passed from a day of religion to be a day of order, and from fast- ing till night to fasting till evening-song, and evening-song to be sung about twelve o'clock ; and from fasting it was changed to a choice of food, from eating .nothing to eating fish, and that the latter began to be stood upon, and no usefulness remained but what every one of his own piety should put into it, but nothing was enjoined by the law, nothing of that exacted by the supe- riors, then the law fell into disgrace, and the design became suspected, and men were first insnared and then scandalized, and then began to complain without remedy, and at last took remedy themselves without au- thority ; the whole affair fell into a disorder and mischief; and zeal was busy on both sides, and on both sides was mistaken, because they fell not upon the proper re- medy, which was to reduce the law to the usefulness and advantages of its first in- tention. But this I intended not to have spoken. 2. Our zeal must never carry us beyond 8mm. XIV. OF LUKEWARMNESS AND ZEAL. 109 that which is safe. Some there are, who in their first attempts and entries upon re- ligion, while the passion, that brought them in, remains, undertake things as great as their highest thoughts; no repent- ance is sharp enough, no charities expen- sive enough, no fastings afflictive enough, then " totis quinquatribus orant ;" and find- ing some deliciousness at the first contest, and in that activity of their passion, they make vows to bind themselves for ever to this state of delicacies. The onset is fair : but the event is this. The age of a passion is not long, and the flatulent spirit being breathed out, the man begins to abate of his first heats, and is ashamed : but then he considers that all that was not necessary, and therefore he will abate something more ; and from something to something, at last it will come to just nothing, and the proper effect of this is, indignation, and hatred of holy things, an impudent spirit, careless- ness or despair. Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation ; and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably, because he is not imprisoned for him or un- done, or designed to martyrdom, may desire a trial that will undo him. It is like fight- ing of a duel to show our valour. Stay till the king commands you to fight and die, and then let zeal do its noblest offices. This irregularity and mistake was too fre- quent in the primitive church, when men and women would strive for death, and be ambitious to feel the hangman's sword ; some miscarried in the attempt, and became sad examples of the unequal yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver. 3. Let zeal never transport us to attempt any thing but what is possible. M. Teresa made a vow, that she would do always that, which was absolutely the best. But neither could her understanding always tell her which was so, nor her will always have the same fervours ; and it must often breed scruples, and sometimes tediousness, and wishes that the vow were unmade. He that vows never to have an ill thought, never to commit an error, hath taken a course, that his little infirmities shall become crimes, and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach. Zeal is a violence to a man's spirit, and unless the spirit be secured by the proper nature of the duty, and the circumstances of the action, and the possibilities of the man ; it is like a great fortune in the mean- est person, it bears him beyond his limit, and breaks him into dangers and passions, transportations and all the furies of disorder, jthat can happen to an abused person. 4. Zeal is not safe, unless it be " in re probabili " too, it must be " in a likely mat- ter." For we that find so many excuses to untie all our just obligations, and distinguish our duty into so much fineness, that it be- comes like leaf-gold, apt to be gone at every breath ; it cannot be prudent that we zeal- ously undertake what is not probable to be effected : if we do, the event can be no- thing but portions of the former evil, scruple and snares, shameful retreats and I new fantastic principles. In all our under- takings Ave must consider what is our state of life, what our natural inclinations, what is our society, and what are our dependen- , cies ; by what necessities we are borne down, by what hopes we are biassed; and > by these let us measure our heats and their proper business. A zealous man runs up a j sandy hill ; the violence of motion is his greatest hinderance : and a passion in reli- 1 gion destrovs as much of our evenness of • • • spirit, as it sets forward any outward work ; land therefore, although it be a good circum- stance and degree of a spiritual duty, so :long as it is within, and relative to God 'and ourselves, so long it is a holy flame; jbut if it be in an outward duty, or relative i to our neighbours, or in an instance not | necessary, it sometimes spoils the action, and always endangers it. But I must re- member, we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled I within them and round about them, than of I any thing to allay their forwardness : there i is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envy, land killing as many as they can, and damn- i ing more than they can ; rtvpcous and xartvbs s ,Ti;pu>5£cos, smoke and lurking fires," do corrode and secretly consume: therefore jthis discourse is less necessary. A physi- cian would have but small emplovmenl near the Riphaean mountains, if he could cure nothing but calentures ; catarrhs, and dead palsies, colds and consumptions, are their evils, and so is lukewarmness and dead- ness of spirit the proper maladies of our age : for though some are hot when they are mistaken, yet men are cold in a righte- ous cause ; and the nature of this evil is to be insensible ; and the men are farther from a cure, because they neither feel their evil nor perceive their danger. But of this I have already given account; and to it I shall only add what an old spiritual person K 110 THE HOUSE OP FEASTING. Serm. XV. told a novice in religion, asking him the I cause why he so frequently suffered tedi- ousness in his religious offices ; " Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus, nec tor- menta quce timemus — " Young man, thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout, nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm, and the haters of strict de- votion." But the Jews tell, that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the deli- cacies of paradise, repented and mourned upon the Indian mountains for three hun- dred years together : and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrows, can by nothing be invited to a persevering, a great, a passionate religion, more than by remembering what he lost, and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps, and are all on fire with Divine love, whose flames are fanned with the wings of the Holy Dove, and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the Holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth. SERMON XV. THE HOUSE OF FEASTING; OR, THE EPICURE'S MEASURES. PART I. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. — 1 Cor. xv. 32. last part. This is the epicure's proverb, begun upon a weak mistake, started by chance from the discourses of drink, and thought witty by the undiscerning company, and prevailed infinitely, because it struck their fancy luckily, and maintained the merry meeting ; but as it happens commonly to such dis- courses, so this also, when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morn- ing, and the sober hours of the day, it seems the most witless and the most unreasonable in the world. When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus, he uses this expression: " Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris : sepositos ad capitale supplicium, non tarn anguste, qui occisurus est, pascit:" "The prison keeps a better table ; and he that is to kill the criminal to- morrow-morning, gives him a better supper overnight." By this he intended to repre- sent his meal to be very short ; for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high, so thev that mean to cut their throat, will think it a vain expense to please it with delicacies, which, after the first alteration, must be poured upon the ground, and looked upon as the worst part of the ac- cursed thing. And there is also the same proportion of unreasonableness, that be- cause men shall " die to-morrow," and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God they are now descending to their graves, that therefore they should first destroy their reason, and then force dull times to run faster, that they may die sottish as beasts, and speedily as a fly: but they thought there was no life after this; or if there were, it was without pleasure, and every soul thrust into a hole, and a dorter of a span's length allowed for his rest and for his walk; and in the shades below no num- bering of healths by the numeral letters of Philenium's name, no fat mullets, no oysters of Lucrinus, no Lesbian or Chian Wines. Tovt'o cra^wj, dvflpcortf, fia9uv t-vfypaive nsavtov. Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of nature, and feel the descending wines dis- tilling through the limbeck of thy tongue and larynx, and suck the delicious juice of fishes, the marrow of the laborious ox, and the tender lard of Apulian swine, and the condited bellies of the scarus ; but lose no time, for the sun drives hard, and the shadow is long, and " the days of mourning are at hand," but the number of the days of darkness and the grave cannot be told. Thus they thought they discoursed wisely, and their wisdom was turned into folly; for all their arts of providence, and witty secu- rities of pleasure, were nothing but unman- ly prologues to death, fear and folly, sensu- ality and beastly pleasures. But they are to be excused rather than we. They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds, and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh and wine, larders and pantries; and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk perception of relishes and gusts, reflections and duplications of delight; and therefore they treated them- selves accordingly. But then, why we should do the same things, who are led by other principles, and a more severe institu- tion, and better notices of immortality, who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter, and know that this time is but a passage to eternity, this body but a servant to the soul, this soul a minister to the Spirit, and the whole man in order to God and to felicity ; this, I say, is more unreasonable than to eat aconita to preserve our health, Serm. XV. THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. Ill and to enter into the flood that we may die a dry death ; this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things,, whither we are designed, and to all the principles of a wise philosophy, whereby we are instructed that we may become "wise unto salvation." That I may therefore do some assistances towards the curing the miseries of mankind, and reprove the follies and improper mo- tions towards felicity, I shall endeavour to represent to you — 1. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity. 2. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it; making life unpleasant, and death troublesome and intolerable. 3. I shall add the rules and measures of temperance in eating and drinking, that nature and grace may join to the constitu- tion of man's felicity. L Plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity. It is necessary that a man have some violence done to himself, before he can receive them ; for nature's bounds are, a£o ^9 xata, to cjco/w-a- tiov 7j8sl, v8artv xol aptfcp xpui/xsvos, 7tpo67ttvu> tcu$ ix rto'hvtstelas jySovouj, said Epicurus ; "I feed sweetly upon bread and water, those sweet and easy provisions of the body, and I defy the pleasures of costly provi- sions ;" and the man was so confident that he had the advantage over wealthy tables, that he thought himself happy as the im- mortal gods, itotfio^ fp^fiv ^9 Att vrtsp ev8ai{iovlae Siaryuvl^eadai, [xd^av e%u>v xai vdcop : for these provisions are easy, they are to be gotten without amazing cares ; no man needs to flatter if he can live as nature did intend : " Magna pars li- bertatis est bene moratus venter : " * he need not swell his accounts, and intri- cate his spirit with arts of subtilty and con- trivance ; he can be free from fears, and the chances of the world cannot concern him. And this is true, not only in those severe and anchoretical and philosophical persons, who lived meanly as a sheep, and without variety as the Baptist, but in the same pro- portion it is also true in every man that can be contented with that which is honestly sufficient. Maximus Tyrius considers con- cerning the felicity of Diogenes, a poor Sinopean, having not so much nobility as to be born in the better parts of Greece : but he saw that he was compelled by no tyrant to speak or do ignobly ; he had no fields to till, and therefore took no care to buy cattle and to hire servants ; he was not distracted when a rent-day came, and feared not when the wise Greeks played the fool and fought who should be lord of that field that lay between Thebes and Athens : he laughed to see men scramble for dirty silver, and spend ten thousand Attick talents for the getting the revenues of two hundred philippicks ; he went with his staff and bag into the camp of Phocenses, and the * Sencc. soldiers reverenced his person and despised his poverty, and it was truce with him whosoever had wars ; and the diadem of kings and the purple of the emperors, the mitre of high priests and the divining staff of soothsayers, were things of envy and ambition, the purchase of danger, and the rewards of a mighty passion; and men entered into them by trouble and extreme difficulty, and dwelt under them as a man under a falling roof, or as Damocles under the tyrant's sword, Nunc lateri incumbens — mox deinde supinus, Nunc cubat infaciem, nunc recto pectore surgens, sleeping like a condemned man ; and let there be what pleasure men can dream of in such broken slumbers, yet the fear of waking from this illusion, and parting from this fantastic pleasure, is a pain and torment which the imaginary felicity cannot pay for. " Cui cum paupertate bene convenit, dives est : non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est." All our trouble is from within us ; and if a dish of lettuce and a clear fountain can cool all mv heats, so that I shall have neither thirst nor pride, lust nor revenge, envy nor ambition, I am lodged in the bosom of felicity ; and, indeed, no men sleep so soundly, as they that lay their head upon nature's lap. For a single dish, and a clean chalice lifted from the springs, can cure my hunger and thirst : but the meat of Ahasuerus's feast cannot satisfy my ambition and my pride. " Nulla re egere, Dei proprium ; quam paucissimis autem, Deo proximum," said Socrates. He, therefore, that hath the fewest desires and the most quiet passions, whose wants are soon provided for, and whose posses- sions cannot be disturbed with violent fears, he that dwells next door to satisfaction, and can carry his needs and lay them down where he please, — this man is the happy man ; and this is not to be done in great designs and swelling fortunes. " Dives jam factus desiit gaudere lente ; carios edit et bibit, et laetatur dives, quam pauper, qui in quolibet, in parato, inempto gaudet, et facile epulari potest; dives nunquam." For as it is in plants which nature thrusts forth from her navel, she makes regular provisions, and dresses them with strength and ornament, with easiness and full stature; but if you thrust a jessamine there where she would have had a daisy grow, or bring the tall fir from dwelling in his own country, and transport the orange or the ' almond-tree near the fringes of the north- Serm. XV. THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. 113 star, nature is displeased, and becomes un- natural, and starves her sucklings, and ren- ders you a return less than your charge and expectation : so it is in all our appetites ; when they are natural and proper, nature feeds them and makes them healthful and lusty, as the coarse issue of the Scythian clown; she feeds them and makes them easy without cares and costly passion ; but if you thrust an appetite into her, which she intended not, she gives you sickly and uneasy banquets, you must struggle with her for every drop»of milk she gives beyond her own needs ; you may get gold from her entrails, and at a great charge provide orna- ments for your queens and princely women : but our lives are spent in the purchase ; and when you have got them, you must have more : for these cannot content, nor nourish the spirit. " Ad supervacua suda- tur ;" " A man must labour infinitely to get more than he needs;" but to drive away tnirst and hunger, a man needs not sit in the fields of the oppressed poor, nor lead armies, nor break his sleep, " et contume- iiosarn humanitatem pari," " and to suffer shame,'' and danger, and envy, and affront, and all the retinue of infelicity. •Quis non Epicurum •Suspicit, exigui laeturn plantaribus horti ? — Jew If men did but know what felicity dwells in the cottage of a virtuous poor man, how sound his sleeps, how quiet his breast, how composed his mind, how free from care, how easy his provision, how healthful his morning, how sober his night, how moist his mouth, how joyful his heart, they Avould never admire the noises and the diseases, the throng of passions, and the violence of unnatural appetites, that fill the houses of the luxurious and the heart of the ambitious. Nam ncque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis. Hok. These which you call pleasures, are but the imagery and fantastic appearances, and such appearances even poor men may have. It is like felicity, that the king of Persia should come to Babylon, in the winter, and to Susa n the summer; and be attended with all the servants of one hundred and twenty- seven provinces, and with all the princes of Asia. It is like this, that Diogenes went to Corinth in the time of vintage, and to Athens when winter came ; and instead of courts, visited the temples and the schools, and was pleased in the society of scholars and learned men, and conversed with the students of all Asia and Europe. If a man 15 loves privacy, the poor fortune can have that when princes cannot; if he loves noises, he can go to markets and to courts, and may glut' himself with strange faces, and strange voices, and stranger manners, and the wild designs of all the wrorld : and when that day comes in which we shall die, nothing of the eating and drinking remains, nothing of the pomp and luxury, but the sorrow to part with it, and shame to have dwelt there where wisdom and virtue seldom come, unless it be to call men to sober counsels, to a plain, and a severe, and a more natural way of living ; and when Lucian derides the dead princes and generals, and says that in hell they go up and down selling salt meats and crying muscles, or begging; and he brings in Philip of Macedon, iv ywrtSJ^ ttvi fxiadov axovixtvov ra oaOpa td>i> vrlo^ad-tutv, "mending of shoes in a little stall:" he in- tended to represent, that in the shades below, and in the stale of the grave, the princes and voluptuous have a being different from their present plenty ; but that their condition is made contemptible and miserable by its oiv proportion to their lost and perishing volup- tuousness. The result is this, that Tiresiut told the ghost of Menippus, inquiring what state of life was nearest to felicity, 'O tu» iSiutujv apiato$ fiioss, xai G^poviottpoq, " The private life, that which is freest from tumult and vanity," noise and luxury, business and ambition, nearest to nature and a just entertainment to our necessities; that life is nearest to felicity. Toiaijta jnjpoi» jj^ara/»f voy, tovto fjLovov f | artavtos Oyjpda1^, 6rta>?, ro 7fapoj/ tv ^ti/xs vos, rtapa^pau*^ yt^wv ta rtoM.a xcu rti-pt f.ir-8iv ia7tov8axu>s, therefore despise the swellings and the diseases of a disordered life and a proud vanity ; be troubled for no outward thing beyond its merit, enjoy the present tem- perately, and you cannot choose but be pleased to see that you have so little share in the follies and miseries of the intemperate world. 2. Intemperance in eating and drinking- is the most contrary course to the epicure** design in the world ; and the voluptuous man hath the least of pleasure ; and upon, this proposition, the consideration is more- material and more immediately reducible to. practice, because in eating and drinking,, men please themselves so much, and have the necessities of nature to usher in the in- ordination of gluttony and drunkenness^ and our need leads in vice by the hand, that we know not how to distinguish our friend from our enemv ; and St. Austin is sad k2 114 THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. Serm. XV. upon this point; "Thou, O Lord, hast taught me that I should take my meat as I take my physic ; but while I pass from the trouble of hunger to the quietness of satis- faction, in the very passage I am insnared by the cords of my own concupiscence. Necessity bids me pass, but I have no way to pass from hunger to fulness, but over the bridge of pleasure ; and although health and life be the cause of eating and drinking, yet pleasure, a dangerous pleasure, thrusts herself into attendance, and sometimes en- deavours to be the principal; and I do that for pleasure's sake which I would only do for health ; and yet they have distinct mea- sures, whereby they can be separated, and that which is enough lor health is too little for delight, and that which is for my delight destroys my health, and still it is uncertain for what end I do indeed desire ; and the worst of the evil is this, that the soul is glad because it is uncertain, and that an excuse is ready, that under the pretence of health, 'obumbret negotium voluptatis,' 'the design of pleasure may be advanced and pro- tected.' " How far the ends of natural pleasure may lawfully be enjoyed, I shall afterwards consider : in the mean time, if we remember that the epicure's design is pleasure principally, we may the better re- prove his folly by considering, that intem- perance is a plain destruction to all that which can give real and true pleasure. 1. It is an enemy to health, without which it is impossible to feel any thing of corporal pleasure. 2. A constant full table hath in it less pleasure than the temperate provisions of the hermit, or the philosophi- cal table of scholars, and the just pleasures of the virtuous. 3. Intemperance is an impure fountain of vice, and a direct nurse of uncleanness. 4. It is a destruction of wisdom. 5. It is a dishonour md disrepu- tation to the person and the ^iture of the man. 1. It is an enemy to health ; which is, as one calls it, " ansa voluptatum et condimen- tum vitac;" it is "that handle by which we can apprehend, and perceive pleasures, and that sauoe that only makes life delicate;" for what content can a full table administer to a man in a fever? And he that hath a sickly stomach, admires at his happiness, that can feast with cheese and garlic, unc- tuous beverages, and the low-tasted spi- nach : health is the opportunity of wisdom, tae fairest scene of religion, the advantages i of the glorifications of God, the charitable | ministries to men ; it is a state of joy and thanksgiving, and in every of its periods I feels a pleasure from the blessed emanations | of a merciful Providence. The world does not minister, does not feel, a greater plea- sure, than to be newly delivered from the racks of the gratings of the stone, and the torments and convulsions of a sharp colic: and no organs, no harp, no lute, can sound out the praises of the Almighty Father so spritefully, as the man that rises from his bed of sorrows, and considers what an ex- cellent difference he feels from the groans and intolerable accents of yesterday. Health carries us to church, and makes us rejoice in the communion of saints : and an intem- perate table makes us to lose all this. For this is one of those sins, which St. Paul affirms to be jtp68r%oi, rtpodyovoai, fij xpiW, " manifest, leading before unto judgment." It bears part of its punishment in this life, and hath this appendage, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, that it is not remitted in this world, nor in the world to come : that is, if it be not repented of, it is punished here and hereafter, which the Scripture does not affirm concerning all sins, and all cases. But in this the sinner gives sentence with his mouth, and brings it to execution with his hands ; Poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictum Turgidus, et crudum pavonem in balnea portas. Jtjv. The old gluttons among the Romans, He- liogabalus, Tigellius, Crispus, Montanus, "nota;que per oppida buccae,"* famous epicures, mingled their meats with vomit- ings; so did Vitellius, and entered into their baths to digest their pheasants, that they might speedily return to the mullet and the eels of Syene, and then they went home and drew their breath short till the morning, and it may be not at all before night: Hinc subitre mortes, atque intestatasenectus. Juv. Their age is surprised at a feast, and give<> them not time to make their will, but either they are choked with a large morsel, and there is no room for the breath of the lungs, and the motions of the heart; or a fever burns their eyes out, or a quinsey punishes that intemperate throat that had no religion, but the eating of the fat sacrifices, the por- tions of the poor and of the priest; or else they are condemned to a lethargy if their * Juvenal. Sum. XV THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. 115 constitutions be dull ; and, if active, it may be they are wild w ith watching. Plurimus liinc asger moritur vigilando : sed ilium Languorem peperu cibus impertectue, et haerens Ardenti stoniaeho Juv. So that the epicure's genial proverb may be a little altered, and say, " Let us eat and drink, for by this means to-morrow we shall die f* but that is not all, for these men live a healthless life ; that is, are long, are every day dying, and at last die with torment. Men- ander was too short in his expression, ^toi-oj ovroj $a.ifTcu li&imafwg ] that it is indeed death, but gluttony is u a pleasant death." Kou. ,uo>.i5- fta&MMto, xojl ro nvti u IZoiTa rtav at to, E-j^.Oi ra xau. XeyWfttg Hrtnou irco rrj tyfaqff. For this is the glutton's pleasure, "To breathe short and difficultly, scarce to be able to speak, and when he does, he cries out, I die and rot with pleasure.''' But the folly is as much to be derided as the men to be pitied, that we daily see men afraid of death with a most intolerable apprehension, and yet in- crease the evil of it. the pain, and the trouble, and the suddenness of its coming, and the appendage of an insufferable eternity. Rem struere exoptant caeso bove. Mercuriumque Arcessunt ribra Peks. They pray for herds of cattle, and spend the breeders upon feasts and sacrifices. For why do men go to temples and churches, and make vows to God and daily prayers, that God would give them a healthful body, and take away their gout and their palsies, their fevers and apoplexies, the pains of the head and the gripings of the belly, and arise from their prayers, and pour in loads of flesh and seas of wine, lest there should not be matter enough for a lusty disease ? Poseis opem nervis, corpusque fidele senectae : Esto age : sed grandes patinae fruncetaque crassa Annuere his superos vetuere, Jovemque moran- tur.— Pers. But this is enough that the rich glutton shall have his dead body conditedand embalmed ; he may le allowed to stink and suffer cor- ruption while he is alive : these men are for the present living sinners and walking rot- tenness, and hereafter will be dying peni- le its and perfumed carcasses, and their whole felicity is lost in the confusions of tiieir unnatural disorder. When Cyrus had espied Astyages and his fellows coming drunk from a banquet loaden with variety of follies and filthiness, their legs failing them, their eyes red and staring, cozened with a moist cloud and abused by a doubled object. I their tongues full of sponges, and their heads no wiser, he thought they were poisoned, and he had reason: for what malignant j quality can be more venomous and hurtful to a man than the effect of an intemperate goblet^and a full stomach? It poisons both ! the soul and the body. All poisons do not kill presently, and this will in process of time, and hath formidable effects at present. But therefore methinks the temptations, ! which men meet withal from without, are in themselves most unreasonable and soon- I est confuted by us. He that tempts me to drink beyond my measure, civilly invites me to a fever; and to lay aside n.y reason as the Persian women did their garments and their modesty at the end of the feasts : and all the question then will be, Which is the worse evil, to refuse your uncivil kindness, or to suffer a violent head ach, or to lay up heaps big enough for an English surfeit? Creon in the tragedy said well ; H ucOuxxmbiib' wftOfm fuya ortvttv, Eurip. " It is better for me to grieve thee, O stran- ger, or to be affronted by thee, than to be tormented by thy kindness the next day and the morrow after and the freedman of Domitius, the father of Nero, suffered him- self to be killed by his lord : and the son of Praxaspes by Cambyses, rather than they would exceed their own measures up to a full intemperance, and a certain sickness and dishonour. For, as Plutarch said well, to avoid the opinion of an uncivil man, or being clownish, to run into a pain of thy sides or belly, into madness or a head-ach. is the part of a fool and a coward, and oi one that knows not how to converse with men, M citra pocula et nidorem," in anything but in the famelic smells of meat and virti ginous drinkings. Ebrius et petulans, qui nullum forte cecidit, Dat poenas, noctem patitur. lu^entis amicurn, Pelidae Jrv. " A drunkard and a glutton feels the tor- ments of a restless night, although he hath not killed a man ;vthat is, just like murderers. I and persons of an affrighted conscience ; so 'wakes the glutton, so broken, and sick, and disorderly are the slumbers of the drunkard. Now let the epicure boast his pleasures, and tell how he hath swallowed the price of pro- vinces, and gobbets of delicious flesh, pur- chased with the reward of souls ; let him brag "furorem ilium conviviorum, et faedis- simum patrimoniorum exilium culinam," 116 THE HOUSE OF FEASTING . ?mm. XV. "of the: madness of delicious feasts, and that his kitchen hath destroyed his patri- mony j" let him tell that he takes in every day,* Quantum Sauseia bibebat. As much wine as would refresh the sorrows of forty languishing prisoners; or let him set up his vain-glorious triumph, Ut quod 'multi Damalin meri 'Bassum Threicia' vicit 'amystide' ; Hor. That he hath knocked down Damalis with the twenty-fifth bottle, and hath outfeasted Antony or Cleopatra's luxury ; it is a good- ly pleasure, and himself shall bear the honour. -Rarum et memorabile magni Guttuns exemplum, conducen dusque magister. , Juv. But for the honour of his banquet he hath some ministers attending that he did not dream of, and in the midst of his loud laugh- ter, the gripes of the belly, and the fevers of the brain, " Pallor et gense penduke, oculo- rum ulcera, tremulae manus, furiales somni, inquies nocturna," as Pliny reckons them, '* paleness and hanging cheeks, ulcers of the eyes, and trembling hands, dead or dis- tracted sleeps/' these speak aloud, that to- day y ou " eat and drink, that to-morrow you die," and die forever. It is reported concerning Socrates, that when Athens was destroyed by the plague, he in the midst of all the danger escaped untouched by sickness, because by a spare and severe diet, he had within him no tumult of disorderly humours, no factions in his blood, no loads of moisture prepared for charnel-houses, or the sickly hospitals'; but a vigorous heat, and a well-proportioned radical moisture ; he had enough for health and study, philosophy and religion, for the temples and the academy, but no superflui- ties to be spent in groans and sickly nights ; and all the world of gluttons is hugely con- vinced of the excellency of temperance in order to out temporal felicity and health, be- cause when themselves have left virtue, and sober diet, and counsels, and first lost their temperance, and then lost their health, they are forced to run to temperance and abstinence for their cure. "Vilis enimtenu- isque mensa (ut loquuntur pueri) sanitatis mater est,"f then a thin diet and an humble body, fasting and emptiness, and arts of scat- tering their sin and sickness, is in season ; but by the same moans they might preserve *Juvenal. tChrysost. their health, by which hiey clu re.-toie it; but when they are \.'-;., il" i..<-k rKurn to their full tables and oppressing meals, "heir sickness was but like VileHius' vomiting, ihat they might eal again ; but so thar ^pdiw. And however you treat yourselves, sometimes you will need to be refreshed beyond it; but what will you have for a festival, if you wear crowns every day ? even a perpetual fulness will make you glad to beg pleasure from emptiness, and variety from poverty or an humble table. Plerumque gratae principibus vices. Mundaeque parvo sub lare pauperum Coenae, sine auleeis, et ostro, Sollicitam explicuere trontem. Hor. But, however, of ail things in the world a man may best and most easily want plea- sure, which if you have enjoyed, it passes away at the present, and leaves nothing at all behind it, but sorrow and sour remem- brances. No man felt a greater pleasure in a goblet of wine than Lysimachus, when he fought against the Getae, and himself and his whole army were compelled by thirst to yield themselves to bondage ; but when the wine wras sunk as far as his navel, the pleasure was gone, and so was his kingdom and his liberty : for though the sorrow dwells with a man pertinaciouslv, yet the pleasure is swift as lightning, and more pernicious ; but the pleasures of a sober and temperate table are pleasures till the next day, xai xtq vsrfpcua rSiwj yuotra*. as Timotheus said of Plato's scholars ; they converse sweetly, and " are of perfect tem- per and delicacy of spirit even the next morning :" wThereas the intemperate man is forced to lie long in bed, and forget that there is a sun in the sky ; he must not be called till he hath concocted, and slept his surfeit into a truce and a quiet respite ; but whatsoever this man haih suffered, cer- tain it is that the poor man's head did not ache, neither did he need the juice of pop- pies, or costly cordials, physicians or nurses, to bring him to his right shape again, like Apuleius's ass, with eating roses : and let him turn his hour glass, he will find his head aches longer than his throat was pleased ; and, which is worst, his glass runs out with joggings and violence, and every such concussion with a surfeit makes 118 THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. Skrm. XVI. his life look nearer its end, and ten to one but it will, before its natural period, be broken in pieces. If these be the pleasures of an epicure's table, I shall pray that my friends may never feel them ; but he that sinneth against his Maker, shall fall into the calamities of intemperance. 3. Intemperance is the nurse of vice ; 'Apo&Vj;s yd-ka, " Venus-milk," so Aristo- phanes calls wine; itdrtutv hnvZiV ^rporto/uj, " the mother of all grievous things so Pontianus. For by the experience of all the world, it is the bawd to lust: and no man must ever dare to pray to God for a pure soul in a chaste body, if himself does not live temperately, if himself " make provisions for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it;" for in this case he shall find "that which enters into him, shall defile him" more than he can be cleansed by those vain prayers, that come from his tongue, and not from his heart. Intemperance makes i age and choler, pride and fantastic princi- ples ; it makes the body a sea of humours, and those humours the seat of violence : by faring deliciously every day, men become senseless of the evils of mankind, inappre- hensive of the troubles of their brethren, unconcerned in the changes of the world, and the cries of the pooi, the hunger of the fatherless, and the thirst of widows : ovx tx rH>v [xa%ov, said Diogenes ; "Tyrants never come from the cottages of them that eat pulse and coarse fare, but from the delicious beds and banquets of the effeminate and rich feeders." For, to maintain plenty and luxury, sometimes wars are necessary, and oppressions and violence : but no landlord did ever grind the face of his tenants, no prince ever sucked blood from his subjects for the maintenance of a sober and a mo- derate proportion of good things. And this was intimated by St. James, " Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment-seat?"* For all men are pas- sionate to live according lo that state in which they were born, or to which they are devolved, or which they have framed to themselves ; those therefore that love to live high and deliciously, Et quibus in solo vivendi causa palato. Juv. who live not to God but to their belly, not to sober counsels but to an intemperate table, have framed to themselves a manner * James ii. 6. of living, which oftentimes cannot be main- tained but by injustice and violence, which coming from a man whose passions are made big with sensuality and an habitual folly, by pride and forgetfulness of the con- dition and miseries of mankind, are always unreasonable and sometimes intolerable. I regustatem digito terebrare salinum j Contentus perages, si vivere cum Jove tendis. Peks, Formidable is the state of an intemperate man, whose sin begins with sensuality, and grows up in folly and weak discourses, and is fed by violence, and applauded by fools and parasites, full bellies and empty heads, servants and flatterers, whose hands are full of flesh and flood, and their hearts empty of pity and natural compassion ; where re- ligion cannot inhabit, and the love of God must needs be a stranger; whose talk is loud and trifling, injurious and impertinent; and whose employment is the same with the work of the sheep or the calf, always to eat ; their loves are the lusts of the lower belly ; and their portion is in the lower regions to eternal ages, where their thirst, and their hunger, and their torment, shall be infinite. 4. Intemperance is a perfect destruction of wisdom. IIa;£Ha yaatrtp %.t7t?6v ov tixtiu voov, " A full-gorged belly never produced a sprightly mind :" and therefore these kind of men are called yantip^ dpyot, "slow bel- lies," so St. Paul concerning the intemper- ate Cretans out of their own poet : they are like the tigers of Brazil, which when they are empty, are bold and swift, and full of sagacity ; but being full, sneak away from the barking of a village dog. So' are these men, wise in the morning, quick and fit for business ; but when the sun gives the sign to spread the tables, and intemperance brings in the messes, and drunkenness fills the bowls, then the man falls away, and leaves a beast in his room ; nay, worse, ttxvaj ^fcjai^jj/as, they are dead all but their throat and belly, so Aristophanes hath fitted them with a character, "Carcasses above half way." Plotinus descends one step lower yet ; affirming such persons, anobtv- 6>w0>7kh, " to be made trees," whose whole employment and life is nothing but to feed and suck juices from the bowels of their nurse and mother; and indeed commonly they talk as trees in a wind and tempest, the noise is great and querulous, but it sig. nifies nothing but trouble and disturbance. Serm. XVI THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. 119 A full meal is like Sisera's banquet, at the ,xd$v8po<; rcuj ix tov ouou c&aBv/xuiosii xai end of which there is a nail struck into a ; m ifcu$ 8ixrjv mi/mni 7totovfitvrr ''And there man's head : Z>s ovyxoM.Cjaa xcu dov xoBr^Jovao. cannot be any thing said worse, reason fy,, ^vx^v rtpo$ tip tov awjuaros artoXavow, so turns into folly, wine and flesh into a knot Porphyry; " it knocks a man down, and of clouds, the soul itself into a body," and nails his soul to the sensual mixtures of the the spirit into corrupted meat ; there is no- body." For what wisdom can be expected thing left but the rewards and portions of a from them, whose soul dwells in clouds of ' fool to be reaped and enjoyed there, where meat, and floats up and down in wine, like flesh and corruption shall dwell to eternal the spilled cups which fell from their hands, ages ; and therefore in Scripture such men when they could lift them to their heads no , are called 0opvxap6wt,. longer ? Tioxxaxtj yap iv dvov xv/xaai nj vawayft : i mum quoque prasgravant it is a perfect shipwreck of a man, the pilot | are gross, their souls are emerged in matter, is drunk, and the helm dashed in pieces, j and drowned in the moistures of an un- wholesome cloud ; they are dull of hearing, slow in apprehension, and to action they are as unable as the hands of a child, who too hastily haih broken the enclosures of his first dwelling. But temperance is reason's girdle and Hesternis vitiis ani- •" Their head: and the ship first reels, and by swallowing too much is itself swallowed up at last. And therefore the Navis Agrigeutina, the madness of the young fellows of Agrigen- tum, who being drunk, fancied themselves in a storm, and the house the ship, was more than the wild fancy of their cups; it! passion's bridle; 06a. ^po^tj, so Homer in was really so, they were all cast away, they ;Stobceus ; that is a^poavv^ ; " prudence is were broken in pieces by the foul disorder ; safe " while the man is temperate ; and of the storm. Hinc Vini atque somni degener socordia, Libido sordens, inverecundus lepos, Variaeque pestes languidorum sensuum. Hinc et Irequenti marcida oblectaniine Scintilla mentis intorpescit nobilis, Animusque pigris stertit in praecordiis. Pbudent. hym. de Jejun. "The senses languish, the spark of Di- vinity that dwells within is quenched; and the mind snorts, dead with sleep and fulness in the fouler regions of the belly." So have I seen the eye of the world looking upon a fenny bottom, and drinking up too free draughts of moisture, gathered ihem into a cloud, and that cloud crept about his face, and made him first look red, and then covered him with darkness and an artificial night : so is our reason at a feast, Putrem resudans crapulam Obstrangulatae mentis ingenium premit. The clouds gather about the head, and ac- cording to the method and period of the '.therefore outypov is opposed v$ ^aju^pwi, M A j temperate man is no fool;" for temperance is the oiofypoi'iatrfiLov, such as Plato appointed to night-walkers, a prison to restrain their inordinations ; it is ^wio? 4*>.?>;?, as Pythago- ras calls it; xjMptftj opff^s, so Socrates; xos/ms oya0u>v rtcuruy, SO Plato ; dofyateia rZ>v seoAJtttf- tun> «|fwv, so Jamblichus ; it is " the strength of the soul, the foundation of virtue, the ornament of all good things, and the cor- roborative of all excellent habits." 5. After all this, I shall the less need to add, that intemperance is a dishonour, and disreputation to the nature, and the person, and the manners of a man. But naturally men are ashamed of it, and the needs of nature shall be the veil for their gluttony, and the night shall cover their drunkenness ; tiyys rtvivpova ouo, to yap asrpov .if putt&Xf rac.f which the apostle rightly renders, " They that are drunk, are drunk in the night but the priests of Heliopolis never did sacrifice to the sun with wine; meaning, that this is so great a dishonour, that the sun ought not children, and productions of darkness, it | to see it; and they that think there is no first grows red, and that redness turns into! other eye but the sun that sees them, may an obscurity, and a thick mist, and reason! cover their shame by choosing their time; is lost to all use and profitableness of wise j just as children do their danger by winking and sober discourses ; amBmiant Jkr/uoSfsWpa i hard, and not looking on. 2xi£i£f»\ xai ovoa irtisxotei rrj 4 rtuiv, xai Sfwwj tyvytlv, "To drink and distraction darkens the soul," and makes sweet drinks and hot, to quaff great draughts, it crass and material, polluted and heavy, and to eat greedily;" Theophrastus makes clogged and laden like the body : them characters of a clown.J 'Clem. A'.exand. tAlcaeus. t Cap. 4. 120 THE HOUSE O F FEASTING. Serm. XVI. 3. And now that I have told you the foulness of the epicure's feasts and princi- ples, it will be fit that 1 describe the mea- sures of our eating and drinking, that the needs of nature may neither become the cover to an intemperate dish, nor the freer refreshment of our persons be changed into scruples, that neither our virtue nor our conscience fall into an evil snare. 1. The first measure of our eating and drinking, is our "natural needs," /x^ts a%- ydv xatd ffw^a, /xr^te tapdrteo&u xatd ; these are the measures of nature, " that the body be free from pain, and the soul from violence." Hunger, and thirst, and cold, are the natural diseases of the tody ; and food and raiment are their remedies, and therefore are the measures. In quantum sitis atque fames et iiigora poscunt, Quantum. Epicure, tibi parvis suffecit in bonis. Juvenal. But in this there are two cautions. 1. Hunger and thirst are only to be extin- guished while they are violent and trouble- some, and are not to be provided for to the I utmost extent and possibilities of nature; i man is not hungry so long till he can eat no more, but till its sharpness and trouble is over, and he that does not leave some reserves for temperance, gives all that he can to nature, and nothing at all to grace ; for God hath given a latitude in desires and degrees of appetite; and when he hath done, he laid restraint upon it in some whole in- stances, and of some parts in every instance; that man might have something to serve God of his own, and something to distin- guish him from a beast in the use of their common faculties. Beasts cannot refrain, but fill all the capacity when they can ; and if a man does so, he does what becomes a beast, and not a man. And therefore there are some little symptoms of this inordina- tion, by which a man may perceive himself to have transgressed his measures ; " ruc- tation, uneasy loads, singing, looser prat- ings, importune drowsiness, provocation of others to equal and full chalices;" and though in every accident of this significa- tion it is hard for another to pronounce that (he man hath sinned, yet by these he may suspect himself, and learn the next time to hold the bridle harder. 2. " This hunger must be natural," not artificial and provoked; for many men make necessities to themselves, and then think they are bound to provide for them. It is necessarv to some men to have garments made of the Calabrian fleece, stained with the blood of the murex, and to get money to buy pearls round and orient; scelerata hoc fecit culpa;" but it is the man's luxury that made it so; and by the same principle it is, that in meats, what is abundant to na- ture is defective and beggarly to art; and when nature willingly rises from table, when the first course of flesh plain and natural is done, then art, and sophistry, and adulterate dishes, invite him to taste and die, pexpi tivo$ ia/xh adpxes, fiix?^ twos trji yrj xvrcto^is v f well may a sober man wonder that men should be so much in love with earth and corruption, the parent of rotten- ness and a disease, that even then, when by all laws, witches and enchanters, murderers and man-stealers, are chastised and restrained with the iron hands of death ; yet that men should at great charges give pensions to an order of men, whose trade it is to rob them of their temperance, and wittily to destroy their health ; xarufyspns xai xa.nai£rpjov$ xai tobi ix tr^ yrti x£vo%oyovto$, the Greek fathers call such persons ; curvas in terris animae et coelestium inanes ; people bowed down to the earth j " lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God :" " Arentinas mentes," so Antidamus calls them, men framed in the furnaces of Etruria, " Aretine spirits, "j" beginning and ending in the flesh and filthiness; dirt and clay all over. But go to the crib, thou glutton, and there it will be found that when the charger is clean, yet nature's rules were not prevari- cated ; the beast eats up all his provisions because they are natural and simple ; or if he leaves any, it is because he desires no more than till his needs be served; and neither can a man (unless he be diseased in body or in spirit, in affection or in habit) eat more of natural and simple food than to the satisfaction of his natural necessities. He that drinks a draught or two of water and cools his thirst, drinks no more till his thirst returns ; but he that drinks wine, drinks again longer than it is needful, even so long as it is pleasant. Nature best provides for herself when she spreads her own table ; but when men have gotten superinduced habits, and new necessities, artthatbrought them in must maintain them, but "wantonness and folly wait at the table, and sickness and death take away." * Chrysost. t Viz. ab Areto, unde sicul ex aliis Etruriae figo- linis, testacca vasa Romam dcferebant. Serm. XVI. THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. 121 2. Reason is the second measure, or rather ' the Rile whereby we judge of intemperance ; for whatsoever loads of meat and drink make the reason useless or troubled, are effects of this deformity ; not that reason is the ade- quate measure; for a man may be intemper- ate upon other causes, though he do not force his understanding, and trouble his head. Some are s;rong to drink, and can eat like a wolf, and love to do so, as fire to destroy the stubble ; such were those harlots in the comedy, "Quae cum amatore suo cum cce- nant liguriunt;"* these persons are to take their accounts from the measures of religion, and the Spirit: though they can talk still or trans;uH the affairs of the world, yet if they be not fitted lor the things of the spirit, they are too lull of flesh or wine, and cannot, or care not, to attend to the things of God. But I reason is the limit, beyond which temper- ance never wanders ; and in every degree in which our discourse is troubled, and our soul is lifted from its wheels, in the same degree the sin prevails. " Dum sumus in quadam delinquendi libidine, nebulis quibus- iam insipientiec mens obducitur," saith St. Ambrose: when the flesh-pots reek, and the uncovered dishes send forth a nidor and hungry smells, that cloud hides the face, and puts out the eye of reason ; and then tell them, Mors in olla," that " Death is in the pot," and folly is in the chalice; that those smells are fumes of brimstone, and vapours of Egypt ; that they will make their hearts easy, and their head sottish, their colour pale, and their hands trembling, and their feet tormented. Mullorum. leporumque et suminis exiius hie esr, Sulphmeusque color, earnifieesque pedes. Mart. For tli at is the end of delicacies, 8veu>&a, artupos, as Dio Chrysostom, " paleness and effeminacy, and laziness, and folly;" yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sen- suality, men are so stripped of the use of reason, thai they are not only useless in wise counsels and assistances, but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly ; when once their rea- son fails-, we must know, that their temper- ance and their religion went before. 3. Though reason be so strictly to be pre- served at our tables as well as at our prayers, and we can never have leave to do any violence to it ; yet the measures of nature may be enlarged bevond the bounds of prime * Eunuch. 5. 4. 14. 16 and common necessity. For besides hungei and thirst, there are so.ne labours of the body, and others of the mind, and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body ; and as the labouring man may be supplied with bigger quantities, so the stu- dent and contemplative man with more delicious and sprightful nutriment : for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burdens upon the neck, and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen ; so neither will the pulse and the leeks, Lavinian sausages, and the Cisalpine suckets or gobbets of con- dited bull's-flesh, minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man ; but his notion will be flat as the noise of the Arcadian porter, and thick as the first juice of his country lard, unless he makes his body a fit servant to the soul, and both fitted for the employment. But in these cases necessity, and prudence, and experience, are to make the measures and the rule; and so long as the just end is fairly designed, and aptly ministered to, there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision : and he that would stint a swain by the commons of a student, and give Philotas the Candian the leavings of Plato, does but ill serve the ends of temperance, but worse of prudence and necessity. 4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink, as any other dis- ease ; and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other. For, great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as great anger ; and if it be a sin in its nature, it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality ; as naturally tending to mur- mur and despair, weariness of religion and hatred of God, timorousness and jealousies, fantastic images of things, and superstition ; and therefore, as it is necessary to restrain the fevers of anger, so also to warm the freezings and dullness of melancholy by- prudent and temperate, but proper and ap- portioned diets; and if some meats and drinks make men lustful, or sleepy, or dull, or lazy, or sprightly, or merry ; so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion, and the passion ministers to virtue, so far by this means they may be provided for. " Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, jand wine to those that be of heavy hearts ; 'let him drink and forget his poverty, and 122 THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. Serm. XVI. remember his misery no more,"* said King Lemuel's mother. But this is not intended to be an habitual cure, but single and occa- sional; for he that hath a pertinacious sor- row, is beyond the cure of meat and drink, and if this becomes every day's physic, it will quickly become every day's sin. Then, it must always keep within the bounds of reason, and never seize upon any portions of affection : the Germans used to mingle music with their bowls, and drink by the measures of the six notes of music ; Ut rclevet imserum latum, solitosque \dhores. But they sing so long that they forget not iheir sorrow only, but their virtue also, and their religion; and there are some men that fall into drunkenness, because they would forget a lighter calamity, running into the fiie to cure a calenture, and beating their brains out to be quit of the aching of their heads. A man's heaviness is refreshed long before he comes to drunkenness ; for when he arrives thither, he hath but changed his heaviness, and taken a crime to boot. 5. Even when a man hath no necessity upon him, no pungent sorrow, or natural or artificial necessity, it is lawful in some cases of eating and drinking to receive pleasure and intend it. For whatsoever is natural and necessary, is therefore not criminal, be- cause it is of God's procuring; and since we eat for need, and the satisfaction of our need is a removing of a pain, and that in nature is the greatest pleasure, it is impos- sible that in its own nature it should be a sin. But in this case of conscience these cautions are to be observed : 1 . So long as nature ministers the pleasure and not art, it is materially innocent. " Si tuo veniat jure, luxuria est:"f but it is safe while it enters upon nature's stock ; for it is impossible that the proper effect of health, and temperance, and prudent abstinence, should be vicious ; and yet these are the parents of the greatest pleasure in eating and drinking. *' Malum panem expecta, bonus fiet; eliam ilium tenerum tibi et sili- gineum fames reddet :" " If you abstain and be hungry, you shall turn the meanest pro- vision into delicate and desirable. " 2. Let all the pleasure of meat and drink be such as can minister to health, and be within the former bounds. For since plea- sure in eating and drinking is its natural ap- pendage, and like a shadow follows the sub- * Proy. xxxi. 6. t Seneca. stance, as the meat is to be accounted, so is the pleasure; and if these be observed, there is no difference whether nature or art be the cook. For some constitutions, and some men's customs, and some men's edu- cations, and necessities, and weaknesses, are such, that their appetite is to be invited, and their digestion helped, but all this while we are within the bounds of nature and need. 3. It is lawful when a man needs meat to choose the pleasanter, even merely for their pleasures; that is, because they are pleasant, besides that they are useful ; this is as lawful as the smell of a rose, or to lie in feathers, or change the posture of our body in bed for ease, or to hear music, or to walk in gardens rather than the highways; and God has given us leave to be delighted in those things, which he made to that pur- pose, that we may also be delighted in him that gives them. For so as the more pleas- ant may better serve for health, and di- rectly to refreshment, so collaterally to reli- gion ; always provided, that it be in its degree moderate, and we temperate in our desires, without transportation and vio- lence, without unhandsome usages of our- selves, or taking from God and from reli- gion any minutes and portions of our affections. When Eicadastes, the epicure, saw a goodly dish of hot meat served up, he sung the verse of Homer, Toy §' iyw avftoj tl/xi, xai tv rtvpi 2£tpa$ tocxf, and swallowed some of it greedily, till by its hands of fire it curled his stomach, like parchment in the flame, and he was carried from his banquet to his grave. Non poterat letho nobiliore mori : Mart. It was fit he should die such a death, but that death bids us beware of that folly. 4. Let the pleasure, as it came with meat, so also pass away with it. Philoxe- nus was a beast ; yv^ato Ttote tr\v yfpdw/ov av^f'va hzew, " he wished his throat as long as a crane's, " that he might be long in swallowing his pleasant morsels ; " Moeret quod magna pars felicitatis exclusa esset corporis angustiis ;" " he mourned because the pleasure of eating was not spread over all his body," that he might have been an epicure in his hands; and indeed, if we consider it rightly, great eating and drink- ing is not the greatest pleasure of the taste, but of the touch; and Philoxenus might Serm. XVI. THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. 123 feel the unctuous juice slide softly down his throat, but he could not taste it in the middle of the long neck ; and we see that they who mean to feast exactly, or delight the palate, do "libare," or " pitissare," take up little proportions and spread them upon the tongue or palate ; but full mor- sels and great draughts are easy and soft to the touch; but so is the feeling of silk, or handling of a melon, or a mole's skin, and as delicious too as eating when it goes beyond the appetites of nature, and the proper pleasures of taste, which cannot be perceived but by a temperate man. And therefore let not the pleasure be intended beyond the taste ; that is, beyond those little natural . measures in which God intended that pleasure should accompany your tables. Do not run to it beforehand, nor chew the cud when the meal is done ; delight not in fancies, and expectations, and remembrances of a pleasant meal ; but let it descend " in latrinam," together with the meals whose attendant pleasure is. 5. Let pleasure be the less principal, and used as a servant; it may be modest and prudent to strew the dish with sugar, or to dip thy bread in vinegar; but to make thy meal of sauces, and to make the accessory become the principal, and pleasure to rule the table, and all the regions of thy soul, is to make a man less and lower than an oglio, of a. cheaper value than a turbot ; a servant and a worshipper of sauces, and cooks, and pleasure, and folly. 6. Let pleasure, as it is used in the re- gions and limits of nature and prudence, so also be changed into religion and thank- fulness. " Turtures cum bibunt, non resu- pinant colla," say naturalists; "Turtles when they drink, lift not up their bills;" and if we swallow our pleasures without returning the honour and the acknow- ledgment to God that gave them, we may H large bibere, jumentorum modo," " drink draughts as large as an ox," but we shall die like an ox, and change our meats and drinks into eternal rottenness. In all reli- gions it hath been permitted to enlarge our tables in the days of sacrifices and religious festivity. Qui Veientanum festis potare dicbus Campana solitus trulla, vappamque profestis. Hor. For then the body may rejoice in fellow- ship with the soul, and then a pleasant meal is religious, if it be not inordinate. But if our festival-days, like the gentile sacrifices, end in drunkenness,'* and our joys in religion pass into sensuality and beastly crimes, we change the holyday into a day of death, and ourselves become a sacrifice as in the day of slaughter. To sum up this particular ; there are, as you perceive, many cautions to make our pleasure safe, but any thing can make it inordinate, and then scarce any thing can keep it from becoming dangerous. Habet omnis hoc voluptas : Stimulis aiiit furentes. Apiumque par volantum, Ubi grata mella fudit, Fugit. et nimis tenaci Ferit icta corda morsu. Boetius, 1. 3. Metr. 7. And the pleasure of the honey will not pay for the smart of the sting. " Amores enim et delicia? mature et celeriter deflorescunt, et in omnibus rebus, voluptatibus maximis fasiidium finitimum est :" " Nothing is so soon ripe and rotten as pleasure ; and upon all possessions and states of things, loath ing looks as being not far off; but it sits upon the skirts of pleasure." 'O hi rpartt^a? Ertopffa^uf ro? /x&ixpuv sOiytv, H /Utya x%avG8L rtixpav ftfptoa, " He that greedily puts his hand to a deli- cious table, shall weep bitterly when he suffers the convulsions and violence by the divided interests of such contrary juices OS? yap 2#wi,as QtGixo$ ayayxaj " For this is the law of our nature and fatal necessity ; life is always poured forth from two goblets." And now, and after all this, I pray con- sider, what a strange madness and prodi- gious folly possess many men, that they love to swallow death and diseases and dis- honour, with an appetite which no reason can restrain. We expect our servants should not dare to touch what we have for- bidden to them; we are watchful that our children should not swallow poisons, and filthiness, and unwholesome nourishment ; we take care that they should be well-man- nered, and civil, and of fair demeanour ; and we ourselves desire to be, or at least to be accounted, wise, and would infinitely *M«9yt'v, fxtrx T9 $6w. 124 THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. Serm. XVI. scorn to be called fools ; and we are so great lovers of health, that we will buy it at any rate of money or observance ; and then for honour, it is that which the children of men pursue with passion, it is one of the noblest rewards of virtue, and the proper ornament of the wise and valiant; and yet all these things are not valued or considered, when a merry meeting, or a looser feast, calls upon the man to act a scene of folly and madness, and healthlessness and dishonour. "We do to God what we severely punish in our servants; we correct our children for their meddling with dangers, which themselves prefer before immortality ; and though no man think himself fit to be despised, yet he is willing to make himself a beast, a sot, and a ridiculous monkey, with the follies and vapours of wine ; and when he is high in drink or fancy, proud as a Grecian orator in the midst of his popular noises, at the same time he shall talk such dirty language, such mean low things, as may well become a changeling and a fool, for whom the stocks are pre- pared by the laws, and the just scorn of men. Every drunkard clothes his head with a mighty scorn ; and makes himself lower at that time than the meanest of his servants ; the boys can laugh at him when he is led like a cripple, directed like a blind man, and speaks like an infant imperfect noises, lisping with a full and spongy tongue, and an empty head, and a vain and foolish heart : so che-aply does he part with his honour for drink or loads of meat; for which honour he is ready to die, rather than hear it to be disparaged by another : when himself destroys it, as bubbles perish with the breath of children. Do not the laws of all wise nations mark the drunkard for a fool, with the meanest and most scornful punishment? and is there any thing in the world so foolish as a man that is drunk ? But, good God ! what an intole- rable sorrow hath seized upon great por- tions of mankind, that this folly and mad- ness should possess the greatest spirits, and the wittiest men, the best company, the most sensible of the word honour, and the most jealous of losing the shadow, and the most careless of the thing ! Is it not a horrid thing, that a wise or a crafty, a learned or a noble person, should disho- nour himself as a fool, destroy his body as a murderer, lessen his estate as a prodigal, disgrace every good cause that he can pre- tend to by his relation, and become an appellative of scorn, a scene of laughter or derision, and all for the reward of forgetful- ness and madness 7 for there are in immo- derate drinking no other pleasures. Why do valiant men and brave person- ages fight and die rather than break the laws of men, or start from their duty to their prince, and will suffer themselves to be cut in pieces rather than deserve the name of a traitor, or perjured? and yet these very men, to avoid the hated name of glutton or drunkard, and to preserve their temperance, shall not deny themselves one luscious morsel, or pour a cup of wine on the ground, when they are invited to drink by the laws of the circle or wilder company. Methinks it were but reason, that if to give life to uphold a cause be not too much, they should not think it too much to be hungry and suffer thirst for the reputation of that cause; and, therefore, much rather that they would think it but duty to be tem- perate for its honour, and eat and drink in civil and fair measures, that themselves might not lose the reward of so much suf- fering, and of so good a relation, nor that which they value most be destroyed by drink. There are in the world a generation of men that are engaged in a cause which they glory in, and pride themselves in its relation and appellative : but yet for that cause they will do nothing but talk and drink ; they are valiant in wine, and witty in healths, and full of stratagem to promote debauchery ; but such persons are not con- siderable in wise accounts ; that which I deplore is, that some men prefer a cause before their life, and yet prefer wine before that cause, and by one drunken meeting set it more backward in its hopes and bless- ings, than it can be set forward by the counsels and arms of a whole year. God hath ways enough to reward a truth with- out crowning it with success in the hands of such men. In the mean time they dis- honour religion, and make truth be evil spoken of, and innocent persons to suffer by their very relation, and the cause of God to be reproached in the sentences of erring and abusing people ; and themselves lose their health and their reason, their honour and their peace, the rewards of sober coun- sels, and the wholesome effects of wis- dom. Serm. XVII. THE MARRIAGE RING. 125 Arcanum neque tu scrutaberis illius unquam; Commissumque teges, et vino tortus et ira. Hor. Wine discovers more than the rack, and he that will be drunk is not a person fit to be trusted : and though it cannot be expected men should be kinder to their friend, or their prince, or their honour, than to God, and to their own souls, and to their own bodies ; yet when men are not moved by what is sensible and material, by that which smarts and shames presently, they are beyond the cure of religion, and the hopes of reason ; and therefore they must •* lie in hell like sheep, death gnawing upon them, and the righteous shall have domi- nion over them in the morning" of the resurrection. Seras tutior ibis ad lucernas : Haec hora est tua, cum furit Lyaeus, Cum regnant rosce, cum madent capilli. Mart. Much safer it is to go to the severities of a watchful and a sober life ; for all that time of life is lost, when wine, and rage, and pleasure, and folly, steal away the heart of a man, and make him go singing to his grave. I end with the saying of a wise man : He is fit to sit at the table of the Lord, and to feast with saints, who moderately uses the creatures which God hath given him: but he that despises even lawful pleasures, ov fjLoiov nvu.7X.6tr^ tojv Scum aJJja xai ovrdp%u>v, •■ shall not only sit and feast with God, but reign together with him," and partake of his glorious kingdom. nature, but by a superadded forwa.dness, (God himself inspiring the desire,) the world was most desirous of children, impa- tient of barrenness, accounting single life a ! curse, and a childless person hated by God.* ; The world was rich and empty, and able to i provide for a more numerous posterity than it had. -"E|fij, Novurn? , rexva, SERMON XVII. THE MARRIAGE RING ; OR, THE MYSTERIOVS- NESS AND DUTIES OF MARRIAGE. Thi* is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.— Ephes. v" 32, 33. The first blessing God gave to man was society : and that society was a marriage, and that marriage was confederate by God himself, and hallowed by a blessing: and at the same time, and for very many de- scending ages, not only by the instinct of Brcnck. You that are rich, Numenius, you may , multiply your family ; poor men are not so 1 fond of children, but when a family could drive their herds, and set their children upon camels, and lead them till they saw a i fat soil watered with rivers, and there sit ! down without paying rent, they thought of nothing but to have great families, that their own relations might swell up to a pa- triarchate, and their children be enough to possess all the regions that they saw, and | their grandchildren become princes, and themselves build cities, and call them by the name of a child, and become the fouu- ! tain of a nation. This was the consequent , of -the first blessing, "increase and multi- ply." The next blessing was, " the pro- | mise of the Messias," and that also in- creased in men and women a wonderful desire of marriage : for as soon as God had chosen the family of Abraham to be the : blessed line, from whence the world's Re- deemer should descend according to the flesh, every of his daughters hoped to have the honour to be his mother, or his grand mother, or something of his kindred : and i to be childless in Israel was a sorrow to the Hebrew women great as the slavery of Egypt, or their dishonours in the land of ' their captivity. f But when the Messias was come, and the doctrine was published, and his minis- ters but few, and his disciples were to suffer persecution, and to be of an unsettled dwell- ing, and the nation of the Jews, in the bosom and society of which the church especially did dwell, were to be scattered and broken * Quemlibet hominem cui non est uxor, mini- mo esse hominem ; cum etiam in scriptura dicatur, ''Masculum et fceminam creavit eos, et vocavit nomen eorum Adam seu hominem." R. Eliezer dixit in Gen Bab. Quicunque negligit prasceptum de multiplications humani generis, habendum esse velut homicidam. t Christiani et apud Athenas, t*c toZ *y*uiou ; x*i iiptyxuUv cfixatf, refert Julius Pollux 1. 3. Trtpt dy'ifxmr. Idem etiam Lacedaemone et Roma?. ! Vide Festum verb. Uxorium atque ibi Jos. Seal l2 126 THE MARRIAGE RING. Serm. XVII. in pieces with fierce calamities, and the world was apt to calumniate and suspect and dishonour Christians upon pretences and unreasonable jealousies, and that to all these purposes the state of marriage brought many inconveniences: it pleased God in this new creation to inspire into the hearts of his servants a disposition and strong de- sires to live a single life, lest the state of marriage should in that conjunction of things become an accidental impediment to the dissemination of the gospel, which called men from a confinement in their domestic charges, to travel, and flight, and poverty, and difficulty, and martyrdom : upon this necessity the apostles and apos- tolical men published doctrines, declaring the advantages of single life, not by any commandment of the Lord, but by the spi- rit of prudence, Sia trjv eveatusaw avdyx^v, for the present and then incumbent ne- cessities, " and in order to the advantages which did accrue to the public ministries and private piety.* " There are some (said j our blessed Lord) who make themselves1 eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven," that is, for the advantages and the ministry of the Gospel, "non ad vitae bonae meritum" (as St. Austin in the like case) ; not that it is a better service of God in itself,f but that it is useful to the first circumstances of the gospel and the infancy of the king- dom, because the unmarried person does utpi/jLvav ta tov xvplov, " is apt to spiritual and ecclesiastical employments;" first aywj, and then dyia^o^voj, " holy in his own per- son, and then sanctified to public minis- tries;" and it was also of ease to the Chris- tians themselves, because, as then it was, when they were to flee, and to flee for aught they knew in winter, and they were persecuted to the four winds of heaven ; and the nurses and the women with child were to suffer a heavier load of sorrow be- cause of the imminent persecutions; and above all, because of the great fatality of ruin upon the whole nation of the Jews, well it might be said by St. Paul, ^utyv (jopjet 'i%ovrjw ol tctovtoi, *' such shall have * Etiam Judaei, qui praeceptum esse viris ttai- ftiroiiliv aiunt, uno ore concedunt, tamen dispen- satum esse cum iis qui assiduo legis studio vacare volunt, alias etiam immunibus ab acriori carnis stimulo. — Maimon. 15. Halach. Ishoth. t Ov xpcyo) 6i rov; \oittov; piaKapto'^, on yapots npooa)- p0M|W W ipvfiozriv dprc cvx^fiai yhp (i^tog Oeov evpcOeis wp6f ro?f \\vcaiv avrw cijpt^tfuai iv Tt) (iaaCkt'la a* *A/?pa- ' ir/j, koI 'Ivaaic, nal rIa*w/?, w; Iwot), ksu "leaaiov Kal rwi/ ) a\Xu)v ■nporpT)T>T)v, «y Hirpov Kal ]~lav\ov, Kai rwr uXVx'v imrr6\ft'6o/wat, " I do this to spare you," and ifids a/jLtplfivovt tlvox : for when the case was altered, and that storm was over, and the first necessities of the gospel served, and " the sound was gone out into all na- tions;" in very many persons it was wholly changed, and not the married but the un- married had Sfkl^iv h aapxi, " trouble in thp flesh ;" and the state of marriage returned to its first blessing, ** et non erat bonum homini esse solitarium," " and it was not good for man to be alone." But in this first interval, the public ne- cessity and the private zeal mingling to- gether did sometimes overact their love of single life, even to the disparagement of marriage, and to the scandal of religion ; which was increased by the occasion of some pious persons renouncing their con- tract of marriage, not consummate, with believers. For when Flavia Domitilla, being converted by Nereus and Achilleus the eu- nuchs, refused to marry Aurelianus, to whom she was contracted ; if there were not some little envy and too sharp hostility in the eunuchs to a marriage state, yet Au- relianus thought himself an injured person, and caused St. Clemens, who veiled her, and his spouse both, to die in the quarrel. St. Thecla being converted by St. Paul, grew so in love with virginity, that she leaped back from the marriage of Tamyris, where she was lately engaged. St. Iphi- genia denied to marry king Hyrtacus, and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew. And Susanna, the niece of Dioclesian, refused the love of Maximianus the emperor; and these all had been be- trothed ; and so did St. Agnes, and St. Felicula, and divers other then and after- ward: insomuch, that it was reported among the gentiles, that the Christians did not only hate all that were not of their per- suasion, but were enemies of the chaste laws of marriage; and indeed some that were called Christians were so; "forbid- ding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." Upon this occasion it grew necessary for the apostle to state the ques- tion right, and to do honour to the holy rite of marriage, and to snatch the mystery from the hands of zeal and folly, and to place it in Christ's right hand, that all its beauties might appear, and a present con- Serm. XVII. THE MARRIAGE RING. venience might not bring in a false doctrine, 1 and a perpetual sin, and an intolerable mis- chief. The apostle, therefore, who himself* had been a married man, but was now a widower, does explicate the mysteriousness of it, and describes its honours, and adorns it with rules and provisions of religion, that, as it begins with honour, so it may proceed with piety, and end with glory. For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity of affairs, such solitariness and sorrow, such leisure and inactive cir- cumstances of living, that there are more spaces for religion if men would use them to these purposes : and because it may have m it much religion and prayers, and must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appetites, it is therefore a state of great excellency ; yet concerning the state of marriage, we are taught from Scripture and the sayings of wise men, great things and honourable. M Marriage is honourable in all men;" so is not single life; for in some it is a snare and a rtvpusis, " a trouble in the flesh," a prison of unruly desires, which is attempted daily to be broken. Ce libate or single life is never commanded ; but in some cases marriage is ; and he that burns, sins often if he marries not ; he that cannot contain must marry, and he that can contain is not tied to a«single life, but may marry and not sin. Marriage was ordained b/ God, instituted in Paradise, was the re- lief of a natural necessity, and the first blessing from the Lord ; he gave to man not a friend, but a wife, that is, a friend and a wife too (for a good woman is in her soul the same that a man is, and she is a woman only in her body ; that she may have the excellency of the one, and the usefulness of the other, and become amiable in both): it is the seminary of the church, and daily brings forth sons and daughters unto God : it was ministered to by angels, and Raphael waited upon a young man that he might have a blessed marriage, and that that mar- riage might repair two sad families, and bless all their relatives. Our blessed Lord, though he was born of a maiden, yet she was veiled under the cover of marriage, and she was married to a widower ; for Jo- seph the supposed father of our Lord had * Ylhpov Kal Ylav\nv Kal ruv 'ArrooroXwf twi' yd/iO({ rpoaOjn\r)aavTto'j ovk tnrd npo&i'iiia; rik repl to irpayfta, dXX' £7r' iwola; larnw rov ytvevg ea\ov bccivovs. Ignatius epistol. ad Philadelph. Et Clemens idem ait apud Eusehium Hist. Eccles. lib. 3. sed tamen earn non circumduxit sicui Petrus : probat autem ex Philip. 4. children by a former wife. The first mira- cle that ever Jesus did, was to do honour to a wedding; marriage was in the world before sin, and is in all ages of the world the greatest and most effectual antidote against sin, in which all the world Ivad perished, if God had not made a remedy : and although sin hath soured marriage, and stuck the man's head with cares, and the woman's bed with sorrows in the produc- tion of children ; yet these are but throes of life and glory, and " she shall be saved in child-bearing, if she be found in faith and righteousness." Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue; and though marriage hath cares, yet the single life hath desires, which are more troublesome and more dan- gerous, and often end in sin, while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety : and therefore, if single life hath more privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety of it, and is an exercise of more graces. In two virtues, celibate or single life may have the advantage of degrees ordinarily and commonly, — that is, in chastity and devo- tion : but as in some persons this may fail, and it does in very many, and a married man may spend as much time in devotion as any virgins or widows do ; yet as in marriage even those virtues of chastity and devotion are exercised : so in other in- stances, this state hath proper exercises and trials for those graces, for which single life can never be crowned ; here is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the duty of parents and the charity of relatives ;* here kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre: marriage is the nursery of heaven ; the virgin sends prayers to God, but she carries but one soul to him ; but the state of marriage fills up the numbers of the elect, and hath in it the labour of love, and the delicacies of friendship, the blessing of society, and the union of hands and hearts; it hath in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single life; it hath more care, hut less danger ; it is more merry, and more sad ; is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys ; it lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the strengths of love and charity, t Xeti T«C dttytvw $Crtai( dv7t%fT$Stt TW Ta?cfatc 7TAlSm KAret>M7T0VTI dtl T<0 $t<0 im^ATAt dvQ AjTOU iraLpASifivM. — P LATO. Adde quod Funuchus nulla pietate movetur, Nec generi natisve cavet : dementia cunctis In similes, animosque ligaat consortia damni. Claudiaw. 128 THE MARRIAGE RING. Serm. XVII. and those burdens are delightful. Marriage is the mother of the world,* and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches, and heaven itself. Celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and di^s in singularity ; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house and gathers sweet- ness from every flower, and labours and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with deli- cacies, and obeys their king, and keeps or- der, and exercises many virtues, and pro- motes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world. Vovvsxev h'ds6/xu>$ o,?jo%ov TmBs, xai twa xotuc) Brtjx. Single life makes men in one instance to be like angels, but marriage in very many things makes the chaste pair to be like to Christ. "This is a great mystery," but it is the symbolical and sacramental represen- tation of the greatest mysteries of our reli- gion. Christ descended from his father's bosom, and contracted his divinity with flesh and blood, and married our nature, and we became a church, the spouse of the Bride- groom, which he cleansed with his blood, and gave her his Holy Spirit for a dowry, and heaven for a jointure ; begetting child- ren unto God by the gospel. This spouse he hath joined to himself by an excellent •harity, he feeds her at his own table, and lodges her nigh his own heart, provides for all her necessities, relieves her sorrows, de- termines her doubts, guides her wanderings, he is become her head, and she is a signet upon his right hand, he first indeed was betrothed to the synagogue, and had many children by her, but she forsbok her love, and then he married the church of the gentiles, and by her as by a second venter had a more numerous issue, " atque unadomus est om- nium filiorum ejus," ».? all the children dwell in the same house," and are heirs of the same promises, entitled to the same in- heritance. Here is the eternal conjunction, the indissoluble knot, the exceeding love of Christ, the obedience of the spouse, the * VLaika Tfi 7r&f&triii( kuchma' Tct^biiin cfi Tcy 8icv '"htTti av 7t5ti UASLrTctu'iv».. — BrtjNCK. Siquis patrtam majorem parenteral exiinguit, in eo culpa est, quod facit pro sua parte qui se eunuchat aut aliqua liheros producit, i. e. diffbrt eorum pro- creationem. Varro in "lege Ma;nie." communicating of goods, the uniting of in- terests, the fruit of marriage, a celestial gene- ration, a new creature : " Sacramentum hoc magnum est;" "This is the sacramental mystery," represented by the holy rite of marriage ; so that marriage is divine in its institution, sacred in its union, holy in the mystery, sacramental in its signification, honourable in its appellative, religious in its employments : it is advantage to the socie- ties of men, and it is "holiness to the Lord." " Dico autem in Christo et ecclesia," " It must be in Christ and the church " If this be not observed, marriage loses its mysteriousness : but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies, it concerns all that enter into those golden fetters to see that Christ and his church be in at every of its periods, and that it be entirely con- ducted and overruled by religion; for so the apostle passes from the sacramental rite to the real duty; "Nevertheless," that is, al- though the former discourse were wholly to explicate the conjunction of Christ and his church by this similitude, yet it hath in it this real duty, " that the man love his wife, and the wife reverence her husband ;" and this is the use we shall now make of it, the particulars of which precept I shall thus dis- pose : 1. I shall propoynd the duty as it gene- rally relates to man and wife in conjunction. 2. The duty and power of the man. 3. The rights and privileges and the duty of the wife. 1. "In Christo et ecclesia;" that begins all, and there is great need it should be so : for they that enter into the state of marriage, cast a die of the greatest contingency, and yet of the greatest interest in the world, next to the last throw for eternity. Nuv yap brj 7i6.vt£66tv irii %vpov latatai ax/xiri, iLtAD. Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow, are in the power of marriage. A woman in- deed ventures most, for she hath no sanctu- ary to retire to from an evil husband ; she must dwell upon her sorrow, and hatch the eggs which her own folly or infelicity hath produced ; and she is more under it, be- cause her tormentor hath a warrant of pre- rogative, and the woman may complain to God as subjects do of tyrant princes, but otherwise she hath no appeal in the cause of unkindness. And though the man can run from many hours of his sadness, yet he must return to it again, and when he sita Serm. XVII. THE MARRIAGE RING 129 among his neighbours, he remembers the ob- band of affections to tie two hearts together jection that lies in his bosom- and he sighs deeply. Ah turn te miserum. malique fati, Quern, attractis pedibus, patente porta, Percurrent mugilesque raphanique.* Catull. The boys, and the pedlers, and the fruit- erers, shall tell of this man, when he is carried to his grave, that he lived and died a poor wretched person. The stags in the Cireek epigram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow upon the mountains, came by a tittle thread of red and white. Ovfifjtuar (9^511' rt rpaytjiSta) %Qvr;a£ xaWtoj as rtoatr lumopov. And they can love no longer but until the next ague comes j and they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy, or the small-pox, or childbearing, or care, or time, or any thing that can destroy a pretty flower/ But it is the basest of all, when lust is the down to the brooks of the valleys, gfegitu paranymph, and solicits the suit, and makes wrf pots vdpwsiv &XV yow, " hoping to thaw the contract, and joins the hands ; for this is their joints with the waters of the stream ;"* ' but there the frost overtook them and bound them fast in ice, till the young herdsmen took them in their stranger snare. It is the unhap- py chance of many men, finding many incon- veniencies upon the mountains of single life, they descend into the valleys off marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or woman's peevishness : and the worst of the evil is, they are to thank their own follies 5 for they fell into the j snare by eUering an improper way : Christ and the church were no ingredients in their choice : but as the Indian women enter into So Eubulus wittily reprehended such un- commonly the effect of the former, according to the Greek proverb : *AXk rjot 7tpu>rt5T? *£& (0 ?.dyoj frit.) fore a good man,") and show themselves to xai avro r capf flrat xat ijtiOvfmam Sof^ xa?.r. be less than money, by overvaluing that to all j capxixus ti&v, xai §qmpt*pcus 81 ov tsOavuaxs. the content and wise felicity of their lives ; xptvaroa, said St. Clement : " He or she that and when they have counted the money and t looks too curiously upon the beauty of the their sorrows together, how willingly would j body, looks too low, and hath flesh and theyf buy, with the loss of all that money, 1 corruption in his heart, and is judged sen- modesty, or sweet nature, to their relative! jsual and earthly in his affections and de- the odd thousand pounds would gladly be sires." Begin therefore with God; Christ allowed in good nature and fair manners, is the president of marriage, and the Holy As very a fool is he that chooses for beauty§ Ghost is the fountain of purities and chaste principally; " cui sunt eruditi oculi, et stul- loves, and he joins the hearts; and there- ta mens," (as one said,) " whose eyes are! fore let our first suit be in the court of witty, and their souls sensual ;" it is an ill * Brunei. An. 2. 135. t *A%m: ay «c aryetuoc. tscj/uwii, Travrtt $c,ku C"ci 'Ev tcS ilvAi TcrysL^-a twv d}*3-(3y. E/9' orav uoh&f ysuxvrrt, ?rd>-iv tifrv J'cKti an 'Ev Tu £gi iivsu criivrst mtK'lv va x&xa. 'Axxa '/ji'Ai tixym, Sec. t Non ego illam mini dotem duco esse, quae dos dicitur ; Sed pudicitiam, et pudorem, et sedatum, cupi- dinem, Deum metum, parenlum amorem, et cogna- turn concordiam. Plaut. in Amphit. 2. 2. 209. $ Facies, non uxor amatur. 17 heaven, and with designs of piety, or safety, or charity ; let no impure spirit defile the virgin purities and "castifications of the soul 99 (as St. Peter's phrase is) ; let all such contracts begin with religious affections. Conjugium petimus. partumque uxoris ; at illis Notum, que pueri, qualisve futura sit uxor. Juv. " We sometimes beg of God for a wife or a * Tres rugae subeant, et se cutis arida laxet, Fiant obscuri dentes, oculique minores, " Collige sarcinulas (dicet libertus) et exi," Juven. Sat. 6. 130 THE MARRIAGE RING. Serm. XVII. child; and he alone knows what the wife shall prove, and by what dispositions and manners, and into what fortune that child shall enter:" bat we shall not need to fear concerning the event of it, if religion, and fair intentions, and prudence, manage and conduct it all the way. The preservation of a family, the production of children, the avoiding fornications, the refreshment of our sorrows by the comforts of society ; all these are fair ends of marriage, and hallow the en- trance; but in these there is a special order; society was the first designed, " It is not good for man to be alone — children was the next, " Increase and multiply ;" — but the avoiding fornication came in by the superfoetation of the evil accidents of the world. The first makes marriage delectable, and the second necessary to the public, and the third neces- sary to the particular ; this is for safety, for life, and heaven itself ; Nam simulac venas inflavit tetra libido, Hue juvenes eequum est descendere ; Hor. The other have in them joy and a portion of immortality : the first makes the man's heart glad ; the second is the friend of kingdoms, and cities, and families ; and the third is the enemy to hell, and an antidote of the chief- est inlet to damnation ; but of all these the noblest end is the multiplying children. " Mundus cum patet, Deorum tristium atque inferum quasi patet janua ; propterea uxo- rem, liberorum quaerendorum causa, ducere religiosum est," said Varro ; " it is religion to marry for children f and duintilian put it into the definition of a wife, " est enim uxor quam jungit, quam diducit utilitas ; cujus haec reverentia est, quod videtor in- venta in causa liberorum ;" and therefore St. Ignatius, when he had spoken of Elias, and Titus, and Clement, with an honourable mention of their virgin-state, lest he might seem to have lessened the married apostles, at whose feet in Christ's kingdom he thought himself unworthy to sit, he gives this testi- mony,— they were tol$ ydfioi$ Tt^oao^CkYisavtE^ ov% vrtb rtpodvfilas irfi rtfpt to rtpay^a, a?JK vrl twolas tavtutv tov yhov$ etf^ov ixHvovf, "that they might not be disparaged in their great names of holiness and severity, they were secured by not marrying to satisfy their lower appe- tites, but out of desire of children."! Other considerations, if they be incident and by way of appendage, are also considerable in the accounts of prudence: but when they * Macrobius ex Varrone. t Epist. ad Philadelph. become principles, they defile the mystery, and make the blessing doubtful: "Amabit sapiens, cupient coeteri," said Afranius ; " Love is a fair inducement, but desire and appetite are rude, and the characterisms of a sensual person:" — "Amare justi et boni est, cupere impotentis ;" " To love belongs to a just and a good man : but to lust, or furiously or passionately to desire, is the sign of impotency and an unruly mind." 2. Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation : every lit- tle thing can blast an infant blossom ; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new-weaned boy ; but when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tem- pest, and yet never be broken : so are the early unions of an unfixed marriage ; watch- ful and observant, jealous and busy, inqui- sitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word. For infirmities do not manifest themselves in the first scenes, but in the succession of a long society j and it is not chance or weakness when it appears at first, but it is want of love or prudence, or it will be so expounded ; and that which appears ill at first, usually affrights the in- experienced man or woman, who makes unequal conjectures, and fancies mighty sorrows by the proportions of the new and early unkindness. It is a very great pas- sion, or a huge folly, or a certain want of love, that cannot preserve the colours and beauties of kindness, so long as public honesty requires a man to wear their sor- rows for the death of a friend. Plutarch compares a new marriage to a vessel before the hoops are on ; peta apxas vnb trji Tfvxovdr]? /'aouoj StatfrtatfcH 7tpo$a.uuo-j >.Cr::x x*i 3'*7aT». — Bru.VCK. ! t Quaedam parva quidem, sed non toleranda| man us. — Jcv. I remembering, that discontents proceeding from daily little things, do breed a secret undiscernible disease, which is more dan- gerous than a fever proceeding from a dis- cerned notorious surfeit 4- Let them be sure to abstain from all those things, which by experience and observation they find to be contrary to each other. They that govern elephants never appear before them in white ; and the mas- ters of bulls keep from them all garments of blood and scarlet, as knowing that they will be impatient of civil usages and dis- cipline, when their natures are provoked by their proper antipathies. The ancients in their marital hieroglyphics used to depict Mercury standing by Venus, to signify, that by fair language and sweet entreaties, the minds of each other should be united ; and hard by them, " Suadam et Gratias descrip- serunt," they would have all deliciousness of manners, compliance, and mutual ob- servance to abide.* 5. Let the husband and wife infinitely avoid a curious distinction of mine and thine; for this hath caused all the laws, and all the suits, and all the wars, in the world : let them, who have but one person, have also but one interest. The husband and wile are heirs to each other (as Dionv- sius Halicarnasseus relates from Romulus) if they die without children ; but if there be children, the wife is rue recur:: i-ouo^c:, a partner in the inheritance.'* But during their life, the use and employment is com- mon to both their necessities, and in this there is no other difference of right, but that the man hath the dispensation of all, and may keep it from his wife, just as the governor of a town may keep it from the right owner; he hath the power, but no right to do so. And when either of them begins to impropriate, it is like a tumour in the flesh, it draws more than its share ; but what it feeds on, turns to a bile; and therefore, the Romans forbade any dona- tions to be made between man and wife, because neither of them could transfer a new right of those things, which already they had in common : but this is to be un- derstood only concerning the uses of ne- cessity and personal conveniences ; for so all may be the woman's, and all may be the man's, in several regards. Corvinus dwells in a farm and receives all its profits, *_ Hujus enim rari summique voluptas Nulla boui. queues ammo corrupia superbo Flus aloes quam mellishabet — Jttylx. Sa:. 6. 132 THE MARRI AGE RING. Serm. XVIII. and reaps and sows as he please, and eats of the corn and drinks of the wine — it is his own ; but all that also is his lord's, and for it Corvinus pays acknowledgment ; and his patron hath such powers and uses of it as are proper to the lords ; and yet for all this, it may be the king's too, to all the pur- poses that he can need, and is all to be accounted in the census and for certain ser- vices and times of danger : so are the riches of a family ; they are a woman's as well as a man's ; they are hers for need, and hers for ornament, and hers for modest delight, and for the uses of religion and prudent charity ; but the disposing them into por- tions of inheritance, the assignation of charges and governments, stipends and rewards, annuities and greater donatives, are the reserves of the superior right, and not to be invaded by the under-possessors. But in those things, where they ought to be common, if the spleen of the belly swells and draws into its capacity much of that which should be spent upon those parts, which have an equal right to be main- tained,— it is a dropsy or a consumption of the whole, something that is evil because it is unnatural and monstrous. Macarius, in his thirty-second Homily, speaks fully in this particular ; a woman betrothed to a man bears all her portion, and with a mighty love pours it into the hands of her husband, and says, ipbv oi8h t%u, " I have nothing of my own ;" my goods, my por- tion, my body, and my mind, are yours. Nojbup yap ariwta yiyvt tcu -toy yeya^xoto^, tbv 7t'kov'tov, ti]v hb%ow, t'ovj £rtcu,vov$, "All that a woman hath, is reckoned to the right of her husband ; not her wealth and her person only, but her reputation and her praise ;" so Lucian.* But as the earth, the mother of all creatures here below, sends up all its vapours and proper emissions at the command of the sun, and yet requires them again to refresh her own needs, and they are deposited between them both in the bosom of a cloud, as a common recepta- cle, that they may cool his flames, and yet descend to make her fruitful; so are the proprieties of a wife to be disposed of by her lord ; and yet all are for her provisions, it being a part of his need to refresh and sup- ply hers, and it serves the interest of both while it serves the necessities of either. These are the duties of them both, which have common regards and equal necessities and obligations ; and, indeed, there is scarce any matter of duty, but it concerns them both alike, and is only distinguished by names, and hath its variety by circum- stances and little accidents : and what in one is called " love," in the other is called "reverence;" and what in the wife is " obedience," the same in the man is "duty." He provides, and she dispenses; he gives commandments, and she rules by them ; he rules by authority, and she rules him by love; she ought by all means to please him, and he must by no means dis- please her. For as the heart is set in the midst of the body, and though it strikes to one side by the prerogative of nature, yel those throbs and constant motions are felt on the other side also, and the influence is equal to both: so it is in conjugal duties ; some motions are to the one side more than to the other, but the interest is on both, and the duty is equal in the several instances. If it be otherwise, the man enjoys a wife as Periander did his dead Melissa, by an unna- tural union, neither pleasing nor wholly use- less to all the purposes of society, and dead to content. SERMON XVIII. PART II. The next inquiry is more particular, and considers the power and duty of the man ; -f Let every one of you so love his wife even as himself ;" she is as himself, the man hath power over her as over himself, and must love her equally. A husband's power over his wife is paternal and friendly, not magisterial and despotic. The wife is in " perpetuatutela," under conduct and coun- sel ; for the power a man hath, is founded in the understanding, not in the will or force ; it is not a power of coercion, but a power of advice, and that government that wise men have over those, who are fit to be conducted by them : " Et vos in manu et in tutela non in servitio debetis habere eas; et malle patres vos, et viros, quam dominos deci," said Valerius in Livy ; "husbands should rather be fathers than lords." Ho- mer adds more soft appellatives to the cha- racter of a husband's duty ; rtatrjp /luv yap ed-ti avtij xai rtotvia fiy-trip, rfih xaaiyvrjto^, " Thou art to be a father and a mother to her, and a brother :" and great reason, un- less the state of marriage should be no bet- ter than the condition of an orphan. For Serm. XVIII. THE MARRIAGE RING. 133 she that is bound to leave father, and mother, and brother for thee, either is miserable like a poor fatherless child, or else ought to find all these, and more, in thee. Medea in Euripides had cause to complain when she found it otherwise. Tldvtozv 8', ocr' Xn-t t^v^a, xai yv^urjv TvvaLxi^ to/uiv a^>.iiora/rot> fyvtbv. *A$ Ttputfa uiv 8n xp^udtcov r7tfp,3o># Ylouv Ttpta/jSxu, 8i67i6?r(v ts ouifjiatos Aa3nv. Med. Which St. Ambrose * well translates : " It is sad, when virgins are with their own money sold to slavery ; and that services are in better state than marriages ; for they re- ceive wages, but these buy their fetters, and pay dear for their loss of liberty ;" and there- fore the Romans expressed the man's power over his wife but by a gentle word: "Nec vero mulieribus prcefectus reponatur, qui apud Groecos creari solet, sed sit censor qui viros doceat moderari uxoribus said Cice- ro ; (S Let there be no governor of the woman appointed, but a censor of manners, one to leach the men to moderate their wives," that is, fairly to induce them to the measures of their own proportions. It was rarely observ- ed of Philo, Ei to urj $arat, ^ yvvr] rv Z8u>xa$ fjuot, aXtJi, flit tfiov' ov yap e/xoi tbj xtr^a trv alaSritv t'Scoxa?, aM.a xai avtr;v atyr.xa^ avttbv xai itev&pov' " When Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating the forbidden fruit, he said, ' The woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me.' He says not, ' The woman which thou gavest to me,' no such thing ; she is none of his goods, none of his possessions, not to be reckon- ed amongst his servants ; God did not give her to him so ; but 'The woman thou gavest to be with me,' that is, to be my partner, the companion of my joys and sor- rows, thou gavest her for use, not for do- minion." The dominion of a man over his wife is no other than as the soul rules the body ; for which it takes a mighty care, and uses it with a delicate tenderness, and cares for it in all contingencies, and watches to keep it from all evils, and studies to make for it fair provisions, and very often is led by its inclinations and desires, and does never contradict its appetites, but when they are evil, and then also not without some trouble and sorrow ; and its government comes only to this, it furnishes the body with light and understanding, and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet ; the soul governs, because the body cannc t else be happy, but the government is no other than provision ; as a nurse governs a child, whpn she causes him to eat, and to be warm, and dry, and quiet : and yet even the veiy government itself is divided ; for man and wife in-lhe family, are as the sun and moon in the firmament of heaven ; he rules by day, and she by night, that is, in the lesser and more proper circles of her affairs, in the conduct of domestic provisions and neces- sary offices, and shines only by his light, and rules by his authority ; and as the moon in opposition to the sun shines brightest, that is, then, when she is in her own circles and separate regions ; so is the authority of the wife then most conspicuous when she is separate and in her proper sphere ; in "gynaeceo," in the nursery and offices of domestic employment : but when she is in conjunction with the sun her brother, that is, iri that place and employment in which his care and proper offices are employed, her light is not seen, her authority hath no proper business ; but else there is no differ- ence : for they were barbarous people, among whom wives were instead of servants, said Spartianus in Caracalla ; and it is a sign of impotency and weakness, to force the camels to kneel for their load, because thou hast not spirit and strength enough to climb ; to make the affections and evenness of a wife bend by the flexures of a servant, is a sign the man is not wise enough to govern wThen another stands by. So many differences as can be in the appellatives of " dominus " and "domina," governor and governess, lord and lady, master and mistress, the same difference there is in the authority of man and woman, and no more ; " Si tu Caius, ego' Caia," was publicly proclaimed upon the threshold of the young man's house when the bride entered into his hands and power ; and the title of " domina" in the sense of the civil law was among the Ro- mans given to wives. Hi Dominam Ditis thalamo deducere adorti, said Virgil :* where, though Servius says it was spoken after the manner of the Greeks, who called the wife ^ioTtowav, " lady," or "mistress," ye* it was so amongst both the nations. " Ac domus Dominam voca." says Catullus ;t " Haercbit Domina? vir comes ipse suae," so Mar- tial ; and therefore, although there is just measure * Exhor. ad virg. * .Eneid. 6. t Epithal. Julia?. M 134 THE MARRIAGE RING. Serm. XVIII. of subjection and obedience due from the wife to the husband (as I shall after explain,) yet nothing of this expressed is in the man's character, or in his duty ; he is not com- manded to rule, nor instructed how, nor bidden to exact obedience, or to defend his privilege; all his duty is signified by love, " by nourishing and cherishing,"* by being joined with her in all the unions of charity, by "not being bitter to her,"f by " dwelling with her according to knowledge, giving honour to her:"J so that it seems to be with husbands, as it is with bishops and priests, to whom much honour is due, but yet so that if they stand upon it, and challenge it, they become less honourable: and as amongst men and women humility is the way to be preferred ; so it is in husbands, they shall prevail by cession, by sweetness and counsel, and charity and compliance. »So that we cannot discourse of the man's right, without describing the measures of his duty ; that therefore follows next. " Let him love his wife even as himself :" — that is his duty, and the measure of it too; which is so plain, that if he understands how he treats himself, there needs nothing be added concerning his demeanour towards her, save only that we add the particulars, in which Holy Scripture instances this gene- ral commandment. Mj) 7iixpalv£t£. That is the first. " Be not bitter against her:" and this is the least in- dex and signification of love; a civil man is never bitter against a friend or a stranger, much less to him that enters under his roof, and is secured by the laws of hospitality. But a wife does all that and more ; she quits all her interest for his love, she gives him all that she can give, she is as much the same person as another can be the same, who is conjoined by love, and mystery, and religion, and all that is sacred and profane. Non equidem hoc dubites, amborum foedere certo Consentire dies, et ab uno sidere duci. — Pers. They have the same fortune, the same family, the same children, the same reli- gion, the same interest, " the same flesh," "enint duo in carnem unam;" and there- fore this the apostle urges for his fi^7tLXfmvst£f "iioman hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it;" and he certainly is strangely sacrilegious and a violator of the rights of hospitality and sanctuary, who uses her rudely, who is fled for protection, not only to his house, but also to his heart and * Bphes. v. 25. t Col. iii. 19. t Pet. iii. 7. ' bosom. A wise man will not wrangle with any one, much less with his dearest relative ; and if it is accounted indecent to embrace in public, it is extremely shameful to brawl in public : for the other is in itself lawful ; but this never, though it were assisted with the best circumstances of which it is capable. Marcus Aurelius said, that "a wise man ought often to admonish his wife, to reprove her seldom, but never to lay his hands upon her :"* " neque verberibus neque maledictis exasperandam uxorem," said the doctors of the Jews; and Homer brings in Jupiter sometimes speaking sharply to Juno, (ac- cording to the Greek liberty and empire,) but made a pause at striking her, Ov fxav old', si able xaxofipatyirjs aXsyeiv/rs Hpuitrj triavprjat, xai as rttyyrjaw i/xdaau,. Iliad. O'. And the ancients used to sacrifice to Juno yapj&xoj, or " the president of marriage," without gall ; and St. Basil observes and urges it, by way of upbraiding quarrelling husbands ; " Etiam vipera virus ob nuptia- rum veneralionem evomit," " The viper casts all his poison when he marries his female ; " Tu duritiam animi, tu feritatem, tu crudeli- tatem ob unionis reverentiam non deponis ?"f He is worse than a viper, who for the reve- rence of this sacred union will not abstain from such a poisonous bitterness ; and how shall he embrace that person whom he hath smitten reproachfully ; for those kindnesses are indecent which the fighting-man pays unto his wife. St. Chrysostom preaching earnestly against this barbarous inhumanity of striking the wife, or reviling her with evil language, says, it is as if a king should beat his viceroy and use him like a dog ; from whom most of that reverence and majesty must needs depart, which he first put upon him, and the subjects shall pay him less duty, how much his prince hath treated him with less civility ; but the loss redounds to himself; and the government of the whole family shall be disordered, if blows be laid upon that shoulder which to- gether with the other ought to bear nothing but the cares and the issues of a prudent government. And it is observable, that no * Ah lapis est ferrumque. suam quicunque puel- lam Verberat : e coelo deripit ille Deos. Sit satis e membris tenuem piacscindere vestem : Sit satis ornatus dissoluisse coma; : Sit lacrymas movisse satis ; quater ille beatus, Quo tenera irato Here puella potest. Sed manibus qui sajvus erit, scutumque sudcmque Is gerat, et miti sit procul a Venerc. — TlBtTLL. t Homil. 7 Ilexaiu. Sum. XVIII. THE MARRIAGE RING. 135 man ever did this rudeness for a virtuous end ; it is an incompetent instrument, and may proceed from wrath and folly, but can never end in virtue and the unions of a pru- dent and fair society. " Q,uod si verberave- ris, exasperabis morbum " (saith St. Chry- sostom): " asperitas enim mansuetudine, non alia»asperitate, dissolvitur ;w "If you strike, you exasperate the wound," and (like Cato at Utica in his despair) tear the wounds in pieces; and yet he that did so ill to him- self whom he loved well, he loved not wo- men tenderly, and yet would never strike; and if the man cannot endure her talking, aow can she endure his striking? But this caution contains a duty in it which none prevaricates, but the meanest of the people, fools and bedlams, whose kindness is a curse, whose government is by chance and violence, and their families are herds of talking cattle. Sic alternos reficit cursus Alternos Amor, sic astrigeris Bellum discors exulat oris. Haec concordia temperat aequis Eleraenta modis, ut pugnantia Vicibus cedant humida siccis, Jungantque fidem frigora flammis. The marital love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudenesses : it is a thing pure as light, sacred as a temple, last- ing as the world ; " Amicitia, quae desinere potuit, nunquam vera fuit," said one ; " That love, that can cease, was never true :" it is opsua, so Moses called it ; it is evmn, so St Paul; it is fOvttfi, so Homer; it is fi>flfrportuwy3 so Plutarch ; that is, it contains in it all "sweetness," and all "society," and "felicity," and all " prudence," and all " wisdom." For there is nothing can please a man without love ; and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the apostles, and of the innocency of an even and a private for- tune, or hates peace or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of paradise ; " for nothing can sweeten felicity itself, but love;* but when a man dwells in love, then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven, she is a fountain seal- ed, and he can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrow down upon her lap, and can retire home as to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments. No man can tell * Felices ter et amplius. Quo* irrupta tenet copula, nec malis Divulsos querimoniis. Suprema citius solve: amor die. — Horat. Od. but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges ; their childishness, their stammer- ing, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society ; but he that loves not his wife and children, feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows ; and blessing itself cannot make him happy ; so that all the commandments of God enjoining a man to "love his wife," are nothing but so many necessities and ca- pacities of joy. " She that is loved is safe, and he that loves is joyful." Love is a union of all things excellent; it contains in it proportion and satisfaction, and rest and confidence ; and I wish that this were so much proceeded in, that the heathens them- selves could not go beyond us in this virtue, and its proper and its appendant happiness. Tiberius Gracchus chose to die for the safety of his wife; and yet methinks for a Chris- tian to do so should be no hard thing ; for many servants will die for their masters, and many gentlemen will die for their friend ; but the examples are not so many of those that are ready to do it for their dearest rela- tives, and yet some there have been. Bap- tista Fregosa tells of a Neapolitan, that gave himself a slave to the -Moors that he might follow his wife ; and Dominicus Catalusius. the prince of Lesbos, kept company with his lady when she was a leper : and these are greater things than to die. But the cases in which this can be re- quired are so rare and contingent, that Holy Scripture instances not the duty in this par- ticular ; but it contains in it, that the hus- band should nourish and cherish her, that he should refresh her sorrows and entice her fears into confidence and pretty arts of rest; for even the fig trees that grew in paradise had sharp-pointed leaves, and harshnesses fit to mortify the too-forward lusting after the sweetness of the fruit. But it will concern the prudence of the husband's love to make the cares and evils as simple and easy as he can, by doubling the joys and acts of a careful friendship, by tolerating her infirmities,* (because by so doing, he either cures her, or makes himself better,) by fairly expounding ail * Uxoris vitium tollas opus est. aut fern* : Qui tollit vitium, uxorem commodiusculam sibi prcestat ; Qui fert, sese meliorem fach. — Yarro. 136 THE MARRIAGE RING. Serm. XVIII. the little traverses of society and communi- ; This is a grace that is shut up and secured cation,, u by taking every thing by the right by all arts of heaven, and the defence of handle/' as Plutarch-s expression is; for 'laws, the locks and bars of modesty, by there is nothing but may be misinterpreted, j honour and reputation, by fear and shame, and yet if it be capable of a fair construe- [by interest and high regards ; and that con- tion, it is the office of love to make it. -Ev Uysiv A , or' av n te^yj, %pr: Soxsiv, xav fxr] fciyfl. Kaxxovtiv, °Av to %vvovti Ttpoj ^aptv (xb."Krj TJysiv. Eurip. tract that is intended to be for ever, is yet dissolved, and broken by the violation of this; nothing but death can do s% much evil to the holy rites of marriage, as un- chastity and breach of faith can. The shepherd Gratis falling in love with a she- goat, had his brains beaten out with a buck Love will account that to be well said, which, it may be, was not so intended; and I as he lay asleep ; and by the laws of the then it may cause it to be so another time. Romans, a man might kill his daughter or Hither also is to be referred that he his wife, if he surprised her in the breach sWure the interest of her virtue and felicity of her holy vows, which are as sacred as by a fair example ; for a wife to a husband the threads of life, secret as the privacies of is a line or superficies, it hath dimensions of its own, but no motion or proper affec- tions ; but commonly puts on such images the sanctuary, and holy as the society of angels. " Nulloe sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae and God that commanded us to of virtues or vices as are presented to her forgive our enemies, left it in our choice, by her husband's idea; and if thou beest vicious, complain not that she is infected that lies in thy bosom ; the interest of whose loves ties her to transcribe thy copy, and write after the characters of thy manners. Paris was a man of pleasure, and Helena was an adulteress, and she added covetous- and hath not commanded us to forgive an adulterous husband or a wife; but the of- fended party's displeasure may pass into an eternal separation of society and friendship. Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdom and severity of the man should hold forth a pure taper, that his wife may, by seeing the ness upon her own account. But Ulysses beauties and transparency of that crystal, was a prudent man, and a wary counsellor, dress her mind and her body by the light of sober and severe ; and he efformed his wife i so pure reflections ; it is certain he will ex- into such imagery as he desired; and she pect from the modesty and retirement, from was chaste as the snows upon the moun- the passive nature and colder temper, from tains, diligent as the fatal sisters, always busy, and always faithful; ykuisav fiiv apyjjv, £«pa 61 tlx** ipyurr-v, "she had a lazy tongue, and a busy hand." the humility and fear, from the honour and love, of his wife, that she be pure as the eye of heaven : and therefore it is but rea- son that the wisdom and nobleness, the love 4. Above all the instances of love let him and confidence, the strength and severity, preserve towards her an inviolate faith, and of the man, should be as holy and certain an unspotted chastity;* for this is the mar- j in this grace, as he is a severe exacter of riage ring, it ties two hearts by an eternal jit at her hands, who can more easily be band ; it is like the cherubim's flaming tempted by another, and less by herself, sword, set for the guard of paradise; he | These are the little lines of a man's duty, that passes into that garden, now that it is ' which, like threads of light from the body immured by Christ and the church, enters | of the sun, do clearly describe all the re- into the shades of death. No man must' gions of his proper obligations. Now con- touch the forbidden tree, that in the midst j cerning the woman's duty, although it of the garden, which is the tree of know- j consists in doing whatsoever her husband ledge and life. Chastity is the security of j commands, and so receives measures from love, and preserves all the mysteriousness i the rules of his government, yet there are like the secrets of a temple. Under this also some lines of life depicted upon her lock is deposited security of families, the j hands, by which she may read and know union of affections, the repairer of acci- dental breaches. -Kcu axpera vtlxio. avW Etj tvvrp (xviioxut. ouuiOrvai tyO&tr^i. Iliad. % how to proportion out her duty to her hus- band. 1. The first is obedience ; which, because it is no where enjoined that the man should exact of her, but often commanded to her to pay, gives demonstration that it is a vo- StlRM. XVIII. THE MARRIAGE RING. 137 luntary cession lhat is required ; such a i cession as must be without coercion and I violence on his part, but upon fair induce- ments, and reasonableness in the thing, and 1 out of love and honour on her part. When j God commands us to love him, he means we should obey him ; w This is love, that ye keep my commandments f and M if ye i love me 99 (saith our Lord) :e keep my com- : mandments :" now as Christ is to the church, so is man to the wife : and there- fore obedience is the best instance of her : love ; for it proclaims her submission, her 1 humility, her opinion of his wisdom, his pre-eminence in the family, the right of his privilege, and the injunction imposed by God upon her, sex, that although in sorrow she bring forth children, yet with love and choice she should obey. The man's au- thority is love, and the woman's love is obedience ; and it was not rightly observed of him that said, when the woman fell, iC God made her timorous, that she might be ruled," apt and easy to obey; for this obedience is no way founded in fear, but in love and reverence. " Receptae reverentiae j est, si mulier viro subsit," said the law ;* j unless also that we will add, that it is an effect of that modesty which like rubies adorns the necks and cheeks of women. " Pudicitia est, pater, eos magnificare, qui nos socias sumpserunt sibi,"f said the maiden in the comedy : " it is modesty to advance and highly to honour them, who have honoured us by making us to be the companions " of their dearest excellencies ; for the woman, that went before the man in the way of death, is commanded to follow him in the way of love ; and that makes the society to be perfect, and the union profit- able, and the harmony complete. Inferior matrona suo sit, Sexte, marito ; Non aliter fuerint fcemina virque pares. Mart. For then the soul and body make a perfect man, when the soul commands wisely, or rules lovingly, and cares profitably, and pro- vides plentifully, and conducts charitably lhat body which is its partner, and yet the inferior. But if the body shall give laws, and, by the violence of the appetite, first abuse the un- derstanding, and then possess the superior portion of the will and choice, the body and soul are not apt company, and the man is a fool, and miserable. If the soul rules not, it * C. alia D. se. lut. Matrim. t Plautus in Sticho. 18 cannot be a companion; either it must govern, or be a slave ; never was king deposed and suffered to live in the state of peerage and equal honour, but made a prisoner, or put to death ; and those women, that had rather lead the blind than follow prudent guides, rule fools and easy men than obey the powerful and wise, never made a good so- ciety in a house : a wife never can become equal but by obeying; but so her power, while it is in minority, makes up the au- thority of the man integral, and becomes one government, as themselves are one man. " Male and female created he them, and called their name Adam," saith the Holy Scripture ;* they are but one : and there- fore, the several parts of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed, that the lower parts may do their office in their own station, and promote the common interest of the whole. A ruling woman is intolerable. Faciunt graviora coactae Imperio sexus. Juvenal. But that is not all ; for she is miserable too : for, Ta fevttptia, trjv yuvatxa 8el "k&ytiv, Tjjv 8' viytuovlav tZ>v oTuov tbv av8p t^Jtv. Stob. It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joined to a fool or a weak person ; it is like a guard of geese to keep the capitol ; or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lec- tures to their shepherd, and give him orders where he shall conduct them to pasture. "O vere Phrygian, neque enim Phryges:" it is a curse that God threatened sinning persons; "Devoratum est robur eorum, facti sunt quasi mulieres. Effoeminati do- minabuntur eis ;"f " to be ruled by weaker people ;" doixov ysvso^o-i rtapafypovovvtos 8sGrt6 *ov3% "to have a fool to one's master," is the fate of miserable and unblessed people : and the wife can be no ways happy, unless she be governed by a prudent lord, whose commands are sober counsels, whose au- thority is paternal, whose orders are provi- sions, and whose sentences are charity. But now concerning the measures and limits of this obedience, we can best take accounts from Scripture : fa rtavti, saith the apostle, " in all things ;"§ "ut Domino," as to the Lord ;" and that is large enough ; " as unto a lord," " ut ancilla domino •" * Gen. v. 2. X Arist. Plut. M 2 t Isa. iii. 4. § Ephes. v. 24. 138 THE MARRIAGE RING. Serm. XVIII. so St. Jerome understands it, who neither was a friend to the sex, nor to marriage ; but his mistake is soon confuted by the text; it is not "utdominis," be subject to your husbands " as unto lords," but t§ Kvpi'9, that is, " in all religion," in reverence and in love, in duty and zeal, in faith and know- ledge ; or else coj ^9 Kvpua may signify, " wives be subject to your husbands ; but yet so, that at the same time ye be subject to the Lord." For that is the measure of iv 7to.vti, " in all things ;" and it is more plain in the parallel place, dvrxsv iv Kvpta, " as it is fit in the Lord :"* religion must be the measure of your obedience and subjection : 4f intra limites disciplines :" so Tertullian expresses it. Hdvra pen ro dvopi 7tsC$o(xtvrt, of uir&v, dxovro$ ixslvov, rtpaljcu rtoth, rO.rv 600. ft$ apjr^f xai ootyiav Sia^'pEiv po/Ufr£Wou>' so Cle- mens Alex.f " In all things let the wife be subject to the husband, so as to do nothing against his will ; those only things excepted, in which he is impious or refractory in things pertaining to wisdom and piety." But in this also there is some peculiar caution. For although in those things which are of the necessary parts of faith and holy life, the woman is only subject to Christ, who only is and can be Lord of con- sciences, and commands alone where the conscience is instructed and convinced : yet as it is part of the man's office to be a teacher, and a prophet, and a guide, and a master ; so also it will relate very much to the demonstration of their affections to obey his counsels, to imitate his virtues, to be directed by his wisdom, to have her persua- sion measured by the lines of his excellent religion: ovx ^ttov 8s asfivbv dxovaai yapttrjs' ?.£yov(jr$, dvyp ov fioi hsi xa^yr^tr^ xai $i?JOGcfyo$ \ xai &iSd'jxa%o$ tW xaXiiaiw xai ^siotdr'cov. "It were hugely decent," saith Plutarch,] " that the wife should acknowledge her husband for her teacher and her guide ;" for then when she is what he please to efform her, he hath no cause to complain if she be no better : td 8's touwta /xa^fiata rtpwrov atJJiVf^tft tZiv dt07tu>v td$ yvvoXxa.$; " his precept and wise counsels can draw her off from vanities;" and, as he said of geometry, that, if she be skilled in that, she will not easily be a gamester or a dancer, may per- fectly be said of religion. If she suffers herself to be guided by his counsel, and efformed by his religion; either he is an ill master in his re ligion, or he may secure in Col. iii. 18. t Stromat. j her and for his advantage an excellent vir- 1 tue. And although in matters of religion the husband hath no empire and command, yet if there be a place left to persuade, and entreat, and induce by arguments, there is not in a family a greater endearment of affections than the unity of religion: and anciently " it was not permitted to a wo- j man to have a religion by herself :" " Eos- |dem quos maritus, n6sse Deos et colere I solos uxor debet," said Plutarch. And the rites which a woman performs severally from her husband, are not pleasing to God; and therefore Pomponia Gracina, because she entertained a stranger religion, was per- mitted to the judgment of her husband Plantius : and this whole affair is no stranger to Christianity, for trie Christian j woman was not suffered to marry an un- believing man ; and although this is not to be extended to different opinions within the limits of the common faith : yet thus much advantage is won or lost by it; that the compliance of the wife, and submission of her understanding to the better rule of her husband in matters of religion, will help very much to warrant her, though she should be mispersuaded in a matter *ess necessary; yet nothing can warrant her in her separate rites and manners of worship- pings, but an invincible necessity of con- science, and a curious infallible truth : and if she be deceived alone, she hath no ex- cuse; if with him, she hath much pity, and some degrees of warranty under the protec- tion of humility, and duty, and dear affec- tions ; and she will find that is part of her privilege and right to partake of the myste- ries and blessings of her husband's religion, rvtutaea yaustrtv fistd vo/xovs Ispovs ffW£X0oiffa# av8pi xoivcovbv aTtavtuv tlvai, xpr^uututv t's xai is pwv, said Romulus : " A woman by the holy laws hath right to partake of her husband's goods, and her husband's sacrifices, and holy things." Where there is a schism in one bed, there is nursery of temptations, and love is persecuted and in perpetual danger to be destroyed; there dwell jea- lousies, and divided interests, and differing opinions, and continual disputes,* and we cannot love them so well, whom we believe to be less beloved of God ; and it is dl uniting with a person, concerning whom -Quis deditus autcm Usque adeo est ut non illani, quam laudibus eflert, Horreat, inque diem septenis oderit horis? — Juv. Sat. 6. Serm. XVIII. THE MARRIAGE RING. 139 my persuasion tells me, that he is like to live in hell to eternal ages. 2. The next line of the woman's duty is compliance, which St. Peter calls " the hid- den man of the heart, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,"* and to it he op- poses " the outward and pompous orna- ment of the body ;" concerning which, as there can be no particular measure set down to all persons, but the proportions were to be measured by the customs of wise peo- ple, the quality of the woman, and the desires of the man; yet it is to be limited by Christian modesty, and the usages of the more excellent and severe matrons. Menan- der in the comedy brings in a man turn- ing his wife from his house, because she stained her hair yellow, which was then the beauty. ~Svv 5' f'prt' art' olxu>v tW§£' trjv yvvcuxa yap Trjv aw^pov' ov 8tl r'aj T'pt'^aj %avOa$ Ttomv. Cleric. A wise woman should not paint. A stu- dious gallantry in clothes cannot make a wise man love his wife the better .f Etj tovs rpoyuiSouj #p?;tftu', ovx a* ^ov i^'-oi', said the comedy; "Such gaieties are fit for trage- dies, but not for the uses of life :" " Decor occultus, et tecta venustas," that is the Christian woman's fineness : " the hidden man of the heart," sweetness of manners, humble comportment, fair interpretation of all addresses, ready compliances, high opinion of him and mean of herself.^ 'Ef xoivc> %VTtris q8ov*js tJ e%£iv utpo?, " To partake secretly, and in her heart, of all his joys and sorrows," to believe him comely and fair,§ though the sun hath drawn a cypress over him ; for as marriages are not to be contracted by the hands and eyes, but with reason and the hearts ; so are these judg- ments to be made by the mind, not by the sight : and diamonds cannot make the wo- man virtuous, nor him to value her who sees her put them off then, when charity and modesty are her brightest ornaments. * 1 Pet. iii. 4. t Quid juvat ornato procedere, vitta, capillo, Teque peregrinis vendcre muneribus, Naturae decus, mercato perdere cultu, Nec sinere in propriis membra nitere bonis ? Propert. 1. 1. el. 1. X Malo Venusinam, quam te, Cornelia mater Gracchorum, si cum magnis virtutibus affers Grande supercilium, etnumerasin dote triumphos. Juven. Sat. 6. § YTpw-rst u'iv yt Toifl' virapyw' *S» d'/ucwoc » 7rocn{, yjYi Soxuv tj/utcp^ov uvtti rrj ytvovv MxmfAtvy d) yap cfd-uXfAoc to Kp'mtv sctt/v dk\a voZt. Ov xotfuos, ovx, C* tVrmov, aM.' dxotfp'a ^atVof-T'' ai> thai tfwv (lapyapitr^ typtvuv, &,C. And, indeed, those husbands that are pleased with indecent gaieties of their wives, are like fishes taken with ointments and intoxi- cating "baits, apt and easy for sport and mockery, but useless for food ; and when Circe had turned Ulysses' companions into hogs and monkeys, by pleasures and the enchantments of her bravery and luxury, they were no longer useful to her, she knew not what to do with them ; but on wise Ulysses she was continually enamoured. Indeed, the outward ornament is fit to take fools, but they are not worth the taking ; but she that hath a wise husband, must entice him to an eternal dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of chastity, the ornament of meekness and the jewels of faith and charity; she must have no fucus but blush ings, her brightness must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweetnesses and friendship, and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and de- sired when she dies. If not, KoLT'^avoicra 8e xclaaai, Ov8e fxvr^ioGvva 6t6tv taettai, Ov yap TtfSt'^stj {j66tov ?wv ix Jlvspur^' Her grave shall be full of rottenness and dishonour, and her memory shall be worse after she is dead : " after she is dead ;" for that will be the end of all merry meetings ; and I choose this to be the last advice to both. 3. f< Remember the days of darkness, for they are many;" the joys of the bridal chambers are quickly passed, and the re- maining portion of the state is a dull pro- gress, without variety of joys, but not without the change of sorrows ; but that portion that shall enter into the grave, must be eternal. It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrh into the festival goblet, and, after the Egyptian manner, serve up a dead man's bones at a feast ; I will only show it, and take it away again ; it. will make the wine bitter, but wholesome. But those mar- ried pairs that live, as remembering that they must part again, and give an account how they treat themselves and each other, shall, at that day of their death, be admitted to glorious espousals ; and when they shall live again, be married to their Lord, and partake of his glories, with Abraham and Joseph, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the married saints. 140 APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XIX. 'Hv 8a /xYj, aM,' itfitls avta 7iapsp%6/jLi9a. Bruncz. "All those things that now please us shall pass from us, or we from them; but those things that concern the other life, are permanent as the numbers of eternity ; and although at the resurrection there shall be no relation of husband and wife, and no mar- riage shall be celebrated but the marriage of the Lamb ; yet then shall be remembered how men and women passed through this state which is a type of that, and from this sacramental union all holy pairs shall pass to the spiritual and eternal, where love shall be their portion, and joys shall crown their heads, and they shall lie in the bosom of Jesus, and in the heart of God to eternal ages. Amen. SERMON XIX. APPLES OF SODOM; OR, THE FRUITS OF SIN. PART. I. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? For the end of those things is death. — Romans vi. 21. The son of Sirach did prudently advise concerning making judgments of the felicity or infelicity of men ; " Judge none blessed before his death ; for a man shall be known in his children."* Some men raise their fortunes from a cottage to the chairs of princes, from a sheepcote to a throne, and dwell in the circles of the sun, and in the lap of prosperity ; their wishes and success dwell under the same roof, and Providence brings all events into their design, and ties both ends together with prosperous suc- cesses ; and even the little conspersions and intertextures of evil accidents in their lives, are but like a feigned note of music, by an artificial discord making the ear covetous, and then pleased with the harmony into which the appetite was enticed by passion, and a pretty restraint ; and variety does but adorn prosperity, and make it of a sweeter relish, and of more advantages; and some of these men descend into their graves with- out a change of fortune. Eripitur persona, manet res. * Ecclus. xi. 28. Indeed, they cannot longer dwell upon the estate, but that remains unrifled, and de- scends upon their heir, and all is well till the next generation ; but if the evil of his death, and the change of his present pros- perity, for an intolerable danger of an un- certain eternity, does not sour his full cha- lice; yet if his children prove vicious or degenerous, cursed or unprosperous, we account the man miserable, and his grave to be strewed with sorrows and dishonours. The wise and valiant Chabrias grew misera- ble by the folly of his son Ctesippus ; and the reputation of brave Germanicus began to be ashamed, when the base Caligula entered upon his scene of dishonourable crime. Commodus, the wanton and femi- nine son of wise Antoninus, gave a check to the great name of his father; and when the son of Hortensius Corbio was prosti- tute, and the heir of Q,. Fabius Maximus was disinherited by the sentence of the city prastor, as being unworthy to enter into the fields of his glorious father, and young Sci- pio, the son of Africanus, was a fool and a prodigal ; posterity did weep afresh over the monuments of their brave progenitors, and found that infelicity can pursue a man, and overtake him in his grave. This is a great calamity when it falls upon innocent persons ; and that Moses died upon mount Nebo, in the sight of Canaan, was not so great an evil, as that his sons Eliezer and Gerson were unworthy to suc- ceed him ; but that priesthood was devolved to his brother, and the principality to his servant; and to Samuel, that his sons proved corrupt, and were exauthorated for their un- worthiness, was an allay to his honour and his joys, and such as proclaims to all the world, that the measures of our felicity are not to be taken by the lines of our own per- son, but of our relations too; and he that is cursed in his children, cannot be reckoned among the fortunate. This which I have discoursed concerning families in general, is most remarkable in the retinue and family of sin ; for it keeps a good house and is full of company and servants, it is served by the possessions of the world, it is courted by the unhappy, flattered by fools, taken into the bosom by the effeminate, made the end of human de- signs, and feasted all the way of its pro- gress : wars are made for its interest, and men give or venture their lives that their sin may be prosperous; all the outward senses are its handmaids, and the inward Serm. XIX. APPLES O F SODOM. HI senses are of its privy chamber ; the under- standing is its counsellor, the will its friend, riches are its ministers, nature holds up its train, and art is its emissary to promote its interest and affairs abroad : and, upon this account, all the world is enrolled in its tax- ing-tables, and are subjects or friends of its kingdom, or are so kind to it as to make too often visits, and to lodge in its borders ; be- cause all men stare upon its pleasures, and are enticed to taste of its wanton delicacies. But then if we look what are the children of this splendid family, and see what issue sin produces, iati yap tixva xal *g&e, — it may help to untie the charm. Sin and concupis- cence marry together, and riot and feast it high, but their fruits, the children and pro- duction of their filthy union, are ugly and deformed, foolish and ill-natured ; and the apostle calls them by their name, "shame" and " death." These are the fruits of sin, " the apples of Sodom," fair outsides, but if you touch them, they turn to ashes and a stink ; and if you will nurse these child- ren, and give them whatsoever is dear to you, then you may be admitted into the house of feasting and chambers of riot, where sin dwells ; but if you will have the mother, you must have the daughters ; the tree and the fruits go together ; and there is none of you all that ever entered into this house of pleasure, but he left the skirts of his garment in the hands of shame, and had his name rolled in the chambers of death. " What fruit had ye then ?" That is the question. In answer to which question we are to consider, 1. What is the sum total of the pleasure of sin? 2. W^hat fruits and re- lishes it leaves behind by its natural effi- ciency ? 3. What are its consequents by its demerit, and the infliction of the super- added wrath of God, which it hath deserved? ( Of the first St. Paul gives no account ; but by way of upbraiding asks, "what they had ?" that is, nothing that they dare own, nothing that remains: and where is it? show it: what is become of it? Of the second he gives the sum total : all its natural effects are " shame " and its appendages. The third, or the superinduced evils by the just wrath of God, he calls u death," the worst name in itself, and the greatest of evils that can happen. 1. Let us consider what pleasures there are in sin; most of them are very punishments. I will not reckon or consider concerning envy, which one in Stobaeus* calls xaxiottov xai Stxaiotatov §sov, " the basest spirit, and yet very just;" because it punishes the de- linquent in the very act of sin, doing as ^Elian says of the polypus, sfotj avta yhvytai djfypta, tZjv tavtov 7fkoxd^,u>v TtapfVpayf , " when he wants his prey, he devours his own arms;" and the leanness, and the secret pangs, and the perpetual restlessness of an envious man, feed upon his own heart, and drink down his spirits, unless he can ruin or observe the fall of the fairest fortunes of his neighbour. The fruits of this tree are mingled and sour, and not to be endured in the very eating. Neither will I reckon the horrid affrightments and amazements of murder, nor the uneasiness of impatience, which doubles every evil that it feels, and makes it a sin, and makes it intolerable ; nor the secret grievings, and continual troubles of peevishness, which makes a man incapa- ble of receiving good, or delighting in beau- ties and fair entreaties, in the mercies of God and charities of men. It were easy to make a catalogue of sins, every one of which is a disease, a trouble in its very constitution and its nature : such are loathing of spiritual things, bitterness of spirit, rage, greediness, confusion of mind, and irresolution, cruelty and despite, slothfulness and distrust, unquietness and anger, effeminacy and niceness, prating and sloth, ignorance and inconstancy, incogi- tancy'and cursing, malignity and fear, for- getfulness and rashness, pusillanimity and despair, rancour and superstition : if a man were to curse his enemy, he could not wish him a greater evil than these : and yet these are several kinds of sin which men choose, and give all their hopes of heaven in ex- change for one of these diseases. Is it not a fearful consideration, that a man should rather choose eternally to perish than to say his prayers heartily and affectionately? but so it is with very many men ; they are driven to their devotions by custom, and shame, and reputation, and civil compli- ances; they sigh and look sour when they are called to it, and abide there as a man under the chirurgeon's hands, smarting and fretting all the while ; or else he passes the time with incogitancy, and hates the em- ployment, and suffers the torment of prayers which he loves not; and all this, although for so doing it is certain he may perish : * Florileg. 142 APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XIX. what fruit, what deliciousness, can he fancy- in being weary of his prayers ? there is no pretence or colour for these things. Can any man imagine a greater evil to the body and soul of a man than madness, and furi- ous eyes, and a distracted look, paleness with passion, and trembling hands and knees, and furious ness, and folly in the heart and head ? and yet this is the pleas- ure of anger, and for this pleasure men choose damnation. But it is a great truth, that there are but very few sins that pre- tend to pleasure : although a man be weak ' and soon deceived, and the devil is crafty, and sin is false and impudent, and pretences are too many, — yet most kinds of sin are real and prime troubles to the very body, without all manner of deliciousness, even to the sensual, natural, and carnal part; and a man must put on something of a devil before he can choose such sins, and he must love mischief because it is a sin ; for in most instances there is no other rea- son in the world. Nothing pretends to pleasure but the lust of the lower belly, ambition, and revenge; and although the catalogue of sins is numerous as the pro- duction of fishes, yet these three only can be apt to cozen us with a fair outside; and yet upon the survey of what fruits they bring, and what taste they have in the man- ducation, besides the filthy relish they leave behind, we shall see how miserably they are abused and fooled, that expend any thing upon such purchases. 2. For a man cannot take pleasure in lusts of the flesh, in gluttony, or drunken- ness, unless he be helped forward with in- consideration and folly. For we see it evidently that grave and wise persons, men of experience and consideration, are ex- tremely less affected with lust and loves than the hare-brained boy ; the young gen- tleman that thinks nothing in the world greater than to be free from a tutor, he in- deed courts his folly, and enters into the possession of lust without abatement ; con- sideration dwells not there: but when a sober man meets with a temptation, and is helped by his natural temper, or invited by his course of life; if he can consider, he hath so many objections and fears, so many difficulties and impediments, such sharp reasonings and sharper jealousies concern- ing its event, that if he does at all enter into folly, it pleases him so little, that he is forced to do it in despite of himself; and the pleasure is so allayed, that he knows not whether it be wine or vinegar ; his very apprehension and instruments of relish are filled with fear and contradicting principles, and the deliciousness does but " afFricare cutem," it went " but to the skin ;" but the allay went farther ; it kept a guard within, and suffered the pleasure to pass no farther. A man must resolve to be a fool, a rash in- considerate person, or he will feel but little satisfaction in the enjoyment of his sin : indeed, he that stops his nose, may drink down such corrupted waters; and he under- stood it well who chose rather to be a fool, ' Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant, Quam sapere et ringi. — Hor. " so that his sins might delight him, or de- ceive him, than to be wise and without pleasure in the enjoyment." So that in effect a man must lose his discerning fa- culties before he discerns the little fantastic joys of his concupiscence; which demon- strates how vain, how empty of pleasure that is, that is beholden to folly and illusion, to a juggling and plain cozenage, before it can be fancied to be pleasant. For it is a strange beauty, that he that hath the best eyes cannot perceive, and none but the blind or blear-eyed people can see ; and such is the pleasure of lust, which, by every degree of wisdom that a man hath, is lessened and undervalued. 3. For the pleasures of intemperance, they are nothing but the relics and images of pleasure, after that nature hath been feasted ; for so long as she needs, that is, so long as temperance waits, so long pleas- ure also stands there ; but as temperance begins to go away, having done the minis- tries of nature, every morsel, and every new goblet, is still less delicious,, and can- not be endured but as men force nature by violence to stay longer than she would : how have some men rejoiced when they have escaped a cup ! and when they can- not escape, they pour it in, and receive it with as much pleasure as the old women have in the Lapland dances; they dance the round, but there is horror and a harsh- ness in the music ; and they call it pleasure, because men bid them do so : but there is a devil in the company, and such as is his pleasure, such is theirs : he rejoices in the thriving sin, and the swelling fortune of his darling drunkenness, but his joys are the joys of him that knows and always re- members, that he shall infallibly have the biggest damnation ; and then let it be con- Serm. XIX. APPLES OF SODOM. 143 sidered how forced a joy that is, that is at the end of an intemperate feast. Nec bene mendaci risus componitur ore, Nec bene sollicitis ebria verba sonanl. TlBULLUS. Certain it is, intemperance takes but nature's leavings ; when the belly is full, and nature calls to take away, the pleasure that comes in afterwards is next to loathing : it is like the relish and taste of meats at the end of the third course, or sweetness of honey to him that hath eaten till he can endure to take no more ; and in this there is no other difference of these men from them that die upon another cause, than was observed among the Phalangia of old, ta fxkv jtoul ythuiraj o.nohir'jxiiv , ta 8k xlaiovtas, $, /uiyaj rfovos, 4 ' It is a great labour and travail, to live a vicious life. 6. The pleasure in the acts of these few sins that do pretend to it, is a little limited nothing, confined to a single faculty, to one sense, having nothing but the skin for its organ or instrument, an artery, or something not more considerable than a lutestring ; and at the best, it is but the satisfaction of an ap- petite which reason can cure, which time can appease, which every diversion can take off; such as is not perfective of his na- ture, nor of advantage to his person ; it is a desire to no purpose, and as it comes with no just cause, so can be satisfied with no Just measures ; it is satisfied before it comes to a vice, and when it is come thither, all the world cannot satisfy it : a little thing will weary it, but nothing can content it. For ail these sensual desires are nothing but an impatience of being well and wise, of being in health, and being in our wits ; which two things if a man could endure, (and it is but reasonable, a man would think, that we should,) he would never lust to drown his heart in seas of wine, or oppress his belly with loads of undigested meat, or make himself base by the mixtures of a har- lot, by breaking the sweetest limits and holy festivities of marriage. " Malum impatien- | tia est boni," said Tertullian, it is nothing else ; to please the sense is but to do a man's self mischief; and all those lusts tend to some direct dissolution of a man's health or his felicity, his reason or his religion; it is an enemy that a man carries about him : I and as the Spirit of God said concerning | Babylon, " Quantum in deliciis fuit, tantum j date illi tormentum et luctum," "Let her I have torment and sorrow according to the j measure of her delights," is most eminently i true in the pleasing of our senses ; the lust ! and desire is a torment, the remembrance ' and the absence is a torment, and the en- | joyment does not satisfy, but disables the in- strument, and tires the faculty ; and when a man hath but a little of what his sense covets, he is not contented, but impatient for more : and when he hath loads of it, he does not feel it. For he that swallows a full | goblet does not taste his wine; and this is , the pleasure of the sense ; nothing contents it but that which we cannot perceive, and it j is always restless, till it be weary ; and all the way unpleased till it can feel no pleasure ; j and that which is the instrument of sense, I is the means of its torment ; by the faculty by which it tastes, by the same is it afflicted ; ; for so long as it can taste, it is tormented with desire, and when it can desire no longei , it cannot feel pleasure. 7. Sin hath little or no pleasure in its very enjoyment ; because its very manner of entry and production is by a curse and a contra- diction ; it comes into the world like a viper through the sides of its mother, by means unnatural, violent and monstrous. Men j love sin only because it is forbidden; "Sin I took occasion by the law," saith St. Paul ; it could not come in upon its own pretences, but men rather suspect secret pleasure in it because there are guards kept upon it. Seem. XIX. APPLES OF SODOM. 145 Sed quia caecus ir.est vitiis amor, omne futurum aud finds them not of so long abode as one Despicimr.suadentquebrevemprasentiafructum, f his cares which |„ so yast numbers Et ruit in veutum damni secura libido. I ' . . made so great a portion of his me afflicted. Men run into sin with blind affections, and npoaxcupov dpxp-ri'as axoiavow, " the enjoying against all reason despise the future, hoping of sin for a season," St. Paul"5 calls it; he for some little pleasure for the present ; and names no pleasures ; our English translation and all this is only because they are forbid- ; uses the word of enjoying pleasures; but if den : do not many men sin out of spite? ; there were any, they were but for that sea- Some out of the spirit of disobedience, some son, that instant, that very transition of the by wildness and indetermination, some by ! act, which dies in its very birth, and of imprudence, and because they are taken in a ! which we can only say as the minstrel sang fault ; I of Pacuvius, when he was carried dead from his supper to his bed, 3s3taxs, j3f ^uoxe. A man can scarce have time enough to say it is alive, but that it was : " nullo non se die extulit," it died every day, it lived never unto life, but lived and died unto death, being its mother and daughter : the man died before the sin did live; and when it had lived, it consigned him to die eternally. Add to this, that it so passes away, that Fromemque a crimine sumunt; some because they are reproved ; many by custom, others by importunity : Ordo fuit crevisse malis — — It grows upon crab-stocks, and the lust itself is sour and unwholesome : and since it is evident, that very many sins come in wholly upon these accounts, such persons and such ( nothing at all remains behind it that is pleas ;ins cannot pretend pleasure ; but as natural- ists say of pulse, " Cum maledictis et pro- bris serendura praecipiunt, ut laetius prove- ant : it is like the path of an arrow in the air ; the next morning no man can tell what is become of the pleasures of the last night's niat;" "the country-people were used to [sin : they are nowhere but in God's books, curse it and rail upon it all the while that it ; deposited in the conscience, and sealed up was sowing, that it might thrive the better;" j against the day of dreadful accounts; but it is true with sins, they grow up with curses, j as to the man, they are as if they never had with spite and contradiction, peevishness | been ; and then, let it be considered, what and indignation, pride and cursed principles; a horrible aggravation it will be to the niise- and therefore, pleasure ought not to be the iries of damnation, that a man shall forever inscription of the box; for that is the least j perish for that, which if he looks round about part of its ingredient and constitution. he cannot see, nor tell where it is. '-'He 8. The pleasures in the very enjoying of , that dies, dies for that which is not ;" and in sin are infinitely trifling and inconsiderable, the very little present he finds it an unre- because they pass away so quickly; if they warding interest, to walk seven days together be in themselves little, they are made less I over sharp stones only to see a place from by their volatile and fugitive nature; but \ whence he must come back in an hour. If if they were great, then their being so tran- it goes off presently, it is not worth the la- sient does not only lessen the delight, but bour ; if it stays long, it grows tedious; so changes it into a torment, and loads the that it cannot be pleasant, if it stays ; and if spirit of the sinner with impatience and in- dignation. It is not a high upbraiding to it does not stay, it is not to be valued : " Ha?c mala mentis gaudia." It abides too little a the watchful adulterer, that after he hath : while to be felt, or called pleasure; and if it contrived the stages of his sin, and tied many \ should abide longer, it would be troublesome circumstances together with arts and labour, as pain, and loathed like the tedious speech and these join and stand knit and solid only of an orator pleading against the life of the by contingency, and are very often borne 'innocent. away with the impetuous torrent of an inevi- ! 9. Sin hath in its best advantages but a table accident, like Xerxes' bridge over the trifling, inconsiderable pleasure : because not Hellespont; and then he is to begin again, only God and reason, conscience and honour, and sets new wheels a-going ; and by the interest and laws, do sour it in the sense and arts and the labour, and the watchings, and gust of pleasure, but even the devil liimself, the importunity, and the violence, and the either being overruled by God, or by a strange unwearied study, and indefatigable diligence, ] — — — — of many months, he enters upon possession. 19 1 Heb. xi. 25. N 140 APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XIX. insignificant malice, makes it troublesome and intricate, entangled and involved ; and one sin contradicts another, and vexes the man with so great variety of evils, that if in the course of God's service, he should meet with half the difficulty, he would cer- minly give over the whole employment. Those that St. James speaks of, who •■ prayed that they might spend it upon their lusts," were covetous and prodigal, and there- fore must endure the torments of one to have the pleasure of another ; and which is greater, the pleasure of spending, or the dis- pleasure that it is spent and does not still remain after its consumption, is easy to tell : certain it is, that this lasts much longer. Does not the devil often tempt men to de- spair, and by that torment puts bars and locks upon them, that they may never return to God? Which what else is it but a plain indication that it is intended the man should feel the images and dreams of pleasure, no longer but till he be without remedy ? Pleas- ure is but like sentries or wooden frames, set under arches, till they be strong by their own weight and consolidation to stand alone; and when by any means the devil hath a man sure, he takes no longer care to cozen him with pleasures, but is pleased that men should begin an early hell, and be tormented before the time. Does not envy punish or destroy flattery ; and self-love sometimes torments the drunkard; and intemperance abate the powers of lust, and make the man impotent ; and laziness become a hinderance to ambition ; and the desires of man wax impatient upon contradicting interests, and by crossing each other's design on all hands lessen the pleasure and leave man tormented ? 10. Sin is of so little a relish and gust, so trifling a pleasure, that it is always greater in expectation than it is in the possession. But if men did beforehand see, what the utmost is which sin ministers to please the beastly part of man, it were impossible it should be pursued with so much earnestness and disadvantages. It is necessary it should promise more than it can give ; men could not otherwise be cozened. And if it be in- quired, why men should sin again, after they had experience of the little and great decep- tion ? it is to be confessed, it is a wonder they should ; but then we may remember, that men sin again, though their sin did afflict them ; they will be drunk again, though they were sick ; they will again commit folly, though they be surprised in their shame, ' though they have needed an hospital ; and therefore, there is something else that moves | them, and not the pleasure ; for they do it ! without and against its interests ; but either \ they still proceed, hoping to supply by num- : bers what they find not in proper measures ; I or God permits them to proceed as an instru- j ment of punishment ; or their understandings j and reasonings grow cheaper ; or they grow in love with it, and take it upon any terms ; or contract new appetites, and are pleased with 1 the baser and the lower reward of sin : but : whatsoever can be the cause of it, it is certain , ! by the experience of all the world, that the fancy is higher, the desires more sharp, and ! the reflection more brisk, at the door and entrance of the entertainment, than in all the ; little and shorter periods of its possession : for then it is but limited by the natural mea- \ sures, and abated by distemper, and loathed by enjoying, and disturbed by partners, and dishonoured by shame and evil accidents ; t so that as men coming to the river Lucius, '. jusv tevxotcrfov vSdtuv xol pu Sttifc'fftfara, and seeing "waters pure" as the tears of the spring, or the pearls of the morning, ; expect that in such a fair promising bosom, | the inmates should be fair and pleasant ; ] tixtsi Be bg03s fistoLvas ttf^vpwj , but find " the \ fishes black," filthy and unwholesome; so it | is in sin ; its face is fair and beauteous, *H taxepols Xe £cfjat"?a xopaig fia^xixurepov vrtvov, Avatfios aXxvuv, teprtvby aSvpixa (jUdqs. Softer than sleep, or the dreams of wine, tenderer than the curd of milk; " Et Euganea quantumvis mollior agna;" but when you I come to handle it, it is filthy, rough as the ! porcupine, black as the shadows of the night, and having promised a fish it gives a scor- pion and a stone instead of bread. 11. The fruits of its present possession, the pleasures of its taste, are less pleasant, because no sober person, no man that can discourse, does like it long. Breve sit quod turpiter audes. — Juven. But he approves it in the height of passion, and in disguises of a temptation ; but at all other times he finds it ugly and unreasonable; and the very remembrances must at all times abate its pleasures, and sour its delicacies. In the most parts of a man's life he wonders at his own folly, and prodigious madness, that it should be ever possible for him to be Serm. XIX. APPLES OF SODOM. 147 deluded by such trifles; and he sighs next I considerations will meet with some persons morning and knows it over-night ; and is it that think them to be f* protestatio contra not therefore certain, that he leans upon a J factum," and fine pretences against all ex- thorn, which he knows will smart, and helperience; and that, for all these severe say- dreads the event of to-morrow ? But so havejings, sin is still so pleasant as to tempt the I known a bold trooper fight in the confusion i wisest -resolution. Such men are in a very of a battle, and being warm with heat and evil condition : and in their case only I come rage, received, from the swords of his enemy, ' to understand the meaning of those words of wounds open like a grave ; but he felt them Seneca ; " Malorum ultimum est mala sua not, and when, by the streams of blood, he amare, ubi turpia non solum delectant, sed found himself marked for pain, he refused etiam placent " It is the worst of evils to consider then what he was to feel to- when men are so in love with sin that they morrow : but when his rage had cooled into are not only delighted with them, but pleased the temper of a man, and clammy moisture also not only feel the relish with too quick had checked the fiery emission of spirits, he a sense, but also feel none of the objections, wonders at his own boldness, and blames nothing of the pungency, the sting, or the his fate, and needs a mighty patience to bear lessening circumstances. However, to these his great calamity. So is the bold and merry I men I say this only, that if by experience sinner, when he is warm with wine and ! they feel sin pleasant, it is as certain also by lust, wounded and bleeding with the strokes: experience, that most sins are in their own of hell, he twists with the fatal arm that strikes' nature sharpnesses and diseases; and that him, and cares not; but yet it must abate his 1 very few do pretend to pleasure : that a man gaiety, because he remembers that when his 1 cannot feel any deliciousness in them, but wounds are cold and considered, he must ! when he is helped by folly and inconsidera- roar or perish, repent or do worse, that is, ! tion ; that is, a wise man cannot, though a be miserable or undone. The Greeks call boy or a fool can be pleased with them: that this tC* sdxxav lufaifiwim, "the felicity of j they are but relics and images of pleasure condemned slaves feasted high in sport." Dion Prusias reports, that when the Persians had got the victory, they would pick out the noblest slave, xai xaBitovviv a? rbv %povov tov 3a5t?ioc, xai -try itfeqfm Bi8<^Gtv try axnffjp xai Tpvfai', xai iMAazat s zp^vOai , "they make him left upon nature's stock, and therefore, much less than the pleasures of natural virtues : that a man must run througli much trouble before he brings them to act and enjoyment: that he must take them in despite of himself, against reason and his conscience, the ten- I 7* a king for three days, and clothe him with \ derest parts of man and the most sensible of royal robes, and minister to him all the plea- ! affliction : they are at the best so little, that sures he can choose, and all the while he j they are limited to one sense, not spread upon knows he is to die a sacrifice to mirth and folly." But then, let it be remembered, what checks and allays of mirth the poor man starts all the faculties like the pleasures of virtue, which make the bones fat by an intellectual rectitude, and the eyes sprightly by a wise at, when he remembers the axe and the altar i proposition, and pain itself to become easy by where he must shortly bleed; and by this we hope and a present rest within : it is certain may understand what that pleasure is, in the midst of which the man sighs deeply, when he considers what opinion he had of this sin, (I say) by a great experience, that the pleas- ures of sin enter by cursings and a contra- dictory interest, and become pleasant not by in the days of counsel and sober thoughts ;! their own relish, but by the viciousness of and what reasons against it he shall feel to- j the palate, by spite and peevishness, by being morrow, when he must weep or die. Thus1 forbidden and unlawful : and that which is it happens to sinners according to the saying of the prophet, " Q,ui sacrificant hominem, osculabuntur vitulum," " He that gives a man in sacrifice shall kiss the calf ; " * that is, shall be admitted to the seventh chapel of Moloch to kiss the idol : a goodly reward for so great a price, for so great an inquiry. After all this I do not doubt but these * Hosea xiii. 2. its sting is, at some times, the cause of all its sweetness it can have : they are gone sooner than a dream : they are crossed by one ano- ther, and their parent is their tormenter ; and and when sins are tied in a chain, with that chain they dash one another's brains out, or make their lodging restless : it is never liked long ; and promises much and performs little; it is great at distance, and little at hand, against the nature of all substantial things ; and, after all this, how little pleasure is left, themselves 148 APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XX. have reason with scorn and indignation to resent. So that, if experience can be pre- tended against experience, there is nothing to be said to it but the words which Phryne desired to be written on the gates of Thebes, Ato'iavSpoj xatidxa^sv, avicftqclt 8k $>pvvr{ rj ttatpa, " Phryne the harlot built it up, but Alex- ander dug it down :" the pleasure is sup- ported by little things, by the experience of fools and them that observed nothing, and the relishes tasted by artificial appetites, by art and cost, by violence and preternatural desires, by the advantage of deception and evil habits, by expectation and delays, by dreams and inconsiderations : these are the harlot's hands that build the fairy castle, but the hands of reason and religion, sober coun- sels and the voice of God, experience of wise men and the sighings and intolerable accents of perishing or returning sinners, dig it down, and sow salt in the foundations, that they may never spring up in the accounts of men that delight not in the portion of fools and forgetfulness. " Neque enim Deus ita viven- tibus quicquam promisit boni, neque ipsa per se mens humana, talium sibi conscia, quicquam boni sperare audet:" "To men that live in sin, God hath promised no good, and the conscience itself dares not expect it."* SERMON XX PART II. We have already opened this dunghill, covered with snow, which was indeed on the outside white as the spots of leprosy, but it was no better ; and if the very colours and instruments of deception, if the fucus and ceruse be so spotted and sullied, what can we suppose to be under the wrinkled skin, what in the corrupted liver, and in the sinks of the body of sin 1 That we are next to consider : but if we open the body, and see what a confusion of all its parts, what a rebellion and tumult of the humours, what a disorder of the members, what a mon- strosity or deformity is all over, we shall be infinitely convinced, that no man can choose a sin, but upon the same ground on which he may choose a fever, or long for madness or the gout. Sin, in its natural efficiency, hath in it so many evils, as must needs affright a man, and scare the confi- dence of every one that can consider. When our blessed Saviour shall conduct his church to the mountains of glory, he *Plat. de Rep. sliall es present it to God without spot or wrinkle,"* that is, pure and vigorous, en- tirely freed from the power and the infection of sin. Upon occasion of which expres- sion it hath been spoken, that sin leaves in the soul a stain or spot, permanent upon the spirit, discomposing the order of its beauty, and making it appear to God " in sordibus," " in such filthiness," that he who " is of pure eyes cannot behold." But concerning the nature or proper effects of this spot or stain, they have not been agreed : some call it an obligation or a guilt of punishment ; so Scotus. Some fancy it to | be an elongation from God, by dissimilitude of conditions ; so Peter Lombard. Alex- ander of Ales says it is a privation of the proper beauty and splendour of the soul, with which God adorned it in the creation and superaddition of grace ; and upon this expression they most agree, but seem not to understand what they mean by it; and it signifies no more, but as you, describing sickness, call it a want of health, and folly, a want of wisdom ; which is indeed to say, what a thing is not, but not to tell what it is : but that I may not be hindered by this consideration, we may observe, that the spots and stains of sin are metaphorical significations of the disorder and evil conse- quents of sin ; which it leaves partly upon the soul, partly upon the state and condi- tion of man, as meekness is called an orna- ment, and faith a shield, and salvation a helmet, and sin itself a wrinkle, corruption, rottenness, a burden, f a wound, death, filthiness : so it is a defiling of a man ; that is, as the body contracts nastiness and dis- honour by impure contacts and adherences, so does the soul receive such a change, as must be taken away before it can enter into the eternal regions, and house of puritv. But it is not a distinct thing, not an inherent quality, Avhich can be separated from other evil effects of sin, which I shall now reckon by their proper names ; and St. Paul com- prises under the scornful appellative of " shame." 1. The first natural fruit of sin is igno- rance. Man was first tempted by the pro- mise of knowledge; he fell into darkness by believing the devil holding forth to him a new light. It was not likely good should come of so foul a beginning; that the wo- * Eph. v. 27. Kn>.t apa, ua '"OSvtwto jua?Aor* " he gave him a formidable colly rium to torment him more:" the effect of which was, on 3?i*fu r6v nXoiTor ra.%v i7toirj(fsvs Tor 5t NeoecJle&m ftaxxor irioMpc fvfXo* : (Arist. PI. 720.) " the devil himself grew more quicksighted to abuse us," but we became more blind by that opening of our eyes. I shall not need to discourse of the philosophy of this mis- chief, and by the connexion of what causes ignorance doth follow sin : but it is certain, whether a man would fain be pleased with sin, or be quiet or fearless when he hath sinned, or continue in it, or persuade others to it, he must do it by false propositions, by lyings, and such weak discourses as none can believe but such as are born fools, or such as have made themselves so, or are made so by others. Who in the world is a verier fool, a more ignorant, wretched person, than he that is an atheist? A man may better believe there is no such man as himself, and that he is not in being, than that there is no God : for himself can cease to be, and once was not, and shall be changed from what he is, and in very many periods of his life knows not that he is ; and so it is every night with him when he sleeps : but none of these can happen to God ; and if he knows it not, he is a fool. Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause; an excellent government and no prince ; a motion with- out an immovable ; a circle without a cen- tre ; a time without eternity ; a second with- out a first : a thing that begins not from itself, and therefore not to perceive there is something from whence it does begin, which must be without beginning; these things are so against philosophy and natural rea- son, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them ; this is the atheist : " The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." That is his character : the thing framed says that no- thing framed it ; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying, that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is as infinite as hell, as much without light, or bound, as the chaos or the primitive no- thing. But in this, the devil never pre- vailed very far; his schools were always thin at these lectures: some few people have been witty against God, that taught them to speak before they knew to spell a syllable ; but either they are monsters in their manners, or mad in their understand- ings, or ever find themselves confuted by a thunder or a plague, bv danger or death. n2 150 But the devil hath infinitely prevailed in a thing that is almost as senseless and igno- rant as atheism, and that is idolatry ; not only making God after man's image, but in the likeness of a calf, of a cat, of a serpent; making men such fools as to worship a quar- tan ague, fire and water, onions and sheep. This is the skill man learned, and the philo- sophy that he is taught, by believing the devil. What wisdom can there be in any man, that calls good evil, and evil good ; to say fire is cold, and the sun black ; that for- nication can make a man happy, or drunk- enness can make him wise ? And this is the state of a sinner, of every one that delights in iniquity ; he cannot be pleased with it if he thinks it evil; he cannot endure it with- out believing this proposition, That there is in drunkenness or lust pleasure enough, good enough, to make him amends for the intolerable pains of damnation. But then, if we consider upon what nonsense-princi- ples the state of an evil life relies, we must in reason be impatient, and with scorn and indignation drive away the fool; such as are — sense is to be preferred before reason, interest before religion, a lust before hea- ven, moments before eternity, money above God himself; that a man's felicity consists in that which a beast enjoys ; that a little in present, uncertain, fallible possession, is better than the certain state of infinite glories hereafter : what child, what fool, can think things more weak and more unreasonable ? And yet if men do not go upon these grounds, upon what account do they sin ? Sin hath no wiser reasons for itself than these : ^wpoj t^f t rtvpawou popov : the same argument that a fly hath to enter into a can- dle, the same argument a fool hath that enters into sin : it looks prettily, but re- wards the eye, as burning basins do, with intolerable circles of reflected fire. Such are the principles of a sinner's philosophy. And no wiser are his hopes ; all his hopes that he hath are, that he shall have time to repent of that which he chooses greedily ; that he whom he every day provokes will save him, whether he will or not ; that he can, in an instant, or in a day, make amends for all the evils of forty years ; or else, that he shall be saved whether he does or not; that heaven is to be had for a sigh, or a short prayer, and yet hell shall not be consequent to the affections, and labours, and hellish services, of a whole life; he goes on and cares not, he hopes without a promise, and refuses to believe all the Serm. XX. threatenings of God ; but believes he shall have a mercy for which he never had a revelation. If this be knowledge or wis- dom, then there is no such thing as follv, no such disease as madness. But then consider, that there are some sins whose very formality is a lie. Super- stition could not be in the world, if men did believe God to be good and wise, free and merciful, not a tyrant, not an unreasonable exacter ; no man would dare to do in pri- vate what he fears to do in public, if he did know that God sees him there, and will bring that work of darkness into light. But he is so foolish as to think, that if he sees nothing, nothing sees him ; for if men did perceive God to be present, and yet do wickedly, it is worse with them than I have yet spoke of; and they believe an- other lie, that to be seen by man will bring more shame, than to be discerned by God ; or that the shame of a few men's talk is more intolerable than to be confounded before Christ, and his army of angels, and saints, and all the world. He that excuses a fault by telling a lie, believes it better to be guilty of two faults, than to be thought guilty of one; and every hypocrite thinks it not good to be holy, but to be accounted so is a fine thing; that is, that opinion is better than reality, and that there is in virtue no- thing good but the fame of it. And the man that takes revenge, relies upon this foolish proposition ; that his evil that he hath already suffered grows less if another suf- fers the like ; that his wound cannot smart, if by my hand he dies that gave it ; jj|m ti fiixoi yofpov yofpcus, the sad accents and dole- ful tunes are increased by the number of mourners, but the sorrow is not lessened. I shall not need to thrust into this account the other evils of mankind that are the events of ignorance, but introduced by sin ; such as are, our being moved by what we see strongly, and weakly by what we un- derstand ; that men are moved rather by a fable than by a syllogism, by parables than by demonstrations, by examples than by precepts, by seeming things than by real, by shadows than by substances ; that men judge of things by their first events, and measure the events by their own short lives, or shorter observations ; that they are credulous to believe what they wish, and incredulous of what makes against them, measuring truth or falsehood by measures that cannot fit them, as foolishly as if they should judge of a colour by the dimensions of a body, or feel APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XX. APPLES O F SODOM 151 music with the hand; they make general conclusions from particular instances, and take account of God's actions by the mea- sures of a man. Men call that justice that is on their side, and all their own causes are right, and they are so always ; they are so when they affirm them in their youth, and they are so when they deny them in their old age; and they are confident in all their changes; and their first error, which they now see, does not make them modest in the proposition which they now maintain ; for they do not understand that what was, may be so again : " So foolish and ignorant was I, (said David,) and as it were a beast be- fore thee." Ambition is folly, and temerity is ignorance, and confidence never goes without it, and impudence is worse, and zeal or contention is madness, and prating is want of wisdom, and lust destroys it, and makes a man of a weak spirit and a cheap reasoning ; and there are in the catalogue of sins very many, which are directly kinds, and parts, and appendages of ignorance ; such as are, blindness of mind, affected ig- norance, and wilful ; neglect of hearing the Word of God, resolved. incredulity, forgetful- ness of holy things, lying and believing a lie; this is the fruit of sin, this is the know- ledge that the devil promised to our first parents as the rewards of disobedience ; and j although they sinned as weakly and fondly, ^por/juar'oj tortpw attprfi'ivtes, upon as slight grounds, and trifling a temptation, and as easy a deception, as many of us since, yet the causes of our ignorance are increased by the multiplication of our sins ; and if it was so bad in the green tree, it is much worse in the dry ; and no man is so very a fool as the sinner, and none are wise but the ser- vants of God. Movvol XcoSatot aofylaw Tjxxov, >j6' dp1 eEj3pacot, AvtoyivsdXov avaxta otfiaZojAtvoi &6v ayvwj. " The wise Chaldees and the wiser Hebrews, which worship God chastely and purely, they only have a right to be called wise ;" all that do not so are fools and ignorants, neither knowing wrhat it is to be happy, nor how to purchase it; ignorant of the noblest end, and of the competent means towards it: they neither know God nor themselves, and no ignorance is greater than this, or more pernicious. What man is there in the world that thinks himself covetous or proud? and yet millions there are who, like Har- paste, think that the house is dark, but not themselves. Virtue makes our desires tem- perate and regular, it observes our actions, condemns our faults, mortifies our lusts, watches all our dangers and temptations: but sin makes our desires infinite, and we would have we cannot tell what ; we strive that we may forget our faults; we labour that we may neither remember nor consider ; we justify our errors, and call them inno- cent, and that which is our shame we mis- call honour; and our whole life hath in it so many weak discourses and trifling propo- sitions, that the whole world of sinners is like the hospital of the " insensati," madness and folly possess the greater part of man- kind. What greater madness is there than to spend the price of a whole farm in con- tention for three sheaves of corn ? and yet " tantum pectora csccae Noctis habent," this is the wisdom of such as are contentious, and love their own will more than their hap- piness, their humour more than their peace. Furor est post omnia perdere naulum. — Juv. Men lose their reason, and their religion, and themselves at last, for want of under- standing; and all the wit and discourses by which sin creeps in, are but q>popti8uv fiovXtv- /xata, yfcwtftfgj is xofirtov, " frauds of the tongue, and consultations of care but in the whole circle of sins there is not one wise proposition, by which a man may conduct his affairs, or himself become instructed to felicity. This is the first natural fruit of sin : it makes a man a fool, and this hurt sin does to the understanding, and this is shame enough to that in which men are most apt to glory. Sin naturally makes a man weak; that is, unapt to do noble things : by which I do not understand a natural disability: for it is equally ready for a man to will good as evil, and as much in the power of his hands to be lifted up in prayer to God as against his brother in a quarrel ; and between a virtuous object and his faculties there is a more apt proportion, than between his spirit and a vice ; and every act of grace does more please the mind, than an act of sin does de- light the sense ; and every crime does greater violence to the better part of man, than mor- tification does to the lower ; and oftentimes a duty consists in a negative, as, not to be drunk, not to swear, and it is not to be un- derstood that a man hath naturally no power not to do; if there be a natural disability, it is to action, not to rest or ceasing; and * flecub. 152 APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XX. therefore in this case, we cannot reasonably nor justly accuse our nature, but we have reason to blame our manners-, which have introduced upon us a moral disability, that is, not that the faculty is impotent and dis- abled, but that the whole man is ; for the will in many cases desires to do good, and the understanding is convinced and consents, and the hand can obey, and the passions can be directed, and be instrumental to God's service : but because they are not used to it, the will finds a difficulty to do them so much violence, and the understanding consents to their lower reasonings, and the desires of the lower man do will stronger; and then the whole man cannot do the duty that is ex- pected. There is a law in the members, and he that gave that law is a tyrant, and the subjects of that law are slaves, and often- times their ear is bored ; and they love their fetters, and desire to continue that bondage for ever ; the law is the law of sin, the devil is the tyrant, custom is the sanction or the firmament of the law : and every vicious man is a slave, and chooses the vilest mas- ter, and the basest of services, and the most contemptible rewards. ** Lex enim peccati est violentia consuetudinis, qua trahitur et tenetur animus etiam invitus, eo merito quo in earn volens illabitur," said St. Austin; "The law of sin is the violence of custom, which keeps a man's mind against his mind, because he entered willingly," and gave up his own interest; which he ought to have secured for his own felicity, and for his ser- vice who gave for it an invaluable price : and indeed in questions of virtue and vice there is no such thing as nature ; or it is so inconsiderable, that it hath in it nothing be- yond an inclination which may be reverted ; and very often not so much : nothing but a perfect indifferency, we may if we will, or we may choose : but custom brings in a new nature, and makes a bias in every faculty. To a vicious man some sins become neces- sary ; temperance makes him sick ; severity is death to him, it destroys his cheerfulness and activity, it is as his nature, and the de- sire dwells for ever with him, and his rea- sonings are framed for it and his fancy, and in all he is helped by example, by company, by folly, and inconsideration ; and all these are a faction and a confederacy against the honour and service of God. And in this, philosophy is at a stand, nothing can give an account of it but experience and sorrow- ful instances; for it is infinitely unreason- able, that when you have discoursed wisely against unchastity, and told, that we are separated from it by a circumvallation of laws of God and man, that it dishonours the body, and makes the spirit caitive, that it is fought against by arguments sent from all the corners of reason and religion, and the man knows all this, and believes it, and prays against his sin, and hates himself for it, and curses the actions of it; yet oppose against all this but a fable or a merry story, a proverb or a silly saying, the sight of his mistress, or any thing but to lessen any one of the arguments biought against it, and that man shall as certainly and clearly be deter- mined to that sin, as if he had on his side all the reason of the world. Aemw yap ijfloj xai t^ofjLoiujriat xoi /3cav ts xai $s?mv, still he is willing to * Plutarch. Seem. XX. APPLES OF SODOM. 153 believe the sin was not formal vow-breach, but now he sees he broke it materially, and because the band is broken, the yoke is in pieces ; therefore the next action shall go on upon the same stock of a single iniquity, without being affrighted in his conscience at the noise of perjury. I wish we were all so innocent as not to understand the discourse ; but it uses to be otherwise, Nam si discedas, laqueo tenet ambitiosi Consuemdo mali : et in aegro corde senescit. Juv. *' Custom hath waxen old in his deceived heart, and made snares for him that he can- not disentangle himself:" so true is that saying of God by the prophet, "Can an Ethiopian change his skin? then may ye learn to do well, when ye are accustomed to do evil." But I instance in two things, which, to my sense, seem great aggravations of the slavery and weakness of a customary sinner. The first is, that men sin against their in- terest. They know they shall be ruined by it; it will undo their estates, lose their friends, ruin their fortunes, destroy their body, im- poverish the spirit, load the conscience, dis- compose his rest, confound his reason, amaze him in all his faculties, destroy his hopes, and mischief enough besides ; and when he considers this, he declares against it ; but "cum bona verba erumpant, afFectus tamen ad consuetudinem relabuntur," " the man gives good words, but the evil custom prevails ;" and it happens as in the case of the Tirynthians, who, to free their nation from a great plague, were bidden only to abstain from laughter, while they offered their sacrifice : but they had been so used to a ridiculous effeminacy, and vain course of conversation, that they could not, though the honour and splendour of the nation did depend upon it. God of his mercy keep all Christian people from a custom in sinning! for if they be once fallen thither, nothing can recover them but a miraculous grace. 2. The second aggravation of it is, that custom prevails against experience. Though the man hath already smarted, though he hath been disgraced and undone, though he lost his relations and his friends, he is turned out of service, and disemployed, he begs with a load of his old sins upon his shoul- ders— yet this will not cure an evil custom : do we not daily see how miserable some men make themselves with drunkenness and folly? Have not we seen them that have been sick with intemperance, deadly 20 ' sick, enduring for one drunken meeting more pain than is in all the fasting-days of the whole year? and yet, do they not the very next day go to it again ? Indeed, some ■ few are smitten into the beginning of re- 1 pentance, and they stay a fortnight, or a I month-, and, it may be, resist two or three invitations ; but yet the custom is not gone, Nec tu, cum obstiteris semel, instantique negaris Parere imperio, " Rupi jam vincula," dicas: "Think not the chain is off, when thou hast once or twice resisted ; or if the chain be broke, part remains on thee, like a cord upon a dog's neck," Nam et luctata canis nodum abripit; attamen illi, Cum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catena. Pers. He is not free that draws his chain after him ; and he that breaks off from his sins with greatest passion, stands in need of prosperous circumstances, and a strange freedom from temptation, and accidental hardness, and superinduced confidence, and j a preternatural severity ; " Opus est aliqua fortunos indulgentia adhuc inter humana luctanti, dum nodum ilium exsolvit et omne vinculum mortale,"* for the knot can hardly be untied which a course of evil manners hath bound upon the soul ; and every con- tingency in the world can entangle him, that wears upon his neck the links of a broken chain. "Nam qui ab eo quod amat, quam extemplo suaviis sagittatis per- cussus est, ilico res foras labitur, iiquitur;" if he sees his temptation again he is incx^Ji- fisvo$ vh ewolas, his kindness to it, and con- versation with his lust, undoes him, and breaks his purposes, and then he dies again, or falls upon that stone, that with so much pains he removed a little out of his way ; and he would lose the spent wealth, or the health, and the reputation, over again, if it were in his power. Philomusus was a wild young fellow in Domitian's time, and he was hard put to it to make a large pen- sion to maintain his lust and luxury, and he was every month put to beggarly arts to feed his crime. But when his father died and left him all, he disinherited himself ; he spent it all, though he knew he was to suffer that trouble always, which vexed his lustful soul in the frequent periods of his violent want.f Now, this is such a state of slavery, that persons that are sensible ought to complain, Sovteiav 8ov"k£veiv 7idw l6%vpav that they serve Seneca de vita beata. t Martial. 154 APPLES OF SODOM. Serm. XX. worse lords than Egyptian task-masters, there is a lord within that rules and rages, " Intus et in jecore aegro pascuntur domini ;" sin dwells there, and makes a man a miserable servant ; and this is not only a metaphorical expression, under which some spiritual and metaphysical truth is represented, but t is a physical, material truth ; and a man endures hardship, he cannot move but at this command; and not his outward actions only, but his will and his understanding too, are kept in fetters and foolish bondage : (xifiv/jzo, oti vtvpoi7iaotovv i6tiv txtvvo, to tvbov iyxexpufiftiiW ixdvo fatopela, ixHVQ £u>rt, ixuvo aV0pcorto$, said Marcus Antoninus, "The two parts of a man are rent in sunder, and that that prevails is the life, it is the man, it is the eloquence, persuading every thing to its own interest." And now consider what is the effect of this evil. A man by sin is made a slave, he loses that liberty that is dearer to him than life itself ; and, like the dog in the fable, we suffer chains and ropes only for a piece of bread, when the lion thought liberty a sufficient reward and price for hunger, and all the hardnesses of the wilderness. Do not all the world fight for liberty, and at no terms will lay down arms, till at least they be cozened with the image and colour of it? ov $vrtoxni £5^.0$ itevfcpias ; and yet for the pleasure of a few minutes we give ourselves into bond- age ; and all the world does it, more or less. *&ev. ovx tnti ^-v^tHiv, Xnt itev&pqs, H xpmuirtw yap bov?.6$ iativ, r tx>x^, 7t%Yfito$ avtbv rtoXsoj, >? rouxcv ypafat Ebpyoixft %prtG9ai /xr xovta yvu>fjL7jv Tportoij. Etjrip. Either men are slaves to fortune, or to lust : to covetousness, or tyranny ; something or other compels him to usages against his will and reason ; and when the laws cannot rule him, money can ; " Divitise enim apud sapientem virum in servitute sunt, apud stultum in imperio;" for "Money is the wise man's servant, and the fool's master ;" but the bondage of a vicious person, is such a bondage as the child hath in the womb, or rather as a sick man in his bed; we are bound fast by our disease, and a consequent weakness ; we cannot go forth though the doors be open, and the fetters knocked off, and virtue and reason, like St. Peter's angel, call us, and beat us upon the sides, and offer to go before us, yet we cannot come forth from prison ; for we have by our evil customs given hostages to the devil, never to stir from the enemy's quarter j and this is the greatest bondage that is imaginable, the bondage of conquered, wounded, unre- sisting people;" abecsxotos rj opc^ij, "virtue only is the truest liberty ;" " and if the Son of God make us free, then are we free indeed." 3. Sin does naturally introduce a great baseness upon the spirit, expressed in Scrip- ture, in some cases, by the devil's entering I into a man, as it was in the case of Judas, I " after he had taken the sop, Satan entered (into him;"* and St. Cyprian, speaking of jthem that after baptism lapsed into foul ; crimes, affirms, that "spiritu immundo quasi iredeunte quatiuntur, ut manifestum sit dia- bolum in baptismo fide credentis excludi, si fides postmodum defecerit regredi ;''f "faith, and the grace of baptism, turn the devil out of possession ; but when faith fails, and we loose the bands of religion, then the devil returns ;" that is, the man is devolved into such sins, of which there can be no reason given, which no excuse can lessen, which are set off with no pleasure, advanced by no temptations, which deceive by no allure- ments and flattering pretences ; such things which have a proper and direct contrariety to the good spirit, and such as are not re- strained by human laws; because they are states of evil rather than evil actions, prin- 1 ciples of mischief rather than direct emana- tions; such as are unthankfulness, impiety, 'giving a secret blow, fawning hypocrisy, detraction, impudence, forgetfulness of the dead, and forgetting to do that in their ab- sence which we promised to them in pre- sence ; OvXOVV tO& (UGX90V $?irtov?L /X£V ^)i,'^9 Xpwjtwob' , irtei 6' otJJks, xf>u>/xea^t' It v. Eurip. concerning which sorts of unworthiness, it is certain they argue a most degenerous spirit, and they are the effect, the natural effect, of malice and despair, an unwhole- some ill-natured soul, a soul corrupted in its whole constitution. I remember that in the apologues of Phsedrus, it is told con- cerning an ill-natured fellow, that he refused to pay his symbol, which himself and all the company had agreed should be given for every disease that each man had ; he denying his itch to be a disease; but the company taking off the refuser's hat for a pledge, found that he had a scald head, and so demanded the money double : which he pertinaciously resisting, they threw him down and then discovered he was broken- * John xiii. 27. t Cypr. Ep. 76. Skrm. XXI. APPLES OF SODOM. 155 bellied, and justly condemned him to pay three philippics: Quae fuerat fabula, poena fuit. One disease discovers itself by the hiding of another, and that being opened discovers a third ; he that is almost taken in a fault, tells a lie to escape; and to protect that lie, he forswears himself; and that he may not be suspected of perjury, he grows impu- dent; and that sin may not shame him, he will glory in it, like the slave in the comedy, who, being torn with whips, grinned, and forced an ugly smile that it might not seem to smart. There are some sins which a man that is newly fallen cannot entertain. There is no crime made ready for a young sinner, but that which nature prompts him to. Natural inclination is the first tempter, then compliance, then custom, but this being helped by a consequent folly, dismantles the soul, making it to hate God, to despise reli- gion, to laugh at severity, to deride sober counsels, to flee from repentance, to resolve against it, to delight in sin without abate- ment of spirit or purposes : for it is an in- tolerable thing for a man to be tormented in his conscience for every sin he acts; that must not be ; he must have his sin and his peace too, or else he can have neither long; and because true peace cannot come, for " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked," therefore they must make a fan- tastic peace by studied cozening of them- selves, by false propositions, by careless- ness, by stupidity, by impudence, by suffer- ance and habit, by conversation and daily acquaintances, by doing some things, as Absalom did when he lay with his father's concubines, to make it impossible for him to repent, or to be forgiven, something to se- cure him in the possession of hell; "Tute hoc intristi, quod tibi exedendum est," the man must through it now ; and this is it that makes men fall into all baseness of spiritual sins, ["Atfspijj iTJOCjv e£$ |3a>oj xazwv zafa^pojft, " When a man is come to the bottom of his wickedness, he despises all," J such as malice and despite, rancour and impudence, malicious, studied ignorance, voluntary contempt of all religion, hating of good men and good counsels, and taking every wise man and wise action to be his enemy ; ov8h ovtu>^ ai'al'j%vvtov 7ioul rtov^- pov (jvwtSoj. And this is that baseness of sin which Plato so much detested, that he said " he should blush to be guilty of, though he knew God would pardon him, and that men should never know it, e< propter solam pec- cati turpitudinem," for the very baseness that is in it." A man that is false to God, will also, if an evil temptation overtakes him, betray his friend ; and it is notorious in the covetous and ambitious : 'A^ptffT'oi' vluov ort£p[x,) 060i 6rturyopovs Zrfiovtf raids' /xrfih yiyviooxoio^' iuoi, Ol TOL'j q>L%ovs faarttovTss ov fypovfi&ts *Hv toloo rtoXkoU rtpoj ^dpiv "htyrfii ii Eurip. They are an unthankful generation, and, to please the people, or to serve their interest, will hurt their friends. That man hath so lost himself to all sweetness and excellency of spirit, that is gone thus far in sin, that he looks like a condemned man, or is like the accursed spirits, preserved in chains of darkness and impieties unto the judgment of the great day, di£pco,-to$ §' old 6 ?tor?;p6f ovSff dwio 7tx>jv xaxdf "this man can be no- thing but evil ;" for these inclinations and evil forwardnesses, this dyscrasy and gan- grened disposition, do always suppose a long or a base sin for their parent; and the product of these is a wretchless spirit; that is, an aptness to any unworthiness, and an unwillingness to resist any temptation, a perseverance in baseness, and a consignation to all damnation : Apdoavti, §' at^pd 8ewat' drton^ta Aalpiuv SiSuxsv, " If men do evil things, evil things shall be their reward." If they obey the evil spirit, an evil spirit shall be their portion; and the devil shall enter into them as he entered into Judas, and fill them full of iniquity. SERMON XXI. PART III. 4. Although these are shameful effects of sin, and a man need no greater dishonour than to be a fool and a slave, and a base person, all which sin infallibly makes him ; yet there are some sins, which are directly shameful in their nature, and proper disre- putation ; and a very great many sins are the worst and basest in several respects ; that is, every of them hath a venomous quality of its own, whereby it is marked and appropriated to a peculiar evil spirit. The devil's sin was the worst, because it came from the greatest malice: Adam's was the I worst, because it was of most universal effi- cacy and dissemination: Judas' sin the worst, because against the most excellent person ; I and the relapses of the godly are the wout, 156 APPLES O F SODOM. Serm. XXI. by reason they were the most obliged per- sons. But the ignorance of the law is the greatest of evils, if we consider its danger ; but covetousness is worse than it, if we re- regard its incurable and growing nature; luxury is most alien from spiritual things, and is the worst of all in its temptation and our proneness ; but pride grows most venom- ous by its unreasonableness and importu- nity, arising even from the good things a man hath ; even from graces, and endear- ments, and from being more in debt to God. Sins of malice, and against the Holy Ghost, oppugn the greatest grace with the greatest spite; but idolatry is perfectly hated by God by a direct enmity. Some sins are there- fore most heinous, because to resist them is most easy, and to act them there is the least temptation : such as are, severally, lying and swearing. There is a strange poison in the nature of sins, that, of so many sorts, every one of them should be the worst. Every sin hath an evil spirit, a devil of its own, to manage, to conduct, and to imbitter it: and although all these are God's ene- mies, and have an appendant shame in their retinue, yet to some sins shame is more appropriate, and a proper ingredient in their constitutions : such as are lying, and lust, and vow-breach, and inconstancy. God sometimes cures the pride of a man's spirit by suffering his evil manners, and filthy inclination, to be determined upon lust; lust makes a man afraid of public eyes, and common voices ; it is (as all sins else are, but this especially) a work of dark- ness; it does debauch the spirit, and make it lo decay and fall off from courage and resolution, constancy and severity, the spirit of government and a noble freedom ; and those punishments, which the nations of the world have inflicted upon it, are not smart so much as shame : lustful souls are cheap and easy, trifling and despised, in all wise accounts ; they are so far from being fit to sit with princes, that they dare not chastise a sinning servant that is private to their secret follies ; it is strange to consider what laborious arts of concealment, what excuses and lessenings, what pretences and fig-leaves, men will put before their naked- ness and crimes ; shame was the first thing that entered upon the sin of Adam: and when the second world began, there was a strange scene of shame acted by Noah and his sons, and it ended in slavery and base- ness to all descending generations. We see the event of this by too sad an experience. "What arguments, what hard- ness, what preaching, what necessity, can persuade men to confess their sins ? They are so ashamed of them, that to be concealed they prefer before their remedy ; and yet in penitential confession the shame is going off, it is like Cato's coming out of the theatre, or the philosopher from the tavern ; it might have been shame to have entered, but glory to have departed for ever ; and yet ever to have relation to sin is so shameful a thing, that a man's spirit is amazed, and his face is confounded, when he is dressed of so shame- ful a disease. And there are but few men that will endure it, but rather choose to in- volve it in excuses and denial, in the clouds of lying, and the white linen of hypocrisy ; and yet, when they make a veil for their shame, such is the fate of sin, the shame grows the bigger and the thicker ; we lie to men, and we excuse it to God ; either some parts of lying or many parts of impudence, darkness or forgetfulness, running away or running farther in, these are the covers of our shame, like menstruous rags upon a skin of leprosy : but so sometimes we see a de- cayed beauty besmeared with a lying fucus, and the chinks filled with ceruse; besides that it makes no real beauty, it spoils the face, and betrays evil manners : it does not hide old age, or the change of years, out it discovers pride or lust ; it was not shame to be old, or wearied and worn out with age, but it is a shame to dissemble nature by a wanton visor. So sin retires from blushing into shame ; if it be discovered, it is not to be endured, and if we go to hide it, we make it worse. But then if we remember how ambitious we are for fame and repu- tation, for honour and a fair opinion, for a good name all our days, and when our days are done ; and that no ingenious man can enjoy any thing he hath, if he lives in dis- grace; and that nothing so breaks a man's spirit as dishonour, and the meanest person alive does not think himself fit to be despised ; we are to consider into what an evil condition sin puts us, for which we are not only dis- graced and disparaged here, marked with dis- graceful punishments, despised by good men, our follies derided, our company avoided, and hooted at by boys, talked of in fairs and markets, pointed at and described by appel- latives of scorn, and every body can chide us, and we die unpitied, and lie in our graves eaten up by worms, and a foul dishonour; but after all this, at the day of judgment, we shall be called from our charnel-houses, Serm. XXI. APTLES OF SODOM. 157 where our disgrace could not sleep, and shall, in the face of God, in the presence of angels and devils, before all good men and all the evil, see and feel the shame of all our sins written upon our foreheads : here in this state of misery and folly we make nothing of it ; and though Ave dread to be discovered to men, yet to God we confess our sins without a trouble or a blush ; but to tell an even story, because we find some forms of confession prescribed in our prayer-books ; and, that it may appear how indifferent and unconcerned we seern to be, we read and say all, and con- fess the sins we never did, with as much sorrow and regret, as those that we have acted a thousand times. But in that strange day of recompenses, we shall find the devil to upbraid the criminal, Christ to disown them, the angels to drive them from the seat of mercy, and shame to be their smart, the consigning them to damnation ; they shall then find, that they cannot dwell where virtue is rewarded, and where honour and glory have a throne ; there is no veil but what is rent, no excuse to any but to them that are declared as innocent : no circumstances con- cerning the wicked to be considered, but them that aggravate ; then the disgrace is not confined to the talk of a village, or a province, but is scattered to all the world : not only in one age shall the shame abide, but the men of all generations shall see and wonder at the vastness of that evil that is spread upon the souls of sinners for ever; dywv fxeyag, Iltojp?;? stsvaryitwv, ov§£ Saxpvuv xsv6$. No night shall then hide it; for in those regions of darkness where the dishonoured man shall dwell for ever, there is nothing visible but the shame ; there is light enough for that, but darkness for all things else ; and then he shall reap the full harvest oHiis shame ; all that for which wise men scorned him, and all that for which God hated him ; all that in wrhich he was a fool, and all that in which he was malicious ; that which was public, and that which was private ; that which fools applauded, and that which himself durst not own; the secrets of his lust, and the criminal contrivances of his thoughts; the base and odious cir- cumstances, and the frequency of the action, and the partner of his sin ; all that which troubles his conscience, and all that he will- ingly forgets, — shall be proclaimed by the trumpet of God, by the voice of an arch- angel, in the great congregation of spirits and just men. There is one great circumstance more of the shame of sin, which extremely enlarges, the evil of a sinful state, but that is not con- sequent to sin by a natural emanation, but is superinduced by the just wrath of God ; and therefore is to be considered in the third part, which is next to be handled. 3. When the Boeotians asked the oracle, by what they should become happy? the answer was made, : 'Aosprfiavtas tvjtpa^nv. " Wicked and irreligious persons are pros- perous:" and they taking the devil at his word, threw the inspired Pythian, the minis- tering witch, into the sea, hoping so to be- come mighty in peace and war. The effect of which wTas this, the devil was found a liar, and they fools at first, and at last felt the re- ward of irreligion. For there are to some crimes such events ; which are not to be ex- pected from the connexion of natural causes, but from secret influences and undiscernible conveyances ; that a man should be made sick for receiving the holy sacrament unworth- ily, and blind for resisting the words of and apostle, a preacher of the laws of Jesus, and die suddenly for breaking of his vow, and committing sacrilege, and be under the power and scourge of an exterminating angel for climbing his father's bed, — these are things beyond the world's philosophy ; but as in nature, so in divinity too, there are sympathies and antipathies, effects which we feel by experience, and are forewarned of by revelation, which no natural reason can judge, nor any providence can prevent, but by living innocently, and complying with the commandments of God. The rod of God, which "cometh not into the lot of the righteous," strikes the sinning man with sore strokes of vengeance. 1. The first that I shall note is, that which I called the aggravation of the shame of sin ; and that is, an impossibility of being con- cealed in most cases of heinous crimes, Mrfit- rtots firjbh aisxpov rtotjjtfa? forties Kr^stv, " Let no man suppose that he shall for ever hide his sin :" a single action may be conveyed away under the covert of an excuse or a privacy, escaping as Ulysses did the search of Poly- phemus, and it shall in time be known that it did escape, and shall be discovered that it was private ; that is, that it is so no longer. But no wicked man, that dwelt and delighted in sin, did ever go off from his scene of un- worthiness without a filthy character ; the black veil is thrown over him before his death, and by some contingency or other he enters into his cloud, because few sins determine finally in the thoughts; but if they dwell there, they will also enter into action, and o 158 APPLES OP SODOM. Serm. XXI. then the sin discovers itself; or else the in- jured person will proclaim it, or the jealous man will talk of it before it is done, or curious people will inquire and discover, or the spirit of detraction shall be let loose upon him, and in spite shall declare more than he knows, not more than is true. The ancients, espe- cially the scholars of Epicurus, believed that no man could be secured or quiet in his spirit from being discovered. " Scelus aliqua tu- tum, nulla securum tulit;" "They are not secure, even when they are safe;" but are afflicted with perpetual jealousies ; and every whisper is concerning them, and all new noises are arrests to their spirits ; and the day is too light, and the nightis too horrid, and both are most opportune for their discovery ; and besides the undiscernible connexion of the contingencies of Providence, many secret crimes have been published by dreams, and talkings in their sleep. It is the observation of Lucretius, Multi de magnis per somnum rebu' loquuntur, Indicioque sui facti persaepe fuere. And what their understanding kept a guard upon, their fancy let loose ; fear was the bars and locks, but sleep became the key to open, even then when all the senses were shut, and God ruled alone without the choice and discourse of man. And though no man regards the wilder talkings of a distracted man, yet it hath sometimes happened, that a delirium and a fever, fear of death, and the intolerable apprehensions of damnation, have opened the cabinet of sin, and brought to light all that was acted in the curtains of night; Quippe ubi se multi, per somnia saspe loquentes, Aut morbo delirantes, protraxe feruntur, Et, celata diu, in medium peccata dedisse. Lucr. But there are so many ways of discovery, and amongst so many some one does so cer- tainly happen, that they are well summed up by Sophocles, by saying, that "Time hears all, and tells all ;" ITp6$ tavta xpvrtte (iq§h u>$ o rfcw£' opwv Kai 7tdvt axovutv, rtdvt dvaHtvaaet %p6vo$, A cloud may be its roof and cover till it passes over, but when it is driven by a fierce wind, or runs fondly after the sun, it lays open a deformity, which like an ulcer had a skin over it, and pain within, and drew to it a heap of sorrows big enough to run over all its enclosures. Many persons have betrayed themselves by their own fears, and knowing themselves never to be secure enough, have gone to purge themselves of what nobody suspected them ; offered an apology when they had no accuser, but one within ; which, like a thorn in the flesh, or like " a word in a fooPs heart " was un- easy till it came out. " Non amo se nimi- um purgitantes,:" when men are "over- busy in justifying themselves," it is a sign themselves think they need it. Plutarch tells of a young gentleman that destroyed a swallow's nest, pretending to them that reproved him for doing the thing, which in their superstition the Greeks esteemed so ominous, that the little bird accused him for killing his father. And to this purpose it was that Solomon gave counsel: "Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought, nor the rich in thy bedchamber ; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter :"* murder and treason have by such strange ways been revealed, as if God had appointed an angel president of the revelation, and had kept this in secret and sure ministry, to be as an argument to destroy atheism from the face of the earth, by opening the secrets of men with his key of providence. Intercepting of letters, mistaking names, false inscrip- tions, errors of messengers, faction of the parties, fear in the actors, horror in the action, the majesty of the person, the rest- lessness of the mind, distracted looks, wea- riness of the spirit, and all under the con- duct of the Divine wisdom, and the Divine vengeance, make the covers of the most secret sin transparent as a net, and visible as the Chian wines in the purest crystal. For besides that God takes care of kings, and of the lives of men, — "H Sf toaov (iev tspyev drcb %po$, 6Vf (irflop Uaibos ifpiyse (ivlav, o#' ^Sfl Tci^ato vrtvtjt, Homer. driving away evil from their persons, and "watching as a mother to keep gnats and flies from her dear boy sleeping in the cra- dle;" there are, in the machinations of a mighty mischief, so many motions to be concentred, so many wheels to move regu- larly, and the hand that turns them does so tremble, and there is so universal a con- fusion in the conduct, that unless it passes suddenly into act, it will be prevented by dis- covery, and if it be acted it enters into such a mighty horror, that the face of a man will * Eccl. x. 20. Serm. XXI. APPLES OF SODOM. 159 tell what his heart did think, and his hands have done. And, after all, it was seen and observed by him that stood behind the cloud, who shall also bring every work of dark- ness into light in the day of strange disco- veries and fearful recompenses : and in the mean time certain it is, that no man can long put on a person and act a part, but his evil manner will peep through the corners of the white robe, and God will bring a hypocrite to shame even in the eyes of men. 2. A second superinduced consequent of sin brought upon it by the wrath of God, is sin ; when God punishes sin with sin he is extremely angry ; for then the punishment is not medicinal, but final and extermi- nating ; God in that case takes no care con- cerning him, though he dies, and dies eter- nally. I do not here speak of those sins which are naturally consequent to each other, as evil words to evil thoughts, evil actions to evil words, rage to drunkenness, lust to gluttony, pride to ambition; but such which God suffers the man's evil nature to oe tempted to by evil opportunities: ©fwv di ayxcuov ro§F, " This is the wrath of God," and the man is without remedy. It was a sad calamity, when God punished David's adultery by permitting him to fall to mur- der.— and Solomon's wanton and inordinate love, with the crime of idolatry, — and Ana- nias' sacrilege with lying against the Holy Ghost, — and Judas' covetousness with be- traying his Lord, and that betraying with despair, and that despair with self-murder. Uapaxa'ku 6 exslSsv av Avrty nj aXkq3 6ta6o^o$ xaxujv xaxci$. Eurip. " One evil invites another ;" and when God is angry and withdraws his grace, and the Holy Spirit is grieved and departs from his dwelling, the man is left at the mercy of the merciless enemy, and he shall receive him only with variety of mischiefs; like Hercules when he had broken the horn of Achelous, he was almost drowned with the flood that sprang from it ; and the evil man, when he hath passed the first scene of his sorrows, shall be enticed or left to fall into another. For it is a certain truth, that he who resists, or that neglects to use, God's grace, shall fall into that evil condition, that when he wants it most he shall have least. It is so with every man ; he that hath the greatest want of the grace of God, shall want it more, if this great want proceeded once from his own sin. " Habenti dabitur," said our blessed Lord, "To him that hath, shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly ; from him that hath not, shall be taken even that which he hath." It is a remarkable saying of David's ; " I have thought upon thy name, O Lord, in the night season, and have kept thy law ; this I had because I kept thy commandments ;"* keeping God's commandments was re- warded with keeping God's command- ments. And in this world God hath not a greater reward to give ; for so the soul is nourished unto life, so it grows up with the increase of God, so it passes on to a perfect man in Christ, so it is consigned for heaven, and so it enters into glory ; for glory is the perfection of grace, and when our love to God is come to its state and perfection, then we are within the circles of a diadem, and then we are within the regions of felicity. And there is the same reason in the con- trary instance. The wicked person falls into sin, and this he haa, because he sinned against his Maker. "Tradidit Deus eos in desideria cordis eorum ;" and it concerns all to ob- serve it ; and if ever we find that a sin suc- ceeds a sin in the same instance, it is be- cause we refuse to repent; but if a sin suc- ceeds a sin in another instance, as, if lust follows pride, or murder drunkenness ; it is a sign that God will not give us the grace of repentance : he is angry at us with a destructive fury, he hath dipped his arrows in the venom of the serpent, and whets his sword in the forges of hell; then it is time that a man withdraw his foot, and that he start back from the preparations of an intolerable ruin : for though men in this case grew insensible, and that is the part of the disease, Sea tovto /uya iati xaxbv, oft ovbsv that Soxcl, saith Chrysostom; "It is the biggest part of the evil that the man feels it not;" yet the very antiperistasis, or the contrariety, the very horror and bigness of the danger, may possibly make a man to contend to leap out of the fire ; and some- times God works a miracle, and besides his own rule delights to reform a dissolute per- son, to force a man from the grave, to draw him against the bent of his evil habits ; yet it is so seldom, that we are left to consider, that such persons are in a desperate condi- tion, who cannot be saved unless God is pleased to work a miracle. * Psal. cxix. 55, 56. 160 apples of Sodom. Serm. XXI. 3. Sin brings in its retinue, fearful plagues, and evil angels, messengers of the dis- pleasure of God, concerning which, tw ttdvrjxotuv aue, " there are enough of dead I mean, the experience is so great, and the notion so common, and the examples so frequent, and the instances so sad, that there is scarce any thing new in this particular to be noted; but something is remarkable, and that is this, — that God, even when he forgives the sin, does reserve such vatsprj/jKita tys $utyu>s, " remains of punishment," and those not only to the .ess perfect, but to the best persons, that it makes demonstration, that every sinner is in a worse condition than he dreams of. For consider; can it be imagined that any one of us should escape better than David did? AVe have reason to tremble when we re- member what he suffered, even when God had sealed his pardon. Did not God punish Zedekiah with suffering his eyes to be put out in the house of bondage? Was not God so angry with Valentinian, that he gave him into his enemy's hand to be flayed alive ? Have not many persons been struck suddenly in the very act of sin, and some been seized upon by the devil and carried away alive ? These are fearful contingen- cies: but God hath been more angry yet; rebellion was punished in Korah and his company, by the gaping of the earth, and the men were buried alive ; and Dathan and Abiram were consumed with fire for usurping the priest's office : but God hath struck severely since that time ; and for the prostitution of a lady by the Spanish king, the Moors were brought in upon his king- dom, and ruled there for seven hundred years. And have none of us known an ex- cellent and good man to have descended, or rather to have been thrust, into sin, fori which he hath repented, which he hath confessed, which he hath rescinded, and which he hath made amends for as he could, and yet God was so severely angry, that this man was suffered to fall in so big a calamity, that he died by the hands of vio- lence, in a manner so seemingly impossible to his condition, that it looked like the big- gest sorrow that hath happened to the sons of men ? But then, let us consider, how many and how great crimes we have done ; and tremble to think, that God hath exacted so fearful pains and mighty punishments for one such sin, which we, it may be, have committed frequently. Our sin de- ] serves as bad as theirs : and God is impar- tial, and we have no privilege, no promise of exemption, no reason to hope it; what then do we think shall become of this affair? Where must we suffer this vengeance? For that it is due, that it is just we suffer it, these sad examples are a perfect demon- stration. We have done that for which God thought flaying alive not to be too big a punishment; that for which God hath smit- ten kings with formidable plagues ; that for which governments have been changed, and nations enslaved, and churches de- stroyed, and the candlestick removed, and famines and pestilences have been sent upon a whole kingdom; and what shall become of us? Why do we vainly hope it shall not be so with us? If it were just for these men to suffer what they did, then we are at least to expect so much ; and then, let us consider, into what a fearful condition sin hath put us, upon whom a sentence is read, that we shall be plagued like Zedekiah, or Korah, or Dathan, or the king of Spain, or any other king, who were, for aught we know, infinitely more innocent and more excellent persons than any of us. What will become of us? For God is as just to us as to them; and Christ died for them as well as for us; and they have repented more than we have done; and what mercy can we expect, that they might not hope for, upon at least as good ground as we ? God's ways are secret, and his mercies and justice dwell in a great abyss ; but we are to measure our expectations by revelation and experience. But then what would be- come of us, if God should be as angry at our sin as at Zedekiah's, or king David's ? Where have we in our body room enough for so many stripes, as our sin ought justly to be punished withal ; or what security or probability have we that he will not so punish us? For I did not represent this sad story, as a matter of possibility only, that we may fear such fearful strokes as we see God lay upon sinners; but we ought to look upon it as a thing that will come some way or other, and, for aught we know, we cannot escape it. So much, and more, is due for the sin ; and though Christ hath redeemed our souls, and if we repent we shall not die eternally, yet he hath no where promised we shall not be smitten. It was an odd saying of the devil to a sinner whom he would fain have had to despair; "Me e Serm. XXI. APPLES OF SODOM. 161 cceIo ad Barathrum demisit peccatum, et vos ullum in terra locum tutum existimabitis?" '* Sin thrust me from heaven to hell,, and do you think on earth to have security!" — Men use to presume that they shall go un- punished ; but we see what little reason we have to natter and undo ourselves, rtacrt yap xoivbv t68s, tbv /xsv xaxov xaxov ti 7ia6x^v, " He that hath sinned must look for a judg- ment," and how great that is, we are to take our measures by those sad instances of vengeance by which God hath chastised the best of men, when they have committed but a single sin, oteOpiov, otedplov xaxov, " sin is" damnable and " destructive :" and therefore, as the ass refused the barley which the fatted swine left, perceiving by it he was fatted for the slaughter, Tuum libenter prorsus appeterem cibum, Nisi, qui nutritus illo est, jugulatus foret, Phjedrus. we may learn to avoid these vain pleas- ures which cut the throat after they are swallowed, and leave us in that condition that we may every day fear, lest that evil happen unto us, which we see fall upon the great examples of God's anger ; and our fears cannot, ought not, at all to be taken off, but by an effective, busy, pun- gent, hasty, and a permanent repentance ; and then also but in some proportions, for we cannot be secured from temporal plagues, if we have sinned ; no repentance can secure us from all that; nay, God's pardon, or remitting his final anger, and forgiving the pains of hell, does not secure us here ; r\ vifjuats rtapa 7t68a$ jScu-Ve t ; but sin lies at the door ready to enter in, and rifle all our fortunes. 1. But this hath two appendages, which are very considerable : and the first is, that there are some mischiefs which are the pro- per and appointed scourges of certain sins, and a man need not ask ; " Cujus vulturis hoc erit cadaver ?" " What vulture," what death, what affliction, ec shall destroy this sinner?" The sin hath a punishment of his own, which usually attends it, as giddi- ness does a drunkard. He that commits sa- crilege, is marked for a vertiginous and changeable fortune ; " Make them, O my God, like unto a wheel,"* of an inconstant state : and we and our fathers have seen it, in the change of so many families, which have been undone by being made rich : they took the lands from the church, and the curse went along with it, and the misery and the affliction lasted longer than the sin. Telling lies frequently hath for its punish- ment to be "given over to believe a lie," and at last, that nobody shall believe it but himself; and then the mischief is full, he becomes a dishonoured and a baffled person. The consequence of lust is properly shame ; and witchcraft is still punished with base- ness and beggary ; and oppression of wi- dows hath a sting ; for the tears of the op- pressed are, to the oppressor, like the waters of jealousy, making the belly to swell, and the thigh to rot ; the oppressor seldom dies in a tolerable condition; but is marked to- wards his end with some horrible affliction. The sting of oppression is darted as a man goes to his grave. In these, and the like, God keeps a rule of striking, " In quo quis peccat, in eo punitur." The Divine judg- ment did point at the sin, lest that be con- cealed by excuses, and protected by affec- tion, and increased by passion, and destroy the man by its abpde. For some sins are so agreeable to the spirit of a fool and an abused person, because he hath framed his affections to them and they comply with his unworthy interest, that when God, out of an angry kindness, smites the man and punishes the sin, the man does carefully defend his be loved sin, as the serpent does his head, which he would most tenderly preserve. But therefore God, that knows all our tricks and devices, our stratagems, to be undone, hath therefore apportioned out his punish- ments by analogies, by proportions, and en- tail: so that when every sin enters into its proper portion, we may discern why God is angry, and labour to appease him speedily. 2. The second appendage to this consider- ation is this, that there are some states of sin, which expose a man to all mischief, as it can happen, by taking off from him al1 his guards and defences; by driving the good spirit from him, by stripping him of the guards of angels. But this is the effec* of an habitual sin, a course of an evil life, and it is called in Scripture, ' ' a grieving the good spirit of God." But the guard of angels is, in Scripture, only promised to them that live godly ; " The angels of the Lord pitch their tents round about them that fear him, and deliver them," said David.* T9 hi ^poi'ci rtrpdft'T't rtapferraW rtoT-^uo^^ot vAyyftoc, olac ixiixr-Xs ppor ot? wj rcdvta teteitai: Psal. lxxxiii. 21 * Psal. xxxiii. 4, 7. 0 2 162 APPLES O And the Hellenists used to call the angels typriyopovs, " watchmen which custody is at first designed and appointed for all, when by baptism they give up their names to Christ, and enter into the covenant of reli- gion. And of this the heathen have been taught something by conversation with the Hebrews and Christians ; " unicuique nos- trum dare paedagogum Deum," said Seneca to Lucilius, " non primarium, sed ex eorum numero, quos Ovidius vocat ex plebe deos :" " There is a guardian God assigned to every one of us, of the number of those which are of the second order;" such are those of whom David speaks, " Before the gods will I sing praise unto thee ;" and it was the doctrine of the stoics, that to every one there was assigned a genius, and a Juno : "Q,uam- obrem major ccelitum populus etiam quam hominum intelligi potest, quum singuli ex semetipsis totidem Deos faciant, Junones geniosque adoptando sibi," said Pliny : " Every one does adopt gods into his family, and get a genius and a Juno of their own." " Junonem meam iratam habeam;" it was the oath of Quartilla in Petronius ; and So- crates in Plato is said to "swear by his Juno f though afterwards, among the Ro- mans, it became the woman's oath, and a note of effeminacy ; but the thing they aimed at was this, that God took care of us below, and sent a ministering spirit for our defence ; but that this is only upon the accounts of piety, they knew not. But we are taught it by the Spirit of God in Scripture. For, " the angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to the good of them who shall be heirs of salvation;"* and concerning St. Peter, the faithful had an opinion, that it might be "his angel :" agreeing to the doc- trine of our blessed Lord, who spake of angels appropriate to his little ones, to in- fants, to those that belong to him. Now what God said to the sons of Israel, is also true to us Christians ; " Behold, I send an angel before thee : beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions. "f So that if we provoke the Spirit of the Lord to anger by a course of evil living, either the angel will depart from us, or, if he stays, he will strike us. The best of these is bad enough, and he is highly miserable, Qui non sit tanto hoc custode securus, whom an angel cannot defend from mis- chief, nor any thing secure him from the * Heb. i. 14. t Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. F SODOM. Serm. XXL j wrath of God. It was the description and | character which the Erythrean sibyl gave l to God, I v ' i ,i j AtySaptos, xtirstrjs cuWtoj, at^tpa vaicov, i Tot 5 t axaxoi$ ix.xo.xov rtpoytpcov rto?.v /Xcl^ova i Tois 8e xaxoi$ dStxoij ts %o"kov xai ^vfiov syetptov. It is God's appellative to be "a giver of excellent rewards to just and innocent per- sons: but to assign to evil men fury , wrath, and sorrow, for their portion." If I should launch farther into this dead sea, I should j find nothing but horrid shriekings, and the ! skulls of dead men utterly undone. Fearful it is to consider, that sin does not only drive us into calamity, but it makes us also impa- tient, and imbitters our spirit in the suffer- ance : it cries loud for vengeance, and so torments men before the time, even with such fearful outcries, and horrid alarms, that their hell begins before the fire is kindled. It hinders our prayers, and consequently makes us hopeless and helpless. It perpetu- ally affrights the conscience, unless by its frequent stripes it brings a callousness and an insensible damnation upon it. It makes us to lose all that which Christ purchased for us, all the blessings of his providence, the comforts of his Spirit, the aids of his grace, the light of his countenance, the hopes of his glory ; it makes us enemies to God, and to be hated by him more than he hates a dog: and with a dog shall be his portion to eternal ages ; with this only differ- ence, that they shall both be equally excluded from heaven, but the dog shall not, and the sinner shall, descend into hell ; and, which is the confirmation of all evil, for a transient sin God shall inflict an eternal death. Well might it be said in the words of God by the prophet, "Ponam Babylonem in posses- sionem erinacei," " Babylon shall be the I possession of a hedgehog:" that is, a sinner's dwelling, encompassed round with thorns and sharp prickles, afflictions and uneasi- ness all over. So that he that wishes his sin big and prosperous, wishes his bee as big as a bull, and his hedgehog like an ele- phant ; the pleasure of the honey would not cure the mighty sting; and nothing make recompense, or be a good, equal to the evil of an eternal ruin. But of this there is no end. I sum up all with the saying of Pub- lius Mimus; " Tolerabilior est qui mori ju- bet, quam qui male vivere," " He is more to be endured that puts a man to death, than he that betrays him into sin :" — for the end of this is "death eternal." Serm. XXII. THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. 163 SERMON XXII. THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. PART I. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edify- ing, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. — Ephes. iv. 29. He that had an ill memory, did wisely comfort himself by reckoning the advantages he had by his forgetfulness. For by this means he was hugely secured against malice and ambition ; for his anger went off with the short notice and observation of the in- jury j and he saw himself unfit for the businesses of other men, or to make records in his head, and undertake to conduct the intrigues of affairs of a multitude, who was apt to forget the little accounts of his own seldom reading. He also remembered this, that his pleasures in reading books were more frequent, while he remembered but little of yesterday's study, and to-morrow the book is new, and with its novelties gives him fresh entertainment, while the retaining brain lays the book aside, and is full already. Every book is new to an ill memory, and one long book is a library, and its parts re- turn fresh as the morning, which becomes a new day, though by the revolution of the same sun. Besides these, it brought him to tell truth for fear of shame, and in mere ne- cessity made his speech little, and his dis- coursings short; because the web drawn from his brain was soon spun out, and his fountain grew quickly dry, and left run- ning through forgetfumess. He that is not eloquent and fair-spoken, hath some of these comforts to plead in excuse of his ill fortune or defective nature. For if he can but hold his peace, he shall be sure not to be trouble- \ some to his company, nor marked for lying, nor become tedious with multiplicity of idle talk ; he shall be presumed wise, and often- times is so ; he shall not feel the wounds of contention, nor be put to excuse an ill- taken saying, nor sigh for the folly of an ir- recoverable word; if his fault be that he hath not spoken, that can at any time be mended, but if he sinned in speaking, it can- not be unspoken again. Thus he escapes the dishonour of not being believed, and the trouble of being suspected ; he shall never fear the sentence of judges, nor the decrees of courts, high reproaches, or the angry words of the proud, the contradiction of the disputing man, or the thirst of talkers. By these, and many other advantages, he that holds his peace, and he that cannot speak, may please themselves ; and he may at least have the rewards and effects of solitariness, if he misses some of the pleasures of society. But by the use of the tongue, God hath dis- tinguished us from beasts, and by the well or ill using it, we are distinguished from one another ; and therefore, though silence be innocent as death, harmless as a rose's breath to a distant passenger, yet it is rather the state of death than life ; and therefore, when the Egyptians sacrificed to Harpo- crates, their God of silence, in the midst of their rites they cried out, yjiiwo Saiucw , " the tongue is an angel," good or bad, that is as it happens ; silence was to them a god, but the tongue is greater : it is the band of hu- man intercourse, and makes men apt to unite in societies and republics : and I re- member what one of the ancients said, that we are better in the company of a known dog, than of a man whose speech is not known, " ut externus alieno non sit hominis vice ;" " a stranger to a stranger in his lan- guage, is not as a man to a man ;" for by voices and homilies, by questions and an- swers, by narratives and invectives, by counsel and reproof, by praises and hymns, by prayers and glorifications, we serve God's glory and the necessities of men ; and by the tongue our tables are made to differ from mangers, our cities from deserts, our churches from herds of beasts and flocks of sheep. " Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," spoken by the tongues of men and angels : and the blessed spirits in heaven cease not from saying night and day their Tptoaytov, " their song of glory," to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever : and then our em- ployment shall be glorious as our state, when our tongue shall to eternal ages sing halle- lujahs to their Maker and Redeemer; and therefore, since nature hath taught us to speak, and God requires it, and our thank- fulness obliges us, and our necessities en- gage us, and charity sometimes calls for it, and innocence is to be defended, and we are to speak in the cause of the oppressed, and open our mouths in the cause of God, and it is always a seasonable prayer, that God would open out lips, that our mouth may do the work of heaven, and declare his praises, and show forth his glory ; it con- cerns us to take care that nature be changed into grace, necessity into choice, that, while we speak the greatness of God, and minister 164 THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. Serm. XXII. to the needs of our neighbour, and do the ( the Divine Spirit, but dishonours all its works of life and religion, of society and I channels and conveyances : the proper lan- prudence, we may be fitted to bear a part guage of the sin is not fit to be used so in the songs of angels, when they shall re- much as in reproof; and therefore, I have joice at the feast of the marriage-supper of I sometimes wondered, how it came to pass, the Lamb. But the tongue is a fountain both of bitter waters and of pleasant; it sends forth blessing and cursing ; it praises God, and rails at men ; it is sometimes set on fire, and then it puts whole cities in com- bustion; it is unruly, and no more to be restrained than the breath of a tempest; it is volatile and fugitive : reason should go be- fore it, and when it does not, repentance comes after it ; it was intended for an organ of the Divine praises, but the devil often plays upon it, and then it sounds like the screech-owl, or the groans of death ; sorrow and shame, folly and repentance, are the notes and formidable accents of that discord. We all are naturally toyda$ urtrjS, ov Swrvri xaBixt'&H Toy axovovtoi' it not, provided that we be also adkoyot, | aTtoyvuvwai oatytvtspov ra teyousva,'* "you " wise and material, useful and prudent, in cannot profit the hearers unless you discover our discourses." For since speech is for conversation, let it be also charitable and profitable, let it be without sin, but not with- out profit and grace to the hearers, and then it is as God would have it ; and this is the precept of the text, first telling us what we should avoid, and then telling us what we should pursue; what our discourse ought not to be, and, secondly, what it ought to be. There being no more variety in the structure of the words, I shall, 1. discourse of the vices of the tongue ; 2. of its duty and proper employment. L. "Let no corrupt communication pro- ceed out of your mouth ;" ?ta$ 6 Ganpbs x,6yoj, corrupt or " filthy " communication ; so we read it : and it seems properly to note such communication as ministers to wantonness; the filthiness," for the withdrawing the cur- tain is shame and confutation enough for so great a baseness ; and chirurgeons care not how they defile their hand, so they may do profit to the patient. And, indeed, there is a material difference in the design of him that speaks ; if he speaks oixnov 7td9ov$, "according to his secret affection," and pri- vate folly, it is certainly intolerable: but if he speaks anb xrfisuovlas, " out of a desire to profit" the hearer, and cure the criminal, though it be in the whole kind of it honest and well meant ; yet, that it is imprudent, (Irritamentum Veneris languentis, et acris Divitis urticae,)— Juv. and not wholly to be excused by the fair meaning, will soon be granted by all who such as are the Fescennines of Ausonius, iknow what danger and infection it leaves the excrement and spume of Martial's verse, and the Ephesiaca of Xenophon; indeed, this is such a rudeness as is not to be ad- mitted into civil conversation ; and is wittily noted by the apostle, charging that " forni- cation should not be once named among them, as becometh saints ;" not meaning that the vice should not have its name and filthy character, but that nothing of it be named, in which it can be tempting or of- fensive ; nothing tending to it, or teachin: upon the fancy, even by those words by which the spirit is instructed. "Ab hac scabie teneamus ungues ;" it is not good to come near the leprosy, though to cleanse the leper's skin. But the word which the apostle uses, (jarfpoj Jtoyoj, means more than this. 2a,-r po* oti to fxoxQrfibv tyavXov, aWud to rtaJjiibv, said Eupolis; and so it signifies, " musty, rotten, and out- worn with age ;" campus Uprpqs, rusty peace," so Aristophanes : and, ac- of it, should be named; we must not have ; cording to this acceptation of the word, we rtopvov ?joyov, " fornication in our talk;" that — . — — is such a baseness, that it not only grieves! * Horail. 4. in. ep. Rom. Serm. XXII. THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. 165 are forbidden to use all language that is in any sense corrupted, unreasonable, or use- less ; language proceeding from an old ini- quity, evil habits, or unworthy customs, called, in the style of Scripture, "the re- mains of the old man," and by the Greeks, " doting " or "talking fondly ;" to rtaiSaplov il, xai, fypovng apzaixa ; " the boy talks like an old dotard." 2. Sartpoy signifies "wicked, filthy, or reproachful cartpov, aiazpbv, axd- §ap*ov, " any thing that is in its own nature criminal and disgraceful, any language that ministers to mischief." But it is worse than all this : oartpb? o a^anctyios, " it is a deletery, an extinction of all good ;" for a^oW^ou., is ^ft'pcj, "Kvpalvoixai, xatahvu, it is " a destruc- tion, an entire corruption," of all morality; and to this sense is that of Menander, quoted by St. Paul, qfetipovaw rj^rrj Z9Va^ fy*1*1'0* xaxai' " Evil words corrupt good manners." And therefore, under this word is comprised all the evil of the tongue, that wicked instru- ment of the unclean spirit, in the capacity of all the appellatives. 1. Here is forbidden the useless, vain, and trifling conversation, the Beei^sfiovh, " the god of flies," so is the devil's name ; he rules by these little things, by trifles and vanity, by idle and useless words, by the intercourses of a vain con- versation. 2. The devil is AtajSofcoj, "an accuser of the brethren, and the calumnia- ting, slandering, and undervaluing, detract- ing tongue does his work ; that is, jioyos ala- *p6f, the second that I named ; for oUazpot^ is ?,otSopta (xl(5o$, so Hesychius ; it is "slander, hatred, and calumny." 3. But the third is 'AjtoXkviw, the devil's worst appellative, "the destroyer," the dissolute, wanton, tempting, destroying conversation ; and its worst in- stance of all is flattery, that malicious, co- zening devil, that strengthens our friend in sin, and ruins him from whom we have received, and from whom we expect, good. Of these in order : and first, of the trifling, vain, useless, and impertinent conversation, crartpoy koyoy, " Let no vain communication proceed out of your mouth." 1. The first part of this inordination is " multiloquium," "talking too much;" concerning which, because there is no rule or just measure for the quantity, and it is as lawful, and sometimes as prudent, to tell a long story as a short, and two as well as one, and sometimes ten as well as two : all such discourses are to take their estimate by the matter and the end, and can only be altered bj their circumstances and append- ages. Much speaking is sometimes neces- sary, sometimes useful, sometimes pleasant; and when it is none of all these, though it be tedious and imprudent, yet it is not always criminal. Such was the humour of the gentleman Martial speaks of: he was a good man, and full of sweetness and jus- lice and nobleness, but he would read his nonsense- verses to all companies ; at the public games and in private feasts, in the baths and on the beds, in public and in private, to sleeping and waking people. Vis, quantum facias mali, videre ? Vir justus, probus, innocens timeris. Lib. 3. Ep. 44. Every one was afraid of him, and though he was good, yet he was not to be endured. The evil of this is very considerable in the accounts of prudence, and the effects and plaisance of conversation : and the ancients described its evil well by a proverbial ex- pression ; for when a sudden silence arose, they said that Mercury was entered, mean- ing, that he being their " loquax numen," their prating god," yet that quitted him not, but all men stood upon their guard,; and called for aid and rescue, when they were seized upon by so tedious an impertinence. And, indeed, there are some persons so full of nothings, that, like the strait sea of Pon- tus, they perpetually empty themselves by their mouth, making every company or single person they fasten on to be their Pro- pontis; such a one as was Anaximenes, Xiifwv 7tota[M>s, vov 8e dtaTMryfio^ "He was an ocean of words, but a drop of under- standing." And if there were no more in this than the matter of prudence, and the proper measures of civil conversation, it would yet highly concern old men,# and young men and women, f to separate from their persons the reproach of their sex and age, that modesty of speech be the orna- ment of the youthful, and a reserved dis- course be the testimony of the old man's prudence. " Adolescens," from 'AoWtj^y, said one : " a young man is^ a talker for want of wit," and an old man for want of memory ; for while he remembers the things of his youth, and not how often he hath told them in his old age, he grows in love * Supellex ejus garrulitas. — Comced. t Muliebre ingenium proluvium. — Accius in Andromeda. Sola laboranti potuit succurrere lunse. — Juven. 166 THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. Serm. XXII. with the trifles of his youthful days, and thinks the company must do so too : but he canonizes his folly, and by striving to bring reputation to his first days, he loses the honour of his last. But this thing is con- siderable to further issues ; for though no man can say, that much speaking is a sin, yet the Scripture says, "In multiloquio peccatum non deerit;" "Sin goes along with it, and is an ingredient in the whole composition." For it is impossible but a long and frequent discourse must be served with many passions, and they are not al- ways innocent; for he that loves to talk much, must " rem corradere," " scrape ma- terials together," to furnish out the scenes and long orations ; and some talk them- selves into anger, and some furnish out their dialogues with the lives of others ; either they detract, or censure, or they flatter themselves, and tell their own stories with friendly circumstances, and pride creeps up the sides of the discourse ; and the man en- tertains his friend with his own panegyric ; or the discourse looks one way and rows another, and more minds the design than its own truth ; and most commonly will be so ordered, that it shall please the com- pany, (and that truth or honest plainness seldom does,) or there is a bias in it, which the more of weight and transportation it hath, the less it hath of ingenuity. " Non cre- do auguribus qui aureis rebus divinant;" like soothsayers, men speak fine words to serve ends, and then they are not believed, or at last are found liars, and such discourses are built up to serve the ministries or pleas- ures of the company, but nothing else. Pride and flattery, malice and spite, self-love and vanity, these usually wait upon much speak- ing ; and the reward of it is, that the persons grow contemptible and troublesome, they engage in quarrels, and are troubled to an- swer exceptions ; some will mistake them, and some will not believe them, and it will" be impossible that the mind should be per- petually present to a perpetual talker, but they will forget truth and themselves, and their own relations. And upon this ac- count it is, that the doctors of the primi- tive church do literally expound those mi- natory words of our blessed Saviour ; " Ve- rily I say unto you, of every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give ac- count at the day of judgment."* And by * Mattt. xii. 36. " idle words," they understand, such as are not useful to edification and instruction. So St. Basil : " So great is the danger of an idle word, that though a word be in its own kind good, yet, unless it be directed to the edification of faith, he is not free from danger that speaks it :"* to this purpose are the words of St. Gregory; " While the tongue is not restrained from idle words," " ad temeritatem stultae increpationis erTera- tur," " it is made wild, or may be brought forth to rashness and folly :" and therein lies the secret of the reproof: "A periculo liber non est, et ad temeritatem efferatur," " the man is not free from danger, and he may grow rash,"f and foolish, and run into crimes, whilst he gives his tongue the reins, and lets it wander, and so it may be fit to be reproved, though in its nature it were in- nocent. I deny not, but sometimes they are more severe. St. Gregory calls every word " vain" or " idle," " quod aut rationae justae necessitatis, aut intentione pise utilitatis caret and St. Jerome calls it "vain," " quod sine utilitate et loquentis dicitur et au- dientis," "which profits neither the speaker nor the hearer."|| The same is affirmed by St. Chrysostom§ and Gregory NyssenH upon Ecclesiastes ; and the same seems in- timated in the word xsvbv prjfia, or fatm apy6i>, as it is in some copies, " every word that is idle, or empty of business." But, for the stating of the case of conscience, I have these things to say : 1. That the words of our blessed Saviour, being spoken to the Jews, were so certainly intended as they best and most commonly understood, and by " vain" they under- stood " false" or " lying," not " useless" or "imprudent;" and yet so, though our blessed Saviour hath not so severely for- bidden every empty, insignificant discourse; and yet he hath forbidden every lie, though it be " in genere bonorum," as St. Basil's expression is ; that is, " though it be in the intention charitable, or in the matter inno- cent." 2. "Of every idle word we shall give account;" but yet so, that sometimes the xpifxa, "the judgment," shall fall upon the words, not upon the persons ; they be hay and stubble, useless and impertinent, light and easy, the fire shall consume them and himself shall escape with that loss ; he shall * In Reg. brevior t C. 17. ubi sup. $ In Ps. cxviii. t Lib. 7. Moral. II In Matt. xii. f Cap. 1. Slrm. XXII. THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE 167 tl.en have no honour, no fair return for such discourses, but they shall with loss and pre- judice be rejected and cast away. 3. If all unprofitable discourses be reck- oned for idle words, and put upon the ac- count, yet even the capacities of profit are so large and numerous, that no man hath cause to complain that his tongue is too much restrained by this severity. For in all the ways in which he can do himself good or his neighbour, he hath his liberty ; he is only to secure the words from being directly criminal, and himself from being arrested with a passion, and then he may reckon it lawful, even upon the severest account, to discourse freely, while he can instruct, or ' while he can please his neighbour ; Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare — Hor. while himself gets a fair opinion and a good name, apt to serve honest and fair pur- poses; he may discourse himself into a friendship, or help to preserve it; he may serve the works of art or nature, of business public or private, the needs of his house, or the uses of mankind; he may increase learning, or confirm his notices, cast in his symbol of experience and observation, till the particulars may become a proverbial sentence and a rule ; he may serve the ends of civility and popular addresses, or may instruct his brother or himself, by some- thing which, at that time, shall not be re- duced to a precept by way of meditation, but is of itself apt at another time to do it ; he may speak the praises of the Lord by discoursing of any of the works of creation, and himself or his brother may afterwards remember it to that purpose ; he may coun- sel or teach, reprove or admonish, call to mind a precept, or disgrace a vice, reprove it by a parable or a story, by way of idea or witty rep resentment ; and he that can find talk beyond all this, discourse that can- not become useful in any one of these pur- poses, may well be called a prating man, and expect to give account of his folly, in the days of recompense. 4. Although, in this latitude, a man's discourses may be free and safe from judg- ment, yet the man is not, unless himself design it to good and wise purposes ; not always actually, but by an habitual and general purpose. Concerning which he may, by these measures, best take his ac- counts. 1. That he be sure to speak nothing that may minister to a vice, willingly and Ly observation. 2. If any thing be of a suspicious and dubious nature, that he decline to publish it. 3. That, by a prudent moral care, he watch over his words, that he do none of this injury and unworthiness. 4. That he offer up to God in his prayers all his words, and then look to it, that he speak nothing unworthy to be offered. 5. That he often interweave discourses of religion, and glorifications of God, in- structions to his brother, and ejaculations of his own, something or other not only to sanctify the order of his discourses, but to call him back into retirement and sober thoughts, lest he wander and be carried off too far into the wild regions of imperti- nence; and this Zeno calls -/kussav ft? vovv vjtofo&u, -'Mo dip our tongues in under- standing." In all other cases the rule is good, "H xiyf tl Ghyr-s xptlttov, »7 avyriv tz^, " Either keep silence, or speak something that is better than it;"* rt r>ir/rtv xaiptov rt Tjoyov utftUfiov, so Isocrafes, consonantly enough to this evangelical precept ; " a seasonable silence, or a profitable discourse," choose you whether ; for whatsoever cometh of more, is sin, or else is folly at hand, and will be sin at distance. 6. This account is not to be taken by lit- tle traverses and intercourses of speech, but by greater measures, and more discernible portions, such as are commensurate to va- luable portions of time; for however we are pleased to throw away our time, and are weary of many parts of it, yet are impa- tiently troubled when all is gone ; yet we are as sure to account for every considerable portion of our time, as for every sum of money we receive ; and in this it was, that St. Bernard gave caution, " Nemo parvi sestimet tempus, quod in verbis consumitur otiosis," " Let no man think it a light mat- ter, that he spend his precious time in idle words ;"t let no man be so weary of what flies away too fast, and cannot be recalled, as to use arts and devices to pass the time away in vanity, which might be rarelv spent in the interests of eternity. Time is given us to repent in, to appease the Divine anger, to prepare for and hasten to the society of angels, to stir up our slackened wills, and enkindle our cold devotions, to weep for our daily iniquities, and to sigh *Eurip. + Scrm. de Triplici Custodia. 168 THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. Serm. XXII after, and to work for, the restitution of our lost inheritance ; and the reward is very- inconsiderable, that exchanges all this for the pleasure of a voluble tongue ; and in- deed this is an evil, that cannot be avoided by any excuse that can be made for words, that are, in any sense, idle, — though, in all senses of their own nature and proper rela- tions, they be innocent. They are a throw- ing away something of that, which is to be expended for eternity, and put on degrees of folly, according as they are tedious and expensive of time to no good purposes. I shall not after all this need to reckon more of the evil consequents to the vain and great talker ; but if these already reckoned were not a heap big enough, I could easily add this great evil; that the talking man makes himself artificially deaf, being like a man in the steeple when the bells ring, you talk to a deaf man, though you speak wisely ; Ovx av 8vvcu/xtjv fxrj Gtsyovta riifirtTMicu Eurip. Good counsel is lost upon him, and he hath served all his ends when he pours out what- soever he took in ; for he therefore loaded his vessel, that he might pour it forth into the sea. These and many more evils, and the per- petual unavoidable necessity of sinning by much talking, hath given great advantages to silence, and made it to be esteemed an act of discipline and great religion. St. Romualdus, upon the Syrian mountain, severely kept a seven years' silence ; and Thomas Cantipratensis tells of a religious person, in a monastery in Brabant, that spake not one word in sixteen years. But they are greater examples which Palladius tells of: Ammona, who lived with three thousand brethren in so great silence, as if he were an anchoret ; but Theona was silent for thirty years together ; and Johan- nes, surnamed Silentiarius, was silent for forty-seven years. But this morosity and sullenness are so far from being imitable and laudable, that if there were no direct prevarication of any commands expressed or intimated in Scripture, vet it must cer- tainly either draw with it, or be itself, an infinite omission of duty ; especially in the external glorifications of God, in the insti- tution or advantages of others, in thanks - giving in public offices, and in all the ef ! fects and emanations of spiritual mercy. This was to make amends for committing many sins by omitting many duties ; and, instead of digging out the offending eye, to pluck out both, that they might neither see the scandal nor the duty; for fear of seeing what they should not, to shut their eyes against all light. It was more prudent which was reported of St. Gregory Nazian- zen, who made silence an act of discipline, and kept it a whole Lent in his religious retirements, te Cujus facti mei si causam quairis," (said he in his account he gives of it,) "idcirco a sermone prorsus abstinui, ut sermonibus meis moderari discam;" "I then abstained wholly, that all the year after I might be more temperate in my talk." This was in him an act of caution ; but how apt it was to minister to his pur- pose of a moderated speech for the future, is not certain; nor the philosophy of it, and natural efficacy, easy to be apprehended. It was also practised by way of penance, with indignation against the follies of the tongue, and the itch of prating ; so to chas- tise that petulant member, as if there wert! a great pleasure in prating, which when it grew inordinate, it was to be restrained and punished like other lusts. I remember it was reported of St. Paul the hermit, scho- lar of St. Anthony, that, having once asked whether Christ or the old prophets were first, he grew so ashamed of his foolish question, that he spake not a word for three years following : and Sulpitius, as St. Jerome reports of him, being deceived by the Pelagians, spoke some fond things, and, repenting of it, held his tongue to his dying day, " ut peccatum quod loquendo contraxerat, tacendo penitus emendaret." Though the pious mind is in such actions highly to be regarded, yet I am no way per- suaded of the prudence of such a deadness and Labitinarian religion ; Murmura cum secum et rabiosa sflentia rodunt, so such importune silence was called and understood to be a degree of stupidity and madness : for so physicians, among the signs of that disease in dogs, place their not barking; and yet, although the excess and unreasonableness of this may be well chas- tised by such a severe reproof, yet it is cer- tain, in silence there is wisdom, and there may be deep religion. So Aretaeus, de- scribing the life of a studious man among others, he inserts this, they are d^poot, xai e> Serm. XXII. THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. K*0 vtoir^i yrjpatJoi, xai V7i ivvolai xufyoi "With- out colour, pale and wise when they are young, and, by reason of their knowledge, silent" as mutes, and dumb as the Seri- phian frogs. And indeed it is certain, great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most severe bridle of the tongue. For so have I heard, that all the noises and prating of the pool, the croaking of frogs and toads, is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the light of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge checks the dissolutions of the tongue. But Ut quisque contemptissi- mus et maxime ludibrio est, ita solutissimse linguae est," said Seneca; "Every man, as he is a fool and contemptible, so his tongue is hanged loose ;" being like a bell, in which there is nothing but tongue and noise. Silence therefore is the cover of folly, or the effect of wisdom ; it is also religious ; and the greatest mystic rites of any institu- tion are ever the most solemn and the most silent; the words in use are almost made synonymous : " There was silence made in heaven for a while," said St. John, who noted it upon occasion of a great solemnity and mysterious worshippings or revelations to be made there. ~H ^caa *£$ Mov, "One of the gods is within," said Telema- chus ; upon occasion of which his father reproved his talking. liya, xai fist a "to take more than a man should ;" and there- fore, when St. Paul said, " Let no man cir- cumvent his brother in any matter," he expounds it of " adultery ;" and in this very place he renders 7tteov£%lav, "stuprum," "lust;" and, indeed, it is usual in Scripture, that covetousness, — being so universal, so original a crime, such a prolific sin, — be called by all the names of those sins by which it is either punished, or to which it tempts, or whereby it is nourished ; and as here it is called "uncleanness," or "cor- ruption ;" so, in another place, it is called "idolatry." But to return; this jesting, which St. Paul reproves, is a direct ^uopo- Tioyta, or the jesting of mimics and players, that of the fool in the play, which, in those times, and long before, and long after, were of that licentiousness, that they would abuse Socrates or Aristides : and because the rab- ble were the laughers, they knew how to make them roar aloud with a slovenly and wanton word, when they understood not the salt and ingenuity of a witty and useful *Ephes. v.4. answer or reply ; as it is to be seen in the intertextures of Aristophanes' comedies. But in pursuance of this of St. Paul, the fathers of the church have been very severe in the censures of this liberty. St. Ambrose for- bids all : " Non solum profusos, sed etiam omnes jocos declinandos arbitror;" "Not only the looser jestings, but even all, are to be avoided:"* nay, " licet interdum joca honesta et suavia sint, tamen ab ecclesioe horrent regula," " the church allows them not, though they be otherwise honest and pleasant ; for how can we use those things we find not in Holy Scripture?" St. Basil gives reason for this severity : Jocus facit animam remissam et erga praecepta Dei negligentem ;" and, indeed, that cannot be denied ; those persons whose souls are dis- persed and ungathered by reason of a wan- ton humour to intemperate jesting, are apt to be trifling in their religion. St. Jerome is of the same opinion, and adds a command- ment of a full authority, if at least the record was right; for he quotes a saying of our blessed Saviour out of the Gospel of the Nazarenes ; " Nunquam Iseti sitis, nisi cum fratrem vestrum incharitate videritis ;" " Ne- ver be merry, but when you see your brother in charity :"f and when you are merry, St. James hath appointed a proper expression of it, and a fair entertainment to the passion ; " If any man be merry, let him sing psalms." But St. Bernard, who is also strict in this particular, yet he adds the temper. Though jestings be not fit for a Christian, "Interdum tamen si incidant, ferendae fortassis, referen- da nunquam : magis interveniendum caute et prudenter nugacitati ;" " If they seldom happen, they are to be borne, but never to be returned and made a business of; but we must rather interpose warily and prudently to hinder the growth and progress of the trifle." But concerning this case of conscience, we are to remember, these holy persons found jesting to be a trade \% such were the " ridicularii" among the Romans, and the yeUitoriovoi among the Greeks ; and this trade, besides its own unworthiness, was mingled with infinite impieties; and in the institu- tion, and in all the circumstances of its prac- tice, was not only against all prudent se- verity, but against modesty and chastity, and was a license in disparagement of virtue; and the most excellent things and * Lip. de Offic. t In ep. ap. Ephes. t Vide S. Chrysost. Homil. 6. in Matth. Serm. XXIII. THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. 173 persons were by it undervalued ; so that in this throng of evil circumstances finding a humour placed, which, without infinite wariness, could never pretend to innocence, it is no wonder they forbade all ; and so also did St. Paul upon the same account. And in the same state of reproof to this day, are all that do as they did : such as are professed jesters, people that play the fool for money, whose employment and study is to unclothe themselves of the covers of reason or mo- desty, that they may be laughed at. And let it be considered, how miserable every sinner is, if he does not deeply and truly repent ; and when the man is wet with tears, and covered with sorrow, crying out mightily against his sins, how ugly will it look when this is remembered, the next day, that he plays the fool, and rasies his laughter louder ttian his prayers and yesterday's groans, for no interest but that he may eat ! A penitent and a jester is like a Grecian piece of money, on which were stamped a Helena on one side, and a Hecuba on the other, a rose and a deadly aconite, a Paris and an iEsop, — nothing was more contrary; and upon this account this folly was reproved by St. Je- rome; "Verum et haec a Sanctis viris peni- tus propellenda, quibus magis convenit stere atque lugere ;" " Weeping, and penitential sorrow, and the sweet troubles of pity and compassion, become a holy person,"* much better than a scurrilous tongue. But the whole state of this question is briefly this. 1. If jesting be unseasonable, it is also in- tolerable; rt%u>$ axatpoj ev fipotols dsivbv xaxov. 2. If it be immoderate, it is criminal, and a little thing here makes the access ; it is so in the confines of folly, that, as soon as it is out of doors, it is in the regions of sin. 3. If it be in an ordinary person, it is dan- gerous ; but if in an eminent, a consecrated, a wise, and extraordinary person, it is scan- dalous. " Inter saeculares nuga? sunt, in ore Sacredotis blasphemiae," so St. Bernard. 4. If the matter be not of an indifferent nature, it becomes sinful by giving counte- nance to a vice, or making virtue to become ridiculous. 5. If it be not watched that it complies with all that hear, it becomes offensive and injurious. 6. If it be not intended to fair and lawful purposes, it is sour in the using. 7. If it be frequent, it combines and clus- ters into a formal sin. Ubi supra. I 8. If it mingles with any sin, it puts on I the nature of that new unworthiness, beside I the proper ugliness of the thing itself ; and, | after all these, when can it be lawful or apt , for Christian entertainment? The Ecclesiastical History reports, that many jests passed between St. Anthony, the ■ father of the hermits, and his scholar St. j Paul ; and St. Hilarion is reported to have been very pleasant, and of facete, sweet, and more lively conversation ; and, indeed, I plaisance and joy, and a lively spirit, and a j pleasant conversation, and the innocent ca- J resses of a charitable humanity, is not for- j bidden ; " Plenum tamen suavitatis et gratia? sermonemnon esse indecorum," St. Ambrose affirmed ; and here in my text our conversa- tion is commanded to be such, iva 69 ^aptv, " that it may minister grace," that is, favour, complaisance, cheerfulness ; and be accepta- ble and pleasant to the hearer : and so must be our conversation ; it must be as far from sullenness as it ought to be from lightness, and a cheerful spirit is the best convoy for religion ; and though sadness does in some cases become a Christian, as being an index of a pious mind, of compassion, and a wise, proper resentment of things, yet it serves but one end, being useful in the only instance of repentance ; and hath done its greatest works, not when it weeps and sighs, but when it hates and grows careful against sin. But cheerfulness and a festival spirit fill the soul full of harmony, it composes music for churches and hearts, it makes and publishes glorifications of God, it produces thankful- ness, and serves the end of charity : and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about : and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy, does set forward the work of religion and charity. And, in- deed, charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else but a union of joys, concentred in the heart, and reflected from all the angels of our life and intercourse. It is a rejoicing in God, a gladness in our neighbour's good, a pleasure in doing good, a rejoicing with him ; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friend- ship to be so noble and divine a thing; and upon this account it is certain, that all that which can innocently make a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for grief, p2 174 THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE Serm. XXIII. and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome ; but mirth and cheerfulness are content, and civil, and com- pliant, and communicative, and love to do good, and swell up to felicity only upon the wings of charity. Upon this account, here is pleasure enough for a Christian at present ; and if a facete discourse, and an amicable friendly mirth, can refresh the spirit, and take it off from the vile temptation of peevish, de- spairing, uncomplying melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and brisk discourse, as by the air of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse, as with the fat of the balsam tree ; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother, — when it is loose and wanton, — when it is unseasonable, — and much, or many, — when it serves ill pur- poses, or spends better time, — then it is the drunkenness of the soul, and makes the spirit fly away, seeking for a temple where the mirth and the music are solemn and re- ligious. But, above all the abuses which ever dis- honoured the tongue of man, nothing more deserves the whip of an exterminating angel, or the stings of scorpions, than profane jesting: which is a bringing of the Spirit of God to partake of the follies of a man ; as if it were not enough for a man to be a fool, but the wisdom of God must be brought into those horrible scenes : he that makes a jest of the words of Scripture, or of holy things, plays with thunder, and kisses the mouth of a cannon just as it belches fire and death ; he stakes heaven at spurn-point, and trips cross and pile whether ever he shall see the face of God or not; he laughs at damnation, while he had rather lose God than lose his jest; nay, (which is the horror of all,) he makes a jest of God himself, and the Spirit of the Father and the Son to become ridiculous. Some men use to read Scripture on their knees, and many with their heads uncovered, and all good men with fear and trembling, with reverence and grave attention. "Search the Scriptures, for therein ye hope to have life eternal;" and, "All Scripture is written by inspiration of God, and is fit for instruc- tion, for reproof, for exhortation, for doc- trine," hot for jesting; but he that makes that use of it, had better part with his eyes ! in jest, and give his heart to make a tennis- ball; and, that I may speak the worst thing in the world of it, it is as like the material part of the sin against the Holy Ghost, as jeering of a man is to abusing him ; and no man can use it but he that wants wit and manners, as well as he wants religion. 3. The third instance of the vain, trifling conversation and immoderate talking is re- vealing secrets ; which is a dismantling and rending of the robe from the privacies of hu- man intercourse ; and it is worse than deny- ing to restore that which was entrusted to our charge; for this not only injures his neighbour's right, but throws it away, and exposes it to his enemy ; it is a denying to give a man his own arms, and delivering them to another, by whom he shall suffer mischief. He that entrusts a secret to his friend, goes thither as to a sanctuary, and to violate the rites of that is sacrilege, and pro- fanation of friendship, which is the sister of religion, and the mother of secular blessing ; a thing so sacred, that it changes a kingdom into a church, and makes interest to be piety, and justice to become religion. But this mischief grows according to the subject- matter and its effect ; and the tongue of a babbler may crush a man's bones, and break his fortune upon her own wheel ; and whatever the effect be, yet of itself it is the betraying of a trust, and, by reproach, often- times passes on to intolerable calamities, like a criminal to his scaffold through the execrable gates of cities ; and, though it is infinitely worse that the secret is laid open out of spite or treachery, yet it is more foolish when it is discovered for no other end but to serve the itch of talking, or to seem to know, or to be accounted worthy of a trust; for so some men open their cabinets, to show only that a treasure is laid up, and that themselves were valued by their friend, when they were thought capable of a secret ; but they shall be so no more, for he that by that means goes in pursuit of reputation, loses the substance by snatching at the shadow, and, by desiring to be thought worthy of a secret, proves himself unworthy of friendship or society. D'Avila tells of a French marquis, young and fond, to whom the duke of Guise had conveyed notice oi the intended massacre; which when he had whispered into the king's ear, where there was no danger of publication, but only would seem a person worthy of such a trust, ! he was instantly murdered, lest a vanity ! like that might unlock so horrid a mystery. Serm. XXIII. THE GOOD AN D EVIL TONGUE. 175 I have nothing more to add concerning this, but that if this vanity happens in the matters of religion, it puts on some new circumstances of deformity : and if he, that ministers to the souls of men, and is appoint- ed to "restore him that is overtaken in a fault, shall publish the secrets of a con- science, he prevaricates the bands of nature and religion ; instead of a father, he turns "an accuser," a Ata,8oXoj, he weakens the hearts of the penitent, and drives the repent- ing man from his remedy by making it to be intolerable ; and so religion becomes a scan- dal, and his duty is made his disgrace, and Christ's yoke does bow his head unto the ground, and the secrets of the Spirit pass into the flames of the world, and all the sweetness by which the severity of the duty is alleviated and made easy, are imbittered and become venomous by the tongue of a talking fool. Valerius Soranus was put to death by the old and braver Romans, " ob meritum profanse vocis, quod, contra inter- dictum, Romse nomen eloqui fuit ausus;" " because by prating he profaned the secret of their religion, and told abroad that name of the city which the Tuscan rites had com- manded to be concealed, lest the enemies of the people should call from them their tutelar gods, which they could not do but by telling the proper relation. And in Christianity, all nations have consented to disgrace that priest, who loves the pleasure of a fool's tongue before the charity of souls, and the arts of the Spirit, and the nobleness of the religion ; and they have inflicted upon him all the censures of the church, which in the capacity of an ecclesiastical person he can suffer. These I reckon the proper evils of the vain and trifling tongues ; for though the effect passes into further mischief, yet the original is weakness and folly, and all that un worthiness which is not yet arrived at malice. But hither also, upon the same ac- count, some other irregularities of speech are reducible, which, although they are of a mixed nature, yet are properly acted by a vain and loose tongue ; and therefore may be considered here not improperly. 1 . The first is common swearing, against which St. Chrysostom spends twenty homi- lies : and by the number and weight of ar- guments hath left this testimony, that it is a foolish vice, but hard to be cured : infinitely unreasonable, but strangely prevailing; al- most as much without remedy, as it is with- out pleasure ; for it enters first by folly, and grows by custom, and dwells with careless- ness, and is nursed by irreligion, and want of the fear of God ; it profanes the most holy things, and mingles dirt with the beams ot the sun, follies and trifling talk interweaved and knit together with the sacred name of God ; it placeth the most excellent of things in the. meanest and basest circumstances, it brings the secrets of heaven into the streets, dead men's bones into the temple ; nothing is a greater sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue, and blend it as an expletive to fill up the emptiness of a weak discourse. The name of God is so sacred, so mighty, that it rends mountains, it opens the bowels of the deepest rocks, it casts out devils, and makes hell to tremble, and fills all the regions of heaven with joy; the name of God is our strength and confidence, the object of our worshippings, and the security of all our hopes ; and when God had given him- self a name, and immured it with dread and reverence, like the garden of Eden with the swords of cherubim, and none durst speak it but he whose lips were hallowed, and that at holy and solemn times, in a most holy and solemn place; I mean the high priest of the Jews at the solemnities when he entered into the sanctuary, — then he taught all the world the majesty and venera- tion of his name ; and therefore it was that God made restraints upon our conceptions and expressions of him : and, as he was in- finitely curious, that, from all appearances he made to them, they should not depict or engrave any image of him ; so he took care that even the tongue should be restrained, and not be too free in forming images and representments of his name ; and therefore, as God drew their eyes from vanity, by put- ting his name amongst them, and repre- senting no shape; so even when he had put his name amongst them, he took it off from the tongue, and placed it before the eye; for Jehovah was so written on the priest's mitre, that all might see and read, but none speak it but the priest. But be- sides all this, there is one great thing con- cerning the name of God, beyond all that can be spoken or imagined else ; and that is, that when God the Father was pleased to pour forth all his glories, and imprint them upon his holy Son, in his exaltation, it was by giving him his holy name, the Tetragrammaton, or Jehovah made articu- late; to signify "God manifested in the flesh ;" and so he wore the character of God, and became the bright image of his person 176 THE GOOD AND EVIL TONGUE. Serm. XXIII. Now all these great things concerning the name of God, are infinite reproofs of com- mon and vain swearing by it ; God's name is left us here to pray by, to hope in, to be the instrument and conveyance of our wor- shippings, to be the witness of truth and the judge of secrets, the end of strife and the avenger of perjury, the discerner of right and the severe exacter of all wrongs ; and shall all this be unhallowed by impudent talking of God without sense, or fear, or notices, or reverence, or observation ? One thing more I have to add against this vice of a foolish tongue, and that is, that, as much prating fills the discourse with lying, so this trifling swearing changes every trifling lie into a horrid perjury ; and this was noted by St. James : " But above all things swear not at all," tva fo} vrtb xplaw Ttstfyte, " that ye may not fall into condemnation ;"* so we read it, following the Arabian, Syrian, and Latin books, and some Greek copies ; and it signifies, that all such swearing, and putting fierce appendages to every word, like great iron bars to a straw basket, or the curtains of a tent, is a direct condemnation of ourselves : for while we by much talking regard truth too little, and yet bind up our trifles with so severe a band, we are con- demned by our own words ; for men are made to expect what you bound upon them by an oath, and account your trifle to be serious; of which when you fail, you have given sentence against yourself : and this is agreeable to those words of our blessed Saviour, " Of every idle word you shall give account ;"f — " for by thy words thou shalt be condemned, and by thy words thou shalt be justified." But there is another reading of these words, which hath great emphasis and power, in this article, " Swear not at all," vm /xyj si$ vrtbxpLGw rtlotytft, te that you may not fall into hypocrisy," that is, into the disreputation of a lying, deceiving, cozening person : for he that will put his oath to every common word, makes no great matter of an oath ; for in swearing com- monly, he must needs sometimes swear without consideration, and therefore without truth ; and he that does so, in any company, tells the world he makes no great matter of being perjured. All these things put together may take off our wonder at St. James' expression, of rtpo rtuvtov, "above all tilings swear not;" it is a thing so highly to be regarded, and yet * Chap. v. 12. t Matt. xii. is so little considered, that it is hard to say whether there be in the world any instance in which men are so careless of their danger, and damnation, as in this. 2. The next appendage of vain and trifling speech is contention, wrangling, and per- petual talk, proceeding from the spirit of contradiction : " Profert enim mores plerum- que oratio, et animi secreta detegit. Nec sine causa Graeci prodiderunt, ' Ut vivat, quemque etiam dicere,' " said Quintilian : " For the most part, a man's words betray his manners, and unlock the secrets of the mind : and it was not without cause that the Greeks said, f As a man lives, so he speaks ;' " for so indeed Menander, dvSpoj ^apcwcrrp ix Tuyyov yvtopl^E-tav ; and Aristides, oloj o tpoTtoj, tocovtos xai 6 %6yo$: so that it is a sign of a peevish, an angry, and quarrelling disposi- tion, to be disputative, and busy in questions, and impertinent oppositions. You shall meet with some men, (such were the sceptics and such were the Acade- mics, of old,) who will not endure any man shall be of their opinion, and will not suffer men to speak truth, or to consent to their own propositions, but will put every man to fight for his own possessions, disturbing the rest of truth, and all the dwellings of unity and con- sent: "clamosum altercatorem," Q,uintilian calls such a one. This is ftBplccssvfm xap6«x$, " an overflowing of the heart," and of the gall; and it makes men troublesome, and intricates all wise discourses, and throws a cloud upon the face of truth; and while men contend for truth, error, dressed in the same habit, slips into her chair, and all the litigants court her for the divine sister of wis- dom. " Nimium altercando Veritas amittit- ur:" There is noise but no harmony, fight- ing, but no victory, talking, but no learning: all are teachers, and are wilful, every man is angry, and without reason, and without charity. " Their mouth is a spear, their language is a two-edged sword, their throat is a shield," as Nonnus' expression is ; and the cla- mours and noises of this folly is that which St. Paul reproves in this chapter; " Let all bitterness and clamour be put away." People that contend earnestly, talk loud; "Clamor equus estirae; cum prostraveris, equitem dejeceris," saith St. Chrysostom ; " Anger rides upon noise as upon a horse; still the noise and the rider is in the dirt;" Seem. XXIV. OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY. 177 and, indeed, so to do is an act of fine strength, and the cleanest spiritual force that can be exercised in this instance ; and though it be hard, in the midst of a violent motion, in- stantly to stop, yet by strength and good conduct it may done. But he whose tongue rides upon passion, and is spurred by vio- lence and contention, is like a horse or mule without a bridle, and without understand- ing, xZiV hi xsxpar/oruv ovSfi? odtyw £6tL I " No person that is clamorous can be wise." These are the vanities and evil fruits of the easy talker ; the instances of a trifling, impertinent conversation ; and yet, it is observable, that although the instances in the beginning be only vain, yet in the issue and effects they are troublesome and full of mischief; and, that we may perceive, that even all effusion and multitude of language and vainer talk cannot be innocent, we may observe that there are many good things which are wholly spoiled if they do but touch the tongue; they are spoiled with speaking : such as is the sweetest of all Christian graces, humility — and the noblest actions of humanity, the doing favours and acts of kindness. If you speak of them, vou pay yourself, and lose your kindness; humility is by talking changed into pride and hypocrisy, and patience passes into peevishness, and secret trust into perfi- tliousness, and modesty into dissolution, and judgment into censure; but by silence, and a restrained tongue, all the first mis- chiefs are avoided, and all these graces pre- served. they were but infant mischiefs, which for the most part we have already observed, as the issues of vain and idle talking : but there are two spirits worse than these : 1. the spirit of detraction; and, 2. the spirit of flattery. The first is AtaSo?^, from whence the devil hath his name ; he is " an ac- cuser" of the brethren. But the second is worse ; it is gtamffftdpos or Savdeipos, " damna- ble" and "deadly ;" it is the nurse of vice, and the poison of the soul. These are (jampot %6yoi, "sour" and "filthy communi- cations:" the first is rude, but the latter is most mischievous ; and both of them to be avoided like death, or the despairing mur- murs of the damned. I. Let no calumny, no slandering, de- tracting communication proceed out of your mouth ; the first sort of this is that which the apostle calls ivhispering, which signifies to abuse our neighbour secretly, by telling a private story of him : linguaque refert audita susurra ; Ovid. for here the man plays a sure game, as he supposes, a mischief without a witness, Qb^axa xov&a. SERMON XXIV. PART III . OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY. He that is twice asked a question, and then answers, is to be excused if he an- swers weakly : but he that speaks before he be asked, had need take care he speak wisely ; for if he does not, he hath no ex- cuse; and if he does, yet it loses half its beauty; and therefore, the old man gave good counsel in. the comedy to the boy, $ not, oMrta, HoTX t^ft oiyr\ x&jx :* the pro- fits of a restrained modest tongue cannot easily be numbered, any more than the evils of an unbridled and dissolute. But Menander. 23 as Anacreon calls them ; " the light, swift , arrows of a calumniating tongue ;" they pierce into the heart and bowels of the man speedily. These are those which the Holy Scripture notes by the disgraceful jname of "tale-bearers;" "Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among the people ;"* for " there are six things which God hates," (saith Solomon.) "yea, the seventh is an abomination unto him ;"f it is 38txvyfta3 as bad, and as much hated by- God, as an idol, and that is, " a whis- jperer," or "tale-bearer that soweth con- tention amongst brethren. "J This kind of communication was called ttvxofurtta among the Greeks, and was as much hated ! as the publicans among the Jews : rtonpdr, |.«u aropfj A^tcuoi, jtoirpw (Svxotydvtrj, " It is I a vile thing, O ye Athenians, it is a vile thing for man to be a sycophant, or a tale- bearer:" and the dearest friendships in the world cannot be secure, where such whis- ' perers are attended to. Te fingente nefas, Pyladen odisset Orestes, Thesea Pirithoi destituisset amor. Tu Siculos fratres, et majus nomen Atridas, Et Ledae poteras dissociare genus. Mart. * Levit. xix. 6. t Prov. vi. 17. t Prov. xxvi. 20. 178 OF SLANDER A ND FLATTERY. Serm. XXIV. But this crime is a conjugation of evils, and is productive of infinite mischiefs; it undermines peace, and saps the foundation of friendship ; it destroys families, and rends in pieces the very heart and vital parts of charity ; it makes an evil man, party, and witness, and judge, and executioner of the innocent, who is hurt though he deserved it not; Et, si non aliqua nocui3ses, mortuus esses. Vikg. And no man's interest or reputation, no man's peace or safety, can abide, where this nurse of jealousy and parent of conten- tion, like the earwig, creeps in at the ear, and makes a diseased noise and a scandal- ous murmur. 2. But such tongues as these, where they dare, and where they can safely, love to speak louder, and then it is detraction; when men, under the colour of friendship, will certainly wound the reputation of a man, while, by speaking some things of him fairly, he shall without suspicion be believed when he speaks evil of him; such was he that Horace speaks of, "Me Capi- tolinus convictore usus amicoque," &c. " Capitolinus is my friend, and we have long lived together, and obliged each other by mutual endearments, and I am glad he is acquitted by the criminal judges ;" Sed tamen admiror, quo pacto judicium illud Fugerit : tf Yet I confess, I wonder how he should escape ; but I will say no more, because he is my friend.'' Kcuv6$ yap Xti fi$ ovto$ svpr^tai rportoj 6ia3o^s, to fiy ^yoyiUj aM,' trtacvowraj ?*jww,W$a*, says Polybius; "This is a new way of accusation, to destroy a man by praises." These men strike obliquely, like a wild swine, or the ol h vevpot$ j3o*?, irti tZiv Cjluov "%ovm ta xspata, " like bulls in a yoke, they have horns upon their necks," and do you a mischief when they plough your ground ; and, as Joab slew Abner, he took him by the beard and kissed him, and smote him under the fifth rib, that he died ; so doth the detracting tongue, like the smooth- tongued lightning, it will break your bones when it kisses the flesh; so Syphax did secretly wound Masinissa, and made Scipio watchful and implacable against Sopho- nisba, only by commending her beauty and her wit, her constancy and unalterable love to her country, and by telling how much himself was forced to break his faith by the tyranny of her prevailing charms. This is that which the apostle calls 7tovr^loa>, "a crafty and deceitful way of hurting," and renders a man's tongue venomous as the tougue of a serpent, that bites even though he be charmed. 3. But the next is more violent, and that is, railing or reviling; which Aristo- tle, in his Rhetorics, says, is very often the vice of boys and of rich men, who — out of folly or pride, want of manners, or want of the measures of a man, wisdom, and the just proportions of his brethren — do use those that err before them most scorn- fully and unworthily; and Tacitus noted it of the Claudian family in Rome, an old and inbred pride and scornfulness made them apt to abuse all that fell under their power and displeasure; " Quorum super- biam frustra per obsequium et modestiam effugeres."* No observance, no prudence, no modesty, can escape the reproaches of such insolent and high talkers. A. Gellius tells of a boy that would give every one that he met a box on the ear ; and some men will give foul words, having a tongue rough as a cat, and biting like an adder; and all their reproofs are direct scoldings, their common intercourse is open contumely. There have been, in these last ages, exam- ples of judges, who would reproach the condemned and miserable criminal, deriding his calamity, and reviling his person. Nero did so to Thraseas ; and the old heathens to the primitive martyrs ; " pereuntibus ad- dita ludibria," said Tacitus of them ; they crucified them again, by putting them to suffer the shame of their fouler language; they railed at them, when they bowed their heads upon the cross, and groaned forth the saddest accents of approaching death. This is that evil that possessed those, of whom the Psalmist speaks : " Our tongues are our own ; we are they that ought to speak ; who is Lord over us V that is, our tongues cannot be restrained ; and St. James said something of this, " The tongue is an unruly member, which no man can tarae,"f that is, no pri- vate person, but a public may ; for he that can rule the tongue, is fit also to rule the whole body, that is, the church or congre- gation ; magistrates and the governors of souls, they are by severity to restrain this inordinatipn, which indeed is a foul one ; 'ftj apa ov&ev -ft, 5taj36^ov yXw-f-r^j jfca'ptt*/ iv dvtfpujtoij fVfpov xaxov. * Levit. vi. ; Zech. vii. ; Luke iii. t James iii. Serm. XXIV. OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY. 179 " No evil is worse, or of more open vio- lence to the rest and reputation of men, than a reproachful tongue." And it were well if we considered this evil, to avoid it in those instances, by which our conversa- tion is daily stained. Are we not often too imperious against our servants? Do we not entertain and feed our own anger with vile and basest language ? Do not we chas- tise a servant's folly or mistake, his error or his chance, with language fit to be used by none but vile persons, and towards none but dogs ? Our blessed Saviour, restraining the hostility and murder of the tongue, threatens hell-fire to them that call their brother "fool;" meaning, that all language, which does really, and by intention, dis- grace him in the greater instances, is as directly against the charity of the gospel, as killing a man was against the severity and justice of the law. And although the word itself may be used to reprove the indiscre- tions and careless follies of an idle person ; yet it must be used only in order to his amendment, — by an authorized person, — in the limits of a just reproof, — upon just oc- casion,— and so as may not do him mischief in the event of things. For so we find that our blessed Saviour called his disciples, ovaqtovs, " foolish and St. James used d>£purfs xw£, " vain man," signifying the same with the forbidden " raca," xsvov, "vain, useless, or empty;" and St. Paul calls the Galatians "mad, and foolish, and bewitched ;" and Christ called Herod "fox;" and St. John called the Pharisees " the generation of vipers ;" and all this mat- ter is wholly determined by the manner, and with what mind, it is done ; if it be for cor- rection and reproof towards persons that deserve it, and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproof, and this also be done prudently, safely, and use- fully,—it is not contumely ; but when men, upon all occasions, revile an offending per- son, lessening his value, souring his spirit, and his life, despising his infirmities, tragi- cally expressing his lightest misdemean- our, ol V7ib uixputv aaafr^1uar'wv 7t£p8ft.>;T'co$ opyi&usvoo, "being tyranically declamatory, and intolerably angry for a trifle ;" — these are such, who, as Apollonius the philo- sopher said, will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great, and when it is little. For they, who al- Matt. xxiii. 17, 19. Luke xxiv. 25. ways put on a supreme anger, or express the less anger with the highest reproaches, can do no more to him that steals, than to him that breaks a crystal ; " non plus aequo, non diutius quo," was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants; but no more anger, no more severe language, than the thing deserves; if you chide too long, your reproof is changed into reproach ; it too bitterly, it becomes railing ; if too loud, it is immodest: if too public it is like a do«; To 6' ijtiSiutxtw, £i$ ts trv bhov fp£%£iv "Etc "KQibopovixevqv, xvvo$ idt Ipyov, 'Podq. Menand. So the man told his wife in the Greek co- medy; "To follow me in the streets with thy clamorous' tongue, is to do as dogs do," not as persons civil or religious. 4. The fourth instance of the calumniat- ing, filthy communication, is that which we properly call slander, or the inventing evil things, falsely imputing crimes to our neigh- bour : "Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum," said Cicero; " A false tongue or a foul lie against a man's reputation, is like a poisoned arrow," it makes the wound dead- ly, and every scratch to be incurable. " Promptissima vindicta contumeiia," said one ; to reproach and rail, is a revenge that every girl can take. But falsely to accuse, is as spiteful as hell, and deadly as the blood of dragons. Stoicus occidit Baream, delator amicum. Juv. This is the direct murder of the tongue, for " Life and death are in the hand of the tongue," said the Hebrew proverb ; and it was esteemed so vile a thing, that when Jezebel commanded the elders ol Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth, she gave them instructions to "take two men, the sons of Belial;" none else were fit for the employment. Quid non audebis, perfida lingua, loqui? Makt. This was it that broke Ephraim in judg- ment, and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him ; God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witness, "quoniam I coepit abire post sordes," therefore he suf- j fered calumny, and was overthrown in judg- ment. This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters, and the iron entered into his soul;" ! but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengeful mistress, " until his : cause was known, and the word of the Lord 180 OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY. Serm. XXIV. tried him." This was it that slew Abime- lech, and endangered David ; it was a sword "in manu linguae Doeg," "in the hand of Doeg's tongue." By this, Ziba cut off the legs of Mephibosheth, and made his reputa- tion lame for ever ; it thrust Jeremy into the dungeon, and carried Susanna to her stake, and our Lord to his cross ; and therefore, against the dangers of a slandering tongue, all laws have so cautiously armed themselves, that, besides the severest prohibitions of God, often recorded in both Testaments, God hath chosen it to be one of his appellatives to the defender of them, a party for those, whose innocency and defenceless state make them most apt to be undone by this evil spirit; I mean pupils, and widows, the poor, and the oppressed.* And in pursuance of this charity, the imperial laws have invented a "juramentum de calumnia," an oath to be exhibited to the actor or plaintiff, that he be- lieves himself to have a just cause, and that he does not implead his adversary " calum- niandi animo," (f with false instances," and defensible allegations ; and the defendant is to swear, that he thinks himself to use only just defences, and perfect instances of re- sisting ; and both of them obliged themselves, that they would exact no proof but what Avas necessary to the truth of the cause. And all this defence was nothing but neces- sary guards. For, ce a spear, and a sword, and an arrow, is a man that speaketh false witness against his neighbour." And there- fore, the laws of God added yet another bar against this evil, and the false accuser was to suffer the punishment of the objected crime : and, as if this were not sufficient, God hath in several ages wrought miracles, and raised the dead to life, that, by such strange appearances, they might relieve the oppressed innocent, and load the false accus- ing tongue with shame and horrible confu- sion. So it happened in the case of Susanna, the spirit of a man was put into the heart of a child to acquit the virtuous woman ; and so it was in the case of Gregory, bishop of Agrigentum, falsely accused by Sabinus and Crescentius; God's power cast the devil out of Eudocia, the devil, or spirit of slander, and compelled her to speak the truth. St. Austin, in his book, " De Cur& pro Mortuis," tells of a dead father that appeared to his oppressed son, and, in a great matter of law, delivered him from the teeth of false accusa- tion.f So was the church of Monts rescued by the appearance of Aia, the deceased wife * Lcvit. vi. Zech v»i. Luke iii. t C. 11. of Hidulphus, their earl, as it appears in Hanovian story ; and the Polonian Chroni- cles tell the like of Stanislaus, bishop of Cracovia, almost oppressed by the anger and calumny of Boleslaus their king ; God re- lieved him by the testimony of St. Peter, their bishop, or a phantasm like him. But whether these records may be credited or not, I contend not ; yet, it is very material which Eusebius relates of the three false witnesses accusing Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, of an infamous crime, which they did, affirm- ing it under several curses :* the first wish- ing, that, if he said false, God would destroy him with fire ; the second, that he might die of the king's-evil ; the third, that he might be blind; and so it came to pass; the first, being surprised with fire in his own roof, amazed and intricated, confounded and de- spairing, paid the price of his slander with the pains of most fearful flames ; and the second perished by pieces, and chirurgeons, and torment : which when the third saw, he repented of his fault, cried mightily for par- don, but wept so bitterly, that he found at the same time the reward of his calumny and the acceptation of his repentance : xa- xovpyotspov ov&sv 8iaj3o\y$ i&fl nu, said Clean- thes : " Nothing is more operative of spitelful and malicious purposes, than the calumniat- ing tongue." In the temple at Smyrna, there were looking-glasses which represented J the best face as crooked, ugly, and deformed ; j the Greeks called these Iffpos^ua and rapa- ! #poa : and so is every false tongue ; it lies in the face of heaven, and abuses the ears of justice; it oppresses the innocent, and is secretly revenged of virtue ; it defeats all the charity of laws, and arms the supreme power, and makes it strike the innocent ; it makes frequent appeals to be made to heaven, and causes an oath, instead of being the end of strife, to be the beginning of mischief ; it calls the name and testimony of God to seal an injury; it feeds and nourishes cruel anger, but mocks justice, and makes mercy weep herself into pity, and mourn because she cannot help the innocent. 5. The last instance of this evil I shall now represent, is cursing, concerning which I have this only to say : that although the causeless curse shall return upon the tongue that spake it, yet, because very often there is a fault on both sides, when there is reviling or cursing on either, the danger of a cursing tongue is highly to be declined, as the biting of a mad dog, or the tongue of a smitten * L. 6. c. 7. Serm. XXIV. OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY. 181 serpent. For, as envy is in the evil eye, so is cursing in the reproachful tongue; it is a kind of venom and witchcraft, an instrument by which God oftentimes punishes anger and uncharitableness; and by which the devil gets power over the bodies and interests of men: for he that works by Thessalic ceremonies, by charms, and nonsense words, by figures and insignificant characterisms, by images and by rags, by circles and imperfect noises, hath more advantage and real title to the opportunities of mischief, by the cursing tongue; and though God is infinitely more ready to do acts of kindness than of punish- ment, yet God is not so careless a regarder of the violent and passionate wishes of men, but he gives some over to punishment, and chastises the folly of rage, and the madness of the tongue, by suffering it to pass into a furtner mischief than the harsh sound and horrible accents of the evil language. " By the tongue we bless God and curse men," saith St. James ; totSopta is xatapa, " reproach- ing is cursing," and both of them opposed to fvXoywx, to " blessing;" and there are many times and seasons in which both of them pass into real effect. These are the particu- lars of the second. 3. I am now to instance in the third sort of filthy communication, that in which the devil does the most mischief; by which he undoes souls; by which he is worse than AtdSotoj, "an accuser:" for though he ac- cuses maliciously, and instances spitefully, and heaps objections diligently, and aggra- vates bitterly, and with all his power en- deavours to represent the separate souls to God as polluted and unfit to come into his presence, yet this malice is ineffective, be- cause the scenes are acted before the wise Judge of men and angels, who cannot be abused; before our Father and our Lore], who knows whereof we be made, and re- membereth that we are but dust ; before our Saviour, and our elder Brother, who hath felt our infirmities, and knows how to pity, to excuse, and to answer for us : but though this accusation of us cannot hurt them who will not hurt themselves, yet this malice is prevailing when the spirit of flattery is let forth upon us. This is the ' ArtoKkviov , " the destroyer," and is the most contrary- thing to charity in the whole world : and St. Paul noted it in his character of charity, "H dydrtr} ov ftepTttpsvettu, " Charity vaunteth not itself;" * so we translate it, but certain- * 1 Cor. xiii. 5. ly, not exactly, for it signifieth " easiness," complying foolishly, and flattering ; "charity Jiattereth not ;" Tl fare to rttprtt p?uf o§ai ; rtdvo /.tr; Sta^peiar, a7.%d bid xaM.urti^oi' rtapaXa(u3arf rat, saith Suidas, out of St. Basil ; " It signifies any thing that serves rather for ornament than for use," for pleasure than for profit. Et eo plectuntur poetae guam suo vitio saepius, Ductabilitate nimia vestra aut perperitudine ; | saith the comedy ; " The poets suffer more j by your easiness and flattery, than by their own fault." — And this is it which St. Paul says is against charily. For if to call a man "fool and vicious," be so high an injury, we may thence esteem what a great calamity it is to be so; and therefore, he that makes him so, or takes a course he shall not be- come other, is the vilest enemy to his per- son and his felicity: and this is the mischief that is done by flattery; it is a design against the wisdom, against the repentance, against the growth and promotion of a man's soul. He that persuades an ugly, deformed man, that he is handsome, — a short man that he is tall, — a bald man that he hath a good head of hair, — makes him to become ridicu- lous and a fool, but does no other mischief. But he that persuades his friend, that is a goat in his manners, that he is a holy and a chaste person, — or that his looseness is a sign of a quick spirit, — or that it is not dan- gerous, but easily pardonable, — a trick of youth, a habit that old age will lay aside as a man pares his nails, — this man hath given great advantage to his friend's mischief; he hath made it grow in all the dimensions of the sin, till it grows intolerable, and perhaps unpardonable. And let it be considered ; what a fearful destruction and contradiction of friendship or service it is, so to love my- self and my little interest, as to prefer it before the soul of him whom I ought to love ! By my flattery I lay a snare to get twenty pounds, and rather than lose this contemptible sum of money, I will throw him that shall give it me (as far as I can) into hell, there to roar beyond all the mea- sures of time or patience. Can any hatred be more, or love be less, can any expression | of spite be greater, than that it be said, "You will not part with twenty pounds to save your friend's, or your patron's, or your ! brother's soul?" and so it is with him that invites him to, or confirms him in, his folly, in hopes of getting something from him; he will see him die, and die eternally, and help forward that damnation, so he may get that a 182 OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY. Serm. XXIV. little by it. Every state is set in the midst of danger, as all trees are set in the wind, but the tallest endure the greatest violence of tempest : no man natters a beggar ; if he does a slovenly and a rude crime, it is enter- tained with ruder language, and the mean man may possibly be affrighted from his fault, while it is made so uneasy to him by the scorn and harsh reproaches of the mighty. But princes and nobles often die with this disease : and when the courtiers of Alexander counterfeited his wry neck, and the servants of the Sicilian tyrant pre- tended themselves dim-sighted, and on pur- pose rushed one against another, and over- threw the meat as it was served to his table, only because the prince was short-sighted, they gave them sufficient instances in what state of affairs they stood with them that waited ; it was certain they would commend every foolish answer, and pretend subtilty in every absurd question, and make a petition that their base actions might pass into a law, and be made to be the honour and sanc- tity of all the people : and what proportions or ways can such great personages have towards felicity, when their vice shall be allowed and praised, every action that is but tolerable shall be accounted heroical, and if it be intolerable among the wise, it shall be called virtuous among the flatterers ? Car- neades said bitterly, but it had in it too many degrees of truth, That princes and great personages never learn to do any thing per- fectly well, but to ride the great horse ; "quia scilicet ferociens bestia adulari non didicit," "because the proud beast knows not how to flatter," but will as soon throw him off from his back, as he will shake off the son of a porter. But a flatterer is like a neighing horse, that neigheth under every rider, and is pleased with every thing, and commends all that he sees, and tempts to mischief, and cares not, so his friend may but perish pleasantly. And, indeed, that is a calamity that undoes many a soul; we so love our peace, and sit so easily upon our own good opinions, and are so apt to flatter ourselves, and lean upon our own false sup- ports, that we cannot endure to be disturbed or awakened from our pleasing lethargy. For we care not to be safe, but to be secure, not to escape hell, but to live pleasantly; we are not solicitous of the event, but of the way thither, and it is sufficient, if we be persuaded all is well; in the mean time, we are careless whether indeed it be so or not, and therefore we give pensions to fools and vile persons to abuse us, and cozen us of felicity. But this evil puts on several shapes, which we must discover, that they may not cozen us without our observation. For all men are not capable of an open flat- tery. And therefore, some will dress their I hypocrisy and illusion so, that you may feel the pleasure, and but secretly the compli- ance and tenderness to serve the ends ot your folly. " Perit procari, si latet," said Plancus; "If you be not perceived you lose your reward; if you be too open, you lose it worse." 1. Some flatter by giving great names and propounding great examples ; and thus the Egyptian villains hung a tumbler's rope upon their prince, and a piper's whistle ; I because they called their Ptolemy by the I name of Apollo, their god of music. This j put buskins upon Nero, and made him fiddle in all the great towns of Greece. When their lords were drunkards, they called them Bacchus ; when they were wrestlers, they saluted them by the name of Hercules ; and some were so vain, as to think themselves commended, when their flatterers told aloud, that they had drunk more than Alexander the conqueror. And indeed nothing more abuses easy fools, that only seek for an excuse for their wickedness, a patron for their vice, a warrant for their sleepy peace, — than to tell stories of great examples remarked for the instances of their temptation. When old Cato commended meretricious mixtures, and, to prevent adul- teries, permitted fornication, the youth of the succeeding ages had warrant enough to go "ad olentes fornices," into their cham- bers of filthy pleasures; Quidam notus homo cum exiret fornice ; Macte Virtute esto, inquit sententia dia Catonis. Hor. And it would pass the goblets in a freer cir- cle, if a flattering man shall but say, "Nar- ratur et prisci Catonis Saepe mero caluisse virtus," "That old Cato would drink hard at sunset." When Varro had noted, that wise and severe Sallust, who, by excellent sententious words, had reproved the follies of lust, was himself taken in adultery; the Roman youth did hug their vice, and thought it grew upon their nature like a man's beard, and that the wisest men would lay their heads upon that threshold; and Seneca tells, that the women of that age despised adultery of one man only ; and hated it like marriage, and despised that as want of breeding, and grandeur of spirit: because the braver Soar- Serm. XXIV. OF SLANDER AND FLATTERY 183 tans did use to breed their children promis- cuously, as the herdsmen do cattle from the fairest bulls. And Arrianus tells that the women would defend their baseness by the doctrine of Plato, who maintained the com- munity of women. This sort of flattery is therefore more dangerous, because it makes the temptation ready for mischief, apted and dressed with proper, material, and imitable circumstances. The way of discourse is far about, but evil examples kill quickly. 2. Others flatter by imitation: for when a crime is rare and insolent, singular and out of fashion, it must be a great strength of malice and impudence that must entertain it ; but the flattering man doing the vice of his lord takes off the wonder, and the fear of being stared at ; and so encourages it by making it popular and common. Plutarch tells of one that divorced himself from his wife, because his friend did so, that the other might be hardened in the mischief; and when Plato saw his scholars stoop in the shoulders, and Aristotle observed his to stammer, they began to be less troubled with those imperfections which they thought com- mon to themselves and others. 3. Some pretend rusticity and downright plainness, and upon the confidence of that, humour their friend's vice, and flatter his ruin. Seneca observed it of some of his time : "Alius quadam adulatione clam ute- batur parce, alius ex aperto palam, rustici- tate simulata, quasi simplicitas ilia ars non sit." They pretend they love not to dissem- ble, and therefore they cannot hide their thoughts ; let their friend take it how he will, they must commend that which is commend- able ; and so, man, that is willing to die quietly, is content with the honest-heartiness and downright simplicity of him, that with an artificial rudeness dressed the flattery. 4. Some will dispraise themselves, that their friend may think better of himself, or less severely of his fault. 5. Others will reprove their friend for a trifle, but with a purpose to let him under- stand, that this is all ; for the honest man would have told his friend if it had been worse. 6. Some will laugh and make a sport of a vice, and can hear their friend tell the cursed narrative of his adultery, of his drunken- ness, of his craft and unjust purchases; and all this shall prove but a merry scene ; as if damnation were a thing to be laughed at, and the everlasting ruin of his friend were I a very good jest. But thus the poor sinner : shall not be affrighted from his danger, nor j chastised by severe language; but the villain that eats his meat, shall take him by the hand, and dance about the pit till he falls in, and dies with shame and folly. Thus the evil spirit puts on shapes enough ; none to affright the man, but all to destroy him ; and yet it is filthy enough, when it is invested with its own character. ra6trtp bp%ov to v tot $ oboiai ^piov. " The parasite or flatterer is a beast that is all belly, looking round with his eyes, watch- ful, ugly, and deceitful, and creeping on his teeth ;" they feed him, and he kills them that reach him bread ; for this is the nature of all vipers. I have this one thing only to insert, and then the caution will be sufficient, viz., that we do not think all praise given to our friend to be flattery, though it be in his presence. For sometimes praise is the best conveyance for a precept, and it may nourish up an infant virtue, and make it grow up towards perfection, and its proper measures and re- wards. Friendship does better please our friend than flattery, and though it was made also for virtue, yet it mingles pleasures in the chalice : Et? bnfxart, svvov $>or6f t^Gai^tu ykvxv. " It is delicious to behold the face of a friendly and a sweet person :* and it is not the office of a friend always to be sour, or at any time morose; but free, open, and ingenuous, candid and humane, not deny- ing to please, but ever refusing to abuse or corrupt. For as adulterine metals retain the lustre and colour of gold, but not the value ; so flattery, in imitation of friendship, takes the face and outside of it, the delicious part ; but the flatterer uses it to the interests of vice, and a friend by it serves virtue ; and therefore, Plutarch well compared friendship to medicinal ointments, which however deli- cious they be, yet they are also useful, and minister to healing: but flattery is sweet and adulterate, pleasant, but without health. He, therefore, that justly commends his friend to promote and encourage his virtue, reconciles virtue with his friend's affection, and makes it pleasant to be good ; and he that does so, shall also better be suffered when he reproves, because the needing per- son shall find that then is the opportunity and * Eurip. 184 THE DUTIES OF THE TONGUE. Serm. XXV. season of it, since he denied not to please so long as he could also profit. I only add this advice ; that since self-love is the ser- pent's milk that feeds this viper, flattery, — we should do well to choke it with its mother's milk; I mean, learn to love our- selves more, for then we should never en- dure to be flattered. For he that, because he loves himself, loves to be flattered, does, because he loves himself, love to entertain a a man to abuse him, to mock him, and to destroy him finally. But he that loves him- self truly, will suffer fire, will endure to be burnt, so he may be purified; put to pain, so he may be restored to health ; for "of all sauces," (said Evenus,) sharpness, severity, and " fire, are the best." SERMON XXV. PART IV. THE DUTIES OF THE TONGUE. But that which is good to the use of edify- ing, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. — Ephes. iv. latter part ofver. 29. " Loq.uendi magistros habemus homines, tacendi Deos," said one; Men teach us to speak, and God teaches us to hold our tongue." The first we are taught by the lectures of our schools; the latter, by the mysteries of the temple. But now, in the new institution, we have also a great master of speaking ; and though silence is one of the great paths of innocence, yet holy speak- ing is the instrument of spiritual charity, and is a glorification of God ; and therefore, this kind of speaking is a degree of perfec- tion beyond the wisdom and severity of si- lence. For, although garrulity and foolish inordinate talking are a conjunction of folly and sin, and the prating man, while he de- sires to get the love of them he converses with, incurs their hatred ; while he would be admired, is laughed at; he spends much and gets nothing; he wrongs his friends, and makes sport to his enemies, and injures him- self; he is derided when he tells what others know, he is endangered if he tells a secret and what they know not ; he is not believed when he tells good news, and when he tells ill news he is odious ; and therefore, that si- lence, which is a cure of all this evil, is an excellent portion of safety and religion : — yet it is with holy speaking and innocent si- lence as it is with a hermit and a bishop • the first goes to a good school, but the second is proceeded toward greater perfection ; and therefore, the practical life of ecclesiastical governors, being found in the way of holi- ness and zeal, is called " status perfectionis :" a more excellent and perfect condition of life, and far beyond the retirements and inof- fensive life of those innocent persons, which do so much less of profit, by how much cha rity is better than meditation, and going to heaven by religion and charity, by serving God and converting souls, is better than going to heaven by prayers and secret thoughts : so it is with silence and religious communication. That does not offend God, this glorifies him : that prevents sin, this sets forward the interests of religion. And therefore Plutarch said well, " Q,ui generose et regio more instituuntur, primum tacere, deinde loqui discunt :" "To be taught first to be silent, then to speak well and hand- somely, is education fit for a prince ;" and that is St. Paul's method here : first we were taught how to restrain our tongues, in the foregoing instances, — and now we are called to employ them in religion. 1. We must speak " that which is good," ayaBov ft, any thing that may serve the ends of our God and of our neighbour, in the measures of religion and usefulness. But it is here as in all other propositions of reli- gion. To us, — who are in the body, and conducted by material phantasms, and un- derstanding nothing but what we feel, or 13 conveyed to us by the proportions of what we do or have, — God hath given a religion that is fitted to our condition and constitution. And therefore, when we are commanded to love God, by this love Christ understands obedience; when we are commanded to honour God, it is by singing and reciting his praises, and doing things which cause repu- tation and honour : and even here when we are commanded to speak that which is good, it is instanced in such good things which are really profitable, practically useful ; and here the measures of God are especially by the proportions of our neighbour ; and there- fore, though speaking honourable things of God be an employment that does honour to our tongues and voices, yet we must tune and compose even these notes so as may best profit our neighbour ; for so it must be koyoj ayadbs, "good speech," such as is el$ 01x080- mv *W xp*u*t, " f°r me edification of neces- sity :" the phrase is a Hebraism, where the genitive case of a substantive is put for the Sehm. XXV. THE DUTIES OF THE TONGUE. 185 adjective ; and means that our speech be adapted to necessary edification, or such edi- fication as is needful to every man's parti- cular case; that is, that we so order our communication, that it be apt to instruct the ignorant, to strengthen the weak, to recall the wanderer, to restrain the vicious, to comfort the disconsolate, to speak a word in season to every man's necessity, iva S&j^apu', '* that it may minister grace;" something that may please and profit them, according as they shall need ; all which I shall reduce to these three heads : 1. To instruct. 2. To comfort. 3. To reprove. 1. Our conversation must be &§o.xtixbs, " apt to teach." For since all our hopes on our part depend upon our obedience to God, and conformity to our Lord Jesus, by whom our endeavours are sanctified and accepted, and our weaknesses are pardoned, and all our obedience relies upon, and is encouraged and grounded in faith, and faith is founded naturally and primarily in the understanding, — we may observe, that it is not only reason- ably to be expected, but experimentally felt, that, in weak and ignorant understandings, there are no sufficient supports for the vigorousness of a holy life; there being nothing, or not enough, to warrant and strengthen great resolutions, to reconcile our affections to difficulties, to make us patient of affronts, to receive deeper mortifications, and ruder usages, unless where an extraor- dinary grace supplies the want of ordinary- notice*, as the apostles were enabled to their preaching; but he, therefore, that carries and imports into the understanding of his brother, notices of faith, and incomes of spiritual propositions, and arguments of the Spirit, enables his brother towards the work and practices of a holy life : and though every argument, which the Spirit of God hath made and recorded in Holy Scripture, is of itself inducement great enough to en- dear obedience ; yet it is not so in the event of things to every man's infirmity and need; but in the treasures of the Spirit, in the heaps and variety of institution, and wise discourses, there will not only be enough to make a man without excuse, but sufficient to do his work, and to cure his evil, and to fortify his weaker parts, and to comply with his necessities : for although God's sufficient grace is present to all that can use it, yet, if there be no more than that, it is a sad con- sideration to remember, that there are bat 24 few that will be saved, if they be helped but with just so much as can possibly do the work : and this we may well be assured of, if we consider that God is never wanting to any man in what is simply necessary : but then, if we add this also, that of the vast numbers of men, who might possibly be saved, so few really are so, we shall perceive, that that grace which only is sufficient, is not sufficient ; sufficient to the thing, is not sufficient for the person; and therefore, that God does usually give us more, and we need more yet ; and unless God $ ys xal 7to7Jkir]S fA(*Z*]$ 8soi. These are they that exercise all the wisdom and resolutions of man, and all the powers that God hath given him. ovtoi yap, ovtOL seat 8un tfrfXay^wov 6\fi %uipovai xai xvxwocp av^purtuv xtap, said Agathon. These are those evil spirits that possess the heart of man, and mingle with all his actions ; so that either men are tempted to, 1. " lust by pleasure," or, 2. to " baser arts by covetousness," or, 3. to 4