of Defence against Himself if need be as our Injur'd Iudge too For that I may shew by an experiment how as a Buckler he must be weilded be our misdeeds never so numerous they are no more than his Merits Though he will come to be our Iudge He is first our Advocate who before he can censure will plead our Cause Are our Sins of deep die his Blood was Crimson in which our sins being washed will be as wool Are they swell'd into a Deluge That stream can drown them Are they damning and mortiferous Those wounds can bury them He was a Fountain for our sakes dry a Fountain of water for our sakes thirsty a Fountain of living water for our sakes dead And shall we suffer by the Sins for which he suffer'd no blessed Lord Though thou canst not but perceive them as they lie open in our Souls yet being hid in his Grave thou wilt not see them or though thou canst not but see them with the Eye of thine Omniscience yet with that of thy Iustice we hope thou wilt not or though thou canst not but in Iustice detest our sins yet in Mercy be thou pleas'd to forgive the sinners § 8. Thus the Feast of Presentation is to be celebrated by us throughout the year The holy child Iesus must still be brought into the Temple And All he suffer'd in our behalf be still presented unto the Lord. We must present him unto God that is to say unto himself even as often as we go into the House of God comprecating nothing but for his sake deprecating nothing but for his Merits presenting nothing to be accepted but in his Name and Mediation No nor so much as in his Name may we adventure to present him until we are purified by the Gospel as Mary was under the Law This as fitly prepares for a cleansing week as that week does for Lent or that Lent for Easter We I say must be purified from all kind of filthiness of flâ—sh and spirit 2 Cor. 7. 1. before our Saviour wirh effect can be thus presented But purified with Mary we cannot be unless with Mary in the Text we live in obedience to Laws establish'd although the matter they are made of be antecedently indifferent and subject to diverse Exceptions too Such as the Time and the Place wherein the Duties of the Text were to be punctually perform'd The Time is here imply'd to be the end of the Dayes of their Purification the Place is expressed to be Ierusalem And the Rule of Conformity The Law of Moses Of which last parts of the Division of the Text I shall speak very briefly and in Conjunction § 1. Had the Parents of this Child been of the humour of our Times and only consulted with Flesh and Blood They had not stood on the Punctillio's of Time and Place but very much rather upon the Equity of a most rational Disobedience What must the work of Purification be tyed precisely to a Day Or must not the holy Child Iesus be either presented or redeem'd until he hath punctually attain'd the fortieth day after his Birth May we not stay a little longer until the wayes and the weather are more inviting or may we not go a little sooner before the Noise of a Messias awake the Iealousie of a sleeping but furious Tyrant Or may we not huddle it up at Home to save a very tender Mother and her more tender Babe at once the Hardship and the Risque of so long a Iourny shall we confine the Omnipresent within the Walls of Ierusalem or think Ubiquity it self can be pen't up within a Temple or believe there can be Holiness in a consecrated Fabrick of Wood and Stones Admit Ierusalem is the greatest yet since the Birth of the Messias Bethleem sure is not the least among the Cities of Iudah And when the Antient of Days becomes the Babe to be presented It may be fitter that the Temple should come to Him or at least that his Presence should make a Temple Just as the Presence of the King wheresoever he is does create a Court whereas the Pallace of the Court cannot either lessen or raise the King Besides God regards not the Ceremony but the meer substance of our Devotion It matters not so much either when or where as how affected we come before him An humble soul is the Temple that He delights in A broken Heart the best Altar whereon to Sacrifice And the best Sacrifice we can bring is a contrite Spirit Or if this will not serve yet may not the Ceremonies required be don at Bethleem at the present and repeated at Ierusalem at times of leisure and convenience Can a very good work be don too often or the discharge of a Duty begun too soon § 2. This had been to chop Logick just like Naaman the Syrian in the second of Kings and the fifth Chapter where commanded by Elisha to wash himself in the River Iordan and that precisely seven Times whereby to be cleansed of his Leprosie ver 10. He instead of being thankful began saith the Text to be very wroth ver 11. It seem'd to Him a strange thing that he could not be clean unless he would be superstitious He expected that the Prophet should have come out to him in Person and calling on the name of the Lord his God should have struck his hand over the Place and so have recover'd him of his Leprosie What saith he in the next verse Are not Abana and Pharpar Rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel May I not wash in them and be clean Thus did the Wisdom of Elisha seem light as Folly whilst weigh'd in the scales of that Syrian Fool. But though he presently went away not obedient but in a Rage ver 12. Yet his Servants said That ver 13. which turn'd his Rage into Obedience My Father if the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing wouldst thou not have don it how much rather when he saith unto thee wash and be clean whereupon he was cured but observe in what order first of his Folly and Disobedience and immediately after of his Disease too § 3. Let us now apply this to certain Sectaries here at home who often indeavour in their Discourses to shew the fitness the lawfulness and many times the moral Necessity of their being Schismatical and Disobedient I shall give but one Instance because I want Time to insist on many And in the office of Confession because it is amongst Christians a kind of Gospel-Purification The Duty of Confession from the Penitent to the Priest hath been commanded by the Church in the purest Times of Antiquity and however misus'd by the Church of Rome hath been reform'd and not abolish'd by this of England Now some Male-Contents there were who thought our Church not clean enough unless they might sweep away the Pavement And amongst many other things their Stomacks rose against Confession Will not God say they be pleas'd with
have but the Grace to use them rightly else they will make us the unhappier in that world which is to come For without the right use even the Grace of God it self does accidentally highten our Condemnation And though I never had yet such a Roman Faith as to believe that there IS such a thing as Purgatory yet with submission to God's Oeconomy I think the most of mankind might be glad there were Because it seems a very easy Composition with his Justice to suffer Hell for a time in order to happiness for Eternity It concerns us therefore to pray in this conjuncture of our affairs that God will give us to drink of his bitter Cup not as our Appetites shall crave but as He in his wisdom shall judge expedient Let him enable us to choose but this one Requisite for our selves even His sanctifying Grace And then in company with That let him allot us what he pleaseth Be it War Pestilence or Famine be it Ignomy Overthrow or suddain Death For as by looking upon our Sins we cannot but see matter of Terror whereby to hold us in constant fear so by reflecting upon our sufferings we may discern matter of Comfort whereby to couple our Fear with Hope I say 't is matter of some Comfort that God doth seem by his Correction to own us still for his People that he does not severely suffer us to be over prosperous in our impieties that he has not so wholly left us as not to visit us with his Rod but that at least he does vouchsafe us the Mercy of his Iudgments to work upon us And though he threatens to give us up to some of the cruelest of our Enemies such as are the two plagues of perfect beggery and the Pestilence 't is that he may not give us up unto our more cruel selves that we may never indure the Tyranny of our own hearts lust or live under the Yoke of our vile Affections And therefore to the end we may rather kiss than undutifully repine at his gracious Rod which does so charitably smite and would fain wound us into a Cure let us continue to fix our eyes as on the Errand on which it comes so withal on the Author from whom 't is sent Which leads me to the Potentate by whom the Embassadour is dispatcht The last particular in the Division Hear ye the Rod and who hath Appointed it § 1. That the same Dispensation of the Cup of Trembling and Astonishment should not only have such diverse but such contrary effects upon the several Complexions it meets withal as to be one mans Restaurative and anothers Poyson softning one into Repentance and hardning another into Despaire might seem a difficult kind of Riddle at the very first hearing were it not that this Accompt may be given of it That the one looks only downwards and views the Rod of his Afflictions as meerly springing out of the Dust whereas the other looks upwards and acknowledges the Finger of Him that sent it They whose Spirits and Contemplations are ever groveling on the earth and look no higher than second Causes are commonly sorry in their Distresses as men without Hope whereas the men whose Affections are set on things that are Above and with the Lyncean Eye of Faith can look on the other side the Veil do so submit to and comply with the will of God in their afflictions as to desire it may be don as well on Earth as it is in Heaven I know not whether it is more to be fear'd or hop'd that God will never withdraw his Rod which lyes so heavy upon our shoulders until he has first of all whipt us into the wisdom to discern and into so much Humility as to acknowledge That the Original and Increase and present Continuance of our Plague hath not only arisen to us out of natural Causes much less out of fortuitous to wit from Atomes or Insects or from I know not what malignant and secret qualities in the Aire but from the wrath of a provoked and jealous God for the most brutish unconcerdness and Impenitences of Men. The Plague of Pestilence being a Rod of so astonishing a Nature that though the Heathens look'd upon it as a thing rooted in the Earth yet they thought it laid on by an hand from Heaven The Carthaginians at Syracuse and the People of Tolouse in the time of Brennus ascrib'd the Cause of their several Pests unto the Anger of their Gods for the Sin of Sacriledge and fled for Refuge to Restitution as the great means of their Recovery And however Diodorus did take upon him to assign the natural Causes of the Pestilence that reign'd at Athens yet he assures us that the Athenians did look upon it as a Rod of supernatural contrivance Much more should we Christians impute the Cause of our Plague unto God's Displeasure as being that that serves to humble and raise us up too For as 't is matter to us of Terror to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10. 31. so 't is matter also of Comfort that we do not fall out of the hands of God no nor yet into the hands of relentless men For with God there is Mercy and that in the midst of his Iudgments too whereas the very tender mercies of men are cruel Prov. 12 10. God does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men and when at last he is fain to wound 't is to the end that he may heal us But men to men are so inhuman that they will commonly break our heads with their pretious Balmes too And therefore David having his Option betwixt the Sword of the Lord for so the Pestilence was call'd and the Sword of man did soon determin to choose the former Let me fall now says he into the hand of the Lord for very great are his Mercies but let me not fall into the hand of men 1 Chron. 21. 13. § 2. If we look back upon the Church whilst she was yet but in her Childhood and consider her Tribulations as far as from Nero to Dioclesian we may observe how mens reflections upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God's Oeconomies did smooth the face of Death it self as 't was inflicted by the Rod of Divine Appointment and made her Children even to Court it how grim soever it became by its greatest Torments Amongst a thousand Examples which might be given of this Truth I shall not trouble or detein you with more than one In that dreadful and most bloody Sedition at Alexandria just as if Cadmus had sow'd his Teeth in that fruitful Soil when the Gulf of Arabia became a red Sea indeed which before was only call'd so by either a figure or a mistake when that Sea was so polluted with Blood and Stentch that had its water been to be wash'd all the Ocean saith Dionysius had been too little to wash it clean and when in consequence of This there
others may accidentally fit us for greater ruin Remember those words of our blessed Saviour Luk. 10. 15. And thou Capernaum which art lifted up to Heaven shalt be cast down to Hell Whereby 't is intimated unto us that God will punish Malefactors as well in respect of the mercies they have receiv'd as in respect of the sins they have committed When we shall all appear before the judgment seat of God to answer for the things which are done in the body we then must render a strict accompt what Use we have made of our Grand deliverance and how much we are the Better for all that good that is done unto us The third Reason is because our dangers are greater in time of Peace and Prosperity than in time of Distress and Persecution and so we have need of the greater Caution Agur pray'd against Poverty for fear of Stealth but he pray'd against Riches for fear of Atheism If Iesurun wax fat he falls a kicking and quite forgets the God that made him Deut. 32. 15. If Nabal is drunk with the prosperity of sheering the Innocent and harmless Sheep it is no time to tell him that either David or God is Angry Nay David himself in his prosperity began to boast he should never be moved Psal. 30. 6. From fulness of Bread ariseth Idleness and Pride and those we know were the sins of Sodom When God rain'd Manna upon his people and gave them all that they desir'd Then saith the Text they were not estranged from their lusts But when he slew them they sought him and inquired early after God If ever any mortal was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the White boy of Fortune and special favorite of the Fates as the Heathens phras'd it the Youth of Macedon was sure the Man But though he could not be overcome by the strength of all Asia he was by the weakness and softness of it 'T was this made Cato cry out in Livy Quo magis imperium crescit eo plus horreo The more our Territories increase the more I tremble for fear the Kingdoms which we have taken do prove indeed to have taken Us. He knew that where the Soul is not commensurate with the success the Pride arising from the Victory does so defile the glory of it that the prize may be said to lead the Triumph into Captivity It is so natural for a man to be transported with prosperity that it extorted from Moses an extraordinary caveat before he could safely admit his people to the delights of Canaan When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things Then beware that thou forget not the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt Deut. 6. 10. 12. and so again in the 8 Chapter When thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein Then beware least thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the house of Bondage 'T is a dangerous thing to be imparadis'd on Earth because in every such paradise there lurks a Serpent The fourth Reason is Because it is better to have a conquering then an untempted Innocence To live exactly in despight of sollicitations to the contrary is more thank-worthy and more rewardable than only to want the Importunity or Opportunity to offend A man may easily be submissive whilst he is under a Persecution and study compliance when he is worsted But 't is as laudable as it is difficult if we who sought even for Victory whilst we were trodden under foot shall sue for Peace in our Prosperity That which makes us most high in the sight of God is our Humility for which there is hardly any place in our Humiliation But the Taller any man is by so much the lower he hath to stoop and so 't is the Benefit of success to be Remarkable for Modesty and Moderation That especially is the season wherein our Armour of light is of most honourable Employment when the Prince of darkness hath most auxiliaries within and our Lusts are made ablest to War against us The fift Reason is because there is no other way whereby to prevail with God Almighty both to complete that happiness he hath begun and to continue it when compleated I say to compleat it being begun because the night is far spent but not quite over The day is dawning or at hand but not arriv'd at its Meridian God's Anointed is setled but not his Spouse Many are sorry for their Sacriledge but do not earnestly Repent Or they Repent a fair way as far as Ahab but not with Zachae the Publican as far as a four-fold Restitution Many who sinned out of Ignorance in a very high manner do stifly argue their being Innocent from their not apprehending that they were guilty But seeing Repentance is better for them than a meer Temporal Impunity they should be intreated to consider and put it a little to the question whether their Ignorance was not caus'd by the Previous Dominion of some great Prejudice which had also its Rise from some Reigning sin Alas The Jews were too guilty of killing Christ although they knew not what they did for had they known him they would not have crucified to themselves the Lord of Glory But yet I say they were guilty because their Ignorance was not invincible It was their guilt that they were Ignorant they might have known what they did had they not stood in their own Light If men will either wink hard or fling dust into their eyes It is not only their Infirmity but their fault that they are blind Saul the Pharisee was excused indeed a Tanto for having blasphem'd against God and also Persecuted the Church because he did it in Ignorance and Unbelief But however it did alleviate it did not nullifie his sins For to become the Apostle Paul he stood in need of a Conversion Now if we do not only earnestly but also rationally desire to see a sutable end or rather no end at all of these fair Beginnings that the Temple of Ianus may so be shut by our Augustus as never more to be open'd by any Caesar and that this Day of our Deliverance may never more be overcast with a cloud of darkness but happily lost into Eternity we cannot better give Thanks to God for the present breaking in of our glorious day than by an Annual day of Fasting for the clamorous sins of our tedious Night I mean the Profanation of Holy Places the sacrilegious perversion of Holy Things the monstrous Harmony of Oathes which some have fancied to arise from the greatest discord the effusion of innocent and not only so but of Royal Blood with all the Preparatives and Attendants of that unspeakable Provocation which of it self does deserve and that for ever a Monthly day of Humiliation It was