are so raw and womanish that it would grieve one to behold a fair comely man-like Christian in shew betraying so much impotency in his behaviour even like the Emperour a spinning one who had undertaken to be a Champion for Christ led away and abused and baffled by every pelting paultry lust 'T is lamentable to observe what a poor cowardly degenerous spirit is in most Christians with how slender assaults and petty stratagems they are either taken captive or put to flight how easily in their most resolute undertakings of piety or vertue they are either vanquisht or caught The ordinariest coursest had-favouredst temptation that they can see affects and smites them suddenly they are entangled before they are wooed and the least appearance of any difficulty the vizard or picture of the easiest danger is enough to fright them for ever from any thought of Religion or hope of Heaven For a meer natural man that hath nothing but original sin or worse in him that hath received nothing from God and his parents but a talent in a broken Vessel a soul infected by a crazy body diseas'd as soon as born for an Heathen that hath nothing to subsist on but a poor pittance of natural reason but one eye to see by and that a dim one for a meer Barbarian or Gentile to be thus triumphed over by every Devil as an Owl by the smallest Bird in the air might be matter of pity rather than wonder And yet few of them were such cowards those very weapons that Nature had furnished them with being rightly put on and fitted to them stood many of them in very good stead There were few passions few sins of an ordinary size but a Philosopher and meer Stoick would be able to meet and vanquish And therefore 't is not so much natural as affected weakness not so much want of strength as sluggishness and want of care not so much impotency as numbness and stupidity of our parts which hath so extremely dis-abled those that take themselves to be the weakest of us The truth is we are willing to conceive that our natural abilities are quite perisht and annihilate and that God hath no ways repaired them by Christ because we will not be put to the trouble of making use of them We would spare our pains and therefore would fain count our selves impotent as sluggards that personate and act diseases because they would not work or the old Tragedians which could call a god down upon the Stage at any time to consummate the impossiblest Plot and therefore would not put their brains to the toil of concluding it fairly Certainly the decrepitest man under Heaven if he be but a degree above a Carcass is able to defend himself from an ordinary Flie 'T is one of the Devils titles to be Beelzebub the Prince of Flies and such are many of his temptations He that hath but life in him may keep himself from any harm of one of them but the matter is they come in flocks being driven once away they return again Muscaest animal insolens and the Devil is frequent in these temptations though you could repel them as fast as they come yet 't would be a troublesome piece of work it will be more for your ease to lye still under them to let them work their will So in time Fly-blows beget noysomness and vermine in the soul and then the life and death of that man becomes like that of the Egyptians or Herod and no plague more finally desperate than those two of Flies and Lice I am resolv'd there be many temptations which foil many jolly Christians which yet a meer natural man that never dream't of Scripture or Gods Spirit might if he did but bethink himself resist and many times overcome Many acts of uncleanness of intemperance of contempt of superiours of murther of false-dealing of swearing and prophaning that cheap unprofitable that untempting and therefore unreasonable sin Many acts I say of these open abhominable sins which either custome or humane Laws make men ashamed of and the like the very Law of Reason within us is able to affront and check and conquer That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Methodius calls it that Law born with us Naturale judicatorium saith Austin against Pelagius Lux nostri intellectus say the Schoolmen out of Damascen Nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Stoick the promise that every one makes to nature the Obligation that he is bound in when he hath first leave to be a man or as Hierocles on the Pythagorean Verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Oath that is coaetaneous and co-essential to all reasonable natures and engages them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not to transgress the Laws that are set them This is I say enough to keep us in some terms or compass to swathe and bind us in to make us look somewhat like men defeat the Devil in many a skirmish But how much more for a Christian who if it were by nothing but his Baptism hath certainly some advantages of other men For one that if he acknowledge any worships the true God never went a fooling after Idols which was the Original of the Heathens being given up to vile affections Rom. 1. for one that lives in a civil Countrey among people that have the faces and hearts of men and Christians made as it were to upbraid his wayes and reprove his thoughts for one that is within the sound of Gods Law and Light of his Gospel by which he may edifie more than ever Heathen did by thunder and lightning for one that cannot chuse but fear and believe and love and hope in God in some measure or kind be he never so unregenerate for him I say that hath all these outward restraints and perhaps some inward twinges of Conscience to curb and moderate him to be yet so stupid under all these helps as never to be able to raise up one thought toward heaven to have yet not the least atome of Soul to move in the ways of godliness but to fall prostrate like a Carkass or a Statue or that Idol Dagon with his feet stricken off not able to stand before the slightest motion of sin or if a lust or a phansie or a devil be he the ugliest in Hell any thing but God appear to him presently to fall down and worship This is such a sottish condition such an either Lethargy or Consumption of the Soul such an extream degree of weakness that neither original sin that Serpent that despoiled Adam nor any one single Devil can be believed to have wrought in us but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonicks call it A popular Government of sin under a multitude of Tyrants which have for so long a while wasted and harassed the Soul so that now it is quite crest-faln as that legion of Devils Mar. V. 3. which dwelt among the Tombs in a liveless cadaverous
our souls as an harbinger to prepare a place within us for the worm in Hell where it may lye and bite and gnaw at ease eternally 'T is an Examination that will deserve the most precious minute of our lives the solemnest work of our souls the carefullest muster of our faculties to shrift and winnow and even set our hearts upon the rack to see whether any fruit or seed of infidelity lurk in it and in a matter of this danger to prevent Gods inquest by our own to display every thing to our selves just as it shall be laid open before God in judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. iv 13. naked and discernible as the entrals of a Creature cut down the back where the very method of nature in its secrecies is betrayed to the eye I say to cut our selves up and to search into every crany of our souls every winding of either our understanding or affections and observe whether any infidel thought any infidel lust be lodged there and when we have found this execrable thing which hath brought all our plagues on us then must we purge and cleanse and lustrate the whole City for its sake and with more Ceremony then ever the heathen used even with a superstition of daily hourly prayers and sacrificing our selves to God strive and struggle and offer violence to remove this unclean thing out of our Coasts use these unbelieving hearts of ours as Josiah did the Altars of Ahaz 2 King xxiii 12. break them down beat them to powder and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron that Cedron which Christ passed over when he went to suffer Joh. xviii 1. even that brook which Christ drank of by the way Psal cx 7. And there indeed is there a remedy for infidelity if the Infidel will throw it in If he will put it off be it never so dyed in the contempt of Christs blood that very blood shall cleanse it and therefore In the next place let us labour for Faith let not his hands be stretched out any longer upon the cross to a faithless and stubborn generation 'T were a piece of ignorance that a Scholar would abhor to be guilty of not to be able to understand that inscription written by Pilate in either of three languages Jesus of Nazareth King Joh. xix 19. Nay for all the Gospels and Comments written on it both by his Disciples and his works still to be non-proficients this would prove an accusation written in Marble nay an Exprobration above a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In a word Christ is still offered and the proclamation not yet outdated his sufferings in the Scripture proposed to every one of you to lay hold on and his Ministers sent as Embassadors beseeching you to be reconciled 2 Cor. v. 20. and more then that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist his body and blood set before our eyes to be felt and gazed on and then even a Didymus would believe nay to be divided amongst us and put in our mouths and then who would be so sluggish as to refuse to feed on him in his heart For your Election from the beginning to this gift of Faith let that never raise any doubt or scruple in you and forslow that coming to him this is a jealousie that hath undone many in a resolvedness that if they are not elected all their faith shall prove unprofitable Christ that bids thee repent believe and come unto him is not so frivolous to command impossibilities nor so cruel to mock our impotence Thou mayest believe because he bids Believe and then thou mayest be sure thou wert predestinated to believe and then all the decrees in the World cannot deny thee Christ if thou art thus resolved to have him If thou wilt not believe thou hast reprobated thy self and who is to be accused that thou art not saved But if thou wilt come in there is sure entertainment for thee He that begins in Gods Councels and never thinks fit to go about any Evangelical duty till he can see his name writ in the book of life must not begin to believe till he be in Heaven for there only is that to be read radio recto The surer course is to follow the Scripture to hope comfortably every one of our selves to use the means apprehend the mercies and then to be confident of the benefits of Christs suffering and this is the way to make our Election sure to read it in our selves radio reflexo by knowing that we believe to resolve that we are elected thereby we know that we are past from death to life if we love the brethren 1 Joh. iii. 14. And so is it also of faith for these are inseparable graces So Psal xxv 14. Prov. iii. 32. Gods secret and his Covenant being taken for his decree is said to be with them that fear him and to be shewed to them i. e. their very fearing of God is an evidence to them that they are his elect with whom he hath entred Covenant Our faith is the best argument or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which to make a judgment of Gods decree concerning us I say if we will believe God hath elected us 't is impossible any true faith should be refused upon pretence the person was predestined to destruction and if it were possible yet would I hope that Gods decrees were they as absolute as some would have them should sooner be softned into mercy then that mercy purchased by his Son should ever fail to any that believes The bargain was made the Covenant struck and the immutability of the Persian laws are nothing to it that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. iii. 15. Wherefore in brief let us attend the means and let what will or can come of the End Christ is offered to every soul here present to be a Jesus only do thou accept of him and thou art past from death to life there is no more required of thee but only to take him if thou art truly possessor of him he will justifie he will humble he will sanctifie thee he will work all reformation in thee and in time seal thee up to the day of redemption Only be careful that thou mistakest not his Person thou must receive him as well as his promises thou must take him as a Lord and King as well as a Saviour and be content to be a subject as well as a Saint He is now proclaimed in your ears and you must not foreslow the audience or procrastinate To day if you will hear his Voice harden not your hearts He holds himself out on purpose to you and by the Minister wooes you to embrace him and then it nearly concerns you not to provoke so true so hearty nay even so passionate a friend if he be not kissed he will be very angry Lastly if in this business of believing so vulgarly exposed there yet
can be required of a Christian they look no farther then the outward work observe not what heart is under this outside but resolve their estate is safe they have as much interest in Heaven as any one Such men as these the Apostle begins to character and censure in the 12. verse of the Chapter As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh c. They that stand only on a fair specious out-side and think all the sap and life of Religion lies in the bark they do this and this these will have you circumcised and constrain you to a many burthensome ceremonies measuring out Religion to you by the weight thus much is required of you to do as Popish Confessors set their deluded votaries their task of Ave Maries and Pater nosters by tale and thus you may be sure to be saved In brief the Apostle here shews the unprofitableness of all these and sets up the inward sanctity and renewedness of heart against them all as the only thing that will stand us in stead and appear to be of any weight in the balance of the sanctuary If you observe all the commands and submit your selves to all the burden of both Law and Gospel and bear it upon your shoulders never so valiantly if you be content to be circumcised as Christ was or because he hath now abrogated that make use of Christian liberty and remain uncircumcised notwithstanding all inducements to the contrary In brief be you outwardly never so severe a Jew or Christian all that is nothing worth there is but one thing most peremptorily required of you and that you have omitted For neither circumcision availeth any thing neither uncircumcision but a new creature The particle but in the front of my Text is exclusive and restrictive it excludes every thing in the world from pretending to avail any thing from being believed to do us any good For by circumcision the Church of the Jews and by uncircumcision the whole profession of Christian Religion being understood when he saith neither of these availeth any thing he forcibly implies that all other means all professions all observances that men think or hope to get Heaven by are to no purpose and that by consequence it exactly restrains to the new creature there it is to be had and no where else thus doth he slight and undervalue and even reprobate all other wayes to Heaven that he may set the richer price and raise a greater estimation in us of this The substance of all the Apostles discourse and the ground-work of mine shall be this one Aphorism Nothing is efficaciously available to salvation but a renewed regenerated heart For the opening of which we will examine by way of doctrine wherein this new creature consists and then by way of use the necessity of that and unprofitableness of all other plausible pretending means and first of the first wherein this new creature consists 'T is observable that our state of nature and sin is in Scripture exprest ordinarily by old age the natural sinful man that is all our natural affections that are born and grow up with us are called the old man as if since Adams fall we were decrepit and feeble and aged as soon as born as a child begotten by a man in a consumption never comes to the strength of a man is alwayes weak and crazy and puling hath all the imperfections and corporal infirmities of age before he is out of his Infancy And according to this ground the whole Analogy of Scripture runs all that is opposite to the old decrepit state to the dotage of nature is phrased new The new Covenant Mark i. 27. The language of believers new tongues Mark xvi 17. A new commandment John xiii 34. A new man Ephes ii 15. In sum the state of grace is exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all is become new 2 Cor. v. 17. So that old and new as it divides the Bible the whole state of things the world so it doth that to which all these serve man every natural man which hath nothing but nature in him is an old man be he never so young is full of years even before he is able to tell them Adam was a perfect man when he was but a minute old and all his children are old even in the cradle nay even dead with old age Eph. ii 5. And then consequently every spiritual man which hath somewhat elsé in him then he received from Adam he that is born from above John iii. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it may be so rendred from the original as well as born again as our English read it he that is by Gods spirit quickned from the old death Ephes ii 5. he is contrary to the former a new man a new creature the old Eagle hath cast his beak and is grown young the man when old has entred the second time into his mothers womb and is born again all the gray hairs and wrinkles fall off from him as the scales from blind Tobits eyes and he comes forth a refin'd glorious beauteous new creature you would wonder to see the change So that you find in general that the Scripture presumes it that there is a renovation a casting away of the old coat a youth and spring again in many men from the old age and weak bed-rid estate of nature Now that you may conceive wherein it consists how this new man is brought forth in us by whom it is conceived and in what womb 't is carried I will require no more of you then to observe and understand with me what is meant by the ordinary phrase in our Divines a new principle or inward principle of life and that you shall do briefly thus A mans body is naturally a sluggish unactive motionless heavy thing not able to stir or move the least animal motion without a soul to enliven it without that 't is but a carcass as you see at death when the soul is separated from it it returns to be but a stock or lump of flesh the soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the body and soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the body without the soul Set a man to remove a mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it then a stone in the street could do but now let an omnipotent power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joyned to this soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the primitive Church of a grain of faith removing mountains and believe me all miracles are not yet out-dated The work of regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual life on one
to do little good upon mens affections which insisted on general matters and descended not to particulars as if one should discourse of sin in general and sinners without reference to this or that particular sin or sinner and the reason of his note was because men are not moved or stirred with this eloquence The intemperate person could hear a declamation against vice and never be affected with it unles it stooped to take notice of his particular enormities and so is it with other criminals This reason of his was grounded upon the obdurateness of mens hearts which would think that nothing concerned them but what was framed against the individual offender all such being as dull and unapt to understand any thing that being applied might move or prick them as men are to take notice of a common national judgment which we never duly weigh till we smart under it in particular This senslesness may also seem to have been amongst St. Paul's Corinthians which made him use Aristotles counsel in driving his speech home to their private pensons 1 Cor. vi Where telling them that neither fornicators nor Idolaters and the like shall inherit the Kingdom of God for fear they should not be so tender-conscienced as of their own accords to apply these sins to themselves and read themselves guilty in that glass he is fain to supply that office and plainly tell them what otherwise perhaps they would not have conceived and such were some of you ver 11. This sensless hard-heartedness or backwardness in applying the either commands or threatnings of the law to ones self is by the Apostle called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we ordinarily translate a reprobate mind but may be brought to signifie a mind without judgment that hath no faculty of discerning that cannot in a general threatning observe something that may concern the danger of his particular state or as it may be rendred a mind without sense not apprehensive of those things which are manifestly proposed to them like those walking Idols described by the Psalmist Eyes have they and see not ears and hear not noses and smell not only beautiful carcasses of Christians which have nothing but their shape and motion to perswade you that they live unless we add this most unhappy symptom which indicates a state more wretched far then death it self that there is strength and vigour to oppose recovery that amidst death there yet survives a hatred and antipathy to life In such a soul as this there is a perpetual reaction an impatience of the presence of any thing which may trash incumber or oppress it a judgment or denunciation is but cast away upon it it shall be sure to return unprofitably and neither move nor mend it This hath been and much more might be observed to you of the carriage of the hard stupid heart toward either Scripture or Preacher to the plain opening of this point for you shall more clearly understand the tender heart by observing the obdurate and learn to be affected aright with Gods law or punishments by knowing and hating the opposite stubborn senslesness Now in brief this tender heart in the discovery of a sin or denunciation of a judgment needs not a particular Thou art the man to bring it home to his person The more wide and general the proposal is the more directly and effectually is this strucken with it In a common satyre or declamation against sin in general it hath a suddain art of Logick to anatomize and branch this sin in general into all its parts and then to lay each of them to its own charge it hath a skill of making every passage in the Scripture a glass to espy some of her deformities in and cannot so much as mention that ordinary name of sin or sinner without an extraordinary affection and unrequired accusation of it self Of all sinners c. The plain reason of this effect in the tender heart is first because it is tender The soft and accurate part of a mans body do suffer without reaction i. e. do yield at the appearance of an enemy and not any way put forward to repel him These being fixt on by a Bee or the like are easily penetrated by the sting and are so far from resisting of it that they do in a manner draw it to them and by their free reception allure it to enter so far that the owner can seldom ever recover it back again Whereas on a dead carcase a thick or callous member of the body a Bee may fix and not forfeit her sting So doth a tender heart never resist or defend it self against a stroke but attenuates its self layes wide open its pores to facilitate its entrance seems to woo a threatning to prick and sting and wound it sharply as if it rejoyced in and did even court those torments which the sense of sin or judgment thus produced Again a tender heart ordinarily meets with more blows more oppressions then any other its very passiveness provokes every ones malice the fly and dust as if it were by a kind of natural instinct drive directly at the eye and no member about you shall be oftener rubb'd or disordered then that which is raw or distempered the reason being because that which is not worthy notice to another part is an affliction to this and a mote which the hand observes not will torment the eye So is it with the Conscience whose tenderness doth tempt every piece of Scripture to afflict it and is more incumbred with the lest atome of sin or threat then the more hardned sinner is with a beam or Mountain Thirdly one that hath any solemn business to do will not pass by any opportunity of means which may advantage him in it One that hath a search to make will not slip any evidence which may concur to the helping of his discovery one that hath any Treatise to write will be ready to apply any thing that ever he reads to hâ—s Theme or purpose Now the search the discourse the whole imployment of a tender heart is the enquiry after the multitude of its sins and in sum the aggravation of each particular guilt in and against it self that so having sufficiently loaded it self and being tired with the weight and burthen of its sins it may in some measure perform the condition which Christ requires of them which come to him and be prepared to receive that ease which Christ hath promised to the weary and heavy laden So then if the tender Conscience doth never repel or reverberate any mention of sin but doth draw out the sting of it to its length if it be much affected with the lest atome of sin and therefore meets with frequent disorders if lastly it make its imployment to gather out of all the Scripture those places which may advantage her in the sight and sense of her sins then certainly doth she never hear of the name of sinner but
amongst us to witness his compassion to satisfie for us by his own death and attach himself for our liberty to undergo such hard conditions rather than be forced to a cheap severity and that he might appear to love his Enemies to hate his Son In brief to fulfil the Work without any aid required from us and make Salvation ready to our hands as Manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bread baked and sent down ready from Heaven Wisd xvi 20. to drop it in our mouths and exact nothing of us but to accept of it this is an act of love and singleness that all the malice we carry about us knows not how to suspect so far from possibility of a treacherous intent or double dealing that if I were an Heathen nay a Devil I would bestow no other appellation on the Christians God than what the Author of the Book of Wisdom doth so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the friend or the lover of Souls But this is a vulgar though precious subject and therefore I shall no longer insist on it Only before I leave it would I could see the effect of it exprest in our Souls as well as acknowledged in our looks your hearts ravished as thorowly as your brains convinc'd your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative mercy as your tongues to confess it then could I triumph over Hell and death and scoff them out of countenance then should the Devil be reduced to his old pittance confined to an empty corner of the World and suffer as much by the solitariness as darkness of his abode all his engines and arts of torment should be busied upon himself and his whole exercise to curse Christ for ever that hath thus deprived him of Associates But alas we are too sollicitous in the Devil's behalf careful to furnish him with Companions to keep him warm in the midst of fire 't is to be feared we shall at last thrust him out of his Inheritance 'T is a probable argument that God desires our Salvation because that Hell wheresoever it is whether at the Center of the Earth or Concave of the Moon must needs be far less than Heaven and that makes us so besiege the gate as if we feared weshould find no room there We begin our journey betimes left we should be forestall'd and had rather venture a throng or crowd in Hell than to expect that glorious liberty of the Sons of God 'T is to be feared that at the day of Judgment when each Body comes to accompany its Soul in torment Hell must be let out and enlarge its territories to receive its Guests Beloved there is not a Creature here that hath reason to doubt but Christ was sent to die for him and by that death hath purchased his right to life Only do but come in do but suffer your selves to live and Christ to have died do not uncrucifie Christ by crucifying him again by your unbelief do not disclaim the Salvation that even claims right and title to you and then the Angels shall be as full of joy to see you in Heaven as God is willing nay desirous to bring you thither and Christ as ready to bestow that Inheritance upon you at his second coming as at his first to purchase it Nothing but Infidelity restrains Christs sufferings and confines them to a few Were but this one Devil cast out of the World I should be straight of Origens Religion and preach unto you Universal Catholick Salvation A second Argument of God's good meaning towards us of his willingness that we should live is the calling of the Gentiles the dispatching of Posts Heralds over the whole ignorant Heathen World and giving them notice of this treasure of Christs blood Do but observe what a degree of prophaneness unnatural abominations the Gentile World was then arrived to as you may read in all their stories and in the first to the Romans how well grown and ripe for the Devil Christ found them all of them damnably Superstitious and Idolatrous in their Worship damnably unclean in their lives nay engaged for ever in this rode of damnation by a Law they had made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never to entertain any new Laws or Religion not to innovate though it were to get Salvation as besides their own Histories may be gathered out of Act. xvii 18. And lastly consider how they were hook'd in by the Devil to joyn in crucifying of Christ that they might be guilty of that blood which might otherwise have saved them and then you will find no argument to perswade you 't was possible that God should have any design of mercy on them Peter was so resolv'd of the point that the whole succession of the Gentiles should be damned that God could scarce perswade him to go and Preach to one of them Act. x. He was fain to be cast into a Trance and see a Vision about it and for all that he is much troubled about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their prophaneness and uncleanness that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their Conversion And this was the general opinion of all the Jews they of the Circumcision were astonished at the news Act. x. 45. Nay this is it that the Angels wondred at so when they saw it wrought at the Church by Pauls Ministery never dreaming it possible till it was effected as may appear Eph. iii. 10. This was the Mystery which from the beginning of the World had been hid in God V. 9. One of God's Cabinet Counsels a Mercy decreed in secret that no Creature ever wist of till it was performed And in this behalf are we all being lineally descended from the Gentiles bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second original sin that Heathenism of our Ancestors and Catholick damnation that Sixteen hundred years ago we were allinvolv'd in Beloved we were long ago set right again and the obligation lies heavy upon us to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose to prove our selves Christians in grain so fixed and established that all the Devils in Hell shall not be able to reduce us again to that abhorred condition If we that are thus called out shall fall back after so much Gospel to Heathen practices and set up Shrines and Altars in our hearts to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God if we are not called out of their sins as well as out of their ignorance then have we advanced but the further toward Hell we are still but Heathen Gospellers our Christian Infidelity and practical Atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us and damn us the deeper for being Christians Do but examine your selves on this one Interrogatory whether this calling the Gentiles hath found any effect in your
work so much miracle as Simon Magus is said to have done who undertook to raise the dead give motion to the head make the eyes look up or the tongue speak but the lower part of the man and that the heaviest will by no charm or spell be brought to stir but weigh sink even into Hell will still be carcass and corruption Damnation is his birth-right Ecclus xx 25. And it is impossible though not absolutely yet ex hypothesi the second Covenant being now sealed even for God himself to save him or give him life It is not David's Musick that exorcised and quieted Saul's evil spirit nor Pythagoras's Spondees that tamed a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set him right in his wits for ever that can work any effect on a fleshy heart So that Chrysostom would not wonder at the voice that cried O Altar Altar hear the voice of the Lord because Jeroboam's heart was harder than that nor will I find fault with Bonaventure that made a solemn prayer for a stony heart as if it were more likely to receive impression than that which he had already of flesh It were long to insist on the wilfulness of our fleshy hearts how they make a faction within themselves and bandy faculties for the Devil how when grace and life appear and make proffer of themselves all the carnal affections like them in the Gospel Joyn all with one consent to make excuses nothing in our whole lives we are so sollicitous for as to get off fairly to have made a cleanly Apology to the invitations of God's Spirit and yet for a need rather than go we will venture to be unmannerly We have all married a Wife espoused our selves to some amiable delight or other we cannot we will not come The Devil is wiser in his generation than we he knows the price and value of a Soul will pay any rate for it rather than lose his market he will give all the riches in the world rather than miss And we at how low a rate do we prize it it is the cheapest commodity we carry about us The beggarliest content under Heaven is fair is rich enough to be given in exchange for the Soul Spiritus non ponderat saith the Philosopher the Soul being a spirit when we put it into the balance weighs nothing nay more than so it is lighter than vanity lighter than nothing i. e. it doth not only weigh nothing but even lifts up the scale it is put into when nothing is weighed against it How many sins how many vanities how many idols i. e. in the Scripture phrase how many nothings be there in the world each of which will outweigh and preponderate the Soul It were tedious to observe and describe the several ways that our devillish sagacity hath found out to speed our selves to damnation to make quicker dispatch in that unhappy rode than ever Elias his fiery Chariot could do toward Heaven Our daily practice is too full of arguments almost every minute of our lives as it is an example so is it a proof of it Our pains will be employed to better purpose if we leave that as a worn beaten common place and betake our selves to a more necessary Theme a close of Exhortation And that shall be by way of Treaty as an Ambassador sent from God that you will lay down your arms that you will be content to be friends with God and accept of fair terms of composition which are That as you have thus long been enemies to God proclaiming hostility perpetually opposing every merciful will of his by that wilfulness so now being likely to fall into his hands you will prevent that ruine you will come in and whilst it is not too late submit your selves that you may not be forced as Rebels and outlaws but submit as Servants This perhaps may be your last parley for peace and if you stand out the battery will begin suddenly and with it the horrendum est Heb. x. 31. It is a fearful hideous thing to fall into the hands of the living God All that remains upon our wilful holding out may be the doom of Apostates from Christianity a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries Vers 27. And methinks the very emphasis in my Text notes as much Why will you die As if we were just now falling into the pit and there were but one minute betwixt this time of our jollity and our everlasting hell Do but lay this one circumstance to your hearts do but suppose your selves on a Bed of sickness laid at with a violent burning Fever such a one as shall finally consume the whole world as it were battered with thundering and lightning and besieged with fire where the next throw or plunge of thy disease may possibly separate thy soul from thy body and the mouth of Hell just then open and yawning at thee and then suppose there were one only minute wherein a serious resigning up thy self to God might recover you to Heaven O then what power and energy what force and strong efficacy would there be in this voice from God Why will you die I am resolved that heart that were truly sensible of it that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it would find such inward vigor and spirit from it that it would strike death dead in that one minute this ultimus conatus this last spring and plunge would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingring sickness and perhaps overcome and quit the danger And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to your selves and not any longer be flattered or couzened in a slow security To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you let it alone till this day come in earnest you may then perhaps heave in vain labour and struggle and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven The hour of our death we are wont to call Tempus improbabilitatis a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in as after death is impossibilitatis a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell If nothing were required to make us Saints but outward performances if true repentance were but to groan and Faith but to cry Lord Lord we could not promise our selves that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate and then what life or spirits even for that perhaps a Fever may send us away raving in no case to name God but only in oaths and curses and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to But when that which must save us must be a work of the Soul and a gift of God how can we promise our selves that God will be so merciful whom we have till then contemned or our souls then capable of any holy impression having
thing a foul blot to ones name to be counted an Atheist an arrant Infidel where all are Christians and therefore for fashions sake we will believe and yet sometime the Devil hath turned this humor quite the contrary way and made some men as ambitious of being counted Atheists as others of being Christians It will shortly grow into a gentile garb and part of courtship to disclaim all Religion in shew as well as deeds Thus are a world of men in the World either profest Atheists or Atheistical Professors upon the same grounds of vain-glory the one to get the other to save their reputation in the World Thus do many men stand up at the Creed upon the same terms as Gallants go into the field that have but small maw to be killed only to keep their honor that they might not be branded and mocked for cowards And yet certainly in the truth these are the veriest daftards under Heaven no worldly man so fearful of death or pious man of hell as these are of disgrace The last ground I shall mention and indeed the main of all is The subtlety and wiliness of the Devil He hath tried all his stratagems in the World and hath found none like this for the undermining and ruining of Souls to suffer them to advance a pretty way in Religion to get their heads full of knowledg that so they may think they have faith enough and walk to hell securely The Devil 's first policies were by Heresies to corrupt the Brain to invade surprize Christianity by force but he soon saw this would not hold out long he was fain to come from batteries to mines and supplant those Forts that he could not vanquish The Fathers and amongst them chiefly Leo in all his writing within the first Five hundred years after Christ observe him at this ward Ut quos vincere ferro flammisque non poterat cupiditatibus irretiret sub falsâ Christiani nominis professione corrumperet He hoped to get more by lusts than heresies and to plunge men deepest in an high conceit of their holy Faith He had learned by experience from himself that all the bare knowledg in the World would never sanctifie it would perhaps give men content and make them confident and bold of their estate and by presuming on such grounds and prescribing merit to Heaven by their Lord Lord even seal them up to the day of damnation and therefore it is ordinary with Satan to give men the teather a great way left they should grumble at his tyranny and prove Apostates from him upon hard usage Knowledg is pleasant and books are very good Company and therefore if the Devil should bind men to ignorance our Speculators and Brain-Epicures would never be his Disciples they would go away sadly as the young man from Christ who was well affected with his service but could not part with his riches Mat. xix 22. So then you shall have his leave to know and believe in God as much as you please so you will not obey him and be as great Scholars as Satan himself so you will be as prophane The heart of Man is the Devils Palace where he keeps his state and as long as he can strengthen himself there by a guard and band of lusts he can be content to afford the out-works to God divine speculation and never be disturbed or affrighted by any enemy at such a distance Thus have you the grounds also whereupon true Faith which is best defined a spiritual prudence an application of spiritual knowledg to holy practice should be so often wanting in men which are very knowing and the fairest Professors of Christianity Now lest this discourse also should reach no further than your ears lest that which hath been said should be only assented to in the general as true not applied home to your particular practises and so do you no more good than these general professions did here to the Jews only to prove you perjur'd Hypocrites swearing falsly whilst you say the Lord liveth we will endeavour to leave some impression upon your hearts by closing all with Application And that shall be in brief meekly to desire you and if that will not serve the turn by all the mercies of Heaven and horrours of Hell to adjure you to examine your selves on these two interrogatories which my Text will suggest to you First Whether you are as good as the Jews here Secondly Whether you are not the best of you altogether as bad For the first the Jews here said the Lord liveth were very forward to profess 't were some though but a low measure of commendation for us to be no worse than Jews Let there go a severe inquisition out from the Royal Majesty over the whole Court or at least from every particular man upon himself and bring in an impartial verdict whether there be not some amongst you that are not come thus far as to say The Lord liveth Some are so engaged in a trade of mishapen horrid monstrous Vices have so framed and fashioned the whole fabrick of their lives without any blush or lineament of God in them that they are afraid ever to mention him in earnest for fear of putting them out of their course they dare not believe too much of God lest it should be their undoing a little sense of him would take off many of their tricks of sinning and consequently spoil their thriving in the world like Diana's Silver smith Act. xix 24. for by this craft they have their wealth The least glimpse of God in these mens hearts nay one solemn mention of him in their mouths were enough to bring them into some compass to upbraid their ways reprove their thoughts Were these men taken to task according to the Canon Laws of our Kingdom and not suffered to live any longer amongst Christians till they understood clearly the promise of their Baptism till they durst come and make the same Vow in their own persons before all the Congregation which in their infancy their Sureties made for them were our Canon of Confirmation duly put in execution and every one as soon as he were capable either perswaded or forced to fit himself for the receiving of it as it is severely required by our Rubrick though much neglected in the practice I doubt not but there would be fewer sins amongst us much more knowledg of God and mentioning of his Name without the help of Oaths Blasphemies to which God now is in a kind beholding that ever he comes into our mouths But now men having a great way to go in sin and nothing in the world to stop them begin their journey as soon as they are able to go and make such haste like the Sun or Gyant in the Psalmist to run their course are so intent upon the task the Devil hath set them that they can never stay to see or hear of God in their lives which yet is legible and
palpable in every syllable of the World If they are so well brought up as to have learned their Creed and Catechism they have no other use for it but to break jests and swear by and would soon forget God's very Name or Attributes did they not daily repeat them over as School-boyes their parts and often comment on them by Oaths Prophanations and these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apostles phrase Ephes ii 12. without God in the world Others there are of a prouder lostier strain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that pitch Camp and arm and fortifie themselves against God that would fain be a forging some other Religion they are so weary and cloy'd with this Thus have I heard of some that have sought earnestly for an Alcoran and profess an opinion that all true Divinity lies there and expect to be esteemed great Wits of a deep reach for this supposal Others that have not skill enough to understand Turcism yet have lusts enough to admire it and the brave carnal Paradise it promises and if they cannot perswade themselves to believe in it yet they phancy it notably and because they cannot expect to have it in another life they will be sure of it in this Hence do they advance to such a pitch of sensuality as Heathenism was never guilty of their whole life is a perpetual study of the arts of death and their whole Souls an Holocaust or burnt Sacrifice to their fleshly lusts It were an horrid representation but to give you in a diagram the several Arts that the god of this World hath now taught men to vilifie and reproach the God of Heaven Profest Atheism begins to set up it comes in fashion and then some Courtiers must needs be in it Prophaning of Scripture making too cheap of it was never so ordinary that holy Volume was never so violently and coursly handled even ravished and defloured by unhallowed lips 'T is grown the only stuff in request and ordinariest garment to clothe a piece of scurrilous Wit in and the best of us can scarce chuse but give it some applause Beloved there is not a sin in the World that sticks closer to him that once entertained it the least indulgence in it is a desperate sign 'T is called the chair of scorners Psal 1. a sin of ease and pleasure a man that uses it that is once a merry Atheist seldom if ever proves a sad sober Christian Julian and many others have gone scoffing to Hell like men whose custom of mocking hath made wry mouthed scarcely composing themselves to a solemn Countenance till horrour either of Hell or Conscience hath put smiling out of date And if any of these sins are but crept in amongst you it will be worthy our enquiry and examination and God grant your own impartial Consciences may return you not guilty However this will but prove you no worse than Jews for they here acknowledg God in their brain and tongues they said The Lord liveth Your second Interrogatory must be Whether whilst you thus profess you do not also swear falsly And then 't is to be feared that every action of your lives will bring in an Evidence against you 'T were an accusation perhaps that you seldom hear of to be challenged for Hypocrites to be turned Puritans pretenders to Holiness yet this is it my Text must charge you with professing of Religion and never practising it assenting to the truth of Scripture in your brain but not adhering to it in your hearts believing in Christ and yet valuing him beneath the meanest sin you meet with Look over your Creed and observe whether your lives do not contradict every word in it and is it not Hypocrisie Perjury or if you will have it high Complementing with God to be thus profuse and prodigal in our professions which we never mean to perform Then is it to be called belief when it is sunk down into our hearts when it hath taken root in a well-tempered soil and begins to spring above ground and hasten into an ear That which grows like Moss on the tiles of an house which is set no deeper than the phancy will never prove either permanent or solid nourishment to the soul 'T were a new hours work to shew every defect in our Faith by our defections and desertions of Goa i our manners yet if you will be in earnest with your selves and apply the grounds premised to your serious Examination your meditations may throughly make up what here is likely to be omitted One thing take home with you for a Rule to eternity That every indulgence in any sin is a sure argument of an Infidel be you never so proud and confident of your Faith and Justification by it be you never so resolute that the Lord liveth yet if your obedience be not uniform if you imbrace not what you assent to surely you swear falsly Your particular failings I am not knowing enough to represent to you your own Consciences if they be but called to cannot chuse but reflect them to your sight Your outward profession and frequency in it for the general is acknowledged your Custom of the place requires it of you and the example of Piety that rules in your Eyes cannot but extort it Only let your lives witness the sincerity of your professions let not a dead Carcass walk under a living head and a nimble active Christian brain be supported with bed-rid mentionless Heathen limbs Let me see you move and walk as well as breathe that I may hope to see you Saints as well as Christians And this shall be the sum not only of my advice to you but for you of my Prayers That the Spirit would sanctifie all our hearts as well as brains that he will subdue not only the pride and natural Atheism of our understandings but the rebellions and infidelity and heathenism of our lusts that being purged from any reliques or tincture or suspicion of irreligion in either power of our Souls we may live by Faith and move by Love and die in Hope and both in Life and Death glorifie God here and be glorified with him hereafter The VIII Sermon LUKE xviii 11. God I thank thee that I am not as other men extortioners c. or even as this Publican THat we may set out at our best advantage and yet not go too far back to take our rise 't is but retiring to the end of the 8. verse of this Chapter and there we shall meet with an abrupt speech hanging like one of Solomons proverbs without any seeming dependence on any thing before or after it which yet upon enquiry will appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faln down from Heaven in the posture it stands in In the beginning of the Eight verse he concludes the former parable I tell you that he will avenge them speedily and then abruptly Nevertheless when the Son of man comes shall he
of it to be for ever a solliciting and worshipping of darkness as Socrates was said to adore the clouds this is such a sottishness that the stupidst element under Heaven would naturally scorn to be guilty of for never was the Earth so peevish as to forbid the Sun when it should shine on it or to slink away or subduce it self from its rayes And yet this is our case beloved who do more amorously and flatteringly court and woo and sollicite darkness then ever the Heathens adored the Sun Not to wander out of the sphere my Text hath placed me in to shew how the light of the Gospel and Christianity is neglected by us our guilt will lie heavy enough on us if we keep us to the light only of natural reason within us How many sins do we daily commit which both nature and reason abhor and loath How many times do we not only unman but even uncreature our selves Aristotle observes that that by which any thing is known first that which doth distinguish one thing from another à priore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be called the beginning or cause of that thing and that the light of reason distinguishing one action from another being the first thing that teaches me that this is good that otherwise may from thence be termed the beginning of every reasonable action in us and then where ever this cause or beginning is left out and wanting there the thing produced is not so called a positive act or proper effect but a defect an abortion or still-born frustrate issue and of this condition indeed is every sin in us Every action where this law within us is neglected is not truly an action but a passion a suffering or a torment of the creature Thus do we not so much live and walk which note some action as lie entranced asleep nay dead in sin by this perversness 't is perpetual night with us nay we even die daily our whole life is but a multiplyed swoon or lethargie in which we remain stupid breathless sensless till the day of death or judgment with a hideous voice affrights and rouses us and we find our selves awake in Hell and so our dark souls having a long while groped wilfully in the Sun are at last lead to an everlasting inevitable darkness whither the mercy or rayes of the Sun can never pierce where it will be no small accession to our torment to remember and tremble at that light which before we scorn'd Thus I say do we in a manner uncreate our selves and by the contempt of this law of our creation even frustrate and bring to nothing our creation it self and this is chiefly by sins of sloth and stupid sluggish unactive vices which as I said make our whole life a continued passion never daring or venturing or attempting to act or do any thing in Church or Commonwealth either toward God or our Neighbour and of such a condition'd man no body will be so charitable as to guess he hath any soul or light of reason in him because he is so far from making use of it unless it be such a soul as Tully saith a Swine hath which serves it only instead of salt to keep it from stinking For 't is Aristotles observation that every one of the elements besides the earth was by some Philosopher or other defin'd to be the soul Some said the soul was fire some that 't was air some water but never any man was so mad as to maintain the earth to be it because 't was so heavy and unweildy So then this heavy motionless unactive Christian this clod of earth hath as I said uncreatured himself and by contemning this active reason within him even deprived himself of his soul Again how ordinary a thing is it to unman our selves by this contempt of the directions of reason by doing things that no man in his right mind would ever have patience to think of Beloved to pass by those which we call unnatural sins 1. so in the highest degree as too horrid for our nature set down in the latter end of this Chapter for all Christian ears to glow and tingle at and I had hoped for all English spirits to abhor and loath To pass these I say our whole life almost affords minutely sins which would not argue us men but some other creatures There be few things we do in our Age which are proper peculiar acts of men one man gives himself to eating and drinking and bestows his whole care on that one faculty which they call the vegetative growing faculty and then what difference is there betwixt him and a tree whose whole nature it is to feed and grow Certainly unless he hath some better imployment he is at best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a plant-animal whose shape would perhaps persuade you that it hath some sense or soul in it but its actions betray it to be a meer plant little better then an Artichoak or Cabbage another goes a little higher yet not far doth all that his sense presents to him suffers all that his sensitive faculties lust and rage to exercise at freedom is as fierce as the Tyger as lustful as the Goat as ravenous as the Wolf and the like and all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air be but several Emblemes and Hieroglyphicks concurring to make up his character carries a wilderness about him as many sins as the nature of a sensitive creature is capable of and then who will stick to compare this man to the beasts that perish For 't is Theophilus his note that the cattle and beasts of the field were created the same day with man Gen. i. 25. to note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brutish condition of some men and that therefore the blessing was not bestowed on them but reserved for the man which should have the dominion over them verse 26 28. In sum every action which Reason or Scripture or Gods spirit guides not in us is to be called the work of some other creature of one of these three sorts either earthly the work of a plant or sensual the work of a brute or thirdly above the condition of both these devillish Thus do you see the sin of the contempt of the light of nature which although it be dimm'd in us by our corruption yet shined so bright in the Heathen that they were left without excuse in the Jews that even their own hearts accused them for their rebellions and in us Christians that unless we move according to its directions we are fallen below the condition of men almost of creatures 'T were now superfluous farther to demonstrate it our time will be better spent if we close with some use of it and that will prove manifold 1. by way of caution not to deifie or exalt too high or trust in this light of nature It was once a perfect glorius rule but is now
It makes him apply himself c. we mean not that the encrease of sin produces faith formally but only inciteth to believe by way of instruction by shewing us what distress we are in and consequently in what a necessity of a deliverer The meditation of our sinful courses may disclose our misery not redress it may explore not mend a sinner like a touchstone to try not any way to alter him It is the controuling Spirit which must effectually renew our spirits and lead us to the Christ which our sins told us we had need of The sense of sin may rouze the soul but it is the Spirit of God that layes the toils the feeling of our guilt may beat the waters but it is the great fisher of our souls which spreads the nets which entraps us as we are in our way to Hell and leads us captive to salvation The mere gripings of our Conscience being not produced by any Pharmacon of the spirit but by some distemper arising from sin what anxiety doth it cause within us What pangs and twinges to the soul O Lord do thou regenerate us and then thy Holy Spirit shall sanctifie even our sins unto our good and if thy grace may lead us our sins shall pursue and drive us unto Christ Secondly by way of character how to distinguish a true convert from a false A man which from an inveterate desperate malady shall meet with a miraculous unexpected cure will naturally have some art of expression above an ordinary joy you shall see him in an extasie of thanksgiving and exultancy whilst another which was never in that distress quietly enjoys the same health and gives thanks softly by himself to his preserver So is it in the distresses of the soul which if they have been excessive and almost beyond hope of recovery as the miracle must so will the expression of this deliverance be somewhat extraordinary The soul which from a good moral or less sinful natural estate is magis immutata quam genita rather chang'd then regenerate into a spiritual goes through this business without any great noise the Spirit entring into it in a still small voice or at a breathing but when a robustous obdurate sinner shall be rather apprehended then called when the Sea shall be commanded to give up his ship-wrack't and the Sepulchre to restore her dead the soul surely which thus escapeth shall not be content with a mean expression but will practice all the Hallelujahs and Magnificats which the triumphant Liturgies of the Saints can afford it Wherefore I say if any one out of a full violent course of sinning conceive himself converted and regenerated let him examine what a degree of spiritual exultancy he hath attained to and if he find it but mean and slight and perfunctory let him somewhat suspect that he may the more confirm the evidence of his calling Now this spiritual exultancy of the regenerate consists both in a solemn humiliation of himself and a spiritual rejoycing in God his Saviour both exprest in Maries Magnificat where she specifies in the midst of her joy the lowliness of his handmaid and in St. Pauls victory-song over death So that if the conversion of an inordinate sinner be not accompanied with unwonted joy and sorrow with a godly sense of his past distress and a godly triumph for his delivery if it be not followed with a violent eagerness to fasten on Christ finally if there be not somewhat above ordinary in the expression then I counsel not to distrust but fear that is with a sollicitous not suspicious trembling to labour to make thy calling and election sure to pray to that Holy Spirit to strike our hearts with a measure of holy joy and holy sorrow some way proportionable to the size of those sins which in our unregeneracy reigned in us and for those of us whom our sins have separated far from him but his grace hath called home to him that he will not suffer us to be content with a distance but draw us close unto himself make us press toward the mark and fasten our selves on that Saviour which hath redeemed us from the body and guilt of this so great death The third Use is of comfort and confirmation to some tender souls who are incorporated into Christ yet finding not in themselves that excessive measure of humiliation which they observe in others suspect their own state and infinitely grieve that they can grieve no more Whereas this doctrine being observed will be an allay to their sorrow and wipe some unnecessary tears from their eyes For if the greatness of sin past or the plentiful relicks of sin remaining do require so great a measure of sorrow to expiate the one and subdue the other if it be a deliverance from an habituate servitude to all manner of sin which provokes this extraordinary pains of expression then certainly they who have been brought up with the spirit which were from their baptism never wholly deprived of it need not to be bound over to this trade of sorrow need not to be set apart to that perpetual humiliation which a more stubborn sin or Devil is wont to be cast out by I doubt not but a soul educated in familiarity with the spirit may at once enjoy her self and it and so that if it have an humble conceit of it self and a filial of God may in earth possess God with some clearness of look some serenity of affections some alacrity of heart and tranquility of spirit God delights not in the torment of his children though some are so to be humbled yea he delights not in such burnt offerings as they bestow upon him who destroy and consume and sacrifice themselves but the Lords delight is in them that fear him filially and put their trust i. e. assurance confidence in his mercy in them that rejoyce that make their service a pleasure not an affliction and thereby possess Heaven before they come to it 'T is observed in husbandry that soil laid on hard barren starved ground doth improve it and at once deface and enrich it which yet in ground naturally fruitful and kept in heart and good case is esteemed unnecessary and burthensome You need not the application Again the husbandman can mend a dry stubborn wayward fruitless earth by overflowing of it and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline to punish it for its amendment But there is a ground otherwise well tempered which they call a weeping ground whence continually water soaks out and this proves seldom fruitful if our learned husbandmen observe aright whereof there is sometime need of draining as well as watering The application is that your soul which either hath been naturally dry and barren or else over-wrought in the business of the world needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it But the well temper'd soul which hath never been out of heart but hath alwayes had some inward life some fatness of
is so rich in heads each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance Now in the last place as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects so it becomes to us a body of sin and death a natural disorder of the whole man an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit and the parent of all sin in us as may appear Rom. vii and Jam. i. 14. Which that you may have a more compleat understanding of consider it as it is ordinarily set down consisting of three parts 1. A natural defect 2. A moral affection 3. A legal guilt 1. A guiltiness of the breach of the law for these three whatsoever you may think of them are all parts of that sin of our nature which is in and is to be imputed to us called ordinarily original sin in us to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam of which this is an effect And first that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice holiness and obedience which God had furnisht the creature withal a disorder of all the powers of the soul a darkness of the understanding a perversness of the will a debility weakness and decay of all the senses and in sum a poverty and destruction and almost a nothingness of all the powers of soul and body And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow and in fine to petition that rich grace which may build up all these ruines to pray to God that his Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces then we had but forfeited in the first The following part of this sin of our nature viz. A moral evil affection is word for word mentioned Rom. vii 5. For there the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinarily translated motions of sins and in the margin the passions of sins are more significantly to be rendred affections of sins i. e. by an usual figure sinful affections That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin which doth so overshadow the whole man and so sence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun I am to tell you that the very Heathen that lived without the knowledge of God had no conversation with and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter that these very Heathens I say had a sense of this part of original sin to wit of these evil moral lusts and affections which they felt in themselves though they knew not whence they sprang Hence is it that a Greek Philosopher out of the ancients makes a large discourse of the unsatiable desire and lust which is in every man and renders his life grievous unto him where he useth the very same word though with a significant Epithet added to it that St. James doth c. i. ver 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infinite lust with which as St. James saith a man is drawn away and enticed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so saith he that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell is perswaded and drawn or rather falls backward and forward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which lust or evil concupiscence he at last defines to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsattable intemperance of the appetite never filled with a desire never ceasing in the prosecution of evil and again he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents i. e. an evil affection hereditary to us and delivered to us as a legacy at our birth or nativity all which seems a clear expression of that original lust whose motions they felt and guest at its nature Hence is it that it was a custom among all of them I mean the common Heathen to use many ways of purgations especially on their children who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified with a great deal of superstition and ceremony such like as they used to drive away a plague or a cure for an house or City As if nature by instinct had taught them so much Religion as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul this plague of mans heart as 't is called 1 Kings viii 38. And in sum the whole learning of the Wisest of them such were the Moralists was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections which they called the unruly Citizens and common people of the soul whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves and laboured hard to purge out or subdue to the government of reason and vertue which two we more fully enjoy and more Christianly call the power of grace redeeming our souls from this body of sin Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very Heathen had of this second branch of original sin which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their body but the Sepulchre of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which together are but a Periphrasis of that which St. Paul calls in brief the body of death And shall we who have obtained plenty of light and instruction besides that which nature bestowed on us with them shall we I say let our eyes be confounded with abundance of day shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it Shall we feel the stings of sin within us which though they do but prick the regenerate prove mortal to the rest of us and shall we not observe them Shall we not rather weep those fountains dry and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation Shall we not starve this rank fruitful mother of Vipers by denying it all nourishment from without all advantages of temptations and the like which it is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin let us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to ourselves and then endeavour to banish it out of us and when we find we are not able importune that strong assistant the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it that in the necessity of residing it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies to tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite and free us from the activity and mischief and temptations of it here and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter And so I come to the third part or branch of this original sin to wit its legal guilt and this we do contract by such an early
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to magnifie a vow then is the vow or resolution truly great that will stand us in stead when it is performed As for all others they remain as brands and monuments of reproach to us upbraiding us of our inconstancy first then of disobedience and withal as signs to warn that Gods strength is departed from us I doubt not but this strength being thus lost may return again before our death giving a plunge as it did in Samson when he pluckt the house about their ears at last Jude xvi But this must be by the growing out of the hair again verse 22. the renewing of his repentance and sanctity with his vow and by prayer unto God verse 28. Lord God or as the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remember me I pray thee and strengthen me but for all this it was said before in the 19. verse his strength and in the 20. verse the Lord was departed from him And so now doubt it may from us if we have no better security for our selves than the present possession and a dream of perpetuity For though no man can excommunicate himself by one rule yet he may by another in the Canon Law that there be some faults excommunicate a man ipso facto one who hath committed them the law excommunicates though the Judge do not you need not the application there be perhaps some sins and Devils like the Carian Scorpions which Apollonius and Antigonus mention out of Aristotle which when they strike strangers do them no great hurt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 presently kill their own countrey-men some Devils perhaps that have power to hurt only their own subjects as sins of weakness and ignorance though they are enough to condemn an unregenerate man yet we hope through the merits of Christ into whom he is ingrafted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall do little hurt to the regenerate unless it be only to keep him humble to cost him more sighs and prayers But then saith the same Apollonius there your Labylonian snakes that are quite contrary do no great hurt to their own countrey-men but are present death to strangers and of this number it is to be feared may presumption prove and spiritual pride sins that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devils natives ordinary habitual sinners need not much to fear but to the stranger and him that is come from far thinking himself as S. Paul was dropt out of the third Heaven and therefore far enough from the infernal countrey 't is to be feared I say they may do much mischief to them And therefore as Porphyry sayes of Plotinus in his life and that for his commendation that he was not ashamed to suck when he was eight years old but as he went to the Schools frequently diverted to his nurse so will it concern us for the getting of a consistent firm habit of soul not to give over the nurse when we are come to age and years in the spirit to account our selves babes in our virility and be perpetually a calling for the dug the sincere milk of the word of the Sacraments of the Spirit and that without any coyness or shame be we in our own conceits nay in the truth never so perfect full grown men in Christ Jesus And so much be spoken of the first point proposed the Pharisees flattering misconceit of his own estate and therein implicitely of the Christians premature deceivable perswasions of himself 1. thinking well of ones self on what grounds soever 2. overprizing of his own worth and graces 3. his opinion of the consistency and immutability of his condition without either thought of what 's past or fear of what 's to come Many other misconceits may be observed if not in the Pharisee yet in his parallel the ordinary confident Christian as 1. that Gods decree of election is terminated in their particular and individual entities without any respect to their qualifications and demeanors 2. That all Christian faith is nothing but assurance a thing which I toucht 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the preface and can scarce forbear now I meet with it again 3. That the Gospel consists all of promises of what Christ will work in us no whit of precepts or prohibitions 4. That it is a state of ease altogether and liberty no whit of labour and subjection but the Pharisee would take it ill if we should digress thus far and make him wait for us again at our return We hasten therefore to the second part the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or natural importance of the words and there we shall find him standing apart and thanking God only perhaps in complement his posture and language give notice of his pride the next thing to be toucht upon Pride is a vice either 1. in our natures 2. in our educations or 3. taken upon us for some ends the first is a disease of the soul which we are inclined to by nature but actuated by a full diet and inflation of the soul through taking in of knowledge virtue or the like which is intended indeed for nourishment for the soul but through some vice in the digestive faculty turns all into air and vapours and windiness whereby the soul is not fed but distended and not fill'd but troubled and even tortured out of it self To this first kind of pride may be accommodate many of the old fancies of the Poets and Philosophers the Gyants fighting with God i. e. the ambitious daring approaches of the soul toward the unapproachable light which cost the Angels so dear and all mankind in Eve when she ventured to taste of the tree of knowledge Then the fancy of the heathens mentioned by Athenagoras that the souls of those gyants were Devils that 't is the Devil indeed that old serpent that did in Adams time and doth since animate and actuate this proud soul and set it a moving And Philoponus saith that winds and tumours i. e. lusts and passions those troublesom impressions in the soul of man are the acceptablest sacrifices the highest feeding to the Devils nay to the very damned in Hell who rejoyce as heartily to hear of the conversion of one vertuous or learned man to the Devil of such a brave proselyte I had almost said as the Angels in Heaven at the repentance and conversion of a sinner This is enough I hope to make you keep down this boyling and tumultuousness of the soul lest it make you either a prey or else companions for Devils and that 's but a hard choice nay a man had far better be their food than their associates for then there might be some end hoped for by being devoured but that they have a villanous quality in their feeding they bite perpetually but never swallow all jaws and teeth but neither throats nor stomachs which is noted perhaps by that phrase in the Psalmist Death gnaweth upon the wicked is perpetually a gnawing but never devours
or puts over Pride in our education is a kind of tenderness and chilness in the soul that some people by perpetual softness are brought up to that makes them uncapable and impatient of any corporal or spiritual hardness a squeasiness and rising up of the heart against any mean vulgar or mechanical condition of men abhorring the foul cloaths and rags of a beggar as of some venemous beast and consequently as supercilious and contemptuous of any piece of Gods service which may not stand with their ease and state as a starcht gallant is of any thing that may disorder his dress Thus are many brought up in this City to a loathing and detestation of many Christian duties of alms-deeds and instructing their families in points of religion of visiting and comforting the sick nay even of the service of God if they may not keep their state there but especially of the publick prayers of the Church nothing so vulgar and contemptible in their eyes as that But I spare you and the Lord in mercy do so also The third kind of pride is a supercilious affected haughtiness that men perhaps meekly enough disposed by nature are fain to take upon them for some ends a ' solemn censorious majestick garb that may entitle them to be patriots of such or such a faction to gain a good opinion with some whose good opinion may be their gain Thus was Mahomet fain to take upon him to be a Prophet and pretend that 't was discoursing with the Angel Gabriel made him in that case that his new wife might not know that he was Epileptical and so repent of her match with a beggar and a diseased person And upon these terms Turcism first came into the world and Mahomet was cried up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest Prophet to omit other witness as the Saracen fragments tells us that we have out of Euthymius Thus are imperfections and wants sometimes even diseases both of body and mind assumed and affected by some men to get authority to their persons and an opinion of extraordinary religion but rather perhaps more oyl to their cruise or custom to their trading But not to flutter thus at large any longer or pursue the common-place in its latitude the Pharisees pride here expresseth it self in three things 1 his posture standing apart 2. his manner of praying altogether by way of thanksgiving 3. his malicious contemptuous eye upon the Publican The first of these may be aggravated against the schismatick that separates from the Church or customs but especially Service and Prayers of the Church 'T is pride certainly that makes this man set himself thus apart whereas the very first sight of that holy place strikes the humble Publican upon the knees of his heart a far off as soon as he was crept within the gates of the Temple he is more devout in the porch than the Pharisee before the Altar The 2d against those that come to God in the pomp of their souls commending themselves to God as we ordinarily use the phrase commending indeed not to his mercy but acceptance not as objects of his pity but as rich spiritual presents not tears to be received into his bottle but jewels for his treasure Always upon terms of spiritual exultancy what great things God hath done for their souls how he hath fitted them for himself never with humbled bended knees in acknowledgment of unworthiness with St. Paul who cannot name that word sinners but most straight subsume in a parenthesis of whom I am the chief 1 Tim. 1. 15. and for the expression of the opinion he had of his own sanctity is fain to coyn a word for the purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word not to be met with in all Greek Authors again before he used it less than the least of the Saints Ephes 3. 8. And Jacob in a like phrase I am less than all thy mercies Gen. 32. 10. The Litany that begins and ends with so many repetitions importuning for mercy even conjuring God by all powerful names of rich mercy that can be taken out of his Exchequer to have mercy upon us miserable sinners this is set aside for the Publican the sinners Liturgy nay as some say for the profane people only not to pray but to swear by But this only as in transitu not to insist on The 3d. expression of his pride is his malicious sullen eye upon the Publican and that brings me to the next thing proposed at first the Pharisees censoriousness and insinuated accusations of all others I am not as other men extortioners c. or even as this Publican 'T were an ingenuous speculation and that which would stand us in some stead in our spiritual warfare to observe what hints and opportunities the Devil takes from mens natural inclinations to insinuate and ingratiate his temptations to them how he applies still the fuel to the fire the nourishment to the craving stomach and accommodates all his proposals most seasonably and suitably to our affections not to enlarge this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the gross nor yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to each particular you may have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or taste of it in the Pharisee To an easy natur'd man whose soul is relax't and has its pores open to receive any infection or taint the devil presents a multitude of adulterers drunkards c. thereby to distill the poyson softly into him to sweeten the sin and secure him in the commission of it by store of companions but to a Pharisee rugged singular supercilious person he proposeth the same object under another colour The many adulterers c. that are in the world not to entice but to incense him the more against the sin not to his imitation but to his spleen and hatred that seeing he can hope to gain nothing upon him by bringing him in love with their sin he may yet inveigle him by bringing him in hatred with their persons and plunge him deeper through uncharitableness than he could hope to do by lust He knows well the Pharisees constitution is too austere to be caught with an ordinary bait and therefore puts off his title of Beelzebub prince of flies as seeing that they are not now for his game but trouls and baits him with a nobler prey and comes in the person of a Cato or Aristarchus a severe disciplinarian a grave Censor or as his most Satanical name imports 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an accuser and then the Pharisee bites presently He could not expect to allure him forward and therefore drives him as far back as he can that so he may be the more sure of him at the rebound as a skilful woods-man that by wind-lassing presently gets a shoot which without taking a compass and thereby a commodious stand he could never have obtain'd The bare open visage of sin is not lovely enough to catch the Pharisee it must be varnish'd over with