he can goe that goes from God his owne sorrowes will soon enough instruct him This fire must never goe out but it must be like the fire of heaven it must shine like the starres though sometimes cover'd with a cloud or obscur'd by a greater light yet they dwell for ever in their orbs and walk in their circles and observe their circumstances but goe not out by day nor night and set not when Kings die nor are extinguish'd when Nations change their Government So must the zeal of a Christian be a constant incentive of his duty and though sometimes his hand is drawne back by violence or need and his prayers shortned by the importunity of businesse and some parts omitted by necessities and just complyances yet still the fire is kept alive it burns within when the light breaks not forth and is eternall as the orb of fire or the embers of the Altar of Incense 3. No man is zealous as he ought but he that delights in the service of God without this no man can persevere but must faint under the continuall pressure of an uneasie load If a man goes to his prayers as children goe to schoole or give alms as those that pay contribution and meditate with the same willingnesse with which young men die this man does personam sustinere he acts a part which he cannot long personate but will find so many excuses and silly devices to omit his duty such tricks to run from that which will make him happy he will so watch the eyes of men and be so sure to doe nothing in private he will so often distinguish and mince the duty into minutes and little particles he will so tie himself to the letter of the Law and be so carelesse of the intention and spirituall designe he will be punctuall in the ceremony and trifling in the secret and he will be so well pleased when he is hindred by an accident not of his own procuring and will have so many devices to defeat his duty and to cosuen himselfe that he will certainly manifest that he is afraid of Religion and secretly hates it he counts it a burthen and an objection and then the man is sure to leave it when his circumstances are so fitted But if we delight in it we enter into a portion of the reward as soon as we begin the worke and the very grace shall be stronger then the temptation in its very pretence of pleasure and therefore it must needs be pleasing to God because it confesses God to be the best Master Religion the best work and it serves God with choice and will and reconciles our nature to it and entertaines our appetite and then there is no ansa or handle left whereby we can easily be drawne from duty when all parties are pleased with the imployment But this delight is not to be understood as if it were alwayes required that we should feele an actuall cheerfulnesse and sensible joy such as was that of Jonathan when he had newly tasted honey and the light came into his eyes and he was refreshed and pleasant This happens sometimes when God please to intice or reward a mans spirit with little Antepasts of heaven but such a delight onely is necessary and a duty that we alwayes choose our duty regularly and undervalue the pleasures of temptation and proceed in the work of grace with a firme choice and unabated election our joy must be a joy of hope a joy at least of confident sufferers the joys of faith and expectation rejoycing in hope so the Apostle calls it that is a going forward upon such a perswasion as sees the joyes of God laid up for the Children of men and so the sun may shine under a cloud and a man may rejoyce in persecution and delight in losses that is though his outward man groanes and faints and dies yet his spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inner man is confident and industrious and hath a hope by which it lives and works unto the end It was the case of our blessed Saviour in his agony his soule was exceeding sorrowfull unto death and the load of his Fathers anger crushed his shoulder and bowed his knees to the ground and yet he chose it and still went forward and resolved to die and did so and what wee choose wee delight in and wee thinke it to be eligible and therefore amiable and fit by its proper excellencies and appendages to be delighted in it is not pleasant to the flesh at all times for its dignity is spirituall and heavenly but therefore it is proportioned to the spirit which is as heavenly as the reward and therefore can feel the joys of it when the body hangs the head and is uneasie and troubled These are the necessary parts of zeale of which if any man failes he is in a state of lukewarmnesse and that is a spirituall death As a banished man or a condemned person is dead civilly he is diminutus capite he is not reckoned in the census nor partakes of the priviledges nor goes for a person but is reckoned among things in the possession of others so is a lukewarm person he is corde diminutus he is spiritually dead his heart is estranged from God his affections are lessened his hope diminished and his title cancell'd and he remains so unlesse 1. he prefers Religion before the world and 2. spiritually rejoyces in doing his duty and 3. doe it constantly and with perseverance These are the heats and warmth of life whatsoever is lesse then this is a disease and leads to the coldnesse and dishonors of the grave SERMON XIV Part III. 3. SO long as our zeal and forwardnesse in Religion hath only these constituent parts it hath no more then can keep the duty alive but beyond this there are many degrees of earnestnesse and vehemence which are progressions towards the state of perfection which every man ought to design and desire to be added to his portion of this sort I reckon frequency in prayer and almes above our estate Concerning which two instances I have these two cautions to insert 1. Concerning frequency in prayer it is an act of zeal so ready and prepared for the spirit of a man so easie and usefull so without objection and so fitted for every mans affairs his necessities and possibilities that he that prayes but seldome cannot in any sense pretend to be a religious person For in Scripture there is no other rule for the frequency of prayer given us but by such words which signifie we should do it alwaies Pray continually and Men ought alwayes to pray and not to faint And then men have so many necessities that if we should esteem our needs to be the circumstances and positive determination of our times of prayer we should be very far from admitting limitation of the former words but they must mean that we ought to pray frequently every day For in danger and trouble naturall Religion
temperate to have got a habit of sobriety or chastity or humility is the work of a life And if we do but consider that he that lives well from his younger yeers or takes up at the end of his youthfull heats and enters into the courses of a sober life early diligently and vigorously shall finde himself after the studies and labours of 20. or 30. yeers piety but a very imperfect person many degrees of pride left unrooted up many inroads of intemperance or beginnings of excesse much indevotion and backwardnesse in religion many temptations to contest against and some infirmities which he shall never say he hath master'd we shall finde the work of a holy life is not to be deferred till our dayes are almost done till our strengths are decayed our spirits are weak and our lust strong our habits confirmed and our longings after sin many and impotent for what is very hard to be done and is alwayes done imperfectly when there is length of time and a lesse work to do and more abilities to do it withall when the time is short and almost expired and the work made difficult and vast and the strengths weaker and the faculties are disabled will seem little lesse then absolutely impossible * I shall end this generall consideration with the question of the Apostle If the righteous scarcely be saved if it be so difficult to overcome our sins and obtain vertuous habits difficult I say to a righteous a sober and well living person where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear What shall become of him who by his evil life hath not onely removed himself from the affections but even from the possibilities of vertue He that hath lived in sin will die in sorrow The Invalidity of a death-bed Repentance Part. II. BUt I shall pursue this great and necessary truth first by shewing what parts and ingredients of repentance are assigned when it is described in holy Scripture Secondly by shewing the necessities the absolute necessities of a holy life and what it means in Scripture to live holily Thirdly by considering what directions or intimations we have concerning the last time of beginning to repent and what is the longest period that any man may venture with safety And in the prosecution of these particulars we shall remove the objections those aprons of fig-leaves which men use for their shelter to palliate their sin and to hide themselves from that from which no rocks or mountains shall protect them though they fall upon them that is the wrath of God First That repentance is not onely an abolition and extinction of the body of sin a bringing it to the altar and slaying it before God and all the people but that we must also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mingle gold and rich presents the oblation of good works and holy habits with the sacrifice I have already proved but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God Repentance sacrifices the whole will That gives the knowing this gives up all the desiring faculties That makes us Disciples this makes us servants of the Holy Jesus Nothing else was preached by the Apostles nothing was enjoyned as the duty of man nothing else did build up the body of Christian religion So that as faith contains all that knowledge which is necessary to salvation So repentance comprehends in it all the whole practise and working duty of a returning Christian And this was the sum totall of all that Saint Paul preached to the Gentiles when in his farewell Sermon to the Bishops and Priests of Ephesus he professed that he kept back nothing that was profitable to them and yet it was all nothing but this Repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ so that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ and repents towards God must make his accounts according to this standard that is to believe all that Christ taught him and to do all that Christ commanded and this is remarked in Saint Pauls Catechisme where he gives a more particular Catalogue of fundamentals he reckons nothing but Sacraments and faith of which he enumerates two principal articles resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement whatsoever is practical all the whole duty of man the practice of all obedience is called repentance from dead works which if we observe the singularity of the phrase does not mean sorrow For sorrow from dead works is not sense but it must mean mutationem status a conversion from dead works which as in all motions supposes two terms from dead works to living works from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse I will adde but two places more out of each Testament one in which I suppose you may see every lineament of this great duty described that you may no longer mistake a grashopper for an Eagle Sorrow and holy purposes for the intire duty of repentance In the 18. of Ezek. 21. you shall finde it thus described But if the wicked will turne from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die or as it is more fully described in Ezek. 33. 14. When I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die If he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right if the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall surely live he shall not die Here onely is the condition of pardon to leave all your sins to keep all Gods statutes to walk in them to abide to proceed and make progresse in them and this without the interruption by a deadly sin without committing iniquity to make restitution of all the wrongs he hath done all the unjust money he hath taken all the oppressions he hath committed all that must be satisfied for and repayed according to our ability we must make satisfaction for all injury to our Neighbours fame all wrongs done to his soul he must be restored to that condition of good things thou didst in any sense remove him from when this is done according to thy utmost power then thou hast repented truely then thou hast a title to the promise thou shalt surely live thou shalt not die for thy old sins thou hast formerly committed Onely be pleased to observe this one thing that this place of Ezekiel is it which is so often mistaken for that common saying At what time soever a sinner repents him of his sins from the bottom of his heart I will put all his wickednesse out of my remembrance saith the Lord For although at what time soever a sinner does repent as repentance is now explained
the slender reward with which the Romans payed their souldiers for their extraordinary valour True it is that heaven is not in a just sense of a commutation a reward but a gift and an infinite favour but yet it is not reached forth but to persons disposed by the conditions of God which conditions when we pursue in kinde let us be very carefull we do not fail of the mighty price of our high calling for want of degrees and just measures the measures of zeal and a mighty love 3. It is an office of prudence so to serve God that we may at the same time preserve our lives and our estates our interest and reputation for our selves and our relatives so farre as they can consist together Saint Paul in the beginning of Christianity was careful to instruct the forwardnesse and zeal of the new Christians into good husbandry and to catechize the men into good trades and the women into useful imployments that they might not be unprofitable For Christian religion carrying us to heaven does it by the way of a man and by the body it serves the soul as by the soul it serves God and therefore it endeavours to secure the body and its interest that it may continue the opportunities of a crown and prolong the stage in which we are to run for the mighty price of our salvation and this is that part of prudence which is the defensative and guards of a Christian in the time of persecution and it hath in it much of duty He that through an indiscreet zeal casts himself into a needlesse danger hath betrayed his life to tyranny and tempts the sin of an enemy he loses to God the service of many yeers and cuts off himself from a fair opportunity of working his salvation in the main parts of which we shall finde a long life and very many yeers of reason to be little enough he betrayes the interest of his relatives which he is bound to preserve he disables himself of making provision for them of his own house and he that fails in this duty by his own fault is worse then an infidel and denies the faith by such unseasonably dying or being undone which by that testimony he did intend gloriously to confesse he serves the end of ambition and popular services but not the sober ends of religion he discourages the weak and weakens the hands of the strong and by upbraiding their warinesse tempts them to turn it into rashnesse or despair he affrights strangers from entring into religion while by such imprudence he shall represent it to be impossible at the same time to be wise and to be religious it turns all the whole religion into a forwardnesse of dying or beggery leaving no space for the parts and offices of a holy life which in times of persecution are infinitely necessary for the advantages of the institution But God hath provided better things for his servants Quem fata cogunt ille cum veniâ est miser He whom God by an inevitable necessity calls to sufferance he hath leave to be undone and that ruine of his estate or losse of his life shall secure first a providence then a crown At si quis ultro se malis offert volens seque ipse torquet perdere est dignus bona Queis nescit uti But he that invites the cruelty of a Tyrant by his own follyes or the indiscretions of an unsignificant and impertinent zeal suffers as a wilful person and enters into the portion and reward of fools And this is the precept of our Blessed Saviour next after my text Beware of men use your prudence to the purposes of avoiding their snare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man is the most harmful of all the wilde beasts ye are sent as sheep among wolves be therefore wise as serpents when you can avoid it suffer not men to ride over your heads or trample you under foot that 's the wisdom of Serpents and so must we that is by all just complyances and toleration of all indifferent changes in which a duty is not destroyed and in which we were not active so to preserve our selves that we might be permitted to live and serve God and to do advantages to religion so purchasing time to do good in by bending in all those flexures of fortune and condition which we cannot help and which we do not set forward and which we never did procure and this is the direct meaning of Saint Paul see then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Redeeming the time because the dayes are evil that is we are fallen into times that are troublesome dangerous persecuting and afflictive purchase as much respite as you can Buy or redeem the time by all honest arts by humility by fair carriage and sweetnesses of society by civility and a peaceful conversation by good words and all honest offices by praying for your persecutors by patient sufferance of what is unavoidable And when the Tyrant draws you forth from all these guards and retirements and offers violence to your duty or tempts you to do a dishonest act or to omit an act of obligation then come forth into the Theater and lay your necks down to the hangmans axe and fear not to die the most shamful death of the crosse or the gallows for so have I known angels ascending and descending upon those ladders and the Lord of glory suffered shame and purchased honour upon the crosse Thus we are to walk in wisdom towards them that are without redeeming the time for so Saint Paul renewes that permission or commandment Give them no just cause of offence with all humility and as occasion is offered represent their duty and invite them sweetly to felicities and vertue but do not in ruder language upbraid and reproach their basenesse and when they are in corrigible let them alone lest like cats they run mad with the smell of delicious ointments And therefore Pothinus Bishop of Lyons being asked by the unbaptized President who was the God of the Christians answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If you be disposed with real and hearty desires of learning what you ask you shall quickly know But if your purposes be in direct I shall not preach to you to my hurt and your no advantage Thus the wisdom of the primitive Christians was careful not to prophane the temples of the heathen not to revile their false Gods and when they were in duty to represent the follies of their religion they chose to do it from their own writings and as relators of their own records they fled from the fury of a persecution they hid themselves in caves and wandred about in disguises and preached in private and celebrated their synaxes and communions in grots and retirements and made it appear to all the world they were peaceable and obedient charitable and patient and at this price bought their time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As
man destroyes the efficacy of that authority that is just and naturall Now this is directly an office of Christian prudence that good offices and great authority become not ineffective by ill conduct Hither also it appertains that in publike or private reproofs we observe circumstances of time of place of person of disposition The vices of a King are not to be opened publikely and Princes must not be reprehended as a man reproves his servant but by Categoricall propositions by abstracted declamations by reprehensions of a crime in its single nature in private with humility and arts of insinuation And it is against Christian prudence not onely to use a Prince or great Personage with common language but it is as great an imprudence to pretend for such a rudenesse the examples of the Prophets in the old Testament For their case was extraordinary their calling peculiar their commission special their spirit miraculous their authority great as to that single mission they were like thunder or the trump of God sent to do that office plainly for the doing of which in that manner God had given no commission to any ordinary minister And therefore we never finde that the Priests did use that freedom which the Prophets were commanded to use whose very words being put into their mouthes it was not to be esteemed an humane act or a lawfull manner of doing an ordinary office neither could it become a precedent to them whose authority is precarious and without coërcion whose spirit is allayed with Christian graces and duties of humility whose words are not prescribed but left to the conduct of prudence as it is to be advised by publike necessities and private circumstances in ages where all things are so ordered that what was fit and pious amongst the old Jews would be incivil and intolerable to the latter Christians He also that reproves a vice should also treat the persons with honour and civilities and by fair opinions and sweet addresses place the man in the regions of modesty and the confines of grace and the fringes of repentance For some men are more restrained by an imperfect feared shame so long as they think there is a reserve of reputation which they may secure then they can be with all the furious declamations of the world when themselves are represented ugly and odious full of shame and actually punished with the worst of temporal evils beyond which he fears not here to suffer and from whence because he knows it will be hard for him to be redeemed by an after-game of reputation it makes him desperate and incorrigible by fraternall correption A zealous man hath not done his duty when he calls his brother drunkard and beast and he may better do it by telling him he is a man and sealed with Gods Spirit and honoured with the title of a Christian and is or ought to be reputed as a discreet person by his friends and a governour of a family or a guide in his countrey or an example to many and that it is huge pity so many excellent things should be sullied and allayed with what is so much below all this Then a reprover does his duty when he is severe against the vice and charitable to the man and carefull of his reputation and sorry for his reall dishonour and observant of his circumstances and watchfull to surprize his affections and resolutions there where they are most tender and most tenable and men will not be in love with vertue whither they are forced with rudenesse and incivilities but they love to dwell there whither they are invited friendly and where they are treated civilly and feasted liberally and lead by the hand and the eye to honour and felicity 6. It is a duty of Christian prudence not to suffer our souls to walk alone unguarded unguided and more single then in other actions and interests of our lives which are of lesse concernment Uae soli singulari said the Wise man Wo to him that is alone and if we consider how much God hath done to secure our souls and after all that how many wayes there are for a mans soul to miscarry we should think it very necessary to call to a spirituall man to take us by the hand to walk in the wayes of God and to lead us in all the regions of duty and thorow the labyrinths of danger For God who best loves and best knows how to value our souls set a price no lesse upon it then the life-blood of his Holy Son he hath treated it with variety of usages according as the world had new guises and new necessities he abates it with punishment to make us avoid greater he shortned our life that we might live for ever he turns sicknesse into vertue he brings good out of evil he turns enmities to advantages our very sins into repentances and stricter walking he defeats all the follies of men and all the arts of the Devil and layes snares and uses violence to secure our obedience he sends Prophets and Priests to invite us and to threaten us to felicities he restrains us with lawes and he bridles us with honour and shame reputation and society friends and foes he layes hold on us by the instruments of all the passions he is enough to fill our love he satisfies our hope he affrights us with fear he gives us part of our reward in hand and entertains all our faculties with the promises of an infinite and glorious portion he curbs our affections he directs our wills he instructs our understandings with Scriptures with perpetuall Sermons with good books with frequent discourses with particular observations and great experience with accidents and judgements with rare events of providence and miracles he sends his Angels to be our guard and to place us in opportunities of vertue and to take us off from ill company and places of danger to set us neer to good example he gives us his holy Spirit and he becomes to us a principle of a mighty grace descending upon us in great variety and undiscerned events besides all those parts of it which men have reduced to a method and an art and after all this he forgives us infinite irregularities and spares us every day and still expects and passes by and waits all our dayes still watching to do us good and to save that soul which he knowes is so precious one of the chiefest of the works of God and an image of divinity Now from all these arts and mercies of God besides that we have infinite reason to adore his goodnesse we have also a demonstration that we ought to do all that possibly we can and extend all our faculties and watch all our opportunities and take in all assistances to secure the interest of our soul for which God is pleased to take such care and use so many arts for its security If it were not highly worth it God would not do it If it were not all of it
will loves it and so long as it does God cannot love the Man for God is the Prince of purities and the Son of God is the King of Virgins and the holy Spirit is all love and that is all purity and all spirituality And therefore the prayer of an Adulterer or an uncleane person is like the sacrifices to Moloch or the rites of Flora ubi Cato spectator esse non potuit a good man will not endure them much lesse will God entertaine such reekings of the Dead sea and clouds of Sodome For so an impure vapor begotten of the slime of the earth by the feavers and adulterous heats of an intemperate Summer sun striving by the ladder of a mountaine to climbe up to heaven and rolling into various figures by an uneasy unfixed revolution and stop'd at the middle region of the aire being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars turnes into an unwholsome flame and like the breath of hell is confin'd into a prison of darknesse and a cloud till it breaks into diseases plagues and mildews stink and blastings so is the prayer of an unchast person it strives to climbe the battlements of heaven but because it is a flame of sulphur salt and bitumen and was kindled in the dishonorable regions below deriv'd from hell and contrary to God it cannot passe forth to the element of love but ends in barrennesse and murmur fantastick expectations and trifling imaginative confidences and they at last end in sorrows and despaire * Every state of sin is against the possibility of a mans being accepted but these have a proper venome against the graciousnesse of the person and the power of the prayer God can never accept an unholy prayer and a wicked man can never send forth any other the waters passe thorough impure aquaeducts and channels of brimstone and therefore may end in brimstone and fire but never in forgivenesse and the blessings of an eternall charity Henceforth therefore never any more wonder that men pray so seldome there are few that feel the relish and are enticed with the deliciousnesse and refreshed with the comforts and instructed with the sanctity and acquainted with the secrets of a holy prayer But cease also to wonder that of those few that say many prayers so few find any return of any at all To make up a good and a lawfull prayer there must be charity with all its daughters almes forgivenesse not judging uncharitably there must be purity of spirit that is purity of intention and there must be purity of the body and soule that is the cleannesse of chastity and there must be no vice remaining no affection to sin for he that brings his body to God and hath left his will in the power of any sin offers to God the calves of his lips but not a whole burnt-offering a lame oblation but not a reasonable sacrifice and therefore their portion shall be amongst them whose prayers were never recorded in the book of life whose tears God never put into his bottle whose desires shall remaine ineffectuall to eternall ages Take heed you doe not lose your prayers for by them you hope to have eternall life and let any of you whose conscience is most religious and tender consider what condition that man is in that hath not said his prayers in thirty or forty years together and that is the true state of him who hath lived so long in the course of an unsanctified life in all that while he never said one prayer that did him any good but they ought to be reckoned to him upon the account of his sins Hee that is in the affection or in the habit or in the state of any one sin whatsoever is at such distance from and contrariety to God that he provokes God to anger in every prayer hee makes And then adde but this consideration that prayer is the great summe of our Religion it is the effect and the exercise and the beginning and the promoter of all graces and the consummation and perfection of many and all those persons who pretend towards heaven and yet are not experienced in the secrets of Religion they reckon their piety and account their hopes onely upon the stock of a few prayers it may be they pray twice every day it may be thrice and blessed be God for it so farre is very well but if it shall be remembred and considered that this course of piety is so farre from warranting any one course of sin that any one habituall and cherished sin destroyes the effect of all that piety wee shall see there is reason to account this to be one of those great arguments with which God hath so bound the duty of holy living upon us that without a holy life we cannot in any sense be happy or have the effect of one prayer But if we be returning and repenting sinners God delights to hear because he delights to save us Si precibus dixerunt numina justis Victa remollescunt When a man is holy then God is gracious and a holy life is the best and it is a continuall prayer and repentance is the best argument to move God to mercy because it is the instrument to unite our prayers to the intercession of the Holy Jesus SERMON V. Part II. AFter these evidences of Scripture and reason deriv'd from its analogy there will be lesse necessity to take any particular notices of those little objections which are usually made from the experience of the successe and prosperities of evill persons For true it is there is in the world a generation of men that pray long and loud and aske for vile things such which they ought to fear and pray against and yet they are heard The fat upon earth eat and worship But if these men aske things hurtfull and sinfull it is certain God hears them not in mercy They pray to God as despairing Saul did to his Armour-bearer Sta super me interfice me stand upon me and kill me and he that obey'd his voice did him dishonour and sinn'd against the head of his King and his own life And the vicious persons of old pray'd to Laverna Pulchra Laverna Da mihi fallere da justum sanctúmque videri Noctem peccatis fraudibus objice nubem Give me a prosperous robbery a rich prey and secret escape let me become rich with theeving and still be accounted holy For every sort of man hath some religion or other by the measures of which they proportion their lives and their prayers Now as the holy Spirit of God teaching us to pray makes us like himself in order to a holy and an effective prayer and no man prayes well but he that prays by the Spirit of God the Spirit of holinesse and he that prayes with the Spirit must be made like to the Spirit he is first sanctified and made holy and then made fervent and then his prayer ascends beyond the
others and to pray for them with probable effect I say with probable effect for when the event principally depends upon that which is not within our own election such as are the lives and actions of others all that we can consider in this affair is whether wee be persons fit to pray in the behalf of others that hinder not but are persons within the limit and possibilities of the present mercy When the Emperour Maximinus was smitten with the wrath of God and a sore disease for his cruell persecuting the Christian cause and putting so many thousand innocent and holy persons to death and he understood the voice of God and the accents of thunder and discerned that cruelty was the cause he revoked their decrees made against the Christians recall'd them from their caves and deserts their sanctuaries and retirements and enjoyned them to pray for the life and health of their Prince They did so and they who could command mountaines to remove and were obeyed they who could doe miracles they who with the key of prayer could open Gods four closets of the wombe and the grave of providence and rain could not obtain for their bloudy Emperour one drop of mercy but he must die miserable for ever God would not be intreated for him and though he loved the prayer because he loved the Advocates yet Maximinus was not worthy to receive the blessing And it was threatned to the rebellious people of Israel and by them to all people that should sin grievously against the Lord God would break their staffe of bread and even the righteous should not be prevailing intercessors Though Noah Job or Daniel were there they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousnesse saith the Lord God and when Abraham prevailed very far with God in the behalf of Sodome and the five Cities of the Plain it had its period If there had been ten righteous in Sodom it should have been spared for their sakes but four onely were found and they onely delivered their own souls too but neither their righteousnesse nor Abrahams prayer prevailed any further and we have this case also mentioned in the New Testament If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death At his prayer the sinner shall receive pardon God shall give him life for them to him that prays in their behalf that sin provided it be not a sin unto death For there is a sin unto death but I doe not say that he shall pray for it There his Commission expires and his power is confin'd For there are some sins of that state and greatnesse that God will not pardon S. Austin in his books de sermone Domini in monte affirms it concerning some one single sin of a perfect malice It was also the opinion of Origen and Athanasius and is followed by venerable Bede and whether the Apostle means a peculiar state of sin or some one single great crime which also supposes a precedent and a present state of criminall condition it is such a thing as will hinder our prayers from prevailing in their behalf we are therefore not encouraged to pray because they cannot receive the benefit of Christs intercession and therefore much lesse of our Advocation which onely can prevail by vertue and participation of his mediation For whomsoever Christ prays for them wee pray that is for all them that are within the covenant of repentance for all whose actions have not destroyed the very being of Religion who have not renounc'd their faith nor voluntarily quit their hopes nor openly opposed the Spirit of grace nor grown by a long progresse to a resolute and finall impiety nor done injustices greater then sorrow or restitution or recompense or acknowledgment However though it may be uncertain and disputed concerning the number of sins unto death and therefore to pray or not to pray is not matter of duty yet it is all one as to the effect whether we know them or no for though we intend charity when we pray for the worst of men yet concerning the event God will take care and will certainly return thy prayer upon thy own head though thou didst desire it should water and refresh thy neighbors drynesse and St. John so expresses it as if he had left the matter of duty undetermin'd because the instances are uncertain yet the event is certainly none at all therefore because we are not encouraged to pray and because it is a sin unto death that is such a sin that hath no portion in the promises of life and the state of repentance But now suppose the man for whom wee pray to be capable of mercy within the covenant of repentance and not farre from the Kingdome of heaven yet 2ly No prayers of others can further prevail then to remove this person to the next stage in order to felicity When S. Monica prayed for her son she did not pray to God to save him but to cōvert him and when God intended to reward the prayers and almes of Cornelius he did not do it by giving him a Crown but by sending an Apostle to him to make him a Christian the meaning of which observation is that we may understand that as in the person prayed for there ought to be the great disposition of being in a saveable condition so there ought also to be all the intermediall aptnesses for just as he is disposed so can we prevail and the prayers of a good man first prevail in behalf of a sinner that he shall be invited that he shall be reproved and then that he shall attend to it then that he shall have his heart open'd and then that he shall repent And still a good mans prayers follow him thorough the severall stages of pardon of sanctification of restraining graces of a mighty providence of great assistance of perseverance and a holy death No prayers can prevaile upon an undisposed person For the Sun himself cannot enlighten a blind eye nor the soule move a body whose silver cord is loosed and whose joints are untyed by the rudenesse and dissolutions of a pertinacious sicknesse But then suppose an eye quick and healthfull or apt to be refreshed with light and a friendly prospect yet a glow-worm or a diamond the shels of pearl or a dead mans candle are not enough to make him discern the beauties of the world and to admire the glories of creation Therefore 2. As the persons must be capable for whom we pray so they that pray for others must be persons extraordinary in something 1. If persons be of an extraordinary piety they are apt to be intercessors for others This appeares in the case of Job When the wrath of God was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends God commanded them to offer a sacrifice but my servant Job shall prey for you for him will I accept and it
of words and long prayers but by the measures of the Spirit by the holynesse of the soul and the justnesse of the desire and the usefulnesse of the request and its order to Gods glory and its place in the order of providence and the sincerity of our heart and the charity of our wishes and the perseverance of our advocation There are some as Tertullian observes qui loquacitatem facundiam existimant at impudentiam constantiam deputant They are praters and they are impudent and they call that constancy and importunity concerning which the advice is easy Many words or few are extrinsecall to the nature and not at all considered in the effects of prayer but much desire and much holinesse are essentiall to its constitution but we must be very curious that our importunity do not degenerate into impudence and a rude boldnesse Capitolinus said of Antonius the Emperour and Philosopher sanè quamvis esset constans erat etiam verecundus he was modest even when he was most pertinacious in his desires So must wee though wee must not be ashamed to aske for whatsoever we need Rebus semper pudor absit in arctis and in this sense it is true that Stasimus in the Comedy said concerning Meat Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet Nam ibi de divinis humanis cernitur Men must not be bashfull so as to lose their meat for that is a necessity that cannot bee dispensed withall so it is in our prayers whatsoever our necessity calls to us for we must call to God for and he is not pleased with that rusticity or fond modesty of being ashamed to ask of God any thing that is honest and necessary yet our importunity hath also bounds of modesty but such as are to be expressed with other significations and he is rightly modest towards God who without confidence in himself but not without confidence in Gods mercy nor without great humility of person and reverence of addresse presents his prayers to God as earnestly as he can Provided alwayes that in the greatest of our desires and holy violence we submit to Gods will and desire him to choose for us Our modesty to God in prayers hath no other measures but these 1. Distrust of our selves 2. Confidence in God 3. Humility of person 4. Reverence of addresse and 5. Submission to Gods will These are all unlesse also you will adde that of Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few These things being observed let your importunity be as great as it can it is still the more likely to prevaile by how much it is the more earnest and signified and represented by the most offices extraordinary 3ly The last great advantage towards a prevailing intercession for others is that the person that prayes for his relatives be a person of an extraordinary dignity imployment or designation For God hath appointed some persons and callings of men to pray for others such are Fathers for their Children Bishops for their Dioceses Kings for their Subjects and the whole Order Ecclesiast call for all the men and women in the Christian Church And it is well it is so for as things are now and have been too long how few are there that understand it to be their duty or part of their necessary imployment that some of their time and much of their prayers and an equall portion of their desires be spent upon the necessities of others All men doe not think it necessary and fewer practise it frequently and they but coldly without interest and deep resentment it is like the compassion we have in other mens miseries we are not concerned in it and it is not our case and our hearts ake not when another mans children are made fatherlesse or his wife a sad widow and just so are our prayers for their relief If we thought their evils to be ours if wee and they as members of the same body had sensible and reall communications of good and evill if we understood what is really meant by being members one of another or if we did not think it a spirituall word of art instrumentall onely to a science but no part of duty or reall relation sure we should pray more earnestly one for another then we usually doe How few of us are troubled when he sees his brother wicked or dishonorably vicious Who is sad and melancholy when his neighbour is almost in hell when he sees him grow old in iniquity How many days have we set apart for the publick relief and interests of the Kingdome How earnestly have we fasted if our Prince be sick or afflicted What almes have we given for our brothers conversion or if this be great how importunate and passionate have we been with God by prayer in his behalf by prayer and secret petition But however though it were well very well that all of us would think of this duty a little more because besides the excellency of the duty it self it would have this blessed consequent that for whose necessities we pray if we doe desire earnestly they should be relieved we would when ever we can and in all we can set our hands to it and if we pity the Orphan children and pray for them heartily we would also when we could relieve them charitably but though it were therefore very well that things were thus with all men yet God who takes care for us all makes provision for us in speciall manner and the whole Order of the Clergy are appointed by God to pray for others to be Ministers of Christs Priesthood to be followers of his Advocation to stand between God and the people and present to God all their needs and all their desires That this God hath ordained and appointed and that this rather he will blesse and accept appears by the testimony of God himself for he onely can be witnesse in this particular for it depends wholly upon his gracious favour and acceptation It was the case of Abraham and Abimelech Now therefore restore the man his wife for he is a Prophet and he will pray for thee and thou shalt live and this caused confidence in Micah Now know I that the Lord will doe me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest meaning that in his Ministery in the Ministery of Priests God hath established the alternate returns of blessing and prayers the entercouses between God and his people And thorough the descending ages of the synagogue it came to be transmitted also to the Christian Church that the Ministers of Religion are advocates for us under Christ by the Ministery of Reconciliation by their dispensing the holy Sacraments by the Keyes of the Kingdome of heaven by Baptisme and the Lords Supper by binding and loosing by the Word of God and Prayer and therefore saith St. James If any man
his gifts and is never wanting to us in what we need and if all this be not argument strong enough to produce fear and that fear great enough to secure obedience all arguments are uselesse all discourses are vain the grace of God is ineffective and we are dull as the Dead sea unactive as a rock and we shall never dwell with God in any sense but as he is a consuming fire that is dwell in the everlasting burnings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reverence and caution modesty and fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in some copies with caution and fear or if we render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be fear of punishment as it is generally understood by interpreters of this place and is in Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then the expression is the same in both words and it is all one with the other places of Scripture Work out your salvation with fear and trembling degrees of the same duty and they signifie all those actions and graces which are the proper effluxes of fear such as are reverence prudence caution and diligence chastity and a sober spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so also say the Grammarians and it means plainly this since our God will appear so terrible at his second comming let us passe the time of our sojourning here in fear that is modestly without too great confidence of our selves soberly without bold crimes which when a man acts he must put on shamelesnesse reverently towards God as fearing to offend him diligently observing his commandements inquiring after his will trembling at his voice attending to his Word revering his judgements fearing to provoke him to anger for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Thus far it is a duty Concerning which that I may proceed orderly I shall first consider how far fear is a duty of Christian Religion 2. Who and what states of men ought to fear and upon what reasons 3. What is the excesse of fear or the obliquity and irregularity whereby it becomes dangerous penall and criminall a state of evill and not a state of duty 1. Fear is taken sometimes in holy Scripture for the whole duty of man for his whole Religion towards God And now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God c. fear is obedience and fear is love and fear is humility because it is the parent of all these and is taken for the whole duty to which it is an introduction The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome a good understanding have all they that do thereafter the praise of it endureth for ever and Fear God and keep his Commandements for this is the whole duty of man and thus it is also used in the New Testament Let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse of the flesh and spirit perfecting holinesse in the fear of God 2. Fear is sometimes taken for worship for so our blessed Saviour expounds the words of Moses in Mat. 4. 10. taken from Deut. 10. 20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God so Moses Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve said our blessed Saviour and so it was used by the Prophet Jonah I am an Hebrew and I fear the Lord the God of Heaven that is I worship him he is the Deity that I adore that is my worship and my Religion and because the new Colony of Assyrians did not do so at the beginning of their dwelling there they feared not the Lord that is they worshipped other Gods and not the God of Israel therefore God sent Lions among them which slew many of them Thus far fear is not a distinct duty but a word signifying something besides it self and therefore cannot come into the consideration of this text Therefore 3. Fear as it is a religious passion is divided as the two Testaments are and relates to the old and new Covenant and accordingly hath its distinction In the Law God used his people like servants in the Gospell he hath made us to be sons In the Law he enjoyn'd many things hard intricate various painfull and expensive in the Gospell he gave commandements not hard but full of pleasure necessary and profitable to our life and well being of single persons and communities of men In the Law he hath exacted those many precepts by the covenant of exact measures grains and scruples in the Gospel he makes abatement for humane infirmities temptations morall necessities mistakes errors for every thing that is pitiable for every thing that is not malicious and voluntary In the Law there are many threatnings and but few promises the promise of temporal prosperities branch'd into single instances in the Gospell there are but few threatnings and many promises And when God by Moses gave the 10 Commandements only one of them was sent out with a promise the precept of obedience to all our parents and superiors but when Christ in his first Sermon recommended 8 duties Christian duties to the College of Disciples every one of them begins with a blessing and ends with a promise and therefore grace is opposed to the Law So that upon these differing interests the world put on the affections of Servants and Sons They of old feared God as a severe Lord much in his commands abundant in threatnings angry in his executions terrible in his name in his Majesty and appearance dreadfull unto death and this the Apostle cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The spirit of bondage or of a servant But we have not received that Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto fear not a servile fear but the Spirit of adoption and a filiall fear we must have God treats us like sons he keeps us under discipline but designs us to the inheritance and his government is paternall his disciplines are mercifull his conduct gentle his Son is our Brother and our Brother is our Lord and our Judge is our Advocate and our Priest hath felt our infirmities and therefore knows to pity them and he is our Lord and therefore he can relieve them and from hence we have affections of sons so that a fear we must not have and yet a fear we must have and by these proportions we understand the difference Malo vereri quà m timeri me à meis said one in the Comedy I had rather be reverend then fear'd by my children The English doth not well expresse the difference but the Apostle doth it rarely well For that which he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Rom. 8. 15. he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 1. 7. The spirit of bondage is the spirit rather of timorousnesse of fearfulnesse rather then fear when we are fearfull that God will use us harshly or when we think of the accidents that happen worse then the things are when they are proportion'd by measures
of eternity and from this opinion conceive forc'd resolutions and unwilling obedience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle Good men are guided by reverence not by fear and they avoid not that which is afflictive but that which is dishonest they are not so good whose rule is otherwise But that we may take more exact measures I shall describe the proportions of Christian or godly fear by the following propositions 1. Godly fear is ever without despair because Christian fear is an instrument of duty and that duty without hope can never go forward For what should that man do who like Nausiclides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath neither spring nor harvest friends nor children rewards nor hopes A man will very hardly be brought to deny his own pleasing appetite when for so doing he cannot hope to have a recompense when the mind of a man is between hope and fear it is intent upon its work at post quam adempta spes est lassus curâ confectus stupet if you take away the hope the minde is weary spent with care hindred by amazements aut aliquem sumpserimus temerariâ in Deos desperatione saith Arnobius a despair of mercy makes men to despise God and the damned in hell when they shall for ever be without hope are also without fear their hope is turned into despair and their fear into blasphemy and they curse the fountain of blessing and revile God to eternall ages When Dionysius the Tyrant imposed intolerable tributes upon his Sicilian subjects it amazed them and they petitioned and cryed for help and flatter'd him and fear'd and obey'd him carefully but he impos'd still new ones and greater and at last left them poor as the valleys of Vesuvius or the top of Aetna but then all being gone the people grew idle and carelesse and walked in the markets and publick places cursing the Tyrant and bitterly scoffing his person and vices which when Dionysius heard he caused his Publicans and Committees to withdraw their impost for now sayes he they are dangerous because they are desperate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when men have nothing left they will despise their Rulers and so it is in Religion audaces cogimur essemetu If our fears be unreasonable our diligence is none at all and from whom we hope for nothing neither benefit nor indemnity we despise his command and break his yoke and trample it under our most miserable feet And therefore Aeschylus cals these people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hot mad and furious carelesse of what they do and he opposes them to pious and holy people Let your confidence be allayed with fear and your fear be sharpned with the intertextures of a holy hope and the active powers of our souls are furnished with feet and wings with eyes and hands with consideration and diligence with reason and incouragements But despair is part of the punishment that is in hell and the Devils still do evill things because they never hope to receive a good nor finde a pardon 2. Godly fear must alwaies be with honourable opinion of God without disparagements of his mercies without quarrellings at the intrigues of his providence or the rough wayes of his Justice and therefore it must be ever relative to our selves and our own failings and imperfections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God never walks perversely towards us unlesse we walk crookedly towards him And therefore persons that only consider the greatnesse and power of God and dwell for ever in the meditations of those severe executions which are transmitted to us by story or we observe by accident and conversation are apt to be jealous concerning God and fear him as an enemy or as children fear fire or women thunder only because it can hurt them Saepius illud cogitant quid possit is cujus in ditione sunt quà m quid debeat facere Cicero pro Quinctio they remember oftner what God can do then what he will being more afrighted at his Judgements then delighted with his mercy Such as were the Lacedaemonians when ever they saw a man grow popuâ—ar or wise or beloved and by consequence powerfull they turned him out of the countrey and because they were afraid of the power of Ismenias and knew that Pelopidas and Pherenicus and Androclydes could hurt them if they listed they banished them from Sparta but they let Epaminondas alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being studious and therefore unactive and poor and therefore harmlesse It is harder when men use God thus and fear him as the great Justiciar of the world who sits in heaven and observes all we do and cannot want excuse to punish all mankinde But this caution I have now inserted for their sakes whose Schooles and Pulpits raise doctrinall fears concerning God which if they were true the greatest part of mankinde would be tempted to think they have reason not to love God and all the other part that have not apprehended a reason to hate him would have very much reason to suspect his severitie and their own condition Such are they which say that God hath decreed the greatest part of mankinde to eternall damnation and that only to declare his severity and to manifest his glory by a triumph in our torments and rejoycings in the gnashing of our teeth And they also fear God unreasonably and speak no good things concerning his Name who say that God commands us to observe Lawes which are impossible that think he will condemn innocent persons for errors of Judgement which they cannot avoid that condemn whole Nations for different opinions which they are pleased to call Heresie that think God will exact the duties of a man by the measures of an Angell or will not make abatement for all our pitiable infirmities The precepts of this caution are that we remember Gods mercy to be over all his works that is that he shewes mercy to all his creatures that need it that God delights to have his mercy magnified in all things and by all persons and at all times and will not suffer his greatest honour to be most of all undervalued and therefore as he that would accuse God of injustice were a blasphemer so he that suspects his mercy dishonours God as much and produces in himself that fear which is the parent of trouble but no instrument of duty 3ly Godly fear is operative diligent and instrumentall to caution and strict walking for so fear is the mother of holy living and the Apostle urges it by way of upbraiding What! doe wee provoke God to anger are we stronger then he meaning that if we be not strong enough to struggle with a feaver if our voyces cannot out-roar thunder if we cannot check the ebbing and flowing of the sea if we cannot adde one cubit to our stature how shall we escape the mighty hand of God And here heighten your apprehensions of the Divine power of his justice and severity of the fiercenesse of his anger and the sharpnesse of
the Augures gave an alarum to the City but if lightning struck the spire of the Capitoll they thought the summe of affairs and the Commonwealth it self was indanger'd And this Heathen folly hath stuck so close to the Christian that all the Sermons of the Church for 1600 years have not cured them all But the practises of weaker people and the artifice of ruling Priests have superinduced many new ones When Pope Eugenius sang Masse at Rhemes and some few drops from the Chalice were spilt upon the pavement it was thought to foretell mischief warres and bloud to all Christendome though it was nothing but carelesnesse and mischance of the Priest and because Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury sang the Masse of Requiem upon the day he was reconcil'd to his Prince it was thought to foretell his own death by that religious office and if men can listen to such whispers and have not reason and observation enough to confute such trifles they shall still be afrighted with the noise of birds and every night-raven shall foretell evill as Micaiah to the King of Israel and every old woman shall be a Prophetesse and the events of humane affairs which should be managed by the conduct of counsell of reason and religion shall succeed by chance by the flight of birds and the meeting with an evill eye by the falling of the salt or the decay of reason of wisdome and the just religion of a man To this may be reduc'd the observation of dreams and fears commenced from the fancies of the night For the superstitious man does not rest even when he sleeps neither is he safe because dreams usually are false but he is afflicted for fear they should tell true Living and waking men have one world in common they use the same air and fire and discourse by the same principles of Logick and reason but men that are asleep have every one a world to himself and strange perceptions and the superstitious hath none at all his reason sleeps and his fears are waking and all his rest and his very securities to the fearfull man turn into afrights and insecure expectation of evils that never shall happen they make their rest uneasie and chargeable and they still vex their weary soul not considering there is no other sleep for sleep to rest in and therefore if the sleep be troublesome the mans cares be without remedy till they be quite destroyed Dreams follow the temper of the body and commonly proceed from trouble or disease businesse or care an active head and a restlesse minde from fear or hope from wine or passion from fulnesse or emptinesse from phantastick remembrances or from som Daemon good or bad they are without rule and without reason they are as contingent as if a man should study to make a Prophesie and by saying 10000 things may hit upon one true which was therefore not foreknown though it was forespoken and they have no certainty because they have no naturall causality nor proportion to those effects which many times they are said to foresignifie The dream of the yolk of an egge importeth gold saith Artemidorus and they that use to remember such phantastick idols are afraid to lose a friend when they dream their teeth shake when naturally it will rather signifie a scurvy for a naturall indisposition and an imperfect sense of the beginning of a disease may vex the fancy into a symbolicall representation for so the man that dreamt he swam against a stream of bloud had a Plurisie beginning in his side and he that dreamt he dipt his foot in water and that it was turn'd to a Marble was intic'd into the fancie by a beginning dropsie and if the events do answer in one instance we become credulous in twenty for want of reason we discourse our selves into folly and weak observation and give the Devill power over us in those circumstances in which we can least resist him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A theef is confident in the twilight if you suffer impressions to be made upon you by dreams the Devill hath the reins in his own hands and can tempt you by that which will abuse you when you can make no resistance Dominica the wife of Valens the Emperor dreamt that God threatned to take away her only son for her despitefull usage of St. Basil the fear proceeding from this instance was safe and fortunate but if she had dreamt in the behalf of a Heretick she might have been cousened into a false proposition upon a ground weaker then the discourse of a waking childe Let the grounds of our actions be noble beginning upon reason proceeding with prudence measured by the common lines of men and confident upon the expectation of an usuall providence Let us proceed from causes to effects from naturall means to ordinary events and believe felicity not to be a chance but a choice and evill to be the daughter of sin and the Divine anger not of fortune and fancy let us fear God when we have made him angry and not be afraid of him when we heartily and laboriously do our duty our fears are to be measured by open revelation and certain experience by the threatnings of God and the sayings of wise men and their limit is reverence and godlinesse is their end and then fear shall be a duty and a rare instrument of many in all other cases it is superstition or folly it is sin or punishment the Ivy of Religion and the misery of an honest and a weak heart and is to be cured only by reason and good company a wise guide and a plain rule a cheerfull spirit and a contented minde by joy in God according to the commandements that is a rejoycing evermore 2. But besides this superstitious fear there is another fear directly criminall and it is cald worldly fear of which the Spirit of God hath said But the fearfull and incredulous shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death that is such fears which make men to fall in the time of persecution those that dare not own their faith in the face of a Tyrant or in despite of an accursed Law For though it be lawfull to be afraid in a storm yet it is not lawfull to leap into the sea though we may be more carefull for our fears yet we must be faithfull too and we may flie from the persecution till it overtakes us but when it does we must not change our Religion for our safety or leave the robe of Baptisme in the hand of the tempter and run away by all means St. Athanasius for 46 years did run and fight he disputed with the Arrians and fled from their Officers and that flies may be a man worth preserving if he bears his faith along with him and leaves nothing of his duty behinde but when duty and life cannot stand together he that then flies a persecution by delivering
be impossible to doe our duty we weep for our sins but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends or other temporall sadnesses we say we had rather die then lose our saith and yet we doe not live according to it we lose our estates and are impatient we lose our vertue and bear it well enough and what vertue is so great as more to be troubled for having sin'd then for being asham'd and begger'd and condemn'd to die Here we are forced to a distinction there is a valuation of price and a valuation of sense or the spirit hath one rate of things and the flesh hath another and what we beleeve the greatest evill does not alwayes cause to us the greatest trouble which shews plainly that we are imperfect carnall persons and the flesh will in some measure prevaile over the spirit because we will suffer it in too many instances and cannot help it in all 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh because the flesh pretends it is not able to doe those ministeries which are appointed in order to Religion we are not able to fast or if we watch it breeds gouts and catarrhes or charity is a grace too expensive our necessities are too big to do it or we cannot suffer pain and sorrow breeds death and therefore our repentances must be more gentle and we must support our selves in all our calamities for we cannot beare our crosses without a freer refreshment and this freedome passes on to licence and many melancholy persons drowne their sorrows in sin and forgetfulnesse as if sin were more tolerable then sorrow and the anger of God an easier load then a temporall care here the flesh betrayes its weaknesse and its follies For the flesh complains too soon and the spirit of some men like Adam being too fond of his Eve attends to all its murmurs and temptations and yet the flesh is able to bear farre more then is required of it in usuall duties Custome of suffering will make us endure much and feare will make us suffer more and necessity makes us suffer any thing and lust and desire makes us to endure more then God is willing we should and yet we are nice and tender and indulgent to our weaknesses till our weaknesses grow too strong for us And what shall we doe to secure our duty and to be delivered of our selves that the body of death which we bear about us may not destroy the life of the spirit I have all this while complain'd and you see not without cause I shall afterwards tell you the remedies for all this evill In the mean time let us have but mean opinions of our selves let us watch every thing of our selves as of suspected persons and magnifie the grace of God and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies and let us look up to him who is the fountaine of grace and spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And pray that God would give us what we ask and what we ask not for we want more helps then we understand and we are neerer to evill then we perceive and we bear sin and death about us and are in love with it and nothing comes from us but false principles and silly propositions and weak discourses and startings from our holy purposes and care of our bodies and of our palates and the lust of the lower belly these are the imployment of our lives but if wee design to live happily and in a better place it must be otherwise with us we must become new creatures and have another definition and have new strengths which we can onely derive from God whose grace is sufficient for us and strong enough to prevail over all our follies and infirmities SERMON XI Part II. IF it be possible to cure an evill nature we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief In order to which I shall consider 1. That since it is our flesh and bloud that is the principle of mischief we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments the Physitian that went to cure the Hectick with quick-silver and fasting spittle did his Patient no good but himself became a proverb and he that by easie prayers and a seldome fast by the scattering of a little almes and the issues of some more naturall vertue thinks to cure his evill nature does fortifie his indisposition as a stick is hardened by a little fire which by a great one is devoured Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere quae malis cupiditatibus sordidatur uno virtutis ac fidei lavacro universa vitia depellere Better it is by an intire body of vertue by a living and active faith to cleanse the minde from every vice and to take off all superinduced habits of sin Quod qui fecerit quamlibet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat satis purus est If we take this course although our body is foul and our affections unquiet and our rest discomposed yet we shall be masters of our resolution and clean from habituall sins and so cure our evill nature For our nature was not made evill but by our selves but yet we are naturally evill that is by a superinduced nature just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to drink extremely and their nature requires it and it is health to them they dye without it because they have made to themselves a new constitution and another nature but much worse then that which God made their sin made this new nature and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable so it is in all other instances Our nature is evill because we have spoil'd it and therefore the removing the sin which we have brought in is the way to cure our nature for this evill nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid we made it and therefore we must help it but as in the superinducing this evill nature we were thrust forward by the world and the Devill by all objects from without and weaknesse from within so in the curing it we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must have a new nature put into us which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes of holy actions and great devotion and this nature is deriv'd from God and is a grace and a favour of heaven The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner must also descend upon us and cause us to be born again and to begin a new life upon the stock of a new nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Origen From him it first began that a divine and humane nature were weaved together that the humane nature by communication with the celestiall may also become divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not only in Jesus but in all that first
own brow it stays not to be tempted by little avocations and to creep into holes but runs into the sea through full and usefull channels So is a mans prayer if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite it wanders into the society of every trifling accident and stays at the corners of the fancy and talks with every object it meets and cannot arrive at heaven but when it is carryed upon the wings of passion and strong desires a swift motion and a hungry appetite it passes on through all the intermediall regions of clouds and stays not till it dwells at the foot of the Throne where mercy sits and thence sends holy showers of refreshment I deny not but some little drops will turn aside and fall from the full channell by the weaknesse of the banks and hollownesse of the passage but the main course is still continued and although the most earnest and devout persons feel and complain of some loosenesse of spirit and unfixed attentions yet their love and their desire secure the maine portions and make the prayer to be strong fervent and effectuall Any thing can be done by him that earnestly desires what he ought secure but your affections and passions and then no temptation will be too strong A wise man and a full resolution and an earnest spirit can doe any thing of duty but every temptation prevailes when we are willing to die and we usually lend nothing to devotion but the offices that flatter our passions we can desire and pray for any thing that may serve our lust or promote those ends which we covet but ought to fear and fly from but the same earnestnesse if it were transplanted into Religion and our prayers would serve all the needs of the spirit but for want of it we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. Our Charity also must be fervent Malus est miles qui ducem suum gemens sequitur He that follows his Generall with a heavy march and a heavy heart is but an ill souldier but our duty to God should be hugely pleasing and we should rejoyce in it it must passe on to action and doe the action vigorously it is called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labour and travail of love A friend at a sneese and an almes-basket full of prayers a love that is lazy and a service that is uselesse and a pity without support are the images and colours of that grace whose very constitution and designe is beneficence and well-doing He that loves passionately will not onely doe all that his friend needs but all that himself can for although the law of charity is fulfilled by acts of profit and bounty and obedience and labour yet it hath no other measures but the proportions and abundance of a good mind and according to this God requires that we be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abounding and that alwayes in the work of the Lord if we love passionately we shall doe all this for love endures labour and calls it pleasure it spends all and counts it a gain it suffers inconveniencies and is quickly reconciled to them if dishonours and affronts be to be endured love smiles and calls them favours and wears them willingly alii jacuere ligati Turpitèr atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat Sic fieri turpis It is the Lord said David and I will be yet more vile and it shall be honour unto me thus did the Disciples of our Lord goe from tribunals rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer stripes for that beloved name and we are commanded to rejoyce in persecutions to resist unto bloud to strive to enter in at the strait gate not to be weary of well doing doe it hugely and doe it alwayes Non enim votis neque suppliciis muliebribus auxilia Deorum parantur sed vigilando agendo benè consulendo omnia prosperè cedunt No man can obtain the favour of God by words and imperfect resolutions by lazie actions and a remisse piety but by severe counsells and sober actions by watchfulnesse and prudence by doing excellent things with holy intentions and vigorous prosecutions Ubi socordiae ignaviae te tradideris nequidquam Deos implorabis If your vertues be lazy your vices will be bold and active and therefore Democritus said well that the painfull and the soft-handed people in Religion differ just as good men and bad nimirùm spe bonâ the labouring charity hath a good hope but a coole Religion hath none at all and the distinction will have a sad effect to eternall ages These are the great Scenes of duty in which we are to be fervent and zealous but because earnestnesse and zeal are circumstances of a great latitude and the zeale of the present age is starke cold if compar'd to the fervors of the Apostles and other holy primitives and in every age a good mans care may turne into scruple if he sees that he is not the best man because he may reckon his owne estate to stand in the confines of darknesse because his spark is not so great as his neighbors fires therefore it is sit that we consider concerning the degrees of the intention and forward heats for when we have found out the lowest degrees of zeale and a holy fervour we know that duty dwels there and whatsoever is above it is a degree of excellence but all that is lesse then it is lukewarmnesse and the state of an ungracious and an unaccepted person 1. No man is fervent and zealous as he ought but he that preferres Religion before businesse charity before his own ease the reliefe of his brother before money heaven before secular regards and God before his friend or interest Which rule is not to be understood absolutely and in particular instances but alwayes generally and when it descends to particulars it must be in proportion to circumstances and by their proper measures for 1. In the whole course of life it is necessary that we prefer Religion before any state that is either contrary to it or a lessening of at s duties He that hath a state of life in which he cannot at all in fair proportions tend to Religion must quit great proportions of that that he may enjoy more of this this is that which our blessed Saviour calls pulling out the right eye if it offend thee 2. In particular actions when the necessity is equall he that does not preferre Religion is not at all Zealous for although all naturall necessities are to be served before the circumstances and order of Religion yet our belly and our back our liberty and our life our health and a friend are to be neglected rather then a Duty when it stands in its proper place and is requir'd 3. Although the things of God are by a necessary Zeale to be preferred before the things of the world yet we must take heed that we doe not reckon Religion and orders of worshipping onely to be the
things of God and all other duties to be the things of the world for it was a Pharisaicall device to cry Corban and to refuse to relieve their aged Parents it is good to give to a Church but it is better to give to the Poor and though they must be both provided for yet in cases of dispute Mercy carries the cause against Religion and the Temple And although Mary was commended for choosing the better part yet Mary had done worse if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother Martha was troubled with much serving that was more then need and therefore she was to blame and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be more then needs and some women are troubled with over-much hearing and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house 4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of Religion for although the things of the Spirit are better then the things of the World yet a spirituall man is not in humane regards to be preferred before Princes and noble personages Because a man is called spirituall in severall regards and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace or co-operating toward the works of the Spirit * A King and a Bishop both have callings in order to godlinesse and honesty and spirituall effects towards the advancement of Christs Kingdome whose representatives severally they are * But whether of these two works more immediately or more effectively cannot at all times be known and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concerning doing them civill regards * and possibly the partaking the Spirit is a neerer relation to him then doing his ministeries and serving his ends upon others * and if relations to God and Gods Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civill honour every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some Kings and some Bishops * But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world so they naturally can inferre onely such a relative dignity as can be expressed in spirituall manners But because such relations are subjected in men of this life and we now converse especially in materiall and secular significations therefore we are to expresse our regards to men of such relations by proportionable expressions but because civill excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civill honors and spirituall excellencies doe onely claim them accidentally and indirectly therefore in titles of honour and humane regards the civill praeeminence is the appendix of the greatest civill power and imployment and is to descend in proper measures and for a spirituall relation to challenge a temporall dignity is as if the best Musick should challenge the best cloathes or a Lute-string should contend with a Rose for the honour of the greatest sweetnesse * Adde to this that although temporall things are in order to spirituall and therefore are lesse perfect yet this is not so naturally for temporall things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution and it is by a supernaturall grace that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory and therefore temporall things and persons and callings have properly the chiefest temporall regard and Christ took nothing of this away from them but put them higher by sanctifying and ennobling them * But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man then the richest trade can suppose the richest man From callings to men the argument is fallacious and a Smith is a more usefull man then he that teaches Logick but not always to be more esteemed and called to stand at the chairs of Princes and Nobles * Holy persons and holy things and all great relations are to be valued by generall proportions to their correlatives but if wee descend to make minute and exact proportions and proportion an inch of temporall to a minute of spirituall we must needs be hugely deceived unlesse we could measure the motion of an Angell by a string or the progressions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple * And yet if these measures were taken it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be preferr'd before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things A man generally is to be esteemed above a woman but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent Queen not alwayes this man before this woman Now Kings and Princes are the best in all temporall dignities and therefore if they had in them no spirituall relations and consequent excellencies as they have very many yet are not to be undervalu'd to spirituall relations which in this world are very imperfect weak partiall and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency propriety and perfection and then also all shall have them according to the worth of their persons not of their calling * But lastly what men may not challenge is not their just and proper due but spirituall persons and the neerest relatives to God stand by him but so long at they dwell low and safe in humility and rise high in nothing but in labours and zeal of soules and devotion * In proportion to this rule a Church may be pull'd down to save a Town and the Vessels of the Church may be sold to redeem Captives when there is a great calamity imminent and prepared for reliefe and no other way to succour it But in the whole the duty of zeale requires that we neglect an ordinary visit rather then an ordinary prayer and a great profit rather then omit a required duty No excuse can legitimate a sin and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit and if he cannot reconcile them will yet tie them together like a Hyaena and a Dog this man pretends to Religion but secures the world and is indifferent and lukewarme towards that so he may be warme and safe in the possession of this 2. To that fervour and zeal that is necessary and a duty it is required that we be constant and persevering Esto fidelis ad mortem said the Spirit of God to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna Be faithfull unto death and I will give thee a crown of life For he that is warm to day and cold to morrow zealous in his resolution and weary in his practises fierce in the beginning and slack and easie in his progresse hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of he sees not reason enough for Religion and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary and therefore he is duplicis animi as St. James calls him of a doubtfull mind For Religion is worth as much to day as it was yesterday and that cannot change though we doe and if we doe we have left God and whither
frequency in prayers and that part of zeal which relates to it is to be upon no account but of an holy spirit a wise heart and reasonable perswasion for if it begins upon passion or fear in imitation of others or desires of reputation honour or phantastick principles it will be unblessed and weary unprosperous and without return or satisfaction therefore if it happen to begin upon a weak principle be very curious to change the motive and with all speed let it be turned into religion and the love of holy things then let it be as frequent as it can prudently it cannot be amisse 2. When you are entred into a state of zealous prayer and a regular devotion what ever interruption you can meet with observe their causes and be sure to make them irregular seldome and contingent that your omissions may be seldome and casuall as a bare accident for which no provisions can be made for if ever it come that you take any thing habitually and constantly from your prayers or that you distract from them very frequently it cannot be but you will become troublesome to your self your prayers will be uneasie they will seem hinderances to your more necessary affairs of passion and interest and the things of the world and it will not stand still till it comes to Apostasie and a direct despite and contempt of holy things For it was an old rule and of a sad experience Tepiditas si callum obduxerit fiet apostasia if your lukewarmnesse be habituall and a state of life if it once be hardned by the usages of many daies it changes the whole state of the man it makes him an apostate to devotion Therefore be infinitely carefull in this particular alwayes remembring the saying of St. Chrysostome Docendi praedicandi officia alia cessant suo tempore precandi autem nunquam there are seasons for teaching and preaching and other outward offices but prayer is the duty of all times and of all persons and in all contingences From other things in many cases we can be excused but from prayer never In this therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is good to be zealous 2. Concerning the second instance I named viz. To give almes above our estate it is an excellent act of zeal and needs no other caution to make it secure from illusion and danger but that our egressions of charity do not prejudice justice See that your almes do not other men wrong and let them do what they can to thy self they will never prejudice thee by their abundance but then be also carefull that the pretences of justice do not cousen thy self of thy charity and the poor of thine almes and thy soul of the reward He that is in debt is not excused from giving almes till his debts are paid but only from giving away such portions which should and would pay them and such which he intended should do it There are lacernae divitiarum and crums from the table and the gleanings of the harvest and the scatterings of the vintage which in all estates are the portions of the poor which being collected by the hand of providence and united wisely may become considerable to the poor and are the necessary duties of charity but beyond this also every considerable relief to the poor is not a considerable diminution to the estate and yet if it be it is not alwaies considerable in the accounts of Justice for nothing ought to be pretended against the zeal of almes but the certain omissions or the very probable retarding the doing that to which we are otherwise obliged He that is going to pay a debt and in the way meets an indigent person that needs it all may not give it to him unlesse he knowes by other means to pay the debt but if he can do both he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a Crown But then in the case of provision for children our restraint is not so easie or discernible 1. Because we are not bound to provide for them in a certain portion but may do it by the analogies and measures of prudence in which there is a great latitude 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good portion for them and layes up a blessing for inheritance 3. Because the fairest portions of charity are usually short of such sums which can be considerable in the duty of provision for our children 4. If we for them could be content to take any measure lesse then all any thing under every thing that we can we should finde the portions of the poor made ready to our hands sufficiently to minister to zeal and yet not to intrench upon this case of conscience But the truth is we are so carelesse so unskil'd so unstudied in religion that we are only glad to make an an excuse and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace we are contented if we can but make a pretence for we are highly pleased if our conscience be quiet and care not so much that our duty be performed much lesse that our eternall interest be advanced in bigger portions We care not we strive not we think not of getting the greater rewards of Heaven and he whose desires are so indifferent for the greater will not take pains to secure the smallest portion and it is observable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the least in the Kingdome of heaven is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good as none if a man will be content with his hopes of the lowest place there and will not labour for something beyond it he does not value it at all and it is ten to one but will lose that for which he takes so little pains and is content with so easie a security He that does his almes and resolves that in no case he will suffer inconvenience for his brother whose case it may be is into erable should do well to remember that God in some cases requires a greater charity and it may be we shall be called to dye for the good of our brother and that although it alwaies supposes a zeal and a holy fervour yet sometimes it is also a duty and we lose our lives if we go to save them and so we do with our estates when we are such good husbands in our Religion that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve and then we lose our money and our reward too 3. Hither is to be reduced * the accepting and choosing the counsels Evangelicall * the virgin or widow estate in order to Religion * selling all and giving it to the poor * making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven * offering our selves to death voluntary in exchange or redemption of the life of a most usefull person as Aquila and Priscilla who ventur'd their lives for St.
Nereus and Achilleus the Eunuchs refused to marry Aurelianus to whom she was contracted if there were not some little envie and too sharp hostility in the Eunuchs to a marryed state yet Aurelianus thought himself an injur'd person and caus'd St. Clemens who vail'd her and his spouse both to dye in the quarrell St. Thecla being converted by St. Paul grew so in love with virginity that she leap'd back from the marriage of Tamyris where she was lately ingaged St. Iphigenia denyed to marry King Hirtacus and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew And Susanna the Niece of Diocletian refus'd the love of Maximianus the Emperour and these all had been betrothed and so did St. Agnes and St. Felicula and divers others then and afterwards insomuch that it was reported among the Gentiles that the Christians did not only hate all that were not of their perswasion but were enemies of the chast lawes of marriage And indeed some that were called Christians were so forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats Upon this occasion it grew necessary for the Apostle to state the question right and to do honour to the holy rite of marriage and to snatch the mystery from the hands of zeal and folly and to place it in Christs right hand that all its beauties might appear and a present convenience might not bring in a false Doctrine and a perpetuall sin and an intolerable mischief The Apostle therefore who himself had been a marryed man but was now a widower does explicate the mysteriousnesse of it and describes it's honours and adornes it with rules and provisions of Religion that as it begins with honour so it may proceed with piety and end with glory For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity of affaires such solitarinesse and sorrow such leasure and unactive circumstances of living that there are more spaces for religion if men would use them to these purposes and because it may have in it much religion and prayers and must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appetites is therefore a state of great excellency yet concerning the state of marriage we are taught from Scripture and the sayings of wise men great things and honourable Marriage is honourable in all men so is not single life for in some it is a snare and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a trouble in the flesh a prison of unruly desires which is attempted daily to be broken Celibate or single life is never commanded but in some cases marriage is and he that burns sins often if he marries not he that cannot contain must marry and he that can contain is not tyed to a single life but may marry and not sin Marriage was ordained by God instituted in Paradise was the relief of a naturall necessity and the first blessing from the Lord he gave to Man not a friend but a wife that is a friend and a wife too for a good woman is in her soul the same that a man is and she is a woman only in her body that she may have the excellency of the one and the usefulnesse of the other and become amiable in both it is the seminary of the Church and daily brings forth sons and daughters unto God it was ministred to by Angels and Raphael waited upon a young man that he might have a blessed marriage and that that marriage might repair two fad families and blesse all their relatives Our blessed Lord though he was born of a maiden yet she was vail'd under the cover of marriage and she was marryed to a widower for Joseph the supposed Father of our Lord had children by a former wife The first Miracle that ever Jesus did was to doe honour to a wedding marriage was in the world before sin and is in all ages of the world the greatest and most effective antidote against sin in which all the world had perished if God had not made a remedy and although sin hath sour'd marriage and stuck the mans head with cares and the womans bed with sorrowes in the production of children yet these are but throws of life and glory and she shall be saved in child-bearing if she be found in faith and righteousnesse Marriage is a Schoole and exercise of vertue and though Marriage hath cares yet the single life hath desires which are more troublesome and more dangerous and often end in sin while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety and therefore if single life hath more privacy of devotion yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety of it and is an exercise of more graces In two vertues celibate or single life may have the advantage of degrees ordinarily and commonly that is in chastity and devotion but as in some persons this may fail and it does in very many and a marryed man may spend as much time in devotion as any virgins or widowes do yet as in marriage even those vertues of chastity and devotion are exercised so in other instances this state hath proper exercises and trials for those graces for which single life can never be crown'd Here is the proper scene of piety and patience of the duty of Parents and the charity of relatives here kindnesse is spread abroad and love is united and made firm as a centre Marriage is the nursery of heaven the virgin sends prayers to God but she carries but one soul to him but the state of marriage fils up the numbers of the elect and hath in it the labour of love and the delicacies of friendship the blessing of society and the union of hands and hearts it hath in it lesse of beauty but more of safety then the single life it hath more care but lesse danger it is more merry and more sad is fuller of sorrowes and fuller of joyes it lies under more burdens but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity and those burdens are delightfull Marriage is the mother of the world and preserves Kingdomes and fils Cities and Churches and Heaven it self Celibate like the flie in the heart of an apple dwels in a perpetuall sweetnesse but sits alone and is confin'd and dies in singularity but marriage like the usefull Bee builds a house and gathers sweetnesse from every flower and labours and unites into societies and republicks and sends out colonies and feeds the world with delicacies and obeys their king and keeps order and exercises many vertues and promotes the interest of mankinde and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Single life makes men in one instance to be like Angels but marriage in very many things makes the chast pair to be like to Christ. This is a great mystery but it is the symbolicall and sacramentall representment of the greatest mysteries of our Religion
Dominicus Catalusius the Prince of Lesbos kept company with his Lady when she was a Leper and these are greater things then to die But the cases in which this can be required are so rare and contingent that holy Scripture instances not the duty in this particular but it contains in it that the husband should nourish and cherish her that he should refresh her sorrowes and intice her fears into confidence and pretty arts of rest for even the fig-trees that grew in Paradise had sharp pointed leaves and harshnesses fit to mortifie the too forward lusting after the sweetnesse of the fruit But it will concern the prudence of the husbands love to make the cares and evils as simple and easie as he can by doubling the joyes and acts of a carefull friendship by tolerating her infirmities because by so doing he either cures her or makes himself better by fairly expounding all the little traverses of society and communication by taking every thing by the right handle as Plutarchs expression is for there is nothing but may be misinterpreted and yet if it be capable of a fair construction it is the office of love to make it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love will account that to be well said which it may be was not so intended and then it may cause it to be so another time 3. Hither also is to be referred that he secure the interest of her vertue and felicity by a fair example for a wife to a husband is like a line or superficies it hath dimensions of its own but no motion or proper affections but commonly put on such images of vertues or vices as are presented to them by their husbands Idea and if thou beest vicious complain not that she is infected that lies in the bosome the interest of whose love ties her to transcribe thy copy and write after the characters of thy manners Paris was a man of pleasure and Helena was an adulteresse and she added covetousnesse upon her own account But Ulysses was a prudent man and a wary counsellor sober and severe and he efformed his wife into such imagery as he desir'd and she was chast as the snows upon the mountains diligent as the fatall sisters alwaies busie and alwaies faithfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she had a lazie tongue and a busie hand 4. Above all the instances of love let him preserve towards her an inviolable faith and an unspotted chastity for this is the marriage Ring it tyes two hearts by an eternall band it is like the Cherubims flaming sword set for the guard of Paradise he that passes into that garden now that is immur'd by Christ and the Church enters into the shades of death No man must touch the forbidden Tree that in the midst of the garden which is the tree of knowledge and life Chastity is the security of love and preserves all the mysteriousnesse like the secrets of a Temple Under this lock is deposited security of families the union of affections the repairer of accidentall breaches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is a grace that is shut up and secur'd by all arts of heaven and the defence of lawes the locks and bars of modesty by honour and reputation by fear and shame by interest and high regards and that contract that is intended to be for ever is yet dissolv'd and broken by the violation of this nothing but death can do so much evill to the holy ties of marriage as unchastity and breach of faith can The shepherd Cratis falling in love with a she goat had his brains beaten out with a buck as he lay asleep and by the lawes of the Romans a man might kill his daughter or his wife if he surprised her in the breach of her holy vowes which are as sacred as the threads of life secret as the privacies of the sanctuary and holy as the society of Angels Nullae sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae and God that commanded us to forgive our enemies left it in our choice and hath not commanded us to forgive an adulterous husband or a wife but the offended parties displeasure may passe into an eternall separation of society and friendship Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdome and severity of the man should hold forth a pure taper that his wife may by seeing the beauties and transparency of that Crystall dresse her minde and her body by the light of so pure reflexions It is certain he will expect it from the modesty and retirement from the passive nature and colder temper from the humility and fear from the honour and love of his wife that she be pure as the eye of heaven and therefore it is but reason that the wisdome and noblenesse the love and confidence the strength and severity of the man should be as holy and certain in this grace as he is a severe exactor of it at her hands who can more easily be tempted by another and lesse by her self These are the little lines of a mans duty which like threds of light from the body of the Sun do clearly describe all the regions of his proper obligations Now concerning the womans duty although it consists in doing whatsoever her husband commands and so receives measures from the rules of his government yet there are also some lines of life depicted upon her hands by which she may read and know how to proportion out her duty to her husband 1. The first is obedience which because it is no where enjoyned that the man should exact of her but often commanded to her to pay gives demonstration that it is a voluntary cession that is required such a cession as must be without coercion and violence on his part but upon fair inducements and reasonablenesse in the thing and out of love and honour on her part When God commands us to love him he means we should obey him This is love that ye keep my Commandements and if ye love me said our Lord keep my Commandements Now as Christ is to the Church so is man to the wife and therefore obedience is the best instance of her love for it proclaims her submission her humility her opinion of his wisdome his preeminence in the family the right of his priviledge and the injunction imposed by God upon her sexe that although in sorrow she brings forth children yet with love and choice she should obey The mans authority is love and the womans love is obedience and it was not rightly observed of him that said when woman fell God made her timorous that she might be rul'd apt and easie to obey for this obedience is no way founded in fear but in love and reverence Receptae reverentiae est si mulier viro subsit said the Law unlesse also that we will adde that it is an effect of that modesty which like
duty of a Christian in this life consists in the exercise of passive graces and the infinite variety of providence and the perpetuall adversity of chances and the dissatisfaction and emptynesse that is in things themselves and the wearynesse and anguish of our spirit does call us to the trial and exercise of patience even in the dayes of sunshine and much more in the violent storms that shake our dwellings and make our hearts tremble God hath sent some Angels into the world whose office it is to refresh the sorrowes of the poore and to lighten the eyes of the disconsolate he hath made some creatures whose powers are chiefly ordain'd to comfort wine and oyle and society cordials and variety and time it selfe is checker'd with black and white stay but till to morrow and your present sorrow will be weary and will lie downe to rest But this is not all The third person of the holy Trinity is known to us by the name and dignity of the Holy Ghost the Comforter and God glories in the appellative that he is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort and therefore to minister in the office is to become like God and to imitate the charities of heaven and God hath fitted mankinde for it he most needs it and he feels his brothers wants by his owne experience and God hath given us speech and the endearments of society and pleasantness of conversation and powers of seasonable discourse arguments to allay the sorrow by abating our apprehensions and taking out the sting or telling the periods of comfort or exciting hope or urging a precept and reconciling our affections and reciting promises or telling stories of the Divine mercy or changing it into duty or making the burden lesse by comparing it with greater or by proving it to be lesse then we deserve and that it is so intended and may become the instrument of vertue And certain it is that as nothing can better doe it so there is nothing greater for which God made our tongues next to reciting his prayses then to minister comfort to a weary soul. And what greater measure can we have then that we should bring joy to our brother who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven and round about and cannot finde so much rest as to lay his eye-lids close together then that thy tongue should be tun'd with heavenly accents and make the weary soul to listen for light and ease and when he perceives that there is such a thing in the world and in the order of things as comfort and joy to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the dore of sighs and tears and by little and little melt into showres and refreshment This is glory to thy voyce and imployment fit for the brightest Angel But so have I seen the sun kisse the frozen earth which was bound up with the images of death and the colder breath of the North and then the waters break from their inclosures and melt with joy and run in usefull channels and the flies doe rise againe from their little graves in walls and dance a while in the aire to tell that there is joy within and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment become usefull to mankinde and sing prayses to her Redeemer So is the heart of a sorrowfull man under the discourses of a wise Comforter he breaks from the despairs of the grave and the fetters and chains of sorrow he blesses God and he blesses thee and he feels his life returning for to be miserable is death but nothing is life but to be comforted and God is pleased with no musick from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved Widows of supported Orphans of rejoycing and comforted and thankfull persons This part of communication does the work of God and of our Neighbors and bears us to heaven in streams of joy made by the overflowings of our brothers comfort It is a fearfull thing to see a man despairing None knows the sorrow and the intolerable anguish but themselves and they that are damned and so are all the loads of a wounded spirit when the stâ—ffe of a mans broken fortune bowes its head to the ground and sinks like an Osier under the violence of a mighty tempest But therefore in proportion to this I may tell the excellency of the imployment and the duty of that charity which bears the dying and languishing soul from the fringes of hell to the seat of the brightest stars where Gods face shines and reflects comforts for ever and ever And though God hath for this especially intrusted his Ministers and Servants of the Church and hath put into their hearts and notices great magazines of promises and arguments of hope and arts of the Spirit yet God does not alwayes send Angels on these embassies but sends a man ut sit homo homini Deus that every good man in his season may be to his brother in the place of God to comfort and restore him and that it may appear how much it is the duty of us all to minister comfort to our brother we may remember that the same words and the same arguments doe oftentimes more prevaile upon our spirits when they are applyed by the hand of another then when they dwell in us and come from our owne discoursings This is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the edification of our needs and the greatest and most holy charity 3. Our communication must in its just season be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must reprove our sinning brother for the wounds of a friend are better then the kisses of an enemy saith Solomon we imitate the office of the great Shepheard and Bishop of souls if we goe to seek and save that which was lost and it is a fearfull thing to see a friend goe to hell undisturbed when the arresting him in his horrid progresse may possibly make him to return this is a course that will change our vile itch of judging and censuring others into an act of charity it will alter slander into piety detraction into counsell revenge into friendly and most usefull offices that the Vipers flesh may become Mithridate and the Devill be defeated in his malicious imployment of our language He is a miserable man whom none dares tell of his faults so plainly that he may understand his danger and he that is uncapable and impatient of reproof can never become a good friend to any man For besides that himself would never admonish his friend when he sins and if he would why should not himself be glad of the same charity he is also proud and Scorner is his name he thinks himself exempt from the condition and failings of men or if he does not he had rather goe to hell then be call'd to his way by an angry Sermon or driven back by the sword of an Angell
abscondant scientiam if they speak let them minister to the good of souls if they speak not let them minister to sobriety in the first they serve the end of charity in the other of humility THE END ERRATA PAg. 10. l. 35. r. entertained that at p. 6. l. 30. scen r. scene 29. 21. dear r. clear 152. 4. terrour r. fervour 71. 40. the bowed r. they bowed 87. 41. reverend r reverene'd 112. 27. r. illius pejo a prioribus 100. 1. one r. once 102. 21. that flies r. he that flies 142. 16. r. true or false 98. 45. if it be turned r. if it be not turned 283. ult r. get a Genius 309. 40. still r. till 334. 5. r. his soul. 33. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lege forsan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 52. 29. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 140. 9. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 200. ult lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In margin p. 225. 5. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 XXVIII SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN GROVE Being for the Summer half-year BEGINNING ON WHIT-SUNDAY And ending on the xxv Sunday after TRINITY TOGETHER WITH A Discourse of the Divine Institution Necessity Sacredness and Separation of the Office Ministeriall BY JER TAYLOR D. D. QVI SEQVITUR ME NON AMBULAT IN TENEBRIS LONDON Printed by R. N. for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane 1651. To the right Honourable and truely Noble RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN Earl of Carbery Baron of Emlin and Molingar Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath My Lord I Now present to your Lordship a Copy of those Sermons the publication of which was first designed by the appetites of that hunger and thirst of righteousnesse which made your Dear Lady that rare soul so dear to God that he was pleased speedily to satisfie her by carrying her from our shallow and impure cisterns to drink out of the fountains of our Saviour My Lord I shall but prick your tender eye if I shall remind your Lordship how diligent a hearer how carefull a recorder how prudent an observer how sedulous a practiser of holy discourses she was and that therefore it was that what did slide thorow her ear she was desirous to place before her eye that by those windows they might enter in and dwell in her heart But because by this truth I shall do advantage to the following discourses give me leave my Lord to fancy that this Book is derived upon your Lordship almost in the nature of a legacy from her whose every thing was dearer to your Lordship then your own eyes and that what she was pleased to beleeve apt to minister to her devotions and the religions of her pious and discerning soul may also be allowed a place in your closet and a portion of your retirement and a lodging in your thoughts that they may incourage and instruct your practise and promote that interest which is and ought to be dearer to you then all those blessings and separations with which God hath remarked your family and person My Lord I confesse the publication of these Sermons can so little serve the ends of my reputation that I am therefore pleased the rather to do it because I cannot at all be tempted in so doing to minister to any thing of vanity Sermons may please when they first strike the ear and yet appear flat and ignorant when they are offered to the eye and to an understanding that can consider at leisure I remember that a young Gentleman of Athens being to answer for his life hired an Orator to make his defence and it pleased him well at his first reading but when the young man by often reading it that he might recite it publikely by heart began to grow weary and dspleased with it the Orator bade him consider that the Judges and the people were to hear it but once and then it was likely they at that first instant might be as well pleased as he This hath often represented to my mind the condition and fortune of Sermons and that I now part with the advantage they bad in their delivery but I have sufficiently answered my self in that and am at rest perfectly in my thoughts as to that particular if I can in any degree serve the interest of souls and which is next to that obey the piety and record the memory of that dear Saint whose name and whose soul is blessed for in both these ministeries I doubt not but your Lordship will be pleased and account as if I had done also some service to your self your religion makes me sure of the first and your piety puts the latter past my fears However I suppose in the whole account of this affair this publication may be esteemed but like preaching to a numerous Auditory which if I had done it would have been called either duty or charity and therefore will not now so readily be censured for vanity if I make use of all the wayes I can to minister to the good of souls But because my intentions are fair in themselves and I hope are acceptable to God and will be fairly expounded by your Lordship whom for so great reason I so much value I shall not trouble you or the world with an Apologie for this so free publishing my weaknesses I can better secure my reputation by telling men how they ought to entertain Sermons for if they that read or hear do their duty aright the Preacher shall soon be secured of his fame and untouched by censure 1. For it were well if men would not inquire after the learning of the sermon or its deliciousnesse to the ear or fancy but observe its usefulnesse not what concerns the preacher but what concerns themselves not what may make a vain reflexion upon him but what may substantially serve their own needs that the attending to his discourses may not be spent in vain talk concerning him or his disparagements but may be used as a duty and a part of religion to minister to edification and instruction When S. John reckoned the principles of evil actions he told but of three The lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life But there was then also in the world and now it is grown into age and strength and faction another lust the lust of the ear and a fift also the lust of the tongue Some people have an insatiable appetite in hearing and hear onely that they may hear and talk and make a party They enter into their neighbours house to kindle their candle and espying there a glaring fire sit down upon the hearth and warm themselves all day and forget their errand and in the mean time their own fires are not lighted nor their families instructed or provided for nor any need served but a lazie pleasure which is uselesse and imprudent Hearing or reading sermons is or ought to be in order to practise for so God intended it that faith should come by hearing and
patefactus the manifestation of the Spirit ad aedificationem as the Apostle calls it for edification and building us up to be a Holy Temple to the Lord. 2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles we could not by any humane power have understood them unlesse the Spirit of God had given us a new light and created in us a new capacity and made us to be a new creature of another definition Animalis homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as S. Jude expounds the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the animal or the naturall man the man that hath not the Spirit cannot discern the things of God for they are spiritually discerned that is not to be understood but by the light proceeding from the Sun of righteousnesse and by that eye whose bird is the Holy Dove whose Candle is the Gospel Scio incapacem te sacramenti Impie Non posse coecis mentibus mysterium Haurire nostrum nil diurnum nox capit He that shall discourse Euclids elements to a swine or preach as Venerable Bede's story reports of him to a rock or talk Metaphysicks to a Bore will as much prevail upon his assembly as S. Peter and S. Paul could do upon uncircumcised hearts and ears upon the indisposed Greeks and prejudicate Iews An Ox will relish the tender flesh of Kids with as much gust and appetite as an unspirituall and unsanctified man will do the discourses of Angels or of an Apostle if he should come to preach the secrets of the Gospel And we finde it true by a sad experience How many times doth God speak to us by his servants the Prophets by his Son by his Apostles by sermons by spirituall books by thousands of homilies and arts of counsell and insinuation and we sit as unconcerned as the pillars of a Church and hear the sermons as the Athenians did a story or as we read a gazet and if ever it come to passe that we tremble as Felix did when we hear a sad story of death of righteousnesse and judgement to come then we put it off to another time or we forget it and think we had nothing to do but to give the good man a hearing and as Anacharsis said of the Greeks they used money for nothing but to cast account withall so our hearers make use of sermons and discourses Evangelical but to fill up void spaces of our time to help to tell an hour with or without tediousnesse The reason of this is a sad condemnation to such persons they have not yet entertained the Spirit of God they are in darknesse they were washed in water but never baptized with the Spirit for these things are spiritually discerned They would think the Preacher rude if he should say they are not Christians they are not within the Covenant of the Gospel but it is certain that the spirit of Manifestation is not yet upon them and that is the first effect of the Spirit whereby we can be called sons of God or relatives of Christ. If we do not apprehend and greedily suck in the precepts of this holy Discipline as aptly as Merchants do discourse of gain or Farmers of fair harvests we have nothing but the Name of Christians but we are no more such really then Mandrakes are men or spunges are living creatures 3. The Gospel is called Spirit because it consists of Spiritual Promises and Spiritual precepts and makes all men that embrace it truly to be Spiritual men and therefore S. Paul addes an Epithete beyond this calling it a quiohening Spirit that is it puts life into our Spirits which the law could not The law bound us to punishment but did not help us to obedience because it gave not the promise of Eternal life to its Disciples The Spirit that is the Gospel onely does this and this alone is it which comforts afflicted mindes which puts activenesse into wearyed Spirits which inflames our cold desires and does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blows up sparks into live coles and coles up to flames and flames to perpetual burnings and it is impossible that any man who believes and considers the great the infinite the unspeakable the unimaginable the never ceasing joyes that are prepared for all the sons and daughters of the Gospel should not desire them and unlesse he be a fool he cannot but use means to obtain them effective hearty pursuances For it is not directly in the nature of a man to neglect so great a good there must be something in his manners some obliquity in his will or madnesse in his intellectuals or incapacity in his naturals that must make him sleep such a reward away or change it for the pleasure of a drunken feaver or the vanity of a Mistresse or the rage of a passion or the unreasonablenesse of any sin However this promise is the life of all our actions and the Spirit that first taught it is the life of our soules 4. But beyond this is the reason which is the consummation of all the faithful The Gospel is called the Spirit because by and in the Gospel God hath given to us not onely the Spirit of manifestation that is of instruction and of Catechisme of faith and confident assent but the Spirit of Confirmation or obsignation to all them that believe and obey the Gospel of Christ that is the power of God is come upon our hearts by which in an admirable manner we are made sure of a glorious inheritance made sure I say in the nature of the thing and our own persuasions also are confirmed with an excellent a comfortable a discerning and a reasonable hope in the strength of which and by whose ayde as we do not doubt of the performance of the promise so we vigorously pursue all the parts of the condition and are mabled to work all the work of God so as not to be affrighted with fear or seduced by vanity or oppressed by lust or drawn off by evil example or abused by riches or imprison'd by ambition and secular designes This the Spirit of God does work in all his Servants and is called the spirit of obsignation or the confirming spirit because it confirms our hope and assures our title to life eternall and by means of it and other it 's collateral assistances it also confirms us in our duty that we may not onely professe in word but live lives according to the Gospel And this is the sense of the Spirit mentiond in the Text ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you That is if ye be made partakers of the Gospel or of the spirit of manifestation if ye be truly intitled to God and have received the promise of the Father then are ye not carnall men ye are spirituall ye are in the Spirit if ye have the Spirit in one sense to any purpose ye have it also in another if the Spirit be
be certain that it shall prevail Such a praying with the spirit when our prayers are the voices of our spirits and our spirits are first taught then sanctified by Gods spirit shall never fail of its effect because then it is that the spirit himself maketh intercession for us that is hath enabled us to do it upon his strengths we speak his sense we live his life we breath his accents we desire in order to his purposes and our persons are Gracious by his Holinesse and are accepted by his interpellation and intercession in the act and offices of Christ. This is praying with the spirit To which by way of explication I adde these two annexes of holy prayer in respect of which also every good man prayes with the spirit 5. The spirit gives us great relish and appetite to our prayers and this Saint Paul calls serving of God in his spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with a willing minde not as Jonas did his errand but as Christ did die for us he was straimed till he had accomplished it And they that say their prayers out of custome onely or to comply with external circumstances or collateral advantages or pray with trouble and unwillingnesse give a very great testimony that they have not the spirit of Christ within them that spirit which maketh intercession for the Saints but he that delighteth in his prayers not by a sensible or phantastic pleasure but whose choice dwells in his prayers and whose conversation is with God in holy living and praying accordingly that man hath the spirit of Christ and therfore belongs to Christ for by this spirit it is that Christ prayes in Heaven for us and if we do not pray on earth in the same manner according to our measures we had as good hold our peace our prayers are an abominable sacrifice and send up to God no better a perfume then if wee burned assa faetida or the raw flesh of a murdered man upon the altar of incense 6. The spirit of Christ and of prayer helps our infirmities by giving us confidence and importunity I put them together For as our faith is and our trust in God so is our hope and so is our prayer weary or lasting long or short not in words but in works and in desires For the words of prayer are no part of the spirit of prayer words may be the body of it but the spirit of prayer alwayes consists in holinesse that is in holy desires and holy actions words are not properly capable of being holy all words are in themselves servants of things and the holinesse of a prayer is not at all concerned in the manner of its expression but in the spirit of it that is in the violence of its desires and the innocence of its ends and the continuence of its imployment this is the verification of that great Prophecie which Christ made that in all the world the true worshippers should worship in spirit and in truth that is with a pure minde with holy desires for spiritual things according to the minde of the spirit in imitation of Christs intercession with perseverance with charity or love That is the spirit of God and these are the spiritualities of the Gospel and the formalities of prayer as they are Christian and Evangelicall 7. Some men have thought of a seventh way and explicate our praying in the spirit by a mere volubilty of language which indeed is a direct undervaluing the spirit of God and of Christ the spirit of manifestation and intercession it is to return to the materiality and imperfection of the law it is to worship God in outward forms and to think that Gods service consists in shels and rinds in lips and voices in shadows and images of things it is to retire from Christ to Moses and at the best it is a going from real graces to imaginary gifts and when praying with the spirit hath in it so many excellencies and consists of so many parts of holinesse and sanctification and is an act of the inner man we shall be infinitely mistaken if we let go this substance and catch at a shadow and sit down and rest in the imagination of an improbable unnecessary uselesse gift of speaking to which the nature of many men and the art of all learned men and the very use and confidence of ignorant men is too abundantly sufficient Let us not so despise the spirit of Christ as to make it no other then the breath of our lungs * For though it might be possible that at the first and when formes of prayer were few and seldome the spirit of God might dictatethe very words to the Apostles and first Christians yet it follows not that therfore he does so still to all that pretend praying with the spirit For if he did not then at the first dictate words as we know not whether he did or no why shall he be suppos'd to do so now If he did then it follows that he does not now because his doing it then was sufficient for all men since for so the formes taught by the spirit were paternes for others to imitate in all the deseending ages of the Church There was once an occasion so great that the spirit of God did think it a work fit for him to teach a man to weave silke or embroider gold or woke in brasse as it happened to Besaleel and Aholiab But then every weaver or worker in brasse may by the same reason pretend that he works by the spirit as that he prayes by the spirit if by prayer he means forming the words For although in the case of working it was certain that the spirit did teach in the case of inditing or forming the words it is not certain whether he did or no yet because in both it was extraordinary if it was at all and ever since in both it is infinitely needlesse to pretend the Spirit in forms of every mans making even though they be of contrary religions and pray one against the other it may serve an end of a phantastic and hypochondriacal religion or a secret ambition but not the ends of God or the honour of the Spirit The Jews in their declensions to folly and idolatry did worship the stone of imagination that is certain smooth images in which by art magic pictures and little faces were represented declaring hidden things and stoln goods and God severely forbad this basenesse but we also have taken up this folly and worship the stone of imagination we beget imperfect phantasmes and speculative images in our phansy and we fall down and worship them never considering that the spirit of God never appears through such spectres Prayer is one of the noblest exercises of Christian religion or rather is it that duty in which all graces are concentred Prayer is charity it is faith it is a conformity to Gods will a desiring according to the desires of Heaven an imitation of Christs
their friends and relatives and some Dole and issues of the almes-basket to the poor and if after all this they die quietly and like a lambe and be canoniz'd by a brib'd flatterer in a funerall sermon they make no doubt but they are children of the kingdom and perceive not their folly till without hope of remedy they roar in their expectations of a certain but a horrid eternity of pains * Certainly nothing hath made more ample harvests for the Devil then the deferring of repentance upon vain confidences and lessening it in the extension of parts as well as intension of degrees while we imagine that a few tears and scatterings of devotion are enough to expiate the basenesse of a fifty or threescore yeers impiety This I shall endeavour to cure by shewing what it is to repent and that repentance implies in it the duty of a life or of many and great of long and lasting parts of it and then by direct arguments shewing that repentance put off to our death-bed is invalid and ineffectuall sick languid and impotent like our dying bodies and disabled faculties 1. First therefore Repentance implies a deep sorrow as the beginning and introduction of this duty not a superficiall sigh or tear not a calling our selves sinners and miserable persons this is far from that godly sorrow that worketh repentance and yet I wish there were none in the world or none amongst us who cannot remember that ever they have done this little towards the abolition of their multitudes of sins but yet if it were not a hearty pungent sorrow a sorrow that shall break the heart in pieces a sorrow that shall so irreconcile us to sin as to make us rather choose to die then to sin it is not so much as the beginning of repentance But in Holy Scripture when the people are called to repentance and sorrow which is ever the prologue to it marches sadly and first opens the scene it is ever expressed to be great clamorous and sad it is called a weeping sorely in the verse next after my text a weeping with the bitternesse of heart a turning to the Lord with weeping fasting and mourning a weeping day and night the sorrow of heart the breaking of the spirit the mourning like a dove and chattering like a swallow and if we observe the threnes and sad accents of the Prophet Jeremy when he wept for the sins of his Nation the heart-breakings of David when he mourned for his adultery and murder and the bitter tears of Saint Peter when he washed off the guilt and basenesse of his fall and the denying his Master we shall be sufficiently instructed in this praeludium or introduction to repentance and that it is not every breath of a sigh or moisture of a tender eye not every crying Lord have mercy upon me that is such a sorrow as begins our restitution to the state of grace and Divine favour but such a sorrow that really condemnes our selves and by an active effectual sentence declares us worthy of stripes and death of sorrow and eternall paines and willingly endures the first to prevent the second and weeps and mourns and fasts to obtain of God but to admit us to a possibility of restitution and although all sorrow for sins hath not the same expression nor the same degree of pungency and sensitive trouble which differs according to the temper of the body custome the sexe and accidental tendernesse yet it is not a Godly sorrow unlesse it really produce these effects that is 1. That it makes us really to hate 2. actually to decline sin and 3. produce in us a fear fo Gods anger a sense of the guilt of his displeasure and 4. Then such consequent trouble as can consist with such apprehension of the Divine displeasure which if it expresse not in tears and hearty complaints must be expressed in watchings and strivings against sin in confessing the goodnesse and justice of God threatning or punishing us in patiently bearing the rod of God in confession of our sins in accusation of our selves in perpetual begging of pardon and mean and base opinions of our selves and in al the natural productions from these according to our temper and constitution it must be a sorrow of the reasonable faculty the greatest in its kinde and if it be lesse in kinde or not productive of these effects it is not a godly sorrow not the exordium of repentance But I desire that it be observed that sorrow for sins is not Repentance not that duty which gives glory to God so as to obtain of him that he will glorifie us Repentance is a great volume of duty and Godly sorrow is but the frontispiece or title page it is the harbinger or first introduction to it or if you will consider it in the words of Saint Paul Godly sorrow worketh repentance sorrow is the Parent and repentance is the product and therefore it is a high piece of ignorance to suppose that a crying out and roaring for our sins upon our deathbed can reconcile us to God our crying to God must be so early and so lasting as to be able to teeme and produce such a daughter which must live long and grow from an Embryo to an infant from infancy to childhood from thence to the fulnesse of the stature of Christ and then it is a holy and a happy sorrow but if it be a sorrow onely of a death-bed it is a fruitlesse shower or like the rain of Sodom not the beginning of repentance but the kindling of a flame the comencement of an eternal sorrow For Ahab had a great sorrow but it wrought nothing upon his spirit it did not reconcile his affections to his duty and his duty to God Judas had so great a sorrow for betraying the innocent blood of his Lord that it was intolerable to his Spirit and he burst in the middle and if meer sorrow be repentance then hell is full of penitents for there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for evermore Let us therefore beg of God as Calebs daughter did of her Father dedisti mihi terram aridam da etiam irriguam thou hast given me a dry land give me also a land of waters a dwelling place in tears rivers of tears ut quoniam non sumus digni oculos orando ad coelum levare at simus digni oculos plorando caecare as Saint Austins expression is that because we are not worthy to lift up our eyes to heaven in prayer yet we may be worthy to weep our selves blinde for sin the meaning is that we beg sorrow of God such a sorrow as may be sufficient to quench the flames of lust and surmount the hills of our pride and may extinguish our thirst of covetousnesse that is a sorrow that shall be an effective principle of arming all our faculties against sin and heartily setting upon the work of grace and the persevering labours of a holy life *
eternally if he never does repent And if he does repent and yet untimely he is not the better and if he does not repent with an intire a perfect and complete repentance he is not the better But if he does yet repentance is a duty full of fears and sorrow and labour a vexation to the spirit an asslictive paenal or punitive duty a duty which suffers for sin and labours for grace which abides and suffers little images of hell in the way to heaven and though it be the onely way to felicity yet it is beset with thorns and daggers of sufferance and with rocks and mountains of duty Let no man therefore dare to sin upon hopes of repentance for he is a foole and a hypocrite that now chooses and approves what he knows hereafter he must condemn 2. The second generall consideration is The necessity the absolute necessity of holy living God hath made a Covenant with us that we must give up our selves bodies and souls not a dying but aliving and healthfull sacrifice He hath forgiven all our old sins and we have bargained to quit them from the time that we first come to Christ and give our names to him and to keep all his Cominandements We have taken the Sacramentall oath like that of the old Romane Militia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must beleeve and obey and do all that is commanded us and keep our station and fight against the flesh the world and the devil not to throw away our military girdle and we are to do what is bidden us or to die for it even all that is bidden us according to our power For pretend nor that Gods Commandements are impossible It is dishonourable to think God enjoyns us to do more then he enables us to do and it is a contradiction to say we cannot do all that we can and through Christ which strengthens me I can do all things saith S. Paul however we can do to the utmost of our strength and beyond that we cannot take thought impossibilities enter not into deliberation but according to our abilities and naturall powers assisted by Gods grace so God hath covenanted with us to live a holy life For in Christ Jesus nothing avayleth but a new creature nothing but faith working by charity nothing but keeping the Commandements of God They are all the words of S. Paul before quoted to which he addes and as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy This is the Covenant they are the Israel of God upon those peace and mercy shall abide if they become a new creature wholly transformed in the image of their minde if they have faith and this faith be an operative working faith a faith that produces a holy life a faith that works by charity if they keep the Commandements of God then they are within the Covenant of mercy but not else for in Christ Jesus nothing else avayleth * To the same purpose are those words Hebr. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see the Lord. Peace with all men implies both justice and charity without which it is impossible to preserve peace Holinesse implies all our duty towards God universall diligence and this must be followed that is pursued with diligence in a lasting course of life and exercise and without this we shall never see the face of God I need urge no more authorities to this purpose these two are as certain and convincing as two thousand and since thus much is actually required and is the condition of the Covenant it is certain that sorrow for not having done what is commanded to be done and a purpose to do what is necessary to be actually performed will not acquit us before the righteous judgement of God * For the grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts we should live godly justly and soberly in this present world for upon these termes alone we must look for the blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ * I shall no longer insist upon this particular but onely propound it to your consideration To what purpose are all those Commandements in Scripture of every page almost in it of living holily and according to the Commandements of God of adorning the Gospel of God of walking as in the day of walking in light of pure and undefiled religion of being holy as God is holy of being humble and meek as Christ is humble of putting on the Lord Jesus of living a spirituall life but that it is the purpose of God and the intention and designe of Christ dying for us and the Covenant made with man that we should expect heaven upon no other termes in the world but of a holy life in the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus Now if a vitious person when he comes to the latter end of his dayes one that hath lived a wicked ungodly life can for any thing he can do upon his death-bed be said to live a holy life then his hopes are not desperate but he that hopes upon this onely for which God hath made him no promise I must say of him as Galen said of consumptive persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more they hope the worse they are and the relying upon such hopes is an approach to the grave and a sad eternity Peleos Priami transit vel Nestoris aetas fuerat serum jant tibi desinere Eja age rumpe moras quo te spectabimus usque Dum quid sis dubitas jam potes esse nihil Mart. l. 2. ep 64. And now it will be a vain question to ask whether or no God cannot save a dying man that repents after a vitious life For it is true God can do it if he please and he can raise children to Abraham out of the stones and he can make ten thousand worlds if he sees good and he can do what he list and he can save an ill living man though he never repent at all so much as upon his death-bed All this he can do but Gods power is no ingredient into this question we are never the better that God can do it unlesse he also will and whether he will or no we are to learn from himself and what he hath declared to be his will in holy Scripture Nay since God hath said that without actuall holinesse no man shall see God God by his own will hath restrained his power and though absolutely he can do all things yet he cannot do against his own word * And indeed the rewards of heaven are so great and glorious and Christs burden is so light his yoke is so easie that it is a shamelesse impudence to expect so great glories at a lesse rate then so little a service at a lower rate then a holy life It cost the Eternall Son of God his life blood to obtain heaven
viri fortes quos Gentiles praedicabant in exemplum aerumnis suis inclytifloruerunt The Gentiles in their whole religion never propounded any man imitable unlesse the man were poor or persecuted Brutus stood for his countries liberty but lost his army and his life Socrates was put to death for speaking a religious truth Cato chose to be on the right side but happened to fall upon the oppressed and the injured he died together with his party Victrix causa Deis placuit sed vict a Catoni And if God thus dealt with the best of Heathens to whom he had made no cleare revelation of immortal recompences how little is the faith and how much lesse is the patience of Christians if they shall think much to suffer sorrows since they so clearly see with the eye of faith the great things which are laid up for them that are faithful unto the death Faith is uselesse if now in the midst of so great pretended lights we shall not dare to trust God unlesse we have all in hand that we desire and suffer nothing for all we can hope for They that live by sense have no use of faith yet our Lord Jesus concerning whose passions the gospel speaks much but little of his glorifications whose shame was publick whose pains were notorious but his joyes and transfigurations were secret and kept private he who would not suffer his holy mother whom in great degrees he exempted from sin to be exempted from many and great sorrows certainly intends to admit none to his resurrection but by the doors of his grave none to glory but by the way of the crosse If we be planted into the likenesse of his death we shall be also of his resurrection else on no termes Christ took away sin from us but he left us our share of sufferings and the crosse which was first printed upon us in the waters of baptisme must for ever be born by us in penance in mortification in self-denial and in martyrdom and toleration according as God shall require of us by the changes of the world and the condition of the Church For Christ considers nothing but souls he values not their estate or bodies supplying our want by his providence and being secured that our bodies may be killed but cannot perish so long as we preserve our duty and our consciences Christ our Captain hangs naked upon the crosse our fellow souldiers are cast into prison torne with Lions rent in sunder with trees returning from their violent bendings broken upon wheels rosted upon gridirons and have had the honour not onely to have a good cause but also to suffer for it and by faith not by armies by patience not by fighting have overcome the world sit anima mea cum Christianis I pray God my soul may be among the Christians and yet the Turks have prevailed upon a great part of the Christian world and have made them slaves and tributaries and do them all spite and are hugely prosperous but when Christians are so then they are tempted and put in danger and never have their duty and their interest so well secured as when they lose all for Christ and are adorned with wounds or poverty change or scorn affronts or revilings which are the obelisks and triumphs of a holy cause Evil men and evil causes had need have good fortune and great successe to support their persons and their pretences for nothing but innocence and Christianity can flourish in a persecution I summe up this first discourse in a word in all the Scripture and in all the Authentick stories of the Church we finde it often that the Devil appeared in the shape of an Angell of light but was never suffered so much as to conterfeit a persecuted sufferer say no more therefore as the murmuring Israelites said If the LORD be with us why have these evils apprehended us for if to be afflicted be a signe that God hath forsaken a man and refuses to own his religion or his question then he that oppresses the widow and murders the innocent and puts the fatherlesse to death and follows providence by doing all the evils that he can that is all that God suffers him he I say is the onely Saint and servant of God and upon the same ground the wolf and the fox may boast when they scatter and devour a flock of lambs and harmlesse sheep Sermon X. The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS OR The righteous cause oppressed Part II. IT follows now that we inquire concerning the reasons of the Divine Providence in this administration of affairs so far as he hath been pleased to draw aside the curtain and to unfold the leaves of his counsels and predestination and for such an inquiry we have the precedent of the Prophet Jeremy Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let us talk to thee of thy judgements wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit Concerning which in generall the Prophet Malachy gives this account after the same complaint made And now we call the proud happy and they that work wickednesse are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered They that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard and a book of remembrance was written before time for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his Name and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I binde up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him Then shall ye return and discern betwen the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not In this interval which is a valley of tears it is no wonder if they rejoyce who shall weep for ever and they that sow in tears shall have no cause to complain when God gathers all the mourners into his kingdom they shall reape with joy For innocence and joy were appointed to dwel together for ever And joy went not first but when innocence went away sorrow and sicknesse dispossessed joy of its habitation and now this world must be alwayes a scene of sorrows and no joy can grow here but that which is imaginary and phantastick there is no worldly joy no joy proper for this world but that which wicked persons fancy to themselves in the hopes and designes of iniquity He that covets his neighbours wife or land dreams of fine things and thinks it a fair condition to be rich and cursed to be a beast and die or to lie wallowing in his filthinesse but those holy souls who are not in love with the leprosie the Itch for the pleasure of scratching they know no pleasure can grow from the thorns which Adam planted in the hedges of Paradise and that sorrow which
grown and so judge of the state of our duty and concerning our finall condition of being saved 1. Concerning the state of grace I consider that no man can be said to be in the state of grace who retaines an affection to any one sin The state of pardon and the divine favour begins at the first instance of anger against our crimes when we leave our fondnesses and kinde opinions when we excuse them not and will not endure their shame when we feele the smarts of any of their evil consequents for he that is a perfect lover of sin and is sealed up to a reprobate sense endures all that sin brings along with it and is reconciled to all its mischiefes can suffer the sicknesse of his own drunkennesse and yet call it pleasure he can wait like a slave to serve his lust and yet count it no disparagement he can suffer the dishonour of being accounted a base and dishonest person and yet look confidently and think himself no worse But when the grace of God begins to work upon a mans spirit it makes the conscience nice and tender and although the sin as yet does not displease the man but he can endure the flattering and alluring part yet he will not endure to be used so ill by his sin he will not be abused and dishonoured by it But because God hath so allayed the pleasures of his sin that he that drinks the sweet should also strain the dregs through his throat by degrees Gods grace doth irreconcile the convert and discovers first its base attendance then its worse consequents then the displeasure of God that here commences the first resolutions of leaving the sin and trying if in the service of God his spirit and the whole appetite of man may be better entertained He that is thus far entred shall quickly perceive the difference and meet arguments enough to invite him further For then God treats the man as he treated the spies that went to discover the land of promise he ordered the year in plenty and directed them to a pleasant and a fruitful place and prepared bunches of grapes of a miraculous and prodigious greatnesse that they might report good things of Canaan and invite the whole nation to attempt its conquest so Gods grace represents to the new converts and the weak ones in faith the pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion and when they come to spie the good things of that way that leads to heaven they presently perceive themselves cased of the load of an evil conscience of their fears of death of the confusion of their shame and Gods spirit gives them a cup of sensible comfort and makes them to rejoyce in their prayers and weep with pleasures mingled with innocent passions and religious changes and although God does not deal with all men in the same method or in manners that can regularly be described and all men do not feele or do not observe or cannot for want of skill discern such accidental sweetnesses and pleasant grapes at his first entrance into religion yet God to every man does minister excellent arguments of invitation and such that if a man will attend to them they will certainly move either his affections or his will his fancy or his reason and most commonly both But while the spirit of God is doing this work of man man must also be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellow worker with God he must entertain the spirit attend his inspirations receive his whispers obey all his motions invite him further and utterly renounce all confederacy with his enemy sin at no hand suffering any root of bitternesse to spring up not allowing to himself any reserve of carnal pleasure no clancular lust no private oppressions no secret covetousnesse no love to this world that may discompose his duty for if a man prayes all day and at night is intemperate if he spends his time in reading and his recreation be sinful if he studies religion and practises self interest if he leaves his swearing and yet retaines his pride if he becomes chast and yet remains peevish and imperious this man is not changed from the state of sin into the first stage of the state of grace he does at no hand belong to God he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin and tempted from another by interest and hath left a third by reason of his inclination and a fourth for shame or want of opportunity But the spirit of God hath not yet planted one perfect plant there God may make use of the accidentally prepared advantages But as yet the spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart But when we leave every sin when we resolve never to return to the chaines when we have no love for the world but such as may be a servant of God then I account that we are entred into a state of grace from whence I am now to begin to reckon the commencement of this precept grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. And now the first part of this duty is to make religion to be the businesse of our lives for this is the great instrument which will naturally produce our growth in grace and the perfection of a Christian. For a man cannot after a state of sin be instantly a Saint the work of heaven is not done by a flash of lightning or a dash of affectionate raine or a few tears of a relenting pity God and his Church have appointed holy intervals and have taken portions of our time for religion that we may be called off from the world and remember the end of our creation and do honour to God and think of heaven with hearty purposes and peremptory designes to get thither But as we must not neglect those times which God hath reserved for his service or the Church hath prudently decreed nor yet act religion upon such dayes with forms and outsides or to comply with customs or to seem religious so we must take care that all the other portions of our time be hallowed with little retirements of all thoughts and short conversations with God and all along be guided with a holy intention that even our works of nature may passe into the relations of grace and the actions of our calling may help towards the obtaining the price of our high calling while our eatings are actions of temperance our labours are profitable our humiliations are acts of obedience and our almes are charity our marriages are chast and whether we eat or drink sleep or wake we may do all to the glory of God by a direct intuition or by a reflex act by designe or by supplement by fore sight or by an after election and to this purpose we must not look upon religion as our trouble and our hinderance nor think almes chargeable or expensive nor our fastings vexatious and burdensom nor our prayers a wearinesse of spirit
we are but beginners But it is not likely that God will trie us concerning degrees hereafter in such things of which in this world he was sparing to give us opportunities 3. Be carefull to observe that these rules are not all to be understood negatively but positively and affirmatively that is that a man may conclude that he is grown in grace if he observes these characters in himself which I have here discoursed of but he must not conclude negatively that he is not grown in grace if he cannot observe such signall testimonies for sometimes God covers the graces of his servants and hides the beauty of his tabernacle with goats hair and the skins of beasts that he may rather suffer them to want present comfort then the grace of humility for it is not necessary to preserve the gayeties and their spirituall pleasures but if their humility fails which may easily do under the sunshine of conspicuous and illustrious graces their vertues and themselves perish in a sad declension But sometimes men have not skill to make a judgement and all this discourse seems too artificiall to be tried by in the hearty purposes of religion Sometimes they let passe much of their life even of their better dayes without observance of particulars sometimes their cases of conscience are intricate or allayed with unavoydable infirmities sometimes they are so uninstructed in the more secret parts of religion and there are so many illusions and accidentall miseariages that if we shall conclude negatively in the present Question we may produce scruples infinite but understand nothing more of our estate and do much lesse of our duty 4. In considering concerning our growth in grace let us take more care to consider matters that concern justice and charity then that concern the vertue of religion because in this there may be much in the other there cannot easily be any illusion and cosenage That is a good religion that beleeves and trusts and hopes in God through Jesus Christ and for his sake does all justice and all charity that he can and our Blessed Lord gives no other deseription of love to God but obedience and keeping his commandements Justice and charity are like the matter religion is the form of Christianity but although the form be more noble and the principle of life yet it is lesse discernable lesse materiall and lesse sensible and we judge concerning the form by the matter and by materiall accidents and by actions and so we must of our religion that is of our love to God and of the efficacy of our prayers and the usefulnesse of our fastings we must make our judgements by the more materiall parts of our duty that is by sobriety and by justice and by charity I am much prevented in my intention for the perfecting of this so very materiall consideration I shall therefore onely tell you that to these parts and actions of good life or of our growth in grace some have added some accidentall considerations which are rather signes then parts of it Such are 1. To praise all good things and to study to imitate what we praise 2. To be impatient that any man should excell us not out of envy to the person but of noble emulation to the excellency For so Themistocles could not sleep after the great victory at Marathon purchased by Miltiades till he had made himself illustrious by equall services to his countrey 3. The bearing of sicknesse patiently and ever with improvement and the addition of some excellent principle and the firm pursuing it 4. Great devotion and much delight in our prayers 5. Frequent inspirations and often whispers of the Spirit of God prompting us to devotion and obedience especially if we adde to this a constant and ready obedience to all those holy invitations 6. Offering peace to them that have injured me and the abating of the circumstances of honour or of right when either justice or charity is concerned in it 7. Love to the brethren 8. To behold our companions or our inferiours full of honour and fortune and if we sit still at home and murmur not or if we can rejoyce both in their honour and our own quiet that 's a fair work of a good man And now 9. After all this I will not trouble you with reckoning a freedom from being tempted not onely from being overcome but from being tried for though that be a rare felicity and hath in it much safety yet it hath lesse honour and fewer instances of vertue unlesse it proceed from a confirmed and heroicall grace which is indeed a little image of heaven and of a celestiall charity and never happens signally to any but to old and very eminent persons 10. But some also adde an excellent habit of body and materiall passions such as are chast and vertuous dreams and suppose that as a disease abuses the fancy and a vice does prejudice it so may an excellent vertue of the soul smooth and Calcine the body and make it serve perfectly and without rebellious indispositions 11. Others are in love with Mary Magdalens tears and fancy the hard knees of Saint James and the sore eyes of Saint Peter and the very recreations of Saint John Proh quam virtute praeditos omnia decent thinking all things becomes a good man even his gestures and little incuriosities And though this may proceed from a great love of vertue yet because some men do thus much and no more and this is to be attributed to the lustre of vertue which shines a little thorow a mans eye-lids though he perversely winks against the light yet as the former of these two is too Metaphysicall so as the later too Phantasticall he that by the fore-going materiall parts and proper significations of a growing grace does not understand his own condition must be content to work on still super totam materiam without considerations of Particulars he must pray earnestly and watch diligently and consult with prudent Guides and ask of God great measures of his Spirit and hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for he that does so shall certainly be satisfied and if he understands not his present good condition yet if he be not wanting in the down right endeavours of piety and in hearty purposes he shall then finde that he is grown in grace when he springs up in the resurrection of the just and shall be ingrafted upon a tree of Paradise which beareth fruit for ever Glory to God rejoycing to Saints and Angels and eternall felicity to his own pious though undiscerning soul. Prima sequentem honestum est in secundis aut tertijs consistere Cicero Sermon XVI Of Growth in Sinne OR The severall states and degrees of Sinners WITH The manner how they are to be treated Jude Epist. Ver. 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire MAn hath but one entrance into the world but a thousand wayes
most mens interest to do it these men are in a pitiable condition and are to be helped by the following rules 1. Let every man consider that he hath two relations to serve and he stands between God and his Master or his neerest relative and in such cases it comes to be disputed whether interest be preferred which of the persons is to be displeased God or my Master God or my Prince God or my Friend If we be servants of the man remember also that I am a servant of God adde to this that if my present service to the man be a slavery in me and a tyranny in him yet Gods service is a noble freedom And Apollonius said well It was for slaves to lie and for free men to speak the truth If you be freed by the blood of the Son of God then you are free indeed and then consider how dishonourable it is to lie to the displeasure of God and onely to please your fellow-servant The difference here is so great that it might be sufficient onely to consider the antithesis Did the man make you what you are Did he pay his blood for you to save you from death Does he keep you from sicknesse True You eat at his table but they are of Gods provisions that he and you feed of Can your master free you from a fever when you have drunk your self into it and restore your innocence when you have forsworn your self for his interest Is the change reasonable He gives you meat and drink for which you do him service But is not he a Tyrant and an usurper an oppressor and an extortioner if he will force thee to give thy soul for him to sell thy soul for old-shoes and broken bread But when thou art to make thy accounts of eternity will it be taken for an answer My Patron or my Governour my Prince or my Master forced me to it or if it will not Will he undertake a portion of thy flames or if that may not be will it be in the midst of all thy torments any ease to thy sorrows to remember all the rewards and clothes all the money and civilities all the cheerfull looks and familiarity and fellowship of vices which in your life time made your spirit so gay and easie It will in the eternall loads of sorrow adde a duplicate of groans and indignation when it shall be remembred for how base and trifling interest and upon what weak principles we fell sick and died eternally 2. The next advise to persons thus tempted is that they would learn to separate duty from mistaken interest and let them be both served in their just proportions when we have learned to make a difference A wife is bound to her husband in all his just designes and in all noble usages and Christian comportments But a wife is no more bound to pursue her husbands vitious hatreds then to serve and promote his unlawfull and wandring loves It is not alwayes a part of duty to think the same propositions or to curse the same persons or to wish him successe in unjust designes And yet the sadnesse of it is that a good woman is easily tempted to beleeve the cause to be just and when her affection hath forced her judgement her judgement for ever after shall carry the affection to all its erring and abused determinations A friend is turned a flatterer if he does not know that the limits of friendship extend no further then the pale and inclosures of reason and religion No Master puts it into his covenant that his servant shall be drunk with him or give in evidence in his Masters cause according to his Masters scrolls and therefore it is besides and against the duty of a servant to sin by that authority it is as if he should set Mules to keep his sheep or make his Dogs to carry burdens it is besides their nature and designe and if any person falls under so tyrannicall relation let him consider how hard a Master he serves where the Devil gives the imployment and shame is his entertainment and sin is his work and hell is his wages Take therefore the counsel of the son of Syrac Accept no person against thy soul and let not the reverence of any man cause thee to fall 3. When passion mingles with duty and is a necessary instrument of serving God let not that passion run its own course and passe on to liberty and thence to licence and dissolution but let no more of it be entertained then will just do the work For no zeal of duty will warrant a violent passion to prevaricate a duty I have seen some officers of Warre in passion and zeal of their duty have made no scruple to command a souldier with the dialect of cursing and accents of swearing and pretended they could not else speak words effective enough and of sufficient authority and a man may easily be overtaken in the issues of his government while his authority serves it still with passion if he be not curious in his measures his passion will also serve it self upon the authority and over rule the Ruler 4. Let every such tempted person remember that all evil comes from our selves and not from others and therefore all pretences and prejudices all commands and temptations all opinions and necessities are but instances of our weaknesse and arguments of our folly For unlesse we listed no man can make us drink beyond our measures And if I tell a lie for my Masters or my friends advantage it is because I prefer a little end of money or flattery before my honour and my innocence They are huge follies which go up and down in the mouthes and heads of men He that knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reigne He that will not do as his company does must go out of the world and quit all society of men We create necessities of our own and then think we have reason to serve their importunity Non ego sum ambitiosus sed nemo aliter Romae potest vivere non ego sumptuosus sed urbs ipsa magnas impensas exigit Non est meum vitium quod iracundus sum quod nondum constitui certum vitae genus adolescentia haec facit The place we live in makes us expensive the state of life I have chosen renders me ambitious my age makes me angry or lustfull proud or peevish These are nothing else but resolutions never to mend as long as we can have excuse for our follies and untill we can cozen our selves no more There is no such thing as a necessity for a Prince to dissemble or for a servant to lie or for a friend to flatter for a civil person and a sociable to be drunk we cozen our selves with thinking the fault is so much derivative from others till the smart and the shame falls upon our selves and covers our heads with sorrow And unlesse this gap be stopped and that we
build our duty upon our own bottoms as supported with the grace of God there is no vice but may finde a Patron and no age or relation or state of life but will be an engagement to sin And we shall think it necessary to be lustfull in our youth and revengefull in our man hood and covetous in our old age and we shall perceive that every state of men and every trade and profession lives upon the vices of others or upon their miseries and therefore they will think it necessary to promote or to wish it If men were temperate Physitians would be poor and unlesse some Princes were ambitious or others injurious there would be no imployment for souldiers The Vintners retail supports the Merchants trade and it is a vice that supports the Vintners retail and if all men were wise and sober persons we should have fewer beggers and fewer rich and if our Law-givers should imitate Demades of Athens who condemned a man that lived by selling things belonging to funeralls as supposing he could not choose but wish the death of men by whose dying he got his living we should finde most men accounted criminalls because vice is so involved in the affairs of the world that it is made the support of many trades and the businesse of great multitudes of men Certainly from hence it is that iniquity does so much abound and unlesse we state our questions right and perceive the evil to be designed onely from our selves and that no such pretence shall keep off the punishment or the shame from our selves we shall fall into a state which is onely capable of compassion because it is irrecoverable and then we shall be infinitely miserable when we can onely receive an uselesse and ineffective pity Whatsoever is necessary cannot be avoided He therefore that shall say he cannot avoid his sin is out of the mercies of this Text they who are appointed Guides Physitians of souls cannot to any purpose do their offices of pity It is necessary that we serve God and do our duty and secure the interest of our souls and be as carefull to preserve our relations to God as to our friend or Prince But if it can be necessary for any man in any condition to sin it is also necessary for that man to perish Sermon XVII The severall states and degrees of Sinners WITH The manner how they are to be treated Part II. 4. THe last sort of them that sin and yet are to be treated with compassion is of them that interrupt the course of an honest life with single acts of sin stepping aside and starting like a broken bowe whose resolution stands fair and their hearts are towards God and they sojourn in religion or rather dwell there but that like evil husbands they go abroad and enter into places of dishonour and unthriftinesse Such as these all stories remember with a sad character and every narrative concerning David which would end in honour and fair report is sullied with the remembrances of Bathsheba and the Holy Ghost hath called him a man after Gods own heart save in the matter of Uriah there indeed he was a man after his own heart even then when his reason was stolne from him by passion and his religion was sullied by the beauties of a fair woman I wish we lived in an age in which the people were to be treated with concerning renouncing the single actions of sin and the seldome interruptions of piety Men are taught to say that every man sins in every action he does and this is one of the doctrines for the beleeving of which he shall be accounted a good man and upon this ground it is easie for men to allow themselves some sins when in all cases and in every action it is unavoidable I shall say nothing of the Question save that the Scripture reckons otherwise * and in the accounts of Davids life reckon but one great sin * and in Zachary and Elizabeth gave a testimony of an unblameable conversation * and Hezekiah did not make his confession when he prayed to God in his sicknesse and said he had walked uprightly before God * and therefore Saint Paul after his conversion designed and laboured hard therefore certainly with hopes to accomplish it that he might keep his conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man * and one of Christs great purposes is to present his whole Church pure and spotlesse to the throne of grace and* Saint John the Baptist offended none but Herod * and no pious Christian brought a bill of accusation against the holy Virgin Mother * certain it is that God hath given us precepts of such a holinesse and such a purity such a meeknesse and such humility as hath no pattern but Christ no precedent but the purities of God and therefore it is intended we should live with a life whose actions are not checker'd with white and black half sin and half vertue Gods sheep are not like Jacobs flock streaked and spotted it is an intire holinesse that God requires and will not endure to have a holy course interrupted by the dishonour of a base and ignoble action I do not mean that a mans life can be as pure as the Sun or the rayes of celestial Jerusalem but like the Moon in which there are spots but they are no deformity a lessening onely and an abatement of light no cloud to hinder and draw a vail before its face but sometimes it is not so serene and bright as at other times Every man hath his indiscretions and infirmities his arrests and sudden incursions his neighbourhoods and semblances of sin his little vidences to reason and peevish melancholy and humorous Phantastick discourses unaptnesses to a devout prayer his fondnesses to judge favourably in his own cases little deceptions and voluntary and involuntary cousenages ignorances and inadvertencies carelesse hours and unwatchful seasons but no good man ever commits one act of adultery no godly man wil at any time be drunk or if he be he ceases to be a godly man and is run into the confines of death and is sick at heart and may die of the sicknesse die eternally This happens more frequently in persons of an infant piety when the vertue is not corroborated by a long abode and a confirmed resolution and an usual victory and a triumphant grace and the longer we are accustomed to piety the more imfrequent will be the little breaches of folly and a returning sin But as the needle of a compasse when it is directed to its beloved star at the first addresses waves on either side and seems indifferent in his courtship of the rising or declining sun and when it seems first determined to the North stands a while trembling as if it suffered inconvenience in the first fruition of its desires and stands not still in a full enjoyment till after first a great variety of motion and then an
off from this sad discourse onely I shall crave your attention to a word of exhortation That you take care lest for the purchase of a little trifling inconsiderable portion of the world you come into this place and state of torment Although Homer was pleased to complement the beauty of Helena to such a height as to say it was a sufficient price for all the evils which the Greeks and Trojans suffered in ten years 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet it was a more reasonable conjecture of Herodotus that during the ten years siege of Troy Helena for whom the Greeks fought was in Egypt not in the city because it was unimaginable but that the Trojans would have thrown her over the walls rather then for the sake of such a trifle have endured so great calamities we are more sottish then the Trojans if we retain our Helena any one beloved lust any painted Devil any sugar'd temptation with not the hazard but the certainty of having such horrid miseries such in valuable losses And certainly its a strange stupidity of spirit that can sleep in the midst of such thunder when God speaks from heaven with his lowdest voice and draws aside his curtain and shows his arsenal and his armory full of arrows steeled with wrath headed and pointed and hardned with vengeance still to snatch at those arrows if they came but in the retinue of a rich fortune or a vain Mistris if they wait but upon pleasure or profit or in the reare of an ambitious designe But let not us have such a hardinesse against the threats and representments of the divine vengeance as to take the little imposts and revenues of the world and stand in defiance against God and the fears of hell unlesse we have a charm that we can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invisible to the judge of heaven and earth and are impregnable against or are sure we shall be insensible of the miseries of a perishing soul. There is a sort of men who because they will be vitious and Atheistical in their lives have no way to go on with any plaisance and without huge disturbances but by being also Atheistical in their opinions and to believe that the story of hell is but a bug-bear to affright children and fools easy believing people to make them soft and apt for government and designes of princes and this is an opinion that befriends none but impure and vicious persons others there are that believe God to be all mercy that he forgets his justice believing that none shall perish with so sad a ruine if they do but at their death-bed ask God forgivenesse and say they are sorry but yet continue their impiety till their house be ready to fall being like the Circassians whose Gentlemen enter not into the Church till they be threescore years old that is in effect till by their age they cannot any longer use rapine till then they hear service at their windows dividing unequally their life between sin and devotition dedicateing their youth to robbery and their old age to a repentance without restitution Our youth and our man-hood and old age are all of them due to God and justice and mercy are to him equally essential and as this life is a time of the possibilities of mercy so to them that neglect it the next world shall be a state of pure and unmingled justice Remember the fatal and decretory sentence which God hath passed upon all man-kinde it is appointed to all men once to die and after death comes judgement and if any of us were certain to die next morning with what earnestnesse should we pray with what hatred should we remember our sins with what scorn should we look upon the licentious pleasures of the world then nothing could be welcome unto us but a prayer book no company but a Comforter and a Guide of souls no imployment but repentance no passions but in order to religion no kindnesse for a lust that hath undone us and if any of you have been arrested with alarmes of death or been in hearty fear of its approach remember what thoughts and designes then possessed you how precious a soul was then in your account and what then you would give that you had despised the world and done your duty to God and man and lived a holy life It will come to that again and we shall be in that condition in which we shall perfectly understand that all the things and pleasures of the world are vain and unprofitable and irkesome and that he onely is a wise man who secures the interest of his soul though it be with the losse of all this world and his own life into the bargain When we are to depart this life to go to strange company and stranger places and to an unknown condition then a holy conscience will be the best security the best possession it wil be a horror that every friend we meet shall with triumph upbraid to us the sottishnesse of our folly Lo this is the goodly change you have made you had your good things in your life time and how like you the portion that is reserved to you for ever The old Rabbins those Poets of religion report of Moses that when the courtiers of Pharaoh were sporting with the childe Moses in the chamber of Pharaohs daughter they presented to his choice an ingot of gold in one hand and a cole of fire in the other and that the childe snatched at the coal thrust it into his mouth and so singed and parched his tongue that he stammered ever after and certainly it is infinitely more childish in us for the glittering of the small gloworms and the charcoal of worldly possessions to swallow the flames of hell greedily in our choice such a bit will produce a worse stammering then Moses had for so the aeccursed and lost souls have their ugly and horrid dialect they roare and blaspheme blaspheme and roare for ever And suppose God should now at this instant send the great Archangel with his trumpet to summon all the world to judgement would not all this seem a notorious visible truth a truth which you will then wonder that every man did not lay to his heart and preserve therein actual pious and effective consideration let the trumpet of God perpetually sound in your ears surgite mortui venite ad judicium place your selves by meditation every day upon your death-bed and remember what thoughts shall then possesse you and let such thoughts dwell in your understanding for ever and be the parent of all your resolutions and actions The Doctors of the Jews report that when Absalom hanged among the oakes by the haire of the head he seemed to see under him hell gaping wide ready to receive him and he durst not cut off the hair that intangled him for fear he should fall into the horrid lake whose portion is flames and torment but chose to protract his miserable life a few
great experience and a strict observation and good company all which being either wholly or in part out of our power may be expected as free gifts but cannot be imposed as commandments To this I answer That Christian prudence is in very many instances a direct duty in some an instance and advice in order to degrees and advantages where it is a duty it is put into every mans power where it is an advice it is onely expected according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not and even here although the events of prudence are out of our power yet the endeavours and the observation the diligence and caution the moral part of it and the plain conduct of our necessary duty which are portions of this grace are such things which God will demand in proportion to the talent which he hath intrusted into our Banks There are in indeed some Christians very unwary and unwise in the conduct of their religion and they cannot all help it at least not in all degrees but yet they may be taught to do prudent things though not to be prudent persons if they have not the prudence of advice and conduct yet they may have the prudence of obedience and of disciples and the event is this without prudence their vertue is unsafe and their persons defenselesse and their interest is unguarded for prudence is a hand-maid waiting at the production and birth of vertue It is a nurse to it in its infancy its patron an assaults its guide in temptations its security in all portions of chance and contingency And he that is imprudent if he have many accidents and varieties is in great danger of being none at all or if he be at the best he is but a weak and an unprofitable servant uselesse to his neighbour vain in himself and as to God the least in the kingdom his vertue is contingent and by chance not proportioned to the reward of wisdom and the election of a wise religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No purchase no wealth no advantage is great enough to be compared to a wise soul and a prudent spirit and he that wants it hath a lesse vertue and a defenselesse minde and will suffer a mighty hazard in the interest of eternity Its parts and proper acts consist in the following particulars 1. It is the duty of Christian prudence to choose the end of a Christian that which is perfective of a man satisfactory to reason the rest of a Christian and the beatification of his spirit and that is to choose and desire and propound to himself heaven and the fruition of God as the end of all his acts and arts his designes and purposes For in the nature of things that is most eligible and most to be pursued which is most perfective of our nature and is the acquiescence the satisfaction and proper rest of our most reasonable appetites Now the things of this world are difficult and uneasie full of thornes and empty of pleasures they fill a diseased faculty or an abused sense but are an infinite dissatisfaction to reason and the appetites of the soul they are short and transient and they never abide unlesse sorrow like a chain be bound about their leg and then they never stir till the grace of God and religion breaks it or else that the rust of time eats the chain in pieces they are dangerous and doubtfull few and difficult sordid and particular not onely not communicable to a multitude but not diffusive upon the whole man there being no one pleasure or object in this world that delights all the parts of man and after all this they are originally from earth and from the creatures onely that they oftentimes contract alliances with hell and the grave with shame and sorrow and all these put together make no great amability or proportion to a wise mans choice But on the other side the things of God are the noblest satisfactions to those desires which ought to be cherished and swelled up to infinite their deliciousnesse is vast and full of relish and their very appendant thorns are to be chosen for they are gilded they are safe and medicinall they heal the wound they make and bring forth fruit of a blessed and a holy life The things of God and of religion are easie and sweet they bear entertainments in their hand and reward at their back their good is certain and perpetual and they make us cheerfull to day and pleasant to morrow and spiritual songs end not in a sigh and a groan neither like unwholesome physick do they let loose a present humour and introduce an habitual indisposition But they bring us to the felicity of God the same yesterday and to day and for ever they do not give a private and particular delight but their benefit is publike like the incense of the altar it sends up a sweet smell to heaven and makes atonement for the religious man that kindled it and delights all the standers by and makes the very air wholesome there is no blessed soul goes to heaven but he makes a generall joy in all the mansions where the Saints do dwell and in all the chappels where the Angels sing and the joyes of religion are not univocal but productive of rare and accidental and praeternatural pleasures for the musick of holy hymnes delights the ear and refreshes the spirit and makes the very bones of the Saint to rejoyce and charity or the giving alms to the poor does not onely ease the poverty of the receiver but makes the giver rich and heals his sicknesse and delivers from death and temperance though it be in the matter of meat and drink and pleasures yet hath an effect upon the understanding and makes the reason sober and his will orderly and his affections regular and does things beside and beyond their natural and proper efficacy for all the parts of our duty are watered with the showers of blessing and bring forth fruit according to the influence of heaven and beyond the capacities of nature And now let the voluptuous person go and try whether putting his wanton hand to the bosome of his Mistris will get half such honour as Scaevola put upon his head when he put his hand into the fire Let him see whether a drunken meeting will cure a fever or make him wise A hearty and a persevering prayer will Let him tell me if spending great summes of money upon his lusts will make him sleep soundly or be rich Charity will Alms will increase his fortune and a good conscience shall charme all his cares and sorrows into a most delicious slumber well may a full goblet wet the drunkards tongue and then the heat rising from the stomack will dry the spunge and heat it into the scorchings and little images of hell and the follies of a wanton bed will turn the itch into a smart and empty the reins of all their
necessary God would not do it But if it be worth it and all of it be necessary why should we not labour in order to this great end If it be worth so much to God it is so much more to us for if we perish his felicity is undisturbed but we are undone infinitely undone It is therefore worth taking in a spirituall guide so far we are gone But because we are in the question of prudence we must consider whether it be necessary to do so For every man thinks himself wise enough as to the conduct of his soul and managing of his eternal interest and divinity is every mans trade and the Scriptures speak our own language and the commandments are few and plain and the laws are the measure of justice and if I say my prayers and pay my debts my duty is soon summed up and thus we usually make our accounts for eternity and at this rate onely take care for heaven but let a man be questioned for a portion of his estate or have his life shaken with diseases then it will not be enough to employ one agent or to send for a good woman to minister a potion of the juices of her country garden but the ablest Lawyers and the skilfullest Physitians the advice of friends and huge caution and diligent attendances and a curious watching concerning all the accidents and little passages of our disease and truly a mans life and health is worth all that and much more and in many cases it needs it all But then is the soul the onely safe and the onely trifling thing about us Are not there a thousand dangers and ten thousand difficulties and innumerable possibilities of a misadventure Are not all the congregations in the world divided in their doctrines and all of them call their own way necessary and most of them call all the rest damnable we had need of a wise instructor and a prudent choice at our first entrance and election of our side and when we are well in the matter of Faith for its object and jnstitution all the evils of my self and all the evils of the Church and all the good that happens to evil men every day of danger the periods of sicknesse and the day of death are dayes of tempest and storm and our faith wil suffer shipwrack unlesse it be strong and supported and directed But who shall guide the vessel when a stormy passion or a violent imagination transports the man who shall awaken his reason and charm his passion into slumber instruction How shal a man make his fears confident and allay his confidence with fear and make the allay with just proportions and steere evenly between the extremes or call upon his sleeping purposes or actuate his choices or binde him to reason in all the wandrings and ignorances in his passion and mistakes For suppose the man of great skil and great learning in the wayes of religion yet if he be abused by accident or by his own will who shall then judge his cases of conscience and awaken his duty and renew his holy principle and actuate his spiritual powers For Physitians that prescribe to others do not minister to themselves in cases of danger and violent sicknesses and in matter of distemperature we shall not finde that books alone will do all the work of a spiritual Physitian more then of a natural I will not go about to increase the dangers and difficulties of the soul to represent the assistance of a spiritual man to be necessary But of this I am sure our not understanding and our not considering our soul make us first to neglect and then many times to lose it But is not every man an unequal judge in his own case and therefore the wisdom of God and the laws hath appointed tribunals and Judges and arbitrators and that men are partial in the matter of souls it is infinitely certain because amongst those milions of souls that perish not one in ten thousand but believes himself in a good condition and all sects of Christians think they are in the right and few are patient to enquire whether they be or no then adde to this that the Questions of souls being clothed with circumstances of matter and particular contingency are or may be infinite and most men are so infortunate that they have so intangled their cases of conscience that there where they have done something good it may be they have mingled half a dozen evils and when interests are confounded and governments altered and power strives with right and insensibly passes into right and duty to God would fain be reconciled with duty to our relatives will it not be more then necessary that we should have some one that we may enquire of after the way to heaven which is now made intricate by our follies and inevitable accidents But by what instrument shall men alone and in their own cases be able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of illusion just confidence from presumption fear from pusillanimity are not all the things and assistances in the world little enough to defend us against pleasure and pain the two great fountains of temptation is it not harder to cure a lust then to cure a feaver and are not the deceptions and follies of men and the arts of the Devil and inticements of the world the deceptions of a mans own heart and the evils of sin more evil and more numerous then the sicknesses and diseases of any one man and if a man perishes in his soul is it not infinitely more sad then if he could rise from his grave and die a thousand deaths over Thus we are advanced a second step in this prudential motive God used many arts to secure our souls interest and there is infinite dangers and infinite wayes of miscarriage in the souls interest and therefore there is great necessity God should do all those mercies of security and that we should do all the under-ministeries we can in this great work But what advantage shall we receive by a spiritual Guide much every way For this is the way that God hath appointed who in every age hath sent a succession of spiritual persons whose office is to minister in holy things and to be stewards of Gods houshold shepherds of the stock dispensers of the mysteries under mediators and ministers of prayer preachers of the law expounders of questions monitors of duty conveiances of blessings and that which is a good discourse in the mouth of another man is from them an ordinance of God and besides its natural efficacy and perswasion it prevails by the way of blessing by the reverence of his person by divine institution by the excellency of order by the advantages of opinion and assistances of reputation by the influence of the spirit who is the president of such ministeries and who is appointed to all Christians according to the despensation that is appointed to them to the people
though we be not rapacious of estates and we may be moderate exactors of Obedience to human laws though we do not dispense with the breach of the divine and the Clergy may represent their calling necessary though their persons be full of modesty and humility and we may preserve our rights and not lose our charity For this is the meaning of the Apostle Try all things and retain that which is good from every sect and communitie of Christians take any thing that is good that advances holy religion and the Divine honour For one hath a better government a second a better confession a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls a fourth hath fewer errours and by what instrument soever a holy life is advantaged use that though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines knowing thou hast no Master but Christ no religion but the Christian no rule but the Scriptures and the laws and right reason other things that are helps are to be used accordingly These are the general rules of Christian prudence which I have chosen to insist upon there are many others more particular indeed but yet worth not onely the enumerating but observing also and that they be reduced to practise For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution * that we be careful to decline a danger * watchful against a temptation * alwayes choosing that that is safe and fitted to all circumstances * that we be wise in choosing our company * reserved and wary in our friendships * and communicative in our charity * that we be silent and retentive of what we hear and what we think * not credulous * not unconstant * that we be deliberate in our election * and vigorous in our prosecutions * that we suffer not good nature to discompose our duty but that we separate images from substances and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God and our eternal interest for sometimes that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence is accounted folly by humane prudence and so it is ever accounted when our duty leads us into a persecution * Hither also appertain that we never do a thing that we know we must repent of * that we do not admire too many things nor any thing too much * that we be even in prosperity * and patient in adversity but transported with neither into the regions of despair or levity pusillanimity or Tyranny dejection or Garishnesse * alwayes to look upon the sear we have impressed upon our flesh and no more to handle dangers and knives * to abstain from ambitious and vexatious suits * not to contend with a mighty man * ever to listen to him who according to the proverb hath four ears Reason Religion wisdom and experience * rather to lose a benefit then to suffer a detriment and an evil * to stop the beginnings of evil * to pardon and not to observe all the faults of friends or enemies * of evils to choose the least * and of goods to choose the greatest if it be also safest * not to be insolent in successe but to proceed according to the probability of humane causes and contingencies * ever to be thankful for benefits * and profitable to others and useful in all that we can * to watch the seasons and circumstances of actions * to do that willingly which cannot be avoided lest the necessity serve anothers appetite and it be lost to all our purposes Insignis enim est prudentiae ut quod non facere non possis id facere ut libenter fecisse videaris * not to pursue difficult uncertain and obscure things with violence and passion These if we observe we shall do advantage to our selves and to the religion and avoid those evils which fools and unwary people suffer for nothing dying or bleeding without cause and without pity I end this with the saying of Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue is but a shadow and a servile imployment unlesse it be adorned and instructed with prudence which gives motion and conduct spirits and vigourousnesse to religion making it not onely humane and reasonable but Divine and caelestial Sermon XXIII OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16. And harmlesse as doves OUR Blessed Saviour having prefac'd concerning Prudence addes to the integrity of the precept and for the conduct of our religion that we be simple as well as prudent innocent as well as wary harmlesse and safe together do well for without this blessed union prudence turns into craft and simplicity degenerates into folly Prudens simplicitas is Martial's character of a good man a wary and cautious innocence a harmlesse providence and provision Verâ simplicitate bonus a true simplicity is that which leaves to a man arms defensive his castles and strong forts but takes away his swords and spears or else his anger and his malice his peevishnesse and spite But such is the misery and such is the iniquity of mankinde that craft hath invaded all the contracts and entercourses of men and made simplicity so weak a thing that it is grown into contempt sometimes with and sometimes without reason Et homines simplices minimè malos the Romans called parum cautos saepè stolidos unwary fools and defenselesse people were called simple and when the innocency of the old simple Romans in Junius Brutus time in Fabritius and Camillus began to degenerate and to need the Aquilian law to force men to deal honestly quickly the mischief increased till the Aquilian law grew as much out of power as honesty was out of countenance And there and every where else men thought they got a purchase when they met with an honest man and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A fool is a profitable person and he that is simple is little better then mad And so it is when simplicity wants prudence He that because he means honestly himself thinks every man else does so and therefore is unwary in all or any of his entercourses is a simple man in an evil sence and therefore Saint Gregory Nazianzen remarks Constantius with a note of folly for suffering his easie nature to be abused by Georgius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Princes simplicity so he calls it for reverence but indeed it was folly for it was zeal without knowledge But it was a better temper which he observed in his own father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such a simplicity which onely wanted craft or deceit but wanted no prudence or caution and that is truly Christian simplicity or the sincerity of an honest and ingenious and a fearlesse person and it is a rare band not onely of societies and contracts but also of friendships and advantages of mankinde We do not live in an age in which there is so much
his caution But when his own sentence too is prepared against the day of his discovery Notas ergo nimis fraudes deprensaque furta Jam tollas sis ebria simpliciter A simple drunkard hath but one fault But they that avoid discovery that they may drink on without shame or restraint adde hypocrisy to their vitious fulnesse and for all the amazements of their consequent discovery have no other recompence but that they pleased themselves in the security of their crime and their undeserved reputation Sic quae nigrior est cadente moro Cerussata sibi placet Lycoris for so the most easy and deformed woman whose girdle no foolish young man will unloose because shee is blacker then the falling mulbery may please her self under a skin of Cerusse and call her self fairer then Pharaohs daughter or the hinds living upon the snowy mountaines One thing more there is to be added as an instance to the simplicity of religion and that is that we never deny our religion or lie concerning our faith nor tell our propositions and articles deceitfully nor instruct Novices or catechumens with fraud but that when we teach them we do it honestly justly and severely not alwayes to speak all but never to speak otherwise then it is nor to hide a truth from them whose soules are concerned in it that it be known nequè enim id est celare cum quid reticias sed cum quod tuscias id ignorare emolumenti tui causâ velis eos quorum inter est id scire So Cicero determins the case of prudence and simplicity The discovery of pious frauds and the disclaiming of false but profitable and rich propositions the quitting honours fraudulently gotten and unjustly detained the reducing every man to the perfect understanding of his own religion so far as can concern his duty the disallowing false miracles legends and fabulous stories of cosening the people into awfulnesse fear and superstition these are parts of Christian simplicity which do integrate this duty for religion hath strengths enough of its own to support it self it needs not a devil for its advocate it is the breath of God and as it is purer then the beams of the morning so it is stronger then a tempest or the combination of all the windes though united by the prince that ruleth in the aire And we finde that the Nicene faith prevailed upon all the world though some Arian Bishops went from Ariminum to Nice and there decreed their own articles and called it the faith read at Nice and used all arts and all violence and all lying and all diligence to discountenance it yet it could not be it was the truth of God and therefore it was stronger then all the gates of hell then all the powers of darknesse and he that tells a lie for his religion or goes about by fraud and imposture to gain proselytes either dares not trust his cause or dare not trust God True religion is open in its articles honest in its prosecutions just in its conduct innocent when it is accused ignorant of falsehood sure in its truth simple in its sayings and as Julius Capitolinus said of the Emperour Verus it is morum simplicium quae adumbrare nihil possit it covers indeed a multitude of sins by curing them and obtaining pardon for them but it can dissemble nothing of it self it cannot tell or do a lie but it can become a sacrifice a good man can quit his life but never his integrity That 's the first duty the sum of which is that which Aquilius said concerning fraud and craft bona sides the honesty of a mans faith and religion is destroyed cum aliud simulatum aliud actum sit when either we conceale what we ought to publish or do not act what we pretend 2. Christian simplicity or the innocence of prudence relates to laws both in their sanction and execution that they be decreed with equity and proportioned to the capacity and profit of the subjects and that they be applied to practise with remissions and reasonable interpretations agreeable to the sence of the words and the minde of the lawgiver but laws are not to be cosened and abused by contradictory glosses and phantastick elusions as knowing that if the majesty and sacrednesse of them be once abused and subjected to contempt and unreasonable and easy resolutions their girdle is unloosed and they suffer the shame of prostitution and contempt When Saul made a law that he that eat before night should die the people perswaded him directly to rescind it in the case of Jonathan because it was unequal and unjust that he who had wrought their deliverance and in that working it was absent from the promulgation of the law should suffer for breaking it in a case of violent necessity and of which he heard nothing upon so faire and probable a cause and it had been well that the Persian had been so rescued who against the laws of his country killed a Lion to save the life of his Prince in such cases it is fit the law be rescinded and dispensed with all as to certain particulars so it be done ingenuously with competent authority in great necessity and without partiality But that which I intend here is that in the rescission or dispensation of the law the processe be open and free and such as shall preserve the law and its sacrednesse as well as the person and his interest The laws of Sparta forbad any man to be twice Admiral but when their affaires required it they made Araeus titular and Lysander supravisor of him and Admiral to all real and effective purposes this wanted ingenuity and laid a way open for them to despise the law which was made patient of such a weak evasion The Lacedemonian Embassador perswaded Pericles to turn the tables of the law which were forbidden to be removed and an other ordained in a certain case that the laws should sleep 24. hours A third decreed that June should be called May because the time of an election appointed by the law was elapsed these arts are against the ingenuity and simplicitie of laws and lawgivers and teach the people to cheat in their obedience when their Judges are so fraudulent in the administration of their laws Every law should be made plain open honest significant and he that makes a decree and intricates it on purpose or by inconsideration layes a snare or leaves one there and is either an imprudent person and therefore unfit to govern or else he is a Tyrant and a vultur It is too much that a man can make a law by an arbitrary power But when he shall also leave the law so that every of the ministers of Justice and the Judges shall have power to rule by a loose by an arbitrary by a contradictory interpretation it is intolerable They that rule by prudence should above all things see that the patrons and Advocates of innocence should be
purchase of many good things so the thing it self ows to labour many degrees of its worth and value and therefore I need not reckon that besides these advantages the mercies of God have found out proper and natural remedies for labour Nights to cure the sweat of the day sleep to ease our watchfulnesse rest to alleviate our burdens and dayes of religion to procure our rest and things are so ordered that labour is become a duty and an act of many vertues and is not so apt to turne into a sin as is its contrary and is therefore necessary not onely because we need it for making provisions of our life but even to ease the labour of our rest there being no greater tediousnesse of spirit in the world then want of imployment and an unactive life and the lasie man is not onely unprofitable but also accursed and he groans under the load of his time which yet passes over the active man light as a dreame or the feathers of a bird while the disimployed is a desease and like a long sleeplesse night to himself and a load unto his country And therefore although in this particular God hath been so merciful in this infliction that from the sharpnesse of the curse a very great part of mankinde are freed and there are myriads of people good and bad who do not eat their bread in the sweat of their brows yet this is but an overrunning and an excesse of the divine mercy God did more for us then we did absolutely need for he hath disposed of the circumstances of this curse that mans affections are so reconciled to it that they desire it and are delighted in it and so the Anger of God is ended in loving Kindnesse and the drop of water is lost in the full chalice of the wine and the curse is gone out into a multiplied blessing But then for the other part of the severe law and laborious imposition that we must work out our spiritual interest with the labours of our spirit seems to most men to be so intolerable that rather then passe under it they quit their hopes of heaven and passe into the portion of Devils and what can there be to alleviate this sorrow that a man shall be perpetually sollicited with an impure tempter and shall carry a flame within him and all the world is on fire round about him and every thing brings fuel to the flame and full tables are a snare and empty tables are collateral servants to a lust and help to blow the fire and kindle the heap of prepared temptations and yet a man must not at all tast of the forbidden fruit and he must not desire what he cannot choose but desire and he must not enjoy whatsoever he does violently covet and must never satisfy his appetite in the most violent importunities but must therefore deny himself because to do so is extremely troublesome this seems to be an art of torture and a devise to punish man with the spirit of agony and a restlesse vexation But this also hath in it a great ingredient of mercy or rather is nothing else but a heap of mercy in its intire constitution For if it were not for this we had nothing of our own to present to God nothing proportionable to the great rewards of heaven but either all men or no man must go thither for nothing can distinguish man from man in order to beatitude but choice and election and nothing can enoble the choice but love and nothing can exercise love but difficulty and nothing can make that difficulty but the contradiction of our appetite and the crossing of our natural affections and therefore when ever any of you is tempted violently or grow weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of temptation you may be cured if you will please but to remember and rejoyce that now you have something of your own to give to God something that he will be pleased to accept something that he hath given thee that thou mayest give it him for our mony and our time our dayes of feasting and our dayes of sorrow our discourse and our acts of praise our prayers and our songs our vows and our offerings our worshippings and prostrations and whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of our religion are onely accepted according as they bear along with them portions of our wil and choice of love and appendant difficulty Laetius est quoties magno tibi constat honestum So that whoever can complain that he serves God with pains and mortifications he is troubled because there is a distinction of things such as we call vertue and vice reward and punishment and if he will not suffer God to distinguish the first he will certainly confound the latter and his portion shall be blacknesse without variety and punishment shall be his reward 6. As an appendage to this instance of divine mercy we are to account that not onely in nature but in contingency and emergent events of providence God makes compensation to us for all the evils of chance and hostilities of accident brings good out of evil which is that solemn triumph which mercy makes over justice when it rides upon a cloud and crowns its darknesse with a robe of glorious light God indeed suffered Joseph to be sold a bondslave into Egypt but then it was that God intended to crown and reward his chastity for by that means he brought him to a fair condition of dwelling and there gave him a noble trial he had a brave contention and he was a conqueror Then God sent him to prison but still that was mercy it was to make way to bring him to Pharaohs court and God brought famine upon Canaan and troubled all the souls of Jacobs family and there was a plot laid for another mercy this was to bring them to see and partake of Josephs glory and then God brought a great evil upon their posterity and they groaned under task-masters but this God changed into the miracles of his mercy and suffered them to be afflicted that he might do ten miracles for their sakes and proclaim to all the world how dear they were to God And was not the greatest good to mankinde brought forth from the greatest treason that ever was committed the redemption of the world from the fact of Judas God loving to defeat the malice of man and the arts of the Devil by rare emergencies and stratagems of mercy It is a sad calamity to see a kingdom spoiled and a church afflicted the Priests slain with the sword and the blood of Nobles mingled with cheaper sand religion made a cause of trouble and the best men most cruelly persecuted Government confounded and laws ashamed Judges decreeing causes in fear and covetousnesse and the ministers of holy things setting themselves against all that is sacred and setting fire upon the fields and turning in little foxes on purpose to destroy the vineyards and what shall
But I shall instance onely in the intermediall part of this mysterious mercy Why should God cause us to be born of Christian parents and not to be circumcised by the impure hands of a Turkish Priest What distinguished me from another that my Father was severe in his discipline and carefull to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and I was not exposed to the carelesnesse of an irreligious guardian and taught to steal and lie and to make sport with my infant vices and beginnings of iniquity Who was it that discerned our persons from the lot of dying Chrysomes whose portion must be among those who never glorified God with a free obedience What had you done of good or towards it that you was not condemned to the stupid ignorance which makes the souls of most men but a little higher then beasts and who understand nothing of religion and noble principles of parables and wise sayings of old men And not onely in our cradles but in our schools and in our colledges in our friendships and in our marriages in our enmities and in all our conversation in our vertues and in our vices where all things in us were equal or else we were the inferiour there is none of us but have felt the mercies of many differencies Or it may be my brother and I were intemperate and drunk and quarelsome and he kill'd a man but God did not suffer me to do so He fell down and died with a little disorder I was a beast and yet was permitted to live and not yet to die in my sins He did a misse once and was surprized in that disadvantage I sin daily and am still invited to repentance he would fain have lived and amended I neglect the grace but am allowed the time And when God sends the Angel of his wrath to execute his anger upon a sinfull people we are encompassed with funerals and yet the Angel hath not smitten us what or who makes the difference We shall then see when in the separations of eternity we sitting in glory shall see some of the partners of our sins carried into despair and the portions of the left hand and roaring in the seats of the reprobate we shall then perceive that it is even that mercy which hath no cause but it self no measure of its emanation but our misery no natural limit but eternity no beginning but God no object but man no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse no variety but our necessity and capacity no change but new instances of its own nature no ending or repentance but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it II. Lastly All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them even against all our reason and hopes our expectations and weak discoursings The particulars I shall remark are these 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances the weaknesses and follies of men so that in the convention and assemblies of hereticks as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences they would live impiously yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken and who mean nothing but truth while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines they live according to its contradictory He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest is enough to expiate ten thousand sins is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent since repentance is a duty so soon fo certainly and so easily performed But these are notorious doctrines in the Roman Church and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly He that tels that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell takes away from man all care of the way because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end hath unalterably appointed the means and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God that man may not perish in his ignorance but be assisted in his choice and saved by the Divine mercies And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned mercies by which men live and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication and of this sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy For what shall become of ignorant Christians people that live in wildnesses and places more desert then a primitive hermitage people that are baptized and taught to go to Church it may be once a yeer people that can get no more knowledge they know not where to have it nor how to desire it and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation and when the Jews grew rebellious or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted and sinned and punished with death we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law then was expressed in its sanction and publication He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes we
and there is no instance in Scripture of the Divine forgivenesse but in such instances the misery of which was a fit instrument to speak aloud the glories of Gods mercies and gentlenesse and readinesse to forgive Such were S. Paul a persecutor and S. Peter that forswore his Master Mary Magdalene with seven Devils the thief upon the crosse Manasses an Idolater David a murderer and adulterer the Corinthian for incest the children of Israel for ten times rebelling against the Lord in the wildernesse with murmuring and infidelity and rebellion and schisme and a golden calf and open disobedience and above all I shall instance in the Pharisees among the Jews who had sinned against the Holy Ghost as our Blessed Saviour intimates and tels the particular viz. in saying that the Spirit of God by which Christ did work was an evil spirit and afterward they crucified Christ so that two of the Persons of the most Holy Trinity were openly and solemnly defied and God had sent out a decree that they should be cut off yet 40. yeers time after all this was left for their repentance and they were called upon by arguments more perswasive and more excellent in that 40. yeers then all the Nation had heard from their Prophets even from Samuel to Zecharias And Jonas thought he had reason on his side to refuse to go to threaten Nineveh he knew Gods tendernesse in destroying his creatures and he should be thought to be but a false Prophet and so it came to passe according to his belief Jonah prayed unto the Lord and said I pray thee Lord was not this my saying when I was yet in my countrey therefore I fled for I knew thou wert a gracious God and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the evil He told before hand what the event would be and he had reason to know it God proclaimed it in a cloud before the face of all Israel and made it to be his Name Miserator misericors Deus The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious c. You see the largenesse of this treasure but we can see no end for we have not yet looked upon the rare arts of conversion nor that God leaves the naturall habit of vertues even after the acceptation is interrupted nor his working extraregular miracles besides the sufficiencie of Moses and the Prophets and the New Testament and thousands more which we cannot consider now But this we can when God sent an Angel to pour plagues upon the earth there were in their hands Phialae aureae golden phials for the death of men is precious and costly and it is an expence that God delights not in but they were Phials that is such vessels as out of them no great evil could come at once but it comes out with difficulty sobbing and troubled as it passes forth it comes thorow a narrow neck and the parts of it croud at the port to get forth and are stifled by each others neighbourhood and all strive to get out but few can passe as if God did nothing but threaten and draw his judgements to the mouth of the Phial with a full body and there made it stop it self The result of this consideration is that as we fear the Divine judgements so that we adore and love his goodnesse and let the golden chains of the Divine mercy tie us to a noble prosecution of our duty and the interests of religion For he is the worst of men whom Kindnesse cannot soften nor endearments oblige whom gratitude cannot tie faster then the bands of life and death He is an ill natur'd sinner if he will not comply with the sweetnesses of heaven and be civill to his Angel guardian or observant of his Patron God who made him and feeds him and keeps all his faculties and takes care of him and endures his follies and waits on him more tenderly then a Nurse more diligently then a Client who hath greater care of him then his father and whose bowels yern over him with more compassion then a mother who is bountifull beyond our needs and mercifull beyond our hopes and makes capacities in us to receive more Fear is stronger then death and Love is more prevalent then Fear and kindnesse is the greatest endearment of Love and yet to an ingenuous person gratitude is greater then all these and obliges to a solemn duty when love fails and fear is dull and unactive and death it self is despised but the man who is hardened against kindnesse and whose duty is not made alive with gratitude must be used like a slave and driven like an ox and inticed with goads and whips but must never enter into the inheritance of sons Let us take heed for Mercy is like a rainbowe which God set in the clouds to remember mankinde it shines here as long as it is not hindered but we must never look for it after it is night and it shines not in the other world if we refuse mercy here we shall have justice to eternity Sermon XXVIII A FVNERAL SERMON Preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honorable and most vertuous Lady The Lady FRANCES Countesse of CARBERY Who deceased October the 9th 1650. at her House Golden-Grove in CARMARTHEN-SHIRE To the right Honorable and truly Noble RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN Earl of Carbery Baron of Emlim and Molinger Knight of the Honorable Order of the Bath My Lord I Am not ashamed to professe that I pay this part of service to your Lordship most unwillingly for it is a sad office to be the chief Minister in the house of mourning and to present an interested person with a branch of Cypresse and a bottle of tears And indeed my Lord it were more proportionable to your needs to bring something that might alleviate your sorrow then to dresse the hearse of your Dear Lady and to furnish it with such circumstances that it may dwell with you and lie in your closet and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings But because the Divine providence hath taken from you a person so excellent a woman fit to converse with Angels and Apostles with Saints and Martyrs give me leave to present you with her picture drawn in little and in water-colours sullied indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow but drawn with a faithful hand and taken from the life and indeed it were too great a losse to be deprived of her example and of her rule of the original and the copy too The age is very evil and deserved her not but because it is so evil it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory to instruct our piety or upbraid our wickednesse For now that God hath cut this tree of Paradise down from its seat of earth yet so the dead trunk may support a part of the declining Temple or at least serve to kindle the fire on the altar My
2. 68. E. there is a kinde of repentance that is consistent with the greatest affection to sin 2. 69. B. it ought not to be delayed 2. 70. B. of them that are bold in sin upon a resolution to repent 2. 70. of what use it is to make that question Whether God can save a dying man that then begins to repent 2. 74. C. when is the latest time of beginning repentance 2. 75. how this doctrine is to be separated from despair 2. 77. how contradicted by the mercies of Christ 2. 78. A. the thief upon the Crosse no objection against this 2. 78 Reproofe it is a duty 1. 328. the rules of managing it 1. 330. of bearing reproof 2. 183 Resolving to live a good life what efficacy it hath as a part of repentance without performance 2. 60 Restitution of that restitution which those sons are to make who are made rich by the rapine and oppression of their Ancestors 2. 44 S. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it is 1. 289 D Secrets of revealing them 1. 305 Sins how far faith and charity prevaile to the blotting out of sins 1. 160 Sin its pleasures considered 1. 247. found to be troublesome in their acquisition 1. 250. its solly 1. 263. it makes a man morally weak 1. 265. the custome of it prevails against the interest of man 1. 268. A. and against his experience Ibid. C. it introduces basenesse upon the spirit 1. 270. many sins directly shamefull in their nature 1. 273. the shame that follows sin 1. 275. seq sin cannot be concealed 1. 276. C God punishes sin with sin 1. 278. the horrid punishments of sin 1. 280. seq the punishment of some sins is foreseen and usuall 1. 282. D. whether we sin in every action 2. 210. E. of sins of infirmity 2. 22. seq we doe not sufficiently beware of sin 2. 28. how the guilt and punishment of it is propagated 2 31. D. upon whom the punishment of sin descends by propagation 2. 34. why this guilt and punishment of sin is thus propagated 2. 35. E. that it is not in just in God to doe so Ib. D. Gods ends in doing it 1. 36. B. in what cases one person is punished for the sin of another 2. 37. D. what remedies there are against the danger of such punishments 2. 40. to be used by such sons c. as are partners in the guilt Ib. seq by such as are innocent 2 46. C Silence the praise of it 1. 296 1. 341. C. its moderation 1. 296. E Sinners how God treats them 2. 197. the orders of lesser sinners explicated who are to be treated gently by men 2. 199. rules and helps for the use of them that are good men generally but interrupt their state by some failings 2. 214. seq how the hopes of their pardon stands that are grosse sinners 2. 220 Slander 1. 311. 319 What is the Signe of the Son of man mentioned Mat. 24. 30. 1. 10 Soul how great a charity to save the soul of a Brother 1. 184 Spirit what it is to grieve him 1. 210. what it is to be in the Spirit 2. 5. all that belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ 2. 6. how the Spirit is given in the Gospel 2. 7. B. it is given as a remedy against worldly pleasure 2. 8. as a remedy against sorrow 2. 10. as an antidote against evill concupiscences 2. 12. the measure of the Spirit in Christians compared with those measures which the Jews had 2. 13. the effects of the Spirit in a Christian 2. 14 15. He helps our infirmities in prayer 2. 15. of praying in the Spirit 2. 15. E. the spirituall man and naturall man compared 2. 23 Speaking of much speaking 1. 290 examples of men that abstained from speaking a long time 1. 294. E. St. Gregory Naz. abstained from speaking one whole Lent 1. 295. B. St. Paul the Hermit was so ashamed of a foolish question that he spake not for 3 yeares after 1. 295. C. Cicero affirmed that he never spake that of which he repented 1. 297. C. censured for it by St. Augustine Ibid. Remedies against such speaking considered and prescribed 1. 298. Stultiloquy 1. 300. Scurrility 1. 301. seq contentious speaking 1. 309. the Duties of the Tongue in speaking 1. 325 Sufferings Gods method in bringing them into the world 2. 105. the Gospel a covenant of sufferings 2. 107. C. reasons of Gods providence for the sufferings of his Children 2. 120. C. 130. C. the advantages of them 2. 138. D. the end of them 2. 144 State of separation 2. 367 Superstition 1. 114. seq per tot Successe no argument of a just cause 2. 125. E. 1. 155 Sword not a competent instrument to propagate Religion by it 1. 186 Swearing 1. 307. common swearing maketh perjury common 1. 308 T. Temperance the measures of temperance in eating and drinking 1. 209 Teachers of false teachers 2. 94. D. how to discern them from good 2. â—74 W. Wife the rules of her obedience to the husband 1. 240. seq of her complyance with him 1 242 V. Vertue is to be loved for it selfe not for the consequent reward 2. 187 Understanding how it was impaired in the fall of man not by a change of its essentiall faculties but by impeding them 1. 261. D Z. Zeale its rules 1. 173 and excesses 1. 185 THE END 1. 2. 3. Florus Rom. 4. 10. Lucan l. 1. Rom. 2. 5. In Psal. 103. * In Ierem. hom 13. in Luk. hom 14. Lactantius lib. 7. instit c. 21. Hilarius in Psal. 118. octon 3. in Mat. can 2. In Psal. 118. serm 3. Heb. 4. Psal. 74. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Revel 8. 3. Rom. 8. 26. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. Ioel 1. Mat. 12 36. Iob 31. 14. Eph. 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. Xenoph. 1. 1. Mat. 25. 34. 41. Hymn 5. lib. Cathâ—mer Lib. 2. cap. 65. 1. 2. Rev. 14. 11. Rev. 20. 14. Job 27. 9. Ps. 6. 6. 18. Prov. 1. 28. Isa. 1. 15. Ier. 14. 12. 10. Vide etiam Ps. 34. 6. Micah 3. 4. 1 Pet. 3. 12. Iam. 2. 13. Psal. 22. 29. See 2. Sermon of lukewarmnesse and zeal Ezek. 14. 14. 1 Ioh. 5. 16. Chap. 42. 7 8. Eccles. 5. 2. Gen. 20. 7. Iudg. 17. 13. Iames 5. 14. Heb. 7. 7. Act. 6. 4. Lib. 1. ep 4. Ad Demo. a 1. q. 1. c. sacrosancta a Homil. 53. b In scholiis ad hunc locum c Lib. 6 A. D. 108. Biblioth d Ep. 16. Biblioth pp. tom 3. 11. 19. e Decret 1. q. 1. ad c. cos qui. f Lib. 6. regist 5. in decretis l. 7. c. 120. g De dignit sacerd c. 6. h Can. 9. orat 4. de sacerd i 1. in ep 20. hom 1. part 2. ep 27. k Ep. 9. tom 3 ad Michael imperator d. in 4 dist 13. Collat. 9. cap. 32. Ierem. 5. 1. Vers. 25. 2. 7.
up his soul is one that hath no charity no love to God no trust in promises no just estimation of the rewards of a noble contention Perfect love casts out fear faith the Apostle that is he that loves God will not fear to dye for him or for his sake to be poor In this sense no man can fear man and love God at the same time and when St. Laurence triumph'd over Valerianus St. Sebastian over Diocletian St. Vincentius over Dacianus and the armies of Martyrs over the Proconsuls accusers and executioners they shew'd their love to God by triumphing over fear and leading captivity captive by the strength of their Captain whose garments were red from Bozrah 3. But this fear is also tremulous and criminall if it be a trouble from the apprehension of the mountains and difficulties of duty and is called pusillanimity For some see themselves encompassed with temptations they observe their frequent fals their perpetuall returns from good purposes to weak performances the daily mortifications that are necessary the resisting naturall appetites and the laying violent hands upon the desires of flesh and bloud the uneasinesse of their spirits and their hard labours and therefore this makes them afraid and because they despair to run through the whole duty in all its parts and periods they think as good not begin at all as after labour and expence to lose the Jewell and the charges of their venture St. Austin compares such men to children and phantastick persons afrighted with phantasmes and specters Terribiles visu formae the sight seems full of horror but touch them and they are very nothing the meer daughters of a sick brain and a weak heart an infant experience and a trifling judgement so are the illusions of a weak piety or an unskilfull unconfident soul they fancy to see mountains of difficulty but touch them and they seem like clouds riding upon the wings of the winde and put on shapes as we please to dream He that denies to give almes for fear of being poor or to entertain a Disciple for fear of being suspected of the party or to own a duty for fear of being put to venture for a crown he that takes part of the intemperance because he dares not displease the company or in any sense fears the fears of the world and not the fear of God this man enters into his portion of fear betimes but it will not be finished to eternall ages To fear the censures of men when God is your Judge to fear their evill when God is your defence to fear death when he is the entrance to life and felicity is unreasonable and pernicious but if you will turn your passion into duty and joy and security fear to offend God to enter voluntarily into temptation fear the alluring face of lust and the smooth entertainments of intemperance fear the anger of God when you have deserved it and when you have recover'd from the snare then infinitely fear to return into that condition in which whosoever dwels is the heir of fear and eternall sorrow Thus farre I have discoursed concerning good fear and bad that is filiall and servile they are both good if by servile we intend initiall or the new beginning fear of penitents a fear to offend God upon lesse perfect considerations But servile fear is vitious when it still retains the affection of slaves and when its effects are hatred wearinesse displeasure and want of charity and of the same cogrations are those fears which are superstitious and worldly But to the former sort of vertuous fear some also adde another which they call Angelicall that is such a fear as the blessed Angels have who before God hide their faces and tremble at his presence and fall down before his footstool and are ministers of his anger and messengers of his mercy and night and day worship him with the profoundest adoration This is the same that is spoken of in the Text Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear all holy fear partakes of the nature of this which Divines call Angelicall and it is expressed in acts of adoration of vowes and holy prayers in hymnes and psalmes in the eucharist and reverentiall addresses and while it proceeds in the usuall measures of common duty it is but humane but as it arises to great degrees and to perfection it is Angelicall and Divine and then it appertains to mystick Theologie and therefore is to be considered in another place but for the present that which will regularly concern all our duty is this that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty or Gods worship the greater it is it is so much the better It was an old proverbiall saying among the Romans Religentem esse oportet religiosum nefas Every excesse in the actions of religion is criminall they supposing that in the services of their gods there might be too much True it is there may be too much of their undecent expressions and in things indifferent the very multitude is too much and becomes an undecency and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end or the rules or the analogy of the Religion it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable but in the direct actions of glorifying God in doing any thing of his Commandements or any thing which he commands or counsels or promises to reward there can never be excesse or superfluity and therefore in these cases do as much as you can take care that your expressions be prudent and safe consisting with thy other duties and for the passions or vertues themselves let them passe from beginning to great progresses from man to Angel from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God and when ever we go beyond the bounds of Nature and grow up with all the extention and in the very commensuration of a full grace we shall never go beyond the excellencies of God For ornament may be too much and turn to curiosity cleanlinesse may be changed into nicenesse and civill compliance may become flattery and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity and fame and honour may be great unto envie and health it self if it be athletick may by its very excesse become dangerous but wisdome and duty and comelinesse and discipline a good minde and eloquence and the fear of God and doing honour to his holy Name can never exceed but if they swell to great proportions they passe through the measures of grace and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God in the joyes of an eternall glory Sermon X. The Flesh and the Spirit Part I. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weake FRom the beginning of days Man hath been so crosse to the Divine commandements that in many cases there can be no reason given why a man should choose some ways or doe some actions but onely because they are