at Christs Matth. 20. 21 right hand the other at his left in his kingdome And can Christ do this and thus submit himself Can he be a King that thus pays tribute Some fit and pang of this distemper did no doubt trouble the Disciples minds at this time They had been often troubled with it and had sundry times discust amongst themselves as we have observed who should be the greatest And now upon this occasion seeing Christ bowing to Autority and submitting to them whom they thought he came to destroy the fire burned and they spake with their tongue Seeing the Lord of heaven and earth thus challeng'd for tribute and thus gently yielding to pay it they lost the sight of his Power in his Humility they forgot the miracle of the Money in the fishes mouth because it was tribute And being struck with Admiration they began to enquire what Honors and what degrees of Greatness were in his Kingdome which is his Church and observing the King of Heaven himself thus subject to command instead of learning Humility they foment their Pride they awake their Ambition and rowse it up to seek the glory of this world they are bold to ask him who was the Master and patern of Humility Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven This I take to be the Occasion of this Question And so I pass from it to the Persons who moved it The Disciples came unto Jesus And the Disciples we doubt not had been well and often instructed that the Kingdome of Christ was not of this world but spiritual yet the prejudicate conceit they had of the Messias did shut up their understanding against this truth the shape they had drawn in their minds of Christ made Christ less visible in his own shape So hard it is homini hominem exuere for a man to put off himself for a man that looks for a Pearl to interpret it Grace for a man that is ambitious of Honor on earth to look for it in heaven Such a damp and darkness doth Prejudice cast upon the minds and understandings even of the best men even of Disciples of Christ For the Devil fits himself to the nature and disposition of every man What he said of the Jesuite JESUITA EST OMNIS HOMO a Jesuite is every man to every man can apply himself to all humors all dispositions is most true of our common enemy Satan He is in a manner made all things to all men If he cannot cast us down into the mire of carnal and bruitish sin he is very active and cunning to lift us up on the wings of the wind and to whiff us about with the desire of honor and priority Etiam in sin◠discipulorum ambitio dormit saith Cyprian Ambition finds a pillow to sleep on even in the bosome of Disciples themselves There she lyes as in a shade lurks as in a bed-chamber and at last she comes forth and you may behold her raising of palaces and measuring out kingdomes and you may hear her asking of questions Who shall be the greatest Multimoda Satanae ingenia saith Hierome the craft of Satan is various and his wiles and devises manifold He knows in what breast to kindle Lust into which to breathe Ambition He knows whom to cast down with Sorrow whom to deceive with Joy whom to shake with Fear and whom to mislead with Admiration He searcheth our affections he fans and winnows our hearts and makes that a bait to catch us withal which we most love and most look upon He fights as the Father speaks with our selves against our selves he makes snares of our own desires and binds and fetters us up with our own love If he overcome us with his more gross tentations he insults but if he fail there he then comes towards us with those tentations which are better clothed and better spoken He maketh curious nets entangles our phansie and we strait dream of Kingdomes If our weakness overthrow us not tropheis triumphisque succumbemus saith the Father our own tropheys and triumphs shall destroy us Like a wise Captain he plants all his force and artillery at that place which is weakest and most attemptable We see the Disciples hearts were here weakest and here lay most open hither therefore the Devil directs his darts here he placeth his engines to make a breach So dangerous a vice is Ambition and so hard a thing it is even for good men for mortified persons for the Disciples of Christ to avoid it Who shall be the greatest they are not alwaies the worst men that put up that question Tully observes of the Philosophers that though they wrote books of the Contempt of Glory yet they would set their names to those books and so seek for Glory by oppugning it and even woo it in the way of a bold defiance And Plutarch speaking of the Philosopher whose Dictor it was LATENTER VIVENDUM That a concealed life was best yet adds withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he would not have it concealed that this Dictor or speech was his What speak we of the Heathen Philosophers The Philosophers of God the Prophets of God have been much infested herewith Look upon Baruch When he thrived not in the King of Judah's Court he fell into discontent and repining so that the Prophet Jeremy is sent unto him with express message Seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not For I will bring evil upon the whole earth saith the Lord. Behold Jonah under his gourd What Jer. 45. 5. a pett and chafe is he in How irreverent to his God How doth he tell God even to his face that he did well to be angry even unto death And all this Anger from what fire was it kindled Certainly from no other then an overweaning conceit of his own reputation lest the sparing of Niniveh against which he had denounced ruin and destruction should disparage him with the people and lose him the name of a true Prophet And this we need not much marvail at if we consider the nature of this vice For first of all it is a choice vice preserved on purpose by the Divel to abuse the best nor will it grow in every soil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Noble natures the best capacities the most able wits these are the fat soil in which this weed grows Base and sordid natures seldom bear it What cares the Covetous person for Honor who will bow to durt What cares he for rising in repute who hath buried himself alive in the earth What cares he for a name that had rather see other mens names in his parchments then his own in the Book of Life What cares the Wanton for renown who had rather be crowned with roses then with a Diademe or will he desire to rise higher whose highest step is up to the bed of Lust and the embraces of a Strumpet These Swine love not such water as this nor such an oyntment as
Piety and that then they reign as Saints when they wash their feet in the bloud of their brethren that call every opinion that is not theirs Blasphemy and that are not so hot against a foul pollution in the heart as against an error in the understanding nor so angry with a crying sin as with a supposed mistake If these be Saints then certainly our Saviour is not so meek as he hath told us or we must believe what is past understanding that our meek Saviour as he once had Judas so may now have these men of Belial for his Disciples If these men be Saints why may not Lucifer recover his place What a Saint with fire and sword with axes and hammers with fire devouring before him and a tempest round about him like the bottomless Pit sending forth smoke as out of a fornace smoke out of which come Locusts to devoure the earth a covetous malicious deceitful treacherous adulterous murderous Saint Such Saints peradventure may walk on earth or under that name but sure they will never follow the Lamb nor appear in those new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness Let us I say not be like these For they say and do not they say and do the contrary What profit what honour will it be to be such an Angel as appears here in light and is reserv'd to be kept in chains of darkness for ever such a Saint as shall be turned into a Feind Let us rather take upon us the yoke of Christ who was meek and bear the burdens of these contentious men as St. Paul exhorts Let us not assault one another with lyes in the defense of Truth nor break the bonds of Charity in the behalf of Faith nor fly asunder in defense of the Corner-stone nor be shaken in pieces to secure the Rock If they separate themselves let not us withdraw our affection from them Si velint fratres si nolint fratres If they will let them be our brethren and if they will not yet let them be our brethren And in these times of hurry and noise in the midst of so many divisions and sects let us look upon every man with an eye of Charity and Meekness or as Erasmus speaks with an Evangelical eye and leaving all bitterness and rancor behind us let us walk on in a constant course of piety and holy contention with our selves not answering reviling with reviling but beating down every imagination which is contrary to Meekness doing that upon Sin in our selves which we cannot do upon Errour in others When they spurn at our Meekness and defie our silence and rebuke our innocence let us be meek and silent and innocent still When they will kill us be as silent as they who have been dead long ago that so we may possess our souls when they are ready to take them from us and be like the people of Nazianzum who by their peaceable behaviour in times of great dissention gained a name and title and were called The Ark of Noah because by this part of spiritual Wisdom they escaped that deluge and inundation of fury which had wel-near overflowed and swallowed up all the Christian world In the last place let us level our Wrath and Indignation against Sin but spare the Sinner since our selves so often do call upon God to spare us And if he did not spare us where should the righteous where should the best Saints appear It is one mark of Antichrist that he sits as God in the 2 Thess 3. 4. Temple of God shewing himself that he is God thundring out his excommunications canonizing damning absolving condemning whom he please Thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to overlook our brother thus to look down upon our brethren and dart a heavy censure at them for that which we should shed a tear is so far to follow Antichrist as to take the seat and place of God nay to put him out of his seat and to do his office nay to do that which he will not do to sentence him to death whom God for ought we know hath chosen to eternal life Nay though it doth not make a man the Antichrist yet it makes him so much Antichrist as to place him in a flat opposition to Christ himself For he is not such an angry Bishop such a proud High Priest as cannot be touched with the feeling of our sins but one who being meek and tempted himself is able and willing to compassionate those that are tempted Did we feel the burden of our brethrens sins as he did Did we apprehend the wrath of God as he did we should rather offer up prayers and supplications with Psal 69. 26. strong cryings and tears for them then tell of the misery of these wounded ones that is speak vauntingly and preach thereof as the word signifieth then let our Anger loose against them and beat upon them with all our storms I confess prudent and discreet Reprehension is as a gracious and seasonable rain but rash and inconsiderate Anger as a tempest a hurricane to waste a soul and carry all before it and dig up Piety by the root As it is truly said that most men speak against Riches not out of hatred but love unto them so do many against Sin not out of hatred to sin but love of themselves which may be as great a sin as that which they are so loud against Signum putant bonae conscientiae aliis maledicere They count it a sign of a good conscience in themselves to be angry with and speak evil of others They think themselves good if they can say others are evil Whereas true Righteousness speaks alwaies in meekness and compassion but that which is false and counterfeit breaths forth nothing but wrath reviling and indignation O beloved what soloecismes what contradictions may we observe in the School and Church of Christ men raging against Sin and yet raising a Kingdom from it in themselves loathing it as poyson and yet drinking it down as water angry with it and loving it whipping it with scorpions and yet binding it about them as a garment Jacob's sons declaiming against Uncleanness with the instruments of cruelty in their hands Absalom bewailing the Injustice of the times when himself was a Traytor Judas angry with Mary's ointment when he would have it sold and put into his bag What a pageant is it to see Sacriledge beating down Idolatry Covetousness whipping of Idleness Prophaneness pleading for the Sabbath Gluttony belching out its fumes against Drunkenness Perjury loud against Swearing and Hypocrisie riding in triumph and casting out its fire and brimstone on all And what is a groan or a sigh from a Murderer What is a Satyre from a Sodomite or a Libel from a man of Belial If Hell hath any musick this is it and the Devil danceth after it after the groans and sighs and prayers and zeal of a Pharisee And do they then well to be angry Yes they say
otherwise Virtues then as they are exemplary because these Divine virtues which are essential to him must be exemplary to us We must make him the rule of Goodness in all our actions we must be just to observe the Law valiant to keep down our passions temperate to conform our wills to the rule of Reason and wise to our salvation But there is no virtue that makes us more resemble God then this the Apostle here exhorts the Ephesians to and that is Mercy For although all virtues are in the highest degree nay above all degrees most perfect in him yet in respect of his creatures none is so resplendent as Mercy If thou callst him Health I understand thee saith St. Augustine because he gives it thee If thou call'st him thy Refuge it is true because thou fliest unto him If thou saist he is thy Strength it is because he makes thee strong But if thou namest his Mercy thou hast named all for whatsoever thou art thou art by his mercy His Goodness is infinite and looks over all even his Justice hath a relish of it It is extended unto the very damned for their torments are not so great as God could inflict or as they deserve And in respect of us it exceeds his Justice For his Justice hath a proportional object to work upon we being children of wrath and worthy of punishment but his Mercy hath none at all we deserve not to fly to its sanctuary to be covered under its wings When we lay weltring in our bloud there could no reason be given why God should take any of us out He did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. James because he would There were none then that could have interceded and pleaded for us as the Elders did for the Centurion They are worthy that thou Luke 7. shouldst do this for them Mercy is the Queen and Empress of Gods Virtues It is the bond and knot which unites Heaven and Earth that by which we hold all our titles our title to be Men our title to the name of Christian our title to the profession of Christianity our title to Earth our title to Heaven I could loose my self in this Paradise I could build a Tabernacle upon this Mount Tabor I could still look upon this Mercy-seat Even to speak of it is great light But from the contemplation of God's Mercy I must descend lower and lead you to the imitation of it and with the Apostle here exhort you to be followers of God to forgive one another to walk in love even as Christ loved us and when God reacheth out his hand of mercy to you not to draw in yours to your brother And here I see three paths as it were to follow God in three things required to this Imitation 1. the Act of Imitation it self 2. That this Act be performed ex studio imitandi out of a love of God's Mercy and a desire to imitate him 3. A Conformity of the act of imitation to the patern followed In the first place then as God forgiveth us so we must forgive our enemies It will not be enough to have Gods Mercies on our tongues or to speak of them with admiration with joy to go over the bridge and then pull it up to our brother We account him not a good Painter who can only commend a Picture and not use the Pencil himself to draw a line Neither is he fit to be governour of a ship that having past a tempest doth only praise the Pilate but scarce knows the Rudder himself Good God! what a soloecisme in Christianity is it to have a cruel heart and a tongue speaking nothing but Mercies to be in the gall of bitterness and most devilishly malicious and yet to cry out Taste and see how gracious the Lord is Hierome censureth Virgil for his Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas for calling him happy that knew the cause of things Apparet ipsum ignorâsse quod laudat He was ignorant and knew not that happiness which he commended So these merciless Patrons of Mercy ignorant quod laudant they praise they know not what They talk of Forgiveness and cloth themselves with malice Their tongue is smooth and their heart is rugged They speak in a still voice but in their breast is thunder Their words are more soft then butter but they think of swords In the second place as we must forgive so Gods Mercy must be the motive we must do it ex studio imitandi out of a desire to imitate God Not out of propension of nature out of meekness of disposition For we cannot say the child doth imitate his father in eating because eating is natural Not out of a Stoical affectation contumeliam contumeliae facere to think it revenge enough to beat off an injury with a witty jest Not out of love of peace and fear of trouble Nor lastly out of necessity therefore to forgive because thou canst not revenge Quod necessitas facit depretiat ipsa For as he told the Emperour that wearied Cruelty is not Clemency so an inability or an impossibility of revenge is not Mercy A Lion though within the grates is a Lion still as fierce as wild as ravinous as before and a Bear is a Bear still still greedy of blood though without a tooth without a paw Thou sayst thou doest forgive thy enemy with all thy heart But O quà m cuperes tibi ungues esse thou wantest but fangs thou wantest but ability to revenge If the lines were loosed and thy teeth sharp thou wouldst grinde thine enemy to powder thou wouldst triumph in thy revenge thou wouldst shew what thy Forgiveness was Though a wall be placed between thee and thy enemy that thy Artillery cannot reach him and thou canst not be revenged yet voto jugulasti as St. Hierome speaketh thou hast performed it in thy wish And thus to forgive Beloved is so far from following God that we run away from him God forgives not because he is not able to destroy thee No as Caesar once spake and nobly too Facilius est facere quà m dicere It was easier for him to be revenged than to talk of it So did not Gods Mercy restrain him he could with a word destroy the whole World He hath a Sword and Fire and a Quiver a glittering Sword a Sword that shall eat flesh and a Fire kindled in his wrath that shall burn unto the bottom of hell and a Quiver full of arrowes of arrowes that shall drink bloud yet he will in mercy sheath Deut. 31. his Sword he will quench his fire he will hide his arrowes in his Quiver that when we feel the operation of the sweet influence of his Mercy within our selves we may also with an upright and sincere heart derive it to our brother Lastly we must conform our Imitation to the Patern He with one act of mercy wipes out all scores so must we When he forgives our sins he is said to
as their argument It is plain we must not understand here Moses 's Heaven the Ayr for the Firmament but St. Pauls third Heaven This is the City of the great King the City of the living God the Psal 48. 2. Hebr. 12. 22. Hebr 1 10. 1 Tim. 6 16. Psal 103. 19. heavenly Jerusalem a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Here our Father dwelleth in light inaccessible unconceivable Here he keepeth his glorious residence and here he hath prepared his throne Here he keepeth his glorious residence and here he hath prepared his throne Here thousand thousands minister unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stand Dan. 7. 9. before him Here he still sheweth the brightness of his countenance and to all eternity communicateth himself to all his blessed Angels and Saints Beloved the consideration of this stately Palace of the King of Kings should fill our hearts with humility and devotion and make us put-up our petitions at the throne of Grace with all reverence and adoration Is our Father Psal 104. 1. Gen. 18. 27. in heaven clothed with honor and majesty Then let us who are but dust and ashes vile earth and miserable sinners when we make our approaches to this great and dreadful God not be rude and rash and inconsiderate vainly multiplying Dan. 9 4. words before him without knowledge and using empty and heartless repetitions but let us first recollect our thoughts compose our affections bring our minds into a heavenly frame take to our selves words fit to Hos 14. 2. express the desires of our souls and then let us worship and bow down and Psal 95. 6. kneel before the Lord our Maker and let us pour forth our prayers into the bosome of our heavenly Father our Tongue all the whiâ—e speaking nothing but what the Heart enditeth This counsel the Preacher giveth us Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before Eccl. 5. 2. God For God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few Again is our Father in heaven Then our heart may be glad and our Psal 16. 9 10. glory rejoyce and our flesh also rest in hope God will not leave us in the grave nor suffer us to live for ever under corruption but in due time we shall be brought out of that bonaage into a glorious liberty and be admitted into those Rom. 8. 21 happy mansions in our Fathers house He will have his children like unto John 14. 2 3. himself Therefore we may be assured that as now he guideth us with his counsel Psal 73. 25. so he will afterwards receive us into glory Our elder Brother who is gone before and hath by his ascension opened the gate of Heaven and prepared a place for us will come again at the end of the world and awake us John 14. 3. Psal 17. 15. Mat. 25. 21 23. 1 John 3. 2. 1 Cor. 15. 49. out of our beds of dâ—st and receive us unto himself that we may enter into the joy of our Lord for ever behold his face see him as he is be satisfied with his likeness and as we have born the image of the earthy so bear the image of the heavenly And now Beloved having this hope in us let us purifie our 1 John 3. 3. selves even as our Father which is in heaven is pure While we remain here below and pass through this valley of Tears let us ever and anon lift up our Psal 84. 6. Psal 121. 1. Isa 57. 15. eyes unto the hills even to that high and holy place wherein dwelleth that high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity yet not boldly to gaze and busily to pry within the veil For Heaven is too high and bright an object for our Eye to discern and discover for our Tongue to discourse and dispute of But SURSUM CORDA Let us look up to heaven that we may learn not to mind earthly things but to set our affections on those things which are above to Col. 3. 2. have our conversation in heaven and our heart there where our everlasting Phil. 3. 20. Matth. 6. 21. treasure is Let us still wish and long and breathe and pant to mount that holy hill and often with the Spirit and the Bride say Come Come Lord Rev. 22. 17 20 Jesus come quickly and sigh devoutly with the Psalmist When shall we come Psal 42. 2. and appear before God And in the mean time let us sweeten and lighten those many tribulations we must pass through with the sober and holy contemplation Acts 14. 22. of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory of the fulness of joy 2 Cor. 4. 17. that is in Gods presence and of those pleasures for evermore that are at the Psal 16. 11. right hand of OUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN To whom with the Son and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory now and ever Amen The Two and Thirtieth SERMON PART IV. MATTH VI. 9. Hallowed be thy Name WE have past the Preface or Frontis-piece and must now take a view of the Building the Petitions themselves We find a needless difference raised concerning the number of them Some have made seven Petitions and have compared them to the seven Stars in heaven to the seven golden Candlesticks to the seven Planets to the river Nilus which as Seneca tells us per septena ostia in mare effunditur ex his quodcunque elegeris mare est is divided into seven streams and every stream is an Ocean Others have fitted them to the seven Gifts of the Spirit Those we will not call with A. Gellius nugalia or with Seneca ineptias toyes and trifles but we may truly say Aliquid habent ingenii nihil cordis Some shew of wit we may perhaps descry in them but not any great savor or relish of sense and judgment What perfection there can be in one number more than in another or what mystery in the number of seven I leave it to their inquiry who have time and leasure perscrutari interrogare latebras numerorum as the Father speaks to search and dive into the secrets of Numbers who by their art and skill can digg the ayr and find precious metal there where we of duller apprehension can find no such treasure I confess men of great wits have thus delighted themselves numeros ad unquem excutere to sift and winnow Numbers but all the memorial of their labor was but chaff The number of Fourty for Christ after his Resurrection staid so long upon earth they have divided into four Denaries and those four they have paralleld with the four parts of the World into which the sound of the Gospel should go The number of Ten they have consecrated in the Law and the number of Seven in the holy Ghost Perfecta lex in Denario numero
blessed Spirits are in heaven who readily fulfill all his commands And this is an holy ambition in the performance of our duty to look upon the best Ambitio non respicit saith the Philosopher True Ambition and Christian Aemulation never look down upon those who are in the valley below but on those who are in culmine Sion in the top of perfection Optimi mortalium altissima sapiunt The best men look highest Go to School to the Pismire is a reproach as well as a precept To learn of the Lilies of the field is a task for those who will not take notice of Gods providence at home in themselves The examples of good men are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 helps and supplies to us in our way and it is good to have them continually before our eyes But yet the best men being full of imperfections Luther tells us Nihil est periculosius gestis Sanctorum That there is nothing more dangerous than the deeds and actions of the Saints because we are so prone to mistake them Safer it is to take those actions of theirs which were done beyond and without the authority of Scripture for faults than to set them up for examples We may learn of Beasts of the Ox and of the Ass we may learn of Men of the same mould with our selves but the safest and most excellent pattern we can take is from Heaven the blessed Angels whose elogium it is that they do God's commandments and hearken unto the voice of his word that they Psal 103. are his hosts and ministers of his to do his pleasure I will not trouble you with any of those nice speculations of the Schools concerning the Nature Motion Locality Speech of Angels For I alwayes accounted it a grave and judicious censure of Hilary Stultum est calumniam in eo disputationis intendere in quo comprehendi id unde quaeritur per naturam suam non potest Lib. 3. de Trin. It is a great folly to make any anxious inquisition after that which before we set out we know cannot be found Of the Nature and Motion and Locality of those blessed Spirits we have no light in Scripture And if we carry not this light along with us we do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make search for that which is past finding out We win no ground at all but tantum deerit discere quantum libuerit in quirere the more we search the more we are at loss But because the Philosopher and common Reason teach us that he who will compare two things together must necessarily know them both and since we are in this Petition taught to level our Obedience by this heavenly form by the obedience of Angels though we cannot gain any certain knowledge of their Nature Motion Locality and Manner of conveighing their minds one to another which notwithstanding the Schools with more boldness than warrant have defined yet we shall find light enough to walk by and to direct our obedience that it may be like theirs that we may strive forward to perfection and do Gods will in earth as it is in heaven First we are taught that the word Angel is a name of office not of nature Spirits they are alwayes but they cannot alwayes be called Angels but then only when they are sent saith Gregory And this office of theirs they execute speedily and without delay We will not positively say with Parisiensis that their motion from place to place upon command is instantaneous as sudden as their Will by which alone they move But many expressions of their Swiftness we have in Scripture Zech. 1. 10. they are said to stand as ready to hear and dispatch Gods will Isa 6. to have wings and to fly They are said to go forth like lighning Which note their prompt alacrity in executing all Gods commands Unum corum solidúmque officium est servire nutibus Dei their office is ever to be ready at Gods beck This is a true and perfect pattern of a Christians obedience Festina fides festina charitas saith Ambrose Faith and Charity are on the wing Devotion is active Obedience is ever ready to run the way of Gods commandments Though advice and deliberation commend other actions yet in this of Obedience counsel is unreasonable neither can there be any reason of delay Delicata est obedientia quae transit in causae genus deliberativum saith Petrus Blesensis It is a nice obedience which takes time of deliberation For when the command is past every moment after the first is too late nor can there be any need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is not to do it Fac quod tibi praeceptum est saith St. Cyprian to the magistrate now ready to pass sentence of death upon him but counselling him to advise better Do saith he what you have commission to do In so just an action as this there is no need of consultation Those that write of Husbandry have a common precept and Pliny calls it an oracle SERRERE NE METUAS Be not afraid to cast thy seed into the ground Delay not time And their reason is full of wisdome Villicùs si unam rem serò fecerit nihil proficit The Husbandman if he do but one thing too late hath endangered the expectation of the whole year nor can he recover that loss Negligentia enim multò operosior diligentia For neglect makes more business and trouble than Diligence and that which in time might have been done with ease and a quick hand being put off to a longer time will either not be done at all or require treble diligence It is so in our spiritual Husbandry If our Obedience had wings or feet readily to put in execution what is commanded we should find that of St. John to be most true His commands are not grievous But Procrastination and Delay doth bemire and clog us makes the command more horrid than that Death which is threatned to disobedience and we are ready to cry out it is impossible He who defers to do Gods will till death would not do it saith Basil if he were made immortal But this is not to do his will here in earth as it is in heaven Further the obedience of the heavenly host is orderly Qui minima nuntiant Angeli qui summam annuntiant Archangeli vocantur There be Angels which are sent on messages of lesser moment and there be Archangels which declare greater things as Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Nec tamen invident Angeli Archangelis saith Augustine in his last book De Civitate Dei yet no Angel doth envy an Archangel nor an Archangel a Cherubim or Seraphim nor desire they to change offices no more than my Finger desires to be an Eye In respect of the diversity of their ministery saith Hilary the Angels and Archangels and Thrones and Dominations have the observances of divers precepts laid upon them And they differ not only in name but in
Thunder upon our Brethren Shall he consider us as a Fleece of woll or as Grass and shall we make one another a mark and an anvil for injuries to beat on Shall Butter and Honey be his meat and shall we feed on Gall and Wormwood Shall he not break a bruised reed and shall we make it our glory to break in pieces the Cedars of Libanus Shall he come to save and shall we destroy one another Shall he come without noise and shall we make it our study to fill the world with tumult and confusion Shall he give eyes to the blind and we put them out Cloths to the naked and we strip them Leggs to the lame and we cripple them Shall he raise men from the dead and we kill them And if we do it can we be so bold as to say we are Christians or that Christ dwelleth in us of a truth Will he abide in this region of blackness and darkness in this place of noise and thunder and distraction No the humble and contrite the meek and merciful is the place of his rest He that came down in humility will not stay with the proud heart he that came down in silence will not dwell in a Chaos in confusion Therefore put you on the Lord Jesus Christ put on his Meekness his Humility As children of Christ put on tender bowels and compassion And let your bowels yearn over the poor to relieve him over the weak to strengthen him over the injurious to forgive him And let us be as Rain to soften and quicken not as Fire to consume one another And then He who thus came down into the Womb thus into the World thus into our Souls thus into the Sacrament in silence without noise or tumult like Rain or Dew having thus watered us and distilled his graces upon us by virtue of this his first Advent at his second Advent when he shall descend with a shout and with the voice of the Archangel though he come with more terrour yet shall he let fall his dew as the dew of herbs and drop upon our rottenness and corruption And they that dwell in the dust shall awake and sing And in those his dayes shall the righteous flourish and abundance of Peace not only so long as the Moon endureth but in new Heavens and new Earth shall dwell Righteousness and Peace for evermore The First SERMON PART I. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth BLessedness is that which all men desire the Sun which every eye looks upon And in this Sermon of our Saviour it streams down upon us in several beams and strictures in Poverty of Spirit in Mourning in Meekness which seem to us as dark and thick clouds but are beams by which we have light to see the way to the Kingdom of Heaven to comfort and the inheritance of the Earth Now the two first Virtues or Beatitudes call them what you please and if they be Virtues they are Beatitudes though not formally yet by communication and if Blessedness be the garland to crown them they must be Virtues The two first I say Poverty of Spirit and Mourning are set in opposition to our Concupiscible appetite Which if not checkt and held back by these stoops at every prey is ensnar'd with wealth and crown'd in pleasure and like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those artificial Engines or Clocks the Philosopher speaketh of are turned about disorderly parvâ motione factâ at the least touch and representation of unlawful and forbidden objects whether it be a wedge of Gold or the lips of the Harlot whither wealth or pleasure And therefore our best Master hath placed these two as assistant Angels to order the motion of that power in the desire of earthly blessings and continue her motion in the search of those things which are above even Poverty of Spirit and a voluntary Abdication of those pleasures which smile upon us as friends at their entrance but at their Exit when they turn their backs upon us are as terrible as Hell it self He that hath his mind so spiritually steer'd that it declines not to the wealth and pomp of the world nor to the delights which it affords howsoever his way be rugged and uneven and his passage cloudy and tempestuous shall notwithstanding at the end thereof find a Kingdom and Consolation And now to these two in its due place and by a kind of nearer method is added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Meekness and Sweetness of Disposition to restrain the Irascible faculty or appetite as those did the Concupiscible Thus they stand in the original and Greek Copy and the Latine Fathers read them so Nor could the Jesuite find any reason why they should not be so placed in the vulgar Translation and he thinks they were misplaced by the error of the Scribe and put between Poverty and Mourning Sure I am there is good reason why Meekness should stand in the place it doth For from whence come wars and fightings amongst us saith St. James come they not from hence even from our lusts that war in our members And the Schools teach us that Anger proceeds from the concourse of many passions We lust and have not We hope for wealth and are poor and destitute we would sport away our time in pleasure but some intervening cross accident casts us down and for this we are angry Jacob hath Esau's birth-right and Esau will kill him Naboth denies his Vineyard and Ahab is on his bed Jonathan loves David and Saul is ready to nail him to the wall with his Javelin The Samaritanes deny entertainment the Disciples would presently call down fire from Heaven to consume them Irascibilis propugnatrix concupiscibilis saith Gerson These two seditious Tribunes of the Soul the Irascible and the Concupiscible faculty mutually uphold each other My Desire my Hope my Grief are the fewel of my Anger He that stands in my way to wealth or pleasure is my enemy and setteth me on fire which nothing can quench but Poverty of Spirit and Contempt of pleasure When we are weaned from the world and the vanities thereof when we are crucified to the world and the world unto us we are then aptinati fitted for this third Beatitude and gain strength against Anger and against all Thirst and Desire of revenge If I know how to abound and how to want if I can sit down in the House of Mourning and judge those miserable whom the world calls happy and pity them whom most men bow to I am then idoneus auditor a fit man to hear our Saviour preaching from the Mount and proclaiming to all the world Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth And thus much of the dependence this third Beatitude hath on the former two Meekness then you see stands in its right place after Poverty of Spirit and Mourning which make its way plain and usher it in I will not here compare them For
Lamb to the slaughter and as a Sheep before her shearers is dumb so open'd be not his mouth And now having shewed you the nature of Meekness in the next place we will seat her in her proper subject and that is Every man as he is a Private man not as he bears the Sword of Justice For our Saviour when he commends Meekness doth not strike the Sword out of the hand of the Magistrate Nullum verbum hîc de magistratu ejus officio saith Luther Here is no mention made of the Magistrate and his Office It is far better that I loose my coat then revenge my self for by the Law of equity no man can be Judge in his own cause But let the Magistrate strike and the blow is not of Revenge but Justice Justice saith Plutarch accompanies God himself and breaths revenge against those which break his law which Men also by the very light of nature use against all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are citizens and members of a body politick Meekness is that virtue which sweetly ordereth and composes our mind in pardoning those injuries which are done to our private persons but it hath no room in the breast of a Judge who looks upon the Offender vultu legis with no other countenance then that of the Law In my own case licet mihi facere quod volo de meo it is lawful for me to do what I will with my own I may give it or I may suffer it to be torn from me and by this loss I may purchase the inheritance of the earth But when I sit on the Tribunal as a Judge the case is not my own It is Meekness to pardon wrongs done unto our selves but to deny the course of Justice to him that calls for it to sheath the Sword when it should cut off the wicked from the earth may peradventure commend it self by the name of inconsiderate pity but meekness it cannot be For the Magistrate as he is the Keeper of the Law so in his proceeding he must be like it Now the Law is surda res as the young men in Livy complain'd deaf and inexorable Though thou speak it fair it hears thee not and though thou speak in tears it regards thee not It is immoveable as a Rock and it stares the Offender in the face No complement can shake it no bribe move it no riches batter it If it seem to change countenance and turn face it is not its own face but the paint and visard of the Magistrate When the Magistrate is grown meek on the sudden by the operation of a bribe when Injustice beats upon this rock of the Law to mollifie and allay its rigor that falls out which Tertullian observes of Infidelity meeting with a convincing argument Injustice prevails and the Law is vanquisht and what is monstrous the Ship is safe and the Rock shipwrackt Therefore the Magistrate when he is to condemn an Offender may put on the passion of Anger and raise it up against his Compassion and then strike him saith Seneca with the same countenance he would strike a Serpent Histrionibus etsi non iratis tamen iram simulantibus conducit The very counterfeiting of this passion helpeth the Tragedian in his action And the judge may set it against those assaults which may move him to unnecessary compassion and which may turn him to the right hand or the left We need not here enlarge our selves in a case so plain That which the Private man may demand may be now more useful Whether it be lawful to implead our brother in any Court of Justice Questionless it is For to deny it were not only to pluck the Magistrate from the Bench but to cancel and disanul all the Laws of Christian Common-wealths Morality teacheth us To do no wrong That which Religion adds is no more but this To keep our mind in an habitual preparation of suffering And so the Casuists and St. Augustine interpret these Precepts of our Saviour That we must then retain the heart of a friend when we have taken upon us the name of an adversary and so compose our selves that we should choose rather to loose our right then our charity But Charity seeketh not her own A good Argument not only to keep me from the Tribunal but to drive me also from the Church For he that bids me cast my bread upon the waters hath also prescrib'd that form of Prayer Give us this day our daily bread It is true Regulae charitatis latiùs patent quà m juris the Rules of Charity are of a larger extent then those of the Law If thou owe a hundred measures of oyl Charity takes the Bill and sits down quickly and writeth fifty and if thy vessels be empty she cancels the bill and teareth the Indenture But it is as true too that Charity begins at home and that He that provides not for his family is worse then an Infidel To conclude this point It will concern every man to take heed quo animo quibus consiliis with what mind and upon what advise he brings his brother to the Barr. Necessitas humanae fragilitatis patrocinium Necessity is a good plea but where Necessity inforceth not I may say of it as St. Paul doth of Marriage He that impleadeth his brother may do well but he that impleadeth him not doth better And I cannot but commend that resolution of St. Hierom Mihi etiam vera accusatio adversus fratrem displicet Nec reprehendo alios sed dico quid ipse non facerem And happy is he who can take up this holy Father's Language It is troublesome to me to bring an accusation though never so true against a brother I censure not those who do it but only declare what I would not do my self Indeed our Saviour bids us agree with our adversary and forgive him but we do not read that any where he hath commanded us to implead him And this should make us suspect our selves in such a case For here are two parts Not to implead him and To implead him The one is most evidently lawful It is in our power The other doubtful When our judgment then is at a loss and cannot resolve on the one side the best wisdom it will be to cleave unto the side which is evident and plain unless we please to put it to the venture and harase our souls and try conclusions with God But most commonly so it is Praevalent dubia Things doubtful in themselves have more power over us then those things which are plain and certain and men are easie of belief in those things which they would have done What is wanting in the evidence we supply in our will and although our opinion point to the plainest side as safest yet we secretly wish that the more doubtful part were true and at last though we have small evidence yet we adhere and stick close unto it From hence those stabbings and digladiations
amongst Christians From hence it is that because we may lawfully implead our brother we think we may as lawfully undo him and because I may redeem my cloak by law by law I may purchase my brothers cloak also I conclude this point with that of the Apostle Prove all things hold fast to that which is good Abstein from all appearance of evil 1 Thess 5. 21 22. I should now proceed to lay open the Object of our Meekness but I see the time hath prevented me Only give me leave to tell you It is not enough to lay down our malice for a day and then to raise it up and breath it out against our brother upon the next occasion For this is a strong evidence that our malice was never laid down For though it must set before the Sun yet it must not set as the Sun to appear again and shew it self in our Hemisphere the next morning The Civilians will tell us Qui comitiali morbo laborant nè iis quidem diebus quibus morbo carent sanos rectè dici They that are troubled with the Falling-sickness are not to be reckon'd as free from it when the fit is off If the disease return again be the term and date of time what it will it is but the intermitting of the fit no freedom from the disease And so Malice and Anger which is a kind of Falling-sickness though for some time we are rid of it yet if it return again we are still guilty of the sin though we made some pause and suffer'd it not for a while to break out Will you know where you may make use of your Anger Make use of it upon your selves In propriis erratis securissimus hic affectus This affection doth never good but when it looks inward and frowns upon our own misdeeds For by this turning our Anger upon our selves and our sins foemininum irae masculinum facimus that which is womanish in Anger is made masculine and heroick nay ferinum irae divinum facimus that which is brutish in Anger is made Divine and fights the Lords battles beats down imaginations destroys principalities and powers treads down strength all our pride and animosity and works a conquest on our sins the greatest enemies to God and our selves And thus if we invert the operation of Anger and turn its edge upon our selves if our Meekness and Moderation be shewn unto all men and our indignation rest upon our sins it shall prevent that Anger which is as just as terrible and shall entitle us to this Blessedness here even all those blessings which are the purchase of the Prince of Peace and the bloud of that meek Lamb shall cleanse us from all our sins The Second SERMON PART II. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth IN the morning we laid before your eyes the Virtue of Meekness A virtue by which as St. Chrysostom saith a man may know a Christian better then by his name Tertullian telleth us that anciently among the Heathen Professors of Christianity were called not Christiani but Chrestiani from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word signifying Sweetness and Benignity of disposition I know not how you were taken with the beauty of this divine and useful Virtue and with what affections you beheld her in those colors in which the Gospel hath shewed her Some perhaps heard the report of her as they do news from a far Country not able to contradict nor yet willing to believe it To others her description was but picta nebula quae non longiùs delectat quà m videtur as a painted cloud which is forgot with the removing of our eye and delights no longer then it is seen But yet as the Queen of Sheba spake of the wisdom of Solomon so will I of this excellent virtue The one half is not yet told you We will therefore proceed on and pass by those lines which we first drew and having shewed her in her general Description and confined her to her proper Subject we will according to our method proposed in the next place present you with the Object of Meekness by which I mean those persons in respect of whom this Virtue is to be exercised We have not so confined Meekness and shut her up in the breasts of private men but we shall as far enlarge her in respect of her Object which is in compass as large as all the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle Let your softness your moderation your meekness your Phil. 4. 5. equity be known unto all men For though Meekness and Equity be not one and the same Virtue yet every meek man so far participates of Equity that he is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too exactly just but makes himself less then he is that he is willing to depart from his own right and will not do all that strict and rigid Justice warrants as lawful Nor is this Virtue cloyster'd up to shine in a corner but like the Sun it self non uni aut alteri sed statim omnibus in commune profertur she display's her beams not in good men alone or Christians alone but to wicked men to erring men to all men even to the whole world For this end God doth permit some evil persons in the world Omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur Every wicked person doth either prolong his life for his own good and amendment of himself or for the good of others to their tryal If there were none to injure us Meekness were but a phansie or like a Rose in Winter would have a being an essence perhaps but no existence If there were no evil men there would not be any good at least not known to be so Utrâque turbâ saith Seneca opus est ut Cato possit intelligi There must be both good and evil men to make Cato's Virtues known And Nazianzene in his Epistles speaking of the factious behaviour of men and the troubles of the times saith that all those things were to come to pass ut Basilius cognosceretur that Basil might be known that he might manifest that wisdom which long experience had taught him and so shine forth as a light in the midst of a froward generation Whilst the heavens are clear and the weather fair and no wind nor tempest stirs in glomis subit portum the Pilot arriveth indeed at the wisht-for haven but without praise or glory And were our life becalmed and if no tempests of injuries beat upon us what room then had Meekness to shew her self Sed cùm stridunt funes gemunt gubernacula when Malice rageth when wicked men provoke us when there are Ismaels to scoff at us Shimei's to revile us Zedekiah's to smite us on the cheek when injuries like the billows of the Sea follow close one on the neck of another then is the world a stage for Meekness to act
the Wilderness or an Owl in the Desert like the Leper under the Law whom no man must come near Have no company with him that is by thy company and familiarity give him no encouragement in his sin For good words and courteous behaviour may be taken for applause a smile is a hug and too much friendship is a kind of absolution And yet for all this have company with him for it tells us Count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother Deal gently and meekly with him but this we cannot do if we wholly separate our selves from him and avoid his company The rule of Charity directs us to think every man an heir with Christ or if he be not at least that he may be so And this is a kind of priviledge that Charity hath in respect of Faith Faith sees but a little flock but few that shall be saved makes up a Church as Gedeon did his Army who took not all that were prest out for the war but out of many thousands selected a band of three hundred and no more but Charity taketh in all and sees not any of that company which she will dismiss but thinks all though now their hands be weak and their hearts faint in time may be sweetly encouraged to fight and conquer You will say this is an error of our Charity But it is a very necessary error for it is my charity thus to erre and it is not a lye but vertue in me in my weak brothers case to nourish a hope of that strength which peradventure he shall never recover The holy mistakes of Charity shall never be imputed as 〈…〉 s no nor be numbred amongst those of Ignorance For he that errs not thus he that hopes not the best of all he sees though weltring in their bloud wants something to compleat and perfect him and make him truly worthy of the name of a good Christian And this error in Charity is not without good reason For we see not how nor when the Grace of God may work how sinful soever a man be Peradventure saith St. Hierom God may call unto him lying and stinking in his sins as in a Grave Lazarus come forth Charity therefore because she may erre nay because she must erre looks upon every man with an eye of Meekness If he erre she is Light if he sin she is a Physician and is ready to restore him with the spirit of Meekness And thus much for the Object of Meekness We proceed now to that which was in order next and as we have drawn forth Meekness in a compleat piece in her full extent and latitude so will we now in the last place propose her to you as a Virtue 1. most proper 2. most necessary to a Christian By which degrees and approaches we shall press forward towards the mark even the reward of Meekness the inheritance of the earth Of these in their order Meekness we told you is that virtue by which we may better know a Christian than by his name And this the very enemies of Christianity have acknowledged Vide ut se invicem diligunt Christiani was a common speech among the Heathen See how the Christians love one another when they broke the laws of Meekness and did persecute them Male velle malè facere malè dicere malè cogitare de quoque ex aequo vetamur To wish evil to do evil to speak evil to think evil are alike forbidden to a Christian whose profession restraineth his will bindeth his hand tacketh up his tongue to the roof of his mouth and curbeth and fettereth his very thoughts For as we are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a Head so if we will be members we must be suppled with that oyl of Meekness which distilleth down from our Head Christ Jesus He came not saith Tertullian into the world with Drum and Colours but with a Rattle rather not with a noise but like the rain into a fleece of wooll not destroying his enemies but making them his friends not as a Captain but as an Angel and Ambassador of peace not denouncing war but proclaiming a Jubilee and with no sword but that of the Spirit Look upon all the acts of our Saviour whilst he conversed on earth amongst men and we shall find they were purely the issues of Tenderness and Meekness He went about doing good As he cured mens bodies of diseases so he purg'd their souls of sin When he met with men possessed though with a Legion of Devils he did not revile but dispossess them he rebuked the Devil but not the man His mouth was so filled with the words of meekness Thy sins are forgiven thee that he seldom spake but the issue was comfort He pronounced indeed a woe to the Pharisees and so he doth to all sinners For Woe will follow the Hypocrite whethersoever he goeth though it be not denounced a Wce to drive them from sin to repentance not a curse but a precept to fright them from that woe which he denounced It is but pulling off the visour casting away their hypocrisie and the Woe will vanish and end in a blessing He called Herode a Fox for as God he knew what was in him and to him every wicked person is worse then a beast No Fox to Herode no Goat to the Wanton no Tiger to the Murderer no Wolf to the Oppressour Obstinate sinners carry their Woe and curse along with them nor can they fling it off but with their sin And Christ's profession was to call sinners to repentance When the Reed was bruised he broke it not and when the flax did smoke he quench'd it not As he hath a Rod for the impenitent and it is the last thing he useth so he cometh in the spirit of Meekness and openeth his arms to receive and imbrace them that will meekly yield and bow before him and repent and be meek a 〈…〉 is meek Now our Saviviour is disciplina morum the way and the truth And that gracious way which it hath pleased him to tread himself before us the very same he hath left behind to be gone by us and hath ordered a course of religious and Christian worship which consisteth in Meekness and sweetness of Disposition An incongruous thing therefore it is that he having presented to us the Meekness of a Lamb we should return the rage of a Lyon that he should speak in a still voice and we should thunder And this is most proper to Christianity and the Church For first what is the Church of Christ but a Congregation of meek ones We cannot bring Bears and Lyons and Tigers within that pale Quomodo colligemus as Tertullian speaketh How shall we gather them together jungantur tigribus ursi We cannot bring them together into one body and collection or if we do but as Sampson did his Foxes to look several waies We are told indeed that the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard lie down with
reason at home in our own breasts and St. James hath shewn us how we should find it chap. 4. 2 3. Ye lust and have not ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain ye fight and war yet ye have not because ye ask not Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss We pray for Peace and lift up hands full of bloud and oppression We pray to God to settle the pillars of the Kingdome when our study is to shake them to be favourable to Sion when we fight against it And therefore saith God When you spread your hands I will hide mine eyes from you and when you make many prayers I will not hear for your hearts are full Isa 1. 15. of bloud Will we have our prayers effectual We must take the Prophets counsel in the next verse Wash you make you clean from oppression cruelty and deceit This is the best preparation to Prayer If we will hearken unto God he will incline his ear to us and if we love Peace and pursue it the God of peace will give it Thus if we we call upon him he will hear and thus if we cry unto him he will answer here I am Here I am as ready to crown you with blessings as you are to ask them as ready to send peace within your walls as you are to desire it ready to crown you with external peace here and with eternal hereafter Again when we pray we must follow our Saviours example and withdraw our selves and retire When he had sent the multitude away he went Matth. 14. 23. up into a mountain apart to pray And he went forward a little and fell Mark 14. 35. on the ground and prayed In Gethsemane he withdrew himself from his Disciples that he might more freely pour forth his soul unto God Retiredness is most fit for passionate and affectionate prayers Then our passions may best vent themselves Then our Indignation our Fear our vehement Desire our Zeal our Revenge may work freely upon the whole man 2 Cor. 7. 11. may force tears from our eyes and sobs from our tongues may beat our breasts and cast our bodies on the ground Then Ingeminations and Reiterations and Expostulations are more seasonable That which peradventure Modesty would stifle in company in our secret retirements is the true eloquence of a wounded soul There God will hear us when we speak and he will hear us when we do not speak He will understand us when we express our selves and he will understand us when our sorrows and tears are so great that we cannot express our selves There every sigh is a prayer every groan a loud cry and though our language be imperfect and come short of our wants yet is it easie and plain to him because it comes from a broken heart And therefore what here by ensample Christ teacheth us he giveth us a rule To pray in private To pray in our closet and he promiseth Matth. 6. 5 6. that our Father that seeth that heareth in secret wilâ— reward us openly He will lead us through the wilderness of this world into a paradise of pleasure where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes where there shall be no more sorrow no more travel no more fighting but peace and rest and joy and glory for evermore We have done now with the two first reasons or conjectures rather why our blessed Lord and Master went into the wilderness We come now to the third which was That by this his Retirement he might draw out to us the resemblance of a Christian mans life which is nothing else but a Secession and holy Pilgrimage out of the world For as the Wilderness is indeed a part of the world and yet in a manner out of the world so is Christ in the wilderness a fair representation of a Christian who lives in the world yet is not of the world who is a part of the world yet separate from it who is no sooner born into the world but is taught to renounce it As Joseph is called a Nazarite in the Latin Translation not that he was of Gen. 49. 26. that order or observed their Law which was made many ages after but that by his strictness and severity of life by his piety and innocency he was severed and removed from others whose lives were irregular and therefore he is said to be separate from his brethren Or as Macarius calls a virtuous man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a stranger a barbarian to the World in St. Pauls sense because he understands not the World nor the World him The 1 Cor. 14. 11. Apostle repeats it again and again that the Patriarchs were but strangers Heb. 11. in the land which was given them in their own land yet strangers Howsoever God had promised them an inheritance in Canaan yet they took his word in another and higher sense of the spiritual Canaan They abode in the land of promise as in a strange country looking for a city having a foundation whose builder and maker is God Which was to make a wilderness in Canaan nay to make the land of Promise it self a Wilderness Hence St. Hierome is positive and peremptory That the Saints in Scripture are no where called inhabitatores terrae the Inhabitants of the Earth or of the World but that it is a name alwayes given to sinners and wicked persons to those of whom it is written Wo to the inhabitants of the earth St. Augustine Rev. 8. 13. saith the wicked do only habitare in mundo dwell and have their residence in this world and may pass into a worse but never into a better place but the righteous can only be said esse to be there to have a being and existence there to be there as the Angels are said by the Schoolmen to be in uno loco quod non sint in alio to be in one place not circumscriptively but because they are not in another to be in the world but not of the world to be in this world because they are not yet in the other to be on earth because they are not yet in heaven It is a hard saying this and an unwelcome doctrine to flesh and bloud to the children of this world That we should be sent into the world ideo ut exeamus to this end that we should go out of it be placed in Jerusalem and then bid to go out into the wilderness be seated in such a paradise and then driven out of it even whilst we are in it be set to till the ground from whence we are taken to digg and labor as in a mine and then be taught to be afraid and run from the works of our own hands to see Beauty which we must not touch Fruit which we must not taste Riches and Treasure which we must tread under foot It is indeed a hard saying but even Scripture and Reason have made it good and seal'd and ratifiâ—d it
argument by transferring the QUOMODO from the person of the King to the Guest QUOMODO TU how camest Thou in hither Thou my liege-servant and sworn subject For we know though Gods kingdome be as large as the whole Universe though God be King of all the Earth yet his name is great in Israel His throne is in the Church In our PATER NOSTER we begin as Sons and call God Father but we end as Subjects and acknowledge the kingdome to be His. Again QUOMODO TU How camest Thou in hither Thou who hast given thy name to Christ and wast a Christian when thou couldst not name Christ Thou who shouldst shed thy bloud for him yet trampled on his and as much as in thee lyeth crucifie him afresh This is circumstantia aggravans a circumstance that hath weight in it talent-weight For the Grammarian will tell us Plus est prodere quà m oppugnare to Betray is more than to defie and a Traytor worse than an open Enemy That Malice which whispers in a corner or worketh in a vault is more dangerous than that which is proclaimed by the drum Judas was worse than the Jews his Kiss more piercing than the Spear and this Guest here more bloudy than those Murderers It was v. 7. a charitable wariness and a wary charity in that holy Father St. Augustine to suspend his censure and not suddenly to give sentence against a Heretick whose conversation was pious Whether were more damnable a bad Catholick or a just Heretick he would not by any means determine But Aquinas layeth it down for a positive truth Graviùs peccat fidelis quà m infidelis propter Sacramenta fidei quibus contumeliam facit The same sin makes a deeper dye in a Christian then in an Infidel and leaves a stain not only on the person but also on his Profession and flings contumely on the very Sacraments of Faith whereas in an Infidel it hath not so deadly an effect but is veiled and shadowed by Ignorance and borrows an excuse from Infidelity it self For Ignorance is circumstantia allevians a lessning circumstance and doth abate and take off from the sinfulness of Sin Which maketh our Saviour give sentence against Capernaum even for Matth. 11. 23. Sodom it self Though Sin be Sin in all yet the person doth aggravate and extend and multiply it Oh the paradox of our misery Our Christianity shall accuse us and our Happiness undo us At the day of judgment it shall be easier for a miscreant Turk than for a bad Christian and the King be more terrible to this Guest here than to a stranger The Person ye see is a main circumstance a King to be slighted and his Guest to slight him his Subject to contemn him A high contempt But in the next place the Invitation will heighten it Tantus tanti tantillum That a King should invite a Beggar send his servants to intreat him to a feast and that at the marriage of his son makes the benefit a wonder and the neglect as strange and that all should be thought but a parable no history no history ever yielding the like example For what is this Man that he should thus be honor'd or what is this King that he should invite him Was he bound by any prae-contract or prae-obligation Did his justice or his honor lye upon it or could he not feast without him We cannot conceive thus of the King No He might have left this man in the streets and high-wayes amongst the poor the blind and the maimed naked to every storm and tempest open to the violence and shock of every temptation amongst men as impotent as himself not able to succour him not able to succour themselves But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. James of his own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 James 1. 18. according to the good pleasure of his will he sends for Ephes 1. 5. him messengers are dispatcht and they bespeak him in the same form they do the rest Come unto the marriage But this may be but a complement and no more And there are that make little more of it What say we then to Go compell them to come in This I hope is in earnest And this Luke 14. 23. he did His invitation was so hearty his beseechings so vehement his request so serious that it might seem to be violence and did bear the shew of a compulsion Not that God compels any or necessitates them to that end he intends as some conceive Who because all power is his will needs have him shew it all in every purpose so irresistibly as if that of the Baptist were true in the letter that God out of stones did raise up children unto Abraham For as he is powerful and can do all things so he is wise too and sweetly disposeth all things accomplishing his will by those means he in his eternal wisdom knows best using indeed his power but not violence working effectually upon our souls that we do not actually resist per suaviductionem say the Schools leading us powerfully but sweetly to that end his prae-determinate will hath set down When he invites us to his Church militant mittit servos he sends his servants and when he establisheth and buildeth us up for his Church triumphant mittit servos he useth that means also He instructs he corrects he exhorts he commands he threatens and he promiseth He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens various and manifold in his operation There is lightning with his thunder counsel in his threats light with his fire discipline in his tryals hony with his gall and his most bitter prescripts are not only sweet but cordials Now all these will make it an invitation at least and if we rightly weigh them lay them in the ballance and they will put it out of all doubt that this Invitation was serious that the King sent for the man ad convivium non ad notam not to commit him as some phansie but to entertain him not to a censure but to a banquet to have made him a guest not a spectacle We cannot then to press this argument but lay the blame on the Guest and implead him of perverse obstinacy His neck was stiff no perswasions could bow him his heart was adamant no love no fear could soften it And withal we must acknowledge that Faith and Charity are a useful wear without which Gods purpose to us is frustrate and his love lost without which we come to his table and are not fed without which his earnest beseechings his bowels his compassion his promises his threatnings all are in vain And further we carry not this consideration The Invitation leads us to the Feast And that is our next point 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father calls it a splendid and magnificent feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a delicious banquet COENA MAGNA that great Supper with an emphasis in which the bread is Manna and the Manna everlasting
men of what rank and condition soever are bound to perform it all are bound to pray This Form of prayer therefore was prescribed both to the Disciples and to the Multitude None so wise who must not none so ignorant who may not learn this Form Blanditur nostrae infirmitati It is fitted to the capacity of the weak Being a short form it is no burden to the Memory and being a plain form it brings no trouble to the Understanding He that cannot walk upon the pavement of heaven amongst the mysteries of his Faith may yet walk upon this earth this plain model of Devotion He that knows but little of the Trinity may yet cry Abba Father He that cannot dispute of God may yet sanctifie his Name He who is no Politician may have his Kingdom within him And he who cannot find out his wayes may yet do his Will Fastidiosior est scientia quà m virtus Paucorum est ut literati sint omnium ut pii Knowledge is more coy and hardly to be wooed than Devotion it makes its mansion but in a few But Piety forsakes no soul that will entertain her Every man cannot be a Scholar but every man may be devout Every man cannot preach but every man may pray Nemo ob imperitiam literarum à perfectione cordis excluditur saith John Cassian Antiquity confined Perfection to a Contemplative life to men of some eminence in the Church but a vain thing it is to imagine that none can reach perfection but the Learned Surgunt indocti rapiunt regnum coelorum saith Augustine Devout Ignorance many times taketh heaven by violence when our sluggish and unprofitable knowledge cannot lift up our hands by Devotion so much as to knock at the door Take then the Disciples and the Multitude together men of knowledge and men of no great reach and the Sic orate concerns them all and to them it is our Saviour gives this Command After this manner pray yee But now in the last place what shall we say to Sinners May they use this Form or can they pray without offense whose very prayer is an offense I should hardly have proposed so vain a question but that I find it made a question in the Schools and amongst the Casuists a Case of Conscience Indeed who can pray but Sinners Our very Pater Noster is a strong argument that every man is a sinner But yet some sins do not exclude the grace and favor of God as those of daily incursion Others of a higher nature may and so make us uncapable of this holy Duty This Doctrine like the Popes Interdict shuts-up the Church-doors and shutteth up our lips for ever that we may not open them no not to shew forth the praises of the Lord. A doctrine as full of danger as that from whence it sprung For do we not read it in terminis That the best actions of the unregenerate are sins We know who tells that opera bona optimè facta sunt venialia peccata That the best works of Saints are so also in some degree Which opinions though they have some truth if rightly understood yet so crudely proposed as many times they are are full of danger Who would not tremble to hear what I am sure hath been preached That the wicked are damned for eating and damned for drinking damned for labouring in their calling and damned for going to Church and damned for praying whereas all things work for the best to the godly even Sin it self But it is worth our observing that men of this opinion have a trick to shift themselves out of the tempest and to make themselves of the Elect. They deal as the Romans did who when two Cities contending for a piece of ground had taken them for their judge wisely gave sentence on their own behalf and took it from them both unto themselves But the truth is to say that the Alms and Prayers of wicked men are sin is a harsh saying and we must as Chrysostom speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mollifie it Shall I call the Temperance and Patience and Chastity of the Heathen sins That is too foul a reproach I will rather say that they were as the Rain-bow was before the Floud the same virtues with those which commend Christians but of no use because they were not seasoned with Faith which commends all virtues whatsoever and without which they cannot appear before the presence of the Lord. But to give instance to our purpose Cornelius was a Gentile and knew not Christ yet we read that his prayers came up for a memorial before God Simon Magus was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity yea primogenitus Satanae as Ignatius calls him the first-born of Satan yet even in this bitterness even in this bond of sin St. Peters counsel is to pray God if perhaps the thoughts of his heart may be forgiven him Acts 8. 22. which after the thunder of his curse cleareth the air that he may see some hope of escaping destruction To make it a sin to pray in the state of sin is to deny physick to the sick and to destroy my Brother for whom Christ dyed I know the Schools determine the point thus That both these are false either that a sinner is alwayes heard of God or that he is never heard That God loves his nature but hates his fault That out of his exceeding mercy he will grant his request if his prayer be pious To those who walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that light they have God is ready to send an Angel or an Apostle or to come himself When the Prodigal was yet a great way off his Father saw him and ran and fell on his Luke 15. 20. neck and kissed him The Return of the sinner is expressed by the word Going but God's Coming to the sinner by Running God maketh greater haste to the sinner then the sinner doth to God God maketh much of our first inclination and would not have it fall to the ground We need say no more to clear this point then what Gregory hath taught Fac boni quicquid potes In what state soever thou art whether in Gods favour or under his frown yet do all the good thou canst In puncto reversionis in the very point of thy turning to God God runneth to meet thee he watches each sigh and hearkens to each groan and thy Prayer is so far from being a sin that it shall wipe-out thy sin for ever And therefore Christ hath put this Form in thy mouth Which he hath prescribed to the learned and to the ignorant to Disciples and to the Multitude to perfect men and to sinners laying this command upon them all After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father c. This Form of Prayer is prescribed to all yet all will not receive it but many look upon it with scorn as if they thought themselves too wise to be taught by our Saviour What Seneca
is light and to make that obscure which is plain and easie of it self That hath befallen Divinity which the Stoick complained of in Philosophy Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantes Divinity was not so perplext and sullen a thing till Ambition and Faction made her so The very Hereticks and Schismaticks saith St. Augustine Catholicam nihil aliud quà m Catholicam vocant When they speak with Pagans they call the Catholick Church that Society of men which are divided from all the world besides by the profession of Christ This very word Our Father is enough to express it But by contentious spirits it hath been made a matter of business and the business of the Will And in these times if we will follow private humors in those Meanders and Labyrinths which they make we may sooner go to heaven then find the Church Which like the Cameleon is drawn and shaped out by every phansie like unto it self Sometimes it is a Body but nec caput nec pedes it must have neither head nor feet Sometimes it is a Spirit rather than a Body so invisible we cannot see it Sometimes it is visible alone and sometimes invisible And so we may ecclesiam in ecclesia quaerere seek for the Church even in the Church it self Who knows not what the Church is The subject is plain and easie But where men walk several wayes the discourse must need be rugged and uneven They who would bring in an Anarchy and make all the members equal are droven to this shift also to keep the Church out of sight And they who would raise a Monarchy are forced to set it upon a hill So that in talking so much of that company of children which make the Church we have almost lost the Father nay the Pater Noster and can but hardly consent that God should be a Father to us both For to say so is an error and mistake of charity No how can God be our Father when the Church is not our Mother How can Schismaticks and Rebels against the Church have their fellowship and communion with the Saints How can he be a Christian who is not a Catholick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Poet Mothers were wont to call up Hobgoblings and Cyclops to still and silence their children And what is all this but powder without shot What are these terms of Church and Catholick and Communion as the Church of Rome urgeth them but words and noyse We can say Our Father for all this and joyn with them in prayer too if they will pray as Christ taught We communicate with them whether they will or no as far as they communicate in the truth But if the Church of Rome tender us errors for truth if she obtrude upon us a multitude of things for fundamentals which are only the inventions of men and no way concern our Faith here non fugamur sed fugimus we did not stay till she thrust us out but we were bound to separate our selves from partaking of those gross impieties which proceeded from the Father of lyes and not from our Father which is in heaven That she sent thunder after us and drove us out by excommunication when we were gone may argue want of charity in her but makes no impression of hurt upon us For what prejudice can come unto us by her excommunicating us whose duty it was to make haste and leave her unless you will say that that souldier did a doughty deed who cut off the legg of a man who was dead before I am sure we are the children of God by the surer side for we lay claim by the Father when they so much talk of their Mother the Church that they have forgotten their Father who alone begets us with the word of truth Quot palestrae opinionum quot propagines quaestionum Hence what a wrestling in opinions hath there been what propagations and succession of quaestions Where our Church was when we separated We need answer but this That it was there where it was For they who have God to their Father may be sure they have the Church to their Mother Nor can any who find the truth and embrace it miss of the Church This is one devise ready at hand to fright and amaze those who have not maturity of understanding to take heed of their deceit The other is like unto it and a most the same the Communion of Saints which is here implyed in these first words of our Pater Noster In both which vacua causarum implent ineptiis When their cause is so hollow and empty that it sounds and betrayes it self at the very first touch they fill it up with chaff They make it fuel for Purgatory They draw it to the Invocation of Saints They make it as a Patent for their sale of Pardons They give it strength to carry up our Prayers to the Saints and to conveigh their Merits to us on earth They temper it to that heat to draw up the bloud of Martyrs and the Works of Supererogating Christians into the treasury of the Church and then shower them down in Pardons and Indulgences So that he that reads them and weighs their proofs would wonder that men of great name for learning should publish such trash and make it saleable and more that any man should be so simple as to buy at their market It is say they the general property of the Church that one member must be helped by another Therefore one member may suffer punishment for another Again One man may bear anothers burden Therefore he may bear his brothers sin It were even as good an argument to say He is my Brother Therefore he is my Mediatour Nobis non licet esse tam disertis We Schismaticks dare not pretend to such subtilty and wit We are taught to distinguish between the duties of Charity and the office of Mediation The unction we have from the Head alone but the Members may anoint one another with that oyl of Charity Though I cannot suffer for my brother yet I may bear for him even bear his burden Though I cannot merit for him I may work for him Though I cannot satisfie for him I may pray for him Though there be no profit in my dust yet there may be in my memory in the memory of my conversation my counsel my example In this duty high and low rich and poor learned and ignorant all are equal All have one Father who hears the low as well as the high the poor as well as the rich and the ideot as well as the great clerk Nihil iniquius fide si tantùm in eruditos caderet Faith and Religion were the unjustest things in the world if no place were a fit habitation for them but the breast of a Rabbi or a Potentate No God is our Father and every man claims an equal title to him Licet parva rati portum subire In the smallest bark and weakest vessel we may sail
and all these things shall be added unto you We may divide this Prayer as Moses divided the Law into two Tables In the first were written officia pietatis duty of Piety towards God In the second officia charitatis duties which Love requires we perform to our selves and others We see the three first Petitions breathe forth the glory of God the last three draw their breath as it were inwards and reflect upon our selves In the three first we strive to enlarge the glory and honor and majesty of God In the first we sanctifie his Name in the second we call him in the third we make him a King But in the last three we begg our Bread our Salvation our Security We desire him to give us a Staff to uphold us to remove a Thorn that pricks us and to spread his Providence like a rich canopy over our tabernacle to protect us But yet so as that God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all in all not only Holy in his Name and mighty in his Kingdom and Powerful in his Will but also glorious in giving us Bread glorious in forgiving our sins and glorious in our victory over Satan And as God hath a share in the three last so are we not excluded the three first For when we pray that his Name may be hallowed we do not put up a bare wish and desire that it may be so sed ut sanctum habeatur à nobis saith Augustine that we may sanctifie it For whether we pray or no Gods Name is holy his Kingdom is everlasting and he doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth Nor do we pray that he will do all this without us but that he will supply us with those means and helps by which we may do it our selves So that when we pray that his Name may be hallowed our desire is that we may hallow it I will therefore draw and confine my Discourse within the bounds of these three propositions I. That in all our petitions we must propose the Glory of God as our chiefest end II. That we must prefer Spiritual things before Temporal III. That it is not enough to pray for blessings and against evils unless we be careful and industrious to procure the one and to avoid the other For if we pray that Gods Name may be hallowed and do not seriously strive to sanctifie it our selves we put up rather a faint wish than a devout prayer and rather mock God than worship him Of these plainly and briefly What the Philospher requires of his Moral man is most necessary in the works of Piety and Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must propose a right End Non agitur officium nisi intendatur finis I stir not in my Duty if this move me no◠and I faint and sink under my Duty if this confirm not the motion Gemina virtus in Christiano intentio actio saith St. Ambrose There is a double virtue in a very Christian to intend a right end and to do what he intends The Eye cannot say to the Hand I have no need of thee nor the Hand to the Eye I have no need of thee but the Eye directs the Hand and the Hand followeth the Eye Intention regulates the whole work of my Devotion Most certain it is Every man when he prays proposes some end for his end is that he may obtain We desire that Gods Name may be sanctified that we may be holy We desire Holiness that we may see God We desire to see God that we may be happy Sanctity it self is an end and the Reward is an end Nor do we exclude these ends as unfit to be lookt upon It is lawful for us to make the Reward as a Napkin to wipe off the sweat of our brows and to comfort our Devotion with Hope But the finis architectonicus the principal end must be the glory of God All other ends are wrapt within this as a wheel within a wheel and a sphere within a sphere but the Glory of God is the first compassing wheel prima sphera still on the top and setteth all on moving And here our Devotion is in its regular motion when it moves about not by the sight of some good on our selves or the expectation of reward but propter Deum ex charitate propter se amatum as the Schools speak by the contemplation of God whom we love for himself and when it proceeds from a Love like to the Love of God Whose actions are right in themselves although he propose no other end but the Actions Whose very Glory is the good of his creature We read in our books of a woman who went about the City Prolamais with a vessel of water in one hand and fire in the other sometimes looking up to heaven and anon casting her eyes upon the ground And being askt by a Dominican what she did with those two so contrary elements in her hands she replyed streight Cuperem hoc foco Paradisum incendere hac undâ restinguere flammas gehennae I would saith she if I could with this fire burn down the celestial Paradise and with this water quench the fire of Hell that neither might be I cannot but rank this action of hers if it be true amongst those which phrensie produces But the reason which she gave is a measured and positive truth in Divinity That we must cheerfully endeavor to hallow Gods Name and advance his Kingdom and fulfill his Will if there were neither heaven nor hell neither reward to allure us to holiness nor punishment to fright us from impiety All we do should be the issue of our Love to God who loved us so that for no hope of reward or addition of glory he was even turned into love and gave us himself He that loves God perfectly cannot but neglect himself and perish and be Lost to himself but he riseth again and is found first in God whilst he thinks nothing but of him and then whilst he thinks that he is loved of him and lives in him whilst he is thus lost Could we raise our Devotion to this pitch it were indeed in its proper Zenith But our Prayers for the most part are blemisht with some partialities and by-respects and our selves are more respected in them than God If they be petitory we request some good for our selves if eucharistical we give thanks for some good we have received if deprecatory we request to be preserved from some evil Still our selves have the chiefest part and our Prayers are like the Parthean horsemen which ride one way but look another They seem to go towards God but indeed reflect upon our selves And how many of us would fall down before God if we did not stand in need of him And this may be the reason why many times our Prayers are sent forth like the Raven out of Noahs Ark and never return But when we make the Glory of God the chief end of our Devotion
in the soul of man though there be many admirable parts Understanding Sense Life and the like yet the commanding power of our soul which gives laws as it were to all the other faculties and which makes us Lords of our actions is the Will So it is also with God We see some parts of his glory by the light of Nature but we have a fairer radiation by the light of Scripture Ut res in literis sic literas in rebus We read him in the Book of his Word and in the Book of his Works But we never so fully express him as when we give him a Will which makes him Lord paramount and commander of all things Dei posse est velle saith Tertullian against Draxeas His Will is his Power and his Power is his Will For whatsoever he can do yet he doth no more than he willeth Quis potest eloqui potentias Domini Who can speak of the Power and Omnipotency of God Yet his Omnipotency seems to vail to his Will and in a manner to be commanded by it For he is therefore said to be omnipotent because he can do all things that he will He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an infinite sea of Essence and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an infinite ocean of Power And did not his Will bound his Omnipotencie all things would have been as infinite as he himself is Wherefore did he create us wherefore did he redeem-us He himself gives the answer QUI A VOLUIT Because he would Whence comes it to pass that the world is contained within these limits whence is it that it is no greater nor less than it is Whence have living things their limits of growth their measure of power their date of time and durance The best reason we can give is Gods Will which bounds that infinite Ocean of his Power which otherwise must needs have had a larger flow In the former Petition we give God a Kingdome but we give him more when we give him an absolute and uncontroulable Will For what is a Kingdome but a meer name if it have any other Law than the Will of the King Some Kings there are which are so nomine not re rather by title than indeed as we find in Livy and Plutarch the Kings of the Lacedemonians were Others are more absolute Of which we read in the Historian Liberi sunt suique ac legum potentes ut et quod volunt faciant et quod nolunt non faciant They are free and powerful in themselves and their laws to do what they would and not to do what they would not unà regentes cuncta arbitrio governing all by their will And this giving them an illimited Will is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks to make them Gods indeed Howsoever then in that Petition Thy Kingdome come we stile him in this Thy Will be done we make God a King Behold these who call themselves Gods and Lords here on earth They then think themselves tantum nomen implere best to answer the name they bear when they can plead exemption from all Law but their own Will Antonine one of the Roman Emperors speaks it plainly Legibus soluti legibus vivimus Kings howsoever they are pleased to condescend and submit themselves to Law yet in their own nature are free from the Law and have no other Law to bound them besides their Will Yet this is but a weak resemblance For take the highest pitch of Regality that our imagination can reach yet it falls short of His to whom all earthly Majesty must vail and at whose feet Princes lay down their crowns and scepters Therefore Dionysius Longinus in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the sublimity of speech makes that expression of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God spake Let there be light immediately there was light Let there be earth and there was earth the highest and most sublime that could be given and doth much commend his art that he so spake of God as well befitted the person of whom he spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus the Power of God is best exprest No sooner to speak but it is done To conclude this If Moses 's art speaking of Gods Power did seem so wonderful to this heathen Orator what art then may a Christian observe in these words of our Saviour Thy Will be done which to speak to any thus but unto God were utterly unlawful We will give you one taste more of the excellency of this Prayer As it best suits with Gods Majesty so it is the fairest expression of our humility For greater Humility than this hath no man than absolutely to resign all disposition of our selves and wholly to cast our selves upon Gods Will whatsoever it be We are told by some that Pride was the first sin that it threw Lucifer down from heaven and drove Adam out of Paradise And Basil on Isa 13. tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the whole nature and species of all sin is derived from this from an unwillingness to submit our selves to the will of God Deum inter damna sua avarus accusat saith Hilary The covetous person when he hath lost his money accuses God himself He that is tryed by persecutions thinketh God unjust Rachel weepeth for her children and will not be comforted because they are not All our repinings and murmurings and discontents are from this that we cannot say Thy will be done But he that resigns his will into the hands of God I do not see how it is possible for him to offend him but he stands like Scaeva in the Poet strong before an army Párque novum fortuna videt concurrere bellum Atque virum There are but these two in this glorious contention thou O Man and all the evils and calamities in the world and all the devils in hell Doth the world frown Doth persecution rage Doth Sickness seize upon Let God touch let him kill all that you hear from Humility is Let his will be done In this form you may behold the full and perfect shape of Humility drawn to the life Other forms may seem to set us above our sphere When we call God Father it is too high and honorable a term for such miscreants as we are For though it do imply Subjection yet it doth imply the subjection of a Child rather than of a Servant And therefore we must joyn this FIAT to PATER submit our selves as children but submit our selves as servants too And there is great reason for it For many so rely upon the name of Father that they forget the FIAT quite Therefore in this Petition we may learn to preserve our selves from extreams neither so to presume upon Gods Love as to forget his Power nor so to think upon his Power as to despair of his Love A Father he is but if he give us blows we must remember the FIAT and fall down before him saying Thy will be done God will
gorgeously apparelled as trim as Solomon on the throne or as the Lilies in the field How can one chuse when he meeteth these silken things but fall down and worship them Nay rather we will be bold to tell these painted Sepulchres these unprofitable burdens of the earth who have nothing generous in themselves but their Names nothing noble in their houses but the Pictures of their Ancestours That their bread is not their own That the vilest servant they keep even he that sitteth with the dogs of their flocks deserveth his food and rayment better than they That the Ox may lawfully feed when they should be muzzled I know they will reply That they are born to lands and riches that what they have is their own by inheritance that they abound with bread and therefore need not labor for it I do not bid them take a Sheep-hook in their hands yet Abraham Isaac and Jacob were Shepherds nor the Ax and the Saw yet Joseph yea Christ himself was a Carpenter nor the Awl and the Last yet some Philosophers saith Augustine have done the office of a Cobler but yet I cannot think that God gave them so much Bread to make them idle did so much for them that they themselves should do just nothing or which is worse then nothing make themselves gallant and boysterous fools Cain and Abel were better born then they heirs apparent of the whole earth yet both of them had their employment in their several vocations Why should any then because of Gentile or Noble extraction count himself priviledged and exempt from labor and to have licence to do nothing but eat and drink and snort and sport There be other Arts besides mechanical as the art of Living well the art of Hospitality that oeconomical art of Well-ordering ones houshold These the greatest ought to learn and follow And thus doing they will shew themselves thankful to God for his great bounty and they will not eat the bread of Idleness but their own Bread Now in the next place though Labour fill our basket yet Honesty and Integrity of conversation is that which gives us firm possession and makes us Lords and Proprietaries of that Bread we gather Many labour and rise up early and lye down late and eat the bread of sorrow yet eat not their own bread There is nothing that hath esteem amongst men whether good or bad but is sold for Labour and Industry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Basil All things in this are alike Even those things which make us slaves to the Devil are bought with difficulty and vexation of spirit And many times laboriosior est hujus mundi amor saith Gregory men are more busie to destroy themselves than others are to work out their salvation The Adulterer waits and watches for the twilight studies to find out occasions and opportunities to satisfie his inordinate lust The Thief breaketh his sleep and lurks in the dark Quibusdam somnum rixa facit saith the Poet and Solomon interprets it Prov. 4. 16. Some there be that cannot sleep unless they have done mischief and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall Tertullian limits and restrains that of the Apostle Let every man work with his own hands that he may eat his own bread For if every one who laboureth with his own hands may be defended by this credo ipsos latrones manibus agere quo vivant Certainly even thieves saith he do labor with their hands for their bread Falsarios utique non pedibus sed manibus operari They who forge writings and falsifie evidences do it not with their feet but with their hands Histriones verò non manibus solis sed totis membris victum elaborant Stage-players themselves may go for Apostolical who labor for their bread not with their hands alone but with their tongues and every member of their body It were even a labor to shew the divers arts and inventions men have found out to work out their way to meet the wealth and riches of the world and that even amongst those who go under the name of Christians For if we please to observe it we shall easily find that there are not any two things of more different and unlike countenance and complexion than that Christianity which is commended to us in the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists and that which goes for current in use and practise of the times He that shall behold the true face of a Christian as it is decipher'd and painted out unto us in the Books of the New Testament and unpartially compare it with that copy and counterfeit which is exprest in the life and demeanour of common Christians will think them no more like than those shields of Gold which Solomon made were unto those of brass which Rehoboam placed in their stead and may think perhaps that the writers of those Books had brought vota magis quà m praecepta had rather phansied to themselves some admirable pattern of a Christian such as they could wish than delivered rules and laws which seriously and truly ought to be practized in common life and conversation To walk honestly is that which must regulate our Devotion must give us right and title to that we possess must make our wealth our possessions our lands PANEM NOSTRUM our bread This is commended to us by Nature it self and by the Religion which we profess And yet I know not how though we cannot quite banish Nature though we cannot utterly blot out those principles of Honesty yet many times we interline them with false glosses though we cannot race them out yet we blurr and deface them We draw false consequences from true principles we hunt out tricks and evasions but it is to cheat and delude our own souls And now what talk we of the Law of Nature If you read it in the Worlds corrupt edition if unjust man may be the Scholiast thus it runs INJURIAM FEGISSE VIRTUTIS EST To do injury is virtue To oppress is power Craft is policy Theft frugality and the greatest wisdom not to be wise unto salvation And as we slip off the bridle of Nature and as much as we can unlearn that law which is written in our hearts so we are as willing to pull our necks out of the easie yoke of the Gospel For a strange conceit is at this day crept into the world and it receives warmth in the bosom of the Church That how regardless soever we be of those seeds of goodness how forgetful soever of common honesty yet for all that we may be Christians good enough But as Tertullian speaks of the heathen Gods Quot potiores viri apud inferos certainly there is many an honester man in Hell than they They talk big against the world which is the worse for them and out of Sodom they will go though they have no other Angel to hasten them than an idle phansie and the spirit of a sick
an episcopal an overseeing Eye an Eye watchful and careful to keep evil at a distance or else to order and master it to summon a Synod in our soul to raise up all the forces and faculties we have to make canons and constitutions against it and to say unto it as God doth to the Sea Thus far shalt thou go and no further to say unto Poverty comming towards us like an armed man It may strip us naked but it shall not make us desolate It may thrust us into prison but it shall not shut us in hell It may drive us about the world but it shall not banish us from God This Beauty which flourisheth in my eye shall wither in my heart and for flattering my Sense shall be disgraced by my Reason These Riches shall buy me but food and rayment They shall not be employed by my Phansie to attend upon Gluttony or Wantonness or Revenge Nor will I lay them out upon that purchase whose appurtenance is Damnation And this is our humane Providence which in some degree is proportioned to the Providence of God Which consists of these two parts his Wisdom and his Power His Wisdom runneth very swiftly through the world and sees what is to be done and his Power at his word is ready to do it Thus is our spiritual Providence made up of these two Wisdom to see and foresee evil and a firm resolution to avoid it If you ask me What is the light of the body It is the Eye What is the Eye of the Soul It is this Wisdom And if you ask me Wherein our great strength lyeth I cannot shape you a fairer answer then to tell you In Resolution Quicquid volui illico potui What I will do what I resolve to do is done already These two our Wisdom to discern and our Resolution to chuse or reject make us wise as Serpents and bold as Lions as Serpents against the old Serpent the Devil and as Lions against that roaring Lion that seeks to devour us By our Wisdom we defeat his craft by our Resolution we abate his strength And greater is he that is in us then he that is in the world But now because our Eye-sight is dim and our Fore-sight not great and our Oversight slender and imperfect and all our strength but Resolution and our Resolutions many times but faint we look-up unto him who dwelleth with Wisdom who is Wisdom it self and knoweth all things and to that God of Hosts who doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth who telleth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names who telleth the number of our hairs so that not one of them can fall without his will who telleth the number of our tears and lets not one fall beside his bottle who calleth things that are not as if they were who when there is plenty bringeth-in a famine and when famine hath broken the staff of bread as he goes drops fatness who sees every thing in its causes operations effects ends what it is what it may be what it doth what it may do the works of all flesh saith the Son of Sirach the intents of all men the thoughts of all hearts the motions and inclinations of all creatures nay that which we call Chance and Fortune is before him He can deliver us with means and he can deliver us without means Our trust only is in him For without him alass our Knowledge is full of ignorance We cannot tell what will be the next day the next hour the next moment We know not how to propose any thing to our selves and when we have proposed it we are to seek how to execute it because there are many impediments divers changes and chances of this mortal life the knowledge and disposing of which comes not within the reach of humane Providence And as men in the bottom of a Well are able to see no greater space of the heavens then the compass of the well so neither can we see more then the bounds which are set us will give leave The Eye sees to such a distance but then it fails And we see no further then our humane frailty will permit we see something near us something about us yet many times we stumble even at noon-day at that which was visible enough I am but Man not God and have not the perfect knowledge of Good and Evil. And my Power is not great The largest power that is is sub regno under a greater power For have I an arm like God or can I thunder with a voice like him And then my Patience which is the best fense I have against evil is but froward For is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh of brass And therefore we look-up unto the hills from whence cometh our salvation upon God himself who sees all actions all casualties all events to whom things past and things to come are present who seeth all things ad nudum as the Schools speak naked as they are and can set-up this to pull-down that cross this intent that it never come into action or cross the intent in the action by driving it to a contrary end to that which was proposed Who when we offend can hiss for the fly for forreign incumbrances and when we repent can make our very enemies our friends Who is wonderful in all his works and whose wayes are exalted above ours as far as the heaven is above the earth But this doth not sufficiently express it Isa 55. For they are infinitely exalted farther then the Heaven is above the Earth But the Prophet could not better express it then by such a distance then which we know no greater That we may not rob God of his honour nor sacrifice to our own nets or clap our hands and applaud our selves in our imaginations and say Is not this Babel which I have built It is my right hand that hath done it That I was not taken in a snare it was my Will That I beat my enemies as small as the dust before the wind it was my Valour That every sensible evil made me not truly evil it was my Free-will This is a greater evil and more dangerous then all those which we avoided This is a glance of the Devils dart in his flight to overthrow us with our victory Therefore as we confess our selves to be under Gods Dominion and commit our selves to his Protection so must we attribute all JOVI LIBERATORI to Him who is the great Deliverer from evil not give him part but all not make him our Partner but our Lord. Nemo saith the Father à Deo se adjuvari vult sed salvum fieri We do not desire help only at Gods hand but we desire to be saved by him That which is the subject of our Prayer must be the burden of our Song If we pray for Salvation we must imitate those who stood before the Throne who though they had Palms