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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64137	XXVIII sermons preached at Golden Grove being for the summer half-year, beginning on Whit-Sunday, and ending on the xxv Sunday after Trinity, together with A discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness, and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor.; Sermons. Selections	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1651 (1651)	Wing T405; ESTC R23463	389,930	394

over-lay thy infant-vertue or drown it with a flood of breast-milk Sermon XV. Of Growth in Grace Part II. 5. HE is well grown in or towards the state of grace who is more patient of a sharp reproof then of a secret flattery For a reprehension contains so much mortification to the pride and complacencies of a man is so great an affront to an easie and undisturbed person is so empty of pleasure and so full of profit that he must needs love vertue in a great degree who can take in that which onely serves her end and is displeasant to himself and all his gayeties A severe reprehender of anothers vice comes dressed like Jacob when he went to cozen his brother of the blessing his outside is rough and hairy but the voice is Jacobs voice rough hands and a healthfull language get the blessing even against the will of him that shall feel it but he that is patient and even not apt to excuse his fault that is lesse apt to anger or to scorn him that snatches him rudely from the flames of hell he is vertues Confessor and suffers these lesser stripes for that interest which will end in spirituall and eternall benedictions They who are furious against their monitors are incorrigible but it is one degree of meeknesse to suffer discipline and a meek man cannot easily be an ill man especially in the present instance he appears at least to have a healthfull constitution he hath good flesh to heal his spirit is capable of medicine and that man can never be despaired of who hath a disposition so neer his health as to improve all physick and whose nature is relieved by every good accident from without But that which I observe is That this is not onely a good disposition towards repentance and restitution but is a signe of growth in grace according as it becomes naturall easie and habituall Some men chide themselves for all their misdemeanours because they would be represented to the censures and opinions of other men with a fair Character and such as need not to be reproved others out of inconsideration sleep in their own dark rooms and untill the charity of a Guide or of a friend draws the curtain and lets in a beam of light dream on untill the graves open and hell devours them But if they be called upon by the grace of God let down with a sheet of counsels and friendly precepts they are presently inclined to be obedient to the heavenly monitions but unlesse they be dressed with circumstances of honour and civility with arts of entertainment and insinuation they are rejected utterly or received unwillingly Therefore although upon any termes to endure a sharp reproof be a good signe of amendment yet the growth of grace is not properly signified by every such sufferance For when this disposition begins amendment also begins and goes on in proportion to the increment of this To endure a reproof without adding a new sin is the first step to amendments that is to endure it without scorn or hatred or indignation 2. The next is to suffer reproof without excusing our selves For he that is apt to excuse himself is onely desirous in a civill manner to set the reproof aside and to represent the charitable monitour to be too hasty in his judgement and deceived in his information and the fault to dwell there not with himself 3. Then he that proceeds in this instance admits the reprovers sermon or discourse without a private regret he hath no secret murmurs or unwillingnesses to the humiliation but is onely ashamed that he should deserve it but for the reprehension it self that troubles him not but he looks on it as his own medicine and the others charity 4. But if to this he addes that he voluntary confesses his own fault and of his own accord vomits out the loads of his own intemperance and eases his spirit of the infection then it is certain he is not onely a professed and hearty enemy against sin but a zealous and a prudent and an active person against all its interest and never counts himself at ease but while he rests upon the banks of Sion or at the gates of the temple never pleased but in vertue and religion Then he knows the state of his soul and the state of his danger he reckons it no objection to be abased in the face of man so he may be gracious in the eyes of God And that 's a signe of a good grace and a holy wisdom That man is grown in the grace of God and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Justus in principio sermonis est accusator sui said the Wise man The righteous accuseth himself in the beginning that is quickly lest he be prevented And certain it is he cannot be either wise or good that had rather have a reall sin within him then that a good man should beleeve him to be a repenting sinner that had rather keep his crime then lose his reputation that is rather to be so then to be thought so rather be without the favour of God then of his neighbour Diogenes once spied a young man coming out of a Tavern or place of entertainment who perceiving himself observed by the Philosopher with some confusion stepped back again that he might if possible preserve his fame with that severe person But Diogenes told him Quanto magis intraveris tanto magis eris in cauponâ The more you go back the longer you are in the place where you are ashamed to be seen and he that conceals his sin still retains that which he counts his shame and his burden Hippocrates was noted for an ingenious person that he published and confessed his errour concerning the futures of the head and all ages since Saint Austin have called him pious for writing his book of retractations in which he published his former ignorances and mistakes and so set his shame off to the world invested with a garment of modesty and above half changed before they were seen I did the rather insist upon this particular because it is a consideration of huge concernment and yet much neglected in all its instances and degrees We neither confesse our shame nor endure it we are privately troubled and publikely excuse it we turn charity into bitternesse and our reproof into contumacy and scorne and who is there amongst us that can endure a personall charge or is not to be taught his personall duty by generall discoursings by parable and apologue by acts of insinuation and wary distances but by this state of persons we know the estate of our own spirits When God sent his Prophets to the people and they stoned them with stones and sawed them asunder and cast them into dungeons and made them beggers the people fell into the condition of Babylon Quam curavimus non est sanata We healed her said the Prophets But she would not be cured Derelinquamus eam that 's her

men to go on in sins and punishes them not it is not a mercy it is not a forbearance it is a hardning them a consigning them to ruine and reprobation and themselves give the best argument to prove it for they continue in their sin they multiply their iniquity and every day grow more enemy to God and that is no mercy that increases their hostility and enmity with God A prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous condition in the whole world when he slew them that sought him and turned them early and enquired after God but as long as they prevailed upon their enemies then they forgat that God was their strength and the high God was their redeemer It was well observed by the Persian Embassadour of old when he was telling the King a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians he addes this of his own that the day before the sight the young Persian gallants being confident they should destroy their enemies were drinking drunk and railing at the timerousnesse and fears of religion and against all their Gods saying there were no such things and that all things came by chance industry nothing by the providence of the supreme power But the next day when they had fought unprosperously and flying from their enemies who were eager in their pursuit they came to the river strymon which was so frozen that their boats could not lanch and yet it began to thaw so that they feared the ice would not bear them Then you should see the bold gallants that the day before said there was no God most timorously and superstitiously fall upon their faces and begged of God that the river strymon might bear them over from their enemies What wisdom and Philosophy and perpetual experience and revelation and promises and blessings cannot do a mighty fear can it can allay the confidences of a bold lust and an imperious sin and soften our spirit into the lownesse of a Childe our revenge into the charity of prayers our impudence into the blushings of a chidden girle and therefore God hath taken a course proportionable for he is not so unmercifully merciful as to give milk to an infirm lust and hatch the egge to the bignesse of a cocatrice and therefore observe how it is that Gods mercy prevailes over all his works it is even then when nothing can be discerned but his judgements For as when a famin had been in Israel in the dayes of Ahab for three years and a half when the angry prophet Elijah met the King and presently a great winde arose and the dust blew into the eyes of them that walked abroad and the face of the heavens was black and all tempest yet then the prophet was the most gentle and God began to forgive and the heavens were more beautiful then when the Sun puts on the brightest ornaments of a bridegrome going from his chambers of the east so it is in the Oeconomy of the divine mercy when God makes our faces black and the windes blow so loud till the cordage cracks and our gay fortunes split and our houses are dressed with Cypresse and yew and the mourners go about the streets this is nothing but the pompa misericordiae this is the funeral of oursins dressed indeed with emblems of mourning and proclaimed with sad accents of death but the sight is refreshing as the beauties of the field which God hath blessed and the sounds are healthful as the noise of a physitian This is that riddle spoken of in the psalme Calix in manu Dom vini meri plenus misto the pure impure the mingled unmingled cup for it is a cup in which God hath poured much of his severity and anger and yet it is pure and unmingled for it is all mercy and so the riddle is resolved and our cup is full and made more wholsome lymphatum crescit dulcescit laedere nescit it is some justice and yet it is all mercy the very justice of God being an act of mercy a forbearance of the man or the nation and the punishing the sin Thus it was in the case of the children of Israel when they ran after the bleating of the idolatrous calves Moses prayed passionately and God heard his prayer and forgave their sin upon them And this was Davids observation of the manner of Gods mercy to them Thou wast a God and forgavest them though thou tookest veangeance of their inventions for Gods mercy is given to us by parts and to certain purposes sometimes God onely so forgives us that he does not cut us off in the sin but yet layes on a heavy load of judgements so he did to his people when he sent them to schoole under the discipline of 70 years captivity somtimes he makes a judgement lesse and forgives in respect of the degree of the infliction he strikes more gently and whereas God had designed it may be the death of thy self or thy neerest relative he is content to take the life of a childe and so he did to David when he forbore him the Lord hath taken away thy sin thou shalt not die neverthelesse the childe that is born unto thee that shall die sometimes he puts the evil off to a further day as he did in the case of Ahab and Hezekiah to the first he brought the evil upon his house and to the second he brought the evil upon his kingdom in his sons dayes God forgiving onely so as to respite the evil that they should have peace in their own dayes And thus when we have committed a sin against God which hath highly provoked him to anger even upon our repentance we are not sure to be forgiven so as we understand forgivenes that is to hear no more of it never to be called to an account but we are happy if God so forgives us as not to throw us into the insufferable flames of hell though he smite us still we groan for our misery till we chatter like a swallow as Davids expression is and though David was an excellent penitent yet after he had lost the childe begotten of Bathsheba and God had told him he had forgiven him yet he raised up his darling son against him and forced him to an inglorious flight and his son lay with his Fathers concubins in the face of all Israel so that when we are forgiven yet it is ten to one but GOD will make us to smart and roar for our sinnes for the very disquietnesse of our souls For if we sin and ask God forgivenesse and then are quiet we feele so little inconvenience in the trade that we may more easily be tempted to make a trade of it indeed I wish to God that for every sin we have committed we should heartily cry God mercy and leave it and judge our selves for it to prevent Gods anger but when we have done all that we commonly call repentance and when possibly God hath forgiven us to some

a childe for playing with flies and preferring the present appetite before all the possibilities of to morrows event But men wondered when they saw Socrates ride upon a cane and when Solomon laid his wisdom at the foot of Pharaohs daughter and changed his glory for the interest of wanton sleep he became the discourse of heaven and earth and men think themselves abused and their expectation cousened when they see a wise man do the actions of a fool and a good man seized upon by the dishonours of a crime But the losse of his reputation is the least of his evil It is the greatest improvidence in the world to let a healthful constitution be destroyed in the surfet of one night For although when a man by the grace of God and a long endeavour hath obtained the habit of Christian graces every single sin does not spoil the habit of vertue because that cannot be lost but as it was gotten that is by parts and succession yet every crime interrupts the acceptation of the grace and makes the man to enter into the state of enmity and displeasure with God The habit is onely lessened naturally but the value of it is wholly taken away and in this sence is that of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saint James well renders He that keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all that is if he prevaricates in any commandment the transgression of which by the law was capital shall as certainly die as if he broke the whole law and the same is the case of those single actions which the school calls deadly sins that is actions of choice in any sin that hath a name and makes a Kinde hath a distinct matter And sins once pardoned return again to al the purposes of mischief If we by a new sin forfeit Gods former loving kindnesse When the righteous man turneth from his righteousnesse and commiteth iniquity all his righteousnesse that he hath done shall not be remembred in the trespasse that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Now then consider how great a fool he is who when he hath with much labour by suffering violence contradicted his first desires when his spirit hath been in agony and care and with much uneasinesse hath denied to please the lower man when with many prayers and groans and innumerable sighs and strong cryings to God with sharp sufferances and a long severity he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution and that he is in some hopes to return to Gods favour and that he shall become an heire of heaven when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity but he hopes to be saved and he considers how excellent a condition that is he hopes when he dies to go to God and that he shall never enter into the possession of Devils and this state which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity he hath obtained with great labour and much care and infinite danger that this man should throw all this structure down and then when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours by one indiscreet action to set fire upon his corn fields and destroy all his dearly earned hopes for the madnesse and loose wandrings of an hour This man is an indiscreet gamester who doubles his stake as he thrives and at one throw is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a luckie hand They that are poor as Plutarch observes are carelesse of little things because by saving them they think no great moments can accrue to their estates and they despairing to be rich think such frugality impertinent But they that feele their banks swell and are within the possibilities of wealth think it useful if they reserve the smaller minuts of expence knowing that every thing will adde to their heap but then after long sparing in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under Tutors and Guardians and such as are to be chastised by their servants and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These men sowe much and gather little stay long and return empty and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces Every deadly sin destroyes the rewards of a seven years piety I adde to this that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants then at many by persons that are his enemies and an uncivil answer from a son to a Father from an obliged person to a benefactor is a greater undecency then if an enemy should storm his house or revile him to his head Augustus Caesar taxed all the world and God took no publick notices of it but when David taxed and numbered a petty province it was not to be expiated without a plague because such persons besides the direct sin adde the circumstance of ingratitude to God who hath redeemed them from their vain conversation and from death and from hell and consigned them to the inheritance of sons and given them his grace and his spirit and many periods of comfort and a certain hope and visible earnests of immortality nothing is baser then that such a person against his reason against his interest against his God against so many obligations against his custome against his very habits and acquired inclinations should do an action Quam nisi Seductis nequeas committere Divis Which a man must for ever be ashamed of and like Adam must run from God himself to do it and depart from the state in which he had placed all his hopes and to which he had designed all his labours The consideration is effective enough if we sum up the particulars for he that hath lived well and then falls into a deliberate sin is infinitely dishonoured is most imprudent most unsafe and most unthankful 2. Let persons tempted to the single instances of sin in the midst of a laudable life be very careful that they suffer not themselves to be drawn aside by the eminency of great examples For some think drunkennesse hath a little honesty derived unto it by the examples of Noah and Adultery is not so scandalous and intolerably dishonorable since Bathsheba bathed and David was defiled and men think a flight is no cowardise if a General turns his head and runs Pompeio fugiente timent Well might all the gowned Romans fear when Pompey fled and who is there that can hope to be more righteous then David or stronger then Samson or have lesse hypocrisy then Saint Peter or be more temperate then Noah These great examples bear men of weak discourses and weaker resolutions from the severity