was utterly departed and therefore this thin measure of knowledge or judgment betwixt good and evil that was left them which my awe to Gods sincere love of his creature makes me hope and trust he bestowed on them for some other end then only to increase their condemnation to stand them in some stead in their lives to restrain and keep them in from being extreamly sinful This I say they horribly rejected and stopt their ears against that charmer in their own bosoms and would not hear that soft voice which God had still placed within them to upbraid their wayes and reprove their thoughts What a provocation this was of Gods justice what an incentive of his wrath may appear by that terrible promulgation of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai They despised the law in their hearts where God and nature whisper'd it in calmly insensibly and softly and therefore now it shall be thunder'd in their ears in words and those boisterous ones at which the whole mount quaked greatly Exod. xix 18. And in the 16. verse it must be usher'd with variety of dismal meteors upon the Mount and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people that was in the Camp trembled Thus upon their contempt and peevishness was this manuscript put in print this Privy Seal turned into a Proclamation and that a dreadful one bound and subscribed with a Cursed is he that continues not in every title of it to perform it Mean while the matter is not altered but only the dispensation of it That which till then had taught men in their hearts and had been explain'd from tradition from Father to Son Adam instructing Seth and Seth Enoch in all righteousness is now put into Tables that they may have eyes to see that would not have hearts to understand that the perverse may be convinced and that he that would not before see himself bound may find and read himself accursed And after all this yet is not the old law within them either cast away or cancel'd by the promulgation of the other for all the book is printed the old copy is kept in archivis though perhaps as it alwayes was neglected soil'd and moth-eaten and he shall be censured either for ambition or curiosity that shall ever be seen to enquire or look after it Still I say throughout all their wayes and arts and methods of rebellions it twing'd and prick't within as Gods judgments attended them without and as often as sword or plague wounded them made them acknowledge the justice of God that thus rewarded their perversness Nay you shall see it sometimes break out against them when perhaps the written law spake too softly for them to be understood Thus did Davids heart smite him when he had numbred the people though there was no direct commandment against mustering or enâ—olment yet his own conscience told him that he had done it either for distrust or for ostentation and that he had sinned against God in trusting and glorying in that arm of flesh or paid not the tribute appointed by God on that occasion To conclude this discourse of the Jews every rebellion and idolatry of theirs was a double breach of a double law the one in tables the other in their heart and could they have been freed from the killing letter of the one the wounding sense of the other would still have kept them bound as may appear in that business of crucifying Christ where no humane law-giver or magistrate went about to deter them from shedding his blood or denying his miracles yet many of their own hearts apprehended and violently buffetted and scourged and tormented them At one time when they are most resolved against him the whole Senate is suddenly pricked and convinced within and express it with a Surely this man doth many miracles John xi 48. At another time at the top and complement of the business Pilate is deterr'd from condemning and though the fear of the people made him valiant yet as if he contemn'd this voice of his conscience against his will with some reluctance he washes his hands when he would have been gladder to quench the fire in his heart which still burnt and vext him Lastly when Judas had betray'd and sold him and no man made huy and cry after him his conscience was his pursuer judge and executioner persecuted him out of the world haunted him would not suffer him to live whom otherwise the law of the Country would have reprived till a natural death had called for him Lastly even we Christians are not likely to clear our selves of this bill 't is much to be feared that if our own hearts are called to witness our Judge will need no farther Indictments 'T was an Heathen speech concerning this rule of our lives and actions that to study it hard to reform and repair all obliquities and defects in it and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set it up strong and firm as a pillar in our hearts was the part and office of a Philosopher and then afterwards to make use of it in our whole conversation this was the part of a vertuous man complete and absolute And how then will our contempt be aggravated if Christianity which Clemens calls spiritual Philosophy and is to be reckoned above all moral perfections hath yet wrought neither of these effects in us if we have continued so far from straightning or setting up or making use of this rule that we have not so much as ever enquired or mark't whether there be any such thing left within us or no Theodoret in his second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very passionate in the expression of this contempt of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the light of truth shining in our understandings There be a sort of birds saith he that flie or move only in the night called from thence Night-birds and Night-ravens which are afraid of light as either an enemy to spy to assault or betray them but salute and court and make love to darkness as their only Queen and Mistress of their actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a creature sent on purpose to preserve them and these saith he deserve not to be child but pitied for nature at first appointed them this condition of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is their birth-right and inheritance and therefore no body will be angry with them for living on it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But for them who were made creatures of light and had it not been for their wilfulness had still continued light in the Lord who are altogether encompast and environed with light light of nature light of reason light of religion nay the most glorious asterism or conjunction of lights in the world the light of the Gospel to walk in for these men meerly out of perversness of wilful hearts to hate and abjure and defie this light to run out of the world almost for fear
discerning good from evil 6. An expectation of a reward for any thing well done Lastly some gripes and twinges of the Conscience to all add a tender disposition a good Christian education common custom of the countrey where one lives where some vices are out of fashion nay at last the word of God daily preached not a love but servile fear of it These I say and the like may outwardly restrain unregenerate men from riots may curb and keep them in and consequently preserve the soul from that weight of the multitude of sins which press down other men to a desparation of mercy Thus is one unregenerate man less engaged in sin than another and consequently his soul less polluted and so in all likelihood more capable of the ordinary means of salvation than the more stubborn habituate sinner when every aversion every commission of every sin doth more harden against grace more alien and set at a greater distance from Heaven and this briefly we call a moral preparation of the soul and a purging of it though not absolutely from sin yet from some measure of reigning sin and disposing of it to a spiritual estate and this is no more than I learn from Bradwardine in his 16. de causa Dei ch 37. A servile fear a sight of some inconvenience and moral habit of vertue and the like Multum retrahunt à peccato inclinant ad opera bona sic ad charitatem gratiam opera verè grata praeparant disponunt And so I come to my last part to shew of what use this preparation of the soul is in order to Christs birth in us the ways of the Lord. I take no great joy in presenting controversies to your ears out of this place yet seeing I am already fallen upon a piece of one I must now go through it and to quit it as soon as I can present the whole business unto you in some few propositions of which some I shall only recite as conceiving them evident enough by their own light the rest I shall a little insist on and then apply and drive home the profit of all to your affections And in this pardon me for certainly I should never have medled with it had not I resolved it a Theory that most nearly concerned your practice and a speculation that would instruct your wills as well as your understandings The propositions which contain the sum of the business are these 1. No preparation in the world can deserve or challenge Gods sanctifying grace the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and cannot by any thing in us be predetermin'd to its object or its work 2. The Spirit is of power to work the conversiâ—n of any the greatest sinner at one minute to strike the most obdurate heart and soften it and out of the unnatural womb of stones infinitely more unfruitful than barrenness and age had made the womb of Sarah to raise up children unto Abraham According to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diseases are sometimes cur'd when the patient is at the extremity or height of danger in an ecstasie and almost quite gone 3. 'T is an ill Consequence that because God can and sometimes doth call unprepared sinners therefore 't is probable he will deal so with thee in particular or with unprepared men in general God doth not work in conversion as a physical agent to the extent of his power but according to the sweet disposition and counsel of his Will 4. In unprepared hearts there be many profest enemies to grace ill dispositions ambition atheism pride of spirit and in chief an habit in a voluptuous settled course of sinning an indefatigable resolute walking after their own lusts And therefore there is very little hope that Christ will ever vouchsafe to be born in such polluted hardned souls For 't is Basil's observation that that speech of the fools heart There is no God was the cause that the Gentiles were given over to a reprobate sense and fell headlong 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into all manner of abominations Hence it is that Jobius in Photius observes that in Scripture some are called dogs Mat. xv 26. some unworthy to receive the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. xiii 11. that some hated the light and came not to it Joh. iii. 20. as if all those had taken a course to make themselves uncapable of mercy and by a perfect hostility frighted Christ out of their coasts In the liberal dispensation of miracles in the Gospel you would wonder to see Christ a niggard in his own countrey yet so in respect of other places he was and did not many miracles there because of their unbelief Mat. xiii 58. not that their incredulity had manacled him had shortned his hand or straitned his power but that miracles which when they met with a passive willingness a contentedness in the patient to receive and believe them were then the ordinary instruments of faith and conversion would have been but cast away upon obdurate hearts so that for Christ to have numbred miracles among his unbelieving Countrey-men no way prepared to receive them had been an injurious liberality and added only to their unexcusableness which contradicts not the Axiom of St Paul 1 Cor. xiii 22. That some signs are only for unbelievers for even those unbelievers must have within them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proneness or readiness to receive them with belief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in Jobius to open to the spirit knocking by those miracles and improve them to their best profit 5. Though God needs not yet he requires moral preparation of us as an ordinary means to make us more capable of grace for although according to Saint Austin Ne ipsâ quidem justitiâ nostrâ indiget Deus yet according to Salvian's limitation Fget juxta praeceptionem suam licet non juxta potentiam eget secundum legem suam non eget secundum Majestatem We are to think that God hath use of any thing which he commands and therefore must perform whatever he requires and not dare to be confident of the end without the observation of the means prescribed 'T is too much boldness if not presumption to leave all to his omnipotent working when he hath prescribed us means to do somewhat our selves 6. Integrity and Honesty of Heart a sober moral life and chiefly humility and tenderness of spirit in summ whatever degree of Innocence either study or fear or love or natural disposition can work in us some or all of which may in some measure be found in some men not yet regenerate are good preparations for Christs birth in us so saith Clement of Philosophy that it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. make ready and prepare the way against Christs coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with other helps that God hath given us all with this caution that it doth only prepare not perfect
so gag'd 't will mutter and will be sure to be taken notice of when it speaks softliest To define in brief what this law of nature is and what offices it performs in us you are to know that at that grand forfeiture of all our inheritance goods truly real and personal all those primitive endowments of soul and body upon Adams rebellion God afterwards though he shined not on us in his full Image and beauty yet cast some rays and beams of that eternal light upon us and by an immutable law of his own councel hath imprinted on every soul that comes down to a body a secret unwritten yet indeleble Law by which the creature may be warn'd what is good or bad what agreeable what hurtful to the obtaining of the end of its creation Now these commands or prescriptions of nature are either in order to speculation or practice to encrease our knowledg or direct our lives The former sort I omit as being fitter for the Schools then Pulpit to discourse on I shall meddle only with those that refer to practice and those are either common which they call first principles and such are in every man in the world equally secundum rectitudinem notitiam saith Aquinas every one doth both conceive them in his understanding what they mean and assent to them in his will that they are right and just and necessary to be performed and of this nature are the Worship of God and justice amongst men for that lumen super nos signatum in Bonaventures phrase that light which nature hath seal'd and imprinted on our souls is able to direct us in the knowledge of those moral principles without any other help required to perswade us or else they are particular and proper to this or that business which they call conclusions drawn out of these common principles as when the common principle commands just dealing the conclusion from thence commands to restore what I have borrowed and the like And these also if they be naturally and directly deduced would every man in the world both understand and assent to did not some hindrance come in and forbid or suspend either his understanding or assent Hindrances which keep him from the knowledge or conceiving of them are that confusion and Chaos and black darkness I had almost said that Tophet and hell of sensual affections which suffers not the light to shew it self and indeed so stifles and oppresses it that it becomes only as hell fire not to shine but burn not to enlighten us what we should do but yet by gripes and twinges of the conscience to torment us for not doing of it And this hindrance the Apostle calls ver 21. the vanity of imaginations by which a foolish heart is darkned Hindrances which keep us from assenting to a conclusion in particular which we do understand are sometimes good as first a sight of some greater breach certain to follow the performance of this So though I understand that I must restore every man his own yet I will never return a knife to one that I see resolved to do some mischief with it And 2. Divine laws as the command of robbing the Aegyptians and the like for although that in our hearts forbid robbing yet God is greater then our hearts and must be obeyed when he prescribes it Hindrances in this kind are also sometimes bad such are either habitude of nature custom of Country which made the Lacedemonians esteem theft a vertue or again the tyranny of passions for every one of these hath its several project upon the reasonable soul its several design of malice either by treachery or force to keep it hood-winkt or cast it into a lethargy when any particular vertuous action requires to be assented to by our practice If I should go so far as some do to define this law of nature to be the full will of God written by his hand immediately in every mans heart after the fall by which we feel our selves bound to do every thing that is good and avoid every thing that is evil some might through ignorance or prejudice guess it to be an elevation of corrupt nature above its pitch too near to Adams integrity and yet Zanchy who was never guest near a Pelagian in his 4. Tome 1. l. 10. c. 8. Thesis would authorize every part of it and yet not seem to make an Idol of nature but only extol Gods mercy who hath bestowed a soul on every one of us with this character and impression Holiness to the Lord which though it be written unequally in some more then others yet saith he in all in some measure so radicated that it can never be quite changed or utterly abolished However I think we may safely resolve with Bonaventure out of Austin against Pelagius Non est parum accepisse naturale indicatorium 't is no small mercy that we have received a natural glass in which we may see and judge of objects before we venture on them a power of distinguishing good from evil which even the malice of sin and passions in the highest degree cannot wholly extinguish in us as may appear by Cain the voice of whose conscience spake as loud within him as that of his brothers blood as also in the very damn'd whose worm of sense not penitence for what they have done in their flesh shall for ever bite and gripe them hideously This Light indeed may either by first blindness or 2. delight in sinning or 3. peremptory resolvedness not to see be for the present hindred secundum actum from doing any good upon us He that hath but a vail before his eyes so long cannot judge of colours he that runs impetuously cannot hear any one that calls to stop him in his career and yet all the while the light shines and the voice shouts and therefore when we find in Scripture some men stupified by sin others void of reason we must not reckon them absolutely so but only for the present besotted And again though they have lost their reason as it moves per modum deliberationis yet not as per modum naturae their reason which moves them by deliberation and choice to that which is good is perhaps quite put out or suspended but their reason which is an instinct of nature a natural motion of the soul to the end of its creation remains in them though it move not like a Ship at hull and becalmed is very still and quiet and though it stir not evidently yet it hath its secret heavs and plunges within us Now that the most ignorant clouded unnurtured brain amongst you may reap some profit from this Discourse let him but one minute of his life be at so much leisure as to look into his own heart and he shall certainly find within him that which we have hitherto talkt of his own soul shall yield him a Comment to my Sermon and if he dare but once to open his eyes
shall shew him the law and light of nature in himself which before he never dreamt of Of those of you that ever spared one minute from your worldly affairs to think of your spiritual there is one thought that suddenly comes upon you and makes short work of all that spiritual care of your selves You conceive that you are of your selves utterly unable to understand or think or do any thing that is good and therefore you resolve it a great pain to no purpose ever to go about so impossible a project God must work the whole business in you you are not able of your selves so much as either see or move and that is the business which by chance you fell upon as soon as shook off again and being resolved you never had any eyes you are content to be for ever blind unless as it was wont to be in the old Tragedies some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some new supernatural power come down and bore your foreheads and thrust and force eyes into your heads 'T is a blessed desire and gracious humility in any one to invoke God to every thought they venture on and not to dare to pretend to the least sufficiency in themselves but to acknowledge and desire to receive all from God but shall we therefore be so ungratefully religious as for ever to be a craving new helps and succours and never observe or make use of what we have already obtained as 't is observed of covetous men who are always busied about their Incomes are little troubled with disbursements 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any proportion betwixt their receipts and expences Shall we be so senseless as to hope that the contempt of one blessing will be a means to procure us as many I told you that God had written a law in the hearts of every one of you which once was able and is not now quite deprived of its power to furnish with knowledge of good and evil and although by original and actual and habitual sin this inheritance be much impaired this stock of precepts drawn low yet if you would but observe those directions which it would yet afford you if you would but practice whatever that divine light in your souls should present and commend to you you might with some face petition God for richer abilities and with better confidence approach and beg and expect the grace that should perfect you to all righteousness In the mean time bethink your selves how unreasonable a thing it is that God should be perpetually casting away of alms on those who are resolved to be perpetually bankrupts how it would be reckoned prodigality of mercies to purchase new lands for him that scorns to make use of his inheritance As ever you expect any boon from God look I conjure you what you have already received call in your eyes into your brains and see whether your natural reason there will not furnish you with some kind of profitable though not sufficient directions to order your whole lives by bring your selves up to that stay'dness of temper as never to venture on any thing till you have askt your own souls advice whether it be to be done or no and if you can but observe its dictates and keep your hands to obey your head if you can be content to abstain when the soul within you bids you hold you shall have no cause to complain that God hath sent you impotent into the world but rather acknowledge it an unvaluable mercy of his that hath provided such an eye within you to direct you if you will but have patience to see such a curb to restrain and prevent you if thou wilt only take notice of its checks 'T is a thing that would infinitely please the Reader to observe what a price the Heathens themselves set upon this light within them which yet certainly was much more dimmed and obscured in them by their idolatry and superstition then I hope it can be in any Christian soul by the unruliest passion Could ever any one speak more plainly and distinctly of it then the Pythagoreans and Stoicks have done who represent conscience not only as a guide and moderator of our actions but as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tutelary spirit or Angel or genius which never sleeps or dotes but is still present and employed in our behalf And this Arrian specifies to be the reasonable soul which he therefore accounts of as a part of God sent out of his own essence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piece or shread or as others more according to modest truth call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ray or beam of that invisible Sun by which our dull unactive frozen bodies after the fall were warmed and re-inlivened Now if any one shall make a diligent inquisition in himself shall as the Philosopher in his Cynical humour light a candle to no purpose or as the Prophet Jeremy seek and make hue and cry after a man through all Jerusalem and yet not meet with him if I say any body shall search for this light in himself and find all darkness within then will you say I have all this while possest you with some phansies and Ideas without any real profit to be received from them you will make that complaint as the women for our Saviour We went to seek for him and when we went down all was dark and emptiness They have taken him away and I know not where they have laid him Nay but the error is in the seeker not in my directions he that would behold the Sun must stay till the cloud be over he that would receive from the fire either light or warmth must take the pains to remove the ashes There be some encumbrances which may hinder the most active qualities in the world from working and abate the edge of the keenest metal In sum there is a cloud and gloom and vail within thee like that darkness on the face of the deep when the earth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without form and void Gen. i. 2. or like that at Lots door among the Sodomites or that of Aegypt thick and palpable and this have we created to our selves a sky full of tempestuous untamed affections this cloud of vapors have we exhaled out of the lower part of our soul our sensitive faculty and therewith have we so fill'd the air within us with sad black meteors that the Sun in its Zenith the height or pride of its splendor would scarce be able to pierce through it So that for to make a search for this light within thee before thou hast removed this throng and croud of passions which encompass it and still to complain thou canst not meet with it were to bring news that the Sun is gone out when a tempest hath only masked it or to require a candle to give thee light through a mud-wall Thou must provide a course to clear the sky and then thou shalt not need to
entreat the Sun to shine on thee especially if this cloud fall down in a showr if thou canst melt so thick a viscous meteor as those corrupt affections are into a soft rain or dew of penitent tears thou mayest then be confident of a fair bright Sun-shine For I dare promise that never humble tender weeping foul had ever this light quite darkned within it but could at all times read and see the will of God and the law of its creation not drawn only but almost engraven and woven into its heart For these tears in our eyes will spiritually mend our sight as whatever you see through water though it be represented somewhat dimly yet seems bigger and larger then if there were no water in the way according to that Rule in the Opticks Whatever is seen through a thicker medium seems bigger then it is And then by way of Use shall we suffer so incomparable a mercy to be cast away upon us Shall we only see and admire and not make use of it Shall we fence as it were and fortifie our outward man with walls and bulwarks that the inner man may not shine forth upon it Or shall we like silly improvident flies make no other use of this candle but only to singe and burn and consume our selves by its flame receive only so much light from it as will add to our hell and darkness 'T is a thing that the flintiest heart should melt at to see such precious mercies undervalued such incomparable blessings either contemned or only improved into curses Arrian calls those in whom this light of the soul is as I shewed you clouded and obscured 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dead trunks and carkasses of flesh and to keep such men in order were humane laws provided which he therefore calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 miserable hard laws to keep dead men in compass and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earth and Hell the places to which dead bodies are committed And certainly if so then by way of contrary all the life that we possess is but by obedience to this law within us and 't is no longer to be called life but either sleep or death or lethargy every minute that we move out of the circle of its directions There is not a step or moment in our lives but we have a special use and need of this law to manage us every enterprize of our thoughts or actions will yield some difficulty which we must hold up and read and judge of by this candle nay sometimes we have need of a glass or instrument to contract the beams and light of it or else 't would scarce be able to get through to our actions passion and folly and the Atheism of our lives hath so thickned the medium Wherefore in brief remember that counsel Mal. ii 15. Take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth the wife of his youth i. e. saith Jeroms gloss legem naturalem scriptam in corde the law of nature written in his heart which was given him in the womb as a wife and help to succour him Let us set a value on this polar Star within us which hath or should have an influence at least directions on all our actions let us encrease and nourish and make much of the sparks still warm within us And if Scholars and Antiquaries prize nothing so high as a fair Manuscript or ancient Inscription let us not contemn that which Gods own finger hath written within us lest the sin of the contempt make us more miserable and the mercy profit us only to make us unexcusable And so I come to my second part the sin of contemning or rejecting this law For this cause he gave them up 1. because the contempt of his law thus provoked him The guilt arising from this contempt shall sufficiently be cleared to you by observing and tracing of it not through every particular but in general through all sorts of men since the fall briefly reducible to these three heads 1. the Heathens 2. the Jews 3. present Christians and then let every man that desires a more distinct light descend and commune with his own heart and so he shall make up the observation The Heathens sin will be much aggravated if we consider how they reckon'd of this law as the square and rule and canon of their actions and therefore they will be inexcusable who scarce be ever at leisure to call to it to direct them when they had use of it The Stoick calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the promise that every man makes the obligation that he is bound in to nature at his shaping in the womb and upon which condition his reasonable soul is at his conception demised to him so that whosoever puts off this obedience doth as he goes on renounce and even proclaim his forfeiture of the very soul he lives by and by every unnatural that is sinful action 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 destroyes the natural man within him and by a prodigious regeneration is in a manner transubstantiate into a beast of the field Which conceit many of them were so possest with that they thought in earnest that 't was ordinary for souls to walk from men into Cocks and Asses and the like and return again at natures appointment as if this one contempt of the law of nature were enough to unman them and make them without a figure comparable nay coessential to the beasts that perish 'T were too long to shew you what a sense the wisest of them had of the helps that light could afford them so that one of them cryes out confidently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If all other laws were taken out of the world we Philosophers would still live as we do those directions within us would keep us in as much awe as the most imperious or severest Law-giver And again how they took notice of the perversness of men in refusing to make use of it for who saith one ever came into the knowledge of men without this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this knowledge and discretion of good and evil as old in him as his soul And yet who makes any use of it in his actions nothing so ordinary as to betray and declare that we have it by finding fault and accusing vices in other men by calling this justice this tyranny this vertue this vice in another whilst yet we never are patient to observe or discern ought of it in our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who ever spares to call injustice which he sees in another by its own name for his own reason tells him 't is so and he must needs give it its title But when the case concerns his own person when his passions counsel him against the law within him then is he content not to see though it shine never so bright about him and this was
one degree of their guilt that they observed the power of it in their speculations and made use of it also to censure and find fault with others but seldom or never strived to better themselves or straighten their own actions by it Again to follow our Apostles argument and look more distinctly upon them in their particular chief sins which this contempt produced in them you shall find them in the front to be Idolatry and superstition in the verses next before my Text When they knew God they glorified him not as God verse 21. But changed his glory into an Image c. verse 24. And then we may cry out with Theodoret in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the errors and vanities of their worship hath rased out all the characters that God anciently had written in them And can any man shew a greater contempt to a book or writing then to tear and scrape and scratch out every letter in it The first voice of nature in the creature which it uttered even in the cradle when it was an infant in the world and therefore perhaps as children are wont not so plainly and syllabically and distinctly as could have been wished is the acknowledgment and worship of one eternal God Creator of that soul we breath by and world we live in as one simple incorporeal everlasting essence and thus far no doubt could nature proclaim in the heart of every Gentile though it was by many of them either silenced or not hearkned to which if it were doubted of might be deduced out of the 19. verse of this chap. God hath shewed unto them c. Now this light shining not equally in all eyes some being more overspread with a film of ignorance stupid conditions and passions and the like yet certainly had enough to express their contempt of it so that they are without excuse ver 20. All that would ever think of it and were not blind with an habit of sottishness acknowledged a God yet none would think aright of him Some would acknowledge him a simple essence and impossible to be described or worship't aright by any Image as Varr◠an Heathen observes that the City and Religion of old Rome continued 170 years without any Images of the Gods in it Yet even they which acknowledged him simple from all corporeity and composition would not allow him single from plurality Jupiter and Saturn and the rest of their shole of Gods had already got in and possest both their Temples and their hearts In sum their understandings were so gross within them being fatned and incrassate with magical phantasms that let the truth within them say what it would they could not conceive the Deity without some quantity either corporeity or number and either multiply this God into many or make that one God corporeous And then all this while how plainly and peremptorily and fastidiously they rejected the guidance of nature which in every reasonable heart counselled nay proclaimed the contrary how justly they provoked Gods displeasure and disertion by their forsaking and provoking him first by their foolish imaginations I need not take pains to insist on Aristotle observes in his Rhet. that a man that hath but one eye loves that very dearly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sets a far higher price on it is much more tender over it then he that hath two so he that hath but one son cannot chuse but be very fond of him and the greatest lamentation that can be exprest is but a shadow of that which is for ones only Son as may appear Amos viii 10. Zach. xii 10. when 't is observed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only begotten and the beloved are taken in Scripture promiscuously as signifying all one And then what a price should the Heathen have set upon this eye of nature being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no other eye to see by having neither Scripture nor Spirit those two other glorious eyes of the world to enlighten them and therefore being sure by the contemning and depriving themselves of this light to turn all into horrible darkness 'T would strike a man into agony of pity and amazement to see a world of Gentiles for many years thus imprisoned and buried in a dungeon and grave of invincible idolatrous ignorance and from thence engaged in inevitable hell as 't is in the Book of Wisdom and all this directly by contemning this first and only begotten light in them which God set in the Firmaments of their hearts to have lead and directed them a more comfortable way And this or as bad is every unregenerate mans case exactly if they be not forewarned by their elder brethren the Heathens example as we shall anon have more leisure to insist on Secondly among the Jews under which name I contain all the people of God from Adam to Christ 't is a lamentable contemplation to observe and trace the law and the contempt of it like a Jacob at the heels supplanting it in every soul which it came to inhabit Those Characters of verum and bonum which in Adam were written in a statelier Copy and fairer Manuscript then our slow undervaluing conceits can guess at nay afterwards explain'd with a particular explication to his particular danger Of the tree of knowledge c. thou shalt not eat Gen. ii 17. Yet how were they by one slender temptation of the Serpent presently sullied and blurr'd so that all the aqua fortis and instruments in the world will never be able to wash out or erase that blot or ever restore that hand-writing in our hearts to the integrity and beauty of that Copy in its primitive estate And since when by that sin darkness was in a manner gone over their hearts and there remained in them only some tracks and reliques of the former structure the glory whereof was like that of the second Temple nothing comparable to the beauty of the first instead of weeping with a loud voice as many of the Priests and Levites did Ezra iii. 12. or building or repairing of it with all alacrity as all Israel did through that whole Book their whole endeavour and project was even to destroy the ruins and utterly finish the work of destruction which Adam had begun as being impatient of that shelter which it would yet if they would but give it leave afford them Thus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two sparks of that primitive sacred flame which came from Heaven still alive and warm though weak in them intended by God to direct them in his will and for ever set either as their funeral pile or their Ordeal fire their punishment or acquittal either as their Devil or their God to accuse or else excuse them were both in their practice neglected and slighted nay in a manner opprest and stifled For any natural power of doing good God knowes it