a vehement Fever take hold of him he remembers where he sweat and when he took cold where he walked too fast where his Casement stood open and where he was too bold upon Fruit or meat of hard digestion but he never remembers the sinful and naked Wantonnesses the profuse and wastful Dilapidations of his own body that have made him thus obnoxious and open to all dangerous Distempers Thunder from heaven burns his Barns and he says What luck was this if it had fallen but ten foot short or over my barns had been safe whereas his former blasphemings of the Name of God drew down that Thunder upon that house as it was his and that Lightning could no more fall short or over then the Angel which was sent to Sodom could have burnt another Citie and have spar'd that or then the Plagues of Moses and of Aaron could have fallen upon Goshen and have spar'd Egypt His Gomers abound with Manna he overflows with all for necessities and with all delicacies in this life and yet he findes worms in his Manna a putrefaction and a mouldring away of this abundant state but he sees not that that is because his Manna was gathered upon the Sabbath that there were profanations of the Name and Ordinances of God mingled in his means of growing rich To end all This is the true Use that we are to make of the long-suffering and patience of God That when his patience ends ours may begin That if he forbear others rather then us 21.7 we do not expostulate as in Job Wherefore do the wicked live and become old and grow mighty in power but rather if he chastise us rather then others Psal 44.18 say with David Our heart is not turned back neither have our steps declined from thy ways though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death And that if sentence be executed upon us we may make use of his judgement and if not we may continue and enlarge his mercies towards us AMEN A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Serm. 7. Novemb. 2. 1617. SERMON VII PSAL. 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God IN a Prison where men wither'd in a close and perpetual imprisonment In a Galley where men were chain'd to a laborious and perpetual slavery In places where any change that could come would put them in a better state then they were before this might seem a fitter Text then in a Court where every man having set his foot or plac'd his hopes upon the present happy state and blessed Government every man is rather to be presum'd to love God because there are no changes then to take occasion of murmuring at the constancie of Gods goodness towards us But because the first murmuring at their present condition the first Innovation that ever was was in Heaven The Angels kept not their first Estate Though as Princes are Gods so their well-govern'd Courts are Copies and representations of Heaven yet the Copy cannot be better then the Original And therefore as Heaven it self had so all Courts will ever have some persons that are under the Increpation of this Text That Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God At least if I shall meet with no conscience that finds in himself a guiltiness of this sin if I shall give him no occasion of repentance yet I shall give him occasion of praysing and magnifying that gracious God which hath preserv'd him from such sins as other men have fallen into though he have not For I shall let him see first The dangerous slipperiness the concurrence Divisio the co-incidence of sins that a habit and custom of sin slips easily into that dangerous degree of Obduration that men come to sin upon Reason they find a Quia a Cause a Reason why they should sin and then in a second place he shall see what perverse and frivolous reasons they assign for their sins when they are come to that even that which should avert them they make the cause of them Because they have no changes And then lastly by this perverse mistaking they come to that infatuation that dementation as that they loose the principles of all knowledge and all wisedom The fear of God is the beginning of wisedom and Because they have no changes they fear not God Part I. First then We enter into our first Part The slipperiness of habitual sin with that note of S. Gregorie Peccatum cum voce est culpa cum actione peccatum cum clamore est culpa cum libertate Sinful thougths produc'd into actions are speaking sins sinful actions continued into habits are crying sins There is a sin before these a speechless sin a whispering sin which no body hears but our own conscience which is when a sinful thought or purpose is born in our hearts first we rock it by tossing and tumbling it in our fancies and imaginations and by entertaining it with delight and consent with remembring with how much pleasure we did the like sin before and how much we should have if we could bring this to pass And as we rock it so we swathe it we cover it with some pretences some excuses some hopes of coveraling it and this is that which we call Morosam delectationem a delight to stand in the air and prospect of a sin and a loathness to let it go out of our sight Of this sin S. Gregory sayes nothing in this place but onely of actual sins which he calls speaking and of habitual which he calls crying sins And this is as far as the Schools or the Casuists do ordinarily trace sin To find out peccata Infantia speechless sins in the heart peccata vocatia speaking sins in our actions And peccata clamantia crying and importunate sins which will not suffer God to take his rest no nor to fulfil his own Oath and protestation He hath said As I live I would not the death of a sinner and they extort a death from him But besides these Here is a farther degree beyond speaking sins and crying sins beyond actual sins and habitual sins here are peccata cum ratione and cum disputatione we will reason we will debate we will dispute it out with God and we will conclude against all his Arguments that there is a Quia a Reason why we should proceed and go forward in our sin Et pudet non esse impudentes as S. Augustine heightens this sinful disposition Men grow asham'd of all holy shamefac'dness and tenderness toward sin they grow asham'd to be put off or frighted from their sinful pleasure with the ordinary terror of Gods imaginary judgements asham'd to be no wiser then S. Paul would have them to be mov'd or taken hold of by the foolishness of preaching or to be no stronger of themselves then so 1 Cor. 1.21 that we should trust to anothers taking of our infirmities Matth.
then contract them in thy self and consider Gods speedy execution upon thy soul and upon thy body and upon thy soul and body together Was not Gods judgement executed speedily enough upon thy soul when in the same instant that it was created and conceiv'd and infus'd it was put to a necessity of contracting Original sin and so submitted to the penalty of Adam's disobedience the first minute Was not Gods judgement speedily enough executed upon thy body if before it had any temporal life it had a spiritual death a sinful conception before any inanimation If hereditary diseases from thy parents Gouts and Epilepsies were in thee before the diseases of thine own purchase the effects of thy licentiousness and thy riot and that from the first minute that thou beganst to live thou beganst to die too Are not the judgements of God speedily enough executed upon thy soul and body together every day when as soon as thou commitst a sin thou art presently left to thine Impenitence to thine Insensibleness and Obduration Nay the judgement is more speedy then so for that very sin it self was a punishment of thy former sins But though God may begin speedily yet he intermits again he slacks his pace and therefore the execution is not speedy As it is said of Pharaoh often Because the plagues ceased though they had been laid upon him Ingratum est cor Pharaonis Pharaoh's heart was hardned But first we see by that punishment which is laid upon Heli That with God it is all one to begin and to consummate his judgement When I begin I will make an end 1 Sam. 3.12 And when Herod took a delight in that flattery and acclamation of the people It is the voice of God and not of man Acts 12.22 the angel of the Lord smote him immediately the worms took possession of him though if we take Josephus relation for truth he died not in five days after Howsoever if we consider the judgements of God in his purpose and decree there they are eternal And for the execution thereof though the wicked sinner dissemble his sense of his torments and as Tertullian says of a persecutor Herminianus who being tormented at his death in his violent sickness cryed out Nemo sciat ne gaudeant Christiani Let no man know of my misery lest the Christians rejoyce thereat so these sinners suppress these judgements of God from our knowledge because they would not have that God that inflicts them glorified therein by us Yet they know their damnation hath never slept nor let them sleep quietly and in Gods purpose the judgement hath been eternal and they have been damned as long as the devil and that 's an execution speedy enough But because this appears not so evidently but that they may disguise it to the world and with much ado to their own Consciences Therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evil And so we pass to our third Part. Part III. This is that perversness which the Heathen Philosopher Epictetus apprehends and reprehends That whereas every thing is presented to us Cum duabus sausis with two handles we take it still by the wrong handle This is tortuositas serpentis The wryness the knottiness the entangling of the Serpent This is that which the Apostle takes such direct knowledge of Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of Gods bountifulness and long-suffering not knowing that it leads thee to repentance St. Chrysostome's comparison of such a sinner to a Vulture that delights onely in dead carcases that is in company dead in their sins holds best as himself notes in this particular that the Vulture perhorrescit fragrantiam unguenti He loaths and is ill affected with any sweet savour for so doth this sinner finde death in that soveraign Balm of the patience of God and he dies of Gods mercy Et quid infelicius illis qui bono odore moriuntur says S. Augustine In what worse state can any man be then to take harm of a good air But as the same Father addes Numquid quia mori voluisti malum fecisti odorem This indisposition in that particular man does not make this air an ill air and yet this abuse of the patience of God comes to be an infectious poyson and such a poyson as strikes the heart and so general as to strike the heart of the children of men and so strongly as that their hearts should be fully set in them to do evil First then what is this setting of the heart upon evil and then what is this fulness that leaves no room for a Cure When a man receives figures and images of sin into his Fancie and Imagination and leads them on to his Understanding and Discourse to his Will to his Consent to his Heart by a delightful dwelling upon the meditation of that sin yet this is not a setting of the heart upon doing evil To be surpris'd by a Tentation to be overthrown by it to be held down by it for a time is not it It is not when the devil looks in at the window to the heart by presenting occasions of tentations to the eye nor when he comes in at the door to our heart at the ear either in lascivious discourses or Satyrical and Libellous defamations of other men It is not when the devil is put to his Circuit to seek whom he may devour and how he may corrupt the King by his Council that is The Soul by the Senses But it is when by a habitual custom in sin the sin arises meerly and immediately from my self It is when the heart hath usurp'd upon the devil and upon the world too and is able and apt to sin of it self if there were no devil and if there were no outward objects of tentation when our own heart is become spontanea insania voluntarius daemon Such a wilful Madness Chrysost and such a voluntary and natural Devil to it self as that we should be ambitious though we were in an Hospital and licentious though we were in a wilderness and voluptuous though in a famine so that such a mans heart is as a land of such Gyants where the Children are born as great as the Men of other nations grow to be for those sins which in other men have their birth and their growth after their birth they begin at a Concupiscence and proceed to a Consent and grow up to Actions and swell up to Habits In this man sin begins at a stature and proportion above all this he begins at a delight in the sin and comes instantly to a defence of it and to an obduration and impenitibleness in it This is the evil of the heart by the mis-use of Gods grace to devest and lose all tenderness and remorse in sin Now for the Incurableness of this heart it consists first in this that there is a fulness It is fully set to do evil such a full heart hath no room for a
fixt the Almighty and immoveable God if it can be content to inquire after it self and take knowledge where it is and in what way it will finde the means of cleansing And so this second consideration The placing of this pureness in the heart enlarges it self also into the third branch of this part which is De Modo by what means this pureness is fix'd in the heart in which is involved the Affection with which it must be embrac'd Love He that loveth pureness of heart Both these then are setled Our heart is naturally foul Modus And our heart may be cleansed But how is our present disquisition Who can bring a clean thing out of filthiness There is not one Job 14.4 Adam foul'd my heart and all yours nor can we make it clean our selves Who can say I have made clean my heart There is but one way Prov. 20.9 a poor beggarly way but easie and sure to ask it of God And even to God himself it seems a hard work to cleanse this heart and therefore our prayer must be with David Cor mundum crea Create Psal 51.12 O Lord a pure heart in me And then comes Gods part not that Gods part begun but then for it was his doing that thou madest this prayer but because it is a work that God does especially delight in to build upon his own foundations when he hath disposed thee to pray and upon that prayer created a new heart in thee then God works upon that new heart and By faith purifyes it Act. 15.9 enables it to preserve the pureness as Saint Peter speaks He had kindled some sparks of this faith in thee before thou askedst that new heart else the prayer had not been of faith but now finding thee obsequious to his beginnings he fuels this fire and purifies thee as Gold and Silver in all his furnaces through Believing and Doing and suffering through faith and works and tribulation we come to this pureness of heart And truely he that lacks but the last but Tribulation as fain as we would be without it lacks one concoction one refining of this heart But in this great work the first act is a Renovation a new heart Coâ— Novâ—m and the other That we keep clean that heart by a continual diligence and vigilancy over all our particular actions In these two consists the whole work of purifying the heart first an Annihilating of the former heart which was all sin And then a holy superintendency over that new heart which God vouchsafes to create in us to keep it as he gives it clean pure It is in a word a Detestation of former sins and a prevention of future And for the first Chromakus Anno 390. Mundi corde sunt qui deposuere cor peccati That 's the new heart that hath disseised expelled the heart of sin There is in us a heart of sin which must be cast up for whilst the heart is under the habits of sin we are not onely sinful but we are all sin as it is truly said that land overflow'd with sea is all sea And when sin hath got a heart in us it will quickly come to be that whole Body of Death Rom. 7.24 which Saint Paul complains of who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death when it is a heart it will get a Braine a Brain that shall minister all Sense and Delight in sin That 's the office of the Brain A Brain which shall send for the sinews and ligaments to tye sins together and pith and marrow to give a succulencie and nourishment even to the bones to the strength and obduration of sin and so it shall do all those services and offices for sin that the brain does to the natural body So also if sin get to be a heart it will get a liver to carry blood and life through all the body of our sinful actions That 's the office of the liver And whilst we dispute whether the throne and seat of the soul be in the Heart or Brain or Liver this tyrant sin will praeoccupate all and become all so as that we shall finde nothing in us without sin nothing in us but sin if our heart be possest inhabited by it And if it be true in our natural bodies that the heart is that part that lives first and dyes last it is much truer of this Cor peccati this heart of sin for this hearty sinner that hath given his heart to his sin doth no more foresee a Death of that sin in himself then he remembers the Birth of it and because he remembers not or understands not how his soul contracted sin by coming into his body he leaves her to the same ignorance how she shall discharge her self of sin when she goes out of that body But as his sin is elder then himself for Adams sin is his sin so is it longer liv'd then his body for it shall cleave everlastingly to his soul too God asks no more of thee but fili da mihi cor Prov. 23.26 My son give me thy heart Because when God gave it thee it was but one heart But since thou hast made it Cor cor as the Prophet speaks a Heart and a Heart a double Heart give both thy Hearts to God thy natural weakness and disposition to sin The inclinations of thy heart And thy habitual practise of sin The obduration of thy heart cor peccans and Cor peccati and he shall create a new heart in thee which is the first way of attaining this pureness of heart to become once in a good state to have as it were paid all thy former debts and so to be the better able to look about thee for the future for prevention of subsequent sins which is the other way that we proposed for attaining this pureness detestation of former habits watchfulness upon particular actions Till this be done till this Cor peccati Peccata Minutiora this hearty habitualness in sin be devested there is no room no footing to stand and sweep it a heart so filled with foulness will admit no counsel no reproof The great Engineir would have undertaken to have removed the World with his Engine if there had been any place to fix his Engine upon out of the World I would undertake by Gods blessing upon his Ordinance to cleanse the foulest heart that is if that Engine which God hath put into my hands might enter into his heart if there were room for the renouncing Gods Judgements and for the application of Gods mercies in the merits of Christ Jesus in his heart they would infallibly work upon him But he hath petrified his heart in sin and then he hath immur'd it wall'd it with a delight in sin and fortified it with a justifying of his sin and adds daily more and more out-works by more and more daily sins so that the denouncing of Judgement the application of Mercies
the soul it is the only means to recover thee But yet wert thou not better to make this grace thy diet then thy physick Wert thou not better to nourish thy soul with this grace all the way then to hope to purge thy soul with it at last This as a Diet the Apostle prescribes thee Whether you eat or drink do all to the glory of God He intends it farther there Whatsoever you do and farther then that in another place Whatsoever ye do in deed 1 Cor. 10.31 Col. 3.17 or in word do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Since there is no action so little but God may be glorified in it there is no action so little but the Devil may have his end in it too and may overthrow thee by a tentation which thou thinkest thy self strong enough to leap over And therefore if you have not given over all love of true weights and true measures weigh and measure your particular and indifferent actions before you do them and you shall see at least grains of iniquity in them and then this advantage will you have by this preconsideration and weighing your actions before hand that when you know there is sin in that action and know that nothing can counterpoise nor weigh down sin but onely the Blood of Christ Jesus you may know too that the Blood of Christ Jesus cannot be had before hand God gives no such non-obstantes no such priviledges no leave to sin no pardon for sin before it be committed And therefore if this premeditation of this action bring thee to see that there is sin in it it must necessarily put a tenderness a horror an aversion in thee from doing that to which being thus done with this preconsideration and presumption the Blood of thy Saviour doth not appertain To all your other Wares the baser and courser they are the greater weight and measure you are content to give to the basest of all to sin you give the lightest weight and scantest measure and you supply all with the excuses of the custom of the time that the necessity of your trade forces you to it else you should be poor and poorly thought of Beloved God never puts his children to a perplexity to a necessity of doing any sin how little soever though for the avoiding of a sin as manifold as Adams It is not a little request to you to beware of little sins It is not a little request and therefore I make it in the words of the greatest to the greatest for they are all one Head and Body of Christ to his Church Cant. 2.15 Capite vulpeculas Take us the little Foxes for they devour the Vines It is not a cropping not a pilling nor a retarding of the growth of the Vines but Demoliuntur as little as those Foxes are they devour the Vines they root them out Thy Soul is not so easily devoured by that Lion 1 Pet. 5.8 Apoc. 5.5 that seeks whom he may devour for still he is put to seek and does not always finde And thou shalt hear his roaring that is thou shalt discern a great sin and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah will come in to thy succor as soon as thou callest But take heed that thy Soul be not eaten up with vermin by those little sins which thou thinkst thou canst forbear and give over when thou wilt God punished the Egyptians most by little things Hailstones and Frogs and Grashoppers and Pharaohs Sorcerers Exod. 8.16 which did greater failed in the least in Lice It is true there is Physick for this Christ Jesus that receives thy greatest sins into his Blood can receive these Vermin too into his Bowels even at last but yet still make his Grace rather thy Diet by a daily consideration before hand then thy Physick at last It is ill to take two Physicks at once bodily and ghostly Physick too upon thy Death-bed The Apothecary and the Physician do well together the Apothecary and the Priest not so well Consult with him before at least consult with thine own Conscience in those little actions which either their own nature or the custom of the time or thy course of life thy calling and the example of others in thy calling made thee think indifferent For though it may seem a degree of flattery to preach against little sins in such a City as this where greater sins do abound yet because these be the materials and elements of greater sins and it is impossible to say where a Bowl will lie that is let fall down a Hill though it be let never so gently out of the hand and there is no pureness of heart till even these Cobwebs and Crums be swept away He that affects that pureness will consider well that of St. Augustine Psal 24.4 Interest inter rectum corde mundum corde a right heart and a clean heart is not all one He may have a right heart that keeps in the right way in the profession of the right Religion but he onely keeps his heart pure that watches all his steps even in that right way St. Augustine considers that question of David Psal 24.3 Quis ascendet and quis stabit Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place And he applies the answer Innocens manibus mundo corde He that hath clean hands and a pure heart Thus That he that hath clean hands clean from blood clean from bribery and oppression clean from fornication and such notorious sins Ascendet in montem He shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord he shall be admitted to all the benefits that the Christian Church can give him but onely he that hath a pure heart a care to glorifie God in a holy watchfulness upon all his particular actions to the exclusion of lesser sins stabit shall stand safe confident unshaken in his holy place even in the judgment of God clean hands justifie him to men a pure heart to God And therefore this pureness of heart is here wrapped up in the richest mantle in the noblest affection that the nature of man hath that is love For this is not onely a contentment an acquiescence a satisfaction a delight in this pureness of heart but love is a holy impatience in being without it or being in a jealousie that we are without it and it is a holy fervor and vehemency in the pursuit of it and a preferring it before any other thing that can be compared to it That 's love and therefore it deserves to be insisted upon now when in our order proposed at first from the thing it self that is required pureness and the seat and center of that pureness the heart and the way of this fixation of this pureness in the heart detestation of former habits of sins and prevention of future sins in a watchful consideration of all our actions before we do them We are come to that affection
that our Deeds are the true seals of that love which was also love Ambrose when it was in words But Ne quod luxuriat in flore attenuetur hebetetur in fructu lest that tree that blew early and plentifully blast before it knit second your good words with actions too It is the Husbandry and the Harvest of the righteous man as it gather'd in David The Mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom Psal 37.30 so we read it there it is in the Tongue in words onely The Vulgar hath it Meditatur He Meditates it so the heart is got in But the Original Hagah is noted to signifie fructificavit He brings forth fruits thereof and so the Hand is got in too And when that which is well spoken was well meant and hath been well expressed in Action that 's the Husbandry of the righteous Man then his Harvest is all in It is the way of God himself Philo Judaeus notes Exod. 20.18 that the people are said to have seen the noise and the voice of God because whatsoever God says it determines in Action If we may hear God we may see him what he says he does too Therefore from that example of God himself S. Gregory directs us We must says he shew our Love Et veneratione sermonis Ministerio largitatis what a fair respect in words and what a reall supply in Deeds Nay when we look upon our pattern that is God Tertullian notes well That God prevented his own speaking by Doing Benedicebat quae benefaciebat first he made all things Good and then he Blessed them that they might be better first he wrought and then he spoke And so Christs way and proceeding is presented to us too so far from not Doing when he speaks as that he Does before he speaks Acts 1.1 Luke ult 19. Christ began to Do and to Teach says S. Luke but first to Do. And He was mighty in Deeds and in words but first in Deeds We cannot write so well as our Copy to begin alwayes at Deeds as God and his Christ But yet let us labor to write so fair after it as first to afford comfortable words and though our Deeds come after yet to have them from the beginning in our intention and that we do them not because we promised but promise because we love to do good and love to lay upon our selves the obligation of a promise The instrument and Organ of Nature was the eye The Natural Man finds God in that he sees in the Creature The Organ of the Law which exalted and rectified Nature was the Hand Fac hoc vives perform the law and thou shalt live So also the Organ of the Gospel is the Ear for faith comes by hearing But then the Organ of faith it self is the Hand too A Hand that lays hold upon the Merits of Christ for my self and a Hand that delivers me over to the Church of God in a holy life and exemplary Actions for the edification of others So that All All from nature to Grace determines in Action in Doing good Sic facite Deo so do good to God in reall assisting his cause Sic facite Diis so do good to them whom God hath called Gods in reall secondings their religious purposes Sic facite Imaginibus Dei so do good to the Images of God in reall relieving his distressed Members as that you do all this upon that which is made the Reason of all in the second part of this text Because you are to be judged by the law of liberty Timor futuri judicii hujus vitae praedagogus Part. II. Basil Our School-Master to teach us to stand upright in the last judgement Judicium is the Meditation and the fear of that judgement in this life It is our School-master and School-master enough I said unto the fool Psal 75.5 thus and thus says David And I said unto the wicked thus and thus says he for says he God is the Judge He thought it enough to enlighten the understanding of the fool enough to rectifie the perverseness of the wicked if he could set God before them in that Notion as a Judge for this is one great benefit from the present contemplation of the future judgement that whosoever does truly and advisedly believe that ever he shall come to that judgement is at it now He that believes that God will judge him is Gods Commissioner Gods Delegate and in his name judges himself now Therefore it is a useful mistaking which the Romane Translation is fallen into in this Text in reading it thus Sicut incipientes judicari So speak ye and so Do as they upon whom the judgement were already begun For Qui timet ante Christi Tribunal praesentari Aug. He that is afraid to be brought to the last judgement hath but one Refuge but one Sanctuary Ascendat Tribunal Mentis suae constituat se ante seipsum Let him cite himself before himself give evidence himself against himself and so guilty as he is found here so innocent he shall stand there Let him proceed upon himself as Job did 9.28 and he is safe I am afraid of all my sorrow says he Afraid that I have not said enough against my self nor repented enough Afraid that my sorrows have not been sincere but mingled with circumstances of loss of health or honour or fortune occasioned by my sins and not onely not principally for the sin it self I am afraid of all my sorrowes sayes he but how much more then of my mirths and pleasures To judge our selves by the judgement of flatterers that depend upon us to judge our selves by the event and success of things I am enriched I am preferred by this course and therefore all 's well to judge our selves by example of others others do thus and why not I All these proceedings are Coram non Judice all these are literally Praemunire cases for they are appellations into forraigne Jurisdictions and forraigne Judicatures Onely our own conscience rectified is a competent judge And they that have passed the triall of that judgement do not so much rise to judgement at last as stand and continue in judgement their judgement that is their triall is passed here and there they shall onely receive sentence and that sentence shall be Euge bone serve Well done good and faithfull servant since thou didst enter into Judgement in the other world enter into thy Masters Joy in this But howso ever we be prepar'd for that judgement well or not well and howsoever the Judge be disposed towards us well or not well there is this comfort given us here that that judgement shall be per legem by a Law we shall be judged by a law of Liberty which is our second branch in this second part Per Legem The Jews that prosecuted the Judgement against Christ durst not do that without pretending a Law Habemus legem say they we have a law
liberty in God that God is at liberty to give this Gospel when he will and at liberty so as that he hath exempted no man how well soever he love him nor put on such fetters or manacles upon himself but that he can and will punish those that transgress this law So it is a Law of liberty to God nothing determined upon any man nothing concluded in himself lies so in Gods way as to hinder him from proceeding in his last judgement according to the keeping or breaking of this law still God is at his liberty And it is a Law of liberty in respect of us of us who are Christians and considered so Nobis either with a respect to the naturall man or with a respect to the Jew For if we compare the Christian with the naturall man the law of Nature layes the same obligation upon the naturall man as the Gospel does upon the Christian for the morall part thereof The Christian is no more bound to love God nor his neighbour then the naturall man is therein the naturall man hath no more liberty then the Christian so far their law is equal And then all the law which the Christian hath and the natural man hath not is a law of liberty to the Christian that is a law that gives him an ease and a readier way to perform those duties which way the natural man hath not and yet is bound to the same duties The natural man if he transgress that law which he finds in his own heart findes a condemnation in himself as well as the Christian therein he is no freer then the Christian But he finds no Sanctuary no Altar no Sacrifice no Church no such Liberties as the Christian does in the Gospel So the Gospel is a law of Liberty to us in respect of the natural man that it sets us at liberty restores us to liberty after we are falne into prison for debt into Gods displeasure for sin by affording us means of reconciliation to God again It is so also in respect of the Law given by God to the Jewes Judaei The Jewes had liberties that is refuge and help of sacrifices for sin which the natural man had not for if the natural man were driven and followed from his own heart that he saw no comfort of an innocency there he had no other liberties to flie to no comfort in any other thing no law no promise annexed to any other action not to Sacrifice as the Jewes or to Sacrament as the Christians but must irremediably sink under the condemnation of his own heart The Jew had this liberty a Law and a Law that involv'd the Gospel but then the Gospel was to the Jew but as a letter seal'd and the Jew was but as a servant who was trusted to carry the letter as it was seal'd to another to carry it to the Christian Now the Christian hath received this letter at the Jews hand and he opens it he sees the Jewes Prophesie made History to him the Jewes hope and reversion made possession and inheritance to him he sees the Jewes faith made matter of fact he sees all that was promised and represented in the Law performed and recorded in the Gospel and applied in the Church John 15.15 There Christ sayes Henceforth call I you not servants but friends Wherein consists this enfranchisement In this The servant knoweth not what his master doth the Jewes knew not that but I have called you friends sayes Christ for all things that I heard of my Father Hebr. 7.19 I have made known unto you The Law made nothing perfect sayes the Apostle Where was the defect he tells us that the old Covenant that is Galat 4.24 the Law gendreth to bondage What bondage he tells us that too when he says The Law was a Schoolmaster The Jews were as School-boys always spelling and putting together Types and Figure which things typified and figured how this Lamb should signifie Christ how this fire should signifie a holy Ghost The Christian is come to the University from Grammar to Logick to him that is Logos it self the Word to apprehend apply Christ himself and so is at more liberty then when he had onely a dark law without any comment with the natural man or onely a dark comment that is the Law with a dimme light ill eys as the Jews had for though the Jew had the liberty of a Law yet they had not the law of Liberty So the Gospel is a law of Liberty to God who is still at his liberty to give and take and to condemn according to that law and a law of liberty to us as we are compared to the natural man or to the Jew But when we confine our selves in our selves positively without comparison it is not such a law of liberty to us as some men have come too near saying That the sins of Gods children do them no harm that God sees not the sins of his children that God was no further out with David in his Adultery then in his Repentance But as to be born within the Covenant that is of Christian Parents does not make us Christians Aug. for Non nascitur sed renascitur Christianus the Covenant gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptisme and that Sacrament makes us Christians so this law of liberty gives us not a liberty to sin but a liberty from sin Noli libertate abuti ad libere peccandum sayes the same Father It is not a liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 but an impotency a slavery to sin Voluntas libera quae pia sayes he onely a holy soul is a free soul Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty Leo. sayes the Apostle And Splendidissimum in se quisque habet speculum Every man hath a glasse a chrystal into which though he cannot call up this spirit for the Spirit of God breathes where it pleases him yet he can see this spirit if he be there in that glasse every man hath a glasse in himselfe where he may see himselfe and the Image of God sayes that Father and see how like he is to that To dare to reflect upon my selfe and to search all the corners of mine owne conscience whether I have rightly used this law of liberty and neither been bold before a sinne upon presumption of an easie nor diffident after upon suspicion of an impossible reconciliation to my God this is Evangelical liberty So then to end all though it be a law of Liberty because it gives us better meanes of prevention before and of restitution after then the natural man or the Jew had yet we consider that it is this law of Liberty this law that hath afforded us these good helps by which we shall be judged and so though our case be better then theirs because we have this law of Liberty which they wanted yet our case growes heavier then theirs if we use it not aright
my Manners but occasionally and upon Emergencies this is a sickly complexion of the soul a dangerous impotencie and a shrewd and ill-presaging Crisis If Joshua had suspended his assent of serving the Lord till all his Neighbours and their Families all the Kings and Kingdoms about him had declar'd theirs the same way when would Joshua have come to that protestation I and my house will serve the Lord If Esther had forborn to press for an audience to the King in the behalf and for the life of her Nation till nothing could have been said against it when would Esther have come to that protestation I will go and if I perish I perish If one Milstone fell from the North-Pole and another from the South they would meet and they would rest in the Centre Nature would con-centre them Not to be able to con-centre those doubts which arise in my self in a resolution at last whether in Moral or in Religious Actions is rather a vertiginous giddiness then a wise circumspection or wariness When God prepar'd great Armies 1 Sam. 11.7 it is expressed always so Tanquam unus vir Israel went out as one man When God established his beloved David to be King 1 Chro. 12.38 it is expressed so Uno Corde He sent them out with one heart to make David king When God accelerated the propagation of his Church Act. 4.32 it is expressed so Una Anima The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul Since God makes Nations and Armies and Churches One heart let not us make one heart two in our selves a divided a distracted a perplexed an irresolved heart but in all cases let us be able to say to our selves This we should do God asks the heart a single heart an intire heart for whilst it is so God may have some hope of it But when it is a heart and a heart a heart for God and a Heart for Mammon howsoever it may seem to be even the odds will be on Mammons side against God because he presents Possessions and God but Reversions he the present and possessory things of this world God but the future and speratory things of the next So then the Cor nullum no heart Thoughtlesness Incogitancie Inconsideration and the Cor duplex the perplexed and irresolved and inconclusive heart do equally oppose this firmness and fixation of the heart which God loves and which we consider in this stem and stalk of Pythagoras his Symbolical Letter And so does that which we propos'd for the Third The Cor Vagum The Wandering the Wayfaring the Inconstant Heart Many times in our private Actions Cor Vagum and in the cribration and sifting of our Consciences for that 's the Sphere I move in and no higher we do overcome the first difficulty Inconsideration we consider seriously and sometimes the second Irresolution we resolve confidently but never the third Inconstancie if so far as to bring holy Resolutions into Actions yet never so far as to bring holy Actions into Habits That word which we read Deceitful The heart is deceitful above all things who can know it Jer. 17.9 is in the Original Gnacob and that is not onely Fraudulentum but Versipelle deceitful because it varies it self into divers forms so that it does not onely deceive others others finde not our heart the same towards them to day that it was yesterday but it deceives our selves we know not what nor where our heart will be hereafter Upon those words of Isaiah Redite prevaricatores ad Cor Return O sinner to thy heart Longe eos mittit says S. Gregory 46.8 God knows whither that sinner is sent that is sent to his own heart for Where is thy heart Thou mayst remember where it was yesterday at such an Office at such a Chamber But yesterdays affections are chang'd to day as to days will be to morrow They have despised my judgements so God complaines in Ezekiel 20.16 that is They are not mov'd with my punishments they call all natural accidents and then it follows They have polluted my sabbaths they are come to a more faint and dilute and indifferent way in their Religion Now what hath occasion'd this neglecting of Gods judgements and this diluteness and indifferency in the ways of Religion That that follows there Their hearts went after their Idols Went Whither Every whither for Hierom. Quot vitia tot recentes deos so many habitual Sins so many Idols And so every man hath some Idol some such Sin and then that Idol sends him to a further Idol that Sin to another for every Sin needs the assistance and countenance of another sin for disguise and palliation We are not constant in our Sins much less in our more holy Purposes We complain and justly of the Church of Rome that she would not have us receive in utraque in both kinds But alas who amongst us does receive in utraque so as that when he receives Bread and Wine he receives with a true sorrow for former and a true resolution against future sins Except the Lord of heaven create new hearts in us of our selves we have Cor nullum no heart all vanishes into Incogitancy Except the Lord of heaven con-centre our affections of our selves we have Cor Cor a cloven a divided heart a heart of Irresolution Except the Lord of heaven fix our Resolutions of our selves we have Cor vagum a various a wandering heart all smoaks into Inconstancie And all these three are Enemies to that firmness and fixation of the heart which God loves and we seek after But yet how variously soever the heart do wander and how little a while soever it stay upon one Object yet that that thy heart does stay upon Christ in this place calls thy Treasure for the words admit well that inversion Where your Treasure is there will your heart be also implies this Where your Heart is that is your Treasure And so we pass from this stem and stalk of Pythagoras his Symbolical Letter The firmness and fixation of the Heart to the Horns and Beams thereof A broader but on the left hand and in that the corruptible treasures of this world and a narrower but on the right hand and in that the everlasting Treasures of the next On both sides that that you fix your Heart upon is your Treasure For where your Heart is there is your Treasure also Thesaurus Literally primarily radically Thesaurus Treasure is no more but Depositum in Crastinum Provision for to morrow to shew how little a proportion a regulated minde and a contented heart may make a Treasure But we have enlarged the signification of these words Provision and To morrow for Provision must signifie all that can any way be compass'd and To morrow must signifie as long as there shall be a to morrow till time shall be no more But waving these infinite Extensions and Perpetuities is there any
wrapped up in a decree of his coming And therefore we are not carried upon the consideration of any decree or if any means of salvation higher or precedent to the comming of Christ for that were to antidate eternity it self So then this coming in the Text is the execution of that coming in the decree which is involv'd in St. Johns In principio and it is the performance of it coming which was enwrapped in the promise in Moses In principio 10.24 it is his actual coming in our flesh that coming of which Christ said in St. Luke many Prophets and Kings 13.17 and in St. Matth. many Prophets and righteous men desired to see these things which you see and have not seen them the prophets who in their very name were videntes seen saw not this comining thus Joh. 8.56 your Father Abraham rejoyced to see my day saith Christ and he saw it and was glad All times and all Generations before time was were Christs day but yet he cals this coming in the flesh especially his day because this day was a holy Equinoctial and made the day of the Jews and the day of the Gentiles equal and Testamenta copulat saies St. Chrisostome it binds up the two Testaments into one Bible for if the Partriarks had not desired to see this day and had not seen it in the strength of faith they and we had not been of one communion We have a most sure word of the Prophet 2 Pet. 1.19 saies the Apostle and to that we do well that we take heed but how far As unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts But now since this coming 1 Joh. 1.2 This light hath appeared and we have seen it and bear witness and shew it unto you Simon had an assurance in the Prophets and more immediatly then so in the vision but herein was his assurance and his peace established Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Luk. 2.19 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation The kingdom of Heaven was but a reversion to them and it is no more to us but to them it was a reversion as after a Grandfather and father two lives two comings of Christ before they would come to their state Christ must come first in the flesh and he must come again to Judgment To us and in our case one of these lives is spent Christ is come in the flesh and therefore as the earth is warmer an hour after the sun sets then it was an hour before the sun rose so let our faith and zeal be warmer now after Christ departing out of this world then theirs was before his coming into it and let us so rejoyce at this Ecce venit Rex tuus that our King our Missias is already come as that we may cherefully say veni Domine Jesu come Lord Jesu come quickly and be glad if at the going out of these dores we might meet him coming in the clouds In Mundum Thus far then he hath proceeded already venit He came and venit in mundum He came into the world it is not in mundam into so clean a woman as had no sin at all none contracted from her Parents no original sin for so Christ had placed his favours and his honors ill if he had favoured her most who had no need of him to dye for all the world and not for his mother or to dye for her when she needed not that hell is a strange imagination she was not without sin for then why should she have died for even a natural death in all that come by natural generation is of sin But certainly as she was a vessel reserved to receive Christ Jesus so she was preserved according to the best capacity of that nature from great and infections sins Mary Magdalen was a holy vessel after Christ had thrown the Divel out of her the Virgin Mary was much more so into whom no reigning power of the Devil ever entred in such an acceptation then Christ came per mundam in mundum by a clean woman into an unclean world And he came in a purpose as we do piously believe to manifest himself in the Christian Religion to all the nations of the world and therefore laetentur Insulae saies David The Lord reigneth let the Island rejoyce the Island who by reason of their situation provision and trading have most means of conveying Christ Jesus over the world He hath caâ—ried us up to heaven set us at the right hand of God shal not we endeavour to carry him to those nations who have not yet heard of his name shall we still brag that we have brought our clothes and our hatchets and our knives and bread to this and this value and estimation amongst those poor ignorant Souls and shall we never glory that we have brought the name and Religion of Christ Jesus in estimation amongst them shall we stay till other nations have planted a fals Christ among them and then either continue in our sloth or take more pains in rooting out a false Christ then would have planted the true Christ is come into the world we will do little if we will not ferry him over and propagate his name as well as our own to other Nations At least be sure that he is so far come into the world as that he become into thee Thou art but a little world a world but of a few spanns in length 〈◊〉 and yet Christ was sooner carried from east to west from Jerusalem to these parts then thou canst carry him over the faculties of thy Soul and Body He hath been in a pilgrimage towards thee long coming towards thee perchance 50 perchance 60 years and how far is he got into thee yet Is he yet come to thine eye Have they made Jobs Covenant that they will not look upon a Maid yet he is not come into thine ear still thou hast an itching ear delighting in the libellous defamation of other men Is he come to thine ear Art thou rectified in that sense yet voluptousness in thy tast or inordinateness in thy other senses keep him out in those He is come into thy mouth to thy tongue but he is come thither as a diseased person is taken into a spittle to have his blood drawn to have his flesh cauterized to have his bones sawd Christ Jesus is in thy mouth but in such exrecations in such blasphemies as would he Earthquaks to us if we were earth but we are all stones and rock obdurate in a senselesnes of those wounds which are inflicted upon our God He may be come to the skirts to the borders to an outward show in thine actions and yet not be come into the land into thy heart He entred into thee at baptism He hath crept farther and farther into thee in catechisms and other infusions of his doctrine into thee He
be King it is expressed so Uno corde 1 Cor. 12.3 8. He sent them out with one heart to make David King when God accelerated the propagation of his Church it is expressed so Una anima The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul Act. 4.32 Since God makes Nations and Armies and Churches one heart let not us make one heart two in our selves a divided a distracted a perplexed an irresolved heart but in all cases let us be able to say to our selves this we should doe God asks the heart a single heart an intire heart for whilst it is so God may have some hope of it but when it is a heart and a heart a heart for God and a heart for Mammon howsoever it may seem to be even the odds will seem to be on Mammons side against God because he presents possessions and God but reversions he the present and possessory things of this world God but the future and speratory things of the next so then the Cornullum no heart thoughtlesness incogitancy inconsideration and the Cor duplex the perplexed and irresolv'd and inconclusive heart do equally oppose this firmness and fixation of the heart which God loves which we consider in this stem stalk of Pithagoras his Symbolical letter and so doth that which we proposed for the third the Cor vagum the wandring the way faring the inconstant heart Many times in our private actions Cor vagum and in the cribration and sifting of our Consciences for thas's the Sphere I move in and no higher we doe overcome the first difficulty in consideration wee consider seriously And somtimes the second irresolution we resolve confidently But never the Third In constancy if so far as to bring holy resolutions into actions yet never so far as to bring holy actions into Habits Jer. 17.9 That word which we read Deceitfull The heart is deceitfull above all things who can know it is in the Originall Gnacob and that is not only fraudulentum but versipelle deceitfull because it varies it selfe into divers forms so that it does not only deceive others others finde not our heart the same towards them to day that it was yesterday but it deceives our selves we know not what nor where our heart will be hereafter Upon those words of Esai Redite praevaricatores ad Cor 46.8 Return O sinner to thy heart Longe eos mittit sayes Saint Gregory God knowes whether that sinner is sent that is sent to his own heart for where is thy heart Thou maist remember where it was yesterday at such an office at such a Chamber but yesterdaies affections are chang'd to day as to daies will be to morrow They have despised my Judgements so God complains in Ezechiel 20.16 that is They are not mov'd with my punishments they call all naturall accidents And then it followeth They have polluted my Sabaths they are come to a more faint and dilute and indifferent way in their Religion now what hath occasioned this neglecting of God's Judgements and this diluteness and indifferency in the wayes of Religion That that followes there Their hearts went after their Idols Went Whether every whither for Quot vitia tot recentes Deos Hier. so many habituall sinnes so many Idols and so every man hath some Idoll some such sinne and then that Idoll sends him to a further Idoll that sinne to another for every sinne needs the assistance and countenance of another sinne for disguise and palliation We are not constant in our sinnes much lesse in our more holy purposes we complain and justly of the Church of Rome that she would not have us receive in utraque in both kinds but alas who amongst us doth receive in utraque so as that when he receives bread wine he receives with a tru sorrow for former a tru resolution against future sins Except the Lord of heaven create new hearts in us of our selves we have Cor nullum no heart all vanishes into incogitancies except the Lord of heaven can center our affections of our selves we have Cor Cor a cloven a divided heart a heart of irresolution except the Lord of heaven fix our Resolutions of our selves we have Cor vagum a various a wandring heart all smoaks into inconstancy and all these three are enemies to that firmness and fixation of the heart which God loves and wee seeke after but yet how variously soever the heart doth wander and how little a while soever it stay upon one object yet that that thy heart doth stay upon Christ in this place calls thy Treasure for the words admit well that inversion Where your Treasure is there will your heart be also implies this where your heart is that is your Treasure And so we passe from this Stem and Stalke of Pythagoras his Symbolicall letter the firmness and fixation of the heart to the hornes and beames thereof a broader but on the left hand and in that the corruptible Treasures of this world and a narrower but on the right hand and in that the everlasting Treasures of the next On both sides that that you fix your heart upon is your Treasure for where your heart is there is your Treasure also Literally primarily radically Thesaurus treasure is no more Thesaurus but Depositum in Crastinum provision for to morrow to show how little a proportion a regulated minde and a contented heart may make a Treasure but we have enlarged the signification of these words Provision and to Morrow for provision must signifie all that can any way be compassed and to morrow must signifie as long as there shall be a to morrow till Time shall be no more but waiving these infinite extensions and perpetuities is there any thing of that nature as taking the word Treasure in the narrowest signification to be but provision for to morrow we are sure shall last till to morrow Sits any man here in an assurance that he shall be the same to morrow that he is now you have your Honors your Offices your Possessions perchance under Seal a Seal of Wax Wax that hath a tenacity an adhering a cleaving nature to shew the royall constancy of his heart that gives them and would have them continue with you and stick to you but then Wax if it be heat hath a melting a fluid a running nature to so have these Honors and Offices and Possessions to them that grow too hot too confident in them or too imperious by them for these Honors and Offices and Possessions you have a Seal a fair and just evidence of assurance but have they any Seal upon you any assurance of you till to morrow Did our blessed Saviour give day or any hope of a to morrow to that man to whom he said Fool this night they fetch away thy soul or is there any of us that can say Christ said not that to him But yet a Treasure every
to judg according to that law where he hath published that law But at liberty so as that it consists only in his good pleasure to what nation he will publish the gospel or in what nation he will continue the gospel or upon what persons he wil make this gospel effectual So Oecumenius who is no single witness nor speaks not alone but compiles the former Fathers places this liberty in God That God is at liberty to give this gospel where he will and at liberty so as that he hath exempted no man how well soever he love him nor put any such fetters or manicles upon himself but that he can and will punish those that transgresse this law So it is a law of liberty to God nothing determined upon any man nothing concluded in himself lies so in Gods way as to hinder him from proceeding in his last judgment according to the keeping or breaking of this law still God is at liberty And it is a law of liberty in respect of us Of us Nobis who are Christians and considered so either with a respect to the natural man or with a respect to the Jew for if we compare the Christian with the natural man the law of nature layes the same obligation upon the natural man as the gospel does upon the Christian for the moral part thereof The christian is no more bound to love God nor his neighbor than the natural man is therein the natural man hath no more liberty than the christian So far their law is equal And then all the law which the christian hath and the natural man hath not is a law of liberty to the christian that is a law that gives him an ease and a readier way to perform those duties which way the naturall man hath not and yet is bound to the same duties The natural man if he trangress that law which he finds in his own heart finds a condemnation in himself as well as the christian therein he is no freer than the christian But he finds no Sanctuary no Altar no Sacrifice no Church no such liberty as the Christian does in the Gospel So the Gospel is a law of liberty to us in respect of the natural man that it sets us at liberty restores us to liberty after we are fallen into prison for debt into Gods displeasure for sin by affording us means of reconciliation to God again It is so also in respect of the law given by God to the Jews Judaei The Jews had liberties that is refuge and help of sacrifices for sin which the natural man had not For if the natural man were driven and followed from his own heart that he saw no comfort of an innocency there he had no other liberties to fly to no comfort in any other thing no law no promise annexed to any other action not to Sacrifice as the Jew or to Sacrament as the Christian but must irremediably sink under the condemnation of his own heart The Jew had this liberty a law and a law that involv'd the Gospel But then the gospel was to the Jew but as a letter seal'd and the Jew was but as a servant who was trusted to carry the letter as it was seal'd to another to carry it to the Christian Now the Christian hath receiv'd this letter at the Jews hand and he opens it he sees the Jews prophecy made history to him The Jews hope and reversion made possession and inheritance to him he sees the Jews faith made matter of fact he sees all that was promised and represented in the law performed and recorded in the Gospel and applied in the Church there Christ sayes Jo. 15.15 Hence forth call I not you servants but friends wherein consists this enfranchisement In this The servant knoweth not what his master doth The Jews knew not that But I have called you friends sayes Christ For all things that I heard of my father I have made known unto you Heb. 7.17 The law made nothing perfect saies the Apostle Gal. 4.24 Where was the defect He tels us that The old covenant that is the law gendreth to bondage what bondage he tels us that too 3.23 when he sayes The law was a schoolmaster The Jews were as school-boys alwayes spelling and putting together types and figures with things typified and figured How this Lamb should signifie Christ how this fire should signifie a holy Ghost The Christian is come from school to the University from grammer to logick to him that is Logos it self the word to apprehend and apply Christ himself and so is at more liberty than when he had only a dark law without any comment with the natural man or only a dark comment that is the law with a dim light and ill eys as the Jews had for though the Jew had the liberty of alaw yet they had not the law of liberty So the gospel is a law of liberty to God who is still at his liberty to give and take and to condemn according to that law and a law of liberty to us as we are compared to the natural man or to the Jew But when we confine our selves in our selves positively without comparison it is not such a law of liberty to us as some men have come to a neer saying That the sins of Gods children do them no harm That God sees not the sins of his children that God was no farther out with David in his adultery than in his repentance but as to be born within the covenant that is of christian parents does not make us christians Aug. for Non nascitur sed renascitur Christianus The covenant gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptism and that sacrament makes us christians so this law of liberty gives us not a liberty to sin but a liberty from sin Noli libertate abuti ad libere peccandum sayes the same Father It is not a liberty but an impotency a slavery to sin Voluntas libera quae pia sayes he only a holy soul 2 Cor. 3.17 is a free soul Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty sayes the Apostle Leo. And Splendidissimum in se quisque habet speculum Every man hath a glass a crystal into which though he cannot cal up this spirit for the spirit of God breaths where it pleases him yet he can see this spirit if he be there in that glass Every man hath a glass in himself where he may see himself and the Image of God sayes that Father and see how like he is to that To dare to reflect upon my self and to search all the corners of mine own conscience whether I have rightly used this law of liberty and neither been bold before a sin upon presumption of an easie nor diffident after upon suspicion of an impossible reconciliation to my God this is Evangelical liberty So then to end all Though it be a law of liberty because it gives me
else this is their Attrition and this is their enough for salvation A sigh of the penitent a word of the Priest makes all clean and induces an absolute pureness Thus some of the Ancients went too far They would pardon no sin after Baptism These new Men go not far enough They pardon all too easily Old Physicians thought all hurts in the heart presently mortal These new Physitians can pare off some of the heart and give it to Idolatry for so they say that the worship due to God may be given to a creature so it be not Tanquam Deo as that the Creature is thereby professed to be God and yet they confess that that worship which they give to the creature is idolatry but not that Idolatry say they which is forbidden in the commandment which is that that Creature so worshipped with the worship due to God be also believed to be God and so truely I believe it will be hard to finde any Idolatry in the world That they that worship any thing in representation of God do believe advisedly that representation to be very God But the true reason why no hurt received in the heart can be healed is quia palpitat because it is in perpetual motion If the heart lay still as other parts do so that medicinal helps might be applied to it and admitted by it there were more hope Therefore when we lay such a weight upon the heart as may settle it fix it give it a reposedness and acquiescence though it do receive some wounds though it be touched with some tentations it may be cured But is there any such weight as should so settle the heart the soul of Man This love of Pureness is that weight August Amor est pondus animae sicut gravitas Corporis As the weight of my body makes that steady so this love of Pureness is the weight and the ballast of my soul and this weight stays the palpitation the variation the deviation of the heart upon other objects which variation frustrates all endeavors to cure it The love of this pureness is both the ballast and the frait to carry thee steadily and richly too through all storms and tempests spiritual and temporal in this life to the everlasting Jerusalem If you be come to this love this love of pureness of heart never to lock up your door till you have carried out your dust never to shut your eyes at night till you have swept your conscience and cast your foulness into that infinite sea of the blood of Christ Jesus which can contract no foulness by it never to open your eyes in the morning but that you look out to glorifie God in the rising of the Sun and in his other creatures and in the peace and safety of your house and family and the health of your children and servants But especially to look inward and consider whether you have not that night mingled poyson with Gods Physick whether you have not mingled sloth and laziness in that which God gave you for rest and refreshing whether you have not mingled licentiousness in that which God gave you for a remedy against fornication And then when you shall have found that sin hath been awake in you even when your bodies were asleep be sure you cast not the Spirit of God into a sleep in you when your bodies are awake but that you proceed vigilantly in your several wayes with a fore-knowledge that there is every where coluber in via A Snake in the way in every way that you can take in every course of life in every calling there is some of the seed of the old Serpent presents it self And then if by Gods infallible word explicated in his Church Psal 119.104 which is Lucerna pedibus vestris The word is the light but the Church is the Lanthorne 2 Sam. 22.29 it presents and preserves that light unto you and though it be said Lucerna Dominus Apoc. 21.23 Thou O Lord art my light God himself And Lucerna Agnus The Lamb Christ himself is your light And lucerna mandatum Prov. 6.23 John 5.35 The commandments of God are your light yet it is also said of Iohn Baptist Lucerna ardens he was a burning and a shining light The Ministry of the Gospel in the Church is your light If by the benefit of this light you consider every step you make weigh every action you undertake this is that love of Pureness that Pondus animae the setling of the heart that keeps it from evaporating upon transitory things and settles it so as that it becomes capable of that cure which God in his Church in the Absolution of sins and seals of Reconciliation exhibits to it To recollect and contract that which hath been said This pureness is not a purifying pureness to correct and reform those things that appertain not to us nor it is not such a purified pureness as makes us Canonize our selves and think others Reprobates for all this is no pureness at all neither is it the true pureness if it be not in the heart for outward good works not done to good ends are impure nor is this pureness of heart acquired by any other means then by discharging the heart in a detestation of former habits and a sedulous watchfulness in preventing future attempts nor can this pureness of heart though by these means attain'd to be preserved but by this noble and incorruptible affection of Love that puts a true value upon it and therefore prefers it above all other things And this was the first of the two marks which we found to be upon that person that should be capable of the Kings friendship He that loveth pureness of heart And the other is that he have by honest industry fitted himself in some way to be of use to the publike delivered in that phrase Grace of lips He that loveth pureness of heart There 's his honesty for the Grace of his lips There 's his sufficiency The King shall be his friend There 's his reward his preferment Gratia labiorum Ordinarily in Scriptures where this word lips is not taken naturally literally narrowly for that part of the body but transferred to a figurative and larger sense either it signifies speaking onely as in Solomon As righteous lips are the delight of Kings and the King loveth him that speaketh right things That is Him in whose Counsels Prov. 16.13 and in whose relations he may confide and rely or else it is enlarged to all manner of expressing a mans ability to do service to that State in which God hath made his station and by lips and fruits of lips is well understood the fruit of all his good labors and endeavors And so may those words be well interpreted With the fruit of a mans mouth shall his belly be satisfied and with the encrease of his lips shall he be filled 18.20 That is his honest labors in a lawful calling shall
because they thought all penalties of the Law evil They came lower to call that God which created the Upper Region of man the Brain and the Heart the presence and privy Chamber of Reason and consequently of Religion too a good God because good things are enacted there and that God that created the Lower Region of man the seat and scene of Carnal Desires and inordinate Affections an ill God because ill actions are perpetrated there But Idem Deus the same God that commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd in our hearts The God of the Law and the God of the Gospel too The God of the Brain and the God of the Belly too The God of Mercy and the God of Justice too is all one God In all the Scriptures you shall scarce find such a Demonstration of Gods Indignation such a severe Execution as that upon the Syrians when after the slaughter of one hundred thousand foot in the field in one day the walls of the City into which they fled fell and slew twenty seven thousand more The Armies of the Israelites were that day but as little flocks of kids says the Text there and yet those few slew one hundred thousand The Walls of Aphak promised succour and yet they fell and slew twenty seven thousand Now from whence proceeded Gods vehement anger in this defeat The Prophet tells the King the cause Because the Syrians have said The Lord is God of the hills but he is not God of the vallies The Israelites had beaten them upon the Hills and they could not attribute this to their Forces for they were very small they must necessarily ascribe it to their God but they thought they might find a way to be too hard for their God and therefore since he was a God of the mountains they would fight with him in the vallies But the God of Israel is Idem Deus one and the same God He is Jugatinus and Vallonia both as St. Aug. speaks out of the Roman Authors he is God of the mountains he can exalt and he is God of the Vallies he can throw down Our Age hath produced such Syrians too Men who after God hath declared himself against them many ways have yet thought they might get an advantage upon him some other way They begun in Rebellions animated persons of great blood and great place to rebels their Rebellions God frustrated Then they came to say to say in actions Their God is God of Rebellions a God that resists Rebellions but he is no God of Excommunications then they excommunicated us But our God cast those thunder-bolts those Bruta fulmina into the Sea no man took fire at them Then they said He is a God of Excommunications he will not suffer an Excommunication stollen out in his Name against his Children to do any harm but he is no God of Invasion let 's try him there Then they procured Invasion and there the God of Israel shew'd himself the Lord of Hosts and scattered them there Then they said he is the God of Invasions annihilates them but he is not the God of Supplantations surely their God will not pry into a Cellar he will not peep into a vault he is the God of water but he is not the God of fire let 's try him in that Element and in that Element they saw one another justly eviscorated and their bowels burnt All this they have said so as we have heard them for they have said it in loud Actions and still they say something in corners which we do not hear Either he is not a God of Equivocations and therefore let us be lying spirits in the mouthes of some of his Prophets draw some men that are in great Opinion of Learning to our side or at least draw the people into an Opinion that we have drawn them or else he is not the God of jealousie and suspition and therefore let us supple and slumber him with security and pretences and disguises But he is Idem Deus that God who hath begun and proceeded will persevere in mercy towards us Our God is not out of breath because he hath blown one tempest and swallowed a Navy Our God hath not burnt out his eyes because he hath looked upon a Train of Powder In the the light of Heaven and in the darkness of hell he sees alike he sees not onely all Machinations of hands when things come to action but all Imaginations of hearts when they are in their first Consultations past and present and future distinguish not his Quando all is one time to him Mountains and Vallies Sea and Land distinguish not his Ubi all is one place to him When I begin says God to Eli I will make an end not onely that all Gods purposes shall have their certain end but that even then when he begins he makes an end from the very beginning imprints an infallible assurance that whom he loves he loves to the end as a Circle is printed all at once so his beginning and ending is all one Make thou also the same interpretation of this Idem Deus in all the Vicissitudes and Changes of this World Hath God brought thee from an Exposititious Child laid out in the streets of uncertain name of unknown Parents to become the first foundation-stone of a great family and to enoble a posterity Hath God brought thee from a Carriers Pack upon which thou camest up to thy change of Foot-Cloathes and Coaches Hath God brought thee from one of these Blew-Coats to one of those Scarlet Gowns Attribute not this to thine own Industry nor to thine own Frugality for Industry is but Fortunes right hand and Frugality her left but come to Davids Acclamation Dominus Fecit It is the Lords doing That takes away the impossibility Psal 118.22 If the Lord will do it it may be it must be done but yet even that takes not away the wonder for as it follows there Domiminus fecit est Mirabile though the Lord have done it it is wonderful in our eyes to see whom and from whence and whither and how God does raise and exalt some men And then if God be pleas'd to make thee a Roll written on both sides a History of Adversity as well as of Prosperity if when he hath fill'd his Tables with the story of Mardoche a man strangely raised he takes his Spunge and wipes out all that and writes down in thee the story of Job a man strangely ruin'd all this is Idem Deus still the same God and the same purpose in that God still to bring thee nearer to him though by a lower way If then thou abound Luk. 12.19 come not to say with the over-secure man Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry and if thou want come not to that impatience of that Prophet Satis est Lord this is enough now take away my life Nay though the Lord lead thee
VVord of Life hath pour'd in this water into that great and Royal Vessel the Understanding and the love of his truth into the large and religious heart of our Soveraign and he pours it out in 100 in 1000 spouts in a more plentiful preaching thereof then ever your Fathers had it in both the ways of plenty plentiful in the frequency plentiful in the learned manner of preaching Illuxit he hath shin'd upon you before you were born in the Covenant in making you the Children of the seed of Abraham of Christian Parents Illuxit he hath shin'd upon you ever since you could hear and see had any exercise of natural and supernatural faculties and Illuxit by his grace who sends treasure in earthen vessels he hath shin'd upon some of you since you came hither now Consider onely now after all this shining that a Candle is as soon blown out at an open door or an open window as in the open street If you open a door to a Supplanter an Underminer a Whisperer against your Religion if there be a broken window a woman loaden with sin as the Apostle speaks and thereby dejected into an inordinate melancholy for such a melancholy as make Witches makes Papists too if she be thereby as apt to change Religions now as Loves before and as weary of this God as of that man if there be such a door such a window a wife a child a friend a sojourner bending that way this light that hath shin'd upon thee may as absolutely go out in thy house and in thy heart as if it were put out in the whole Kingdom Leave the publick to him whose care the publick is and who no doubt prepares a good account to him to whom onely he is accountable Look then to thine own heart and thine own house for that 's thy charge And so we have done with the action shining evidence and with the time Illuxit there is enough done already and we come to the place in Corde if God shine he shines in the heart Fecit Deus Coelum terram Non lego quod requieverit In Cordibus St. Ambros says that Father God made heaven and earth but I do not read that he tested when he had done that Fecit Solem Lunam as he pursues that Meditation He made the Sun and Moon and all the host of heaven but yet he rested not Fecit hominem Requievit When God had made man then he rested for when God had made man he had made his bed the heart of man to rest in God asks nothing of man but his heart and nothing but man can give the heart to God Gen. 8.21 And therefore in that sacrifice of Noah after the flood and often in the Scriptures elsewhere sacrifice is called Odor quietis God smelt a savour of rest in that which proceeds from a religious heart God rests himself and is well pleased Loqui ad Cor Jerusalem to speak to the heart of Jerusalem is ever the Scripture phrase from God to man to speak comfortably and loquiâ—e Corde to speak from the heart is an Emphatical phrase from man to God too He that speaks from his own heart speaks to Gods heart Did not our hearts burn within us while he opened the Scriptures say those two Disciples that went with Christ to Emaus And if your hearts do not so all this while you hear but me Luc. 24.32 and alas who or what am I you hear not God But let this light the love of the ordinary means of your salvation enter into your hearts and shine there and then as the fire in your Chymney grows pale and faints and out of countenance when the Sun shines upon it so whatsoever fires of lust of anger of ambition possessed that heart before it will yeild to this and evaporate But why do I speak all this to others Is it so clear a case that the hearts in this Text are the hearts of others of them that hear and not of our selves that speak That we are to see now for that 's the next and last Branch in this part who be the persons in Cordibus nostris in our hearts Nostris Certainly this word Nostris primarily most literally most directly concerns us Us the Ministers of Gods Word and Sacraments If we take Gods Word into our mouths and pretend a Commission a Calling for the calling of others we must be sure that God hath shin'd in our hearts There is vocatio intentionalis an intentional Calling when Parents in their intention and purpose dedicates their children to this service of God the Ministry even in their Cradle And this is a good and holy intention because though it bind not in the nature of a Vow yet it makes them all the way more careful to give them such an Education as may fit them for that profession And then there is Vocatio Virtualis when having assented to that purpose of my Parents I receive that publick Seal the Imposition of hands in the Church of God but it is Vocatio radicalis the calling that is the root and foundation of all that we have this light shining in our hearts the testimony of Gods Spirit to our spirit that we have this calling from above First then it must be a light not a calling taken out of the darkness of melancholy or darkness of discontent or darkness of want and poverty or darkness of a retir'd life to avoid the mutual duties and offices of society it must be a light and a light that shines it is not enough to have knowledge and learning it must shine out and appear in preaching and it must shine in our hearts in the private testimony of the Spirit there but when it hath so shin'd there it must not go out there but shine still as a Candle in a Candlestick or the Sun in his sphere shine so as it give light to others so that this light doth not shine in our hearts except it appear in the tongue and in the hand too First in the tounge to preach opportune and importune in season and out of season 2 Tim. 4.2 August that is opportune Volentibus importune Nolentibus preaching is in season to them who are willing to hear but though they be not though they had rather the Laws would permit them to be absent or that preaching were given over yet I must preach And in that sense I may use the words of the Apostle As much as in me is I am ready to preach the Gospel to them also that are at Rome at Rome in their hearts at Rome that is of Rome Rom. 1.15 reconciled to Rome I would preach to them if they would have me if they would hear me and that were opportune in season But though we preach importune out of season to their ends and their purposes yet we must preach though they would not have it done for we are debters to all because all are
of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts First He made light There was none before so first He shines in our hearts by his preventing Grace there was no light before not of Nature by which any man could see any means of salvation not of foreseen Merits that God should light his light at our Candle give us Grace therefore because he saw that we would use that Grace well He made light he infus'd Grace And then He made light first of all Creatures Ut innotescerent says St. Ambr. that by that light all his other Creatures might be seen which is also the use of this other light that shines in our hearts that by that light the love of the Truth and the glory of Christ Jesus all our actions may be manifested to the world and abide that tryal that we look for no other approbation of them then as they are justifiable by that light as they conduce to the maintenance of his Religion and the advancement of his glory not to consider actions as they are wisely done valiantly done learnedly done but onely as they are religiously done and ut abdicemus occulta dedecoris v. 2. as the Apostle speaks That we may renounce the hidden things of dishonesty and not walk in craftiness that is not sin therefore because we see our sins may be hid from the world For says St. Ambrose speaking of Gyges Ring a Ring by which he that wore it became invisible Da sapienti says that Father Give a wise man a man religiously wise that Ring and though he might sin invisibly before men he would not because God sees Nay Seneca even the moral man goes further then that in that point Though I knew says he hominem ignoraturum Deum ignosciturum that man should never know it and that God would forgive it I would not sin for the very soulness that is naturally in sin As God commanded light for the Manifestation of his creatures so he hath shin'd in our hearts that our actions might appear by that light How then made he that light Dixit he said it by his Word In which we note first the means Verbo he did it by his Word and by his Word the preaching of his Word doth he shine in our hearts And we consider also the dispatch how soon he made light Chrysost with a word Dixit id est summa cum celeritate fecit his work cost him but a word Tertul. and then Cogitasse jussisse est his word cost him but a thought So if we consider the dispatch of Christ Jesus in all his Miracles there went but a Tolle Take up thy bed and walk to the lame man but an Ephptata Be opened to the deaf man but a Quid vides What seest thou to the blind man If we consider his dispatch upon the thief on the cross how soon he brought him from reviling to glorifying and if any in this Auditory feel that dispatch of the Holy Ghost in his heart that whereas he came hither but to see he hath heard or if he came to hear the man he hath heard God in the man and is better at this Glass then he was at the first better now then when he came and will go away better then he is yet he that feels this must confess that as God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in his heart So that is by the same means by his Word and so that is with the same speed and dispatch Again Deus vidit lucem God saw the light he looked upon it he considered it This second light even Religion it self must be looked upon considered not taken implicitely nor occasionally not advantageously but seriously and deliberately and then assuredly and constantly And then vidit quod bona God saw that this light was good God did not see nor say that darkness was good that ignorance how near of kin soever they make it to Devotion was good nor that the waters were good that a flui'd a moving a variable an uncertain irresolution in matter of Religion is good nor that that Abyssus that depth which was before light was good that it is good to surround and enwrap our selves in deep and perplexing School-points but he saw that light evident and fundamental Articles of Religion were good good to clear thee in all scruples good to sustain thee in all tentations God knew that this light would be good before he made it but he did not say so till he saw it God knew every good work that thou shouldest doe every good thought that thou shouldest think to thy end before thy beginning for he of his own goodness imprinted this degree of goodness in thee but yet assure thy self that he loves thee in another manner and another measure then when thou comest really to doe those good works then before or when thou didst only conceive a purpose of doing them he calls them good when he sees them And when he saw this light this good light he separated all darkness from it When thou hast found this light to have shin'd in thy heart God manifested in his way his true Religion separate all darkness the dark inventions and traditions of men and the works of darkness sin and since thou hast light be night not thy self again with relapsing to either The comparison of these two lights created and infus'd light would run in infinitum I shut it up with this that as at the first production of light till light was made there was a general an universal darkness darkness over all but after light was once made there was never any universal darkness because there is no body bigg enough to shadow the whole Sun from the Earth so till this light shine in our hearts we are wholly darkness but when it hath truly and effectually shin'd in us and manifested to us the evidence of our Election in Gods eternal Decree howsoever there may be some Clouds some Eclipses yet there is no total darkness no total no final falling away of Gods Saints And in all these respects the comparison holds As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts and so we have done with all the branches of our second part which implies our Vocation here and we pass to the last Our Glorification hereafter As in our first part we consider'd by occasion of the first Creature light the whole Creation and so the Creation of man Part III. and in our second part by occasion of this shining in our hearts the whole work of our Vocation and proceeding in this world so in this third part by occasion of this glorious manifestation of God in the face of Christ Jesus which is intended principally by this Apostle of the manifestation of God in the Christian Church we shall also as far as that dazling glory will give us leave consider the perfect state of glory in the Kingdom of Heaven So
wherewith this inestimable pureness is to be embraced love He that loveth pureness of heart Love in Divinity is such an attribute or such a notion as designs to us one person in the Trinity and that person who communicates and applies to us Amor. the other two persons that is The Holy Ghost So that as there is no power but with relation to the Father nor wisdom but with relation to the Son so there should be no love but in the Holy Ghost from whom comes this pureness of heart and consequently the love of it necessarily For the love of this pureness is part of this pureness it self and no man hath it except he love it All love which is placed upon lower things admits satiety but this love of this pureness always grows always proceeds It does not onely file off the rust of our hearts in purging us of old habits but proceeds to a daily polishing of the heart in an exact watchfulness and brings us to that brightness Augustine Ut ipse videas faciem in corde alii videant cor in facie That thou maist see thy face in thy heart and the world may see thy heart in thy face indeed that to both both heart and face may be all one Thou shalt be a Looking-glass to thy self and to others too Mulieres The highest degree of other love is the love of woman Which love when it is rightly placed upon one woman it is dignified by the Apostle with the highest comparison Ephes 5.25 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved his Church And God himself forbad not that this love should be great enough to change natural affection Gen. 2.24 Relinquet patrem for this a man shall leave his Father yea to change nature it self caro una two shall be one Accordingly David expresses himself so in commemoration of Jonathan 2 Sam. 1.26 Thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of women A love above that love is wonderful Now this love between man and woman doth so much confess a satiety as that if a woman think to hold a man long she provides her self some other capacity some other title then meerly as she is a woman Her wit and her conversation must continue this love and she must be a wife a helper else meerly as a woman this love must necessarily have intermissions And therefore St. Jerome notes a custom of his time Jerome perchance prophetically enough of our times too that to uphold an unlawful love and make it continue they used to call one another Friend and Sister and Cousen Ut etiam peccatis induant nomina caritatis that they might apparel ill affections in good names and those names of natural and civil love might carry on and continue a work which otherwise would sooner have withered In Parables and in Mythology and in the application of Fables this affection of love for the often change of subjects is described to have wings whereas the true nature of a good love such as the love of this Text is a constant union But our love of earthly things is not so good as to be volatilis apt to fly for it is always groveling upon the earth and earthly objects As in spiritual fornications the Idols are said to have ears and hear not and eyes and see not so in this idolatrous love of the Creature love hath wings and flies not it flies not upward it never ascends to the contemplation of the Creator in the Creature The Poets afford us but one Man that in his love flew so high as the Moon Endymion loved the Moon The sphear of our loves is sublunary upon things naturally inferior to our selves Let none of this be so mistaken as though women were thought improper for divine or for civil conversation For they have the same soul and of their good using the faculties of that soul the Ecclesiastick story and the Martyrologies give us abundant examples of great things done and suffered by women for the advancement of Gods glory But yet as when the woman was taken out of man God caused a heavy sleep to fall upon man Gen. 2.22 and he slept so doth the Devil cast a heavy sleep upon him too When the woman is so received into man again as that she possesses him fills him transports him I know the Fathers are frequent in comparing and paralleling Eve the Mother of Man and Mary the Mother of God But God forbid any should say That the Virgin Mary concurred to our good so as Eve did to our ruine It is said truly That as by one man sin entred and death Rom. 5.12 so by one man entred life It may be said That by one woman sin entred and death and that rather then by the man for 1 Tim. 2.14 Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression But it cannot be said in that sense or that manner that by one woman innocence entred and life The Virgin Mary had not the same interest in our salvation as Eve had in our destruction nothing that she did entred into that treasure that ransom that redeemed us She more then any other woman and many other blessed women since have done many things for the advancing of the glory of God and imitation of others so that they are not unfit for spiritual conversation nor for the civil offices of friendship neither where both tentation at home and scandal abroad may truly be avoided I know St. Jerome in that case despised all scandal and all malicious mis-interpretations of his purpose therein rather then give over perswading the Lady Paula to come from Rome to him and live at Jerusalem But I know not so well that he did well in so doing A familiar and assiduous conversation with women will hardly be without tentation and scandal St. Jerome himself apprehended that scandal tenderly and expresses it passionately Sceleratum me putant omnibus peccatis obrutum The world takes me for a vicious man more sceleratum for a wicked a facinorous man for this and obrutum surrounded overflowed with all sins Versipellem lubricum mendacem satanae arte decipientem They take me to be a slippery fellow a turn-coat from my professed austerity a Lyar an Impostor a Deceiver yet though he discerned this scandal and this inconvenience in it he makes shift to ease himself in this Nihil aliud mihi objicitur nisi sexus meus They charge me with nothing but my sex that I am a man Et hoc nunquam objicitur nisi cum Hierosolymam Paula proficiscitur nor that neither but because this Lady follows me to Jerusalem He proceeds farther That till he came acquainted in Paulas house at Rome Omnium penè judicio summo sacerdotio dignus decernebar every man thought me fit to be Pope every man thought reverently of him till he used her house St. Jerome would fain have corrected their mis-interpretations and slackned the