to bear any slavish yoak had a tyrannical meaning in his words But in this Text as in one of those Tables in which by changing the station and the line you use to see two pictures you have a good picture of a good King and of a good subject for in one line you see such a subject as Loves pureness of heart and hath grace in his lips In the other line you see the King gracious yea friendly to such a subject He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend The sum of the words is that God will make an honest man acceptable to the King for some ability which he shall employ to the publike Him that proceeds sincerely in a lawful calling God will bless and prosper and he will seal this blessing to him even with that which is his own seal his own image the favor of the King He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend We will not be curious in placing these two pictures nor considering which to consider first As he that would vow a fast till he had found in nature whether the Egge or the Hen were first in the world might perchance starve himself so that King or that subject which would forbear to do their several duties Serm. 24. till they had found which of them were most necessary to one another might starve one another for King and subjects are Relatives and cannot be considered in execution of their duties but together The greatest Mystery in Earth or Heaven which is the Trinity is conveyed to our understanding no other way then so as they have reference to one another by Relation as we say in the Schools for God could not be a father without a Son nor the Holy Ghost Spiratus sine spirante As in Divinity so in Humanity too Relations constitute one another King and subject come at once and together into consideration Neither is it so pertinent a consideration which of them was made for others sake as that they were both made for Gods sake and equally bound to advance his glory Here in our Text we finde the subjects picture first Divisio And his Marks are two first Pureness of Heart That he be an honest Man And then Grace of lips that he be good for something for by this phrase Grace of lips is expressed every ability to do any office of society for the Publike good The first of these Pureness of heart he must love The other that is Grace of lips that is other Abilities he must have but he must not be in love with them nor over-value them In the Kings picture the principal marke is That he shall be friendly and gracious but gracious to him that hath this Grace of lips to him that hath endeavored in some way to be of use to the Publike And not to him neither for all the grace of his lips for all his good parts except he also love pureness of heart but He that loveth pureness of heart There 's the foundation for the grace of his lips There 's the upper-building the King shall be his friend In the first then which is this Pureness of heart we are to consider Rem sedem Modum what this Pureness is Part. 1. Puritas Then where it is to be lodged and fixed In the heart and after that the way and means by which this Pureness of heart is acquired and preserved which is implyed and notified in that Affection wherewith this pureness of heart is to be embraced and entertained which is love For Love is so noble so soveraign an Affection as that it is due to very few things and very few things worthy of it Love is a Possessory Affection it delivers over him that loves into the possession of that that he loves it is a transmutatory Affection it changes him that loves into the very nature of that that he loves and he is nothing else For the first Pureness it self It is carried to a great heighth Res. for our imitation God knows too great for our imitation when Christ bids us be perfect Mat. 5.48 even as our father which is in heaven is perfect As though it had not been perfectness enough to be perfect as the Son upon earth was perfect he carries us higher Be perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Son upon Earth Christ Jesus had all our infirmities and imperfections upon him hunger and weariness and hearty sorrow to death and that which alone is All Mortality Death it self And though he were Innocence it self and knew no sin yet there was no sin that he knew not for all our sins were his He was not onely made Man and by taking by Admitting though not by Committing our sins as well as our nature sinful Man but he was made sin for our sakes And therefore though he say of himself sicut ego John 15.10 Keep my Commandements even as I have kept my fathers Commandements yet still he refers all originally to the Father and because he was under our infirmities and our iniquities he never says though he might well have said so sicut ego Be pure be perfect as I am perfect and pure but sicut Pater be pure as your Father in heaven is pure Hand to hand with the Father Christ disclaims himself Mat. 26.39 disavows himself Non sicut ego Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt O Father We are not referr'd for the pattern of our purity though we might be safely to him that came from heaven The Son but to him which is in heaven The Father Nor to the Sun which is in heaven the Sun that is the pure fountain of all natural light nor to the Angels which are in heaven though they be pure in their Nature and refined by a continual emanation of the beams of glory upon them from the face of God but the Father which is in heaven is made the pattern of our purity That so when we see the exact purity which we should aim at and labor for we might the more seriously lament and the more studiously endeavor the amendment of that extreme and enormous fouleness and impurity in which we who should be pure as our Father which is in heaven is pure exceed the dog that turns to his own vomit again 2 Pet. 2.22 and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire Yet there is no foulness so foul so inexcusable in the eys of God nor that shall so much aggravate our condemnation as a false affectation and an hypocritical counterfeiting of this Purity There is a Pureness a cleanness imagin'd rather dream't of in the Romane Church by which as their words are the soul is abstracted not onely à Passionibus but â Phantasmatibus not onely from passions and perturbations but from the ordinary way of coming to
hast nothing of thine own Hoc est nec ingratum esse nec superbum therein thou art neither unthankful to God nor proud of thy self As he that hath no other good parts but money and locks up that or employs it so as that his money feeds upon the Commonwealth and does not feed it that it lies gnawing and sucking blood by Usury and does not make blood by stirring and walking in Merchandize is an unprofitable member in State so he that hath good parts and smothers them in a retired and useless life is inexcusable in the same measure When therefore men retire themselves into Cloysters and Monasteries when they will not be content with St. Pauls diminution to be changed from Saul to Paulus which is little but will go lower then that little by being called minorites less then little and lower then that minims least of all and yet finde an order less then that as they have done nullani nothing at all Exore suo out of their own mouths they shall be judged and that which they have made themselves here God shal make them in the world to come nullanos nothing at all Paulum sepultae distatinertiae celata virtus It is all one as if he had no grace of lips if he never have the grace to open his lips to bury himself alive is as much wrong to the State as if he kill himself Every man hath a Politick life as well as a natural life and he may no more take himself away from the world then he may make himself away out of the world For he that dies so by withdrawing himself from his calling from the labours of mutual society in this life that man kills himself and God calls him not Morte morietur He shall die a double death an Allegorical death here in his retiring from his own hand and a real death from the hand of God hereafter In this case that Vae soli Wo be unto him that is alone hath the heaviest weight with it when a man lives so alone as that he respects no body but himself his own ease and his own ends For to sum up all concerning this part the Subject as our principal duty is Pureness of heart towards God and to love that intirely earnestly so the next is the Grace of lips Ability to serve the Publick which though we be bound not to love it with a pride we are bound not to smother with a retiring And then for these endowments for being Religious and serviceable to the State The King shall be our friend Which is our second general part to which in our order proposed we are now come As it is frequent and ordinary in the Scriptures when the Holy Ghost would express a superlative Rev nota superlativi the highest degree of any thing to express it by adding the name of God to it as when Saul and his company were in such a dead sleep as that David could take his Spear and pot of water from under his head It is called Tardemath Jehovah sopor Domini The sleep of the Lord The greatest sleep that could possess a man and so in many other places fortitudo Domini and timor Domini signifie the greatest strength and the greatest fear that could fall upon a man so also doth the Holy Ghost often descend from God to Gods Lieutenant and as to express superlatives he does sometimes use the name of God so doth he also sometimes use the name of King For Reges sunt summi Regis defluxus says that Author who is so antient that no man can tell when he was Trismegistus God is the Sun and Kings are Beams and emanations and influences that flow from him Such is the manner of the Holy Ghost expressing himself in Esai Tyrus shall be forgotten seventy years Esay 23.15 according to the years of one King that is during the time of any one mans life how happy and fortunate soever And so also the miserable and wretched estate of the wicked is likewise expressed Job 18.14 His hope shall be rooted out of his dwelling and shall drive him to the King of fears that is to the greatest despair ad Regem interituum says the Vulgar to the greatest destruction that can be conceived So that in this first sence Amicitia Regis the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is a superlative friendship a spreading a delating an universal friendship He that is thus qualified all the world shall love him Rex qui fortunatus So also by the name of King both in the Scriptures and in Josephus and in many more prophane and secular Authors are often designed such persons as were not truly of the rank and quality of Kings but persons that lived in plentiful and abundant fortunes and had all the temporal happinesses of this life were called Kings And in this sence the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is utilis amicitia all such frinds as may do him good God promises that to men thus endow'd and qualified belongs the love and assistance that men of plentiful fortunes can give great Persons great in Estate great in Power and Authority shall confer their favours upon such men and not upon such as only serve to swell a train always for ostentation sometimes for sedition much less shall they confer their favours upon sycophants and buffoons least of all upon the servants of their vices and voluptuousness but they whom God hath made Kings in that sence Masters of abundant fortunes shall do good to them only who have this pureness of heart and grace of lips Rex Ipse But if these words be not only intended of the King literally That he shall do good to men thus endowed and qualified but extended to all men in their proportion that all that are able should do good to such persons yet this Text is principally intended of the King himself and therefore is so expressed singularly and emphatically The King shall be his friend As God hath appointed it for a particular dignity to his Spouse the Church That Kings shall be their foster-fathers Esa 49.23 and Queens their nurses so God hath designed it for a particular happiness of religious and capable men that they may stand before the King and hear his wisdom as the Queen of Sheba observed of the servants of Solomon 1 Reg 10. 9. and pronounced them happy for that This then is a happiness belonging to this pureness and this grace that the King shall not only nor absolutely rely upon the information of others and take such a measure and such a character of men as the good or bad affections of others will present unto him but he shall take an immediate knowledge of them himself he shall observe their love to this pureness of heart and their grace of lips and so become their friend Unto which of the Angels said
God at any time Amicus Thou art my son says the Apostle Indeed to none of them Heb. 1.5 it was a name peculiar to Christ Unto what man did God ever say Thou art my friend only to one to Abraham Israel and Jacob Esa 41.8 2 Chr. 20.7 and the seed of Abraham my friend Jehosaphat before this had taken knowledge of this friendship between God and Abraham Didst thou not give this Land to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever And so doth St. James also record this friendship after Abraham believed and he was called the friend of God James 2.23 God never called any man friend but him to whom he gave a change of name and honorable additions He called him Abraham a name of dilatation Patrem multitudinum a Father of multitudes he made him able to do good to others for he did not only say Blessed shalt thou be for that might be blessed of others or blessed amongst others but it is not Eris Benedictus but Eris Benedictio Thou shalt be a Blessing Gen. 12.2 a Blessing to others I will make thee a blessed instrument of conveying my Blessings to other men That 's Gods friendship and the highest preferment that man is capable of in this life to extend men beyond themselves and make them his Instruments to others Step we a step lower from God to the King for as Kings have no example but God so according to that example they are reserv'd and sparing in affording that name of friend to any For as moral men have noted friendsship implies some degrees of equality which cannot stand between King and Subject But this is the encouragement to this loving of pureness and this seeking the grace of lips that this is the true and the only way to that friendship of the King which is intended in the word of this Text. The word is Nagnah and Nagnah hath such a latitude in the Scriptures as may well give satisfaction to any Subject For Nagnah signifies Amare to love and so the King shall love this man But we have known cases in which Kings have been fain to disguise and dissemble their love out of a tenderness and lothness to grieve them whom they have lov'd before and so the King may love this man and he never the better Therefore this word Nagnah signifies sociare to draw him nearer to associate him to him in Counsels and other ways and always to afford him easie accesses unto him but we have known cases too in which Kings though they have opened one Cabinet their Affections yet they have shut up another their Judgements and their last purposes even from them whom they have drawn near them For Kings naturally love to be at their liberty and it is not only a greatness but an ease to be able to disavow an instruction upon the mis-understanding of the Minister and Instrument Therefore against such intricacies and intanglings this Dagnah signifies Docere The King shall teach him inform him directly candidly ingenuously apertly without any perplexities or reservations And who would not purifie his heart and add grace to his lips that he might taste this friendship of the King to be loved by him and feel the influences of his affection to be drawn near him and made partaker of his consultations to be taught by him and carried all the way with clearness and without danger of mistaking And who would not imploy the thoughts of a pure heart and the praises of graceful lips in thanksgivings to Almighty God who hath bless'd us with such times as that such Subjects have found such a King Neither is this encouragement to this Pureness and this Grace in our Text only in the benignity of the King which yet were a just provocation that the King would consider such men before others for all Kings do not always so but it is in his duty it is in his office for as our Translators have expressed it we see it is not said The King will be but The King shall be his friend it is not an arbitrary but a necessary thing God in whose hands the Kings heart is Non Arbitrarium and who only can give Law and Precept to the King hath said The King shall be his friend Neither hath God left the King at that largenesse that he shall seem to be his friend and do for him as though he were his friend but yet not be so Etiam simulare Philosophiam Philosophia est It is a degree of wisdom to seem wise Veritas Amicitiae To be able to hold the world in opinion that one is great with the King is a degree of greatness And we have some Tales and Apophthegms to that purpose when men have been suiters to the King for that favour that they might bid him but good morrow in his ear thereby to put impressions in the beholders that they had a familiar interest in him But when the grounds of this Royal friendship are true and solid Purenss of heart and Grace of lips the friendship must be so too And then the ground being good as it is not said the King shall seem to be but he shall be so it is not said the king shall have been but he shall be he shall be so still he shall continue this friendship but yet but so long as this Pureness and this Grace continues which produced this friendship in him Duratio Amicitiae For all this great frame the friendship of the King turns upon this little hinge this particle this monosyllable His The King shall be His His friend And to whom hath that His relation To him and him only that hath both Pureness of heart and Grace of lips Neither truth in Religion nor abilities to serve the Publique must be wanting in him to whom the King shall be a friend For for the first sincerity in Religion St. Ambrose expressed that Ambros Offic. l. 2.22 and the other too elegantly An idoneum putabo qui mihi det consilium qui non dat sibi Can I think him fit to give me counsel that mis-counsels himself in the highest business Religion Mihi eum vacare credam qui sibi non vacat Shall I think that he will study me that neglects himself His best self the soul it self And then for his doing good to the Publick L. 1. 8. Officium ab Efficiendo Efficium dicendum says he He only is fit for an Office that knows how to execute it he must have pureness of heart for his end for he that proposes not that end will make an ill end And he must have this Grace of lips which implies that civil-wiswisdom which as the Philosopher notes versatur circa media perveniendi He must know wherein he may be useful and beneficial to others thankful to God profitable to others that 's his circumference and then his centre here is the love of the King For these destroy not one
not unrevealed Mysteries not Matter of State nor of wit nor of carnal delight but onely the fear of God Nonne times Deum And for a third part we shall see his Auditory the Church that he preached to he contented himself with a small Parish he had most care of their souls that needed him most he applies himself to the conversion of his fellow-Thief He works upon those sins which he knew to have been in himself And he works upon him by all these steps First Nonne Tu howsoever the rest do revile Christ because they stay behinde and look for a temporal Messias to make this life sweet and glorious unto them yet what 's that to thee thou art to have no part in it howsoever they be art not thou affected Nonne Tu times If the bitterness of thy torment cannot let thee love though thy stomach will not come down to kiss the rod and embrace correction yet Nonne Tu times Doth it not imprint a fear in thee Nonne times Deum Though the Law have done the worst upon thee Witnesses Advocates Judges Executioners can put thee in no more fear yet Nonne times Deum Fearest not thou God who hath another Tribunal another execution for thee especially when thou knowest thy condemnation and such a condemnation Eandem the same condemnation And that this condemnation is not imminent but now upon thee when thou art now under the same condemnation fearest thou not God The first thing then is the powerfulness and the dispatch of the grace of God in the conversion of them who are ordained unto it In Judas the Devil entred into him when Christ gave him the Sop Part. I. Gratia but the Devil had put the treason in his heart before The tentation had an Inchoation and it had a Meditation and it had a Consummation In Saint Paul in his conversion God wrought upon him all at once without any discontinuance He took him at as much disadvantage for grace to work upon as could be breathing threatnings and slaughters against the disciples and provided with Commissions for that persecution But suddainly there came a light and suddainly a stroke that humbled him and suddainly a voice and suddainly a hand that led him to Damascus After God had laid hold upon him he never gave him over till he had accomplished his purpose in him Whether this grace which God presents so be resistible or no whether man be not perverse enough to resist this grace why should any perverse or ungracious man dispute Hath any man felt a tentation so strong upon himself but that he could have given another man reason enough to have kept him from yeilding to that tentation Hath any man felt the grace of God work so upon him at any time as that he hath concurred fully intirely with that grace without any resistance any slackness Now fashions in men make us doubt new manners and new terms in Divinity were ever suspicious in the Church of God that new Doctrines were hid under them Resistibility and Irresistibility of grace which is every Artificers wearing now was a stuff that our Fathers wore not a language that pure antiquity spake not They knew Gods ordinary proceeding They knew his Common Law and they knew his Chancery They knew his chief Justice Moses that denounced his Judgements upon transgressors of the Law and they knew his Chancellor Christ Jesus into whose hands he had put all Judgements to mitigate the rigor and condemnation of the Law They knew Gods law and his Chancery But for Gods prerogative what he could do of his absolute power they knew Gods pleasure Nolumus disputari It should scarce be disputed of in Schools much less serv'd in every popular pulpit to curious and itching ears least of all made table-talke and houshold-discourse Christ promises to come to the door and to knock at the door and to stand at the door and to enter if any man open Revel 3. but he does not say he will break open the door it was not his pleasure to express such an earnestness such an Irresistibility in his grace so Let us cheerfully rely upon that His purpose shall not be frustrated his ends shall not be prevented his ways shall not be precluded But the depth of the goodness of God how much good God can do for man yea the depth of the illness of man how much ill man can do against God are such seas as if it be not impossible at least it is impertinent to go about to sound them Now what God hath done Fac. and will do for the most haynous offenders we consider in this man First as he was execrable to men a Thief and then as he execrated God a Blasphemer Now this Thief is ordinarily taken and so in all probability likely to have been a bloody thiefe a Murderer for for theft onely their laws did not provide so severe an execution as hanging upon the Cross We finde that Judas who was a thief made it a law upon himself by executing himself to hang a thief but it was not the ordinary justice of that countrey First then he had been an enemy to the well-being of mankinde by injuring the possession and the propriety which men have justly in their goods as he was a thief and he had been an enemy to the very being of mankinde if he were a Murderer And certainly the sin of theft alone would be an execrable a detestable sin to us all but that it is true of us all Si videbas furem Psal 50. currebas cum eo we see that all men are theeves in their kindes in their courses but yet we know that we our selves are so too We may have heard of Princes that have put down Stewes and executed severe Lawes against Licentiousness but that may have been to bring all the Licentiousness of the City into the Court We may have heard Sermons against Usury and this may have been that they themselves might put out their money the better We may cry out against Theft that we may steale the safelier For we steale our preferment if we bring no labour nor learning to the Service and we steale our Learning if we forsake the Fountaines and the Fathers and the Schooles and deale upon Rhapsoders and Common placers and Method-mongers Let him that is without sin cast the first stone let him that hath stolne nothing apprehend the thief rather let him that hath done nothing but steale apprehend the thief and present himself there where this thief found mercy at the Crosse of Christ Every man hath a sop in his mouth his own robberies will not let him complain of the theft of excessive Fees in all professions of the theft of preventing other mens merit with their money which is a robbing of others and themselves too of the theft of stealing Affections by unchaste sollicitations or of the great theft of stealing of Hearts from Princes and Souls from God by insinuations of
on put him not off again Christ is not only the Stuff but the Garment ready made he will not be translated and turn'd and put into new fashions nor laid up in a Wardrobe but put on all day all the days of our life though it rain and rain blood how foul soever any persecution make the day we must keep on that Garment the true profession of Christ Jesus follow not these men in their severity to exclude men from salvation in things that are not fundamental nor in their facility to disguise and prevaricate in things that are The second danger and our last Branch of this last Part is Enquire not after their gods c. Ignorance excuses no man What is curiosity Augustine Qui scire vult ut sciat He that desires knowledge only that he may know or be known by others to know he who makes not the end of his knowledge the glory of God he offends in curiosity says that Father But that is only in the end But in the way to knowledge there is curiosity too In seeking such things as man hath no faculty to compass unrevealed mysteries In seeking things which if they may be compassed yet it is done by indirect means by Invocation of Spirits by Sorcery In seeking things which may be found and by good means but appertain not to our profession all these ways men offend in curiosity It is so in us in Church-men si Iambos servemus metrorum silvam congerimus Hieron If we be over-vehemently affected or transported with Poetry or other secular Learning And therefore St. Hierom is reported himself to have been whipt by an Angel who found him over-studious in some of Cicero's Books This is curiosity in us and it is so in you if when you have sufficient means of salvation Preached to you in that Religion wherein you were Baptized you enquire too much too much trouble your self with the Religion of those from whose superstitions you are already by Gods goodness rescued remember that he who desired to fill himself with the husks was the Prodigal It was Prodigality and a dangerous expence of your constancy to open your self to temptation by an unnecessary enquiring into impertinent controversies We in our profession may embrace secular Learning so far as it may conduce to the better discharge of our duties in making the easier entrance and deeper impression of Divine things in you You may inform your selves occasionally when any scruple takes hold of you of any point of their Religion But let your study be rather to live according to that Religion which you have then to enquire into that from which God hath delivered you for that 's the looking back of Lots wife and the distemper and distaste of the children of Israel who remembred too much the Egyptian diet If you will enquire whether any of the Fathers of the Primitive Church did at any time pray for any of the dead you shall be told and truly that Augustine did that Ambrose did but you shall not so presently be told how they deprehended themselves in an infirmity and collected and corrected themselves ever when they were so praying If you enquire whether any of them speak of Purgatory you shall easily finde they do but not so easily in what sense when they call the calamities of this life or when they call the general Conflagration of the world Purgatory If you enquire after Indulgences you may finde the name frequent amongst them but not so easily finde when and how the Relaxations of Penances publickly enjoyned were called Indulgences nor how nor when Indulgences came to be applyed to souls departed If thou enquire without a Melius Inquirendum without a through Inquisition which is not easie for any man who makes it not his whole study and profession thou maist come to think holy men have pray'd for the dead why may not I Holy men speak of Purgatory and Indulgences why should I abhor the names or the things And so thou maist fall into the first snare it hath been done therefore it may be done and into another after It may be done therefore it must be done When thou art come to think that some men are saved that have done it thou wilt think that no man can be saved except he do it From making infirmities excusable necessary which is the bondage the Council of Trent hath laid upon the world to make Problematical things Dogmatical and matter of Disputation matter of Faith to bring the University into Smithfield and heaps of Arguments into Piles of Faggots If thou enquire further then thy capacity enables thee further then thy calling provokes thee How do those Nations serve their gods thou maist come to say as the Text says in the end Even so will I do also To end all embrace Fundamental Dogmatical evident Divinity That is express'd in Credendis in the things which we are to believe in the Creed And it begins with Credo in Deum Belief in God and not in man nor traditions of men And it is expressed in petendis in the things which we are to pray for in the Lords Prayer and that begins with Sanctificetur nomen tuum Hallowed be thy Name not the name of any And it is expressed in Agendis in the things which we are to do in the Commandments whereof the first Table begins with that Thou shalt have no other gods but me God is a Monarch alone not a Consul with a Colleague And the second Table begins with Honor to Parents that is to Magistrates to lawful Authority Be therefore always fat from disobeying lawful Authority resist it not calumniate it not suspect it not for there is a libelling in the ear and a libelling in the heart though it come not to the tongue or hands to words nor actions If it be possible saith the Apostle as much as in you lies have peace with all men with all kind of men Obedience is the first Commandment of the second Table and that never destroys the first Table of which the first Commandment is Keep thy self that is those that belong to thee and thy house intire and upright in the worship of the true God not only not to admit Idols for gods but not to admit Idolatry in the worship of the true God A SERMON Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords of the Council and other Honorable Persons 24. Mart. 1616. It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown and his Majesty being then gone into Scotland SERMON XXIIII Prov. 22.11 He that loveth Pureness of Heart for the grace of his Lipps the King shall be his friend THat Man that said it was possible to carve the faces of all good Kings that ever were in a Cherry-stone had a seditious and a trayterous meaning in his words And he that thought it a good description a good Character of good subjects that they were Populus natus ad servitutem A people disposed
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
enrich him As therefore those words Vers 16. A mans gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men are not always understood of Gifts given in nature of Bribes or gratifications for access to great persons but also of Gifts given by God to men that those Gifts and good parts make them acceptable to great persons so is not Grace of lips to be restrained either to a plausible and harmonious speaking appliable to the humor of the hearer for that 's excluded in the first part the root and fountain of all Pureness of heart for flattery cannot consist with that nor to be restrained to the good Offices and Abilities of the tongue onely though they be many but this Grace of lips is to be enlarged to all declarations and expressings and utterings of an ability to serve the Publick All that is Grace of lips And in those words of Osea We render the Calves of our lips is neither meant as the Jews say 14.13 Those Calves which we have promised with our lips and will pay in sacrifice then when we are restor'd to our Land of promise again Nor are those Calves of our lips only restrained to the Lip-service of Praise Heb. 14.15 and Prayer though of them also St. Paul understand them but they include all the sacrifices of the New Testament and all ways by which man can do service to God so here the Grace of lips reaches to all the ways by which a man in civil functions may serve the Publick And this Grace of lips in some proportion in some measure every man is bound in conscience to procure to himself he is bound to enable himself to be useful and profitable to the Publick in some course in some vocation Since even the Angels which are all Spirit be yet administring Spirits and execute the Commissions and Ambassages of God and communicate with men should man who is not made all soul but a composed creature of body and soul exempt himself from doing the offices of mutual society and upholding that frame in which God is pleased to be glorified Since God himself who so many millions of ages contented himself with himself in Heaven yet at last made this world for his glory shall any man live so in it as to contribute nothing towards it Hath God made this World his Theatre ut exhibeatur ludus deorum Plato that man may represent God in his conversation and wilt thou play no part But think that thou only wast made to pass thy time merrily and to be the only spectator upon this Theatre Is the world a great and harmonious Organ where all parts are play'd and all play parts and must thou only sit idle and hear it Is every body else made to be a Member and to do some real office for the sustentation of this great Body this World and wilt thou only be no member of this Body Thinkest thou that thou wast made to be Cos Amoris a Mole in the Face for Ornament a Man of delight in the World Because thy wit thy fashion and some such nothing as that hath made thee a delightful and acceptable companion wilt thou therefore pass in jeast and be nothing If thou wilt be no link of Gods Chain thou must have no part in the influence and providence derived by that successively to us Since it is for thy fault that God hath cursed the Earth and that therefore it must bring forth Thorns and Thistles wilt not thou stoop down nor endanger the pricking of thy hand to weed them up Thinkest thou to eat bread and not sweat Hast thou a prerogative above the common Law of Nature Or must God insert a particular clause of exemption for thy sake Oh get thee then this grace of lips be fit to be inserted and be inserted into some society and some way of doing good to the Publick I speak not this to your selves you Senators of London but as God hath blessed you in your ways and in your Callings so put your children into ways and courses too in which God may bless them The dew of Heaven falls upon them that are abroad Gods blessings fall upon them that travel in the world The Fathers former labors shall not excuse their Sons future idleness as the Father hath so the Son must glorifie God and contribute to the world in some setled course And then as God hath blessed thee in the grace of thy lips in thy endeavors in thy self so thy sons shall grow up as the Son of God himself did in grace and favour of God and man As God hath blessed thee in the fruit of thy Cattel so he shall bless thee in the fruit of thy Body and as he hath blessed thee in the City so he shall bless thee in the Field in that Inheritance which thou shalt leave to thy Son Whereas when children are brought up in such a tenderness and wantonness at home as is too frequent amongst you in this City they never come to be of use to the State nor their own Estates of any longer use to them That Son that comes to say My Father hath laboured and therefore I may take mine ease will come to say at last My Savior hath suffered and therefore I may take my pleasure My Savior hath fasted and therefore I may riot My Savior hath wept enough and therefore I may be merry But as our Savior requires Cooperarios that we be fellow-workers with him to make sure our salvation so if your Sons be not Cooperarii Labourers in some course of life to make sure their Inheritance though you have been called wise in your generation that is rich in your own times yet you will be called fools in your generation too that is ignominious and wretched in your posterity In a word he that will be nothing in this world shall be nothing in the next nor shall he have the Communion of Saints there that will not have the Communion of good men here As much as he can he frustrates Gods Creation God produced things of nothing and he endeavours to bring all to nothing again and he despises his own immortality and glorification for since he lives the life of a beast he shews that he could be content to die so too accepit animam in vano he hath received a soul to no purpose This grace of lips then this ability to do good to the Publick we are bound to have but we are not commanded to love it as we are the pureness of heart we must love to have it but we must not be in love with it when we have it But since the holy Ghost hath chosen to express these abilities in this word Grace of lips that intimates a duty of utterance and declaration of those abilities which he hath Habere te agnoscere ex te nihil habere To let it appear in the use of them that thou hast good parts and to confess that thou
another Religion and Prudence As that love which Christ bare to St. John who lay in his bosome towards whom Christ had certainly other humane and affectionate respects then he had to the rest made him not the less fit to be an Apostle and an Evangelist nor the great Office of Apostleship made him not unfit for that love that Christ bare him so both these endowments Pureness of heart and Grace of lips are not only compatible but necessary to him to whom the King shall be a friend And both these doth God require if we consider the force of the Original words when he says Bring ye men of wisdom and known among the Tribes and I will make them Rulers over you For Deut 1.13 that addition known among the Tribes excludes reserv'd men proud and inaccessible men though God do not intend there popular men yet he does intend men acceptable to the people And when David comes to a lustration to a sifting of his Family as he says He that walketh in a perfect way he shall serve me expressing in that this Pureness so intending to speak of this Grace of lips Psal 101.6 which is an ability to be useful to others for which nothing makes a man more unfit then Pride and harshness and hardness of access he scarce knows how to express himself and his indignation against such a man Him says he that hath a proud look and a high heart I cannot and there he ends abruptly He does not say v. 5. I cannot work upon him I cannot mend him I cannot pardon him I cannot suffer him but only I cannot and no more I cannot tell what to do with him I cannot tell what to say of him and therefore I give him over Him that hath a proud look and a high heart I cannot Whatsoever his grace of lips be how good soever his parts he doth not only want the principal part Pureness of heart but he cannot be a fit instrument of that most blessed union between Prince and Subject if his proud look and harsh behavior make him unacceptable to honest men It was says the Orator to the Emperor Theodosius Execratio postrema an Execration and an expressing of their indignation beyond which they could not go when speaking of Tarquin Libidine praecipitem Avaritia caecum furore vaecordem crudelitate immanem vocarunt superbum They thought it enough to call a man that was licentious and covetous and furious and bloody proud Et putaverunt sufficere convitium they thought themselves sufficiently revenged upon him for all their grievances and that they had said as much as any Orator in an Invective any Poet in a Satyr could say when they had imprinted that name upon his memory Tarquin the Proud To those therefore that have insinuated themselves into the friendship of the King without these two endowments If the King hath always Christ for his example Matth. 22.12 if he say to them Amice quomodo intrasti Friend how came you in If you had not this wedding garment on or if this wedding garment were not your own but borrowed by an Hypocritical dissimulation Amice quomodo intrasti though you be never so much my friend in never so near place to me I must know how you got in for I have but two doors indeed not two doors but a gate and a wicket a greater and an inferior way A religious heart and useful parts if you have not these if you fear not God and if you study not as I do the welfare of my people you are not come in at my gate that is Religion nor at my wicket that is the good of my people And therefore how near so ever you be crept I must have a review an inquiry to know quomodo intrasti how you came in But for those which have these two endowments Religion and care of the publick we have the word of the King of Kings of God himself in the mouth of the wisest King King Solomon The King shall be his friend And the King hath Christ himself still for his example Who loved them whom he loved to the end For as long as the reason upon which he grounds his word remains Demesthenes Regis verbum Regi Rex est the Kings word the Kings love the Kings favor Regi Rex est is a King upon the King and bindes him to his word as well as his subjects are bound to him To recollect and fasten these pieces these be the benefits of this pureness of heart and grace of lips first That the King shall take an immediate and personal knowledge of him and not be misled by false characters or false images of him by any breath that would blast him in the Kings ear And then tnat he shall take it to be his Royal Office and Christian duty to do so that to those men whom he findes so qualified he shall be a friend in all those acceptations of the word in our Text Amabit he shall love them impart his affections to them Sociabit he shall associate them to him and impart his consultations unto them And Sociabit again He shall go along with them and accompany their labors and their services by the seal of his countenance and ratification And Docebit He shall instruct them clearly in his just pleasure without intangling or snaring them in perplexities by ambiguous directions This is the capacity required to be religious and useful this is the preferment assured The King shall be his friend and this is the compass of our Text. Now Beloved as we are able to interpret some places of the Revelation better then the Fathers could do Accommodatio ad Diem because we have seen the fulfilling of some of the Prophecies of that Book which they did but conjecture upon so we can interpret and apply this Text by way of accommodation the more usefully because we have seen these things performed by those Princes whom God hath set over us We need not that Edict of the Senate of Rome Ut sub titulo gratiarum agendarum That upon pretence of thanking our Princes for that which we say they had done Boni principes quae facerent recognoscerent Good Princes should take knowledge what they were bound to do though they had not done so yet We need not this Circuit nor this disguise for Gods hand hath been abundant towards us in raising Ministers of State so qualified and so endowed and such Princes as have fastned their friendships and conferred their favors upon such persons We celebrate seasonably opportunely the thankful acknowledgment of these mercies this day This day which God made for us according to the pattern of his first days in the Creation where Vesper mane dies unus the evening first and then the morning made up the day for here the saddest night and the joyfullest morning that ever the daughters of this Island saw made up this day Consider the tears of
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
where there was not one dead p. 285 SERMON XXII A Sermon Preached at the Temple Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish p. 298 SERMON XXIII A Sermon Preached at Lincolns-Inne Ascension-day 1622. Deut. 12.30 Take heed to thy self that thou be not snared by following them after they be destroyed from before thee and that thou inquire not after their gods saying How did these Nations serve their gods Even so will I do likewise p. 311 SERMON XXIV A Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords of the Council and other Honorable Persons 24 Mart. 1616. It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown and his Majesty being then gone into Scotland Prov. 22.11 He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend p. 322 SERMON XXV A Sermon Preached at the Spittle upon Easter-Monday 1622. 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ P. 357 SERMON XXVI Psal 68.20 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death from Death P. 397 A Lent-SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL February 20. 1617. SERMON I. Serm. 1. Luc. 23.40 Fearest not thou God being under the same condemnation THe Text it self is a Christning-Sermon and a Funeral-Sermon and a Sermon at a Consecration and a Sermon at the Canonization of himself that makes it This Thief whose words they are is Baptized in his blood there 's his Christning He dyes in that profession there 's his Funeral His Diocess is his Cross and he takes care of his soul who is crucified with him and to him he is a Bishop there 's his Consecration and he is translated to heaven there 's his Canonization We have sometimes mention in Moses his book of Exodus according to the Romane Translation Operis Plumarii of a kind of subtle and various workmanship imployed upon the Tabernacle for which it is hard to finde a proper word now we translate it sometimes Embroidery sometimes Needle-work sometimes otherwise It is evident enough that it was Opus variegatum a work compact of divers pieces curiously inlaid and varied for the making up of some figure some representation and likelyest to be that which in sumptuous buildings we use to call now Mosaick work for that very word originally signifies to vary to mingle to diversifie As the Tabernacle of God was so the Scriptures of God are of this Mosaick work The body of the Scriptures hath in it limbs taken from other bodies and in the word of God are the words of other men other authors inlaid inserted But this work is onely where the Holy Ghost is the Workman It is not for man to insert to inlay other words into the word of God It is a gross piece of Mosaick work to insert whole Apocryphal books into the Scriptures It is a sacrilegious defacing of this Mosaick work to take out of Moses Tables such a stone as the second Commandment and to take out of the Lords Prayer such a stone as is the foundation-stone the reason of the prayer Quia Tuum For thine is the kingdom c. It is a counterfeit piece of Mosaick work when having made up a body of their Canon-Law of the raggs and fragments torne from the body of the Fathers they attribute to every particular sentence in that book not that authority which that sentence had in that Father from whom it is taken but that authority which the Canonization as they call it of that sentence gives it by which Canonization and placing it in that book it is made equal to the word of God Thesaurus Catholicus It is a strange piece of Mosaick work when one of their greatest authors pretending to present a body of proofs for all controverted points from the Scriptures and Councels and Fathers for he makes no mention in his promise of the Mothers of the Church doth yet fill up that body with sentences from women and obtrude to us the Revelations of Brigid and of Katherine and such She-fathers as those But when the Holy Ghost is the workman in the true Scriptures we have a glorious sight of this Mosaick this various this mingled work where the words of the Serpent in seducing our first parents The words of Balaams Ass in instructing the rider himself The words of prophane Poets in the writings and use of the Apostle The words of Caiaphas prophesying that it was expedient that one should dye for all The words of the Divel himself Jesus I know and Paul I know And here in this text the words of a Thief executed for the breach of the Law do all concur to the making up of the Scriptures of the word of God Now though these words were not spoken at this time when we do but begin to celebrate by a poor and weak imitation the fasting of our Saviour Jesus Christ but were spoken at the day of the crucifying of the Lord of life and glory yet as I would be loath to think that you never fast but in Lent so I would be loath to think that you never fulfill the sufferings of Christ Jesus in your flesh but upon Goodfriday never meditate upon the passion but upon that day As the Church celebrates an Advent a preparation to the Incarnation of Christ to his coming in the flesh in humiliation so may this humiliation of ours in the text be an Advent a preparation to his Resurrection and coming in glory And as the whole life of Christ was a passion so should the whole life especially the humiliation of a Christian be a continual meditation upon that Christ began with some drops of blood in his infancy in his Circumcision though he drowned the sins of all mankinde in those several channels of Blood which the whips and nailes and spear cut out of his body in the day of his passion So though the effects of his passion be to be presented more fully to you at the day of his passion yet it is not unseasonable now to contemplate thus far the working of it upon this condemned wretch whose words this text is Division as to consider in them First the infallibility and the dispatch of the grace of God upon them whom his gracious purpose hath ordained to salvation how powerfully he works how instantly they obey This condemned person who had been a thief execrable amongst men and a blasphemer execrating God was suddainly a Convertite suddainly a Confessor suddainly a Martyr suddainly a Doctor to preach to others In a second consideration we shall see what doctrine he preaches not curiosities
speaking so here is no express precept for Doing The Holy Ghost saw there would be Doing enough business enough in Court for as silence and halfe silence whispering may have a loud voice so even undoing may be a busie Doing and therefore here 's onely a Rule to regulate our Doings too Sic facite So do ye And lastly as there is speaking enough even in silence and Doing enough even in undoing in Court So the Court is alwayes under judgement enough Every discontented person that hath miss'd his preferment though he have not merited it every drunkard that is over-heat though not with his own wine every conjecturing person that is not within the distance to know the ends or the ways of great Actions will Judge the highest Counsels and Executions of those Councels The Court is under judgement enough and they take liberty enough and therefore here is a rule to regulate our liberty A law of liberty So speak ye and c. But though for the more benefit of the present congregation we fix the first point of this Circle that is the principal purpose of the Holy Ghost upon the Court yet our Text is an Amphitheater An Amphitheater consists of two Theaters Our Text hath two parts in which all men all may fit and see themselves acted first in the obligation that is laid upon us upon us all Sic loquimini sic facite And then in the Reason of this Holy diligence and religious cautelousness Quia judicandi Because you are all to be judged by c. which two general parts the Obligation and the Reason flowing into many sub-divided branches I shall I think do better service both to your understandings and to your memory and to your Affections and Consciences to present them as they shall arise anon in their order then to pour them out all at once now Part I. Loquimini First then in our first part we look to our Rule in the first Duty our speaking Sic loquimini So speak ye The Comique Poet gives us a good Caution Si servus semper consuescat silentio fiet nequam That servant that says nothing thinks ill As our Nullifidians Men that put all upon works and no faith and our Solisidians Men that put all upon faith and no works are both in the wrong So there is a danger in Multi loquio and another in Nulli loquio He that speaks over-freely to me may be a Man of dangerous conversation And the silent and reserv'd Man that makes no play but observes and says nothing may be more dangerous then he As the Romane Emperor professed to stand more in fear of one pale man and lean man then of twenty that studyed and pursued their pleasures and lov'd their ease because such would be glad to keep things in the state they then were but the other sort affected changes so for the most part he that will speak lies as open to me as I to him speech is the Balance of conversation Therefore as God is not Merx but pretium Gold is not ware but the price of all ware So speaking is not Doing but yet fair speaking prepares an acceptation before and puts a value after upon the best actions God hath made other Creatures Gregalia sociable besides man Sheep and Deer and Pigeons will flock and herd and troup and meet together but when they are met they are not able to tell one another why they meet Man onely can speak silence makes it but a Herding That that makes Conversation is speech Qui datum deserit respuit datorem says Tertullian He that uses not a benefit reproaches his Benefactor To declare Gods goodness that hath enabled us to speak we are bound to speak speech is the Glue the Cyment the soul of Conversation and of Religion too Now your conversation is in heaven and therefore loquimini Deo first speak to him that is in heaven speak to God Some of the Platonique Philosophers thought it a profanation of God to speak to God They thought that when our Thoughts were made Prayers and that the Heart flow'd into the Tongue and that we had invested and apparel'd our Meditations with words this was a kinde of Painting and Dressing and a superfluous diligence that rather tasted of humane affections then such a sincere service as was fit for the presence of God Onely the first conceptions the first ebullitions and emanations of the soul in the heart they thought to be a fit sacrifice to God and all verball prayer to be too homely for him But God himself who is all spirit hath yet put on bodily lineaments Head and Hands and Feet yea and Garments too in many places of Scripture to appear that is to manifest himself to us And when we appear to God though our Devotion be all spiritual as he is all spirit yet let us put on lineaments and apparel upon our Devotions and digest the Meditations of the heart into words of the mouth God came to us in verbo In the word for Christ is The word that was made flesh Let us that are Christians go to God so too That the words of our mouth as well as the Meditations of our heart may be acceptable to him Surely God loves the service of Prayer or he would never have built a house for Prayer And therefore we justly call Publique prayer the Liturgy Service Love that place and love that service in that place Prayer They will needs make us believe that S. Francis preached to Birds and Beasts and Stones but they will not go about to make us believe that those Birds and Beasts and Stones joyned with S. Francis in Prayer God can speak to all things that 's the office of Preaching to speak to others But of all onely Man can speak to God and that 's the office of Prayer It is a blessed conversation to spend time in Discourse in Communication with God God went his way as soon as he had left communing with Abraham Gen. 18. ult When we leave praying God leaves us But God left not Abraham as long as he had any thing to say to God And we have always something to say unto him He loves to hear us tell him even those things which he knew before his Benefits in our Thankfulness And our sins in our Confessions And our necessities in our Petitions And therefore having so many Occasions to speak to God and to speak of God David ingeminates that and his ingemination implies a wonder O that men would And it is strange if Men will not O that men would says he more then once or twice O that men would praise the Lord and tell the wondrous works that he hath done for the sons of Men for David determines not his precept in that Be thankful unto him for a Tnankfulness may pass in private Psal 100.4 But Be Thankful unto him and speak good of his name Glorifie him in speaking to him in speaking of him in
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
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
he hath reserved by his parsimony and frugallity There is somtimes a greater reverence in us towards our ancient inheritance towards those goods which are devolved upon us by succession There is another affection expressed towards those things which dying friends have left us for they preserve their memories another towards Jewells or other Testimonies of an acceptation of our services from the Prince but still we love those things most which we have got with our own labour and industrey When a man comes to say with Jacob Gen. 32.10 with my staffe came I over Iordan now have I gotten two bands with this staffe came I to London with this staffe came I to Court and now am thus and thus increased a man loves those addisions which his owne Industry hath made to his fortune There are some ungratefull Natures that love other men the worse for having bound them by benefits and good turns to them but that were a new ingratitude not to be thankful to our selves not to love those things which we our selves have compassed We have our reason to do so in our great example Christ Jesus who loves us most as we are his purchase as he hath bought us with his bloud And therefore though he hath expressed a love too to the Angels in their confirmation yet he cannot be said to love the Angels as he doth us because his death hath wrought nothing upon them which were fallen before and for us so he came principally to save sinners the whole body and band of Angels are not his purchase as all mankind is This affection is in worldly men too they love their own gettings and those shall perish They have given their pleasant things for meat Chron. 1.11 to refresh their souls whatsoever they placed their heart upon whatsoever they delighted in most whatsoever they were loath to part withal it shall perish and the measure of their love to it and the desire of it shall be the measure of Gods judgement upon it that which they love most shall perish first In occupatione Those riches then those best beloved riches shall perish and that saith the text by evil travail which is a word that in the original signifies both Occupationem Negotiationem labour and Travail and afflictionem vexationem affliction and vexation They shall perish in occupatione then when thou art labouring and travailing in thy calling then when thou art harkening after a purchase and a bargain then when thy neighbors can impute no negligence thou wast not negligent in gathering nay no vice to thee thou wast not dissolute in scattering then when thou risest early lyest down late and eatest the bread of sorrow then shalt thou find not onely that that prospers not which thou goest about and pretendest to but that that which thou haddest before decaies and molders away If we consider well in what abundance God satisfied the children of Israel with Quails and how that ended we shall see example enough of this You shall eat saith God Num. 11.19 not one nor two daies nor five nor ten nor twenty but a whole moneth until it come out at your nostrils and be loathsome unto you here was the promise and it was performed for the plenty ver 31. that quailes fell a daies journey round about the Camp and they were two cubits thick upon the earth The people fell to their labour and they arose and gathered all that day and all that night and all the next day saith the Text 32. and he that gathered least gathered ten Gomers full But as the promise was performed in the plenty so it was in the course too whilest the flesh was yet between theïr teeth before it was chewed even the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people and he smote them with an exceeding great plague ver 33. Even whilest your money is under your fingers whilest it is in your purposes determined and digested for such and such a purpose whilest you have put it in a ship in Merchandice to win more to it whilest you have sow'd it in the land of borrowers to multiply and grow upon Mortgages and usury even when you are in the mid'st of your travail stormes at Sea theeves at land enviers at court informations at Westminster whilest the meat is in your mouthes shall cast the wrath of God upon your riches and they shall perish In occupatione then when you travail to increase them The Children of Israel are said in that place onely to have wept to Moses out of a lust and a grief for want of flesh God punished not that weeping it is a tenderness a disposition that God loves but a weeping for worldly things and things not necessary to them for Manna might have served them a weeping for not having or for loosing such things of this world is alwaies accompanied with a murmuring God shall cause thy riches to perish in thy travail not because he denies thee riches nor because he would not have thee travail but because an inordinate love an overstudious and an intemperate and overlaborious pursuite of riches is alwaies accompanied with a diffidence in Gods providence and a confidence in our own riches To give the wicked a better sense of this God proceeds often the same way with the righteous too but with the wicked because they do with the righteous least they should trust in their own riches We see in Iobs case It was not onely his Sons and daughters who were banquetting nor onely his asses and sheep and camels that were feeding that were destroyed but upon his Oxen that were ploughing upon his servants which were doing rheir particular duties the Sabaeans came and destruction in their sword His Oxen and his servants perished in occupatione in their labour in their travail when they were doing that which they should do And if God do thus to his children to humble them before-hand that they do not sacrifice to their own nets not trust in their own industry nor in their own riches how much more vehemently shall his judgments burn upon them whose purpose in gathering Riches was pricipally that they might stand of themselves and not need God There are beasts that labour not but yet furnish us with their wool alive and with their flesh when they are dead as sheep there are men that desire riches and though they do no other good they are content to keep good houses and that their Heire should do so when they are dead There are beasts that labour and are meat at their death but yield no other help in their life and these are Oxen there are men that labour to be rich and do no good with it till their death There are beasts that onely labour and yield nothing else in life nor death as horses and there are some that do neither but onely prey upon others as Lyons and others such we need not apply particularly there are all bestial
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
there would be speaking enough in Courts for though there may be a great sin in silence a great prevarication in not speaking in a good cause or for an oppress'd person yet the lowest voice in a Court wispering it self speaks aloud and reaches far and therefore hear is only a rule to regulate our speach Sic loquimini so speak ye And then as here is no express precept for speaking so here is no express precept for doing The holy Ghost saw there would be doing enough business enough in Court for as silence and half-silence whispering may have a loud voice so even undoing may be a busie doing and therefore here is only a rule to regulate our doing to Sic facite So do ye And lastly as there is speaking enough even in silence and doing enough even in undoing in Court so the Court is alwaies under Judgment enough Every discontented person that hath miss'd his preferment though he have not merited it every drunkard that is over-heat though not with his own wine every conjecturing person that is not within the distance to know the ends or the waies of great actions will Judg the highest counsels and execution of those counsels The Court is under Judgment enough and they take liberty enough and therefore here is a rule to regulate our liberty a law of liberty so speak ye and c. But though for the more benefit of the present Congregation we fix the first point of this Circle that is the principal purpose of the holy Ghost upon the Court yet our text is an Amphitheater an Amphitheater consists of two Theaters our text hath two parts in which all men all may sit and see themselves acted first in the obligation that is laid upon us upon us all Sic loquimini Sic facite and then in the reason of this holy diligence and religious cautelousness quia Judicandi because you are all to be Judged by c. which two general parts the obligation and the reason flowing into many sub-divided branches I shall I think do better service both to your understanding and to your memory and to your affections and consciences to present them as they shall arise anon in their order then to pour them out all at once now First then in our first part we look to our rule in the first duty First part Loquimini our speaking Sic loquimini so speak ye The Comick Poet gives us a good caution Si servus semper consuescat silentio fiat nequam that servant that saies nothing thinks ill As our nullifidians men that put all upon works and no faith and our solifidians men that put all upon faith no works are both in the wrong so there is a danger in multiloquio another in nulliloquio he that speaks over-freely to me may be a man of dangerous conversation and the silent and reserv'd man that makes no play but observes and saies nothing may be more dangerous then he As the Roman Emperor professed to stand more in fear of one pale man and lean man then of twenty that studied and pursued their pleasures and lov'd there ease because such would be glad to keep things in the state they then were but the other sort affected changes so for the most part he that will speak lies as open to me as I to him speech is the balance of conversation Therefore as gold is not merx but pretium Gold is not ware but the price of all ware so speaking is not doing but yet fair speaking prepares an acceptation before and puts a value after upon the best actions God hath made other creatutes Gregalia sociable besides man sheep and deer and pigeons will flock and heard and troop and meet together but when they are met they are not able to tell one another why they met Man only can speak silence makes it but a hearding that that makes conversation is speech Qui datum deserit respuit datorem saies Tertullian He that uses not a benefit reproaches his benefactor To declare Gods goodness that hath enabled us to speak we are bound to speak speech is the glue the ciment the soul of conversation and of religion too Now your conversation is in heaven and therefore loquimini Deo Deo first speak to him that is in heaven speak to God Some of the Platonick Philosophers thought it a prophanation of God to speak to God they thought that when our thoughts were made prayers and that the heart slow'd into the tongue and that we had invested and apparall'd our meditations with words this was a kind of painting and dressing and a superfluous diligence that rather tasted of humane affections then such a sincere service as was fit for the presence of God only the first conception the first ebullitions and emanations of the Soul in the heart they thought to be a fit sacrifice to God and all verball prayer to be too homely for him But God himself who is all spirit hath yet put on bodily lineaments head and hands and feet yea and garments too in many places of scripture to appear that is to manifest himself to us and when we appear to God though our devotion be all spiritual as he is all spirit yet let us put on lineaments and apparrel upon our devotions and digest the meditations of the heart into words of the mouth God came to us in verbo in the word for Christ is the word that was make flesh let us that are Christians goe to God so too that the words of our mouth as well as the meditations of our heart may be acceptable to him Surely God loves the service of prayer or he would never have built a house for prayer and therefore we justly call publique prayer the liturgy service love that place and love that service in that place prayer They will needs make us believe that St. Francis preached to birds and beasts and stones but they will not go about to make us believe that those birds and beasts and stones joyn'd with St. Francis in prayer God can speak to all things that 's the office of preaching to speak to others but of all only man can speak to God and that 's the office of prayer It is a blessed conversation to spend time in discourse in communication with God Gen. 18. ult God went his way assoon as he had left communing with Abraham When we leave praying God leaves us but God left not Abraham as long as he had any thing to say to God and we have alwayes something to say unto him he loves to hear us tel him even those things which he knew before His benefits in our thankfulness and our sins in our confessions and our necessities in our petitions And therefore having so many occasions to speak to God and to speak of God David ingeminates that and his ingemination implies a wonder O that men would and it is strange if men will not O that men would
kindled Num. 11.15 there and only their doth Moses attribute even to God himself the feminine sex and speaks to God in the original language as if he should have call'd him Deam Iratam an angry she God all that is good then either in the love of man or woman is in this love for he is expressed in both sexes man and woman and all that can be ill in the love of either sex is purged away for the man is no other man then Christ Jesus and the woman no other woman then wisdom her self even the uncreated wisdom of God himself Now all this is but one person the person that professes love who is the other who is the beloved of Christ is not so easily discern'd in the love between persons in this world and of this world we are often deceived with outward signs we often mis-call and mis-judg civil respects and mutual courtesies and a delight in one anothers conversation and such other indifferent things as only malignity and curiosity and self-guiltiness makes to be misinterpretable we often call these love but neither amongst our selves much less between Christ and our selves are these outward appearances alwaies signs of love This person then this beloved soul is not every one to whom Christ sends a loving message or writs too for his letters his Scriptures are directed to all not every one he wishes well to and swears that he does so for so he doth to all As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a Sinner not every one that he sends jewels and presents to for they are often snares to corrupt as well as arguments of love not though he admit them to his table and supper for even there the Devil entred into Judas with a sop not though he receive them to a kiss for even with that familarity Judas betrayed him not though he betroth himself as he did to the Jews Osc 2.14 sponsabo te mihi in aeternum not though he make jointures in pacto salis in a covenant of salt an everlasting covenant not though he have communicated his name to them which is an act of marriage for to how many hath he said ego dixit Dii estis I have said you are Gods and yet they have been reprobates not all these outward things amount so far as to make us discern who is this beloved person for himself saies of the Israelites to whom he had made all these demonstrations of love yet after for their abominations devorc'd himself from them I have forsaken mine house Jer. 12.7 I have left mine own heritage I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies To conclude this person beloved of Christ is only that soul that loves Christ but that belongs to the third branch of this first part which is the mutual love The Affection but first having found the person we are to consider the affection it self the love of this text it is an observation of Origens that though these three words Amor Dilectio and Charitas love and affection and good will be all of one signification in the sctiptures yet saies he wheresoever there is danger of representing to the fancy a lascivious and carnal love the scripture forbears the word love and uses either affection or good will and where there is no such danger the scripture comes directly to this word love of which Origens examples are that when Isaac bent his affections upon Rebecca and Jacob upon Rachel in both places it is dilexit and not amavit Cant 5.8 and when it is said in the Cant. I charge you Daughters of Jerusalem to tell my well-beloved it is not to tel him that she was in love but to tell him quod vulneratae charitatis sum that I am wounded with an affection good will towards him but in this book of Pro. in all the passages between Christ and the beloved soul there is evermore a free use of this word Amor love because it is even in the first apprehension a pure a chast and an undefiled love Eloquia Dominis casta sayes David All the words of the Lord and all their words that love the Lord all discourses all that is spoken to or from the soul is all full of chast love and of the love of chastity Now though this love of Christ to our souls be too large to shut up or comprehend in any definition yet if we content our selves with the definition of the Schools Amare est velle alicui quod bonum est love is nothing but a desire that they whom we love should be happy we may easily discern the advantage and profit which we have by this love in the Text when he that wishes us this good by loving us is author of all good himself and may give us as much as pleases him without impairing his own infinite treasure He loves us as his ancient inheritance as the first amongst his creatures in the creation of the world which he created for us He loves us more as his purchase whom he hath bought with his blood for even man takes most pleasure in things of his own getting But he loves us most for our improvement when by his ploughing up of our hearts and the dew of his grace and the seed of his word we come to give greaâ—â—r cent in the fruit of sanctification than before And since he loves â—s thus and that in him this love is velle bonum a desire that his beloved should be happy what soul amongst us shall doubt that when God hath such an abundant and infinite treasure as the merit and passion of Christ Jesus sufficient to save millions of worlds and yet many millions in this world all the heathen excluded from any interest therein when God hath a kingdome so large as that nothing limits it and yet he hath banished many natural subjects thereof even those legions of Angels which were created in it and are fallen from it what soul amongst us shall doubt but that he that hath thus much and loves thus much will not deny her a portion in the blood of Christ or a room in the kingdome of heaven No soul can doubt it except it have been a witness to it self and be so still that it love not Christ Jesus for that 's a condition necessary And that is the third branch to which we are come now in our order that this love be mutuall I love them c. If any man loves not our Lord Jesus let him be accursed Mutual saies the Apostle Now the first part of this curse is upon the indisposition to love he that loves not at all is first accursed That stupid inconsideration which passes on drowsilie and negligently upon Gods creatures that sullen indifferency in ones disposition to love one thing no more than another not to value not to chuse not to prefer that stoniness that in humanity not to be
by the King to wait upon my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany First Sermon as we went out June 16. 1619. SERMON XX. Rom. 13.11 For now is our Salvation nearer then when we believed THere is not a more comprehensive a more embracing word in all Religion then the first word of this Text Now for the word before that For is but a word of connexion and rather appertains to that which was said before the Text then to the Text it self The Text begins with that important and considerable particle Now Now is salvation nearer c. This present word Now denotes an Advent a new coming or a new operation otherwise then it was before And therefore doth the Church appropriate this Scripture to the celebration of the Advent before the Feast of the Birth of our Saviour It is an extensive word Now for though we dispute whether this Now that is whether an instant be any part of time or no yet in truth it is all time for whatsoever is past was and whatsoever is future shall be an instant and did and shall fall within this Now. We consider in the Church four Advents or Comings of Christ of every one of which we may say Now now it is otherwise then before For first there is verbum in carne the word came in the flesh in the Incarnation and then there is caro in verbo he that is made flesh comes in the word that is Christ comes in the preaching thereof and he comes again in carne saluta when at our dissolution and transmigration at our death he comes by his spirit and testifies to our spirit that we die the Children of God And lastly he comes in carne reddita when he shall come at the Resurrection to redeliver our bodies to our souls and to deliver everlasting glory to both The Ancients for the most part understand the word of our Text of Christs first coming in the flesh to us in this world the latter Exposition understand them rather of his coming in glory But the Apostle could not properly use this present word Now with relation to that which is not now that is to future glory otherwise then as that future glory hath a preparation and an inchoation in present grace for so even the future glory of heaven hath a Now now the elect Children of God have by his powerfull grace a present possession of glory So then it will not be impertinent to suffer this flowing and extensive word Now to spread it self into all three for the whole duty of Christianity consists in these three things first in pietate erga Deum in religion towards God in which the Apostle had enlarged himself from the beginning to the twelfth chapter of his Epistle And secondly in charitate erga proximum in our mutual duties of society towards our Equals and Inferiors and of Subjection towards our Superiours in which that twelfth chapter and this to the eitghth verse is especially conversant And then thirdly in sanctimonia propria in the works of sanctification and holiness in our selves And this Text the Apostle presents as a forcible reason to induce us to that to those works of sanctification because Now our salvation is nearer us then when we believed Take then this now the first way of the coming Christ in person in the flesh into this world and then the Apostle of directs himself principally to the Jews converted to the faith of Christ and he tels them That their salvation is nearer them now now they had seen him come then when they did only believe that he would come Take the words the second way of his coming in grace into our hearts and so the Apostle directs himself to all Christians now now that you have bin bred in the Christian Church now that you are grown from Grace to grace from faith to faith now that God by his spirit strengthens and confirms you now is your salvation nearer then when ye believed that is when you began to believe either by the faith of your Parents or the faith of the Church or the faith of your Sureties at your Baptism or when you began to have some notions and impressions and apprehensions of faith in your self when you came to some degrees of understanding and discretion Take the word of Christs coming to us at the hour of death or of his coming to us at the day of Judgment for those two are all one to our present purpose because God never reverses any particular judgement given at a mans death at the day of the general Judgment take the word so this is the Apostles argument you have believed and you have lived accordingly and that faith and that good life hath brought salvation nearer you that is given you a fair and modest infallibility of salvation in the nature of reversion but now now that you are come to the approches of death which shall make your reversion a possession Now is salvation nearer you then when you believed Summarily the Text is a reason why we ought to proceed in good and holy wayes and it works in all the three acceptations of the word for whether salvation be said to be near us because we are Christians and so have advantage of the Jews or near us because we have made some proficiency in holiness sanctimony or near us because we are near our end and thereby near a possession of our endless joy and glory Still from all these acceptations of the word arise religious provocations to perseverance in holiness of life and therefore we shall pursue the words in all three acceptations In all three acceptations we must consider three termes in the Text First Quid salus what this Salvation is that is intended here Part. 1. and then Quid prope what this Distance this nearness is and lastly Quid credere what Belief this is So then taking the words first the first way as spoken by the Apostles to the Jews newly converted to the Christian Faith salvation is the outward means of salvation which are more and more manifest to the Christians then they were to the Jews And then the second Term Nearness salvation is nearer is in this That salvation to the Christian is in things present or past in things already done and of which we are experimentally sure but to the Jews it was of future things of which howsoever they might assure themselves that they would be yet they had no assurance when And therefore in the third place their Believing was but a confident expectation and faithfull assenting to their Prophets quando credidistis when you believed that is when you did only believe and saw nothing First then the first Terme in the first acceptation Salvation Salus is the outward means of salvation Outward and visible means of knowing God God hath given to all Nations in the book of Creatures from the first leaf of that book the firmament above to
grace is or when or how it enters for though the word of consecration alter the bread not to another thing but to another use and though they leave it bread yet they make it other bread yet the enunciation of those words doth not infuse nor imprint this grace which we speak of into that bread yet whosoever receives this sacrament worthily sees evidently an entrance and a growth of grace in himself But this evidence which we speaks of this manifestation is not only though especially in the sacraments but in other sacramental and ceremonial things which God as he speaks by his Church hath ordained as the cross in baptism and adoration at the sacrament I do not say I am far from saying adoration of the sacrament there is a fair distance and a spacious latitude between those two an adoring of God in a devout humiliation of the body in that holy action and an adoring the bread out of a false imagination that that bread is God A rectified man may be very humble and devout in that action and yet a great way on this side the superstition and Idolatry in the practise of the Roman Church in these sacramental and ritual and ceremonial things which are the bellows of devotion and the subsidies of religion and which were alwaies in all Churches there is a more evident manifestation and clearness in these things in the Christian Church then was amongst the Jews in the ceremonial parts of their religion because almost all ours have reference to that which is already done and accomplished and not to things of a future expectation as those of the Jews were So you know the passover of the Jews had a relation to their comming out of Egypt that was past thereby obvious to every mans apprehension every man that eat the pasover remembered their deliverance out of Egypt but then the passover had also relation to that lamb which was to redeem that world this was a future thing and this certainly very few amongst them understood or considered upon that occasion that as thy lamb is killed here so there shall be a lamb killed for all the world hereafter Now our actions in the Church do most respect things formerly done and so they awaken and work upon our memory which is an easier faculty to work upon then the understanding or the will Salvation is nearer us in these outward helps because their signification is clearer to us and more apprehensible by us being of things past Credidistis and accomplished already So then the Apostle might well say that salvation that is outward means of salvation was nearer that is more in number better in use clearer in evidence then it was before quando crediderunt when they believed which is the third and last term in this first acceptation of the word Salvation was brought into the world in the first promise of a Messias in the semen contract That the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head and it was brought nearer when this Missias was fixed in Abrahams race in semine tuo In thy seed shall all nations be blessed it was brought nearer then that when it was brought from Abrahams race to Davids family in solio tuo The scepter shall not depart from thee till he come and still nearer in Esaias virgo concipiet when so particular mark was set upon the Messias as that he should be the son of a virgin and yet nearer in Micheas tu Bethlem that Bethlem was design'd for the place of his birth and nearer in Daniels 70 weeks when the time was manifested And though it were nearer then all this when John Baptist came to say Repent for the Kingdome of God is at hand Mat. 3.2 yet it was truly very near nearest of all when Christ came to say Luc. 17.21 Behold the Kingdom of God is amongst you for all the rest were in the crediderunt he was nearer them because they believed he would come but then it was brought to the viderunt they saw he was come Joh. 20.29 Beati saies Christ Blessed are they that have believed and have not seen they had salvation brought nearer unto them by their believing but yet Christ speaks of another manner of blessedness conferred upon his Disciples Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear Mat. 13.16 for verily I say unto you that many Prophets Righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see and have not seen them To end this the belief of the Patriarks was blessedness Joh. 8.56 and it was a kind of seeing too for so Christ saies your Father Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it but this was a seeing with the eye of faith which discovers future things but Christ prefers the blessedness of the Disciples because they saw things present and already done All our life is a passing bell but then was Simeon content his bell should ring out when his eyes had seen his salvtion In that especially doth St. John exalt the force of his argument quae vidimus 1 Joh. 1.1 That which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life that declare we unto you Here is then the inestimable prerogative of the Christian religion it is grounded so far upon things which were seen to be done it is brought so far from matter of faith to matter of fact from prophecy to history from what the Messias should do to what he hath done and that was their case to whom this Apostle spake these wodrs as we take them in the first acceptation salvation that is outward means of salvation in the Church is nearer that is more and better and clearer to you now that is when you have seen Christin the flesh then when you prefigured him in your law or sacrifices or sacraments or believed him in your Prophets Second part In a second sence we took these words of Christs second Advent or comming his comming to our heart in the working of his grace And so the Apostles words are directed to all Christians and not only to the new convertits of that nation and so these three terms salvation nearness and believing which we proposed to be considered in all the three acceptations of the words will have this signification Salvation is the inward means of salvation the working of the spirit that sets a seal to the eternal means the prope the nearness lies in this that this grace which is this salvation in this sense grows out of that which is in you already not out of any thing which is in you naturally but Gods first graces that are in you grows into more and more grace Grace does not grow out of nature for nature in the highest exaltation and rectifying thereof cannot produce grace Corn does not grow out of the earth it must be sowd but corn grows
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
scandal as we see in that vehement expostulation and unlikelihood of an ill love between him and Paula Nulla alia me Romae edomare potuit Was Rome so barren so weak so ill furnished with instruments of tentation that nothing in Rome it self could shake my constancy or retard my austerity Nisi lugens jejuna squallida fletibus caecata but a sad fasting ill drest woman blinde with weeping Et quam manducantem nunquam vidi A woman whom as familiar and domestick as I was in her house I could never see eat bit of meat But all this would not quench the fire the scandal grew he found it even amongst his brethren Homines Christiani dicunt he could not say that onely the enemies of the faith or his enemies but they that loved Religion well and him well talked dangerously and suspiciously of it and yet St. Jerome could not dispose himself to forbear that conversation He overcame the sense of it with a par pari refertur I says he am even with them Invicem insanire videmur they think me mad and I think them mad But this is not always a safe nor a charitable way when he might so easily have cured both madnesses But he perseveres in it with that resolution Saluta Paulam velit nolit mundus in Christo meam Remember me to my Paula let the world say what it will in Christ my Paula Thus he proceeds if excusably in his own behalf that is the best certainly not exemplarily not to be followed by others in cases of so great scandal For there goes not onely a great deal of innocency which we acknowledge doubtlesly to have been between that blessed couple but there must go a great deal of necessity too that is That Paula could not have been reduced by any other means to the service of God or continued in it but by following St. Jerome to Jerusalem to justifie such a conversation as became so scandalous And howsoever in some cases excuses might be found what good Mariner would anchor under a Rock and lie in danger of beating upon that What Fish would chuse his food upon a Hook What Mouse at a Trap What man would mingle Sugar and Rats-bane together and then trust his cunning to sever them again Why should any man chuse such company such conversation as may minister tentation to him or scandal to others Augustine St. Augustine apprehended this danger tenderly when he gave his reason why he would not have his Mother in the house with him Because says he though there be no danger of scandal in the person of my Mother all those women that serve my Mother and that accompany my Mother and that visit my Mother all they are not Mothers to me and a lawful conversation may come to an unlawful love quickly We see how this love wrought when it was scattered upon many women and therefore could not be so dangerously vehement upon any one in Solomon whose wife turned away his heart 1 King 11.4 Augustine so that his heart was not perfect with God Nec errore putavit Idolis serviendum Solomon never came to think deliberately that Idolatry was lawful sed blanditiis foemineis ad illa sacrificia compulsus his appliableness to women brought him to that sacriledge Thus it wrought even when it was scattered upon many in Solomon and we see how it wrought when it was collected and contracted upon one object in Samson Judg. 16.6 Because she was importunate upon him says the Text and vexed him with her words continually his soul was pained unto the death Yea if we go as high as is possible to Adam himself we see both St. Augustine and St. Jerome express his case thus Adam non tanquam verum loquenti credidit Adam did not believe Eve nor was not overcome by her reasons when she provoked him to eat the Apple Sed sociali necessitudini paruit he was affected with that near interest which was between them And ne contristaretur delicias suas lest by refusing he should put her whom he delighted in to a desperate sadness and sense of her sin he eat for company And as the first and the middle times did so without doubt our own times too if we search but our selves at home do minister examples of this in a proportion which neither St. Jerome nor Solomon nor Samson nor Adam avoided that an over-tender indulgence towards such women that for other respects they were bound to love inclined them to do such things as otherwise they would not have done Natural and civil obligations induced conversation and conversation tentation or if not that really yet scandal That that we drive to in all this is this that if we may not exceed in this love which is natural and commanded much less in any other So that there is nothing in this world left for this noble and operative affection Love to work upon but this pureness of heart Love it therefore that thou mayst seek it love it that thou mayest have it love it that thou mayest love it for as we said before it is a part of this pureness to love it Some of the ancient Fathers out of their love to it have put so high a price and estimation upon it that they hardly afforded any grace any pardon to those that sinned after they had once received this pureness in Baptism So that with them the heart could never be clean again after it was once foul'd a second time Our new Romane Chymists Maldâ—n on the other side they that can transubstantiate bread into God they can change any foulness into cleaness easily They require no more after sin but quendam tenuem dolorem internum A little slight inward sorrow and that 's enough For they have provided an easier way then Contrition for that which they have induc'd and call Attrition is not an affection qui habet pro sine Deum That hath proposed God for the mark that it is directed too Nec qui indiget divina gratia but it is such an affection as may be had without any concurrence or assistance of grace and is onely Dolor naturalis Zambran ex timore servili a natural sorrow proceeding onely out of a servile fear of torment And yet a Confession made with this Attrition and no more is enough for salvation say they and he that hath made a confession with such a disposition as this This that hath no reference to God This that hath no strength from his grace This that hath no motive from the fear of God shall never need to repent any farther for his sins Displiceri de peccato Cajâ—tan sed non super omni displicibili This is Attrition to be displeased with our sins but not more with our sins then with any thing else Intendere vitare peccatum sed non super omne vitabile To have a purpose to leave a sin but not the sin rather then any thing
then whosoever wishes that it might be forgotten wishes that it had proceeded And therefore let our tongue cleave unto the roof our mouths if we do not confers his loving kindness before the Lord and his wonderful works before the Sons of men Then I say did his Majesty shew this Christian courage of his more manifestly when he sent the profession of his Religion The Apology of the Oath of Allegeance and his opinion of the Romane Antichrist in all languages to all Princes of Christendom By occasion of which Book though there have risen twenty Rabshakes who have rail'd against our God in railing against our Religion and twenty Shemeis who have raised against the person of his sacred Majesty for I may pronounce that the number of them who have bark'd and snarl'd at that book in writing is scarceless then fourty yet scarce one of them all hath undertaken the arguments of that book but either repeated and perchance enlarged those things which their own Authors had shovel'd together of that subject that is The Popes Temporal power or else they have bent themselves maliciously insolently sacrilegiously against the person to his Majesty and the Pope may be Antichrist still for any thing they have said to the contrary It belong'd only to him whom no earthly King may enter into comparison with John 17.12 the King of Heaven Christ Jesus to say Those that thou gavest me have I kept and none of them is lost And even in him in Christ Jesus himself that admitted one exception Judas the childe of perdition was lost Our King cannot say that none of his Subjects are fled to Rome but his vigilancy at home hath wrought so as that fewer are gone from our Universities thither in his then in former times and his Books abroad have wrought so that much greater and considerable persons are come to us then are gone from us I add that particular from our Universities because we see that since those men whom our Universities had bred and graduated before they went thither of which the number was great for many years of the Queens time are worne out amongst them and dead those whom they make up there whom they have had from their first youth there who have received all their Learning from their beggarly and fragmentary way of Dictates there and were never grounded in our Schools nor Universities have prov'd but weak maintainers or that cause compar'd with those men of the first times As Plato says of a particular natural body he that will cure an ill Eye must cure the Head he that will cure the Head must cure the Body and he that will cure the Body must cure the Soul that is must bring the Minde to a temperature a moderation an equanimity so in Civil Bodies in States Head and Eye and Body Prince and Council and People do all receive their health and welfare from the pureness of Religion And therefore as the chiefest of all I chose to insist upon that Blessing That God hath given us a Religious King and Religious out of his Understanding His other Virtues work upon several conditions of men by this Blessing the whole Body is blest And therefore not only they which have been salted with the salt of the Court as it is said of the Kings Servants but all that are salted with the salt of the Earth Ezra 4.24 Matth. 5.13 Mark 9.50 as Christ calls his Church his Apostles all that love to have salt in themselves and peace with one another all that are sensible of the Spiritual life and growth and good taste that they have by the Gospel are bound to praise him to magnifie him for ever that hath vouchsafed us a Religious King and Religious out of Understanding Many other happinesses are rooted in the love of the Subject and of his confidence in their love his very absence from us is an argument to us His continual abode with us hath been an argument of his love to us and this long Progress of his is an argument of his assurance of our loyalty to him It is an argument also of the good habitude and constitution to which he hath brought this State and how little harm they that wish ill to it are able to do Mamertinus Maximiano upon any advantage Hanc in vobis fiduciam pertimescunt This confidence of his makes his home-enemies more afraid then his Laws or his Train'd-Bands Et contemnise sentiunt cum relinquuntur When they are left to their own malignity and to do their worst they discern in that how despicable and contemptible a party they are Cum in interiora Imperii seceditis when the King may go so far from the heart of his Kingdom and the enemy be able to make no use of his absence this makes them see the desperateness of their vain imaginations He is not gone from us for a Noble part of this Body our Nation is gone with him and a Royal part of his Body stays with us Neither is the farthest place that he goes to any other then ours now when as the Roman Orator said Nunc demum juvat orbem terrarum spectare depictum Eumenius cum in illo nihil videmus alienum Now it is a comfort to look upon a Map of the World when we can see nothing in it that is not our own so we may say Now it is a pleasant sight to look upon a Map of this Island when it is all one As we had him at first and shall have him again from that Kingdom where the natural days are longer then ours are so may he have longer days with us then ever any of our Princes had and as he hath Immortalitatem propriam sibi filium sibi similem as it was said of Constantine a peculiar immortality not to die because he shall live in his Son so in the fulness of time and in the accomplishment of Gods purposes upon him may he have the happiness of the other Immortality and peacefully surrender all his Crowns in exchange of one a Crown of immortal glory which the Lord the righteous Judge lay up for him against that day To conclude all and to go the right way from things which we see to things which we see not by consideration of the King to the contemplation of God since God hath made us his Tenants of this World we are bound not only to pay our Rents spiritual duties and services towards him but we are bound to reparations too to contribute our help to society and such external duties as belong to the maintenance of this world in which Almighty God hath chosen to be glorified If we have these two Pureness of heart and Grace of lips then we do these two we pay our Rent and we keep the world in reparation and we shall pass through all those steps and gradations Ambros which St. Ambrose harmoniously melodiously expresses to be servi per timorem to be the servants of
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