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
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
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
observed in their Publication whereby those that are called to the service of private Churches and have not the convenience of Publick Libraries might have made more use of them for I have seen many great Edifices many noble Palaces erected without one stone taken out of the Quarry but so neer an Age where Holy Confusion is prescribed to the Preacher a little disorder I hope Gentle Reader may be pardoned in the Publisher JO. DONNE Postscript BY the Dates of these Sermons the Reader may easily collect that although they are the last that are published they were the first that were Preached and I did purposely select these from amongst all the rest for being to finish this Monument which I was to erect to his Memory I ought to reserve those materials that were set forth with the best Polish The Impression consists onely of Five hundred which will somewhat advance the Price but the buyer being at liberty he can receive no prejudice Upon the sending the First Volume of these SERMONS to the Right Reverend Father in God the Bishop of Peterborough then my Diocesan I received this Letter SIR YOu have sent me a Treasure and I would not share time to tell you so till I had somewhat satisfied the thirst I had to drink down many of those Excellent Sermons which I have so long desired And by this I have the advantage that I can know what I thank you for though I could presumptuously value them by the rest of his which I have heard and read formerly for I think I have all those that in the Press did foreran these yet by this time I can sensibly acknowledge to you how great cause so many of us have to thank you How well may your Parishioners pardon your silence to them for a while since by it you have Preached to them and their Childrens children and to all our English Parishes for ever For certainly many ages hence when they shall be made good or confirmed in goedness by studying your Father they shall account these times Primitive in which he Preached and you will then if not now be in danger to lose your propriety in him he will be called a Father of the Church Sir Though this Book with his former Printed Sermons be a great Stock to the Church from one man yet if you shall please to perform the trust of a good Executor there is I presume a great remainder of his Legacy which when you have taken breath we must call you to account for in a Court of Equity though you may think this will abundantly satisfie yet believe it Sir it will but increase our appetite We shall give you time Sir but no general release yet his God and yours assist you to whose blessing I commend you and am Sir Your very Friend in Christ Jesus Jo. Peterborough Peterborough July 20. 1640. THE CONTENTS SERMON I. A Lent Sermon Preached at White-hall February 20. 1617. Luc. 23.40 Fearest thou not God being under the same condemnation Page 1 SERMON II. A Lent Sermon Preached at White-hall February 12. 1618. Ezek. 33.32 And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an Instrument for they hear thy words but they do them not p. 15 SERMON III. A Lent Sermon Preached at White-hall February 20. 1628. James 2.12 So speakye and so Do as they that shall be judged by the law of Liberty p. 28 SERMON IV. A Lent Sermon Preached before the King at White-hall February 16. 1620. 1 Tim. 3.16 And without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into Glory p. 45 SERMON V. A Lent Sermon Preached to the King at White-hall February 12. 1629. Mat. 6.21 For where your Treasure is there will your heart be also p. 61 SERMON VI. A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 21. 1616. Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil p. 75 SERMON VII A Sermon Preached at White-hall Novemb 2. 1617. Psal 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God p. 89 SERMON VIII A Sermon Preached to the Houshold at White-hall April 30. 1626. Mat. 9.13 I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance p. 101 SERMON X. A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 2. 1620. Eccles 5. There is an evil sickness that I have seen under the Sun Riches reserved to the owners thereof for their evil And these riches perish by evil travail and he begetteth a Son and in his hand is nothing Ver. 12. 13. in Edit 1. In alia 13. 14. p. 129 SERMON XI A Sermon Preached at Greenwich April 30. 1615. Esa 52.3 Ye have sold your selves for nought and ye shall be redeemed without money p. 153 SERMON XII A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 12. 1618. Gen. 32.10 I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy servant for with my staffe I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands p. 169 SERMON XIII A Sermon Preached at White-hall April 19. 1618. 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of which I am the chiefest p. 177 SERMON XIV A Second Sermon Preached at White-hall April 2. 1621. 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of which I am the chiefest p. 190 SERMON XV. A Sermon Preached at White-hall February 29. 1627. Acts 7.60 And when he had said this he fell asleep p. 205 SERMON XVI A Sermon Preached at White-hall February 22. 1629. Mat. 6.21 For where your Treasure is there will your heart be also p. 220 SERMON XVII James 2.12 So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty p. 241 SERMON XVIII A Sermon Preached to Queen Anne at Denmark-house Decemb. 14. 1617. Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall finde me p. 257 SERMON XIX A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany at Lincolns-Inne April 18. 1619. Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth p. 269 SERMON XX. Two Sermons to the Prince and Princess Palatine the Lady Elizabeth at Heydelberg when I was commanded by the King to wait upon my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany First Sermon as we went out June 16. 1619. Rom. 13.11 For now is our Salvation nearer then when we believed p. 281 SERMON XXI A Sermon Preached at St. Dunstans January 15. 1625. The first Sermon after our dispersion by the Sickness Exod. 12.30 For there was not a house
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
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
Princes all the Homilies of our Fathers all the Body of Divinity is in these three Chapters in this one Sermon in the Mount Where as the Preacher concludes his Sermon with Exhortations to practice 7.24 whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them so he fortifies his Sermon with his own practice which is a blessed and a powerful method for as soon as he came out of the Pulpit 8.1 as soon as he came down from the Mount he cur'd the first Leper he saw and that without all vain-glory for he forbad him to tell any man of it Divisio Of this Noble Body of Divinity one fair Limb is in this Text Where your treasure is there will your heart be also Immediately before our blessed Saviour had forbidden us the laying up of Treasure in this world upon this Reason That here moths and rust corrupt and thieves break in and steal There the reason is because the Money may be lost but here in our Text it is because the Man may be lost for where your Treasure is there your Heart will be also So that this is equivalent to that Mat. 16.26 What profit to gain the whole world and loose a mans own soul Our Text therefore stands as that Proverbial that Hieroglyphical Letter Pythagoras his Y that hath first a stalk a stem to fix it self and then spreads into two Beams The stem the stalk of this Letter this Y is in the first word of the Text that Particle of argumentation For Take heed where you place your Treasure for it concerns you much where your Heart be plac'd and where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also And then opens this Symbolical this Catechistical Letter this Y into two Horns two Beams two Branches one broader but on the left hand denoting the Treasures of this World the other narrower but on the right hand Treasure laid up for the World to come Be sure ye turn the right way for where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also Cor fixum First then We bind our selves to the stake to the stalk to the staff the stem of this Symbolical Letter and consider in it That firmness and fixation of the Heart which God requires God requires no unnatural things at mans hand Whatsoever God requires of man man may finde imprinted in his own nature written in his own heart This firmness then this fixation of the heart is natural to man Every man does set his heart upon something and Christ in this place does not so much call upon him that he would do so set his heart upon something as to be sure that he set it upon the right Object And yet truly even this first work to recollect our selves to recapitulate our selves to assemble and muster our selves and to bend our hearts intirely and intensly directly earnestly emphatically energetically upon something is by reason of the various fluctuation of our corrupt nature and the infinite multiplicity of Objects such a Work as man needs to be called upon and excited to do it Therefore is there no word in the Scriptures so often added to the heart as that of intireness Toto Corde Omni Corde Pleno Corde Do this with all thine heart with a whole heart with a full heart for whatsoever is indivisible is immoveable a Point because it cannot be divided cannot be moved the Centre the Poles God himself because he is indivisible is therefore immoveable And when the heart of man is knit up in such an intireness upon one Object as that it does not scatter nor sub-divide it self then and then onely is it fixed And that 's the happiness in which David fixes himself not in his Cor paratum My heart is prepared O God my heart is prepared for so it may be prepared even by God himself and yet scattered and subdivided by us But in his Cor fixum My heart is fixed Psal 57.7 O God my heart is fixed Awake my glory awake my Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake early and praise thee O Lord among the people A Triumph that David return'd to more then once for he repeats the same words with the same pathetical earnestness again Psal 108.1 So that his Glory his Victory his Triumph his Peace his Acquiescence his All-sufficiency in himself consisted in this That his heart was fixed for this fixation of the heart argued and testified an intireness in it When God sayes Fili da mihi Cor My Son give me thy heart God means the whole man 1 Cor. 12.17 Though the Apostle say The eye is not the man nor the ear is not the man he does not say The heart is not the man the heart is the man the heart is all and Exod. 10.8 as Moses was not satisfied with that Commission that Pharaoh offered him That all the men might go to offer sacrifice but Moses would have all their young and all their old all their sons and all their daughters all their flocks and all their herds he would have all So when Gods sayes Fili da mihi Cor My Son give me thy heart God will not be satisfied with the eye if I contemplate him in his Works for that 's but the godliness of the natural man nor satisfied with the ear with hearing many Sermons for that 's but a new invention a new way of making Beads if as the Papist thinks all done if he have said so many Aves I think all done if I have heard so many Sermons But God requires the heart the whole man all the faculties of that man for onely that that is intire and indivisible is immovable and that that God calls for and we seek for in this stem of Pythagoras his Symbolical Letter is this immovableness this fixation of the heart And yet even against this though it be natural there are many impediments We shall reduce them to a few to three these three First there is Cor nullum a meer Heartlesness no Heart at all Incogitancy Inconsideration and then there is Cor Cor Cor duplex a double Heart a doubtful a distracted Heart which is not Incogitancy nor Inconsideration but Perplexity and Irresolution and lastly Cor vagum a wandring a way faring a weary Heart which is neither Inconsideration nor Irresolution but Inconstancie And this is a Trinity against our Unity three Enemies to that fixation and intireness of the Heart which God loves Inconsideration when we do not Debate Irresolution when we do not Determine Inconstancy when we do not Persevere and upon each of these be pleas'd to stop your Devotion a few minutes Cor nullum The first is Cor nullum no Heart at all Incogitancy Thoughtlesness An idle body is a disease in a State an idle soul is a monster in a man 2 Thes 3.10 That body that will not work must not eat but starve that soul that does not think not consider cannot be said
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
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 Honours your Offices your Possessions perchance under Seal a Seal of Wax Wax that hath a tenacity an adhering a cleaving nature to shew the Royal Constancie 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 too so have these Honours and Offices and Possessions to them that grow too hot too confident in them or too imperious by them For these Honours 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 man hath An evil man Thesaurus malorum Luk. 6.45 out of the evil Treasure of his Heart bringeth forth that which is evil says our Saviour Every man hath some sin upon which his heart is set and Where your Heart is there is your Treasure also The treasures of wickedness profit nothing says Job 'T is true But yet 10.2 Treasures of wickedness there are Mic. 6.10 Are there not yet Treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked consider the force of that word yet yet though you have the power of a vigilant Prince executed by just Magistrates yet though you have the Piety of a Religious Prince seconded by the assiduity of a laborious Clergy yet though you have many helps which your Fathers did and your Neighbours do want and have by Gods grace some fruits of those many helps yet for all this Are there not yet Treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked No Are there not scant measures which are an abomination to God says the Prophet there which are not onely false measures of Merchandize but false measures of Men for when God sayes that he intends all this Is there not yet supplantation in Court and mis-representations of men When Solomon who understood subdordination of places which flowed from him as well as the highest which himself possest says and says experimentally for his own and prophetically for future times If a Ruler a man in great place hearken to lyes Prov. 29.22 all his servants are wicked Are there not yet mis-representations of men in Courts Is there not yet Oppression in the Country A starving of men and pampering of dogs A swallowing of the needy Amos 8.5 A buying of the poor for a pair of shooes and a selling to the hungry refuse corn Is there not yet Oppression in the Country Is there not yet Extortion in Westminster A justifying of the wicked for a reward Isa 5.23 and a taking away of the righteousness of the righteous from him Is there not yet Extortion in Westminster Is there not yet Collusion and Circumvention in the City Would they not seem richer then they are when they deal in private Bargains with one another And would they not seem poorer then they are when they are call'd to contribute for the Publique Ezek. 28.5 Have they not increased their riches by Trade and lifted up their hearts upon the encrease of their riches Have they not slackened their trade Amos 2.8 and layn down upon clothes laid to pledge and ennobled themselves by an ignoble and lazie way of gain Is there not yet Collusion and Circumvention in the City Is there not yet Hypocrisie in the Church In all parts thereof Half preachings and half hearings Hearings and preachings without practise Have we not national sins of our own and yet exercise the nature of Islanders in importing the Sins of forreign Parts And though we better no forreign Commodity nor Manufacture that we bring in we improve the sins of other Nations and as a weaker Grape growing upon the Rhene contracts a stronger nature in the Canaries so do the sins of other Nations transplanted amongst us Have we not secular sins sins of our own age our own time and yet sin by precedent of former as well as create precedents for future And not onely Silver and Gold Josh 6.19 but Vessels of Iron and Brass were brought into the Treasury of the Lord not onely the glorious sins of high places and National sins and secular sins But the wretchedest Begger in the street contributes to this Treasure the Treasure of sin and to this mischievous use to encrease this Treasure the Treasure of sin is a Subsidy man He begs in Jesus Name and for Gods sake and in the same Name curses him that does not give He counterfeits a lameness or he loves his lameness and would not be cur'd for his lameness is his Stock it is his Demean it is as they call their Occupations in the City his Mystery Are there not yet Treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked when even they who have no Houses but lie in the Streets have these Treasures Thesaurus Dei hic There are And then as the nature of Treasure is to multiply so does this Treasure this Treasure of sin It produces another Treasure Thesaurizamus iram We treasure up unto our selves wrath against the day of wrath Rom. 2.5 for it is of the sins of the people that God speaks Deut. 32.34 when he says Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up amongst my treasures He treasures up the sins of the disobedient But where In the Treasury of his judgements And then that Treasury he opens against us in this world his Treasures of Snow Job 38.22 and Treasures of Hail that is Unseasonableness of Weather Psal 135.7 Barrenness and Famine and he bringeth his winds out of his Treasury contrary winds or storms and tempests to disappoint our purposes Isa 45.3 and as he saies to Cyrus I will give thee even thee Cyrus though God car'd not for Cyrus otherwise then as he had made Cyrus his scourge I will give thee the Treasures of darkness and the hidden Treasures of secret places God will enable Enemies though he loves not those Enemies to afflict that people that love not him And these War and Dearth and Sickness are the Weapons of Gods displeasure and these he pours out of his Treasury Thesaurus Dei in futuro in this world But then for the world to come He shall open his treasury for whatsoever mov'd our Translators to render that word Armory and not Treasury in that place yet evidently it is Treasury Jer. 50.25 and in that very word Otzar which they
Glorification Manna putrified if it were kept by any man but a day but in the Ark it never putrified That treasure which is as Manna from Heaven Grace and Peace yet here hath a brackish taste when Grace and Peace shall become Joy and Glory in Heaven there it will be sincere Sordescit quod inferiori miscetur naturae August etsi in suo genere non sordidetur Though in the nature thereof that with which a purer Metal is mix'd be not base yet it abases the purer Metal He puts his Example in Silver and Gold Though Silver be a precious Metal yet it abases Gold Grace and Peace and Faith are precious parts of our Treasure here yet if we mingle them that is compare them with the Joys and Glory of Heaven if we come to think That our Grace and Peace and Faith here can no more be lost then our Joy and Glory there we abase and over-allay those Joys and that Glory The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a Treasure says our Saviour Matth. 13.44 But is that all Is any Treasure like unto it None For to end where we begun Treasure is Depositum in Crastinum Provision for to morrow The treasure of the worldly man is not so He is not sure of any thing to morrow Nay the treasure of the Godly man is not so in this world He is not sure that this dayes Grace and Peace and Faith shall be his to morrow When I have Joy and Glory in Heaven I shall be sure of that to morrow And that 's a term long enough for before a to morrow there must be a night And shall there ever be a night in Heaven No more then day in Hell Apoc. 21.23 There shall be no Sun in Heaven therefore no danger of a Sun-set And for the treasure it self when the Holy Ghost hath told us 18. That the Walls and Streets of the City are pure Gold That the Foundations thereof are all precious Stones and every Gate of an intire Pearl what hath the Holy Ghost himself left to denote unto us what the treasure it self within is The Treasure it self is the Holy Ghost himself and Joy in him As the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son but I know not how so there shall something proceed from Father Son and Holy Ghost and fall upon me but I know not what Nay not fall upon me neither but enwrap me embrace me for I shall not be below them so as that I shall not to be upon the same seat with the Son at the right hand of the Father in the Union of the Holy Ghost Rectified by the Power of the Father and feel no weakness Enlightned by the Wisdom of the Son and feel no scruple Established by the Joy of the Holy Ghost and feel no jealousie Where I shall finde the Fathers of the first Age dead five thousand years before me Serm. 6. and they shall not be able to say they were there a minute before me Where I shall finde the blessed and glorious Martyrs who went not per viam lacteam but per viam sanguineam not by the milky way of an Innocent Life but by the bloody way of a Violent Death and they shall not contend with me for precedency in their own Right or say VVe came in by Purchase and you but by Pardon VVhere I shall finde the Virgins and not be despised by them for not being so but hear that Redintegration which I shall receive in Christ Jesus call'd Virginity and Intireness VVhere all tears shall be wip'd from mine Eyes not onely tears of Compunction for my self and tears of Compassion for others but even tears of Joy too for there shall be no sudden joy no joy unexperienced there There I shall have all joys altogether always There Abraham shall not be gladder of his own Salvation then of mine nor I surer of the Everlastingness of my God then of my Everlastingness in Him This is that Treasure of which the God of this Treasure give us those Spangles and that single Money which this Mint can coin this VVorld can receive that is Prosperity and a good use thereof in worldly things and Grace and Peace and Faith in spiritual And then reserve for us the Exaltation of this Treasure in the Joy and Glory of Heaven in the Mediation of his Son Christ Jesus and by the Operation of his Blessed Spirit AMEN A SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL April 21. 1616. SERMON VI. ECCLES 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily Therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil WE cannot take into our Meditation a better Rule then that of the Stoick Nihil infaelicius faelicitate peccantium Seneca There is no such unhappiness to a sinner as to be happy no such cross as to have no crosses nor can we take a better Example of that Rule then Constantius the Arrian Emperour in whose time first of all the Crosse of Christ suffer'd that profanation as to be an Ensign of War between Christian and Christian When Magnentius by being an usurping Tyrant and Constantius by being an Arrian Heretick had forfeited their interest in the Cross of Christ which is the Ensign of the universal Peace of this world and the means of the eternal Peace of the next both brought the Cross to cross the Cross to be an Ensign of War and of Hostility both made that Cross when the Father accepted for all mankinde the blood of Christ Jesus to be an instrument for the sinful effusion of the blood of Christians But when this Heretical Emperour had a Victory over this usurping Tyrant this unhappy happiness transported him to a greater sin a greater insolence to approach so near to God himself as to call himself Eternum principem The eternal Emperour and to take into his stile and Rescripts this addition Eternitatem nostram Thus and thus it hath pleased our Eternity to proceed Yea and to bring his Arrian followers who would never acknowledge an eternity in Christ nor confess him to be the eternal Son of God to salute himself by that name Eternum Caesarem The eternal Emperour so venimous so deadly is the prosperity of the wicked to their own souls that even from the mercy of God they take occasion of sinning not onely Thereby but even Therefore They do not only make that their excuse when they do sin but their Reason why they may sin as we see in these words Because sentence against an evil work is not excuted speedily c. Divisio In which words we shall consider first The general perversness of a natural man who by custom in sin comes to assign a Reason why he may sin intimated in the first word Because And secondly The particular perversness of the men in this Text who assign the patience of God to be the Reason of their continuance in sin Because sentence is not executed speedily And
then lastly The illusion upon this what a fearful state this shuts them up in That therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evil And these three The perversness of colouring sins with Reasons and the impotency of making Gods mercy the Reason and the danger of obduration thereby will be the three parts in which we shall determine this Exercise Part I. First then in handling the perversness of assigning Reasons for sins we forbid no man the use of Reason in matters of Religion As S. August says Contra Scriptura nemo Christianus No man can pretend to be a Christian if he refuse to be tryed by the Scriptures And as he adds Contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus No man can pretend to love order and Peace if he refuse to be tryed by the Church so he adds also Contra Rationem nemo sobrius No man can pretend to be in his wits if he refuse to be tryed by Reason He that believes any thing because the Church presents it he hath Reason to assure him that this Authority of the Church is founded in the Scriptures He that believeth the Scriptures hath Reasons that govern and assure him that those Scriptures are the Word of God Mysteries of Religion are not the less believ'd and embrac'd by Faith because they are presented and induc'd and apprehended by Reason But this must not enthrone this must not exalt any mans Reason so far as that there should lie an Appeal from Gods Judgements to any mans reason that if he see no reason why God should proceed so and so he will not believe that to be Gods Judgement or not believe that Judgement of God to be just For of the secret purposes of God Mat. 11.26 we have an Example what to say given us by Christ himself Ita est quia complacuit It is so O Father because thy good pleasure was such All was in his own breast and bosome in his own good will and pleasure before he Decreed it And as his Decree it self so the wayes and Executions of his Decrees are often unsearchable for the purpose and for the reason thereof though for the matter of fact they may be manifest They that think themselves sharp-sighted and wise enough to search into those unreveal'd Decrees they who being but worms will look into Heaven and being the last of Creatures who were made will needs enquire what was done by God before God did any thing for creating the World In ultimam dementiam reverant says S. Chrysost They are fallen into a mischievous madness Et ferrum ignitum quod forcipe deberent digitus accipiunt They will needs take up red hot Irons with their bare fingers without tongs That which is in the Center which should rest and lie still in this peace That it is so because it is the will of God that it should be so they think to toss and tumble that up to the Circumference to the Light and Evidence of their Reason by their wrangling Disputations If then it be a presumpteous thing and a contempt against God to submit his Decrees to the Examination of humane reason it must be a high treason against the Majesty of God to find out a reason in him which should justifie our sins To conclude out of any thing which he does or leaves undone that either he doth not hate or cannot punish sinners For this destroys even the Nature of God and that which the Apostle lays for the foundation of all To believe that God is Heb. 11.6 and that he is a just Rewarder Adam's quia Mulier The woman whom thou gavest me gave me the Apple And Eve's quia Serpens Because the Serpent deceiv'd me and all such are poor and unallowable pleas which God would not admit For there is no Quia no Reason why any man at any time should do any sin God never permits any perplexity to fall upon us so as that we cannot avoyd one sin but by doing another or that we should think our self excusable by saying Quia inde minus malum There is less harm in a Concubine then in another wife Or Quia inde aliquod bonum That my incontinence hath produc'd a profitable man to the State or to the Church though a bastard much less to say Quia obdormivit Deus Tush God sees it not or cares not for it though he see it If thou ask then why thou should'st be bound to believe the Creation we say Quia unus Deus Because there can be but one God and if the World be eternal and so no Creature the World is God If thou ask why thou should'st be bound to believe Providence we say Quia Deus remunerator Because God is to give every man according to his merits If thou ask why thou should'st be bound to believe that when thou seest he doth not give every man according to his merits we say Quia inscrutabilia judicia ejus O how unsearchable are his Jugdements and his ways past finding out For thou art yet got no farther in measuring God but by thine own measure and thou hast found no other reason to lead thee to think that God doth not govern well but because he doth not govern so to thine understanding as thou shouldst if thou wert God So that thou dost not onely make thy weakness but thy wickedness that is thy hasty disposition to come to a present Revenge when any thing offends thee the Measure and the Model by which the frame of Gods Government should be erected and so thou comest to the worst distemper of all insanire cum ratione to go out of thy wits by having too much and to be mad with too much knowledge not to sin out of infirmity or tentation or heat of blood but to sin in cold blood and upon just reason and mature considerations and so deliberately and advisedly to continue to sin Part II. Now the particular reason which the perversness of these men produceth here in this Text is Because God is patient and long-suffering So he is so he will be still Their perversness shall not pervert his Nature his goodness As God bade the Prophet Osea do 1.2 he hath done himself Go says he and take to thee a wife of fornication and children of fornication so hath he taken us guilty of spiritual fornication But as in the fleshly fornications of an adulterous wife the husband is for the most part the last that hears of them so for our spiritual fornications such is the loathness the patience the longanimity of our good and gracious God that though he do know our sins as soon as they speak as soon as they are acted for that 's peccatum cum voco says S. Gregory A speaking sin when any sinful thought is produc'd into act yea before they speak as soon as they are conceiv'd yet he will not hear of our sins he takes no knowledge of them by punishing them till our brethren have
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
Cure as a full stomack hath no room for Physick The Mathematician could have removed the whole world with his Engine if there had been any place to have set his Engine in Any man might be cur'd of any sin if his heart were not full of it and fully set upon it which setting is indeed in a great part an unsetledness when the heart is in a perpetual motion and in a miserable indifferencie to all sins it may be fully set upon sin though it be not vehemently affected to any one sin The reason which is assign'd why the heart of man if it receive a wound is incurable is the palpitation and the continual motion of the heart for if the heart could lie still so that fit things might be applyed to it and work upon it all wounds in all parts of the heart were not necessarily mortal So if our hearts were not distracted in so many forms and so divers ways of sin it might the better be cur'd of any one St. Augustine had this apprehension when he said Audeo dicere utile esse cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum ut sibi displiceant It is well for him that is indifferent to all sins if he fall into some such misery by some one sin as brings him to a sense of that and of the rest St. Augustine when he says this says he speaks boldly in saying so Audeo dicere but we may be so much more bold as to say further That that man had been damn'd if he had not sinn'd that sin For the heart of the indifferent sinner bayts at all that ever rises at all forms and images of sin when he sees a thief he runs with him Psal 50. and with the adulterer he hath his portion and as soon as it contracts any spiritual disease any sin it is presently not onely in morbo acuto but in morbo complicato in a sharp disease and in a manifold disease a disease multiplied in it self Therefore it is as St. Gregory notes that the Prophet proposes it as the hardest thing of all for a sinner to return to his own heart and to finde out that after it is strayed and scattered upon so several sins Redite prevaricatores ad cor says the Prophet Esa 46. and says that Father Longe eis mittit cum ad cor redire compellit God knows whither he sends them when he sends them to their own heart for since it is true which the same Father said Vix sancti inveniunt cor suum The holyest man cannot at all times finde his own heart his heart may be bent upon Religion and yet he cannot tell in which Religion and upon Preaching and yet he cannot tell which Preacher and upon Prayer and yet he shall finde strayings and deviations in his Prayer much more hardly is the various and vagabond heart of such an indifferent sinner to be found by any search If he enquire for his heart at that Chamber where he remembers it was yesterday in lascivious and lustful purposes he shall hear that it went from thence to some riotous Feasting from thence to some Blasphemous Gaming after to some Malicious Consultation of entangling one and supplanting another and he shall never trace it so close as to drive it home that is to the consideration of it self and that God that made it nay scarce to make it consist in any one particular sin That which St. Bernard fear'd in Eugenius when he came to be Pope and so to a distraction of many worldly businesses may much more be fear'd in a distraction of many sins Cave ne te trahant quo non vis Take heed lest these sins carry thee farther then thou intendest thou intendest but Pleasure or Profit but the sin will carry thee farther Quaeris quo says that Father Dost thou ask whither Ad cor durum To a senslesness a remorslesness a hardness of heart nec pergas quaerere says he quid illud sit Never ask what that hardness of heart is for if thou know it not thou hast it This then is the fulness and so the Incurableness of the heart by that reason of perpetual motion because it is in perpetual progress from sin to sin he never considers his state But there is another fulness intended here That he is come to a full point to a consideration of his sin and to a station and setledness in it out of a foundation of Reason as though it were not onely an excusable but a wise proceeding Because Gods judgements are not executed But when man becomes to be thus fully set God shall set him faster Job 14.17 Iniquitas tua in sacculo signata His transgression shall be sealed up in a bag and God shall sow up his iniquity And Quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei Gregor What is this bag of God but the heart of that sinner There as a bag of a wretched Misers money which shall never be opened never told till his death lies this bag of sin this frozen heart of an impenitent sinner and his sins shall never be opened never told to his own Conscience till it be done to his final condemnation God shall suffer him to settle where he hath chosen to settle himself in an unsensibleness an Inintelligibleness to use Tertullian's word of his own condition And Aug. Quid miserior misero non miserante seipsum Who can be more miserable then that man who does not commiserate his own misery How far gone is he into a pitiful estate that neither desires to be pitied by others nor pities himself nor discerns that his state needs pity Invaluerat ira tua super me nesciebam says blessed St. Augustine Thy hand lay heavie upon me and I found it not to be thy hand because the Maledictions of God are honeyed and candied over with a little crust or sweetness of worldly ease or reprieve we do not apprehend them in their true taste and right nature Obsurdueram stridore catenarum mearum says the same Father The jingling and ratling of our Chains and Fetters makes us deaf The weight of the judgement takes away the sense of the judgement This is the full setting of the heart to do evil when a man fills himself with the liberty of passing into any sin in an indifferencie and then findes no reason why he should leave that way either by the love or by the fear of God If he prosper by his sin then he findes no reason if he do not prosper by it yet he findes a wrong reason If unseasonable flouds drown his Harvest and frustrate all his labours and his hopes he never findes that his oppressing and grinding of the Poor was any cause of those waters but he looks onely how the Winde sate and how the ground lay and he concludes that if Noah and Job Ezek. 14.14 and Daniel had been there their labour must have perished and been drown'd as well as his If
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
and lose a mans own soul Our text therefore stands as that proverbial that Hieroglifical letter Pithagoras his y that hath first a stalk a stem to fix it self and then spreads into two beams The stem the stalk of this letter this y is in the first word of the text that particle of argumentation for take heed where you place your treasure for it concernes you much where your heart be placed and where your treasure is there your heart will be also and then opens this Symbolical this Catechistical letter this y into two hornes two beams two branches One broader but on the left hand denoting the treasures of this world the other narrower but on the right hand treasure laid up for the world co come be sure ye turn the right way for where your treasure is there will your heart be also First we bind our selves to the stake to the stalk to the staffe Cor fixum the stem of this Simbolical letter consider in it that firmness fixation of the heart which God requires God requires no unatural thing at mans hand whatsoever God requires of man man may find imprinted in his own nature written in his own heart This firmness then this fixation of the heart is natural to man every man does set his heart upon something and Christ in this place does not so much call upon him that he would do so set his heart upon something as to be sure he set it upon the right object and yet truly even this first work to recollect our selves to recapitulate our selves to assemble and muster our selves and to bend our hearts intirely and intensly directly earnestly emphatically energetically upon something is by reason of the various fluctuation of our corrupt nature and the infinite multiplicity of objects such a work as man needs to be called upon and excited to do it therefore is there no words in the Scripture so often added to the heart as that of Intireness Toto corde omni corde pleno corde do this withal thy heart with a whole heart with a full heart for whatsoever is indivisible is immoveable a Point because it cannot be denied cannot be moved the Center the Poles God himself because he is indivisible is therfore immoveable and when the heart of man is knit up in such an intirenes upon one object as that it does not flatter nor subdivide it self then and then only is it fixed And that 's the happiness in which David fixes himself not in his Cor paratim my heart is preparad O God my heart is prepared Psal 57 7. for so it may be prepared even by God himself and yet scattered and subdivided by us But in his Cor fixum My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed awake my glory awake my Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake early Psal 108 1. and praise thee O Lord among the people A triumph that David returned to more then once for he repeats the same words with the same pathetical earnestness again so that his glory his victory his triumph his peace his acquiescence his al-sufficiency in himself consisted in this that his heart was fixed for this fixation of the heart argued and testified an intireness in it when God saies sili da mihi Cor my Son give me thy heart God means the whole man 1 Cor. 12.17 though the Apostle saith The eye is not the man nor the ear is not the man he does not say the heart is not the man the heart is the man the heart is all And as Moses was not satisfied with that Commission that Pharaoh offered him Exod. 10 8. that all the men might go to offer Sacrifice but Moses would have all their young and all their old all their Sons and all their Daughters all their flocks and all their heards he would have all so when God saies Fili da mihi cor my Son give me thy heart God will not be satisfied with the eye if I contemplate him in his works for that 's but the godliness of the natural man nor satisfied with the ear with hearing many Sermons for that 's but a new invention a new way of making beads as if the Papist think all done if he have said so many Aves I think all done If I have heard so many Sermons But God requires the heart the whole man all the faculties of that man for only that that is entire and indivisible is immoveable and that that God cals for and we seek for in this stem of Pithagoras his Symbolical letter is this immoveableness this fixation of the heart and yet even against this though it be natural there are many impediments we shall reduce them to a few to three these three First there is Cor nullum a meer heartlesness no heart at all incogitancy inconsideration and then there is Cor cor Cor duplex a double heart a doubtful a distracted heart which is not incogitancy nor inconsideration but purplexity and irresolution and lastly Cor vagum a wandring a wayfaring a weary heart which is neither inconsideration nor irresolution but inconstancy and this is a trinity against our unity three enemies to that fixation and intireness of the heart which God loves inconsideration when we do not debate irresolution when we do not determine inconstancy when we do not persevere and upon each of these Cor nullum be pleased to stop your devotion a few minuts This first is Cor nullum no heart at all incogitancy thoughtlesness An idle body is a disease in a state an idle soul is a monster in a man That body that will not work must not eat 2 Thes 3.10 but starve that soul that does not think nor consider cannot be said to Actuate which is the proper operation of the Soul but to Evaporate not to work in the body but to breath and smoak through the body We have seen estates of private men wasted by inconsideration as well as by riot and a soul may perish by a thoughtlesness as well as by ill thoughts God takes it as ill to be slighted as to be injur'd and God is as much slighted in Corde nullo in our thoughtlesness and inconsideration as he is opposed and provoked in Corde maligno in a rebellious heart There is a good nullification of the heart a good bringing of the heart to nothing for the fire of Gods spirit may take hold of me and as the Disciples that went with Christ to Emaus Luk. 24. were affected my heart may burn within me when the Scriptures are opened that is when Gods Judgments are denounced against my sin and this heat may overcome my former frigidity and coldness and overcome my succeeding tepidity and lukewarmness and may bring my heart to a mollification to a tenderness as Job found it The Almighty hath troubled me and made my heart soft for there are hearts of clay as well as hearts of wax hearts whom
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
man hath Thesaurus malorum Luc. 6. An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evill sayes our Saviour every man hath some sin upon which his heart is set and where your heart is there is your treasure also The Treasures of wickednesse profit nothing sayes Job 't is true but yet treasures of wickedness there are 10.2 Mich. 6.10 Are there not yet Treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked consider the force of that word yet yet though you have the power of a vigilant Prince executed by just Magistrates yet though you have the piety of a religious Prince seconded by the assiduity of a laborious Clergy yet though you have many helps which your Fathers did and your neighbors doe want and have by Gods grace some fruits of those many helps yet for all this Are there not yet Treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked No Are there not scant measures which are an abomination to God sayes the Prophet there which are not only false measures of merchantdize but false measures of men for when God sayes that he intends all this Is there not yet supplantation in Court and misre-presentations of men When Salomon who understood subordination of places which flowed from him as well as the highest which himself possest sayes and sayes experimentally for his own and prophetically for future times If a Ruler a man in great place hearken to lies all his servants are wicked Are there not yet misrepresentations of men in Courts Is there not yet oppression in the Countrey Prov. 29.12 Amos 8.5 a starving of men and pampering of dogs A swallowing of the needy a buying of the poor for a pair of shoes and a selling to the hungry refuse corn Esai 5.23 Is there not yet oppression in the Country Is there not yet extortion in Westminster A justifying of the wicked for a reward and a taking away of the righteousness of the righteous from him Is there not yet extortion in Westminster Is there not yet Collusion and Circumvention in the City would they not seem richer than they are when they deal in private bargains with one another and would they not seem poorer than they are when they are called to contribute for the Publique Exech 28.5 have they not encreased their riches by Trade and lifted up their hearts upon the encrease of their riches Amos 2 8. have they not slackned their Trade and lyen down upon clothes laid to pledge and ennobled themselves by an ignoble and lazie way of gain Is there not yet collusion and circumvention in the City Is there not yet Hypocrisie in the Church In all parts thereof half-preachings and half-hearings hearings and preachings without practise have we not national sins of our own and yet exercise the nature of Islanders in importing the sins of foraign parts And though we better no foragin commodity nor manufactures that we bring in we improve the sins of other Nations And as a weaker grape growing upon the Rhene contracts a stronger nature in the Canaries so doe the sins of other Nations transplanted amongst us Have we not secular sins sins of our own age our own time and yet sin by precedent of former as well as create precedents for future Jos 6.19 and not only Silver and gold but vessels of iron and brasse were brought into the Treasury of the Lord not only the glorious sins of high places and nationall sins and secular sins but the wretchedest begger in the street contributes to this Treasure the Treasure of sin and to this mischievous use to encrease this Treasure The Treasure of sin is a subsidieman he begs in Jesus name and for Gods sake and in the same name curses him that does not give he counterfeits a lameness or he loves his lameness and would not be cur'd for his lameness is his stock it is his demean it is as they call their occupations in the City his mystery Are there not yet Treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked when even they who have no houses but lie in the streets have these Treasures Thesaurus Dei hic There are and then as the nature of treasure is to multiply so does this treasure this treasure of sin it produces another treasure Thesaurizamus iram Ro. 2.5 We treasure up unto our selves wrath against the day of wrath Deut. 32.34 For it is of the sins of the people that God speaks when he saies Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up amongst my treasures He treasures up the sins of the disobedient but where In the treasury of his Judgments And then that treasury he opens against us in this world his treasure of snow and treasures of hail that is unseasonableness of weather barrenness and famine and he bringeth his winds out of his treasury contrary winds or storms and tempests to disappoint our purposes Job 38.22 And as he saies to Cyrus I will give thee even thee Cyrus though God car'd not for Cyrus Psal 135.7 otherwise then as he had made Cyrus his scourge I will give thee the treasures of darkness Esa 45.3 and the hidden treasures of secret places God will enable enemies though he loves not those enemies to afflict that people that love not him And these war and dearth and sickness are the weapons of Gods displeasure and these he poures out of his treasury in this world Thesaur Dei in â—â—tuâ—o But then for the world to come he shall open our treasury for whatsoever moved our translators to render that word Armory and not Treasury in that place yet evidently it is Treasury and in that very word Otzar which they translate Treasury Jer. 50.25 in all those places of Job and David and Esai which we mentioned before and in all other places he shall open that treasury saies that Prophet and bring forth the weapons not as before of displeasure but in a far heavier word the weapons of his indignation And in the bowels and treasure of his mercy let me beseech you not to call the denouncing of Gods indignation a Satyr of a Poet or an invective of an Orator as Salomon saies there is a time for all things there is a time for consternation of presumptuous hearts as well as for redintegration of broken hearts and the time for that is this time of mortification which we enter into now Now therefore let me have leave to say that the indignation of God is such a thing as a man would be afraid to think he can express it afraid to think he does know it for the knowledg of the indignation of God imples the sense feeling thereof all knowledg of that is experimental and that 's a woful way and a miserable acquisition and purchase of knowledg To recollect treasure is provision for the future no worldly thing is so there is no certain
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
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
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
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
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
into tentation and do not deliver thee from Egypt but let thee fall into a sin though he let thee fall so far as to doubt of his mercy for that sin yet Idem Deus all this while all this is the same God and even that voice though it have an account of despair in it is the voice of God and though it be spoken in the mouth of the Devil it is God that speakes it for even then when the Devil possesses man God possesses the Devil God can make his profit and thine of thy sin he can make the horror of a sin committed the occasion of thy repentance and his mercy Amos 3.6 for Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it God is no disposer to sin but he is the disposer of sin God is not Lord of sin as Author of sin but he is the Lord of sin as Steward of it and he dispenses not onely for our sins but the sins themselves God imprints not that obliquity infuses not that venome that is in our sinful Actions but God can extract good out of bad and Cordials out of Poyson Be not thou therefore too nimble a Sophister nor too pressing an Advocate against thine own soul conclude not too soon that God hath forsaken thee because he hath let thee fall and let thee lie some time in some sin you know who did so and yet was a man according to Gods own heart for God hath set his heart upon that way to glorifie himself out of Davids repentance rather then out of his innocence In the Hills and in the Vallies too in spiritual as well as in temporal prosperity and adversity too in the Old and in the New Testament in the ways of mercy and of justice too thou maist find the same God who is in every change Idem Deus God that is the same God who commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd in our hearts And so we have done with the first Proposition Sicut Deus The next is Sicut Deus As God hath done the one so he hath the other God brings himself into comparison with himself Our unworthiness changes not his nature His mercy is new every morning and his mercy endureth for ever One generation is a precedent to another and God is his own Example whatsoever he hath done for us he is ready to do again When he had once written the Law in stone-tables for the direction of his people and that Moses in an over-vehement zeal and distemper had broke those Tables God turn'd to his precedent remembred what he had done and does so again he writes that Law again in new Tables When God had given us the light of the Reformation for a few years of a young King and that after him in the time of a pious truly but credulous Princess a Cloud of blood over-shadowed us in a heavy persecution yet God turn'd to his precedent to the example of his former mercy and in mercy re-established that light which shines yet amongst us and if the sins of the people extinguish it not shall shine as long as the Sun and Moon shall shine above The Lords hand is not shortned nor weakned in the ways of justice and his justice hath a Sicut a precedent an Example too There is Sicut Kore If we sin as Kore and his Complices sinned as Kore and his Complices we shall perish Num. 16.40 There is an Anathema Sicut illud Deut. 7.26 Thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house not an Idolator into thy house lest thou be an accursed thing Sicut illud as guilty in the eye of God Psal 83.9 as the Idolator himself There is Sicut Midian God can do unto the men of these times as he did unto the Midianites as to Sisera as to Jabin which perished and became as the Dung of the earth He can make their Nobles Sicut Oreb Sicut Zeeb like unto Oreb like unto Zeeb and all their Princes Sicut Zebah Sicut Salmana There are precedents of his justice too But yet in the greatest act of his justice that ever he did which was the general drowning of the whole world though that history remain as an everlasting Demonstration of his power and of his justice yet he would not have it remain as a precedent but he records that with that protestation I will no more curse the earth nor smite any more every living thing as I have done though I have show'd that I can do it and have done it I will do it no more God forbears and wayes his own example in matter of justice but God never shew'd any mercy but he desires that that mercy may be recorded and produc'd and pleaded to our Conscience to the whole Congregation to God himself as a leading and a binding case as he commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts God proceeds by example by pattern Even in this first great act presented in our Text in the Creation he did so God had no external pattern in the Creation for there was nothing extant but God had from all Eternity an internal pattern an Idaea a pre-conception a form in himself according to which he produc'd every Creature And when God himself proceeds upon pre-conceptions pre-meditations shall we adventure to do or to say any thing in his service unpremeditately extemporally It is not Gods way Now it is a penurious thing to have but one Candle in a room it is too dim a light to work by to live by to have but Rule and Precept alone Rule and Example together direct us fully Who shall be our Example Hierom. Idaea novi hominis Christus Jesus If thou wilt be a new Creature and Circumcision is nothing uncircumcision nothing but onely to be a new Creature then Christ is thy Idaea thy Pattern thine Original for Quid in eo non Novum what was there in him that was not new When was there such a Conception of the Holy Ghost such a birth of a Virgin such a pregnancy to dispute so so young with such men When such a death as God to die when such a life as a dead man to raise himself again Quid in eo non Novum To be produc'd by this Idaea built up by this Model copied by this Original is truely is onely to be a new Creature But that thou mayst put thy self into the way to this it is usefully said Enim vero certum vitae genus sibi constituere Certainly to undertake a certain Profession Nazianz. a Calling in this world and to propose to our selves the Example of some good and godly man in that Calling whose steps we will walk in and whom we will make our precedent Tanti Momenti esse duco says that Father is a matter of so great importance as that upon that says he lies the building of our whole life That little Philosopher Epictetus could give us that