is that increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love Oh what a shole of Christians did this Love send forth when the Heathen could make the observation and proclaim it See how these Christians love one another Then did they fill their villages their temples their armies And if we look upon their number they might as Tertullian observes have easily swallowed up their enemies in victory When St. Peter that Fisher of men caught so many together even three thousand souls it was Love that gathered them in and Acts 2. 41. it was Love that kept them in For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they continued daily with v. 46. one accord in the temple They were of one heart and of one soul And what Acts 4. 32. is it that hath made such a dearth and scarcity of sincere and truly pious Christians but our Debate and bitter Malice the greatest enemy Christianity hath For by biting and devouring one another we have well-near consumed one another nay well-near consumed Religion it self And if a Heathen should stand by he could not but wonder and make no other observation then this See how the Christians hale one another The Heathen of old could find out nothing in the Christians but their name to accuse them but we of this aged and corrupted world have scarce any thing but the name of Christians to commend us Hoc Ithacus velit This is that which our enemies have long expected and to effect which they have spent their nights their dayes have laid out their leasure their business their watchings their very sleep and now have seen that fire which they did help to kindle by the light of which they may stretch forth their curtains and enlarge their territories and dominions every day in Christendome For as the Devil is tormented as Optatus speaks with the peace of the Brethren when they are joyned together vinculo fidei glutine charitatis by the bond and cement of Faith and Love so is he enlivened and put into hopes of success in his attempts by the mutual ruptures and jealousies which the Brethren the members of the Church foment and cherish amongst themselves When by the defection of Jeroboam Judah and Israel were rent asunder then came Shishak and troubled Jerusalem And 2 Chron. 12. 2. therefore let us love the Brotherhood as the Apostle exhorts For an enemy is never more dangerous to an army then when it is disordered by mutiny and division If it be at peace with it self it hath half conquered the enemy When the Church begins to be torn by Schisms and Contentions then every blast is ready to shake and shatter it but when it is in unity within it self then it is built up strong and fair as the tower of David No Heresie no Enemy no Jesuite no Devil no not the Gates of Hell can prevail against us whilst we are fast joyned together rooted and built-up and establisht in love No principalities nor powers no height nor depth no creature can come near to touch us whilst we keep within the circle and compass which Love maketh whilst we continue Brethren Thus then we find both Pleasure and Profit in being Brethren But now in the third and last place there is a kind of Necessity to force us And the Love that keeps us so is necessary not only as a virtue or quality without which we ought not to be but as a virtue without which we cannot be what we profess For loose but this bond once unjoynt this goodly frame shake but the Brotherhood and we are fallen from heaven spoiled of all the riches of the Gospel deprived of all the priviledges and prerogatives of Christians defeated of all those glorious promises shook from the hope of immortality and eternal life without love and then without God in this world left naked and destitute stript of our inheritance having title to no place but that where the revolting Angels and malicious Spirits are shut up For as that is true which we find in the Gloss on the Canon Law Habe Charitatem fac quod vis Do it in love and do what thou wilt Thy Zeal shall be as the fire in the bush burning but not consuming thy Reproofs shall be balm thy Justice physick thy Wounds kisses thy Tears as the dew of heaven thy Joy the joy of Angels all thy Works fit to be put in the register of God But if once thou forsake the Brotherhood if once thou shake hands with Love then whatsoever thou doest must needs be ill done because thou doest it If thou speak with the tongue of Men and Angels it is but noise if thou give all thy goods to the poor it is but loss and that which with Love is martyrdom without it may be murder Thy Zeal will be rage thy Reproofs swords thy Justice gall and wormwood thy Wounds fatal thy Tears the dropping of a crocodile thy Joy madness and thy Works sit for nothing but the fire The Gospel to thee will be as killing as the Law and the Bloud of Christ cry as loud for vengeance as that of Abel or of any Brother whom thou hast persecuted and wounded with injuries and reproach Let us not deceive our selves with vain pretences and ridiculous excuses with empty and airy phansies which can conceive and shape out Love when it is dead in the heart which can revile and love strike and love kill and love For a truth it is and a sad truth a truth which may bore the ears of many of us Christians and strike us to the ground as Peters voice did Ananias And St. John hath set his seal to it He that loveth not his Brother and not to 1 John 3. 14. love him with St. John is to hate him abideth in death And again He He that hateth his brother is a murderer alluding to our Saviours reformation of the Law which even made Anger murder What degree of Murder soever he means such a Murderer he is that hath not eternal life abiding in him The want of this Love being a sure mark of a child of wrath and of one carrying his hell about with him whithersoever he goes being himself a Tophet burning with fire and brimstone with Hatred and Malice and Fury having nothing between him and that everlasting Hell but a ruinous wall his body of flesh which will moulder away and fall down within a span of time Oh how should this still sound in our ears as that Rise and come unto judgment did in St. Hieroms who could not sleep for it Oh that the sound of this would make us not to leave our sleep but to leave our gall our venome our Malice which may peradventure bite our Brothers heel wound him in his person in his estate or good name but will most certainly sting us unto death Let then this sad nay this behoofful this glorious this Necessity prevail with us and let us not so trifle with
her part on An easie thing it is to be meek where there is nothing to raise our Anger and Revenge hath no place where there is no provocation The Philosopher in his Rhetorics giving us the character of Meekness tells us that most men are gentle and meek to those who never wronged them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or who did it unwillingly to men who confess an injury and repent of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those who humble themselves at their feet and beseech them and who do not contradict them to those whom they reverence and fear For Fear and Anger seldom lodge in the same breast But Christianity raiseth Meekness to a higher pitch where no injury can reach it A studied and plotted injury an injury made greater by defense an injury from the meanest from him that sits with the dogs of our flocks any injury at any time from any man maketh a fit object for Christian Meekness which in the midst of all contumelies and reproaches in the midst of all contradictions is still the same Should we insist upon every particular our Discourse would be too large We will therefore fasten our meditations upon those which may seem most pertinent and so take off all those pretenses which we Christians commonly bring in as Advocates to plead for us when we forget that we are Christians There be two errors in our life the one of Opinion the other in Manners and Behaviour which is far the worse and though these of themselves carry no fire with them yet by our weakness commonly it comes to pass that they are made the only incendiaries of the world and set both Church and Commonwealth in combustion If our brothers opinion stand in opposition to ours if his life and conversation be not drawn out by the same rule we presently are on fire and we number it amongst our virtues to be angry with those who in their Doctrine are erroneous or in their lives irregular Now in this I know not how blessed we think our selves but I am sure we are not meek For if we were truly possessed of that Meekness which Christ commends as we should receive the weak in Faith with all tenderness so should we be compassionate to the wicked also and learn that Christian art which would enable us to make good use both of Sin and Error And first for Error though many times it be of a monstrous aspect yet I see nothing in it which of it self hath force to fright a Christian from that temper which should so compose him that he may rather lend an hand to direct him that errs then cry him down with noise and violence seeing it is a thing so general to be deceived so easie to erre and so hard to be reduced from our error seeing with more facility many times we change an evil custom then a false opinion For Sin carries with it an argument against it self Hoc habet quod sibi displicet saith Seneca As it fills the heart with delight so it doth with terror Like the Viper mater est funeris sui it works its own destruction and helps to dispossess it self But Errour pleaseth us with the shape of Truth nor can any man be deceived in opinion but as Ixion was by embracing a cloud for Juno and Falshood for the Truth He that errs if he were perswaded he did so could err no longer And what guilt he incurs by his error the most exact and severe inquisition cannot find out because this depends on that measure of light which is afforded and the inward disposition and temper of his soul which are as hard for a stander-by to dive into as to be the searcher of his heart The Heresie of the Arians was as dangerous as any that ever did molest the peace of the Church as being that which strook at the very foundation and denyed the Divinity of the Son yet Salvian passeth this gentle censure on them Errant sed bono animo errant non odio sed affectu Dei They erred but out of a good mind not out of hatred but affection to God And though they were injurious to Christs Divine generation yet they loved him as a Saviour and honoured him as a Lord. The Manichees fell upon those gross absurdities that Reason when her eye is weakest may easily see through yet St. Augustine who had been one himself bespeaks them in this courteous language Illi saeviant in vos qui nesciunt quocum labore verum inveniatur Let them be angry with you who know not with what difficulty the truth is found and how hard a matter it is to gain that serenity of mind which may dispel the mists of carnal phantasmes Let them be angry with you who were never deceived and who do not know with what sighs and groans we purchase the smallest measure of knowledge in Divine mysteries I cannot be angry but will so bear with your error now as I did with my own when I was a Manichee A good pattern to take out and learn how to demean our selves towards the mistakes of our brethren and to bear with the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves with the pretense of Zeal and Religion which loose their name and nature and bring in a world of iniquity when we use them to fan the fire of contention I do not see that relation or likeness between Difference of Opinion and contrariety in affections that one would beget the other or that it should be impossible or unlawful to be united unto him in love who is divided from me in opinion No Charity is from heaven heavenly and may have its influence on minds of divers dispositions as the Sun hath on bodies of a different temper and it may knit the hearts of those together in the bond of love whose opinions may be as various as their complexions But Faction and Schism and Dissention are from the earth earthly and have their beginnings and continuance not ab extra from the things themselves which are in controversie but from within us from our Self-love and Pride of mind which condemn the errors of our brethren as heresies and obtrude our own errors for Oracles I confess to contend for the Truth is a most Christian resolution and in Tertullians esteem a kind of Martyrdom It is the duty of the meekest man to take courage against Error and as Nazianzene speaketh in a cause that so nearly concerns us as the truth of Christ a Lamb should become a Lion I cannot but commend that of Calvine Maledicta pax cujus pignus desertio Dei That peace deserves a curse which lay's down the Truth and God himself for a gage and pawn and benedicta praelia quibus regnum Christi necessitate defenditur those battels are blessed which we are forced to wage in the name of the Lord of Hosts And thrice happy he who lays down his life a sacrifice for the Truth But Religion and Reason will
of satisfaction from his fulness that filleth all in all filleth all in every Good man filleth the Mind with light the Will with holy affections and the Body with an obsequious inclinableness and obedience to the Will and makes the whole man a Temple to himself full of light of peace of glory so filleth it that it is satisfied as with marrow and fatness with all satiety of joy The Chaldee Paraphrase brings it home to my Text satisfied with marrow and fatness that is with thy Law that is with that which is Good And thus we may draw an argument from the nature of Goodness which the nearer it carryeth us to the fountain of Goodness the more satisfaction it brings with it and the fuller is our Cup. Inebriabuntur ab ubertate domûs tuae saith the Psalmist They shall be overcome and even intoxicated with this cup. Without God we cannot be happy in heaven it self nay without him there could be no heaven and with him we shall enjoy what we can desire even in the lowest pit Nihil illi satis est cui non sufficit Deus We can never be satisfied till we rest in the greatest Good and Goodness lays us in his very bosome nay in his heart We never find our selves and all things but in him And as we draw an argument from Piety so may we draw another from the Love of it and therefore amamus amorem nostrum saith Augustine we do not only love Goodness but even the Love with which we embrace it and delight in both And this satisfaction proceeds not only from that which is good but from our hearty affection to it Goodness shines upon us and kindles our Love and as there is a glory in goodness so there is in our Love For Joy and Satisfaction is a resultancy from Love for our delight is to have and do what we love That which we love is also the joy of our heart If Love be as the Sun Joy and Satisfaction are as the beams that stream from it If Love fill the heart it will heave and work it self out and break forth in joy Gaudium de amore say the Schools our Satisfaction is the off-spring of Love and issueth from it and bears its shape and likeness For as our Love is such is our Joy If our Love be kindled from heaven our Joy will be also from the heaven heavenly and resemble that of the Angels But if it be placed on things below on that which is transitory on that which will not satisfie it will be also transitory and unsatisfying What is the satisfaction of a Worldling a thief may break through and steal it away What is the satisfaction of the Ambitious a frown will chase it away What is the satisfaction of the Wanton burnt and consumed in his lust The adulterer waiteth for the twilight the twilight cometh and to night sin is as a purchase but to morrow it is rottenness to his bones and dulness to his understanding to night it is the horn of beauty and to morrow a fury Goe compass about the world and what satisfaction can you find Draw all its beauty and honor and riches together and all is but ingens fabula magnum mendacium a long tale and a huge lye and Satisfaction and Joy may seem to be exhaled out of these as noysome vapours are out of the earth to be seen a while and then to be nothing or which is worse to gather into a cloud and dissolve in tears of sorrow and bitterness Ever as our Love and Desire is such is our Satisfaction One argument we take more à minori ad majus to perswade us to this Truth If the bare opinion of Piety in those who are not yet made perfect satisfie though it be but for a while then Piety it self will satisfie much more If the shadow if a weak representation of Virtue and Piety will refresh us what will it do when it shines upon us in perfection of beauty If one good act which is but the shell and outside of Goodness in them who rather approve than love it if one good thought one good word one good action lift us up how will a habit of goodness exalt us If I say the shadow hath this operation what hath the substance the thing it self If the giving a Cup of cold water will raise and settle content in us how will that Heart be filled with joy which is sacrificed to its Maker We may if we please discover this in our selves What feel we in our Heart when our Hand hath reached out a peny Doth it not make a kind of melody there doth it not so fill us that it is ready to break out at the lips What hear you when you give good counsil doth it not echo back again upon you When you have heard two Sermons on the Lords-day do you not tell your selves you have sanctified the Sabbath When you have received a Prophet though in your own name do you not look for a Prophets reward See what a paradise one leafe of the Tree of life may make for all these may be but leaves what a glorious structure may be raised upon a Thought And if Error if Opinion may work some satisfaction then Truth may much more If a Dream may enlighten us what will a Revelation from God himself do And if the embracing of a cloud do so much please us How shall we be transported when we shall find our Juno even Goodness it self in our arms If a form of Godliness then much more Godliness in its full power will fill and satisfie us Run to and fro through Jerusalem go about the streets thereof muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus and you shall find that every man is full every man almost is satisfied few drooping and hanging down the Head In our Health we comfort our selves and on our bed of Sickness we send for comforters and as miserable comforters as they are we are willing to hear them and a little opiate Divinity a few good words the name of JESUS doth settle and satisfie us There be very few Rachels that will not be comforted We run from that which is good and sit down in the shadow of it we wound our Conscience and then stain it over again we break the whole Law and one sigh is satisfaction nay we break the Law and perswade our selves we have kept it any perswasion is satisfaction We break one Law and satisfie our selves in the misinterpretation of another and so break it when we think we have kept it Industry is commanded and that must countenance our love of the world Zeal is commended and that must raise a faction Truth must be defended and that must beat up a drum It is not women only but men that are never to seek for an excuse and that is satisfaction Every man posts to destruction yet every man would seem to be on the wing to heaven Every man
Faith not only like Fire purifying the heart but like Clothes warming Acts 15. 9. the affections to a temperate and active heat An unbeliever Lord what a frost there is at his heart how cold and chill and denumn'd he stands not able to pull his hand out of his bosom as Solomon speaketh Lay the whip upon the fools back yet he moves not in better case to suffer than to be up and doing But Faith strikes a heat through us It is active in the Hand vocal in the Tongue compassionate in the Heart It sets the brain a working seeking and pursuing opportunities of doing good It makes our Feet like hinds feet and enlargeth the soul that we may run the way of Gods commandments Again Garments as they are indumenta for covert and warmth so are ornamenta too for decencie and ornament And sure Faith and Holiness of life are a comely wear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Goodness is equally venerable to all men It is not so much that good men hold her in esteem Her very enemies praise her in the gate Qui tot argumentis scripserunt They who by their black deeds have prescribed her and sent her a bill of divorce will be ready enough to tell you that she is the horn of beauty fairer than the children of men Judge of her by her contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin is shy of the light and keeps least in sight She hath a foul face and her best friends fling durt at her Hoc habet sibi displicet saith Seneca They that put her on are ashamed to walk abroad with her but fling her off in the streets as ready to disgrace Sin as to commit it The Profane gallant thunders out an oath and the next breath is a prayer that God would forgive the villanie The Superstitious wanton watche◠her sins as she doth her beads but drops them faster Her first care is an opportunity to commit sin and then to deliver up the full tale to her ghostly Father The Adulterer and the Priest like the Sun and the Moon have their seasons in the night Uncleanness and when the Sun is up Confession Ashamed she is of this loose garment but unwilling to put it off nay put it off she does but not to fling it away An argument of some dislike she so often changes Tertullian saith well Omne malum aut timore aut pudore natura perfudit Nature hath either struck Vice pale or dyed it in a blush When we sin we either fear or are ashamed But Righteousness and Charity are of a good complexion and like a healthful body inde colorem sumunt unde vires from thence have their beauty from whence their strength Righteousness is amiable in her going The young men see her and hide themselves and the aged arise and stand up Job 29. 8. 11. The ear that hears her blesseth her and the eye that sees her gives witness to her If the whole world were a Sun and all the men in it one eye yet she dares come forth at noon-day before the sun and the people Ad medium properat lucémque nitescere poscit We see then this is not only a Garment to cover us but also an Ornament to deck us not for necessity alone but for decency also St. Paul goes further and tells us it is an Armour to defend us a complete armour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 6. 11. Take the whole armour of God And he furnisheth the spiritual Souldier with Shooes Girdle Breast-plate Helmets and all necessary accoutrements from top to toe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Take it non ad pompam sed ad pugnam not to make a glittering shew like Darius but to fight like Alexander to demolish strong holds to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against us in our way non ad resistendum sed ad proficiendum saith Augustine not only to beat back the enemies darts but to gain ground of him to take-in those places those corners of our souls which he hath beleaguerd to enlarge in us the kingdom of grace that so our passage may be free to the kingdom of Glory To these we may add a fourth Garments are not only for Necessity Decency and Security but also for Distinction So saith St. Augustine Charitas dividit inter filios regni filios perditionis Charity puts a distinction between true heirs and sons of perdition The character and mark of a Christian saith Nazianzene is the letter Tau in his forehead by which God doth know his and is known of his Bellarmine hath no less than fifteen marks of the true Church but this one here is worth them all We talk much of the book of life but we never read it and whose names are written therein we cannot tell All the light we have is from this fire of Charity He that hath her hath if not written his name in that book yet subscribed to it he that casts her off hath drawn out to himself those black lines of reprobation All the mark we know good Christians by here all the marks we shall know Saints by hereafter is Charity Rank and order Gods Decrees how we will and tell them at our fingers ends all the light our Saviour gives us is this They that have done well that have this mark shall enter into everlasting life and they that have done evil that have it not John 5. 29. into everlasting fire So then this is a Garment and doth cover us and not only cover but adorn not only adorn but defend not only defend but distinguish Take them together they are an antidote against Fear which doth so often stagger the best of us They wipe-out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the phansie and conceit of some evil drawing near whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a destructive evil or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a troublesome evil Fear what should we fear A storm Here is a Covert Shame and contempt which David so feared and would Psal 119. 22. have removed Here is a rich Robe to adorn us The chill cold of Temptations This is the endromis the Winter-garment The violence of the Enemy Here is Armor of proof to defend us To be numbred with the transgressours Here is a Mantle with a badge upon it to distinguish us No Fear not saith the Angel when he delivered the Gospel And Faith makes it Gospel unto us We need not fear in the evil day in our worst dayes not let go our hold-fast not cast away our confidence Here is that Hebr. 10. 35. that confirms and radicates and establishes us and sets us not only upon but as the Wiseman speaketh makes us an everlasting foundation Or Prov. 10. 25. to keep us to the Metaphor a Garment it is for all uses If we have this on neither storm nor cold nor disgrace nor the enemy nor ill company shall hurt us But in the next place
of Glory In fine non est modus saith the Philosopher in his Politicks When we look on the end our desires are vehement our thoughts restless no ADVENIAT is loud enough till we have attained it And for this alone we are as eager for the means because they conduce and help forward to the end What wrong then is done to the Framer and Fashioner of the Heart when we make that which should be the palace of the great King a den of thieves and rebels and traytors How do we despite the spirit of grace and as much as in us lyes unking him and thrust him out of his Dominions When his word goeth out very swiftly and flyeth from one end of the world to the other when he sendeth Ambassadours of peace to all the world when he destroys his enemies and worketh wonders when he hath drawn out a form of government promulged his laws and backt them with promises and threatnings when he hath mightily shewed himself to be our King by great signs and miracles he doth not yet account himself to reign But when thou openest thy heart and givest him possession of every corner of thy soul then he sits as King in his holy place For as the Philosopher tells us that the confirmation of Laws consisteth not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due observance of them So though Christ be King from all eternity and cannot be devested of his Kingly office yet then only he calls his Kingdome compleat when we are subject and obedient to him when he hath gotten possession of the Heart where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men For here in the Heart of man sitteth Reason as chief here is the counsel-table here is polity here are decrees here are good purposes and resolutions hither resort those nuntii those messengers which convey those auxiliary forces which either our Senses or the blessed Angels or the Spirit of God provide and send unto it So many Virtues and Vices as there are so many castles and towers are set up where so many battles are fought so many conquests made Here Holiness is besieged Religion shaken here it is either betrayed or defended Here if the Fear of this great King stand not as sentinel the strong tower of our constancies falls to the ground the Scepter and Crown is broken and Reason is thrust out of the throne whilst the enemy regeth Our Affections as in a popular sedition rush in with violence and Christ standeth as secluded and only as looker on Reign he may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Lord of all the world omnipotent as Nazianzene saith and will rule over all whether they will or no but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one who hath brought us under his command to obey his laws and ordinances Both Christs Kingdoms we pray for here for that of Grace for that of Glory the one being the end of our prayers and of our hopes the other a most necessary means to attain it No reigning as Kings in the one unless we serve as Subjects in the other no crown there without allegiance here no glory without grace But because it is impossible for the most piercing eye to discover the rules and laws and order of the Kingdome of Glory we will stay our meditations upon the way which leadeth to it and shew wherein the Kingdome of Grace consists We told you the seat and place of this Kingdome is the Heart of men For who can meddle with ordering mens hearts but Christ alone Princes Laws may sound in the Ears may bind the Tongues may manacle the Hands may command our Goods farther they cannot go Illâ se jactet in aulà Aeolus But to set up an imperial throne and reign in the Heart this none but Christ can do Now by the Heart we do not mean that fleshy part which as the Father speaks is as the center in the body which saith St. Basil was first created first received life and then conveys and derives it to every part Nor do we mean with some the Will nor with others the Affections But by the Heart we understand all the powers and faculties of the soul the Understanding Will and Affections which when they move in an obedient course by the rules and laws of any Kingdome yield us the surest sign and token 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a divine conversation conformable to Christ himself The Kingdome of Christ saith Nazianzene consists in the obteining of that which is most perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the most perfect thing in the world is the knowledge of God By which he doth not mean a bare knowledge of the King and of his Laws but a submission of our Will and a captivating of our Affections that we may walk in obedience and newness of life according to these laws Aristotle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will erect a Commonwealth must also frame laws and fit them to that form of commonwealth which he intends We cannot make the same laws sit a Popular estate and a Monarchy The different complexions of States and Republicks you may see in their Laws as the faces of Princes in their coyns Now as Christ is the wonderful Counsellor so He came out of the loins of Judah and is a Lawgiver too and hath drawn out Laws like unto his Kingdome As his Isa 9. 6. Gen. 49. 10. Psal 60. 7. 108. 8. Scepter is a Scepter of righteousness so are his Laws just No man no devil can question them Socrates and Plato and the wisest of the Philosophers though strangers to him and aliants from his Kingdome yet would no doubt have subscribed to his Laws As his Kingdome is heavenly so are his Laws from heaven heavenly written by the finger of Wisdome it self As he is an everlasting Prince so are his Laws eternal But I will not now stand to shew the difference between these Laws and the Laws by which the Kingdome of the world be governed For what will fall-in more fitly with the TUUM the Pronoun possessive which points out a Kingdom by it self and with which other Kingdoms cannot be compared The Kingdome of God Luke 17. 21. is then within us when the Understanding maketh haste to the object thereof the Truth of God to apprehend it and the Will is ready to meet the object thereof our soveraign Good to embrace it and the Affections wait and give attention upon the will to further our possession of it when we have such wisdom such holiness such courage and desires as are fit for a subject of Christ to bring him unto and keep him in true fidelity and obedience for ever For Christs Laws do not pass only to restrain the Will but to
Divinitatis as Tertullian calls it the very work and invention of the Deity though it breathe nothing but peace and joy though it have not only authority but reason to plead for it yet the sound of it was no sooner heard but the world was in a tumult The heathen did rage and the people imagine a vain thing The Kings of the earth did set themselves against the Lord and against his Anointed Do the Angels proclaim it Men oppose it Doth Psalm 2. Christ preach it and confirm it by wonders Let him be crucified say the Jews Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula say the Gentiles after Away with Christ and his Legend Whilst it was yet in its swathing-bands it was brought to the barr the professors of it are punished and tortured non ut dicant quae faciunt sed ut negent quod sunt not to reveal what they do but to deny what they are For this the most chast wife is devorced from her husband the most obedient son disinherited by his father the most trusty and faithful servant shut out of doors by his master even for the Religion of the Gospel which made the Wife chast the Son obedient and Servant faithful Ex aemulatione Judaei ex natura domestici nostri The Jew is spurred on by his envy nay she finds enemies in her own house the Church of God and even Christians oppose her because of the truth it self whose nature it is to offend It is a just complaint that our Saviour came into the world and the world received him not would not receive him as a King but groaned under him as a cruel Tyrant His edicts his commands his proclamations his precepts were hard and harsh sayings none could bear them So it stands with Christian Religion Cum odio sui caepit It was hated as soon as it was Nor indeed can it be otherwise For it offends the whole world It stands between the Wanton and his lust the Ambitious and his pomp the Covetous and his mammon Christ is truth and his Kingdome is a Kingdome of righteousness and truth noâ— is there any thing in the world more scandalous and offensive than the Truth Old Simeon tells Mary of Christ This child is set for the falling and rising again Luke 2. 34. of many in Israel Not that Christ saith St. 〈◊〉 is contrary â—â— himself a Saviour and a Destroyer a Friend and an Enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the divers opinions and affections of men which abusing his love make him an enemy and the Saviour of the world a Destroyer I might name here many hinderances of the growth of â—he Gospel as Heresie which is a most poysonous viper biting not the heel but the very heart of it Infidelity which robs Christ of his subjects contracts his Kingdome into a narrow room and into a small number Disorder which rents it which works confusion there All these are impedimenta lets and hinderances to the propagation of the Gospel not like those impedimenta militiae the luggage and carriage of an army without which it cannot subsist but obicem ponentia fences and bulwarks and barricadoes against the King of Heaven if it were possible to stay him in his victorious march and to damm up that light which must shine from one end of the earth unto the other But this perhaps might fill up our discourse and make it swell beyond its bounds The greatest hinderance which we must pray against is an evil thought which flyes about the world That there is no Hinderance but these no opposition to the truth but Heresie no sin but Infidelity no breaking of order but in a Schism This it is to be feared not only hinders the propagation of the Gospel in credendis in respect of outward profession but blasts and shrinks it up in agendis in respect of outward practice and of that obedience without which we are meer aliens and strangers from this Kingdome This doth veritatem defendendo concutere this shakes that truth which should make us fruitful to every good work by being so loud in the defense of it It is a truth I think confest by all That the errors of our Understanding for the most part are not of so great alloy as those of the Will That it is not so dangerous to be ignorant of some truth as it is to be guilty of any evil yet all the heat of contention is spent here all our quarrels and digladiations are about these nay all our Religion is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earnestly to contend not who shall be the truest subjects in Christs Kingdome but who shall be most loud to cry down Heresie and Schism And this phansie I take to be as great a viper as Heresie as poysonous as Infidelity and the first ground and original of all Schisms in the world Whose zeal is so hot against an Oath as against an Error Who says Anathema to the Wanton What curse upon the Oppressor but of the Orphan and the Widow And from whence come wars from whence come fightings amongst us but from this corrupt imagination That we do better service in the Church of Christ which is the Kingdome of God by the loud defence than by the serious practice of the truth And all this while we mistake this Kingdome and the Religion which we profess which is absoluta simplex a Religion of great perfection and simplicity non quaerens strophas verborum and needs not the help of wit and sophistry God leads us not unto his Kingdome by knotty and intricate Disputes In absoluto nobis facili aeternitas saith Hilary Our journey to it is most easie It will come unto us sine pompa apparatu without pomp or observation It was Erasmus his complaint in the dayes of our Fore-fathers Ecclesiam sustineri syllogismis That this Kingdome was upheld not by piety and obedience but by syllogistical disputes as the surest props I could be infinite in this argument but I am unwilling to loose my way whilst I pursue a thief The sum of all is That this ADVENIAT is not only an invitation to draw this Kingdome nearer but an antidote against Heresie Infidelity and Schism and also against this corrupt conceit That Religion doth in labris natare is most powerful when it floats upon the tongue And we must raise it up as an engine to bruise the head of these vipers to cast down imaginations and every thing that exalteth it self against the Kingdome of Christ Again as this ADVENIAT fits all ages of the Church and was the language which Christ taught his Disciples when the Church was yet an Embrio in semine principiis not yet brought forth in perfect shape so is it a most proper and significant word verbum rei accommodatum a word fitted to the matter in hand the Kingdome here mentioned which must come to us before we can come to it Nothing more free and voluntary more
must both smart together I went-out by thy Ears and Eyes and Hands and wandred abroad after forbidden objects and now being returned home I find my self naked It is evident then that the Senses of the Body are the Windows of the Soul and that through them Tentations make their entrance into the inward man Why do men disbelieve and impugn the word of God but because they measure Divine things by humane Sense and Experience Thus did Mahometism get a side presently and overflow the greater part of the world because it brought with it a carnal Paradise an eternity of Lusts and such promises as flattered the Sense to blindfold the Reason that it might not see its absurdities For the Turk destitute of truth and so not able to judge aright of Gods favours in this life casting an eye on the worldly miseries of Christians and puffed-up with his own victories condemneth the faith of Christ as displeasing to God because by reason of afflictions it is so unto the Flesh and preferreth and magnifieth his own for no other reason but that it is more attempered to the Sense and answerable to the desires of the Flesh The Atheist who hath no Religion at all no God but his own right hand and his arm no Deity but Policy is carried with the same respects to deny and despise the Providence of God For being earthly minded and even buried alive in the contemplation of the things of this world and seeing the wicked flourish as a green bay-tree and Innocence clothed with shame brought to the stake and the rack concludeth there is no God and derides his Patience and Justice because his Providence waiteth not upon his desires governs not the world as he would have it and is wanting sometime to his expectation Nay beloved how many are there of us who draw-out our Religion by this model and if Religion will not condescend and meet with our sensual Desires draw them up and mix and temper them with our Religion and if we do not find Religion fit to our humor we make one Christianity of it self is a severe and simple Religion and doth so little favour our fleshly part that it commands us to mortifie and kill it and yet how by degrees hath it been brought to joyn and conform it self to our Sense which lets-in those tentations which are the very seed out of which many monstrous errors are ingendred Of a severe Religion we have made it a sportful Religion an easie Religion a gaudy and pompous Religion of a doing active Religion a heavy Religion of a bountiful Religion we have made it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cheap and thriving Religion For from our Senses and fleshly desires have those corruptions and mixtures crept into Religion which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to them Ambition hath brought-in her addition or defalcation and Covetousness hers and Wantonness hers and the Love of pleasures hath cast-in her poyson and all these have left their very mark and character in the doctrines of men Nor can I attribute it to any thing more than to this that we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take our Senses from the world and sanctifie and consecrate them to God One would think indeed that Ambition and Covetousness and Sensuality were of a quite contrary strain and not competible with those more speculative errors For what can the Love of money or honor do to the stating of a question in Divinity But by the art and craft of the Devil these have been made tentations to error have been as the Popes claim runs infallible far more potent with us than an oecumenical Councel For these tentations of the World and the Flesh first strike the Sense with delight which by the help of the Phansie doth soon enflame the Affections and the Affections will soon build-up an opinion The Love of honor makes the Judgment follow it to that height and pitch which it hath markt-out My Love of money will gloss that Blessing which our Saviour hath annext to Poverty of spirit My Factions humor will strike at the very life and heart of Religion in the name of Religion and God himself and destroy Christianity for excessive love of Christ Every humor will venture upon any falshood which is like it There is nothing within the compass of our Sensual appetites which we are not ready to embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so being advantageous and conducible to the end which we have proposed and set-up to our selves When Christians did revocare mentem à sensibus take and withdraw their Hand from those objects which were busie with the Sense when they were within themselves and framed their lives to the simplicity and plainness of the Gospel there was scarce the name of Heretick heard amongst them no contentions no exsecrations no thundring-out excommunications against one another But within a while this simplicity abated and the doctrine of Faith was made to give attendance on sensual humours that did pollute it Therefore the Heathen to make the Christians let go their hold and fall off from the acknowledgment of the truth did use the Devils method and laid before them temporal contentments and the sweetness of life Their common forms were CONSULE TIBI MISERERE TUI Have a care of your self Pity your self NOLI ANIMAM TUAM PERDERE Destroy not your own life They made large promises of honours riches and preferment And these Tertullian calls devillish suggestions But when they could not thus prevail when these shining and glorious tentations could not shake or move them then Tormenta carcer ungulae Stridénsque flammis larina Atque ipsa poenarum ultima Mors then torments were threatned the Hook and the Whip and the last of punishments Death it self And as Tentations inter ento the soul by the Senses so they look-out by the Eye Facies intentionum omnium speculum saith Tertullian The face is the glass wherein you may see the very intentions of the mind Anger Sorrow Joy Fear and Shame which are the affections of the heart appear in the countenance Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance Gen. 4. 6. fallen saith God to Cain When Esau was well pleased with Jacob Jacob tells him I have seen thy face as the face of God Habitus mentis in corporis Gen. 33. 10. statu cernitur saith St. Ambrose You may view the state of the soul in the outward man and see how she changes and alters by those outward motions and impressions which she makes in the body When the Soul of man liketh the object and apprehendeth it under the shew of good she kindleth and moveth her self to attain her desire and withal incenseth the spirits which warm the bloud enlarge the heart and diffuse themselves to embrace that good which is either in the approach or present And when she seeth evil which she cannot decline she staggereth and sinketh for fear which
commit Adultery but did you never cast a lascivious glance Perhaps you did never stab a man with your dagger but did you never run one through with your tongue and though you did not kill your Brother yet have you not been so much as angry with him without a cause Now he that commits the least sin deserves the Curse as well as he that commits the greatest for as St. James excellently gives the reason for the same God did forbid one as the other and he who stands at the door here is as well out of the Church as he who is 1000 miles off though not so far He that saith he hath no sin lyes saith the Apostle at the very heart he lyes St. Paul knew nothing by himself yet for all that he would not quit himself but refers that wholly to God He that judges me is the Lord 1 Cor. 4. 4. who knew his heart better then he himself did And David cryes out Cleanse me from my secret sins O Lord Sins which fly our sight that steal from us in crouds or borrowed shapes so slighly as man who is the most absurd flatterer of himself cannot discern them As pride in decency malice in zeal hypocrisie in devotion boasting in charity covetousness and extortion under the name of providing for our families wherefore when we meet with those terms of Holy Just and Righteous given unto men in Scripture we must not conceive them so as if they were absolutely Just Holy and Righteous no more than we can say there is pure earth or pure water without the commixture of any other Element But when we are said to be innocent 't is either meant in foro humano because the Law of man can take no hold of us though God the searcher of all hearts may as St. Paul saith He was blameless but not perfect Phil. 3. Or as righteous Lot in wicked Sodom was because he loathed to do such horrid things as they did though he committed Incest so soon as ever he came forth or else because God seeing our Hearts and Intentions towards him is pleased to cover our slips and failings with his mercy as David is said to have done all things well excepting the matter of Uriah not that he could indeed clear himself from all guilt for whosoever marks his story will find many foul actions besides this of Uriah but because he did not lye dead in any sin but this for he had a Child before ever he thought he had committed Adultery The Prophet Habakkuk puts the Question into more reasonable terms who inquires not Why the wicked should devour the Righteous but Why the wicked should devour the man who is more righteous then he A man may be more righteous yet not righteous neither Perhaps he did not deserve it from this or that man but from God he did As David deserved not the disloyalty from Saul Absolom and his familiar Friend yet he deserved so much from God as it was counted an escape when his Child only lost his Life The Lord also hath put away thy sin thou shalt not dye saith Nathan to him But with what face can we complain against God We of this sottish and sinful Nation whose sins are risen so high as we may very well conclude we were markt out to fulfill all the wickedness which is to fore-run the day of Judgment Do we murmur because our fears have compassed us when our Sins have beset us round about A Nation wholly divided between Debauchery and Hypocrisie between open profaneness the Sin of Sodom and Lying unto God the Sin of those Priests and Elders which crucified our Saviour What if our Churches be thrown down when we have profaned them by our empty formality by bringing our Bodies thither but leaving our minds and hearts fast with some lust at home This this was the Idolatry they so often twitted us withal these were the Images and Pictures we set up in Churches our empty Bodies that stood here without Souls and Hearts to attends Gods Service What would we call God to protect Stones and Morter when nothing besides zeal holiness and fervency of Devotion these are the Encania which do sanctifie consecrate and make a Temple The last thing which moves us to ask this Question Why the wicked prosper is because we think them in a better condition then they are Envy not the ungodly sayes the Psalmist as if the main ground of our Impatience were our Envy because we so earnestly dote on these earthly vanities as we grow mad with such as injoyes them from us and charge the most righteous God for bestowing them on others as this very Prophet does in the seventh Chapter whereas we quite mistake their Condition The Objection supposes a false thing For wicked men did never prosper in the world unless you will call it Happiness for a man to assure Gods wrath upon himself and to have a liberty to improve his sins and increase his damnation and this he does if you will believe Scripture to be the word of God for this which you call prosperity engages us most certainly to punishment The threats of Jonah saved Niniveh though God had set down the very day in which he would destroy it But when we go finely on in a wicked course of life when we raise an Estate by false-dealing this flatters us to go still further to put off the evil day far from us and cause the Seat of violence to draw near us Amos 6. 3. to pull our Lusts still closer and closer to us but remove the thought of Gods Judgments farther and farther off till at last we will not believe that he does see that he does understand and which is worse till we imagine God approves and blesses our sins because we thrive by it like Ephraim who concluded God should find no iniquity in all his labours because he was rich when at that very time he held the ballance of deceit in his hands Hos 12. 8. It is the last of Gods Judgments when he throws away the Rod when he will smite us no more when he lays down his pruning knife and will dress his Vineyard no more when he will not pour us out and wrack us any longer bus lets us settle upon the Lees to putrifie and corrupt when God gives us over to our vile affections and delivers us over to Satan already when he hath bound up our sins in a bundle as the Prophet saith Hos 13. 12. and laid them by himself till the day of his Feast his Sacrifice his Banquet for these are the terms by the which the Scripture expresses Gods laughter mirth and jollity when he means to glut himself with the bloud of his Adversaries Again we do not only assure our Damnation but encrease it by our seeming Prosperity by having power to commit more and more sins to treasure up wrath to proceed from evil to evil to add iniquity to iniquity and so raise
with a consuming fire I may add one Reason more and that taken from the nature of Faith Which if the object be plain and manifest and open to the sight is no more Faith And therefore that which she looks upon is seen but hidden hath light but clouded is most probably but not demonstratively true For I do not believe that a Man is a living creature or that the Sun shines because the one is evident to my Understanding the other open to my Sense Fides non nisi difficultate constat Faith cannot subsist unless it finds some difficulty to struggle with And this is the merit the dignity of our Faith Though a cloud come between it and the object to look through it as Abraham though the body be dead and the womb dead yet against hope to believe in hope that he shall become the Father of many Nations To believe the Promise of God when he useth those means for the tryal of our Faith which are most like to extinguish it To behold a Saviour through the thick cloud of Ignominy and Scorn To see a God in a Cratch on the Cross and in the Grave To be perswaded that he may be the Son of the Most High though he come down as Dew and not as a cataract and descend like Rain and not in Thunder It was the unhappiness of the Jew to expect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most glorious Messias and to think he should come into the World as Agrippa and Bernice his wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great Acts 25. 23. pomp that he should be a great Captain and Warrior and should take the power of Damascus and carry away the spoils of Samaria And this anticipated conceit is that which hath made them siccatum vellus as Hierom speaks like Gideons fleece dry when there is dew in all the ground about Judg. 6. 40. them It is true saith Tertullian he shall take the spoils of Samaria but it is then saith the Text when he is a Child before he know to refuse the evil and chuse the good And if the Jew would have consider'd his age he might soon have discerned of what nature the War was he was to wage and what Spoils they were he should bear away For if he must take them by violence and dint of Sword how should he bid defiance Should he do it with the cry and tears of an Infant Signum belli non tubâ sed crepitacillo dabit Shall he give signal to Battle not with a Trumpet but with a Rattle Shall he leap from the Teat to his Horse and point out his Enemy not from the Wall but from his Mothers Breasts Observate modum aetatis quaerite sensum perdicationis saith the Father Let the Jew remember his age and then he will not be to seek what manner of War it was We confess the child Christ was and is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Captain and hath a Trumpet and a Sword and Arrows and he soundeth his Trumpet and girds his Sword upon his thigh and makes his Arrows sharp and he strikes with his Sword and sends forth his Arrows but yet he never sheddeth bloud He rides in Majesty but it is because of his meekness and gentleness which are no Virtues I think at the Camp His Trumpet is the Gospel his Sword the Word which divideth asunder the soul and the spirit and the joynts and the marrow his Arrows his Precepts which fly very swiftly pearcing every heart and wounding every conscience With these he pulleth down strong holds casteth down imaginations and fights against principalities and powers And the people fall under him What to be trod under feet No but to worship him He carries away the spoils of Samaria and not only of Samaria but of all the Nations of the Earth Certè alius est ensis cujus alius est actus Certainly this is another manner of Sword then that which Joshua and David fought with This is the Sword of the Lord not of Gideon and drawn to another end For our Captain draws his Sword to make his Enemies Kings woundeth that he may heal beats us to dust that we may be exalted for ever fights with us that we may prevail and then rides in triumph when we overcome and are crowned And to this end he came down not in majesty but weakness not in thunder but in rain He did in a manner divest himself of his honour which he had everlastingly with God and he who was a King before all time became a Preacher an Instructer a School-master to lead us to himself and vouchsafed to interpret his own Imperial command No Servant so careful to execute the will of his Master as he was to perform the will of his Father Hoc habet solicitudo ut omnia putet necessaria His Care thought nothing too much And therefore though for so great a Prince it had been a sufficient discharge to direct or command yet he will supererogate and go many degrees above sufficiencie For what he commands us he himself is the first man that doth execute it And though it be ad sanguinem to suffer unto bloud primus in agmine Caesar still he is first He is not only our Pilot to direct the stern but also he doth manage the sail and set his hand to the oar yea he himself is unto us both Sea and Sun and Pole and Wind and all and he wins us more by his Example then by his Precept Thus Christ came And thus to come down is certainly to come down like rain upon mowen grass Exasperat homines imperata correctio blandissimè jubetur exemplis There is something of Thunder and Hayl in a command and it may make some noise because it falls not upon a fleece of wooll but on a stone upon Man who by nature is a stubborn creature But we may be bold to say Examples are showers Guttae stillantes stillicidia coelestia drops and dew and they fall gently and sweetly and effectually And in this manner Christ came down into the World like rain upon the mowen grass or on a fleece of wooll as showers that water the earth And now we come to the third degree of Christs Descent or Coming down He cometh into the Souls of the Sons of men to be shaped and formed in us Gal. 4. 19. that we may be Christiformes made like unto Christ and bear an uniformity and conformity unto him And he observes the same SICUT still and comes down in animam sicut in uterum into our hearts as he did into the Virgins Womb gently and insensibly as the Rain doth into a fleece of wooll using indeed his power but not violence working effectually upon our souls per suaviductionem say the Schools leading us powerfully but sweetly to that end his praedeterminate will hath set down St. Cyprian well calls it illapsum gratiae maturantis the fall of Gods ripening Grace which falls like Dew or
do not rage against the Sinner and that whilst we strike at one we do not wound both Our Anger must be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not an hatred of the person but a detestation of the sin A hard subtlety indeed it is to distinguish things thus confounded and blended together Facile est atque proclive saith St. Augustine malos odisse quia mali sunt rarum autem pium eosdem ipsos diligere quia homines sunt It is an easie thing to hate evil men because they are evil but to love them as they are men this is a rare and pious thing And therefore we must be wary that our Anger be not too hot and extreme against the actions of others for fear least at last we transpose it upon the men themselves Timon that great hater of mankind made this his apology That he hated evil men because they were evil and all others because they did not hate them He thought it a sin not to be angry with those who did commit sin But Christianity begets no Timons but Children like unto the Son of God who though he knew no sin yet was content to lay down his life for sinners There is no man so evil but hath some good thing to commend him though it break not out as being clouded and darkned with much corruption Therefore Christian Meekness is very wary and doth not think there is nothing else but evil where she often sees it And though she cannot nourish a good opinion of the man to think him good yet she will a charitable hope that he may be so And as those who seek for treasure give not over by reason of clay and mire so long as there is any hope to speed so doth not Meekness slack her hand and cast off her industry though it be spent on the most polluted soul ad quaedam sana in quorum delectatione acquiescat per tolerantiam perducatur Many for want of this Meekness destroy the work of God Dum ita objurgant quasi oderint whilst they reprove their brother as if they hated him and upbraid rather then reprehend him They make it their virtue rixari cùm soeculo to chide the times and manners They suppose they are bound to hate sinners and will be just rather in shewing mercy to their beast then to their brother Away with him away with him from the earth is quickly said but is commonly breathed from a soul as much stained and polluted as his is whom we suppose to be sick to death What Tertullian spake is most true In Majestatis reos publicos hostes omnis homo miles est Against traytors and publick enemies every man is a Souldier And it is as true that every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire is when his brother sins a Priest also and may nay is bound to rebuke him but he must be careful that his counsel and advise be the dictates of his Love not of his gall and bitterness that he take God himself for a patern qui non homines odit sed vitia who never hated men whom he made but Sin which being God he could not make The Prophet David puts it up in the manner of a question unto God himself Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with Psal 139. 21 22. those which rise up against thee and presently gives himself the answer I hate them with a perfect hatred I count them mine enemies Quid est illud PERFECTO ODIO saith St. Augustine What is that the Prophet means by perfect hatred No more then this He hated the vices in them not the men How then will this perfect Hatred and the Love of our enemies subsist together To wit by this That we hate this in them that they are wicked and love this in them that they are men The 109 Psalm is a Psalm of cursing There we find such fearful imprecations that a true Christian must needs tremble but to hear them read St. Chrysostom in his very first words upon that Psalm saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will take this Psalm into his hands had need be discreet Whether it be a Prophesie or a collection of bitter imprecations is not much material In the Gospel there is no such gift of Prophesie nor liberty of cursing granted He that foretells his brothers ruine is a Prophet also of his own and he that curseth his brother secretly in his heart though it be for sin hath committed that sin which will bring a heavy curse upon himself I know it hath been used in the Church and it hath been thought a heavy curse to say DEUS LAUDUM upon any man which is the very first words and title of that Psalm A common thing it was in France saith Calvin if any man had an enemy that molested him to hire with a sum of money a Monk or a Franciscane every day to repeat this Psalm A Gentlewoman of great note procured one of that Fraternity to use that very form of imprecation against her only Son So dangerous are the examples even of the Saints of God which we are too ready to follow when they are ill and when they are good and warrantable as ready to mistake them Si David cur non ego If David that Saint of God that man after Gods own heart did fill his Psalm with Imprecations why may not we also set our Prayers to the same tune and curse our enemies with a DEUS LAUDUM I will grant we may when as we find such a roll of curses under the Law we find also such another under the Gospel If the Proverb will suffer the Jew but to creep into Mount Ebal sure Christianity should be a sense to keep a Christian from coming near it I cannot conceive but that God doth exact this duty in far greater measure from a Christian then from a Jew For though this precept in equity bound the Jews as well as us yet God who dispensed with them hath not done that favor unto us who have received far greater from him but requires this duty of Meekness from us in the highest degree If he demanded of the Jew an Omer he will exact from us Christians an Ephah For conclusion then and to make some use of that which hath been spoken Let us not go in the waies of the Gentiles nor in theirs who are so fully bent against those who are not of the same opinion that in the prosecution they forget they are men and that there is any such virtue as Meekness that like Hannibal cannot live without an enemy or like those ancient Spaniards in Justine are so out of love with concord that they swell at the very name that have no other reason or inducement to quarrel but to quarrel and think Religion consists in words of gall and acts of vengeance that Clamor is Zeal and Fury
Catone peccatum That for all so great an ensample of severity as Cato was yet Vice was still impudent And Pliny speaks it as a commendation of Trajane That he was good among the worst For saith he when Camillus and Scipio lived when Virtue had as it were made her self visible in those Worthies it was a matter of no difficulty to be good Tunc enim imitationis ardor semper melior aliquis accenderet For then the heat of Imitation inflamed men and still the life of some better man was a silent call to the weaker to follow after Beloved in our Lord and Saviour the time was when this our Land was overcast with as thick a darkness as that of Aegypt and there was no Goshen for a true Israelite no light but that of the faggot no place to profess safely in yet they then were followers of Christ and in the Scriptures diligently searcht out the steps of the Apostles and in spite of fire and persecution walked in them And although the Gospel was unto them but as a light in a dark cloud yet by this light they traced the paths of the primitive Fathers sub Principe dura Temporibúsque malis and in bad times they durst be good when the Queen was even as a Lioness amongst the Lions and Cruelty lurkt no where more then under a Mitre and Rochet The case God be thanked is otherwise with us now The bands of our cativitie are snapt asunder The cup of God's wrath is taken out of our hands and God hath made us as it were a strong brasen wall and his enemies and ours have fought against us and have not prevailed Antichrist is revealed the mystery of iniquity laid open errors of all kind detected the Bible unclasped teachers of truth like stars in the firmament eminent Wisdom cryeth out in the streets and Religion hath as it were placed her tabernacle in the Sun and shall we still have a frost at our heart shall we have withered hands shall we be cold and benumned and not able to set one foot forward in the steps of our Forefathers Beloved let us look over into the tents of our enemies into the tabernacles of Wickedness What doth that Church of Rome more crack of than of Antiquity how like she is to the Church in former times how she hath still the same gate and traceth the same paths and that we are but of yesterday that Luther breathed into us our first breath that it troubleth us much saith Gregory of Valence that we are not able to shew any company of people in times past known to the world whom we follow in our Doctrine and Religion If we would pull down the Images out of their Church they cry us down with a Populus eruditur They are the Books of Laymen by which they are instructed in the Articles of Faith and have as it were before their eyes laid open the wholesome examples of the faithful which may move them to compose their lives to the imitation of them If we would pull off those wings which they have given to Nature to soar up above her power if we deny their Freewil if we pull down their Babel of Merits they then tell us of the ancient Worthies of their Church and add some Saints that were wicked men yea some that never were men They will shew you what they have layed up for others in the treasury of the Church to discharge their Debts before they owed them They say that we walk blindfold in our own waies and will not open our eyes to see the times of old that we have run away from the bosome of our Mother and now suck strange breasts It is true indeed that we can both silence them in their boast and wipe out their accusation we can tell them that Rome is unlike her self Non Roma praestat Romam as Scaliger speaketh That the Church began not with Luther but began then to be les corrupt That we left not her but her Superstition That we walk in the old way and are followers of the Professors of the primitive Truth which was then embraced when the Popes kitchin was not yet heated by the fire of Purgatory when his Exchequer was not fill'd by Indulgences when there was no corner-Mass when Transubstantiation was yet unbaked when all Sins were accounted mortal when Pardons were sold only for Prayers and Repentance when there were no Merits heard of but our Saviours when the people were not cousened of the Cup when the Pope was not Jupiter fulminans when he had no thunderbolt no power of deposing Kings and Emperours But Beloved our Christian care and industry should be that we rank not our selves amongst those of whom St. Paul affirms that they Rom. 1. 18. held the truth of God in unrighteousness that we walk as children of the truth ne dicta factis deficientibus erubescant as Tertullian speaketh that our life give not our profession the lye that we may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as St. Peter saith that when they speak evil of us they 1 Pet. 3. 16. may be ashamed which blame our good conversation in Christ For if we follow Christ and his Apostles only in word and shew if we wear Christs colours and fight under the Devils banner the title of CHRISTIAN will no more befit us then that of BONIFACE a hard-visage or that of URBANUS a cruel Pope Therefore a Christian is well defined by an ancient Father to be qui Christum verbis operibus quantum homini possibile est imitari nititur that striveth as much as lies in the power of Man to imitate Christ by making his Hand as active as his Tongue to imitate him both in his deeds and in his words You see Beloved that our Weaknes's stands in need of that which God hath graciously reached out unto us this help of Example As he hath made the Ear so the Eye also to obtein Learning And lest we should complain of impossibility to perform what he commands he hath proposed unto us men of the same mould we are of This Doctrine then concerns us two ways 1. in respect of our selves 2. in respect of others In respect of our selves 1. to remove the letts and hindrances of Imitation 2. to observe the rules of Imitation Now there are divers hindrances I will mention but three The first is spiritual Pride and Self-conceit We willingly perswade our selves that we are out of danger and that we can go upon our own strength that we may rather be examples to others than follow them At a sight only of our Saviour at the least feeling of the operation of the Spirit with Peter we cast our selves into the Sea we venture upon any temptation and think we can walk in the most dangerous places without a leader And this Self-conceit proceedeth from want of grace Grace teacheth us to remove this hinderance Non extollit sed humilitat saith one
that we should be carried up to heaven in a dream or that God should draw us thither whether we will or no as if he could not reign without us nor the blessed Angels be happy but in our company Good God! what a presumption is it to think that the name of Child the meer opinion of Gods Love and to talk of forgiveness of sins should help us that good wishes will promote us that when we have cast our selves headlong into a sea of misery into a deluge of sin it will be enough to say Master save us we perish Beloved be not deceived God is not mocked If we will have Christ to be our Priest to satisfie for our sins and to intercede for us he must be our Prophet too to teach us and our King to govern and rule us If we will have the meat that perisheth not we must labour for it if eternal life we must lay hold on it if the garland we must run for it if we will enjoy the Benefit we must perform the Office if we will be children of God we must be followers of God if we would be endeared to him he must be dear to us if we would be lovely we must be loving and if God forgive our sins we must forsake them if we will have the crown of life we must be faithful unto death if we will have the victory we must Rev. 3. â—1 fight for it Vincenti dabitur To him that overcometh will Christ grant to sit upon his throne He hath a Crown laid up for his Children and his Children shall have their blessing and shall know that they were dear unto him They shall enter into their inheritance the Kingdom prepared for them And now not only Paul is theirs and Cephas is theirs but Christ is theirs and God is theirs and the Crown is theirs and Heaven is theirs not in hope only but in reality not in apprehension onely but in fruition also not in right and title only but also in possession Thither the Lord bring us who purchased it for us with his precious bloud The Seventh SERMON MATTH XVIII 1. At the same time came the Disciples unto Jesus saying Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven HERE is a strange Question put up and that by Disciples and as strange an Answer given and that by Christ himself The Question is Who should be the greatest in the kingdome of heaven The Answer is That in that kingdome a Child is the greatest A Question put up by men prepossessed with hopes of Greatness ignorant what this Kingdome and what Greatness was and an Answer excellently fitted to that Question checking at once their ignorance and removing it So that here you see Ambition and Ignorance put up the Question and Wisdome it self makes the Answer Ambition and Ignorance swell our thoughts into a huge bulk and make us Giants but Wisdome abates that tumour contracts and shrinks us up into the stature of a Child Who is the greatest say the Disciples that is the Question A Child is the greatest saith our Saviour who was the Wisdome of the Father That is the Answer Indeed a man is known by his speech and our words commonly are the evaporations of our Hearts Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts saith Matth. 15. 19. Christ and evil questions too Such as the Heart is which is the fountain of life such are the motions of the parts Such as the Will is which is the beginning of action such are the motions and operations of the Soul which flow from the Will and are commanded by it Our Words are the commentaries on our Will For when we speak we make as it were a defection of our own Hearts and read an Anatomy-lecture upon our selves Our wanton talk discovers a stews in the Heart When our words are swords the Heart is a slaughter-house When we bear false witness that is the Mint When we worship Mammon that is his Temple The Heart is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shop and work-house of all evil In this we set up idols in this we work mischief in this we heap up riches build up thrones raise up Kingdomes Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven is the very dialect of Ambition and shews that the Disciples hearts were so set on Honor that they could not ask a question right We read that they had disputed of this before amongst themselves by the Mark 9. 34. way and then they put up this question to Christ here in this Chapter And again Chap. 20. and again Luke 22. when he had eaten the Passeover with them when he had foretold his Passion and preacht unto them the doctrine of the Cross when his Passion was nigh at hand even then did these Disciples dream of honors and greatness and a temporal kingdome and are not ashamed to tell it to Christ himself Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven First they dispute it among themselves in the way and then they ask Christ the question This is the method of the world at this day First to dispute every man in the way in viâ suâ in his own way the Covetous in the way that leads to wealth the Ambitious in the way that leads to honor the Sacriligeous person in the way that leads to atheisin and profaneness and then to ask Christ himself a question and hope to strengthen their vain imaginations by Scripture and to have an answer which shall fit their humor and flatter their ungrounded resolutions even from the mouth of Christ himself From him they hear that they must work with their own hands he then speaks of Riches and Honor. From him they hear that Bell boweth down Dagon must fall and all Superstition must be rooted out Nullum sine auctoramento malum est We can now be covetous be ambitious be sacrilegious be what the Flesh and our Lusts will have us be any thing by Scripture Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven the Disciples would never have askt the question had not their thoughts run on Greatness had they not thought that Christ had come to this end to set up a throne of state for one of them I will not make this error of the Disciples greater then it is and yet I cannot make it less because Disciples fell into it and which the Jesuits for St. Peters sake pronounce it but a small and venial one St. Chrysostome calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fault And it concerns us not so much to aggravate as to avoid it It is sufficient for us that Christ hath resolved this Question and brought a little Child upon the stage to teach Disciples and to teach us to avoid that rock which the Disciples themselves had dasht upon In the words then we will observe 1. the Occasion of the Question pointed out unto us in the first words At the same time 2. The Persons that moved the Question which are
at Christs Matth. 20. 21 right hand the other at his left in his kingdome And can Christ do this and thus submit himself Can he be a King that thus pays tribute Some fit and pang of this distemper did no doubt trouble the Disciples minds at this time They had been often troubled with it and had sundry times discust amongst themselves as we have observed who should be the greatest And now upon this occasion seeing Christ bowing to Autority and submitting to them whom they thought he came to destroy the fire burned and they spake with their tongue Seeing the Lord of heaven and earth thus challeng'd for tribute and thus gently yielding to pay it they lost the sight of his Power in his Humility they forgot the miracle of the Money in the fishes mouth because it was tribute And being struck with Admiration they began to enquire what Honors and what degrees of Greatness were in his Kingdome which is his Church and observing the King of Heaven himself thus subject to command instead of learning Humility they foment their Pride they awake their Ambition and rowse it up to seek the glory of this world they are bold to ask him who was the Master and patern of Humility Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven This I take to be the Occasion of this Question And so I pass from it to the Persons who moved it The Disciples came unto Jesus And the Disciples we doubt not had been well and often instructed that the Kingdome of Christ was not of this world but spiritual yet the prejudicate conceit they had of the Messias did shut up their understanding against this truth the shape they had drawn in their minds of Christ made Christ less visible in his own shape So hard it is homini hominem exuere for a man to put off himself for a man that looks for a Pearl to interpret it Grace for a man that is ambitious of Honor on earth to look for it in heaven Such a damp and darkness doth Prejudice cast upon the minds and understandings even of the best men even of Disciples of Christ For the Devil fits himself to the nature and disposition of every man What he said of the Jesuite JESUITA EST OMNIS HOMO a Jesuite is every man to every man can apply himself to all humors all dispositions is most true of our common enemy Satan He is in a manner made all things to all men If he cannot cast us down into the mire of carnal and bruitish sin he is very active and cunning to lift us up on the wings of the wind and to whiff us about with the desire of honor and priority Etiam in sin◠discipulorum ambitio dormit saith Cyprian Ambition finds a pillow to sleep on even in the bosome of Disciples themselves There she lyes as in a shade lurks as in a bed-chamber and at last she comes forth and you may behold her raising of palaces and measuring out kingdomes and you may hear her asking of questions Who shall be the greatest Multimoda Satanae ingenia saith Hierome the craft of Satan is various and his wiles and devises manifold He knows in what breast to kindle Lust into which to breathe Ambition He knows whom to cast down with Sorrow whom to deceive with Joy whom to shake with Fear and whom to mislead with Admiration He searcheth our affections he fans and winnows our hearts and makes that a bait to catch us withal which we most love and most look upon He fights as the Father speaks with our selves against our selves he makes snares of our own desires and binds and fetters us up with our own love If he overcome us with his more gross tentations he insults but if he fail there he then comes towards us with those tentations which are better clothed and better spoken He maketh curious nets entangles our phansie and we strait dream of Kingdomes If our weakness overthrow us not tropheis triumphisque succumbemus saith the Father our own tropheys and triumphs shall destroy us Like a wise Captain he plants all his force and artillery at that place which is weakest and most attemptable We see the Disciples hearts were here weakest and here lay most open hither therefore the Devil directs his darts here he placeth his engines to make a breach So dangerous a vice is Ambition and so hard a thing it is even for good men for mortified persons for the Disciples of Christ to avoid it Who shall be the greatest they are not alwaies the worst men that put up that question Tully observes of the Philosophers that though they wrote books of the Contempt of Glory yet they would set their names to those books and so seek for Glory by oppugning it and even woo it in the way of a bold defiance And Plutarch speaking of the Philosopher whose Dictor it was LATENTER VIVENDUM That a concealed life was best yet adds withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he would not have it concealed that this Dictor or speech was his What speak we of the Heathen Philosophers The Philosophers of God the Prophets of God have been much infested herewith Look upon Baruch When he thrived not in the King of Judah's Court he fell into discontent and repining so that the Prophet Jeremy is sent unto him with express message Seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not For I will bring evil upon the whole earth saith the Lord. Behold Jonah under his gourd What Jer. 45. 5. a pett and chafe is he in How irreverent to his God How doth he tell God even to his face that he did well to be angry even unto death And all this Anger from what fire was it kindled Certainly from no other then an overweaning conceit of his own reputation lest the sparing of Niniveh against which he had denounced ruin and destruction should disparage him with the people and lose him the name of a true Prophet And this we need not much marvail at if we consider the nature of this vice For first of all it is a choice vice preserved on purpose by the Divel to abuse the best nor will it grow in every soil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Noble natures the best capacities the most able wits these are the fat soil in which this weed grows Base and sordid natures seldom bear it What cares the Covetous person for Honor who will bow to durt What cares he for rising in repute who hath buried himself alive in the earth What cares he for a name that had rather see other mens names in his parchments then his own in the Book of Life What cares the Wanton for renown who had rather be crowned with roses then with a Diademe or will he desire to rise higher whose highest step is up to the bed of Lust and the embraces of a Strumpet These Swine love not such water as this nor such an oyntment as
who hath made himself to every good work reprobate It is not a feeble thought it is an active Charity that is the foundation of Hope Run to and fro through Jerusalem go about the streets thereof muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus and you shall find every man is full of Hope and then you may conclude that every man is charitable Whatsoever the premisses be whatsoever the actions of our life be most men make this the conclusion and dye in hope assure themselves of happiness by no better experience then that which Flesh and Bloud and the Love of our selves are ready to bring in They fill themselves with Hope when they are full of nothing but Malice and Envy and Uncleanness of which we are told that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdome of heaven And what Hope what assurance is this An assurance without a warrant an Hope which only we our selves have subscribed to with hands full of bloud a Hope which is no hope but a cheat a delusion presenting us nothing but heaven when we are condemned already It is true that Hope is a fair tye and pledge of what we shall enjoy hereafter but it is not then the work of the Phansie but of the Heart to be wrought out with fear and trembling and not to be taken up as a thing granted as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we cannot set up a pillar of Hope where there is no basis no foundation for it but a weak and feeble thought I know it is put up by some as a question Whether we ought to be assured of our salvation but it is but an impertinent question and not well put up For will any man ask Whether we ought to be in health and not rather Whether we ought to feed on wholsome meats and keep a temperate diet Beloved let us have Charity and Hope will as certainly follow and as naturally as Growth and Health do a moderate diet Otherwise to hope is a sin it is not Hope but Presumption For what Hope is that which looks towards Liberty and leaves us in chains that which promiseth life when we are children appointed to dye Let us then possess our hearts with Charity and Hope will soon enter in for they love to dwell and breathe together But it will not enter a froward and perverse heart for that will not receive it nor the heart of a Nabal for that is stone and will beat it back nor a heart that is fat as grease for it slips through it nor a Pharisee's heart for that is hollow and doth nothing but sound every thought is a knell and proclaimeth the fall of some in Israel None have less hope of others then they who presume for themselves None condemn more to hell then they whose feet are swift to shed bloud and who delight in those wayes which lead unto death Their very mercies are cruelty To put on the New man with them is to put off all bowels Every word they speak is clothed with Death And if Malice and Deceit and Uncharitableness lead not thither I may be bold to say There is no Hell at all They who make God as cruel as themselves do destiny men to destruction only because he will and to build up men on purpose to ruin them for ever that make the Wickedness of men depend on the antecedent will of God absolutely and irresistibly efficacious They are their own words that say that God doth work all things in all men even in the reprobate that the Induration and Incredulity of men is from the Praedestination of God as the effect from the cause that God calls men to salvation who are condemn'd already that though the elect which are themselves fall into adultery murder treason and other crying sins yet they fall not from grace but still remain men after Gods own heart when they do the works of their father the Devil These are they whose words are as sharp swords to cut off their brethren from the land of the living These men breathe forth nothing but hailstones and coals of fire but death and destruction These make a bridge for themselves to Happiness but pluck it up to their brethren These are in heaven already and shut it up that none else may enter Certainly a new way to heaven never yet discovered by the King of Heaven who hath put the keys into the hand of Charity who may boldly enter her self and who also is very willing to let in others who brings forth a Hope a Hope for our selves and a Hope for others Whoso makes haste to perfection is very willing to forward others in the way he calls upon them he waits on them he expects when they will move forwards and though they move not yet he hopes still Charity which brought down Christ from heaven lifts us up unto that holy place and we are never carried with more delight then when we go with most company there to joyn with the quire of Angels and to sing praises to the God of Love for evermore We love God because he loved us first and for his loves sake we love every man And now what is our Hope but that together with others we may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory The Ninth SERMON PSALM LI. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation IN these words we have 1. an Act Restore 2. an Agent God Restore thou 3. the Person suing David unto me 4. the blessing sued for the joy of God's salvation Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation David as the Title sheweth us being awakened by Nathan out of the slumber wherein he had long layn after his foul fact with Bathsheba penned this Psalm and published it a truly Penitential Psalm full of humble and hearty acknowledgments of sin and of earnest petitions for mercy and for assurance of God's favour His great fall had so bruised him that he felt no ease or comfort all was discomposed and out of tune his soul cast down and disquieted within him his heart broken his spirit wounded And a wounded spirit who can bear Hence it is that he prayeth with such vehemence Prov. 18. 14. and fervencie that God would be pleased in great merey to blot out all his transgressions and to wash and cleanse him from his sins and iniquities that he would not cast him away from his presence nor take his holy spirit from him and here in my Text that he would restore unto him the joy of his salvation But however these last expressions may seem to be the breathings of a disconsolate spirit and of one even out of hope yet we must not think that this man after God's own heart this great Saint though grievously fallen was quite fallen from grace and that his faith had now utterly failed and was extinguished No Faith can never be lost Or rather if it
themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 working together with God as God by us we from God and God by us beseech you For this end we received our Commission that you might not receive the grace of God in vain So the Ne recipiatis is both an Exhortation and a Command Potestas cùm rogat jubet The Insinuations of Autority are Commands their Intreaties Precepts But this circumstance perhaps will be neither seasonable nor welcome The dignity and high calling of a Priest is no argument now-adayes but only then when Malice can draw it close to meet with our infirmities We are never so high as Angels till we are lower than Men even like to the Beasts that perish Then argumentum à persona an argument from our person from our office and dignity is readily taken up and we are very skilfull in these Topicks Humanum aliquid patimur Do we betray our selves to be men of the like passions and infirmities with you Do we fall like other men then and then only we are Angels Then Lucifer is fallen from heaven the worker hath forgot his rule and the helper is in the ditch When we sow our spiritual things we are not helpers When we should reap your temporal things we are not helpers When we do not help our selves then we are and we hear it loud enough When our mouth is open unto you and our affections vehement and vocal then our mouths are open against us and our titles of honour accuse us A main reason I perswade my self that the Nè recipiatis finds so hard an entrance into your hearts and that so many receive the grace of God in vain But I will wave this circumstance and in this spare you And indeed the Duty here the Nè recipiatis is of such consequence that it commends its self without a Preface Nor needs there any motive where the prescript is Salvation Maltùm valet oratio remedio intenta saith Seneea That speech is powerful which is fixt and intentive and level'd on the good of the hearer It is easie one would think to perswade a sick man to be well a poor man to be rich and a wretched man to be happy Not to receive a gift in vain what need there any art to commend it We will therefore fix our meditations here and carry them along by these steps or degrees We will shew you 1. What this Grace of God is 2. That received it must be And these two will serve for an introduction to the last and bring in the Caution Nè recipiatis which casts a kindly reflexion on and sweetens and seasons both the other For what is Grace if it be not received and what is the recipiatis if it be in vain Of these in their order There is nothing more talked of then Grace nothing less understood nothing more abused Every man fills his mouth with it justus ad aequitatem perjurus ad fraudem the upright man for honesty the perjured man for deceit the humble for piety the proud for aemulation Ebrius ad phialam mendicus ad januam the Drunkard at his cups the Beggar at the gate The Tradesman in his shop The Schools are intricate and the Fathers profuse in this argument Totius mundi una vox Gratia est Men mention nothing oftner as if they had studied nothing else By Grace we are good by Grace we are rich and by Grace we are honourable and if we be evil it is for want of Grace But bring the greatest sort of men to a tryal and we shall find them no better proficients in the study of Grace then Boethias's Scholar in Poetry who having a long time studied Virgil askt at length whether Aeneas was a man or woman Not to trouble you with curious speculations which commonly make things more obscure by interpretation and the Commentary harder then the Text the Grace of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath divers significations It is taken for the favour of God inherent in God himself and it is taken for sanctifying Grace inherent in the regenerate person a gift flowing from the former It is taken for Habitual Grace and it is taken for Inherent Grace In the language of the Schools it is auxilium speciale that special and immediate furtherance by which God moves us to will and to do a supernatural quality which sweetly and readily directs us in our way unto the end by illuminating our mind by enflaming our love by strengthning our hand that we see how to work and are willing and able to work the three necessary requisites to the performance of every good action It works in us without us and it worketh in us with us It prevents and it follows us By it we begin and by it we persevere and by it we are brought unto glory By it saith St. Augustine we are healed and by it we are made active by it we are called and by it we are crowned And this is that which St. Paul mentioneth 1 Cor. 15. 10. By the grace of God I am that I am and his grace was not in vain For see the blessed and fruitful effects it wrought in the next words I laboured more abundantly then they all Yet startling as it were and afraid of the very mention of himself he corrects himself yet not I but the grace of God which was with me Would you know what materials Grace had to work upon He tells you ver 9. that he was a persecutor of the Church of Christ Strange materials to square an Apostle out of and a statue of Christ Primus pietatis aries Evangelii retusus est mucro saith St. Hierome He who was as a battering Ram or Engine to shake the Gospel by the grace of God had his edge taken off and his force abated and was made a pillar of that Truth which he sought to ruin Thus can the Spirit of God work miraculously where it pleaseth and to sow the seed of grace alter the complexion and nature of the soil Though the heart be as hard as flint and barren as the sand he can make it as soft as wax and as fertile as Canaan or the Paradise of God Indeed no man can deny the operation of Grace but he that feels it not and such a mans denyal can be no argument that there is no Grace for his very want of Grace confutes it Noctua non praejudicat aquilae The Batt doth not prejudice the light which the Eagle sees Nor would we credit a blind man that should tell us there were no Sun This Grace then we must acknowledge But this is not the Grace meant in the Text nor indeed as we are made believe by some can it be For this Grace say they ideo datur ut non recipiatur in vanum is therefore given that it may not be received in vain When it is offered it is received and when it is received it is received to that end and purpose for which it was offered No
letter in this sense also Who would look to find the Law in the Gospel But we must remember that there is Lex evangelica an evangelical Law that the grace of God as it excludes the Law sub ratione foederis as it is a covenant so admits it sub ratione regulae as it is a rule The rigor of the covenant is abolisht but the equity of the rule is as everlasting as the Lawgiver It is our happiness by Grace to be freed from the covenant and curse of the Law but it is our duty and a great part of our Christianity to square our lives by the rule of the Law Therefore Religion was called in her purer times Christiana lex the Christian Law and the Bishops Episcopi Christianae legis Bishops of the Christian Law Evangelium commentum Divinitatis saith Tertullian The Gospel was the invention of the Deity And God did not set up the Gospel to destroy but to reform the Law No saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gospel of Christ is more laborious then the Law Pythagoras is reported to have commanded his Scholars when they saw a man burdened not to go about to ease him but add rather unto his load So our Saviour was so far from easing our burden that he seemeth rather to add weight and make it much heavier then it was before For whether he did advance and encrease the strictness of the Law as the Ancients did conceive or whether he did but only clear the Law from those corrupt glosses with which the Jewish Doctors had infected it certainly in shew and appearance he leaves it much heavier then it had formerly been understood by the Jew Innocency and obedience to the Law hath alwaies been the badge of a Christian Look into our Prisons saith Tertullian you find no Christian there If you find a Christian there the fault that laid him there is but this That he is a Christian We sail with you we traffick with you we go to war with you Plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatìm quam religio vestra templariò Our Charity spendeth more on the poor in our streets then your Superstition on your Gods in your Temples Nihil Christiano foelicius nihil laboriosius Nothing is more happy then a Christian nothing more painful Thus the grace of God presents us with two things quite contrary with Comfort and Labor that Comfort might not puff us up nor abundance of pain deject and throw us down For the Grace of God appeared not to enfeeble our hands or with a dispensation from the works of Piety nor to make us more indulgent to our selves but that we might abound more and more in virtuous actions I will not say with Socinus that upon the very receiving of this Grace we receive also afflatum quendum Divinum a kind of Divine inspiration which toucheth the heart and raiseth our hope and warmeth our affections and setteth our hands to work For every one that receives this grace doth not work Nor can I think that all the world is damned for infidelity But a strange thing it may seem that after we have given up our names unto Christ after this certainty of knowledge and conscience of the truth our ingratitude should kick with the heel and despise these promises though an Angel from heaven should perswade them It is a good saying of St. Augustine's Nemo sibi permittat quod non permittit Evangelium Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it nor presume too much on the Grace of God For such is the nature of Grace that it will not be fashioned to our actions but we must proportion our actions to it It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a buskin to be indifferently drawn on upon any design It will not fit my Ambition in the eager pursuit of honor nor my Covetousness in the grasping of wealth nor my Luxury in doting on pleasures But if I shape my actions to it it is my honour my wealth my pleasure my ALL. We are told by those who have written in the praise of Musick that it holdeth great sympathy with the nature of Man that it applies it self to all occasions of Mirth of Sorrow of Company of Solitude of Sports of Devotion And such is the wonderful harmony of Grace that it fits it self to all estates all degrees all sexes all ages all actions whatsoever It will labor with thee at the Plow trade with thee in the Shop study with thee in thy closet fight with thee in the Field and it keeps every man within the bounds of his calling and honesty But if I make it a pandar to my Pleasure a stirrop to my Ambition a steward to my unbounded Avarice if I make it my Parasite to flatter me and not my Counsellor to lead and direct me I am injurious to that Grace for the publication of which the Lord of life was crucified I receive this grace but in vain and by my ungrateful receiving turn my antidote into poyson We cannot better conclude then with that of St. Hierome in his Epistle to that noble Matron Celantia Illi terrena sapiant qui coelestia promissa non habent Let them grovel on the earth who have not received these exceeding great and precious promises Let the Epicure be wanton and the Atheist profane 2 Pet. 1. 4. and the Philosopher vain glorious Let them perish to whom the Gospel is hid But let Christians imitate their Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus and as he was crucified for us so let us crucifie our selves even our lusts and affections that we may receive him and not receive him in vain but as we receive him here and with him his Grace his Gospel his glorious Promises so we may receive him at the last day when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead according to this Gospel and with him glory immortality and eternal life The Eleventh SERMON LUKE XXI 28. And when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh IT was my labor the last day to arm you against the glittering sword and terrors of Persecution and I have now thought it fit to lead you further in these wayes of Horror and to raise and build up in you a holy constancy and resolution against those fearful signs and affrightments which shall usher in the end of the world Then I strengthen and establish you against the Sons of men who are set on mischief and whose right hand is full of bloud Now I am to prepare you against the coming of the Son of Man and Son of God to judge both the quick and the dead to plead the cause of the innocent but to punish the hypocrite and oppressor with unquenchable fire that is to set the world at rights again and to bring every man to his own place Our Saviour in this Chapter foretelleth the dreadful signs and
dispositions and tempers which are very apt to take it No sooner is the word gone out of the mouth but it enters the heart of the standers by who saith Mr. Hooker are very attentive and favourable hearers to suck in any poyson which is breathed forth against the King or the Governour which are sent forth and anon it multiplies and every valley and obscure corner is ready to echo it back again Lastly as we must submit the Tongue and the Hand so the Thought also Else the Tongue will be a sharp sword still and the Hand ready to reach at every weapon and instrument of cruelty it finds Bene subactum cor a Heart well subdued and conquer'd will nayle the Tongue to the roof of the mouth and make the Hands hang down as not able to strike But if the Heart be not hammer'd and softned and kept under then the Tongue will be loose and run through the earth and the Hand will be lifted up to pull the King and his Governours on the ground and lay their honour in the dust That Disobedience which at last is talkative and proves as violent as a tempest was at first but a whisper in the heart and an army drawn out in the field was at first muster'd up in cogitatorio as Tertullian speaks in the Phansy which is the shop and elaboratory of the Thoughts and sets up a whole family of them in the Soul Kingdoms have been ruin'd Magistrates have been slain States have been distracted seditions raised and all these had no more solid foundation at the first than a Thought That we may therefore truly submit to the King and his Governours we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom speaketh Slumber all vain and absurd imaginations lest that pleasure which we do not repress in the Phansy do at last break forth and domineer in action lest that which is now but a discontented thought may gather strength by degrees and at last break forth into open impatience and disobedience And if our own Safety and Security if the Peace of the Common-wealth if Plenty and Prosperity be not of force enough to shackle our Hands to shut up our Lips and to keep down our Thoughts from rising in our hearts if these be weak motives let him that shakes the heaven and the earth move us and let us submit to at least Governours for the Lords sake Which is the first Motive drawn from the Authority of God himself and comes now to be handled And this is a Motive indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest and most winning Motive For the Will of God is the rule of all our actions Man who is a reasonable creature made after Gods own image must hearken to Gods voice bow down to his Authority and amongst all his attributes especially look upon his Will If he had no Eye to see us no Hand to strike us no thunder to destroy us yet what he willeth we must do because we are his creatures and the work of his hands Hath Discontent drawn thy Sword Let the will of God sheath it Do thoughts arise in thy heart Let the remembrance of this slumber them Art thou now ready to sinite the Magistrate and those who are in authority with the tongue Seal up thy lips for the Lords sake not for fear of the whip or the keen edge of Authority which commonly cuts through the heart of those who rise up not because the Magistrates hand is too heavy for thee and keeps thee under but submit for the Lords sake Now we may be sure it is to be done for the Lords sake For all power is from God saith the Apostle all Authority is his Ille regna dispensat cujus est orbis qui regnatur homo qui regnat He disposeth of Kingdoms who made the world which is govern'd and the men that govern Indè Imperator unde homo antequam Imperator The King receives his power from that Hand which made him and his Commission from that mouth which first breath'd into him the breath of life For the Emperor to say mihi hoc Imperiumpeperi This Sword hath gained me the Crown is foul ingratitude And for the Pope to say Mihi data est potestas All power is given to me to root up and plant as I please is high treason against the Majesty of Heaven and Earth Indeed St. Peter calls the King the ordinance or creature of man and so he may be and yet the creature of God also For though this power be communicated by the consent of men yet notwithstanding it is also from God as water is from the fountain in what channel soever it is carried along Behold then It is Gods power and if thou look'st upon the Man who is thy fellow dust and ashes if thou look'st upon his Weakness and infirmities which peradventure thou mayst discover in the midst of all his Glory and Majesty and thereupon art unwilling to submit for the Mans sake who is of like frailty and passions with thee or for the Kings sake who is but a man or for Authorities sake which hath no pleasing aspect yet do it for the Lords sake and because the Authority is his For his sake do it though it be to a Man though it be to a Man of infirmities though it be to Authority which sometimes speaks better things It may peradventure be a sin for thee to obey but it shall never be laid to thy charge if thou submit This I say is a strong motive And indeed that is true Submission which draws à Jove principium its beginning from God which is from heaven heavenly which is brought about by Religion and Conscience That Obedience is a Sacrifice which I offer up for the Lords sake That Obedience more resembles God and his Eternity because it is constant and lasting but that Submission which like Pharaoh's is driven on with an East-wind passeth away with that wind or moves like the wheels in a Clock no longer then the plummets are on no longer than Fear or Hope or other humane considerations stirr it about When these are taken off or fall to the ground PROPTER DOMINUM for the Lords sake will little avail though God speak once and again yet we lift up our heads and stand stiff against Authority And therefore though this be a Motive one of a thousand one that may stand alone by it self our Apostle here backs it with another not so powerfull in it self indeed but to flesh and bloud more perswasive which he draws ab utili from the Good and Benefit we receive from Kings and Governours in the punishment of evil doers and praise of them that do well With which we will conclude These two Reward and Punishment are as two pillars to uphold the body politique For though we ought as the Orator speaks virtutes propter seipsas gratis deligere to love every Virtue for it self and for that native beauty which the eye of reason doth
will be as ready to blaspheme God nay in slandring his brother he doth blaspheme his Father which is in Heaven He that taketh his brother by the throat rather then his humour should be crossed if God were within reach would pluck him out of heaven And thus we grind him in our Oppression we rob him by our Sacriledge we wound him by our Cruelty we pollute him with our Lust If he make Laws we make it our strength to break them If he raise one to the pinnacle of state and leave us in the dust we quarrel at his Justice If he establish Government we desire change And though he build his Church and found it upon himself yet we are ready with axes and hammers and all the power we have to demolish it When he hath a controversy with us we hold a controversy with him and nothing pleaseth us but the work of our own hands Men never fight against God till the thunderbolt is in his hand ready to fall on them And now we may descry those peculiar Enemies and Haters of God whom the Prophet here prays against even those who are enemies to the Truth and the peace of the Church I told you that this prayer was uttered by Moses at the removing of the Ark. When the Ark was lifted up on the Levites shoulders the voice and acclamamation was EXSURGAT DOMINUS Let the Lord arise And therefore we may observe that Moses Num. 10. and David did call the very Ark it self God not that they were so idolatrous as to make a wooden God but that they knew the Ark to be the surest testimony of Gods presence here on earth So that God's enemies are those who are enemies to the Ark to the Church of God and to the peace of the Church And let men flatter themselves as they please with this or that fair pretence they shall certainly learn this lesson in the end That they may as well fight against God himself as against the Church That neither they nor the gates of Hell can prevail against it To draw this yet closer to our purpose the Ark was a type of the Church nay by the Apostles quotation of this Psalm the words though they are verified in both yet are more applyable to the Church then the Ark. And though we do not call the Church God yet we shall find that God is married unto her that he is ready to hide her under his wing that he is jealous of the least touch the least breath that comes toward her to hurt her that he that toucheth her toucheth the apple of his eye When the Church complains to God of her enemies God also complains as if he himself suffered persecution When Saul breathed forth threatnings and slaughters against the Disciples of the Lord he presently hears a voice Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And that voice was the voice of God which struck him to the ground When Acts 9. and Acts 7. 51. St. Stephen tells the stiff-necked Jews that they alwayes resisted the Holy Ghost he presently in the next verse gives the reason Which of the Prophets have not your fathers persecuted So that to persecute the Prophets that blessed Protomartyr may make the Commentary is to resist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fall cross with the Holy Ghost with God himself Touch not mine anointed Psal 105. 19. saith God and do my Prophets no harm Touch them not for they are mine And whatsoever you do unto one of them is done unto me is true in the bad sense as well as in the good For certainly God cannot be toucht any other way Our Blasphemys our Uncleanness or Rebellions though they fight against him yet touch him not but when wicked men conspire against the Truth and the professors of it when their Swords are drawn not onely to touch but to strike them through then up God riseth and bestirs himself as if he were in danger to be toucht and hurt We know all that the Devil worketh against mankind is done out of malice to God himself Prius votum Daemonis fuit Deum esse alterum nè Deus esset His first attempt was to be God his second that there should be no God at all to destroy that Majesty which he could not atchieve Which since it is impossible for him to compass all his devises and machinations are nullum sinere ex portione Dei esse as the Father speaks to rob God of his inheritance to strike at his heart whose knee bows unto him to persecute them that sincerely worship him and to make all men like unto himself enemies to God To this end he sets upon the Ark he levels his forces against the Church of Christ he sends forth his emissaries his instruments his Apostles as Synesius calls them to undermine it without and raises mutinies within Not a heresie but he hammers it not a schisme but he raiseth it not a sword but he draws it not a rebellion but he beats up the drum INIMICI EJUS Gods enemies are the Devil and his complices who say of Jerusalem the place of his rest and delight down with it down with it even to the very Psal 137 7. ground We know now where to rank his disciples our enemies this day who have already shaken the pillars of one Kingdom and if God rise not up will ruine all Whose religion is rebellion and whose faith is faction whom nothing can quiet but a Desunt vires a want of strength Poor souls they are willing to suffer for the holy cause they are obedient to Government loyal to their Prince true to their Country that is They are very willing to suffer any thing when they can do nothing They will not strike a stroke not they not indeed when Authority is too strong for them and hath bound them hand and foot But if some wished opportunity unshackle them if these cords fall from them and they are once loose then these dead men arise and stand up upon their feet and make up an exceeding great army They were before as Ezekiels dry Bones very dry but when some Ezek. 37. 2. fair opportunity as a gale of wind hath breathed upon them behold they live Live I and come to the field and fight against that Authority under which they lay before as quietly as if they had been dead And where can we rank these but amongst the enemies of God They saw the Ark in its resting place the Church reformed and flourishing setled and establisht by the religious care of three glorious Princes They beheld their holy Father the Pope every day more and more in disgrace amongst us and I am half perswaded had it not been for the turbulent and irregular zeal of some few amongst us who think they never love Religion till they toy and play the wantons with it his Honour had ere this lain in the dust For when were the skirts of that Church more discover'd when
of peace who is docile and not averse from it who is willing to hear of it For as Pothinus the Bishop of Lions being ask'd by the President of the place Who was the God of the Christians made no other reply but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall know if you be worthy so may we say of this Peace They who are worthy who are fitted and prepared shall receive it And if you ask on whom it will rest I answer It will rest on them that love it Where is the place of my rest saith God The Isa 66. 1. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool All these things hath my hand made But to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word He that created all things and made the Heaven and the earth will not chuse out of these his seat but leaves them all and will rest no where but in a contrite and broken heart which divides and opens it self and makes a way to receive him And certainly as we see in Nature we cannot put any thing into that which is full already no more will peace enter that heart which is filled with Satan with malice and with the very gall of bitterness The Gospel will find no place in that Soul which is already filled and praepossessed with prejudice against the Gospel Into a malicious Soul Wisdom shall not enter saith Wisd 1. 4. the Wiseman Or if it do enter it shall not dwell there not dwell there as a Lord to command the Will and Affections no not as a friend to find a welcome for a time but be thrust out as a stranger as an enemy What is the place for peace to rest in Not in a Nabals heart which is as stone Not in the Wantons heart which is as a troubled Sea not on the Fool who hath no heart whose conscience is defiled and judgment corrupted by many evil and vitious habits ubi turpia non solum delectant sed placent who doth not only delight in that which is opposite to this Peace but approves it as that without which he cannot be at Peace No the spirit of Peace and the unclean spirit may seem in this to agree They will not enter the House before it be swept and garnished Ill weeds must be rooted out before you can sow good corn Every valley must be filled and every mountain and hill must be brought low all that inequality and repugnancy of our life must be taken away and all made smooth and even For as the Prince of peace so Peace hath a way to be prepared before it will enter What is the reason that all the seed which the Sower sowed brought not forth fruit Because some fell in stony places where there was not much Mat. 13. earth where the Soul did not sympathize and bear a friendly correspondence with the Word as good ground doth with the seed and some fell by the way-side which was never plowed nor manured and the fouls of the air those sly imaginations which formerly prepossessed the Soul devoured it up Nothing can be well done when the mind is already taken up with something else What room for the Gospel in the Jew who maketh his boast of the Law What room for Religion where it is accounted the greatest piety to be prophane What room for Righteousness when we rejoyce in impiety When the Prince of this world hath blinded our eyes with covetousness ambition and lust what room is there for Peace Non magìs quà m frugibus terrâ sentibus rubis occupatâ as the Orator speaks and they are the very words of our Saviour No more than there is for good corn in the ground which is full of bryars and thornes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whither dost thou cast thy seed thy good precepts saith the Philosopher to one that read a lecture of Philosophy to a scornful person Thou flingest it into a foul and stinking vessel which corrupts every thing it receives and takes no savour from it but makes it relish of it self Lord what a rock is a prepossessed mind What an adamant is a Stubborn and perverse heart How harsh and unpleasant is this Salutation of Peace to those who are hardned against it How Stoical and rigid and peremptory are they against their own Salvation Obstrepunt intercedunt nè audiant They are so far from receiving the Salutation that they are troubled and unquiet at the very name of Peace and desire they may not hear that word any more The complaint in Scripture is They will not understand and The waies of Peace they will not know Experience will teach us that it is too common in the world to stand stiff upon opinion against all evidence whatsoever though it be as clear as the Day And it is the reason which Arnobius gives of the Heathens obstinacy to whom this Salutation of Peace was but as a fable Quid facere possumus considerare nolentibus secumque loqui What can we do or say or how can we convince them who will not be induced once to deliberate and consider nor can descend to speak and confer with themselves and their own reason A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and so doth a prejudicate opinion the whole mind of man All our actions and resolutions have a kind of taste and relish of it Whatsoever comes in to strengthen an anticipated conceit whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or lustful affections we readily embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so But if it thwart our inclination if it run counter to our intendments though it be Reason though it be Peace though it be a manifest truth though it be written with the Sun-beams we will not once look upon it It is an easy matter saith Augustine to answer a fool but it is not so easy to satisfie him It is easy to confute but not to reform him For his Folly barreth him from seeking the meanes of understanding and when light is offered it shuts up his eyes that he cannot receive it We have many domestick examples of this obstinacy and I wish they were not so near us of men who may be overcome but cannot be perswaded who will not yield to any strength of reason nec cùm sciant id quod faciunt non licere no not though they cannot be ignorant that the course of their life runs with more violence and noyse than is answerable to the Peace of the Gospel who know what they are and yet will be what they are And these we meet with quocunque sub axe in every place in every corner of the earth These multiply and increase every day For it cannot be but the greatest part of men will be the weakest We have troops and armies of these and the regiment consists of boys and girls and women led away captive by their ignorance and
a sad disfigured face it brings no reward with it but that of the Hypocrite To instance in our present theme of Prayer It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the head and fountain of all the good which is derived upon us and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostome saith the end and complement of all blessings Yet when Hypocrisie tenders it in the open streets and synagogues it hath no such force and finding better reward then such acts do as abuse and violate good Duties Two faults there are which our Saviour reprov'd here in Prayer vain Ostentation which made it open and Superstition which made it long the one of the Hypocrite the other of the Ethnick and Heathen The former we will pass by as not so pertinent to our purpose The latter is that which our Saviour corrects in these words and in the form prescribed For it is in Prayer as it is in artificial employments It consists not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the outward performance in breathing out it self by words and vocal expressions but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in contemplation of those rules and directions by which we must make our Prayer regular To pray is the duty of a Christian but we must have an eye upon the manner how we pray For that of Tertullian is most safe si quid determinandum est ad Dei regulas dirigatur In all our actions of piety we must have recourse to those rules which God hath prescribed Reason indeed is the light of the soul and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks the first law which is written in our hearts But our Reason is not a rule no not when she is unclouded of all encumbrances of passions and opinions but the eye of the soul which directs us by that rule which is set down to regulate our Reason The whole power of man is in his Reason and the whole force and vigor of Reason in Judgment by which we weigh and examine every thing But experience tells us that mens judgments are as various as their complexions which though they look upon the same end yet find out divers means and wayes Whence it comes to pass that this man makes more haste another is more slow this mans way is more plain anothers more rugged and therefore a rule is necessary which must reconcile all and make the way as manifest as the end The Hypocrite prays the Heathen pray all pray sed literata devotio praestat devotae rusticitati Learned and regulated devotion is far more powerful than devout ignorance Therefore he who hath taught us to pray hath also taught us how to pray After this manner therefore pray ye In the handling of which words we will observe this plain method First by way of introduction we will enquire what Prayer is Secondly what those Battologies those repititions are to which our Saviour hath set this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Form of his in opposition Lastly to whom this Form was prescribed Of these in their order What Prayer is no man can be ignorant who knows his own wants For our wants do dictate to us and teach us both to pray and what to pray for Postulare inferioris est say the Schools Prayer is an argument of want and inferiority For though we cannot but grant that Prayer may be made sometime to an equal yet the very nature of Prayer is such that it cannot be directed to any but by that very act of praying to him we make him our Superiour and more powerful than our selves We confess our selves unable to perform that for which we entreat anothers help Now Prayer is never so right as when it is directed to God and turneth the point of the Compass unto him for there is none higher than he And this is set out unto us diversly It is called the Ascent of our mind unto God a Petition of those things which we want put up to God an Elevation of the mind unto God by the Pythagoreans Pius animi affectus a pious and religious affection of the soul to God It is called the Calves of our lips and a rich Present which carried up to heaven doth testifie our dutiful affection and the undoubted means to purchase all fame at Gods hands All these are rather laudes Orationis quam definitiones rather the commendations of Prayer by which we manifest her effects than proper definitions to shew what it is Some difference we find in the Schools whether Prayer be an act of the Understanding or of the Will but indeed it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a question of words Some will have it to be of the Will alone But they too narrowly confine it For my Will may incline to those things which I never seek by Prayer Volumus impossibilia saith the Philosopher Our Will is carried to impossibilities But yet no man prays for those things which are impossible Others make it an act of the Practick Understanding which doth not apprehend things alone as the Speculative doth but hath some force and causality in it and hath the act of willing joyned with it which both must joyntly concur in Prayer For if I desire a thing and do not request it or request it when I do not desire it it is no Prayer So that Prayer is nothing else but an act of the Understanding manifesting and expressing the will and desire we have to something which we want And here the Understanding both beginneth and ends hath the first and last part For till our wants present themselves to our Understanding we can have no will to have them supplyed and when our Will is moved our Prayer is not yet compleat till we make our Reason and Understanding the interpreter of our Will For Desire is not Prayer but the cause of it Sighs and Groans and Desires are great furtherances and helps of Prayer but every sigh and groan is not properly a prayer but gives live and activity to our prayers And in this sense we must take that saying of St. Hierome that truly and effectually to pray is not verba composita resonare to utter a certain composition of words sed amaros in compunctione gemitus edere to send forth the bitter groans of compunction So that as in other virtues there is a double act one of the Will by which we will give an alms or do some act of justice another of that power and faculty which perfects and consummates the act so in Prayer there is one act of the Will and Affections but that is not enough till by another act of the Understanding this Will is manifested So that with some change of that of the Apostle we may say that we pray with the Will and we pray with the Understanding also Whether 1 Cor. 14. 15 this be done by voice or no is not much material to the definition and nature of Prayer but in respect only of time and place and some such
spake of Philosophy is as true of Religion and Devotion Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantes When men were truly devout there was no contention but this one Who should be most devour All the noise was in their Temples little in their Schools All men then did joyn together with one heart and mind in prayer and not as now fly asunder and stand at distance and then give laws to one another or which is worse in their hearts denounce a curse against those who will not follow their example that is set the countenance tune the voice roll the eye pray at adventure and in all things do as they do or which is equivalent to a curse esteem them at best but meer moral men would they were so good but unsanctified men and void of saving Grace and so nourish that venome and malice in their hearts against their Brethren which certainly cannot lodge in the same room with true Devotion and leave them only fit to act a prayer And then what a Roscius is a Pharisee Beloved Prayer was a Duty but is become a Probleme and men who cannot gain the reputation of Wise but by doing that for which they deserve another name and title have been bold to put it to the question When and How and In what manner we may pray as if this Form came short which our Saviour hath prescribed have lookt upon all other Forms and this of Christs by which they were made as upon a stone of offense and out of it have struck the fire of Contention Nihil tam sanctum quod non inveniat sacrilegum There is nothing so sacred so set apart which a profane hand dare not touch and violate no Manna which may not be loathed nothing so profitable to advance piety which may not be trod under foot If you cast a pearl to a Swine he will turn upon you and rent you if he can A set-Form That is a chain and binds the holy Ghost to an Ink-horn Meditation without which we will not speak to our fellow mortal That stints the blessed Spirit It is their own language They bring Sermons and Prayers of Gods own making because they themselves takes no pains in framing them Multa sunt sic digna revinci nè gravitate adorentur saith Tertullian Many exceptions may be taken which are not worth the excepting against and many are so ridiculous that to be serious and earnest in confuting of them were to honour them too much We cannot but pity the men because we are Christians otherwise we could not but make them the object of our laughter We have probability enough to induce us to believe that some of those who have so startled at a Form would for the very same reason have complained had there been none at all For he that looks for a fault will be sure to find one or if he do not find will make one They would have been as hot and angry had the Church been naked as they are now they see her glorious in all her embroydery Ceremony or no Ceremony Form or no Form all is one to him whose custome whose nature whose advantage it is to be contentious What no reverence in the Church of Christ as lyable to exceptions as What too much What turn the cock and let it run one would think more obnoxious to censure then by meditation to draw waters out of the fountain the Word of God What speak we know not what Such an accusation in all reason should sooner raise a tempest then to pray after that manner which our best Master hath taught us When it concerns us to be angry every shadow is a monster every thing is out of order every thing nothing is a fault I have not been so particular as I should because we live among fanatick spirits with men who as David speaketh are soon set on fire who can themselves at pleasure libel the whole world yet put on the malice of a Fiend and clothe themselves with vengeance at the sound of the most gentle reprehension Imbecilla loedi se putant si tangantur You must not lay a finger upon that which is weak If you but touch them they are inraged and will pursue you as a murderer Yet we may take leave to consider what degrees and approaches the Arch-Enemy of the Church and Religion hath made to overthrow all Devotion and to digg up Christianity by the roots First men are offended with Ceremony though as ancient as the Church it self and at last cry down Duty First no Kneeling at the Sacrament and then no Sacrament at all First no Witnesses at the Font and then no Baptism First no Ordination and then no Minister and he is the best Preacher who hath no calling though he be fitter to handle the Flayl then the Bible First no Adorning of Churches and presently they speak it plainly A Barn a Stable is as good as a Church And so it may be for such cattle as they First no set-Form of Prayer and within a while they will teach Christ himself how to pray Thus Error multiplyes it self and striking over-hastily at that which is deemed Superstition leaves that untoucht and wounds Religion it self and swallows up the Truth in victory in the unadvised and heedless pursuit of an error This is an evil humor and works upon every matter it meets with and when it hath laid all desolate before it it will at last gnaw upon it self as in the bag of Snakes in Epiphanius the greatest Snake eat up the lesser and at last half of himself For we commonly see that they that strike at whatsoever other men set up are at last as active to destroy the work of their own hands and they who quarrel with every thing do at last fall out with themselves Oh what pity is it that Religion and Piety should be thus toyed withal that men should play the wanton with those heavenly advantages which should be as staves to uphold them here on earth and as wings to carry them up to heaven that there should be so much noise and business about that Duty which requireth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the quietness the tranquility the stillness of the soul that Praying should become begging indeed I mean as Begging is now-a-dayes an art and trade that all Devotion should be lost in shews that men should hate Ceremony and yet be so much Papists as they are that they should cry Down with Babylon even to the ground and yet build up a Babel in themselves But beloved we have not so learned Christ Therefore let us lay hold on better things and such as accompany Piety that Piety which brings with it salvation Let us not be afraid of a good duty because it hath fallen into evil hands Let us not leave off to pray in that Form which our Saviour hath taught us or in any other Form which is conformable to that because some men love to play the wantons and
as their argument It is plain we must not understand here Moses 's Heaven the Ayr for the Firmament but St. Pauls third Heaven This is the City of the great King the City of the living God the Psal 48. 2. Hebr. 12. 22. Hebr 1 10. 1 Tim. 6 16. Psal 103. 19. heavenly Jerusalem a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Here our Father dwelleth in light inaccessible unconceivable Here he keepeth his glorious residence and here he hath prepared his throne Here he keepeth his glorious residence and here he hath prepared his throne Here thousand thousands minister unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stand Dan. 7. 9. before him Here he still sheweth the brightness of his countenance and to all eternity communicateth himself to all his blessed Angels and Saints Beloved the consideration of this stately Palace of the King of Kings should fill our hearts with humility and devotion and make us put-up our petitions at the throne of Grace with all reverence and adoration Is our Father Psal 104. 1. Gen. 18. 27. in heaven clothed with honor and majesty Then let us who are but dust and ashes vile earth and miserable sinners when we make our approaches to this great and dreadful God not be rude and rash and inconsiderate vainly multiplying Dan. 9 4. words before him without knowledge and using empty and heartless repetitions but let us first recollect our thoughts compose our affections bring our minds into a heavenly frame take to our selves words fit to Hos 14. 2. express the desires of our souls and then let us worship and bow down and Psal 95. 6. kneel before the Lord our Maker and let us pour forth our prayers into the bosome of our heavenly Father our Tongue all the whiâ—e speaking nothing but what the Heart enditeth This counsel the Preacher giveth us Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before Eccl. 5. 2. God For God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few Again is our Father in heaven Then our heart may be glad and our Psal 16. 9 10. glory rejoyce and our flesh also rest in hope God will not leave us in the grave nor suffer us to live for ever under corruption but in due time we shall be brought out of that bonaage into a glorious liberty and be admitted into those Rom. 8. 21 happy mansions in our Fathers house He will have his children like unto John 14. 2 3. himself Therefore we may be assured that as now he guideth us with his counsel Psal 73. 25. so he will afterwards receive us into glory Our elder Brother who is gone before and hath by his ascension opened the gate of Heaven and prepared a place for us will come again at the end of the world and awake us John 14. 3. Psal 17. 15. Mat. 25. 21 23. 1 John 3. 2. 1 Cor. 15. 49. out of our beds of dâ—st and receive us unto himself that we may enter into the joy of our Lord for ever behold his face see him as he is be satisfied with his likeness and as we have born the image of the earthy so bear the image of the heavenly And now Beloved having this hope in us let us purifie our 1 John 3. 3. selves even as our Father which is in heaven is pure While we remain here below and pass through this valley of Tears let us ever and anon lift up our Psal 84. 6. Psal 121. 1. Isa 57. 15. eyes unto the hills even to that high and holy place wherein dwelleth that high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity yet not boldly to gaze and busily to pry within the veil For Heaven is too high and bright an object for our Eye to discern and discover for our Tongue to discourse and dispute of But SURSUM CORDA Let us look up to heaven that we may learn not to mind earthly things but to set our affections on those things which are above to Col. 3. 2. have our conversation in heaven and our heart there where our everlasting Phil. 3. 20. Matth. 6. 21. treasure is Let us still wish and long and breathe and pant to mount that holy hill and often with the Spirit and the Bride say Come Come Lord Rev. 22. 17 20 Jesus come quickly and sigh devoutly with the Psalmist When shall we come Psal 42. 2. and appear before God And in the mean time let us sweeten and lighten those many tribulations we must pass through with the sober and holy contemplation Acts 14. 22. of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory of the fulness of joy 2 Cor. 4. 17. that is in Gods presence and of those pleasures for evermore that are at the Psal 16. 11. right hand of OUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN To whom with the Son and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory now and ever Amen The Two and Thirtieth SERMON PART IV. MATTH VI. 9. Hallowed be thy Name WE have past the Preface or Frontis-piece and must now take a view of the Building the Petitions themselves We find a needless difference raised concerning the number of them Some have made seven Petitions and have compared them to the seven Stars in heaven to the seven golden Candlesticks to the seven Planets to the river Nilus which as Seneca tells us per septena ostia in mare effunditur ex his quodcunque elegeris mare est is divided into seven streams and every stream is an Ocean Others have fitted them to the seven Gifts of the Spirit Those we will not call with A. Gellius nugalia or with Seneca ineptias toyes and trifles but we may truly say Aliquid habent ingenii nihil cordis Some shew of wit we may perhaps descry in them but not any great savor or relish of sense and judgment What perfection there can be in one number more than in another or what mystery in the number of seven I leave it to their inquiry who have time and leasure perscrutari interrogare latebras numerorum as the Father speaks to search and dive into the secrets of Numbers who by their art and skill can digg the ayr and find precious metal there where we of duller apprehension can find no such treasure I confess men of great wits have thus delighted themselves numeros ad unquem excutere to sift and winnow Numbers but all the memorial of their labor was but chaff The number of Fourty for Christ after his Resurrection staid so long upon earth they have divided into four Denaries and those four they have paralleld with the four parts of the World into which the sound of the Gospel should go The number of Ten they have consecrated in the Law and the number of Seven in the holy Ghost Perfecta lex in Denario numero
our Good non sunt unius animi cannot harbor in the same heart at once Nor doth God require of them an actual and perpetual intention of his Glory but as the Schools speak an habitual Thou mayest pray to his glory when thy thoughts are busie and reflect upon thy own want We see an arrow flyes to the mark by the force of that hand out of which it was sent and he that travels on the way may go forward in his journey though he divert his thoughts sometimes upon some occurences in the way and do not alwayes fix them on the place to which he is going So when thy Will and Affections are quickned and enlivened with the love of Gods Glory every action and prayer will carry with it a savor and relish of that fountain from whence they spring An Artificer doth not alwayes think of the end why he builds a house but his intention on his work sometimes comes in between and makes him forget his end And though he make a thousand pieces yet he still retains his Art saith Basil So though thou canst not make this main Intention of Gods Glory keep time with thy Devotion nor send up every thought thus incenst and perfumed yet the smell of thy sacrifice shall come before God because it is breathed forth of that heart which is Gloriae ara an Altar dedicated wholly to the glory of God Thy ear must be to keep it as thy Heart with all diligence to nourish and strengthen it that if it seem to sleep yet it may not dy in thee to barricado thy heart against all contrary and heterogeneous imaginations all wandring cogitations which as Jacob may take his first-born by the heel and afterwards supplant and robb it of its birth-right For these thoughts will borrow no life from thy first intention of Gods Glory but the intention of Gods Glory will be lost and dye in these thoughts We pass forward to that which we proposed in the second place That spiritual blessings must have the first place in our prayers Holiness and Obedience must go before our daily bread the spiritual Manna which nourisheth us up unto eternal life before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of this present life or that bread which upholds us but for a span of time A doctrine as most plain so most necessary for these times in which mens hearts are so set on gain and temporal respects that heaven finds but little room in their thoughts and so care for the Body as if they knew not whether they had any Soul or no Of his mind in Plautus who professed if he were to sacrifice to Jupiter yet si quid lucri esset if gain and filthy lucre presented it self before him he would rem divinam deserere instantly run from the Altar and leave his sacrifice Epictetus the Stoick observed that there were daily sacrifices brought to the Temples of the Gods for wealth for honors for victory but none ever offered up for a good mind And Seneca tells us Turpissima vota diis insusurrant that men were wont to whisper dishonest desires into the ears of the Gods si quis autem admoverit aurem conticescunt but if any stood near them to hearken they were presently silent Were the hearts of many men anatomized and opened we should find Riches and Content deeply rooted in the very center but Holiness and Obedience and Honesty of conversation written in faint and fading characters in superficie in the very surface and outside of the heart Villam malumus quà m coelum We had rather have a Farm a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty than just And talk what you will of sanctifying Gods Name we had rather make our selves one of advancing his Kingdom we had rather reign as Kings of fulfilling Gods Will we will do our own of the Bread of life Give us this day our daily Bread But thus to pray is not to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after that manner which Christ here taught but a strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 want of method in our Devotion Our Love is seen in our language For those things which most affect us we love to talk of we use to dream of and our thoughts are restless in the pursuit of them It was observed in Alexander as a kind of prophesie and presage of his many conquests quòd nihil humile aut puerile sciscitaretur that he speaking with the Persian Ambassadors askt no childish or vain question sed aut viarum longitudinem aut itinerum modos but of the length of the wayes and the distance of places of the Persian King and of his Court A man saith the Wise-man is known by his speech and a Christian by his prayers I could be copious in this argument but purposely forbear because it is so common a place Only to set your Devotion on fire and raise it to things above may you please to consider Temporal goods 1. not satisfactory 2. as an hindrance to the improvement of Spiritual Do but consult your own Reason and that will tell you that the Mind of man is unsatiable in this life Who ever yet brought all his ends and purposes about and rested there Possideas quantum rapuit Hero Let a man possess what Craft and unlawful Policy can entitle him to Let him be Lord of all that lyes in the bosome of the earth and in the bosome of the Sea Let him as Solomon did even study how to give himself all delight imaginable yet with all this cost with all this pains and travel he is as far from what he lookt for as when he first set out Now as God having made the Understanding an eye hath made the whole Universe for its object so having placed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an infinite desire in the soul hath proportioned something to allay it Which since these temporal things cannot do it is evident that heaven and spiritual blessings are those things which alone can satisfie this infinite appetite Put them both in the Scales and there is no comparison You may as well measure Time by Aeternity and weigh a little sand on the shore with the whole Ocean Again as they do not satisfie so are they an hinderance to our improvement in spiritual wealth Alter de lucro cogitat alter de honore putat quòd eum Deus possit audire One thinks of Gain when he prays for Godliness another of Honor when he talks of Heaven We may call this Prayer if we will but most certain it is that God never hears it nor any prayer which is not made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Isidore speaks with diligence Which leads us to that which we proposed in the third place That when we pray Hallowed be thy Name we do not simply pray that God will do it without us but that he will supply us with those means and helps
Christum facimus saith Petrarch in another case It is not enough for us to set our hearts upon riches unless we make Christ himself Covetous also It is not enough for us to pursue honors and dignities unless we make Christ ambitious and so set up a temporal Monarchy in the Church We crown Christ but it is not with the crown wherewith his Father crowned him in the day of his espousals when he made him the Head of the Church In the world we are born in the world we are bread and hence it comes to pass that when we divert our industry unto Christian study to the knowledge of Christ and his Kingdome we still phansie something like unto the World Riches and Honor and a universal Monarchy But suppose that Christ had the politick government of the world given him as man yet he never exercised his Regal power in this kind He built no castles raised no armies trod not upon the necks of Emperors Suppose he had exercised his Regal power yet all this would hardly fasten the triple Crown on the high Priests head But we see himself renounce all such claim He complains he hath not what the Foxes have a hole to hide his head Being desired to divide the inheritance between two brothers he answers sharply Man who made Luke 9. 56. me a judge or a divider over you When Pilate asketh him Art thou the King Luke 12. 14. of the Jews Christ answereth Sayest thou this of thy self or did others tell it thee of me Dost thou object this crime or is it seigned to thy hands by others And at last he makes this plain confession before Pontius Pilate My kingdome is not of this world Which words like the Parthian horseman John 18. ride one way but look another are spoken to an Infidel to Pilate but are a lesson directed to the subjects of his spiritual Kingdome a Lesson teaching us not to dream of any honor in his kingdome but salvation nor any crown but the crown of life And therefore as Aristotle tells us of his moral Happiness that it is the chiefest good but not that which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which the Ambitious adoreth the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth a Universal notion and Idea of Good so may we say of this Kingdome that in respect of it all the Kingdoms of the earth are not worth a thought but it is not such a Kingdome as the Jews expect or the Chiliasts phansie or the Church of Rome dreams of And though commonly Negatives make nothing known yet we shall find that the nature of Christs Kingdome could not have been more lively and effectually exprest than by this plain negation My Kingdome is not of this world To come yet a little nearer to the light by which we may discover this Kingdome The School-men have raised up divers Kingdoms and built them all upon the same foundation the Word of God First his absolute Dominion over the creature in respect of which Christ is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords To this they have added Regnum Scripturae and Regnum Ecclesiae They call the Scripture and the Church Kingdoms Then they make Regnum Gratiae a Kingdom of Grace and Regnum Gloriae a Kingdome of Glory And by a figure they make the King Christ himself a Kingdome All these may be true and these appellations may have some warrant from Scripture it self and may have an ADVENIAT set to them When we rest upon that law of Providence by which in a wonderful manner God governeth the world we say ADVENIAT Let his absolute Kingdome come Let him dispose and order the actions of men and the events of things as he pleaseth When we make our selves Saints and strive to bring others into that fellowship and communion there is an ADVENIAT for we pray for the increase of the Church and the enlarging of her territories When we hunger and thirst after the water of life when we desire that wholsome doctrine may drop as the rain and saving truth distil as the dew there is an ADVENIAT a prayer which will open the windows of heaven Some are of opinion that by Kingdom come here Christ did mean the Gospel And this carries some probability in it For the Disciples and Apostles of Christ whose business it was to propagate the Gospel had this petition Thy Kingdom come so often in their mouths that they were accused affectati regni as Enemies to the State who did secretly undermine one Empire to set up another We cannot deny but that not only the manifestation of Gods will but the confirmation of it either by preaching or by miracle or by those gifts and effects which can proceed from no other cause but the power and efficacy of the Spirit are truly called the kingdome of Christ because they are instrumenta regni instruments and helps to advance his throne or Kingdome in our very hearts that as true Subjects we may obey his commands as true Souldiers fight under his banner that so we may suffer with him here and reign with him hereafter And in this sense we may call the Scripture a Kingdome and the Preaching of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments and the outward Government of the Church whether Political by the Magistrate or Ecclesiastical by the Bishops and Priests a Kingdome because both Powers both Ecclesiastical and Civil are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great helps and furtherances to advance Gods Kingdome But Aquinas shall give you a full resolution 1 a 2 ae Qu. 104. Regnum Dei in interioribus consistit principaliter sed ex consequenti ad regnum Dei pertinent omnia illa sine quibus interiores actus esse non possunt The Kingdome of God is within us and principally consists in the subduing of the inward man in taking the citadel of the Heart but by a plain and easie consequence all those things without which these inward acts are not ordinarily performed may be taken in within its verge and compass And when we pray for the supply and continuance of these helps we truly say Thy Kingdome come For Christ is not truly and properly said to reign till we have surrendered up unto him our very souls and hearts and laid them at his feet For as Cassian saith of Fasting and Watching and Nakedness that they are not perfection it self but the instruments to work it So may we say of these outward helps the Preaching of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments and the Watchfulness of Kings and Prelates and the like They are not the Kingdome of God but helps and instruments to set us up And his reason will hold here also In ipsis enim non consistit disciplinae finis sed per illa pervenitur ad finem For these are not the end but by these we are brought to the end to the Kingdome of Grace which will bring us to the Kingdome
bound the Understanding also to regulate our Affections to set limits to our very Thoughts which flow from the heart to keep us from Error as well as from Sin For as the Will must turn it self from all evil ut non consentiat that it no way incline to consent unto it so is there a tye upon the Understanding to avoid error ut non assentiat that it yield not assent to it As the Will is bound to perform its act so is the Understanding also The Will is bound to will that which is good the Understanding to know and believe those things which are the objects of our Faith and Knowledge so that it is as well a sin to believe a lye in matters of Faith as to break a commandment If there were no law to the Understanding then were it lawful for every man to believe and think as he please and that opinion would pass for current That every man may be saved in that Religion and Sect which he believes to be good and true And then how hath the Church of Christ been mistaken in passing such heavy censures upon Hereticks and Infidels We have a saying indeed in St. Bernard Nihil ardet in inferno praeter propriam voluntatem That nothing of us makes fuel for the fire of hell but our Will and that men are punisht only for the stubbornness and disobedience of their Will and if we examine it we shall find it true enough though at the first appearance it beareth some shew of opposition to the truth For the Will receives the first wound and maim And it is most certain we could never erre dangerously if we were not willing to be deceived The complaint is put-up in Scripture They will not understand Not that the acts of the Understanding depend on the Will which are rather natural than arbitrary for it is not in our power not to apprehend things in those shapes in which they present themselves but because we wilfully refuse the means to clear doubts we will not see that which is most naked and visible we seek no guide we follow no direction nay perhaps against our own consciences we dissent from that which inwardly will we nill we we do acknowledge And as the errors of the Understanding so all the extravagancies of the Affections are originally from the Will It was the Stoicks error to disgrace the Affections as evil Christianity hath made the weapons of righteousness to fight the battels of this great King My Anger may be a sword my Love a banner my Hope a staff my Fear a buckler All the weaknesses of our Soul the errors of our Understanding and the rebellions of our Affections are from the Will From hence are wars and fightings Is the Understanding dark The cloud is from the Will That my Anger rageth my Love burneth my Fear despaireth my Grief is impatient my Joy mad is from the Will From this treasury blows the wind which makes the wicked like the Isa 57. 20. troubled sea which cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt And now you see that the Kingdom of Christ consists principally in subduing of the will When that yields the Understanding is straight as wax to receive the impressions of Truth and the Affections as so many gentle gales to carry us to the haven where we would be This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom calls it principale animae as St. Ambrose the commanding leading and principal part of the Heart If Christ hath taken possession of this he hath taken the whole heart and is Lord of all Fight saith the 1 King 22. 31 King of Syria neither with small nor great save only with the King of Israel If he faâ—l in battel the whole army is overthrown Will you have it plainly thus There be these three parts as it were in the Heart or Soul of man Reason Will and Appetite Reason necessarily inclines to things reasonable and the Sensitive appetite follows the conduct of Sense For it is an axiome in the Schools Unaquaeque virtus expeditior est ad proprium actum Every power of the soul tends naturally to its proper act and operation Our Reason is quick to discourse and our Sense carries us to sensual objects And these two are at a kind of war and variance in man and strive which shall have the supremacy They are as two extreams and the Will in the midst as it were to decide the controversie When Sense hath over whelmed Reason then Sin begins to reign and the Devil to triumph But when through Christ that strenghtheneth us our Will takes Reason's part and treads the Appetite under her feet then the adverse faction is swallowed up in victory Christ is all in all and VENIT REGNUM DEI the Kingdome of God is within us I now proceed further to unfold the nature of the Kingdome of God It is REGNUM TUUM thy Kingdome Which puts a difference betwixt this and other Kingdoms Christ rules and reigneth as a King in his Church But as his Kingdome is not of this world so is it of a divers form and complexion from the Kingdoms of the world We pray Let thy Kingdome come Which points out a peculiar Kingdome a Kingdome by it self And if we put it in the Scales with the Kingdoms of the earth and weigh them together they will be all found too light whether we respect the Laws by which this Kingdome is governed or the Virtue and Power it hath or its large Compass or the Riches it abounds with or its Duration the Laws unquestionable indispensable the Power universal the Circuit as large as the world the Riches everlasting and its Continuance for ever To speak something of these in their order First in the Kingdome of Christ and his Laws neither People nor Senate nor Wise-men nor Judges has any hand They were made in Senatu Soliloquio as Rupertus speaks in that Senate and Solitariness where there are divers yet but one Three Persons and but one God Secondly there is a difference in the Laws themselves These are pure and undefiled exact and perfect and such as tend to perfection and so were none that ever the heathen Legislatours enacted What speak we of the Laws of heathen men and strangers from the Commonwealth of Israel The Law of Moses though it had nothing unlawful or dishonest yet conteined many precepts concerning things which in themselves were neither good nor evil as Sacrificing of beasts Circumcision exact Rest on their Sabboath forbidding of divers meats But the Laws of the Gospel and of the Kingdome of Christ command those duties which had they not been tendred in that high commanding form yet in their own nature were most just and fit to be done Not to circumcise the flesh but the heart Not to cease from labor but from that which is unlawful Not to sacrifice the bloud and fat of beasts but our selves Not to abstein from certain meats but to
dicere nomen and had I not the warrant of so grave and judicious a Divine I should scarcely have dar'd to have taught it in this age of the world where we are taught that we must begin from our selves that we must not tempt God by making our selves destitute of means or other such thriving Doctrines which strongly savour of Love to the World and Distrust in Gods Providence I deny not but that there may be many reasons of mollifying and restraining some Texts but amongst these that must be the least which is drawn from our Commodity For thus to tamper with those Texts which seem to stand in our light and cross us in our way to Riches and Honors gives just cause of suspicion that our hearts are set upon them and that if no hard and fearful command came between we would be nailed to them In respect of our Persons or our Purses to restrain any part of Scripture from that latitude of sense whereof it is naturally capable makes it manifest that we are willing magìs emendare Deos quà m nosipsos rather to correct the Gods nay to conform the word of the true and everliving God to our own humor than to subdue our humor to the word of God and that we are well content to deal with our souls as the Athenians sometimes dealt with their ground When they will not bear good corn to sow leeks and onions there When the Gospel and Christs precepts thwart our corrupt dispositions we learn to make them void with our traditions with our Pharisaical limitations and restrictions And thus much be spoken concerning this word NOSTER and the reasons why this Bread is called Our Bread The Eight and Thirtieth SERMON PART III. MATTH VI. 11. Give us this day our daily Bread WHat is meant by Bread and why it is called Our Bread we have already shewn at large And in this word NOSTER we found a Goad to put in the sides of the Sluggard to awaken him out of his slumber and lethargie and a Chain to fetter the hands of the Deceitful to keep them from picking and stealing from fraud and cousenage and a Spur to our Charity to make us cast our bread upon the waters NOSTER is verbum operativum a word full of efficacie to open the fountain of our Liberality and to set up banks to regulate our desires in the pursuit of wealth We proceed now to enquire in the next place why we are taught to pray for our daily Bread or what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And here as the streams in which Interpreters run are divers so the fountain is hard to find out Some take the word properly some metaphorically Some render it Supersubstantialem as the Vulgar and so with Tertullian and Cyprian take in Christ who is the Bread of life So that to pray for Bread is perpetuitatem postulare in Christo individuitatem à corpore ejus to desire a perpetuity in Christ and to be united to him for ever Others make it Sacramental Bread Castellio expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then it is supercaelestial or heavenly Bread by which the Soul is sustein'd to wit the Grace of God by which we overcome and remove all difficulties which stand in our way between us and that happiness which is the mark and the price of the high calling in Jesus Christ Others by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eximium and call it that bread which is singular and peculiar to us Others interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is profitable and fit to nourish us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom that bread which is turned into the very substance of our bodies Others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Vulgar which in St. Matthew renders it super substantial in St. Luke calls it QUOTIDI ANUM our daily Bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom used to speak We may embrace all senses For why should not Righteousness be as our daily Bread to feed us Why should we not with joy put it on to clothe us and make it as a robe or a diadem Why should we not thirst for that water which is drawn out of the wells of salvation Why should we not long for our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Fathers call the Eucharist For that holy Bread which is our provision and supply in our way For every one of these we may solicit the Majesty of heaven and earth and press upon God with an holy opportunity Lord evermore give us of this bread of the Bread of Righteousness of the Bread which thou breakest and of the Bread which thou art of the Bread of thy Word and of the Bread of thy Sacrament Which are primitiae futuri panis the first-fruits of the Bread of eternal Life We may embrace all senses For superflua non nocent or as the Civilians speak non solent quae abundant vitiare scripturas these superfluities and superabundancies are not dangerous where every exposition is true though non ad textum not truly fitted to the Text. But that Christ meant not Sacramental Bread is more than evident 1. Because the Sacrament was not yet instituted And it is not probable that our Saviour when he taught his Disciples to pray would speak in parables 2. We do not every day receive the Sacrament but we are taught thus every day to pray Quia quotidiana est oratio quotidiè quoque videtur dici oportere It was so determined in the Fourth Councel of Toledo It is our daily prayer and to be said every day against some Priests in Spain who would say the Lords Prayer only upon the Lords day as we find it in the Ninth Canon of that Councel And as it may be said every day so every hour of the day Which we cannot apply to the Eucharist 3. If we will lay upon the word all senses it will bear without injurie to the truth we need no other form than that one Petition Thy will be done For in that as in a Breviary all that we can pray for is comprised Indeed as Seneca in his Natural Questions speaks of the river Nilus Nilus per septena ostia in mare emittitur quodcunque ex his elegeris mare est Nilus is emptied into the Sea by seven chanels and every one of these is a Sea So here we see this word conveyed unto us by divers interpretations as by so many chanels and every one of these is a sea yielding us abundance of matter And as it is said of that river Ortus mirari non nosse licuit that men with wonder and admiration might search but not find out the fountain-head from whence it sprang So this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not found in any Ethnick writer whatsoever And the formation and etymon is as hard and full of difficulty to find out From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence it is commonly derived it cannot come For if
with us we have as much reason to be afraid of Mercy as of a Tentation and to beg it at the hands of God that it do not prove so even a temptation and occasion of sin For at the very name of Mercy we lye down and rest in peace This is the pillow on which we can sleep in the midst of a tempest and dream of heaven when we are entring the very gates of hell We make the Pardon of sin commeatum delinquendi but a kind of faculty or safe-conduct that we may sin the more boldly A heavy speculation it is but Experience hath made it good We have learnt a cursed art how to change and transelement the Mercy of God We make our selves worse for the Goodness of God and continue in sin because he is long-suffering Forgiveness blots-out sin and Forgiveness revives it We will not be rich in Good works because God is bountiful of his merits and we are many times most sinful upon no other inducement then a faith unhappy and ill applyed That God is most merciful Deus inquiunt bonus optimus salutificator omnium saith Tertullian This is the plea of most men GOD IS GOOD AND MERCIFUL AND THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD Haec sunt sparfilia eorum These are those sprinklings of comfort with which they abate the rage of that hell which Sin hath already kindled in their breast And as it fares with us in respect of temporal life so doth it also in respect of spiritual life We lay-up for many years when we cannot promise to our selves a night and we talk of to morrow when the next word may be our last and though the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men bow themselves and the grinders cease yet we nourish a hope of life even then when our voice fails us and we have not strength enough to publish our hope So when we lye bedrid in sin almost at the last gasp when our members are withered when our understandings are darkned and our memories fail us when we are nothing else but the carkass and shadow of a Christian we talk of the glories and riches of the Gospel hope to be saved by that Grace which we have slighted and by that Mercy which we have trampled under our feet We force Mercy to these low offices in our health and jollity to sit with us in the seat of the scornful to walk with us in our inordinate courses and to make the way smooth and pleasant which leadeth unto death and at last when we lye on our death-beds we get it to perswade us that we who have believed and no more who all our life long had no other virtue than Faith may now dye in hope that we may dye the death of the righteous who have made our members the weapons of unrighteousness Thus we pray That Gods will may be done That we may overcome Tentations but we live as if there were no other Petition but this Forgive us our Trespasses Tertullian saith Solenne est perversis idiotis It is a common thing with ignorant and foolish men with men of perverse hearts to lay hold upon some one fair promising Text and to set it up adversus exercitum sententiarum instrumenti totius against a whole army of those sad and ill-boding sayings which qualifie it HABEMUS ADVOCATUM If we sin we have an Advocate with the Father This is a fundamental truth and to this we stand and never heed those passionate Texts in Scripture those expostulating Texts Why will you dye Oh fools Ezek. 33. 11. Psal 94. 8. Psal 81. 13. when will you be wise those wishing Texts Oh that my people would understand that Israel would hear my voice those forewarning Texts Tribulation and anguish on every soul that doth evil and They that do these things Rom. 2. 9. Gal. 5. 21. cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven and those begging and beseeching Texts I beseech you brethren be reconciled I beseech you abstain from carnal lusts 2 Cor. 5. 20. 2 Pet. 2. 11. I have often wondred within my self how it should come to pass that so many Heathen have surpassed most Christians in the commendable duties of this life that even Turks and Pagans do loath those sins which Christians swallow-down with ease and digest with all their horror and turpitude why the light of Reason should discover to them the foul aspect of Sin which the Christian many times doth not discern with that light and with another to boot the light of Scripture why the secret whisper of Nature should more prevail with them then doth with many of us the voice of God himself and the open declaration of his will in Scripture But it is too true They are not alwayes best who have most motives to be so For as it falls-out sometimes in men of great learning and subtilty though they are able to resolve every doubt untie every knot and answer the strongest objections yet many times they are puzzled with a meer fallacy and piece of sophistry So the formal Christian can stand strong against all motives all beseechings all the batteries of God against the terrour of hell and allurements of promises but he is puzzled with a piece of sophistry and cannot extricate and unwind himself with the Devils fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter That Mercy doth save sinners which are penitent and therefore it saves all And upon this ground the Pleasures which are but for a season shall win upon us when Heaven with its eternity cannot move us and the supposed Tediousness and Trouble which is in Goodness shall affright us from Good works more than the Torments which are eternal can from Sin So that that Mercy which the unbelieving Heathen wanted to make them happy the Christian hath but ad poenam to make him miserable being made by him the savour of death unto death And that which is his priviledge here shall be to his greater condemnation and urged as a reason why the Christian shall have more stripes than the Infidel To restrain this evil which is the cause of all evil and the abuse of Mercy which envenomes it and makes it malignant and leaves us so incurable that infinite Mercy cannot restore us that ipsa Salus Salvation it self cannot help us the primitive Christians admitted publick penance in the Church but once after Baptism They had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens speaks primam unam poenitentiam as Tertullian but one repentance but one which was first and last fearing lest if they did laxare fraenos disciplinae slacken the reins of discipline and admit of notorious sinners toties quoties though they laid-down and took-up their sins at pleasure they might make that a fomenter of Sin which was ordeined to kill it The Novatian was yet stricter and would not admit it once and therefore underwent the Churches heaviest censure as an enemy to God and to his
tentations but lead us into them not only shews us that which may hurt us but betrays us to it And no doubt such there are But here we must be wary that we raise not arguments from meer sound of the words Expetit sensus interpretationis gubernaculum saith Tertullian We must make use of the light which a just interpretation may bring Universa Scriptura quasi una propositio copulativa saith Gerson there is such a sympathy such an analogy between one part and another that the whole Scripture may seem to be but one entire copulative proposition Therefore where two places seem to look divers waies we must not be too forward to adhere or fasten to either but ex praepositis consequentibus as Hilary teacheth us by comparing that which goes before with that which follows after by help of plain and open places bring them together and make them one in understanding which cannot possibly be opposite in sense It cannot be that that should be the sense of any part of Scripture which contradicts any principle of truth or violates any attribute of God as his Goodness his Wisdom his Justice I will not say as the Father upon occasion doth Talia si dicunt Prophetae non erunt mei If the Prophets or Apostles speak any such words they shall be none of mine but rather be confident that whatsoever at first to an indiligent Reader the words may sound the Prophets and Apostles could not mean And in common reason that which is plain and acknowledged on all sides to be true should give light to that which is obscure and be as an Oath for confirmation to set an end to all strife and controversie To examine some places of this nature In 2 Sam. 24. 1. after we are told that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel it presently follows and he moved David against them to say Go number Israel and Judah And some have been too ready to lay hold on this and urge it as a plain testimony that God many times makes Satan his instrument and by him inciteth and moveth men to sin Which notwithstanding the gross absurdity of the thing it self and a plain testimony of Scripture That God tempteth no man that is incites or solicites Jam. 1. 13. none to sin doth evidently demonstrate to be most false And this He in Samuel is pointed-out by name and is no other than Satan himself Now the 1 Chron. 21. 1. reason of this grand mistake and blasphemy was no other than this that this He moved David is brought-in close to that That God was angry so that it might seem to be referred unto Him because there is no mention there of any other But yet they might have observed that it is a common thing with the Hebrews to bring-in their Verbs many times without the Person who is the agent so that these words ET INSTIGAVIT DAVIDEM he moved David by the common opinion of Grammarians may be thus supplyed ET INSTIGAVIT IS QUI INSTIGAVIT He moved him that moved him that is the Devil But that 1 Kings 22. is more plain There comes-forth an evil Spirit and offers as it were himself to assist and help God to destroy Ahab For when God asks Who shall perswade Ahab to fall at Ramoth-Gilead the evil Spirit answers him That will I How saith God I will go forth saith he and be a lying Spirit in the mouth of all his prophets Go saith God and prevail If we take the words as they sound here was more than Permission Here was a Command and God may seem to have given the Spirit a Commission and deputed him as an instrument to destroy Ahab But if we rightly weigh each circumstance all will amount to no more than Permission For though God gave-way to the evil Spirit yet was it not infallibly necessary that Ahab should be deceived If he would he might have hearkened to Micaiah the true Prophet and cast the lying Prophets into prison there to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the water of affliction GO AND DO SO are the words of an offended God who when he found an instrument ready to his hands would not hinder that voluntary profer of the evil Spirit which he knew how to use to execute his vengeance upon that wicked King Occulta justitiae licentia malignis spiritibus datur saith Gregory ut quos volentes in peccati laqueo strangulant in peccati poenam etiam nolentes trahant Even the evil Spirits have a kind of licence a Writ De puniendo peccatore given them that they who are so gentle and willing to be led into the snare of the Devil may be dragged by them to punishment against their will Again God indeed is said in Scripture to have hardened Pharaoh's heart to give-up men to their own lust to vile affections and to a reprobate mind c. But all this in effect is no more as I have elsewhere shewn at large than that God hath so ordained hath set things in such a course that if men continue in sin they shall be hardned if they love temptations they shall be led into them and if they will needs play and sport with these Serpents they shall at last be stung to death To conclude then God tempteth no man God solicites no man to sin much less doth he lead or force men into this snare No God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength He doth not bid us fight when he hath disarmed us nor assist that enemy which he bids us resist nor lead us into those tentations which we are sure to fall under But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is true and faithful and to expose us a prey to a merciless and invincible enemy is prejudicial to the Faith and Truth and Sincerity of God He leaves Tentations as they are allurements and terrors and no more And he leaves us as we are with Understanding to discern what is true and what is counterfeit and with a Will of greater activity than the Rhetorick of a pleasing or the terror of a fearful tentation As he leaves us Sense to receive objects so he leaves us Reason to weigh and ponder them to consider what deceit may be in Beauty and what danger in Honour to consider that a light affliction may bring a great weight of glory that though Pleasure flatter yet I may run from it and though Affliction threaten yet I may embrace it and count the strokes of the one better than the kisses of the other God is faithful and will with the tentation also make a way to escape 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle not make a way with the breath of his Omnipotency but make a way so plain and easie and passable that if thou wilt thou maist escape flee from the noise of the fear and yet not fall into the pit and come out of the midst of the pit and yet
unpleasing sound but if we will attend and hearken to them they are sermons and instructions and they may serve to order and compose rotam nativitatis the whole wheel of our nature And first they work upon the Understanding part to clear and enlighten that We see not only seeds of moral conversation those practick notions which were born with us but also those seeds of saving knowledge which we gather from the Scripture and improve by instruction and practise never so darkned and obscured as when Pleasures and Delights have taken full possession of our souls And as we see in sick and distempered men that the light of their reason is dimmed and their mind disturbed which proceeds from those vicious vapors which their corrupt humors do exhale it is so in the Soul and Understanding which could not but apprehend objects as they are and in their own likeness as it were not dazled and amazed with intervenient and impatient objects and phantasms but being blinded by the God of this world it sees objects indeed but through the vanities of the world which as coloured Glass present the object much like unto themselves Sin hath now the face and beauty of Virtue Envy is emulation Covetousness thrift Prodigality bounty the Gospel a promulgation of liberty and a priviledge to sin Things now appear unto us as upon a stage in masques and vizards and strange apparel Now when the hand of God is upon us when to expel that sin which a delightful tentation hath occasioned he maks us feel the smart of one quite contrary and to drive out that which entred with delight he sends another with a whip when this cross tentation hath cut of all hopes of enjoying such pleasing objects as have taken us up the Understanding hath more liberty then before to retire into it self and begins evigilare to awake as a man out of sleep and to enjoy a kind of heaven and serenity which before did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonicks speak sleep in a hell of confusion and darkness Now the seeds of Goodness being freed from the attractive force of allurements begin to recover life and strength and sprout forth into those apprehensions which bring with them a loathing of that evil which before they converst withal as with a familiar friend And anon every sin appears in his own shape Envy is Murder Covetousness Idolatry Prodigality Folly and the Gospel a Sanctuary not for Libertines but Repentants In my prosperity I said saith David I shall never be moved Lord by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled I cryed unto thee O Lord Psal 30. 6 7 8 and unto the Lord I made my supplication It is strange saith Calvine that God should enlighten Davids eyes by hiding his face without the light of whose countenance even Knowledge it self is no better than Darkness But we find it most true that when one temptation doth infatuate a contrary is brought-in to make men wise Secondly the Will of man as it is a free so is a perverse and froward faculty and many times Planet-wise moveson in its own way contrary to the strong circumvolution of the First mover But the Temptations of the left hand serve to settle its irregular motion and to make it wait upon Reason For having followed the deceitful allurements of the World and finding gall and bitterness upon every seeming delight having found death in the Harlots lips and misery in every way she wandered she begins to renounce her self and though she be free to every object yet she fastens her self on one alone and hath her eye alwayes upon the Understanding as the eye of the hand-maid is upon the eye of the mistress who directs her Lastly Tentations may have their operation on the Memory and revive those decay'd characters whether of Gods blessings or of our own sins and bring those sins which did lurk in secret into the open light How soon when we are at quiet and ease do we forget God how soon do we forget our selves How many benefits how many sins are torn out of our memories Who remembers his own soul in this calm or can think that he hath a soul Who thinks of Sin in Jollity So that it may seem to be a kind of tentation to be long free from tentation We read in the book of Genesis that Joseph's brethren made no scruple of the sin they committed against him for fourteen years together but being cast into prison they presently call it to mind and that upon no apparent reason We are verily guilty concerning our brother and therefore is this distress come upon us Beloved afflictions are to us à memoriâ and though they be tentations to distrust and murmuring yet they may prove and so they are intended like Joseph unto his brethren remembrancers to us to remove the callum the hardness of our consciences and make them quick of sense that we may ab ipso morbo remedium sumere force a remedy from the disease and make even Sin advantageous to us by removing it out of the Affection where it playes the parasite and fixing it in the Memory where it is a fury where it is as operative to destroy as it was in the Affection to increase it self To contemplate Sin and to view the horror of it and the hell it deserves is enough to break our hearts and bow our wills and to make us hate and detest Sin more than Hell it self Again in the third place this exercise in tentations doth not only draw us to repentance for sins past but also serves as a fence or guard to those virtues and saving graces which make us gracious in the sight of God it doth temper that portion in us which is the Spirits that it prove not more dangerous and fatal than that of the Flesh For as Bernard discanteth upon Porphyrie's definition of Man HOMO EST ANIMAL RATIONALE MORTALE Man is a rational but mortal creature The Mortal saith he doth temper the Rational that it do not swell and the Rational strengthen the Mortal that it do not weaken and dead our spirits And therefore St. Augustine was bold to pronounce that it was very happy for some men that they did fall in tentations For Pride which threw down the Angels from heaven will grow not only upon Power and Beauty and Pomp of the world but upon the choicest virtues and like those plantae parasiticae those parasitical plants which will grow but upon other plants it sucks out the very juice and spirits of them and is nourisht with that which quickens those virtues and keeps them alive When we have stood strong against temptations quâdam delectatione sibimet ipsi animus blanditur there ariseth in our soul a kind of delight which doth fâ—â—tter and tickle us to death Fovea mentis memoria virtutis saith Gregory Too much to look back upon our beauty and too steddily
Ahaz who said Because the Gods of the Kings of Syria help them 2 Chr. 28. 23. therefore will I sacrifice to them that they may help me by setting-up other Gods other helps and saying These be our Gods And this last is of so malignant an aspect that it makes the heavens of brass and that God to turn away his ears who is alwayes ready to hear and that which we call a prayer to be registred for a sin For by this we violate that Majesty before which we fall down we mock God and beseech him to do that which we are not perswaded he can do Which is to make him no better than an Idol which hath ears but hears not eyes but sees not hands but can do nothing And this is not to pray to God but to libel him to make him like unto our selves that there can be no trusting in him So that that of the Historian is here true Plura peccamus dum demoremur quà m dum offendimus Our Prayers are turned into sin and we never wrong God more then when we thus worship him Majestas injurias graviùs intelligit Kings are never more angry then when their Majesty is toucht then their wrath is as the roaring of a Lion Nor do we offend God so much when we doubt of his Will as when we distrust his Providence and his Power which are the parts of his Royalty And in this respect it is most true Magna est praesumptio de Deo quam non presumere It is a great presumption not to presume upon his Power non putare illum posse quod non putamus and not to think he can do what we cannot think And therefore that our prayers may ascend to that pitch we level them to even to the Throne of God We must consider him seated there as a King and as Omnipotent Which consists not in a bare apprehension or sense of the mind that there is a Divine Power greater and mightier than all nor in those common senses and notions as Tertullian calleth them which even the Heathen had They could say Deus videt omnia Deo me commendo God seeth all things and I commend my self to his protection Nay the Devils believe saith St. James and tremble They have a kind of belief and therefore have knowledge But here is requisite a full consent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens Alexandrinus speaketh a settled and full perswasion of heart touching the Providence and Power of God Upon this foundation we may build and settle our Devotion and raise it as high as heaven This makes our Prayer a Sacrifice this sets it on fire that the flame goes upward from off the altar of our hearts nay the Angel of the Lord ascends up with this flame and commonly returns back and descends with a message of comfort And although there may come upon us a fit of trembling when we look upon our selves yet if our prayer be formed according to Gods will we may draw near unto the throne of Grace in full assurance of faith that he will hear our prayers even then when he granteth not our requests and that he can do more for us than we can know how to desire Amongst other properties of Place the Philosopher requires Immobility If it be a Place it must be immoveable For if the body on which you place your self flit and glide away from under you you can never well rest and move upon it And certainly to go about to rest or settle our confidence on any other grounds but these is as if we should attempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to walk on the air or tread the waters or build without foundation Put not your trust in Princes nor in the son of man for their breath goeth from them There the ground glideth away from under us Trust not on your own Wisdom and Power Your turning of devices shall be as the potters clay and shall break and crumble between your fingers There it flits away How can he help who hath no power how can he save who hath no arm or strength Nay we can find no stability in the Angels They are ministring spirits and their Elogium is They do Gods will But if he command not they have no sword to strike no buckler to defend And in Men we find less Vain is the help of Man Stas non stas cum in teipso stas For one man to put confidence in another is as if one begger should ask an alms of another or one cripple should carry another or the blind lead the blind It is very incident unto men in want not only to desire help but to doubt of the means which should help them A disease rising from their very want For it is natural to Desire to beget Fear and Doubting whilst the Phansie sets up morinos to fright us In us there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a flitting and unsatiable humor We cannot endure the deferring of our hopes But when God answereth us not neither by Urim nor by Prophets brings not in that aid we beg of him we presently droop and let go our confidence And if we speed not according to our desires we set-up some golden Calf straight Nor can we settle our Devotion till we have built and establisht our Confidence upon these two the Kingdom and the Power of God These are munimenta humanae imbecillitatis inexpugnabilia as Tertullian speaks impregnable fortresses of our humane weakness to keep us from that which we cannot withstand If God be with us who can be against us What is it we can desire which we may not find in the Fountain of Goodness What is there to be done which God cannot do There is no word no thing which shall be impossible unto him What thing soever we would have is but his Word If he speak the word it is done Art thou in darkness If he say Let there be light there shall be light Art thou in poverty If he say thy poverty shall be riches it shall be wealth Are thy sins more than the hairs of thy head If he say Thy sins are forgiven thee they are forgiven Here is the Power of God no sooner to speak but it is done His Power flows from his very Essence and whatsoever is done in heaven or in earth is done by his voice The voice of the Lord is upon the waters The voice of the Lord is powerful The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars yea the Lord breaketh the cedars Psal 29. of Lebanon I will not now speak any thing in particular of Gods Providence and Power by which he reigneth as King and governeth the world and every thing therein and doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth for of these I have spoken heretofore at large We will only at this time to remove our diffidence and distrust dig at the very root and cause of it and that is no less than a vile branch of