is here imply'd Come we now from the double Object to observe in the Text a double Act too Whereof the first is Internal and that express'd the second External and that imply'd The Act Internal which is express'd is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to believe The Act External which is imply'd is to confess what is believ'd in spite of Temptations to conceal it And this did the Iailour of Philippi in the next Verses after my Text. For as inwardly with the Heart a man believeth unto righteousness so outwardly with the Mouth Confession is made unto Salvation Indeed the Gnosticks were all for the Inward Act only for the better avoiding of Persecution But the Outward is by God as indispensably requir'd And the Inward Act without it is not sincere Thence it is that they are coupl'd as the condition of Salvation Rom. 10. 9. If thou shalt confess with thy Mouth the Lord Iesus and believe in thine Heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be sav'd Believing and speaking are from the same spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4. 13. It is written I believed and therefore have I spoken We also believe and therefore speak A double Act then there must be if the end be to be sav'd A True Believer must be a Confessor in time of Trial And when duly call'd to it a Martyr too Again As the Object and the Act so too the Subject of it is double For though begun in the Intellect yet 't is consummated in the Will as Aquinas and his Followers do rightly state it or else it would be meerly an human Faith Fides cui potest subesse Dubium a Faith whose very formal Reason is a radical Fear I do not mean an ingenuous but carnal Fear a Faith without Love and without Activity and so without the effect of Obedience too And therefore Cajetan argues well That an habit of Salvifick or saving Faith must be at once both a Speculative and a Practical habit And truly such is That Faith which is required in the Text as may appear by the Effects and Products of it in the Context For first the Iailour did assent unto the Things that were preached by Paul and Silas which infer's the Christian Faith to have got already into his Head And then immediately after we find it sunk into his Heart too witness the Sacrament of his Baptism which he received from Paul and Silas witness also his tender Charity in his washing of their stripes his entertaining them at his Table and his rejoycing even in That that might be temporally his Ruin v. 34 which are a proof of his abounding in those fruits of the Spirit Acts of Iustice and Gratitude and works of Mercy and spiritual Ioy in the Holy Ghost All Effects and Diagnosticks of saving Faith The overflowings of That Love which to use St. Paul's phrase is shed abroad in the Heart of a true Believer And thus we have the twofold Subject of Believing as we ought in the Lord Iesus Christ to wit the Intellect and the Will too Our full Assent must be seconded by our Love of the Truth and Obedience to it and that by a natural Production of the one out of the other For what at first is no more than The light of Knowledge in the Brain does by enkindling in the Bowels the Fire of Love of Love to God in the first place and to our Neighbour in the second produce Obedience to the first and the second Table of the Law After the Object and the Act and the Subject of this Belief each of which is twofold we are in order to reflect on the Nature of it Which is indeed very closely but significantly couch'd in the Praeposition For 't is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 believe the Essence or Existence of Jesus Christ nor is it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 believe his Truth or Veracity But 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 believe and trust IN or UPON the Lord Jesus Believe at once his Propensity and Power to save thee Believe his Power for he is Dominus The Lord. And believe his Propensity for he is Iesus the Saviour Well therefore said the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews Whosoever cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Now what is thus said of God is exactly true of the Lord Iesus Christ. For God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself And whosoever cometh to Christ must believe as that he is so withal that he is a Rewarder too A Rewarder but of whom and on what Condition for he is not a Rewarder of all in general no nor of All that do believe him to have the Office of a Rewarder But of all such as seek him and that with diligence And of all who thus believe in Him as in the Lord Jesus Christ. Such an important monosyllable is the Praeposition in as 't is the English of the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in conjunction with an Accusative that the Life of the Text would be lost without it For standing here as it does betwixt the Act and the Object it does imply the true nature of saving Faith Pass we on from the Nature to the Necessity of Believing Which here is visibly imply'd by the Retrospect of the Text as 't is an Answer to the Question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what must I do that I may be sav'd for sure the sense of the Answer if it be adaequate to the Question must needs be This Thou must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is of absolute Necessity and indispensably requir'd For as without our pleasing God it is impossible to be sav'd so we know without Faith it is impossible to please him Heb. 11. 6. Last of all we have here the Issue or the Conclusion of the whole Matter at once implyed in the Reflexion of the Answer upon the Question and expressed in the words of the Answer too Salvation is not the Effect but yet the necessary event of our Faith in Christ. Nor is it properly the wages but most certainly the Reward of a true Believer It comes to pass as unavoidably upon the Praemisses suppos'd as an Effect on a supposal of all things requisite to its Production For the Question having been This What must I do that I may be sav'd to which the Answer is Believe and thou shalt be sav'd An Answer given by Paul and Silas who spake as the Spirit gave them utterance here does arise a mutual Inference as of the Praecept and the Promise so of the Duty and the Reward Here is a necessary Tendency of the first towards the second and a necessary Dependence of the second upon the first For as Salvation cannot be had by such as live under the Gospel without a praevious Belief in the Lord Iesus Christ so wheresoever such Believing does go before 't is very plain that Salvation
Fortunes are our Conversation will be above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. we shall behave our selves as men who are free of God's City Our Hearts will evermore be There unless our Treasure is somewhere else If the Kingdom of Heaven is that Pearl of great Price to which our Lord in his Parable thought fit to liken it And if we are those Merchants that traffick for it we cannot choose but be busy in our Inquiries after the Price still resolving upon the Purchase at any Rate that can be ask't and ever asking what we shall give or as here what we shall do that we may any ways inherit Eternal Life So it follows again on the other side That if we are commonly looking downwards and behave our selves here as men at home as if we did not intend any farther Iourney If the Burden of our Inquiries is such as This What shall we do to live long upon the Earth and not see the Grave or what shall we do to escape going to Heaven 'till such time as we are pass't the pleasant Injoyments of the Earth how shall we put the evil Day afar off how shall we be saved without Repentance or repent without Amendment or amend no more than will serve our turn what shall we do to be good enough and yet no better than needs we must what shall we do to serve two Masters and reconcile the two Kingdoms of God and Mammon and so confute what is said by our blessed Saviour in the Sixteenth of St. Luke what for a Religion wherein to live with most pleasure and one to dye in with greatest safety what shall we do to live the Life of the sensual'st Epicure and yet at last dye the Death of the strictest Saint If I say our Affections are clinging thus unto the Earth It is an absolute Demonstration that all our Treasure is here below and that we are men of the present world in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds For our Saviour's famous Rule is at once of universal and endless Truth Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together wheresoever our Treasure is there our Hearts will be also And whither our Hearts are gone before the Case is evident and clear our Tongues and our Actions will follow after § 7. Now since these are the Inquiries of several Seekers to wit of Them who do affect to dwell here and of them that look out for a better Country that is an heavenly And since we may judge by their Inquiries to which kind of Master they do belong to God or Mammon 'T is plain the Lesson or the Use we are to take from it is This that when we find our selves beset with a twofold evil the one of Sin and the other of Affliction in so much as we know not which way to turn there being on the right hand a fear of Beggery or Disgrace and on the left hand a fear of Hell when I say we are reduced to such an hard pinch of our Affairs we must not carnally cast about and tacitly say within our selves what shall we do to keep our Livelyhoods or what shall we do to hold fast our Lives But what shall we do to keep a good Conscience and to hold fast our Integrity And since 't is nobler to be led by the hope of a Reward than to be frighted into our Duties by the fear of being punish't if we neglect them let us not ask like the Children of Hagar in the spirit of Bondage which is unto fear what shall we do that we may not inherit a Death Aeternal But as the Children of Sarah in the spirit of Adoption which is unto hope what shall we do that we may inherit Aeternal Life Which Life being hid with Christ in God as St. Paul speaks to the Colossians for God's sake whither should we go either to seek it when it is absent or to find it when it is hid or to secure it when it is found unless to Him who hath the words of Eternal Life that is the words which are the means by which alone we may attain to Eternal Life The words which teach us how to know it the words which tell us where to seek it the words which shew us how to find it the words which afford us those Rules and Precepts by our conformity unto which we cannot but take it into possession There is no other Name to make us Inheritors of Eternity but only the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ Acts 4. 12. And considering what is said by our blessed Saviour That This and this only is Life Eternal to know the only true God with a practical knowledge and Iesus Christ whom he hath sent John 17. 2. we should religiously resolve not to know any thing else Not I mean in comparison of Iesus Christ and him crucified nor yet to any other end than to serve and assist us in that one knowledge Look what carking and caring any Covetous man useth to get his wealth look what industry and labour an Ambitious man useth to get his Honour look what vigilance and solicitude any Amorous man useth to get his Idol the same solicitude and diligence is each Religious man to use for the getting of an Interest in Iesus Christ. Which gives me a passage from the second to the third Observable I proposed from the Nature and Quality of the young man's Inquiry to the condition of the Oracle inquired of As he sought for nothing less than Eternal Life so did he seek it from Him alone who is the way to that Life and the Life it self He did not go to take Advice from the Witch of Endor for the madness of Saul had made him wiser or more at least in his wits than to knock at Hell-door for the way to Heaven Nor did he ask of Apollo Pythius or go to Iupiter Ammon to be inform'd about the way to Eternal Life for all the Oracles of the Heathen were put to silence by our Messias as Plutarch and others of their own great Writers have well observ'd and should they speak never so loudly he very well knew they could not teach him Nor did he go to Aaron's Ephod to ask the Urim and Thummim about the means of his Salvation for he knew that That Oracle was now grown Dimm and that in case it had been legible it could not help him Nor did he betake himself to Moses the Iewish Law-giver much less to the Scribes the learned Interpreters of the Law for he found Mysterious Moses had still a Veil upon his Face which the Scribes and Pharisees were not able to Remove much less durst he go to the Law it self for a Relief there being nothing more plain than that the Law worketh wrath Those Tables of Stone are as the Hones or the Grindstones at which the Sting of Death is whetted and made more sharp For as the sting of Death is Sin so
Men are made Infidels not to say Atheists in their practice by no means more than by their Errours about the Nature and the great Privilege of the Gospel and so of their Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ I shall give such a Byass to my ensuing Meditations as may incline them most strongly to the Advantages of Obedience and strict Converse Whether by solving such Objections as still remain to be Consider'd or by the clearing of such Scriptures as men have Appetites to obscure or by shewing the Agreement of such as may seem to contradict or else by pointing at such Instructions as all the Premisses put together shall chance to yield us And this I shall do if God permit upon some future Opportunities if This I presently lay hold on shall prove as worthy of Acceptation as by Me it is well-intended That it may I think fit to premise before-hand This Declaration That if in any Thing I have spoken I seem to have spoken somewhat Austerely I have not done it with any particular Reflections upon any man's Person alive or dead My Propositions are Universal as well as True and my Severities to the Guilty lye All in common As many as find themselves concern'd may make their personal and their private Applications of my Reproofs so as they carry it in their Memories that I have made None at all For the longer I live the more I am of this Opinion that Truth it self may be asserted and Questions about it decided also without reflecting upon the Persons thô we must intimate the Parties from whom we differ And here I am tempted to take Occasion where None is offer'd to tell my Reader for his Service if I can rightly apprehend it that when I am now and then consulted by a young Student in Divinity and a Candidate for the Priesthood what kind of Cynosure he shall steer by when he is newly launching forth in the vast Ocean of Theology I do not presently direct him as Dr. Steward at St. Germans directed Me to begin with Vincentius Lirinensis to proceed with Baronius and The Magdeburgenses Then with the Fathers of the Church for the first Three hundred years Nor do I presently ingage him in the Learned and Elaborate and laudable Method of Mr. Dodwell whose Parts and Piety his Patience and his Pains-taking many Theologues may imitate but few can equal But first I tell him that the shortest and surest way whereby to make himself a sufficient and sound Divine is next to his reading and revolving the Word of God to study the Works of Dr. Hammond beginning with his Annotations at least with his Paraphrase on the New Testament His Practical Catechism and His Book of Fundamentals For I have been long of this Opinion that He whose important Office it is to be a Leader of other men in the Way of Truth and either not at all to err or else to err as inoffensively as 't is possible for him to do in a state of Frailty will find it Safest to be a Follower of the most Excellent Dr. Hammond who if any man ever was was a Circumspect Follower of Jesus Christ. To whom be Glory for ever and ever ERRATA PAge 13. line 17. read dear and l. 18. r. dearer p. 14. l. 12. after of r. That p. 27. l. 3. in marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 31. l. 5. from the bottom r. Receive p. 53. l. 2. from the bottom r. Good p. 103. l. 10. in marg r. c. 47. p. 106. l. 9. r. streight and l. 18. after Them r. in p. 110. l. 17. after option r. to be p. 119. l. 18. r. Six and twentieth p. 126. l. 5. in marg r. tra p. 216. l. 11. for at r. of p. 253. l. 3. from the bottom r. art p. 277. l. 9. r. most Congregations do consist p. 280. l. 10. after elegantly r. call's it p. 313. l. 4. after Spouse r. we are p. 331. l. 19. after or blot out to p. 423. l. 7. after near add to p. 431. l. 17. r. Modrevius p. 433. l. 14. dele The. p. 434. l. 18. after and dele The. p. 485. l. 12. r. promised p. 571. l. 18. r. especially p. 704. l. 1. after is r. many thousand THE NECESSITY OF WEARING THE Yoke of Christ. JOHN XIII 13. Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am § 1. THat we may see how well the Text may be made suitable to the Time both to the Day of the Month and to the Buis'ness of the Day we shall do well do bear in mind throughout the Tenor of my Discourse that our Saviour's last Supper did consist of two parts There was a Coena and a Post-Coenium which we may fitly enough express by calling them the first and the second Course Our Saviour rose from the first to wash and wipe his Disciples Feet v. 5. which as soon as he had done he sat him down unto the second v. 12. And then designing to institute the tremendous Sacrament of his Body he prepared his Communicants with these words following v. 13. Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am The word Lord and the word Master do so agree in the Translation and yet in the Original do so much differ that we must bring in the Greek to explain the English or else we shall miss of its full Importance § 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a word which refers to Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which relates to Knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies Authority but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies to Teach Our blessed Saviour is the first in his Kingly Office and the second in his Prophetical He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lord to protect and govern He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Master to direct and teach us And Both he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in such a degree of supereminence as is not common to him with others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE Lord and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE Master In as much as he is the Lord we are to serve in his House And in as much as he is the Master we are to learn in his School He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord to stretch his Scepter over our Hearts And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Master to light his Candle within our Heads As a Master he instructs us to know our Duties but as a Lord he commands us to do them also He is proposed to us as Both for our Observance and Imitation That looking on him as our Lord we may be humble and taking after him as our Master we may be wise § 3. And this which helps us to Understand may help us also to divide and apply the Text. For First of all If he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies a Lord whose Prerogative
fill it up with as good a Zographesis as I am able § 10. First then to strengthen our Resolutions of accustoming our selves to Law and Discipline And not to wear the Yoke of Christ just as the Ox wears his Master's meerly for fear of being goaded but from a principle of Love to the Yoke it self let us consider how those Commandments which do make up the Law or the Yoke of Christ do but exact the things of us which are agreeable to our Reason and therefore suitable to our Nature and therefore consonant to our Desires I mean our Rational Desires which we Injoy as we are Men though not our brutish ones which we suffer as we are Animals and which without any difference are common unto us with the Beasts that perish It should be natural for us as Men indued with Reason to Love the Beauty of our Lord and to fear his Power Because we naturally incline to the Means of Safety at least as far as we do know them or believe them to be such Now all that tends unto our Safety may be reduc't to two Heads Seeking God and Eschewing Evil. And Rational Nature does incline as well to the first as to the Second Nay as Things which are good and have a Tendency to our Safety are more or less excellent and useful to us so Nature whilst it is Rational must needs incline to That of the Higher more strongly than to That of the Lower Value And that which saves a man for ever being of much an higher value than that which saves him but for a Time 'T is plain that Nature being Rational does most incline towards the former And all the Commandments of our Lord having a Tendency unto That are by consequence agreeable to human Nature Especially when our Nature is also rectified by Grace which does not fail to work with any who do not fail to work with It And however insufficient to make us Sinless is yet abundantly sufficient to make us single and sincere Less than which in our Service our Master's Iustice cannot exact And the Equity of his Gospel exacts no more § 11. The Truth of which may be evinced from the Absurdity which would follow its being supposed to be False For the Moral Commands of Christ like the Moral commands of Moses must be acknowledged to be Holy Iust and Good Which yet I know not how they could be were they not adequate to the Faculties of Grace and Reason For what Goodness can there be in an Impossibility of doing the Good that is required or what holiness can there be in unavoidable transgressions for want of strength Or what Iustice can it be that any Rational Agent should be accomptable for the Things he could never help To command Impossibilities is not agreeable to Reason in Him who threatens an Endless Punishment for not performing what is commanded And therefore no such hard Yoke can be imposed by our Lord on the Neck of Any No such heavy and grievous Burden can be laid by a Saviour on any Shoulder For though 't is true that the Reprobates both men and Devils being left and forsaken and finally given over by the Iudge of all the world are under a sad Impossibility of doing Good yet it is as true too that they drew upon themselves such a deplorable Necessity of doing evil They were not created in That Condition For God created them upright and made them capable of Duty But they found out and follow'd their own Inventions whereby to lose the Capability which God had given them Eccles. 7. 29. If men are so wilful in using the Liberty of their Wills as to make an absolute Covenant with Death and with Hell to be at Agreement if they will Sin with both hands as one Prophet words it and draw Iniquity as with a Cart-rope as it is in Another No wonder if in the words of the Book of Wisdom they pull Destruction upon Themselves with the work of their hands And in These considerations All who are Lovers of Christ indeed and think ingenuously of him and are not grosly injurious to him nor have an evident pique at him must either say that he commands us in proportion to our Talents of Grace and Reason or will not punish us for the Not doing what is impossible to be done Thus as the Antinomian Error may be sufficiently confuted by Arguments leading ad Absurdum so the Truth of Christ's Doctrin is as sufficiently confirmed by the Absurdity which would follow its being supposed to be false § 12. Again if we are not out of our Wits nor have cast off the Gentleness and Humanity of our Nature we are not able to give an Instance in any one of Christ's Commands which is truly grievous we cannot pitch on That precept which is not agreeable to our Nature For what other is the Sum of all his Commandments put together than that we do to all others as we would that all others should do to us And what is That but the Law of Nature not only written by Severus a meerly Heathen Emperour in all his Plates and publick works But by the invisible finger of God in the natural Heart and Conscience of man as man till Tract of Time and Evil Custom in some depraved persons have raz'd it out Let us keep but This precept and break the rest if we are able For what does our Lord require of us in any one or more parts of his Royal Law which is not easily reducible to this one Head Deal we as righteously with men as by men we would be dealt with And let us do the Will of God with as much singleness and Zeal as we desire that God himself will be pleas'd to do ours And then we have at once fulfill'd the Law of Nature and of Christ too § 13. Now if the Yoke of Christ's Precepts is thus easy in it self how smooth and easy is it to Them who have inur'd themselves to it by their Obedience an Argument taken from Experience will be as cogent as any can be David found after a great and a long Experience that the Commandments of God were sweeter to him than the Hony and Hony-comb Psal. 19. 10. where the word Hony being us'd by a kind of a Proverb among the Hebrews for all imaginable objects of Sensual Pleasure 't is plain the meaning of the Prophet must needs be This that the Pleasure arising to him from the Rectitude of his Actions and an uniform obedience to Gods Commands was as much greater than any pleasure which he had ever yet injoy'd in the Breaches of them as the Pleasure which smites the Soul is greater than That which affects the Body Betwixt which two there is so signal and wide a Difference that by an obvious Antimetabole the Pleasure of the Soul is the Soul of Pleasure to which the pleasure of the Body is in comparison nothing more than a
Ioy at the Return of Good Friday upon which they were to celebrate their Master's Suffrings on the Cross as that the sense of Their suffrings seem'd to be wholly swallow'd up by the far greater sense which they had of His. Though they were scatter'd and dispers't as far asunder as the Ingenie of Malice could well contrive some imprison'd upon the Land some under Hatches upon the Sea some in Caves of the Wilderness and some condemn'd upon the Scaffold Yet as the Angles of a Pyramid however distant at the Basis do still come nearer as they Ascend and at last Concenter in the Conus so how distant soever the one from the other those Christians were in respect of their Bodies here below They met together in their Affections at the same Throne of Grace And though Our Church like Theirs in the late ill Times was truly Militant when with the Burden she labour'd under she sadly hung down her Head yet Sursum Corda she lifted up her Heart to the Lord of Glory And by an union of Affections kept all her Holy Days and Feasts with the Church Triumphant It would be certainly a voluminous if not an Endless Undertaking thô otherwise easy enough to prove by way of Induction or by a Catalogue of the Particulars how many Myriads have been enabled to run with Patience the Race that was set before them by meerly looking unto Iesus the Author and Finisher of their Faith so far forth as for the Ioy that was set before him he endured the Cross and despised the shame and so sate him down at the right hand of God Nor indeed can it be otherwise with such as Love and believe in the Lord Jesus in sincerity And give an Evidence of Both by their new obedience For so long as we are such the Spirit it self saith St. Paul beareth witness with our Spirits that we are children of God And if Children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may also be glorified together with him And suffer with him we shall with the greater ease if not Ambition because we shall reckon with St. Paul That the Suffrings of this present Time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us and because the whole Trinity is clearly ingaged in our behalf For so St. Paul tells us in the following Parts of the same Chapter God the Father gave us his Son and all good things together with him God the Son gave us Himself not only that he might dye but also rise from the Dead and be an Advocate for us incessantly at the right hand of God Thirdly God the Holy Ghost ingageth for us as much as either both by helping our Infirmities through which we know not what we should pray for as we ought And by making Intercession for us with Groans not to be utter'd And whilst so great a Care is taken both of us and our Interest by God Himself It cannot but follow that all the Crosses which shall be laid upon us by others will work together for our Comfort in this life present as well as for our Glory in that to come § 19. Lastly the Burden of Christ is light when freely taken upon our selves as in particular when he Commands us somewhat like what the Ammonites commanded the men of Iabesh Gilead to pluck out an Eye a right Eye too and to cast it from us For First it is not an Absolute but a Conditional Command We are to pluck out an Eye upon a supposal that it offends us that is to say If it is scandalous and makes us stumble into Sin and into such wasting Sin as makes us fall headlong into Hell for so our Saviour does infer in his very next words In such a formidable Case and for the preventing of such a Mischief It is not only not grievous but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith our Saviour It is profitable for thee that one of thy Members perish and not that thy whole Body be cast into Hell So that Secondly 't is not a Positive but a Comparative Command And 't is the Dictate of Common Sense That of two evils of Punishment we are in Prudence to choose the least As rather to lose one Eye than Both and rather Both than the whole Body and rather the Body than the Soul To suffer any thing rather than Death and Death it self rather than Hell A man having a Gangraene in any Limb of his Body will not only permit but hire the Artist to cut it off And by consequence will confess it very much better and more desirable to Pluck out his Eye and to cast it from him than by keeping it in his Head to be Cast into Hell Better suffer under Them who can destroy the Body only than under Him who can destroy both Body and Soul Yea Thirdly 't is the Dictate of Sanctified Reason That of any two evils whereof the one is of Sin the other of Affliction we must choose to Suffer the greatest rather than wilfully Do the least Our first Care must be to make a Covenant with our Eyes not to look upon a Maid Next in order to That Design we should not look round about us in the Streets of the City for fear our Eyes become our Enemies Or if our Eyes chance to wander beyond the Bounds of That Counsel our third degree of Care must be not to gaze upon a Woman lest we fall by those things that are pretious in her v. 5. 8. Or if This cannot be done 't is better to out them whilst they are innocent as Virginius did his Daughter than continue them as Inlets to Sin and Hell Nor should we be griev'd at our Advantage though it be bought with great Pain whilst it is for the Prevention of a very much greater Last of all this Commandment which is so grievous to us in Sound is very far from being such in its intrinsick signification For in our Saviour's gratious sense 'T is but the Vanity of the Eye which we are bound to pluck out 'T is but the Violence of the Hand which we are bound to cut off And the obliquity of the Foot which we are bid to cast from us as is shewn more at large in an other Place Several vices of the Soul being fitly enough expressed by so many Members of the Body And That severest of our Lord's Precepts If thy Right Eye offend thee pluck it out if thy Right hand offend thee cut it off if thy Right Foot offend thee cast it from thee may very well admit of this Serene Signification That we must pluck out a Lust thô as dear to us as a right Eye And we must cut off an Avarice thô as dear to us as a right Hand And we must cast away an Ambition of greater things than are good for us thô perhaps as dear to us as
Always yet our obedience unto the Gospel or Law of Christ by which alone we are to work out our own Salvation is to be qualified and season'd with Fear and Trembling The first of these I have consider'd in a former Subject of Meditation when I enlarged upon the Matter of which our working is to consist I now am come to that Part of my General Method and Design which obligeth me strictly to the consideration of the Second as touching the Manner or Qualification wherewith our working is to be cloath'd whereby to make it become effectual for the receiving of our Reward To wit with Meekness and Humility with Diligence and Solicitude with Awefulness and Horror or holy Dread the threefold Importance of Fear and Trembling which must first be considered in the Gross and after that in the Retail First consider'd in the Gross it shews us a ready and easy way of reconciling and understanding those parts of Scripture which being taken but in the letter do seem to differ and contradict For there is not any One Passion or Affection of the Mind either more rigidly forbidden or more earnestly commanded than that of Fear It is so rigidly forbidden that the fearful and unbelieving have their part in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone Rev. 21. 8. where St. Iohn making a Muster of such as are listed under the Devil and bound for Hell sets the Fearful and Unbelieving as it were in the Front of the whole Battalia with which the desperate Prince of Darkness is wont to wage War against the Father of Lights As for The Murderers and Whoremongers The Sorcerers and Idolaters They all march after in Rank and File Implying the Fearful and Unbelieving to be the Ringleaders in Hell and as it were in the Van of the Devil's Army Unbelief is so commonly the Cause of Fear and Fear is commonly such a Tempter to Unbelief that we find them often yok't together if not so as to signifie one the other Woe be to fearful Hearts and faint Hands and the Sinner that goeth two ways woe be to him that is faint-hearted for he believeth not therefore shall he not be defended Ecclus. 2. 12 13. It seems that Fear is a Thing of which we ought to be sore afraid Because it is apt to make us sinners going two ways at once One in our Principles and quite another in our Practice Very fit to be compar'd unto wandering Stars which are carried towards the West by the Primum Mobile whilst They are stealing towards the East by their proper motion When Peter was frighted upon the Sea and cryed Lord save me as he was just ready to sink although it was a good Prayer yet because it proceeded from Carnal Fear rather than Faith our Saviour presently took him up with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt And so it was fitly said by Zachary in his Divine Benedictus That God did Therefore deliver us out of the hands of our Enemies that we might serve him without Fear Luke 1. 74. With which agrees That of St. Paul to Timothy He hath not given us the spirit of Fear but of Love 2 Tim. 1. 7. To which it is added by St. Iohn That there is no Fear in Love for perfect Love casteth out Fear 1 John 4. 18. Thus we see how this Passion is very rigidly forbidden throughout the Scriptures And yet for all that it is so earnestly commanded that we cannot serve God acceptably unless we serve him with Fear as well as Reverence Heb. 12. penult Nor can there be any such thing as the working out of our Salvation unless we do it with Fear and Trembling For the fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom Prov. 1. 7. Nay as Solomon goes on in the fourteenth Chapter v. 27. The fear of the Lord is a Fountain of Life the attainment of which is the end of Wisdom And thence 't is set by our Apostle as the highest accomplishment of a Christian To perfect holiness in the Fear of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. What then may be the meaning of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these so seeming Contradictions that we must serve God with Fear and that we must serve him without Fear that there is no fear in love yet no true love without some fear The Reconcilement of These is extremely obvious It is no more but to distinguish betwixt that which is Carnal and that which is Spiritual betwixt the spirit of Bondage and the spirit of Adoption betwixt a servile and filial Fear As 't is true in one sense that perfect Love doth cast out Fear so 't is true in another that perfect Love doth carry fear along with it When I say with St. Iohn It casteth out Fear I mean that childish unmanlike Fear which betrayeth those Succours that Reason offereth especially that heathenish and carnal fear the fear of Poverty and Pain and other effects of Persecution the fear that made so many Sinners going two ways at once And so it casteth out one fear with another the fear of them that can kill the Body but are not able to hurt the Soul with the fear of Him who is able to cast them both into Hell In this sense 't is said we must serve God without Fear But when I say the same Love doth carry fear along with it I mean the fear of offending God the fear of quenching or grieving his holy Spirit the fear of never doing enough whereby to please him the fear of falling into Temptation the fear of a treacherous deceitful heart that is the fear of Unsincerity in the performance of our Service the fear of falling from our own steadfastness and so of receiving the Grace of God in vain In this sense 't is said by the Royal Prophet Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce unto him with Reverence And thus 't is said by the Royal Preacher Happy is the man that feareth always As a meer carnal fear is a fear of that which is carnal so a godly fear is the fear of God First a fear of his Majesty in respect of which he is a Soveraign next a fear of his Mercy in respect of which he is a Father for so 't is said by the Prophet David There is Mercy with thee ô Lord therefore shalt thou be Feared Lastly a fear of his Wrath and Iustice in respect of which he is a Iudge and also an Executor of Vengeance This Fear of God is so necessary for the Qualification of our obedience that all without it is nothing worth and even this of it self is wont to supply the place of all For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is men fearing God is an expression made use of by God himself whereby to signifie conscientious and pious men men who live in obedience to all his Precepts Iob was said to be an upright and perfect man because he was one that feared God And the words of
Reason at once for the Matter and Manner of it First here is something to be done by every Follower of Christ and that because He is a Master It is not Master what shall I say or Master what shall I believe but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I Do Here is Secondly observable in this Candidate of Heaven a meek Resignedness of mind to any Command of Christ imaginable and that because he is a Good or a Gracious Master The Servant presumes not to choose his work He does not bargain for Life Aeternal at such a Rate as he thinks fit with a Master I will do this or that but indefinitely asks with an humble kind of Indifference 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do These are Particulars more than enough not only to exercise and entertain our Attentions but perhaps to distract them too And therefore it cannot be taken ill if I shall gather their whole Result into Four Doctrinal Propositions First that the Son of God Incarnate who at present is our Advocate and will hereafter be our Iudge and who purposely came to save us from the Tyranny of our Sins is not only A Saviour to propose Promises to our Faith But also A Master to challenge obedience to his Commands We must not only believe him which is but to have him in our Brains nor must we only confess him which is but to have him in our Mouths no nor must we only love him though That is to have him in our Hearts but farther yet we must obey him and do him Service which is to have him in our Hands and our Actions too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I do And yet Secondly Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not any way a Severe or Aegyptian-like Master who looks to reap where he never sow'd and exacts store of work without allowing any Materials but a Master full of Mercy and Lovingkindness And this he is in two respects To wit of the work which he requires which is not foesible only but pleasant and of the wages which he promiseth Aeternal Life For each of these reasons which do arise out of the Text he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A good Master And therefore Thirdly We must in gratitude unto so Good a Master as This behold our selves as obliged to two Returns to wit a Readiness of Obedience and a Resignedness of Wills First a Readiness of obedience even because he is our Master next a Resignedness of wills because he is our Good Master Our Christian Tribute to both together to wit his Authority and his Goodness must not only be Universal but Unconstrain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do that is to say I will do any thing I am ready to perform whatever Service thou shalt appoint be it never so harsh or be it never so difficult Eternal Life is such a Prize as for which I can never do enough I say not therefore what I will do but humbly ask what I shall Yet Fourthly and lastly When we have done the most we can we are Unprofitable Servants Our Obedience is not the Cause but the aequitable Condition of our Reward And we finally arrive at Eternal Life not by way of Purchase as we are Servants but of Inheritance as we are Sons It is not here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wee seek not to merit or to deserve as some gross Christians pretend to do but meerly to Inherit Eternal Life I now have done with the Introduction wherein is included the Explication and Division of the Text. But as 't is easy for an Artist to design more work in a little Time than he is able to accomplish a long time after so however I have already drawn the Monogram or Scheme of my well-meant Project yet to fill it with the Zographesis by making it practical and easy not only useful to the most knowing but also familiar to the most Ignorant of those that read me will be the Business not of one but of several Essays And this the rather because Before I find Access to the four Doctrinal Propositions I must direct to several Lessons from Those three Preliminary Subjects the Text affords us To wit the Quality of the Person who here inquires The excellent Nature of his Inquiry and The Condition of the Oracle inquired of First the Person here inquiring had three remarkable Qualifications Youth Wealth and Honour And yet for all that he did not ask as a young man How shall I purchase the sweetest Pleasures nor yet as a Rich man How shall I compass the greatest wealth no nor yet as a Ruler How shall I climb to the highest Pinacle of Preferment But notwithstanding his three Impediments pulling him down towards the Earth he seemed wholly to be solicitous How he might come by a place in Heaven And therefore hence we are to take out a threefold Lesson one for Young men another for Rich men a third for Rulers And I suppose of these three this particular Congregation does now consist First our Young men must learn from the example of this Inquirer to remember their Creator in the days of their youth whilst the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when they shall say We have no pleasure in them Prov. 12. 1. And that especially for these three Reasons First the younger any one is he came the more lately out of the Hands of his Creator and has had the less time to grow forgetful of the Rock out of which he was hewn It is with mens Souls as with their Bodies and with their Bodies as with their Cloaths The newer commonly the better and the older so much the worse A little evil Communication is enough to ferment the greatest Mass of good manners And if the whole World does lye in wickedness as St. Iohn affirms it does how can we look to be the purer by growing old and decrepit in so much Dirt no the longer we converse with Pitch or Birdlime to which the wickedness of the World may very happily be compar'd It is by so much the harder to make us clean Besides we ought to run after Christ like this Inquirer in the Text not go to him like a Torpedo as if we did not affect but fear him or tanquam Bos ad Cerâ—ma as if we were afraid to be baited by him But now the younger any man is he can run so much the faster whereas grown old he will hardly go It was therefore the Blessing of God to Enoch that he took him away speedily and even hasten'd to cut him off to the end that wickedness might not alter his Understanding nor deceipt beguile his Soul Wisd. 4. 11 14. This was That that gave occasion to the young mans Inquiry which lyes before us For having heard our Saviour say Suffer little Children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of God v. 14.
are able to run apace And let us kneel as He did before our Knees are grown stiff And having kneeled down to Christ let us call him Good Master with our Inquirer And let the Subject of our Inquiry be only This What shall we do that we may be sav'd If no man can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless it be as a little Child what then shall We do who are stricken in years and have long since outliv'd our littlechildhood that We also may Inherit Aeternal Life This is the use we are to make of the first Qualification of our Inquirer and These are the Reasons on which it stands Next our Rich men must learn from the example of this Inquirer that the greater their Riches are the greater Necessity lyes upon them to fly for Sanctuary to Christ. It being as difficult for a Rich man to enter Heaven as for a Camel to find a passage through the Eye of a Needle And so there is need that they run to Christ that Christ may shew them the Danger of being Rich and by his Counsel defend them from it That he may teach them the Christian Method whereby they may safely attain to Riches or how they may honestly possess them or how they may usefully put them away How they may profitably be rid of those pleasant Enemies unlade themselves of such heavy thick Clay as the Prophet calls it and run to Christ so much the nimbler for being light for being emptied and disburden'd of so much white and red Earth How they may reap the greater Harvest by casting their Bread upon the waters How they may make themselves Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness and help to save themselves by That which helps to damn so many others How they may lay up a Treasure in Heaven and provide themselves Bags which wax not old where the Worm of Time doth not corrupt nor the Thief of Sequestration break through and steal If there are any amongst our selves who have Riches in possession either dishonestly acquir'd or uncharitably kept we ought to start away from them like a man who unaware hath chanced to tread upon a Serpent and to fling them far enough from us like the Emperour Sigismund and to go running after Christ like the Rich Votary in my Text saying What shall we do who are men of great Plenty and so are tempted more strongly than others are and therefore every day walk in greater Ieopardy of our Lives We for whom it is so hard to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven even as hard as for a Camel to enter through a Needle 's Eye what shall such as We do that We also may Inherit Aeternal Life This is the use we are to make of the second Qualification of our Inquirer and This is chiefly the reason on which 't is built Lastly our Great men must learn from the Example of This Inquirer to lay their Greatness at Christ's Feet and to tread it under their own Or to express it in the words of the Son of Sirach the greater he is to humble himself so much the more Ecclus. 3. 18. And the Reason There is though other reasons are to be given because the Mysteries of God are only revealed unto the Meek v. 19. The humble Soul is God's Temple if not his Heaven too For what was said heretofore by the Heathen Oracle in Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God delights himself as much in a pious Soul as to dwell between The Cherubim in Heaven it self may be evinced to be True from out the Oracles of Iehovah who saith by the Mouth of his Prophet Esa that the man upon whom he delights to look and in whom he is pleas'd to dwell is the man of a poor and a contrite Spirit who even trembles at his word And what said St. Paul to his Corinthians Ye see your Calling Brethren how that not many Wise men after the Flesh not many Mighty not many Noble men are called But the foolish and base and despised things of the World and the things which are not are made choice of by God to bring to naught things that are and that as for other so for This reason also that no flesh may glory in His presence This is That Nobleness indeed wherewith the Nobleness of the World cannot be worthy to be compar'd unless as the Child or the Parent of it For Secular Nobleness or Nobility consider'd simply and in it self has ever been reckon'd to arise from one or more of These Three Grounds 'T is either merited by Prudence Secular Wisdom and Erudition or purchased by Wealth or earn'd by Courage I mean the Courage which is exerted in a generous defense of ones King and Country But He is a man of the Noblest Courage who is afraid of the fewest Things Only afraid of an impious Act or indeed afraid of Nothing unless of not fearing God The vitious Warrier or Dueller who seems to breath nothing but Courage such Courage as is common to the stout Horsman with his Horse when carrying Thunder in his Throat he madly rusheth into the Battel I say a man of such an Animal or Brutal Courage who will rather be Damn'd than be thought a Coward is yet for all his brave Pretences most cowardly afraid of Reproach and Obloquie and of Twenty other objects of carnal Fear Whereas a man that fears God fears nothing else fears not what man can do unto him Psal. 56. 11. And He who does not fear God is not a Valiant but stupid Sinner To meet with Nobleness indeed we must not consult the Herald's Book unless we take along with it the Book of The Acts of the Apostles Chap. 17. vers 11. where the People of Beroea are said to be Nobler than those of Thessalonica Not because they were descended from greater Parents nor because they were advanced to greater Places But because with greater readiness they heard the Word of God preach't that is because they were meeker and of more Teachable Dispositions That alone is true Nobleness which is sometimes The Daughter and still the Mother of Humility That 't is sometimes the Daughter is very evident for 'T was the Lowliness of Mary which made her the Mother of our Lord. And so when Abigail made David That winning Complement from the heart of her being The humble Handmaid to wash the feet of the Servants of her Lord Her Humility did so advance her in David's Mind that he made her his Queen if not his Mistress The King was so captivated and charm'd by the powerful Magick of so much meekness as he could not have been more by any Philtrum to be imagin'd Thence St. Peter thought fit to call it The Ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit as being That that does dress and set off a Beauty more than any Recommendations of Art or Nature Nor is True Nobleness more the Daughter than 't is the Mother of Humility For as the
next Verses before my Text who were not Elected without a Praescience as well of their Faithfulness as of their Faith How can it be that when He comes He shall not find Faith upon the Earth But if we attentively consider the Text before us as it stands in relation to all the Verses going before and more especially to the first This Objection will quickly vanish and we shall find a good Connexion between the praecedent and praesent words For our Lord having exhorted The Neophyte-Disciples to whom he spake Not to faint in their Prayers but to pray-on with Perseverance v. 1. excites them to it with an Assurance that their Prayers shall not be fruitless And that their Prayers shall not be fruitless He convinceth them by an Argument à minori ad majus This appears by his whole Parable touching the Widows Importunity praevailing over the Heart of an hardned Iudge From whence the Argument is as natural as it is logical and convincing For if the Prayer of the distressed and importunate Widow returned at last into her Bosom with good Success thô from a most corrupt Iudge who had no fear of God nor regard of Man v. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with how much a greater force of reason shall all the Prayers of The Faithful receive an acceptable Return from the Father of Mercies and God of all Consolation who is not only no unjust or obdurate Judge but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Rewarder by way of Eminence of them that diligently seek him either sooner or later as he sees fit Yes the time is now coming when They shall be freed from their Afflictions and when the Vengeance due from God shall speedily fall on the Authors of them To which He adds by way of complaint and by a Compassionate Erotésis or Expostulation cohaering with what he said before by a Conjunction Adversative that when He shall come in the later Days to be an Avenger of his Elect The Apostasie will be so general He will find but Few of them Of the many who are Called He will find but few Chosen Amongst a Multitude of Flatterers he will find but few Friends In a world of Praetenders He will find but Few Faithful and with very much Profession very little True Faith They alone being Elect who persevere unto the End in The Faith of Christ and whose Faith is efficacious as well as sufficient to make them Faithful § 2. We see The Cohaerence of the Text which will help us not to err in the Meaning of it For in that our Lord asks When the Son of Man cometh shall He find Faith upon the Earth It is as if he should have said in plain and peremptory Terms That at his second Coming from Heaven to judge the Inhabitants of the Earth He shall not find Many Christians who will pray with that Faith which alone can inable them to pray without ceasing and not to faint When He shall come to save Believers He will find but few such in the Gospel-sense Not none simpliciter but none secundum quid Comparatively none or none to speak of The greatest part of men will perish even for want of That Faith whereby men's Prayers become effectual 'T is not through any defect of Goodness and longanimity in God that so few will be safe in the Day of Judgment But through a miserable defect of Christian Faithfulness and Faith The great Condition of the Covenant which God in Christ the only true Shechinah was pleas'd to make with the Sons of Men. Historical Faith there is in many such as is common to men with Devils who are said by St. Iames to believe and tremble A sturdy Praesumption there is in Many which they mistake for the perfection and strength of Faith A Carnal Security is in Many which they take to be the Product and Fruit of Faith There is in many such a Carnal and Human Faith concerning the Being of Heaven and Hell a Life after Death and a Day of Judgment as that there is such a Place as Constantinople or Eutopia whereof thô This is as fictitious as That is real yet by Ignaroes in Geography they are believed Both alike Thus in one sense or other Faith is as common as Infidelity a Weed which grows in most mens Gardens But very few have That Faith of which our Lord does here speak to wit a Faith which is attended with Hope and Charity a Faith coupl'd with Fear to offend our Maker a Faith productive of obedience unto That which is called The Law of Faith a Faith importing all faithfulness in the discharge of that Service we owe our Master a Faith expressed by a submission first to God rather than Man and then to Man for God's sake lastly a Faith joyned with Patience and Perseverance unto the End in the work of Prayer to which our Saviour had exhorted in the first Verse of This Chapter and which indeed is the Scope of this whole Paragraph § 3. Thus we have clearly a Praediction that the last Times will be the worst or that the World towards its End will be most dissolute and debauch't that 't will not be only an Iron-age but that the Iron will be corrupted with Rust and Canker This is the Doctrine of the Text and this must be divided into two distinct Branches as the word Faith may here be taken in two distinct Considerations For in which sense soever we understand the word Faith in the Text before us whether for a firm Adhaerence unto the Truth of Christ's Gospel in all its Doctrines or for a faithful punctuality in All Commerce and Transaction 'twixt Man and Man whether in That as the Cause of This or in This as the Fruit of That for 't is not pertinent now to mention all the other acceptions of Faith in Scripture we shall have reason to suspect The World is drawing towards its End in that the Praediction of our Saviour is drawing so near its Completion Before I come to prove or apply the Doctrine it will perhaps be worth while to take a view of the Description of the last and worst Days as St. Peter and St. Paul have drawn it up for us in their Epistles the one in Gross and the other in the Retail First St. Peter tells us in general There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own own Lusts. St. Paul acquaints us in particular what the several Lusts are This know also saith he to Timothy that in the last days perilous times shall come For men shall be Lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers make-bates otherwise called false Accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good Traitors heady high-minded Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God having a form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof From These saith He turn away And presently after he gives
believe The Spirit of Truth is in our Dwellings because He is also The Spirit of Unity and They conceive we could not be liable to such Dissentions and Divisions as are amongst us had we The unity of Truth in our Fundamentals How many Fractions of Religion have been observed to be in Poland How many in England and in Holland and in other Christian Countries 't is hard to say I will say a strange thing no whit stranger than it is true There is not a Christian in all the World who is not an Haeretick or a Schismatick in the accompt of other Christians perhaps no better than Himself How full are all Parties of hot Disputes whereof the End commonly is rather Victory than Truth And what a Disgrace must it needs be to the Christian Name that in all the bitter Contests between the Iesuites and the Iansenists the Dominicans and the Franciscans the Gallican Church and the Church of Rome the Popish Churches and the Reformed the Regular Protestants and the Irregular the Prote stants by and for and Those against the Law establish't the Constant Protestants and the Protestants given to change the Remonstrants and Antiremonstrants the Sub and Supralapsarians and many other opposite Parties too many to be now reckon'd a greater Care is commonly taken to keep up the Credit of a Syllogism or Reputation of a Side than the Unity and Peace of The Church of God If an Erasmus or a Modrerius if a Melancthon or a Wicelius if a Cassander or a Thuanus a Spalatensis or a Grotius does but indeavour to make up Breaches or perswade men to meet in the Middle way such as is the way of the Church of England or That of the Augustan Confession how is he hang'd drawn and quarter'd by the Implacable Professors of both Extremes as if the Unity of Christians and the Peace of The Church were to be of all Things the most avoided or if not to be avoided at least despair'd of as the most vain and the most fruitless if not the most odious of any project in the World So that if there was Truth as well as sharpness which God forbid in what was said by the Spanish Friar that few Soveraign Princes shall go to Hell because in All they are but few it may perhaps be said as truly in This case also that few True Christians shall go to Heaven because True Christians comparatively speaking are very few § 6. There are Multitudes indeed who are called Christians and so are Those of The Marrani Arabians and Moores in the South of Spain a kind of Baptized Iews and circumcised Christians Men as bad as the ancient Gnosticks of one Religion in their Mouths and of another in their Hearts or like that far more ancient People the People of Sepharvaim who feared the Lord and served their own Gods If not Both at once yet at least Both by Turns It being the common Custom and Policy of the very worst men to be Professors of the Religion the most in fashion the easiest and cheapest most for their Secular Ends and Interests and where their wickednesses may pass with the greatest freedom But our Saviour in the Text which is now before us did only speak of a Divine and a Saving Faith which is peculiar to unfeigned and real Christians not at all of That Human or Historical Faith which is common to every titular or nominal Christian or hypocritical Professor of Christ's Religion So that the meaning of the Text does seem to be evidently This When the Son of Man cometh to be The Judge of the Quick and Dead shall He find Faith shall He find Charity shall He find Iustice upon the Earth For Saving Faith infers Charity and Charity Justice Where Justice is wanting there can be no Christian Charity and where there is not such Charity there can be no Christian Faith Now what Corner is there in Christendom which does not live out of Charity with one sort or other of Christian People and commonly the most with their nearest Neighbours whom Christians should love as they do Themselves How universally do the Italians despise the Germans if not abhor them and again how do the Germans pay them back with Detestation How do the Little States of Italy malign the four Great ones and how do they all detest the Protestants who are of Piemont and Saluzzo What Disaffections are there in Swisserland between the Wealthy sort of Protestants and Warlike Papists Those for France against Spain and These for Spain against France and what Antipodes unto each other are these Next Neighbours parted more by their Animosities than by their Pyrenaean Hills If we look but as far back as the last Civil Wars of France what mutual Hatreds may we observe betwixt the Hugonots and the Leaguers even as great as Those in Spain between the Castilians and the Portugais or as great as Those in Italy 'twixt Guelphs and Gibelines or the Bianchi and the Neri How do the Lutherans hate the Papalins and the Papalins Them How do they Both hate the Calvinists and the Calvinists Both and what a Pique have All Three at the most sober and the most moderate of All the Protestants upon Earth in The Church of England Even the Great House of Austria is hardly in charity with it self For how often have the Spaniards diverted the Turks upon the Emperour and to shift clear Themselves how have they bribed the Bashaes to put their Master upon Germany How many Churches are there in Christendom whereof each has its different Government its different Ceremonies and Rites its different Method or Manner of Publick Worship its different Opinions from all the rest And thô their Differences are innocent when about things Indifferent yet what reciprocal Disaffections are wont to arise from That Variety What wants of Charity there have been between the principal Christians of Note the most considerable I mean both for Power and Number if not for Name too we may judge but too easily by Inquisitions upon one hand and by Rebellions upon another by the Massacres and Libels and Conspiracies upon Both. And that the stronger Parts of Christendom have not yet swallowed up the weaker They are beholden to the Great Turk next and immediately under God for having found them other Employment § 7. Now such as is the Cause a want of Faith in the first sense such is also The Effect a want of Faith in the second For besides the wants of Charity whereby I have proved the wants of Faith there are as notorious wants of Iustice whereby to demonstrate the wants of Both. Men are so generally deceitful in all their Promises and Contracts in their Alliances and Leagues in their Covenants and Ingagements in Matters of Traffick and Commerce and as well between Publick as Private Parties Obligations first meant as a Restraint unto the Guilty are so turned into a Gin to ensnare the Innocent and They who have dispensed with other mens
of All Evil without Exception so a truly Christian Faith which is operative and works by a due love of others a love of God with all our hearts and of our Neighbour as our selves cannot choose but be the Root of all the Good fruits to be imagin'd For how can any man indure to be rebelling against his God whom he does love with all his Soul and above Himself And how can any man knowingly suffer himself to be induced to wrong his Neighbour whom he does love without hypocrisie and As Himself that is as sincerely thô not as well or as well if you please thô not as much With a sicut similitudinis thô not aequalitatis In which sense 't is said by our Lord Himself Be ye perfect As your Father in Heaven is perfect He does not there say Be ye as perfect as he is perfect But be ye perfect as sincerely as he is perfect consummately Be ye That in your measure which He is without measure Be ye perfect comparatively as He is absolutely perfect For as God is said in Scripture to have made Man in his own Likeness so we may say by the same reason that he makes a Man's perfection thô at a vast and humble distance in the Similitude of his own Now if what I have said of a True Christian Faith as it works by Love and as it is the Substance of Things hoped for and as it is the Evidence of Things not seen and as 't is that whereby a Believer overcometh the world be duly compared with all before it touching the faithlesness and malignity the wants of love and common honesty wherewith the world is overcome 'T will not be difficult to conclude That when the Son of Man cometh let his coming be when it will He will find his own Prophecy fulfill'd amongst us § 12. Perhaps 't is too little a thing to mention either Cotterus or Dabricius or Christina Poniatovia however their Praedictions touching Christendom in general and particularly touching the whole House of Austria and That of Bourbon long and long ago printed are coming to pass in These our Days Nor will I apply That of David touching Absolom's Rebellion and the general Revolt occasion'd by it stigmatized in the Fourteenth and in the Three and fiftieth Psalm The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God Where by the Fool he means a Multitude as appears by his next words The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men to see if there were any that would understand and seek after God But they are all gone out of the way they are altogether become Abominable There is none that doth good no not one Nor will I descant upon That of the Prophet Micah The Good man is perished out of the Earth There is none upright among men They all lye in wait for Blood They hunt every man his Brother with a Net They do evil earnestly and that with Both hands The Iudge asketh for Reward The Great man uttereth his Mischievous Desire The Best of them is a Briar and the most Upright of them is sharper than any Thorn Hedge I do not speak of These things in this unlimited universality unless it be by a Paralipsis But This I think I may say with every man's suffrage and consent There is so eminent a Defection from God and Goodness throughout the World that Most do seem to have renounced and to have utterly cast off All Fear and Care if not Acknowledgment of the most High The Tongues of men are their own their Thoughts are free their Wills invisible and the secrets of their Hearts are known to God only The Searcher of them But yet as far as mens Actions are the Interpreters of their Hearts and as far as they discover an Epidemical Decay of Christian strictness a Decay of That Seriousness in Reality and Substance which some poor Quakers retain in Shew a Decay of all Duties to God and Man a Decay of Moral Honesty and Humanity it self and which is the Top of all Impiety a devilish blending and confounding the very Natures of Right and Wrong a turning Religion Topsy Turvy calling Evil Good and Good Evil putting Bitter for Sweet and Sweet for Bitter Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light holding Perjury and Parricide Killing of Kings and Subverting of Kingdoms not only Innocent but Pious not only Laudable and Vertuous but the most highly Meritorious and Supererogating Works of the purest Christians nor only of the purest but of the only true Christians in all the World the Only Members of the true Church and Only Heirs of Salvation whilst they who dare not break Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy dare not rail at and libel the Laws in force dare not rebel against their Governours dare not fall down and worship the Jesuites Idol even for This very Reason are Damn'd for ever I say as far as men's Actions are Thus the Indices of their Hearts we may conclude there is a Principle of downright Atheism within them at least an Heathenish Belief that their Souls are not Immortal and that for what they do in This they shall not be brought to give Accompt in Another World § 13. I am far from undertaking what yet some have done to name the last Days of the Son of Man or the Time of his coming to the avenging of His Elect and to judge the World But of This I am certain because I have it from his own Mouth as well as from the Mouths of Three at least of his Apostles that we must not infer the Day of Doom is far off because there are few prepare for it and even the wisest do not expect it No It 's seeming very far off is rather a Sign of its Approach For The Scriptures tell us expresly That Christ at his Coming will surprize us as a Thief in the Night His Coming for Quickness will be like lightning It shall be as suddain saith our Lord as Noah's Deluge was to All Noah himself being excepted They did eat they drank they married wives even until the very day of Noah's entring into the Ark when behold the Flood came and destroy'd them All. It shall at least be as surprising as was the shooting of Hell from Heaven in the Days of Lot And how surprising That was our Saviour tells us in the next words They did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded unto which it may be added they play'd they sported they were indulging all their Lusts when behold the same day wherein Lot went out of Sodom The Fire and Brimstone rained down and destroy'd them All. So swift so suddain so surprising shall be The Day of The Son of Man's Coming to judge the World Watch therefore says our Saviour for ye know not what hour your Lord will come Heaven and Earth shall pass away But of That day and hour knoweth no man says he again no not the
Angels of Heaven Again says he be ye ready for in such an hour as ye think not The Son of Man cometh All which that it is meant of the Day of Judgment and the Consummation of all things not only or chiefly of the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Destruction of Ierusalem seems to be evident from the Conclusion of That whole Prophecy of our Saviour For if That Evil Servant That Man of Sin by way of Eminence whether without Christendom or within it whether in Asia or in Italy in Germany or in Spain in France or England shall say in his heart My Lord delayeth his Coming whereupon He shall praesume to smite his fellow Servants and to riot it with the Drunken The Lord of that Servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour he is not aware of and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his Portion with the Hypocrites There shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth § 14. What now is to be done by us who live in These Times wherein I have shewn there is so Common so Universal so Epidemical a state of Depravation but that every one in his station do labour hard to mend one That we all watch and pray lest we enter into Temptation or that if we cannot escape the Temptations of the World yet by the powerful Grace of God well cooperated with we may be able to overcome them In order whereunto we must not only watch and pray for a Time and examin our selves duly whether we be in the Faith of Christ But we must not faint in it We must quit our selves like Men. We must be strong in the Faith We must stand fast in it Our watching must be constant our praying always So expresly saith our Saviour in the first Verse of That Paragraph whereof my Text is the Conclusion For The Parable which he spake was says St. Luke to This End that men ought always to pray and not to faint We ought to pray without ceasing as St. Paul bids his Thessalonians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the second we must be a kind of Euchites be it spoken cum grano Salis we must pray without End or Intermission And that for This reason as well as for This end and purpose that our Lord at his Coming may find us praying A work of so very great importance and so conducible to Salvation that even Then when Simon Magus was in the Gall of Bitterness and in the Bond of Iniquity St. Peter bid him Pray to God if perhaps the Thought of his heart might be forgiven him Pray therefore we must that we may not fall And if at any time we are fallen still we must pray that we may rise And still for fear of relapsing we must watch unto Prayer and we must watch thereunto with all perseverance That so at what time soever The Master of the House shall come whether at Evening or at Midnight or in the Morning we may be found like wise Virgins with Oyl in our Lamps or in the Number of the few Faithful and blessed Servants whom our Lord when he comes shall find so Doing and that finding us so doing He may receive us with an Euge Well done good and faithful Servants Enter ye into the Ioy of your Lord. Which God The Father of his Mercy prepare and qualifie us for even for the Merits of God The Son and by the powerful operation of God The Holy Ghost To whom be Glory for ever and ever AN ANTIDOTE OR PRAESERVATIVE Against the Prurigo of Ambition Satan's Masterpiece AS A TEMPTER TO WORLDLY GREATNESS MATTH IV. 9. All these Things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Or as St. Luke sets down the words LUKE IV. 6 7. All this Power will I give thee and the Glory of them for That is delivered unto me And to whomsoever I will I give it If thou therefore wilt worship me All shall be Thine § 1. THere is a Time when in Scripture God is said to tempt Man And again there is a Time when Man is said to tempt God Last of all there is a Time when the Devil is said to tempt Both and Both at once in this Text in which are met the two Natures of God and Man Now though to Tempt in each Case is still a phrase of one sound yet is it often found to be of very different significations Indeed so different that they may seem to contradict For Moses saith God tempted Abraham And yet St. Paul saith God tempteth no man It is implyed by our Saviour that God is tempted at least by some And yet 't is said by St. Iames He is not tempted of any Now the way to reconcile them is briefly This. When God is said to tempt Man it signifies nothing but a Trial a kind of Search which God makes in the Heart of man Not that God can be in doubt or stand in need of an Inquiry how any man's heart is affected towards him But 't is to admonish him of his weakness or to convince him of his hypocrisie or else to evidence his Faith or to exercise his Patience or to make his Integrity the more conspicuous and rewardable that God is pleased to explore and to search his Heart Thus in Genesis and Exodus and in the Thirteenth of Deuteronomy our Father Abraham and the Israelites are said to have been tempted by God himself § 2. Man in the second place is said to tempt God when without any Necessity or Assurance of Success he rashly goes out of his Calling to meet with Danger Or when without any Warrant whether from the Spirit or Word of God he gladly falls into Distress like Eldavid the false Messias of whom we read in learned Buxtorf supposing God by some Miracle will help him out For what is this but to explore or to make a Trial both of the Power and Goodness and Truth of God not at all out of Faith in his Word and Promise but out of a wanton Curiosity or bold Praesumption § 3. But now the Devil is said to tempt either God or Man and Both together in the Text when not only without but against the Word he does solicite and intice to something or other which is Evil. And thus our Lord is said in Scripture to have been tempted even as We. Not by Hunger only and Thirst by Cold and Nakedness by Slander and Disgrace by Pangs and Torments and all Degrees of Affliction to which the Name of Temptations is justly fixt But to the worst of Afflictions that is to Sin and to the worst even of Sins to wit Idolatry And to the worst of Idolatries even the worshipping of the Devil Who being permitted to take him up to an exceeding high Mountain did shew him from thence as in a Landskip All the Kingdoms of the
he plead against Himself his Inability to ascend it How many Infirmities did he pretend to which in truth and by right he could never own to excuse his rejection of so much Glory Nor was it any fault of His that his Rejection was rejected The Noble Perdiccas had an Ambition to be a Great man at Court but not the Greatest He extended it as far as was agreeable with his Subjection But there it left him For Curtius tells us He refus'd the absolute Empire of the World when after Alexander's Death it was offer'd to him So did Xenophon more than once the Honour of being Generalissimo when all the Army of the Greeks would have cast it on him So did Quintus Fabius Maximus the highest Magistracy in Rome alledging his Age and his Infirmities till both the Senators and the People were fain to compel him to an Acceptance So did Manlius Torquatus object the Illness of his Eyes against his being created Consul And when That could not excuse him his chiding did Nec vestros mores Consul ferre potero nec vos Imperium meum Were I Consul said He I should no more indure your looser lives than you my strict and severer Discipline They were obstinate in their Choice But so was He in his Refusal Thus the Consulship of Rome was ambitious of him That which other men Coveted to Him went begging And Honour it self had a Repulse in being the Candidate of Manlius whom Greatness earnestly and with Zeal but vainly courted for his Consent So Vipsanius Agrippa to whom Augustus ow'd the most for the full Settlement of his Empire refus'd a Triumph which was decreed him for his conquering and quieting the Asian Rebels So Fabricius once refus'd to have his Partnership in a Kingdom when by a King it was offer'd to him Marcius Rutilus Censorinus and Fabius Maximus did not only content themselves with a Refusal of the Honours conferr'd upon them but chid the Romans very severely for the Excess of such Favours so misapply'd So Marcus Marcellus thô the first who made it evident that Syracuse might be taken and even Hanibal subdued refus'd the Government of Sicily and shifted it off on his Collegue So the Seven Wise men of Greece were in nothing more thought to have shewn their Wisdom than in shifting off a Treasure from the one unto the other as men are wont to do Burdens they hate to bear Cn. Marcus Coriolanus thô of Princely Family and Descent affected rather to fall than rise and rather Poverty than Wealth In so much that in reward of all his Services in the Wars which were vastly great he would not accept of Land or Mony when Land and Mony were offer'd to him as thinking it Happiness enough to have deserv'd them Curius also thô a Commander who conquer'd Kings and subdued Kingdoms was yet so delighted to live a frugal and private Life that neither the Samnites nor the Senate could by any Offers shake much less alter his Resolution Exactly such another was Fabricius Luscinus the Noblest Roman of his time in point of Honour and Authority and yet by choice one of the Poorest in point of Fortune His desiring very little did pass with him for a Great Possession His Contempt of all Riches He did esteem the Noblest Treasure and found it more pretious than Gold or Silver that he would not be tempted by either of them to an Acceptance Such another was Aelius Tubero surnamed Catus who rejected the Richest Plate that could be sent him out of Aetolia and thô of Consulary Rank made choice of being served in Earthen Vessels Aemilius Paulus was a man who having conquer'd K. Perses and enrich'd all the Romans with the Spoils of Macedonia did most magnanimously refuse to be the richer for them himself as thinking it Recompence enough for his utmost Labours that his Country had the Emolument and Himself the satisfaction of doing well Such was the generous Self-denial of Fabius Gurges and Ogulnius and of the Fabij Pictores when sent Embassadours into Aegypt they were opulently Presented by the Munificent King Ptolemy and however all was meant for their private use only yet they sent it Home intirely into the Treasury and Bank of the Commonwealth Conceiving it dishonourable if not unjust that Publick Ministers should admit of any other Compensation than the Publick Commendation of their Performance Such were also Portius Cato and Marcus Cato Uticensis men so proverbial for the Blamelesness and Integrity of their Lives for their Enmity to Pleasures and Severity towards themselves that I need no more than Name them Xenocrates was as free from Lust and Avarice and Ambition as if he had been in good earnest what Phryne call'd him an arrant Statue Alexander the Great would have bought his Friendship would he have sold it at any Rate And the Talents which were sent him would have made him extreamly Rich but that he thought his Best Talent was his Ability to despise them Alexander found it an easier Task to conquer Darius with his Army than this Philosopher with his Wealth So that Xenocrates rather than He might have been with some reason surnam'd The Great Omnia habet qui nihil concupiscit was the Saying of Cornelia the famous Mother of the Gracchi And if That has truth in it certainly Solon rather than Croesus might have passed into a Proverb for Riches too Valerius Poplicola was four times Consul But it was for his Wisdom not at all for his Wealth For contenting himself to have done Great Things for the Commonwealth and esteeming it his Happiness to do them gratis he had Estate enough only to live and dye with But far from enough to pay the Expences of his Burial Of all he had or was besides he had been prodigally free But his Poverty was a Treasure he would never once part with for all the World Agrippa Menenius made it his Choice to be as deserving and as poor too if that can be a man's Poverty which is his Choice If'tis 't is such a Poverty as makes its Owner most truly Great And if Agrippa had not been such he had not sure been made a Iudge between the Senators of Rome and the Common People But they who differ'd most fiercely in other Matters could not choose but agree in This that poor Agrippa Menenius was both the worthiest and the fittest and by much the most likely to reconcile them Attilius Regulus with an Estate of no more than Seven Acres was yet a Great and a Noble Roman But delighting in a poor and a private Life he was taken from his Husbandry to sit at the Helm of the Roman Empire And how unwillingly so advanc'd did appear by This That having subdued the Publick Enemies and settled full Peace in the Commonwealth he very gladly hast'ned back to That his old way of living by Plough and Harrow which he had left for some time with an heavy heart A Consolation
to the Poor and an Instruction to the Rich how unnecessary to great and glorious Actions meer Riches are I speak of Riches unattended with Frugality and Prudence with a Contempt of mean Pleasures and Moderation as well as with Conduct and Magnanimity Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus was just as Rich or as Poor as Attilius Regulus to wit a Lord of Seven Acres and very busy at his Plough when the Dictatorship of Rome was presented to him A glorious Dignity he receiv'd but not enrich'd himself by For it appears that his Seven Acres were at last shrunk to Four he having lost the other Three by being a Surety for his Friend Lord the vastly wide difference 'twixt Those Times and These or 'twixt Their Grandees and Ours Ours are thought to live narrowly if their Houses do not stand on as many Acres as made up all This renowned Dictator's Means Valerius tells us of a King he names not but describes to have been of a subtil Judgment who said of a Diadem deliver'd to him that if a man did well consider together with the outside the inside of it meaning the Troubles and the Dangers and the Anxieties it is lin'd with he would not have it for taking up And if Genusius had not been of the same opinion by knowing the linings of a Crown at the Cost of others he would not sure have left Rome in a voluntary exchange for perpetual Banishment meerly to escape the Possession of it meerly to be free from a Coronation And however Theopompus did not plainly run away from the Crown of Sparta yet he instituted the Ephori whereby to make it the less significant and so as to sit upon his Head with less disease § 19. These and multitudes of the like whom to mention even with Brevity were to be tedious thô they were Persons in Themselves of very Great Honour and Renown were yet exceedingly much the Greater for their having had such limited and stinted Appetites for their knowing what was necessary and what expedient what was sufficient for their great Purposes and when they had innocently enough They did not only not seek Greater Things for themselves than they had already But either unwillingly did admit them and with Reluctance or else did obstinately refuse them and cast them off Nay so far they were from seeking Great Things for themselves that they sought their lessening They thought there was nothing truly Great or great enough to be sought but the Publick Good And for This very reason They were the Glory of their Times The Pride and Pleasure of their Historians and which is more to their advantage they were the Blessings and the Supports and the great Ornaments of the Countries wherein they liv'd But when a man having arriv'd at Great Things already is ever casting about for Greater and has an Ambition like the Fire which ever craves the more fewel the more it has when his Appetite after Honour is as inordinate and as endless as was That of Albert Wallestein whom nothing less would ever satisfie than the being above his Maker Then a man's Greatness is his Disease and his Disease of the worst sort too 'T is his Hydrops his Boulimis his intolerable Prurigo worse than the Furor Uterinus which made the Great Empress Barbara the vilest Thing in the whole Empire Even He whose Abundance of Meat makes him hungry and He whose Superfluity of Drink makes him dry is not quite so sad a Creature nor quite so much to be deplor'd as He whose Honour makes him Ambitious and whose overmuch Wealth excites his Avarice That such there are in This World who do enlarge their Desires as Hell and are as greedy as the Grave who like the two Daughters of Solomon's Horsleech have still enough and too much yet still too little are often full and often weary yet never satisfied with seeking Great Things for Themselves I say that such Things there are I need not take pains to convince my Hearers For All the Miseries we have read of and all the Miseries we have seen in our own Civil Wars not now to mention all the Miseries we have felt have been especially the Effects of That Disease I now speak of If I may not rather call it a Complication of Diseases which is commonly made up of four Ingredients to wit a boundless Ambition an unstinted Avarice a restless Envy and an insatiable Concupiscence after the Pleasure of Revenge § 20. Now in order to the Prevention or to the Cure that is to say to the killing of such a complicated Disease every Great man must choose so fit a Condition for Himself and such an wholsom Proportion of this present World as may be aptest in it self to secure his Interest in the Next Woolsey wish't he had done it and Wallestein too when 't was too late But Sir Thomas Moor did it and that in Time This incomparable Person whom Ludovicus Vives thought it dangerous to commend for fear of doing him great wrong by falling short of his Perfections having been raised by his own Merits and without his own seeking from a very low Estate to the High Chancellorship of England became so satiated and cloy'd as well with the Honour as with the Cares of his glorious Office that he gladly laid it down out of the love he had to Privacy and Tranquillity of Life as any other man's Avarice helped on by his Ambition could take it up And this he did whilst yet a Favourite far from being under the Cloud which he afterwards was in of his King's Displeasure Yea he esteem'd it an higher Favour to be permitted by his Prince to ease himself of such Grandeur than That wherewith at first it was laid upon him It being the Thing which from a Child he had wish'd and pray'd for That God would give him such a Vacation from the Affairs of This Life as might suffice him to contemplate the Immortality of the Next and fit himself for its Injoyment Which his Prayer having been granted both by God and the King he was so exceedingly Thankful for as to carry his Gratitude to his Grave and so as to order its being written upon his Grave-stone From whence being transferr'd to his Publick Works 't is likely now to live as long as the Art of Printing So when the famous William of Wainflet as Budden tells us made it his choice to devest himself of the High Chancellorship of England and gave the King immortal Thanks for giving him liberty so to do He did it not only as being weary of the Cares which That Office had fill'd him with thô That perhaps was one reason nor did he it only as being glutted with the Things of This World to wit with the Riches and Honours of it thô that was also another reason But it was chiefly that he might mind the greater things of the Next with the less Distraction that he might not as before serve God
on Earth too It is enough for poor Lazarus to have his Good things hereafter And enough for Rich Dives to have his proportion of Good things here But the good men I speak of will needs be happier than Lazarus and yet much richer than Dives too They will have their good things as well in this as another World All the subject of their Inquiry is not how to be better than other men in Acts of Iustice and Works of Mercy But how to be greater and more regarded which is call'd a being better in point of Quality and Degree And after these very things do the Gentiles seek They of Iava and the Molucco's They of Tartary and China whether as greedily as Christians I cannot tell But our Saviour spake only of Food and Rayment as of things which the Gentiles are wont to seek And well it were for Real Christians if Nominal Christians would seek no more If Food and Rayment would serve the turn Christians then like other Creatures might quietly live by one another But it seems they have no more than the Name of Christians who chiefly seek with the Gentiles the low concernments of the Flesh. For as many as are Christians in very good earnest will bestow themselves in seeking the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof supposing such things as These will be added to the rest as a good Appendix Man not living by Bread alone as our Saviour said to Satan but by bread as it is blessed by the good Word of God Nor indeed is he worthy to live by Bread who is not able to live without it who is not able to subsist upon better things When we reckon Food and Rayment among the Necessaries of Life which we do with good reason we only speak of such a painful and dying life as is not worthy our caring for unless in order to life Aeternal And for the nourishing of That the very famishing of the Body may pass for food unto the Soul From all which together it seems to follow That they who arrogate to themselves not only the greatest both Faith and Hope but the perfectest Assurance of life Aeternal do prove themselves unaware the greatest Infidels in the World whilst neglecting the grand Inquiry they ought to make after Heaven they let the Tide of their Affections run out wholly upon the Earth For did they really look for a Day of Iudgment as much as they do for an Hour of Death they would as certainly provide against the one as commonly they do against the other They would take as much Care to be just and honest as universally they do to be rich or healthful And make as much of their Souls by Mortification and Self-denial as now they do of their Bodies by a plentiful Injoyment of Creature-Comforts 'T is true indeed Life Aeternal is a thing which is quickly talk't of nor are there any so uncivil as not to afford it a friendly mention It is no hard thing to be another mans flatterer much less is it difficult to be ones own To be secure and praesumptuous is cheap and easy Yea 't is pleasant to flesh and blood to be carnally set free from that fear and trembling wherewith a man is to work out his own Salvation Thence it is that we abound with such an Herd of Fiduciaries and Solifidians who having persuaded themselves to fancy that Life Eternal is a thing which cannot possibly escape them and that all the next world is irresistibly their own They think they have nothing to do in This but to make a Trial whether it hath not been decreed that all shall be theirs that they can get and whether it hath not been decreed that they shall get all they try for and whether it hath not been decreed that they shall try to get All. When men are season'd with such a Principle they cannot think it concerns them to give all Diligence for the making of their Calling and Election sure by ceasing to do evil and by learning to do well or by adding to Faith Vertue and one Vertue unto another But supposing their Election so sure already as to be pass't the possibility of being miss't It is natural for them to give all diligence to make themselves sure of somewhat else For let them say what they will and let them think what they please and let them do what they can they cannot possibly give diligence to seek a thing in their possession or to secure what they believe it is impossible for them to lose No man living will light a Candle to look about for those Eyes which he believes are in his Head nor will he search after his head which is he doubts not upon his shoulders Our Saviour's two Parables of the lost Sheep and the lost Groat cannot but seem an arrant Iargon unto a man of such Principles as now I speak of For will He send about the Country to find a Sheep which is in his Fold or sweep the House for a Groat which he praesumes is in his Pocket No being poyson'd with an opinion that he was justified from Eternity and hath Grace irresistible and therefore cannot fall totally much less finally from Grace he will esteem it a thing impertinent for a man of his Talents to be so anxious as to Inquire what Good things he ought to do that he may inherit Eternal Life § 6. The great unhappiness of it is what I am sorry I have reason to believe I say truly That there are few Congregations wherein there are not such Professors as now I speak of who as long as fermented with such a Leven cannot possibly be profited by all our Preaching And therefore They above others must be inform'd That by the Nature of our Inquiries we ought to try as by a Touchstone of what sort we are whether Silver or Alchymy whether true and solid Gold or but polished Iron with double Gilt. By this we may explore from whence we came and whither 't is that we are going of whom we are and whom we are for For that Saying of our Saviour Matth. 24. 28. which historically refers to the Roman Army Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together must needs be applicable and true in This sense also which is our Saviour's own Sense Luke 12. 34. Where your Treasure is there your Heart will be also From whence it follows unavoidably That if we are men of another world and have our Treasure laid up in Heaven we shall behave our selves as Pilgrims and perfect Sojourners here on Earth We shall be commonly looking Upwards with our Backs upon Egypt and our Faces towards Canaan Our Souls will be athirst for God Psal. 42. 1 2 3. our Hearts will pant after Eternity as the Hart panteth after the Water-Brooks crying out with holy David in an Exiliency of Spirit O when shall we appear before the Presence of God How low soever both our Bodies and