the hazard of their own soules and of that which should be as deare to them the peace of the Church Be not then too inquisitive to find out the manner of this union for the holy Father seales up thy lips that thou mayst not once think of Asking the question Just Mart. and tells thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou art not like to meet with an answer and what greater folly can there be then to attempt to do that which cannot be done or to search for that which is past finding out or to be ever a beginning and never make an end Search the scriptures for they are they that testifie of him testifie that he was God blessed for evermore that that word which was Godw as also made flesh that he was the Son of God and the Sonne of man the manner how the two Natures are united is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil ib. unsearchable unfoordable and the knowledge of it if our narrow understandings could receive it would not adde one haire to our stature and growth in Grace that he is God and man that the two Natures are united in one person who is thy Saviour and mediator is enough for thee to know and to rayse thy nature up to him Take the words as they lye in their Native purity and simplicity and not as they are hammered and beat out and stampt by every hand by those who will be Fathers not Interpreters of Scripture and beget what sense they please and present it not as their own but as a child of God Then Lo here is Christ and there is Christ this is Christ and that is Christ thou shalt see many images and characters of him but not one that is like him an imperfect Christ a half Christ a created Christ a fancied Christ a Christ that is not the Son of God and a Christ that is not the Son of Man and thus be rowled up and down in uncertainties and left to the poore and miserable comfort of Conjecture in that which so far as it concerns us is so plain and easie to be known Doe thoughts arise in thy heart do doubts and difficulties beset thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justin Martyr thy Faith is the solution and will soon quit thee of them and cast them by thy Faith not assumed or insinuated into thee or brought in as thy vices may be by thy education but raised upon a holy hill a sure foundation the plain and expresse Word of God and upheld and strengthned by the Spirit Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then seen thy God in the Flesh from Eternity yet born Invisible yet seen Immense and circumscribed Immortall yet dying the Lord of life and Crucified God and man Christ Jesus Amaze not thy self with an inordinate feare of undervaluing thy Saviour wrong not his love and call it thy Reverence why should thoughts arise in thy Heart his power is not the lesse because his mercy is great nor doth his infinite love shadow or detract from his Majesty for see He counts it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh nor to be at any losse by being thus like us our Apostle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a Decorum in it and it behoved him to be like unto his Brethren Debuit It behoved him That Christ was made like unto us is the joy of this Feast but that he ought to be is the wonder and extasy of our joy that he would descend is mercy but that he must is our astonishment Oportet and Debet are binding termes and words of Duty Had our Apostle said It behoved us that he should be made like unto us it had found an easy belief the debuit had been placed in loco suo in its proper place on a sweating brow on dust and putrefaction on the face of a captive All will say it Behoved us much but to put a Debet upon the Son of God to make it a Decorum a beseeming thing for him to become Flesh to be made like unto us to set a Rubie in Clay a Diamond in Brasse a Chrysolet in baser Metall and say it is placed well there to worry the Lambs for the Wolf to take the Master by the throat for the Debt of a Prodigall and with an Oportet to say it should be so to give a gift and call it a Debt is not out usuall language on earth on Earth it is not but in Heaven it is the proper Dialect fixed up in Capitall letters on the Mercy Seat the joy of this Feast the Angels Antheme Salvator Natus a Saviour is born and if he will be a Saviour an Undertaker a Surety such is the Nature of Fidejussion and Suretiship debet he must it behoveth him as deeply engaged as the party whose surety he is And let us look on the aptnesse of the meanes and we shall soon find that this Foolishnesse of God as the Apostle calls it is wiser than men and this weaknesse of God is stronger than men 1 Cor. 1.25 that the oportet is right set For medio existente conjunguntur extrema if you will have extremes to meet you must have a middle line to draw them together and behold here they meet and are made unum one Ephes 2.14 saith the Apostle the proprieties of either Nature being entire and yet meeting and concentring themselves as it were in one person Majesty puts on Humility Power Infirmity Eternity Mortality by the one he dyes for us by the other he riseth again by the one he suffers as Man by the other he conquers as God in them both he perfects and consummates the great work of our redemption And this Debuit reacheth home to each part of my Text to Christ as God The same hand that made the vessell when it was broken and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit to repaire and set it together again that it may receive and contain the water of life ut qui fecit nos reficeret that our Creation and Salvation should be wrought by the same hand and turned about upon the same wheele Next we may set the debuit upon his person and he is media persona a middle person and the office will best fit him even the office of a Mediator and then as he is the Son of God who is the Image of the Father and most proper it may seem to him to repair that Image which was defaced and well neere lost in us For we had not onely blemished this Image but set the Devils face and superscription upon Gods coyne for Righteousnesse there was Sin for Purity Pollution for Beauty Deformity for Rectitude Perversenesse for the Man a Beast scarce any thing left by which he might know us venit filius ut iterum signet the Son comes and with his blood revives again the first character marks us with his owne signature imprints the Graces of
of the Pharisees believe in him we might ask Did any of his Disciples believe in him Christ himself calls them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold their Feare had sullied the evidence that they could not see it the Text sayes they forsook him and fled And the reason of this is plain For though faith be an act of the understanding yet it depends upon the will and men are incredulous not for want of those meanes which may raise a faith but for want of will to follow that light which leads unto it do not believe because they will not and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever when our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it the evidence is put by and forgot and the object which calls for our eye and faith begins to disappear and vanish and at last is nothing quot voluntates tot fides so many wills Hilary so many Creeds for there is no man that believes more than he will To make this good we may appeale to men of the slendrest observation least experience we may appeale to our very eye which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions in which men are carried on in the course of their life For what else is that that turnes us about like the hand of a Diall from one point to another from one perswasion to a contrary How comes it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at what is the reason that our Belief shifts so many Scenes and presents it self in so many severall shapes now in the indifferency of a Laodicaean anon in the violence of a Zelot now in the gaudiness of Superstition anon in the proud scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness that they make so painfull a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion and at last end in Atheist what reason is there there can be none but this the prevalency and victory of our sensitive part over our reason and the mutability yea and stubbornesse of our will which cleaves to that which it will soon forsake but is strongly set against the truth which brings with it the fairest evidence but not so pleasing to the sense This is it which makes so many impressions in the mind Self-love and the love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root and pull down build up a Faith and then beat it to the ground and then set up another in its place A double-minded man saith S. James is unstable in all his wayes Remember 2 Tim. 2.8 saith S. Paul that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead according to my Gospel that is a sure foundation for our faith to build on and there we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair and certain pledges of it which are as a Commentary upon ego vivo I live or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye which give up so fair an evidence that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it Let them say his Disciples stole him away whilest their stout watchmen slept what stole him away and whilest they slept it is a dream and yet it is not a dream it is a studied lye and doth so little shake that it confirmes our faith so transparent that through it we may behold more clearly the face of truth which never shines brighter than when a lye is drawn before it to vaile and shadow it He is not here he is risen if an Angel had not spoken it yet the Earthquake the Clothes the clothes so diligently wrapt up the Grave it self did speak it and where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lye they help to confute it id negant quod ostendunt they deny what they affirm and malice it self is made an argument for the truth For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas and the twelve 1 Cor. 12.15 We have a cloud of witnesses five hundred brethren at once who would not make themselves the Fathers of a lye to propagate that Gospel which either makes our yea yea and nay nay or damnes us nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour for that teacheth them to contemn them and makes poverty a beatitude and shewes them a sword and persecution which they were sure to meet with and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office and publication of that faith nor could they take any delight in such a lye which would gather so many clouds over their heads and would at last dissolve in that bitternesse which would make life it self a punishment and at last take it away and how could they hope that men would ever believe that which themselves knew to be a lie These witnesses then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are many and beyond exception We have the blood too the testimony of the Martyrs who took their death on 't and when they could not live to publish it laid down their life and sealed it with their blood And therefore we on whom the ends of the world are come have no reason to complain of distance or that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done for now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before the diversity of mediums have increased multiplied it we see him in his word we see him through the blood of Martyrs we see him with the eye of faith Christ is risen alive secundum scripturas saith S. Paul and he repeats it twice in the same chapter Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem it is S. Austins let it passe for his sake when the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bignesse of a stone but our infidelity will find no excuse if we see him not now when he appears as visible as a mountain Vivo Vivo that is vivifico I give life saith Christ I am alive there is more in this vivo than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he liveth is as much as he giveth life there is virtue and power in his Resurrection a power to abolish Death 2 Tim. 1.10 and to bring life and immortality to light a power to raise our vile bodies and a power to raise our viler souls shall raise them nay he hath done it already conresuscitati we are risen together with him and we live with him for we cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own Grave can be willing to see us rotting in ours From this vivo it is that though we dye yet we shall live again Christs living breathes life into us and in his Resurrection he cast the modell of ours Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum saith Seneca and this is such a one an eternall pattern for ours Plato's Idea or common
up and fix that Error with which it cannot stand long Saint Paul saw it well enough though the Galatians did not If you be circumcised Christ profiteth you nothing That is is to you as if there were no Christ at all For if the false Apostles had flatly denyed Christ the Galatians would have been as ready as Saint Paul to have Cut them off because they had received the Gospel but joyning and presenting the Law with Christ they did deceive and please them well who began in the Spirit and did acknowledge him but would not renounce the Law propter metum Judaeorunt for feare of their Brethren the Jews Now these men-pleasers these Crows which devour not dead Dictum Diogenis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athen Deipnos l. 6. c. 17. but living men are from an Evill Egge and Beginning are bred and hatcht in the dung in the love of this world and are so proud and fond of their Originall that it is their labour their Religion and main designe of their life to bring the Truth Religion and Christ himself in subjection under it and to this end are very fruitfull to bring forth those mishapen issues which savour of the earth and corruption and have onely the name of Christ fastned to them as a badge to commend them bring them to that end for which they had a being which is to gaine the world in the Name but in despight of Christ And these are they who as Saint Peter speaks make merchandize of mens souls 2. Pet. 2.3 nummularii sacerdotes as Cyprian calls them Doctors of the Mint who love the Image of Caesar more then of God and had rather see the one in a piece of Gold then the other renew'd and stampt in a mortall man and this Image they carry along with them whither soever they goe and it is as their Holy Ghost to inspire them for most of the Doctrines they Teach savour of that mint and the same stamp is on them both The same face of Mammon which is in their Heart is visible also in their Doctrine H s 4. â— Thus Hosea complain'd of the false Prophets in his Time peccata populi mci come derunt They cat up the sinne of the People that is by pleasing them they have consented to their sinne and from hence reaped gaine for flatterry is a livelyhood or they did not seriously reprehend the sinnes of the People that they might reeive more sacrifices on which they might feed some render it Levabant animum suum ad peccata populi they lifted up their soule anhelabant they even panted after their sinne desired that they might sinne that they might make advantage and so made them evill to make themselves Rich. For from hence from hence from that for which we cannot find a name nor have a Thought bad enough from a desire to be rich breaks forth that mark of a slave our desire to please Saint Paul hath made a window into their breasts that we may see them with the same hand coyning their Dectrine and Money Rom. 16.18 They that are such serve not the Lord Jesus but their own Belly and by good words and fâ—…re Speeches deceive the Hearts of the simple Serpents they are to Deceive and the Curse of the serpent is upon them upon their belly they goe and they eat Dust all the dayes of their life For a wonderfull Thing it is to see how the love of the world will Transforme men into any shape sometimes to fawne like a Dog sometimes to rage like a Lion and then to lurke like a Fox how like the Charity of the Gospel it makes them to beare all Things beleeve all Things endure all T hings Contumelias in quaestn habere et injuriis pasci to count Contumelies gain and to feed and feed sweetly on Injuries to speak what they doe not think to like what they condemn to mortify themselves to eye and cringe and bow and fall to the ground which is a kind of Mortification more then they will doe for Christ who brings Poverty disgrace and contempt and hath no reward but that which is laid up for the future This brought Plato the great Philosopher a ship-board to sayle to Dionysius his Court Naz. Or. 3. and there laid him down at his feet this made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Nazianz. speaks prefer a Halfe-peny before his goods This was the evill Spirit in the mouth of those lying prophers which did prevaile with Ahab to goe up and fall at Ramoth Gilead This makes men speak not with mens Persons but with their Fartunes not with thye sinner but with the rich and Noble man and this Spirit is abroad still and perswades some into their Graves and some into Hell rayses every storme and every Tempest and makes that desolation which we see upon the Earth Val. Max. l. 4. c. 3. We read that Aristippus found Diogenes washing his Herbs and Roots his daily food and in a kind of pitty or scorne told him That if he would flatter Dionysius he need not eat these nor tye himself to such course fare but Diogenes replies like a Philosopher and returns his saying upon him Si tu ista esse velles Dionysio non adulareris If thou couldest content thy self and feed on these thou wouldst never be so base as to flatter Dionysius And certainly if we could with the Lyrick be content with Nature for our purveyour and look for no supply but from her Hand Having Food and Raiment as Saint Paul speaks could we be there with content did we not enlarge our desires as Hell and send our hopes afarr off did we not love the world and the things of this world we should not thus debase and annihilate our selves as being men our selves to make our selves the shadows of others in their morning to rise with them at their noone and highest to come up and close with them and then at their night fall out and leave them in the dark we should not mould and fitt our best part to their worst our Reason to their lust nor make our fancy the Elaboratory to work out such Essaies which may please and destroy them we should not foment the Anger of the Revenger to consume him nor help the Covetous to bury himself alive nor the Ambitious to break his Neck nor the Schismatick to rend the Seamlesse coat of Christ nor the seditious to swim to Hell in a River of Blood but we should bind the Revengers Hands break the Misers I dols bring down the Ambitious to the Dust make up those rents which Faction hath made and confine the Seditious to his own sphere and Place for who would favour or uphold such Monsters as these but for pay and salary In a word If every man did hate the World every man would love his Brother If every man did keep himself unspotted of the World every man would be his Brothers Keeper when the
Paul makes up that catalogue of foul irregularities he drags the unrighteous the covetous the malicious the deceitfull the inventors of evil things the Covenant-breakers to no other Tribunal then that of Nature and condemns them by no other Law then that which we brought with us into the world Quaedam jura non scripta sed omnibus scriptis certiora saith the Orator This Law is not written Sâ—nce Contr. Sâ—loms Lges lignâ—is aribus incisae Gell. l. 2. c. 12. and therefore is written to all and being connaturall to us is more sure and infallible then those which are written in wood or engraven in Brasse or Marble And one would think that it were as superfluous and needlesse to make any other Law to bind us to Justice and upright dealing one towards another as to command children to love their parents or parents to be indulgent to their children For why should that be urged with that vehemency to which mens naturall bend and inclination carries them and would certainly continue them and hold them up in an even course of justice and honesty did not Education and their familiar converse and dalliance with the world corrupt and blind them To this Law of Nature S. James seems to call us back chap. 3.9 where he makes it as a strange thing to be wondred at That the same tongue that blesseth God should yet curse men who are made after the similitude of God As if he should have said Curse him not deceive him not for if thou curse him if thou deceive him thou cursest and deceivest God after whose similitude he is made My brethren these things ought not be and are as much against nature as for the same fountain to send forth sweet and bitter water or for a fig-tree to beare olives or a vine figs at the 12. ver Saint Paul in the 4. to the Ephesians shuts up the Lyars mouth with the same argument ver 25. Wherefore cast off lying and speak truth every one to his neighbour and the Reason follows For you are members one of another Thou art a part of him and he is a part of thee being both hewn out of the same Rock formed and shaped of the same mould and by lying to thy Brother thou putt est a cheat upon thy selfe and as far as in thee lyeth upon that GOD that made you both and gave you Tongues not to lye but to instruct and Wits not to deceive but counsell and help one another And therefore in the 1 Thess 4.6 he deters them from fraud and violence by no other argument then this That God is the avenger of such things as if the Lye had been told and the Cheat put upon him And when Mans justice to man faileth there Gods vengeance is ready to make a supply For saith Clemens Vidisti fratrem tuum vidisti Deum tuum When thou lookest upon thy Brother Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. thou seest God himselfe as neere as Mortality can discover him for he is the fairest Copie thou canst see him by fairer then the Heaven of Heavens and those ministers of light fairer then the fairest Star then the Sun in the Firmament when he rejoyceth to run his race Hence Saint John concludes positively and peremptorily 1 Epist 4.20 If a man say he loveth God and hateth his brother and he that deceives him he that oppresseth him hates him or else despises him which is worse he is a lyar and his reason is irrefragable For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen in whom he sees himself in whom he sees his God and so hath love conveyed into his heart by his very eye many visible motives to win him to this duty how can be love God whom he hath not seene whom no man hath seen or can see but as the Apostle speaks though a glasse darkly in his words and in his works of which Man is the brightest Mirrour and gives the fairest and clearest representation of him So that now we may see all Mankind tyed and united together in this Love-knot of Nature knit together as Men that they should not fly asunder and then returne again one upon another not as Men but as Snakes and Vipers look back but with an evil eye approch neere but in a cloud or tempest not look but envy not speak but lye not touch but strike not converse with but defraud and oppresse one another which is against that Law with which we were born and which we carry about with us whithersoever we goe and whatsoever we doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How gracious and helpfull a creature is one man to another if he continue so a man and receive no new impression from the flesh from self-love and those transitorie vanities below if he be not by assed and wheel'd from this Naturall motion by the world and so fit to be drove into the field with Nebuchadnezzar being turn'd Fox or Lion or Tiger or Panther or worse then any of those Beasts because he is a Man for so many forms he may receive having once degenerated from his own and then 't is not Look upon Men as of the same mould and frame as Brethren by nature as auxiliaries and supplyes as keepers and guardians but Cavete ab hominibus Beware of men a warning and caution given by our Saviour himselfe Mat. 10.17 and a strange caution it is from him who so loved men that he dyed for them Beware of men beware of them thus transformed thus Brutify'd That smiling friend may be a tempter He that calls himself a Saint may be a Seducer his oylie tongue may wound thee his embrace crush thee to pieces that demure countenance may shadow a legion of Devils Look not upon his phylacteries the Man 's a Pharisee and this Angel keeper may be thy Murderer And thus it is when the course of nature is turn'd backward and Man degenerates from himselfe and makes his Reason which should be an instrument and promoter of Justice a servant to sinne and a weapon of unrighteousnesse This the love of the world and the wisdome of the flesh can doe Victrix etiam de Natura triumphat When it prevailes it moves and troubles the Wheele as S. James calls it the whole course of our Nativity and triumphs over Nature it selfe Now to draw this yet neerer to our purpose Speak what we will of Profit and Commodity the Heathen Orator by the very light of Nature hath told us That they who divide Profit from Justice and Honesty and call that profit and advantage which is unlawfully gotten or detained Subvertunt homines ea quae suaâ— Fundamenta Nâ—turae citm utilitatem ab Hon shat sejungunt Tall. de off l. 3. with the same hand lift at the very foundation of nature and strive to put out that light which they cannot utterly extinguish Ista duo facimus ex uno saith Seneca though we make Profit and Honesty two things yet they are but
in the very nature and constitution of the Church and it is as impossible to be a part of the Church without it as it is to be a man without the use of reason nay we so far come short of being men as we are defective in humanity All Christians are the parts of the Church and all must sustaine one another and this is the just and full Interpretation of that of our Saviour Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and then thou wilt pity him as thy self Tolle invidiam tuum est quod habet Take away envy and all that he hath is thine and take away hardnesse of heart and all that thou hast is his Take away malice and all his virtues are thine and take away pride and thy Glories are his Art thou a part of the Church thou hast a part in every port and every part hath a portion in thee We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compacted together by that which every joynt supplies Eph. 4.16 a similitude and resemblance taken from the curtaines in the Temple saith learned Grotius Exod. 26. whereof every one hath its measure but yet they are all coupled together one to another v. 3. and by their loops which lay hold one of another v. 5. and like those curtains not to be drawn but together not to rejoyce not to weep not to suffer but together The word Church is but as a second notion and it is made a terme of art and every man almost saith Luther abuseth it draws it forth after his own image takes it commonly in that sense which may favour him so far as to leave in him a perswasion that he is a true part of it and thus many enter the Church and are shut out of heaven We are told of a visible Church and the Church in some sense is visible but that the greatest part of this Church hath wanted bowells that some parts of it have been without sense or feeling besmered and defiled with the blood of their brethren is as visible as the Church We have heard of an infallible Church we have heard it and believe it not for how can she be infallible who is so ready to design all those to death and hell who deny it If it be a Church it is a Church with hornes to push at the nations or an army with banners and swords we have long talked of a Reformed Church and we make it our crown and rejoycing but it would concern us to look about us and take heed That we do not reforme so as to purge out all compassion also for cercainly to put off all bowells is not as some zelots have easily perswaded themselves to put on the new man Talk not of a visible Infallible or a Reformed Church God send us a Compassionate Church a title which will more fit and become her then those names which do not beautifie and adorne but accuse and condemn her when she hath no heart What visible Church is that which is seen in blood what infallible Church is that whose very bowels are cruell what reformed Church is that which hath purged out all compassion visible and yet not seen infallible and deceived reformed and yet in its filth Monstrum Horrendum Informe This is a mishapen monster not a Church The True Church is made up of bowells every part of it is tender and relenting not onely when it self is touch'd but when the others are moved as you see in a well-set instrument if you touch but one string the others will tremble and shake And this sence this fellow-feeling is the fountain from whence this silver streame of Mercy flows the spring and first mover of those outward acts which are seen in that bread of ours which floats upon the waters in the face and on the backs of the poore for not then when we see our brethren in affliction when we look upon them and passe by them but when we see them and have compassion on them we shall bind up their wounds and poure in wine and oyle and take care for them For till the heart be melted there will nothing flow We see almes given every day and we call them acts of piety but whether the hand of Mercy reach them forth or no we know not our motions all of them are not from a right spring vain glory may be liberall Intemperance may be liberall Pride may be a benefactor Ambition must not be a Niggard Covetousnesse it self sometimes yeelds and drops a penny and importunity is a wind which will set that wheel a going which had otherwise stood still We may read large catalogues of munificent men but many names which we read there may be but the names of men and not of the Mercifull compassion is the inward and true principle begetting in us the love of Mercy which compleats and perfects and crownes every act gives it its true forme and denomination gives a sweet smell and fragrant savour to Maryes oyntment for she that poured it forth loved much Luk. 7.47 I may say compassion is the love of the Mercy plus est diligere quà m facere saith Hilary It is a great deal more to love a good work then to do it to love virtue then to bring it into act to love mercy then to shew it it doth supply many times the place of the outward act but without it the act is nothing or something worse It hath a priviledge to bring that upon account which was never done to be entitled to that which we do not which we cannot do to make the weak man strong and the poore man liberall and the ignorant man a counsellor For he that loves mercy would and therefore doth more then he can do as David may be said to build the Temple though he laid not a stone of it for God tells him he did well That he had it in his heart and thus our love may build a Temple though we fall and dye before a stone be laid Now this love of mercy is not so soon wrought in the heart as we may imagine as every glimmering of light doth not make it day It is a work of labour and travell and of curious observance and watchfulnesse over our selves It will cost us many a combate and luctation with the world and the flesh many a falling out with our selves many a love must be digged up by the roots before we can plant this in our hearts for it will not grow up with luxury and wantonnesse with pride or self-self-love you never see these together in the same soyle The Apostle tells us we must put it on and ◠the garments which adorn the soul are not so soon put on as those which clothe the body we do not put on mercy as we do our mantle for when we do every puffe of wind every distaste blows it away but mercy must be so put on that it may even cleave to the soul and be a part of it
notes or rather noise we heare one part of the year and then they leave us vanish out of sight and hearing and as some say sleep out the other For even in the worst of men there be some seeds of goodnesse which they receive as they are men from whence arise those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those sudden but short and transitory inclinations which are choked up but not so dead in them but that sometimes they shew themselves and shoot out but as grasse doth upon the house-tops Ps 129.6 which withereth before it groweth up There is no Tyrant but may do one act of mercy no oppressor but may give a cup of cold water In pessimis est aliquid optimi there may be something of that which is good even in the worst Then mercy is in its full glory when it acts upon a certain and well grounded determination when we decree as the Stoicks speak and resolve so to do when we have fixed this decree and made it unalterable when we are rooted and grounded in mercy as Saint Paul speaks Eph. 3.17 Rooted as a tree deeply in it and built as a house upon it where the corner and chief stone is the love of mercy Then we are as trees to shadow others and as an house to shelter them otherwise our mercy will be but as a gourd as Jonahs gourd and will grow and come up and perish in a night Thirdly If we love mercy it will be sincere and reall for sincerity is the proper issue and child of love and makes the wounds of a friend better then the kisses of an enemy makes a dish of herbs a more sumptuous Feast then a stalled oxe makes a mite a good wish a good word an Almes What 's the mercy of the parasite he feeds by it What 's the mercy of the Ambitious a stirrop to get up by What 's the mercy of the Covetous a piece of art a warrantable cheat What was that seeming mercy of Peter It was an offence for which Christ called him an enemy What 's the mercy of those who through Covetousnesse with feigned words make a prey of mens soules 2 Pet. 2.3 I will not tell you because I cannot give it a name bad enough There may be mercy in a supply but that supply may be a snare There may be mercy in counsel but that counsel may betray me There is mercy in comfort but we know there be miserable comforters True mercy must be like our faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1.5 unfeigned and then it runs must pure and cleare without taint or trouble when love opens the fountain or rather is the fountain from whence it flows when the love of Christ hath begot in us the love of our brethren and we shew mercy to them not for those arguments which we make our selves or those perswasions which may be the oratory of the flesh and the world but for Christs sake and for the love of mercy whose rationall and demonstrative eloquence we should most obey otherwise it will begin fairely and end in blood It will drop teares and then hailstones it will be a but preface of clemency a mild prologue to lead in a tragedy an echo out of a sepulchre of rotten bones and as musick at the gates of hell It will be mercy but not like unto Christ in whom there was found no guile but like unto Marcions Christ all in appearance mercy with a trumpet in one hand and a sword in the other mercy which shall lessen your burthen to lay on more shall speak of ease and then add to the misery of the oppressed For that which is not sincere is not lasting It may begin to shine but it will end in a storme A true face is ever the same but a vizor will soon fall off In a word if it be not sincere it is not mercy and sincere it will not it cannot be if we love it not Last of all If we love mercy we shall take delight in it for joy is but a resultancie from love that which we love is also the joy of our heart Behold my servant whom I have chosen saith God of Christ Es 42.1 and then it follows In whom my soule delights I have loved thee saith God of Israel and his love thus bespeaks them as a bridegroome rejoyceth over his bride so shall thy God rejoyce over thee Is 62.5 The bridegroome is sick of love in the book of Canticles his heart is ravish'd and then the floodgates are laid open and the streame is joy How faire is my love how much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thy oyntments then all spices Davids heart was knit unto Jonathan and then very pleasant hast thou been unto me 2 Sam. 1.26 Abraham loved hospitality and therefore he is said to sit in his tent doore in the heat of the day to invite men in as if every stranger had been an Angel If love be as the sunne Joy and delight are the Beames which streame forth from it If Love be as the Voice Joy is the Echo for Joy is but Love in the reflection If Love fill the heart it will heave and work it self out and break forth in joy By our joy we may see the figure and shape and constitution of our souls for Love is operative working and raising up something in the soul and with it that delight which is born with it and alwaies waits upon it If it be darke and scarce observable our Joy interprets it Joy is open and talkative In the wanton 't is a frolick in the Revenger it is a Boast in the Drunkard it is a Ballad in the Rich it is Pride in the Ambitious it is a Triumph but in the Mercifull it is Heaven What a well-drawn picture is to an Apelles what a faire character is to a Scribe what a heap of gold is to the Miser that and much more are the works of Mercy to them that love it onely here the joy is of a purer flame and burns brighter that is grosse and earthy this is Seraphicall When you reach forth your hand to give a peny tell me what doe you feele in your heart when you give good counsel doe you not heare a pleasing echo return back upon you when you have lifted up the poore out of the dust doe you not feele an elevation and ascension in your mind when you clothe the naked are not you even then super vestiti clothed upon with joy Beleeve it you cannot give that relief to the miserable which Mercy works in the soul nor can he that receives be so much affected as he that gives For when he gives he gives indeed his money but hath bestowed the greatest Almes upon himself the poore man rejoyceth as a hungry man that 's fed as a naked man that 's clothed as one that sits in darknesse doth at the breaking in of light but the mercifull man hath triumphs and Jubilees
the truth as it was first delivered and are upon that account to be received as faithfull sayings of all men other are more forced and therefore Rejectaneous and unprofitable as begetting more heat then love and raising more noise then devotion besides these there be conclusions in point of discipline and Church-Policie in the defence of which we see much dust raised by men of divided minds and apprehensions and many times both parties well-neer smothered in the buzzle For though discipline government be necessary yet the best forme that was ever drawn cannot be absolutely necessary because it cannot alwaies find place vvherein to shew it self and the holy Spirit of God never laid an absolute necessity but on those things which as the Stoicks speak are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are within our reach and power or which we may do or have when we will it is necessary to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ but it is not necessary to be under this or that discipline though the best further then in affection and desire for in the midst of the changes and chances of this world we cannot be what we would nor be governed as we please We see well enough for it is as visible as any thing under the sunne that the sword which hath no edge or point against the essentiall parts of Religion with which we may be certainly happy and without which it is most certain we cannot as it makes its way dictates and appoints what it please with a non obstante notwithstanding all contrary constitutions though never so ancient and discipline is either quite cut off or else drawn out with the same hand which did form and shape the Common-wealth We have seen what a flow of troubles and dispute in matters of this nature hath passed on and carried away with it our Peace and Religion it self and then left it as it were upon the sands to shift for it self in the breasts of some fevv vvho by divine assistance are able to raise and cherish it up to some grovvth in themselves vvithout these helps and advantages and to give it a place and povver in them even in the foulest vveather being forced to be their ovvn bishops and priests vvhen the hand of violence hath buried those their Seers either in silence or in the grave We have seen Religion made an art and craft and that vvhich vvas first set up to uphold and promote it strook at and trod upon as the onely vvorme vvhich did eat it out we have seen the axe laid to the very root of it by those sonnes of thunder and noise vvhich is heard in every coast vvhich these clouds hang over we cannot but observe vvhat art diligence hath been used vvhat fire and brimstone hath been breathed forth to cast it dovvn we needed no perspective to look through the disguise under vvhich they vvalk or to behold vvith vvhat slight and artifice they vvrought themselves into the hearts of the people vvho are never better pleased then vvhen they are led as beasts to the slaughter and do flatter and pride themselves most vvhen they are under the yoke We see it hath been the work of an age to shatter and then blow away that form of Pollicie in the Church which shewed it self to the Profit and admiration of the best in so many and was the fairest bulwark the Church had to secure her from the Incursions of Schisme Heresy and Prophanenesse of which if we had no other argument the frenzie of this present age the wild Confusion and medley of the Sects and Factions which we see may be an unquestionable evidence And now we have seen it laid levell with the ground All this we have seen but yet we do not see that discipline which did emulate and heave at it and was placed in equipage with the Gospel of Christ we do not see that which was so much extolled as yet set up in its roome Nay we scarce see any thing left but the Idea of it which they still carry with them with expectation and great hopes vvhich prophesy to them the building up of this second Temple of this new form which might it obtain would they say be far more glorious then the first All this art and endeavour hath been used to make them great and supreme on earth the one half of which might have wrought out a Crown for them in a better place For that may be had if we will and if we be faithfull to the death it will fall upon our heads But in what ground our lines will fall or how they will be drawn out is a thing so far out of our reach and power that no humane providence can design and mark it out Day unto day teacheth us and the experience of all ages hath made it good that they who like not what is but onely what they would have and propose it to themselves and others do many times open and pave a faire way to it and walk forward towards it as full of hope as desire and yet when they are come so neer as even to touch and lay hold of it may see it removed as far from them as before and their hopes in their blossome and glory to fall off may live to see themseves in umbrage under a more mild and friendly toleration and behold that past by and sunk lower which they so longed to see in that height which might amaze and awe all about them and bring them in that harvest which was already gathered in their expectation I should be unwilling to stir the blood or draw upon me the displeasure of any who have cast in their lot with those who have been earnest in such a design and I have no other end but this to shew the vanity and deceitfulnesse of such attempts and how dangerous and vexatious a thing it is to drive so furiously after that which hath come towards us so often and then turned the back which we overtake and lose at once For it is so in the world and will be so even till the end of it that which is mutable in its own nature may and will be changed nor is there any thing certain but Piety and blisse the vvay and the end And therefore those things which are not so essentiall to Religion as that she cannot stand without them and are essentiall onely when they may be had being exemplified and conveyed to us by the best hands must not take up all that labour which we owe to the heat of the day and those duties of Christianity which are the summe of all and for which the others were ordained When they may be had we must blesse God and use them to that end for which they were given and when a stronger then we comes upon us and removes them look after them with a longing eye and bleeding heart follow them with our sorrow and devotion use all lawfull and
wildernesse we walk honestly as in the day in that day which he hath made We have our Agony in our Contrition and in our Regeneration we hang upon the Crosse There our lusts and affections are fastned as it were with nayls their strength taken from them that they cannot move in any opposition to Christ but our anger turns from our brother who is like him and is levell'd on sin which is most unlike him our love shuts it self to the world and opens it self to receive him The hardship we undergoe brings in our fellowship with him our suffering with him doth assimilate us and in a manner Deify us our following him in all his wayes drawes us as neer to him as Flesh and Bloud can approch and our joy our greatest triumph is in this our Assimilation and thus we come forth like unto him And in the next place as he was factus made like unto us so are we facti similes made like unto him we are not borne so we are not so by chance we cannot think our selves we cannot talk our selves into his likenesse nor will he imprint it in us whilst we sleep or doe worse this picture this Resemblance is not drawn out with a thought or a word How many be there who take his name yet are not like unto him because they will not be made so Christians they are sine sanguine sudore without bloud or sweat drawn out not by an obedient will but a flattering fancy they struggle not with Temptation for they love it they fight not against their Flesh but nourish and cherish it make it their labour and ambition to please it they have no feare no Trembling no Agony no Crosse nay they beat their fellow servants and persecute them because they are like him crucifie him in his members every day and yet present themselves to the world as his children as the very pictures of our Saviour and so soon like him that they will never be made so When we see men fast and pray not that they have done evill but that they may do more the Pharisees did so when we see men bowing before him when they are ready to lift up their heele against him when we heare their Hosannas to day and their Crucifyes to morrow the Jewes did so when we see men follow him as his Disciples and call him their Master and then sell him for some pieces of silver deliver him to their Lusts their Ambition their Covetousnesse Judas did so the son of perdition and so nothing like unto a Saviour when we see men wash their hands as if they were clear of all guilt and yet in a Tumult leave Christ and his Religion to be tom in pieces and trod under feet and to make their peace care not what becomes of him Pilate did so when we see men tempting Christ to turn stones into bread to do that by miracle for which he hath fitted its ordinary proper meanes the Devil did so when we see these men and the world is full of such shall we say that they are like unto Christ we may say as well that the Pharisees were like him and the Jewes were like him and Judas was like him and Pilate was like him and the Devil himselfe was like him as they No a Christian is not so soon made up does not grow up a perfect man in Christ in a moment For though our first conversion be in an instant yet it is not so in an instant but that it is wrought in us by meanes and a new making there is whensoever we are made Christians To be like unto Christ is a work of Time and we grow up to this similitude by degrees our Faith meets with many rubs and difficulties to passe over For how often doe we ask our selves the question How should this be and then when by prayer and meditation and our continued exercise in piety we have got the victory we build and establish our selves in our most holy Faith Our Hope what is it but a conclusion gathered by much pains and experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our souls and actions of our life and when with great contention we have settled these and see an evenness and regularity in them all then we rest in hope And for our Charity it is called the labour and work of Charity for we must force out the love of the World before we bring in the love of our Brethren we must deny our covetousness before we can give a peny deny our appetite deny our selves before we can taste of the powers of the world to come we must maintain a tedious war against the flesh and be unlike our selves before we can be like unto Christ as he was made like unto us so must we be made like unto him and this is our union with him and we are made one even as he and his Father are one To draw the Parallel yet neerer as there was a debuit upon Christ so there is upon us as it behoved him to be made like unto us so it behoveth us to be like unto him In the volume of the book it is written of him and in the same volume we shall finde it written of us that we should doe his will and have his law in our heart and in this as in other things Nihil prius intuendum quam quod decet our first thought should be what will become us To see Nero an Emperour with his Fiddle or Harp or in his Buskins acting upon a Stage to see Domitian catching of Flyes or Hercules at the Distaffe what an incongruous thing is it An humble Christ and a proud Christian a meek Christ a bloody Christian an obedient Christ and a traiterous Christian Christ in an agony and a Christian in pleasure Christ fasting and a Christian rioting Christ on the Crosse and the Christian in a Mahometicall Paradise non bene conveniunt there is no decorum in it nothing but Soloecisme Absurdity which even offends their eyes who commit the same so boldly as if it carried with it some elegancy no debet and oportet we must act our parts with art and a decorum do that which behoveth us and it is a debt and a debt which we must be paying to our lives end to our last breath and then we shall take our Exit with applause Lastly to draw the Parallel to the full Oportet it is not onely becoming us but Necessary for if a kind of Necessity lay upon Christ by his contract with his Father to be made like unto us a great necessity will lie upon us by our covenant with him to be like unto him a Necessity and woe unto us if we be not It is unum necessarium it is that one thing Necessary and there is nothing Necessary for us but it For run to and fro the world and in that great Emporium and Mart of Toyes and
the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his Heart it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.4 the love of God to mankind and what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sinne and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on his love and yet he loved us and hated sinne and made haste to deliver us from it Dilexisti me domine plusquam te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Aust Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soule was dearer to thee then thy self such a high esteeme did he set upon a Soule which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us men then and For us Sinners was he delivered the Prophet Esay speaks it and he could not speake it so properly of any but him He was wounded for our transgressions and broken for our Iniquities So that he was delivered up not onely to the crosse E◠53. and shame but to our sinnes which nayled him to the crosse which crucified him not onely in his Humility but in his glory now he sits at the right hand of God and puts him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur why complain we of the Jewes malice or Judas's treason of Pilates injustice we we alone are they who crucifyed the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him Our malice the Jew which accused him our perjury the false witnesse against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him our pride scorned him our envy grinned at him our luxury spet upon him our covetousnesse sold him our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings prickt with his Thornes our sores launced with his speare and the whole Body of sinne stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life Tradidit pro nobis he delivered him up for us sinners no sinne there is which his bloud will not wash away but finall impenitency which is not so much a sinne as the sealing up of the body of sinne when the measure is full pro nobis for us sinners for us for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us and if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent Pro nobis Pro nobis omnibus so us all for us men and for us sinners he was deliver'd pro infirmis for us when we were without strength pro impiis for us when we were ungodly pro peccatoribus for sinners Rom. 5.6,7 for so we were consider'd in this great work of our Redemption and thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of love There is one step more pro nobis omnibus he was deliver'd for us all all not consider'd as elect or reprobate but as men as smners for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plaine and easie pro omnibus for all this some will not touch and yet they doe touch and presse it with that violence that they presse it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certaine men and turne all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people Nations and Languages and out of Christendome it self and leave some few with Christ upon the Crosse whose persons he beares whom they call the elect and meane themselves sic Deus dilexit mundum so God loved the world that is the Elect say they John 3.16 they are the world where t is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is of Scripture discovers them not unto us in that place and if the Elect be this world which God so loved then they are such Elect which may not believe and such elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they doe not believe T is true none have benefit of Christs death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had theirs is the kingdome of heaven but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith Saint Peter would not that any should perish 2 Pet. 3.8 and God is the Saviour of all men saith Saint Paul but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they doe the bloud of Christ is powred forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkles his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish That the bloud of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sinnes of the world nay of a thousand worlds that Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeeme all that are or possibly might be under that Captivity that none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captaine and doe as he commands that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the believer and leave the rod of the stubborne Impenitent to fall upon him The death of Christ is not applyed to all say some It is not for all say others the virtue of Christs meritorious passion is not made use of by all say some it was never intended that it should say others and the event is the same for if it be not made use of and applyed it is as if it were not as if it had never been obtain'd onely the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation who turned away from Christ who spake unto him not onely from heaven but from his crosse and refused that grace which was offer'd him which could not befall him if there had never been any such overture made for how can he refuse that which never concern'd him how can he forfeit that pardon which was never seal'd how can he despise that spirit of grace which never breathed towards him They who are so tender and jealous of Christs bloud that no drop must fall but where they direct it doe but veritatem veritate concutere undermine and shake one truth with another set up the particular love of God to believers to overthrow his generall love to Mankind confound the virtue of Christs passion with the effect and draw them together within the same narrow compasse bring it under a Decree that it can save no more then it doth because it hath its bounds set hitherto it shall go and no further and was ordained to quicken
and Attire Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot which was the Garment of the High Priest and his was an unchangeable Priesthood Heb. 7.24 and he had a golden Girdle or Belt as a King v. 13. for he is a King for ever and of his kingdome there shall be no end Righteousnesse shall be the girdle of his loynes and Faithfulnesse he girdle of his reines Es 11.5 His head and his haires were white as wooll v. 14. and as white as snow his Judgement pure and uncorrupt not byassed by outward respects not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection but smooth even as waters are when no wind troubles them His eys as a flame of fire piercing the inward man searching the secrets of the heart nor is there any action word or thought which is not manifest in his sight His feet like unto fine brasse sincere and constant like unto himself in all his proceedings in every part of his Oeconomy his voyce as many waters v. 15. declaring his fathers will with power and authority sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world and last of all out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword v. 16. not onely dividing asunder the soul and the spirit but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church His Majesty dazled every mortall eye his Countenance was as the Sun shining in his strength and now of him who walks in the midst of his Church whose Mercy is a large Robe reaching down to the feet who is girt with Power who is clothed with Justice whose Wisdom pierceth even into darknesse it self whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other whose Majesty displayes its beams through every corner of it we cannot but confesse with Peter This is Christ the Sonne of the living God And can the Saviour of the world the desire of the Nations the glory of his Father can Beauty it self appeare in such a shape of Terrour shall we draw out a mercifull Redeemer with a warriours Belt with eyes of Fire with feet of Brasse with a voyce of Terrour with a sharp two-edged Sword in his mouth Yes such a High Priest became us who is not onely mercifull but just not onely meek but powerfull not onely fair but terrible not onely clothed with the darknesse of Humility but with the shining robes of Majesty who can dye and can live again and live for evermore who suffered himself to be judged and condemned and shall judge and condemne the world it self S. John indeed was troubled at this sight and fell down as dead but Christ rouzeth him up and bids him shake off this feare for he is terrible to none but those who make him so to Hereticks and Hypocrites and Persecutors of his Church to those who would have him neither wise nor just nor powerfull non accepimus iratum sed fecimus he is not angry till we force him 't is rather our sins that turn back again upon us as furies than his wrath that makes him clothe himself with vengeance and draw his sword To S. John to those that bow before him he is all Sweetnesse all Grace all Salvation and upon these as upon St. John he layes his right hand quickens and rouzeth them up Feare not neither my girdle of Justice nor my eyes of fire nor my feet of brasse nor my mighty voice nor my two-edged sword for my Wisdom shall guide you my power shall defend you my Majesty shall uphold you and my Mercy shall crown you Fear not I am the first and the last more humble than any more powerfull than any scorned whipped crucified and now highly exalted and Lord of all the world I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for evermore c. Which words I may call as Tertullian doth the Lords Prayer breviarium Evangelii the breviary or summe of the whole Gospel or with Austin symbolnm abbreviatum the Epitome and abridgement of our Creed and such a short Creed we find in Tertullian which he calls Regulam veram immobilem irreformabilem the sole immutable unalterable rule of Faith and then The articles or parts will be these 1. The Death of Christ I was dead 2. The Resurrection of Christ with the effect and power of it I am he that liveth 3. The duration and continuance of his life which is to all eternity I live for evermore 4. Power of Christ which he purchased by his death the power of the keyes I have the keyes of Hell and of Death And these 1. Are ushered in with an Ecce Behold that we may consider it 2. Sealed ratified with an Amen that we may believe it That there be not in any of us as the Apostle speaks an unbelieving heart to depart from the living God I am he that liveth and was dead And of the death of Christ we spake the last day Par 1. we shall onely now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection consider it as past for it is fui mortuus I was dead and in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour which he drew out in his blood which must sprinkle those who are to be saved and make them nigh unto him to follow in the same method à morte ad vitam Luke 24.25 Heb. 2.20 from suffering to glory from death to life Tota ecclesia cum Christo computatur ut una persona Christ and his Church are in computations but one person he ought to suffer and we ought to suffer they suffer in him and he in hem to the end of the world nor is any other method either answerable to his infinite Wisdome and Justice which hath set it down in indelible characters nor to our mortall and frail condition which must be bruised before it can be healed must be levelled with the ground before it can be raised up quicquid Deo convenit Tetuil homini prodest that which is convenient for Christ is profitable for us that which becometh him we must wear as an ornament of grace unto our head there is an oportet set upon both he ought and we ought first to suffer and then to enter into glory to die first that we may rise again And first it cannot consist with the wisdome of God that Christ should suffer and die and we live as we please and the reign with him and so pass à deliciis in delicias from one paradise to another that he should overcome the Divel for those who will be his vassals that he should foile him in his proud temptations for those who will not be humble beat off his sullen temptation for those who will distrust and murmure that he should make his victorious death commeatum delinquendi a licence and charter for all generations to fling away their weapons and not strike a stroke If he should have done this
we could not have taken him for our Captaine and if we will not enter the lists he will not take us for his Souldiers non novimus Christum si non credimus we do not know Christ if we believe him not to be such a one as he is a Captaine that leads us as Moses did the children of Israel through the Wildernesse full of fiery Serpents into Canaan through the valley of death into life Nor is it expedient for us who are not born but made Christians and a Christian is not made with a thought whose lifting up supposes some dungeon or prison in which we formerly were whose rising looks back into some grave Tolle certamen ne virtus quidem quicquam erit take away his combat with our spiritual enemies with afflictions and tentations Religion it self were but a bare name and Christianity as Leo the tenth is said to have called it a fable What were my Patience if no misery did look towards it what were my Faith if there were no doubt to assoile it what were my Hope if there were no scruple to shake it what were my Charity if there were no misery to urge it no malice to oppose it what were my Day if I had no Night or what were my Resurrection if I were never dead Fui mortuus I was dead saith the Lord of life and it is directed to us who do but think we live but are in our graves entombed in this world which we so love compassed about with enemies covered with disgraces raked up as it were in those evils which are those locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomlesse pit when we hear this voice by the vertue and power of it look upon these and make a way through them we rise with Christ our hope is lively and our faith is that victory which overcometh the world Nor need this Method seeme grievous unto us for these very words Fui mortuus I was dead may put life and light into it and commend it not onely as the truest but as a plaine and easie method For by his Death we must understand all those fore-running miseries all that he suffer'd before his death which were as the Traine and Ceremony as the officers of the High priest to lead him to it as poverty scorne and contempt the burden of our sinnes his Agony and bloudy sweat which we must look upon as the principles of this Heavenly science by which our best master learned to succour us in our sufferings to lift us up out of our graves and to rayse us from the dead There is life in his death and comfort in his sufferings for we have not such an High priest who will not help us but which is one and a chief end of his suffering and death who is touch'd with the feeling of our Infirmities and is mercifull and faithfull Heb. 2.17 hath not onely power for that he may have and not shew it but a will and propension a desire and diligent care to hold up them who are ready to fall and to bring them back who were even brought to the Gates of death Indeed mercy without power can beget but a good wish Saint James his complementall charity Be ye warmed and be ye filled and be ye comforted which leaves us cold and empty and comfortlesse and Power without mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee nor heale a broken heart may as well strike us dead as revive us but Mercy and Power when they meet and kisse each other will work a miracle will uphold us when we fall and rayse us from the dead will give eyes to the blind and strength to the weak will make a fiery furnace a Bath a Rack a Bed and persecution a Blessing will call those sorrowes that are as if they were not such a virtue and force such life there is in these three words I was dead For though his compassion and mercy were coeternall with him as God yet as man didicit he learnt it He came into the world as into a Schoole and there learnt it by his sufferings and death Heb. 5.8 For the way to be sensible of anothers misery is first to feele it in our selves it must be ours or if it be not ours we must make it ours before our heart will melt I must take my brother into my self I must make my self as him before I help him I must be that Lazar that beggs of me and then I give I must be that wounded man by the way side and then I powre my oyle and wine into his wounds and take care of him I must feele the Hell of sinne in my self before I can snatch my Brother out of the fire Compassion is first learnt at home and then it walks abroad and is eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and heales two at once both the miserable and him that comforts him for they were both under the same disease one as sick as the other I was dead and I suffer'd are the maine strength of our Salvation For though Christ could no more forget to be mercifull then he could leave off to be the sonne of God yet before he emptyed himself and took upon him the forme of a servant sicut miseriam expertus non era ita nec miscricordiam experimento novit saith Hilary as he had no experience of sorrow so had he no experimentall knowledge of mercy and compassion his own hunger moved him to work that miracle of the loaves for it is said in the Text He had compassion on the multitude his poverty made him an Crator for the poore and he begs with them to the end of the world He had not a hole to hide his head and his compassion melted into tears at the sight of Jerusalem When he became a man of sorrowes he became also a man of compassion And yet his experience of sorrow in truth added nothing to his knowledge but rayseth up a confidence in us to approach neer unto him who by his miserable experience is brought so neer unto us and hath reconciled us in the Body of his flesh Coloss 1.21 for he that suffer'd for us hath compassion on us and suffers and is tempted with us even to the end of the world on the Crosse with Saint Peter on the Block with S. Paul in the fire with the Martyrs destitute afflicted tormented would you take a view of Christ looking towards us with a melting eye you may see him in your own soules take him in a groane mark him in your sorrow behold him walking in the clefts of a broken heart bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit or to make him an object more sensible you may see him every day begging in your streets when he tells you He was dead he tells you as much In as much as the children were partakers of flesh and Bloud he also himself took part of the same and in our flesh was a
within a span and when immortality is offer'd affect no other life but that which is a vapour Let us not rayse that swarme of thoughts which must perish Colos 3.3 but build up those works upon our everliving Saviour which may follow us follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of eternity Doth our Saviour live for evermore and shall we have no spirit in us but that which delights to walk about the earth and is content to vanish with it Eternity is a powerfull motive to those who never have such pensive thoughts as when they remember their frailty and are sick even of health it self and in a manner dead with life when they consider it as that blessing which shall have an end Eternity is in our desire though it be beyond our apprehension what he said of time is truer of eternity if you doe not ask what it is we know but if you ask we are not able to answer and resolve you or tell you what it is when we call it an infinite duration we doe but give it another name two words for one a short Paraphrase but we doe not define what it is And indeed our first conceptions of it are the fairest for when they are doubled and redoubled they are lost in themselves and the further they extend themselves the more weary they are and at greater losse in every proffer and must end and rest at last in this poore unsatisfying thought that we cannot think what it is Yet there is in us a wild presage an unhandsome acknowledgment of it for we fancy it in those objects which vanish out of sight whilst we look upon them we set it up in every desire for our desires never have an end Every purpose of ours every action we doe is Aeternitati sacrum and we doe it to eternity we look upon riches as if they had no wings and think our habitations shall endure for ever we look upon honour as if it were not Aire but some Angel confirm'd a thing bound up in eternity we look upon beauty and it is our heaven and we are fixt and dwell on it as if it would never shrivel nor be gathered together as a scroule and so in a manner make mortality it self eternall And therefore since our desires doe so far enlarge themselves and our thoughts doe so multiply that they never have an end since we look after that which we cannot see and reach after that which we cannot graspe God hath set up that for an object to look on which is eternall indeed in the highest Heavens and as he hath made us in his own image so in Christ who came to renew it in us he hath shewed us a more excellent way unto it taught us to work out eternity even in this world in this common shop of change to work it out of that in which it is not which is neer to nothing which shall be nothing to work it out of riches by not trusting them out of honour by contemning it out of the pleasures of this world by loathing them out of the flesh by crucifying it out of the world by overcoming it and out of the Divell himself by treading him under our feet For this is to be in Christ and to be in Christ is to be for evermore Christ is the eternall Sonne of God and he was dead and lives and lives for evermore that we may dye and live for evermore and not onely attaine to the Resurrection of the dead but to eternity Last of all let us look upon the keys in his hand and knock hard that he may open to us and deliver our soule from hell and make our grave not a prison but a Bed to rise from to eternall life or if we be still shut in we our selves have turn'd the key against our selves for Christ is ready with his keyes to open to us and we have our keys too our key of knowledge to discerne between Life and Death and our key of Repentance and when we use these Christ is ready to put his even into our hands and will derive a power unto us mortalls unto us sinners over hell and death And then in the last place we shall be able to set on the Seal the Amen be confirmed in the certainty of his Resurrection and power by which we may raise those thoughts and promote those actions which may look beyond our threescore yeares and ten through all successive generations to immortality and that glory which shall never have an end This is to shew and publish our faith by our works as S. James speaks this is from the heart to believe it as S. Paul for he that thus believes it from the heart cannot but be obedient to the Gospel unless we can imagine there could be any man that should so hate himself as thus deliberately to cast himself into and to run from happinesse when it appeares in so much glory He cannot say Amen to life who kills himself for that which leaves as soul in the grave is not faith but fancy when we are told that honour cometh towards us that some golden shower is ready to fall into our laps that content and pleasure will ever be neer and wait upon us how loud and hearty is our Amen how do we set up an Assurance-office to our selves and yet that which seemes to make its approch towards us is as uncertain as uncertainty it self and when we have it passeth from us and as the ruder people say of the Devil leaves a noysome and unsavoury scent behind it and we look after it and can see it no more but when we are told that Christ liveth for evermore and is coming is certainly coming with reward and punishment vox fancibus haeret we can scarce say Amen so be it To the world and pomp thereof we can say Amen but to Heaven and Hell to eternity we cannot say Amen or if we do we do but say it For conclusion then The best way is to draw the Ecce and the Amen the Behold and our assurance together so to study the death and life the eternall life and the power of our Saviour that we may be such proficients as to be able with S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to meet the Resurrection Phil. 3.11 to look for and hasten the coming of the Lord when his Life and Eternity and Power shall shine gloriously to the terrour of those who persecute his Church and to the comfort of those who suffer for Righteousnesse sake when that Head which was a forge of mischief and cruelty that Hand which touched the Lords Anointed and did his Prophets harm shall burn in hell for ever when that Eye which would not look on vanity shall be filled with glory that Eare which hearkned to his voice shall heare nothing but Hallebujahs and the musick of Angels and that Head which was ready to be laid down for this living everliving
way and through all the surges of this present world brings us to the presence of God who is truth is self a truth which leads us to our Originall to the Rock out of which we were hewen and brings us back to our God who made us not for the vanities of this world but for himself an Art to cast down all Babells all towring and lofty imaginations which present unto us falshoods for truths appearances for realities plagues for peace which scatter and divide our soules powre them out upon variety of unlawfull objects which deceive us in the very nature and end of things For as this spirit brought life and immortality to light 2 Time 1.10 for whatsoever the prophets and great Rabbies had spoken of immortality was but darknesse in comparison of this great light so it also discovered the errors and horror of those follies which we lookt upon with love and admiration as upon heaven it self What a price doth luxury place on wealth and riches what horror on nakednesse and poverty How doth a jewell glitter in my eyes and what a slurr is there upon virtue what Glory doth the pomp of the world present and what a sad and sullen aspect hath righteousnesse How is God thrust out and every Idol every vanity made a God but the truth here which the spirit teacheth discovers all pulls off the vayle shewes us the true countenance and face of things that we may not be deceived shewes us vanity in riches folly in honour death and destruction in the pomp of this world makes poverty a blessing and misery happinesse and death it self a passage to eternity placeth God in his Throne and man where he should be at his footstoole bowing before him which is the readiest way to be lifted up unto him and to be with him for evermore In a word a truth of power to unite us to our God that brings with it the knowledge of Christ the wisdome of God which presents those precepts and doctrines which lead to happinesse a truth that goes along with us in all our wayes waits on us on our bed of sicknesse leaves us not at our death but followes us and will rise again with us unto judgement and there either acquit or condemn us either be our Judge or Advocate For if we make it our friend here it shall then look lovely on us and speak good things for us but if we despise it and put it under our basest desires and vile affections it will then fight against us and triumph over us and tread us down into the lowest pit Christ is not more gracious then this truth to them that love it but to those who will not learne shall be Tribulation and anguish the Sun turn'd into Bloud the world on fire the voyce of the Archangel the Trump of God the severe countenance of the Judge will not be more terrible then this truth to them that have despised it For Christ Jesus shall judge the secrets of the heart acquit the just condemn the impenitent according to this truth which the spirit teacheth according saith Saint Paul to my Gospel Rom. 2.16 The large extent of this lesson This is the lesson The spirit teacheth truth let us now see the extent of it which is large and universall for the spirit doth not teach us by halves doth not teach some truths and conceal others but teacheth all truth makes his disciples and followers free from all errors that are dangerous and full of saving knowledge For saving knowledge is all indeed that truth which brings me to my end is all and there is nothing more to be known I desired to know nothing but Christ and him crucified saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 2.2 here his desire hath a Non ultra this truth is all this joyns heaven and earth together God and man mortality and immortality misery and happiness in one drawes us neer unto God and makes us one with him This is the Spirits lesson Commentum Divinitatis the invention of the divine Spirit as faith is called the gift of God not onely because it is given to every believer and too many are too willing to stay till it be given but because this spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith And as he first found it out so he teacheth it and leaves out nothing not a tittle not an Iota which may serve to compleat perfect this Divine Science In the book of God are all our members written All the members yea and all the faculties of our soul and in his Gospel his Spirit hath framed rules and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act in every motion and inclination which if the Eye offend pluck it out if the Hand cut it off which limit the understanding to the knowledg of God which bind the will to obedience and moderate confine our Affections level our hope fix our joy stint our sorrow which frame our speech compose our gesture fashion our Apparel set and methodize our outward behaviour Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious and what should I more say for the time would faile me to mention them all In a word then this truth which the spirit teacheth is fitted to the whole man fitted to every member of the body to every faculty of the soule fitted to us in every condition in every relation it will reign with thee it will serve with thee it will manage thy riches it will comfort thy poverty ascend the throne with thee and sit down with thee on the dunghill it will pray with thee it will fast with thee it will labour with thee it will rest and keep a Sabbath with thee it will govern a Church it will order thy Family it will raise a kingdome within thee it will be thy Angel to carry thee into Abrahams bosome and set a crown of glory upon thy head And is there yet any more or what need more than that which is necessary There can be but one God one Heaven one Religion one way to blessednesse and there is but one Truth and that is it which the Spirit teacheth and this runs the whole compass of it directs us not onely ad ultimum sed usque ad ultimum not onely to that which is the end but to the means to every step and passage and approch to every help and advantage towards it and so unites us to this one God gives us right to this one Heaven and brings us home to that one end for which we were made And is there yet any more Yes particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this truth which the spirit hath plainly taught 't is true but then for the most part they are cases of our own making cases which we need not make cases sometimes raised by weakness sometimes by wilfulness sometimes even by sin it self which
pleasing but deceitfull contemplation of faith he speaks no other language but do this and exalts charity to the higher place that their vain boasting of faith might not be heard for faith saith he hath no tongue nay no life without her and thus in appearance he takes from the one to establish the other and sets up a throne for charity not without some shew and semblance of prejudice to faith For last of all to give you one reason more Faith indeed is naturally productive of good works For what madnesse is it to see the way to eternity of blisse and not to walk in it Each article of our Creed points out as with â—e finger to some vertue to be wrought out in the minde and publisht in the outward man If I beleeve that Christ is God it will follow I must worship him If he died for sinne the consequence is plain enough we must die to it If he so loved vs the Apostle concludes we must love one another charity is the proper effect of faith and upon faith and charity we build up our hope if we beleeve the promises and perform the condition if we beleeve him that loved us and love him and keep his commandments we are in heaven already But yet we may observe that the corruption of our hearts findes somthing in faith it self to abate and weaken her force and power and to take off her activity and so makes the very object of faith an encouragement to evil and which is a sad speculation the mercy of God a kinde of temptation to sinne Mercy is a pretious oyntment and mercy breaks our head mercy blots out sin and mercy revives it mercy is our hope and mercy is made our confusion we should sin no more but we sin more and more because his mercy endureth for ever we turn the grace of God into wantonness and make this Queen of his glorious attributes to wait on our lust of a Covering a purging a Healing a saving I tremble to speak it we make it a damning mercy for had we not abused it had we not relied upon it too much had we not laid upon it all our uncleannesse our impenitency and wilfull obstinacy in sinne it would have upheld us and lifted us up as high as Heaven but our bold presumption layes hold of it and it flings us off and we fall from it into the bottomlesse pit This then we may take for a sufficient reason why our Apostle puts not faith into his description of Pure Religion and in the next place as he doth not mention faith so he passeth by in silence rather then forgets those other excellent duties of prayer and hearing the word For these two whatsoever high esteem we put upon them howsoever we magnifie them till they are nothing till our selves are worse than nothing worse than the beasts that perish yet are they not the end and their end is perdition who make them so and think that to aske a blessing is to have it when they put it from them or to hear of God is to love him to hear of that happinesse which he hath laid up is to be in Paradise The perfection of the creature saith the Philosopher is ad naturae suae sinem pervenire to attain to the end for which he was made and the end of the Christian is to be like unto Christ that where he is He may be also that is his end that is his perfection Now to draw this home these two to Hear and to Pray do not make us like unto him but are sufficient means to renew the image of God in us that so we may resemble him they are not the haven to which we are bound but are as prosperous and advantagious windes to carry us to it Quod per se bonum est semper est bonum that which is good in it self and for it self is alwayes good as true piety true Religion but those duties which tend to it have their reward or punishment as they reach or misse of that end what is hearing if it beget not obedience what are prayers if they be but the calves of our lips Oh 't is a sad question to be ask't when we shall see Christians full of malice and deceit Have they not heard they have heard that malice shall destroy the wicked that deceit is an abomination that oppression shall eat them up yet will be such monsters as if they never heard oh 't is a sad expostulation to the wicked Have they not heard and as sad a return may be made to our prayers we may stretch out our hands and God may hide his eyes from us we may make many prayers and he not hear we may lift up our hands and vocie unto Heaven and our minde stay below wallowing in the mire of foul pollutions mixt and ingendering with the vanities of the world for as we may fast to strife and debate so we may pray to strife and debate as there may be a politick Fast so our prayer may have more in it of craft than devotion we may make it a trade a craft an occupation and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoutly labor and holdout not to take the kingdom of Heaven but to devour widows houses make this Key of the Gates of Heaven a picklock to open Chests and so debase it to these vile offices which is a sin cujus non audeo dicere nomen for which I have no name bad enough to give it and what is Prayer then what are the means if we rest in them as in the end what are they if we draw and force them to a bad end what are they if we make no use of them at all or make this sad and fatall use of them if our Prayers bring down a curse our hearing flatter us in our disobedience if we Hear and Pray and Perish These two and what else of this nature have their worth and efficacy from Religion from charity to our selves others which are as the two wings on which our prayers ascend and mount to the presence of God to bring down a blessing from thence These sanctifie our fasts these open the ears of the deaf that hearing they may hear and understand These consecrate our Pulpets and are the best panegyricks on our Sermons and make them indeed the word of God powerfull in operation and without these our prayers are but babling and the Sermons which we hear but so many libels against us or as so many knells and sad indications that they that hear them are condemned and dead already For again to visit the fatherlesse and widows in affliction that is to be full of good works and to renounce and abstain from the pleasures of the world for those pleasures we dote on those riches we sweat for are those that bespot us is a far harder task then to say a hundred pater no sters or to continue our prayers as Saint Paul did his preaching
30 makes as one with him makes us as Christ speaks his brother and sister and mother This is our affinity this is our honour this is in a manner our Divinity on earth For God and man saith Synesius have but this one onely thing common to them both and that is Heb. 13.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do good To do good and to distribute forget not for with such sacrifices God is pleased This then may well go for one part or limb of Religion And in the next place as in the visitation of the fatherlesse and widows all charity to our Brother is implyed so all charity to our selves is shut up in this other in keeping our selves unspotted of the world And this phrase in keeping our selves is very significant and that its weight for those spots which so defile us and make us such Leopards are not so much from the world as from our selves as a cheat is not onely from the cunning of the Impostor but from the want of wisdom and experience in him that is deceived 't is Ignorance that promotes the cheat that draws the power and faculty into Act makes him that hath a subtle wit injurious and t is an evil heart that makes the world contagious for wisdom prevents a cheat and watchfulnesse a spot This world in it self hath nothing in it that can defile us for God saw all that he made was good Tertul. despectaculis c. 2. and it was very good but Nihil non est Dei quod Deum offendit there is nothing by which we offend God but is from God that beauty which kindles lust is his gift that gold which hath made that desolation upon the earth was the work of his hands he gives us the bread we surfet on he filleth the cup that intoxicates us the world is the Lords and all that therein is but yet this world bespots us not because 't is his who cannot behold much lesse could make any unclean thing We must therefore search out another world and you need not travell far 1 ep 2.16 for you may stay at home and finde it in your selves S. John hath made the discovery for you in his first Epistle where he draws the map of it and divides it to our hands into three provinces or parts the first the lust of the flesh where unlawfull pleasures sport themselves secondly the lust of the eyes where covetousnesse builds her an house thirdly and the pride of life which whets a sword for the Revenger erects a throne for the Ambitious raiseth up a triumphant Arch for the vain-glorious this is the world saith S. John even a world of wickednesse this inverteth the whole course of Nature makes the wheel of the Creation move disorderly this world within us makes that world without us an enemy makes beauty deceitfull wine a mocker riches a snare works that into sinne out of which we might have made a key to open the gates of Heaven drops its poyson under every leaf upon every object and by its mixture with the world ingenders that serpent which spets the poyson back again upon us and not onely bespots James 1.15 and defiles but stings us to death for when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sinne and when sinne is finished it defiles a man and leave those spots behinde it which deface him and gives him a thousand severall shapes the Schools call it maculam peccati the blot and stain of sinne which is of no positive reality but a deprivation and defect of beauty in the soul and varies as shadows do according to the diversity of those bodies that cast it We see then that there is a world within us as well as without us and when these two are in conjunction when our lust joyns it self to the things of this world as the prodigall is said to do to a master in a farr countrey then follows pollution and deformity and as many spots as there be sins which are as many as the hairs of our head Beauty brings in deformity riches poverty plenty brings leanness into the soul and therefore to conclude this to keep our hearts with diligence and to keep our selves unspotted of the world is a main and principall part of our Religion and will keep us members of Christ and parts of the Church when prophanenesse and coverousnesse which is Idolatry shall have laid her discipline her honor in the dust A man of tender bowels and a pure heart is as the Church and the gates of hell cannot prevail against him By this we imitate that God we worship we draw neer unto him as neer as flesh and mortality will permit our escaping the spots and pollutions of this world makes us followers of that God who marks every spot we have and is not touched sees us in our blood and pollution and is not defiled beholds all the wickednesse in the world and yet remains the same for ever even goodnesse and purity it self this makes us partakers as Saint Peter speaks of the Divine nature in a word 2 Pet. 1.4 to be in the world and tread it under our feet to be in Sodom and to be a Lot on the hills of the robbers and do no wrong to be in the midst of snares and not be taken to be in Paradise Import and see the Apple pleasant to the sight to be compast about with glorious objects of delight and pleasures and not to Taste or Touch or Handle is the neerest assimilation that Dust and Ashes that mortall man can have to his Creator I may well then call these two the Essentiall parts of Religion Antigoni Imaginem â—…otegenes obliquam fecit ut quod corpore deerat picturae potius deesse videretur tantumque eam partem oslendit quam toram poterat ostendere Plin. Nat. Hist l. 35. c. 11. of which as you have taken a short severall view so be pleased to observe also their mutuall dependance and necessary connexion for if either be wanting you spoil the whole peece for neither will my charity to my brother entitle me to Religion if I be an enemy to my self nor my abstaining from evil Canonize me a saint if my goodnesse be not diffusive on others and if we draw out in our selves the picture of Religion but with one of these we do but like the painter who to flatter Antigonus because he had but one eye Drew but the half face For first to visit the Fatherlesse and widdows i. e. to be plenteous in good works ista sunt quasi incunabula pietatis saith Gregory Augustin these are the very beginings and nurcery of the love of God and there is no surer and readier step to the love of God whom we have not seen then by the love of our Brethren whom we see Gregor Tunc ad alta charitas mirabiliter surgit cum ad ima proximorum se misericorditer attrahit Then our charity begins to improve itself
and power from him from his promises and from his precepts from his life and from his passion and death from what he did and from what he suffered as there did to the woman which touched the hem of his garment that healed her bloody issue a power by which he sweetly and secretly and powerfully characterizeth our hearts and writes his minde in our minds and so takes possession of them and draws them into him self in the eighth to the Rom. 11. v. the Apostle tells us he dwelleth in us by his spirit and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life in the second to the Ephes the last v. we are said to be the habitation of God through the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his tabernacle his temple which he consecrates and sets apart to his own use and service there is no doubt a power comes from him but I am almost afraid to say it there having been such ill use made of it For though it become already for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation yet is it still expected expected indeed rather then hoped for for when it doth come we shut the door and set up our will against it and then look faintly after it and perswade our selves it will come at last once for all There is power in his preceâ—ts for our reason subscribes and signes them for true there is power in his promises they shine in glory Rom. 1.16 these are the power of Christ to every one that beleeveth and how can we be Christians if we beleeve not but this is his ordinary power which like the Sun in commune profertur is shewn on all at once There yet goes a more immediate power and virtue from him John 3. â— we denie it not which like the winde works wonderful effects but we see not whence it cometh nor whither it goes neither the beginning nor the end of it which is in another World For the operations of the spirit by reason they are of another condition then any other thought or working in us whatsoever are very difficult and obscure as Scotus observes upon the prologue to the sentences for the manner not to be perceived no not by that soul wherein they are wrought profuisse deprehendas quomodo prefuerunt non deprehendes as Seneca in another case that they have wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which they wrought are impossible to be brought to demonstration But though we cannot discerne the maner of his working yet we may observe that in his actions and operations on the soul of man he holds the course even of natural agents in this respect that they strive to bring in their similitude and likenesse into those things on which they work by a kinde of force driving out one contrary with another to make way for their own form so Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac Jacob and every creature according to its own kinde as Plato said of Sacrates wise sayings that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of his minde so resembling him that you might see all Socrates in them So it is with Christ where he dwells he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself he alters the whole frame of the heart 2 Cor. 10. drives out all that is contrary to him all imaginations which axalt themselves against him never leaves purging and fashioning us Cal. 4. till a new creature like himself till Christ be fully formed in us So it is with every one in whom Christ dwelleth And this he doth by the power of his spirit 1. By quickning our knowledge by shewing us the riches of his Gospel his Beauty and Majesty the glory and order of his house and that with that convincing evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship by filling our soul with the glory of it as God filled the tabernacle with his Exod. 40. that all the powers and saculties of the soul are ravisnt with the sight and come willingly as the Psalmist speaks fall down willingly before him by moving our soul as our soul doth our body that when he sayes go we go and when he sayes do this we do it and so it is in every one in whom Christ dwelleth Secondly he dwells in us by quickning and enlivening our faith so dwells in our hearts by faith Eph. 3.17 that we are rooted and grounded in love for we read of a dead faith Jâ—m 2.20 which moves no more in the wayes of righteousnesse then a dead man sealed up in his grave and if the Son of man should come he would finde enough of this faith in the World For from hence from this that our faith is not enlivened that the Gospel is not throughly beleeved but faintly received cam formidine contrarit with fear or rather a hope that the contrary is true from hence proceed all the errours of our lives from hence ariseth that irregularity those contradictions those inconsequences in the lives of men even from hence that we have faith but so as we should have the World we have it as if we had it not and so use it as if we used it not or which is worse abuse it not beleeve and be saved but beleeve and be damned and we are vain men saith Saint James if we think otherwise if we think that a dead faith can work any thing or any thing but death but when it is quickned and made a working faith when Christ dwells in our hearts by faith then it works wonders Heb. 11.33 2 Cor. 2,11 for we read of its valour that it subdues kingdoms and stoppeth the mouthes of Lions we read of its policy that it discovers the devils enterprises or devices of its medicinal vertue that it purifieth the heart and we read too furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of faith stealing virtue from Christ and taking Heaven by violence and such a wonderful power it hath in that soul in which Christ dwelleth it worketh out our corruption and stampeth his image upon us it worketh obedience in us which is called the obedience of faith that is that obedience Rom. 1.5 which is due to faith and to which faith naturally tendeth and would bring us to it if we did not dull and dead and hinder it And 1. he worketh in us a universal and equal obedience for if he dwell in us every room is his For there are saith Parisiensis particulares voluntates particular wills or rather particular inclinations and dispositions to this virtue and not to another to be liberal and not temperate sober but not chasT to fast and hear and pray but not to do acts of mercy which are virtues but in appearance and proceed from rotten unsound principles from a false spring but not from Christ and so make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite a good speaker and a bad live a Jew and a Christian Deus in
so instead of a Church have set upoan Idol as great an Idol as they have made the Virgin Mary For the one as well as the other must go for a mother of mercy And do we not with grief behold it so in other factions though as distant from this as the East is from the West do they not meet in this to count all goats that are not within their fold to leave no way to happinesse but in their company do not they look upon their condition as most deplorable who do not cast in their lots with them who are not of the same collection and discipline of their fraternity which they call the Church of Christ why should men thus flatter themselves t is not our joyning to this particular Church or that new fancied and new gathered Congregation but our dwelling in Christ our eating his flesh and drinking his blood our feeding on and digesting his Doctrine and Growing thereby can make us Christians and as an unnecessary separating my self from so an uncharitable and supercilious uniting my self with this or that Congregation may endanger my estate and title in Christ and my dwelling in the one if I take not heed may dispossesse me of the other For I conceive there is no policy no discipline so essential to the Church as piety as our obedience to Christ Suppose I were in a wildernesse did my soul lie as David speaks amongst Lions yet might I dwell in Christ be the government and outward policy what it will nay be there but a slender appearance of any yet might I dwell in Christ nay did persecution seal up the Church doors and leave no power to censure inordinate livers were there no more left then a dic fratri tell it to thy brother between thee and him yet could I dwell in Christ else why was their faith commended who wandered up and down in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins in Deserts and Mountains in Dens and Caves of the earth but then Heb. 11. if we dwell not in Christ if we do not love him and keep his Commandements I cannot see what Church what Congregation can be a Sanctuary to shelter us and our crying the Church the Church will be but as the Jews crying the Temple the Temple of the Lord but as the sound of brasse or tinkling of a Cymbal a sad knell and fearful signe and indication of men departed from Christ and cast out of doors being dead in their sins Oh then let us take heed as the Apostle exhorts that no root of bitternesse spring up to trouble us and thereby to trouble corrupt Heb. 12.15 and defile many that we blesse not our selves in our hearts and say we shall have peace when we walk in these unpeaceable imaginations call that Religion which is indeed sensuality for when one sayes I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos 1 Cor. 2.4 when one sayes I am of this Congregation and another I am of that are yet not carnal and we may observe he doth not say when one is or when one thinketh he is but when he sayes that he is when he is so pleased and delighted in it so rests upon it that he must vent and preach and publish it to the prejudice and censure of others then when they thus say it are they not carnal Do they not please themselves and commit folly in their own souls where Pride mixeth and ingendereth with covetousnesse and worldly respects and begets malice debate envy backbiting persecution let us then take heed of this of this root of bitternesse that beareth gall and worm-wood and let us watch over our selves that we embrace not a name for a thing a Company for a Church our humour and fancy for Christ and that we do not so joyn our selves with others that we lose our hold and place in Christ And therefore in the last place let us make a strickt survey let us impartially commune with our own hearts and see how we have held up the relation between Christ and us whether we can truely say we are his people and he is our God this added to the rest makes up a number an account without this our joyning with such a body such a company nay our appearing in his Courts our naming him and calling upon his name are but cyphers and signifie nothing t is not the Church but the spirit of Christ and our own consciences which can witnesse to us that we are inhabitants of the new Jerusalem and dwell in Christ we read in the 45. of Gen. that when Jacob had news that his son Joseph lived his heart fainted for he beleeved them not but at the sight of the chariots which Joseph sent to carry him his spirit revived so it is here when we shall be told or tell our selves for our selves are the likeliest to bring the news that we have been of such a Church of such a Congregation and applaud our selves for such a poor and unsignificant information blesse our selves that the lines are fallen unto us in so goodly a place when we shall have well looked upon and examined all the priviledges and benefits we can gain by being parts of such a body all this will not assure us nor fix our anchor deep enough but will leave us to be tossed up and down upon the waves of uncertainty will leave us fainting and panting under doubt and unbelief For to recollect all in a word Our admiring his Majesty our loving his command our relying on his protection and resting under the shadow of his wing Again our ense and feeling of the operation of the spirit of Christ by the practick efficacy of our knowledge the actuation and quickning of our faith and the power of it working a universal constant sincere obedience these are the chariots which Christ sends to carry us out of Egypt unto our celestial Canaan and when we feel these and by a sweet and well gained experience feel the power of them in our souls then we draw neer in full assurance then we shall joy fully cry out with Jacob it is enough then we shall know that our Joseph is alive and that Christ doth dwell and live in us of a truth And now to conclude Concl. and by way of conclusion to enforce all these to imprint and fasten them in your hearts what other motive need I use then the thing it self Christ in man and man in Christ for if honour or delight or riches will move us here they are all not as the world giveth them but as truth it self giveth them a sight into which the Angels themselves did stoop and desire to look into To be in Christ to dwell in Christ if a man did perfectly beleeve it of himself that he were the man non diusuperstes maneret said Luther he would even be swallowed up and die of immoderate joy Here now is life and death set before us Heaven and Hell opened to our very eye
〈◊〉 a reason invincible unanswerable For this very expostulation is an Evidence faire and plaine enough that he would not have us die and then 't is as plaine That if we die we have killed and destroyed our selves against his will Of these two then in their order and first of the exhortation and Duty in which we shall passe by these steps or degrees 1. Look up upon the Author consider whose exhortation it is 2ly The Duty itself and in the last place pugnacem calorem that lively and forcible heat of Iteration and Ingemination Convertimini Convertimini Turne ye Turne ye the very life and soul of Exhortation Turne ye Turne ye saith the Lord. And first we aske Quis who is he that is thus urgent and earnest and as we read it is Ezekiel the Prophet and of Prophets Saint Peter tells us that they spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 1.21 as they were moved by the Spirit of God and they received the word non auribus sed animis not by the hearing of the eare but by inspiration and immediate Revelation by a divine Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Isai vis 1. and impression made in their soules so that this Exhortation to Repentance will prove to be an Oracle from Heaven to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be a Divine and Celestiall remedy to be the prescript of Wisedome it self and to have been written with the finger of God And indeed we shal find that this duty of Turning the true nature of Repentance was never taught in the School of Nature never found in its true effigies and Image in all its lines and Dimensions in the books of the Heathen The Aristotelians had their Expiations the Platonicks their purgations The Pithagoreans their Erinnys but not in relation to God or his Divine Goodnesse and Providence Tert. de poenit Et à ratione ejus tantum absuit quantum à rationus autore and were as farre to seek of the true reason and Nature of Repentance as they were of the God of reason himself many usefull lessons they have given us and some imperfect descriptions of it but those did rise no higher then the spring from whence they did flow from the Treasure of Nature and therefore could not lift them up to the sight of that peace and rest which is eternall They were as waters to refresh them and they that tasted deepest of them had most ease and by living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the directions of Nature gain'd that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Peace and composedness of minde which they call'd their Happinesse and was all they could attain to Tully and Cato had not such divided distracted souls as Cataline and Cethegus Seneca and hadnot those ictus laniatus Aristot l. 1. Eth. c. 13. those Gashes and Rents in his heart as Nero had even their Dreames were more sweet and pleasant then those of other men as being the resultancies and Eccho's of those virtuous Actions which they drew out in themselves by no other hand then that of Nature which lookt not beyond that frailty which she might easily discover in her self and so measur'd out their happinesse but by the Span by this present life or if she did see a glimpse and faint shew of a future estate she did but see and guesse at it and knew no more Reason it self did Teach them thus much that sin was unreasonable Tert. de poenit Nature it self had set a mark upon it omne malum aut timore aut pudore suffudit had either struck vice pale or died it in a blush did either loose their joynts or change their Countenance and put them in mind of their deviation from her rules by the shame of the fact and the feare they had to be taken in it which two made up that fraenum naturae that bridle of Nature to give them a checque and Turne but not unto the Lord. For were there ther Heaven nor Hell neither reward nor punishment yet whilst we carry about with us this ligh tof Reason sinne must needs have a soule face being so unlike unto Reason and if we would suffer her to come in to rescue when our loose affections are so violent we should not receive so many foiles as we doe a naturâ sequitur ut meliora probantes Quint. l. 6. c. 6. peiorum poeniteat Not to sinne to forsake sinne Nature it self teacheth but Nature never pointed out to this board this planck of Repentance to bring a shipwrackt soul to that haven of rest which is like it self and for which it was made Immortall Turne ye turne ye is dictum Domini a Doctrine which came down from Heaven and was brought down from thence by him who brought life and Immortality to light For it was impossible that it should ever have fallen within the conceit of any reasonable creature to set down and determine what satisfaction was to be made for an offence committed against a God of Infinite Majesty what fit recompence could God receive from the hand of Dust and Ashes what way could they find out to redeem themselves who were sold under sinne Ten thousand Worlds were too little to pay downe for the least of those sinnes which we drink down as an Oxe doth water The Occan would not wash off the least spot that defiles us all the beasts of the Mountains will not make a sacrifice spiritus fractus sacrificia Dei Psal 51. Naz Or. 3. other Sacrifices have been the Inventions of men of the Chaldeans and Cyprians and but occasionally and upon a kind of Necessity providently enjoyn'd by God but a relenting Turning Heart Naz. Or. 15. is his Sacrifice nay his Sacrifices instar omnium worth all the Sacrifices in the world his owne Invention his own Injunction his owne dictum his own command 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath but one Sacrifice and that is the sacrifice of purgation a clensed purged Contrite heart a new Creature For when the Inventions of men were at a stand when discourse and reason were posed and cold make no progresse at all in the wayes of Happinesse not so farre as to see our want and need of it when the Earth was barren and could not bring forth this feed of Repentance Deus eam sevit saith Tert. Lib. de poenit God himself sow'd it in the world made it publici juris known to all the world That he would accept of a Turne of true Repentance as the onely means to wash away the guilt of sinne and reconcile the Creature to his Maker so that as Theodoret called the Redemption of mankind the fairest and most eminent part of Gods Providence and Wisdome so may we too give Repentance a Place and share as without which the former in respect of any benefit which can arise to us is frust rate of no effect Quod fieri posse Cicero non putavit
musick in the world will not ease us of and though we set up bulwarkes against it compasse our selves about with variety of Delights and fence our selves in with Honor and Power which we make the weapons of unrighteousnesse yet it will at one time or other make its sallyes and Eruptions and Disturb our Peace God hath placed it in us as he fixed the Vrim and Thummim on the breast-plate of judgement Exod. 28.30 by which he might give answer unto us what we are to doe what not to doe what we have done well and what amisse as he did to the Priest who by viewing his Breast-plate saw whether the people might goe up Esr 2.63 Nehem. 7.15 Psal 19.12 Levit. 4.2 Heb. 9.7 or not goe up but when we have once defiled our Conscience we care not much for looking towards it and we lose the use of it in our slavery under sinne as they lost the use of their Vrim and Thummim at the Captivity of Babylon But then who knoweth how oft he offends who knowes his unadvised errors his inconsiderate sinnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his ignorances those which he entertaines as the Septuagint renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unwillingly which steale in upon him at unawares even whilst he is busy in subduing others as we see one part of an Army may be surprized and fly whilst the other Conquers For the best of men through the frailty and mutability of their Nature may receive many such blowes and feel them not and it fares with us in the course of our life as it doth with Travellers in their way many Objects many sinnes we passe by and not so much as cast an eye that way which yet in themselves are visible enough and may be seen as well as those we look upon with some Care and sometimes with astonishment and yet even these secret and retired sinnes are knowne and condemned both by our Feare and Hatred we know such there be though we know not what they are nor can call them by their Name and our begging Pardon for them is our defyance of them and declares not onely our sorrow for them but our Anger against them breathes Revenge though we know them not and shewes how roughly and disdainfully we should handle them if we did 2. Grief for sinne 2. The Knowledge then of our sinnes is a thing presupposed in our Turne and so in the next place is the grief and sorrow which ordinarily doth arise from such a Convincement for some displacency it will worke though not of strength enough to move us or drive us from that which we make a Paradice but is our Tophet and Turne us to imbrace that condition and estate which at first presents the horror of a Prison but is a Sanctuary Now Grief is not sub praecepto Quint. decl 185. under any command nor indeed can it be medicamenta mandata non accipiunt you may prescribe Physick but you give it not with a command nor can you say thus it shall worke you may exhort me to look about me and consider my estate but you cannot bid me grieve when we wish men to Feare or Hope to be sad or merry we speake improperly and ineffectually unless our meaning be they should enter into those considerations which may strike a Feare or raise a Hope worke a sorrow or beget a joy the Apostle preacheth to the Jewes Act. 2. puts his goad to their sides Acts 2.37,38 and the Text saies They were pricked in their Hearts and it follows Then Peter said unto them Repent his words were sharpe and did prick them at the heart but they were no commands the command is Repent and be baptized what a Sea of words may flow and yet not a drop sall from our eye what fearfull Prognosticks may we see what mournfull Threnodies may we heare and yet not be cast downe or change the countenance nay what penance may we undergoe and yet not Grieve For Grief followes the Apprehension and knowledge the Object and riseth and falleth with it vary's as that vary's if our apprehension be cleare our sorrow will be great if that be pure this will be syncere if it be inward this will be Deep but if it be superficiall this will be but in the Face if it be flitting and unsetled this will vanish at the sight of the next object which presents it self with less distaste vanish like the lightning which is seen and gone Psal 38.4 Sin is a heavy burden saith David it is so when 't is felt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hard to be borne Moles saith Austin of a great bulk and weight and it is not a sigh or a groane a forc'd displacency it is not such weak faint Heaves of the Sonle that can remove such a Mountain we see some who mourne like a Dove and chatter like a Crane when the hand of God toucheth them for their sinne who speake mournfully look mournfully goe mournfully all the day long who are cast down you would think indeed to the lowest pitt and 't is easy to mistake a Pharisee for a Poenitentiary we read of some who did afflict and Pennance themselves with so much severity That they fell in morbum poenitentialem as Rhenanus observes upon Tertull. into a strange distemper which they called the poenitentiary Disease because it was contracted in the daies of Penance but all this doth not make up the full face of Repentance nor compleat our Turne For we may hang down our head like a Bullrush we may fast till we have more need of a Physitian then a Divine and yet too much need of both we may even seem to be afraid of our selves to be weary of our selves to run out of our selves and yet not Turne For these may be rather apparitions then motions Fasting Lamentation and that displacency which sin carries naturally along with it are glorious expressions and probable symptomes of a wounded Spirit but yet many times they are nothing else but the Types and shadows of Repentance many times signa non signantia signes indeed but such as signifie nothing Qui peccata deplorat ploranda minimè committat saith Gregoory he truly bewailes his sin who doth no longer practice what he will be forced to bewaile he gives a perfect account of his debts who is resolved never to add to the Bills he Truly Turnes who will never look back Haec poenitentiae vox est lachrymis orare saith Hilar. Teares and Complaints are the voice and language of Repentance Hil. in Ps 11 S. and if you see a Turne you see a Change also in the Countenance but many Times Vox est praetereà nihil It is the voice of REPENTANCE and nothing else For sorrow and Dejection of minde have not alwaies the same beginnings nor doe our Teares constantly flow from the same Spring and Fountaine Omnis Dolor Fundatur in amore saith the Schools all Grief is grounded on
this Great Deep and will not cry out he that knows what he is and will be what he is knows he is miserable and desires not a change is neere to the condition of the Damned spirits who howle for the want of that light which they have lost and detest and Blaspheme that most which they cannot have who because they can never be Happy can never desire it But to this condition we cannot be brought till we are brought under the same punishment which neverthelesse is represented to us in this life in the sad thoughts of our Heart in the Horror of sinne and in a Troubled Conscience that so we may avoid it The Type we see now and to this end that we may never see the Thing it self and the sight of this if we remove not our eye at the call and enticement of the next approaching vanity which may please at first but in the end will place before us as foule an Object as that which we now look upon will worke in us a Desire to have that removed which is now as a Thorn in our eyes a desire to have Gods Hand taken off from us and that those sinnes too may be taken away which made his Hand so heavy a desire to be freed from the guilt and a desire to be freed from the Dominion of sinne a Desire that reacheth at Liberty and at Heaven it self Eruditi vivere est cogitare saith Tully Tusc q. l. 5. Meditation is the life of a Schollar for if the minde leave off to move and work and be in agitation the man indeed may live but the Philosopher is dead and vita Christiani sanctum Desiderium saith Hierom the life of a Christian is nothing else but a holy desire drawne out and spent in Prayers Deprecations Wishes Obtestations in Pantings and longings held up and continued by the heat and vigor and the endlesse unsatisfyednesse of desire which if it slack or fayl or end in an indifferency or Luke-warmness leaves nothing behind it but a lump a masse of Corruption for with it the life is gone the Christian is departed 5. Endeavour 5. But in the last place This is not enough nor will it draw us neere enough unto a Turne there is required as a true witnesse of this our convincement and sorrow of the Heartinesse of our confession and the Truth of our desire a serious endavour an eager contention with our selves an assiduous violence against those sinnes which have brought us so low to the dust of Death and the House of the Grave and endeavour to order our steps to walk contrary to our selves to make a Covenant with our eye to purge our eare to cut off our hand and to keep our Feet to forbeare every Act which carries with it but the appearance of evill to cut off every occasion which may prompt us to it an Endeavour to work in the Vineyard to exercise our selves in the workes of Piety to love the faire opportunities of doing good and lay hold on them to be ambitious and Inquisitive after all those Helps and advantages which may promote this endeavour and bring it with more ease and certainty unto the end And this is as the heaving and strugling of a man under a Burden as the striving in a Snare as the Throwes of a Woman in Travail who longs to be delivered this is as our knocking at the Gates of Heaven as our flight from the wrath to come Thus doe we strive and fight with all those defects which either nature began or custome hath confirmed in us thus do we by degrees work that happy change that we are not the same but other men Val. Max. l. 8. c. 7. as the Historian speaks of Demosthenes whose studiousnesse and Industry overcame the malignity of Nature and unloos'd his tongue alterum Demosthenem mater alterum industria enixa est The mother brought forth one Demosthenes and Industry another so by this our serious and unfeigned Endeavour eluctamur per obstantia we force our selves out of those obstacles and encumberances which detain'd us so long in evill waies we make our way through the Clouds and darknesse of this world and are compassed about with raies of light Nature made us men evill Custome made us like the Beasts that perish and grace and Repentance make us Christians and consecrates us to Eternity The Turne it selfe Or True Repentance All these are in our Turne in our Repentance but all these doe not compleat and perfect it For I am not Turn'd from my evill wayes till I walk in good I have not shaken off one Habit till I have gain'd the contrary I am not truely Turn'd from one point till I have recovered the other have not forsaken Babylon till I dwell in Jerusalem for Turne ye from your evill Wayes in the holy language is Turne unto me with all your heart worke out one Habit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist 2. Ethic. c. 1. with another let your Actions now controll and demolish those which you built up so fast that which set them up will pull them downe perseverance and assiduity in Action The liberall Hand casts away our Almes and our Covetousness together The often putting our knife to our throat destroyes our Intemperance The often disciplining our Flesh crucifies our Lusts our acts of mercy proscribe Cruelty our making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven stones the Adulterer our walking in the light is our Turne from Darknesse our going about and doing good is our voluntary Exile and Flight out of the World and the Pollutions thereof Then wee are Spirituall when we walke after the Spirit and when wee thus walke wee are Turn'd I know Repentance in the Writings of Divines is drawne out and commended to us under more notions and considerations then one It is taken for those preparatory Acts which fitt and qualify us for the Kingdome and Gospel of Christ Repent for the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand Matth. 3.2 it is taken for that change in which we are sorry for our sinne and desire and purpose to leave it which serves to usher in Faith and Obedience but I take it in its most generall and largest acception for the leaving one state and Condition and a constant cleaving to the contrary for the getting our selves of every evill Habit and investing our selves with those which are good or to speak with our Prophet for Turning away from wickednesse Ezek. 18.27 and doing that which is Lawfull and right for casting away all our Transgressions and making us new Hearts and new Spirits I am sure this one Syllable Turne will take in and comprehend it all for what is all our preparation if when we come neere to Christ we stand back what are the beginnings of obedience if we revolt what is the bend or Turne of our Initiation if we Turn aside like a deceitfull Bow what 's out sorrow if it do but bow the head
built up his assurance as strong as he can yet thinks himself not sure enough but seeks for further assurance and fortify's it with his Feare and assiduous diligence that it may stand fast for ever whereas we see too many draw out their owne Assurance and seale it up with unclean Hands with wicked hands with hands full of Blood We have read of some in the dayes of our Fore-fathers and have heard of others in our own and no doubt many there have been of whom we never heard whose Conversation was such as became the Gospel of Christ and yet have felt that hell within themselves which they could not discover to others but by gastly looks Out-cryes and deep Groanes and loud complaints to them who were neere them That Hell it self could not be worse nor had more Torments then they felt And these may seem to be breath'd forth not from a broken but a perishing heart to be the very Dialect of Despaire and indeed so they are for Despaire in the worst acception cannot sink us lower then hell But yet we cannot we may not be of their opinion and think what they say that they are cast out of Gods sight No God sees them looks upon them with an Eye full of compassion and most times sends an Angel to them in this their Agony as he did unto Christ a message of Comfort to rowse them up but if their tendernesse should yet raise doubts and draw the cloud still over them we have reason to think and who dares say the contrary that the hand of Mercy may even through this cloud receive them to that Sabbath and rest which remaines for the people of God I speak of men who have been severe to themselves and watchfull in this their Warfare full of good works and continued in them and who have many times when they were even at the gates of heaven and neere unto happinesse these Terrors and affrightments who are full of Charity and therefore cannot be destitute of hope although their owne sad apprehensions and the breathings of a Tender Conscience have made the operation of it lesse sensible and their hope be not like Aarons rod cut off dryed up and utterly dead but rather like a tree in Winter in which there is life and faculty yet the absence of the Sun or the cold benumming it suffers no force of life to worke but when that draws neere and yeelds its warmth and Influence it will bud and blossome and bring forth fruit and leafe together The Case then of every man that Despaires is not desperate but we must consider dispair in its Causes which produce and work it If it be exhal'd and drawn up out of our corrupt works and a polluted Conscience the streame of it is poysonous and deleteriall the very smoake of the bottomlesse pit but if it proceed from the distemper of the body which seises upon one as well as another or a weakness of Judgement which befalls many who may be weak and yet Pious or an excessive sollicitude and tendernesse of soul which is not so common we cannot think it can have that force and malignity as to pull him back who is now thus striving to enter in at the narrow gate or to cut him off from salvation who hath wrought it out with Feare and trembling At the Day of Judgement the Question will be not what was our Opinion and conceit of our selves but what our conversation was and what we thought of our Estate but what we did to raise it not of our fancied application of the Promises but whether we have performed the Condition For then the Promises will apply themselves God hath promised and he will make it good we shall not be askt what we thought but what we did for how many have thought themselves sure who never came to the knowledge of their Error till it was too late How many have called themselves Saints who have now their portion with Hypocrites How many have fancied themselves into Heaven whose wilfull disobedience carried them another way on the other side how many have beleeved and yet doubted how many have been synceere in the wayes of Righteousnesse and yet drooped How many have fainted even in their Savours Armes when his Mercies did compassed them in on every side how many have been in he greatest Agony when they were neerest to their Exaltation How many have condemned themselves to hell who now sit crowned in the highest Heavens I know nothing by my self 2 Cor. 4.4 saith Saint Paul yet am not thereby Justified Hoc dicit Dialogo adv Pelagium ne forte quid per ignorantiam deliquisset saith Saint Hierom though he knew nothing yet something he might have done amisse which he did not know and though our Conscience accuse us not of greater crimes yet our Conscience may tell us we may have committed many sins of which she could give us no Information and this may cast a mist about him who walketh as in the Day In a word a man may doubt and yet be saved and a man may assure himself and yer perish a man may have a groundless Hope and a man may have a groundlesse Feare and when we see two thus contrarily Elemented the one drooping the other cheerfull the one rejoycing in the Lord whom he offends the other trembling before him whom he loves we may be ready to pitty the one and blesse the Condition of the other cast away the Elect and chuse the Reprobate and therefore we must not be too rash to Judge but leave the Judgement to him who is Judge both of the quick and dead and will neither condemne the Innocent for his Feare or justifie the man that goes on in his sinne for his Assurance Take Comfort then thou disconsolate soule which art strucken down into the place of Draggons and art in this terror and anguish of heart This feare to thine is but a cloud and it will drop down and distill in Blessings upon thy head This Agony will bring down an Angel This sorrow will be turned into joy and this Doubt answered this despaire vanish that Hope may take its proper place againe the Heart of a poenitent Thy Feare is better then other mens confidence thy anxiety more Comsortable then their security Thy doubting more favoured then their assurance Timor tuus securitas tua thy feare of Death will end in the firme expectation of Eternall life Though thou art tost on a Tumultuous Sea thy Mast spent and thy Tackling torne yet thou shalt at last strike in to shore when these proud Saylors shall shipwrack in a Calme Misinterpret not this thy dejection of Spirit thy sad and pensive Thoughts nor seek too suddenly to remove them an afflicted Conscience in the time of health is the most hopefull and Soveraigne Physick that is thy feare of Death is a certaine Symptome and infallible signe of life there is no Horror of the Grave to him that lies
take that for a Turne which he hath not declared to be so and doe that which he hath threatned he will not doe but 't is ill depending upon what God may doe for for ought that is revealed he will never doe it never doe it to him who presumes he will because he may and so puts off his Turne his Repentance to the last leaves the ordinary way and trusts to what God may doe out of Course never doe it to a man of Belial who runs on in his sinnes yet looks for such a Charriot to carry him into Heaven We have no such Doctrine nor the Church of Christ Her voice is Turne ye now at Last will be too late This is the Doctrine of the Gospel but yet the Judgement is the Lords And all this we have heard and we cannot gaine-say or confute it and shall we yet delay Certainly if we know these Terrors of the Lord and not Turne now we shall hardly ever Turne If we heare and beleeve this and doe not repent we are worse then Infidells our Faith shall helpe the Devill to accuse us and it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha then for us If we heare this and still fold our hands to sleep still Delay if this noise will not stirr and move us if this doe not startle us in our evill wayes we have good reason to feare we shall never awake till the last Trump till that day till the last Day which is a Day of Judgement as this our day is of Repentance We say we beleeve it that now heaven is offered and now we must strive to enter in we say we pray for it we hope for it we long for it if we do Then Now is the Time Festina fides Alacris Devotio spes impigra Amb. Epist c. 10. Ep. 82. saith Saint Ambrose Faith is on the wing and carries us along with the speed of a Thought through all difficulties through all distasts and affrightments and will not let us stay one moment in the house of vanity in any slippery place where we may fall and perish Devotion is full of Heat and Activity and Hope that is deferr'd is an Affliction If we are lead by the Spirit of God Devotio est actualis voluntas prompte faciendi quae ad Dei cultum spectant Aquin. 22. q. 82. Art 1. we are lead apace drawne suddenly out of those wayes which lead unto death we are called upon to escape for our lives and not to look behind us and as it was said of Cyprian we are at our journeys end as soon as we fet out God speakes and we heare he begins good thoughts in us and we nourish them to that strength that they break forth into Action he poures forth his Grace Praeproperâ velocitate pietatis paene ante coepit persectus esse quam disceret Pontius Draconus de Cypriani vitâ and we receive it he makes his benefits his lure and we come to his hand he thunders from heaven and we fall down before him In brief Repentance is as our Passeover and by it we sacrifice our heart and we doe it in the Bitternesse of our Soul and we do it in hast and so passe from Death to Life from darknesse to Light from our evill wayes to the Obedince of Faith and God passeth over us sees the blood our wounded Spirits our Teares our Contrition and will not now destroy us but feeing us so soon so farre removed from our Evill wayes will favour us and shine upon us and in the light of his Countenance we shall walke on from strength to strength through all the hardship and Troubles of a continued Race to that Rest and Peace which is Everlasting Thus much of the first property of Repentance it must be matura Conversio a speedy and a present Turne Festina haerentis in Salo naviculae funem magis praecide quam solve Hier. Paulino THE EIGHTH SERMON PART IIII. EZEKIEL 33.11 Turne ye Turne ye from your evill ways For why c. TO stand out with God and contend with him all our life long to try the utmost of his patience and then in our Evening in the shutting up of our Dayes to bow before him is not to Turne nor have we any reason to conceive any Hope that a faint Confession or sigh should deliver him up to Eternity of Bliss whom the swinge of his lusts and a multiplyed continued disobedience have carryed along without checque or controul to his chamber and Bed and the very mouth of the Grave who have delighted themselves in evill till they can do no good Delay if it ben ot fatall to all for we dare not give Lawes to Gods Mercy yet we have just reason to feare it is so to those that trust to it and runne on in their Evill wayes till the hand of justice is ready to cut their Thread of life and to set a period to that and their sinnes together Turn ye Turn ye that is now that it be not too late The second property or the Sincerity of our Turn This ingemination hath more heat in it not onely to hasten our motion and turn but to make it true and real and sincere For when God bids us turn he considers us not as upon a stage but in his Church where every thing must be done not acted where all is real not in shadow and representation where we must be Holy as he is Holy perfect as he is perfect true as he is true where we must behave our selves as in the House of God which is not pergula pidoris a Painters shop where all is in shew nothing in truth where not the Garments but the heart must be rent that as Christ our head was crucified indeed not in shew or in phantasme as Marcion would have it so we might present him a wounded soul a bleeding Repentance a flesth crucified and so joyn as it were with Christ in a real and sincere putting away and abolishing of sin God is truth it self True and faithfull in his promises if he speak he doth it if he command it shal stand fast and therefore hateth a feined forced wavering imaginary Repentance to come in a vizor or disguise before him is an abomination nor will he give true joy for feigned sorrow Heaven for a shadow nor everlasting happinesse for a counterfeit momentary turn Eternity for that which is not for that which is nothing For Repentance if it be not sincere is nothing The holy Father will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. or 19 that which is feigned is not lasting that which is forced failes and ends with that artificiall spring that turns it about as we see the wheels of a clock move not when the Plummet is on the ground because the beginning of that motion is ab extrà not from its internal Form but from some outward violence or Art without simplex recti cura multiplex pravi there is
and fault withall and a Feare which feares no punishment at all I know Aquinas puts a difference between servile feare and the servility of feare as if he would take the soul from Socrates and yet leave him a man Senec ep These are niceties more subtill then solid in quibus ludit animus magis quam proficit which may occasion discourse but not instruct our understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As neer as we can let us take things as they are in themselves and not as they are beat out and fashion'd by the work and business of our witts and then it will be plaine that though we be sonnes yet we may feare feare that Evill which the Father presents before us to fright us from it that we may make the feare of Death an Argument to Turne us and a strong motive to confirme us in the course of our Obedience that it is no servility to perform some part of Christs service upon those termes which he himself allows and hath prescribed to us Leet us call it by what name we please for indeed we have miscalled it and brought it in as slavish and servile and so branded the command of Christ himself yet we shall find it a blessed Instrument to safeguard and improve our Piety we shall find that the best way to escape the Judgements of God is to draw them neere even to our Eyes For Hell is a part of our Creed as well as Heaven his threatnings are as loud as his promises and could we once feare Hell as we should we should not feare it For I ask may we serve God sub intuitu mercedis with respect unto the reward it is agreed upon on all sides that we may for Moses had respect unto the recompence of the reward and Christ himself did look upon the Joy that was set before him Heb. 11.26 Heb. 12.2 why then not sub intuitu vindictae upopn the fear of punishment will God accept that service which is begun and wrought out by the virtue and influence of the reward and will he cast off that servant which had an eye upon his hand and observed him as a Lord why then hath God propounded both these both reward and punishment and bid us work on in his Vineyard with an eye on them both if we may not as well feare him when he threatens as run to meet him when he comes towards us and his reward with him let us then have recourse to his Mercy-seat but let us tremble also and fall downe before his Tribunal and behold his Glory and Majesty in both But it may be said and some have thought it their duty to say it that this belongs to the wicked to the Goates to feare but when Christ speaks to his Disciples to his Flock the language is Nolite timere feare not little flock Luke 12.32 for it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome 'T is true it is your Fathers will to give it you and you have no reason to feare or mistrust him but this doth not exclude the feare of the wrath of God nor the use of those meanes which the Father himself hath put into our hands not that Feare which may be one help and Advance towards that violence which must take it For our Saviour doth not argue thus It is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome Therefore persevere not for any fear of punishment but the Feare which Christ forbids is the Feare of distrustfulness when we feare as Peter did upon the Waters when he was ready to sinke and had therefore a check and Rebuke from our Saviour why fearest thou oh thou of little Faith so that fear not little Flock is nothing else but a disswasion from infidelity A Souldier that puts no Confidence in himself yet may in his Captaine if he be a Hannibal or a Caesar for an Army of Harts may conquer said Iphicrates if a Lion be the leader so though we may something doubt and mistrust because we may see much wanting to the perefection of our Actions yet we must raise our diffidence with this perswasion that the promise is most certaine and that the power of Heaven and Hell cannot infringe or null it We may mistrust our selves for of our selves we are Nothing but not the Promises of CHRIST for they are yea and Amen But they are ready to reply that the Apostle St. Paul is yet more plaine Rom. 8.15 where he tells us That we have not received the spirit of Bondage to feare again but the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father And it is most true that we have not received that Spirit for we are not under the Law but under Grace we are not Jews but Christians nor doe we feare againe as the Jews feared whose eye was upon the basket and the sword who were curb'd and restrain'd by the fear of present punishment and whose greatest motives to Obedience were drawn from Temporall respects and Interests who did feare the Plague Captivity the Philistim the Catterpillar ad Palmerworme and so did many times forbeare that which their lusts 2 Cor. 4.18 and irregular Appetites were ready to joyn with we have not received such a spirit for the Gospel directs our look not to those things which are seene but to those things which are not seen and shews us yet a more excellent way But we have received the Spirit of Adoption we are received into that Family where little care is taken for the meat that perisheth where the world is made an Enemy where we must leave the morrow to care for it self and work out our Salvation with feare and trembling where we must not feare what man but what God can doe unto us observe his hand as that hand which can raise us up as high as Heaven and throw us down to the lowest Pit love him as a Father and feare to offend him love and kisse the Sonne lest he be angry serve him without feare of any evill that can befall us here in our way of any Enemy that can hurt us and yet feare him as our Lord and King for in this his grant of liberty he did not let us loose against himself nor put off his Majesty that we should be so bold with him as not to serve but to disobey him without feare nor doth this cut off our Filiation our relation to him for a good sonne may feare the wrath of God and yet cry Abba Father But then againe we are told in Saint Iohn In caritate non est timor that there is no feare in love 1 John 4.18 but perfect love casteth out all feare and when he saith All feare he excepteth none no not the feare of punishment l. de fugâ in persecutione I know Tertullian Interpreting this Text makes this feare to be nothing else but that lazy Feare which is begot by a vain and unnecessary contemplation of Difficulties the feare of
People Crassum reddito cor populi hujus Make the heart of this people fatt and their eares Heavy lest they see with their Eyes and heare with their Eares and be converted Now to make their heart fatt and their eares heavy and to shut up their eyes is more then a bare permission is in a manner to destine and appoint them to Death most true if it can be proved out of this place that God did either But it is one thing to Prophesy a Thing shall be done and another to doe it Hector in Homer foretells Achilles Death and Herod the fall of Mezentius in Virgil and our Saviour the Destruction of Hierusalem but neither was Hectors Prophesy the cause of Achilles Death nor Herods of Mezentius nor our Saviour of the Destruction of Hierusalem vade dic Goe and tell them makes it a plame prediction what manner of men they would be to whom Christ was to speake stubborn and refractory and such as would harden their faces against the Truth If you will not take this Interpretation our Saviour is an Interpreter one of a Thousand nay one for all the world and tells the multitude that in them was fulfilled the Prophesy of Esay which saith By hearing you shall heare and not understand Matth. 13.14 for this Peoples heart is waxen fat and their eyes have they closed that they might not see And here if their eyes were shut it were fit one would Think they should be open'd True saith Chrysostome if they had been borne blinde or if this had been the immediate Act of God but because they wilfully shut their eyes he doth not say simply they do not see but seeing they do not see to shew what was the cause of their blindnesse even a perverse and froward heart they saw his Miracles they said he did them by Beelzebub He tells them that he is come to shew them the will of God they are peremptory and resolute that he is not of God and bring corrupt Judges against their own sight and understanding they were justly punisht with the losse of both For it is just that he should be blind that puts out his own eyes Yet was not this incrassation or blinding through any malevolent influence from God but this action is therefore attributed to God because whatsoever light he had afforded them whatsoever means he had offered them whatsoever he did for them was through their own fault and stubbornness of no more use to them then colours to a blinde man or as the Wise-man speaks a messe of Pottage on a Dead-mans Grave We might here Sylvam ingentem commovere meet with many other places of Scripture like to this but we will touch but one more and it is that which is so common in mens mouthes and at the first hearing conveighs to our understanding a shew and appearance of some positive act in God which is more then a bare permission For God tells Moses in plain termes Indurabo cor Pharaonis I will harden Pharaohs heart Exod. 7.3 And here I will not say with Garson aliud est litera aliud est literalis sensus that the letter is one thing and the litteral sense another Hil de Trin. l. 8. but rather with Hilary Optimus est lector qui dictorum in telligentiam ex dictis potius expectet quam imponat retulerit magis quam attulerit he is the best reader of Scripture who doth rather wait and expect what sense the words will beare then on the sudden rashly fasten what sense he please and carry away the meaning not bring one nor cry this must be the sense of the Scripture which his presumption formerly had set down Sure I am none of the Fathers which I have seen make this induration and hardning of Pharaohs heart a positive act of God not Saint Augustine himself who was more likely to look this way then any of the rest although he interprets this place of Scripture in divers places Augustin Feriâ 4 post 3. Dominic in Quadrages Pharaoh non potentiae sed patientiâ Dei indurabatur id Ser. 88. I will but mention one and it is in one of his Lent Sermons Quoties auditur cor Pharaonis Dominum obdurasse c. As often as it is read in the Church that God did harden Pharaohs heart some scruple presently ariseth not onely in the mindes of the ignorant Laity but of the Learned Clergy and for these very words the Manichees most Sacrilegiously condemned the old Testament and Marcion rather then he would yeeld that good and evil proceeded from the same God did run upon a grosser impiety and made another two principles one of good and another of evil But we may lay this saith he as a sure ground and an infallible Axiome Deus non deserit nisi prius deserentem God never forsakes any man till he first forsake God When we continue in sin when the multitude of our sins beget despair and despair obduration when we adde sin to sin and to make up the weight that sinks us when we are the worse for Gods mercy and the worse for his Judgements when his mercy hardens us and his light blindes us God then may be said to harden our hearts as a Father by way of upbrayding may tell his prodigal and Thristlesse son ego talem te feci t is my love and goodnesse hath occasioned this I have made thee so by sparing thee when I might have struck thee Dead I have nourished this thy pertinacy although all the Fathers love and indulgency was grounded upon a just hope and expectation of some change and alteration in his son Look upon every circumstance in the story of Pharaoh and we cannot finde one which was not as a Hammer to malleat and soften his stony heart nor do we read of any upon whom God did bestow so much paines His ten plagues were as ten Commandements to let the people go and had he relented at the first saith Chrysostom he had never felt a second so that it will plainly appear that the induration and hardning Pharaohs heart was not the cause but the effect of his malice and rebellion Magnam mansuetudinem contemptae gratiae major sequi solet ira vindictae for the contempt of Gods mercy and there is mercy even in his Judgements doth alwayes make way for that induration which calls down the wrath of God to revenge it We do not read that God decreed to harden Pharaohs heart but when Pharaoh was unwilling to bow when he was deaf to Gods Thunder and despised his Judgements and scorn'd his Miracles God determined to leave him to himself to set him up as an ensample of his wrath to work his Glory out of him to leave him to himself and his own lusts which he foresaw would lead him to ruine and destruction But if we will tie our selves to the letter we may finde these several expressions in several Texts 1. Pharaoh hardned his heart 2.
them For if the man be Ignorant if he will administer Physick he will kill if the man be ignorant if he will Preach he will also Prophesie lies If he be a Magistrate if he will Govern he will also shake the pillars of the Common-wealth If he be a Christian if he be ignorant then as he will professe so also will he run into the snares of the Devil and this his ignorance is no plea against that Law which he was bound to know Sen. Contr. l. 5. c. 5. as well as to keep it Ex toto noluisse debet qui Imprudentiâ defenditur he that will plead Ignorance or error for an excuse must have his whole will strongly set up against it and then the great difficulty or impossibility of avoiding it may be his Advocate and speak for him but if he make room for it when he might exclude it if he Embrace that which may let it in or make no use of the light that detects it if he will or reject not or be indifferent if he distast the truth for some crosse aspect it hath on his designes and love a lie because it smiles upon them and promotes them then this ignorance is a sin and the last the greatest and therefore cannot make up an excuse for another sin for those sins which it brings in in Triumph but is so much the more Malignant in that we had light but did turn our face away and would not see it or did hate and despise it and blow it out For he that will not know the wayes of life or calls his evil wayes by that name may well be askt the question why he will die Ignorance then is not alwayes an excuse for some are negligent and indifferent will not take the pains to lift themselves up to the truth by those steps and degrees which are set for them and are the way unto it and so walk as in the night which themselves have made because they would not look upon the Sun Others study and affect it and when the truth will not go along with them to the end of their designes perswade themselves into those errours which are more proportioned to it and will friendly wait upon them and be serviceable to fill and answer that expectation which their lust had raised and call them by that name They will not know what they cannot but know nor see death though he stand before them in their way and so are lead on with pomp and state with these false perswasions with these miserable Comforters to their grave The fourth pretence But in the next place when we finde some check of Conscience some regret some gain-sayings in our minde that we are unwilling to go on in these evil wayes and yet take courage and proceed we are ready to please our selves with this thought and are soon of the Opinion that what we are doing or have done already if it be evil yet is done against our will and if destruction overtake us it seises on them that did so much hate and abhor it that we shook and trembled when it did but shew it self to us in a thought And this I take to be an errour as full of danger as it is void of reason of no use at all but to make us favour our selves and ingage and adventure further in those wayes which lead unto death I deny not but as there is great difference in sins so there may be a difference also in committing them that the righteous person doth not drink down sin with that delight and greedinesse which the wicked do that they do not sport themselves in the wayes of death nor fall into them with that easinesse with that precipitancy that they do not count it as a purchase to satisfie their lusts and that most times the event is different for the one falleth down at the feet of God for mercy the other hardens his heart and face and wil not bow but yet I cannot number it amongst the marks and characters of a righteous man or as some love to speak and may so speak if they well understood what they said of one of the elect when he falls into any mortal grievous sin as Adultery Murder and the like that he doth not fall plenâ voluntate with a full consent and will but more faintly and remissly as it were with more Gravity then other men that he did actually fall but was not willing to fal that is that he did wil indeed the sin which he did commit but yet did commit it against his will Nor can I think our consent is not full when we chide and rebuke the tentation and yet suffer it to win ground and gain more and more Advantage against us when we have some grudgings some petty murmurs in our selves and in our heart defame those sins which we shew openly in our Actions for when we have done that which is evil we cannot say we would not have done it when we have made roome for sin to enter we cannot say that we would have excluded it For 1. I cannot see how these two should meet so friendly a double Will nay a contrary will in respect of one and the same Act especially when sin is not in fieri but in facto esse when the temptation hath prevailed and the will determined its act Indeed whilst the Act was suspended and our minde wavering and in doubt where to fasten or which part to embrace whether to take the wedge of Gold or to withdraw whether to smite my brother or to sheath up my sword and anger together whether to taste or not to taste the forbidden Fruit when it was in labour as it were and did strive and struggle between these two the delightfulnesse and unlawfulnesse of the Object between the temptation and the Law whilest the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh there may be such an indifferency a kinde of willing and nilling a profer and distast an approach and a pawse an inclination to the object anda fear to come neer But when the sense hath prevailed with the will to determine for it against the reason when lust hath conceived and brought forth then there is no room for this indifferencie because the will hath determined its act and concluded for the sense against the reason for the Flesh against the spirit For we must not mistake the fluctuations and pawses and contentions of the minde and look upon them as the Acts of the will which hath but one simple and indivisible act which it cannot divide between two contraries so as to look stedfastly on the one and yet reflect also with a look of liking upon the other our Saviour hath fitted us with an instance you cannot serve God and Mammon if we know then what the will is we shall know also that it is impossible to divide it and shall be ashamed of that Apologie to say we sin semiplenâ
onely in this sense said to have an end when indeed it is in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection when there will be no enemy stirring to subdue no use of Laws when the Subjects are now made perfect when this Lord shall make his subjects Kings and Crowne them with Glory and Honor for ever Here 's no weaknesse no Infirmity no abjuration no resignation of the Crowne and Power but all things are at an end his enemies in Chaines and his subjects free free from the feare of Hell or Temptations of the Devill the World or the flesh and though there be an end yet he reignes still though he be subject yet he is as high as ever he was Though he hath delivered up his Kingdome yet he hath not lost it but remaines a Lord and King for Evermore And now you have seen this Lord that is to come you have seen him sitting at the right hand of God His right and Power of Government his Laws just and Holy and wise the virtue and Power the largeness and the duration of his Government a sight fit for those to look on who love and look for the comming of this Lord for they that long to meet him in the Clouds cannot but delight to behold him at the right Hand of God Look upon him then sitting in Majesty and Power and think you now saw him moving towards you and were now descending with a shout for his very sitting there should be to us as his comming it being but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preparation to that great Day Look upon him and think not that he there sits Idle but beholds the Children of men those that wait for him and those that Think not of him and he will come down with a shout not fall as a Timber-logge for every Frogg every wanton sinner to leap upon and croake about but come as a Lord with a Reward in one hand and a Vengeance in the other Oh 't is farre better to fall down and worship him now then not to know him to be a Lord till that time that in his wrath he shall manifest his Power and fall upon us and break us in pieces Look then upon this Lord and look upon his Lawes and write them in your hearts for the Philosopher will tell us that the strength and perfection of Law consists not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due performance of them for obedience is the best seal and Ratification of a Law He is Lord from all eternity and cannot be divested of his royal office yet he counts his kingdom most compleat when we are subject and obedient unto him when he hath taken possession of our hearts where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men Behold he commands threatens beseeches calls upon us again and again and the beseechings of Lords are commands preces armatae armed prayers backt with power and therefore next consider the vertue and power of his dominion and bow before him do what he commands with fear and trembling let this power walk along with thee in all thy wayes when thou art giving an almes let it strike the trumpet out of thy hand when thou fastest let it be in capite jejunii let it begin and end it when thou art strugling with a tentation let it drive thee on that thou faint not and fall back and do the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48.10 when thou art adding vertue to vertue let it be before they eyes that thou mayest double thy diligence and make it up compleat in every circumstance and when thou thinkest of evil let it joyn with that thought that thou mayest hate the very appearance of it and chace it away why should dust ashes more awe thee then Omnipotency why should thy eye be stronger then thy faith not onely the frown but the look of thy Superior composeth and models thee puts thee into any fashion or form thou wilt go or run or sit down thou wilt venture thy body would that were all nay thou wilt venture thy soul do any thing be any thing what his beck doth but intimate but thy faith is fearlesse as bold as blind and will venture on on the point of the sword fears what man not what this Lord can do to him fears him more that sits on the bench than him that sits at the right hand of God If we did beleeve as we professe we could not but more lay it to our hearts even lay it so as to break them for who can stand up when he is angry let us next view the largenesse and compasse of his Dominion which takes in all that will come and reacheth those who refuse to come and is not contracted in its compasse if none should come and why shouldest thou turn a Saviour into a destroyer why should'st thou die in thy Physitians armes with thy cordials about thee why shouldest thou behold him as a Lord 'till he be angry he caleth all inviteth all that come why should Publicans and sinners enter and thy disobedience shut thee out Lastly consider the duration of his Dominion which shall not end but with the world nor end then when it doth end for the vertue of it shall reach to all eternity and then think that under this Lord thou must either be eternally happy or eternally miserable and let not a flattering but a fading world thy rebellious and traiterous flesh let not the father of lies a gilded temptation an apparition a vain shadow thrust thee on his left hand for both at his right and left there is power which works to all eternity The second his Advent or coming Venit he will come And now we have walkt about this Sion and told the towers thereof shewed you Christs territories and Dominion the nature of his laws the vertue and power the largenesse and compasse the duration of his kingdom we must in the next place consider his Advent his coming consider him as now coming for we cannot imagine as was said before that he sat there idle like Epicurus his God nec sibi facessens negotium nec alteri not regarding what is done below but like true Prometheus governing and disposing the state of times and actions of men M. Sen. Contr. Divinum numen etiam qua non apparet rebus humanis intervenit his power insinuates it self and even works there where it doth not appear Though he be in heaven yet he can work at this distance for he fills the heaven and the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he beholdeth all things he heareth all things he speaks to thee and he speaks in thee he hears thee when thou speakest and he hears thee when thou speakest not in his book are
be who have subscribed to the venturus est that the Lord will come who have little reason to hope for his coming How many beleeve hee will come and bring his reward with him and yet strike off their own Charriot wheels and drive but heavily towards it how many beleeve there is a Judge to come and wish there were none Faith Saving Faith Hope Hope that will not make ashamed cannot dwell in the heart till Charity hath taken up a roome but when she is diffusa in cordibus shed and spread abroad in our Hearts then they are in Conjunction and meet together and kisse each other Faith is a Foundation and on it our love raiseth it self as high as heaven in all the severall branches and parts of it Because I beleeve I love and when my love is reall and perfect my hope springs up and blooms and flourishes my Faith sees the object my Love imbraceth it and the means unto it and my Hope layes hold of it and even takes possession of it And therefore this venturus est This coming of the Lord is a Threat and not a promise if they meet not If Faith work not by Love and both together raise not a Hope venturus est he will come is a Thunder-bolt And thus as it lookes upon Faith and Hope so it calls for our Charity For whether we will or no whether we beleeve or no whether we hope or no veniet he will certainly come but when we love him then we love also his appearance and his coming and our Love is a subscription to his Promise 2 Tim. 4.8 by which we truly Testify our consent and sympathize with him and say Amen to his Promise That he will come we eccho it back againe unto him Even so come Lord Jesus For that of Faith may be in a manner forc'd That of Hope may be groundless but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription Though I I know he will come yet I shall be unwilling he should come upon me as an Enemy that he should come to me when I sit in the Chair of the Scornfull or lie in the bed of Lust or am wallowing in the mire or weltring in my own blood or washing my feet in the blood of my Brethren for can any condemned person hope for the day of Execution But when I love him and bow before him when I have improv'd his Talent and brought my self to that Temper and Constitution that I am of the same mind with this Lord and partaker of his divine Nature then Faith openeth and displayeth her self and Hope towreth up as high as the right Hand of God and would bring him down never at rest never at an end but panting after him till he doe come crying out with the soules under the Altar How long Lord How long How long is the very breathing and language of Hope Then Substantia mea apud te Psal 62.5 as the vulgar reads that of the Psalmist my expectation my substance my being is with the Lord and I doe not onely subscribe to the veniet to his coming because he hath Decreed and resolved upon it but because I can make an hearty Acknowledgement that the will of the Lord is just and good and I assent not of Necessity but of a willing mind and I am not onely willing but long for it and as he Testifies these Things and confirmes this Article of his coming with this last word etiam venio surely I come so shall I be able truely to Answer Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly The End of his Coming And now venturus est the Lord will come and you may see the Necessity of his coming in the End of his coming for qualis Dominus talis adventus as his Dominion is such is his Coming his Kingdome spirituall and his coming to punish sinne and reward Obedience to make us either Prisoners in Darkness or Kings and Priests to reigne with him and offer up spirituall Sacrifices for evermore He comes not to answer the Disciples question to restore the Kingdom to Israel for his Kingdome is not such a one as they dreamt of nor to place the Mother of Zebedees Children the one at his right Hand and the other at his left nor to bring the Lawyer to his Table to eat bread with him in his Kingdome These carnall conceits might suite well with the Synagogue which lookt upon nothing but the Basket and yet to bring in this Error the Jews as they killed the Prophets so must they also abolish their Prophecies which speak plainely of a King of no shape or beauty Esai 53.2 Zech. 9.9 Isa 9.6 of his first coming in lowlinesse and poverty of a Prince of Peace and not of warr of the Increase of whose Government there shall be no end Nor doth he come to lead the Chiliast the Dreamer of a Thousand yeares of Temporall Happiness on Earth into a Mahometicall Paradise of all Corporall Contentments That after the Resurrection the Elect and even a Reprobate may think or callhim self so may reigne with Christ a thousand years in all state and Pomp and in the Affluence of all those Pleasures which this Lord hath taught them to renounce A conceit which ill becomes Christians who must look for a better and more enduring substance who are strangers and Pilgrims Heb. 10.34 Heb. 11.13 and not Kings on earth whose Conversation is in heaven and whose whole life must be a going out of the World why should we be commanded and that upon paine of eternall separation from this our Lord to weane our selves from the World and every thing in the World if the same Lord Think these flatteries of our worser part these pleasures which we must loath a fitt and proportionable reward for the labour of our Faith and Charity which is done in the Inward man can he forbid us to touch and Tast these Things and then glut us with them because we did not Touch them and can it now change its Nature and be made a Recompence of those Virtues which were as the wings on which we did fly away and so kept our selves untoucht unspotted of this Evill But they urge Scripture for it and so they soon may for it is soon misunderstood soon misapplyed It is written they say in the 20. of the Revel at the 6. v. that the Saints shall reign with Christ a thousand yeers shall reign with Christ is evidence faire enough to raise those spirits which are too high or rather too low already 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no sooner is the word read but the crown is on To let passe the divers interpretations of that place some making the number to be definite some to be indefinite some beginning the thousand yeers with the persecution of Christ and ending it in Antichrist others beginning it with the reign of Constantine when Christianity did most flourish and ending it at the first rising of the
Caligula did upon the moone Suet. Caligula when she was full and bright and wonder she doth not fall down out of her orb and hasten to our embraces and so we may be deceived as he was and it may never come No 't is most true grace is sufficient for us and 't is as true grace is not sufficient for us unlesse we cherish it quietnesse is the gift of God but it is a conditionall gift which exacts something from him who must receive it if we will be quiet we must study to be so that is earnestly and unfeignedly desire it and the earnest desire of any practicall virtue is the study of it when the heart is prepared the will made conformable then are we perfect Scholars in this art of conversation And to this end we must first make it our meditation day and night and fill our minds with it and this is like the conning of a part which we are to act and will make us ready to performe it with a grace and decorum and so receive a plaudite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Rhet. 3. x. an Euge from him who is our peace For Meditation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a kind of augmentation and enlargement of the object we look upon and by our continuall survey of the beauty of it by fixing our thoughts upon it and by renewing that heat and fervour in us by thinking of it and an assiduous reviving and strengthning those thoughts we make it more visible more cleare more applyable then before make that which written is but a dead letter or spoken but a sound as the voyce of God himself of force and energie to quicken and enliven us It is like to those Prospectives which this later Age hath found out by which we discover Stars which were never seen and in the brightest of them find spots which were never discerned We see the glory of tranquillity and the good it brings to our selves and others what a heaven there is in love and peace and what a hell and confusion in Anger and debate We find out the plague of our hearts the Leprosie of our soules which before appeared as a spot as nothing and this helpe we have by Meditation For though it be most seene as the Pilots skill is cùm stridunt funes gemunt gubernacula in a rough and well-wrought Sea in times of trouble and distraction yet our study and desire of it wants no opportunity of time or place inter medios rerum actus invenit aliquid vacui in the midst of our businesse and imployments finds leasure and makes its closet in the very streets Every day every houre of our life we may contemplate it and prepare our selves to be at peace with all men That when the tempest doth arise which may disquiet us and throw us from our station we may be ready and able if not to be calme and slumber it yet to becalme our selves and stand as quiet and upright as if no wind did blow As the young man in Xenophon did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise his limbs and fingers at home and framed them to that gesture and elegancy of motion which might win the favour and commendations of those who beheld him abroad so may we enter into our closet and be still tell our selves what a blessing it is to be our selves what a divine thing it is not to be moved how like to God we are when we see distastfull objects and are not changed how meritorious and heroick a thing it is to save our selves in the midst of a froward generation thus prepare and fix our hearts think that God may lay us as he did Job in the dunghill and resolve to be patient that I may live amongst perverse and froward men and be ready to addulce and sweeten them amongst those whose teeth are arrowes and hold up our buckler that the heathen may rage and tumultuously assemble and comfort our selves that God shall have them in derision that we may live in the midst of the enemies of peace and provide to keep it suppose that such a Lion as Nero or some worse beast should rore amongst us commune with our selves and be still and fly to no other Sanctuary then our teares and our prayers And therefore in the next place we must not onely meditate and contemplate it but upon all occasions put it in practice for meditation may be but the motion and circulation of the fancy the businesse or rather the idlenesse of such men who send their thoughts abroad as boyes throw smooth stones upon the surface of the water which are lost in the making which look and gaze on virtue and then fly aloft in the contemplation of it but like those birds of prey which first towre in the Aire and then stoop at carrion We must therefore second our meditation and ratifie and make it good by practise faciendo discere con it more perfectly by being not moved at the incursion of any evil learne to passe by a petty injury that we be not cast down with a greater not to be envious against evil doers that we may be lesse troubled at what they do not to repine at the prosperity of evil men that we may not be too far exalted with our own by accustoming our selves to the suffering of this or that evil proceed and grow up to that composednesse that we may endure all to learn with a foile that we may fight with a sword as Demosthenes used to repeat his Orations on the beach that having stood the roaring of the Sea he might be the lesse troubled at the noise and insolencie of the people in the Pleading-place And this study is no easie study for dedocendi priùs quà m docendi we must unlearne many things before we can be taught this we must abandon our former principles out of which we drew so many dangerous conclusions before we can make any progresse in this divine science we must pull down our former desires before we can raise up new In a word we must empty our selves before we can be quiet And first we must cast out self-love I meane we must not love our selves so irregularly so ridiculously so perniciously so mortally as we do for there is no adamant no milstone more unyielding to the stroke of the hammer then the heart of man when once it is possest with the love of it self then every thing that flyes crosses us troubles us every apparition is a monster every man is our enemy every look is a threat every word is a sword every whisper is thunder he that thus loves himself cannot long be quiet with any man Our blessed Apostle where he tells us that in those perillous times which were to come 2 Tim. 3. there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lovers of themselves that is blind to themselves ignorant of themselves he brings in a train after them an Iliad of many evills
beggerly Elements hath in the fulnesse of time found admittance and harbour in the breasts of Christians uneer that perfect Law of Liberty in which the grace of God hath appeared unto all men I am unwilling to make the parallel it carries with it some probability that some of them had that grosse conceit of God that he fed on the flesh of bulls and drunk the blood of goates for God himself stands up and denies it in the fiftieth Psalme will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goates If I be hungry I will not tell thee if there were not such conceit why doth God thus expostulate And is there no symptome no indication of this disease in us do we not believe that God delights in these pageants and formalities That he better likes the devotion of the ear then of the heart do we not measure out our devotion rather by the many Sermons which we have heard then the many almes we have given or which is better the many evill thoughts which we have stifled the many unruly desires we have supprest the many passions we have subdued the many temptations which we have conquered Hath not this been our Arithmetick to cast uup our accounts not by the many good deeds we have done which may stand for figures or numbers but by the many reproches we have given to the times the many bitter Censures we have past upon men better then our selves the many Sermons we have heard which many times God knowes are no better then Cyphers and by themselves signifie no more Do we not please our selves with these thoughts and lift our selves up into the third heaven Do we not think that God is well pleased with these thoughts Do we not believe they are sacrifices of a sweet-smelling favour unto him And what is this lesse then to think that God will eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goates nay may it not seeme far worse to think that God is fed and delighted with our formalities which are but lyes and that he is in love with our hypocrisie I may be bold to say as grosse an error and as opposite to the wisdome of God as the other It is truely said multa non illicita vitiat animus That the mind and intention of man may draw an obliquity on those actions which in themselves are lawfull nay multa mandata vitiat It may make that unlawfull which is commanded O! 't is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but how fearefull is it to have his hand fall upon us when we stan dat his Altar to see him frown and hear him thunder when we worship him in anger to question us when we are doing our duty What a dart would it be to pierce our soules through and through if God should now send a Prophet to us to tell us That our frequenting the Church and comming to his Table are distastfull to him That our fasts are not such as he hath chosen and that he hates them as much as he doth our oppression and cruelty to which they may be as the prologue that he will have none of the one because he will have none of the other and yet if we terminate Religion in these outward formalities or make them waite upon our lusts to bring them with more smoothnesse with more state and pomp and applause to their end to that which they look so earnestly upon if we thus appear before him he that shall tell us as much of our hearing and fasting and frequenting the Church shall be as a true Prophet as Micah the Morasthite was And now to conclude If you ask me wherewith shall you come before the Lord and bowe your selves before the most High Look further into the Text and there you have a full and compleat directory Do Justly Love Mercy and walk humbly with your God with these you may approach his Courts and appeare at his Altar In aram dei Justitia imponitur saith Lactantius Justice and mercy and sincerity are the best and fittest sacrifices for the Altar of God Lactanâ— de vere cultu l 6. c. 24. which is the heart of man an Altar that must not be polluted with blood Hoc qui exhibet toties sacrificat quoties bonum aliquid aut pium facit The man that is just and mercifull doth sacrifice as oft as he doth any just and mercifull act Come then and appeare before him and offer up these nor need you feare that ridiculous and ungodly imputation which presents you to the world under the name of meere morall men Beare it as your Crown of Rejoycing It is stigma Jesus Christi a mark of Christ Jesus and none will lay it upon you as a defect but they who are not patient of any losse but of their honesty who have learnt an art to joyne together in one the Saint and the deceiver who can draw down heave to them with a thought and yet supplant and overreath their brother as cunningly as the devil doth them Bonus vir Caius Seius Tertull. Apolog. Caius Seius is a good man his onely fault is that he is a Christian would the heathen say He is a good morall man but he is not of the Elect that is one of our Faction saith one Christian of another I much wonder how long a good morall man hath been such a monster What is the decalogue but an abridgement of morality what is Christs Sermon on the mount but an improvement of that and shall civil and honest conversation be the marke of a reprobate Shall nature bring forth a Regulus a Cato a Fabricius Just and Honest men and shall Grace and the Gospel of Christ bring forth nothing but zanies but plaiers and actors of Religion but Pharisees and hypocrites or was the new creature the Christian raised up to thrust the morall man out of the world Must all be election and regeneration Must all Religion be carried along in phrases and words and noise and must Justice and Mercy be exposed as monsters and flung out into a land of oblivion Or how can they be elect and regenerate who are not just and mercifull No the morall man that keeps the commandments is not far from the kingdome of God and he that is a Christian and builds up his morality Justice and Mercy upon his faith in Christ he that keeps a good conscience and doth to others what he would that others should do unto him shall enter in and have a mansion there when these speculative and Seraphick Hypocrites who decree for God and preordain there a place for themselves shall be shut out of doores Come then and appeare before him with these with Innocence and Integrity and Mercifulnesse Wash your hands in Innocency and compasse his Altar For Christ hath made us Priests unto his Father Rev. 1.6 there is our Ordination To offer up spirituall sacrifice 1 Pet. 2.5 there is our
so resembles that God which breathed it into us For as Lactantius said God is not hungry that you need set him meat nor thirsty that you should poure out drink unto him he is not in the dark that you need light up candles And what is beauty what is the wedg of gold to the soul The one is from the earth earthy the other is from the Lord of heaven The world is the Lords and the world is the soules and all that therein is and to behold the creature and in the world as in a book to study and find out the Creator to contemplate his majesty his goodnesse his wisdome and to discover that happinesse which is prepared for it to behold the heavens the works of Gods hand and purchase a place there to converse with Seraphim and Cherubim This is the proper act of the soul for which it was made this this alone was proportioned to it And herein consists the excellency and very essence of Religion and the Good which is here shewed us in exalting the soul in drawing it back from mixing with the creature and in bringing it into subjection under God the first and onely good in uniting it to its proper object in making that which was the breath of God breath nothing but God the soul being as the matter and this Good here that is piety and religion the form the soul being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so Plato calls matter the receptacle of this Good as the matter is of the form and never right and of a persect being till it receive it this good being as the seed and the soul the ground Math. 13. the matrix and the womb and there is a kind of sympathy between this good this immortall seed and the heart and mind of man as there is between seed and the womb of the earth for the soul no sooner sees it unclouded unvailed not disguised and made terrible by the intervention of things not truely good but upon a full manifestation she is taken as the bridegroome in the Canticles with its eye and beauty Heaven is a faire sight even in their eyes who tend to destruction so that there is a kind of neernesse and alliance between this good and those notions and principles which God imprinted in us at the first And therefore even nature it self had a glimpse a weak imperfect sight of this good and saw a further mark to aime at then this world in this span of time could set up Tertull. 2. de Finib whence Tully calls man a mortall God and Seneca tells us That by that which is best in man we go before other creatures Sen. ep 76. In homine quid optimumâ—ratio hac antecedit animalia deos sequitur but follow to joyne with that which is truely good by which we may be carried along to the fountain of good even God himself For again as this good here that is piety and religion beare a sympathy and correspondence with the mind of man so hath the soul of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a formative quality a power to shape and fashion it and by the sweet influence and kindly aspect of Gods quickening grace to bring forth something of the same nature some heavenly creature the new man which is made up in holinesse and righteousnesse in Justice and mercy and humility which are the good in the text the beauty of which may beget and raise up that violence in us which may break open the gates of heaven beget a congregation of Saints of just and honest men a numerous posterity to Abraham of hospitall and mercifull men and an army of martyrs which shall in all humility lay down their lives for his sake that gave them and forsake all to joyne and adhere to this Good And now in the second place as it is fitted and proportioned to the soul of man so is it to every soul of man to all sorts and conditions of men it is fitted to the Jew and to the Gentile to the bond and to the free to the rich and to the poore to the scribe and to the Idiot to the young and to the aged no man so much a Jew no man such a bored slave no man such a Lazar none so dull and slow of understanding no such Barzillai which may not receive it Freedom and slavery circumcision and uncircumcision riches and poverty quicknesse and slownesse of understanding in respect of this Good of Piety and Religion are all alike Religion is no peculiar but the most common the most communicative thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Law the Prophets Naz. Orat. 26. the Oracles Grace Faith Hope and Charity these saith Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Ib. are common to all as common as the Sunne are the goods and possessions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not of the mightiest or the wisest but of those who are willing to receive them Nor were there any thing more unjust then our Faith and Religion saith he if it were entail'd onely on some few if God whose Property whose Nature it is to doe Good should dispense that Good most sparingly which doth most please him if he should shut it up as he doth Gold and other Metals in the bowels of the earth and seale a patent but to some few to find and dig it out if it should be left as the things of this world are in the uncertain and inequal hand of Chance or looking alike on all should withdraw and hide it self from the most or be unatchievable not to be attained to by some when it is bound up as it were in the bosome of others No the most excellent things are most common and offered and presented to all nothing is so common as this good and when other things fly from us and as we follow after them remove themselves farther off and mock our endeavours this is alwaies neere us shines upon us invites and solicits us to take it for our guide which will lead us in a certain and unerring course through the false shews and deceitfulnesse of this world through blacknesse and darknesse to the end for which we were made This Good is every mans good that will as Aquinas is said to have replyed to his sister when she askt him how she might be saved si velis if you are willing you may every covetous person is not rich every ambitious man hath not the highest place every student is not a great clerk but piety opens the gate to every man that knocks and he that will enters in and takes possession of her Fastidiosior est scientia quà m virtus paucorum est ut literati sint omnium ut bonì That which is best is most accessable and when other things Petrarch l. 7. Re. Fam. op 17. knowledge and wealth and honor are coy and keep a distance and when we have them are desultorious and ready in the midst of
That every thought may be a melting thought every word as oyle and every work a blessing Then we love mercy when we fling off all other respects and whatsoever may either shrink up or straiten our bowells or seale up our lips or wither our hands when we look upon the world but as our stage where we must act our parts and display the glories of mercy where we must waste our selves drop our teares run in to succour those who are roughly handled in it and thus tread it under our feet and then take our Exit and go out When we can forget our honour and remember the poore forsake all rather then our brethren and desire not to be rich but in good works when we have so incorporated out brethren into our selves that we stand and fall are happy and miserable together when we consider them as ingrafted into the same Christ and in him to be preferred before the whole world and to be lookt upon as those for whom we must dye Then we love mercy then we are mercifull as our heavenly Father is mercifull Thus if we be qualified we shall become the Temples and habitations of Mercy and as our bodies shall after their resurrection so our soules shall here have novas dotes shall be endowed with activity cheerfulnesse and purity And first our mercy will be in a manner Naturall unto us secondly it will be Constant thirdly it will be Sincere fourthly it will be Delightfull to us It will be Naturall not forced it will be Constant not flitting It will be Sincere not feigned and it will be Delightfull that we shall long to bring it into act And first we then love it when it is in a manner made naturall to us for we never fully see the beauty of it till we are made New Creatures and have new eyes then as the new creature cannot sin as Saint John speaks that is can doe nothing that is contrary and destructive to that forme which constitutes a new creature no more can a mercifull man doe any thing which will not savour of mercy and doth as naturally exercise himselfe in it as the Sunne doth send forth its beames or the Heavens their influence For the Spirit of God hath made his Heart a Fountain of Mercy as he made the Sun a Fountain of Light and if he break not forth into action it is from defect of means or occasion or some crosse accident which comes over him which doe but cloud and eclipse his mercy as the interposition of a grosse body doth the Sun but not put out its light at the very sight of Misery Mercy is awake up and either doing of suffering Who is weak 2 Cor. 11.29 and I am not weak saith Saint Paul who is offended and I burne not If I but see him weak I faint and if I see him vexed I am on fire Nature is active and will work to its end heavy bodies will descend and light bodies will mount upwards and Mercy will give and lend and forgive it cannot be idle Inquies opere suo pascitur Livi. pres it is restlesse and is made more restlesse by its work which is indeed its pleasure It is then most truly Mercy when it shews it self If occasion presents it selfe it soon layes hold of it If the object appeare it is carryed to it with the speed of a Thought and reacheth it as soone If there be no object it creates one if there be no occasion it studyes one Is there yet any left of the house of Saul that I may shew kindnesse to for Jonathans sake And Is there no Lazar to feed no Widow to visit no Wounds to bind up no weak brother to be restored none that be in darknesse and error to be brought into the light These are the Quaeres the true dialect this is the Ambition of Mercy It longs more for an occasion to vent it self then the Adulterer doth for the twilight layes hold of the least as of a great one thinks nothing too high nothing too low which it can reach is still in motion because it moves not like those Artificiall bodies by art or outward force but by a principle of life the spirit of love and so moves not as a clock which will stand still when the plummet is on the ground but its motion is Naturall as that of the spheres which are wheel'd about without cessation and return by those points by which they past and indeed may be said rather to rest then to move because they move continually and in the same place Misery is the point the object of mercy and at that it toucheth everlastingly mercy and misery still go together and eye each other the eye of misery looks up upon mercy and the eye of mercy looks down upon misery they are the two cherubins that have ever their faces one towards another and they are both full and ready to drop and run down the eye of misery is ever open and mercy hideth not her eye Prov. 28.27 By this you may judge of your acts of liberality and look upon them as those sacrifices with which God is pleased when you find something within you that enlargeth you that opens your mouth and hand that you cannot but speak and do when you find a heat within you that thaws and melts you that you poure out your selves on your brethren then your works of mercy are of a sweet smelling savour when love sets them on fire For secondly being made Naturall unto us it will be also constant it will be fixt in the firmament of the soul and shine and derive its influence uncessantly and equally doing good unto all men while it hath time that is at all times When the heart dissents from it self for love onely unites and makes it one when it is divisum cor a divided heart divided between God and the world when it hath inconstant motions and changeable counsells when it joynes with the object and leaps from the object willing to day and lothing to morrow this day cleaving to it and even sick for love as Ammon was with Tamar and the next thrusting it out of doores chusing without judgement and then altering upon experience In such a heart mercy cannot dwell and from hence it is that we see men every day so unlike themselves now giving anon oppressing now reaching out an Almes and by and by threatning with the sword now giving their brother the right hand of fellowship and within a while with that hand plucking him by the throat now pittying him that lyes in the dust and anon crying out So So Thus we would have it For indeed their pity and their rage their mercy and their cruelty have the same originall are raised upon the same ground the love of themselves and not of mercy and thus they do some acts of mercy magno impetu sed semel with much earnestnesse and zeale but not often like some birds whose
within him In a word to love Mercy is to be in Heaven every man according as he purposeth in his heart let him give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a cheerfull giver such a mercy is Gods Almoner here on earth and he loves and blesseth it follows it with his providence and his infinite Mercy shall crown it That gift which the Love of Mercy offereth up is onely fit to be laid up in the Treasury of the Almighty And now I have set before you Mercy in its full beauty in all its glory Conclusion you have seen her spreading her raies I might shew you her building of Hospitalls visiting the sick giving eyes to the blind raising of Temples pittying the stones breathing forth Oracles making the ignorant wise the sorrowfull merry leading the wandring man into his way I might have shewed you her sealing of Pardons but we could not shew you all these are the miracles of Mercy and they are wrought by the power of Christ in us and by us but by his power the fairest spectacle in the world Let us then look upon it and love it what is mercy when you need it is it not as the opening of the heavens unto you and shall it then bea punishment and hell unto you when your afflicted brethren call for it Is it so glorious abroad and shall it be of so foul an aspect as not to be thought worthy of entertainment at home shall it be a Jewel in every Cabinet but your own hearts Behold and lift up your eyes and you shall see objects enough for your Mercy to shine on If ever one depth called upon another the depth of calamity for the depth of our compassion if ever our bowells should move and sound now now is the time I remember that Chrysologus observes that God did on purpose lay Lazarus at the rich mans Gate quasi pietatis conflatorium as a forge to melt his stony heart Lazarus had as many mouthes to speak and move him to compassion as he had ulcers and wounds and how many such forges hath God set before us how many mouthes to beseech us how many wounds wide open which speak loud for our pity how many fires to melt us shall I shew you an ulcerous Lazar They are obvious to our eye we shall have them alwaies with us saith our Saviour and we have them almost in every place Shall I shew you men Stript and wounded and left half dead that may be seen in our lives as well as in the high waies between Jericho and Jerusalem Shall I shew you the teares drilling down the cheeks of the orphans and widdows shall I call you to heare the cry of the hire kept back by fraud or violence for that cryes to you for compassion as oppression doth to God for vengeance and it is a kind of oppression to deny it them Have you no compassion all ye that passe by and every day behold such sad spectacles as these shall I shew you Christ put again to open shame whipt and scorned and crucified and that which cannot be done to him in his person laid upon his Church shall I shew you him now upon the crosse and have you no regard all you that passe by shall I shew you the Church miserably torn in pieces shall I shew you Religion I would I could shew you such a sight for scarce so much as her forme is left what can I shew or what can move us when neither our own misery nor the common misery nor sinne nor death nor hell it self will move us If we were either good Men or good Citizens or good Christians our hearts would melt and gush forth at our eyes in Rivers of water If we were truly affected with peace we should be troubled at war If we did love the City we should mourn over it if we did delight in the prosperity of Israel her affliction would wound us if Religion were our care her decay would be our sorrow for that which we love and delight in must needs leave a mournfull heart behind it when it withdraws it self But private interest makes us regardlesse of the common and we do not pity Religion because we do not pitty our own soules but drink deep of the pleasures of this world enlarge our Territories fill our barnes make haste to be rich when our soul is ready to be taken from us and nothing but a rotten mouldring wall a body of flesh which will soon fall to the ground between us and hell I may well take off your eye from these sad and wofull spectacles it had been enough but to have shewn you Mercy for she is a cloud of witnesses a cloud of Arguments for her self and if we would but look upon her as we should there need no other Orator I beseech you look into your Lease look into your Covenant that Conveyance by which blisse and immortality are made over to you and you shall find that you hold all by this you hold it from the King of Kings and your quit-rent your acknowledgement for his great Mercy is your Mercy to others pay it down or you have made a forfeiture of all if you be Mercilesse all that labour as 't is called of charity is lost your loud profession your forced gravity your burning zeal your faith also is vain and you are yet in your sinnes For what are all these without Mercy but words and names and there is no name by which we can be saved but the name of Jesus Christ and all these Devotion Confession Abstinence Zeal Severity of life are as it were the letters of his name and I am sure Mercy is one and of a faire character and if we expunge and blot it out it is not his name Why boast we of our zeal without mercy it is a consuming fire 'T is true he that is not zealous doth not love but if my love be counterfeit what a false fire is my zeal and one mark of true zeal is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. or 14. if it be kept within its bounds and mercy is the best watch we can set over it to confine and keep it in The Church of Christ is not placed under the Torrid Zone that these cooler and more temperate vertues may not dwell there if you will have your zeal burn kindly Ignis zeli ardere debet oleo misericordiae Aquâ—… de Eruditione princip l. 1. c. 15 16. it must not be set on fire by any earthy matter but from Heaven where is the Mercy-seat and which is the seat of Mercy if you will be burning lamps you must poure in oleum misericordiae the oyl of mercy as Bernard speaks if this oyl faile you will rather be Beacons then Lamps to put all round about you in Arms as we have seen in Germany and other places Men and Brethren I may speak to you of the Patriarch David who is dead and buried and though we
wealth that we may be rich takes us out the raies that we may have light takes us from our selves that we may possesse our selves bids us depart from God that we may enjoy him This is Janitrix scholae Christi faith Bernard for when we bow and lye prostrate we are let in This is as Saint John Baptist to prepare the way to make every mountain low and the rough places plaine to depresse a lofty head and sink a haughty eye and beat down a swelling heart In a word this is the best Leveller in the world and there need none but this Wee see then in what humility consists in placing us where we should be at the footstool of God admiring his majesty and abhorring themselves distrusting our selves and relying on his wisdome bowing to him when he helps us and bowing to him when he strikes us denying ourselves surrendring our selves being nothing in our selves and all things in him Which will more plainly appeare in the extent of this duty which reacheth the whole man both body and soul It was the speech of Saint Austin Domine duo creasti alterum propete alterum prope nihil Lord thou hast made two things in the world one neere unto thy self divine and celestiall the soul the other vile and sordid next to nothing the body These are the parts which constitute and make us men the subject of sinne and therefore of humility Let not sinne reign in your mortall bodies Rom. 6.12 but let humility depose and pluck it from its throne Ind delinquit homo unde constat saith Tertullian from thence sinne is from whence we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzen with our selves we fight against our selves we carry about with us those forces which beset us we are that Army which is in battell aray against us videas concurrere Bellum Atque virum Our enemies are domestick at home within us and a tumult must be laid where first 't was raised Between them both saith the same Father Naz. orat 8. there is a kind of warlike opposition and they doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were pitch their Tents one against the other when the body prevailes the soul is lost and when the body is at the lowest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then is the soul is high as heaven and when the soul is sick even bedrid with sinne then the body is most active as a wild Asse or wanton Heifer In both there is matter for humility to work on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesyc In both there are excrescences and extuberations to be lopt off and abated the body must he used as an enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint Paul I buffet it I beat it black and blew I handle it as a Rebell or profest enemy and it must be used as a servant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I hold it in subjection like a captive like a slave after conquest And the soul to be checked contracted and depressed in it self ne in multa diffluat that it spread not nor diffuse it self on variety of objects It must not be dimidiata humilitas an humility by halves but Holocaustum a whole burnt-offering both body and soul wasting and consuming all their drosse in this Holy Conflagration I know not how good duties are either shrunk up in the conveyance not drove home by the Masters of the Assembly or else taken into pieces in the performance Doth God proclaime a Fast See the head hangs down the look is changed you may read a Famine in the countenance and yet the Fast not kept Walk humbly with him So we will he shall have our knee our look he shall see us prostrate on the ground say some who are as proud on the ground as when they stood up He shall have the heart no knee of ours say others as proud as they If we can conceive an Humiliation and draw forth its picture but in our fancy nay if we can but say It is good to be humbled it is enough though it be a lye and we speak not what we think We are most humble when we least expresse it so full of contradictions is Hypocrisie and what a huge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gulph is there between Hypocrisie and Humility so reaching at Impossibilities which may draw Pride and Humility together to be one and the same which yet are at greater distance one from the other then the Earth is from the Heaven And thus we divide Humility nay thus we divide our selves from our selves our soules from our bodies either our Humility is so spirituall that we cannot see it neither dropping at the eyes nor changing the countenance nor bowing the knees nor heare it in complaints and grones and roarings which were wont to be the language of humility or so corporeall that we see it all God hath his part and but a part and so hath none and then the conjecture is easie who hath it all But our selves include both neither is my Body my self nor my Soul my self but I am one made up of both the knot that tyes them both together and my Humility lasts no longer then whilst I am one of both Whilst then we are so let us give him both and first the Soule For there is no vice so dangerous or to which we are more subject then spirituall pride Other vices proceed from some defect in us or some sinfull imbecillity of nature but this many times ariseth out of our good parts Others fly from the presence of God this dares him to his face and makes even Ruine it self the Foundation of its Tabernacle Intestinum malum periculosius The more neere the evil cleaves to the soule the more dangerous it is the more inward the more fatall I may wean my self from the world and fling off vanity I may take off my soul from sensible objects I may deny my appetite I may shut up my eye I may bind my hands I may study pleasure so long till I truly understand it and know it is but madnesse and the world till I contemn it but Pride ultima exuitur is the last garment which we put off when we are naked we can keep her on and when we can be nothing we can be proud And therefore some have conceived humility to be placed in the soul as a Canopy covering and shadowing both the faculties binding and moderating the understanding and subduing the will and whilest they sit under humility they sit in state the understanding is crowned with raies and light and the will commands just things as from its Throne never imploys the eye or hand in any office for which the one should be pluckt out and the other cut off but are both in their highest exaltation being both now under the will of God Our understanding many times walks in things too high for it yet thinks she is above them and our will inclines and that too oft to things forbidden because they are so
blesse him and do our duties As I was with Moses so will I be with thee saith God to Joshuah Joshuah 5. Then God is with us when he strengthneth our hands when he shadows us under his wing when he poureth forth his graces upon us and then we walk with him when we bowe before him use all the faculties of our soules and move every member of our bodies as his and as in his sight when we devote our selves to him alone when our eye looks upon him as the eye of the handmaid on the eye of her mistress and by a strict and sincere obedience we follow him in all those waies which he hath appointed for us This I take to be the meaning of the words we shall draw all within the compasse of these considerations first That God hath an all-seeing eye That he sees all ad Nudum as the Schooles speak naked as they are surveys our Actions heares our words and searcheth the very inwards of the heart secondly That truly to believe this is the best preservative of the other two the best meanes to establish Justice and uphold Mercy in us to keep us in an even and unerring course of obedience for will any man offend his God in his very eye And in the third place we shall discover and point out those who do not thus walk with God but walk in the haughtinesse and deceitfulnesse of their hearts as if God had neither eye to see nor eare to heare nor hand to punish them that we may mark and avoid them and this shall serve for use and application What doth God require to walk humbly with thy God And first That we may walk humbly with our God this must be laid as a foundation to build upon as the primum movens as the which first sets us a walking and puts us into this carefull and humble posture That God is present every where and seeth and knoweth all things And here we must not make too curious and bold a disquisition concerning the manner how God is present every where and how he seeth all things It is enough for us to believe he doth so and not to seek to know that which he never told us and which indeed he cannot tell us because we cannot apprehend it for how can we receive that knowledge of which we are not capable we read That he filleth the earth and the heaven Jer. 23.24 That heaven is his Throne and the earth his footstoole Is 66.1 That he is higher then heaven and deeper then hell and longer then the earth and broader then the sea Job 11.7,8,9 That he is not far from every one of us That in him we live and move and have our being Acts 17.27,28 That his understanding is infinite Psal 147.5 That there is no creature which is not manifest in his sight that all things are naked to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 open as the entrailes of a beast cut down in the back for sacrifice Heb. 4.13 That he looks down from heaven on the children of men Psal 142. That his eyes are open upon all their waies That neither they nor their Imquity are hid from his face hoc satis est dixisse Deo and this is enough for God to tell us and this is enough for us to know I dare be bold to say saith Saint Augustine Forsitan nec ipse Johannes dicit de Deo ut est Saint John was as an eagle and flew aloft to a higher pitch then the rest but could not soare so high as to bring us down a full relation and tell us what God is This is a message which no man can bring nor no man can heare He was a man inspired from God himself if he had not been inspired he could have said but little and being a man he could say no more They that walk in valleys and in low places see not much more ground then they tread they that are in deep wells see onely that part of the world which is over their heads but he that is on the top of some exceeding high mountain sees all the levell even the whole country which is about him So it stands betwixt us mortalls and our incomprehensible God we that live in this world are confined as it were into a valley or pit we see no more then the bounds which are set us will give us leave and that which our scant and narrow wisdome and providence foresees when the eye thereof is cleerest is ful of uncertainty as depending upon causes which may not work or if they do by the intervening of some crosse accident may faile But God who is that supreme and sublime light and by reason of his wonderfull nature so high exalted as from some exceeding high mountain sees all men at once all Actions all Casualties present and to come and with one cast of his eye measures them all This we are told and 't is enough for us that God hath told us so much that he is in heaven and yet not confined to that place that he is every where though we do not know how that he sees all things knows all things that he is Just and wise and Omnipotent and here we may walk with safety for the ground is firm under us upon this we may build up our selves in our Holy Faith upon this we may build up our Love which alwaies eyes him our honour to him which ever bowes before him our patience which beares every burden as if we saw him laying it on our feare to which every place is as mount Sinai where it trembles before him our hope which layes hold on him as if he were present in all the hardship we undergoe our obedience which alwaies works as in his eye to venture further is to venture as Peter did upon the Sea where we are sure to sink nor will Christ reach out his hand to help us but we shall be swallowed up in that depth which hath no bottome and be lost in that which is past finding out for this is the just punishment of our bold and too forward curiosity It works on busily and presseth forward with great earnestnesse to see it self defeated loseth that which it might grasp and findeth nothing It is enough for us to see the back parts of God that is as much as he is pleased to shew us and the want of this moderation hath occasioned many grosse errours in the Church of Christ for what can curiosity bring forth but monsters The Anomaei thought God as comprehensible as themselves and indeed upon a slender stock of knowledge we grow wanton and talk of God as we do of one another and no marvel that they who know not themselves should be so ignorant of God as to think to comprehend him Against these Saint Chrysostom wrote The Manichees confined him to a place and these Saint Austin confutes Others took upon them to qualifie and reforme this speech God is in every place
by changing the preposition In into Cum God is with every place Others conclude that the essence of God is most properly in heaven others have shut him up there and excluded his presence from this lower world The heaven they will tell you is his Throne but then is not the earth also his footstoole why may he not then be in earth as well as in heaven For the Argument is the very same nor must we conceive of God as we do of great Potentates whom we do not entertain in a Cottage but in a Palace nor can his Majesty gather soyl by intermingling it self with the things of the earth a most carnall conceit for the very Poet will tell us Tangere tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res That nothing but a body can be touch'd much lesse defiled We cannot think the Angel impaired his beauty by being in prison with Peter or in the den with Daniel unlesse we will say he was scorch't in the furnace when the three men did not so much as smell of the fire The heavens themselves are unclean in his sight saith Job c. 15. yet he remains saith the Father pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a most wonderfull exuberance beyond all Hyperbole No pitch can defile him no sinne pollute him No deformity on earth can sully his beauty Our cursed oathes do even blast his name yet his name is the same the Holy of Holyes his eyes beheld us weltring in our blood yet they are ten thousand times brighter then the sunne and therefore he is truly called Actus primus an act or essence as free from contagion as composition We take perfection from him he receives no imperfection from us he sits in heaven yet his Majesty is not increased he walks on the earth yet his Majesty is not diminished he rides on the wings of the wind yet his Majesty and glory is still the same He is in darknesse makes darknesse a Pavillion round about him yet is light it self he is in our corrupt hearts yet is purity it self Nusquam est ubique est he is no where because no place can contain him he is every where because no body no place no substance whatsoever can exclude him And as he is present with us and about our paths so he sees and knows every motion and action of ours Our inclinations our thoughts when they are risen whilest they were arising before there was either object or opportunity to raise them or any temptation to draw them up He sees our habits our vices and virtues before we ventured on that action which did lead the way and begin them I know him saith God of Abraham Gen. 18.19 and that he will do Justice and Judgement He knows our dispositions And found some good thing in Jeroboams child 1 Kings 14.13 He sees all our actions long before they are done our thoughts before they are conceived our deliberations before we ask counsel and our counsels before they are fixt Of what large extent were many of the prophesies how many yeares how many crosse actions how many contingencies what numberlesse swarms of thoughts inconsistent and not understood and yet concurrent and introductory to that which was foretold came between the prophesie and the fullfilling of it yet God saw through all these and saw all these and how they were working to that end of which he was pleased to give the prophets a sight The prophet Daniel foretells the succession of the Monarchies the division of Alexanders kingdomes the ruine of the Jews and that so plainly that Prophyry a great enemy to the Christians to disgrace and put it off said That it was a discourse much like Lycophrons Cassandra written after the things were done and so publisht to caiol and deceive the people who are soon pleased so soon taken with a cheat Malè nôrunt Deum qui non putant illum posse quod non putant Tert. de Resurr Carn c. 38. saith Tertullian They have but little knowledge of God who do not think that he can do yea and doth know and see what they cannot think For he that made the eye shall not he see He that teacheth man knowledge shall not he know Psal 94.9,10 He that fashioneth the heart shall not he consider all our works Psal 33.15 He sees us when we fall down before him he sees us when we harden our faces and he sees us in our teares and he sees us in our blood and yet he remaines yesterday and to day and the same for ever For as it is an argument of his infinite perfection to understand all things so is it of his Judiciary and infinite power to see and know and observe those motions those offers those inclinations which are against his Law and by which we are said to fight against him I may know Adultery and yet be chast I may see malice and debate in the City and yet be peaceable I may heare blasphemy and yet tremble at Gods name For sinne doth not pollute as it is in the understanding but in the will not as it is known but as it is embraced and not by any physicall but a morall contagion which first infects the will alone If the bare knowledge of evil could pollute then he that makes himself an Eunuch for the kingdome of heaven may be an Adulterer and the Judge that sits to condemn the sinne may be a Parricide God then may be present every where and this is the poorest exception that can be made against it I have waved you see that more subtile and intricate disputes and there be too many for men are never weary of doing nothing that which hath been spoken is as plain as necessary and no man can take it as a thing out of his sphere and reach Let us passe to that which we proposed in the second place and for which we proposed this of the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God For the consideration of this is the best preservative of Mercy and Pillar to uphold Justice Septum Legis a fence a hedge set about the Law that no unclean beast be so bold to break in and come so neer as to touch it The Prophet David makes this use of it Psal 139.7 Quò ibo à spiritu whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I fly from thy presence If I go into heaven thou art there If I make my bed in hell behold thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the Sea even there shalt thou find me out Now nothing can be more forcible to make us walk reverently and humbly with our God then a firm perswasion that God walks with us that he sees and observes us that whatever we do or think lyes open to the view and survey of that all-seeing eye For secresie is the nurse of sinne that is done often which is done without witnesse and done with more delight in
a kind of pride and triumph where there is the least feare of discovery They that are drunk are drunk in the night and the twilight is the Adulterers season 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Pindarus Clem. Paedag. 3. Drunkennesse Uncleannesse Revelling are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzen are the thefts of the night by which we would steale and convey our sinne from the Sun and the people Naz. or 40. And Clemens observes it of the Gnosticks That they professe themselves to be the Sonnes of God Clem. Strom. 3. but as the Sonnes of God did not love the light but polluted themselves and took their pleasure not as Kings but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as slaves in secret for feare of the whip Look upon the Politicians of the world and see how they work under ground as it were in vaults and caves how they look one way and work another what a streame of light ushers in a work of darknesse what a goodly preface we have to a flying book of curses what a faire frontispiece to a Beth-aven a house of vanity and then when their lust which conceived with so much art and concealment hath brought forth that sinne with which they were so long in labour they will not own it under that name but father it upon something else which was scarce thought on till then and is more different from it in kind then a man is from a Lion So they hide it that it may be done and when 't is done they hide it a child of darknesse it was in the conception and now 't is brought forth it is a child of darknesse For the most part we bid defiance to sinne in publick and meet and joyne with it in the dark though we venture not in the day but stand out yet if it will give us a visit in the twilight we are willing to yield Apuleius Quod nemo novit penè non fit what no man knows is as if it were not done at all and such is our folly and madnesse to think to make our selves as invisible as God and that he sees not us because we see not him as Tully spake of some Philosophers quia animo videre non poterant omnia ad oculos referebant when they saw so little with their intellectuall eye they referred all to their sence and would believe nothing but what they had an ocular demonstration for See Ser. 14. And we because the eye of our faith is dull and heavy and neere put out and do not discerne that eye which is ten thousand times brighter then the Sun think there is no other eye but that of flesh which if we can lye hid from we are Securi adversus Deos hominesque we are secure and safe not onely from men but from God himself so different and contrary is our behaviour when we break to that which we put on when we keep the Law When we have given an Almes we take a trumpet when we fast our countenance must proclaim it and though we lye on the ground yet are we on the house-top when we have fought it out and withstood and conquered a temptation Hieron Difficile est Deo tantum judice contentum esse we can hardly be brought to make God our judge and leave it between him and our selves but use some art that multitudes may behold us But when we are willing a temptation should prevaile nay when we tempt the temptation it self and call it to us we play least in sight all is husht in silence and we are well content that God alone should be our judge What then will make us walk humbly but this perswasion that we walk with God and that he sees us For if any thing will do it it must either be the Laws of men or that Law within our selves but we shall see that either these will not reach home or that this two-fold cord will be easily broken For first the Laws of men though framed with the greatest wisdome and diligence and providence which can possesse the largest hearts yet have not strength enough to levell our wayes or make our paths straight nor doe they comprehend all those sins which must needs offend that eye which can behold no evil they condemn nothing but that which is seen and evident nor doe they censure our wills but our deeds they punish offences and take away deceit injustice and cruelty quatenus tenere manu res possunt so far forth as they are within their hand and reach saith Tully Off. 3. But the Law of God reacheth the inward man curbs and bounds the extravagancies of our thoughts which are as opposite to that order and policy which God hath set up amongst men to bring them to happinesse as the foulest Disorders Murders Adulteries Rebellion can be to the peace of a Temporall Kingdome Again though the Laws of men carry some terrour with them yet as Aeneas Sylvius speaks of the low esteem they of Vienna had of Excommunications Tantum terrent quantum infamant aut damno temporali sunt Their terror is no more then the smart and losse and infamy they bring and though they be surda res deaf and inexorable yet a Bribe will not onely blind the eyes but change the countenance and voice of him that should keep them and this leaves them weak and invalid to prevent or remove those irregularities which they threaten but in vain being in those hands which are open for a bribe and then bind them up Tertullian hath well observed That the providence and authority of men in this doe pariate and are alike such as their wisdome is to demonstrate that which is good such is their power to exact it Tam illa falli facilis quà m ista contemni Tertull. Apol. c. 45. their wisdome as subject to errour as their power to a baffle the one may be deluded and the other restrained and both Omri and his statutes may be trod under foot When we walk under the Lawes of men we walk as under a cloud which every wind may carry about and at last scatter and disperse but when we walk under the Lawes of God we walk as under heaven the Throne of God which shall stand fast for ever when we walk with men we walk as with them whom we can sometimes delude sometimes muzzle and bind but when we walk with God we walk with him who is every where and sees every event whose eye is ever open whose hand is ever stretched out and whose voice breaketh the Cedars of Libanus But now secondly as the Lawes of men do not so awe and regulate us but that we break out too oft beyond those bounds which Reason and Religion hath set up no more doth the Law within us the Law of our understanding as Damascen calls the conscience command or confine us in our walk sometimes we glosse it sometimes we slight it sometimes we silence it and some there
be that seale it up and seare it as Saint Paul speaks as with a hot Iron If it speake to us we are deafe if it renew its clamours we are more averse and if it check us we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint Paul beat and wound it more and more multi famam pauci conscientiam verentur saith Pliny the loudest noise our conscience can make is not heard but the censure of men which is not most times worth our thought is a thunder-clap we heare it and we tremble we are led like fooles with melody to the stocks what others say is our motion and turnes us about to any point but when we speak to our selves we heare it but believe it not fling it by and forget it The voice of conscience is defraud not your brother nay but we will over-reach him the voice of conscience is Love thy neighbour as thy self nay but we will oppresse him the voice of conscience is Love Mercy nay but we will love our selves what we speak to our selves our selves soon make hereticall How Ambitious are we to be accounted Just and how unwilling to be so How loud are we against sin in the presence of others and then make our selves as invisible as we can that we may commit it what a sin is uncleannesse in the Temple and what a blessing is it in the closet with what gravity and severity will a corrupt Judge threaten iniquity What a pilferer Let him be whipt What a murderer He shall dye the death he whips the theef and hangs the murderer and indeed whips and hangs himself by a Proxie So that we see neither the power of the Laws nor the respect and obedience we owe to our selves are of any great force to prevaile with us to order our steps aright walk with men or as before men That may have some force but it reacheth no further then the outward man Walk with our selves give eare to our selves This might do much more but we see the practice of it is very rare and unusuall That there is little hope that it will compleat and perfect our walk and make us Just and Mercifull men which is here required It will be easie then to infer that our safest conduct will be to walk with God and to secure both the Laws of men and that Law within us that they may have their full power and effect in us we must first raise and build up in our selves this firm perswasion that whatsoever we do or think is open to the eye of that God who is above us and yet with us That that discovery which he makes is infinitely and incomparably more cleare and certain then that which we make by our sences that we do not see our friend so plain as he seeth our hearts that thou seest not the birds fly in the ayre so distinctly as he sees thy thoughts fly about the world to those severall objects which we have set up for our delight that he sees and observes that irregularity and deformity in our actions which is hid from our eyes when our intention is serious and our search most accurate Yet neverthelesse though being as we are in the flesh and so led by sence were this belief rooted and confirmed in us That he did but see us as man sees us or were this as evident to our faith as that is to our sence we should be more watchfull over our selves more wary of the divels snares and baits then we commonly are magna necessitas indicta pietatis c. saith Hilary Hil. in Psal 178. for there is a necessity laid upon us of feare and reverence and circumspection when we know and believe That he now stands by as a witnesse who will come again and be our Judge What a Paradise would the world be what a heaven would there be upon earth if this were generally and stedfastly beleived Glorious things are spoken of faith we call it a full assent we call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full and certain perswasion It is the evidence of things not seen I ask is ours so would to God it were nay would for many of us we did but believe that he is present with us and sees what we do or think as firmly as we do a story out of our own Chronicles nay as many times we do believe a lye would our faith were but as a grain of mustard-seed even such a faith if it did not remove mountains yet would chide down many a swelling thought would silence many a proud word would restrain us from those actions which now we glory in but would run from as from serpents as from the divel himself if we could fully perswade our selves that a God of wisdome and Power were so neer And now in the last place Let us cast a look upon those who for want of this perswasion doe walk on in the haughtinesse of their hearts and neither bowe to the Laws of God or men nor hearken to the Law within them which notwithstanding could not be in them were not this bright Eye and powerfull Hand over them And this may serve for Use and Application Many walk saith Saint Paul to the Philippians of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping that they are enemies to God And first the presumptuous sinner walks not with God who hath first hardened his heart and then his face as Adamant whose very countenance doth witnesse against him who declares his sins as Sodome and hides them not and they who first contemn themselves and then scornfully reject what common Reason and Nature suggest to them and then at last trusting either to their wit or wealth conceive a proud disdain of all that are about them and not a negative but a positive contempt of God himself first lose their reason in their lusts and then their modesty which is the onely good thing that can find a place in evil who doe that upon the open stage which they did at first but behind the curtain who first make shipwrack of a good conscience and then with the swelling salies of Impudence hasten to that point and haven which their boundlesse lusts have made choice of as we should doe to eternall happinesse per calcatum patrem as Saint Jerome speaks over Father and Mother over all Relations and Religion it self forsake all these not for Christs sake and the Gospel but for Mammon and the world What foule pollutions that grinding and cruell oppressions what open profanenesse have there been in the world and we may ask wit the Prophet Ieremiah cap. 8.12 Confusi sunt Were they ashamed when they committed abomination Nay they were not ashamed neither could they have any shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 4.18 for the hardnesse and blindnesse of their heart For in sin and by sin they at last grow familiar in sin clothe themselves with it as with a robe of Honour bring it forth into open view
here this day occasioned by this Pilgrime this honoured Knight to exhort you to vow a Pilgrimage not to this or that Saint but to the King of Saints and this you may do and stay at home In your house and private closets this Pilgrimage is best vowed for the way to heaven is as neere out of Brittany as Jerusalem and here you have a King to lead you and his example to accompany you For the words which I now read doe as it were bring him to the Church where he presents himself before the Altar layes down his Crown and Scepter and takes as it were his scrip and his staffe and vows himself a Pilgrim I am a stranger in the earth hide not c. And now to give you some reason why the holy Ghost makes choice of a King to teach this lesson First in this he setteth over us the best and wisest Masters Peripatetici dicunt generari prudentiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Gell. Noct. Att. l. 13. c. 8. because the Scholars and Disciples of Experience Quam usus genuit mater peperit memoria Begot by use and conversation in the world and brought forth by memory For those Conclusions which we gain by evidence of Reason may be as sure but not so operative and impressive as those which are drawn out by frequent and sensible observation Those we behold as we doe our face in a glasse as Saint James speaks and then goe away and forget them and commonly they beget a knowledge which ends in it self and so becomes more fatall then Ignorance But those Lessons which Experience brings us doe leave a mark and impression behind them and even characterize the soul and so fill it that it must vent and evaporate discourse to it selfe and discourse to others what it hath seen and felt and it flows naturally and forcibly from the very depth of Apprehension He makes the fairest and the livelyest shew of a stranger who shews him in purple and on the throne He will soonest perswade you that you are mortall who first shews you Death in his own face He writes most effectually who doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dip his pen in his mind and then draw out those conclusions which long and sad experience hath taught him For who fitter to declame against Riot then he that hath fed with Swine who can be a better Orator against Intemperance then he that hath found the delusion of Wine and the rage of Drink who can disgrace beauty more then he that hath felt it bite like a Cockatrice when Dives was in hell how ready was he to be a Preacher of righteousnesse to his brethren Experience doth make men both willing and able Instructers And certainly to cast a slur on vanity to decry the glory of the world to teach the uncertainty of riches and the folly of Ambition to demonstrate that there is no solid or lasting Joy to be founded on any thing under the moon they can best do who have had experience and are examples of both fortunes who have wallowed in wealth and been mockt by it who have lain in pleasure and been stung who have catcht at any evil that might carry them to that height they aimed at and then been thrown down by the same evil that brought them up who by long experience know what riches and Pleasures are what wings the one have and what horrour the other leave behind them when they turn their back who having had all their vain wishes made good are brought at last to unwish and execrate them all and forced to make this their last that they had never had what they so much desired Never was the world more severely censured then by those who have made most triall of it No theme more usually handled by all sorts then that of the contempt of the world nusquam tamen humanum genus tam incredulum tam surdum est and yet who heares what himself sayes or who believes his own report the greatest part of men that speak against it do it not out of hatred but out of love to the world for who more desirous to pluck the purple robe off from the rich mans back then he that longs to weare it himself how greedily do men surfeit on that meat which their injustice hath pluckt out of the mouthes of others His invisa saenoratio quibus succurrere videtur Columel It is with the world as with money let out upon use men hate and revile it yet are willing and use all meanes to bring it into their hands though upon the hard and so much loathed condition of interest The Philosophers have largely written of this subject but most of that they wrote they wrote upon conjecture and guesse and scarce believed themselves in what they wrote they have writ best who have been disciplined by their own folly and have been taught not by the best but yet by the surest mistrisse experience who have been so roughly handled in the waies which they chose and delighted in that at last they were even forced to that proficiencie that they did indeed believe themselves Solomon who was a King wrote a bitter Satyre against the world did first taste the gall of every vanity and then he wrote more fully more profitably then ever yet any Philosopher did in his cell for having run over the whole work of the creation of the world having watched the course of things and every motion of his own heart having been turned round as it were on the wheel of vicissitude and change at last settles and rests upon this conclusion which was drawn forth out of the full treasurie of his experience First he thought in his heart of what he had seen and then he said in his heart and fixt it up in lasting characters to be read in the world to the end of it That all that was in it was vanity And therefore when a King thus pronounceth of himself that he is but a stranger it must needs carry a far greater weight and argument of truth then if a private unexperienced man had spoken it David had experience of peace and war of riches and poverty of pleasures and woe He had been a private and publick person a shepherd a painfull calling a souldier a bloody trade a courtier an honourable slavery which joynes together in one the Lord and the Parasite the Gentleman and the Drudg and he was a King a glorious name filled up with feares and cares all these he had passed through and found least rest when he was at the highest lesse content in the Throne then in the sheepfolds all this he had observed and laid up in his memory and this his confession is an Epitome and briefe of all and in effect he tells us that whatsoever he had seen in this his passage whatsoever he had enjoyed yet he found nothing so certain as this that he had found nothing certain nothing that he
are seated in the sensitive part and without which misery and paine have no tooth at all to bite us for our passions are the sting of misery nor could Christ have suffered at all if he had been free from them if misery be a whip 't is our passion and fancy that make it a Scorpion what could malice hurt me if I did not help the blow what edge had an injury if I could not be angry what terror had death if I did not feare It is opinion and passion that makes us miserable take away these and misery is but a name Tunde Anaxarchum enim non tundis you touch not the Stoick though you bray him in a morter Deliverd then he was to these passions to feare and to grief which strein'd his body which rackt his joynts which stretched his sinews which trickled down in clods of bloud exhaled themselves through the pores of his flesh in a bloudy sweat the fire that melted him was his feare and his grief Da si quid ultra est is there yet any more or can he be delivered further not to despaire for it was impossible not to the torments of Hell which could never seize on his innocent soule but Irae Dei to the wrath of God which wither'd his heart like Grasse and burnt up his bones like a Hearth and brought him even to the dust of death Look now upon his countenance it is pale and wan upon his heart it is melted like wax look upon his Tongue it cleaves to the roof of his mouth what talk we of Death the wrath of God is truely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fearfullest and terriblest thing in the world the sting of sin which is the sting of Death Look into your own soules That weake apprehension of it which we sometimes have what a night and darknesse doth it draw over us what a night nay what a Hell doth it kindle in us what torments do we feele the Types and sad representations of those in the bottomlesse pit how do our delights distast us our desires strangle themselves what a Tophet is the world and what Furies are our Thoughts what do we see which we do not turne from what do we know which we would not forget what do we think which we do not startle at or do we know what to think now what rock can hide us what mountaine can cover us we are wearie of our selves and could wish rather not to be then to be under Gods wrath were it not for this there would be no Law no Conscience no Divell but with this the Law is a killing letter the Conscience a Fury and the Divell a Tormentor But yet there is still a difference between our apprehension and his for alas to us his wrath doth not appeare in its full Horror for if it did we should sooner dye then offend him Some do but think of it few think of it as they should and they that are most apprehensive look upon it as at distance as that which may be turned away and so not fearing his wrath treasure up wrath against the day of wrath To us when we take it at the nearest and have the fullest sight of it it appears but as the cloud did to Elias servant like a mans hand but to Christ the Heavens were black with clouds and winds and it showred down upon him as in a tempest of fire and brimstone we have not his eyes and therefore not his apprehension we see not so much deformity in sin as he did and so not so much terrour in the wrath of God It were Impiety and Blasphemy to think that the blessed Martyrs were more patient than Christ Cujus natura patientia Tert. de patient saith Tert. whos 's very nature was patience yet who of all that noble Army ever breathed forth such disconsolate speeches God indeed delivered them up to the saw to the wrack to the teeth of Lions to all the engines of cruelty and shapes of death but numquid deseruit they never cryed out they were forsaken he snatched them not from the rage of the perescutor by a miracle but behold a greater miracle Rident superantque dolores Spectanti similes Sil. It 〈◊〉 1. In all their Torments they had more life joy in their countenance than they who looked on who were more troubled with the sight-than they were with the punishment their Torture was their Triumph their Afflictions were their Melody of Weak they were made Strong Tormenta carcer ungulae Prudent Eubal Atque ipsa poenarum ultima Mors Christianis ludus est Torments Racks and Strapadoes and the last Enemy Death it self were but a recreation and refreshment to the Christians who suffered all these with the patience of a stander by But what speak we of Martyrs Divers sinners whose ambition never reacht at such a Crown but rather trembled at it have been delivered up to afflictions and crosses nay to the anger of God but never yet any nay not those who have despaired were so delivered as Christ we may say that the Traitor Judas felt not so much when he went and hanged himself For though Christ could not despaire yet the wrath of God was more visible to him than to those that doe who beare but their owne burden when he lay pressed under the sinnes of the whole world God in his approches of Justice when he comes toward the sinner to correct him may seem to go like the Consuls of Rome with his Rod and his Axes carried before him many sinners have felt his rod and his Rod is Comfort in his Frown Favour and in his Anger Love and his Blow may be a Benefit but Christ was struck as it were with his Axe others have trembled under his wrath but Christ was even consumed with the stroke of his hand For being delivered to his wrath his wrath delivers him to these Throwes and Agonies delivers him to Judas who delivers nay betrayes him to the Jewes who deliver him to Pilate who delivered him to the Cross where the Saviour of the world must be murthered where Innocency and Truth it self hangs betweene two Thieves I mention not the Shame the Torment of the Cross for the Thieves endured the same But his soul was crucified more than his body and his heart had sharper nailes to pierce it than his hands or his feet Tradidit non pepercit he delivered him and spared him not But to rise one step more Tradidit deseruit he delivered and in a manner forsook him restrained his influence denied relief withdrew his comfort stood as it were a far off and let him fight it out unto death he looked about and there was none to help even to the Lord he called but he heard him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 27.46 he roared out for the very grief of his heart and cryed with a loud voyce My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And could God
forsake him when he hung upon the Crosse did he not see the joy which was set before him Yes he did but not to comfort but rather torment him Altissimo Divinitatis consilio actum est ut gloria militaret in paenam saith Leo. By the counsell of the Godhead it was set down and determined that his Glory should adde to his Punishment that his Knowledge which was more clear than a Seraphins should increase his Grief his Glory his Shame his Happinesse his Misery that there should not onely be Vinegar in his Drink and Gall in his Honey and Mirrhe with his Spices but that his Drink should be Vinegar his Honey Gall and all his Spices as bitter as Mirrhe that his Flowers should be Thorns and his Triumph Shame This could sin do and can we love it This could the love and the wrath of God do his love to his Creature and his wrath against sin And what a delivery what a desertion is this which did not deprive him of strength but enfeeble him with strength which did not leave him in the dark but punish him with light what a strange delivery was that which delivered him up without comfort nay which betrayed and delivered up his comforts themselves what misery equall to that which makes Strength a Tormenter Knowledge a Vexation and makes Joy Glory a Persecution There now hangs his sacred Body on the Cross not so much afflicted with his passion as his Soul was wounded with compassion with compassion on his Mother with compassion on his Disciples with compassion on the Jewes who pierced him for whom he prayes Tantam patienteam nemo unquam perpetravit Tert. de Patientia when they mock him which did manifest his Divinity as much as his miracles with compassion on the Temple which was shortly to be levelled with the ground with compassion on all Mankind bearing the burden of all dropping his pity and his blood together upon them feeling in himself the torments of the blessed Martyrs the reproch of his Saints the wounds of every broken heart the poverty diseases afflictions of all his Brethren to the end of the world delivered to a sense of their sins who feel them not and to a sense of theirs who grone under them delivered up to all the miseries and sorrowes not onely which he then felt but which any men which all men have felt or shall feel to the time the Trump shall found and he shall come again in Glory The last delivery was of his soul which was indeed traditio an yielding it up a voluntary emission or delivering it up into his Fathers hands praevento carnificis officio saith the Father he prevents the spear and the hand of the Executioner Tert. A pol. and gives up the Ghost What should I say or where should I end who can fathome this depth The Angels stand amazed the Heavens are hung with black the Earth opens her mouth and the Grave hers and yields up her dead the veyl of the Temple rends asunder the Earth trembles and the rocks are cleft but neither Art nor Nature can reach the depth of this wisdom and love no tongue neither of the living nor of the dead neither of men or Angels are able to express it The most powerfull Eloquence is the Threnody of a broken heart for there his death speaks it self and the vertue and power of it reflects back again upon him and reacheth him at the right hand of God where his wounds are open his merits vocal interceding for us to the end of the world We have now past two steps and degrees of this scale of love with wonder and astonishment and I hope with grief and love Tradidit pro nobis For us sinners passed through a field of Blood to the top of mount Calvarie where the Son of God the Saviour of the World was nailed to the Crosse and being thus lifted up upon his Crosse he looketh down upon us to draw us after him Look then back upon him who looks upon us whom our sins have pierced and behold his blood trickling down upon us which is one ascent more and brings in the persons for whom he was delivered First for us Secondly for us all Now this pro nobis that he should be delivered for us is a contemplation full of delight and comfort but not so easie to digest for if we reflect upon our selves and there see nothing but confusion and horrour we shall soon ask our selves the question why for us why not for the lapsed Angels who fell from their estate as we did They glorious Spirits we vile Bodies they heavenly Spirits we of the earth earthly ready to sink to the earth from whence we came they immortall Spirits we as the Grasse withered before we grow yet he spared not his Son to spare us but the Angels that fell he cast into Hell and chained them up in everlasting darknesse 2 Pet. 2.4 We may think that this was munus honorarium that Christ was delivered for us for some worth or excellency in us no it was munus eleemosynarium a gift bestowed upon us in meere compassion of our wants With them he deales in rigour and relents not with us in favour and mercy and seeks after us and layes hold on us when we were gone from him as far as sin and disobedience could carry us out of his reach It was his love it was his will to doe so and in this we might rest but Divines will tell us that man was a ritter object of mercy than they quia levius est alienâ mente peccare quam propriâ because the Angels sin was more spontaneous De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis corruptio◠gens Daemonum evasit Tert. Apol. c. 22. wrought in them by themselves man had importunam arhorem that flattering and importuning Tree and that subtill and seducing Serpent to urge and sway him from his obedience Man had a Tempter the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves Man took in Death by looking abroad but the Angels by reflecting upon themselves gazed so long upon their own Beauty till they saw it changed into horrour and deformity and the offence is more pardonable where the motive is ab extrinseco from some outward assoile than where it grows up of it self Besides the Angels did not all fall but the whole lump of mankind was leavend with the same leaven and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image should be utterly lost These reasons with others we may admit though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance but the Scripture is plain that he took not the Angels Heb. 2.16 he did not lay his hands upon them to redeem them to liberty and strike off their Bonds and we must goe out of the world to find out the reason and seek