under a Necessity of taking pains Conceiving it infinitely difficult for any man to live a strict and a vertuous life who is not bless'd with some Calling wherein to labour Ask't he was indeed by Xenophon and other Friends why of so many great Offers he would not accept at least of some if not in his own yet in his Childrens consideration But still He answer'd If they live as they ought they cannot want Blessings and if they live otherwise I cannot wish that they may have them If they are dutiful to their God they will find him an indulgent and loving Father And if they rebel against their Maker what have I to do with them Now consider how these Heathens who liv'd before Christ had more of Christian Self-denyal than most of Them that come after They were many of them plac'd upon exceeding high Mountains shew'd the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glory of them Yea though they were proffer'd those Injoyments and strongly tempted to accept them yet so great was their courage they did not yield Men who if they are not fit for our imitation are fit to shame us at least for our imitating no more of the Life of Christ. Who as it were in opposition to this Temptation of the Devil drawn from the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them made choice of Poverty and Despisedness for his external Qualifications For though by reason of his Divinity he could not possibly be obnoxious to the unworthiness of Sin yet by reason of his Humanity he was capable of suffering the most unworthy Solicitations And even those Solicitations disturb'd his Ease although they had not the power to hurt his Safety Something therefore there was in it for our Edification That when it pleased the God of Heaven to take upon him our Nature who had it in his own choice both of whom he would be born and in what Quality he would live He did not choose the greatest but rather the meanest and the most abject of all Conditions Now whoever he is that chooseth be he wise or foolish ever chooseth what is Best either really or in shew either best in it self or best to his imagina tion From whence it follows that our Saviour being the Wisdom of the Father as God the Son could not choose but choose wisely and what was really the best when he made choice to be so meanly both born and bred As for his Birth sure a Carpenter's Spouse was a very mean Parent The Stable of an Inn was an exceeding mean Place wherein an Oxe and an Ass were as mean Attendants And then for his Breeding It was in Galilee yea in Nazareth the meanest part of all Palestine In the House of Goodman Ioseph one of the meanest men of Nazareth And in the way of a Carpenter as mean a Trade as could well be chosen Our Saviour shall not choose for us if he chooses no better for Himself will the men of this World be apt to say We would choose had we our choice to be born of Princes to be bred in stately Palaces and brought up at Court None should be greater if we could help it nor any richer than our selves We would choose the very Things wherewith the Devil here tempted Christ All the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them Would not be so poorly spirited as to refuse a frank offer for want of a little Complaisance an act of Worship and Veneration A Beast indeed will rest contented when his Belly is full and looks no higher when he is Empty than to That which grows up from the Ground he treads on But Man is made of another Metal and He is scarce fit to live who has no Ambition but sits him down like a Beast completely satisfied with a sufficience Conscience and Contentment are fit for persecuted Churchmen or well-bred Quakers or else for men whose Wits are lost in their Studies and whose overmuch Learning has made them as mad as any Paul a Man who talks of Contentment in All Conditions and would have us look no farther as to the Goods of this World than Food and Rayment Is it not Pity that such as These should be the Reasonings of the Followers and Friends of Christ who followed the things which They eschew and eschewed those things which They contend for His choice I say was to be poorer and more despised than other men And because being a Man he was to be of some Calling he pitch'd on That that was lyable to least Temptations and so was registred at Nazareth not in the Quality of a Freeholder but of an Handicraft-Man He was but Faber Lignarius a Wooden Smith Had he been a Freeholder he had had though not a Kingdom yet a small Pittance of this World He might have trod his own Ground and have breath'd his own Air and have eaten his own Bread without depending upon the Charity of any other man's hands or on the Labour of his own But he was on the contrary so poor and destitute that he had neither Food nor Rayment but what he earn'd or had given him or got by Miracle As long as from his Twelfth to his Thirtieth year of Age diverse Fathers are of opinion that he wrought for his Living in his Father in Law 's Shop Nor is there any Church-Writer who gives another Accompt of him And from thence until his Death he obtain'd his Bread either by Teaching as a Prophet or doing good as a Physician Both gratuitously and freely although by some he was rewarded Now that our Saviour's way of choosing may have some Influence upon ours and this our second Consideration may be as useful as it is long § 18. Let us consider in the Third place how God and Satan are two Competitors for our choice Satan tempts us to joyn with Him in his Attempts against God God solicits us on the contrary to side with Him against Satan Satan tempts us to Rebellion with the Things that are seen which are but Temporal God solicits us to Obedience with the Things that are not seen which are Eternal Satan's Proposals are to the Flesh God's especially to the Spirit Satan takes us up to an exceeding high Mountain and discovers to us from thence all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them God on the other side takes us up to Mount Sion or at least takes us down to the Valley of Achor and discovers to us from thence the Kingdom of Heaven and Glory of it and saith to us in effect as the Devil to Christ All This will I give you if falling down ye will worship me Now it remains that we consider to which Proposal of the two our Affections and Appetites have the most reason to incline Let 's put them Both into the Scales and then choose That that shall weigh the heaviest As for the Things of this present World the best we can say of them is This They all
been sweeten'd and made delicious by nothing else but the Foretasts of Life Eternal Were Life Eternal nothing better than a kind of perpetual Youth an unmovable station upon the point of One-and-twenty we may guess how much admir'd and how much coveted it would be by the Care which People take of their Embonpoint How many use their Thrid of Life as prudent Penelope did her Web when being wound up to a Real Age they unravel it again to a seeming Youth So very willing they are to live and yet so very unwilling to outlive Beauty that they will needs court Eternity by a Nursery of Colours So that when fifty or threescore years begin to be legible in their Faces characters there dug by the Plough of Time A Dash or two of their Pencil will strike off Twenty And therefore the years which they have liv'd though scarce the Childhood of Life Eternal may yet assist them in its Discovery as far as a little imperfect Guess They who fain would never dye can tell me best how sweet is life And They who fain would ne're be old can best inform me of Eternity § 17. But I must not here make a Panegyrick of Life Eternal as well because I insisted on it in considering the nature of the young man's Inquiry as because I must hasten to make Advantage of what already hath been deliver'd Since therefore Christ is so much a Master as to beget our greatest Reverence And yet a Master so full of goodness as to merit our greatest Love a Master to challenge our obedience and a Good Master to invite it A Master to keep us from Contempt and yet withal a good Master whereby to give us Familiarity A Master to set us on work and a good Master to reward us Since I say he is so good as to be willing to Allure what he is so much a Master as to be able to compel Since our Imployment is not only very proportionable to our strength but very conformable to our Nature not only tending to our Interest but even agreeable to our Desires Since our Master is Goodness it self our Service Freedom as well as Pleasure and our Wages Eternal Life Let us not serve him only for fear but let us fear him only for love Rather as a Good Master who will Reward than as a Master who can punish Let not our obedience be meerly servile and only paid to the Law of a Carnal Commandment Heb. 7. 16. But filial rather and ingenuous to the Law that is Spiritual Rom. 7. 14. Iob was objected against by Satan that he serv'd God for something and that the source of his obedience was but a mercenary Devotion Now though we cannot but have something for serving God yet that Hell may not upbraid us let us serve him for nothing more than the honour and happiness to serve him Shall we serve our Good Master from the same base Principle from which the very worst Servants will serve an ill one For shame let us not serve him as vanquish't People do serve their Tyrants or as some poor Indians do serve the Devil only to the end that he may not hurt us Will he accept of our Service think ye when we do make him our shelter but not our choice a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a meer Plank after a shipwrack He is little beholding to such a Proselyte whom only his Enemy hath made his Friend and may rather thank Hell for our Obedience when we come to him but in a Fright I would not with the Woman who was met in the way by Bishop Ivo with a Firebrand in one hand and a Bucket of Water in the other either burn up the Joys of Heaven or extinguish the Fire of Hell But so much I am of that Woman's mind that if I might have mine own wish I would have all Christian Servants to love This Master a great deal more than the Ioys of Heaven And I would have them fear his Anger a great deal more than the Pains of Hell If He did empty himself of Glory and as it were go out of Himself to give us Grace How should we empty our selves of all that is dear unto us and even go out of our selves too by Self-denials to advance his Glory O let us therefore be such generous and disinteressed Servants as to vye Obedience with his Commands In an humble kind of Contention let us indeavour to out-do and if occasion ever serve to out-suffer what he commands us Since Heaven it self is the Merchandize which in the Parable of our Lord must be sold for sweat let us more out-bid the Pharisees than the Pharisees did the Law And that our Master may say to us in his Kingdom of Glory Well done good Servants Say we to him in this of Grace Good Master what shall we do Let us not admit of Ignobler Motives for the present exciting us to our Duties than the bare doing them in this world and an Inheritance in the next A good life here and hereafter an Eternal Now the Earnest of our Service and then the Wages The very Earnest of such an Estimate but so inestimable the Wages that 't is not so fit to be describ'd as to be press'd and urg'd home on a Congregation For the Knowledge of This unlike That of other things dwells in the Heart not in the Head The way to understand the Joys of Heaven with St. Paul is with St. Paul to be rapt up thither Rapt up in zeal and affection not in fancy and speculation In the yerning of the Bowels not in the working of the Brains Let the Scepticks therefore dispute themselves to Heaven whilst we in silence are walking thither Let the Schoolmen take it in subtilty and we in deed Let the Pelagians or Socinians try to purchase Eternal Life whilst we inherit it Let the Sanguin Fiduciary possess himself of Bliss whilst we contend for it Let the Philosopher injoy it as well as he can in his Contemplations we shall best contemplate it in our Injoyment Which God of his Mercy vouchsafe unto us even for the Glory of his Name and for the worthiness of his Son our great and good Master the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom with the Father in the Unity of the Spirit be Honour and Glory both now and for ever THE INHERITANCE OF ETERNITY IS God's Free Gift After all our WORKING MARK X. 17. Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life A Quaestion set forth in such happy Terms that I conceive it will be easy to resolve it out of it self For the way to inherit Eternal Life is to receive and own Christ both as a Master and as a Good Master to obey him as the first and to love him as the second and to revere him as both together and when All is done still to ask what we shall do to believe he will reward us according to our Doings and
doing of what he commands as for the suffering of what he inflicts Thy will be done not only upon us but by us too Let it be done here on Earth with the same Alacrity as in Heaven Let it be done by thy Children with as much Impartiality as by thy Servants Let it be done by us Men as unconstrainedly as by Angels If thou wilt have us to buy Salvation let us not choose our own Price If thou wilt have us to work it out let us not choose our own Task If thou wilt have us to do it presently let us not choose our own Time Give us Resignedness of Spirits and with That what thou pleasest Be thy Injunctions never so hard or thy Cross never so heavy be it the giving up our Livelyhoods or be it the parting with our Lives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thy will be done 'T is true we may pray with our Blessed Saviour Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from us But then we must pray with our Saviour too Nevertheless not our will but thy will be done I remember Herodian reports of Alexander the Cousin German to Pseud Antonine He was so perfectly at the Devotion of his Mother Mammaea as to obey her in those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which he was most of all displeased Not disobeying her even in those in which Disobedience had been a Duty And 't was Pythagoras his Theology not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Iamblicus but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hierocles not only not to repine at God's oeconomy but with all gentleness to embrace it Nor only to observe and to do his will even then when it thwarted theirs but to accommodate and conform their will to His. I am sorry I must say what yet I must that were Pythagoras his Metempsychosis now to be verified in Himself and He again to teach Philosophy in these our days I know not which were the more probable either for us to be the better for his Christian-like Principles or for Him to be the worse for our Heathen-Practice And because Reason by many Auditors is more attended to than Scripture let me bespeak you in the Person not so much of a Christian as of a Philsopher Is there any thing in the World I do not say more impious but more unpolitick than for a Lump of Infirmities to enter the Lists with the Almighty or for a thing of a Span long to resist Immensity Our Disobedience to such a Master will be found aequally ridiculous whether we hope to thrive in it by Opposition or Avoidance For dare we stand against Him who is Omnipotent Or can we fly from Him that 's every where Do we live in fear of Them that can hurt the Body and are we undaunted only at Him who can kill the Soul Iacob could not wrestle with him though he did it for a Blessing without the Disjoynting of his Thigh and shall we struggle for a Curse even at the price of a Damnation If Ausonius could say of the Roman Emperour That 't was not safe scribling against a Man who had the Power to proscribe And Phavorinus of Hadrian That 't was not good to dispute with such a Person as had the command of thirty Legions Then with a greater force of reason Is it not Wisdom as well as Duty to yield obedience unto a Master who is infinitely Great as well as Good and has the power to compel as well as the sweetness to invite and that not only our Obedience but our Assent too We count it prudence in other things to make a vertue of Necessity And being convinc'd we are unable to prevail against our Master why do we not strive to be unwilling and at least make a vertue of so much weakness If we duly contemplate Inferiour Nature we shall find but too much reason even to aemulate and strive with the things below us Which yet in this respect at least are so much higher than our selves by how much the more they are conformable to the Blessed Will and Pleasure of him that made them Not only the Beasts which have no Understanding but the Elements which have no Sense do silently preach to the Christian World at once Obedience and Self-denial For what more contrary to Nature than for the Earth to give Rain or what are the Clouds more unwilling to than they are to rain Earth And yet Obedience to their Maker is a thing so natural as that they obey him against their Nature What is the Sun more averse to than either going back or standing still And yet in obedience to God's Command He did not only stand still in Gibeon but withal went back upon the Dial of Ahaz Hereupon it will be useful thus to reason within our selves Are God's Drudges so inclinable to his Commands and shall we his Darlings be so averse They are only obliged to their Creator for being made Our Obligation is far greater by our being made men and greater yet by our being remade We are not only the Work but the Breath of God saith Tertullian Nay farther yet whereas he spake only for Them for Us he died And if they are so thankful for being the work of his Hands shall not we be much more for being the price of his Blood yes sure As 't is our privilege above them to have a Saviour and a will so our obedience must be more and it must be more willing It must not only be Universal for so is Theirs but also free and unconstrain'd As other Creatures are obedient because they cannot resist so ought we because we will not We must not obey him only in fear because he is a great Iudge but because he is a Saviour we must take Pleasure in our Obedience We ought to look upon his Praecepts with as kind eyes as on his Promises and the employment of such a Master should as much incourage us as our pay We ought to think the Day lost which is not spent in his Service and execute his Precepts with so much readiness as wishing at least we could prevent them We should not only be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only ready with the Praescriptions but Freewill-Offerings of our Obedience It being a Gallantry of Devotion and most worthy of a Christian to be most of all afraid of offending Him not whom we find a meer Master very inclinable to punish But whom we find a good Master most apt to pardon Let us hasten to him therefore preaching to us from the Mount and let us give him our Attention in the spirit of the two Emblemes of the Law and the Prophets which had the honour to attend him upon Mount Tabor Undergoing his meanest Offices in the humility of a Moses and with the greatest earnestness performing them in the zeal of an Elias Let us render him every Faculty both of our Souls and of our Bodies our
whilst we are told that as our Iourney is long so our Time is little and yet Eternity depends on the usage of it Must we needs be still coveting another's House another's Land another's Servant another's Wife or somewhat else which is anothers and that at the Instant of our abounding in two whole worlds which are our own No let us rather bespeak our Tempter as Ioseph did his kind Mistress How can we do so great a wickedness which way shall we be able to set about it Had Potiphar been a jealous man or a cruel Master Ioseph might have done much at the frequent Intreaties of a Mistress But He considering how his Master had withheld nothing from him besides his Wife and intrusted him too with Her as well as with his whole Substance could not in Gratitude to his Master accept the Favour of his Mistress He could not sin against so manifold and great a Trust. So if God had been a Wilderness to any of us tyed us up from All Comforts or left but few things lawful for us we might then have sin'd against him with more excuse But considering his Bounty and Goodness towards us his leaving it in our power to pick and choose our Contentments in great Variety and his withholding nothing from us but what will hurt us in the Possession we ought to stir up his Grace as well as our own good Nature in us to an effectual Resistance of the most powerful Temptations which shall at any time indeavour to debauch us into Rebellion and say with Ioseph How can we do so great a wickedness against a Deity so obliging How can we possibly be so ingrateful § 19. Having therefore briefly weigh'd the Rival-objects of our choice and seen the very vast Difference between the Things of this praesent and future world yea between the same Things of this present world as they are differently offer'd by God and Satan by God on the one side as they are sanctified into Blessings and on the other side by Satan as they are turn'd into a Curse by God as of Right and by Satan as of Sufferance by God in such a Measure as has a Tendency to our Good and by Satan in such an extravagance as is in order to our undoing by God to satisfie our Appetites and by Satan to inlarge them by God as obligations to Love and Gratitude and by Satan as excitements to Pride and Luxury By God as Directives to the great End of our Creation and by Satan as Amusements to keep us from it we cannot take a better course when Satan tempts us as he did Christ with the Greatness of the World and the Glory of it than to reflect upon our Solemn Baptismal Vow and by consequence to fight against the Prince of this World and utterly to forsake its Pomps and Vanities Not to walk according to the Course of this world to fear its Friendship to hate its Wisdom to suspect its Power and to scorn its Glory to crucifie the world unto our selves and our selves unto the world to keep our selves unspotted and undefiled from the world And whilst our vile Bodies are here on Earth to have our Conversations at least in Heaven § 20. These are the Lessons we are to learn from the First observable in the Text and such as prompt me to proceed to the consideration of the Second For of the many and cogent Arguments whereby to make our selves think meanly of the Things which we admire This is none of the least That they are not only in God's Gift by a natural Right But many times by His leave in the Devil 's also For thus rnn the words of The next Particular in the Division That all the Goods of This world however lovely they may appear to the misty Eye of Carnality are yet by God's Patience and wise Permission at least successively though not at once in the Devil's Proffer and Disposal First I must evidence that so it Is. Next I must guess at the Reasons why And last of all I must proceed to shew the manifold Advantage and Use of Both. § 1. That so it is may be evinced more ways than one From Scripture from Reason and from Experience It is so evident from Scripture wherein our Saviour calls Satan The Prince of this World St. Paul the Ruler and the God too that the Devil in one sense said not amiss unto our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of this world is deliver'd to me as That does signifie by an Hebraism that God does suffer or permit him to rob the Innocent and to heap Riches upon the Guilty and so to dispose of whole Kingdoms to the Sons of Violence and Oppression who call their strength the Law of Iustice. 'T is true the words of the Devil as St. Luke sets them down are clearly spoken as by a Sophister who according to his Custom being aequivocal or homonymous in what he says does cunningly mix a little Truth with the greatest falshood to be imagin'd For if he means that God Almighty has put the world into his hands and intrusted him as a Deputy to pass a Right of Possession on whom He pleaseth there is nothing more false than his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which will be made to appear in its proper place But if his meaning is only This That God is pleas'd to let him alone in his Course of wickedness for a Time and permits him to be mischievous as far as his Fetters and Chain will reach nothing is truer than That Assertion from the Father of Lyes And nothing can shew its Truth better than such a Scriptural Example as That of Iob. § 2. He we know was a perfect and upright man A man fearing God and eschewing Evil. As to the purity of his Life he had not his Equal in all the Earth In so much that God upbraided and vexed Satan with his Integrity Yet even All that Iob had and we know he had a world was left by God in the Devil's Power For no sooner had Satan said Put forth thine Hand now and touch all he hath And he will curse thee to thy face but God return'd him this Answer All that he hath is in thy Power only upon Himself do not put thine Hand forth 'T is plain the Devil is God's Pris'ner for there we have the length of the Chain that holds him It did not reach to Iob's Person but only to his Possessions And to Them so universally that the Devil dispos'd of All to his prime Instruments upon Earth The Sabaeans the Chaldaeans the Fire and the Whirlwind He sent his Journey-men the Sabaeans to plunder Iob of his Oxen to take his Asses into Possession and slay his Servants with the edge of the Sword Employed the Fire to kill his Sheep and his Shepherds To the Chaldaeans he bequeathed Iob's stock of Camels together with the Lives of those that
short and cannot last any longer than a Natural man's life which if it continue till he is old is much too young to be but the childhood of Aeternity we ought to look upon Them as our surest Friends who are so curteously severe as to awaken us out of our Reverie not permitting us to go on in our merry Dream for fear it prove a dead sleep by long continuance whose danger will not be discern'd until we awake in Another world § 7. They indeed do say truth who say that Christ is our Saviour our Sacrifice our Elder Brother and our Advocate and that by him we are redeemed from the Curse of the Law Gal. 3. 13. But nothing hurts more than Truth it self when 't is not solidly and wholly but only partially deliver'd And they say not the whole Truth until they add this unto all the rest that Christ is our Master our Lawgiver our King and our Iudge and that he came not to abrogate but to perfect the Law To fulfil it saith the English To fill it up saith the Greek for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word Matth. 5. 17. Hence therefore I shall argue the obligation lying upon us that we exceed the Iews as much by our obeying the moral Law as They did us by their obeying the Ceremonial And this I shall do by three such steps or Degrees as may serve for three Rounds of a Iacob's Ladder whose Bottom although it touch the Earth yet it reacheth at the Top within the Heavens § 8. First If Christ were nothing more than our Lord and Master we must be concluded to be his Servants because they are Relative and Correlative which do mutually infer the one the other And were we nothing more to him than hired Servants we could not sure but be obliged to do his work which is not only to believe he is true and righteous and will pay us the wages which he hath promis'd But over and above it is to come when he calls to go when he sends and to do what he bids us without exception or delay For was it ever yet the work of an hired Servant to believe that his Master is an honest meek man who first will suffer himself with patience to be abused by his Servant and then besides his forgiveness will give him also a great Reward No. 'T is the keeping of his Commandments which is the Doing of his work And that is strictly recommended by Christ himself as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or touchstone whereby to judge what we are whether loving or faithful or knowing Servants If loving Servants we will keep his Commandments Iohn 14. 15. If faithful Servants we will be sure to do whatsoever he commands us Iohn 15. 14. If knowing Servants and such as know that we know him his best beloved Servant tells us we will keep his Commandments 1 Iohn 2. 3. Still the keeping his Commandments is as 't were the great Vein carrying spirits and life throughout the Body of the Gospel that is Health and Salvation to them that read it Let men write never so much let them Dispute never so well for the cause of Christ or let them preach never so often this at last will be the product and Sum of All Fear God and keep his Commandments And therefore the keeping of his Commandments which is the doing of his work is every where set before us as the only-sufficient Proof or Demonstration that we do not only call him our Lord and Master but that we practically receive him as truly such But this is not all § 9. For he is such a Lord and Master as deserves more of us than bare obedience in as much as he hath not only hired us but hath bought us out-right So said St. Paul to his Corinthians We are not our own for we are bought with a Price And therefore if he had been pleas'd he might justly of Servants have made us Slaves Lord how exactly should we be dutiful to this our Master if we would only do for him as we would that our Servants should do for us we look for absolute impartial universal obedience from a Servant only hired from year to year And sure much more from such a Servant as is bound in an Apprentiship for six or seven Much more yet from such a Servant as we have bought out of the Gallies and dearly paid for and made as much our Peculium as either our Sheep or our Oxen or as the Furniture of our House But now the blessed Lord and Master speaking to us in my Text hath bought us all from what is worse than the Turkish Gallies even as much as a Lake of Fire and Brimstone is worse than a Sea of Salt and Water Nor must we serve him the less with the Antinomians but rather the more for our being bought because being bought we cannot possibly be our own And sure the less we are our own the more we must needs be his that bought us He having bought and deliver'd us out of the hands of our Enemies as well to the end that we might serve him as to the end that we might be safe He bought us for his own sake as well as ours We indeed were deer to him but he was deerer unto himself The very Disgraces which he suffer'd as having a Tendency to our Good were first and chiefly suffer'd by him as having a Tendency to his Glory And however he intends our present Good in order to our Future Glory yet he intends our Glory too so far forth as 't is in order and subordination unto his own So that if when he bought us and made us His he aymed sooner at his own Glory than our Salvation it cannot but follow from that supposal he aymed sooner at our Salvation from the Tyranny of Sin than from the Torments of Hell as the wages of it And this he did as for his own sake so very particularly for ours I say for ours because the Torments of Hell could not possibly come neer us were it not for the Tyranny and Filth of Sin When men do sin as with a Cartrope to use the Phrase of the Prophet Esa with the strength of the Cartrope they draw Hell to them But especially for his own because the Tyranny of Sin is an impudent Rebellion against his Will and immediately tendeth to his Dishonour whereas the Torments of Hell are great Discouragements from Sin and executions of vengeance on them that do it Hell is God's Bridewell or House of Correction but Sin is that Tyrant which drags us thither Hell is God's Creature but Sin is Satan's The Torments of Hell are extreamly useful as well to satisfie the Iustice as to set forth the Glory of our Creator whereas the Tyranny of Sin doth oppose itself against Both. In so much that the Reasons are great and many why we are bought with a Price by our Lord and Master
the chief purpose of his coming and to give us Heaven as the Accession For real happiness consisting in being holy as God is holy 'T is plain that Heaven can be no more than a good Appendix of our felicity For can we imagin that God himself can be any whit the happier for being in Heaven No 'T is Heaven which is the happier for being God's Throne which should he fix upon the Earth Heaven would presently be his Footstool As it is not the Court which gives Majesty to the King But wheresoever the King is there 's the Court. To be in Heaven without holiness like the lost Regiment of Angels would be to make it a second Hell And therefore They at the Day of Judgment who shall intreat the Hills to cover them and the Mountains to fall upon them will have no other reason for that Intreaty than to be hid from the face of him that sitteth upon the Throne From whence it is obvious to infer that to a man of impure Eyes nothing smarts more than the Sight of Bliss And therefore our Saviour's coming hither was first to fortifie our eyes or to make them pure and then to procure us the Blessed Vision Besides Secondly Had he been sent into the world only to amplify our Charter but not our Statutes to free us as really from the Moral as from the Ceremonial Law or from the observance of the Law moral as well as from the curse and the rigour of it And so to make us no whit holier but only happier than before if yet a man can be happy who is not holy which rather implys a contradiction he might have been buried before he was born buried I mean in his Mothers womb or he might have been born only to be buried He might have been murder'd as commodiously by Herod in the Cradle as by Pilate upon the Cross and with as great a convenience have dyed a Saviour at a year old as in living till three and thirty For what better reason can we imagin why he should live so long a Saint before he dyed a publick Sacrifice but that as 't were by the Aequator or standing Rule of his life we might reform and regulate all the obliquities of our own that he might free us from Sin 's Dominion by his Precepts and Example his Life and Doctrin as well as from the wages of it by his Death and Resurrection For 3 dly let us expostulate and reason a little within our selves Can there be any thing more irrational more dishonourable to God or more disgraceful to our Religion than to think that our Saviour came down from Heaven only to open and so to shut up the Gates of Hell To be a Friend of Publicans and Sinners in the same ill Sense in which his Enemies spake him to be so 'T is true indeed in one sense there can be nothing more Orthodox than was the malice of those Blasphemers Christ indeed was the friend of Publicans and Sinners the greatest Friend to be imagin'd But 't was by Saving them from their Sins as he did Matthew and Zachaeus Mary Magdalen and the like not by Saving them for all their Sins however indulgently lived in Not by making it safe for them to be Sinners without Amendment Could he come for nothing else but to proclaim a Iubilee for Malefactors and so to make them more voluptuous not more vertuous than before Can we imagin that the Law was so a Schoolmaster to Christ as that the end of his coming should be to turn us from our Books to beg us a kind of an endless Playday and so to send us out as Truants into a Mahomet's Paradise Can it be possibly consistent I say not with Scripture only and Reason but indeed with common Sense that he should purifie to himself a peculiar people not by bridling Sin but by letting it ride That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Zosimus should be as the Spaniard there calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say in plain English that the meer Christianity of our Opinions should abundantly expiate for all the Atheism of our Lives and so that the Gospel should be intended not for a Rule but a Dispensation 'T is true this Fallacy of the Tempter is too too commonly swallow'd down although not only the Stream of Reason but all the Current of the Scripture runs quite against it For in the third of the Acts at the twentieth Verse God having raised up his Son Iesus sent him to bless us saith St. Peter but how even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That blessing altogether consisted in his turning us away every one from our Iniquities So in the second to Titus at the eleventh Verse The Grace of God which bringeth Salvation hath appeared indeed to all men But to what end 'T was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we may live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Again in the fourteenth Verse of the same Chapter Christ is said indeed to have given himself for us But immediately it follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The gist consisteth in his Redeeming us from all Iniquity To which at least we may accommodate what is said of our Saviour Matth. 8. 17. where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in Beza's Translation he bare their Sicknesses or their Sins is in Tertullian's he took them away And let the Translation be what it will sure I am that the reason is very good It being the noblest benefaction and much most worthy of a Saviour who came from Heaven rather to cure the lame than to give them crutches rather to rid us of our sins by reducing us to obedience than by acquitting us only of punishment to make our sins the more supportable And as the prime end of his coming hither was to correct and reform our practice so his prime business when he was here was as our Lord to prescribe us Precepts and to press for a due obedience to all the Precepts which he prescrib'd Though 't is the custom of the world to look upon him as a Saviour and nothing else in his Priestly Office only which is to bless us and to insist upon his being our Elder Brother yet the name written upon his Garment and on his Thigh is King of Kings and Lord of Lords His name is Christ as well as Iesus Moses was his Type as well as Ioshua And observe in what order He is our Moses in the first place to make us fit for a blessed Canaan and then our Ioshua to give us possession The general Title of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we love to call the New Testament and nothing else would by a more genuine Translation of the word be expressed by The new Covenant that is to say the new Law For so it is called by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law of Faith
Moses to Israel have a remarkable Importance What doth the Lord thy God require of thee but only to fear the Lord thy God Deut. 10. 12. And what is it to fear him but as it follows in the next words to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve him with all thy heart and with all thy soul Without this Fear we shall easily fall into presumption or into carnal security We shall not strive to enter in at the strait Gate Nor give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure We shall not give an earnest heed unto the things which we have heard Heb. 2. 1. If we do not fear lest a promise being left of entring into his Rest any of us should seem to come short of it Heb. 4. 1. we shall not labour to enter into that Rest v. 11. For who will labour to get a thing which he verily thinks he hath as good as in possession Or who will labour to keep a thing which he verily thinks he can never lose I will not here stand to shew the manifold danger of their Opinion who say they were justified from Eternity and their Sins so forgiven before committed That they cannot fall totally much less finally from Grace although my Text would bear me out in such a profitable Severity Nor dare I otherwise be severe to any difference in opinion than as I find it corruptive of Christian Practice The case is clear that our Apostle having commended his Philippians for having always obey'd the Gospel does not there make a stop as if they had done enough already or needed no more of his Admonitions but immediately adds that they must work for their Salvation and work so far as to work it out and work it out in such a manner as to do it with Fear and Trembling and that according to the threefold Importance of this Expression which having thus considered in the Gross I shall now consider in the Retail too First we must work it out with meekness and humility of mind because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure All we have is but little and all that little is but receiv'd All the good we have received we have received as intrusted or lent unto us And whatsoever God lends us he lends us purposely to Employ Of all that is lent us to be imploy'd we are every one to render a strict Accompt And this alone may serve to keep us in all humility of mind that the more we have the more we owe and for so much the more we are accomptable And for the more we are unable to render a satisfactory Accompt by so much the more we shall be appal'd at the Day of Reck'ning 'T is true indeed vvhat St. Iohn saith that by keeping the Commandments we may come to have a right to the Tree of Life And by suffering for God may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God Affliction suffer'd in such a Case is said to work for us a weight of Glory 'T is true indeed we may be profitable Servants in God's Accompt because the unprofitable was commanded to be cast into utter Darkness Matth. 25. 30. And the Joys of Heaven are express'd by a Crown of Righteousness as if Eternity of Life were become our due But all this only by the force of God's Promise who cannot lye or by the Tenor of the Covenant which God was pleas'd to make with us Not by vertue of our Obedience as that that is equal to our Reward Which when it is in its Apogaeo at the utmost Top of its Exaltation is not worthy to be compar'd with the Glory which shall be revealed in us For however St. Paul had preach'd the Gospel and preach'd it too without charge not living of the Gospel which yet by right he might have done but making his own hands to serve and minister to his Necessities that he might not be burdensom unto any yet he professed he had nothing to glory of for so gratuitous a preaching the Word of God because a moral Necessity was laid upon him and woe had been to him if he had not preach'd it 1 Cor. 9. 16. Our blessed Saviour so puts the Case as to illustrate it with a Colour Luke 17. 7 8 9 10. Admit a Servant is very diligent in the performance of his Duty ever going when he is sent ever coming when he is call'd and ever doing as he is bid Does the Master give Thanks to that diligent Servant for doing the things that were commanded him I trow not saith our Saviour Even so ye as our Lord goes on to Application when ye shall have done all those things that are commanded you say we are unprofitable Servants we have done but our Duty and had been lyable to wrath if we had not done it Away then with those Philosophers St. Austin speaks of qui sibi vitam beatam fabricare vellent who design'd themselves a Heaven of their own skill and industry And away with those Pharisees not only of our Saviour's but of these our own Times whose custom 't is to thank God for that they are not like other men And confining Sanctity to the men of their Sect do separate from the rest of the Christian World as from Publicans and Sinners Sinners not to be approached by men of their Purity Stand farther off is their language for we are holier than you Isa. 65. 5. Conform we rather to St. Paul the special Badge of whose Saintship was the profoundness of his Humility For as the chiefest of Sinners do call themselves by an impious Antiphrasis and Hyperbole the chief of Saints so That Apostle on the contrary although Chieftain among the Saints doth call Himself by an holy M 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 osis The chief of Sinners When therefore our obedience hath led us to Christ and Christ is leading us to Heaven Let us remember the New Ierusalem though a vastly great City yet contrary to Myndus hath a very low Gate And seeing the lowness of the Gate stoop we down to enter in Let us love Good works but let us not lean too hard upon them Let us love them as things without which we cannot be saved but let us not hope to be saved by them Let us not labour with an ambition of being more meritorious but less unworthy than heretofore Claim we Heaven by a Right not of Purchace but of Donation Having added Obedience to our Faith add we Meekness to our Obedience Having done Iustice and lov'd Mercy let us walk humbly with our God And so expect our Salvation with Faith and Hope as withal to work it out with Fear and Trembling And that according to the first Importance of this Expression Again we must do it with fear and trembling in as much as that signifies the greatest anxiety and solicitude that we do not run in vain nor labour
or Outsides were contiguous to the Earth yet their Commerce and Conversation was still in Heaven They were at once such a Free and such a Dreadful sort of Pris'ners as by their Liberty to pray and to sing praises unto God v. 25. may be said to have taken their Prison Captive For their Midnight Devotions were suddainly follow'd with an Earthquake in so much that the Foundations of the Prison were shaken the Doors flew open of themselves and the Bands of the Pris'ners were all unloos'd v. 26. Nor indeed is it a wonder that such a Miracle should be seen in so blind a Dungeon whilst the Pris'ners that were in it were Paul and Silas For These were two of that little number by whom the world had been turned upside down Acts 17. 6. not in that malitious sense in which the words were there us'd by the certain leud fellows of the baser sort who had assaulted the House of Jason and set the City in an uproar v. 5. They having turn'd it upside down not for the worse but for the better The Confusion which they made did tend to Harmony and Order They made men Antipodes to themselves by their contrary walking to what they hitherto had done And so in effect They turn'd a Chaos upside down more properly than a World Or if it must needs be call'd a world it was the world lying in wickedness 1 Joh. 5. 19. The world compos'd of three Ingredients which made it fit to be cleans'd by another Deluge For all that is in the world as the same St. Iohn saith is the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eye and the Pride of Life And this alone was That world which by Precept and Example by Life and Doctrin these first Preachers of Christ were to turn upside down And this accordingly they did in a great many respects As in opening the Eyes of the Ignorant Gentiles and in mollifying the Hearts of the stubborn Iews and in breaking down the Partition-wall which God himself had built up betwixt the Iew and the Gentile They turn'd the world upside down by beating Swords into Plough-shares and warlike Spears into peaceful Pruning-hooks By making the Lamb to lye down with the Wolf and the Kid with the Hyaena By making Friendship and Peace between the Greek and the Iew as between the Iew and the Samaritan By turning Infidels into Believers Idolaters into Christians and the rebellious Sons of Darkness into Children of the Light Thus without Archimedes his Postulatum or Hypothesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as it is in the Dorick Dialect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an easy way was found out to turn the world upside down Sure I am that in my Text there was somewhat like it For Paul and Silas who were yesterday as the off-scowring of the Earth are now on a suddain entertain'd as two Inhabitants of Heaven They who yesterday had been drag'd both in their Persons and in their Names through the publick Market-place of Philippi v. 19. who had had their Cloaths rent and been beaten with Rods v. 22. who had been thrown into a Dungeon as a Couple of pernicious and insufferable men v. 24. are now revered and sought unto as the very Oracles of God That very Iailour who was yesterday putting their Feet into the Stocks and thrusting them into the inner Prison v. 24. is now awak'd by their Musick and stands affrighted at their Liberty and is ready to kill himself with his Sword for fear of dying by their Escape when being hinder'd by his Pris'ners from offering violence to Himself he even springs into their Presence with fear and trembling and by Faith coupl'd with Fear falls down prostrate at their Feet with this short Inquiry an Inquiry very plain but yet sufficiently mysterious and as copious in the sense as it is short in the letter What must I do that I may be saved Which is as if he should have said that I may paraphrase his words Seeing I cannot but acknowledge that the Doctrin you Teach is the Truth of God and the Truth of That God who now hath testified it by Miracle in shaking my Prison by its Foundations in compelling its Doors to do you Reverence and in making your Fetters afraid to hold you And seeing I cannot but acknowledge That such a God is to be served by every one who will be sav'd I beseech you Sirs inform me wherein his Service is to consist and how I may attain to so great Salvation It is not Silver or Gold or Security for your Persons that I demand I do not earnestly intreat you to confine your Heads within the Dungeon or to return your Feet into the Stocks though That is as much as my Life is worth But if there is any Thing in the World which you will do for my sake Tell me what I must do that I may be saved And here I am sorry that I must say what yet I must if I deal uprightly That we who pass for very prudent and sober Christians may very well be sent to School to this frighted Heathen We may learn from this Iailour in his time of exigence and distress how our Souls should be employ'd at our Times of leisure Not in progging for Riches or worldly Greatness asking what we must do to get a fortune when we have none or to increase it when it is gotten or to keep it when 't is increas't or to recover it when it is lost or to secure it if recover'd from running the risque of a Relapse Nor yet in progging with Eudoxus for Ease and Pleasure without either End or Interruption asking what we shall eat or what we shall drink or wherewithal we shall be cloath'd We must not be carefully contriving with the unjust Steward Luke 16. 3. in his What shall I do to put a cheat upon my Lord and to oblige his Debtors to me that when I am put out of my Stewardship they may receive me into their Houses Nor may we ask with the wealthy Miser Luke 12. 17. What shall I do for sufficient Treasuries and Barns wherein to bestow all my Fruit and my Goods as if his Life had consisted in the Abundance of the Things which he possessed v. 15. But our Inquiry must be rather like that of the Multitude to our Saviour What shall we do that we may work the work of God that is to say in plainer Terms what course shall we take that we may do what thou bidst us that we may labour for the meat which will never perish but indure unto Life everlasting or as the Publicans and Souldiers and other Proselytes to the Baptist who had warn'd them to flee from the wrath to come Luke 3. 7 10. What shall we do whereby to anticipate our Destruction and to avert the sad effects of the fatal Axe which now is laid to the Root of the Tree what shall we do as to the bearing good fruit to prevent hewing down and
Feaver as soon as he found his Soul the worse for the Recovery of his Body If nothing but Dangers can keep us safe as indeed all Dangers contribute to it unless the Danger of Security be of the number we have most reason to fear what we commonly most affect such a full flowing Tide of Good Things here as made our Saviour's Description of Dives his Heaven upon Earth If we find in our selves that Scriptural Character of a Bastard a being suffer'd to live in Sin without the chastisement of Sons we well may wish for those Terrors which take so much from our Felicities as to give us good hope that we may be Sons We can never better discern the great Advantages coming to us by Frights and Terrors such as These in my Text than by reflecting upon them in some Examples When God himself would gain Reverence both to his Majesty and his Law and beget in his People a fear to break it it pleas'd his Wisdom to deliver it with many Circumstances of Terror even with Thundring and Lightning with Fire and Tempest with the sound of a Trumpet and the voice of words which voice was so terrible that they who heard it intreated they might not hear it any more And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake Heb. 12. 18 19 20. And St. Paul having premis'd a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must all appear before the Iudgment-seat of God does presently add thereupon an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowing therefore the Terrors of the Lord we persuade men Which is as if he should have said That the Due Consideration of a Iudgment to come should be the strongest of all Incitements to the Amendment of our Lives This in reason should prevail when all things else are ineffectual Nor does any thing more dispose us for such a sad consideration than the happy Interruptions of our Prosperity David boasted in his Prosperity He should never be removed Psal. 30. 6. But when God hid his Face it presently follows that he was troubled v. 7. Then he cried unto the Lord and piously made his Supplication v. 8. Just so it was with the whole People Israel The more they were compass'd about with Blessings they presently sinn'd so much the more Psal. 78. 17. But when he slew them they sought him and inquired early after God v. 34. Nor was it otherwise in the Times of the Prophet Ieremy and Amos Wo be to them that are at ease in Zion Amos 6. 1. For they put far off the evil Day v. 3. But in the Time of their Trouble men are ready to say Arise and save us Jer. 2. 27. Exactly thus it was with the very Disciples of our Lord. For whilst all was well with them and that their Ship injoy'd a Calm Their Blessed Master was asleep and They as perfectly secure as if his Eye had been watching over them But behold a great Tempest which made the Sea cover the Ship made them also cry out and awake their Master out of his sleep with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord save us we perish 'T is true indeed they so spake of a meer Temporal Destruction And of That they spake too from a Panick Fear But how many in the World do hardly come to Lord save us or what must we do that we may be sav'd until they are like the poor Syrian just ready to perish Yet even This becomes an Argument to prove the Danger of our Felicities and the benefit growing to us from seeing the Terrors of the Lord That They who are Scoffers at Religion during the Time of their Health and Plenty are universally on their Death-Beds of the Religion of the Clinicks and being brought down to the Brink of Hell will commonly lift up their Hands and their Eyes to Heaven crying out in the language though not in the Spirit of Christ's Disciples Lord save us we perish And sometimes too although very seldom not only in the language but in the sense and syncerity of the poor Seeker in my Text what must we do that we may be sav'd Belshazzar had not in all his Life so much as a Fit of true Devotion until the fingers of a man's Hand coming forth out of a wall of their own accord or invisibly helpt by an hand from Heaven and setting his Judgment before his Eyes in Mene Tekel upharsin had even loosed the Ioynts of his Loins and Knees and together with his Countenance had chang'd his Heart too And to conclude with That Instance which is afforded out of the Text as being That that gave Occasion to all the rest we see the Iailour of Philippi was never truly in his wits until thus frighted Until the Miracle of the Earthquake had struck his Prison into a Palsie and Himself into a Trembling it never entred into his Thoughts what should become of him hereafter But when he saw by signs and wonders which fill'd him with Ecstasie and Astonishment That there was Punishment for the Wicked Reward for the Righteous and a God that judgeth the Earth and Quite another kind of God than what He had hitherto adored A God that could bow down the Heavens and make the Earth become Quaker A God that gave Light to the blackest Dungeon shook the Prison by its Foundations conveighed Liberty to the Captives and fill'd the Hearts of the Despised with unspeakable Ioy in the Holy Ghost He very easily inferr'd that they had hitherto been but Idols which he had paid Devotion to and That in requital of his Idolatries he was lyable to the wrath of the only True God That Paul and Silas were apparently two of his Emissaries or Heraulds as might be gather'd from the Miracles which had been wrought for their sakes That They by consequence could inform him touching the means of his Escape And therefore instantly he resolv'd to lay himself at their Feet though They were Pris'ners of the Dungeon and He the Master of the House saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sirs so the English or rather Masters and Lords so the Greek What must I do that I may be sav'd And this does lead me from the End to the proper Object of his Inquiry or the Means inquired after for its Attainment The second Part of my Division and now in order to be consider'd The End of the Inquiry being Future and Invisible is only the object of our Thoughts or at the most of our Desires But the Means of its Attainment are as I noted here imply'd to consist in Practice And therefore This is That part whereof the most of Mankind can least indure the Consideration Of the few who are concern'd to wish and supplicate for the End fewer yet are contented to trouble themselves about the Means They will readily ask that they may be sav'd But not so readily inquire what they must do that they may be sav'd For should they ask what they must
Unprofitable Repentance Were we at leisure to survey the several Orders and Ranks of men from Him that whistles at the Plough to Him that treads upon Crowns and Scepters we should find them all Byass't by Secular Interesses and Aims most incessantly pursuing their Carnal Projects and Designs Poor Boôtes will needs be asking so low and humble is his Ambition what He shall do to maintain a Teem The same Boôtes growing Rich will as willingly be able to keep a Coach Here a man is ambitious of some great Office in the Court whilst perhaps the great Courtier is at least as ambitious of being Greatest The only Subject of His Inquiry is what he shall do to wear a Crown But having waded as far as That through Blood and Rapine he thinks his Crown is too light and his Territory too narrow and therefore makes it his next Inquiry what he shall do for the inlarging the straitned Borders of his Dominion His next Project is how to be Monarch of the West And if perhaps he climbs thither his inlarged Ambition does want more Room from whence ariseth another Quaestion What he shall do to Subdue the World that Kings and Princes may bow down to him and that whole Nations may do him service Nay if he arrives at That too his Unlimited Desires are more imprison'd than before And so his last Quaestion is like That of the Great Macedonian Robber what he shall do for more Worlds wherewith to satisfie his Hunger and not to quench but to exercise his cruel Thirst. Thus is every man a scambler for some kind of Happiness here on Earth at least for the shadow and picture of it But there is not the like solicitude for the getting of a Kingdom and Crown in Heaven Where shall we meet with a man of Youth who joyns his Heart unto his Head and asks about the great Business for which he came into the World where shall we meet with a man of Riches who makes it the great Contrivance and Design of his Life to be advis'd in what manner he ought to live where shall we meet with a man of Power who will indure to be looking so far before him as to consider and contemplate his latter end or who will look so far within him as to examin the state of things betwixt his Saviour and his Soul as whether he hath made his Election sure or whether he hath not rather received the Grace of God in vain where is He that crys out with the frighted Iailour at Philippi What must I do that I may be saved that makes a strict and impartial search after the Requisites of his Salvation that sends as 't were an Huy and Cry after things future and invisible and makes it the Burden of his Inquiry with this young man this Rich man this Ruler in the Text Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Eternal Life A Text as worthy to be consider'd by every one who does believe an Immortality of his Soul and prepares for an Arrest at the hour of Death and expects to be try'd at a Day of Iudgment perhaps as any one Text in all the Scriptures A Text so fruitful of Particulars and of Particulars so pregnant for Meditation that 't is not easy to resolve with which of the many we should begin They do not come in such order as the Creatures once did into Noah's Ark two by two but they press in upon us all together in a Crowd as it were striving with one another which shall have the first Place in our consideration Here is a Servant a Master work and wages Here is an excellent Inquiry made by the Servant to the Master And here are both their Qualifications to make them pleasing to one another For the Servant is diligent the Master good Here is the manner also and matter and final cause of the Enquiry And here are divers other particulars growing out of the Body of these particulars as the lesser Branches of a Tree are wont to grow out of the greater But dismissing all the rest until we meet them in the Division I here shall fasten upon the Servant as fit to direct and assist us in it There being nothing more proper to entertain us till we come thither than the several looser Circumstances both of his Person and his Approach As for his Person we may observe him so qualified in three respects as one would think should ill dispose him for such an Inquiry as here he makes For in St. Matthew He is a Young man A Rich man in St. Mark In St. Luke a Ruler And it may seem a thing strange as the World now goes that being a young man he should inquire after life or that being a Rich man he should inquire after Heaven that being also a Ruler he should inquire after Subjection It is not easy to be believ'd so far it is from being usual that he who lately began to live should be solicitous for Aeternity that he who had purchased the present world should pursue an Inheritance in the next too And that a Person of Command should readily set himself to Service Yet thus he did and did with vehemence For whether we look upon his motion whilst he was hastening towards Christ or on his Posture when he was at him his Salutation in the Entrance or his Inquiry in the end we may by his Running guess his Readiness by his Kneeling his Humility by his Compellation his Zeal and by the manner of his asking the great Resignedness of Spirit wherewith he asked For when Iesus saith the Text was gone forth into the way there came one running and kneeled to him and asked him Good Master what shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life Words which are partly The Evangelists and partly The Quaerist's of whom He speaks The Evangelist's own words have three Particulars of Remarque First The Person who here inquires Next The Nature of his Inquiry Thirdly The Oracle inquired of The Quaerist's words at first View consist of Three general Parts which again at the second View do afford us Six more Here is first a Compellation Secondly a Question Thirdly the End or the Motive or Cause of Both. In the first we have to consider Not only the Subject of the Quaerist's Compellation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master But also the Adjunct or Qualification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Good Again in the second we have two Things observable to wit The Matter of the Inquiry in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Manner in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is what and what shall I do In the third we have also two First the Object to be obtained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eternal Life And then the Manner of obtaining it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is by Inheriting But this is not all For I observe the Compellation hath a twofold Aspect upon the Question and seems to give us a pregnant
Reason at once for the Matter and Manner of it First here is something to be done by every Follower of Christ and that because He is a Master It is not Master what shall I say or Master what shall I believe but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I Do Here is Secondly observable in this Candidate of Heaven a meek Resignedness of mind to any Command of Christ imaginable and that because he is a Good or a Gracious Master The Servant presumes not to choose his work He does not bargain for Life Aeternal at such a Rate as he thinks fit with a Master I will do this or that but indefinitely asks with an humble kind of Indifference 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do These are Particulars more than enough not only to exercise and entertain our Attentions but perhaps to distract them too And therefore it cannot be taken ill if I shall gather their whole Result into Four Doctrinal Propositions First that the Son of God Incarnate who at present is our Advocate and will hereafter be our Iudge and who purposely came to save us from the Tyranny of our Sins is not only A Saviour to propose Promises to our Faith But also A Master to challenge obedience to his Commands We must not only believe him which is but to have him in our Brains nor must we only confess him which is but to have him in our Mouths no nor must we only love him though That is to have him in our Hearts but farther yet we must obey him and do him Service which is to have him in our Hands and our Actions too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I do And yet Secondly Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not any way a Severe or Aegyptian-like Master who looks to reap where he never sow'd and exacts store of work without allowing any Materials but a Master full of Mercy and Lovingkindness And this he is in two respects To wit of the work which he requires which is not foesible only but pleasant and of the wages which he promiseth Aeternal Life For each of these reasons which do arise out of the Text he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A good Master And therefore Thirdly We must in gratitude unto so Good a Master as This behold our selves as obliged to two Returns to wit a Readiness of Obedience and a Resignedness of Wills First a Readiness of obedience even because he is our Master next a Resignedness of wills because he is our Good Master Our Christian Tribute to both together to wit his Authority and his Goodness must not only be Universal but Unconstrain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do that is to say I will do any thing I am ready to perform whatever Service thou shalt appoint be it never so harsh or be it never so difficult Eternal Life is such a Prize as for which I can never do enough I say not therefore what I will do but humbly ask what I shall Yet Fourthly and lastly When we have done the most we can we are Unprofitable Servants Our Obedience is not the Cause but the aequitable Condition of our Reward And we finally arrive at Eternal Life not by way of Purchase as we are Servants but of Inheritance as we are Sons It is not here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wee seek not to merit or to deserve as some gross Christians pretend to do but meerly to Inherit Eternal Life I now have done with the Introduction wherein is included the Explication and Division of the Text. But as 't is easy for an Artist to design more work in a little Time than he is able to accomplish a long time after so however I have already drawn the Monogram or Scheme of my well-meant Project yet to fill it with the Zographesis by making it practical and easy not only useful to the most knowing but also familiar to the most Ignorant of those that read me will be the Business not of one but of several Essays And this the rather because Before I find Access to the four Doctrinal Propositions I must direct to several Lessons from Those three Preliminary Subjects the Text affords us To wit the Quality of the Person who here inquires The excellent Nature of his Inquiry and The Condition of the Oracle inquired of First the Person here inquiring had three remarkable Qualifications Youth Wealth and Honour And yet for all that he did not ask as a young man How shall I purchase the sweetest Pleasures nor yet as a Rich man How shall I compass the greatest wealth no nor yet as a Ruler How shall I climb to the highest Pinacle of Preferment But notwithstanding his three Impediments pulling him down towards the Earth he seemed wholly to be solicitous How he might come by a place in Heaven And therefore hence we are to take out a threefold Lesson one for Young men another for Rich men a third for Rulers And I suppose of these three this particular Congregation does now consist First our Young men must learn from the example of this Inquirer to remember their Creator in the days of their youth whilst the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when they shall say We have no pleasure in them Prov. 12. 1. And that especially for these three Reasons First the younger any one is he came the more lately out of the Hands of his Creator and has had the less time to grow forgetful of the Rock out of which he was hewn It is with mens Souls as with their Bodies and with their Bodies as with their Cloaths The newer commonly the better and the older so much the worse A little evil Communication is enough to ferment the greatest Mass of good manners And if the whole World does lye in wickedness as St. Iohn affirms it does how can we look to be the purer by growing old and decrepit in so much Dirt no the longer we converse with Pitch or Birdlime to which the wickedness of the World may very happily be compar'd It is by so much the harder to make us clean Besides we ought to run after Christ like this Inquirer in the Text not go to him like a Torpedo as if we did not affect but fear him or tanquam Bos ad Cerâ—ma as if we were afraid to be baited by him But now the younger any man is he can run so much the faster whereas grown old he will hardly go It was therefore the Blessing of God to Enoch that he took him away speedily and even hasten'd to cut him off to the end that wickedness might not alter his Understanding nor deceipt beguile his Soul Wisd. 4. 11 14. This was That that gave occasion to the young mans Inquiry which lyes before us For having heard our Saviour say Suffer little Children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of God v. 14.
are able to run apace And let us kneel as He did before our Knees are grown stiff And having kneeled down to Christ let us call him Good Master with our Inquirer And let the Subject of our Inquiry be only This What shall we do that we may be sav'd If no man can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless it be as a little Child what then shall We do who are stricken in years and have long since outliv'd our littlechildhood that We also may Inherit Aeternal Life This is the use we are to make of the first Qualification of our Inquirer and These are the Reasons on which it stands Next our Rich men must learn from the example of this Inquirer that the greater their Riches are the greater Necessity lyes upon them to fly for Sanctuary to Christ. It being as difficult for a Rich man to enter Heaven as for a Camel to find a passage through the Eye of a Needle And so there is need that they run to Christ that Christ may shew them the Danger of being Rich and by his Counsel defend them from it That he may teach them the Christian Method whereby they may safely attain to Riches or how they may honestly possess them or how they may usefully put them away How they may profitably be rid of those pleasant Enemies unlade themselves of such heavy thick Clay as the Prophet calls it and run to Christ so much the nimbler for being light for being emptied and disburden'd of so much white and red Earth How they may reap the greater Harvest by casting their Bread upon the waters How they may make themselves Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness and help to save themselves by That which helps to damn so many others How they may lay up a Treasure in Heaven and provide themselves Bags which wax not old where the Worm of Time doth not corrupt nor the Thief of Sequestration break through and steal If there are any amongst our selves who have Riches in possession either dishonestly acquir'd or uncharitably kept we ought to start away from them like a man who unaware hath chanced to tread upon a Serpent and to fling them far enough from us like the Emperour Sigismund and to go running after Christ like the Rich Votary in my Text saying What shall we do who are men of great Plenty and so are tempted more strongly than others are and therefore every day walk in greater Ieopardy of our Lives We for whom it is so hard to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven even as hard as for a Camel to enter through a Needle 's Eye what shall such as We do that We also may Inherit Aeternal Life This is the use we are to make of the second Qualification of our Inquirer and This is chiefly the reason on which 't is built Lastly our Great men must learn from the Example of This Inquirer to lay their Greatness at Christ's Feet and to tread it under their own Or to express it in the words of the Son of Sirach the greater he is to humble himself so much the more Ecclus. 3. 18. And the Reason There is though other reasons are to be given because the Mysteries of God are only revealed unto the Meek v. 19. The humble Soul is God's Temple if not his Heaven too For what was said heretofore by the Heathen Oracle in Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God delights himself as much in a pious Soul as to dwell between The Cherubim in Heaven it self may be evinced to be True from out the Oracles of Iehovah who saith by the Mouth of his Prophet Esa that the man upon whom he delights to look and in whom he is pleas'd to dwell is the man of a poor and a contrite Spirit who even trembles at his word And what said St. Paul to his Corinthians Ye see your Calling Brethren how that not many Wise men after the Flesh not many Mighty not many Noble men are called But the foolish and base and despised things of the World and the things which are not are made choice of by God to bring to naught things that are and that as for other so for This reason also that no flesh may glory in His presence This is That Nobleness indeed wherewith the Nobleness of the World cannot be worthy to be compar'd unless as the Child or the Parent of it For Secular Nobleness or Nobility consider'd simply and in it self has ever been reckon'd to arise from one or more of These Three Grounds 'T is either merited by Prudence Secular Wisdom and Erudition or purchased by Wealth or earn'd by Courage I mean the Courage which is exerted in a generous defense of ones King and Country But He is a man of the Noblest Courage who is afraid of the fewest Things Only afraid of an impious Act or indeed afraid of Nothing unless of not fearing God The vitious Warrier or Dueller who seems to breath nothing but Courage such Courage as is common to the stout Horsman with his Horse when carrying Thunder in his Throat he madly rusheth into the Battel I say a man of such an Animal or Brutal Courage who will rather be Damn'd than be thought a Coward is yet for all his brave Pretences most cowardly afraid of Reproach and Obloquie and of Twenty other objects of carnal Fear Whereas a man that fears God fears nothing else fears not what man can do unto him Psal. 56. 11. And He who does not fear God is not a Valiant but stupid Sinner To meet with Nobleness indeed we must not consult the Herald's Book unless we take along with it the Book of The Acts of the Apostles Chap. 17. vers 11. where the People of Beroea are said to be Nobler than those of Thessalonica Not because they were descended from greater Parents nor because they were advanced to greater Places But because with greater readiness they heard the Word of God preach't that is because they were meeker and of more Teachable Dispositions That alone is true Nobleness which is sometimes The Daughter and still the Mother of Humility That 't is sometimes the Daughter is very evident for 'T was the Lowliness of Mary which made her the Mother of our Lord. And so when Abigail made David That winning Complement from the heart of her being The humble Handmaid to wash the feet of the Servants of her Lord Her Humility did so advance her in David's Mind that he made her his Queen if not his Mistress The King was so captivated and charm'd by the powerful Magick of so much meekness as he could not have been more by any Philtrum to be imagin'd Thence St. Peter thought fit to call it The Ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit as being That that does dress and set off a Beauty more than any Recommendations of Art or Nature Nor is True Nobleness more the Daughter than 't is the Mother of Humility For as the
Reck'ning how his Talent of Authority has been employ'd and what Good he has done with his Jurisdiction What poor Orphans he has righted what Widows Causes he has pleaded what injur'd Innocence he has protected what Vertuous Persons he has incouraged with Rewards what vile Offenders he has discountenanced and punish't what Great mens oppressions he has resisted what Rising Mutinies and Rebellions He has indeavoured to repress For a man's Honour and Authority his Power and Greatness as well as Wealth are things of which he must give Accompt Thô for a King to be accomptable to any Tribunal upon Earth implies indeed a Contradiction yet Kings Themselves do stand accomptable to God even for their high Privilege of unaccomptableness to Men. And therefore the Greater any man is he is to humble himself the more and then as it follows in the Text he will find favour of the Lord. This is the use we are to make of the Third Qualification of our Inquirer and These especially are the Reasons inducing to it But now the Case in my Text is one of the strangest we ever heard of For would we not think it exceeding strange if the chief Magistrate of a City forgetting the Mace that is born before him should run to meet the poorest Cottager and throw himself down upon his Knees too and lifting up his trembling Hands should intreat him so humbly as to call him Master and so earnestly intreat him as to call him Good Master 'T is true that Christ was no Cottager because according to his Manhood He was very much poorer as having not where to lay his Head Yet the Man in my Text who had Great Possessions and was a Ruler in the pride and glory of his Youth too did thus come running after Christ and kneeled down to him thô in the Form of a Servant and call'd him Master thô born of Mary Spouse to Ioseph the Carpenter As if through That Veil of the Carpenter's Son he had had an Eye of Faith to see The Wisdom of the Father The Son of That Almighty Architect who indeed was The Builder of All the World Heb. 11. 10. This Jewish Convert without a Name hath somewhat more strange and more remarkable in his Conversion than The Iailour of Philippi who was but frighted into his wits and sought for Salvation in that Fright only and rather in the negative than positive sense of that word For That which He sought directly was a Deliverance out of his Dangers Not an Inheritance of Aeternity but only an Escape from the Wrath to come So that the Quaerist we are upon is more Didactical than the former as affording us many more and more Noble Lessons Three whereof we have had already And Three if well minded are enough for One Lecture as if slighted they are too many And therefore the Prospect of Life Aeternal which is a very great Deep enough to exercise the freshest and the most vigorous of our Thoughts is the fitter to be reserved for another Opportunity THE Excellent Nature OF THE INQUIRY MARK X. 17. And when he was gone forth into the way there came one Running and kneeled to him and asked him Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life § 1. HAving done with the Person who here Inquires and dismiss't the Three Lessons arising thence together with the Reasons on which those Lessons were chiefly Grounded I am in order to proceed to the second General observation The excellent Nature of his Inquiry which was not carnal and temporal but wholly spiritual and eternal He did not ask as an ordinary Youth what he should do that he might compass the greatest measure of Sensuality nor as an ordinary Worldling or man of Wealth what he should do that he might purchase the greatest Treasure of Gold and Silver nor as an ordinary Ruler what he should do that he might climb to the highest Honour upon Earth But casting These Things as it were behind his Back or treading them down under his Feet he was intent upon Inquiring as no ordinary Christian even before Christianity had got its Name what he should do to get an interest and share in Heaven How much soever he did abound in the things that are seen which are temporal He wholly directed his Ambition to the things that are not seen which are Eternal As the faster he ran to salute his Master by so much the better he was in Breath so the Lower he kneeled down he lifted his Thoughts so much the Higher Being mounted on the wings of an holy Zeal His Soul had now taken a nobler Flight than to Pearch upon any thing on this side Heaven As if he had lost the consideration of all his Secular Concernments such as Houses and Lands Goods and good Name Wife and Children if he had any and other things here below All the subject of his Inquiry was what he should do that he might be sav'd not only saved in the negative but in the positive sense of that word Not only so as to be rescued from a Bottomless Lake of Fire and Brimstone But also so as to be drown'd or swallowed up in a Boundless Ocean of Bliss and Glory Nothing would satisfie him but Life and no other Life than one Eternal Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Eternal Life § 2. From him therefore let us learn how to regulate our Ambitions and where to fasten our wild Desires We ought to tread upon the Glories of such a World as This is which besides that 't is a perishing and fading World is also the Instrument of Satan whereby to betray us to our Destruction and level the Gaspings of our Souls at Things Invisible and Future Things expressed to us in Scripture by a City having Foundations Heb. 11. 10. and by a Kingdom which cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. and here in this Text by Aeternal Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was St. Paul's Precept to his Colossians Set and settle your affections on things above And that for this Reason because your Christ is there sitting at the right hand of God Set them not upon the Earth For Iesus Christ is not here but is long since Risen as the Angel once said to his weak Disciples And if we are risen together with Christ let 's make it appear that we are Risen by our seeking those things that are above Since we were born out of due time to injoy the wish of St. Austin by seeing our Saviour in the Flesh let us look for him where he is and at least behold him in the Spirit Since I say we were not living when Christ was Conversant upon Earth Let us redeem the whole Time by a Ghostly Conversation with Christ in Heaven He who desires in Curiosity to see the Pope or the King of Spain and all the Rarities to be met with throughout their Countries will inquire as he is going which is the ready way thither and
the New Ierusalem And what shall we do to be walking in it Which is the way to escape a Hell And what must we do to obtain a Heaven For this is certainly the Scope of the young man's Inquiry we have in hand What shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life § 3. All the Kingdoms of the Earth can neither satisfie nor justifie all our Appetites and Desires But the Kingdom of Heaven expressed here by eternal life will be sure to do Both. For if we are Covetous Here are Riches to make it lawful If we are Amorous Here is Beauty to make it Vertuous If we are Ambitious Here is Glory to make it Good For we must know that our Affections receive their Guilt or Vitiosity not from their strength but from their blindness when they are either double-sighted and look asquint or else are short-sighted and cannot see a far off they embrace those things for fair or pleasant which like Ixion's watery Iuno do only mock them with their Injoyment Whereas were our Affections so Eagle-sighted as to see through the Creatures discerning Happiness in its Hypostasis and flying at it where it is our only fault would then be This That our Ambition is too low and our Avarice too little and that we are not Amorous enough For they are poor-spirited persons of thick Heads and narrow Hearts whose thoughts are groveling upon the Creature and aspiring to nothing but what is Finite It is an impotent Ambition a feeble Avarice and a very flat Love which makes a stoop at such low Trifles as Crowns and Kingdoms here on Earth He alone is of a Noble and erected mind who can say and say heartily with Christ to Pilate his Kingdom is not of this World Alas the Kingdoms here Below are less than Grass-Hoppers to the very least Mansion in the Kingdom of Heaven Nor are they genuine but degenerate and bastard Eagles which will greedily catch at such little Flies The Soul of man was created for the highest Purposes and Ends. And therefore we may not only be lawfully but even dutifully ambitious provided our Ambitions are great enough and every whit as high as our Soul's Extraction we are not only permitted but even obliged to be Covetous upon condition that it be but of solid Riches which are not liable to Plunder or to impairment We ought in Conscience to be inamour'd if it be of real Beauty and not of that which depends upon human Fansie not of handsome Dirt or well-complexion'd Clay not of Beauty so call'd whose Foundation is in the Dirt which saith to Corruption Thou art my Father and to the Worm Thou art my Mother But if we choose a right object like the Spouse in the Canticles we shall never be so well as when with that Spouse sick of Love For our Bowels ought to yern after the Bridegroom of our Souls we ought to pant after Goodness and in the phrase of Espensaeus to languish after him who is the Fountain of that Goodness and so to thirst after that Fountain as never to be satisfied 'till swallow'd up In this one sense the Italian Proverb is to be verified Bello fin fà chi ben amando muore He makes a good end that dyes a Lover to wit a Lover of Him who is the great Lover of Souls We should not vouchsafe to love our selves unless because we love Him or because he loves us the only measure of loving whom is to love him without measure § 4. Seeing therefore we have met with an easy way whereby to bridle a Passion and at the same time to let it loose how at once we may abjure and yet injoy our Sensuality or to speak more exactly how 't is the Duty of a Christian not to evacuate not to invalidate not to extenuate his Affections but only to regulate and to direct them to place them there where true Injoyment is to be found let no man say within himself what shall I do to get a Fortune to raise a Family to erect a Temple unto Fame what shall I do to be a man of this World of some Authority and Power able to mischief or to oblige to beat down mine Enemies and raise my Friends what shall I do to be a man of great Knowledge a famous Chymist an exact Mathematician a remarkable Lawyer or an eminent Divine for the best of These Inquiries has something in it of Carnality But let every man say within Himself what shall I do to get an Interest in Jesus Christ and to be sure I am a Member not only of his Visible but of his Mystical Body what shall I do for a Demonstration that my Faith is truly such as does work by Love and that it does work by such a Love as does bring forth obedience to the Commandments of Christ And such a kind of obedience as Christ will graciously accept what shall I do that I may repent and repent in such a manner as to bring forth fruits meet for Repentance what shall I do to see the secrets of my Heart and to know by some Token which will not fail me whether the Good which I do is well enough done I mean well enough to deserve Acceptance What shall I do whereby to work out mine own Salvation and yet for all that to serve my God without fear all the days of my life what shall I do whereby to make my Election sure and to make my self sure of my Election so as to be able to say in Truth with St. Paul Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness what shall I do or what shall I not do or what shall I suffer either for doing or not doing that by distress or persecution by nakedness or famin by peril or sword by banishment or bonds by sickness or death by any means whatsoever however troublesom or costly or any way terrible to the Flesh I may but finally inherit eternal Life § 5. But now how little there is to be found of real and solid Christianity even in that part of Christendom where Christ and his Gospel are always preach't least of all amongst Them who are the great Monopolizers of Life Aeternal 't will not be difficult to guess by the solemn Theme of their Inquiries what shall we eat and what shall we drink and wherewithal shall we be cloath'd which shews the Zeal and the Devotion wherewith they Sacrifice to the Flesh. And therefore well said our Saviour to shew the Religion such men are of After all these things do the Gentiles seek Matth. 6. 25 Thereby intimating unto us That Christians must seek for diviner things than such as perish in the using for in the seeking of such as these they do not differ from the Gentiles who know not God And yet if we look upon those Professors who do pretend to an Inclosure of all the good things in Heaven we may observe them still inclosing as many good things as they can
on Earth too It is enough for poor Lazarus to have his Good things hereafter And enough for Rich Dives to have his proportion of Good things here But the good men I speak of will needs be happier than Lazarus and yet much richer than Dives too They will have their good things as well in this as another World All the subject of their Inquiry is not how to be better than other men in Acts of Iustice and Works of Mercy But how to be greater and more regarded which is call'd a being better in point of Quality and Degree And after these very things do the Gentiles seek They of Iava and the Molucco's They of Tartary and China whether as greedily as Christians I cannot tell But our Saviour spake only of Food and Rayment as of things which the Gentiles are wont to seek And well it were for Real Christians if Nominal Christians would seek no more If Food and Rayment would serve the turn Christians then like other Creatures might quietly live by one another But it seems they have no more than the Name of Christians who chiefly seek with the Gentiles the low concernments of the Flesh. For as many as are Christians in very good earnest will bestow themselves in seeking the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof supposing such things as These will be added to the rest as a good Appendix Man not living by Bread alone as our Saviour said to Satan but by bread as it is blessed by the good Word of God Nor indeed is he worthy to live by Bread who is not able to live without it who is not able to subsist upon better things When we reckon Food and Rayment among the Necessaries of Life which we do with good reason we only speak of such a painful and dying life as is not worthy our caring for unless in order to life Aeternal And for the nourishing of That the very famishing of the Body may pass for food unto the Soul From all which together it seems to follow That they who arrogate to themselves not only the greatest both Faith and Hope but the perfectest Assurance of life Aeternal do prove themselves unaware the greatest Infidels in the World whilst neglecting the grand Inquiry they ought to make after Heaven they let the Tide of their Affections run out wholly upon the Earth For did they really look for a Day of Iudgment as much as they do for an Hour of Death they would as certainly provide against the one as commonly they do against the other They would take as much Care to be just and honest as universally they do to be rich or healthful And make as much of their Souls by Mortification and Self-denial as now they do of their Bodies by a plentiful Injoyment of Creature-Comforts 'T is true indeed Life Aeternal is a thing which is quickly talk't of nor are there any so uncivil as not to afford it a friendly mention It is no hard thing to be another mans flatterer much less is it difficult to be ones own To be secure and praesumptuous is cheap and easy Yea 't is pleasant to flesh and blood to be carnally set free from that fear and trembling wherewith a man is to work out his own Salvation Thence it is that we abound with such an Herd of Fiduciaries and Solifidians who having persuaded themselves to fancy that Life Eternal is a thing which cannot possibly escape them and that all the next world is irresistibly their own They think they have nothing to do in This but to make a Trial whether it hath not been decreed that all shall be theirs that they can get and whether it hath not been decreed that they shall get all they try for and whether it hath not been decreed that they shall try to get All. When men are season'd with such a Principle they cannot think it concerns them to give all Diligence for the making of their Calling and Election sure by ceasing to do evil and by learning to do well or by adding to Faith Vertue and one Vertue unto another But supposing their Election so sure already as to be pass't the possibility of being miss't It is natural for them to give all diligence to make themselves sure of somewhat else For let them say what they will and let them think what they please and let them do what they can they cannot possibly give diligence to seek a thing in their possession or to secure what they believe it is impossible for them to lose No man living will light a Candle to look about for those Eyes which he believes are in his Head nor will he search after his head which is he doubts not upon his shoulders Our Saviour's two Parables of the lost Sheep and the lost Groat cannot but seem an arrant Iargon unto a man of such Principles as now I speak of For will He send about the Country to find a Sheep which is in his Fold or sweep the House for a Groat which he praesumes is in his Pocket No being poyson'd with an opinion that he was justified from Eternity and hath Grace irresistible and therefore cannot fall totally much less finally from Grace he will esteem it a thing impertinent for a man of his Talents to be so anxious as to Inquire what Good things he ought to do that he may inherit Eternal Life § 6. The great unhappiness of it is what I am sorry I have reason to believe I say truly That there are few Congregations wherein there are not such Professors as now I speak of who as long as fermented with such a Leven cannot possibly be profited by all our Preaching And therefore They above others must be inform'd That by the Nature of our Inquiries we ought to try as by a Touchstone of what sort we are whether Silver or Alchymy whether true and solid Gold or but polished Iron with double Gilt. By this we may explore from whence we came and whither 't is that we are going of whom we are and whom we are for For that Saying of our Saviour Matth. 24. 28. which historically refers to the Roman Army Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together must needs be applicable and true in This sense also which is our Saviour's own Sense Luke 12. 34. Where your Treasure is there your Heart will be also From whence it follows unavoidably That if we are men of another world and have our Treasure laid up in Heaven we shall behave our selves as Pilgrims and perfect Sojourners here on Earth We shall be commonly looking Upwards with our Backs upon Egypt and our Faces towards Canaan Our Souls will be athirst for God Psal. 42. 1 2 3. our Hearts will pant after Eternity as the Hart panteth after the Water-Brooks crying out with holy David in an Exiliency of Spirit O when shall we appear before the Presence of God How low soever both our Bodies and
Fortunes are our Conversation will be above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. we shall behave our selves as men who are free of God's City Our Hearts will evermore be There unless our Treasure is somewhere else If the Kingdom of Heaven is that Pearl of great Price to which our Lord in his Parable thought fit to liken it And if we are those Merchants that traffick for it we cannot choose but be busy in our Inquiries after the Price still resolving upon the Purchase at any Rate that can be ask't and ever asking what we shall give or as here what we shall do that we may any ways inherit Eternal Life So it follows again on the other side That if we are commonly looking downwards and behave our selves here as men at home as if we did not intend any farther Iourney If the Burden of our Inquiries is such as This What shall we do to live long upon the Earth and not see the Grave or what shall we do to escape going to Heaven 'till such time as we are pass't the pleasant Injoyments of the Earth how shall we put the evil Day afar off how shall we be saved without Repentance or repent without Amendment or amend no more than will serve our turn what shall we do to be good enough and yet no better than needs we must what shall we do to serve two Masters and reconcile the two Kingdoms of God and Mammon and so confute what is said by our blessed Saviour in the Sixteenth of St. Luke what for a Religion wherein to live with most pleasure and one to dye in with greatest safety what shall we do to live the Life of the sensual'st Epicure and yet at last dye the Death of the strictest Saint If I say our Affections are clinging thus unto the Earth It is an absolute Demonstration that all our Treasure is here below and that we are men of the present world in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds For our Saviour's famous Rule is at once of universal and endless Truth Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together wheresoever our Treasure is there our Hearts will be also And whither our Hearts are gone before the Case is evident and clear our Tongues and our Actions will follow after § 7. Now since these are the Inquiries of several Seekers to wit of Them who do affect to dwell here and of them that look out for a better Country that is an heavenly And since we may judge by their Inquiries to which kind of Master they do belong to God or Mammon 'T is plain the Lesson or the Use we are to take from it is This that when we find our selves beset with a twofold evil the one of Sin and the other of Affliction in so much as we know not which way to turn there being on the right hand a fear of Beggery or Disgrace and on the left hand a fear of Hell when I say we are reduced to such an hard pinch of our Affairs we must not carnally cast about and tacitly say within our selves what shall we do to keep our Livelyhoods or what shall we do to hold fast our Lives But what shall we do to keep a good Conscience and to hold fast our Integrity And since 't is nobler to be led by the hope of a Reward than to be frighted into our Duties by the fear of being punish't if we neglect them let us not ask like the Children of Hagar in the spirit of Bondage which is unto fear what shall we do that we may not inherit a Death Aeternal But as the Children of Sarah in the spirit of Adoption which is unto hope what shall we do that we may inherit Aeternal Life Which Life being hid with Christ in God as St. Paul speaks to the Colossians for God's sake whither should we go either to seek it when it is absent or to find it when it is hid or to secure it when it is found unless to Him who hath the words of Eternal Life that is the words which are the means by which alone we may attain to Eternal Life The words which teach us how to know it the words which tell us where to seek it the words which shew us how to find it the words which afford us those Rules and Precepts by our conformity unto which we cannot but take it into possession There is no other Name to make us Inheritors of Eternity but only the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ Acts 4. 12. And considering what is said by our blessed Saviour That This and this only is Life Eternal to know the only true God with a practical knowledge and Iesus Christ whom he hath sent John 17. 2. we should religiously resolve not to know any thing else Not I mean in comparison of Iesus Christ and him crucified nor yet to any other end than to serve and assist us in that one knowledge Look what carking and caring any Covetous man useth to get his wealth look what industry and labour an Ambitious man useth to get his Honour look what vigilance and solicitude any Amorous man useth to get his Idol the same solicitude and diligence is each Religious man to use for the getting of an Interest in Iesus Christ. Which gives me a passage from the second to the third Observable I proposed from the Nature and Quality of the young man's Inquiry to the condition of the Oracle inquired of As he sought for nothing less than Eternal Life so did he seek it from Him alone who is the way to that Life and the Life it self He did not go to take Advice from the Witch of Endor for the madness of Saul had made him wiser or more at least in his wits than to knock at Hell-door for the way to Heaven Nor did he ask of Apollo Pythius or go to Iupiter Ammon to be inform'd about the way to Eternal Life for all the Oracles of the Heathen were put to silence by our Messias as Plutarch and others of their own great Writers have well observ'd and should they speak never so loudly he very well knew they could not teach him Nor did he go to Aaron's Ephod to ask the Urim and Thummim about the means of his Salvation for he knew that That Oracle was now grown Dimm and that in case it had been legible it could not help him Nor did he betake himself to Moses the Iewish Law-giver much less to the Scribes the learned Interpreters of the Law for he found Mysterious Moses had still a Veil upon his Face which the Scribes and Pharisees were not able to Remove much less durst he go to the Law it self for a Relief there being nothing more plain than that the Law worketh wrath Those Tables of Stone are as the Hones or the Grindstones at which the Sting of Death is whetted and made more sharp For as the sting of Death is Sin so
the strength of Sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15. 56. The Law does thunder out a Curse as well as a Rigid Obligation the one from Mount Ebal as well as the other from Mount Sinai upon every Soul of man who shall but fail in the least Iota For it is written saith St. Paul who only saith it out of the Law Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Or to consider it yet more distinctly admit Aeternal Life had been expected from the Law by this Inquirer yet sure it may sooner be ask't than answer'd To which of the Laws he should have had recourse for it Certainly not to the Ceremonial for That was but a shadow of things to come whereof the Body is Christ Coloss. 2. 17. The very Sacrifice of the Law was not able to expiate but only to commemorate the Peoples Sins Heb. 10. 3. Therefore in vain would he have sought to the Ceremonial Law And as vainly to the Iudicial For that was a Politick Constitution peculiar only to the Iews and reaching no farther than to a Civil Iurisdiction Much less yet could he seek to the Moral Law of Moses for Life Eternal For the Moral Law exacted so Universal an obedience and also denounced so great a Curse as I said before on the least omission that he could look for nothing thence but the justest matter of Despair For first our Nature is so corrupt and our Persons so much corrupter since our having found out many Inventions that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the Truth is not in us 1 John 1. 8. And secondly if Righteousness come by the Law then is Christ dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. What then remain'd to this inquisitive Iew but that the Law should be his Schoolmaster to bring him unto Christ Gal. 3. 24. The Law being adapted by the infinite Wisdom of God's oeconomy either to lead or to drive him thither For requiring more from him than he was able to perform and yet denouncing a Curse on his Non-Performance it could not but make him stand affrighted at the ugly Condition he was in I mean his desperate Impossibility of ever attaining to Life Eternal by the meer perfection of his obedience Hence he saw it concern'd him to seek somewhere else He found it clear by Demonstration and by the woful Demonstration of sad Experience he stood in need of a Saviour and of such a Saviour too as might deliver him from the Curse and from the Rigour of the Law by being made both a Curse and a Ransom for him Again he saw both by the Doctrins and by the Miracles of Christ that He was most likely to be That Saviour to wit a Saviour from whom he was to look for such a Clue as might be able to conduct him out of the Labyrinth he was in And therefore just as this Saviour was gone forth into the way This kind of Neophyte in my Text came running to him and asked him meekly kneeling upon his Knees Good Master what shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life Now if Christ was His Oracle who only liv'd under the Law How much more must he be ours who were born and bred under the Gospel Shall men of our Dignity and Profession of our Proficiency and Growth in the School of Christ an holy Generation a Royal Priesthood a Peculiar People shall such as We go in Inquest of Life Eternal to such deceivable Oracles as either Zuinglius or Calvin Piscator or Erastus or Iohn of Leyden to the Sepulchres of Martyrs to the Discipline of Monasteries to daily Ave Maries and Masses to Papal Indulgences or Bulls or to the outward Scarrifications and Buffettings of the Flesh shall we lean upon such Reeds as will but run through our Elbows or shall we inlighten our selves by Candles when behold the Sun of Righteousness is long since Risen in our Horizon or to fly for Refuge to the Saints when behold a Saviour Christ is called very fitly the Sun of Righteousness Mal. 4. 2. to whom the Apostles are but as Stars in the Firmament of the Gospel which only shine forth with a borrowed light and have no other brightness than what He lends them Now all the Stars in the Firmament cannot make up one Sun or afford us one Day without his Presence Just so All the learned and the good men on Earth All the Angels Saints in Heaven cannot make up one Saviour or but light us the way to Eternal Life without the Influence and Lustre of Jesus Christ. Iairus a Ruler of the Synagogue a man that wanted no worldly means whereby to Cure his only Daughter did yet despair of her Recovery until he fell down at the Feet of Christ Luke 8. 41. And so the Woman who had been sick of a bloody Flux no less than twelve years together and had spent all she had in Physicians Fees was not the better but the worse until she crowded towards Christ and touch't the Hemm of his Garment Luke 8. 43. That we are every one sick of a bloody Flux too appears by our scarlet and crimson Sins Which Flux and Fountain of our Sins can never possibly be cur'd unless by Him who is the Fountain for Sin and for Uncleanness Zach. 13. 1. For as Red wine is good for a bloody Flux in the Body so is That which gushed out of our Saviour's Body who called himself The True Vine the only Good thing for this Disease in the Soul And of this Wine we drink in the Cup of Blessing which we Bless in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. To him alone must we fly as to the Physician of our Souls who saith to us under the Gospel as once to Israel under the Law I am the Lord God that healeth thee Exod 15. 26. He alone saith St. Peter is the Head-stone of the Corner nor is there Salvation in any other Acts 4. 11 12. It pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Coloss. 1. 19 And of his Fulness have all we received Grace for Grace John 1. 16. All things necessary to life and to life Eternal are delivered to him of the Father Matth. 11. 27. And this 't will be easy out of Scripture for I am speaking to Believers I should not else produce a Text to make apparent by an Induction For first if we are hungry He alone is the Bread of Life which whoso eateth shall live for ever John 6. 58. Next if we are thirsty He alone is the living Water which whoso drinketh shall never thirst John 4. 13. Thirdly if we are foul He alone has that Blood by which we may be cleansed from all our Sins 1 John 1. 7. Fourthly if we are foolish He is the Wisdom of the Father who hath laid up in Him all the Treasures of Knowledge Coloss. 2. 3. He is Doctor Catholicus and only He.
For when he was transfigur'd upon Mount Tabor a bright Cloud overshadow'd him and behold a voice out of the Cloud This is my beloved Son Hunc Audite Hear Him Matth. 17. 15. It is the Top of that Wisdom which we are capable of on Earth to sit with Mary at his Feet and to hear his Word Luke 10. 39 42. Fifthly if we inquire for the only true way which leadeth unto life and to life Eternal He alone is the Way the Truth and the Life John 14. 6. Are we affrighted at the Law He alone hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us Gal. 3. 13. In a word He is the true Noah's Ark whereby to escape the Inundations of Sin and Hell He hath broken the Ice and made way for us that we may enter into the Gate Micah 2. 13. He is our Ionathan after the Spirit who first hath scaled in his Person the heavenly Mountain that we the Bearers of his Armour may follow after 1 Sam. 14. 1. The Ministration of his Word is the Spiritual Chariot by which he carries us with himself into the outward Court of the Temple and thence at last within the Veil into the Sanctum Sanctorum He alone is the Gate both of Grace and Salvation None can go unto the Father unless by Him John 14. 6. He alone is the Iacob's Ladder whose Top reacheth into the Heavens that is to say the True 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which as by a Bridge or Isthmus Heaven and Earth are tyed together Angels and Men pass to and fro Angels to Men and Men to Angels By Him hath the Father reconciled all things unto Himself Coloss. 1. 20. He it is that invites us when we are weary and heavy laden to come unto him for a Refreshment Matth. 11 28. From Him the Spirit and the Bride say Come And let him that heareth say Come And let him that is athirst Come And whosoever will let him come and take freely of the water of life Rev. 22. 17. All which being consider'd we thus may Argue within our selves If the great Queen of Shebah did choose to take so long a Iourney as from Shebah to Ierusalem and all to hear a wise man speak Matth. 12. 42. Or if Socrates though an Heathen was such a Lover of Wisdom as to travel for his Improvement through several Countries and put himself to learn of every great Master that he could hear of with how much a greater force of reason should we travel far and near to find out the Wisdom of the Father to learn of that Good as well as Great Master who alone hath the words of Eternal Life But some perhaps may here object That the Man in the Text met with Christ in the way whilst here on Earth How shall we find him out since his Ascension into Heaven The Psalmist tells us He is in Heaven and in Hell too If we go up into Heaven he is there And if we go down into Hell he is there also But to Heaven we cannot and to Hell we dare not go To which the Answer is very obvious That if Christ is in Hell because he is every where by the necessity of his Godhead he is by consequence here on Earth too for the very same reason And that we may not say with Seneca Qui ubique nusquam that he who is every where is no where for that he is every where invisible and so as difficultly found as if he were not The Righteousness which is of Faith speaketh on this wise Say not in thine heart who shall ascend into Heaven that is to bring Christ down from above Or who shall descend into the Deep that is to bring up Christ again from the Dead For Christ in his word is very nigh thee even in thy Mouth and in thine Heart that is the word of Faith which we preach We need not go to Compostella or travel in Pilgrimage to other places where they pretend at least to shew us his Seamless Coat and his Cross and his Crown of Thorns We need go no farther than to his Word and his Sacraments his Ministers and his Members And having thus found him out we must not content our selves with Herod to gaze upon him in Curiosity but with Zachaeus out of Devotion Nor must we grow old in our setting out but rather hasten to him betimes and as fast as we can run too And as humbly as it is possible we must go kneeling to him and ask him Good Master what shall we do or with the Disciples upon the Sea Master Master we perish That is we perish of our selves without thy stretched out Hand to support and save us And therefore lift we up our voices with those Ten Lepers in the way Iesus Master have Mercy on us For indeed he will never have Mercy on us unless we have mercy upon our selves that is to say unless we take him upon his own most righteous Terms not only as a Iesus who came to save us but withal as a Master who does expect to be served by us And this does lead me to consider the Compellation of our Inquirer concerning which I shall discourse upon the next Opportunity Now to the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever THE Goodness of Christ AS A LEGISLATOR MARK X. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life § 1. HAving done with the Person who here inquires and with the excellent Nature of his Inquiry and with the only true Oracle inquired of It now remains that I proceed to the significant Compellation wherewith the Person who here inquires praepares the way to his Inquiry The Compellation as hath been said does consist of two Parts first the Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master next the Adjunct or Qualification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Good § 2. From the first being compared with the matter of the Question that is to say with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is very obvious to draw forth this Doctrinal Proposition That the Son of God Incarnate who at present is our Advocate and will hereafter be our Iudge and who purposely came to save us from the Tyranny of our Sins is not only a Saviour to offer Promises to our Faith but also a Master to exact Obedience to his Commands We must not only believe him which is but to have him in our Brains nor must we only confess him which is but to have him in our Mouths no nor must we only love him which were it possible to be done were only to have him in our hearts But farther yet we must Obey him and do him Service which is to have him in our Hands and our Actions too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Master what shall I do § 3. A Proposition of such Importance to all that are Candidates for
in Churches are no Swearers or Sabbath-Breakers they have therefore discharged their Duty towards God notwithstanding their dishonouring of Publick Parents their Killing their Cousening and their bearing False-witness Such as these must be taught by the Answer of this Master to this Inquiry that their chiefest Duty towards God is their Duty towards their Neighbour and that their Godliness is but Guile whilst they acknowledge the true God and yet disown his Vicegerent Abhor Idols and yet commit Sacrilege Scruple at vain or common Swearing but yet dissemble and lye and enter into Solemn Covenants against their many most sacred and praevious Oaths whilst they are strict Sabbatizers but disorderly walkers six days in the week ever putting on the Form but ever denying the Power of Godliness The Good Master in the Text will not thus be serv'd by us for he expects good Servants too And to our being good Servants there is nothing more needful than that we be honest and upright men In this especially saith our Saviour consists the way to Eternal Life So that the Liberty and Freedom so much spoken of in the Gospel is a Manumission from Satan and not from Christ who did not live our Example that we might not imitate him or praescribe us Praecepts that we might not obey them No the Liberty of the Gospel doth only make us the more his Servants And though his Service is perfect Freedom yet doth it not cease to be a Service For as he that is called in the Lord being a Servant is the Lord's Free-man so is He the Lord's Servant who is called being free 1 Cor. 7. 22. We are not said with greater Truth to be infranchiz'd by the Gospel than to have made an exchange of Masters We were before Servants to Sin But now to Righteousness Before to Satan but now to Christ. We did before serve an Hard Master but now a Good one And this I come to shew at large upon My second Doctrinal Proposition That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not any severe Egyptian Master But a Master full of Mercy and Loving kindness And this he is in two Respects In respect of the Work which he requires which is not foesible only but pleasant And of the Wages which he promiseth Aeternal Life He is for each of these Reasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Good Master § 1. That he is a good Master and a good Master in perfection we may discern by the particulars of which a perfect good Master must be compos'd For He who exacts no more Duty than we are able to discharge and yet affords a greater Recompence than we are able to deserve He who sets us such a Task as is not only always possible but most times easy nor only easy to be perform'd but also pleasant in the performance He who treateth his Servants as Friends and Brethren as if he were their Fellow-Servant or indeed his Servants Servant He who when he takes upon him the most of Mastership and Empire commands his Servants no meaner things than he Himself in his Person hath done before them He who when he is affronted is very easily reconcil'd and even sues to his Servants for Reconcilement He whose work is worth the doing because to do it is a Reward and yet rewards it when it is done above all that we are able to ask or think He is sure a good Master and a good Master in perfection even as good as we are able to wish or fancy And just such a Master is Iesus Christ. He is the Master that makes us Free Gal. 5. 1. the Master whose Service is perfect Freedom Rom. 6. 18 22. The Master that frees us from all other Masters besides Himself The Master that bids us call no man Master upon Earth For one is our Master and He in Heaven Matth. 23. 10. § 2. Indeed if Moses were our Master and none but He Our Case were then very hard For He requireth more Service than we are able to perform and pronounceth a Curse in case we do not perform it and yet affords not any strength whereby to adapt us for the performance But yet however he is an hard Master he is not a Cruel or an Unjust one because he is an hard Master in order to a just and a gracious End That is he drives us from Himself to make us look out for a better Master He gives us a Law by which we cannot be justified Gal. 2. 16. that we may seek to be justified by somewhat else He pronounceth a Curse to as many as are of the works of the Law that he may fright us into His Arms who hath redeemed us from the Curse by being made a Curse for us Gal. 3. 13. In a word he is our Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that being under Christ we may be no longer under a Schoolmaster Gal. 3. 24 25. And thus having ascended from Moses to Christ from the hard Master to the mild One we are no longer under the Tyranny and Exactions of the Law but under the Kingdom and State of Grace Rom. 6. 14. no longer in bondage under the Elements of the World Gal. 4. 3. but have received the Adoption of Sons v. 5. We are no longer under a Master who can only forbid Sin but we are now under a Master who can forgive it No longer under a hard Master who the longer we serve him keeps us in bondage so much the more But we are now under a Good one who turns our Service into Sonship translating us into Heirs and Coheirs with Himself v. 7. § 3. But here it cannot be deny'd That if we look upon Christ as nothing more than a Master who came not to abrogate but to fill up the Law Matth. 5. 17. our Condition is not better but rather worse than it was before For Christ is stricter in his Precepts than Moses was and seems to have set us an harder Task He commands us to forgive and to love our Enemies Not to look upon a Woman with the Adultery of the Eye to rejoyce in Persecutions and to leap for Ioy when we are Mourners He commands us to fight with all that is in the World and not to give over fighting until we conquer I therefore say with all that is in the World because as the Sublunary World was divided of old before the Times of Columbus and Americus Vesputius into these three parts Europe Asia and Africa to wit the parts of That World which was created by God alone so St. Iohn in his first Epistle hath divided the World of Sin and Wickedness the World created by Men and Devils For as he tells us in one place That the whole World lyeth in wickedness like a Net cast into the Sea so he tells us in another That All that is in the World is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life And methinks This Trichotomy hath
their Brother Demas Or else like Agrippa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are within a very little of being good Christians as having made a fair shift to pass the narrowness of the way but only sticking as 't were at last at the straitness of the Gate As if when after a tedious march they are advanced as far as the Door of Heaven they would not be at the pains to enter in I cannot exemplifie what I say with so much pertinence to my Text as by the young and wealthy Ruler concerned in it It appears by the Question which here he makes and by his Care of the Commandments v. 20. and by our Saviour's Love to him v. 21. that he was one of some growth in his Master's School But withal it appears v. 22. that he shrunk at the thought of an harder Lesson He had observed the Commandments even from his youth That was well but not enough For one thing he lacked as his own Good Master told him even the selling all he had and giving it to the Poor But as if he had forgotten the generosity of his Quaestion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what shall I do whereby he evidently imply'd he would stick at nothing which by this his Good Master should be injoyn'd he was sad at that saying and went away grieved And the reason of it was He had great Possessions v. 23. It seems a Treasure here on Earth is so commonly inconsistent with one in Heaven that we must part with the one to injoy the other And agreably our Saviour Matth. 13. 46. compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a Pearl of great price which a Merchant sold all he had to purchase Great Possessions do so incumber a spiritual Traveller in his Iourney that the Door of Heaven to a Dives is in the Judgment of our Master who cannot err as the Eye of a Needle to a Camel v. 25. which 't is impossible he should enter or be able to pass through unless by crumbling his Possessions into as many small parts as there are objects of his Charity to assist him in the Division I do not say as many parts as there are poor men and women who crave for Alms the parts would then be too little and instead of entring the Needles Eye would fall beside it But I say as many parts as there are objects of his Charity which all are not who are very poor because their Poverty may be their Sin by an obvious Metonymy of the efficient for the effect unjustly gotten for want of labour and for the same want of labour unjustly kept Else our Laws had been unchristian in providing a Bridewell and a Beadle for such as beg nay St. Paul had been cruel in condemning some of them to dye by Famin. For he commanded his Thessalonians that if any would not labour they should not eat 2 Thess. 3. 10. But to resume my Discourse where this Parenthesis made me leave it we see the Camel or the Rich man may not only be enabled to pass the Eye of a Needle that is to say the Door of Heaven by giving the Bunch upon his Back that is his Riches to the Poor but he may do it and still be rich nor can be rich in good works until 't is done For though by having great Possessions he is in a capacity of being rich yet truly His they cannot be until he has mercifully employ'd them Quas dederis solas semper habebis Opes But however this is pertinent to as much of my Text as I am upon if the wealthy man's Quaestion be duly compar'd with the following Answers yet it seems 't is so sublime and so untrodden a piece of our Lord's Philosophy so very heterodox and strange to the conceptions of Carnality that it either transcendeth our Capacities or is too opposite to our Desires Such incompatible Masters are God and Mammon that as Conscience by a Proverb is the poor man's Vertue so Life Eternal by a Promise is the poor man's Reward For though to have life wedded to Eternity is a Match we like well yet unwilling we are often to pay the Dowry We are commonly more inclinable to part with our Sweat than with our Mony and are readier of the two to earn Heaven than to buy it And yet this Earning of it also as it does too much exceed our strength so it too much crosses our Inclinations We are contented to serve our Master but so as it may stand with our ease and leisure Like that Disciple in St. Matthew who was willing and ready to follow Christ but so as in the first place to bury his Father Or like them that were bid to the wedding Feast if we have nothing else to do we are forsooth his humble Servants But if we have either a Field to prove a yoke of Oxen to try or a Wife to marry we receive and return his Invitation with an I pray you have me excus'd If he invites us to the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes then indeed the Case is alter'd and we shall flock to him by thousands But if we are bid to sup with him upon a Mess of sowre Herbs as at the Passover or to partake of an Oleo made of Vinegar and Gall as at the time of his Crucifixion then we affect being abstemious we lay our hand upon our mouth and thank him as much as if we did That is to say in all such Cases either we are not at leisure or else we do not like our Fare Whereas when the Master is so transcendently Good that for the work of a few Minutes he gives an Eternity of Reward we should prevent his Commands with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what kind of Service wilt thou command us we should afford him for shame as great a Resignedness of Wills as that Heathen man Cleanthes gave to his Iupiter and his Fate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Since on condition that he saves us we care not how we should invite him to command us we care not what and to lead us we care not whither We should give him up our Souls as so many Blanks or unwritten Tables aequally susceptible of all which our Master shall be pleas'd to imprint upon us For in the Eighteenth Chapter of St. Luke v. 17. Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God that is the Praecepts of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a little Child that is as one who is passive and of a teachable Disposition impartially receptive of all impressions which the Tenor of the Gospel shall stamp upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith our Saviour he shall in no wise enter therein And this no doubt is the meaning of that Petition in the Lord's Prayer Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Which notes a sufferance saith Tertullian to which when we pray we excite our selves But certainly That cannot be all For we pray in that Petition as well for the
next Verses before my Text who were not Elected without a Praescience as well of their Faithfulness as of their Faith How can it be that when He comes He shall not find Faith upon the Earth But if we attentively consider the Text before us as it stands in relation to all the Verses going before and more especially to the first This Objection will quickly vanish and we shall find a good Connexion between the praecedent and praesent words For our Lord having exhorted The Neophyte-Disciples to whom he spake Not to faint in their Prayers but to pray-on with Perseverance v. 1. excites them to it with an Assurance that their Prayers shall not be fruitless And that their Prayers shall not be fruitless He convinceth them by an Argument à minori ad majus This appears by his whole Parable touching the Widows Importunity praevailing over the Heart of an hardned Iudge From whence the Argument is as natural as it is logical and convincing For if the Prayer of the distressed and importunate Widow returned at last into her Bosom with good Success thô from a most corrupt Iudge who had no fear of God nor regard of Man v. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with how much a greater force of reason shall all the Prayers of The Faithful receive an acceptable Return from the Father of Mercies and God of all Consolation who is not only no unjust or obdurate Judge but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Rewarder by way of Eminence of them that diligently seek him either sooner or later as he sees fit Yes the time is now coming when They shall be freed from their Afflictions and when the Vengeance due from God shall speedily fall on the Authors of them To which He adds by way of complaint and by a Compassionate Erotésis or Expostulation cohaering with what he said before by a Conjunction Adversative that when He shall come in the later Days to be an Avenger of his Elect The Apostasie will be so general He will find but Few of them Of the many who are Called He will find but few Chosen Amongst a Multitude of Flatterers he will find but few Friends In a world of Praetenders He will find but Few Faithful and with very much Profession very little True Faith They alone being Elect who persevere unto the End in The Faith of Christ and whose Faith is efficacious as well as sufficient to make them Faithful § 2. We see The Cohaerence of the Text which will help us not to err in the Meaning of it For in that our Lord asks When the Son of Man cometh shall He find Faith upon the Earth It is as if he should have said in plain and peremptory Terms That at his second Coming from Heaven to judge the Inhabitants of the Earth He shall not find Many Christians who will pray with that Faith which alone can inable them to pray without ceasing and not to faint When He shall come to save Believers He will find but few such in the Gospel-sense Not none simpliciter but none secundum quid Comparatively none or none to speak of The greatest part of men will perish even for want of That Faith whereby men's Prayers become effectual 'T is not through any defect of Goodness and longanimity in God that so few will be safe in the Day of Judgment But through a miserable defect of Christian Faithfulness and Faith The great Condition of the Covenant which God in Christ the only true Shechinah was pleas'd to make with the Sons of Men. Historical Faith there is in many such as is common to men with Devils who are said by St. Iames to believe and tremble A sturdy Praesumption there is in Many which they mistake for the perfection and strength of Faith A Carnal Security is in Many which they take to be the Product and Fruit of Faith There is in many such a Carnal and Human Faith concerning the Being of Heaven and Hell a Life after Death and a Day of Judgment as that there is such a Place as Constantinople or Eutopia whereof thô This is as fictitious as That is real yet by Ignaroes in Geography they are believed Both alike Thus in one sense or other Faith is as common as Infidelity a Weed which grows in most mens Gardens But very few have That Faith of which our Lord does here speak to wit a Faith which is attended with Hope and Charity a Faith coupl'd with Fear to offend our Maker a Faith productive of obedience unto That which is called The Law of Faith a Faith importing all faithfulness in the discharge of that Service we owe our Master a Faith expressed by a submission first to God rather than Man and then to Man for God's sake lastly a Faith joyned with Patience and Perseverance unto the End in the work of Prayer to which our Saviour had exhorted in the first Verse of This Chapter and which indeed is the Scope of this whole Paragraph § 3. Thus we have clearly a Praediction that the last Times will be the worst or that the World towards its End will be most dissolute and debauch't that 't will not be only an Iron-age but that the Iron will be corrupted with Rust and Canker This is the Doctrine of the Text and this must be divided into two distinct Branches as the word Faith may here be taken in two distinct Considerations For in which sense soever we understand the word Faith in the Text before us whether for a firm Adhaerence unto the Truth of Christ's Gospel in all its Doctrines or for a faithful punctuality in All Commerce and Transaction 'twixt Man and Man whether in That as the Cause of This or in This as the Fruit of That for 't is not pertinent now to mention all the other acceptions of Faith in Scripture we shall have reason to suspect The World is drawing towards its End in that the Praediction of our Saviour is drawing so near its Completion Before I come to prove or apply the Doctrine it will perhaps be worth while to take a view of the Description of the last and worst Days as St. Peter and St. Paul have drawn it up for us in their Epistles the one in Gross and the other in the Retail First St. Peter tells us in general There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own own Lusts. St. Paul acquaints us in particular what the several Lusts are This know also saith he to Timothy that in the last days perilous times shall come For men shall be Lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers make-bates otherwise called false Accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good Traitors heady high-minded Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God having a form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof From These saith He turn away And presently after he gives
World and the Glory of them And thereupon made him this glorious Offer All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If falling down Thou wilt worship me § 4. Which words do present us with Satan's Masterpiece And the Motto on his Ensign is Now or Never For as the Roman Triarij when their two first Squadrons had fought in vain were depended upon at last as their only Refuge So when the Devil had been improsperous in his two first Onsets upon our Saviour He comes at last to make use of All the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them clearly looking upon This as his most formidable Reserve And even against the Fortifications not only of the Innocence but the Divinity of our Lord who was no less the Lord of Armies than Prince of Peace his most ingenious most powerful most hopeful Stratagem The Text at first view affords no more than two Generals To wit the Devil 's vast Offer And the unreasonable Condition with which 't is clogg'd But out of these Generals put together we may by the help of a little Logick draw four Particulars Each of which will be a Doctrin whereof it will be easy to make good Use. 1. The First particular Doctrin is That the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them being all met together as here they are do amount to nothing more than so many glittering Temptations 2. The Second is That all the Goods of this World however lovely they may appear to Carnal Reason or Common Sense are yet by God's Patience and wise Permission in the Devil's Proffer and Disposal I say They are so by God's Permission because the Devil can give nothing till God gives leave which for wise and just Ends it often pleaseth him to afford 3. The Third Doctrin is That the utmost Scope and Drift of all the Donatives of the Tempter is to steal our Hearts from God and to turn them wholly upon Himself He never Proffers but with a dangerous Proviso He does it liberally indeed All these things will I give thee But with a covetous Supposition if falling down thou wilt worship me 4. From whence it follows in the fourth Place That how incessantly soever some men do labour whereby to purchase these Gifts of Satan yet there is nothing in the World with greater easiness to be compass'd if the Devil may be try'd by his own Confession Who though the things here spoken of are great and goodly even the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them is yet most ready to part with All in exchange for an Act of our Adoration To attain the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The All that our Tempter can give or offer nothing more needs be done than to fall down to him and worship him § 1. To prove the First of these Four That the Kingdoms of the Earth when they are All put together make but a glittering Temptation or handsom Snare we need not argue or dispute from a fitter Topick than the very signal Method the Devil here useth Who when he could not corrupt our Saviour by all the Miseries of Want did now at last attempt to do it by the bountiful Overtures of Plenty Nor can we think he was so silly as not to rise in his Temptations from the less unto the greater It being for nothing but his Subtilty in conjunction with his Malice that He is call'd The Old Serpent And is said by St. Iohn to have deceiv'd the whole World And if the Children of this World are wiser in their kind as our Saviour says they are than the Children of Light How much more is their Father who for the Power of his working and Success of his Policy is called sometimes The Prince and once The God of this World Nor is it certainly for Nothing that The Devil has in Scripture such glorious Titles For if we consider the world of men who are divided in their Affections 'twixt Christ and Satan we shall find by their Actions the best Interpreters of their Hearts that the Territories of Satan are much the greater Our Saviour tells us of a Broad way which leadeth to Destruction and many there be that go in thereat whereas in comparison the way to Life is but Narrow and They that go thither he saith are few And therefore Those unclean Spirits which are expressed by St. Paul to be the Spirits now working in the Children of Disobedience are but little after call'd by the same Apostle The Principalities and the Powers and which is more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Rulers of this World § 2. That thus it is the Scripture tells us But some may wonder that thus it should be What may therefore be the reason why so few should fight manfully under the Banner of our Saviour who therefore said truly His Kingdom is not of this World And so many under Satan's who thence is said to be the Ruler and the God of this world It cannot be because God is more unwilling to be obey'd and belov'd by his People than Satan is Nor can it be because God did make it necessary for Satan to have a greater success in the World than Christ. Nor can it be because God is more delighted in the Damnation than the Salvation of his Creatures He would not fo gratifie the Prince of Darkness nor could his Mercy have been then over all his Works Nor can it be because Satan is of more strength than the Almighty or more powerful to corrupt than God to purifie For could it consist with God's oeconomy to work on our Wills by That Omnipotence by which the Wind and the Fire and the Sea obey him we should not be in a capacity to break his Praecepts we should act only as natural spontaneous Agents and do our Duties as the Stones do in tending downwards Whereas having made us an other Thing to wit a rational sort of Creatures and that in viâ not yet arriv'd at our Journeys end but in a Tendency from Earth either to Heaven or to Hell not indefectibly good like the Spirits in Heaven nor consummately evil like those in Hell but as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Skirts or the Confines betwixt them Both to wit inclinable to evil and also capable of good does therefore work upon our Wills in a congruous manner in such a manner as is agreeable with the nature we are of and with the condition we are in Does not press us by any force to list our selves in his Army But freely leaves us our option either to be Royalists or Rebels to him Nor can it derogate from his Goodness that he leaves it in our power to be rebellious because he gives us sufficient Grace whereby he enables us to obey It is not therefore by a Fatality that Satan has got so many Soldiers but by the voluntary Defection
does there speak touching proportionable Temptations such as are not above our strength and are not for the staggering but for the trial of our Faith Now the Trial of our Faith worketh Patience and Patience breeds Hope and Hope maketh not ashamed Again The Trial of our Faith shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at the blessed Appearance of Iesus Christ. If Christ himself had not been tempted with all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them yea and afterwards too with Disgrace and Torment and Death it self How then could he have led Captivity Captive but for Injuries and Pains where were our Fortitude and Patience were it not for all sorts of forbidden Fruit where were Continence and Sobriety and all other Abstinencies from Evil were it not for Wealth and Plenty where were Munificence and Works of Mercy where the Victories of Meekness and Moderation if there were no such thing as Glory and worldly Greatness Yea but for Danger Destruction and Death it self how should we come by our Immortality Our Saviour therefore when he compar'd a rich man's Entrance into Heaven with the Entrance of a Camel through the Eye of a Needle did not speak of a natural but of a moral Impossibility For wealthy Abraham went to Heaven as well as poor forsaken Lazarus And therefore St. Mark does very fitly not only translate but explain St. Matthew saying How hard not how Impossible Nor for them that have Riches but for them that trust in them to enter into the Kingdom of God And this may competently serve to keep the Richest out of Despair § 6. Yet even This Alleviation may serve to keep them from Praesumption and make them humble because 't is hard to have Riches and not to trust in them Nor is there any one Thing that I am able at least to think of throughout the Gospel against which we are admonish'd praepar'd and arm'd with greater store either of explicit or implicit warnings When an ingenuous young Ruler whom Jesus lov'd came to inquire after Eternity and after the Means of its Attainment there was not any thing but his Possessions which seem'd to stand betwixt Him and Heaven For when his Oracle had told him He must sell all he had and distribute unto the Poor he was sad at that saying and went away grieved So great and real is the misery of too much Happiness upon Earth Had he been worth but two Mites he would no doubt have parted with them as the poor Widow did for a Treasure in Heaven And That was promis'd by our Saviour in the very same Breath in which he was exhorted to sell all he had But however such a Praecept could not be possibly so heavy as not to be made exceeding light by such a Promise as was annext Yet such a dangerous thing it is to have the Friendship of this World by injoying all the Pleasures which Power and Plenty can purchase for us that the Treasure in Heaven was but of cold signification and he was sad at That Saying that he must sell all he had Eternal Happiness in Reversion was but a Melancholick thing when only promised on condition of being merciful to the Poor The Expression of St. Luke is short and pithy on that Occasion He was very sorrowful for he was very Rich. And from That Single Instance our Lord took occasion to say in General and of All How hardly shall they that have Riches enter into the Kingdom of God Let the Persons be who they will Great and Rich or Rich only Rich and Prodigal or Covetous yet in case they Have Riches their Case is difficult They may be sav'd but very hardly Possibly they may but with much ado With very much strugling and striving to enter in at the strait Gate A man of great Bulk may possibly though hardly be able to pass at a little Door by a great deal of squeezing and compression and coarctation of himself perhaps by rubbing off his Flesh and by bruising some of his Bones And so a Camel may enter through the Eye of a Needle But then the Beast must be burnt to Ashes or cut at least into shreds and fitters that one shred may enter before another and all may pass in the Conclusion A very cold degree of Comfort not to be in any likelyhood but in a bare Possibility of being sav'd § 8. It is enough to deterr us from being grieved at the loss or overglad in the Injoyment of worldly Goods That the good things of this World are apt to be Enemies to all that 's Good They are often Enemies to Preaching for the Deceitfulness of Riches choaks the Word and makes the Hearer become unfruitful Matth. 13. 22. They are usual Enemies to Praying for you ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your Lusts James 4. 2. They are common Enemies to Loyalty and upright dealing for Iudas being Christ's Cash-keeper did quickly find his very Office became his Tempter He did not stab but sell his Master Nor that out of malice but love of mony And when the Husbandmen of the Vineyard conspir'd to murder their Landlord's Heir It was to this end alone That the Inheritance might be Theirs Mark 12. 7. Again the things of this World are general Enemies to Religion to Religion in its practical and chiefest part whose Truth and Purity does stand in This That we keep our selves unspotted from the World that is to say from the Wealth and Friendship from the Luxuries and the Lusts and the Glories of it Iames 1. 27. Briefly they are Enemies to the Eternal Salvation of Soul and Body For they that will be rich fall into Temptation and a Snare into very many foolish and hurtful Lusts which drown the Soul in Destruction and Perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. Nor was it sure without Cause that our Saviour made Dives the Repraesentative of the Damn'd A man of Quality and Fortune highly befriended by the World cloath'd in Purple and fine Linnen and faring sumptuously every day Which was so far from being a Narrative of any Particular man's Case that I could never read of any whose name was Dives much less that there was such in the time of Lazarus Nor was Lazarus there meant of any Begger in particular who lay full of Sores at the Rich man's Gate But all was spoken in a Parable And that as 't were on purpose to let us know what kind of Voiagers more especially are bound for Heaven and for Hell and with what sorts of People they Both are aptest to be stock't to wit with poor Lazars and wealthy Gluttons Those Inhabitants of Heaven as These of Hell Again it teaches us how frequent and usual 't is for every man to have his Portion of Pain and Pleasure either in This or another Life His good things here and his evil things hereafter or his evil things now and his
or indowed either a College or a Church an Hospital or an Alms-house But his Heart 't is plain enough was wholly set upon his Barns They had drawn out his Bowels Thither went his Affections Though a little was too much to be bestow'd upon Himself yet All was little enough for Them He was so passionately kind and partial to them One spends all upon his Back another upon his Belly a third upon his Titles and Stiles of Honour a fourth upon his Sports and Recreations And there are as That Parable does plainly shew who spend and lavish out all they have on their Barns or Purses § 11. Thus 't is difficult not to offend in the laying up Riches And 't is as difficult to be innocent in the laying of them out too For we may borrow from our Avarice for the maintaining of our Pride and what we spend on our Ambition is at least as ill laid out as what we bestow on our Barns or Baggs To keep an open Cellar and a very large Table is not the Vertue oppos'd to Avarice For we may lavish out our All in dishonour of God's Name as well as treasure all up in distrust of his Providence Our hearts will be as I said before in what place soever our Treasure is and as good in our Coffers as in our Kitchens A Talent wrapped in a Napkin will be no more imputed to us than one consumed upon our Lusts. We know a man of great Fortune has wherewithal to entertain and to cherish Vice Has abundance of Fewel to feed his Fire Is able to purchase at any rate whatever is acceptable and pleasing to the greedy Appetite of the Flesh. Whereas a man that is poor cannot go to the price of many chargeable Sins His Lamp burns faintly for want of Oyl Fulness of Bread is such a thing as was reckon'd for one of the Sins of Sodom and commonly follows a Great Estate So that That which the rich man esteems his blessing may prove the subject of a very great Curse For thus we read in the Psalmist Let their Table be made a Snare to take them withal And that which should have been for their welfare let it be to them an occasion of falling Psal. 69. 22. Thus we have the two Branches of the first and chief Reason why the Worlds Good things are the goodliest Snares and Temptations and such as our Adversary the Devil does most rely on § 12. Again the Goods of this World are apt to breed and nourish Pride which was another great Sin in the men of Sodom Plenty makes men contemptuous and superciliously looking down on such as are poorer than Themselves Thence is the Latin word Superbia à superhabendo Pride does take its Derivation from having Wealth above others Does not breed that Respect which is due to others But that undue Respect of Persons which is express'd by Partiality and declared against as an heinous Sin James 2. 1 9. It is a Custom whose Tyranny has invaded most parts of the World we live in to have respect unto Him who weareth gay Cloathing and to make him sit down in the upper place whilst 't is said to the poor man stand Thou there or sit here under my Footstool James 2. 3. Not at all laying to heart as St. Iames goes on That God hath chosen the Poor of this World rich in Faith and Heirs of the Kingdom which he hath promis'd to them that love him V. 5 This is one of the main Branches of That most fatal and fruitful Tree whereof the Love of this Worlds Goods must needs be granted to be the Root § 13. Again the Goods of this World are very apt to breed Sloath And this was the Third great Sin of Sodom Not only Pride and Fulness of Bread but Abundance of Idleness was in her A man who lives by his labour has not Time and Opportunity to commit many Sins to which abundance of leisure would have betray'd him He whose Ambition leads him no higher than to the foddering of his Cattle or the Government of his Plough will have the least Cause of Scruple in all probability as well in his Conscience as in his Stomach Whereas a Man of great Plenty is not so apt to have Employment to keep him safe and so much the less by how much the less he has need of working He is not only able to buy the various Nourishments of Vice but is at leisure to be hurt and debauched by them He is not fortified with Labour is not fenc'd and barricado'd with store of Business the Avenues of his Soul lye always open so as the Tempter needs not besiege him But may take him by a Surprise Whilst David liv'd at Bethleem with his poor Father Goodman Iesse where his Thoughts were taken up with his Attendance upon the Cattle his following the Ewes great with young in the Spring his washing and sheering them in the Summer his giving them Fodder in the Winter and his keeping them from the Wolf at every season of the year whilst he was thus keeping Sheep He was able to keep Himself too as Chast and Harmless But when he was placed as a King upon a very high Mountain of worldly Greatness although he was placed there by God he was so tempted there by Satan and that like Christ the Son of David with the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them as to have fallen into diverse most deadly Sins When he lived at his Ease and tarri'd still at Ierusalem stretch't himself upon his Bed and that at Noon too and had nothing else to do when he rose from it in the Evening but to walk up and down upon the Roof of his Palace where his Employment was nothing greater than the feasting of his Eyes with all the Varieties of the City none is so ignorant of his History as not to know what did ensue Had he been with his Army as by right he should have been for the Text tells us 't was at the Time when Kings go forth to Battle He had been probably too busie to have been tempted as he was whilst he lay at Ease In the Time of his Hardship and Afflictions we know he had somewhat else to do than to admit of what he did at a Time of Idleness and Plenty when he wallowed in the Mire of the Good Things of This World Thus the Earth which lyes Idle is presently over-run with Weeds whilst the Heavens which ever move still keep their Purity Just as Waters standing still are very easily corrupted whilst Those that run and run swiftly keep themselves pure and unpolluted § 14. Again the Goods of this World the more they labour to fill the Appetite the more they dilate it and make it empty They are apt to make a thirsty hydropick Soul As the Poor man does labour to grow less poor so the Rich does lay up to grow more rich And though 't is hard to make
a Rule which will not admit of some Exceptions yet 't is generally observable that a poor man's care is how to keep out of want whereas the care of the Rich is how to get into Superfluity A man of mediocrity who is but well enough to live is aptest to think himself well enough nor aims so much at the Increase as at the meer Praeservation of his Possessions Whereas Abundance of Riches makes a Plethory in the Heart which breaks out into an Itch without due Purgings and Evacuations By how much the fuller he is of Wealth by so much the more his Heart is set upon the raising of his Family and the leaving to his Children a great deal more than he was left He loves to be joyning House to House and to be laying Field to Field and to be placed alone in the midst of the Earth supposing that his dwelling place shall indure for ever and his Land be called by his Name from Generation to Generation Thus do the Riches of men conduce to many Diseases in the Soul a Plethory an Itch a Lientery a Dropsy a Boulimia These are the Maladies of the mind which abundance of Riches do breed and cherish The reason of it is chiefly This That what appears very Great to them who want and desire it does to them who do embrace it almost totally disappear What Hope and Hunger present as bigg Possession makes to seem little even because it does not stand at a due Distance from the Appetite For an Object may be too near as well as too far to be truly seen witness the Letters of any Book which if we place too near our Eyes we are as little able to read as if they stood a mile off For which reason it is we overlook what we possess and even want what we have whilst we covet more § 15. Other Reasons may be given but these I take to be the chief And as I think they are enough so I am not at leisure to point at more For now 't is time that I apply and so improve what I have said by adding several Considerations whereof the one will very fitly become a step unto the other And until we grasp All the Application will not be perfect § 16. First then let us consider That if the World 's Good things are commonly made the Devil's Lime-twigs laid before us as our Food but only intended for our Fetters It concerns us that our Souls be night and day kept on wing and incessantly flying over these Snares of Satan Which to accomplish the more effectually we must be careful not to stand upon exceeding high Mountains nor take too much of this World within our Prospect The Bowels of St. Paul were so turn'd within him when he consi der'd the Earthy-mindedness of many Professors in his time as that he could not hold from weeping in reflecting on the Miseries he saw them in Whilst he was writing to his Philippians in a very cheerful stile touching the Glory to be reveal'd and of his pressing towards the Mark for the price of the high Calling of God in Christ Iesus his Soul was suddenly overcast with a gloomy Cloud and his cheerfulness in a moment was done away with a fit of mourning For towards the midst of his Epistle his thoughts were occasionally diverted by such a melancholy remembrance as put a sudden stop to his Meditations and made him break out into a Parenthesis of Tears Many walk saith the Apostle of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are Enemies to the Cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their Belly and whose Glory is their Shame who mind Earthly things They liv'd in Plenty and Prosperity complyed with the Persecuting Jews were very indulgent to their Appetites and even boasted of their Lusts that is their Happiness was as great as this World could make it and for this which is the object of most mens Envy or Ambition they were exceedingly bemoan'd by that compassionate Apostle That their Souls like silly Birds should be so caught and intangl'd with Satan's Lime-twigs as to be groveling on the Earth and render'd utterly unable to give a Spring towards Heaven This was his Corrosive and Cordolium 'T was this that turn'd his Head into a Fountain of Tears and made him to mingle his Ink with weeping This was That that made him write with an Ellipsis in a Parenthesis and one Parenthesis in another No sooner had he said for many walk but there he presently brake off as if the rest of his words had been suddenly swallow'd up with his Commiseration The Royal Prophet had been caught but had been happily disintangl'd and was so very much afraid to be caught again that he earnestly fell a wishing for the wings of a Dove whereby to be able to fly away not only from the Injuries but from the Vanities of the World One would have thought that such a Potentate might have been satisfied with the World who had its Glories at his Devotion yet even Those were some of the things which made King David so weary of it And drew upon him That Envy with those malicious Calumniators which made his Life to seem long and his Kingdom tedious Woe is me saith he in pity to himself that I am constrain'd to dwell with Mesech and to have mine habitation in the Tents of Kedar So when Moses was but a youth he towred up like an Eagle above the stratagems of the Fowler and could securely look down with an holy derision upon his Nets He was so far from desiring that he refused to be a Prince So far from courting the Top of Honour as to have turn'd his back upon it when strongly courted to its Acceptance Choosing rather to suffer Affliction with the People of God than to injoy the Pleasures of Sin for a Season Such Eagles now a days are grown a rare sort of Creatures there being few who like Moses do so value and revere the reproach of Christ as to esteem it greater Riches than all the Treasures of Egypt It is ordinarily counted a spice of Madness for men to suffer any great Hardships in point of Conscience So long as thou dost well unto thy self men will speak good of thee Psal. 49. 18. But He who will not be caught in the Devil's Net and flies the Favours of the World which cannot honestly be injoy'd However the greatness of his Soul does speak him no less than a lofty Eagle yet he shall commonly be contemn'd as an arrant Goose. But this should teach us to loath the World so much the more and the wisdom of the World which is not Earthy only and Sensual but Devillish too Iames 3. 15. Alas the Wisdom of the Serpent is a very foolish thing wheresoever there is the Sting and the Poyson too And to have the Dove's Innocence we need the Wings also For as whilst
the Righteous and thou wilt find Them the wisest who worship Me. This does seem to be the Scope of the Devil 's reasoning to our Saviour And my Discourse added to His may serve to evince the Proposition which lyes before us That all the Goods of this World at least successively though not at once are by the Sufferance of the Almighty in the Devil's Proffer and Disposal § 10. I have but one Topick left from whence to make it yet clearer or past Dispute And that must needs be by way of Answer to an Objection For if These Things are so some may say within Themselves Men will be in great danger of becoming Epicuraeans looking on God as without regard of what is done upon the Earth and as consining his Providence to things transacted within the Heavens And if they once come to That they will Sin securely and tumble down with great merriment into the Bottomless Asphaltites which gapes to have them So far from Scruple or Regret in their words or actions that they will rather use the language of those Contemners in the Psalmist Tush how shall God see Is there knowledge in the most high Or say with Eliphaz unjustly accusing Iob How doth God know can he judge through the dark Cloud Or else with the Braves in the Book of Wisdom Let us lye in wait for the righteous man If he is the Son of God He will help him and deliver him from the hand of his Enemies Besides the Doctrine we have in hand does seem to clash with those Scriptures wherein God is said to Rule in the Kingdoms of men He giveth it saith Daniel to whomsoever he pleaseth and setteth up over it the basest of men And Christ is said to be the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Rev. 1. 5. How then comes the Devil to have the very same Titles bestowed upon him § 11. To this Objection I answer and to the later part first as being That that admitteth of most Dispatch What God and Christ are call'd properly in regard of their Natural and Soveraign Right The Devil is tropically Intitl'd and by an usual Catachresis in regard of That Possession which God permitteth him to usurp The Vineyard which was Ahab's was Naboth's too de facto That and de jure This. That is the one was possess 't of what the other had a right to So when we speak of Laban's Teraphims we mean the Teraphims belonging of right to Laban But when we call them Rebecca's Teraphims we mean the Teraphims which she hid and had stoln from Laban The Kings of Spain are call'd by Thousands Kings of Portugal The Kings of France of Navarr◠the Kings of England of France All pretending to have a Right where others have gotten the whole Possession But now with a greater force of reason may the Devil be call'd the Ruler and the God of this world not only because the world does for the greatest part adore him and do him service but because they do it too by His forbearance and permission whose Creatures they are and whose right It is and who in respect of his Omnipotence cannot possibly be resisted For that I may pass from the later to the former part of the Objection § 12. So far is God from forsaking or slighting the Government of the World that as I said once before but did not so prove it as now I must Satan himself is but his Pris'ner however his Prison is somewhat wide Not at all his Vicegerent to rule the World in his stead or with any degree of his Approbation In the Twentieth Chapter of the Apocalypse we find the Devil laid hold on and bound in a Chain and cast into a Pit shut up and seal'd for a thousand years and again let loose for a little season And what is all This but the Hypotyposis of a Pris'ner And though his Chain for a time is left by God very long as I said before yet all the while 't is but a Chain yea and such a Chain too as is not loose any more than endless We know the Sea is God's Pris'ner though not a very close Pris'ner as others are The Wind it self is not at Liberty however we cannot discern its Bounds It seems indeed to be the freest of all God's Pris'ners And therefore God is said to ride upon the wings of the Wind by the high flown Wit of the Royal Poet. Yet as He said unto the Sea Thus far and no farther shall thy proud Waves go so he checks the very Wind too as with a Bridle and saith unto it Peace be still Now we find that when our Saviour was but pleas'd to say the word not the Wind and Sea only but the Devils also obey'd him When he bid them come out of the poor Daemoniack They durst not stay or they could not one minute longer Yea they were forced to petition him and ask his leave before they could enter an Herd of Swine It was indeed a great power which Satan had over Iob as I shew'd before but I shew'd too how it was limited First to his Goods with an exemption of his Body and then at last to his Body with an exemption of his Soul It was indeed a great power which Satan had over the Christians in the purest Ages of Christianity for no less than Three hundred and thirty years inflicting Ten Persecutions from Christ to Constantine the Great And another great power during the Arian Persecution under the Tyranny of Constantius Another great power although a short one in Iulian's Time Another in the Time of the Emperour Valens Another more universal in the fifth Century after Christ when at the very same Instant Anastasius the Emperour was an Eutychian the Kings of Italy Spain and Africa Arians The Kings of England France and Germany Heathens A greater power than all these the Devil seemeth to have had in the Tenth Century after Christ when Hell is said to have broken loose and the Prosperity of the Church did much more threaten her utter Ruin than all her Persecutions when put together Yet all this while it was a limited and stinted power Christianity thriv'd under its Sufferings and had a Being though a poor one in the Excesses of its Injoyments The Gates of Hell did not Then so fully prevail against the Church as not to confess it to be a Truth That she was founded upon a Rock What our Lord said to Pilate Thou couldst have no power against me were it not given thee from above we with a little alteration may say as properly to the Devil and religiously defy him to do his worst Or we may say in some sense upon this occasion as St. Paul to the Romans upon another There is no power but of God God ordaining it if it is right or God permitting it if it is wrong Here then lyes our Comfort as Men and Christians that the Devil
Tyrants of Cyrene could never plunder him of his Philosophy That Inaccessible Treasure which was within him who yet would be the sole Masters of all his Wealth those obnoxious Possessions which were without him Which Advice of Aristippus was much like That of our Lord himself Lay not up for your selves Treasure on Earth where Plunderers and Thieves break through and steal From whence 't is obvious to collect that we are not so much obliged to Them who give us our Estates as to Them who do teach us to use them safely The Devil and his Agents are often permitted to do the former But God alone and his Embassadours will oblige us so far as to do the later § 22. Secondly let us consider That since we find God Himself bestowing Riches upon some as upon Abraham and Iob or whosoever has a right to the several things which he possesseth whilst the Devil gives to others by God's Permission as to the Sabaeans and the Chaldaeans who plunder'd Iob of his Substance to Achan and Ahab or whosoever has Possession without a right It concerns us to examin the exact Derivation of our Estates and to have it well stated whether we receive them from God or Satan For if honestly acquir'd and so from God by his Appointment and Approbation Then we may honestly injoy them to the Glory of God and our private Comfort Always bearing This in mind That we are but God's Almoners or Usufructuaries and must dispense to His Members who is Proprietary in chief But if dishonestly attain'd to and so from Satan by God's permission only and sufferance we cannot honestly possess much less injoy them and therefore ought to do neither to God's Dishonour and our Damnation But as our Saviour hath said of the Eye and Hand That if at any time they offend us we must pluck out the one and cut off the other so must we say of our Possessions That if they offend us in the like sense by making us stumble into Sin we must pluck them out of our Treasury like the Emperour Sigismund and like Him too cast them from us because 't is better for us to enter as Poor as Lazarus into Heaven than remaining Rich as Dives to be cast into Hell Always keeping This in memory That Ill-gotten Goods may purchase matter for Repentance But Repentance it self they can never purchase § 23. Thirdly let us consider That if the Devil himself is suffer'd to have more of This world at his Devotion and Disposal than The Great Cham or the Great Mogul or whosoever of earthly Potentates is worthily thought to be the Greatest Then are our Shares of this world the things the most to be suspected and of which we should least be proud Nor should we rashly take it for granted that they are evermore the Blessings and Gifts of God because we learn by sad Experience that they are many times the Curses and Snares of Satan If to have Riches in Possession were still a sign of God's Favour This great Absurdity would follow That the Devil himself would be God's chief Favorite The Apostle's Rule is That whom he loveth he chasteneth not that whom he loveth he maketh Rich. That He scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth not that every one whom he receiveth he makes to wallow in Prosperity And 't was a thing so very rare when Times were better than now they are to see the same man both Good and Prosperous That men did scandalously complain in the Days of Malachi It is vain to serve God And what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts when the Proud are happy and the Workers of wickedness are set up Nor was it otherwise in the Days of the Prophet Ieremy They are waxen fat they shine They overpass the Deeds of the wicked They judge not the Cause of the Fatherless yet They prosper See and consider how the Devil inrich't and prosper'd those Idolaters whom he made to burn Incense unto the Moon which they commonly then called The Queen of Heaven in the Four and fourtieth Chapter of Ieremy Whilst they committed That Idol-worship Their women lying with strange men in their Husbands Presence v. 19. All was well with them they saw no evil But when they ceased from that Idolatry they were consumed with Sword and Famin v. 18. Whence we see the great Folly of those mens reasonings who reckon Prosperity as a mark of the best Religion and Adversity of the worst Inferring Herod and Pontius Pilate to be more the Favorites of God than the Innocent Iesus whom they slew and hanged on a Tree For the former still liv'd in Peace and Plenty in Ease and Honour whereas the later was Vir Dolorum a Man whose life was full of Sorrows Let not any man therefore say in pretence of Gratitude when he hath gotten an Estate by Fraud or Violence I thank God for it I have a competent Fortune These are the Blessings of the Lord upon my Labours or God hath given these things unto me for what is this but a fair-spoken Blasphemy intitling God to the Injustice by which a man is made Rich Whereas to ascribe it to the Devil and his own heart's Lust is to lay the ugly Brat at its Father's Door And to justifie God whilst he dishonours and disobeys him We must accordingly distinguish between the things that we possess by distinguishing the Means whereby we have them and proportionably resolve on our usage of them What is honestly come by and we can prove so to be we must not fail to be thankful for and may injoy them as well with Gladness as with Singleness of Heart But for our ill-gotten Goods the Gifts of Satan and not of God we must part with them as greedily into their true Master's Hands as ever we got them into our own § 24. Last of all let us consider That if the Things of this world commonly call'd the Goods of Fortune are often suffered by God to be in the power of the Devil and often given by the Devil to such as serve him And if Both must give accompt at the Day of Judgment for whatsoever is so given and so receiv'd we learn from hence not to repine at the Prosperities of the wicked but together with their ways to have respect unto their End For why should any man be envied for being the Favorite of Hell for accepting that Proffer which here the Devil made our Saviour upon condition of Idolatry and which for that very reason our Saviour rejected with great Disdain Again we learn not to be sorry as men without hope when we find it goes worst with the best of men It being enough to reconcile the greatest Prosperity of the Unjust and the greatest Adversity of the Righteous both with the Mercy and the Iustice of God Almighty That the Lord of the Harvest when the Harvest-Time is come will
gather the Wheat into his Garner and burn up the Chaff with Fire unquenchable If the Flesh asks the Quaestion Why does the way of the wicked prosper Why are they happy who deal treacherously Why has the Devil so great a Power upon Earth Why does the wicked devour the man who is more righteous than He Let the Spirit make Answer in the words of the Apostle That this light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us afterwards a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory Whensoever we are tempted by either effect of the Devil's Power be it Prosperity or Affliction let us look up unto our Saviour upon the Top of two Mountains to wit the Mountain we are upon where he was tempted by the Devil with all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them And the famous Mount Calvary whereon he was tempted by the Devil with all the Torments in the Earth and Disgraces of them Thence we may see the perfect Purity of that Immaculate Lamb who rather would suffer Those Torments than accept That Offer He had refus'd so many Kingdoms but would not refuse to receive a Cross Refus'd the Glory of the world but not The Shame too He had refus'd long before to be made a King But would not afterwards refuse to be vex't and disgrac'd with a Crown of Thorns The meanest things in this world he would by no means despise But he despis'd the Pomps and Vanities which ordinarily pass for the Greatness of it And therefore as often as the Devil shall use his Power against us as here he did against Christ let us relieve our selves with the memory of This one Thing That the Servant is not above his Lord. And that we are foolishly unreasonable if we expect to fare better than an Innocent Iesus in the midst of our manifold and hainous Guilts And that as He so we too may easily suffer many things by duly weighing how they dispose us for an Entrance into his Glory § 25. Now having evidenced the Truth of my second Doctrin with greater care of Perspicuity than of not being tedious both from Scripture from Reason and from Experience from Aphorisms of Scripture and from Scriptural Examples from Solitary Reason and Reason grounded upon Scripture from other mens Experience and from our own and all attested as well by Sacred as by Secular Story And having clear'd it yet farther by way of Answer to an Objection offer'd also at the Causes of this seemingly-strange oeconomy in God's disposal of Affairs and directed to the Lessons it ought to teach us I think it Time to pass forwards to the Third Observable I propos'd To wit That the whole Scope and Drift of all the Donatives of the Tempter is to turn our Adoration out of its true and proper Channel to steal it from God and to divert it upon Himself He seldom or never Proffers but with a Treacherous Proviso He does it liberally indeed All these things will I give thee But with this covetous Reserve If thou wilt fall down and worship me § 1. To demonstrate the Proposition with the greater Force and Perspicuity I am to imitate those men who go a step or two back that they may leap so much the farther And premise two or three words concerning the Bounty of God and Man before I come to That of Satan It was a very smart saying of Learned Philo and as true as it was smart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God alone does give freely to all his Creatures whilst all his Creatures to one another are no better at the best than Ingenuous Hucksters The best of his Creatures under Heaven which are confessedly Men and Women yea the best of those best which are the liberal and the munificent when they do most seem to give they do but seem so For if they sell not their courtesies for Land or Mony yet commonly they sell them for praise and honour or at least for acknowledgments and humble thanks or if for nothing in the Earth yet at least for the hope of being rewarded for them in Heaven It is but a generous way of Trading for one rich man to send Presents unto another because there is commonly on the one side some expectation of Requital arising from the knowledge of Wealth and Gratitude on the other And this I take to be the reason why the most Covetous even of Worldlings will be liberal to a Person of Power and Plenty because they hope He will do them as good a Turn Nor can it truly and properly be call'd a Gift which is meant for a Decoy to some great Advantage whether a step to Preferment in Times of Safety or else a Bribe for Protection in Times of Danger The very clearest of our Gifts are those we give to Men in want and who for that very reason are the least able to requite us And yet even Those are a kind of Bargains For whilst we make a fair shew of giving any thing to the Poor the Scripture tells us that in Reality we are but* lending to the Lord. And farther adds for our Incouragement that whatsoever we thus impart shall be repaid to us again So true is that which I noted from learned Philo That God alone is a perfect Giver whilst the freest of Men are but liberal Hucksters Our profusest favours to one another are but a Mercenary Munificence as our largest Offertories to God are but a Mercenary Devotion § 2. Hereupon we are to argue à minori ad majus If the best Mens Gifts are so Imperfect what then are Satan's who besides that He has not a right to give does sell his Gifts for Mens Souls Things so infinitely precious that Christ Himself could not buy them but with his Blood When our Souls were to be purchas 't from Sin and Hell the Son of God being Incarnate could not have given enough for them if He had not vouchsafed to give Himself Now 't is the Avarice of Satan and his Ambition at the same instant to buy our Souls back unto Sin and Misery although he bids no more for them than the pitiful Allectives of Wealth and Greatness The Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them And well it were if it were no worse For besides that he offers a great deal more than he can give he being ever God's Pris'ner as hath been shewn the saddest part of it is that however his biddings are on the Earth his general Payments are still in Hell All his Gifts do still flow from his Desire of such Gain He reacheth his offers to us with one hand that he may plunder us with the other His liberality to us is like the Fisherman's to the River who in Case he does cast in a worthless Fly 't is that the River may requite Him with some good Fish When Satan offers us any favours we must immediately consider he is but Angling after our Souls He baits
in Prosperity Polycrates of Samos was sure the man Who yet was so far from being the happier for his felicities that his felicities did afflict him more than any thing else could It did not trouble him a little That he had nothing to vex him and that the Goods he would part with he could not lose Nor was it strange or without reason that his Felicities were so irksom and grievous to him For his Friend Amasis King of Aegypt had told him the danger of his Successes and that he took them for the Prognosticks of he-knew-not-what Miseries in time to come He told Polycrates in Effect the same that Solon told Croesus and what is now a By-word in our Ethick Systemes Ante obitum nemo supremáque funera felix None can be certain of his Happiness before his Death He said he never knew any so over-fortunate in his life who did not come to some dismal End And as he chose for himself an wholsom Mixture of Adversity with good Success so he durst not continue Friendship with one condemn'd to have his Portion of Good things Here with one who was doom'd to a praeproperous untimely Bliss He having a dread and an abhorrence of too much Happiness upon Earth as that which he thought provok'd the Anger and the Iealousy of Heaven if not the Envy Now 't is observable in Herodotus who gives us the History of it at large That what was prophesy'd by Amasis was by Oraetes made good For all the Felicities of Polycrates did justly end in his Crucifixion So true is That of the Philosopher however most persons may think it strange Res inquieta felicitas est ipsa se exagitat movet Cerebrum non uno genere alios in Cultum irritat alios in potentiam alios inflat alios mollit If English can express it perhaps it may be thus rendred Worldly Greatness is a restless unquiet thing a Plague and Affliction unto it self and to all that own it It exagitates the Heads and Hearts of men several ways some it intoxicates with Cruelty and some with Pride some it stirs up to Luxury and some to Lust some it swells up and some it softens As the Sun at the same time does harden Clay and melt Wax some it makes so obdurate as to turn them into a Rock and some it dissolves into arrant loosness § 7. Which by the way suggests to us a Third Reason for the Dissuasive from any man's seeking Great Things for himself and for God's Prohibition Seek them not They being treacherous and deceiptful not only to the outward but inward man not only in a Secular but moral Sense not only to the Bodies but Souls of men They are corruptive even of Principles as making their owners to imagin that Honour Intitles them to Ambition that Pride belongs to men of Power that Greatness gives them a Right to Arrogance From which Corruption of Judgment it comes to pass that many others as well as Baldwin That most famously devout Cistercian Monk have been observ'd by Historians to lose their Sanctity with their Obscureness and after the measure of growing Greater to grow in all kinds the worse In so much that Pope Urban directed his Letters very fitly to Baldwin Thus Monacho ferventissimo Abbati calido Episcopo tepido Archiepiscopo remisso Salutem plurimam impertimus It is so common for men to change from good to bad or from bad to worse with the change of their Conditions from bad to good or from good to better and when they are lifted up in Honour to be elevated in Mind too that Titus Vespasian is the one Emperour at least within my present memory who was moulded by his Empire from bad to better from having been both a proud and a cruel Subject to his being both a mild and an humble Soveraign Of most other Emperours it may be said as 't was by Tacitus but of one Imperio digni nisi imperâssent They might have been worthy of their Empires if they never had been Emperours Temporal Happiness having This of malignant in it in the Judgment of Agur the Son of Iakeh that it makes men forgetful of Him that made them Deut. 32. 15 18. It breeds ingratitude disaffection and at last a disbelief of their Soveraign Good Prov. 30. 8 9. 'T was the Opinion of St. Chrysostom upon St. Paul to the Ephesians that as nothing can so highly provoke the Wrath of the Almighty as the Sin of breeding Factions in Church and State So there is nothing that can so easily beget such Factions in either of them as the Seeking of Preferments and Greatness in it For where the most of men are seeking Great Things for Themselves there are Few to take care of the Common Good either in relation to Church or State And the way to Advancement through such an excess of Self-seeking becomes too Narrow which 't is the Interest of the Publick to make as Broad as it is possible that so the Candidates going towards it may not tread on one another for want of Room to go by or at least for want of Room to go by quietly and without jostling Lord what Armies have been defeated if not destroy'd too by the chief Officers great Envy and malignant Aemulations of one another We need not go far abroad for Examples of it if we are not utter Strangers to things which have happen'd here at Home And Christians one would think should All take warning by Christ's Disciples who were impertinently disputing which of Them should be the greatest when nothing but Pains and Persecutions and Death it self did await them All. There was a Time when great Numbers did take fair warning by That Example But not to spend time in the Enumeration of Particulars for the enumerating of which my time would fail me it shall suffice me to say in general and by the Authority of St. Austin that most of the better sort of men who had the Happiness to live in those better Times did suffer violence and force in their vast Promotions For being exceedingly afraid of the great Dignities they were offer'd and much more ready to quit their Country than to run the great risque of Advancement in it they were fain to be press'd and kept in Prison 'till they could bring their Wills down to admit of Greatness Thus the most Modern of our Great Doctors of the most Primitive Simplicity a man as wise as he was learned and as good as good Nature by Grace could make him was truly afraid to live so long as to see the happy Day he had daily pray'd for partly for his own sake lest the bettering of the Times should possibly make him grow worse than he was before and lest Advancement should corrupt him whom the contrary Condition had kept Intire partly for the sake of the Publick also lest a Deluge of Prosperity overflowing all the Borders of Church and State might
to do through the hatred we use to have of any Error which we oppose the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Basil calls it I therefore say I must acknowledge and I do it without Regret that what an old Author has said of Phidias may be truly enough apply'd to every wise and good man in a Moral sense If Phidias wanted Ivory out of which to make a Statue he could make one of Brass If Marble were wanting he could make one of Wood. If the best Wood were wanting he could make one of the worst And still how course soever his Materials happen'd to be the Statue should be as good as the Stuff would bear Just so a wise and good man will make the best use he can of any Condition he can be in All his wants will be with Comfort All his Advancements with Humility All his Injoyments with Moderation He will equally stand affected to Death and Honour neither of which is to be courted thô they are Both to be indured when laid upon him unsought without impatience But yet as Phidias could work the better the fitter Materials were allow'd him and some were fitter for his purpose than others were so a wise and good man is able to make a better use of one Condition than of another and therefore ought to choose That which he can manage with the most ease to the best Advantage Now what Condition That is hath been sufficiently imply'd in the four Reasons going before of God's severe Prohibition Seek them not and may yet more expresly be made out to us in That which follows For § 9. If all Secular Greatness is less conducible to a man's Happiness or his Contentment here on Earth and carries with it more Impediments in the Narrow way to Heaven which our Lord and his Apostles affirm expresly than That other State of life which is low and little It cannot but follow on the contrary for Contrariorum contraria est ratio that the inferiour State of life is much the Best and the most Retired the most desirable Condition Indeed 't is pity that Superfluities should enlarge a man's Appetite yet so they do Pity 't is that a man's Avarice should ever be widened by his Possessions yet so it is And therefore the Scythians did very fitly thus expostulate with the Great Emperour who conquer'd all he ever fought with except Himself Quid tibi divitiis opus est quae Te cogunt esurire What hast Thou to do with Meat which does but serve to increase thy hunger or what need hast Thou of Riches which make thee still the more needy for they observ'd the more he had the more he wanted what he had not And the degrees of a man's Want do by very sound Ethicks define his Poverty We know 't is customary for Parents to make and leave if they can a great Provision for their Children or for their Nephews if they have none And still the greater Estate they leave them the better they think they have done their Duty because they take it for a thing granted that men are as Happy as they are Rich. But when we reflect upon the Character and the Choice of those men who either were sick of great Plenty and therefore left it as a Disease or were afraid of its Infection and therefore refused the Offers of it 't is plain Experience and Practice and the Best mens Examples as well as Reason yes and abundance of Scripture too will make us quite of another mind For though Contentment cannot arise from any Proportion of Estate be it great or little because it grows to us from within and not from any thing without us yet I conceive a mean Estate does most contribute to its Attainment and with the men who have but Little the Greatest Contentments are seen to dwell The reason of which is very evident For 't is easy to have a little and to be below Envy whilst 't is absolutely impossible to be above it And therefore That of Claudian has apparent Truth in it Est ubi despectus nimius juvat There is a Time when a man prospers by being slighted When a man's Poverty is his Protection when too much contempt secures his liberty and his life 'T is ever best because safest because least troublesom least perillous least invidious Not to be Great Again Ad manum est quod satis est As 't is easy to have a little so a little is sufficient for Food and Rayment and St. Paul infers strongly that Food and Rayment are enough the upshot of all we can want or pray for and 't is enough that breeds Happiness because Contentment meeting with a Mind that is fitted for it And a man's Mind is sooner fitted to find enough in a Little than to meet with it in great Abundance For Sudatur ad Supervacua says the Roman Philosopher what is more than just enough begins to have somewhat of Excess and All excess is superfluous which for that very reason will cost us sweat if not the Sweat of the Brow yet the Anxiety of the Brain not only in the Solicitude how to get or to improve but in that easier Concernment How to manage and to praeserve it In each of which Cases Sudatur ad Supervacua The meaner man even in This is so much happier than the greater by how much 't is better not to have than to lose Abundance which sooner or later the Great man must and the Mean man cannot Still the Greater any one is the more he is obnoxious to Chance and Fortune by which 't is better not to be favour'd than forsaken at last And therefore the Baleares of whom we read in Diodorus did so reflect upon the Misery which Geryon's great Treasures betray'd him to for he had never else been visited and kill'd by Hercules that they durst not have Plenty for fear of Thieves for fear of providing for their Enemies as Geryon did Which comparing with That of David He heapeth up Riches and cannot tell who shall gather them and with the Counsel of Christ himself Take no thought for the Morrow and lay not up Treasure upon Earth Matth. 6. I do the less think it strange thô strange enough that Maximus Tyrius and other Antients admir'd the Wisdom of Diogenes in that he made it his choice to be as unfurnished as an Angel as free from all Earthly Goods as the Spirits of Heaven For they consider'd within Themselves that to have Riches and Honours as well as Children is to give Hostages to Fortune And that 't is here as in an Army the greater the Bulk the more it is expos'd to Wounds and Slaughter § 10. But thô the Saying of Epicurus is most evidently true Honesta res est Paupertas laeta that he who does not only bear but injoy his Poverty is not only an happy but an honourable man and in this respect a rich one that what he has not
Geometry That the Whole must needs be more than any Part of it self yet in Morality 't is to be question'd for several Reasons For such may be the blessed Frame and Constitution of a man's mind as may enable him to confute or elude the Maxim And That difficult Hemistichion which Hesiod sent his Brother Perses by whom it seems he had been cheated of the one half of his Estate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Half is more than the whole may have its Proof and Exposition from the Experience of a moderate and prudent man For the one half of his Possessions may be more to him than the whole five or six several ways in that it may without a Miracle be more conducing unto his Happiness and more in order to his Designs and even in reference unto the present as well as to the future and better Life and that by being for Example more consistent with his Privacy and more conservative of his Time more propitious to his Sobriety and more agreeable to his Vocation more in a tendency to his Contentment and more by consequence to his Health Many ways it may be more both in a Moral and Theological which is the best althô it cannot in a Physical or Mathematical Acception which is the worst For sure the former signification of the word More is as much better than the later as Quality and Goodness is better than Quantity and Bulk or as the Injoyment of worldly things than the bare Possession For the happiest man living and the most noble Apolaustick cannot possibly be He who does own the most things but evidently He who does want the fewest And as the strengthning of a man's Back is of greater use to him than the meer lessening of his Burden so is the shortning of his Appetite of more advantage to his well-being than any lengthning of his Titles or any inlarging of his Estate Else a Cormorant or a Gulon supposing them to have Food in full Proportion to their Appetites would be much happier than a Man And a man with such a Disease as Physicians call a Boulimis or Boulimia supposing him also to have Food in full Proportion to his Appetite would be happier than a man of the soundest Health A thing so void of all reason and so impossible to be True that the Belly-Gods of the Earth who still are satisfying their Appetites and the Glorified Saints of Heaven who have the Happiness to have None do so far differ as to the Comforts and Satisfactions which they injoy that the Pleasures of the first are much the lesser but the more gross whilst the Pleasures of the second are vastly greater but more refin'd § 12. From All that has hitherto been deliver'd that is from the Doctrin which has been laid and from the Reasons which have been given why men should not be Seekers of Great Things for themselves a Doctrin drawn from the Reproof and from the strict Prohibition of God himself and Reasons arising from as good Topicks as I have been able to argue from some good Lessons are to be taken some good Uses to be made some good Means to be suggested and some good Motives to be consider'd as well by Private as Publick Persons by Poor and Rich by the Least and by the Greatest without Exception § 13. First Inferiour men must learn from this whole Message of God to Baruch Not to advance themselves by levelling not to seek Greatness for It self nor yet to seek it for Themselves much less for Themselves by lessening others Not to be Troublers of the Waters wherein they are desirous to fish for Greatness Not to aim at Great Things by heading Parties and Factions by nourishing Schisms and Separations and what of it self is a great thing by having the Managements of Sedition in Church and State Not to promote a Fifth Monarchy by pretending nothing more than a Common-wealth Not to imagin that Dominion must needs be founded only in Grace and that the use of the Creature belongs to none but The Elect to many others indeed de facto but de jure only to Them They must learn not to be Selfish under colour of Self-denial meerly forsooth in Zeal to the Publick Good and that Right may take place not forsooth that they care for Wealth or Honour or have any true love to the Creature-Comforts as they are such but that Goodness as they call it may be rewarded and that Religion may have its due and that the blessed Apostle Paul whose words they take by the wrong handle may be justified in his Saying whilst Godliness is found to be profitable for All things having Promise as well of the Life that now is as of that which is to come This is the first and prime Lesson which every private Poor man and every man under Authority althô not poor is to learn from the Dehortative and from the bitter Exprobration of God to Baruch He must not make himself the Moral of Aesop's Toad which had an Ambition to swell it self into the Bigness of an Ox. He must not make himself obnoxious to the reproach of That Proverb Scarabaeus contra Aquilam being but a Beetle or but a Butterfly he must not aemulate an Eagle much less indeavour either to lure her or pluck her down He must not make himself lyable to the Wo which God denounced heretofore by his Prophet Isaiah must not say tacitly to his Father what begettest thou or to the Woman what hast Thou brought forth He must not mutiny and grumble against God's Providence and his Will or seek to aggrandize himself whether his Maker will or no. Being as He is but an Earthern Pitcher he must not contend with a Brass Pot or strive to equal much less to master the Golden Cistern But he must labour on the contrary to reckon himself as he is in his proper Element and by consequence not to be capable of Gravitation or Levitation from which the Elements are exempt in their native places He must make it his whole Indeavour his whole Ambition and Delight to acquiesce as Things do which attain their Center Not to turn Seeker how he may raise or disturb himself But to esteem it his private Interest to contribute all he can to the Publick Good to prove he loves the publick Peace by his following after the things that do make for Peace as by making his Reason to reign within him over his Passions and his Will over his Appetite by submitting his more deceivable and private Judgment unto the less erring Judgment of Publick Reason by seeking one great thing for himself which is the Glory of Obedience as Tacitus calls it to human Laws and Lawgivers to every Ordinance of man for the Lord's sake and by esteeming it as glorious for a Subject to be loyal and obedient unto his Soveraign as for a Soveraign to command and protect his Subject It is every man's Duty as well as Honour and every man's
by Snatches but that the Residue of his Time might be wholly God's Many others might here be nam'd Seven at least I am sure who eas'd themselves as being weary of the Great Seal of England in order to their advancement unto far greater things in a World to come And thô it cannot be deny'd but that being Persons of most incorruptible Integrity they might safely have continued in their Great Iudicatures on Earth without the danger of being cast in the Court of Heaven yet they resolv'd to take the Way which they thought the surest as knowing it better to make it easy than meerly possible to be sav'd For they consider'd what they well knew as well by Scripture as by Reason as well by History as by Experience as well by other men's Experience as by their own that thô it is not quite impossible yet'tis a difficult thing on Earth for the very same man to be Great and Innocent to be a Favourite both of This and the other World to fare as deliciously as Dives all his Days here below and yet at last to lye with Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom I am sure Sir Thomas Randolph thought it a thing so rare and difficult to be a man of much Publick and Secular Business and at the same Time to be fit to dye that by Letters he exhorted his intimate Friend Sir Francis Walsingham to bid adieu to all the Wiles of a Principal Secretary of State as He himself had newly done to all the Frauds or an Embassadour for the Number of his Embassies had been no less than Eighteen and to prepare himself by a penitent and private life for the life to come An Admonition very seasonable in regard of Both Persons concerned in it Walsingham to whom and Randolph himself by whom 't was given For they had long liv'd together as eminent Ministers of State and neither of them liv'd long from after the time of This Advice Nor did the one outlive the other above a Month or two at most What induced Queen Mary the Royal Sister of Charles the Fifth to quit her Government of Belgium in Exchange for a private and quiet Life 't is very easy to conjecture but hard to tell Perhaps 't was chiefly out of Reverence to the Example of her Brother as 't was done the same Day wherein He laid down his Empire and Crown of Spain and even wept out of Compassion to his poor Brother and his Son Philip whose feeble Shoulders were now to sink under two such Loads to wit the Kingdom of Spain and the German Empire I say whatever was Her Inducement to do a thing above the Rate of her Sex and Breeding sure we are that Queen Etheldred was wholly induced by her Devotion to forsake the Pomps and Pleasures she might have liv'd in all her days as the Daughter of one King the Widow of another and the Wife of a Third had she not thought it an happier choice to live retiredly in an Abby which she had built and indow'd and was the Abbess of till her Death And not to mention Queen Christina of Sweden or Bambas of Spain unless it be thus by a Paralipsis no fewer than Nine of our own Saxon Kings within the Space of Two hundred years did freely relinquish their Crowns and Kingdoms To which I add That when Ionadab impos'd That strict Command upon his Sons to drink no Wine to build no House to sow no Seed to plant no Vineyard and all their days to dwell in Tents in little despicable Huts by the River Iordan He did not only so command them to shew his Dominion and his Will or only to exercise their Obedience and Self-denial But because he did esteem it the safest state and condition to help enable them for an Innocent and Pious Life § 21. Another Use of This Text is with a Distinction to contradict it We must not seek Great Things for our selves because we must Not Great Things because the Greatest For what can be Greater than a Kingdom and what so Great Kingdom as the Kingdom of God to the seeking of which our Lord excites us Matth. 6. 33. So by St. Paul we are commanded to seek those things that are above Col. 3. 1. Not above us here on Earth but above every thing that is Earthy Nor are we only to seek God's Kingdom thô vastly Great But what is infinitely Greater we are to seek God himself who is The Great Rewarder of Them that diligently seek him and The Rewarder of None besides Heb. 11. 6. Thus the Dehortative Seek not is strongly inforced and urged on by a vehement Exhortation Seek Those Things that are Above Seek the Greatest Things imaginable and Seek them for your selves too Ye have not here a continuing City and therefore Seek one to come For what says the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews The life we have is worth Nothing compar'd with That we hope for Which being yet hid with Christ in God we must seek and seek on till we find it out Some things are Great which are not Good and some are Good but not Great But These are the Good and Great Things which alone are worth seeking and which we are not only allow'd but bid and bound to seek after In comparison with These The Life which is hid with Christ in God The Kingdom of God and God Himself we ought to slight the arrant Nothingness of the Things here below which by a pitiful Catachresis the World calls Great and as devoutly seeks after as after an Heaven upon Earth So every Hillock is a Great thing with a Community of Emmets wherewith 't is Peopled thô 't is not determin'd by Philosophers whether like Bees they are a Kingdom or like some other Insects a Commonwealth But yet as Great as That Hillock does seem to Them we know 't is no bigger in respect of all the Earth than All the Earth in respect of Heaven And yet so it is notwithstanding their littleness and their contemptibility we do no more excel Them in point of Quantity and Strength than they do us in the good Qualities of Peace and Prudence For all Communities of Emmets are still at Agreement among Themselves are never indanger'd much less destroy'd by any Intestine or Homebred either Divisions or Insurrections Whereas We have a Kingdom so sadly divided against It self that wicked men hope and wise men fear and there is ground for a suspicion it cannot long stand § 22. Now to shew the Real Littleness the Prophet Esa calls it the Nothingness of the Great Things below being weighed in the Ballance with Those Above It will not probably be amiss to put them Both into the Scales that so we may see how much the later weigh down the former First the Great Things below are but figuratively such and secundum quid somewhat Great in Appearance but not indeed or only Great in their relation to what is very much less and
438 c. Englishmen the worse the more Ingrateful 439 440. their Degeneracy 667 Example More cogent with some men than Reason 680 681 Experience of the Worst and Best men compared 50 51 52. A Proof of the Pleasure the Law of Christ yields us 58 59 60 61 F. FAith Seldom Truly Christian 85 86. of the greatest Consequence that it be True 86 87 102. a special Instance of Obedience 108 109. Never True but when the Mother of Obedience 110 111. how a Telescope 181 182 256 257. how and when Salvifick 223 224 c. It s several Sorts and Significations 229 230 c. It s mysterious Definition 239 240. how the Pandect of Christian Duties 241 242 c. to be found in very few 418 c. what Faith Salvifick 441 to 449 Fear How requir'd to true Faith 96 97. Fear and Trembling of a threefold Importance 131 132 133 c. Nothing more forbidden or more commanded in Scripture 135 136 137. the Reconcilement 138 139 c. a Religious passion 152 154 161 162 Fiduciaries represented 104 105 106 c. 113 114. Antidoted and humbled 219 220 c. 250 251 c. 319 320 G. GIfts Of men Imperfect 587 588. of God only Compleat ibid. of the Devil dangerous 589 590 c. 592. described 593. to be bewared 594 595 596 God How a comfortable Light and consuming Fire 111 112. how his Omnipotence should oblige us to Obedience 398 399. his Permissions of Evil accounted for 560 561. c. 583 584. Other Reasons 572. The Uses to be made of it 573 574 c. The Difference 'twixt his Distribution of Endless Torments and present Goods and Evils unto men 628 629 630. Evils happen to Good men by his Order or Permission ibid. Goodness of Christ as a Legislator 349 350 c. Gospel A Rule not a meer Dispensation 119. It s Summary preached by Paul and Silas 245 246 c. how a refuge from the Law 329 330. why to be called the New Law 341 342 Government Of a mans self difficult 657 Grace In All is sufficient 47 48. How it signifies the Gospel 92 93 94. Resembled by Manna 404 405. how it exceeds the state of Innocence 406. The freeness of it 407 408 c. H. HAppiness upon Earth wherein it lies 259 260 305 306 c. 368 369 370 c. Heaven See Aeternal life Hell made for the Use of All 156. an Hell to think of 183 184. Humility Necessary in the working out Salvation 131 132 c. 141 c. the Proper vertue of the Greatest 287 288 289 c. The great Motive to it 406 407 c. Hypocrisy In what Professors most seen 346 347 I. IDleness It s miserable Effects 498 499 c. Iews parallel'd with Christians and less obliged 127. less unexcusable 429 430 Impunity the severest punishment 565 566 c. Infidelity How to be proved 441 442 c. Infirmities How beneficial 404 405 406 Injuries How beneficial to the injured 67 68 Inquiries How to be made 302 303 c. to 315. what sort to be avoided 316 317. c. a Touchstone to try of what sort we are 321 322 c. Interest governs the World 83 84 85 Iob. His case at large 529 to 535. and 567 568. Iustice. Its wants in the World 436 437 c. Iustification From Eternity a dangerous Doctrin 7 8. to what kind of Faith it is ascribed 233 234 c. K. KIngdoms The littleness of them on Earth 311 312 c. Kings next to God most capable of Injuries 66 67. most accomptable to God because not at all to man 297. L. LAw of the Gospel 42 43 c. of Faith 121. of Moses how it drives us to Christ 328 329 330 350. Christ a Legislator as well as Moses 341 342 c. Liberality In whom the Effect of Avarice 593 594. Libertines How made and why so many 6. like the old Gnosticks 44 45. described 103 104 Liberty of a Christian wherein it stands 95 96 100 166 Love How it casteth out fear and carries fear along with it 138 139 161 162. How the greatest of Vertues 312 313. how seldom True 433 434. How it fulfils the whole Law 445 446 M. MAhomedans Better than many Christians 425 426 Man How much more obliged than other Creatures 385 386. yet of All the most ingrateful 387 388. How to learn of the Brutes 399 400 c. Martyrdom The Reasonableness of it 28 29 c. Moderation of mind how attain'd 673. Motives to it 673 to 700. Money It s danger and Description 507 508. Moses How he leads men to Christ 328 329 c. as a lesser Paedagogue to a greater 342 343 c. 350 351. How he escaped the Devils Lime-twigs in his youth 505 N. NIggard His largess and folly equal 490 491. to 495 Nobility Wherein it consists 288 289 c. it s proper duties 296 297 O. OBedience Its necessity to Salvation 2 to 34. It must be Passive as well as Active 27 28 29 30. its own Reward 60 61 62 c. Indispensably necessary under the Gospel 92 93 c. All one with Saving Faith 235 236. The All in All to a Christian 344 345 346 c. if not Servile but ingenuous 377 378 c. 395 396 400. the Condition not the Cause of Salvation 410 411 c. Opinions Why to be well examin'd 8 9 Oracles many and deceitful 331 332 Orthodoxie not enough 198 199 c. P. PErfection Evangelical what 364 365 Persecution Consisting with Pleasure 71 72 73 Perseverance Necessary to life 146 147 149 150 152 153 390 Poverty Preferred by many Heathens 509 510 c. Sanctified by Christ and recommended 513 514 c. 519. a Comfort 605 645 646 647 652 653 654. of what sort intended 654 c. Practice The life of Christianity 195 196 c. 200 c. follows Principles 441 442 c. Prayer Worthless without Perseverance 418 419 c. 462 Presumption More dangerous than Despair 144 145 147. oft mistaken for Faith 421 Pride In the poorest 294 295. the Sin of Sodom 497 Principles To be known by Practice 442 443 c. Prodigality Hardly avoidable even by Niggards 494 495. no less Sin than Avarice 601 Prognostick of the Coming of Christ to Judgment 417 to 463. Promises of the Gospel still clog'd with Precepts 123 124. yet confer a Right on All Performances of the Condition 150 151 154 159 160 Prosperity The hardest Weapon to wield 184 185 c. No mark of Goodness 436. tho often its Reward 437. the Common Portion of the worst 539 540 c. Not to be envied 583 accompanied with trouble 676 Puritans Modern Catharists 388 389 Pythagoreans Their exact Conformity to their Master 19 20. wherein to be aemulated by Christians 177 Poverty Wherein it truly consists 659. the Good Effect of it ibid. 660 661. Consolation from it 691 R. REconcilement 'twixt Calvinists and Remonstrants 158 159. 'twixt St.
of All Evil without Exception so a truly Christian Faith which is operative and works by a due love of others a love of God with all our hearts and of our Neighbour as our selves cannot choose but be the Root of all the Good fruits to be imagin'd For how can any man indure to be rebelling against his God whom he does love with all his Soul and above Himself And how can any man knowingly suffer himself to be induced to wrong his Neighbour whom he does love without hypocrisie and As Himself that is as sincerely thô not as well or as well if you please thô not as much With a sicut similitudinis thô not aequalitatis In which sense 't is said by our Lord Himself Be ye perfect As your Father in Heaven is perfect He does not there say Be ye as perfect as he is perfect But be ye perfect as sincerely as he is perfect consummately Be ye That in your measure which He is without measure Be ye perfect comparatively as He is absolutely perfect For as God is said in Scripture to have made Man in his own Likeness so we may say by the same reason that he makes a Man's perfection thô at a vast and humble distance in the Similitude of his own Now if what I have said of a True Christian Faith as it works by Love and as it is the Substance of Things hoped for and as it is the Evidence of Things not seen and as 't is that whereby a Believer overcometh the world be duly compared with all before it touching the faithlesness and malignity the wants of love and common honesty wherewith the world is overcome 'T will not be difficult to conclude That when the Son of Man cometh let his coming be when it will He will find his own Prophecy fulfill'd amongst us § 12. Perhaps 't is too little a thing to mention either Cotterus or Dabricius or Christina Poniatovia however their Praedictions touching Christendom in general and particularly touching the whole House of Austria and That of Bourbon long and long ago printed are coming to pass in These our Days Nor will I apply That of David touching Absolom's Rebellion and the general Revolt occasion'd by it stigmatized in the Fourteenth and in the Three and fiftieth Psalm The Fool hath said in his Heart There is no God Where by the Fool he means a Multitude as appears by his next words The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men to see if there were any that would understand and seek after God But they are all gone out of the way they are altogether become Abominable There is none that doth good no not one Nor will I descant upon That of the Prophet Micah The Good man is perished out of the Earth There is none upright among men They all lye in wait for Blood They hunt every man his Brother with a Net They do evil earnestly and that with Both hands The Iudge asketh for Reward The Great man uttereth his Mischievous Desire The Best of them is a Briar and the most Upright of them is sharper than any Thorn Hedge I do not speak of These things in this unlimited universality unless it be by a Paralipsis But This I think I may say with every man's suffrage and consent There is so eminent a Defection from God and Goodness throughout the World that Most do seem to have renounced and to have utterly cast off All Fear and Care if not Acknowledgment of the most High The Tongues of men are their own their Thoughts are free their Wills invisible and the secrets of their Hearts are known to God only The Searcher of them But yet as far as mens Actions are the Interpreters of their Hearts and as far as they discover an Epidemical Decay of Christian strictness a Decay of That Seriousness in Reality and Substance which some poor Quakers retain in Shew a Decay of all Duties to God and Man a Decay of Moral Honesty and Humanity it self and which is the Top of all Impiety a devilish blending and confounding the very Natures of Right and Wrong a turning Religion Topsy Turvy calling Evil Good and Good Evil putting Bitter for Sweet and Sweet for Bitter Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light holding Perjury and Parricide Killing of Kings and Subverting of Kingdoms not only Innocent but Pious not only Laudable and Vertuous but the most highly Meritorious and Supererogating Works of the purest Christians nor only of the purest but of the only true Christians in all the World the Only Members of the true Church and Only Heirs of Salvation whilst they who dare not break Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy dare not rail at and libel the Laws in force dare not rebel against their Governours dare not fall down and worship the Jesuites Idol even for This very Reason are Damn'd for ever I say as far as men's Actions are Thus the Indices of their Hearts we may conclude there is a Principle of downright Atheism within them at least an Heathenish Belief that their Souls are not Immortal and that for what they do in This they shall not be brought to give Accompt in Another World § 13. I am far from undertaking what yet some have done to name the last Days of the Son of Man or the Time of his coming to the avenging of His Elect and to judge the World But of This I am certain because I have it from his own Mouth as well as from the Mouths of Three at least of his Apostles that we must not infer the Day of Doom is far off because there are few prepare for it and even the wisest do not expect it No It 's seeming very far off is rather a Sign of its Approach For The Scriptures tell us expresly That Christ at his Coming will surprize us as a Thief in the Night His Coming for Quickness will be like lightning It shall be as suddain saith our Lord as Noah's Deluge was to All Noah himself being excepted They did eat they drank they married wives even until the very day of Noah's entring into the Ark when behold the Flood came and destroy'd them All. It shall at least be as surprising as was the shooting of Hell from Heaven in the Days of Lot And how surprising That was our Saviour tells us in the next words They did eat they drank they bought they sold they planted they builded unto which it may be added they play'd they sported they were indulging all their Lusts when behold the same day wherein Lot went out of Sodom The Fire and Brimstone rained down and destroy'd them All. So swift so suddain so surprising shall be The Day of The Son of Man's Coming to judge the World Watch therefore says our Saviour for ye know not what hour your Lord will come Heaven and Earth shall pass away But of That day and hour knoweth no man says he again no not the
Angels of Heaven Again says he be ye ready for in such an hour as ye think not The Son of Man cometh All which that it is meant of the Day of Judgment and the Consummation of all things not only or chiefly of the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Destruction of Ierusalem seems to be evident from the Conclusion of That whole Prophecy of our Saviour For if That Evil Servant That Man of Sin by way of Eminence whether without Christendom or within it whether in Asia or in Italy in Germany or in Spain in France or England shall say in his heart My Lord delayeth his Coming whereupon He shall praesume to smite his fellow Servants and to riot it with the Drunken The Lord of that Servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour he is not aware of and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his Portion with the Hypocrites There shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth § 14. What now is to be done by us who live in These Times wherein I have shewn there is so Common so Universal so Epidemical a state of Depravation but that every one in his station do labour hard to mend one That we all watch and pray lest we enter into Temptation or that if we cannot escape the Temptations of the World yet by the powerful Grace of God well cooperated with we may be able to overcome them In order whereunto we must not only watch and pray for a Time and examin our selves duly whether we be in the Faith of Christ But we must not faint in it We must quit our selves like Men. We must be strong in the Faith We must stand fast in it Our watching must be constant our praying always So expresly saith our Saviour in the first Verse of That Paragraph whereof my Text is the Conclusion For The Parable which he spake was says St. Luke to This End that men ought always to pray and not to faint We ought to pray without ceasing as St. Paul bids his Thessalonians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the second we must be a kind of Euchites be it spoken cum grano Salis we must pray without End or Intermission And that for This reason as well as for This end and purpose that our Lord at his Coming may find us praying A work of so very great importance and so conducible to Salvation that even Then when Simon Magus was in the Gall of Bitterness and in the Bond of Iniquity St. Peter bid him Pray to God if perhaps the Thought of his heart might be forgiven him Pray therefore we must that we may not fall And if at any time we are fallen still we must pray that we may rise And still for fear of relapsing we must watch unto Prayer and we must watch thereunto with all perseverance That so at what time soever The Master of the House shall come whether at Evening or at Midnight or in the Morning we may be found like wise Virgins with Oyl in our Lamps or in the Number of the few Faithful and blessed Servants whom our Lord when he comes shall find so Doing and that finding us so doing He may receive us with an Euge Well done good and faithful Servants Enter ye into the Ioy of your Lord. Which God The Father of his Mercy prepare and qualifie us for even for the Merits of God The Son and by the powerful operation of God The Holy Ghost To whom be Glory for ever and ever AN ANTIDOTE OR PRAESERVATIVE Against the Prurigo of Ambition Satan's Masterpiece AS A TEMPTER TO WORLDLY GREATNESS MATTH IV. 9. All these Things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Or as St. Luke sets down the words LUKE IV. 6 7. All this Power will I give thee and the Glory of them for That is delivered unto me And to whomsoever I will I give it If thou therefore wilt worship me All shall be Thine § 1. THere is a Time when in Scripture God is said to tempt Man And again there is a Time when Man is said to tempt God Last of all there is a Time when the Devil is said to tempt Both and Both at once in this Text in which are met the two Natures of God and Man Now though to Tempt in each Case is still a phrase of one sound yet is it often found to be of very different significations Indeed so different that they may seem to contradict For Moses saith God tempted Abraham And yet St. Paul saith God tempteth no man It is implyed by our Saviour that God is tempted at least by some And yet 't is said by St. Iames He is not tempted of any Now the way to reconcile them is briefly This. When God is said to tempt Man it signifies nothing but a Trial a kind of Search which God makes in the Heart of man Not that God can be in doubt or stand in need of an Inquiry how any man's heart is affected towards him But 't is to admonish him of his weakness or to convince him of his hypocrisie or else to evidence his Faith or to exercise his Patience or to make his Integrity the more conspicuous and rewardable that God is pleased to explore and to search his Heart Thus in Genesis and Exodus and in the Thirteenth of Deuteronomy our Father Abraham and the Israelites are said to have been tempted by God himself § 2. Man in the second place is said to tempt God when without any Necessity or Assurance of Success he rashly goes out of his Calling to meet with Danger Or when without any Warrant whether from the Spirit or Word of God he gladly falls into Distress like Eldavid the false Messias of whom we read in learned Buxtorf supposing God by some Miracle will help him out For what is this but to explore or to make a Trial both of the Power and Goodness and Truth of God not at all out of Faith in his Word and Promise but out of a wanton Curiosity or bold Praesumption § 3. But now the Devil is said to tempt either God or Man and Both together in the Text when not only without but against the Word he does solicite and intice to something or other which is Evil. And thus our Lord is said in Scripture to have been tempted even as We. Not by Hunger only and Thirst by Cold and Nakedness by Slander and Disgrace by Pangs and Torments and all Degrees of Affliction to which the Name of Temptations is justly fixt But to the worst of Afflictions that is to Sin and to the worst even of Sins to wit Idolatry And to the worst of Idolatries even the worshipping of the Devil Who being permitted to take him up to an exceeding high Mountain did shew him from thence as in a Landskip All the Kingdoms of the