that we should be carried up to heaven in a dream or that God should draw us thither whether we will or no as if he could not reign without us nor the blessed Angels be happy but in our company Good God! what a presumption is it to think that the name of Child the meer opinion of Gods Love and to talk of forgiveness of sins should help us that good wishes will promote us that when we have cast our selves headlong into a sea of misery into a deluge of sin it will be enough to say Master save us we perish Beloved be not deceived God is not mocked If we will have Christ to be our Priest to satisfie for our sins and to intercede for us he must be our Prophet too to teach us and our King to govern and rule us If we will have the meat that perisheth not we must labour for it if eternal life we must lay hold on it if the garland we must run for it if we will enjoy the Benefit we must perform the Office if we will be children of God we must be followers of God if we would be endeared to him he must be dear to us if we would be lovely we must be loving and if God forgive our sins we must forsake them if we will have the crown of life we must be faithful unto death if we will have the victory we must Rev. 3. â—1 fight for it Vincenti dabitur To him that overcometh will Christ grant to sit upon his throne He hath a Crown laid up for his Children and his Children shall have their blessing and shall know that they were dear unto him They shall enter into their inheritance the Kingdom prepared for them And now not only Paul is theirs and Cephas is theirs but Christ is theirs and God is theirs and the Crown is theirs and Heaven is theirs not in hope only but in reality not in apprehension onely but in fruition also not in right and title only but also in possession Thither the Lord bring us who purchased it for us with his precious bloud The Seventh SERMON MATTH XVIII 1. At the same time came the Disciples unto Jesus saying Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven HERE is a strange Question put up and that by Disciples and as strange an Answer given and that by Christ himself The Question is Who should be the greatest in the kingdome of heaven The Answer is That in that kingdome a Child is the greatest A Question put up by men prepossessed with hopes of Greatness ignorant what this Kingdome and what Greatness was and an Answer excellently fitted to that Question checking at once their ignorance and removing it So that here you see Ambition and Ignorance put up the Question and Wisdome it self makes the Answer Ambition and Ignorance swell our thoughts into a huge bulk and make us Giants but Wisdome abates that tumour contracts and shrinks us up into the stature of a Child Who is the greatest say the Disciples that is the Question A Child is the greatest saith our Saviour who was the Wisdome of the Father That is the Answer Indeed a man is known by his speech and our words commonly are the evaporations of our Hearts Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts saith Matth. 15. 19. Christ and evil questions too Such as the Heart is which is the fountain of life such are the motions of the parts Such as the Will is which is the beginning of action such are the motions and operations of the Soul which flow from the Will and are commanded by it Our Words are the commentaries on our Will For when we speak we make as it were a defection of our own Hearts and read an Anatomy-lecture upon our selves Our wanton talk discovers a stews in the Heart When our words are swords the Heart is a slaughter-house When we bear false witness that is the Mint When we worship Mammon that is his Temple The Heart is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shop and work-house of all evil In this we set up idols in this we work mischief in this we heap up riches build up thrones raise up Kingdomes Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven is the very dialect of Ambition and shews that the Disciples hearts were so set on Honor that they could not ask a question right We read that they had disputed of this before amongst themselves by the Mark 9. 34. way and then they put up this question to Christ here in this Chapter And again Chap. 20. and again Luke 22. when he had eaten the Passeover with them when he had foretold his Passion and preacht unto them the doctrine of the Cross when his Passion was nigh at hand even then did these Disciples dream of honors and greatness and a temporal kingdome and are not ashamed to tell it to Christ himself Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven First they dispute it among themselves in the way and then they ask Christ the question This is the method of the world at this day First to dispute every man in the way in viâ suâ in his own way the Covetous in the way that leads to wealth the Ambitious in the way that leads to honor the Sacriligeous person in the way that leads to atheisin and profaneness and then to ask Christ himself a question and hope to strengthen their vain imaginations by Scripture and to have an answer which shall fit their humor and flatter their ungrounded resolutions even from the mouth of Christ himself From him they hear that they must work with their own hands he then speaks of Riches and Honor. From him they hear that Bell boweth down Dagon must fall and all Superstition must be rooted out Nullum sine auctoramento malum est We can now be covetous be ambitious be sacrilegious be what the Flesh and our Lusts will have us be any thing by Scripture Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven the Disciples would never have askt the question had not their thoughts run on Greatness had they not thought that Christ had come to this end to set up a throne of state for one of them I will not make this error of the Disciples greater then it is and yet I cannot make it less because Disciples fell into it and which the Jesuits for St. Peters sake pronounce it but a small and venial one St. Chrysostome calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fault And it concerns us not so much to aggravate as to avoid it It is sufficient for us that Christ hath resolved this Question and brought a little Child upon the stage to teach Disciples and to teach us to avoid that rock which the Disciples themselves had dasht upon In the words then we will observe 1. the Occasion of the Question pointed out unto us in the first words At the same time 2. The Persons that moved the Question which are
plainly named The Disciples came unto Jesus saying 3. The Question it self Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven Where we shall take some pains to discover the true nature of this Kingdome that so we may plainly see the Disciples error and mistake and carefully avoid it These are the parts we shall speak of and out of these draw such inferences as may be useful for our instruction that as if by the Disciples doctrine when they were inspired by the holy Ghost so by their error when they were yet novices in the School of Christ we may learn to guide our steps and walk more circumspectly in the wayes of truth that by their ill putting up the Question We may learn to state it right Of these in their order We are first to speak of the Occasion of this Question And to discover this we must look back upon the passage immediately going before Chapt. 17. and as it were ushering in my Text. There the Occasion privily lurks as the Devil did in the Occasion And there we find how our Saviour in a wonderful manner both paid and received tribute received it of the Sea and paid it unto Caesar in the one professing himself to be Caesars Subject in the other proving himself to be Caesars Lord. You see Caesar commands him to pay tribute and Christ readily obeys but withal he commands the Sea and behold the Fishes hasten to him with tribute in their mouths Chapt. 17. 27. Now why our Saviour did so strangely mix together his Humility and his Power in part the reason is given by himself Lest we should offend them For having proved himself free and therefore not subject to tribute for if the Sons of Kings be free then the Son of the King of Heaven must needs be so yet saith he unto Peter That we give no offence cast thy angle into the Sea He is content to do himself wrong and to loose his profit to gain his peace And as he did express his Humility that be might not offend Caesar so we may be easily perswaded that he did manifest his Glory that he might not offend his Disciples For lest his Disciples peradventure should begin to doubt whether he was as he pretended Lord of heaven and earth who did so willingly acknowledge a superior look how much he seem'd to impair his credit by so humbly paying of tribute so much and more he repaired it by so gloriously receiving it Now saith the Text At the same time when this wonderful thing was acting then was this Question proposed But now in all this action let us see what occasion was here given to this Question what spark to kindle such a thought in the Disciples hearts what one circumstance which might raise such an ambitious conceit They might indeed have learnt from hence Humility and Obedience to Princes though Tyrants and as Tyrants exacting that which is not due and a Willingness to part with their right rather then to offend That Christ is not offended when thus parting with our goods we offend our selves to please our Superiours But a corrupt Heart poysons the most wholsome the most didactical the most exemplary actions and then sucks from them that venome which it self first cast A sick ill-affected stomach makes food it self the cause of a disease and makes an Antidote poyson Prejudice and a prepossessed mind by a strong kind of Alchymie turns every thing into it self makes Christs Humility an occasion of pride his Submission a foot-stool to rise up upon and upon Subjection it self lays the foundation of a Kingdome Some of the Fathers as Chrysostome and Hierome and others were of opinion that the Disciples when they saw Peter joyned with Christ in this action and from those words of our Saviours Take and give them for me and thee did nourish a conceit that Peter in this was preferred before the rest and that there was some peculiar honor done to him above his fellows and that this raised in them a disdain against Peter and that their disdain moved them to propose this Question not particularly Whether Peter should be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in general terms Who should be the greatest And this the Church of Rome lays hold on and founding her pretended Supremacy on Peter wheresoever she finds but the name of Peter nay but the shadow of Peter she seeks a mystery and if she cannot find one she will make one The Cardinal is fond of this interpretation and brings it in as a strong proof of that claim the Bishop of Rome makes of being Prince of all the world But what is this but interpretationibus ludere de scripturis when the Text turns countenance to put a face and a fair gloss upon it and make it smile upon that monstrous Error which nothing but their Ambition could give birth and life unto For to speak truth what honor could this be to Peter To pay tribute is a sign of subjection not of honor And if we will judge righteous judgment nay if we will judge but according to the appearance the greatest honor which could here have accrewed to Peter had been to have been exempted when all the rest had paid To speak truth then or at least that which is most probably true not any honor done to Peter but the dishonor which was done to Christ himself may seem to be the true Occasion of this Question I shall give you my reason for it We see it a common thing in the world that men who dream of Honors as the Disciples here did grow more ambitious by the sense of some disgrace As in Winter we see the fountains and hollow caverns of the earth are hottest and as the Philosophers will tell us that a quality grows stronger and more intense by reason of its contrary Humility may sometimes blow the bladder of Pride Disgrace may be as a wind to whet up our ambitious thoughts to a higher pitch Or it may be as Water some drops of it by a kind of moral Antiperistasis may kindle this fire within us and enrage it and that which was applyed as a remedy to allay the tumour may by our indisposition and infirmity be made an occasion to encrease it We trusted that this had been he who should have redeemed Israel say they Luke 24. 21. Is this he who should come with the Sword and with Power and with Abundance unto them that should root up the Nations before them and re-instate them in the Land of Canaan Is this that Messias which after many years victoriously past on earth should at last resign up his life and establish his Kingdome upon his Successors for ever A conceit not newly crept in but which they may seem to have had by a kind of tradition as appeareth by that of our Saviour Luke 14. 15. Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdome of God and by the mother of Zebedee's children who requested that her two sons might sit one
and pride and wantonness of that nation all which are our sins and our enemies weapons so non gladiis pugnamus sed orationibus non telis sed meritis saith Ambrose we fight against them not with sharp swords but with strong supplications not with weapons but with alms and fasting with sighs and groans And as when we sin we put deadly weapons into their hands so when we repent we shall disarm them And indeed it is Repentance which kindles this heat and makes our prayers fervent which otherwise will be but so many sins to help our enemies Without Repentance our Prayers are indeed but the sacrifice of fools For what more foolish and ridiculous quà m quod voto volumus actu nolle then to pray for that which we will not have to cry for help against our enemies by our continuance in sin to increase their number cry Help Lord how long shall the wicked prevail and yet to help them more by our transgression then we do God by our contribution to call upon God to fight for us when we fight against him to desire peace when we are the only incendiaries to fight it out and pray for a blessed Commonwealth and yet not be willing to reach forth so much as the little finger to uphold it Certainly this noise will never awake God nor can we think he will be raised up with words with empty flattering deceitful words with words as Job speaks without counsel No If we will have our prayers make a noise to awake God we must drop our tears upon our prayers which we drop out of our own substance as it were the bloud of Martyrs saith Anastasius And Bloud we know will cry and be loud Non sileat pupilla oculi tui Let not the apple of thine eye cease or be silent And then we must feed our prayers with fasting This doth nourish our Devotion as a woman doth her child with the teat God hath an ear to harken to our Fasting Ostendit se Mosi jejunii collegae saith Tertullian He shews himself presently to Moses his copartner in fasting And after this we must adorn them with our Alms our free-will offering our Contribution to the work For can we pray for that which we will not forward And then as our prayers are heard so shall our alms come up before God and with an holy importunity urge and provoke him to arise for in the midst of so many Prayers of so many Sighs and Groans of so many Tears and when our Charity speaks whose voyce is shriller than the tongues of Men and Angels God cannot rest but will hear from the Heavens our prayer and supplication and maintain our cause He will cloath us with Salvation and our enemies with shame that we may enter his House with joy and his Courts with Praise that we may sit every man under his own vine and under his own fig-tree and may make our lives a continual holyday singing praises to the God of our deliverance This duty let us so perform here that after we shall have finished our course we may be admitted unto the quire of Angels with them to praise God for evermore We will add but one word to bring it home to our present occasion And it will apply it self This is a day of Thanksgiving and here is a feast of Thanksgiving A day of Thanksgiving for our deliverance from our outward fraud A feast of Thansgiving for our redemption from our spiritual enemies Let us offer up therefore sacrificium eucharisticum a pay-offring or sacrifice of payment let us pay to God Confession and Thanks for our deliverance and for his mercies in both Let us as Jacob exhorts his Sons Gen. 43. 11. take of the best fruits of the land of the Musick and Melody of the land as the word signifieth let us bring with us the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22. Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith let us bring forth fruits meet for Repentance meet for these blessed mysteries which will be as Musicks even those songs of Sion which God is most delighted with For if there be a blessing even in a cluster of grapes what songs of praise are due to him who is the true Vine and hath given us Wine to make our hearts glad pressed bloud out of his very Heart that we might drink and be nourisht up unto everlasting Life Let us then praise him for our deliverance this day praise him and not be like them out of whose snare we have escaped not imitate their actions whose ruine we tremble at but praise him by our Meekness and Gentleness by our Patience and Obedience to lawful Authority For what praise is that which is breathed out of the mouth of a Traytor If we be as ready to spoyl others as our enemies were to devour us our Harp is but ill strung and our songs of Thanksgiving will be quite out of tune Let us double our praises and magnifie God for that which is presented to us in the Sacrament our deliverance out of Hell the destruction of our worst enemy Sin and our last enemy Death Here is that Red Sea in which that spiritual Pharaoh and his Host were overthrown And what is our Praise To speak good of his name This is not enough we may do this and crucify him We must prayse him by obedience by love by sincerity and by a lively faith This is indeed to eat of his Body which was broken for us and to drink of that Bloud which was shed for remission of Sins For he that truly believes and repents as he is sick of sin so he is sick of love even of that love which in this Sacrament is sealed and confirmed to us He is ever bowing to Christs sceptre he is sincere and like himself in all his wayes he makes his Faith appear in the outward man in Godly lips and in liberal Hands he breaths forth nothing but devotion but Hallelujahs Glory and Honour and Prayse for this great love And so he becoms Peniel Gen. 32. 30. as the face of God as the shape of Christ representing all his Favours and Graces back upon Him a pillar engraven with the bowels of Christ a memorial of his love Thankfully set up for ever It is usual with the Fathers to make the Ark a Type of Christ his Word as the two Tables his Discipline as Aarons Rod and the Sacrament of his Supper as the Pot of Manna EXSURG AT CHRISTUS Let Christ arise who is a brighter image of God then ever the Ark was Let us take him up but not upon prophane Shoulders lest we dy First let us be Priests unto the Lord without blemish not blinded by the Prince of this world not halting between God and the World but perfect men in Christ Jesus to offer up Sacrifices to the King of Heaven When we receive him by a lively Faith we may say he is risen To this end he lifted up himself upon
but dust He knows our frame he remembreth we are built up of flesh as he was And he knoweth what impressions Sorrow can make in flesh He remembers that Man in the best estate is but vanity that when he is strongest he is ready to fall And then if he falls as a Man out of frailty and not as an Angel as Lucifer 's presumtuously his Compassion is ready to lift him out of the dust And this is a part of Christ's Priestly office which he begun on earth and in heaven performs for us even to the end of the world This lasts even after the Consummatum est when all was finished Christ Jesus is an Intercessor yesterday to day and for ever Behold saith Saint Stephen Acts 7. 56. I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God And every Christian by the eye of faith may see him there also even at the right hand of God interceding for us Father behold here I am and for my sake behold the children which thou hast given me It is true they have sinned for even I was tempted They have fallen but by my help are risen again They have received many spots from the world but they have been willing to wash them off with their tears that I might wash them with my bloud They have profaned thy name but they have called on thy name Oh give ear unto their cry hold not thy peace at their tears Or if thou wilt not hearken to the tears of a sinner yet behold the sighs the tears the bloudy wounds of a man that did never sin And now Father forgive them as men forgive them as my brethren To these sinners I have given the glory which thou gavest me that they may be one even as we are one And the Father of Mercy receives us and embraceth us in his arms puts upon us the best robe puts immortality upon our mortality impeccability upon our peccancie and all at the intercession of his Son who being himself tempted learnt to succour them who are tempted The Four and Twentieth SERMON PART II. MATTH IV. 1. Then was Jesus led-up of the Spirit into the wilderness c. HEre we have the Field where our Saviour coped with our adversary the Devil and the Manner how he was brought thither He was led-up of the Spirit Which motion excludeth both all violence in the person leading and all rashness and inconsiderateness in the person lead The Spirit leads gently and the quiet and gentle leading of the Spirit is as a document to us not to follow unadvisedly or indeed rather not to out-run the Spirit For when we run thus in haste we commonly run our selves out of breath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Every man is commonly very hot in the beginning but the nearer and nearer he comes to the object the fainter and fainter he grows and when he meets it he falls down for want of spirit now a zelote anon a Laodicean now consumed with zeal anon chill and cold now a Seraphim but by and by a stone The reason hereof is from the Will of man which may easily be inclined and carried to any object though never so terrible whilst there is nothing to move the Sense and by the Sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the irrational part of the soul because there the Reason doth but fight with a shadow and representation of evil but here with the evil it self full of horror and affrightment naked as it is Which now hath a double force both upon the Sense and Apprehension and by its operation on the one multiplies its terror on the other and the more it is felt the more it is understood far more terrible in its approach then in our books or contemplation And therefore it will not be safe for us to challenge and provoke a temptation but to arm and prepare our selves against it to stand upon our guard and neither to offer battel nor yet refuse it Sapiens feret ista non eliget It is the part of a wise man not to seek for evil but to endure it And to this end it concerneth every man to exercise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his spiritual wisdome that he may discover Spiritûs ductiones diaboli seductiones the Spirit 's leadings and the Devil's seducements lest he do not only seek tentations but create them and make that a provocation to evil which bespeaketh only his obedience or patience lest I conceive that the Spirit sendeth me when I resist him when I do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall cross with him and run violently against him And this we have gained by the Spirit 's Leading We descend now in campum certaminis into the place of tryal the Wilderness For thither Jesus was led amongst the wild beasts saith St. Mark into the most forsaken and solitary desart as some have made the discovery a mountainous place between Jerusalem and Jericho not far from Galgala the place where he that fell amongst thieves was wounded where Luke 10. 20. John Baptist was before he baptized And their conjecture is probable because that desart is neer unto Jordan So that the journey was not long from Jordan where Christ was baptized to this desart where he was tempted We will not stand much upon the place or curiously search whether it were this or any other but rather modestly inquire the reasons why our Saviour would withdraw himself into a solitary place there to be tempted And here as we cannot be so unreasonable as to think that Christ had no reason to induce him to withdraw himself for a while for this were to conceive that he was led thither by chance and not by the Spirit so we must not coin reasons of our own and then set his image and superscription upon them not frame conclusions and then make his actions which are nothing like them the premisses out of which they are naturally drawn For this hath been the mother of all Error and Superstition And as Martin Luther says Nihil periculosius Sanctorum gestis Nothing is more dangerous then the actions of the Saints when they are mistaken so may we of Christs For whilst we dote upon our own phansies and then gaze and look to find them in the action of this Saint or that or of Christ himself by a kind of justice it falls out that we lose our sight and walk in the dark and think when we have buried our selves alive in idleness and a fruitless solitude that even then we are with John Baptist or with our Saviour in the Wilderness The resolution of Tertullian is most safe malo minùs sapere quà m contra It is better a great deal to know less then amiss And not to know every reason which moved our Saviour to this retiredness then for some ends of our own peremptorily to conclude this or that was the reason which is none at all Divers conjectures are given by the
then it doth adorn and beautifie us indeed and God looks upon it as a glorious ornament and upon us as guest whose praise is not of men but of God Without this though we enlarge our phylacteries never so much though we have HOLINESS written in our foreheads all will be but like Bellerophon's letters We may take them for a pass-port or letters of commendation but in them our doom and our condemnation is written We are condemned by our wilfull neglect and contempt of the marriage-feast as by our own confession so condemned as that nothing remaineth but sentence and execution If it had been mine enemy saith David Psal 55. 12 â—3 I could have born it But it was thou my familiar friend If it were one who never had heard of the Feast one of the Heathen who knew not the name of the King the neglect would not have been so foul The times of their Acts 17. 30. ignorance God wincked at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saw as if he saw not he did not threaten eternal death as he doth now under the Gospel but now he commandeth every man every where to repent to fit and prepare himself for this great Feast And if we do not so we are the worse Christians by being so much Christians more guilty for our profession in more danger then Infidels in that we are not so and more unpardonable for our belief Irascitur Deus contumeliis misericordiae suae God is never more angry then when his Mercy is abused and his Grace turned into wantonness Let us then look-up to the Author Heb. 12. 2. and Finisher of our faith Hear his voice follow his direction I counsel Rev. 3. 18. thee saith he to buy of me white rayment that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear And we may buy of him without Isa 55. 1. Heb. 2. 11. money or money-worth The Apostle saith Both he who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one Now Christ sanctifieth us by his doctrine and example And as he was conceived by the holy Ghost so are we made new creatures and clothed with the wedding garment by the vertue and power of the same Spirit And then Christ will not be ashamed of us not ashamed to call us Brethren when as brethren we wear the same apparel When he seeth our garment entire the same in every part universal uniform like it self throughout the whole of the same thread not here a piece of silk and there a menstruous rag not obedience to this command because it fitteth our humour and disobedience to another because it sitteth too close and is troublesome to flesh and bloud When he seeth us not bow in the house of Rimmon because our master doth so not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beat and wound our conscience for fear of those higher Powers who else will beat us with many stripes When he seeth not our Faith enfeebled by our Trust in uncertain Riches nor our Charity cooled by those tentations that blow from that treasury nor our Hope swallowed-up in victory by our Ambition When he seeth our Garment made by that patern which himself shewed shining not like the Pharisees fringed garments but like the pure fine linnen of the Saints well woven with spiritual wisdom and well worn with care and diligence When he seeth us according to the Greek proverb yea according to his own charge Quem mater amictum dedit solicitè custodire to Rev. 16. 15. keep that garment with which God our Father and the Church our Mother hath clothed us in the day of our mariage that garment for the making whereof He himself afforded materials and that è visceribus suis out of his own bowels When he seeth this I say he will change our wedding-garment into a robe of glory Coming thus apparalled like guests we may have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confidence and boldness towards God Then shall our mouths be filled with laughter and our tongues with joy Then shall we not as he here be speachless but speak unto the King and the King will speak unto us We shall speak to him as Children Abba Father as Subjects Let thy Kingdom come as Servants Master it is good for us to be here And the King's Son shall speak for us Behold I and the children which thou hast given me The Feast shall speak for us even the Bloud of Jesus shall speak good things for us And Hebr. 2. 13. the Garment shall speak for us our plea of Faith shall be more eloquent and powerful then the tongues of Men and of Angels And our plea shall be answered not with a QUOMODO but with an EUGE Well done my good and faithful guests Your wedding-garment is on Sit-down at my table sit-down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob with all the Patriarchs and with all the Apostles and with the whole Church in the kingdom of heaven Which happiness God grant unto us through Christ Jesus our Lord. The Nine and Twentieth SERMON PART I. MATTH VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in heaven c. A Preface concerning Catechizing and Prayer BEfore I come to the plain and familiar explication of these words which I intend it may be expected perhaps that I should speak somthing by way of Preface For we live in that age wherein every man almost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sophister speaks malevolous and jealous making his surmise a formal endictment and sufficient testimony against Superiors whilst himself alone stands guilty and there can be no crime found but this that he is suspicious Nihil tam sacrum quod non inveniat sacrilegum What good order can there be I will not say establisht but revived which is not straight markt out as a novelty No sooner can it receive influence from Authority to grow up and shew it self in the Church but Malice layes its axe at the very root of it And where Power is wanting to digg it up by the roots there Ignorance and Clamor shall shake it as a plant that will not grow in any Christian ground because they suppose it was brought from Rome We cannot be so blind we cannot be so charitable as not to observe this in those things which the wisest in the Church have thought to be of great importance And it were to be wisht that it would rest there and rather spend it self upon some one particular then multiply it self by degrees and gather strength to quarrel and endanger all But as fire seizeth on all matters that are combustible without respect whither it be a palace or a cottage a stately oak or a neglected straw so this Jealousie which not Conscience but Self-will and wilfull Disobedience hath kindled in the Church feeds it self not only with mountains with matters of greater moment but atomos numerat takes-in even atomes themselves things which can have no shew of offense
we shall find both the Creed and the Decalogue Tertullian I am sure calls it Breviarium totius Evangelii the Compendium of the whole Gospel and St. Cyprian Praeceptorum Christi grande compendium a Collection of all Christs precepts Some prejudice it may be perhaps that it is common in every mans nay in every childs mouth For things common and ordinary do lose their credit and price amongst men for no other reason but because they are common and ordinary like the Jews Manna which their souls abhorred because it was so common and they could gather it every day Indeed this is no prejudice at all to this Prayer but serves rather to commend it Quid non commune est quod natura optimum fecit saith that witty but lascivious Author Those things which Nature hath made most useful are most common yea therefore are common because they are useful The holy Father Nazianzene applies it to Divine mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is our King and he hath made his Law his Grace his Gospel his Miracles his Sufferings as common as the Sun Faith Hope and Charity are for every heart that will entertain them Only those things which are valid and secret are least necessary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he they are to be placed in the second rank because least useful Were not our Pater noster of such use it had not been so common as it is but now it is made common because it is of weightiest and greatest price I will not urge the superstitious numbring of Pater Nosters by tale as if our Prayers were to be muster'd up like Xerxes 's army ut numero vincetur to prevail rather by number than by weight I need not tell you out of Rupertus and Amalarius Fortunatus that this Prayer was alwayes uttered in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a loud voice when others were pronounced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with more secrecie and silence nor trouble you with the reasons they alledge I need not commend the laudable practise of our Church which hath often inserted it in her Liturgy and hath placed it at the beginning both of first and second Service Animata suo privilegio ascendit coelum commendans Patri quae Filius docuit The greatest priviledge it hath is That it had Christ himself for its Author and being quickened and enlivened with this prerogative it ascends the heavens and commences those petitions to God the Father which the Son himself hath taught SIC ERGOO RATE After this manner therefore pray ye Which words are taken as they lye for a plain precept not to pray which is implyed but to pray after this manner For though it be in St. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When you pray say yet here in St. Matthew we read it in the Imperative mood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pray ye thus For although Christ may seem only to prescribe what we must desire of God when we pray and not command that we should thus pray yet the very subject of this prayer and the nature of the things we are to pray for are such that we cannot but conceive that Christ did enjoyn both Prayer is implyed in Religion whether true or false grounded by the very Heathen on Gods Care and Providence by which he governs all things The Stoicks appropriated it to their sect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As they thought that none but a wise man could be a Priest so they imagined that none but a wise man could pray And indeed all Philosophers accounted it their proper praise to know how to pray None ever denyed that God was to be prayed unto but the Cyrenaeans as Clemens tells us and the Epicureans who acknowledged no Divine Providence at all Indeed all Religions agree in this That we must pray But to pray amiss hath been the error not only of Pagans but of many also who called upon the name of the living God Bene orare gratia spiritalis To pray well we can learn from none but from Christ alone We may find perhaps the truth which teacheth some other virtue if not entire in one Philosopher yet diffused and scattered throughout their several sects and writings but Christ alone as he is the author and the finisher of our Faith so is he also of all true Devotion Laertius tells us that Aristotle wrote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning Prayer and one of Plato's Diologues is extant upon that subject And the very light of Nature directed them so far that they did acknowledge Reverence a companion of Prayer that they esteemed and judged of men by the manner of their Devotion that they accounted them profane who desired things unlawful of the Gods and them foolish whose prayers were for trifles that they could deride the superstitious rites and ceremonies which they used in their devotion But to pray for those things which will procure eternal happiness to pray for a Kingdom he alone can teach us whose most precious bloud hath purchast it for us I cannot now proceed to the further handling of these words for time will prevent me I intended to make this Lecture only an Introduction For the main I must remain your debter till this day seven-night because I have already ingagements lye upon me for the next Sunday and then in this place we shall Godwilling meet again In the mean time I commend you all to the Grace of our Lord Jesus The Thirtieth SERMON PART II. MATTH VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in heaven c. THose things which degenerate are so much the worse by how much the better they had been had they retained that primitive rectitude which God and Nature put into them they being withered and deformed by that irregularity and unnatural motion which swayes and wrests them from the rule as Beauty is with Age and Violence which write deformity deeper in that countenance whose composition and native complexion was most exact and elegant In this very Chapter here we find mention of three principal virtues which are as wings to lift a Christian up to heaven giving of Alms Fasting and Prayer All which have a CAVE a Take-heed placed in the very front of them as if there were as great danger in them as in their contraries which are cloathed with Death By our Alms and Liberality we do as the Apostle speaks sow in blessings in a fertile place 2 Cor. 9. 6. where for one we receive a thousand or as Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sow our piety which will bring in increase a hundred-fold But yet we see Vain-glory and the sound of a trumpet will blast all our crop and rob us of our harvest Castigation and beating-down of the body by Fasting is that which gâ—ves life and growth unto our Devotion and by which we do humilitatem animae Deo immolare make our Humility an holy and acceptable sacrifice to God But when it appears only in
all which are as sowre and unpleasant meats And our glosses and interpretations of them what are they for the most part but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delightful sawces to make them more easie and pleasant to the palate Sell all that thou hast and give to the Matth. 19. 21. poor the Church of Rome calleth a Counsel of perfection And we might well enough admit of it if she made it medium not finem a means a way and not the term and end of perfection We make it praeceptum singulare a particular precept to the youngman in the Gospel Who like the sheep though his fleece was fair and white deceived not Christ the great Shepheard of the flock but he quickly espied the rottenness of his heart and with this command made a window in his breast that all might see it He that had kept all the Commandments from his youth could not hear with patience this one Commandment Go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor This was a dagger at his heart For when he heard that saying his colour changed he went away saith the Text very sorrowful It was indeed an error in Pelagius grounded upon a mistaken part of Scripture That no rich man could be saved But it falls out many times that there is less danger in maintaining some errors then in pressing some truths And what inconvenience can attend this error What if every rich man should suddenly become liberal and disburse his money What if Dives had sold all and laid it down at Lazarus his feet What if every Gallant did turn his Peacocks feathers into Sackcloth What inconvenience could follow Or can this Devil be cast out without fasting and prayer Utinam sic semper errarent avari We may make it our wish that covetous persons did alwayes so err For this no-great-error in their faith would defend them from a greater sin in their actions would pluck that beam out of their eyes with which the God of this world hath blinded them Better it is a great deal that they should thus erre than that on the other hand they should effeminare disciplinam Christi weaken and effeminate the strictness of Christian discipline with these sprinklings and limitations That it is true indeed I must give to the poor but it is as true I must care for my family That a cup of cold water is enough for the poor whilst I drink up a river and like Behemoth in Job draw up the world into my mouth take possession of all the riches I can grasp For these truths which sort and seem to comply with this malady captivam animam dum delectant exulcerant do delight indeed and please the captive soul but withal do pierce her through and exasperate the humor which was too malignant before For when our love is fixt upon the world the God of the world the Devil will soon teach us his art veritatem veritate concutere to demolish one truth with another to drown our Bounty to the poor in our care for our family To send the covetous person to the Pismire to School to commend Frugality to a Miser is nequitiam praeceptis adjuvare nothing else but to whet and quicken that appetite which is too sharp already to put wings to that desire which is too fleet and eager He that will not labor let him not eat is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle a fundamental axiome with the Miser a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation and which he hugs and adores as he doth his gold And therefore this gentle course of Physick will never cure him Si prodesse vis doce quod doleat If you will do him good and work a cure indeed you must disturb and trouble him Go sell all thou hast and give to the poor is a bitter pill and it will so work with him that it will make him very pensive and sorrowful Again Go sell and give to the poor is by some made praeceptum generale a general command like the Parthian horsmen looking one way and shooting another directed upon occasion to this young man but striking at all the world But then they level it by that plain position of our Saviours Whosoever he be that forsaketh not Luke 14. 33. all that he hath cannot be my Disciple which cannot be understood of forsaking in act and execution but in will and affection at some time and upon some occasions Habet pax suos martyres There is even a martyrdome in time of peace Habent divitiae suos pauperes Men may be poor in spirit though their corn and their wine and riches increase We may say of this precept as Tertullian speaks of some other places of Scripture Expetit sensus interpretationis gubernaculum To find the sense we must steer along by a wary interpretation For literally this precept cannot be general it being impossible that all should be sellers If all were sellers where would be the buyers and if all were givers where would be the receivers But in respect of that due preparation which every Christian ought to have for the Truth and the Gospels sake for their Brethrens sake to offer up all their possessions as a Holocaust in this respect it finds no restraint or limitation but is of as large compass as Christendom Non audomus dicere ut omnia relinquatis tamen si vultis omnia etiam retinendo relinquitis saith Gregorie I dare not be so bold as to press upon you to forsake all that you have but yet if you please to learn this Christian art you may forsake and retain you may sell and give and yet keep You may so use the world that you may enjoy God still be proprietaries of them as of yours but so esteem of them as if they were not yours but your brethrens still place our thoughts not upon PANIS Bread but upon NOSTER Ours still consider that it is not Mine or Thine but Ours This NOSTER is a kind of circle of compass large enough to take in thy self and all thy poor brethren to comprehend all the Christians in the world How scrupulous our Fore-fathers were in expounding this and the like Texts of Scripture themselves have left us notable monuments St. Basil maketh a strange supposition and in my opinion he gives as strange an answer to it Wert thou brought saith he into those streights that thou hadst but one loaf left and that thou knewest no means to provide other when that is spent yet if there should come some poor and needy man and ask thee for food what thinkst thou would be thy duty to do Even to take that one loaf and put it into his hand that begs his food and looking up into heaven to say Lord thou seest this one loaf thou knowest the streights in which I am yet have I performed the keeping of thy commandments before supplying my own necessities This indeed is a point of piety cujus non audeo
Imprimatur C. Smith R. P. D. Episc Lond. a Sacris Domesticis Ex Aed Lond. Jan. 29. 1673 4. FIFTY SERMONS Preached at the Parish-Church OF St. MARY MAGDALENE Milk-street LONDON AND ELSEWHERE Whereof Twenty on the Lords Prayer By the late Eminent and Learned Divine ANTHONY FARINDON B. D. Divinity Reader of His MAJESTIES Chappel-Royal of Windsor The Third and Last Volume Not till now Printed To which is adjoyned Two SERMONS Preached by a Friend of the AUTHORS upon his being Silenced LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott MDCLXXIV TO THE READER THE good welcome and esteem the Two former Volumes of Mr. Farindon's Sermons have met with amongst learned and judicious persons hath encouraged this also to venture abroad hoping to speed as well as its Fellows They who have been conversant in the other need not be told that these are the genuine Works of the same Author for they will soon perceive that the very same spirit breatheth in all and that they are all of one strain and stile The Work is sufficient to commend it self and truly both it and the Author are well worthy of large Encomiums But the Wine is so high and rich that it needeth not a Bush The Sermons on the Lords Prayer our Author did many years since finish but had the great misfortune in the time of the late troubles to loose his Notes they being by a hand then in power forcibly taken from him These thou now hast as near as may be guessed are more then two parts of three of what he did Write and Preach on that subject However I finding upon each Petition several Sermons not inferiour to any our Author hath written I could not think it reasonable because I had not the entire Sermons to deprive thee of the better part of them Which I hope thou wilt accept the rather for being in the affair freely dealt with And so he biddeth thee heartily FAREWEL who is Thine to serve thee R. M. A TABLE directing to the Texts of Scripture handled in the following SERMONS Two Sermons by a Friend of the Authors upon his being Silenced SErmon 1. Jerem. XII 1. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk or reason the case with thee of thy judgments wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously Serm. 2. Phil. IV. 17. Not because I desire a Gift but I desire Fruit that may abound unto your account A Sermon preached by the Author upon his being restored to the exercise of his Ministry Gal. IV. 12. Brethren I beseech you be as I am for I am as ye are ye have not injured me at all A Sermon preached on Christmass-day Psalm LXXII 6 7. He shall come down like rain upon the mowen grass or into a fleece of wooll as showers that water the earth In his dayes shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth Twenty eight Sermons more Serm. 1. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Serm. 2. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek c. Serm. 3. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek c. Serm. 4. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek c. Serm. 5. Ephes V. 1. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children Serm. 6. Ephes V. 1. Be ye therefore followers of God c. Serm. 7. Matth. XVIII 1. At the same time came the Disciples unto Jesus saying who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven Serm. 8. 1 Cor. XIII 7. hopeth all things Serm. 9. Psal LI. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation Serm. 10. 1 Cor. VI. 1. We then as workers together with him or as helpers beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain Serm. 11. Luke XXI 28. And when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh Serm. 12. Rom. XIII 4. He beareth not the sword in vain Serm. 13. 1 Pet. II. 13 14 15 16. Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supream Or unto Governours as unto them who are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well For so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God Serm. 14. Psal LXVIII 1 2. Let God arise let his enemies be scattered let them also that hate him flee before him As smoke is driven away so drive them away as wax melteth before the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of God Serm. 15. Gen. III. 12. And the man said the woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree and I did eat Serm. 16. Luke X. 5 6. And into whatsoever house ye enter first say peace be to this house And if the Son of peace be there your peace shall rest upon it if not it shall turn to you again Serm. 17. Luke X. 5 6. And into whatsoever house ye enter c. Serm. 18. Rom. XI 20. Well because of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith be not high minded but fear Serm. 19. Acts XII 5. Peter therefore was kept in prison but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him Serm. 20. Psal XXXVII 11 12. For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be But the meek shall inherit the earth Serm. 21. Matth. XV. 28. O woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt Serm. 22. Prov. XII 14. A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth and the recompence of a mans hands shall be rendred unto him Serm. 23. Matth. IV. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil Serm. 24. Matth. IV. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness c. Serm. 25. Matth. IV. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil Serm. 26. Matth. IV. 1. to be tempted of the Devil Serm. 27. Matth. XXII 11 12. And when the King came in to see the guests he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment And he saith unto him Friend how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment and he was speechless Serm. 28. Matth. XXII 11 12. And when the King came in to see the guests Twenty Sermons more on the Lords Prayer Serm. 29. Matth. VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in heaven c. Serm. 30. Matth. VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in
heaven c. Serm. 31. Matth. VI. 9. Our Father which art in heaven Serm. 32. Matth. VI. 9. Hallowed be thy Name Serm. 33. Matth. VI. 10. Thy Kingdom come Serm. 34. Matth. VI. 10. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Serm. 35. Matth. VI. 10. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Serm. 36. Matth. VI. 11. Give us this day our daily bread Serm. 37. Matth. VI. 11. Give us this day our daily bread Serm. 38. Matth. VI. 11. Give us this day our daily bread Serm. 39. Matth. VI. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Or as Luke XI 4. And forgive us our sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us Serm. 40. Matth. VI. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Or as Luke XI 4. And forgive us our sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us Serm. 41. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 42. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 43. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 44. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 45. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 46. Matth. VI. 13. But deliver us from evil Serm. 47. Matth. VI. 13. But deliver us from evil Serm. 48. Matth. VI. 13. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever Amen TWO SERMONS Preached at the Parish-Church OF St. MARY MAGDALENE Milk-street LONDON By a Friend of the AUTHORS Upon his being in the late Troubles Silenced LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott MDCLXXIV The First SERMON JEREM. XII 1. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk or reason the case with thee of thy Judgments Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously THE most general Question which hath troubled the world almost ever since it began is that great Dispute concerning the just and equal distribution of temporal blessings how to reconcile the prosperity of the wicked and the miseries of the righteous with those common Attributes which we assign unto God how it can consist with the Divine Wisdom and Justice to promote the designs of the ungodly whom he abhors at the very Soul and to crush and bear down those whom he calls by his own Name stiles his peculiar people and whom he esteems as the Apple of his Eye For this objection hath gone through all degrees and qualities of men high and low rich and poor miserable and happy good and bad the glorious flourishing and lofty sinner whom God smiles upon as Job speaks he proves there is no Providence from his own success because he goes smoothly on in his wickedness without the least check or interruption Therefore pride compasses him therefore he sets his mouth against heaven and Psal 73. 9. his tongue walks through the earth scorning both God and Man And not only they but the very people of God too seeing this unequal dispensation even they say How does God know and is there knowledge in the most v. 11. high v. 11. Nay David himself professes the thought of this came so cross him as it had almost beat him down My feet were almost gone my v. 2. steps had well-nigh slipt v. 2. of the same Psalm and he very hardly recovered himself but breaks out into this amazement Behold these are the ungodly Psal 73. 12. who prosper they encrease in riches as if he had said I lookt to see the righteous upon thrones and the vertuous gay and flourishing but contrary to all expectation Behold these are the ungodly who prosper they increase in riches which makes him cry out in the next verse Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain in vain have I washed my hands in innocency a most desperate speech and means thus Let who will stand upon forms and niceties hereafter let who will betray his being and livelyhood to a timorous conscience I will be scrupulous no longer no longer shall the formality of Laws and Religion tye me to be undone if wickedness only thrives I can be wicked too Thus David thus Habakkuk and thus the Prophet Jeremy in this Chapter complains who seeing the falsness and treachery both of his friends and enemies still prevail against him and seeing the conspiracies of those Priests of Anathoth where he was born too never fail though God had told him in the first Chapter He had made him a defenced City an iron Pillar a brazen Wall and that he would enable him by his Divine assistance to oppose the whole Nation whilest he alas found himself but a Reed shaken with the wind blown into a prison with every breath of a base Informer Seeing and considering this cross-dealing and debating within himself what this should mean falls out into this Exclamation Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee c. Where you have a Proposition or Doctrine laid down as certain and then an Objection rais'd against this Doctrine The Proposition Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee The Objection which seems to oppose it in these words Yet let me talk with thee of thy Judgments Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously I begin with the Proposition it self Righteous art thou O Lord when I Proposition plead with thee Where you may observe the most singular piety and resolution of the Prophet though Gods design look't never so strange unto him and seem'd as it were a meer contradiction yet still he held fast to his Principle That God was just whatsoever became of him or his Cause That whensoever he did plead and argue with God concerning his Dispensations He assured himself thus much before hand that God would overcome when he was judg'd and that his Righteousness like a glorious Sun would break through all the clouds of opposition cast about it Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee The Prophet did not preposterously conclude God just from the justice of his action but arguing backwards inferred his proceeding to be just because he himself is righteous He does not first examine Gods wayes and then pronounce him just because he finds him so but first takes this as granted that God is true be the action what it will and then afterwards inquires into the Reason of it And whosoever in reasoning about Gods actions shall argue otherwise or use any other method will run himself upon many rocks and perplexities and at last find blasphemy in the conclusion For we read of many actions commended in Scripture so horrid in themselves as no Orator can invent a colour to excuse them
afflictions had converted some even of Caesars houshold in the first and last Chapters So that considering the things which happened to him fell out thus to the furtherance Phil. 1. 12. 13. of the Gospel they ought to joy with him because he was in prison it being only a more convenient place to preach in where he might be heard the better for the voice of his sufferings reached further then his tongue could possibly do Then again in respect of themselves why should they complain if Christ would vouchsafe them the honour to put his own Crown of Thorns upon their Head If he would please to exalt them and lift them up to his own Cross they should rather boast and be exceeding glad for thus they tread his steps whom they profess to follow in the other Chapters and afterwards concludes the whole Epistle with a most pathetical acknowledgment of their great Liberality in supplying his present wants So that however Origen pleases to taxe St. Pauls writings as broken rugged and unequal yet here both his matter and stile glides so smooth and eaven that we easily see to the very bottom of it But least these Philippians might mistake the joy he conceiv'd at this their charitable expression towards him either as proceeding from a covetous desire to fill his pockets or out of too much carefulness to secure himself against want for the future he tells them plainly that indeed they solely had contributed to his necessities of all the Churches besides that they had not relieved him once onely but once and again v. 13. that is very often according to the Greek Phrase And in this the Apostle applauds them You have well done v. 14. of this Chapter But why wherein does the blessedness of this action consist in relieving him in feeding him meerly in feeding his belly No No such matter But because in parting thus freely with their goods to supply him they rais'd a bank in Heaven for themselves and in giving to him became far more liberal to themselves as it follows in my Text Not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit that may abound unto your account Where you see the Philippians liberality at the same instant refused and accepted by St. Paul Refus'd under the Notion of a Gift and as it meerly serv'd his turn Not because I desire a Gift but most gratefully Accepted as it did respect and benefit those who did give expressed in these words but I desire fruit that may abound to your account I begin first to consider the Philippians liberality towards the Apostle under the Notion as he refuses it namely as a Gift Not that I desire a Gift A Gift A Gift does he say Why suppose he had indeed received their liberality as a maintenance for himself to feed and cloath him only Suppose he had sent to them particularly for a subsistence from them without any regard to the benefit which they should reap by giving Imagine I say the Apostle had expected a most speedy return from them meerly that he himself might live Yet could they look upon their Bounty as a meer Gratuity or a thing given away Or indeed could they boast of any more done then they stood bound to do Will you perswade me St. Paul even in this had desired a Gift You acknowledge your selves obliged to discharge the Bills of Fare though they cost you as much again in Physick to cure the surfeits you got by them 't is a just and a due debt which your wantonness in apparel hath contracted and this you must quit though you sell half your land for 't and you think you wrong and neglect your selves extreamly if you don't prove your Hearts with the madness of Mirth and the folly of Pleasure whatsoever it costs you 't is just and noble to pay to your Lusts nothing but right to feed them But to feed the hungry to cloath the naked to House him who knows not where to lay his head to perform all those Acts of Charity which stile us Christians more then Faith it self as St. Paul acknowledges This of all things we 1 Cor. 13. 13. esteem indifferent accompting what we lay down here as given or rather thrown away 'T is true St. Paul could not have su'd them had they sent him nothing for in those times of persecution what Court of Justice stood open for poor Christians but to condemn them Or how can you imagine this Apostle should be suffer'd to accuse another who was not permitted to defend Himself especially recover maintenance by the Judgment of those men who did not think him worthy to live yet still notwithstanding all this in those very days where it was death to relieve a Christian where whosoever put forth his hand to succour them did in a manner stab himself yet then in relieving they did but pay St. Paul what they ow'd Him nor so much gave an Alms as they stroke out a Debt to which they stood ingaged For take the Apostle in his private capacity only as a common Christian thus they were bound to relieve him bound by the Law of Charity Mark you the Law of Charity they are Lawyers and Philosophers only who tell you the Acts of bounty and liberality fall not under the strict rules of Debt and Obligation for the Scripture mentions a Law of Charity and calls Charity the fulfilling of the Law as if truly there were no Law but it and as all Laws have some punishment either tacitly implied or openly annexed to make them obligatory and binding so hath also this Law of Charity For if it be a punishment to be thrown into a lower Hell then Gomorrah and to suffer more then Sodom if it be a punishment at the last day to be cast by upon Christs left Hand to live eternally in utter darkness without any Light besides that of a sinful Conscience if it be a punishment for Christ not to own us when he comes to Judge the world if any part of this singly or all put together deserve the name of punishment then I 'me sure who receives not a Disciple feeds not the hungry cloaths not the naked will certainly be punished If I should ask a Lawyer why I may not commit Murder or why I must needs satisfie my Creditors He 'l presently answer because I should loose my life for one and my liberty for my offending in the other yet I may possibly corrupt the witnesses bribe the Judge or by a quirk fool and out-wit the Statute or it is possible by using violence successfully turn the point of the sword upon him who should punish with it and pray where will our Lawyer then fix the obligation If I am bound only because I shall receive a punishment here when 't is ods but by my Secrecy Art or Power I may escape the penalty of Humane Laws Why then do we put such stress upon these Laws which none of us would keep beyond his
should not feel what he endured to wake a condemned man and tell him he must dye Evasit says the Tyrant of one who had prevented his fury by a timely death Evasit in dying quickly he has made an escape he got away and has out-run me now for there in the Grave the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest Job 3. 13. The prisoner and the oppressor there lye quiet both together and there every one is free in the next verse and therefore if we consider Death only as a Rest from labour the Apostle had no reason to be solicitous with what to preserve his life any longer For we mistake exceedingly if we think life as life is desirable for there are some that dig to find a Grave as much as they would do to discover a Mine as Job speaks and God when he would reward some memorable act of piety Job 3. 21. in a man takes him out of the way before his Judgments come which made the Prophet when he could not turn away Gods wrath utterly pray'd the women might have miscarrying wombs and the Apostles seeing the persecution begin to rage advises the Christians not to marry lest they should 1 Cor. 3. only bring forth to the Sword and Faggot Now not to be born and death are in effect all one they are both equally alike not to be here Again Imagine the world had treated and dealt kindly with the Apostle yet then he needed not much care for means to keep up his life any longer for he calls himself now Paul the aged a time when we might choose death Philem. 9. meerly out of satietie because it is tedious to do the same things over and over again so often to eat and be a hungry and then eat again to sleep and then wake and then sleep again to see things still go about in the same circle to behold peace breeding luxury luxury war and war smooth into peace again for is there any thing whereof it might be said this is new Solomon Eccl. 1. 10. asks the Question who had proved all things and at last concludes by a particular Induction the surest Demonstration of any whatsoever That as the Sun goes round as the rivers hasten to the Sea from whence they came as the wind goes round the points of heaven and whirls about continually so the actions of men have their circuits too and whatever you wonder at in this or that Age you may find the same in another for there is no new thing under the Sun The Apostles years therefore he being now grown old might induce him not to be much concern'd how he should live being now full of days as the Scripture most elegantly expresses it having taken a perfect view now of whatever this world can afford which requires no long time to look over for Christ saw it all in a moment Luke 4. 14. and then I know not what a man has to do but to despise it and leave it with no more regret then he would walk out of garden where he found nothing that liked him But there is a far higher Contemplation not only to render living inconsiderable to a Christian but likewise to ravish our thoughts up from hence and that is the the promises of the Gospel where we behold Heaven open and those eternal Joyes revealed there which have lain hid ever since the foundations of the Earth If there were one that killed himself at reading Plato's immortality of the Soul If it be true that there are yet some Heathens who usually make away themselves upon no other account but because they would be in heaven If natural Reason can cast meer Gentiles into such admiration of that Bliss What will you say to St. Paul who was wrapt up alive into the Third Heavens and saw what the Saints enjoyed above though he could not express it when he came back with what scorn do you think he trod upon the ground afterwards when the Angel set him down again here Who was fain to have a thorn run into 2 Cor. 3. his flesh before he could find himself to be a Man can you imagine he would petition for liberty whose very body seemed a prison to him till he returned to Christ again Or would he sue for a supply to detain him from that which became his wish his dissolution how would you fret at him who should lengthen the race when you had almost won it or stake the prize yet farther off when you had almost caught it Just such a courtesie is it to relieve him who would dye any way that he might quickly enjoy his Saviour 't is but deferring and putting off his happiness the longer as if an unexpected supply should renew the fight then when we thought we had now gotten the day Take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink says Christ surely this precept is needless to the Matth. 6. 25. Disciples of Christ Me-thinks he should rather allay our desire then fear of death who do expect such great things after it Me-thinks he should rather advise us that we should not out of hasty longing to be in Heaven neglect the means of continuing our being in this life But O you of little faith to talk of the blessedness the Saints of God enjoy above and yet use the most base abject and sordid means to live here and to keep your selves from it If then we cannot apprehend the Apostles here as a necessitous person nor any way concern'd to prolong his days by shifting about for maintenance but rather obliged to leave this world as soon as he could that he might enjoy a better We must think of some other Reason why St. Paul entertain'd their Benevolence with such joy Which leads me to the Consideration under which he accepted their Liberality viz. for their sakes not his own But I desire fruit that may abound to your account c. Fruit as fruit of their Patience that they durst own one whom the world had not only laid by as useless but tyed up as dangerous and fruit of their Love that they would acknowledge him and fruit of their Constancie that they persevered still to admire the glory of the Gospel though clouded with so much opposition as the whole world had now set it up as a mark to shoot at and as the fruit of their Zeal for in sending part of their substance to supply him they gave testimony that they would part with the whole and lives and all to advance the Kingdom of Christ and lastly as fruit of his Ministery wherein he saw he had not run in vain suffered in vain or scattered his seed amongst stones or thorns for in this he perceived that neither the fears nor love of the world had choaked it because as he tells the Galatians they neither despised nor spued him up again Gal. 4. 14. as the word imports
insensibilis saith the Father sweet and peaceable without trouble without noise scarcely to be perceiv'd not in the strong wind to rend us to pieces not in the Earth-quake to shake us not in the fire to consume us but in a still and small voice not as Thunder to make a noise not as Hayl to rattle on the house-tops not as the Blast and Mildew to wither us but as the Rain falling sweetly on the grass or on a fleece of wooll and as the showers which water the earth and make it fruitful 3. We shall observe the Effect which this Descent produceth or the Fruit which springs up upon the fall of this gracious Rain First Righteousness springs up and spreads her self Justus florebit So some render it The righteous shall flourish Secondly After Righteousness Peace shews it self even abundance of peace And Thirdly both these are not herbae solstitiales herbs which spring up and wither in one day but which will be green and flourish so long as the Moon endureth which is everlastingly And therefore we must Fourthly in the last place observe 1. the Relation which is between these two Righteousness and Peace They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where there is Righteousness there is Peace and where there is Peace there is Righteousness 2. The Order Righteousness first and then abundance of Peace Take them all three and you shall find a kind of subordination betwixt them for no Peace without Righteousness no Righteousness without this Rain But if the Son of God come down like rain streight Righteousness appears on the earth and upon the same watering and from the same root shoots forth abundance of Peace and both so long as the Moon endureth Of these then in their Order briefly and plainly and first of the Descent He that ascended is he also that descended first saith the Apostle And he Eph. 4. came down very low He brought himself sub lege under the Law sub cultro under the Knife at his Circumeision sub maledicto under the curse sub potestate tenebrarum under the power of darkness down into the cratch down into the world and down when he was lifted up upon the Cross for that ascension was a great descent and from thence down into the grave and lower yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the lowermost parts of the earth Thus low did he come down But if we terminate his Descension in his Incarnation if we interpret his Descent by NATUS EST that he was born and say no more we have brought him very low even so low that the Angels themselves must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoop to look after him that not the clearest Understanding not the quickest Apprehension nothing but Faith can follow after to behold him which yet must stand aloof off and tremble and wonder at this great sight Hîc me solus complectitur stupor saith the Father In other things my Reason may guide me Meditation and Study may help me and if not give me full resolution yet some satisfaction at least But here O prodigia O miracula O prodigy O miracle of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the paradox of this strange Descent This is a depth which I connot foard a gulph wherein I am swallowed up and have no light left me but my Faith and Admiration Certe mirabilis descensus saith Leo a wonderful descent à coelo ad uterum from his Throne to the Womb from his Palace to a Dungeon from his dwelling place on high to dwell in our flesh from riding on the Cherubin to hanging on the Teat A wonderful Descent Where is the wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this World That God should thus come down that he that conteineth all things should be compassed by a Woman that he should cry as a child at whose voice the Angels and Archangels tremble that he whose hands meted out the Heavens and measur'd the waters should lye in the cratch Deus visibilis Deus contrectabilis as Hilary speaks that God should be seen and touched and handled no Orator no Eloquence the tongues of Men and Angels cannot reach it O anima opus est tibi imperitiâ meâ O my soul learn to be ignorant and not to know what is unsearchable Abundat sibi locuples fides It is enough for me to believe that the Son of God came down And this coming down we may call his Humiliation his Exinanition his Low estate Not that his Divine nature could descend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consider'd in it self but God came down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of that gracious dispensation by which he vouchsafed to dwell amongst us For he assumed into the unity of his Person that which before he was not and yet remained that which he was Ille quod est semper est sicut est ita est For what he is he alwaies is and as he is so he is without any shew or shadow of change But yet in the great work of our redemption he may seem to have laid his Majesty aside and not to have exercised that Power which was coeternal with him as infinite as Himself And now it is no blasphemy but salvation to say That he who created man was made a Man That he who was the God of Mary was the Son of Mary That he that made the world had not a hole to hide his head That he who was the Law-giver was made under the Law And therefore in every action almost as he did manifest his Power so he exprest his Humility A Star stands over him when he lay in the Manger He rebukes the Winds who was asleep in the Ship He commands the Sea and Fishes bring tribute in their mouths but at Caesars commands he submits and pays it He strikes a band of men backward to the Ground but yields as a man and is bound and led away as a sheep to the slaughter And thus that Love which reconcil'd the World unto God reconcileth these strange contradictions a God and a Man a God that sleeps that thirsts vectigalis Deus a tributary God Deus in vinculis a God in bonds a God crucified dead and buried All which Descents he had not in natura not in his Divine Nature Neque enim defecit in sese qui se evacuavit in sese saith Hilary For He who emptied himself in himself did not so descend as to leave or loose himself But the Descent was in persona in his Person in respect of his voluntary Dispensation by which he willingly yielded to assume and unite the Humane nature to Himself And thus he was made of that Woman who was made by himself and was conteined in her womb whom the Heavens cannot contein and was cut out of the land of the living who was in truth what Melchisedec was only in the conceit of men in his time without father and without mother having no beginning of days nor end of life He was
be the outward expressions of Christian Meekness which is not lockt up and imprisoned in the heart but manifests its self in the outward gesture for certainly he is no meek man whose tongue is either a rasour or a sword but yet Revenge and Rancor of heart may borrow these expressions may make its approaches in a pleasing posture and may break an enemies head with oyl And indeed Revenge is never more bloudy then when it speaks in a still voice and the dialect of Love Nemo hostilius vulnerat quà m qui amabili manu no wound more deadly then that which is given with a friendly hand For he strikes home and without fear who is not feared when he strikes That we may therefore take this old Devil off the stage which makes such desolation in the shape of an Angel of light we will set before you the common provocations of Anger in repressing of which our Meekness especially consists The Philosopher in his Rhetoricks l. 2. c. 2. hath furnisht us with three The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contempt of our persons which is a sharp provocation And he is undoubtedly a great Proficient in the School of Meekness who hath learnt to be contemned Therefore David makes it his Prayer Remove from me reproach and contempt Such a temptation he lookt upon with fear and trembling The second is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an incommodation or despiteful usage Which frequently affronts us men being many times of that vile disposition as to delight in mischief and to look upon it as a purchase though they reap no other fruit then the bare doing of it The last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is injury with grief and loss and disgrace Our Saviour here points out to it in this Chapter when he tells us of a Blow on the cheek of Taking our coat of Violence And the second he mentions in express terms v. 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pray for them who despitefully use you Now he that hath learnt to be contemned he that can drink down injuries and digest them he that is so spiritually poysed and ballasted that no tempest no wind of the unrighteous can shake him he that is as ready to forgive as wicked persons are to wrong him he that so absteins from offense as if he pardon'd no man and yet so pardon'd others as if himself were an offender may challenge a title to this Beatitude and to the inheritance of the earth And now further to display the beauty of this Virtue we will proceed to shew you the extent of it The Philosophers may seem to have too narrowly confined it If therefore we will behold Meekness in its full proportion we must look for it not at Athens but Jerusalem not in the Philosophers Schools but in porticu Solomonis in the house of Wisdome in the Gospel of Christ Reckon up all the Precepts which Philosophy hath given us all the examples which have been shewn and though we shall find enough to shame us Christians yet we shall not find that degree of Meekness which is required of Christians We read in Tully that Justice requires that we endammage none nisi lacessiti injuriâ till we are provok't by some injury And Lactantius well censureth it Simplicem verà mque sententiam duorum verborum adjectione corripit he spoiled a good sentence by the addition of two words lacessiti injuriâ provokt by injury For a Christian hurts no man though he be provokt Seneca speaks more like a Christian Magni animi est omnium veniam dare nullius petere It proceeds from a great and well-subacted mind to pardon all injuries but to walk in that simplicity that it needs ask pardon of none But yet this doth not fully express a Christian Who doth not only pardon injuries but in a manner reward them It is a great commendation which Tully gives Caesar that he forgot nothing but injuries nor ever hurt an enemy nisi in agris stantem but fighting in the field He was one of the stoutest and greatest Champions of the world He stood the shock of fifty set battles besides all sieges and outrodes He took a thousand Cities and walled Towns He over-run three hundred several Countries And in his Wars were slain well-near twelve hundred thousand men besides all those which dyed in the Civil Warrs And yet he protested of himself and that most truly that he never drew bloud but in the field Here is indeed a pattern of Meekness and such a pattern that most Christians are unwilling to take out yet this doth not reach home Novam certè mansuetudinem docet Christus Certainly Christ hath drawn out Meekness in other colours and except our Meekness exceed the Heathens we shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Will you see the full extent of Meekness It is hard to shew it For as I find it in the Fathers who walkt by the light of Scripture it is made almost boundless Not to be angry To forgive Not to revenge these yet do not reach it To suffer with patience and a quiet mind the greatest injuries this is not home To forgive seventy times seven times this number is yet short to teach our Meekness to keep time with the Malice and Injustice of men It must yet press further and manifest it self not only in suffering but in doing Dost thou know saith St. Chrysostom that thy brother intends particular mischief against thee that he would embrue his hand in thy bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet kiss that hand For the Lord did not refuse to kiss that mouth which made the bargain for his bloud Hath he robbed thee of all thy goods Be not angry but if by chance any thing be left give it willingly to him who hath taken away all Nay saith Basil if thine enemy hunger though thou hast but one loaf to sustein thy self yet give it him and rely upon Gods Providence to feed thee You will say now perhaps that I have stretched it too far even beyond its line and compass and as Pythagoras instructed his Scholars to do where there was burthen enough already laid on more If I have yet I have done it magnis autoribus and have no less then St. Chrysostom and St. Basil for my defence Indeed Meekness cannot be too far extended where with evil handling it hath been shrunk up almost to nothing What kiss his hand Nay off with his head Feed our enemy with bread Nay strike a dagger into his throat This goes for current Doctrine not in the Camp alone amongst barbarous Souldiers but in the habitations of peace amongst Christians As for true Meekness we find it in paginis non in operibus in our looks perhaps but not the least syllable or character of it in our manners and deportment I have often wondred that Christians should make so little esteem of this Virtue which is theirs alone and especially directed unto them The very Pagans by the light of
Isa 11. 6. the Kid and the Calf with the young Lyon but it is when they are so cicurated and tame that a little Child shall lead them It is true the visible Church is made up of both For not only without as St. John speaketh but within are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murtherers and idolaters Rev. 22. 15. as there were in the Ark of Noah both clean and unclean beasts In this Church is Cain as well as Abel Esau as well as Jacob Judas as well as Peter but they are no parts of that general Assembly no parts of the Church of the first-born which are written in heaven nor to be numbred amongst the spirits of just men made perfect That part of the Church which is thus militant in Earth shall never be triumphant in heaven Cruel Dives shall never be seen in Abraham's bosom nor the bloud-thirstie man in his armes who shed no bloud but his own and that for the sins of the world The Church which shall be saved was not planted in bloud or if it were it was in the bloud of a Lamb. It was built upon the Faith of Peter not upon his Sword When he used his sword he was commanded to put it up but his Faith was to be published to the whole World And if he had any grant or title to be the Head of the Church it was not for cutting off Malchas's ear but for laying down his own life for the Faith Many Notes have been given of the true Church by those who acknowledge none but their own notes which shew her not Multitude of true believers Why the number is but small Infallibility It is an error to think so Antiquity The Church that is now ancient was once new and by this note when it was so it was no Church Continuance to the end of the world We believe it but it is no note for we cannot see it Temporal felicity This is oftner seen in the Tents of Kedar than at Jerusalem in a band of Souldiers than in the Church which winneth more conquests in adversity than in prosperity and worketh out her way to glory in her own bloud These are Notes quae nihil indicant which shew nothing Trumpets that give an uncertain sound But if I should name Meekness as a note of the true Church I should have a fairer probability to speak for me than they For meek men if they be not of the Church yet are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven But a meek Christian is entitled not only to the earth but to heaven also The Church is a Church though her Professours be but of yesterday and though they fall into error And though it be in tribulation yet still it is a Church yea it is never more glorious then in persecution But without meekness it cannot be a Christian Church no more then a man can be a man without a soul For Meekness if it be not the essence of the Church yet is a property which floweth from its very essence For that Faith is vain which leaveth malice or rancour in the heart A Christian and a Revenger if they meet together in the same person the one is a Box of poyson the other but a title Again in the second place our Reason will tell us that Meekness is most proper to Christianity and the Church because humane Reason was too weak to discover the benefit the pleasure the glory of it Nor was it seen in its full beauty till that Light came into the world which did improve and sublime and perfect our Reason To humane Reason nothing can seem more unreasonable more unjust then To love an enemy To surrender our coat to him that hath stript us of our cloak To return a blessing for a reproach and anoint his head with oyl who hath stricken us to the ground This is a new Philosophy not heard of on earth till she was sent down from heaven On earth it was A blow for a blow and a curse for a curse Dixerit insanum qui me totidem audiet If injuries be meted out unto us we mete them back again in full measure pressed down and running over Revenge is counted an act of Justice the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reciprocation of injuries And what need any other law then our Grief or our Anger or where should Justice dwell but on the point of our Sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the law of Rhadamanthus It is equity that he that doth should suffer what he doth and he that suffereth should return it in the same kind When those brethren in evil having slain Hamor and Shechem and spoiled their City were rebuked by their Father Jacob they were ready with this plea Should he deal with our Sister as with a Harlot No sooner is the blow given Gen. 34. 31. but the first thought is to second and return it and Nature looks upon it as upon an act of Justice In the world it goeth thus All Power and Dominion and Justice is tyed to the hilts of our Sword which if we can wield and manage dextrously with skill and success that which otherwise had been an injury is made a law The Turk to settle and establish his Religion as he first built it in bloud so giveth way to every thing that best sorteth with humane corruption to make it easie that men may not start back for fear of difficulties and as he wrought it out with his Sword so his best argument for it as it is most times in a bad cause is his Sword The Philosophers cryed down Revenge yet gave way to it chid their Anger yet gave it line thus far And both Tully and Aristotle approve it But Munit nos Christus adversus Diaboli latitudines saith Tertullian Christian discipline is a fense to keep us from these latitudes and exspatiations and pointeth out to the danger of those sins which the Heathen commended for virtues Many indeed have dealt with these precepts of our Saviour as skilful cooks do by some kind of meats which of themselves are but harsh and unpleasant cooked and sawced them to make them savoury dishes For when we see our journey long and full of rubs and difficulties we phansie something that may both shorten and level it and make it more plain and easie then indeed it is Christ our Master is so great an enemy to Murder and would have us so far detest it that he hath not suffered us to be angry Now the interpretation is We must not be angry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a cause And this emboldneth us to plead for our Wrath as Jacob's sons did when it is cruel and upon this very colour that there is good reason we should be angry For be the storm never so high be our anger never so raging yet we can pretend a cause and that cause we pretend as just otherwise we would not pretend it For who would pretend
will our heavenly Father forgive us ours Et qui ad tam magnum tonitruum non expergiscitur non dormit sed mortuus est saith St. Augustine He that awakes not out of his pleasant dream of Revenge at this thunder is not asleep but dead For He will not forgive you is the same with this He will damn you with those malicious Spirits the Devil and his Angels and He will forgive you is equivalent to this He will receive you into his Kingdom to his seat of mercy and glory We may say then that Meekness is necessary as a cause to this effect as a virtue destined to this end at least causa sine qua non a cause so far as that without it there is no remission of sins For though I have faith to remove mountains and have all Knowledge yet if I have not Meekness there is no hope of heaven Or it is causa removens prohibens a cause in as much as it removes those hindrances which stand between us and the Mercy of God For how can I appear before the Father of compassion with a heart spotted and stained with the gall of bitterness How can I stand before the Mercy-seat with my hands full of blood And thus Meekness is a cause of Forgiveness and may be said to produce this effect because though it have no positive causality yet without it mercy will not be obteined Blessedness is joyned to Meekness as in a chain which hath more links and If you shall forgive your enemies my Father will forgive you doth not shew what is sufficient but what is necessarily required to the expiation of sin and the inheritance of heaven Again by Meekness we resemble him who is a God that blotteth out transgressions When we are angry we are like unto the beasts that perish yea we are as the raging waves of the Sea foming out our own shame But when we yield to our brother's infirmity and forgive him we are as Gods Thirdly This virtue is seldom I may say never alone but it supposeth Faith which is sigillum bonorum operum the seal to every good work to make it current and authentick yea and all that fair retinue of Virtues which as Handmaids wait upon Faith and make her known to the world For he whose mind is so subact as to bear another mans burthen and to lift himself up upon the ruins of himself and create virtue out of injury and contempt cannot be far from the Kingdom of heaven nor destitute of those sacrifices wherewith God is well pleased And this I say though it be not necessary yet is very probable For these to be Covetous to be Luxurious to be Wanton and to be Meek cannot lodge in the same breast For we see Prodigality as well as Covetousness is a whetstone to our Anger and makes it keen and sharp And the Wanton will as soon quarrel for his Whore as the Miser for his Purse But Meekness believeth all things hopeth all things beareth all things and doth nothing unseemly For the mind of the Meek is like the Heavens above Semper illîc serenum est there is continual serenity and a perpetual day there It is as Wax fit to receive any impression or character of goodness and retein it a fit object for Gods benefits to work upon ready to melt at the light of his countenance and to yield at the lifting up of his hammer And therefore In the last place this Meekness and Readiness to forgive maketh us more capable of the Gospel of Christ and those other Precepts which it doth contain and so fits and prepareth and qualifieth us for this Blessedness for this great benefit of Remission of sins For he that is ready to forgive all injuries will be as ready to be poor very forward to go to the house of mourning merciful a peace-maker one that may be reviled and persecuted and so rightly qualified for those Beatitudes And he who can suffer an injury will hardly do one whereas they commonly are most impatient of wrongs who make least conscience of offering them qui irascuntur quia irascuntur who play the wantons and are angry with their brother for no other reason but because they are pleased to be angry Now the Oratour will tell us that Nullus rationi magìs obstat affectus there is no affection which is so great an enemy to Reason as Anger For Sorrow and Fear and Hope and the rest make an assault and lay hard at us but anger as a whirlwind overwhelms us at once I may be stricken with Fear and yet hearken to that counsel which will dispel it I may hang down my head with Sorrow and yet be capable of those comforts which may lift it up again for every one is not as Rahel that would not be comforted but we deal with Angry men as we do with men overcome with drink never give them counsel till the fit be over For fairly to be speak a man thus transported is to as much purpose as to bid the Sea go back or to chide the Winds And as the Reason and Judgment are dimmed and obscured with that mist which sudden Anger casts so are they also by that which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lasting or abiding Anger which is the forge or alembick of Revenge and works it by degrees And till this be dispelled and scattered there is no room for the Doctrine of the Gospel which breaths nothing but meekness and forgiveness Disce sed ira cadat naso To be angry and To learn are at as great a distance as To be in motion and To stand still He that fills his thoughts with Revenge can leave no room for the Precepts of that Master who was led to the slaughter as a sheep But the Meek man is like him is a Sheep his Sheep and will soon hear his voice draw nearer and nearer unto him and by Meekness learn Purity and those other virtues which will bring him into the arms of his Saviour and the Kingdom of Heaven And thus you see how necessary a virtue Meekness is for the Church and for every part of it for every Christian to entitle him to the inheritance of the earth as the earth is taken for that new earth Rev. 21. 1. the Earth not of living dying men but that Earth where we shall live for ever that state of happiness which like the Earth shall stand fast for ever For what is Meekness but a pregustation and fore-taste of that quiet and peaceable estate which is no where to be found but at the right hand and in the presence of God That as God who is slow to anger and full of goodness and mercy is properly and naturally in a constant and immoveable state of bliss so Christians who by divine grace and assistance raise themselves up to this height and pitch as to look down from a quiet mind as from heaven upon all the injuries and reproaches which shall
Gods Messengers do lift up their voice like a trumpet against Sin and whip the vice of Security out of the Temple although our Pulpits ring and sound again with the Doctrine of Good works and not one of our Writers that ever I could see except some few hare-brained Lutherans did ever let fall from their quills one word that might prejudice the necessity thereof yet they cry out as men at great fires as yet were the only incendiaries and Religion were now a laying on the pile and the whole Christian world by us to be set on combustion It is true Beloved we could pay them with their own coyn we could cast before their eyes their Hay and their Stubble stuff fit for the fire their Indulgences and private Masses their Pardons for sins not yet committed pillows indeed and true dormitories to lay men asleep on But Recrimination is no remedy and Silence is the best answer to Impudence Our best way to confute them is by our practice as Diogenes confuted Zeno that believed there was no such thing as Motion by walking over the room So if Christ say unto us Your sins are forgiven you let us then take up our beds and walk Let him that lies on the bed of Security arise from that bed on the bed of Idleness awake from that sleep from that slumber and unfold his hands and stand up and walk before God in the land of the living For Beloved what are we believers are we faithful Why then we must nay we cannot chuse but be obedient For Faith and Assurance of forgiveness is the ground and foundation not only of Christian Charity but also of all other virtues of all true Obedience having its residence not only in the Understanding but also in the Will not floating in the brain but enflaming the heart and thereby gaining dominion and a kingdom over the affections Hence Faith is called obedience 2 Thess 1. 8. where Paul saith that there is a flaming fire provided for those who obey not the Gospel of Christ For as he obeys his Physician not who believes he is skilful but who observes his prescripts who takes the Recipe and is careful of his own health and his Physicians honor so he is truly faithful that obeys the Gospel of Christ who doth not only believe that Christ is a most able Physician of his soul and that the Gospel is the best Physick the best Purgation but he who takes this Physick although there be Wormwood or Gall or Aloes in it who embraceth and receiveth Christ being offered unto him although he bring grief and afflictions along with him who observes his rules although he prescribes Diligence and Industry and Carefulness who doth therefore the more hate Sin because it is forgiven him lastly who doth the more love God because through Christ he is made a son worthy to be beloved For as Seneca saith well Non est res delicata Vivere It is nothing of delicacy and delight to Live but even in this afflictions and sorrow will make us wish for death So it is not all pleasure all content to be a Christian There are thorns as well as roses there are the waters of Marah as well as those flowing with milk and honey there are sorrows within and fightings without there are the marks of Christ Jesus to be born there is a book of Lamentations like that of Ezekiels to be devoured Gal. 6. and digested too In thy way to Heaven there lies a sword saith Chrysostome and fire and contumelies and disgrace and thou canst not go about but this Sword must prick thee this Fire scorch thee these Disgraces light on thee And before thou go thy journey thy very bosome friends thy old acquaintance thy Sins are to renounced I have cast away all worldly desires saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since I came to be of the order of Christ and to rank my self amongst Christians And Pity it is saith Cyprian that frons cum Dei signo pura that forhead which was signed with the sign of the Cross should ever be compassed about with the Devils Garland And The Apostles of Christ saith he were tryed by afflictions and torments and the Cross it self nè de Christo esset delicata confessio that the tryal might be solid and the confession then made not when there was a calm when the brim of the water was smooth and even not in the sun-shine but in the storm and tempest when Persecution raged and the Sword glittered and the Enemy was terrible This was the true tryal of a Christian And indeed Beloved the Gospel of which when we hear we think of mercy not of grace is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter-sweet a potion indeed and more cordial then we can imagine but not without its bitterness Nay further yet the Gospel holdeth us with a stronger bond then the Law For although it add nothing to the Law in respect of innovation as if that were defective yet it doth in respect of illustration and interpretation Our Saviour proposed non nova sed novè not new commands but after a new manner It was said of old Thou shalt not steal but thou mayest do this by denying an almes for that is furtum interpretativum theft by way of interpretation because thou keepest that from the poor man which is due unto him In the Law it is written Thou shalt not commit adultery under the Gospel an Eunuch may commit it for he may fabulari cum oculis as St. Augustine speaks And he who hath looked upon a woman to lust after her is guilty of this sin saith our Saviour The language of the Law was An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but now it is Good for evil Bless for a curse And plus lex quà m amisit invenit the Law was a gainer not a loser by this precept of Christ I say unto you Love your enemies Therefore the Schoolmen well call the Gospel onus allevians a lightning burden much like the Wing of a bird which maketh the bird heavier but yet it is that it flies with Beloved to shut up all in a word As he spake of Victory It is not gotten sedendo votis by sitting still and wishing for it so our spiritual Conquest flies not down into our bosome whilst we sit folding of our arms Nor will Balam's wish be the chariot to carry us to heaven Let me dye the death of the righteous Neither will the walls of Sin fall down with good desires with religious wishes as the walls of Jericho did with rams horns No the World is deceitful still and the Devil is a Devil still and we are yet in the flesh and a wonder it were that we alone amongst other Christians should tread the paths of life and never sweat in them that this way should be a way of bloud when the Apostles walkt in it and strowed with roses now for us Or can we expect
and Preferments in the Kingdome of Christ Let us not fit Religion to our carnal desires but lay them down at the foot of Religion Make not Christianity to lacquey it after the World but let Christianity swallow up the World in victory Let us clip the wing of our Ambition and the more beware of it because it carries with it the shape and shew of Virtue For as we are told in Philosophy In habentibus symbolum facilior transmutatio amongst the Elements those two which have a quality common to both are easiliest changed one into the other so above all Vices we are most apt to fall into those which have some symbolizing quality some face and countenance of Goodness which are better drest and better clothed and bespeak us in the name of Virtue it self like a strumpet in a matrons stool Let us shun this as a most dangerous rock against which many a vessel of burden after a prosperous voyage hath dasht and sunk By Desire of honor and vain glory it comes to pass that many goodly and specious monuments which were dedicated rather to Honor then to God have destroyed and ruined their Founders who like unfortunate mothers have brought forth beautiful issues but themselves have dyed in the birth of them They have proved but like the ropes of silk and daggers of gold which Heliogabalus prepared to stab and strangle himself withall adding pretiosiorem mortem suam esse debere that his death ought to be more costly then other mens and they have served to no other end but this ut cariùs pereant that the workers of them might dye with greater state then other men and might fall to the lowest pit as the sword-players did in the Theater with noyse and applause I have spoken of the Occasion of the Question and of the Persons who put it Come we now in the last place to the Question it self Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven The Disciples here were mistaken in terminis in the very terms of their Question For neither is Greatness that which they supposed nor the Kingdome of heaven of that nature as to admit of that Greatness which their phansie had set up For by the Kingdome of heaven is meant in Scripture not the Kingdome of Glory but the Kingdome of Grace by which Christ sits and rules in the hearts of his Saints When John the Baptist preacht Repentance he told the Jews that the Kingdome of heaven is at hand When our Saviour tells us that it is like seed sowen in good ground like a net cast into the sea like a pearl like a treasure hid in the field what else can he mean but his Kingdome of Grace on earth not his Kingdome of Glory in heaven So that for the Disciples to ask Who is greatest in this kingdome was to shape out the Church of God by the World Much like to that which we read in Lucian of Priams young son who being taken up into heaven is brought-in calling for milk and cheese and such country cates as were his wonted food on earth For in the Kingdome of Grace that is in the Congregation of Gods Saints and the elect Members of Christ there is no such difference of degrees as Ambition taught the Disciples to imagine Not that we deny Order and Government in the Church of God No without these his Church could not subsist but would be like Aristotles army without discipline 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unprofitable rout To this end Christ gave Apostles and Teachers and Pastors for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ His Teachers call us his Governors direct us to this Kingdome But the Disciples being brought up in the world thought of that Greatness which they saw did bear the sway amongst men Much like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who thought that God bare the shape of a Man because they read in Scripture of his Feet and Hands and Eyes and the like But that it was not so in Christs Kingdome may appear by our Saviour's Answer to the Question For he takes a Child and tells them that if they will be of his Kingdome they must be like unto it By which he choaks and kills in them all conceit of Ambition and Greatness For as Plato most truly said that those that dye do find a state of things beyond all expectation diverse from that which they left behind so when we are dead to the World and true Citizens of the Kingdome of Christ we shall find there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but all are one in Christ Gal. 3. 28. Jesus God looks not what bloud runs in thy veins he observes not thy Heraldry If Greatness could have purchased heaven Lazarus had been in hell and Dives in Abrahams bosome Earl and Knight and Peasant are tearms of distinction on earth in the Kingdome of heaven there is no such distinction Faith makes us all one in Christ and the Crown of glory shall be set upon the head of him that grindeth at the mill as well as upon his that sitteth on the throne Christ requires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nobility of the Soul and he is the greatest in his Kingdome who hath the true and inward worth of Honesty and Sanctity of life though in this world he lye buried in obscurity and silence Here Lazarus may be richer then Dives the beggar higher then the King and a Child the least is greatest in this Kingdome A main difference we may see between this Kingdome and the Kingdomes of the world if we compare them First the Subjects of this Kingdome are unknown to any but to God himself The foundation of the Lord standeth sure saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 19. having this seal The Lord knowes who are his And if they be unknown who then can range them into orders and degrees Secondly of this Kingdome there is no end Thirdly the seat of this Kingdome is the hearts of the faithful Cathedram habet in Coelo qui domat corda His chair is in heaven that rules the hearts of the sons of men here on earth This earth that is this body of clay hath God given to the sons of men to the Princes of the earth under whose government we live But our Heaven our better part our inward and spiritual man he reserves to himself Kings and Princes can restrain the outward man and moderate our outward actions by their laws and edicts Illa se jactat in aulâ Aeolus Thus far can they go They can tye our Hands and Tongues and they can go no further For to set up an imperial throne in our Understandings and our Wills belongs to Christ alone He teacheth the lame to go and the blind to see and recovers the dry hand He makes us active in this Kingdome of Grace Lastly as their Subjects and Seat are different so are
their Laws In the Common-wealth of Rome the Laws were the works of many hands Some of them were Plebiscita the acts of the people others Senatus Consulta the decrees of the Senate others edicta Praetorum the verdicts of their Judges others Responsa prudentum the opinions of Wise men in cases of doubt others rescripta Imperatorum the rescripts and answers of their Emperors when they were consulted with Christiani habent regulam saith Tertullian Christians have one certain immoveable rule the Word of God to guide and rule them in their life and actions Besides the Laws of the Kingdome of Christ are eternal substantial indispensable But the laws made by humane autority are many of them light and superficial all of them temporary and mutable For all the humane autority in the world can never enact one eternal or fundamental law Read the Laws that men have made and lay them together and we shall observe that they were made upon occasion and circumstance either of Time or Place or Persons and therefore either by discontinuance have fallen of themselves or by reason of some urgent occasion have been necessarily revoked But the Laws of our Great King are like himself everlasting never to be revoked or cancelled but every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tittle of them to stand fast though heaven and earth pass away Thus you see the Kingdome of Christ and the Kingdomes of this world have not the same face and countenance the Subjects of the one being discernable of the other unknown their seat and place and lawes are different So that our Saviour as he answered the sons of Zebedee Yee know not what yee ask so he might have replied to his Disciples here Yee know not what yee speak My kingdome is not of this world The kingdome of heaven is within you Why ask you then Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven That you commit no more such soloecisms behold here a little child let him teach you how to speak and become like him and you shall be great in the kingdome of heaven We see then that the Disciples of Christ were much mistaken in this question of greatness And a common error it is amongst men to judge of spiritual things by carnal of eternal by temporary When our Saviour preached to Nicodemus the Doctrine of Regeneration and New life what a gross conceit did he harp upon of a Re-entry to be made into his mothers womb When he told the Samaritane of the water of life her thoughts ran on her pitcher and on Jacob's well When Simon Magus saw that by laying on of hands the Apostles gave the holy Ghost he hopes by money to purchase the like power For seeing what a kingdome Money had amongst men he streight conceived Coelum venale Deumque that God and Heaven might be bought with a price Thus wheresoever we walk our own shadow goes before us and we use the language and dialect of the World in the School of Christ we talk of Superiority and Power and Dominion in that Kingdome wherein we must be Priests and Kings too but by being good not great The sense which the Disciples through error meant was this Who should be greatest Who should have most outward pomp and glory Who should have precedency above others But the sense which as appears by our Saviours answer they should have meant was Who is the greatest that is Who is of the truest and reallest worth in the kingdome of heaven This had shewed them Disciples indeed whose eyes should be the rather on the Duty then on the Reward and who can have no greater honor then this that they deserve it Though there be places of outward government of praeeminence and dignity in the Church yet it ill becomes the mouth of a Disciple to ask such a Question For though they all joyntly ask Who is the greatest yet it appears by the very question that every one of them did wish himself the man An evil of old very dangerous in the Church of Christ but not purged out in after ages Per quot pericula sath St. Augustine pervenitur ad grandius periculum Through how many dangers and difficulties do we strive forward to Honor which is the greatest danger of all Ut dominemur aliis priùs servimus saith St. Ambrose To gain Dominion over others we become the greatest slaves in the world What an inundation had this desire of Greatness made in the Church how was it ready to overwhelm all Religion and Piety had there not been banks set up against it to confute it and Decrees made to restrain it The Deacon would have the honor of the Priest the Priest the Consistory of the Bishop The Bishops seat was not high enough but he would be a Metropolitane and to that end procured Letters from the Emperors which the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they obteined that where there was formerly but one there might now be two Metropolitanes And all these no doubt were Disciples of Christ if for no other reason yet for this QUIS EST MAXIMUS for their affectation of Greatness And now what followed As one well observes Ex religione ars facta Religion was made a trade and an art to live by Till at last it was cried down in divers Councels at Chalcedon at Trullum in Constantinople and others And in the Councel of Sandis a Bishop is forbidden to leave the government of a small City for a greater Of all men Ambition least becomes a Disciple of Christ And therefore Christian Emperors did after count him unworthy of any great place in the Church who did affect it Quaeratur cogendus rogatus recedat invitatus effugiat Being sought for let him be compelled being askt let him withdraw himself being invited let him refuse Sola illi suffragetur necessitas recusandi Let this be the only suffrage to enthrone him that he refus'd it Maximè ambiendus qui non est ambitiosus For it is fit that he that doth not seek for should be sought for by preferment And to this purpose it was that our Saviour answers the Disciples not to what they meant but to what they should have meant to divert them from all thought of dominion And withal he implyes that that is not Greatness which they imagined but that Humility and Integrity of life was the truest Greatness and greatest Honor in his Kingdome And to speak the truth this only deserves the name of Greatness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Goodness is not placed in Greatness but Greatness in Goodness To go in costly apparel to fare deliciously to have a troup to follow us perhaps wiser then our selves this we may call what we please but Greatness it cannot be We read in Seneca the Orator of one Senecio an Orator who affected much grandia dicere to speak in a lofty stile and great words Which affectation in his art after turn'd to a disease so that he would have
probable conjecture And therefore I will give you a second reason Besides this natural Inclination God himself hath a further purpose in it He that observes the wayes of God as far as he hath exprest himself shall find that he hath a delight to shew unto the world those that are his to lift them up on high and mark and character them out by some notable tryal and temptation Thus he made tryal of Abrahams Faith by such a command as struck at the very foundation of his faith In Isaac shall thy seed be blessed and yet Take thy son thy only son thy son Isaac in whom alone all the Promises made to Abraham were to be made good Ill signs for Abraham to look upon signs that with him the world would soon be at an end yet God set them up before him to look upon but by looking upon them he became the Father of the faithful Thus God made tryal of Job by putting all that he had into the power of Satan who presently sent Sabaeans to fall upon his servants and oxen Fire upon his sheep Chaldeans upon his camels and a great wind to beat down the house upon his sonns â—ll signs for Job to look upon but by looking upon them he became operarius victoriae Dei as Tertullian speaketh Gods workman hired as it were and prest by God to gain a conquest for him and in him to triumph and erect a trophee over Satan To draw this down to our present purpose To try the Strength the Faith the Love the Perseverance of those who are his God is pleased to give way to this tumult and danger in the last dayes And as the Eagle brings out her young and then counts them hers if she can make them look up against the Sun so Christ here in my Text brings forth those who are his and proposeth before them the dreadful spectacles here mentioned to try whether they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Text speaks whether they can out-look them and lift up their heads when all the world doth hang down theirs Or he deals with his as the Jesuites are said to deal with their Novices They are wont to try of what courage and heart they are by frighting them with feigned apparitions of Hobs and Bug-bears in the night And if they find them stout and fearless they entertain them as fit for their use if otherwise they dismiss them as not for their turn and purpose Even thus may God seem to deal with them whom he means to make his of the order and general assembly and church of the first-born who are written in heaven whom he means to place amongst the great and few examples of eternal happiness he scareth them with dreams and terrifieth them with visions He sets before us these terrors and affrightments to see whether we fear any thing more then him or whether any thing can shake the alliance and trust which we repose in him whether our Faith will be strong when the World is weak whether our Light will shine when the Sun is darkned whether we can establish our selves in the power of Gods Spirit when the powers of heaven are shaken And indeed what are all these signs here mentioned but Mormos meer toyes to fright children with if we could truly consider that if the world should sink and fall upon our heads it cannot hurt a soul nor yet so grind the body into dust that God cannot raise it up again Can the Heavens with all their blackness and darkness have any operation upon a Soul which is of a more noble essence than they Can the Waters drown or the Plague devour or Famine starve or Fire consume and waste a Soul Can an immortal Soul be lost in the noise and tumults of the people For all these signs and apparitions if we know whom we have believed or believe what we have read in St. Paul neither life nor death nor angels nor Rom. 8. 38 39 principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now in the third place I will adde one reason more and so make an end of this point If Fear will give us leave to consult with our Reason and with Scripture we shall find that all this army of dismal events are nothing else but the effects of that Love which God bears to the World especially to Man the creature which he made after his own image and therefore cannot hate him because he so made him As men are wont to say of sick persons that so long as there is breath be they never so sick there is hope of their recovery for our hope expires not but with our soul so though we be far gone though we be dead in sin though we be sick of a Consumption of grace yet God lays not down the expectation of our recovery so long as there is breath in us Many examples we have of Gods long-sufferance in Scripture Betwixt Niniveh and final Desolation there stood but forty dayes or as the Septuagint render it but three for whereas we read it fourty dayes they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet three dayes and Niniveh shall be destroyed Yet God sent his Prophet unto them and upon their repentance turned away those evils which he had denounced against them and which were now in their approach even at their very doors Many messages had God sent unto King Ahab to reclaim him yet amongst them all none was more signal then that which was sent him immediately before his fall It should seem that God had already determined with himself the destruction of Ahab and that he should fight and fall at Ramoth-Gilead yet notwithstanding Micaiah the Son of Imlah a Prophet of God even against the Kings will is brought before him and telleth him to his head that he should go and fall at Ramoth-Gilead Nor can we now think that this was done by chance For notwithstanding four hundred Prophets of his own had smooth'd and flatter'd him with hopes of good success yet Micaiah one whom the King hated against the Kings will is constrained to come and when he seemed at first either to mock or fail in the delivery of his message he is deeply adjured to deliver the truth How many times saith the 1 Kings 22. 16. King shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord Now from whence did all this come but even from this that God had not laid down the care of Ahabs conversion but truly desired that he would return and live To apply now all this to our present purpose From hence even from Gods love it is that the last and worst age of the World is attended upon with dreadful signs and wonders For God who delights to be called a Preserver of men will
never forsake his creature whilst there is any hope of return O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee O Judah what shall I do Hos 6. 4. unto thee Canst thou find out any thing Alass what canst thou find out who art as a silly dove without heart But whatsoever my Wisdome my infinite Hos 7. 11. Wisdome can find out whatsoever may forward thy conversion whatsoever may be done I will do it And therefore as Sin and Iniquity have increased so have the Means to reclaim it As Wickedness hath broken in as a floud so hath Judgment been poured forth and doth swell wave upon wave line upon line judgment upon judgment to meet it and purge it and carry it away with it self and so run out both together into the boundless ocean of Gods Mercy This is Gods method who knows whereof we are made and therefore must needs know what is fittest to cure us For as when our bodies having been long acquainted with some gentle kind of Physick and the disease at last grows too strong for it it commends the art of the good Physician to add strength to his potion that so at last he may conquer the malady So Mans sinful disease in the last age of the World being much increased it pleaseth God to use stronger means to cure it If his little army of Caterpillars if common calamities will not purge us he brings in Sword and Famine and Pestilence to make the potion stronger If the enemies Sword cannot launce our ulcers he will make us do it with our own If fightings without cannot move us he will raise terrors within He will pour down hailstones and coals of fire that we may thirst for his dew and gentle rain He will set us at variance with one another that we may long to be reconciled to him and by the troubles of one Kingdome learn to pray and pray heartily for that other which is to come That so if possible he may save some and pull them as brands out of the fire singed and scorcht but not consumed That if men will repent them of their evil wayes he may repent him of the evil he imagined against them as he sometimes told his people by the mouth of his Prophet Ezekiel Our third general part was the consideration of the Behaviour which our Saviour commends unto us in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Look up and lift up your heads words borrowed from the behaviour which men use when all things go as they would have them When we have what we desire when success hath fill'd our hopes and crowned our expectation then we look up and lift up our heads As Herbs when the Sun comes near them peep out of the earth or as Summer-Birds begin to sing when the Spring is entred so ought it to be with us when these things come to pass This Winter should make us a Spring this noise and tumult should make us sing Wars Famines Plagues Inundations Tumults Confusion of the world these bring in the Spring of all true Christians and by these as by the coming of Summer-Birds we are forewarned that our Sun of Righteousness draws near Indeed unto Nature and the eye of the World such are sad and uncouth spectacles sights far from yielding comfort or being taken for authors of welcome news and therefore our Saviour pointing out to the behaviour which in this case the world doth use tells us in the words foregoing my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men should be ready to sound for fear ARESCENTIBUS HOMINIBUS saith the Vulgar men should dry and wither away for fear as Leaves smitten with mildew or blasting or fading away with unreasonable heat Lest therefore our hearts should fail us upon the sight of these signs our Saviour forewarns us that all these ostenta these apparitions bode us no harm nor can bring any evil with them but what we our selves will put upon them that for all these signs in the heaven for all this tumult and confusion upon earth even then when the foundations are shaken and the world is ready to sink we may lift up our heads When you see these things come to pass look up lift up your heads Let us a little weigh these words For they are full and expressive talent-weight They are a prediction and they are an admonition which is saith Clemens as the diet of the soul to keep it in an equal temper and a setled constitution against those evils and distempers of the mind which as Tully speaks do tumultuantem de gradu dejicere cast it down with some kind of disorder and confusion from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that quietness and silence which is the best state and condition of the soul as Fear and Sorrow the unhappy parents of Murmuring and Repining which press down the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the gross and bruitish part which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fall of the Soul the symptomes and indications whereof are a cast-down Look and a Head bowed down like a bull-rush For 1. Fear is a burden that maketh us not able to look upwards towards that which might rid and ease us of it but towards something that may hide and cover us When Adam had sinned God comes toward him in the cool of the day in a wind as it is rendred by some and as the word signifies in such a sound as he never heard before and he presently runs into the thicket hides himself amongst the trees of the garden If the King of Jericho pursues Joshua's spies they run under the stalks of flax and if Saul pursues David he betakes himself to some cave Fear may make us look distractedly about with a wandring inconstant unsetled eye but not to look up it may make us hide our heads but not lift them up If an Evil bite Fear is the tooth and if it press down Fear is the weight Behold here this tooth is broken and this weight is taken away by Wisdome it self in these words Look up lift up your heads 2. Grief is another weight that presseth down Why art thou cast down O my Soul saith David And Psal 42. Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop saith Solomon Sorrow Prov. 12. 2◠kept Aaron from eating the sin-offring cast Job on the ground and David on the ground and Ahab on his bed An evil disease it is under the Sun but here you have a medicine for it a medicine to make a merry heart Look up lift up your heads 3. These two Fear and Sorrow are the mother and the nurse the beginners and fomenters of all Murmuring and Repining For as Fear so Sorrow is nothing else but a kind of distaste and grudge of the mind Imperari dolori silentium non potest The Murmurer cannot be silent He will complain to any man to any thing to the Night to the Day to the Sun to the Moon as he in the Comedy
He will reproach his Head his Belly his Stomach any part that causes grief as Tragaedians use to chide their Eyes as if they heard as the Poet brings in Ulysses in a dialogue and contention with his own Heart When he is fed with Manna he will ask for Garlick and Onyons When he is in the way to a land flowing with milk and honey he will return to sit by flesh-pots he will chide with Moses and chide with God and prefer a Calf to them both He will have this to day and will not have it to morrow He will have night when it is day and day when it is night He will have miracles and slight them signs and run from them He doth palos terminales Deo figere as Tertullian speaks bound and circumscribe God limitate the Holy one of Israel set up a stake and land-mark to which God must come and yet not know where to place it He loaths the meat should feed him and the physick which should work his health In a word Murmuring and Repining is a monster that as the Proverb is is never well neither full nor fasting I call it a Monster For it is the issue of divers passions Fear and Sorrow which meeting in the heart ingender and bring it forth to quarrel with the Wisdome and question the Providence of God to censure his counsels and to condemn his proceedings to approve of that which he complains of and complain of that which he dispenseth for our Good Why was I not made impeccable saith one why was not I so made up that I might not sin Why do I feel this fight and contention between the Spirit and the Flesh Why was I made weak and commanded to be strong Why was I born in these times of hurry and noise saith another and not in these halcyon-dayes of peace and plenty Why was I reserved to these last dayes to hear of wars and rumors of wars of earthquakes and famine and plague to see the Church broken into Sects and crumbling away into Conventicles to see the world return into a worse Chaos and confusion then that out of which it was made that is Why am I a man The language of the Murmurer is Why hast thou made me thus The Power of God the Wisdome of God the Goodness and Mercy of God cannot quiet and silence him who wavering and double-minded resting only on his own fickle flitting abortive thoughts is never at rest For he that doth do nothing but what he list will do nothing what he should He that will be nothing but what he please is his own idol and so is Nothing in this world Now these words here of our Saviour are like that pitch and fat and hair which Daniel did seeth together and if we can put them into this Monsters mouth it will soon burst asunder If we can take them down and digest them they will remove our Fear dry up our Sorrow and stop the mouth of the Murmurer for ever For when Christ bids us look up and lift up our heads his meaning is that we should so fit and prepare our selves that we may look up and lift them up He would not bid the Covetous man who is buried alive in the earth look up He would not bid the Wanton who is drowned in lust look up He would not bid him who is dead in sin look up Or if he did his meaning would be First learn to hate the world to fight against thy lusts to arise from the dead and then Christ shall give thee light and strength that thou mayest look up and lift up thy head Then thou art his Servant and when he says Go thou must go though it be upon the point of the sword or else thou art not his servant Then thou art his Merchant and when he holds forth his rich pearl thou must buy it though it be with thy bloud or else thou art not his Merchant then thou art his Souldier and thou must fight when and where he placeth thee against all terrors whatsoever or else thou art not his Souldier Lo I have told you before saith our Saviour see that you be not troubled If you be not wanting to your Captain your Captain will not be wanting unto us he will neither leave us nor forsake us In this one Look there is more then a look there is Charity labouring Faith quickning Hope reaching forth her hand These three will lift up our heads above these terrors into the highest heavens We read in the book of Judges that when Gideon set upon the Midianites his army had nothing but empty pitchers and trumpets and lamps in their hands yet was this enough to put to rout the whole army of the Midianites Even thus doth our Captain Jesus Christ For this army of Signs in heaven in the sea in the earth Famine Plague Persecution and the like what are they but trumpets and empty pitchers to them that know them And if we fear them and disorder and rout our selves and run away we are not of the army of God and of Gideon we are but Midianites I know these things may seem somewhat hard nay peradventure utterly impossible with men who are but dust and ashes And I may be thought to speak tanquam in republica Platonis non tanquam in face Romuli as if I were in a congregation of Saints and not in an assembly of men subject to passions and so to sin ready to fear where no fear is to grieve for that which is pleasant and behoofful to murmure where there is no cause to hang down their heads like a bullrush when they should lift them up Is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh of brass Illi ferrum aes triplex Job 6. 12. circa pectus Is it possible we should see the world fall down about our ears and not fear And in Famine to hear our children calling for bread when there is none to give them and not be disconsolate In time of Plague to see our selves forsaken of all and constrained perhaps to breathe out our last upon no better pillow then a stone or a turf under no better canopy then the cold air and be content Can we hear the noise of the whip and the jumping of the chariots and the prancing of the horses nay the noyse and groans of dying men who would but cannot dye and be unmoved Can we see the tears of widows drilling down their cheeks behold little orphans made miserable before they know what misery is and deprived of their fathers before they could call them so can we see rivers of bloud and have dry eyes Shall a whole Nation totter and we stand fast Shall we have no safe place for our heads and yet lift them up I know Compassion is a virtue and to weep with them that weep is a virtue but then even when we weep we must also rejoyce in tribulation Nature may draw tears but Grace
us in the ways of righteousness and in that course which leads to bliss much less to drive us out of the way What though there be signs in the Sun and Moon and Stars must my light therefore be turned into darkness must my Sun set at noon and my Stars those virtues which should shine in my soul fall out of their sphere and firmament What though the Seas roar and make a noise shall my impatience be as loud And if they break their bounds must I forget mine What though there be a Famine in the land must I make my Soul like unto the season lean and miserable What though there be wars and rumors of wars must I be at variance with my self and bid defiance to the Lord of hosts What though my friends betray me must I deceive my self And if the World be ready to sink must I fall into Hell Nay rather when we see these things come to pass when these signs come to pass let it be that we do as occasion serves us for God is with us in these signs Let 1 Sam. 10. 7. them be as Signs to us perswading signs Let them have the commanding eloquence of Signs Let them not be as Shadows which pass by us and we regard them not but let them be signa significantia signs that signifie something signs to represent something to our Understanding and so make an impression on our Wills Let them be as the Voice of God calling us out of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey Let them be as the Finger of God and let us follow in that way the line is drawn Let them be as a Hand of God and let us humble our selves under his mighty hand Let them be the great Power of God and let us fall down and worship that so we may in his signis signari with these signs be signed and sealed up to the day of our redemption When the Sun is darkned think it is to upbraid thy ignorance and learn to learn to abound more in knowledge and all Phil. 1. 9. judgment When the Moon shall be turned into bloud think it is to chide thy Cruelty and put on the bowels of mercy and loving kindness When the Col. 3. 12. Stars fall from heaven the professors of truth speak lyes do thou stand fast in the faith When the powers of heaven are shaken when there be many sects and divisions do thou keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Ephes 4. 3. every mans brother if he will and if he will not every mans brother If the Plague break in do thou purge the plague of thine own heart and keep thy self unspotted of the world If there be a Famine in the land do thou fill thy self with the bread of life as with marrow and fatness If Banners be displaid as signs as the Psalmist speaks let them be as signs to thee to fight against thy lusts When Parents and Brethren and Kinsfolk are false do thou look up to thy Father in heaven who is truth it self When the World is ready to sink do thou raise thy self with expectation of eternal glory This constancy this resolution this behaviour Christ requires at our hands and it will be in vain to plead impossibilities For could these men under Nature go so far and cannot we who are under Grace do so much Could they think that nothing without them could hurt them and shall fear nothing more then that which is without Good God! how comes it to pass that Nature should bear more sway in a Pagan then the Grace of the Gospel in a Christian Or have we disputed and trifled Grace out of its power or hath our abuse of Grace swallowed even Nature and Reason it self up in victory Tanti vitrum quanti margaritum Were these men so rich that they could bestow so much upon a trifle upon a toy of glass and cannot we who are under Grace give the same price for a rich Jewel When Themistocles was leading forth his army by chance he past by where Cocks were fighting and shewing them to his Souldiers Lo saith he these have neither altars nor temples nor children to fight for and you see how stoutly they fight for no other end but who shall be the conqueror And to this end have I shewn unto you the examples of these Heathen men as Themistocles did the Cocks to his Army For these men nec aras habebant neque focos They were without Christ in the world received not the promises neither saw they them so much as afar off saw not so much as a glimering of that Light which lightneth every man that commeth into the world Of immortality and eternal life they knew little What was their hopes what was their end As for Heaven and Hell their knowledge of them was small Yet their stomach and courage was such that we who are Christians hear it only as a tale and can scarcely believe it Beloved I speak this to our shame For a great shame it is that Nature defamed Nature should more prevail with them then God and Grace with us that they by the power of their Reason should stand the strongest assault and shock of misery and we run away affrighted from the very phansie and shadow of it For to whom more is given of them more shall be required And if we Christians cannot look undauntedly when we see these things come to pass how shall we behold the Heavens gathered together as a Scrowl the Elements melted and the Earth burnt up how shall we be able to hear the trump and the voice of the Arch-angel If we cannot look up and lift up our heads when we see these things with what face shall we meet our Saviour in the clouds Therefore as our Saviour in this Chapter exhorts v. 19. let us possess our souls with patience Let us withdraw our souls from our bodies our minds from our sensual parts that what is terrible to the eye may have no such aspect on the mind and what is dreadful to the ear may be as musick to the spirit and what wounds and torments the body may not touch the soul that so we may be what we should be our selves our own Lords in our own possession that Christ at his coming may find us not let out to Pleasure not sold to this Vanity nor in fetters under that fear nor swallowed up in that Calamity nor buried in the apprehension of those evils which shall come upon this generation but free in Christ alive in Christ active making these our adversaries friends these terrors blessings these signs miracles by Christs power working light out of darkness plenty out of famine peace out of these wars that at his second coming he may find us looking up upon him and lifting up our heads waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body that so we may be caught up together in the clouds and be for
we may impute to original Sin But yet Divines generally consent that this original Sin is alike in all only it works more or less according to the diversity of mens tempers as water runs swifter down a Hill then in a Plain Again even in children we see many good and gracious qualities which by good education come to excellent effect In pueri elucet spes plurimorum saith Quintilian quae cùm emoritur aetate manifestum est non defecisse naturam sed curam In children many times there is a beam and hope of Goodness which if not cherisht by Discipline is dampt and darkned a sign that Nature was not wanting but our Care Now from whence this difference should come is not easie to discern but this we cannot but observe That be the strength of original Sin what it will yet there is no man but is more wicked then the strength of any natural Weakness or primitive Corruption can constrain For when evil Education bad Enamples long Custome and Continuance in sin have bred in us a habit of sinning cùm per secordiam vires tempus ingenium defluxere naturae infirmitas accusatur when through sloth and idleness through luxury and distemper our time is lost our bodies decayed our wits dulled we cast all the fault upon the Weakness of our Nature and our full growth in sin we attribute to that Seed of sin which we should have choaked Behold the Signs in the heaven the Sun darkned the Moon turned into bloud See Poverty coming towards you as an armed man Famine riding upon a pale horse killing with Hunger and with Death Behold the Plague destroying Persecution raging I say Behold these for to this thou wert made for this thou wert sent into the world to behold and look up upon these to look up and be undaunted nay to look up and leap and rejoyce For thy whole life is but a preparation and Eve to this great Holiday of sights If the eye of Nature be too weak thou hast an unction from the Holy one the unction of the blessed Spirit For this end ◠John 2. 20. Christ came into the world for this end did he pour forth his grace that he might refresh thy spirits and clear thy eye-sight that thou mayest look up and lift up thy head For tell me Why were we baptized why are we Christians Is it not to mortifie our earthly members and lusts to dead in our selves the bitter root of Sin Is it not to spiritualize to angelifie I had almost said to deifie our Nature For we are no further Christians nisi in quantum caeperimus esse angeli but so far forth as we are like unto the Angels I may add and St. Peter doth warrant me so far forth as we are made partakers of the Divine Nature Were we not baptized into this faith I speak to Christians whose life should be a continual warfare not against Beasts but our Passions which if they be not tyed up and held in with bitt and bridle are as fierce and violent as they And a strange kind of weakness it is to talk of Weakness when we are to fight for this is to yield before we strike a stroke not to be put to flight but to run away Nec mirum si vincantur qui jam victi sunt and it is no marvail if we fall by conquest who in our own opinion are already overcome Beloved are we weak in Adam Yet are we strong in Christ I can do all things saith Paul and suffer all things through Christ that strengthneth me Though many blemishes befall us by Adams sin in our understandings and in our wills yet what we lost in Adam that with infinite advantage is supplyed in Christ Are we truly Christians Then these things these fearful sights cannot hurt us If they hurt us it is because we are not Christians There is a fable that past amongst the Heathen that Vulcan offended with the men of Athens told them they should be all fools but Pallas who favoured them told them they should indeed be fools but withall that their folly should not hurt them Our case is not much unlike For though the Devil hath made us fools and weak yet Christ the Wisdome of the Father hath given us this gift that this Weakness shall never hurt us unless we will Fear not therefore why should we fear Christ hath subdued our enemies and taken from them every weapon that may hurt us He hath taken the sting not only from Sin but from those evils which are the natural issues and products of Sin He hath made Afflictions joyful Terrors lovely that thou mayest look up upon them and lift up thy head I have done with this pretense of natural Weakness and with my second part and I come now to the third and last the encouragement our Saviour giveth For your redemption draweth nigh And when these things come to pass when such terrible signs appear this news is very seasonable As cold waters to a thirsty soul so is the promise Prov. 25. 25. of liberty to those who have been in bondage all their life long under the fear Heb. 2. 15. of those evils which shew themselves unto us and lead us captive and keep us in prison so that we cannot look up When we are sold under Sin and by that sold under fears of Calamities of Death of Hell when the Heaven loures upon us and Hell opens its mouth then a message of Redemption is a word fitly spoken a word upon its wheels guided and directed by art and is as delightful as apples of Gold with pictures of silver It is that Peny in the evening which makes the Labourer bear the burden all the day How will that Souldier fight who heareth of a reserve and party at hand to aid him How will the Prisoner even sing in his chains when news is brought that his ransome is paid and his redemption near at hand It is a liberty to be told we shall be free And it is not easie to determine whither it more affect us when it is come or when it is but in the approach drawing nigh when we are free or when we are but told that shortly we shall be so And indeed our Redemption is actus individuus one entire act and we are redeemed at once from all though the full accomplishment of it be by degrees When we are redeemed from Sin we are redeemed from the Grave redeemed from the fear of Death redeemed from all fear of these fearful Signs and Apparitions redeemed by our Captain who besides the ransome he paid down hath taught us to handle the weapons of our warfare hath proposed a crown hath taught us to shake off our fetters and break our bonds asunder For to this end he paid down the ransome and if we do it not we are not redeemed no not when we are redeemed It is enough for him to open the prison-doors Certainly it is our
one Quare resolved with so many Answers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil This is not a matter of jest but earnest For would you have divers Families drawn into one body politick This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very bond and tye of Society Would have the Laws kept This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a watch a guard set upon the Laws Nay would you have any Laws at all This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law-giver For as Julian calls the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Child of Justice so may we call it the child of Authority For as Authority nurseth and defendeth and strengthneth it so it was the Midwife which brought it forth and the Mother too which conceived it When it was in semine in principiis when it lay hid in the lap of the Law natural Authority framed and shaped and limb'd it gave it voice and taught it to speak its own language but more audibly declared expounded amplified it and was its interpreter Will you have a Church Authority gathers it Would you have the Church continue so a Church still and not fall asunder into Schisms nor moulder into Sects nor crumble into Conventicles Authority is the juncture the cement the Contignation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pale the fence the wall of the Church keeping it so that neither the Wolf break in nor the Sheep get out that neither Heresie undermine the bulwarks without nor Schisme raise a mutinie within Such an accord and sympathy there is between the Secular and Spiritual Sword between the Church and body Politick that if the one be sick the other complains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Socrates at the same time If the Common-wealth swell into tumors and seditions you may see the marks and impressions thereof in the Church and if the Church be ulcerous and impostumate you may see the symptomes and indications in the body Politick So that now we may well render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non sine causa There is good cause good reason that a Sword should be held up that Authority be established And to this Non frustrà we may add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authority is not onely not in vain but profitable And we may now ask not onely Quare but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely Wherefore but What profit is there And we can answer and resolve with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Much every manner of way For let Cities talk of Charters and Tradesmen of gain let Scholars speak of learning and Noble-men of honour let the Church sing of peace to the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth echo it back again to the Church Attribute these to what you will this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this is all This is Isaiahs nayle in a sure place on which hand both Laws and Church and Common-wealth If you but stir it you endanger if you pluck it out and remove it you batter all And this argument ab utili quite shuts up Frustrà 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is profitable is good and that which is good is not in vain But to step one degree further To this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we may add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Necessity to Profit Profit may lead me Necessity chaineth me I run and meet with Profit but I am forced and pluckt by Necessity And if it be not onely well it should be so but be so as that it cannot be otherwise then is it not in vain It not Profit yet Necessity excludes Frustrà And necessary Authority is not so much on Gods part as on ours For as Aquinas speaks of the natural Temple Propter Deum non oportuit Templum fieri God had no need of a Temple made with hands but Man had need that God should have one so God could have redeemed us by his own immediate absolute Soveraignty he could have govern'd us without a Sword but it was not good for Man to be so govern'd We were gone away from God and set our selves at such a distance that it was not good he should come too nigh us And therefore St. Basil calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his love to Man that as he had drawn Heaven as a curtain and made it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the veile of his Divine Majesty so in all his operations and proceedings upon Man he is still Deus sub velo God under a veile hidden but yet seen in dark characters but read silent and yet heard not toucht but felt still creating the world by conserving it I say Necessity hath put the Sword into the hand For God appears through other veils by other Mediums but we hide the face and will not see that light which flasheth in our eyes He is first sub velo naturae under the veile of natural impressions speaking to us by that Law which Tertullian calls legem naturalem and naturam legalem and speaking in us but at a distance preventing us with anticipations dropping on us and leaving in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those common notions and practick principles To love God hate evil To worship God and the like domi nascuntur To do as I would be done to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is my contemporary my domestick born and bred with me I received it with my first breath and it will live in me though I attempt to strangle it it will live with me though I would chase it away Non iniquitas delebit saith Augustine These things are written with the finger of God and Sin it self cannot blot them out But though I cannot blot them out I may enterline them with false glosses though I cannot race them out I may deface them My Envy may drop on them my Malice blur them and my Self-love misplace them On this foundation of Innocence I may build in bloud on this ground-work of Justice I may set up Oppression I may draw false consequences from these true principles I must do good I do so to my self when I wrong my neighbour I must shun evil I think I have done that when I run from goodness Like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle those stiff and stubborn defendants to what is first proposed we easily yield assent but at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we hunt-out tricks and evasions We are all Sophisters but it is to cheat and delude our selves And now if we read these principles in the worlds corrupt edition if unjust man may be the Scholiast thus they lye see and read them INJURIAM FECISSE VIRTUTIS EST to do injury is vertue To oppress is power Craft is police Murder is valour Theft is frugality The greatest Wisdom is not to be wise to salvation And therefore in the second place God presents himself again under another Medium sub velo legis scriptae He would be read as it were in tables of stone And in these tables he writes and promulges his Law Moral Will this
prevaile No he must back and strengthen it with the Judicial Sin must be brought forth and seen in its own shape Murder wallowing in the bloud she spilt Fornication in a whitesheet with shame upon her forehead Blasphemy with its brains dasht out Idleness starved Theft sub hasta brought to publick sale and condemned to slavery But under the Gospel Hell it self is unlockt her mouth open'd and all her terrors displaied Who would now think that this were not enough to stay our fliting humour to quell our raging temper to bind our unlimited desires Who would not think that this two-edged sword of the Word would frustrate and annihilate all other swords If I had set my face to Destruction this should turn me if I were rushing forward this should stay me But alass we break through these repagula we run over these sufflamina God speaks in us by the Law of Nature but we hear him not He writes to us by way of Letter and Epistle in his Divine Law but we answer him not Besides this we too often reject and reverberate his gracious instructions and incitements by the wise counsel and examples of good men In both God beckneth to us It is now high time he speak to us through a vaile of Bloud that he put the bridle into our mouths If Hell will not fright us then we must hear those more formidable words as S. Augustine saith more formidable to humane ears Occido Proscribo Mitto in exilium Death Proscription Banishment Tribuno opus carcere Lay the whip upon the fools back For to be thus question'd many times prevails more then a Catechisme Therefore Theodorete calls this Sword this Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most catholick and soveraign remedy and Luther necessarium corruptae naturae remedium a necessary remedy for weak decayed nature When the Fear of God boundeth us not imponit timorem humanum saith Irenaeus he aws us with the Sword and humane Authority When the destillation of his dew and small rain will not soften us down came his hailstones and coals of fire to break us A remedy it is our disposition and temper looks for and requires For we are led for the most part by the Sense We love and fear at a distance And as the object is either nigh or remote so it either affects or frights us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The greatest evils and so the greatest goods too are least sensible Villam malumus quam caelum saith Augustine We had rather have a Farme a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in Heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty then just Saint Ambrose gives the reason For saith he quis unquam justitiam contrectavit Who ever saw Virtue or felt and handled Justice And as our Love so stands our Fear Caesarem magis timemus quam Jovem We fear Man more than God and the shaking of his whip than the scorpions of a Deity A Dag at hand frights more than great Ordinance from the Mount and a Squib than a crack of Thunder He that could jest at a Deity trembled at a Thunder-bolt The Adulterer saith Job watcheth for his twilight as if God had his night And The ungodly lyeth in wait to spoil the poor saith David He seeketh a day and an opportunity as if God had not one every moment and he doth it secretly as if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that revenging Eye were put out And though he stand as a butt for Gods Vengeance and a mark for his arrow and fuel for his fire the very centre wherein all Gods curses may meet yet he cleaves to his sin he hugs and embraces it Would you have a separation and divorce made It is more probable a Whip should do it then a Sermon an Officer then a Preacher a Warrant then an Anathema You must sue for it in the Court of Justice not in the Church So sensual so senseless many are Therefore the Holy Ghost in Scripture presents and fashions himself to the natural affections of men And that we may not turn bankrupts and sport or sell away our livelihood and estate in Heaven and so come to a spiritual nothing to bring us to the other world he tells us of something which we most fear in this To those who love liberty he speaks of a prison a jaylor an arrest Those who dare not step into the house of mourning he tells of weeping and gnashing of teeth and to those tender constitutions who can endure no smart he threatens many stripes NON SINE CAUSA GLADIUM is the servants and hirelings argument and many times it convinces and confutes him it dulls and deads the edge of his affection It destroys Murder in anger quenches Adultery in the desire sinks Pride in the rising binds Theft in the very purpose and ut seta filum as the bristle draweth the thread it fits and prepares a way for Charity and Religion it self We may now then engrave this NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword and settle it as an undoubted conclusion That Autority was not granted in vain Unless you will say that the Law was in vain and Reason in vain and Man in vain unless you will Put the FRUSTRA upon the Church the World Hell Heaven it self And if the Sword be not in vain then in the next place by an easie illation the Duty of the Magistrate will follow which is Operam fortem diligentem dare as the form runs Strenuously to contend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nè frustrà that he bear not the Sword in vain My third and last part There is no danger of a frustrà but here For potestas habet se indifferenter ad bonum malum saith Aquinas Autority though directed and ordained to good alone yet stands in an even aspect and indifferency to both good and evil In it is the life of the innocent and in it is the destruction of the wicked and it may be the flourishing of the wicked and the death of the innocent The Magistrate may as the Devil is said to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invert the order of things put shame upon Integrity and security upon Sin The Sword is an instrument and he may use it as he will and so of a fiery and sharp sword he may make it gladium ficulneum a wooden and unprofitable sword and then the drunkard may reel in the streets and injury may rage at noon-day for all that or pictum gladium no better then a Sword in a painted cloth only to be lookt upon He may use it not like a Sword but like David's rasour to cut deceitfully or he may let it rust in his hands that as that Lawyer complained of the Sword in his time it may be fit for nothing but to cut a purse let out a bribe Thus it may be But our task is to keep off this Frustrà from the Magistrate And see in my Text they are severd
of peace who is docile and not averse from it who is willing to hear of it For as Pothinus the Bishop of Lions being ask'd by the President of the place Who was the God of the Christians made no other reply but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall know if you be worthy so may we say of this Peace They who are worthy who are fitted and prepared shall receive it And if you ask on whom it will rest I answer It will rest on them that love it Where is the place of my rest saith God The Isa 66. 1. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool All these things hath my hand made But to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word He that created all things and made the Heaven and the earth will not chuse out of these his seat but leaves them all and will rest no where but in a contrite and broken heart which divides and opens it self and makes a way to receive him And certainly as we see in Nature we cannot put any thing into that which is full already no more will peace enter that heart which is filled with Satan with malice and with the very gall of bitterness The Gospel will find no place in that Soul which is already filled and praepossessed with prejudice against the Gospel Into a malicious Soul Wisdom shall not enter saith Wisd 1. 4. the Wiseman Or if it do enter it shall not dwell there not dwell there as a Lord to command the Will and Affections no not as a friend to find a welcome for a time but be thrust out as a stranger as an enemy What is the place for peace to rest in Not in a Nabals heart which is as stone Not in the Wantons heart which is as a troubled Sea not on the Fool who hath no heart whose conscience is defiled and judgment corrupted by many evil and vitious habits ubi turpia non solum delectant sed placent who doth not only delight in that which is opposite to this Peace but approves it as that without which he cannot be at Peace No the spirit of Peace and the unclean spirit may seem in this to agree They will not enter the House before it be swept and garnished Ill weeds must be rooted out before you can sow good corn Every valley must be filled and every mountain and hill must be brought low all that inequality and repugnancy of our life must be taken away and all made smooth and even For as the Prince of peace so Peace hath a way to be prepared before it will enter What is the reason that all the seed which the Sower sowed brought not forth fruit Because some fell in stony places where there was not much Mat. 13. earth where the Soul did not sympathize and bear a friendly correspondence with the Word as good ground doth with the seed and some fell by the way-side which was never plowed nor manured and the fouls of the air those sly imaginations which formerly prepossessed the Soul devoured it up Nothing can be well done when the mind is already taken up with something else What room for the Gospel in the Jew who maketh his boast of the Law What room for Religion where it is accounted the greatest piety to be prophane What room for Righteousness when we rejoyce in impiety When the Prince of this world hath blinded our eyes with covetousness ambition and lust what room is there for Peace Non magìs quà m frugibus terrâ sentibus rubis occupatâ as the Orator speaks and they are the very words of our Saviour No more than there is for good corn in the ground which is full of bryars and thornes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whither dost thou cast thy seed thy good precepts saith the Philosopher to one that read a lecture of Philosophy to a scornful person Thou flingest it into a foul and stinking vessel which corrupts every thing it receives and takes no savour from it but makes it relish of it self Lord what a rock is a prepossessed mind What an adamant is a Stubborn and perverse heart How harsh and unpleasant is this Salutation of Peace to those who are hardned against it How Stoical and rigid and peremptory are they against their own Salvation Obstrepunt intercedunt nè audiant They are so far from receiving the Salutation that they are troubled and unquiet at the very name of Peace and desire they may not hear that word any more The complaint in Scripture is They will not understand and The waies of Peace they will not know Experience will teach us that it is too common in the world to stand stiff upon opinion against all evidence whatsoever though it be as clear as the Day And it is the reason which Arnobius gives of the Heathens obstinacy to whom this Salutation of Peace was but as a fable Quid facere possumus considerare nolentibus secumque loqui What can we do or say or how can we convince them who will not be induced once to deliberate and consider nor can descend to speak and confer with themselves and their own reason A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and so doth a prejudicate opinion the whole mind of man All our actions and resolutions have a kind of taste and relish of it Whatsoever comes in to strengthen an anticipated conceit whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or lustful affections we readily embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so But if it thwart our inclination if it run counter to our intendments though it be Reason though it be Peace though it be a manifest truth though it be written with the Sun-beams we will not once look upon it It is an easy matter saith Augustine to answer a fool but it is not so easy to satisfie him It is easy to confute but not to reform him For his Folly barreth him from seeking the meanes of understanding and when light is offered it shuts up his eyes that he cannot receive it We have many domestick examples of this obstinacy and I wish they were not so near us of men who may be overcome but cannot be perswaded who will not yield to any strength of reason nec cùm sciant id quod faciunt non licere no not though they cannot be ignorant that the course of their life runs with more violence and noyse than is answerable to the Peace of the Gospel who know what they are and yet will be what they are And these we meet with quocunque sub axe in every place in every corner of the earth These multiply and increase every day For it cannot be but the greatest part of men will be the weakest We have troops and armies of these and the regiment consists of boys and girls and women led away captive by their ignorance and
his baits to catch it When we hide it in sloth and idleness we hide it in a grave which he digged to bury it When we think to save it we loose it But when we hide it in Christ when we do Deum per Christum colere worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord when we rely on his power in Christ which is the foundation of all Christian Religion then our life having put off the old Adam is clothed with righteousness and is in a manner divine our mortal hath put on immortality and having hid our sins and weakness in Christ the image of God brightly shines forth in every action and the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh so that our life with 2 Cor. 1. 11. him and his life in our mortal flesh in our weekness in our infirmities arms us against all assaults and makes us more then conquerors Now in the last place Christ 's help we need not doubt of if we be not wanting unto our selves For we have not such an high Priest who will not help us But which is one and the chief end of his Tentation who is merciful and faithful and was tempted that he might succour them which are tempted He hath not only Power for so he may have and not shew it but also Will and Propension Desire and diligent Care to hold them up that are set upon for the tryal of their faith Indeed Mercy without Power can beget a good wish but no more and Power without Mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee nor heal a broken heart But Mercy and Power together will work a miracle will hold us up when we are ready to fall will give legs to the lame and eyes to the blind and strength to the weak will make a fiery fornace a bath make a rack a bed will keep us the same men amidst the changes and armies of sorrows will moderate our sorrows when they are great that they be not long and when they are of continuance will call the evils that are as if they were not will uphold us against the terrors of Death and when he soundeth his retreat and takes us off from the field by Death will receive us to glory And this Compassion and Mercy though it were coeternal with Christ as God yet as Man he learnt it by his sufferings saith the Apostle Hebr. 5. 8. For the way indeed to know anothers misery is to be first sensible of our own For we commonly see that men who are softly and delicately brought up have hearts of flint If Dives be clothed in purple and fare deliciously every day it is no marvail to see him less merciful then his Doggs when Lazarus was at his door But you may say Could Christ who was the Son of God forget to be merciful or was he now to learn it as a new lesson who by his wisdome made the heavens because his mercy endureth for ever No He saw Joseph in the stocks Job on the dung-hill and the Mariners in the tempest He heard the sighs and complaints of the poor he numbred all their tears and had compassion on his afflicted ones even as a father hath on his only child But then before he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant sicut miseriam expertus Phil. 2. 7. non erat ita nec misericordiam experimento novit as he had no acquaintance with sorrow so neither had he any experimental knowledge of mercy and compassion In his sufferings he had tryal of misery and learn't to be merciful His own Hunger moved him to work that miracle of the Loaves For it is said in the Text He had compassion on the multitude His Poverty made him an Orator for the poor and he beggs with them and his Compassion melted him into tears at the sight of Jerusalem When he became a man of sorrows he became also a man of compassion And yet his experience of sorrow added in truth nothing to his knowledge But it rowseth our confidence to approach with boldness near unto him who by his miserable experience is brought nearer to us and hath thus reconciled us in the body 1 Cor. 21. 12. of his flesh For he that suffered for us hath compassion on us and suffers and is tempted with us even to the end of the world He was on the cross with St. Peter on the block with St. Paul in the fire with the Martyrs He in his members is still destitute afflicted tormented Would you take a view of Christ You may look upon him in your own souls take him in a groan mark him in a sigh behold him bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit Or to make him an object more sensible you may see him every day begging at your doors Christ learnt this Compassion in our flesh saith the Apostle Inasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and bloud he also himself Hebr. 2. 14. likewise took part of the same and in our Flesh he was hungry was spit upon was whipped was nayled to the cross And all these were as it were so many parts of that discipline which taught him to be merciful to be merciful to them who are tempted by famine in that he was hungry to be merciful to them who are tempted by riches because he was poor to be merciful to them who tremble at disgrace because he was whipt and to be merciful to them who will not yet will suffer for him who refuse and yet chuse tremble and venture are afraid and yet dye for him because as Man he found Death a bitter cup and would have had it pass from him Who in the dayes of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears for mortal men for weak men for sinners for those whose life is a warfare Pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ This experimental knowledge is rooted in Christ is sixt and cannot now be removed no more then his natural knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher Experience is a kind of collection and multiplication of remembrances the issue and child of memory Usus me genuit mater peperit Memoria It proceedeth from the memory of many particulars And this experience Christ had And as the Apostle tells us he learnt so the Prophet tell us he was acquainted with our griefs and carried our sorrowes about with him even from his birth from his cradle to his cross By his fasting and tentation by his agony and bloudy sweat by his precious death and burial He remembers us in famine and tentation in our agony and bloudy sweat and all the penance we do upon our selves for sin He remembers us in the hour of death and in our grave and will remember us at the day of Judgment As a father pitieth his children so he pities us Psal 103. 13. and the reason is given verse 14. For he knoweth our frame he remembreth we are
it can be no other Spirit that guideth him but such a one as was sent from Rome in a cloak-bag If we cry down Idolatry and commit Sacriledge we mistake the Spirit Nor can he lead us to both for he that pulls down Idols will not also beat down his own Temple to the ground If we receive the Sacrament and make it a seal to shut-up Treason we have prophaned the Spirits seal and made as St. Augustine speaks that which was a sacrament of piety a bond of iniquity If we look and fix our eyes upon the earth and like that bad Actor cry Oh Heavens if we run to Honor and Riches and whatsoever our boundless lusts have set up with a GLORIA PATRI Glory to God in our mouth it is not the Spirit but a Legion of Devils that speaks in us for both acknowledge Jesus but withal ask What have we to do with thee If the World be the hinge we move upon the Spirit is not in our company If the Wheel be not lift up from the earth you may be sure no Cherubin moveth with it Therefore to conclude let us as Job speaks be afraid of all our works and actions and if we find the impress of the World or Flesh upon them cast them from us as refuse silver and adulterate coyn Never think that when our walk is toward the Tents of Kedar the Spirit will bring us within the Curtains of Solomon Never think that a pretense will make him our Companion when in our walk we grieve resist and quench him or when we are the Devils Captives that the Spirit of God leads us He loaths Uncleanness but he did not lead those brethren in evil to the murther of the Shechemites He looks for the performance of a Vow but he did not lead Absalom to Hebron He will take a gift in his Temple but not to enrich a Pharisee He accepts what is given to the poor but not that Judas should put it in his purse O what an easie matter is it for flesh and bloud to call-in the Spirit to countenance it and when it follows its own natural swinge to draw it along with it to carry it with more ease and applause to its end How soon can we perswade our selves that is lawful which we would have done Let us not deceive our selves Let not Honor or Riches or Pleasure or Power deceive us For be the pretense what it will if our eye be on the World the Spirit leads us not for he leads us out of the World even into the wilderness to be sequestred from the World to be alone from the World by abstinence and meditation and denyal of our selves to fight against it And this is the victory which overcometh the world even our Faith Which is the substance the expectation not of Riches or Honor or Pleasure but of things hoped for the evidence of things which are not seen nor can be seen in this world but shall be seen and enjoyed in the world to come The Five and Twentieth SERMON PART III. MATTH IV. 1. Then was Jesus led-up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil WE pass from the circumstance of Place to that of Time Then was Jesus led to be tempted Then when Jesus was baptized Then when the heavens were opened unto him and when the Spirit had descended like a Dove and lighted upon him Then when his Commission was sealed as it were by a voice from heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Then when he enters upon his office he enters upon temptation Then when he was washed did the Devil attempt to soyl him Then when the heavens were opened unto him was hell opened against him when the good Spirit descended was the evil spirit at hand and in whom God was well pleased in him was the Devil ill pleased and so made forward against him By this we may learn that as God hath his time so hath the Devil his As God hath his NUNC his Now of showring down graces from above so hath the Devil his TUNC his Then of drying them up NUNC TEMPUS ACCEPTABILE Now is the acceptable time Now is the day of salvation saith God and NUNC TEMPUS DESTRUCTIONIS Now is the expected time Now is the day of destruction saith the Devil Time in it self is nothing Per se non intelligitur nisi per actus humanos All the knowledge we have of it is by those acts which are done in it When we say This was now done this then this will be done we have exprest as much as we can of Time God works in time and the Devil hath his time Then when God hath wrought upon his creature the Devil who is a great observer of Time takes that TUNC that Then to destroy his work You see our Saviour comes no sooner out of the river but the Devil sets upon him And as he used the Lord so will he the Servant Christus speculum Christiani Christ is as a Looking-glass in which every Christian may view himself behold himself in his altitudes and in his depressions in the favour of God and in the danger of the enemy take notice how God opens heaven upon him and how the Devil even then opens his mouth to destroy him consider that when God is most loving the enemy is most raging that he is never more in danger then when he is most safe that he shall find his adversary most fierce when God is his strength Nunc animis opus est Now we have most need of courage and resolution of care and circumspection when the Devil comes and finds nothing in us but all that was his washed off by Repentance and Baptism When we wallow in our own bloud when we are taken in the Devils snare circumspection is too late for we cannot properly be said to be in danger of the enemy when we are taken but when we have openly renounced him and bid defiance to him by the profession of a new life then we stand as it were upon the top and brink of the pit a mark for the Devil to shoot at that so our spirits may fail us and we fall back again into the bottom of it When the danger is past then is it nearest and when we are out of the pit then are we most ready to fall back again No wise Captain is ever so confident of peace so emboldened with the flight of his enemy as not to prepare for war which is at his doors when it makes no noyse Here we may discover the enemies policy Primordia boni pulsat tentat rudimenta virtutum sancta in ipso ortu festinat exstinguere He beats upon the very beginning of Goodness he assayes the very rudiments and principles of Piety and makes it his master-piece then to extinguish the light of Grace when it is first kindled in our hearts This he practised upon Christ And in the same manner he
it may be for all these uses yet not a wedding-garment Every garment is not for a feast There are sack-cloth and sables and blacks but for mourners not for guests These are not for our turn We are going to a wedding not to a funeral Now we go to a wedding with joy And this is a garment of joy It maketh the face to shine and the heart to leap and the tongue to glory He that invites us joyes that we come and we come with joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rejoyce with Luke 15. 6 9. me say they Let us eat and be merry saith he and he taketh in the Luke 15. 23. Angels to bear a part in that mirth And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes And lest we should forget it he addeth And again I say Rejoyce O aureas vices O happy interchange Phil. 4. 4. when the Bride-grooms voice is Joy and the guests Joy the eccho of that voice when he delights to call and we are forward to come when the feast is a feast of joy and we are merry at the feast To enter a triumph in blacks to come to a feast as if we were going to a charnel-house to sit down at table as if we were in gives to loath the bread of life to be afraid of the Sacraments to have our stomach turn at Christs Dinner as if we were to take down gall and aloes is but an ill sign a sign of one ill affected Vestis affectum indicat The Garment as it covereth the body so discovers the mind and affections He that hath a wedding-garment on goes with joy and triumph to the wedding Again as by our attire we express our Joy so do we our Gratitude The best thanks we can give the King the best amends we can make him is to come in our best clothes Gratè ad nos pervenisse indicamus effusis affectibus saith Seneca Then a benefit meets with a grateful heart when it is ready to pour forth it self in joy and respect when the affections cannot contain themselves but are dilated and break forth when they are visible in our eyes our hands our tongues our gesture our garments Will you think him grateful that takes a fish with the same countenance he would take a serpent that is no more affected with the gift of a pearl than of a peblestone What is his estimate of the feast think you that comes thither as if he cared not whither he came thither or no as if it were not worth the coming to that hears the Preacher as he would hear a song reads the Gospel and is no more affected than with Aesops Fables we receive the bread in the Sacrament as if it were no more but as the Papists scoff is Calvins loaf in a word counts the bloud of the Covenant a common an unholy thing Hebr. 10. 29. Away with such bold neglect A garment we must come in and in a wedding-garment Sanctity of life is our best retribution The best payment is when we pay God out of his own mint with his own coyn when we shew him his own image and superscription the price he values himself at is a QUOTQUOT RECEPERUNT only to receive him The price he puts upon Aeternity is but to prefer it before a span of time His blessings do but think them so you have purchased them All the thanks he expects for his great dinner is but a short grace a few dayes drawn out and spent in a thankful acknowledgment an open hand for a gift a minute for eternity a desire for a blessing a heart for himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Fear not upbraiding He thinks his great cost well spent if thou come but mannerly if thou bring with thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wedding-garment For by our having this garment on we are not only grateful but we also publish our gratitude We do it not in a corner remotis arbitris as if we were afraid or ashamed to be seen and to have some witness nigh Upon the sight of our garment all the country can tell we are going to a feast And this is it the King expects Gaudet beneficium suum latiùs patere His Benefits he would have as large as all the world his Graces increased in thee and diffused and spread abroad upon others thy Grain of mustard-seed grow up into a tree as high as heaven thy Talent become ten that thy growth thy thrift may be seen and taken notice of God hath not made us only vessels to contain water but conduits to convey it no brokers of his blessings to improve them for our selves but stewards to distribute them to others like beacons not only burning our selves but giving notice to the whole country one example of goodness being kindled by another and a third by that and so multiplying everlastingly Thy habit and attire may draw others to the feast and then thy welcome is doubled because thou bringest in company Good examples bear with them a command Therefore Philo the Jew in his Book which he writ De Abrahamo calls the lives and acts of the Patriarchs Leges jura Patriarcharum non scripta The unwritten Ordinances and Laws of the Patriarchs as if they had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a compulsive power and were as forcible in their command as statute-law God loves these ocular Sermons and would have the Eye catechized as well as the Ear. Look upon the high Priest under the Law his gesture his motion his garments all were vocal Quicquid agebat quicquid loquebatur doctrina erat populi saith Hierom His Actions were didactical as well as his Doctrine his very Garments were instructions and the Priest himself was a Sermon Goodness is neither Anchorite nor Hermite neither for the closet nor the wilderness but she expoundeth and publisheth her self she cryeth in the streets so that he that hath ears to hear may hear her and he that hath eyes to see may see her the hungry taste her the naked feel her and the smell of her is like the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed If thou art not a very Idol thou must needs be the better for her To conclude She is a garment for use to our selves and a wedding-garment to be looked on by others The fashion and beauty of the work may chance to take a stander-by and win him to a liking She is a garment to defend us from fear and she is a wedding-garment to cloth us with joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wrought garment a Covert a Wear a Defence these are in the cloth to Become to Separate and Distinguish these are in the making and the fashion Joy and Gratitude and Respect and the Reflexion of its glory and brightness upon others these are the colours and embroidery We have now made-up this wedding-garments and should proceed to the Party questioned for his not having it on
forth James 1. 18. his Goodness in the Opening of his hand and feeding us with all things necessary both for this life and that which is to come both to make us Men and Saints This word FATHER is proprium Evangelii most proper to the Gospel A name which God did not reveal to Moses saith Tertullian And had not he commanded it thus to pray no man should have been so bold as to have called him Father Now as God hath most plainly declared in his Gospel that he is our Father so he hath most expresly promised that he will make us his children like unto him immortal His grace saith St. 2 Tim. 1. 10. Paul is now made manifest by the appearing of Jesus Christ who hath abolisht death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel But what was not that brought to light before No the Heathen who granted the Immortality of the Soul denyed the Resurrection of the Body De Caio Caium reduces He that will say that Caius shall rise again the same Caius he was shall be thought by Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to play the fool as it is in Athenagoras Nor was this truth so well known to the Jews Chrysostom in divers places tells us that the common sort knew it not And in his second Epistle to Olympias speaking of Jobs Patience doth thus exalt and amplifie it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Job was a just man and knew nothing of the resurrection And Mercer who was well seen in the Jews language interprets those words of Job ch 19. 25. I know that my Redeemer liveth of his redemption from the dunghil and misery I will not be too peremptory to subscribe But I will say with Epiphanius that God dealt like a true Father and applyed himself to the several ages of his children speaking to them in a diverse dialect more obscurely under the Law more expresly under the Gospel Omnis nostra natura in Christi hypostasi revixit Our nature as man united in Christs Person and in him revived and receiveth immortality And we are told that as Christ is risen even so we also by the same power â—â—all rise again and that as God hath been a Father to us in making us after his own image so he will be a Father to us in restoring us He is a Father of the world a Father of our bodies a Father of our souls and he will be a Father of our ashes He will favor them and love them and recollect them and bring us his children to immortality and eternal life I said this word FATHER is most proper to the Gospel Now I say more Vox haec Evangelium est This word FATHER is the Gospel For in it all the riches of the Gospel and the treasures of Wisdom lye hid Doth Gods Countenance shine upon us is he a Father Doth he frown upon us yet he is a Father Doth his hand uphold us he is a Father Is it heavy upon us he is a Father still He is a Father when he reacheth out his hand to help us and a Father when he stretcheth it forth to strike us For even in his anger there is love and his very blows are helps his disgraces are honors his corrections Sermons and when he casts us down then he lifts us up Howsoever he handles us whilst we are in his hands we are in the hands of a Father Upon these points we might make large discourses And as Cato said De morte usque ad mortem that he could speak of Death even until Death so might we speak of this one word FATHER till that this our Father bring us into heaven But we will say with Ausonius Non oblita haec sed praeterita We do not omit these because we forgot them but only pass them by as unwilling to prolong our discourse and speaks all In Christ are hidden all Col. 2. 3. the treasures of wisdome and knowledge And he that says We are redeemed hath said all That which makes God a Father is his Providence and his Providence is most eminent in the Redemption of mankind But it is over all our actions over all our wayes sweetly ordering and composing all things so that necessary events fall out necessarily and contingent contingently and those things which are carryed about motu tumultuario with a tumultuary and uncertain motion yet are regulated and governed certâ lege by a kind of law When we behold the Heavens even the work of Gods fingers we cannot but acknowledge our Father which is in heaven When we consider the World we see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom a large book wherein both the wise and unlearned may read the Providence of God Every Creature is a leaf every Action a Sermon every Thought a character Wisdome cryeth out in the streets in every place that God is a Father Every thing is placed in its proper place the least Herb on the ground the least Gnat in the air as fairly seated as the Stars in heaven Non pulchriùs Angelus in coelo quà m Diabolus in inferno the Devil in hell as an Angel in heaven That which most amazeth us is Gods judicial Providence which is that special branch that calls men to account for their lives This is operosa cognitio hard to find out For as He comes sometimes like an epidemical disease and singles out one here and another there on whom he makes his anger fall striking the sinner in his very sin so sometimes he comes like unto a deluge and floud incestum addens integro without any respect or distinction carrying all before him even good and bad Sometimes we see the wicked flourish and the righteous miserable sometimes we see them both falling under the same calamity And this makes some to think that God is either not a Father at all or a Father of both To root-up this seed of Atheism we may say with the Father Malus interpres Divinae providentiae humana infirmitas Humane infirmity is but a bad interpreter of Gods Providence Nor can he find out Gods wayes who is ignorant of his own Art hath no enemy but Ignorance An unskilful man may think a well-filed army to be but a rout method disorder and care neglect Indeed were there no reason of Gods proceeding yet cannot this prejudice or call in question the Providence and Goodness of our Father Who maketh Poverty a blessing and Riches a curse Qui ex malis foecundat bona Who can raise up a plentiful harvest of good upon no better ground-plot then Evil it self Who as he hath made the Heavens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a vail of his Divine Majesty so in all his operations and proceedings upon Man is still Deus sub velo a God under a vail hidden but yet seen in a dark character but read silent and yet heard not toucht but felt then saving his children when he is thought to destroy them We are dull
our Christian Philosophy We read no Acroamatical lectures but open all truths as far as it hath pleased the King of heaven to reveal them Nor must any man take them as things out of his sphere and above his reach Besides it is our duty to take from you all gross and carnal conceits of God And we have just cause to fear that some are little better perswaded of God than the ancient Anthropomorphites who thought that God hath hands and feet and is in outward shape proportioned unto us If you yet doubt of the use of this the Prophet David shall most pathetically apply it for me Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither Psal 139. 7. shall I flee from thy presence If I ascend up into heaven if I make my bed in hell behold thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me Now nothing can be of greater force to restrain us from sin then a strong perswasion and assurance that whatsoever we do or think lyeth open to the view and survey of some Eye that is over us Secrecy is much desired amongst men and there is no such fomenter of evil actions as it is For what no man knows is accounted as not done But magna necessitas indicta probitatis saith Boetius There is a kind of necessity of doing well laid upon us when we know that God is a witness and observer of our actions What rocks canst thou call to cover thee what hills to hide thee from his eyes What night can veil thee Propè est à te Deus tecum est intus est saith Seneca God is near thee is with thee is within thee Cui obscura lucent muta respondent silentium confitetur saith Leo To him Darkness is as light as the Day the Dumb speak and Silence shriveth it self Think not because God is in heaven he cannot see thee at such a distance For he fills both the heaven and the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He beholds all things and heareth all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil calls him From heaven he beholds the children of men and considereth all Psal 33. 13 14 15. their wayes To him thy Complement is a lye thy Dissimulation open thy Hypocrisie unmaskt thy Thoughts as vocal as thy Words thy Whisper as loud as Thunder and thy Secresie as open as the Day All things are written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Gods Book Nay he keeps a Book in the very closet of thy soul the only Book of all thy Library saith Bernard which goes along with thee into the world to come He sees the Title of the Book SINS and the Dedication of it To the Prince of Sin The several Chapters so many several Sins and every Letter a character of Sin Quid prodest inclusam habere conscientiam patemus Deo saith Lactantius Why do we shut-up this Book God can read it when it is shut-up Why do we bribe our Conscience to be quiet God understands her language when she faulters Why do we lay these pillows to rest on We are awake to God when we are fast asleep The very strumpets of Rome who were wont to dance naked upon the stage to make the people sport yet would not do it whilst Cato was present Behold not Cato but God himself is in presence qui omnia novit omnia notat who knows all things and marks and observes all things Which are the two acts of his Providence We have still over us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaks a super-intending Eye which tryeth the sons of men and pondereth all their thoughts Therefore the Father said well Ubi est Dei memoria ibt peccatorum oblivium malorum interitus the very memory of God is an antidote against sin For the most secret Sin we commit is as open to him as that which is committed before the Sun and the People We read in Velleius Paterculus of Livius Drusus a great Gentleman of Rome who being about to build him an house his work-man told him that he could so cunningly contrive the windows the lights the doors of it that no man should be able to look in and see what he was a doing But Drusus answered him If you desire to give me content then so contrive the lights of my house that all may look in and see what I do St. Hilary doth make the application for me In omnibus vitae nostrae operibus circumspecti ad Deum patentes esse debemus This is the right fabrick of a Christian mans soul which being innocent still opens and unfolds it self unto God and is so much the better contrived by how much the more liberally it admits of light ut liberis per innocentiam patulis cordibus Deus dignetur lumen suum infundere that innocencie having broken down all the strong holds and fenses of Sin and laid open the gates of the Heart the King of glory may enter in and fill it with the light of his countenance Oh what a preservative against Sin is it to think that all that we do we do in Divinitatis sinu as the Father speaks in the bosome of the Divinity When I fast and when I surfet when I bless and when I curse when I praise God and when I blaspheme him I am still even in his very bosome When we behave our selves as in the bosome of our Father God handles us then as a Father as if we were in his bosome He gives us an EUGE Well done good children But when our behaviour is as if we were in a Wilderness or Grot or Cave or Theater rather rhen in the bosome of God majori contumelià ejus intra quem haec agimus peccamus we are most contumelious to him in whose bosome we are We have seen now some light in this cloud and have gained this observation That Gods all-seeing Eye will find us out when our curtains are drawn That what we dare not let others behold he looks upon That what we dare not behold our selves he sees ad nudum as the Schools speak naked as it is You will ask now Is not God in every place and if he be in the earth in hell beyond the seas why then are we bound to say Our Father which art in heaven Not because heaven doth contein him but because his Majesty and Glory is there most apparent God calls heaven his seat his holy habitation and he is every where in Scripture stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 66. 1. Deut. 26. 15. heavenly We will not here spin-out any curious discourse concerning Heaven as those did in St. Augustine who did so intently dispute of the caelestial Globe ut in coelo habitare se crederent de quo disputabant that to themselves they seemed to dwell there and to have made Heaven their Kingdome as well
knock as Fortune is said to have done at Galba's gates till he be weary Wilt thou not move unless with the hand of violence he drive thee before him Wilt thou still be evil and pretend he will not make thee good What a dishonor is this to thy King to entitle him to thy disobedience and make him guilty of that treason which is committed against himself Beloved this is to be ignorant of the nature of this Kingdome and injurious to the King himself and the highest pitch of rebellion to make him if not the author yet the occasioner of it No he helps us he doth not force us He leads not drives us He works in us but not without us For these two Grace and Free-will are not co-ordinate but subordinate Non partim gratia partim liberum arbitrium saith St. Bernard Grace and Free-will do not share our obedience between them sed totum singula peragunt but each of them doth perform the whole work Grace doth it wholly and Free-will doth it wholly sed ut totum in illo sic totum ex illa as it is wholly wrought by the Free-will of man so is the Free-will of man wholly enabled thereunto by the Grace of God which helps to determine the Will Attribute what you will to Gods Grace every good work and word and thought You cannot attribute too much you cannot attribute enough But when you have set God at this height in that proper Zenith where his natural Goodness hath placed him oh then draw him not down again to the mire where you ly wallowing to be partaker with your filth Do not weaken him by giving him an attribute of Power Say not when he doth not reign in your hearts that it is because he will not The voice of his Psal 77. 18. thunder is in the heaven The Vulgar renders it VOX TONITRUI IN ROTA The voice of his thunder is in the wheel It is heard of men who are willing to walk in the wheel and circle of Discipline and Virtue which have their thoughts collected and raised from the sensual vanities of this word And then by the power of this voice by the Power of Gods Grace like a wheel they are rowled about and are lifted up and do touch the earth but in puncto as it were but in a point having not the least relish of the world And this is the power and virtue of the Kingdome of Grace We pass now to the third head of difference which consists in the Compass and Circuit of this Kingdome which is as large as all the world In this respect all Kingdomes come short of it every one having its bounds which it cannot pass without violence A foolish title it is which some give the Emperor of Rome as if he had power over the most remote and unknown people of the world Bartolus counts him no less than an he etick who denies it But his arguments are no better than the Emperors Title which is but nominal They tell us that he calls himself MUNDI DOMINUM The Lord of all the world and that Rome hath the appellation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the whole world given it by Writers of latter times So the Poet Orbem jam totum victor Romanus habebat But these are but hyperboles spoken by way of excess and excellency So Jewry is also called in Scripture For Jerusalem is said to be placed in the midst of the earth that is in the midst of Judaea as the City Delphi is called orbis umbilicus the Navel of the world because it is scituate in the midst of Greece But without hyperbole Christ is the Catholick and universal Monarch of the whole world He seeth and ruleth all places All places are to him alike We need not vow a pilgrimage to Rome or to Jerusalem we need not take our scrip and staff to go thither De Britannia de Hierosolymis aequaliter patet aura coelestis The way to this Kingdome is as near out of Britanny as out of Hierusalem saith St. Hierome to Paulinus Totius mundi vox una CHRISTUS Christ is become the language of the whole world The Prophets are plain the Psalms full of testimonies In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed saith God to Abraham Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance Psal 2. 8. and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession saith God to Christ The Gospel must be preached to all nations saith our Saviour But as the Sun hath its race through all the world but yet doth not shine in every part at once but beginneth in the East and passeth to the South and so to the West and as it passeth forward it bringeth light to one place and withdraweth it from another so is it with the Sun of righteousness he spreads his beams on those who were in darkness and the shadow of death and makes it night to them who had the clearest noon Not that his race is confined as is the Suns but because of the interposition of mens sins who exclude themselves from his beams And now to proceed to our fourth head of difference As this is the largest of all Kingdomes so it is the most lasting Other Kingdomes last not Quibus evertendis una dies hora momentum sufficit Though they have been many years a raising to their height yet a day an hour a moment is enough to blow them down and lay them level with the ground And while they last they continue not uniform but have their climacterical years and fatal periods Though they grow up like the tree and be Dan. 4. strong and their height reach unto heaven yet there may come an Angel some messenger from heaven and hew down the tree and cut off his branches and scatter his fruit and not leave so much as the stump of its root in the earth Justine hath calculated the three first Monarchies and Sleidan all four and we have seen their beginning and their end But the God of heaven hath set up a Kingdome which shall never be destroyed and it shall break to pieces and consume all those Kingdoms but it self shall stand fast Dan. 2. 44. for ever We will conclude with the Riches of this Kingdome If Money were virtue and earthly Honor salvation if the Jasper were holiness and the Sapphire obedience if those Pearls in the Revelation were virtues then that of our Saviour would be true in this sense also The Kingdome of heaven would be taken by violence The Covetous the Ambitious the Publicanes and Sinners would all be candidati angelorum joynt-suiters and competitors for an angels place Behold then in this Kingdome are Riches which never fail not Money but Virtue not Honor but Salvation not the Jasper and the Sapphire but that Pearl which is better than all our estate For God and the Saints when they speak of Profit and Gain take it not in that
in manu consilii sui in his own hands and disposing yet in his goodness and mercy to his chosen ones he would set bounds to wicked persons that he would shackle though not their wills yet their hands that he would cut off the designs infatuate the counsels scatter the imaginations of all those who like serpents were only born to do mischief and to sin against heaven and earth So much of this point Now that we may say something of that which we call voluntatem praecepti of God's Law and Precept and Command which every where in Scripture is called his Will and indeed doth most of all concern us we will draw and wind up all in this main conclusion That every Christian who will truly say this Petition Thy will be done must bring with him a heart prepared to yield ready obedience to do whatsoever God commands and a chearful patience to suffer what his hand shall lay upon him THY WILL BE DONE is the thing we pray for And that we may do his will God hath opened and revealed his will and made it as manifest as the day Jam autem praecipitur quià non rectè curritur si quò currendum sit nescitur saith St. Augustine He hath taught us before-hand because he runs not well that knows neither his way nor journeys end Therefore God did as it were evaporate and open his will writ his eternal law in our hearts engraved it in tables of stone publisht it by the voice of Angels by the sound of that trumpet which the Evangelists and Apostles did blow declared it fully and plainly that we may run and read it and not turn aside to seek any other rule but conform our selves unto it by a voluntary Obedience which like an hand-maid may wait upon his Will and by an humble and obedient Patience which alwayes hath an eye not upon the blow but the hand that gives it and bows under it when he speaks or when he strikes returns no answer but this FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA Thy will be done This is the sum of this Petition and indeed of all Religion For if we level our actions by that rule which is naturally right we can do no evil and whatsoever befalls us judicio bonitatis ejus accidit saith Hilary befalls us not by chance but by the judicious Providence of Gods goodness and therefore we can suffer no evil And this one would think were enough What can God teach us more than to pray that we may do his will We might now well pass to the next Petition and not once glance upon these words In earth as it is in heaven But the word of God as it is no way defective so hath nothing redundant and superfluous not a versicle not a clause which doth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome which carries not its weight with it and presents us with plenty and riches of wisdome If we do Gods will we can do no more the Angels can do no more Yet if we look upon our selves and reflect a while upon our own tempers and dispositions we shall find that what is in it self enough and sufficient is not enough and sufficient for us and that this clause In earth as it is in heaven was a necessary addition put in by our Saviour by way of caution and prevention It is not enough for us to be taught to pray that we may do God's will we shall fall short in our obedience if we be not taught also the manner how this must be accomplished For we are naturally prone jussa magìs interpretari quà m exsequi to boggle at every duty that is enjoyned and if we be left at loose instead of executing what is commanded to sit down and seek out shifts and evasions and inventions of our own and so to do it by halves to do it as St. Basil saith either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unseasonably or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scantly and not in that measure which is required to content our selves with Agrippa's modicum When indeed we are subjects to every duty we become Justitiaries and set it bounds and limit and restrain it Do his will As Men made up and composed of weakness and infirmities as Men bruised and maimed with the fall of our first parents as Men in terris dust and ashes But sicut in coelis to do the will of God as it is done in heaven our contemplation would never have set it at this altitude Nullum morosius animal est nec majore arte tractandum quam homo saith Seneca There is not a more waiward and curious creature than Man nor to be handled with more art He must be taught not only what to do but how and how far to do it He must be instructed in each circumstance he must have a pattern as well as a duty otherwise he will start and slip aside he will neither do it constantly nor equally he will do it and omit it Were he not taught to do it as it is done in heaven he would not do it at all Were he not commanded to be like the Angels in heaven he would degenerate from himself and become worse than the beasts that perish You see then this clause was not added in vain but is operatoria as the Civilians speak carries with it great force and efficacy And whether we interpret it of the material Spheres quae iterum eunt per quae venerant as Seneca speaks which are alwayes in motion yet never alter their course or of those super-coelestial Powers the Angels those mystical wheels as Dionysius calls them turning themselves about in an everlasting gyre of obedience it must needs lift up our thoughts to this consideration That the performance of Gods will by us must be most exact and perfect heavenly and angelical That we must make it our endeavour to be like them as Angels here on earth who make it our ambition to be equal to them in heaven I will not take those several interpretations I find although I censure none of them especially since none of them swerve from the analogy of faith nor from that doctrine which was delivered to the Saints and all of them are profitable to instruction You may take earth and heaven for the Flesh and the Spirit with St. Cyprian or for Men which are of the earth earthy and those coelestial Orbs for the Just and Wicked with others and thence extract this Christian duty To pray for your enemies All these may be useful and with St. Augustine I condemn no sense upon which any good duty may be raised and built But I rather understand with the same Father by heaven the Angels and by earth Men because the words do best bear it and we cannot take a better pattern than the Angels And in this sense we pray ut sint homines similes Angelis That Men may be as obedient to Gods will here in earth as those
to its reward in the next life Weigh them together and they will prove very light What is a pebble to a diamond the transitory wealth of this world to the treasures of heaven long life to eternity And these we shall have for what we give to the poor by way of exchange And what greater increase can our money bring us in Fac cùm tuis opibus ut unam nubeculam excites saith the Father Try if with all thy wealth thou canst raise a cloud as big as a mans hand but by giving it away thou mayest do greater works than that Thou mayst open the windows of heaven It cannot turn the night into day but being cast away it will be thy harbinger to prepare a place for thee there where there is no night at all I have fallen you see upon a common subject and did intend once to have balked it or but to have toucht upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the way For things common and ordinary do lose their price and credit amongst men and the palate of many hearers is grown so dainty that to speak to them of so common and vulgar a lesson as this seems to be is as if you should set before them cramben bis coctam or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some cold course or ordinary diet the Gibeonites mouldy bread like she Jews Manna which their souls abhorred because it was so common But to take away this error I have learnt to call no useful doctrine common or trivial and that things common and plain are most excellent yea therefore most common and plain because they are most excellent The Jews were wont to give out the books of holy Scripture respectively to the abilities of men Some few were permitted to the vulgar the rest were lockt up to be read only by the learned But this lesson admits no such restraint but lyes equally open to the use of both Besides methinketh the Church of Christ is much degenerated from what it was in ancient times and this word NOSTER generally now-a-dayes mistaken as if it only gave us entry and possession and then stood as a fense about our wealth to keep our brethren off The primitive Christians I am sure did never so understand it and therefore to feed others who were in want was their daily Bread If I should relate unto you the stories of some ancient Saints I fear their Charity and Bounty to the poor though wondred at by all would be followed by none Some it may be would not spare to censure and condemn it as excessive But is it not safer in performing of duties to exceed then to come short Is it not strange that some of them should be more willing to give all they had to the poor then we are to part with our superfluities that they should be so compassionate and liberal in times of tryal and persecution and we so hard-hearted and close-handed in dayes of peace and plenty that Charity which was so hot and active in winter should grow so cold in summer Their alms were hearty and real ours are good words without deeds Depart in peace Be ye warmed and filled or we say Satis est James 2. 16. si corde Deus suspiciatur as the Gnosticks in Tertullian If Religion and Charity be shut up in the heart it is enough outward expressions and ceremonies are needless We read Scriptures for no other purpose but to cull out certain thrifty Texts to pretend unto our Covetousness and Distrust as that Charity begins from it self that He is worse than an Infidel that provides not for his family But as for those other Scriptures that perswade us to be open-handed To lend looking for nothing again Having two coats to part with him that hath none these we can gently pass by as Meteors and airy Speculations and with some shuffling and shifting interpretations remove them out of the way We read that when Amasa wounded 2 Sam. 20. 12 13. by Joab lay in the way wallowing in his bloud the people that followed Joab stood still as they came to Amasa till he was removed out of the way It falls out so with men willing to be Christians and yet unwilling to leave the thriving courses which are common in the world When in their pursuit of gain they meet with these places of Scripture Go sell all thou hast and give to the poor Cast thy bread upon the waters He that forsaketh not all he hath cannot be my Disciple and the like cannot but be much amused start and stand still as it were at Amasa's body Now they who have been the authors of certain mollifying paraphrases and distinctions and restrictions have removed these harsher places of Scripture as it were Amasa's body shut up the fountain of Liberality and made the way clear and open to all our covetous desires We have lately a learned Discourse put into our hands written by Salmasius in defense of Usury But for all I can perceive the best argument he brings is ab incommodo drawn from those inconveniences which will necessarily follow if Usury be not admitted But for my self I confess I have not as yet attain'd to that skill to know how to ground a Truth upon Conveniencie For it is natural to Truth to meet with inconvenience And Martin Luther will tell us Allegatio inconvenientis non tollit argumenta That to alledge inconveniences is not the way to answer arguments nor to build up a conclusion But the reason why I mention Salmasius's book is a strong position I find there and one ground of his Discourse is this Alii mores alia vita esse debuit ecclesiae liberae oppressae That it is not necessary that the practice and piety of the Church then in persecution and now at this day flourishing should be the same That then it was in vain to be careful in gathering of wealth when the enemy stood before their eyes ready to rob and spoil them That our Saviour then especially commended Poverty and Contempt of riches as that which would best consist and comply with the Gospel and Christianity Willing I am to yield him thus much That in respect of outward Government to bring our Church now flourishing in peace back to the same state she was in under persecution is neither necessary nor possible It is as vain an attempt saith Castellio as to bring the Autumn back to the Spring or to make the Spring in Autumn at all times to sow and at all times to reap But in respect of inward Sanctity Piety and Contempt of the world it is the duty of every Christian in this latter age not only to resemble our Fore-fathers and to be like the first Christians but if it be possible to exceed them Lay not up treasures here on earth Care not for the morrow Sell all that you have and give to the poor and many other precepts of the like leaven hath our Saviour delivered us in the Gospel
themselves even in his Wisdom Power and Majesty For why did he create the Universe What moved him to make those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those two lights as Nazianzene calls Angels and Man after his own image It was not that he needed the company of Cherubim and Seraphim or had any addition of joy by hearing of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was not that he needed the ministery of Angels or the obedience of Men. But in mercy hath he made them all and his Goodness it was which did communicate it self to his creature to make him capable of happiness and in some degree a partaker of those glories and graces which are essential to him For having made Man he could not but love and favour the work of his own hands Therefore as in mercy he made him so in mercy he made him a Law the observation of which would have assimilated and drawn him neer unto God and at last have brought him to his presence there to live and reign with him for ever And when Man had broken this Law and so forfeited his title to bliss God calls after him not simplici modo interrogatorio sono as Tertullian speaks not in a soft and regardless way or by a gentle and drowsie interrogation Where art thou Adam but impresso incusso imputativo he presseth it home and drives it to the quick not by way of doubt but imputation and commination Adam where art thou that he might know where he was in what state and danger and so confess his sin and make himself capable of Gods mercy which presented and offer'd it self in this imputation and commination and was ready to embrace him Thus his Mercy prevents us It is first as being saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 natural to him whereas Anger and Hostility to his creature are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quite besides his nature Prior bonitas Dei secundum naturam posterior severitas secundum causam illa edita haec adhibita saith Tertullian Lib. 2. adv Marcion Goodness and Mercy are natural to him Severity forced That is momentany and essential this accidental Mercy follows after us and is more willing to lift us up than we were to fall more willing to destroy Sin than we to commit it more forward to forgive us our sins than we are to put up the Petition REMITTUNTUR TIBI PECCATA Thy sins are forgiven thee is a standing sentence a general proclamation saith Father Latimer to all that will believe and repent The Scripture gives us the dimensions of this Mercy sometimes pointing out to the height of it It reacheth unto heaven sometimes to the depth of it It fetcheth men from the grave and hell it self sometimes to the length of it It hath been ever of old and sometimes to the breadth of it All the ends of the world have seen the salvation of God And all these meet and are at home in this act of Remission of sins Which makes us to understand with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of God which passeth knowledge and fills Eph. 3. 18 19 us with the fulness of God But though the Lord's Mercy be infinite and he be most ready to forgive yet he will not remit our sins unless we repent A lesson never taught in the School of Nature or in the books of the Heathen Quid Cicero quid Seneca de poenitentia What have Tully or Seneca who have written most divinely of other duties and offices of life written of the duty of Repentance Non negamus philosophos juxta nostra sensisse saith Tertullian Many truths Philosophers have delivered of near alliance to those which God himself hath commended to us and in many vertues they may seem to have out-stript the most of Christians But of Repentance they knew no more than this that it was passio quaedam animi veniens de offensa sententiae prioris a certain passion of the mind which checkt men for that which was done amiss and caused them to alter their mind Here all reason and discourse is posed But when the earth was barren and could not yield this seed of Repentance Deus eam sevit God himself sowed it in the world aperuit salutis portam open'd an effectual door of salvation and made it known to all mankind That if men would leave off their sins he would forgive them and accept of true repentance as the only means to wash away the guilt of sin and reconcile the creature to his Maker Now joyn these two together the Mercy of God and his Readiness to forgive and our Repentance which he hath chalkt out unto us as a way to his Mercy and they are a pretious antidote against Despair which so daunts us many times that we are afraid to put up this Petition For Despair is not begot by those sins we have committed but by those which we daily fall into nor so much from want of Faith that God is merciful and true and faithful in all his promises as for want of Hope which hangs down the head when Repentance and Amendment of life yield no juyce nor moisture to nourish it Ask Judas himself and he will tell you there is a God or else he could not despair Ask him again and he will tell you he is true or else he denies him to be God He will tell you of the riches of the glorious mystery of our Redemption and that in Christ remission of sins is promised to all mankind But his perseverance in sin and the horror of his new offences hath weakned and infeebled his hope and forceth him to conclude against himself Ubi emendatio nulla poenitentia nulla Where there is no amendment there is no repentance And though Mercy stand at the door and knock yet if I leave not my sins there must needs follow a weakness and disability so that I shall not be able to let her in But if I forsake my sins the wing of Mercy is ready to shadow me from Despair Et si nudus rediero recipiet Deus quia redii Though I return naked to God he will receive me because I return And if I leave the swine and the husks he will meet me as a Father and bring forth his robe of Mercy to cover me And so I pass from the consideration of Gods Mercies in the Forgiveness of sin to the first particular enquiry What sins they are which we desire may be forgiven And this may seem to be but a needless enquiry For even Nature it self will suggest an answer Men in wants desire a full supply And they who are sick of many diseases do not make it their end to be cured of one malady but to be restored to perfect health In corporibus aegris nihil quod nociturum est medici relinquunt Physicians purge out all ill humors from those bodies which are distemper'd For when one disease is spent another may
place is full of snares full of dangers but as Palladius speaks of the Husbandman Villicus si nolit peccare non facit the spiritual husbandman doth nothing disorderly unless he will No man sinneth or can sin against his will If Sin were not permitted why have we a Will Cur permiserat si intercedat cur intercedat si permiserit saith Tertullian And if there were no tentations to sin how weak would our Obedience be how easie to obey where there is nothing to hinder or retard us The things which are in this world are the good creatures of God and by their first institution served to shew the bounty of God and to provoke Man to thankfulness and to the contemplation and exspectations of those better things which shall never perish Nae Mundus schola magna patet saith the Poet The World is a great School in which we may spend our time with profit and by visible things grow up to the knowledge of those things which are invisible The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his mighty Power Day unto day teacheth knowledge And by these Heavens I may be brought to a view of those new heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness By this temporary Light which when time comes I shall see no more I may learn how to value that light which is everlasting by the Riches of this world what to think of the riches and glory of the Gospel by a span of Time to conceive more rightly of Eternity But then it is as true that this world as it is a School to teach us so is it officina tentationum a Shop full of tentations And we may make it so We may turn these good creatures of God and make the Beauty of the world a snare the Riches and Glory of the world as prickles and thorns and that which is very good a provocation to induce and intice to that which is very evil One said of Rome Talis est qualem quisque velit It is such a place as we will make it And as it is the commendation of our Obedience to stand out against those assaults against the Wine when it is red against Beauty when it smiles against the Pomp of the world when it glitters in our eyes so doth it aggravate our Disobedience if we entertain that as an occasion of sin which indeed in it self is an inducement to virtue if we chuse Gold before the Maker of it a Pearl before the Kingdom it represents and had rather have villam quà m coelum a farm here than a mansion in Heaven There is nothing in the world nothing in our selves which we may not make either good or bad use of a means to avoid and prevent sin or an occasion to commit it That by which we dishonour God by the very same we may glorifie him The Understanding may be as the Sun in the firmament to lead us in our way that we hurt not our foot against a stone and it may be as a Meteor to lead us into by-paths and dangerous precipices till we fall headlong into hell it self The Will may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a shop and workhouse of virtuous actions and it may be a forge of all iniquity The Memory may be a book fairly written with all the characters of goodness and it may be a roul blotted and blurred with lust and uncleanness So then if we seek the true immediate and proper cause of Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must not turn our eyes outward to look abroad either on the Will of God for it is against his will nor on the Devils malice for he can but occasion and promote it nor on those many Tentations which daily assault us for to a resolved Christian they are but as so many atoms and cannot hurt him unless he drink them down But let us search the closet of our hearts and look upon our own Will This is the very womb which conceives that viper that eats it out and destroies it God hath no interest in our sins All he doth is that he permits them And as he permits us to commit them so he permits nay he commands us not to do them Et quid velit Deus non quid permitmittat considerandum saith Cyprian The rule of our Obedience must be this in all the course of our life To consider not what God doth suffer to be done but what he would have us do For as Augustine saith Deus bonitatem suam aliâ voluntate non praevaricatur God doth not prevaricate nor doth he bring in one will to destroy another his will to permit Sin doth not cross that will of his which doth forbid it Let us give God no further interest in our sins than this That as a just and wise Lawgiver he doth barely permit us to fall into those tentations to which when we yield we break that Law and become obnoxious to punishment who by a constant resisistance and withstanding of it Nay he may suffer us to be led into tentations though he call to us to avoid them And this leads me to that which I proposed in the next place That this Permission is not efficacious That it is not necessary for any man to be taken in the snare and to fall into tentation If it were not possible he might fall he could not merit he could do no good and if it were necessary he should fall he could do no evil And yet such an ungrounded position there is and it passeth current amongst many That upon the Permission of Sin it must necessarily follow that sin must be committed For indeed I find they make great use of this word Permission If we read their tractates we shall find that under this one word they cunningly wrap-up Excitation Compulsion and what not Nay they speak it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Sun and the people Deus vult fieri quod facere vetat Deus non semper vult quod se velle significat And again Ab aeterno reprobantur ut indurarentur Some they say there are who are reprobated and cast-away from all eternity that they may be led and shutup into temptation and be hardened And this with them is nothing but Permission We cannot be too wary in our approaches to God and his Majesty nor in our discourses of him De Deo vel seriò loqui periculosum It is dangerous after mature deliberation to speak of him saith the Philosopher But either directly or by way of deduction or consequence to entitle him to our Sins is blasphemy against his infinite Goodness To think that he leads any into tentation is to fashion him out to be like to our own Lusts and to our Adversary who though he be not alone in the work yet alone hath the name of Tempter But now some places of Scripture there are brought-forth which seem to favour this efficacious Permission and to speak no less than that God doth not only permit
Pleasure promises the rest and quiet of the body which cannot be but there where there is no want no corruption Non ex eo quod est fallimur sed ex eo quod non est we are not deceived with that which is and hath a reality and being but with that which is not but only in shew and appearance And the curiosity of fools which catch after shades and apparitions may put me in mind of that knowledge which will make me wise to salvation Their affectation of power may provoke in me a desire of an everlasting kingdom and their love of pleasure a love of that joy which is spiritual and heavenly I may learn skill ab adversario artifice from my adversary observe and watch him and blow him up in his own mine And this is not only to resist him but to lead him in triumph and shew him openly to shew how we have taken his weapons out of his hands and made them instruments of righteousness how his provocation to lust hath holpen to beget a greater hunger and thirst after righteousness his tentations to covetousness have expelled all covetous desires but those of eternity and his pleasing tentations whet and encrease our appetite to those pleasures which are at the right hand of God for evermore This is not to fight with him in his visible shape to try it out at blows with him as some foolish Monks in St. Hieromes time would boast they had done to make themselves a wonder to the people but to fight against him invisible hid and obscured in all his wiles and cunning enterprises to discover what is not seen his craft and malice and make use of what is seen his paint and colours his glorious shews and presentments to kindle our love to that which is really and substantially good This is truly to resist and conquer and tread him under foot This is our glory and this is our duty For indeed our Duty is our glory and that which we call service is the glorious liberty of the sons of God And we shall be the more ready and active to perform it if we duly and exactly enter into consideration of Our selves who are to fight of the temptations which assault us and of God who is a pure and simple Essence and therefore cannot but be sore displeased to see Man so noble a creature thus mingle himself every day with the vanities and trash of this world and sell himself for that which is not bread And first the Knowledge of Our selves is of great force to redeem us from the vanities of the World NOSCE TE IPSUM Hujus praecepti tanta vis tanta sententia est ut ea non cuiquam homini sed Delphico Deo tribueretur saith Tully KNOW THY SELF is a praecept in which is conteined so much virtue and high wisdome that men dare not entitle any man to it but the Delphick God Apollo and make him the author of it For he that knows himself shall soon perceive that he hath something in himself Divine that his Will and Understanding are as an image dedicated and consecrated in him and he will alwaies be doing or thinking something which may be worthy of so great a gift of the Gods And when he hath well viewed and surveyed himself in every part he will quickly observe how richly furnisht Nature hath sent him into the world with what helps and instruments to procure that wisdom which must stile and denominate him a Man which may help him deligere bona reijcere contraria to know and choose that which is good and to reject the contrary though it borrow the same shape and countenance Quam pro nihilo putabit ea quae vulgo ducuntur amplissima How will he slight and look down upon those things which the vulgar admire and have in high estimation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Simplicius KNOW THY SELF it is the command of God that wherein all Philosophy and Goodness begins and ends And so it is the beginning of all Divinity saith Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ask your self the question Who and What you are and search and know your nature and composition Know that thou art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soul and Understanding that thou art made after the image of God that thou art not the Body but the Body is thine and Money and Arts and all that provision for life are not in thee but about thee that thy body is mortal thy soul immortal that there is a double life proposed this life which is a dying life and ends sooner than a tale and that life which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of some affinity to thy soul immortal and not confined and circumscribed by time And if thou attain to this knowledge thou wilt not fix thy mind upon these transitory things as if they were eternal nor despise those everlasting blessings as if they were fading and transitory but give unto thy Flesh that which is due unto thy Flesh dust to dust and ashes to ashes meat to thy belly and cloth to thy back both which shall be destroyed by God but to thy Soul and immortal part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the precepts of piety the exercise of virtue the moderation of thy unruly affections Nor be so over-careful to cloth thy body that the while thou letst thy soul go naked and bare nor provide for the one to destroy the other Advertamus qui simus ipsi ut nos quales oportet esse servemus It concerns us to remember what we are that we may still keep our selves the same which we ought to be If thou beest never so learned never so wise yet thou still wantest something nay the greatest point of wisdome if thou be not wise for thy self For what commendation is it to know all things which are in heaven and earth to be well seen abroad and yet be a meer stranger at home to have an insight in all things but himself Certainly nothing lays us more open and naked to tentations and the vanities of the world than the low esteem we have of our selves For we live as if these vanities were made for us and we for these vanities as if our Eye were made to no other end but to behold vanity our Ear to hearken after it and all our Senses were ordained as so many inlets of Sin as if we were made for nothing else but Sin and were all Flesh and had no Soul at all And what a dishonour is this to the dignity of our nature How doth this irreverence to our selves make us like unto the Beasts that perish nay far worse then they For proprietas ei nominis ubi de innocentia exciderit aufertur saith Hilary Man looseth the propriety of his name when he divides himself from innocency Aut Serpens aut Equus aut Mulus ei nomen est and you may call him Serpent or Horse or Mule Quot peccata tot personarum similitudines saith Hierom As many sins
it should may bring-in universitatem donorum as Tertullian calls it that Academy that world of spiritual gifts and endowments which may be as a court of guard about us to defend and protect us in all our waies against the craft and malice of our enemies may awake our Security which arms our Enemy and remove our Distrust which disarms us ut non metuamus quicquam cavèamus omnia as Tully speaks that we may not neglect our foe nor yet be afraid to meet him that we may fear nothing but yet be shy and suspicious of every thing not fear the approach of a Tentation yet be as cautelous and wary as if it were now at hand Gods All-sufficiency may take my eye from the World and make me look-up upon Him who is the giver of all things His Omniscience may make me not to dare to look toward a Tentation no not in the twilight nor when it comes with the advantage of Secresie And His Jealousie may make me jealous over my self with a godly jealousie that I may present my self as a chast virgin unto God In a word The Knowledge of Our seâ—â—es that we are made according to the image of God of Tentations that they are the baseâ—â— and vilest things in the world and like the Painters shop have veri nihil omnia falsa nothing true in them nothing but colour and shew and lastly of God who is an infinite and glorious Essence who so provides for us that we need not Tentations who looks down upon us that we may not dare to touch them and who is jealous over us and will severely punish us if we cast Him off who onely can truly be said TO BE for Shews for Promises for Nothing for Sin which will make us worse than Nothing These I say driven home and fastned in our hearts by due and frequent meditation may circle us round about and so keep us in on every side so check and restrain us that we may not be led into tentation We have now done with the first part of this Petition The Six and Fourtieth SERMON PART VI. MATTH VI. 13. But deliver us from evil AS we pray not to be led into tentation so we further pray to be delivered from evil For Tentations as they are tentations and no more are not evil to those who are tempted but they are evils inherent and proper to the tempter himself Till they prevail they are the matter and occasion of virtue as well as of vice and alwayes work for the best to those who are strong in the Lord and in the power of his might Non laetatur Daemon cùm affligimur sed cùm succuâ—â—imus The Enemy takes no delight to see us beat upon by Afflictions or woo'd by Pleasures or conversing in the World for here he stands as one doubtful of the victory in a possibility to receive a â—â—il as well as to give one Then he triumphs when Afflictions have driven us from our hold when Pleasures have detain'd us in the way which we walk and are become so gracious unto us as to command our will and affections when we love the world and the things of the world Then he rejoyceth as a conqueror doth when the day is won And this may be the reason why this particle and clause is added not as another Petition different from the former but as an illustration and explication of it For to be delivered from evil takes off all fear and secures us from the force and violence of Tentations Indeed Evil is that which we all naturally shun and to be delivered from it is a part of every mans Litany In the first of Jonah when the storm was high the mariners cryed every man unto his God and awaked Jonah to call upon his The very Heathen sacrificed Diis depellentibus to those Gods whom they thought to have power to drive away the evil which they feared and to free them from danger They had their Goddess Pellonia and their Deos Averruncos therefore so called for turning away evils from them Evil hath but a sad aspect and at the first shew and appearance makes us look about us for succour It is terrible afar off in the very story and picture and representation and moves our affections when it nothing concerns us Augustine tells us that he wept at the very reading of the story of Dido in Virgil. And it is common unto us so to be affected with those evils which others have long since undergone as if they were now in the approach toward us and we our selves in present danger But when Evil comes near us indeed and is ready to seize upon us then it shaketh the whole course of our nature it changeth the countenance it calls-up all the powers of the soul and drives us to consultation When the stormy wind is raised then we cry unto the Lord in our trouble that he may deliver us out of our distress For the very fear of Evil is a kind of distress Satìs malum est apud timentes quicquid timetur Whatsoever is feared is evil enough to them that fear it And in this respect we may admit of St. Basils nice distinction between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between Saving and Delivering For we desire not only to be saved and preserved as men weak and impotent and obnoxious to a fall but to be freed and delivered as men walking in the midst of snares as men already in a kind of captivity And certainly it will be good for us often to represent Evil unto our selves and place it in its full horror before our eyes that having a foretast as it were of it our prayer may be the more hearty and earnest against it to consider what a wound and bruise such a one received how one hath been slain with Luxury and another with Pride how Beauty hath deceived one and Wine mocked another to behold the Devil in his true shape that we may call upon our Father which is in heaven not only to save us in this present life but to deliver us for ever from the Enemy that he devour not our souls as a Lion We have then you see two terms in this clause Evil and Deliverance And if it be evil what can we more properly pray for then for deliverance To draw then the lines by which we are to pass we must consider 1. What is here meant by Evil. 2. What it is we desire when we pray for deliverance And in the first place St. Augustine will tell us that Evil is of no essence at all and Nyssen that it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by any proper subsistence it hath that it is nothing else but a kind of corruption and perversion of that manner and order which Nature hath set down and prescribed It was the great business of many years in the times of our fore-fathers to find-out the original fountain from whence it springs The
rest and sleep as ours quasi per quasdam ferias as the Father speaks as by so many daies of vocation and rest but every moment they observe things and every moment draw new conclusions and every moment collect and infer one thing out of another Besides as Tertullian tells us momento ubique sunt their motion and apprehension is swift and sudden Totus mundus illis locus unus est The whole world is to them but as one place and what is done in every place they soon know in any place We do not meet them as Hippocentaurs but we meet them as Tyrants We cannot say we have seen the Devil in the shape of a Fox but yet we are not ignorant of his wiles and crafty enterprises And though his hand be invisible when he smites us for he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an incorporeal hangman as Chrysostom calls him yet we may feel him in our impatience and falling from God What speak we of the possession of our body when it is too manifest that he possesses our soul For do we see a man with a mouth like a sepulchre and a tongue like a rasor with a talking eye and a restless hand starting at the motion of every leaf drooping at the least breath of affliction amazed at the sight of white and red colour stooping at every clod of earth transported at every turn of his eye afraid where no fear is mourning for the absence of that which will hurt him and rejoycing at that stoln bread which will be as gravel between his teeth Do we see him sometimes fall into the water and sometimes into the fire sometimes cold and stupid and anon active and furious we may well conclude and account him as one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who are possest with a Devil That he insinuates himself into the Soul of Man that being of so subtile an essence he works upon the Spirits by inflaming or cooling upon the Phansie by strange representations making it a wanton and on the Understanding by presenting of false light and sending-in strong illusions it is plain and evident and we need not doubt But the manner how he worketh is even as invisible as himself and therefore it were a great vanity to enquire after it Stultum est calumniam in eo inquisitionis intendere in quo comprehendi quod quaeritur per naturam suam non potest saith Hilary It is a great folly to run-on in the pursuit of the knowledge of that which before we set forth we know we cannot attain And therefore saith the Father Nemo ex me scire quaerat quod me nescire scio nisi fortè ut nescire discat quod sciri non posse sciendum est Let no man desire to know of me that which I know I cannot know unless peradventure he would learn to be ignorant of that which he must know he cannot but be ignorant Let others define and determine and set-down what manner they please we may rest upon that of St. Augustine Facilius est in alterius definitione videre quod non probem quà m quicquam bene definiendo explicare In this point it is easier to refute anothers opinion than to establish our own and to shew that the Devil doth not work thus than plainly to set-down and say Thus he works It is enough for us to know that as God is a friend so the Devil is an enemy as God inspires good thoughts so the Devil inspireth evil that he can both smite the body and wound the soul that he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaks divers and various operations and can alter with the occasion that he knows in what breast to kindle Lust into what heart to pour the venom of Envy whom to cast-down with Sorrow and whom to deceive with Joy that his snares are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of many shapes and forms which he useth to draw-on that sin to which he sees man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most inclinable and prone and gives every man poyson in that which he best loves as Agrippina did to Claudius her husband in Mushromes Now to proceed The Reasons why the Devil thus greedily thirsts after the ruine and destruction of Mankind are derived from his Hatred to God and his Envy to Man His first wish which threw him down from heaven was To be a God and being fallen he wished in the next place that there should be no God at all willing to abolish that Majesty which he could not attain Odium timor spirat saith Tertullian Hatred is the very breath of Fear We never begin to hate God till we haâ—e committed something for which we have reason to fear him And the Devil being now in chains of everlasting darkness doth hate that Light which he cannot see And because God himself is at that infinite distance from him that his Malice cannot reach him he is at enmity with whatsoever hath being and essence and conservation from God or is answerable and agreeable to his will but especially with Man because God hath past a gracious decree to save him and put him in a fair possibility of the inheriâ—â—nce of that heaven from whence he was thrown down He manifests his hâ—â—â—ed to God in hating his Image which he doth labour to deface now blurring it with Luxury anon with Pride and every day bespotting it with the world striving to destroy that new-creature which Christ hath purchast with his bloud just as some Traitours have used to stab their Prince in his picture or as the poor man in Quintilian who not able to wreak his anger on the person of his rich and powerful enemy did solace himself in whipping his statue And as the Devils Hatred to God so his Envy to Man enrageth him For through envy of the Devil came sin into the world It is Bernards opinion that Man was created to supply the defect of Angels in heaven and to repair that breach which their fall had made in the celestial Jerusalem But most probable nay without question it is that the Devil with his hellish troop are therefore so fiery and hot against us because they see and are verily perswaded that those men whom they cannot withdraw from obedience to God shall by the power of Christ be raised to that height of glory from which he and his Angels were cast-down and shall in a manner supply their place in heaven whilst they lay bound in chains of everlasting darkness And therefore though he gave Man a fall in Paradise yet he still envieth his hope as Timagenes was grieved when he saw Rome on fire because he knew it would be built-up fairer than it was before it was burnt Quoniam emulari non licet nunc invidet as he speaks in Plautus Because he cannot emulate us in our rise he envies us and that happiness which he cannot make the object of his Hope he makes the object of his Malice as they who are tumbled
from some high place catch at all they meet by the way not for help but to pull it after them For that is true which the Oratour hath observed Naturali quodam deploratae mentis affectu monentibus gratissimum est commori It is incident to men of deplored and desperate minds if they see they must perish to desire to fall with company This makes the Devil so raging an enemy and is not more his sin than his punishment Invidiâ enim magis acâ—â—nditur quà m Gehennâ saith Cyprian For he is more tormented with this envy than with the fire of Hell For Envy and Malice though their eye be outward yet their sting is inward And as it was said of Tarquine in Livy That it was no wonder si qualis in cives qualis in socios talis in ultimum in liberos esset In seipsum postremò saeviturum si alia desint that that cruelty he shewed to his citizens and to his allies and confederates he did at last exercise upon his own children For where matter should be wanting for his Malice to work upon he would be cruel to himself So though the Malice of the Devil setteth it self against God first and then against his creature though he wish there were no God and would destroy Mankind though his Malice walk along with him and compass the whole earth yet it resteth in himself and is a great part of that torment which he endureth St. Jude v. 6. tells us that the Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation were reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day Which Angels are no other than those which are afterwards called the devil and his Angels Who though they have a Kind of principality of power in the air and do abide there for so we must understand those celestial high places yet Ephes 6. notwithstanding are reserved under darkness if we compare it with that light from which they are fallen And although they run to and froâ— in this inferiour and sublunary world yet they may be said to be reserved in chains because they can never be admitted to that highest heaven from whence they were driven St. Bernard conceives that the Devil hangs in the air and to his grief and torture observes the Angels descending and ascending by him and seeing what gifts descend from above from the Father of lights on â—â—e children of men and what incense smoaks upwards what prayers every day beat at the gates of heaven is torn and tormented with envy and malice which make him fierce and cruel against us For that of the Stoick is most true Omnis ex infirmitate feritas est All malice and cruelty and all violent proceedings proceed from want and infirmity from fear or some such low passion in us Non jam Lucifer sed Tenebrifer saith Bernard He is not now a son of light but of darkness The Angels which fell not are loving ready to minister and do many good offices to us but he that is fallen into the lake of Brimstone goes about seeking to devour us quorum obtinere non potest mortes impetit mores saith Leo and if he cannot kill our bodies he makes it his study to destroy our souls Est insita malevolentia quaedam facultas nocendi istis malis spiritibus Gaudent de malo hominum de fallacia nostra si nos sefellerint pascuntur saith Augustine There is a kind of inbred malevolence and activity in hurting in these evil Spirits They rejoice when men suffer and if they can put a cheat upon us they are fed as at a feast From hence those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cogitations of Satan those treble doors those inventions and engines of his those wiles and crafty enterprises For ingenium de malitia sumit saith Tertullian his malice makes him witty and subtle For without Malice his Subtlety were not hurtful and without Subtlety his Malice would have no edge For Malice is an active and consultative thing busie and industrious to compass its end It looketh about the object it searcheth out means it knows both quid faciat and quando faciat it knoweth the thing to be done and the opportunity of doing Daily experience may teach us what mighty things it brings to pass and how often it frustrates the greatest providence A malicious enemy is the more dangerous and makes his way with more ease because he useth to gild it over and commend it with a shew of love and is like fire coverd over with ashes which is not seen till it burns us The Devil like Caligula in the story could wish that all Mankind had but one neck that he might cut it off at a blow But being not able to destroy all at once he steals the victory by degrees as men covetous of other mens possessions and not able to gain them by open violence are fain to call their wits to counsel and forced to use tricks of legerdemain And these qualities of the Devil his Malice and Envy and Subtlety we have plainly exprest in those names which are given him by the holy Ghost in Scripture Where he is stiled an Adversary alwaies resisting the will of the Lord an Accuser leading us to those Sins which will cry aloud against us a Serpent because he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of turnings and windings various and manifold in his operations and full of deceit a Lion because as a hungry Lion he walks up and down to find out his prey which he may devour and roars against us to fright us from that course of sanctity which leads unto happiness In a word that we may invert St. Pauls words he is made all unto all that he may destroy all Nomina mille mille nocendi artes He hath a thousand names and a thousand waies to hurt us and to express these many waies he hath his diversity of names and all this for our sakes that we may make due preparation against so cunning and potent an enemy that though he accuse us we may stand upright though he be an Adversary he may not prevail though he roar like a Lion he may not be heard though he flatter as the Serpent he may not deceive But then these are but expressions and cannot character him out in his full horrour Semper citra veritatem est similitudo saith Tertullian The image and representation alwaies comes short of the truth The Devil may be an Adversary but in the highest degree an Accuser but one who is instant and urgent and will not be answered like a Serpent but more crafty than the Serpent like a Lion but more fierce a great deal and devouring than the beast In omnibus veritas imaginem antecedit The Truth is alwaies before and beyond the image which shews it All which may teach us to stand upon our guard to look about us as the Father speaks mille oculis with a thousand
eyes to be strong in the faith that we may contemn this Adversary to keep the innocency of the Dove to shut-up the mouth of this Calumniator and to have the wisdom of the Serpent that we may be wise unto salvation and defeat all his plots and enterprises and to put-on that Christian fortitude and resolution which may deliver us out of the mouth of this Lion that though he be a Serpent he may but flatter and though he be a Lion he may but roar that so at last we may triumph over this Evil this Wicked one this malicious Enemy and tread him under our feet We shave shut up and concluded all evil in him who is the Father of Evil We have considered him as an Enemy to mankind and Why he is so We descend now to discover some Stratagems of his which he useth to bring his enterprises to pass by which he leads us through the wayes of Truth into error and by Virtue it self to those vices which will make us like unto him And here we have a large field to walk in And should we follow those who have gone before us in this way we might run our selves out of breath Gerson hath writ a Tract of purpose De diversis Diaboli Tentationibus Of divers Tentations of the Devil by which he instills his poyson into our hearts Many he hath numbred-up to our hands and he might have brought us twice as many more We shall make choice of those which most commonly abuse us because they are less observable For what the Orator speaks of Tempests may be truly said of the Devils Tentations Saepe certo aliquo coeli signo saepe ex improviso nulla ex certâ ratione obscurâ aliquâ causâ commoventur Sometimes we have some certain indications of them from certain signs in the heavens sometimes they are raised on a sudden from some obscure and hidden cause nor can we give any reason of them So some tentations are gross and palpable some more secret and invisible But as the Magicians when they saw the Lice presently cryed out This is the finger of God so when we see the effects of Exod. 8. 19. these Tentations that swarm of sins which they produce we cannot be so blind as not to discover and confess that the finger or rather the claw of the Devil is in them For let him put-on what shape he please let him begin how he will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene he alwayes ends in evil Two evils he strives to sow in the heart of Man Error and Sin and being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil calls him that great and invisible Sophister of the world he makes use of those means to bring them in which are in their own nature preservatives against them turneth our antidote into poyson and our very light into darkness and so cunningly leads us on in the way to destruction as withal to perswade us that we are making haste to meet with Truth and Happiness Nor can we think that this proceeds meerly from the corruption of our nature or from some predominant humor in us which may sway and bow us down from the check and command of Reason For to a reasonable man it is a kind of tentation not to believe that any should be forc't thus far from themselves as to forget their Reason But admiscet se malitiae Angelus totius erroris artifex that evil and malitious Angel that forger of all error joyns and mingleth himself with our temper and inclination Fallitur fallit depravatus errorem pravitatis infundit His Pride deceived him and his Malice makes him the father of lyes and so he transforms himself into an Angel of light to make us like unto himself the children of darkness and error St. Paul calls these his tentations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which St. Ambrose interprets ASTUTIAS deceits Sedulius VERSUTIAS wiles and shiftings Tertullian INJECTIONES injections or casting of snares and Erasmus COGITATIONES crafty thoughts by which he pretends one thing and intends another as we commonly say of a subtile and deceitful man that he is full of thoughts thinking to please and thinking to hurt and studying so to please that he may hurt You may take St. Pauls instance 2 Cor. 2. where the Corinthians to uphold the severity of their Discipline had almost forgot their Christianity Charity and Compassion and to defend one good duty had endangered another and were so severe to the incestuous excommunicate person that they had almost swallowed him up the Apostle tells them that if they thus proceeded Satan would gain an advantage over them For most plain it was that this was one of his devices Tertullian will tell us Invenit quomodo nos boni sectationibus perdat nihil apud eum refert alios luxuriâ alios continentiâ occidere The Devil knows how to throw us on the ground even in our hottest pursuit of that which is good He destroys some with luxury and wantonness others with continence some with too much remissness and flackness in discipline others with too much severity And when we follow close and run after one virtue he so works it many times that we leave another behind us as saving and necessary as that Thus doth he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come about us hunt and search-out the occasions and opportunities to draw us to evil from goodness it self Omnia obumbrat lenociniis He shadows over evil with some colourable good When he sells his wares and commodities he doth not disclose what vice and imperfection they have he doth not proclaim as there was a law in Rome Pestilentem domum vendo I sell an infectious house He doth not let us know that this our Thrift is Covetousness this our irregular Zeal Madness this our Assurance Presumption but with the beauty of the one covers over the deformity of the other and makes Thrift a provocation to covetousness Zeal an abettor and patron of faction and our duty to make our election sure a kind of motive and inducement to perswade us it is so And this his art and method is observable both in the errors of our Understanding and in those of our Will both in our Doctrine and Conversation And first what monstrous errors have been embraced in the Christian Church what ground have they got how many ages have they passed as current coin which if you look nearer upon them have no other image nor superscription but his who is the Father of lyes who is well skill'd veritatem veritate concutere to shake and abolish one truth with another I will not urge the proposing doubtful things as certain and building up those opinions for articles of Faith which have no basis or foundation in Scripture I will not speak of adding to the rule either by way of gloss or supply I will not complain with the Father Latè quaeruntur incarta latius disputantur obscura that those things
an episcopal an overseeing Eye an Eye watchful and careful to keep evil at a distance or else to order and master it to summon a Synod in our soul to raise up all the forces and faculties we have to make canons and constitutions against it and to say unto it as God doth to the Sea Thus far shalt thou go and no further to say unto Poverty comming towards us like an armed man It may strip us naked but it shall not make us desolate It may thrust us into prison but it shall not shut us in hell It may drive us about the world but it shall not banish us from God This Beauty which flourisheth in my eye shall wither in my heart and for flattering my Sense shall be disgraced by my Reason These Riches shall buy me but food and rayment They shall not be employed by my Phansie to attend upon Gluttony or Wantonness or Revenge Nor will I lay them out upon that purchase whose appurtenance is Damnation And this is our humane Providence which in some degree is proportioned to the Providence of God Which consists of these two parts his Wisdom and his Power His Wisdom runneth very swiftly through the world and sees what is to be done and his Power at his word is ready to do it Thus is our spiritual Providence made up of these two Wisdom to see and foresee evil and a firm resolution to avoid it If you ask me What is the light of the body It is the Eye What is the Eye of the Soul It is this Wisdom And if you ask me Wherein our great strength lyeth I cannot shape you a fairer answer then to tell you In Resolution Quicquid volui illico potui What I will do what I resolve to do is done already These two our Wisdom to discern and our Resolution to chuse or reject make us wise as Serpents and bold as Lions as Serpents against the old Serpent the Devil and as Lions against that roaring Lion that seeks to devour us By our Wisdom we defeat his craft by our Resolution we abate his strength And greater is he that is in us then he that is in the world But now because our Eye-sight is dim and our Fore-sight not great and our Oversight slender and imperfect and all our strength but Resolution and our Resolutions many times but faint we look-up unto him who dwelleth with Wisdom who is Wisdom it self and knoweth all things and to that God of Hosts who doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth who telleth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names who telleth the number of our hairs so that not one of them can fall without his will who telleth the number of our tears and lets not one fall beside his bottle who calleth things that are not as if they were who when there is plenty bringeth-in a famine and when famine hath broken the staff of bread as he goes drops fatness who sees every thing in its causes operations effects ends what it is what it may be what it doth what it may do the works of all flesh saith the Son of Sirach the intents of all men the thoughts of all hearts the motions and inclinations of all creatures nay that which we call Chance and Fortune is before him He can deliver us with means and he can deliver us without means Our trust only is in him For without him alass our Knowledge is full of ignorance We cannot tell what will be the next day the next hour the next moment We know not how to propose any thing to our selves and when we have proposed it we are to seek how to execute it because there are many impediments divers changes and chances of this mortal life the knowledge and disposing of which comes not within the reach of humane Providence And as men in the bottom of a Well are able to see no greater space of the heavens then the compass of the well so neither can we see more then the bounds which are set us will give leave The Eye sees to such a distance but then it fails And we see no further then our humane frailty will permit we see something near us something about us yet many times we stumble even at noon-day at that which was visible enough I am but Man not God and have not the perfect knowledge of Good and Evil. And my Power is not great The largest power that is is sub regno under a greater power For have I an arm like God or can I thunder with a voice like him And then my Patience which is the best fense I have against evil is but froward For is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh of brass And therefore we look-up unto the hills from whence cometh our salvation upon God himself who sees all actions all casualties all events to whom things past and things to come are present who seeth all things ad nudum as the Schools speak naked as they are and can set-up this to pull-down that cross this intent that it never come into action or cross the intent in the action by driving it to a contrary end to that which was proposed Who when we offend can hiss for the fly for forreign incumbrances and when we repent can make our very enemies our friends Who is wonderful in all his works and whose wayes are exalted above ours as far as the heaven is above the earth But this doth not sufficiently express it Isa 55. For they are infinitely exalted farther then the Heaven is above the Earth But the Prophet could not better express it then by such a distance then which we know no greater That we may not rob God of his honour nor sacrifice to our own nets or clap our hands and applaud our selves in our imaginations and say Is not this Babel which I have built It is my right hand that hath done it That I was not taken in a snare it was my Will That I beat my enemies as small as the dust before the wind it was my Valour That every sensible evil made me not truly evil it was my Free-will This is a greater evil and more dangerous then all those which we avoided This is a glance of the Devils dart in his flight to overthrow us with our victory Therefore as we confess our selves to be under Gods Dominion and commit our selves to his Protection so must we attribute all JOVI LIBERATORI to Him who is the great Deliverer from evil not give him part but all not make him our Partner but our Lord. Nemo saith the Father à Deo se adjuvari vult sed salvum fieri We do not desire help only at Gods hand but we desire to be saved by him That which is the subject of our Prayer must be the burden of our Song If we pray for Salvation we must imitate those who stood before the Throne who though they had Palms
his cross that we might lift up our Hearts and so lift him up again and present him to his Father Who for his sake when he sees him as the Ark lifted up will bring mighty things to pass will scatter our Sins which are our greatest enemies and separate them from us as far as the East is from the West And though they be as the Smoke of the bottomless pit he will drive them away and though they be complicated and bound together as wax into a kind of body he will melt them and deliver us from this body of Death For what Sin of ours dares shew it self when this Captaine of ours shall arise Let God arise that is the first verse of this Psalm that is our Prayer And let us conclude with the Psalm in Thanksgiving and ascribe the strength unto God saying His excellency is over his Israel to deliver them from their Enemies and to deliver them from their Sins and his Strength is in the clouds O God thou art terrible in thy holy places The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power to his people against the machinations of Men and against the wills of the Devil against sinful Men and against Sin it self Blessed be God And let all the people say AMEN The Fifteenth SERMON Gen. III. 12. And the man said The Woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree and I did eat WE have here the antiquity of Apologies we find them almost as ancient as the World it self For no sooner had Adam sinned but he runneth behind the bush No sooner had our first parents broken that primor dial Law as Tertullian calleth it which was the womb and matrix of all after-laws but they hide themselves Vers 8. amongst the trees of the Garden and as if they had made a covenant and agreement they joyntly frame excuses The Man casteth it off upon the Woman and in effect upon God himself The Woman gave it me and Thou gavest me the Woman and thus he lyeth down and sleepeth and is at rest The Woman removeth it from herself upon the Serpent The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat So that now Vers 13. God having made inquisition for the fact neither Adam nor Eve are returned but the Serpent nay indeed God himself who maketh the Inquiry is charged as a party and accessory The Man did eat because the Woman gave and God gave the Woman and Adam thinketh himself safe behind this bush And therefore as Adam hideth himself from God so doth God return his folly upon his own head and seemeth to seek him as if he were hid indeed Adam where art thou in a kind of ironie he acteth the part of an ignorant person he calleth as at a distance and seemeth not to know him who was so unwilling to be known Or if we take Tertullian's interpretation Adv. Marcion l. 2. we must not read it simplici modo id est interrogatorio sono UBI ES ADAM as a plain and easy and kind interrogation WHERE ART THOU ADAM sed impresso incusso imputativo ADAM UBI ES but as a sharp and smart demand as a demand with an imputation ADAM WHERE ART THOU that is jam non hic es Thou art not here not where thou wast not in paradise not in a state of immortality but in a state of perdition in a state of corruption never more open and naked then in the thicket and behind the bush This was not quaestio but vagulatio as it is called in the XII Tables All the thick trees in the Garden could not conceal Adam and keep him from the eyes of his God but thus God was pleased to question his folly with some bitterness and scorn It is the first question that was ever put to Man And we may be sure all is not well when God asketh questions His Laws his Precepts his Counsels yea his Comminations are all delivered per rectam orationem by a plain and positive declaration of his mind HOC FAC ET VIVES Do this and live Luk. 10. 23 If thou eatest of the forbidden fruit thou shalt dic the death What he commandeth Gen. 2. 17. to be done he supposeth will be done and never beginneth to ask questions till our Disobedience questioneth his Law Then he proceedeth against us ex formula in a kind of legal and judiciarie way When the Angels fall he calleth after them How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer Isa 14. 12. son of the morning and when Adam is in the thicket he seeketh him Adam where art thou A question one would think of force to plow up his heart and to rend it in pieces that so his sin might evaporate and let it self out by an humble confession a question sufficient one would think to fill his soul with sorrow horrour and amazement But though Adam were now out of the thicket he was behind the bush still He striveth to hide himself from God when he is most naked and speaketh of his Fear and of his Nakedness but not at all of his Sin I heard thy voice saith he in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid my self He Gen. 3. 10. was sensible not of the breach of the Law but of his nakedness It was the voice of God that frighted him not his transgression We commonly say Suam quisque homo rem bene meminit that every man hath a good memorie for that which concerneth him Only Sin which is properly ours and whereof we are the proprietaries to which we can entitleneither God nor the Devil nor any other creature but our selves we are unwilling to own and to call ours Ours it is whilst it is in committing on it we spend and exhaust ourselves we prostitute our wills we give up our affections we sell our selves all the faculties of our souls and all the parts of our bodies we woe it we wait for it we purchase it But when it is committed we cast it from us we look upon it as upon a bastard issue we strive to raize it out of our memories we are afraid when we are deprehended we deny when we are accused when we are questioned our to answer is an excuse Nolumns esse nostrum quia malum agnoscimus Ours we will not call it because we know it to be evil One would think that Excuse were the natural offspring of Sin or rather that Sin and Excuse were twins Omne malum pudore natura suffundit No sooner hath Sin stained the soul but shame dieth the face with a blush The Philosopher will tell us that shame is nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fear of just reprehension which to avoid we seek out many inventions We run behind the bush and when the voice of God calleth us from thence we make a thicket of our own a multitude of excuses where we think our selves more safe then amongst all