such persons were in and partly the honour and happiness of such an entertainment would compell them to come in Upon this account God propounds not only pardon of sin but all the forementioned inestimable benefits to repenting sinners as well as to those just men that need no repentance AND although it be certain that God hath neither such need of men's service as to oblige him to resort to these great inducements and it be also very true that there are but a small number of those that make up the Quire in glory who upon such motives were converted from extream debauchery yet such is the graciousness of the good Shepherd that he carries the lost Sheep home on his Shoulders rejoicing and such is the goodness of God that he sticks not at this price for the redemption of any one Soul Besides it is to be considered that as we noted from the Historian formerly Difficile est in tot humanis erroribus solâ innocentiâ vivere that though no good Subject will voluntarily transgress the laws of his Country and fall into the displeasure of the Prince yet the most wary and inoffensive person that is most secure of his own integrity would desire to live under such a government where there was room for mercy and pardon if he should offend and the best of men are so sensible of the power of temptation and the slipperiness of their station as well as conscious of their own sincerity that they are marvellously comforted and incouraged by this admirable grace and goodness of God to sinners AND whereas the fear of Hell may be thought sufficient both to reclaim sinners from their evil ways and to preserve good men from apostasy we shall find upon due consideration that fear let it be of what object it will is neither so lasting a principle nor so potent and effective a motive as hope for this last raises generosity inflames the mind spirits all the powers despises or glories in difficulty and therefore all wise men imploy this Engine especially in all great enterprizes and indeavour to make men's hopes greater then their fears and so order the matter that those they employ may have a prospect of so great a good by success in their attempts as shall outweigh all their apprehensions of difficulty or danger in the atchievement And this will be the more remarkable if we observe in that famous encounter of David with Goliah the Giant of Gath that although there was doubtless some extraordinary impulse upon David's heart to undertake that business yet the holy Text intimates that he listned to the discourses of the people and was inflamed by the general assurance was given him of a mighty and glorious reward to him that should effect it Since therefore the proposition of great and glorious hopes is so necessary not only to draw men off from the present allurements of sin and to dissolve the charms of sense which habituate sinners are bound in but also to comfort and incourage even good men themselves and to ingage both the one and the other in a generous course of vertue the Divine Majesty considering he hath to do with men and resolving to deal with them agreeably to their natures thinks it as well becoming his wisedom as his goodness not only to proclaim impunity to his rebels upon their submission but to assure them of the highest favours and preferments in the Court of Heaven 2. SECONDLY the extream difficulty and consequently the wonderfull rarity of examples of great sinners recovered to sincere piety makes such happy accidents deserve to be solemnized with the greater joy and triumph St. Gregory Nazianzen making an oration in commemoration of St. Cyprian as well reports his flagitious life before his conversion to Christianity as his admirable vertues and piety afterwards and makes the former a shadow to heighten and set off the latter For saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is nothing so great a matter to maintain the Character of a good man when a man hath once attained to it as to begin a whole new course of piety for now the one is but to be like a man's self and to pursue a custom or habit but the other requires a vertuous choice and a manly resolution able to bear down former habits and therefore there are but few examples of the one but many of the other INDEED it is an unspeakable advantage to be early ingaged in the ways of vertue for then by reason of the easiness of doing good which is consequent of custom a man seems to be under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a divine fate a peculiar predestination to happiness and therefore if it be well considered there is nothing in all a man's whole life that he hath greater reason to thank God for then that good providence of his which takes hold of our tender years and forms them to a sense of Religion for hereby sin is made dreadfull to our Consciences and upon the matter vertue is as easy as vice and the narrow way to Heaven as ready to our feet as the broad way of destruction But on the other side Revocare gradus hic labor hoc opus to reduce an old dislocation is very painfull to put off the old man to change customs to cast out Satan out of his old possession must be very difficult and require a very brave and generous resolution AND although to omnipotent power all things are alike easy yet forasmuch as God not only speaks after the manner of men but also proceeds ordinarily by the course of natural causes and doth not supersede their activity but assist them proportionably to their natures it must needs notwithstanding the divine grace be a very difficult thing to recover an old and deplored sinner in whom all the powers of the mind are enfeebled the sense of Conscience stupified and the very Synteresis and natural notions of the Soul are corrupted and consequently a through reformation of such a person is like to life from the grave and must needs draw after it not only the eyes and admiration of men but also the vexation of Hell and make the Devil rage as disappointed of the prey he thought himself sure of but especially must produce joy in Heaven and amongst the holy Angels IT can indeed be no surprizal to Almighty God who foreknows all things from the beginning and is as far from admiration as from mutability of passions both which proceed from shortness of understanding nor to our Lord Jesus Christ now in glory for we see that whilst he was upon earth he knew when vertue-proceeded from him to cure the woman of her inveterate distemper But whereas men are wont to make some passionate expressions of their resentment of every new and admirable event God thinks fit also in such an extraordinary recovery as this we are speaking of to set up a monument crowning him that overcomes the aforesaid difficulties with immortal glory
gratification the little time of pleasure and the long hours of shame and repentance the dull relish of the bodily Senses to the quick and pungent sense of the Mind and Conscience we shall be put out of doubt and assured of the unreasonableness of such a course But if we consider withall the severe denunciations of the Almighty the inconsistency of such a course with any interest in the joys of another life the no compare between a fools paradise of sesuality and the felicities of the Kingdom of Heaven we cannot pronounce of such a man as notwitstanding all these considerations shall give himself up to these bruitish passions otherwise then that he hath forfeited his reason forgoing his greatest interests for the veriest trifle and selling his birthright for a mess of pottage THE like may be said of Drunkenness To see a man tunn up himself like a barrel and fill his head with froth which his tongue discharges again to see a mans face deformed his eyes staring his feet faultering his motions antick his thoughts open and undecent his speech much and reason little And herewith to observe his estate poured down a common sewer and his credit and reputation utterly ruined but above all his Soul indangered to come into everlasting burnings and all this for the love of drink who can chuse but in his thoughts score up such a man as fit for Bethlehem LET us take only one instance more and that shall be in that passion which hath gotten the name from all the rest I mean Anger Every man knoweth that health is best preserved by calmness and evenness of mind that mens interest is best secured by gentleness and an obliging temper their safety by cession and placableness that reason is highest when rage is down that business is best carried on by the most sedate prosecution insomuch that no men count him wise whom they observe to be violent nor do they think those to be valiant that they see huff and swagger Besides passion disguises a man's very countenance dries up his body brings wrinkles upon his face gray hairs upon his head hollowness of eyes withers and destroys him It puts him upon the most foolish shamefull and dangerous adventures which at the same time it usually renders him impotent to effect or if he effect them he only makes matter for his own repentance as long as he lives or it may be work for the Executioner to shorten his unhappy days Above all it is contrary to the nature of God who is a God of peace to the temper of the blessed Jesus who was an example of meeknesse and patience it utterly unfits a man for the peacefull and amicable society of Saints and Angels in the Kingdom of Heaven and disposes him for the horrid fellowship of fell and desperate Fiends in the regions below All which things considered when we see a man boil with choler foam with rage pale with envy and indulging himself in this humour what can we say or think of this man but that he hath lost the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very principles of manhood BUT perhaps it may be said that all this while we have but maintained a Stoical Paradox and for all this that hath been said vicious men cannot be reputed mad because upon other occasions we see many of them give proof of wit and parts To which I answer that neither do I in all this intend to intimate that they are in all respects mad though it were well for many of them that it were strictly true But when men shall betray the most egregious folly and act the most extravagantly in the matters of greatest moment I may leave it to themselves in their sober moods to judge what name they ought to be called by whatever ingenie they may discover in lesser occasions Besides neither is it the condition of all those that are acknowledged mad to do nothing soberly or ingeniously all or most have their Lucid intervals and there are some in whom the humour betrays it self in some peculiar instances onely Melancholici quoad hoc as they say Talk with them in the general and they are like other men but touch upon some peculiar point and they rave presently So it is with these men we speak of As to common conversation and the affairs of the world they may be ingenious and perhaps in some repartee or other trifle by reason of the heat of their Spirits aforesaid beyond other men but as to the businesse of their Souls and Eternity they have no manly sense at all And indeed there is nothing can be more pat to verify what I have been saying then this very circumstances for when men that otherwise have sense and understanding in lesser matters shall be so extreamly absurd in that which especially requires the most manly proceedings it is the very Symptom that we have been all this while describing WHICH being so the consequence is that in the first place it is an absurdity next to theirs to follow the counsell or example of such men The Psalmist makes it the first step to felicity not to stand in the counsel of the ungodly Will any man think it reasonable to imitate the mad freaks of a Bedlam because he sees him jolly and brisk when he plays them no more let any man incourage himself in wickednesse because he sees the high rants of sinners rather let him say in the words of our Saviour Father forgive them they know not what they doe Fools they are with a witnesse that make a mock of sin little do they think how ill this jollity becomes them and lesse do they forethink what will be the end of such courses NOR let the authority of the number or quality of such persons bear us down for folly is folly let who will be the Patron of it Can precedent change the nature of things is there any prescription against reason will publick vogue justify Conscience or multitude of voices carry it against God Unlesse wicked men could not only efface the principles of their own minds and Consciences but also remove the Pillars of the world change the course of nature and by a Gigantick enterprize wage war against and conquer Heaven i. e. force the Almighty to alter his opinion repeal his laws and revoke his threatnings sin will everlastingly be folly and perseverance therein madnesse in spight of multitude fashion custome and example Shall I therefore follow their examples that thwart God that contradict their own Consciences whom all men at least tacitly condemn even those that bruitishly and sillily are lead by them Shall I make those my guide who have so little foresight as not to see beyond the short stage of life Shall I make them my Counsellors that make so foolish a bargain as to give eternal life in exchange for momentany pleasure that have so bad memories as to forget they have immortal Souls or so little reason as to think there is no
men or rather as much as the advantages of Christianity out-went those of Philosophy For this man is not only improved by humane discourse but raised by divine revelation and governed by the wisedom of God is not under the faint and fluctuating hopes which reason can suggest but under the assurances of faith is not only eminent for some one or more vertues but being inflamed by the love of God and the prospect of Heaven he breaths nothing but greatness and glory wherever he goes God is in his heart Heaven is in his eye joy in his countenance and he spreads the sweet odours of piety and casts a lustre upon Religion FOR in the first place he is sanctified throughout the image of God is restored upon him and Christ Jesus formed in him All the maims of his fall are cured the confusion of his powers rectified the tyranny of custom vanquished his Conscience is inlightned his reason raised his passions subdued his will set right and all the inferiour powers obedient Vertue is made natural easy and delightfull to him and it is his meat and drink to doe the will of his Heavenly Father FURTHERMORE to assure his station he is confirmed by the grace of God and upheld by divine power he is the peculiar care of God's providence the special charge of the holy Angels and the Temple of the blessed Spirit all God's dispensations provide for his safety consider his strength and work for his good The Devil is so restrained that he shall not tempt him above what he shall be able to bear and hath not so little wit with his great malice to attempt where he is sure to be foiled Persecutions may assault him and flatteries may undermine him prosperity may indeavour to blow him up or adversity to crush him down raillery may goe about to shame him out of his course or buffonry to laugh him out of it but his race is as certain as that of the Sun or the Stars in the Firmament and his foundation sure as the Mountains for he knows whom he hath believed AGAIN he is adopted a Son of God and sealed by the Holy Ghost to the day of redemption he feels himself quickned by his vital presence warmed with his motions and assured by his testimony This erects the hands that would hang down and strengthens the feeble knees this lifts up his head with joy because he knows his redemption draweth nigh Every day he walks he finds himself a days journey nearer Heaven therefore he sets his face thitherwards he puts on the habit the mein the joy the very heart of Heaven he goes up by contemplation and views it he ravishes his heart with the sight of it he falls into a trance with admiration and when he comes to himself again cries out Come Lord Jesus come quickly He needs nothing he fears nothing he despises the world life is tedious death is welcome to be dissolved and to be with Christ is best of all WHAT can trouble him that hath peace in his Conscience what can disturb him that hath Heaven before him what can dismay him that is secure of immortality what can affright him whom death cannot hurt and what can deject him that is sure of a crown of glory AND lastly no wonder if after all this such a man be active and vigorous for God if he be used by God and become his Embassadour beseeching men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God For all those comforts and incouragements afore mentioned inlarge his Soul like an Angel put wings upon him like a Cherub and set him on fire like one of the Seraphim with holy zeal of God's glory and the good of men Therefore with David he tells the unbelieving world what God hath done for his Soul and with his Lord and Master Christ Jesus he goes about doing good and in this flame of holy love is contented to offer up himself a sacrifice of a sweet smell to God HERE is adulta virtus Religion and Piety at their highest pitch and fullest maturity that is attainable in this world the next step is Heaven one degree more commences Glory Let the envious world now if they dare reproach Religion as hypocrisy or as meer pretences and great words when they observe that this glorious state is the design and the attainment of it whenever it is wisely and worthily prosecuted or let them say all this is impossible who as Tully well expresses it Ex sua ignavia inertia non ex ipsa virtute de virtutis robore existimant These things are no Romances nor have I dressed up any Legendary Hero the things are true and real Thus shall it be done to the man whom God delights to honour All this hath been attained and might be attained again would men but cease to take up an opinion of their own goodness from the extream badness of others and take their measures rather from the rules and motives and assistances of the Gospel then from the examples and customs of the world then without doubt others besides St. Paul might be able to say I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. And that brings me to the last instance of the Father's kindness and the top of that glory which God bestows upon truely good men CHAP. V. The splendid Entertainment or the joys of Heaven St. Luk. Chap. 15. Vers 23. And bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry THE CONTENTS § I. The peculiar intendment of this passage of the Parable That by the feast upon the fatted Calf are represented the joys of Heaven § II. The several figurative expressions which the joys of Heaven are set out by in holy Scripture viz. Paradise Rest a City a Kingdom a Feast § III. A more plain and literal account of the felicities of the other world especially in four particulars 1. The resurrection of the Body 2. Provision of objects fit to entertain and satisfy all the powers both of Soul and Body 3. The eternity of that state of life and happiness 4. The blessed presence of God and our Saviour and the happy society of Angels and Saints § I. IT was thought to be a just civility amongst the more soft and voluptuous Nations especially those of the East that those who were to be the Guests at a Feast should be as curious in the preparation of themselves for the solemnity as he that made the entertainment was for their accommodation and for that cause usually a considerable time of notice was given them before-hand that they might be in such circumstances as should both do honour to him that invited them and also render them
gratefull to all the society upon which account they were wont to bath anoint exercise and perfume themselves before-hand and amongst other curiosities to put on a habit which was both sumptuous and significant of respect Agreeable whereunto is that passage in the Gospel Matt. 22. 11. where the Master of the Feast takes it extream ill of one of his guests that he appeared there not having on a wedding garment And with this accords the contrivance of this Parable for the Father having as we have seen put his Son into a befitting garb now proceeds to his entertainment which is the third and last expression of his reconciliation Bring hither saith he the fatted Calf c. THAT he intends a Feast for joy of the recovery of his lost Son is very plain wherein he designs that all his family shall bear a part with him the fatted Calf being the ancient most sumptuous treatment as appears Gen. 18. 7. for therewith Abraham solemnly entertained the three Angels that came to visit him in the habit of way-faring men and as the afore-named Stuckius and the learned Bochart observe there was not a Feast of old times especially amongst those mentioned by Homer where this was not the principal Dish and the Text lays the Emphasis of a double article upon it here in the Parable But what is mystically meant by this passage or what peculiar favour of God to penitent sinners our Saviour intends hereby to express is not very easy to determine IN the foregoing particulars we have had the concurrent opinion of the Fathers for the countenance of our applications but here I doubt we shall be deserted by them and therefore if we walk alone must proceed the more warily THE Ancients agree in the general that hereby is to be understood the great and inestimable gift of our Lord Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What fatted Calf doth the Father call for what but his only Son born of the Virgin Mary c. And in like manner the rest only with this difference that St. Chrysostom especially applies it to the sacrifice of Christ represented in the Sacrament and St. Austin to the same Christ Jesus preached in the Gospel but with the leave of such great men it may perhaps seem reasonable to pitch upon another interpretation namely that hereby is meant the joys and glories of the Kingdom of Heaven for the confirmation of which I offer these following considerations FIRST it is well enough known that the Jews had commonly such a crass notion of the happiness of the world to come as to think it to consist in the pleasures of the Body and particularly of eating and drinking agreeable to which is the fable amongst them of Behemoth and Leviathan the one a prodigious Beast and the other a Fish which together with great quantities of delicious wine they report to be laid in store by God for the entertainments of the life to come which ridiculous conceit of theirs seems to have given countenance if not rise to the sensual Paradise of the Mahumetans and some of the Eastern Nations And though Menasse-Ben-Israel a late learned Jew indeavours to mince the matter and to turn the story into an Allegory yet he confesses and strongly contends that a great part of the Paradisiacal felicity must consist in the pleasures of eating and drinking Now it is no strange thing to imagin that our Saviour speaking to the Jews should make use of their own language and allude to their customs and conceits how gross soever they were AND that he did so will be the more probable if in the second place we consider that he compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a Feast Matt. 2. 22. that he tells his Disciples he will drink no more of the fruit of the vine till he drink it new with them in his Father's Kingdom Matt. 26. 29. and allowed the expression of him that esteemed it to be the greatest blessedness to eat bread in the Kingdom of Heaven Luk. 14. 15. THIRDLY even in this very Chapter our Saviour telling us there is joy in Heaven at the conversion of a sinner vers 7. and amongst the holy Angels vers 10. he by those expressions invites and leads our thoughts to this sense and in this very Parable vers 25. the entertainment of the penitent is expressed as accompanied with dancing and mirth by all which he seems to give us sufficient ground to think the entertainment we are now speaking of is no other then that of the joys of Heaven BUT especially if we observe in the last place that the order of the Parable requires such a sense of these words as this we have suggested For according to the scheme of the Parable God having been hitherto represented as bestowing all those favours and blessings upon the penitent which render him fit for and capable of Heaven as we have seen already what can now follow more properly or what would one expect to be intimated in the next place but that he should thenceforward be described conferring that happiness and actually placing him in that state he had by all his former unspeakable favours made way for Besides God's giving his Son is the foundation of all his other favours and our Saviour's giving himself for us is the meritorious and procuring cause of justification adoption sanctification the giving of the Holy Ghost and all the great things forementioned and therefore it would not be agreeable to the wisedom of our Saviour in the contrivance of this scene to represent this in the last place when all those benefits which flow from it had before been supposed to be conferred This therefore upon the whole matter seems to be the intent of our Saviour in the words we are upon to personate our Heavenly Father crowning all those former gifts he had bestowed upon sincere converts in this life with glory and blessedness and the joys of Heaven in the conclusion As if in the literal sense the Father of the Prodigal Son had said I remember the misery the hunger and hardship my Son hath indured and I pitied him even then when he well deserved all he suffered but since the time that I have seen him returning not only the pale looks sharp countenance dejected eyes and all other arguments of his former calamities which I have observed in him run in my mind but I think also of the conflicts he hath had with himself upon the point of returning fear turning him back and hope incouraging him to goe on and the latter with great difficulty vanquishing the former methinks I see the anguish of his mind his indignation against himself his shame for his own folly and the awefull reverence he had of my presence between all which I know how his heart panted and laboured till at last the reviving sense of his duty and the confidence in the benignity of a Father carried him through And
a perfect Christian p. 319. CHAP. V. The splendid entertainment or the joys of Heaven That by the Feast upon the Fatted Calf those are intended p. 324. Several figurative expressions of that state in Holy Scripture viz. Paradise Rest a City a Kingdom a Feast p. 329. An essay of describing the felicities of the World to come according to the Scriptures especially in four particulars 1. The Resurrection of the Body the wonderfullness and comfortableness whereof although it be not doubted but Souls are happy before p. 331. 2. The perfection of all the powers of Soul and Body and suitable objects to all those powers p. 336. 3. The eternity of that State p. 345. 4. The blessed and glorious Society of God the Holy Jesus Angels and Spirits of just men made perfect p. 349. CHAP. Last A Vindication of the Divine Goodness in all the aforesaid dispensation or in his thus treating penitent sinners p. 357. THE PARABLE S. Luke Chap. XV. Vers 11. A Certain man had two Sons 12. And the Younger of them said to his Father Father give me the portion of goods that falleth to me And he divided unto them his living 13. And not many daies after the Younger Son gathered all together and took his journey into a far Countrey and there wasted his substance with riotous living 14. And when he had spent all there arose a mighty famine in that land and he began to be in want 15. And he went and joined himself to a Citizen of that Countrey and he sent him into his fields to feed Swine 16. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the Swine did eat and no man gave unto him 17. And when he came to himself he said How many hired servants of my Father have Bread enough and to spare and I perish with hunger 18. I will arise and go to my Father will say unto him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee 19. And am no more worthy to be called thy Son make me as one of thy hired servants 20. And he arose and came to his Father But when he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him 21. And the Son said unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son 22. But the Father said to his servants Bring forth the best Robe and put it on him and put a Ring on his hand and Shoes on his feet 23. And being hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry 24. For this my Son was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found And they began to be merry 25. Now his Elder Son was in the field and as he came and drew nigh to the house he heard musick and dancing 26. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant 27. And he said unto him Thy Brother is come and thy Father hath killed the fatted Calf because he hath received him safe and sound 28. And he was angry and would not go in therefore came his Father out and intreated him 29. And he answering said to his Father Lo these many years do I serve thee neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment and yet thou never gavest me a Kid that I might make merry with my friends 30. But as soon as this thy Son was come which hath devoured thy living with harlots thou hast killed for him the fatted Calf 31. And he said unto him Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine 32. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy Brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found THE PARABLE OF THE Prodigal Son PART I. CHAP. I. The peculiar Excellency of this Parable of our Saviour and touching Parables in General THE CONTENTS § I. The curious Scheme and admirable structure of this Parable the special Design of it and the intention of the Authour of this Discourse in handling it § II. The Obscurity of the Gentile Oracles Old Philosophers and Ancient Writers of all kinds Of the Allegories of the Old Testament and the Figurative way of our Saviour in the New § III. The reasons of the Pagan obscurity and of the Figures of the Old Testament especially of our Saviour's so much use of Parables § IV. Of the danger of Allegorical Interpretations the peculiar advantage and security of doing it in this Parable the caution of the Authour therein § I. I Verily persuade my self that there is no intelligent person who shall happen to reade the passage of Holy Scripture now before us but will presently and at the first prospect of it take notice of a very beautifull and affecting scene of things represented to him wherein it will be very hard for him to determine whether the variety of matter just proportions of the particulars or decent and natural order of things do more vie with each other or more equally conspire to fill his imagination and affect his heart For in the very letter of this Parable he will see described first the Benignity indulgence and condescension of a Father to his Son together with the Folly and licentiousness of youth then the Gradual progress and sad catastrophe of a course of debauchery after this the usual misgivings of heart and change of mind upon such change of affairs the serious reflexions upon and late repentance of such follies Then again a description of Parental affections the exorableness of a Father upon his Son's submission the profuseness of his kindness upon his reformation and lastly the transports of his joy upon his plenary recovery And indeed the most powerfull passions of humane nature are here drawn with that admirable skill as to equal the very life it self It was not therefore pronounced at adventure by the Learned Hugo Grotius but agreeably to his usual sagacity when he said This Parable of the Prodigal Son is the most remarkable of all those which were delivered by our Saviour as being the most passionate and affecting set out and adorned with the most lively colours and beautifull similitudes All which is discernible upon the most transient glance upon it But he that not contenting himself with so superficial a view shall defix his thoughts and maturely consider the intendment of our Saviour in this Figure will partly by the Occasion upon which it was delivered and partly by the thread of the Parable it self most assuredly be led into an apprehension of some greater mystery therein contained For taking his view from such station and thence attentively surveying the whole scope and design of this Scripture he will find in the general that herein is traced out the journey from Aegypt a state of servitude to the Land of Promise through a troublesome and disconsolate wilderness or the
or some other Jewish Writers to turn all those sacred records into Allegory nor that it will altogether excuse those ancient Learned Christians from all mistake who thought there was no way of reaching the full sense of the Old Testament but by tracing a perpetual Metaphor and looking every-where beyond the letter However their practice makes it sufficiently evident that it was the common sense of Antiquity that the style of those Writings was mysterious and figurative which is enough for my present purpose § III. If now we proceed to enquire into the Reasons of this usage so far as concerns the Pagan Mysteries we may say with justice enough that it was their interest to hide those things from the light that could not endure the trial of it and for a great many of their Philosophers they designed more to procure a veneration to their own persons then to benefit the world and chose rather to seem wise themselves then endeavoured to make others to be so Or at least the not improbable account which S. Clement of Alexandria gives of this matter may satisfie us whose words are these The manner and style in which the Greek Philosophers handled their Philosophy was like to that of the Hebrews dark and aenigmatical for from them whom they esteemed and called Barbarians did those admired Sages as that Learned Authour shews at large borrow or steal most of that which was remarkable amongst them and then no wonder if they took the Casket with the Jewel the manner of delivery as well as the matter they delivered But now if our curiosity lead us farther to consider what should be the reasons why the Sacred Writers themselves observed this style there are several things may be noted as of great moment in the case Namely 1. Forasmuch as the Divine Wisedom saw it fit in the infancy of the world to exhibit a discovery of his mind and will suitable to the capacity of the men and the Age reserving the more full and adequate delivery of himself to the fulness of time when the minds of men having been opened and inlarged by degrees should by those previous applications be prepared and made capable of those brighter beams of Divine Truth which he ultimately intended to display Hereupon it was necessary that the Prophets and holy Pen-men should be directed in such sort as that on the one hand and in the letter their discourses should condescend to the present dispensation but yet withall should on the other hand reflect and glance upon and give some hints of that which was principally intended and hereafter to be clearly revealed From whence it must needs come to passe both the aforesaid purposes being jointly to be pursued that there must be a frequent use of Figures and Allegories and consequently some Obscurity 2. But then secondly Because it was not the mind of God wholly to cloud and obscure the glories that were afterwards to appear he ordered it so that such a thin veil drawn over the matter should not more set off the beauty then stir up the attention of the mind and allure men to a very diligent inquisition For as much as utter obscurity of the matter or absolute impossibility of accomplishing what is designed do discourage and blast both enquiry and endeavour so much doth moderate and not insuperable either difficulty or obscurity inflame a generous mind to comprehend and conquer and as none but fools reach at plain impossibilities so none but ignoble and little spirits are beaten off by meer difficulty Thus in effect this way of writing became a Lapis Lydius or Touchstone of minds fit for and capable of excellent improvements And this is the very account which S. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr gives of this matter The Prophets saith he did cover the things they delivered under Types and Parables insomuch that it was not easie for every one to understand many of those things which they spoke of and the rather because they would exercise the diligence and study of those that applied themselves to their instructions Again thirdly this way of expression recommended it self upon this account that whatsoever was represented in this Parabolical way was apt to insinuate more closely and work more powerfully upon the affections Forasmuch as in this case the mind was not onely addressed to by the meer dint of reason but truth was in a manner made visible and set off in such lively colours that the imagination being impregnated the passions were easily carried along too To which adde that hereby also the memory was exceedingly fortified for such things as we feel and see or which our imaginations have an expresse image of and our affections relish those things always stick by us All which considerations laid together will amount to a satisfaction of the reasonableness of that figurative obscurity which we observe in the writings of the Old Testament and may in part also extend to whatever is of that kind in the New But yet perhaps there may remain some difficulty why our Saviour who came to make a full clear and ultimate discovery of the mind of God to the sons of men should think fit to use this figurative way of expression at so great a rate as that the Evangelist saith without a parable spake he not unto them Touching which I have these things further to say First by what hath been said already it appears the people of the Jews amongst whom our Saviour came had been always trained up in an Allegorical way and had it in such esteem that they thought no man fit to teach that could not handsomely conceal and shade his sense si quis noverit uti perplexiloquio loquatur sin minùs taceat And therefore by an admirable dexterity in the use of Parables he marvellously recommended his discourses to the gust of that people and had it not been that they were filled with intolerable prejudices against him for the meanness of his outward appearance and upon other such like accounts they must of necessity have had his wisedom in great veneration But besides this general account our Saviour himself gives us a peculiar reason of this his practice especially upon that kind of people in these words Mat. 13. 11 12 13 14 15. To you it is given speaking to his Disciples to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven But to them meaning the generality of the Jews it is not given for whosoever hath to him shall be given and he shall have more abundance but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath Therefore speak I to them in Parables because they seeing see not and hearing they hear not neither do they understand And in them is fulfilled the Prophecie of Isaiah saying hearing ye shall hear c. As if our Saviour had said You my Disciples who are of an humble and docible temper and are content to use means and to resort to me for
going quite back again and undoing all he hath done besides the agonies of conscience and the strong convulsions which he must suffer that casts off a long settled and habitual course of sin To which adde that whatever diligence or zeal of God's glory a late Convert that comes into the vineyard as it were at the eleventh hour may express at last yet it is certain he hath done God a great dishonour heretofore whereas he we now speak of is one that coming in at the first hour labours all day in God's work and equally carries on the affair of God's glory and his own comfort here and salvation hereafter Now all these things considered if there shall be any man so rash and injudicious as notwithstanding to press all men without distinction in order to their title to the mercies of God and hopes of Heaven to make the same severe reflexions upon themselves or to shew the like sensible and discernible change in their lives let them know by this unskilfulness of theirs they unreasonably minister trouble to the best and happiest of men and have a design quite contrary to that of our Saviour who professed he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance And in the seventh verse of this Chapter he speaks of just men which need no repentance that is have no need to make a change of their whole course and begin a new as notorious sinners ought to doe Both which places I take to be clearly interpreted and to the sense we are assigning to them by that other passage of our Saviour Jo. 13. 10. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet onely that is he that is already ingaged in a holy course and habituate to the ways of piety hath only need to be duely cleansed from those occasional soils and defilements which the infirmity of humane nature and conversation in the world suffer no man wholly to escape but not to enter upon a new state or begin a whole course of repentance To which effect I understand those words of Origen in his Books against Celsus Christ Jesus saith he was sent indeed a Physician to cure and recover sinners but to improve and instruct those further in the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven that were already vertuous I 'le conclude and confirm all I have said of this kind with the sense of Manasses which he expresses in his famous penitential prayer Thou O Lord that art the God of the just hast not appointed repentance to the just as to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob c. but thou hast appointed repentance unto me who am a sinner c. This I take to be sufficient for the determination who is meant by the Elder Brother and then we cannot be much to seek who is denoted by the Younger for what we have now said being granted it necessarily follow that by the Younger Son are described all such persons as have run a dangerous risk of sin and impiety that have committed gross and hainous transgressions and continued in a state of disobedience and impenitency after such manner as the Publicans and Sinners in the text are supposed to have done These are said to forsake their Father's house and presence to mispend their portion in riotous living who yet at last being reduced to extremity come to themselves turn serious penitents bewail their folly resolve upon amendment implore pardon double their diligence and care for the time to come and of old sinners become young Saints whereupon they are by a gracious God admitted to pardon and reconciliation and adoption for these the best robe is fetched out the fatted calf slain and upon their conversion as a thing utterly despaired of and unexpected there is joy in Heaven and amongst the holy Angels These were dead in trespasses and sins but are now quickned and revived by the grace of God they were Strangers and Aliens from the covenant of Grace but now become of the houshold of God and heirs of eternal life And now these two points being resolved of we have a key by which we may easily open all the circumstances of the whole Parable so that it will not be necessary that I insist longer upon a general interpretation Neverthelesse lest there should seem one difficulty not sufficiently provided against or any man should yet be at a losse how if the Elder Brother denote sincerely good men it can stand with their character to grumble at the mercifull reception of poor penitents as here he is represented to doe And moreover it may raise another doubt if the Elder Brother be set to describe men of constant and unblemished Sanctity how such a person should be fit to denote the Scribes and Pharisees who were certainly very evil and corrupt men Unlesse a plain account can be given of these it must follow that either we have not hit the occasion of the Parable or the Parable did not answer to the occasion Wherefore to these I answer joyntly That our Saviour the more effectually to convince these Jews that reproached and censured him proceeds with them upon their own Hypothesis namely taking it for granted that they were as eminently good and holy men as they either took themselves or pretended to be and that the Publicans and Sinners were indeed as bad as they esteemed them I mean he doth not intend to signifie that these censorious persons were indeed good men for upon all occasions we see he upbraids their rottennesse and hypocrisie but because they out of opinion of their own sanctity and contempt of others reproached his carriage in this matter therefore the designs to shew them that if that was true which is utterly false and they as good men as they were extremely bad yet upon due consideration they ought not to blame his management of himself and gracious condescension to sinners As if he had said You Scribes and Pharisees wonder that instead of applying my self to your conversation who are men of great note for sanctity and devotion and never blemished with any great disorder I rather chuse to lay out my self upon the recovery of flagitious and desperate sinners now see your own unreasonablenesse in this instance You will allow a Father to be more passionately concerned for and expresse a greater joy upon the recovery of a Lost Son then he usually doth about him that was always with him and out of danger and if that Son who had never departed from his Father and so never given him occasion for those change of passions should expostulate with his Father for his affectionateness in such a case you would in your own thoughts blame him as envious and undutifull Now apply this to your selves and think as well as you can of your selves yet upon the premisses you will see no reason to calumniate my endeavours of reclaiming sinners or my kindnesse and benignity towards them upon their repentance By this time I doubt not but the whole
God In a word shall I take them for wise men that have so little of man in them as to live like beasts and to wish they might die so too Or which equals any of the former that can be so sottish as to imagine they can goe on in a course of rebellion against God and escape eternal destruction AGAIN Secondly upon the premises it is mighty reasonable that every man in this condition should in his Lucid intervals apply himself most effectually to the means of recovery 'T is not the custome of Physicians to administer remedies in a Paroxysm but such as may abate the symptoms only because nature is then perverted and out of order to comply with the help offered to it and it were madnesse little inferiour to that of these Spiritual Lunaticks we speak of to deal with them in the heat and rage of their passion as to reprove a man when he is drunk to preach meeknesse to a man in a fury c. all we can doe then is to pity and pray for them But when the fit is over and the patient in a sedate temper then is the time for application and it is the greatest uncharitablenesse in the world not to help them what we can or to forbear to admonish them as the Angel did Lot when he had drawn him out of Sodom Escape for thy life look not back c. But especially when the sinner is in his right mind apprehensive of his former folly sees the emptinesse of what he so eagerly pursued nauseates his own choice and either feels or foresees the consequence of it Then is the only time for him to call in his thoughts to deplore his unreasonablenesse to shame himself and feel remorse for his wickednesse to take a just measure of things to renew his vows to fortify his resolutions to beg God's grace and to lay all the obligations possible upon himself to withstand all the occasions of relapsing To which purpose let him consider with himself It was God's unspeakable patience and mercy to me that I was not snatcht away in the midst of my riot and debauch I that abused so much goodnesse broke so righteous a Law and affronted so great a Majesty it had been just with God to have cut off the thred of my life and let me drop into Hell Oh what absurd folly possessed me that I dust and ashes should oppose my Maker I that could not assure my self of one moments life should yet live so as I durst not die or if I did must expect to have been damned eternally Or what if God sparing my life had given me up to a reprobate mind to a profane spirit had never solicited me by his Spirit nor awakened my Conscience more but had said Let him that is unjust be unjust still and him that is filthy be filthy still c. and so I had gone blind-fold to destruction Blessed be his holy name and happy is it for my poor Soul that I have lived to see my shame feel my disease and bewail my folly O my Soul sin no more lest a worse thing happen to thee And this brings me to the Second Part of the Parable viz. The Prodigal's return And he would faine have filled his belly with the husks that y e swine did eat S t. LVKE XV. â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Maxim Tyr. differ 31. THE PARABLE OF THE Prodigal Son PART II. The Penitent or the Prodigal returning S. Luke 15. Vers 17 18 19 20 21. And when he came to himself he said how many hired Servants of my Father's have bread enough and to spare and I perish with hunger I will arise and goe to my Father and will say unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee And am no more worthy to be called thy Son make me as one of thy hired Servants And he arose and came to his Father But when he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him And the Son said to him Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son CHAP. I. Of Consideration THE CONTENTS § I. The general concern of Repentance The reason why notwithstanding there is little mention made of it in the Law of Moses The peculiar necessity of it to those who have been great sinners the parts thereof as they are alluded to in this Parable § II. Of the nature of Consideration and that it usually begins conversion § III. Affliction usually brings men to Consideration prosperity commonly rendring them either light and incogitant or confident and presumptuous § IV. The peculiar meditations of a returning sinner HITHERTO in the former part of the Parable in the person of a light incogitant young-man we have seen the deplorable effects of rashnesse and folly pride and curiosity insolence and disobedience how they work jointly and severally together and by turns till by degrees they have trained him on to his utter ruine His pride raises him so high that he must fall his licentiousnesse betrays him to slavery and his luxury to extream necessity And under this Type we have seen lively pourtrayed the beginnings the progresse the upshot the causes and the effects of a sinfull course IT was high time for the Prodigal to think of returning to his Father when he was perishing by his disobedience and had no other refuge but in his Father's clemency and sure it is time for the sinner to repent and return to God when if he be sensible of any thing he cannot but be apprehensive that in the course he is in the danger of his eternal ruine is as certainly impendent as it is more intolerable AND thus far we have sadly observed the steps of descent towards Hell we come now in this Second Part to descry the way of recovery to trace out a plain path towards Heaven that is to lay open the beginnings the motives the whole nature and processe of repentance And the divine wisedom of our Saviour hath so contrived this Parable that all the lines of this great work are as plainly discernible in the narrative of the Prodigal's return as we have already seen the progresse of sin delineated in his former extravagancy Wherefore as I cannot but hope that the genuine efficacy of plain truth especially invigorated by so curious a scheme as in the former part must needs have put every man into some concern who hath stained his Conscience with guilt but not quite extinguished it So I see lesse cause to doubt but that this Second Part will be very acceptable and usefull to all those upon whom the former made any impression For if he that could pretend to be able to direct those who have bankrupt their fortunes how they might certainly repair their losses and redintegrate their estates shall be sure to have a great many attentive Auditors and
he to give both thanks and reward to him that cures our bodily infirmities though he do it not without some pain and trouble to us and why should we not rather love God's methods as the Physician of Souls there is no passion nor much less revenge in his proceedings with us he neither cuts and lances us cruelly nor uses any other sharpness then the case necessarily requires he doth nothing with intention to hurt or grieve us but proceeds with art and care designing our greatest good and in a word is in all his actions agreeable to the goodness and benignity of his own nature The summe of all which and of what we intend further to say is that of the Apostle God is good and the goodness of God leadeth to repentance Rom. 2. 5. For the consideration of that is the spring of hope and of all motion by way of return THERE are indeed some men who having entertained very crude notions of the Divine Majesty do sometimes assert on the one hand that vindictive justice is essential and natural to God so that he is bound up to require strict satisfaction and without it cannot properly pardon any transgression And others on the other hand talk at the same wild rate of his mercy and goodness as if all the instances he makes thereof were also natural and necessary and that he could not insist upon his own right but must make all the expressions of kindness that are possible towards his Creatures But both these notions are equally false and mischievous the former of them representing God a rigid Majesty and tending to desperation the other an easy and soft Deity and tempting men to presume upon him the one making him an object of horrour and the other of contempt for who can love him that cannot pity and who can reverence him who hath it not in his power to do otherwise The truth is therefore that all particular instances both of the one kind and of the other are subject to his wisedom that he can exercise either mercy or severity as he sees occasion for after this manner the Scripture speaks of him that sometime he hath mercy because he will have mercy and that when he will he hardeneth sinners for destruction AND to think otherwise of God especially in the case of mercy and pardon as if he could not dispense it as he pleases is to bring in a rigid fatality with the Stoicks instead of a God and is so far from aggrandizing the Divine Majesty that it is the greatest diminution of his power and glory and renders him less then a man for we can recedere à nostro jure remit of our own rights and give mercy a triumph over strict justice And although the sinner when he offends against God forfeits himself into the divine hand and gives God just cause to punish him if he will yet certainly he cannot by any act of his put a Law upon God or oblige him to punish or if he think fit to shew mercy AND then for the interest of God's Rectourship and government of the world it is not a necessity of punishment that conserves that but the power or freedom of punishing or remitting accordingly as it shall seem good to his own wisedom Whereby when men are both provoked to amendment by the hopes of pardon and restrained from disobedience by the fear of punishment For the liberty of dispensing either of these at pleasure is that which produces a reverence towards the Divine Majesty that is a complication of love and fear wherein the very notion of Religion consists It is not an impertinent passage to this purpose which we have in the Historian when the young Gentlemen in the new Roman Common-wealth had a design to restore the Kingly Government in the Family of the Tarquins they had Speeches made amongst them to this effect To be bound up by the rigour of Laws which had no compassion nor made allowance for contingency was very harsh and unsafe considering humane infirmity But under Kingly Government there was power of dispensation possibility of indulgence liberty of interpretation room for mercy and pardon a man that fell did not necessarily there miscarry For there was place for intercession repentance might relieve him and the prerogative of the Prince was the security of the Subject NOW that repentance is available with God we have all the assurance that can be desired for besides what we have said already from the consideration of the perfections of the Divine Nature and the interest of his Government Repentance is the great and principal Doctrine of the Gospel which the Son of God himself came to proclaim by his Preaching to confirm by his Miracles to make way for and to procure acceptance to by his Death and Sacrifice and to render throughly effectual and successfull by his Intercession at God's right hand in Heaven Wherefore as Manoah's wife reasoned when her Husband had dreadfull apprehensions of the Majesty of God who had appeared to them and concluded they should die Because they had seen God No saith she if God intended to destroy us he would not have appeared to us or much less have accepted a Sacrifice at our hands So assuredly if God had not great compassion to mankind and did not design to accept them upon repentance he would never have given his own Son to be a Sacrifice for sin Can any man suspect that God is indifferent whether men be saved or no when he hath sent his Son to save them Can any man imagine him implacable towards those whose nature he sent his Son to assume and thereby to make an union betwixt the divine and humane Natures Will any man think him inexorable to sinners who pitied them healed them conversed with them and died for them Let Devils despair who have not only no promise and no Saviour but nothing pitiable in their case having had no tempter to abuse them no flesh or body to clog them no infirmity to extenuate their presumption they are without hope and therefore incapable of repentance and so go on eternally to hate and blaspheme the God that will not pardon them But there is no cause man should do so who as he hath all the arguments of pity in his case so hath all the assurances of pardon from God upon his repentance TO say no more the very constant experience of all Ages and the common sense of all mankind leaves us without all doubt that this method of repentance pacifies the Almighty insomuch that when he hath most exprest his angry resentments and seems to have been most peremptory and decretal in his threatnings yet all but mad and desperate persons have incouraged themselves to hope for impunity upon repentance even then when there hath not been the least intimation of any such condition in his denunciations for thus when the Prophet Jonas had from the mouth of God proclaimed expresly Yet forty days and
other things to make men vessels of wrath and to sit them for destruction If therefore we should suppose sin to doe no wrong to God yet it doth wrong to our own nature unfitting us for our ends and making us incapable of our happiness and if a course of vertue be not profitable to God nor can make him any amends yet it amends us both in our faculties and in our capacities For certainly God doth not by a fatal sentence doom men to the pit of Hell nor by his Almighty power precipitate them thither untill their own wickedness had prepared them and disposed them for that state In which sense I see no reason with the pardon of a late Learned Person but to take that passage Acts 1. 25. where it is said of Judas that he went to his own place For Hell is the proper place of sin and sin thrusts a man down thither or the Central powers of those infernal regions as it were draw and suck in the sinner And therefore the very damned can never think hardly of God as if he took pleasure in their misery but must for ever curse their own folly which made it fit and necessary that God should do what he doth THE Apostle tells us Rom. 14. 17. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost which saying is indeed to be understood of the state of Christianity notwithstanding if we will consider it will appear to us that Heaven it self as it signifies the state of blessedness in the other world consists not so much in the external glory of a palace or any other circumstances either to accommodate the body or to entertain the imagination as in a state of perfect purity peace and love clear knowledge of the mind just order of all the powers the light of God's countenance ready and chearfull compliance with his will comfortable reflections upon our former carriage blessed society of Saints and Angels and everlasting life for the durable enjoyment of all these unspeakably good things And on the other side Hell is not so dreadfull for the horrid circumstances of the place though that be sad enough as that there a man is banished from God and all his powers in confusion he is filled with rage horribly and perpetually lashed by his own Conscience and scorned and tortured by infernal Furies to whose company he is for ever condemned without hopes of recovery NOW though it cannot be said that every holy and vertuous man must naturally and necessarily be intitled to the happiness of Heaven because the glories of that state are of God's special provision and therefore must be at his disposal and besides there is no man whose vertue hath been such as to render him capable thereof without the interposition of the divine mercy in Jesus Christ Yet it is evident that there is a great suitableness between the temper of a brave man and the state of Heaven a just wise chaste temperate and peaceable person is prepared and disposed as a Candidate for that state and on the contrary a debaucht and vicious man is utterly unfit for it and carries the very ingredients of Hell about him TAKE for example a cruel malicious and mischievous man whose soul is in his spleen and who continually sacrifices to those accursed fiends rancour and revenge let any man be judge whether such a man can be a fit inhabitant of those peacefull regions above and that amicable society of Saints and Angels or what can be more natural to him and proper for him then the company of Devils which he so exactly resembles Or take a turbulent and seditious person a Boutefeau whose only pleasure hath been to disturb the world that never discerned the beauty of order nor tasted the sweets of peace nor framed himself to duty and obedience what should such a man do in Heaven where all is order and harmony he is only fit for the infernal hurry and we may very aptly apply the stately expression of the Prophet to his case Isa 14. 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming it stirreth up the dead for thee and art thou become like unto us c. Once more take a man wholly addicted to sensuality and the beastly pleasures of the body to eat and drink and live voluptuously what should this man do in Heaven What is there for him where there is no use of the belly and where the pleasures are sublime and intellectual what delights can the presence of an holy Majesty a blessed Jesus and the harmony of an heavenly Quire minister to him that hath never relished other musick then the wild roarings of a debauch or the soft charms of sensuality He that is capable of that blessed state and of those entertainments must be such an one as hath been habituate to sobriety and chastity that hath learned to deny and castigate the importunities of his Senses that hath laboured to live out of the body whilest he was in it Now this is not to be performed by a sudden pang of devotion nor by a meer resolution or intention of becoming vertuous howsoever serious that may be but by long exercise serious indeavour a habit and a new nature 4. BUT in the fourth and last place if we could suppose that neither the nature and state of the world to come did necessarily require such habitual vertue as we have shewed it doth nor that God had resolved to insist upon the actual performance of our resolutions I say if God would pardon a man upon the meer acknowledgement of his offence and sorrow for it yet would not the penitent pardon himself in this case I mean it would be impossible for him to find any quiet in his bosom till he had in some measure effaced the memory of his former wickedness by a course of generous vertue For when once a man's eyes are open to see his shamefull folly and his heart made so sensible as to relent at his misdoing he will have such an abhorrence of himself for his own unreasonableness that he will be so far from looking up to God with comfort or towards men with confidence that he will not be able to endure his own face untill he have by a singular diligence indeavoured to rescind his own act and in some measure repaired the injuries his lewd extravagancies have made him guilty of Accordingly St. Paul as we have noted before seems to carry about him a bleeding sense of his former miscarriages but 1 Cor. 15. 10. he had this to support him that although he was as one born out of due time coming late into Christ's service yet from that time he laboured more abundantly then those that came earlier into the vineyard IT is a most impertinent inquiry which some melancholy persons have been taught to make have I been humbled enough for sin is the measure of my sorrow sufficient for my guilt have
men but he raises and actuates their native powers removes impediments cures their sloth and in short concurring with them helps their infirmities with which agrees that forementioned observation of Cicero Nunquam vir magnus sine afflatu divino That there never was a brave Hero nor any admirable performance without divineinfluence 3. THE Holy Spirit residing in the Souls of good men is also a spirit of confirmation settling and establishing their Souls against revolt and apostasy and giving a kind of angelical stedfastness to them that ill examples shall not draw them aside nor temptation prevail upon them neither insinuations of false doctrine stagger them nor prosperity and the blandishments of the world debauch them nor afflictions and persecutions shake their constancy for they are now built upon a rock and though the rains descend and the waves rise and the winds blow they stand immovable or as St. John expresses it Rev. 3. 12. they having overcome and obtained the reward of being under the conduct of this Holy Spirit are now made pillars of the temple of God and shall goe no more out To which add that of St. Peter 1 Ep. 1. 5. They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kept in Garison by the power of God through faith unto salvation 4. BESIDES all which in the last place it is usual with the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of those holy men he inhabits with inexpressible joy giving them the foretasts of the blessedness which they expect to enjoy hereafter insomuch that they do not altogether live by faith which is their usual viaticum but in some measure by sense also having a present glimpse of their future happiness by means whereof they rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory they exult triumph and applaud themselves in their interest in God and their glorious portion with him THE Holy Spirit carries men as God did Moses up to Mount Pisgah to take a view of the good Land of promise and affords them the prelibations of Heaven the very relish of which blessedness upon their spirits puts them into a kind of ecstasy that they fell not the troubles and vexations which may assault them from below they triumph over mortality it self and wish and long to die when like St. Stephen they see Heaven opened and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God their face like his shines like that of Angels and a glory incircles them they seem to hear the blessed Quire of Angels and are ready to join in the Allelujah in short their Soul raises it self and would fain take wing and fly thither presently THIS I think is that which is figuratively but excellently set forth by our Saviour in his Epistle to the Church of Pergamos Rev. 2. 17. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna Manna was called Angels food and as the Jews observe it applied it self to every man's palate and had that relish which every man desired which admirably expresses the joys of Heaven which are for the present the entertainment of Angels and when men come to enjoy them shall fill all their powers and leave no desire unsatisfied And it is called hidden manna because as saith the Apostle it doth not yet appear what we shall be however it seems some taste and anticipations of this shall those have in the mean time who overcome But that which I principally intend is the next words And I will give him a white stone with a new name written upon it which no man knows but he that receiveth it This passage some take to be an allusion to the custom at Athens and some other Greek Common-wealths where in capitall causes especially the Citizens gave their Suffrages by White and Black Stones and when the number of White Stones was greatest the person at the Bar was absolved or acquitted And thus the white stone in the Text should in the mystical sense import justification and pardon of sin But this comes not up to the design of the place and there is another custome which fits it better and most probably was here alluded to by our Saviour viz. it was in use that those which conquered at the Olympick Games had a token or ticket given them expressing their names and specifying the reward they were to have for their atchievements In conformity to which our Saviour here seems to promise to those who acquit themselves manfully and bravely in the conflict or race of Christianity that they shall receive an inward and invisible pledge and assurance of the glorious rewards in the other world which can be nothing else but this which we are speaking of namely the comforts of the Holy Ghost THIS is now the second Boon which our Heavenly Father bestows upon the Son he receives and is a very great and glorious one This is the admirable effect of our Saviour's ascension into Heaven the accomplishment of his promise and the supply of his own presence to his servants till he take them up to himself This is the glory of Christian Religion that whensoever it is vigorously pursued it yields this present advantage besides whatever is in reversion And this is the mightiest incouragement to men to be generously good AND although things of this nature partly because they are meerly divine favours not naturally due to men and so cannot be proved by reason partly also being in their own nature invisible and transacted in secret cannot be understood by the generality of men who have no part nor lot in this matter but are apt to be looked upon as dreams and phansies if not vain-glorious pretences and forgeries yet that this we have been speaking of is a great reality there can be no doubt unless we will reject both the testimony of God and the experience of the best of men so that it may justly seem either unnecessary or fruitless to add any thing to what hath been already said on this point NOTWITHSTANDING because I observe that there are two things which prejudice the minds of a great many men in this business I will indeavour briefly to remove them and then pass on THE first is grounded upon an observation that several good men have experience of no such matter i. e. they are neither sensible of such a residence of the Holy Ghost in them nor of any such ravishing comforts as are pretended to accompany such a glorious Guest and therefore they are apt to suspect either all is phansy or at best that it is only some great rarity not the common portion of God's Children AGAIN they observe that not only many good men are without pretences to the Spirit but many evil men lay claim to it and therewith frequently cheat themselves and besides countenance their evil designs by it and under that pretence do a great deal the more mischief in the world Therefore though they do not doubt but that God might think fit at the first planting of the Gospel to give
spoil and triumph of the Prince of darkness now by the wonderfull power of the Almighty this is raised up again out of its own ashes or out of whatever more desperate estate it might seem to be in and united to the Soul its old inmate again that so the whole man may be happy This is a point of felicity which as it is not naturally due to men but depends upon a voluntary act of the divine goodness so also it can no otherwise be proved but by divine revelation And those that were destitute of that light whatever raised apprehensions they might have of future rewards and the happiness of the other life could never with all their Philosophy make any discovery of this nay it was so far out of the rode of their thoughts that it is a well known story of Synesius who for his learning and piety was made of a Philosopher a Christian Bishop that he confessed his Philosophy represented this point as utterly incredible to him upon which account he desired to be excused that dignity in the Church and for the generality of the greatest Pagan wits they laughed at and derided this doctrine when it was preached by the Apostles And indeed the thing it self is so very wonderfull that had we not the plain and infallible promise of him to whom nothing is impossible and therewithall a satisfaction to our reason that he that could bring all things out of nothing at first may well be supposed able to effect other things also above our apprehension it would stagger Christian Faith it self to assent to it therefore for the manner of doing it we must leave that to him but for the matter it is as I said as certain as divine testimony can make it and being believed is of unspeakable consolation FOR what can be more comfortable then to be asserted from the power of the grave and rescued from death and mortality to have our Soul refitted with Organs and all the bodily powers awakened again so as to lose nothing by our fall when death shall like a faithfull depositary restore us our whole selves perfect and intire Is not the Spring very pleasant after a sharp and severe Winter wherein though the seeds of all things have been preserved yet they have been benummed and rendred inactive wherein the Heavens frowned the Sea wrinkled her face and the Earth grew effete and barren as if her youth was over to see now God renewing the face of all things rendring them their wonted vigour and cloathing them with their former verdure to observe the Sea smoothing her brow the Fields smile every thing gay and glorious and Heaven and Earth singing by way of Antiphone's to each other in praise of their great Creatour and in a word whole Nature triumphing as in a resurrection from the dead But now to see man after diseases had acted all their spite upon him and death had defloured his beauty and bound up all his powers and the grave had held him long in possession wherein his body had undergone a thousand changes from flesh to earth from earth to grass from grass to the substance of this or that beast c. and after all this to see him restored again fresh and glorious sprightly and vigorous like a Giant refreshed with wine and this same body to be united to its proper Spirit by more firm and indissoluble ligaments and be again usefull for all its offices and purposes how happy must this meeting how great must this joy be and not much unlike that we had lately before us in the Parable when the long sorrowfull and indulgent Father recovers his lost and deplored Son I do not doubt but that the Souls of men when they are separated from their Bodies are able to understand and perform some of their most proper and spiritual functions for I see no reason why the Soul should so much depend upon matter as to be utterly inactive without it especially when I consider that whilst we are in the Body we govern it prescribe to it deny it expose it to hardship and sometimes act directly cross to the interest of it and besides this we find that there are some things which our mind takes notice of which the Bodily faculties could give no intelligence of and other things which our mind apprehends at first before the exercise of any faculty at all as in first principles c. All which were it necessary to insist upon that point now would afford sufficient arguments to convince the mistake of those that assert the sleep of the Soul during its state of separation Nay I make no question but that the Souls of good men are in the actual perception and enjoyment of some measures of happiness before the resurrection for besides that if it were not so it would very much abate their joys here and so be apt to take off the edge of their endeavours but most certainly it would marvellously glue men to this life and make them extreamly unwilling to die besides this I say and all other arguments of that nature the holy Scripture is so clear and express in several places touching this point that a man may almost with as good confidence deny the world to come as disbelieve this AMONGST the rest I will only offer these two passages to the Reader 's consideration viz. Phil. 1. 21 22. 2. Cor. 5. 1 4. In the first the Apostle speaks on this wise I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you q. d. I cannot tell whether to desire to live longer or to die sooner being prest with arguments on both sides for if I consult my self and my own good it is doubtless better for me to die and to enter presently into happiness but then if I consult your convenience it were better I should live longer in the world to be serviceable to your edification Now I think it is evident that if the Apostle could have supposed that he should have entered into a state of silence after death and not presently been in the fruition of bliss there could have been no strait in the case nor any dispute but that it was better to live still in the world and continue in the comforts of a good Conscience and of doing good to others rather then to fall into a state of insensibility and inactivity IN the other place the same Apostle expresses himself thus For we know that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands but eternall in the Heavens For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life q. d. We are well assured that from such time as these Bodies of ours are dissolved by death which were
the entertainments of sense are to us now as the pleasures of a man are beyond those of a beast or the faculty of reason is above the powers of the Body And although it be too observable that in this world men are commonly more taken with the latter then with the former it is not because this is greater then that or comparable to it but because the generality of men have drowned themselves in the Body and so lost all relish of intellectual pleasures therefore when the Body is refined and reason hath recovered thereby its just pre-eminence and become a true test and citerion of good and evil there will an unspeakable pleasure flow in this way NOR will the delight of the will in the close embraces of true and indubitable goodness be less ravishing then that of the mind in the apprehension of truth forasmuch as the former is as natural to and as peculiarly the entertainment of the one as the latter is of the other faculty and must most certainly afford so much a greater pleasure as he will which hath a kind of infinity in it self must consequently be able to take in more largely of the pleasure of its object And now that the man is delivered from the juggling and sophistry of Sathan and the false light of sense and carnal interest so that he apprehends true good in its native beauty it cannot be but he must be more taken with it then ever he was heretofore with the empty and guilded Pageantry of corporeal delights for it cannot be doubted but God hath taken care to reconcile every man's duty with his happiness and made that best for man which he doth most peculiarly require of him and every man will find it so when once temptation being removed he singly and sincerely applies himself to the experiment AND then for Conscience or the comfortable reflexion upon what hath been done well and vertuously I need say the less of that in regard every man in this life hath experience of the happy effects of it But alas in this world oftentimes melancholy of Body so much abates the comforts of it and either dark thoughts of God or the just sense of our own demerits by many miscarriages in time past do so much either disturb its reasonings or weaken its conclusions that few men know rightly the force of it and fewer live under the constant consolations thereof But when men come to Heaven and see God a God of love and goodness find their sincerity accepted and their sins done away have no cloud of ignorance nor melancholick panick fear upon them then they recount with triumph all the difficulties they have conquered the temptations they have resisted the afflictions they have sustained the self-denial they have used the vertuous choice they have made the manly prosecution they have performed the brave examples they have left behind them and the many evil ones they despised and escaped in short the good they have done and the evil they have eschewed and by all together the demonstration they have given of sincere love and loyalty to God which affords them a continual feast within themselves and then rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory AND then in the last place since as we have shewed the Body it self shall be raised again and glorified the meaning is not surely that it shall only become an accession to the felicity of the Soul or be happy by reflection only but doubtless all such bodily powers as are fit to be restored in this glorified state of a spiritual Body shall be accommodated with their proper and peculiar entertainments that so as that hath been denied and mortified in subserviency to the interest of the Soul in its former state it may now have its amends here And whereas it is certain some of the more gross powers of the Body shall be laid aside in this renovation of things because our Saviour hath told us that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God Mat. 22. 30. and the Apostle S. Paul expresses himself thus 1 Cor. 6. 13. Meats for the belly and the belly for meats but God shall destroy both it and them It seems therefore not improbable that as some of those offices shall cease so others more generous and excellent shall then be discovered in their stead And for all those that are restored with the Body they shall not be in vain but have their use their objects and their delights The Eyes shall probably please themselves with delightfull prospects the Ears be entertained with harmonies there shall be a kindly and delicious motion of the Spirits the whole Fabrick shall shine with light and beauty and shall have a wonderfull agility and vigorous motion so as to be able to mount the Heavens as we know the Body of our Saviour did after his Resurrection All this and whatsoever else is good or desirable or glorious or possible shall be the portion of good men in the other world TO which add that as that happiness shall be of the whole man and of all his powers and capacities and with the highest gratifications so that it may be meer sincere and perfect happiness indeed there shall be no allay or mixture of any thing that may give the least trouble or disturbance there shall be all the instances of joy all the ingredients of felicity and nothing else to the contrary No sad circumstance to imbitter his delights nothing to divert him or call him off from his enjoyments no weariness to interrupt his prosecutions nor satiety to make the fruition loathsom and tedious no fear or solicitude to abate his delight no temptation to disturb or molest him no danger of excesses to check and restrain him Here the former Prodigal may now swim in the highest and most generous pleasures without riot or intemperance without danger of exhausting either himself or them in a word here there is no fatal interchanges and vicissitudes of good and evil bitter and sweet as is usual in this world but simple unmixt constant joy and happiness IT was a rare and unparalleled happiness of Quintus Metellus of whom it is said that he had such a benign gale of prosperity constantly attended him that in all the tedious and perillous voyage of a very long life he never met with storm nor calm rock nor shelf but arrived at his Port in peace full of days and laden with blessings For saith the Historian he lived in the greatest honour and affluence having had the glory of being Consul the highest Magistracy of being General of a Roman Army the highest trust and of a triumph the greatest honour and felicity He lived to see his three Sons all arrive at the highest dignities and preferments that magnificent State of Rome could yield them his three Daughters all married to the best Families and by all these he had a numerous and hopefull progeny of
yet when we say and that truely of him that he made all things for himself and his own glory the meaning is that he takes delight in the reflection of his own image and feels his own perfections reverberated upon him from his Creatures BUT there is no necessity we should goe so far since all I am concerned in at present is sufficiently manifest namely that the happiness of men in the Kingdom of Heaven could not be compleat and full without the advantage of that blessed society which there they shall enjoy and that added to the forementioned ingredients raises it to the highest pitch of felicity that we can apprehend or imagine FOR in the first place there we shall enjoy the glorious presence of the Divine Majesty without consternation or affrightment whilst men are in this world it is not only impossible for weak eyes to behold so bright a glory but every approach of him strikes them with terrour When God had appeared to Jacob in a vision only it filled him with great apprehensions of so august a Majesty and he breaks out Gen. 28. 17. How dreadfull is this place c. And the Prophet I saiah when he saw a stately scene of the Divine Glory cries out Woe is me I am undone for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts Isa 6. 5. For besides that the very glory of such displays of the Divinity were wont to be very wonderfull and surprizing the consideration also of what men had deserved at God's hands and the reflection upon their own miscarriages made all such appearances very formidable and suspicious to them But now in Heaven we shall see him and live he will not oppress us with his Majesty nor confound us with his Glory there shall be no guilt to affright us nor object to amaze us he will either fortify and sharpen our sight or submit himself to our capacity and shine out in all sweetness delight and complacency towards us NOW this must needs afford unspeakable felicity for in enjoying him we enjoy all things forasmuch as all that is any where good and delectable did flow from him and is to be found in him as in its source and original All that can charess our powers that can ravish our hearts all that is good all that is lovely and desirable are here in their greatest perfection and compendiously to be enjoyed So the Psalmist Psal 16. 11. In thy presence there is fullness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore AGAIN we shall there also enjoy the society of the blessed Jesus we shall see him as he is and behold his glory and be with him for ever What a ravishment was it to the Disciples and what an ecstasy did it put them into when he appeared again to them after his Resurrection he had promised them he would do so and they had reason to believe him having seen the miracles he had wrought already and the wonderfull attestations to his divine power notwithstanding when they saw with what malice the Jews persecuted him and with what success that they stigmatized his reputation insulted over his person derided his doctrine and put him to death which he had now for some time lien under the power of their hearts mis-gave them and they began now to mistrust they should never see him again who they had hoped should have redeemed Israel However they resolve to see what is become of him and between hopes and fears they come to his Sepulchre on the third day but with more of the latter then the former as appears by the spices they brought with them to imbalm him as if they resolved his memorial should be precious with them though they never saw him more Thither being come they find the Watch dismayed and fled the Sepulchre open the Grave-cloaths laid in order all which somewhat revived them and besides they see an Angel standing at the door telling them that he was indeed risen from the dead this more incourages them but when himself appears to them as they were going pensive into Galilee and convinces them that it was indeed he by entertaining them with the same discourses he used to have with them by eating with them and by shewing to Thomas especially his Hands and his Feet and all the Characters of the same person THEN what joy were they in Lord how were they transported how do they wonder at their own stupidity and incredulity hitherto and admire their own felicity now But when at the last day after many hundred years interruption of his bodily appearance nay when those good men that have not seen but have believed that have lived to him denied themselves been persecuted have died for him shall see him in glory shall behold that image of perfect goodness and loveliness shall injoy him that died for them that purchased them by his bloud that opened Heaven to them shall hear him say Come ye blessed of my Father receive a Kingdom prepared for you c. You who have imitated me in holiness and followed me in my sufferings you who have not been discouraged by the meanness of my first appearance nor the long expectation of my second coming whose love and resolution for me was not baffled by the contempt of the world debauched by the examples of men nor abated by the pretended difficulty of my institutions you shall now see my glory be like me rejoice with me live with me and never be separated from me more It is in vain for me to goe about to express the transcendency of this joy which no tongue can utter nor any pen can describe we can think a great deal more then we can speak but we shall then feel what we cannot now conceive when every face shall shine with chearfullness every eye sparkle with joy every heart overflow with gladness and every mouth be filled with Allelujah and the whole Quire sing together the new song the song of Moses and of the Lamb. BUT this is not all yet for in Heaven holy men shall not only enjoy the presence of their Lord but the comfortable society of all his train the glorious host of Angels these as they have condescended to minister to men in this world and diligently to imploy themselves for the protection of good men and for the recovering of evil men to God and for the raising them from the dead and presenting them before God in Heaven so having now successfully finished all that ministry shall now wellcome them to glory rejoice with them and entertain them in friendly and familiar conversation those great and wise and holy Spirits shall recount to them all the wonders of divine providence past which they have been imployed in discover to them all the secrets of the other world and as Praecentors goe before and guide them in all the joys and triumphs of that blessed Kingdom AND lastly holy men shall rejoice in the happy society of one
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New Go in Peace Containing some brief directions for Young Ministers in their Visitation of the Sick Vsefull for the people in their state both of Health and Sickness In Twelves New The Practical Christian in Four Parts or a Book of Devotions and Meditations Also with Meditations and Psalms upon the four last things 1. Death 2. Judgment 3. Hell 4. Heaven By R. Sherlock D. D. Rector of Winwick In Twelves The Life and Death of K. Charles the First By R. Perenchief D. D. Octavo Bishop Cozen 's Devotions In Twelves The true Intellectual Systeme of the Vniverse the First Part wherein all the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted and its Impossibility demonstrated By R. Cudworth D. D. Fol. New The End of the Catalogue Inter omnes Christi Parabolas haec sanè est eximia plena affectuum pulcherrimis picta coloribus H. Grot. in v. 20. Prov. 1. 6. Prov. 25. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex Strom. lib. 1. Justin in dial cum Tryphone Judaeo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam 14. L. Bacon Advanc Videtur autem praeter similitudinem totius etiam partibus inesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sicut non anxiè conquirendae sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in partibus comparationum ita hic non negligendae cùm cas aliorum locorum comparatio suggerat Arias Montanus in dilucid Vid. Quistorp in loc Vid. Grot. in ver 2. Jon. 4. 10 11. Theophylact in loc St. Austin Q. Evang. l. 2. Praeproperâ pieratis velocitate paenè antè coepit perfectus esse quà m disceret * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pont. Diac. in vit S. Cyprian Greg. Naz. Orat. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Touching this matter let the Learned Reader consult Mr. Cumberland de Leg. Nat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr de abst lib. 1. Magnum humanae imbecillitatis patrocinium necessitas quae quicquid cogit excusat Sen. Mentem peccare non corpus unde consilium abfuerit peccatum abesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex paedag l. 1. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. paedag lib. 1. Sciendum est non locorum distantiâ sed affectu nos esse cum Deo vel ab eo recedere S. Hierom. ep 146. * Dedit eis liberum arbitrium dedit mentis propriae libertatem ut viveret unusquisque non ex imperio Dei sed ex obsequio suo i. e. non ex necessitate sed ex voluntate ut virtus haberet locum ut à caeteris animantibus distaremus dum ad exemplum Dei permissum est robis facere quod velimus Chap. 3. Sect. 3. Just Mart. Apol. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Quod comprehensionem dedisset quasi nor mam scientiae principium sui * Sine quibus nec intelligi quicquam nec quaeri nec disputari possit Tully Acad lib. 1. 4. See Euseb praepar Evang l. 6. c. 6. Tully de Divinat Tanta autem est corruptela malae consuetudinis ut ab eatanquam igniculi à natura dati extinguuntur Cic. de leg l. 1. Tit. Liv. lib. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost in locum Salvus esse non potuit si sanus esse coepisset Tuse Q. 5. 2 Tim. 2. 26. 1 Jo. 3. 8. Ecce quid faciat praeceps cupidit as civem in peregrinum locupletem in egenum filiumin mercenarium convertit junxit porcis quem à patre piissimo sejunxit ut serviret coenoso pecori qui pietati sanctae parere contemserit Plin. Nat. hist l. 15. c. 24. Cum ipse omnium notarum sim peccator nulli rei natus nisi poenitentiae non facile possum super illâ â—acere quum ipse quoque stirpis humanae offensae in dominum princeps Adam exomologesi restitutus in Paradisum suum non tacet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Chrys loc priks citat Infigi debet persuasio ad totam vitam pertinens hoc est quod decretum voco Sen. Ep. 95. Jos 24. 15. Luk 14. 28 c. Matt. 4. 8. Matt. 13. The Reader is desired to peruse three short but sad stories to this purpose in Dr. J. Taylor 's Great Exemplar Part 3. Disc 19. Sect. 5. Matt. 22. 35. Mark 12. 28. Luk. 18. 18. Soli vos Tusâ—ulani veras vires vera arma quibus abira Romanorum vos â—uâ—aremini invenistis * Crimina nostra vel fateri tu tum censemus cùm tam serio poenituit Livy Hist lib. 6. 2 Sam. 24. St. James 2. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Apud Regem esse gratiae locum esse beneficio irasci ignâ—scere posse Leges verè rem surdam inexorabilem esse nihil laxamenti neceveniae habere periculosum esse in tot humanis erroribus solâ innocentiâ vivere Liv. Hist lib. 2. Judg. 13. 23. Judg 7. Lact lib 6. de vero Cultu cites such a passage out of Tullie's Third Book of Academies which is lost 2 King 21. 3 Joh. 3. S. Joh 3. 8. S. Luke 11. 13. 1 Joh. 4. 4. Phil. 2. 13. Pythag. Aurea Carmina Hierocl in Aurea Carmina 2 Kings 7. 3. Tert. de Poenit. V. Mede disc 3. in Act. 17. 4. Psal 27. 4. Livy lib. 5. Rom. 12. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non abscendit vitia sed abscindit Lact. li 3. cap. 26. Gen. 32. 10. Kimch in Isa 59. C. Trent Sess 4. cap. 4. Maim in Teshubha apud Lightf Hor. Hebr. Plutarch Reip. ger praecept Gen Chap. 37 continued to Chap. 45. Mark 10. 21. Senec. Ep. 73. Euseb Eccles Hist li. 3. cap. 17. Rev. 2. 4. Philo lib. de Abrahamo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luk. 17. 4. Joseph Antiqu. li. 15. c. 10. Daniel 5. Chrysost homilia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Nihil invenies rectius recto non magìs quà m vero verius omnis in modo virtus est modus est certa mensura Senec. Ep. 65. Plutarch de virt moral Plutarch de prof in virt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just Mart. Ep. ad Diognet By what means the further sanctification of the penitent is carried on Eph. 4. 30. 2 Kings 3. 15. Vide Gal. 5. 22. Phil. II. of Sp. D. of Alva 1 Sam. 2. 30. Prov. 6. 13. Simpl. in Epict. Simpl. in Praef. ad Epict. Vell. Paterc hist lib. 2. A brief description of a perfect Christian Vide Struckium de Conviv lib. 2. cap. 24. Menasse Ben Isr de Resurrect lib. 3. cap. 9. Luk. 23. 43. 2 Cor. 12. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Phil. Jud. de Alleg. Acts 17. 18. 32. Valerius Maxim lib. 7. cap. 1. Livy Hist lib. 45. cap. 7. Ibid. cap. 41. 1 Cor. 7. 31. S. Chrys ubi priús Matth. 22. 2. Luk. 14. 16. 1. Sam. 17. 26 c. Greg. Naz. orat 18.