will our heavenly Father forgive us ours Et qui ad tam magnum tonitruum non expergiscitur non dormit sed mortuus est saith St. Augustine He that awakes not out of his pleasant dream of Revenge at this thunder is not asleep but dead For He will not forgive you is the same with this He will damn you with those malicious Spirits the Devil and his Angels and He will forgive you is equivalent to this He will receive you into his Kingdom to his seat of mercy and glory We may say then that Meekness is necessary as a cause to this effect as a virtue destined to this end at least causa sine qua non a cause so far as that without it there is no remission of sins For though I have faith to remove mountains and have all Knowledge yet if I have not Meekness there is no hope of heaven Or it is causa removens prohibens a cause in as much as it removes those hindrances which stand between us and the Mercy of God For how can I appear before the Father of compassion with a heart spotted and stained with the gall of bitterness How can I stand before the Mercy-seat with my hands full of blood And thus Meekness is a cause of Forgiveness and may be said to produce this effect because though it have no positive causality yet without it mercy will not be obteined Blessedness is joyned to Meekness as in a chain which hath more links and If you shall forgive your enemies my Father will forgive you doth not shew what is sufficient but what is necessarily required to the expiation of sin and the inheritance of heaven Again by Meekness we resemble him who is a God that blotteth out transgressions When we are angry we are like unto the beasts that perish yea we are as the raging waves of the Sea foming out our own shame But when we yield to our brother's infirmity and forgive him we are as Gods Thirdly This virtue is seldom I may say never alone but it supposeth Faith which is sigillum bonorum operum the seal to every good work to make it current and authentick yea and all that fair retinue of Virtues which as Handmaids wait upon Faith and make her known to the world For he whose mind is so subact as to bear another mans burthen and to lift himself up upon the ruins of himself and create virtue out of injury and contempt cannot be far from the Kingdom of heaven nor destitute of those sacrifices wherewith God is well pleased And this I say though it be not necessary yet is very probable For these to be Covetous to be Luxurious to be Wanton and to be Meek cannot lodge in the same breast For we see Prodigality as well as Covetousness is a whetstone to our Anger and makes it keen and sharp And the Wanton will as soon quarrel for his Whore as the Miser for his Purse But Meekness believeth all things hopeth all things beareth all things and doth nothing unseemly For the mind of the Meek is like the Heavens above Semper illîc serenum est there is continual serenity and a perpetual day there It is as Wax fit to receive any impression or character of goodness and retein it a fit object for Gods benefits to work upon ready to melt at the light of his countenance and to yield at the lifting up of his hammer And therefore In the last place this Meekness and Readiness to forgive maketh us more capable of the Gospel of Christ and those other Precepts which it doth contain and so fits and prepareth and qualifieth us for this Blessedness for this great benefit of Remission of sins For he that is ready to forgive all injuries will be as ready to be poor very forward to go to the house of mourning merciful a peace-maker one that may be reviled and persecuted and so rightly qualified for those Beatitudes And he who can suffer an injury will hardly do one whereas they commonly are most impatient of wrongs who make least conscience of offering them qui irascuntur quia irascuntur who play the wantons and are angry with their brother for no other reason but because they are pleased to be angry Now the Oratour will tell us that Nullus rationi magìs obstat affectus there is no affection which is so great an enemy to Reason as Anger For Sorrow and Fear and Hope and the rest make an assault and lay hard at us but anger as a whirlwind overwhelms us at once I may be stricken with Fear and yet hearken to that counsel which will dispel it I may hang down my head with Sorrow and yet be capable of those comforts which may lift it up again for every one is not as Rahel that would not be comforted but we deal with Angry men as we do with men overcome with drink never give them counsel till the fit be over For fairly to be speak a man thus transported is to as much purpose as to bid the Sea go back or to chide the Winds And as the Reason and Judgment are dimmed and obscured with that mist which sudden Anger casts so are they also by that which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lasting or abiding Anger which is the forge or alembick of Revenge and works it by degrees And till this be dispelled and scattered there is no room for the Doctrine of the Gospel which breaths nothing but meekness and forgiveness Disce sed ira cadat naso To be angry and To learn are at as great a distance as To be in motion and To stand still He that fills his thoughts with Revenge can leave no room for the Precepts of that Master who was led to the slaughter as a sheep But the Meek man is like him is a Sheep his Sheep and will soon hear his voice draw nearer and nearer unto him and by Meekness learn Purity and those other virtues which will bring him into the arms of his Saviour and the Kingdom of Heaven And thus you see how necessary a virtue Meekness is for the Church and for every part of it for every Christian to entitle him to the inheritance of the earth as the earth is taken for that new earth Rev. 21. 1. the Earth not of living dying men but that Earth where we shall live for ever that state of happiness which like the Earth shall stand fast for ever For what is Meekness but a pregustation and fore-taste of that quiet and peaceable estate which is no where to be found but at the right hand and in the presence of God That as God who is slow to anger and full of goodness and mercy is properly and naturally in a constant and immoveable state of bliss so Christians who by divine grace and assistance raise themselves up to this height and pitch as to look down from a quiet mind as from heaven upon all the injuries and reproaches which shall
at Christs Matth. 20. 21 right hand the other at his left in his kingdome And can Christ do this and thus submit himself Can he be a King that thus pays tribute Some fit and pang of this distemper did no doubt trouble the Disciples minds at this time They had been often troubled with it and had sundry times discust amongst themselves as we have observed who should be the greatest And now upon this occasion seeing Christ bowing to Autority and submitting to them whom they thought he came to destroy the fire burned and they spake with their tongue Seeing the Lord of heaven and earth thus challeng'd for tribute and thus gently yielding to pay it they lost the sight of his Power in his Humility they forgot the miracle of the Money in the fishes mouth because it was tribute And being struck with Admiration they began to enquire what Honors and what degrees of Greatness were in his Kingdome which is his Church and observing the King of Heaven himself thus subject to command instead of learning Humility they foment their Pride they awake their Ambition and rowse it up to seek the glory of this world they are bold to ask him who was the Master and patern of Humility Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven This I take to be the Occasion of this Question And so I pass from it to the Persons who moved it The Disciples came unto Jesus And the Disciples we doubt not had been well and often instructed that the Kingdome of Christ was not of this world but spiritual yet the prejudicate conceit they had of the Messias did shut up their understanding against this truth the shape they had drawn in their minds of Christ made Christ less visible in his own shape So hard it is homini hominem exuere for a man to put off himself for a man that looks for a Pearl to interpret it Grace for a man that is ambitious of Honor on earth to look for it in heaven Such a damp and darkness doth Prejudice cast upon the minds and understandings even of the best men even of Disciples of Christ For the Devil fits himself to the nature and disposition of every man What he said of the Jesuite JESUITA EST OMNIS HOMO a Jesuite is every man to every man can apply himself to all humors all dispositions is most true of our common enemy Satan He is in a manner made all things to all men If he cannot cast us down into the mire of carnal and bruitish sin he is very active and cunning to lift us up on the wings of the wind and to whiff us about with the desire of honor and priority Etiam in sin◠discipulorum ambitio dormit saith Cyprian Ambition finds a pillow to sleep on even in the bosome of Disciples themselves There she lyes as in a shade lurks as in a bed-chamber and at last she comes forth and you may behold her raising of palaces and measuring out kingdomes and you may hear her asking of questions Who shall be the greatest Multimoda Satanae ingenia saith Hierome the craft of Satan is various and his wiles and devises manifold He knows in what breast to kindle Lust into which to breathe Ambition He knows whom to cast down with Sorrow whom to deceive with Joy whom to shake with Fear and whom to mislead with Admiration He searcheth our affections he fans and winnows our hearts and makes that a bait to catch us withal which we most love and most look upon He fights as the Father speaks with our selves against our selves he makes snares of our own desires and binds and fetters us up with our own love If he overcome us with his more gross tentations he insults but if he fail there he then comes towards us with those tentations which are better clothed and better spoken He maketh curious nets entangles our phansie and we strait dream of Kingdomes If our weakness overthrow us not tropheis triumphisque succumbemus saith the Father our own tropheys and triumphs shall destroy us Like a wise Captain he plants all his force and artillery at that place which is weakest and most attemptable We see the Disciples hearts were here weakest and here lay most open hither therefore the Devil directs his darts here he placeth his engines to make a breach So dangerous a vice is Ambition and so hard a thing it is even for good men for mortified persons for the Disciples of Christ to avoid it Who shall be the greatest they are not alwaies the worst men that put up that question Tully observes of the Philosophers that though they wrote books of the Contempt of Glory yet they would set their names to those books and so seek for Glory by oppugning it and even woo it in the way of a bold defiance And Plutarch speaking of the Philosopher whose Dictor it was LATENTER VIVENDUM That a concealed life was best yet adds withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he would not have it concealed that this Dictor or speech was his What speak we of the Heathen Philosophers The Philosophers of God the Prophets of God have been much infested herewith Look upon Baruch When he thrived not in the King of Judah's Court he fell into discontent and repining so that the Prophet Jeremy is sent unto him with express message Seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not For I will bring evil upon the whole earth saith the Lord. Behold Jonah under his gourd What Jer. 45. 5. a pett and chafe is he in How irreverent to his God How doth he tell God even to his face that he did well to be angry even unto death And all this Anger from what fire was it kindled Certainly from no other then an overweaning conceit of his own reputation lest the sparing of Niniveh against which he had denounced ruin and destruction should disparage him with the people and lose him the name of a true Prophet And this we need not much marvail at if we consider the nature of this vice For first of all it is a choice vice preserved on purpose by the Divel to abuse the best nor will it grow in every soil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Noble natures the best capacities the most able wits these are the fat soil in which this weed grows Base and sordid natures seldom bear it What cares the Covetous person for Honor who will bow to durt What cares he for rising in repute who hath buried himself alive in the earth What cares he for a name that had rather see other mens names in his parchments then his own in the Book of Life What cares the Wanton for renown who had rather be crowned with roses then with a Diademe or will he desire to rise higher whose highest step is up to the bed of Lust and the embraces of a Strumpet These Swine love not such water as this nor such an oyntment as
and Preferments in the Kingdome of Christ Let us not fit Religion to our carnal desires but lay them down at the foot of Religion Make not Christianity to lacquey it after the World but let Christianity swallow up the World in victory Let us clip the wing of our Ambition and the more beware of it because it carries with it the shape and shew of Virtue For as we are told in Philosophy In habentibus symbolum facilior transmutatio amongst the Elements those two which have a quality common to both are easiliest changed one into the other so above all Vices we are most apt to fall into those which have some symbolizing quality some face and countenance of Goodness which are better drest and better clothed and bespeak us in the name of Virtue it self like a strumpet in a matrons stool Let us shun this as a most dangerous rock against which many a vessel of burden after a prosperous voyage hath dasht and sunk By Desire of honor and vain glory it comes to pass that many goodly and specious monuments which were dedicated rather to Honor then to God have destroyed and ruined their Founders who like unfortunate mothers have brought forth beautiful issues but themselves have dyed in the birth of them They have proved but like the ropes of silk and daggers of gold which Heliogabalus prepared to stab and strangle himself withall adding pretiosiorem mortem suam esse debere that his death ought to be more costly then other mens and they have served to no other end but this ut cariùs pereant that the workers of them might dye with greater state then other men and might fall to the lowest pit as the sword-players did in the Theater with noyse and applause I have spoken of the Occasion of the Question and of the Persons who put it Come we now in the last place to the Question it self Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven The Disciples here were mistaken in terminis in the very terms of their Question For neither is Greatness that which they supposed nor the Kingdome of heaven of that nature as to admit of that Greatness which their phansie had set up For by the Kingdome of heaven is meant in Scripture not the Kingdome of Glory but the Kingdome of Grace by which Christ sits and rules in the hearts of his Saints When John the Baptist preacht Repentance he told the Jews that the Kingdome of heaven is at hand When our Saviour tells us that it is like seed sowen in good ground like a net cast into the sea like a pearl like a treasure hid in the field what else can he mean but his Kingdome of Grace on earth not his Kingdome of Glory in heaven So that for the Disciples to ask Who is greatest in this kingdome was to shape out the Church of God by the World Much like to that which we read in Lucian of Priams young son who being taken up into heaven is brought-in calling for milk and cheese and such country cates as were his wonted food on earth For in the Kingdome of Grace that is in the Congregation of Gods Saints and the elect Members of Christ there is no such difference of degrees as Ambition taught the Disciples to imagine Not that we deny Order and Government in the Church of God No without these his Church could not subsist but would be like Aristotles army without discipline 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unprofitable rout To this end Christ gave Apostles and Teachers and Pastors for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ His Teachers call us his Governors direct us to this Kingdome But the Disciples being brought up in the world thought of that Greatness which they saw did bear the sway amongst men Much like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who thought that God bare the shape of a Man because they read in Scripture of his Feet and Hands and Eyes and the like But that it was not so in Christs Kingdome may appear by our Saviour's Answer to the Question For he takes a Child and tells them that if they will be of his Kingdome they must be like unto it By which he choaks and kills in them all conceit of Ambition and Greatness For as Plato most truly said that those that dye do find a state of things beyond all expectation diverse from that which they left behind so when we are dead to the World and true Citizens of the Kingdome of Christ we shall find there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but all are one in Christ Gal. 3. 28. Jesus God looks not what bloud runs in thy veins he observes not thy Heraldry If Greatness could have purchased heaven Lazarus had been in hell and Dives in Abrahams bosome Earl and Knight and Peasant are tearms of distinction on earth in the Kingdome of heaven there is no such distinction Faith makes us all one in Christ and the Crown of glory shall be set upon the head of him that grindeth at the mill as well as upon his that sitteth on the throne Christ requires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the nobility of the Soul and he is the greatest in his Kingdome who hath the true and inward worth of Honesty and Sanctity of life though in this world he lye buried in obscurity and silence Here Lazarus may be richer then Dives the beggar higher then the King and a Child the least is greatest in this Kingdome A main difference we may see between this Kingdome and the Kingdomes of the world if we compare them First the Subjects of this Kingdome are unknown to any but to God himself The foundation of the Lord standeth sure saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 19. having this seal The Lord knowes who are his And if they be unknown who then can range them into orders and degrees Secondly of this Kingdome there is no end Thirdly the seat of this Kingdome is the hearts of the faithful Cathedram habet in Coelo qui domat corda His chair is in heaven that rules the hearts of the sons of men here on earth This earth that is this body of clay hath God given to the sons of men to the Princes of the earth under whose government we live But our Heaven our better part our inward and spiritual man he reserves to himself Kings and Princes can restrain the outward man and moderate our outward actions by their laws and edicts Illa se jactat in aulâ Aeolus Thus far can they go They can tye our Hands and Tongues and they can go no further For to set up an imperial throne in our Understandings and our Wills belongs to Christ alone He teacheth the lame to go and the blind to see and recovers the dry hand He makes us active in this Kingdome of Grace Lastly as their Subjects and Seat are different so are
be the outward expressions of Christian Meekness which is not lockt up and imprisoned in the heart but manifests its self in the outward gesture for certainly he is no meek man whose tongue is either a rasour or a sword but yet Revenge and Rancor of heart may borrow these expressions may make its approaches in a pleasing posture and may break an enemies head with oyl And indeed Revenge is never more bloudy then when it speaks in a still voice and the dialect of Love Nemo hostilius vulnerat quà m qui amabili manu no wound more deadly then that which is given with a friendly hand For he strikes home and without fear who is not feared when he strikes That we may therefore take this old Devil off the stage which makes such desolation in the shape of an Angel of light we will set before you the common provocations of Anger in repressing of which our Meekness especially consists The Philosopher in his Rhetoricks l. 2. c. 2. hath furnisht us with three The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contempt of our persons which is a sharp provocation And he is undoubtedly a great Proficient in the School of Meekness who hath learnt to be contemned Therefore David makes it his Prayer Remove from me reproach and contempt Such a temptation he lookt upon with fear and trembling The second is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an incommodation or despiteful usage Which frequently affronts us men being many times of that vile disposition as to delight in mischief and to look upon it as a purchase though they reap no other fruit then the bare doing of it The last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is injury with grief and loss and disgrace Our Saviour here points out to it in this Chapter when he tells us of a Blow on the cheek of Taking our coat of Violence And the second he mentions in express terms v. 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pray for them who despitefully use you Now he that hath learnt to be contemned he that can drink down injuries and digest them he that is so spiritually poysed and ballasted that no tempest no wind of the unrighteous can shake him he that is as ready to forgive as wicked persons are to wrong him he that so absteins from offense as if he pardon'd no man and yet so pardon'd others as if himself were an offender may challenge a title to this Beatitude and to the inheritance of the earth And now further to display the beauty of this Virtue we will proceed to shew you the extent of it The Philosophers may seem to have too narrowly confined it If therefore we will behold Meekness in its full proportion we must look for it not at Athens but Jerusalem not in the Philosophers Schools but in porticu Solomonis in the house of Wisdome in the Gospel of Christ Reckon up all the Precepts which Philosophy hath given us all the examples which have been shewn and though we shall find enough to shame us Christians yet we shall not find that degree of Meekness which is required of Christians We read in Tully that Justice requires that we endammage none nisi lacessiti injuriâ till we are provok't by some injury And Lactantius well censureth it Simplicem verà mque sententiam duorum verborum adjectione corripit he spoiled a good sentence by the addition of two words lacessiti injuriâ provokt by injury For a Christian hurts no man though he be provokt Seneca speaks more like a Christian Magni animi est omnium veniam dare nullius petere It proceeds from a great and well-subacted mind to pardon all injuries but to walk in that simplicity that it needs ask pardon of none But yet this doth not fully express a Christian Who doth not only pardon injuries but in a manner reward them It is a great commendation which Tully gives Caesar that he forgot nothing but injuries nor ever hurt an enemy nisi in agris stantem but fighting in the field He was one of the stoutest and greatest Champions of the world He stood the shock of fifty set battles besides all sieges and outrodes He took a thousand Cities and walled Towns He over-run three hundred several Countries And in his Wars were slain well-near twelve hundred thousand men besides all those which dyed in the Civil Warrs And yet he protested of himself and that most truly that he never drew bloud but in the field Here is indeed a pattern of Meekness and such a pattern that most Christians are unwilling to take out yet this doth not reach home Novam certè mansuetudinem docet Christus Certainly Christ hath drawn out Meekness in other colours and except our Meekness exceed the Heathens we shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Will you see the full extent of Meekness It is hard to shew it For as I find it in the Fathers who walkt by the light of Scripture it is made almost boundless Not to be angry To forgive Not to revenge these yet do not reach it To suffer with patience and a quiet mind the greatest injuries this is not home To forgive seventy times seven times this number is yet short to teach our Meekness to keep time with the Malice and Injustice of men It must yet press further and manifest it self not only in suffering but in doing Dost thou know saith St. Chrysostom that thy brother intends particular mischief against thee that he would embrue his hand in thy bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet kiss that hand For the Lord did not refuse to kiss that mouth which made the bargain for his bloud Hath he robbed thee of all thy goods Be not angry but if by chance any thing be left give it willingly to him who hath taken away all Nay saith Basil if thine enemy hunger though thou hast but one loaf to sustein thy self yet give it him and rely upon Gods Providence to feed thee You will say now perhaps that I have stretched it too far even beyond its line and compass and as Pythagoras instructed his Scholars to do where there was burthen enough already laid on more If I have yet I have done it magnis autoribus and have no less then St. Chrysostom and St. Basil for my defence Indeed Meekness cannot be too far extended where with evil handling it hath been shrunk up almost to nothing What kiss his hand Nay off with his head Feed our enemy with bread Nay strike a dagger into his throat This goes for current Doctrine not in the Camp alone amongst barbarous Souldiers but in the habitations of peace amongst Christians As for true Meekness we find it in paginis non in operibus in our looks perhaps but not the least syllable or character of it in our manners and deportment I have often wondred that Christians should make so little esteem of this Virtue which is theirs alone and especially directed unto them The very Pagans by the light of
of Sheba to draw near unto it and prove it in your selves And when you shall have practiced it in your selves you will say it was true indeed that you heard but you will feel more then you have heard or could hear by report We will therefore yet awhile longer detain you You have beheld the face of Meekness in her proper Subject which is every private man and in her proper Object which is as large as the whole world and takes in not only the Israel of God but the Amorite the Hittite the Amalekite not only the Christian but the Turk the Jew and the Pagan any man that is subject to the same passions any man that can suffer any man that can do an injury For Meekness runs round the whole circle and compass of mankind and binds every evil spirit conjures down every Devil she meets with Lastly we presented unto your view the Fitness and the Applicableness of this virtue to the Gospel and Church of Christ and told you that it is as it were the very breath of the Gospel the echo of that good news the best gloss and comment on a silent weeping crucified Saviour the best explanation of his last Prayer Father forgive them For the notes and characters of a Christian as they are described in the Gospel are Patience are easie putting up and digesting of injuries Humility a preferring of all before our selves And St. James tells us that the wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated where he giveth the first place unto Purity It would be a sin almost to compare Christian virtues together and make them strive for precedency and place yet he that shall mark how every where the Scripture strives to commend unto us Gentleness and Meekness and that Peace is it quam nobis Apostoli totis viribus Spiritûs Sancti commendant as Tertullian speaks which the Apostles endeavour with all the strength and force of the Holy Ghost to plant amongst us might be bold a little to invert the words of St. James and read them thus The wisdom which is from above is first peaceable gentle easie to be intreated then pure For the Son of God who is the Wisdom of the Father and who for us men came down from above first and above all other virtues commended this unto the world At his birth the Song of the Angels was Peace on earth and Good-will towards men All his Doctrine was Peace his whole life was Peace and no man heard his voice in the streets And as Christ so Christians For as in the building of Solomons Temple there was no noise of any hammer or other instrument of iron so in the spiritual building and frame of a Christian there is no sound of any iron no noise of weapons nothing but Peace and Gentleness and Meekness Ex praecepto fidei non minùs rea est Ira sine ratione suscepta quà m in operibus legis Homicidium saith Augustine Unadvised Anger by the law of Faith and the Gospel is as great a sin as Murder was in the Law of Moses Thus you have seen how proper Meekness is to the Gospel and Church of Christ Now in the last place we shall draw this Virtue forth to you as most necessary to the well-being not only of a Church but of every particular member of it necessary to lift us up to the Reward the inheritance of the earth Which whither you take for that Earth which is but earth or that Earth which by interpretation is Heaven ad omnia occurrit mansuetudo Meekness reacheth both both the Footstool and the Throne of God it gives us title to the things below and it makes us heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven Without this we can have no mansion in Heaven nor any quiet and peaceable possession of the earth And thus with our last hand we shall set you up that copy which you may draw out in your selves For Meekness in character in leaves of paper in our books is rather a shadow than a picture and soon vanisheth away but being drawn out in the soul and practice of a Christian it is a fair and lasting piece even the image of Christ himself which the Angels and God himself desire to look upon And with these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion at this time And first Meekness may seem most necessary to Christians if we consider the nature of Christianity it self which stands in opposition to all other Professions in the world confutes the Philosopher silenceth the Scribe strikes Oracles dumb cryes to every man in the world to go out of it Behold saith our Saviour to his Disciples I send you forth as sheep in the Matth. 10 16. midst of wolves which will tear you to pieces for no other reason but because you are sheep It is a disease very incident to men to be jealous of every breath which blows in opposition to that which they have already received to swell against that which is contrary to them and though it be true to suspect it to wonder what it should mean to be troubled and affraid of it as Herode and all Jerusalem were when the new Star appear'd and though it be as visible to any wise man as the Star was in the East yet to seek to put it out or if they cannot to destroy those over whom it stands And therefore Tertullian tells us Cum odio sui coepit that Christianity was hated as soon as known and did no sooner shew it self in the world but it found enemies who were ready to suppress and cast it out men that could hate it for no other reason but because it taught to love that could be angry with the Christian because he was meek and destroy him because he made it his profession to forgive men who counted Revenge no sin as the ancient Grecians did sometimes Theevery because it was so commonly practis'd amongst them Again as it was planted in rerum colluvie in the corruption of men and manners so it doth in a manner bid defiance to the whole world It tells the Jew his Ceremonies are beggerly the wise man of this world that his Philosophy is but deceit and his wisdom madness It plucks the Wanton from the harlots lips tumbles down the Ambitious from his pinacle disarms the Revenger strips the Rich. It writes over the Rich mans Gates Blessed are the poor over the Doctor 's Chair Where is the disputer of this world over the Temple NON LAPIS SUPER LAPIDEM That not a stone shall be left upon a stone which shall not be thrown down For a NON OCCIDES it brought down a NE IRASCARIS and made Anger Murder for a NON MAECHABERIS a NON CONCUPISCES and made Desire adultery It brought down sin to a look to a thought and therefore no marvell if there arose against Christians tot hostes quot extranei as many enemies as there were Heathen or Jews
plainly named The Disciples came unto Jesus saying 3. The Question it self Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven Where we shall take some pains to discover the true nature of this Kingdome that so we may plainly see the Disciples error and mistake and carefully avoid it These are the parts we shall speak of and out of these draw such inferences as may be useful for our instruction that as if by the Disciples doctrine when they were inspired by the holy Ghost so by their error when they were yet novices in the School of Christ we may learn to guide our steps and walk more circumspectly in the wayes of truth that by their ill putting up the Question We may learn to state it right Of these in their order We are first to speak of the Occasion of this Question And to discover this we must look back upon the passage immediately going before Chapt. 17. and as it were ushering in my Text. There the Occasion privily lurks as the Devil did in the Occasion And there we find how our Saviour in a wonderful manner both paid and received tribute received it of the Sea and paid it unto Caesar in the one professing himself to be Caesars Subject in the other proving himself to be Caesars Lord. You see Caesar commands him to pay tribute and Christ readily obeys but withal he commands the Sea and behold the Fishes hasten to him with tribute in their mouths Chapt. 17. 27. Now why our Saviour did so strangely mix together his Humility and his Power in part the reason is given by himself Lest we should offend them For having proved himself free and therefore not subject to tribute for if the Sons of Kings be free then the Son of the King of Heaven must needs be so yet saith he unto Peter That we give no offence cast thy angle into the Sea He is content to do himself wrong and to loose his profit to gain his peace And as he did express his Humility that be might not offend Caesar so we may be easily perswaded that he did manifest his Glory that he might not offend his Disciples For lest his Disciples peradventure should begin to doubt whether he was as he pretended Lord of heaven and earth who did so willingly acknowledge a superior look how much he seem'd to impair his credit by so humbly paying of tribute so much and more he repaired it by so gloriously receiving it Now saith the Text At the same time when this wonderful thing was acting then was this Question proposed But now in all this action let us see what occasion was here given to this Question what spark to kindle such a thought in the Disciples hearts what one circumstance which might raise such an ambitious conceit They might indeed have learnt from hence Humility and Obedience to Princes though Tyrants and as Tyrants exacting that which is not due and a Willingness to part with their right rather then to offend That Christ is not offended when thus parting with our goods we offend our selves to please our Superiours But a corrupt Heart poysons the most wholsome the most didactical the most exemplary actions and then sucks from them that venome which it self first cast A sick ill-affected stomach makes food it self the cause of a disease and makes an Antidote poyson Prejudice and a prepossessed mind by a strong kind of Alchymie turns every thing into it self makes Christs Humility an occasion of pride his Submission a foot-stool to rise up upon and upon Subjection it self lays the foundation of a Kingdome Some of the Fathers as Chrysostome and Hierome and others were of opinion that the Disciples when they saw Peter joyned with Christ in this action and from those words of our Saviours Take and give them for me and thee did nourish a conceit that Peter in this was preferred before the rest and that there was some peculiar honor done to him above his fellows and that this raised in them a disdain against Peter and that their disdain moved them to propose this Question not particularly Whether Peter should be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in general terms Who should be the greatest And this the Church of Rome lays hold on and founding her pretended Supremacy on Peter wheresoever she finds but the name of Peter nay but the shadow of Peter she seeks a mystery and if she cannot find one she will make one The Cardinal is fond of this interpretation and brings it in as a strong proof of that claim the Bishop of Rome makes of being Prince of all the world But what is this but interpretationibus ludere de scripturis when the Text turns countenance to put a face and a fair gloss upon it and make it smile upon that monstrous Error which nothing but their Ambition could give birth and life unto For to speak truth what honor could this be to Peter To pay tribute is a sign of subjection not of honor And if we will judge righteous judgment nay if we will judge but according to the appearance the greatest honor which could here have accrewed to Peter had been to have been exempted when all the rest had paid To speak truth then or at least that which is most probably true not any honor done to Peter but the dishonor which was done to Christ himself may seem to be the true Occasion of this Question I shall give you my reason for it We see it a common thing in the world that men who dream of Honors as the Disciples here did grow more ambitious by the sense of some disgrace As in Winter we see the fountains and hollow caverns of the earth are hottest and as the Philosophers will tell us that a quality grows stronger and more intense by reason of its contrary Humility may sometimes blow the bladder of Pride Disgrace may be as a wind to whet up our ambitious thoughts to a higher pitch Or it may be as Water some drops of it by a kind of moral Antiperistasis may kindle this fire within us and enrage it and that which was applyed as a remedy to allay the tumour may by our indisposition and infirmity be made an occasion to encrease it We trusted that this had been he who should have redeemed Israel say they Luke 24. 21. Is this he who should come with the Sword and with Power and with Abundance unto them that should root up the Nations before them and re-instate them in the Land of Canaan Is this that Messias which after many years victoriously past on earth should at last resign up his life and establish his Kingdome upon his Successors for ever A conceit not newly crept in but which they may seem to have had by a kind of tradition as appeareth by that of our Saviour Luke 14. 15. Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdome of God and by the mother of Zebedee's children who requested that her two sons might sit one
their Laws In the Common-wealth of Rome the Laws were the works of many hands Some of them were Plebiscita the acts of the people others Senatus Consulta the decrees of the Senate others edicta Praetorum the verdicts of their Judges others Responsa prudentum the opinions of Wise men in cases of doubt others rescripta Imperatorum the rescripts and answers of their Emperors when they were consulted with Christiani habent regulam saith Tertullian Christians have one certain immoveable rule the Word of God to guide and rule them in their life and actions Besides the Laws of the Kingdome of Christ are eternal substantial indispensable But the laws made by humane autority are many of them light and superficial all of them temporary and mutable For all the humane autority in the world can never enact one eternal or fundamental law Read the Laws that men have made and lay them together and we shall observe that they were made upon occasion and circumstance either of Time or Place or Persons and therefore either by discontinuance have fallen of themselves or by reason of some urgent occasion have been necessarily revoked But the Laws of our Great King are like himself everlasting never to be revoked or cancelled but every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tittle of them to stand fast though heaven and earth pass away Thus you see the Kingdome of Christ and the Kingdomes of this world have not the same face and countenance the Subjects of the one being discernable of the other unknown their seat and place and lawes are different So that our Saviour as he answered the sons of Zebedee Yee know not what yee ask so he might have replied to his Disciples here Yee know not what yee speak My kingdome is not of this world The kingdome of heaven is within you Why ask you then Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven That you commit no more such soloecisms behold here a little child let him teach you how to speak and become like him and you shall be great in the kingdome of heaven We see then that the Disciples of Christ were much mistaken in this question of greatness And a common error it is amongst men to judge of spiritual things by carnal of eternal by temporary When our Saviour preached to Nicodemus the Doctrine of Regeneration and New life what a gross conceit did he harp upon of a Re-entry to be made into his mothers womb When he told the Samaritane of the water of life her thoughts ran on her pitcher and on Jacob's well When Simon Magus saw that by laying on of hands the Apostles gave the holy Ghost he hopes by money to purchase the like power For seeing what a kingdome Money had amongst men he streight conceived Coelum venale Deumque that God and Heaven might be bought with a price Thus wheresoever we walk our own shadow goes before us and we use the language and dialect of the World in the School of Christ we talk of Superiority and Power and Dominion in that Kingdome wherein we must be Priests and Kings too but by being good not great The sense which the Disciples through error meant was this Who should be greatest Who should have most outward pomp and glory Who should have precedency above others But the sense which as appears by our Saviours answer they should have meant was Who is the greatest that is Who is of the truest and reallest worth in the kingdome of heaven This had shewed them Disciples indeed whose eyes should be the rather on the Duty then on the Reward and who can have no greater honor then this that they deserve it Though there be places of outward government of praeeminence and dignity in the Church yet it ill becomes the mouth of a Disciple to ask such a Question For though they all joyntly ask Who is the greatest yet it appears by the very question that every one of them did wish himself the man An evil of old very dangerous in the Church of Christ but not purged out in after ages Per quot pericula sath St. Augustine pervenitur ad grandius periculum Through how many dangers and difficulties do we strive forward to Honor which is the greatest danger of all Ut dominemur aliis priùs servimus saith St. Ambrose To gain Dominion over others we become the greatest slaves in the world What an inundation had this desire of Greatness made in the Church how was it ready to overwhelm all Religion and Piety had there not been banks set up against it to confute it and Decrees made to restrain it The Deacon would have the honor of the Priest the Priest the Consistory of the Bishop The Bishops seat was not high enough but he would be a Metropolitane and to that end procured Letters from the Emperors which the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they obteined that where there was formerly but one there might now be two Metropolitanes And all these no doubt were Disciples of Christ if for no other reason yet for this QUIS EST MAXIMUS for their affectation of Greatness And now what followed As one well observes Ex religione ars facta Religion was made a trade and an art to live by Till at last it was cried down in divers Councels at Chalcedon at Trullum in Constantinople and others And in the Councel of Sandis a Bishop is forbidden to leave the government of a small City for a greater Of all men Ambition least becomes a Disciple of Christ And therefore Christian Emperors did after count him unworthy of any great place in the Church who did affect it Quaeratur cogendus rogatus recedat invitatus effugiat Being sought for let him be compelled being askt let him withdraw himself being invited let him refuse Sola illi suffragetur necessitas recusandi Let this be the only suffrage to enthrone him that he refus'd it Maximè ambiendus qui non est ambitiosus For it is fit that he that doth not seek for should be sought for by preferment And to this purpose it was that our Saviour answers the Disciples not to what they meant but to what they should have meant to divert them from all thought of dominion And withal he implyes that that is not Greatness which they imagined but that Humility and Integrity of life was the truest Greatness and greatest Honor in his Kingdome And to speak the truth this only deserves the name of Greatness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Goodness is not placed in Greatness but Greatness in Goodness To go in costly apparel to fare deliciously to have a troup to follow us perhaps wiser then our selves this we may call what we please but Greatness it cannot be We read in Seneca the Orator of one Senecio an Orator who affected much grandia dicere to speak in a lofty stile and great words Which affectation in his art after turn'd to a disease so that he would have
sense which men use to take it As the Poet tells us when he speaks of Rivers and Mountains that men called them thus or thus but the Gods had other names for them The Gold of this Kingdome is the Religiousness and Obedience of the Saints the precious Stones are Truth and Sanctity In mundo tantò quisque melior quantò pecuniosior In the world every man is esteemed so good as he is rich Like a fruitless tree tanti est in pretio quantum lignum ejus in trunco he is valued only by his bulk and trunk But in this Kingdome the only Riches is Obedience Men may have the riches of the world and yet be poor But this Kingdome makes Poverty it self riches Disgrace honor Death life Here we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation here we are begotten to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away but is reserved in the heavens for us till that time that we shall receive the end of our faith the salvation of our souls Having now made the comparison the choice is easie And a great folly it were to prefer the World to the Church In the world the Laws are mutable here everlasting In the world they have tongues many times to speak but not hands to strike here they both thunder and lighten there Power beats the ear here it pierceth the very heart The Kingdoms of the world are bounded by place and time this is unconfinable More scope in the Church than in the world The Riches of the one are fading and transitory of the other everlasting And of this just and mighty and large and rich and everlasting Kingdome we cannot but say ADVENIAT Let it come I need make no further discovery of this Kingdome For who knows not what that Kingdome is where the King is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both God and Man Where the Subjects are of the earth earthy and yet born to an Angelical estate and having their conversation in heaven perigrini deorsum cives sursum strangers where they live and fellow-citizens with the Saints Phil. 3. 10. Where the King speaks to the eye by his wonders and to the ear by his word and yet leads and guides his people like sheep by a powerful but invisible hand A Kingdome which is not of this world but yet in this world raised up and built upon flesh and bloud upon frail and mortal men begun John 18. 36. here but to be made perfect and consummate in the world to come In a word where the King shall deliver up his kingdome and yet remain 1 Cor. 15. 34. still a King Take the Mapp of the whole world and if you find no such Kingdome no such parts no such subjects no such government then look up and lift up your heads let not your contemplations grovel on the earth for the Kingdome of heaven is at hand This is the sum of that we formerly delivered concerning the Object of this Petition We pass now to the Petition it self to the Verb ADVENIAT Let it come Which breaths it self forth in an earnest desire to draw this Kingdome nearer Whether you take it for the Gospel which is the manifestation of Gods will or for the receiving of the Gospel which is the performing of his will Whether you take it for the Kingdome of Grace here or for the Kingdome of Glory hereafter ADVENIAT Let it come That is the language of every true Christian Where it is not yet come let it come it cannot come soon enough And when it is come let it come nearer When it is within us let it be establisht there and when it is establisht let it be eternized there Remove all obstacles supply all helps ut adveniat that it may come that thy Kingdome of Grace may entitle us to thy Kingdome of Glory A Petition fitted indeed to the times wherein it was first prescribed but most necessary for all Christians to the worlds end when time shall be no more Though the Angels had sounded forth their GLORIA IN EXCELSIS Glory to God in the highest good will towards men though Christ were come in the flesh yet this Kingdome of the Gospel was not yet come but was rather in voto than in ministerio rather desired than known by its several offices and ministeries The Law and the Prophets saith our Saviour were until John since that time the Kingdome of Luke 16. 16. God is preached and every man presseth unto it By this preaching cannot be meant the kingdome present first because when Christ sends his Disciples Matth. 10. forth he commands them to preach The kingdome of heaven is at hand Secondly he tells us that From the time of John the Baptist the kingdome Matth. 11. of heaven suffereth violence not that the Kingdome of heaven was then invaded and taken but because from that time men did burn with ardent affection and desires to have it come not able to bear the burthen of expectation beholding it at hand yet thinking it not near enough As in those good things we desire omnia solemus faciliùs perpeti quà m moram we can endure any thing better than delay And that this is the true meaning of those words may appear by our Saviours elogie of John the Baptist That among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John Matth. 11. 11. the Baptist notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdome of heaven is greater than he MINOR the least not Angel in heaven as St. Augustine nor LEAST that is of fewer years to wit Christ himself as Rupertus nor LEAST that is he that is most humble as others will have it but the least in the Church of Christ the least and meanest subject in the Kingdome of the Gospel is greater than John Where Christ puts a manifest Antithesis and opposition between the Law and the Gospel and between those persons which are under the Law and those which obey the Gospel which had it been then in force our Saviour had made John Baptist greater than himself Most plain it is the Law was yet in force the Ceremonies not disannulled Christ himself observed them The old Tabernacle was yet standing because our high Priest was not yet entered into the true Sanctuary And therefore in crepusculo Evangelii in this dawning of the Gospel when the Sun of righteousness had not yet climb'd up to the proper Horizon of the Church in this interstitium this interposition of Jesus preaching who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene calls him placed in the middle between the Law and the Gospel this Petition was most fit and opportune fitting the time and opportune for the persons who would be disciples of this Kingdome ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM Thy Kingdome is at hand and let it come And as it fits the time so is it necessary in respect of the Gospel it self which though it be commentum
should not feel what he endured to wake a condemned man and tell him he must dye Evasit says the Tyrant of one who had prevented his fury by a timely death Evasit in dying quickly he has made an escape he got away and has out-run me now for there in the Grave the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest Job 3. 13. The prisoner and the oppressor there lye quiet both together and there every one is free in the next verse and therefore if we consider Death only as a Rest from labour the Apostle had no reason to be solicitous with what to preserve his life any longer For we mistake exceedingly if we think life as life is desirable for there are some that dig to find a Grave as much as they would do to discover a Mine as Job speaks and God when he would reward some memorable act of piety Job 3. 21. in a man takes him out of the way before his Judgments come which made the Prophet when he could not turn away Gods wrath utterly pray'd the women might have miscarrying wombs and the Apostles seeing the persecution begin to rage advises the Christians not to marry lest they should 1 Cor. 3. only bring forth to the Sword and Faggot Now not to be born and death are in effect all one they are both equally alike not to be here Again Imagine the world had treated and dealt kindly with the Apostle yet then he needed not much care for means to keep up his life any longer for he calls himself now Paul the aged a time when we might choose death Philem. 9. meerly out of satietie because it is tedious to do the same things over and over again so often to eat and be a hungry and then eat again to sleep and then wake and then sleep again to see things still go about in the same circle to behold peace breeding luxury luxury war and war smooth into peace again for is there any thing whereof it might be said this is new Solomon Eccl. 1. 10. asks the Question who had proved all things and at last concludes by a particular Induction the surest Demonstration of any whatsoever That as the Sun goes round as the rivers hasten to the Sea from whence they came as the wind goes round the points of heaven and whirls about continually so the actions of men have their circuits too and whatever you wonder at in this or that Age you may find the same in another for there is no new thing under the Sun The Apostles years therefore he being now grown old might induce him not to be much concern'd how he should live being now full of days as the Scripture most elegantly expresses it having taken a perfect view now of whatever this world can afford which requires no long time to look over for Christ saw it all in a moment Luke 4. 14. and then I know not what a man has to do but to despise it and leave it with no more regret then he would walk out of garden where he found nothing that liked him But there is a far higher Contemplation not only to render living inconsiderable to a Christian but likewise to ravish our thoughts up from hence and that is the the promises of the Gospel where we behold Heaven open and those eternal Joyes revealed there which have lain hid ever since the foundations of the Earth If there were one that killed himself at reading Plato's immortality of the Soul If it be true that there are yet some Heathens who usually make away themselves upon no other account but because they would be in heaven If natural Reason can cast meer Gentiles into such admiration of that Bliss What will you say to St. Paul who was wrapt up alive into the Third Heavens and saw what the Saints enjoyed above though he could not express it when he came back with what scorn do you think he trod upon the ground afterwards when the Angel set him down again here Who was fain to have a thorn run into 2 Cor. 3. his flesh before he could find himself to be a Man can you imagine he would petition for liberty whose very body seemed a prison to him till he returned to Christ again Or would he sue for a supply to detain him from that which became his wish his dissolution how would you fret at him who should lengthen the race when you had almost won it or stake the prize yet farther off when you had almost caught it Just such a courtesie is it to relieve him who would dye any way that he might quickly enjoy his Saviour 't is but deferring and putting off his happiness the longer as if an unexpected supply should renew the fight then when we thought we had now gotten the day Take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink says Christ surely this precept is needless to the Matth. 6. 25. Disciples of Christ Me-thinks he should rather allay our desire then fear of death who do expect such great things after it Me-thinks he should rather advise us that we should not out of hasty longing to be in Heaven neglect the means of continuing our being in this life But O you of little faith to talk of the blessedness the Saints of God enjoy above and yet use the most base abject and sordid means to live here and to keep your selves from it If then we cannot apprehend the Apostles here as a necessitous person nor any way concern'd to prolong his days by shifting about for maintenance but rather obliged to leave this world as soon as he could that he might enjoy a better We must think of some other Reason why St. Paul entertain'd their Benevolence with such joy Which leads me to the Consideration under which he accepted their Liberality viz. for their sakes not his own But I desire fruit that may abound to your account c. Fruit as fruit of their Patience that they durst own one whom the world had not only laid by as useless but tyed up as dangerous and fruit of their Love that they would acknowledge him and fruit of their Constancie that they persevered still to admire the glory of the Gospel though clouded with so much opposition as the whole world had now set it up as a mark to shoot at and as the fruit of their Zeal for in sending part of their substance to supply him they gave testimony that they would part with the whole and lives and all to advance the Kingdom of Christ and lastly as fruit of his Ministery wherein he saw he had not run in vain suffered in vain or scattered his seed amongst stones or thorns for in this he perceived that neither the fears nor love of the world had choaked it because as he tells the Galatians they neither despised nor spued him up again Gal. 4. 14. as the word imports
Piety and that then they reign as Saints when they wash their feet in the bloud of their brethren that call every opinion that is not theirs Blasphemy and that are not so hot against a foul pollution in the heart as against an error in the understanding nor so angry with a crying sin as with a supposed mistake If these be Saints then certainly our Saviour is not so meek as he hath told us or we must believe what is past understanding that our meek Saviour as he once had Judas so may now have these men of Belial for his Disciples If these men be Saints why may not Lucifer recover his place What a Saint with fire and sword with axes and hammers with fire devouring before him and a tempest round about him like the bottomless Pit sending forth smoke as out of a fornace smoke out of which come Locusts to devoure the earth a covetous malicious deceitful treacherous adulterous murderous Saint Such Saints peradventure may walk on earth or under that name but sure they will never follow the Lamb nor appear in those new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness Let us I say not be like these For they say and do not they say and do the contrary What profit what honour will it be to be such an Angel as appears here in light and is reserv'd to be kept in chains of darkness for ever such a Saint as shall be turned into a Feind Let us rather take upon us the yoke of Christ who was meek and bear the burdens of these contentious men as St. Paul exhorts Let us not assault one another with lyes in the defense of Truth nor break the bonds of Charity in the behalf of Faith nor fly asunder in defense of the Corner-stone nor be shaken in pieces to secure the Rock If they separate themselves let not us withdraw our affection from them Si velint fratres si nolint fratres If they will let them be our brethren and if they will not yet let them be our brethren And in these times of hurry and noise in the midst of so many divisions and sects let us look upon every man with an eye of Charity and Meekness or as Erasmus speaks with an Evangelical eye and leaving all bitterness and rancor behind us let us walk on in a constant course of piety and holy contention with our selves not answering reviling with reviling but beating down every imagination which is contrary to Meekness doing that upon Sin in our selves which we cannot do upon Errour in others When they spurn at our Meekness and defie our silence and rebuke our innocence let us be meek and silent and innocent still When they will kill us be as silent as they who have been dead long ago that so we may possess our souls when they are ready to take them from us and be like the people of Nazianzum who by their peaceable behaviour in times of great dissention gained a name and title and were called The Ark of Noah because by this part of spiritual Wisdom they escaped that deluge and inundation of fury which had wel-near overflowed and swallowed up all the Christian world In the last place let us level our Wrath and Indignation against Sin but spare the Sinner since our selves so often do call upon God to spare us And if he did not spare us where should the righteous where should the best Saints appear It is one mark of Antichrist that he sits as God in the 2 Thess 3. 4. Temple of God shewing himself that he is God thundring out his excommunications canonizing damning absolving condemning whom he please Thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to overlook our brother thus to look down upon our brethren and dart a heavy censure at them for that which we should shed a tear is so far to follow Antichrist as to take the seat and place of God nay to put him out of his seat and to do his office nay to do that which he will not do to sentence him to death whom God for ought we know hath chosen to eternal life Nay though it doth not make a man the Antichrist yet it makes him so much Antichrist as to place him in a flat opposition to Christ himself For he is not such an angry Bishop such a proud High Priest as cannot be touched with the feeling of our sins but one who being meek and tempted himself is able and willing to compassionate those that are tempted Did we feel the burden of our brethrens sins as he did Did we apprehend the wrath of God as he did we should rather offer up prayers and supplications with Psal 69. 26. strong cryings and tears for them then tell of the misery of these wounded ones that is speak vauntingly and preach thereof as the word signifieth then let our Anger loose against them and beat upon them with all our storms I confess prudent and discreet Reprehension is as a gracious and seasonable rain but rash and inconsiderate Anger as a tempest a hurricane to waste a soul and carry all before it and dig up Piety by the root As it is truly said that most men speak against Riches not out of hatred but love unto them so do many against Sin not out of hatred to sin but love of themselves which may be as great a sin as that which they are so loud against Signum putant bonae conscientiae aliis maledicere They count it a sign of a good conscience in themselves to be angry with and speak evil of others They think themselves good if they can say others are evil Whereas true Righteousness speaks alwaies in meekness and compassion but that which is false and counterfeit breaths forth nothing but wrath reviling and indignation O beloved what soloecismes what contradictions may we observe in the School and Church of Christ men raging against Sin and yet raising a Kingdom from it in themselves loathing it as poyson and yet drinking it down as water angry with it and loving it whipping it with scorpions and yet binding it about them as a garment Jacob's sons declaiming against Uncleanness with the instruments of cruelty in their hands Absalom bewailing the Injustice of the times when himself was a Traytor Judas angry with Mary's ointment when he would have it sold and put into his bag What a pageant is it to see Sacriledge beating down Idolatry Covetousness whipping of Idleness Prophaneness pleading for the Sabbath Gluttony belching out its fumes against Drunkenness Perjury loud against Swearing and Hypocrisie riding in triumph and casting out its fire and brimstone on all And what is a groan or a sigh from a Murderer What is a Satyre from a Sodomite or a Libel from a man of Belial If Hell hath any musick this is it and the Devil danceth after it after the groans and sighs and prayers and zeal of a Pharisee And do they then well to be angry Yes they say
Isa 11. 6. the Kid and the Calf with the young Lyon but it is when they are so cicurated and tame that a little Child shall lead them It is true the visible Church is made up of both For not only without as St. John speaketh but within are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murtherers and idolaters Rev. 22. 15. as there were in the Ark of Noah both clean and unclean beasts In this Church is Cain as well as Abel Esau as well as Jacob Judas as well as Peter but they are no parts of that general Assembly no parts of the Church of the first-born which are written in heaven nor to be numbred amongst the spirits of just men made perfect That part of the Church which is thus militant in Earth shall never be triumphant in heaven Cruel Dives shall never be seen in Abraham's bosom nor the bloud-thirstie man in his armes who shed no bloud but his own and that for the sins of the world The Church which shall be saved was not planted in bloud or if it were it was in the bloud of a Lamb. It was built upon the Faith of Peter not upon his Sword When he used his sword he was commanded to put it up but his Faith was to be published to the whole World And if he had any grant or title to be the Head of the Church it was not for cutting off Malchas's ear but for laying down his own life for the Faith Many Notes have been given of the true Church by those who acknowledge none but their own notes which shew her not Multitude of true believers Why the number is but small Infallibility It is an error to think so Antiquity The Church that is now ancient was once new and by this note when it was so it was no Church Continuance to the end of the world We believe it but it is no note for we cannot see it Temporal felicity This is oftner seen in the Tents of Kedar than at Jerusalem in a band of Souldiers than in the Church which winneth more conquests in adversity than in prosperity and worketh out her way to glory in her own bloud These are Notes quae nihil indicant which shew nothing Trumpets that give an uncertain sound But if I should name Meekness as a note of the true Church I should have a fairer probability to speak for me than they For meek men if they be not of the Church yet are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven But a meek Christian is entitled not only to the earth but to heaven also The Church is a Church though her Professours be but of yesterday and though they fall into error And though it be in tribulation yet still it is a Church yea it is never more glorious then in persecution But without meekness it cannot be a Christian Church no more then a man can be a man without a soul For Meekness if it be not the essence of the Church yet is a property which floweth from its very essence For that Faith is vain which leaveth malice or rancour in the heart A Christian and a Revenger if they meet together in the same person the one is a Box of poyson the other but a title Again in the second place our Reason will tell us that Meekness is most proper to Christianity and the Church because humane Reason was too weak to discover the benefit the pleasure the glory of it Nor was it seen in its full beauty till that Light came into the world which did improve and sublime and perfect our Reason To humane Reason nothing can seem more unreasonable more unjust then To love an enemy To surrender our coat to him that hath stript us of our cloak To return a blessing for a reproach and anoint his head with oyl who hath stricken us to the ground This is a new Philosophy not heard of on earth till she was sent down from heaven On earth it was A blow for a blow and a curse for a curse Dixerit insanum qui me totidem audiet If injuries be meted out unto us we mete them back again in full measure pressed down and running over Revenge is counted an act of Justice the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reciprocation of injuries And what need any other law then our Grief or our Anger or where should Justice dwell but on the point of our Sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the law of Rhadamanthus It is equity that he that doth should suffer what he doth and he that suffereth should return it in the same kind When those brethren in evil having slain Hamor and Shechem and spoiled their City were rebuked by their Father Jacob they were ready with this plea Should he deal with our Sister as with a Harlot No sooner is the blow given Gen. 34. 31. but the first thought is to second and return it and Nature looks upon it as upon an act of Justice In the world it goeth thus All Power and Dominion and Justice is tyed to the hilts of our Sword which if we can wield and manage dextrously with skill and success that which otherwise had been an injury is made a law The Turk to settle and establish his Religion as he first built it in bloud so giveth way to every thing that best sorteth with humane corruption to make it easie that men may not start back for fear of difficulties and as he wrought it out with his Sword so his best argument for it as it is most times in a bad cause is his Sword The Philosophers cryed down Revenge yet gave way to it chid their Anger yet gave it line thus far And both Tully and Aristotle approve it But Munit nos Christus adversus Diaboli latitudines saith Tertullian Christian discipline is a fense to keep us from these latitudes and exspatiations and pointeth out to the danger of those sins which the Heathen commended for virtues Many indeed have dealt with these precepts of our Saviour as skilful cooks do by some kind of meats which of themselves are but harsh and unpleasant cooked and sawced them to make them savoury dishes For when we see our journey long and full of rubs and difficulties we phansie something that may both shorten and level it and make it more plain and easie then indeed it is Christ our Master is so great an enemy to Murder and would have us so far detest it that he hath not suffered us to be angry Now the interpretation is We must not be angry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a cause And this emboldneth us to plead for our Wrath as Jacob's sons did when it is cruel and upon this very colour that there is good reason we should be angry For be the storm never so high be our anger never so raging yet we can pretend a cause and that cause we pretend as just otherwise we would not pretend it For who would pretend
be thrown against them so communicate as it were with God and are assimilated to him may also by the grace and favour of God participate with him of the same lasting and unchangeable glory And now we should descend to shew the title the Meek have to the Earth as it is in the letter and signifies temporal happiness and the quiet possession of the things of this world but the time is well-near spent now therefore we will add but a word or two by way of Application of what hath been already spoken and so conclude And did I say that Meekness was a necessary virtue to the Church of Christ and that without it we cannot receive the Gospel nor be our selves received into the Kingdom of Heaven Certainly I mistook at least the greatest part of Christendom will rise up against me and arraign me as guilty of a dangerous heresie For in their practice they confute it every day It was indeed a necessary virtue for the infant baby Church when she could not move her arms nor her tongue but in prayers and blessings when Christians were ready to suffer but knew not what it was to strike when they were expeditum morti genus readier to breath forth their souls in the fire then to kindle one readier to receive the sword into their bowels then to draw it But now the Church is aged and forgetful and men have learnt to dispute and distinguish themselves out of their duty have found out a new light by the guidance of which they may walk on securely and follow their brutish passions and covetous desires to the mark they have set up and by this light wade on and wash their feet in the bloud of their brethren It was a virtue it is now the mark of a lukewarm Reprobate It was the beauty and glory of the Church but later times have looked upon it as a fowl dishonour It was the only buckler the former Christian had but those of after-times have thrown it away and for it took up the sword which they brandish with terror as that weapon which Christ himself hath put into their hands It was the proper virtue of Christians and most necessary for them it is now an Anathema Now not to curse deserves a curse The Church was a flock a little flock of sheep it is now become as terrible as an army with banners and Christ is already brought into the world in that posture in which the Jews expect their Messias with Drum and Colours Shall I tell you what is counted necessary now It is necessary to contend for the Faith to stand up against Error to be zealous for the glory of God And what man of Belial dare be so bold as to stand up and say this is not necessary God forbid that Faith should fail that Error should take the chair that the Glory of God should be trod under foot It is true but then though this be necessary it is necessary to do it in that way and order which Christ himself hath prescribed and not in that which our Malice and Covetousness and Ambition draws out in bloud And the Sword of the Lord the Word of God managed with the Spirit of Meekness is more apt and fit to enter the soul and the spirit then the Sword of Gideon Religionis non est cogere religionem saith Tertullian Religion cannot be forced which if it be not voluntary is not at all For there cannot be a grosser soloecism in Divinity then to say a man is good against his will And sad experience hath taught us that they who thus contend for the Faith with noyse and fury do name Christ indeed but mean themselves We may instance in the Church of Rome They who defend the Truth non syllogismis sed fustibus as St. Hierome speaks not with Reason and Scripture but with clubs and swords do but glance upon the Truth but press forward to some other mark And THE GLORY OF GOD is but written in their foreheads that whilst men look stedfastly upon that they may with more ease and less discerned lay hold on the prey and so be Villains with applause Yee suffer fools gladly 2 Cor. 11. 19 20. saith St. Paul such as boast and count themselves the Sages of the Age because you your selves are wise in your own conceit though as very fools as they Yee suffer if a man bring you into bondage what do not the Romish Proselites endure if a man devour you if a man take of you if a man exalt himself if a man smite you on the face For how willing have men been to be deceived and to canonize them for Saints who wrought the cheat to think them the best Pastors who devour them and them the humblest men who exalt themselves and them the most gentle friends who smite them on the face Such a Deity such an Idole such a Nothing is Religion and Christianity made in this world cried up with noyse and beat down with violence pretended in every thing and denied in every thing magnified in those actions which destroy her forced to draw that sword which she commanded her disciples to put up made a sanguinary and shedder of bloud of which could she prevail and have that power which God hath given her there would not one drop fall to the ground But the World is the World still and would make the Church like unto it And though it be Ambition or Covetousness or Malice yet we call it Religion and when that word is once spoken then down goes all Morality all Humanity all Meekness and Religion it self Is it not for her cruelty that we make the Church of Rome the seat of Antichrist and call her the BEAST And let it be the mark and character of the Beast still Let not that which a Turk or Jew would run from with disdain be fastned as an ornament of glory on the Christian who is better drawn and expressed in chains and fetters then with his feet on the neck of his enemies For where should a Christian be seen but under the Cross When he flings it upon others he may call himself by what name he please but he is not a Christian Do we not make this our plea against the Church of Rome That sentence of death was never past upon any of them for Religion and therefore let not our words anathematize and our actions justifie them Let us not do that which in a Papist we call an abomination Let us not name the Lord Jesus and then fall down and worship the Prince of this world when he lures us to him with the glory of it and those things which he will give us A strumpet is not a whit the less a strumpet because she calls her neighbour so and the name of Antichrist will belong to us as well as to that Church if we partake with her in those sins for which we call her so And it will little avail us to call
that we should be carried up to heaven in a dream or that God should draw us thither whether we will or no as if he could not reign without us nor the blessed Angels be happy but in our company Good God! what a presumption is it to think that the name of Child the meer opinion of Gods Love and to talk of forgiveness of sins should help us that good wishes will promote us that when we have cast our selves headlong into a sea of misery into a deluge of sin it will be enough to say Master save us we perish Beloved be not deceived God is not mocked If we will have Christ to be our Priest to satisfie for our sins and to intercede for us he must be our Prophet too to teach us and our King to govern and rule us If we will have the meat that perisheth not we must labour for it if eternal life we must lay hold on it if the garland we must run for it if we will enjoy the Benefit we must perform the Office if we will be children of God we must be followers of God if we would be endeared to him he must be dear to us if we would be lovely we must be loving and if God forgive our sins we must forsake them if we will have the crown of life we must be faithful unto death if we will have the victory we must Rev. 3. â—1 fight for it Vincenti dabitur To him that overcometh will Christ grant to sit upon his throne He hath a Crown laid up for his Children and his Children shall have their blessing and shall know that they were dear unto him They shall enter into their inheritance the Kingdom prepared for them And now not only Paul is theirs and Cephas is theirs but Christ is theirs and God is theirs and the Crown is theirs and Heaven is theirs not in hope only but in reality not in apprehension onely but in fruition also not in right and title only but also in possession Thither the Lord bring us who purchased it for us with his precious bloud The Seventh SERMON MATTH XVIII 1. At the same time came the Disciples unto Jesus saying Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven HERE is a strange Question put up and that by Disciples and as strange an Answer given and that by Christ himself The Question is Who should be the greatest in the kingdome of heaven The Answer is That in that kingdome a Child is the greatest A Question put up by men prepossessed with hopes of Greatness ignorant what this Kingdome and what Greatness was and an Answer excellently fitted to that Question checking at once their ignorance and removing it So that here you see Ambition and Ignorance put up the Question and Wisdome it self makes the Answer Ambition and Ignorance swell our thoughts into a huge bulk and make us Giants but Wisdome abates that tumour contracts and shrinks us up into the stature of a Child Who is the greatest say the Disciples that is the Question A Child is the greatest saith our Saviour who was the Wisdome of the Father That is the Answer Indeed a man is known by his speech and our words commonly are the evaporations of our Hearts Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts saith Matth. 15. 19. Christ and evil questions too Such as the Heart is which is the fountain of life such are the motions of the parts Such as the Will is which is the beginning of action such are the motions and operations of the Soul which flow from the Will and are commanded by it Our Words are the commentaries on our Will For when we speak we make as it were a defection of our own Hearts and read an Anatomy-lecture upon our selves Our wanton talk discovers a stews in the Heart When our words are swords the Heart is a slaughter-house When we bear false witness that is the Mint When we worship Mammon that is his Temple The Heart is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shop and work-house of all evil In this we set up idols in this we work mischief in this we heap up riches build up thrones raise up Kingdomes Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven is the very dialect of Ambition and shews that the Disciples hearts were so set on Honor that they could not ask a question right We read that they had disputed of this before amongst themselves by the Mark 9. 34. way and then they put up this question to Christ here in this Chapter And again Chap. 20. and again Luke 22. when he had eaten the Passeover with them when he had foretold his Passion and preacht unto them the doctrine of the Cross when his Passion was nigh at hand even then did these Disciples dream of honors and greatness and a temporal kingdome and are not ashamed to tell it to Christ himself Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven First they dispute it among themselves in the way and then they ask Christ the question This is the method of the world at this day First to dispute every man in the way in viâ suâ in his own way the Covetous in the way that leads to wealth the Ambitious in the way that leads to honor the Sacriligeous person in the way that leads to atheisin and profaneness and then to ask Christ himself a question and hope to strengthen their vain imaginations by Scripture and to have an answer which shall fit their humor and flatter their ungrounded resolutions even from the mouth of Christ himself From him they hear that they must work with their own hands he then speaks of Riches and Honor. From him they hear that Bell boweth down Dagon must fall and all Superstition must be rooted out Nullum sine auctoramento malum est We can now be covetous be ambitious be sacrilegious be what the Flesh and our Lusts will have us be any thing by Scripture Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven the Disciples would never have askt the question had not their thoughts run on Greatness had they not thought that Christ had come to this end to set up a throne of state for one of them I will not make this error of the Disciples greater then it is and yet I cannot make it less because Disciples fell into it and which the Jesuits for St. Peters sake pronounce it but a small and venial one St. Chrysostome calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fault And it concerns us not so much to aggravate as to avoid it It is sufficient for us that Christ hath resolved this Question and brought a little Child upon the stage to teach Disciples and to teach us to avoid that rock which the Disciples themselves had dasht upon In the words then we will observe 1. the Occasion of the Question pointed out unto us in the first words At the same time 2. The Persons that moved the Question which are
a Good name but will wallow still in their own mire And therefore you may observe it Matth. 4. that the Devil sets not upon our Saviour with Lust or Luxury or Covetousness or any such vulgar and inferior vice but carries him to an exceeding high mountain and from thence shews him the kingdome of the world to see whether he will stoop at the prey Secondly It is a vice to which the world is much beholding and therefore finds more countenance then any Look upon the works of mens wits their Books and Writings look upon the works of mens hands their Charity and Alms-deeds and Hospitality and we shall quickly discover that Honor and Desire to transmit their names to posterity have been in many for to say in all were the greatest uncharitableness in the world but in many they have been the chiefest fires to set these alembicks a work We will not now dispute the truth of that which the Schools teach That Evil could not subsist if it were not founded in Good but we may be bold to say that this evil of Ambition could hardly subsist if it were not maintained and rooted in Virtue Other weeds will grow of themselves finding matter within us to feed and nourish them Murder is but the ebullition of our Choler Luxury a very exhalation of our Flesh Lust boyles in our very bloud But this vice like unto Ivy or Woodbind will hardly grow unless it fix it self upon the Oke upon some strong and profitable matter If you see Absalom in Hebron paying his vow it is to gain a kingdome If 2 Sam 15. 7. the Pharisee fast and pray it is to be called Rabbi if he gives alms it is with a trumpet If Simon Magus desire to turn Apostle it is to be some great one If Diotrephes be of the Church it is to have the praeeminence Last of all it is a vice which amongst many men hath gained the reputation of Virtue And if it be not a virtue saith the Orator yet it is many times the cause of it Ambition and Aemulation have ever been accounted the nurses of wit the kindlers of industry the life of studies and the mothers of all famous actions And this is it which hath raised their price and estimation But it here falls out as it doth with bodies which are nourisht with unwholsome meats They are in a short time corrupted with diseases and dye by those meats they lived on Wit and Industry which are mainteined by these vices do at last run to ruin by those vices which maintein them How many an alms is blown away with the breath of the Trumpet How many a Prayer is the shorter for its length is not heard for its noyse and is lost in the open streets How many a Fast is buried in a disfigured face How many a Good deed had been registred in heaven if it had not been first written on the walls But as we read in the Historian that Thievery and Piracy were so commonly practised amongst the Grecians that men made publick profession of them neither were they taken to be vices so we find it by daily experience that Ambition is so like to Virtue that the world hath even taken her to be one and made much of her and extolled her because she is so common Disciples themselves will be talking of Kingdomes and Greatness will be asking the question Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven And yet it is as impertinent a question as could have been put to Christ And of this we are to speak in the next place But first we will draw such inferences out of that which hath been spoken as may be useful for our instruction And first if we look back upon the Disciples we cannot but look into our selves and seeing what it was that kept them so long from the true knowledge of the Messias who had been so long with them with whom they ate and drank and conversed and whose miracles they were eye-witnesses of we cannot but search and ransack our inward man empty it of all extravagant and heterogeneous matter dispossess it of every evil spirit of every carnal conceit which may shut out Christ sweep and garnish it that the Truth may enter and dwell there Prejudice puts â—ut the eye of our Judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Opinion is a great retarder of proficiency it being common to men to be jealous of every word that breaths in opposition to what they have already received as of an enemy and though it be truth to suspect it because it breaths from a contrary coast Moab is setled on his lees hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel therefore his Jer. 48. 11. taste remained in him and his sent is not changed He hath ever the same taste and the same sent and this makes every thing promises and threatnings judgments and blessings doctrines and miracles relish and taste and sent as he doth He is the same under the rod and the same under blessings the same in a calm and the same when it thunders He is setled on his lees and no change can change him It is a world to see what power Prejudice hath to change the face and countenance of objects and shape them like unto it self It makes a shadow a man and a man a hobgoblin it mistakes a friend for an enemy It puts horror upon Virtue and makes Vice it self of a ruddy countenance It makes God the Author of sin and the Devil a worker of miracles It makes the Prince of peace a man of war beholds a poor Christ and makes him a King receives him in the form of a servant and builds him a Throne dreams of Kingdomes in the house of mourning and of triumph in persecution makes Christs Humility an occasion of pride makes a new Religion a new Christ a new Gospel and thus gropes at noon-day is deaf to thunder is surly against good counsel and thrusts him away that gives it is an enemy to a friend is a fiery furnace to devour those that minister unto it When God opens the gates of heaven this shuts them when he displayes his rayes of mercy this puts them by when he would enter this shuts the door when he is ready to let fall his dew this will not suffer him to be good unto us will not suffer him to bless will not suffer him to teach will not suffer him to save us This killed the Prophets and stoned them that were sent This whipped and spet upon and crucified the Lord of Life himself For all mistakes is from the Eye all error from the Mind not from the Object If the Eye be goggle or mis-set if the Mind be dimm'd with Malice or Ambition and Prejudice it puts upon things what shape it pleaseth receiveth not the true and natural species they present but views them at home in it self as in a false glass which renders them back again as it were by reflexion which
Charity takes the bill and sets down quickly and writes Fifty And if thy vessels be quite empty she cancels the bill and teareth the Indenture But it is as true too that Charity begins at home and he that provides not for his own family is worse than an Infidel These precepts of our Saviour non consistunt in puncto are not to be read in that narrow compass they lye but have their certain latitude Let my Charity shine forth like the Day but not to darken the lustre of Justice Let her stretch out her hand to the furthest but not to reach at the Sword of the Magistrate And as they mistake our Saviour so would they take upon them to teach him A trick the world hath long since got To be angry with Gods Providence To teach his Wisdom To guide his Hand and as he in Photius To put their own shape upon the Deity and to confine and limit God to their own phansie If that be thwarted the most blessed Peace is but tumult the most gracious Government tyranny and Order it self disorderly Why should Christ become man say some He might have satisfied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his bare naked Divinity If he will take flesh and redeem he may do that and not satisfie say others And saith the Cardinal God had not dealt discreetly if he had not establish'd a visible and infallible a universal Catholick and yet particular Church And if God be Judge of all men and Deus ultionum what need then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these counsel-tables and seats of judgment and the dread and horror of an earthly tribunal What use of a Sword in the hand of a Magistrate I have grappled you see with a mean adversary but I found him in my way and could not well balk him I leave him to that censure of the Philosophers on those who should deny either Worship to God or Love to Parents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He should smart under the Authority he denies and be confuted with the edge of that Sword he questions But we shall meet with Gyants indeed Not a Sword you see but they snatch at If they meet with two at once Ecce duo gladij both theirs And they take them and put them into the hand of that Man of pride and he fights against Authority Sword and Bearer King and Caesar Christ and all They read these words as we do And this Sword is secular Power with them too But then this Power is a subordinate and dependent Power this Sword is a sword at will as we say a sword which like Josephs brethrens sheaves to his sheaf must bow and make obeysance to the high Priests Sword And the Magistrate is left palsy-strucken and the Sword tottering in his hand a breath a frown of the supreme Head disarms him But oh the artifice and slight of Satan The Conclusion is He must be disarmed but the first Proposition is He beareth his sword For by these degrees and approaches they reach at it The First step is He beareth the sword and therefore he must be able to wield it and therefore he must have some Master of defence the Pope forsooth to instruct him and therefore he must guide his arme by his direction and strike as he prescribes If he misplace his blow he must be corrected if he be incorrigible he must be disarmed There is the last Syllogismus verè destructivus a bloudy destructive Syllogisme Inauguration is the Medium Deposition inferred This is a Chain to bind Kings in and the first link is Power Here is a Building ruin'd by the Foundation which should sustain it and the Magistrate disabled by his Commission Thus hath the yielding Devotion and forward Piety of some Christian Emperours warmed and animated the Bishops of Rome and made them active to question that Power which once did shelter them and then the Sword became their port and argument which was before their terror For look back and behold them temporibus malis when persecution raged they were no Sword-men then You might see them in another posture a borer in their eyes a whip on their backs no Sword but what was drencht in their own bloud and their Crown was Martyrdom Or look and behold S. Paul here pleading the right of this Magistrate upholding that Sword which he was to feel adoring that Power he sunk under and bowing to Majesty when the throne was Nero's It is the gloss of a Jesuite upon the Apostle but he glosseth too upon that Gloss Ecclesia non subvertit Regna The Ephod and the Robe suit well The Church thwarts not secular Power nor is one sword drawn to break another but both together glitter in the face of Disobedience to strengthen the pillars of a Kingdom Let then both swords be drawn together the one to pierce through the heart the other to drink the Luke 35. 2. bloud of the wicked the one to cut out those causarias partes animae those Deut. 32. maims and bruises of the soul the other to cut off the ungodly from the earth the one to hang over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that laboratory and work-house of the soul that no Babel be erected there no curious piece of guile shap'd there no refuse silver come there no works of iniquity set up there but then Vengeance lying at the door and the other sword ready if they come forth and appear to abolish them to pull down that Babel to break those carved pieces to dash those plots to demolish these works The one to guide us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in things pertaining to God the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in matters of this present life We have now put the Sword into the Magistrates hand It is now time to proceed and place the NON FRUSTRA upon the sword Having setled Authority in its proper subject our next task must make good that it is not there in vain Our second part Those actions which are irregular and swarve from the rule the Philosopher calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 odious frivolous actions to no purpose Nec quid nec quare No reason can be given why they should be done Adultery to night is pleasure to morrow my disease Murder is now my thirst anon my melancholy Here is a Frustrà indeed I am more vain than Vanity it self But the Quare the Wherefore to me and you have silenced me But those things which are laid and driven to a right end will admit a Quare Wherefore the sword Wherefore Authority The Apostle is ready and meets you with an answer That we may lead a quiet and 1 Tim. 2. 2. peaceable life in all godliness and honesty That every man may sit under his own vine and under his own fig-tree that the poor man may keep his lamb and the jawbone of the oppressor be broken that Peace may shadow the Common-wealth and Plenty crown it There is scarce
but apply it to our present occasion For enemies God hath who are gather'd together and our prayer is they may be scattered enemies shall hate him and defie him to his face and these who should be glad to see to fly from his face Our hope is they are but smoke and may be driven away but wax in appearance a hard and solid body strongly united and compact together by the devils art but yet as wax will melt before the fire of his wrath and when it shall please God to arise shall perish at the presence of God You may if you please take the words either as a Prayer or as a Prophesy as a Prayer that they may or as a Prophesy that they shall be scatter'd Or you may read it SURGENTE DOMINO As soon as the Lord shall arise his enemies shall be scatter'd and so make it a Theological axiome and so it is a proposition aeternae veritatis everlastingly true true in the first age of the world and true in the last age of the world and will be true to the worlds end We may make it our prayer that they may be destroyed and we may prophesy that they shall be destroyed Summa votorum est non ex incerto poscentis sed ex cognitione scientiâque sperantis saith Hilary It is a prayer not proceeding from a doubting and wavering heart as if God did at sometimes deliver his Church and at others fail and leave her to the will of her enemies but grounded upon certain knowledge and infallible assurance that he will arise and not keep silence and avenge himself of his enemy For there is a kind of presage and prophesy in Prayer If we pray as we should he hath promised to grant our request Which is a fairer assurance than any Prophet can give us Let God arise and God will arise is but the difference of a Tense and the Hebrews commonly use the one for the other Whoever compiled this Psalm most plain it is that he borrowed it from Moses who when the Ark set forward used this very form Rise up O Lord and let thine enemies be scatter'd and let them that hate thee fly before thee and when it rested Return O Lord to the many Thousands of Israel Now Numb 10 35. 36. the occasion of this Psalm is diversly given The Jews refer it to the overthrow of the army of Senacherib when the Angel of the Lord smote in one night a hundred fourscore and five thousand of the Assyrians Others to Davids victories over his neighbouring enemies the Ammonites Moabites Syrians and Idumaeans Others to the pomp and triumph in 2 Kings 19. 35. which the Ark was removed by David from Kiniathaarim to the house of Obed-Edom and from thence to Sion its resting-place The Fathers most of them apply it unto Christ who most gloriously triumphed over the Devil and the powers of this world and shewed them openly who led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men as S. Paul himself borroweth the words out of this Psalm Take the Cliff how you please the Notes will follow and we Eph. 4. 8. may take them up No Assyrian so cruel no Rabshakeh so loud no Ammonite no Moabite no Philistine so bloudy as a Jesuite or a Jesuited Papist Take in the Devil himself and then you have a parallel the wicked one indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil terms him the wonderfull mischief who like the Tyrant in the Story if all men in the world had but one neck would strike it off at a blow as his instruments at this day would ruine three Kingdoms by shaking of one Or if you please suppose now you saw the children of Israel moving their tents and the Ark which was the pledge and testimony of Gods presence on the Levites shoulders and the same thought almost will apply it to the Church where we may be sure God is as present as he was in the Ark. Indeed wicked persons as wicked as the Amalekites have a long time endeavoured and do now strive to throw it down from the shoulders of those that bear it and cannot endure to hear that God should be worshipped in spirit and truth But no Amalekite no Ammonite no Jebusite no Philistine did overthrow the one no Jesuite no Devil shall prevail against the other but the Ark shall be brought to its resting-place and the Church which is the pillar of truth shall be upheld by the Truth and after many removals after many persecutions after many oppositions though the Devil rage and wicked men take counsel together shall be brought in triumph to its resting place and appear before God in Sion God will never fail his Church Though his enemies gather themselves together they shall be scatter'd though they fight against him with hatred and malice they shall fly before him They are but smoke and they shall vanish they are but wax and they shall melt away Upon an Exsurgit follows a dissipabuntur If God arise all the plots and machinations of his enemies shall be but as smoke You may pray for it you may conclude upon it Let God arise and let his enemies be scatter'd or God will arise and his enemies shall be scatter'd they also that hate him shall fly before him c. In which Prayer or Prophesy or Conclusion you may as in a glass behold the providence of God over his people and the destiny and fatal destruction of wicked men Or you may conceive God sitting in heaven and looking down upon the children of men and laughing to scorn all the designs of his enemies his Exsurgat his Rising as a tempest to scatter them and as a fire to melt them And these two Exsurgat and Dissipabuntur the Rising of God and the Destruction of his enemies divide the Text and present before our eyes two parties or sides as it were in main opposition Now though the Exsurgat be before the Dissipabuntur God's Rising before the Scattering yet there must be some persons to rowse God up and awake him before he will rise to destroy We will therefore as the very order of nature requir'd consider first the persons which are noted out unto us by three several appellations as by so many marks and brands in their forehead They are 1. enemies 2. haters of God 3. wicked men But God Rising in this manner is more especially against the Fact than the Person and against the Person but for the Fact We must therefore search and enquire after that and we find it wrapt up and secretly lurking in the Dissipabuntur in their punishment For Scattering supposeth a gathering together as Corruption doth Generation That then which moved God to rise was this His enemies they that hated him the wicked were gathered together and consulted against God and his Church As we see it this day and seeing it are here meet together to fall down before God in all humility that he may arise and scatter them
sings of peace to the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth echoeth it back again to the Church This is Musick which both Men and Angels are delighted with Angels I say who being now made one with us make it part of their joy to see us at unity amongst our selves Happy thrice Happy times when the Poets could sing of the Spiders making their webs in the Souldiers Helmets and coats of armour These then are not excluded but wrapt up in this Salutation For all peace is carried along in this in the Peace of the Gospel When the world is out of frame this establisheth the pillars of it brings every part to its own place the Sensual parts under the Rational the Flesh under the Spirit the Will under the command of the Understanding which is the Peace of the Soul It brings the obedience of Faith under the eternal Law of Christ which is our Peace with God It draws with it the Servant under the Master the Child under the Parent the subject under the Magistrate which is the Peace of a House of a Common-wealth of the World It makes every part dwell together in unity it observes a parity in disparity an equality in an inequality it keeps every wheel in its own motion every man in his right place the Master on Horseback and the Servant on the ground and where Impudence incroacheth it checketh it with a Friend sit down lower It keepeth the hands of the ungodly from the gray hairs of the aged and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widow Like an Intelligence it moves the lesser Sphere of a Family and the greater Orbe of the Common-wealth composedly and orderly Peace is the right order and the harmony of things A Father calls it an Harp and it is never well set or tuned but by the hand of Charity For all the Peace that is in the world is derived from this Salutation from the Peace of the Gospel which slacketh and lets down the String of our Self-love even to a Hatred of our selves and windeth the string of our Love to our brother to an equal proportion with the Love of our selves We must hate our life in this world and we must John 12. 25. Math. 22. 39. love our brother as our selves Nay it lets it down lower yet to our very enemies the sound must reach even unto them Talk what we will of peace If it be not touched and tuned by Charity it will be but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal or rather if it take not its rise and spring from this Peace here from the Peace of the Gospel it will be but a dreadful sound as Job 15. 21. Eliphaz speaketh either in the Soul or in the Family or in the Church or in the Common-wealth I am the bolder thus to interpret the Disciples Salutation because I find it part of their Commission to say The Kingdome of God is at hand which was indeed to give notice of the Gospel of Peace This as it commends unto us all Peace but that which is in evil which indeed is not Peace but a conspiracy so especially it inculcates this by which Christ hath made both Eph. 2. 14. one and broken down the partition-wall which was between the Jew and the Gentile and that partition-wall also which Covetousness and Ambition Envy and Malice sets up between man and man that we may be one in him as He and the Father are one It was the prime care of the primitive Joh. 1◠Christians to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And to this Eph 4. 3. end they bound themselves by oath sayth Pliny a heathen witer nè furta committerent nè fidem fallerent not to steal or lye or deceive or break their word This course had the world upheld to this day we should perhaps have no reason to complain that Peace hath left the earth or that the Prince of Peace hath not a hole to hide his head in If men were truly Christians and had not made a sad divorce between Honesty and Religion the Disciples Salutation would not turn to them again but rest on every House and on every Common-wealth For Christian Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was and hath layd a greater horror and a fowler blemish upon Discord and Dissention then Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe She commands us to pray for peace She enjoyns us to study to be quiet and to follow Peace with all men She enjoyns us to loose 1 Tim. 2. 2. 1 Thes 4. 11. our right for Peace and to part with coat and cloak and all rather then with Peace quale regnum talis pax Look upon the Kingdom the Disciples Heb. 12. 14. M◠4729. speak of and you shall soon discern what Peace they wish Peace with God Peace of Conscience there is no doubt of that But Peace a so with men For this is truly Evangelical motus aliena naturae pace nostra cohibere as Hilary speaketh to place a peacable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of anothers rage by doing nothing to conquer him who is up in arms and spends himself and laboureth in the mine to ruine me This is the work of the Gospel to beat down noyse with silence and injury with patience To overcome evil with good To keep peace between the rich and the poor by prescribing mercy to that one and meekness to the other between the high and the low by prescribing justice to the one and submission to the other between the evil and the good by threatning the one and upholding the other Thus it levelleth the hills and raiseth the valleys and casteth an aspect and influence upon all conditions all qualities all affections of men that as it was prophesyed of the Times of the Gospel The VVolf may dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard ly down with the Kid a little Child lead Isa 11. 6. the Lion that there may be abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth O beloved did this Salutation take place did the Peace of the Gospel rest upon us our conversation would be more smooth and even and Salutations not so rugged and churlish as they commonly are They would not be so supercilious the dictates of our Pride Stand thou there or sit thou Jam. 2. 3. here under my footstool They would not be so surly the expressions of our Scorn VVho made thee a Judg over us They would not be so treacherous This is he hold him fast They would not be so cruel the messengers of Death Smite him till he dyeth They would not be so querulous the breathings of our Envy VVhy is he made rich VVhy is he in honour VVhy hath he who came in but now as much as I that have born the heat and burden of the day But every Family and every Common-wealth would be fitly joyned and compacted
him under his foot in his own house The Prison hath darkness but he is light the Prison hath chains but he is free in fetters Nihil interest ubi sit in soeculo qui extra soeculum est In this world it matters not where he is confined who is already out of the world We commonly distinguish the ages of the Church into times of Persecution and times of Peace and indeed in respect of the visible state of the Church such times there are But the Saints of God the Kingdom of Christ on earth never had peace nor possibly can have But by the wisdom of God it comes to pass that that which we call Persecution is indeed the peace of the Church Fire and Sword and Imprisonment these build up the Church of God Perversitas quam putas ratio est quod saevitiam existimas gratia est saith Tertullian That is good Order which we take to be Confusion and that which we call Persecution is Favour and Mercy Cum Ecclesia in attonito est Then the Church enjoys her peace when she is astonisht with terrors We cannot think that St. Peter lost his peace with his liberty or that he was a Saint less glorious because he was in prison The Church of Rome hath given us no less then fifteen Notes of the true Church and one we find to be temporal Felicity but most of them are but doctae ineptiae laborious vanities and learned impertinencies Had she soberly consulted with this book of Acts or but with this Text of mine she would not have found the least appearance of temporal happiness to make up a Note with unless we shall call it a temporal happiness to be beaten to be stoned to be imprisoned St. Peter here in prison would be a stronger argument to beat down her State then the Prayers of the Church to build up St. Peter a regal Throne Would ever any man once dream that my Text would yield any materials for a chair of Supremacy for St. Peter and his Successor but the Jesuit by his cunning hath framed one and St. Peter must needs be setled in it because the Church here prays for St. Peter and not for St. James O qualis artifex What a skilful artificer hath Ignatius Loyola begot that would perswade the world the Church prayed not for St. James or that her prayers to help St. Peter out of prison did lift him up into the Chair But what rubbage will not these men make use of who lay hold on a monosyllable on the little particle ET ET PETRUM he took Peter also That also hath an Emphasis and makes Peter higher then the rest of the Apostles by the head and shoulders Nay his very Shadow hath some substance in it and overshadows not only the sick but all the world Thus when TU ES PETRUS will not serve ET PETRUM is brought in to help a particle a shadow nothing And when they cannot hew him a Chair out of the rock they build one up of sand where they find no Cedar they are content with straws Indeed they are so busie in raising Peter to height of State that they quite forget that he was ever kept in prison and therefore they phansy to themselves such a flourishing state as may become a universal Monarch and receive him with both his Swords of temporal and spiritual jurisdiction And now we need not wonder that she brings forth the Church of Christ like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great pomp and train because we see she makes profession of Religion to gain the world Infelicity and Supremacy will not blend together and therefore to hold up her Supremacy she maintains State and wheresoever she finds the name of Peter she seeks a mystery and if she cannot find one she will make one Thus is Christianity constrained to lacquey it to the World and become the means of the greatest secular Pomp that the world hath seen St. Peter as Erasmus tells us was lodged in the house of one Simon a Tanner at nunc tria regum palatia non sufficiunt but now saith he three Kings palaces are not able to entertain the pomp and state of Peters Successor When the triple Crown is on his head what think you can he dream of else then outward pomp and temporal felicity Tully tells us of a Musician that being askt what the Soul was answered it was Harmony Et i◠saith he difficulter à principiis artis suae recessit he knew not how to leave the principles of his own art Plato's Scholars had been altogether bred up in Arithmetick and the knowledge of Numbers whence deverting their studies to Natural and Moral Philosophy wheresoever they walkt they still phansied to themselves something like unto Number Just so it fares with these men who fashioned out the Church by the World Difficulter à principiis artis suae recedunt They cannot leave their old principles In the World they are bred the World they study and this follows then in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and the Church They still phansie something like unto the World Riches and Honour and a universal Monarchy What shall we now think of the Church butchered in Abel floating in the Ark a pilgrim in the Patriarchs captive in Aegypt hiding her self in the time of idolatrous persecutors after of Christ vexed by the Jews persecuted by Heathen and no less by those who professed themselves Christians by Arian and haeretical Emperors What shall we think of St. Peter in prison here We shall not see this mark upon him no more then upon Abraham Moses David Hezekiah and Josiah whom notwithstanding the Cardinal brings in to make temporal happiness a token and note of true professors Abraham afflicted with famine in Aegypt forced to forego his wife and deny her Moses exposed by his parents put in an ark of bull-rushes into the river after many difficulties when he came to the very borders of Canaan forbid to enter in David begging his bread and persecuted by his own son Hezekiah mourning like a Dove and chattering like a Crane Josiah slain at Megiddo and St. Peter fast in chains This Note was not de fide then No it was de fide seriptum est it is written and we must make it an article of our belief Blessed are you when men persecute you and revile you Poverty and Affliction Matth. 5. 11. and Imprisonment and Persecution are not only bona but beatitudines not only good but Beatitudes and Blessings Rubus ardens est sigura ecclesiae saith St. Hierom The Church is like the bush which was all on fire but consumed not To conclude we may say of temporal Felicity in respect of the Church as Tertullian speaketh of the unveiling of Virgins in the Church Id negat quod ostendit It denyes the Church by shewing it And thus much may be spoken by occasion of Peters Imprisonment In the next place
let us take notice of the Motives which induced Agrippa to keep him in prison You may perhaps imagin that Zeal for religion drew his sword and hatred of the Gospel And indeed love of one religion naturally begets hatred of another and Love substitutes Hatred as her Captain or Proconsul to bring on her forces and fight against every thing that looks a contrary way and opposeth what we love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene It is as a Play or Comedy to a Jew to see a Christians bloody Tragedy The Philosopher will tell us that Anger is alwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of particulars but Hatred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bent against some general thing Evil men hate Philosophy because it speaketh truth but they are angry with Socrates The Jews were implacable haters of Christianity but their Anger stretcheth forth their hand against James and Peter We read indeed that this Herod Agrippa was Judaeorum studiosissimus a great lover of the Jews and of their religion that he obtained of Caesar for them the freedom of their religion that he fenced Jerusalem with new walls higher and larger then before that he was very much offended with the Doritae because they had set up Caesars statue in the Synagogue And we see here what reverence he bare to their feast seeing to shew himself a Jew indeed he would not till the feast was past shed the bloud no not of a Christian We cannot now but imagin that it was pure Zeal that whet his sword that he loved Moses better then Christ that he would not see the Law abrogated the Ceremonies destroyed the ancient Religion go to the ground But there was no such matter For see the holy Ghost hath made a window in his breast and tells us that all this was done ut placeret Judaeis that he might please the people You would think the Sword he fought with were of God but indeed it was of Gideon his alone He had been formerly removed out of his Kingdome and but lately restored as we find by Josephus and now finding the Jews a headstrong people impatient of the yoke he strives to strengthen his Kingdome by the same art he gained it And as before he flattered the Emperor with a great feast of amity so now he pleaseth the people with a feast of bloud Religion may be the pretense but the Cause is his Crown and Kingdome Thus he who is a slave to his Affections is sold to all the world besides a King becomes his Subjects parasite And when that Power and Wisdome leave him which should uphold his Kingdome the strongest pillar for him to lean on is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flattery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He must flatter those who flatter him Look now and see John Baptists head in a Platter that they that sate at table might not be displeased Pilate sends Christ to Herode Herode mocks him and sendeth him back again And the same day Herode and Pilate are made friends together Pilate proclaimeth Christs Luke 23. 12. innocency I have found saith he no evil in him But when he is told that he is not Caesars friend at this thunder he is astonisht and gives sentence that it should be as they required Darius at the instance of his Nobles flings Daniel into the lions den Flaminius at his table beheads a man to please his whore who had never seen that butchery before Nay the first sin that ever was committed was from this source and fountain So that Hierome states the fault of Adam That he ate the forbidden fruit nè contrà staret delicias suas lest he should cast her whom he loved so much into an immoderate dejection He that strives to please another hath lost himself he squares his actions by his eye not by the rule Quis placere potest populo cui placet virtus saith Seneca He that strives to please the people is not well-pleased himself with Virtue For that art which gains the people will make the like unto them If Herode will please the Jews he must vex the Christians and be as cruel as a Jew Non probabant nisi quem agnoverint They approve none but whom they acknowledge nor can any please them who is not wholly theirs When I see thee famous in the peoples mouth when the women and the children cry thee up when thou canst not stir but applause doth follow thee when the people cry aloud The voice of a God and not of a man dost thou think I count thee happy No I pity thee cùm sciam quae via ad istum favorem ferat because I know the way that bringeth thee to the peoples favour is of their own chalking but. They commend none but they make him their slave If thou wilt purchase their breath thou must sell thy honesty If thou wilt please them thou must be factious or commit a murder If Herode will make the Jews his friends he must be an enemy to the Christians The head of James must be stricken off and Peter must be kept in prison We have now done with St. Peters part and in the next place must take notice of the behaviour of the Christians And you may know them to be Christians by their devotion and compassion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a Divine thing to be compassionate a true badge and mark of those who are commanded to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect And therefore Tertullian tells us that even amongst the heathen Professors of Christianity were not called Christiani but Chrestiani from a word signifying sweetness and benignity of disposition Is St. Peter in prison they are not free Is he in fetters their Compassion binds them in the same chains And though he alone be apprehended yet the whole Church doth suffer persecution For it is in the Church as in Pythagoras his family which he shaped and framed out unto his Lute There is 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an integrity of parts as it were a set number of strings 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an apt composition and joyning of them together The parts are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 coupled and knit together by every joynt saith the Apostle even by the bond of Charity which is copulatrix virtus as Prispes calleth it that virtue which couples all together And then 3. every string being toucht in its right place and order begets a harmony This was the face of the primitive times when the very name of Christianity was accounted as a crime when the Devil and Judaism and Heathenism strove joyntly to destroy the Gospel in the bud When cruel Tyran's spake nothing but bonds and torments and imprisonment then Charity broke out in a pure flame by which the afflicted receiveth warmth from each other Seldome but they found comfort assoon as imprisonment And if the Churches keeper forbad a personal visitation mittcbant libellos consolatorios saith Rhenanus upon Tertullian their
their charge the Murder of Infants Incest and those crimes which were not only false but incredible accusare vocabulae to accuse the very name of Christian And which is most to be lamented he hath taught Christians to perform this vile office one against another For no sooner had God freed them from the terror of Persecution but they raised a worse amongst themselves one Christian placing a great part of his Religion in laying some foul imputation upon another and finding Heresie in the roll of carnal sins Gal. 5. 20. calling them Hereticks whom they could not otherwise defame pronouncing Anathema's one against another as if all who would be Christs Disciples were not to be sons of Consolation but of Thunder I may be bold to say Scarce any Father or holy man which past without his mark Augustine was defamed by the Donatists and Manichees Hierome called a Magician a Seducer as himself complaineth Chrisostome had no less then nine and twenty accusations tenderd against him as we find it recorded in Photius Cyprianus was turned into Coprianus as one who in his tracts of Christianity had applyed his elagant wit to womens tales And this before Superstition had gained much footing in the Church But when the Pope did once rerum potiri when he had gained a Kingdom in the Church and was acknowledged the Primate of the Christian world then not to receive his determinations as Oracles not to fall down and worship him not to obey him in all things was to be an Heretick In the year 713. Philippicus the Emperor was branded with the name of Heretick because he had removed Images out of the Church Leo the third was condemned of the same crime and had a nick-name and was called Iconomachus Henry the Fourth Emperor was no less because he would not grant the Pope the investure of Bishopricks Frederick the Second was a Heretick for that he held the Popes stirrop on the wrong side and withstood the tyranny of that See Philip the Fourth King of France was condemned to the same crime because he would not go to war when Pope Boniface did beat up his Drumm Charles the Sixth had the same doom because he would not suffer the Churches of France to pay tribute to Martin the Fifth Lewis the Twelfth who was called Pater populi the Father of his people was stiled a Heretick because he would not yield to Julius the Second that Sword-man who flung St. Peters Keys into the River of Tiber and took up St. Pauls Sword Heresie is a sin and indeed in their account there was no other sin but Heresie no sin of so foul an aspect And therefore whatsoever was the offense that was the sin And though a man were no-whit guilty yet was it in the Popes power to make him so As it is haereticare propositiones to make those propositions false which are true Nor is the Devil a Devil at Rome only or in the streets of Babylon but he hath shewed himself in Jerusalem even in the Reformed Churches For what have the Writings of the Lutherans and the Calvinists been but bitter satyres of one side against the other where like Aeschines and Demosthenes they reciprocally lay open each others filthiness to the eyes and scorn of the world where they fight not with the tongue of Men and Angels but of Devils The Calvinist says to the Lutheran that he is Diabolificatus Diabolified and the Lutheran replys to the Calvinist that he is Superdiabolificatus more then diabolified And thus their contention was not so much for the truth as who should be most diabolified For sure the Devil cannot have worse language though he speak by the whore This in these latter dayes hath been the method of finding out the Truth to accuse one another of error And hence finding out a strange Beast in the Apocalypse we are ready if any offend us or will not be of our opinion to say he is that Beast What mutual stabbings what digladiations amongst Christians not who shall be best but who shall be loudest Par pari refertur invicem nobis videmur insanire We give scorn for scorn and reproach for reproach and each side and faction seems mad to the other and to a discreet good Christian indeed they are both so For in this eager pursuit and inquiry after the Truth Christianity is quite lost and we leave the cause and fall upon the person like cholerick men who in the fierce and hot persecution of a quarrel at last forget the beginnings and ground from whence it arose So that as Petrarch once spoke of Rome Nusquam magìs Roma ignoratur quà m Romae That Rome was no where less known then at Rome so may we of Christianity That it is no where less preached then amongst Christians who have a name that they live but are dead are but statues and representations of Christians so that what was written by Cato of Brutus may be fasten'd upon many Christians CHRISTIANE MORTUUS ES O Christian thou art dead All the members he hath are the members of a carnal man Lips invenomed with the poyson of Asps his Tongue a sharp Sword his Mouth an open Sepulchre Such a creature is many a Christian to another ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Which makes the Turk laugh and prefer his Mahomet before Christ and the Jew to pluck the vail closer to his face Ac nunc miseram licet aetatis nostrae laborem praesentium temporum stultas opiniones congemiscere And here give me leave to lament the business of this our age and so bewail the ungrounded opinions of the men of these present times as Hilarius once spake in a case somewhat like What wantonness in Religion what religion in rayling what disgrace flung on Learning what honor to Ignorance what hardness of heart and contempt of Gods word and commandments How many scurrilous witless unsavory unchristian Libels more I believe within the compass of one year then have been publisht before in three times the age of a man So that we may say of the common people of this our Nation as Seneca speaks of Aegypt when it was a Province under the dominion of the Romans Loquax ingeniosa ad contumelias provincia in qua qui vitaverunt culpam non effugerunt calumniam They are become talkative and witty in telling of lyes and filling one another with reproach and he that lives amongst them may peradventure keep himself free from fault but he can hardly be exempt from infamy Hoc Ithacus velit This is it which the Devil would have If he were to be incarnate and live amongst them he would know his own dialect and speak as they do Amongst the rest the Ministers of the Church who might well challenge their prayers have felt the lash of their tongues and for a Lord bless them have heard Down with them Down with them even to the ground Some there are who complain that their souls are
argument by transferring the QUOMODO from the person of the King to the Guest QUOMODO TU how camest Thou in hither Thou my liege-servant and sworn subject For we know though Gods kingdome be as large as the whole Universe though God be King of all the Earth yet his name is great in Israel His throne is in the Church In our PATER NOSTER we begin as Sons and call God Father but we end as Subjects and acknowledge the kingdome to be His. Again QUOMODO TU How camest Thou in hither Thou who hast given thy name to Christ and wast a Christian when thou couldst not name Christ Thou who shouldst shed thy bloud for him yet trampled on his and as much as in thee lyeth crucifie him afresh This is circumstantia aggravans a circumstance that hath weight in it talent-weight For the Grammarian will tell us Plus est prodere quà m oppugnare to Betray is more than to defie and a Traytor worse than an open Enemy That Malice which whispers in a corner or worketh in a vault is more dangerous than that which is proclaimed by the drum Judas was worse than the Jews his Kiss more piercing than the Spear and this Guest here more bloudy than those Murderers It was v. 7. a charitable wariness and a wary charity in that holy Father St. Augustine to suspend his censure and not suddenly to give sentence against a Heretick whose conversation was pious Whether were more damnable a bad Catholick or a just Heretick he would not by any means determine But Aquinas layeth it down for a positive truth Graviùs peccat fidelis quà m infidelis propter Sacramenta fidei quibus contumeliam facit The same sin makes a deeper dye in a Christian then in an Infidel and leaves a stain not only on the person but also on his Profession and flings contumely on the very Sacraments of Faith whereas in an Infidel it hath not so deadly an effect but is veiled and shadowed by Ignorance and borrows an excuse from Infidelity it self For Ignorance is circumstantia allevians a lessning circumstance and doth abate and take off from the sinfulness of Sin Which maketh our Saviour give sentence against Capernaum even for Matth. 11. 23. Sodom it self Though Sin be Sin in all yet the person doth aggravate and extend and multiply it Oh the paradox of our misery Our Christianity shall accuse us and our Happiness undo us At the day of judgment it shall be easier for a miscreant Turk than for a bad Christian and the King be more terrible to this Guest here than to a stranger The Person ye see is a main circumstance a King to be slighted and his Guest to slight him his Subject to contemn him A high contempt But in the next place the Invitation will heighten it Tantus tanti tantillum That a King should invite a Beggar send his servants to intreat him to a feast and that at the marriage of his son makes the benefit a wonder and the neglect as strange and that all should be thought but a parable no history no history ever yielding the like example For what is this Man that he should thus be honor'd or what is this King that he should invite him Was he bound by any prae-contract or prae-obligation Did his justice or his honor lye upon it or could he not feast without him We cannot conceive thus of the King No He might have left this man in the streets and high-wayes amongst the poor the blind and the maimed naked to every storm and tempest open to the violence and shock of every temptation amongst men as impotent as himself not able to succour him not able to succour themselves But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. James of his own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 James 1. 18. according to the good pleasure of his will he sends for Ephes 1. 5. him messengers are dispatcht and they bespeak him in the same form they do the rest Come unto the marriage But this may be but a complement and no more And there are that make little more of it What say we then to Go compell them to come in This I hope is in earnest And this Luke 14. 23. he did His invitation was so hearty his beseechings so vehement his request so serious that it might seem to be violence and did bear the shew of a compulsion Not that God compels any or necessitates them to that end he intends as some conceive Who because all power is his will needs have him shew it all in every purpose so irresistibly as if that of the Baptist were true in the letter that God out of stones did raise up children unto Abraham For as he is powerful and can do all things so he is wise too and sweetly disposeth all things accomplishing his will by those means he in his eternal wisdom knows best using indeed his power but not violence working effectually upon our souls that we do not actually resist per suaviductionem say the Schools leading us powerfully but sweetly to that end his prae-determinate will hath set down When he invites us to his Church militant mittit servos he sends his servants and when he establisheth and buildeth us up for his Church triumphant mittit servos he useth that means also He instructs he corrects he exhorts he commands he threatens and he promiseth He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens various and manifold in his operation There is lightning with his thunder counsel in his threats light with his fire discipline in his tryals hony with his gall and his most bitter prescripts are not only sweet but cordials Now all these will make it an invitation at least and if we rightly weigh them lay them in the ballance and they will put it out of all doubt that this Invitation was serious that the King sent for the man ad convivium non ad notam not to commit him as some phansie but to entertain him not to a censure but to a banquet to have made him a guest not a spectacle We cannot then to press this argument but lay the blame on the Guest and implead him of perverse obstinacy His neck was stiff no perswasions could bow him his heart was adamant no love no fear could soften it And withal we must acknowledge that Faith and Charity are a useful wear without which Gods purpose to us is frustrate and his love lost without which we come to his table and are not fed without which his earnest beseechings his bowels his compassion his promises his threatnings all are in vain And further we carry not this consideration The Invitation leads us to the Feast And that is our next point 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father calls it a splendid and magnificent feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a delicious banquet COENA MAGNA that great Supper with an emphasis in which the bread is Manna and the Manna everlasting
then it doth adorn and beautifie us indeed and God looks upon it as a glorious ornament and upon us as guest whose praise is not of men but of God Without this though we enlarge our phylacteries never so much though we have HOLINESS written in our foreheads all will be but like Bellerophon's letters We may take them for a pass-port or letters of commendation but in them our doom and our condemnation is written We are condemned by our wilfull neglect and contempt of the marriage-feast as by our own confession so condemned as that nothing remaineth but sentence and execution If it had been mine enemy saith David Psal 55. 12 â—3 I could have born it But it was thou my familiar friend If it were one who never had heard of the Feast one of the Heathen who knew not the name of the King the neglect would not have been so foul The times of their Acts 17. 30. ignorance God wincked at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saw as if he saw not he did not threaten eternal death as he doth now under the Gospel but now he commandeth every man every where to repent to fit and prepare himself for this great Feast And if we do not so we are the worse Christians by being so much Christians more guilty for our profession in more danger then Infidels in that we are not so and more unpardonable for our belief Irascitur Deus contumeliis misericordiae suae God is never more angry then when his Mercy is abused and his Grace turned into wantonness Let us then look-up to the Author Heb. 12. 2. and Finisher of our faith Hear his voice follow his direction I counsel Rev. 3. 18. thee saith he to buy of me white rayment that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear And we may buy of him without Isa 55. 1. Heb. 2. 11. money or money-worth The Apostle saith Both he who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one Now Christ sanctifieth us by his doctrine and example And as he was conceived by the holy Ghost so are we made new creatures and clothed with the wedding garment by the vertue and power of the same Spirit And then Christ will not be ashamed of us not ashamed to call us Brethren when as brethren we wear the same apparel When he seeth our garment entire the same in every part universal uniform like it self throughout the whole of the same thread not here a piece of silk and there a menstruous rag not obedience to this command because it fitteth our humour and disobedience to another because it sitteth too close and is troublesome to flesh and bloud When he seeth us not bow in the house of Rimmon because our master doth so not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beat and wound our conscience for fear of those higher Powers who else will beat us with many stripes When he seeth not our Faith enfeebled by our Trust in uncertain Riches nor our Charity cooled by those tentations that blow from that treasury nor our Hope swallowed-up in victory by our Ambition When he seeth our Garment made by that patern which himself shewed shining not like the Pharisees fringed garments but like the pure fine linnen of the Saints well woven with spiritual wisdom and well worn with care and diligence When he seeth us according to the Greek proverb yea according to his own charge Quem mater amictum dedit solicitè custodire to Rev. 16. 15. keep that garment with which God our Father and the Church our Mother hath clothed us in the day of our mariage that garment for the making whereof He himself afforded materials and that è visceribus suis out of his own bowels When he seeth this I say he will change our wedding-garment into a robe of glory Coming thus apparalled like guests we may have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confidence and boldness towards God Then shall our mouths be filled with laughter and our tongues with joy Then shall we not as he here be speachless but speak unto the King and the King will speak unto us We shall speak to him as Children Abba Father as Subjects Let thy Kingdom come as Servants Master it is good for us to be here And the King's Son shall speak for us Behold I and the children which thou hast given me The Feast shall speak for us even the Bloud of Jesus shall speak good things for us And Hebr. 2. 13. the Garment shall speak for us our plea of Faith shall be more eloquent and powerful then the tongues of Men and of Angels And our plea shall be answered not with a QUOMODO but with an EUGE Well done my good and faithful guests Your wedding-garment is on Sit-down at my table sit-down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob with all the Patriarchs and with all the Apostles and with the whole Church in the kingdom of heaven Which happiness God grant unto us through Christ Jesus our Lord. The Nine and Twentieth SERMON PART I. MATTH VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in heaven c. A Preface concerning Catechizing and Prayer BEfore I come to the plain and familiar explication of these words which I intend it may be expected perhaps that I should speak somthing by way of Preface For we live in that age wherein every man almost is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sophister speaks malevolous and jealous making his surmise a formal endictment and sufficient testimony against Superiors whilst himself alone stands guilty and there can be no crime found but this that he is suspicious Nihil tam sacrum quod non inveniat sacrilegum What good order can there be I will not say establisht but revived which is not straight markt out as a novelty No sooner can it receive influence from Authority to grow up and shew it self in the Church but Malice layes its axe at the very root of it And where Power is wanting to digg it up by the roots there Ignorance and Clamor shall shake it as a plant that will not grow in any Christian ground because they suppose it was brought from Rome We cannot be so blind we cannot be so charitable as not to observe this in those things which the wisest in the Church have thought to be of great importance And it were to be wisht that it would rest there and rather spend it self upon some one particular then multiply it self by degrees and gather strength to quarrel and endanger all But as fire seizeth on all matters that are combustible without respect whither it be a palace or a cottage a stately oak or a neglected straw so this Jealousie which not Conscience but Self-will and wilfull Disobedience hath kindled in the Church feeds it self not only with mountains with matters of greater moment but atomos numerat takes-in even atomes themselves things which can have no shew of offense
and death at once which are seldom entertained but when they please and when they please do as seldom profit I speak not this to disparage Preaching I know Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God I confess with the Fathers Principale munus est aedificare ecclesiam docere populum That it is the greatest office upon earth to edifie the Church of Christ and teach the people an office which the Angels themselves do reverence But all that is spoken is to no other intent but to root-out opinionem tam insitam tam inveteratam so setled so inveterate an opinion which hath gained place and power in mens hearts That Preaching is nothing else but ad clepsydram perorare to speak an hour out of the Pulpit Look into the primitive times and there you shall see a particular office and calling in the Church of Catechizers And these were then the two solemn wayes of teaching the people per catechesin conciones by Catechism and Preaching Of the which that of Catechizing seemeth to be the more ancient Not children and infants but men of ripe understanding and perfect use of reason together with grave and ancient matrons were brought unto the sacred Lavatory to be baptized into that Faith which they had already entertained but were not yet perfectly instructed in Who being yet but strangers in religion and not well skil'd in those sacred mysteries which Christianity is enriched with were sent in cryptas solitudinem into the wilderness unto caves and dens to those whose office it was to instruct them whom the fear of cruel and bloudy tyrants and of the sword of persecution had confined to those grots But when this tempest was over and peace did shine upon the Church when Religion began to spread it self through the Kingdomes of the world then every Church almost had one allotted for this office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by chawing as it were and breaking to pieces by exposition to give light to the tenents and doctrine of the Church A laborious and troublesome calling in those times being performed every day and the same or like things being to be inculcated and urg'd so often in that variety of men and manners whereof some were rude some perverse some proud in their opinion to teach whom many times was but to loose labor and all the fruit the doing of it Which did weaken and infeeble that glorious contention and ambition of teaching which before was strong amongst them A Deacon of Carthage put up his complaint to St. Augustine That in those large and cold expressions in which he was forced to instruct the Catechumeni he many times grew not only tedious to others who thought themselves ripe for more accurate discourses but to himself And this occasioned that tract of his De Catechizandis rudibus Of the manner of instructing the simple and ignorant where he tells him that there is not so great difference between a weak expression and a quick and lively apprehension as there is between a mortal Man and God and yet Christ who was equal to God took upon him the form of a servant that he might become weak to them who are weak and so gain the weak Why then should men of deeper reach think it tedious to descend to low expressions quum charitas quantò officiosiùs descendit in infima tantò robustiùs recurrit ad intima whenas true Charity the more officious it is to condescend to the lowest the more strongly it reflects with comfort upon the inward man through a good conscience which seeketh nothing from them to whom it doth descend but their salvation Nor did this office confine it self within their Temples but was brought into their Schools Amongst which that of Alexandria was most famous where Origen at eighteen years of age took upon him that office Who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius speaks of Socrates a living and a walking statue of spiritual wisdome Where Pantaenas Heractas Dionysius and Clemens Alexandrinus were glorious in this respect And indeed what else is Clemens his Paedagogus but a Catechisme For we must not think that it is only to Catechise when we instruct by way of question and answer because our common Catechisins are shaped out unto us in the form of Dialogues No 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be catechized no more than to be instructed In which acception we find the word used in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof thou hast been instructed saith St. Luke to Theophilus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 1. 4. Gal. 6. 6. Let him that is taught in the word make him that hath taught him partaker in all his goods When St. Augustine took the Epistle and Gospel and Psalm for the day for his subject for one Sermon he did then Catechize When Athanasius made one Sermon and that a very short one contra omnes haereses against all heresies he did then Catechize St. Chrysostome hath divers Orations catechistical When Chrysologus makes six or seven several Sermons upon the whole Creed and not one of them a quarter of an hour long what doth he then but Catechize What need I tell you of the several constitutions of Councels and provincial Synods decreed for the institution of the Catechumeni The state and face now of Christendom is altered nor have we Converts of the Jews and Gentiles on whom to bestow this necessary labour but yet I fear we have many as weak and ignorant as they and here is as much need of this kind of instruction as then I will no longer insist upon this argument nor did I think so much as once to have toucht upon it but to have begun without a preface Only I was willing to remove all jealousie out of such mens minds as are ready to believe that there is a snake under every leaf and who from the most happy conjunction can presage some dangerous effect and withall to take off all expectation of any curious discourse My discourse shall be like my subject Prayer which as Quintilian spake of Grammar Plus operis habet quà m ostentationis is a painful work indeed but is then most truly performed when it hath nothing of ostentation It hath alwayes been my aim and labor that what I delivered from the Pulpit should be catechetical but I will now affect it Nor will I strive to help my speech by art or phansie but there where it may perhaps be needful Abundè dixit bene quisquis rei satisfecit In these kind of discourses the language must be equally proportioned to the matter in hand and he hath spoken well that hath fully spoken all And to this end I have chosen the Lord's Prayer for my subject which conteins whatsoever we should request and desire as the Creed doth whatsoever we must believe and the Decalogue whatsoever we ought to do And yet in this short Prayer upon due observation
they go forth like the Dove and return to us again with an Olive-branch It is a nice observation of Quadrigarius in Gellius that darts and arrows which are shot upward do fly more level and more surely hit the mark then those which are shot downwards But it is most true in our Prayers which are called Ejaculations because they are darted from us as shafts out of a bow Those that fly upward to God and aim at his glory do more fix upon and take him than those other which fly downward upon our selves For God and Man are in respect of one another as the species of Quantity Continua and Discreta as a Body and Number Number admits of infinite additions Nullus est post quem non sit alter You can give no number to which you may not add another And a Corporeal substance may be diminished in unitate You cannot so divide a piece of wood but you may divide it again The more you diminish and cut from the wood the more you increase the number of parts So is it between God and our selves The more we take from our selves the more we add to God the more vile we think our selves the more glorious he appears The knowledge of Gods infinite Majesty may receive infinite additions and so may the knowledge of our own unworthiness When we are busie in the contemplation of our own vileness then do we most cleerly see the Glory of God for which we were made The tree that sends his root downwards sends his boughs upwards and the deeper his root the higher his boughs so the more we are deprest and cast-down in our selves the nearer are we raised to the throne of God The Glory of God was that for which we were created Now the Philosophers will tell us Unumquodque est propter suam operationem Every thing is and hath its being for the work it hath to do I do not warm my self with a Plainer nor smooth a table with Fire This were not only vain but would destroy any work All things even Arts and Sciences beyond or besides their end are unuseful Seneca tells his friend that the Arts were then liberal cùm homines liberos facerent when they made men free and ingenuous And censuring the vices of the time he saith that Arithmetick and Geometry were of no use if they taught only metiri latifundia digitos accommodare avaritiae to measure Lordships and tell money And certainly Man is the most unprofitable creature in the world if he dedicate not himself and his devotions to the glory of that God who made him for that end For the Love of God is an undefiled love and if it be perfect will admit of no mixture For to love God for any other respect than God himself whether it be for Health or Wealth or Honors be it for fear of hell or be it for hope of heaven it self is at the least an imperfection in us Now the reason of this is plain That for which any thing is loved is of it self more beloved When David dealt kindly with Mephibosheth for Jonathan his fathers sake it is a certain argument that he loved Jonathan better than Mephibosheth He that loves a man for mony or meat loves mony and meat more than the man because these are the causes and ends why he loves the man It will follow then that he that loves God for himself or for any other end than God loves that more then God But God is principally and solely to be loved all other things even our own salvation are to be loved for him but he for himself Should we now take the dimensions of our Devotion by this rule I fear it will not reach home Would we down on our knees but for a blessing Would we be so earnest to hallow Gods Name but that in his name we shall cast out devils some evil that may hurt us Would we advance his Kingdom but to crown ourselves Would we be desirous his Will should be done if his will were to damn us Is there an Anselme now alive that if Hell and Sin were proposed to his choice would be damned to torments for ever rather than once by sin dishonor God No Our PATER NOSTER for the most part begins at PANEM NOSTRUM Give us this day our daily bread And our Prayers are much like Jacobs Vow If God will give us bread to eat and raiment to put on then the Lord shall be our God Indeed it should Gen. 28. 20. not be thus If our Love were perfect our Devotion would be so also and kindle at no other fire than the Love of Gods Glory For perfect Love doth not only cast-out all fear but all other respects whatsoever And God would be loved by us as David loved Jonathan but the Creature as Mephibosheth but in a second place for Jonathans sake but we are Men not Angels and God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens speaks who studies wayes to save us and is even witty in inventing of means to bring us unto him doth so far condescend as to be content we have an eye to our own Good so we prefer his Glory to propose other ends so we make that the first and to pray for our selves so we begin with him Although we cannot begin with him but we pray for our selves Tolle luctatori praemium lentus jacebit in stadio Take away the garland and the Souldier will not strike a stroke Our Devotion would be frost-bound nor would we fill heaven with our prayers but that we hope they will bring down some blessing from thence Therefore God deals with us as a skilfull Artist doth that works upon an evil matter If he cannot make what he would yet makes that which the matter gives him leave And like the Husbandman in the Gospel he doth not pluck up the Tares these imperfections of ours for fear that the Wheat even the whole harvest of our Devotion should come up with them Hence it is that he proposes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reward and punishment and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his manifold benefits to incite us to call upon him And he that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worker both of our Fight and Reward hath made it as a Law and promulged it to all his followers HE THAT ASKETH SHALL RECEIVE And this is the reason why in the primitive times they anointed Christians at their initiation and reception into the Church to remember them that they were brought into the banners and to encourage them with hope of reward if they overcame If we pray that Gods Name be hallowed we may pray also that he write our names in the book of life If we advance his Kingdom he will crown us Only his Glory in all things must have the praeeminence But you will say that it is a hard thing to keep this intention alive when we pray and that these two the Glory of God and
Christum facimus saith Petrarch in another case It is not enough for us to set our hearts upon riches unless we make Christ himself Covetous also It is not enough for us to pursue honors and dignities unless we make Christ ambitious and so set up a temporal Monarchy in the Church We crown Christ but it is not with the crown wherewith his Father crowned him in the day of his espousals when he made him the Head of the Church In the world we are born in the world we are bread and hence it comes to pass that when we divert our industry unto Christian study to the knowledge of Christ and his Kingdome we still phansie something like unto the World Riches and Honor and a universal Monarchy But suppose that Christ had the politick government of the world given him as man yet he never exercised his Regal power in this kind He built no castles raised no armies trod not upon the necks of Emperors Suppose he had exercised his Regal power yet all this would hardly fasten the triple Crown on the high Priests head But we see himself renounce all such claim He complains he hath not what the Foxes have a hole to hide his head Being desired to divide the inheritance between two brothers he answers sharply Man who made Luke 9. 56. me a judge or a divider over you When Pilate asketh him Art thou the King Luke 12. 14. of the Jews Christ answereth Sayest thou this of thy self or did others tell it thee of me Dost thou object this crime or is it seigned to thy hands by others And at last he makes this plain confession before Pontius Pilate My kingdome is not of this world Which words like the Parthian horseman John 18. ride one way but look another are spoken to an Infidel to Pilate but are a lesson directed to the subjects of his spiritual Kingdome a Lesson teaching us not to dream of any honor in his kingdome but salvation nor any crown but the crown of life And therefore as Aristotle tells us of his moral Happiness that it is the chiefest good but not that which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which the Ambitious adoreth the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth a Universal notion and Idea of Good so may we say of this Kingdome that in respect of it all the Kingdoms of the earth are not worth a thought but it is not such a Kingdome as the Jews expect or the Chiliasts phansie or the Church of Rome dreams of And though commonly Negatives make nothing known yet we shall find that the nature of Christs Kingdome could not have been more lively and effectually exprest than by this plain negation My Kingdome is not of this world To come yet a little nearer to the light by which we may discover this Kingdome The School-men have raised up divers Kingdoms and built them all upon the same foundation the Word of God First his absolute Dominion over the creature in respect of which Christ is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords To this they have added Regnum Scripturae and Regnum Ecclesiae They call the Scripture and the Church Kingdoms Then they make Regnum Gratiae a Kingdom of Grace and Regnum Gloriae a Kingdome of Glory And by a figure they make the King Christ himself a Kingdome All these may be true and these appellations may have some warrant from Scripture it self and may have an ADVENIAT set to them When we rest upon that law of Providence by which in a wonderful manner God governeth the world we say ADVENIAT Let his absolute Kingdome come Let him dispose and order the actions of men and the events of things as he pleaseth When we make our selves Saints and strive to bring others into that fellowship and communion there is an ADVENIAT for we pray for the increase of the Church and the enlarging of her territories When we hunger and thirst after the water of life when we desire that wholsome doctrine may drop as the rain and saving truth distil as the dew there is an ADVENIAT a prayer which will open the windows of heaven Some are of opinion that by Kingdom come here Christ did mean the Gospel And this carries some probability in it For the Disciples and Apostles of Christ whose business it was to propagate the Gospel had this petition Thy Kingdom come so often in their mouths that they were accused affectati regni as Enemies to the State who did secretly undermine one Empire to set up another We cannot deny but that not only the manifestation of Gods will but the confirmation of it either by preaching or by miracle or by those gifts and effects which can proceed from no other cause but the power and efficacy of the Spirit are truly called the kingdome of Christ because they are instrumenta regni instruments and helps to advance his throne or Kingdome in our very hearts that as true Subjects we may obey his commands as true Souldiers fight under his banner that so we may suffer with him here and reign with him hereafter And in this sense we may call the Scripture a Kingdome and the Preaching of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments and the outward Government of the Church whether Political by the Magistrate or Ecclesiastical by the Bishops and Priests a Kingdome because both Powers both Ecclesiastical and Civil are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great helps and furtherances to advance Gods Kingdome But Aquinas shall give you a full resolution 1 a 2 ae Qu. 104. Regnum Dei in interioribus consistit principaliter sed ex consequenti ad regnum Dei pertinent omnia illa sine quibus interiores actus esse non possunt The Kingdome of God is within us and principally consists in the subduing of the inward man in taking the citadel of the Heart but by a plain and easie consequence all those things without which these inward acts are not ordinarily performed may be taken in within its verge and compass And when we pray for the supply and continuance of these helps we truly say Thy Kingdome come For Christ is not truly and properly said to reign till we have surrendered up unto him our very souls and hearts and laid them at his feet For as Cassian saith of Fasting and Watching and Nakedness that they are not perfection it self but the instruments to work it So may we say of these outward helps the Preaching of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments and the Watchfulness of Kings and Prelates and the like They are not the Kingdome of God but helps and instruments to set us up And his reason will hold here also In ipsis enim non consistit disciplinae finis sed per illa pervenitur ad finem For these are not the end but by these we are brought to the end to the Kingdome of Grace which will bring us to the Kingdome
bound the Understanding also to regulate our Affections to set limits to our very Thoughts which flow from the heart to keep us from Error as well as from Sin For as the Will must turn it self from all evil ut non consentiat that it no way incline to consent unto it so is there a tye upon the Understanding to avoid error ut non assentiat that it yield not assent to it As the Will is bound to perform its act so is the Understanding also The Will is bound to will that which is good the Understanding to know and believe those things which are the objects of our Faith and Knowledge so that it is as well a sin to believe a lye in matters of Faith as to break a commandment If there were no law to the Understanding then were it lawful for every man to believe and think as he please and that opinion would pass for current That every man may be saved in that Religion and Sect which he believes to be good and true And then how hath the Church of Christ been mistaken in passing such heavy censures upon Hereticks and Infidels We have a saying indeed in St. Bernard Nihil ardet in inferno praeter propriam voluntatem That nothing of us makes fuel for the fire of hell but our Will and that men are punisht only for the stubbornness and disobedience of their Will and if we examine it we shall find it true enough though at the first appearance it beareth some shew of opposition to the truth For the Will receives the first wound and maim And it is most certain we could never erre dangerously if we were not willing to be deceived The complaint is put-up in Scripture They will not understand Not that the acts of the Understanding depend on the Will which are rather natural than arbitrary for it is not in our power not to apprehend things in those shapes in which they present themselves but because we wilfully refuse the means to clear doubts we will not see that which is most naked and visible we seek no guide we follow no direction nay perhaps against our own consciences we dissent from that which inwardly will we nill we we do acknowledge And as the errors of the Understanding so all the extravagancies of the Affections are originally from the Will It was the Stoicks error to disgrace the Affections as evil Christianity hath made the weapons of righteousness to fight the battels of this great King My Anger may be a sword my Love a banner my Hope a staff my Fear a buckler All the weaknesses of our Soul the errors of our Understanding and the rebellions of our Affections are from the Will From hence are wars and fightings Is the Understanding dark The cloud is from the Will That my Anger rageth my Love burneth my Fear despaireth my Grief is impatient my Joy mad is from the Will From this treasury blows the wind which makes the wicked like the Isa 57. 20. troubled sea which cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt And now you see that the Kingdom of Christ consists principally in subduing of the will When that yields the Understanding is straight as wax to receive the impressions of Truth and the Affections as so many gentle gales to carry us to the haven where we would be This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom calls it principale animae as St. Ambrose the commanding leading and principal part of the Heart If Christ hath taken possession of this he hath taken the whole heart and is Lord of all Fight saith the 1 King 22. 31 King of Syria neither with small nor great save only with the King of Israel If he faâ—l in battel the whole army is overthrown Will you have it plainly thus There be these three parts as it were in the Heart or Soul of man Reason Will and Appetite Reason necessarily inclines to things reasonable and the Sensitive appetite follows the conduct of Sense For it is an axiome in the Schools Unaquaeque virtus expeditior est ad proprium actum Every power of the soul tends naturally to its proper act and operation Our Reason is quick to discourse and our Sense carries us to sensual objects And these two are at a kind of war and variance in man and strive which shall have the supremacy They are as two extreams and the Will in the midst as it were to decide the controversie When Sense hath over whelmed Reason then Sin begins to reign and the Devil to triumph But when through Christ that strenghtheneth us our Will takes Reason's part and treads the Appetite under her feet then the adverse faction is swallowed up in victory Christ is all in all and VENIT REGNUM DEI the Kingdome of God is within us I now proceed further to unfold the nature of the Kingdome of God It is REGNUM TUUM thy Kingdome Which puts a difference betwixt this and other Kingdoms Christ rules and reigneth as a King in his Church But as his Kingdome is not of this world so is it of a divers form and complexion from the Kingdoms of the world We pray Let thy Kingdome come Which points out a peculiar Kingdome a Kingdome by it self And if we put it in the Scales with the Kingdoms of the earth and weigh them together they will be all found too light whether we respect the Laws by which this Kingdome is governed or the Virtue and Power it hath or its large Compass or the Riches it abounds with or its Duration the Laws unquestionable indispensable the Power universal the Circuit as large as the world the Riches everlasting and its Continuance for ever To speak something of these in their order First in the Kingdome of Christ and his Laws neither People nor Senate nor Wise-men nor Judges has any hand They were made in Senatu Soliloquio as Rupertus speaks in that Senate and Solitariness where there are divers yet but one Three Persons and but one God Secondly there is a difference in the Laws themselves These are pure and undefiled exact and perfect and such as tend to perfection and so were none that ever the heathen Legislatours enacted What speak we of the Laws of heathen men and strangers from the Commonwealth of Israel The Law of Moses though it had nothing unlawful or dishonest yet conteined many precepts concerning things which in themselves were neither good nor evil as Sacrificing of beasts Circumcision exact Rest on their Sabboath forbidding of divers meats But the Laws of the Gospel and of the Kingdome of Christ command those duties which had they not been tendred in that high commanding form yet in their own nature were most just and fit to be done Not to circumcise the flesh but the heart Not to cease from labor but from that which is unlawful Not to sacrifice the bloud and fat of beasts but our selves Not to abstein from certain meats but to
beat down our body and wage war with our appetite We may say of the Law of Moses as St. Paul speaks of the yearly sacrifices It did not make the commers thereunto Hebr. 10. 8. perfect but left behind it still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conscience of sins not only ex parte reatûs a conscience which did testifie that they had sinned and affright them with the guilt but ex parte vindictae a conscience which not only questioned their sins but there attonement also Therefore Chrysostome on that place will tell us In that the Jews did offer sacrifice it seemeth they had a conscience that accused them of sin but that they did it continually argued they had a conscience which accused their sacrifice of Imperfection The Law of Faith which is the fundamental Law of the Gospel is expunctor legis totius retro vetustatis blots out these Laws and whatever Antiquity did write down as a Law in her tables Quicquid retrò fuit aut demutatum est ut circumcisio aut suppletum ut lex reliqua aut impletum ut prophetia aut perfectum ut fides ipsa Whatsoever was in times past was either changed as Circumcision or supplyed as the rest of the Law or fulfilled as Prophesies or made perfect as Faith it self I should detein you too long in this argument should I draw a comparison between each particular constitution By the very nature and quality of the Laws you may easily descry a main difference between these Kingdoms The Laws of Christ are unchangeable and eternal but all humane constitutions are temporary and mutable Those which are written in the Body of the Law by the Civilians are called LEGES PERPETUAE Laws unchangeable but after Ages have seen the countenance of some altered and others quite rased out Legum medelae pro temporum moribus pro rerumpubl generibus pro utilitatum presentium rationibus mutari solent flecti nec uno statu consistere sed ut coeli facies maris ita rerum fortunae tempestatibus variari But the Laws of the heavenly Kingdome are eternal written in our souls by the King of Souls from the beginning The second head wherein the difference of this Kingdome from others is seen is the Power of it which is extended not to the body alone but to the soul also Other Kings may lay the whip on the back but this rips-up the very bowels other Kings may kill the body but this can cast both body and soul into hell Many times it is wisdom in Kings not to punish because of the multitude or power of offenders Nescio saith an heathen man in the Historian an suasurus fuerim omittere potiùs praevalida adulta vitia quam hoc assequi ut palam fiat quibus vitiis impares simus Sins many times do reign amongst men and spread themselves so far and wide that no strength of the Magistrate is able to supress them and therefore many times it is our best wisdom to let such sins alone lest by going about to amend them we betray our weakness and shew that the Law it self may have a bridle put into her mouth that offenders may ride her as they please It is not so in this Kingdom God can never be out-braved by any sin be it never so universal Be the offenders never such Giants never so many he is able to chain and fetter them even with a word He that sits on the throne and he that grinds at the mill to him are all one And as a thousand years with him are but as one day so a thousand a million a whole world of men with him are but as one man And when he shall sit to do judgment upon sinners all the world shall have before him but one neck and he can strike it off at a blow When I mentioned the power and virtue of this Kingdome you might expect perhaps that I should have said something of the power and efficacy of Grace because this Kingdome is called the Kingdome of Grace And indeed herein is a difference between this Kingdome and others Magistrates promulge laws threaten bind the tongue and hand but have no influence nor operation on the hearts and wills of men But in this our spiritual Kingdome the King doth not only command but gives us his helping hand that we may perform his command Et quomodo fulgur nubes disrumpit as Cyprian speaketh as lightning suddenly breaketh through the cloud and at once enlightens and amazes the world so the coruscation and splendor of Gods Grace doth at once illuminate and dull the eye of our understanding Nescio quomodo tangimur tangi nos sentimus we are toucht with this sudden flash we know not how and we feel that we are toucht but it is not easie to discern how Non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit profuisse deprehendes That the power of Gods Grace hath wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which it wrought are impossible to be reduced to demonstration We must confess that by nature we are blind and Grace is the eye by which we see we are lame and Grace is the staff by which we walk we are dead and Grace is the breath by which we live As man upon earth is composed of Body and Soul so in respect of this Kingdome he admits of a new composition of Man and the Spirit of Grace But we must remember it is a Kingdome we speak of and Christ is a King not a Tyrant Now the Philosopher will tell us Rex imperat volentibus tyrannus nolentibus That in this a King and a Tyrant differ that the one ruleth his subjects with that wisdom and temper that they are willing to obey the other makes them obey whether they will or no. Beloved Christ is a King in this respect He will not rule us against our will Nemo se ab invito coli vult No man will take a gift from an unwilling hand And dost thou look that the King of heaven and earth should force thee to allegiance Some have made it an observation That before Christs resurrection he was obeyed by those that served him against their will and so was served but to halves but under the Gospel he gathers unto him populum spontaneum a willing people that still be ready to do his will All this is from Grace thou wilt say It is true But not of Grace so working as to force the Will For as God is powerful and can do all things so is he wise too and sweetly disposes all things accomplishing his will by those means he in his eternal wisdom knoweth to be best using his power as a King but not violence as a Tyrant Wilt thou then sit still and not set thy hand to work upon a phansie that God doth not send thee grace Wilt thou not hearken to the voice of thy King speaking within God unless he
Divinitatis as Tertullian calls it the very work and invention of the Deity though it breathe nothing but peace and joy though it have not only authority but reason to plead for it yet the sound of it was no sooner heard but the world was in a tumult The heathen did rage and the people imagine a vain thing The Kings of the earth did set themselves against the Lord and against his Anointed Do the Angels proclaim it Men oppose it Doth Psalm 2. Christ preach it and confirm it by wonders Let him be crucified say the Jews Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula say the Gentiles after Away with Christ and his Legend Whilst it was yet in its swathing-bands it was brought to the barr the professors of it are punished and tortured non ut dicant quae faciunt sed ut negent quod sunt not to reveal what they do but to deny what they are For this the most chast wife is devorced from her husband the most obedient son disinherited by his father the most trusty and faithful servant shut out of doors by his master even for the Religion of the Gospel which made the Wife chast the Son obedient and Servant faithful Ex aemulatione Judaei ex natura domestici nostri The Jew is spurred on by his envy nay she finds enemies in her own house the Church of God and even Christians oppose her because of the truth it self whose nature it is to offend It is a just complaint that our Saviour came into the world and the world received him not would not receive him as a King but groaned under him as a cruel Tyrant His edicts his commands his proclamations his precepts were hard and harsh sayings none could bear them So it stands with Christian Religion Cum odio sui caepit It was hated as soon as it was Nor indeed can it be otherwise For it offends the whole world It stands between the Wanton and his lust the Ambitious and his pomp the Covetous and his mammon Christ is truth and his Kingdome is a Kingdome of righteousness and truth noâ— is there any thing in the world more scandalous and offensive than the Truth Old Simeon tells Mary of Christ This child is set for the falling and rising again Luke 2. 34. of many in Israel Not that Christ saith St. 〈◊〉 is contrary â—â— himself a Saviour and a Destroyer a Friend and an Enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the divers opinions and affections of men which abusing his love make him an enemy and the Saviour of the world a Destroyer I might name here many hinderances of the growth of â—he Gospel as Heresie which is a most poysonous viper biting not the heel but the very heart of it Infidelity which robs Christ of his subjects contracts his Kingdome into a narrow room and into a small number Disorder which rents it which works confusion there All these are impedimenta lets and hinderances to the propagation of the Gospel not like those impedimenta militiae the luggage and carriage of an army without which it cannot subsist but obicem ponentia fences and bulwarks and barricadoes against the King of Heaven if it were possible to stay him in his victorious march and to damm up that light which must shine from one end of the earth unto the other But this perhaps might fill up our discourse and make it swell beyond its bounds The greatest hinderance which we must pray against is an evil thought which flyes about the world That there is no Hinderance but these no opposition to the truth but Heresie no sin but Infidelity no breaking of order but in a Schism This it is to be feared not only hinders the propagation of the Gospel in credendis in respect of outward profession but blasts and shrinks it up in agendis in respect of outward practice and of that obedience without which we are meer aliens and strangers from this Kingdome This doth veritatem defendendo concutere this shakes that truth which should make us fruitful to every good work by being so loud in the defense of it It is a truth I think confest by all That the errors of our Understanding for the most part are not of so great alloy as those of the Will That it is not so dangerous to be ignorant of some truth as it is to be guilty of any evil yet all the heat of contention is spent here all our quarrels and digladiations are about these nay all our Religion is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earnestly to contend not who shall be the truest subjects in Christs Kingdome but who shall be most loud to cry down Heresie and Schism And this phansie I take to be as great a viper as Heresie as poysonous as Infidelity and the first ground and original of all Schisms in the world Whose zeal is so hot against an Oath as against an Error Who says Anathema to the Wanton What curse upon the Oppressor but of the Orphan and the Widow And from whence come wars from whence come fightings amongst us but from this corrupt imagination That we do better service in the Church of Christ which is the Kingdome of God by the loud defence than by the serious practice of the truth And all this while we mistake this Kingdome and the Religion which we profess which is absoluta simplex a Religion of great perfection and simplicity non quaerens strophas verborum and needs not the help of wit and sophistry God leads us not unto his Kingdome by knotty and intricate Disputes In absoluto nobis facili aeternitas saith Hilary Our journey to it is most easie It will come unto us sine pompa apparatu without pomp or observation It was Erasmus his complaint in the dayes of our Fore-fathers Ecclesiam sustineri syllogismis That this Kingdome was upheld not by piety and obedience but by syllogistical disputes as the surest props I could be infinite in this argument but I am unwilling to loose my way whilst I pursue a thief The sum of all is That this ADVENIAT is not only an invitation to draw this Kingdome nearer but an antidote against Heresie Infidelity and Schism and also against this corrupt conceit That Religion doth in labris natare is most powerful when it floats upon the tongue And we must raise it up as an engine to bruise the head of these vipers to cast down imaginations and every thing that exalteth it self against the Kingdome of Christ Again as this ADVENIAT fits all ages of the Church and was the language which Christ taught his Disciples when the Church was yet an Embrio in semine principiis not yet brought forth in perfect shape so is it a most proper and significant word verbum rei accommodatum a word fitted to the matter in hand the Kingdome here mentioned which must come to us before we can come to it Nothing more free and voluntary more
their faith quos in magnis aeternae beatitudinis constituet exemplis whom he means to place amongst the few but great examples of eternal happiness Semper diem observant cum semper ignorant quotidie timeant quod quotidie sperant saith Tertullian in that excellent Book of his De Anima For whilst men are alwayes ignorant they are also alwayes observant and fear that may come this minute which they hope and are assured will come at last Lastly this ADVENIAT as it is the language of our Hope and Faith so is it the dialect olso of our Charity and Love both to God and our Brethren Thy Kingdome come Why certainly it will come Certus esto veniet Nec solum veniet sed etsi nolis veniet saith St. Augustine You may be sure it will come nay it will come whether we will or no Our prayers perchance may hasten it but no power in heaven or in earth or in hell can keep it back But this ADVENIAT this prayer of ours that it may come is a kind of subscription to the eternal decree of God that it should come By this we testifie our consent shew our agreement and make it appear that we are truly his subjects since we would have that which our King would have and are of the same mind with him We usually say that they who are true friends have idem Velle idem Nolle will and nill the self-same things It is said of Abraham that he was the friend of God And not only Abraham 2 Chron. 20. 7. Isa 41. 8. James 2. 23. but every true son of Abraham that feareth the Lord doth also inherit Abrahams title and is the friend of God If therefore we will be counted Abrahams Children and the Friends of God we must will and nill the same things with God or else we shall not continue long friends Non pareo Deo sed assentior ex animo illum non quia necesse est sequor saith the heathen Seneca We do not so much obey God because he hath authority to command as because we acknowledge that what he will have is just and good and we assent to him not of necessity but of a willing mind We intreat him to do his will and begg it at his hand as a great favour We cry unto him ADVENIAT Thy Kingdome come though we know that he is already resolved that it shall come And so in this one word ADVENIAT we may see the motion of our Faith the activity of our Hope and the humble plyability of our Love And thus we may totâ fidei substantiâ incidere as Tertullian speaketh we may with these three go forth to meet the King as with the whâ—le armour and substance of our faith Now our Desire must needs be carried on â—n a swift and eager course where these three do fill the sails where Faith awakes it Hope spurs it on and Love upholds and countenances it It must needs be more than an ordinary heat of affection which is kindled by all these These three will set ADVENIAT to the highest pinn to the highest elevation of our thoughts Let thy Kingdome come yet not till the appointed time yet let it come Though many thousands of years are to pass over before it come yet let it come not now but when thou wilt and when thou wilt yet now It cannot come soon enough if thou wilt and if thou wilt not now it cannot come too late It was a famous saying of Martyn Luther Homo perfectè credens se esse haeredem filium Dei non diu superstes maneret Did a man perfectly believe that he were a child of God heir of this Kingdome of Glory he would be transported beyond himself and dye of immoderate joy We read EXSPECTATIO MEA APUD Psal 39. 7. TE My hope is even in thee but the Vulgar renders it SUBSTANTIA MEA APUD TE My substance my being is in thee as if David were composed and made up and elemented of his Hope as if all that he had all that he was were only in expectation And indeed they who affect a future life and look forward towards eternity are truly said nè tunc quidem tùm vivunt vivere not to be where they are not to live when they are alive To conclude No wonder to hear an ADVENIAT for a Christians mouth who lives so as if he thought of nothing else but the Comming of this Kingdome For this ADVENIAT is as a spark from that fire as a beam of that Glory which shall be hereafter Nor can he ever with a perfect desire sound an ADVENIAT who hath not some imperfect knowledge of the melody of the Angels and the musick of the Cherubims He cannot say Thy Kingdome come who hath not a glimpse of that glory which is to come The Philosophers tell us that there is nothing which can be nourishing to our bodies but we have a kind of fore-taste and assay of it in our very tempers and constitutions The Child when he is hungry desires milk because he hath a kind of praegustation of milk in his very nature Nihil penitus incongruum appetitur Nothing is desired by us which disagrees with our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and disposition The wickedst Christian living may say his PATER NOSTER but he cannot pronounce the ADVENIAT with that accent and emphasis and heartiness that he should Thy Kingdome come Nay rather let mountains fall on me and hills cover me And all this because the Glory of Gods Kingdome is against his very nature What taste can he have of the Water of life who is in the gall of bitterness What relish can he have of the Bread of life who surfets on the world Or can he have any praegustation of Heaven whose very soul by covetousness is become as earthy as his body Can he desire eternal Glory whose glory is in his shame No Vita Christiani sanctum desiderium The life of a true Christian is nothing else but a holy desire and an expectation of the comming of this Kingdome of Christ Which he hath a taste and relish of even in his very temper and constitution which he received at his regeneration For so St. Paul calleth our regeneration and amendment of life a taste of the heavenly gift of the good word of God and of the Hebr. 6. 4 5. powers of the world to come For as God commanded Moses before he dyed to ascend up into the mountain that he might see afar off and discover that good land which he had promised So it is his pleasure that through holy conversation and newness of life we should raise our selves above the rest of the world and even in this life time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks as from an exceeding high mountain discover and have some sight of that good Land of that Crown of glory which is laid up for all those who watch and wait for
have us to wait upon him at distance When he teacheth us to call him FATHER he seems to call us too near to him that we go not too far but when he commands us to say Thy will be done he teacheth us like Servants to know our place that we come not too near nor be too familiar with him I will yet add one reason more and that from Christ himself who was now come into the world not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him This will be now declares to all the world Which was but darkly seen before wrapt up in types hid in visions vailed in the ceremonies of the Law but now it is made manifest to all the world So that we may find a kind of triumph in this Form the acclamations of Love and Joy FIAT Thy will be done For as Job said Shall we receive good things at the hands of God and not evil so on the contrary shall we set a FIAT set our seal to the evils which God sends and not to the good news to the voice of his thunder when he scatters his enemies and not to the voice of his Angel which proclaims peace The Redemption of mankind by the comming of Christ was praecipua pars providentiae the fairest piece in which the Providence of God shewed it self decreed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the foundations of the world were laid This FIAT then Thy will be done is he voice of Faith and Obedience and Gratitude The Grammarians tell us there be some words which will not fit a Tragedy and Donatus had a conceit Si ferrum nominetur in comaedia transit in tragoediam That but to name a Sword in a Comedy were enough to fright it into a Tragedy But these words will serve and fit both fit us on our good dayes and fit us on our bad fit us in our sorrow and in our joy in the house of mourning and at a triumph as fit for us the first comming of Christ as for the second But this is not all For this flows but from a decree of God what he would do on the earth and what he would do for us And this might awake the most sullen Ingratitude We are all willing to set a FIAT to those decrees which are made for our good Will God send his Son His will be done Here a FIAT hath not enough of the wing and therefore the gloss which our Heart gives is Oh Lord make no long tarrying But besides this as Christ came to do his Fathers will so he came to teach us his will also Certainly to think otherwise is a most dangerous error For what is it but to make the Gospel of Christ to be the Gospel of sinful man nay the Gospel of the Devil What is it but to poyson the many wholsome precepts we find there This shuts up the FIAT within the compass of the absolute Decree and our Petition is no more then this That God would be as good as his word and fulfill those promises on us which he made before the foundations of the world were laid Gods Promises are like his Threats conditional If thou believe I will give unto thee eternal life If thou overcome thou shalt be crowned Is it not good news to the heavy-laden that by comming to Christ he may be eased to the rich that he may make such friends of Mammon as may at last receive him into everlasting habitations to the captive that he may shake his shackles off and to every Christian that if he will but fight he shall purchase a Kingdome The Gospel is not the less Gospel because it conteins precepts and laws Evangelical Laws is no contradiction at all Will you hear our Saviour speak like a Law-giver This is my commandment And You shall be my Disciples if you do what I command you Will you see him in his robes as a Judge Behold him in flaming fire taking vengeance on them 2 Thess 1. 8. that know not God And who are they Even those that obey not the Gospel of Christ And how shall they be judged According to my Gospel Rom. 2. 16. saith St. Paul We need not stand longer on this point But if they will not grant us this we will yet increase further upon them and shew this Petition to be most proper to the Gospel For it is not only This is my commandment but A new commandment give I unto you For though at sundry John 13. 34. times and in divers manners God had revealed his Will to our Fathers by the Prophets yet in these last dayes he hath spoken by his Son more plainly and more fully expressing his will then ever heretofore and after which he will never speak again For the Grace of God is made manifest by the 2 Tim. 1. 10. appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolisht death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel And as it is his last Will so it removes those indulgences and dispensations which were granted under the Law and which stood as a thick cloud before the eyes of the Jews that they could not fully and clearly discern the full purport of his Will Hac ratione munit nos Christus adversus Diaboli latitudines saith Tertullian The opening of Gods Will by Christ is as a fense to keep us from those latitudes and exspatiations and extravagancies and shews us yet a more excellent way discovering unto us the danger of those sins which heretofore under the Law went under that name The Jews were Gods peculiar people and to them he gave his statutes and his testimonies but yet he did not expect that perfection from a Jew which he doth from a Christian Our Saviour doth not only clear the Law from those corrupt glosses with which the Jewish Doctors had infected it but also ampliavit expanxit legem totam retro vetustatem as Tertullian speaketh Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord Isa 53. 1. revealed saith the Prophet Some report the Prophets made but not all nor were they fully heard It is the Will of God that we deny our selves that we take up our cross that we use this world as if we used it not living in the world but out of the world non exercentes quod nati sumus not being what indeed we are Where find we these lessons this his Will but in the Gospel A vain attempt it is to draw them into the Decalogue by force by I know not what Analogie by long and far-fetcht deductions For by the same art I may contract all the ten Commandments into one No man commits a sin but ipso facto in some proportioned sense he hath set up another God which is only forbid in the first Commandment We use not to commit those secrets to every messenger which we do to our son Nor did the Prophets the Messengers of Christ know
Father Such as care for nothing but to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof cannot put on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Apostle biddeth Rom. 13. 14. us They who will still go brave and drink deep and feed high and fare deliciously every day with the Glutton in the Gospel are likely not only Luke 16. to suffer Lazarus to starve at their doors but also to pine and begger their own souls to eternity It may seem somewhat strange that St. Paul calls Esau 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fornicator and a profane person since Moses no Hebr. 12. 16. where recordeth it And Thalassius the Monk moves the doubt to Isidore Pelusiote lib. 1. Epist who returneth a ready answer That it was no marvel at all that he should sell his chastity who first had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage For this Bread of Luxurie doth not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle speaks corrupt our health but doth aggravare animam layeth a burden upon the soul that she can neither take the wing and raise her self in the contemplation of God and his goodness nor yet prompt the Eye or Hand or Tongue to do those offices for which they were created It makes her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weaker saith Clemens and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 slower 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weak sensless stupid For quorum corpora saginata eorum animi in maciè When the body is too full streight leanness enters into the soul I may seem perhaps to have divided this Bread with too sparing a hand I will therefore give you the whole Loaf and more I cannot give you And by Bread here we will understand that provision that wealth those necessaries which every particular mans calling requires or which may fit that place which he bears either in Church or Common-wealth For I am not so strait-laced as to imagine that every Artificer should be furnisht as richly as a Noble-man or that every Nabal should make a feast like a King Not the same measure and proportion for Joab the Captain of the Hoast and for David the King for Shaphan the Chancellour and for Josiah for Gellio the Deputy and for Caesar the Emperour It is true in many respects there is no difference between man and man but all are equal We have all one Father who hath made of one bloud all nations of men And as we Matth. 2. 10. Acts 17. 26. are all made of one mold so are we all bought with the same price The soul of him that sitteth on the throne cost Christ no more then did the soul of him that grindeth at the mill All are one in Christ Jesus All true Gal. 3. 28. Christians have the same holy Spirit to sanctifie and guide them all have an army of holy Angels to pitch their tents about them all are spiritual Kings and Priests all are now vessels of grace and shall hereafter be vessels of glory And at the day of doom the great Judge will not look who lieth in a winding-sheet and who in a sheet of lead nor will he pardon this man because he was a King and condemn that other because he was a Begger Yet for all this he hath made up his Church here not of Angels but of Men who live in the world and therefore must live under Government Ecclesia non subvertit regna The Church and Secular powers stand not in opposition but so well sute and sort together that God hath left this as a blessing unto his Church and part of her dowry That Kings should be her nursing fathers and Queens her nursing mothers Now Kingdoms and Common-wealths Isa 49. 23. cannot be governed and maintained unless there be a disparity of persons and places It hath pleased God therefore to dispense his gifts in a wonderful variety amongst the children of men that so they might be fitted for several professions and callings men of ordinary fashion and parts for lower and meaner vocations to handle the Plough or the Spade or the Flail or the Sheep-hook to trade in the Shop or to traffick by Sea or to serve in the Wars but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher calleth men of more then ordinary endowments choice active persons picked out of thousands these deserve to become famous in their generations to attend on Princes to bear office in Court or Camp or Church or Common-wealth Sic opus est mundo There is a necessity of disproportion between men and men Nihil enim aequalitate ipsâ inaequalius For there is no greater disproportion in the world then in a body politick to have all the parts equal Being so it cannot long subsist Indeed some fantastick persons have long talkt of a Parity and Community but it is to make themselves supream and the greatest Impropriators in the world For were the world so weak as to yield to their holy counsel and advice you should then see these ravenous Wolfes strip themselves of their lambs-skins and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 openly before the Sun and the People invest themselves with that power which they cry down for Antichristian Sint pares protinus erunt superiores Let them part stakes and they will have all Let them be your equals they will soon be your superiors and give them but leave to stand on even ground with you and they will before you can be aware of them lay you level with the ground Now a Hezekiah is no better than a Senacherib a Constantine than a Julian every King is a Tyrant every Bishop Antichrist no Guide but the Spirit no Court but Heaven no lash but that of Conscience Meum and Tuum are harsh words in the Church Almost of the mind of the Carpocratians in Clemens who because the Air was common would have their Wives so too Quid verba audio These words are most notoriously false and deceitful For did they once rerum potiri could they but shift the scene and return back cloath'd with that power and jurisdiction which they libel their own writings which most barbarously call for the bloud and lives of men for no other reason but because they cannot be fools enough to be of their opinion shew what meek and gentle spirits we should find them Now No King No Bishop No Government But then they will reign as Kings Their little fingers would be bigger then the most cruel Tyrants loyns and we who before did not feel so much as a scourge by these unhallowed Saints should be whipped with Scorpions But I must not stray too far out of my way to follow Thieves I leave them to the mercy and justice of God who in his due time will either work their conversion or confound their devilish practices and machinations To proceed then God doth give every man his portion of bread He did so in the beginning of the world before the Floud he did so in the restitution of the world after
and loathsome brain nor have any thing of Lot unless it be his incest It is a wonder to see what gifts of temperance of natural conscience of justice and moral uprightness did remain not only in the books but in the lives and conversation of many heathen men I know not how they had Honesty without Faith but we have Faith enough we talk of nothing else but little Honesty And indeed as many ungoverned men are the worse for the many helps they have and would love themselves better had they not so many friends so we Christians prodimur auxiliis are betrayed by our prerogatives and are sick of our own strength of Faith and the Hope of mercy in Christ This is I presume the cause why so many Christians out-go Barbarians Turks and Infidels in fraud and villany And therefore as the Honesty of the Heathen without Faith so our Faith without Honesty shall be but as the Rain-bow was to them before the Floud for shew but no use at all And indeed this is but to deceive our selves For neither Faith nor Hope especially as they are opera intellectûs phansied in the brain but Honesty and Integrity entitles us to the promises of this life and of that which is to come and maketh the good things we enjoy to be our Bread Though we mourn like doves and wash our beds with our tears though we wish our head a fountain of tears to bewail the sins of the people though we tread the courts of the Lord and nail our ears to the Pulpit yet after all this ceremonious piety a false measure at home a false weight in our bagg a deceitful heart and a heavy hand will wipe off our title to our Bread and our names too if we repent not out of the Book of Life It is a plain and undeniable proposition yet some venture on the contrary affirmative part He that lyes to his brother He that defrauds his brother is so far from being religious that he deserves not so much as the name of a Christian But we love to be deceived and deceive our selves We fall commonly into one of these two Fallacies Either A malè divisis We divide and sunder those things which are everlastingly united not only Profit and Honesty which Tullie abhorred but Honesty and Religion Truth and Faith and when both are commanded we rest in one Or else into A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter We take any part any duty of Religion to be the sum and conclusion of the whole matter and comfort our selves with one seeming virtue if you will frequenting of Sermons against a world of vice and that detestable Injustice and Oppression which in this triumph of Godliness in this spiritual Jubilee will insensibly but certainly sink our souls to Hell To draw then towards a conclusion of this point All fraud all injustice and oppression proceed from infinite and importunate Ambition From this riot hath sprung forth both that huge mass of wealth which private men and that boundless compass of government which greatest Princes have attained to Nothing was ever more unjust than the raising of those great Kingdoms and if the Laws of common Equity had taken place they had never been St. Augustine I am sure saw no difference between the Roman Empire and Spartacus his conspiracy but only this that the one lasted a little longer Which indeed puts no difference at all in the thing it self And if we should look into some rich mens coffers we should find that this rust this canker of Oppression and Fraud hath so corrupted their treasure that they can hardly know it to be theirs To conclude Plots and tricks and devises many times thrive in the world But when God maketh inquisition for bloud when he riseth up to set at liberty those who are oppressed he will take a candle and find them out and singe them With us it is wisdom and discretion sometimes to play least in sight But when Gods Justice pursues and overtakes us we perish in those Meanders and Labyrinths which we made to hide our selves in All our reaches and tricks will prove but like Heliogabalus his ropes of silk to strangle us and as his daggers of gold to stab us Then shall we find that we have but fed and prankt up our selves with that Bread which was not ours ut cariùs pereamus only that our destruction might be more costly than others Et sola in rusticulis suis facunda justitia Then the best eloquence will be Innocence and they will plead best for themselves and make good their title quibus integritas solida tota as Tertullian speaketh whose solid integrity and entire simplicity whose rusticity and plainness hath brought a blessing both on their labour and basket even this blessing That what Bread their Industry hath brought in may truly and properly be called their own For these two Labor and Honesty do indeed make it PANEM NO STRUM our bread Now being entitled to the goods of this life by these two Labour and Honesty we presently account our selves possessores bonae fidei true and lawful possessors And our inward thought is as the Prophet David speaks Psal 49. 11. that they will continue for ever and that we may call our lands by our own names It is true what falls unto us by express covenant or by division what we gain by Honesty and Industry is wholly and entirely ours But NOSTER PANIS our Bread implies more and as it taketh not away the first so it addeth a second It taketh not away the Propriety of our Bread from us but it addeth a Readiness to distribute it and cast it upon the waters When we make it as an Evidence and Assurance we look upon it but upon one side and many times ex adverso situ on the wrong side and by too much gazing loose our sight but when we take the perspective of the Gospel and behold it with the eye of Faith and Christian Charity on the other side we shall find our poor distressed Brethrens title so legible that we may run and read it NOSTER gives us livery and seisin makes our Bread OURS jure Quiritium by the Law of man and jure Divino by the Law of God Nor doth the Evangelical Law come in to weaken our title or disinherit us or force us out of possession But as St. Hierom tells us aliud est judicium tribunalis Christi aliud anguli susurronum there is great difference in pleading before the Roman Rostra and the Tribunal Seat of Christ Nor must Christians make good their title only by the Common Law or Book of Statutes but by the Gospel and their PATER NOSTER Who ever brought an action against others for want of compassion But we find a sentence past upon them These shall go away into everlasting punishment Matth. 25. The Philosopher by the light of Reason could say Man by nature is a sociable creature and
in their hands in token of victory yet cryed with Rev. 7. a loud voice saying Salvation to our God who sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb. I have now passed through all the Petitions and brought you to the Conclusion of your PATER NOSTER For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever Amen But here at present let us conclude and beseech God graciously to hear us that those evils which the craft and subtlety of the Devil or Man worketh against us be brought to nought and by the Providence of his goodness they may be dispersed that we his servants being hurt by no persecutions may evermore give thanks unto him in his holy Church through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Eight and Fourtieth SERMON MATTH VI. 13. For thine is the kingdome and the power and the glory for ever Amen THIS is the Conclusion of the whole matter even of these six Petitions In which we looked 1. upon the principal end of our life and actions the Glory of Gods great and glorious Name 2. upon the secondary and subordinate end which is our Salvation Which we have under God being our King to govern and our King to command and our King to crown us 3. upon those things which lead unto both these ends both to the Hallowing of Gods Name and the Saving of our Souls to wit first the procurement and use of these means as principally Piety by which we fulfill Gods Will and secondly our corporal Sustentation by which we are more chearful and active in the duties of piety and lastly the Removing of those lets and impediments which may keep us from these ends to wit our Sins Which are either past already or may be which we have already run into or to which we are obnoxious For the one we beg Forgiveness from the other Protection that God would remit the one and not lead us into tentation that we may be delivered from the other And these six make up this legitimate and ordinary and fundamental Prayer as Tertullian calls it Upon which we must build whatsoever we desire For whatsoever is not proportioned in reference to one of these is but the dross of our own invention but hay and stubble fit for the fire Now as we level our petitions to these ends so there must be some forcible motive to raise our hope and settle and establish such a confidence as may drive them home and may feather our Devotion that it wax not saint and feeble and fall to the ground Therefore to these Petitions this Clause or Conclusion is added For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever Amen Amen As if we should say We therefore beg these blessings at thy hands because thou alone reignest and governest and dispensest all things according to thy will and dost what thou wilt in heaven and in earth and thou hast power to supply us and from hence all glory shall as it ought return unto thee This clause indeed is not in the Vulgar edition nor in St. Luke in any edition either Greek or Latine or Syriack And therefore those of the Church of Rome attributing more to the Vulgar edition than to the Greek copies themselves commonly count it as an addition and a Gloss crept into the Text because it was a custome especially with the Greeks to conclude their Prayers to God with some Doxologie as also thinking it very improbable that there should be such a remarkable difference between the two Evangelists Matthew and Luke But these probabilities cannot carry it because it is as probable that Christ did at two several times deliver this form of prayer and that Matthew wrote of one and Luke of another Nor doth there any absurdity follow that they vary in this when whatsoever is conteined in this clause comes not within the compass of the six Petitions nor pertains to the substance of this prayer And for ought we find the Greek Fathers might as well borrow it from the Text as thrust it in And if it were added here we may suspect it was added also in divers places of St. Paul and one of St. Peter Sure I am we find it in all the Greek copies and in the Syriack which otherwise agrees very often with the Vulgar even there where it differs from the Greek Only in the Greek it is IN SECULA for ever and in the Syriack IN SECULA SECULORUM for ever and ever and in the Syriack the word Amen is not which the Greek copies have We may add to this that the Hebrew edition of the Gospel of Matthew set out by Munster and revised by Quinquarboreus although it very much accords with the Vulgar as he tells us in his Preface yet retains this Clause And therefore we must not too rashly yield and subscribe to the conjecture of the Pontificians though perhaps it hath some probability to countenance it but read it as we find it in those Copies which with joynt consent we do allow For that of St. Hierom also is true Periculosae sunt multae quaestiones nihil tutius quà m tacere It is dangerous to multiply questions about that which is so generally received and it is safer to be silent then to frame scruples for the unlearned and unstable who if one Text be called into question will be soon induced to doubt of all Especially since we find it taken-up by the Apostles and so necessarily implyed in the very essence of Prayer that if we found it not in terminis in the very words yet we must understand it And we may truly say Nihil nobis magìs deest quà m de quo contendimus Nothing is more necessary for us when we put-up our petitions then that which we so much contend about whether it be or no. I called it the Conclusion And indeed as a Conclusion in an Oration it gathers together and presents all those motives and arguments why we should obtain what we desire Or indeed rather these Attributes of God are the Premisses or so many several Reasons and our Prayer the Conclusion The kingdom is the Lords and therefore shall all nations worship before him saith Psal 22. 28. David And Thou savest by thy right hand therefore shew thy wonderful Psal 17. 7. loving kindness Thou art our King O God The Conclusion follows Send help unto Jacob. And whatsoever we desire we desire for his own sake for his Dan 9. names sake for his glories sake Thus it is when we call upon God and thus it is when God calls upon us to call upon him Thus we conclude and thus God teacheth us to conclude Look unto me and be ye saved For Isa 45. 22. I am a Saviour and there is none besides me I am God and there is none else And this the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FOR doth intimate Which hath this force that it renders a reason why we put-up our petitions For although many
is most deceitful This makes Gods and sets up Idols in it self and then worships them And this is the reason why Christ is so much mistaken why the Gospel of Christ receives such different entertainment Every man layes hold on it wrests it to his own purpose works it on his own anvil and shapes it to his own phansie and affections as out of the same mass Phidias made a Goddess and Hysippus a Satyr Oh beloved how many lye buried under Prejudice corrupt and putrefied and even stinking in the nostrils of God and man not to be awak'd till the last Trump All exhortations all reproofs all admonitions all reason all truth is to them but as a mess of pottage set upon a dead mans grave the tongue of Men and Angels but as sounding brass How do they rejoyce in iniquity triumph in evil confirm themselves in wicked practises What a paradise to they plant in Tophet what a Heaven do they make in Hell it self How busie are they to sanctifie and glorifie their error What shift do they make to make themselves the Devils Children seven times more then they are How do they argue and dispute themselves into hell That which is a reason against them is made a reason for them that which strikes at their error is made to uphold it that which checketh them spurs them that which binds them sets them loose that which bids them Touch not Taste not is to them as the voice to Peter Acts 10. Rise kill and eat Where Prejudice bears rule every thing must bow every sheaf every occasion every occurrence must fall down before it If it be adversity it is an argument if good success it is an argument What shall I say In the next world it is Holiness but in this it is Prejudice it is Covetousness it is Ambition that makes Saints So dangerous was Prejudice and Prae-conceit to the Disciples that no words no miracles of Christ could root it out but it grew up in them and spread it self into Thoughts and Questions which are as the boughs of it till a sound from heaven till a mighty rushing wind till fiery tongues beat it down and consum'd it So dangerous was it to the Jews that it had been better for them to have been utterly ignorant of their Messias For this gross Praeconceit of their Messias was yet the main reason that they entertained him not when he came because he came in a posture so contrary to their expectation so unlike that Christ which they had set up already in their minds So dangerous a thing is a Prepossessed mind to it self And therefore it well concerns us as Chrysostome speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to quiet and slumber these imaginations these absurd reasonings and dialogues which we make within our selves For why should such thoughts arise in our hearts such thoughts as will shut out better such thoughts of a temporal as will deprive us of an eternal Kingdom such thoughts of goodness as will make us worse then the beasts that perish And it well concerns us to be jealous and suspicious of our selves For Jealousie and Suspicion though in other matters it be a disease that no Physician can cure yet in respect of our Souls is a seasonable medicine full of efficacy and virtue We cannot be too jealous of our own salvation My jealousie of my Honor may draw on destruction my jealousie of my Money may invite a thief my jealousie of my wife may provoke her to folly but my jealousie of my Soul doth enoble and enrich it and present it a pure Virgin unto Christ Let us then be afraid of our own thoughts and take heed of all prejudicate conceits In the second place since the Divel made use of this error of the Disciples and attempted them there where they were most open to him let us as wise Captains use to do double our watch and be careful to strengthen that part which is weakest and most assaylable as Galen counsels where the Affections are contrary first wrestle with that which is most prevalent and overcome it that we may find our work the easier and less trouble to bring the rest in subjection For Beloved as tentations work by the Sensitive part upon the Rational so they have a diverse operation according to mens several constitutions and complexions Every man is not equally prone to every sin This ravisheth the eye of one which another will not look on This man liketh that which another abhorreth He that made the Devil fly at the first encounter may embrace him at the next He that stood out with him in Lust may yield to him in Anger He that defied his Mammon may stoop at his Kingdomes He that would none of his Bread may feed himself with his Ayre He that feard not the roaring of the Lion may be overcome with the subtilty of the Serpent A man of a heavy and sluggish disposition is seldome ambitious a man of lively and nimble spirits is seldome idle As hard a matter it is for some men to commit some sin as it is for others to avoid it as hard for the Fool in the Gospel to have spent his estate as for the Prodigal to have kept it We see this man wondring at his brother that he should fall into such or such a sin and the other wondring as much at him how he should fall into the contrary Therefore the Devil who observes how we are elemented and composed hath his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Macarius his divers back-doors out of which he may slip and return at pleasure and if his first bait be distastful come again and present another which will fit our taste and palate If the Disciples leave all and follow Christ he will try them with Honor and teach them to dream of a Kingdome even in the School of their Master It will concern us then to take pains and go down and meet him at this door at that door which he is most likely to enter If it be the Eye shut it up by covenant If it be the Ear stop it and be those Addars which will not hear his charmes If it be our Taste deny it If it be our Appetite be harsh to it If it be our Phansie watch it and bind it up For if this was done to the green tree the Disciples of Christ if they were endangered where they were weakest what may not be done to the dry which is ready to catch and take fire at every spark of a tentation Let us then be ready and prepared and stand in our complete armour at that door which the Enemy is most like to attempt Let us put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand against every wile of the Devil especially against that wile which may soonest Ephes 6. 11. ensnare us Let me give you one Use more and so conclude this point Let us not seek the World in the Church nor Honors