a want and find our selves able to make a supply He that informs the Ignorant doth as it were lead the Blind He that comforts the distressed Conscience gives a Cordial to the sick He that appeaseth Pride and Anger asswageth a dangerous swelling He that casts out the envious Devil out of a man cures a rotting Consumption He that out of friendly monition and information amendeth another mans outward Manners and Behaviour clotheth him as it were with a seemly garment and comely ornament He that begets in a man the love of Vertue and true Piety restores him to Life These things ought to be done but the other in no wise left undone For he that is liberal in good words and a nigard in his works he doth but verba dare deceive both himself and others Now to whom and what we are to give I have briefly intimated 3. It remains that I speak of the manner which consists especially in these three things 1. In the quantity of the gift 2. In the universality of the persons to whom we are to give 3. In the inward affection or qualification of the mind of the giver 1. For the quantity of the gift 2 Cor. 9. I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to come before unto you and to finish your benevolence appointed before that it might be ready as of benevolence and not of sparing Remembering this that he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly and he that soweth liberally shall reap also liberally Now that those that are of a lower fortune be not discouraged or disheartened from giving Alms because they may conceive that their estate is such that their act of communicating must needs be deficient in this first requisite They are to understand that this quantity of their Alms consists not in an absolute bigness or largeness but is in relation to their states and abilities See what a testimony our Saviour gives of the poor Widow who cast in but her two Mites into the treasury among those great largisses of the rich men He called to him his Disciples and said unto them Verily I say unto you that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they that have cast into the treasury For they all did cast in of their superfluity but she of her poverty did cast in all that she had even all her living Two Mites was not more than all those rich men cast in but was more to her or in respect of her poor fortune than that which those rich ones gave was to them and the abundance of their Estates From whence that is plain which I said before that the quantity of our Alms doth not consist in an absolute bigness but in a respect to our abilities AElian in his First Book of his Various History tells us how the Persians when the King goes his Progress are all to offer Gifts to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one according to his ability And that one Sinetas when King Artaxerxes was not far off from his Cottage what with the fear of the Law and what with the shame that he should not be found as forward as any in expression of his Loyalty and good Will toward the King having notwithstanding nothing at all at that time to offer or present to his Majesty The poor man was ill troubled in his mind and in this perplexity the King approaching nearer he runs to the River Cyras hard by with all speed kneels him down gets up Water in the hollow of his Hands comes to the King and salutes him after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O King Artaxerxes Reign for ever I now O King what I am able after what manner I am able offer this Present unto you that so far as lies in me you may not pass by me without the acknowledgment of my Duty and Allegiance The King was very well pleased with the Gift and commanded the Water to be received into a Golden Phial Surely the Charitable man serves as reasonable a Master and one as graciously disposed Our Saviour Christ hath promised his favourable acceptance even of but a cup of cold Water Whosoever shall give one of these little ones to drink a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple Verily I say unto you he shall not lose his reward Matth. 10. And to make the application of the story more fit He that offers a cup of cold Water to these little ones offers it to no less than a King and no less a King than the King of Heaven and Earth Matth. 25. 34. c. where these doers of good and free communicators receive their doom of that great Judge and mighty Prince Christ Jesus Come ye blessed of my Father saith he inherit you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I thirsted and ye gave me drink I was naked and ye clothed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me Then shall the righteous answer him saying Lord when saw we thee an hungred and fed thee or a thirst and gave thee drink or when saw we thee a stranger and lodged thee or naked and clothed thee or when saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee And the King shall answer and say unto them Verily I say unto you inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me He therefore that offers a cup of cold water to these offers it to this King who hath promised a gracious acceptance of it and a sure reward Wherefore we are not to be discouraged from these works of Charity though our means be small For if we give a little of a little that little is great in the eyes of God who knoweth how to prize the works of his Saints If there be a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that a man hath not saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 8. So that we see none excluded from this First requisite in communicating of good For though one man cannot give so much as another yet one man may be as liberal as another which is if he give as much for his Estate as the other doth for his Which consideration as it may animate the Low-estated man in his Beneficency So it may make them of higher fortunes bring their Liberality to the right measure and consider that he hath not done a super-eminent act of Charity above others because his Alms was bigger than others of lower degree He that gives one shilling out of twenty is as truly liberal as he that gives one hundred pound out of two thousand This I speak that the Poor man depretiate not his slenderer bounty nor the Rich overprize his larger liberality but that all may walk in all Meekness Humility and Holy Charity before God and before men 2. But I pass on
Phancies suggest or our vacillant Reason blind or drunk with the foul steams of an impure and unsanctify'd Heart would pretend to coin for us Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are thy wayes The next is Faith By which I do not so much understand Faith in general as that which has for its proper Object the Power of God for the destroying of Sin and the erecting his Kingdom in us For out of this ariseth our Strength in God and our Victory over the World This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith as S. Iohn speaks Which Requisite is also hinted in this Psalm the last verse O Lord of Hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee And indeed sith our Faith and Trust and Confidence is in the Lord of Hosts how can we despair of the victory over any Sin whatsoever Cannot he that created Heaven and Earth by his Word create in us a pure Heart and renew a right Spirit within us I can do all things saith S. Paul through Christ that strengthens me Certainly it is a Contradiction that Omnipotency should not be able so effectually to assist a willing Soul as to bring all her enemies under her feet Can he that is the Lord of Hosts and has the power over all Nature be baffled in his assaults upon the corrupt Nature of any poor Creature so that he cannot reduce it if he will And can we possibly imagine God not to be willing to subdue Sin in the World who has given us such express Laws against it both within and without who expresses his Wrath and Vengeance against it so frequently in Scripture who is so irreconcileable an enemy unto it that nothing less than the Death of his only begotten Son could make an Atonement for it And lastly the Holiness of whose Nature is so contrary and diametrically opposite to the pollutedness of it Wherefore the fault most assuredly lyes at our own doors viz. because we are not sincerely willing to have our Sins vanquished and overcome by the Power of God Which therefore is the third and last Requisite which the Travellers in the Valley of Baca are said to be provided with namely Sincerity which comprehends not only a belief that all our Sins ought to be subdued and that they are all vanquishable through the assistance of Gods Spirit but also an unfeigned willingness to have them subdued and an hearty endeavour to the utmost of that power we have received to conquer them and subdue them He that is provided of all these three is fitly furnished for a prosperous Journey toward the House of God and the Almighty will be his safeguard in his travel 3. Which is the Third Particular we named What Convoy to guard them safe in their Iourney which is intimated in the Psalm also For the Lord is a sun and a shield the Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly that is to say that walk sincerely In which Sincerity if they keep themselves he will also be faithful unto them and not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able and will deliver them from all straits and assaults of their enemies both inward and outward The Lord will be their fortress and tower their defence and shield a present help in the day of trouble The Angels of the Lord will encamp round about them and deliver them For such as these as it is said of those few names in Sardis Christ will confess their names before his Father and his holy Angels namely profess how dear they are to him and so commit them to their safe protection 4. And surely the Influences of Heaven which is the Fourth Particular cannot but be very benign to those that are thus dear to the God of Heaven And therefore for light and warmth and kindly dews and showres they shall not be destitute of these in this Journey of theirs to the Temple of God And therefore God is said as well to be a Sun to them as a Shield in the forecited Verse of this Psalm And in Ver. 6. They that pass through the valley of Baca are said to make it a well and that the rain filleth the pools Like that in Psalm 68. O God when thou wentest forth before thy people when thou didst march through the wilderness the clouds dropped at thy presence thou sentest a gracious rain upon thy inheritance and refreshedst it when it was weary But in this present Psalm the Rain is said to be received into some hollows of the Earth dug out the Latin renders it cisternas I suppose any fossae or hollows of what form soever will serve the turn made by the diging away the Earth that this Heavenly Liquor may supply the vacuity For that is a great mistake in the Carnal-minded that they think that when we empty our selves of the Old Adam and the comforts of that Life that we thus stand empty for ever and that Religion is a forlorn disconsolate condition No dig away thy Earth and God will fill the vacuity with a substance from Heaven Or starve away the fulsomness of thy Flesh by assiduous mortification and purification and thou shalt make this arid Soil this Valley of Baca a springing Well as it is suggested in the beginning of the Verse When our Terrestrial substance becomes a dry barren Soil as to the fruits of the Flesh then will those Well-springs of living Water bubble up in us as our Saviour has promised unto Eternal Life by which is understood the irrigation of the Spirit Non datur vacuum is a Maxime as true in Divinity as in Philosophy Empty thy self therefore of thy Earth and thou shalt most certainly be replenished with Heaven 5. Now for the Fifth Particular which occurs in my Text properly so called for I have made the whole Psalm in a manner my Text hitherto it is of the greatest importance of all throughly to consider it namely our gradual advance in this journey through the Valley of Baca. They go from strength to strength è virtute in virtutem the Latin has it from vertue to vertue And indeed this progress from strength to strength is nothing else but a proficiency in Vertue either from one vertue to another Add to your Faith Fortitude to your Fortitude Patience c. or from one Degree of vertue to another And this vertue is very significantly termed strength there being no true Vertue which is not such It is but the imagination of vertue if it be not accompanied with Life and Power And forasmuch as Vertue and Grace are all one let every one take notice that he that has no Vertue has no Grace as well as he that has no Power has no Vertue Which is a plain Note to examine a mans self by that he may not lye lusking in his softnesses and infirmities and in the mean time flatter himself that
in the Law of God even the written Word that no Heathen durst venture to intersert any pieces of it into their Writings So Holy it was accounted that they durst not contaminate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their profane mouths as Iosephus writes from the testimony of Hecataeus Demetrius in the same Historian reports that one Theopompus grew distracted by being too bold and busie with these Writings And that Theodectes the Tragaedian lost his sight And no wonder for by Iosephus's relation these men sought rather for Flowers to adorn their Works than for wholesome Instructions to reform their Lives Theodectes it's likely spyed somewhat there that would grande sonare that would sound gravely and make a majestick noise fitting his Tragick buskin but the man had little mind to set his feet in those Lawes of God to do them And hence so much distraction phrensie and blindness possesseth us this very day Yet like bold impudent Flies we sieze confidently upon those precious Oyntment-pots of the Apothecary and in this plenty of wholesome refreshment have Wings and Feet clung together and lose our Life even in the very Book of Life Prov. 25. If thou hast found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee That is as much as thou canst well digest into practice For so it is with the Word as it is with Meat Not taken it doth no good Taken in and not digested it brings but Diseases But taken in and perfectly digested by honest labour and exercise preserveth Life and Health 4. But these Considerations are more proper to the Fourth and last Reason why we should be Doers of the Word Which hath reference to us and is the Reward of keeping his Commandments By them is thy servant taught and in keeping of them there is great reward Psal. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Threefold great Reward A reward in Estate a reward in Body and a reward in Soul 1. A reward in Estate Blessed shalt thou be in thy basket and in thy dough Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground and the fruit of thy cattle and the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep Deut. 28. But if we think Moses word not sufficient Christ himself will put in security for supply of all necessaries if we take but the condition of Obedience Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Matth. 6. So the Psalmist The lyons rore and suffer hunger but they that fear the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good There are manifold Testimonies in Scripture to this purpose and so obvious that quotation is needless 2. The second reward is in a mans Body for Strength Health and Beauty Fear the Lord and depart from evil so health shall be to thy navel and marrow unto thy bones Prov. 3. Envy Anger Hatred and discontented Melancholly which reign in either proud or pusillanimous Souls weaken Nature and destroy the Body but Life and Vigour is in the perfect Law of Charity A chearful Conscience purifies and refines the Blood but disobeying the inward Light is the choaking of the Vital Spirits A sound heart is the life of the flesh saith Solomon but envy is the rottenness of the bones This for Health and Strength Now for Beauty The wisdom of a man doth make his face to shine Ecclesiastes 8. and Ecclesiasticus 25. The wickedness of a woman changeth her face and maketh her countenance black as a sack The heart of a man changeth his countenance saith the Wise Man whether it be in good or evil So if there be a continual vigorous habit in the heart of shining Vertue and lovely Charity it will issue even into the face of a man in all friendly amiableness Moses was so fill'd with this Heavenly Beauty that the Children of Israel could not look upon him for his glorious splendour But the works of darkness make the spirit of a man to set in gloomy obscurity and deadness 3. But now we come to the third reward which is in the Soul Psal. 19. 7. The law of the Lord is an undefiled law converting the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Septuagint the word which the Platonists use For the clear understanding of the dignity of this Conversion we are to take notice of the nature thereof Conversion therefore includes two things a leaving and a making toward somewhat And here in this Christian Conversion that which is to be left is the Creature and that which is to be turned unto is God The leaving of the Creature is the forsaking of whatsoever is not God but especially the renouncing of our own selves For while we cleave unto the Creature we most of all cleave unto our own selves for we adhere unto it for our own sake Self-love is the hinge or centre upon which we turn from God to the Creature and upon which we begin to circle from the Creature to God again But the accomplishment of Conversion breaks this thing abolisheth this centre and then we have our fixation in God and all our motion and operation of will and affection is upon him and from him That AEgyptian King as Herodotus reports in his Second Book when he had prohibited his Subjects sacrificing to God and had shut up all the Temple doors in AEgypt he presently employes all his people in his own Service and sets them to leed Stones to build Pyramids for his own Honour and the lasting Memorial of himself No man would be so mad as to forsake the Service of God to be a drudge to an inferiour Master But without question the plot is to be his own God and his own Master and to employ all his strength for himself But how the Law of God doth convert the Soul from this Idolatry and that which we falsely seek after how it brings us truly more near unto will be seen from the manner of this Conversion of the Soul to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Proclus in Plato's Theology The conversion of things to their causes or principles is to receive assimilating influence from them or to rise up and ascend nearer and nearer unto them and to become more and more like them To return therefore unto God is to become like to him by the recovery of the lost Image of Adam who was made according to the similitude of God Now the Image of God what it is seems not to be unknown even to the very Heathens The ancient Greek Poet brings in Vlysses musing with himself amongst his travels what a kind of People he had fallen among after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What a kind of People be the Inhabitants of the Land into which I come Are they injurious barbarous and unjust Or are they of a loving disposition courteous unto strangers and of a Godlike mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
there is no darkness I am the light of the world saith our Saviour And the Apostle rouzing us out of this sleep of Sin saith Awake thou that sleepest that Christ may give thee light To walk therefore in the Light is to walk in the Life of Christ as in the Presence of the Father and he that thus walketh knoweth both whither he and others go But he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth because that darkness blindeth his eyes 1 Ioh. 2. And no wonder then that fear attends his footing that ever and anon he is afraid that the next step he stumbles into the pit of destruction The wicked fear where no fear is but God is in the generation of the righteous saith the Psalmist It fares so with them as with those that travel in Arabia who if they chance to set their foot upon Iron Stone or any cold thing by night they are even ready to dye with fear suspecting they have trodden upon a Serpent So ungodly men whose stay and trust is not on God are subject out of the suggestions of an ill Conscience in every harsh thing they meet with to think that God hath forsaken them and that they now have stumbled upon that Old Serpent the Devil The rising of the morning may restore the other to peace and security but what will chace away the terrour of this inward darkness Nor the glorious light of the Sun nor the beautiful aspect of the Moon nor the chearful collustration of the sparkling Stars can yield them light or refresh their troubled Spirit Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necesse est Non radii Solis nec lucida tela diei Discutiant sed naturae species ratioque As the Poet speaks and may be understood in a better sense than his earthly mind could ever reach to Till that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or idea or Truth of all things free us from this misery we shall not be truly freed from it But if not freed from it how evil do we think his dayes are whom the clearness of the day and common light cannot deliver from the tormenting fears of that continual night Vide qualis affectus sit timor saith Cardan qui crepitare cogit dentes c. See what a kind of passion Fear is that makes a mans teeth chatter in his head which symptom saith that Physitian is proper to those that labour with some deadly Disease But sure the Horrour of that Eternal Darkness is worse where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which is the Fear of the ungodly here and their Portion hereafter 3. Deformity in Body doth a little diminish ones Happiness But the Vgliness of Sin in a mans Soul if it could be seen with outward eyes it would even fright a man out of his wits to behold it For it is the very Impression or Character of that evil Fiend the ill shap'd Devil himself as Righteousness is the Image of God 4. Feebleness also of Body is a miserable thing But Weakness of Soul is worse when that every blast of vain Doctrine is able to blow us down when every Temptation makes us yield to our Enemy and to become a wretched Vassal of the Devils cruelty 5. But that I run not too much upon one point That which is most terrible is Death But the Death of the Body is but to be hid in the Grave but the Death of the Soul is to be excluded the Presence of God and not that only but to be vexed and tormented with those Spirits of torture which in their fury lay on sure strokes Thus it is manifest that every Evil of the Soul is worse than that of the Body that answers to it And so that Poverty which consists in the want of good things and the presence of evils that ensue from this want is a great deal worse in the Soul than in outward things concerning the Body Now when I say Poverty I know not what to add either for misery of Body or Soul it including all in both Hunger Thirst Nakedness Filthiness Sickness Heaviness Disconsolateness these and all manner of mischiefs accompany Poverty But be it what it will in the Body it is unspeakably worse in the Soul and a certain cause of making that poor mans life miserable so long as he continueth in that sense poor I but will some say how can this thing be When as dayly experience shows that men that are as destitute of all Spiritual and Heavenly Riches as they abound in Earthly live in all Jollity and Pleasure in all Mirth and Merriment But this is no good Argument if we believe the Wise Man Prov. 14. 13. Even in laughing the heart is sorrowful and the end of that mirth is heaviness So Eccles. 7. As the crackling of thorns under a pot so is the laughter of a fool The flame and the noise go away together and at last is nothing left but scorching coals or dead ashes Would a man count a man in good plight because the poyson he takes makes him dye laughing as it is said of that Herb in Sardo and of the biting of the Tarantula We commonly count the case of a sick man more miserable when upon his bed he sings merry songs and finds out fond toyes from the weakness and distemper of his troubled Brain These men are miserable enough though they think not nor perceive themselves to be so And so it fares with all them that be ungodly and yet seem to flow in all joyes pleasures and contentments It 's but the phansie of a sick Brain Wise men are sorry to see them in such Distemper to have such an ill Symptom upon them And surely that that is miserable in their judgments is miserable and not in theirs whom misery hath made mad false pleasure hath infatuated So we see now plain enough That the poor man that is he that is destitute of Grace and Vertue all his dayes are sufficiently evil sometime in the judgment both of himself and others other sometime or rather ever in the judgment of others that is of wise and holy men Or that this Truth may be the stronglyer established in the judgment of God himself who is the measure of all Truth Thou sayest that I am rich and increased with wealth but thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and blind and naked c. Rev. 3. But of poverty wretchedness and misery enough It would seem more desirable to point out some way to be enriched The same Spirit that tells the Church of Laodicea of her miserable poverty shews her a way how to become rich Vincenti dabitur To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I overcame and sit with my Father in his throne Here 's no ordinary Riches Here 's the fulness of a Kingdom But take the condition I pray you Vincenti dabitur He that overcomes he shall be endued with large
the Face of God In thy light we shall see light But by Righteousness I will rather understand that in us which answers to Diaphaneity rather than to Light and which I would render Faithfulness Vprightness and Sincerity of Spirit For in such a Sence as that the LXX sometimes Translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faithful and true And I conceive that Purity and Sincerity is that Righteousness that will lead us at length to the Vision of God according as our Saviour has also promised Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God So the Psalmist This is the generation of them that seek him that seek thy face O Iacob even of them that seek him in Sincerity and Truth to whom God is so faithful that he will be found of them nor shall their labour be in vain in the Lord. And that a man may know whether he be in the way or no I shall only briefly intimate what Sincerity is and that he may have no excuse to keep out of the way I must futher superadd that it is in his power to keep in it For I say it is in a mans power to be sincere though it be not in his power to be righteous in that other usual Sense For to be sincere is only to do what we can and what our Conscience witnesses we can do which God will graciously accept in Christ and endue us with further strength so long as we make use of that which we have already Now it is Noematically true and wants no further demonstration That we can do what we can do And therefore it is but the examination of our selves whether we do all that which our own Consciences tell us we both ought to do and can do and thereby we shall easily discover whether we be in the way toward this blissful Vision or no And if we find our selves out of it we cannot excuse our selves for our wandering sith it is in our power to keep in the vvay that is to be sincere as certainly as it is in our povver to do vvhat is in our povver And therefore the falling short of this Happiness lyes at every mans door and God and Providence must be quit of all that evil that these Loyterers must once sadly complain of vvhen it is too late Every man therefore must dayly examine his ovvn Conscience in this For as the keeping close to this vvay of Sincerity or doing vvhat is in our povver vvill unfailingly through assistance of fresh supplies of Heaven lead us directly to the Vision of God so he that finds himself remiss and unsincere may be as certain that he is out of the vvay to that Happiness He that layes his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God But if vve continue in the vvay of Sincerity vvhich God has put in our povver to do as has been already demonstrated it is impossible but that a man shall find an encrease of Divine Assistances and a successful progress God imparting strength according to the fidelity of the user thereof as seems to be adumbrated in the Parable of the Talents Habenti dabitur that is bene utenti and Fac quod in te est Deus adjuvabit voluntatem tuam are I must confess but short and trite Sayings but such as fall from the mouths of those that travel in the direct road to Heaven For the aid and assistance of God is never wanting to such But they hold on their Journey in chearfulness and constancy with that Song of the Psalmist in their mouths Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are thy ways which going through the vale of misery use it for a well and the pools are filled with water They will go from strength to strength and unto the God of Gods appeareth every one of them in Sion Or with this of my Text As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness when I shall awake into thy likeness I shall be satisfied therewith DISCOURSE IX ROM viii 17. And if children then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him THIS Text is the evidence of our Eternal Inheritance There is none here I suppose so dull so slow and so sensless of his own good and outward welfare but that if he were to purchase any Worldly Possession he would look that his Conveyances were sure and his Title good and warrantable How much more sollicitous and careful ought we to be concerning our Everlasting Inheritance in Heaven To inform our selves whether there be any such Possession or no and to whom it appertains what manner of persons shall be made partakers of it So that our hopes of future Felicity may be setled upon good grounds That they be not all blown away with our last breath and the extinguishing of this Life leave us not to eternal horrour of darkness This present Text of Scripture will answer both those Queries which contains these two Doctrines 1. That God hath prepared an Inheritance for his Children 2. That they that would have this Inheritance must suffer with Christ. I. That God hath prepared an Inheritance for his Children is plain out of Scripture And verily I would not go about to prove so evident a Truth did not the lives of men contradict it who live as though there were neither Heaven nor Hell no Reward nor Judgment to come Mat. 25. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world And Coloss. 1. 12. Giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light And surely it is a very reasonable thing that God should as well provide for our inward man as for our outward The Light of the Sun the seasonable Showers of Rain the timely Fruits of the Earth all these hath he prepared and many more for this Natural Life of man Nay his careful Providence extends it self to the young Ravens and the Lillies of the field And shall his Goodness fall short in providing for that dear and precious Life derived unto us by his own Spirit making us his Sons and Holy Off-spring No surely God will not forget that which is so near to himself when his Fatherly Benignity circuits the utmost verge of his Creature Add unto this that we our selves are the House and Inheritance of God Know you not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost saith the Apostle And the Prophet Esaias The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Iudah his pleasant plant And Cant. 5. The voice of my beloved that knocketh saying Open to me my sister For my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night And elsewhere in Holy Scripture God is said to dwell in us and walk
in us And Israel is called the inheritance of God Wherefore God in a kind of Gratitude as I may so say will provide us an Inheritance sith that we as he himself testifieth are an Inheritance to him Now if any man be desirous to know what an Inheritance this is that God hath prepared It is no less than a Kingdom And how great an esteem is put upon an Earthly Kingdom is very well known to you all Which if it be so desirable how much more desirable is the Kingdom of Heaven that nor time nor tumult can ever demolish This Kingdom of Heaven of God or Christ is the Inheritance of the Sons of God with Christ. But if any one rest unsatisfied yet and would further know what the Kingdom of God is Let him listen to S. Paul Rom. 14. 17. The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost But this will seem even nothing to him that hath not the Spirit of Righteousness Peace and Joy Wherefore saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 7. c. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory Which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory But as it is written Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit For the Spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man that is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit that is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God In a word therefore Beloved the Inheritance of the Children of God is the Spirit of God and all that it doth discover as the Sun is the lot and the inheritance of the Natural Eye and all visibles laid open by it in Nature And can any thing be wanting to them that are sharers in that Inheritance If I may call them sharers where every one is full possessour of the whole as the Sun is alike wholly in every eye Can our Souls be larger than the Life of God Or our Understanding not filled and satisfied by his all-knowing Spirit Can our Will wax restless or anxious where the Understanding finds out and feels the greatest good that any thing is capable of where the pure and undefiled Affection baths her silver plumes in eternal love and delight What is the Soul more than infinite that it should desire any Inheritance greater than God But it were now more seasonable to make some Vse to our selves from this Doctrine so infinitely plain or infinitely inexplainable First Who cannot hence condemn all Avarice Drunkenness Fleshly Lust Voluptuousness the bartering away this Glorious Inheritance of the Everlasting Kingdom of God for the Muck of this World choak'd with the Cares of this World undermining our Neighbours by false and treacherous practices over-reaching them in bargainings and cheating indeed our selves of Eternal LIfe by our own couzenages Instead of being filled with the Spirit to be full of base liquor drowning our Reason and Conscience and laying our selves open to the despight of the Devil and the shame of the World Chaffering away for a light momentany fit of Pleasure or some seducing wanton Lust the Inheritance of the good Spirit of God the sweet and comfortable Fellowship of the Holy Ghost the Joyes of Heaven the full Contentments and unspeakable Delights of that hidden Paradise that Garden of all sweetness and deliciousness Secondly The consideration of this future excellent state and glorious royal condition may afford much comfort to men of low degree and meaner fortune What though our Means be small our Calling base and dishonourable before men This time vvill certainly over and that quickly Though I be poor here a Servant and Bond-slave a Beggar Yet hereafter I shall be rich free noble a Prince a King an Emperour Then shall I be Lord not of a larger spot of Ground consisting of Dirt and Gravel and vvithering Grass and perishing Trees the sight of vvhich every nights sleep takes from me but of the boundless Heavens the everlasting Beauty of God vvhere vvith never-vvaking Eyes I shall alvvayes behold his excellent Glory This I say may comfort the poorer sort they being as capable if not more capable of this precious Inheritance than Lords and Princes of the Earth than Kings and Caesars than Dukes and Emperours Gal. 3. 26 c. For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Iesus For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Iew nor Greek there is neither bond nor free there is neither male nor female For ye are all one in Christ Iesus And if ye be Christs then are you Abrahams seed and heirs according to promise But Thirdly and Lastly Is it so indeed that there is prepared for men of all conditions of Life such a rich Inheritance Let then all men of what condition soever examine themselves and try what assurance they find in themselves in their own Souls of this future Happiness What then is the Sign That brings me to my Second Doctrine viz. II. That the heirs of the Kingdom must suffer So saith the Text Heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him Which Truth is manifest out of sundry places of Scripture I will name only two Acts 14. 22. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God And Coloss. 1. 10 11 12. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light What Shall we think Beloved to obtain Heaven at a more easie rate than we purchase any Temporal Honour or Estate Multa tulit fecitque puer Those that are designed for some special piece of Earthly Preferment sweat and toil for it even from their very Childhood by industrious Education But we think to have Heaven for an old song as they say or for a lazily repeated Pater Noster for a word for an imagination for a phansie a thought an empty faith for nothing Who in the name of God told us so My Text contradicts it And Scripture will not contradict my Text because my Text is Scripture No verily It confirms it Be not deceived God is
out the meaning of the latter words of my Text They ate the Offerings of the dead that is Offerings offered to dead men departed this life Est honor tumulis animas placare paternas Ovid. Fast. This piece of Superstition exhibited by Ninus to his Father Belus descended to his Posterity and over-spread that Country he being not a private Person but Lord of a Kingdom This worshipping of the Dead by Prayers and Sacrifices is as commonly known as ordinary School-books There 's a large description of these Rites in Homers Odyssees Where after three Libations or Drink-offerings of Wine and Honey of Wine of Water and Meal which were poured into a ditch of a cubit wide with promise of a further Sacrifice a barren Cow and a black Wether with a present immolation of Beast then prepared for Sacrifice upon the running down of the black Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 straight there were gathered together by whole flocks from out of Erebus the Souls of dead deceased Cardan also writes of Adrian that he erected a Temple and Oracle instituted Priests and Rites for his execrable Catamite Antinous when he was dead This is the Superstition of Necromancy Which tho' the Israelites aimed not at in their Sacrificing to the Ghost of Belus yet is their Idolatry as little if not less excusable For the end of the Necromancer is knowledge of future things or things past that lie hid The drift of the Israelites was the accomplishment of their wicked Lust their committing of Whoredom with the Daughters of Moab But more light than from any profane Writer may we gather out of the Book of Wisdom Chap. 14. A father afflicted with untimely mourning when he hath made an image of his child soon taken away now honoureth him as a God which was then a dead man and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices Thus in process of time an ungodly custom grown strong was kept as a law and graven images were worshipped by commandment of Kings Here we see a Father making an Image for his Child and Deifying him with Ceremonies and Sacrifices Which makes Venerable Bedes opinion of the Childs Deifying the Father Ninus his erecting an Image in honour of his Father Belus sufficiently probable So an ungodly Custom got the strength of a Religious Law among the Children of Moab As also that among the Latins from the first Example of AEneas Ille Patris genio solennia dona ferebat Hinc populi ritus edidicere pios Ovid. Fast. Lib. 2. Where patris Genius may be very well for Anima patris the Soul of his Father or his Fathers Ghost as Hesiod also terms the Souls of them that dyed in the Golden Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Genii in Latin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These be Genii Plutarch restricts it not to the Golden Age but speaks at large 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Souls freed from their Bodies become Genii according to Hesiod So Plutarch and he venters to shew how they be affected with things here below They love to be abettors though not actors as old men who have left off the more youthful sports love to set the younger sort to their games and exercises and to look on and encourage them as he expresseth it in his de Genio Socratis Maximus Tyrius doth endeavour at large to prove that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Genii be nought but the Souls of men who are occupied much what in such employments as they were in the flesh And Xenocrates in Aristotles Topicks makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all one even when it is in the Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As Xenocrates saith He 's happy that hath a good Soul for the Soul is the Genius of every one But I have not bestowed all this pains for a Distich in Ovid. If we be perswaded of the Identity of the Souls of the departed and Genii or Spirits way is made to that in S. Basil where he describes the nature of Sacrificing to these Genii Daemones or Souls of the deceased they being all one or little difference being betwixt them Which will be further confirmed if we consider that even all the Deities of the Heathen as Iupiter Mars Sol Luna and the rest have been Men upon earth as the Egyptians witness in Diodorus Sicalus from whence the Graecians had their Numina as the Egyptians contend and is not improbable Insomuch that we shall scarce find any Daemones or Daemonia among the Heathen but the Souls of them that have departed this life to whom Sacrifice hath been offered Statues Temples and Stars have been bestowed upon them as in that Story of Adrian and Antinous whom he placed also among the Stars the Constellation next the Eagle bears his name as all the Planets the names of men once here upon earth as I intimated out of Diodorus But to come at length to S. Basil out of whom we shall understand more fully this eating of the Sacrifices of the dead or of the Daemones or Daemonia The Statue consecrated to any Daemonium or Genius hath the assistence saith he of the Genii or Daemonia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For as hungry dogs haunt the shambles where blood and gore use to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the lickersome Daemonia seeking the enjoyment of the blood and nidour of the Sacrifices frequent the Altars and Statues consecrated to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence it is that the Apostle saith That they that eat things consecrated to Idols partake of the table of the Daemonia or Genii Or as was probably inferr'd before the Souls of the dead according to their apprehension For it is more incident to Natural Reason to think that the Souls of the departed men being rather forced out of their Bodies by fatal necessity than willingly following the call of Nature that they should delight rather in such provision as men can make them than those that we conceive never to have stooped so low as the descent into the flesh And so whatsoever S. Basil speaks of the Daemonia Natural Reason to be more prone to conceive of the Souls of the departed and accordingly to have provided for them in that worship they did to them So that they that have been joined to Baal-Peor that is that have been initiated into that Religion have worshipped the Soul of Belus and have been partakers of his Table eaten of the same Flesh with him accordingly as S. Basil explains the Daemonia And nor Reason nor Scripture nor the Mysteries of Nature do any thing clash against this II. BUT now that Israel was initiated into those Rites of Peor is manifest out of Numb 25. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Initiatusque est Israel Beelphegor Or as the Hebrew hath it Et adjunxit se Israel Baal-Peor But that we may see the abomination of this act more fully