had the gift of prophecy and by this character the Holy Ghost in all ages hath given us caution to avoid such assemblies where the speaking and ruling man shall be the canker of government and a preacher of sedition who shall either ungirt the Princes sword or unloose the button of their mantle 9. But the Apostles in all these prophecies have remarked lust to be the inseparable companion of these rebel prophets they are filthy dreamers they defile the flesh so Saint Jude they walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse so Saint Peter they are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God incontinent and sensual So Saint Paul and by this part of the character as the Apostles remarked the Nicolatians and Gnosticks the Carpocratians and all their impure branches which began in their dayes and multiplied after their deaths so they prophetically did foresignifie al such sects to be avoided who to catch silly women laden with sins preach doctrines of ease and licenciounesse apt to countenance and encourage vile things and not apt to restrain a passion or mortifie a sin Such as those that God sees no sin in his children that no sin will take us from Gods favour that all of such a party are elect people that God requires of us nothing but faith and that faith which justifies is nothing but a meere believing that we are Gods chosen that we are not tied to the law of commandments that the law of grace is a law of liberty and that liberty is to do what we list that divorces are to be granted upon many and slight causes that simple fornication is no sin these are such doctrines that upon the belief of them men may doe any thing and will do that which shall satisfie their own desires and promote their interests and seduce their shee disciples and indeed it was not without great reason that these three Apostles joyned lust and treason together because the former is so shameful a crime and renders a mans spirit naturally averse to government that if it falls upon the person of a Ruler it takes from him the spirit of government and renders him diffident pusillanimous private and ashamed if it happen in the person of a subject it makes him hate the man that shall shame him and punish him it hates the light and the Sun because that opens him and therefore is much more against government because that publishes and punishes too One thing I desire to be observed that though the primitive heresies now named and all those others their successors practised and taught horrid impurities yet they did not invade government at all and therefore those sects that these Apostles did signifie by prophecy and in whom both these are concentred were to appear in some latter times and the dayes of the prophecy were not then to be fulfill'd what they are since every age must judge by its own experience for its own interest But Christian religion is so pure and holy that chastity is sometimes used for the whole religion and to do an action chastly signifies purity of intention abstraction from the world and separation from low and secular ends the virginity of the soul and its union with God and all deviations and estrangements from God and adhesion to forbidden objects is called fornication and adultery Those sects therefore that teach incourage or practise impious or unhallowed mixtures and shameful lusts are issues of the impure spirit and most contrary to God who can behold no unclean thing 10. Those prophets and Pastors that pretend severity and live loosely or are severe in small things and give liberty in greater or forbid some sins with extreme rigour and yet practise or teach those that serve their interest or constitute their sect are to be suspected and avoided accordingly Nihil est hominum ineptâ persuasione falsius nec fictâ severitate ineptius All ages of the Church were extremely curious to observe when any new teachers did arise what kinde of lives they lived and if they pretended severely and to a strict life then they knew their danger doubled for it is certain all that teach doctrines contrary to the established religion delivered by the Apostles all they are evil men God will not suffer a good man to be seduced damnably much lesse can he be a seducer of others and therefore you shall still observe the false Apostles to be furious and vehement in their reproofs and severe in their animadversions of others but then if you watch their private or stay till their numbers are full or observe their spiritual habits you shall finde them indulgent to themselves or to return from their disguises or so spiritually wicked that their pride or their revenge their envie or their detraction their scorn or their complacency in themselves their desire of preheminence and their impatience of arrival shall place them far enough in distance from a poor carnal sinner whom they shall load with censures and an upbraiding scorn but themselves are like Devils the spirits of darknesse the spiritual wickednesses in high places Some sects of men are very angry against servants for recreating and easing their labours with a lesse prudent and an unsevere refreshment but the patron of their sect shall oppresse a wicked man and an unbelieving person they shall chastise a drunkard and entertain murmurrers they shall not abide an oath and yet shal force men to break three or four This sect is to be avoided because although it is good to be severe against carnal or bodily sins yet it is not good to mingle with them who chastise a bodily sin to make way for a spiritual or reprove a servant that his Lord may sin alone or punish a stranger and a begger that will not approve their sins but will have sins of his own Concering such persons Saint Paul hath told us that they shall not proeecd far but their folly shall bemanifest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Lysias Cito ad naturam sicta reciderunt sua They that dissemble their sin and their manners or make severity to serve loosnesse and an imaginary vertue to minister to a real vice they that abhor Idols and would commit sacrilege chastise a drunkard and promote sedition declaime against the vanity of great persons and then spoil them of their goods reform manners and engrosse estates talk godly and do impiously these are teachers which the Holy spirit of God hath by three Apostles bid us to beware of and decline as we would run from the hollownesse of a grave or the despaires and sorrows of the damned 11. The substance of al is this that we must not chose our doctrine by our guide but our guide by the doctrine if we doubt concerning the doctrine we may judge of that by the lives and designes of the Teachers By their fruits you shall know them and by the plain words of the scripture by the Apostles Creed and by
forbidden When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up against the Canaanites and possesse the Land they would not stirre the men were Anakims and the Cities were impregnable and there was a Lyon in the way but presently after when God forbad them to goe they would and did goe though they died for it I shall not need to instance in particulars when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners even the man in the Gospell that had two sons they both crossed him even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not for the one said he would and did not the other said he would not and did and so doe we we promise faire and doe nothing and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light such as said they would not and at last have better bethought themselves And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate for he that refuses the commandement first does violence to the commandement and puts on a praeternaturall appetite he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthlesse constitution smart and sickly nights a loathing stomach and a staring eye a giddy brain and a swell'd belly gouts and dropsies catarrhes and oppilations If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws and impossible commandements for we complain already even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us this is one of his impossible laws it is impossible for us to know when we are dry or when we need drink for if we doe know I am sure it is possible enough not to lift up the wine to our heads And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies we think we have so much reason against it that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love and those we dote on we cherish and feast them and as S. Paul in another case upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule we make it the heir of all things and treat it here already as if it were in Majority and make that which at the best was but a weak friend to become a strong enemy and hence proceed the vices of the worst and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weaknesse and when the flesh is not strong to mischief it is weak to goodnesse and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward man or the reasonable part of man especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace that is willing for it is the principle of all good actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of working is from the spirit but the flesh is but a dull instrument and a broken arme in which there is a principle of life but it moves uneasily and the flesh is so weak that in Scripture to be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse and infirmity so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifested in the flesh and what S. Peter calls put to death in the flesh St. Paul calls crucified through weaknesse and yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you said S. Paul but here flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy but as a weak servant for if the flesh be powerfull and opposite the spirit stays not there veniunt ad candida tecta columbae The old man and the new cannot dwell together and therefore here where the spirit inclining to good well disposed and apt to holy counsels does inhabit in society with the flesh it means onely a weak and unapt nature or a state of infant-grace for in both these and in these onely the text is verified 1. Therefore we are to consider the infirmities of the flesh naturally 2. It s weaknesse in the first beginnings of the state of grace its daily pretensions and temptations its excuses and lessenings of duty 3. What remedies there are in the spirit to cure the evils of nature 4. How far the weaknesses of the flesh can consist with the Spirit of grace in well grown Christians This is the summe of what I intend upon these words 1. Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and finall interest that at first it cannot move one step towards God unlesse God by his preventing grace puts into it a new possibility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing that creeps upon the earth nothing that ever God made weaker then Man for God fitted Horses and Mules with strength Bees and Pismires with sagacity Harts and Hares with swiftnesse Birds with feathers and a light a\l = e \ry body and they all know their times and are fitted for their work and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation but man that was designed to an immortall duration and the fruition of God for ever knows not how to obtain it he is made upright to look up to heaven but he knows no more how to purchase it then to climbe it Once man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds or the praeternaturall risings of the water but could not do it he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry and for going to heaven he was so far from doing that naturally that as soon as ever he was made he became the son of death and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Apostle By nature we were the sons of wrath that is we were born heirs of death which death came upon us from Gods anger for the sin of our first Parents or by nature that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really not by the help of fancy and fiction of law for so Oecumenius and Theophylact expound it but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention but to the evill state of sin in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion it signifies that our nature of it self is a state of opposition to the spirit of grace it is privatively opposed that is that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity nothing but an obedientiall capacity our flesh can become sanctified as the stones can become children unto Abraham or as dead seed can become living corn and so it is with us that it is necessary God should make us a new
against me is intollerable but if I choose the state of a servant I am free in my minde Libertatis servaveris umbrant Si quicquid jubeare velis certain it is that such a person who fain would but cannot choose but commit adultery or drunkennesse is the veriest slave to sin that can be imagined and not at all freed by the Spirit and by the liberty of the sons of God and there is no other difference but that the mistaken good man feels his slavery and sees his chains and his fetters but therefore it is certain that he is because he sees himself to be a slave No man can be a servant of sin and a servant of righteousnesse at the same time but every man that hath the Spirit of God is a servant of righteousnesse and therefore whosoever finde great sins to be unavoidable are in a state of death and reprobation as to the present because they willingly or unwillingly it matters not much whether of the two are servants of sin 2. Sins of infirmity as they are small in their instance so they put on their degree of excusablenesse onely according to the weaknesse or infirmity of a mans understanding So far as men without their own fault understand not their duty or are possessed with weaknesse of principles or are destitute and void of discourse or discerning powers and acts so far if a sin creeps upon them it is as naturall and as free from a law as is the action of a childe But if any thing else be mingled with it if it proceed from any other principle it is criminall and not excused by our infirmity because it is chosen and a mans will hath no infirmity but when it wants the grace of God or is mastered with passions and sinfull appetites and that infirmity is the state of unregeneration 3. The violence or strength of a temptation is not sufficient to excuse an action or to make it accountable upon the stock of a pitiable and innocent infirmity if it leaves the understanding still able to judge because a temptation cannot have any proper strengths but from our selves and because we have in us a principle of basenesse which this temptation meets and onely perswades me to act because I love it Joseph met with a temptation as violent and as strong as any man and it is certain there are not many Christians but would fall under it and call it a sin of infirmity since they have been taught so to abuse themselves by sowing fig-leaves before their nakednesse but because Joseph had a strength of God within him the strength of chastity therefore it could not at all prevail upon him Some men cannot by any art of hell be tempted to be drunk others can no more resist an invitation to such a meeting then they can refuse to die if a dagger were drunk with their heart blood because their evil habits made them weak on that part And some man that is fortified against revenge it may be will certainly fall under a temptation to uncleannesse for every temptation is great or small according as the man is and a good word will certainly lead some men to an action of folly while another will not think ten thousand pound a considerable argument to make him tell one single lie against his duty or his conscience 4. No habituall sin that is no sin that returns constantly or frequently that is repented of and committed again and still repented of and then again committed no such sin is excusable with a pretence of infirmity Because that sin is certainly noted and certainly condemned and therefore returns not because of the weaknesse of nature but the weaknesse of grace the principle of this is an evil spirit an habituall aversation from God a dominion and empire of sin and as no man for his inclination and aptnesse to the sins of the flesh is to be called carnall if he corrects his inclinations and turns them into vertues so no man can be called spirituall for his good wishes and apt inclinations to goodnesse if these inclinations passe not into acts and these acts into habits and holy customs and walkings and conversation with God But as natural concupiscence corrected becomes the matter of vertue so these good inclinations and condemnings of our sin if they be ineffective and end in sinfull actions are the perfect signes of a reprobate and unregenerate estate The sum is this An animal man a man under the law a carnall man for as to this they are all one is sold under sin he is a servant of corruption he falls frequently into the same sin to which he is tempted he commends the Law he consents to it that it is good he does not commend sin he does some little things against it but they are weak and imperfect his lust is stronger his passions violent and unmortified his habits vitious his customs sinfull and he lives in the regions of sin and dies and enters into its portion But a spirituall man a man that is in the state of grace who is born anew of the Spirit that is regenerate by the Spirit of Christ he is led by the Spirit he lives in the Spirit he does the works of God cheerfully habitually vigorously and although he sometimes slips yet it is but seldom it is in small instances his life is such as he cannot pretend to be justified by works and merit but by mercy and the faith of Jesus Christ yet he never sins great sins If he does he is for that present falne from Gods favour and though possibly he may recover and the smaller or seldomer the sin is the sooner may be his restitution yet for the present I say he is out of Gods favour But he that remains in the grace of God sins not by any deliberate consultive knowing act he is incident to such a surprize as may consist with the weaknesse and judgement of a good man but whatsoever is or must be considered if it cannot passe without consideration it cannot passe without sin and therefore cannot enter upon him while he remains in that state For he that is in Christ in him the body is dead by reason of sin and the Gospel did not differ from the Law but that the Gospel gives grace and strength to do whatsoever it commands which the Law did not and the greatnesse of the promise of eternall life is such an argument to them that consider it that it must needs be of force sufficient to perswade a man to use all his faculties and all his strength that he may obtain it God exacted all upon this stock God knew this could do every thing Nihil non in hoc praesumpsit Deus said one This will make a satyr chast and Silenus to be sober and Dives to be charitable and Simon Magus himself to despise reputation and Saul to turn from a Persecutor to an Apostle For since God hath given us reason
the servants of God have put on the armour of righteousnesse on the right hand and on the left that is in the sufferings of persecution or the labours of mortification in patience under the rod of God or by election of our own by toleration or self denial by actual martyrdom or by aptnesse or disposition towards it by dying for Christ or suffering for him by being willing to part with all when he calls for it and by parting with what we can for the relief of his poor members For know this there is no state in the Church so serene no days so prosperous in which God does not give to his servants the powers and opportunities of suffering for him not onely they that die for Christ but they that live according to his laws shall finde some lives to part with and many wayes to suffer for Christ. To kill and crucifie the old man and all his lusts to mortifie a beloved sin to fight against temptations to do violence to our bodies to live chastly to suffer affronts patiently to forgive injuries and debts to renounce all prejudice and interest in religion and to choose our side for truthes sake not because it is prosperous but because it pleases God to be charitable beyond our power to reprove our betters with modesty and opennesse to displease men rather then God to be at enmity with the world that you may preserve friendship with God to denie the importunity and troublesome kindnesse of a drinking friend to own truth in despite of danger or scorn to despise shame to refuse worldly pleasure when they tempt your soul beyond duty or safety to take pains in the cause of religion the labour of love and the crossing of your anger peevishnesse and morosity these are the daily sufferings of a Christian and if we performe them well wil have the same reward and an equal smart and greater labour then the plain suffering the hangmans sword This I have discoursed to represent unto you that you cannot be exempted from the similitude of Christs sufferings that God will shut no age nor no man from his portion of the crosse that we cannot fail of the result of this predestination nor without our own fault be excluded from the covenant of sufferings judgement must begin at Gods house and enters first upon the sons and heirs of the kingdom and if it be not by the direct persecution of Tyrants it will be by the persecution of the devil or infirmities of our own flesh But because this was but the secondary meaning of the text I return to make use of all the former discourse 1. Let no Christian man make any judgement concerning his condition or his cause by the external event of things for although in the law of Moses God made with his people a covenant of temporal prosperity and his Saints did binde the kings of the Amorites and the Philistines in chains and their nobles with links of iron and then that was the honour which all his Saints had yet in Christ Jesus he made a covenant of sufferings most of the graces of Christianity are suffering graces and God hath predestinated us to sufferings and we are baptised into suffering and our very communions are symbols of our duty by being the sacrament of Christs death and passion and Christ foretold to us tribulation and promised onely that he would be with us in tribulation that he would give us his spirit to assist us at tribunals and his grace to despise the world and to contemn riches and boldnesse to confesse every article of the Christian faith in the face of armies and armed tyrants and he also promised that all things should work together for the best to his servants that is he would out of the eater bring meat and out of the strong issue sweetnesse and crowns and scepters should spring from crosses and that the crosse it self should stand upon the globes and scepters of Princes but he never promised to his servants that they should pursue Kings and destroy armies that they should reign over the nations and promote the cause of Jesus Christ by breaking his commandments The shield of faith and the sword of the spirit the armour of righteousnesse and the weapons of spiritual warfare these are they by which christianity swelled from a small company and a lesse reputation to possesse the chaires of Doctors and the thrones of princes and the hearts of all men But men in all ages will be tampering with shadows and toyes The Apostles at no hand could endure to hear that Christs kingdom was not of this world and that their Master should die a sad and shameful death though that way he was to receive his crown and enter into glory and after Christs time when his Disciples had taken up the crosse and were marching the Kings high way of sorrows there were a very great many even the generality of Christians for two or three ages together who fell on dreaming that Christ should come and reign upon earth again for a thousand years and then the Saints should reigne in all abundance of temporal power and fortunes but these men were content to stay for it till after the resurrection in the mean time took up their crosse and followed after their Lord the King of sufferings But now adayes we finde a generation of men who have changed the covenant of sufferings into victories and triumphs riches and prosperous chances and reckon their Christianity by their good fortunes as if Christ had promised to his servants no heaven hereafter no spirit in the mean time to refresh their sorrows as if he had enjoyned them no passive graces but as if to be a Christian and to be a Turk were the same thing Mahomet entered and possessed by the sword Christ came by the crosse entered by humility and his saints possesse their souls by patience God was fain to multiply miracles to make Christ capable of being a man of sorrows and shall we think he will work miracles to make us delicate He promised us a glorious portion hereafter to which if all the sufferings of the world were put together they are not worthy to be compared and shall we with Dives choose our portion of good things in this life If Christ suffered so many things onely that he might give us glory shall it be strange that we shall suffer who are to receive this glory It is in vain to think we shall obtain glories at an easier rate then to drink of the brook in the way in which Christ was drenched When the Devil appeared to Saint Martin in a bright splendid shape and said he was Christ he answered Christus non nisi in cruce apparet suis in hac vita And when Saint Ignatius was newly tied in a chain to be led to his martyrdom he cryed out nunc incipio esse Christianus And it was observed by Minutius Felix and was indeed a great and excellent truth omnes
undisturbed posture so is the piety and so is the conversion of a man wrought by degrees and several steps of imperfection and at first our choices are wavering convinced by the grace of God and yet not perswaded and then perswaded but not resolved and then resolved but deferring to begin and then beginning but as all beginnings are in weaknesse and uncertainty and we flie out often into huge indiscretions and look back to Sodom and long to return to Egypt and when the storm is quite over we finde little bublings and unevennesses upon the face of the waters we often weaken our own purposes by the returns of sin and we do not call our selves conquerours till by the long possession of vertues it is a strange and unusual and therefore an uneasy and unpleasant thing to act a crime When Polemon of Athens by chance coming into the schools of Xenocrates was reformed upon the hearing of that one lecture some wise men gave this censure of him peregninatus est hujus animus in nequitiâ non habitavit his minde wandred in wickednesse and travelled in it but never dwelt there the same is the case of some men they make inroads into the enemies countrey not like enemies to spoil but like Dinah to be satisfied with the stranger beauties of the land till their vertues are defloured and they enter into tragedies and are possessed by death and intolerable sorrows but because this is like the fate of Jacobs daughter and happens not by designe but folly not by malice but surprise not by the strength of will but by the weaknesse of grace and yet carries a man to the same place whether a great vice usually does it is hugely pitiable and the persons are to be treated with compassion and to be assisted by the following considerations and exercises First let us consider that for a good man to be overtaken in a single crime is the greatest dishonour and unthriftinesse in the whole world As a fly in a box of ointment so is a little folly to him who is accounted wise said the Son of Sirach No man chides a fool for his weaknesses or scorns a childe for playing with flies and preferring the present appetite before all the possibilities of to morrows event But men wondered when they saw Socrates ride upon a cane and when Solomon laid his wisdom at the foot of Pharaohs daughter and changed his glory for the interest of wanton sleep he became the discourse of heaven and earth and men think themselves abused and their expectation cousened when they see a wise man do the actions of a fool and a good man seized upon by the dishonours of a crime But the losse of his reputation is the least of his evil It is the greatest improvidence in the world to let a healthful constitution be destroyed in the surfet of one night For although when a man by the grace of God and a long endeavour hath obtained the habit of Christian graces every single sin does not spoil the habit of vertue because that cannot be lost but as it was gotten that is by parts and succession yet every crime interrupts the acceptation of the grace and makes the man to enter into the state of enmity and displeasure with God The habit is onely lessened naturally but the value of it is wholly taken away and in this sence is that of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saint James well renders He that keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all that is if he prevaricates in any commandment the transgression of which by the law was capital shall as certainly die as if he broke the whole law and the same is the case of those single actions which the school calls deadly sins that is actions of choice in any sin that hath a name and makes a Kinde hath a distinct matter And sins once pardoned return again to al the purposes of mischief If we by a new sin forfeit Gods former loving kindnesse When the righteous man turneth from his righteousnesse and commiteth iniquity all his righteousnesse that he hath done shall not be remembred in the trespasse that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Now then consider how great a fool he is who when he hath with much labour by suffering violence contradicted his first desires when his spirit hath been in agony and care and with much uneasinesse hath denied to please the lower man when with many prayers and groans and innumerable sighs and strong cryings to God with sharp sufferances and a long severity he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution and that he is in some hopes to return to Gods favour and that he shall become an heire of heaven when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity but he hopes to be saved and he considers how excellent a condition that is he hopes when he dies to go to God and that he shall never enter into the possession of Devils and this state which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity he hath obtained with great labour and much care and infinite danger that this man should throw all this structure down and then when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours by one indiscreet action to set fire upon his corn fields and destroy all his dearly earned hopes for the madnesse and loose wandrings of an hour This man is an indiscreet gamester who doubles his stake as he thrives and at one throw is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a luckie hand They that are poor as Plutarch observes are carelesse of little things because by saving them they think no great moments can accrue to their estates and they despairing to be rich think such frugality impertinent But they that feele their banks swell and are within the possibilities of wealth think it useful if they reserve the smaller minuts of expence knowing that every thing will adde to their heap but then after long sparing in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under Tutors and Guardians and such as are to be chastised by their servants and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These men sowe much and gather little stay long and return empty and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces Every deadly sin destroyes the rewards of a seven years piety I adde to this that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants then at many by persons that are his enemies and an uncivil answer from a son to a Father from an
by that which you heard so diligently and accepted with so much pietie and I am persuaded have entertain'd with that religion and obedience which is the dutie of all those who know that Sermons are arguments against us unlesse they make us better and that no Sermon is received as it ought unlesse it makes us quit a vice or bee in love with vertue unlesse we suffer it in some instance or degree to doe the work of God upon our soules My Lord in these Sermons I have medled with no mans interest that onely excepted which is Eternall but if any mans vice was to be reproved I have done it with as much severitie as I ought some cases of Conscience I have here determined but the speciall designe of the whole is to describe the greater lines of Dutie by speciall arguments and if any witty Censurer shall say that I tell him nothing but what he knew before I shall be contented with it and rejoyce that he was so well instructed and wish also that he needed not a Remembrancer but if either in the first or in the second in the institution of some or the reminding of others I can doe God any service no man ought to be offended that Sermons are not like curious inquiries after New-nothings but pursuances of Old truths However I have already many faire earnests that your Lordship will bee pleased with this tender of my service and expression of my great and dearest obligations which you daily renew or continue upon My noblest Lord Your Lordships most affectionate and most obliged Servant JEREMY TAYLOR Titles of the Sermons their Order Number and Texts SErmon 1. 2. 3. Dooms-day Book or Christs Advent to Judgement Folio 1. 15. 30. 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Sermon 4. 5. 6. The Return of Prayers or The conditions of a Prevailing Prayer fol. 44. 57. 69. Joh. 9. 31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth Sermon 7. 8. 9. Of Godly Fear c. fol. 83. 95. 114. Heb. 12. part of the 28th 29th vers Let us have grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming Fire Sermon 10. 11. The Flesh and the Spirit fol. 125. 139. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weak Sermon 12. 13. 14. Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal or Spiritual Terrour fol. 152. 164. 179. Jer. 48. 10. first part Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Sermon 15. 16. The House of Feasting or The Epicures Measures fol. 191. 204. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die Sermon 17. 18. The Marriage Ring or The Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage fol. 219. 232. Ephes. 5. 32 33. This is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church Neverthelesse let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himselfe and the Wife see that she reverence her Husband Sermon 19. 20. 21. Apples of Sodome or The Fruits of Sin fol. 245. 260. 273. Rom. 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death Sermon 22. 23. 24. 25. The good and evill Tongue Of Slander and Flattery The Duties of the Tongue fol. 286. 298. 311. 323. Ephes. 4. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Sermon I. ADVENT SUNDAY DOOMS-DAY BOOK OR CHRIST'S Advent to Judgement 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of CHRIST that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad VErtue and Vice are so essentially distinguished and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well being of men in private and in societies that to divide them in themselves and to separate them by sufficient notices and to distinguish them by rewards hath been designed by all Laws by the sayings of wise men by the order of things by their proportions to good or evill and the expectations of men have been fram'd accordingly that Vertue may have a proper seat in the will and in the affections and may become amiable by its own excellency and its appendant blessing and that Vice may be as naturall an enemy to a man as a Wolf to the Lamb and as darknesse to light destructive of its being and a contradiction of its nature But it is not enough that all the world hath armed it self against Vice and by all that is wise and sober amongst men hath taken the part of Vertue adorning it with glorious appellatives encouraging it by rewards entertaining it with sweetnesses and commanding it by edicts fortifying it with defensatives and twining with it in all artificiall compliances all this is short of mans necessity for this will in all modest men secure their actions in Theatres and High-wayes in Markets and Churches before the eye of Judges and in the society of Witnesses But the actions of closets and chambers the designs and thoughts of men their discourses in dark places and the actions of retirements and of the night are left indifferent to Vertue or to Vice and of these as man can take no cognisance so he can make no coercitive and therefore above one half of humane actions is by the Laws of man left unregarded and unprovided for and besides this there are some men who are bigger then Lawes and some are bigger then Judges and some Judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardize by bribery and flattery by iniquity and complyance and where they have not yet they have notices but of few causes and there are some sins so popular and universall that to punish them is either impossible or intolerable and to question such would betray the weaknesse of the publick rods and axes and represent the sinner to be stronger then the power that is appointed to be his bridle and after all this we finde sinners so prosperous that they escape so potent that they fear not and sin is made safe when it growes great Facere omnia saevè Non impunè licet nisi dum facis and innocence is oppressed and the poor cry and he hath no helper and he is oppressed and he wants a Patron and for these and many other concurrent causes if you reckon all the causes that come before all the Judicatories of the world though the litigious are too many and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous yet the personall and criminall are so few that of 20000 sins that cry aloud to
confusions of some sins and some persons For I have sometimes seen persons surpriz'd in a base action and taken in the circumstances of crafty theft and secret unjustices before their excuse was ready They have changed their colour their speech hath faltered their tongue stammer'd their eyes did wander and fix no where till shame made them sink into their hollow eye-pits to retreat from the images and circumstances of discovery their wits are lost their reason uselesse the whole order of their soul is discomposed and they neither see nor feel nor think as they use to do but they are broken into disorder by a stroke of damnation and a lesser stripe of hell but then if you come to observe a guilty and a base murtherer a condemned traytor and see him harrassed first by an evill conscience and then pull'd in pieces by the hangmans hooks or broken upon sorrows and the wheel we may then guesse as well as we can in this life what the pains of that day shall be to accursed souls But those we shall consider afterwards in their proper scene now only we are to estimate the severity of our Judge by the intolerablenesse of an evill conscience if guilt will make a man despair and despair will make a man mad confounded and dissolved in all the regions of his senses and more noble faculties that he shall neither feel nor hear nor see any thing but spectres and illusions devils and frightfull dreams and hear noises and shriek fearfully and look pale and distracted like a hopelesse man from the horrors and confusions of a lost battell upon which all his hopes did stand then the wicked must at the day of Judgement expect strange things and fearfull and such which now no language can expresse and then no patience can endure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then only it can truly be said that he is inflexible and inexorable No prayers then can move him no groans can cause him to pity thee therefore pity thy self in time that when the Judge comes thou mayest be one of the sons of everlasting mercy to whom pity belongs as part of thine inheritance for all else shall without any remorse except his own be condemned by the horrible sentence 4. That all may think themselves concerned in this consideration let us remember that even the righteous and most innocent shall passe through a severe triall Many of the Ancients explicated this severity by the fire of conflagration which say they shall purifie those souls at the day of Judgement which in this life have built upon the foundation hay and stubble works of folly and false opinions and states of imperfection So S. Austins Doctrine was Hoc aget caminus alios in sinistrâ separabit alios in dextrâ quodam modo eliquabit The great fire at Dooms-day shall throw some into the portion of the left hand and others shall be purified and represented on the right and the same is affirmed by Origen and Lactantius and S. Hilary thus expostulates Since we are to give account for every idle word shall we long for the day of Judgement in quo est nobis indefessus ille ignis obeundus in quo subeunda sunt gravia illa expiandae à peccatis animae supplicia Wherein we must every one of us passe that unwearied fire in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soul from sins must be endured for to such as have been baptized with the Holy Ghost it remaineth that they be consummated with the fire of Judgement And S. Ambrose addes That if any be as Peter or as John they are baptiz'd with this fire and he that it purged here had need to be purged there again Illic quoque nos purificet quando dicat dominus Intrate in requiem mean Let him also purifie us that every one of us being burned with that flaming sword not burned up or consumed we may enter into Paradise and give thanks unto the Lord who hath brought us into a place of refreshment This opinion of theirs is in the main of it very uncertain relying upon the sense of some obscure places of Scripture is only apt to represent the great severity of the Judge at that day and it hath in it this only certainty that even the most innocent person hath great need of mercy and he that hath the greatest cause of confidence although he runs to no rocks to hide him yet he runs to the protection of the Crosse and hides himself under the shadow of the Divine mercies and he that shall receive the absolution of the blessed sentence shall also suffer the terrors of the day and the fearfull circumstances of Christs coming The effect of this consideration is this That if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the wicked and the sinner appear Quid faciet virgula deserti ubi concutretur cedrus Paradisi Quid faciet agnus cumtremit aries Si coelum fugiat ubi manebit terra said S. Gregory And if S. Paul whose conscience accus'd him not yet durst not be too confident because he was not hereby justified but might be found faulty by the severer Judgement of his Lord how shall we appear with all our crimes and evill habits round about us If there be need of much mercy to the servants and friends of the Judge then his enemies shall not be able to stand up right in Judgement 5. But the matter is still of more concernment The Pharisees beleeved that they were innocent if they abstained from criminall actions such as were punishable by the Judge and many Christians think all is well with them if they abstain from such sins as have a name in the Tables of their Lawes But because some sins are secret and not discernible by man others are publick but not punished because they are frequent and perpetuall and without externall mischiefs in some instances and only provocations against God men think that in their concernments they have no place and such are jeering and many instances of wantonnesse and revelling doing petty spites and doggednesse and churlishnesse lying and pride and beyond this some are very like vertues as too much gentlenesse and slacknesse in government or too great severity and rigor of animadversions bitternesse in reproof of sinners uncivill circumstances imprudent handlings of some criminals and zeal Nay there are some vile things which through the evill discoursings and worse manners of men are passed into an artificiall and false reputation and men are accounted wits for talking Atheistically and valiant for being murderers and wise for deceiving and circumventing our Brothers and many irregularities more for all which we are safe enough here But when the day of Judgement comes these shall be called to a severe account for the Judge is omniscient and knows all things and his tribunall takes cognisance of all causes and hath a coërcitive for all all things are naked and open to his eyes saith S. Paul therefore nothing
his gifts and is never wanting to us in what we need and if all this be not argument strong enough to produce fear and that fear great enough to secure obedience all arguments are uselesse all discourses are vain the grace of God is ineffective and we are dull as the Dead sea unactive as a rock and we shall never dwell with God in any sense but as he is a consuming fire that is dwell in the everlasting burnings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reverence and caution modesty and fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in some copies with caution and fear or if we render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be fear of punishment as it is generally understood by interpreters of this place and is in Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then the expression is the same in both words and it is all one with the other places of Scripture Work out your salvation with fear and trembling degrees of the same duty and they signifie all those actions and graces which are the proper effluxes of fear such as are reverence prudence caution and diligence chastity and a sober spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so also say the Grammarians and it means plainly this since our God will appear so terrible at his second comming let us passe the time of our sojourning here in fear that is modestly without too great confidence of our selves soberly without bold crimes which when a man acts he must put on shamelesnesse reverently towards God as fearing to offend him diligently observing his commandements inquiring after his will trembling at his voice attending to his Word revering his judgements fearing to provoke him to anger for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Thus far it is a duty Concerning which that I may proceed orderly I shall first consider how far fear is a duty of Christian Religion 2. Who and what states of men ought to fear and upon what reasons 3. What is the excesse of fear or the obliquity and irregularity whereby it becomes dangerous penall and criminall a state of evill and not a state of duty 1. Fear is taken sometimes in holy Scripture for the whole duty of man for his whole Religion towards God And now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God c. fear is obedience and fear is love and fear is humility because it is the parent of all these and is taken for the whole duty to which it is an introduction The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome a good understanding have all they that do thereafter the praise of it endureth for ever and Fear God and keep his Commandements for this is the whole duty of man and thus it is also used in the New Testament Let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse of the flesh and spirit perfecting holinesse in the fear of God 2. Fear is sometimes taken for worship for so our blessed Saviour expounds the words of Moses in Mat. 4. 10. taken from Deut. 10. 20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God so Moses Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve said our blessed Saviour and so it was used by the Prophet Jonah I am an Hebrew and I fear the Lord the God of Heaven that is I worship him he is the Deity that I adore that is my worship and my Religion and because the new Colony of Assyrians did not do so at the beginning of their dwelling there they feared not the Lord that is they worshipped other Gods and not the God of Israel therefore God sent Lions among them which slew many of them Thus far fear is not a distinct duty but a word signifying something besides it self and therefore cannot come into the consideration of this text Therefore 3. Fear as it is a religious passion is divided as the two Testaments are and relates to the old and new Covenant and accordingly hath its distinction In the Law God used his people like servants in the Gospell he hath made us to be sons In the Law he enjoyn'd many things hard intricate various painfull and expensive in the Gospell he gave commandements not hard but full of pleasure necessary and profitable to our life and well being of single persons and communities of men In the Law he hath exacted those many precepts by the covenant of exact measures grains and scruples in the Gospel he makes abatement for humane infirmities temptations morall necessities mistakes errors for every thing that is pitiable for every thing that is not malicious and voluntary In the Law there are many threatnings and but few promises the promise of temporal prosperities branch'd into single instances in the Gospell there are but few threatnings and many promises And when God by Moses gave the 10 Commandements only one of them was sent out with a promise the precept of obedience to all our parents and superiors but when Christ in his first Sermon recommended 8 duties Christian duties to the College of Disciples every one of them begins with a blessing and ends with a promise and therefore grace is opposed to the Law So that upon these differing interests the world put on the affections of Servants and Sons They of old feared God as a severe Lord much in his commands abundant in threatnings angry in his executions terrible in his name in his Majesty and appearance dreadfull unto death and this the Apostle cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The spirit of bondage or of a servant But we have not received that Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto fear not a servile fear but the Spirit of adoption and a filiall fear we must have God treats us like sons he keeps us under discipline but designs us to the inheritance and his government is paternall his disciplines are mercifull his conduct gentle his Son is our Brother and our Brother is our Lord and our Judge is our Advocate and our Priest hath felt our infirmities and therefore knows to pity them and he is our Lord and therefore he can relieve them and from hence we have affections of sons so that a fear we must not have and yet a fear we must have and by these proportions we understand the difference Malo vereri quà m timeri me à meis said one in the Comedy I had rather be reverend then fear'd by my children The English doth not well expresse the difference but the Apostle doth it rarely well For that which he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Rom. 8. 15. he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 1. 7. The spirit of bondage is the spirit rather of timorousnesse of fearfulnesse rather then fear when we are fearfull that God will use us harshly or when we think of the accidents that happen worse then the things are when they are proportion'd by measures
of David died for his father David as well as he did for us he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world and yet that death and that relation and all the heap of the Divine favours which crown'd David with a circle richer then the royall diadem could not exempt him from the portion of sinners when he descended into their pollutions I pray God we may find the sure mercies of David and may have our portion in the redemption wrought by the Son of David but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed such which include time and labour and uncertainty and watchfulnesse and fear and holy living But it is a sad observation that the case of pardon of sins is so administred that they that are most sure of it have the greatest fears concerning it and they to whom it doth not belong at all are as confident as children and fooles who believe every thing they have a mind to not because they have reason so to doe but because without it they are presently miserable The godly and holy persons of the Church work out their salvation with fear and trembling and the wicked goe to destruction with gayety and confidence these men think all is well while they are in the gall of bitternesse and good men are tossed in a tempest crying and praying for a safe conduct and the sighs of their feares and the wind of their prayers waft them safely to their port Pardon of sins is not easily obtain'd because they who onely certainly can receive it find difficulty and danger and fears in the obtaining it and therefore their case is pityable and deplorable who when they have least reason to expect pardon yet are most confident and carelesse But because there are sorrows on one side and dangers on the other and temptations on both sides it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are pardoned For then when they can perceive their signes certain and evident they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies when they cannot see the signes they may leave their confidence and change it into repentance and watchfulnesse and stricter observation and in order to this I shall tell you that which shall never faile you a certaine signe that you may know whether or no and when and in what degree your persons are pardoned 1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any Metaphysicall and abstracted effects but by sensible reall and materiall Hee that revenges himself of another does something that will make his enemy grieve something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended and therefore all the evills of sin are such as relate to us and are to bee estimated by our apprehensions Sin makes God angry and Gods anger if it be turned aside will make us miserable and accursed and therefore in proportion to this we are to reckon the proportions of Gods mercy in forgivenesse or his anger in retaining 2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evills even whatsoever the anger of God is pleased to inflict sicknesse and dishonour poverty and shame a caytive spirit and a guilty conscience famine and war plague and pestilence sudden death and a short life temporall death or death eternall according as God in the severall covenants of the Law and Gospel hath expressed 3. For in the law of Moses sin bound them to nothing but temporall evills but they were sore and heavy and many but these only there were threatned in the Gospel Christ added the menaces of evills spirituall and eternall 4. The great evill of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off from being Gods people to which eternall damnation answers amongst us and as sicknesse and war and other intermediall evills were lesser strokes in order to the finall anger of God against their Nation so are these and spirituall evills intermediall in order to the Eternall destruction of sinning and unrepenting Christians 5. When God had visited any of the sinners of Israel with a grievous sicknesse then they lay under the evill of their sin and were not pardoned till God took away the sicknesse but the taking the evill away the evill of the punishment was the pardon of the sin to pardon the sin is to spare the sinner and this appears For when Christ had said to the man sick of the palsey Son thy sins are forgiven thee the Pharisees accused him of blasphemy because none had power to forgive sins but God onely Christ to vindicate himselfe gives them an ocular demonstration and proves his words that yee may know the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins he saith to the man sick of the palsey Arise and walk then he pardoned the sin when he took away the sicknesse and proved the power by reducing it to act for if pardon of sins be any thing else it must be easier or harder if it be easier then sin hath not so much evill in it as a sicknesse which no Religion as yet ever taught If it be harder then Christs power to doe that which was harder could not be proved by doing that which was easier It remaines therefore that it is the same thing to take the punishment away as to procure or give the pardon because as the retaining the sin was an obligation to the evill of punishment so the remitting the sin is the disobliging to its penalty So farre then the case is manifest 6. The next step is this that although in the Gospel God punishes sinners with temporall judgements and sicknesses and deaths with sad accidents and evill Angels and messengers of wrath yet besides these lesser strokes he hath scorpions to chastise and loads of worse evils to oppresse the disobedient he punishes one sin with another vile acts with evill habits these with a hard heart and this with obstinacy and obstinacy with impenitence and impenitence with damnation Now because the worst of evills which are threatned to us are such which consign to hell by persevering in sin as God takes off our love and our affections our relations and bondage under sin just in the same degree he pardons us because the punishment of sin being taken off and pardoned there can remaine no guilt Guiltinesse is an unsignificant word if there be no obligation to punishment Since therefore spirituall evils and progressions in sin and the spirit of reprobation and impenitence and accursed habits and perseverance in iniquity are the worst of evils when these are taken off the sin hath lost its venome and appendant curse for sin passes on to eternall death onely by the line of impenitence and it can never carry us to hell if we repent timely and effectually in the same degree therefore that any man leaves his sin just in the same degree he is pardoned and he is sure of it For although curing the temporall evill was the pardon of sins
under the eye of heaven that many Nations are marked for intemperance and that it is lesse noted because it is so popular and universall and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk or too full with meat or greedy of lust even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober and temperate and chaste we may well imagine since all men have flesh and all men have nor the spirit the flesh is the parent of sin and death and it can be nothing else And it is no otherwise when we are tempted with pain We are so impatient of pain that nothing can reconcile us to it not the laws of God not the necessities of nature not the society of all our kindred and of all the world not the interest of vertue not the hopes of heaven we will submit to pain upon no terms but the basest and most dishonorable for if sin bring us to pain or affront or sicknesse we choose that so it be in the retinue of a lust and a base desire but we accuse Nature and blaspheme God we murmur and are impatient when pain is sent to us from him that ought to send it and intends it as a mercy when it comes But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sicknesse we are so weak and broken so uneasie and unapt to sufferance that this alone is beyond the cure of the old Philosophy Many can endure poverty and many can retire from shame and laugh at home and very many can endure to be slaves but when pain and sharpnesse are to be endured for the interests of vertue we finde but few Martyrs and they that are suffer more within themselves by their fears and their temptations by their uncertain purposes and violences to Nature then by the Hang-mans sword the Martyrdome is within and then he hath won his Crown not when he hath suffered the blow but when he hath overcome his fears and made his spirit conqueror It was a sad instance of our infirmity when of the 40 Martyrs of Cappadocia set in a freezing lake almost consummate and an Angell was reaching the Crowne and placing it upon their brows the flesh fail'd one of them and drew the spirit after it and the man was called off from his Scene of noble contention and dyed in warm water Odi artus fragilémque hunc corporis usum Desertorem animi We carry about us the body of death and we bring evils upon our selves by our follies and then know not how to bear them and the flesh forsakes the spirit And indeed in sicknesse the infirmity is so very great that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all Religion into one vertue Patience with its appendages is the summe totall of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers and to imploy all our aids the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends the advices of Scripture and the results of experience the graces of God and the strength of our own resolutions are all then full of imployments and find it work enough to secure that one grace For then it is that a could is wrapped about our heads and our reason stoops under sorrow the soul is sad and its instrument is out of tune the auxiliaries are disorder'd and every thought sits heavily then a comfort cannot make the body feel it and the soule is not so abstracted to rejoyce much without its partner so that the proper joyes of the soul such as are hope and wise discourses and satisfactions of reason and the offices of Religion are felt just as we now perceive the joyes of heaven with so little relish that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the Rack or the birth of an heir to one condemned to dye he hears a story which was made to delight him but it came when he was dead to joy and all its capacities and therefore sicknesse though it be a good Monitor yet it is an ill stage to act some vertues in and a good man cannot then doe much and therefore he that is in the state of flesh and blood can doe nothing at all 4. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages and a strong man may be overcome when a stronger comes to disarme him and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance but it is no better in any thing else for nature is weak in all its strengths and in its fights at home and abroad in its actions and passions we love some things violently and hate others unreasonably any thing can fright us when we should be confident and nothing can scare us when we ought to feare the breaking of a glasse puts us into a supreme anger and we are dull and indifferent as a Stoick when we see God dishonour'd we passionately desire our preservation and yet we violently destroy our selves and will not be hindred we cannot deny a friend when he tempts us to sin and death and yet we daily deny God when he passionately invites us to life and health we are greedy after money and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts we hate to see any man flatter'd but our selves and we can endure folly if it be on our side and a sin for our interest we desire health and yet we exchange it for wine and madnesse we sink when a persecution comes and yet cease not daily to persecute our selves doing mischiefs worse then the sword of Tyrants and great as the malice of a Devill 5. But to summe up all the evills that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent so averse and peevish to all good that a mans will is of it self onely free to choose evils Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty and yet suppose it determin'd to one object onely because that one object is the thing we choose For although God hath set life and death before us fire and water good and evill and hath primarily put man into the hands of his owne counsell that he might have chosen good as well as evill yet because he did not but fell into an evill condition and corrupted manners and grew in love with it and infected all his children with vicious examples and all nations of the world have contracted some universall stains and the thoughts of mans hearts are onely evill and that continually and there is not one that doth good no not one that sinneth not since I say all the world have sinned we cannot suppose a liberty of indifferency to good and bad it is impossible in such a liberty that there should be no variety that all should choose the same thing but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose that is so that though naturally he might
speaks one thing and our heart means another and we are hardly brought to say our prayers or to undertake a fasting day or to celebrate a Communion and if we remember that all these are holy actions and that we have many opportunities of doing them all and yet doe them very seldome and then very coldly it will be found at the foot of the account that our flesh and our naturall weaknesse prevailes oftner then our spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that are bound long in chains feel such a lamenesse in the first restitutions of their liberty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of the long accustomed chain and pressure that they must stay till Nature hath set them free and the disease be taken off as well as the chain and when the soul is got free from her actuall pressure of sins still the wound remaines and a long habitude and longing after it a looking back and upon the presenting the old object the same company or the remembrance of the delight the fancy strikes and the heart fails and the temptations returne and stand dressed in form and circumstances and ten to one but the man dies again 4. Some men are wise and know their weaknesses and to prevent their startings back will make fierce and strong resolutions and bind up their gaps with thornes and make a new hedge about their spirits and what then this shews indeed that the spirit is willing but the storm arises and windes blow and rain descends and presently the earth trembles and the whole fabrick falls into ruine and disorder A resolution such as we usually make is nothing but a little trench which every childe can step over and there is no civill man that commits a willing sin but he does it against his resolution and what Christian lives that will not say and think that he hath repented in some degree and yet still they commit sin that is they break all their holy purposes as readily as they lose a dream and so great is our weaknesse that to most men the strength of a resolution is just such a restraint as he suffers who is imprisoned in a curtain and secured with dores and bars of the finest linnen for though the spirit be strong to resolve the flesh is weak to keep it 5. But when they have felt their follies and see the linnen vail â—ent some that are desirous to please God back their resolutions with vows and then the spirit is fortified and the flesh may tempt and call but the soul cannot come forth and therefore it triumphs and acts its interest easily and certainly and then the flesh is mortified It may be so But doe not many of us inquire after a vow And we consider it may be it was rash or it was an impossible matter or without just consideration and weighing of circumstances or the case is alter'd and there is a new emergent necessity or a vow is no more then a resolution made in matter of duty both are made for God and in his eye and witnesse or if nothing will doe it men grow sad and weary and despaire and are impatient and bite the knot in pieces with their teeth which they cannot by disputing and the arts of the tongue A vow will not secure our duty because it is not stronger then our appetite and the spirit of man is weaker then the habits and superinduced nature of the flesh but by little and little it falls off like the finest thread twisted upon the traces of a chariot it cannot hold long 6. Beyond all this some choose excellent guides and stand within the restraints of modesty and a severe Monitor and the Spirit of God hath put a veile upon our spirits and by modesty in women and young persons by reputation in the more aged and by honour in the more noble and by conscience in all have fortified the spirit of Man that men dare not prevaricate their duty though they be tempted strongly and invited perpetually and this is a partition wall that separates the spirit from the flesh and keeps it in its proper strengths and retirements But here the spirit of man for all that it is assisted strongly breaks from the inclosure and runnes into societies of flesh and sometimes despises reputation and sometimes supplies it with little arts of flattery and self-love and is modest as long as it can be secret and when it is discovered it growes impudent and a man shelters himselfe in crouds and heaps of sinners and beleeves that it is no worse with him then with other mighty criminals and publick persons who bring sin into credit amongst fooles and vicious persons or else men take false measures of fame or publick honesty and the world being broken into so many parts of disunion and agreeing in nothing but in confederate vices and grown so remisse in governments and severe accounts every thing is left so loose that honour and publick fame modesty and shame are now so slender guards to the spirit that the flesh breaks in and makes most men more bold against God then against men and against the laws of Religion then of the Common-wealth 7. When the spirit is made willing by the grace of God the flesh interposes in deceptions and false principles If you tempt some man to a notorious sin as to rebellion to deceive his trust or to be drunk he will answer he had rather die then doe it But put the sin civilly to him and let it be disguised with little excuses such things which indeed are trifles but yet they are colours fair enough to make a weak pretence and the spirit yeelds instantly Most men choose the sin if it be once disputable whether it be a sin or no If they can but make an excuse or a colour so that it shall not rudely dash against the conscience with an open professed name of Sin they suffer the temptation to doe its worst If you tempt a man you must tell him 't is no sin or it is excusable this is not rebellion but necessity and selfe-defence it is not against my allegiance but is a performing of my trust I doe it for my friend not against my Superiour I doe it for a good end and for his advantage this is not drunkennesse but free mirth and fair society it is refreshment and entertainment of some supernumerary hours but it is not a throwing away my time or neglecting a day of salvation and if there be any thing more to say for it though it be no more then Adams fig-leaves or the excuses of children and truants it shall be enough to make the flesh prevail and the spirit not to be troubled for so great is our folly that the flesh always carries the cause if the spirit can be cousen'd 8. The flesh is so mingled with the spirit that we are forced to make distinctions in our appetite to reconcile our affections to God and Religion lest it
teaches us to pray In a festivall fortune our prudence and our needs inforce us equally For though we feel not a present smart yet we are certain then is our biggest danger and if we observe how the world treats her darlings men of riches and honour of prosperity and great successe we cannot but confesse them to be the most miserable of all men as being in the greatest danger of losing their biggest interest For they are bigger then the iron hand of Law and they cannot be restrain'd with fear the hand grasps a power of doing all that which their evill heart can desire and they cannot be restrained with disability to sin they are flatter'd by all mean and base and indiligent persons which are the greatest part of mankinde but few men dare reprove a potent sinner he shall every day be flattered and seldome counselled and his great reflexions and opinions of his condition makes him impatient of reproof and so he cannot be restrain'd with modesty and therefore as the needs of the poor man his rent day and the cryes of his children and the oppression he groans under and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his uneasie ill sleeping care will make him run to his prayers that in heaven a new decree may be passed every day for the provisions of his daily bread so the greater needs of the rich their temptations and their dangers the flattery and the vanity the power and the pride their businesse and evill estate of the whole world upon them cals upon them to be zealous in this instance that they pray often that they pray without ceasing For there is great reason they should do so and great security and advantage if they do For he that prayes well and prayes often must needs be a good and a blessed man and truly he that does not deserves no pity for his misery For when all the troubles and dangers of his condition may turn into his good if he will but desire they should when upon such easie terms he may be happy for there is no more trouble in it then this Aske and ye shall receive that 's all that is required no more turnings and variety in their road when I say at so cheap a rate a poor man may be provided for and a rich man may escape damnation they that refuse to apply themselves to this remedy quickly earnestly zealously and constantly deserves the smart of his poverty and the care of it and the scorne if he be poor and if he be rich it is fit he should because he desires it dye by the evils of his proper danger * It was observed by Cassian orationibus maximè infidiantur Daemones the Devill is more busie to disturb our prayers then to hinder any thing else For else it cannot be imagined why we should be brought to pray so seldome and to be so listlesse to them and so trifling to them No The Devill knowes upon what hard terms he stands with the praying man he also knows that it is a mighty cmanation of Gods infinite goodnesse and a strange desire of saving mankinde that he hath to so easie a duty promised such mighty blessings For God knowing that upon hard terms we would not accept of heaven it self and yet hell was so intolerable a state that God who loved us would affixe heaven to a state of prayer and devotion this because the Devill knowes to be one of the greatest arts of the Divine mercy he labours infinitely to supplant and if he can but make men unwilling to pray or to pray coldly or to pray seldome he secures his interest and destroys the mans and it is infinitely strange that he can and doth prevail so much in this so unreasonable temptation Opposuisti nubem ne transirot oratio the mourning Prophet complained there was a cloud passed between heaven and the prayer of Judah a little thing God knowes it was a wall which might have been blown down with a few hearty sighs and a few penitentiall tears or if the prayers had ascended in a full and numerous body themselves would have broken through that little partition but so the Devill prevails often opponit nubem he claps a cloud between some little objection a stranger is come or my head akes or the Church is too cold or I have letters to write or I am not disposed or it is not yet time or the time is past these and such as these are the clouds the Devill claps between heaven and us but these are such impotent objections that they were as soon confuted as pretended by all men that are not fools or professed enemies of Religion but that they are clouds which sometimes look like Lions and Bears Castles and wals of fire armies and horses and indeed are any thing that a man will fancy and the smallest article of objection managed and conducted by the Devils arts and meeting with a wretchlesse carelesse indevout spirit is a Lion in the way and a deep river it is impassable and it is impregnable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Sophister said in the Greek Comedy Clouds become any thing as they are represented Wolves to Simon Harts to Cleonymus For the Devill fits us with clouds according as we can be abused and if we love affairs of the world he can contrive its circumstances so that they shall crosse our prayers and so it is in every instance and the best way to cure this evill is prayer pray often and pray zealously and the sun of righteousnesse will scatter these clouds and warm our hearts with his holy fires But it is in this as in all acquired habits the habit makes the actions easie and pleasant but this habit cannot be gotten without frequent actions habits are the daughters of action but then they nurse their mother and produce daughters after her image but far more beautifull and prosperous For in frequent prayer there is so much rest and pleasure that as soon as ever it is perceived the contrary temptation appears unreasonable none are so unwilling to pray as they that pray seldome for they that do pray often and with zeal and passion and desire feel no trouble so great as when they are forced to omit their holy offices and hours of prayer It concerns the Devils interest to keep us from all the experience of the rewards of a frequent and holy prayer and so long as you will not try and taste how good and gracious the Lord is to the praying man so long you cannot see the evill of your coldnesse and lukewarm state but if you would but try though it be but for curiosity sake and informe your selves in the vanity of things and the truth of pretences and the certainty of Theologicall propositions you should finde your selves taken in a golden snare which will tye you to nothing but felicity and safety and holinesse and pleasures But then the caution which I intended to insert is this that
obsence is a torment and the enjoyment does not satisfie but disables the instrument and tires the faculty and when a man hath but a little of what his sense covets he is not contented but impatient for more and when he hath loads of it he does not feel it for he that swallowes a full goblet does not taste his wine and this is the pleasure of the sense nothing contents it but that which he cannot perceive and it is alwaies restlesse till he be weary and all the way unpleased till it can feel no pleasure and that which is the instrument of sense is the means of its torment by the faculty by which it tasts by the same it is afflicted for so long as it can taste it is tormented with desire and when it can desire no longer it cannot feel pleasure 7. Sin hath little or no pleasure in its very injoyment because its very manner of entry and production is by a curse and a contradiction it comes into the world like a viper through the sides of its mother by means unnaturall violent and monstrous Men love sin only because it is forbidden Sin took occasion by the Law saith St. Paul it could not come in upon its own pretences but men rather suspect a secret pleasure in it because there are guards kept upon it Sed quia caecus inest vitiis amor omne futurum Despicitur suadéntque brevem praesentia fructum Et ruit in vetitum damni secura libido Men run into sin with blinde affections and against all reason despise the future hoping for some little pleasure for the present and all this is only because they are forbidden Do not many men sin out of spight some out of the spirit of disobedience some by wildenesse and indetermination some by impudence and because they are taken in a fault Frontémque à crimine sumunt Some because they are reproved many by custome others by importunity Ordo fuit crevisse malis It grows upon crab-stocks and the lust it self is sowre and unwholesome and since it is evident that very many sins come in wholly upon these accounts such persons and such sins cannot pretend pleasure but as Naturalists say of pulse cum maledictis probris serendum praecipiunt ut laetiùs porvemat the countrey people were used to curse it and rail upon it all the while that it was sowing that it might thrive the better t is true with sins they grow up with curses with spite and contradiction peevishnesse and indignation pride and cursed principles and therefore pleasure ought not to be the inscription of the box for that 's the least part of its ingredient and constitution 8. The pleasures in the very enjoying of sin are infinitely trifling and inconsiderable because they passe away so quickly if they be in themselves little they are made lesse by their volatile and fugitive nature But if they were great then their being so transient does not only lessen the delight but changes it into a torment and loads the spirit of the sinner with impatience and indignation Is it not a high upbraiding to the watchfull adulterer that after he hath contriv'd the stages of his sin and tyed many circumstances together with arts and labour and these joyn and stand knit and solid only by contingency and are very often born away with the impetuous torrent of an inevitable accident like Xerxes bridge over the Hellespont and then he is to begin again and sets new wheels a going and by the arts and the labour and the watchings and the importunity and the violence and the unwearied study and indefatigable diligence of many moneths he enters upon possession and finds them not of so long abode as one of his cares which in so vast numbers made so great a portion of his life afflicted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The enjoying of sin for a season St. Paul cals it he names no pleasures our English translation uses the word of enjoying pleasures but if there were any they were but for that season that instant that very transition of the act which dies in its very birth and of which we can only say as the minstrell sung of Pacuvius when he was carryed dead from his supper to his bed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man can scarce have time enough to say it is alive but that it was nullo non se die extulit it died every day it lived never unto life but lived and dyed unto death being its mother and its daughter The man dyed before the sin did live and when it had lived it consign'd him to dye eternally Adde to this that it so passes away that nothing at all remains behind it that is pleasant it is like the path of an arrow in the air the next morning no man can tell what is become of the pleasures of the last nights sin they are no where but in Gods books deposited in the conscience and sealed up against the day of dreadfull accounts but as to the man they are as if they never had been and then let it be considered what a horrible aggravation it will be to the miseries of damnation that a man shall for ever perish for that which if he looks round about he cannot see nor tell where it is He that dies dies for that which is not and in the very little present be findes it an unrewarding interest to walk seven dayes together over sharp stones only to see a place from whence he must come back in an hour If it goes off presently it is not worth the labour ifit stayes long it growes tedious so that it cannot be pleasant if it stayes and if it does stay it is not to be valued Haec mala mentis gaudia It abides too little a while to be felt or called pleasure and ifit should abide longer it would be troublesome as pain and loath'd like the tedious speech of an Orator pleading against the life of the innocent 9. Sin hath in its best advantages but a trifling inconsiderable pleasure because not only God and reason conscience and honour interest and lawes do sowre it in the sense and gust of pleasure but even the devill himself either being over-ruled by God or by a strange unsignificant malice makes it troublesome and intricate intangled and involv'd and one sin contradicts another and vexes the man with so great variety of evils that if in the course of Gods service he should meet with half the difficulty he would certainly give over the whole imployment Those that St. James speaks of who prayed that they might spend it upon their lusts were covetous and prodigall and therefore must endure the torments of one to have the pleasure of another and which is greater the pleasure of spending or the displeasure that it is spent and does not still remain after its consumption is easie to tell certain it is that this lasts much longer Does not the Devill often tempt men to
care but in the whole circle of sins there is not one wise proposition by which a man may conduct his affairs or himself become instructed to felicity This is the first naturall fruit of sin It makes a man a fool and this hurt sin does to the understanding and this is shame enough to that in which men are most apt to glory Sin naturally makes a man weak that is unapt to do noble things by which I do not understand a naturall disability for it is equally ready for a man to will good as evill and as much in the power of his hands to be lifted up in prayer to God as against his Brother in a quarrell and between a vertuous object and his faculties there is a more apt proportion then between his spirit and a vice and every act of grace does more please the minde then an act of sin does delight the sense and every crime does greater violence to the better part of man then mortification does to the lower and often times a duty consists in a negative as not to be drunk not to swear and it is not to be understood that a man hath naturally no power not to do if there be a naturall disability it is to action not to rest or ceasing and therefore in this case we cannot reasonably nor justly accuse our Nature but we have reason to blame our manners which have introduced upon us a morall disability that is not that the faculty is impotent and disabled but that the whole man is for the will in many cases desires to do good and the understanding is convinced and consents and the hand can obey and the passions can be directed and be instrumentall to Gods service but because they are not used to it the will finds a difficulty to do them so much violence and the understanding consents to their lower reasonings and the desires of the lower man do will stronger and then the whole man cannot do the duty that is expected There is a law in the members and he that gave that law is a tyrant and the subjects of that law are slaves and oftentimes their ear is bored and they love their fetters and desire to continue that bondage for ever The law is the law of sin the Devill is the tyrant custome is the sanction or the firmament of the law and every vicious man is a slave and chooses the vilest master and the basest of services and the most contemptible rewards Lex enim peccati est violentia consuetudinis quâ trahitur tenetur animus etiam invitus eo merito quo in eam volens illabitur said St. Austin The law of sin is the violence of custome which keep a mans minde against his minde because he entred willingly and gave up his own interest which he ought to have secur'd for his own felicity and for his service who gave for it an invaluable price And indeed in questions of vertue and vice there is no such thing as Nature or it is so inconsiderable that it hath in it nothing beyond an inclination which may be reverted and very often not so much nothing but a perfect indifferency we may if we will or we may choose but custome brings in a new nature and makes a Biass in every faculty To a vicious man some sins become necessary Temperance makes him sick severity is death to him it destroys his chearfulnesse and activity it is as his nature and the desire dwels for ever with him and his reasonings are framed for it and his fancy and in all he is helped by example by company by folly and inconsideration and all these are a faction and a confederacy against the honour and service of God And in this Philosophy is at a stand nothing can give an account of it but experience and sorrowfull instances for it is infinitely unreasonable that when you have discoursed wisely against unchastity and told that we are separated from it by a circumvallation of Lawes of God and man that it dishonours the body and makes the spirit caitive that it is fought against by arguments sent from all the corners of reason and religion and the man knows all this and beleeves it and prayes against his sin and hates himself for it and curses the actions of it yet oppose against all this but a fable or a merry story a proverb or a silly saying the sight of his mistresse or any thing but to lessen any one of the arguments brought against it and that man shall as certainly and clearly be determined to that sin as if he had on his side all the reason of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Custome does as much as Nature can doe it does sometimes more and superinduces a disposition contrary to our naturall temper Eudemus had so used his stomach to so unnaturall drinks that as himself tels the story he took in one day two and twenty potions in which Hellebore was infused and rose at noon and supp'd at night and felt no change So are those that are corrupted with evill customes nothing will purge them if you discourse wittily they hear you not or if they do they have twenty wayes to answer and twice twenty to neglect it if you perswade them to promise to leave their sin they do but shew their folly at the next temptation and tell that they did not mean it and if you take them at an advantage when their hearts are softned with a judgement or a fear with a shame or an indignation and then put the bars and locks of vowes upon them it is all one one vow shall hinder but one action and the appetite shall be doubled by the restraint and the next opportunity shall make an amends for the first omission or else the sin shall enter by parts the vow shall only put the understanding to make a distinction or to change the circumstance and under that colour the crime shall be admitted because the man is resolved to suppose the matter so dressed was not vowed against But then when that is done the understanding shall open that eye that did but wink before and see that it was the same thing and secretly rejoyce that it was so cousened for now the lock is open'd and the vow was broken against his will and the man is at liberty again because he did the thing at unawares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still he is willing to beleeve the sin was not formall vow-breach but now he sees he broke it materially and because the band is broken the yoke is in pieces therefore the next action shall go on upon the same stock of a single in quity without being afrighted in his conscience at the noise of perjury I wish we were all so innocent as not to understand the discourse but it uses to be otherwise Nam si discedas laqueo tenet ambitiost Consuetudo mali in agro corde senescit Custome hath waxen old in his
a new name written which no man knoweth but he that hath it And by this Godssheep at the day of judgement shall be discerned from goats If their spirits be presented to God pure and unblameable this great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this talent which God hath given to all Christians to improve in the banks of grace and of Religion if they bring this to God increased and grown up to the fulnesse of the measure of Christ for it is Christs Spirit and as it is in us it is called the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ then we shall be acknowledged for sons and our adoption shall passe into an eternall inheritance in the portion of our elder Brother I need not to apply this Discourse The very mystery it self is in the whole world the greatest engagement of our duty that is imaginable by the way of instrument and by the way of thankfulnesse Quisquis magna dedit voluit sibi magna rependi He that gives great things to us ought to have great acknowledgements and Seneca said concerning wise men That he that doth benefit to others hides those benefits as a man layes up great treasures in the earth which he must never see with his eyes unlesse a great occasion forces him to dig the graves and produce that which he buried but all the while the man was hugely rich and he had the wealth of a great relation so it is with God and us For this huge benefit of the Spirit which God gives us is for our good deposited in our souls not made for forms and ostentation not to be looked upon or serve little ends but growing in the secret of our souls and swelling up to a treasure making us in this world rich by title and relation but it shall be produced in the great necessities of doomesday In the mean time if the fire be quenched the fire of Gods Spirit God will kindle another in his anger that shall never be quenched but if we entertain Gods Spirit with our own purities and imploy it diligently and serve it willingly for Gods Spirit is a loving Spirit then we shall really be turned into spirits Irenaeus had a proverbiall saying Perfecti sunt qui tria sine querelâ Deo exhibent They that present three things right to God they are perfect that is a chast body a righteous soul and a holy spirit and the event shall be this which Maimonides expressed not amisse though he did not at all understand the secret of this mystery The soul of a man in this life is in potentiâ ad esse spiritum it is designed to be a spirit but in the world to come it shall be actually as very a spirit as an Angel is and this state is expressed by the Apostle calling it the earnest of the spirit that is here it is begun and given us as an antepast of glory and a principle of Grace but then we shall have it in plenitudine regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio Here and there it is the same but here we have the earnest there the riches and the inheritance But then if this be a new principle and be given us in order to the actions of a holy life we must take care that we receive not the Spirit of God in vain but remember it is a new life and as no man can pretend that a person is alive that doth not alwayes do the works of life so it is certain no man hath the Spirit of God but he that lives the life of grace and doth the works of the Spirit that is in all holinesse and justice and sobriety Spiritus qui accedit animo vel Dei est vel Daemonis said Tertullian Every man hath within him the Spirit of God or the spirit of the devil The spirit of fornication is an unclean devil and extremely contrary to the Spirit of God and so is the spirit of malice or uncharitablenesse for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of love for as by purities Gods Spirit sanctifies the body so by love he purifies the soul and makes the soul grow into a spirit into a Divine nature But God knows that even in Christian societies we see the devils walk up and down every day and every hour the devil of uncleannesse and the devil of drunkennesse the devil of malice and the devil of rage the spirit of filthy speaking and the spirit of detraction a proud spirit and the spirit of rebellion and yet all call Christian. It is generally supposed that unclean spirits walk in the night and so it used to be for they that are drunk are drunk in the night said the Apostle but Suidas tels of certain Empusae that used to appear at Noon at such time as the Greeks did celebrate the Funerals of the Dead and at this day some of the Russians fear the Noon-day Devil which appeareth like a mourning widow to reapers of hay and corn and uses to break their arms and legs unlesse they worship her The Prophet David speaketh of both kindes Thou shalt not be afraid for the terrour by night and a ruinâ daemonio meridiano from the Devil at noon thou shalt be free It were happy if we were so but besides the solemn followers of the works of darknesse in the times and proper seasons of darknesse there are very many who act their Scenes of darknesse in the face of the Sun in open defiance of God and all lawes and all modesty There is in such men the spirit of impudence as well as of impiety And yet I might have expressed it higher for every habituall sin doth not onely put us into the power of the devil but turns us into his very nature just as the Holy Ghost transforms us into the image of God Here therefore I have a greater Argument to perswade you to holy living then Moses had to the sons of Israel Behold I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing so said Moses but I adde that I have upon the stock of this Scripture set before you the good Spirit and the bad God and the devil choose unto whose nature you will be likened and into whose inheritance you will be adopted and into whose possession you will enter If you commit sin ye are of your father the Devil ye are begot of his principles and follow his pattern and shall passe into his portion when ye are led captive by him at his will and remember what a sad thing it is to go into the portion of evil and accursed spirits the sad and eternall portion of Devils But he that hath the Spirit of God doth acknowledge God for his Father and his Lord he despises the world and hath no violent appetites for secular pleasures and is dead to the desires of this life and his hopes are spirituall and God is his joy and Christ is his pattern and his support and Religion is his imployment and godlinesse
is his gain and this man understands the things of God and is ready to die for Christ and fears nothing but to sin against God and his will is filled with love and it springs out in obedience to God and in charity to his brother and of such a man we cannot make judgement by his fortune or by his acquaintance by his circumstances or by his adherencies for they are the appendages of a naturall man but the spirituall is judged of no man that is the rare excellencies that make him happy do not yet make him illustrious unlesse we will reckon Vertue to be a great fortune and holinesse to be great Wisedom and God to be the best Friend and Christ the best Relative and the Spirit the hugest advantage and Heaven the greatest Reward He that knows how to value these things may sit down and reckon the felicities of him that hath the Spirit of God The purpose of this Discourse is this That since the Spirit of God is a new nature and a new life put into us we are thereby taught and enabled to serve God by a constant course of holy living without the frequent returns and intervening of such actions which men are pleased to call sins of infirmity Whosoever hath the Spirit of God lives the life of grace The Spirit of God rules in him and is strong according to its age and abode and allows not of those often sins which we think unavoidable because we call them naturall infirmities But if Christ he in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousnesse The state of sin is a state of death the state of a man under the law was a state of bondage and infirmity as S. Paul largely describes him in the seventh Chapter to the Romanes but he that hath the Spirit is made alive and free and strong and a conquerour over all the powers and violencies of sin such a man resists temptations falls not under the assault of sin returns not to the sin which he last repented of acts no more that errour which brought him to shame and sorrow but he that falls under a crime to which he still hath a strong and vigorous inclination he that acts his sin and then curses it and then is tempted and then sins again and then weeps again and calls himself miserable but still the inchantment hath confined him to that circle this man hath not the Spirit for where the Spirit of God is there is liberty there is no such bondage and a returning folly to the commands of sin But because men deceive themselves with calling this bondage a pitiable and excusable infirmity it will not be uselesse to consider the state of this question more particularly lest men from the state of a pretended infirmity fall into a reall death 1. No great sin is a sin of infirmity or excusable upon that stock But that I may be understood we must know that every sin is in some sense or other a sin of infirmity When a man is in the state of spirituall sicknesse or death he is in a state of infirmity for he is a wounded man a prisoner a slave a sick man weak in his judgement and weak in his reasoning impotent in his passions of childish resolutions great inconstancy and his purposes untwist as easily as the rude conjuncture of uncombining cables in the violence of a Northern tempest and he that is thus in infirmity cannot be excused for it is the aggravation of the state of his sin he is so infirm that he is in a state unable to do his duty Such a man is a servant of sin a slave of the Devil an heir of corruption absolutely under command and every man is so who resolves for ever to avoid such a sin and yet for ever falls under it for what can he be but a servant of sin who fain would avoid it but cannot that is he hath not the Spirit of God within him Christ dwels not in his soul for where the Son is there is liberty and all that are in the Spirit are sons of God and servants of righteousnesse and therefore freed from sin But then there are also sins of infirmity which are single actions intervening seldom in litle instances unavoidable or through a faultlesse ignorance Such as these are alwayes the allays of the life of the best men and for these Christ hath payd and they are never to be accounted to good men save onely to make them more wary and more humble Now concerning these it is that I say No great sin is a sin of excusable or unavoidable infirmity Because whosoever hath received the Spirit of God hath sufficient knowledge of his duty and sufficient strengths of grace and sufficient advertency of minde to avoid such things as do great and apparent violence to piety and religion No man can justly say that it is a sin of infirmity that he was drunk For there are but three causes of every sin a fourth is not imaginable 1. If ignorance cause it the sin is as full of excuse as the ignorance was innocent But no Christian can pretend this to drunkennesse to murder to rebellion to uncleannesse For what Christian is so uninstructed but that he knows Adultery is a sin 2. Want of observation is the cause of many indiscreet and foolish actions Now at this gap many irregularities do enter and escape because in the whole it is impossible for a man to be of so present a spirit as to consider and reflect upon every word and every thought but it is in this case in Gods laws otherwise then in mans the great flies cannot passe thorow without observation little ones do and a man cannot be drunk and never take notice of it or tempt his neighbours wife before he be aware therefore the lesse the instance be the more likely it is to be a sin of infirmity and yet if it be never so little if it be observed then it ceases to be a sin of infirmity 3. But because great crimes cannot pretend to passe undiscernably it follows that they must come in at the door of malice that is of want of Grace in the absence of the Spirit they destroy where ever they come and the man dies if they passe upon him It is true there is flesh and blood in every regenerate man but they do not both rule the flesh is left to tempt but not to prevail And it were a strange condition if both the godly and the ungodly were captives to sin and infallibly should fall into temptation and death without all difference saue onely that the godly sins unwillingly and the ungodly sins willingly But if the same things be done by both and God in both be dishonoured and their duty prevaricated the pretended unwillingnesse is the signe of a greater and a baser slavery and of a condition lesse to be endured For the servitude which is
as Dion said of Caracalla 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The man was troublesome to all good men when they were alive but did them honour when they were dead And when Herod had killed Aristobulus yet he made him a most magnificent funeral because the Pharisees were of the same humor therefore our blessed Saviour bids them to filup the measure of their Fathers iniquity for they still continued the malice onely they painted it over with a pretence of piety and of disavowing their Fathers sin which if they had done really they being children of persecutors and much lesse could the adorning of the Prophets sepulchres have been just cause of a wo from christ this being an act of piety and the other of nature inevitable and not chosen by them and therefore not chargable upon them He therefore that will to reall purposes disavow his Fathers crimes must do it heartily and humbly and charitably and throw off all affections to the like actions For he that findes fault with his Father for killing Isaiah or Jeremy and himself shall kill Aristohulus and John the Baptist he that is angry because the old Prophets were murdered and shall imprison and begger and destroy the new ones He that disavows the persecution in the primitive times and honours the memory of the dead Martyrs and yet every day makes new ones He that blames the oppression of the Country by any of his predecessors and yet shall continue to oppresse his Tenants and all that are within his gripe that man cannot hope to be eased from the curse of his Fathers sins He goes on to imitate them and therefore to fill up their measure and to reap a full treasure of wrath 3. But concerning the third there is yet more difficulty Those sons that inherit their Fathers sins by possessing the price of their Fathers souls that is by enjoying the goods gotten by their Fathers rapine may certainly quit the inheritance of the curse if they quit the purchase of the sin that is if they pay their Fathers debts his debts of contract and his debts of justice his debts of entercourse and his debts of oppression I do not say that every man is bound to restore all the land which his Ancestors have unjustly snatched for when by law the possession is established though the Grandfather entred like a thief yet the Grand-child is bonae fidei possessor and may enjoy it justly and the reasons of this are great and necessary for the avoiding eternal suites and perpetual diseases of rest and conscience because there is no estate in the world that could be enjoyed by any man honestly if posterity were bound to make restitution of all the wrongs done by their progenitors But although the children of the far removed lines are not obliged to restitution yet others are and some for the same some for other reasons 1. Sons are tied to restore what their Fathers did usurpe or to make agreement and an acceptable recompence for it if the case be visible evident and notorious and the oppressed party demands it because in this case the law hath not setled the possession in the new tenant or if a judge hath it is by injury and there is yet no collateral accidental title transferred by long possession as it is in other cases and therefore if the son continues to oppresse the same person whom his Father first injured he may well expect to be the heire of his Fathers curse as well as of his cursed purchase 2. Whether by law and justice or not the person be obliged nay although by all the solemnities of law the unjust purchase be established and that in conscience the Grand-children be not obliged to restitution in their own particulars but may continue to enjoy it without a new sin yet if we see a curse descending upon the family for the old oppression done in the dayes of our Grandfathers or if we probpably suspect that to be the cause then if we make restitution we also most certainly remove the curse because we take away the matter upon which the curse is grounded I do not say we sin if we do not restore but that if we do not we may still be punished The reason of this is clear and visible For as without our faults in many cases we may enjoy those lands which our forefathers got unjustly so without our faults we may be punished for them For as they have transmitted the benefit to us it is but reasonable we should suffer the appendant calamity If we receive good we must also venture the evil that comes along withit res transit cum suo onere All lands and possessions passe with their proper burdens And if any of my Ancestors was a Tenant and a servant and held his lands as a Villane to his Lord his posterity also must do so though accidentally they become noble The case is the same If my Ancestors entred unjustly there is a curse and a plague that is due to that oppression and injustice and that is the burden of the land and it descends all along with it And although I by the consent of laws am a just possessor yet I am obliged to the burden that comes with the land I am indeed anotherkinde of person then my Grand-father he was an usurper but I am a just possessor but because in respect of the land this was but an accidentall change therefore I still am liable to the burden and the curse that descends with it but the way to take off the curse is to quit the title and yet a man may choose It may be to loose the land would be the bigger curses but if it be not the way is certain how you may be rid of it * There was a custome among the Greeks that the children of them that dyed of consumptions or dropsies all the while their Fathers bodies were burning in their funeral piles did sit with their feet in cold water hoping that such a lustration and ceremony would take off the lineal and descending contagion from the children I know not what cure they found by their superstition but we may be sure that if we wash not our feet but our hands of all the unjust purchases which our Fathers have transmitted to us their hydropick thirst of wealth shall not transmit to us a consumption of estate or any other curse But this remedy is onely in the matter of injury or oppression not in the case of other sins because other sins were transient and as the guilt did not passe upon the children so neither did the exteriour and permanent effect and therefore in other sins in case they do derive a curse it cannot be removed as in the matter of unjust possession it may be whose effect we may so order it shall no more stick to us then the guilt of our fathers personal actions The summe is this As Kingdoms use to expiate the faults of others by acts of justice and
power And when God destroyed the old world in that also he glorified himself for in those waters he saw the image of his justice they were the looking glasse for that Attribute and God is said to laugh at and rejoyce in the destruction of a sinner because he is pleased with the Oeconomy of his own lawes and the excellent proportions he hath made of his judgements consequent to our sins But above all God rejoyced in his Holy Son for he was the image of the Divinity the character and expresse image of his person in him he beheld his own Essence his wisedom his power his justice and his person and he was that excellent instrument designed from eternall ages to represent as in a double mirrour not onely the glories of God to himself but also to all the world and he glorified God by the instrument of obedience in which God beheld his own dominion and the sanctity of his lawes clearly represented and he saw his justice glorified when it was fully satisfied by the passion of his Son and so he hath transmitted to us a great manner of the Divine glorification being become to us the Authour and the Example of giving glory to God after the manner of men that is by well-doing and patient suffering by obeying his lawes and submitting to his power by imitating his holinesse and confessing his goodnesse by remaining innocent or becoming penitent for this also is called in the Text GIVING GLORY TO THE LORD OUR GOD. For he that hath dishonoured God by sins that is hath denied by a morall instrument of duty and subordination to confesse the glories of his power and the goodnesse of his lawes and hath dishonoured and despised his mercy which God intended as an instrument of our piety hath no better way to glorifie God then by returning to his duty to advance the honour of the Divine Attributes in which he is pleased to communicate himself and to have entercourse with man He that repents confesses his own errour and the righteousnesse of Gods lawes and by judging himself confesses that he deserves punishment and therefore that God is righteous if he punishes him and by returning confesses God to be the fountain of felicity and the foundation of true solid and permanent joyes saying in the sense and passion of the Disciples Whither shall we go for thou hast the words of eternall life and by humbling himself exalts God by making the proportions of distance more immense and vast and as repentance does contain in it all the parts of holy life which can be performed by a returning sinner all the acts and habits of vertue being but parts or instances or effects of repentance so all the actions of a holy life do constitute the masse and body of all those instruments whereby God is pleased to glorifie himself * For if God is glorified in the Sunne and Moon in the rare fabrick of the honey-combs in the discipline of Bees in the oeconomy of Pismires in the little houses of birds in the curiosity of an eye God being pleased to delight in those little images and reflexes of himself from those pretty mirrours which like a crevice in a wall thorow a narrow perspective transmit the species of a vast excellency much rather shall God be pleased to behold himself in the glasses of our obedience in the emissions of our will and understanding these being rationall and apt instruments to expresse him farre better then the naturall as being neerer communications of himself But I shall no longer discourse of the Philosophy of this expression certain it is that in the stile of Scripture repentance is the great glorification of God and the Prophet by calling the people to give God glory calls upon them to repent and so expresses both the duty and the event of it the event being Glory to God on high and peace on earth and good will towards men by the sole instrument of repentance And this was it which Joshuah said to Achan Give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him that one act of repentance is one act of glorifying God and this David acknowledged Against thee onely have I sinned ut tu justificeris that thou mightest be justified or cleared that is that God may have the honour of being righteous and we the shame of receding from so excellent a perfection or as S. Paul quotes and explicates the place Let God be true and every man a liar as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome when thou art judged But to clear the sense of this expression of the Prophet observe the words of S. John and men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God who hath power over those plagues and they repented not to give him glory So that having strength and reason from these so many authorities I may be free to read the words of my Text thus Repent of all your sins before God cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and then we have here the duty of repentance and the time of its performance it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a seasonable and timely repentance a repentance which must begin before our darknesse begin a repentance in the day time ut dum dies est operemini that ye may work while it is to day lest if we stumble upon the dark mountains that is fall into the ruines of old age which makes a broad way narrow and a plain way to be a craggy mountain or if we stumble and fall into our last sicknesse instead of health God send us to our grave and instead of light and salvation which we then confidently look for he make our state to be outer darknesse that is misery irremediable misery eternall This exhortation of the Prophet was alwayes full of caution and prudence but now it is highly necessary since men who are so clamorously called to repentance that they cannot avoid the necessity of it yet that they may reconcile an evil life with the hopes of heaven have crowded this duty into so little room that it is almost strangled and extinct and they have lopped off so many members that they have reduced the whole body of it to the dimensions of a little finger sacrificing their childhood to vanity their youth to lust and to intemperance their manhood to ambition and rage pride and revenge secular desires and unholy actions and yet still further giving their old age to covetousnesse and oppression to the world and to the Devil and after all this what remains for God and for Religion Oh for that they wll do well enough upon their death-bed they will think a few godly thoughts they will send for a Priest to minister comfort to them they will pray and ask God forgivenesse and receive the holy Sacrament and leave their goods behinde them disposing them to
a man should depart this world in one of those godly fits as he thinks them he is no neerer to obtain his blessed hope then a man in the stone collick is to health when his pain is eased for the present his disease still remaining and threatning an unwelcome return That resolution onely is the beginning of a holy repentance which goes forth into act and whose acts enlarge into habits and whose habits are productive of the fruits of a holy life From hence we are to take our estimate whence our resolutions of piety must commence He that resolves not to live well till the time comes that he must die is ridiculous in his great designe as he is impertinent in his intermedial purposes and vain in his hope Can a dying man to any real effect resolve to be chast for vertue must be an act of election and chastity is the contesting against a proud and an imperious lust active flesh and insinuating temptation And what doth he resolve against who can no more be tempted to the sin of unchastity then he can returne back again to his youth and vigour And it is considerable that since all the purposes of a holy life which a dying man can make cannot be reduced to act by what law or reason or covenant or revelation are we taught to distinguish the resolution of a dying man from the purposes of a living and vigorous person Suppose a man in his youth and health mooved by consideration of the irregularity and deformity of sin the danger of its productions the wrath and displeasure of Almightie God should resolve to leave the puddles of impurity and walk in the paths of righteousnesse can this resolution alone put him into the state of grace is he admitted to pardon and the favour of God before he hath in some measure performed actually what he so reasonably hath resolved By no means For resolution and purpose is in its own nature and constitution an imperfect act and therefore can signifie nothing without its performance and consummation It is as a faculty is to the act as spring is to the harvest as seed time is to the Autumne as Egges are to birds or as a relative to its correspondent nothing without it And can it be imagined that a resolution in our health and life shall be ineffectual without performance and shall a resolution barely such do any Good upon our deathbed Can such purposes prevail against a long impiety rather then against a young and a newly begun state of sin Will God at an easier rate pardon the sins of fifty or sixty yeers then the sins of our youth onely or the iniquity of five yeers or ten If a holy life be not necessary to be liv'd why shall it be necessary to resolve to live it But if a holy life be necessary then it cannot be sufficient meerly to resolve it unlesse this resolution go forth in an actuall and reall service Vain therefore is the hope of those persons who either go on in their sins before their last sicknesse never thinking to return into the wayes of God from whence they have wandred all their life never renewing their resolutions and vows of holy living or if they have yet their purposes are for ever blasted with the next violent temptation More prudent was the prayer of David Oh spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen And something like it was the saying of the Emperour Charles the fifth Inter vitae negotia mortis diem oportet spacium intercedere When ever our holy purposes are renewed unlesse God gives us time to act them to mortifie and subdue our lusts to conquer and subdue the whole kingdom of sin to rise from our grave and be clothed with nerves and flesh and a new skin to overcome our deadly sicknesses and by little and little to return to health and strength unlesse we have grace and time to do all this our sins will lie down with us in our graves * For when a man hath contracted a long habit of sin and it hath been growing upon him ten or twenty fourty or fifty yeers whose acts he hath daily or hourly repeated and they are grown to a second nature to aim and have so prevailed upon the ruines of his spirit that the man is taken captive by the Devil at his will he is fast bound as a slave tugging at the oar that he is grown in love with his fetters and longs to be doing the work of sin is it likely that all this progresse and groweth in sin in the wayes of which he runs fast without any impediment is it I say likely that a few dayes or weeks of sicknesse can recover him the especiall hindrances of that state I shall afterwards consider but Can a man be supposed so prompt to piety and holy living a man I mean that hath lived wickedly a long time together can he be of so ready and active a vertue upon the sudden as to recover in a moneth or a week what he hath been undoing in 20 or 30 yeers Is it so easie to build that a weak and infirm person bound hand and foot shall be able to build more in three dayes then was a building above fourty yeers Christ did it in a figurative sence but in this it is not in the power of any man so suddenly to be recovered from so long a sicknesse Necessary therefore it is that all these instruments of our conversion Confession of sins praying for their pardon and resolutions to lead a new life should begin before our feet slum le upon the dark mountains lest we leave the work onely resolved upon to be begun which it is necessary we should in many degrees finish if ever we mean to escape the eternall darknesse For that we should actually abolish the whole body of sin and death that we should crucifie the old man with his lusts that we should lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us that we should cast away the works of darknesse that we should awake from sleep and arise from death that we should redeem the time that we should cleanse our hands and purifie our hearts that we should have escaped the corruption all the corruption that is in the whole world through lust that nothing of the old leaven should remain in us but that we be wholly a new lump throughly transformed and changed in the image of our minde these are the perpetuall precepts of the Spirit and the certain duty of man and that to have all these in purpose onely is meerly to no purpose without the actuall eradication of every vitious habit and the certain abolition of every criminall adherence is clearly and dogmatically decreed every where in the Scripture For they are the words of Saint Paul they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts the work
the longest and latest before it be obtained A man does not begin to know him self till he be old and then he is well stricken in death A mans heart at first being like a plain table unspotted indeed but then there is nothing legible in it As soon as ever we ripen towards the imperfect uses of our reason we write upon this table such crooked characters such imperfect configurations so many fooleries and stain it with so many blots and vitious inspersions that there is nothing worth the reading in our hearts for a great while and when education and ripenesse reason and experience Christian philosophy and the grace of God hath made fair impressions and written the law in our hearts with the finger of Gods holy spirit we blot out this handwriting of Gods ordinances or mingle it with false principles and interlinings of our our own we disorder the method of God or deface the truth of God either we make the rule uneven we bribe or abuse our guide that we may wonder with an excuse Or if nothing else will do it we turn head and professe to go against the laws of God Our Hearts are blinde or our hearts are hardned for these are two great arguments of the wickednesse of our hearts they do not see or they will not see the wayes of God or if they do they make use of their seeing that they may avoid them 1. Our hearts are blinde wilfully blind I need not instance in the ignorance and involuntary nescience of men though if we speak of the necessary parts of religion no man is ignorant of them without his own fault such ignorance is alwayes a direct sin or the direct punishment of a sin A sin is either in its bosom or in its retinue But the ignorance that I now intend is a voluntary chosen delightful ignorance taken in upon designe even for no other end but that we may perish quietly and infallibly God hath opened all the windows of Heaven and sent the Sun of Righteousnesse with glorious apparition and hath discoverd the abysses of his own wisdom made the second person in the Trinity to be the doctor and preacher of his sentences and secrets and the third person to be his Amanuensis or scribe and our hearts to be the Book in which the doctrine is written and miracles and prophecies to be its arguments and all the world to be the verification of it and those leaves contain within their folds all that excellent morality which right reason pickt up after the shipwrack of nature and all those wise sayings which singly made so many men famous for preaching some one of them all them Christ gathered and added some more out of the immediate book of Revelation So that now the wisdom of God hath made every mans heart to be the true Veronica in which he hath imprinted his own lineaments so perfectly that we may dresse our selves like God and have the aire and features of Christ our Elder-Brother that we may be pure as God is perfect as our Father meek and humble as the Son and may have the holy Ghost within us in gifts and Graces in wisdom and holinesse This hath God done for us and see what we do for Him We stand in our own light and quench Gods we love darknesse more then light and entertain our selves accordingly For how many of us are there that understand nothing of the wayes of God that know no more of the laws of Jesus Christ then is remaining upon them since they learned the childrens Catechisme But amongst a thousand how many can explicate and unfold for his own practise the ten Commandments And how many sorts of sins are there forbidden which therefore passe into action and never passe under the scrutinies of repentance because they know not that they are sinnes Are there not very many who know not the particular duties of meeknesse and never consider concerning Longsuffering and if you talk to them of growth in Grace or the spirit of obsignation or the melancholy lectures of the Crosse and imitation of and conformitie to Christs sufferings or adherences to God or rejoycing in him or not quenching the spirit you are too deep learned for them And yet these are duties set down plainly for our practise necessary to be acted in order to our Salvation We brag of light and reformation and fulnesse of the spirit in the mean time we understand not many parts of our dutie We enquire into something that may make us talk or be talked of or that we may trouble a Church or disturb the peace of mindes but in things that concern Holy living and that wisdom of God whereby we are wise unto Salvation never was any age of Christendom more ignorant then we For if we did not wink hard we must needs see that obedience to supreme Powers Denying of our selves Humility Peacefulnesse and Charity are written in such Capital text letters that it is impossible to be ignorant of them And if the heart of man had not rare arts to abuse the understanding it were not to be imagined that any man should bring the 13. Chapter to the Romans to prove the lawfulnesse of taking up Armes against our rulers but so we may abuse our selves at noon and go to bed if we please to call it midnight And there have been a sort of wittie men that maintained that snow was hot I wonder not at the probleme but that a man should beleeve his paradox and should let eternity go away with the fallacie and rather lose heaven then leave his foolish argument is a signe that wilfulnesse and the deceiving heart is the Sophister and the great ingredient into our Deception But that I may be more particular the heart of man uses devices that it may be ignorant 1. We are impatient of honest and severe reproofe and order the circumstances of our persons and addresses that we shall never come to the true knowledge of our condition Who will endure to heare his curate tell him that he is Covetous or that he is proud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Calumny and Reviling if he speak it to his head and relates to his person and yet if he speak onely in general every man neglects what is not recommended to his particular But yet if our Physitian tell us you look well Sir but a Feaver lurks in your spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drink Julips and abstain from flesh no man thinks it shame or calumny to be told so but when we are told that our liver is inflamed with lust or anger that our heart is vexed with envie that our eyes rowl with wantonnesse And though we think all is well yet we are sick sick unto death neer to a sad and fatal sentence we shall think that man that tells us so is impudent or uncharitable and yet he hath done him no more injury then a deformed man receives daily from his looking-glasse which
ugly or a deformed person and yet will give a great price for a picture extreamly like him Humility is despised in substance but courted and admired in effigie And Aesops picture was sold two talents when himself was made a slave at the price of two Philippicks And because Humility makes a man to be honoured Therefore we imitate all its garbs and postures its civilities and silence its modesties and condescensions And to prove that we are extreamly proud in the midst of all this pagentry we should be extreamly angry at any man that should say we are proud And that 's a sure signe we are so And in the middest of all our Arts to seem Humble we use devices to bring our selves into talk we thrust our selves into company we listen at doors and like the great Beards in Rome that pretended Philosophy and strict life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We walk by the Obelisk and meditate in Piazza's that they that meet us may talk of us and they that follow may cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold there goes an excellent man He is very prudent or very learned or a charitable person or a good housekeeper or at least very Humble The Heart of man is deeply in love with wickednesse and with nothing else Against not onely the Lawes of God but against his own Reason it s own Interest and its own Securities For is it imaginable that a man who knows the Lawes of God the rewards of Vertue the cursed and horrid effects of sin that knows and considers and deeply sighes at the thought of the intolerable pains of Hell that knowes the joyes of Heaven to be unspeakable and that concerning them there is no temptation but that they are too big for man to hope for And yet he certainly beleeves that a holy life shall infallibly attain thither Is it I say imaginable that this man should for a transient Action forfeit all this Hope and certainly and knowing incur all that calamity Yea but the sin is pleasant and the man is clothed with flesh and blood and their appetites are materiall and importunate and present And the discourses of Religion are concerning things spirituall separate and apt for spirits Angels and souls departed To take off this also We will suppose the man to consider and really to beleeve that the pleasure of the sin is sudden vain empty and transient that it leaves bitternesse upon the tongue before it is descended into the bowels that there it is poison and makes the Belly to swell and the Thigh to rot That he remembers and actually considers that as soon as the moment of sin is past he shall have an intolerable Conscience and does at the instant compare moments with Eternity and with horrour remembers that the very next minute he is as miserable a man as is in the world Yet that this man should sin Nay suppose the sin to have no pleasure at all such as is the sin of swearing Nay suppose it really to have pain in it such as is the sin of Envy which never can have pleasure in its actions but much torment and consumption of the very heart What should make this man sin so for nothing so against himself so against all Reason and Religion and Interest without pleasure for no reward Here the heart betrayes it self to be desperately wioked What man can give a reasonable account of such a man who to prosecute his revenge will do himself an injury that he may do a lesse to him that troubles him Such a man hath given me ill language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My head akes not for his language nor hath he broken my thigh nor carried away my land But yet this man must be requited Well suppose that But then let it be proportionable you are not undone let not him be so Oh yes for else my revenge triumphs not Well if you do yet remember he will defend himself or the Law will right him at least do not do wrong to your self by doing him wrong This were but Prudence and self-Interest And yet we see that the heart of some men hath betrayed them to such furiousnesse of Appetite as to make them willing to die that their enemie may be buried in the same Ruines Jovius Pontanus tells of an Italian slave I think who being enraged against his Lord watched his absence from home and the employment and inadvertency of his fellow-servants he locked the doors and secured himself for a while and Ravished his Lady then took her three sons up to the battlements of the house and at the return of his Lord threw one down to him upon the pavement and then a second to rend the heart of their sad Father seeing them weltring in their blood and brains The Lord begd for his third and now his onely Son promising pardon and libertie if he would spare his life The slave seemed to bend a little and on condition his Lord would cut off his own Nose he would spare his Son The sad Father did so being willing to suffer any thing rather then the losse of that Childe But as soon as he saw his Lord all bloody with his wound he threw the third Son and himself down together upon the Pavement The story is sad enough and needs no lustre and advantages of sorrow to represent it But if a man sets himself down and considers sadly he cannot easily tell upon what sufficient inducement or what principle the slave should so certainly so horridly so presently and then so eternally ruine himself What could he propound to himself as a recompence to his own so immediate Tragedy There is not in the pleasure of the revenge nor in the nature of the thing any thing to tempt him we must confesse our ignorance and say that The Fleart of man is desperately wicked and that is the truth in generall but we cannot fathom it by particular comprehension For when the heart of man is bound up by the grace of God and tied in golden bands and watched by Angels tended by those Nurse-keepers of the soul it is not easie for a man to wander And the evil of his heart is but like the ferity and wildnesse of Lyons-whelps But when once we have broken the hedge and got into the strengths of youth and the licenciousnesse of an ungoverned age it is wonderfull to observe what a great inundation of mischief in a very short time will overflow all the banks of Reason and Religion Vice first is pleasing then it grows easie then delightfull then frequent then habituall then confirmed then the man is impenitent then he is obstinate then he resolves never to Repent and then he is Damned And by that time he is come half way in this progresse he confutes the Philosophy of the old Moralists For they not knowing the vilenesse of mans Heart not considering its desperate amazing Impiety knew no other degree of wickednesse but This That men preferred Sense
be expected from them For who are fit to be hangmen and executioners of publike wrath but evil and ungodly persons And can it be a wonder that they whose cause wants reason should betake themselves to the sword that what he cannot perswade he may wrest onely we must not judge of the things of God by the measures of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of men have this world for their stage and their reward but the things of God relate to the world to come and for our own particulars we are to be guided by rule and by the end of all not by events intermedial which are varied by a thousand irregular causes For if all the evil men in the world were unprosperous as most certainly they are and if all good persons were temporally blessed as most certainly they are not yet this would not move us to become vertuous If an angel should come from heaven or one arise from the dead and preach repentance or justice and temperance all this would be ineffectuall to those to whom the plain doctrines of God delivered in the Law and the Prophets will not suffice For why should God work a signe to make us to beleeve that we ought to do justice if we already beleeve he hath commanded it no man can need a miracle for the confirmation of that which he already beleeves to be the command of God And when God hath expressely bidden us to obey every ordinance of man for the Lords sake the King as supreme and his deputies as sent by him It is a strange infidelity to think that a rebellion against the ordinance of God can be sanctified by successe and prevalency of them that destroy the authority and the person and the law and the religion The sin cannot grow to its height if it be crushed at the beginning unlesse it prosper in its progresse a man cannot easily fill up the measure of his iniquity but then that the sin swels to its fulnesse by prosperity and grows too big to be suppressed without a miracle it is so far from excusing or lessening the sin that nothing doth so nurse the sin as it It is not vertue because it is prosperous but if it had not been prosperous the sin could never be so great Facere omnia saevè Non impunè licet nisi dum facis A little crime is sure to smart but when the sinner is grown rich and prosperous and powerfull he gets impunity Jusque datum sceleri But that 's not innocence and if prosperity were the voice of God to approve an action then no man were vitious but he that is punished and nothing were rebellion but that which cannot be easily suppressed and no man were a Pirate but he that robs with a little vessell and no man could be a Tyrant but he that is no prince and no man an unjust invader of his neighbours rights but he that is beaten and overthrown Then the crime grows big and loud then it calls to Heaven for vengeance when it hath been long a growing when it hath thrived under the Devils managing when God hath long suffered it and with patience in vain expecting the repentance of a sinner he that treasures up wrath against the day of wrath that man hath been a prosperous that is an unpunished and a thriving sinner but then it is the sin that thrives not the man and that is the mistake upon this whole question for the sin cannot thrive unlesse the man goes on without apparent punishment and restraint And all that the man gets by it is that by a continual course of sin he is prepared for an intollerable ruine The Spirit of God bids us look upon the end of these men not the way they walk or the instrument of that pompous death When Epaminondas was asked which of the three was happiest himself Chalrias or Iphicrates bid the man stay till they were all dead for till then that question could not be answered He that had seen the Vandals besiege the city of Hippo and have known the barbarousnesse of that unchristned people and had observed that S. Augustine withall his prayers and vows could not obtain peace in his own dayes not so much as a reprieve for the persecution and then had observed S. Augustine die with grief that very night would have perceived his calamity more visible then the reward of his piety and holy religion When Lewis sirnamed Pius went his voyage to Palestine upon a holy end and for the glory of God to fight against the Saracens and Turks and Mamalukes the world did promise to themselves that a good cause should thrive in the hands of so holy a man but the event was far otherwise his brother Robert was killed and his army destroyed and himself taken prisoner and the money which by his Mother was sent for his redemption was cast away in a storm and he was exchanged for the last town the Christians had in Egypt and brought home the crosse of Christ upon his shoulder in a real pressure and participation of his Masters sufferings When Charles the fifth went to Algier to suppresse pirates and unchristned villains the cause was more confident then the event was prosperous and when he was almost ruined in a prodigious storme he told the minutes of the clock expecting that at midnight when religious persons rose to Mattins he should be eased by the benefit of their prayers but the providence of God trod upon those waters and left no footstoops for discovery his navie was beat in pieces and his designe ended in dishonour and his life almost lost by the bargain Was ever cause more baffled then the Christian cause by the Turks in all Asia and Africa and some parts of Europe if to be persecuted and afflicted be reckoned a calamity What prince was ever more unfortunate then Henry the sixt of England and yet that age saw none more pious and devout and the title of the house of Lancaster was advanced against the right of York for three descents but then what was the end of these things the persecuted men were made Saints and their memories are preserved in honour and their souls shall reigne for ever and some good men were ingaged in a wrong cause and the good cause was sometimes managed by evil men till that the suppressed cause was lifted up by God in the hands of a young and prosperous prince and at last both interests were satisfied in the conjunction of two roses which was brought to issue by a wonderful chain of causes managed by the divine providence and there is no age no history no state no great change in the world but hath ministred an example of an afflicted truth and a prevailing sin For I will never more call that sinner prosperous who after he hath been permitted to finish his businesse shall die and perish miserably for at the same rate we may envie the happinesse of a poor fisherman who
and hope is his anchor and deathis his harbour and Christ is his pilot and heaven is his countrey and all the evils of poverty or affronts of tribunals and evil judges of sears and sadder apprehensions are but like the loud wind blowing from the right point they make a noise and drive faster to the harbour and if we do not leave the ship and leap into the sea quit the interests of religion and run to the securities of the world cut our cables and dissolve our hopes grow impatient and hug a wave and die in its embraces we are as safe at sea safer in the storm which God sends us then in a calm when we are be friended with the world 2. But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may also signifie raro If the righteous is seldom safe which implyes that sometimes he is even in a temporal sense God sometimes sends Halcy on dayes to his Church and when he promised Kings and Queens to be their nurses he intended it for a blessing and yet this blessing does of tenimes so ill succeed that it is the greater blessing of the two not to give us that blessing too freely but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this is scarcly done and yet sometimes it is and God sometimes refreshes languishing piety with such arguments as comply with our infirmities and though it be a shame to us to need such allectives and infant gauds such which the heathen world and the first rudiments of the Israelites did need God who pitties us and will be wanting in nothing to us as he corroborates our willing spirits with proper entertainments so also he supports our weak flesh and not onely cheers an afflicted soul with beams of light and antepasts and earnests of glory but is kinde also to our man of flesh and weaknesse and to this purpose he sends thunder-bolts from heaven upon evil men dividing their tongues infatuating their counsels cursing their posterity and ruining their families 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sometimes God destroyes their armies or their strong holds Sometimes breakes their ships but this happens either for the weaknesse of some of his servants and their too great aptnesse to be offended at a prosperous iniquity or when he will not suffer the evil to grow too great or for some end of his providence and yet if this should be very often or last long God knows the danger and vve should feel the inconvenience Of all the types of Christ onely Joshuah and Solomon vvere noted to be generally prosperous and yet the fortune of the first was to be in perpetual vvar and danger but the other vvas as himself could vvish it rich and peaceful and powerful and healthful and learned and beloved and strong and amoróus and voluptuous and so he fell and though his fall was yet his recovery vvas not upon record And yet the vvorst of evils that happen to the godly is better temporally better then the greatest eternal felicity of the wicked that in all senses the question may be considerable and argumentative If the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly appear if it be hard with good men with the evil it shall be far worse But see the difference The godly man is timorous and yet safe tossed by the seas and yet safe at anchor impaired by evil accidents and righted by divine comforts made sad with a black cloud and refreshed with a more gentle influence abused by the world and yet an heir of heaven hated by men and beloved by God loses one house and gets an hundred he quits a convenient lodging room and purchases a glorious countrey is forsaken by his friends but never by a good conscience he fares hardly and sleeps sweetly he flies from his enemies but hath no distracting fears he is full of thought but of no amazement It is his businesse to be troubled and his portion to be comforted he hath nothing to afflict him but the losse of that which might be his danger but can never be his good and in the recompence of this he hath God for his father Christ for his captain the holy Ghost for his supporter so that he shall have all the good which God can give him and of all that good he hath the holy Trinity for an earnest and a gage for his maintenance at the present and his portion to all eternity But though Paul and Silas sing psalms in prison and under the hang-mans whips and in an earth-quake yet neither the Jaylor nor the persecuting Magistrates could do so For the prosperitie of the wicked is like a winters sun or the joy of a condemned drunkard it is a forgetfulnesse of his present danger and his future sorrows nothing but imginary arts of inadvertency he sits in the gates of the city and judges others and is condemned himself he is honoured by the passers by and is thought happy but he sighs deeply he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them he commands an army and is him self a slave to his passions he sleeps because he needs it and starts from his uneasie pillows which his thoughtful head hath discomposed when he is waking he dreames of greatnesse when he sleeps he dreams of spectars and illusions he spoils a poor man of his lamb and himself of his innocence and peace and in every unjust purchase himself is the greatest loser 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For just upon his oppression or injustice he is turned a Devil and Gods enemy a wolf to his brother a greedy admirer of the baâ—â—s of fishes and the bread of dogs he is unsafe by reason of his sin for he hath against him the displeasure of God the justice of the laws the shame of the sin the revenge of the injured person and God and men the laws of nations and private societies stand upon their defence against this man he is unsafe in his rest amazed in his danger troubled in his labours weary in his change esteemed a base man disgraced and scorned feared and hated flattered and derided watched and suspected and it may be dies in the middle of his purchase and at the end is a fool and leaves a curse to his posterity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He leaves a generation of blacker children behinde him so the Poet describes the cursednesse of their posterity and their memory sits down to eternal ages in dishonour and by this time let them cast up their accounts and see if of all their violent purchases they carry any thing with them to the grave but sin and a guilty conscience and a polluted soul the anger of God and the shame of men and what help shall all those persons give to thee in thy flames who divide and scatter that estate for which thou diedst for ever Andire est operae pretium procedere recte Qui maechis non vultis ut omni parte laborent
to passe from thence and as it is in the natural so it is in the spiritual nothing but the union of faith and obedience can secure our regeneration and our new birth and can bring us to see the light of heaven but there are a thousand passages of turning into darknesse and it is not enough that our bodies are exposed to so many sad infirmities and dishonourable imperfections unlesse our soul also be a subject capable of so many diseases follies irregular passions false principles accursed habits and degrees of perversnesse that the very kindes of them are reducible to a method and make up the part of a science There are variety of stages and descents to death as there are diversity of torments and of sad regions of misery in hell which is the centre and kingdom of sorrows But that we may a little refresh the sadnesses of this consideration for every one of these stages of sin God hath measured out a proportion of mercy for if sin abounds grace shall much more abound and God hath concluded all under sin not with purposes to destroy us but Ut omnium misereatur that he might have mercy upon all that light may break forth from the deepest inclosures of darknesse and mercy may rejoyce upon the recessions of justice and grace may triumph upon the ruins of sin and God may be glorified in the miracles of our conversion and the wonders of our preservation and glories of our being saved There is no state of sin but if we be persons capable according to Gods method of healing of receiving antidotes we shall finde a sheet of mercy spread over our wounds and nakednesse If our diseases be small almost necessary scarce avoidable then God does and so we are commanded to cure them and cover them with a vail of pity compassion and gentle remedies If our evils be violent inveterate gangrened and incorporated into our nature by evil customes they must be pulled from the flames of hell with censures and cauteries and punishments and sharp remedies quickly and rudely their danger is present and sudden its effect is quick and intolerable and there is no soft counsels then to be entertained they are already in the fire but they may be saved for all that so great so infinite so miraculous is Gods mercy that he will not give a sinner over though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell Gods desires of having us to be saved continue even when we begin to be damned even till we will not be saved and are gone beyond Gods method and all the revelations of his kindnesse And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner whose iniquity is sweld beyond all the bulk and heap of Gods revealed loving kindnesse If sin hath sweld beyond grace and superabounds over it that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man such a person is removed beyond all the malice of humane nature into the evil and spite of Devils and accursed spirits there is no greater sadnesse in the world then this God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men and some sins they have sinned like the falling Angels and having over run the ordinary evil inclinations of their nature they are without the protection of the divine mercy and the conditions of that grace which was designed to save all the world was sufficient to have saved twenty This is a condition to be avoyded with the care of God and his Angels and all the whole industry of man In order to which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin and death together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them that we may observe the evils of the least and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died which the Holy Ghost never means to cure and which the eternal God never will pardon for there are of this kinde more then commonly men imagine whilest they amuse their spirits with gaietyes and false principles till they have run into horrible impieties from whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence I of some have compassion and these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions all which have their proper cure pro portionable to their proper state gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience or because they do an evil against which there is no expresse commandment It is a sad calamity that there are so many milions of men and women that are entred into a state of sicknesse and danger and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no nor were ever taught by what names to call them For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name and called clownishnesse want of breeding and contentednesse and temperate living is suppressed to be want of courage and noble thoughts and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their estates with the title of liberal and noble usages timorousnesse is called caution rashnesse is called quicknesse of spirit covetousnesse is frugality amorousnesse is society and gentile peevishnesse and anger is courage flattery is humane and courteous and under these false vails vertue sliâ—s away like truth from under the hand of them that fight for her and leave vices dressed up with the same imagery and the fraud not discovered till the day of recompences when men are distingushed by their rewards But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a Lethargy and they call a hestick-feaver the vigour of a natural heat tell nature changes those lesse discerned states into the notorious images of death Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in 10000. of their actions every one of which is very disputable and do not think they are bound to consider these men are to be pitied and instructed they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily diet their consciences must be made tender and their Catechisme enlarged teach them and make them sensible and they are cured But the other in this place are more considerable Men sin without observation because their actions have no restraint of an expresse Commandment no letter of the law to condemn them by an expresse sentence And this happens when the crime is comprehended under
is a law for sons not for servants and God that gives his grace without measure and rewards without end and acts of favour beyond our askings and provides for us beyond our needs and gives us counsels beyond commandments intends not to be limited out by the just evennesses and stricken measures of the words of a commandment Give to God full measure 〈◊〉 together pressed down heaped up and running over for God does so to us and when we have done so to him we are infinitely short of the least measure of what God does for us we are still unprofitable servants And therefore as the breaking any of the laws of Christianity provoks God to anger so the prevaricating in the analogy of Christianity stirres him up to jealousie He hath reason to suspect our hearts are not right with him when we are so reserved in the matter and measures of our services and if we will give God but just what he calls for by expresse mandate it is just in him to require all of that at our hands without any abatement then we are sure to miscarry And let us remember that when God said he was a jealous God he expressed the meaning of it to be he did punish to the third and fourth genoration Jelousie is like the rage of a man but if it be also like the anger of God it is insupportable and will crush us into the ruines of our grave But because these things are not frequently considered there are very many sins committed against religion which because the commandment hath not marked men refuse to mark and think God requires no more I am entred into a sea of matter which I must not now prosecute but I shall onely note this to you that it is but reasonable we should take accounts of our lives by the proportions as well as by the expresse rules of our religion because in humane and civil actions all the nations of the world use so to call their subjects to account For that which in the accounts of men is called reputation and publick honesty is the same which in religion we call analogy and proportion in both cases there being some things which are besides the notices of laws and yet are the most certain consignations of an excellent vertue He is a base person that does any thing against publick honesty and yet no man can be punished if he marries a wife the next day after his first wives funeral and so he that prevaricates the proportions and excellent reasons of Christianity is a person without zeal and without love and unlesse care be taken of him he will quickly be without religion But yet these I say are a sort of persons which are to be used with gentlenesse and treated with compassion for no man must be handled roughly to force him to do a kindnesse and coercion of laws and severity of Judges serjeants and executioners are against offenders of commandments But the way to cure such persons is the easiest and genteliest remedy of all others They are to be instructed in all the parts of duty and invited forward by the consideration of the great rewards which are laid up for all the sons of God who serve him without constraint without measures and allaves even as fire burns and as the roses grow even as much as they can and to all the extent of their natural and artificial capacities For it is a thing fit for our compassion to see men fettered in the iron bands of laws and yet to break the golden chains of love but all those instruments which are proper to enkindle the love of God and to turn fear into charity are the proper instances of that compassion which is to be used towards these men 2. The next sort of those who are in the state of sin and yet to be handled gently and with compassion are those who entertain themselves with the beginnings and little entrances of sin which as they are to be more pitied because they often come by reason of inadvertancy and an unavoidable weaknesse in many degrees so they are more to be taken care of because they are undervallued undiscernably run into incovenience when we see a childe strike a servant rudely or jeere a silly person or wittily cheat his play-fellow or talk words light as the skirt of a summer garment we laugh and are delighted with the wit and confidence of the boy and incourage such hopeful beginnings and in the mean time we consider not that from these beginnings he shall grow up till he become a Tyrant an oppressor a Goat and a Traytor Nemo simul malus fit malus esse cernitur sicut nec scorpijs tum innasâ—untur stimuli cum pungunt No man is discerned to be vitious so soon as he is so and vices have their infancy and their childe-hood and it cannot be expected that in a childs age should be the vice of a man that were monstrous as if he wore a beard in his cradle and we do not believe that a serpents sting does just then grow when he stricks us in a vital part The venome and the little spear was there when it first began to creep from his little shell And little boldnesses and looser words and wranglings for nuts and lying for trifles are of the same proportion to the malice of a childe as impudence and duels and injurious law-suits and false witnesse in judgement perjuries are in men And the case is the same when men enter upon a new stock of any sin the vice is at first apt to be put out of countenance and a little thing discourages it and it amuses the spirit with words and phantastick images and cheape instances of sin and men think themselves safe because they are as yet safe from laws and the sin does not as yet out cry the healthful noise of Christs loud cryings and intercession with his Father nor call for thunder or an amazing judgement but according to the old saying the thornes of Dauphine will never fetch blood if they do not scratch the first day we shal finde that the little undecencies and riflings of our souls the first openings and disparkings of our vertue differ onely from the state of perdition as infancy does from old age as sicknesse from death It is the entrance into those regions whether whosoever passes finally shall lie down and groan with an eternal sorrow Now in this case it may happen that a compassion may ruine a man if it be the pity of an indiscreet mother and nurse the sin from its weaknesse to the strength of habit and impudence The compassion that is to be used to such persons is the compassion of a Phisitian or a severe Tutor chastise thy infant-sinne by discipline and acts of vertue and never begin that way from whence you must return with some trouble and much shame or else if you proceed you finish your eternal ruine He that means to
many stages of a good life to prevent his being tempted to a single sin must be very careful that he never entertain his spirit with the remembrances of his past sin nor amuse it with the phantastick apprehensions of the present When the Israelites fancied the sapidnesse and relish of the flesh pots they longed to tast and to return So when a Libian Tiger drawn from his wilder forragings is shut up and taught to eat civil meat and suffer the authority of a man he sits down tamely in his prison and payes to his keeper fear and reverence for his meat But if he chance to come again and taste a draught of warm blood he presently leaps into his naturall cruelty Admonitae tument gustato sanguine fauces Feruet à trepido vix abstinet ira Magistro He scarce abstains from eating those hands that brought him discipline and food so is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God and reduced to reason and kept in awe by religion and lawes and by an awfull vertue is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin but if he diverts from his path and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards and remembers the lasciviousnesse of his unwholesome food that pleased his childish palate then he grows sick again and hungry after unwholesome diet and longs for the apples of Sodom A man must walk thorow the world without eyes or ears fancy or appetite but such as are created and sanctified by the grace of God and being once made a new man he must serve all the needs of nature by the appetite and faculties of grace nature must be wholly a servant and we must so look towards the deliciousnesse of our religion and the ravishments of heaven that our memory must be for ever uselesse to the affairs and perceptions of sin we cannot stand wee cannot live unlesse we be curious and watchfull in this particular By these and all other arts of the Spirit if we stand upon our guard never indulging to our selves one sin because it is but one as knowing that one sin brought in death upon all the world and one sin brought slavery upon the posterity of Cham and alwayes fearing lest death surprize us in that one sin we shall by the grace of God either not need or else easily perceive the effects and blessings of that compassion which God reserves in the secrets of his mercy for such persons whom his grace hath ordained and disposed with excellent dispositions unto life eternall These are the sorts of men which are to be used with compassion concerning whom we are to make a difference making a difference so sayes the Text and it is of high concernment that we should do so that we may relieve the infirmities of the men and relieve their sicknesses and transcribe the copy of the Divine mercy who loves not to quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised reed For although all sins are against Gods Commandements directly or by certain consequents by line or by analogy yet they are not all of the same tincture and mortality Nec vincit ratio tantundem ut peccet idemque Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti Ut qui nocturnus Diuûm sacra legerit He that robs a garden of Coleworts and carries away an armfull of Spinage does not deserve hell as he that steals the Chalice from the Church or betrayes a Prince and therefore men are distinguished accordingly Est inter Tanaim quiddam socerunique Viselli The Poet that Sejanus condemned for dishonouring the memory of Agamemnon was not an equall criminall with Cataline or Graechus and Simon Magus and the Nicolaitans committed crimes which God hated more then the complying of S. Barnabas or the dissimulation of S. Peter and therefore God does treat these persons severally Some of these are restrained with a fit of sicknesse some with a great losse and in these there are degrees and some arrive at death And in this manner God scourged the Corinthians for their irreverent and disorderly receiving the Holy Sacrament For although even the least of the sins that I have discoursed of will lead to death eternall if their course be not interrupted and the disorder chastised yet because we do not stop their progresse instantly God many times does and visits us with proportionable judgements and so not onely checks the rivulet from swelling into rivers and a vastnesse but plainly tells us that although smaller crimes shall not be punished with equall severity as the greatest yet even in hell there are eternal rods as well as eternal scorpions and the smallest crime that we act with an infant-malice and manly deliberation shall be revenged with the lesser stroaks of wrath but yet with the infliction of a sad eternity But then that we also should make a difference is a precept concerning Church discipline and therefore not here proper to be considered but onely as it may concern our own particulars in the actions of repentance and our brethren in internal correction assit Regula quae poenas peccatis irroget aequas Nec seuticâ dignum horribili sectere flagello Let us be sure that we neglect no sin but repent for every one and judge our selves for every one according to the proportion of the malice or the scandall or the danger And although in this there is no fear that we would be excessive yet when we are to reprove a brother we are sharp enough and either by pride or by animosity by the itch of government or the indignation of an angry minde we run beyond the gentlenesse of a Christian Monitor we must remember that by Christs law some are to be admonished privately some to be shamed and corrected publikely and beyond these there is an abscission or a cutting off from the communion of faithfull people A delivering over to Sathan And to this purpose is that old reading of the words of my Text which is still in some Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reprove them sharply when they are convinced or separate by sentence But because this also is a designe of mercy acted with an instance of discipline it is a punishment of the flesh that the soul may be saved in the day of the Lord it means the same with the usuall reading and with the last words of the Text and teaches us our usage towards the worst of recoverable sinners Others save with fear pulling them out of the fire Some sins there are which in their own nature are damnable and some are such as will certainly bring a man to damnation the first are curable but with much danger the second are desperate and irrecoverable when a man is violently tempted and allured with an object that is proportionable and pleasant to his vigorous appetite and his unabated unmortified nature this man falls into death but yet we pity him as we pity a thief that robs for his necessity this man did not tempt
knowing that even in this sense time was very pretious and the opportunitie of giving glory to God by the offices of an excellent religion was not too deare a purchase at that rate But then when the wolves had entred into the folds and seized upon a lamb the rest fled and used all the innocent arts of concealment Saint Athanasius being overtaken by his persecutors but not known and asked whether he saw Athanasius passing that way pointed out forward with his finger non longè abest Athanasius the man is not far off a swift foot-man will easily overtake him And Saint Paul divided the councell of his Judges and made the Pharisees his parties by a witty insinuation of his own belief of the resurrection which was not the main question but an incident to the matter of his accusation And when Plinius secundus in the face of a Tyrant court was pressed so invidiously to give his opinion concerning a good man in banishment and under the disadvantage of an unjust sentence he diverted the snare of Marcus Regulus by referring his answer to a competent judicatory according to the laws being pressed again by offering a direct answer upon a just condition which he knew they would not accept and the third time by turning the envy upon the impertinent and malicious Orator that he won great honour the honour of a severe honesty and a witty man and a prudent person The thing I have noted because it is a good pattern to represent the arts of honest evasion and religious prudent honesty which any good man may transcribe and turn into his own instances if an equal case should occur For in this case the rule is easy If we are commanded to be wise and redeeme our time that we serve God and religion we must not use unlawful arts which set us back in the accounts of our time no lying Subterfuges no betraying of a truth no treachery to a good man no insnaring of a brother no secret renouncing of any part or proposition of our religion no denying to confesse the article when we are called to it For when the primitive Christians had got a trick to give money for certificates that they had sacrificed to idols though indeed they did not do it but had corrupted the officers and ministers of state they dishonoured their religion and were marked with the appellative of libellatici Libellers and were excommunicate and cast off from the society of Christians and the hopes of Heaven till they had returned to God by a severe repentance optanduum est ut quod libenter facis din facere possis It is good to have time long to doe that which wee ought to doe but to pretend that which we dare not doe and to say we have when we have not if we know we ought not is to dishonour the cause and the person too it is expressly against confession of Christ of which Saint Paul saith by the mouth confession is made unto salvation And our Blessed Saviour he that confesseth me before men I will confesse him before my Heavenly Father and if here he refuseth to own me I will not own him hereafter it is also expressly against Christian fortitude and noblenesse and against the simplicity and sincerity of our religion and it turnes prudence into craft and brings the Devil to wait in the temple and to minister to God and it is a lesser Kinde of apostacy and it is well that the man is tempted no further for if the persecutors could not be corrupted with money it is ods but the complying man would and though he would with the money hide his shame yet he will not with the losse of all his estate redeeme his religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some men will lose their lives rather then a faire estate and doe not almost all the armies of the world I mean those that fight in the justest causes pretend to fight and die for their lands and liberties and there are too many also that will die twice rather then be beggers once although we all know that the second death is intolerable Christian prudence forbids us to provoke a danger and they were fond persons that run to persecution and when the Proconsul sate on the life and death and made strict inquisition after Christians went and offered themselves to die and he was a fool that being in Portugal run to the Priest as he elevated the host and overthrew the mysteries and openly defied the rites of that religion God when he sends a persecution will pick out such persons whom he will have to die and whom he will consigne to banishment and whom to poverty In the mean time let us do our duty when we can and as long as we can and with as much strictnesse as we can walking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostles Phrase is not prevaricating in the least tittle and then if we can be safe with the arts of civil innocent inoffensive compliance let us blesse God for his permissions made to us and his assistances in the using them But if either we turne our zeal into the ambition of death and the follies of an unnecessary beggery or on the other side turn our prudence into craft and covetousnesse to the first I say that God hath no pleasure in fooles to the latter If you gain the whole world and lose your own soul your losse is infinite and intolerable Sermon XXI Of Christian Prudence Part II. 4. IT is the office of Christian prudence so to order the affaires of our life as that in all the offices of our souls and conversation we do honour and reputation to the religion we professe For the follies and vices of the Professors give great advantages to the adversary to speak reproachfully and does aliene the hearts and hinder the complyance of those undetermined persons who are apt to be perswaded if their understandings be not prejudiced But as our necessary duty is bound upon us by one ligament more in order to the honour of the cause of God so it particularly bindes us to many circumstances adjuncts and parts of duty which have no other commandment but the law of prudence There are some sects of Christians which have some one constant indisposition which as a character divides them from all others and makes them reproved on all hands some are so suspitious and ill natured that if a person of a facile nature and gentle disposition fall into their hands he is presently sowred and made morose unpleasant and uneasy in his conversation Others there are that do things so like to what themselves condemn that they are forced to take sanctuary and labour in the mine of unsignificant distinctions to make themselves believe they are innocent and in the mean time they offend all men else and open the mouths of their adversaries to speak reproachful things true or false as it happens And it requires a great wit to understand all the
necessary God would not do it But if it be worth it and all of it be necessary why should we not labour in order to this great end If it be worth so much to God it is so much more to us for if we perish his felicity is undisturbed but we are undone infinitely undone It is therefore worth taking in a spirituall guide so far we are gone But because we are in the question of prudence we must consider whether it be necessary to do so For every man thinks himself wise enough as to the conduct of his soul and managing of his eternal interest and divinity is every mans trade and the Scriptures speak our own language and the commandments are few and plain and the laws are the measure of justice and if I say my prayers and pay my debts my duty is soon summed up and thus we usually make our accounts for eternity and at this rate onely take care for heaven but let a man be questioned for a portion of his estate or have his life shaken with diseases then it will not be enough to employ one agent or to send for a good woman to minister a potion of the juices of her country garden but the ablest Lawyers and the skilfullest Physitians the advice of friends and huge caution and diligent attendances and a curious watching concerning all the accidents and little passages of our disease and truly a mans life and health is worth all that and much more and in many cases it needs it all But then is the soul the onely safe and the onely trifling thing about us Are not there a thousand dangers and ten thousand difficulties and innumerable possibilities of a misadventure Are not all the congregations in the world divided in their doctrines and all of them call their own way necessary and most of them call all the rest damnable we had need of a wise instructor and a prudent choice at our first entrance and election of our side and when we are well in the matter of Faith for its object and jnstitution all the evils of my self and all the evils of the Church and all the good that happens to evil men every day of danger the periods of sicknesse and the day of death are dayes of tempest and storm and our faith wil suffer shipwrack unlesse it be strong and supported and directed But who shall guide the vessel when a stormy passion or a violent imagination transports the man who shall awaken his reason and charm his passion into slumber instruction How shal a man make his fears confident and allay his confidence with fear and make the allay with just proportions and steere evenly between the extremes or call upon his sleeping purposes or actuate his choices or binde him to reason in all the wandrings and ignorances in his passion and mistakes For suppose the man of great skil and great learning in the wayes of religion yet if he be abused by accident or by his own will who shall then judge his cases of conscience and awaken his duty and renew his holy principle and actuate his spiritual powers For Physitians that prescribe to others do not minister to themselves in cases of danger and violent sicknesses and in matter of distemperature we shall not finde that books alone will do all the work of a spiritual Physitian more then of a natural I will not go about to increase the dangers and difficulties of the soul to represent the assistance of a spiritual man to be necessary But of this I am sure our not understanding and our not considering our soul make us first to neglect and then many times to lose it But is not every man an unequal judge in his own case and therefore the wisdom of God and the laws hath appointed tribunals and Judges and arbitrators and that men are partial in the matter of souls it is infinitely certain because amongst those milions of souls that perish not one in ten thousand but believes himself in a good condition and all sects of Christians think they are in the right and few are patient to enquire whether they be or no then adde to this that the Questions of souls being clothed with circumstances of matter and particular contingency are or may be infinite and most men are so infortunate that they have so intangled their cases of conscience that there where they have done something good it may be they have mingled half a dozen evils and when interests are confounded and governments altered and power strives with right and insensibly passes into right and duty to God would fain be reconciled with duty to our relatives will it not be more then necessary that we should have some one that we may enquire of after the way to heaven which is now made intricate by our follies and inevitable accidents But by what instrument shall men alone and in their own cases be able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of illusion just confidence from presumption fear from pusillanimity are not all the things and assistances in the world little enough to defend us against pleasure and pain the two great fountains of temptation is it not harder to cure a lust then to cure a feaver and are not the deceptions and follies of men and the arts of the Devil and inticements of the world the deceptions of a mans own heart and the evils of sin more evil and more numerous then the sicknesses and diseases of any one man and if a man perishes in his soul is it not infinitely more sad then if he could rise from his grave and die a thousand deaths over Thus we are advanced a second step in this prudential motive God used many arts to secure our souls interest and there is infinite dangers and infinite wayes of miscarriage in the souls interest and therefore there is great necessity God should do all those mercies of security and that we should do all the under-ministeries we can in this great work But what advantage shall we receive by a spiritual Guide much every way For this is the way that God hath appointed who in every age hath sent a succession of spiritual persons whose office is to minister in holy things and to be stewards of Gods houshold shepherds of the stock dispensers of the mysteries under mediators and ministers of prayer preachers of the law expounders of questions monitors of duty conveiances of blessings and that which is a good discourse in the mouth of another man is from them an ordinance of God and besides its natural efficacy and perswasion it prevails by the way of blessing by the reverence of his person by divine institution by the excellency of order by the advantages of opinion and assistances of reputation by the influence of the spirit who is the president of such ministeries and who is appointed to all Christians according to the despensation that is appointed to them to the people
and misunderstood and reproved and rejected by any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters so it is also as hard that they should be bound not to see when the case is plain and evident There may be mischiefs on both sides but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will for they may be humble and modest and entertain better opinions of their Superiours then of themselves and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion and if they do not do so that evil will be their own private for that it become not publike the King and the Bishop are to take care but for the latter sort of evil it will certainly become universal If I say an authoritative false doctrine be imposed and is to be accepted accordingly for then all men shall be bound to professe against their conscience that is with their mouthes not to confesse unto salvation what with their hearts they believe unto righteousnesse The best way of remedying both the evils is that Governours lay no burden of doctrines or lawes but what are necessary or very profitable and that Inferiours do not contend for things unnecessary nor call any thing necessary that is not till then there will be evils on both sides and although the Governours are to carry the Question in the point of law reputation and publike government yet as to Gods Judicature they will bear the bigger load who in his right do him an injury and by the impresses of his authority destroy his truth But in this case also although separating be a suspicious thing and intolerable unlesse it be when a sin is imposed yet to separate is also accidentall to truth for some men separate with reason some men against reason therefore here all the certainty that is in the thing is when the truth is secured and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons and the heartinesse and simplicity of their intention and diligence of inquiry The Church of England had reason to separate from the Confession and practises of Rome in many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let ours be carefull to maintain goodworks for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlearned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an
to lie in judgment is directly against the being of government the honour of Tribunals and the commandement of God and therefore by no accident can be hallowed it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle said of a lie it is a thing evil in it self that is it is evil in the whole kinde ever since it came to be forbidden by God and therefore all those instances of crafty and delusive answers which are recorded in scripture were extrajudicial and had not this load upon them to be a deceiving of authority in those things where they had right to command or inquire either were before or besides the commandment not at all against it and since the law of Moses forbad lying in judgement onely by that law we are to judge of those actions in the old testament which were committed after its publication and because in the sermons of the prophets and especially in the new testament Christ hath superadded or enlarged the law of ingenuity hearty simplicity we are to leave the old scripture precedents upon the ground of their own permissions and finish our duty by the rules of our religion which hath so restrained our words that they must alwayes be just and alwayes charitable and there is no leave given to prevaricate but to such persons where there can be no obligation persons that have no right such with whom no contract can be made such as children and fools and infirm persons whose faculties are hindred or depraved I remember that Secundus extremely commends Arria for deluding her husbands fears concerning the death of his beloved boy and wiped her eyes and came in confidently and sate by her husbands bed-side and when she could no longer forbear to weep her husbands sicknesse was excuse enough to legitimate that sorrow or else she could retire but so long she forbore to confess the boy's death til Caecinna Paetus had so far recovered that he could go forth to see the boy and need not fear with sorrow to returne to his disease It was indeed a great kindnesse and a rare prudence as their affaires and laws were ordered but we have better means to cure our sick our religion can charme the passion and enable the spirit to entertain and master a sorrow and when we have such rare supplies out of the store-houses of reason and religion we have lesse reason to use these arts and little deviees which are arguments of an infirmity as great as is the charity and therefore we are to keep our selves strictly to the foregoing measures Let every man speak the truth to his neighbour putting away lying for we are members one of another and be as harmlesse as doves saith our blessed Saviour in my text which contain the whole duty concerning the matter of truth and sincerity in both which places truth and simplicity are founded upon justice and charity and therefore wherever a lie is in any sense against justice and wrongs any thing of a man his judgement and his reason his right or his liberty it is expresly forbidden in the Christian religion what cases we can truly suppose to be besides these the law forbids not and therefore it is lawful to say that to my self which I believe not for what innocent purpose I please and to all those over whose understanding I have or ought to have right These cases are intricate enough and therefore I shall return plainly to presse the doctrine of simplicity which ought to be so sacred that a man ought to do nothing indirectly which it is not lawful to own to receive no advantage by the sin of another which I should account dishonest if the action were my own for whatsoever disputes may be concerning the lawfulnesse of pretending craftily in some rare and contingent cases yet it is on all hands condemned that my craft should do injury to my brother I remember that when some greedy and indigent people forged a will of Lucius Minutius Basilius and joyned M. Crassus and Q. Hortensius in the inheritance that their power for their own interest might secure the others share they suspecting the thing to be a forgery yet being not principals and actors in the contrivance alieni facinoris munus culum non repudiaverunt refused not to receive a present made them by anothers crime but so they entred upon a moiety of the estate and the biggest share of the dishonour we must not be crafty to anothers injury so much as by giving countenance to the wrong for Tortoises and the Estrich hatch their egges with their looks onely and some have designes which a dissembling face or an acted gesture can produce but as a man may commit adultery with his eye so with his eye also he may tell a lie and steal with one finger and do injury collaterally and yet designe it with a direct intuition upon which he looks with his face over his shoulder and by whatsoever instrument my neighbour may be abused by the same instrument I sin if I do designe it antecedently or fal upon it together with something else or rejoyce in it when it is done 7. One thing more I am to adde that it is not lawful to tell a lie in jest It was a vertue noted in Aristides and Epaminondes that they would not lie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in sport and as Christian simplicity forbids all lying in matter of interest and serious rights so there is an appendix to this precept forbidding to lie in mirth for of every idle word a man shall speak he shall give account in the day of judgment and such are the jestings which S. Paul reckons amongst things uncomly But amongst these fables apologues parables or figures of Rhetorick and any artificial instrument of instruction or innocent pleasure are not to be reckoned But he that without any end of charity or institution shal tell lies onely to become ridiculous in himself or mock another hath set some thing upon his doomsday book which must be taken off by water or by fire that is by repentance or a judgement Nothing is easier then simplicity and ingenuity it is open and ready without trouble and artificial cares fit for communities and the proper vertue of men the necessary appendage of useful speech without which language were given to men as nails and teeth to Lions for nothing but to do mischief it is a rare instrument of institution and a certain token of courage the companion of goodnesse and a noble minde the preserver of friendship the band of society the security of merchants and the blessing of trade it prevents infinite of quarrels and appeals to Judges and suffers none of the evils of Jealousie men by simplicity converse as do the Angels they do their own work and secure their proper interest and serve the publick and do glory to God But hypocrites and liars and dissemblers spread darknesse over the face of affaires and make men like the blinde to
he hath made it so sure to us to become happy even in this world that if we will not he hath threatened to destroy us which is not a desire or aptnesse to do us an evil but an art to make it impossible that we should For God hath so ordered it that we cannot perish unlesse we desire it our selves and unlesse we will do our selves a mischief on purpose to get hell we are secured of heaven and there is not in the nature of things any way that can more infallibly do the work of felicity upon creatures that can choose then to make that which they should naturally choose be spiritually their duty and that he will make them happy hereafter if they will suffer him to make them happy here But hardly stand another throng of mercies that must be considered by us and God must be glorified in them for they are such as are intended to preserve to us all this felicity 9. God that he might secure our duty and our present and consequent felicity hath tied us with golden chaines and bound us not onely with the bracelets of love and the deliciousnesse of hope but with the ruder cords of fear and reverence even with all the innumerable parts of a restraining grace For it is a huge aggravation of humane calamity to consider that after a man hath been instructed in the love and advantages of his Religion and knows it to be the way of honour and felicity and that to prevaricate his holy sanctions is certain death and disgrace to eternal ages yet that some men shall despise their religion others shall be very weary of its laws and cal the commandments a burden and too many with a perfect choice shall delight in death and the wayes that lead thither and they choose mony infinitely and to rule over their Brother by al means to be revenged extremely and to prevail by wrong and to do all that they can and please themselves in all that they desire and love it fondly and be restlesse in all things but where they perish if God should not interpose by the arts of a miraculous and merciful grace and put a bridle in the mouth of our lusts and chastise the sea of our follies by some heaps of sand or the walls of a rock we should perish in the deluge of sin universally as the old world did in that storm of the divine anger the flood of waters But thus God suffers but few adulteries in the world in respect of what would be if all men that desire to be adulterers had power opportunity and yet some men and very many women are by modesty and natural shamefacednesse chastised in their too forward appetites or the laws of man or publick reputation or the undecency and unhandsome circumstances of sin check the desire and make it that it cannot arrive at act for so have I seen a busie flame sitting upon a sullen cole turn its point to all the angles and portions of its neighbour-hood and reach at a heap of prepared straw which like a bold temptation called it to a restlesse motion and activity but either it was at too big a distance or a gentle breath from heaven diverted the speare and the ray of the fire to the other side and so prevented the violence of the burning till the flame expired in a weak consumption and dyed turning into smoak and the coolnesse of death and the harmlesnesse of a Cinder and when a mans desires are winged with sailes and a lusty wind of passion and passe on in a smooth chanel of opportunity God often times hinders the lust and the impatient desire from passing on to its port and entring into action by a suddain thought by a little remembrance of a word by a fancy by a sudden disability by unreasonable and unlikely fears by the suddain intervening of company by the very wearinesse of the passion by curiosity by want of health by the too great violence of the desire bursting it self with its fulnesse into dissolution a remisse easinesse by a sentence of scripture by the reverence of a good man or else by the proper interventions of the spirit of grace chastising the crime and representing its appendant mischiefs and its constituent disorder and irregularity and after all this the very anguish and trouble of being defeated in the purpose hath rolled it self into so much uneasinesse and unquiet reflections that the man is grown a shamed and vexed into more sober counsels And the mercy of God is not lesse then infinite in separating men from the occasions of their sin from the neighbour-hood and temptation for if the Hyaena and a dog should be thrust into the same Kennel one of them would soon finde a grave and it may be both of them their death so infallible is the ruine of most men if they be shewed a temptation Nitre and resin Naphtha and Bitumen sulphur and pitch are their constitution and the fire passes upon them infinitely and there is none to rescue them But God by removing our sins far from us as far as the East is from the West not onely putting away the guilt but setting the occasion far from us extremely far so far that sometimes we cannot sin and many times not easily hath magnified his mercy by giving us safety in all those measures in which we are untempted It would be the matter of new discourses if I should consider concerning the variety of Gods grace his preventing and accompanying his inviting and corroborating grace his assisting us to will his enabling us to do his sending Angels to watch us to remove us from evil company to drive us with swords of fire from forbidden instances to carry us by unobserved opportunities into holy company to minister occasions of holy discourses to make it by some means or other necessary to do a holy action to make us in love with vertue because they have mingled that vertue with a just and a fair interest to some men by making religion that thing they live upon to others the means of their reputation and the securities of their honour and thousands of wayes more which every prudent man that watches the wayes of God cannot but have observed But I must also observe other great conjugations of mercy for he that is to passe through an infinite must not dwell upon everie little line of life 10. The next order of mercies is such which is of so pure and unmingled constitution that it hath at first no regard to the capacities and disposition of the receivers and afterwards when it hath it relates onely to such conditions which it self creates and produces in the suscipient I mean the mercies of the divine predestination For was it not an infinite mercy that God should predestinate all mankinde to salvation by Jesus Christ even when he had no other reason to move him to do it but because man was miserable and needed his pity
there are some cases of conscience that concern Kings and kingdomes in the highest mysteriousnesse both of State and Religion and they also belong to Pastors for the interests of Religion and Teachers to determine or advise in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The preachers were always messengers between God and men being Mediators by their sacrifices and they were interested in their councells and greater causes And if religion can have influences into councells of Princes and publick interest of kingdomes and that there can be any difficulty latent senses intricacy of question or mysteriousnesse in Divinity it will be found that there are other parts of the Preachers office besides making homilies and that when so great skill is required it will not be easie to make pretenses to invade it unlesse a man cannot be an excellent Lawyer without twenty years skill and practise besides excellency of naturall indowments and yet can be an excellent Teacher and guide in all cases of conscience meerly with opening his mouth and rubbing his forehead hard But God hath taken order that those whom he hath appointed teachers of the people should make it the work and businesse of their lives that they should diligently attend to reading to exhortation and to doctrine that they may watch over their flock over whom the holy Ghost hath made them overseers The inconvenience that this discourse is like to meet withall is that it concerns those men who are sure not to understand it for they that have not the wisdome of Prophets and wise men cannot easily be brought to know the degrees of distance between the others wisdome and their own ignorance To know that there is great learning beyond us is a great part of learning but they that have the confidence in the midst of their deepest ignorance to teach others want both modesty and understanding too either to perceive or to confesse their own wants they never kissed the lips of the wise and therefore thinke all the world breaths a breath as fenny and moorish as themselves 3. Besides the consideration of the ability that a separate number of men should be the teachers and it be not permitted promiscuously to every person of a confident language and bold fancy is highly necessary in the point of prudence and duty too Of Prudence because there can be no security against all the evill doctrines of the world in a promiscuous unchosen company of Preachers For if he be allowed the pretense of an extraordinary he shall belie the holy Spirit to cousen you when he hath a minde to it If you allow him nothing but an ordinary spirit that is abilities of art and nature there cannot in such discourses be any compensation for the disorder or the danger or the schismes and innumerable Churches when one head and two members shall make a distinct body and all shall pretend to Christ without any other common term of union And this which is disorder in the thing is also dishonourable to this part of religion and the divine messages shall be conveyed to the people by common Curriers or rather messengers by chance and as they goe by whereas God sent at first Embassadours extraordinary and then left his Leigers in his Church for ever But there is also a duty too to be secured for they that have the guiding of souls must remember that they must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must render an account and that cannot be done with joy when it shall be indifferent to any man to superseminate what he please and by the way I suppose they who are apt to enter into the Chaire of Doctors and Teachers would be unwilling to be charged with a cure of souls If they knew what that means they would article more strictly before they would stand charged with it and yet it is harder to say that there is no such thing as the cure of souls that Christ left his flock to wander and to guide themselves or to finde shepheards at the charges of accident and chance Christ hath made a better provision and after he had with the greatest earnestnesse committed to S. Peter the care of feeding his lambes and sheep S. Peter did it carefully and thought it part of the same duty to provide other shepheards who should also feed the flocks by a continuall provision and attendance The Presbyters which are among you I who also am a Presbyter exhort feed the flock of God which is among you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doing the office of Bishops over them taking supravision or oversight of them willingly and of a ready minde The Presbyters and Bishops they are to feed the flock there was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a flock to be distinguished from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shepheards the elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the flock among you distinguished by a regular office of teaching and a relation of shepheards and sheep But this discourse would be unnecessarily long unlesse I should omit many arguments and contract the rest I onely shall desire it be considered concerning the purpose of that part of divine providence in giving the Christian Church commandements concerning provisions to be made for the preachers Let the Elders that rule well have a double honour an elder brothers portion at least both of honour and maintenance especially if they labour in the word and doctrine and the reason is taken out of Moses Law but derived from the naturall Bovi trituranti non ligabis os For God hath ordained that those that labour in the Gospell should live of the Gospell This argument will force us to distinguish persons or else our purses will and if all will have a right to preach the Gospell that thinke themselves able then also they have a right to be maintained too I shall adde no more 1 God hath designed persons to teach the people 2 charged them with the cure of souls 3 given them commission to goe into all the world 4 given them gifts accordingly 5 charged the people to attend and to obey 6 hath provided them maintenance and support and 7 separated them to reading to exhortation and to doctrine from the affaires of this world that they may attend to these by the care of the whole man If any man in charity or duty will doe any ghostly offices to his erring or weak brother he may have a reward of charity for in this sense it is that Tertullian says that in remote and barbarous countreys the Laity doe Sacerdotio aliquatenus fungi But if he invades the publick chair he may meet with the curse of Corah if he intends maliciously or if he have fairer but mistaken purposes the gentler sentence passed upon Uzzah may be the worst of his evill portion SECT IV. I Instance next in the case of Baptisme which indeed hath some difficulty and prejudice passed upon it and although it be put in the same Commission intrusted to the
and counsell for the power a man hath is founded in the understanding not in the will or force it is not a power of coercion but a power of advice and that government that wise men have over those who are fit to be conducted by them Et vos in manu in tutelâ non in servitio debetis habere eas malle patres vos viros quà m dominos dici said Valerius in Livie Husbands should rather be Fathers then Lords Homer addes more soft appellatives to the character of a husbands duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art to be a father and a mother to her and a brother and great reason unlesse the state of marriage should be no better then the condition of an Orphan For she that is bound to leave father and mother and brother for thee either is miserable like a poor fatherlesse childe or else ought to finde all these and more in thee Medea in Euripides had cause to complain when she found it otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which St. Ambrose well translates It is sad when virgins are with their own money sold to slavery and that services are in better state then marriages for they receive wages but these buy their setters and pay dear for their losse of liberty and therefore the Romans expressed the mans power over his wife but by a gentle word Nec verò mulieribus praefectus reponatur qui apud Graecos creari solet sed sit censor qui viros doceat moderari uxoribus said Cicero let there be no governour of the women appointed but a censor of manners one to teach the men to moderate their wives that is fairly to induce them to the measures of their own proportions It was rarely observed of Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating the forbidden fruit he said The woman thou gavest to be with me she gave me He saies not the woman which thou gavest to me no such thing she is none of his goods none of his possessions not to be reckoned among his servants God did not give her to him so but the woman thou gavest to be with me that is to be my partner the companion of my joyes and sorrowes thou gavest her for use not for dominion The dominion of a man over his wife is no other then as the soul rules the body for which it takes a mighty care and uses it with a delicate tendernesse and cares for it in all contingencies and watches to keep it from all evils and studies to make for it fair provisions and very often is led by its inclinations and desires and does never contradict its appetites but when they are evill and then also not without some trouble and sorrow and its government comes only to this it furnishes the body with light and understanding and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet the soul governs because the body cannot else be happy but the government is no other then provision as a nurse governs a childe when she causes him to eat and to be warm and dry and quiet and yet even the very government it self is divided for man and wife in the family are as the Sun and Moon in the sirmament of heaven He rules by day and she by night that is in the lesser and more proper circles of her affairs in the conduct of domestick provisions and necessary offices and shines only by his light and rules by his authority and as the Moon in opposition to the Sun shines brightest that is then when she is in her own circles and separate regions so is the authority of the wife then most conspicuous when she is separate and in her proper sphere in Gynaeceo in the nursery and offices of domestick employment but when she is in conjunction with the Sun her Brother that is in that place and employment in which his care and proper offices are imployed her light is not seen her authority hath no proper businesse but else there is no difference for they were barbarous people among whom wives were in stead of servants said Spartianus in Caracalla and it is a sign of impotency and weaknesse to force the camels to kneel for their load beccuse thou hast not spirit and strength enough to climbe to make the affections and evennesse of a wife bend by the flexures of a servant is a sign the man is not wise enough to govern when another stands by So many differences as can be in the appellatives of Dominus and Domina Governour and Governesse Lord and Lady Master and Mistresse the same difference there is in the authority of man and woman and no more Si tu Caius ego Caia was publickly proclaimed upon the threshold of the young mans house when the bride enter'd into his hands and power and the title of Domina in the sense of the civill Law was among the Romans given to wives Hi Dominam Ditis thalamo diducere adorti said Virgil where though Servius saies it was spoken after the manner of the Greeks who call'd the wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lady or Mistresse yet it was so amongst both the Nations Ac domûs Dominam voca saies Catullus Haerebit Dominae vir comes ipse suae so Martial and therefore although there is a just measure of subjection and obedience due from the wise to the husband as I shall after explain yet nothing of this is expressed in the mans character or in his duty he is not commanded to rule nor instructed how nor bidden to exact obedience or to defend his priviledge all his duty is signified by love by nourishing and cherishing by being joyned to her in all the unions of charity by not being bitter to her by dwelling with her according to knowledge giving honour to her so that it seems to be with husbands as it is with Bishops and Priests to whom much honour is due but yet so that if they stand upon it and challenge it they become lesse honourable and as amongst men and women humility is the way to be prefer'd so it is in husbands they shall prevail by cession by sweetnesse and counsell and charity and compliance So that we cannot discourse of the mans right without describing the measures of his duty that therefore followes next Let him love his wife even as himself that 's his duty and the measure of it too which is so plain that if he understands how he treats himself there needs nothing be added concerning his demeanour towards her save only that we adde the particulars in which holy Scripture instances this generall commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the first Be not bitter against her and this is the least Index and signification of love a civill man is never bitter against a friend or a stranger much lesse
to him that enters under his roof and is secured by the lawes of hospitality But a wife does all that and more she quits all her interest for his love she gives him all that she can give she is as much the same person as another can be the same who is conjoyned by love and mystery and religion and all that is sacred and profane Non equidem hoc dubites amborum foedere certo Consentire dies ab uno sidere duci They have the same fortune the same family the same children the same religion the same interest the same flesh erunt duo in carnem unam and therefore this the Apostle urges for his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no man hateth his own flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it and he certainly is strangely sacrilegious and a violator of the rights of hospitality and sanctuary who uses her rudely who is fled for protection not only to his house but also to his heart and bosome A wise man will not wrangle with any one much lesse with his dearest relative and if it be accounted undecent to embrace in publick it is extremely shamefull to brawle in publick for the other is in it self lawfull but this never though it were assisted with the best circumstances of which it is capable Marcus Aurelius said that a wise man ought often to admonish his wife to reprove her seldome but never to lay his hands upon her neque verberibus neque maledictis exasperandam uxorem said the Doctors of the Jewes and Homer brings in Jupiter sometimes speaking sharply to Juno according to the Greek liberty and Empire but made a pause at striking her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Ancients use to sacrifice to Juno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the president of Marriage without gall and St. Basil observes and urges it by way of upbraiding quarrelling husbands etiam vipera virus ob nuptiarum venerationem evomit the Viper casts all his poison when he marries his female Tu duritiam animi tu feritatem tu crudelitatem ob unionis reverentiam non deponis He is worse then a viper who for the reverence of this sacred union will not abstain from such a poisonous bitternesse and how shall he embrace that person whom he hath smitten reproachfully for those kindnesses are undecent which the fighting man payes unto his wife St. Chrysostome preaching earnestly against this barbarous inhumanity of striking the wife or reviling her with evill language saies it is as if a King should beat his Viceroy and use him like a dog from whom most of that reverence and majesty must needs depart which he first put upon him and the subjects shall pay him lesse duty by how much his Prince hath treated him with lesse civility but the losse redounds to himself and the government of the whole family shall be disordered if blowes be laid upon that shoulder which together with the other ought to bear nothing but the cares and the issues of a prudent government And it is observable that no man ever did this rudenesse for a vertuous end it is an incompetent instrument and may proceed from wrath and folly but can never end in vertue and the unions of a prudent and fair society Quòd si verberaveris exasperabis morbum saith St. Chrysostome asperitas enim mansuetudine non aliâ asperitate dissolvitur if you strike you exasperate the wound and like Cato at Utica in his despair tear the wounds in pieces and yet he that did so ill to himself whom he lov'd well he lov'd not women tenderly and yet would never strike And if the man cannot endure her talking how can she endure his striking But this caution contains a duty in it which none prevaricates but the meanest of the people fools and bedlams whose kindnesse is a curse whose government is by chance and violence and their families are herds of talking cattell Sic alternos reficit cursus Alternus amor sic astrigeris Bellum discors exulat or is Haec concordia temperat aquis Elementa modis ut pugnantia Vicibus cedant humida siccis Jungántque fidem frigora flammis The maritall love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudenesses it is a thing pure as light sacred as a Temple lasting as the world Aamicitia quae desinere potuit nunquam vera fuit said one that love that can cease was never true it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Moses call'd it it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Paul it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Homer it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Plutarch that is it contains in it all sweetnesse and all society and all felicity and all prudence and all wisdome For there is nothing can please a man without love and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the Apostles and of the innocency of an even and a private fortune or hates peace or a fruitfull year he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of Paradise For nothing can sweeten felicity it self but love but when a man dwels in love then the brests of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of Hermon her eyes are fair as the light of heaven she is a fountain sealed and he can quench his thirst and ease his cares and lay his sorrowes down upon her lap and can retire home as to his sanctuary and refectory and his gardens of sweetnesse and chast refreshments No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents make a mans heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges their childishnesse their stammering their little angers their innocence their imperfections their necessities are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society but he that loves not his wife and children feeds a Lionesse at home and broods a nest of sorrowes and blessing it self cannot make him happy so that all the commandements of God injoyning a man to love his wife are nothing but so many necessities and capacities of joy She that is lov'd is safe and he that loves is joyfull Love is a union of all things excellent it contains in it proportion and satisfaction and rest and confidence and I wish that this were so much proceeded in that the Heathens themselves could not go beyond us in this vertue and its proper and its appendant happinesse Tiberius Gracchus chose to die for the safety of his wife and yet me thinks to a Christian to do so should be no hard thing for many servants will dye for their masters and many Gentlemen will die for their friend but the examples are not so many of those that are ready to do it for their dearest relatives and yet some there have been Baptista Fregosa tels of Neapolitan that gave himself a slave to the Moores that he might follow his wife and
But I shall instance onely in the intermediall part of this mysterious mercy Why should God cause us to be born of Christian parents and not to be circumcised by the impure hands of a Turkish Priest What distinguished me from another that my Father was severe in his discipline and carefull to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and I was not exposed to the carelesnesse of an irreligious guardian and taught to steal and lie and to make sport with my infant vices and beginnings of iniquity Who was it that discerned our persons from the lot of dying Chrysomes whose portion must be among those who never glorified God with a free obedience What had you done of good or towards it that you was not condemned to the stupid ignorance which makes the souls of most men but a little higher then beasts and who understand nothing of religion and noble principles of parables and wise sayings of old men And not onely in our cradles but in our schools and in our colledges in our friendships and in our marriages in our enmities and in all our conversation in our vertues and in our vices where all things in us were equal or else we were the inferiour there is none of us but have felt the mercies of many differencies Or it may be my brother and I were intemperate and drunk and quarelsome and he kill'd a man but God did not suffer me to do so He fell down and died with a little disorder I was a beast and yet was permitted to live and not yet to die in my sins He did a misse once and was surprized in that disadvantage I sin daily and am still invited to repentance he would fain have lived and amended I neglect the grace but am allowed the time And when God sends the Angel of his wrath to execute his anger upon a sinfull people we are encompassed with funerals and yet the Angel hath not smitten us what or who makes the difference We shall then see when in the separations of eternity we sitting in glory shall see some of the partners of our sins carried into despair and the portions of the left hand and roaring in the seats of the reprobate we shall then perceive that it is even that mercy which hath no cause but it self no measure of its emanation but our misery no natural limit but eternity no beginning but God no object but man no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse no variety but our necessity and capacity no change but new instances of its own nature no ending or repentance but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it II. Lastly All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them even against all our reason and hopes our expectations and weak discoursings The particulars I shall remark are these 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances the weaknesses and follies of men so that in the convention and assemblies of hereticks as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences they would live impiously yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken and who mean nothing but truth while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines they live according to its contradictory He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest is enough to expiate ten thousand sins is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent since repentance is a duty so soon fo certainly and so easily performed But these are notorious doctrines in the Roman Church and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly He that tels that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell takes away from man all care of the way because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end hath unalterably appointed the means and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God that man may not perish in his ignorance but be assisted in his choice and saved by the Divine mercies And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned mercies by which men live and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication and of this sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy For what shall become of ignorant Christians people that live in wildnesses and places more desert then a primitive hermitage people that are baptized and taught to go to Church it may be once a yeer people that can get no more knowledge they know not where to have it nor how to desire it and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation and when the Jews grew rebellious or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted and sinned and punished with death we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law then was expressed in its sanction and publication He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes we
say he intends not to afflict the disobedient with scorpions and axes and it had been hugely necessary that God had scar'd the Jews from their sins by threatning the pains of hell to them that disobeyed if he intended to inflict it for although many men would have ventured the future since they are not affrighted with the present and visible evil yet some persons would have had more Philosophical and spiritual apprehensions then others and have been infallibly cured in all their temptations with the fear of an eternall pain and however whether they had or no yet since it cannot be understood how it consists with the Divine justice to exact a pain bigger then he threatned greater then he gave warning of so we are sure it is a great way off from Gods mercy to do so He that usually imposes lesse and is loth to inflict any and very often forgives it all is hugely distant from exacting an eternall punishment when the most that he threatned and gave notice of was but a temporall The effect of this consideration I would have to be this that we may publikely worship this mercy of God which is kept in secret and that we be not too forward in sentencing all Heathens and prevaricating Jews to the eternall pains of hell but hope that they have a portion in the secrets of the Divine mercy where also unlesse many of us have some little portions deposited our condition will be very uncertain and sometimes most miserable God knows best how intolerably accursed a thing it is to perish in the eternall flames of hell and therefore he is not easie to inflict it and if the joyes of heaven be too great to be expected upon too easie termes certainly the pains of the damned are infinitely too big to passe lightly upon persons who cannot help themselves and who if they were helped with clearer revelations would have avoided it But as in these things we must not pry into the secrets of the Divine Oeconomy being sure whether it be so or no it is most just even as it is so we may expect to see the glories of the Divine mercy made publike in unexpected instances at the great day of manifestation And indeed our dead many times go forth from our hands very strangely and carelesly without prayers without Sacraments without consideration without counsel and without comfort and to dresse the souls of our dear people to so sad a parting is an imployment we therefore omit not alwayes because we are negligent but because the work is sad and allay the affections of the world with those melancholy circumstances but if God did not in his mercies make secret and equivalent provisions for them and take care of his redeemed ones we might unhappily meet them in a sad eternity and without remedy weep together and groan for ever But God hath provided better things for them that they without us that is without our assistances shall be made perfect Sermon XXVII The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Part III. THere are very many more orders and conjugations of mercies but because the numbers of them naturally tend to their own greatnesse that is to have no measure I must reckon but a few more and them also without order for that they do descend upon us we see and feel but by what order of things or causes is as undiscerned as the head of Nilus or a sudden remembrance of a long neglected and forgotten proposition 1. But upon this account it is that good men have observed that the providence of God is so great a provider for holy living and does so certainly minister to religion that nature and chance the order of the world and the influences of heaven are taught to serve the ends of the Spirit of God and the spirit of a man I do not speak of the miracles that God hath in the severall periods of the world wrought for the establishing his lawes and confirming his promises and securing our obedience though that was all the way the overflowings and miracles of mercy as well as power but that which I consider is that besides the extraordinary emanations of the Divine power upon the first and most solemn occasions of an institution and the first beginnings of a religion such as were the wonders God did in Egypt and in the wildernesse preparatory to the sanction of that law and the first covenant and the miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles for the founding and the building up the religion of the Gospel and the new covenant God does also do things wonderfull and miraculous for the promoting the ordinary and lesse solemn actions of our piety and to assist and accompany them in a constant and regular succession It was a strange variety of naturall efficacies that Manna should stink in 24. hours if gathered upon Wednesday and Thursday and that it should last till 48. hours if gathered upon the Even of the Sabbath and that it should last many hundreds of yeers when placed in the Sanctuary by the ministery of the high Priest but so it was in the Jews religion and Manna pleased every palate and it filled all appetites and the same measure was a different proportion it was much and it was little as if nature that it might serve religion had been taught some measures of infinity which is every where and no where filling all things and circumscribed with nothing measured by one Omer and doing the work of two like the crowns of Kings fitting the browes of Nimrod and the most mighty Warriour and yet not too large for the temples of an infant Prince And not onely is it thus in nature but in contingencies and acts depending upon the choice of men for God having commanded the sons of Israel to go up to Jerusalem to worship thrice every yeer and to leave their borders to be guarded by women and children and sick persons in the neighbourhood of diligent and spitefull enemies yet God so disposed of their hearts and opportunities that they never entered the land when the people were at their solemnity untill they desecrated their rites by doing at their Passeover the greatest sin and treason in the world till at Easter they crucified the Lord of life and glory they were secure in Jerusalem and in their borders but when they had destroyed religion by this act God took away their security and Titus besieged the City at the feast of Easter that the more might perish in the deluge of the Divine indignation To this observation the Jews adde that in Jerusalem no man ever had a fall that came thither to worship that at their solemn festivals there was reception in the Town for all the inhabitants of the land concerning which although I cannot affirm any thing yet this is certain that no godly person among all the tribes of Israel was ever a begger but all the variety of humane chances were over-ruled to the purposes of providence and