yet take it patiently God will in a manner take this as a courtesie from us as St. Peter implyes 1 Pet. 2. 20. You need not wonder then why our Saviour bids his Disciples be exceeding glad at their afflictions why Peter and John went away rejoycing when they suffered for the Name of Jesus Why St. Paul was so far from fearing it that he long'd for his dissolution Why the Primitive Christians did so much court and admire danger ruin and destruction for thus we glorifie God and thus he glorifies us again in accounting us worthy and admitting us to suffer for his sake that as the Apostle says At last we may receive the peaceable fruits of Righteousness Besides if good men were not opprest we could not have so fair an opportunity to exercise our Charity I confess we should pity those whom their own folly hath brought into Calamity whom Lust and Ryot have cast upon the Bed of Sickness or whom Pride and Vanity have impoverished and thrown into Prison But whom the Zeal of Gods house hath eaten up and consumed whom strictness of Conscience hath brought low and diminished who is poor only because he durst not be rich for fear of doing ill this is such an Object of Charity as a man would travel the world to find out were there not too many nearer home Our formerly religious Ancestors have run to Jerusalem to view the pretended Reliques of our Saviour whether true or no and thought it worth a pilgrimage to fetch a piece of the wood he suffered on though perhaps it were a chip of the next Block whereas in sheltring the afflicted we bring Christ himself into our Houses for he acknowledges whatsoever is done to his poor suffering Members is done to himself It was one of the promises Christ made to his Disciples that they should alwayes have the poor amongst them Matth. 26. to assure us we should never want an opportunity to exercise that most powerful vertue of Charity which can lay so many obligations upon God to hear us to pardon us and to reward us both with the blessings of this and a better life so that if you will but consider how much your own Interest does engage you to help and assist the oppressed you will scarce find in your hearts to call that Liberality which benefits the Giver more than the Receiver but rather confess by dispersing thus you shew greater Charity to your selves then to others For where can you place your money more securely then when you make God your Debter or how can you lay out what you have to greater advantage then by purchasing Heaven with it one would think to build Churches to the honour of God is a most high piece of Devotion Melius est hoc facere says St. Jerome quà m repositis opibus incubare 't is better indeed to bestow our wealth thus then keep it by only to look upon The Holy Father speaks slightly of this kind of Charity in respect of that which relieves the poor and values one single Alms well placed as a greater Munificence farr then the erecting of the most stately Cathedral For as St. Chrysostome argues upon the same subject to build Christ a magnificent Palace and at the same time suffer him himself in his poor Members to wander up and down for want of a lodging to offer to his Church a Golden Chalice and deny him a Cup of cold water to cover his Altars with the richest furniture whilst he himself goes about naked is just as if you should see a man almost starv'd with cold and hunger and then instead of feeding and cloathing him you should set up a Golden Statue to his honor and let him pine with hunger though the other be commendable yet certainly this expresses our Piety most when we supply the wants of the Necessitous and give the poor and needy a good occasion to bless God and trust to his Providence hereafter because thus we build up a Living Temple which in the Apostles phrase is Every true and sincere Christian How much more then should you feed your Minister who so often has fed you who for your sakes has with St. Paul dyed daily by venturing himself every hour and by standing continually with his brest quite open to receive every clap of Thunder that came against him So that though he be not a Martyr yet he is a Confessor who is next to a Martyr because he was ready to dye in this good Cause though he be yet alive and God preserve him so therefore in common Gratitude you ought to assist him now in his distress seeing his Zeal to keep you stead fast in the true Faith has brought him into it Methinks I say you should a little consider him now at parting for the Question is not now whether Tythes be due Jure Divino or whether the Law of the Gospel as well as the Law of Moses require you to give such a measure and proportion to your Minister but I ask you now whether you will give a man a cup of cold water in the name of a Prophet Whether you think your selves bound in conscience not to let him starve at your doors as useless whom you have praised and admired so much this will be Charity indeed then you will give whereas before you did but pay But on the other side to say there goes a good Preacher 't is pity he hath nothing to live on to give him the wall or your hat in the street and then be glad in your hearts you are past by him to drink his health at your full Tables whil'st he is ready to perish for hunger to bring him to your very door in a complement and then turn him out is the same piece of Charity as the Apostle mentions as if one should say to the hungry get a good meal or to the naked put on your cloaths when he hath none left to cover him and be sure what you give give to God rather then to the man And be not like the Ravens who fed Elijah that knew not what glorious thing it was to feed a Prophet Secondly No man asks this Question Why does the way of the wicked prosper but upon a false presumption of his own Righteousness because as he conceives he does not deserve what persecution is laid upon him and whosoever he be complains thus if God should lay his sins in order before him proceeding from his evil thoughts to his evil actions from his sins of ignorance to his sins of malice and despight against God would rather think it reasonable to charge Gods Mercy as too remiss then his Justice as too severe Why does God suffer the wicked to distress the Righteous The Supposition is notoriously false there hath not happened such a Case since the world began If for any ends of his own God would afflict a righteous man he could not possibly find one to exercise this power upon Perhaps you did never
of Sheba to draw near unto it and prove it in your selves And when you shall have practiced it in your selves you will say it was true indeed that you heard but you will feel more then you have heard or could hear by report We will therefore yet awhile longer detain you You have beheld the face of Meekness in her proper Subject which is every private man and in her proper Object which is as large as the whole world and takes in not only the Israel of God but the Amorite the Hittite the Amalekite not only the Christian but the Turk the Jew and the Pagan any man that is subject to the same passions any man that can suffer any man that can do an injury For Meekness runs round the whole circle and compass of mankind and binds every evil spirit conjures down every Devil she meets with Lastly we presented unto your view the Fitness and the Applicableness of this virtue to the Gospel and Church of Christ and told you that it is as it were the very breath of the Gospel the echo of that good news the best gloss and comment on a silent weeping crucified Saviour the best explanation of his last Prayer Father forgive them For the notes and characters of a Christian as they are described in the Gospel are Patience are easie putting up and digesting of injuries Humility a preferring of all before our selves And St. James tells us that the wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated where he giveth the first place unto Purity It would be a sin almost to compare Christian virtues together and make them strive for precedency and place yet he that shall mark how every where the Scripture strives to commend unto us Gentleness and Meekness and that Peace is it quam nobis Apostoli totis viribus Spiritûs Sancti commendant as Tertullian speaks which the Apostles endeavour with all the strength and force of the Holy Ghost to plant amongst us might be bold a little to invert the words of St. James and read them thus The wisdom which is from above is first peaceable gentle easie to be intreated then pure For the Son of God who is the Wisdom of the Father and who for us men came down from above first and above all other virtues commended this unto the world At his birth the Song of the Angels was Peace on earth and Good-will towards men All his Doctrine was Peace his whole life was Peace and no man heard his voice in the streets And as Christ so Christians For as in the building of Solomons Temple there was no noise of any hammer or other instrument of iron so in the spiritual building and frame of a Christian there is no sound of any iron no noise of weapons nothing but Peace and Gentleness and Meekness Ex praecepto fidei non minùs rea est Ira sine ratione suscepta quà m in operibus legis Homicidium saith Augustine Unadvised Anger by the law of Faith and the Gospel is as great a sin as Murder was in the Law of Moses Thus you have seen how proper Meekness is to the Gospel and Church of Christ Now in the last place we shall draw this Virtue forth to you as most necessary to the well-being not only of a Church but of every particular member of it necessary to lift us up to the Reward the inheritance of the earth Which whither you take for that Earth which is but earth or that Earth which by interpretation is Heaven ad omnia occurrit mansuetudo Meekness reacheth both both the Footstool and the Throne of God it gives us title to the things below and it makes us heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven Without this we can have no mansion in Heaven nor any quiet and peaceable possession of the earth And thus with our last hand we shall set you up that copy which you may draw out in your selves For Meekness in character in leaves of paper in our books is rather a shadow than a picture and soon vanisheth away but being drawn out in the soul and practice of a Christian it is a fair and lasting piece even the image of Christ himself which the Angels and God himself desire to look upon And with these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion at this time And first Meekness may seem most necessary to Christians if we consider the nature of Christianity it self which stands in opposition to all other Professions in the world confutes the Philosopher silenceth the Scribe strikes Oracles dumb cryes to every man in the world to go out of it Behold saith our Saviour to his Disciples I send you forth as sheep in the Matth. 10 16. midst of wolves which will tear you to pieces for no other reason but because you are sheep It is a disease very incident to men to be jealous of every breath which blows in opposition to that which they have already received to swell against that which is contrary to them and though it be true to suspect it to wonder what it should mean to be troubled and affraid of it as Herode and all Jerusalem were when the new Star appear'd and though it be as visible to any wise man as the Star was in the East yet to seek to put it out or if they cannot to destroy those over whom it stands And therefore Tertullian tells us Cum odio sui coepit that Christianity was hated as soon as known and did no sooner shew it self in the world but it found enemies who were ready to suppress and cast it out men that could hate it for no other reason but because it taught to love that could be angry with the Christian because he was meek and destroy him because he made it his profession to forgive men who counted Revenge no sin as the ancient Grecians did sometimes Theevery because it was so commonly practis'd amongst them Again as it was planted in rerum colluvie in the corruption of men and manners so it doth in a manner bid defiance to the whole world It tells the Jew his Ceremonies are beggerly the wise man of this world that his Philosophy is but deceit and his wisdom madness It plucks the Wanton from the harlots lips tumbles down the Ambitious from his pinacle disarms the Revenger strips the Rich. It writes over the Rich mans Gates Blessed are the poor over the Doctor 's Chair Where is the disputer of this world over the Temple NON LAPIS SUPER LAPIDEM That not a stone shall be left upon a stone which shall not be thrown down For a NON OCCIDES it brought down a NE IRASCARIS and made Anger Murder for a NON MAECHABERIS a NON CONCUPISCES and made Desire adultery It brought down sin to a look to a thought and therefore no marvell if there arose against Christians tot hostes quot extranei as many enemies as there were Heathen or Jews
for a truth They are not of the world even as I am not of the world saith Christ John 17. 16. of his Disciples A Christian is no more of the world then Christ himself I have chosen you out of the world which is in a manner a drawing them John 15. 19. out into the Wilderness I have chosen you out of the world to hate and contemn it to renew and reform it to fight against the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that is in the world 1 John 2. 16. St. John the beloved Disciple who leaned on Christs breast was nearest to him and learned this doctrine from him exhorts us not to love the 1 John 2. 15. world nor the things of this world And not to love it here is to hate it and Hatred is as a wing to carry us away in haste into some wilderness from that thing we hate If we hate the world we shall not endure to look upon it much less to stay and dwell in it or build a tabernacle here Love not the world Fly afar off and retire not only from those sins and vices which all men know and confess to be so which are branded with a mark and carry their shame in their forhead but even from those deviations and enormities which by the profit and advantage they bring have gained some credit and repute amongst men have not only scaped the stroke of reprehension but are crowned with praise and because they thwart not the statutes of Omri and may consist with the laws of men are new Christians as it were and have the names of those virtues given them which are perfect and consummate in that obedience alone which is due to the Gospel of Christ and to the Law of God Love not the world is a sequestring a kind of deportation a banishment of us not only out of the world but out of the confines and borders of it even from that which weak Christians and not yet perfect men in Christ judge to be no part of the World Love it not look down upon it crucifie it as St. Paul did By the virtue of Christs cross I am crucified to the world The World looks Gal. 6. 14. down upon me with scorn and contempt and indignation And the world is crucified unto me I look down upon it with the like scorn and contempt I pass by it and revile it and wag my head I look upon it as upon a dead corpse which I must not touch as upon a crucified thief who is expos'd to shame To conclude this As Christ withdrew himself from the City and multitude into the Wilderness so doth the Christian withdraw himself from the World He is not of the World he is chosen out of it he loves it not but looks upon it as upon a dead carrion and crucified carkase a loathed object an abomination which threatens not only the ruin of the Temple but even of Christianity it self And this will be more evident if we consider the nature either of Man that is led or of the Spirit that leadeth us Man being elemented and made up in this world to look towards another and the Spirit of God being a lover of Man a lover of the image of God and ready to lead him out For first as Man when he builds a house first sits down and consults what use he shall put it to so God the Creator of the world who made the world for mans sake made up Man also to be made an ensample of his Wisdome and Goodness made him to worship him chalked out his way beckon'd and called lowd after him to follow him in that way that so at last as it were by so many steps and degrees by the example of his Son and the conduct of his Spirit he might bring him out of the world unto himself I have made thee I have created thee I have formed thee for my Isa 43. 7. glory saith God by his Prophet to communicate my goodness and wisdome to make thee partaker of the Divine nature to make thee a kind of God upon earth by which according to thy measure and capacity thou mayest represent and express God In homine quicquid est sibi proficit There is nothing in Man which is not advantageous to him which may not help to carry him through this world to the region of Happiness We cannot doubt of his better part his Soul for that being heavenly and a spark as it were of the Divine nature cannot but look upward and look forward too upon its original must needs be ashamed and weary of its house of clay and be very jealous of the World which is but a prison and hath greater darkness and heavier chains to bind and fetter the Soul it self And therefore when it looks on the World and reflects and takes a full view of it self and considers that huge disproportion that is between the World and an immortal Soul you may find it panting to get out As the hart panteth after the rivers of water so panteth my soul after thee O God saith David and When shall I appear before the living Lord Now was David recollected and retired into himself now was he in his wilderness communing with his own heart We cannot doubt of the Soul whilst it is a soul and not made fleshy immersed and drowned in sensuality If it be not led by the Flesh but lead it self out of the world it will and return to its rest to its retirement But then even the body being thus animated with such a soul may help forward the work Glorifie God in your 1 Cor. 6. â—0 body saith St. Paul Not only withdraw your Souls but your Bodies also out of the world For as God breathed in the Soul so his hands have made and fashioned the Body and in his book are all our members written He made Psal 139. 16. the whole man both Soul and Body and built it up as a Temple of his blessed Spirit And if the Soul be the Sanctuary the Body is the Porch and his hand moves from the inward parts to the outward from the Sanctum sanctorum to the very door and entrance What is there almost in this our retirement from the World which is not done by the ministry of the body Our Fasting our Prayers our Alms haec de carnis substantia immolantur Deo these are all sacrificed to God of the substance of the flesh What is Martyrdome That certainly is a going out of the world And this advantage we have above the Angels themselves We can dye for Christ which the Angels cannot do because they have no bodies So that you see the end for which Man was made and sent into the world was to be ever going out of it His natural motion and that which becomes him as Man is to move forwards Which motion is
beat down our body and wage war with our appetite We may say of the Law of Moses as St. Paul speaks of the yearly sacrifices It did not make the commers thereunto Hebr. 10. 8. perfect but left behind it still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conscience of sins not only ex parte reatûs a conscience which did testifie that they had sinned and affright them with the guilt but ex parte vindictae a conscience which not only questioned their sins but there attonement also Therefore Chrysostome on that place will tell us In that the Jews did offer sacrifice it seemeth they had a conscience that accused them of sin but that they did it continually argued they had a conscience which accused their sacrifice of Imperfection The Law of Faith which is the fundamental Law of the Gospel is expunctor legis totius retro vetustatis blots out these Laws and whatever Antiquity did write down as a Law in her tables Quicquid retrò fuit aut demutatum est ut circumcisio aut suppletum ut lex reliqua aut impletum ut prophetia aut perfectum ut fides ipsa Whatsoever was in times past was either changed as Circumcision or supplyed as the rest of the Law or fulfilled as Prophesies or made perfect as Faith it self I should detein you too long in this argument should I draw a comparison between each particular constitution By the very nature and quality of the Laws you may easily descry a main difference between these Kingdoms The Laws of Christ are unchangeable and eternal but all humane constitutions are temporary and mutable Those which are written in the Body of the Law by the Civilians are called LEGES PERPETUAE Laws unchangeable but after Ages have seen the countenance of some altered and others quite rased out Legum medelae pro temporum moribus pro rerumpubl generibus pro utilitatum presentium rationibus mutari solent flecti nec uno statu consistere sed ut coeli facies maris ita rerum fortunae tempestatibus variari But the Laws of the heavenly Kingdome are eternal written in our souls by the King of Souls from the beginning The second head wherein the difference of this Kingdome from others is seen is the Power of it which is extended not to the body alone but to the soul also Other Kings may lay the whip on the back but this rips-up the very bowels other Kings may kill the body but this can cast both body and soul into hell Many times it is wisdom in Kings not to punish because of the multitude or power of offenders Nescio saith an heathen man in the Historian an suasurus fuerim omittere potiùs praevalida adulta vitia quam hoc assequi ut palam fiat quibus vitiis impares simus Sins many times do reign amongst men and spread themselves so far and wide that no strength of the Magistrate is able to supress them and therefore many times it is our best wisdom to let such sins alone lest by going about to amend them we betray our weakness and shew that the Law it self may have a bridle put into her mouth that offenders may ride her as they please It is not so in this Kingdom God can never be out-braved by any sin be it never so universal Be the offenders never such Giants never so many he is able to chain and fetter them even with a word He that sits on the throne and he that grinds at the mill to him are all one And as a thousand years with him are but as one day so a thousand a million a whole world of men with him are but as one man And when he shall sit to do judgment upon sinners all the world shall have before him but one neck and he can strike it off at a blow When I mentioned the power and virtue of this Kingdome you might expect perhaps that I should have said something of the power and efficacy of Grace because this Kingdome is called the Kingdome of Grace And indeed herein is a difference between this Kingdome and others Magistrates promulge laws threaten bind the tongue and hand but have no influence nor operation on the hearts and wills of men But in this our spiritual Kingdome the King doth not only command but gives us his helping hand that we may perform his command Et quomodo fulgur nubes disrumpit as Cyprian speaketh as lightning suddenly breaketh through the cloud and at once enlightens and amazes the world so the coruscation and splendor of Gods Grace doth at once illuminate and dull the eye of our understanding Nescio quomodo tangimur tangi nos sentimus we are toucht with this sudden flash we know not how and we feel that we are toucht but it is not easie to discern how Non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit profuisse deprehendes That the power of Gods Grace hath wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which it wrought are impossible to be reduced to demonstration We must confess that by nature we are blind and Grace is the eye by which we see we are lame and Grace is the staff by which we walk we are dead and Grace is the breath by which we live As man upon earth is composed of Body and Soul so in respect of this Kingdome he admits of a new composition of Man and the Spirit of Grace But we must remember it is a Kingdome we speak of and Christ is a King not a Tyrant Now the Philosopher will tell us Rex imperat volentibus tyrannus nolentibus That in this a King and a Tyrant differ that the one ruleth his subjects with that wisdom and temper that they are willing to obey the other makes them obey whether they will or no. Beloved Christ is a King in this respect He will not rule us against our will Nemo se ab invito coli vult No man will take a gift from an unwilling hand And dost thou look that the King of heaven and earth should force thee to allegiance Some have made it an observation That before Christs resurrection he was obeyed by those that served him against their will and so was served but to halves but under the Gospel he gathers unto him populum spontaneum a willing people that still be ready to do his will All this is from Grace thou wilt say It is true But not of Grace so working as to force the Will For as God is powerful and can do all things so is he wise too and sweetly disposes all things accomplishing his will by those means he in his eternal wisdom knoweth to be best using his power as a King but not violence as a Tyrant Wilt thou then sit still and not set thy hand to work upon a phansie that God doth not send thee grace Wilt thou not hearken to the voice of thy King speaking within God unless he
and loathsome brain nor have any thing of Lot unless it be his incest It is a wonder to see what gifts of temperance of natural conscience of justice and moral uprightness did remain not only in the books but in the lives and conversation of many heathen men I know not how they had Honesty without Faith but we have Faith enough we talk of nothing else but little Honesty And indeed as many ungoverned men are the worse for the many helps they have and would love themselves better had they not so many friends so we Christians prodimur auxiliis are betrayed by our prerogatives and are sick of our own strength of Faith and the Hope of mercy in Christ This is I presume the cause why so many Christians out-go Barbarians Turks and Infidels in fraud and villany And therefore as the Honesty of the Heathen without Faith so our Faith without Honesty shall be but as the Rain-bow was to them before the Floud for shew but no use at all And indeed this is but to deceive our selves For neither Faith nor Hope especially as they are opera intellectûs phansied in the brain but Honesty and Integrity entitles us to the promises of this life and of that which is to come and maketh the good things we enjoy to be our Bread Though we mourn like doves and wash our beds with our tears though we wish our head a fountain of tears to bewail the sins of the people though we tread the courts of the Lord and nail our ears to the Pulpit yet after all this ceremonious piety a false measure at home a false weight in our bagg a deceitful heart and a heavy hand will wipe off our title to our Bread and our names too if we repent not out of the Book of Life It is a plain and undeniable proposition yet some venture on the contrary affirmative part He that lyes to his brother He that defrauds his brother is so far from being religious that he deserves not so much as the name of a Christian But we love to be deceived and deceive our selves We fall commonly into one of these two Fallacies Either A malè divisis We divide and sunder those things which are everlastingly united not only Profit and Honesty which Tullie abhorred but Honesty and Religion Truth and Faith and when both are commanded we rest in one Or else into A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter We take any part any duty of Religion to be the sum and conclusion of the whole matter and comfort our selves with one seeming virtue if you will frequenting of Sermons against a world of vice and that detestable Injustice and Oppression which in this triumph of Godliness in this spiritual Jubilee will insensibly but certainly sink our souls to Hell To draw then towards a conclusion of this point All fraud all injustice and oppression proceed from infinite and importunate Ambition From this riot hath sprung forth both that huge mass of wealth which private men and that boundless compass of government which greatest Princes have attained to Nothing was ever more unjust than the raising of those great Kingdoms and if the Laws of common Equity had taken place they had never been St. Augustine I am sure saw no difference between the Roman Empire and Spartacus his conspiracy but only this that the one lasted a little longer Which indeed puts no difference at all in the thing it self And if we should look into some rich mens coffers we should find that this rust this canker of Oppression and Fraud hath so corrupted their treasure that they can hardly know it to be theirs To conclude Plots and tricks and devises many times thrive in the world But when God maketh inquisition for bloud when he riseth up to set at liberty those who are oppressed he will take a candle and find them out and singe them With us it is wisdom and discretion sometimes to play least in sight But when Gods Justice pursues and overtakes us we perish in those Meanders and Labyrinths which we made to hide our selves in All our reaches and tricks will prove but like Heliogabalus his ropes of silk to strangle us and as his daggers of gold to stab us Then shall we find that we have but fed and prankt up our selves with that Bread which was not ours ut cariùs pereamus only that our destruction might be more costly than others Et sola in rusticulis suis facunda justitia Then the best eloquence will be Innocence and they will plead best for themselves and make good their title quibus integritas solida tota as Tertullian speaketh whose solid integrity and entire simplicity whose rusticity and plainness hath brought a blessing both on their labour and basket even this blessing That what Bread their Industry hath brought in may truly and properly be called their own For these two Labor and Honesty do indeed make it PANEM NO STRUM our bread Now being entitled to the goods of this life by these two Labour and Honesty we presently account our selves possessores bonae fidei true and lawful possessors And our inward thought is as the Prophet David speaks Psal 49. 11. that they will continue for ever and that we may call our lands by our own names It is true what falls unto us by express covenant or by division what we gain by Honesty and Industry is wholly and entirely ours But NOSTER PANIS our Bread implies more and as it taketh not away the first so it addeth a second It taketh not away the Propriety of our Bread from us but it addeth a Readiness to distribute it and cast it upon the waters When we make it as an Evidence and Assurance we look upon it but upon one side and many times ex adverso situ on the wrong side and by too much gazing loose our sight but when we take the perspective of the Gospel and behold it with the eye of Faith and Christian Charity on the other side we shall find our poor distressed Brethrens title so legible that we may run and read it NOSTER gives us livery and seisin makes our Bread OURS jure Quiritium by the Law of man and jure Divino by the Law of God Nor doth the Evangelical Law come in to weaken our title or disinherit us or force us out of possession But as St. Hierom tells us aliud est judicium tribunalis Christi aliud anguli susurronum there is great difference in pleading before the Roman Rostra and the Tribunal Seat of Christ Nor must Christians make good their title only by the Common Law or Book of Statutes but by the Gospel and their PATER NOSTER Who ever brought an action against others for want of compassion But we find a sentence past upon them These shall go away into everlasting punishment Matth. 25. The Philosopher by the light of Reason could say Man by nature is a sociable creature and
be lost it never was true Faith as St. Hierome speaketh of Charity Tell me not of Saul's annointing of Judas's Apostleship of Balaam's prophetick spirit Tell me not of those who are in the Church but not of the Church who like the Pharisees have the Law written on their freinges Religion on the outside when the Devil is in their heart For Judas was but a traytor lurking under the title of a Disciple Sub alterius habitu alteri militavit He wore Christs livery but was the Devils servant Saul was amongst the Prophets but never received a Prophets reward And Balaam blessed the people from God but he died not the death of the righteous There may be some gifts of the Spirit where the Spirit never truly was There may be a beam of grace a shew of godliness where the power thereof is denyed And Faith in him may seem to be dead where it never had true life or being So Nazianzene speaking of those who forsook the colours under which they had formerly fought says they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men which negligently and for fashions sake handled matters of Religion having an Hosanna in their mouth when a Crucifige was in their heart like Meteors which either being drawn up by the heat of the Sun or lifted up by some puff of wind into the air there for a while they remain and draw mens eyes to behold them till at last they go out and infect it But true Faith is like the Sun which is not therefore not at all because a cloud hath overcast it or like the Moon it waxeth and waneth but still receives some light from the Sun The Papists and Arminians in this point as Augustine spake of Hereticks of the same stamp should have rather our prayers then our dispute and will sooner be recalled by our devotion then yield to the strength of our reason But if there be any infant in religion which is not yet grown up to this truth whose earthly thoughts cannot reach to the height of this heavenly mystery if he will not believe God in the book of his Words he may see and read a resemblance of it in the book of his Works Come Christian look upon the Tree In the winter it is stripped of its fruit and leaves nipped by the frost covered with snow so that it seems to be withered and dead and fit only to be cast into the fire Say then May not Faith be where Sin and the filth of the Flesh hath oppressed it Can a winter of affliction dead it Or shall we think that man whose Works alwaies speak not his Faith whose light sometimes shines dimly before men to be in the shadow of death and only fit fuel for hell-fire No this were to wrong our Charity as well as our Faith to make the way to hell broader then it is to enlarge the kingdome of Satan to undervalue the gift of Grace to mistrust the promise of God and to make him a liar like unto our selves What if we be weak and feeble What if the arm of flesh cannot uphold us Yet God directeth us in our paths and is as tender-hearted to us as a nurse to her child when she teacheth it to go sometimes leading and guiding us by his mercy sometimes catching if we slip and if we fall hastily pulling us up again and snatching us to his embraces Hear this and leap for joy you who are members of Christs mystical body You may fall but you shall rise again Your names are written in the Book of Life and neither the malice nor the policy of Satan can blot them out God hath made a league with you and you may be sure he will be as good as his word He hath married himself to you for ever and then you need not fear a divorce He hath written his law in the midst of your heart and the Devil shall never rase it out He hath put his fear into you and such and so great a fear as St. Augustine speaks that you shall alwaies adhere unto him that shall make you fly Sin as a Serpent and if it chance to bite and sting you shall make you look up to that brasen Serpent lifted up and you shall be healed If you be tempted he will give the issue Only thou must so be confident that you presume not 1 Cor. 10. so fear that you despair not Faith and Fear together make a blessed mixture Fear being as the lungs and Faith as the heart which will get an heat and over-heat as one speaketh if by Fear as by cool air it be not tempered If then Faith uphold thy Fear and Fear temper thy Faith though thou take many a fall by the way yet at last thou shalt come to thy journeys end Though the Devil shake thy Faith yet God will protect it Though he for a while steal away this precious Jewel the joy of thy salvation yet God will restore it Which is my second part the Person whose act it is Restore thou It is not the tongue of an Angel can comfort David The Prophet might awake him but raise him up he could not Nathans Parable had been but as a Proverb of the dust and his Thou art the man had sooner forced a frown then a tear from a King had not Gods Spirit fitted his heart had not the holy Ghost been the Interpreter For it is not so with the Heart as it is with the Eye The Eye indeed cannot make light nor colours yet it can open it self and receive them but the Heart neither can produce this Joy neither can it open it self to receive it But God must pulsare aperire knock and open take away the bars and open the doors of it and purge and cleanse it He must write in it the forgiveness of sins and shine upon it with the light of his countenance or else the weight of Sin will still oppress it This Joy ariseth out of the forgiveness of our sins Now such is the nature of Sin that though actus transit yet reatus manet as Lombard speaks Sin no longer is then it is a committing but the guilt of Sin still remains like a blazing star which though it self be extinct yet leaves its infection behind it For to rise from sin is not only to cease from the act of sinning but to repair our former estate not only to be rid of the disease but to enjoy our former health Now in sin as Aquinas saith there are two things peccati macula and poenae reatus the Blot and Stain of sin which doth darken the lustre of Grace And we who made this stain can blot it out again It is lost labour to wash our selves Can we Leopards lick out our own spots Can we purge our selves with hyssope and be clean Can we wash our black and polluted souls and make them whiter than snow And for the Guilt and Punishment due to sin we all stand quaking at God's Tribunal
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incorporeal hands receive nothing but vanity Our moral goodness makes us not good our Philosophy is deceit Our acquisite Habits lift us no further then the place where they grow that is Earth and Nature But with this gift we receive all things we receive the favor and gracious countenance of our Creator who in Christ is well pleased and in him looks upon us as the Emperor did behold wars and slaughter and ruine and desolation in a large Emerald whose color temper'd the object and made it appear less horrible then it was Unum est donum unius sunt omnia dona It is but one gift but it turns all things into it self and makes them a gift All the works of Nature all the wonders of Grace all the Saints are shut up in this Receit All happiness all misery that which we long for that which we run from that which we roar under with this Grace is a gift Nay our very Sins are made useful and beneficial to us by the light of the Gospel as Light cast upon a dark body which it cannot illuminate is doubled by reflexion And therefore every man in respect of Grace should be ad instar materiae like as the Matter is to the Form which Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which comes from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text the receptacle of the Form should be so inclinable to receive it as if it could have no exsistence without it should even labor and travel as the Apostle speaks till Christ be fully formed Gal. 4. 19. in him For what though we receive the good things of this world There is a Nuno autem follows them Now art thou tormented in the end of that receipt What if we receive Honor Shame follows at the very heels of it What if we receive those ornaments of the mind which Philosophy calls Virtues They are but splendida peccata but glorious sins like Gloworms which in the night cast some brightness but will not warm us Tell we receive this grace we are nothing we are worse then nothing but Nehustitan a lump of brass tell by this Grace we are reformed and transfigured into a statue of Christ I need not stand longer on this point and I intended it but as an introduction For I am sure all here have received this Grace at least profess they have And there is as great danger in receiving it as in unbelief For the Philosopher will tell us Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis All is not in the gift the greatest matter is in the manner of receiving it The Gospel is grace indeed but it will not save a Devil nor an obstinate offendor Stomachus vitiatus saith Seneca alimentum in causam doloris trahit A foul stomach corrupts all that it receives and turns that meat which should nourish the body into a disease and a corrupt heart poysons the very water of life ut evangelium Christi sit evangelium hominis saith St. Augustine it alters the very nature of the Gospel and makes it not the Gospel of Christ but of Man Judas receives a sop and with it the Devil The grand mistake of the world is in the manner of receiving Christ For as in the dogmatical part of Christianity we find that in former times they could not agree in the manner of receiving Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but some would receive him after this manner some after another they knew not how themselves some a created Christ others a half-Christ some through a conduit-Pipe others less visible then in a type in an aereal phantastical body a Christ and not a Christ a Christ divided and a Christ contracted and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene many Christs indeed as good none at all So in the practical part we often erre and dangerously in our receiving him We say Anathema to the Arians and Manichees and Anabaptists and let them pass with the censure of the Church upon them But how do we receive him Our own conscience will tell us with his curled locks and spicy cheeks with his flagons and his apples to save sinners not to instruct them with grace as much as he will but with no command or law a Physician that should heal us without a prescript a King without a Scepter a Son that would be kistt we like that well but not be angry Nor can we now impute this to the Gospel and the Grace of God for that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of but one shape and hiew and presents salvation to every receiver The fault is not in the Grace but in our receiving it As we do not blame the Table for a rude piece that is drawn upon it but the Painter who forgot his art The Stoicks conceive that every thing hath two handles and as men take hold either of one or other so they prove either delightful or irksome The truth is the Gospel hath not two handles but we rather have two hands diverse manners of receiving it To one it is the savor of life unto life and to others the savor of death unto death Great care then must be taken how we receive it that we may not receive it in vain We must receive 2 Cor. ◠16. this grace of God to that end it was given I know you will quickly say that was to save us For this end Christ came into the world we have Scripture for it The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all 2 Tit 2. 11. men But doth it not follow teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and that is Scripture too We must receive it as Law as well as Physick His Do ut des facio ut facias God gives us this gift that we may give him our obedience and he hath done this for us that we may do something even work out our salvation with fear and trembling This Grace then we must receive both to save us and instruct us as a royal Pardon Jam. 2. 8. and as a royal Law To interline the Pardon and despise the Law makes a nullity and this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to receive in vain And in the first place a Pardon we must not interline For to mix and blend it with the law of Works or our own Merits is to disannul and make it void and in St. Paul's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast away the grace of God By Gal. 2. 21. grace you are saved and not by works saith the Apostle Works though they be conditio justificandi a condition required of a justified person yet Ephes 2. 8 9. are not pars justificationis cannot be brought in as a part or helping cause of our Justification Satisfaction and Merits are but false interlineary glosses and corrupt the Text and to receive the grace of God with this mixture is in Tertullians phrase Galaticare to be as foolish as the
letter in this sense also Who would look to find the Law in the Gospel But we must remember that there is Lex evangelica an evangelical Law that the grace of God as it excludes the Law sub ratione foederis as it is a covenant so admits it sub ratione regulae as it is a rule The rigor of the covenant is abolisht but the equity of the rule is as everlasting as the Lawgiver It is our happiness by Grace to be freed from the covenant and curse of the Law but it is our duty and a great part of our Christianity to square our lives by the rule of the Law Therefore Religion was called in her purer times Christiana lex the Christian Law and the Bishops Episcopi Christianae legis Bishops of the Christian Law Evangelium commentum Divinitatis saith Tertullian The Gospel was the invention of the Deity And God did not set up the Gospel to destroy but to reform the Law No saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gospel of Christ is more laborious then the Law Pythagoras is reported to have commanded his Scholars when they saw a man burdened not to go about to ease him but add rather unto his load So our Saviour was so far from easing our burden that he seemeth rather to add weight and make it much heavier then it was before For whether he did advance and encrease the strictness of the Law as the Ancients did conceive or whether he did but only clear the Law from those corrupt glosses with which the Jewish Doctors had infected it certainly in shew and appearance he leaves it much heavier then it had formerly been understood by the Jew Innocency and obedience to the Law hath alwaies been the badge of a Christian Look into our Prisons saith Tertullian you find no Christian there If you find a Christian there the fault that laid him there is but this That he is a Christian We sail with you we traffick with you we go to war with you Plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatìm quam religio vestra templariò Our Charity spendeth more on the poor in our streets then your Superstition on your Gods in your Temples Nihil Christiano foelicius nihil laboriosius Nothing is more happy then a Christian nothing more painful Thus the grace of God presents us with two things quite contrary with Comfort and Labor that Comfort might not puff us up nor abundance of pain deject and throw us down For the Grace of God appeared not to enfeeble our hands or with a dispensation from the works of Piety nor to make us more indulgent to our selves but that we might abound more and more in virtuous actions I will not say with Socinus that upon the very receiving of this Grace we receive also afflatum quendum Divinum a kind of Divine inspiration which toucheth the heart and raiseth our hope and warmeth our affections and setteth our hands to work For every one that receives this grace doth not work Nor can I think that all the world is damned for infidelity But a strange thing it may seem that after we have given up our names unto Christ after this certainty of knowledge and conscience of the truth our ingratitude should kick with the heel and despise these promises though an Angel from heaven should perswade them It is a good saying of St. Augustine's Nemo sibi permittat quod non permittit Evangelium Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it nor presume too much on the Grace of God For such is the nature of Grace that it will not be fashioned to our actions but we must proportion our actions to it It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a buskin to be indifferently drawn on upon any design It will not fit my Ambition in the eager pursuit of honor nor my Covetousness in the grasping of wealth nor my Luxury in doting on pleasures But if I shape my actions to it it is my honour my wealth my pleasure my ALL. We are told by those who have written in the praise of Musick that it holdeth great sympathy with the nature of Man that it applies it self to all occasions of Mirth of Sorrow of Company of Solitude of Sports of Devotion And such is the wonderful harmony of Grace that it fits it self to all estates all degrees all sexes all ages all actions whatsoever It will labor with thee at the Plow trade with thee in the Shop study with thee in thy closet fight with thee in the Field and it keeps every man within the bounds of his calling and honesty But if I make it a pandar to my Pleasure a stirrop to my Ambition a steward to my unbounded Avarice if I make it my Parasite to flatter me and not my Counsellor to lead and direct me I am injurious to that Grace for the publication of which the Lord of life was crucified I receive this grace but in vain and by my ungrateful receiving turn my antidote into poyson We cannot better conclude then with that of St. Hierome in his Epistle to that noble Matron Celantia Illi terrena sapiant qui coelestia promissa non habent Let them grovel on the earth who have not received these exceeding great and precious promises Let the Epicure be wanton and the Atheist profane 2 Pet. 1. 4. and the Philosopher vain glorious Let them perish to whom the Gospel is hid But let Christians imitate their Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus and as he was crucified for us so let us crucifie our selves even our lusts and affections that we may receive him and not receive him in vain but as we receive him here and with him his Grace his Gospel his glorious Promises so we may receive him at the last day when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead according to this Gospel and with him glory immortality and eternal life The Eleventh SERMON LUKE XXI 28. And when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh IT was my labor the last day to arm you against the glittering sword and terrors of Persecution and I have now thought it fit to lead you further in these wayes of Horror and to raise and build up in you a holy constancy and resolution against those fearful signs and affrightments which shall usher in the end of the world Then I strengthen and establish you against the Sons of men who are set on mischief and whose right hand is full of bloud Now I am to prepare you against the coming of the Son of Man and Son of God to judge both the quick and the dead to plead the cause of the innocent but to punish the hypocrite and oppressor with unquenchable fire that is to set the world at rights again and to bring every man to his own place Our Saviour in this Chapter foretelleth the dreadful signs and
he gives charge in the Comedy ubi hic respicit illi continuò respiciunt watching his eye and commanding the execution of his Laws In a word the King is sent from God à quo est secundus post quem primus from whom he is the second and after whom the first and the lower Governours are sent from the King who hath power from God thus to send them Their Sheaves must stand round about and make obeisance to his Sheave the Sun and the Moon and the Stars must yield submission to him ut supereminenti as to one supereminent and all men must yield obedience to the Governours and Magistrates as to God's indeed for so they are called but missis ab eo as sent and deriving their power from him who is supreme And in this eminency the King stands pro omnibus supra omnes for all and above all Nor can any hand depose or draw him lower None can draw him from that pitch and height where God hath placed him but he is still Supreme as over the People so over the Priest Nor doth the Water of Baptisme wash off his ointment He is not less a King because he is a Christian but then Supreme when he makes himself a Servant to all The Holy Ghost hath thus stiled him And it may more truly be said of the words of God then of the words of Consecration Id operantur quod indicant They work that which they signifie and make him Supreme who they stile so Supreme in temporal things to appoint Officers to send out Governours and Supreme in spiritual to punish them that do evil and encourage them that do well He is bound indeed sceptra subjicere Christo to lay down his Scepter at the foot of Christ to serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of his life to punish wickedness and vice and to maintain Gods true Religion and Virtue But all this I am sure cannot amount to this least he should come down a step lower and yield to that spiritual power of the Pope who pretends to direct and guide but will at last devoure his temporal and disrobe the King because he is a Christian This were to make his Supremacie not a priviledge but a bare title to be play'd withall and tossed from Gloss to Gloss from distinction to distinction to call him Supreme as they did that Pope Boniface who had indeed but a hard and unpleasing countenance Therefore though the high Priest turn Polititian and take up two Swords at once the Spiritual and the Temporal and by the Word of God will make himself a God to set up Kings and depose them at pleasure yet the King is in his Zenith in that pitch of Majesty in which the hand of God hath placed him and the Nobles and Magistrates which he sends forth circle and compass him about as a ring using his power to defend his Power holding up his hands as Aaron and Hur did the hands of Moses ruling under him and for him and keeping him still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supreme above both Priest and People And to the King as Supreme and to the Governours as sent by him we stand here commanded to submit our selves Which is the Duty and comes next to be considered To submit our selves is a hard Duty from which our very nature is a verse Not to do what we would and to be subject to whom we would not is a hard saying and few there are can bear it Such is the perversness of our dispositions that we would do many things which we omit were they not tendred unto us under the high terms of a command And this Indisposition of our minds this Unwillingness to be brought under though many times it hinders our submission yet when we subdue and master it it crowns our Obedience We had need therefore of these remembrances which may kill this humour in us and make us obey not grudgingly but with a willing mind For this Submission how harsh soever the name sounds is that by which we purchase our liberty And as it is perfect freedom to serve God so is it no impeachment to our Liberty to submit our selves to the Magistrate but we are then most highly exalted when we couch and lye down at his feet Dementia est potiùs trahi quà m sequi It is a kind of madness when Authority speaks to hold back and withdraw our selves to be drawn rather then to follow and to submit rather upon the noyse of the whip than of the Law We may perhaps think it a gay and pompous thing to sit in the Throne or Seat of Justice from thence to breath forth words of power to say to one Go and to another Come to shew what wonders we can work with a frown to send forth Edicts and promulge Laws This may fill the minds of those whose eyes dazle at the beams of Majesty But it is no paradox to say that there is as great glory in Obedience For he who subjugates his Will to the lawfull commands of others hath set up a throne within himself and commands that which no King can force nay he sets up a tribunal in his Soul and passeth sentence upon the Judge himself and shews that he is as able to obey as the other is to command He who is thus a servant is the Lords freeman and he who can thus obey is his own King and Judge Now this Submission consists not in the casting-down of the eye or in the bend of the Knee onely but in the yielding up and surrendry of the whole man Of the Hand not to lift it up against that Power which is Gods and which if we do not submit will crush us to pieces To say Hayle master to the Magistrate and then to oppose him is but Judas-like to kiss Authority and betray it To say with the Church of Rome O King live for ever and yet to strike at his Crown and Dignity is to leave him a Crown indeed but made of thornes and to make his Power more irksome than Subjection To stand up against those Governours which are sent and not to give them their due honour because they are not Caesar is a breach of the same Law and a flat defiance of the King onely one removed and at the second hand And as we must submit the Hand and not lift it up so must we also the Tongue This member is very apt to swell and lift it self up and speak proud things It will sooner blaspheme than pray because Prayers are troublesome being to be utter'd with an humble and submissive voice but Rayling and Liberty of language seem to place me above my Betters make me Superior to my Governours a King of Kings and a Lord of Lords Now this liberty of the Tongue is well-near as dangerous as that of the Hand For no sooner hath Discontent breathed it self forth but it infects like the Plague because it commonly meets with those
sings of peace to the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth echoeth it back again to the Church This is Musick which both Men and Angels are delighted with Angels I say who being now made one with us make it part of their joy to see us at unity amongst our selves Happy thrice Happy times when the Poets could sing of the Spiders making their webs in the Souldiers Helmets and coats of armour These then are not excluded but wrapt up in this Salutation For all peace is carried along in this in the Peace of the Gospel When the world is out of frame this establisheth the pillars of it brings every part to its own place the Sensual parts under the Rational the Flesh under the Spirit the Will under the command of the Understanding which is the Peace of the Soul It brings the obedience of Faith under the eternal Law of Christ which is our Peace with God It draws with it the Servant under the Master the Child under the Parent the subject under the Magistrate which is the Peace of a House of a Common-wealth of the World It makes every part dwell together in unity it observes a parity in disparity an equality in an inequality it keeps every wheel in its own motion every man in his right place the Master on Horseback and the Servant on the ground and where Impudence incroacheth it checketh it with a Friend sit down lower It keepeth the hands of the ungodly from the gray hairs of the aged and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widow Like an Intelligence it moves the lesser Sphere of a Family and the greater Orbe of the Common-wealth composedly and orderly Peace is the right order and the harmony of things A Father calls it an Harp and it is never well set or tuned but by the hand of Charity For all the Peace that is in the world is derived from this Salutation from the Peace of the Gospel which slacketh and lets down the String of our Self-love even to a Hatred of our selves and windeth the string of our Love to our brother to an equal proportion with the Love of our selves We must hate our life in this world and we must John 12. 25. Math. 22. 39. love our brother as our selves Nay it lets it down lower yet to our very enemies the sound must reach even unto them Talk what we will of peace If it be not touched and tuned by Charity it will be but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal or rather if it take not its rise and spring from this Peace here from the Peace of the Gospel it will be but a dreadful sound as Job 15. 21. Eliphaz speaketh either in the Soul or in the Family or in the Church or in the Common-wealth I am the bolder thus to interpret the Disciples Salutation because I find it part of their Commission to say The Kingdome of God is at hand which was indeed to give notice of the Gospel of Peace This as it commends unto us all Peace but that which is in evil which indeed is not Peace but a conspiracy so especially it inculcates this by which Christ hath made both Eph. 2. 14. one and broken down the partition-wall which was between the Jew and the Gentile and that partition-wall also which Covetousness and Ambition Envy and Malice sets up between man and man that we may be one in him as He and the Father are one It was the prime care of the primitive Joh. 1◠Christians to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And to this Eph 4. 3. end they bound themselves by oath sayth Pliny a heathen witer nè furta committerent nè fidem fallerent not to steal or lye or deceive or break their word This course had the world upheld to this day we should perhaps have no reason to complain that Peace hath left the earth or that the Prince of Peace hath not a hole to hide his head in If men were truly Christians and had not made a sad divorce between Honesty and Religion the Disciples Salutation would not turn to them again but rest on every House and on every Common-wealth For Christian Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was and hath layd a greater horror and a fowler blemish upon Discord and Dissention then Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe She commands us to pray for peace She enjoyns us to study to be quiet and to follow Peace with all men She enjoyns us to loose 1 Tim. 2. 2. 1 Thes 4. 11. our right for Peace and to part with coat and cloak and all rather then with Peace quale regnum talis pax Look upon the Kingdom the Disciples Heb. 12. 14. M◠4729. speak of and you shall soon discern what Peace they wish Peace with God Peace of Conscience there is no doubt of that But Peace a so with men For this is truly Evangelical motus aliena naturae pace nostra cohibere as Hilary speaketh to place a peacable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of anothers rage by doing nothing to conquer him who is up in arms and spends himself and laboureth in the mine to ruine me This is the work of the Gospel to beat down noyse with silence and injury with patience To overcome evil with good To keep peace between the rich and the poor by prescribing mercy to that one and meekness to the other between the high and the low by prescribing justice to the one and submission to the other between the evil and the good by threatning the one and upholding the other Thus it levelleth the hills and raiseth the valleys and casteth an aspect and influence upon all conditions all qualities all affections of men that as it was prophesyed of the Times of the Gospel The VVolf may dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard ly down with the Kid a little Child lead Isa 11. 6. the Lion that there may be abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth O beloved did this Salutation take place did the Peace of the Gospel rest upon us our conversation would be more smooth and even and Salutations not so rugged and churlish as they commonly are They would not be so supercilious the dictates of our Pride Stand thou there or sit thou Jam. 2. 3. here under my footstool They would not be so surly the expressions of our Scorn VVho made thee a Judg over us They would not be so treacherous This is he hold him fast They would not be so cruel the messengers of Death Smite him till he dyeth They would not be so querulous the breathings of our Envy VVhy is he made rich VVhy is he in honour VVhy hath he who came in but now as much as I that have born the heat and burden of the day But every Family and every Common-wealth would be fitly joyned and compacted
impatient of Godliness of Sobriety of common Honesty of the Gospel of Christ of Heaven it self upon those terms it is profer'd us And all that bread which should nourish us up to everlasting life we turn into stones Blow what wind will we are still in finibus Tyri Sidonis at home in our own coasts But next for Humility who vouchsafeth once to put on her mantle Humility it is well we can hear her name with patience But humi serpere to creep on the ground is not our posture You will say Christ doth not call us Doggs Yes he doth For though he be in heaven yet he speaketh still and in his Scripture calleth every sinner a Dogg a Swine yea a Devil He upbraids us to our faces as oft as we offend But we will not own these titles but call our selves Priests when we sacrifice to Baal and Kings too when we are the greatest slaves in the world If Humility still live in the world sure it is not the same Humility which breathed here in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon Lastly For our Perseverance and Fervor in devotion we must not dare once to compare them with this Womans For Lord how loath are we to begin our prayers and how willing to make an end When God is silent we think he will not speak when he answers we think he is silent But when we are told that our sins do hinder our prayers and that Christ cannot help us because we are Doggs then we desist and will pray no more because we will sin more and rather suffer the Devil to vex our souls then dipossess him with noyse Yea which is ridiculous and monstrous Quod affectu volumus actu nolumus we pray for that we would not have and desire help which we would not enjoy Every day we pray for Grace and every day we quench and stifle it Every day we desire Christs help and every day we refuse it So that we may well with a little alteration use our Saviours words The woman of Canaan shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it for she came from Tyre and Sidon and would not be denyed we live in the Church and are afraid that Christ should grant our requests Her devotion was on fire ours is congealed and bound up with a frost We talk much of Faith but where are its fruits Where is our Patience our Humility our Perseverance in devotion which gave the just proportion to this Womans faith and commend the greatness of it to all posterity For these are glorious virtues and shew the full growth of her Faith These answer St. James his OSTENDE MIHI Shew me thy faith by thy works But yet to come up close to our Text our Saviour mentions not these but passeth them by in silence and commends her Faith Not but that her patience was great her Humility great and her Devotion great But because all these were seasoned with Faith and sprung from Faith and because Faith was it which caused the miracle he mentions Faith alone that Faith may have indeed the pre-eminence in all things First Faith was the virtue which Christ came to plant in his Church Non omnium est credere quod Christianum est saith Tertullian This vertue belongs not to all but is peculiar to Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the first inclination to health and the ground-work of our salvation Let the Heathen accuse the very title and name of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret calls it let them object that our Religion brings in meram credulitatem a meer and foolish credulity and that we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but play the fools in taking up things upon trust yet this Perswasion this Belief this Faith is it which draws us from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon takes us from the number of Doggs and makes us citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem When we could not do what we should not fulfil the Law God taught us to believe and it was the riches and glory of his Mercy to find out this way and save us by so weak an instrument as Faith Besides Faith was the fountain from whence these rivulets were cut from whence those virtues did flow For had she not believed she had not come she had not cryed she had not been patient she had not humbled herself to obtain her desire she had not persevered But having a firm perswasion that Christ was able to work the miracle no silence no denyal no reproach no wind could drive her away A sign that our Faith now-adayes is not so strong it falls off so soon at the least opposition and fails and falls to the ground with a very breath a sign that we have paralyticas cogitationes as one speaks paralytical thoughts which cannot reach a hand to our Will nor guide and govern our desires to the end Lastly Faith is that virtue which seasons all the rest maketh them useful and profitable which commends our Patience and Humility and Perseverance and without which our Patience were but like the Heathens imaginary and paper-Patience begotten by some premeditation by habit of suffering by opinion of fatal necessity or by a Stoical abandoning of all affections Without Faith our Humility were pride and our Prayers babling For whereas in natural men there be many excellent things yet without Faith they are all nothing worth and are to them as the Rainbow was before the Flood the same perhaps in shew but of no use It is strange to see what gifts of wisdome and temperance of moral and natural conscience of justice and uprightness did remain not only in the books but in the lives of many Heathen men but this could not further them one foot for the purchase of eternal good because they wanted the Faith which they derived which gives the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a loveliness and beauty and is alone of force to attract and draw the love and favour of God unto us These graces otherwise are but as the matter and body of a Christian man a thing of it self dead without life but the soul which seems to quicken this body is Faith They are indeed of the same brotherhood and kindred and God is the common Father unto them all but without Faith they find no entertainment at his hands As Joseph said unto his brethren You shall not see my face except your brother be with you So nor shall Patience and Humility and Prayer bring us to the blessed vision of God unless they take Faith in their company You see our Saviour passeth by them all but at the sight of Faith he cryes out in a kind of astonishment O woman great is thy faith And for this faith he grants her her request Be it unto thee even as thou wilt Which is my next part and which I will touch but in a word FIAT TIBI is a grant and it follows close at the heels of the
of Glory In fine non est modus saith the Philosopher in his Politicks When we look on the end our desires are vehement our thoughts restless no ADVENIAT is loud enough till we have attained it And for this alone we are as eager for the means because they conduce and help forward to the end What wrong then is done to the Framer and Fashioner of the Heart when we make that which should be the palace of the great King a den of thieves and rebels and traytors How do we despite the spirit of grace and as much as in us lyes unking him and thrust him out of his Dominions When his word goeth out very swiftly and flyeth from one end of the world to the other when he sendeth Ambassadours of peace to all the world when he destroys his enemies and worketh wonders when he hath drawn out a form of government promulged his laws and backt them with promises and threatnings when he hath mightily shewed himself to be our King by great signs and miracles he doth not yet account himself to reign But when thou openest thy heart and givest him possession of every corner of thy soul then he sits as King in his holy place For as the Philosopher tells us that the confirmation of Laws consisteth not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due observance of them So though Christ be King from all eternity and cannot be devested of his Kingly office yet then only he calls his Kingdome compleat when we are subject and obedient to him when he hath gotten possession of the Heart where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men For here in the Heart of man sitteth Reason as chief here is the counsel-table here is polity here are decrees here are good purposes and resolutions hither resort those nuntii those messengers which convey those auxiliary forces which either our Senses or the blessed Angels or the Spirit of God provide and send unto it So many Virtues and Vices as there are so many castles and towers are set up where so many battles are fought so many conquests made Here Holiness is besieged Religion shaken here it is either betrayed or defended Here if the Fear of this great King stand not as sentinel the strong tower of our constancies falls to the ground the Scepter and Crown is broken and Reason is thrust out of the throne whilst the enemy regeth Our Affections as in a popular sedition rush in with violence and Christ standeth as secluded and only as looker on Reign he may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Lord of all the world omnipotent as Nazianzene saith and will rule over all whether they will or no but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one who hath brought us under his command to obey his laws and ordinances Both Christs Kingdoms we pray for here for that of Grace for that of Glory the one being the end of our prayers and of our hopes the other a most necessary means to attain it No reigning as Kings in the one unless we serve as Subjects in the other no crown there without allegiance here no glory without grace But because it is impossible for the most piercing eye to discover the rules and laws and order of the Kingdome of Glory we will stay our meditations upon the way which leadeth to it and shew wherein the Kingdome of Grace consists We told you the seat and place of this Kingdome is the Heart of men For who can meddle with ordering mens hearts but Christ alone Princes Laws may sound in the Ears may bind the Tongues may manacle the Hands may command our Goods farther they cannot go Illâ se jactet in aulà Aeolus But to set up an imperial throne and reign in the Heart this none but Christ can do Now by the Heart we do not mean that fleshy part which as the Father speaks is as the center in the body which saith St. Basil was first created first received life and then conveys and derives it to every part Nor do we mean with some the Will nor with others the Affections But by the Heart we understand all the powers and faculties of the soul the Understanding Will and Affections which when they move in an obedient course by the rules and laws of any Kingdome yield us the surest sign and token 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a divine conversation conformable to Christ himself The Kingdome of Christ saith Nazianzene consists in the obteining of that which is most perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the most perfect thing in the world is the knowledge of God By which he doth not mean a bare knowledge of the King and of his Laws but a submission of our Will and a captivating of our Affections that we may walk in obedience and newness of life according to these laws Aristotle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will erect a Commonwealth must also frame laws and fit them to that form of commonwealth which he intends We cannot make the same laws sit a Popular estate and a Monarchy The different complexions of States and Republicks you may see in their Laws as the faces of Princes in their coyns Now as Christ is the wonderful Counsellor so He came out of the loins of Judah and is a Lawgiver too and hath drawn out Laws like unto his Kingdome As his Isa 9. 6. Gen. 49. 10. Psal 60. 7. 108. 8. Scepter is a Scepter of righteousness so are his Laws just No man no devil can question them Socrates and Plato and the wisest of the Philosophers though strangers to him and aliants from his Kingdome yet would no doubt have subscribed to his Laws As his Kingdome is heavenly so are his Laws from heaven heavenly written by the finger of Wisdome it self As he is an everlasting Prince so are his Laws eternal But I will not now stand to shew the difference between these Laws and the Laws by which the Kingdome of the world be governed For what will fall-in more fitly with the TUUM the Pronoun possessive which points out a Kingdom by it self and with which other Kingdoms cannot be compared The Kingdome of God Luke 17. 21. is then within us when the Understanding maketh haste to the object thereof the Truth of God to apprehend it and the Will is ready to meet the object thereof our soveraign Good to embrace it and the Affections wait and give attention upon the will to further our possession of it when we have such wisdom such holiness such courage and desires as are fit for a subject of Christ to bring him unto and keep him in true fidelity and obedience for ever For Christs Laws do not pass only to restrain the Will but to
bound the Understanding also to regulate our Affections to set limits to our very Thoughts which flow from the heart to keep us from Error as well as from Sin For as the Will must turn it self from all evil ut non consentiat that it no way incline to consent unto it so is there a tye upon the Understanding to avoid error ut non assentiat that it yield not assent to it As the Will is bound to perform its act so is the Understanding also The Will is bound to will that which is good the Understanding to know and believe those things which are the objects of our Faith and Knowledge so that it is as well a sin to believe a lye in matters of Faith as to break a commandment If there were no law to the Understanding then were it lawful for every man to believe and think as he please and that opinion would pass for current That every man may be saved in that Religion and Sect which he believes to be good and true And then how hath the Church of Christ been mistaken in passing such heavy censures upon Hereticks and Infidels We have a saying indeed in St. Bernard Nihil ardet in inferno praeter propriam voluntatem That nothing of us makes fuel for the fire of hell but our Will and that men are punisht only for the stubbornness and disobedience of their Will and if we examine it we shall find it true enough though at the first appearance it beareth some shew of opposition to the truth For the Will receives the first wound and maim And it is most certain we could never erre dangerously if we were not willing to be deceived The complaint is put-up in Scripture They will not understand Not that the acts of the Understanding depend on the Will which are rather natural than arbitrary for it is not in our power not to apprehend things in those shapes in which they present themselves but because we wilfully refuse the means to clear doubts we will not see that which is most naked and visible we seek no guide we follow no direction nay perhaps against our own consciences we dissent from that which inwardly will we nill we we do acknowledge And as the errors of the Understanding so all the extravagancies of the Affections are originally from the Will It was the Stoicks error to disgrace the Affections as evil Christianity hath made the weapons of righteousness to fight the battels of this great King My Anger may be a sword my Love a banner my Hope a staff my Fear a buckler All the weaknesses of our Soul the errors of our Understanding and the rebellions of our Affections are from the Will From hence are wars and fightings Is the Understanding dark The cloud is from the Will That my Anger rageth my Love burneth my Fear despaireth my Grief is impatient my Joy mad is from the Will From this treasury blows the wind which makes the wicked like the Isa 57. 20. troubled sea which cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt And now you see that the Kingdom of Christ consists principally in subduing of the will When that yields the Understanding is straight as wax to receive the impressions of Truth and the Affections as so many gentle gales to carry us to the haven where we would be This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom calls it principale animae as St. Ambrose the commanding leading and principal part of the Heart If Christ hath taken possession of this he hath taken the whole heart and is Lord of all Fight saith the 1 King 22. 31 King of Syria neither with small nor great save only with the King of Israel If he faâ—l in battel the whole army is overthrown Will you have it plainly thus There be these three parts as it were in the Heart or Soul of man Reason Will and Appetite Reason necessarily inclines to things reasonable and the Sensitive appetite follows the conduct of Sense For it is an axiome in the Schools Unaquaeque virtus expeditior est ad proprium actum Every power of the soul tends naturally to its proper act and operation Our Reason is quick to discourse and our Sense carries us to sensual objects And these two are at a kind of war and variance in man and strive which shall have the supremacy They are as two extreams and the Will in the midst as it were to decide the controversie When Sense hath over whelmed Reason then Sin begins to reign and the Devil to triumph But when through Christ that strenghtheneth us our Will takes Reason's part and treads the Appetite under her feet then the adverse faction is swallowed up in victory Christ is all in all and VENIT REGNUM DEI the Kingdome of God is within us I now proceed further to unfold the nature of the Kingdome of God It is REGNUM TUUM thy Kingdome Which puts a difference betwixt this and other Kingdoms Christ rules and reigneth as a King in his Church But as his Kingdome is not of this world so is it of a divers form and complexion from the Kingdoms of the world We pray Let thy Kingdome come Which points out a peculiar Kingdome a Kingdome by it self And if we put it in the Scales with the Kingdoms of the earth and weigh them together they will be all found too light whether we respect the Laws by which this Kingdome is governed or the Virtue and Power it hath or its large Compass or the Riches it abounds with or its Duration the Laws unquestionable indispensable the Power universal the Circuit as large as the world the Riches everlasting and its Continuance for ever To speak something of these in their order First in the Kingdome of Christ and his Laws neither People nor Senate nor Wise-men nor Judges has any hand They were made in Senatu Soliloquio as Rupertus speaks in that Senate and Solitariness where there are divers yet but one Three Persons and but one God Secondly there is a difference in the Laws themselves These are pure and undefiled exact and perfect and such as tend to perfection and so were none that ever the heathen Legislatours enacted What speak we of the Laws of heathen men and strangers from the Commonwealth of Israel The Law of Moses though it had nothing unlawful or dishonest yet conteined many precepts concerning things which in themselves were neither good nor evil as Sacrificing of beasts Circumcision exact Rest on their Sabboath forbidding of divers meats But the Laws of the Gospel and of the Kingdome of Christ command those duties which had they not been tendred in that high commanding form yet in their own nature were most just and fit to be done Not to circumcise the flesh but the heart Not to cease from labor but from that which is unlawful Not to sacrifice the bloud and fat of beasts but our selves Not to abstein from certain meats but to
sense which men use to take it As the Poet tells us when he speaks of Rivers and Mountains that men called them thus or thus but the Gods had other names for them The Gold of this Kingdome is the Religiousness and Obedience of the Saints the precious Stones are Truth and Sanctity In mundo tantò quisque melior quantò pecuniosior In the world every man is esteemed so good as he is rich Like a fruitless tree tanti est in pretio quantum lignum ejus in trunco he is valued only by his bulk and trunk But in this Kingdome the only Riches is Obedience Men may have the riches of the world and yet be poor But this Kingdome makes Poverty it self riches Disgrace honor Death life Here we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation here we are begotten to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away but is reserved in the heavens for us till that time that we shall receive the end of our faith the salvation of our souls Having now made the comparison the choice is easie And a great folly it were to prefer the World to the Church In the world the Laws are mutable here everlasting In the world they have tongues many times to speak but not hands to strike here they both thunder and lighten there Power beats the ear here it pierceth the very heart The Kingdoms of the world are bounded by place and time this is unconfinable More scope in the Church than in the world The Riches of the one are fading and transitory of the other everlasting And of this just and mighty and large and rich and everlasting Kingdome we cannot but say ADVENIAT Let it come I need make no further discovery of this Kingdome For who knows not what that Kingdome is where the King is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both God and Man Where the Subjects are of the earth earthy and yet born to an Angelical estate and having their conversation in heaven perigrini deorsum cives sursum strangers where they live and fellow-citizens with the Saints Phil. 3. 10. Where the King speaks to the eye by his wonders and to the ear by his word and yet leads and guides his people like sheep by a powerful but invisible hand A Kingdome which is not of this world but yet in this world raised up and built upon flesh and bloud upon frail and mortal men begun John 18. 36. here but to be made perfect and consummate in the world to come In a word where the King shall deliver up his kingdome and yet remain 1 Cor. 15. 34. still a King Take the Mapp of the whole world and if you find no such Kingdome no such parts no such subjects no such government then look up and lift up your heads let not your contemplations grovel on the earth for the Kingdome of heaven is at hand This is the sum of that we formerly delivered concerning the Object of this Petition We pass now to the Petition it self to the Verb ADVENIAT Let it come Which breaths it self forth in an earnest desire to draw this Kingdome nearer Whether you take it for the Gospel which is the manifestation of Gods will or for the receiving of the Gospel which is the performing of his will Whether you take it for the Kingdome of Grace here or for the Kingdome of Glory hereafter ADVENIAT Let it come That is the language of every true Christian Where it is not yet come let it come it cannot come soon enough And when it is come let it come nearer When it is within us let it be establisht there and when it is establisht let it be eternized there Remove all obstacles supply all helps ut adveniat that it may come that thy Kingdome of Grace may entitle us to thy Kingdome of Glory A Petition fitted indeed to the times wherein it was first prescribed but most necessary for all Christians to the worlds end when time shall be no more Though the Angels had sounded forth their GLORIA IN EXCELSIS Glory to God in the highest good will towards men though Christ were come in the flesh yet this Kingdome of the Gospel was not yet come but was rather in voto than in ministerio rather desired than known by its several offices and ministeries The Law and the Prophets saith our Saviour were until John since that time the Kingdome of Luke 16. 16. God is preached and every man presseth unto it By this preaching cannot be meant the kingdome present first because when Christ sends his Disciples Matth. 10. forth he commands them to preach The kingdome of heaven is at hand Secondly he tells us that From the time of John the Baptist the kingdome Matth. 11. of heaven suffereth violence not that the Kingdome of heaven was then invaded and taken but because from that time men did burn with ardent affection and desires to have it come not able to bear the burthen of expectation beholding it at hand yet thinking it not near enough As in those good things we desire omnia solemus faciliùs perpeti quà m moram we can endure any thing better than delay And that this is the true meaning of those words may appear by our Saviours elogie of John the Baptist That among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John Matth. 11. 11. the Baptist notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdome of heaven is greater than he MINOR the least not Angel in heaven as St. Augustine nor LEAST that is of fewer years to wit Christ himself as Rupertus nor LEAST that is he that is most humble as others will have it but the least in the Church of Christ the least and meanest subject in the Kingdome of the Gospel is greater than John Where Christ puts a manifest Antithesis and opposition between the Law and the Gospel and between those persons which are under the Law and those which obey the Gospel which had it been then in force our Saviour had made John Baptist greater than himself Most plain it is the Law was yet in force the Ceremonies not disannulled Christ himself observed them The old Tabernacle was yet standing because our high Priest was not yet entered into the true Sanctuary And therefore in crepusculo Evangelii in this dawning of the Gospel when the Sun of righteousness had not yet climb'd up to the proper Horizon of the Church in this interstitium this interposition of Jesus preaching who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene calls him placed in the middle between the Law and the Gospel this Petition was most fit and opportune fitting the time and opportune for the persons who would be disciples of this Kingdome ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM Thy Kingdome is at hand and let it come And as it fits the time so is it necessary in respect of the Gospel it self which though it be commentum
all his will This was an office for the Son for Christ himself â—â—lly to declare and publish his last Will and to teach us to subscribe to it with our bloud with a FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA If I must deny my self if I must be torn on the rack if I must through many afflictions enter into thy Kingdome FIAT Thy will be done The Five and Thirtieth SERMON PART II. MATTH VI. 10. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven IT may be perhaps expected that I should frame some Apologie this day for my absence the last But indeed I was never over-much in love with Apologies in this kind and therefore first I may say with Seneca Si noluero quis coacturus est If I will not who can compel me Secondly I have already rendred my reason and it was accepted there where it was especially due From others who love ire in opus alienum to be over-busie in other mens matters and who are least pleased with the greatest diligence I expect but thus much that they will give me leave not to be troubled much with what they think or say who give them full liberty to think and say what they please Abundat sibi locuples testis conscientia saith St. Ambrose It is not much material what foul weather is abroad when all is quiet at home and when the Conscience hath received no wound all the censures of the world are but noise which can shake none but those who are vilissima popularis aurae mancipia who walk along in the strength of that applause which Ignorance breaths forth and when that wind ceaseth are on the ground I will mis-spend therefore no more time in an unnecessary Apologie for that fault of omission which borrowed nothing from my will but I proceed to shew what conformity we owe to Gods Will in its several kinds either as Absolute or as Natural and Antecedent or as Consequent and Occasioned or as barely Permissive or lastly to that Will of his which we call voluntatem praecepti his Law and Command And so having said something of them in several we will draw up all at last in this one conclusion That every Christian who will truly say this petition Thy will be done must bring with him an heart that will yield ready obedience to do whatsoever God commands and a chearful patience to suffer what his hand shall lay upon him And first for Gods Absolute Will by which he created the world and doth what he pleaseth both in heaven and earth common Reason will teach us that this Will of his will be fulfilled whether we pray or no. For who hath resisted his will And if he shut up or cut off or gather together who Job 11. 10. can hinder him saith Zophar Prayer and intreaty are then used when without prayer and intreaty we cannot prevail But this Will of God shall take effect whether we set-to our FIAT or no. He giveth snow like wooll and scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes He casteth forth his ice like morsels He causeth his wind to blow and the waters flow And what he Psal 46. will do he doth Nor can all the prayers of the world draw him from action or help him in his work Yet notwithstanding we may say FIAT Thy will be done to testifie our consent and conformity to his Will We must idem velle et idem nolle will and nill the self-same things with God that so we may be his friends Non pareo Deo sed assentior ex animo illum non quia necesse est sequor saith Seneca Obedience may be constrained and therefore we must not only obey God because Necessity forceth us but we must with joy and readiness intreat him to do his will and even begg it at his hand as a favour Now this our conformity to Gods Absolute will quot ramos porrigit quot venas diffundit it hath many branches and veins by which it spreads and conveighs and manifests it self It is seen in our Admiration of his infinite power and of those his works which no hand but that of Omnipotencie could produce For though Augustine somewhere calls Admiration a vice yet he retracts it lib. 1. Retract c. 3. And certainly it is a good argument of our assent unto Gods Will when the contemplation of his works transports us beyond our selves strikes us into a kind of silence and leaves that deep impression in our souls that no finite power could compass them and forceth us to subscribe after the ancient form Donum factum That whatsoever God doth is well done and withal to confess that he is ita magnus in magnis ut minor non sit in minimis that as his hand is great in the greatest works so is it no less great and mighty in the least and that his Power which hath made so many things unlike one to the other yet in all these is still like it self and perfect and absolute in every one To question with Hermogenes and the Materiarii Whether the world were made of praeexistent matter with others Whether it were coaeternal with God with the Gnosticks Whether it were made by God or by his Angels to quarrel with the Creation with Alfonsus King of Arragon who was perswaded he could have made and ordered the world better than it is to ask whether God might not have made more worlds are bad symptomes and prognosticks of a profane heart evaporations of sick and loathsome brains doubts of men unwilling to subscribe and who have not wrought their will to that conformity which they owe to the Absolute Will of God Secondly this our assent is seen in our songs of Thanksgiving Great is the Lord and most worthy to be praised and again Who can speak the greatness of the Lord or shew forth all his praises are fair commentaries upon this Petition He that magnifieth Gods name for that which he hath done he which rejoyceth and triumpheth in every work of God who can find matter for a Jubilee not only in the Sun and Moon and Stars but in the Lilies of the field and in every herb that groweth there hath set-to his seal and approbation and saith his PATER NOSTER not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the lips outward but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his very soul God 's works are made whether we will or no whether we pray or no And for us they were thus made And our Magnificats our Jubilees and our Gratitude are our FIAT and plainly speak our conformity to Gods Will. A sullen silence and a lazy ingratitude scatter our prayers before the wind and make it too plain and evident that we are not willing that God should do what he will Again our conformity to this his Absolute Will dwells as it were and takes up its residence in a heart which frequently meditates in the works of God For Meditation is that hand-maid which follows God at a distance in all
gracious to me that the child may live But when the child was dead he arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself Which was a lively expression of his submission to the will of God God revealed the destruction of Niniveh the Ninivites repent and he destroyed it not A sure rule it is Promissa obligant minae non obligant God binds himself more by his promises than by his threatnings In what he promises he never fails but what he threatens doth not alwayes come to pass But they tell us there be some persons whom God will not suffer us to pray for as he forbad Samuel to mourn and pray for Saul and the Prophet Jeremiah Pray not for this people To which it might easily be replyed that the case is not the same but differs as much as a temporal loss from a spiritual and the loss of a kingdome and captivity from the loss of a soul and eternal separation from God But I will rather make use of that excellent passage of Tertullian in his book De Idololatria who being urged with the example of Moses lifting up the Serpent in the wilderness maketh answer that it was an extraordinary precept and a type of the Cross and therefore stood in no opposition with that command Thou shalt not make any graven image nor did God forbid what he commands nor command what he did forbid Well saith the Father Si eundem Deum observes habes legem ejus If thou serve the same God which Moses did thou hast his law that Thou shalt not make a graven image but if thou look upon the precept in obedience to which the Serpent was set up tu imitare Mosem nec facias adversùs legem simulacrum aliquod nisi tibi Deus jusserit do then also imitate Moses and set no image up till God commands thee In like manner if thy error lead thee to this perswasion That there be some for whom thou oughtest not to pray because Samuel and Jeremy were forbid to pray for the King and People of the Jews look not upon the two Prophets but upon the Law and the Rule which makes our prayers oecumenical and our Devotion as large as the whole world But if their example still run in thy eyes then stay the doing of it till thou mayest do it as they did it Do it by command These are indeed but scruples and they weigh no more And we may say of these and many the like doubts raised by the Schools as Tully did of the Latine tongue in his time Non tam praeclarum scire Latinè loqui quà m turpe nescire It advantageth not us at all to know these doubts and questions but perhaps it may be some disparagement not to know and assoil them We therefore leave this point and proceed to God's Permissive Will by which he is resolved not to intercede by his Omnipotencie and hinder those sins which if he permitted not could not once have being And to this Will of his we cannot but yield conformity unless we forget that we are Men and Christians and destined to a crown of happiness For if Sin were not permitted what use were there of our Passions and Reason or why hath Man a Will Christianity were indeed but fabula as the Heathens terms it a very sigment and Obedience nothing For it is impossible that he should be obedient who cannot possibly disobey And what reward is due to him whose actions are meerly natural who doth what he doth and cannot do otherwise Permission of Sin is that which makes a way to virtue The Devil and outward Temptations and the World we count enemies but they are such enemies as the unrighteous Mammon in the Gospel we may make friends of them Chrysostome hath a tract upon this subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why God doth not take the Devil out of the world but suffers him to walk about and he resolves the question thus That it is for our good For we who perhaps would be evil if there were no Devil at all have now opportunity to resist and vanquish him and so to gain an everlasting crown of glory So for the World I may so use it that I may enjoy God the Flesh I may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father speaks fight against it and make it my slave and captive Temptations They are materiam virtutum the very matter out of which we shape those works which we call Virtues The Devil He is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wickedest and most malitious enemy we have but we may make him as profitable and useful to us as any friend And if all these dangers and this opposition from the World the Flesh and the Devil be of purpose placed in our way that we may struggle with them and conquer and be crowned he that is a Man a Christian candidatus aeternitatis who sues for any place in heaven will readily say FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI Let the will of God be done in this respect and conform himself to this his Permissive Will For by yielding our assent to this Will of God we assent only to this that it is necessary that Sin should be permitted But we do not therefore pray that wicked men may take their swinge and run-on in the wayes of wickedness without controul No our Devotion is set to a contrary key We pray and we are bound to pray that God will put a bit into the mouth of every wicked person that he will rule the raging of the sea and the madness of the people that he will put a hook into the nostrils of that great Leviathan For as there is permissio so there is rectio and moderatio As God permits Sin so by his wisdome and moderation it comes to pass that all the intents of wicked men do not take effect Scelera semper festinant quasi contra innocentiam ipsam festinatione praevaleant saith Gregory Wickedness is ever on the wing but it doth not alwayes fly to the mark It makes haste as if haste would prevail against Innocency but God that God who rideth upon the cherubim and flyeth upon the wings of the wind overtakes it and sets up a bulwark against it to stop it in its course Pharaoh i◠in his chariot and drives furiously after the Israelites but God takes off his chariot-wheels and drowns him in the sea Haman procures a decree against all the Jews the Posts to go out and are hastned by the King But God by his over-ruling Providence crosseth the bloudy design the Kings heart is turned Haman is hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai and a gracious Edict issueth out in favour of Gods people The Scripture is full of instances of this kind All which may teach us to yield our assent that it is convenient and necessary that sin should be permitted and to interceed by our frequent prayers and devotion that although God in his wisdome hath left every man
stand upright at the great day of tryal Neither did these monsters only blemish this doctrine but it received some stain also from their hands who were its stoutest champions Not to mention Clemens Alexandrinus Theophilus Cyprian Hilary and others St. Augustine that great pillar of the truth and whose memory will be ever pretious in the Church though he often interpret the word Justification for Remission of sins yet being deceived by the likeness of sound in these two words JUSTIFICARE and SANCTIFICARE doth in many places confound them both and make Justification to be nothing else but the making of a man just So in his Book De Spiritu Litera c. 26. interpreting that of the Apostle Being justified freely by his grace he makes this discant Non ait PER LEGEM sed PER GRATIAM He doth not say by the Law but by Grace And he gives his reason Ut sanet gratia voluntatem ut sanata voluntas impleat legem That Grace might cure the Will and the Will being freed might fulfill the Law And in his Book De Spiritu Gratia he saith Spiritus Sanctus diffundit charitatem quâ unâ justi sunt quicunque justi sunt The holy Spirit powers out his love into our hearts by which Love alone they are just whosoever are just And whosoever is but little conversant in that Father shall soon observe that where he deals with the Pelagian he makes the grace of Justification and of Sanctification all one Now that which the Father says is true but ill placed For in every Christian there is required Newness of life and Sanctity of conversation but what is this to Justification and Remission of sins which is no quality inherent in us but the act of God alone As therefore Tully speaks of Romulus who kill'd his brother Peccavit pace vel Quirini vel Romuli dixerim By Romulus his good leave though he were the founder of our Common-wealth he did amiss So with reverence to so worthy and so pious a Saint we may be bold to say of great St. Augustine that if he did not erre yet he hath left those ill weighed speeches behind him which give countenance to those foul mishapen errours which blur and deface that mercy which wipes away our sins For Aquinas in his 1 a 2 ae q. 113. though he grant what he cannot deny because it is a plain Text That Remission of sins is the Not-imputation of sins yet he adds That Gods wrath will not be appeased till Sin be purged out and a new habit of Grace infused into the soul which God doth look upon and respect when he forgives our sins Hence those unsavory tenets of the Romish Church That Justification is not a pronouncing but a making one righteous That inherent holiness is the formal cause of Justification That we may redeem our sins and puchase forgiveness by Fasting Almes-deeds and other good works All which if she do not expose to the world in this very garb and shape yet she so presents them that they seem to speak no less so that her followers are very apt and prompt to come towards them and embrace them even in this shape And although Bellarmine by confounding the term of Justification and distinguishing of a Faith informed with Charity and a Faith which is not and by putting a difference between the works of the Law and those which are done by the power and virtue of the holy Spirit and by allotting no reward but that which is freely promised and promised to those who are in the state of grace and adoption though by granting that the Reward doth far exceed the dignity of our Works he striveth to bring the Church of Rome as near to St. Paul as he can and lays all the colours he hath to make her opinion resemble his yet when he tells us that the Good works of the Saints may truly satisfie the Law of God and merit eternal life when he makes our Satisfaction go hand in hand with Christs and that Fasting and Prayer and Alms are satisfactory not only for punishment but for all punishment and which is more for the guilt it self he hath in effect unsaid what formerly he had laid down concerning the free Remission of our sins and made so wide a breach between St. Paul and their Church as neither St. Peter nor all the Saints they invocate are able to close In a word he speaks as good sense as Theodorus Antiochenus doth in Photius his Bibliotheca who makes a twofold Forgiveness of sins the one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those things which we have done the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Impeccancie or Leaving off to Sin So that we may say with Photius What this Forgiveness is or from whence it is is impossible to find out No doubt God taketh notice of the graces he hath bestowed on his children and registreth every good work they do and will give an eternal reward not only to the Faith of Abraham the Chastity of Joseph the Patience of Job the Meekness of Moses the Zeal of Phinehas the Devotion of David but even to the Widows two mites cast into the treasury to a cup of cold water given to a thirsty Disciple Yet most true it is that all the righteousness of all the Saints cannot merit forgiveness And we will take no other reason or proof for this position but that of Bellarmins Non acceptat Deus in veram satisfactionem pro peccato nisi justitiam infinitam God must have an infinite satisfaction because the sin is infinite Shall I give my first-born for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul Shall I bring the merits of one Saint and the supererogations of another and add to these the treasury of the Church All these are but as an atome to the infinite mass of our Sin Shall I yet add my Fasting my Alms my Tears my Devotion All these will vanish at the guilt of Sin and melt before it as wax before the Sun We must therefore disclaim all hope of help from our selves or any or all creatures in earth or in heaven It is only the Lamb of God who taketh John 1. 29. away the sins of the world the Man Christ Jesus is the only Mediatour between 1 Tim. 2. 5. God and Man He alone is our Advocate with the Father and the 1 John 2. 1 2. propitiation for our sins His bloud cleanseth us from all sin In him we have 1 John 1. 7. Eph. 1. 7. Eph. 3. 12. redemption through his bloud the forgiveness of sins In him we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him In his name therefore who taught us thus to pray let us put up this Petition Forgive us our debts and our prayer will be graciously heard and we shall be accepted in the Beloved Eph. 1. 6. all our Debt will be remitted through the merits of our Surety who hath
Tertullian that upon this command he might build up a glorious ensample for us and teach us to esteem our Children the fruit of our body our best hopes and expectation as nothing in respect of God And the Devil is said to tempt Job but to another end to make him curse God to his face In both under the name of temptation those adverse and contrary things are comprehended by which we may be withdrawn and hindred in the race which we run For the command to Abraham was a grievous command grievous to flesh and bloud for a father to slay his son and might have shook his faith And the Devils tentation was such a touch of Job as might have overthrown him Only here is the difference There was love in Gods tryal which made it a tryal of a Father and no more but there was malice in the Devils which made it the tryal of an Enemy a bloudy tryal to undermine and overthrow Gods tryal did bespeak obedience but the Devils tryal breathed-forth nothing but destruction But here the word INDUCAS or INFERAS Lead us not into tentation may seem to imply that God sometime not only brings us but leads us into tentations there to be as it were shut-up and detained For that may be the force of the word as if we were so cast upon tentations that they might lay-hold and take possession of us And if it would not bear this sense yet even the word Tentation may signifie no less than a Withdrawing us from God And so it is taken 1 Cor. 7. 5. where Paul admonishing the married couple to separate themselves but for a season adds the reason Lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency Which is nothing else than Lest Satan make you sin through incontinency And Gal. 6. 1. he bespeaks them brethren If any man be overtaken in a fault restore him in the spirit of meekness lest thou also be tempted which must needs be the very same with that before Lest thou also be overtaken with a fault And 1 Thes 3. 5. Lest the tempter have tempted you and our labour be in vain For though by adversity or some other temptation they were solicited to sin yet it doth not follow that their labour should be in vain but it was then in vain when they yielded unto the temptation and did actually sin Now it cannot be attributed to God that he thus tempts us God is a Tempter of no man We Jam. 1. 13. will therefore before we descend to particulars lay-down these two positions 1. God doth permit us to be led into tentations 2. God doth but permit us That we are led unto tentations is by the permission of God and this permission is not efficacious for if we will we may overcome them Nothing more contrary and abhorrent to the will of God than Sin and yet the Permission of Sin is a positive act of his will for he will permit it For though God made Man upright yet he made him also mutable the root of which mutability was the freedom of his Will by which Man might incline to either side and either embrace tentations or resist them Man being thus built-up did owe unto his Maker absolute and constant obedience and obedient he could not be if he had not been thus built-up Therefore his Understanding and Will were to be exercised the one with Arguments the other with Occasions the one of which might discover the Resolution the other the Election of Man which way he would take whether to the right hand or to the left These arguments and occasions are that which we call Temptations Which though they naturally light upon the outward man yet do formally aime at the inward For Obedience hath reference to some law by which it must be squared and directed and therefore God hath made Man capable of one made him Dominum rerum temporumque Master and Lord of his own actions and imprinted in him a Will which may either joyn with the Sensitive part against Reason which make us to every good work reprobate or else with Reason against the Sensual appetite which works in us a conformity to Gods will He that is capable of this Law must have some power and faculty left to break it Otherwise it were a vanity to enact a Law Who would speak to the Grass to grow or to the Fire to burn or to a Stone to lye still and move no more Quis unquam lapidem coronavit quod virgo permanserit saith St. Hierome Who ever put the crown of virginity upon a Stone upon his head who could not possibly defile himself There is a nullity in every Law if the persons to whom it is given be necessitated to either part of the contradiction to keep or not to keep it Obedience is nothing else but a bowing of the Will and conforming it to the Law of God against all those assaults which like so many winds beat upon the Will which is a free faculty to drive it from that object to which the will of God confines it to that which indeed it may choose but for the VETO the prohibition written upon it to dull and take off that inclination Now the Will of man having this natural propriety to be libripens emancipati à Deo boni to weigh that good which is proposed as it were in the scales and to chuse and refuse it is that which turns Tentations from that end for which they were permitted and ordained makes Satans darts more fiery his enterprises more subtle his arguments more strong his occasions more powerful and his tentations more perswasive than indeed they are so that what God ordained for our tryal and crown is made a means of our downfal and condemnation All the weakness of our soul all those sad symptoms and prognosticks of death all the sins of the world though permitted by God and suggested by Satan are properly and principally from the Will Suppose a darkness on the Understanding the cloud is from the Will and therefore God often complaineth not that we do not but that we will not understand That my Anger rageth my Love burneth my Grief is impatient and my Joy is mad all is from the Will All arguments all occasions all tentations all provocations supposed no outward force no flattery no violence not all the power of Hell can determine our Will or force us unto action NULLUM MALUM EST NATURALE That no evil is natural is the substance of that great dispute of St. Augustine against the Manichee And then certainly nullum malum est supernaturale no evil is or can be supernatural The highest Heaven is not the coast from whence this pestilential wind doth blow And therefore the Father laies it down as a fundamental principle MALUM NON EXORTUM NISI EX LIBERO ARBITRIO Sin could have no beginning or being but from the Will of man God permits the Devil tempts outward objects are busie in our eyes every
in intimis essentiae naked as they are in themselves not drest-up and coloured-over and refined by the Senses we would loath these smiling enemies and the more because they smile Ipsum vocabulum nos admonere potest The very word TENTATION may admonish us to be shy and wary of them For what is a Tentation but a heave a tryal an experiment to overthrow us But so it is that we are commonly the greatest strangers at home that we are willing to believe that we are of the earth earthly and like the Horse and Mule which have no understanding lower and viler than those Tentations which do but knock nay but shew themselves and are welcomed as friends Rarum est ut satìs se quisque vereatur It is a very rare thing for men to fear and reverence themselves 〈◊〉 give that honour to themselves which they do to the whip nay to the frown of a Superiour These many times curb and restrain us when we are making forward to unlawful pleasures they seal-up our lips they bind our hands they put-in their Veto and we dare not touch or tast or handle But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Reason which should be as an Emperour and commander over us is slighted and neglected and esteemed not worth the harkning-to To which if we gave that due reverence which we owe dimittamus licet paedagogum there were no need at all of any outward restraint And as we take no great pains in the study of Our selves so do we as little trouble our selves to sift and examine those Tentations which make towards us but judge of them by their outside look upon them and are taken with a look And as the Romans observed of the barbarous Nations that being utterly ignorant of the art of Engining when they were besieged and shut-up they would stand still and look upon the enemy working in the mine not understanding quò illa pertinerent quae ex longinquo instruebantur what it meant or wherefore those things were prepared which they saw afar off at distance till the enemy came so near as to blow them up and destroy them So do we behold Tentations with a careless and regardless eye as if we knew not what they meant and so suffer them to work-on to steal nearer and nearer upon us till they enter our souls and dwell there and take full possession of us That we may therefore be the more ready and skilful to apply these two Remedies we will add a third which we at first also proposed the Knowledge and serious Consideration of God himself For quantò magìs appropinquat Deo cogitatio nostra tantò praecellentior ejus nobis videtur majestas the nearer we draw unto God and the greater our knowledge is of him the more are we taken and amazed with his beauty and the glorious raies of his Majesty in comparison of which all the Beauty in the world is but deformity all the Pleasure of the world loathsomness all the Glory of the world but as vanity as nothing Now by the knowledge of God I do not understand that imperfect and weak apprehension of him which even they may have who understand his precepts and give assent unto them that they are just and holy but yet through their corrupt and wicked conversation cannot be induced to believe his promises and by virtue and force obey his commands as the Apostle speaks of the Heathen that they knew God but did not glorifie him as God For as Ignorance of God brought-forth Rom. 1. 21. those Lusts of concupiscence in the Heathen so the like Lusts as greedily affected by Christians breed not Ignorance onely but also a Denial of God and of Holiness without which no man can ever see God But a sad and serious Consideration of Gods Majesty and Goodness may transform the Soul into the similitude and likeness of God For true Knowledge is a kind of assimilation of the mind to that which it apprehends And as there is imprinted in the organ of every Sense a likeness of that object which it doth receive so is there also in the Understanding an impression made which if it be not wiped out and defaced by impertinent deviations and wandrings by the frequent admittance of contrary objects will work in us a conformity to the nature and purity of that God which we behold with wonder that we may converse here on earth as so many mortal Gods that as God is present every where and yet receiveth no contagion from any place present with the wicked yet is Justice it self present with the adulterer yet is Purity it self tunc maximè magnus cùm homini pusillus tunc maximè optimus cùm homini non bonus tunc maximè unus cùm homini duo aut plures then most eminently great when he seems least unto man then especially best when we least feel him so then most one when we conceive of him as of two or more in his anger and in his mercy â—â— his blessings and in his curses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unchangeably one and the same So we may learn to be in the world and yet be no more spotted of the world than if we were out of the world to hear its musick yet not hearken to see its allurements and not be allured to walk in the midst of its tentations yet remain untoucht whether it fawn or frown smile or threaten amidst all its changes and varieties to abide still the same This is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be made like unto God Every article of our faith leads us to some operative virtue and by the Knowledge of God we grow-up to be like him If I believe he is GOD I must fall down and worship him What he commands must be my law and I must fulfil it His Omnipotency both comforts and affrights me His Justice drives me from Presumption and his Mercy from Despair If I do not make use of him as far as he is pleased to open and reveal himself though I fall down before him and worship him yet I deny him or at best mistake him Alium enim Deum facit quem aliter cognoscit saith Tertullian He makes him another God who conceives of him otherwise than he is who calls him Just yet so live â—s if he were not so who acknowledgeth him to be the Holy one of Israel and yet leaves him for Uncleanness to be the Fountain of all blessings and yet heweth to himself broken cisterns and trusteth in the Creature *** Certainly the greater Gods Love the hotter his Anger Etiam Amor laesus irasci solet For even Love it self if you chafe and provoke it too much will wax angry And he that is jealous over us for oâ—â— good if we offend him and charge him will be jealous against us to our destruction To conclude then The consideration of these three the All-sufficiency and Providence of God his Omniscience and his Jealousie if it be serious as
afflictions had converted some even of Caesars houshold in the first and last Chapters So that considering the things which happened to him fell out thus to the furtherance Phil. 1. 12. 13. of the Gospel they ought to joy with him because he was in prison it being only a more convenient place to preach in where he might be heard the better for the voice of his sufferings reached further then his tongue could possibly do Then again in respect of themselves why should they complain if Christ would vouchsafe them the honour to put his own Crown of Thorns upon their Head If he would please to exalt them and lift them up to his own Cross they should rather boast and be exceeding glad for thus they tread his steps whom they profess to follow in the other Chapters and afterwards concludes the whole Epistle with a most pathetical acknowledgment of their great Liberality in supplying his present wants So that however Origen pleases to taxe St. Pauls writings as broken rugged and unequal yet here both his matter and stile glides so smooth and eaven that we easily see to the very bottom of it But least these Philippians might mistake the joy he conceiv'd at this their charitable expression towards him either as proceeding from a covetous desire to fill his pockets or out of too much carefulness to secure himself against want for the future he tells them plainly that indeed they solely had contributed to his necessities of all the Churches besides that they had not relieved him once onely but once and again v. 13. that is very often according to the Greek Phrase And in this the Apostle applauds them You have well done v. 14. of this Chapter But why wherein does the blessedness of this action consist in relieving him in feeding him meerly in feeding his belly No No such matter But because in parting thus freely with their goods to supply him they rais'd a bank in Heaven for themselves and in giving to him became far more liberal to themselves as it follows in my Text Not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit that may abound unto your account Where you see the Philippians liberality at the same instant refused and accepted by St. Paul Refus'd under the Notion of a Gift and as it meerly serv'd his turn Not because I desire a Gift but most gratefully Accepted as it did respect and benefit those who did give expressed in these words but I desire fruit that may abound to your account I begin first to consider the Philippians liberality towards the Apostle under the Notion as he refuses it namely as a Gift Not that I desire a Gift A Gift A Gift does he say Why suppose he had indeed received their liberality as a maintenance for himself to feed and cloath him only Suppose he had sent to them particularly for a subsistence from them without any regard to the benefit which they should reap by giving Imagine I say the Apostle had expected a most speedy return from them meerly that he himself might live Yet could they look upon their Bounty as a meer Gratuity or a thing given away Or indeed could they boast of any more done then they stood bound to do Will you perswade me St. Paul even in this had desired a Gift You acknowledge your selves obliged to discharge the Bills of Fare though they cost you as much again in Physick to cure the surfeits you got by them 't is a just and a due debt which your wantonness in apparel hath contracted and this you must quit though you sell half your land for 't and you think you wrong and neglect your selves extreamly if you don't prove your Hearts with the madness of Mirth and the folly of Pleasure whatsoever it costs you 't is just and noble to pay to your Lusts nothing but right to feed them But to feed the hungry to cloath the naked to House him who knows not where to lay his head to perform all those Acts of Charity which stile us Christians more then Faith it self as St. Paul acknowledges This of all things we 1 Cor. 13. 13. esteem indifferent accompting what we lay down here as given or rather thrown away 'T is true St. Paul could not have su'd them had they sent him nothing for in those times of persecution what Court of Justice stood open for poor Christians but to condemn them Or how can you imagine this Apostle should be suffer'd to accuse another who was not permitted to defend Himself especially recover maintenance by the Judgment of those men who did not think him worthy to live yet still notwithstanding all this in those very days where it was death to relieve a Christian where whosoever put forth his hand to succour them did in a manner stab himself yet then in relieving they did but pay St. Paul what they ow'd Him nor so much gave an Alms as they stroke out a Debt to which they stood ingaged For take the Apostle in his private capacity only as a common Christian thus they were bound to relieve him bound by the Law of Charity Mark you the Law of Charity they are Lawyers and Philosophers only who tell you the Acts of bounty and liberality fall not under the strict rules of Debt and Obligation for the Scripture mentions a Law of Charity and calls Charity the fulfilling of the Law as if truly there were no Law but it and as all Laws have some punishment either tacitly implied or openly annexed to make them obligatory and binding so hath also this Law of Charity For if it be a punishment to be thrown into a lower Hell then Gomorrah and to suffer more then Sodom if it be a punishment at the last day to be cast by upon Christs left Hand to live eternally in utter darkness without any Light besides that of a sinful Conscience if it be a punishment for Christ not to own us when he comes to Judge the world if any part of this singly or all put together deserve the name of punishment then I 'me sure who receives not a Disciple feeds not the hungry cloaths not the naked will certainly be punished If I should ask a Lawyer why I may not commit Murder or why I must needs satisfie my Creditors He 'l presently answer because I should loose my life for one and my liberty for my offending in the other yet I may possibly corrupt the witnesses bribe the Judge or by a quirk fool and out-wit the Statute or it is possible by using violence successfully turn the point of the sword upon him who should punish with it and pray where will our Lawyer then fix the obligation If I am bound only because I shall receive a punishment here when 't is ods but by my Secrecy Art or Power I may escape the penalty of Humane Laws Why then do we put such stress upon these Laws which none of us would keep beyond his
conveniency and interest were there not a power above them who commands our obedience Or why should we say an Alms is not due to a poor man because he cannot recover it in the Court and heedlesly pass by one distressed and drop no Comfort because he cannot take out a Writ against us or because the Jury will not find it when God will punish us for our hard heartedness God from whose power no wings can carry us nor as the Prophet speaks Hell it self hide us They then who admire the Law of the Land so much and direct their Actions meerly according unto it I think had they lived in Sparta would have killed both father and mother because there the Law did not punish parricide But may some object If I am bound to express my Charity to him who Object needs it why should a poor man thank me for my Alms for how do I shew any extraordinary kindness unto him in doing my own Duty in bestowing that on him which I was obliged to give him This seems quite to abolish two of the most noble Vertues among men Love and Gratitude Love in taking away the sweetness which alone gives it the Relish by making every charitable Action involuntary and not leaving it to our choice whether we will do good or no and then it cuts off all civil acknowledgments between us whatsoever If I am ty'd to seed the Hungry why may not they sit down at my Table without Invitation and if I must cloath the Naked why may not he come and demand a Garment of me this appears to gain him a Right for in all civil Commerce between man and man where one is bound to give another may certainly challenge it as his own I answer This doctrine does neither the one nor the other neither destroys Answ Gratitude nor takes away Love which must be free and unconstreined For though God enjoyns me to relieve the oppressed yet he gives them no power to constrein me so as a beneficial Act is an act of meer Indulgence as to him who cannot enforce it from me but a due debt as towards God who gave me what I have for no other end then to deal it about as he hath commanded 't is an Act of Charity and Choice in regard of him whom we relieve an Act of Justice and Necessity in respect of God who hath enjoyn'd It and you may easily apprehend somewhat due to a man when he himself can lay no claim to it This is no Paradox I 'le give you an instance Suppose you send a present by some Messenger as here the Philippians did by Epaphroditus and he turns it to another use and mispends it so as the present never comes to him for whom you meant it you see plainly the money was due to him unto whom you sent it yet he shall never recover it by Law because he never possessed it but the Owner he who sent it shall have a good Action against the Messenger for breach of Trust In like manner for we all are but Stewards to lay out what God gives us as He shall dispose it if I take no notice of the Cry of the poor when God hath put money in my hand to give him though the beggar here can have no relief from any Court of Justice yet God whose Talent I have either hid through Covetousness or consumed in Prodigality will at the last exact a most severe accompt of me For I owe it to God though I do not to the man and God challenges the Acts of Charity as such a peculiar debt to himself as he will not have man so much as know when we pay it least they may seem to share in it but commands us to bestow our benevolence in all secrecy imaginable He will scarce allow us our selves to be privy to our own gifts nor our right hand know what our left hand gives away You see then without taking in the particular obligation of the Philippians to St. Paul as their Apostle which we shall consider by and by that put the case he had requested some benevolence from them yet had he not then beg'd downright or desir'd a bare Gift nor could they justly have imputed it to him as a Gratuity only because in some sense they were bound to do it as much as if he had had their bond for it for God commands us to be charitable who is said many times to leave Heaven and come down from thence only to judg the poor and needy No my Brethren then you give when you grant out a Revenew to one for his close drawing the curtain to an unclean bed then you give when you maintain your flatterer high and kicking then you give when like Judah you come to pay for your unlawful Lusts with the pure God who cannot behold iniquity has forbidden you to contract for This this is to give but for your Minister who leads you by the hand to the very gates of Heaven who begets you again not unto a life which beasts and trees injoy as well as you but to a spiritual and eternal Being would you indeed lay down all that you have at his feet were you then out of his debt to whom you owe even your own selves as St. Paul tells Philemon But then secondly St. Paul did not desire a Gift only to benefit himself because he wanted nothing they quite mistook his condition if they look't upon him as a necessitous person He might perchance seem dying when behold he liv'd appear outwardly sorrowful yet rejoyced alwayes seem then poor himself when he had made many rich and look as if he had nothing when he possessed all things 2 Cor. 6. Not that I want saith the Apostle a little before my Text he would not have them think so meanly of him as if he needed their Benevolence though he had nothing not so much as a roof to shelter him from the weather were it not for a Prison And he gives this reason in the same verse for I have learnt saith he in whate state soever I am therewith to be content I this is the knowledge which makes us wise rich free happy every thing supplies all our wants and sets us above danger to have learnt quietly to submit our selves to God in all the variety of his dispensations to be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is a word which our English will not well express to be self-sufficient to have provision within our selves against all accidents when a Christian arrives to such a pass as like God he stands in need of nothing in this world though he can use it if he hath it yet doth he not want it if he hath it not neither meat in Famine nor cloaths in his Nakedness nor liberty in Prison but is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wholly able to preserve himself without those outward helps This is not to live in the world Col. 2. 20. to have our Conversation in heaven already