Moses I will have have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will shew The cause of blindnesse pitie on whom I will have pitie Therefore on whom he will he hath pitie and whom he will he hardeneth But he hath pitie of all who acknowledge his mercies and contrariwise hardeneth those that doe repudiate and blaspheme his offered grace that which blessed Paul plainly reproacheth the Jewes Acts 13. It was meet that first the word of God should be preached to you but because you expell it and judge your selves unworthy of eternall life behold wee turn unto the Gentiles And the Gentiles hearing rejoyced and glorified the word of the Lord and beleeved as many as were ordained to eternall life that is as many as did not repudiate the word of grace or meanes of faith Of which contempt because the Jewes were guilty therefore they could not beleeve for Almighty God hath preordained none to eternal life which repel his Word disdainfully Therefore predestination or preordination to life eternall is finished or brought to passe The order of predestination in Christ so that Almighty God offereth his grace to all by his Gospel which who receiveth those truly are preordained to eternal life and those that do cast it behind their backs and refuse it those doe judge themselves unworthy of eternal life as Paul saith that is by their own fault are unworthy of that blessing exempting themselves from universal grace and putting out their own names out of the book of life which is Christ by his contumacy resisting the word of God thereupon consequently cannot be made faithfull Let us not erre Who those be that drive away froÌ„ them the word grace of Christ O Mortals they doe not onely repudiate the word of God and drive it away which will not admit of the doctrine of Christ such as are Turks and Jews but those also which will not continue in the footsteps of Christ take his life upon them and walke in the light for which cause consequently God himselfe taketh away even the light of the Word and sound doctrine I saith Christ John 8. am the light of the world he that followeth me walketh not in darknesse but shall have the light of life As if he should say whosoever shall contemne to imitate my life the darknesse of errors of seducements blindnesse and hardnesse of heart Behold with me the most proud the most excellent the chiefe the most learned and the most powerfull of this world whose errors in truth seducements and blindnesse come From whence the most prudent of this world are most guilty of seducement from no other cause but because they live not in Christ neither imitate his life and therefore cannot have the light of life From hence it must needs bee which Paul calleth the workes of errors and Satanicall lies which rush upon us more powerfully because the universall world refuseth to imitate the life of Christ For what society is From whence error there between light and darknesse and what agreement is there between Christ and Belial 2 Corinth chap. 6. As if hee should say the purity of doctrine and divine knowledge cannot remain with those or amongst those that live in the Devil in darknesse in pride in covetousnesse and pleasure For how should pure doctrine and divine mix themselves together or suffer themselves to live together with an unpure and an unchristian life Or what is more disagreeing and unreconcileable then an impure life and pure doctrine Wherefore if we will retain doctrine the way we hold is wholly to bee changed is utterly to bee changed by publicke suffrage of custome and applause and it must be altered for a better then Antichristian we must imitate Christ and shake off the sleep of sinne and He that keepeth not the footsteps of Christ strayeth from the way Christ will beautifie us with the light of true faith For whoso insisteth not in the footsteps of Christ that is his love humility lowlinesse patience and feare of God he must needs be deceived when he walketh not the way which leadeth to truth But on the contrary if wee did all live in Christ if we did walk in love and humility if all our studies and Theology did respect this one thing that the flesh and Adam might be mortified Christ would live in us that we might overcome our selves that lastly we might triumph over the flesh the world and the Devil then truly there would be lesse brawling and strife about doctrine and heresies of themselves would fall to the ground We have an example of that in Achab who by his wicked and tyrannical life obtained this that through his own evil and the lies of foure hundred false Prophets he beleeving them by their provocation did undertake the Blindnesse seducing â—s a iust punishment warre and contemne the Prophet Micaiah foretelling his death in that war and contrariwise hee was constrained to give credit to the false prophets prophesying all things to go wel and lastly by right and due desert the dogs did lick his bloud And is not this the same that B. Paul saith 2 Cor. 4. God blinded the minds of the unfaithful of this age that the light of the Gospel should not shine upon them and also which God by Esay ch 29. threatens to all hypocrits boasting of Christ and his doctrine and denying him in life that they shal be seduced by the illusion of false prophets as Achab was For because this people draweth neere me with their mouths honour me with their lips but their heart is far from me therfore the wisdom of the wise shal fail and the understanding of the wise shall be hid the Lord shall shut their eyes he shal darken the eyes of the Prophets the principal of them that see visions and the word of God shall be as a sealed booke and as letters to an ignorant man To which those are like which blessed Paul 2 Cor. 3. mentioneth of the The blindnesse of the Iewes through unbelief Jewes to wit that there was a vaile set before them and over their hearts that reading in their Prophets of the Messias they should not understand which vaile Almighty God would take from them if they were converted to him CHAP. XXXIX The purity of doctrine and the divine Word not only by disputing and writing many books but by true repentance also a holy life is to bee obtained and kept 2 Timoth. 1. Take the form of wholsome words which thou hast heard of me in faith and in love in Christ Jesus The good which is deposed hold fast by the holy Ghost which dwelleth in us THe purity of Doctrine and the verity of Christian faith come to be defended against Sects and Heresies after the example of the Prophets which preached against The necessity of disputation false and idolatrous Prophets in the old Testament after the example of the Sonne of God
in the heart with earnest sorrow and most assured feeling of heavinesse we be made contrite and afflicted and again be made holy and joyfull purged and changed and amended by remission of sinnes by faith in Jesus Christ whereby it cannot but come to passe that the outward life and manners be renewed and changed What if now one should onely doe outward penance or repentance abstain from great and erroneous offences for the feare of punishment and the inward man doe keep his old spots still and take no care to enter into the inward and new life in Christ shall not such a one neverthelesse be damned neither shall it profit him a straw to cry Lord Lord but he shall be constrained to hear that terrible voice I know you not For certain and sure it is not all that say Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of heaven but onely those that doe the will of the heavenly Father Under which terrible sentence of the Divine Majesty it is manifest men of all orders are comprised for as many as doe not inwardly and from the heart truly repent and become new creatures in Christ those surely Christ will not acknowledge for his CHAP. V. What is true Faith 1 John 1. 5. Every one that beleeveth that Jesus is Christ is born of God FAith is a solid trust and a firm and cernain perswasion of the grace of God promised in Christ for the remission of sinnes and life eternal kindled through the word of God and the holy Ghost in our hearts by this faith is conferred unto us the remission of our sinnes and that gratis or freely for no merits of ours but Christs alone and that of meere grace that our faith may remain fixed or unmoveable upon a firme and solid foundation And this absolution or forgivenesse of our sinnes is our justice or justification and that true solid and eternall before God For neither is it of Angels but by the obedience of the Sonne of God his merits and ransome which by faith we appropriate unto us fixing and applying the same to our selves therefore neither is the imperfections Properties of a true faith of our life or any sinnes left remaining to withstand us but they be covered with the vaile of grace for Christs sake Psal 32. Furthermore by this solid and firm trust this followeth that the man doth dedicate his whole heart solely to God in him he resteth alone to this one is he glewed or fastened with this alone he entreth society and is joyned to God and participateth all things that are of God and Christ and is made one spirit with God taketh and collecteth from him power and strength a new life new joyes many recreations peace lightnesse of heart the soules Sabbath and rest Lastly justification and holinesse or sanctification in the holy Ghost What other thing then is it at the length but to be regenerated through faith for where true faith is there is Christ with all his justice holinesse redemption merit grace remission of sins adoption and inherttance of life eternall And this is the new life and regeneration New birth through faith in Christ whereupon the Apostle to the Hebrews Cap. 11. calleth faith a Substance that is the undoubted solid firm trust of things which were hoped for and a certain manifest and notable conviction and experience of things invisible And finely so great and powerfull is the consolation of a true living faith in our hearts as it cannot but convince by arguing most firmly from experience and tast of the soveraigne good in his soule that is from the quietnesse and peace in God Iustified faith where peace whereby that preservation remaineth most certain which a Christian doubteth not to seale with his death and this is that strength of spirit and inward man this is vigor and alacrity of faith or Parrhesia Eph. 3. Phil. 1. 1 Joh. 2. 3. this joy in God 1 Thess 2. Lastly this Plerophoria and immoveable The certainty of faith firm certainty 1 Thess 3. even for which I shall dare to dye that truly cannot but first be perswaded in my mind most firmly through the H. Ghost infixed and impressed in my inward understanding also it behoveth to be lively inward in most powerful consolation wherby that commeth to the mind which is supernaturall divine and a celestiall strength to overcome the feare of death and the love of he world to be uttetly extinguished in me I say so great so solid Prolepsis or perswasion To be born of God is no dead work and union with Christ is needfull that neither death nor life can dissolve it Rom. 8. whereupon B. John pronounceth That he that is born of God hath overcome the world But to be born of God cannot be any vain or shadowed thing it ought to be a lively thing and very powerfull For it were wickednesse to beleeve that the living God did beget a dead off-spring frivolous anâ— dead members or instrumentss but It is living overcometh so it be true faith rather it is for a certain rule that God cannot being a living God but beget a living man no other then new Now seeing our faith is the victory by which we overcome the world who can doubt that it should overcome being indued with powerfull strength and greatest force and that our faith which is commanded by God to overcome the world ought to be lively overcomming and affections working divine faith a certain force and influence yea Christ himselfe apprehended by faith and fixed in our minds and graffed in our understanding and by this vertue of God What we are with Christ without him what we return into God and become intimate and one with God And from Adam as from a cursed Vine we are transplanted into Christ that living and blessed Vine John 15. So in Christ we possesse all his goods and in him are justified Even as a Scien or a plant graffed in a good tree groweth flourisheth and beareth fruit without it it withereth so man without Christ is a cursed vine and all his works are sinfull the grapes of it are bitternesse gall Deut. 32. but in Christ blessed and justified wherefore St. Paul saith 2 Cor. 5. that hee â—hat knew no sinne for us became sinne that we might be justified before God in him By this it appeareth manifestly that works do not justifie because we must be graffed in Iustification is not by works Christ by faith before we can do any good work and so thy justification is the gift of God freely given before and preventing all our merits we may as well say a dead man may see stand and doe good of himselfe I think so indeed but he must first bee raised from death so thou likewise that art dead in sinne to God canst not performe any work to God unlesse thou be first raised by Christ to life which being granted it followeth thy
comfort never shalt thou be overcome with sorrow feare and sadnesse he who seeketh himselfe every where and in all things and followeth after his own profit onely praise and honour he never attaineth to tranquillity for alwayes something meeteth him that bringeth perturbation Therefore beware you beleeve not that the increase of wealth fame and honour is good and profitable but rather set before thee the best things contemne such things and extirpate the root of concupiscence which hindereth thee in pursuance of the love of God Now seeing the commodities of this True constant rest in God life praise honour and likewise the world it selfe are fraile and floating away but the love of God remaineth for ever that delight cannot be durable which thou takest in the love of thy selfe and earthly things because it may vary by very light occasion where contrariwise the mind firmly set upon divine love cannot but continually rejoyce vain frail and brickle is that which is not grounded upon God but doe thou forsake all things and thou shalt finde all things by faith For the lover of himselfe and the world findeth not God The love Who findeth not God of our selves is earthly and not of God and is chiefe enemy to heavenly wisdome Humility is the companion of heavenly wisdome for it careth nothing lesse then to be eminent in the world and to be accounted great for which cause and for their own profit and simplicity it cometh to passe as almost with one blot it is put out of the mind and memory of Man Therefore although many in Sermons doe boast and make a noyse thereof yet remaineth and will remain this pretious Pearle unknown and hidden as long as in life and manners we are farre from it and know little And the onely way to find it is to unlearn and forget humane wisdome proper applause selfe-love And for humane and earthly wisdome which the whole world boasteth to be such but indeed is ridiculous and vile you must change for celestistiall and divine It is impossible to love Wherein the love of God consisteth God unlesse you hate your selfe that is unlesse thou be displeased with thy selfe for thy sinnes crucifie thine own flesh and mortifie thy proper will that is by how much any man is attentive to the love of God so much more doth he study to mortifie and keep under the concupiscence of the flesh and his owne proper appetites Also the further thou departest from thy selfe and thy proper love by the power of divine love by so much the nearer art thou hidden in God and his love through faith For even as inward peace dependeth on vacancy and leasure from outward things so it must needs be that when the inwards are at leasure and the heart free from all creatures it cleaveth to God alone giving back from other things the soule must enter Selfe-love the love of God are two cōtrary things into God by consequence Moreover he that goeth about to deny himself therein it must needs follow that he doth not his own work but Christs I am saith John 14. the Way the Truth and the Life without the way no man goeth on without Christ the way the truth the life the truth nothing is known and without life no man liveth Therefore look upon me who am the Way which you ought to walk in the Truth which you ought to beleeve and lastly the Life which you ought to live and hope in I am the Way that endureth for all ages the infallible Truth and the Life everlasting and eternall The Kings way to immortall life through my merit the truth it selfe in my word and life through the power and efficacie of my death Therefore if you continue in this Way the Truth doth carry you to eternall Life If you will not erre follow me if you will know the Truth beleeve me and if you will possesse Life eternall put your trust in my death And what is that Kings Way that infallible Truth and that Life the best and most noble of all others Truly other life cannot be then the most holy and pretious merit of Christ nor other truth then the word of God lastly no other life then sempiternall happinesse Now then if you desire to be exalted into heaven it behooveth thee to beleeve in Christ and after his example to follow humility in this world which is the onely Kings way If thou wilt not be deceived of the world take hold of his word by faith and follow the footsteps of his life because this is the chiefest and the infallible truth If thou desirest to live with Christ with him in time and through him thou must die to sinne and become a new creature because this is life In brief Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life no lesse by example then merit Be you followers of God as most deare children saith S. Paul to the Ephes 5. Let us therefore with all our Our life ought to be conformed after the life of Christ might power endeavour this one thing that our life may as neere as possible it may be be most like unto Christs life so that if other things be wanting to confound false Christians even this onely example of Christ might be sufficient for we may be ashamed to lead our lives in pleasures when Christ Jesus led his life amongst sorrow and tribulation even to his death And if a Souldier doe forget his own proper recreation when he seeth his Captain by fighting valiantly receive his death and thou gettest honour before thy Captaines eyes used most contemptuously shall I not say that thou dost not fight under his Banner But alas we will be accounted Christians Many Christians but few followers of Christ but how few be there that imitate the life of Christ Truly if it were the part of Christians to be seekers after wealth perishing fame and honours Christ would never have commanded the losse of them for eternall good Behold with me his life and doctrine and thou shalt not deny that nothing is more unlike then the world and He that manger that stable those swadling cloathes are not those a spectacle or looking-glasse of the contempts of these worldly things Or let us perhaps say that thou wilt by these examples draw thy selfe from the true and right way nay rather it is meanes to bring thee into the right way when we shall compare his doctrine and way together with his example whereupon he saith and proclaimeth that he is the Way and the Truth Therefore when they by contempt misery and reproaches doe attempt to make the way to attain to heaven it followeth that thou that seekest after jollity and wealth and thirstest after promotion art in a ready way to hell returne thou and come out of that broad high-way and come again into this way that cannot stray and embrace the truth that cannot deceive And lastly live in him
can a man as the Apostle saith to the Ephesians chap. 2. which was dead in sin help himself Also even as we did not bring so much as a haire to our creation so neither to our redemption or regeneration and sanctification which are much greater and more noble then our creation it selfe Wherefore The cause of the incarnation of the Son of God it was necessary that the Sonne of God should take humane nature upon him to recover that which was lost in Adam to revive that which was dead in him which that it may be brought to effect accordingly we must imitate the Traveller which is cruelly handled and wounded and laid upon the ground and could not help himselfe him therefore the mercifull Samaritan taketh up and bindeth up his soares and then laieth him upon a horse leadeth him into the Stable and after that omitteth nothing which an industrious and faithfull Physitian can administer to a sick person And as the Traveller also sheweth himselfe observant to his Physitian and Christ iâ— our Physitian not we our selves observeth his beck and command so let us remember to doe the like if we desire to be healed Let us doe our full diligence and power to our Physitian Christ let us resigne our selves wholly unto him let us trust in his faith that he will bind up and cure our wounds also let him powre in Wine and Oyle into them neither will hee be wanting or faile to restore us to our former health that is so soon as a sinner repeÌ„teth converteth himselfe by heavenly grace to God is grieved from his heart for his sinnes and resisteth not that his wounds should be washed in the sharp wine of contrition and lastly to be anointed with the Oyle of Consolation then presently Christ by his grace doth work and bring forth faith in him and the fruits of faith as life peace joy consolation and happinesse renewing him after his own image and working in him to will and finish according to his good will Phil. 2. For seeing that the abundance of sinnes are greater then humane nature can beare as witnesseth the Scripture which John 8. pronounceth the naturall man the servant of sin and Rom. 7. sold under sinne and can doe nothing but sinne according to that of Jeremy 13. If the Aethiopian can change his hue or the The naturall man neither can nor will doe doe any good Leopard his spots and you can doe well and forget to doe evill therefore the singular grace of God appeared to all men by his Gospel teaching us by the words of Paul to Tit. 2. that denying all impiety and worldly desires wee may live a just and sober life in this present world As if hee should say by the The grace of God doth all things in us word of God grace is offered unto us and doth instruct inlighten allure and teach us heartily to move and provoke us to desist from sinne which teaching of the divine grace or joynt warning by the Word consenteth with the inward testimony of the conscience whereby the man both from without and within is convicted that he doth evill and of leading a life against the way of God and his conscience he ought to change it to better let him know this if he would bee saved Furthermore if hee will bend his eares and mind and being full of good hope denounce warre against vice then the grace of God Man is meere darknes Christ is meere light worketh all things in man as faith charity and all the fruits of faith For as darknesse cannot lighten it selfe and the Sunne not shining we doe in vain open our eyes so neither can man inlighten himselfe according to that in Psalm 13. O Lord thou givest light unto my Lanthorn and my darknesse But the divine Grace or Christ himselfe is the cleare light which is risen to all men sitting in darknesse and in the shadow of death How the true light lightâ—â—s all men which inlightneth all men or every man that cometh into this world that is by manifesting himselfe and offering his grace He I say is the light of the world shewing to all men the way of life and like a good Shepheard guiding his Flock into the right way he sought us as his lost sheep daily even now seeketh us and allureth us nay more followeth us embraceth us after the manner of a bride or spouse that he loveth whose grace I would to god most men did Christ as a Bridegroome imbraceth our souls not refuse give repulse to his love prefer the darknes of vice before his light And even as a Physitian saith to his sick Patient Beware of this if you will not dye for you hinder the efficacie and force of the medicine that you cannot bee made whole so Jesus Christ the true Physitian of our souls saith My sonne I pray thee incline thy mind to repentance and leave thy sinnes Impeninitence hindereth the efficacie of Christs merits that pride covetousnesse concupiscence of the flesh wrath revenge and forsake them or most certainly the honour of my merit shall profit thee nothing when thou art a hinderance that my grace cannot be sown in thee that it cannot increase in strength bring forth fruit Truly for this very cause I give my Apostles in charge before all things to preach repentance and I called Why repentance is to be preached before all things sinners to repentance because an impenitent heart cannot participate of my merits Which speech when a sick man heareth the Physitian of our soules as to abstaine from sinne or else he must utterly perish the word of God coming expresly to his mind let him know this that it is most certain that God hath promised remission of sinnes to all men gratis but under this law and condition if they will convert themselves to God according to that of Ezekiel 33. If the wicked shall repent him of his sinnes hee shall live the life and not die all the offences which hee hath done shall not bee True faith imputed unto him Wherein truly the repentance of sinnes is joyned to remission neither doth Christ the sonne of God in any other sense promise life eternall to those that beleeve in him For faith doth alwayes oppose it selfe to the Old Man tameth the flesh and subjecteth it to the spirit that is converteth the man rooteth up and amendeth sinnes and cleareth and purgeth the heart it being the fountain of all evill Truly this is true faith that I say that turneth it selfe from the world from sinnes and from the Devill to Christ and seeketh solace and rest for his soule against the grieving debt of his sinnes in the onely blood death and merit of Christ without the works of any man whatsoever What man is so foolish to beleeve that his sinnes are pardoned of God although hee doe not desist from his sinnes this man hath a false faith neither ever
conform all his life to it and Christ Which being done hee feedeth the humble with grace comforteth the meek and maketh his yoak pleasant and his burden light unto them For the sweetnesse of the heavenly Manna cannot bee tasted but under the yoak of Christ according to that Hee will fill the hungry with good things and send the rich empty away The words that I have spoken are spirit and life saith Christ John 6. Whereupon it followeth a voluptuous heart and carnall that is a man that hath no spirituall understanding cannot possibly understand those things For in spirit in rest in silence with great humility holy and vehement desire is the word of God to bee received which if it be not converted into life then truly it is no better then the external letter and a sound of words Even as he that heareth the noyse of a Harp onely or a Song and understandeth it not receiveth no pleasure by it so no man is partaker of the virtue that is in the Word unlesse he endeavour to expresse it in his life And this is that which was said before out of John I will give thee a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth but hee that hath Hee which cleareth to the Lord. it This is that I say even a testimony of the hidden spirit which hee giveth to the word of God Rom. 8. And in like manner the Spirit of the Word giveth testimony to our spirit whereby both doe conspire and consent together and so become one spirit which is that New Name unknown but to A new name the receiver For as no man knoweth the sweetnesse of hony but he that tasteth it so the name of the testimony divine in the hearts of men no man knoweth but hee that proveth it This man onely knoweth the consolations and divine visitations because he perceiveth them whose name is also called New because they are the works and fruits of the new birth Blessed is the man to whom God hath given himself to be so tasted in his heart Blessed are the Prophets whom from the beginning of the world he hath fed with his bread so heavenly and by the conference of his eternall word which because it was so done unto them therefore out of sense feeling and experience they have spoken of it and composed holy Scripture And in truth even all this day he speaketh unto all men and feedeth them inwardly with his word in the soule but almost all men have shut their eares against his voice and had rather The living word is meat of the soul heare the world then God and be driven by their own concupiscences then by the Spirit of God Whereupon it cometh to passe that they cannot tast the hidden Manna swallowing up in the mean time both apples of the tree of death and carnall concupiscences contemning the tree of life Which men are not a little mad whilst they can understand that God can give greater pleasures to his lovers then the world so that he that hath once tasted the goodnesse of God to him the whole world with all the pleasures they will seem The tree of death to him as meer gall and bitternesse Now seeing we know our first progenitors were beguiled with the world and by eating of the forbidden tree have acquired death yet we are so blind and mad as fed with eternall death of carnall pleasures so dearly bought wee may remember If any shall eat of me saith Christ the true tree of life and true bread of life he shall live for ever John 6. And what is it to eat of it but to beleeve in him in him to joy and take delight lastly to rest and take pleasure in him alone Great therefore O mortals is the carnall blindnesse to serve the world for trifles vain and fraile things with such affection and desires and not to doe the same to God who rewardeth his worship and service with eternall things and farre more noble goods For who performeth to God so much and so great faith obedience and diligence as the vulgar we see doe perform to Mammon and the World We see them many times for small matters or a little mony make journies and for heavens cause it grieveth us to move a foot Hereupon the holy Prophets reproach Tyre and Sidon with emphaticall upbraids for taking in hand most vast and sea journies for the advance of their earthly causes when in the mean time they would not deigne for the soveraigne good to change their place And in our time men of all sorts and conditions doe prefer the world before God it is a thing most manifest The sons of the world Thereupon we see many Doctors doe study day and night to attain to honour in the world who hardly or not at all wil take so much leasure as sufficeth to say the Lords prayer if they might attain eternal honours and dignities celestial with so little labour Therefore you see the same men to avoyd no labour in warfare to attaine to fame and honour and yet will not enter combat with their own vices although they may attain heavenly nobility thereby Therefore you shall likewise see that the Lords and Victors of many Nations and vast Kingdomes doe not care for overcoming themselves lastly that infinite many doe not regard the losse of their soule and eternall happinesse to attaine to fraile and momentany goods And all these have not The true victory tasted the Hidden Manna of the divine Word and therefore doe not overcome the world but are overcome of the world Which whosoever dare contemne in respect of God he truly finds the most sweet visits of the holy Ghost and is filled with the heavenly pleasure which no man The divine sweetnes is tasted when the world is despised knoweth but hee that receiveth it This therefore is to be done the tree of life is first to bee planted in us that wee may eat the fruit thereof and our heart that wisheth to be recreated with the celestiall consolations ought first to bee converted from the world to God but wee being made drunk with worldly pleasures and bewitched do not incline our hearts and minds to think that heavenly joyes and those of God are rather to be wished then those which the world offereth or affordeth Although truly that is more true that God offereth and doth and are more noble then that which the creatures doe bring to passe Wherfore the learning which cometh from above by the inspiration of the holy Ghost True consolation and wisdom is of God is much more excellent then that other which humane understanding with great labour doth obtain For even as an Apple or a Lilly produced by nature is far more noble and much better then that which a workman maketh of gold be the gold never so fine so one drop of consolation divine The venity of worldly ioy is more
noble and by many yea infinite parts better then a whole Ocean of wordly pleasures Which truly are to bee slighted by him that desireth divine consolations Which if any that wil heare me wil lend me his eares if any wil understand me let him attend what I say finally if any wil see me it behoveth him to fix How God should bee perceived and tasted his eyes upon me Who doubteth that all our hearts and senses ought to be converted to God if we desire to see heare understand tast and prove him how good he is according to that of Jeremy chap. 29. When you shall seek me with your whole heart I will be found of you Many men at this day they term admirable O! a learned man a rich magnifical wiseman but no man regardeth how courteous humble patient and how devout any man is Of which perverse False praise judgement there is no other cause then that now men doe attend and admire outward things and in the mean time with blind eyes passe by inward things which are onely worthy to be esteemed Therefore he that praiseth one because he hath beautified many Cities and far situated regions let him see if it were not farre better to have seen God He therefore that suspecteth another because he hath not served one Monarch I would have him think whether it were not more excellent to have served God lawfully with all his heart Those that are fatuated with the meer love of the world doe preferre this our Age as the only learned and wise before all antiquitie these I say doe not know the Art of Arts that is the divine love more noble then all knowledge to be extinct wholly together with the faith Ephes 3. Luke 18. and few to remain divinely learned Isai 5. and that have learned of Christ a humble and lowly life Matthew 11. yea to speake the truth the most learned for the most part are void of divine love and therefore doe not know at all that the true life is in Christ Ephes 4. These therefore doe circumscribe knowledge in the circle of words when it is more true that solid learning is a thing and not words and to consist in eternall and true wisdome of which we have spoken more at large in the Treatise of ancient Philosophy But if any shall say that this our Age is wicked he truly shal say that which is agreeable to the truth and to the word of God Likewise those are ridiculous which praise any because hee liveth gorgeously and deliciously being unmindfull that the true dainties is the word of God and the Hidden Manna thereof and that it containeth in it the incorruptible bread of heaven and that lastly hee doth live delicately in whose presence the Lord The solid and only ioy is of God hath prepared his Table Psalm 23. to wit who savoureth the Lord God and his Word his palat nothing can displease but hee that doth loath it and is displeased with it hee cannot soundly and truly rejoyce for he is the joy exceeding all created joyes and the eternall light surpassing all temporal light who I would to God now at the last would fill our hearts with his hidden pleasure and purge our spirits illuminate inlighten clarifie and quicken them Would to God I say that the time would now come wherein Almighty God by his presence would fill us with all those things which hee is essentially Of which desires although we be not competent or fit nor doe joy true joy having in the mean time sufficient if wee may but enjoy the crums that fall from thy table O Lord till we be translated to the joyes of eternal life They are the words of our Saviour Apocalypse chap. 3. Behold I stand at the dore and I knock if any man heare my voyce and Christ is our banquet open to me I will enter unto him and I will sup with him and he with me What preposterousnesse is it O mortals to neglect this and so great a banqueter which hath prepared us a supper who after the manner of a Prince coming to his poor friends house bringeth all his dainty dishes and the whole supper with him I say the heavenly Bread and hidden Manna is not this a great oversight to let him stand waiting at the dore and not to open readily unto him I say what incivility is this not to receive a friend but not to entertain God himself with all diligence alacrity Shal I tell you the reason why we doe not open the dore because as in a house full of noyse and clamour musick although never worldly things ought to be expelled that divine things may enter so excellent cannot bee heard so neither can the voyce of the banquetter enter the eares of a worldly heart and consequently the Celestiall Manna cannot bee tasted by him I think so indeed If therefore the worldly tumults and noyse in man doe not tease and rest who wil not doubt that the Lord beating and crying shal goe away away unheard that they with Samuel may Why quietnesse is required to Gods speech answer Speak Lord thy servant heareth Moreover this internall voyce speaketh in a spirituall and heavenly Supper Heb. chap. 6. Those which have been once lightned and tasted the heavenly gifts and have been made The true spirit of illumination partakers of the holy Ghost and also have tasted the good word of God the virtues of the world to come By which wee are taught in what man the holy Ghost is neither is his mind hindered from daily feeding of that Manna hidden in the sweet and mellifluent divine Word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God and by which we live That which the Kingly Prophet David by the holy Ghost found in his heart and mind saying Psalm 16. Thou wilt fill me with joy of thy countenance and delight of thy right hand even unto the end And Psalm 34. Tast and see because the Lord is sweet blessed is the man that putteth his trust in him Psalm 23. The goodnes of God is Nectar and Ambrosia Thou hast prepared a table for me in my view against those that trouble me thou hast anointed my head with oyle and my cup being brim-full how beautiful is it Psa 63. Thy mercy is excellent farre exceeding above our lives my lips shall praise thee Psa 36. Even as thou hast multiplied thy mercies O God the sons of men shall trust in the shadow of thy wings they shall be made drunk with the plenty of thy house and thou shalt make them intoxicated with the torrent of thy pleasures because with thee is the fountain of life and in thy light wee shall see light Psa 70. They shall rejoyce and be glad all which seek thee and they shall say alwayes Let the Lord be magnified which love thy salvation But I am needy and poore help me O God thou art my helper and redeemer Lord make
let us suppose some Usurer for many yeares hath been a servant to covetousnesse without amendment sins are not forgiven after the example of Zacheus or to lust as Mary Magdalen or lastly to wrath and revenge as Esau and this man so soon as he heard these offences were to be left or else the death and bloud of Christ would profit him nothing hee becommeth a suppliant to God and to him as old men did speak to give satisfaction in words and then to desist from his sinnes to crave pardon and grace of God and to beleeve in Christ then it is most certain that all his first offences are remitted him out of meere grace and no merit but for the death and bloud of Christ shed for them But these that have not determined as yet to detest covetousnesse wrath usury pride and lust they because they want faith purging their hearts may hope in vain for the remission of their sins but lament for them in eternall torments never to bee satisfied Whereupon blessed Paul doth earnestly admonish Galat. 5. Because they doe such things they shall not inherit or possesse the Kingdome of heaven Therefore either eternal damnation followeth or amendment of their lives to a better which where it is done by faith and true conversion unto God there is pardon and divine grace ready at hand yea Christ himselfe without whom there is no grace For Christ doth accompany his most pretious All thingâ— necessary to salvation do accompany faith taking hold of Christs merits merit and consequently satisfaction for our sinnes which being present there is righteousnesse with righteousnesse peace and a good conscience as Psalm 85. Righteousnesse and peace doe kisse each other with a cheerfull conscience the holy Ghost which because it is the spirit of joy thereupon also joy followeth and thereupon life eternal which is nothing but joy sempiternal And this is that light of eternal life w th which they are crowned so many as live in Christ and daily repentance whose beginning and foundation is the death of Christ On the contrary where there is no repentance there is grace wanting and grace wanting neither is Christ there present who being absent his merit is not participated and that which dependeth upon Impenitency hindereth the whole kingdom of God eternall salvatioÌ„ it the remission of sinnes Where that is not to be had or to be found there is no righteousnesse and consequently no peace or good conscience no consolation no holy Ghost no joy of heart and conscience lastly no life eternal but death but hell but condemnation and everlasting darknesse Whereby that is manifest wee affirmed in the beginning That those who by true repentance in Christ doe not intend to follow him in his life cannot bee freed from the blindnes of their hearts nor themselves freed from the eternall darknesse CHAP. XXXVIII That the Antichristian life is the cause of false doctrine hardnesse of heart and blindnesse where certain things are ingraffed in predestination John 12. Yet there is a little light in you walk while you have the light lest darknesse comprehend you SEing it is certain that Christ together with faith and a Christian life is denied renounced and wholly extirpated to what end serveth his doctrine to us which together with the Sacraments to that end is The end of the Word Sacraments given us onely that it may bee turned into juyce bloud and our life And as from noble seed doth arise or grow noble fruit so from the Word and Sacraments should arise a new man holy and spiritual and to speak in a word a Christian out of the Spirit Word and Sacrament no otherwise then a man regenerate out of Christ so beleeving in him and living in him For as an infant is born of his mother so a Christian is born of God and Christ by faith But when wee have not determined to change our life nay rather have so framed our manners as they are against him it is plain we are not begotten of God and therefore his doctrine and light doth profit us nothing when we are sure wee walke in darknesse Whereupon also the light being fled and taken away it must needs bee that darknesse and false doctrine of errors and seducing do incroach upon us Which to beware of our Saviour did admonish us saying Little children whilst yee have light walk in it lest darknesse doe comprehend you I say the darknesse of errors deceivers deluding of blindnesse and hardnesse of heart such darknesse as deceived Pharaoh the Jewes and Julian who in the end convicted by his own conscience in his own evill exclaimed openly and confessed that Christ did yet live and the true God saying Thou hast overcome O Galilean thou hast overcome when it had been better for him to have said Have mercy upon me but he could not so say because of his blindnes From whence hardnesse of heart and because hee refused and denied the mercy of Christ And this hardnesse of heart is that terrible darknesse which in the end overtaketh those that will not walk in the light and is the punishment of those that blaspheme the truth as Pharaoh did Exod. 5. Who is the Lord that I should heare Blindnes is a punishment his voyce and let Israel goe I know not the the Lord. Therefore it was convenient that God should manifest himselfe to him by his power making him an example before the whole world that it might bee manifest that man can do nothing against God In like manner when the Jews would not hearken unto God they were strucken with blindnesse and hardnesse of heart that which Moses had fore-told them would come to passe Deut. 28. 32. The Lord shall strike thee with madnesse and blindnesse and the fury of the mind and it came to passe witnesse Esay chap. 6. Whereby it is manifest that such â—lindnesse is the most just punishment of incredulity and contempt of God and heavenly truth according to that of Paul 2 Thess 2. Because they received not the love of the truth that they might bee saved therefore God shall send unto them or give them over to be deceived by the spirit of errour to beleeve lies that all may be judged that beleeved not the truth but consented to iniquity By which it is given us to understand why God is wont to permit such blindnesse and hardnesse of heart Moreover to whom he denieth and lastly taketh away his offered From whom God withdraweth his favour grace this man is wretched of himselfe neither can return into the way at any time after the example of Pharaoh and Julian and from whom the Lord taketh away his light hee liveth all his dayes in darknesse But Almighty God taketh it onely from those that will not walk in it neither taketh hee his favour away but from those that have refused it In which sense blessed Paul Rom. 9. recounteth that oracle of God out of
and keepeth holy day and resteth from his wicked concupiscences will and works Which is to be taken of the state after conversion and of daily illumination and of the increase of gifts and spirituall grace Now neither is it unfitly said which Christ John 14. speaketh I am the Way the Truth and the Life calling himselfe the Way who sheweth the same unto us not How Christ is the way onely in doctrine but in his most holy life Which life is no other thing then a living faith and working by love hope patience meeknesse humility prayer the feare of the Lord and to speak in a word true repentance turning to God whereby we are drawn to the Truth and the Life wherein the whole Christianity doth consist which is the breviary or epitome of all bookes and precepts Which is also the true and Kingly way to life and truth and is Christ himselfe the book of life in the involving and learning whereof wee ought Christ is our book to spend all our life This I say is that strait way and narrow gate Matth. 7. which few doe find this is the book of life which almost none doe reade although in it all things are contained which a Christian ought to know so that wee shall need no other book to our eternall salvation Which is the reason why also the holy Scripture is contained in very few bookes to wit that it might appeare that Christianity did not consist in the multitude of The brevity of Scripture whereupon Commentaries and great Volumes but in living faith and imitation of Christ according to that of Eccles c. 12. There is no end of making many books and much meditation of the flesh is affliction In like maner let us all hear the end of speaking Fear God and keep his commandements Moreover Matth. 7. it is said That the Devill when men are asleep soweth Tares in the Wheat that teacheth us when men neglect repentance and sleep soundly in their sinnes and are overtaken with the love of this world we having more care of frail things then immortall goods then by little and little doth the Devil sprinkle his Pride is the field of heresies seed of false doctrine in the field of pride whereupon doe arise Sects and Heresies for by pride both Men and Angels lost the true light and all errors came into the world which yet we might have wanted if Satan and Adam had lived in the humble life of Christ Whereupon Saint Paul deservedly Ephes 6. saith Arise thou that sleepest and Christ shall inlighten thee being willing to shew that no man can bee divinely enlightned who hath not before shaken off from his eyes the sleep of sinne and driven from him security and impiety according to that of the Acts chap. 2. Repent and receive the gift of the holy Ghost And that of John chap. 17. The world cannot receive the holy Ghost understanding by the world a wicked and worldly life Likewise when Christ saith You know them by their fruits All things are known by the fruits what other thing signifieth it then not O Lord Lord but the fruits of life is the signe and mark of true and false Christians For what belongeth the pure doctrine to those false Christians use who under pretext of sheeps cloathing doe make shew when inwardly they are nothing less thē true Christians And although the life be corrupt yet it should not or may not bee drawn into the argument of false and wicked doctrine as the Papists do at this day esteeming and condemning our doctrine by the wickednes of our lives which way of arguing if it were worth any thing now the doctrine of Christ his Apostles had not been sound because even then many false Christians were found but it is yet and will be a shew and mark of the men themselves whereby The life is the mark of a man wee may know whether they bee true or false Christians he that teacheth otherwise teacheth otherwise then he liveth and when he beleeveth aright he doth blot his faith with an Antichristian life as if Ivory were spotted with Ink. In which sense so many as are so Christ calleth them false Christians unfruitfull trees fit for nothing but to be burned lastly that onely is true and Christian faith which worketh by love by which a man is made or becometh a new creature by which he is regenerated by which he is united with God by which Christ liveth in us dwelleth and worketh in us by which the kingdome of God is built in us and lastly by which the holy Ghost purgeth and enlightneth our hearts To which doe belong many golden Oracles of holy Scripture such as that 1 Cor. 6. He that cleaveth to the Lord is spirit And what is it to have the Spirit of Christ and to breath with it then to have the same understanding and mind and the same heart which joynt breathing and consent is nothing else but a new holy noble heavenly spirituall and heroicall life of Christ in us Also 2 Cor. 6. In Christ is a new creature terming to bee in Christ not onely to beleeve in him but to live in him Also Hosea 2. I will espouse thee to me for The espousing of Christ and its fruit ever in faith I will spouse thee to me Which indeed signifie nothing else then that a man wholly and spiritually is to bee united to Christ so that where faith is there is Christ where Christ is there his life is in man where the life of Christ is there is love where love is there is God himselfe for God is love and the holy Ghost remaineth For all things are connexed and chained together they cleave together no otherwise then the head with the members and the cause with the effect Which connexion of faith and life blessed The chain of vertue Peter Epist 2. chap. 1. representing to us writeth thus But of all have especiall care adde virtue to your faith and in virtue knowledge and in knowledge abstinence and in abstinence patience and in patience piety and in piety brotherly love and in brotherly love charity For if you have these things and abound therein you shall not bee empty nor bee without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ But for those that have not these things those are blind and hand-bound being forgetfull of the purging of their old sinnes In which place the Apostle eloquently declareth in whom this conjoyning of faith and life is not when to bee ignorant of Christ to fall from faith and to walk in darknesse For it is the property of true True faith faith to change a man wholly to renew him and to quicken him in Christ so that hee may live and remain in Christ and Christ likewise in him CHAP. XL. Certain Rules very profitable to lead our lives Christian-like and devoutly 1 Timothy 4. Exercise thy selfe in piety for piety is profitable for
he died for his cause because they contemne the sptrit of grace that is they despise it and repell it even for that they by their wicked life they deride and contemne Christ his bloud calleth for revenge against the wicked the mighty grace of God offered so that the bloud of Christ shed for them crieth for revenge against them and that by the just judgement of God which is most terrible to heare all which they doe offer up draw upon themselves for truly it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God as it is written in the same Chapter for God even our God is a living God not a livelesse Idoll that will not or is not able to revenge this refusall and contempt of his grace which revenge and divine wrath even their own conscience doth threaten them and follow them at the heeles who hearing that the Sonne of God did die a most terrible death for sinne yet doe not take any care to abstain from sinne And this is the cause wherefore presently after the death of Christ repentance Why God requireth repentance of all men was preached over all the world both because he died the death for the sinnes of the whole world and in all places of the world men should repent as it is written Chap. 17. Acts and that they might receive that Panacea that soveraigne hearb that cureth all diseases with a contrite penitent and faithfull heart lest the grace of God should be frustrated and made voyd Without repentance sins are not forgiven for after this serious repentance remission of sinnes doth follow immediatly after neither is it possible he should have his sins remitted that repenteth not grieveth not that hath sinned and yet rejoyceth in sins as also nothing is more fooolish and preposterous that those sinnes should be pardoned the which thou never didst think to abstain from or challenge the merit of Christ to himselfe and in the mean time to wallow in his sinnes which was the cause of Christs death And yet there be many who although all their life they never repented seriously that they had sinned nor have abated a hair of their wrath covetousnes pride hatred envie hypocrisie and unrighteousnesse but rather have grown and augmented their sinnes more and more and yet dare require remission of their sins The false faith of false Christians and challenge the merit of Christ to belong unto them which indeed is their blind and deplorable impudencie These are such as flatter themselves to their exceeding evill perswading themselves through their own foolishnesse that they are good Christians because for sooth they know and beleeve that Christ died for their sinnes and by this meanes they doe beleeve sted fastly they shall be saved but thou art an unhappy and after a most miserable manner bewitched false Christian for neither doth the word of God teach that by this means life eternall is to be obtained neither any of the Prophets or Apostles did any time so preach but this is the unanimous consent Thou which requirest to have thy sinnes pardoned first repent abst in from thy sins and then grieving from thy heart earnestly that thou hast sinned beleeve in Christ But how should he bee sorry for his sinnes who never thinketh how to eschew sinne or how should he eschew his sinnes which is not sorrowfull for the committing of them Wherefore Christ with all his Apostles Prophets doth teach thee that thou must What it is to die to the world dye to the world and sinne as to pride covetousnesse lust wrath hatred and that thou must return with all thy heart to the Lord and ask pardon of him which being done now thou art absolved and free from thy sins and now the heavenly Physitian respecteth thee who onely healeth contrite hearts if thou insist upon any other way Christ profiteth thee nothing and in vain and of no value or belonging to salvation is the boasting of thy faith for true faith which reneweth the man it extinguisheth and mortifieth sinnes in man and quickneth him in Christ that is maketh him to live in Christ in faith and in his charity humility meeknesse and patience And after this manner Christ is to thee the way to life and thou in like manner art a new creature in him But if thou intend to sinne and hast not yet determined to leave thine iniquity but applaudest all thy old sinnes or actions of old Adam let it be how canst thou be another creature or how canst thou belong to Christ when thou dost not crucifie the flesh with all the desires thereof and concupiscences as the Apostle saith Galat. 5. Goe then and daily heare ten Sermons a day and every The vaine worship of God month confesse thy selfe and communicate for all these things are farre unworthy of remission of sinnes because a penitent heart contrite and faithfull which maketh thee capable of this wholsome medicine thou dost not bring with thee Truly and indeed the Sacraments and Word of God which are the most powerfull remedies helps yet but only to those that repent of their sins from the bottom of their hearts and that with daily faithfull mourning doe detest the way of their old and former life For what profiteth it to anoint a stone with pretious oyntment or a medicine Or what harvest shalt thou reap if thou sowest amongst thornes and briers Therefore thou must first pull up all these young thornes that choak the good seed and all things that hinder thee from reaping Whom Christ profiteth nothing a good harvest Last of all whosoever cleaveth to his sinnes it is sure that Christ profiteth him nothing the nativity of Christ helpeth him nothing who careth not to be born with him nothing the death of Christ him who hath not determined firmly in his mind to die unto sin nothing the resurrectioÌ„ of Christ him who refuseth in him to arise from sin lastly the ascension of Christ profiteth nothing to him that will not lead a heavenly life But if converted with the prodigall thou deplore hate and slye sinne and then prayest to obtain pardon of God and beholding by faith Christ crucified and his wouuds like unto the true Israelite thou mayst say Good God have mercy upon me a most grievous sinner then pardon is at hand what and how great soever thy sinnes be thou hast committed so great truly is the perfection in the redemption gotten by the bloud of Christ and so is the perfection of applying the grace and imputation of the whole merit of Christ by faith and it is most true that is in 12. Sap. God giveth place to repentance for sins that is to say pardoning â—reely perfectly and wholly the penitent for Christ yea it is the great good pleasure of God to exercise mercy and to pardon sinnes freely My bowels are troubled within me as towards them I am mercâ—fâ—ll and I will have mercy of
them saith the Lord Jer. 31. For then the death of Christ is effectuall and cometh to perfection or bringeth forth his fruits and therefore the Angels of God in heaven rejoyce because the bloud of Christ is become profitable to sinners for whom it was shed CHAP. IX The Antichristian life of men of this time doth deny Christ and the true faith 2 Timoth. 3. They have a certain form of godlinesse but doe deny the vertue thereof BEcause no man doth boast himself that he is no Christian although he doe no part of a Christian it followeth that by Christ is derided by a wicked life those manners he denieth Christ or Christ is denied contemned derided blasphemed whipt crucified slain and buried according to the Apostle who saith that certain men crucified the Sonne of God again and doe boast thereof and also according to Daniel who in the twelfth chapter foretelleth that Christ shall be pulled up by the roots which Prophesie is vulgarly expounded of Christ crucified at Jerusalem by the Jewes crying Away with him Away with him crucifie him which exposition I would to God it were true and that Christ were not yet daily by the Antichristian life taken from amongst us so that his life truly holy and excellent at this day is no where Where the life of Christ is not there is no Christ to be found for what darest thou speak of thy faith and doctrine where the life of Christ is banished there is no Christ that is more true then may be doubted or what is faith without a Christian life even a barren tree without fruit according to blessed Jude who calleth the false Apostles Summer trees without fruit twice dead of which sort the world is full That which Christ foretold would come to passe Luke 18. When the Sonne of Man commeth doe you True faith think he shall find faith upon the earth He speaketh of faith not this faith of which the world is full and which we professe in our mouthes and deny the same in our workes as if it consisted in this to love Christ in words and not in deeds and truth but the new man is another man regeneration a good tree with his fruits a man renewed by faith in whom Christ liveth and dwelleth by faith This is the faith that our Saviour meant which according to his prophesie is almost no where to be found at this day For where true faith is there Christ and his life must needs be even so contrariwise whosoever doth not imitate the life of Christ by faith in him is neither faith nor Christ The words of our Saviour are Luk. 12. He that shall deny me before men I will deny him before the Angels of God This deniall Deniall of Christ is not onely done in words or by the mouth as when we renounce our faith and Christ but much more and more powerfully when in deeds and life we resist Christ and the holy Ghost voluntarily that which St. Paul calleth deniall in workes and deeds For it is most certain that Christ is no lesse denied by a wicked and Diabolicall life then if he were denied openly by open words even so it is with hypocrisie with a specious and verball holinesse as if it were by doctrine to which purpose the Parable is extant Matth. 21. of two sons to one of which his father said My sonne goe worke to day in my vineyard but be answered and said I will not yet afterwards he repented him and did goe And coming to the other sonne he said in like manner to him who answered I goe Lord and went not which of these two did the will of his father They said The first who denied to goe yet afterwards did goe and labour But the other that said he would and lied or deceived did not he The greatest contempt of God is in or by a wicked life mock and deny his father And so there are many at this day of our false Christians crying So so Lord Lord the worst of all others not any of them doing the commandement of the Father And to this belongeth the saying of Saint Paul They have indeed a shew of godlinesse but denie the power thereof And what else is it to deny the power of godlinesse then to betray False Christians and violate their faith towards Christ and to play the Ethnick under the name of a Christian whom therefore St. Paul rightly calleth Infidels the children of infidelity having no faith Lastly those that usurp a Christians name and doe nothing and therefore Christ saith Depart from me yee accursed because I know you not And worthy it is that I should deny you who first durst and did deny me CHAP. X. The moderne life of worldly men is against Christ and is false Christianity Matth. 12. He that is not with me is against me IF any will examine the life and manners The life of the worldly of these times after the square of the life and doctrine delivered by Christ shall not he find the life of most men to be Antichristians because they have no other thing more then covetousnesse the study of getting usury concupiscence of the flesh and of the eyes pride of life ambition pomp hunting after fame and glory disobedience wrath strife warre disorder displeasure thirsting after revenge secret hatred envie implacability unrighteousnesse uncleannesse falsenesse frauds and backbitings In briefe we are all for the most part selfe-lovers seekers of the world greedy The life of Christ Christians affecters of honours and our own proper gain when contrariwise the life of Christ is nothing but the most pure and sincere love of God and man courtesie mildnesse humility patience obedience to death mercy righteousnesse truth chastity holinesse contempt of the world of honours wealth and pleasures deniall of our selves to beare the crosse continually trouble and affliction daily study and thirst after the Kingdome of God and lastly an unexpressible desire to fulfil the divine will seeing Christ saith He that is not with me is He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is Antichrist Antichrist But the modern life of worldly men hath no community with Christ but most men are at discord with Christ and dissent with their whole heart will mind and spirit from Christ Paul 1 Cor. 2. commanding another thing But we have the will of Christ and to the Phil. 2. Have yee the same manners with Christ it is agreeable that all worldly men should be adverse to Christ what every one doth this is Antichrist not in doctrine but in manner of life which being so in what place shall we find true Christians Seeing then this flock should be lowly in their own eyes Luke 12. to whom the Prophet Isaias agreeth who compareth the faithfull assembly and true Church to a little Cottage in a Vineyard The paucity of true Christians and a Watch-tower in a garden of Cucumbers and to a wasted
Citie And Micah compareth it to a cluster of grapes which grapes the gatherers left by negligence in the vineyard saying cap. 8. Woe is me because I am become as one that gathereth grapes to make wine in Autumne And blessed David likeneth it to a solitary Turtle to a little Sparrow hiding it selfe under the eves of the house and to a night-crow in the desert and to one remaining amongst the rubbish of a destroyed Citie but where where they are the most high knoweth Certainly Christ is and will be with them even unto the end of the world neither will he leave them without succour or desolate For the Lord knoweth his and those that be his Christs Amongst whom whosoever is to be reckoned the Apostle declares Let all depart from their iniquity which usurp the name of Christ and they that are not so minded let them get unto themselves another name CHAP. XI He that doth not imitate the life of Christ and doth not repent is neither Christian nor the Son of God then what the second or new birth is and what the yoak of Christ is 1 Pet. 1. Christ left us an example that we may follow his footsteps OUr great God gave unto us his Son to be our Prophet Doctor and our Master whom in like manner he commanded us to heare him by a voyce from heaven which office the Sonne of God did execute not in words onely but in examples also of a most innocent life valiantly and boldly and as it was worthy such a true teacher Whereupon Saint Luke Acts 1. The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all things which Jesus began to doe and to teach even unto the day he was taken up where it is to be observed that the blessed Evangelist joyneth the deeds and doctrine together by a most certain counsell that cannot be separated for it behoveth a true Teacher which would teach others first to doe the things himself and such a teacher Christ shewed himselfe to be by his example whose life is the true doctrine and booke of life And for that Christ is the light of our life cause the Sonne of God became Man and was conversant amongst men on earth that he might shew unto us a living example of a heavenly life divine innocent and perfect that we might follow him as a light in the dark for which cause he calleth himselfe the Light of the world which if we follow we doe not walk in darknesse as witnesseth John Chap. 8. Whereby it evidently appeareth that all those doe remain in the darke and will never attaine to the light of life who doe not follow Christ in faith and life And what this darknesse is St. Paul teacheth us Rom. 12. commanding to lay down the works of darknesse and to put on the Armour of light as if the Mysticall darknes should say Repent But we have sufficiently declared before that true and divine repentance together with true faith doth utterly change the man crucifie the flesh and impose and beget a new way of life through the Holy Ghost Therefore lest wee being seduced by error should believe Christianity to be words only and not a reality or reall being and that there should be a living example of the quickened Spirit or new man God Christ is the shape of the new man set before our eyes his own Sonne not only as a ransome and Mediatour but as a glasse of true piety and shape of the regeneration or new man in whom not the fleshly Adam through sin but God himself did raign that we might daily be renewed in him according to his own Image of which many things remain to be spoken We know every one of us and find by daily experience our nature offending that is to say our blood our flesh body and mind to be polluted with all kinde of uncleannesse malice sin and wickednesse all which are both the works of the Devill working powerfully in the carnall and naturall man The originall of all sins as also more especially the wicked and depraved will because the depraved will is the root of all sins which being taken away there would be no sin for the evill will is it which turneth him from God and his will for whatsoever differeth from God or the chief good that cannot but be evill And this aversion or falling away of both was I say of the Devill and the fall of man and thereby sin came into the world which we deliver one unto another by carnall propagation whereby it appeareth that our flesh and blood by nature and off-spring doth nourish our aptnesse to evill and the seed of the Devill and our flesh will be infected with the venime of Satan as indeed pride is lying lust and every wicked work condemned of God And for this inclination so wicked Christ calleth the Pharisees sons of the Devill Joh. 8. and many other their disciples by the name of Satan no otherwise then as if covetousnesse lying pride and all wicked concupiscence were the Devill wherewith the naturall and carnall man is infected whereupon it followeth further that as many as lead their life without repentance full of pride covetousnesse lust and envie all those do live in the Devill and do participate of the inclination and nature of the Devill In which number all those which take upon them any work having an outward shew of integrity or honesty of their own inducements or bringing up and yet are in their heart and inwardly full of the Devill or that the Devill remaineth within according to the saying of Christ to the Jews which although it be a terrible thing to speak yet it is really so no conjecture Our extreme wickednesse to be amended by the chiefest good Why Christ was incarnate wherefore seeing as it is confessed our nature is so extremely miserably depraved it is behoofefull without doubt that it should be corrected and amended which by no means could be obtained or effected but by this that is to wit that the chief good should destroy the chief evill and that God himself should become man Now then the Son of God became man not for his own cause but for ours that he might reconcile us by himself unto God and make us partakers of the soveraign good and being purged sanctifie us for what is to be sanctified that of necessity is to be sanctified through God with God and as God is personally in Christ so we w th God by faith must be united that we may live in him and he in us Christ in us and we in Christ Wee must be united to Christ by faith Lastly the divine will in us and we in it which is the only means by which Christ Jesus becometh our medicine to our most corrupted nature of which so much as is in man so much is his depraved inclination His nobility in whom Christ liveth Christ is the new life of the new man amended Happy
boldly and willingly to sinne is nothing else then to live in the Devill In whom therefore the life of Christ is not this man is without repentance neither is a true Christian nor the sonne of God nay Christ knoweth him not He who will rightly know him as a Saviour and example of life it is meet he know him to be meere love meere courtesie patience and humility which vertues of Christ it behoveth thee to have and love them from the bottome of thy heart and fasten them to thy self As a plant by its favour and smel that it sendeth forth bewrayes its own nature so thou oughtest to know Christ and by experience be certain that he is a certain most fragrant The true knowledge of Christ stock from whence thy soule doth draw and obtain admirable strength and new vitall spirits as also singular joy and solace And after this manner is tasted how sweet the Lord is so is the truth known so is the chiefe and eternall good perceived and then doth he know certainly that nothing is better then the life of Christ nothing more pleasant sweet pretious or more full of tranquillity And lastly nothing can be more likened or be compared to life eternall And do we doubt that because it is better then all it should be more desireable for in whom the life of Christ is not this man cannot know what the peace and tranquillity of eternall life is nor what the chiefe good is nor everlasting truth nor what is true peace and joy the true light and true charity seeing Christ is all these himselfe whereupon John Ep. 1. chap. 4. saith Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God he that loveth not knoweth not God because God is love Whereby the fruits of the new birth which is of God appeareth and also life and a new creature not to be words and an externall forme but a substance but the Queen of vertues and which is God himselfe that is to say Charity for of whomsoever any is born it is meet he should have the same properties and he that saith he is born of God let him shew that by charity because God is charity In like manner the knowledge of God resteth not in words and shadowed or vain knowledge but in lively amiable pleasant and most sincere pleasure which ought to flow into the bottome of our heart and mind and there to dwell when we taste by faith inwardly in our hearts the sweetnesse of God This I say this is the true lively and efficacious knowledge of God of which David in Psalm 84. speaketh saying My heart and my flesh rejoyceth in the living God and Psalm 63. How pleasant is thy mercies over our lives where it is presently manifested the joy and sweetnesse of the knowledge divine which is infused into the faithfull heart and so at length the man liveth in God and God in him so is truth known and so the same truth knoweth man CHAP. XII The being of a Christian man is to die to himselfe and the world and to live unto Christ 2 Corinth 5. Christ died for all men that those which live might not now live unto themselves but unto him who died for them and rose again OVer and above this that this sentence is full of consolation whilst it is manifested that Christ died for all men as also it containeth a most wholsome doctrine concerning the way of a Christian life how we ought to live that is to say not to our He that wil live in Christ must dy to the world selves onely but to him who died for our cause but this by no means can be done unlesse first we die to our selves and the world Therefore if thou hast purposed to live in Christ necessarily thou must die to worldly concupiscence but if thou mind to live to thy selfe and the world it will profit nothing to be with Christ But there be 3. kinds of death one spirituall when the Death is three fold man daily dieth to himselfe that is to the concupiscence of his flesh covetousnesse pride voluptuousnesse wrath such like the second naturall the third everlasting of the second speaketh Paul to the Philippians châ—p 1. To live to my selfe it is Christ and to die it is gain as if he should say To a Christian desiring to die Christ is his life and death gaine for when he changeth this short and miserable life for a better life and this earthly and fraile goods for stable and eternal goods this is a most gainful exchange and he who shall be well pleased with this saying and fit himselfe to the first sort of death in my judgement he shall not erre For that soule is thrice and foure The life of Christ times happy to whom to live is Christ that is wherein Christ liveth or that hath the life of Christ that is followeth his humility and lowlinesse But alas most men The life of the Devill at this day have taken upon them the life of the Devill and their life is the Divell As for example covetousnesse pride concupiscence wrath blasphemy for this is the life of the Devill But thou O man walk carefully and look about thee again and again and see who liveth in thee and thou What it is to die to themselves and the world shalt be most happy if thou canst truly say To me to live is Christ not in the other life only but also in this present life so truly it is needfull also in this present life now that for thee to live is Christ gain to die For is there any thing more profitable then to die in this condition to covetousnesse pride concupiscence wrath and hatred that Christ by that means may live in thee For how much every one dieth to the world so much Christ liveth in him Goe to them let Christ live in thee in time that thou in like manner maist live with him in From whence be the perturbations of the mind eternity But seeing that the mind distracted with divers worldly concupiscences is not capable of true tranquillity and peace it followeth that those that doe die before they begin to live in Christ that which our Sarah the type of the new birth great God hath taught us in divers figures in the old Testament for Sarah when by reason of her age she was unfit to bring children and dead to marriage bed did conceive in her womb and brought forth Isaac which word signifieth Laughter So then unlesse thou root out of thy mind worldly love thou shalt not be able to feel and receive the joy of the Spirit The promise was not made unto Abraham of Christ Abraham is a type of the abnegation of the world and the covenant of circumcision annexed before he left his proper habitation and his own inheritance it is no otherwise with man so long as he hath his mind fixed to the world it is
canst not live with him in this life It remaineth therefore whose life in this world is not in Christ he shall not have life in the other world Here I pray thee now examine thy life and see whether it be more like to Christs or the Vnion with Christ or the Devill Devils Certainly with one of them thou shalt be joyned eternally after death But who is dead to himselfe he is in love with no businesses yea is dead to the world what other thing is it to die unto the world then not to love the world and the things of this world according to that of John Epist 1. chap. 2. He who loveth the world is not of God For what should he doe in the world who inwardly and in his heart is dead to it Whom also whosover loveth he is no otherwise then Samson of Dalila overcome of it and condemned to all the torments and vexations which the He is overcom of the world that loveth it worldly life containeth or affordeth Moreover the love of the world belongeth to the old man not to the regeneration because the world hath nothing but honours The old man delighteth in the world the new man in Christ wealth concupiscence of the eyes and of tâ—e flesh with the pride of life in which the old Adam is conversant and delighteth it selfe And contrariwise to the new man he hath all things in Christ as joy honour wealth and pleasure for what can be more The Image of God the great est dignity of man honorable to a man or is more to be desired then the Image of God renewed by Christ Or if we seek pleasures what man in his wits can doubt that God doth give delight to his above all creatures and delight The man is made for greater things then this world them more as the words of Taulerus say Furthermore what think you of that which the Scripture teacheth Man was not made for the worlds sake but the world for mans sake nor to fill his belly with delicate meat pamper his own wit heap up riches spread his Empire abroad to get most ample possessions grounds and fruits of the earth to be gorgeously attired to abound in gold and silver to be Lord of the earth to put all his delight and joy therein as in his paradise to place it and know hope for nothing but what is before his eyes Or lastly for any terrene cause whatsoever or any thing that is fraile although of it selfe it be good pleasant and pretious No truly he must goe hence he is but a tenant and a life-renter of this great world into which we enter many at one instant as it were by heaps yet death calls for us also As it is not profitable for any of us to carry with us a grain of all the treasure we have heaped whereby it evidently appeareth that we were not created for this temporall life To what man was created neither this world to be the principall end of our creation seeing that we live therein as prilgrims and guests therefore another cause brought us into this world and for whom we were born which is God himselfe and the image of God which we bear in Christ and unto whom we are renewed In this we are convinced evidently to wit that we are especially created for the kingdome of God and life eternall which Christ hath recovered for us and to whom we are regenerate by the holy Ghost How preposterous then is it for one to fix his heart to the world and give his minde to earthly things when we know the other to be more noble then the whole word I say for a man to attend and spend his time on earthly things which is the most excellent of all creatures which carrieth about him the image of God in Christ and is renewed to this image Wherefore as I said before the man for the world was not created but the world was created for man and therefore carrleth about with him the image of God in Christ of which the excellency and nobility is so great that all men with all his workes and power could not repaire one soule or renew the Image of God But for this cause it was necessary that Christ should die that because the image of God was defaced and destroyed in man it should be renewed by the holy Ghost and he should become forthwith the habitation and house of God And this being known and called to mind if he be right minded he will never compare the riches of the world honours To preferre earthly things before heuvenly is great madnes and pleasures with the price of his soule which Christ hath redeemed at such a price for what is it to cast pearls in the mire and before swine if this should not be That which our Saviour saith Matth. 16. pertaineth to this place What profiteth it a man to get the whole world and lose his owne soule For seeing the world is mortall and the soul of man immortall the world with all his pomp cannot recover one soul CHAP. XIV A true Christian ought after the example of Christ to contemne the world and hate his life in this world John 12. He that loveth his soule loseth it and he that hateth his soule in this world doth preserve it to eternall life HE that will hate himselfe he must first not love himselfe so that he may daily die to sinne and therefore he must continually Selfe-love the chiefest enemy of the soul Idolatry wrastle with himselfe and his flesh for nothing is more hurtfull to a man that is desirous of his salvation and more hindereth him then selfe-love I say that carnall Philautia of which this following discourse in all this book is the subject I doe not say that care of preserving our selves but loving our selves is forbidden For seeing that God alone is to be loved it followeth that he who loveth himselfe is an Idolater and maketh himselfe God what every one loveth in that his heart is fixed neither can we be taken but with the love and servitude of something so as we become servants despoiling our selves of our proper liberties and consequently having so many Lords we are subject unto as we have objects to love but if thy love be sincerely and simply towards God then thou art subject to no object but it is manifest thou art at liberty wherefore thou must be very circumspect that thou follow nothing that may hinder the divine love in thee And if thou desirest to possesse God alone as much as thou art able so much in like The law of God brings forth tranquillity the world perturbation manner of thy all must thou consecrate to him But if thou love thy selfe and please thy selfe much pensivenesse sorrow feare and sadnesse will befall thee Contrariwise if thou love God and rejoycest in him onely and dost dedicate thy selfe onely to him then will he be thy
present things and lastly to crucifie the flesh that the spirit may live in him Truly in this is both the foredeck and the poop of Christianity to imitate our Saviour or as Augustine saith The chiefest Christ is the rule of our life of religion is to imitate him whom thou lovest from which opinion differeth not much that saying of Plato drawn from the law of Nature The perfection of men consisteth in the imitation of God whereupon nothing else is left unto us then that Christ ought to be the example and square of our life and that all our counsels studies and cogitations should respect that one thing how we should come to him by him be saved and live with him eternally All things are to be done in faith expecting with joy the dissolution of our prison And that we shall attain if we direct all our labours actions businesse and vocations by faith and goe on with desire and hope of eternall life or to speak more significantly if we never lay aside the memory The love of the world is extinguished by faith of eternall happinesse in all our actions because through this feare of God is begotten in man a certain holy desire of eternal things and withall the desire coveting of earthly things insatiable in its own nature is restrained according to that saying of St Paul to the Coloss 3. Whatsoever you doe in word or deed doe all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ giving thankes to God the Father through him And the name of God is nothing but the honour praise and glory of God According to thy Name let it be O God and thy praise to the ends of the world saith David Psal 48. Which Whâ—â— the name of God iâ— scope if all our works and life doe chiefly respect then we think of eternity and our works are done in God and consequently our selves are in God Briefly God our chiefe good and the eternall life of all our thoughts works and words should be the first mover if we will not faile of eternall salvation That which Paul most elegantly expresseth to 1 Tim. chap. 6 But thou O man Who iâ— the man of God or the man of the world of God flie these things to wit covetousnes He calleth a Christian a man of God because borne of God and living in God hee is the sonne and heir of God Even as contrariwise a man of the world is he who liveth after a worldly life whose inheritance is the world and whose belly is filled with the goods of the earth as it is in Psalm 17. Which way the Christian is farre from seeking after faith and love and unsatiably covetous of eternall life to which he was created alone which if it come not to passe then the man linketh himselfe to enormous sins which our just God doth punish with eternall fire prefigured by the burning of the Tents sent from heaven and from an angry God to punish and revenge the excesses of the Israelites The wrath of God from whence Wherefore so often as such like plagues are sent upon the wicked as inundation fire warre hunger pestilence let us alwayes call to mind and remember that these are the most just punishments of a moved and angry God because the people of Israel unmindfull of heavenly things did follow after transitory things did prefer present things before future and had more care of the body then of the soule which things let us not erre in It is an extream point of ingratitude and contempt A great contempt ingratitude to God of God both here and hereafter to be punished to wit to contemne God for whom we beare about both body and soule and from whom we received them and instead thereof to worship Idols of the creatures the work of mens hands to esteem eternall things after transitory For these creatures Why creatures are given to us are given to us for necessity and not to set our hearts and minds after them that which God alone deservedly challengeth to himself and that they might be as prints and testimonies of God whereby we come neerer to the knowledge and love of God the author of them all which divine institution when the love of the world dare abrogate it then the same by the most just vengeance of God together with the proper Idolaters are turned into the fire The love of the world Is converted into the fire of Sodom and infernall flood of which Sodom and Gomorrah is a type and this burning of the Tents of which we speak Truly all creatures are of themselves good but when men set their hearts upon them and that not after a lawfull manner but doth worship them as Idols then they become abomination How the creature becometh abomination before God Almighty no otherwise then the detestable and execrable Images of gold and silver and therefore matters of eternall fire although gold and silver of themselves are good creatures In brief the love of Christians joy wealth and honour are circumscribed in eternity whereupon there followeth even life eternall for where thy treasure is there is thy heart Luke 1â— On the contrary from the concupiscence The fruit of worldly love and love of the world nothing can follow but eternall damnation for the world passeth away with all the pomp thereof but he that doth the will of God continueth for ever whereupon B. John 1. Epist chap. 2. beseecheth the faithfull saying Little sonnes doe not love the world nor those things that be in the world which being so manifestly shewed thee that God would not have us love any creature first Why the creatures are not loved because love is the heart of man and the most noble of all affections which therefore is due to God alone as to the chiefest and onely good Secondly because it is a great folly to love that which cannot love us again whereupon in vain are frail and transitory things beloved by good right is God alone to beloved above all creatures who out of his exceeding love created us to eternall life redeemed and sanctified us Thirdly because naturally like things are Why man was created after Gods Image loved therefore God made thee after his own image and likenesse that thou mightest love him and thy neighbour Fourthly although our soule be like to wax ready The soule is the lookingglasse of God to take any impression put upon it rather like a glasse representing all objects set before it whether of heaven or earth yet it is born onely to set God before it Fifthly as the Patriarch Jacob when he lived in Mesopotamia amongst strangers and after twenty yeares service demanded his two What our mind ought alwayes to respect wives and his wages and being provoked with the sweet memory of his country did think and desire to return to the same so our soule among worldly occupations and businesses of our
bring the wayfaring man and the needy into thy house when thou seest one naked cover him or cloath him and doe not despise thine owne flesh Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thy salvation shall arise betimes and thy justice shall goe before thy face and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee together All which with one voyce do cry That God will not accept the repentance of any man or his prayer unlesse he first be reconciled to his neighbour CHAP. XXX Of the fruits of Love 1 Cor. 13. Charity is patient courteous charity striveth not it doth no wrong it is not puffed up it is not disdainfull it seeketh not his own it is not easily provoked it thinketh no evill it rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the truth it suffereth all things it beleeveth all things it hopeth all things it sustaineth all things EVen as in the middest of Paradise the Tree of Life was planted the fruits whereof whosoever should eat hee should lead an immortall life according to that of Gen. 3. Now therefore lest he hap to put his hand thereto and take of the Tree of life and The life of the faithful is Christ eat and live for ever the Lord God sent him out of the Paradise of pleasure that he might labour the earth from whence he was taken So Almighty God in the midst of the Paradise of the Christian Church set Christ Jesus that all the faithfulll from him might draw life and spirit and be comforted For all Christian discipline consisteth in Faith and Charity and the summe of Christian life in generall by reason of faith in Christ is pleasant acceptable to God So in like manner we cannot approve or allow of the reasons of our neighbour but through charity And so true it is that all vertues without charity are nothing and dead that faith it self is not excepted which although it onely justifieth when it onely apprehendeth the merit of Christ neither in the businesse of justification any reason of workes going before present or to come or to follow but Christ onely is accounted of yet it is most sure where charity doth not follow there is not true faith but hypocriticall although it work by miracles For even as a body destitute of a soule is dead so the spirituall or inward man whose members are vertues if charity be wanting with all his members ought to be accounted for dead Whereupon B. Paul hath set it as a Loadstone of faith and such faith doth require as worketh by charity Truly I know well in the work of justification that faith without works doth consist Rom. 4. but that it should want works I professe it cannot be when it shall have to doe amongst men in the market of charity Wherefore to the Galatians chap. 5. it is called Faith which worketh by charity And 1. Cor. 13. the fruits of this most beautifull Tree are remarked to bee fourteen And the first of these is Patience and Long-suffering whose nature and constitution no man better expresseth then Christ himselfe the true tree of life whose goodly fruits we ought to eat and turn them into the juice and bloud of Christ Therefore even as he by his wonderfull long-suffering did beare the malice and sinne of the world that he might allure and draw sinners to repentance Rom. 2. So then also order thy life and manners that the most gentle Christ may live in thee and thou in him as a member united to his head and breathe together The second fruit is Benignity or well-doing which was chiefe and principall in Christ according to Psalm 45. All grace did drop from thy lips And Luke 4. They wondred at the words of grace which proceeded out of his lips Which doe thou heare that thou mayst follow and to cause thee love thy neighbour Christ will speak by thy mouth and thou shalt remain united to him in perpetuall charity The third fruit is not to be emulous or revengefull but to remit and pardon then which nothing is more proper to God Psal 103. David saith He will not be angry for ever threaten thee eternally He hath not done to us according to our offences nor rewarded us according to our iniquities To which like is that of Ezekiel chap. 18. If the wicked shall repent him of all his sinnes and iniquities that he hath wrought he shall live by his life and shall not die I will not remember all his iniquities which he hath wrought And in Jeremy 31. In perpetuall love have I loved thee therefore have I drawn thee to me in mercy I will have pitie on them I will be reconciled as concerning their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more And in Esay chap. 43. I am I am he that blotteth out thy iniquities for my own sake and I will not remember thy sins Therefore doe thou the same remit I say pardon and forget thy neighbour and in like manner Christ will pardon thine offences and thou shalt have his Spirit and shalt remain in him The fourth fruit is not to mis-judge thy neighbour nor causelesly or crookedly or perversly to deride thy neighbour before others or by sycophantizing or collusion to damnifie him but contrariwise let thy heart bee seen in thy brow and doe all things ingenuously and clearly without hypocrisie Example whereof Christ gives unto us who carried himselfe equally to his friends and foes and from the bottome of his heart would that all should be most rightly guided both in deeds and counsell in which foot-steps whosoever doth insist in him doth remain the candor and ingenuity of Christ Therefore let all of us from the heart study the good of others by which means we shall remain united as true members to Christ our head The fifth fruit is Not to be puffed up to insult or wax proud but behold Christ Jesus the tree of life to whom the woman Luke 11. with a loud voice in a great assembly and concourse was bound to say Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that gave thee suck He turned this praise most worthily due from himselfe to them that feared and loved God yea rather subjecting himselfe saying Happy are they that heare the word of God and keep it And this is the character of true love to transferre all his praises due to himself upon his neighbour which if thou after the example of Christ dost resolve to doe then truly humble Christ liveth in thee and thou in him In the sixth place true charity is not cruell not disdainfull not rough not discourteous in manners but tempered and composed to all humanity which Charity Christ used according to the prophesie of Esay chap. 42. who was not rigid nor turbulent but with admirable gentlenesse and sweetnesse of tongue hee accommodated The worship of God profiteth not God but our selves himselfe to his neighbour and commanded the same to others Whosoever studieth to imitate
him hee is transformed into his Image and is united by an everlasting conspiration The seventh fruit of love is Not to seek that which is his own nor to have nothing more acceptable or pleasing then gratis or without expectation to serve others and as much as he can to be helpfull to others that which onely God most abundantly performeth giving all things to us freely and commanding his worship and feare unto us not for his own sake but that we might receive the fruit of his divine love and carry away the blessing thereby So Christ had no recompence but onely the cause of our salvation neither did he come to be ministred unto but to minister unto us and like unto the tree which without envie or respect of persons doth give his fruits such as he hath received of God first to all men indifferently doth wholly spend himselfe unpon us yea God himselfe in Christ hath reacht himself with all his gifts to humane kind and delivered it by a right of property to have and possesse them in this thing openly making himself to be the chief good which needs must be most specially in communicating himselfe he who studieth to make himselfe like unto him he shall be a plantation of the Lord to his glory Esay 61. and Christ shall bud and flourish in him a living vine and a Palm alwayes flourishing or waxing green The eighth fruit of love is not to be provoked to anger not to be inflamed with anger nor that which maketh man no man to utter wrath conceived by cursing railing speeches but to imitate Christ Jesus which did not cry out or open his mouth witnesse Esay cha 42. nor any kind of bitternesse but spake meer benediction and life And although hee did denounce threats against Chorazin Capernaum and Bethsaida and against the Pharirisees themselves uttering many woes against them yet it came not from a cruell or vengeative mind it was a serious and severe exhortation to repentance Therefore let us be wary lest any root of bitternesse springing again doe hinder our charitie and many bee offended thereby Heb. 12. The ninth fruit of charity is Not to think any evill which is the property of Almighty God as hee testifieth Jeremy 39. I know the thoughts which I think of you or concerning you the thoughts of peace and not of affliction that I may give an end and have patience Seek me and you shall find me when you shall seeke me with your whole hearts Whereupon it followeth He that hath the thoughts of peace towards his neighbour hath the heart of God and the understanding of Christ and as a living member knit unto his head is inspired of him Tenthly It rejoyceth not in iniquity nor in the injury or oppression of injustice as wicked Shimei did when David fled from Absolom but it imitates Christ Jesus who with most tender compassion beholding Peters perjury did with his most benigne aspect rectifie him according to the Psalm 146. God doth raise them that â—â—e fallen who deplored the evill that was to befall the men of Judea and the destruction of the Jewes lastly who with all his heart desired to bring his wandring and lost sheep into their way and that which was in him with a sweet and most gentle voyce did allure them home Let us imitate this so great a Master of love and if any bee fallen from his love let us deplore him after this manner Let us instruct him in the spirit of love and lenity and help to beare his burden that we may fulfill the Law of Christ Gal. 6. His law I say that first did beare the burden of our sinnes and let him be in us as in true members of our head life sense and spirit The eleventh fruit Doth rejoyee together with the truth and where all things are done rightly and decently after the example of Christ who at the return of his seventie disciples at their well doing rejoyced very heartily and confessed himselfe to his heavenly Father and also the Angels in heaven doe rejoyce as Christ teacheth at the return of a sinner which if we do the like then truly we have the understanding of God and Angels The twelfth fruit of charity is to suffer all thiâ—gs as may appeare by this bond of peace after the example of blessed Paul I am made weak with the weak that I might profit the weak I am made all things with all men that I may save all men The same beleeveth all things suspecting no evill of his neighbour hopeth all things praying that nothing may fall amisse to his neighbour lastly It sustaineth all things that it may goe so much the better with his neighbour and more profitable All which our Saviour by a lively example of his life did teach us by bearing most heavie injuries and reproaches for our sins as also most inhumane scourgings and extream poverty and hunger that we in him and by him might obtain joy and honour The thirteenth fruit of love is Not Gods love is eternal to be weary nor to cease Like unto God whose mercy from eternity to eternity is upon those that feare him Psalm 103. who respecteth not that he may have mercy on us and rose up to spare us Esay 30. whose love is strong as death Cant. 4. which many waters cannot extinguish Cant. 8. Lastly from which nothing can separate us Rom. 8. who hath mercy on us with everlasting mercies Isa 54. And although Jer. 15. he denieth that henceforth he can have mercy to those onely it pertaineth who repell obstinately the divine mercies contemne his grace and abuse them with high contempt but not to those that feare him according to that of Esa 54. The mountaines shall be moved and the little hills shall tremble but my mercy shall not depart from thee and the covenant of my peace shall not be moved Thy mercifull Lord hath spoken it To which example also we must comply our love that it bee never weary no not towards our enemy but even as Christ praieth in us Christ did live and prayed let Christ in us say Father forgive them Last of all love is the Head and Queen of all vertues because God himselfe is love and because it is the end of the commandments and summe or collection of the Law and because it is eternall neither will it vanish with faith hope tongues and so forth our happinesse appearing which is the end of faith because it worketh all things and all vertues without it are as nothing and last of all because it will give us testimony through faith in Christ that we shall have eternall happinesse Whereupon it followeth that Christian charity must needs excell all Gifts and Arts whatsoever according to that of the Ephesians chap. 3. To know the supereminent love of the knowledge of Christ that you may bee filled in all fulnesse of Christ CHAP. XXXI Self-love and Arrogancie is as Ink upon white Ivory spotting and
sinne selfe-love arrogancy and ambition New-birth is found in Christ so from Christ by faith and the holy Ghost our nature is to be renewed and sanctified all selfe-love arrogancy and ambitition to die in it and it behoveth us to get a new heart and spirit from Christ as we have from Adam flesh subject to sin And of this new birth Christ is called Father eternall or of the future Age Isa chap. 9. The works of Christians ought to proceed from the new birth Whereupon it followeth consequently that all the works of Christians and gifts which shall be acceptable to God ought to proceed from the new creature that is from faith in Christ and the holy Ghost which if it be not so done whatsoever things although they be most excellent gifts and even miracles themselves before God they are void and to no purpose And towards our neighbour all things ought to be done in charity 1 Cor. 14. and without hope of proper gain or honour For example of which and a most excellent pattern God Almighty offered and gave us his Sonne in whom there was no selfe-love no arrogance lastly no desire of private profit or praise or glory and nothing but sincere and meere love and humility neither also as other Saints was hee proposed to us to imitate because their example was from without and so to behold or renew but that hee might by faith live and breath in us which when it cometh to passe even then all our works words and so our knowledge doe proceed from Christ as from a living foundation and originall if otherwise then all our works and gifts if they be Angelicall or of what kind soever they are neverthelesse nothing worth For where selfe-love is there the hatred of God is where arrogancy there the contempt of God where by no reason it can come to passe that works springing from thence should be acceptable to God Let us therefore doe this let us beseech Almighty God from the bottomes of our hearts to give us faith and sincere love contaminated with no desire of honour profit or glory but proceeding from a pure heart which being obtained not onely illustrious gifts and works but the least also even a cup of cold water will be most deare and acceptable to God For a small worke that proceedeth Charity maketh the least work great from sincere charity and humility is most excellent and better then all great ones that have their original from the desire of pride and glory CHAP. XXXII Not great gifts but faith that worketh by charity doth shew a man a Christian and acceptable to God 1 Cor. 4. The Kingdome of God is not in talke but in vertue BLessed Paul going about to describe a Christian man in briefe finishing the thing saith 1 Tim. 1. The end of the law is charity God doth not require great knowledge from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfained as if he should say That any man may bee made a Christian and â—cceptable to GOD are not required hard and lofty matters no worldly wisdome no humane learning no gifts no eloquence no knowledge of tongues lastly no miracles but that hee have faith in charity to doe all things resigned to God devout and well addicted and not carelesse of the motions and rule of the holy Ghost Wherefore let us not much regard that What it is to mortifie the flesh any one is expert in the tongues and how eloquent he is but how he shewes forth his faith by love and mortifying of the flesh For they that be Christs doe mortifie the flesh with the concupiscence thereof that is to say arrogancy selfe-love covetousnesse of glory proper gain hunting after praise whereupon blessed Paul denieth the Kingdome of God to consist in words or gifts and Arts but in vertue or living exercise of vertue in faith as charity lowlinesse and humility Therefore Before God nothing availeth but a new creature no man I say no man is in greater grace with God or blessed because he is indued with great gifts but because hee is found in Christ by faith and liveth in him as a new creature And if any man have Great gifts od not make a man happy attained unto so great and such gifts as no man else neglecting daily repentance he is not renewed in Christ and if he deny not the world although hee have never so many gifts if he despise not himselfe nor hate himselfe last of all doe depend upon the pure and sole grace of God no otherwise then an infant dependeth of the pap he with all his Arts and Gifts shall be damned it is a thing most manifest For neither are those given us of God that by them before God wee should bee great or blessed but for the edification of the To what end gifts are given of God Church Therefore when Luke 10. the seventy Disciples returned with joy saying Lord even the Devils are subject unto us in thy name Christ answereth Doe not rejoyce in this for neither miracles nor gifts shall save us but rejoyce that your names are written in the book of life that is because you beleeve and acknowledge me By faith Moses was saved not by hiâ— miracles and Miriam the sister of Moses being indued with â—he gift of prophesie and by whom the Spirit of the Lord did speak was punished with Leprosie Finally the Apostles not because of their miracles or tongues sake but for their faith were made Citizens of Heaven Let us remain I say let the least and the greatest remain in faith humility â—epentance in crucifying and mortifying of the flesh and in the new creature which as in Christ in faith and charity it liveth so in like manner Christ liveth in it So let us be found that Christ may acknowledge us for his Let Christian Charity remain to be that new life of the new man yea the life of Christ in the faithfull and that efficacious and working power of the holy Ghost by which Saint Paul Ephes 3. wisheth us to bee filled in all fulnesse of God Like unto that of Saint John God is Love and he that remaineth in love remaineth in God Whereupon it followeth that hee that feeleth love in his heart feeleth God himselfe Where as a certaine fore-runner or leading-starre it is present therefore Saint Paul as a tree from the root whereof with all the fruits thereof describeth it in 1 Corinth chap. 13. Charity saith hee is patient c. All which are the properties of Christians and consequently the life of the new man And to speak in a word God the Father is Love God the Sonne is Love God the holy Ghost is Love the whole mysticall body who is Christ or the Christian Church is bound together in the bond of Love So there is but one God one Christ one Spirit one Baptisme one Faith and lastly the happy and sempiternall life shall bee nothing but
should shadow mine own honour under them and expect any thing besides the honour of God and the good of my neighbour therefore all are abomination accursed before Almighty God according to that of Matth. 7. Many Why God respecteth not the gifts shall say unto me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name and cast out Devils in thy Name and have done many miracles in thy Name And then I shall say unto them Because I know you not depart from me The alms of the ambitious is damnable you workers of iniquity and you have not respected me sincerely but your selves Of the like mind is Saint Paul If I should give all that I have unto the poore and have not charity it profiteth mee nothing Even that love which exerciseth or sheweth liberality for Gods cause alone and not for his own praise or profits sake Such as was the righteousnesse of the Pharisees who offered many sacrifices and drew on others that they might adorn their Temples with their gifts and offer costly offerings the slaverie of which ambition drew them to forget the offerings of the poore whose gifts ought rather to bee preferred out of pitie alone Which preposterous charity in them Christ upbraideth Matth. 23. Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because under long prayers you devoure widowes houses In which perverse religion there be now followers which bequeath large legacies to Temples and Monasteries that their Clerks and Monkes may make long prayers for them which truly is false love seeking themselves and if you scan it well not respecting divine honour but themselves But we who know to live justly by faith let us rather be penitent aâ—d offer our selves to God by mortifying and crucifying our flesh then all our works of charity not out of selfe-love nor for the cause of praise or profit whatsoever but let us doe it for the love and sincere love of God being sure if we doe it otherwise they will not profit us a haire Therefore although thou give thy body to be burned and want love which is due to God alone and his praises and honour thou doest nothing saith Saint Paul Neither doe they profit any more which whip and burn their bodies by humbling and afflicting their souls as speaketh Isai 58. because indeed they are conceited in their singular sanctity and affect their own proper praises and their presumptuous religion in their private judgement doe not respect God but applause popular praise and estimation whereby many of them are so blinded God suffering them the work of error 2 Thess 2. that they make no doubt to suffer themselves to be burned for the defence of their False Martyrs conceived heresie and if God be pleased to become Martyrs of Christ when yet they doe not serve Christ but themselves neither doth the punishment but the cause make a Martyr Such Martyrs as these the Devill even amongst the Ethnickes hath many were so blinded in their understanding they were contented to die for their Altars and Idols And the same is done this day amongst Christians under the shew of the Christian faith seeing the Ethnicks themselves to gain an immortall name to perswade themselves they doe well in so doing To whom for self-love and glory or praise there were like unto them certain Monks devout persons in our age which are called Catholicks which for the cause of propagating Religion will perswade Princes and Monarchs that they are to doe the like unto them even die for the Catholicks cause Whose madnesse is so much the more manifest being they beleeve that they suffer for Christs cause and they become his Martrys when contrariwise they become the Martyrs of Roman Bishops and of their private renown and praise And thus much of coated or cloak charity powerfully seduced and carried on by a false light It remaineth therefore without the sincere love of God and our neighbour and a holy and Christian life all Arts Sciences Faculties profit nothing wisdome how great soever and if it be as great or greater then that which was in Solomon is nothing the knowledge of the whole Scripture and universall Theology is nothing lastly all works whatsoever and Martyrdome it selfe if you will so call it yea to know the will of God and his word and to live after the prescript rule thereof that onely augmenteth the guilt of eternall damnation according to that of Saint John 15. If I had not come and spoken unto them they had had no sin but now they have no excuse for their sin CHAP. XXXVI Of those that live not in Christ but have their heart fixed to the world although they possesse the outward letter of the Word and do not tast the inward force of it and the hidden Manna Apocalypse 1. To him that overcometh I will give the hidden Manna I will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it BY this Sentence it appeareth wee are taught that no man doth taste the inward sweetnesse of the heavenly joy and solace hidden in the word of God which doth not overcome his own flesh and the Who be apt to tast heavenly sweetnesse world with all the pomps and concupiscences thereof and lastly the Devil himselfe that is to say they who crucifie their own flesh daily by their serious contrition and repentance with all the desires and concupiscence thereof who die to themselves and the world daily lastly to whom this life is a meer crosse I say these are divinely fed with heavenly Manna and drink the Nectar of Paradise Contrariwise those that follow none but worldly pleasure it is unprofitable for those to taste the hidden Contraries ioy not together Manna For like things are delighted in their like and seeing that the word of God is spirituall it is no marvell if worldly minds be not delighted therewith For even as the soul receiveth no strength of the food which the stomack hath not concocted so the soule of the divine Word or Manna receiveth no strength unlesse it bee converted into it selfe that is into life Yea as a man sick of a Fever distasteth all things and are bitter unto him so those that are sick of the worldly Ague that is of the love of the world covetousnesse pride and lust these I say doe loath the word of God and distast it as bitter Contrariwise With whom the word of God hath no savour those that have the Spirit of God these doe find in it the hidden Manna never to be tasted by them that are carried away with the world which is the cause that many by the daily hearing of the Gospel doe feele little desire and spirituall joy because they are not carried by the Spirit of God nor have any heavenly but earthly minds But he that will fully and soundly understand the word of God and eate Manna it behoveth him to study to
way of the Devil when true faith and the works thereof doe not leave us empty or void of knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 1. Now seeing that a man having the Light and Life of Christ dwelleth in him for all these things hee is himselfe therefore according to the saying of the Prophet Esay chap. 11. upon such and no otherwise then upon Christ himselfe do rest the gifts of the holy Ghost that is to say the Spirit of wisdome and understanding the Spirit of counsell and fortitude the Spirit of knowledge piety and the feare of the Lord. Wherefore Saint Peter in the second of the Acts speaketh thus to the Jewes Repent and you shall receive the gifts of the holy Ghost as if he should say The Spirit of God of which you have had experience and which is the Illuminator of the heart sendeth not it self into other minds then those that are faithful and repent Goe to then O mortals which desire to bee freed from the blindnesse of heart and everlasting darknesse and lastly from the Devil himselfe imitate Christ in faith and true conversation and amendment being sure that the neerer you are to Christ the neerer you are to Eternall Light and by how much morâ— unfaithful you are so much neerer you aâ—â— to Darknesse and the Devill For as Faith Christ and all vertues are knit together so in like manner incredulity the Devil and all vices doe cleave together Behold with me the Apostles imitating Christ in faith contemning the world denying themselves renouncing their possessions and living in eternity by which things they attained to this that they might be heavenly illuminated and might bee indued with the holy Ghost To whom was most unlike the young man that was so rich whilst hee studied himselfe and thought himselfe something Luke 18. Therefore hee remained in the darknesse of the world neither was he inlightned to eternall life For hee that loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him And blessed John professeth plainly That he which loveth not remaineth in darknesse and knoweth not whither hee goeth because darknesse hath blinded his eyes To whom agreeth Taulerus who in all his Sermons every where sheweth and admonisheth without serious exercise of faith without mortification and selfe-denial without inward turning himselfe to his heart and lastly without the inward Sabbath of the soule no man can receive the divine Light or perceive it in himselfe In brief as much as in the condition after conversion the works of darknes by the spirit of God in man are destroied so much is he illuminated and by how much more more powerfully on the other side our corrupt nature as the flesh the world in man do beare rule so much lesse Grace Light Spirit of God and Christ is in him Therefore it remaineth without daily coÌ„tinual repentance no man can be illuminated when as he hath not resisted one â—ice nor The further froÌ„ the life of Christ the further from the true light rooted out one and exerciseth innumerable others bringeth forth out of himselfe continually with more increase then people are wont to doe And as darknesse is thicker in it selfe and more cloudy by how much the Sunne goeth back from us by so much we are unlike to the life of Christ so much more plentiful are wee in sinne and darknesse groweth the thicker in us till they become eternal night On the contrary hee which by the grace of God entereth the Chariot of virtue with a good courage and firm hope this man cannot but profit in them daily one following another as rings be linked one to another in a golden chain Which connexion blessed Peter expresseth The knowledge of Christ in love faith and the fruits thereof is to grow in Christ profit in him writing in the second Epistle cha 1. And you ought to have care and to use diligence ministring in your faith virtue and in your virtue knowledge in knowledge abstinence in abstinence patience in patience piety in piety brotherly love in brotherly love charity And if yee doe these things and abound therein you shall not be found empty nor without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ As if he should say he that shall not addict himselfe wholly to the study and exercise of these virtues he knoweth not Christ but he that by faith profiteth in them he groweth in Christ all other as proud ones wrathfull ones covetous ones impatient ones profit not in Christ but in the Devil And it is left us Christians in precept that as a child by little and little and in time is made a man so we may grow in faith and in the study of virtue to perfect The fruit of the death of Christ in us men to the measure of full age in Christ Ephes 4. Coloss 1. But to whom these things are not ready or at hand saith Saint Peter 2. Epist 1. he is blind and hand-bound forgetfull of the purging of his old sinnes As if he should say It is for certain that Christ by his death and bloud took and did beare all our sinnes but in the mean time we must beware that we addict not our selves to sin hereafter but rather the death of Christ fructifying in us we die to the world and live in Christ which whosoever doth not care to doe to this man it is plain that the purging of his old sins profiteth nothing Whereupon it followeth if wee desire to have the sinnes of our former life remitted and pardoned we must forbeare â—â— sin we must repent and beleeve in Christ which if we doe not then we retain all those sinnes of our former life and they are to be lamented by us to all eternity without all hope of expiation or forgivenesse so that it is possible that even for wrath alone a man may be damned which if he had by Christian lowliness corrected then in truth he had obtained pardon for all his other sins which because he neglected to do therfore according to the words of Saint Peter He is blind being forgetfull of the purging of his old sinnes Whereby it is given to understand The necessity of repentance how necessary a thing repentance is and the changing to a betternesse For although Christ died for our sins blotting them out and abolishing them with the incomparable price of his bloud yet we doe not participate of that merit unlesse we repent it profiteth nothing And howsoever every man is promised pardon for his sins for the merit of Christ yet that promise pertaineth nothing to thee to the unbeleever nor the impenitent but to those alone which doe amend their lives when it is most meet that those sinnes be remitted which we goe not about to remember but those onely which we were heartily grieved for And to this pertaineth that which is spoken Matth. 11. The poore receive the Gospel that is obtain the remission of sinnes Now
who disputed vehemently against the Pharisees and Scribes after the example of John the Evangelist who wrote his Gospel against Ebion and Cerinth and the Apocalypse against the false Church of the Nicolaitans and others after the example of Saint Paul who defended most strongly the doctrine of justification by faith of good works of the resurrection of the dead of Christian liberty and such like against false Apostles after the example of the holy Bishops and Fathers of the Primitive Church which wrote most strongly against the Pagan superstitions and Heretickes and in the Oecumenical Councels gathered by the Christian Emperours did condemne the chiefe Heretickes and Patriarchs Arrians Macedonians Nestorians and Eutychians lastly by the example of the incomparable Heroe Martin Luther by whose excellent and grave writings the Papality and other Hereticks were much weakened it is as cleare as the noon-day Therefore it remaineth as a thing most fit and requisite to preach write and dispute that the purity of the doctrine and the verity of religion might bee manifest according to the Apostle who in the first chapter to Titus will have a Bishop to be powerfull to exhort in doctrine that is sound and to argue with those that contradict it The The abuse of Thenlogicall disputation which although it be a lawful and a laudable way it is so faln out by the abuse of it that amongst all their bitter Disputations and Sermons of controversies and the infinite heaps of writing and counterwriting the memory of Christian life of true repentance devotion and charity is almost abolished with their names no otherwise then if the summe of Christian Religion consisted in disputation and writing books of cōtroversies not in the practice of the Gospel and Christian learning For if we behold the examples of the holy Prophets and Apostles as also of the Sonne of God it is manifest that they did sharply dispute not onely against false Prophets and Apostles but also against the superstitions of the Gentiles but with no lesse fervency did exhort to repentance Christian life and moreover did shew in most grave Sermons that by their impenitency and wicked life the divine Worship and Religion did goe backwards and decay the Church was wasted that Kingdome and people were afflicted with hunger warre and plague all which came to passe as true as they said it Of this kind is that Sermon of Esay Impiery destroyeth the worship of God true religion chap. 5. where he denounceth to the people of the Jewes because the vineyard of the Lord did not bring forth clusters of grapes but wild grapes therefore Almighty God had decreed to lay it wast Whereby it plainly appeareth that impiety is the cause why God useth to take his word from us To the same sense is that which Christ said John 12. Walk in the light whilst you have it lest darknesse overtake you For what other thing is it to walk in the light then to imitate Christ Or what other thing is it to be overtaken with darknesse then to lose the purity of the Gospel Whereby it appeareth without true repentāce none is enlightned that none can without true repentance and a holy life enjoy the light the holy Ghost which is the true enlightner of our hearts flying the ungodly and chusing holy soules onely to make friends and Prophets of God as it is written Wisdom 7. whose beginning sith the fear of God is as it is in Psa 111. who likewise doubteth impiety to be the beginning of folly ignorance and blindnesse Moreover the true knowledge of Christ and pure doctrine and the profession thereof doth not consist in words onely but in deed and holy life according The knowledge of Christ consists not in words to that of Titus chap. 1. They confesse they know God but deny him in their deeds when they are abominable and unbeleevers and reprobates to every good work And Titus 3. They have the shew of godlinesse but deny the virtue thereof Whereby it is given to understand that Christ and his Word is denied by a wicked life as wel as words neither hath he the true knowledge of Christ which never putteth it into action Wherefore he that never feeleth or tasteth the humility lowlinesse It is lame without a holy life patience and the love of Christ inwardly in his heart hee knoweth not Christ and therefore where use and necessity requireth they cannot confesse him For to professe preach the doctrine of Christ onely is truly to divide Christ and to lame him if you do not professe and preach It is not words but life that makes a Christian his life And we have abundance of books of his doctrine of his life almost none every where bookes of controversies concerning doctrine but very little time spent about true repentance and a Christian life For what is doctrine without life but a tree without fruit Or how should he follow the doctrine of Christ who imitateth not his life For the head or chiefe of the doctrine of Christ is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfained faith But we live in that age wherein there is a great number of those whom if wee heare them disputing so acutely and well of the doctrine of Christian religion you would think them to be men of great worth but if you behold them narrowly and touch them neerly you shall then know them to bee inwardly and in their hearts full of pride envie and covetousnesse that no Basilisk can be more venemous Against whom therefore wee must beware observe what Paul saith 1 Tim. 1. he doth not rashly or suddenly joyn Love and Faith that hee may shew that these two do or would conspire and consent together And although wee cannot arrogate so much to our strength and piety that wee make it the price of our happinesse knowing also with Saint Peter Epist 1. chap. 1. that wee are kept in the virtue of God by faith to salvation yet we professe this that by an Antichristian life the Spirit of God will avoyd us with all The wicked are not enlightned his gifts amongst which faith knowledge understanding and wisdome are not the least Whereby it followeth again without a holy life the purity of doctrine cannot be preserved and the wicked which will not imitate Christ are not enlightned with the true light On the contrary those that walk in the light that is which doe insist and persevere in the footsteps of Christ are drenched and bathed in the true light which is Christ and divinely preserved from all errors Therefore it is true which that ancient Writer Taulerus saith So soon as a man dedicateth himselfe to God and suffereth him and denieth his own will and flesh then truly the Spirit of God doth begin to make beginning of illumination and endowing with true and solid knowledge because indeed this man doth celebrate the true Sabbath of the heart
all things having promise both of this life and the life to come IN this admonition is contained a briefe description of a Christian life by which wee are taught that a Christian ought to spend all his time in the study of piety which is the compendium of all Christian virtues first because it is profitable for all things in all our words and deeds blessing them if so be we use it in them Secondly because God doth reward it both in this life and the life to come where wee shall receive the everlasting harvest of our labours Rule I. First although thou canst not live so perfectly as the word of God commandeth and as thy spirit would yet thou God alloweth the good will for the deed must never but wish ardently the same For after this manner the holy desires of the Saints were acceptable unto God who also alloweth them because he is the beholder of the hearts not the works In the mean time having a special care of one thing to crucifie thy flesh and not to suffer it to rule II. In all things that thou thinkest or The concupiscence of the flesh is the dore of the Devil doest study to preserve thy heart lest thou be defiled with proud thoughts words and works or lastly by wrath and such like Devillish actions For by this meanes thy heart is open to the Divel and shut up from God III. Strive for it lest it happen that thou lose the liberty of thy mind through evil concupiscences of earthly things making thy selfe a servant and slave of the creatures For seeing thy soule is more noble then all the world it were a very unworthy thing to put it under and sell it to the world and addict thy heart to frail and frivolous things of the world IV. Avoid studiously the sorrow of this world that bringeth and worketh death and by covetousnesse envie and too Dâ—vine and worldly sorrow much care of a family and also by incredulity and impatience is begotten But on the contrary embrace divine heavinesse which proceedeth from the meditation of his sinnes and infernal punishment and thereby worketh a stable salvation and also peace and joy in God 2 Corinth 7. Indeed man ought to beare the losse of no worldly goods so heavily as his owne sinnes V. If thou canst not bear thy crosse with such joy as is meet yet at least take it with The crosse how to be boâ—n patience and humility resting upon the divine wil and pleasure of God For this is alway good neither doth it respect or intend other things then our profit and salvation Therefore whatsoever God shal appoint or determine for thee in making thee merry or sad poore or rich in spirit exalted high or low and humble and lastly vile or excellent think alway this It seemed good to him and expedient for thee therefore that which pleaseth him let it not displease thee but rather rejoyce if hee carry all things according to his wil and thy salvation All the workes of God are good saith Sirac chap. 39. And Psalm 144. The Lord is just in all his wayes and holy in all his works Wherefore it is more excellent The wil of God alwayes good never evill that God in thee doe his wil that never swarveth from good or his own end which thou oughtest to suffer willingly who art by nature alwayes inclineable to evil VI. Consolations and heavenly visits are to bee received with humble thankes Contrariwise if they doe not move thee then know that the mortification of the flesh is more profit for thee then the joyes of the Spirit For unto us that bee subject to sinne and dwelling in flesh and blood griefe is farre better then joy and delight For many by reason of plenty of spiritual Sorrow and drinesse of the spirit how it is to be born consolation fall into spiritual pride But the Lord knoweth who are fit to bee led by a pleasant and lightsome way to eternal life and who are fit to be led by a crooked sharp sorrowful fearful and stony way Alway think it fit for thee that thou mayst come to life by that way the divine wisdome hath chosen although it differ from thy opinion and desire Better is sorrow then laughter saith Solomon Eccles 7. Because by sorrow the mind of the offender is corrected The heart of a wise man is where sorrow is and the heart of a foole where joyfulnesse and mirth is VII If thou canst not bring great offerings of devotion prayer and thanksgiving to God offer to him that thou hast and canst commending and adorning thy smal sacrifices with good wil and holy desires that thy religion and devotion may become acceptable before God because to have even that pious desire or be willing to have is no smal grace and most acceptable sacrifice to God because so much as we wish to perform before him of devotion prayer praises and desire of heavenly things even so much it is before God For he requireth nothing of thee but that his grace and favour may worke in thee neither canst thou return him any more then he hath first bestowed on thee In the mean time desire this of Jesus Christ with humble prayer Our perfection is in Christ that he would supply thy sacrifices with his most perfect sacrifice because he is our perfection ours on the contrary all of them are lame and unperfect Wherefore say my God and Father let my devotion be acceptable unto thee my faith my prayers my thanksgivings in thy most beloved Sonne and those not for their own worth but esteem them for the merit of Christ and it cannot be but that his most perfect works be and shall be pleasing unto thee For he he shall copiously supply what is wanting in me And by this means our piety prayer and thanksgiving how unperfect soever obscure and small it be the greatest weight of glory and dignity is given in exchange In faith Christ all our things are perfect for the merit of Christ As an infant if it be naked and defiled is not seemly nor amiable but if it be honestly clothed and adorned is pleasing to all so all thy works are of themselves and their own nature nothing which yet if they bee adorned with the perfection of Christ they are most acceptable to God the Father Even as Apples otherwise of no great value or price if they bee placed in golden Scutcheons or Sockets are more excellent and beautifull then themselves so our prayers our piety and thanksgiving in Christ is more worthy more pretious and more noble made according to that of the Ephesians chap. 1. He hath gratified us in his beloved Son VIII When sins and manifold imperfections doe make thee sad let them not A Christian may sorrow but not despair make thee to despaire Although they bee many think this There is mercy with the Lord and plenteous redemption with him Psa
holy life is righteousnesse before God and so to be interpreted and it is as sure that all that thou dost is unperfect lame and defective Moreover that thou beware of the Devils Cobwebs and his devices whose properties and custome is to sow Popple amongst the Wheat to whom therefore thou art not to give place but how much more is in the new gifts the more do thou beware thou abuse it not to thine honour but in humble fear of God ascribe whatsoever it be to the great and eternal author of them Remedies against spiritual pride and to thy selfe on the contrary thou shalt deny all things lest perhaps thou mayst say sometimes in thine heart O great faith of mine great knowledge great gifts for lest thou deceive thy selfe none of these are thine but Gods without whose illumination thou remainest a dead filthy and vile sheafe Therefore these gifts are none of thine no more then the glistering of a gem or pretious stone wherein as a Jeweller hee putteth his treasure so God placeth in thee his goods but without them thou art empty and void And it were great dotage and foolery to take occasion to boast thy self of another mans goods as I shall speak more in the second book For even as a Jeweller when as so oft as he pleaseth hath power to put his treasure or Jewels into another box to carry where hee pleases or keep about him so God every moment may take his gifts from thee whom therefore thou oughtst to feare and with all diligence eschew spiritual arrogancy Moreover thou must think that Almighty God will require an exact account of those things of thee And how great soever those things be which our heavenly Father hath lent thee through Christ they are onely beginnings and first fruits of solid graces Furthermore it is thy part to know that there is no perfect gifts obtained but by prayer from God without which whatsoever they be that thou hast those truly are but shadowes and unprofitable dead seeds bearing no ripe fruits as thou mayst understand by my little book of prayers No profitable gifts are obtained without prayer whereby examples we teach that without prayer no heavenly gifts doe descend into the heart of man Of which little book that thou mayst have some taste I invite thee to read those things which I have written in the second booke of prayers There be two things in speciall which all our prayers ought to respect one is the destruction of the Devils image which commeth in power of incredulity pride covetousnesse lust wrath and such like The other is the restauration of the divine Image in which is contained faith hope charity humility patience lowlinesse the fear of the Lord which two things are by The sum of the Lords prayer divine workmanship briefly contracted in the Lords prayer as I may so say that it maketh part for us and part against us For if the power of God be to be sanctified then it behoveth thee to kill thine owne power with all the pride of old Adam If thâ— kingdome of God be to be built in thee the Devils must be overthrown if the will of God be to be fulfilled in thee thine must needs be contemned and denied And these two heads in the book of prayer are required if thou wilt have it profitable unto thee are shadowed as I said even now in the Lords Prayer which is a certain breviary of heavenly and temporall gifts which because the Son of God commanded us to pray therefore those things his heavenly Father will give us much more willingly it is more sure then needs be called in question or any doubt made thereof Of which in another place Finis Glory to God alone The Contents of the Chapters of this Book CHap. 1. Of the Image of God pag. 1 2 Of the Fall and Apostasie of Adam 9 3 How Man is renewed in Christ to life eternall 18 4 What true repentance is and what the Crosse 28 5 What true faith is 36 6 How the word of God ought to live in man 44 7 How the Law of God is written in the heart 52 8 Without true repentance man cannot challenge Christs merit 60 9 The Antichristian life of men deny Christ and true faith 71 10 Worldly men by their lives deny Christianity 75 11 Those that imitate not Christ are none of his 78 12 A Christian must die to himself live to Christ 91 13 A Christian must die to the world himself 100 14 A Christian ought to despise his own life 110 15 The old mâ—n should die the new man revive 122 16 The combat of the Flesh and Spirit 129 17 A Christians inheritance is not of this world 136 18 Eternal things to be preferred before temporal 146 19 Most miserable to himself most dear to God 154 20 By contrition our life is to be amended 163 21 What true divine worship is 176 22 Amendment of life a mark of a Christian 193 23 The friendship of the world is to be avoyded 199 24 Of love towards God and our Neighbour 206 25 Of love to our Neighbour in speciall 221 26 Wherefore our Neighbour is to be loved 227 27 Wherefore our enemies are to be loved 238 28 The Creator to be loved before the Creatures 245 29 Of the reconciliation of our Neighbour 251 30 Of the fruits of love 261 31 Self-love and arrogancy defile the best gifts 273 32 Good works without charity not acceptable 281 33 God accepteth works according to the heart 286 34 God alone the author of our salvation 291 35 Without a holy life all things are unprofitable 302 36 Who tast the virtue of the hidden Manna 308 37 Their loss who follow not Christ in their lives 324 38 The fruit of an Antichristian life 341 39 How the purity of doctrine is to be obtained 350 40 Certain Rules conducing to a devout life 362 41 Christian Religion wherein it â—onsisteth 375 42 Spirituall pride is to be eschewed 400 FINIS
whose hearts not onely by nature but by the word revealed the new covenant the word of God is written and yet do despise and cast behind them this grace and favour Of which new Covenant Jeremy saith Chap. 3. This shall be my compact I will put my Lawes into their inwards and I will write it in their hearts and a man shall not any more teach his neighbour and a man his brother saying Know the Lord for all men shall know me saith the Lord even from the least to the greatest because I will forgive their iniquity and I will not remember their sins any more Heare what is said Heb. 10. To those that voluntarily offend or sinne against God after the knowledge he hath received for such there is no sacrifice left for him but a certain terrible expectation of judgement and offering by fire which consumeth the adversary He that breaketh the Law of Moses without any mercy by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall die the death how much more and worse doe you thinke doe they deserve death which have contemned against the Sonne of God and polluted the bloud of the Testament in whom he is sanctified and contumaciously despised the spirit of grace for we know who hath said Vengeance is mine and I will return it upon them And again because the Lord will judge his people It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God With which heavie sentence without doubt those are not strucken which fall through humane frailty but those that wittingly and willingly sin against the truâ— knowledge and persevere in impenitencie CHAP. VIII Without true repentance no man can challenge Christ and his merits to belong unto him Numb 9. The unclean may not celebrate the Passeover THe words of our Saviour Christ Mat. 9. are The healthy hath no need of the Physitian but the sick I did not come to call the just but the sinners to repentance whereby we are clearly taught that Christ indeed did call sinners but to repentance neither can any come unto him without repentance without conversion from sinne and What is true repentance faith for repentance is no other thing then by true contrition and sorrow to die unto sinne and by faith to obtain forgivenesse for sinne and to live unto righteousnesse in Christ so that in true repentance necessarily serious and divine contrition must go before a heart as I may say broken and câ—ucifying the flesh whereupon in Cap. 6. Epist ad Hebr. Repentance is said to be or is called the worke of dead men because by it we abstain from those works whose reward is death which if it be not done then the merit of Christ profiteth not us one haire For seeing Christ proffereth himselfe to be the Physitian of our souls his holy bloud to be the only and most true medicine of our sins and no medicine although it be most pretious can cure the sick man which will not refraine from hurtfull thinâ—s and things resisting the power of the medicine so it remaineth that the bloud of Christ and death can profit nothing those that purpose not to abstain from sinne Whereupon blessed Paul cap. 5. ad Galat. saith Whosoever doth such things the works of the flesh doe not obtaine the Kingdome of heaven nor shall have any part in Christ Moreover if Christ by his bloud is become our medicine who can doubt that first we must be sick for the whole have no need of a Physitian but the weake And none is spiritually sicke who is not penitent and who is not sorrowfull from his heart for his sinnes who hath not a contrite heart and humble who is secure as concerning the wrath of God who hath not resolved and firmly in his mind decreed to flye all worldly concupiscence who lastly seeking after honour wealth and pleasure takes no knowledge of his sinnes such as are so those are not sick and consequently need no Physitian and Christ profiteth them nothing it is manifest Therefore again and again let this be remembred that Christ called sinners but it was to repentance because a penitent heart contrite pensive and faithfull onely and alone is capable of the most pretious bloud death and merit of Christ I account him happy whosoever he be that heareth this holy calling inwardly and in his heart I call that a divine sorrow and anguish for sinnes which worketh repentance God worketh spirituall sorrow to stedfast salvation as the words be 2 Cor. 7. The holy Spirit doth produce this divine sorrow by the Law and serious meditation of the passion of the Lord because it not onely aboundeth with the documents of grace but also withall hath in it an earnest exhortation to repentance and a most terrible glasse of the divine wrath For if we seek into the cause of his The Passion of Christ efficieÌ„t to repentance most bitter death what else can we say was the cause but our sinnes If you joyn the divine love out of which he most willingly gave his Son for us as also you shall have his singular example both terrible and wonderfull of his divine justice and clemency which seeing they are so who then sincerely loving Christ can be affected and delighted with sinne which he knows Christ had with his bloud washed and purged Consider also with me O man which art subject to pride and art slave unto ambition with what contempt and how great humility Christ Jesus ought to repaire our pride and insolency think of his poverty that he might satisfie for thy covetousness The fruits of Christs passion surcease at last through God so studiously to seek after wealth and insatiably to thirst after riches most wretchedly He with incredible griefe of mind and anguish not to be uttered doth satisfie and abolish the pleasures and concupiscence of the flesh and thou contrariwise continually dost give thy selfe to pleasure and lust how evill is thy preposterousnesse pravity and wickednesse to take delight and pleasure in those things which to Christ were so wonderfully bitter he died to expiate thy wrath hatred enmity rancor bitternesse desire of revenge and implacability with extreame mildnesse and patience and wilt not thou even for the least cause be very angry and account revenge more pleasant then life even for which thy Redeemer did drink the most bitter cup of death wherefore so many as aspire to the name of Christians and doe not abstain froÌ„ sin those I say do even crucifie Christ and doe make a mock of him as it is said The impenitent do even crucifie Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews Chap. 6. Therefore it is unpossible that those should participate of the merits of Christ which indeed they doe tread under foot as it is in the same Epistle Chap. 10. And because they doe pollute the blood of the Testament neither beleeve truly that their sinnes are expiated by him or much esteem his death or think
most noble is that man in whom Christ is all and doth all whose noble thoughts mind words are the will of Christ the thoughts of Christ and the mind of Christ according to that of Paul * 1 Cor. 2. We have the mind of Christ Lastly whose words are Christs And so it needs to be indeed because the life of Christ is that new and another life in man neither is the new man any other thing then he who liveth in Christ according to the Spirit whose life I say courtesie patience and humility is no other then that of Christ And this the new creature and the life of Christ in us according to that of Paul to the Galatians Gâ—l 2. I live but not I but Christ in me liveth this also is to follow Christ truly and truly to repent for by this method the old man is destroyed and the carnall life declineth the new spirituall and heavenly life ariseth and breaketh out of the clouds This who ever doth he truly is a Christian not in title only but in work and truth a true son of God begotten of God and Christ renewed in Christ and quickened by faith and so long as the inward man dwelleth in flesh and blood we may wish so much perfection rather then attain unto it but it is as meet and necessary to indeavour and to aspire thereunto and study the same and to wish it from our inward minde and to strive that the life and kingdom The strife daily fighting with corrupt nature of Christ may be in us and not the life of Satan let all our counsels respect this all our cares and inward groans be sent this way and let this be our only strife and warfare that we may mortifie the old man by daily repentance For how much every one dieth to himself so much doth Christ live in him how much corruption How the man is daily renewed departeth from our nature by the Holy Ghost so much divine grace cometh in how much the flesh is crucified so much is the spirit quickened so much of the work of darknesse as is destroyed so much is the man illuminated by how much the exterior man is lessened and wasted so much the inward is renewed 2 Cor. 4. so much as you lose of your vaine affections and carnall life and are wasted as self-love ambition wrâ—th covetousnesse and voluptuousnesse so much Christ liveth in you the further a mans heart is set from the world from concupiscence of the eyes flesh and pride of life so much more of God Christ and the Holy Spirit doth flow into him Last of all the more nature flesh darknesse and the world do bear rule in man so much lesse grace spirit of light God and Christ is found in him Moreover this new kind of living is to the flesh The new life is the crosse of the flesh an enemy and bitter crosse because it is that by which it is subjugated and brought under and crucified with all the desires and concupiscences thereof but yet is that wherein the whole power and fruit of penitency consisteth This is the inward desire of the flesh and blood that it had rather lead a free life dissolute according to its own will and among pleasures and all kind of voluptuousnesse for it only knows this to be sweet and pleasant as contrariwise the life of Christ to the flesh and the old man is a heavie crosse but to the new man and him that is spirituall it is an easie yoak a light burden and a most quiet Sabbath truly the true rest is sought for in vain else were they in the faiâ—h of Christ and in his sweetness humility patience and love of Christ whereupon it is said Mat. 11. You shall find rest for your souls Truly he that loveth Christ will not think it bitter to suffer death it self for him This therefore is that sweet yoak of Christ which we are commanded to take upon us that our soules might be refreshed and come into his rest which command if we determine to obey and mean to put on Christ his life and yoak then we must shake off the yoak of the Devill our way of carnall life wicked and dissolute nor must we suffer the flesh as a Lady to insult and disquiet the spirit but all things are to be brought under the Law obedience and yoak of Christ will I say reason understanding and all carnall What the yoak of Christ is appetites which the concupiscence of Adam and this flesh of ours is well pleased to be honoured worshipped and to be praised of men to abound in riches and pleasures to bring all which on the other side under the yoak of Christ and his discipline nothing regarding his ignominy contempt and poverty to think himself unworthy all things that the world gapeth What the life of Christ is after and for which other men do contend that truth is the crosse of Christ wherewith the flesh is delighted I say that extreme humility of Christ and his most noble life which to the spirit is a most easie yoak and a most easie burden for what other was the whole life of Christ then holy poverty extreme contempt and vile persecution who came not into the world to be attended on but to serve us himself and spend his life and shed his dearest blood to redeem our offences It is the property of The naturall man the spirituall the naturall man to seek after honours and hunt after great things The spirituall on the other side loved the humility of Christ and desireth to become nothing And whereas most men do desire to go before or excell others scarce one coveteth to be reputed as nothing of whom the one belongeth to the square or rule of life of the old Adam the other to the rule of Christ The carnall man and he who hath not yet learned what Christ is that is to say meer humility courtesie and love accounteth it folly to live as Christ liveth and thinketh those onely wise that live after their owne The false true light will delicately and easily not knowing that then he chiefly liveth in the Devill when most foolishly he applaudeth himselfe and esteemeth his own life as the best and most pleasing which most miserable men being fast bound in the lust of their own carnall wisdome doe inforce others to follow the like errours contrariwise those whom the true and eternall light hath inlightned those are touched at the heart when they doe see the pomp and disdaine pride pleasure wrath revenge and such kind of fruit of the carnall life which causeth them to sigh from the bottome of their hearts saying How farre is this from Christ and his knowledge from true repentance from genuine Christianity and lastly from the fruits of the new birth of the sonnes of God for he liveth yet in Adam in the old creature and in the Devill himselfe for to offend
impossible for him to taste and receive Christ into his heart Herod being dead Christ returned into Judea Matth. 2. The document is plain so long as the mind doth play the Fox with the World Christ cannot enter into it and therefore thou must die to the Fox First die unto Adam that Christ may live in thee Herod that the child Christ may live in thee All which returnes to this that you must die unto Adam or the old man before Christ can live in thee Paul to the Galat 2. saith I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And to the Coloss 2. You are dead yet he writes to the living and your life is hid in Christ for then every one is truly dead when he ceaseth to be that he was before Those which are of the spirit doe understand the things of the spirit saith St. Paul Rom. 8. and to the Galat. 5. If we live in the spirit we walk also in the spirit Neither is it sufficient to boast of the faith and the spirit in words but words are to be approved by the fruits and works for it is spoken to all men by the Apostle If you live after the flesh you shall die but if you mortifie the works of the flesh by the spirit you shall live wherein very many are like unto Saul who did not slay Agag the King of the Amalekites Concupiscences are to be morâ—ified not hidden as God commanded him but put him into prison so these men doe nourish and hide closely their concupiscence when they should be eradicated utterly and not any part of the root left behind let us doe this unlesse with Saul we lose our Kingdome The scope of the whole Scripture requireth the new man that is lest we be deprived of our eternall life In briefe the whole Scriptures with the consent of all Histories Types and Figures doe point out Christ whose life we ought to imitate and doe set out the scope thereof neither doe I speak here of the great world and of his exceeding testimonies of God and divine love There is a sort of men that not unfitly may be compared to Winter trees for as they receive easily their leaves which were cast off the yeare changing and becomming favourable so many in adversity doe retaine their pleasures within and hide them which yet doe forthwith in prosperity having as it were gathered a troop breake out on a sudden A true Christian is most unlike to those hypocrites who in prosperity and adversity liveth according to piety equally just and faithfull to his Christ and taketh all things indifferently his lot doth cast upon him When our great God did grant to Achab victory over the King of Syria upon that condition that being taken he should hold him in prison that he should remain an example to shew that God was stronger then all his enemies and did require just punishment against those that did blaspheme his Name he despising the Name of God and his Commandements having taken his enemy in battell saluted him as his brother and let him goe for which disobedience and giving life to a man deserving to die the Prophet pronounceth the pain of death to Achab by Gods appointment To whom these are most like who nourish and feed their own concupiscences when they should pull them up by the roots therefore willingly without mortification of the flesh there is no good in man do draw eternall death upon themselves And therefore it is most true that without mortification of the flesh no prayer nor piety Lastly without mortification no work of spirituall devotion can abound in the soule which was the cause God Almighty Exod. 19. appointed all those beasts to die that should approach unto the mount Sinai and by how much more ought we to kill our beastly concupiscences if we ascend to the holy mount of God and offer our prayers to God and if we meditate on the word of God lest if we do otherwise we die the death Gen. 32. we Iacob thou must be before thou be Israel read that a new name was given unto Jacob to wit Israel which signifieth a Champion or a Prince of God because in wrastling with the Angell of God he beheld his face But before this Jacob which signifieth a Supplanter or Vnderminer for so he was not onely in name but in deed after whose example unlesse thou first through the holy Ghost doe tread down thy concupiscences to become Israel or the Prince or Captain of God thou shalt never attain Man must displease himselfe to please God the place of a Captaine or see the face of God The same Jacob that he might enjoy the beautifull maid Rachâ—l he was constrained to take Lea with bleared eyes doe thou such a thing and if thou art in love with Rachel that is if thou darest marry with Christ the true Jacob first doe not despise Lea that is despise thy self as a beast-like and sinfull man displease thy selfe and force it to death But there be very many who like unto Jacob are deceived of their owne life thinking verily he had met with Rachel that is that he had led a Christian life pleasing to God inwardly declared in truth afterward then see that they live with Lea that is they have not yet learned Christ and therefore not in the favour but in the hatred of God and that most deservedly Therefore let us doe this Before all let us displease our selves and as Lea in the house of her father be counted unworthy so let us contemne our selves taking to us humility lowlinesse and patience that at the last we may obtain faire Rachel for whom as Jacob served constantly the whole seven yeares her love The service of mystical Iacob mitigating the hardnesse of his labour and wearing out the time without tediousnesse so the most faithfull spouse of our soules Christ Jesus served full thirty three yeares in this world a most hard service or servitude for our cause according to that of Matth. 20. The Sonne of man came not to be ministred unto but to serve others and give his life a redemption for many And according to that of Jacob which he indured after a sharper manner for our love This twenty yeares saith he I served thee in thy house abiding both heat and cold and frost and I watched both day and night And shall we doubt yet to love Christ again and make warre all our life against his capitall enemy the world CHAP. XIII For Christ and eternall salvation to which we were created and redeemed every Christian ought willingly to die to themselves and the world 2 Corinth 8. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ because for you he was made poore being rich that by his poverty yee might be made rich FOr thy Christ thou must die to thy selfe thy sinnes and the world thou must doe good and live a holy and innocent life not that thou canst
merit any for Christ did that for all but out of thy sincere love towards him and because he To love Christ is to live in him the love of Christ overcometh the world death willingly died for thee for neither in thy tongue or words lest thou bee deceived must thou love him but in deed and work and in vertue and truth and in keeping his commandements as thou art taught by himselfe John 14. If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father loveth him and we shall goe unto him and have a mansion with him For this is the love of God That we keep his commandements and his commandements are not heavie St. John 1 Epist Cap. 5. and our Saviour himselfe Matth. 11. doth affirm My yoak is pleasant and my burden is light And to those that love Christ fervently it cannot but be easy and pleasant to want the sweetnesse of worldly trifles and to live in Christ mitigating all sense of difficulty through the vehemency of love but to those that doe not embrace Christs love with sincere affection doing all things ingratefully and with an evill will all things must needs be found sharp and difficult in the study of an holy life when contrariwise to a true friend of Christ not death it selfe if it be required for him is in any wise terrible For unto us it is given saith St. Paul to Phil. 1. for Christ not onely that we might beleeve in him but also that we might suffer and die for him Behold Moses with me of whom honorable mention is made in most ample words in the Epistle to the Hebrewes Chap. 11. By faith Moses denied to be made great and denied himselfe to be the sonne of the daughter of Pharaoh rather chusing to be afflicted with the sonnes of God then to have the pleasantnesse of a temporall office esteeming the opprobry of Christ to be greater riches then the treasures of Egypt The love of wisdom doth cause the contempt of pleasure Consider with me Daniel Chap. 1. set apart by the King of Babylon with a certain number of his fellowes in captivity and reserved by the King and nourished with meat and drink from the Kings Table untill he should be fit to execute the offices appointed by the King and forth with he was brought up yet he and his fellowes despised those dainties and desired the Prince of the Eunuches that they might rather be fed with Lentiles and drink water for so much could the love of divine wisdome work in their young and tender minds with which to be divinely indued they onely desired Therefore take thou heed and doe not think thou mayst doe otherwise but if thou wish that Christ who is the eternall wisdome of the Father should come into thy mind perswade thy selfe again and again that thou must abstain from carnall pleasures as from the delicate dishes of the Babylonians Court. And as those children by themselves were made more beautifull when they lived soberly and temperatly satisfying nature with Lentiles and water so be thou assuredly perswaded in thy mind that it will be before God the best of all and most excellent and so become partaker of his divine nature as saith Saint Peter 2 Epist chap. 1. if thou detest worldly pleasures and sinne The words of S. Paul are to Gal. 6. The world is crucified to me and I to the world that is I am dead to the world and the world to me In example of this all true Christians are in the world truly but not of the world and although they live in it no part of the love of it cleaveth unto them accounting it for shadowes and as nothing worldly pomps dignities concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh with the pride of life how the world is dead to them and is crucified and they Christians account al worldly things but shadows to the world likewise are dead and crucied because they esteeme little of honours wealth and pleasures and account them as dung to obtain Christ or in respect of Christ But happy and thrice and foure times happy is that heart who is so divinely indued and in whose heart such graces are infused that it is withdrawn with no desire of worldly honours wealth and pleasure which to obtain it is needfull and very behoovefull for a true Christian to pray daily to God for the same Solomon the wisest of all Kings by this meanes obtained his desire of God Prov. 30. Two things I desire of thee deny them not unto me That thou neither give me Riches nor Poverty but give me so much as is necessary for my life Let a true Christian in like manner so pray Two things are necessary for a Christian Two things I desire of thee O Lord two things That I may die to my selfe and the world without these two things it is unpossible to be a true Christian And if thou thinkest otherwise thou art deceived and thou shalt heare this I know you not Although to flesh and bloud it be a grievous crosse to die to himselfe and the world that is to set by no worldly thing in respect of heaven yet the spirit overcommeth and breaketh through all these difficulties so A spiritual life is a cross to the flesh great is the force so great is the love of Christ that they passe through all these things as a sweet yoak and easie buâ—den And although those which are so are hated of the world yet they are beloved of God For the enmity of this world is the friendship and love of God And in like manner the enmity of God is the friendship of the world Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world is sure to be the enemy of God witnesse James chap. 4. and Christ himselfe John 15. plainly professeth If you were of this world the world would love that which were its own but because you are not of the world for I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world doth hate you For as the Sea receiveth and will beare quick men and casteth out dead men so the world is adversary to those that are dead to the world and so esteemeth them and is otherwise to those that live in pomp and splendor it commendeth them Finally to speak briefly he who so liveth that in his heart pride covetousnesse pleasure wrath revenge the desire thereof mortified are to him indeed the world What it is to die to the world is dead and he to the world this man liveth in Christ and Christ in him And those that are so these Christ doth acknowledge for his to others it is said I know you not who in like manner knew him not and were ashamed of his life I say his meeknesse humility and patience In brief he who refuseth to live with Christ here in time how should he live with Christ in eternity For how should he live in thee after this life who
shall he obtain everlasting life unlesse he first repent The example of this doctrine is set forth by Zacheus the Publican Luke 9. who understood the doctrine of faith and conversion in a sound sense acknowledging that onely to bee true faith by which a man should be turned from his sinnes to God and which expected and hoped for the remission of sius from Christ and desired to participate of his merit it behoveth him to give over sinning and in firm trust of the divine grace to cleave to the bounty of Christ and so he construed or understood the Sermon of Christ Mark 1. Repent and beleeve the Gospel that is desist from sinning be yee filled with the good hope of my merit and expect the remission of sins from me onely Wherefore Zacheus saith to Christ Behold Lord I give halfe of my goods unto the poore and if I have defrauded any man of any thing I doe restore it fourefold By which words he doth not commend his works no but extolleth grace by which he was given to understand the way of true repentance therefore this sense hath his prayer O Lord I am so grieved that I have circumvented my neighbour that I Acknowledgement of sinne in faith doth the Son favour will restore unto him fourfold and I will bestow halfe my goods upon the poore Wherefore seeing that I confesse my sinnes and likewise doe fully purpose in my mind to leave my sins and doe firmly beleeve in thee I doe prâ—y and beseech thee to pardon me and vouchsafe to circumvent me with thy grace Which lawfull form of conversion the heavenly Physitian allowing and receiving he answereth This day is salvation come unto tby house For the Sonne of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost And this is the true repentance and conversion by faith which God worketh therefore is the beginning middle and ending so that no other thing is required of us then a will not to resist the will of God or voluntarily not resist the holy Ghost after the manner of the contumacious Jewes of which mention is made Acts 17. and 13. wee read of those whom Saint Paul reproacheth in this manner It behoveth us first to speak unto you the Word of God but because you reject it and judge your selves unworthy of eternall life behold we turn us unto the Gentiles It is our part therefore after the manner of sick folks to take the counsel of the Physitians and to obey their Precepts and as he in the beginning The processe of spirituall cure of the disease doth signifie the pains to the Patient so God laâ—eth open our sinnes as he doth to the sick and gently admonisheth us what things are to be avoided that his medicines may exercise their full strength so God doth shew us what is to bee declined or avoided lest the medicine of his most pretious bloud bee made void and work nothing at all Moreover so soon as a man by the grace of the holy Ghost doth forbeare to sinne here upon A man of himself can neither think nor doe any good truly the grace divine doth begin in him to work new gifts which before and without this would make no beginning nor was sufficient by himselfe to think any good thought much lesse to doe any good but from thence forth the good that is in us is not ours but cometh of divine grace according to that of Saint Paul Rom. 12. I speak by the grace that is given me And 1 Corinth 15. By the grace of God I am that I am and to us grace is freely imputed with the whole merit and the obedience of Imputation to whom it belongeth Christ no otherwise then if it were our own so we bee penitent Neither doth imputation lest we erre belong to the wicked and the contemners of the word of God neither doth Christ work but in the penitent And even as a Schoolmaster leading the hand of a child that he learnes to write and then praiseth his writing so God which in us doth work crowns and commends those things Without me saith Christ you can doe nothing that is good and we are apt by nature without him to doe the things that are evill and this onely is proper to us But that which is good is meer grace neither hath flesh any thing whereon to boast Therefore happy are you O mortals if you give your minds to forbear sinning and to consent unto God no otherwise then a young Virgin that giveth her promise and faith to her Spouse that embraceth her And Christ truly the Spouse of our soules goeth about or endeavoureth to manifest in us that he is willing Christ worketh the will in us or doth consent by calling us so courteously to him in his Word and our Conscience I say by seeking us alluring us and imbracing us thinking no such thing as to desist from sinne lest his pretious bloud be spilt in vaine for us CHAP. XXXV Without a holy and Christian life all Wisdome all Arts and Sciences yea the knowledge of the whole Scripture and Theology is in vain Matthew 7. Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of Heaven but hee that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven BEcause in charity consist or are contained all the duties of a Christian man and so all the life of Christ was nothing but a sincere and most pure love hereupon blessed Paul 1 Cor. 13. under the name of Charity comprehends the whole life of a Christian man And it is the property of true charity to respect God alone in all things not to have the least respect to The property of sincere charity his own honour or profit but in all things gratis and for that cause onely because God is the chiefest good and to doe it for his honour and the good of his neighbour Which charity whosoever hath not he is a Who is an hypocrite true hypocrite and when in all his workes he respecteth onely his own works and not God alone it appeareth to bee false love which he boasteth of Therfore let us allow that this man understand the holy Bible without book and speak with the tongues of Angels yet all these things shall profit him nothing but he shall bee as a sounding Without charity all things profit nothing brasse or as a tinckling Cymball For as no food can nourish the body unlesse it be turned into juice and bloud so the word of God and the Sacraments are to no purpose if they be not expressed in our life and The true fruit of faith and the Sacraments works neither is the new man any other then a man converted holy and full of charity Therefore Saint Paul saith 1 Cor. 13. If I could prophesie and know all mysteries and all knowledge and all faith so that I might remove mountaines and have no charity I am nothing That is if I